In Australia’s largest-ever onsite solar power agreement to date, this investment includes installation of PV solar panels and 24/7 system monitoring at five of our centres around the country.

The first tranche of installation for the project spans four shopping centres in Queensland (Domain Central, Townsville; Robina Town Centre, Gold Coast; Hyperdome, Logan; Grand Central, Toowoomba) and one in Victoria (Watergardens, Melbourne). The solar networks across these five assets will deliver over 15 megawatts of solar power capacity on completion and reduce CO2 emissions by more than 17,000 metric tonnes per year.

The entire rooftop solar project on completion will leverage GRE’s shopping centre assets to reduce grid electricity consumption by almost a third. This in turn will reduce our exposure to volatile energy markets, and decrease the load on local electricity networks, freeing up capacity for the communities surrounding these assets.

The installation of this solar system sets a bold example for the Australian retail sector, increasing the attractiveness of our assets to tenants, investors and customers.

Robina Town Centre

Robina Town Centre’s solar system, which went live in March 2021, is the largest rooftop solar platform in the southern hemisphere, utilising over 13,000 solar panels to bring on-demand, reliable and clean energy to the Centre. This 5.5MW solar system is expected to generate approximately 8MWh of clean energy per annum, enough to power more than 1,200 homes for a year, resulting in a decrease in carbon emissions of over 6,000 tonnes of CO2-e a year.

Watch the video below to hear from our General Manager of Sustainability, Mel Schulz, and Robina Town Centre General Manager, Kathleen Hart, as they discuss the solar installation at the Centre.

Robina Town Centre solar panels installation from QView by QIC on Vimeo.

¹ RE's Australian Core Retail Portfolio includes those assets wholly held by QPF and QTCF.