**Title**: Energy in the North - Heath Grebert
**Date**: December 18, 2024
**Participants**: Amanda Byrd, Heath Grebert


00:00:00:31 - 00:00:04:36 [Heath Grebert] If you say you got to do something, you make sure you do it, you make sure you deliver

00:00:04:36 - 00:00:11:57 [Amanda Byrd] This week on Energy in the North, I speak with Heath Grebert, the senior regional manager in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia for the state owned power utility Horizon Power. Heath manages the Energy Network connections for 12 communities within an area of over 52,000 square miles. And as we were driving down a red desert road between Gascoyne Junction and Denham, I asked him how many people live in the area that he serves.

00:00:30:39 - 00:00:38:05 [Heath Grebert] Very sparse. A lot of the ones in the Midwest kind of range from anywhere of 500 people through right down to kind of 30 people, like Yalgoo. Carnarvon itself, our base, That's a population of four and a half to five thousand. Exmouth's my most northern place, a small population of around the same, but tourism brings in about another 14 to 15 thousand people during the season. But yeah, not huge towns, just geographically very, very far apart.

00:00:58:35 - 00:01:06:07 [Amanda Byrd]And so we've been driving on this road for about, I'd say an hour and a half and we haven't seen another vehicle. Is that what it's like when you're driving between these communities? 

00:01:10:15 - 00:01:14:35 [Heath Grebert] Yeah, it definitely can be. You've got your main roads you can take or sometimes you have some back roads that are very well maintained  sometimes, sometimes not. But depending on what, conditions are like, you can go for multiple hours and not see another vehicle.

00:01:23:59 - 00:01:27:13 [Amanda Byrd] These are remote communities, they're micro-grids. What are the biggest challenges do you find in generating power and distributing power to these communities?

00:01:32:59 - 00:01:35:05 [Heath Grebert] It's just the challenge with the serviceability. I've been with Horizon Power for seventeen and a half years and initially when Horizon Power started with the ARC project, the Aboriginal Remote Communities, where we started looking to servicing them is the everyday challenge of access, of skillsets needed to provide services. So, since you don't have that density of population, you need a multi-skilled workforce that can hopefully do generation, maintenance. They can do network maintenance, they can do new connections, but also be able to kind of represent the business to our customers as well. Being able to communicate that and initiate that work in the communities has kind of been the development piece for Horizon Power over a long time  .

00:02:12:31 - 00:02:19:00 [Amanda Byrd] And, that sounds really important when it comes to building trust with communities


00:02:19:05 - 00:02:20:03 [Heath Grebert] Yeah, definitely. I'm originally from New South Wales, kind of a lot of work in communities and the first thing you learn is when you go and do a lot of community works, if you say you got to do something, you make sure you do it, you make sure you deliver. Otherwise the community will doubt you as the person that has a lot to say, but not a lot to deliver. So some examples of that where I've been up in Beagle Bay, a community up in the Kimberleys digging 40 to 50 holes for someone's orchard to be built with it an auger crane after we finished maintaining overhead poles in the network. So to get a good reputation in community and be accepted as part of the community and be able to return there, Make sure you deliver on what you say you can do. 

00:03:08:27 - 00:03:19:34 [Amanda Byrd] And those Orchard hole were just because you had the equipment out there. And it's really hard to get the equipment out there. 

00:03:10:11 - 00:03:19:3 [Heath Grebert] Yeah, that's right. These are really fun communities. But even though that's not your core role like, Horizon Power doesn't build orchards, but that's the extra things you're trying to when you go to these communities to add value is and that's the main thing. I know our CEO ay Horizon Power, Stephanie, has really driven that vibrant communities and been regional relevant. So we go the extra mile on some things where we can to to help out communities that way. Yeah and it's it's well accepted within the communities that yeah they appreciate the extra assistance

00:03:45:04 - 00:03:50:15 [Amanda Byrd] Heath Grebert is the senior regional manager for Horizon Power in Western Australia. And I'm Amanda Byrd, chief storyteller for the Alaska Center for Energy and Power. Find this story and more at uaf.edu/acep.