Off-grid trial gives Western Australian farming community cheaper, more reliable power

Ros and Bernie Giles trialling off-grid power on their farm (from ABC News)

Western Australia (WA) is a large, sparsely populated state so providing reliable power to the fringes of the WA network is a challenge.

• Fed up with frequent outages and voltage spikes, six farming households in Ravensthorpe, 500 kilometres south of Perth, chose to take a leap of faith and try living off the sun and lithium batteries.
• WA's energy utility Western Power offered the systems for free in the search for alternatives to the massive cost of replacing ageing poles and wires.

For more information see the report from ABC News, by Katherine Diss and Mark Bennett, 19 Sept 2017.

See also a similar report: Horizon Power extends WA off-grid solar and storage trial from RenewEconomy.