Massive solar system installed University of Queensland

Australia's largest flat-panel photovoltaic solar power system has been installed at The University of Queensland in Brisbane.

The system generates 1.22 megawatts of power from the sun, harvested from 5004 panels on the rooftops of four of UQ's biggest buildings.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield said the UQ Solar Array would provide between five and six per cent of peak electricity demand at the St Lucia campus.

The solar panel installation at the University of Queensland. Photo: Stewart Gould via Brisbane Times


The asset will be shared with the community, by giving interested people access to a website showing live and historical data about the solar power generated from the UQ array.

"The project is enhanced by its strong industry partnerships, including research agreements with a number of world-leading companies in renewable power," Professor Greenfield said.

UQ will undertake ongoing solar research projects with:

Brisbane firm Ingenero, which installed the array, and worked on its design and engineering

Separate to the rooftop panels, UQ has installed a ground-mounted, seven-metre-by-six metre 8.4 kilowatt concentrating photovoltaic array (CPV) that follows the sun each day as it moves across the sky.
Ingenero donated the SolFocus CPV array to allow UQ researchers to undertake detailed comparisons with a different type of solar technology.

Designing and installing Australia's biggest rooftop PV solar power system
drew on the combined resources and significant expertise of UQ academics and engineers, working with industry leaders.

UQ's Property & Facilities division and UQ's School of Mathematics and Physics worked closely with engineering consultants Aurecon and lead contractor Ingenero.

The 1.22 megawatt UQ Solar array is almost 25 per cent larger than any other flat-panel PV system in Australia, with the added complexity of being split between four buildings.