The Eastern Arrernte community of Ltyentye Apurte (Santa Teresa) is located 90 kms southeast of Alice Springs on Eastern Arrernte Country, Northern Territory.
Previously known as the Santa Teresa catholic mission, the area was renamed Ltyentye Apurte when administration of the freehold land was taken over by the Santa Teresa Aboriginal Land Trust in 1976 in accordance with the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act.
Atyenhenge-Atherre Aboriginal Corporation (AAAC) represents the Ltyentye Apurte community.
The project
Atyenhenge-Atherre Aboriginal Corporation (with project partner government-owned Territory Generation) is aiming to develop the Ltyentye Apurte Microgrid, a First Nations community-led microgrid including solar, battery, and diesel backup in Ltyentye Apurte.
The Ltyentye Apurte community has a distribution line connected to the Alice Springs Network, however the community has been experiencing ongoing regular electricity outages leading to a range of social, economic, food security and health implications for community members.
The Ltyentye Apurte Microgrid project aims to mitigate the outages by supplying the community’s electricity from locally generated renewables.
ACCC was awarded funding assistance for the project under the Australian Renewable Energy Agency’s (ARENA’s) Regional Microgrids Program in December 2025.
The microgrid project has been divided into 2 stages:
- The development stage — including conducting further technical studies, securing development approvals and land agreements with Traditional Owners, completing connection studies and negotiating a connection agreement, securing funding & partnerships, community consultation, negotiating other key implementation contracts and undertaking due diligence reviews required for making a final investment decision (FID).
- Construction and commissioning of the microgrid.
AAAC states there will be a range of wider economic benefits and opportunity from the development of the microgrid, including:
- ongoing employment and training opportunities
- cleaner and more reliable energy through the deployment of a microgrid that contributes to mitigating the impacts of community power outages
- benefit sharing from reduced energy cost through development of a community benefits sharing mechanism
- overcoming barriers to implementing microgrid projects through sharing insights into the approach to overcoming commercial, financial, technical, regulatory and other roadblocks to First Nations community microgrid development within regional and remote areas of Australia.