Labor Energy Promises: ‘Community Battery’ for Burnie, Support for Whaleback Ridge

Media release – Chris Bowen MP, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Member for McMahon; Senator Anne Urquhart, Chief Opposition Whip in the Senate, Senator for Tasmania & Chris Lynch, Labor Candidate for Braddon, 11 May 2022

Labor’s Community Battery Plan To Cut Bills And Emissions In Shorewell Park

An Albanese Labor Government will supercharge the benefits of household solar by delivering a community battery for Shorewell Park in Burnie.

Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen announced the initiative with Labor’s candidate for Braddon, Chris Lynch, and Senator Anne Urquhart today.

827 households in Shorewell Park and surrounding suburbs have household solar, but less than 0.7 per cent of those (6) have a household battery. High battery prices mean households aren’t realising the full potential of their rooftop solar and it’s putting more pressure on our electricity grid.

This commitment will allow local households to feed solar power into the shared battery during the day and draw from it at night – cutting electricity bills and emissions and reducing pressure on the grid.

Local households who might be unable to install solar, like renters and people living in apartments, will also be able to draw from excess energy stored in the battery.

Labor’s Power to the People community battery plan invests $200 million to install 400 community batteries across the country.

It’s part of Labor’s Powering Australia Plan which cuts power bills, reduces emissions and creates jobs by boosting renewable energy.

Labor’s Powering Australia Plan has been backed by Australian business and industry.

Instead of ending the decade of climate and energy chaos under the Liberal Government, Scott Morrison has been focussed on photo-ops and marketing tricks.

Communities like those across Braddon deserve better than this tired and dysfunctional rabble.

They deserve an Albanese Labor Government that will bring down power prices and work for a better future for all Australians.

Quotes attributable to Chris Bowen MP:

“Chris Lynch has been a great advocate for this project which will help the households of Shorewell Park save on their power bills.

“There’s a lot of rooftop solar in this area but the cost of installing a battery is out for reach for many households.

“This plan will allow them to draw from the excess energy they have generated in the daytime and stored in the community battery.”

Quotes attributable to Chris Lynch:

“This is a really practical measure that will be of great benefit to the Shorewell community, helping to reduce their power prices.

“It’s a great example of how an Albanese Government with real vision will be able to support local communities, acting locally but also thinking globally.”

Quotes attributable to Senator Urquhart:

“This is a really exciting initiative and I am delighted that, if an Albanese Labor Government is elected, the Shorewell community will have a new community battery.

“It’s a practical plan where local communities will see the benefit.”

LABOR SUPPORT FOR TASMANIAN SUPER-SIZED RENEWABLE ENERGY PROJECT

North-West Tasmania and the West Coast will play a major role in advancing Australia’s renewable energy future under an Albanese Labor Government.

Labor will provide $2 million to help fund a feasibility study and early development costs for the proposed Whaleback Energy Park.

The super-sized $6 billion project near Whaleback Ridge envisages harnessing the west coast’s abundant wind and water resources to produce green hydrogen for use in Tasmania, Australia and the world.

It could create more than 4,500 jobs in construction and over 550 ongoing full-time jobs.

Plans are for the proposed project to be completed in stages in lockstep with business partners and with attention on the continuous innovation in hydrogen energy.

The feasibility study will look at challenges facing the development of a green hydrogen industry, including environmental sensitivities.

Modelling of Labor’s Powering Australia plan shows we can get to 82 per cent renewables by 2030.

Renewables are the cheapest form of energy, and this same modelling shows Powering Australia will help reduce power prices by $275 by 2025, on average across the system.

Quotes attributable to Chris Bowen, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy:

“Labor is the only party ready to work with investors to get major renewable energy projects up and running.

“We know renewables are key to jobs and lower power prices, but investment in large scale projects has plummeted under Scott Morrison’s energy chaos.

“Tasmania has the potential to be a renewable energy superpower, that’s exactly what Labor wants to drive with investments like this.”

Quotes attributable to Chris Lynch, Labor candidate for Braddon:

“Labor’s renewable energy policy will deliver more energy, cleaner energy, more jobs, and lower electricity prices.

“I have met with the people behind Whaleback and their vision is an economic game-changer for Tasmania.

“I am hugely supportive of these types of projects as they will be a boon for Braddon.

“They will create good local jobs, make us a technology centre and generate clean energy.”

Quotes attributable to Senator Anne Urquhart:

“The cheapest form of new energy is renewables.

“Instead of moving to a renewable energy future, we’ve had a decade of denial and delay and policy chaos from Scott Morrison and his Liberal predecessors.

“This has spooked investors, whilst the proponents of Whaleback Ridge have continued against all odds to fight for this project to ensure jobs remain and grow right here in Tasmania.

“A Labor Government will finally put the toxic politics aside and give Australia an energy policy for now and the future, one that creates jobs and investment.”

Featured comment – Ben Marshall, 12 May 2022

Sadly, Labor are echoing largely meaningless rhetoric favoured by our local pollies and the PR spinners of the renewables industry, who want zero regulation, open slather to site their projects anywhere, and to soak up any tax breaks and subsidies they can get their hands on. Fair enough – that’s what business at the corporate level does, but will it benefit any of us? If Tasmania is an exemplar, the answer is a resounding ‘no’.

Yes, a Federal Labor government, unlike Tas-Labor, will actually act on climate, and yes, federally at least, Labor will support better initiatives, based on accepting the science…along with appalling investments in fossil fuels which, just like the LNP, deny the science.

Either way, without a transition plan that doesn’t simply hand the policy keys to foreign renewables investors, we’ll have the same mess as here in Tasmania, where the State government strolls from one ‘planning meeting’ to another thinking that the production of PR and waving through Development Applications is ‘acting on climate’.

The Marinus Project is only a plan in the sense it will cover the north-west in a vast new transmission grid that we don’t need, but renewables companies do – to sell Tassie wind power to the mainland. If anything, Marinus is a plan to EXPORT jobs, not create them. Once the construction phase is done, using mostly FIFO workers, what ‘jobs and investments’ are left to benefit Tasmania?

The renewables industry, like mining, is increasingly automated. For the jobs that are left, labour hire companies drive down blue-collar wages and conditions, and make work more precarious – ask a few mainland FIFO workers. With all the power going offshore, there’s nothing left for us except paying for TasNetworks’ new Marinus Grid ‘upgrade’ – giant towers and raptor-killing lines astride 60-90 metre wide easements bulldozed through our forests and farms.

It’s not enough for any politician to claim ‘jobs and growth’ will flow from a burgeoning renewables industry when the evidence is there will be less jobs, not more. Not unless government do a very old fashioned pre-neoliberal thing – work with all sectors, including community, to plan for energy to be kept here and used by us, for us.

Our governments, Labor and Liberal, largely stopped working for us, preferring to support their donors. It’s up to us, whether we’re rusted-on Labor or Liberal voters, to vote for independents who are sincere about action on climate and creating long-term, sustainable community-level jobs. Hell, if we keep some of our own wind power, we might even restart a few factories, convert urban and rural vehicles to all-electric and create a circular economy that works for us, not foreign shareholders.