NO INTERNET, no phone and no water … wildfires expose the fragility of rural infrastructure.
It’s a dilemma experienced the world over, so when a Canadian company started using a fireproof mesh that protects power poles, Australia took notice.
After proving a game changer for electricity network resilience during wildfires in Canada and North America, Network Manager Keegan Oliver said FireMesh passed its first test in Queensland with flying colours.
As in Canada, regional, rural and remote communities in Australia are most at risk when fire burns down power poles.
Internet and mobile access disappear because devices can’t be charged.
Pumps no longer keep water flowing and using cooking appliances is impossible.
Fireproof mesh has been installed on 2,000 power poles in bushfire zones across Queensland, including in the south east region.
The wraps are part of a trial by Ergon Energy and Energex.
The wraps were put to the test in Julago, south of Townsville last year when a bushfire burnt through the trial area.
Mr Oliver said there was no damage to the 19 poles wrapped with FireMesh and they were able to get the power back on to nearly 2,000 properties in the area much sooner as a result.
Rural localities are more likely to be bushfire affected than city or urban.
When power poles are destroyed, getting rural properties back on the grid can be time consuming.
“When fire reaches the pole, the heat from the fire activates the mesh which swells up and forms a fireproof blanket around the pole and protects it from the damage of the fire,” he said.
“Nineteen poles were wrapped in this location [Julago] and in the past we would have had those poles burn down and cause outages to our customers that are supplied in this area.
“On this occasion there was no damage at all to our infrastructure as result of this fire, so it’s proven to be effective.
“The areas of interest and priority to us are those which have had past fire experience, particularly areas where the customers are severely impacted.
“We have 1.7 million poles and a significant proportion of those are in fire prone areas so it will take us some time,” he said.
“Our initial focus will be the areas of our network at greatest risk so we should see a significant reduction in damage in the early years.
“This will reduce the impact of bushfires on the customers and communities we serve because we can restore power as soon as the fire threat has eased when there is no need for emergency repairs.”
Everything has a price, so who pays for it?
“Well, we do,” said senior corporate Communications Advisor for Energex Danny Donald.
“Although ultimately any cost to the network ends up on bills, of course.
“At the end of the day it’s a lot cheaper to wrap a pole than it is to replace an entire power pole.
“And not only replace the power pole, it minimises the chance of a community’s power and infrastructure being damaged.”
Most large landholders have privately owned power poles and are responsible for them.
Mr Donald said in that case people can import the mesh and wrap it around their property’s power poles themselves.
