Mandora Station is a remote, family-run cattle station situated between Port Hedland and Broome in the West Kimberley region of Western Australia. The owners, Haydn Sale and family, take pride in their commitment to sustainable animal handling and land management practices. 

As well as being off-grid due to its remote location, Mandora is big. 94,000-hectares big. Yet while Mandora’s location and climate made it the perfect location for an investment in solar, until recently it was almost wholly reliant on diesel for power.

“Our cattle are our life and we love seeing them happy and contented,” Haydn explains, “but diesel was becoming increasingly expensive and not reliable enough to keep up with modern demands.”

“We’ve been burning 27,500L of diesel fuel every year, which, including generator servicing fees, was costing us over $35,000, even before factoring in maintenance personnel, parts and replacement costs.”

A solar and lithium standalone power system would give Mandora access to an infinitely cleaner, more reliable, better value energy source. It would enable the station to move away from diesel, which is costly, operationally challenging, and environmentally unsustainable.

The challenge, and ultimately the project’s tipping point, was to find a payment option that enabled the savings in diesel expenses to be used towards the cost of the system.