Australian anode manufacturing foundry sets up solar power unit; saves 25% power

Cathodic Anodes Australasia, a manufacturing company at Kunda Park has recently installed a 320-panel solar power plant saving the business 25% on energy bills, says general manager Ross Gorfine.

The company manufactures products made up of aluminium and zinc for rust and corrosion protection which requires melting of the metals – an energy intensive task. Ever since the company installed the solar power system six months ago, they have seen a significant savings on their energy bills.

Sunshine Coast being true to its name gets an average of seven hours of sunshine a day making it an ideal location for the set up of the system.

Gorfine says that they had been looking for a greener route for quite some time that would reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and decrease their carbon footprint. He also says that they saw the economic benefits of using solar power quite quickly that mitigated the cost of the project. "The technology is quite amazing. It links straight into an online energy efficiency monitoring system where energy inputs and outputs are tracked in real time," he said.

"As far as we know, we are the only anode manufacturing foundry in the southern hemisphere utilising clean solar energy. A large proportion of our anodes will be manufactured using the power of the sun," said Gorfine.