Antinuclear

Renewable energy certificate prices to rise, regardless of what Tony Abbott says

Ignore Abbott, renewable energy certificate prices should rise, Business Spectator TRISTAN EDIS  2 JUL   The key barometer of the health of the renewable energy sector, particularly wind power, is the price of large-scale renewable energy certificates or LGCs. These certificates are the currency through which the electricity retailers comply with the large-scale Renewable Energy Target and make up more than half the revenue a wind farm earns (the other component is the underlying price for wholesale electricity).

On the day prior to Clive Palmer’s press conference with Al Gore, LGCs plumbed a low of $21 on the spot market. The market had only ever gone this low once before, in early 2007 when the final RET target was just 9500 gigawatt-hours.

The day after the Palmer-Gore press conference they surged to as high of $32, but then subsided and just yesterday changed hands at $28.70.

This is way too low and does not reflect the economics of renewable energy projects nor the political situation surrounding the Renewable Energy Target. Instead it reflects how the market is punch drunk from one bad piece of news after another enveloping the scheme in a cloud of uncertainty.   ………

Complete repeal of the scheme with existing holders and producers of LGCs left stranded appears highly unlikely.  Even as Joe Hockey was decrying wind farms as “utterly offensive”, he also told Alan Jones that they couldn’t leave those holding contracts high and dry. After all, the people on the hook are power retailers and banks – hardly the enemies of the Coalition. Also, in response to questioning from Climate Spectator, Environment Minister Greg Hunt told an audience of several hundred in May that no matter what comes out of the RET review, the scheme will continue…………https://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/7/2/renewable-energy/ignore-abbott-renewable-energy-certificate-prices-should-rise

July 4, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, energy