Pioneer of Renewable Energy, Mick Harris

Founder, Innovator, Sustainability Advocate

Our managing director Mick Harris is a pioneer of the renewable energy industry with more than 40 years’ experience in the design, construction and installation of renewable energy systems.

Mick founded the ATA International Projects Group which has installed more than 1000 solar power systems in East Timor. Mick was also one of the pioneers of CERES in Brunswick (Victoria), a sustainability centre dedicated to the teaching of environmentally sound practices.

Mick Harris, circa 2003 with staff and volunteers and the electric milk float used to haul the bluestone workshop — Mick Harris, pictured circa 2003 4th from left with staff and volunteers and the electric milk float used to haul the bluestone for the workshop

Mick has been at the forefront of Australia’s sustainability movement since the 1970s. Growing up in Melbourne, Mick’s passion for renewable energy and environmental technology took root early. As a teenager, he joined the Alternative Technology Co-operative, which was a grassroots group that emerged from Friends of the Earth, where he and fellow sustainability enthusiasts would build early solar water heaters.

Recognising the need for a more structured and long-lasting initiative, Mick helped establish the Alternative Technology Association (ATA) in 1980. Armed with a trestle table at their first sustainability fair, Mick and his peers began recruiting members around a shared mission: to promote sustainable living through renewable energy, energy efficiency, and environmental awareness. What started as a niche collective quickly grew into a national movement—what is now known as Renew.

Mick played a key role in founding CERES, the Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies. Situated on a former landfill site along Merri Creek, CERES became a landmark not-for-profit environmental park. Here, Mick helped establish ATA’s first headquarters—a solar-powered workshop built by volunteers with just $11,000 and countless weekends of dedication.

Through his work in community-building, education, and innovation, he helped shape the vision and values that continue to guide the sector today.

Alternative Technology Association (ATA) ‘solar workshop’, built with volunteer labour at CERES Environment Park in Brunswick, Melbourne — The Alternative Technology Association’s ‘solar workshop’, built with volunteer labour at CERES Environment Park in Brunswick, Melbourne.

Mick was instrumental is setting up the ATA’s International Projects Group, which worked with communities in Timor-Leste to provide clean, renewable lighting and electricity. They helped install solar lighting and power to more than 2,000 homes and over 100 community centres, orphanages, schools and hospitals in remote rural villages.

To date, their work installing household solar PV systems has provided modern energy services to over 10,700 people, enabled 550 people to undertake additional economic activity resulting in over $1.1 million of income, saved each household over $900 on kerosene expenditure, and displaced 4,250 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

If you would like to work with Mick on your solar project, contact us.