Antinuclear

Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) a winning strategy for superannuation investment

After decades of failed renewable energy support programs, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) will prudently apply public funds to support private investors in bringing forward a more diverse, cheaper, cleaner energy supply. This is the winning strategy for mums and dads with their money in super and the investors who oversee it. The CEFC will build the foundations of the future our nation is demanding.

We can all invest in clean energy, SMH, Simon O’Connor May 24, 2012 “…….With the CEFC, the last pillar of the Clean Energy Future package is soon to become law. This makes it a good time to look at why the rest of the world is embracing this method of accelerating renewable energy investment, in a time of intense global spending pressures. Renewables are one of the few global industries that registered continued growth throughout the GFC. Clean energy investment is up 500 per cent since 2004.

Couple this with longer-term energy forecasts and most governments can see the importance of getting behind clean energy. Investing now in diverse sources is critical for the holy trinity of power: energy security, insurance against price shocks and lower energy prices.

Despite our coal and gas resources, Australia is in no way immune to potential price shocks. Most energy analysts believe it is only a matter of time before our cheap fossil fuels inflate to international prices, all because of that very successful LNG and coal export
program we’ve got going.
Making clean energy cheaper sooner is far from pie in the sky.
Credible predictions have solar power reaching parity pricing with
fossil fuels within the next decade. These projections are coming from
BP, the McKinsey global consulting firm and even the Chinese
government. Solar costs dropped by 50 per cent in 2011 alone.
But that’s only one reason why CEFC-style investment banks are being
established worldwide. Another reason is the investment case…..

when the global asset consultant Mercer investigated the overexposure
of pension funds to climate risk, it came to the conclusion that 40
per cent of portfolios should be reallocated to climate-sensitive
assets – such as clean energy.
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation, like its global cousins,
responds to these challenges by broadening the energy infrastructure
assets accessible to institutional investors. The corporation will
help package these clean energy assets into something that a super
fund, or other large investors, can finally take a stake in.
That could mean aggregating a group of otherwise too-small clean
energy projects.
It could mean owning a share of the risk on a large-scale solar
thermal project that banks would otherwise not touch.
Indeed, despite the challenges, super funds in Australia have shown a
desire for exposure to clean energy assets. Industry Funds Management
owns Pacific Hydro on behalf of the industry super funds, VicSuper
seeded the Cleantech Australia Fund and REST super is a cornerstone
investor in a major wind farm development in Western Australia.
Far better than a “direct action” policy that would require
bureaucrats to pick winners, the CEFC is a commercially driven
co-investment vehicle, run by independent, financially experienced
staff, chaired at this point by the impeccably credentialled Jillian
Broadbent.
After decades of failed renewable energy support programs, the CEFC will prudently apply public funds to support private investors in bringing forward a more diverse, cheaper, cleaner energy supply. This is the winning strategy for mums and dads with their money in super and the investors who oversee it. The CEFC will build the foundations of the future our nation is demanding.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/we-can-all-invest-in-clean-energy-20120523-1z4os.html#ixzz1vp5SHQto

May 24, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, business, energy