EnergyQ gets pro-active in managing Critical Comms during TC Alfred

Details

Queensland endured a significant cyclone in March 2025. It's path and resulting landfall was predicted to fall anywhere on the eastern coast of Queensland. This subsequently put all regions in high alert in order to be able to respond to disaster and recovery methods whilst ensuring critical communications during restoration of electrical utilities and customers. This report identifies some issues encountered, responses and subsequent learning outcomes from Tropical Cyclone Alfred and it's impact to the energy network for Energy Queensland.

Speaker

Mr James Lowe

Network Engineer

Ergon Energy

Energy Company responding to a Cyclone

Biography

James Lowe has worked for a number of years in private industry, witnessing the computer boom, then transitioning from the mining sector into the education system (CQ University), experiencing many leaps and bounds in information technology. Spending the past 15 years in the regional area of energy, and providing support to substations’ communications sites, James has developed a keen interest in LMR networks. With a strong partnership with several vendors, EQL’s network operations centre has been able to deal with dozens of incidents per day, its radio network being built, monitored and maintained by radio crews spanning the entirety of Queensland. James’s role has involved coordinating the command and control of incidents with the critical communications network to fix on fail and maintain radio services. James’s role as a radio signaller in the Australian Defence Force for 30 years has supported his current roles at Ergon Energy.