Company
Alinga Energy Consulting Pty Ltd was established in 2018. Our small, Queensland based team of engineers provide services to clients and communities across Australia and in PNG.
Currently an estimated 1.1 billion people in the world are without access to electricity and even more than that live with unreliable, barely affordable power. We work towards bringing power to the people who still need it, to improve their healthcare access, education opportunities and livelihoods and to decrease the current reliance on fossil fuels for generating power in remote areas. Such generation methods contribute substantially to green house gas emissions and local air pollution, as well creating constant noise often in close proximity to houses .
Our mission is to provide affordable services and deliver inspired, optimized solutions which address human needs while also protecting our natural environment and striving towards equity. The clean energy transition has the opportunity to halt climate change, deliver power to those who don't benefit from centralised services and provide economic opportunities. It's an opportunity to re-imagine energy delivery and achieve a more just and equitable energy landscape.
The name Alinga represents the Sun Goddess. The sun is the origin of all energy on earth. The sun is the source of the photons that we directly harness and convert to solar electricity. It's heat is the cause of the pressure differentials which cause the wind that turn our turbines. The wind creates the waves and we capture the kinetic energy using wave energy conversion technologies. The sun grows the very energy we need for our own bodies and the decay of all things brought to life by the sun eventually leads to the concentrated energy we extract from the ground as oil.
This company honours the sun and supports the harnessing of energy in ways that serve people while conserving and protecting this planet.
Values
Founder
Ruby Heard
Electrical Engineer and Energy Consultant
Ruby grew up in the area of Hanging Rock, 1 hour outside of Melbourne, Australia. Her family is a mix of 6th generation Australians and the Jaru & Gija peoples, Indigenous Australians of the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Ruby completed a bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Victoria University in 2010. After graduating she took a position as graduate electrical engineer at Arup, a global multidisciplinary engineering firm. She worked in the Melbourne office for 4 years predominantly working as a building services engineer and lighting designer with some environmentally sustainable design (ESD) and precinct scale energy experience. In 2015 she transferred to Arup’s San Francisco office to focus on renewable energy, microgrids and private medium voltage distribution. She worked on projects for some of the largest technology companies in Silicon Valley including Google and Apple and for universities including Stanford and Berkeley.
Ruby found the most rewarding projects to be those that made the biggest difference to the ultimate beneficiary. In particular she values a project in which she helped a local charity expand their electrical service and upgrade their distribution system so that they could install heating and cooling in their office building. Wanting to make this kind of work her core focus, she left Arup in early 2018 to volunteer with Engineers Without Borders to support UNHCR with their energy program in Ethiopia. Here she acted as project and construction manager for solar and battery storage mini-grids and trained refugees in the installation of the systems, electrical fundamentals and system design.
Meanwhile Ruby established Alinga Energy Consulting so that she could bring her passion and knowledge of renewable energy, microgrids and remote energy solutions back to Australia. She is now an active participant in bringing reliable, affordable energy to Indigenous and remote communities in Australia and abroad. She uses her specialist knowledge and experience to bring renewable energy to communities as well as continuing to work in the commercial sector. Through Alinga Energy Consulting she has helped to shape energy solutions for residential developments, Indigenous communities in Australia and PNG, schools, commercial buildings and industrial facilities.
Ruby has undertaken further studies in renewable energy including completing the GSES Certificate of Grid-Connected PV System Design and the EIT Vocational Certificate of Renewable Energy Technologies. She became chartered with Engineers Australia in 2015. Ruby received an award from the Design Futures Council as an Emerging Leader in Sustainable design which she accepted in Toronto in 2017. In 2019 Engineers Australia awarded Ruby as Young Engineer of the Year Victoria for being an outstanding example of innovation within the engineering industry and displaying the highest technical, professional and community service standards to achieve significant contributions. She was also highlighted by Engineers Australia in their 100 Engineers Making a Difference list.
Ruby also sits on the steering committee of the First Nations Clean Energy Network and is on RAP committees for Engineers Without Borders and GHD. She also gives back to the engineering profession through volunteer work with Engineers Australia and contributing knowledge through speaking engagements.
