BRAG Bunyip Renewables Action Group

02/09/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1HpzKgdgD8/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Some farmers are being harassed for considering hosting renewable energy projects. What does this actually look like?

Craig Henderson is a fifth-generation Wimmera broad-acre farmer. He says he's experienced continued “intimidation and bullying” by some locals since inviting a developer onto his property to explore the potential for a wind farm.

Craig's daughter-in-law was told, "He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get shot" at the local post office. He was asked to leave a local National Party policy launch event held at a private property, and has had anti-transmission signs hung on his front fence, including one that said “traitor”.

He lays at least some of the blame for this “nasty” behaviour at the feet of some politicians. "It’s easy to appease these radicals and try and hold your seat. It’s politics... It gives little consideration to what is best for the regions."

“Cancelling VNI West is just political. It’s about getting re-elected," he said of the Victorian Coalition's announcement they would scrap the transmission line. “If they don’t want this to happen, I want to know their policy on how much capital they’re going to put in and help these regional areas that were being starved off over the last few decades."

“Our regional areas have been starved of capital by both sides of politics for decades, and we just need some more capital development in this area, other than relating to rainfall. … So I thought [renewables] would be an excellent opportunity."

“I see it as win-win; for succession planning, for income equalisation, underpinning expansion, all those things. And the community, the number of people in the community is the biggest thing I want. We’re going to keep these communities alive. We’re part of the ... fastest shrinking population in Victoria here in Yarriambiack [Shire].”

Read more of Craig's comments in the Renew Economy article – link in comments.

📷 The Weekly Times

14/08/2026

If you want the facts about the proposals for the Battery Energy Storage Systems at Bunyip North (both to be accessed from the freeway), here are the best places to start:
https://www.bunyipnorth-energystorage.com/faqs/
https://ampyr.com.au/our-projects/wimpole-battery/

07/08/2026

If you would like more information about the Bunyip North BESS proposal by RES, we suggest you follow this link to their responses to frequently asked questions: https://bunyipnorth-energystorage.com/faqs/.

30/07/2026

The cheapest thing we've ever built to keep a farmworker from dying in the heat turns out to be a solar panel, and nobody designed it to do that.

Raise the panel up on stilts, grow food in the shade underneath, and a worker's skin down there runs nearly 20 degrees cooler, which in an Arizona field is the margin between a hard shift and a trip to the ER.

The discovery belongs to Greg Barron-Gafford, a University of Arizona researcher who spent over a decade putting crops under solar arrays while everyone else assumed shade was the enemy of a garden.

In the desert, it's the opposite.

The setup does three jobs on a single acre. It makes electricity. It cuts irrigation by more than half, because less sun on the soil means less water evaporating away. And the plants breathing beneath the panels throw off enough moisture to cool the hardware itself by around 18 degrees, so the crops and the machines end up making each other better.

The job that matters most gets measured on human skin.

For years the people who pick the country's vegetables have died of heat at roughly twenty times the rate of the average American worker.

Under the panels their bodies stay cooler, their water stays cold all day, and a heat stroke turns back into an ordinary afternoon.

And it isn't a lab fantasy. More than 600 agrivoltaic sites are already running across the country, the largest crop version sitting in Casa Grande, Arizona, with the same idea spreading over California's canals and onto rewetted farmland in Germany.

The land stops having to choose between feeding people and powering them.

It even survives our politics.

Texas and Florida have banned their own cities from requiring water and rest breaks, and OSHA's national heat rule is still stalled. But a shade structure that pays for itself in electricity doesn't wait for a permission slip from a statehouse. It protects the crew because the math already works.

We spent decades treating worker safety as a cost someone has to be forced to swallow. Solar quietly built a version that pays for itself and keeps people alive as the side effect.

The answer is already standing out there in steel and sunlight. For once, doing right by the people who feed us is also the smart money move.

More of this please.

24/07/2026

As part of BRAG's commitment to supporting the Bunyip district's transition to renewable energy and reducing our community's carbon footprint, we are committed to sharing accurate and balanced information about renewable energy projects in our region.
BRAG met with RES last night to learn more about the proposed project. We will share information from this meeting on our website, page and this platform early next week.
We encourage everyone to take the time to read the information and consider the project in its own context. Every Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project is unique, and each company brings its own approach to community engagement and project development.

01/07/2026

An opportunity to ask questions about the proposed battery at Bunyip North.

04/06/2026

Time to change our thinking!

26/05/2026

Thanks to the Bunyip Community Market Committee for their donation which we will use to improve our stall at the Bunyip Market.

14/12/2025

For those of you who missed seeing AMPYR at the Christmas Carnival today here is some information about their Community Benefit Fund which is now open for Expressions of Interest from any local Not For Profit organisation that has a small project they would like funded.

14/12/2025

Thanks to Bunyip Connect for organising the Bunyip Christmas Carnival... despite the dodgy weather it was a great day... Well Done.
BRAG drew our Electrify Christmas Raffle at midday and the winner was Julie Christie from Mossiface in East Gippsland who won a hamper full of sustainable goodies from The Good Food Emporium as well as a portable induction stove top, a power meter and some solar powered Christmas fairy lights... Thanks to the Community Electrification Engagement Project who donated some money which covered most of the contents of the hamper.
We had a second prize donated by Grill and Grind on Wheels was a large bag of coffee beans... Helen from Morwell was drawn out but donated this prize back because her family don't drink coffee. So Roz McNaught, BRAG member, now living in Emerald won the coffee on a redraw!!