Townsville

May 11, 2009
Townsville
After a few days of R and R in Port Douglas, today Amy and I arrived in Townsville. Townsville is about a 45 minute flight south of Cairns in North Queensland. I met today with Ian Cruickshank who is the Manager of the Solar City on Magnetic Island for Ergon Energy. We met for about an hour where he took me through the Solar City project. Interestingly, Ergon Energy has, in conjunction with energy assessments, installed many solar cells on tops of roofs on Magnetic Island that do not feed electricity into the individual houses. Instead, the energy is generated directly into the grid. In fact, the customer gets no benefit from the solar panels on the roof (no benefit from the Queensland Feed in tariff) except for the feeling that they are doing something for the environment. The Solar City uses smart meters, In-home displays as well as a educational center to reduce the amount of load that is necessary to power Magnetic Island. Ergon is an energy distributor. They pay for and maintain all of the solar panels for one simple reason. It is more economical to maintain the solar and reduce the amount of generation than is needed than it is to add another cable from the mainland to provide electricity.
Amy and I are going to see the actual operations on Magnetic Island with Ian tomorrow.