With this in mind, in 2014 when Doug Scouller called David with a big project proposition, David called Terry and Sue into his office to discuss our involvement in the project.
Doug had a dream to build a solar farm in Normanton, north Queensland, and had attracted funding from the federal government to start the project. Normanton is remote, and has very patchy electricity supply being at the end of a long transmission line from Townsville. Doug wanted to remedy this, but he wasn’t a multi-national corporation; he was just a bloke with a dream. Doug also only had half of the money needed to make his dream come true. But he had good connections in Ergon Energy, and his eye on the ideal piece of land owned by the council.
So we rolled up our sleeves and we negotiated with the council …. and we had disappointments. So we pushed on …. and we talked to Ergon …. and we followed through …. and we hit roadblocks …. and we persevered …. and we talked to investors ….. and we burned out two iPhones each through the many phone calls to Doug, the lawyer, the engineers, and the council. At times it was a done deal, and then we would hit another snag. Deadlines would loom, and we would panic we were going to miss them, and we’d pull out all the stops to be on time. Sometimes we got extensions; sometimes we didn’t.
But in December 2015 Terry and David went and joined Doug, his wife Lyn, and their business partners, in Normanton to celebrate buying the land, signing agreements with Ergon and Canadian Solar, and the realization that Normanton Solar Farm was going to be a reality.
No debits and credits were harmed in the management of this project. Yes, DLA may be an accounting firm, but as well as turn out tax returns we can turn out many other business benefits. This may have been Doug’s dream, but it was pulled together through many people working on the one goal, and this week we have been sent this photo to show how the project is progressing (and how ‘hands on’ Doug really is!!).