Message from the Chair
Greetings
Our new Chair, Jessica Worrall and new Committee member, Bill Bunbury join all committee members of AMRCCE to wish our members a joyous Christmas and a New Year which achieves real reductions in emissions in our shire.
And to help us achieve that we are asking for urgent donations for our latest initiative, ZERO, the Revolving Fund.
Read on for all the News and Achievements of a busy 2021.
Firstly ZERO, the Revolving Fund (and this is where we are asking you to make a Christmas donation).
Augusta Margaret River Clean Community Energy (AMRCCE) is very pleased to be announcing its newest program – Zero, the Revolving Fund which will provide zero- interest loans to community groups in our shire for projects that reduce emissions.
This initiative is based on an offering by a South Australian group, CORENA (https://corenafund.org.au), which uses tax deductible donations from the public to provide zero-interest loans to community groups to pay for projects that reduce emissions. Since its 1st $12,000 donation funded project in 2013 CORENA has lent over $900,000 to fund another 43 community projects and the Grid Electricity avoided to-date is 2554MwH (this would have reduced CO2 emissions by 1788 tonnes if in WA’s Grid).
Our opportunity to put such a program in place came about when the shire of Augusta Margaret River announced its Resilience Grant to support our community in the context of the Covid pandemic.
What the grant did, was to provide AMRCCE with seed funding to establish our very own revolving fund. Funding of up to $50,000 was approved providing we got matching funding from the community to bring the potential seed funding to $100,000 to get our revolving fund going. That would, for example allow around 100 kw of Photo Voltaic (PVs) to be put on the roofs of community organisations with an estimated carbon emission reduction of 122,640 CO2/per year. Based on CORENA’s results, over 7 years the re-lending of loan repayments of an initial $100,000 would provide loans of $190,000 to fund a further 190kw of PV installations and annual tax-deductible donations of $30,000 could provide $210,000 to fund another 210kw to yield a total of 500kw over the initial 7 years.
We have been very lucky that Clear Energy – the energy retailer with whom we partnered to market energy to our community that is cleaner and cheaper – pledged a donation of $25,000.
Through community donations we have managed to increase what we need to raise at this point to close to $34,000 making a total seed funding pool of almost $70,000. So, we have until the end of the year to raise another $16,000 in donations and receive the matching $16,000 available from the shire.
We would like to encourage everyone concerned to reduce emissions to donate. Donations of $2 or more are tax deductible and can be made online at amrcce.com.au or by contacting [email protected].
And of course, our thanks go to the shire of Augusta Margaret River, Clear Energy, all prior donors and CORENA.
The revolving fund will allow community groups to do their bit for climate action immediately without diverting any of their budget away from delivering services to the community and when the project has “paid for itself”, they will have lower operating costs, meaning more money is available for their core purpose.
The shire’s Resilience Grant will also enable us to redesign our website so that much of the administration and marketing of the program can be web based and very efficient as we are solely a volunteer run group at this stage.
Our Wind Farm Project
AMRCCE came into being in 2017 to assist the Augusta Margaret River community to reduce emissions. Our target then was to reduce emissions by equivalent to 20% of what we as a community consumed from the grid each year. That was calculated to be 11,200 tonnes of CO2 hence the reason to investigate the feasibility of a 10mw renewable energy facility. Now that we have settled on wind as the energy source for the renewable energy facility, found a location and measured the wind, we know that, if feasible, that facility alone will produce clean energy equivalent to close to 40% of what we as a community consume in electricity from the grid. That feasibility is ongoing, but this year we have moved forward with the assistance of Merz Consulting and are now close to completing our Western Power connection application. So, we are getting closer to the time when our task will be to find partners to bring it to fruition and make our dream a reality.
Clear Energy
The partnership with Clear Energy has resulted in an amazing doubling of the solar power in our Shire, going from over 100kW of installation to 299kW and with another 500-kW installation in the offing. That installation alone will reduce our Shire’s emissions by more than 600 Tonne of CO2 per year. A wonderful result.
So please consider donating towards our Zero fund and you’ll give a Christmas gift that will help our future.
ANZ Bank
Account name: AMRCCE Inc
BSB: 016 520
Account Number 228652152
Please include your surname in your online payment
AMRCCE Inc
PO Box 1863, Margaret River WA 6285
Phone: 0423 028 295
Email: [email protected]
www.amrcce.com.au
