Stride Renewables

*Wednesday win* Today Chris Bowen and the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water's Capacity Investment Scheme Office announced the winners of their first Investment Scheme tender, which is delivering investment in renewables and a positive legacy for regional communities. Stride is proud have supported two of the six successful projects as part of the bid teams: ZEN Energy’s Solar River battery (170MW/3.8hr) adjacent to its 230 MW solar farm in South Australia, and EnergyAustralia’s Wooreen battery (350 MW/1,400 MWh) outside of Morwell in Victoria. These projects are supporting the energy transition with innovative and meaningful approaches to social licence, shared benefits and local content. Congratulations to ZEN Energy and EnergyAustralia and the other successful proponents. A tough gig given the reported market interest at 32 times the intended tender size. #capacityinvestmentscheme #batterystorage #renewablestenders

*Wednesday win* Today Chris Bowen and the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water's Capacity Investment Scheme Office announced the winners of their first Investment Scheme tender, which is delivering investment in renewables and a positive legacy for regional communities. Stride is proud have supported two of the six successful projects as part of the bid teams: ZEN Energy’s Solar River battery (170MW/3.8hr) adjacent to its 230 MW solar farm in South Australia, and EnergyAustralia’s Wooreen battery (350 MW/1,400 MWh) outside of Morwell in Victoria. These projects are supporting the energy transition with innovative and meaningful approaches to social licence, shared benefits and local content. Congratulations to ZEN Energy and EnergyAustralia and the other successful proponents. A tough gig given the reported market interest at 32 times the intended tender size. #capacityinvestmentscheme #batterystorage #renewablestenders

*Wednesday win* Today Chris Bowen and the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water's Capacity Investment Scheme Office announced the winners of their first Investment Scheme tender, which is delivering investment in renewables and a positive legacy for regional communities. Stride is proud have supported two of the six successful projects as part of the bid teams: ZEN Energy’s Solar River battery (170MW/3.8hr) adjacent to its 230 MW solar farm in South Australia, and EnergyAustralia’s Wooreen battery (350 MW/1,400 MWh) outside of Morwell in Victoria. These projects are supporting the energy transition with innovative and meaningful approaches to social licence, shared benefits and local content. Congratulations to ZEN Energy and EnergyAustralia and the other successful proponents. A tough gig given the reported market interest at 32 times the intended tender size. #capacityinvestmentscheme #batterystorage #renewablestenders

Congratulations to NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Sell & Parker & Allthread Industries in sharing these inspiring stories of how the energy transition is positively impacting their local manufacturing business and workers. Roughly 40% of Australia’s wind turbines are held up by Australian-made anchors. With a sensible and balanced policy approach, incentivising procurement of local components in programs like the federal Capacity Investment Scheme can deliver economic, environmental and social benefits without higher prices for consumers. It can create jobs, alleviate supply chain risk and build social licence. Australia excels at some renewables components, and in choosing these products over imports delivers significant local economic benefit without materially changing the total cost of a project. For policy makers, the trick is to find the ‘Goldilocks’ zone, balancing local content with consumer cost impacts. A holistic view of total costs including those related to serviceability and maintenance of kit over time could be important to these calculations. Finding this zone through consulting local industry, as well as careful accounting of benefits and costs will lead to the optimal outcome for Australia. It will accelerate the energy transition, manage challenging global supply chains and build a resilient manufacturing industry while keeping electricity costs down. #localcontent #renewablesmanufacturing #supplychain

Luke Osborne was pleased to be a part of James Button's excellent SMH article in 20 July's Good Weekend wearing a few different hats: as a farmer, host of wind turbines, developer of wind farms and partner at Stride Renewables, where he helps clients navigate the rapidly evolving energy market. It’s this depth and breadth of experience that give Luke and the Stride team the ability to offer targeted, strategic advice to guide partners through industry challenges.    The ’Power Shift’ piece clearly outlines the complex, interconnected issues we need to overcome to successfully navigate Australia’s rapid energy transition and the accompanying transformation of communities, regions, and government and business processes.    Outlined in the article was the need to give communities a say in projects that affect their homes and their communities, with similar issues raised from Hay to Bendigo to Coonabarabran. It’s about increasing an area’s resilience and opportunity, the need for clear communication and foresight. “This transition happens with us, not to us”, is a quote that sums it up.     Renewable energy developments are complex projects: to succeed they need to navigate a long, tricky process bringing together a number of important factors. As well as community engagement and consent, there’s the whole planning process to negotiate. Access to the transmission system is another essential piece, increasingly coming via government. Stride’s estimate that limited capacity will knock out up to 60% of the projects planned for the Central-West Orana REZ is an excellent example of how essential it is to win access to the grid. And then there’s project financing, for which the Federal Government’s Capacity Investment Scheme is a useful aid.    Navigating these complexities requires decades of experience. This allows a deep understanding of every facet of development and the interaction between them, and the ability to crystalise this understanding into insightful strategic advice. This is particularly important now, as the rapid expansion of the renewable energy industry has diluted in-house experience, contributing to some of the complications and roadblocks outlined in Button’s piece.     Luke has been in the industry since it began; the Stride Renewables team has a cumulative six decades in the field. It's renewable energy expertise like this that can accelerate projects and help them succeed.  https://lnkd.in/gjGQ4WUk

Stride congratulates the Albanese Government on the appointment of Matt Kean MP as Chair of the federal Climate Change Authority. We look forward to watching Matt continue to support the acceleration of the energy transition across Australia. https://lnkd.in/gBwytw72

Legislation to establish the Energy Security Corporation has just passed NSW Parliament. Congratulations to Penny Sharpe and Chris Minns on delivering this election promise.    We look forward to watching the development of the regulations and guidelines for help bring long duration storage and other critical projects to market in the energy transition. The devil is always in the detail...

Stride Renewables Stakeholder Engagement Manager Nicola Saltman was delighted to chair Day 1’s afternoon of the Australian Renewable Energy Zone Conference. #Sociallicence and #effectivecommunityengagement were central themes. Enlightening panel with AusNet’s Gerard Carew and Transgrid’s Joshua Walker sharing lessons learnt from engagement as they work on the 1000's kms of poles and wires needed to enable this ‘next industrial revolution’. With over 40 projects on his doorstop vying for scant services, Mid-Western Regional Council's Brad Cam shone a critical light on the very real social impacts his local communities are facing in the energy transition. Thank you Aurecon's Lorna Bishop and Heidi McElnea from Community Power Agency for contributing innovative solutions. Excellent insights from Indigenous Energy Australia's Michael Frangos and Sharon Gray from CPB Contractors on how we could partner with #FirstNations communities to deliver tangible benefits. Fabulous presentations from Energy Estate's Simon Currie on doing hashtag #bettertogether, and a timely reminder from ACCIONA Energía's Dominic Luddy and Louise Johnson on human relationships holding the keys to success. Key themes: go early, plan, listen, be local, feedback loops, coordination, relationships, own up to mistakes, build partnerships. Thank you to Informa for this opportunity.

A shout-out to RWE for launching this nation-first BESS, a year on from its success in the inaugural Long Duration Storage tender in NSW. Stride is proud to have been part of the bid team.

Renewable energy tenders are becoming the modus operandi for State and Federal governments to fast-track renewables – with merit requirements setting the tone for developments beyond a tick-box compliance regime. Bids can be won (or lost!) on the ability to deliver low-cost to consumer projects and binding social licence commitments. Winning the hearts and minds of a local community with co-designed benefit sharing is front and centre in the recently opened NSW Tender 5 for Long Duration Storage and Access Rights. Congratulations to the NSW Government and AEMO Services for making this a priority. The soon-to-open Capacity Investment Scheme Tender 1 (opening 31 May) will seek to deliver 6GW of generation in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. We’re yet to see the details of the merit criteria, though if the NSW tenders are anything to go by (on which the CIS is closely modelled), it will be likely that projects need to show: > Co-designed community benefits which address locals’ needs > Initiatives for regional economic empowerment and industry innovation and support > First Nations participation > Innovative technology solutions that deliver benefits for the grid and consumers Congratulations to the Federal Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water for kicking off this landmark program. Reach out to us at info@striderenewables.com if you’d like to know more.