Call for bids announced for Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market

On April 6, the city of Melbourne put out a public call for expressions of interest in the first stage of a 200 to 250 kW grid-connected PV installation on the roof of the Queen Victoria Market, a well-known Australian landmark.

© City of Melbourne PV Marketing: The three sheds at the Queen Victoria Market closest to the car park should be fitted with up to 250 kW of PV by mid-2003.

The $2 million AUD ($1.1 million USD) project, covering 2,000 m² on three of the retail food and crafts market's sheds, will include various PV technologies. "We are seeking different systems - thin film, monocrystalline, and/or polycrystalline - to enable a comparison to be carried out, if practicable," says Casey O'Hare, the city's media adviser. The bidding is opened to firms worldwide; a short list of bidders is expected to be chosen by the end of May, with a final selection slated for early July. O'Hare says construction is scheduled to start in the last quarter of 2002 and be completed by mid-2003. Melbourne is putting up $1.25 million AUD ($667,000 USD), while the Australian Greenhouse Office is kicking in $750,000 AUD ($400,000 USD) through its Renewable Energy Commercialization Program.

The Queen Victoria Market has another 8,000 m² of roof. O'Hare says a second stage is being considered, which could ultimately put PV on the remaining space. But so far, she says, no funding has been allocated. An April 8 story in the Melbourne newspaper The Age erroneously claimed that, if built, the system would be the world's largest. But at an estimated capacity of 1 MW, the Melbourne project would be equal to the system on the Munich Trade Fair Center in Germany and significantly smaller than the 2.3 MW installation in Haarlemmermeer, Holland, the world's largest BIPV system.

Casey O'Hare
casoha@melbourne.vic.gov.au

William P. Hirshman
© PHOTON International, May 2002