“Just plain wrong:” Bowen takes aim at renewable naysayers, says 82 per cent by 2030 can be done

Federal energy minister Chris Bowen has emphatically reaffirmed his conviction that Australia can hit its renewable energy target of 82 per cent by 2030, and says claims that it can’t be done are “just plain wrong.”

In a speech at the AFR Climate Summit in Sydney on Wednesday, Bowen said he wanted to tackle the subject of the national target “head on, and early,” sending a message to critics and naysayers.

“I often read in newspapers, including in the Fin, that 82% by 2030 can’t be achieved,” the minister told the Summit.    

“It can. It’s not inevitable, it’s not easy. In fact it’s a stretch, as it was intended to be.  

“But those who sit around in 2025 and say ‘it’s all too hard and we should give up’ are, with respect, just plain wrong.”

Bowen says the “fundamental error” behind claims that 82 per cent renewables cannot be achieved comes down to a failure recognise that already implemented government policies are yet to have their full impact.

He offers the Capacity Investment Scheme as an example of this, the latest tender for which was launched just last week, days after announcing the winners of most recent generation tender.

The newly expanded Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) is now seeking 40 gigawatts of new wind, solar and storage, to deliver the bulk of the new capacity needed to reach 82 per cent renewables by 2030 – double the current levels in just five years.

As Renew Economy has reported, the battery storage component of the CIS is working well, with a new batch of 16 projects awarded underwriting agreements in the latest tender and developers having little difficulty in proving their business case and landing finance.

Large scale wind and solar projects, however, are taking longer to gear up. No new wind projects have reached financial close yet in 2025, and few of the wind and solar winners of the first CIS generation tender late last year have progressed.

In an interview on a recent episode of Renew Economy’s Energy Insiders podcast, Bowen said he was happy with the way the CIS was playing out and confident of the role it would play in achieving the 2030 target.

“It’s massively oversubscribed, which shows me that the pipeline of projects is big and strong, and that’s why, one of the reasons why we extended it from 32 gigawatts to 40 gigawatts,” Bowen said.

In his speech on Wednesday, Bowen once again defended the CIS as “massively successful,” while also stressing that it is a long-game policy.

“It is setting up new projects that will be delivered by 2030 but are at various stages of planning and approval,” he told the Summit.  

“All of this tells me that if we keep our foot on the accelerator 82% is attainable.

“It is a huge job, it is a crucial job for the country, and we are getting on with it day by day.  

“I am often reminded that plenty of the same commentators who are voluble today wrote with certainty that Australia had no chance of getting to 20% renewable energy by 2020, and that target was achieved a year early.   

“And that was with a government that wasn’t even trying to achieve it!”

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