Eureka! funding helps slacks creek inventors | Logan News | Local News in Logan

A SLACKS Creek consulting group has received a $50,000 State Government grant to help them continue with their creation, the Fuse Saver.

Developed to help prevent overhead power line fuses from blowing, which in turn would help reduce power outages, the Fuse Saver has taken three years for Kaon Consulting to develop.

Director of Kaon Consulting, Brett Watson, said the Fuse Saver was the first of its kind in the market.

“When we came together, part of what we wanted was to design for manufacturers but we also wanted to design our own intellectual property,” he said.

Mr Watson said the idea for the Fuse Saver came about because of issues with overhead powerlines in rural areas.

“In rural areas if they blow out, they can be without power means for hours,” he said.

The Fuse Saver would help stop this by using a circuit breaker which can detect the fault and open within eight milliseconds.

Mr Watson said he expected the Fuse Saver would hit the commercial market in time for the 2010/2011 summer.

The State Government's Proof of Concept Fund has helped four companies and four universities turn their ideas into dollars and jobs for Queensland.

“We have allocated $2.2 million in new funding to develop Queensland ideas and research,” Minister for employment and economic development, Andrew Fraser, said.

“Without this government support, our inventors and researchers could have moved their discoveries offshore or taken much longer to progress to the commercialisation stage.”

Mr Fraser said smaller firms and university researchers often found the leap from workshop to shopfront financially crippling.

“We can't let these 'eureka' moments go by - our economy's growth is dependent on our ability to work better, faster and smarter,” he said.