A sleepy and wonderful city in Victoria’s north east, Shepparton has a proud history; first as a sheep station, then as a major railway town and finally as a major agricultural and manufacturing city.
With a strong focus on agriculture and primary industry, the city of Shepparton already relies on its ample amounts of solar energy resources. Sun to grow the fruit trees, the vegetables and of course the feed for its cattle industry. However, in more recent times the sun has taken centre stage as Shepparton’s future clean energy source.
One of the catalysts was GV Community Energy. The not-for-profit group provides – as the name suggests – a community service for residents, businesses, government organisations and community organisations to help them with information in their transition to renewable forms of energy such as solar power.
There has been significant uptake of solar panels in Shepparton and the local government area generally in recent years. In Shepparton's postcode area (3630), more than 3,201 small-scale solar systems had been installed by the end of June 2020. In Shepparton East and North's postcode (3631), more than 1,894 small-scale systems had been installed.
Approximately 25.5% of compatible dwellings in the Greater Shepparton local government area have had PV system installations - tracking significantly higher than the Victorian average of 19.8%; so the community is punching well above its weight in harnessing solar energy.
As well as small-scale PV, Shepparton has also attracted plenty of interest from developers of large-scale solar farms. With so much activity going on, it won’t be long before Shepparton adds “solar energy city” to its list of achievements.
