Page 5682 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
will be thanking this Assembly for putting in place this legislation that saw us getting those economic benefits in 10 years time, 12 years time. It is not exactly clear when the crossover point will come, but it will come and the territory will be all the better off at that point for the decision we are set to take this week.
We do have some concerns about the legislation. There are some issues we have raised and we are having ongoing discussions with the government. We will be moving to adjourn the debate today so that we can come back on Thursday to finalise some of those amendments.
I have a particular concern about the restriction on the minimum size of the installation. At the moment the legislation requires a minimum of two megawatts. We understand that to be at the point of connection under the national electricity market rules. We do believe that that is an unnecessary restriction. As I have touched on already, the very rationale of the reverse auction process is to draw out the players to come and put the best deal on the table that they think they can offer. To our minds, the government needs to explain why, if a proponent can do a good price through, say, a series of 300 kilowatt systems or 500 kilowatt systems, this is not acceptable.
There have been some technical issues raised and I think these are serious issues. But I think that we need to upgrade our grid. There are clear advantages in decentralised systems. There are clear advantages in diversifying the way our electricity is provided. We are going to have to upgrade our grid at various points, and I think that that can help assist in overcoming the concern about having a series of smaller installations.
Perhaps even more important to me, having this restriction seems to preclude valuable roof space across this territory. We have a large number of roofs that cannot fit a two megawatt system onto them, and we will be ignoring that opportunity. I would rather see us, as a policy focus, filling up roof space before filling up the paddocks of the territory. There are a limited number of sites available in the ACT, and we should be harvesting those sites, particularly those roof spaces. Land is a really valuable commodity in this territory and rather than necessarily just taking up ground space through installation we should be first looking at our roof space. There are plenty of players, we gather, who are interested in taking that approach and that is the thing we should be looking for. So I will flag now that in the detail stage we will be moving an amendment to this effect.
I am concerned that—and this is the second point I want to raise—there is no obligation for the release of further tranches under this legislation. It is left entirely to the discretion of the minister. I accept at some level that is a positive for the territory and that we want to be able to control the timing and the release, but we will be watching very closely to ensure that further tranches are released and they do not simply disappear into the ether.
The third issue is one that Mr Seselja has touched on already, although without any sense of solution, and that is location. We are keen to see the installation of these facilities in and around the ACT. I think to simply keep it within the ACT borders is too narrow. As I have touched on already, we have a limit on space. We also, as members know, have a limit on wind resource. And I think it is important that we particularly ensure this capacity is open to other technologies.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video