A visit by the federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Greg Combet and South Australian Premier Mike Rann to a wind turbine tower manufacturing plant in suburban Adelaide has highlighted the economic benefits from growth in renewable energy in the state.
Mr Combet said the recently announced new Clean Energy Finance Corporation will play a vital role in unlocking significant new private investment into clean energy projects and may include assistance for businesses manufacturing components for clean energy projects.
Premier Mike Rann said the South Australian Government is already investing in clean industry projects, with the transformation of the old Mitsubishi site at Tonsley Park into a hub for innovative companies in sustainable technologies.
“We are expecting Tonsley Park to attract $1 billion in private investment over 15 years, with up to 8600 people employed on the site and increasing Gross State Product by $400 million a year by 2026,” Mr Rann said.
Mr. Rann stated his government had also streamlined the planning system for wind farms, resulting in South Australia moving from having no wind turbines nine years ago, to hosting 54 per cent of Australia’s wind farm operating capacity today.
South Australia has already achieved a target of 20 percent of electricity generated within the State coming from renewable energy, three years ahead of its goals. The government revised the target in 2009 upwards, to 33 percent by 2020.
“We are meeting these targets through legislation, such as the solar feed-in tariff, which is creating jobs in the solar industry,” said Premier Rann.
South Australia’s solar feed in tariff currently pays 44c per kilowatt hour for surplus electricity generated by home solar power systems that is exported to the mains grid. However, from October 1 this, new connections under the scheme will only receive 22c per kilowatt hour. National solar power solutions provider Energy Matters is currently running special solar offers in South Australia to help as many households as possible join the scheme before October and benefit from the higher rate.
