{"id":55354,"date":"2020-10-17T07:23:34","date_gmt":"2020-10-17T12:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55354"},"modified":"2020-10-17T07:23:34","modified_gmt":"2020-10-17T12:23:34","slug":"people-power-everyday-australians-are-building-their-own-renewables-projects-and-you-can-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55354","title":{"rendered":"People power: everyday Australians are building their own renewables projects, and you can too"},"content":{"rendered":"
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People power: everyday Australians are building their own renewables projects, and you can too<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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In the town of Goulburn in southern New South Wales, an energy revolution is brewing. The community has come together to build its own 4,000-panel\u00a0solar farm<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 everyday citizens are invited to buy shares in the venture and reap the rewards.<\/p>\n

Goulburn is not alone: community-owned energy is an idea whose time has come. About 100 community energy groups operate\u00a0across Australia<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 their projects at various levels of development \u2013 up from\u00a025 groups<\/a>\u00a0in 2015.<\/p>\n

The concept is gaining political attention, too. Independent MP for the federal Victorian seat of Indi, Helen Haines, in August moved a\u00a0motion<\/a>\u00a0in parliament, calling on the Morrison government to support community energy, including establishing a new government agency. The bill is backed by fellow independent Zali Steggall.<\/p>\n

At its core, community energy rests on the belief that everyday people should have power over how their energy is generated \u2013 including its environmental and social impacts. Big corporations should not control our energy systems, nor should they reap all the profits. So let\u2019s take a look at how community energy works.<\/p>\n

\"AProjects such as the ACT\u2019s Mount Majura solar farm allow citizens to take control of their energy needs.
Steve Bittinger\/Flickr under\u00a0CC licence 2.0<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What is community energy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s first community-owned renewable energy project,\u00a0Hepburn Wind<\/a>, started generating power in June 2011. Since then, many more communities across Australia have banded together to manage their own solar, wind, micro-grid and efficiency projects.<\/p>\n

The Goulburn project will be built in the Hume electorate of federal energy minister Angus Taylor, about 3km from the town centre. Earlier this year it received a A$2.1 million state grant, under the\u00a0Regional Community Energy Fund<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Investors can\u00a0reportedly<\/a>\u00a0buy A$400 shares, each covering the cost of a solar panel and the infrastructure needed for grid connection.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People power: everyday Australians are building their own renewables projects, and you can too In the town of Goulburn in southern New South Wales, an energy revolution is brewing. The community has come together to build its own 4,000-panel\u00a0solar farm\u00a0\u2013 everyday citizens are invited to buy shares in the venture and reap the rewards. Goulburn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,6],"tags":[41,30469,9358,674,30470,30471],"class_list":["post-55354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-liberty","tag-australia","tag-dominique-mccollum-coy","tag-permaculture-research-institute","tag-renewable-energy","tag-roger-dargaville","tag-shirin-malekpour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55354"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55355,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55354\/revisions\/55355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}