How Ballarat could become Australia's first fully renewable-powered city

This has not been done in a regional city of this size.

To start, the Committee for Ballarat is working with businesses around the Ballarat West Employment Zone (BWEZ) and Wendouree Industrial Estate to build a case study on what can be done in regional cities.

Energy produced in Ballarat would build more resilience in the energy network and avoid day-long power outages after storms.

Businesses like Haymes Paint, McCain Foods, MaxiTRANS and Grampians Health Services will be working with AusNet and Mondo to create an infrastructure plan to share renewable resources.

"Without power you don't have any manufacturing happening ... it is imperative that we have a consistent power source," Haymes chief executive Rod Walton said.

Mr Walton said it was important to think long term as a community, focusing outside of the political cycle.

For the past decade Haymes Paint, a Committee for Ballarat member, has been using energy from its solar panels in Wendouree.

Mr Walton said most businesses are working towards greener energy individually, but together they can move the process forward faster.

The project has been titled the Ballarat Energy Network (BEN).

BEN chair Bill Mundy said it will spend the next year or so planning the best place for infrastructure to go, what kinds of roof space is available for solar, and if there is land for batteries or smaller wind turbines.

"This supports the transition to a renewable energy future by providing an alternative to continually building out large-scale generation assets," like commercial wind farms, he said.

Eventually Mr Mundy said the project would hopefully generate excess energy, and in the future a community-led business model could sell the energy back to the grid.

Powercor is also looking to make the energy network more resilient by creating emergency microgrids - this would mean the towns would be self-sufficient if they were cut off from the larger grid.

Ballan and Trentham have been identified as potential case study towns.

In the case of a major power outage these towns would have power while the network is worked on.

Powercor's regulation general manager, Renate Vogt said there is a need to prioritise maintaining a stronger network.

"Just as more extreme weather is increasing the risk of prolonged outages, our customers are becoming more dependent on electricity than ever before," he said in a statement.

The idea is in the planning stage, and drafts will be ready in August 2024 and submitted to the Australian Energy Regulator for approval by January 2025.