Queensland shoppers at retail icons leading the charge to going green

Shoppers at Pacific Fair, Gasworks, and Indooroopilly Shopping Centre are going green after the icons entered a landmark deal with publicly owned CS Energy to source 100 per cent of their electricity needs from renewable energy.

Energy, Renewables and Hydrogen Minister Mick de Brenni said the seven-year deal is CS Energy’s first 100 per cent renewable energy contract and marked the acceleration of its diversification in response to customer demands.

“We know that consumers are demanding action on climate, now shoppers at these Queensland icons will be able to enjoy the experience knowing they are creating a cleaner environment,” Minister de Brenni said.

“The deal struck with AMP Capital is CS Energy’s first 100 per cent renewable energy contract and demonstrates the company’s clear plan to transition to renewables, including more wind, solar, and storage.

“The Palaszczuk Government’s Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan means that we will meet and beat the State’s renewable energy targets with 10 times more renewables by 2040,” Minister de Brenni said.

Minister for the Environment and Great Barrier Reef and Member for Gaven Meaghan Scanlon said it was deals like this that were helping households and businesses play a role in protecting the environment.

“We know that fossil-fuelled electricity generation creates enormous emissions, which is why we’ve committed to converting our power stations to Clean Energy Hubs by 2035,” Minister Scanlon said.

“The Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan is all about a future of cleaner energy for Queenslanders and will reduce household and business electricity emissions by 96% by 2040.

“We are helping to protect the reef, taking real action on climate change, and responding to worsening natural disasters,” she said.

AMP Capital’s Senior Sustainability Manager, Erik Moore said that the deal signed between CS Energy and AMP Capital was a great outcome for these iconic Queensland assets, and an even better result for the environment.

The signing of this Power Purchase Agreement, along with two others in NSW/ACT and Victoria which have all now come into effect, represents a huge step towards AMP Capital’s 2030 Sustainability Strategy target of Net Zero Carbon with 20 assets supplied by 100% renewable electricity,” Mr Moore said.

“We’ve managed to achieve these competitively priced power deals by leveraging the size of the portfolio and working closely with our business and supply partners.

“In addition, the contract terms were negotiated before the recent significant price increases in the electricity market and under the terms of the agreement the assets are shielded from spot-market price increases, which is a great outcome for tenants and owners,” he said.

CS Energy CEO Andrew Bills said they were proud to support AMP Capital to achieve their net zero emissions targets.

“CS Energy is responding to the changing needs of large energy users by developing renewable energy product solutions that specifically meet their decarbonisation goals,” Mr Bills said.

"We currently have almost 300 megawatts of contracted renewables in our portfolio to support the requirements of our large commercial and industrial customers,” he said.

CS Energy has an offtake agreement for 100 per cent of the output of the 162-megawatt Columboola Solar Farm, which it is on selling to AMP Capital and other large commercial and industrial customers.

The deal between CS Energy and AMP Capital covers the following assets:

• Retail: Pacific Fair Shopping Centre (now managed by The GPT Group), Indooroopilly Shopping Centre, Gasworks and Brickworks.
• Commercial: Milton Green (incorporating Cribb Street), 199 Grey Street and Stanley House.
• Industrial/logistics: Acacia Gate Industrial Park.

The 94GWh/year deal means 61,801 tonnes of CO2-e avoided each year, equivalent to:

• 5,374 houses brought to zero emissions.
• 21,496 cars taken off the road.
• 4,039 hectares of plantation forest.

ENDS