Clean energy funding gets thumbs up
Sat 05 June 2010
Graham Reeks, Graduate Diploma of Journalism
Sunshine Coast solar power firms and environmental interest groups have welcomed new national funding for renewable energy, but still want greater commitment.
The new Federal Budget includes $653 million over four years to help develop green energy projects and improve energy efficiency, although exactly what will be funded has not yet been announced.
Eumundi-based firm Solar Power Specialists is 23 years old, and operates throughout South-East Queensland, supplying renewable energy products and services to residential and commercial customers. 
Solar Power Specialists marketing manager Sean Buckley welcomed the announcement that the industry will receive Federal Government support.
“Incentives and programs can have a huge bearing on the market place,” Mr Buckley said.
“The budget, as it stands for us, provides at least an element of short-term stability, which in the current environment, where there have been associated industries that haven’t had stability, that’s a good thing.”
Mr Buckley believes the Sunshine Coast is the perfect location for a strong solar industry.
“We’re the sunburnt country, we’re the Sunshine State, we’re the Sunshine Coast,” Mr Buckley said.
“So at the moment you’re sitting in the epicentre of what should effectively be to renewable energies what Milan is to fashion.”
Last month a press release issued by the Sunshine Coast Environment Council (SCEC), titled The Sunshine Coast leads the way in solar power, said that almost 4000 houses use solar panels to provide electricity.
The suburb of Buderim has nearly 200 houses with solar power, the greatest number of installations in South-East Queensland.
SCEC has been championing the uptake of solar power, running the 10,000 solar roofs project in partnership with MCU Sustainable Banking and Ingenero.
SCEC climate change policy officer Ian Christesen has ideas about how the Renewable Energy Future Fund could be spent.
“We at SCEC have talked about the possibilities of establishing solar farms on the Sunshine Coast,” Mr Christesen said.
“There are some technologies now, such as solar thermal, which allow solar to become a 24/7 proposition rather than a daylight operation thing, and they’re the sort of technologies that we need to be developing.”
But Mr Christesen does not believe the federal funding is generous enough.
Budget figures show that over the next four years, the incentive will account for just 4 per cent of the amount that had previously been earmarked over the same period for the shelved emissions trading scheme.
“We need to be investing the same sorts of money in renewable energy as we are into coal technology,” Mr Chirstesen said.
Mr Christesen added that a Greenpeace report published last year showed that subsidies to fossil fuel energy companies in Australia are worth over $9 billion each year.
“We’ve still got our heads fixed on digging up coal, and if anything in the last few years, especially under [Prime Minister Kevin] Rudd, we are getting deeper and deeper into a coal economy and we’re becoming more reliant on a fairly fragile power source,” Mr Christesen said.
While there have been claims that mining companies will shelve projects and transfer investment overseas as a result of proposed new super tax measures, Mr Christesen claims that this has been happening in the Australian renewable energy sector for years because the government has not provided much needed support.
“We’ve been missing out on opportunities left, right and centre. There’s [sic] so many technologies that have not been commercialised in Australia,” Mr Christesen said.
Australia’s renewable energy peak body, the Clean Energy Council, has also cautiously welcomed the boost to the industry.
Clean Energy Council spokesman Mark Bretherton said that funding was a second best measure to introducing a carbon-trading scheme, because placing limiting greenhouse emissions would have the greatest effect.
Mr Bretherton said that there has been a history of Australian governments changing their commitments to the renewable energy sector, likening their approach to changing the rules of a sport in between seasons.
Mr Bretherton said that it was important that governments showed greater commitment to renewable energy to encourage potential investors in new technology and prove that it was a safe option.
“We need to lock in a framework that’s going to enable people to make long-term investment decisions,” Mr Bretherton said.
“When you start out there’s a lot of research and development, and the first products that come out of that are relatively expensive, over time mass production and commonly available materials help to bring costs down.
“Early stage seed-funding that helps new technologies get off the ground is essential in order to produce technologies that are going to leap that gap to commercialisation so that they’ll actually be affordable ways of creating energy from renewable source.”
The Renewable Energy Future Fund is sure to help the Sunshine Coast further its reputation as the solar power capital of Australia.
For supporters of the industry an announcement on what exactly the money will be used for cannot come soon enough.
Image(s) designed by Graham Reeks