Project history

In Australia, there are about 1100 remote Indigenous communities and a large number of these are not connected to electricity grids or gas pipelines.

These communities are generally in remote parts of Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Queensland and South Australia, and rely on a mix of diesel or small petrol generators for their electricity.

Between 1997 and 1999, the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Renewable Energy (ACRE) and the Centre for Appropriate Technology (CAT) audited renewable energy systems in remote communities.

The audit identified a number of areas where existing renewable energy (RE) systems were falling short of expectations including:

• Reliability - about 33% of the RE systems in Indigenous communities were not working at the time of the visit;
• Insufficient capacity - there were complaints about insufficient power in 36% of Indigenous communities and system overloading was found to be common; and
• Disappointment - only 40% of surveyed Indigenous communities were happy with their energy systems.

Read the report: Renewable Energy in Remote Australian Communities (A Market Survey). (429kb)

These findings provided the impetus for the development of the Bushlight project, which, through its Community Energy Planning Model seeks to inform, train and empower communities to better utilise their energy services; to engage with service networks to better maintain them; and to design and build high quality, reliable RE systems.  

With operations commencing in July 2002, by August 2008 Bushlight had installed 120 renewable energy systems, providing reliable 24 hour power to over 2,000 people living in remote communities in Australia.

On the basis of these achievements, the Australian government has extended funding for the project to June 2011.