Australian federal government minimizes support for solar, wind

• The Australian government has announced new lasting financing and an increased remit for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency past 2022. The financing bundle, which looks a lot more like a cut than anything else, pushes financial investment away from solar and wind toward innovations like carbon capture and storage.

In late January, the Australia Institute (TAI) made a pre-budget plea to the Australian government for a AU$ 460 million (US$ 336.6 million) top-up of funding for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). Today, the government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison has actually committed an overall funding package of AU$ 1.62 billion, including assured standard funding of AU$ 1.43 billion over the following 10 years.

With a yearly baseline of AU$ 143 million, after that, the package does not quite meet the AU$ 230 million each year between 2022-24 that TAI Energy Policy & Regulatory Lead Dan Cass sees as adequate. The Morrison government's figures also disappoint the AU$ 3.3 billion mark demanded by the Australian Industry Group. This is to all say that while the government's package can be referred to as an expansion, it can equally as easily be referred to as a cut.

ARENA CEO Darren Miller stated the company is "thrilled to see ARENA's important role acknowledged with brand-new funding, and we welcome a new period ... ARENA is well positioned to sustain Australia's energy transformation and also exhausts reduction objectives."

In a declaration, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and also Energy Mark Butler claimed that while Labor welcomes any additional funding for ARENA, "Morrison once more has fallen short to deliver a broad energy policy that will secure the 11,000 renewable resource jobs that the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) states will certainly be shed without such a policy over the following 2 years."

Carbon capture

The government's new financing package brings with it an increased remit, including a debatable mandate to buy carbon capture as well as storage space (CCS)-- yet another life-line to nonrenewable fuel source generators. This action complies with recurring a recurring effort by Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor to broaden the remit of the Clean Energy Finance Corp. (CEFC) to enable it to invest in gas generation.

No question, this specific terms of a CCS mandate (as well as a proscribed AU$ 50 million fund) has the assistance of Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, that believes CCS is necessary for Australia's future hydrogen economic situation. Sadly, while Finkel's disagreement holds some water, it is insufficient water for a hydrogen economic situation. As Tristan Edis, supervisor of evaluation and advisory at Green Energy Markets, informed pv magazine Australia, Finkel's reasoning is understandable however eventually counter-productive.

Clean Energy Council CEO Kane Thornton, that has actually admired ARENA's role because its creation in 2011 when he talked with pv magazine in March, said that the mandate to include CCS "is an unsatisfactory diversion." However, Thornton added that "the vast bulk of this brand-new financing follows the power market as well as investors' strong dedication to renewable energy and also energy storage."