A recent study found that nearly all households in dozens of Northern Territory communities experienced disconnections from the electricity grid, including a one-in-three chance of same day disconnections on very hot or cold days. Co-author of the report, Dr Simon Quilty invited EDEA Energy to visit the communities and learn first-hand the challenges and needs of these communities suffering severe energy poverty.
All of the communities and households visited are on prepaid electricity arrangements which makes them vulnerable to disconnections. Nearly all the households in the communities visited had experienced disconnections in the past year particularly on very hot or cold days. Exacerbating this is an over-reliance on poorly maintained and expensive-to-run diesel generators to power local communities. This also results in repeated blackouts.
By sitting down with local Elders we got just a small understanding of the challenges faced by these communities. We are now working towards a series of recommended approaches using renewable energy and storage solutions to improve the stability and cost of electricity to our First Nations Peoples.
Media outlets such as Carsales.com.au’s Watts Under the Bonnet (host Greg Rust pictured right) and TheDriven.io (pictured Top right) directly covered the project and the story was picked up and shared by other media outlets and social media channels globally.