Government’s energy strategy working: Hydro returns up, power prices down

Power prices have dropped by more than five per cent since the election of the Hodgman Liberal Government.

Yet, in spite of Labor-Green fear-mongering about the end of the carbon tax, Hydro is delivering strong returns back to the Tasmanian people and out-performing expectations. The profit of $62.3 million posted by Hydro in 2014-15 conclusively proves that the Labor-Green predictions of doom and gloom for Hydro were completely wrong.

In fact, Hydro’s financial position is stronger than anticipated. This result is outstanding considering that the national electricity market prices were depressed and inflows were lower than expected. Both of these factors present ongoing challenges going forward.

Hydro’s renewable energy is one of Tasmania’s major competitive strengths and the Hodgman Liberal Government is determined to leverage that strength to secure and create jobs and grow our economy. An example of that is the new power deal to secure hundreds of direct and indirect jobs at Bell Bay.

The recent announcement on the Renewable Energy Target means that Tasmania will continue to leverage its competitive advantage into the national energy market.

The Government will continue to progress our election commitment to investigate the case to expand Hydro Tasmania’s generation output by 10 per cent.

We will also continue the necessary early work to advance the case for a nationally-funded second interconnector as we progress our own Tasmanian Energy Strategy which is all about putting downward pressure on power prices to all consumers and driving jobs growth.

Today’s result is something all Tasmanians can be proud of and combined with the energy strategy the Government released in May this year, shows that under a Hodgman Liberal Government, we are once again making energy one of Tasmania’s competitive advantages.
Matthew Groom, Minister for Energy