Flow Power Chief Operating Officer Byron Serjeantson was like a proud new father as he showed people around the Shoalhaven Community Solar Farm site at Nowra Hill.
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The $5 million project has seen Flow Power and Repower Shoalhaven join forces to establish the South Coast and the Shoalhaven's first solar farm.
The last of 8000 solar panels are being installed this week on the 10-hectare site which will produce three megawatts a day, enough to power around 2000 homes a year.
But the project is not aimed at powering homes - it has the bigger, business sector in mind.
"We've worked with the Repower Shoalhaven Group from humble beginnings in 2019 to help make their community project a reality," he said.
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"Flow Power is an energy retailer and we are heavily supportive of renewables and the renewable energy transition that's happening in the country today."
"In Australia retailers can play a unique and incredible role in supporting renewables.
"Our role for this project was taking that vision and working with the Repower team to get all the development approvals, and grid connections and things like that in place, all the design work done but also provide the retail platform to connect to the renewable energy users."
For a retailer like us, we see a project like this with community involvement, bringing renewables to everyday people, to everyday businesses as the next big chapter of how our country will get towards a renewable future.
- Flow Power Chief Operating Officer Byron Serjeantson
He said the City of Sydney, which has already purchased 20 per cent of the farm's power output, was a huge part of the project.
"Their support funded the early beginnings of the project and from there we have continued to offer or make available generation for local business and groups within NSW as part of the project," he said.
"Retails can play a great role in seeing projects like this come to life."
He said there has already been a lot of early interest from local businesses in securing the power.
"We've really just started that engagement but what we've seen is really encouraging," he said.
"I think that's even true by some of the groups who came along to check out the project.
"For us there has been a lot of great things about the project - one it's a renewable energy project supporting the City of Sydney and the establishment of the solar farm here in the Shoalhaven. It's creating jobs, opportunities for local contractors, it's got the community angle with community investment.
"The local business is the last bit we really want to get onboard with the project.
"We want to make this project available to businesses and help them on their own renewable journey from local power."
He said renewable energy was part of the company's vision.
"It's who we are," he said "we were founded many years ago by Matthew van der Linden and he believes very strongly in the energy transition Australia had in front of it which we are seeing today but feels it still has a lot more to go.
"For a retailer like us, we see a project like this with community involvement, bringing renewables to everyday people, to everyday businesses as the next big chapter of how our country will get towards a renewable future."
Mr Serjeantson said there would be "no cap" on how many businesses could "hook up" to the solar farm.
There will be no cap on how many businesses could hook up to the solar farm. We are only limited by the output of the project itself.
- Flow Power Chief Operating Officer Byron Serjeantson
"We are only limited by the output of the project itself," he said.
"For us, what has been incredibly encouraging from the community investment we've seen to date is the community investment targets were not only met but exceeded and there were additional subscriptions, people who wanted to invest that we eventually capped out.
"Once we begin to sell power to the local businesses, connect them to the project, if we find we need more for us that is a great sign and will be another project in the region and another opportunity for community investment to come in.
"I think a lot of the work we put into this project was really establishing that blueprint for how these kinds of projects can come together in Australia.
"We are very confident this isn't the first and won't be the last. There will be a lot of other projects to come, not just us but others who take this model and seek to achieve a similar thing."
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