A Desert Town, a Solar Array, and a Historic First

ARENA and Original Power partner to launch a landmark AU$11 million solar and battery microgrid project to secure energy autonomy in Borroloola

28 Apr 2026

In Borroloola, a remote town in the Northern Territory, diesel generators have long set the rhythm of daily life: unreliable, expensive, and loud. That may soon change. Australia's first utility-scale microgrid led by a First Nations cooperative is now under way, funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency as part of an AU$11 million partnership with community organisation Original Power.

The Ngardara Project will install a 2.1 megawatt solar array paired with a large battery storage system, designed to meet most of the town's electricity needs. The economics are striking. A benefit-sharing model will route solar credits directly to household meters, potentially cutting electricity bills in half for families who have historically paid some of the highest energy prices in the country while enduring regular blackouts.

The initiative also includes a workforce training programme, channelling local people into renewable energy jobs rather than importing outside labour. In a region where unemployment is persistently high, this matters as much as the kilowatt hours.

Remote communities in Australia have historically been afterthoughts in national energy planning, patched together with diesel infrastructure that is costly to run and vulnerable to disruption. Microgrids offer an alternative logic: smaller, localised, and harder to knock out. As extreme weather events become more frequent and more damaging to centralised grid infrastructure, that resilience has growing appeal beyond the outback.

The project's backers argue it provides a replicable model. Whether it does will depend on factors that are harder to export than technical blueprints, including community trust, governance structures, and the patience of funders willing to absorb upfront costs that pay off over years rather than quarters.

Still, the Ngardara Project challenges a quiet assumption that has shaped Australian energy policy for decades: that remote and Indigenous communities are too difficult, too costly, or too small to anchor serious infrastructure investment. A solar array in the Northern Territory is unlikely to reshape national policy on its own. But it is a useful reminder that the grid's edge can sometimes be its most instructive frontier.