Policy

How equity crowd-funding reform – if done appropriately could open the floodgates to the community energy sector.

Blueprint for NSW town of Uralla says getting to majority renewables can be relatively easy, and save a lot of money. Getting to 100% renewables, however, will be harder. But it seems lots of towns want to try.

A City of Sydney-backed $1.2m Environmental Upgrade Agreement will allow owners of 1967 Reader's Digest building to fund energy efficiency upgrade that will slash its energy use by 60%.

City of Sydney, Property Council call on AEMC to change rules governing electricity supply to incentivise shared, local distributed energy generation.

Attempt by Abbott government to stop Clean Energy Finance Corporation co-financing rooftop solar is likely to make rooftop solar a lot more more expensive for those homes and businesses who have yet to install the technology, and who cannot afford to buy the systems outright.

South Australia government doubles funding available for City of Adelaide battery storage initiative, potentially injecting 600kWh of storage into CBD.

Tasmanian renewables group calls for state government intervention after a series of cuts to solar feed-in tariffs causes market to contract.

Australian networks are also penalising solar households, now it looks like they will do the same with those that add battery storage. The trend among some electricity networks to penalise or discourage the uptake of rooftop solar by imposing fixed tariffs or additional fees is now extending to battery storage, with one network accused of […]

Victoria regulator wants minimum feed-in-tariff paid for surplus rooftop solar output fed back into grid be cut dramatically. Victorian energy regulator the Essential Services Commission has recommended that the minimum feed-in-tariff paid for surplus rooftop solar output fed back into the grid be cut to 5c/kWh from the current level of 6.2c/kWh in 2016. The […]

ESAA report finds off-grid distributed energy better for edge-of-grid customers, & could save networks tens of millions in avoided ‘poles-and-wires’ costs. A new report commissioned by the Energy Supply Association of Australia has confirmed that, not only is “off-grid” distributed energy supply a viable option for some regional and remote customers, but it’s an option […]

ACT and NSW utilities to boost metering charges for new solar installations by factor of nearly 10.

Not many people associate fast food with clean energy. But that’s exactly what one of the largest quick-service restaurants in the world is exploring. RMI recently completed a net-zero-energy study for McDonald’s, which explores how to offset the energy consumption of an entire restaurant with renewable energy. Working alongside the net-zero-energy visionaries at New Buildings Institute (NBI) and […]

Byron Shire – in the northern rivers region of New South Wales – is aiming to become the first region in Australia to become “net zero emissions”, with a goal to reduce emissions from energy, transport, buildings, waste and land use to zero within 10 years. The push by Byron mayor Simon Richardson means that […]