Solar Facade Will Be First of Its Kind in Australia

An Australian architecture firm is designing a new project in Melbourne that will adorn an eight-story office building’s facade with more than 1,000 solar panels, which will be the first of its kind in Australia.

Kennon, a Melbourne-based architecture firm, aims to place 1,182 cutting-edge solar panels on the upcoming 550 Spencer office building. The solar panels will not be mounted to the building’s facade but will instead be embedded in the facade’s glass. For the project, Kennon will work with Avancis, a German photovoltaic company.

“I had been researching glazing products in operation in Europe that embody photovoltaic cells within a facade glass screen that didn’t look like the typical and ugly solar panels you see on rooftops,” Kennon founder Pete Kennon told New Atlas. “We started discussions with several manufacturers soon learning they didn’t have a presence in Australia. We designed a building facade with the product, and I pitched the concept to the client. We partnered with a local glass distributor George Fethers & Co and flew the executives of the product out from Germany to meet with us. We mapped the solar performance from different facade alterations optimizing the electricity production.”

According to Kennon, the solar facade system will generate 142 kWp. This will produce more electricity than the building requires and will eliminate 78.4 tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year, Kennon told Atlas News.