The ACCC recommendation must not be used as a Trojan horse to satisfy the ideological excesses of climate deniers in the Coalition who are obsessed with building a new polluting coal plant
Following reports about the Turnbull Government’s consideration of the ACCC’s recommendation for public support of ‘firm’ power, and its connection to the National Energy Guarantee, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has released a short background paper detailing the key design elements that should be included in such a program. That paper can be found here.
In response ACF Climate Change Program Manager, Gavan McFadzean, said:
“The recommendation from the ACCC for the government to support ‘firm’ power projects must not be used as a Trojan horse to satisfy the ideological excesses of climate deniers in the Coalition who are obsessed with building a new polluting coal plant.
“The last thing Australia needs is a new dirty, expensive and clunky coal power station. What we actually need is strong ‘on-demand’ power options that compliment cheap and clean solar and wind energy. These include pumped hydro, large batteries, concentrated solar thermal and demand response.
“The Turnbull Government must implement the ACCC’s proposal to support ‘on-demand’ power with four key principles: it does not fund unnecessary ‘baseload’ power like coal; projects are chosen by tender; non-generation options like demand management should be included; and proponents should not be indemnified for future climate risk.
“The optimal design would ban new coal from the outset of this program. And it would be managed by the successful Clean Energy Finance Corporation, as flagged by the ACCC.”
