24 October 2018
Snowy Hydro Funds should be driving NSW’s clean-energy transformation
The Berejiklian government has squandered a once on a lifetime opportunity to make a massive investment in renewable energy by diverting funds from the sale of Snowy Hydro to an array of other infrastructure projects.
“It beggars belief that not a single dollar from the sale of Snowy Hydro, the state’s single largest renewable energy asset, is being spent on clean energy or storage,” Nature Conservation Council Senior Climate and Energy Campaigner Dr Brad Smith said.
“Today’s announcement by Deputy Premier John Barilaro might be the biggest clean-energy divestment decision made by any government in Australia ever.
“NSW is the only government in eastern Australia without a plan to clean up our electricity system and slash our carbon emissions.
“The government has been asleep at the wheel on climate and energy policy at a time when strong leadership is more urgent than ever. “It has not even finalized the Climate Change Fund Draft Strategic Plan it released two years ago.
“The sad irony is that farmers and rural communities are at the front line of climate change and yet the National Party, which purports to represent these communities, is doing nothing to tackle its causes.”
“A report we prepared last year titled Repowering our Regions found regional NSW had enormous clean energy potential and was sitting on a clean energy investment and jobs boom.
“All that is missing is the support of the state government and strategic investments to integrate those regions more fully into the grid. That would have been a much more worthwhile way to spend this money.”
The Climate Council reported this month that that NSW trailed Tasmania, Victoria South Australia and the ACT in terms of how much of its power came from renewables (excluding hydro-electricity). [1]
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State
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% power from renewables
|
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ACT
|
43.1%
|
|
South Australia
|
42.7%
|
|
Tasmania
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11.2%
|
|
Victoria
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10.4%
|
|
WA
|
6.5%
|
|
NSW
|
6.0%
|
|
Qld
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3.7%
|
|
NT
|
3%
|
[1] Powering Progress: States Renewable Energy Race
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Climate and energy
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