The Tasmanian Energy Development Conference will be returning to Devonport in June, with in-person and digital attendance both available. Tasmania is home to Australia’s only 200% renewables target, the nation’s leading hydrogen industry development plan, and a plethora of energy industry projects of all scales. Further information including ticketing and sponsorship and exhibition opportunities can be found here
Late last year, crews were dropped at locations including Black Bluff and St Valentines Peak to take photographs to be used to produce to-scale, line of sight photo montages. The views of the montages were identified as priority views from TasNetworks' "Visual Impact and Assessment Feedback" and community and stakeholder engagement.Development of overhead transmission lines changes the landscape and impacts visual amenity. The extent of change and impact on views [...]
There is a lot that is still not understood about Tasmania’s Wedge-tailed Eagles. Threats to Wedge-tailed Eagles include loss of habitat (particularly nesting habitat) and mortalities from interacting with the human world – including their active removal by shooting, trapping or poisoning; collisions with powerlines, vehicles, fences and wind turbines; electrocution on powerlines; oiling, entanglement and pollution. At Cattle Hill Wind Farm in the Central Highlands, optical devices at [...]
The Clean Energy Council's annual Clean Energy Report has been released, covering the latest key figures and statistics on the national energy market.According to the report, "Australia’s clean energy transition accelerated again in 2020 as wind and rooftop solar set new records, battery storage came of age, and the hydrogen sector continued its rapid development.The industry passed a significant milestone in 2020, with more than a quarter of the country’s [...]
Australia’s original transmission infrastructure, built decades ago, was brilliantly simple. Major (mostly coal-fired) generators were connected to major load centers (such as large industrial manufacturers), and everyone else just plugged in along the way. The generator knew what it was generating, and the load center knew what it was consuming. If there was an interruption at either end, the generator and load center would work out what adjustments each should [...]
A few months ago, the Future Energy Hub compared the size of the proposed Lake Cethana pumped hydro energy storage project (PHES) to the size of Tesla Powerwall 2’s home-scale batteries. Feasibility work at Lake Cethana has now showed that the initial design option of 600MW and 11 hours can be scaled up to 750MW and up to 20 hours' deep storage duration - so it's time to update the [...]
Late last year, Lake Cethana was selected by Hydro Tasmania as the first potential site for pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) to take through to final design and approvals. Lake Cethana is part of the Mersey-Forth run-of-river catchment system, where water flows from rivers, cascading through a series of power stations, using the same water to generate energy multiple times. Environmental, social, geological and a range of other studies are [...]
Marinus Link is currently in the "design and approvals" stage, with a Final Investment Decision due in 2023-24. Selecting the preferred route for Marinus Link involved considering a number of prudent and feasible alternative corridors. Although co-locating with the existing Bass Link cable from George Town would have some advantages, it would not meet a key objective of Marinus Link, which is to increase energy security. The risk of an [...]
There are still a few places left for the workshops being held this weekend at Preston (Saturday, 1:00 pm) and Wilmot (Sunday, 1:00 pm) to understand community views about the potential positive and negative impacts the transmission line will have. Registrations close on the 18th of March. Discussions will focus on local jobs and business opportunities, the natural environment, the local tourism industry, visual impacts and community safety. Community feedback [...]
Recently, community information days were held at Bothwell and Miena to update the community and answer questions about the new layout for the proposed St Patricks Plains Wind Farm. You can keep up to date with the latest news about the project, and view the presentation from the information sessions here