Approximately 100 homes across five Aboriginal communities will benefit from the program, with a possible further 300 homes in 11communities participating in the future.

“The program aims to help customers more easily afford their power use and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through reduced energy consumption,” says Lisa Taylor, Project Manager.

“Energy efficiency solutions such as roof insulation, solar hot systems, low flow water devices, shading, energy efficient appliances and education on energy efficiency will be provided to the communities,” she says.

Western Australia’s Office of Energy will fund the refits, which will be co-ordinated by Horizon Power.

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The project builds on the work Horizon Power carried out last year, auditing the electricity use in 440 dwellings in remote and town-based Aboriginal communities. The audit involved engaging with each resident to consider appliance use and their requirements for high energy use items like heating and cooling, refrigeration, hot water and washing clothes.

Horizon Power’s Fleur Crowe, who conducted the audits, says the audits and recommendations were comprehensive.

“The audit included a physical inspection of housing orientation, measurements of existing roof and wall insulation, reviewing solar hot water storage capacity against occupancy rates, checking individual appliances wattage, length of use and star ratings.

”Horizon Power found that the biggest savings in energy use in these communities would be achieved through structural changes to housing, combined with ongoing behavioural change education.

“The expected energy efficiency savings from this project were forecast to be in the order of 20 per cent,” she said.

Structural changes included replacing undersized solar hot water systems, replacing damaged or installing roof insulation, and providing shade cloth or flyscreens.

On completion of the audits, Horizon Power compiled a comprehensive report with recommendations of cost effective upgrades that would improve the energy-efficiency of to each house.

Improving power supply

Adding value to the communities of regional and remote Western Australia is the overriding driver of Horizon Power’s business strategy. In the past three years, Horizon Power has been working to upgrade electricity supplies in remote and town-based Aboriginal communities in Western Australia. This has included building new power stations, upgrading distribution networks, upgrading internal house wiring, installing streetlights and offering a new way of paying for power through the installation of pre-payment meters.

This work has been done in collaboration with State and Federal Government agencies, including the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Western Australian Office of Energy and the Department of Housing.

At present Horizon Power is working in the east and west Kimberley communities of Yungngora (Noonkanbah) and Kalumburu to upgrade internal housing wiring and the distribution network under the Aboriginal and Remote Communities Power Supply Project (Phase Two). Both communities will have state-of-the-art solar-diesel power stations built next year.

The aim of this project is to improve safety, security, reliability and affordability of energy supplies to these communities, in line with standards that residents of mainstream towns take for granted.

In order to ensure that the full benefit of this capital investment flows through to residents of these communities, Horizon Power and Western Australians generally, Horizon Power is working with Western Australia’s Office of Energy and Department of Housing to make remote Aboriginal community housing more energy efficient.