Border communities embrace renewable, community-focused energy hubs

Beechworth-based Indigo Power said it was now possible for residents to share power to reduce not only costs but their carbon fingerprints, a process Totally Renewable Yackandandah said is revolutionising the way many regional communities get their power.

Totally Renewable Yackandandah vice-president Matt Charles-Jones said "power sharing" was an alternative to "traditional" power suppliers.

"There are over 200 Indigo power customers in Yackandandah," he said. "What happens is if somebody generates their own electricity and doesn't use it all it gets exported into the national energy market.

"That market doesn't distinguish between one electron and another and the point is that there are a bunch of customers in Yackandandah who generate and store their own power and they export it.

"Increasingly, what Indigo power is trying to do is help other people in the area buy that local power - in essence we call it power sharing.

"The really important emphasis of Indigo Power is they're a social enterprise and they've made a commitment to sharing 50 per cent of their profits back to the communities."

Indigo Power spokeswoman Fran Quintanilla said the company's aim was to make it easier for people to access "cleaner, community power".

"It's quite different what we're doing, the idea is to get people who probably don't have the means to have solar panels or install a battery to have access to and make a contribution towards cleaner energy," she said.

"You get your electricity from us and when there are 100 members in a hub, we can show you where the energy comes from.

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"Say your neighbour who has solar panels generates electricity, you can buy your neighbour's electricity, essentially."

Ms Quintanilla said the concept was about creating an ecosystem within a hub where where there are creators, users and shared assets.

"A shared asset would be, for example, a battery storage," she said. "We installed the Yackandandah community battery. They're working towards being 100 per cent renewable and we help the community energy group that purchases this battery and we operate it.

"We're an electricity retailer, that's one side of the business, but we're also supporting communities.

"In each town, there's a community energy group, Totally Renewable Yackandandah, Renewable Albury-Wodonga, Totally Renewable Beechworth."

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