De Bortoli Winery

De Bortoli Winery – 100kW

Over the past few years De Bortoli Wines has changed their thinking and approach to growing grapes and making wine. Climate change has brought with it an urgent imperative to adopt environmentally sustainable practices. De Bortoli’s future lies in looking after the health of our soils and plants and carefully managing precious water resources.  The Winery is seriously committed to this new approach going beyond mandatory requirements.  They are adopting a wide range of innovative programs and practices including; Water management, biological farming, adoption of renewable energy at a number of their vineyards, and a careful overhaul of the company’s packaging and waste management practices. The ultimate – and achievable – goal is to be a ‘Zero Waste Wine Company’.

Focusing on Renewable Energy AEES Group was engaged to design, install and commission a ground mount 100 kW Solar PV  system for the Winery restaurant at Dixons Creek. The array has been custom-designed and mounted on a 35° north facing hillside  adjacent to the restaurant car park. While sustainability is primary motivation, their current electricity tariff increase in 2018 of over 100% also provided significant incentive.

Due to the profile of the restaurant load, the system is designed to have a high impact of up to 60% grid derived energy reduction. The annual saving against their current tariff will be reduced by around $40,000 per year. The Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) will drop from 28.1 c/kWh to around 10 c/kWh. The high impact is enhanced by the daytime load profile of the restaurant operations.

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