Hobart Mercury
Saturday 27/12/2008 Page: 4
Glamorgan-Spring Bay Council plans to become an exemplar of environmental sustainability by installing solar panels on every building in the municipality. The East Coast council has applied for $8.5 million in Federal Government funding to make the grand plan possible. Councillor Noel Stanley, from the council's Natural Resource Management Committee, said the council would seek funds from Aurora and the State Government to make up the $23 million required for the project.
"If we can make this happen we will be a net producer, we will produce far more energy than we consume, because there are a lot of shacks and summer homes in our area," he said. "Around 42% of our houses are unoccupied for large parts of the year. which means they will not be consuming any energy and for much of the year they will be generating power and feeding it straight back into the grid earning credit for the owners." Cr Stanley said if every one of the 2500 homes in the municipality was fitted with a solar array, the area would become a model for other rural regions.
He said the sunny East Coast was perfectly positioned for large-scale solar energy generation. Public buildings, such as community halls, were ideal locations for solar arrays, as their comparatively low occupancy meant they would generate more energy than they consumed.
"Our latitude is ideally suited to solar generation over the entire year and we have more sun in a year than either Sydney or Brisbane," Cr Stanley said. "And so far not a single resident has said no to the idea." Glamorgan-Spring Bay mayor Bertrand Cadart said the entire council was enthusiastic about the idea.
0 comments:
Post a Comment