Self-sufficiency powers dream for Meekatharra

Meekatharra’s Royal Mail Hotel is generating its own electricity and selling it into the grid. Together with the Made In Meeka art and souvenir shop, it is one of two businesses in Meekatharra with new solar rooftop arrays that also make it energy self-sufficient. Royal Mail Hotel owner Dr Gitte Heij, Made In Meeka proprietor Anna Johnson, and Midwest Solar Power entrepreneur Rob Hanson have formed Meekatharra Solar Consortium. Dr Heij said the first cheque would be framed and displayed at the pub as a symbol of what the group hoped to achieve in the near future. She said their plan was to have a community trading platform which would be a power company owned and run by local people for their mutual benefit.