Weather powers digital services

Hobart Mercury
Friday 27/8/2010 Page: 11

Solar and wind power now helps Queenstown and Zeehan residents receive new services, such as digital television. Broadcast Australia, the company that owns and operates the transmission station near Queenstown, recently upgraded the site to be primarily powered by renewable energy. The Mt Owen site broadcasts a range of national and commercial analogue/digital radio and television services to the Queenstown and Zeehan region. The site also supports critical radio communications for emergency services.

Broadcast Australia Energy Systems engineer Gary Cafe, said the power demands of new services such as digital television were starting to exceed the capacity of the existing mains feed. The site's remote location and position made it an ideal candidate for renewable energy. "At 980 metres above sea level. Mt Owen benefits from a strong prevailing southwesterly wind, making it ideal for wind turbine power generation", Mr Cafe said.

The new wind and solar infrastructure includes a single wind turbine on a 15m mast and 36m² of solar panels. Together, the technologies are expected to meet the site's power needs for 80 to 90% of the time. The system is backed up by batteries, which store generated power and mains power during periods of limited on-site wind or solar generation.