Horizon Power swaps poles and wires for solar and storage

One Step Off The Grid

Western Australia’s government-owned utility Horizon Power is getting to work on a major grid transformation that is bound to be the envy of network companies all across this wide brown land: replacing 54km of ageing power lines with stand-alone solar and battery systems.

The WA McGowan government said on Tuesday that site works to prepare for the installation of 13 Micro Power Systems across 14 rural properties (one of those systems will service two properties) in the state’s south were set to begin in April.

The stand-alone MPS will use a combination of solar and battery technology, with back-up diesel generation, to provide power for farmers living on the edge of the grid in the Esperance and Condingup regions.

The powerlines that had serviced those properties – more than 50 km of them – will then be decommissioned.

For Horizon, this means avoiding the ongoing and steep cost of upgrade and maintenance to those power lines, which weave through remote bushland, and operate at the mercy of the ever-harsher and less predictable elements.

For customers, it means a firmed supply of mostly solar power for the same cost as for electricity from the overhead network, minus the frequent outages.

Read the full story on RenewEconomy sister site, One Step Off The Grid…