The community owned Goulburn Solar Farm is opening up investment opportunities for people outside the Goulburn region, having raised over $2M from local investors for the project.
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The Goulburn Community Energy Cooperative has appointed a consortium of companies to construct the 1.2 MW solar farm with a battery on the outskirts of Goulburn.
The Co-op originally planned for a smaller 800kWh battery but now hope to expand the project to include a much larger battery to take advantage of price spikes in the evening.
The project also received a grant from the NSW Government, in association with Community Energy for Goulburn (CG4E), under the Regional Community Energy Fund.
CG4E president Peter Fraser said the bigger battery was three times that of what was originally planned.
"It is set to add about $600K to the cost of the project. So we are now opening up investment opportunities to the wider community," he said.
"While the larger battery adds extra cost we don't expect any reduction in the projected return on investment because we can now charge the battery in the middle of the day when wholesale prices are low and sell back into the market in the late afternoon and evening when prices are much higher.
The solar farm project was the vision of a small group of Goulburn residents who were inspired by the growth of community owed renewable projects overseas and begun planning the solar farm back in 2015 with a feasibility grant from the NSW Government.
"The lack of action by the Federal Government to support renewable energy was also a motivating factor and the community responded enthusiastically to the idea," said Mr Fraser.
The Cooperative has over 240 members who have invested anything from $400 to $100,000 in the project. Some investors even used it as an opportunity to gift their children and grandchildren a membership and shares. The targeted capital raise was met almost entirely from local investors, but now the expanded project opens up the opportunity for investors outside the local region.
Mr Fraser expects construction to begin in the first half of the year and be generating power before the end of the year. Initial investment was originally only open to local investors but with the expanded project the Co-op has decided to open up the opportunity to people from further afield, with priority for those in the ACT and South East NSW.
"We have a strong consortium of experienced solar companies to construct the farm and now that we've been able to source a battery, inverter and transformer solution the construction and grid connection process is now simpler and faster than we originally planned", said Mr Fraser.
Anyone interested in investing in the project can find out more information here: goulburnsolarfarm.com.au
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