Congratulations to the Port Macquarie Hastings Council on its near unanimous vote (8-1) last Thursday night to approve the draft Long Term Energy Strategy.
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This strategy, the draft of which was available for all to see and comment upon, was on the council website for some time.
The strategy calls for council to aim to achieve 100% of its electricity usage from renewable sources by 2027. It will implement at least one mid-scale solar project - but only when the technology is cost efficient to install and operate.
The strategy also provides for council to implement small scale solar projects but only after obtaining strategic advice on the advances in renewable energy technology. The entire policy document and implementation plan is available for anyone to read.
The council strategy document is thorough, well documented, costed, and includes trigger points for activation.
No expenditure on new infrastructure will occur until it has been subject to, and passes, a cost/analysis test.
Nevertheless, council is committed to paving the way forward and acting in a commercially and environmentally strategic manner.
As a ratepayer, I can only be proud of the effort put into the drafting of this strategy and council for adopting it.
This brings Port Macquarie-Hastings Council in line with what thousands of householders in our region are already doing - generating their own electricity. It also places council in the good company of many others in NSW that have taken the same or similar action.
By contrast, the Federal Government’s National Energy Guarantee NEG policy contains none of these details or safeguards, despite the overwhelming access it has to policy development resources. It is not actually possible to read the detail of the NEG because it does not exist - not for taxpayers, not for State Government Premiers and their departments, and not for industry.
Unlike the council policy, Federal Government will sell an idea that may or may not work, and for which we have few or no benchmarks.
If council had tried this - a strategy with no documentation, no targets, no cost/benefit analysis, no modelling, and a saving projection of only $2 per week for all its effort - they would have been rightly told to go back and do it again
Tom Whelan
Port Macquarie
