Snowy Hydro Limited welcomes the support of the Finkel Review of pumped hydro as a key to energy security as it focuses on recommendations aimed at strengthening reliability in the National Electricity Market.
Snowy Hydro CEO Paul Broad said the Snowy 2.0 project would play a key role in both ensuring security of supply and backing up the expected big increase in intermittent supplies – wind and power – in the market.
The report states on p33 that “Battery and pumped hydro storage will be able to support a reliable and secure NEM, as and when they are deployed at scale.”
Mr Broad said the Finkel Review had identified the need to guarantee back-up to any new intermittent power supply projects.
“Snowy 2.0 fulfils the objectives of the Finkel Review on energy security, in that it can uniquely provide the largest scale and affordable storage of renewable energy to support the reliable and secure power supply that is needed for Australia to move safely to a low emissions economy”, Mr Broad said.
“The Finkel review rightly points to the importance of pumped hydro as an essential back-up to intermittent wind and power to protect consumers and business, and ensure we don’t face the catastrophic supply failures that we have seen in South Australia.”
Snowy Hydro also supports market-based mechanisms to achieve the Government’s commitment to climate change targets, as well as stable and long term policy certainty. We will be actively engaging with relevant bodies to implement policies which best meet the energy trilemma of market efficiency, energy security and emission reductions.
Snowy Hydro Media Enquiries:
Simon Troeth
0439 300 335