Connecting Western Australia’s remote and regional towns:

Above - In the Mid West town of Yalgoo, the old diesel-fired power station closed on 17 Novemeber 2003.

Google Earth - Yalgoo

The great majority of people living in remote WA regions have access to electricity directly or indirectly through Horizon Power. Because WA stretches over such a vast area – about the same size as the whole of Western Europe – there are high costs involved in providing electricity to remote areas. Western Australia’s remote towns have their own independent power stations, separate from the main SWIS grid. Diesel-oil fuelled engine-driven generators are the only practical way of generating electricity on a small scale for country power stations.

Local municipal authorities decided to build and operate their own “modern” power stations at the turn of the nineteenth century in Western Australia, but the councils charged different prices to regional customers. During 1970 and 1971, a number of remote shire councils were concerned by the escalating cost of providing their ratepayers with electricity. These remote councils were not connected to the South West Power Scheme.

To overcome their difficulties, they approached the Government of the day, requesting that a form of subsidy be paid to the respective councils to ensure that their ratepayers were not being disadvantaged by paying more for electricity than metropolitan customers.

As a result, the Country Towns Assistance Scheme was adopted in January 1973 and the SEC of WA become responsible for generating power to regional and remote communities. For an extremely low price, the Yalgoo local authority eagerly handed over its electricity responsibilities to the SEC of WA in January 1973. Another 20 shires followed Yalgoo’s lead over the next two years. The SEC of WA immediately commenced major construction projects to improve power supplies and reduce operating costs. The scheme was an immediate success. Regional power stations were modernised and regional people were charged the same electricity prices as Perth customers.




Above - The new Yalgoo Power Plant, 2006.

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