Australia’s revised Renewable Energy Target, now before Parliament, is likely to gain bi-partisan support.
According to an article on the Sydney Morning Herald, the Renewable Energy Target – which requires 20 per cent of energy to be sourced from renewables by 2020 – will increase the average household electricity bill by $41 a year, but the scheme amendments before Parliament will account for just $2 of that amount.
In a speech to Parliament yesterday, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage Greg Hunt said “The opposition would like ultimately to see this legislation passed. We will not oppose this legislation in the House and we will reserve our final position subject to completion of the Senate inquiry and completion of satisfactory negotiations with the government and industry.”
“We will not give a blank check, because we have witnessed the tragedy of the home insulation program and the government’s ability to mismanage the simplest of legislative changes.”
While conditionally supporting the amendments, Mr. Hunt launched into a scathing attack on the Rudd Government’s handling of the renewable energy sector, going into detail of the coalition’s record as opposed to the Government’s. Mr. Hunt stated that the opposition were the original champions and supporters of a 20 per cent renewable energy target along with many other initiatives and that the changes in the legislation had also been proposed by the opposition previously.
“The grand irony of this legislation is that the government is seeking to adopt our direct action program.”
“I would hope that at some stage the government will apologise to the renewable energy sector for ignoring the warning signs and necessitating these changes.” said Mr. Hunt
The amendments to the Renewable Energy Target legislation became necessary after a major uptake of home solar power systems reduced the value of Renewable Energy Certificates RECs; upon which the Solar Credits scheme is based. The REC- flooded market not only saw rebate savings erode, but also reduced incentives for large-scale renewable energy projects; scaring off investors.
The amendment would see the RET split into two components – the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) and the Large-scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET). The SRES will apply to residential solar power and solar hot water systems and will provide a fixed price of $40 per Renewable Energy Certificate (REC). The LRET will cover large-scale renewable energy projects like wind and solar farms.
