NSW town provides blueprint for 100% renewable energy communities

The NSW town of Uralla has outlined plans to go 100 per cent renewable energy, in a government-sponsored blueprint that could become the model of many other towns in NSW and other states to follow suite.
The Zero Net Energy Town – the Uralla Case study – was released today and describes a two-stage process that the town could adopt to go 100 per cent renewable, or “zero net energy”. It is a blueprint that others can follow, and two dozen towns in the state have already expressed interest.

The good news is that Uralla – population 6,034 and in the heart of Barnaby Joyce’s New England electorate – can get most of the way to their council’s objective of becoming “zero net energy” just by using measures that are proven and that will save them money.
These include things such as LED lighting and home insulation, and producing energy on site, particularly with solar PV. These measures will save the town around $2.2 million a year in energy costs, the study finds.
The more challenging news is that it will be harder to get to that 100 per cent renewable energy target. That may have to wait few years until renewable energy costs have fallen further.

This was the big takeaway for Adam Blakester, the project director of the Zero Net Energy Town project.
“The most surprising result was just how effective the on-site measures are and, in contrast, how uncompetitive the small-scale power generation options nearby are, like small wind or solar farms,” Blakester tells One Step Off The Grid.
“The challenge is that many community energy groups are focused on those ‘nearby power plant’ options, when at the moment we need to be coordinating a major ramp-up in the uptake of energy efficiency and on-site power choices.”
Blakester says Uralla’s challenge, and probably the challenge for most rural and regional towns, is that getting all the way to 100 per cent is currently more expensive than mainstream energy options, like the grid.
“Our take on this challenge it that it falls into a second stage of work and some five years into the future. By that time this energy transition is likely to have shifted to change the cost curve – as we’ve seen a shift in the last five years in the cost of LED lighting and solar power.”
Blakester says the Z-NET Blueprint for Uralla is now freely available for towns and villages to consider using for themselves.
“More than two dozen have already contacted us and we’ve now opened up expressions of interest for a second round of towns to use the model. We’ll also be working to secure resources to support Uralla and these next towns for implementation.”
Some of those towns, such as Tyalgum in northern NSW, want to go even further and possibly create their own micro grid. Other towns such as Lismore and Byron Bay are looking to go 100 per cent renewable or zero net emissions within 10 years, as are Yackandandah and Newstead in Victoria, and many others.
Uralla was chosen for the Z-net project – over about several dozen other towns – because of the enthusiasm of its 2,203 households and the council.
Mayor Michael Pearce, an independent who recently dumped his electric hot water system for a heat pump, says a number of communities around Australia, and indeed the world, are in various stages of transition to sustainable energy models, while others may not know how or where to begin.
“We hope that our experience and the lessons learned here will serve those communities as well as they do ours.”