Recently, both our federal and state governments announced potential grant funding rounds. The Sandy Point Community Group has submitted applications in both after a small a group of enthusiastic proponents had been investigating the idea of a CORE (Community Owned Renewable Energy) project for Sandy Point. Over a 12-month period the Group gathered relevant information to potential projects, attended workshops, and participated in on-line info sessions to collect needed data.
Community Energy Project for Sandy Point
Recently, both our federal and state governments announced potential grant funding rounds. The Sandy Point Community Group has submitted applications in both after a small a group of enthusiastic proponents had been investigating the idea of a CORE (Community Owned Renewable Energy) project for Sandy Point. Over a 12-month period the Group gathered relevant information to potential projects, attended workshops, and participated in on-line info sessions to collect needed data.
The first, through our federal member’s office will, they hope, provide funding towards a solar array on the newly completed Marine Rescue/Men’s Shed. If successful it will contribute to significantly reducing the running costs of their operations.
The second, through DELWP, is more ambitious and could lead to the installation of 30kW of community solar and a 30kWh battery to store excess energy. The Group is also in discussion with a company that can help setup a community scheme which will allow local trading, giving better feed in tariffs for generators and better rates for scheme members whether they are generators or not.
For more information about this read the summary of the grant applications on the Group’s website.
In late 2019, they set up a short online survey to try to gauge the interest within the Sandy Point Community to the idea of Renewable Energy projects. The survey gave some valuable information to use in framing potential projects for the future.
More recently, they conducted a physical survey of homes/buildings with solar panels in Sandy Point. There are 68 buildings with an estimated 200kW+ of generation available in the area.
The Group hopes to conduct public meeting(s) soon to discuss the projects with the community. Date and time will be confirmed as soon as possible
The objectives of the community power collective scheme are to give back control of the energy system to the community through the creation of a community power collective. A virtual aggregate of solar PV and batteries to provide a mechanism for the community collective to set its own trading price.
To provide a level of protection for community power generators from falling Feed-In Tariffs and allow trading between members of the collective at rates lower than those offered by commercial retailers. This will have the effect of lowering energy costs for members.
The Group also aims to provide electric Vehicle recharging stations to the community.
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