What: Zero-net energy villages and rural regions across Europe, Scandinavia and the UK with Taryn Lane
When: Sunday November 19th, 5.00pm
Where: Ray Bradfield room, Castlemaine, between IGA car park and Victory park
RSVP and cost: This is a free event, no RSVP required
Localising Leanganook’s next community conversation
Taryn undertook a Churchill Foundation Fellowship through May and June on zero-net energy villages and rural regions through Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Germany and the UK. The focus of the fellowship was on communities with a high level of community participation in the transition and a complexity of models and partnership arrangements. She will share some of the insights from this trip at the community conversation.
Taryn has been the Community Manager of Australia’s first community-owned cooperative wind farm Hepburn Wind for more than six years part-time, delivering industry best community engagement around wind energy. The wind farm has pioneered the community energy movement in Australia, which is so common in Europe and has been recognised with national and global awards for its unique approach to community engagement, including the WWEA award for best global wind project 2012 awarded in Bonn, Germany. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/15/renewables-roadshow-community-owned-windfarm-daylesford-hepburn-australia?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Taryn conducts research around the emerging community energy sector in Australia, was the lead author for the Guide to Community-Owned Renewable Energy for Victorians for the Victorian Government, and has co-authored the Best Practice Guide to Community Engagement in Wind Energy for the ACT Government (2014) and been a member of the research team for the ARENA funded National Community Energy Strategy (2014) and the ARENA funded Finance and Funding Toolkit for Community Energy and Small-Scale Solar (2017).
Taryn worked part time for five years at Embark Australia, a not-for-profit set up to kickstart the community energy sector in Australia and through that supported other communities to build their own renewable energy projects for the benefit of their communities.
Taryn is a founding director of the Australian Wind Alliance, a founding advisor and current Chair of the Coalition for Community Energy and holds a BA in International Studies and a MA in Sustainability and Social Change. Taryn has also worked in the CE sector in Japan within communities such as Fukushima four times.
Image credit: Hepburn Wind in Victoria is Australia’s largest community renewable energy project. Hepburn Wind/Flickr. Source: The Conversation.
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