Energy and water are essential to the ability of Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary to operate in our unique and challenging environment.

We are delighted to be the subject of a winning bid for $1.3m to design and build a renewable energy microgrid on site. The federal government grant for improving energy reliability in regional and remote communities will turn Arkaroola into a showcase for renewable energy technologies that suit remote harsh conditions. We will be trialing designs that can cope with the heat and dust, and will operate reliably using only local skills and remote support.

CORENA deserves an enormous shout out for getting this project funded. CORENA is a charity that lends to community organisations to help them reduce their climate impact. CORENA volunteers, especially Monica Oliphant and Heather Smith, have worked with us to understand our energy use and propose the renewable energy alternative to the federal government.

''CORENA’s persistence, efforts and expertise, working with us over a number of years led to this outstandingly professional bid. I am blown away by what they’ve achieved for us by laying the foundations and bringing in the partners to make this bid successful.”  - Doug Sprigg

Peter Moser at Ecotechsoft  did our initial energy audit and will be involved in designing the controls and the education interface for the new system. Apex Energy have come onboard as the lead contractor and will project manage the whole installation. Glaciem Cooling specialise in thermal storage. The main idea here is that we can use sunshine during the day to produce hot water, refrigeration and airconditioning, night and day. We are grateful to all of these partners and look forward to working alongside each of them.

The first step in the project is to define three new scenarios beyond the way we operate at the moment.

• Energy Sustainability: what is the best way to reach 100% renewable energy?
• Water Sustainability: what are the different ways we can use surplus renewable energy to maintain or improve our water supplies?
• Welcoming more visitors: With our dark skies reputation and the world heritage bid to recognise the geological record of the region, we will plan our microgrid to be designed with the ability to grow.

The project kicks off with feasibility and design work in November 2021. It will last 3 years but most of the equipment will be designed and installed in the first year.

We are excited for the year ahead and we will be publishing about all the technologies we investigate along the way - including but not limited to:

• Renewable energy generation
• Energy storage
• Water production
• Transport options

If you’d like to see the detail in our grant application please click here