The rural fire brigade in the New South Wales town of Sussex Inlet has been gifted a rooftop solar and battery storage system, after fighting to protect the south coast township and surrounding areas during the recent Black Summer of bushfires.
The solar and battery system was organised and donated earlier this year through a group effort led by the founder of PV retailer Sure Solar, Daniel Lake, who grew up in Sussex Inlet and had volunteered with the Rural Fire Service.
Lake and his team designed a system using a React 2 inverter and battery (4kWh) donated by Fimer and 6.6kW of high-performance PV from Solarwatt, with the goal of making the Sussex Inlet fire station self-sufficient in times of blackout and power failure.
After various delays caused by Covid-19 and local flooding, the system’s installation and connection was completed in September by Sure Solar, and officially celebrated this week, just in time for the onset of another Australian summer.
Lake said the NSW south-coast town came under significant threat in the 2019-2020 bushfires, with locals and holidaymakers asked to relocate, main highways closed and many areas left for short periods without power.
The Sussex Inlet Rural Fire Brigade was heavily involved in the effort to control the fires, working around the clock to protect the town from the devastating fires, as well as across different jurisdictions to help surrounding townships with their own firefighting efforts.
“After seeing one of the worst fires in living memory ravage my home town, I wanted to do something that would directly help the Brigade. I am so proud to be in a position to give back to my home town in this way,” Lake said in a statement on Wednesday.
Lake said the system was designed with tier-one components including the Fimer inverter, battery, and Energy Viewer monitoring app, to underpin the system and manage it for maximum efficiency and ease of use.
For the solar component of the system, the high-performance PERC-solar cells on the Solarwatt Vision 60M PV panels are “embedded almost indestructibly” in the glass-glass composite to give them the best chance in any future fires or extreme weather events.
“The Rural Fire Service goes above and beyond for this country, and we were extremely proud to be able to support Sure Solar in giving the Sussex Inlet station a solar and energy storage system that would enable them to be self-sufficient in the case power is temporarily unavailable at their site,” said Fimer Australia country managing director Jason Venning.
Sascha Gotzsch, managing director at Solarwatt Australia said the effects of Australia’s Black Summer of bushfires were felt around the world.
“Even in Europe, the whole Solarwatt team were horrified by the devastation caused by the Australian bushfires and we are thrilled to help the firefighters in some small way,” Gotzsch said.
Sussex Inlet Brigade Captain Adam Harris said he and the team were extremely thankful to the three companies for the added security of the solar and battery system.
“This will greatly assist the Brigade when power is compromised and is a much needed and welcomed donation. We would like to thank the local and global community in supporting our team and our efforts,” he said.
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
