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The Mercury: Gas bill reaches $40m [28jun06]

SUE NEALES Chief Reporter28jun06
THE Lennon Government has spent $40 million on the construction of a piped natural gas network across Tasmania, but only 723 customers have so far connected to gas.At more than $55,000 a customer, it would seem an expensive exercise.
But Deputy Premier and Resources Minister Bryan Green said yesterday that while he understood the need for scrutiny, he thought thestate should be proud of the gas rollout.
During Estimates Committee hearings yesterday, Mr Green said gas was now available to 19,207 homes in Tasmania, as at the end of May.
Just 582 of those homes, or 3 per cent, have connected to gas and switched appliances over.
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Another 141 businesses have also swapped to gas. Some of the largest ones, such as zinc processor Zinifex, claim the switch to natural gas from electricity to run plant is saving them $500,000 a year.
Mr Green told the parliamentary committee on economic development that the Government would have paid $56 million by the end of June 2007 towards the gas rollout, but ended up with infrastructure worth more than $500 million.
By April next year, Stage 2A of the gas project will have been competed by the Powerco group, with 38,500 homes able to access natural gas.
Mr Green said it would be up to Powerco to decide next year if it wanted to continue extending the gas pipeline to more homes, or if the State 2B expansion of the pipeline would be put up for commercial tender.
Mr Green, who confided he had just switched to a gas hot water system and was loving the long hot showers, said it had always been known that converting customers to gas would be a long-term project.
With the high cost of specialist gas appliances, Mr Green said the changeover from electricity to gas would be gradual, as consumers renovated their homes or chose to replace broken down electricity-based heating, cooking and hot water appliances.
But Greens energy spokesman Nick McKim said the uptake of gas by consumers was too slow and he called on the Government to offer more incentives to eligible customers to make the switch to gas.