Foodstuffs’ solar roof could power 600 EVs

New Zealand’s largest solar panel array will be installed on the Foodstuffs North Island distribution centre roof near Auckland airport.

The 2915 solar panels covering 6000 square metres provided by Reid Technology to go on the centre under construction at the Landing Business Park can power an EV for 8.8 million km, the equivalent of nearly 600 EVs driving 15,000km annually.

The 1.166 megaWatt peak (MWp) grid-connected solar panel system has been designed to make the office “zero carbon” for operational electrical consumption.

It will be connected to 18 inverters that convert the DC electricity generated to AC and produce about 1.5GWh of electricity annually, with batteries not included.

The new head office/distribution centre is due for completion late 2020 and will have at least 10 EV chargers, EVtalk reported last year.

The 74,886sqm centre will service all North Island Pak ‘n Save, New World and Four Square supermarkets.

“This major solar panel installation and the creation of a 5 Greenstar New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGBC) rated office complex, is the first of its kind at this scale for New Zealand and is very much in line with our aspiration of working towards a more environmentally sustainable business,” Foodstuffs North Island property general manager Lindsay Rowles says.

“At Foodstuffs we are enormously conscious of our obligation to be a sustainable business and a positive force for New Zealand. We recently joined the Climate Leaders Coalition to formally link our sustainability ambitions to the coalition’s mission to work towards a low emissions future, and this array project is just another example of the constant evolution of our business.”

Offsetting the electricity will result in savings of 194 tonnes of CO2.

Any electricity left over will be sold into the grid, although the design minimises excess.

EVtalk also featured Foodstuffs’ launch of its 28 electric delivery vehicles (Nissan eNV200 24kWh vans from the United Kingdom) in August 2017.