Direct Factory Outlet centre at Moorabbin, Victoria was looking for a solution to cooling the inside environment for customer comfort. While the most recently constructed sections of the building contain air conditioning, the original 13,000 square metres laboured under a non-insulated roof, with a small number of evaporative cooling towers. This large area of the building was experiencing difficulties with over heating during the warmer months.
 
It was recognised by the centre’s consulting engineers that the majority of the heat was entering through the roof from the solar load. A normal galvanised metal roof will often attain temperatures approximately twice that of the ambient shade temperature – on a 30°C day, the roof can be as much as 60°C transforming it into a large overhead radiator.
 
As part of their pre-application research into SkyCool, the Queensland University of Technology was asked to model the effect of SkyCool on their building. The graph below was produced by the University takes into account Melbourne weather variations hour-by-hour throughout the year. It shows the effect of SkyCool on the temperature of the air immediately below the uninsulated roof. At the peak of summer, SkyCool has the ability of bringing an overall sub-roof temperature of 65°C down to about 25°C. The occupied level of the building would experience a resultant temperature move from the mid to high thirties to the mid twenties.