Media release – No Turbine Action Group (NTAG), 28 August 2022
BARNETT’S SECRET PLANS TO CHANGE CENTRAL PLATEAU FOREVER AS VICTORIA LOOKS NORTH
Minister for Energy and Renewables Barnett has kept from the public plans that will change the Central Highlands forever, according to Miena’s Greg Pullen.
“TasNetworks has spilled the beans and already has plans in place to upgrade transmission lines to a slew of new wind farms to the network,” said Mr Pullen.
“TasNetworks plans have been in place since before February this year and Minister Barnett has not been up front with the community. TasNetworks has been beavering away while Minister Barnett drip feeds the public.”
“He talks about informing the public about Renewable Energy Zones later this year, but his plans are already in place. He is deliberately keeping the public in the dark about how many new wind farms are planned for Tasmania and the Central Plateau.”
Research by the No Turbine Action Group (NTAG) has unearthed firm plans by TasNetworks to upgrade transmission lines in the Central Plateau so that 1020MW of new wind farms can be added into the network. TasNetworks has planned upgrades to carry a specific size of supply from wind farms in the area.
“This is equivalent to nine (9) new wind farms the size of Granville Harbour,”says David Ridley, shack owner at Shannon in the Central Plateau and Chair NTAG.
“Kiss the Central Highlands as we know it goodbye, as the stunning landscape is changed into an industrial area. The extra-ordinary will be made ordinary, and the Highland brand lost.”
“We thought one wind farm, the St Patricks Plains proposal was bad enough in an inappropriate place next to gateway roads into the Highland Lakes area – but that is only the start.”
The Government released the draft ‘Renewable Energy Coordination Framework’ in February 2021 forecasting the roll-out of renewables in Tasmania that showed 9950MW of wind farms and solar would occur across Tasmania – 1400MW in NE, 5150 in NW and 3400 in the Midlands/Central Highlands. This could mean up to 3000 turbines dominating the landscape.
This information was left out of the final document, which was quietly released by Minister Barnett in May this year. It was replaced by plans to identify the first Tasmanian Renewable Energy Zone later this year and then ‘educate’ the community about the Zone.
“It is cart before the horse – the big plan for the state should be laid out first rather than drip fed to the public.”
“The Australian Energy Market Operator already knows what is going on, TasNetworks already knows what is going on, Minister Barnett already knows what is going on, but the public has been kept in the dark.”
Mr Pullen says secrecy is an unfortunate trait of this Government.
“Tasmania’s benefit from Marinus is 6% but it has been shown under Right To Information Minister Barnett knew, for Federal taxpayer funding, Tasmania would have to pay 50% or $2 billion.”
Energy Minister Barnett has also not told the public that Victoria’s priority is looking north to NSW as an export market for their renewables, and not south (to Tasmania) as an energy source. In response to an enquiry sent to the Victorian Energy Minister, VicGrid stated: ’Our preference is to see KerangLink complete before Marinus Link. (We) will support what we determine to be in the best interests of Victorian consumers.’
Who will pay for TasNetworks upgrades and new transmission lines? Who will pay for Marinus? Will massive wind farms, owned by giant foreign corporations, be paying their share because Tasmanian taxpayers don’t need all this electricity?
“These are questions Minister Barnett must answer rather than taking Tasmanians into the unknown.”
Attachment: LETTER FROM VICTORIAN DEPARTMENT ENVIRONMNET, LAND, WATER, & PLANNING.
Attachment: TASNEWORKS PLAN FOR CENTRAL HIGHLANDS
Source: TasNetworks Transmission Customers Online Forum, Feb 2021.
Ben Marshall
September 2, 2022 at 09:36
Central Highlands people, like so many communities, are, thanks to the No Turbine Action Group, waking up to the realities of transmission planning that is largely hidden in plain sight. As we in Loongana Valley know to our cost, TasNetworks and the State government will routinely withhold critical information, will lock community out of the decision-making processes, will employ global PR companies to besiege communities with ‘community engagement opportunities’, and will operate solely in their own and foreign corporate interests.
TasNetworks has been made Jurisdictional Planners of the entire energy sector, and is working at the bidding of the State government. The old poles’n’wire company, now ruthlessly corporatised, for-profit and State-owned, is working toward a build-it-and-they-will-come grid to attract foreign investors to set up windfarms and plug into the grid which will ship over 90% of that power (Minister Barnett, Estimates, 2021) straight to the Mainland market. It’s a gamble that will only benefit the State government, its State-owned corporations like Hydro and TasNet, and foreign investors.
Is it all for the Greater Good? Isn’t it part of action on climate? Won’t we benefit from the increased revenue to State coffers from the industrialisation? Won’t there be sustainable jobs and growth here from extra energy?
In short, no.
The government is happy to lazily speculate on extra revenue from power exports if the Feds pay for Marinus (the second but far from the last Bass Strait interconnector planned) and Tassie taxpayers pay for TasNetworks’ vast new grid across the entire north and centre of the State. The government, like TasNetworks, however, is ignoring the wider costs to the Tasmanian people of this infrastructure, very little of which will support any local jobs or growth post-construction. All that economic activity will happen where the power and profits go.
Our environment is the other cost, ignored by TasNet and the government, and regarded as simply a useless part of the land to be bulldozed for profit. Our wind energy is effectively being given away to any foreign investors willing to set up almost anywhere they want. There are no no-go areas for windfarms, and TasNetworks refuses to even cost the undergrounding of the new grid. Pity the poor raptors to be killed on TasNet’s cheap off-the-rack towers and lines. Meanwhile, bulldozed transmission line easements, access roading and the lines themselves, will adversely impact every natural environment they pass through, each impact amplifying the others.
On the Mainland, TasNet would be obliged to bury its lines, but in accommodating ol’ Tassie, we accept its ‘underground is economically unviable’ claim without a murmur. Profit first, then pray for trickle-down jobs and allow some sad-face emojis about the drying forests and dead raptors.
NTAG need not ask who will pay – we will. We’ll pay now and into the future. While Mainland states plan for their people, Tasmanian governments plan to benefit their own bottom line and the profits of the corporate sector, for this is all about money, not action on climate.
Any dividends the State derives from this industrialisation of vast swathes of Tasmania will be dwarfed by the costs to our environment, but then we should remember that the Minister for Rivers couldn’t even be bothered to read the report on our sickening rivers before demanding his team plan for even more extraction and more pollution.
I hope more communities like those that the NTAG tirelessly represents begin to see that TasNetworks, and our State government (with its clueless colleagues in the Labor Party) do not have Tasmania’s interests at heart. This is more bad, self-interested planning that leaves communities and our environment to pay the true costs of corporate plundering of our wind resources.
Mike seabrook
September 3, 2022 at 22:37
Better get on with it before the Victorians keep their natural gas and cut the gas pipeline from Victoria to Tassie.