The Tasmanian government’s recently announced commitment to ‘fast-track renewable energy projects’ raises serious questions about the strategic foresight in the roll-out of renewables.
While the desire to transition quickly to renewable energy is commendable, we must ask: What if the strategy and the very DNA of this rollout are fundamentally flawed?
Fast-tracking projects without proper planning and community engagement risks repeating mistakes already seen with past developments.
Wouldn’t the fallout from the Robbins Island wind farm send a clear message that there are fundamental flaws in the planning process and a lack of social license, due to inadequate consultation and consideration?
The Robbins Island project, in particular, exemplifies the dangers of rushing renewable energy schemes without robust consideration of local environments, community impacts and the long-term economic viability.
Despite its potential, the project has been criticised for overlooking crucial factors like the region’s biodiversity, the concerns of local communities and the overall appropriateness of its location. This approach not only undermines public trust but also exposes the projects to future economic and ecological challenges.
The question we should be asking is: How do we ensure that Tasmania’s renewable energy projects are built on the right foundations? In many ways, the fast-tracking strategy is reminiscent of earlier industrial projects where the ‘quick fix’ was prioritised over long-term, sustainable outcomes.
The desire to meet ambitious renewable energy targets should not come at the expense of thoughtful, inclusive planning that aligns with the needs of both the environment and local communities. We have an opportunity to renew our community wellbeing for a resilient climate safe future so we must seize the moment.
A recent report on spatial planning in the European Union provides valuable insights on how to approach this issue. The RE Spatial Planning Acceleration Report emphasises the importance of integrating spatial planning into renewable energy projects. In Europe, it is increasingly recognised that strategic land-use planning can ensure that energy projects are compatible with local environments and communities, while also addressing broader societal and economic needs.
The report highlights how effective spatial planning can guide the siting of renewable energy infrastructure, enabling it to coexist with other land uses, avoid conflict and minimise adverse impacts. By using spatial planning as a tool, governments can ensure that energy projects are more sustainable and less likely to face delays, opposition, or failure due to poorly chosen sites or overlooked impacts.
Tasmania could benefit from adopting a similar approach. Instead of focusing solely on the speed of the transition, we must shift our emphasis to ensuring that renewable energy projects are carefully sited and aligned with community goals, environmental protection and economic resilience. A bottom-up approach, engaging local communities from the start, can help identify optimal locations for renewable energy infrastructure, taking into account both local priorities and regional strengths.
For example, Tasmania’s existing expertise in renewable energy technologies should be leveraged to create models that are not only sustainable but also regionally tailored. Rather than simply pushing projects through as quickly as possible, Tasmania should take a more holistic approach that involves all stakeholders in the process. This means in-depth consultations, environmental assessments and long-term planning to avoid repeating the mistakes made with projects like Robbins Island.
It is not enough to look at renewable energy as a numbers game, where quick implementation is the primary goal. We need to ensure that the projects we implement today will stand the test of time and benefit both the environment and local communities for generations to come.
The energy transition offers us an opportunity to reimagine planning and make it more egalitarian for users and communities alike.
Rather than prioritising speed, we should prioritise inclusive planning processes that integrate the voices, visions and concerns of local communities from the outset.
Rather than relying on top-down, command-control methodologies, let’s trial with models that empower local stakeholders and foster collaborative decision-making.
Only by ensuring that planning is collaborative and community-driven can we create an energy future that is both sustainable and socially acceptable. We might be sweetly surprised by how much taxpayer funding this approach could save and how many people could benefit from this bottom-up design methodology.
Emily Samuels-Ballantyne is the fluxus Energy and Climate Campaigner at Environment Tasmania and a regenerative farmer living on Melukerdee country, surrounded by mountains, rivulets and bushland. With 16 years of experience in the energy and food sectors, she brings bold leadership and a clear vision for creating innovative, regenerative policies that benefit people, places and the planet.
Leah
March 4, 2025 at 08:08
Team – this is a great article! I’m just starting to get into it.
Team, you are on fire and giving us exactly what the community wants, namely truth and unbiased critiques. Thank you.
Ben Marshall
March 4, 2025 at 16:53
With respect, Ms Samuels-Ballantyne seems to be missing the reality that neither our state government, nor its friends in the Labor Party, have any intention of acting on climate change / biodiversity – a topic that she omits to mention.
Neither of our two major parties are setting policy to transition our society and economy via genuine action on climate. Their only focus is the neoliberal idea of supporting the Market by ‘helping create investment opportunities’ which to Liberal-Labor largely means giving foreign corporations free, or heavily subsidised, access to our resources to take elsewhere for sale. They feel that this market economics strategy, when successful, will then cascade a trickle of ‘jobs ‘n growth’ over the dumpster fire of our economy, and keep them in power.
So the idea of ‘planning’, whether it be for ‘the transition’ or ‘rollout of renewables’, doesn’t factor. The two major parties, and their corporate backers, simply don’t care, and that’s why we have the pretence of energy policy (TREAP) that sees TasNetworks in a complete conflict of interest as Jurisdictional Planner of the Energy Sector, and TasHydro promising sweet PPAs (at our cost) to any renewables company which will borrow a few million dollars to set up a windfarm. With Robbins Island, the state government simply hopes to ‘create a significant investment opportunity’ that tells global corporate investors that they can set up wherever and whenever they like in Tasmania without worrying about community or the environment, neither of which, as mentioned, they give a damn about.
This naive belief that renewables will ‘fix climate’ is one I shared until I moved to Tasmania seven years ago. I thought all renewables were good renewables and hooray if some company made a buck from it because we have a planet to save! And who cares if a few birds die? It’s sad, yes, but we have a planet to save!
Fluxus won’t do squat until it realises that genuine action on climate / biodiversity requires a different system to the one we have now. We need a representative democracy to do the sorts of ‘greater good’ planning which she refers to. We need politicians who hew to the evidence aka science, rather than those who dismiss, ignore or deny it.
Transitioning our energy to non-fossil fuels used to be referred to as the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of action on climate – the easy bit. But we cannot even do that now because corporate investor influence and power holds sway over our two major parties. Without addressing that, no rational planning can occur.
Sadly, I know what I’m talking about, too. In six years of our community fighting to be heard, as we call for good transmission and renewables planning, we’ve been derided and ignored, exploited and lied to. And now, our formerly pro-renewables community is being pulled to sympathise with those groups and voices who condemn ALL renewables and all action on climate, aka deniers and unwitting foot soldiers for fossil fuels.
The ‘bright greens’ views that renewable energy will fix climate, and that we simply need better processes to win social licence for energy and transmission to achieve that, is doomed. Yes, we need all the community input into development planning that Emily is calling for because her reasoning is sound.
But with the system rigged, and community excluded, simply asking for better won’t work. The only chance we have is putting the two major parties at the very bottom of our voting preferences.