100% autonomous office is real: solar facades for own power generation

Australian company Kennon has revealed its plans for an ambitious new project in Melbourne. The eight-story office building, dubbed 550 Spencer, will produce more electricity than it needs thanks to a solar facade made up of 1,182 solar panels.

The design of the 550 Spencer does not consist of mounting standard solar panels on the facade, as in the Copenhagen International School. Instead of, its solar façade will look like glass, but it will collect energy from the sun’s rays using 1,182 built-in solar panels.

Although not new, solar façades are still not commonplace, Cannon says his project will be the first solar façade building in Australia. The company had to go to great lengths to achieve this by entrusting the supply of panels to the German company Avancis.

There was another problem: solar façade technology did not receive a building safety certification in Australia.. Not to despair, Kennon decided to send over 40 panels.

With the help of building fire safety expert Red Fire Engineers, the company built a copy of the façade and set it on fire to test its functionality, carefully documenting the process.

After the behavior of the fire was tested, the project was launched and is already under construction. The Spencer 550 is expected to be completed in mid-2023.

The solar façade system will generate 142 kWh. (peak kilowatts), which, in perspective, a standard solar panel installation for a home offers 3 to 6 kW.

According to Cannon, this will be enough to produce more electricity than the building needs, and on top of that, it will eliminate 70 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year.

Another benefit is that placing all the solar panels on the façade frees up the roof so that office workers can enjoy the landscaped space.