Councillor Arron Wood is the city’s environment portfolio chairman, standing in a rooftop courtyard as the faint sound of trams rises up from Swanston Street down below and the surrounding skyline reaches into a cool autumn sky.
Against this backdrop, not to mention the solar thermal panels on the next level, Wood does not hold back when discussing how cities can lead from the front in tackling climate change.
In a Guardian interview, he evokes the philosophy of Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire and former New York mayor who has been a major driver of climate change action by the world’s cities.
“[Bloomberg] says, ‘Nations talk and cities act’, and cities can do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of what is required for the Paris agreement [on climate action].”
Now a large project by the city of Melbourne could prove Bloomberg’s theory correct. More importantly, major cities around the world are watching closely to see if Melbourne’s strategy could become a blueprint for them to follow.
The Melbourne renewable energy project, conceived and managed by the city council, has been two years in the making. Thirteen major institutions operating in the city have formed a consortium that will sign an agreement to purchase a large chunk of their electricity from a new large-scale renewable energy project.
The consortium members are the city of Melbourne, Australia Post, National Australia Bank, the University of Melbourne, RMIT, data centre operator NEXTDC, Zoos Victoria, the city of Port Phillip, Moreland city council, the city of Yarra, Citywide, Melbourne convention and exhibition centre and Bank Australia. If the project goes ahead, it will reduce Melbourne’s carbon emissions by 138,000 tonnes per year.
The strategy will give a would-be project the chance to secure a buyer for the electricity it would produce but it also overcomes the reality that none of those 13 organisations would be big enough on their own to sign such a large-scale energy agreement.
A tender process is underway to find a proponent to provide 110GWh of renewable energy each year, enough to power 28,000 homes. The tender deadline is 20 June and, as the process is confidential, the council has not revealed which energy companies have submitted proposals.
Hypothetically a proponent might already have an advanced plan to build a large-scale solar or wind energy plant somewhere outside Melbourne but still need to secure a long-term buyer of the electricity before an investor will come on board with money for construction. If the Melbourne consortium were to sign a 10-year purchase agreement with that proponent, the proponent would have the certainty required to go ahead with its project.
The strategy is revolutionary, as it is the first time in Australia that a group of buyers has joined forces to purchase large-scale renewable energy. In fact, the council says it is not aware of a similar model anywhere in the world, especially under the leadership of a city council. To read more click here.
The National Sustainability in Business Conference; renewables, markets, innovation, opportunities and capital will be held 23 – 24 March 2017 at the Hotel Grand Chancellor, Brisbane.
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