The Town Meatery

In a busy shopping precinct in Coburg in Melbourne’s inner north, the family-owned The Town Meatery has stood for over 35 years. Owned by Jihad Semaan, it is a small business trusted by locals.

Butcher shops can be challenging when it comes to solar. Generally, they have high electricity consumption, with consistent usage due to refrigeration resulting in big bills. However, they often have shops with limited roof space, limiting what can be installed.

This was the case for The Town Meatery, but Solar Panel Options was able to devise a solution to maximise solar panel placement by using both the east and west pitches. We managed to fit 40 panels on Jihad’s roof, delivering a total average output of over 40 kWh per day and providing over 70% of the shop’s total energy needs. This has resulted in approximately $20,000 in savings over the past five years, ensuring The Town Meatery is a more self-sufficient business moving forward.

Jihad always has a smile on his face when speaking about solar. As he says, "we use a lot of power on refrigeration because we run our coolroom 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When Daniel came to us with the proposal to install solar on the shop, we found it to be a very easy decision because we were able to get the solar system installed without having to pay anything upfront and then pay the system off in monthly installments from the extra money we were saving on our electricity. The process was simple and the installation was done very professionally. We have just opened a new shop at the Coburg market and plan to add solar panels there in the next month."