Following our application to ARENA through the Advancing Renewables Program, we presented the project at both the Regional Australia Institute’s National Summit at Parliament House in Canberra, and to the ARENA funding panel in Sydney.
The presentation to the National Summit received overwhelming support from the audience of approximately 450 regional leaders, as a very real and practical opportunity for regional cities to participate in and benefit from the renewable energy transition. There was significant support for the establishment of local distributed energy resource hubs and governance and investment structures that are designed to retain and reinvest value back into the local community.
The ARENA Panel has recommended that we proceed with our application to complete the Feasibility stage of the project to further demonstrate the project’s technical, commercial, and social viability. This will be pivotal as we validate (or not) the technical options, community appetite, and commercial structures required for the BEN project to be a feasible, viable, scalable and replicable model.
Whilst the work continues, support for the project grows as a systems-based, locally led solution that reimagines how regional cities respond and benefit from a rapidly changing energy sector.