Hobart Mercury
Wednesday 3/12/2008 Page: 21
OPPOSITION parties have ridiculed Energy Minister David Llewellyn's vision for a second Basslink cable to export surpluses of renewable energy into the national electricity grid. Tasmania exported only 232 gigawatt hours of power over Basslink last financial year. compared with 2519 in imports. In last month's annual report, energy transmitter Transend indicated the primary reason for a second cable would be to secure Tasmania's energy supply from the mainland as a result of falling Hydro water storages.
Yesterday Mr Llewellyn said the second cable could be used, not to secure supply, but to export surpluses of renewable energy to the mainland. He said hundreds of millions of dollars worth of renewable energy investment could be stimulated once the Federal Government introduced its promised renewable energy targets early next year. He pointed to Kuth Energy's investigations into geothermal or "hot-rock energy" and future wind projects which he said had the capacity to generate much more than Tasmania's current 11,000 gigawatt hour needs.
"Our objective is to be a net total exporter of energy to the maximum of Basslink's capacity and in the future we will be looking to construct a second cable to get the maximum amount of renewable energy to the mainland," Mr Llewellyn said. But at a time when Tasmania cannot produce enough energy to satisfy its own demand, the Greens and the Liberals described the idea as a "fantasy". "You have not detailed one project that is ready to start and you are talking about a second Basslink cable to export - you are living in a fantasy," Greens energy spokesman Kim Booth said.
Liberal energy spokesman Peter Gutwein said it was a "distraction". "I think what the minister is attempting to do is throw out a blind to take people's eyes and their minds off the very dire situation our energy companies are facing at the moment," Mr Gutwein said. Transend chief executive officer Richard Bevan said a second Basslink was part of the company's 30-year grid vision project, and as such would be a long way off.
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