Great excitement was afoot in the Yackandandah Public Hall on Thursday night as the Yackandandah Community Energy Hub was launched!
A full house listened to Cathy McGowan AO, Cr Jenny O’Connor (Mayor of Indigo Shire), Matthew Charles-Jones (TRY Chairperson), Rod Jones (Manager, Distributed Energy Resources of Mondo) and Ben McGowan (Managing Director of Indigo Power) speak about the energy hub. Matt, Rod and Ben then took questions from the audience to further explain how it all worked.
The Hub is the product of three years of hard work by TRY, Mondo and the newly formed Indigo Power. Most excitedly residents will now be able to trade locally generated renewable energy.
It is essentially a means by which energy can be traded within the region and consists of a competitive retail tariff and Indigo Power will return 50% of profits to clean energy and community projects in local towns.
This means that Indigo Power patrons generating excess solar will get paid for it via a feed-in tariff and their Indigo Power neighbours can purchase that power. Power that can’t be supplied locally is imported from the grid and is fully carbon offset. As community-scale storage and generation projects are added to the local mini-grid, more local energy will be available for trading, and it all contributes to the 2022 goal – 100% local renewable energy!
TRY are very pleased to have a very diverse range of contributors, ranging from business, state and local government, to make the energy hub a reality. If you’re a Yackandandah resident, you can get further information and sign up by going to www.indigopower.com.au.
And how about letting everyone know about this momentous Yack milestone – talk to your neighbours about the new retail offer, and if you can help spread the word around Yack via brochures or letterboxing, please email TRY at [email protected]
For those who live outside the Yackandandah boundaries, your turn is coming. Other hubs will be launched around the north-east Victorian region in early 2020 – watch this space for more news!
