The world’s
largest manufacturer of wind turbines, Vestas Wind Systems, has warned a review of the Renewable Energy Target that billions in investment and thousands of
jobs are at stake if the target is reduced.
Vestas wrote to the panel, headed by former Manufacturing Australia CEO Dick
Warburton, claiming that over $10 billion in value for the country’s largest
projects was at risk. Further than this, according to the Danish renewable
energy giant, another $15 billion in projects and 18,000 jobs could be
compromised.
The review
of the federal RET, 20 per cent of electricity to come from renewables by 2020,
was announced in February.
Bloomberg reports that Vestas’s submission to the review claimed, “What the RET has done is introduce more competition
into the wholesale market, and that hurts the revenue of older fossil
fuel-powered generators.”
“The owners of those incumbent generators don’t like that
outcome, and naturally are lobbying against it.”
The RET review panel will report by the middle of the year. Click here to read its terms of reference.
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