Leading Asia-Pacific logistics specialist LOGOS, along with its consortium partners, have agreed to a 30-year partnership with renewable energy fund Solar Bay, to install and operate a large-scale rooftop solar installation at Moorebank Logistics Park (MLP).
MLP is Australia’s largest intermodal freight facility, and will be fully automated port-to-site rail link, and world-leading industrial and warehousing site, which will facilitate for some of the countries’ leading customers.
Solar Bay will provide network and retail energy services to tenants within MLP, by installing 60MW of rooftop solar across the estate, and 150MWh of battery energy storage to supply the embedded network with renewable energy.
The combined power of this rooftop solar and battery storage will generate enough clean energy to power the equivalent of 40,000 homes in NSW, avoiding an estimated 67.2 kilotonnes of CO2 emissions each year.
Once fully operational, the solar microgrid will be capable of supplying the full energy requirement of the precinct during daylight hours, and source electricity from an off-site windfarm to supply renewable energy outside peak solar generation periods.
“The implementation of this green infrastructure at MLP will accelerate our achievement of green scale, and enable our operations to achieve net-zero emissions,” explained Darren Searle, head of LOGOS Australia and New Zealand.
“The impacts of the infrastructure will extend far beyond the site itself and play a key role in state, regional and local economies, given the size, scale and influence of our market-leading site.
“We are committed to developing MLP with leading sustainability practices and outcomes at the fore, and our partnership with Solar Bay will allow the LOGOS Consortium to utilise the latest technologies so that we can produce, store, manage and use energy more efficiently on-site at MLP, and run all warehouse operations on 100 per cent renewable energy.”
With over 800,000sqm of roof space at the precinct, the site has the capacity for up to 130MW of rooftop solar, capable of generating 183GWh of electricity per annum.
Future stages of the microgrid will utilise additional solar generation for electric truck fast-charging, thermal storage, hydrogen generation and supply, and related low emission infrastructure.
“MLP is a prime example of the convergence between property and energy infrastructure that we’re seeing across Australia and New Zealand,” said James Doyle, investment director at Solar Bay.
“A precinct-wide microgrid facilitates the on-site installation of utility-scale solar and batteries, providing tenants with the ability to access a vast amount of renewable electricity, which match the scale of their electrified operations.
“With over 800,000sqm of rooftop solar possible, we can also assist in the decarbonisation of transport, and utilise surplus generation to produce low emission fuels, such as hydrogen.
“Solar Bay is excited to be involved with the rollout of the renewable infrastructure at MLP, and see it setting a strong precedent for what’s possible at industrial precincts moving forward.”
LOGOS, and its consortium partners AustralianSuper, AXA Investment Managers, Ivanhoe Cambridge and NSW TCorp, completed their $1.67 billion acquisition of MLP on 15 December 2021.
The end estimated value of MLP is $4.2 billion once the site is fully developed, and, according to the LOGOS Consortium, will be Australia’s largest logistics warehousing infrastructure project.
The embedded network
The precinct-wide microgrid, which will operate at a combination of 11kV and 33kV to provide the required electrical capacity to tenants.
The rooftop solar and battery storage system will connect into the high voltage network at multiple points, with complementary technology, such as megawatt scale electric vehicle/truck fast chargers also able to be integrated throughout the precinct.
With a number of significant loads at MLP able to be flexed in real-time, the site will also be able to interact with the National Energy Market (NEM). This will be completed to optimise the consumption of on-site generation, and provide services back to the NEM when required, via demand response and the ancillary market.
When complete, approximately 44 per cent of the total site electrical requirement will be provided via the on-site generation, with the remaining power required coming from an off-site wind farm.
The combination of this infrastructure allows Solar Bay to offer tenants long-term electricity supply agreements, such as the Qube IMEX and Interstate rail operations, which have a 20-year agreement in place.
The solar panels will also provide clean energy for the warehouse and container terminal operations, which will further reduce freight transport emissions into the future by promoting rail over road transport.
