Mixed Greens: CEFC to proceed with investment, despite election

The Gillard government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation will go ahead with plans to begin investing from July 2, despite calls from the Coalition to halt any spending before the September federal election. The federal Opposition has repeatedly vowed to dismantle the $10 billion fund – or “honeypot to every white-shoe salesman imaginable,” according to shadow finance minister Andrew Robb – which was set up by the Labor government to support renewable and low-emission projects through loans, guarantees and equity investments.

But CEFC CEO Oliver Yates says the fund has already been in talks with banks interested in projects and, as he told The Australian Financial Review on Tuesday, is now legally obliged to start investing from July. “I have legislation I am obligated to operate under,” Yates, a former Macquarie Bank executive, said. “That act means I will be investing when I have available money and I will invest during the election, during the caretaker period, after the election and until such time as I am effectively able to not continue performing my obligations,” Yates told the AFR.

Yates also revealed there were already projects identified as suitable for investment from July 2. “There are a number of firm proposals that people have put on the table and they are predominantly coming from some of the banking groups,” Yates said. “These are real projects that existing financiers are working on trying to work out how they get funded, over the line and into operation… energy efficiency, wind, solar and bio-mass projects. They may have a problem getting a power purchase agreement or there’s a renewable energy target risk or they are unable to get a loan for [a term of] more than 10 years.’’

In other news…

The President of the renewables division of US power giant Duke Energy has predicted that America will add more solar power in 2013 than wind energy – a first for the country, as wind projects slump and cheap panels spur demand for rooftop solar. Bloomberg reports that Duke Energy Renewables’ Gregory Wolf says the US could install 3-4GW of wind energy capacity this year, and says that solar projects will probably exceed that. Last year, America added 13.1GW of wind, beating natural gas for the first time.

In Eastern and Central Europe, meanwhile, governments have been warned that billions of euros worth of wind energy investment could be lost unless policy support mechanisms become more stable. BusinessGreen reports that a new report analysing potential growth across emerging European markets shows that 12 of the newer EU member states, as well as Turkey and Ukraine, plan to increase wind power capacity from 6.4GW today to 16GW by 2020 – enough power for nine million homes.

Saudi Arabia has provided a neat example of the changing shape of world energy markets, with the successful installation of a 3.5MW solar PV plant – the largest such facility ever built in the country – to power the OPEC nation’s largest oil research facility. Energy Matters reports that Phoenix Solar built the plant – using more than 12,000 Suntech crystalline PV panels – on the desert grounds of the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Centre, in Riyadh. The 55,000 square metre solar field will contribute to KAPSARC’s goal of achieving the US Green Building Council’s LEED Certification.