An Australian family-owned business located in North Geelong, Coastal Cold Storage, has offset $12,000 annually from their electricity costs and reduced their greenhouse gas emissions annually by 100 tonnes.
Coastal Cold
Storage is the first Geelong business to sign an Environmental Upgrade Finance
agreement with the Sustainable Melbourne Fund (SMF - now known as Sustainable Australia Fund) and the City of Greater
Geelong to fund the installation of a 65kW solar PV system.
Initially Coastal
Cold Storage planned to install a 30kW system. However, with their high
electricity bills combined with the high feed-in tariff, a larger system proved
more beneficial by offsetting their daytime energy use and offsetting the cost
of their night-time use with feed-in tariffs. They plan to install battery storage in the future, to capture the power
they generate and use it directly, when battery storage is more economically
viable for them.
Financing the
system through an EUA means the solar system repayments can be made over
10-years at a low interest rate and paid at the same time as their commercial
building council rates. By signing the Environmental Upgrade Finance agreement,
Coastal Cold Storage had no upfront costs and instead pay for the system over
time, while saving on their energy bills.