WHEN Ergon Energy picked up the Clean Energy Council’s coveted Innovation Award for Doomadgee’s solar plant last Tuesday, one of Mount Isa’s own solar companies shared in the euphoria.
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Q Energy Solutions, with solar panel supplier RF Industries, was contracted by Ergon Energy to design and construct the award-winning solar project.
Business owners Matt and Kate Brewster said even though it wasn’t their name on the Innovation Award, being a part of a nationally recognised energy project was a big deal for them.
“To be recognised on a national level through a national body is huge for a little outback town,” Mrs Brewster said.
“We’re competing for the Innovation Award against all those other big players in Sydney and Melbourne and all over Australia and those big businesses that have a lot more infrastructure and manpower behind them as well.
“It’s good to see a local business playing a significant part in a large achievement for the Australian energy industry.”
It took five months of work for the company’s construction crew to develop the solar farm between wet seasons in the remote outback community.
Mr Brewster said the solar plant was one of the first in the country to integrate successfully with existing diesel generation.
The project is expected to save Ergon Energy 115,000 litres of diesel a year.
“ ... strategically for them to introduce such technology and to see it perform and have it work in a way they anticipated is a big thing,” Mr Brewster said.
Acting Clean Energy Council chief executive Kane Thornton congratulated Ergon Energy and its project partners for the project and said it would help others replicate the model at other locations in the future.
