Read the TREA Submission to the RET Review.
The main points in our submission are:
The solar PV industry provides direct employment for over 450 Tasmanians. These jobs are skilled, permanent jobs and provide employment in rural as well as urban areas.
Distributed renewable energy projects in Tasmania (including solar PV, wind and small hydro):
- reduce electricity costs for households and businesses,
- can provide a valuable source of additional income for farmers,
- encourage economic development in rural areas, and
- free up large scale hydro power to be exported to mainland Australia at times of maximum demand and price with significant economic benefit to Tasmania.
The RET has proved an efficient and cost effective way of supporting a transition to renewable energy and should be retained to support the continued growth of the solar industry in Tasmania.
Policy certainty and consistency is necessary so that the industry can develop and retain a skilled workforce and deliver quality work to customers. Policy certainty is also essential for larger scale renewable energy projects that take several years to plan and require a business case for investments and loan finance based on electricity prices and LGCs for at least a decade in advance. Changes to the RET should be announced at least two years prior to them taking effect, and mechanisms (such as a floor price) need to be found to ensure that projects which have made substantial investments are not penalised by changes in policy that reduce LGC prices.
The RET Review should set targets for renewable energy generation for 2030 and 2040 in line with the IEA’s estimates of what is required globally to have a reasonable chance of keeping global warming below 2°C.
Download the full submission.
