NSW government fails to keep promise to provide regional towns with renewable backup power
The New South Wales government has failed to act on a promise to provide regional towns with renewably sourced emergency backup power during disasters, leaving funding unavailable ahead of the state’s bushfire crisis.
In 2018, the NSW government announced a $30m program to fund small-scale renewable energy generation and storage in regional and remote communities, through a scheme known as the Regional Community Energy Fund (RCEF).
One of the scheme’s three promised aims was to award grants to renewable projects providing regional towns emergency backup power during disasters. The aim was to use renewables and storage to build emergency backup systems for key buildings – town halls or evacuation centres, for example.
The government promised to make funding available for the backup power projects in the program’s second round in mid- to late-2019, most likely between June and September.
But the funding was never opened and the NSW government is not answering questions to explain why.
The delays mean that funding for the backup power projects was not available before the current bushfire disaster, which caused power outages in regional communities across the state.
It is not clear whether projects would have been approved and commenced in time to help in the current disaster, even if the government had lived up to its promised timeline.
But NSW Farmers, a peak group representing farmers and parts of the agricultural industry, has expressed concern at the delays. NSW Farmers policy director Kathy Rankin said the group strongly supported the initiative and had received no correspondence from the NSW government explaining the delays.
“NSW Farmers does support these regional renewable energy initiatives and it is of concern that we do not know what projects were funded in the first round, or when funding will become available for the second,” she said. “The bushfire crisis has further prioritised the need for small scale alternative and local renewable energy sources.”
“Like many others, dairy farmers on the south coast lost power and had to dump fresh milk and stop milking.”
The bushfires caused widespread power loss across the state. Essential Energy says about 37,000 of its customers were without power at the height of the bushfires on the day of New Years Eve. Essential Energy crews have been working hard to restore power and only had 3,300 customers without power in the south coast and Riverina area as of Tuesday.
The Guardian’s questions to the energy minister, Matt Kean, were referred to the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.
The department did not explain the reasons behind the delays to the RCEF. But a department spokesman said the program was never intended to provide general widespread backup power to regional communities.
“The predominant focus of the Regional Community Energy Fund is to support renewable energy projects in local communities and is not intended to provide general widespread backup for grid supply in the event of a disaster or emergency like the current bushfires,” the spokesman said.
“Throughout the bushfire emergency, the NSW RFS and other NSW government agencies have been working closely together with Essential Energy and Endeavour Energy to prioritise restoration of electricity supplies to evacuation centres, supermarkets, petrol stations, other businesses and homes either by backup generation or from the network.”
NSW Farmers said it supported the development of small-scale alternative energy solutions because it wanted greater reliability and lower cost supply.
“The rising costs of energy that is essential for efficient farm business practices is adding additional pressure on the cash flow management of drought affected farmers,” Rankin said. “Local alternative energy solutions need to be identified and piloted and that’s why we supported this. Our reputation for high quality safe food and fibre will be at risk if farmers do not have certainty of energy supply.”