Congratulations to all the community groups in Mount Alexander Shire and Macedon Ranges/Sunbury who applied for a grant for a solar PV system by the deadline of 2pm today, Friday the 12th of February 2016. Grants of up to $20k per community group for solar PV are being made available by the the Federal Government under the Solar Towns (Round 3) programme.
Supporting community groups has been a joint effort by Mount Alexander Sustainability Group and The Hub Foundation Castlemaine. Mount Alexander Sustainability Group’s Secretary, Gerry Egan, has been providing invaluable assistance to many groups to help determine their eligibility and to complete the (pretty tricky!) application form. The Hub Foundation Castlemaine’s Project Officer, Jo Kaptein, has been helping out as well – including several applicants in the Macedon Ranges area.
“I reckon the committee members who put in the time to get these applications submitted are real solar heroes”, say Jo Kaptein. “In some cases, it has been a case of a few champions within the group getting their committee ‘on board’ with the benefits of going solar. And in all cases, community groups have done this in their own time and invested a lot of energy in the process.
“The Dept of Environment say that applicants will be informed of the outcome in May. Systems should start going in from June 2016 onwards. Potentially this means an increase in solar capacity for the region of between 500-600Kw. It is a real green windfall for our communities!”