North East Victoria continues to be one of the hottest spots in Australia for community energy. Energy democracy was the rallying cry earlier this year when independent Helen Haines won the seat of Indi at the Federal election – helped by a strong community energy and climate action movement in the area.

This last week has seen a flurry of activity in the region. The Clean Energy Council awarded their Community Engagement Award to Mondo Power for their work with Totally Renewable Yackandandah in establishing a community micro grid that has already saved the community more than $160,000 in energy costs and will ultimately allow the town to source 100% of it’s electricity from renewables sources by 2022. The Victorian Government celebrated the launch of the Hume Renewable Energy Roadmap, a comprehensive guide to ensuring the communities in the region are able to take advantage of the opportunities that will come with the clean energy transition, while also ensuring public support remains high and community values are respected. Finally, Indigo Shire Council officially declared a climate emergency at an ordinary Council meeting.

This is all possible because of the work and commitment of the community energy and climate action groups in the area and their supporters. Community energy initiatives and meaningful action on climate change appears to be ramping up in this region and we think this is testament to the fact that collaboration is the approach taken by so many people, groups and businesses in the area.

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