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MONDAY 25 FEBRUARY, 2008 | |

Queensland funds business and research energy grants

The Queensland Government is providing $100 million towards two clean energy packages. Premier Anna Bligh, Energy Minister Geoff Wilson and Climate Minister Andrew McNamara have urged business and researchers to carefully examine the $50 million Smart Energy Savings Fund and the $50 million Renewable Energy Fund. “We need to use less energy and we need to find more sources of energy,” says Bligh.

“These funds will encourage both,” she says. “We’re putting our money on the table addressing the real threat to our environment. Queensland’s leading the way we want businesses and researchers to climb on board,” adds Bligh. The State Government has set a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 60 per cent below Queensland’s 2000 levels by 2050.

According to Bligh, Queensland’s efforts must focus on two fronts – reducing energy use and searching for new energy sources. “It’s simple. We want businesses to boost their investment in energy saving projects and technologies, and we’re putting up $50 million to help them,” says Bligh.

Wilson says the Smart Energy Savings Fund will be available to businesses and applications will be sought twice a year. “We’ll provide loans for up to 100 per cent of the project’s value or a grant that will cover up to half the project’s capital value. Some projects may be big, some small. We’ll not discriminate because together, they’ll have the potential to save tens of thousands of tonnes of greenhouse emissions,” Wilson says. The Renewable Energy Fund is offering financial incentives to help fuel Queensland into the 21st Century, according to Wilson.

“We want clever companies to come forward with their ideas so that we can help turn their vision into reality,” he says. Bligh says $7 million from the fund is going towards a ground-breaking, solar thermal power station in Cloncurry as an ideal example of how the fund could be used. “Cloncurry recorded the country’s hottest day – 53 degrees in the shade in 1889 – and that’s where solar thermal makes sense. It’s the ideal solution,” Bligh says.

Wilson says the Renewable Energy Fund investment will help the state secure its share of the national 20 per cent of renewable energy target by 2020. “The Renewable Energy Fund will help industry come up with innovative energy conservation solutions in areas like geothermal, wind, solar, biomass, bagasse and other renewable energy sources.

“We’re looking at technologies that can generate at least 100 kW, industrial power projects with a carbon-neutral emissions profile and innovations that can produce a reliable electricity supply and meet local energy supply needs,” says Wilson.

Funding can be in the form of a loan for up to 100 per cent of the project’s value or as a grant for up to half of the project’s capital cost, according to the State Government. McNamara says more efficient use of energy is an important step forward in the State Government’s strategy to address climate change. “Energy efficiency represents some of the most cost effective and often cost neutral greenhouse gas abatement opportunities across the economy,” he says. The first funding round closes for the Smart Energy Savings Fund and the Renewable Energy Fund are 12 and 26 May 2008 respectively.

Solar power station for Coober Pedy

Australia’s largest off-grid solar power station is set to be built at remote Coober Pedy in far north South Australia. Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett and South Australian Premier Mike Rann announced the $7.1 million project at the 3rd International Solar Cities Congress in Adelaide. “There will be 26 dishes, each one 14 metres high and tracking the arc of the sun – an Australian design, delivering the nation’s most efficient solar power station,” says Garrett.

“When it’s completed at the end of 2009, it will generate about 1860 MW hours a year –13 per cent of Coober Pedy’s total electricity requirements. And it will cut diesel consumption by up to 520,000 litres a year, saving 1500 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions,” adds Garrett. The Australian Government is providing $3.55 million under its Renewable Remote Power Generation program. “This project will consolidate South Australia’s reputation as a leader in renewable energy initiatives,” Rann says. “It reinforces our willingness to collaborate and invest in practical solutions to climate change in our communities,” he adds.

South Australia already provides nearly half of the nation’s wind power, according to Rann, more than 45 per cent of the nation’s grid-connected solar power, and is home to more than 80 per cent of all geothermal exploration activity in Australia. “And this announcement comes just days after South Australia passed the nation’s first solar feed-in laws which will see consumers get double the retail price for surplus power they feed back into the grid,” he says. Rann says Coober Pedy has been chosen because it is not on the electricity grid, and currently gets all of its power from diesel generators.

Victoria launches new funding for energy training

Minister for Skills Jacinta Allan says 90 per cent of Victoria’s electricity and nearly all of the state’s natural gas is produced in Gippsland, the reason for the State Government’s skills investment in the region. “The Specialist Energy Training Network is one of three specialist networks to be funded as part of the 2006 skills and provincial statements,” says Allan. “It aims to bring together local vocation education providers to better meet the skills needs of the local energy industry,” she adds.

The Network, convened by Central Gippsland TAFE, is made up of Box Hill TAFE, the Chisholm, Holmesglen and Northern Melbourne Institutes of TAFE and the TAFE Divisions of RMIT and Swinburne University of Technology. “Through the Network, institutions are able to pool resources and encourage greater diversity and specialisation of skills,” says Allan.

The State Government has provided the Network with $1 million to come up with new ways to better address skills gaps in the power industry – including renewable energy ventures, according to Allan. The State Government’s Power Enterprise Graduates of Gippsland Program, a new induction program for graduate engineers about the power industry, was also launched by Allan.

South Australia introduces energy efficiency scheme

South Australia has announced a new energy efficiency incentive scheme for households. The government says its Residential Energy Efficiency Scheme will help South Australian households reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lower their energy bills. The scheme will start on 1 January 2009. Under the REES, energy retailers operating in South Australia are required to achieve targets for improving energy efficiency in households, through implementing measures such as ceiling insulation, draught proofing and more efficient appliances. They are also required to deliver energy audits to low income households. “All South Australian households will be able to participate in the scheme.

For many this is likely to be at little or no cost as energy retailers are expected to offer households incentives to adopt energy saving measures,” says Premier Mike Rann. Householders will be able to take up incentives offered by any retailer.

European emissions down

Total greenhouse gas emissions in the EU-27, excluding emissions and removals from land-use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF), decreased by 0.7 per cent between 2004 and 2005 and by 7.9 per cent between 1990 and 2005, according to the European Energy Agency.

Emissions decreased strongly in the new Member States during the 1990s, but since 2000 the trends have been almost identical Europe-wide. Between 1990 and 2005, greenhouse gas emissions decreased in all sectors except in the transport sector, where they increased significantly. “In the EU-15, total greenhouse gas emissions (excluding LULUCF) decreased by 0.8 per cent between 2004 and 2005, by 1.5 per cent between 1990 and 2005 and by 2.0 per cent between the Kyoto base year and 2005,” says the latest EEA bulletin. “This means the EU-15 has achieved one fourth of the total reduction needed to achieve the eight per cent reduction from base-year level required by 2008-2012 under the Kyoto Protocol. However, the target can also be reached through actions outside the EU,” it says.

In the 12 new Member States, total greenhouse gas emissions (excluding LULUCF) decreased by 0.3 per cent between 2004 and 2005 and by 27.8 per cent between 1990 and 2005. Projections for 2010 indicate that the EU-15 will meet its Kyoto target if Member States implement existing and additional measures fully and quickly, and make use of carbon sinks and Kyoto mechanisms, according to the EEA. “If all the projected reductions were achieved, the EU-15 could reach a level of emissions 11.4 per cent lower than base-year emissions, therefore overachieving its minus eight per cent Kyoto target by 3.4 percentage points,” it adds. The EU-27 does not have a Kyoto target. Twelve EU-15 Member States project they will achieve their individual targets.

The EEA says that all 10 new Member States with a target expect to meet their target (Cyprus and Malta do not have a Kyoto target). Croatia, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland project that they will meet their targets. Turkey has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol and thus has no Kyoto target, according to the EEA.

US carbon market will reach $1 trillion by 2020

The US will be home to a US$1 trillion carbon emission market by 2020 if federal and state policymakers continue on their current path toward a comprehensive cap-and-trade program confined to the domestic market, according to a new Carbon Finance Report. The report, which analyses the 13 climate change bills under consideration by Congress, also found that a capand- trade system that permits only domestic trades will produce a carbon price of US$40/metric ton as early as 2015, resulting in a 20 per cent increase in retail electricity prices, a 10 per cent increase in natural gas costs and a 12 per cent increase in gasoline prices. The researchers add that they believe an economy-wide cap-and-trade system for US greenhouse gases is “inevitable” in the next four to five years, and that it will dwarf the European carbon market.

Even if President Bush vetoes a bill to cap greenhouse gas emissions this year, each of the four remaining presidential candidates has voiced support for a mandatory cap-and-trade system, the consultant says. The study also says that all of the bills under consideration by lawmakers would either bar or severely restrict the transfer of allowances from trading systems in other parts of the world, including the European emissions trading scheme and the CDM and JI programs under the Kyoto Protocol, which allow emitters to seek offsets in developing countries. “Excluding or limiting ... international project credits in any US carbon cap-and-trade system will have to important consequences,” says New Carbon Finance North American division head Milo Sjardin. “For the US market, it will rule out a significant source of inexpensive abatement, pushing the carbon price to unnecessarily high levels,” he says. “It will also remove most US demand for international credits, hampering the growth of projects and technology transfer to developing countries,” adds Sjardin. The report says that allowing carbon-constrained US firms to trade with firms in China or India, for example, where emission-reduction measures are cheaper, would yield an estimated US carbon price as low as US$15/metric ton, saving the US economy US$145 billion annually. At that price, the increase in electricity prices would be held to seven per cent, while gasoline prices would rise only four per cent and natural gas prices would increase five per cent, it adds.

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