North Coast Energy Forum

Event: North Coast Energy Forum   

Date: 4th June 2010

Location: Bellingen Memorial Hall, Bellingen

Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm

Cost: $120 for corporate/government and $60 for community groups/general public

Enquiries: Rachael Stewart-Rattray  M: 0423 112 472  E: ncenergyforum@gmail.com

Format: Presentations and discussion forums all day. Lunch and refreshments are included.

Primary Target Audience: Electricity industry representatives, renewable industry representatives, policy formers, government representatives, academics, researchers and members of the community interested in renewable energy and distributed power generation.

The North Coast Energy Forum will explore  emerging opportunities for,  and impediments to, generating  more electricity locally.

Community organisations, industry and government representatives will discuss the distributed power options including smart grids, solar, gas, bioenergy, hydro, wind, low temperature geothermal  and wave power. 

Description:

Sustainable energy is becoming increasingly critical in the face of climate change, rising energy costs and regional population growth. Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising in every state and territory with pressures likely to continue to increase in the face of upward population trends. While consumer rebates and industry assistance programs are being introduced to encourage sustainable energy, these are not sufficient alone to overcome some of the fundamental barriers.

Mark Byrne, Environmental Educator, and one of the organisers of the North Coast Energy Forum indicated that a key impediment to sustainable energy is “the entrenchment of the ‘brown economy’ by the market-driven National Electricity Laws & Rules.” He says “For Australia to take a low carbon economy seriously, it needs to address structural barriers to increasing the contributions of energy efficiency and renewable energy.”

Despite these barriers there are positive examples of community driven action. In Hepburn, Victoria, community groups have partnered with Future Energy Pty. Ltd. to develop Australia’s first ever community-owned wind farm that will power 2,000 homes. A much more ambitious project has now grown out of the Hepburn initiative – Embark Australia, which aims to encourage 100 more community-owned renewable energy projects by 2020.

“Community owned renewable energy could represent the vanguard of a new energy economy,” added Mark Byrne, “in which local communities generate their own power, reduce their fossil fuel dependence and need for extensive network infrastructure.”

The North Coast Energy Forum, being held on Friday 4th June in Bellingen, provides an interactive forum to explore low carbon energy generation opportunities within the context of a sustainable energy future. Community organisations, industry and government representatives will discuss a range of power options including smart grids, solar, gas, bio-energy, micro-hydro and wind. Energy efficiency and demand management will also be considered.

Speakers at the Forum include Dr Mark Diesendorf, renowned sustainable energy expert from the University of New South Wales; Jane Castle, Resource Conservation Campaigner at the Total Environment Centre; and David Shapero, Managing Director of Future Energy.

The Energy Forum is an all day event presenting significant opportunities for information sharing and networking. Presentations and panel discussions will culminate in a plenary session to enable attendees to work together and address opportunities and impediments to potential projects, providing a potential launching pad for sustainable energy projects on the NSW North Coast.

The Forum is a “for purpose” event, intended only to recover costs, held the day before the Bellingen New Energy Festival (formerly the Renewable Energy Fair) which is on World Environment Day – see www.energyfestival.org for details.
 

For further information on the North Coast Energy Forum click here