Making our Evacuation Centres Safer

Storing solar power in batteries in case of disaster

Since the 2019 bushfires Zero Emissions Noosa and The University of Southern Queensland have come to together to deliver a research project which studies our communities resilience to the bushfires and evacuation centre process. Noosa Council has already installed solar panels on both facilities in their drive to meet zero emissions by 2026. This project has seen the installation of a series of batteries at each facility and a research and education program delivered by the Noosa EEHub.

As The J and The Leisure Centre where utilised as evacuation centres in past disasters and will be used again for this purpose if needed, the installation of community batteries means there is always an emergency supply to power essential items if needed. The batteries allow facilities like The J to also continue to utilise solar power into the evening, saving money and emissions.

The Noosa EEHub has created a teaching resource around this battery data for use in the maths and science curriculum. Access the full resource for FREE. To find out more about this program and to access ore real time data sets please contact us.

This project was made possible thanks to funding via The University of Southern QLD in partnership with Zero Emissions Noosa and Noosa Council.