Regional towns once ran on their own power transfer stations, and it could be a case of history repeating if a new three-year study finds microgrids a viable option for resilient energy supply.

The not-for-profit Centre for New Energy Technologies (C4NET) will conduct the study, which will be funded by the federal government's Regional and Remote Communities Reliability Fund.

C4NET considers the goldfields town of Tarnagulla and the Wimmera township of Donald as the perfect locations to examine the use of microgrids.

Microgrids are a smaller, self-sustaining part of the energy network which are more resilient to disruptions of the power supply.

Tarnagulla is situated at the end of a long electricity feeder line from Maryborough, while Donald is on the end of a feeder line from Charlton.

"Donald and Tarnagulla were specifically chosen for this study because of the community groups; they are already looking into their future energy needs in the towns," C4NET chief executive James Seymour said.

"What we were really interested in studying here is an intersection between what is a community need and what's the power system dynamics of that location.

"What we wanted to do is study two contrasting towns, looking for those bespoke elements and what the commonalities are as well."

Bushfires, floods can cut off small towns

Julie Davis runs the post office in Tarnagulla, population 130, and is interested in creating long-term resilience.

"This all started a few years back when there was flooding; Tarnagulla got isolated."

It encouraged Mrs Davies to think about alternative power supplies.

"I mainly thought we should at least have the hall, the school, the police station, the fire station — all these places should have batteries or solar," she said.

"If we got isolated again, we would have power ... or at least we had somewhere to go to charge a mobile, make a cup of tea."

Study could be a game changer

For power distributor Powercor, the findings of the study could see changes in the way it conducts business across Victoria.

"My understanding is that this size of a community has never been taken off the main power grid before and put onto a microgrid before," spokesman Jordan Oliver said.

"We have to see if that is feasible, if that is technically feasible, if that is economically feasible and what's the impact for customers.

"If this is going to cost customers too much money, we wouldn't support it.

"If this study found that this would be of benefit to customers financially, it is something we would absolutely support."

Energy that is affordable

Jeanette Shipston moved to Tarnagulla just over two years ago and said the idea of economic savings and creating a resilient community was appealing.

"I am actually a bit excited about the idea of having a community battery," she said.

The threat of bushfires and unforeseen events are at the top of mind as well.

"I really do want to learn more about [the study]. I have previously looked at these sorts of things and thought, 'I do not know if that's going to benefit me cost-wise', and just left it at that," she said.

"But I really think that now we really must start questioning these things from a wider perspective; it is not just all about us, it really is about the wider community."

The study will begin in September.