Research from the Renewable Energy Alliance (RE-Alliance), an independent not-for-profit working with regional communities at the centre of the shift to renewables, has highlighted what industry and governments need to do to harness the opportunities available to refurbish and repower assets, and to build public confidence in the decommissioning process.
With different legislation across state jurisdictions and no one place to turn for trusted information, regional communities have been seeking clarity on how projects are decommissioned and who is financially responsible for removing infrastructure and restoring the land to its original state.
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The release of Decommissioning Security Framework by two peak bodies for the renewable energy industry—the Clean Energy Council (CEC) and Queensland Renewable Energy Council (QREC)—is an important step towards clarity for regional communities. It builds on the expectations outlined by the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner Tony Mahar through the Commissioner’s Position Statement earlier in the week.
RE-Alliance national director Andrew Bray says RE-Alliance had been advocating to industry and state and federal governments to provide rules to build stronger public confidence in renewables retirement.
“We recommended that industry develop a consistent and industry-wide Financial Assurance Framework for decommissioning to help increase public confidence and the CEC and QREC’s Decommissioning Security Framework is a good start,” Bray explains.
“We are pleased to see a big focus on transparency. We urged industry peak bodies to increase the transparency of decommissioning clauses and commitments in agreements to assist farmers and communities to understand what to expect when a project needs decommissioning—and this clearly steps out a process to do this.”
Bray says questions remain on how farmers can access funds in the very unlikely event that a project owner defaulted on its responsibilities, and the strength of recommendations CEC and QREC are making for existing projects.
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“We’re looking forward to working with industry and state and federal governments to build on this work to increase confidence in the national decommissioning process, but also to identify opportunities for refurbishment, make repowering easier and provide leadership on reuse and recycling,” he says.
“Communities deserve transparency. We have the time to ensure that renewables retirement is done right in this country and this is worthwhile progress from industry.”
