MEDIA RELEASE
03 February 2010
All major parties now ready to solve renewable energy issues
NATIONAL: The Clean Energy Council has warned that specific measures in the Coalition’s new climate
change policy to assist some clean energy technologies will not work unless the national Renewable Energy
Target is fixed.
Clean Energy Council chief executive Matthew Warren welcomed the Coalition’s recognition that the
design of the RET needed reform to drive the development of both large and small scale clean energy
technologies and called for bipartisan cooperation.
“The Coalition introduced the world’s first renewable energy target in 2001 and worked constructively with the
Rudd government last year to expand it to 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity by 2020. However, the low price
of renewable energy certificates has stalled investment in renewable energy projects and the support and ideas
of all major parties are needed to fix the problem,” said Mr Warren.
“One of the fundamental structural problems with the current design of the RET is that a range of support
measures for small scale technologies are unintentionally crowding out investment in industrial scale clean
energy plants.
“We need to find a way of continuing to roll out household scale clean energy technologies like solar panels
and solar hot water while at the same time building multi-million dollar clean energy projects.
“Increasing the existing support for household scale technologies will only exacerbate this problem unless at
the same time their impact on the value of renewable energy certificates is neutralized. The Coalition has
already indicated its support for a measure proposed by The Greens to effectively reduce the impact of rooftop
technologies on the RET,” he said.
The CEC does not support the Coalition proposal to carve out a portion of the renewable energy target for
large-scale clean energy projects or for emerging technologies.
“This type of banding presumes we know what will happen in the future, which is impossible given the range
and scale of the different technologies at our disposal. By trying to pick winners you risk creating another kind
of market distortion that will cause other problems down the line,” Mr Warren said.
“The biggest challenge for the industry right now is investor certainty. Developing and legislating a decisive
and effective solution to the design of the RET will help remove the regulatory uncertainty which is stalling
multi-billion dollar investment in this sector.”
“The risk of dangerous climate change is real and is already being factored into the commercial decisions of
major investors. We continue to encourage climate change policy that incorporates and clarifies this risk so
that we can accelerate the multi-billion dollar challenge of decarbonising energy supply in Australia and
globally.”
For media enquiries please call Mark Bretherton 0413 556 981 or 03 9929 4111
The Clean Energy Council is the peak body for the clean energy sector. It is working with all Australian
governments to drive the development of clean energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydro,
wave, bioenergy and cogeneration.
Suite 201, 18 Kavanagh Street, Southbank 3006, Australia
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info@cleanenergycouncil.org.au
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+61 3 9929 4100
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