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Australia’s performance to date and recommendations for improvement

Due to Australia’s abundance of coal, the provision of electricity has always been managed overwhelmingly on a supply-side basis. In accor­dance with this, electricity consumption per capita has continued to increase over the past decade.

Whilst Australia ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2007, and is on track to meet its 2010 Kyoto target, additional aggressive measures will be required for future GHG emissions reduction.
 

PV has huge potential in Australia. Not only is the country one of the best insulated in the world, it also has a robust body of PV research groups (which have been emigrating overseas) and an industry already developed through a significant off-grid market.

As of November 2008, there was again uncertainty regarding the government’s continued commitment to its solar market. The popularity of its rebate program caused funds to be depleted a lot sooner than anticipated, in spite of the means-tested restriction put in place in May 2008.

Indeed, the PV rebate program has been fully subscribed until the end of fiscal year 2009 and it is unclear whether there will be any significant support mechanism for the Australian solar market in a few months when the program is fully allocated.

This type of stop and go policy trend is deleterious for the development of a domestic market.

As the Australian Government develops an emissions trading scheme (ETS) - scheduled to commence in 2010 - there is significant risk that the Government will absolve itself of the responsibility of embracing clean energy options and averting dangerous climate change; instead leaving it to the market to decide a course of action.

Large GHG emitters should not be financially compensated for the implementation of the scheme, as they would be under the current plan.

Alongside an Emissions Trading Scheme, Australia’s government should develop a long term, bipartisan policy framework to nurture Solar Photovoltaic’s deployment, so that the sun-burnt country may embrace its most powerful energy resource, redevelop its industry and take part in the emerging global PV market.

This policy framework should strive to establish a long-term, sustainable support for a domestic solar market, breaking with the instability in policy direction that continues to date, which creates boom/bust cycles and uncertainty in the market.

Green Cross International supports specific reforms in Australia including:

• Support the adoption of a gross national Feed-in Tariff
• Consider introducing a targeted Tax Credit
• Support efforts to increase the current Renewable Energy Target scheme, express it as percentage of electricity and include a Solar provision
• Support redirecting fossil fuel subsidies
• Invest in R&D