Woolworths Fairy Meadow

Service Area: Galvanizing | Industry Type:

Project Overview

The Solar Canopy Shade Structure project involved the manufacturing of a prefabricated modular solar canopy for an established Woolworths car park at Fairy Meadow, NSW, to provide shade, EV charging, and on-site renewable energy generation. The structure required robust corrosion protection in a C4 coastal environment and to be installed within minimal disruption to trading. With some design reworkings and Furphy engineering due to size challenges, the 167kW canopy was installed in just five weeks across two stages. The result is a powerful and environmentally best practice structure with an estimated 36 years to first maintenance, exceeding expectations.

The Challenge

There were several challenges across this project that we were able to confidently overcome. The original fully welded design was too deep for the galvanizing bath, requiring double dipping that added cost and compromised the architectural finish. The structure needed to be redesigned into smaller bolted modular sections suitable for single dipping, with best-practice venting and C4 coastal environment compliance. The complete installation had a tight timeline of just five weeks, operating within an active car park, requiring a high level of project and traffic coordination across utility access ways.

Our Solution

Furphy’s Albury team worked with Canyon Solar to redesign the structure into smaller bolted modular sections suitable for single dipping and provided hot dip galvanizing that worked to best practice venting, dipping strategy, modularisation, and internal electrical cabling routes. The structure used galvanized steel with rectangular hollow sections (RHS) chosen for HDG’s exclusive ability to fully coat the internal surfaces that house the electrical cabling, and the external coating supported a C4 coastal environment, with a 10-year warranty and 30-year design life. We eliminated delays by delivering the modular structures on site ready for immediate assembly and staged the project to minimise disruption to the active car park.

Technical Specifications

Materials

Galvanized steel RHS

Coating

Hot dip galvanized

Special features

Modular bolted single-dip

The Outcome

This highly successful project delivered:

A 167 kW solar canopy covering 60 parking spaces with four EV charging plugs
An estimated 36-year design life to first maintenance (exceeding expectations)
A structure capable of generating ~221 MWh annually and offsetting approx. 155 tonnes of CO₂ per year
Minimal trade disruption in a live car park by strategically staging the schedule
A complete solution delivered in a tight five-week turnaround
A system – that when compared with a 2-coat epoxy/polyurethane system – demonstrates a superior lifecycle cost saving of 92%