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NSW gets the renewables wooden spoon

THE Climate Council’s latest renewables report card on the renewable energy progress of Australia’s states and territories found that SA and the ACT are performing the best nationally, while NSW is the laggard.

Jan Arreza

The report, Game On: Australia’s Renewable Energy Race Heats Up grades the country’s states based on their policies and performance in the renewable energy space.

The report is the council’s latest collection of data on the performance of renewable energy in the country and examines the performance across several fronts, including rooftop solar penetration, large-scale capacity per capita, and percentage of renewable electricity.

According to Climate Council Australia’s CEO Amanda McKenzie, there has been a drop in costs globally for renewable developments, which has resulted in an increase in the appetite of investors for these kinds of projects.

And Australia needs to do more to place the country at the forefront of all of these investment opportunities available.

“There is a global story here, and it’s that the cost of renewable energy - particularly solar panels - has dropped very steeply in the last few years. We’re also seeing a similar drop in the prices of household battery storage, wind power, and other sources of renewable energy, increasing interest in investment,” McKenzie said.

“The renewable energy target has driven investment over the last 10 years, but that has really dried up and become quite stagnated over the last two or three years as the policy environment has become unstable due to the government cutting the RET.

“This uncertainty is driving investors away as they don’t know where Australia is heading in this space.

"There also hasn’t been a longer-term commitment by the federal government beyond 2020 about what will be the renewable energy policy environment and that will be critical in encouraging future investment.”

Despite years of federal uncertainty, the report found that Australian states and territories are increasingly supporting small to large-scale implementation of renewable energy generation.

The numbers of states and territories with renewable energy targets have increased from two to four in the last year, with SA and the ACT being the best-performing states.

The ACT tops this list with its 100% target set for 2020, followed by SA with 50% by 2025, then Queensland – which has a target of 50% plus one million solar rooftops installed by 2030 - and finally Victoria, with a 20% target set for 2020.

NSW, WA, Tasmania and NT currently still do not have renewable energy targets in place. NSW comes in dead last as the worst performer in the renewable energy space.

Additionally, over the last two years, with the exception of Victoria and NSW, the other states have increased the proportion of their renewable energy electricity supply.

“In Australia, renewable energy is driven by federal policy and it's fluctuated a lot in the last few years, which has reduced our national investment opportunities for the next few years,” McKenzie said.

“Despite this, we’ve found that some states have still been stepping up their performance in the absence of federal action. For example, SA has 40% of its power coming from sun and wind, and the ACT has a target of 100% renewables by 2020.

“NSW is lagging behind though, but there is huge potential in all of the Australian states to do more, as we currently have on of the sunniest and windiest countries in the world.

"NSW is doing some things, but it’s starting from a very low base and is already behind the other states to begin with, so there is a lot of work to do for NSW to catch up.”

While McKenzie acknowledged that renewable energy targets are not the only policy tools, she said they are a good indicator of a state's seriousness in and commitment to growing its renewable energy capacity.

For instance, renewable energy tenders from state and territory governments have played a role in boosting the country’s appeal globally as a place to invest in renewable energy projects.

Some of these initiatives include the ACT’s reverse auction process, and Queensland’s Ergon Energy tender for large-scale solar.

Fossil fuels such as coal and gas still account for 90% or more of the power supply for NSW, Queensland and Victoria, though Victoria and Queensland have signalled intent to increase their share of the renewable energy through targets and policy.

Coming back to NSW, McKenzie noted that there were issues that needed to be resolved.

“In particular, there is an issue around wind farm planning laws in NSW, which have been debated for about five years,” McKenzie said.

“It’s important that those laws are resolved and finalised. NSW is also providing support for renewable energy projects and it’s important to do more of that.

“That will be an important indication to investors that there will be a stable long-term policy environment in NSW.”

Moving forward, McKenzie hopes more will be done on the part of state governments in keeping a stable policy environment in order to attract more investors to the country.

“There are a few things they can do. First, state governments can make sure their planning laws actually enable renewable energy rather than preventing it,” McKenzie said.

“It’s also important for states to be more active in funding of large-scale renewable energy, as well as provide policy incentives for greater investment.

“Finally, it really important that states have a plan for phasing out existing coal-fire generation that is old and inefficient, and make sure that there is a transition plan for those communities so that no one is left in the lurch."

- This article first appeared in sister publication WME.

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