Transcript for Euroa microgrid demonstration community members video

[On-screen text: The Euroa Microgrid]

[On-screen text: Cr Sally Hayes-Burke. Strathbogie Shire Council]

Sally Hayes-Burke: Euroa is at the end of the transmission lines. Therefore, we have very unreliable power. If a tree goes down on the power lines or anything happens, Euroa finds itself out of power.

[On-screen text: Broderick Floyd. Mark J. Floyd Funeral Services]

Broderick Floyd: When you lose the power 14 times in a year it's frustration more so than anything.

[On-screen text: Robyn Law. Euroa Resident]

Robyn Law: Yes, spot of rain or a bit of a storm and bang powers out.

[On-screen text: Hugh Salmon. Salmon Furniture]

Hugh Salmon: It's funny. You get used to things like power outages, you say 'oh the power's out again', you know.

[On-screen text: Charlie Brydon. Euroa Environment Group]

Charlie Brydon: We had to think whether there was any other alternative power grid structure that could be made to work for this particular community.

[On-screen text: Shirley Saywell. Euroa Environment Group]

Shirley Saywell: We thought we can do this better, we can do this with clean energy. We found a partner as in Mondo, an energy company.

Charlie: The premise is that if you've got enough solar and you've got enough battery, then ultimately it becomes a viable alternative method of having a power source.

Hugh: People produce power to sell back to the grid or people produce power and store it in a battery, like we are here.

Shirley: The state government grant has enabled us to give free infrastructure to six businesses in town.

Hugh: The micro grid benefits me because essentially means my power bills are zero. So that's a big tick, particularly if you're a business running saws and machinery

Broderick: I have 3 kilowatts of panels on my mortuary and chapel and a 4 kilowatt battery. On my house I have 10 kilowatts of solar panels and 8 kilowatts of batteries.

Robyn: We installed 22 panels. You know when you get up in the morning, oh - nice warm bathroom. Instead of you know, 3:00 am start sometimes and it's like freezing cold and whatever.

Broderick: I use little to no power from the mains. My electricity bills have gone from being hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month to being tens of dollars a month.

Robyn: In the summertime, I would say my power bill would have dropped 80%.

Shirley: All of a sudden, the power is not in the hands of the multi-nationals, it's actually in the hands of community, and that's a real incentive.

Sally: We can feel that there's a changing demographic in Euro, you know people who are younger and moving to the area. People who are more concerned about the environment, which is something that I really got behind, because I'm passionate about action on climate change.

Hugh: You don't have to be a super environmentally conscious person to really take the full advantages of renewable energy. You can just be someone who doesn't like paying a power bill.

Shirley: The data that's coming back is showing that there's a 30 to 40 percent saving for the businesses involved.

Charlie: If you've got that and you've got an exemplar town where it's shown that it can work and is working well, the possibilities are limitless.

Robyn: Winner winner chicken dinner.

[On-screen images: Mondo logo. Euroa Energy logo. Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning logo]