South East - Mt Gambier Engagement Workshop
As part of our Regulatory Proposal Reset Engagement for 2025-2030, we engaged with our regional stakeholders across the State to discuss their access to, current needs, and future priorities for electricity.
To speak to our customers in Mt. Gambier, we held an in-person workshop at The Barn on 10 May 2022. The workshop was planned for an all-day engagement session, breaking for morning tea and lunch.
Lyn Flaherty from ThinkHuman facilitated the workshop with representatives from the Executive Leadership Team and Stakeholder Engagement Team members, representing SA Power Networks.
Who did we engage?
Eighteen members from the South East region, predominantly from Mt. Gambier, attended the workshop, including twelve residential and six business customers. SA Power Networks’ depot staff from the region were also in attendance along with representatives from the local council of Mt. Gambier.
Mr. Michael Leane from SA Power Networks’ Community Advisory Board was also present.
SA Power Networks was represented at the workshop by Mark Vincent, Doug Schmidt, Brendon Hampton, Dan Popping and Alex Lewis.
What did we engage on?
Participants at the workshop were provided with a background about the role SA Power Networks plays within the operations of the electricity network. To understand SA Power Networks’ role in the distribution of electricity, click here to download a copy of the presentation from our Mt Gambier workshop.
This was followed by an in-depth presentation by the Executive Leadership Team on the four major themes of our Regulatory Proposal. The themes are:
- Affordable and equitable energy supply
- A reliable, resilient, and safe electricity network
- Customer experience, choice and empowerment
- Enabling clean energy and unlocking future value for our State
To learn more about our four themes, click here to download a copy of our presentation from our Mt. Gambier workshop. A panel discussion with the members of the community and key stakeholders was held next, with the key speakers answering questions from the participants about the current issues affecting the region.
After lunch, the participants were broken into four smaller groups, brainstorming community-led ideas around the four themes, and discussing possible activities, projects, and investments for the future electricity grid in the region. Customers were also invited to prioritise their suggested levels of investment from each of the four themes, ranging from basic, compliant, and new value.
Some of the key learnings specific to this workshop and the region are that reliability of the network and power supply, including resolving outages quickly, maintaining infrastructure, and affordability are the most important priorities for our customers. Accessibility of EV charging stations was also considered important along with the ability to feed excess solar back into the grid.
Workshop Reports
Read a detailed report of our Mt. Gambier Engagement Workshop to find out our key learnings from the session.
To know what our participants thought about our engagement session, read our Participation Evaluation Report.
Click here to access our Engagement Infographic Summary for a quick overview of our session, documenting who we engaged with and what our key findings were.
