Old factory to make power for new

A Goulburn Valley businessman is working on a novel energy project which will use food waste to generate power for a new dairy factory.

The site of the new power plant.

Ian Bertram has received a Victorian Government grant towards the project based at the former Heinz factory at Girgarre which was once a cheese factory.

Australian Consolidated Milk is planning to build a new dairy factory on a green-field site next to the old facility this year and may be the power generator’s best customer.

Read the Country News story - “Old factory to make power for new.”

‘Way off the planet': regional businesses use renewables to slash costs

In the heart of Queensland’s mining belt, a businessman who has grown his enterprise mostly off the back of the coal industry sees the energy sector going only one way.

Businessman Jason Sharam’s Linked Group has spent
$460,000 on a solar and battery installation. 

“I think renewable energy is where the market’s going – what we class as the energy revolution,” says Jason Sharam.

The self-described “dumb-arse electrician”, who will have grown his Mackay mining energy business from a starting staff of six to 150 by mid-2018, says he is trying to help people “see through the politics” on energy.

“We try to stick to the facts and the real numbers,” Sharam says.

In Mackay, as elsewhere in regional Australia, power prices are already eye-watering for small and medium businesses.

One of Sharam’s clients has gone off the grid to run a diesel generator, which is not cheap, but still cheaper than paying for network electricity at an average of 86 cents – and as much as $1.26 – a kilowatt-hour.

Read Joshua Robertson’s story on The Guardian - “‘Way off the planet': regional businesses use renewables to slash costs.

A local community watches on as the plug is about to be pulled on Hazelwood power station

Latrobe Valley businessman Ross Bertoli took a path well-trodden by local teens after he finished Year 11 at Yallourn Tech.

Ross Bertoli is a part-owner and general
manager of Hydro Australia which like
many Latrobe Valley businesses relies to a
  significant degree on the power industry
 for work.

In 1970, aged 16, he became an apprentice fitter and turner with the State Electricity Commission, one cog in an intake of a couple of hundred apprentices.

By joining "the biggest employer" in the Latrobe Valley he became a colleague of his father Arthur (an overseer), and brothers David (electrician), Bryan (fitter), and Peter (draftsman).

"Everyone in the family worked for the SEC," he says, while sitting in an office of his Morwell business, Hydro Australia, just a few kilometres from the Hazelwood coal mine and power station's main entrance.

Read Darren Gray’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “A local community watches on as the plug is about to be pulled on Hazelwood power station.”

Let the story say we did more than imagined - Bono

Bono - let the story tell how we did
more than anyone could have imagined.

Paul Hewson, known to most by his stage name Bono, is an Irish singer-songwriter, musician, venture capitalist, businessman, and philanthropist who is the lead vocalist of rock band U2. Bono writes almost all U2 lyrics, frequently using religious, social, and political themes.

During the bank’s early years, Bono’s lyrics contributed to their rebellious and spiritual tone, but as the band matured, his lyrics became inspired more by personal experiences shared with the other members.

And, he said:

“When the story of these times gets written, we want it to say that we did all we could, and it was more than anyone could have imagined.”