Huge commercial rooftop photovoltaic solar system for Port Melbourne

Australia’s Largest Rooftop Commercial Solar Power Project Announced, by Energy Matters, 19 Mar 12, NEXTDC Limited (ASX:NXT) (“the Company” or “NEXTDC”) has made another unprecedented move for the Australian data centre industry by committing to build what will be Australia’s largest privately-owned rooftop photovoltaic solar system at its Port Melbourne data centre called “M1”.

NEXTDC will spend approximately $1.2 million to install up to 400kW of solar panels to generate around 550 MWh (megawatt hours) of electricity per annum. A system of this size will offset over 670 tonnes of CO2 per annum. This equates to taking around 200 cars off the road, or powering NABERS 4 star office space for over 890 people….

NEXTDC has already incorporated energy efficient measures into its new-build data centres such as trigeneration plant and outside free air-cooling. After successful deployment of the solar panels at M1, additional investments will be made at their other data centres around Australia.

“We are proud to be the first data centre operator in Australia to invest in solar energy,” Mr Slattery said. “In fact, we are also committing to install up to 1MW of solar energy within the next 12 months at our upcoming data centre facilities”….
http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3109