Wind and solar investments grind to a halt

The Clean Energy Council (CEC) warns no new renewable energy generation projects reached financial close in the first quarter of this year. Experts warn Australia risks being left behind in the clean energy investment race.

How does that compare to previous years?

Prior to 2023, Australia averaged $1.6 billion worth of new investments per quarter. The only clean energy project of any kind to reach financial close in Q1 2023 was a big battery at Rangebank in Victoria worth $400 million.

Kane Thornton says this slowdown is at odds with our need to accelerate deployment. "While energy investors are enthusiastic about investing in clean energy in Australia, there are a variety of headwinds that are undermining confidence at present.”

Kane Thornton CEC chief Executive

Those headwinds include global competition driven by new energy policy announcements in places like the US and India. Grid constraints, workforce and supply chain issues, and unwieldy approvals regimes, are also posing challenging.

“What it highlights is the importance of streamlining regulatory processes and incentive mechanisms, to make it easier to attract the global capital that enables the investment we so desperately need in Australia.”

Christiaan Zuur CEC head of investment & policy

The CEC claims the government's imminent phasing out of Australia's Renewable Energy Target (RET) fails to lock in certainty about the future of renewables in the country.

The RET is the Government's target to lock in 33,000 GWh of additional renewable power by 2020. New power stations can still be accredited until 2030.

Accreditation allows renewable power stations to create certificates for every megawatt hour of power they produce, which can then be purchased by electricity retailers. The CEC says extending the RET beyond 2030 is a key way Australia can bolster confidence in investments in onshore renewables.

That's important, because since Biden's Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law, experts have warned Australia could lose thousands of renewables jobs and face long-term damage to its competitiveness.

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