Our work

Leading clean energy and investor groups today applauded Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s expansion of the Capacity Investment Scheme to 32GW, a huge stepchange in ambition that will accelerate Australia’s clean energy transition and ensure energy affordability and reliability. See the joint statement CEF released with the Clean Energy Investor Group, representing renewable energy investors with ~11GW of installed capacity across ~70 power stations and a portfolio value of ~$24bn; the Smart Energy Council, the independent body for the Australian smart energy industry with more than 950 members, Nexa Advisory and Solar Citizens. Read more

What kind of game is AustralianSuper, the country’s biggest super fund, playing with Origin Energy? The pension behemoth, with $300bn in assets under management and over 3.26 million members, is shaping up to scuttle a bid by Canadian fund manager Brookfield, plus Singapore’s Temasek and GIC, to acquire Australia’s largest power company, gentailer Origin Energy, owner of near-death coal clunker Eraring, Australia’s biggest coal-power station slated for mothballing in 2025. Is it in the public interest for the acquisition to be blocked when doing so cruels the $20-30bn investment in 14GW of accelerated firmed renewable energy to which Brookfield has committed? Read more

We welcome and applaud the Treasurer’s focus today on 4 key industry and economic opportunities, which reflect the key priorities CEF and its partners have identified: refining and processing critical minerals; supporting manufacturing of generation and storage technologies, including batteries; producing renewable hydrogen and its derivatives like ammonia; and forging green metals including green iron. We need to see further details, but the Treasurer’s assertion that $225bn capital investment is needed by 2050 is too low by orders of magnitude, this timeframe is too late, and it reveals a too-cautious federal policy mindset that risks forgoing Australia’s opportunity to position itself as a leader in global cleantech supply chains as the world moves at breakneck speed to decarbonise. Read more

The $2bn top up for the federal Critical Minerals Facility pledged by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during his state visit to the US this week is an entirely insufficient response to the US$1 trillion industrial and energy stimulus of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRA is the biggest commitment of public funding in US history – and the single biggest opportunity for Australia this generation. Here’s why. Read more

Tim Buckley’s presentation for the Investment Innovation Institute on the global energy transition: how China leads the world in the global technology and investment race, how the US IRA changes everything; Australia’s Critical Minerals Strategy and how we can embody decarbonisation in our exports; and stockmarket examples of energy transition. Read more

CEF partially supports the proposed Climate Bill, but recommend it be strengthened to better align with the climate science, the clear and growing cost of inadequate action and the once-in-a-century opportunities of rapid decarbonisation for investment, jobs and cost of living. The absence of an strong interim emissions reduction target in 2035 is a particular concern, given deep cuts must be front loaded in the next decade if we are to have hope of preventing catastrophic climate change. Read more

Tim Buckley of CEF and Climate and Capital Forum founder Blair Palese argue that $100bn of government strategic public-interest capital investment into an Australian Renewables Industry Package and value-adding critical minerals industry development is needed to crowd in $200-300bn of private capital. This would be an appropriately ambitious response to the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), commensurate with Australia’s massive domestic and export opportunity. Read more

As Tim Buckley writes, AEMO’s new 10 year outlook shows expedited approvals of renewables, storage and transmission can offset any reliability risks to electricity supply. Read more

A joint statement with the Clean Energy Investor Group, Smart Energy Council and Nexa Advisory responding to news that the NSW government’s electricity review will recommend delaying the 2025 closure of the Eraring coal power station, Australia’s largest. Read more

Tim Buckley of CEF and Blair Palese, founder of the Climate Capital Forum, review the key impacts of the game changing US Inflation Reduction Act, which is turbocharging the green transition, one year after its introduction, and set out the 5 key things Australia should to respond and leverage our huge opportunities renewables powered processing of world leading critical minerals and energy transition materials. Read more

Tim Buckley speaks at the Centre for Future Work’s National Manufacturing Summit on the global energy transition and implications for Australia Read more

June quarter wholesale electricity prices are down 59% year-on-year., a major relief after 18 months of unprecedented fossil fuel hyperinflation. There is a record 30GW of new renewable energy capacity now in the connection pipeline, but just 3GW was completed in financial year 2023. We need to see the rate of completions double to replace end-of-life coal power station capacity inevitably and predictably coming offline. Read more