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 2024 Election Priorities – Energy

2024 Election Priorities - Energy

  • Overview

    The energy system in Queensland continues to evolve with the transition to renewable energy, new technologies, electrification, and changing tariff structures. At the same time, the policy landscape at a local, state, and national level continues to change.

    Queensland’s transition to renewable energy and aspirations for net zero should be underpinned by improved energy productivity and an energy system that encourages efficient investment by energy producers, consumers, and networks.

    There are opportunities at the distribution level to achieve increased productivity, affordability and reliability though on-farm efficiency, the adoption of renewables and storage technologies, and the ability for farms to share energy locally through the modernisation of grid networks.

  • QFF’s position

    QFF is calling for a clear plan to ensure the agriculture sector and regional communities have access to secure, optimised, affordable and reliable energy throughout the development of the Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan.

    To support this, QFF advocates for the amendment of regulations to enable farm businesses to better understand their energy options and improve their on-farm efficiency, while exploring opportunities for on-farm renewables and storage, and local microgrids.

    This can only be achieved through comprehensive consultation with the agriculture sector and rural and regional communities.

  • Policy Actions
    • Provide funding and support for smart metering, switchboard upgrades, data use and data security.
    • Remove the solar bonus scheme from tariff charges and fund it through consolidated revenue.
    • Increase the thresholds for large customers from 100 megawatt hours of electricity per annum (MWh/a) to a minimum 160MWh/a. Large customers should be granted access to a consumption-based tariff (similar to the now obsolete inclining block tariff, T43). A consumption- based tariff structure would be more equitable for occasional or seasonal users, when compared to the current suite of demand-based tariffs.
    • Remove the non-reversion policy for large customers to align with small customers and households.
    • Eliminate export limits to the grid, which currently prevent farmers from exporting more renewable energy to the grid.
    • Set the prices for Queensland networks at efficient levels.
    • Provide opportunities for peer-to-peer energy sharing and microgrids to improve the cost effectiveness and utilisation of on-farm energy assets and the Ergon electricity network.
    • Improve the visibility of retail opportunities in regional Queensland through:
      • Maintaining the security of tariff equalisation via the community service obligation (CSO) for regional Queensland customers via the Queensland Competition Authority and regulated networks where clear visibility of payments is legislated through publishing the annual CSO payment figures.
      • Ensuring the CSO is paid to Ergon network and not to Ergon Retail so that other retailers may be able to offer regional services.
    • Provide opportunities for on-farm batteries through a funded subsidy arrangement that enables farm businesses to remain financially viable throughout the reduced payback period.