More than two years after the fires of 2019, Mallacoota's community plan to "build back better" is slowly coming to fruition with a number of stable and reliable solar energy projects in the pipeline.
Historically the town has been prone to power outages, when the single 240km radial line that services the town is disrupted by weather events, wildlife, vegetation growth or bushfires.
"We're over 240 kilometres on a single small line, 22 kilo-volt amps, which means that any outage, anywhere along that line will bring the town down," says Tricia Hiley from the Mallacoota Sustainable Energy Group, a volunteer committee of local sustainability enthusiasts in the town.
Obligated to compensate outage-affected consumers with rebates, service provider AusNet Services conducted a feasibility study in 2013 in the hope of finding a stable and reliable solution to the town's power outage issues.
"What came out of that study was that we had to be able to separate Mallacoota from the rest of the grid if the rest of the grid was down, which meant something like a microgrid, our own internal energy grid," Ms Hiley says.
New concept improves power
In 2018, AusNet Services approached the Mallacoota Sustainable Energy Group with the idea of installing a large battery and diesel generator, which would require the creation of a default microgrid system.
Although off-grid battery set ups have successfully sustained the energy needs of other remote towns such as Licola, the Mallacoota design was the first to be dually connected to the grid, as well as being powered by solar panels.
The new battery and microgrid system was installed by AusNet Services last year.
"It was an absolute game changer for Mallacoota as it meant that now we could contemplate becoming totally renewable here," Dr Hiley says.
The hybrid 1MWh capacity battery has since greatly improved the town's power reliability.
The battery itself is housed in five large shipping containers and includes a generator.
"This is the first of its kind in Australia, in the sense that we are on the grid. The technology around knowing when to take us off the grid and default to an internal system, that's brand new," Dr Hiley says.
Mission to become totally renewable
The Mallacoota Sustainable Energy Group, the Energy Innovation Co-operative and the Gippsland Climate Change Network have recently formed an alliance known at the Gippsland Power Hub.
The group will be used to pitch sustainable energy projects beneficial to communities across Gippsland.
"One of those projects that we put in for funding was a solar system to supply energy for (East) Gippsland Water, the water treatment plant," Dr Hiley says.
That money is being reinvested into a sustainability fund, to be used to fund more solar panels for an expanding slate of community projects.
There are plans for a community solar garden that can supplement the energy needs of renters, residents with shaded properties and those who can't afford to buy solar panels.
The group also seeks to strengthen the current internal microgrid technology system, as well as introduce facilities to accommodate electric vehicles.
"Our job as the Mallacoota Sustainable Energy Group now is putting our energy towards the town becoming totally renewable," Dr Hiley says.
