Hepburn Energy, formally Hepburn Wind, is a member-owned co-operative and Australia’s first community-owned wind farm, now working towards adding solar and battery storage. The farm is located at Leonards Hill, Dja Dja Wurrung Country, about 100 km northwest of Melbourne, just south of Daylesford, Victoria.
The co-operative’s origin story starts in 2005 with a proposed development for a large wind farm within the Hepburn Shire region, which received strong community opposition. Parts of the community were disappointed and wondered if a different model would grow support for wind. Inspired by co-operative energy in Denmark and Europe, these locals came together and discussed a community-owned alternative that led to the co-operative’s formation in 2007.
The next few years were a busy period of community engagement, capacity building and fundraising.
By 2011, around 2000 co-operative members, mostly local residents, had raised over $9 million and become shareholders and owners of Australia’s first co-operative wind farm. Since then, the co-operative has become globally recognised for best practice community engagement in the renewables space.
13 years in, Hepburn Energy’s wind turbines, known as Gale & Gusto by co-operative members, have generated 127,654 MWh of clean energy, abating a whopping 130,813 tonnes of CO2.
Hepburn Energy also takes action on climate change by advocating for community energy and seeking to reduce local emissions and build community resilience.
Since the beginning, the co-operative has been built through volunteer effort, while also enhancing the capacity and skills of many local people working on it.
Hepburn Energy’s community engagement is unprecedented for any wind farm in Australia and has been integral to its success. From conception, the co-operative has been determined to ensure that the entire community, beyond the investors, benefit from the project.
Now called the Hepburn Energy Impact Fund, each year, a minimum of $30,000 ($15,000 per turbine) is contributed, with the core purpose of fostering climate resilience while helping the Hepburn Shire community reach zero net emissions by 2030. There have been 15 community energy projects and a further 17 projects and programs, 59 community grants and four co-operative owned EV chargers. Over 450 homes and over 80 community groups have benefitted.
In total, the co-op has contributed $326,916 towards 97 community benefit-sharing projects. But what’s even more amazing is that these projects leveraged a further $6,187,459 in community value. That’s a leverage point of almost 19 to one.
