Denmark Community Windfarm is among 11 Australia-wide community renewables projects recognised in the inaugural Climate Council Choice Awards.

The DCW, along with Victoria’s Hepburn Community Wind Farm, shares the honour of being one of two in the Trailblazing Towns category of the awards.

Both community-owned wind farms have been powering their communities for more than 10 years.

They were said to be ‘ahead of the curve’ in showing what’s possible to achieve when a small group of hardworking people joined forces to help their community and the planet.

A not-for-profit steering group was established in Denmark in 2003 as a local response to the global challenge of climate change.

The vision was to build a small, community-scaled windfarm feeding into the regional grid.

DCW an example for nation

As well as improving the quality and reliability of the district’s power, a windfarm would reduce the community’s reliance on fossil fuels, secure its energy future, and deliver social and environmental benefits.

The windfarm, with two turbines, was officially opened in 2013 on Wilson Head.

Climate Council chief executive Amanda McKenzie said the awards showed that renewables were delivering cleaner power, lower bills and stronger communities. These were just some of the benefits of the national renewable power system.

“From rooftops to the grid, it’s essential every community shares in the social, economic, and environmental benefits of renewable energy from the sun and wind, backed by storage,” she said.

Renewable power already made up about 40 per cent of the power in Australia’s main grid, and Australians wanted more of it.

Two-thirds of Australians living in cities and rural areas supported renewable power projects, including within their own communities.

“The next term of government takes us to 2030, when we need to have cut climate pollution from coal, oil, and gas by 75 per cent,” Ms McKenzie said.

“Coal is rapidly on the way out and we can replace it with more clean, affordable, and reliable renewable power.”

The Denmark project belongs to the community, due to the high number of local shareholders in the operating company and everyone in Denmark, whether a shareholder or not, has access to ‘home-grown’ green energy. Ninety per cent of DCW shareholders are local residents.

The Denmark Sustainability Fund – formerly DCW Inc, the group which initiated the windfarm proposal back in 2003 – is a significant shareholder which returns its income from dividends to the local community by funding local enterprise projects. 

This article appeared in the Denmark Bulletin, 17 April 2025.