Others(Cross-cutting measures)

Community Enabling Framework
A cornerstone of the new RESS is the provision of pathways for increased community ownership, participation in, and benefit from, renewable electricity projects. To facilitate delivery of this objective an Enabling Framework for Community Participation has been developed. The enabling Framework is comprised of four pillars;
• Preference for Community Projects in RESS auctions- RESS-1 auction includes a community preference category of up to 30 GWh. This category has been developed specifically to allow communities and citizens to participate in RESS. It is open only to projects that are at least 51% owned by the local community and some of the projects entering the category are 100% community-owned. The maximum project size is 5MW.
• Community Supports- A package of enabling supports including technical, financial and legal services that will be put in place to assist communities in navigating the challenging terrain of electricity generation. These supports will feed a pipeline of community projects into future RESS.
• Community Benefit Fund-Under the terms and conditions RESS all projects supported by the scheme – the vast majority of which will be developer=led projects – must establish a Community Benefit Fund. This is to ensure that the local community receives actual direct benefits from the renewable project located in their locality
• Investment opportunities in developer-led projects- As well as the Community Benefit Fund, it is envisaged that there would be shared investment or ownership opportunities in these projects for future auctions under RESS. The Department continues to explore options in this area.

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