Dubbo Regional Council Joins Cities Power Partnership

Image: Google Street View

New South Wales’ Dubbo Regional Council has announced it is now a member of the Climate Council’s Cities Power Partnership (CPP) program.

Councils signing on to the Cities Power Partnership initiative make five pledges relating to either renewable energy, efficiency, transport or working in other ways to tackle climate change.

In Dubbo Council’s case, it has pledged:

• Installation of solar panels and battery storage at council buildings.
• To set targets to increase the level of renewable power for council operations over time. In February, Council voted in favour of half of its energy consumption to be renewables based by 2025; either through self-generation or by purchasing renewable energy.
• To create a “revolving” green energy fund where the savings from initial projects are used to help fund other projects.
• Adopt best practice energy efficiency measures across all  of Council’s buildings.
• Roll out energy efficient lighting across Dubbo Regional Council’s local government area.

All of the above are already identified in Council’s recently adopted Energy Strategy & Implementation Plan 2020 – 2025.

“I am proud to join the hundreds of shires, towns and cities across Australia that are switching to clean energy, building resilient communities, and ultimately cutting greenhouse gas pollution,” said Mayor of the Dubbo Region, Councillor Ben Shields.

There are currently 15 solar installations across council assets – but PV is still only a bit player for Council in terms of energy, with these installations generating around 1% of its electricity requirements.

However, solar is already pretty popular in the area generally. There were more than 7,536 small-scale solar systems in Dubbo and across the 2830 postcode as at February 29, 2020; with a collective capacity of around 30 megawatts. With a population of 36,328, this works out to approximately 850 watts per person, compared to a ~448 watt Australian average. The ongoing popularity of PV has helped support a number of solar installers servicing Dubbo.

COVID-19 Postpones Cities Power Partnership Summit

While on the topic of the Cities Power Partnership, in January we noted Noosa Council had been chosen to host a national summit in October for local government, industry and community leaders participating in Australia’s energy transformation.  It was announced earlier this week the CPP summit would still be held in Noosa, but postponed until next year.

“As the response to the COVID-19 crisis has shown, we’re all in this together and so we look forward to the 2021 summit to join forces and develop bold climate and energy solutions,” stated Cities Power Partnership director David Craven.

The Cities Power Partnership is Australia’s largest local government climate alliance, boasting 125 member councils representing almost 11 million Australians.