Page 1058 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 2013
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It is true that large infrastructure projects are not always popular with the public, as they often incur big up-front capital costs, cause disruption to normal services and have ongoing recurrent costs. These reasons are not good enough to prevent good infrastructure planning from happening. Political leaders and government do have an obligation to look into the future and plan for the future and to take the community on that journey with them.
There are a number of very real pressures that we need to take into account when we look into the future and think about infrastructure development for our city. Certainly climate change and energy policy is one significant area. This century will be one of transitioning to a low carbon economy. We need to transition our energy source, and certainly there is a clear sense that the days of sourcing our electricity from coal-fired power stations are coming to an end.
We need to adjust our thinking about what an energy grid looks like. We need a grid that imports and exports energy from renewable energy generators, large and small, a grid that maximises the usage of available electricity for consumers. Our current energy infrastructure is highly centralised, yet the emerging growth of renewable energy generators is pushing us away from large, centralised generators. While in the ACT our grid is in good shape, in as much as it was built to service higher consumption than it currently does, we will need to invest in decentralised energy systems as we move towards increasing amounts of renewable energy on the grid and towards implementing smart grid technology for managing energy effectively.
A decentralised energy system will bring benefits of efficiency gains by minimising transmission losses. Currently the ACT loses around six per cent of all the energy it purchases from interstate through transmission, and this is not an insignificant figure when a dollar value is ascribed to it.
Of course, we need to change where we source our electricity, and I am certainly pleased to say that the ALP and the Greens have, through the parliamentary agreement, put forward a strong agenda of reform, with a 90 per cent renewable energy target and extension of the large-scale feed-in tariff that will drive large-scale renewable energy infrastructure. Whether this is built in the ACT or in the capital region, it will serve to deliver energy security in the ACT into the decades ahead.
As well as a shift to a low carbon economy, we need to consider building climate change resilience in our city. Infrastructures that support efficient use of water and that incorporate the retention of green spaces that help urban cooling are just a couple of examples. We need to think about sustainable office buildings that may easily be converted into residential space if required and make sure that each and every house is built to the best energy efficiency standards. Housing that is constructed with universal design principles in place will also ensure that we can accommodate our ageing population over the next decades.
When it comes to transport, the changing energy future, as well as the changing shape of our city, will also impact on our transport systems, and we need to build transport systems that will serve us for decades to come. We have heard Mr Smyth today repeat
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