It was a blindingly sunny day in early 2017 when an eager Mark McGowan perched himself on a lookout commanding views over Western Australia's rugged south coast.
The then WA opposition leader was in Albany, about four hours south of Perth, to announce plans for the town to become the state's first "renewable energy city".
Before him were all the necessary ingredients — a wind farm already considered one of WA's most reliable, blue skies for solar power and, perhaps most exciting of all, an ocean rich in wave energy.
"We will invest in renewable energy in Albany to secure its future as a renewable energy city," Mr McGowan declared on the campaign trail for the 2017 state election.
But a little over seven years after Mr McGowan made that declaration, the historic port town of Albany has little to show for the promises made and the money spent.
So where did it all go wrong, and what lessons are there for other communities across Australia hoping to go green?
Heritage town with green history
At the beginning of the century, Albany was very much at the forefront of the renewable energy transition.
In 2001, what was Australia's biggest wind farm at the time was built at the town, where its 12, and subsequently 30, towers became a tourism drawcard.
Some 15 years later, the City of Albany was an early mover in the shift by pledging to power 100 per cent of its own needs from renewable sources by 2030.
When Labor won state government in 2017 and promised to entrench Albany's renewable energy gains, the future appeared to be assured.
Central to Labor's plans was wave energy, which had long been championed by influential party figure Alannah MacTiernan.
Albany seemed the perfect location, with its wild coastline and abundance of waves relentlessly rolling across the Southern Ocean.
Sitting behind the plans was a $19.5-million pot of money.
Some of the cash went towards establishing a wave energy research centre, but most of it was earmarked for a project that was supposed to prove the commercial viability of the technology.
Leading the charge was a company called Carnegie Clean Energy, which won a tender to develop a wave energy farm, but went into voluntary administration in early 2019.
Dreams collapse
Carnegie's implosion dashed hopes, perhaps forever, for wave energy in Albany.
It also cast a pall over the government's broader goals, with critics saying the state had no other clear-cut plans to turn Albany into a green energy hub.
When questioned about the future of renewables in the city, WA Premier Mark McGowan said his government was "supporting renewable projects all over Western Australia".
City of Albany Mayor Dennis Wellington said the council was well on track to meet its own target, but he doubted the whole town could be run on renewable energy by the end of the decade.
"It's difficult to see whether we can actually achieve it by 2030," he said.
"Certainly, the city offices and the city buildings will be by then."
Mr Wellington said part of the problem in getting renewable projects off the ground was getting people to invest.
"We've got to depend on other people spending money," he said.
"It does require a lot of money and a lot of investment."
In 2017, energy company Blue Planet Developments proposed a solar farm at Albany's airport, but a decision on the project was deferred indefinitely by councillors unanimously.
At the time, councillors said they wanted to open up the planning process to more proponents.
Investment stalling
Since then, no solar farm proposals have gone before the council for approval.
Mr Wellington said the city was enthusiastic to develop the land, but it came back to people's ability to invest.
"We've had a couple people approach us and say, 'We'd like to use the flat land out there for a solar farm'," he said.
"We said to them, 'OK, do a business case and come back to us'.
"The only thing they haven't done is come back."
WA Energy Minister Bill Johnston said Albany was a great location for renewable energy and he looked forward to more investment in the area.
But he said a huge part of moving away from fossil fuels was dependent on the public making changes.
"The big thing in Western Australia is actually householders adopting new technologies," Mr Johnston said.
"Whether it's rooftop solar or batteries, that's the revolution that's driving change in our electricity system."
Albany ideal to harness nature
Elizabeth Aitkens, who is the principal of consulting business Empire Carbon and Energy, said Albany should be well-placed to become WA's first renewable city.
"You've got the ability to create an almost perfect base-load generation profile in a place like Albany with the appropriate mix of solar and wind, backed up by some batteries," she said.
"Then when you add tidal into the mix, you've got a lot of opportunities that exist for renewable energy within that area."
Ms Aitkens said Western Australia was "not great" in comparison to the rest of the country and its progress towards renewables.
"We're miles behind all of the other states," she said.
"We haven't even declared a renewable energy zone in Western Australia, which means we're not accessing federal money that's being allocated to develop renewable energy zones."
Ms Aitkens said WA had a "multitude" of problems ahead.
"We're not seeing much in the way of plans from the state government to address issues that have been raised, certainly not public plans," she said.
"For example, the announced closure of Collie power stations is brilliant, from a renewable energy perspective, because the plan is that Collie units will be replaced with renewable energy sources.
"But we don't know how those renewable energy sources are actually going to be connected to the grid and there's not really much of a plan to do that at the moment."
