1.1 What is a Neighbourhood Coordinator?
The main task of a neighbourhood coordinator is to be the connection between your community, the sponsor, and Beyond Building Energy. This means finding and registering 50 homes in your neighourhood, and finding and liaising with the sponsor or financing institution. Beyond Building Energy will be there to support you as much as possible, and in most cases, will arrange the finer points of the sponsorship or the loan.
As the public face of Beyond Building Energy, you are also the first point of contact for people wishing to know more about the programme. You’ll need to familliarise yourself with background information about the company and the finer details of the programme so you can field as many of the questions that come your way as possible. Beyond Building Energy will provide you with the training and support you need to get you on your way.
1.2 What is a ‘neighbourhood’?
We define a neighbourhood as being a cluster of 50 houses, within a few minutes of each other, nominally within a 5km radius within an urban or town area, and within 10kms in a rural area. This is important, as it means the installation costs for Beyond Building Energy are reduced. The main criteria is to make it easy for a team of installers to work together to install all the homes at the same time.
1.3 Incentives
To encourage this process, once 50 homes from your neighbourhood have been installed with the solar system, we will pay you or your organisation $5,000 ($100 per home).
1.4 Community Organisations
Solar Neighbourhood Coordinators who sign up 50 successful applicants can cash in their $5,000 fee for a much bigger environmental and educational benefit to their community. The AGO offers grants to community organisations and schools that install photovoltaic systems where there is significant educational value. If applicants are successful, such grants award a 50% rebate on the cost of installed systems up to 2kW, valued at $20,000.
If you coordinate a neighbourhood on behalf of a school or community organization we will give you the $5000 for the school or group to use towards the cost of the solar system, and we will give you money off the retail price of a 2kW system. If you are successful in your grant application, it will probably cover most of your costs. However, if you don’t get the grant, this doesn't work and we just give you the $5000 commission, which you can put towards the cost of panels for your school or community group, or use it in some other way for your school or organization.
For more information about the government rebate for community groups and schools, visit
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/renewable/pv/index.html
1.5 Description of Duties
Gather information about your Neighbourhood
- Advise Beyond Building Energy of any council restrictions on putting solar panels on roofs within the neighbourhood.
- Lobby council to remove these restrictions, if required.
- Provide Beyond Building Energy with details of the local electricity suppliers. Find out if there will be a cost to install a new electric meter.
Act as the public face of Beyond Building Energy
- Be the first point of contact for people wishing to know more about the solar neighbourhoods project
- Field questions on the Solar Neighbourhood project from people within your neighbourhood
- Represent our company with confidence and integrity
- Liaise with the Solar Neighbourhood Programme Coordinator as necessary
Source sponsorship or loan
- Liaise with the sponsor or lender as necessary to establish the financial arrangement
Set the Boundaries of your Neighbourhood
- You will need to decide what are the boundaries of your neighbourhood.
- You can enter the actual street names on line if you like, or just set a more general description, such as ‘Samford Village’.
It is anticipated the boundaries you decide upon initially are not “set in stone”. The particular shape of your neighbourhood may evolve as people start signing up. If in doubt, ask the Coordinator of the Solar Neighbourhood Project.
Get 50 people to sign up to be in your Neighbourhood
- Spread the word around your neighbourhood of the Solar Neighbourhood Programme.
- Conduct letterbox drops of Beyond Building Energy brochures and the accompanying cover letter in your chosen area.
- If possible get support from neighbourhood associations, Climate Change Action Groups, Environment groups and council – all of which will make it easier to get people onboard.
- You may want to organise and host a neighbourhood meeting, so you can answer a lot of questions at once. If we can, a Beyond Building Energy representative will be there.
- The brochure explains the program and invites homeowners to contact you.
- You should pass on updates from Beyond Building Energy to your neighbourhood, and occasionally may want to draft your own. These should be checked by the Solar Neighbourhood Coordinator before going out to your group.
- You will need to help people who don’t have internet access, or who have difficulty filling in or printing the form.
- Each neighbourhood goes into a queue for installation as soon as it reaches 50 paid up households.
Keeping Track Online
You will be given a user name and password so you can track progress of registration on the Beyond Building Energy website. The neighbourhood coordinator section of the website contains a large number of resources that further explain and support your role as neighbourhood coordinator.
Storage Space
You may need to help arrange storage for the systems before they are installed. Local council or your sponsor or a member of the solar neighbourhood will likely volunteer their assistance if asked.
1.6 Support from Beyond Building Energy
Beyond Building Energy will provide:
- Introductory and ongoing training of the Solar Neighbourhood programme, including familiarisation with the website and administration pages you may need to access by our Solar Neighbourhood Programme Coordinator
- Brochures
- Information about the company, the answers to common questions, and other material you need to fulfill your function.
- A Neighbourhood Coordinators’ resource section on our website.
- Ongoing liaison and support.
- In most sponsorship arrangements, Beyond Building Energy will be responsible for the final details of the loan or sponsorship arrangement.
If you are in Victoria your neighbourhood coordinator support person is Erik Zimmerman at Erik.Zimmerman@beyondbuilding.com or 03-9598-3302. If you are outside Victoria you will be in contact with Marisa Dempsey at marisa@beyondbuilding.com 0422 099868.
1.7 Necessary Skills and Abilities
Beyond Building Energy prefers to work with neighbourhood coordinators who have some or all of the following abilities:
- Strong connections within the community
- Demonstration of knowledge and/or interest in solar technology and a sustainable future
- Interpersonal, communication and organisational skills
- Sound computer skills
- Internet access; preferably broadband or wireless connection
- Access to a printer
- People skills
- Facilitation skills
- A willingness to learn about the company and the finer details of the offer so you can act with some authority on our behalf.
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