ACT's green goal could grow
The ACT Government has announced Canberra will run entirely on renewable energy by 2025.
The Territory already has a bold commitment to hit 90 per cent renewable energy in the next five years, backing large-scale wind and solar projects locally and interstate in order to hit it.
Environment Minister Simon Corbell says the ACT’s pledge to shift the target to 100 per cent would place Canberra at the top of the pile nationally and abroad.
“It means more jobs and more investment in the ACT economy, it means a complete decarbonisation of our electricity supply sector which will see further reductions in our city's greenhouse gas emissions,” he said at a media event on the weekend.
“Most importantly it will see growth in the low-carbon economy, which means jobs and investment in our city, in our universities and in our research sectors.
“This is about seizing economic opportunity and recognising the enormous global market in renewables and wanting to attract some of that investment and some of that jobs growth to our city."
Corbell said the territory was well-placed to hit a 90 per cent renewable energy target by 2020.
“Through the large-scale solar and wind auctions we will achieve 60 per cent renewable energy target by the year 2017 and 80 per cent by the year 2018.”
Opposition Leader Jeremy Hanson said the Liberal Party liked renewable energy, but not what it will do to power bills.
“Well we're very supportive of renewable energy but the problem is if you go to 100 per cent the cost of that is enormous, what we're going to see is power bills going up through the roof across Canberra,” he told reporters.
“So already we've seen rates tripling and what Andrew Barr is now going to do is make everybody's power bill unaffordable.”