Five major shopping centres in Australia will soon have solar panels covering their roofs in the first phase of a new partnership between Yurika and QIC.
The partnership between Energy Queensland’s renewables business, Yurika, and Queensland Investment Corporation is set to deliver 15 megawatts of renewables across five major shopping centre sites.
The shopping centres include Robina Town Centre on the Gold Coast, Logan Hyperdome, Grand Central Shopping Centre in Toowoomba, Domain Central in Townsville and Melbourne Water Gardens Shopping Centre in Victoria.
Domain Central – Queensland’s largest bulky goods shopping centre – will be the first cab off the rank.
Michael O’Brien, QIC’s managing director for global real estate, says the rollout of Yurika’s Smart Connected Solar technology across its Australian assets will deliver significant efficiencies and large-scale renewable energy supply.
“This renewable-energy-as-a-service approach will provide reliable, clean energy for our centres and our retail partners, significantly lowering the carbon footprint of our Australian retail portfolio and reducing grid electricity consumption by up to 30 per cent across the portfolio.”
Yurika’s executive general manager Carly Irving says the commercial and industrial real estate market sector is actively investing in ‘behind the meter’ generation technology, energy management and building automation to transform assets towards a more sustainable footprint.
“The five sites are the first phase of a long-term partnership with QIC, with the potential to support QIC with emerging opportunities in energy such as the evolution of their embedded networks, EV charging services, virtual power plants and the addition of technology such as batteries in the future,” Irving says.
“Yurika has established itself in the industry through a number of major projects including the installation of vehicle charging stations for the Queensland Electric Super Highway and its Virtual Power Plant portfolio.
“The Smart Connected Solar product offers business customers with an opportunity to invest in the latest renewable ‘smart’ technology which brings greater financial savings and improved carbon emissions.”