Crocodile Dundee hotel goes solar

Walkabout Creek Hotel, made famous in the 1986 movie Crocodile Dundee, has gone solar with 24 solar panels on its beer garden roof producing enough energy for its needs and some for the grid.

The move came as a result of an imaginative scheme by the McKinlay Shire to help local businesses reduce their power bills during the disastrous drought by funding the cost of installing solar power and then repaying the council through a special levy on their rates over a number of years.

The scheme has been the brainchild of Mayor Belinda Murphy, who says that local businesses had identified freight and power as the costs with the greatest impact so council developed a business case to subsidise the installation of solar panels for those businesses that wanted to be involved.

“We also went solar for council buildings and have a projected power cost saving of $60,000 per year on an annual energy bill of $340,000, so that saving of nearly 20% can go into other council services or into reserve,” she said.

Originally licensed as the Federal Hotel in 1901, the Walkabout Creek name came from the film’s scriptwriters and as it resulted in worldwide fame, not surprisingly the name was retained and the hotel today is the major tourist attraction in the area.

Hotel proprietor Frank Wust said that as the temperature in McKinlay reaches 46°C in summer, it is an ideal area to utilise solar energy instead of fossil-fuelled generators.

“All our 18 rooms must be air conditioned and to provide our meal service we need a large cold room and walk-in freezer. This all adds up to a $1200 a month power bill,” Wust said.

The solar installation at the Walkabout Creek Hotel comprises 24 Trina Solar 260 W panels with a Fronius IG Plus inverter installed on the hotel beer garden roof, producing an estimated annual yield of 11,250 kWh. This is calculated to save the business $3168 per year on last year’s energy prices as annual consumption is put at 18,248 kWh. This could be more, but the maximum export allowed by Ergon Energy is 5 kVa.