Antinuclear

Wind Energy in Australia threatened if Coalition wins September election

Vestas says lack of certainty will kill wind energy in Australia REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson on 9 April 2013 The CEO of Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s leading wind turbine manufacturer, has reiterated his call for certainty over the country’s renewable energy policies, saying that lingering doubts would “kill” a capital intensive industry such as wind energy.

“I know you guys have an election in September.  We will need to see what happens after the election…….

Ditlev Engel, who is in Australia for the formal opening this week of Australia’s largest wind farm, the 420MW Macarthur project in south-west Victoria, which boasts 140 Vestas wind turbines, said Australia currently has bipartisan support for the renewable energy target, but he could not look into a “crystal ball” to see what would happen post a September election.

The renewable energy industry in Australia is becoming increasingly nervous about what a conservative government would mean for the future of large scale renewable energy developments in Australia.

The Coalition has recently branded renewables as “expensive”, and underlined its support for another review of the RET in 2014 and indicated its sympathies for the argument that Australia does not need new capacity because of lower than expected demand. In the meantime, utilities have virtually shut up shop on new contracts for wind farms, developers say.

Engel is acutely aware of how a change of policies can effect business. One of his first jobs at Vestas in 2005 was to fly to Australia to open a blade factory – one of two manufacturing plants it operated in Australia. Not long afterwards, after the then Coalition government rejected an independent recommendation to extend the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target, Engel flew back out to Australia as the CEO to close them down.

“We had to close both of them – because of the lack of certainty,” he told RenewEconomy in an interview on Tuesday. And he said there was now little chance of any new local manufacturing for blades and nacelles being created in Australia, even if the country had great prospects for a flourishing wind industry and for local jobs. “Australia has something that other countries really envy – it’s got a lot of wind and it has got a lot of space. That’s not a bad place to start,” he told RenewEconomy in an interview on Tuesday.

“I know you guys have an election in September.  We will need to see what happens after the election…….

he remained confident that wind energy would continue to expand. “The technology does work and it works very well,” he said.

Energy storage would, however, be important for future of wind. ”If someone is going to do that that will be a game changer for wind industry.

“The phone I am using now, is so much different to what it was 10 years ago. I don’t think we can say what it will be like in 10 years, but there is a lot of investment in supporting technologies and if someone can crack the code of the storage – that will be the ipad of the wind industry.” http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/vestas-says-lack-of-certainty-will-kill-wind-energy-in-australia-10835

April 13, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News