The Sun Shines on Barossa Vintners

This summer, wine and sunshine blended together nicely at the launch and unveiling of the 90kW solar array at Barossa Vintners winery in South Australia.

The Barossa Valley is commonly known as one of Australia’s oldest wine regions boasting a number of high profile winery’s that attract many visitors to the region daily.

Peter Castle from SMA by the 90kW solar array.

The Senator for South Australia, Anne McEwan officially opened the event with the cutting of the ribbon on the SMA Flashview screen (see picture above).

This installation was realised by The Solar Project who are an organisation within Australia that provide high quality renewable energy systems across Australia and to date are responsible for some of the largest commissioned solar power stations in the country. One of the most famous being The Adelaide Showground 1MW plant which was installed back in 2009 and also utilises SMA inverters.

The Solar Project’s David Buetefuer explains the benefits of using SMA inverters.

The Barossa Vintners is the sixth largest solar rooftop installation in South Australia and comprises five SMA Sunny Tripower inverters. David Buetefuer, Director of Sales and Business Development at The Solar Project stated that he is looking forward to seeing many more projects of this kind across Australia, as are we.

 “A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine” – Italian Proverb

The Chairman of Barossa Vintners, Grant Tilbrook was extremely pleased with the end result. “Our aim was to reduce and control our costs for light and power so that in turn these costs can be prevented from being passed onto our clients. Between 2004 and 2013 our cost per ton went from $10.10 to $44.89 which was a significant increase”.

The Barossa Vintners project will reduce the winery’s carbon emissions by 22%

I was very fortunate to be able to attend this event on behalf of SMA Australia, not only because of the delicious wine but also because it was great to see the passion and dedication of The Solar Project team and everyone involved. Each project is uniquely designed with the objectives of the client in mind. The Barossa Vintners project will not only reduce the winery’s carbon emissions by 22% and reduce power costs, but it will hopefully stand as the first of many wineries’ that will follow in its footsteps.