Media release – Nick Duigan, Minister for Energy and Renewables, 9 January 2024
Tasmania ideal location for offshore wind farm marine terminal
In the wake of the Federal Government blocking plans for an offshore wind farm marine terminal at Port Hastings in Victoria, Tasmania stands ready to assist.
Minister for Energy and Renewables, Nick Duigan, said Tasmania’s port of Bell Bay would be an ideal option to service construction and maintenance of Bass Strait off shore wind farms.
“Tasmania is already the nation’s renewable energy leader, and we are forging ahead with our plans to continue to position our state as a clean energy powerhouse,” Minister Duigan said.
“Bell Bay is an outstanding location for this type of infrastructure.
“The Bell Bay Advanced Manufacturing Zone is already an important industrial driver for the state and is very much at the forefront of our renewable energy plans, including the development of a world-leading green hydrogen industry.
“The Rockliff Liberal Government has been discussing with proponents the possibility of Bell Bay as a location for these job-creating projects, and we look forward to engaging further to positively progress Tasmania in the wake of the Port Hasting decision.
“Tasmania is seizing on the opportunities available as the nation transitions to renewables.”
Minister Duigan again called on the Federal Labor Government to approve the Robbins Island wind farm.
“It would be a disaster for Australia’s renewable energy future for the Federal Government to block Robbins Island.
“The Federal Labor Government is already delaying and causing concern about the project’s future.
“It’s time the green tape strangling this important development is unwound and approval granted.”
Media release – Clean Energy Tasmania (CET), 10 January 2024
Government must act on Renewable Energy Zone
Clean Energy Tasmania (CET) is calling on the Government to move quickly and establish the North West Renewable Energy Zone.
Chair of CET, Ian Jones, welcomed the Government’s plan to establish a Renewable Energy Zone in the North West, but said time was of the essence.
“We know the Government is a supporter of developing more renewable energy generation in Tasmania, but what we are concerned about is the time it is taking for the Government to act,” Mr Jones said.
“The North-West of Tasmania has some of the best wind energy resources in the world, but at the moment it is very difficult for proponents to get to the stage where they can start tapping into this resource.
“A Renewable Energy Zone isn’t a silver bullet, but at least it will show that the Government is prepared to walk the walk, rather than just talk the talk.
“It’s great to see that there is bipartisan support for this initiative and we look forward to the Government getting on with the job.
“As we have constantly said, Tasmania desperately needs more renewable generation to help grow our economy and create new opportunities.
“A Renewable Energy Zone will be a step in the right direction and we are encouraging the Government to make this a priority.”
Editor’s note: Clean Energy Tasmania is not an organisation. It is a committee established by the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Ian Jones is a TCCI board member.
Media release – Dean Winter MP, Shadow Minister for Energy, 10 January 2024
Tasmania: The hardest place in the world to build a windfarm
With new renewable energy development ground to a halt across Tasmania, Minister for Energy Nick Duigan must provide an update about the status of the North West Renewable Energy Zone (REZ).
The zones are designed to make it easier to build a windfarm, but we still do not have any. According to the government’s own website, almost nothing has happened since the announcement more than a year ago, as Tasmania’s economy faulters.
When will the Renewable Energy Zone actually be declared?
With an appeal against Robbins Island will now set to waste months, if not years, the Tasmanian business community is asking what the plan is to get on with building new generation.
After 10 years of a Liberal government, Tasmania is in an energy crisis, and our state must be the hardest place in the world to build a windfarm.
In fact, it has now been 1,117 days since the last new Tasmanian windfarm was completed.
Minister for Energy Duigan reached peak hypocrisy in a media release yesterday when he tried to blame the Federal government for delays at Robbins Island. The Tasmanian Government’s EPA worked hand in hand with the Bob Brown Foundation to create conditions which would have meant the project could not go ahead.
The proponents behind the Robbins Island windfarm have been jumping through hoops at a state level for six years – which is exactly the kind of process a declaration like the REZ is meant to fast-track.
The failure to progress the REZ is yet another example of Jeremy Rockliff and his team being big on announcements but failing to deliver, with Tasmanians losing out again.
Ben Marshall
January 10, 2024 at 13:51
Our two major parties remain in lockstep in backing corporate investors over the interests of Tasmanians in the energy and climate sector. They don’t even really link energy and climate policy, and that’s seen in their joint failure to do and say anything beyond the PR talking points from renewables and transmission corporations, and their lobbyists at Clean Energy Tasmania, in demanding fast approvals for projects anywhere, any time.
The Robbins Island wind farm proposal by billionaire investors is a global exemplar of where NOT to site a wind farm. And it’s not just the orange-bellied parrot, healthy devil population, eagles or other local or migratory birds at risk, but the wetlands’ ecosystems, the complex channel marine ecosystems, and all that is connected to them, human fisheries included. For one, it’s not just a bunch of wind turbines industrialising this internationally critical space, but the causeway/bridge and northern wharf structures. Together, they will cause enormous and direct impacts on individual species. Together, those impacts will accumulate and persist throughout the systems while adversely affecting everything in them.
But none of this matters to those whose only interest is profit, and that’s what this is all about. Evidence-based and sustainable decision-making on renewable energy and transmission infrastructure isn’t happening – and it won’t be allowed to happen if the corporate investors are the only voices heard. There won’t be any jobs and growth here after construction, and our industrialised north will be the investment plaything of global corporations with TasNetworks doing nicely out of getting us to pay for their vast new grid (the NWTD / Marinus) making all that new energy go to the mainland to ‘bring down power prices in Victoria’.
Liberals want investors to run our state, and to take a cut of their profits as the government of the day. Labor wants exactly the same in hope they’ll be in government and receiving their take, all of it paid for by us via our power bills, State debt and loans. Neither party cares that their claims of lower power prices and jobs and growth here are nonsense. They don’t care that we give corporate investors our wind energy, and guarantee their profits at taxpayer / bill-payer expense. The money in all of this investment frenzy isn’t coming from investors – but us, and politicians will cheer on the deaths and destruction in the impacted ecosystems, pretending this ‘economic activity’ is somehow good for us and reason for us to vote for them.
I urge everyone to reconsider their usual Liberal / Labor vote, and see if there’s an independent or minor party that has policies (and I’m sad to say the JLN doesn’t DO policy) which address any of this.