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.
The committee's head of resilience, Sam Kernaghan, said the measures outlined in the report, Powering Sydney, 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.
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'While central business district buildings might cover only 5 per cent of their energy needs through rooftop solar, industrial estates could produce between 50 per cent to 100 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 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.
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Sydney Morning Herald
a day ago
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