A Virtual Energy Project for Flinders
- what does it mean?
Have a look at our Virtual Energy Network FAQs!
Quick start - just jump right in!
If you know what you want and just want to sign up, follow this:
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You can get started by going to the Powertracer page on the EnergyLocals web site. This is where you make EnergyLocals your electricity retailer. It’s worth reading that page before you click ‘Get Started’ as it has a good description of the system.
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The ‘Get Started’ button will take you through a standard sign-up process about you, your property and your identification. Also the payment method.
They say it takes a couple of weeks to get you signed up.
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Send us an email and let us know that you have signed up.
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What happens next is that we (FZCC in Flinders) will set up a WhatsApp group with all the people who sign up. This will then let people chat to each other, but importantly you will be able to choose who to share energy with (should you so choose). We will use this group to inform you if there is a local business who has signed up and with whom you might like to share your power. Most local businesses do not have any, or sufficient, solar so will be looking for good power purchase deals!
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That’s all! You can go away now, but read on if you want to find out more about the project.
​General idea of a VEN - the ‘why’ and the ‘what’
We are setting up a VEN in Flinders to:
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help reduce the carbon output of Flinders,
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provide cost savings for homes and businesses,
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establish a community in Flinders sharing their excess energy,
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help to make a stronger, cleaner local energy network.
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A Virtual Energy Network lets you share (or sell) excess solar energy with other people or buy their excess energy from them. Software on a remote server manages the buying & selling and keeps you informed. It’s a way of keeping our renewable energy local, supporting our neighbours and maybe making a small profit for yourself.​​
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BTW, we are not concerned by are you really in Flinders. We're keen to embrace people in our surrounding areas too :)
How does it work?
The VEN works by letting you offer your excess solar (usually sold back to the power company providing you an increasingly small feed-in tariff) to your friends, neighbours, local businesses or even another house that you might have out of town. You set your own price. It would be common to set it so that you receive more than you would from your feed-in tariff and the other party buys at a cheaper price than they otherwise would. Win-win!
Your buy-sell price sits on top of the network charges you must pay for the ‘poles and wires’. That is usually more than half of the charge you see on your power bill, leaving you with about 12 cents to play with. This means you could set a price where the seller (you) and the buyer (friend, business, etc.) each benefit by 6 cents per kWh.
Or you could choose to set a higher price, or free, it’s up to you.
You go to a web site to set your price and allocate potential buyers. Then the system (known as ‘Powertracer’) automatically matches trades based on your chosen rules. You’ll see a clear breakdown of your energy usage, trades and savings on your monthly bill. ​
This image supplied by the kind folk at WinZero.
There are two trading options that can be setup in parallel or stand alone:
Peer to peer trades
In this type of trade, the trading parties are connected in a secure chat and agree to trade by specifying the sell and buy prices. If accepted and there is a match, Powertracer does the rest.
Community trades
In this type of trade, the trading parties are anonymous, and the software is guided by the seller’s pre-determined sell and buy prices. If there is a match Powertracer does the rest. If there is not a match, standard EnergyLocal’s rates apply.
If none of your selected people buy your energy, don’t worry, it goes into a pool and can be purchased by anyone in the scheme in the eastern states of Australia (AEMO states).
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What do I need to get started?
Your house needs a smart meter (I think we all have one in Victoria) and you need to be signed up to the retailer EnergyLocals. The Powertracer software takes care of the rest.
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(Note: you do not need to have solar to get value from this arrangement. See below)
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EnergyLocals charge a monthly subscription of about $22. So, if you are concerned about costs, you need to be confident that you will be able to sell enough of your excess solar to recoup this cost (about $260 per year). If you choose to sell at 6 cents per kWh, this amounts to about 5,000 kWh of excess solar per year.
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But how much excess solar do you have? The easiest way to find out is to log into United Energy (that’s who supplies all of us our power on the Mornington Peninsula) and their dashboard will show you:
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Look for the Energy exported for last year. You can get more details about how to do that here.
Your excess power (and usage) might vary significantly between summer and winter. If you really want to find out by how much, you can use one of our analysis tools here.
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Your energy retailer might also offer you this consumption information.
The fall back if no one buys your energy is the EnergyLocals default rates which are currently:
Supply charge: 68 c/day;
All consumption: 29 c/kWh
Feed-in tariff: 2.8 c, 1.5 c, and 12 c per kWh for shoulder, off-peak and peak respectively.
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I have no solar - is that OK?
Yes. You can join up and just buy your electricity from the VEN. We call this being an off-taker (as opposed to a producer). Hopefully you will eventually find people in Flinders selling their energy at a good rate. If there are not enough in Flinders, then you can buy from the greater pool of producers - generally there are a lot more producers than off-takers so you can expect the system to find you a seller easily.
Am I committed? Can I opt out?
Yes you can opt out at any time. Like any other energy company, you will not be under any fixed contract to EnergyLocals and you can change back to any other provider through that provider’s web site.
Who should join the VEN?
This is worth considering for anyone in Flinders (and surrounds) who has significant excess solar energy (more than 5000 kWh per year, say).
You don’t have to have solar - you might want to like the idea of buying ‘local renewable energy’. But until we get the scheme running we can’t be sure how much excess energy will be available to purchase, nor whether we might choose to sign up just one local business to receive our energy (we’ve been talking to local cafés, etc.)
Will it save me money?
We hope so. But several in Flinders have voiced various other reasons for joining. We’ve had people making comments like:
“We travel in our caravan and have approx 3 months of minimal electricity use so producing solar for other during winter seems like a great fit”
“I’m not really so concerned about the money, I just like the idea of my excess energy staying local”
“My main house is in Melbourne and I would love to have a reason to get more solar on my house in Flinders and send my excess up to town”.
These are all good reasons and they all help support our zero carbon aims.
Has anyone else been setting up VENs?
The Wingecarribee Shire in the Southern Highlands of NSW have had a VEN operating for a while. Their project is called WinZero - you can read about WinZero here.
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Our own Mornington Peninsula shire has a VEN running between its various community facilities. More than 200 MP locations are sharing energy.
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There are currently (Nov 2025) about 80,000 people enrolled in a VEN and using the Powertracer software around the country.
I'm interested - What do I do now?
Just go back to the top of this page and 'jump right in'!!
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Want more info?
We produced this little AI generated video (5.5 minutes) that, in spite of a slight American flavour, actually does a pretty good job of explaining VENs.
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If you haven't yet read our one page explainer about VENs, download our PDF here.
The WinZero project has more info as well as some case studies and short videos about how it all works.
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Of course, you can always drop us an email.
