Page 768 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 8 March 2016
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are generating with their PV and selling it back into the grid at a time when it is needed most and at the same time encouraging start-up businesses to grow and invest here in Canberra as part of a new low carbon economy for our city.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Hinder.
MR HINDER: Minister, can you outline for the Assembly the next steps in the next generation renewables strategy once the pilot is complete?
MR CORBELL: I thank Mr Hinder for his supplementary. The government’s ultimate objective is to see 36 megawatts of battery storage installed in over 5,000 Canberra homes over the next four years. This is going to make a significant contribution to a 100 per cent renewables target by the year 2025. It is going to significantly support local start-up and interstate start-up businesses that choose to come and locate here in the ACT. We will support this process with a further renewable energy auction round of 109 megawatts to supply the renewable electricity needed to support the storage of renewable energy in the battery rollout. So it is going to be a very significant opportunity.
It is worth highlighting that this means savings for electricity customers in what would otherwise be pass-through costs associated with the need to augment the electricity network. If we do not see batteries rolled out in this way, we are going to need to augment, upgrade and renew our existing electricity grid infrastructure. The cost of that—around $62 million to $220 million in net present value terms. By installing batteries, we avoid the need for that augmentation cost. That means a saving to electricity customers.
So there are real economic opportunities, real savings for households and real, meaningful ways of improving the penetration of renewable electricity into the electricity market. We will also see the development of a new renewable energy precinct as part of this work to drive and co-locate these businesses that come to the ACT and grow in the ACT because of this initiative.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Hinder.
MR HINDER: Minister, can you tell us more about the renewable energy precinct?
MR CORBELL: We obviously want to see the start-ups co-locate and agglomerate here in the city—close to each other, close to other renewable energy businesses—so that we start to develop a critical mass, positioning our city as a leader, an early adopter and a knowledge centre of excellence for renewable energy expertise and development. We are working closely as a government with the ANU and businesses located in the city west precinct because of that proximity with research and other activity that occurs at the ANU.
We have already seen Windlab, the ACT-based wind developer, relocate from Barton into this precinct on Marcus Clarke Street. Their global operations hub is now based there in the city centre. They are growing their staff levels considerably over the next five years. They are going to be a very important anchor tenant in the precinct, but there will be more.
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