Page 5685 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 6 December 2011
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this community and said, “We believe that large-scale solar is essential.” Let me highlight a bit more what they said:
Canberra is a city blessed with high levels of sunshine all year round …
Canberrans are enthusiastic early adopters of new technology, and there is a great opportunity and increasing desire for us to take a leadership role in the development of renewable technologies …
Our vision is to establish a renewable energy centre of excellence—the ACT Renewable Energy Park—with a large solar power plant at its heart.
A Canberra Liberal Government would partner with leaders in the field to support the development of a solar power plant, preferably a base load plant, which would provide renewable energy for a substantial proportion of Canberra’s energy needs.
Whatever that means; “substantial”, though, must be pretty big; it must be a pretty big power plant.
Today they are presented with the opportunity to support legislation that will deliver a large-scale power plant, renewable energy power plant, for this city. And what are they going to do? They are going to vote no. They are going to oppose this scheme. They are going to oppose a piece of legislation that allows the implementation of large-scale solar in this city, in direct contrast to their policy—the hypocrisy, the political and policy hypocrisy, of those opposite is laid bare.
Only the Labor government has demonstrated its ongoing and consistent commitment to the delivery of large-scale solar for this city. Only the Labor government has shown the courage of its convictions and put on the table of this place nation-leading legislation that will deliver large-scale renewable energy plants for our community. We are proud of that work and we urge the Assembly to support it today. In particular we urge the Liberals to have the courage of the convictions they expressed so eloquently on 10 October 2008 and make Canberra the solar capital. It is in their policy: “Solar Canberra: Creating a Centre for Excellence in Renewable Energy in Canberra.” There it is; and where is their commitment today? They have none and they are politically bankrupt as a result.
This legislation builds on extensive consultation, and market regulators and specialist advice. It represents a significant innovation in how to provide targeted assistance to renewable energy generators in a way that is efficient and that effectively manages commercial and implementation risks. The government has determined that unlike small-scale schemes any obligation on local electricity retailers to purchase their power from large-scale solar generation proponents could lead to significant distortions in the retail electricity market, undermining competition and threatening future market development.
Micro and medium feed-in tariff standing offers are supportable by retailers because the retailer usually has an existing customer relationship with the person installing the generator. The instantaneous generator output is of a similar quantity and variability
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