Vicinity to spend $20m on WA solar

ASX-listed Vicinity Centres has announced it will invest about $20 million across three Perth shopping centres as part of the second stage of its national solar power project.

In May, Vicinity said Perth’s Ellenbrook Central and Currambine Central had been included in the first stage of the project, and today the shopping centre operator added Livingston Marketplace to its list.

Livingston is located in Canning Vale.

The three sites will have a mixture of solar panels installed on the rooftops of the centres and on a series of car park shades.

The $20 million spend in Western Australia is part of an overall investment of $50 million for the second stage of Vicinity’s solar program.

The company said stage two would have a capacity of about 20.6 megawatts across 17 shopping centres throughout the country.

Work on stage two is expected to be complete in late 2019.

Stage one comprised an overall investment of $28 million over five sites, with work already under way.

“We know our centres have a considerable footprint in our communities which is why we’ve committed more than $75 million towards stage one and stage two of our solar project,” executive general manager shopping centre management Justin Mills said.

“This investment will generate clean power for our centres for the long term, make a positive environmental impact and deliver shared value for our customers, retailers and investors.

“As technology advances so does the business case for solar.

“We anticipate strong investment returns with the project to generate an internal rate of return of approximately 12 per cent, while also reducing our consumption from the national electricity grid by up to 40 per cent.”

Shares in Vicinity were up 0.72 per cent at $2.79 each at 1.35pm AEDT.