Braidwood Clean Energy
Since 2019, the volunteers at the Braidwood Clean Energy group (or BCE) have been thinking about energy independence. As with many rural and regional areas, Braidwood is often hit by brownouts, and the network of overhead wires bringing electricity is vulnerable to damage to natural – and manmade – damage.
‘A few years ago, a cement truck crashed into one of the power poles and almost took out the electricity for the town,’ Helen Haski tells me wryly. ‘The impact of losing electricity when you're in a remote town can be really serious. It has enormous impacts on farms, businesses, the elderly – all sorts of different things start to unravel.’
Helen, now-president of BCE, joined the group after moving to Braidwood in 2020, after a career working in solar and renewable energy, first commercially and then in government. Her work took her across what she calls ‘all the good stuff’ – analytics, stabilisation, cost drivers, the ecosystem, stakeholders, and the energy market in Australia.
Though she was working for a commercial solar company at the time of the move, she decided to strike out on her own after Covid hit.
‘It was really liberating, because I could bring together all the bits and pieces I had learned across different jobs. And I thought, if I can get involved in what the Braidwood Clean Energy group is about, then potentially I could help make something happen.’
At the time, BCE was developing a proposal for an off-river pumped hydroelectric model, which, Helen says, could have played an ‘incredibly important’ part in stabilising the local energy grid.
The idea was simple and elegant, but after feasibility study it became clear that the hydro model would only ever lose money. It would be environmentally sustainable – but not financially sustainable.
It was a disappointing setback, but BCE took stock, and began to look at other options. Now, alongside EDP Renewables, a Canberra-based company which has worked alongside other regional towns in the area, the group is in the process of establishing the necessary framework for creating a local microgrid.
The microgrid will be fuelled by a nearby solar farm, with energy stored in a lithium-ion battery. ‘The benefit of lithium is that it is so quick,’ Helen says. ‘If there is grid instability, it's providing power before the grid even knows that it needs it.’
A working microgrid would provide power to all of Braidwood and surrounds when needed – which would mean, among other things, that crisis communications would always be secure.
‘I think that after the bushfires, having the road closures, everyone relying not just on the radio but on Facebook – everything was absolutely contingent on connections,’ Helen says. ‘We need to make sure that everyone is safe, so that even if power in the outside world goes down we can still function – even if it’s just to call someone and ask if they’re okay.’
What first impressed you about the Braidwood Clean Energy group?
The first time I fronted up to a meeting, there was already such a good knowledge base there. People weren't necessarily in for cheaper costs for power; what they really wanted was more renewables on the grid, or green electricity, and they really wanted to play their part in mitigating climate change. I felt really on the same page with everyone there, and the energy and enthusiasm around the pumped hydro project is what got me into being on the committee.
For those of us who don’t have a background in power – how micro is a microgrid anyway?
It’s to scale with the population of Braidwood and surrounds. Right now, the grid will cover Majors Creek, Araluen, Mongarlowe – more or less all the places people come into town from for a cup of coffee.
How have you found the local response to the proposal?
We’ve had thirteen letters of support from different community groups, and support from [member for Eden-Monaro] Kristy McBain. We’ve also had some events at the National Theatre and the Servicemen’s Club, info sessions where people have come and asked really interesting questions, which we’re currently pulling together as an FAQ.
We do have to reassure people that we’re not proposing to go off-grid. It’s there as the back-up plan. But because we’re not altering the grid, there’s nothing to say that we can’t put more solar on top and have a community-based renewable power station if we want to.
This is just step one. It is making sure that we are stable, and in a country where there is more and more hazardous weather, including bushfires and floods, it makes us more self-sufficient and less vulnerable.
We have all of this land. There's an abundance of opportunity. If this microgrid succeeds, the model can be replicated all over the country. It’s something that all of Australia needs.