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Business View Australia - November-December 2015
includes 144 kWp of solar PV and
has successfully supplied power to an
accommodation village for one of our
large construction projects in regional
Queensland. The system was delivered,
unpacked and fully functional in one
week.
“That is just an example of something
which we have developed in-house,
manufactured and delivered for our
own jobs. We are now in the process of
taking it to external markets.”
The project was recently named winner
of the 2015 Green Globe Awards for
Environmental Innovation, an award
recognising excellence in leadership
and innovation, and named as a finalist
for Sustainability in the International
IET Innovation Awards.
The Australian Renewable Energy
Agency (ARENA) provided $450,000
towards funding the $1.4 million
pilot-scale project. ARENA’s CEO,
Ivor Frischknecht said, “A semi-
portable hybrid system like this
carries enormous potential – it may
provide industries and communities
in regional and remote locations with
a viable renewable energy alternative
and could equally be used to assist in
international relief efforts”.
Bringing innovation to the
construction sector
WillRayward-Smithsays, “Construction
has not been seen as an innovative
sector but we are investing very heavily
in research and development so that we
can bring on board new technologies
within the construction industry. We
were awarded as the eighth most
innovative company across all sectors
in Australia in 2014 and again this year
by Business Review Weekly.”
Laing O’Rourke has developed
a concrete moulding technology
that uses 3D printing to achieve an
environmentallyfriendlyandeconomical
solution to the high-cost techniques
currently prevalent. At present, most
concrete moulding is done using
materials such as timber, polystyrene,
fibreglass and rubber mats. These
are expensive materials and have the
added disadvantage of resulting in high
labour costs.
As thesematerials require largeoutlays
of funds, it is essential to re-use them if
they are to be economically viable. This
results in repetitive concrete facades
which take away from the aesthetics
of the structure. To overcome this,
Laing O’Rourke developed FreeFAB,
a construction-scale 3D printing
technology, which has resulted in the