Newcastle Solar Farm grant – the Newcastle City Council has received $6.5m from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to help pay for the 5MW solar farm to be built in Australia’s coal heartland. It’s fantastic to see them start to transition to clean energy, especially to see funding for the project for public access buildings and other council administrations.
Newcastle Solar Farm Grant
We first wrote about the $8m Newcastle Solar Farm in February when it was purchased by Carnegie Clean Energy’s fully owned subsidiary Energy Made Clean. The design phase has started and plant commissioning is expected to be at the end of Q3 2018.
The CEO of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), Nutali Nelmes, talked about how Newcastle council will be able to use the power for their complexes and move towards the future with regards to clean/renewable energy:
“Councils across Australia administer a vast network of streetlights, community centres, libraries, sport and recreation facilities and other public access buildings,” he said.
“Newcastle is leading the way in financing a solar farm through the CEFC to help it manage the energy costs of these facilities.
“We encourage other councils to also invest in clean energy, which can free up council finance for other community-enhancing projects while locking in longstanding environmental and economic benefits for their communities.”
According to Newcastle Lord Mayor Nutali Nelmes, the Newcastle City Council are planning to cut electricity usage by 30% within 2 years:
“I’d like to thank the Clean Energy Finance Corporation for its incredible support of the City of Newcastle’s sustainability charter,” he was quoted as saying on the Newcastle City Council website.
“We are building sustainability into everything we do after reiterating our commitment last year to generate 30 per cent of our electricity needs from low-carbon sources and cut overall electricity usage by 30 per cent by 2020.
