<<Outline what is coming in, how it is used/processed, how it will leave the ecovillage at the invidividual, community and external levels.>>

Sources

Mains electricity is about $100,000 away in infrastructure costs. Therefore the available sources of power are:

• Renewable (solar, wind, water and timber)
• Non-renewable (diesel, LPG and petrol)
  

Renewable

Preferred option for most applications most of the time.
Imago Forest is quite windy, therefore this could be a good source of power. Due to the costs of installation, this might be a good item for shared use. Also, because the tower would need to be in a suitable location (clean air flow), this may require an extra tall tower which would be more expensive than one home could justify.
Water may also be an option, especially from the spillway of the dams as the water has already been channelled and would not cause additional disruption to the natural flow of water. This presumes that the dams are usually full and overflowing. This has been the case in the yurt paddock with only one home and the 600kL dam and a La Nina period. However during summer this was not the case due to regular irrigation.
Solar is a good source of electricity, it is practical and flexible, however if the houses are against the edges of the clearings, this may reduce sunlight hours if the panel are placed on the roof of the houses. It would be good to think about a solar generation facility (power station!) that is ideally located and jointly cared for.

Where energy sources are shared, it is likely that they will need to be developed for each hamlet as the costs and losses involved in distribution are likely to be too high.

Non-Renewable

Use on-site

Typical uses

• Transport - design the village so that as much as possible can be done by foot, hand or animals.
  
• Cooking
• Heating
• Refrigeration - possibly shared as this is a big energy user.
  
• Entertainment - stereo etc.
  
• Computers
• Internet
• Power Tools - generator
  
• Washing machine - this uses a lot of power so might make sense to have a common washing machine or two
  
• 
  

Processing

Exit

Other

my name is Nicky Ison and I’m currently undertaking a research thesis into barriers and opportunities to community energy projects, as part of my Environmental Engineering degree. As part of this thesis, I am developing a decision assisting tool for communities looking to undertake energy projects.  The aim of the tool (an excel model) is to assist communities in the very initial stages of a community energy project (precisely where the SCEV initiative is at) to answer the following questions:
·        What energy generating technologies would be appropriate for our community, based on where our community is located?
·        What is the likely cost of meeting a specific renewable/clean energy target for our community (100% or less)?And what will be the likely emissions abatement?
·        What type of energy project (size and technology) could we undertake for a set amount of money? And what will be the likely emissions abatement?