Design Industrial Northwest Org
Design, Events - Nov 20, 2009 12:36 - 0 Comments
IDSA Northwest Winter Social
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- “Production” - A WWU product themed photography exhibit 12.04.09
- JOIN Design Seattle has two design events in November that you shouldn’t miss!!
- Join IDSA NW and Materials & Processes Section for a Webinar
- Stratos open house tonight
- UW Studio 232 - Pumpkin Carving Party!
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Australia is facing a renewable energy investment "strike", with projects worth billions of dollars on hold and workers being sacked because of a flaw in the policy that was supposed to drive the switch to large-scale clean power.
The renewable energy target was originally set by the Howard government as the mechanism to encourage investment in the renewables sector in the lead-up to an emissions trading scheme.
The program hit a roadblock after changes were made to it by the Rudd government to solve a blow-out in the cost of its $8000 solar rebate program.
The RET seeks to ensure that 20 per cent of Australia's energy consumption by 2020 is derived from renewable sources. Generators of green energy earn renewable energy certificates, which they can sell to big energy consumers that are required to source 20 per cent of power from renewables.
When the Rudd government closed its $8000 solar rebate scheme, it shifted rooftop solar domestic hot water heaters into the RET along with a special deal for household solar rooftop panels to make the incentive attractive to domestic consumers.
That left the scheme with five times as many renewable energy certificates as it was designed to have, and drove down the value of the renewable certificates big energy users are required to buy to meet their renewables target.
The renewable energy certificates are trading at just over $30 instead of the $50 or more expected in most business plans.
The Clean Energy Council says the result is a renewable energy market flooded with cheap certificates, which has completely undermined the business case for more expensive larger scale projects.
"Without changes there will be no investment at all on an industrial scale in renewable energy for up to seven years," said Clean Energy Council chief executive Matthew Warren.
The government is holding urgent talks with industry about problems with the RET design, as it faces the defeat of its emissions trading scheme and battles serious problems in its insulation rollout and its green loans program.
Steve Symons, managing director of Roaring 40s, says his planned $400 million wind farm at Musselroe Bay in northern Tasmania is in doubt because of the bungle. "We need the government to fix this problem," he said.
"We have spent $20m and we have started pre-construction work but with the price of renewable energy certificates so low, there is a strong risk it won't go ahead."
The $1.5 billion Silverton wind farm northwest of Broken Hill is also in jeopardy.
Proponents Epuron and Macquarie Capital Wind have planning approval for the first stage but Epuron executive director Martin Poole said "the problem with the price of RECs means investment in this sector has slowed to the point where there really hasn't been any lately"
