This proposal would establish a new Commonwealth Agency – Australian Local Power Agency (ALPA) to deliver the following schemes:

• The Local Power Scheme would establish 70 local power hubs to support renewable energy projects in regional communities.
  • Each hub would be provided $500,000 a year for 5 years for establishment and administration costs.
  • These hubs would also receive administered funding each year, for 10 years, to distribute up to:
    • 10 seed grants of up to $10,000 per grant for small-scale renewable energy projects by new or early-stage community groups
    • five enablement grants of up to $50,000 per grant for non-capital costs of new projects
    • two forgivable development loans of up to $150,000 each, at an annual concessional interest rate of 1% for renewable energy projects by communities and eligible organisations. Loans for unsuccessful projects will be written off.
• The Underwriting New Community Investment Scheme (UNCI Scheme) would guarantee a minimum return for eligible community-owned renewable energy generation and storage projects for up to 10,000 gigawatt hours each year for 10 years.
  • Under this scheme, the government would subsidise eligible energy projects to the extent that there is the gap between the average annual wholesale electricity price and the target price of $80 per megawatt hour, when the average wholesale price falls below the target.
  • Eligible energy projects for this scheme are those that:
    • can generate or store from 1 to 10 megawatts of electricity
    • are at least 51% community-owned through local individuals, organisations, or councils, with the remainder funded through private investment
    • are community-driven, have broad local support, and deliver tangible benefits to the region
    • demonstrate technical benefits to the grid consistent with the Integrated Systems Plan.
• The Community Renewable Investment Scheme (CRIS) would require any new large-scale renewable development to offer 20% of the project equity to local communities within 30 kilometres of the project. To administer this scheme, the ALPA would be provided on-going funding to:
  • develop guidelines for the scheme
  • assess whether developers meet those guidelines
  • award approvals once developers have completed co-investment funding rounds.
• The Community Battery Storage Scheme would allocate $300 million in funding, evenly distributed over four years, to support 600 community batteries administered by local networks or community renewable groups/hubs.

The proposal would take effect from 1 July 2022. All grants, loan principal amounts and the target price under the UNCI Scheme would be indexed annually to the consumer price index.