Western Australia · a local briefing

Who might want a small power grid of their own

Zenith already wires up a few new suburbs and one industrial park, instead of waiting for the big network to do it. This page sorts everyone we found by how much they resemble those jobs.

Bigger is not better. A company building 4,000 homes is often too big for one contract. A company building three townhouses is too small to bother. The useful ones look like the projects below.

The three jobs that set the size

These are real projects, already public. Everything else on this page is judged against them.

Homes

Eglinton

Cedar Woods. About 1,300 homes. 4.4 MW of rooftop solar and a 5 MW system. Zenith is building it.

Marina

Ocean Reef

DevelopmentWA. About 1,000 homes and shops. A 4 MVA connection. Zenith is building it.

Industry

Peel

DevelopmentWA. An industrial park south of Perth. It started at 2.2 MW. Zenith runs it.

One contract has a ceiling. Under 10 MW of connection, no more than 10 MW of solar and batteries, about 5 MW of actual use, and about 4 MW of contracted demand. The power network’s own planning lump is the next size up: about 1,600 homes, 75 hectares, or 15 MVA. MVA and MW are both ways of saying how much electricity. For this page, treat them as the same yardstick.

Start here

Already bought a grid like this

Two organisations. They are not guesses. Their names are on Zenith’s own project pages.

Cedar Woods

Eglinton

About 1,300 homes, with 4.4 MW of rooftop solar and a 5 MW local system. Zenith is already building this one. It is the clearest example of the size that fits.

DevelopmentWA

Ocean Reef and Peel

The state land agency. Ocean Reef is about 1,000 homes on a 4 MVA connection. Peel is an industrial park that started at 2.2 MW. They also sell much larger estates, so not every project of theirs is one contract.

Closest match

About the size of Eglinton or Ocean Reef

A public page gives a size, and that size sits in the same neighbourhood as the jobs above: a few hundred to about 2,000 homes, or roughly 15 to 75 hectares.

Satterley Property Group

Allara, Eglinton

About 1,688 homes. That sits on the 1,600-home line used for planning the power network.

Parcel Property

Beenyup Grove

469 house lots. Smaller than Eglinton, and still a whole stage of a suburb rather than a few houses.

Aigle Royal Group

Samara, Casuarina

60 hectares of shops, warehouses and houses, close to the 75-hectare planning mark. A Costco is named as one future user.

Offer a stage

A bit big for one connection

These are the right kind of estate. Taking the whole thing in one go would sit above the 10 MW ceiling. A stage of the estate can still fit.

Peet Golden Bay Pty Ltd

Golden Bay

About 2,200 homes. A stage of this could fit. The whole estate is more than one connection.

Stockland

Amberton, Eglinton

About 2,686 homes on the largest mapped piece, plus another piece of about 765. Same idea: the company is right, the whole estate is a bit big.

Peet Limited

Wellard

About 3,075 homes at The Village at Wellard, and they also build elsewhere. Offer a stage, not the entire estate.

Right company, large estate

Several contracts, not one

They keep making new suburbs or industrial land. The project we can measure is several times one microgrid.

Hesperia

Ellenbrook

A proposal, with Heidelberg, for about 4,000 homes on land west of Ellenbrook. That is several contracts.

Heidelberg Materials

Ellenbrook

The company that holds the sand lease on that same land. They are in the proposal with Hesperia. They are not a housing brand.

LWP Group

Banksia Grove and Alkimos

Named on Banksia Grove, about 4,000 homes on 338 hectares, and on other northern estates.

Banksia Grove Development Nominees Pty Ltd

Banksia Grove

The company delivering that estate with the state: about 4,000 homes on 338 hectares.

Perth Airport

Airport North

About 223 hectares of industrial land. Much larger than 75 hectares, and the same kind of place as Peel.

Okeland Communities

Across Australia

The awards credit them with more than 70,000 homes across Australia. That is a company total, not one Perth estate.

Worth a second look

Land developers, and nobody printed a size

The page names them as the developer of a place. It does not say how many homes or how many hectares. Lendlease at Alkimos, Mirvac, Wolfdene, Richard Noble and Gold Estates are in this group. Absence of a number is not the same as being small.

Real, and the wrong size

One building, or a handful of homes

A tall building can use a lot of power. It is still one building, connected in the ordinary way. A precinct grid is for many separate lots.

Exal Group

Bentley

A student campus of up to 916 beds. One address, not a suburb.

Community Housing Limited

Subiaco

447 apartments in one project. Large, and still one building.

Forge, Linic, Foundation Housing

Nedlands, Perth, Kenwick

Three townhouses, 28 homes, and 34 apartments. Too small for this kind of grid.

Named once, with a suburb, and no size

Mostly apartment builders and small estates. The public page does not say how big the project is.

Named once on a planning agenda

A company name on a single development application. No suburb was kept, and no size. Any one of them might be a real project. There is not enough on the page to say.

  • TX Australia Pty Ltd
  • 59 Blinco Pty Ltd ATF 59 Blinco Unit Trust
  • AGEM Pg 52 Pty Ltd
  • Amass Investments Pty Ltd
  • Bass Management Pty Ltd
  • Bethesda Holdings Pty Ltd
  • D Equity Pty Ltd
  • Hazelland Pty Ltd
  • Hazelmere Tiaa Property Pty Ltd
  • Hyqualty Developments Pty Ltd
  • Jetcove Pty Ltd
  • Maison Holdings 2 Pty Ltd
  • Major Holdings Pty Ltd
  • NL Homes Melville PTY LTD
  • Offa Pty Ltd
  • Perth OHP Pty Ltd
  • Rich Peace Pty Ltd
  • Talbot Road Pty Ltd
  • VIMG WA Pty Ltd
  • Braykell Three Pty Ltd
  • EVA Investments Aust Pty Ltd
  • Northstead Pty Ltd
  • Rawling Road Pty Ltd
  • Stirling Cooper Collective 3 Pty Ltd

Leave these

The rest of the database

6,483 registered builders

They are on the public builder register. They put up houses for other people. They do not usually decide how a new suburb gets its electricity. They are kept in the database so they are not mixed up with the land developers. They are not listed name by name here.

Outside the south-west grid

Broome, Dampier and Wickham are not on the South West grid that serves Perth. The names are the Shire of Broome, Hamersley Iron, and Rio Tinto Iron Ore.

A shop, a school, or a factory, not an estate

  • Australian Islamic College (Perth) Inc
  • Cornerstone Christian College Ltd
  • Holcim Australia Pty Ltd
  • Scentre Group
  • Aegis Health
  • RE1 Limited and Scentre Management Ltd