Hillcrest – Solar Power for a Picturesque Suburbia

Hillcrest is a locality within the local government area of Logan City in southeast Queensland. This study assesses the potential for solar power in the area.

• Location – Heritage Park lies about 5 miles southwest of Logan City and 15 miles south of Brisbane. It is bordered by the suburbs of Browns Plains, Regents Park, Boronia Heights, Forestdale, Larapinta and Parkinson. Its northeastern boundary runs along the Mount Lindsey Road and the northern boundary along Johnson Road for its entirety.

  This area was earlier a part of the locality of Browns Plains but was reclassified as a locality of its own in 1987.

• Real Estate – As mentioned earlier this area was released from Browns Plains for development and has been a real estate hotspot since then. Hillcrest is a medium to heavy density residential suburb where solar power can play an important part. Median prices for property tend to be around 320,000 Australian dollars.

  Hillcrest has a population of about 4000 individuals according to the last census and has a lower median age at 31 years compared many other areas surrounding it. This is due to the fact that most young families move here to live a good suburban life close to urban facilities.

  This locality offers typical suburban housing as well as premium suburban housing in certain areas where the prices can sometimes reach upwards of a million dollars depending on what is being offered.

  There are also substantial Industrial developments in the northwest and west of the locality. There are many plots of land which have been put up for sale to industrial sites. As the connectivity to Logan city and Brisbane is good businesses are interested to take up land here, especially along the northwest of Hillcrest where Johnson Road and Mount Lindsey highway meet.

• Solar Power Potential – because of the above mentioned reasons solar power has a lot of potential in Hillcrest, mostly in the individual home space but there is also god potential for solar power in business areas as well.

  Newer developments and older homes being redeveloped should have the option of integrated solar power as an incentive to reduce power consumption from the grid and cutting down power bills.

  Although the development of solar arrays would be difficult in this area, some industrial land can be amalgamated to put up medium sized solar parks for supplementing all power requirement of the area.

  Businesses should be given subsidized solar power as an incentive to put them up. If they are not heavy industries then the push should be to put maximum solar power generation. Where this isn’t possible they should be encouraged to at least run the non-production and non-essential services on solar power.

Another area of solar power development in Hillcrest would be in community spaces and public infrastructure. This would help in cutting down power from the peripheral infrastructure for this suburb, which can add up to a lot collectively.

As this suburb grows it is bound to put more strain on the power grid. It is important to make Solar power in Hillcrest grow before and along with the development as it happens.