A panel
reviewing led by businessman Dick Warburton and examining the Renewable Energy Target has delivered its report, recommending the scheme be scaled back.
Claiming RET has been expensive – costing $9.4 billion in cross-subsidies to the
renewables sector from 2001-2013 and a predicted further $15 billion up to 2020 (in current terms) – the Warburton report has suggested closing it to
new entrants or approving new renewable energy projects only when electricity demand
increases.
It also argues that renewables were on track to make up a needlessly large share, 26 per cent, of electricity generation by 2020.
Warburton
has been criticised as the choice to the head of the review for holding “climate
sceptic” views. He is a former chair of Manufacturing Australia, which was
formed by businesses to lobby against the former carbon tax.
Fairfax reports that the Clean Energy Council believes the recommendations would end
the renewable energy industry’s future in Australia, costing thousands of jobs.
The federal
government is expected to respond to the Warburton report in at least two
weeks. It backed the previous RET of 20 per cent of power being generated by
renewable sources by 2020 leading up to the election, but Prime Minister Tony
Abbott is critical of the target.
“The renewable energy target is very significantly driving up
power prices,” said Abbott earlier this year.
Image: http://oag.ca.gov/