Lucky Last – Save Money, Save Energy, Be More Productive

Fiona Wain, CEO of Environment Business Australia (EBA) reminds us that all is not lost. And she continues to promote energy efficiency as it is Australia’s greatest opportunity to immediately reduce greenhouse gas pollution while saving money and improving national productivity. That just makes so much sense. Does the Government see it that way? EBA has, together with a number of organisations, produced an energy efficiency communiqué to get the message through to Government and the people. Read More

EBA supports energy efficiency communiqué

Energy Efficiency is Australia’s greatest opportunity to immediately reduce greenhouse gas pollution while saving money and improving national productivity. Key institutions, including the Total Environment Centre, Australian Alliance to Save Energy, Energetics, Australian Conservation Foundation, Energy Efficiency Council and EBA have sponsored a joint message to government, which shows how energy efficiency can reward every enterprise, organisation and household in the nation through direct cost savings and other benefits.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY ROUNDTABLE COMMUNIQUE

Energy Efficiency is Australia’s greatest opportunity to immediately reduce greenhouse gas pollution while saving money and improving national productivity.

Energy efficiency saves money:

Energy efficiency can reward every enterprise, organisation and household in the nation through direct cost savings and other benefits. (On average, every kWh of electricity consumed in Australia costs about 15 cents at retail prices and creates about 1kg of CO2-e pollution.)

These savings come from reducing energy consumption in real terms, lowering the energy intensity of demand and improving energy network security. With electricity and gas prices rising rapidly, even without a price on carbon, the benefits of energy efficiency will increase for all energy consumers.

Energy efficiency is vital to a timely and orderly transition to a low-carbon economy:

Energy efficiency is one of the largest and cheapest ways to cut emissions. The International Energy Agency estimates 65 per cent of global emission cuts by 2020 will come from energy efficiency. Australia will need dedicated energy efficiency policies irrespective of what happens in other key climate change policy areas. Energy efficiency complements, and does not replace

• a carbon price;

• increased renewable, alternative and low carbon pollution energy generation;

• ongoing international negotiations for a global agreement on emissions reduction.

Energy Efficiency has reached a tipping point of policy development:

We will actively engage with stakeholders in relevant policy-making arenas, including the new Prime Minister’s Task Group on Energy Efficiency. We welcome the appointment of Australia’s first Minister for Energy Efficiency and inclusion of energy efficiency as a portfolio responsibility within the Department of Climate Change in Canberra.

We call for bipartisan political support for making energy efficiency and putting a price on greenhouse pollution core to any comprehensive strategy for enhancing Australia’s economic productivity and environmental well-being. In order for the Federal Government to deliver on its 2007 election commitment to be at the forefront of OECD energy efficiency improvement, the Prime Minister’s Task Group on Energy Efficiency must make recommendations in the following action areas.

Energy efficiency key action areas should include:

• Set mandatory national energy efficiency goals for 2020 and beyond with clear annual targets

• Create incentives in the National Electricity Market (NEM) to foster energy efficiency and distributed energy

• Strengthen institutional support for the ‘smart grid’

• Build energy efficiency trade skills and workforce capabilities through national training programs

• Create strong incentives and regulatory drivers for energy efficiency in industry, commercial buildings and households

• Mandate stringent vehicle fuel consumption standards and recognise the contribution from recycling and materials resource efficiency

• Require best-practice energy efficiency in government operations

Further information contact:

Rob Murray-Leach, CEO, Energy Efficiency Council – 0414 065 556

Mark Lister, Interim CEO, Australian Alliance to Save Energy – 0402 320 906

Jeff Angel, Executive Director, Total Environment Centre – 02 9261 3437

Nicole Ikenberg, Policy Manager – Climate Change WWF-Australia – 0400 324 107

Source: www.environmentbusiness.com.au

Miners to Dictate Renewable Energy Supply Lines

The Queensland Government has left it up to big energy users, mainly miners, to dictate the energy supply for the North West Queensland Minerals Province, other local industries and communities for decades to come, including building a link from Townsville to Mount Isa to connect renewable energy projects such as wind and solar to the grid.

Kerrie Sinclair  in The Courier-Mail (25 April 2010):

THE State Government has left up to big energy users, mainly miners, a decision that will dictate the energy supply for the North West Queensland Minerals Province, other local industries and communities for decades to come.

The Mount Isa region lacks a national grid link. State-owned CS Energy owns the only large power source, the ageing 325-megawatt gas-fired Mica Creek plant that needs new capacity to feed any further regional growth.

Xstrata, the Swiss miner that is the world’s biggest exporter of coal for power stations, BHP Billiton and Incitec Pivot are among the companies to decide between four options: build power lines to central Queensland to tap the mainly coal-fired national grid; build a link from Townsville to Mount Isa to connect renewable energy projects such as wind and solar to the grid; expand Mica Creek; or rely on self-supply, mainly from diesel-powered generators.

McKinlay Shire Council mayor Paul Woodhouse says: “The major energy users have been asked to make the decision.

“I’m hoping that for everyone’s sake they make a choice that works long term, not just short term.”

Suppliers are vying for customer commitments. If there is no supply agreement by December 2010, the Government may step in.

Exposure to rising long-term gas prices is a concern for local councils and the big energy users, while a carbon tax would push up diesel costs.

Local councils favour a Mount Isa-Townsville link as it would kick-start a fleet of renewable power plants with little or no carbon emissions with Mica Creek as their back-up.

Councils say this “clean energy corridor” would help lower north Queensland’s energy costs by reducing gas-price exposure and slashing losses from transporting energy over long distances.

But a BIS Shrapnel study, funded by a regional development body and the Queensland Resources Council, identifies a chicken and egg problem for the clean energy link.

It says enough generation capacity to make the link cost-competitive from the outset isn’t likely until 2015-16 – two years after the link must be commissioned.

“There is a risk the major users will dismiss the clean energy corridor … However, by 2020, north Queensland could become an exporter of energy to central Queensland, which would reduce the cost of electricity to the northwest and to the major users, the mines,” BIS Shrapnel says.

Mayor Woodhouse says: “Gas and coal prices are only heading higher.

“Australia’s electricity prices are determined by gas demand, which is determined by the major energy-consuming nations like China, so we’re stuck in a wheel we don’t deserve to be in.

“All we can do as a shire council is move to circumvent that wheel by demonstrating and introducing on-property and local clean power sources, perhaps following the German example in use of solar power.

“In 10 years or less, we could provide our excess of clean power into the national electricity market.”

BIS Shrapnel says if the transmission line is built, it could catalyse enough local clean energy to meet up to a fifth of the Federal Government’s target for 20 per cent of Australia’s power to come from renewable energy by 2020.

It says renewable energy costs are expected to eventually equal or undercut conventional gas and coal, and solar and geothermal costs are widely tipped to undercut or equal “clean coal” plants.

It says research shows renewable energy generation creates more jobs per energy unit than all conventional fossil fuel-based sectors.

“If this solution isn’t chosen, it’ll clearly cut out the possibility of renewable generation occurring and that would be quite sad because that opportunity won’t present itself again probably for at least 20 years,” says Glenn Graham, executive director of regional economic development body the Mount Isa to Townsville Economic Development Zone (MITEZ).

Scientists say annual global carbon emissions – mainly from extracting and burning coal, oil and gas – must peak about 2015 then start to fall away fast to give a decent chance of keeping average temperature and sea-level rises manageable for most countries.

Queensland’s reliance on coal for power and extraction for export make it one of the world’s biggest per-person carbon emitters.

Over half of Xstrata’s global annual carbon emissions come from its Australian operations.

Xstrata says renewable energy “is one option under consideration for the region” and it is working with proponents of the various options as they embark on feasibility studies.

“We know this region … also has huge potential in terms of renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and geothermal. There is a great opportunity in progressing the long-term solution to leverage mineral and renewable resources,” a spokesman says.

By 2015-16, there is potential for 900MW of installed renewable capacity to be grid-connected via the transmission link, with 300MW of baseload power from a biomass and solar thermal plant proposed by Korean firm Samsung at Pentland and another 600MW from a windfarm proposed at Hughenden by Australia’s Windlab Systems.

Source: www.couriermail.com.au

It could be a big fortnight for the Australian solar industry. The shortlist for the first two projects in the $1.5 billion Solar Flagships program is expected to be announced soon, and so will the much awaited but long-delayed winners of the solar component of the Renewable Energy Demonstration Program.

Giles Parkinson in The Australian (26 April 2010):  

It could be a big fortnight for the Australian solar industry. The shortlist for the first two projects in the $1.5 billion Solar Flagships program is expected to be announced soon, and so will the much awaited but long-delayed winners of the solar component of the Renewable Energy Demonstration Program.

The announcements will be a major boost to the solar industry, which has enjoyed something of a mini-boom in small-scale rooftop installations, but has made no progress on larger, utility-scale installations and those in between.

The federal government is expected to announce half a dozen candidates to build Australia’s first large-scale photovoltaic project and its first large-scale solar thermal project. There have been some 52 applications, attracting most of the world’s leading solar energy developers, equipment suppliers, engineering groups and financiers. The winners are expected to be announced later this year, although there is some concern this timetable may be derailed by the election.

The REDP grant allocations had been expected last year and were feared lost in a bureaucratic reshuffling of funds but, according to a spokesman for Energy Minister Martin Ferguson, they will be announced “in the very near future”.

These grants, possibly as much as $130 million, will focus on funding demonstration projects for emerging solar technologies. The local industry is rich in natural resources and R&D but has been forced to watch as European countries and China forge ahead with strong government incentive schemes.

Australia is expected to install around 50MW of solar PV this year, mostly the result of sate-based incentive schemes. But according to a survey by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, it trails behind less well solar-endowed countries by a wide margin.

Its survey found 7300MW of solar PV was installed worldwide in 2009, with nearly half of this coming from Germany, followed by Italy at 580MW, Japan and the US with nearly 500MW each, the Czech Republic with 397MW and Belgium with 233MW. A further 11,000 may be installed this year.

And solar thermal, which differs from solar PV because it uses the sun’s heat to create steam and drive conventional generators, is also making solid progress. Areva, the French nuclear giant which recently completed the purchase of Australian-founded solar thermal group Ausra, is in talks in India with a view to building several 50MW solar thermal plants as part of that country’s stated goal to build 1000MW of solar thermal capacity by 2013 and another 3000MW by 2017.

Germany’s Solar Millennium, one of the applicants for the Solar Flagships, reportedly said last week it was on track to complete a 150MW solar thermal plant in Egypt this year, which will be boosted by gas turbines and is being touted as a template for a series of solar farms and other renewable energy installations that will form part of the proposed $700bn Desertec project that will supply up to 25 per cent of Europe’s energy needs.

Chinese firm to list on ASX

THE Australian appetite for IPOs in the rapidly emerging clean-tech sector will be tested this week when Chinese company Novarise Renewable Resources makes its debut on the ASX.

Novarise, a recycler of polypropylene waste materials, had sought between $25m and $32m, but had to settle at the lower end, although it did manage to secure the interest of a few institutional investors such as CBC Credit Suisse Asset Management and ABN Bank-Singapore Private Bank. The market debut comes just a week after the completion of the first clean-tech float in the US this year, Codexis, a US bioscience and biofuel specialist backed by Shell and Chevron. Codexis had aimed to raise $US100m ($107m) but had a similarly lukewarm reception, rustling up $US78m with its shares priced at the lower end of a $US13 to $US15 range at the end of its first day.

The Codexis IPO is expected to be followed by other green floats in coming months, including solar firms Daqo, Jinko and Solyndra, electric car company Tesla, and Fallbrook Technologies. Most of the action in green IPOs, however, is centred on China, with two wind energy groups completing multi-billion IPOs in recent months and others in the pipeline. In Australia, a new exchange, the Sustainable Investment Market Venture Security Exchange, which has ambitions of creating a global centre for “green” stocks, is edging closer to reality. CEO Anne Bowering says it expects to receive the first applications for listing next month, one from a renewable energy company and the second from the “pollution reduction” sector.

Pay pegged to green criterion

GERMAN energy giant RWE has announced that its executive bonus scheme will now be partly measured on longer-term sustainability criteria such as the environment and employee satisfaction rather than just short-term profit achievements.

parkinsong@theaustralian.com.au

Source: www.theaustralian.com.au