The Shire of Augusta Margaret River have opened an online survey about energy conservation and renewable energy options.
The survey is part of a joint project Energise Margaret River, between Transition Margaret River and Augusta Margaret River Clean Community Energy.
The survey will help the project identify local attitudes, uptake and behaviours about energy usage.
The Shire of Augusta Margaret River sustainability planning officer Jared Drummond said the ultimate goal of the survey was to consider ways and means of reducing our collective carbon emissions and environmental footprints.
“We want to get a better understanding of people’s understandings abut energy consumption so we consider ways of decreasing energy usage overall and converting remaining usage to renewable means,” he said.
“If we understand what the barriers might be for people we can start working to break down those barriers.”
It is a goal of the Shire’s Local Energy Action Plan (LEAP) review to reduce community emissions by 50 per cent below 2006/07 per capita levels by 2022.
The survey is available online at www.amrcce.com.au/community-survey until 31 July 2018.
“Please encourage your family, friends and networks to participate in the survey. The more responses we get, the better informed we will be,” Mr Drummond said.
The release of the survey comes after the Clean Community Energy were given $25,000 from the Margaret River Rotary Club to do a feasibility study for a potential 10MW wind farm. Wind monitoring has already commenced for the feasibility study, and investigations into creating biogas from dairy manure waste has also started.