DEAR News Of The Area,
AUSTRALIA has long supplied energy and manufactured products to the world.
We can protect this tradition by updating.
Local companies have already moved into cleaner production and we already supply more than 40% of our National Electricity Market with clean energy.
At independent industry think tank Beyond Zero Emissions, we created an assessment to measure progress to clean exports in our industrial regions.
Our recent assessment of the Hunter shows local industry wants to move to clean production, but delivering that clean energy to industry is lagging on 17 of 19 indicators.
Local industry needs the Hunter Transmission Project completed in 2028 to deliver that clean energy and some 74 percent of the renewable energy capacity pipeline is yet to receive planning approval which typically takes between five and eight years.
Australia’s only remaining steel bar processor, Milltech Martin Bright, saved nearly $5 million from 2014 to 2024 whilst saving 44,000 tonnes of emissions through a large solar installation, upgrading air compressors and the purchase of a power analyser, among other things.
Our regions can be clean manufacturing powerhouses.
But we need to coordinate and prepare regionally and nationally, now.
Regards,
Heidi LEE,
CEO, Beyond Zero Emissions.
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