About Community Energy

Communities are coming together to respond to fundamental challenges.

What is

Community Energy

Community Energy involves a community coming together to initiate, develop, operate, own and/or benefit from a renewable energy or energy efficiency project. Projects vary by technology, size, structure, governance and funding options. They grow from the diverse needs and available resources of a local community (or community of interest) and might be anything from solar panels on a school roof, to a small wind farm on the edge of town, to a micro hydro system owned by two nearby townships.

Wind farm

Community Power Agency is proud to partner with the ABC series Fight for Planet A: Our Climate Challenge and is featured in the Community Solutions Plan

Wind farm

Interested in community energy?
Find out if there’s a group in your area.

CPA Directors at a community solar farm

The Benefits

Community Energy brings the environmental benefits of renewable energy with the social benefits of doing things together. It also presents an economic opportunity for communities across Australia, particularly in regional areas, to create a steady income stream to support regional economies and fund community development. It enables renters and apartment owners to participate in the benefits of solar energy, even if they don’t own an appropriate roof space. It is also a key way communities can cut carbon emissions and become energy self-sufficient.

Solar for All

Our latest community energy project – Haystacks Solar Garden- allows everyone unable to install solar on their own rooftop a way to join in the clean energy revolution and benefit from solar.

Anyone in NSW can become a member in this innovative community energy project.

Find out more here.

Community energy is about bringing people together, doing it ourselves and creating collective benefits for all.

Community Energy enables communities to:

Decarbonise

our energy supply through using renewable energy

Decentralise

our local energy supply

Democratise

our energy governance through community ownership and participation

Demonstrate

that renewable energy works and brings lasting benefits

Read more about community energy in the National Community Energy Strategy.

Want to start a community energy project in your town? Here’s some resources to get you started:

Are you interested to learn what you can do in your own community to reduce carbon emissions? Do your own ABC Community Solutions Planhttps://www.abc.net.au/solutionsplan

CPA Directors Elizabeth, Nicky & Jarra at a windfarm

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