Target too low

Colac & Corangamite Extra
Tuesday 5/6/2007 Page: 1

A HIGHER national renewable energy target would be more effective in prompting construction of wind farms in the south-west than the introduction of a carbon emissions trading scheme, the Australian Wind Energy Association said. Association chief executive officer Dominque La Fontaine was responding to a report by a Federal taskforce that called for a carbon emissions trading scheme to be set up by 2012.

Ms La Fontaine said a carbon emissions trading scheme would not trigger investment in wind farms such as the $380 million one planned for Mount Gellibrand, west of Colac, until decades after the scheme began. She said coal, oil and gas-fired power stations currently contributed about half of the nation's carbon emissions and prompt specific action was needed to quickly reduce their emissions. "We want a market for clean energy product," Ms La Fontaine said.

She said the market for clean energy created through existing national and Victorian renewable energy targets was already close to being met. State targets needed to rolled into a national target and the national clean energy target lifted to 20 per cent of electricity generation by 2020, Ms La Fontaine said. The current national target is 9500 gigawatt hours of clean energy by 2020, which will be less than 10 per cent.

Ms Fontaine said clean energy targets were necessary because clean energy could not compete against "dirty energy" on price alone. She said her association was happy to compete with other forms of clean energy for the 20 per cent target. The international experience was to implement strong renewable energy targets prior to an emissions trading scheme, she said. Wind farms such as the 116-turbine Mount Gellibrand wind farm, east of Colac, have been approved by the State Government but no construction has occurred while the projects wait for investors.

Wind Hydrogen Ltd earlier this year pulled out of the project because of difficulty in finding investors and returned the project to the hands of the initial project developer, German company Pro Ventum International GmbH. Wind Hydrogen had been unable to secure a purchasing agreement from an energy retailer for wind energy produced at Mount Gellibrand.