There are few certainties in life other than death and taxes.
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Death might be coming early for the Australian renewable energy industry if the federal government goes ahead and breaks an election promise it made to keep the current renewable energy target.
Investors have spent over $10 billion on big renewable energy projects such as wind and solar farms under this policy, and now they face being ripped off if the government changes the rules halfway through the scheme and pushes through a cut to the target of almost two thirds.
This would mean a massive cut in the number of wind and solar farms in the future and the loss of thousands of jobs in rural and regional Australia.
But it would also crush the viability of those projects already built in good faith, based on a policy that has been supported by all major political parties for the past 13 years.
And as the government’s own analysis showed, any cut to this policy would only drive up power prices for Australians so that a few old coal companies can make more money.
The Coalition supported the current renewable energy target when it was passed into law in 2010.
And it restated its commitment to that same target in July last year in the lead-up to the last election.
Companies don’t expect calm seas and plain sailing, but they do expect a government to keep their word.
- Kane Thornton, Clean Energy Council acting CE