The Committee
Gavin is our project manager, responsible for managing residential sales rounds, liaising with solar installers, delivering community-owned solar projects, keeping on top of the politics of energy and climate, and generally pushing the group along. He is an experienced clean-energy professional. He ran his own energy-efficiency company for 15 years, and was a consortium partner in both the Adelaide and Blacktown Solar Cities. In 1994 he published a book on energy and climate issues, The Big Switch: clean energy for the 21st century. Gavin lives and works in the Inner West.
Kathy Bluff is the chair of IWCE. She is a professional musician who has lived in Annandale for more than 20 years. As a clean energy enthusiast she was disappointed to learn how low the uptake of solar energy is in our area and decided it was time to get involved at a local community level to support and advocate for the clean energy transition in our community.
Barb is our treasurer and she is an Ashfield resident who is committed to increasing solar uptake in our local community and in making solar more available for fixed and low income households. Her home has had the benefit of solar energy for over 7 years, with greatly reduced electricity bills for her household which is now largely self sufficient, having recently added a solar battery. Solar can be the energy system of the future for all Aussie households.
Rafael is an environment and sustainability practitioner with over 25 years experience in the private and government sectors. He is an enthusiastic advocate for residential solar as a means to reduce energy bills as well as carbon emissions and their impacts. Rafael’s particular interest is in exploring opportunities to establish community energy sites to benefit residents of the inner west with limited roof-space or those living in apartments.
Susie is our secretary. She became involved in Inner West Community Energy because she feels that doing whatever we can to improve the long term viability, sustainability and affordability of energy is a very important issue. She is passionate about the strength that community action has and how if we all work together we can move mountains. As Susie puts it, “the environment is intrinsic to our survival, and energy consumption and production have a profound effect on it, negatively at present, but with all of us working together we can change this.”
Andrew is a Chemical Engineer who has lived in the Inner West for 17 years. After recently completing a Masters of Sustainability, Andrew joined Gelion, a startup company developing a new battery technology especially designed to support renewables.
For Karin, the adoption of renewable energy presents an opportunity to address the issue of climate change and residential roof solar offers a realistic way to make a difference at a personal level to help reduce CO2 emissions. Karin has recently installed a battery system to complement an older solar panel installation and is very encouraged by the amount of renewable energy that has been generated and stored for both day and night use. Karin joined Inner West Community Energy so she could promote solar energy usage in her local community.
Penny Biggins is a long term Annandale resident who joined IWCE because she wanted to be part of a community organisation that is focussed on doing something useful and practical about climate change.
“Although I have no technical expertise to draw on, I can hand out flyers, host our fund raisers and do other odds and ends. And what’s not to love about helping people generate their own electricity from the sun?”