Community Energy News

Leading ethical bank, Bank Australia, announced today their biggest ever round of grant funding, including a new category just for community energy projects. Five organisations will receive $25,000 from the Bank to develop their community energy projects.

The full list of grant recipients can be found on their website, but the five community energy winners are worth us listing here:

• Bendigo Sustainability Group
• Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance
• Gippsland Climate Change Network
• Pingala
• Community Power Agency

Yes, that’s right – we’re one of the recipients. We’re using the funds to help Inner West Council in Sydney further develop their plans for creating a solar garden for those residents who are ‘locked out’ of owning their own rooftop solar system.

The project will determine the best solar gardens model to use for residents in the Inner West Council are and commence planning for the future implementation stage.

Our heartfelt congratulations to all the successful applicants. We look forward to seeing your community energy projects unfold and flourish with this generous support from Bank Australia.

Dear Community Energy Fans,

As the year draws to a close, we thought we’d look back on a huge year for Community Power Agency and the community energy sector. 

We are very proud to have seen the sector grow to 105 groups and 174 projects in 2018, with more government commitments and increasing industry interest in collaboration.

Before the silly season we would like to share some project updates, outcomes and achievements.

Read on for:

• A snapshot of the community energy sector in 2018
• A wrap up of our Social Access Solar Gardens project
• Insights into our project with councils
• An overview of our community engagement work for a large-scale solar farm
• Exciting policy projects, and
• Stories from our work with community energy groups

We are very sad that this week the international community energy mapping database, Energy Archipelago, was taken offline by Scene Connect.

The map included data from our own community energy database, so we’re particularly sad to see an international collaboration like this come to an end.

We continue to maintain the Australia database of community energy projects, which you can find at cpagency.org.au/map

Have you wondered what the Finkel Review is all about? Or why gas prices are so high? Or how we could achieve a faster transition to 100% renewables? CPA’s Introduction to the Australian Energy System Trainings could help answer those questions.

In November and December Community Power Agency is running three training events in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. These trainings, kindly supported by a grant from Climate Action Network Australia (CANA), are tailored for campaigners, community sector workers and volunteers working towards the energy transition.