Moreland Energy Foundation

The most worrying aspect of Julia Gillard's announcement last week of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in funding cuts for climate change policies and programs is not the loss of the programs themselves. Greg Combet has since said that the programs targeted for cuts are ineffective. Even if this is true, it would not justify removing funding from climate change initiatives completely. Instead, the funding should be reallocated to programs that are effective.

Apart from the clear paradox of taking money away from climate change programs to fund recovery from extreme weather events of the very kind that are predicted to increase in frequency with climate change, our worry is that these cuts may reveal an attitude within the Gillard Government that carbon pricing is the silver bullet, and complementary climate change policies are unnecessary.

US President Barack Obama delivered his second State of the Union address yesterday, focusing primarily on addressing the country's enormous deficit, reinvigorating the economy and seizing opportunities in the face of strong challenges from fast-developing nations like India and China. While the President disappointed many by failing to mention climate change, his speech clearly identified clean energy as one of these opportunities.

Canada has become something of a showpiece for feed-in-tariff (FiT) policy around the world, particularly the province of Ontario, which recently established a set of FiTs covering a broad range of system sizes and different technologies. As well as helping Ontario achieve its ambitious plan to phase out coal-fired power by 2014, the plan has begun delivering economic benefits.

Feed-in-tariffs are the most widely used mechanism around the world to incentivise the installation of renewable energy. And the trend appears to gaining pace.

One step back

Last year presented some set backs in international climate policy.  The United States mid-term elections delivered a Republican majority in Congress opposed to the implementation of a comprehensive climate change response, ending the Obama administration's hopes of establishing an emissions trading scheme any time soon.  Japan announced that it would delay its scheme indefinitely.

Of course, there was more huffing and puffing from people and organisations denying the scientific consensus that climate change is occurring and is attributable to human activity, but it was reassuring to see more accessible information released explaining the science (see, for example this Climate Change FAQ by the Australian Academy of Science).

Two steps forward

However, there is plenty to celebrate.  The climate change talks in Cancun, Mexico were widely seen as a step in the right direction (see previous blog post), and while some tricky issues remain unresolved, there is now hope for the next round of talks this year in Durban, South Africa.  In the face of the hostile Republican Congress, Barack Obama's Government has reiterated its determination to reduce US emissions, and is pushing ahead with plans to regulate emissions via the Environmental Protection Agency.  Meanwhile, China, the world's second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has continued to provide strong support for renewable energy in its 12th five year plan.  And back home, despite repeated calls from the Federal Opposition for plans to price carbon to be scrapped, the Gillard Government continues to work towards putting a price on carbon this year.

Looking ahead to Durban

The crucial Durban climate talks will be held in December this year, and countries will discuss difficult but key issues such as the legal form of a global agreement, financing emissions reductions and extending the Kyoto Agreement.

Sydney City Council launched its Decentralised Energy Trigeneration Masterplan last week, a key plank in its strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the municipal area by 70% below 2006 levels by 2030.  See MEFL's fact sheet for some background information about decentralised energy.

Under the Masterplan, 65% of central Sydney's commercial floor space, 50% of all retail floor space and 30% of all residential floor space would be connected to low emissions tri-generation energy supply, transforming these high energy and carbon intense areas into 'low carbon infrastructure zones'.  These buildings would also receive heating and cooling services, produced by capturing the waste heat from electricity production, from the same tri-generation plants.

MEFL has prepared a submission to the Medium Scale Working Group within DPI about the best way for the government to support people wishing to install medium sized solar energy systems.

Current situation

Currently, there is support in Victoria for small solar systems in the form of the Premium Feed-in-Tariff (PFiT).  However, this only applies to systems up to 5kW in size.  The Brumby Government promised to establish a feed-in-tariff for large scale solar systems, but it is unclear whether the Baillieu administration will support it.  At any rate, there is a gap in support for medium-sized installations, and the purpose of the review was to identify measures to address this gap. 

Main points of our submission

MEFL's submission focused on:

• the significant upfront cost of installation, combined with long payback periods
• the limited time and resources of potential medium-scale solar customers to properly research investing in medium-scale solar
• the limited awareness amongst potential customers of the costs, benefits, risks and opportunities of solar, and the limited availability of independent, accessible and user-friendly information
• regulatory barriers
• policy uncertainty. 

We also stressed the extraordinary opportunities for community involvement in medium-scale solar projects, as demonstrated by the recent Hepburn community owned wind farm.  Download the full submission.

We will continue to work with the new Government on these issues, and would welcome any input from readers on these or any other issues relating to energy or sustainability.

People interested in solar power may have noticed an increase in media attention to solar recently, following the NSW Premier's decision to dramatically reduce the NSW feed-in-tariff.

Some media reporting has drawn a link between solar and other renewable energy policies (including feed-in-tariffs) and electricity price rises, and some reports have gone so far as to suggest that solar schemes are heading the same way as home insulation. This article attempts to explain the costs, benefits and objectives of solar energy policies, and dispel some of the myths surrounding these policies.