Australia sees overwhelming response in first wind and solar capacity tender

Australia’s first major tender for wind and solar power has attracted more than enough bids from developers to meet the country’s renewable energy target of 82 per cent by 2030, a federal minister said late last month.

“The first auction of the Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS), which will support 6 gigawatts of new capacity, has yielded more than 40GW of project registrations, showing that there is strong potential for renewables ready to be deployed with the right policy settings,” federal Energy and Climate Minister Chris Bowen wrote in a June 24 column for the Australian Financial Review.

CIS is an Australian program designed to cover the costs of new renewable energy generation and storage projects to offset the risk for developers. The country plans to secure 32 gigawatts of generation and storage capacity, of which 23 GW would come from large-scale wind and solar projects and 9 GW from dispatchable sources that can be turned on and off based on demand, RenewEconomy writes.

Bowen said the high level of interest in the first tender would help the Australian Labor government deliver on its commitment to achieve 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030. It also shows that opposition to renewable energy from other parties is not based on legitimate concerns about the reliability of renewable technologies, he added.

“The Liberal Party’s push for nuclear power is not motivated by a concern that Australia’s transition to renewable energy is too slow,” Bowen wrote.

“The truth is the opposite. The Liberal and National parties fear that our energy policy is too efficient for their convenience, given their ideological opposition to renewables.”

Bowen said that since Labor took power in May 2022, renewables had driven wholesale electricity prices down from A$375 to A$76 per megawatt-hour.

ABC Australia reports that while wholesale energy prices have fallen, retail prices to consumers have risen due to high price volatility, extreme weather and ageing coal-fired power stations.

In his piece in the Australian Financial Review, Bowen warned that centre-right National Party leader David Littleproud has vowed to “cancel” CIS contracts if a National-Liberal coalition takes power at the next election, instead planning to install nuclear reactors and keep coal-fired power stations open.

Littlefield’s stance on renewables has led to a split in the coalition’s energy and climate policies, the Guardian reports, as other members have expressed support for renewables.

“It is hard to imagine a greater potential act of economic self-harm,” Bowen wrote.

“Stopping renewables will do one thing: It will keep coal-fired power in our grid for longer. Much longer. Of course, that’s bad news for emissions.”