By Tyler Wright
The Dandenong Ranges Renewable Energy Association (DRREA) will be holding an event at the Emerald Hills Hub on Thursday 7 July, from 7:30pm to 9:00pm, to discuss planning for when the power grid ‘goes down’.
Ian Conibeer, DRREA member and technician with experience in the renewables industry, will be presenting alongside a Yarra Ranges Council as well as retired electronics engineer Russell Marnock.
The speakers will tailor their presentations to questions from attendees.
“We’ll be busting a few myths; looking at the return on investments,” Ian Conibeer, Gembrook resident owner of solar energy equipment supplier Energy Connections said.
“There’s a lot of concern about grid reliability…there’s a lot of people contacting us directly…about ‘what are we going to do if the power goes out?’ ‘how do we mitigate that?’
“[After] the 12 month anniversary of the big storm that wiped a lot of power out for people week after week…[there’s] always that concern for people in the Hills – bushfire concerns in the Summer and big storm events in Winter.”
Russell Marnock, Treasure of the DRREA, is planning to speak about preparations and what locals should take into account when their power is lost.
“We’ve got a couple of users of Tesla Powerwalls (energy storers) that are going to have a five minute piece on their experiences of those”
The Yarra Ranges Council representative will speak about what the council did during last year’s storm event, and how the council established community places for people to “charge their gear” in emergency situations, Russell said.
Peter Cook, President of the DRREA, said the main question will be how maintain basic power supply, and if not, to ensure the outage causes a minimum amount of convenience.
“In the future people might also be able to, if they own electric cars, use the stored electricity they have in their EVs to substitute for the grid,” Peter said.
“We’re looking at the options available to people to prepare for future breakdowns of the grid,” he said.
To RSVP for ‘When the Grid Goes Down, email info@drrea.org.au by 4 July 2022.
For more information, visit www.drrea.org.au
