5 April 2024
CLIMATE POLITICS
Bet ‘significant’ public money on renewables stakes: Combet (Australian Financial Review): The incoming chairman of the $212 billion Future Fund has personally urged the Albanese government to use the upcoming budget to make “significant” direct investments in post-fossil fuel renewable energy and grid projects. Former Labor minister Greg Combet, who is putting the finishing touches on Labor’s proposed Net Zero Economy Authority before moving to the national sovereign wealth fund in July, has been a regular attendee at cabinet budget spending committee meetings. He said the time is ripe for government to go beyond grants, concessional debt and loan guarantees.
Tiwi Islands leaders appeal to federal government to reconsider offshore gas project approvals changes (ABC News): Leaders from the Northern Territory's remote Tiwi Islands are appealing to the federal government to reconsider its plans to pass laws that could fast-track approval processes for major offshore gas projects. The government is planning to make the changes after gas companies, including Santos, complained that court actions challenging project approvals were causing costly delays and threatening international investment.
Vasse MLA Libby Mettam raises concerns about offshore wind farm zone consultation process following meetings (The West Australian): Member for Vasse Libby Mettam has raised her concerns about the Federal Government’s consultation period for the offshore wind farm zone proposed off the South West coast. The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water hosted a number of sessions last week, including one at the Busselton Youth Centre which had lengthy lines await community members who attended.
Peter Dutton’s nuclear push is a “suicide note” playing mostly to right wing echo chambers (Renew Economy): A February 26 page-one article in The Australian newspaper ran under the headline ‘Powerful majority supports nuclear option for energy security’. “Labor is now at risk of ending up on the wrong side of history in its fanatical opposition to nuclear power,” political editor Simon Benson wrote, adding that Labor “ignores this community sentiment potentially at its peril”.
CARBON MARKETS
Australia’s fossil fuel dominated grid to have hefty shadow carbon price, starting at $66 a tonne (Renew Economy): Australia’s electricity grid – still dominated by fossil fuels – is to have a hefty “shadow” carbon price that will guide regulatory and policy decisions, and help meet the country’s ambitious renewable energy goals. The call for a shadow carbon price – in the absence of a real one after the federal Coalition killed Australia’s actual carbon price a decade ago – was made by state and federal energy ministers last year to help guide policy and investment decisions.
Australia’s soil to become net carbon emitter and threat to climate goals, report says (The Guardian): Intensifying extreme heat and drought due to the climate crisis will make Australia’s soil a net emitter of carbon dioxide, impeding the country from reaching its climate goals, new analysis has found. Soil carbon sequestration has been identified as a way to help Australia meet its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets of 43% by 2030 and net zero by 2050.
Australia puts out shadow carbon price guidance for electricity market starting at A$66/t (Carbon Pulse): Australia’s energy regulator has released draft guidance on its ‘value of emissions reduction’ (VER), which will act as a shadow carbon price to help guide regulatory policy decisions related to the National Electricity Market (NEM).
Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator expects ACCU issuance to reach 20 mln in 2024 (Carbon Pulse): The Clean Energy Regulator issued 17.2 million Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) in 2023, and expects this figure to rise to a record 20 mln in 2024, it said in its latest quarterly report, published Wednesday.
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Green premiums are real, says aluminium boss (Australian Financial Review): Capral chief executive Tony Dragicevich says the aluminium goods manufacturer can charge an extra 5 per cent on products made with low or zero carbon emissions, giving hope to nickel miners lamenting customers’ refusal to pay a “green premium”. Resources Minister Madeleine King has pushed European counterparts to force their automakers to put a price on sustainability at a time when a glut of carbon-intensive nickel supply from Indonesia has crushed prices for the metal and forced Australian mines to close.
After years of promises on climate change, oil giants are backtracking (The Sydney Morning Herald): This month, Shell made its move. The world’s second-largest oil and gas company and largest LNG producer announced it was watering down its climate targets, its chief executive Wael Sawan fretting to Reuters that it was “perilous” for Shell to set 2035 emission reduction targets because, “there is too much uncertainty at the moment in the energy transition trajectory”. Voicing his confidence that fossils would remain integral to the global energy mix in the longer-term Sawan added that, “there is going to be a multidimensional energy system in the future, [and] oil and gas will continue to have an important role in stabilising that system for a long, long, long time to come”.
Influential proxy adviser urges vote against Woodside chairman (Australian Financial Review): Woodside Energy shareholders should vote against the re-election of the oil and gas giant’s chairman, Richard Goyder, and against its climate strategy, influential proxy advisory firm CGI Glass Lewis has told its heavyweight investment clients. The advice by CGI Glass Lewis, the first of the major proxy advisers to release pre-annual meeting recommendations on Woodside, provides weighty support for the push by two activist shareholder groups, the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, and Market Forces, which want the company to take stronger climate action.
Just 57 companies linked to 80% of greenhouse gas emissions since 2016 (The Guardian): A mere 57 oil, gas, coal and cement producers are directly linked to 80% of the world’s global fossil CO2 emissions since the 2016 Paris climate agreement, a study has shown. This powerful cohort of state-controlled corporations and shareholder-owned multinationals are the leading drivers of the climate crisis, according to the Carbon Majors Database, which is compiled by world-renowned researchers.
Rio Tinto to set nature targets ahead of massive Guinea project (Australian Financial Review): Rio Tinto chairman Dominic Barton has signalled the miner will set targets for the preservation of nature and biodiversity to bring international sustainability standards to projects in developing nations. Rio’s sustainability credentials have been questioned this week by big European investors who are considering whether to divest from the miner over its minority stake in an Amazonian bauxite to alumina business.
GREEN PROJECTS AND INITIATIVES
AGL, Cannon-Brookes vying for $1b in solar manufacturing grants (Australian Financial Review): AGL Energy and a solar technology start-up backed by its biggest investor, Mike Cannon-Brookes, are among parties vying for a share of $1 billion in taxpayer funds intended to kick-start the domestic solar panel industry. The ASX-listed energy utility and SunDrive, whose investors also include former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, will examine building solar cells in AGL’s Hunter Valley coal heartland, targeting production in 2026.
Giant solar project in limbo as Forrest misses another deadline on key green hydrogen project (Renew Economy): The fate of one of the biggest solar projects in Australia remains in limbo, after Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Metals missed another deadline for reaching financial close on the key Gibson Island green hydrogen plant in Queensland. The Gibson island ammonia plant in Queensland is Fortescue’s first big green hydrogen production project in Australia, but it has now missed three deadlines for FID – the end of December, the end of February and now the end of March.
Australia’s most successful renewable and storage developer seeks buyer in biggest asset sale (Renew Economy): Neoen, the French renewable energy and storage company that has been the most successful developer of such assets in Australia, is reportedly looking to sell nearly one third of its Australian portfolio to recycle funds for further investment. The sale of a thirty per cent stake, reportedly mandated to the Bank of America according to the Australian Financial Review, would likely be the biggest single sale of renewable and storage assets in the country to date, surpassing the purchase of CWP by iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest’s Squadron Energy.
Queensland premier Steven Miles apologises to Pioneer Valley locals about pumped hydro announcement timing (ABC News): Queensland Premier Steven Miles has apologised to residents who could lose their homes to make way for the world's largest pumped hydro scheme, while insisting it will still go ahead. The ambitious Pioneer-Burdekin proposal near Mackay is touted as the world's largest pumped hydro scheme.
Westwind eyes new 1.5GW wind project in south-west NSW (Renew Economy): Westwind Energy has unveiled more details of its giant 1.5 gigawatt (GW) Lake Victoria wind project in south west NSW, although it is unlikely to be operational before the end of the decade. The developer has kicked off community consultation for the wind farm in late March, which will host around 200 turbines which currently have planning permission for a total tip height of 280 metres.
Generation starts at what will be South Australia’s biggest wind farm (Renew Economy): Limited production has begun from the first stage of the 412 megawatt (MW) Goyder South wind project, which is destined to be the biggest wind farm in South Australia when completed. The first output appears to have occurred in the late afternoon of Thursday, April 4, according to various NEM data sources, with up to 4MW produced by what is known as Goyder South 1A.
OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST
Sims questions solar panels as report sounds alarm on coal jobs (Australian Financial Review): One of Australia’s top green energy superpower advocates says it is unclear whether the nation has a comparative advantage in the solar panel industry that the Albanese government is propping up with $1 billion of support, including in regions facing the likely loss of thousands of coal-fired power station workers, some earning up to $170,000. Economist Rod Sims said while there was no doubt the country would need a “hell of a lot” of panels to seize the opportunities created by abundant renewable solar energy, its ability to produce them economically and in a way that produces high-paying jobs was another matter.
Renewable energy boost turns up heat on existing power plants (WA Today): Australia’s energy industry is warning greater co-ordination is needed to ensure new sources of electricity are built in time for more coal-fired power station closures as efforts to turbocharge renewable spending heap further pressure on older plants’ viability. The Albanese government has been consulting industry players over the details of a Commonwealth-funded “capacity investment scheme”, through which it wants to spur enough new large-scale renewable and storage to help double the share of green power in the grid by 2030.
Three steps forward, two steps back as Australia inches towards renewables targets (Renew Economy): Australia continues to inch forward towards its renewables target of 82 per cent by 2030, with a big leap in construction and connections still needed over the coming five years. The latest quarterly data shows a small gain overall in the Australia’s main grid when comparing the latest March quarter to the same period last year.
Marginal loss factor rules undermining urgent renewables growth, investors warn (Renew Economy): Australia’s biggest group of clean energy investors has called for an urgent review of rules governing generator ratings, after the final calculations for wind and solar farms were published this week by the market operator. The Australian Energy Market Operator published its final word on 2024-25 Marginal Loss Factors (MLFs) on Tuesday, which decide how much of a generator’s output is credited as “delivered” to a customer and can affect a project’s profitability.
Without community support, the green energy transition will fail. Here’s how to get communities on board (The Conversation): Connecting cheap, clean energy from renewables comes with a hidden cost and challenge: building 5,000 kilometres of new transmission lines this decade, and another 5,000km after that. This sounds like a lot, but 5,000km is only around 10% of the existing grid network, and unlocks more than 32 gigawatts of new clean energy capacity by 2030. The problem is, communities are often not sold on having to host new transmission lines. As the recent review of community engagement by renewable and transmission companies demonstrates, this is because it wasn’t explained well to these communities as to why it’s needed and how they can benefit.