Invitation for Proposals Partner – Regional and Remote Communities Reliability Fund – Microgrids 202

⁠⁠⁠Balonne Shire Council is seeking applications from suitably qualified persons for a possible partnership arrangement and lead applicant role relating to grant funding under the Regional and Remote Communities Reliability Fund – Microgrids 2020-21 grant opportunity.

The Regional and Remote Communities Reliability Fund was announced by the Australian Government as a measure in the 2019 Budget to support feasibility studies into more reliable, secure and cost-effective energy supply to regional and remote communities in Australia.

The program will fund feasibility studies looking at microgrid technologies to replace, upgrade or supplement existing electricity supply arrangements in off-grid and fringe-of grid communities located in regional and remote areas.

To be eligible you must:

• be an entity incorporated in Australia and a trading corporation, where your trading activities

form a sufficiently significant proportion of the corporation’s overall activities as to merit it being described as a trading corporation; or

• are a substantial and not merely peripheral activity of the corporation.

For the purpose of the program a microgrid is an electricity supply arrangement that can (but may not always) function autonomously and generates and supplies electricity to multiple customers.

For definitions of other key terms refer to Section 14 of the Regional and Remote Communities Reliability Fund – Microgrids 2020-21 document.

The objective of the program is to support regional and remote communities to investigate whether replacing, upgrading or supplementing a microgrid or upgrading existing off-grid and fringe-of-grid supply with microgrid or related new energy technologies would be cost effective.

The intended outcomes of the program are:

- improved regional business, community services and emergency resilience through innovative microgrid solutions

- scaled-up and improved microgrid systems in regional and remote communities

- increased human capital (skills/knowledge) in the design and deployment of microgrids

- demonstrated commerciality and/or reliability and security benefits of deploying and upgrading microgrids

- reduced barriers to microgrid uptake in remote and regional communities

- increased dissemination of technology

The Balonne Shire Council requires applicants to be suitably qualified and experienced in technologies including but not limited to: Solar, Bio-digestion, Hydrogen, and Battery storage alternative energy solutions including solution definition and design.

Applicants should also be able to demonstrate their ability to complete the grant application process to apply for grant funding similar to the Regional and Remote Communities Reliability Fund – Microgrids 2020-21.