Jaycar Electronics: Leading Retail Sustainability with Green Solardarity

Green solardarity for our retail network

The Jaycar Electronics Group’s focus on reducing power usage and reliance on the grid is part of an on-going sustainability strategy introduced in 2020 with the goal of reducing our carbon footprint on the environment across our operations.

Our first task was to deploy solar systems to our warehousing and network of retail sites.

A milestone achievement of 2020 was the first solar installation at our Eastern Creek Distribution Centre in NSW, a massive system officially registered as a solar power station. Clean energy now powers our operations at this site.

The success bolstered plans to roll out this green initiative across our retail network with Road Tech Marine’s McGraths Hill, a site in NSW becoming our first store to receive solar in late 2020.

Another twelve stores received solar installations during 2021 and are now operating with clean energy including Jaycar’s Taren Point site in NSW and the Strathpine site in QLD, and Road Tech Marine’s Capalaba and Mackay sites, both in QLD.

Our retail stores have 30-40kW solar systems that are big enough to cover our daytime energy use. That’s 60%-80% of our entire usage throughout the day and night. The largest solar system in our store network is 100kW, over twelve times the size of the average household solar system!

Some panels from the Jaycar Strathpine solar installation

Jaycar Strathpine inverter station

In addition to our solar rollout, we introduced a new energy management platform that allows us to understand where and when power usage is greatest at each site in our network. Monitoring dashboards are helping us identify opportunities to cut back or modify daily routines at each of our 150+ sites to reduce power consumption. Initial results have been very positive and we are already seeing notable usage reductions.

In 2022, we are maintaining momentum with three stores already installed with solar and waiting to have their systems switched on. Ten more stores will receive solar installations over the coming months.

Our green initiative is helping reduce our reliance on power from the grid, more so with every site added. We have a lot more to do but it is a small yet significant step towards achieving our goal of reducing our carbon footprint on the environment.

Part of the RTM Mackay solar installation