Page 432 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 18 March 2014
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is high support for us as a leader in the country to say, “Our students in the public education system rightly deserve the best of the best.” This test will make sure that we recruit them.
Energy—wind
MS BERRY: My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development. Minister, you made an announcement last week about an auction for wind generation. Could you tell the Assembly more about this auction?
MR CORBELL: I thank Ms Berry for the question. Yes, last week I confirmed that the government would be proceeding with the development of its first large-scale reverse auction using the feed-in tariff mechanism established under the large-scale renewable energy act to support the development of wind energy for the ACT to help us achieve our greenhouse gas abatement mechanism.
Members interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
MR CORBELL: I welcome the endorsement of Mr Coe of this policy announcement today because what this policy announcement does is to facilitate significant investment in renewable energy generation in our region. The government proposes to proceed with an auction for 200 megawatts of renewable energy generation contingent on the passage of the amendments to the bill that are currently before the Assembly this week.
That amendment and that auction will see the development of at least two wind generation projects either in the Australian capital region or elsewhere capable of delivering 200 megawatts of renewable energy generation, saving half a million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each and every year that they operate and delivering investment into the renewable energy sector in our region of over $100 million. So these are really important projects for the city.
Last week I attended a conference convened by the regional development boards of the ACT and the surrounding region. I was joined by the NSW Liberal governments’ Parliamentary Secretary for Renewable Energy. I welcomed his endorsement on behalf of the O’Farrell government of the bold and innovative policy being implemented by this government. Parliamentary Secretary Stokes said that this is all about jobs and investment in the region. It is a welcome endorsement from senior levels within the NSW government of the government’s policy.
The auction will free up development opportunity for renewable energy generation that is currently stalled due to lack of certainty associated with the renewable energy target. This policy will see the deployment of a number of significant wind farm projects in our region. We know that there are close to 1,000 megawatts of wind farm generation projects in the Australian capital region that are in various stages of planning and approval but not able to proceed to construction because of a lack of certainty associated with finance.
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