Ex-Sydneysider STUART PEARSON looks at Bathurst and its future from the perspective of a new resident.
We are all infuriated with the rising cost of energy. Every year our gas and electricity bills seem to rise, even though we do everything that we can to keep costs down. We change all our lights to LED. We purchase more efficient fridges, air-conditioners, TVs and washing machines. But even though our consumption goes down, the quarterly energy bills still go up!
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As individual residents, we go to the expense of installing solar power on our roofs. Those lucky enough to live on acreage, such as on farms or lifestyle blocks, have more choices available: some put in small wind-powered generators and, in a few cases, mini hydro schemes or biomass generators.
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But those efforts to reduce the cost of energy are from individuals. What about looking at this issue from another perspective? What if an organisation provided cheaper energy to the consumer in the first place? What if that organisation was Bathurst Regional Council?
Here are just a few initial suggestions. Bathurst Regional Council already owns hundreds of hectares of land suitable for a photovoltaic solar farm. It could also invest in wind farms, by owning the towers themselves or purchasing shares in the company that will erect and manage them. Sewage treatment works and council tips could have small-scale biomass generators added to their facilities. Council is currently exploring this last option.
Perhaps most important of all is the fact that Bathurst Regional Council owns the storage and distribution rights of water throughout its council area, which is not the case for every council across the state. In fact, NSW Water (a state-owned corporation) controls over 70 per cent of the state's management of water.
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The ownership of its water resources provides a rare opportunity for council to consider hydro-electricity generation. Not on a massive scale like Snowy Hydro, but on a much smaller scale of up to 10 megawatt of power generation, roughly the equivalent of satisfying the electricity demands of up to 10,000 homes (Bathurst Regional Council area has approximately 17,000 dwellings.)
The model which could be replicated is operating at Jounama Dam (near Talbingo), one of the smaller dams in the Snowy Hydro complex. It is only one-and-a-half times larger than Chifley Dam (43,500ML versus 30,800ML), but produces over 14MW of power through one compact hydro-electric turbine generator (installed in 2010).
But before we all demand council installs a hydroelectricity system at Chifley Dam, I must point out the initial capital cost is not cheap. A 10MW system may cost as much as $2m to set up and a further million or more to connect the generator to the electricity grid.
But a decent hydro system will last 40 years or more and cost about $5000 per MW of electricity to produce - less than half the cost of electricity produced from coal, gas and wind. It is these cost-savings that council could pass on through discounts to residential, commercial and industrial users.
Of course, it won't be as easy as simply offering people discounts. Council will have to first get a licence to become an electricity generator and then sign up customers, just like any other energy company. But once that's done, council can start offering substantial concessions on the cost of electricity to its ratepayers who have signed up to be electricity customers. These discounts may amount to slashing each household's electricity costs by as much as half!
But that's not all. Council could generate more jobs in the region by extending substantial energy discounts to new and existing businesses. Firms in the manufacturing, mining, agriculture, transport and distribution industries (the heaviest users of electricity) would jump at the chance of being based in this area if it meant saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in electricity bills.
