FORMER Liberal member for Bass Warwick Smith says renewable energy will be a key focus of a feasibility study into a second Basslink.
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“I’ll be talking with the Clean Energy Corporation. We understand that their remit is to look at ways we can affect the focus on emissions control and meet targets.”
Mr Smith said renewables would be one of the key replacements for coal fire, and a second Basslink would provide commercial opportunities for renewable energy.
“We’ll see over time a reduction in the use of brown coal particularly in the Victorian fields as a replacement.”
“We know we can get supply, we know that if there’s another cable we can get it to the market and the main thing is will the pricing of that product be such that it will be possible to see a reduction in the coal?”
He said it was ‘doable’, and the theoretical model looked achievable.
Mr Smith will conduct the study with support of federal government departments Environment and Industry, Innovation and Science and the Tasmanian government.
He said the feasibility study will address technical, regulatory and demand issues, which he hoped would be positive.
“We’ll say that in round numbers a second cable costs a billion dollars, is a billion dollars going to be spent on something that will never be fully utilised and therefore be a millstone around the neck of Tasmania?
“We must make sure that that does not happen.
“Because this is fundamentally a small community that does not want to have excessive debt for an asset that returns nothing and provides no energy security that would be a bad decision.”
He said he’d also be looking at the use of energy at the present time and what the patterns of use are with large industrial users, including the longevity of demand within the Tasmanian grid.
The study will provide options for the Commonwealth and Tasmanian governments to consider, with a preliminary report by June.
The final report will be completed by the end of the year in alignment with the work of the Tasmanian Energy Security Taskforce.
The Australian Energy Market Operator and Clean Energy Finance Corporation will also be actively involved during the course of the study.
“We’re not making a decision for the next five years, we’re making a decision for the next 30 years, so I’m very mindful of that.”
