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Redflow CEO Tim HarrisAustralian energy storage company Redflow Limited (ASX: RFX) has signed an agreement to supply 32 zinc-bromine flow batteries for two new state-of-the-art children’s centres in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.

The Knox Children and Family Centres at Wantirna South (due to open in January 2019) and Bayswater (due to open in March 2019) will each include 100 kilowatts of photovoltaic solar panels and 16 Redflow ZBM2 batteries, storing as much as 160 kilowatt-hours of energy.  Renewable energy with Redflow storage is expected to generate annual energy cost savings of $140,000 for each site.

The advantages of Redflow’s zinc-bromine flow batteries include:

  • The ability to discharge 100 per cent of their stored energy daily without damaging the battery
  • Sustained energy storage capacity for 10 years
  • Tolerance of warm temperatures, and
  • Inherent safety with a non-flammable electrolyte.

Redflow partner Torus Group, which is installing both solar panels and batteries, will install the first ZBM2 zinc-bromine flow batteries next week.

Vectra Corporation Chief Security Officer Kelvin Heath Vectra Corporation Chief Security Officer Kelvin HeathSpecialist cyber security company Vectra Corporation has made IBM’s industry-leading QRadar Security Intelligence system affordable for small to medium enterprises by delivering it as a managed service.

IBM QRadar is a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system that provides intelligent insights which enable security teams to detect threats accurately across the enterprise and respond quickly to reduce the impact of incidents.

Vectra, which has provided cyber security consulting services, managed security services and security solutions throughout Asia Pacific since 2001, has worked closely with IBM this year to make QRadar accessible to companies and organisations lacking the internal resources to deploy and manage it.

Vectra’s Active Defence delivers IBM QRadar as a managed service to solve the dual problem of the high cost of implementing an enterprise system and the scarcity and expense of security experts. Active Defence replaces the upfront capital cost and complexity of configuring and managing IBM QRadar by offering it as a service for a monthly fee that delivers the benefits without the overheads.

Vectra provides Active Defence to numerous organisations throughout Australia, ranging from financial sector organisations to charities.

Vectra Corporation Chief Security Officer Kelvin Heath said Vectra’s Active Defence service put IBM QRadar within the reach of most organisations. “IBM QRadar is the worldwide-leading SIEM solution that monitors critical security activities across all environments regardless of their location, whether it be cloud, hosted or on premise,” he said.

Redflow CEO Tim HarrisRedflow CEO Tim HarrisAustralian energy storage company Redflow Limited has received an order to supply five zinc-bromine flow batteries for a pilot project to provide standby energy storage for mobile phone towers in South Africa.

This order will see Redflow provide the project with batteries for five identified sites with the first batteries to be deployed in November. The project will see Redflow’s zinc-bromine flow batteries provide energy storage for the mobile phone towers, operated by one of South Africa’s leading telcos. The towers will be owned by a local company, supported by the South African Government’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) affirmative action agenda.

The sale was made through Redflow’s long-term South African partner, Specialized Solar Systems (SSS), which has formed a joint venture company with specialist telco supplier Amber Energy. Called SSS Gauteng, the new company will deliver the energy storage and telecommunications skills to deploy the batteries on remote mobile phone towers.

Redflow has worked with SSS to enable its batteries to operate in Standby Power System (SPS) mode. In this newly created operating mode, Redflow batteries can be charged and then placed in a dormant state, with no self-discharge, until a power outage. When energy is required, the battery can boot up to full operational status in a similar timeframe to a standby generator – with no internal combustion engine and no fuel storage required on the site.

Redflow Managing Director and CEO Tim Harris said this sale created a significant opportunity for the company. “The Standby Power System, which Redflow has developed with our partners, will help open the door for access to other cellphone network operators in Africa and internationally,” he said.

Professor Marion MaddoxThe steady erosion of free, compulsory and secular education in Australia risks more than a century of gains in national integration warns a prominent researcher of religion and politics in this country.

The Federal Government’s recently-announced $4.6 billion funding package for Catholic and Independent schools will worsen “one of the most religiously and economically segregated systems in the western world,” Professor Marion Maddox of Macquarie University will say in a public lecture in Adelaide on Friday this week.

“When colonial governments began spending on education, they conceived a nation-building role for schools. They were a place for kids to learn to live together as one people. We really have lost that idea of education helping a whole community to grow up together.”

Professor Maddox, from the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University, will examine the achievements of Australia’s free, compulsory and secular education system in the 2018 Catherine Helen Spence Oration in Adelaide on Friday, October 26. “For reasons that have little to do with religious commitment, and more with politics, we have forgotten the secular values that motivated our system’s founders,” she proposes.