In the days after last summer's bushfires, Srisa Heffernan trampled around her mother's farm to see if she could find anything that hadn't been incinerated in the ferocious blaze.
Key points:
- Essential Energy says 3,200 poles were destroyed across New South Wales in bushfires last summer
- Energy companies are increasingly looking to replace power lines with standalone solar systems
- Consumer advocates say laws around standalone power systems need to catch up with industry
In a cruel blow, Srisa had just finished renovating a small cottage she'd planned to call home, only a stone's throw from her mother's house on the 150-acre property at Eurobodalla, in south-east New South Wales.
Both the cottage and her mother's home were destroyed.
They'd evacuated the farm when the fires knocked out their connection to the electricity grid.
"We had to have power to make the water go, and when it came down to it, we didn't have either of those things," Ms Heffernan said.
"We were at the end of a very long drought and we had very limited water."
To their great relief, their beloved animals — horses and cattle — survived the blaze.
Barely anything else did.
"You sift around in it for days and you're thinking … maybe the jewellery box I had sitting here is right here and I'll just dig through for a little bit, and it's not there.
"There was a steel spiral staircase at my mother's home and it was just melted over, the heat was so intense."
But soon after, help came from an unexpected source.
The local electricity network company, Essential Energy, came through the area asking if the family would like to trial a standalone power system (SAPS).
It included solar panels, a battery and a backup diesel generator that kicks in if the solar panels aren't producing enough energy and the battery runs low.
The fires had wiped out four kilometres of powerlines connecting the property to the grid.
Srisa and her mother Amanda Heffernan-Buchan had always dreamed of going off-grid and drawing energy from the sun. They didn't realise the bushfire disaster would provide a chance to do it.
So began their first steps towards rebuilding their lives.
"We're just drawing energy from the sun now, it's incredible to think that there are batteries there that store enough power for three or four days of serious rain, which is what we've had in the past few floods," Ms Heffernan said.
"Not only are we drawing energy from the sun, we have very minimal usage of the diesel generator, but we don't need people to come and clear trees underneath the wires."
Energy companies helping consumers go off the grid
Across Australia, a quiet revolution is happening in Australian electricity networks.
Just a decade ago, the entire premise would have been almost unthinkable: energy networks, long maligned for passing on their exorbitant costs to consumers for building and maintaining power grids, are now helping customers go it alone.
Standalone power systems (SAPS) have been around for 40 to 50 years, but until now most consumers have had to pay their own way.
The idea of SAPS was raised in the wake of the Black Saturday fires in 2009, but ultimately the systems were still too expensive to be cost-effective in most cases.
That's changing, according to Craig Memery from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, with states like Western Australia and Queensland leading the way.
"What's happened over time is that the cost of those standalone power supply system components has come down," he said.
"The cost of building a grid hasn't.
"It's a pretty new thing for power networks to get into and we've seen some networks like in WA and in Queensland make some big steps.
"For the rest of the Australian eastern seaboard, the idea of SAPS being provided by networks is still in its infancy."
Power lines to remote areas are expensive to maintain and pose an ongoing bushfire threat.
They can also be wiped out by fires or floods, and something as simple as a large piece of bark landing in the wrong spot can cause an outage on a single line.
The ABC has contacted electricity network companies across Australia.
Some said the increasing number of extreme weather events was a key reason why they're trialling new stand-alone power systems in regional and remote areas.
Not only have SAPS started to make economic sense for electricity companies — as well as consumers — they also help to build what's become a buzz-word in the industry: network "resilience".
AusNet Services, which distributes power to customers in eastern Victoria, is planning to build half a dozen SAPS after trialling them in recent years.
"When I joined the company, we had done some really deep thinking in 2008 about how climate change was going to affect our network area and what sort of changes in our engineering we needed to make.
"So this is absolutely about trying to get ahead of the curve and build in resilience for storms, for bushfires, for floods, for all these events that unfortunately will become more frequent in Victoria."
NSW grid impacted by fires
It's hard to overstate the devastating impact of last summer's bushfires.
As communities scrambled to survive, large swathes of electricity infrastructure were also destroyed.
Luke Jenner from Essential Energy, which supplies electricity to 95 per cent of New South Wales, said 3,200 poles were destroyed across the state.
"To put the 3,200 poles into context, the (largest) previous bushfire event that we've ever dealt with was approximately 400 poles," he told the ABC.
"It provided the opportunity to go and put those standalone power systems in and get those customers back on supply more quickly."
He said rather than focussing on rebuilding the 4-kilometre line to a single property — as would've been necessary to reconnect Ms Heffernan — crews could instead work on lines to areas with hundreds of customers.
"To rebuild the network, we deployed a third of our workforce from across the whole state of New South Wales onto the bushfire response," Mr Jenner said.
Currently, power networks can only deploy standalone power systems as part of an emergency response.
But for a permanent system, they have to apply to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER).
The Australian Energy Regulator says the time has come to change the rules and legislation around standalone power systems, to encourage network investment.
"Certainly over the last couple of years, we've had a lot more applications for waivers," AER chair Clare Savage told the ABC.
"But at the moment, the national rules and the national framework don't really support distributors leading the way on standalone power systems."
Ms Savage said new state and Commonwealth legislation has been drafted and would help improve the situation for providers and consumers.
"It would enable the distribution companies to actually be able to recover revenues from a standalone power system," Ms Savage said.
"At the moment, they can only really get money back on things that are directly connected to their networks."
She said the legislation would also extend consumer protections to SAPS customers, who aren't currently entitled to the same rights as customers on the grid.
"Things like access to hardship protections, protection from disconnection, reliability standards … protections that customers get from being a part of the national energy grid," she said.
Another issue still being ironed out is what SAPS customers will pay for their energy.
The AER and networks the ABC spoke to were all in furious agreement that SAPS customers will pay a fair price for their electricity.
"People are working on the regulations to really ensure that people in these really rural communities get the same power prices as you would pay in Melbourne," said Alistair Parker from AusNet Services.
"Also that people are paid fairly if they generate their own kind of power, that they get paid a full and fair price for that."
Mallacoota solution 'cutting edge', locals want more solar
In Victoria, when last summer's bushfires tore through the remote area surrounding Mallacoota the town was disconnected from the grid for two weeks.
The homes and businesses in the seaside town are connected to the grid by a single line running hundreds of kilometres through dense bushland and national park.
Four kilometres of the powerline, including 26 poles, were damaged by the fire.
Local renewable energy advocate Tricia Hiley said Mallacoota lost power a full 24 hours before the fires reached the town.
The town was powered by backup diesel generators, but soon diesel supplies ran low.
"There were 123 houses lost in town, and around the same number, maybe some fewer, sheds and workshops and garages on private properties," Dr Hiley said.
"So there was a tremendous amount of work that had to be done before the power could come back."
For most of the previous decade, Mallacoota had already been plagued by power outages.
The single line was vulnerable to tree branches, and even flying foxes disrupting supply.
Now after years of lobbying, the town has secured a novel solution.
AusNet Services is building a large battery storage system that will begin discharging electricity if there is a disruption to the main power line.
The system is reinforced by a backup diesel generator.
It means Mallacoota will be able to sustain itself off the grid for up to three days, effectively operating as a large standalone power system.
Mr Parker said community involvement was crucial to working out a solution.
"They've really done the hard yards to understand what will work for Mallacoota," he said.
"We think that's the model more and more — as well as the cost of technology coming down — there's a real appetite for communities to take control of their own power supply and really engage."
Tricia Hiley isn't done yet. Her dream is to have Mallacoota completely off the grid, powered entirely by renewable energy.
She's thrilled with the new system.
"Now it's really, really good because it gives us a platform to put the solar in," Dr Hiley said.
"I'm hoping that AusNet Services will work with us to to make that as easy as possible."
But Australian Energy Regulator chair Clare Savage warned the cost of battery storage was still holding back progress on larger standalone power systems.
"The technology is changing rapidly, which is terrific, but we're still subject and vulnerable to days without sun or wind," Ms Savage said.
Rules, legislation holding back progress
As networks push forward and the cost of technology plummets, consumer advocates say the laws and rules around SAPs need an overhaul.
"The rules are based on an outdated way of thinking about how systems operate: That you've got a monopoly business that can only provide a monopoly service and contestable businesses that provide retail and generation services," Craig Memery from PIAC said.
Ms Savage said changes were happening, with state and territory governments in the National Energy Market agreeing to new legislation.
"Commonwealth and state energy ministers have actually drafted new legislation in this space and that new legislation would actually solve a lot of the problems," she said.
"In the first instance, it would enable the distribution companies to actually be able to recover revenues from a standalone power system.
"The other thing it does, is to provide consumers with the same protections."
Srisa Heffernan and her mother are now watching the shoots of regrowth around the farm.
The SAPS has been running well and although it's only a pilot site for now, they hope it will become permanent.
"There was a recent situation where a tree had come down across the line and most of Bodalla and Eurobodalla Road lost power but we had no knowledge of it at all, it was just something we saw on the local community Facebook page.
"It's a system that's really worked for us."
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