Hobart Mercury
Saturday 27/2/2010 Page: 13
TASMANIA'S stalled Musselroe windfarm looks set for a construction start late this year after a dramatic change in its economic viability. The $400 million windfarm in Tasmania's North-East was given a fillip yesterday with the Federal Government's move to encourage greater national renewable energy generation. Roaring 40s, the company half-owned by the Tasmanian Government that is planning to build Musselroe, is now hopeful construction will begin late this year at Cape Portland.
Roaring 40s chief executive Steve Symons said the new Federal Government system had provided large renewable companies such as Roaring 40s and Hydro Tasmania with much more financial and policy certainty about future project options. Mr Symons hopes that if the Federal Government's new legislation passes though parliament in June lie will have 150 construction workers on site by spring. Federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong yesterday announced the Government would split its mandatory renewable energy target scheme in two.
The change will separate the impact of small home solar panel installations and solar hot water systems from affecting the renewable energy value of power produced by large commercial wind farms, hydro-electricity stations and solar plants. It is designed to encourage investment in commercial wind farms and other large-scale renewable energy projects, with more than $20 billion of projects now halted around Australia. The slowdown has been blamed on the Government's subsidy scheme for the installation of home solar hot water systems causing an unintended slump in the value of tradeable renewable energy certificates [RECs] from $50 to $30 per MW hour a unit.
Musselroe windfarm is understood to become uneconomic once the REC value falls below about $50 a unit. Premier David Bartlett said the announcement was a "great day for the Tasmanian economy". Mr Bartlett claimed credit for the announcement, saying the Rudd Government had "listened to our concerns and responded rapidly to resolve them". But Greens federal climate change spokeswoman and Tasmanian senator Christine Milne said the backflip had been forced by the Australian Greens introducing a Private Member's Bill into the Senate on Thursday recommending the same split system.
The Greens have repeatedly warned that including solar hot water, heat pumps and multiplied rooftop solar credits in the renewable energy target was distorting the price of renewable energy certificates, stopping industrial scale renewable energy developments from getting off the ground. Senator Wong said the Government now planned to offer a fixed price to householders.
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