Tasmania’s energy future
Reinvigorating the energy industry can restore Tasmania’s economic strength, State Growth Minister Matthew Groom tells a Property Council briefing.
Speaking at the Property Council’s breakfast in Hobart last week, Groom (pictured) said the Hodgman Government aimed to deliver fair power prices that are “among the lowest in the nation” to drive investment, create jobs and reduce cost pressures on both households and businesses.
The government has developed a roadmap, Restoring Tasmania’s Energy Advantage, to guide decision-making over the next 20 years.
Groom says the strategy includes “new and innovative energy efficiency initiatives” designed to assist with “productivity improvements for businesses and put downward pressure on electricity prices for households, particularly vulnerable households.”
These include finance mechanisms such as Environmental Upgrade Agreements (EUAs), which enable commercial building owners to invest in energy efficiency upgrades by providing funds under low-cost and long-term agreements.
The Property Council’s executive director in Tasmania, Brian Wightman, is supportive of this decision.
EUAs will “overcome what is currently a significant barrier in delivering energy efficiency,” Wightman explains, and deliver benefits to both building owners and tenants.
Other projects are less warmly welcomed by the Property Council. The government is working with Hydro Tasmania and TasNetworks to build the business case to deploy electric vehicles in both government and private vehicle fleets – a move which Wightman says should be the “lowest of priorities”.
Instead, Wightman believes entrepreneurial investors, inventors and engineers should be encouraged to improve the design of electric vehicles, as they are currently “high cost, high risk and benefit very few in the medium term.”
Wightman would also like to see more ambitious targets set. A 10 per cent increase in energy generation over 20 years is “uninspiring” and “should not be considered growth”, he says.
Groom, however, believes there is “a renewed sense of confidence in Tasmania” and the strategy “is about facilitating that confidence through the delivery of a more efficient, price competitive, customer focused energy sector that is once again delivering advantage to all Tasmanians.”
Download the Property Council’s submission, Tasmania in Transition.