Blueprint For The Future: Australia's First Town To Go Emissions-Free

Fairfax - Saffron Howden

Uralla, Australia's first town to go emissions-free Photo: Alex Pawlow

A NSW country shire is laying the foundations for an emissions-free future as people across Australia increasingly look for ways to reduce community reliance on the grid by starting their own, locally-owned, wind and solar farms.

Uralla energy use now

• 49 per cent electricity – 25,000 MegaWatt hours (MWh) a year; 75 per cent of this is household use.
• 45 per cent  firewood - 5150 tonnes of firewood burned for heating each year, or three tonnes per household.
• 6 per cent  - bottled gas.
• A total of $12 million is spent on energy each year.

The State Environment Minister, Mark Speakman, will on Tuesday launch the blueprint for Uralla, near Armidale in the New England region, to become the country's first "zero net energy town".
By replacing energy-sapping lights and inefficient appliances, improving home insulation, installing roof-top solar across the shire, and improving firewood collection and land management, Uralla could go up to 70 per cent of the way to achieving zero emissions. It could also collectively save 6034 residents $3 million a year.
The report, which provides a road map for other communities to follow, also suggests a number of longer-term strategies, like importing renewable energy into the shire and establishing a small, local wind farm.

How Uralla will save on energy use

Hot water

• Replace existing units with electric heat pumps and solar hot water heaters.
• Savings: $148 a year per household.

Lighting

• Replace incandescent and halogen lights with LEDs.
• Savings: $155 a year per household.

Electrical appliances

• Install home energy monitors and replace key appliances with more-energy-efficient ones.
• Savings: $102 a year per household.

Business energy use

• Upgrade heating, lighting, and appliances.
• Savings: $637 a year per business.

Firewood for heating

• 70 per cent of Uralla households have inadequate roof insulation, but insulation and draught sealing could save energy.
• Savings: for a wood heater $253 per year; for an electric heater $176 per year; for a gas heater $63 per year.
• Improving local firewood resource management and reforestation and buying certified sustainably farmed wood.

Just two turbines would be needed to supply the energy needs not met by initial measures to reduce consumption and boost solar power, according to the report, which was funded by a grant from the NSW government. The blueprint does not address vehicle fuel and its associated emissions. 
While Uralla is pioneering a community-wide response to rising power costs and demand for energy self-sufficiency, small groups of Australians are also challenging the notion electricity generation is the preserve of large corporations.
There are now more than 70 grassroots energy groups across Australia and 23 operating projects, including established farms like the 4.1MW Hepburn Wind in Victoria, which has two turbines.

Grassroots renewable energy projects

Others are about to take off. In Lismore, on the NSW north coast, the council and a community energy organisation, Farming the Sun, are about to sign off on a project to develop two 100kW solar farms at a local sports centre and sewage treatment plant. Resident investors will loan the money to Lismore City Council to build the farms.
Australia has been slow to develop community energy compared to countries like Germany – where almost half of the generation capacity is owned by communities or individuals – and Denmark, where small wind operatives are the norm, Nicky Ison, the founding director of Community Power Agency, said.
"We came late to the party around community energy. Australia is lagging a long way behind other countries," she said. "We have historically had very cheap coal."

How Uralla could produce power 
 
Rooftop solar

• It has a capacity of 8MW based on rooftop area of 82,000m2 across the shire.
• Using all of this could meet 40 per cent of total annual electricity demand.

Local utility-scale electricity generation

• Community-scale wind farm with two, 2.5MW turbines would be enough to match demand after on-site generation and energy efficiency measures have been introduced.

Importing renewable energy

• Purchasing accredited renewable power through a co-ordinated power purchase agreement or choosing green power from an energy retailer.

But rising retail electricity prices and falling costs for solar and wind power were changing that, Ms Ison said.
Just four years ago, Australia had only two operating community energy projects. By 2015, that had ballooned to 23, with more than 70 further ventures in the works.
"There's an exponential growth," Ms Ison said. "There are now proven models that groups can work with."
Byron Bay, on the NSW north coast, has plans to also become a "zero net emissions town" and Yackandandah, in rural Victoria, is aiming to achieve "energy sovereignty" by 2022.