By Roy Butler MP – Opinion Piece
THE outage experienced in October 2024 highlighted the energy challenges Broken Hill and the Far West face, with one transmission line supporting 13,000 customers.
Frustration amplified in the community when the redundancy plan for the two gas turbines failed, there was no way to connect to nearby renewable energy projects, and the Battery Energy Storage System was being used at only 10 per cent when the decision was finally made to use it at all.
While the parliamentary inquiry has yet to finalise its recommendations and findings, the evidence presented through submissions and hearings clearly identifies a need for more resilience in redundancy measures to ensure the Far West does not experience an outage like this again.
This is especially true when we have solar panels on our roofs and are surrounded by solar and wind factories that should be able to keep the lights on, our fridges running, and our businesses open.
There is no reason people in the Far West should not have power that’s as reliable as people in Sydney.
We have more opportunities to develop local energy supplies, we can connect to the grid easily, and we have smaller energy needs overall.
On top of that, the Far West region is a significant economic driver for New South Wales and Australia. We should be a priority, and meeting our needs shouldn’t be hard.
I am making sure that the needs of the Far West are a priority for the government and providers.
That is why I am optimistic about the ability to address this through a long-term and long overdue solution to our power problems — the Far West’s own mini-grid.
The mini-grid may sound small, but it’s a big deal for our region.
The bottom line is that if there is another issue with the transmission lines, the mini-grid would mean the Far West could be energy self-sufficient for weeks.
TransGrid has done the analysis.
Through a comprehensive process, they concluded that a mini-grid, compared against diesel and battery solutions, was the region’s most cost-effective and technically appropriate solution.
The mini-grid will see TransGrid connect existing wind and solar farms with Hydrostor’s Silver City Energy Storage Centre, which can soak up all the electricity that’s generated when it’s sunny and windy and store it for when it’s required.
Hydrostor’s project produces eight hours of electricity supply at full capacity on a standalone basis.
But when connected to the rest of our region’s electricity network and renewable assets, it can keep supplying homes and businesses for days – or even weeks – with no connection to the main grid, the National Electricity Market.
This mini-grid can almost indefinitely supply Broken Hill, the Far West, and major industrial users and economic drivers like the Perilya mine.
The first of its kind globally, it will restore reliable power to the region, giving us energy independence to keep the lights on in our homes and fuel business, industry, tourism, jobs, and growth.
Importantly, Silver City Energy Storage Centre alone promises hundreds of construction jobs and dozens of permanent operational jobs.
This is in addition to the existing jobs this solution protects, both at Perilya and elsewhere, by ensuring businesses have reliable power.
Families and businesses deserve a permanent, locally driven energy solution that fixes our energy reliability issues once and for all.
My job is to ensure our community has the reliable energy we deserve at an equitable price.
This starts with getting the mini-grid up and running and finally putting power back in the hands of the region’s homes and businesses and creating economic opportunities for our residents.
