State's power supply assured

Launceston Examiner
Friday 19/1/2007 Page: 22

Despite one of the driest years on record, low hydro storage levels and a steady increase in the demand for electricity, Tasmania's power supplies are under no immediate threat. It is a set of circumstances that would have seemed highly unlikely only a decade or so ago. Until less than 40 years ago, the State's electricity was generated wholly by its hydro schemes.

A desperate power shortage caused by drought in the late 1960s saw severe power cuts introduced and prompted construction of the then oil-fired Bell Bay power station as a backup. Oil prices later soared and Bell Bay was mothballed for emergency use only.

The current drought has clearly demonstrated how critical it was to develop more alternative power sources in recent years. It is hard to comprehend just how parlous a state Tasmania's industrial, commercial and domestic power users would now be in without the Basslink undersea power cable, the natural gas pipeline from Victoria and the Woolnorth wind farm. Between them these alternative sources are now providing more than a fifth of the State's total energy needs.

Basslink is by far the biggest contributor. The privately built and operated link with the mainland power grid took years to win political support from the major parties and faced a long and determined campaign by unions and sections of the environment movement to derail it.

Already it has allowed Hydro Tasmania to protect its dwindling water resources while at the same time selling expensive peak-period power into the mainland grid and help offset Victoria's power problems. Tasmania's water storages are down to less than 29 per cent of capacity.

But Basslink and a potential 340MW from gas generators at Bell Bay have ensured business as normal. That will be a key factor when our biggest power users, and biggest employers, come to planning where their future operations might be sited.