The Tasmanian Government has used newspaper advertisements to give householders and business-owners information on reducing power use in the state’s energy crisis.

The advertisements were placed in conjunction with state-owned energy businesses, and say that Tasmania is dealing with an “extreme weather event” smashing dam storages, and “being further impacted by the ongoing Basslink outage”.

The advertisement carries the heading; “What you can do to help?”, arguing that “we can all play our part in this effort”.

“If you want to help conserve water in our dams, you will find some practical energy savings tips and advice at auroraenergy.com.au.”

Basslink says its undersea power cable should be back up and running by mid-June, meaning there will be a few months before Tasmania can import power from interstate.

Tasmania’s Opposition and energy analysts have been calling for an energy saving awareness campaign for weeks, and it appears that the Government has conceded that Tasmanians need more tools to use power sensibly.

Opposition Leader Bryan Green says the Government should be more open with information to help Tasmanians understand the crisis.

“At the touch of a button Matthew Groom, the [Energy] Minister, could provide Tasmanians with a complete update on what our water storage situation is like now and what the risks are on into the future,” he said.

“We think from the point of view of transparency, that information ought to be released to the Tasmanian people.

“We saw the Government pay for an ad in the newspapers that looked like a Hydro ad, somehow trying to get information out when they've been denying people that information for months leading up to this point.

“We need a true picture of the actual situation now. We know that Hydro has the true picture because we've got one from last year that shows quite clearly what the situation was and what the predictions were then.”

Premier Will Hodgman says there has been a lot of scaremongering.

“What we're doing, and that includes through public advertisement, is to give Tasmanians a true picture, snapshot of where we are at. And no-one's denying that these are extreme weather conditions,” the Premier said.

Tasmania's energy crisis apparently came up in talks with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and other state leaders at the COAG meeting last week.

“We've proposed that the state and Commonwealth governments work collaboratively on a feasibility assessment for a second Basslink interconnector,” he said.

“It's a major project, and one that would take many years to deliver, so people shouldn't think that it would be an instant cure to Tasmania's current critical energy circumstances.”