St Georges Parish

St George's Parish was initially designed and built in 1963/64 and has been at the heart of community life ever since.

With 23 local community groups utilizing its halls and regular spiritual worship services, the Church's energy consumption was substantial. And, with 1000 square meters (sqm) of roof space, their savings potential-enormous.

The Church's energy usage was calculated at 5338kWh quarterly, an average of 58kwh and $1600 a day. 

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The Church was awarded two separate grants to fund the solar installation. Leeson Group wrote the two proposals detailing the total sustainability and financial benefits the Church would receive from each installation

As St George's Parish is committed to helping see Australia's greenhouse gas emissions reduced, the Church went ahead with a system size totalling 39.72kW, despite an estimated 80% of the power generated being returned to the grid. 

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The project wasn't without its obstacles. The biggest challenge in this installation was a large native gumtree close to the Church, which significantly shaded some roof areas. Reports concluded that 40% of the roof would be shaded throughout the day. Given this limitation, Our construction manager decided that placing panels in the affected areas would not be viable. 

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The next hurdle faced with this project was the accessibility of the roof. The Church is three stories high, with surrounding terrain reasonably uneven. As such, Leeson Group decided that an all-terrain scissor lift was required for installation, meaning establishing an exclusion zone sealed off during the forklift operation, ensuring the safety of the installation team and all those accessing the Church during installation.  

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Finally, an essential aspect of the installation from the Church's perspective was to future-proof the system's design so that more panels and newer technology could be added in the future. After assessing the switchboard, Leeson Group discovered that it was fairly old, with a phase imbalance. Our installation team notified the Church, and the issue was swiftly fixed, ensuring the systems were future-proofed. The system was installed with larger cables leading to the subboard to accommodate a larger system in the future. 

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