CANBERRA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Energy Minister Angus Taylor has said a plan to expand the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme is a "fundamental part of our future energy needs."
In a speech on Wednesday Taylor said that proposed expansion of the scheme would benefit "many future generations."
The Snowy Mountains scheme is a series of 16 dams, seven power stations, 225 km of tunnels and one pumping station in southeast Australia. It has a power generation capacity of 4,100 megawatts (MW) and is the largest engineering project in Australian history.
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2017 announced a 2-billion-Australian dollar (1.4 billion U.S. dollars) plan to expand its capacity by 2,000 MW, a plan that was endorsed by Taylor on Wednesday before the Snowy Hydro Limited board votes on it in December.
Taylor said "the Snowy region will play an even more important part in supporting our nation in the future" because the scheme "has unrivaled capacity to store power when it is not needed, and generate it when it is needed."
However, the minister acknowledged that "the business case must stack up" before the board could approve the expansion, which would add enough capacity to power a further 500,000 homes.
