Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The proposed bill aims to require energy operators to obtain rehabilitation bonds for wind and solar projects, similar to existing requirements in the mining sector.

Regional communities are bearing the brunt of the renewable energy rollout, and certainty is needed for the end-of-life rehabilitation of onshore wind and solar farms.

While there are differences in the specific rehabilitation processes for wind and solar projects, the proposed legislation aims to ensure responsible decommissioning and site restoration for both types of renewable energy infrastructure. This approach aligns with existing practices in the mining industry and may help address community concerns about the long-term impacts of these projects on the Australian landscape.

The measure is designed to ensure responsible decommissioning and rehabilitation of renewable energy sites, addressing community concerns and strengthening social licence for these projects.

The bill will help improve the quality of project proponents in the renewable energy sector by setting higher standards for the commitment to rehabilitation.

Whilst some may argue that this could dampen investment in renewable energy, it aligns with existing practices in the mining industry and may ultimately strengthen progress towards renewable energy goals by addressing the very real social licence concerns that are out there across regional Australia, including in electorates like mine.

Large scale onshore wind and solar

Australia needs to add at least six gigawatts of utility-scale generation annually if it's going to meet the federal government's target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030.

That requires building about 40 wind turbines every month and 22,000 solar panels every day.

As of the end of Q3 2024, 45.6 gigawatts of new capacity was progressing through the connection process from application to commissioning—a 36 per cent increase compared to at the end of Q3 2023.

Rehabilitation task and recycling challenges

The rehabilitation task for renewable energy projects over the coming decades is significant, considering that there's rapid growth in the sector.

Wind turbines typically have a lifespan of 20 to 25 years, while solar panels can last 25 to 30 years.

Wind turbine blades are particularly difficult to recycle due to their composite materials. Beneath the towers are underground cables, hard standing areas and mass gravity concrete footing as well as kilometres of formed access tracks.

Solar panels contain valuable materials like silicon, silver and copper, but also hazardous substances that require careful handling.

Current recycling capabilities in Australia are limited, with most end-of-life solar panels being sent to landfill.

Research is ongoing to improve recycling technologies and develop more sustainable materials for renewable energy infrastructure and improvements in recycling.

State and territory policies on decommissioning and rehabilitation

There are some state and territory policies on decommissioning and rehabilitation.

In Victoria, the government requires wind farm operators to submit decommissioning and rehabilitation plans as part of the permits.

In South Australia, the state's Hydrogen and Renewable Energy Act includes licensing, reporting and provisions for decommissioning and site rehabilitation.

New South Wales has the large-scale solar energy guidelines.

In Queensland the former Labor government released a draft renewables regulatory framework.

What we're worried about is that companies will set up renewable energy projects without the proper funds held in trust or in a bond to decommission them. If those companies, for example, go bankrupt or don't exist or sell, then, at the end of life, those renewable energy projects could just be sitting there—a scar on the landscape—and causing all sorts of problems because there is no decommissioning facility available.

Minerals Council of Australia advice on rehabilitation bonds

The Minerals Council of Australia has given some advice on rehabilitation bonds in their industry.

Companies are required to lodge cash bonds, unconditional financial institution guarantees on non-refundable contributions to pooled funds.

This does not remove the obligation for companies to rehabilitate lands. Bonds and are used only in the unlikely event that those obligations cannot be met.

Companies are required to provide detailed operational plans that include careful estimates of rehabilitation costs.

They're regularly reviewed in line with the changes in the mine plan, new information and improved rehabilitation techniques.

Eminently, sensible legislation exists within the mining sector. If someone wants to set up a mine, that's good, but they need to make sure that they have the resources to decommission that mine at the end of its life. We want to transfer that principle to renewable energy projects for the benefit of the Australian landscape, the environment and the people who live in regional Australia.

Other countries with more mature renewable s industries are tackling these end-of-life issues.

Denmark has established the regulations requiring wind farm operators to decommission turbines and restore sites at the end of their operational life, and the Danish Energy Agency oversees decommissioning processes and ensures compliance.

In France, they require financial guarantees before commissioning. The amount set aside must be updated every five years to ensure it covers the cost of decommissioning and rehabilitation in the event the operator defaults.

The United States have various regulations, but, for example, in California, solar project developments must submit a decommissioning plan and financial assurances as part of getting a permit.

In the United Kingdom, there are legal frameworks governing the decommissioning of onshore wind and solar projects. They rely heavily on planning conditions set by local authorities. The financial security mechanisms are less stringent compared to those of offshore projects, with no mandatory requirement to set aside funds specifically for decommissioning, and we want to avoid that situation here in Australia.

There's a rapid renewable energy rollout in parts of regional Australia. It affects the people who live out there, and a lot of the proponents of renewable energy in this place seem to think that those people out there don't really matter or care about what's happening to their landscape and their communities. But I think we should give more focus to those people whom these renewable energy projects affect. This bill goes towards that by ensuring that people who are setting up these renewable energy projects put in trusts, bonds or other financial mechanisms the funds required to decommission at the end of life.

Colin Boyce (Flynn, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very happy to second the motion put forward by the member for Nicholls with respect to the Requiring Energy Infrastructure Providers to Obtain Rehabilitation Bonds Bill 2024 and how it will make provisions for the rehabilitation, the decommissioning and the disposal of renewable energy projects Australia-wide. There are some big questions over the future of renewable energy: who is going to rehabilitate the land, who is going to dispose of the materials and who is going to make sure that those moneys are available at some point in time in the future? The big question is: what will it all cost? I would suggest that it will be an enormous amount of money.

I will use some figures that we know of in the construction of these projects as an example. Lotus Creek Wind Farm up in central Queensland is a proposed wind turbine farm. It is a $1.3 billion project. It is 46 turbines; 46 into $1.3 billion is approximately $28 million per turbine. These companies are fragmenting the last big stands of remnant vegetation up and down the east coast of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland. So the questions are: what will it cost to dispose of that, to rehabilitate it and to re-establish that? I would suggest that it will amount to billions, and there is absolutely no guarantee that the companies that are putting forward these projects will even exist in 20 to 25 years time.

This bill goes some way to addressing those issues. We know that there are some 21,000 wind turbine projects that are proposed and are under some form of scrutiny from both state and federal governments as we speak. If you take a nominal figure, given the $1.3 billion Lotus Creek project in Queensland, and just use a nominal figure of $20 million per turbine, we're talking in the vicinity of half a trillion dollars to establish wind turbines alone. So the big question is: what will it take to pull them all down, dispose of them and rehabilitate the land? The numbers are enormous. In Queensland, we know that all of these projects, wind and solar and so forth, are attached to the land tenure of the people that control the land. So the question again is: will these people that have accepted responsibility and accepted payment for these things be held to account?

These are questions that have yet to be reasonably answered. This bill proposed by the member for Nicholls goes some way to addressing those issues into the future, and I fully support the bill.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allocated for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.