Mr. Zempilas' question regarding DFES callouts to utility-scale solar farms and BESS since 2021 was met with a response indicating that DFES does not collect data at the required level of detail.

AnsweredQoN 729Legislative Assembly
Asked
9 September 2025
Portfolio
Emergency Services; Corrective Services; Defence Industries; Veterans; Racing and Gaming

QuestionView source ↗

Since 1 January 2021: (a) how many Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) callouts have occurred to utility-scale solar farms and to co-located battery energy storage systems (BESS); (b) for each, what was the incident type, cause (if known), resources deployed, duration, and outcome; (c) how many produced an after-action review; (d) how many recommendations relate to access/water/vegetation management; and (e) will the Minister table de-identified after-action reviews or an aggregated lessons-learned summary?

AnswerView source ↗

Answered
14 October 2025
Responded by
Minister for Emergency Services; Corrective Services; Defence Industries; Veterans; Racing and Gaming
Response time
6 days
The Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) advises:
(a-b) DFES' incident reporting system has not collected data at the level of granularity required to isolate callouts specifically to utility-scale solar farms or BESS.
(c-e) Not Applicable.

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