The Newstead community battery and solar farm, initiated by Renewable Newstead and built and operated by Flow Power, was officially opened last Thursday.
The landmark energy project, unique for its community/company co-development, will generate enough energy to power the local community and beyond with its three megawatt generating facility and five megawatt battery energy storage system.
Flow Power CEO Matthew van der Linden said Newstead was a community of passionate, forward-thinking, engaged individuals who were demonstrating the change that was necessary for a successful energy transition.
“The Newstead Energy Project is the first of its kind for Victoria and a powerful template for how community, government and industry can work together to propel the energy transition forward,” he said.
Convenor of Renewable Newstead Geoff Park said it was a great day for the small community that had taken the reins and worked so hard to shape its collective future.
“We wanted locally generated renewable energy that was affordable and accessible to all. We wanted to remain connected to the grid, and we wanted it to be a project that people in the community could opt into,” he said.
“And we’ve ticked off all of these. Newstead can rightly take a bow.”
Renewable Newstead member Genevieve Barlow told the Express that the really outstanding characteristic of the project, in an environment where renewable energy was dividing communities, was that it was community led.
“So instead of a company coming in and dangling a carrot to a developer and them imposing it onto the community, what has happened here is the community has gone out and got the site, found the funding and found the company. And there are other benefits that came with it,” Genevieve said.
“Flow Power is funding a grants program and Renewable Newstead is creating Local Community Benefit program, so if people sign up to Flow Power, they get $200 to allocate to a community group project or organisation that is active in Newstead.”
The 6.2-hectare site boasts 72 rows of panels, each more than 80m long, 6m apart and includes a tracking system to follow the sun and provide maximum energy production. The site has been established to allow for agricultural sheep grazing during operations.
