City Of Newcastle Climate Action Plan 2025

City of Newcastle is readying to take further steps to reduce emissions across its operations and the community – including installing more solar panels and megawatt-scale battery storage.

The City’s 2025 Climate Action Plan, which would replace the 2020 Carbon and Water Management Plan, is on the agenda for a Council meeting tonight.

“City of Newcastle has formally committed to the Paris Climate Agreement and we accept there is a global climate emergency,” said Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes. “We owe it to our children to prioritise concrete action on climate change.”

City Of Newcastle And Renewable Energy

Council began embracing solar power in 2012, reaching half a megawatt of on-site solar installed across Council buildings before September last year. Since that time, solar panels have been installed on at least four more Council facilities –  including a 100kW array at the City Works Depot – bringing total installed capacity to around 685kW.

In 2019, Council committed sourcing 100 per cent renewables for the City’s operational electricity requirements, which it has since achieved. A big boost was provided by the commissioning of Council’s five-megawatt solar farm in December last year (pictured above) on a capped landfill cell at Summerhill Waste Management Centre. As well as slashing emissions, the clean energy facility is expected to save ratepayers around $9 million over Summer Hill Solar Farm’s 25-year operational lifespan.

While 100% renewable electricity has been achieved, the City still sees many new renewables related opportunities for its operations given other initiatives it has in mind. The 2025 plan will work towards 2030 goals that include:

• Continuing  to source 100% renewable electricity, which will be achieved through a combination of onsite solar energy generation, battery storage and renewable electricity power purchasing agreements (PPAs).
• Transitioning plant and equipment, including vehicles, to electric and battery powered options or other zero-emission alternatives.
• Eliminating the use of fossil-based gas across Council operations. Where gas needs to be used in the absence of electric alternatives, renewable gas will be considered.
• Investigating and installing megawatt-scale battery storage in order to firm renewable supply and build resilience across Council’s operations.

City-wide Aspirational Goals

Beyond continued improvements in its own operations, the Plan has aspirational goals for 2025 for the entire community including:

• 30% reduction in city-wide emissions
• 100 MW of new renewable generation capacity
• 1 MW of new community renewable energy projects
• 30% reduction in average daily electricity consumption
• 500 GWh of new renewables-based Power Purchase Agreements
• 10,000 registered electric vehicles

Reducing average daily average electricity consumption when encouraging the switch to electric appliances, equipment and vehicles will make things interesting; hence the push for significantly increased uptake of renewables including solar power throughout the community.

Looking ahead to 2030, the City is targeting net-zero emissions from electricity across the community by 2030.

Full details of the 2025 Climate Action Plan can be found here.

On a related note, New South Wales’ coal country is rapidly changing at a local government level generally in response to the climate crisis. As at late September this year seven out of ten local governments in the Hunter Region, the state’s biggest coal-producing area, had signed on for the Climate Council’s Cities Power Partnership – including City of Newcastle.