Bendigo's Green Tech Investments Generate Returns, Attract New Funding

The Greater Bendigo City Council completed an upgrade of 22,612 street lights to LED technology that is projected to deliver $22.1 million in savings over 20 years while cutting 172,626 tonnes of CO2e emissions.

These results arrive as the city pursues a zero-carbon target for its own operations and the wider municipal community by 2030, alongside a goal of generating 500 percent of 2021 energy demand from local renewable sources by 2036. The LED program shows how capital deployed on proven efficiency measures can produce measurable operating-cost reductions and emissions cuts at municipal scale.

Edge Centres EC3 development

Edge Centres is building the EC3 solar and battery-powered data centre in Bendigo, equipped with 300 kW of on-site solar generation and a 240 kWh battery storage system. The facility is designed to deliver off-grid internet services, demonstrating how private operators are committing resources to renewable-powered infrastructure that aligns with the city’s broader energy-transition objectives.

Up to 20 percent of Bendigo homes already carry rooftop solar arrays, drawing on the region’s solar resource to expand distributed generation capacity. Community-owned solar arrays currently meet half the electricity needs of Bendigo Tramways and supply the Bendigo Discovery Centre and Archives Centre, indicating steady demand for locally generated renewable power across public and institutional users.

Next steps for investors and operators

Continued uptake of rooftop systems and larger on-site renewable installations can be assessed against the documented savings and emissions figures already achieved by the street-light program. Operators evaluating new projects can reference the specific solar and storage capacities installed at the EC3 site and the output delivered to established local users such as the tram network when modelling returns.