Australian government cut support for cleaner energy sources
Kane Thornton, chief executive at the Clean Energy Council (CEC) communicates his anguish over the affect of asset devaluation, job losses and business closures that the cut will bring to renewable energy businesses
The Australian government has launched the Renewable Energy Target (RET) and the plan could cut 14,000 gigawatt hours of renewable energy sources by 2020.
The government has expressed concern about the decline of demand for electricity at higher power prices and the RET will supposedly provide renewable sectors with certainty.
Kane Thornton, the chief executive of CEC: “A substantial reduction of [the] target to around 27,000 GWh… would equate to a 64% reduction in future investment and effectively devastate the renewable energy sector.”
Many renewable energy companies particularly wind and solar power industries have been poorly affected by the RET decision.
Keppel Prince Engineering in Victoria, one of Australia’s largest wind turbine tower producers, was forced to lay off one hundred employees.
The CEC says, a large number of renewable energy producers have been affected by the governments lack of commitment toward renewable energy and a cut in the RET will largely affect the 21,000 employee’s they hire.
However, the new target has yet to reach its way through parliament with the support of Labour oppositions or a number of independent senators, which is uncertain at this point. Therefore, the future of renewable energy businesses is uncertain.
Eric Jackson, Deputy Chief Executive of Climate Institute says, “We need all countries to be pulling their weight,” as a decline in Australia’s renewable energy generation will be the grounds for further climate devastation.
