ALL street lighting in the Kingston area will be powered by renewable energy from next year.
Kingston Council has signed a ten-year power purchase agreement with Procurement Australia and energy provider Alinta. Power in the area will be largely sourced from wind farms.
Council does not currently use renewable energy for its street lighting. Kingston mayor Georgina Oxley said “from January 2021 our street lighting will be switched over to 100 per cent renewable power with our large building sites rolled over in July”.
“This will mean at least 80 per cent of council’s electricity needs will be provided by renewables, which is a fantastic result and something we know the Kingston community is really passionate about,” she said.
Cr Oxley said the switch to renewable energy came at a slightly increased annual cost to ratepayers. “The move to 100 per cent renewable energy results in a small annual increase to overall cost. It’s anticipated there will be a small three to four per cent increase in overall electricity costs in the first year of the contract,” she said.
In January this year, council called a “climate emergency” to address the growing danger of climate change. “Sourcing Kingston’s energy requirements from 100 per cent renewable electricity is an important response to our climate and ecological emergency declaration. Our existing commitment is to reduce corporate emissions to zero by 2050, this gets us a significant step towards this goal and allows us to consider a more ambitious target in the emergency response plan,” Cr Oxley said.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 26 August 2020