Case study: Gladstone Marine Parks base goes solar
The Gladstone Marine Parks base is a large operations base consisting of office, workshop, storage shed, vessel berthing, compound and car parking. The office accommodates about 20 staff and serves as an operational base for the Southern Great Barrier Reef area. GBRMPA staff are also co-located at this site. In 2020 energy efficiency measures were implemented, which included installing a grid connected rooftop solar array and upgrading any non-LED lighting at the site to low energy LED.
The system has only been in operation for 10 months and has shown some impressive results. The system has produced about 30 Megawatts of solar power in this time. Consumption of grid power is reduced by 50% and the system returned approximately 16 Megawatts of power back to the grid which is credited to the account. The cost of power at the site has been reduced by 67%. This represents an annual carbon abatement of approximately 30 tonnes of CO2.
These proven results have prompted the installation of similar systems at other major Marine Parks bases in the region – Rosslyn Bay, Abell Point Marine Base and Airlie Beach office.