Not so long ago, Victoria was the poster child for renewable energy policy in Australia.
It had a Climate Change Act put in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% between 2000 and 2020. It had a government-supported plan to get 5% of its power from the sun by 2020.
Victorian households were being paid 60 cents per kilowatt hour for solar power they pumped back into the grid. And wind farm proponents were queueing up to take advantage of the state’s excellent wind resources.
Then there was an election, and the wind changed in Victoria.
Could the wind power industry now turn to NSW for further development? Or will a Coalition-controlled NSW also prove to be hostile territory for wind power?
First, let’s consider the effects a change of government had in Victoria.
Ted Baillieu’s Coalition has backed away from its previous support for the Climate Change Act, describing its legislated targets – such as a 20% reduction in CO₂ – as “aspirational”.
Then, in a horror week for renewable energy, the Victorian Government slashed its support for rooftop solar power and introduced restrictive new planning requirements for wind farms.
The planning changes mean wind farms can’t be built within two kilometres of a home without the written consent of the home owner. The ban also applies within five kilometres of 21 regional cities. Scenic locations, such as the Great Ocean Road and Dandenong Ranges, are also off-limits.
Unless you have an entire community on-side, the new planning regulations don’t leave many places to build.
Last year, the National Health and Medical Research Council found no published scientific evidence to link wind turbines with adverse health effects. Yet the Victorian decision allows a single opponent to veto a wind farm development even if the rest of the community wants it.
Is this how planning decisions should work? What happened to weighing up community opinion and making a decision in the public interest? Residents have no such right of veto over coal-fired power stations, new roads or mansions that block their view.
The Clean Energy Council claims the decision could cost Victoria $3 billion in wind farm investment. Some wind farm developers have already announced plans to look elsewhere.
So, will the wind power industry shift its focus to NSW for future developments? Not if NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell has his way.
O’Farrell recently expressed his personal preference for no more wind farms in NSW. While he later stressed his commitment to the NSW target of 20% renewable energy by 2020, investors would be worried.
Under the previous Labor government in NSW, most wind farm decisions were made by Minister for Planning, Tony Kelly, instead of local councils. This meant local concerns about wind farms could easily be overlooked.
The O'Farrell-led Coalition government is considering new planning guidelines for wind farms which are likely to give local communities more say in decisions regarding nearby wind farms. But there are indications the guidelines will be more flexible than those in Victoria.
Despite these indications, it is impossible to predict whether NSW will go down a similar path to Victoria, making renewable energy generation increasingly arduous. In fact, predicting future renewable energy policy anywhere in Australia is a challenge.
That is precisely the problem – renewable energy in Australia has been on a rollercoaster of boom and bust, driven by frequent policy changes.
Consider two examples.
In 2001, the Howard Government’s Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) led to a boom in wind power. The policy mandated that, by 2010, 2% of Australia’s electricity generation would be sourced by renewables.
When the target percentage was not increased in the years following the policy announcement, the wind power boom faded away. Wind companies that had set up manufacturing facilities in Australia pulled out, and have not returned since.
More recently, the NSW Government offered a generous premium tariff for households to install solar panels, only to slash the scheme when it became too popular.
Given these developments – and the policy decisions mentioned above – it’s a wonder that Australia has any renewable energy installed at all.
For investors and small businesses, the constant chopping and changing makes renewable energy a risky venture. The Gillard Government’s carbon price will deliver greater consistency for investors but it, too, is vulnerable to a change in government.
Australia has enough renewable energy resources to become a renewable energy superpower. To realise this potential, renewable energy needs consistent long-term policy to support its steady development as a response to climate change.
Unfortunately, climate change has become an ideological battle ground where consistency is hard to find.
Fortunately, we do have a consistent national mechanism to support renewable energy – Australia’s Renewable Energy Target, which requires 20% of our electricity to come from renewable energy by 2020.
Now we just need a consistent national planning approach to back it up.
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Comments (25)
Daryl Deal
retired (logged in via email @melbpc.org.au)
A mere speed bump, causing a slight delay at best.
Lest we forget in Europe, they are moving towards a low fossil carbon energy diet. Germany, is leading the way with a thirty billion Euro investment in solar PV in Greece. Spain, in spite of the investment property bubble implosion, is still on track with it aims of reducing fossil fuel dependence by 2050.
Both mainland China and South Korea, have announced the doubling volume of production of solar PV panels by December 2011, just to meet the…
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Mark Duffett
(logged in via Twitter)
Germany is leading the way? What, by building 20 GW of new fossil fuelled generating capacity as they crash out of nuclear? I don't think so.
Daryl Deal
retired (logged in via email @melbpc.org.au)
Greek News In English says it all.
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_05/09/2011_405009
Mark Duffett
(logged in via Twitter)
Germany has the world's best renewables technology, yet they still need to build 20 GW of new fossil fuel generators? THAT says it all.
Tom Anderson
Chemical Engineer (logged in via email @pza.net.au)
Think that final line should read 20% in 2020. Can we get it updated?
Jane Rawson
(Editor, The Conversation)
fixed now! Thanks for spotting that.
Chris Riedy
(Associate Professor at University of Technology, Sydney)
Yes, that should be 2020. Thanks for picking that up Tom. I'll see if we can update it.
Ken Fabian
Mr (logged in via email @westnet.com.au)
Members of both Victorian and NSW governments actively promote denial of climate science and the leadership and, far from attempting to bring such members into line with science based reality, encourage them for keeping up the fight against their political enemies. In the highest echelon of Liberals in NSW - including a Government Whip - the 'it's a green-left beat-up' view of this serious problem that will cause enormous harm to Australia is alive and well and still being promoted.
The Coalition, lacking any real commitment on climate and emissions, will seek out the budgetary savings in programs intended to put their State or Nation on a low emissions footing without any regrets over the consequent failure to shift to a low emissions footing. We will all be the losers for it.
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
What a load of nonsense. Both appear to have realised this should be left to the Federal Government to move on when the rest of the world does. In doing so they free up resources to be better spent on education, health, transport and yes the environment. Winners all round.
Thomas Marshall
Architectural Assistant (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Money is already free to be spent on education, health and transport. They come from the education, health and transport budgets. If you took all of the money out of environmental programs, you would not be able to make a discernible difference to any other area of spending in the budget, except for aboriginal affairs and the arts.
Have you ever looked at the budget? The amount of money that finds its way into environmental schemes can be made to sound a lot, until it is compared to any other kind of spending in our budget.
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
The actions above would actually free resources to be used on environmental issues that are solvable at a state level.
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
"Dr Chris Riedy is the President of the Climate Action Network Australia." Now there's an unbiased source of information!
Wind energy remains a waste of time and money. Solar subsidies are ripping money from the poor to bolster the rich. The RET is a policy failure and should be abandoned.
If you want to do something serious about energy a suite of Nuclear (Thorium) reactors in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria, near Jervis Bay and in the Hunter region of NSW, and on the QLD coast near Bundaberg is the way to go.
Chris Riedy
(Associate Professor at University of Technology, Sydney)
We all have our biases Marc. Mine is a belief in what most climate scientists are telling us - climate change is a huge threat and we need to take action to do something about it. So I'm proud to contribute through my role with the Climate Action Network Australia.
I am also an academic though, and if my research indicated that nuclear power was the cheapest and safest way to respond to climate change then I'd be promoting that research. What my research does tell me is that renewable energy is cleaner, safer, quicker, cheaper and more publicly acceptable than nuclear power and Australia needs to do more to help the renewable energy industry to develop.
Mark Duffett
(logged in via Twitter)
Nicholson et al 2011 (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054421000602X) and associated references concluded that renewable energy was neither cleaner, nor safer, nor quicker, nor cheaper than nuclear power. Can you compare and contrast this work with any peer-reviewed research of yours that says differently?
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
Hi Chris,
Yes we do have our own biases that we bring to the table.
I think the threat is there but that it is exaggerated. Current trends appear to be mostly falling on my side of the ledger. Put me in with the luke-warming camp if you put me anywhere. That is not to say we don't face significant challenges ahead as populations continue to expand and put pressure on dwindling resources.
Your research is telling you one thing however other academic research, lets say that of Bjorn Lomborg and Roger…
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Nick Kermode
(logged in via email @hotmail.com)
This week you say "on my side of the ledger", last week you said "I don't have a position". Hmmm, like we didnt know :)
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
Whats the 100 year temp trend Nick?
Nick Kermode
(logged in via email @hotmail.com)
Up? A lot of it since Hansen went on the record? I was not disparaging your opinion Marc, I was just pointing out that you most certainly are not the rise above the fray bastion of impartiality and balance you seem to think you are. The fact you constantly accuse people of bias just makes big parts of your comments hypocritical. Having a position you feel strongly about makes you just like every interested person here trying to learn, and there is little wrong with that.
Hamish Jackson
(Physician)
@Mark "solar subsidies are ripping from the poor to bolster the rich." Is there any evidence for that statement? It seems wrong: I know a people with incomes less than $40000 who had solar panels installed during the rebate scheme. Solar subsidies surely are based on collecting money from all, and supporting those prepared to spend their own money transitioning away from FF.
The rip off surely has been from Australians to the big fossil giants given the findings of the ISF report on 2005 energy…
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Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
See this report from The Australia Institute-link below:
The Australian Government's solar PV rebate program
Government subsidies for residential solar photovoltaic (PV) energy systems are ineffective, costly and unfair, new research published by The Australia Institute shows.
The research, by Andrew Macintosh, Associate Director of the ANU Centre for Climate Law and Policy, and Deb Wilkinson, evaluated the outcomes from the Australian Government's decade-long residential solar PV rebate program.
It found that despite costing the government $1.1 billion, it will only reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by around 0.015 per cent and failed to generate significant domestic economic benefits.
https://www.tai.org.au/index.php?q=node%2F19&pubid=800&act=display
Dianna Art
Environmentalist (logged in via email @fastmail.fm)
Marc
If the choice is between a combination of solar panels on my roof and wind turbines compared to a nuclear reactor in my back yard?
I feel I hardly need to state that my preference is for clean sustainable versus problematic nuclear. Of course my background means I have a vested interest in the environment rather than in any of the fossil based industries.
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
Good luck with that very large noisy wind turbine, and remember to duck while doing the gardening or putting out the washing. I prefer my power generated in much the same way as it is now: from a large power plant, remotely sited, that maximizes the economic and environmental efficiencies.
We all have a vested interest in the environment. I don't why you want to ruin it by attempting to run an advanced economy with options that cannot currently (and in the next few decades) provide reliable baseload supply.
Ken Fabian
Mr (logged in via email @westnet.com.au)
The members of the Coalition who do understand the seriousness of climate change (and there have to be some) simply don't have the courage of their convictions to openly put the case for market based action on emissions; denial of the problem, denial of the seriousness of the problem, denial of it's urgency are in a kind of populist driven ascendancy upon which their election victories are perceived to have been built - at least partially. For the sake of keeping that wave of populist sentiment from…
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wilma western
(logged in via email @bigpond.com)
Marc H, you must watch like a hawk to get in first and try to dictate the terms of comment on climate articles. Your ridiculous remarks about modern wind turbines can't be serious unless you're totally unacquainted with them , which I doubt.
Marc,if wind energy is 'a waste of time and money' why do large energy corporations like AGL ,BP and heaps of others invest in wind ? It's the most mature renewable energy source that pays off its embedded energy in a few months with good returns on capital…
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Nick Kermode
(logged in via email @hotmail.com)
Wilma..... Also, GE rate renewable energy, wind included, as "the biggest business opportunity in over 100 years" and they are no mugs either!