FIVE council-owned buildings in the Northern Grampians Shire have been fitted with solar panels.
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The panels provide enough energy, annually, to power the sites during the working day.
Libraries and depots in Stawell and St Arnaud, as well as Stawell’s Western Highway Community Precinct, have all had panels installed.
Mayor Murray Emerson said the shire had invested more than $100,000 in the project to reduce the council’s carbon footprint.
“The idea of the panels is to reduce daily energy consumption and make these five buildings as close as possible to cost-neutral when it comes to electricity,” he said.
“The average payback period for the project is 6.18 years so that means we will start seeing the financial benefits relatively quickly.”
Council is currently developing a page on its website where residents will be able to see the financial and environmental savings being made by the panels.
The website will show the dollar and carbon dioxide savings for each site.