The draft Prospectus, funded by Recovery and Resilience funding from the Victorian and Australian governments, was developed to ensure Council has a number of investment-ready community scale battery sites and public EV charging sites to ensure a favourable position for seeking funding for this infrastructure as grant opportunities or commercial investment opportunities arise.

Community energy and public EV charging infrastructure projects have the potential to:

• Improve resilience by providing backup power to host sites that can provide a community service during emergency events and power outages;
• Deliver locally generated renewable energy to local communities;
• Provide cost savings to the host site's electricity bills;
• Provide network benefits through the battery exporting during peak demand times to assist with low voltage issues on the network;
• Facilitate uptake of zero emissions vehicles; and
• Provide the innovation to establish the business case for the delivery of community batteries at Council-owned sites in regional Victoria.

The sites analysed in the draft Prospectus were chosen from an interrogation of all sites where Council has standing to act as a community energy proponent, in order to determine sites with suitable existing infrastructure to enable the installation of islandable solar PV and battery systems surplus to the facilities’ own usage needs and public EV charging infrastructure.

Ten sites were chosen to be modelled to determine suitable solar PV, battery and EV charging system sizes and detailed modelling, system design briefs and proposals were provided for each of these sites.

Five of these sites were deemed suitable for Community Power Plants capable of supplying the site’s electricity needs and exporting excess power to the local community. These sites are:

• Bright Childcare
• Bright Pioneer Park
• Myrtleford McNamara Reserve
• Myrtleford Showgrounds
• Mount Beauty Stadium and Pool

The following five sites were analysed as suitable for energy nodes to provide sufficient backup power to the facility in power outage events:

• Dederang Recreation Reserve
• Dinner Plain School and Community Centre
• Harrietville Community Hall
• Mudgegonga Community Hall
• Running Creek Community Hall

The following six sites analysed were deemed suitable for public EV charging infrastructure:

• Mount Beauty Sport Stadium
• Myrtleford Showgrounds
• Dederang Recreation Reserve
• Dinner Plain School and Community Centre
• Harrietville Community Hall
• Mudgegonga Community Hall