Even as NSW considers keeping the Hunter Valley power station open, critics say one department is standing in the way of alternatives.
to using taxpayer funds to keep the nation’s largest coal power station open longer than its owners intended.
But why not? After all state and federal governments now back the road map plotted by former NSW energy minister Matt Kean, with the support of the then Labor opposition, to decarbonise our energy system. Renewable Energy Zones have been declared across the state in which new renewable projects are expedited. Money is flowing into the effort to build the transmission lines to link all the new power sources.
On the same day Sharpe made her announcement, proponents of a major wind farm in Queensland, known as Wooroora Station Wind Farm, announced the project was being cut in half to 42 turbines in response to concerns about the visual and construction impacts. “On the last count I saw only two new wind farms approved in NSW in the last five years. Now that is a very slow rate of approvals. And for all the good work that the NSW government did under the last government on the energy policy side of things, the NSW planning system did not respond in a similar way.
Asked about the industry’s concerns about planning regulations and the performance of the department, Planning Minister Paul Scully said the government inherited a renewable energy road map that was off course. “Under the previous government the NSW planning system became increasingly complex and confusing. This impacted on the delivery of the renewable energy road map.
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