Clean Energy Council chief executive Kane Thorton shares how clean energy is unavoidable for Australia and for the world.
The time it takes to establish the green economies that will power the world in generations to come will vary, but those transitions are now inevitable. The clean energy transition is now recognised as a profound opportunity.
After Australia builds its clean energy infrastructure, sures up the grid, improves its social licence practices and puts the other elements in place to start running the country entirely on clean energy, everybody will benefit. Australia’s manufacturing economy has been in slow but steady decline since the 1960s, and clean energy represents an opportunity for economic growth and diversification, not to mention the prospect of hundreds of thousands of new jobs and lower energy prices for all Australians.
Australia has a huge opportunity in the burgeoning green exports industry, including through its abundance of minerals – such as iridium and rhodium – which will be critical to building the infrastructure needed for the transition all around the globe.
Problem and Playbook
It’s crucial Australia moves towards its green future as quickly as possible, which is why it is so disappointing that 2023 has seen a significant slowdown in large-scale clean energy investment.
As reported in the Clean Energy Council’s Renewable Projects Quarterly Report for Q3 2023, just two new projects – totalling 161 MW – achieved financial commitment in the third quarter. Q3 was the fourth-lowest quarter for installed capacity since we began tracking data in 2017, and all three quarters of 2023 rank in the bottom five for lowest new capacity investments since 2017.
The Australian Government, to its credit, has taken substantial steps in a short period of time to ensure we can accelerate toward a clean energy future. A number of significant commitments were made in May’s Federal Budget: for example, including $2 billion to support the green hydrogen sector in Australia and $1.7 billion in low-cost loans to homes and businesses for electrification and energy efficiency.
However, the pace of change now needs to accelerate to address these growing challenges and the slowdown in large-scale investment. This is why the Clean Energy Council recently published the Power Playbook, which outlines the steps we believe need to be taken to position Australia’s economy to navigate the global energy transition and emerge as an economic winner from the transition to net zero.
Policy guidance
In the time since President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in the US, there has been a massive and consistent stream of investment announcements in clean energy in the US, including over US$270 billion in capital investments and 185 GW of new clean energy project capacity. While the expenditure from the US Government will need to be enormous to support its commitments, Goldman Sachs estimates that the incentives will unleash US$3 trillion in clean energy/low-emissions investments across the US economy, suggesting that the large upfront cost will ultimately pay off.
Australia needs similar policy guidance to boost its investment landscape and move the projects currently in the pipeline into development. Not just to boost Australia’s race to net zero – which is of course the primary objective – but also to keep Australia competitive in the fast-growing renewables marketplace; a marketplace which is quickly becoming crowded by announcements from other countries and jurisdictions such as Canada and the EU.
Nobody expects Australia to be able to match the levels of expenditure we have seen and will continue to see in the US, but a proportionate response to the IRA and other global movements is required to keep Australia competitive and to keep alive our chances of meeting the Federal Government’s renewable energy targets.
Energy for everybody
The recommendations in the Power Playbook range from high-level policy suggestions, such as the creation of a nationwide Renewable Energy Superpower Masterplan, to accelerating deployment of energy storage and capacity generation, developing offshore wind and green hydrogen industries, and building best practices around social licence. If you are interested in reading our recommendations in full, check out our website to view the Power Playbook.
While Australia ultimately and disappointingly voted ‘no’ to the establishment of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, the clean energy transition presents an enormous opportunity to build stronger participation and genuine partnership with the Traditional Owners of the lands on which many renewable projects will be built. It’s a huge opportunity to create jobs on Country, provide low-cost power to remote communities and economic opportunity where there is little. It’s a profound opportunity for Indigenous Australians to be heard and play an active role in what will be a defining economic shift for the country.
Continuing focus on advocacy
The clean energy industry in Australia needs advocacy for strong policy support more than ever, which is why the Clean Energy Council made the difficult decision to step back from our role in accrediting solar installers to focus our time and energy on supporting the industry through education and advocacy. The new accrediting body for installers is expected to be announced by the Clean Energy Regulator in February 2024.
This allows CEC to double down our effort to promote rooftop-solar and household batteries through the development of a Distributed Energy Roadmap, arriving early 2024. It will highlight the importance of the small-scale sector to the Australian economy and the contribution to the energy transition, as well as identify the most critical policy initiatives necessary to accelerate electrification in Australia. We plan to release the roadmap in Solar Month in March, our annual campaign to promote the rooftop solar and storage industry, which is doing so much for Australia’s transition while we work to get large-scale investment back on track.
Australia is blessed with remarkable natural, renewable resources, meaning the foundation for a strong transition is already here. Indeed, it is already underway, as evident with our world-leading rooftop solar sector. We need all Australians to get behind that transition and build upon it for a better future for all of us.
This article featured in the December edition of ecogeneration.
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