Ballarat's a big city, and getting bigger, and that will require more electricity to power more homes, businesses, and maybe other infrastructure like electric trams and cars.
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But usage statistics from the past 10 years show some interesting trends as technology improves and solar panels get cheaper.
By 2040, the population could potentially double, and growth is continuing to accelerate as Melburnians locked down in the city look for greener pastures to work from home.
In the past few years, the electricity grid in Victoria has been changing dramatically - we once got most of our power from the Latrobe Valley's coal plants, and as those facilities age and shut down, the next generation is coming online.
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There are growing pains - grid transmission infrastructure does not yet have the infrastructure for all those wind turbines to operate at full capacity, and more "big batteries", like the one in Warrenheip or the newly-announced one near Geelong, will be needed to smooth out and regulate electricity.
But the movement from a centralised grid to encouraging homeowners to generate their own power, and exploring new large-scale options, is already well under way.
According to numbers from electricity distributor Powercor, while connections to the grid in Ballarat are going up - which backs up what we know about population growth - actual power consumption has begun falling.
The Courier approached Powercor asking for data from 2010 and 2015, as well as what was most recently available, to track how usage had changed.
The numbers reveal an interesting shift.
In 2009-10, power consumption from the Ballarat North and Ballarat South zone substations, which supply electricity to the city as well as Daylesford, Clunes, and Creswick areas, was at 787,495 megawatt-hours.
The amount of usage was already falling in 2014-15, to 745,949MW/h, and by 2019-20, it was at 676,205MW/h.
This is despite an increase of just over 6000 connections to the grid in that same time.
The Ballarat North substation has a wind farm directly connected into it, the Leonard's Hill farm built in 2011, which has helped reduce consumption in that area.
However, rooftop solar and improved energy efficiency is having a direct impact on consumption.
A Powercor spokesperson said in a statement customers are changing the way the use, store, and sell electricity, seeking lower bills and energy independence.
"The capacity of installed solar on our network is forecast to increase in the next five years as the proportion of customers with solar grows from 18% (133,401 installations) in 2019 to 34% (288,928 installations) in 2026," they said.
"At the same time, the take-up of residential batteries, electric vehicles, load control and home automation systems are expected to rise as the price of new products falls.
"The number of customers connected and using our network is growing significantly, however we are seeing generally flat consumption for electricity over the past five years.
"Powercor is already well on the way to becoming a dynamic "two way" network of the future that can support the changing way customers are using and generating power."
The company is investing more than $60 million to upgrade its distribution network, the spokesperson said, with 345MW of large-scale renewable generators also added on top of residential infrastructure.
"The increase in rooftop solar has meant customers are using our network in a different way," they said.
"Many customers with solar are exporting power they are not consuming back into the grid for use by other customers and our network is supporting this."
In Ballarat, several groups have pushed for the city to head to a zero-emissions future, as technology continues to get cheaper and more accessible.
This is supported by big business - McCain and Mars, among the city's largest manufacturers, are leading several other businesses to embrace renewables.
McCain, for example, is building Australia's largest behind-the-meter renewable energy system using solar and biomass produced by the plant itself, managing director Craig Mason said in a statement.
This will reduce the plant's reliance on energy from the grid by 39 per cent.
"Our 8.2 megawatt solar array of 17,000 panels is well into construction at our Ballarat facility, and start-up is planned for early next year," he said.
"McCain strives for ongoing improvements and innovation to ensure the future of the business and support for the Ballarat community."
Similarly, Mars has signed deals with solar energy providers in Ouyen, with long-term plans to increase its use of renewable electricity.
"In line with our commitment to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 27 per cent by 2025 and 67 per cent by 2050, Mars will offset our Australian operations with 100 per cent renewable electricity from the start of 2021," general manager Andrew Leakey said in a statement.
These initiatives are examples of businesses finding competitive advantages by investing in renewables, Committee for Ballarat chief executive Michael Poulton said.
"There is a short-term element, and a long-term element - if you can reduce the costs of things like energy, you attract more and better businesses to Ballarat," he said.
"If you reduce the costs of energy for current businesses, that means they spend their money in other ways, so you have a town with more disposable economy available to it - it's the right thing for the planet and it creates a whole range of new industries and new jobs, and new innovations.
"I think if we fail to make the most of that opportunity, we'll see other mid-size cities around the country go ahead of us, and therefore they become more attractive to new businesses."
Grampians New Energy Taskforce chair Stuart Benjamin has been pushing in this direction for years - he said the broader region already producing more energy than it needs.
"The question we need to ask is how do we use this green energy to add value to the industries we already have here, and to attract new industries," he said in a statement.
"(By 2040) we will have new industries that are value adding to our agricultural production and value adding.
"Imagine having another Mars, another McCains, all producing their products with no carbon creation. Amazing."
To get to this point, Ballarat's largest energy users need to work together to buy bulk renewables through a Power Purchase Agreement, he added.
"This underpins their development and ensures the businesses have secured 100 per cent renewable energy," he said.
"Residential will continue to slowly convert to renewable, but the big and important wins are in converting industry."
Mr Poulton used the example of a heavy transport manufacturer in town looking to bid for a tender to build new trams in Ballarat.
"15 years of building, 30 years of maintenance, that secures (the company) in this town for heavy advanced manufacturing," he said.
"You give them the opportunity to access much cheaper energy - maybe a 50 to 80 per cent reduction in energy costs - that takes their tender price significantly to a more competitive place.
"We can now compete against Dandenong because we've got a much cheaper prospect to do what we need to do."
He concurred residential households have a role to play as well, with new estates being built to the city's west an opportunity to build up more generation potential.
That's an idea supported by Ballarat Renewable Energy and Zero Emissions president Dr Mary Debrett - she said she hoped by 2040, Ballarat would be energy-independent.
"They're predicting 50 per cent growth by 2040 - that suggests we'll need that much more electricity," she said.
"I think in terms of growth, the greenfields development and the infill growth, we at BREAZE would like to see some planning regulations that mandate solar (panels), because although there's a lot of solar going up driven by state government, there's still a lot of roofs that don't have solar on them.
"We need to be moving towards all-electric homes and getting off the gas."
Microgrids, where communities pool electricity resources, are also an option, she added.
"There's talk of one in Buninyong, that's something that will hopefully become more common as part of the community power push," Dr Debrett said.
"We now have the technology, the software, for people to share power locally off their solar panels, rather than putting excess back into the grid which is destabilising, we have people sharing through local batteries and consumer to consumer sales.
"That's something we're very excited about - it's achievable, it's happening in Victoria in other municipalities."
Other technologies will also develop between now and 2040 - Mr Poulton is keen to see what role Ballarat can play in developing green hydrogen, for example, while other businesses, like Ballarat's own Gekko Systems, are researching how to maximise use of bio-waste to create a fully circular economy.
Gekko's managing director Elizabeth Lewis-Gray said biodigesters, like the company's Gaia agricultural biogas system, could help provide more dispatchable power for the energy mix, while also helping businesses big and small.
"There's enough biomass in the region to power the city," she said.
"We want to have our sources on demand as well, not just variable - the beauty of the biodigester, and composter, is that we have to deal with our waste products anyway, so we want to have that as part of the mix so it can deal with our waste and make power."
City of Ballarat councillor Belinda Coates said to get to a sustainable energy situation by 2040, it would take a "whole-of-community effort now".
Council already has a Carbon Neutrality and 100% Renewables Action Plan, and Cr Coates said the zero-emissions goal is a good way to get action started.
"Community education is a big factor as well, that's where local government, as the level closes to the community, can really do some heavy lifting as far as really assisting people, and getting information out there about what people can do in their own homes as well, and linking into those state government-funded opportunities too," she said.
"There are a number of rebates available, and it's looking at what we as a council can do to support that and really ramp it up.
"If we're talking 2040, there's no reason we couldn't be carbon-positive, where we'd not only be generating enough power for our household and business requirements, but we're offsetting that to the point where we're over and above that.
"It's on the agenda everywhere - bigger businesses, smaller businesses, whether you're talking about waste management or energy generation, it's just so topical now."
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