“I see my energy bills here, over the last few years, have just constantly been going up. Wineries are fairly energy hungry, and we have a restaurant we use a lot of energy there as well. So anything I can do within my business to make it more energy efficient was the way to go I believe. We need to be looking at sustainable forms of energy and solar is one of the best ones we have.

“There are benefits – just by customers walking down our driveway and being able to see the solar panels on the roof. It’s a good thing.

“An environmental upgrade agreement is an agreement between Paringa Estate, our local council and a lender, which in this case is the Sustainable Melbourne Fund.

“The benefits from the upgrade, was just really saving on electricity. They designed the number of panels we needed to roughly halve our electricity bill.

“Would I use an environmental upgrade again, in the future? I definitely would. We are planning a new building here, in the not too distant future and I can see us going down that path again, and I’m telling all my friends in the wine business about this agreement and I’m sure there will be others to take it up in the near future.”

Lindsay McCall – Paringa Estate