Kyneton residents can now find out about the MASH2 community solar bulk-buy a lot more easily. That’s because MASH2 will be starting its roll-out into Macedon Ranges Shire with two info meetings at Kyneton Mechanics Institute on Wednesday 21 October at 5-6.30pm and 7-8.30pm.
MASH2 is organised by the Hub Foundation Castlemaine, a not-for-profit set up in May 2014 to organise projects that help tackle climate change and save money for residents. So far, 300 homes have been installed with solar PV through MASH in Mount Alexander Shire. That’s saving residents $200,000 per year off their electricity bills and cutting CO2 emissions by 1,500 tonnes annually, the equivalent of taking 294 cars off the road.
Now we want to do the same for the Shire of Macedon Ranges Shire”, says Jo Kaptein, Project Officer at the Hub Foundation. Currently 16% of households in Kyneton have solar, the same percentage for the Macedon Ranges Shire as a whole. Mount Alexander Shire has 24% of homes with solar rooftops, largely because there have been five solar bulk-buys in the last 8 years or so.”
There will also be a community bonus for the people of Kyneton in the form of a free solar PV system for a community group once 50 MASH2 systems have been installed.
We’ve got a bulk-buy offer that works on all fronts – prices are competitive, the panels and inverters are high quality, the service is there and the personal touch too, with free home visits and community meetings. It’s taken us almost 2 years to get MASH to where it is now. It just makes sense for everybody, we reckon, to make MASH more easily available to people in Macedon Ranges.
Nancy and Geoff who live in Kyneton came to the MASH2 info meetings in Castlemaine a couple of months ago. Their MASH2 system was installed at the end of August.
Nancy said, “We heard about MASH through the local newspaper. We liked the fact that MASH2 is a community effort; it sounded genuine with good principles and we trusted that the Hub Foundation, the organisation behind the MASH project, had done the homework.
“MASH2 is a terrific example of something that’s working successfully so we are very happy to be part of it. It is a community effort to change things so instead of feeling helpless we feel we can contribute a bit.