An independent body called the Australian Local Power Agency is proposed in a national plan for community energy led by Indi MP Helen Haines.
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Dr Haines was joined by nearly 400 people online to launch her 'Local Power Plan', co-designed with renewable energy experts and groups.
"I've met with Minister [Angus] Taylor to tell him about what we have in the Local Power Plan and I've had advice from Treasury about the costs involved in implementing the plan, but there's a couple of things we really need to do to make this a reality," she said.
"Firstly, we need to pass the Australian Local Power Bill 2020, which would establish the Australian Local Power Agency and its three constituent schemes.
"Secondly, we need to call on the government to fund the Local Power Plan, to the tune of $483 million over 10 years.
"That's what we need to invest in this. I believe the timing is absolutely right."
The ALPA would deliver three proposed schemes, with the local power scheme being the first.
"That scheme will support communities to develop their own energy project," Dr Haines said.
"It will establish 50 local power hubs across regional Australia, with each hub providing technical and administrative support to community energy groups.
"Associated with this scheme is a $312 million local power fund to provide strategic development capital."
Two investment schemes would give backing to projects that are at least 51 per cent community-owned, and require that any new large-scale renewable developments gave local communities a chance to purchase 20 per cent equity.
Dr Haines was joined by 10 guests in the Wednesday launch from across Australia.
Community Power Agency spokesperson Kristy Walters said the new agency and its three schemes would "turbocharge" the sector.
"This plan, if it gets passed in Parliament and funded appropriately, could really be a game-changer for the sector and indeed for communities across the country," she said.
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"At the moment, there's no national policy or programs that directly support community energy, when we can see so clearly, from the 100 submissions [to the plan] and 400 people that are on this call, there's a lot of interest for more of this kind of work to happen.
"It's why we've launched a petition to Angus Taylor to tell him to support the local plan going forward.
"We'll be starting an ongoing campaign to leverage support from wherever we can."
Senator Jane Hume said the government's technology investment roadmap released this week would unlock new technologies across the economy, like hydrogen.
She said Dr Haines' plan "views yesterday's technology, which has now become commercially viable, as needing government handouts. We are past this."
"The Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources' Technology Investment Roadmap, released earlier this week, states 'Government should never crowd out private investment, and deployment of commercially mature technologies (coal, gas, solar and wind) should be left to the private sector'," she said in a statement.