A formal review of Australia’s 20 per cent Renewable Energy Target (RET) has seen the conservative Liberal-National government choose senior business figure Dick Warburton, who has been sceptical about mainstream climate change science in the past, to head it.
The major review into the impact of clean energy on retail power prices is expected to clear the way for the federal government to make significant changes to the RET.
The study of the RET will be headed by Mr Warburton, a former Reserve Bank board member, and will report back to the Government by the middle of the year.
It will feed into the Energy White Paper process, and a senior Liberal Party member has told ABC News it will provide the government “cover” for “let’s kill the RET”.
Speaking after a meeting of Cabinet in Canberra, Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said the review was always due to occur this year under legislation.
“There are no surprises,” Mr Hunt said.
Mr Macfarlane said the actual cost of renewable energy needed to be made clear to householders paying their electricity bills every quarter.
“It will be an extensive review. It won’t be a desktop audit. It will be a complete review,” he said.
“One of the things we want to do with this review is establish the actual cost of renewable energy and of the other schemes that the states have put in place – there is at the moment a blurring of what costs what.
“The role of the panel will be to clearly enunciate what renewable scheme is contributing how many dollars to each individual and each industry’s bill.
“Renewable energy has a role to play and it’s now time to look at where this scheme is going.”
Mr Hunt said the terms of reference focused on measuring the progress of the RET in three ways, against the initial objective, in terms of investment certainty and the scheme’s relationship to electricity prices.
“We are a government that is unashamedly doing our best to take pressure off manufacturing and households through anything that can lower electricity prices,” he said in a theme frequently repeated by the conservative government.
The Prime Minister Tony Abbott has faced strong internal pressure to scrap the RET from both the Nationals and many Liberals.
The Department of Environment says the RET scheme, originally introduced under a previous Liberal-National government and strengthened under the previous Labor government, ensures 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity will come from renewable sources, such as wind and solar, by 2020.
The Liberal Member for the western Sydney seat of Reid, Craig Laundy, has openly questioned whether the public’s support for renewable energy will be maintained once the cost is made clear.
The target would see 41,000 gigawatt-hours of renewable energy generated by the end of the decade.
Since January 2011, the scheme has been operating in two forms, the large-scale RET that creates financial incentives for clean energy power stations, and the small-scale renewable energy scheme that targets households and small business.
Business has warned it has distorted the price of electricity by contributing to an over-supply of electricity generation.
Mr Hunt said this review into the RET would be the last “for a very long time”.
Labor infrastructure spokesman Anthony Albanese said the government was preparing to break another promise.
“They made it very clear; Greg Hunt staked his reputation on the maintenance of the renewable energy target,” he told said in the island state of Tasmania.
“It’s important for jobs. It’s important in terms of positioning Australia as a clean energy economy into the future.
“We’ll wait and see what they do but we’ll be holding them to account,” Mr Albanese said.
