Solar for social housing = positive energy

(Josh) The thing about solar when you’re a renter, is it’s just not going to happen for you. So when I heard about the project at first I was concerned that it might not be what it was promising. (John McKenna) I’ve been with the organisation nine years and every time I go to a tenant for ‘em, I get asked, ‘when can we get solar’? - because the energy poverty issue has been a real issue for our tenants that live on a welfare income. (Gail) When I kept hearing that power was going to go up, so I stopped using the power completely and just was using the microwave to heat food and use the electric jug, that was all, but when it was cold, I didn’t use a heater. (Matt) Definitely a bit of stress when they come through, we’re always thinking about how much money can we put aside to go to the next energy bill, even though we don’t know how much it’s going to be yet. When they come up it’s like, well we’re going to have to, you know, everything else gets put aside until we can pay that off. (Josh) I’m a single parent, so we’ve just scaled everything right back, use a lot of fans and try and keep the energy bill as low as we can. (Tony Pfeiffer) The idea was, let’s see if we can actually, again, provide access to solar to some of those people in our community who could most benefit from it, and in conjunction with North Coast Community Housing approached Office of Environment and Heritage, they were happy to be involved and actually participated with a grant, which was great. (Sandi Middleton) The expected impact for a tenant is about $420 a year saving, which is enormous. A lot of the tenants have just kind of, their eyes have widen when they’ve heard that figure, like for them, that means all these other bills could be paid, so that’s a really positive outcome for them. (Matt) Very smooth, very quick, like the guys who did it were very good, I mean, they didn’t bother us or anything, they just came and said “Hello” and “We’re going to install your solar panels,” and then next minute they were up. (Josh) So financial benefits aside, having the panels on the roof, it’s also a feeling that you’re not just a sort of sub-standard member of the community. It just feels like I’m more stable here, I guess, and that comfort, I think, that it represents is quite large. (Gail) When I got my bill I was very surprised (chuckles), I nearly cried! I was so surprised! Now I’m using my oven, I’m using my oven all the time, I love baked meals. I feel so liberated and set free, I feel human. (Tony Pfeiffer) In fact now that a lot more people are saying, ‘hey, how can we actually extend this program? What are the opportunities for this program’? In either different guises or the same guise to be shared amongst a lot more people across our community, and not just this community, but the communities across New South Wales. .

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