Community Power Hubs Program
The Community Power Hubs program funded organisations to form and operate a Community Power Hub in their respective regions, to bring stakeholders together to develop and deliver implementation-ready community renewable energy projects across each funded region.
A Community Power Hub is a collective of groups and organisations working together to develop and deliver community energy projects across a region.
The program aimed to:
- increase the access to and involvement in community renewable energy throughout Victoria.
- reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- increase community support for renewable energy
- enable local economic benefits to be realised through cost savings for communities and support for local renewable energy jobs.
It supported 2 stages of a Community Power Hub project:
- The establishment and operation of a Community Power Hub.
- The delivery of implementation-ready community energy projects that have gone through feasibility and/or business cases and have obtained approvals.
This program built on the successful Community Power Hubs Pilot Program that ran from 2017 – 2020.
Funded projects
Read more about funded projects from this funding.
Why the Victorian Government provided this funding
The program was funded because, despite the strong interest in community renewable energy projects, community groups overwhelming relied on volunteers and few possess the time, skills, expertise, or finances to complete community energy projects on their own.
Supporting community energy helped the State Government to:
- deliver on the Victorian Budget 2020-2021 commitment of $5.94 million to deliver low-emission, low-cost energy services which forms part of the broader $1.6 billion renewable energy package
- contribute to meeting the Victorian Renewable Energy Target (VRET 2030) which is embedded in the Renewable Energy (Jobs and Investment) Act 2017 (Vic) with legislated renewable energy generation targets of 25 per cent by 2020 and 40 per cent by 2025
- help Victorians act on climate change.