As Australia’s coal industry winds down, wind energy surges ahead
Wind energy surges to record share as coal ebbs May 5, 2014 Peter Hannam Environment Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald Wind energy’s share of Australia’s main electricity market jumped to a record last month, helping to curb emissions from the power sector even as hydro output shrank, according to energy consultancy Pitt & Sherry.
Wind farms, derided last week by Treasurer Joe Hockey as “utterly offensive” blights on the landscape, increased their share of the market to a record 4.6 per cent, up one percentage point from a year earlier, the company said in its monthly CEDEX report.
With major black-coal fired plants such as Liddell and Bayswater in NSW continuing to operate well short of capacity, greenhouse gas emissions from the National Electricity Market for the month were 5.8 million tonnes lower than a year earlier, or down 3.5 per cent.
Coal’s share of the market remained near its record low of 73.8 per cent.
However, the shift away from coal may soon be reversed as politics and markets combine to alter the economics of energy.
The Abbott government remains steadfast in its plans to remove the carbon tax – now at $24.15 a tonne – which has helped make black coal-fired plants, in particular, relatively expensive.
Senior members, including Prime Minister Tony Abbott, have also signalled their intent to weaken the Renewable Energy Target, a move likely to freeze new investments in wind farms………
Broken promise in the offing?
Mark Butler, the opposition’s climate change spokesman, said the Abbott government was “crab-walking” away from its pre-election promise to leave the Renewable Energy Target unchanged at 41,000 gigawatt-hours by 2020.
The government has set up a review of the target, led by climate change sceptic Dick Warburton, with many in the clean energy industry fearing the panel will recommend a delay and or weakening of the goals.
“This is a just another broken promise driven by ideology in face of the clear evidence that this has been a major policy success,” Mr Butler said.
While falling energy demand has contributed to falling emissions, “the big driver” for the industry has been the rise of renewables, he said.
Two-thirds of the emissions drop has been “because renewable energy increased its market share by 25 per cent in the first 12 months” of the carbon tax’s start, he said. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/wind-energy-surges-to-record-share-as-coal-ebbs-20140505-zr4rg.html#ixzz30zIKSJIQ
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