New South Wales Energy Minister calls States to Abandon Renewable Targets

Anthony Roberts, New South Wales Energy Minister supports the call of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on stated to abandon individual renewable energy targets and instead support the federal government’s approach to renewable energy as reported on ibtimes.com.au. Roberts also cites the statewide power outage in South Australia and Tasmania as reasons behind the challenge.

Roberts say states do have a renewable energy target which should be the commonwealth target. He also said that it’s the most efficient way to transition to a renewable supply without affecting security supply for households and businesses.

Roberts stated that the national electricity market does not stop at state boundaries.  If the state goes alone, they fail to recognise the effect on reliability and security and costs.

According to Josh Frydenberg, Federal Energy and Environment Minister, targets could reach $41 billion in capital costs, but South Australia, Victoria and Queensland dispute the figure. The three states say it did not look into account the falling cost of renewable energy infrastructure.

Roberts said that in the case of New South Wales, the state did not suffer from lack of renewable investment even if it does not have its own renewable targets. He also disclosed that there are $12 billion investments in the pipeline that includes 3,200 megawatts of approved projects and 4,800 megawatts pending approval.

The local labour Government of the Australian Capital Territory has legislated for a 100% renewable energy target by the year 2020. But this would be at risk on Saturday when Canberra residents go to precincts for the territory elections.

According to The Guardian, 8 out of 10 Canberra residents support the state’s 100% renewable energy target, while the city has one of the highest domestic installation bases per capita of rooftop solar. The Canberra Liberals are against the expansion of renewable energy and in 2014 they complained about the bad impact of the renewable energy target.

Click here to read the full story ibtimes.com.au

Featured Image Credit: Mark Thompson