Community Information Hubs have been installed
across the Shoalhaven at 21 community halls, all 4 showgrounds, 4 Holiday Haven tourist parks and one community-owned facility (Wandandian Progress Hall) as a reliable source of timely, accurate and relevant information for the local area in both emergency and non-emergency situations.
To find your nearest community information hub, search your address or view the map below:
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Council’s aim is to grow community-led resilience and to plan, prepare, respond and recover from emergencies and disaster situations.
The NSW State Government’s independent inquiry into the Summer 2020 bushfires outlined a number of community needs from the numerous statements and testimonies given by those affected by disasters. The instability and vulnerability of power grids and telecommunications infrastructure during a disaster was identified as the main disruption to communications networks.
The summary report of the inquiry states that "Information should be available to communities and individuals in real time, on live warning signs in town centres using satellite connections so they are not reliant on telecommunications infrastructure".
The access — or lack thereof — of authoritative, timely, accurate and local information was a significant cause of community concern during the 2019-20 bushfires.
For the purpose of electricity and telecommunications, the halls and facilities across the Shoalhaven that have installed Community Information Hubs have been transformed into sites that are not reliant on the infrastructure around them.
Take a walk through tour of the pilot site in Callala Bay with Project Co-ordinator Vince Di Pietro to see how it looks.
The Community Information Hubs have a satellite receiver and transmitter dish along with 16 solar panels attached to the building's roof. This power feeds into a locally manufactured inverter, which captures 100% of the energy generated by each individual panel.
The energy captured is then combined and fed through a Tesla control panel and delivered to the 3.5-kilowatt Powerwall Tesla battery, ensuring storage for 3 or 4 days of continuous power to essential services in emergency situations.
What are the essential services?
- emergency exit signage
- lighting
- ventilation
- one refrigerator
- two general purpose outlets
- the satellite modem
- the voice-over-IP telephone
- the information screens.
Additionally, a 1.5-kilowatt cavity is fitted for a hand driven Honda generator that would enable all the essential services to run for as long as fuel is available, even if electric power was to completely run out.
This results in three levels of redundancy for power in an emergency — all separated from the surrounding local infrastructure.
All halls and facilities that have an information hub installed are now carbon negative. They are producing more power than is being used and what is not being drawn is feeding straight back into the power grid.
The satellite communications are the 'brains' of the installation. A satellite control box, satellite modem and Voice Over IP telephone (using internet signals rather than phone signals) are stored within a secure media rack on each site.
Each phone has a contact number, allowing for two-way communication via satellite at 33 to 35 megabytes per second speeds with no latency.
This has all been designed to reduce the possibility of these facilities and their surrounding communities being isolated by damage to communications and power infrastructure again.
Each hub screen is a commercially available, 55-inch, single-sided portrait display panel. The mounting frames for these screens, designed and engineered locally at South Coast Glass, are vandal resistant, bug proof and dust proof.
Each frame is fully ventilated to ensure that the screen doesn't fail due to temperature variation or heat from direct sunlight.
In non-emergency situations, the local community has control over the screens, which they can turn on or off using a standard Samsung remote.
While advertising a business is not permitted, every local sporting club or community group can take the opportunity to promote.
This might be the next weekend market, a fundraiser at the hall, a notice of a particular meeting or event, workshops and classes, just as an example.
To apply to have your community information hosted on the screens, please head to our application page.