Under the Hydrogen and Renewable Energy Act 2023 (the Act), a licensee is responsible for decommissioning infrastructure operated under the licence and rehabilitate land disturbed by authorised operations.
The Department for Energy and Mining (DEM) is responsible for ensuring financial liabilities from unrehabilitated hydrogen and renewable energy projects authorised under the Act do not become the responsibility of the people of South Australia. The Act provides a mechanism to ensure sufficient funds are set aside to meet present and future obligations relating to the rehabilitation of an area disturbed by requiring licensees to enter into a bond.
Consistent with section 43 of the Act, the Minister may require a licensee to give financial security on such sum and on such terms and conditions for the satisfaction of the bond. In determining the level of financial security required to be provided, a risk-based approach will be applied using the department’s financial security requirement matrix.
The Environment Liability Management Policy will be effective from 1 August 2026.
Rehabilitation liability estimate calculator
A spreadsheet calculator is available for licensees to estimate the rehabilitation liability for hydrogen and renewable energy projects. DEM will review the estimate prior to setting the final bond.
- The calculator consists of a series of rehabilitation components with a number of activities associated with each component.
- Not all components are used for every operation. Each activity has a unit cost with the user to insert the number of units for that activity.
- There is sufficient flexibility to allow users to introduce alternative activities and cost rates that may be applicable to their operation.
- Verification is required if alternative unit cost rates are proposed.
HRE rehabilitation liability estimate calculator (XLSX, 573.1 KB)
