Australia’s Largest Solar Carpark

The Pines is embracing solar – with Australia’s largest solar car park structure as a major milestone of the new Pines Elanora.

Housed on top of our new 200 rooftop car spaces at the northern end of The Pines, the 636kW system will generate over 1000MWh of electricity per annum – enough electricity to power 170 Queensland households – making The Pines one of the largest generators of solar power in Australia.

The Pines solar power system currently saves over 71 tons of Carbon Dioxide on average per month. That’s the same as burning nearly 25 tons of coal to make electricity each month, or driving 3.75 cars around for a month. That is 16.5 tons of CO2 saved each week, to save that at home you’d have to wash your clothes in cold water for 41 years!!

SunEdison, the world’s largest renewable energy development company, managed the project on behalf of The Pines. It exceeds previous record-holding solar car park installations by more than 3 times, including Alice Springs Airport with approximately 200kW, followed by Sydney markets with 170kW.

The system will also be Australia’s largest car park installation using SolarEdge inverter technology – inverters that draw on DC-DC optimiser technology to increase solar production by maximising the power delivered from each individual solar panel.

Introducing solar is part of the centre’s vision to contribute positively to the local community. A lot of households in our local area have embraced solar, so it is exciting to be introducing solar as part of our redevelopment.

As a community shopping centre, it is important that we lead the way in reducing our environmental footprint. Thanks to the solar car park, our CO2 offset will be the equivalent of taking 185 cars off the road each year.