In the 20 years since former prime minister John Howard launched Australia’s Renewable Energy Target, the modest policy has transformed Australia’s renewable outlook. Now, an alliance of industry groups and community organisations are pushing for a similar policy to be introduced – only this time to foster storage technologies.
On Nov. 21, an alliance between Australia’s Climate Council, Smart Energy Council, community organisation Solar Citizens, the Clean Energy Investor Group and the Advanced Materials Battery Council urged the federal Albanese government to set up Renewable Energy Storage Target.
The calls for such a policy have been kicking around for some time now, but with federal Labor adamant it will take Australia from climate laggard to ‘superpower,’ the proposal has taken on a fresh urgency.
The policy, which would work on a combined regulatory and market based model, would unlock $42 billion (USD 28.7 billion) of private investment and create roughly 100,000 jobs in renewable energy, analysis from the Climate Council found. “It would do this by adding security and minimising risk for renewable storage investors,” the alliance said.
Such a target would be technology agnostic, capable of supporting both battery, pumped hydro and other storage technologies.
Australia’s energy ministers are currently in the processes of designing a new mechanism to support the stability and reliability of Australia’s energy system ahead of a meeting scheduled for December in Queensland.
The alliance urged the minister to consider a storage target, rather than a model which would prop up coal and gas – as many claim a “capacity mechanism” would do.
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