EG is proud to share the practical completion of an 890 kW rooftop solar system at the Northern Beaches Business Park in Cromer, held in the EG ACE Fund. The property sits on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, roughly 20km from the CBD and less than a kilometre from Dee Why beach, and is home to a broad base of businesses across light industrial, logistics and recreation uses.
Solar power generated on those roofs will be supplied directly to the businesses in the Business Park, through an embedded network operating across the estate. The rooftop solar system is expected to generate around 1,200 MWh of renewable electricity and avoid around 800 tonnes of CO2e annually.
From pharmaceutical campus to business park
Northern Beaches Business Park is the former Roche campus at Inman Road, Cromer. EG acquired the site and repositioned what had been a single-occupier pharmaceutical campus into a multi-tenanted business park, today comprising 20,197sqm of gross lettable area across a 41,932sqm landholding.
Generating value for tenants, investors and the environment
EG’s Sustainability Strategy Strategy was deliberately built to focus on our funds’ value drivers, on the conviction that sustainability and financial performance are not competing objectives but reinforcing ones. Rooftop solar at Cromer is a clear illustration of what that produces: a single piece of infrastructure improving outcomes for the businesses operating on the estate, for the investors who own it, and for the environment.
For our tenants. The businesses at Cromer can purchase fully renewable electricity generated on site, at a rate below what they would pay a retailer. Those tenant electricity savings come alongside reduced exposure to electricity market volatility and a cut to the Scope 2 emissions of their own operations.
For our investors. By owning and operating the solar system, EG has created a new revenue stream from energy sold on site. This strengthens the asset’s income profile and, by insulating it from grid electricity costs, improves the durability of that income. It also supports a reduction in the Scope 2 and operational Scope 3 emissions of the ACE Fund, and with them the emissions footprint of the portfolio our investors hold. It’s sustainable asset management in practice, a decarbonisation initiative that also strengthens the underlying investment.
For the environment. On-site solar generation displaces grid electricity, cutting the asset’s operational emissions by around 800 tonnes CO2e a year. It also contributes to the decarbonisation of a multi-tenanted industrial estate; a segment considerably harder to abate than single-occupier assets, where responsibility for energy use is shared across many businesses rather than held by one.
The tenant savings, the investor returns and the emissions reductions are not three outcomes traded off against one another; they are three consequences of the same decision. It is the clearest kind of evidence for a principle that underpins our sustainability strategy: that better buildings drive stronger returns.
“Cromer shows that decarbonising a multi-tenanted estate can be done in a way that improves the asset’s returns rather than competing with them,” said Andrew Dundas, Sustainability Manager at EG.
Working with Avani Billings
Metering and billing across the embedded network at Cromer are handled by Avani Billings.
Embedded network billing across the industry still leans on manual meter reads and spreadsheet calculations; an approach that is slow, error-prone and increasingly hard to reconcile with compliance obligations. Avani Billings replaces it with an automated platform. For the tenants at Cromer, that means transparent, audit-ready statements they can draw on for their own sustainability reporting. For EG, it means a complete audit trail across the property.
“Avani is proud to have delivered a unified billing platform for EG, bringing electricity billing together into a single, seamless system,” said Jonathan Kaars, Commercial Director at Avani. “We’re excited to continue this journey with the property managers, working together to automate the end-to-end billing process.”
Delivering against our targets
EG has committed to sourcing 100% renewable electricity by 2030, through long-term agreements with utilities providers and on-site solar. Cromer delivers the second of those routes, at scale. It also advances our 2040 commitment to absolute zero emissions across Scope 1, Scope 2 and operational Scope 3 emissions for the entire portfolio.
In doing so it serves both of EG’s sustainability priorities: Climate Action, through on-site solar generation, and Occupant Connection, by giving the businesses on site access to cheaper renewable power.
For more on EG’s sustainability strategy and targets, visit eg.com.au/sustainability.