Sunshine Energy’s controversial Brisbane Valley solar farm feels heat as creditor seeks wind up

It’s opposed by locals concerned about its impact on the rural environment, and now a $3.5 billion solar farm near Kilcoy is facing wind up action in the Supreme Court.

$3.5B PROJECT SUNBURNED

A PLANNED $3.5 billion solar farm in the picturesque Brisbane Valley is looking increasingly shaky with the company proposing the project facing a wind up action by a creditor.

Sydney-based town planning firm Ethos Urban has filed a suit in the NSW Supreme Court to wind up Sunshine Energy Australia, which is planning to build the farm on a 2055 hectare property along the D’Aguilar Highway near Kilcoy.

Ethos Urban had helped Sunshine Energy prepare its planning application to the Somerset Regional Council and also conducted community consultation with surrounding land owners.

The consultation did not go so well as the project has attracted the ire of local residents concerned their rural tranquility will be threatened by the solar farm.

There have been other controversies surrounding the project. In July, City Beat reported that the Hong Kong-based investors in the farm were belting it out in the Federal Court over an alleged wrongful transfer of shares to the director of the project.

In that case Chen Lu, one of the shareholders in a company called Eastern Union that ultimately owns the project, sued Sunshine Energy director Li Chi Man for alleged breach of his duties as a director. Last month, Federal Court judge Angus Steward ordered that Li transfer all the shares held by him in Sunshine Energy back to Eastern Union.

Neither Li or Ethos Urban were available to comment on the winding up application, which will be heard on November 11.

BRIGHT SPARKS

A Queensland-designed product will be deployed in California to help reduce the risk of power lines causing wildfires, such as those currently sweeping across the US state causing widespread devastation.

Siemen’s Yatala factory has received a big order from a Californian power company for its Fusesaver product, which reduces electricity outages and sparks from faulty power lines. Described as the world’s fastest medium voltage circuit breaker, the Fusesaver can react in 10 milliseconds to prevent sparks from power lines, which have been blamed for many of the fires breaking out across California.

A worker at Siemens Fusesaver factory at Yatala

Siemens declined to say which Californian utility is buying the Fusesaver, but media reports quote the Pacific Gas & Electric Co as saying power lines may have started two wildfires over the weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Siemens opened the Yatala factory a year ago to make the Fusesaver, which was developed by a Queensland team led by engineer Brett Watson back in 2005.

Watson’s firm was sold to the German engineering giant in 2012, with Watson staying on as general manager. Watson tells your diarist that production of the Fusesaver had soared by 50 per cent in the last 12 months with the product now being exported to 35 countries including the Ukraine, Egypt and Oman. The company employed 30 staff with more set to be added by the end of the year.

SHIP AHOY

MORE on our pirate-loving friends at Brisbane fund management firm John Bridgeman.  On Monday, City Beat reported that liquidators had been appointed to a related operation JB Financial Group, in which John Bridgeman has a direct and indirect interest.

Former Bond University academic Stuart McAuliffe.

The following day, John Bridgeman put out an update on the National Stock Exchange website stating that “JB Financial wishes to clarify that no receivers and managers have been appointed to any of the subsidiary companies of JB Financial and that it is working to resolve all issues as soon as possible.”  John Bridgeman is named after a 17th century English pirate and founded by former Bond University academic Stuart McAuliffe.

AUTO SALE

BRISBANE businessman Jarrod Sierocki, who famously sued Google for defamation, is selling two online auto industry platforms he founded back in 2012.

Dealer Trade, which describes itself as an online wholesale vehicle auction platform, and CarRecord, which collaborates vehicle history and data, are on the block with the sale process being managed by KPMG Sydney. Sierocki says the time was right to seek a suitable buyer for the businesses which would “be able to achieve significant market penetration on a global scale.”

Brisbane businessman Jarrod Sierocki.