Lighting up the Gannawarra region

The Lighting the Regions street light changeover project will commence next week in Gannawarra Shire, which means better, brighter and more energy efficient street lights for the local region.

Sixteen local governments across north, west and central Victoria have formed the Lighting the Regions project partnership to implement what will be one of the largest street lighting partnerships in Australia. The project will replace up to 23,000 street lights from the old mercury vapour style street lighting to more energy efficient Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). The project will also reduce energy consumption, saving up to 180,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases and provide regional communities with savings of more than $57M over 20 years in energy costs. To date over 15,000 street lights have been changed making the project 65% complete and ahead of schedule as at the end of July.

The Gannawarra region will be the twelfth region to have lights changed, following the successful changeover of lights in the Bendigo region. The changeover in Gannawarra of up to 769 older style mercury street lights to the new LED lights by Powercor is expected to be completed by the end of the month.

Gannawarra Shire Mayor Neville Goulding said the project would mean better street lighting, reduced energy usage and significant cost savings.

‘‘We hope the project will encourage other organisations and even local residents to make energy efficient lighting changes at home and in the workplace,’’ Cr Goulding said.

“This project is a great example of the benefits of working with other Councils and organisations to advocate for large-scale, meaningful investment in infrastructure and services.’’.

Powercor is the Distribution Network Service Provider for the Lighting the Regions project and maintains and operates the street lighting infrastructure on behalf of the local government partners.

This collaborative project partnership will yield significant economic and environmental project benefits for the 16 local government Councils involved in the project, and pulls together the expertise, resourcing and financial resources required to take energy efficiency action together with their communities.

This $11.6M project, which covers nearly half of regional Victoria, includes $5M of funding from the Australian Government and will run until June 2016. The Wimmera Mallee Sustainability Alliance and Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance have been instrumental in establishing the partnership. The local government partners in the project are: Gannawarra, Northern Grampians, Swan Hill, City of Greater Bendigo, Central Goldfields, Hepburn, Pyrenees, Loddon, Mount Alexander, Buloke, Ararat, Hindmarsh, Horsham, Yarriambiack, West Wimmera and Mildura.

Source: Gannawarra Shire Council

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