The Climate Council has called on all of Australia’s state and territory leaders to follow the lead of the ACT and commit to a target of 100 per cent renewable energy within a decade.
The call follows an online campaign, conducted in partnership with change.org, which gathered nearly 25,000 signatures in support of the ACT’s ambitious renewables targets; which has already led to the development of 440MW of of new capacity through three reverse auctions, and is on track to provide 80 per cent of the ACT’s electricity needs by 2018.
ACT chief minister Andrew Barr said the petition showed there was no political reason why every state in Australia could not do something similar.
“I’m pleased to see that 24,207 supporters have signed the petition, presenting a strong message that will be hard for other Premiers and Chief Ministers to ignore,” Barr said in a media release on Friday.
ACT energy minister, and architect of the highly successful reverse auctions, Simon Corbell said Canberra was proud to have shown other jurisdictions that moving to renewables was achievable and affordable.
“The Climate Council was keen to identify the enabling factors that opened up the way for the ACT government to make such a strong commitment and any insights into what would need to occur for this to be replicated elsewhere,” Corbell said.
“The ACT’s pioneering reverse auction process ensures that Canberrans pay low prices for electricity while receiving maximum local investment benefits.
The government said the total cost of the renewables projects to the capital’s consumers would peak at an average of less than $5 a household per week by 2020. This would be offset by similar savings to households from mandated energy efficiency schemes, it said.
