Category Archives: News

A Local Power Plan for the regions

News,

TRY has been one of many community groups contributing to a detailed plan for bringing renewable energy benefits to regional and rural areas. The article below appeared in the October/November edition of Yackandandah’s bi-monthly paper, Yackity Yak.Local Power Plan logo

A few months ago in June I described how TRY and other local community energy stakeholders were participating in a community energy co-design process with the office of Dr Helen Haines MP. Over 8 weeks Dr Haines engaged with hundreds of people and received 99 submissions from all over Australia and all types of people and organisations, including farmers, investors, health organisations, training providers and community energy groups.

The purpose of the process was to ensure that regional Australia drives and benefits from the coming boom in renewable energy. As more large-scale solar and wind farms, and eventually storage facilities such as batteries and pumped hydro, pop up around the country, how do we make sure that regional Australia participates in the benefits that flow from them?

And when extreme weather events and bushfire disasters more frequently disrupt power supplies, as they did in Corryong and Walwa last summer, how can we make our towns and regions more resilient? How do we ensure that large (and small) projects are not done to the regions, but with the regions? These were the underlying questions that occupied the expert panel and the many submissions that Dr Haines received.

Over the last 6 years TRY has experienced many of the challenges and benefits of undertaking a 100% renewable energy transition and we are uniquely placed to identify things that would improve and accelerate the journey. We’re proud of our efforts and achievements that show the benefits and possibilities of a renewable energy transformation.

We participated in the consultation process, helping to formulate the discussion paper, and also made our own submission. It and the other 98 submissions were incorporated into the discussion paper and have become the Local Power Plan, a roadmap of initiatives to involve, benefit and empower local communities via renewable energy projects. The Plan suggests different levels of policy that will facilitate community and commercial projects and provide incentives for investment, regional development and resilience.

A screenshot from a Zoom session with TRY members
TRY participated in several Zoom sessions over five months, helping to formulate the discussion paper and giving feedback on successive drafts. Image: Juliette Milbank

Dr Haines commented that “for everyday people in regional Australia, if we do renewables right, it means lower bills, stronger energy security, and new jobs and industries”. Along with reducing emissions, this is what TRY has been working towards since we started our journey, with a focus on making sure that initiatives benefit all levels of the community, not just those that can afford to make changes. It’s about equity, resilience and community.

The Local Power Plan is now complete and was launched online on the 23 September as well as being presented to the energy minister, Angus Taylor MP – you can look at the final version here.

We’re incredibly proud to have been part of this process and we and many others will be watching to see what happens. In the mean time we continue working on a 100% renewable transition for our town, making local power a reality.

                                                                                                                                            –– Juliette Milbank

Supersizing a community battery

News,

TRY and Indigo Power were on the PRIME7 News with the announcement of grant funding from the Victorian Government for our first community-scale battery storage facility, Yack01.

Image of the PRIME7 News video

We were very excited to learn on Wednesday that we had been successful with our application for $171,000 from the Victorian government’s New Energy Jobs Fund. TRY and Indigo Power have been hard at work since mid-2019 raising around $250,000 to bring a 136 kWh storage battery to fruition, but with the announcement of the additional funding the battery can now be increased to 274 kWh.

The storage battery facility (named Yack01 in anticipation of much more storage to come!) will be one of the first of its kind in Australia and will be installed alongside 70 kW of solar panels that are also part of the project. It will enable solar energy generated during the day to be stored and then used by Indigo Power customers during the evening. The larger battery will enable it to power up to 40 average-size households overnight.

Yack01 will be located at the property of Ben Gilbert’s Agency of Sculpture business, which is the site of the old Yackandandah sawmill and has a necessary transformer already on site. The battery is situated ‘behind the meter’ but will sell electricity into the National Electricity Market (NEM) for use by local residents. 

The tracking and sharing of local energy is made possible by an energy-sharing widget developed by Mondo (a subsidiary of AusNet Services) so that Indigo Power customers with this device form a mini-grid.

The state government funding is a vital step to getting the town of Yackandandah to reach its 100% renewable energy target. We know that we not only need more renewable energy generation, but we also need storage to ensure the community has access to clean energy at all times. The Yack01 battery is a small but crucial step in the 5-stage road map to reach our target, and is the precursor to the masterplan for community-scale storage and generation being developed by our federally funded feasibility study.

We are stoked that the extra funding has allowed us to increase the battery size and really looking forward to some community-scale storage coming online in the next few months!

The TRY logo

  

The Indigo Power logo

2020 Annual General Meeting

News
Matt Grogan, former TRY Chairperson, gives his parting speech at the 2019 AGM. Photo: Ben Gilbert

The 2020 TRY Inc. AGM will be held on
Wednesday, October 21st, at 7.30pm

[Edit: The AGM Agenda is available here]

This will be an on-line meeting, via Zoom, in line with the current COVID-19 restrictions on public meetings.

All members of TRY Inc are invited to attend, and anyone wishing to become members will be welcome to join the meeting.

The positions of President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary/Public Officer will be declared vacant, and a vote will be taken to fill those positions for the next 12 months.

If you wish to nominate a person for one of these positions, and/or are unable to join the meeting but wish to vote by proxy, please use the following forms to participate:

Nomination Form                         Proxy Form

These should be completed and emailed to [email protected] by October 19.

PLEASE NOTE: in order to co-ordinate the meeting, an RSVP is required in all instances by email to [email protected] The link to the meeting, along with an agenda, will be provided by return email.

It is anticipated this meeting will conclude at 9.00 pm. If you have not used Zoom for online meetings previously, and need help to set up the meeting on your computer or phone, please let us know and we will endeavour to help.

Please send RSVPs, forms and any enquiries to TRY Inc by October 19

[email protected]

Seeking solar sites

News

TRY is seeking spaces to scale up to 100%

As your local community energy group, TRY has worked hard at getting solar systems onto Yack rooftops with the awesome result that we now have Victoria’s leading solar rooftop density at a little under 60%. The next step is scaling up to reach our 100% renewable energy goal, but in a way that’s local, with local ownership, and respecting Yack’s unique environment and heritage. Achieving the 100% goal will give Yack greater resilience and the many benefits of a renewable energy economy.

Yackandandah recently received funding from the Federal Government to undertake a feasibility study to set up a community-scale micro-grid, including energy generation and storage equipment. This will result in a Masterplan for Yackandandah that sets out how, and with what mix of installations, we can achieve the 100% renewable goal. In terms of generation assets, we are looking mainly at solar photovoltaics, though wind is possible. For energy storage, we are looking at battery technologies and pumped hydro as options.

Total energy imports to the Yack township and surrounds on a typical winters day showing the peaks due to hot water systems turning on and busy periods. The Masterplan will identify how we can meet these needs (data from the feasibility study currently being undertaken by TRY).

As part of this project, we want to identify potential sites where a community-scale (small) solar farm (2-4 MW) and battery installation could be located.

Can you help us find potential sites? Do you own land that you think might be suitable – or know someone who has land that might fit the bill.

Sites need to satisfy a number of criteria, including:

  1. Orientation – ideally with a sunny, northerly aspect
  2. Area – about 3-8 Hectares, preferably cleared (depending on site availability, we may end up going with multiple smaller sites rather than one larger one)
  3. Location – needs to be reasonably close (say within 500m) of major 22kV power lines on major roads (the 22kV lines are shown on the AusNet map at https://dapr.ausnetservices.com.au/)
  4. Terms  –negotiable- the land needs to be available for use for renewable energy on a long-term lease or purchase basis.

Confidentiality

If you own or know of land you think may be suitable for solar generation (as per the criteria listed), and that is available for this purpose, you can contact us on a CONFIDENTIAL/ NO COMMITMENT basis.

Please contact

by Tuesday 20th October.

‘Spring Conversation’ about Renewables

TRY is committed to continuing to engage with the Yack folks about the study, plans and options as the project matures. We are infinitely conscious that people are very determined not to damage our great local landscape.

To describe plans and hear where people’s concerns and wishes lie, we are also proposing a ‘Spring Conversation’ about our renewables plan in October or November (Covid-19 restrictions permitting). Watch this space for dates.

 

 

RACV’s People Power

News

Matthew Charles-Jones, TRY Chairperson, was recently interviewed for an article on three Victorian community’s efforts to power up in different ways: the communities were Yackandandah, Hepburn Shire, Preston in Melbourne, and two residents outside Mallacoota. You can read the article by clicking on the image or the link below.

Check out the shots of Matt on the roof of the Yack Public Hall with the solar array that was installed as part of the Virtual Power Plant (VPP), one of TRY’s signature projects to install solar and/or batteries on all the public buildings in the town. The final two installations in that project are due to occur later this year.

 

A screenshot of the Royal Auto article
Excerpt of the Royal Auto article showing Shannon Morris’ photo of Taryn Lane in front of one of the Hepburn Wind turbines, just outside Daylesford.

 

Peter Barrett, “People Power: The Victorian communities generating their own energy”, Royal Auto, 22 June 2020, <https://www.racv.com.au/royalauto/living/victorian-sustainability/community-power-projects-victoria.html>.

 

Looking at reliability

News,

TRY’s chair Matt Charles-Jones was a guest on ABC Radio Melbourne’s The Conversation Hour yesterday, discussing grid reliability and energy options with Warwick Long. He appeared alongside Tony Wood (Grattan Institute) and Simon Holmes à Court (a senior advisor to the Climate and Energy College at Melbourne University and on the board of the Smart Energy Council).

A man giving a presentation
Matthew Charles-Jones talking at a workshop in Benalla in 2018. Photo: TRY

This episode of The Conversation Hour was prompted by the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO’s) call for investment in the energy grid to stay reliable and avoid major blackouts, amid the increasing stresses of changing climate on both the grid and some industries.

Matt discussed TRY’s plans to rethink the way a community gets its energy, to trade, share and generate electricity locally via Indigo Power and the Ubi smart energy controller, as well as our plan to reach 100% renewable energy by 2022.

Unfortunately, the slot was too short to mention TRY’s current project looking at scaling up energy storage via the recent federal grant from the Regional and Remote Communities Reliability Fund. Over the next 15 months we’ll be investigating both pumped hydro and community-scale battery storage options to help us reach 100%, which is a big part of both reaching that goal and providing reliability both generally and during times of crisis.

You can listen to the episode here (the first ten minutes are taken by a Victorian Pandemic update):

The Conversation Hour, ABC Radio Melbourne, Thursday 25th May

Matt’s portion starts at the 36 minute mark and goes for 5 minutes. But it’s well worth also listening to the portions containing both Tony Wood (starts at the 19 minute mark) and Simon Holmes à Court (41 minute mark), as they bring pragmatic and knowledgeable perspectives to the energy debate.

Community-scale pumped hydro & battery storage

News,

Great excitement today as TRY was successful with a grant application to the Regional and Remote Communities Reliability Fund, setting us up for determining the best community-scale generation and storage options to reach our 100% goal!

Two women and two men stand in front of some batteries and inverters holding a golden yak
Helen Haines MP came to Yackandandah today to celebrate our recent grant approval with TRY members, Matthew Charles-Jones, Kim McConchie and Donna Jones. Photo: TRY

We are thrilled to confirm TRY has received just under $350,000 to finalise the scaled generation and storage plans for a sprint toward 100% clean local power. Our project will be investigating the feasibility and best mix of 1-2 MWh of pumped hydro and 3-4 MWh of community-scale battery storage, to work alongside some scaled solar generation, to complement the town’s existing generation and storage capacity.

We are so pleased to be doing this with the massive support of Dr. Helen Haines, Independent Member for Indi. As part of the project we will be working with the good folks of Yackandandah, Mondo and Tamar Hydro Pty Ltd, identifying the best mix of technologies and ways of operating them that will serve Yackandandah’s needs.

Our project has been made possible through the federal government’s Regional and Remote Communities Reliability Fund through the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. The fund supports studies that look at microgrid technologies to assist grid-challenged communities in regional and remote areas, with a view to supplying more reliable and cost effective energy solutions for those communities.

Onwards to 2022!

Voices from the North East

News

TRY recently participated in a podcast on community energy groups in north-east Victoria called Voices from the North East. With the final episode of the series now released, if you’re looking for some fascinating stories to listen to in isolation, this one’s worth checking out.

Simon Duncan interviews Matt Charles-Jones
Simon Duncan from Green Energy Videos has collaborated with TRY on a number of videos and now a podcast series too. He’s seen here interviewing Matt Charles-Jones last year. Photo: Juliette Milbank

A mosaic of community energy groups are working hard across Australia to reform the national energy system.  Local groups throughout our vast land are helping to drive a just and considered switch away from the dated act of burning stuff to make electricity to smart, affordable and effective clean energy.

Video and sound producer Simon Duncan, from GreenEnergy Videos, has curated a dynamic snapshot of groups working in north-east Victoria to accelerate the transition to clean energy and do so in a way that strengthens their communities: to save money, boost local economies and help create a modern, smart renewables based electricity grid. His podcast is called Voices from the North East and has episodes on five local groups, including TRY and Indigo Power.

Why not enliven some of your unplanned spare time with the stories of passionate people working hard to usher in a new era of energy and which responds to climate change and a yearning for more people based energy systems. You can find the podcast via the link below:

Community Energy: Voices from the North East

Great work from Simon, and tireless community energy groups everywhere!

Simon Duncan is shown interviewing Ben McGowan with recording equipment
Simon Duncan (at right) also interviewed Ben McGowan (left) for the episode on Indigo Power. Photo: Juliette Milbank

Community Energy Hub Launch

News

Great excitement was afoot in the Yackandandah Public Hall on Thursday night as the Yackandandah Community Energy Hub was launched!

TRY committee members, Indigo Power board members and Mondo representatives celebrate the product of all their hard work: a community energy hub! Photo: TRY

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.

Rod Jones from Mondo Power explains the technology behind the energy hub. Photo: J Milbank

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!

It was a full house for the launch of the Yackandandah Community Energy Hub at the Yackandandah Public Hall. Photo: J Milbank

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!

Launch of the Yackandandah virtual power plant

News
Representatives from the hall committees, TRY, Selectronic and Indigo Shire celebrated the launch of the VPP at the Yack Public Hall today. Photo: TRY

We had a terrific and intimate celebration in Yack today to flag the completion of 10 solar installations on public buildings, three of which have batteries.

After five years of sustained effort ten public buildings have a combined total of 74.8 kW of solar panels and 36 kWh of batteries, including the Public Hall, Sports Park, CFA, Museum, Masonic Hall, Health Service and the Osbornes Flat, Wooragee and Bruarong Halls, and the Indigo Valley CFA. These systems are all linked by the electricity grid and the Ubi smart energy controller, and soon also the community energy retailer, Indigo Power.

They form a series of small, distributed solar and battery installations
that are contributing renewable power to the grid around Yackandandah. Each on it’s own is not very large, but combined they contribute a significant amount to powering our town and act as a virtual power plant.

This project was made possible with inputs from the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, plus: TRY, Indigo Shire, Into Our Hands Foundation, Various Hall Committees, YCDCo, Selectronic Australia, Indigo Power and the Yackandandah Folk Festival. Big support also from solar professionals, Solar Integrity.