Contact our friendly team to find out more.
Location: Main Outfall Sewer Reserve, Heritage Listed site stretching from Werribee to Brooklyn in Melbourne’s West
Product: M50 (5m) PowerStack Poles, with 2 Solar panels on all 4 sides, powering a We-ef luminaire
Date/Year: Pilot project 2017, PowerStack lighting rolled out across 2023 and 2024 (further installations to follow)
Project Partners: Greening the Pipeline is a partnership between Melbourne Water, Wyndham City Council, Greater Western Water and Department of Transport and Planning, supported by Greening the West.
PowerStack was engaged through Buckford Illumination Group. Together they worked with project stakeholders, Outlines Landscape Architects, ABC Engineers and We-ef.
Project Overview: Greening the Pipeline is an innovative project that aims to transform the heritage-listed, Main Outfall Sewer in Melbourne’s West into a green corridor for mixed recreational use.
The space is 4m wide and runs for 27km. It starts from the Scienceworks Museum at Spotswood and runs through to the Western treatment plant in Werribee. The project goal was to create a vibrant green space where walkers, cyclists, and families can meet, play and relax.
The development of the site is multi-staged. Active plans involve creating and widening footpaths, ‘greening’ existing infrastructure, and connecting spaces with new transport links.
As part of these developments, the project teams are adding illumination to pathways and recreational areas. This is to enable safe ‘year-round’ use of the area. This element is how PowerStack became involved with the Greening The Pipeline Project.
When designing illumination for the transport links, and pathway sections of the project, the goal was to deliver a solution that could be installed and run without reliance on the traditional electrical grid. Accessing AC grid power would have been costly and time-consuming. Not to mentioned it would have required disruptive works and heavy machinery access. Using grid supply was not in keeping with the sustainability goals of the project, and it would have extended timelines and budgets.
The design team were looking for a grid-independent solution. Ideally something that blended well with the desired look of the spaces, which meant a solution needed to be slimline.
Additionally, the lighting functionality needed to be optimised for efficient and sustainable power use. So a fixture with a sensor that would control lighting during active function was specified. This sensor would detect approaching people or cyclists and dynamically increase and decrease illumination as they entered the vicinity.
With a specific luminaire and sensor fixture required, any power solution needed to be flexible enough to integrate with these devices. This ruled out any solar poles with a ready-integrated light.
The solution: Buckford Illumination Group worked with PowerStack and other project stakeholders to create a lighting design that could be installed efficiently, was completely off-grid and would integrate with the chosen lighting fixture and functionality.
PowerStack’s 100% grid-independent solar power generation was key to this winning solution. The poles can reliably run lighting and other technologies with no requirement for grid access. In this project, it meant there was no need for the disruption, time, and costs inherent in trenching, cabling or heavy machinery access.
The poles were installed using a concrete-free foundation option. This again minimised any disruption during installation, as the foundation can be installed in approximately an hour per pole, using just a two person team and hand operated power tools.
Both labour costs and time for installation were much lower, when compared to concrete foundations.
The PowerStack pole is also a fully contained system, with no external components. It’s vertical solar panels are integrated directly into the pole. The result is a sleek profile and a clean finished aesthetic, that is at home in both urban and rural environments.
Finally, PowerStack provided a power solution that was brand and technology agnostic. The pole is essentially a micro-grid, providing sustainable power for path lighting, ambient lighting, cameras, iot sensors…whatever you want to power within the defined budget.
In this project, it meant that the design team and other stakeholders had choice and flexibility over the chosen luminaire, run profile and sensor. This, along with the other benefits, made PowerStack the winning solution for this project.
To date, 55 of the M50 PowerStack poles have been deployed, running the WE-EF VFL520 Luminaire with associated sensor. The poles were delivered and installed over a 4 week period. Indicative timelines from similar projects suggest that had a grid-connected solution with concrete foundations been used, it could have taken up to four times longer than this. Not to mention the machinery and labour required for craning in poles, digging foundations, extending cabling and setting concrete.
Whilst initial product outlay may be higher than a grid connected pole PowerStack represents a significant saving on overall project costs and time. Plus it delivers a sleek sustainable path lighting solution, with no ongoing power costs for the end user.
"This project is a fantastic example of where previously disused industrial space can become a vibrant, green multi-use development that really benefits the community.
We're proud to be part of the project and thought PowerStack, as a sustainable power source, was the ideal way to deploy pathway illumination.”
PowerStack’s vertical, modular design enables maximised sun capture for each location. The vertical panels mean the pole is harvesting sunlight from sun up to sun down. This makes it different from traditional flat angle solar, which only captures during high sun hours, making it vulnerable to overheating causing a loss of efficiency during this time.
In comparison, PowerStack is a more considered approach to solar. It optimises sun capture and energy storage, providing enough ongoing power for low voltage applications year round. And it does this in a form that can be easily deployed in a variety of locations due to it’s low profile design.
Each PowerStack system is selected based on the mid-winter sun hours for that location. So based on your running wattage, and the sun hours for your site on the shortest day of the year, the team will work with you to decide which pole you need. The result is reliable off-grid power, all year round.
Tested against the extremes of temperature and weather in both Australia and the USA, PowerStack is designed to be incredibly hardwearing. The solar panels are made of a special polymer and being glassless, are shatterproof. This makes them a sturdy, reliable choice for areas with high winds, and with no flat angled panel to to act as a wind sail, they’re more practical than many ‘traditional solar’ alternatives.
For more information on how the PowerStack systems are designed and what you can power with them, please GET IN TOUCH. For a full list of PowerStack suppliers, see the ‘Where to Buy’ page.
PowerStack is proud to work in collaboration with the technology brands and devices we work with, and everyone else across the project from the integrator, to end users and distribution or channel partners. Mention goes to Advanced Building Consulting (ABC) Engineers who contributed to this project along with the group shown below.
PowerStack vertical solar can be used to power a number of different technologies including security cameras, IoT sensors, lighting, help points and wi-fi networks. Aside from reliable power supply, vertical solar has numerous benefits for both the integrator and the end user. Here are a few of the key features that made PowerStack a standout for this project.
Reliable green energy that enables power supply in areas that grid power can’t reach. Providing 24/7 uptime, totally off-grid.
Rugged, weatherproof design with shatterproof, fire resistant, glassless solar panels.
100% off-grid electrical energy supply, more sustainable than the grid and coal-fired power.
Brand and technology agnostic, giving choice and flexibility to the designer and end user, in function and finished look.
Contact our friendly team to find out more.