While Business Victoria in its prospectus on the Orbost project has called this biomass energy Green Power it won't be accredited by the National Green Power program. Green Power is a scheme that allows electricity consumers like you and me to pay a bit extra for our power and in return it's guaranteed to come from renewable sources. The money raised is then invested in renewable energy projects. Manager of the Green Power program in Victoria Ian Buckland says electricity made from native forest wood waste definitely won't get a guernsey. Well it comes down to the knob of Green Power and that is that it's a voluntary program.
People voluntarily sign to get renewable energy.
The issue that people generally speaking don't want to see native forest wood waste included as part of our scheme. So we want people to be happy and confident that what they are buying is greener than Green Power if you like. And for that reason as long as there is any doubts over wood waste we wouldn't include it in a Green Power scheme. It comes down to marketability to a certain degree. You put yourself as a customer - if you are voluntarily paying something like three to four dollars a week extra for your power for what you think is renewable green power, beneficial to the environment a lot of people would say well I'd rather not have that included.