Riverland - Renmark Engagement Workshop

As part of our Regulatory Proposal Reset Engagement for 2025-2030, we travelled across the State to hold discussions with our customers and stakeholders about their access to, current needs, and future priorities for electricity.

To speak with our customers in Riverland, we held an in-person workshop at the Renmark Country Club on 4 May 2022. The workshop was planned for an all-day session of engagement, breaking for Morning tea and lunch.

Lyn Flaherty from ThinkHuman facilitated the workshop with members of the Executive Leadership Team and Stakeholder Engagement team staff representing SA Power Networks.

Who did we engage?

Thirty-four members of the greater Riverland region attended the workshop, including twenty-six residential and eight business customers. Participants hailing from Renmark, Glossop, Berri, Loxton, Barmera, and Waikerie were among the ones that we engaged with.

We also saw participation from members of the local Council and our Barmera Depot staff. Mr. Kelvin Trimper, AM, Deputy Chair of our Community Advisory Board (CAB) was also in attendance.

SA Power Networks was represented at the workshop by Mark Vincent, Jessica Vonthethoff, Doug Schmidt, and Brendon Hampton from the Executive Leadership Team supported by Dan Popping and Alex Lewis from the Stakeholder Engagement Team.

What did we engage on?

Participants 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 Riverland 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

The learn more about the four themes, click here to download a copy of the presentation from our Regional workshops. 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 level of investment from each of the four themes, ranging from basic, compliant, and new value.

Some of the key learnings, specific to the workshop were that customers were happy with the way we communicated with them via SMS and wanted SA Power Networks to deliver clean, green, and reliable energy while keeping the prices down.

Workshop Reports

Read a detailed report of our Riverland 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.