The first public investment in a large-scale renewable energy project in Australia is the Sapphire Wind Farm Community Co-Investment Initiative. The project received $7.5 million in local community pledges and officially opened for investment in 2019.
The Sapphire Wind Farm located in northern New South Wales is owned by Grassroots Renewable Energy Trust (Grassroots Trust), which is a joint venture between CWP Renewables and Partners Group. The Grassroots Trust wants to share the financial benefits of its projects with its local communities, and therefore pioneered a community coinvestment approach at the Sapphire Wind Farm that it will extend across its project portfolio.
The Sapphire project was the first commercial large-scale wind farm in Australia to be opened up for public community investment. The investment model was codeveloped with the local community through a testing process that addressed details such as governance structure, investment length and rate of return. It was implemented through an innovative partnership with DomaCom Australia, an online fractional investment platform that is scalable and cost effective.
PROCESS
The community co-investment initiative undertook extensive consultation using a multi-stage process.
Step 1: Introducing the concept In 2017, public events were held in Inverell and Glen Innes with over 300 attendees at which Danish community renewables expert Søren Hermansen discussed the European experience with renewable energy community investment.
Step 2: Design and road test the process The project team worked with local stakeholders to design and road test the survey and promotional plan. Three focus groups with 40 attendees were held that included residents, banks, representatives from sustainability groups, government agencies, local universities, the Community Consultative Committee, landowners, self-managed superannuation fund account managers and the site project team.
Step 3: The discovery phase Eight ‘discovery sessions’ were held with 130 participants at six locations: Inverell, Tamworth, Armidale, Moree, Wellingrove and Glen Innes. Promotions was done through a social media campaign, a letterbox drop for neighbours, local newspapers, events and partner networks. This was coupled with an online survey that was open for two months and asked community members for investment ‘pledges’. Around 500 people responded to the survey. In parallel to the public-facing consultation, there was considerable in-house work to understand and reach agreement about community investment within CWP Renewables and Partners Group. This was important given the pioneering nature of this approach – all stages had to receive approval from the Sapphire Wind Farm Board prior to the community investment testing.
Step 4: Assess and decide The community survey findings were assessed and a decision was made to proceed. The decision was communicated to the local community via email and media in 2018. Key changes were made to the proposed model to incorporate community feedback from the survey.
Step 5: Development The model deployed was co-developed from this feedback and an innovative partnership was established with DomaCom Australia, an online fractional investment platform. This partnership removes the administration and governance responsibility for community investors and is easily replicable across the industry.
Step 6: Implement The investment offer was formally opened from February 2019 to June 2019. The opportunity was formalised legally and marketed to the community via Sapphire Wind Farm and the DomaCom websites, email lists and social media. Roadshows occurred across the region to market the offer and to enable community investors to have support in the investment application process.
For more information:
- https://www.sapphirewindfarm.com.au/community-investment/
- Clean Energy Guide to Benefit Sharing Options for Renewable Energy Projects Case Study pp. 38-41.