Keeping cool in Kandiwal

Our projects can be lifechanging, no more so than in communities remote from the national grid where electricity may be unattainable to the people living in them. Even the smallest of projects can have the greatest of impacts.

Kandiwal, a small Community in the far north of western Australia, is one of many examples where a BayWa r.e. solar installation is generating power to support vital infrastructure.

In the depths of the Australian outback, Kandiwal is 3,500 kilometers northeast of Perth. The nearest town is some 400 km away.

It’s in this remote location where we designed and installed a solar system to power a small eco resort. With a large community nearby, the system is also generating electricity to power a cool room. A place where the whole community can store and buy food, saving them the 800 km round trip to the nearest town.

Our team installed a 40 kW system with combined battery storage, which provides enough power to supply the resort, cool room and plans for a future school.

Kandiwal’s secluded location meant the logistic implications were immense. While the site only took 14 days to install, to reach the site the team had to travel some 460 km on rutted, and sometimes inaccessible, dirt roads. Poor road conditions restricted travel to a maximum of 20 km per hour, and conditions were so rough that the last 300 km of the journey took the team over 14 hrs.

Thanks to plenty of hours of Australian sunshine, the system is performing well, providing green power for everyday necessities, that would otherwise have been unattainable.

It’s also unlocked the potential of a new school for the community and all the benefits this will bring for the education of local children.

For the BayWa r.e. team, Kandiwal was ultimately about helping people. Together the team used their renewable energy knowledge and know-how to improve the quality of life of this small and otherwise, cut-off community. All the labour time to install the project was donated by the team for free.