Tanya Denison, the Cradle Coast's Future Energy Facilitator, spoke with Piia Wirsu on ABC Norther Tasmania's Drive program recently about renewable energy projects in the region.

It costs about the same to build the same sized wind farm or solar farm anywhere in the world. But how much electricity it will generate depends on the quality and reliability of the wind or solar resource at that location. While Australia has enjoyed a relatively uneventful summer climatically, it has been a very different story in the northern hemisphere. Parts of Europe and Asia have suffered massive winter [...]

Community consultation is now open for the Renewables Tasmania Draft Renewable Energy Coordination Framework, with submissions closing on the 3rd of March. The Framework sets out how to deliver orderly, sustainable and integrated large-scale renewable energy projects needed to unlock generation capacity to achieve Tasmania's 200% renewables target, and deliver multiple benefits such as: • Regional economic growth and job creation. • The potential attraction of new load and [...]

The selection of Lake Cethana by Hydro Tasmania as the preferred pumped hydro site was made based on a multi-criteria analysis including technical, environmental, social and economic factors. One of these factors is the constructability of the project, including the physical characteristics of where the major infrastructure might go, such as the intake, water tunnels, underground power station and the upper water storage.Rock core retrieved from drilling for geological and [...]

The renewable energy industry was well represented yesterday at the The Future Jobs & Skills Expo - "Pathways to Your Future" at Burnie. Representatives from Hydro Tasmania, Project Marinus and UPC\AC Renewables Australia were on hand to talk about the types of jobs that will be created by the construction and operation of  these projects. The Tasmanian Energy Industry Workforce Development Plan 2020 - 2027 (Stage 1) identified the [...]

The Future Jobs & Skills Expo - "Pathways to Your Future", is on today in Burnie. You will have the opportunity to talk to people from the renewable energy sector and other industries such as agriculture, construction and manufacturing, as well as training providers. It is free to attend, and open from 12:30 - 4:00pm at the Burnie Arts & Function Centre, 77 -79 Wilmot Street, Burnie. Register here Image: [...]

Late last year, Tasmania achieved the capacity to provide all of its electricity needs using renewable generation sources. The increase in capacity was due to the construction of two new wind farms - Cattle Hill Wind Farm in the Central Highlands, and Granville Harbour Wind Farm on the West Coast. Granville Harbour Wind Farm is now fully operational, after satisfying performance testing and a compliance assessment by the Australian Energy [...]

Tasmania has around 475,000 registered light vehicles including cars, taxis and light commercial vehicles, which are driven, on average, around 11,000kms each per year. If all of those vehicles were replaced with electric vehicles tomorrow, instead of importing hundreds of millions of liters of petrol and diesel, the state would need around 500 to 1000 GWh of electricity - around 5 to 10% more than what is generated in Tasmania [...]

King Island's award winning hybrid off-grid power system is capable of 100% renewable operation uses wind, solar, storage and innovative enabling technologies to provide 65% of the electricity that was previously generated from diesel. It is now about to become the first power station in the world to simultaneously generate energy from three renewable resources: wave, wind, and solar. The UniWave 200, a 200 kW wave energy device, has recently [...]

There are a lot of major renewable energy projects on the go in the region. No matter what your interest is in a project - whether you are a community member, business owner, or are interested in future employment opportunities - community information sessions are a great opportunity to ask questions and make connections. Upcoming community information sessions in the next two weeks: LAKE CETHANA PUMPED HYDRO Wednesday, 10 February [...]