Marion Catholic College in Griffith has grown quite quickly over the past decade and opened a new Home Economics building in 2010, one of several new buildings to cater for the larger student body. The school administration soon discovered they were using a lot of hot water. And it was impacting on the annual operating budget.

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They decided to take advantage of the National Solar School Program and called on Solar Mad to implement an 18 kilowatt system to supplement the general electricity supply to the school.

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A few years later Solar Mad also supplied and installed a 4 tank, 1200 litre gas boosted Apricus solar hot water system to cover the ever increasing demands of a busy Home Economics block as the existing hot water system was not delivering enough volume, pressure or heat. The Apricus commercial size system was not part of the National Solar School Program solar schools grant. It was funded with money raised by the school.

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Business Manager, Joanne Smith explains the school had to meet very strict criteria and a set budget in order to qualify for the funding.

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“Solar Mad were great to work with because they understood the parameters that had been set. They were extremely transparent with all costs and professional charges,” she said.

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“One of the conditions around after sales service and access was that the school’s Science Faculty had to be able  to log-in to the monitoring system so students could learn about electricity consumption and Solar Mad helped us configure the system to enable this.”

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“I was very impressed with the way they managed the project from the initial call through to the installation and ongoing follow up which continues to this day.”