Community members and energy providers impacted by widespread electricity outages in the Flinders and Northern Flinders Ranges have come together for a special meeting.
The impact of power disconnections caused by massive storms in October 2024 are still being felt by First Nations communities in the Flinders and Northern Flinders Ranges region in South Australia.
The storms resulted in extensive wide-reaching power outages to households in Quorn, Hawker, Leigh Creek, Beltana, Copley, Nipapanha (Nepabunna) and Iga Warta.
The extent of the power cuts and the length of time it took to get all communities reconnected resulted in considerable suffering and hardship. Many in the region remained without power for up to six days.
The regions’ energy resilience, and particularly the impacts on First Nations household’s energy security - including access to reliable affordable power, and the imperative to transition to clean energy solutions, has been at the forefront of people's minds.
- Watch a film Voices from the Storm: Effects of the October 2024 storms on Copley & Leigh Creek video (By Outback Communities Authority)
Bringing First Nations, industry and government together to collaborate on solutions
To understand what happened and provide an opportunity for both households and energy providers to share stories and experiences both during and after the storm, a meeting was held on 15 May 2025.
Organised by the First Nations Clean Energy Network, Flinders Ranges Council and Outback Communities Authority, and assisted by a grant from Energy Consumers Australia, the meeting brought together:
- residents from affected communities and Adnyamathanha homelands
- industry energy providers and emergency response teams including SA Power Networks, ElectraNet, Telstra and the South Australian Police, and
- government representatives including from the Department for Energy and Mining, SA Housing Trust, and the Office of the Technical Regulator.
It was an important listening day, with community members – many of them living ‘at the end of the line’ – sharing with industry and government their lived experience of unreliable power and the impacts of prolonged power outages.
Community members spoke of hardships including the financial burden of losing fridges and freezers full of food, medicines going bad, having no telecommunications, worrying for others in the community, and being kept in the dark about when power would be restored. The subsequent high cost of fueling backup generators, provided as an interim measure until power was restored, was another burden putting extra pressure on some households.
Industry also had the opportunity to share at the meeting. Tim Adams, Senior Manager of Network Operations at SA Power Networks (SAPN) provided an overview of the unique factors and structural limitations that led to the power outage occurring over such a large area for such a long period of time. A lack of reliable backup power was identified as a serious limitation. Tim told the group SAPN are aiming to address this by directing investment over the next 5 years towards reliability upgrades in the Upper North and ensuring on-call energy backup facilities are more readily available in the region.
Community members were clear in their response. They agreed to the need for backup power, requesting backup generators be put in place now ready for the next storm season, and that community-led microgrid solutions be investigated for the long term.
Participants highlighted critical failures in connectivity and information flow, insisting this must be addressed, with future plans to diversify be put in place (e.g. sat nav phone access to communities in more remote locations) to strengthen communications.
Community members reminded industry and government participants that remote services must be designed differently to meet local needs rather than simply supplying less services due to size/locale. Cultural heritage must also be considered, respected and embedded in all planning, “not separate, but part of everything.”
Local leadership must be recognised and capacity developed to empower community responders and build energy resilience, and community voices must be heard and responded to in order to overcome deep feelings of exclusion, especially in Hawker, Iga Warta, Nepabunna,Yappala and smaller towns like Leigh Creek and Copley.
Finally, community members made a strong call for allyship and collaboration, wanting coordinated action across agencies (SAPN, Telstra, ElectraNet, SAPOL) to avoid future similar events.
An important outcome of the meeting was a commitment from key providers Electranet, SAPN and Telstra to formulate a model for energy resilience in the region and report back to attendees in three months.
Further, SAPN noted it is expecting to install a community resilience battery at Hawker in late 2025.
“Bringing together key stakeholders and community members to discuss how to improve energy resilience in the region through this workshop is a good first step,” says Alexandra Bishop, Executive Manager, Grants at Energy Consumers Australia.
“Improving energy resilience in the region is key”.
Participants discussed other possible solution pathways, including programs to increase the supply of generators to community members in areas regularly affected by power cuts, and for the longer term, increasing the sovereign capacity of communities to generate their own energy locally, employing solar and battery systems and the “microgrid” concept.
While it was clear to attendees there is no easy or quick solution, all agreed that coming together was a positive first step.
“It is important that we start these conversations,” said Marg Howard, Director of Outback Communities Authority. “We need to think about ways of delivering essential services in Outback SA, such as energy, that result in outcomes commensurate with those enjoyed by residents of larger regional towns and our capital city.”
Glen Wingfield from the First Nations Clean Energy Network summed up the meeting well.
“We have a big job ahead of us to solve energy issues in this region”.
“Our First Nations and non First Nations communities are suffering because of electricity outages. That suffering from outages can’t be for nothing. We need to listen, learn and plan for the future.
“Community and utilities and government talking face to face today is a positive step in that direction.”
Community members interested in engaging with SAPN over energy issues for the region can contact them via SAPN's Regional and Remote Advisory Group.
Thanks to Grayson Cooke from OCA for use of all the photos.