CHEP Australia’s Beresfield Service Centre is located approximately 20 minutes from where Walter Bramble established the Brambles butchery business back in 1884. What better place to pilot a world first renewable energy innovation in partnership with the University of Newcastle (UoN) and experiment with solutions to address the increase in electricity costs CHEP experienced in 2018.   

UoN and CHEP have installed the world’s largest printed solar photovoltaic array to test the cutting-edge technology in a commercial environment. 

The panels were manufactured from scratch at UoN with the panel installation taking one day to complete. The energy produced is being live streamed on the UoN website to share the system’s performance globally.  

If successful, CHEP and UoN hope to expand the Newcastle installation and will assess viability for other CHEP locations.

"While this project is small and novel, the potential for rapid application on large warehouse facilities is exciting."

Phillip Austin
President, CHEP Asia Pacific