The Berejiklian government will spend an extra $380 million to help expedite investment into the state’s five renewable energy zones and smooth the way for an increase in solar, wind and storage projects.
To be announced in Tuesday’s state budget and spent over four years, it brings the total set aside by the government to more than half a billion dollars to aid construction of renewable energy plants in the state’s central-west, New England, Riverina, Hunter and Illawarra regions.
The investment will foster as much as $32 billion of new investment the government expects over the decade as part of the Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap that passed Parliament late last year.Energy Minister Matt Kean said the package was the biggest state investment in large-scale renewable energy in NSW’s history, supporting “the most ambitious renewable energy policy in the country”.
All the state’s five remaining coal-fired power stations will reach the end of their technical lives in the next 15 years, and NSW was “on the clock to replace them before they close to keep the lights on and prices down”, he said.
