Australian University Builds Solar Farm
University of Queensland recently opened a 64-megawatt solar farm at Warwick in the state’s southeast. It’s the first major university in the world to offset 100% of its electricity use with renewable power produced from its own assets. In fact, UQ will generate more renewable electricity than it us
Published -
Aug 4, 2020 5:27 AM
University of Queensland recently opened a 64-megawatt solar farm at Warwick in the state’s southeast. It’s the first major university in the world to offset 100% of its electricity use with renewable power produced from its own assets. In fact, UQ will generate more renewable electricity than it uses. The Warwick Solar farm shows businesses and other organizations that the renewables transition is doable, and makes economic sense. UQ’s electricity decarbonization journey started a decade ago when it installed a 1.2MW rooftop solar array across buildings at the St Lucia campus. In 2015 UQ launched the 3.3MW solar farm at Gatton – part of a world-class solar research facility open to researchers from around the world. UQ opened the Warwick solar farm, primarily funded through a A$125 million loan from the Queensland Government. The output – about 160 gigawatt-hours a year – is equal to powering about 27,000 homes or reducing coal consumption by more than 60,000 tonnes. This generation will more than offset the total amount of energy UQ’s sites use each year. Money that would previously have been spent paying the university’s electricity bills will instead now pay off this loan, over about a decade. This shows how an organization can redirect operating expenditure to invest in emissions reduction.
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