The roofs are nearly done. The land is not. HDN reports 36% site coverage across 2,340,339 square metres, and the definition of lettable area excludes car parks. Large-format retail is the best physical fit for a solar canopy in Australian property: one level, no basement, no deck, sealed surface, and a lot that is often larger than the building on it.
What the canopy does for the asset
Capacity where the roof is exhausted
Sixteen feasible sites still have no solar, and the reason given is unsuitable infrastructure. A canopy does not depend on roof structure, roof age or roof plant. It is a new structure sized to the lot.
It feeds the embedded network you already run
Where HDN supplies electricity to tenants, generation on site is sold through a billing rail that already exists. That is the difference between an emissions line item and a revenue line.
Storage is phase 3, and this is what fills it
The Net Zero Roadmap puts onsite energy storage next, after efficiency and generation. Storage without generation is arbitrage. The canopy is what makes a battery on a daily-needs centre worth building.
Shade that lifts the centre
Covered parking is a visible customer amenity: protection from sun, heat and hail, a better arrival, and support for dwell time, foot traffic and tenant retention across a portfolio that takes around 115 million visits a year.
Built for HDN's own targets
HMC has committed to net zero Scope 1 and 2 across the real assets it manages and controls, and HDN is on track for roughly a 32% reduction against its FY22 baseline, or about 50% once the solar and embedded-network benefit is recognised. Solar is installed at over 70% of feasible sites, ahead of the FY25 target of 65%. That is a programme that has done what it set out to do and now needs a new surface.
HDN's own explanation for the remaining sites is unsuitable infrastructure or no operational control, and the HY26 definition of feasible added a commercial-viability test. A car park canopy answers both. It does not sit on the tenant's roof, it does not depend on the building's structure, and at the lot sizes in this portfolio the scale is what makes the economics work. With EV charging already at 27 assets and planning underway for a further 15, the load is arriving whether the generation does or not.
Drawn and priced on your own car parks
These are not desktop guesses. Each canopy below was drawn to scale on the site's actual car park and priced through our engine. Figures are preliminary, ex-GST, subject to site assessment. Across these 3: 5.0 MWp, about 6.6 GWh a year generated on site, for roughly $9.1M of base scope.
Tuggerah Super CentreTuggerah, NSW
Prelim PP-HCO-001
2.03 MWpSystem size
~2.84 GWh/yrGenerated on site
8,446 m²Canopy coverage
2,600Solar modules
$3.61MBase scope, ex-GST ($1.78/W)
$4.01MWith EV charging, ex-GST
The 972 kW rooftop system here was energised in September 2024. The canopy adds roughly twice that again on the same site.
CranbourneCranbourne, VIC
Prelim PP-HCO-002
1.85 MWpSystem size
~2.31 GWh/yrGenerated on site
7,686 m²Canopy coverage
2,356Solar modules
$3.31MBase scope, ex-GST ($1.79/W)
$3.70MWith EV charging, ex-GST
PeninsulaMornington, VIC
Prelim PP-HCO-003
1.15 MWpSystem size
~1.44 GWh/yrGenerated on site
4,792 m²Canopy coverage
1,740Solar modules
$2.16MBase scope, ex-GST ($1.88/W)
$2.40MWith EV charging, ex-GST
Base scope is the canopy structure, install, civil, lighting, safety and engineering. EV charging is shown as an option. Site transport, trenching and battery are not included and can be added.
Proven with the retailers in your centres
Canyon Solar factory-builds solar canopies that turn large car parks into onsite power generation and shade. We have delivered them for Woolworths, across six sites, and for IGA, AstraZeneca and CSIRO. The canopy below sits over a supermarket car park, the same daily-needs format that anchors much of HDN's portfolio.
IGA Baranduda, VIC. A Canyon Solar delivery.
The Grand Canyon
For the main lots, the standout design is the Grand Canyon: a continuous, full-coverage canopy with no gaps over the driving lanes. It gives the highest solar density in our range and a clean roofline that makes the car park look like a designed part of the centre, not an afterthought.
Grand Canyon, a continuous full-coverage canopy with integrated battery and EV charging.
The rest of the portfolio at a glance
Beyond the centres drawn above, we screened the wider portfolio for large, flat, at-grade lots and sized each from its published lettable area. Together the 41 centres represent roughly 43.4 MWp and $87-104M of indicative solar canopy, a programme that can be staged centre by centre.
| Site | Location | Anchors | System | Indicative |
|---|
| Cranbourne Drawn & priced | Cranbourne, VIC | Bunnings, JB Hi-Fi, Officeworks, Spotlight | 1.85 MWp | $3.31M |
| Tuggerah Super Centre Drawn & priced | Tuggerah, NSW | Officeworks, Anaconda, Baby Bunting, Nick Scali, Repco | 2.03 MWp | $3.61M |
| Peninsula Drawn & priced | Mornington, VIC | JB Hi-Fi + LFR majors | 1.15 MWp | $2.16M |
| Mile End Desktop | Mile End, SA | JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys, Anaconda | ~2.37 MWp | $4.4-5.3M |
| Kotara South Desktop | Kotara, NSW | LFR majors | ~2.03 MWp | $3.8-4.6M |
| Pakenham Desktop | Pakenham, VIC | Amart, The Good Guys, Snooze | ~2.02 MWp | $3.7-4.6M |
| Jindalee Desktop | Jindalee, QLD | LFR majors | ~1.84 MWp | $3.4-4.2M |
| Southlands Boulevarde Desktop | Willetton, WA | Supermarket-anchored | ~1.59 MWp | $2.9-3.6M |
| Victoria Point Desktop | Victoria Point, QLD | Supermarket-anchored | ~1.46 MWp | $3.0-3.6M |
| Glenmore Park Town Centre Desktop | Glenmore Park, NSW | Supermarket-anchored | ~1.38 MWp | $2.8-3.4M |
| Marsden Park (North) Desktop | Marsden Park, NSW | LFR majors | ~1.38 MWp | $2.8-3.4M |
| Butler Desktop | Butler, WA | Supermarket-anchored | ~1.22 MWp | $2.5-3.0M |
| Bankstown Home Desktop | Bankstown, NSW | LFR majors | ~1.22 MWp | $2.5-3.0M |
| Joondalup Desktop | Joondalup, WA | LFR majors | ~1.21 MWp | $2.4-3.0M |
| Menai Marketplace Desktop | Menai, NSW | Supermarket-anchored | ~1.19 MWp | $2.4-3.0M |
| Braybrook Desktop | Braybrook, VIC | LFR majors | ~1.07 MWp | $2.2-2.7M |
| Upper Coomera Desktop | Upper Coomera, QLD | Supermarket-anchored | ~983 kWp | $2.0-2.4M |
| Bunnings Seven Hills Desktop | Seven Hills, NSW | Bunnings Warehouse | ~939 kWp | $1.9-2.3M |
| Richlands Desktop | Richlands, QLD | LFR majors | ~893 kWp | $1.8-2.2M |
| Toowoomba South Desktop | Toowoomba, QLD | LFR majors | ~893 kWp | $1.8-2.2M |
The table shows the 20 largest of 41 screened sites. A further 21 are sized in the full screen and available on request.
Desktop figures are derived from site area or lettable area and are indicative only. Drawn-and-priced figures come from a scaled layout and our pricing engine. All subject to site assessment.
Any site, in minutes
The centres above took minutes each. We can do the same for any site in the portfolio, live: draw the canopy to scale on the car park, size it, and price it while you watch. We can also run the full economics on your own inputs, whatever tariff, self-consumption, finance structure or target return HDN wants to test, so the numbers reflect how you assess an investment rather than our assumptions.
How to proceed
Own it (CAPEX)
HDN holds the canopies and all the generation, on a 30-year design life, staged centre by centre across the portfolio.
Hardware as a service (OPEX)
$0 upfront. A service agreement arranged through an independent finance partner; HDN keeps the generation and pays from the savings and revenue.
Every canopy is engineered, factory-built and installed by the team that has delivered 16 projects across three states.
A short working session to confirm the priority centres, validate the layouts on the actual title boundaries, and firm the tariff, embedded-network and revenue assumptions with HDN's real figures. Where a centre is already in development, the canopy is cheaper designed in than retrofitted.