Regional Projects - February 2014
By: Regional Projects Coordinator, Daniela Gambotto...
Street Lighting and Sustainability
As mentioned in Darlene's report, we attended a meeting with the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) this month along with other key FNQ stakeholders.
My key area of focus is obviously street lighting and fortunately we were able to touch on this in the meeting. However, given the complexity of the issue (which was duly noted by the AER Director!) and not wanting to dominate the broader energy issue with street lighting, we will be taking it up separately with the AER. Some of the key issues to be raised include:
• FNQ Local Governments are seeking greater consistency between State and Federal regulations to facilitate retrofit programs for more energy efficient street lighting. The system works better in some States than others – a nationally consistent approach is strongly supported in this regard.
• Establishment of a Service Level Agreement between energy providers and customers – is this something AER supports?
• How can AER facilitate the adoption of emerging technologies without being restricted by the 5 year regulatory period? Particularly for Ergon customers who are not likely to be able to adopt a negotiated pricing classification (which would facilitate faster uptake of new lighting technologies)
• What are the benefits of a negotiated service classification for street lighting.
Meanwhile, the Service Level Agreement which we have been pushing for with Ergon Energy is still being prepared. We are unlikely to see a draft of this until the end of January or early February. And Ergon Retail, the other branch of our energy service provider, is currently crunching the numbers for the top energy use buildings in the Cassowary Coast, Tablelands and Hinchinbrook Council areas. This tariff review will hopefully provide some relief on Council's energy bills over the coming months.
The sustainability group, along with representatives from DTMR, will be catching up with our Ergon Energy contacts in mid-February to hopefully discuss all the above and any other matters that are of relevance to local government. Given the amount of activity in the Energy sector this year (as outlined in Darlene's earlier summary) it's likely that we'll be doing a lot of talking with Ergon in 2014!
Regional Events
The Best Practice Guidelines I have mentioned previously have been finalised and distributed to the Regional Events Group. Once that group has signed off on the draft, I will finalise it for adoption at the April FNQROC Board meeting.
Fostering Sustainable Behaviour Workshop with Dr Doug McKenzie-Mohr, Townsville, February 24 - 25
And a little plug for those interested in encouraging behavioural change through community based social marketing...
The two-day introductory workshop provides a comprehensive introduction to community-based social marketing and how it is being applied throughout the world to foster sustainable behaviours. Those who attend the workshop will learn the five steps of community-based social marketing (selecting behaviours, identifying barriers, developing strategies, conducting pilots, and broad scale implementation) and be exposed to numerous case studies illustrating its use.
This workshop will be of interest to those working to address water efficiency, waste reduction, invasive species, energy efficiency, conservation, modal transportation changes, catchment protection, and other sustainable behaviour changes. Those who work to promote behavioural changes that promote health will also benefit from attending. https://register.cbsm.com/workshops/townsville-queensland-2014.