Frustratingly for residents it is also a small town with limited mobile connectivity and a solar farm yet to be connected to the grid.
Federal Member for Indi Helen Haines attended a community meeting on Wednesday, March 3, to discuss these issues and ways they could be addressed.
Benalla Rural City Council was represented by Cr Gail O'Brien, who assured the community council was supporting them in resolving both issues.
The meeting was also attended by Goorambat East Solar Farm operator Neoen's senior development manager Kristina Yan, who explained the reasons for the delay in getting grid connection,
“Goorambat East Solar Farm is currently delayed due to the grid operator, AEMO, requiring further time to process connection applications in the region,” she said.
“The proposed 250 MW solar farm, would generate enough clean energy to power 105,000 homes and will reduce C02 emissions by 558,000 tonnes, the equivalent of planting over four million trees.”
The company has thrown its support behind the town's application for a new phone tower.
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The meeting was well attended for a town with a population of 297 people.
While all seemed positive about the mobile phone tower application, Goorambat Community Group treasurer Paul Dingemans was keen to set expectations and let the town know to be prepared to potentially miss out on a new tower in this round of funding — and, if that happens, to keep on fighting for the next round.
“Currently everybody who lives in the district would know that we are in what would be termed as a black spot,” Mr Dingemans said.
“From a telecommunications point of view Telstra say we have technical coverage.
“What we don’t have is depth of coverage.
“To get service of any description most people have had to buy repeaters of some description.
“Most people that I know, and through personal experience as well, have to use their phone on a hands-free and stand outside come rain, hail or shine, because the signal is so unreliable.
“Part of the stress that goes along with this is, for example, things like the CFA supplementary alerting system.
“Our CFA can already be on its way to the fire when the alert reaches them on their phones.”
Dr Haines reiterated the point about expectations, but said the application for the tower would be lodged on Friday, March 5.
She also spoke about her frustration with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and the delays in connecting the solar farm.
“At the moment there is not a clear process from AEMO and the generators to understand when they can connect to the grid,” Dr Haines said.
“We have companies calling for greater transparency around this, in terms of knowing who’s in the queue and when your turn’s going to come up.
“Secondary to that is we do have problems around the grid nationally because governments have not, over many decades, really invested in it.
“And we have a whole new energy horizon now.”
State Member for Euroa Steph Ryan could not attend the meeting, but threw her support behind the town's bid for a mobile tower.
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