Clean Energy Council

Australian Capital Territory’s Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability Shane Rattenbury has announced a further reverse auction for 200 MW of wind or 250 MW of solar.

A new report from the Clean Energy Council (CEC) shows investment in renewable energies is slowing down to levels not seen since the prime ministership of Tony Abbott as a result of policy uncertainty and mounting regulatory challenges.

The Clean Energy Regulator has confirmed it has approved enough capacity to meet the Large-scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET). While this is a great achievement for the renewables industry, the question remains what comes beyond 2020. Although analysts expect a slow down, ANU researchers find the record installation rates will see Australia surpass the scrapped target of 41,000 GWh of renewable energy generation around the end of 2020.

The impacts of the cap that Victoria’s Solar Homes program is having on local installers are becoming more pronounced, as some express fears that the system is being exploited by unscrupulous industry players. Solar Cutters says some installers are receiving “pitiful” numbers of installs under the scheme, leaving them “dumbfounded”.

Matthew Kean, NSW Government Minister for Energy and Environment opened the Clean Energy Summit 2019 this week promising to unleash private investment on the state’s transmission infrastructure, but will the mechanism, the momentum and the maths add up to the coal-retirement timeline?

The quota for rebates in the August round of the Solar Homes program has been snapped up in only 90 minutes. Solar Victoria reports there are “plenty of rebates still available” for rental solar grants, solar hot water and batteries – the latter in qualifying areas only. Industry bodies say that solar sector in “crisis”.

The Smart Energy Council and Solar Cutters assembled a group of installers to send the message that the Solar Homes rebate scheme is damaging the Victorian solar sector today. The rally was also supported by the Clean Energy Council (CEC), which has called for the Solar Homes rebate to be reduced, and the monthly installation cap ended.

Following similar calls from other industry bodies, the Clean Energy Council has urged the Victorian government to review its landmark Solar Homes Program and warned about the serious effects its dynamics has on the industry.

Standards Australia has progressed AS/NZS: 5139 draft battery standard to the ballot stage for committee voting. The Smart Energy Council (SEC) believes the draft standard, while required to meet the needs of the fast growing battery segment, is not sufficiently thorough in addressing safety concerns.

After a Court of Appeal dismissed the government’s application to enforce regulation requiring licensed electrical workers to mount and fix unplugged solar panels, the Queensland government has called for an urgent industry roundtable to discuss safety in large-scale solar farms.