Technical Tour

Thursday 12th February 2026

Cost: $110 including GST

At 8:30am sharp, delegates will leave by coach from the Chancellery Building at Murdoch University and come back at 6:00pm.

We will head north towards a location with large-scale wind and solar farms. En route, delegates will hear a description of the renewable energy transition taking place within the South-West Interconnected System (SWIS) that supplies Perth and the south-west corner of Western Australia (WA). Handouts will be distributed detailing this transition.

After a brief stop for morning tea, we will proceed to one of WA’s large-scale single-axis tracking solar farms and then to another nearby similar solar farm where we will be met by local technical staff, who will discuss technical aspects of the farm, including a visit to the substation and control room that connects these facilities to the SWIS.

We will then visit the nearby wind farm and view a wind turbine up close, where we may be able to see inside the turbine entry door where the SCADA control screen is located. We will also visit the substation where the solar and wind farms are both connected to the SWIS and view the onsite control room.

We will then take a short drive for a late lunch at The Lobster Shack, famous for its seafood meals and lobster processing using renewable energy and battery storage.

We will then drive south to visit a grid-connected community battery storage system that services a local residential area. Following a technical description, we will have a short stop for refreshments and return to the university around 6.00pm.