Australian Government report calls for 50% from renewables by 2050

CANBERRA, Australia, June 15, 2005 (Refocus Weekly)

Australia should re-consider an increase of renewable energies to 50% by 2050, recommends the national Senate.

The federal government should develop a detailed long-term plan for energy that includes targets to reduce GHG emissions by at least 60% by 2050, concludes the environment references committee. It should also increase the mandatory renewable energy targets to at least 5% by 2010, rising to 10% by 2020, and 50% by 2050.

If the government is not prepared to re-examine the projected costs of increasing the MRET, it should provide infrastructure grants for renewable energy developments, recommends the report, ‘Lurching forward, looking back: Budgetary & environmental implications of the Government’s Energy White Paper.’

The recommendations follow a study of the white paper that was passed last June, which promised a ten-year plan with $55 million to make renewable energy technologies cost-efficient and $30 million for solar cities trials. Overall, the Australian government has promised $200 million in funding which should create $616 million in investment for new technologies to reduce emissions.

The committee recommends that geosequestration be recognized as “one of many options” for reducing CO2 emissions, and that a greater share of funding be made available to technologies which can provide emission reductions in the short term. It wants incentives to encourage the uptake of current energy efficiencies, and that funding continue for the Photovoltaic Rebate Programme, with targets for the installation of stand- alone and grid-connected PV energy systems.

Australians spend $50 billion on energy each year, and energy resources provide $24 billion a year in export income. The energy white paper said the government has put in place a range of policies to attract investment in the development of energy resources and deliver a prosperous economy while protecting the environment and playing an active role in global efforts to reduce GHG emissions.

The paper includes measures to support renewable energy, promote low emissions technology, increase energy efficiency, enhance investment in resource development and promote energy market reform, including the provision of $75 million for Solar Cities trials in urban areas to “demonstrate a new energy scenario, bringing together the benefits of solar energy, energy efficiency and vibrant energy markets” and another $134 million to remove impediments to the commercial development of renewable technologies.

Hot dry rock geothermal technology and wave power were identified as clear possibilities, and “potentially some other renewable sources, if they can deal with their intermittency issues and can deal with the need to have a large-scale penetration, may be possibilities,” it adds. The paper acknowledges that solar power is a zero emissions energy source in which Australia has developed leading-edge technologies and the government states that current electricity market arrangements “do not appropriately reward these benefits of solar technologies” even though it considers that solar technologies are widely used in Australia and receive significant government support.

The Mandatory Renewable Energy Target will deliver 6.5 Mt of abatement in 2010 and drive $2 billion in investment in new renewable energy generation, the report notes. Government will continue to support MRET to 2020, but the target will be neither extended nor increased, and this continued support of the current MRET will lead to an estimated increase in Australian green power output of 60% until 2010, the report notes.

An independent report in 2003, the Tambling Report, recommended extending MRET from 9,500 GWh by 2010 to 20,000 GWh by 2020 and beyond, to provide subsidized pathways for renewable energy. That recommendation was rejected on the basis that an expansion would impose “significant economic costs through higher electricity prices” and would double the projected cumulative economic cost of MRET to $5 billion by 2020 in net present value terms.

The white paper “fails to account for the true costs of conventional energy generation,” the Senate notes. An additional $100 million is proposed to support development of smalr-scale renewable technologies and the $75 million for Solar Cities trials “could be better used instead to continue funding the existing Photovoltaic Rebate Program” that has proved very successful by rebating 5,300 PV systems providing 6 MW of total capacity from 2001 to 2004 with a budget of $29 million.

“As the Committee is aware, the way to develop solar energy and reduce unit costs is to create large-scale deployment, and notes the successes in many developed countries with wind and solar technologies because it is recognized that, with significant deployment, you will get cost reductions,” it concludes. “The Committee sees that MRET is another vital factor in creating GHG abatement” and it disagrees with the government claim that implementing an emissions trading scheme or expanding MRET would lead to higher costs, adding that “in fact, it is more likely that the Energy White Paper will lead to high costs associated with GHG emissions due to its failure to drive technological change in the energy sector cost effectively.”
The Senate report agrees that the white paper “contains no effective plan to cut greenhouse pollution, no long term target to boost renewable energy and no long term plan to control the spiralling pollution from the energy and transport sectors.” It calls on government “to do more to guarantee future Australian and global standards of living and security by revisiting its energy policy with a view to ensuring Australia plays a leading role in delivering a clean energy future.”

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