The Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU) has warned voters that the solution to Tasmania’s energy woes is not as simple as laying a second cable or waiting for the weather to change.
CEPU Tasmania secretary Trevor Gauld has labelled as “naïve and disingenuous” the Hodgman government’s attempts to attribute the state’s looming energy supply crisis to drought conditions or Basslink faults instead of confronting the real issues of policy failure, market dysfunction and ideological hostility in the Coalition towards renewable energy.
Mr Gauld said that the state government’s distaste for renewables, along with those of their Coalition allies in Canberra, were to blame for the impending possibility of rolling blackouts in the island state.
“Tony Abbott’s decision to end incentives and benefits afforded the clean energy industries created the perfect storm to incentivise the depletion of Tasmania’s hydro-electric dam reserves,” he said.
“Here in Tasmania, Hydro aggressively over-generated electricity for the purpose of inflating profits, knowing that once the repeal of the ETS and changes to the RET were implemented, margins would be much tighter. ”
Instead of generating base-load electricity to satisfy Tasmanian consumers, Hydro spent much of 2013 and 2014 aggressively generating close to 30% excess electricity for export to the mainland while simultaneously importing dirtier, more expensive electricity from Victoria’s coal-fired power stations for Tasmania’s consumption, Mr Gauld said.
“As the Hydro is a publicly-owned entity we deserve answers to who authorised these business decision and when.” he said. “Excess electricity generation equals unnecessary dam depletions, it’s as simple as that.”
“The whole market system that allows this is designed to be so complicated that these terrible decisions are very difficult to scrutinise. But incentivising Tassie Hydro to empty our dam reserves to the point of creating an energy supply risk is clearly not acceptable. Not to mention the impact on tourism and fishing.”
“We are seeing the cost of this reckless policy-making now. We are facing very real threat of blackouts within months and a situation where either family homes or Tasmania’s manufacturing or mining industries may have to go without power.”
“It’s time for the politicians to own up to the mess made by their policy decisions, stop the pathetic blame game and to find and fund a real solution.”
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