Solar engineer wins Advance Global Australian of the Year Award

Engineer Andrew Tanner has been awarded the 2014 Advance Global Australian of the Year Award for Clean Technology. Established as a means to foster new ideas, technologies, products and services, the awards showcase the work of current and emerging Australian leaders living abroad.

Tanner has over a decade of experience in concentrating solar and deploying advanced solar heating and cooling solutions. He assisted in starting solar energy company Ausra from a garage in Sydney in 2002. As project engineer for the company, he built Australia’s largest solar thermal installation, which ultimately led to the largest Series A investment for a cleantech company in Silicon Valley ($50m).

In 2008, Tanner relocated to California as co-founder and VP Engineering at Chromasun, a developer and manufacturer of rooftop-friendly solar solutions. In August 2012, he joined energy-efficiency company THiNKnrg as chief engineer to assist in the project development and deployment of heating and cooling technologies in the US and Latin America.

Tanner is the youngest mentor of Australia’s first cleantech incubator, Ignition Labs. His designs have been implemented at CSIRO and been involved in the development and construction of projects which have included DLR (German Aerospace). He has also provided consultation to the US Department of Energy on solar thermal technology.

Tanner has recently been focusing his efforts in the field of energy storage, which he believes presents the greatest opportunity to increase the proportion of renewable energy being supplied to consumers. He said his passion for clean technology was inspired by his grandfather, who was a mechanical engineer fascinated by solar power.

Tanner was nominated for the award by Mikal Greaves, co-founder and chief product officer, Chromasun.

“What makes Andrew such a visionary in the cleantech industry is his powerful mix of strong technical expertise combined with his natural business and marketing talent,” said Greaves. “This combination enables him to synthesise the often conflicting requirements of various clean technologies, understand the customers’ true needs and craft innovative product and market-based solutions. With these abilities, Andrew can envision a cleantech future that will provide economic and environmental benefits to us all. His passion will help take us there.”