VP President Address at Battery Launch

Thank you Minister D’Ambrosio

And thank you to everyone here for coming to help us celebrate this chapter of the Village Power story. The launch today of the Alphington Community Battery and Community Energy Program has been a long time in the making and a critical step in our journey to assist the community to take action on climate change through the use of renewable energy.

About 8 years ago, six people local to this neighbourhood gathered around a pizza oven to talk about how we could have a significant impact using local renewable energy. We discussed solar farms, batteries and landed on the idea of community-scale battery in-front-of the meter, that is directly connected to the network with power shared with the community.

When I mentioned this to someone working in the energy industry they said that will never happen, regulation will stop ya. It confirmed to me that we are on to something! This wasn’t going to be easy but it was important.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. From our experience, it takes a village of people with skills, influence, roles, passion and resilience to make something like this happen today. It certainly has not been easy, there have been several roadblocks to overcome such as insurance, business models, funding, suitable energy partners; barriers we had to think our way around. But here we are.

There are so many people and organisations that have played vital roles in supporting us:

I will start with the Village Power team, the fantastic volunteers that collectively donated thousands of hours, time away from their families, to bring our vision to life. This marathon relay of people over 8 years includes our board and delivery team members. Please give them a round of applause.

I also would like to especially thank; Minister D’Ambrosio, the Victorian Government and the team at DEECA for funding this project under the Neighbourhood Battery Initiative that encouraged innovative ways to implement batteries. The only state doing this.

Also Member for Northcote, Kat Theophanous; who was an early supporter and connected us to the government that led to funding.

Mayor Emily Dimitriadis and Darebin Council for their commitment to continue to support us as we navigated many hurdles.

Stephen and Peter from Acacia Energy, our energy partner for the next 5 years. We have faced many challenges together and probably have more to come but they continue to be a delight to work with.

Rob and Laura from Wave Consulting, our project managers extraordinaire.

Johan from Jemena, Allan O’Neil and other members of the Project Advisory Group that has provided invaluable insights and practical advice.

Jo Travers, the amazing artist and David Hoban from PrintSeen for wrapping the batteries.

Lastly, members of the community that have stuck with us through the years and those that have recently found us. This is for you, for us, together.

You know you can feel powerless as an individual in the face of major challenges but we can be so powerful working together. That’s the Village Power message.