Politics and Power
On the 7th May 2000, the (then) Minister for Mines and Energy authorised an amended electricity policy for the area north of the Daintree River and without any right of appeal, the extension of mains electricity supply was opposed and, as an alternative, the use of stand-alone power systems was to be supported.
A stand-alone power system (by way of definition) is not connected to a supply network; it is rather supplied with electricity from one or more of a number of sources including a photo-voltaic array, a wind generator, a micro-hydro generator and an engine generator set.
For the past seven years, residents and business-owners within the Daintree Cape Tribulation community have carried the cost of supply, maintenance and replacement of components, at approximately thirty-times the total cost per kilowatt-hour of other Queensland consumers.
In an ongoing effort seeking formal explanation of what (precisely) excludes this Queensland community from the Queensland Government’s policy of equalised tariffs, we have been advised:
In the absence of electricity supply, the issues you have raised about the application of regulated tariffs are not able to be addressed.
Despite this unfortunately familiar and disappointing response, we do understand that the Queensland Government’s policy stipulated support for stand-alone supplies, but not why it does not ensure the greatest chance of success by removing the prohibitive costs beyond equalised tariffs (as per statewide basis)?
It is also incongruous, to say the least, that the excision from the distribution area was for the stated purpose of conforming with the government’s environmental policies, when its consequences include hundreds of concurrently running engine generators with their noise, fuel and oil spills. For a community with a regulated conservation management responsibility, generators simply do not make the grade.
Whether electricity remains stand-alone, is ultimately reticulated or (preferably) a hybrid of the two, the current system - regulated by the Queensland Government, unfairly imposes the full cost-burden of what is properly a Queensland interest onto a community of some five-hundred or so Queenslanders.