PA/51/11 21 December 2011
Bushlight India Wins Australia’s Top Engineering Project Award
Using technology first developed for the Australian outback, the Bushlight India project in West Bengal and Odisha has been recognised by Engineers Australia as Australia's most outstanding engineering project of 2011.
On 23 November 2011, the Bushlight India Project was selected from 50 national finalists to win the Sir William Hudson Award for engineering excellence. The judges were particularly impressed by the way in which the project developed robust and practical systems for providing improved living conditions for potentially hundreds of thousands of people.
The Australian Deputy High Commissioner, Dr Lachlan Strahan, said “the project is an excellent example of both Australian innovation, and Australia-India sustainable energy collaboration. The project has been successful in building strong community partnerships across a culturally sensitive environment.”
Bushlight India developed a replicable, scalable model for powering remote villages in Odisha and West Bengal using renewable energy minigrids. It used A$2 million in funding from the Australian Government as part of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. It was implemented by Australian company, CAT Projects.
The project model is unique for its service philosophy of providing an agreed, assured amount of energy - available 24/7 - to all consumers. This is achieved through a consultative energy planning process and a low cost household energy meter.
The technology and approach were adapted for an Indian context after being initially developed to assist remote Aboriginal communities across northern and central Australia. The project has the potential to impact over 150,000 remote villages in India, and potential for export throughout the developing world.
The Sir William Hudson Award was presented by Brett Jones, Executive Officer Production, Snowy Hydro Limited, to Michael Tuckwell, Senior Project Manager of CAT Projects, Paul Rodden, Senior Project Engineer of CAT Projects and Lyndon Frearson, General Manager of CAT Projects.
More information is available at:
www.catprojects.com.au and www.asiapacificpartnership.org. Lyndon Frearson, General Manager, Centre for Appropriate Technology (CAT) Projects, can be contacted by email: [email protected] or on: (+618) 8959 6242 / (+614)38 839 920.