Go Greener

PPA agreement at SCEGGS to decrease our carbon emissions

One of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions by an organisation is its energy use. The SCEGGS Environmental Sustainability Strategy identified seven areas where we could improve our environmental performance. One of these was energy.

In 2020, SCEGGS entered into a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Flow Power to supply all the electricity needs for our school. By looking at previous energy use to predict our future use we contracted Flow Power to provide clean, renewable energy, generated from wind and solar farms, to match our annual consumption.

The PPA in place will run until mid 2030 and is backed by the arrangements Flow Power has with specific renewable energy generators. Under these arrangements, Flow Power has agreements in respect of the output of the generators equivalent to the amount of the PPA. This energy is then added to the grid to offset energy used by SCEGGS. In addition, SCEGGS purchases and surrenders the renewable energy certificates from the generators to ensure our electricity is 100% renewable.

The renewable generators linked to SCEGGS are the Bomen solar farm and Sapphire wind farm. The solar farm is situated on 250 hectares of land located about 10km southeast from Wagga Wagga. The Sapphire wind farm is the largest operating wind farm in NSW and is in the New England region about 28km east of Inverell. The current PPA amounts are 485MWh of solar from Bomen and 592MWh of wind from Sapphire.

By choosing to support renewable energy generation, SCEGGS is securing long-term electricity cost stability as well as supporting Australia’s renewable energy transition.

Environmental good news stories:

• Australia set a new wind power output record on the evening of 17th July, reaching 7,111MW – beating the old record of 6,853MW set on May 31st.
• The WA Parks foundation announced they have successfully relocated a group of Australia’s rarest birds. It is estimated there are fewer than 150 Western Green Parrots surviving in the wild. They were relocated to a specially prepared site east of Albany in Western Australia. More information about this conservation project can be found here.

Sue Zipfinger
Sustainability Coordinator