Kathmandu is a clothing and equipment retailer for travel and adventure, with 163 stores across New Zealand and Australia. In May 2020 Enervest completed the design and installation of solar PV with a battery energy storage system for their Blackburn store, in Victoria. The system will eliminate 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions overall. The store will have uninterrupted power during grid outages and its energy consumption from the grid will be minimal. A live-feed of the store’s solar activities will be displayed on a monitor inside the store, allowing customers to view power generation versus usage.

“The Blackburn store was a good solar project because it is a stand-alone store. Because many stores are located in large shopping centres, it won’t be possible for solar power to be rolled out across the entire store network, but we intend to assess which of our stores can be adapted for solar power in the future to help reach our net zero carbon target by 2025.”

Dean Smith, Kathmandu Project Manager