Regional initiatives in energy independence

The City of Victor Harbor in regional South Australia recently completed a solar panel retrofit program that saw almost 2000 people receive a minimum of a 1.02 kWh photovoltaic (PV) panel set installed for $1995 plus meter.

Roy Ramage, Economic Development Officer for the City of Victor Harbor, said it would have been more, but the federal government shut the rebate scheme three weeks early, curtailing the scope of the program.

Ramage adds: “The truncated time frame did, however, enable us to initiate an ongoing energy research project with Adelaide University. We intend to continue until every house is at or near grid parity.”

The project involved 900 ratepayers in the Fleurieu Peninsula, which takes in four council areas, each ratepayer investing between $2500 and $2.25 million (depending on size of PV panels and electricity output) and that attracted $8 million in federal government rebates to them.

Adelaide-based Zen Technologies, who supplied much of the PV panels and grid-connect equipment, opened up a local office to service the installations and created three local jobs to staff it, while 24 local electricians were contracted for the nine-month installation program.

Ramage quotes some compelling statistics about the positive impact of this initiative: “The 900 households that were involved in this program will collectively reduce CO₂ emissions by 1170 tonnes each year, while saving an estimated $250,000 in energy bills.

On top of this, $30,000 was contributed to a Zen/Adelaide University/Victor Harbor City partnership for proof of concept research into solar/wind hybrid renewable energy.

“In addition to our initiative, there are an additional 1000 participants outside our four councils in the Fleurieu Peninsula, so the overall positive impact on the environment and the economy is twice what we’ve achieved.

“We copied the idea from Towong shire in Victoria and it’s possible for most regions around Australia to duplicate this program too,” said Ramage.