Townsville office building, and Adani Carmichael coal mine HQ, goes solar

By Sophie Vorrath April 14, One Step Off The Grid 

Brisbane-based Sentinel Property Group continued its portfolio-wide shift to solar last week, with the installation of a 100kW PV system at its River Quays building in Townsville – an office complex whose tenants include Indian mining giant Adani Resources.

The project is a relatively small one for Sentinel and commercial solar partner GEM Energy, compared to the impressive 1.3MW system installed at the Cairns DFO (Direct Factory Outlet) shopping centre over a five month period last year.

Nonetheless it has grabbed the attention of the press, no doubt due to the newly solar powered building being the North Queensland home base for Adani’s controversial and decidedly-not-renewable Carmichael coal and rail project.

The building’s high profile list of tenants was a draw card for Sentinel when it bought the office tower in 2017 for a price of $A28.6 million. As well as Adani, they included Telstra and Adani’s soon to be ex-engineering contractor for the Carmichael rail project, AECOM.

The installation of solar at River Quays is part of Sentinel’s plans to invest heavily in renewable energy and adopt solar power systems across much of its property portfolio.

“Solar is one of the cleanest sources of energy,” said Sentinel managing director Warren Ebert in comments last October.

“By reducing greenhouse gases, improving air quality and conserving our water supply, solar energy assists in the reduction of our reliance on fossil fuels and will lower energy prices for years to come.”

GEM Energy said on Facebook that the 99.6kW system, which it began installing last Thursday, would “significantly reduce” the grid electricity consumption of the site.