The Great Australian Wave: Goodbye to Clean Energy Innovators

Renewable energy advocates say wave power could experience the same brain drain that hit the Australian solar industry over the past decade. Australian scientists and their solar technologies left for California and China, driven away by a lack of research and development support. Now the Clean Energy Council says young innovative wave energy companies have missed out on Federal Government renewable energy funding and are heading overseas.

Bronwyn Herbert reported for ABC PM programme (4 October 2010): 

MARK COLVIN: Renewable energy advocates say wave power could experience the same brain drain that hit the Australian solar industry over the past decade.

Australian scientists and their solar technologies left for California and China during that time – driven away by a lack of research and development support.

Now the Clean Energy Council says young innovative wave energy companies have missed out on Federal Government renewable energy funding and are having to head overseas.

Bronwyn Herbert reports.

BRONWYN HERBERT: The CSIRO recently produced a wave atlas that found if just 10 per cent of the energy generated from waves along Australia’s southern coast line were harnessed, it could meet half the nation’s current electricity consumption.

TOM DENNISS: The coasts that border the Southern Ocean are pretty much the best in the world for wave resource. With a resource like that it makes it that much easier to be commercially viable, too, if initial funding to get things built is available.

It’s a little bit of a mismatch. Australia has got a great resource, but not necessarily a good program for fostering these technologies.

BRONWYN HERBERT: Australian wave energy companies say they’ve missed out on local funding and have to head offshore for support.

Dr Tom Denniss is the chief technology officer at Ocean Linx.

TOM DENNISS: We almost have to rely on overseas money if it’s not forthcoming here because there’s no way we can get these technologies fully commercialised without actually putting full scale projects in the water. And those projects cost money and we really need to implement them where that money is available.

BRONWYN HERBERT: Carnegie Wave Power faces similar challenges.

The Perth-based company has just signed a three year agreement with Ireland’s Sustainable Energy Authority to test its technology over there.

A company spokesman says they would like to develop their technology domestically, but the Australian Government isn’t providing a lot of incentives.

Matthew Warren is the chief executive of the Clean Energy Council.

MATTHEW WARREN: It’s a real threat. There are other economies in the world – in Ireland, in the USA – that are already offering very attractive mechanisms and schemes to develop technologies. And companies like Carnegie have a responsibility to their shareholders. If they can’t develop in Australia, they’ll develop where they can develop. 

So that threat is real and the problem is, we need to get the strategy in place in time to prevent losing some of our critical IP, because if a company like Carnegie goes offshore, that sends a very bad signal to investors and other technology developers in that space, in that when you get through all the hard bits and when you’re getting close to succeeding, that’s when you have to start leaving.

BRONWYN HERBERT: Renewable energy advocates say wave power could experience the same sort of brain drain that has hit the Australian solar industry over the past decade.

Successful solar company Ausra – led by the former Sydney University Professor David Mills – went to California for funding.

Suntech was another company to migrate offshore, and it’s now one of the world’s biggest solar companies, based in China.

The Federal Government’s Energy Minister Martin Ferguson last year launched the $300 million Renewable Energy Demonstration Program at Carnegie’s pilot plant but that company eventually missed out on funding, as did Ocean Linx.

Tom Denniss again.

TOM DENNISS: There was one wave energy company that did receive quite a substantial grant for $66 million. That company is actually US-based, although the project that they would be developing is in Australia. 

If the handful of Australian companies were to have shared that money I think it would have been enough for all of us to have really made some substantial progress in the development of all our technologies.

BRONWYN HERBERT: The Federal Minister for Resources and Energy Martin Ferguson was unavailable to speak with PM.

In a statement a department spokeswoman says funding under the program was based on merit and the advice of the renewable energy committee.

MARK COLVIN: Bronwyn Herbert

Source: www.abc.net.au