Coal/electricity/electrification
AGL | CEF NEWS UPDATES | CEF SERIES ON CRITICAL MINERALS | China | Coal/electricity/electrification | Critical minerals | Decarbonisation | Energy Crisis | Finance Sector & Emissions | Green Iron | Hydrogen | India & Adani | Monthly China Energy Updates | Nuclear | Submissions | Taxes & subsidies | US IRA/ NZIA et al |
Analysis | QLD Battery Industry Strategy Positions Sunshine State as Cleantech Leader – Time for State and Federal Counterparts to Step Up
Queensland’s groundbreaking announcement today of a more than half billion dollar investment of strategic public capital into a battery industry strategy means the sunshine state is now becoming the nation’s cleantech leader, streaking ahead of the other states and the federal government to claim the zero-emissions energy and investment crown. Read more
OP ED | Here we go again: Rooftop PV + SMRs + CCS the latest ploy in the Coalition’s ‘disrupt and delay’ handbook
Here we go again – the latest salvo from the climate laggards of the National Party designed to disrupt and delay Australia’s accelerating clean energy revolution. This time, it is couched in the tactically crafty but deeply cynical and flawed view that distributed renewables – minus utility-scale – are the solution to electricity grid decarbonisation. Read more
REPORT | Queensland’s Energy Transformation: From Coal Colossus to Renewable Energy Superpower
An analysis of Queensland’s current energy grid and its transition from FY24 to FY36, modelling the impacts of large-scale and distributed energy generation and storage to meet Queensland’s renewable energy and emissions reduction targets. Read more
OP ED | Massive Victorian blackout a copybook illustration of need to build energy system resilience & accelerate transition to firmed renewables
Yesterday afternoon storms damaged power lines across Victoria taking all four generators at AGL’s massive end-of-life 2,210 megawatt (MW) coal-fired Loy Yang A power station offline as part of a cascading series of events, and with it 30% of the state’s power supply. This is a massive wake up call on the unreliability of ailing coal clunkers and the need to transition to firmed renewables. Read more
GUEST POST | Northern Beaches (Sydney) Indoor Sports Centre: A Case Study in Commercial and Industry (C&I) Rooftop Solar
Guest contributor Owen Evans breaks down a C&I solar project and the cost saving benefits. Read more
REPORT | CEF’s activities and impacts report July-Dec 2023
A full overview of our work and impacts across our program areas for the 6 months July-Dec 2023 Read more
Pre-Budget Submission 2024-25
The world is in a technology, trade and finance race as the energy transition takes hold and we grapple with the growing impacts of climate change and climate risk. Australia has one of the biggest investment, employment, and net export opportunities this century, but only if we proactively build a strategic national response proportional to the investment opportunity. In our submission with Climate Capital Forum, we call for a major public policy shift, at scale, to set the right market signals and strategically leverage the national balance sheet, and selectively provide public budget support to unlock and crowd-in private capital. Read more
REPORT | Update The Lights will Stay on: NSW Electricity Plan 2024-2030
Our new report shows that the surge of utility scale firmed renewables in NSW, alongside CER, means there will be no electricity supply reliability gap if Australia’s biggest coal clunker – Eraring power station – is closed on-time as planned in 2025. Read more
China’s Leadership in Cleantech Manufacturing is the Necessary Pre-condition of COP28 Goal to Triple Global Renewable Energy by 2030
There is consensus from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) that, in order to maintain the 1.5 degree pathway set out in the Paris Agreement, a tripling of renewables capacity to 11,000 GW by 2030 is required. According to the IEA, it is the single most important driver to keep 1.5C within reach. 90% of the renewable capacity growth would be from solar and wind, with wind capacity rising threefold from 2022 to 2030, and solar capacity fivefold. Put simply, this goal would be out of reach absent China’s massive green industrialisation of the last decade, the unprecedented acceleration of which underpins the financial viability of, and the market conditions to make possible, the global renewables revolution we need to see by 2030 if we are to avert the worsening climate crisis. Read more
REPORT | Decarbonising China & the World: Chinese Energy SOEs Supercharge Renewable Investment in Response to the 14th Five Year Plan
Our new report, led by CEF China analyst Xuyang Dong, finds that China’s massive energy-focussed State Owned Enterprises (SoEs) are shifting their huge capital expenditure (capex) in line with the central government’s renewable energy and emissions reduction targets, dramatically accelerating decarbonisation of the world’s second biggest economy. Supported by SoEs’ capital investments into renewables, China has already met its 2025 target requiring that 50% of installed capacity is renewable energy, and this target is likely to be exceeded by a significant margin. China’s domestic CO2 emissions could also fall in 2024 with its record increase in installation of zero-emissions energy sources and a recovery in hydropower, combined with enormous gains in electrification of transport and electric vehicle (EV) adoption, foreshadowing a structural plateauing of China’s emissions well before the formal target of a peak before 2030. This spells structural decline for Australian coal exports, driving home again our need to pivot our economy to value-adding critical minerals and onshoring clean manufacturing. Read more
China’s Leadership in Decarbonising Cleantech Manufacturing to Green the World
In September 2020, President Xi Jinping announced China’s national climate target to peak CO2-e emissions before 2030, and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Despite coal-fired generation capacity expanding in China into 2023, deployment of zero emission generation has significantly outpaced fossil fuels. We examine the aggressive scope 1-3 decarbonisation plans of four Chinese world leaders: CATL, LONGi, JinKO Solar and Trina Solar, far ahead of Australian corporate ‘leaders’ like BHP, Wesfarmers and BlueScope Steel. Read more