At the ordinary council meeting on Wednesday, March 28 council moved a motion to seek grant funding and/or other funding to install solar at all council water and sewer treatment plants, depots, administration buildings and the Tenterfield Swimming Pool.

The motion was moved by mayor, councillor Bronwyn Petrie, and seconded by councillor Peter Murphy.

During the meeting Cr Murphy said he, Cr Petrie and councillor Kim Rhodes had been advocating for the installation of solar at council facilities for a few years now and was happy to support the motion.

Council general manager, Glenn Wilcox, said it was not hard a hard thing for councils to do and programs are available to council to do it.

"It's actually quite simple to do, and sign a contract with a provider or your electricity company," he said.

"It's just the return rates aren't that high these days, but again, this dual energy offset and council should be looking at that.

"There were programs that councils could get in on, both federal and state, and we just need to get through that and have a look."

Mr Wilcox said the long term issue was council should be offsetting its costs.

"If it can afford that," he said. "And some of the proposed areas like water treatment or treatment works and so on, they have funding could probably be directed towards that.

"But we just need to investigate options whether council signs up with an organisation that installs everything and we get a reduced amount back or council invest fully into providing solar panels and so on.

"There's a few other options out there as well as to energy management, that I think the council should be looking at as well."

Cr Petrie said the motion was worded so council staff can investigate options for installation of solar panels.

"Including funding them ourselves ... or seeking grants, and we know there's plenty of them about, or exploring the option of providers who supply and install solar panels at their cost," she said.

"We get reduced power costs and they get some sort of carbon credit out of it, but they fully fund the whole thing.

"Our [general manager] has had significant experience in solar installation at other councils and subsequent financial benefits in reducing our costs."

The motion was passed unanimously.