Local engagement in Ivanhoe to get to know customers better and learn how best to communicate with the community throughout the course of the project
The Smart Energy Community team went on a road trip to meet some of our customers in Ivanhoe - one of the communities involved in the trial.
Manager of Innovation, Brad Trethewey and Smart Energy Communities (SEC) Program Manager, Theresa French along with Stage One partners Wattwatchers spent the week of Monday 28 August getting to know the community and listening to our customers about their energy concerns.
Ivanhoe is currently in Stage One of the trial, so the purpose of the trip was to formally introduce the SEC program to the town, to get a better understanding of the community as a whole and to start a conversation about the trial.
A meet-and-greet style event was set up at the Ivanhoe RSL, giving the team a chance to meet members of the entire community - complete with beautiful cupcakes made from the local CWA group. Brad and Theresa also took to the footpath for a bit of a walk around the town, meeting people along the way. Being a remote town, without a depot, this was an excellent opportunity to get to know our customers a little better and to learn how best to communicate with the community throughout the course of the project.
The team was warmly welcomed and had valuable conversations about the challenges a small community like this faces, especially regarding their power usage and unplanned outages being a fringe of grid community at the end of a long electricity line.
Jack Storrier from Hillston depot and Luke Clarke from the Hay Depot dropped by to help support the team during the visit.
At the meet-and-greet event, the team spoke to residential and business customers about the trial and its objective, which is to provide:
- Increased visibility of energy usage
- Increased solar returns
- Improved energy reliability
Ivanhoe is a farming and mining town in the Central Darling Shire, in the state’s far south-west. The traditional lands of the Ngiyampaa people.
The Smart Energy Community trial Essential Engagement site was launched with the Ivanhoe community. Each community involved in the trial has its own engagement page which the team will use to provide updates, enable the community to communicate with us through questions, conversation chats, surveys and polls throughout the trial.
