Fundraising campaign begins the TRY Perpetual Energy Fund. The small town of Yackandandah, North East Victoria, in rural Australia is preparing to switch to 100% renewable electricity by 2022. Totally Renewable Yackandandah (TRY) is an incorporated community group established to strive for this target. An energy ‘makeover’ for Yack’s community owned hospital, Yackandandah Health, will help us reach this target and start our community owned ‘TRY Perpetual Energy Fund’. When you donate, you’ll help the environment and a not-for-profit rural health service. What’s more, your donation will be a future oriented gift that keeps on giving.
Here’s how it works:
1. You help TRY fundraise to partner Yackandandah Health to install 90kW of solar panels.
2. The Yack Health and TRY partnership enables the 90kW solar installation and a range of energy efficiency retrofit measures across the Health Service buildings.
3. The savings that Yackandandah Health achieves in subsequent electricity bills are paid back into a fund called the ‘TRY Perpetual Energy Fund’.
4. ‘TRY Perpetual Energy Funds’ are reinvested in other community projects around Yack to increase energy efficiency, generate renewable electricity and for storage. Then those groups pay the savings they make into the Fund and the Fund is perpetuated for community sustainability projects.
Yackandandah Health is a community-owned, not-for-profit health service with a 67 bed aged care facility, GP clinic and primary health services including physio, podiatry and counseling. The Yackandandah Health building has a high day time energy use, so will consume all the electricity generated. The management team is proactive and switched on to sustainability. The cost of the solar install will be just over $120,000. TRY aims to raise half of this, $60,000, to give to Yackandandah Health as an interest free loan. Yackandandah Health will contribute the remaining $60,000 and thus the TRY Yackandandah Health partnership begins and the solar installation and retrofitting proceeds.
The TRY Perpetual Energy Fund will initially be generated by the repayments Yackandandah Health makes through savings on their electricity bill. These savings will be paid to TRY Perpetual Energy Fund until the full $60,000 is repaid. This should take about 5 years. From that time, Yackandandah Health’s electricity bill will reduce dramatically and it will have some spare cash to spend on keeping the community healthy. Please help TRY to raise their contribution of $60,000 by the end of September 2015. As a community we are taking the generation of electricity into our own hands, your contribution will underwrite the Yackandandah Energy Transformation – with a plan to reduce our carbon emissions, lower energy costs and inspire a new local economy. The 100% renewable goal is possible because it’s been done before in Wildpoldsried, Germany, where the sun doesn’t shine anywhere near as much as it does in beautiful Yackandandah. Fortunately, across the world Towns, States and Countries are also taking the community energy path. Climate Change is an issue that will be addressed one small step at a time. Your donation will help a community-owned health service and enable the first of many community solar installations around our town! So please dig deep to help our vibrant, progressive and passionate community achieve its goal of becoming 100% renewable. Your grandkids will thank you for TRY’ing. Donate here.