Green Power Opt-in a Step in Right Direction

Friday, 10 February 2006 20:42

TEC also called on electricity retailers to immediately get on with the job of offering genuine Green Power under the policy.

"Delay should not be tolerated," said Jane Castle, TEC Campaigner.  "Every day we don't replace coal power with Green Power, the worse our greenhouse emissions become. This policy is essential to raise awareness about the world's most pressing problem - dangerous climate change.  It will also help boost clean, renewable energy which has suffered from a chronic lack of attention from the retailers."

"With the new policy NSW can now rescue itself from embarrassing under-performance on Green Power compared to the other states.  There are currently only 27,988 residential Green Power customers in NSW compared to 65,833 in Victoria and 62,257 in Queensland.  This is appalling for the most populous state in Australia."

The NSW Government estimates that if half of all new customers stay with Green Power, 125,000 per year, total Green Power sales would increase from 175 GWh to 265 GWh in the first year.  This is equivalent to 35 new small wind turbines being built.  The increased take-up of Green Power would also reduce greenhouse emissions by 90,000 tonnes, increasing to 700,000 tonnes avoided after 10 years.

"More will be needed, however, as our inefficient consumption is predicted to grow.  Without other impetus for renewable energy, increasing residential Green Power sales by 150% will not even keep pace with growing demand.  It is urgent that NSW adopts a Renewable Guarantee of 15% renewable electricity by 2012 and 25% by 2020."

"NSW has an impressive range of new projects on the drawing board that could be built in the next five years, with more than 1,400MW capacity.  If these go ahead it would generate thousands of new jobs and more than $2.9 billion of investment in regional NSW."

The 10% policy was announced in the NSW Greenhouse Plan late last year, all new or moving customers must be offered Green Power, but are able to opt-out if they choose.  It has not yet been implemented.