The US war on Iran at the start of 2026 gave Australia a major reminder of why energy security is yet another reason for the whole of our country to embrace the energy system transformation to electrification and decarbonisation – a permanent solution to our addiction to expensive, high emissions, scarce diesel and oil imported from the Middle East.
Nowhere is this need and opportunity more evident than in remote communities of outback Australia. For these communities, excessive dependency on imported diesel means energy insecurity is a near daily threat.
Across the top of Australia, hundreds of communities, primarily Indigenous, remain entirely dependent on imported diesel-powered generators for electricity. For regional and remote Indigenous communities, these diesel systems consume around 25 million litres of diesel each year in the Northern Territory alone.
Data on the number of these communities is hard to track, fragmented across the states and territories. But a look at the numbers suggests that between 200 to 300 remote communities between WA, QLD, SA and the NT depend entirely on costly, fragile, diesel imports.
In Queensland, the state’s Community Service Obligation costs under the Regional Electricity Subsidies (Uniform Tariff Policy) have reached $604m annually in FY2026, up from $537m two years earlier in FY2024.
