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This briefing paper has been prepared by the First Nations Clean Energy Network in preparation for the Stakeholder Workshop regarding the October 2024 electricity outage in Northern SA. The First Nations Clean Energy network has members in the Flinders Ranges and Northern Flinders Ranges that were impacted by the power outage in October 2024. Community members experienced hardship through the loss of power – resulting in loss of food, inability to warm and cool homes, risks to medicines needing refrigeration and the costs of using personal diesel generators and the stress of the impacts of not knowing how long the outage would go for.

As Australia’s energy system is radically reconfigured, with close to 4 million households adopting rooftop solar, significant disparities in access, consumer protections and benefit distribution persist for First Nations’ energy customers. For many regional and remote First Nations’ communities where electricity prepayment supply arrangements are common, households must “top up” the meter or run the risk of sudden disconnection when the credit runs out. Facing regular disconnection - especially during periods of extreme heat - prepay households have long been underserved by solar power that would secure their own energy needs due to regulatory and financial barriers. While multiple studies have established links between energy insecurity and adverse health outcomes, and solar access to enhance energy security, the remedial potential of solar for prepayment-related energy insecurity in low-income First Nations’ communities has rarely been examined in Australia.