Sally Capp’s ambitious Power Melbourne project ‘miles behind’

The City of Melbourne and Sally Capp have fallen behind on another major community promise, with one insider saying council is “miles behind” on the project.

Sally Capp’s Power Melbourne project faces significant delays. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

Lord Mayor Sally Capp and the City of Melbourne are behind schedule on another key promise to the community – with an ambitious policy to create a renewable energy retail power offering for residents and businesses running up to two years late.

The Power Melbourne policy includes installing community batteries at key sites across the City of Melbourne – such as libraries – and using them to store renewable energy that would then be put into the grid at a later time.

It also includes creating a retail offering allowing residents and small businesses in the City of Melbourne to purchase their electricity from a more sustainable source.

The original plan was to launch the retail offering by June this year, according to the Power Melbourne prospectus, but the council quietly changed the timeline to between 2025 and 2026 – a delay of up to two years and after the upcoming council elections.

A senior Town Hall source said the council was distracted with chief executive Alison Leighton’s restructure and the push to start construction on Lord Mayor Sally Capp’s pet project, the $316m Greenline, before the council elections in October.

“The original (Power Melbourne) timeline for a retail offer was probably a bit ambitious but we are miles behind where we should be on this,” the source said.

“The organisation’s entire bandwidth seems to be consumed with the never-ending restructure and the only thing that cuts through that is Greenline.

“So many important projects are getting further and further behind because they don’t receive the attention they deserve.”

The timeline for Power Melbourne was quietly pushed back. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

Lord Mayor Sally Capp said the council’s partnership with Origin Energy will accelerate the Power Melbourne project to deliver three batteries in mid-2024, the next step to becoming a renewable energy city by 2030.

“Power Melbourne is a new project without local precedent, and was one of the many initiatives I spoke about through a global platform at COP28 in Dubai in December, and we look forward to sharing more updates on the project as it progresses,” she said.

The council on Monday announced that it had selected Origin Energy to run a trial of three neighbourhood batteries as part of Power Melbourne.

In its media release, the council said: “all three batteries in the Power Melbourne pilot network are expected to be installed by mid-2024.”

The first batteries for the trial are due to be installed at the same time the original plan had the retail offering available to residents and businesses.

In yesterday’s media release, Ms Capp said Power Melbourne would deliver cheaper renewable electricity to residents and small businesses.

“Power Melbourne will benefit residents who live or work in apartment buildings and can’t install their own solar panels, while driving new investment and creating jobs,” she said.

This latest delay comes after Town Hall being years behind schedule and tens of thousands of jobs short in delivering on Ms Capp’s promise to create 80,000 new jobs by October.

Ms Capp also failed to deliver on her election promise to provide more support to local businesses by establishing a 30 per cent weighting for City of Melbourne-based firms in Town Hall’s procurement guidelines. Instead, a voluntary 10 per cent weighting was introduced.

The council also has an out-of-date Reconciliation Action Plan, despite lobbying for a Yes vote in the recent referendum, which lapsed in July last year.