Victoria
New South Wales
South Australia
Queensland- $200 Million energy efficiency package announced for NSW homes
- A tough start to 2024 for the Victorian energy grid
- Tasmanian hydrogen hub set to begin
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$200 Million energy efficiency package announced for NSW homes. This week saw the Australian Federal and New South Wales State governments tip a combined total of $206 million into energy-saving upgrades for social housing properties in the state and a solar sharing scheme, to help address the cost of living for more than 30,000 disadvantaged households. The move aims to upgrade some of the least energy-efficient homes in the country as part of the NSW government’s aim to slash its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and by 70 percent by 2035. The four-year, $200 million package was received well with the Energy Efficiency Council (EEC) Head of Policy Jeremy Sung commenting “Energy efficient homes are cheaper to run, more comfortable and healthier to live in, so this funding will deliver real improvements to people’s lives,”. The program is expected to boost the energy performance of properties via heat pump hot water systems, ceiling fans, reverse-cycle air conditioners, insulation, and draught proofing, as well as solar systems. |
A tough start to 2024 for the Victorian energy grid
Victoria’s energy utility grid has made the headlines again this week with one of its coal-fired power station towers being offline four times in four days last week following an eight-day outage over the holiday period. The power station provides at least 5 percent of Victoria’s’ electricity and whilst the outages were fortunately timed and coincided with cool weather avoiding a blackout, large energy users say they highlight the perilous nature of the state’s power grid, which is still dependent on fossil fuels. This news was coupled with last week’s decision by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to reject the Port of Hastings port expansion, an expansion listed as critical to Victoria’s offshore wind industry. The result has left many critiques concerned with the state of Victoria’s’ utility decarbonization, noting much of the states needed decarbonisation is likely to come from end-user upgrades in the near term.
Tasmanian hub set to begin
The Albanese government says the development of one of Australia’s greatest green hydrogen hopes, The Bell Bay hydrogen hub in northern Tasmania is expected to start development start this year. The project is set to receive close to $300 million in commonwealth and state funding – $70 million of it directly from the federal government. The government contribution was announced by federal energy minister Chris Bowen on Thursday, as part of an agreement made with the Tasmanian state government. Bowen says the new investment from the two governments will be in “Common User Infrastructure,” or those things necessary to create a hydrogen hub, such as hydrogen storage, transport, and export infrastructure. Perhaps of most interest to many hydrogen critiques was Bowen’s press conference in Bell Bay where he stated “What I’m particularly excited about in this in this hydrogen hub is the opportunity for using green hydrogen for decarbonising maritime transport,”. Despite the global decarbonisation push maritime transport emissions have been calculated to be up to 858 million tons per year with a growth of 20% over the past decade. While hydrogen isn’t yet widespread in commercial maritime transport, it holds significant potential for decarbonizing the industry.
At Ecovantage, we consistently analyse market activity, policy changes, consultation releases, and creation rates in conjunction with wider landscape activity. This allows us to keep our clients at the forefront of all relevant changes, and to leverage the advantage that this presents. Thank you for your continued support, and please reach out if you have any general or project-specific questions.
Aaron Jenkins | General Manager, Energy & Carbon Services
Aaron is a specialist in end-to-end solutions for medium to large energy users. This includes energy audits, technology implementation, carbon offsets and energy certificates.
