NT Energy System

Grid Sys­tem

There are three reg­u­lat­ed elec­tric­i­ty grid net­works in the NT: Dar­win – Kather­ine, Ten­nant Creek, and Alice Springs. They are pri­mar­i­ly pow­ered by gas-fired gen­er­a­tors. Minor grid sys­tems are in place at Yulara, Tim­ber Creek, Bor­roloola, Nhu­lun­buy and Ti Tree — pri­mar­i­ly pow­ered by gas, diesel or a mix­ture of the two, with some solar ener­gy. 

Uptake of renew­able ener­gy has increased con­sid­er­ably with­in out­sta­tions and remote com­mu­ni­ties, thanks to projects like Bush­light and Solar SET­uP. Such loca­tions can ben­e­fit sig­nif­i­cant­ly from the decreased need for expen­sive diesel fuel. 

Gov­ern­ment Owned Corporations

Three Gov­ern­ment Owned Cor­po­ra­tions oper­ate in the NT ener­gy sys­tem: Pow­er and Water Cor­po­ra­tion (PWC), Ter­ri­to­ry Gen­er­a­tion (TGen) and Jacana Ener­gy. TGen owns gas pow­ered gen­er­a­tion assets that sup­ply the NT with most of its elec­tric­i­ty as well as pro­vid­ing the ancil­lary ser­vices that are nec­es­sary to main­tain sys­tem reli­a­bil­i­ty. PWC has an inde­pen­dent Sys­tem Con­trol unit which reg­u­lates the pow­er sys­tems. Sys­tem Con­trol man­ages the elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem by instruct­ing gen­er­a­tors such as TGen to oper­ate in cer­tain ways in the sys­tem. The elec­tric­i­ty net­works in the NT are large­ly gov­ern­ment owned, and oper­at­ed by PWC. There are six licensed elec­tric­i­ty retail­ers in the NT, includ­ing the gov­ern­ment owned Jacana Ener­gy and PWC. 

Com­mu­ni­ty Support

The com­mu­ni­ty appre­ci­ates the incred­i­ble solar resource avail­able in the Ter­ri­to­ry, and wants gov­ern­ment to lead the charge by adopt­ing renew­able ener­gy and sup­port­ing house­holds and busi­ness­es who want to invest in renew­able tech­nolo­gies and stor­age systems.