www.hepburnwind.com.au
Hepburn Wind
On 22 June, Geoff Howard MP (Ballarat East) visited Leonard's Hill to announce a $750,000 grant from the state government's Regional Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) as approved by Minister Jacinta Allan. The grant will assist with the connection of the wind farm to the electricity grid, and help us to develop a template that should reduce the connection costs for similar, future projects. More details are available on our website.
We are well on the way to building Australia's first community wind farm. Since we signed the turn-key construction contract with REpower Systems in April, we've been supporting our contractors to finalise the engineering design of the wind farm. Construction is scheduled to begin on-site in October and our two turbines are expected to be operational in the first half of 2011.
With the increased activity on our project as we finalise fund raising and move into the construction phase we are pleased to welcome two new staff members. Janet Wheatley joins us as Membership Officer and Tracy Anthony as Project Officer. Both Janet and Tracy are local to Daylesford and are passionate about community ownership of renewable energy. They join Executive Officer Jack Gilding, forming a strong local team demonstrating that renewable energy projects not only reduce our carbon footprint but also provide local employment opportunities.
Since the release of our latest Membership and Share Offer we have received over $300,000 in additional share applications. With the RIDF grant, our existing Sustainability Victoria grant, $7.8m of member funds and a $3.1m loan from the Bendigo Bank, we have now secured over 95% of the total project cost of $12.9m.
Hepburn Wind shares are available to those outside the local community in minimum parcels of just $1000. For those within our local area minimum parcels are $100.
Our share offer is expected to be fully subscribed in the near future. If you have been holding off on joining our ground-breaking project, or are a member considering purchasing additional shares, now is the time to act. At the request of potential applicants we have extended the closing date for our offer to 19 July 2010.
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