It takes a town like Alice to shine light on power

Australian
Thursday 2/10/2008 Page: 7

Alice Springs's largest hotel is set to erect the biggest solar panel installation in Australia, which will provide between 40 and 80 per cent of the hotel's power requirements. The Crowne Plaza, overlooking the MacDonnell Ranges, has joined in the Alice Solar City project and will erect a $3 million photovoltaic installation on its roof as part of a push by the central Australian town to reduce its carbon footprint.

The installation will be made up of 13 solar arrays, comprising over 1300 individual solar modules, and will generate 530,000 kilowatts of power each year the equivalent energy required to power 60 households for a year. The solar installation is expected to reduce the hotel's carbon footprint by 420 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.

The hotel will also link a television channel to each guest's room that provides real-time explanations of energy savings. Together with an LCD display in the hotel foyer, the channel will display data from the rooftop solar arrays to demonstrate power output, total energy generated and equivalent greenhouse gas emissions saved. Alice Springs Australia's sunniest city is one of seven cities selected for funding under the federal Government's $94 million Solar Cities program. The town is aiming to reduce its overall carbon footprint by 5 per cent each year.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett visited Alice Springs yesterday and announced the solar installation. He also unveiled a world-first interactive website at the Desert Knowledge Australia Solar Centre that will monitor 15 solar installations and provide real-time scientific and technical data to the solar industry.

The Alice Solar City project is being led by the Alice Springs town council and also includes consortium members, the Northern Territory Government, Northern Territory Power and Water Corporation, Tangentyere Council, Northern Territory Chamber of Commerce, the Desert Knowledge Co-operative Research Centre and the Arid Lands Environment Centre.

Under the project, several more largescale solar energy installations are planned, and 1000 households will be offered discounted domestic solar hot water systems. The consortium is also carrying out energy audits of homes. Perth, Adelaide, Townsville, towns of central Victoria, Blacktown, in western Sydney, and Coburg, in Melbourne's north, have also been selected as solar cities.

The chairman of the Alice Solar City Consortium, Grant Behrendorff, said: "For years and years, everybody has been saying that Alice Springs is such a logical place to have a solar project, but for years it hasn't happened," Mr Behrendorff said. "It's part of the great awareness of climate change. It still takes somebody or something to make it happen."