The City of Sydney is to reinvest the $2 million a year which it current spends of greenpower into renewable energy systems for its buildings and operations.

Projects under consideration include a glass and solar panel shade canopy in front of Customs House at Circular Quay and solar panel roofs on other council buildings such as depots, aquatic centres and other community facilities.

Mayor Clover Moore said that "Rather than just offsetting our electricity emissions, this strategy invests the money we would have spent on carbon offsets into building renewable energy projects for the city".

This scheme is in addition to the city’s programme of developing tri-generation plants to reduce the need for council buildings to rely on electricity from coal-fired power plants.

Tenders are being called this month to establish tri-generation plants in seven locations around the CBD at Town Hall, Customs House and five aquatic centres. The plan is to create a network of such plants providing up to 325MW over a 15-year period, which could connect to neighbouring buildings and the entire CBD.

Allan Jones, who took the English city of Woking off the grid and implemented similar plans for London, is now the council’s Chief Development Officer for Energy and Climate Change. He says there are numerous advantages to the plan. It will cut emissions by about 70 per cent, reduce and possibly eliminate the need for new coal-fired baseload generators and eliminate losses from transmission.

(Also see our previos artticle "Lessons from London")

As part of its "Nation Building" programme, the Australian Government has promised to provide free ceiling insulation and  installation, worth up to $1,600, for all homes which are not currently insulated. The Government estimates that there are 2.2 million such homes and that home owners will save an average of $200 a year by having ceiling insulation.

For rented premises, the Government will double the rebate under the Low Emission Plan for Renters to give landlords $1,000 for installing insulation. The Government estimates that 500,000 properties will be affected.

The Government expects that its $3.9 billion investment in the programme will provide jobs for tradespeople and semi-skilled workers in the manufacturing, distribution and installation of ceiling insulation during the global recession and will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by around 49.4 million tonnes – the equivalent of taking more than 1 million cars off the road.

The Government also increased the solar hot-water rebate from $1000 to $1600, effective until June 30, 2012.

The Queensland Government will bulk-buy solar power systems in order to resell them to householders at heavily discounted prices.

Premier Anna Bligh announced today that the Government would purchase at least 1,000 solar power systems and sell them back to Queenslanders. Under the scheme, householders are expected to save up to $3,500. This should reduce the average cost of a one kilowatt installation from $13,000 to $9,500. Homeowners will still be eligible for the Federal Government’s $8,000 rebate – reducing their total outlay to just $1,500.

The scheme was proposed by the Queensland Council for Climate Change which includes Dr Tim Flannery, 2007 Australian of the Year.

The Premier also announced that, in future, all proposals to the Queensland Cabinet must include an assessment of climate change impacts by the Office of Climate Change and that these assessments will be made public.