Cronulla MP, Malcolm Kerr said today that the Iemma Government’s announcement of the wind-power contract for the Kurnell desalination plant was just more wind by his Government as the power actually consumed by the plant will not be carbon neutral.

Wind power generated by the wind farm at Bungendore near Queanbeyan will be delivered into the electricity supply grid and combined with that sourced from traditional coal-fired power plants.

The Notice of Determination issued in November by the Department of Planning states very clearly that the plant will be powered by connection to the electricity supply grid.  The major proportion of energy from the grid is 94% generated by coal-fired power and is not green, purple or any other colour.

Sydney Water’s own fact sheet on so called ‘green energy’ states that the power will be supplied from Energy Australia’s existing supply network.  It goes on to state that Sydney Water will purchase an equivalent amount of ‘green power’.  This is similar to a householder purchasing renewable energy, where the energy supplier agrees that the equivalent amount of energy you nominate is produced from renewable sources however, the householder still receives power from the national grid just like every other customer.  They just pay more so that the energy supplier can commit to purchasing ‘green power’.

‘The Iemma Government can purchase as much ‘green power’ as it likes for the desalination plant but cannot escape the fact that green power is mixed into the grid and does not go directly to individual consumers’ Mr Kerr said

The Independent Panel on the Desalination Plant chaired by Emeritus Professor Rolf Prince AO advised the Minister for Planning that ‘more could have been done in assessment of options for greenhouse gas reduction and more analysis of the market for renewable energy could have been carried out’.  The Panel concluded that ‘this was a missed opportunity to demonstrate best practice’.*