Australia is ditching 10,000 miles of power lines as remote towns turn to microgrids

Australia is ditching 10,000 miles of power lines as remote towns turn to microgrids

Parts of Australia are starting to redesign the power grid around local generation — and in some areas, that shift means fewer poles and wires. According to a report from The Conversation, Western Australia has already taken down more than 15,000 kilometers, over 9,000 miles, of overhead lines as remote towns increasingly adopt solar, batteries, and microgrids. What happened? For many rural communities, connecting to the power grid can be both c…