Let’s look at the positives first. We know the scale of the task ahead of us – how much generation and storage we need in order to meet the Federal Government’s target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030, Clean Energy Council Chief Executive Kane Thornton writes.
As a response to the recent slowdown in new investments in renewables, particularly in wind, the Government is putting new financial incentives in place in the form of the expanded Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) and others, to respond to game-changing international policies such as the US’s Inflation Reduction Act.
At the time of writing, we are eagerly anticipating what will hopefully be a transformative Federal Budget for clean energy in Australia and awaiting the first tender for the expanded CIS.
But financial incentives and market movements are not the sole drivers of the energy transition.
Two of the most significant challenges, and crucially also opportunities, facing the transition are social licence and biodiversity protection.
How do developers meaningfully communicate and work with communities, including Traditional Owners, to garner support for renewable energy projects?
And how do we as an industry ensure the benefits of the transition to renewables are achieved alongside protection and support for Australia’s unique natural environment?
Community support
Positive community engagement is vital for the success of any project.
Developers who invest time and effort to build relationships with communities based on trust and respect are those most likely to be embraced by those communities.
Recent research from the CSIRO shows that the vast majority of Australians support renewables, undermining claims in some quarters of a lack of community support.
The report also showed that when people understand the role of infrastructure in the energy transition, they are more likely to accept and even support developments. Indeed, a review of community engagement by the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner included a recommendation that governments lean in on the need to better communicate to the public why the energy transition is needed and what is involved.
It is for developers to ensure that the benefits of clean energy projects, including boosts to local economies and jobs, are shared with local communities wherever possible, that people understand what these projects are for and can bring, and that any disruptive elements are minimised.
By engaging meaningfully, educating, and building lasting relationships, the transition to renewables will build on the support it already has. That support will allow the transition to proceed in the short timescale required.
Renewables and conservation
Planning and environmental approvals for renewable projects, particularly wind farms, are often delayed because there isn’t enough scientific understanding of potential risks to biodiversity, including to endangered species and how those species interact with wind turbines.
The longer it takes to define these things, the worse climate change gets; climate change, of course, being one of the most significant drivers of biodiversity decline.
The issue is not so much that some projects have been rejected or delayed on environmental grounds.
That can and should happen under a robust planning system. The issue is that those environmental grounds are inconsistent across Australia, and developers do not have the clarity or oversight they need to plan projects and progress them in the right manner.
Work is being done to revise environmental laws and the criteria for impact assessments, the objective of which should be to integrate biodiversity and climate considerations meaningfully into those processes. At the Clean Energy Council, we are committed to contributing to those revisions. Renewable energy and nature positivity are two sides of the same coin and should not be considered otherwise.
It is essential to properly consider the impacts of the renewable energy transition on biodiversity, but this should be done in a way that considers how best to make renewables work with nature by supporting restoration and conservation efforts while crucially driving down greenhouse gas emissions.
Offshore wind becoming a reality
Although projects are not yet under construction in Australia, offshore wind is fast-approaching, reflecting a global boom in that industry. Indeed, at the time of writing, the first six feasibility licences for offshore wind farms have just been announced.
Offshore wind farms, combined with other forms of generation, will play an essential role in Australia’s future clean electricity grid.
This form of generation comes with its own set of environmental and community concerns, but crucially there is time to address those concerns before construction begins on any projects.
Learnings around social licence and biodiversity specific to onshore wind farms should inform the way the offshore wind industry is planned in Australia, with due concern and research for environmental impacts and appropriate levels of engagement, transparency and education for communities.
We have already seen false and scientifically unproven accusations being levelled at the development of wind farms, including that they kill whales, evidence for which simply does not exist. This highlights the importance of doing the work upfront to support this industry and ensure we can conserve nature alongside it.
Meeting targets the right way
The scale of what is needed to accelerate the transition in time to meet the Federal Government’s target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030 is immense. The level of infrastructure development needed, coupled with the critical areas of social licence and biodiversity protection, to mention but two, can feel overwhelming.
And that’s without going into detail on how essential it is to ensure the technologies and natural resources used to build the transition are managed and extracted as sustainably as possible.
To meet that 82 per cent target and ultimately transition Australia to 100 per cent renewables and beyond, collaboration is needed.
The goal of embracing renewables is to decarbonise our economy and protect the planet. It would incredibly shortsighted if the acceleration of renewables were permitted to harm the very things it is trying to protect.
It is critical we move quickly, but that doesn’t mean we can be careless.
This article featured in the June edition of ecogeneration.
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