Australian Greens Deputy Leader Senator Christine Milne yesterday announced a Greens policy for $5 billion worth of loan guarantees for large-scale renewable energy developments; to work alongside an enhanced renewable energy target, a grant scheme and a feed-in tariff.
Senator Milne stated that through the initiative, Australia can harness its considerable renewable energy resources to replace its reliance on coal with 100% clean energy within decades.
The Greens’ proposed loan guarantee scheme would be based on the US Department of Energy model of providing 100% guarantee and be open to emerging renewable energy technologies including baseload solar thermal with storage, geothermal, and ocean energy and be available projects larger than 100MW at a single site.
The loan guarantees would run for two years and be managed jointly by the Departments of Treasury and Finance; Resources, Tourism and Energy, and Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.
The initiative would work in tandem with a national gross feed-in tariff, another initiative the Greens have been advocating for some time. A gross feed-in tariff such as the Greens propose is a system by which all power generated by a renewable energy system; whether it’s a small home solar power system or a major wind farm, would attract a premium rate of payment. Gross feed in tariffs have been proven to promote confidence in investors and in Germany were responsible for making that nation a world leader in solar power uptake.
“The loan guarantee scheme would be complemented by a stronger grants program, adding the $1 billion the Government recently promised to the “Connecting Renewable” initiative to the remainder of the Solar Flagships funding,” said Senator Milne.
The Solar Flagships Program was designed to support construction and demonstration of large-scale solar power stations in Australia, which may include solar thermal, photovoltaic and energy storage technologies.
