The transition to renewable energy is disrupting the way we manage and distribute electricity – but it’s also an opportunity to improve reliability and safety through innovation.
As Australia’s energy transition accelerates, climate change and extreme weather events are putting even more pressure on regional and remote electricity networks.
Ageing infrastructure, bushfire risk, and a changing demand profile are converging to create significant challenges in the low-voltage, single-phase parts of the grid particularly in areas served by Single Wire Earth Return (SWER) systems.
These networks, originally developed as a low-cost method to electrify remote regions, are now operating under conditions they were never designed to support. Many are nearing or exceeding thermal capacity, and with increasing exposure to climate-driven extreme weather, not only are they more prone to outages, but the could become a potential ignition source for bushfires.
For utilities, the need to improve safety and reliability on these lines has never been more pressing – and NOJA Power set out to deliver a compelling and practical solution.
Safer, smarter energy for everyone
Low-voltage, single-phase networks are a backbone of regional electricity supply. They provide power to homes, farms, and small businesses in sparsely populated areas, where running three-phase infrastructure would be economically unviable.
The most common variant in these regions is the SWER system. Using a single, lightweight conductor and an earth return, many of these networks were rolled out in the mid-20th century across much of rural Australia. While the design offered a cost-effective way to bring electricity to remote customers, it also introduced limitations – particularly with regards to current capacity and fault protection.
As demand grows from electric vehicles, agricultural electrification, and consumer energy resources like rooftop solar, the limitations of these systems have become more apparent. At the same time, many SWER networks are reaching end-of-life, raising concerns about reliability and safety.
Without proper protections, when conductors fail or come into contact with vegetation, they can remain energised longer than in other network types. In high-risk conditions, this significantly increases the chance of starting a fire. The tragic Black Saturday bushfires of 2009 illustrated the consequences of such failures, with SWER lines implicated in multiple major fire events.
Historically, protection on SWER and single-phase lines has relied on traditional fuse technology. While simple and inexpensive, fuses are a blunt instrument in modern distribution networks. They offer no reclosing capability, are slow to respond to certain types of faults, and must be manually replaced – often requiring crews to travel long distances to remote fault locations, delaying restoration and increasing operational costs.
Automatic circuit reclosers (ACRs) have been widely adopted on medium-voltage distribution feeders to improve reliability by automatically restoring power after transient faults.
However, many reclosers historically installed on SWER networks are manually operated, oil-based devices that cannot be remotely managed or safely configured for fire season suppression. In some areas, network operators have been forced to disable recloser functionality for extended periods during summer – sacrificing reliability to mitigate fire risk. NOJA Power’s EcoLink recloser addresses these limitations with a design purpose-built for the unique characteristics of low-current, single-phase lines.
EcoLink combines the speed and simplicity of a fuse with the intelligence and flexibility of a modern ACR to bring fast-acting protection, remote configurability and fire mitigation capabilities to areas where legacy protection devices are struggling to keep up.
The EcoLink is a compact, self-powered, single-phase recloser that fits directly into existing fuse holders. Weighing just 7.4kg, it can be retrofitted into most legacy installations without major infrastructure changes.
EcoLink can interrupt faults in the same time as a traditional fuse, but with the added capability to reclose. This makes it ideal for addressing transient faults, which account for around 80 per cent of faults on rural overhead lines. By restoring power after a fault has cleared, the EcoLink reduces unnecessary outages and significantly cuts the cost and time associated with manual fuse replacement.
The unit is powered by line current and requires no batteries, using a supercapacitor array to gather energy and respond rapidly to faults – even in de-energised conditions. Its sensitivity to low line currents allows it to operate effectively on sparsely loaded rural lines where conventional reclosers might not function reliably.
Importantly, the EcoLink is designed with operator safety in mind. A patented manual interlock ensures that the internal vacuum interrupter is opened before the device can be safely removed from the line, eliminating the risk of external arcing and improving protection for field crews.
Settings can be updated wirelessly via a secure, IEEE 1686-compliant connection, allowing network operators to adapt protection schemes in real time – without needing to take the device out of service. This is especially valuable during bushfire season, when reclosing functions may need to be suppressed or re-enabled based on daily fire risk assessments.
While restoring power quickly is important, safety must come first – especially during peak fire season. On days of extreme fire danger, traditional reclosers can inadvertently re-energise lines after a permanent fault, significantly increasing the risk of ignition. This is a particular concern when conductors fall or make contact with dry vegetation.
The EcoLink’s protection curves and fast-acting interruption are tuned to respond not only to overcurrent but also to the rate of change of current, providing faster reaction to developing faults. Its design reduces the energy released during a fault event and supports fire mitigation strategies by offering an alternative to expulsion fuses, which can eject molten metal during operation.
Because it is fully remotely configurable, utilities can implement fire risk mitigation protocols more easily – adjusting settings or disabling reclosing functions remotely without deploying field crews. This level of flexibility allows operators to balance reliability and safety in real time, rather than locking in a compromise for a whole season.
As the energy system decentralises and the demands on regional networks grow, the case for modernising rural protection equipment becomes clearer. Investments in smart recloser technology, like the EcoLink, offer a path toward improved service reliability, reduced bushfire risk, and more efficient network operations.
NOJA Power has built its reputation on reliable, field-tested equipment. With more than 100,000 installations of its OSM Recloser across 106 countries, the company’s technology is already trusted globally.
The EcoLink inherits this proven reliability, adapted for the challenges of low-current single‑phase applications.
For more information, visit nojapower.com.au/ecolink
