Housing in Southern Africa May 2016

Energy Efficiency, Green Building & IBTs

Growthpoint’s solar farms

G rowthpoint Properties has seven solar farms success- fully generating renewable energy at its buildings across South Africa, and is now embarking on its largest rooftop solar installations yet. Growthpoint, the largest pri- mary listed Real Estate Investment Trust, is undertaking two large solar installations on the rooftops of its Northgate Mall and Brooklyn Mall. The retail centres in Johannesburg and Pretoria each have a capacity of approximately 1,2 MWp. W erner van Antwerpen, Head of Sustainability of Growthpoint Prop- erties reports: “Growthpoint has already passed the halfway mark in achieving its goal to install rooftop solar farms capable of generating an impressive 6MWp. Or, in other words, enough solar energy to power nearly 2 500 average South African homes.” Harnessing energy from the abun- dant South African sunshine, Growth- point has already completed the in- stallationof photovoltaic solar panels with the capacity to generate over 3,2 MWp at seven of its office, retail

and industrial properties. These solar farms includes Cape Town’s V&AWaterfront, The Constan- tia Village, Bayside Mall and Airport Industria. Its InfoTech building in Pretoria, Waterfall Mall in Rustenburg and Lincoln on the Lake office build- ing in Umhlanga, also benefit from solar power generating installations. A further four projects will gener- ate 2,7 MWp of renewable energy. Growthpoint has identified over 70 buildings across its portfolio for pos- sible future solar PV installations.

Growthpoint Divisional Director, Rudolf Pienaar says: “Our solar farms are one way to create a more sustainable built environment for South Africa.” Pienaar adds: “Growthpoint is committed to increasing solar energy generation, making all our 185 office buildings energy and water efficient, and ensuring all our longterm office investments and new developments are certified green buildings. We’re already putting our commitment into action.” ■