townsville queensland solar city project 12... · ergon energy – townsville queensland solar city...

SOLAR CITYPROJECT2012 BANKSIA ENVIRONMENTAL AWARDSCategory Award: Education – Raising the Bar

TOWNSVILLE QUEENSLAND

ERGON ENERGY – TOWNSVILLE QUEENSLAND SOLAR CITY PROJECT

2012 Banksia Environmental Awards Category Award: Education – Raising the Bar 1

Table of ContentsOverview 2

1 Why? 3

2 What? 5

3 Infl uence? 7

4 What’s New? 9

5 Who With? 11

Supporting Documentation Separate

Map

Graphs – 3

Project photos

2010 Energy Use executive summary / presentation

2007 Energy Use Survey

CBSM overview and TC presentation

Our Communications Journey (lo-res)



Overview The iconic Townsville Queensland Solar City project showcases the future of sustainable living in Australia – with a ‘Solar Suburb’ on Magnetic Island central to its success. In its fi nal term, after four years of signifi cant engagement, the project is now delivering game-changing results.

Importantly, it has achieved a key goal – to provide a replicable model of how solar energy and energy effi ciency can deliver environmental and economic benefi ts.

Driven by the desire to reduce carbon emissions and defer the need for an additional undersea electricity cable in the World Heritage marine environment, in 2011/12 Magnetic Islanders reduced peak electricity usage by 44% and slashed overall consumption by an average of 40%, bringing both down to 2005 levels.

Much of this has been achieved thanks to an educational strategy which has focussed on deeper and sustained engagement to embed a long-term approach to energy use – the re-usable energy behaviour change model - which also includes hosting solar arrays for community rather than personal benefi t.

It has captured public imagination, enlisted local support and changed customer behaviour in an entire community to deliver a formidable assault on traditional models.

A part of the Australian Government’s Solar Cities program, Ergon Energy leads the Townsville-based Solar City consortium, which also includes Townsville City Council, local developers and funding from the Queensland Government.

Magnetic Islanders reduced peak electricity usage by 44%.



1 Why?Tropical Magnetic Island, located in the sensitive World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef area, is the site of a world-class environmental project led by regional electricity provider Ergon Energy.

The iconic Townsville Queensland Solar City project has captured public imagination, enlisted local support and changed customer behaviour across the entire Magnetic Island community.

Rather than build additional infrastructure to meet demand in this World Heritage Listed environment, it makes sense to encourage residents and businesses to use less electricity and generate renewable energy locally to power the island’s needs.

Communication and community engagement underpin all project activities, with the community requiring education and information on new technologies, renewable energy and energy effi ciency in order to achieve the project objectives.

The project team worked with leading-edge communication specialists Dr Doug McKenzie Mohr (community based social marketing) and

Professor Sam Ham (thematic communication) to refi ne the approach to communicating for sustainable behavioural change. Local research into beliefs, behaviours and areas of compliance and non-compliance guided key messages and the innovative energy behaviour change model developed.

Signifi cant effort was expended early in the project to ensure that all communication was consistent with the project aims of reducing overall energy consumption by 25%, reducing peak demand by 27% and lowering greenhouse gas emissions by 50,000 tonnes over the project’s seven year cycle.

The team worked with the community to show residents, visitors, businesses and property owners how the integration of solar power, smart meters, energy conservation, peak demand management and new energy pricing options can meet the community’s electricity needs while minimising harm to our environment.

To achieve this, Ergon Energy led a consortium of willing partners, including Townsville City Council, Delfi n Townsville, Honeycombes and Cafalo, in a project that was heavily focused



on community education and awareness to positively the way people think about and use electricity.

The Magnetic Island Solar Suburb has also assisted longer term goal of establishing Townsville as a model sustainable city both nationally and internationally.

Community participation was crucial to project success and the key challenges faced by the team centred on recruitment for home energy assessments and once in the home or business, conveying relevant messages in an engaging and educational manner.

The team expected challenges in the small island community, and feedback received indicated challenges around convincing those who traditionally voted green that an electricity company could tell them something useful about energy effi ciency, convincing others there was nothing strange or sinister about their electricity provider asking them to use less electricity, convincing the wider public that they should host solar PV panels on their roof for no direct fi nancial benefi t, while driving project participation from a location that was not central to most islanders.



To foster long term behaviour change by voluntary participants, the team needed buy-in from customers and the backing of the community.

We used a multi-faceted approach to improving energy effi ciency on Magnetic Island which included adoption of new technologies, energy effi ciency and demand management supported by energy assessments, underpinned by community education to create a Solar Suburb.

As well, the project trialled different ownership models for renewable generation by utility ownership and maintenance of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, varying in size from the smaller 1.5 to 4.5kW residential arrays, commercial systems between 8 – 23kW and the 100kW Solar Skate Park. Hosting of these systems required signifi cant and meaningful engagement as they have no direct benefi t to the host, returning energy directly to the grid and reducing the dependence of the whole island on coal-fi red electricity.

Importantly, in 2010 56% of residents said they made changes ‘for the good of the community’,

a reason not mentioned at all in the 2007 survey carried out before the project started. This is one of the key messages used by the project as part of the CBSM approach to build community norms.

In its fi nal term, the project has engaged around 80% of the community via voluntary energy assessments, reduced electricity consumption by 40% (below 2005 levels), is on track to reduce GHG emissions by more than the targeted amount, has generated over two Gigawatt hours of electricity from hosted PV systems (enough to power a 1200 student school for four years) and deferred network augmentation by more than eight years.

Educating the community on energy effi cient behavioural change has brought about a dramatic and sustained change in consumer behaviour with direct social, environmental and fi nancial benefi ts including:

• GHG emissions reduced by 64,000 tonnes so far – exceeded target

• Peak Demand reduced 46% from business as usual (BAU) – exceeded target

2 What?How educational strategies support project objectives



• Daily peak demand still reducing - back to 2005 levels – exceeded target

• Electricity consumption now returned to 2005 levels - 40% reduction compared to BAU – exceeded target

• One megawatt of solar generation installed by the project, including 100kW solar skate park and 345kW on stadium – exceeded target

• Hosted PV panels supply 6% of total island electricity needs via distributed local renewable generation – exceeded target

• 80% participation rate – homes and businesses – exceeded target

• Customer savings of over $925,000 – community benefi t

• Deferred $17M underwater supply cable eight years – exceeded target

• Interest savings alone of $7,000 per customer – places downward pressure on electricity prices

• Development of replicable and proven energy behaviour change model – achieved target

The importance of this engagement model cannot be underestimated for electricity distributors, state governments and regional communities across Australia and it has allowed Ergon Energy to develop other successful deferral projects. In its fi nal year, this successful engagement project continues to drive energy effi cient behaviours for long term results.



3 Infl uence?To achieve the project objectives and defer installation of the third electricity supply cable, it is imperative to maximise local community commitment to energy reduction and renewable energy.

The island has around 2500 residents, however swells to a population of around 6000 during the hot summer holiday periods, making the last group (traditionally hard to engage or communicate with) a key element for success in achieving project objectives.

The target publics are all on Magnetic Island, a tropical residential and tourist island eight kilometres off the North Queensland coast, near Townsville in the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Marine Park Area, and are

• residents;

• businesses, including local tradespeople

• holiday-makers.

As the “early adopter” residential and business customers had already signed up for energy assessments and solar arrays earlier in the project, it was then a tougher task to bring on board target publics requiring more persuasion in Year Four.

To achieve the targeted last 10% community participation in the last active year of the project, communications are now targeted at the balance of the late majority and the laggards of the innovation adoption curve.

In 2011/12, the education and awareness strategy sought to support project goals with these objectives:

• enlist the last third of the targeted residential and business customers for energy assessments and lift participation rates from 65 to 75%;

• extend original successful holidaymakers engagement pilot program and enlist 400



more holiday rooms/apartments in an energy effi ciency communication campaign;

• install the fi nal 100kW of renewable energy in the form of a Solar Skate Park, to bring the overall project installation to meet the target of 1MW solar photovoltaic systems installed by the project.

The Solar Suburb project has delivered an exceptional performance in its fi nal year. The project set ambitious targets and did remarkably well to capture the imagination of the community and achieve virtually the same success with ‘late adopters’ as it had with ‘early adopters’.

Overall, 80% of Magnetic Island households and businesses are now actively reducing their energy consumption at peak times compared with 65% in year three. Island premises produced 87MWh in September 2011 – enough to completely remove 130 homes from the electricity grid. This unique proposition – to host solar arrays for no personal gain or fi nancial benefi t – has successfully tapped into altruistic community sentiment towards environmental protection.

The project has made solid progress in the quest to delay another undersea electricity cable, and in the process is showcasing exciting future possibilities for sustainable energy use. At a time when Queensland households are typically increasing their energy use, Magnetic Islanders have shown how to buck the trend. Across regional Queensland, Ergon Energy is now replicating the Solar Suburb success story by rolling out similar grass roots energy reduction campaigns to overcome electricity constraints in other communities in a way that makes environmental and economic sense.

This is a model that can be duplicated – and scaled to fi t - where projects are able to capture the hearts and minds of a community, and one that could also extend to other conservation behaviours. Signifi cant environmental gains can be made by working effectively in partnership with communities to reduce wasteful behaviours while focusing on using less, saving customer’s money while remaining comfortable and above all, protecting the surrounding environment.



4 What’s New? Innovative practices, technologies or standards developed or utilised

The Energy Behaviour Change ModelThe project education and awareness strategy is the fi rst time an approach based on combining thematic communications and community-based social marketing theories with innovative engagement and education

practices has been used. These two theories have separately been proven effective in delivering sustainable behavioural change and our approach was used for communications with residents, businesses and holiday makers. Combining these theories ensured educational messages were carefully crafted to speak

1. Targets Enlist fi nal 10% residential and business customers for energy assessments.

Strategy A sharply targeted communications approach, speaking to ‘hearts, minds and hip pockets’, was rolled out to residents and businesses who had not yet registered for an energy assessment. Direct and in-person communications channels were selected to enable personal appeals that strongly encouraged buy-in from late adopters.

Tactics Delivery of energy saving tips by a trusted authorityFridge magnets with customer commitment to their action planIncentive vouchers offered with energy assessments to discount energy effi cient purchases;Bumper and wheelie bin stickers to publicly recognise energy assessment participants; andLeafl et hand outs to capture commuters and tourists at the island’s only ferry terminal.

2. Target Enlist 400 holiday rooms/apartments in energy effi ciency communication campaign.

Strategy Holiday makers were targeted through a highly visual campaign tested in the popular holiday apartment complex One Bright Point. This campaign asked holiday makers to minimise electricity use at peak times. Clever and creative messaging was critical to ensure the campaign was not viewed as an ‘annoying’ request from an energy company, but rather a valuable opportunity for tourists to contribute to maintaining the pristine environment in which they were holidaying. It had to enhance the holiday experience, not detract from it, in order to secure buy-in from the apartment complex management.

Tactics Developing the “keep Maggie beautiful’ energy-saving theme to appeal to tourists;Placing visual energy saving prompts in holiday apartments such as branded detergent encouraging washing machine and dishwasher use outside peak times and light danglers to remind guests to switch off unnecessary lights; andProviding kids’ activity sheets and “keep Maggie beautiful” post cards in the in-room compendium.

3. Target Continue to enlist Magnetic Islanders to host PV systems and install community supported solar park to achieve project targets of 1MW installation and GHG emission reduction of 50,000 tonnes by 2013.

Strategy Continue to promote hosting PV systems on Island rooves for no fi nancial gain, only community benefi t;Engage community to support installation of 100kW Solar Park; andInstall 345kW on roof of basketball stadium to reduce GHG emissions.

Tactics Continuing to promote community benefi t of hosting systems to reduce Island dependence on coal fi red electricity during energy assessments; Community engagement program combined with residential/business specifi c approaches delivered over 200 agreements to host PV systems for no direct monetary benefi t to the host.Community engagement campaign to support and design solar skate park and enhance existing community facilities.



to target audiences’ pertinent beliefs about sustainable energy. It also ensured message presentation and delivery would maximise energy-saving action by providing behavioural prompts and publicly identifying participants to create social norms. See the table on previous page for details.

As well, a program of ongoing media and public communications maintained an environment of acceptance in which the project’s wider objectives could be achieved.

Activities included:

• regular updates in local media, email newsletters and website;

• frequent attendance at local events including markets and community meetings;

• sponsorship of strategic local initiatives; and

• a continued on-island presence through the project’s energy effi ciency showroom, the Smart Lifestyle Centre.

ResultsHouseholds and businesses showed a 4.5 % reduction in energy use immediately following the assessment, and a 9% reduction 12 months after energy assessment. 210 residents, community and government organisations and businesses chose to host solar PV systems.



5 Who With? Strong partnerships have also been formed with all levels of government with frequent liaison between the federal funding body, the Department of Climate Change and Energy Effi ciency, the Queensland Government Offi ce of Clean Energy and Energy and Water Department as well as with elected and non-elected branches of the Townsville City Council.

As a whole, the project has been signifi cantly linked to a number of sustainability groups across Townsville, initially through fellow Consortium member, the Townsville City Council and eventually in its own right. These groups/individuals include:

• Australian National University – Val Brown – collective social learning

• Sustainable Townsville

• Sustainable Business Network

• Smart Grid, Smart City bid

• Idaho University – Professor Sam Ham – thematic communication

• Townsville City Council

• The Natural Edge Project

• Dr Doug McKenzie-Mohr – community based social marketing

• Townsville Enterprise Limited

• James Cook University – vacation student program

• IBM Smarter Cities Challenges.

townsville queensland solar city project 12... · ergon energy – townsville queensland solar city...

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