Yarra Valley Community Power Hub (YV-CPHub) is celebrating progress on seven significant renewable energy projects as the organisation comes to a close.
Healesville CoRe President and former YV-CPHub Executive Officer, Jeff Barlow, said while he was proud of what had been achieved, so much more could have been done had YV-CPHub been able to continue.
“Projects such as solar farms, community batteries, solar car parks and other small to medium projects often take two to three years to complete and also need additional funding,” Mr Barlow said.
“So with more time to complete the feasibility studies and the business cases and more time to organise community funding or grants, we could have achieved much more.”
YV-CPHub was one of seven Victorian hubs to miss out on State Government funding earlier this year after just twelve months in operation.
The hubs received a combined $3.73 million to collaborate with ground-level, voluntary groups on projects that would increase renewable energy in their community.
In partnership with consulting and project development business, Komo Energy, YV-CPHub was backing its six community groups to get seven major projects moving.
The projects were:
1. Healesville CoRE: Matilda Bay Brewery precinct solar car park shade structure with battery and significant EV charging. Komo Energy undertook a feasibility study, sought concept electrical and structural engineering and developed a proposal for site owners to host the structure and offtake solar electricity.
2. Clean Energy Nillumbik (CEN): installation of a solar energy system at St Thomas Retirement Village to support repeated outages and a vulnerable, elderly population. Komo Energy reviewed two options, finding an estimated 200kW solar system and 200/ 500kWh battery most viable. It also sought quotes for the system and prepared a proposal for CEN to discuss with retirement village operators.
3. Bunyip Renewable Action Group (BRAG): community solar farm. Komo Energy reviewed the proposal and studied a range of layout options, finding that a solar farm up to 1.5MW with fixed mounting structure is most viable. Komo also engaged experts to prepare a land lease proposal and grid connection application to AusNet.
4. CEN and Healesville CoRE: Rural islanding to improve energy resilience for homes experiencing repeated outages. Rural islanding uses solar energy and batteries to power isolated sections of the AusNet network. In an earlier assessment, Komo Energy found an original proposal for micro-grids was not cost effective and re-formulated the proposal to include rural islanding. It has since attempted discussions with AusNet on the new proposal.
5. Healesville CoRE: explore possible uses for the 7.4ha Yarra Valley ECOSS site in Wesburn. Komo investigated potential uses and proposed an integrated bioeconomy project. This project aims to enhance productivity, resilience and resource efficiency through the creation of greenhouse systems that can be integrated with existing field production. Grant options were explored but none are currently available.
6. CEN: Revaluate the solar farm proposal for the former landfill site at Pretty Hill. A previous investigation found an AusNet connection supporting a 5MW solar farm was not viable. After reevaluating the project, Komo Energy found a smaller solar farm of 1 to 2MW was possible. The project is now on hold as Nillumbik Shire Council indicated that several groups were interested in the Pretty Hill site, which may not become available until 2023/2024.
7. Upper Yarra Community Enterprise (UYCE) and Upper Yarra Community Power (UYCP): Provide advice to the group on options for the Warburton Hydro Project in relation to ongoing viability.
Mr Barlow said all the projects would have to continue without YV-CPHub, which officially disbanded at the end of June.
Remaining fundings will support staff through August to enable commercial transitions to be made. Talks are underway to find another source of funding to keep YV-CPHub going.
In the meantime, Komo Energy will continue to undertake development activities and to de-risk projects with whatever support the community energy groups can offer.
Depending on funding, the community groups then have the option to take over the projects once they are construction-ready.
Should community energy groups find the projects unsuitable or fail to raise the required funds, Komo Energy has the option to take some of the projects forward in its own right.
