BENDIGO'S public can stop much more money leaving every year in power bills if it gets on the front foot, an expert says amid tectonic shifts in the energy landscape.
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It will need to unite and stake out space, the Community Power Agency's founding director Jarra Hicks says.
"What if we could retain even a small portion of that by involving people locally in the way our energy system is run and owned?" she told a gathering at the Bendigo Regional Tennis Centre on Tuesday night.
Bendigo currently spends between $60 and $80 million on power bills each year. Most of that money leaves central Victoria.
Dr Hicks shared her insights on the rapidly expanding "community power" sector as a group of businesses community organisations and members of the public partner in a collaboration coordinated by the City of Greater Bendigo.
It convened a public meeting this week to discuss opportunities Bendigo could jump on with enough community support.
That could include community power projects that are not as big as a commercial company's, but allows local people to be part of something bigger than upgrades to their own homes.
The projects are becoming increasingly popular in Australia as communities try to stake a claim in a rapidly changing energy system dominated by private renewable energy companies.
Communities have built nearly 150 projects of various sizes over the past decade, Dr Hicks said.
They have included everything from making homes more energy efficient, to giving the public shares in not-for-profit solar farms and a host of other ideas, she said.
"It's also about education and bringing goals that can really bring everybody in the community along," Dr Hicks said.
That would likely include those left behind as homeowners race to install solar, like many renters.
The community power model has become increasingly common in places like Scotland thanks to friendly policies from governments.
Bendigo has plenty of solar energy potential, renewable policy expert Benjy Lee said.
He told the meeting Bendigo sat at the "gateway" to future powerlines expected to share solar energy with Victoria's northern regions.
Greater Bendigo needs to halt its heavy reliance on electricity and gas if it is to reach carbon zero by the end of the decade.
The municipality belches out 1.66 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and equivalent gasses each year.
About 67 per cent of that pollution comes from business and homes' electricity. Another nine per cent comes from gas.
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Tom O'Callaghan
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
