Case Study

Powering Resilience at the Edge of the Grid in Rural Australia

13 Mar 2026

5 min read

When bushfires and storms repeatedly cut power to the remote New South Wales town of Merriwa, the community needed a resilient, future-proof solution. Working with Yurika Energy and Ausgrid, ComAp delivered a fully integrated microgrid controlled by the InteliNeo 6000, giving one of Australia's most grid-vulnerable communities reliable, remotely managed power for the first time.

Situated around 300 kilometres west of Sydney, Merriwa’s position at the far end of Ausgrid’s distribution network meant it was consistently the last community to be re-energised after outages. The microgrid, built following extensive community consultation, powers the 27 most important buildings in the community in case of need, including the grocery store, petrol station, pharmacy and community centre.  

The microgrid combines a 252-panel PV array with a Sungrow 110 kVA solar inverter, a Cummins 550 kVA diesel generator, and two Sungrow batteries totalling 250 kVA/535 kWh. ComAp's InteliNeo 6000 controls the BESS and PV assets, with an InteliGen 500 G2 managing gen-set control and InteliMains 1010 controllers providing network protection. 

The solution enables Ausgrid to remotely island and reconnect the microgrid without disrupting service, dispatch assets through its power management framework, and black-start the system following an unplanned outage. In one real-world test, a major storm tripped the 33 kV transmission feeder; the microgrid was remotely re-energised within 20 minutes and ran independently for four hours, keeping all 27 community sites online.

The Merriwa project marked the first deployment of the InteliNeo 6000 in Australia, demonstrating that ComAp can deliver microgrid solutions capable of meeting the demands of network providers at the most challenging edges of modern distribution infrastructure.

Working with ComAp was great. They were very professional. They enabled Ausgrid to enhance the reliability and resilience of this local community in Merriwa at the very edges of our distribution area.

Steven Murphy, Innovation Delivery Manager, Ausgrid
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