CoAG Review of Eligible Technologies

The Government today has announced that a COAG review into the Renewable Energy Target will consider factors that may be impacting upon the Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) market in the short and long term. “The review will explicitly examine the current state of the RET spot market and whether the spot market has any implications for the deployment of large-scale projects such as wind farms,” Senator Wong said. Senator Wong said uncertainty regarding the establishment of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme could be harming market sentiment and impacting on the REC spot price. AGL agrees that uncertainty is a problem but the RET should also be amended so that only electricity generation is eligible (in other words non-electricity generation sources such as solar hot water should be transitioned out of the RET)

Insulation Rebate

The announcement on the weekend that the Government will reduce the rebate for insulation installation from $1,600 to $1,200 has generated a bit of discussion online. There is no doubt that insulation has become very cost effective for households with the range of energy efficiency schemes across the country in addition to the Commonwealth rebate. The Government has provided information on the changes here http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/garrett/2009/mr20091101.html. I think there is also a need to review the level of support for solar hot water at present. The level of support is disadvantaging suppliers of gas hot water systems and the cost of subsidies per tonne for gas is only $10. This compares very favourably with the $75/tonne abatement subsidies for solar hot water.

Garnaut Review Announces Targets

The Garnaut Review has released a supplementary draft report recommending targets for the proposed Australian Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. I have attached a link to a summary here. From here, the Government will consider this report and then a final report before releasing draft legislation for the scheme at the end of the year.

AGL Presents to the Market

In yet another first, AGL has presented real financial metrics around its greenhouse footprint. In a presentation to equity analysts, AGL has stated what the upside and potential downside of its portfolio of assets in a carbon constrained world might look like. Click here for the presentation.

AGL Garnaut Submission

AGL has made a submission to the Garnaut Climate Change Review. The Review is to provide advice to the Commonwealth Government about climate change policy later in 2008. The website can be accessed here. AGL’s submission is available here. Happy reading!