Local Energy hubs
Local Energy hubs
Transcript
00:00Well, to be honest, when this solar farm was built next to us, I just thought, well, that
00:06land's wasted now. I thought this is the last mob of sheep that'll ever graze on this land
00:11again. But it turns out that was all wrong. Now there's actually more sheep grazing there.
00:22The last drought went for three years and it was horrific. So we had a massive debt,
00:28which was never going to be cleared. We could see next door, our neighbour had already signed
00:33up. We saw the benefits of the solar farm. We could see opportunity there. So yeah, there
00:38was no one really to talk to about it because there wasn't many people that had done it.
00:42And it wasn't something that you could walk into the local pub and say, hey, g'day fellas,
00:46any of you know anything about solar? I'm going to sign up for my farm for solar. Well,
00:49you'd have got run out of town. If there had been a local energy hub, it would have been
00:54beneficial. It definitely would have helped us. And it would have made our decision making
00:58a lot simpler. So this farm has been in my family for quite some time. We've got beef,
01:06sheep, chickens, and then a biodynamic orchard. I love working this land and providing food
01:15to feed people. Farms are big energy users and I can't see producing food becoming any
01:23cheaper. So we invested in a 12 kilowatt solar panel system and five kilowatts of battery.
01:30So the number one reason was to lower the energy bills and it has done so.
01:34But I would very much like to make my battery storage a lot higher.
01:39It's quite confusing. And if we had somebody in my town that I could go to,
01:44who was knowledgeable within that energy space,
01:47it would have just cut the length of time we had to on researching.
01:53For farmers who are very busy, having somewhere that is on top of legislation,
01:58I think is really something that we're missing within regional communities.
02:09It's a very complicated space. You can easily get caught up in the technical issues and the market
02:16issues and also in the regulatory issues. And so that's part of the reason for birthing
02:25Jenny Energy, which is the template for the local energy hubs across Australia.
02:32We're not in the business of talking people into something that they're not already interested in.
02:37We just try to make the journey smoother and less confusing. We answer questions,
02:42we help them understand their electricity bill, we help them identify what a good system would
02:47look like for them, and we actually take them right through to the installation.
02:51They came out and had a look around and worked out what we needed and I think it's only really
02:57a day that they got those up. I don't think they even broke a tile.
03:01We've also started engaging with renewable developers and we've been
03:06assessing different ways that we can create more localised benefits
03:10and really bring people along with the transition.
03:14Hop in the tractor mate. Put your seatbelt on.
03:21Righto, we're going to do some spraying.
03:28I just love the handle of wool. Just the softness. There's nothing more natural.
03:34The developer of the solar farm next door, he mentioned how many times they had to mow and the
03:39cost of it, and I just said to him, well you've got grass and I need grass, we should be able to
03:43work something out. So that's where we started our grazing under the panels.
03:49They do do better because it's a really good source of food. The rainfall inside the solar
03:53farm is magnified purely by the no gutter runoff effect. So you can imagine in the middle of summer
03:59it's not drying out. There's still green food, it's still productive.
04:04We're only a couple of years into it, but it's showing like a 20% increase in the wool cut
04:09of the sheep from under the panels compared to the control flock outside the panels.
04:13I like to say that panel sheep are happy sheep, which reflects in your wool growth.
04:18I would say to any farmer, young and old, invest in renewables because it's something that can
04:25lower costs and will ensure that the farm is much more resilient into the future.
04:30I think it's a government responsibility. Fill a shopfront in a local town. All of our towns have
04:37empty shopfronts in the main street. Be a friendly face that people can come and ask their questions,
04:44see what a solar panel looks like, see what a battery looks like, and that helps to break down
04:51the barriers, I think, and make it practical for people in their own homes.
04:55I see my role in life is to look after my wife. A close second of that is my kids and their
05:00grandkids. I hope I go for a long time, but if I fall off the perch tomorrow, I know Penn and the
05:05girls are right. And we didn't have that security before the solar farm came along, so it was a
05:10pretty easy decision, really. I think the local energy hubs initiative is really important.
05:18It is a way to break down some of the barriers that there are to renewables.
05:25It's important that the community is involved in the switch to renewables because we can't take
05:32energy for granted any longer. We have these opportunities to control our own power and share
05:38our own power and generate our own power, and I think there's some really great opportunities
05:42for regional communities in that.