Families disconnected from power at least 40 times a year in remote WA
On any given week in Mowanjum, a remote community more than 2,300 kilometres north of Perth, most households experience electricity cuts at least two to three times.
Leah Umbugai, chair of the Mowanjum community, said almost every house relied on pre-paid electricity and families often ran out, enduring 24-hour outages.
“It became a norm for us because every wet season we’ll have no power,” she said.
“We sometimes have two or three days without power.
“We make a fire outside the house. We still have to do that in order to have hot water, food. It shouldn’t be that way.“
Even a couple of hours without power means food in the fridge can go bad.
Leah Umbugai checking her pre-paid power meter at home. (ABC Kimberley: Rosanne Maloney)
The unreliability of energy has led to overcrowding in homes, with families packing into houses with air conditioning still running.
Horizon Power reports about 1,700 households in the Kimberley are on pre-paid electricity, primarily in remote communities.
Last year, electricity was disconnected nearly 40,000 times across those households.
In Mowanjum, electricity was cut 2,503 times across 60 households, averaging 41 disconnections per year per home.
Horizon Power’s executive general manager Evette Smeathers said 80 per cent of disconnections across the region “lasted less than two hours”.
“These customers often use a disconnection either as a reminder for them to make a payment or for managing their budget when they’re away from home,” she said.
Ms Umbagai works as an artist but says other jobs in her community are hard to find. (ABC Kimberley: Rosanne Maloney)
Australians living in remote communities face astronomical cost-of-living pressures as opposed to their city counterparts.
They pay up to double the amount shoppers in cities pay for groceries, something the federal government has aimed to address by subsidising some food items from July.
Ms Umbugai said many people in her community often struggled to find jobs or access services to curb financial pressures which led to an inability to afford power.
Community helping each other
When the power is off Ms Umbugai said people supported each other by covering energy bills or staying in houses with the power still on.
Ms Umbugai keeps everyone’s meter numbers — grandparents, aunties and uncles — to “send a few dollars” when needed.
“I don’t like them to have no power in the house, especially the elders,”
she said.
Ms Umbagai often has to help sister Sirita (left) with her power bill. (ABC Kimberley: Rosanne Maloney)
Her sister Sirita Lightning often came to her for help to ensure her outages would not last more than two hours.
“I’ve got seven kids and I have to have my air conditioning all the time,” Ms Lightning said.
“There’s times when we will run out of money.”
After paying $1,000 on rent and food each week, the extra $200 for power was hard to meet.
Ms Lightning says she faces huge energy bills with seven kids at home. (ABC Kimberley: Rosanne Maloney)
Ms Lightning said bills cost more because her government-owned house was badly insulated, despite requests to have it upgraded.
Old, poorly insulated government-owned homes or inefficient, cheap air conditioning only adds to individual costs.
Solar energy to keep bills down
University of Notre Dame Broome campus researcher Kathryn Thorburn said transitioning communities to renewable energy could reduce the region’s electricity bills.
The federal government released its First Nations Clean Energy Strategy last year to transition 80 per cent of remote communities to renewable by 2030.
As part of a new research project, Dr Thorburn recently surveyed over 90 remote households in the regions to understand their experiences of pre-paid electricity.
Dr Kathryn Thorburn says solar energy in remote communities could lower energy bills. (ABC Kimberley: Rosanne Maloney)
While the study is yet to be finished, she found widespread challenges with managing pre-paid power, particularly for inland communities.
“The energy costs on a fortnightly basis are very high,” she said.
“The Kimberley is a hot place. The difference for these families is that they tend to be on very low incomes.”
Ms Thorburn works alongside Lloyd Pigram who says he was also unaware of pre-paid power challenges. (ABC Kimberley: Rosanne Maloney)
Dr Thorburn said remote communities did not have equal access to alternatives such as solar power installations.
“In some cases people told us they spent more on electricity every fortnight than they did on rent,”
she said.
As part of a new study, Dr Thorburn hoped to identify how household bills could be reduced.
“We just want to explore how some of those benefits of that energy transition might be delivered to these families, many of whom are doing it really tough,” he said.
Ms Umbagai said she hoped solar energy would provide cheaper and more sustainable electricity for communities in the state’s north.
“It’s really hard at the moment and people struggle,” she said.
