Clean Energy

The key question is, how do you pay for it?  Solar panel installation has taken off among owner-occupiers because it makes financial sense.  They have to pay for the installation of solar panels up-front, but this pays for itself over a number of years through lower power bills and the ability to sell surplus power back to the energy grid.  However, this equation doesn’t work for renters, whether in the private market or in social housing.  In the private market, they don’t have the long-term tenure to be assured of getting the benefit from their investment, while social housing tenants, even when their tenure is fairly secure, can rarely come up with the several thousand dollars needed to pay for the installation.  The owners are more likely to be able to afford the up-front costs but they don’t get the financial benefit, which flows to their tenants, so they would be doing it for altruistic reasons not economic ones.

​

While we’re all for altruism here at Climate/Housing, we know that these things have to be paid for somehow.  Here are some ways people have solved the problem, and some potential ways others are starting to explore.

​

Direct Funding

A number of State governments, particularly the South Australian Government up until 2019, have simply funded the installation of solar panels on public housing dwellings, seeing this both as part of their commitment to emissions reductions and as a valuable service to their tenants, lowering their energy costs.

​

Partnership with Energy Providers

Another way to solve the problem is to work in partnership with energy providers to provide renewable energy to tenants.  One example of this is the Queensland Government’s Solar Panel Trial.  There are two components to this trial:

• In Cairns, Rockhampton and Logan, the Department of Housing is working in partnership with Ergon Energy to install solar panels on the roofs of public housing dwellings.  The panels remain the property of Ergon, and the tenants enter into an arrangement with Ergon to purchase their power at a reduced rate as a result of the panels.  If the tenant leaves the property, they simply exit the arrangement and the new tenant enters into it.  This arrangement solves a number of problems – it deals with both the lack of resources of the tenants and the issue of ownership, it ensures that the panels are not paid for by scarce public housing funds, and the panels can be financed through a combination of renewable energy certificates and the return that Ergon gets from them over time.  It also helps the State Government to achieve its target of 50% renewable energy to 2030.  

• In the remote Aboriginal community of Lockhart River the Queensland Government and Ergon are partnering with the community to place 750 solar panels on the roofs of various buildings including the school and Council buildings, as well as some battery storage.  The residents of Lockhart River will benefit via a $100 rebate each year on their electricity bills, and the renewable power will replace some of the power generated by the current diesel generator. 

 

Clean Energy Financing

Another way to help pay for renewable energy in housing is to use dedicated climate-related funding. 

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation is a Commonwealth Government body set up to fund a wide range of clean energy projects and has a program tailored to community housing.  They highlight two projects to which they have contributed significant finance – a new development project in Sydney with St George Community Housing which resulted in 300 dwellings with an average 7.5 NATHERS rating, and project with Housing Plus which delivered 280 homes with an average 7-7.5 rating in various regional NSW locations.  In each case, CEFC funds supplemented NSW Government housing funds to enable the providers to build to higher environmental standards.  As a result, the properties are more energy-efficient with lower emissions, and tenants save an average of $500 per year in power bills.  

 

Community Power Schemes

Another way to solve this problem is to participate in the development of a Community Power Scheme.  These schemes take many forms but typically involve community members and organisations sharing their resources to develop locally-based renewable energy generation and storage.  Such projects represent a form of intermediate technology, in between the industrial scale generators that power most of our energy grid and the individual rooftop solar systems that are now installed on about a third of Australian homes. 

​

One example of such a scheme is Totally Renewable Yackandandah (TRY).  Yackandandah is a town of about 1,000 people in the north of Victoria, just south of Albury-Wondonga.  TRY formed in 2014 to promote the use of renewables in their community, and has the ambition of achieving 100% renewables in their community by 2022.  They primary strategy is to facilitate the installation of solar generation on the rooves of both private homes and community buildings, backed by battery storage linked by a local micro-grid or series of micro-grids to spread the load across the community.