Recognising lifetime achievement

Stepping aside

Trevor Berrill is an engineer, academic, trainer and alternative technologist who foresaw the renewable energy revolution well before its time.

In the early 70s I worked as an assistant to the maintenance engineer in a coal fired power station – I saw and smelt the pollution and was not impressed. ”

WELL-KNOWN AND HIGHLY REGARDED sustainable energy systems consultant and educator Trevor Berrill recently announced he is stepping back a bit from his consultancy work.

The news follows a health scare that caused a rethink of his priorities. He’s a man who tends to get his timing right.

Well ahead of his time – we are talking the early ‘70s – Trevor entered his essay about a decentralised power system run on renewables in a prestigious competition but was pipped at the post by an essay on coal fired power.

However the die was cast and by 1978 the visionary was monitoring and solar flat plate collector testing and a few years later went on to conduct the first ever wind energy survey of southern Queensland.

Fast forward four decades and the award winning, private consultant has worked in renewable energy and energy efficiency, focusing on sustainable energy system design and installation, research and development, technical training, public education and policy.

He was branch president of the Australian Solar Energy Society (predecessor of the Smart Energy Council) and a founding member in Queensland of the Alternative Technology Association and Wind Energy Association.

Trevor authored the 2011 publication Solar Electricity Consumer Guide. As a project leader for the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Renewable Energy, he coordinated development of and co-authored distance learning materials and text books for national technical training in renewable energy, now being used in training institutes and universities across Australia.

His lifestyle reflects his work, living in a home fully solar powered with a grid connected, PV system, solar water heating, passive solar design and rain water system.

Smart Energy Council chief executive John Grimes commended Trevor for his devotion to the industry, saying forty years in this sector was pretty amazing.

“Stalwarts such as you have created the foundation for so much improvement in the world, and Australia in particular,” he wrote in an email to Trevor.

“I sense the tide is finally turning – something that would not have been possible without your effort.”

Trevor who is feeling better by the day may in future consider “one off” projects but in the short term is more likely be found catching the waves at the picturesque beaches south-east of Brisbane. Ever the engineer, wind surfing is, he says, “real testing of the cubic law for power in the wind”. How to get to the nearest beach? Driving his Mitsubishi iMeiv electric car charged from the sun, of course.

“I hope that my work over 40 years in policy, national training and public education, in system design and installation, energy auditing and feasibility studies, and R&D has contributed to a better world,” he says.

Heck, yes.