West Torrens Council eyes million-dollar plan to slash emissions, but elected members have questions

An Adelaide council is looking at a million-dollar plan to move its light car fleet to electric vehicles within four years and slash emissions.

More than $1m could be spent to make a western suburbs council more energy efficient and transition its vehicles to electric cars as part of a plan to slash carbon emissions over the next five years.

The corporate carbon reduction plan presented at the West Torrens Council meeting on Tuesday anticipates that by 2030 emissions can be slashed by 40 per cent on the 21/22 financial year baseline – significantly exceeding the state government’s target of a 50 per cent reduction on 2005 levels.

But elected members voted to a defer a decision on the plan amid questions around the proposals and its costs.

The document, prepared by dsquared Consulting, proposes a $500,000 spend to transition council’s light passenger fleet to electric vehicles by the 2028/29 financial year and a $600,000 spend on “ongoing energy efficiency”, which includes electric and renewable power transitions for council facilities by 2029/30.

Councillor Kym McKay said his key concerns were around the cost of the electric vehicles.

“My particular concerns are the cost of the EV changeover in the fleet, their ongoing maintenance costs and their end of life value and what that would cost the ratepayers to replace,” he said.

Electricity and transport were identified as the largest sources of emissions at 42 per cent and 28 per cent in the 21/22 financial year.

Once the upgrades have been implemented however, the plan estimates council could save around $200,000 a year from 2030.

A council spokesperson said elected members were “very supportive” of council adopting a carbon reduction plan but have requested additional detail to assist them “to more fully understand how the proposed initiatives can be implemented”.

“Council decided to defer the decision on approving the plan so a forum to review those details can be delivered by the administration”.

Council is looking at spending a further $112,000 for planning and audits over the next five years, including $12,000 for the development of a low emission passenger fleet transition plan and $50,000 for energy audits and solar PV assessments of council facilities.

Council has been tracking its emissions since the 08/09 financial year with emissions inventories. According to this method, it had already slashed emissions by more than 60 per cent – from 4552 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in the 08/09 financial year to 1816 in the 22/23 financial year.