The grant has come from the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage and gives TGG a year to investigate whether establishing community owned renewable energy in this region is economically and socially feasible.
The grant follows on from a Community Energy Forum held last year as part of the Goulburn Connects Sustainability Festival, organized by TGG.
"We had a lively discussion and presentation on the idea of community owned energy at the forum and a sizeable number of people expressed interest in pursuing the concept," said Peter Fraser, TGG's spokesperson on community energy.
"So we put together a proposal to the Office of Environment and Heritage for a grant to investigate whether Goulburn was ready for such a project," he said.
The idea of Community Energy is to allow members of the community to become owners and operators of an energy generating business.
"Investors share in the profits of the business, they become owners of a sustainable energy generator, and the community benefits because the energy is generated within the region, not imported on the grid from dirty coal mines," said Mr Fraser.
"Community interest in renewable energy is growing. People are no longer comfortable sourcing energy from fossil fuels when we have clean alternatives in Australia," he said
Mr Fraser said that while more than half of all the wind farms in Denmark are owned by local communities, the idea of community energy is only now beginning to take off in Australia. The Hepburn Wind Farm in Victoria was the pioneer of this sort of energy generation in Australia, but now more and more communities are getting on board.
The TGG proposal is to investigate building a 1 MW solar farm in the Goulburn area and sell the power either to local businesses, or to a green energy retailer who can then sell back to the community at an affordable price.
"This way, the money earned from producing the energy stays in this community and benefits the Goulburn region rather than a big power company generating its energy outside the region," he said.
At this stage, the grant is simply to investigate the feasibility of such a project, rather than running the whole enterprise. If the study comes back with a positive answer then it will be up to the people of Goulburn whether they want to take the idea further.
"We had great support from Goulburn Mulwaree Council, the Goulburn Chamber of Commerce, the Solar Council, and a local company keen to help," said Mr Fraser.
"The key issue with community energy is to build solid relationships with business, the community, and the Council. It's only when everyone is on board can this sort of thing work," he said.
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