Community Solar Power Funding Opportunity In WA’s Avon River Basin

Sustainable Community Grants – Avon River Basin

Grants that can be used towards community solar energy projects are up for grabs in the Avon River Basin region of Western Australia.

The Avon River Basin (ARB) covers approximately 12 million hectares of WA and is home to a population of 44,000 residents. It encompasses Northam in the west, the Great Western Woodlands in the east, Dalwallinu in the north, and out past Lake Grace in the south.

Sustainable Community Grants have been made available to help support projects in the ARB relating to efficient resource use and to inspire environmentally sustainable activities.

Category A grants can be used to support the installation of community scale renewable energy systems; including solar power, battery storage and wind turbines. Grants of up to $20,000 will be made, with a total of $80,000 available in this category.

Applications must be submitted before 5.00pm Friday 28 July 2017. Further details can be viewed here (PDF).

The 2017 Sustainability Grants for the Wheatbelt community are supported by Wheatbelt NRM through funding from the Australian Federal Government’s National Landcare Program (NLP).

In other recent solar news from the region, WA’s Minister for Regional Development; Agriculture and Food, Alannah MacTiernan, unveiled a solar power car park at the Northam Boulevard earlier this month. The 900 solar panels will generate more than one million kilowatt hours a year.

Big Solar In The Wheatbelt

Land availability and irradiation levels makes the region well suited to solar electricity production.  One of the five-year objectives of the Regional NRM Strategy for the Avon River Basin out to 2018 was to see it become a leader in the production of renewable energy.

A significant project helping it towards this goal is the $20 million Northam Solar project;  a 10 megawatt solar power plant in Muluckine, not far from Northham.

Northam Solar project – Carnegie Clean Energy

Designed as “battery storage ready”, the facility will consist of 34,000 solar panels generating enough power to serve the electricity needs of equivalent to 3,800 households; while avoiding 37,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year.

The Northam Solar project is expected to commence operation by the end of 2017.

An even bigger project is a 100 MW facility proposed for a site near Cunderdin, consisting of 312,500  panels and 40 x 2500 kW solar inverters. The project is expected to generate 200 GWh of electricity a year.

Financial closure is expected this month, with construction commencing as soon as June and completion perhaps in March next year. Assuming it is completed by that time, the Regional NRM Strategy’s goal for renewables would have been realised.