In 2000, Australia will host the summer Olympics; the 15 000 athletes and officials attending Sydney's Green games will be housed in the world's largest urban solar development to date. After the games, the 'Solar Village' will become a model green suburb for 5 000 permanent residents.

A key component of the Solar Village, a joint initiative of the Mirvac Lend Lease Village Consortium, Pacific Power and the Sustainable Energy Development Authority, is the incorporation of grid-connected rooftop PV systems into all of the permanent homes.

The 65 permanent houses in the recently established Sydney suburb of Newington, adjacent to the Olympic site at Homebush, will incorporate natural ventilation and other passive design techniques, which together with energy efficiency appliances and solar water heating systems backed-up with natural gas boilers will reduced the electrical demand to 1 600 kWh per annum. The 1 kWp PV systems are expected to yield sufficient electricity each year to offset this demand, based on average design insolation of 16,7 MJ/m2 per day. A grid-connection is essential to balance users' demand patterns to solar power availability, so all systems will incorporate inverters as well as individual metering facilities.

Following international competitive tender, BP Solar (Australia) was awarded the contract to supply the first 500 systems. Architectural integration was a major consideration in the design, so BPSA will supply entire package of roof integration materials, laminates, inverter, transient protection and cabling and will also install and commission the systems. Another key feature of the overall system design is that the inverters are connected to a central PC providing plant monitoring, data acquisition, and remote diagnosis to the relevant authorities.

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