Electricity Interconnector

Mrs POWER (Elder) (14:29): My question is to the Minister for Energy and Mining. Can the minister please update the house on how the New South Wales and South Australian interconnector will deliver lower costs for people living in my electorate and all South Australians and a higher growth future for our state?

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:29): Yes, I can. I thank the member for Elder very much for her question.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: She is a tireless advocate for lowering the cost of living for people in her electorate, and she knows that getting electricity prices down is a key part of that. This interconnector, as I hope those opposite now accept, is going to be critical, a key part of our energy policy. We have many facets of our energy policy: small batteries, grid-scale batteries, demand management and supply integration.

Mr Hughes interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Giles is warned.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Of course, the interconnector is very important. It has been independently modelled to reduce electricity prices for the average South Australian household by $66 per year, for small businesses by $132 per year and, in fact, for some of our largest employers by tens of thousands of dollars per year. This is a very important piece of infrastructure. An enormous amount of work has been done by ElectraNet and TransGrid to put the proposal forward to the AER (Australian Energy Regulator). The project is with them at the moment.

In addition to those benefits of lower electricity prices—and this is very much what the member for Elder was asking about—there are other benefits. We saw today the announcement by the company Neoen that they intend to build a wind farm, solar farm and grid-scale storage project in my electorate, in fact, near Burra. This is a tremendous opportunity. They have said that they would not progress with stages 2 and 3 if the interconnector is not built. They will progress with stages 2 and 3 if, when, the interconnector is built. We are talking about 300 jobs during construction. We are talking about another 20 jobs in the ongoing operation.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: This is very welcome news for a community that is at the moment in the grips of drought. Members who care about regional communities would have seen newspaper articles recently about this particular part of the state in a dreadful, diabolical situation, so those jobs will be very welcome. There are four grid-scale solar farms lining up to hook into the interconnector. While this interconnector will give us the opportunity to bring electricity into South Australia at times when we need it, we will export far more electricity—renewable, clean electricity—out of South Australia into New South Wales through this interconnector.

This is a terrific opportunity for South Australia and a terrific opportunity for New South Wales. Neoen has not put forward their development application yet. I have complete confidence that the Minister for Planning and his team will do a very thorough assessment, including deep community engagement about whether their project is appropriate from a planning perspective. Of course, all of us will accept whatever decision comes out of that process, but let me tell you that, from an energy perspective, this is a terrific opportunity.

Both the Premier and I have said numerous times that we do not need any more wind farms in South Australia that do not come with associated grid-scale storage, but we welcome new wind farms, and we welcome new grid-scale solar farms, that have grid-scale storage attached to them. This project from Neoen, the same company that runs the Hornsdale wind farm and operates the Tesla battery, has 1,200 megawatts of wind, 600 megawatts of solar and 900 megawatts of storage. This is exactly the type of example that we have been talking about for years now, getting the mix right so that South Australians have cheaper, more reliable and cleaner electricity.