Antinuclear

How does Australia’s Renewable Energy Target compare globally, with other countries’ mechanisms to encourage uptake of renewable energy?

The RET has been extremely successful at getting the least-cost renewables into the grid. It’s been copied around the world. It’s something I think Australia as a whole should be really proud of. It’s a really clever way to maximise renewable energy uptake because it is a meritocracy, rather than just having a feed-in tariff for the fixed rate, and there is constant competition to deliver the lowest-cost energies. The UK system was until recently a copy of ours; and a similar system is used by a number of US states…….

GEreports: What makes some countries better at uptake of renewables than others?

PETER COWLING: Typically, without a carbon price renewables are more expensive than fossil fuels, and therefore they need policy support. So then the trick is the certainty and quality of the policy support. In China, there’s really clear policy support, and long-term planning. There’s a really clear feed-in tariff for wind energy in Thailand; a clear feed-in tariff in Vietnam. The Philippines is doing stuff also, because wind energy is probably the next cheapest source of power and one of the few indigenous energy resources they have. That’s another issue that comes in here, energy security – whether there is actually a local alternative. The drivers are different in different countries. In much of ASEAN, any energy is welcome. They’ve got a shortage of electricity. …….

Which countries are making the most of wind?

China. China. China. And China. The Global Wind Energy Council released its numbers just last week, and 2014 was the biggest ever year of wind installed. Half of that was in China. Half of the remainder is in Europe, and half of the remainder of that, roughly, is in the US. The US is having a tougher time of it because its subsidy, the production tax credit (PTC) is running out. But China – 25,000 megawatts of wind installed in a year.

What’s driving China’s installation of wind?

China doesn’t have a perfect environmental record, but they seem to take climate change seriously, and they’re really looking to the future. A huge proportion of their population and of their manufacturing capability is within a metre of current sea levels. All the big deltas of China are just where your Shanghais and all those places are. So they’re phenomenally vulnerable to climate change. They know the world has to go in the direction of renewables, so they’ve strategically placed themselves to be an important part of that…..China will hit its 2020 renewable-energy target [15 per cent of primary energy generation] any day now.

So China is the leader right now, and the rest of Asia is coming in behind it. I’ve just come back from Vietnam, where they’ve got a feed-in tariff for wind, and they’re likely to increase it in the next little while, which will encourage a bunch of wind installations.

How does Australia’s Renewable Energy Target compare globally, with other countries’ mechanisms to encourage uptake of renewable energy?

The RET has been extremely successful at getting the least-cost renewables into the grid. It’s been copied around the world. It’s something I think Australia as a whole should be really proud of. It’s a really clever way to maximise renewable energy uptake because it is a meritocracy, rather than just having a feed-in tariff for the fixed rate, and there is constant competition to deliver the lowest-cost energies. The UK system was until recently a copy of ours; and a similar system is used by a number of US states…….

Ultimately, what you might have to do is what they’ve done in Texas, which is get out there and build a new grid – big backbone powerlines – and then the wind turbines come. The problem in Australia is we look at a big windy area and say, “Oh, look, it hasn’t got any grid.” No individual developer can afford to build grid, so it doesn’t happen.

The government should do that?

They could if they wanted to, or they could step up and put in place the mechanism to encourage someone else to do it. Australia has stepped back from that sort of planning of the grid. The government used to own the grids, and we’re pulling back from that. And that’s fine. It’s not vital that you own it. But you do have to have a plan and send the right signals to investors that you’re serious about the plan for them to be able to risk investing. And that’s a critical question.

Let the private sector do it and I think you’d probably drive your best result, particularly in an economy like Australia. But, you do need the certainty, and the reason things have stalled in Australia is not because it’s too hard or because there’s planning issues or anything else. It’s simply that people cannot be certain at the moment that the RET will still be binding on those liable under it, so people pull back from investing. Too risky……..http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2015/2/27/policy-politics/qa-renewables-climate-australia-and-her-neighbours