THE Atrium Shopping Centre has flipped the switch on its new solar power system, the last stage in a five-year process it has undertaken to reduce its carbon emissions and costs.
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Manager Bruce Read says it is the first shopping centre in NSW to take these measures, which have already halved its power bill.
He expects the savings to balance his investment within three years, and the centre to offset more than 3200 tonnes of carbon emissions during the 30-year lifespan of the solar power system.
Mr Read said a new five-step power plan was developed in 2009, the year the Atrium was completely refurbished.
It included a power audit that identified how, when and where the centre used electricity, and replacing all the common-area metal halide and fluoro lighting with LED lights.
The installation of the 288-panel solar power system was the final phase, and it is expected to produce 125 megawatt hours per year.
It powers the centre's common areas and business centre, while tenants will still draw their energy from the grid.
Mr Read said it would be too complex to supply them, because the panels required would need too much roof space, and the Atrium would be considered a power company providing solar to customers.
He said although the recent weather would not appear to have been conducive to solar power, the required radiation came through the clouds anyway.
"The best thing about this for the shopping centre is, our power usage curve throughout a day, a week, a month or a year is nearly identical to the production curve of the solar energy," Mr Read said.
"The solar system is producing less power, because there's less heat and radiation from the Sun, but then we're using a lot less power."
It would be a different story during the country music festival, though.
The airconditioning units would be "going flat stick ... and consuming vast amounts of electricity to try and cool the centre down, because it's full of people and it's hot, whereas today ... heating is much cheaper than cooling".
Mr Read said consuming power in business was inevitable, but it was no longer inevitable that it had to come at the cost of the business's bottom line and the environment.