The Federal Government has announced a significant increase in renewables for Victoria and Tasmania.
The states are guaranteed a combined 1.7 gigawatt (GW) allocation in Australia’s largest ever tender for 6GW of renewable energy, which opens this month.
“We’re focused on bringing energy prices down and boosting reliability by unlocking massive private investment in reliable renewables across Australia,” Chris Bowen, Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy said.
The deals will be signed as part of the government’s Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS), designed to unlock 32GW of reliable renewables by 2030. As part of the upcoming Reliable Renewables plans with states and territories, Tasmania will receive at least 300MW of new renewable projects, while Victoria will get at least 1.4GW.
Victoria has welcomed the Commonwealth’s early commitment ahead of the final agreement on the full CIS programme for Victoria.
Lily D’Ambrosio, Victorian Minister for Energy and Resources said, “We have an ambitious climate action agenda with a target of 95 per cent renewables by 2035 – to achieve this we must partner with industry to provide necessary confidence and leverage the huge amounts of private investment required.”
Nick Duigan, Tasmanian Minister for Energy and Renewables, said Tasmania has some of the best renewable energy resources in the world.
“This support will help to harness these resources, delivering low-cost, reliable electricity to Tasmanian homes and businesses,” he said.
The allocations follow recent deals to deliver at least 2.2GW for NSW, 300MW for South Australia, and 500MW for Western Australia under the Reliable Renewables plans.
Registration for the 6GW tender opens on 16 May, marking the first in a series of planned six-monthly auctions under the CIS.
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