Byron Bay based community solar company Enova have become a generator as well as a reseller of renewable energy, pushing them one step closer to taking on the ‘dirty’ energy companies with their environmentally friendly product. They don’t, however, have any large-scale solar or wind farms to generate or sell this energy – the vast majority of their energy will be generated by small systems. We’ve previously explored the idea of community solar farms, but this takes it one step more granular – household level PV solar generation and distribution is a really interesting model and we’re excited to see how it works for Enova (and who else decides to give it a shot).
Enova’s Community Solar Timeline
Enova boosted their solar feed-in tariff to 16c/kWh around 8 weeks ago in what may have been preparation for this new business move – they have an 18kW system on their office rooftop to show that everyone can be part of the community solar revolution – and the energy doesn’t have to come from massive, billion-dollar investments – everyday users can play their part in wresting power (pun unintended) back from the major retailers.
Tony Pfeiffer, managing director of Enova, was quoted as saying “Fossil fuels are on the way out and complete reliance on large- scale energy generation will not be far behind.” Pfeiffer discussed his ideas with regards to the future of energy production – writing that “The future is all about locally generated and locally consumed renewable energy and Enova is making that possible right here, right now, beginning in the Northern Rivers region of NSW.”
According to a statement on Enova’s website, they’re able to meet approximately 40% of existing user requirements with this model – so it’ll be interesting to see what level of success they have and if it helps pave the way for community solar generation and community owned solar. We’ll keep you posted!
