Liverpool man begins solar powered adventure around Australia

The owner of a Liverpool-based accountancy firm is driving an electric car over 9,000 miles across the Australian coastline.

Stuart McBain, is an entrepeneur and accountant, with a passion for electronic vehicles and founded Charge Around Britain to share the capability of solar energy and alternative fuel.

In 2017, Stuart completed a 3,000 mile journey across Britain in an electric Tesla.

Partnering with University of Newcastle, Australia, he founded Charge Around Australia and plans to triple his mileage in his latest adventure.

The technology

Stuart will be using portable printed solar cell panels to enable off-grid electric car charging. This means he is able to harvest free energy from the sun in wilderness stretches along the route where established charging stations are unavailable.

The journey includes around 70 stops and he will unroll the panels at each one, to harvest the energy. The technology, known as organic photovoltaics (OPV), has been developed by Professor Paul Dastoor and his pioneering OPV team at the University of Newcastle’s Centre for Organic Electronics.

The journey

Stuart will be the first in the world to test the sustainable energy on a journey of this length and will be visting schools along the way, to discuss renewable energy.

He told ITV: “As I am the first person in the world to do it we don’t know what is going to happen, so we have a support vehicle for safety and for somewhere to sleep at night.

“We had a six-day dress rehearsal and it seemed to work well with the level of sun, energy gathered, and distance achieved so I am very excited for the real thing.”

He added: “I am doing this for a number of reasons, one because I am interested in the development of alternative and sustainable energy sources but also it is a massive adventure to be able to drive all around the coast of Australia.”

Stuart is heading to Newcastle, Australia today and will begin his journey around the coast on Friday.