Page 3250 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 18 October 2022
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As part of this year’s budget, the government is developing a whole-of-government program to replace existing fossil fuel gas systems at end of life with electric equivalents. A whole-of-government approach will help to reduce procurement costs. Upgrades for multiple systems can be grouped together, achieving economies of scale. While this program is under development, funding has been reallocated from the Zero Emissions Government Fund to enable directorates and agencies to replace failed gas assets with electric appliances, if they reach that point ahead of this whole-of-government program that we are developing.
As I have talked about before, fossil fuel gas use currently accounts for around 20 per cent of the ACT’s greenhouse gas emissions. That is why the government is committed to phasing out fossil fuel gas to help achieve our target of net zero emissions by 2045. In the ACT Climate Change Strategy 2019-2025, the government committed to developing a plan for achieving zero emissions from gas use by 2045, including setting time lines with appropriate transition periods for phasing out new and existing gas connections. The parliamentary and governing agreement reaffirmed and extended these commitments to legislate to prevent new gas network connections in greenfield estates and urban infill sites.
The government is developing an integrated energy plan to set the foundations for a steady and manageable transition away from fossil fuel gas. This will establish our pathway to zero emissions from fossil fuel gas by 2045 at the latest. A carefully considered plan, with input from the community, will ensure that we make it a fair transition for everyone and that we support our low income and vulnerable households and businesses to make this change.
As members would have noted, the government released our position paper, Powering Canberra: Our Pathway to Electrification, on 4 August. We will release a consultation regulatory impact statement in the coming months on options for a regulation to prevent new gas connections for some new developments. This will help avoid new developments from being locked into using gas in the future. While gas will continue to play an important role in the ACT energy mix for the time being, it is important that consumers are not locking themselves into high gas prices by purchasing new gas appliances today that could well last for more than 15 years.
An analysis published by the ACT government in 2020 identified that efficient household appliances, powered by renewable electricity, were the most cost-effective choice for most Canberra households. The community are encouraged to replace end-of-life gas appliances with electric alternatives. That ACT government analysis was reinforced last week with the new report released by the Climate Council, which showed potential savings of $1,900 a year for a household in Canberra. So this work that is being done is being now affirmed by others and it shows that the early decisions being taken by the ACT government are to the benefit of our community. They are not only delivering for the environment; they are delivering for people’s household bills, they are delivering cost of living savings and they are delivering for people’s bottom lines, as well as that important goal of tackling climate change.
The government will continue to invest in technical, economic and consumer insights research and analysis to inform the development of our gas transition pathway so that
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