Deepwater Plaza Goes Solar

A cooler car park for customers that generates clean and cheap electricity – it’s a win-win for Deepwater Plaza and those who visit it.

Situated in Woy Woy on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Deepwater Plaza is a Dexus property that hosts Coles, Kmart and more than 50 specialty stores. The centre’s management recently announced its car park upgrade project has been completed.

“Shoppers can now enjoy shade to over 100 car spaces in the Coles car park off Charlton Street along with resurfacing improvements and line marking, extending to George Street and the ground level of the multi-deck car park.”

Creating that shade is 768 solar panels Deepwater Plaza management says will generate approximately 253 MWh of electricity per annum, reducing the shopping centre’s use of grid-sourced electricity and associated carbon emissions.

This isn’t the biggest solar car park for a Dexus property. Willows Shopping Centre in Townsville had 4,800 solar panels installed this year that will generate approximately 2,500 MWh of electricity annually. The project created 500 new shaded car spaces.

“At retail centres like Willows, onsite solar PV works well because centre visitation tends to be higher during the daytime, which is also the time when solar PV systems generate the most power (a quality referred to as “load matching”),” said Dexus.

Dexus And Renewables

Dexus has 153 properties, so it has a lot of rooftop area suitable for generating electricity. Among its first commercial solar installations was a 45kW system on the rooftop of a Dexus property at Garema Court in Canberra in 2012 that consisted of 195 x 235W REC solar panels and 3 x 15kW SMA inverters.

The ongoing rollout of solar power is supporting Dexus’s goal of a net-zero emissions property portfolio by 2030. As part of that, Dexus intends to source 100% of its electricity from renewable sources, including on-site solar power and off-site solar and wind power.

Beyond solar energy and wind power, in late 2018 Dexus inked a deal with Snowy Hydro’s Red Energy for the supply of hydro-based electricity to power the operation of 40 buildings across New South Wales. Dexus signed on to source more than 300 gigawatt hours of electricity over a 7 year period, which it said would save its customers around 10 per cent on their energy costs. Also in New South Wales, Dexus has partnered with Red Energy to source up to 50% of base building electricity requirements from wind and solar energy projects.

Dow Jones Sustainability Index Winner

Last week Dexus announced it had been named the most sustainable real estate company in the world in the 2020 Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) for the second consecutive year; scoring 89/100 in the 2020 assessment – compared to the industry average of 30/100.

“We have delivered on our ambitious 2020 sustainability targets that were set in 2015, which build on the progress we’ve made over the past 10 years and have set new targets to help further progress our 2030 net zero emissions ambition,” said David Yates, Executive General Manager, Sustainability.