Australian government delay on Renewable Energy Target is stifling projects
“This review started on 17 Feb 2014, and one year since that review commenced it really needs to be resolved so this project and other projects can proceed.”
“If you have a review every two years, and then it takes a year to undertake the review, there’s not much gap between one review and the other, so a key change that’s required in this legislation is to remove those two-yearly reviews.”
Wind farm owner calls for resolution one year after start of Renewable Energy Target review http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-18/wind-farm-owner-calls-for-resolution-12-months-on-from-start-of-/6141408 By Kerrin Thomas The new owner of an undeveloped wind farm on the Northern Tablelands says the Government’s review of the Renewable Energy Target has gone on for long enough.
It’s been 12 months since the review started, and under the current legislation the Target is reviewed every two years.
Goldwind Australia last year purchased the White Rock Wind Farm project, between Glen Innes and Inverell, and is working to prepare the Construction Environmental Management Plan, and the next round of community engagement will take place over the coming months.
The wind farm has development approval.
The company’s Managing Director John Titchen said industry uncertainty created by the review could impact the project, and the RET review needs to be finalised. Continue reading
Over last 6 months, wind energy in Australia exceeded hydro generation
Wind energy overtakes hydro for first time in Australia http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/wind-energy-overtakes-hydro-for-first-time-in-australia-17364 [good graph] By Giles Parkinson on 12 February 2015 The Australian wind energy industry achieved a milestone in January, with wind generation exceeding hydro generation for the first time.
According to data compiled by Green Energy Markets, the wind industry boosted production to its highest level in six months -thanks to good wind speeds – while hydro generation fell sharply from previous years, mostly as a result of the carbon price repeal, which has removed much of the incentive for the hydro generators to increase production.
This graph below [in original] illustrates the change. In January, wind energy generated 893,352MWh, while hydro generated 884,730MWh.
The GEM data shows that NEM wind generators achieved more than 36 per cent capacity factor in the month of January, the highest level in six months.Wind farm generators such as Infigen Energy recorded significantly lower generation in the six months to December due to lower wind speeds.
As for hydro, the output from most generators (other than Dartmouth) is well below their average baseline levels at the end of January. Hydro generation from Tasmania in particular, is 38 per cent below levels at the same time a year ago – when hydro plants there generated a lot to take advantage of carbon price.
Total hydro generation over the last three months has been at its lowest level for more than three years. i.e. since before the carbon price was introduced.
However, the overall share of renewable energy in Australia in January fell to 11.7 per cent, compared to its peak of more than 18 per cent in August, September and October in 2013. The figure does not include the nearly 4,000GW of rooftop solar, which accounts for between two and three per cent of overall demand, although much of it is not metered.
Australi’s electricity utilities making it as hard as they can for the renewable energy industry
Utilities hold renewables to ransom over coal pay-outs, REneweconomy By Giles Parkinson on 12 February 2015 Australia’s largest utilities are being accused of holding the renewable energy industry to ransom, by suggesting that they will not sign contracts for new large-scale renewable energy projects unless they are paid to close excess coal capacity. Continue reading
$1 billion solar farm for Toowoomba, Queensland
Toowoomba council approves $1bn solar farm STAFF WRITERS, JOHN CONROY FEBRUARY 12, 2015 http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/toowoomba-council-approves-1bn-solar-farm/story-fnn8dlfs-1227216531992 APPROVAL has been given for the largest solar farm in the country — and possibly the largest proposed in the world — to be built in Queensland.Construction on the 13,000-acre Bulli Creek site near Powerlink’s substation near Millmerran, southwest of Toowoomba, is expected to start next year. It will be on cleared, flat cattle grazing land.
Developer Solar Choice has received approval from Toowoomba Regional Council for a total footprint of up to 2 gigawatts over the next eight years.
The solar farm will be built in stages of multiple 100MW-plus phases, within a total planning approved envelope of 2GW.
“The Bulli Creek project is attracting attention from a range of global investors prepared to take a medium- and long-term view,” Solar Choice said, stating it remained open to a large-scale investor.
“The Bulli Creek Solar Farm is one of a very small and select number of mega-scale solar projects that Solar Choice has strategically located at transmission nodes on broad-acre lands with high solar irradiation.”
Solar Choice said the approval of the potential 2GW farm shows claims the 2020 Renewable Energy Target can’t be met are false.
Managing director Angus Gemmell said if the farm reached its full potential it would take Australia 25 per cent closer to achieving the mandated 41,000GWh target by 2020.
“There are a lot of people saying there’s not enough of a pipeline to reach the target. This project shows it could absolutely be reached,” Mr Gemmell said.
“We need 8GW by 2020 to reach the target and this project could represent one quarter of that.”
Mr Gemmell called on the Federal Government to end the uncertainty around the large-scale RET, saying that ‘big solar’ had strong support among regional communities.
“The (Toowoomba) council decision is an exciting milestone, we’re a third of the way there,” he said.
‘Wind Turbine Sickness’ -National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) to do yet another study!
Research council calls for further study into ‘wind turbine sickness’, sets aside $500,000 in grants, ABC News 12 Feb 15 By online environment editor Sara Phillips The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australia’s premier health research body, has called for Australian scientists to look into so-called “wind turbine sickness”, saying that very few scientifically rigorous studies have been done.
The council has set aside $500,000 in funding grants for the research.
Wind turbine sickness is a list of medical complaints that includes headaches, nausea and anxiety and depression. It is said to be caused by proximity to wind turbines, as well as the sound and inaudible “infrasound” they produce.
After a comprehensive review of publications about wind turbine sickness, in which it amassed more than 4,000 documents from across the world, the council concluded there was “no direct evidence that exposure to wind farm noise affects physical or mental health”.
But Professor Warwick Anderson, chief executive of the NHMRC, said it was “terribly hard to prove a negative”.
Concerns about wind turbine sickness led to the Victorian Government’s introduction of a two-kilometre buffer between new wind turbines and houses in 2011.
The New South Wales Government later followed suit………
The NHRMC released the final version of the report on Wednesday. A draft was released last year and opened for public comment.
The review also considered related reports into noise, such as road traffic or industrial noise.
Based on these studies, the council concluded that noise effects from wind farms are unlikely to be felt or heard more than 1,500 metres away.
“At this distance, wind farm noise is usually below 30-35dBA, below the noise levels of household devices and similar to a quiet residential area,” the report said.
Infrasound was at “levels are similar to those at other locations (for example, at the beach, in the vicinity of a coastal cliff, near a gas-fired power station and in a city centre away from major roads).”…….
The Clean Energy Council welcomed the findings of the report, but questioned the need for further research.
“While the NHMRC has called for more research into potential health impacts within 1,500 metres of a wind farm, the evidence to support this is weak,” policy director Russell Marsh said.
“Australia already has some of the world’s strictest regulations for wind farms, and we know that further scientific research will only reinforce the fact that wind energy is one of the safest and cleanest forms of energy generation in the world.”……http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-11/research-council-calls-for-study-of-wind-turbine-sickness/6086546
Australia’s political deadlock is financially hurting windfarm companies
Some 44 Australian windfarm projects, about half overseas-funded, have been shelved since a new conservative government said it wanted to cut state support for the industry a year ago, with investors and operators saying they are considering either downscaling or leaving the country altogether if it succeeds.
Even Australian windfarm companies such as Infigen and Pacific Hydro have effectively shelved their Australian operations, with Infigen saying it plans to pour all its financial muscle into the more amenable U.S. market.
“It’s a difficult time at the moment, and the policy uncertainty is the main cause of it,” said Shaq Mohajerani, an Australian spokesman for wind farm company Union Fenosa, owned by Spanish energy giant Gas Natural.
“We’re still considering all options on how to proceed. The parent company will provide us with the strategy.”
A Gas Natural spokesperson said the firm had an “attractive backlog” in Australia but “we are waiting for the whole development of the new framework for renewable energy and hope our presence … in the country can be maintained”.
Wind power in Australia is not the only renewable energy sector to be affected by uncertainty over government subsidies or actual cuts. ……
Windfarms are Australia’s No. 2 renewable energy source, behind hydropower but ahead of solar, providing a quarter of the country’s clean energy and 4 percent of its total energy demand.
But while households can collect rebates for installing their own rooftop solar panels, windfarms rely on “certificates”, or tradeable securities handed out by the government, to offset costs.
That support hit a roadblock a year ago when new conservative prime minister Tony Abbott ordered a review of the country’s target for clean energy use by 2020, which ultimately recommended slashing it by a third, in line with falling overall energy demand. A lower target would mean a lower certificate price……..
A spokeswoman for U.S.-owned GE Australia & New Zealand, which has stakes in several renewable energy projects, said further investment “will only occur once investor confidence in the policy environment is restored. For this to happen, bipartisan support regarding the future of the renewable energy target is essential.”
The Australian arm of Spanish infrastructure group Acciona, the world’s largest renewable energy firm, has frozen about A$750 million of windfarm projects because of the stalemate, said local managing director Andrew Thomson.
“When you’re a subsidiary (of a global business), you’re competing for capital, you’re competing for your budget allocation next year,” he said.
“If the parent company can’t see that there’s a stable environment it becomes really difficult to get traction. For us at the moment it’s a really difficult sell.”
If the renewable energy target is cut, “it’s the type of jolt to industry that basically would create such an upheaval that you would have a mass exodus”, said Alex Hewitt, managing director of Bulgarian-Polish-U.S.-backed windfarm operator CWP Renewables, which has A$1.5 billion of projects on ice.
“I can’t say whether we’d completely exit the country, but you would be looking at such a level of reduction in the level of investment into people in the company that it would be very significant,” Hewitt said. http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/02/08/australian-windfarms-face-13-billion-wipe-out-political-impasse
South Australia held to ransom with privatised electricity distribution
Dennis Matthews , 7 February, 2015 South Australia’s electricity consumers have been held to ransom ever since the Olsen Government privatised the monopoly electricity distribution arm of ETSA and Rob Lucas gave the new owners a guaranteed return on investment. Chief beneficiary of this folly is a billionaire Chinese businessman (The Advertiser, 2/2/15) who must be wishing the whole of Australia was as naive.
It’s time to do a Playford and nationalise monopoly essential services that are holding SA to ransom. Sure, the SA Government might try to do the same as a private owner but there is a big difference. The SA Government is answerable to the consumer every four years and, as shown by the defeat of the Olsen Government and two successive Queensland governments, the public will not stand for such ideologically-driven nonsense.
The sooner we buy back the monopoly electricity distribution system the sooner confidence will return to both public and private consumers.
Residential solar PV is on a good wicket, but in Australia large scale renewables need the RET
How power companies, not the carbon tax, kept your electricity prices high
The tax arrangements keeping electricity prices high. This story starts with a tax and the fact that power companies have been allowed to invoice you for it, even though they do not necessarily pay it. It is a story, largely untold, about why power prices are still high despite the axing of the carbon tax – certainly much higher than they were five years ago.
By the end of 2015, Broken Hill’s huge solar energy plant will be completed
Broken Hill solar plant on track to complete at end of 2015, change of community engagement approach ABC News By Gavin Coote The company developing the $200 million Broken Hill solar plant says the project is on track to be complete at the end of this year.
The 140 hectare development will be the second largest in Australia, trailing the sister project in Nyngan, and began construction last October.
AGL project manager Adam Mackett said it was set to employ 150 people in the peak phase of construction, and currently 60 per cent of the employees were local……http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-03/broken-hill-solar-plant-on-track-for-completion-by-end-of-2015/6064714
South Australia and ACT are ahead in renewable energy
Hitting the Renewable Energy Target, Robin Mellon Chief Operating Officer, Green Building Council of Australia Souceable, 3 Feb 15 “……..The Climate Council’s recent report, The Australian Renewable Energy Race, finds that those states with a favourable policy environment and with established renewable energy targets winning the renewables race. South Australia, having already met its 2020 renewable energy target of 33 per cent, now sources more than a third of electricity from renewable sources and a quarter of homes have solar PV panels. South Australia has installed more large-scale renewable capacity since 2001 than any other state, and has now set a 50 per cent target.
The report finds the ACT is also “punching above its weight” with a target of 90 per cent renewable energy by 2020, and a feed-in tariff scheme attracting investment in large-scale project Continue reading
Massive Upper Hunter wind and solar farm underway, despite Abbott govt
Upper Hunter wind and solar farm operator undeterred by RET changes http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-31/upper-hunter-wind-and-solar-farm-operator-undeterred-by-ret-cha/6059566 The company behind a massive Upper Hunter wind and solar farm has not been deterred by renewable energy target changes, with work on its project now underway.
Pamada plans to have 34 wind turbines, along with its solar plant and associated substations, at its Kyoto energy Park near Scone. Access roads have been constructed, ahead of work starting on a site compound.
Reductions in the Renewable Energy Target (RET) have hampered the project, but project director Mark Sydney said he is determined to push ahead. “We’ve got a lot of support in the community, for a whole lot of reasons,” he said. “Yes we have started work.
“We have access happening, but we will then continue in a measured way to do everything we can until hopefully government policy changes a little bit better for investor outlook in renewables.”
Mr Sydney said his company is undeterred by the RET changes, mindful of the benefits the project could have. “With the new technology, if you just looked at the residences and businesses aside, probably the Upper Hunter, the Hunter and half of Newcastle would come from just the wind turbines themselves,” he said. “Most of the Hunter could easily be served by just the wind farm.”
Victorian government seeking federal climate money for energy efficiency programs
Schools and hospitals could win from climate-fund bid, The Age February 1, 2015 Jason Dowling and Tom Arup School buildings and hospitals could be upgraded to save power and reduce emissions under a potential bid from Victoria for a slice of the Abbott government’s multibillion-dollar climate-change fund.Victorian school buildings and hospitals could be upgraded to save power and reduce greenhouse gas emissions under a state government bid for a slice of the Abbott government’s multibillion-dollar climate-change fund.
Environment Minister Lisa Neville met her federal counterpart Greg Hunt to discuss how Victoria could access the $2.55 billion emissions reduction fund – the central pillar of the Coalition’s “direct action” policy.
She said while it had previously been unclear how states could win federal funding to reduce emissions, the conversation with Mr Hunt had been encouraging that it would be possible to get support to introduce energy efficiency measures across a series of schools and hospitals.
“He was saying we could do that, so hopefully that’s right,” she said.
Under the federal policy, companies and governments can bid for funding to cut emissions. Funding will go to projects that show through an auction process that they can cut emissions at lowest cost.
On other climate change policies, Ms Neville told Fairfax Media the Andrews government would review the state Climate Change Act and would look at reintroducing a state emissions reduction target. The former Labor Brumby government introduced a target of a 20 per cent emissions cut by 2020, but it was scrapped by the Coalition………
Ms Neville said South Australia was also reviewing its climate change laws and she hoped the two states could work together to become an investment target for renewable energy. A joint emissions reduction target with South Australia was not out of the question.
Environment Victoria chief executive Mark Wakeham said he would also like to see the state government explore ways to use the federal emissions reduction fund to shut some of the state’s high-emissions brown coal power generation.
On a new emissions reduction state target, Mr Wakeham called for a body such as the federal Climate Change Authority to be given the job of advising Victoria on targets.
He said Labor’s previous state target should be the starting point, and that targets should be short term to remain front of mind for politicians. ……..http://www.theage.com.au/environment/schools-and-hospitals-could-win-from-climatefund-bid-20150131-13277i.html
Solar power systems in Australia save money for households, businesses, schools and community organisations
Solar power systems can contribute significantly to reducing energy costs for a household, business, school or community organisation. And with consistent rising electricity prices, the benefits of solar will only continue to accumulate over the 25 year life of an installed system. “The benefits of solar can be multiplied when used in conjunction with other energy-saving measures
Instead of making it difficult, the Government should be making it easier for educational institutions, religious organisations and small businesses to cut their power bills,”
Why Supporting Renewable Energy in Australia Will Save Both Money and the Environment: Geelong Solar Power Company Reveals http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=195168#.VMvuodKUcnk WEBWIRE – Tuesday, January 27, 2015
VICTORIA, Australia January 2015 – When Tony Abbot took his seat as Australian Prime Minister in September 2013, the Liberal Party took a conscious step away from prioritising climate change on the political agenda and backing the Renewable Energy Target scheme (RET scheme). Since then, it has become increasingly clear that the coalition is hesitant to support environmental progression in commercial industries, evidenced by the most recent proposal to cut the solar rebate to small and medium sized businesses, including schools and churches. Continue reading
Over 230 excellent business projects funded by Australian Renewable Energy Agency
Australian Renewable Energy Agency Funding More Than 230 Projects http://cleantechnica.com/2015/01/30/australian-renewable-energy-agency-funding-230-projects/ January 30th, 2015 by Joshua S Hill
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency has invested $1 billion into more than 230 projects, fellowships, and scholarships throughout the country “that are paving the way for a more diverse energy future for Australia.”
In a press release on its website, the government agency publicized their efforts, despite the obvious roadblocks currently in place in Australian energy politics.
The news comes only a few days after the country’s Bureau of Meteorology and science agency, CSIRO, released a report which claimed Australia will be subject to massive current and future climate impacts.
According to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), it has invested $1 billion in a number of projects, of which 31 are already complete, and “with many more scheduled to reach key milestones and/or completion in 2015.”
“Each of these projects is producing valuable knowledge and outcomes that are being shared with the energy industry to help overcome challenges and advance renewable energy in Australia,” according to its site. Continue reading
1 This month
Read the Public Inquiry Report, the Commissioners’ report, Surrendering Australia: The AUKUS Deception is available to download for free at aukuspublicinquiry.com. Or just watch the replay of the National Press Club Luncheon.
4 November – Will AUKUS keep us safe – at what cost?
the Commissioners of the AUKUS Public Inquiry present their findings at the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra. iview.abc.net.au/show/national-press-club-address
Submissions to the federal government’s new draft framework close on the 13th November 2026.
Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
