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The unused Sydney spaces that are prime real estate for solar
Governments should mandate that all new Sydney residential and commercial buildings carry solar cells and help property owners install them on all existing rooftops to allow the city to generate three-quarters of its own energy.
To rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cut energy prices and improve energy independence, unused commercial roof space should be identified and mapped, a new report commissioned by the Committee for Sydney has recommended.
Amazon’s warehouse at Kemps Creek was the largest warehouse in the country when completed two years ago, and generates much of its own electricity.Credit: Nick Moir
The committee’s head of resilience, Sam Kernaghan, said the measures outlined in the report to be released on Tuesday, would be difficult to achieve, but not impossible.
“Having solar installed on absolutely every rooftop to reach 75 per cent of Sydney’s energy needs is a major challenge, and we may not get there in full, but this finding shows what’s possible.”
The two largest causes of emissions in Sydney – which generates half the state’s greenhouse gas pollution – are transport, which creates 36 per cent, and buildings, responsible for 31 per cent. Although rooftop solar is common on residential buildings, the report finds huge scope for the expansion of solar on commercial buildings.
“While central business district buildings might cover only 5 per cent of their energy needs through rooftop solar, industrial estates could produce between 500 per cent to 1000 per cent of their energy requirements, creating substantial excess power that could benefit nearby residential areas, including apartment buildings that currently lack access to solar,” the report, entitled Sydney as Renewable Energy Zone, says.
“The existing electricity distribution network across Sydney is already in place and underutilised, presenting an immediate opportunity to boost local energy independence and reliability.”
Kernaghan said commercial rooftops tend to have far less solar installed than domestic roofs because of what he calls “split incentives” – the fact that building owners are not set up to export and sell power, and that they would not necessarily benefit from cheap power generated on site as home owners do.
“We think that all rooftops should have solar. We think there’s a real opportunity to mandate rooftop solar on all new rooftops.”
Amazon has installed solar on the roof of its Kemps Creek warehouse – the largest in the country when it was completed two years ago – and now relies on the array for a significant portion of energy used on site.
The warehouse in Kemps Creek is one of four rooftop solar installations operated by Amazon in Sydney and Melbourne. Credit: Nick Moir
“At Amazon, we are laser-focused on the Climate Pledge – our commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040 – and our buildings are a big piece of this puzzle,” said Sandra McNeil, Amazon Australia director of operations.
Amazon has four rooftop solar installations in Sydney and Melbourne, and four utility-scale renewable projects off-site on the east coast.
Marc England, chief executive of Ausgrid, which owns and operates the electrical networks that supply 4 million people in and around greater Sydney, backed the Committee for Sydney recommendation.
“There is huge rooftop solar potential sitting on commercial and industrial buildings in the existing network which is currently unused.
“For Ausgrid, in Sydney alone, this could help provide a significant amount of the area’s energy needs. The challenge is that there are currently barriers, and a lack of incentives for building owners, preventing our ability to take advantage of this opportunity.”
Increasing renewable generation in cities is one of the few areas of energy policy that has won support across political battle lines. State and federal governments have offered incentives to install solar and batteries. Before the last election the Nationals, which opposed renewables in the regions, backed increasing energy generation in cities, where most electricity is used.
Last month the Australian energy regulator warned that the increase in the cost of large transmission cables from regional energy infrastructure and markets in cities had leapt by up to 55 per cent over the past two years.
Matt Kean, the former NSW Liberal treasurer and energy minister who now serves as chair of the Climate Change Commission, last week gave a speech in which he said renewable deployment in Australia needed to be accelerated if the federal government was to meet its target of 82 per cent by 2030.
“Giving households more help to take up solar and batteries is not only good politics. It could pick up some of the slack if the larger grid overhaul takes longer than expected,” he said.
Kernaghan called for Sydney to be considered a Renewable Energy Zone – much like the five REZs declared across regional NSW – in which various government bodies assist investors rapidly deploy renewable energy infrastructure. He also urged the creation of an urban renewable energy roundtable to forge co-operation between government, industry, community groups and utilities.
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