North Melbourne Football Club's Arden Street headquarters and a local recreation centre are now powered by solar thanks to an investment by the City of Melbourne and the Kangaroos.
Chair of the City of Melbourne's Environment Portfolio, Cr Arron Wood, said a 100kW solar system has been installed on the football club's roof and a 100kW solar system was on the adjoining North Melbourne Recreation Centre.
"We're proud to help the Kangaroos go solar and reduce their carbon emissions. Powering such an iconic building with renewable energy shows how solar can be installed on buildings of all shapes and sizes," Cr Wood said.
"More than one-million rooftops across Australia now have solar panels. We hope football fans across the country are inspired by our partnership with the Kangaroos to go solar."
The 800 panel solar system will produce 269 MWh of electricity per year. This is equivalent to the annual energy use of 70 residential homes in Melbourne.
North Melbourne CEO and Managing Director Carl Dilena said the club was proud to have worked with the City of Melbourne to make their seven-year-old training headquarters more environmentally friendly.
"The solar panels will result in our club using 22 per cent less energy from the grid," Mr Dilena said.
"A big thank you must go to the City of Melbourne for helping us make this environmentally-friendly project a reality. We are proud of our successful, ongoing relationship with the City of Melbourne."
The recreation centre and football club administration buildings include a high-performance training gym, offices for the football department and administration. There is also a fencing centre, community gym, basketball court, and The Huddle' Community learning centre.
Cr Wood said the $462,000 solar power system was installed by Envirogroup and partly financed by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
"North Melbourne Football Club is one of the world's oldest sporting clubs. This project is a great example of how an iconic sporting club can work with government to reduce carbon emissions, promote clean energy jobs, and help the environment," Cr Wood said.
"We are installing 300kW worth of rooftop solar on Council and other community facilities which will mean we'll pay less to power buildings like pools and gyms which have large energy loads."
Following the Richmond football club's installation of a 100kW solar system in 2014, North Melbourne now has one of the largest solar systems among the 18 AFL teams. The system includes 800 x 250 watt Yingli solar panels and is one of the largest in the City of Melbourne.
There are currently 855 residential and commercial solar systems installed in the municipality producing 4.24MW of solar energy.
