Built through the ‘Innovation Upper Murray’ Local Development Strategy process, the Upper Murray Pumped Hydro proposal is aimed at providing large scale, long duration energy storage to support renewable energy.

Capable of supplying 120,000 homes for more than 8 hours, its potential is a game changer for the region’s economy.

Built through the ‘Innovation Upper Murray’ Local Development Strategy process, this project is a producer-led innovation group that aims to focus on shared learning and local on-farm experimentation (i.e. trial and demonstration farms).

It aims to accelerate relevant farm technology adoption, data-driven decision making and practices for improved productivity, profitability and sustainability.

Innovation Upper Murray, a Local Development Strategy (LDS) aimed at driving economic diversification on the back of forestry transition, is a partnership between Upper Murray Inc, Towong Shire Council and the Victorian government. Using a place-based strategy in regional development, this project started in 2023 has investigated and developed, through community participation and support from experts, exciting innovation opportunities that reflect the Upper Murray's unique strengths.

The Upper Murray Community Leadership Program supports participants to tackle challenges, reimagine themselves and their communities, and facilitate transformative change.

Started in 2022, the Program empowers 11 community members each year, to learn how to think differently; not only to tackle challenges of any scale and size, but to create transformative change in their own lives, and in reshaping the future of our thriving and vibrant region.

The program runs over 10 days, including a study-tour to Tasmania.

The Upper Murray Energy Resilience and Reliability project, was developed with the community following the devastating 2019-20 bushfires. This project has been developed to shore up the region’s electricity supply.

In partnership with Towong Shire Council, UMI is tackling one of the region's most pressing challenges: the shortage of housing, particularly affordable and worker housing, that makes it hard for our communities to grow and for people to move here for jobs. As we work towards our goals from the 2030 Vision Plan, we find that housing is a recurring problem across several areas of local development and quality of life.

Rather than waiting on government, the project focuses on community-driven solutions that make the best use of local land, skills and know-how. UMI and Council have engaged Regional Housing Victoria to develop an Upper Murray Housing Roadmap, and in September 2026 their consultants visited the region for extensive stakeholder research and ideas generation with locals.

Built through the 'Innovation Upper Murray' Local Development Strategy process, this project explores how the organic and woody "waste" streams produced across our region could become a source of local energy, jobs and value, rather than a cost to be trucked away and disposed of. The work is led by UMI's Biomass Innovation Working Group.