News

Nilsen come away with two awards from the NECA Queensland Excellence Awards

September 2019

On Friday September 6, Nilsen won two NECA Queensland Excellence Awards – Winner for Best Industrial Medium Project for the Ross River Solar Farm Project and a Certificate of Commendation for Voice/Data Communications & Audio Visual Project for the Thales Early Voice Communication System (EVCS) Project.

Category 4 - Industrial Medium: Ross River Solar Farm Project

Located in the dry topics of Queensland, the 200 hectare Ross River Solar Farm consists of nearly half a million solar panels that produce 300,000 MW per annum, which is enough energy to power 54,000 homes.

Nilsen’s primary scope of work included:

• 33kV AC Distribution across 32 x Inverter Stations (Nilsen also built the Inverter Stations under a separate 6 month contract with Schneider off-site)
• DC Sub Array, AC Supply and Communication Distribution (Underground Works)
• Installation of Met Station and CCTV Network
• HV Cable terminations
• Installation and Termination of Cables, IPC Connectors and Tracker Motors (Aboveground Works) including:
• 200 kilometers of cable
• 20 kilometers of cable ladder
• Over 4,600 rows of solar panels (32 blocks with 144 rows in each)
• 500,000 cable clips and one million cable ties used

Located just 40 minutes outside of the city, Ross River Solar Farm delivered more than just 148MW of clean solar energy to Townsville, it also generated significant work opportunities for locals. Nilsen also installed over 200 kilometres metres of cable to nearly half a million solar panels on the project. Most significantly, the Nilsen team designed, manufactured and utilised an aluminium IPC Connector Jig to ensure a prefect connection across some 4500 IPC Connectors. The overwhelming success of the ‘jig’ has lead its’ application on other installations, both within Australia and overseas.

What’s more, the success of the project has led to a positive ongoing relationship with the client, resulting in additional works at nearby Clare Solar Farm.

Matt Lewis, Nilsen (QLD) Project Manager accepting the Winners’ Award for the Ross River Solar Farm project.

“To win the 2019 Queensland Excellence Award is a great achievement for the Nilsen team, who achieved a very successful outcome in accordance with the rigorous construction schedule on the Ross River Project. By having a core team of staff who intimately understand solar projects we have positioned ourselves as a clear leader in the renewables sector. By the end of the 2019, Nilsen will have completed over 900MW in large scale solar projects, powering almost 350,000 Australian households annually.” – Trent McKenzie, General Manager, Nilsen (QLD) Pty Ltd

This is a truly fantastic achievement for Nilsen in Queensland, who also took home the same award for Best Industrial Medium Project for the Lakeland Solar & Storage Project last year.

Category 9 - Voice/Data Communications & Audio Visual: Thales Early Voice Communication System (EVCS) Project

The Early Voice Communication System (EVCS) project will provide initial Civil Military Air Traffic Management (CMATS) voice communication system capabilities into the current Airservices Australia TAAATS (The Advanced Australian Air Traffic System).

Primarily, Nilsen completed the EVCS equipment installation and cabling into Airservices Australia facilities in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. This included installation of EVCS equipment into the existing consoles and existing equipment rooms at Airservices Australia sites. Nilsen were required to provide all necessary materials to complete the installation including cables, cable management and connectors. All materials were approved by the client and conformed to the clients’ design specification.

The Thales Early Voice Communication System project was a large, complex and nationally significant project that required the highest levels of technical excellence. Due to the limited design and sensitive nature of the project, Thales and Nilsen formed a successful partnership approach on the project which also led ongoing work. With the OneSKY system managing all civilian and military air movements across 11% of the earth’s airspace; clear, open channels of communication and precise quality processes were vital in ensuring an extremely high level of workmanship across the entire project.

“To receive a Commendation at the 2019 NECA QLD Awards further highlights the significance of the ThalesEVCS project for Nilsen. It was a very important project, not only in terms of expanding our capabilities in the highly technical Communications field but also in developing our teams’ staging and planning techniques, which were crucial in the execution of this segmented multi-site installation across the country.”

– Trent McKenzie, General Manager, Nilsen (QLD) Pty Ltd.

Garth Elliott, Nilsen (QLD) Service Divisional Manager accepting the Commendation Award for the Thales EVCS project.

Nilsen were also recognised as a finalist in Category 6 - Commercial Small Project for the Garden City Library project.

Congratulations to the North Queensland team on the success of the Ross River Solar projects and being recognised at the Queensland State Awards. Congratulations also to the South Queensland Service team - and to our teams in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth - who also carried out works on the national Thales EVCS project.

We wish the Ross River team all the best for the National NECA Awards on the 21st of November in Brisbane!