The Sands Social Club
Following the footsteps of its larger sister, Kedron-Wavell Services Club, The Sands Social completed a full renovation in late 2021, including the installation of a 92.7kW solar system. The refurbished Club is now greeting its seaside community with a new restaurant and bar, updated gaming facilities, and modern finishings, all while saving large on energy costs.
Facilities Manager, Peter Szantar, and Finance Manager, Brayden Young, were introduced to Springers Solar in 2018 when they installed a 100kW commercial solar system on their first club, Kedron-Wavell Services Club. After seeing the financial and environmental benefits that Kedron-Wavell solar has provided the group since its 2019 installation, it was a “no brainer” to install a second system with The Sands Social.
A 92.7kW sized solar system was installed on The Sands Social’s flat roof, utilising as much of the space as possible with 206 x 450W LG Mono X Plus solar panels. An 82.8kW SolarEdge Synergy three-phase inverter was selected for its superior performance in large-scale solar systems.
With multiple energy consumers throughout the Club, including refrigeration, air conditioning, gaming equipment, lighting, and screens, the solar system will be offsetting a large portion of the Club’s daytime energy consumption.
The full system is set to produce over 147MWh of solar every year, and Brayden states that “the benefits and efficiencies we get out of [The Sands Social] are astronomical, and 20% of total energy consumption is supplied by the solar here”.
The team at The Sands Social can track their solar energy production and consumption through SolarEdge’s easy-to-use monitoring platforms, which Brayden commends. “The analytical software that we use makes the process of applying our energy consumption to our power bills really easy”.
Peter states that as the facilities manager, he was looking for ways to reduce both Kedron’s and The Sands Social’s carbon footprints and become greener. “Solar is the most obvious and easiest way to go green,” said Peter. The Sands Social will be saving approximately 118.08 tonnes of CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere every year, which is equivalent to having planted 5,423 trees.
“I am more than happy to recommend Springers to anybody. Any other club out there looking to go green, and solar being the easiest way to do that, I’d thoroughly recommend Springers,” said Peter.
“Any other project we have, solar first and foremost gets put on, it’s a no brainer, and Springers are definitely going to be a big part of that, and were a big part of that here at The Sands,” Brayden said.