Chill breeze of politics stills Australian renewables
Election uncertainty casts pall over renewable energy investments in Australia
On a line of low hills standing sentinel beside a dry lake bed near Australia’s capital, giant turbines turning slowly in a chill winter breeze give no hint of a multi-billion-dollar storm building around renewable energy.
Infigen Energy’s Capital Windfarm, built five years ago, was a vanguard for wind power as Australia sought to wean itself from cheap fossil-fuel power in the face of climate shift blamed in part for Lake George’s transformation to a vast plain.
But big plans to expand the Infigen renewable energy project near Canberra and others like it have been put on hold awaiting the outcome of an election in September.
The ballot, which opinion polls show the opposition conservatives winning, along with an economic slowdown and rising home energy bills have put the brakes on Australia’s decade-long clean energy push.
At stake in the September 14 vote is a controversial carbon trading scheme championed by ruling Labor to curb greenhouse gas emissions, with a US$20 billion (HK$149.7 billion) pipeline in renewable investment largely on hold as nervous companies sit on their hands.
Infigen for one has not decided whether to go ahead with a A$180 million (HK$1.35 billion) expansion of the Capital wind farm, despite having local planning approval, or with a A$150 million (HK$1.12 billion) joint venture solar plant with US-based Suntech Power.