06 Nov ESTELA’s comments to Australian Government’s Public Consultation paper on new generation investments
The Department of the Environment and Energy of the Australian Government just launched a consultation process about the new generation investments in Australia (see PDF).
The paper – besides describing the shortcomings of the current market situation in the country with too high prices and low appetite for investments in firm capacity – announces a process to select and financially support project proposals that would match some eligibility criteria (page 7 of the document). Regarding these criteria, the CSP sector represented by ESTELA will comment on the following aspects (read comments):
• CSP can provide firm new capacity for Australia (according to the paper, the need is currently estimated at 1160 MW till 2030)
• Decreasing the emission of the electricity sector (target is at least -26% in 2030 compared to 2005)
• Cost competitiveness of PV+CSP solutions
• The positive impact that an announced/committed programme (including CSP) could have for strengthening the supply chain and increasing job creating/local content (with other benefits such as decreasing costs)
The timeline of the announced process is as follows:
• General comments to be provided to the Australian authorities to the Consultation paper until 9 November 2018 (by 5PM AEDT)
• Meetings with stakeholders that would have sent their comments in Sydney and Melbourne
• Release by the Governments of an initial programme guidelines inviting developers to present expressions of interest in participating in the said programme (December 2018 – January 2019)
• Release of updated Programme Guidelines and invitation to developers to participate in the Request for Proposals stage (March 2019)
• The investment programme based on selected projects would then run from the beginning of the financial year 2019-2020
Adding to the general comments to be sent by ESTELA, we encourage you to actively participate and track this process and possibly add any other perhaps more specific comments that you would consider necessary from your own perspective. You can find more information and instructions about the request for feedback at https://www.environment.gov.au/energy/underwritingnewgeneration.