Age
Saturday 30/10/2010 Page: 10
THE other states and territories would be wrong to follow New South Wales's lead and slash their renewable energy policies.
While it may be true that the NSW feed-in tariff was set too high, the claim that feed-in-tariff policies are driving energy price rises is absurd. Victoria's feed-in tariff adds less than $1 per year to average electricity bills. The vast majority of price rises are due to investment in infrastructure required to deliver mostly coal-fired power to the grid, which will require $42 billion of investment over the next five years.
CSIRO research shows that solar panels on roofs can cut the cost of electricity by reducing the burden on transmission infrastructure and deferring expensive upgrades. The NSW decision is a knee-jerk overreaction to a flood of misleading media reports on the cost of feed-in tariffs, and will jeopardise hundreds of jobs in the renewable energy industry. Globally, Australia is already at the bottom of the pile when it comes to climate change policy. Let's not dig ourselves in deeper.
Paul Murfitt, Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd, Brunswick
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