First Nations communities are leading the way, showing what genuine partnerships can generate, and what further investment and commitment from all levels of Government and investors could realise at the annual First Nations Clean Energy Symposium starting today on Wadawurrung Country, Djilang (Geelong, Victoria).

Hosted by the First Nations Clean Energy Network, the two-day Symposium brings together global and local First Nations, Traditional Owners, leaders and communities, with investors, energy policy makers, industry and Government. 

Guests enjoyed a cultural walk and significant welcome by Wadawurrung people, the Traditional Owners of Wadawurrung country before the program began.

Building on years of work and leadership by our communities, the Symposium will demonstrate that through working together, communities are developing renewable energy projects, demonstrating new investment models, protecting Country, strengthening self determination, and showing what the clean energy transition can look like when it is led by the people whose lands and waters are at the centre of it.

The Symposium provides a space to explore how we can collectively continue to shift the policy and investment environment, change the story on capital, and ensure investment in First Nations equity stakes – reforming how we finance, build pathways for co-ownership, and back community-led clean energy projects offering reliable affordable electricity. 

The Symposium will focus on practical solutions across the clean energy transition — from affordable, reliable power for First Nations households, to community-owned microgrids, utility-scale renewable energy projects, finance and ownership models, transmission, policy reform and community organising.

But there is also more work to do – and the Symposium will explore how, despite this progress, financiers and governments can create the right policy conditions and lift the amount of investment to ensure First Nations are front and centre.

Across Australia, more than 4.5 million households have rooftop solar, yet First Nations households, particularly those in social housing, rental housing and remote communities, continue to be locked out of the benefits of cheaper clean power.

Many remote First Nations communities still rely on increasingly insecure dirty diesel to power homes. These communities are also on the frontline of climate change, facing extreme heat, flooding, cyclones, unreliable power and some of the highest energy costs in the country. A federal investment towards new clean energy generation could alter these communities’ wellbeing for generations to come.

Underpinning Australia’s transition is all-energy minister’s commitment to the First Nations Clean Energy Strategy 2024-30, a recognition that the pace and scale of the energy transition needs engagement from all of us, that First Nations people can and should benefit from the clean energy transition – whether from small community-based projects to negotiating partnerships or ownership of large scale initiatives, and that First Nations people are critical to its implementation. 

Clear nation-leading examples will be provided at the Symposium by our visiting international kin, with a delegation including leaders from Indigenous Clean Energy in Canada, the Four Directions Fund and Tauhara North No.2 Trust from Aotearoa (New Zealand), and the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy with Tribal and clean energy leaders from the United States.

Their experience matters for Australia. In Canada, Indigenous communities now have ownership in a significant share of renewable energy generation because governments, investors and Indigenous institutions built the finance and policy mechanisms to make ownership possible –  such as recent policy mandating minimum 25% Indigenous equity in major renewable procurements.

Currently, despite over 30 First Nations partnerships announced, there are no operational clean energy projects in Australia with First Nations equity participation. Australia’s latest tender round in the federal government’s renewable energy underwriting program, the Capacity Investment Scheme, goes some way to address this, with an inaugural First Nations equity and/or revenue sharing target of 5%.

At the Symposium, First Nations in Australia and global kin will share learnings about First Nations designing, participating and leading clean energy development, showing how genuine consent and First Nations participation can make the energy transition fairer, stronger and faster.

Learn more about the Symposium here

@All photos by Mark Thomson