100% Renewable at Council

Council commits to pursuing strong emission reduction targets. These targets have been set recognising the science on climate change, the scale and speed of change required and the opportunities available to achieve deep cuts to emissions.

Report cards show how we’re tracking on our progress to ‘electrify everything’ and reach zero net emissions for the municipality by 2040.

• The Climate Emergency Report Card 2021-2022 (PDF 345Kb)
• The Climate Emergency Report Card 2020-2021(PDF 381Kb)

We're electrifying all Council facilities to phase out the use of fossil fuel natural gas and enable greater use of renewable energy.  

Over 1,000 KW of rooftop solar PV has been installed at nearly all of our facilities and have trialled solar battery storage at the Sunshine West Community Centre.

We have adopted an Environmentally Sustainable Design Framework, requiring energy efficient design and sustainable energy as standard for all new Council facilities.

About 15,000 mercury vapour residential streetlights have been replaced with high efficiency LED lights.

Altogether these projects are saving Council millions of dollars over the coming decades and have slashed our streetlight networks energy demand by more than half.

We are transitioning Council's fleet of vehicles to electric and other zero emissions vehicles.

Electric vehicle charging stations have been installed at the Sunshine Multi-Deck Carpark and Keilor Operations Centre and a first batch of electric vehicles have been bought. This includes two locally manufactured electric tipper trucks now servicing Council’s parks.

We have also developed a plan to further guide a transition to a zero emissions Council fleet by 2030.

We've joined 50 other Victorian councils to form VECO, the Victorian Energy Collaboration, Australia’s largest local government sector emissions reduction project.

All Brimbank Council buildings, sports grounds, community venues, leisure centres and streetlights are now powered by 100% renewable electricity.

This will save 260,000 tonnes of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere every year – the same as taking 90,000 cars off the road.

The Brimbank Aquatic and Wellness Centre which opened in 2022 will be Australia’s first zero emissions aquatic centre powered by renewable energy.

Shifting away from traditional gas boilers used at other aquatic centres, the centre has installed:

• 88 kilolitre above-ground thermal energy storage system
• 500 kW of solar PV
• heat recovery system and
• direct digital control systems.

Any excess electricity the facility requires will be provided by a 100 per cent renewable energy power purchase agreement.

The Australian Government committed $1.53 million towards the innovative system, through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency's (ARENA) Advancing Renewables Program.

We've installed a battery energy storage system in Sunshine West. It's our first community battery.

Community batteries help to make the power network more resilient by:

• soaking up excess local rooftop solar power

• releasing the power back to the grid when electricity demand is high

The battery is located in Gresham Way Reserve, Sunshine West, next to the intersection of The Avenue and Corella Road.