Exploring network resilience and supply

In March and April 2024, we teamed up with CitiPower and United Energy to hold a series of community workshops. These workshops were held in Ballarat, Red Hill and online, and sought feedback on initiatives addressing network resilience and regional and rural energy supply.

Local councils, emergency services, advocates for vulnerable groups, community groups and other stakeholders came together to explore potential solutions to enhance the resilience of the local electricity network and tackle network capacity and reliability improvements.

What we sought feedback on

A range of solutions were proposed, including:

• Constructing feeder tie lines to support worst-served customers at the end of long radial rural lines where no alternate 'back-feed' supply is available
• An IT tool to support prioritisation during wide-scale outages
• Development of local micro-grids; a distribution network that operates independently of, or supplementary to, the primary distribution grid, providing reliable and resilient electricity supply during and after extreme weather events
• Additional community liaison officers and mobile emergency response vehicles to engage with community groups and local government to support improved resilience and during extreme weather events
• Operation of rapid earth fault current limiters to mitigate bushfire and electrocution risks.

What we heard

Participants were in favour of many of the initiatives proposed and provided insightful feedback and suggestions, including:

• Prioritising certain strategic locations and offering future-proofed solutions when supporting worst-served customers, particularly customers facing ‘energy poverty’ and reliability challenges
• Making information gleaned from new IT tools available to the community and emergency response agencies to aid better decision-making
• Thinking strategically about how micro-grids are funded and integrated with existing infrastructure and energy sources, such as solar or community batteries
• Increasing the number of community liaison officers and reconsidering the areas they manage to better support communities
• Ensuring REFCL operating modes are flexible, to balance safety considerations with reliable service provision.

Next steps and have your say

Our proposal for the 2026-31 period, including support for vulnerable customers, will be published for consultation in August 2024.

If you have any questions and feedback about vulnerability or our engagement program, please use this form to get in contact.

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To learn more, read the full engagement report.