How Mackay Linked Group is creating new jobs, renewable products

A Paget mining business will create 100 new jobs as it looks towards upskilling workers and exporting more renewable products across Australia.

A hundred new jobs will be created at Mackay’s Linked Group Services as the off-the-grid manufacturing company sets its sights on upskilling workers and exporting more renewable products across Australia.

Managing Director Jason Sharam said the Labor government’s new Powering Australia plan would provide opportunities for mining and renewable industries to work together.

“We manufacture a solar carport solution. It’s one of the very first of its type in Australia,” Mr Sharam said.

“We create a waterproof roof by using standard solar modules with our own extrusion and we manufacture the steel structure here in Mackay. That’s all manufactured off the grid.”

A recent a 1.4 megawatt carport, the largest solar, cyclone-rated carport in Australia, had been delivered to Townsville’s Willows Shopping Centre.

“We’ve already delivered solar carports all throughout the nation,” Mr Sharam said.

“We generate our own energy and use our energy to manufacture those products.”

Linked Group Services CEO and co-owner Peter Shaw, Federal Labor’s Queensland resources spokesman Murray Watts and Linked Group Services Managing Director and co-owner Jason Sharam. Picture: Steph Allen.

Linked Group also works with mines to provide renewable products including mobile power solutions.

“We have a mobile power skid called the EC0G3N,” Mr Sharam said.

“It incorporates solar panels, batteries and investors all in one skid that you can deliver to site and replace a diesel generator with … (and) reduce that power emission.”

The choice to go green was a “no-brainer” for Mr Sharam, who said the power system provided an investment return of just more than six-and-a-half years – creating free electricity into the future.

After seeing the benefits of renewable energy, the business is upskilling its employers.

“We’re looking into incorporating micro-credentials in our training … (transitioning) them from existing trades into the newer trades of the future,” Mr Sharam said.

“If we continue to grow and upskill … we are looking at going from 50 to 150 (employees), which is money kept here in our region.”

Federal Labor’s Queensland resources spokesman Murray Watts said Labor’s new Powering Australia plan would deliver more jobs, cheaper power and lower emissions, while still supporting existing mines and mining jobs.

He said the plan was expected to cut power by $275 a year for homes by 2025, and reduce power bills for industry by 18 per cent by 2025 and 26 per cent by 2030.

Senator Watts said the plan would also aim to reduce Australia’s emissions by 43 per cent by 2030.

He said modelling showed the plan would create 604,000 jobs by 2030, with five out of six in regions like Mackay.

One of the plan’s major policies is Rewiring The Nation – upgrading the electricity transmission grid to cope with an increased renewable energy load.

“This is the beginning of a new manufacturing boom,” Mr Watts said.

“Most of the coal mined in Queensland is sent offshore to make steel.

“The emissions generated from (exports) count towards the importing countries’ emissions rather than Australia’s.

“We’ll keep using (coal mines) for as long as they’re needed and for as long as they’re alive, we’ll keep exporting that coal and gas for as long as people want it.

“But what we’re going to do in Australia is rely more and more on renewable power.”