“Yes – it’s possible to raise $2M for a community renewable project right in the middle of Angus Taylor’s electorate,” says local Goulburn farmer Ed Suttle, who lives just down the road from Mr Taylor’s rural property.
The Goulburn 1.2MW AC community owned solar farm has been in the planning stages for 4 years and has finally come to fruition with the local community raising almost $2M in just over two weeks since the investment offer was announced in late October. The project will incorporate a 400kW/800kWh battery to provide dispatchable power to the grid.
“Who says there isn’t any appetite for quality community renewable energy projects in regional Australia? In just over two weeks we raised over 90% of the required capital, right at Angus Taylor’s back door,” said Mr Suttle, the Vice President of Community Energy for Goulburn.
“It was like an old fashioned Boxing Day sale at David Jones with people scrambling to sign up for anything from $400 to $400,000 investment in the farm,” he said.
“The people of Goulburn know that it’s not going to be a gas led recovery. It’s renewables that are going to boost the economy and reduce Australia’s carbon pollution at the same time. The sooner Mr Taylor gets the message from his own electorate the better,” said Mr Suttle.
“There have been quite a few small scale renewable projects financed by community investors, but this is a much larger project and the community have embraced it with amazing enthusiasm and support,” he said.
In just over two weeks, following two public meetings and a webinar, members of the local community flooded the CE4G committee with offers of financial support, the first community owned renewable project in NSW to include a big battery.
While CE4G have been fielding investment interest from all over Australia Mr Suttle said that a decision was made early on to prioritise locals to give them the chance to invest in their own project.
“But from November 20th we’re opening up the project to people outside the region to give others an opportunity to invest. We’re nearly there, but if we raise more than our target then we’ll be able to expand the project or even move on to our second stage,” he said.
People outside the region can now invest in the project on a first in first served basis. Mr Suttle expects the offer to be fully subscribed within the next few weeks and encourages prospective investors to get in early or face the prospect of missing out.
