Millaa Millaa microgrid project in feasibility study phase as FNQ leads technology race

FNQ is pioneering the state’s microgrid technology as another small town surges ahead with plans for an independent network, with the region leading by example. FIND OUT HOW.

FAR North Queensland is pioneering the state’s microgrid technology as another small town surges ahead with plans for an independent network.

The potential for mini solar farms, wind turbines and shared community batteries in closed networks, to feature heavily across remote Far Northern communities is only likely to grow as technology advances, says a University of Queensland researcher who is helping facilitate the latest microgrid project at Millaa Millaa.

The small Tablelands community could become the Far North’s third energy-independent community following the commencement of construction of a microgrid in the Daintree area and Yarrabah’s progress on its own network moving from feasibility study to the design stage.

The community of Millaa Millaa on the Tablelands is working towards establishing its own microgrid.

UQ research fellow at the School of Architecture and the School of IT and Electrical Engineering Stephen Snow is among the experts leading the project, which held its latest community meeting on Wednesday.

Mr Snow said the Millaa Millaa microgrid project, currently undergoing feasibility tests, would not only provide reliable power to the weather-prone town, but also act as a case study and template of future similar projects across the state.

“We’re really interested in Millaa Millaa not as a start and finish, we’re looking for how we can better scale microgrids and power resilience to smaller towns,” Mr Snow said.

“The real end goal is, ‘how do you improve the power resilience of smaller towns, particularly in Far North Queensland where there’s the potential for cyclones to knock out part of the network’.

“How can you scale power resilience better? Right now microgrid technology is relatively new, it’s quite bespoke each time. So Yarrabah and Daintree, very much individual solutions.

“So how can we make it easier (to replicate and reproduce) across the region.”

Although the Millaa Millaa project was still in its early days, Mr Snow said like any microgrid set up, this would entail renewable energy and a large-scale battery.

He said while the finer details were still being explored, the goal was to provide “three levels of resilience.”

“By that I mean – it needs to function and add value to the town and improve power quality for the 99 per cent of the time there’s no cyclone.

“Then it also needs to add value if there is, for instance a cyclone further south and there’s a prolonged blackout, but Millaa Millaa itself suffers no physical damage so that’s where the microgrid can use Ergon’s existing infrastructure and we can power the town through renewable sources.

MARCH 2006: Part of a roof hangs high up in power lines in Millaa Millaa after cyclone Larry. Picture: John Andersen. SUPPLIED PIC

“And the third level is even if there is a cyclone where there’s widespread devastation locally, so it’s not safe to use the existing infrastructure, then we would look at how to connect the battery to at least one or two businesses so there would still be the potential for cold storage, buy groceries, and fill up petrol. And with that we could establish a small community charging hub for personal devices or portable batteries.”

He said while UQ, alongside Energy Consumers Australia was still working through the technical and economic feasibility, he was confident the project would be implemented with in-principal support committed by Ergon Energy and Tablelands Regional Council.

“I think we’re going to see a lot more microgrids established. They’re using the advances in technology we’re seeing in solar and batteries, and they offer the potential to improve resilience of places that suffer outages.”

Originally published as Millaa Millaa microgrid project in feasibility study phase as FNQ leads technology race