The Social Access Solar Gardens project aims to help customers in apartments, rentals or low-income housing to reap the benefits of solar.

A ‘solar garden’ is a centralised solar power station that offers households the opportunity to purchase panels with the electricity generated credited on their electricity bill.  This provides an innovative solution to accessing renewable energy for the 30 percent of Australian consumers who are unable to install solar on their homes.

The project is being led by the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) and Community Power Agency, with participation from 17 partner organisations, including the Shoalhaven City Council.

“While over 1.8 million Australian households now reap the benefits of cheap solar power, unfortunately not every household owns their own sunny roof,” ISF Research Associate and Director of Community Power Agency Nicky Ison said.

The $555,000 project, includes teams in five locations across NSW, Victoria and Queensland. Teams bring together electricity retailers, local councils, community energy groups and social welfare organisations to look at how to set up solar gardens that will include low-income households.

Shoalhaven City Council Mayor, Amanda Findley, said council is excited to be involved in a project that invests in building a sustainable Shoalhaven.

“This feasibility study was fully supported at the Strategy and Assets meeting in March this year. This project is nationally significant and could deliver great benefits to residents of the Shoalhaven at the completion of the project," Cr Findley said. 

"The project aims to understand the barriers to building and investing in renewable energy projects on a local scale. Once the barriers are identified the teams will look at how the barriers can be overcome.

"There is a possibility that the project could prove that this sort of energy distribution doesn’t work in an Australian context, but by working through the issues will take away the risk for future communities who desire to do the same- it is cutting-edge research."

On behalf of the Australian Government, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is contributing $240,000 to the ‘Social Access Solar Gardens’ study. The NSW Government is also contributing $155,000.