Sydney Metro, Australia’s biggest public transport project, has reached a new milestone with the installation of a solar panel array the size of a football field.
It took less than six months to install the 3,287 panels on the roof of the maintenance building at Sydney Metro HQ at Rouse Hill.
Sydney Metro is the biggest urban rail infrastructure investment in the nation’s history, being built to grow with Sydney and meet the needs of the city for generations to come.
The solar panel system is the biggest on any NSW Government building and covers more than 6,500 square metres – two-thirds of the maintenance building roof at the Sydney Metro Trains Facility at Rouse Hill.
It will generate approximately 1.5 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year, which is enough to power about 270 average homes for a year.
The electricity generated by the panels will be used to power some of the Sydney Metro railway stations as well as the maintenance facility, where Sydney’s new metro trains will be serviced.
The trains themselves use high voltage power not related to the solar array.
However, the trains use regenerative braking – this means extra energy from a slowing train can be recycled back into the power system and used by nearby trains.
