Antinuclear

A total of $15 billion in large scale renewable energy projects are reported to be on hold as a result of jitters over RET, with next to no new financing committed during the past 18 months.

With Australia’s clean power sector already so heavily shaken by uncertainty surrounding the future of RET, what will the implications be for the country’s broader energy sector should the Abbott government succeed in reducing it, or bringing about its total demise?

According to a recent study commissioned by environmental groups, a reduction in RET would come as a huge boon for coal and gas suppliers, who could look forward to an additional $10 billion in profits over the next decade and a half.

Modelling by the Jacobs Group for the Climate Institute, the Australian Conservation Foundation and WWF-Australia found that reducing RET’s goal to 20 per cent renewable energy by 2020 as advocated by EnergyAustralia and Origin Energy would provide huge economic benefits to these conventional power providers.

………While the big three power companies would reap huge gains from a watered down RET, Australia’s burgeoning yet still fledgling renewable energy sector would suffer from heavy adverse effects. Jacobs’ modelling also found that Australia would see a decline in new renewable energy investment of $8 billion in current dollar terms by 2040.