A Paget manufacturing company goes off-grid showing the clean energy switch is ‘viable and profitable’

A Paget business owner shows he can walk the talk with a totally self-powered operation manufacturing clean-energy products for small businesses to mining giants.

The Paget-based manufacturing company Linked Group has gone completely off-grid, generating all its own electricity while continuing to manufacture for the region’s mining industry.

A new video highlights the company’s new range of products manufactured to make the transition to clean energy “viable and profitable”.

Linked Group managing director Jason Sharam is walking the talk, with the company manufacturing products for small to large scale operations while being completely self-powered.

“It’s all about the early adopters, we’re trying to demonstrate the new norms for everybody in regards to energy and manufacturing,” Mr Sharam said.

Linked Group Services managing director Jason Sharam using a car charging station. Picture: Tony Martin

He said the company had saved more than $150,000 since making the full transition to solar power three years ago.

“We have energy to burn, more energy than we know what to do with,” Mr Sharam.

“I want people to understand that not only is sustainable energy possible for businesses, it's profitable.”

The business itself operates in manufacturing clean energy alternatives for residential housing all the way to large-scale mining operations.

One of its biggest projects to date has been creating the 1.45 megawatt solar carport in Townsville in March 2020.

“It’s the largest cyclone-rated carport in Australia, and it came out of our factory here in Mackay,” Mr Sharam.

But he said one of the most exciting innovations for the company has been the creation of the EC0G3N.

“It can be used anywhere a mobile diesel generator is used, for zero emissions,” he said.

While the EC0G3N is run primarily from solar energy, its hybrid system does offer a diesel backup for when there hasn’t been enough sunlight.

But Mr Sharam said the company was working on converting to hydrogen-based alternatives in the near future.

He said while there had been some positive progress towards sustainability in Queensland, the “whole mindset” regarding business and clean energy needed changing, particularly in large-scale operations.

“The mining sector and the clean energy sector need to work together, they cannot operate in the future without each other.”