Media release – TasNetworks, 15 December 2023

Marinus Necessary and Urgent: AEMO

It’s official: Tasmanians need Project Marinus to secure the best future power prices – and urgently.

The Australian Energy Market Operator’s confirmed that in its draft 2024 Integrated System Plan (ISP), which lays-out the most efficient and cost-effective path to ‘net zero’ Australian emissions by 2050.

The AEMO ISP confirms:

  • Coal’s phasing-out faster than expected, with 90 per cent of Australian coal generation expected to disappear by 2035, and the rest by 2040;
  • Australians will face huge supply shortages and extra transition costs if the switch to renewables is too slow or improperly planned;
  • Project Marinus (which includes North-West Transmission Projects – NWTD) features among five ‘already actionable’ projects Australia must have to realise AEMO’s optimal transition;
  • Not delivering the listed transmission projects (including Marinus) is likely to cost Australians an extra $17 billion in the long-run, as coal will need urgently replacing by other means.

TasNetworks CEO, Seán McGoldrick, said Marinus Link and NWTD will help give Tasmanians the lowest possible prices and thousands of rewarding clean energy careers.

“Even with inflationary pressures, Project Marinus is a proven winner for Tasmanians’ wallets, living standards, careers and climate safety,” he said.

“AEMO weighed-up more than 1,000 possible risk and benefit pathways for the ISP. The one they’ve chosen has Marinus, including North-West Transmission, front-and-centre among its ‘must haves’.

“Australia’s energy market planner is confirming: supporting the best possible future power prices means supporting Marinus; supporting the most prosperous clean energy transition means supporting Marinus; and supporting strong local action against climate peril means supporting Marinus,” he said.

The first stage of Marinus will help slash Australia’s emissions by approximately 70-million tonnes in coming decades – the equivalent of taking half a million cars off the road.

Media release – Institute of Public Affairs, 15 December 2023

AEMO CEO MUST BE SACKED FOR FAILING TO ENSURE AFFORDABLE, SECURE AND RELIABLE ENERGY SUPPLY

“AEMO’s draft Integrated System Plan demonstrates a total abrogation of its core responsibility to ensure Australians have access to affordable, secure and reliable energy. It makes clear that CEO Daniel Westerman is no longer fit to lead the organisation and must be sacked,” said Daniel Wild, Deputy Executive Director of the Institute of Public Affairs.

Released today, the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Draft 2024 Integrated System Plan outlines a naïve and ideologically driven approach to managing the nation’s energy security, which advocates for the early closure of critical affordable and reliable power stations to only be replaced by unreliable renewable energy generation.

“It is remarkable that in the space of little over a month, AEMO can go from warning of ongoing blackouts across the National Energy Market, to suggesting the ‘optimal development path of generation’ is to shut down affordable and reliable power stations early,” said Mr Wild.

“AEMO’s previous damming forecasts make clear that no baseload power station should be allowed to close unless, and until, a like for like baseload replacement, be it coal-fired or nuclear, is ready to come online.”

Over the past 12 months, household electricity and gas prices have surged by 15 per cent, advocating for further early closures of affordable and reliable energy generation will see already record energy bills climb even higher.

“Following the closure of the Hazelwood coal-fired power station in Victoria in 2017, spot prices on the National Energy Market rose by 85 per cent. With energy bills already at record highs, the early closure of further power stations will drive prices even higher,” said Mr Wild.

“Australians cannot trust AEMO to deliver on its core mission of delivering safe, reliable and affordable energy under its current leadership, which seems more interested in ideological pursuits than serving the interests of households and businesses suffering from record energy bills,” said Mr Wild.

IPA research shows that one third of Australia’s prime agricultural land will need to be covered in solar panels and wind turbines to meet energy demand forecasts by 2050, on top of this, AEMO’s plan calls for close to 10,000 km of new and upgraded transmission lines.

“Policymakers cannot escape the reality of the impact wind and solar energy generation will have on Australia’s landscape, particularly on our prime agricultural land, which will have to be sacrificed to satisfy net zero mandates,” said Mr Wild.

“Yet the leadership of AEMO is barracking for such an outcome. It is clear AEMO is suffering from mission creep under its current leadership. Australians need affordable and reliable energy, not a regulator advocating for ideologically based outcomes that will undermine our energy security.”

“The current situation Australia finds itself in with record and rising energy bills, forecast blackouts, and an increasingly unreliable energy grid, are all core features of the policy of net zero emissions. It is all pain for no environmental gain,” said Mr Wild.

Media release – Clean Energy Tasmania (CET), 15 December 2023

Marinus a must, says new AEMO report

Clean Energy Tasmania (CET) supports the findings in a draft AEMO report released today showing that Marinus Link is an urgent project and an absolute priority for the country as we move towards a renewable energy future.

Chair of CET, Ian Jones said “Marinus Link is a must have project and this AEMO report confirms it.

“Tasmania has a century of leadership in building renewable energy generation and Marinus means not only can we help support other states to embrace renewable energy, we can also continue to build more renewable generation in Tasmania to support local businesses and communities.

“While we are leading the way on renewable energy there is a lot more that we need to do. We need to keep adding more renewable generation into our grid so that we have enough power for homes and businesses, reserves to get us through the tough times and spare capacity to tap into the mainland energy market to make sure we can benefit from our historic investment in clean energy.

“Clean energy is Tasmania’s future. The AEMO report released today shows it stacks up and it’s time we all took a Team Tasmania approach to embracing it.”

Media release – Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 15 December 2023

New report confirms Marinus as a vital project

The Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is the voice of business in Tasmania and is a strong supporter of Marinus Link.

TCCI CEO, Michael Bailey, said Marinus Link would help unlock Tasmania’s potential and help make the state a clean energy powerhouse.

“The AEMO draft report shows that Marinus Link is an urgent project that will deliver massive benefits for the state and the country,” Mr Bailey said.

“According to AEMO, Marinus Link remains a priority and will be a sensible investment that will pay off for Tasmania and Australia.

“New modelling by Ernst and Young, also released today confirms that Marinus Link will drive economic growth and create jobs. The modelling shows that Marinus Link will inject $1.4 billion into the Tasmanian economy and support 1,400 direct and indirect jobs during the construction phase alone. Of course, the benefits will be long-term, with Marinus Link to unleash a wave of development, investment and construction that will support Tasmanian businesses and families across the state.

“We urge the Tasmanian and Australian Governments to get on with the job and make sure this essential investment is delivered as soon as possible.”

Media release – Hydro Tasmania, 15 December 2023

ISP confirms urgent need for transmission and storage

Hydro Tasmania welcomes the draft Integrated System Plan (ISP) released today confirming the need for urgent delivery of new energy infrastructure, including the Marinus Link interconnector to further connect Tasmania to Victoria.

Hydro Tasmania CEO Ian Brooksbank said the ISP from Australia’s Energy Market Operator (AEMO) clearly called out that as coal generation exits at a rapid pace, the lowest cost way to supply electricity is renewable energy, connected by transmission and firmed with storage.

“AEMO predicts the need for a four-fold increase in firming capacity to smooth the variability of increasing amounts of variable generation.

“Pumped hydro and hydropower will be a critical part of that, and Tasmania can play that firming role.”

Battery of the Nation and Marinus Link are fundamental to meeting Tasmania’s growing demand for clean energy and will play an important role in Australia’s decarbonisation and ensuring reliable supply.

“These critical projects must progress. It’s great to see AEMO recognising the role Marinus Link will play in unlocking the cost-effective clean energy and long-duration storage Tasmania can provide,” Mr Brooksbank said.

“We need new renewable generation, long-duration storage and more interconnection and transmission to meet Tasmania’s and Australia’s future energy needs.”

Redeveloping the iconic Tarraleah hydropower scheme and developing pumped hydro at Lake Cethana are the flagship projects for Battery of the Nation.

“These projects will deliver local jobs, economic growth, more clean energy and energy security for our state,” Mr Brooksbank said.

“They will help put downward pressure on energy prices and provide reliability to a national electricity market that will be increasingly dominated by wind and solar on the pathway to net zero by 2050.”

Projects for a clean energy future

Hydro Tasmania is looking to the next generation for the Tarraleah hydropower scheme which has delivered clean energy to Tasmania for 85 years.

“Our preferred redevelopment option is expected to deliver the greatest capacity, storage, flexibility and reliability for every dollar invested, while addressing environmental risks,” Mr Brooksbank said.

“Redeveloped, the Tarraleah scheme will deliver 30 per cent more energy from the same amount of water and increase its capacity by ~100MW, alongside creating 250 jobs during construction.”

Hydro Tasmania’s proposed pumped hydro project at Lake Cethana is one of the most cost-effective storage developments proposed in the market.

“High elevation of the proposed upper storage, short connection distance between the two storages, and close proximity to existing transmission and hydro infrastructure make Cethana highly cost-competitive,” Mr Brooksbank said.

The scheme will be able to provide about 20 hours of storage, up to ten times a typical battery storage system.

Hydro Tasmania is advancing business cases for both projects as it works towards Final Investment Decisions.

Featured comment – Ben Marshall, 15 December 2023

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What a cavalcade of corporate greenwashing! All of the half-truths and outright lies above are masking profit-seeking and self-interest.

For anyone wondering what this stack of media releases seeks to achieve, other than make the thing called Marinus sound like the Second Coming (ignore the IPA nonsense – they’re stalwart far Right Libertarians who have long denied climate change) as this isn’t about saving the planet, doing anything about global warming, or helping our dire economic situation for the middle and working classes.

This isn’t even about renewable energy or having enough power in the future as it’s purely about taxpayers like us subsidising, for the corporate investor sector, short-term profits in the energy transition.

The only beneficiaries of Marinus will be the energy market itself – global and national renewables and transmission corporations, including TasNetworks, whose sole shareholder, our state government, hopes to cash in on the green gold rush.

Greenwashing Marinus and presenting it as action on climate ignores the costs that TasNetworks’ exceptionally bad planning (Marinus and the new grid backing it, the NWTD) impose on us, ignores the actual needs of our Tasmanian economy, and ignores the destruction of a number of critically important biodiversity hotspots like the Loongana Valley.

All independent energy sector experts agree there is, overall, little to no benefits in any best-case scenario from Marinus for Tasmanians, and that there are significant costs to communities and the environment. TasNetworks’ lies about ‘jobs and growth’ are particularly cynical, as any real jobs and growth will be where all new renewable energy is destined to be exported via the NWTD – to the mainland.

Even during construction, the vast majority of jobs will be FIFO. Afterwards there will be very few jobs for locals, and any technical roles in the renewables sector won’t be filled by our kids doing a TAFE course, but they might get a job operating the boom gates on the bitcoin mining warehouse.

What about AEMO? Aren’t they independent experts? Experts, yes; independent, no. Part-funded by the industry, their focus is split between the needs of the market, ie. profit, and the outsourcing of long-term energy planning by our useless governments to the corporate sector.

Yes, we need to transition from fossil fuels, fast. Yes, we need more renewable energy, and yes, we need more transmission. But we have not yet planned for any of this in a way that isn’t destructive and costly to the environment, to wild forest biodiversity, to communities, or even for the long-term resilience of power generation, storage and distribution.

Short-term profits are what is wanted by the investor class represented above, which is why you’ll hear the demand by communities to underground the new grids described as ‘economically unviable’ by the companies wanting to profit from building or using them.

(Over the long term, undergrounding is about the same up-front cost, while also saving our communities and forests, plus increasing fire safety and other resilience factors for the grid in a time of increasing weather extremes. But this is denied by the for-profit companies, their investors, and the politicians who want to hand off any responsibility for planning to the market.)

Sean McGoldrick, CEO of TasNetworks, is the Alan Joyce of Tasmania – ruthless in sacking and outsourcing core TasNet workers who are forced to outbid others for their old jobs, yet Sean is eager to spend tens of millions on phony community engagement, corporate influencers, community cash-splashes and PR talking up Marinus, not to mention supernormal profit-gouging on our power bills.

We need to stop Marinus, pull TasNetworks from its state-appointed Jurisdictional Planner of the Energy Sector (a massive conflict of interest for a ‘poles and wires’ company) and restart planning for the interests of Tasmanians.

We need to plan, build and own our own energy production, storage and distribution, at a rate we need it, and not allow global companies to use so-called Renewable Energy Zones for the free Tassie wind energy, and the new grid for supplying the mainland.

We need an end to the two major parties working solely for their own short-term interests and those of their corporate ‘mates’. We need all levels of government to do due diligence on renewables and transmission proposals, and consider their communities’ needs above those of the rich and powerful.

We and our grandkids will be paying for Marinus 1,2,3 and 4, and the vast new grid of towering pylons across our farms and through our forests, yet we won’t own or control it or the power running through it. ‘A good deal’, say AEMO. ‘A great deal!’ say the corporate investors. ‘A necessary and urgent deal!’ purrs TasNetworks lead salesperson, Sean McGoldrick. ‘Make it happen!’ shout the Liberals. ‘Make it happen faster!’ whine Labor.

Meanwhile, the voices of community and independent experts go unheard.

Well, politicians and the industry need to wake up. Communities are increasingly fed up with lies, and we want what’s best for our State, our nation, and the planet. We don’t buy the greenwashing and the trashing of our state for foreign profiteers or fat-cat CEOs and their political mates, and we will derail the goldrush. In the process, everyone will lose unless more independent politicians do their due diligence, sound the alarms, call out the lies, and listen to those who want to plan sensibly for our long-term future.