Plans to expand community-owned wind farm in Western Australia to meet demand

ABC NEWS (Australia)

One of Australia's first community-owned wind farms plans to expand its production to meet growing demand. Hundreds of community-led projects have been developed as part of a growing national trend.

Transcript

00:00On the state's south coast, two turbines generating kilowatts of power.

00:07The community-owned Denmark wind farm is one of the first of its kind in Australia.

00:11For us it was climate change and the desire to actually model and scale up renewable energy,

00:17not just at the household level.

00:19Ten years ago these turbines produced more than half the town's power.

00:23But as the population has increased, so has demand for electricity.

00:26We have approval for four turbines there, so there's no reason why we couldn't produce much more than 100% of the town's energy.

00:35But attempts to diversify the town's energy infrastructure have been stifled.

00:39The town missed out on federal funding in a recent bid.

00:42We've investigated and made an application for support to get five large-scale batteries embedded into the local network.

00:52So we should have got supported.

00:56The WA government is investing more than $5.7 billion into the state's energy transition,

01:01while the federal government says it's installing 400 community batteries to support the energy transition.

01:06But there was no direct funding for community-led projects like the Denmark wind farm.

01:11Energy analysts say those programs are not going where they're needed.

01:14Having the batteries is a good thing.

01:16What we really should be focused on is getting those batteries into regions.

01:20We don't really need it as much in the city straight away as we need it in the country straight away.

01:25Despite the delays, many communities remain interested in generating their own energy.

01:29125 groups across the country in every state and territory and together they've delivered over 730 different projects.

01:38Communities are really keen to be on the front foot of this shift to renewable energy to reduce their bills,

01:45to increase energy resilience, to bring local economic benefit.

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