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Australia Needs to Invest A$51 Billion in Power Output, Networks
2010-11-04 01:17:04.608 GMT
By John Viljoen
Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Australia needs to invest A$51
billion in new and existing electricity generation and networks
in the next five years as the country seeks to meet energy
demand, Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said.
Australia is ready to contribute to promoting regional
energy security, with liquefied natural gas exports projected to
rise by 600 percent in volume terms within 20 years, Ferguson
said at a conference in Sydney today.
Eighty-one percent of electricity in Australia currently
comes from coal-fired generators, he said. A target to source 20
percent of energy from renewable sources will provide a cross
subsidy to this industry in excess of A$20 billion, he said.
Under assessments administred by the energy department,
Australia's biggest companies have identified opportunities to
save 8 percent of their energy use, equivalent to more than 100
petajoules, or almost 3 percent of Australian energy end-use,
Ferguson said.
Without a clear carbon policy in Australia, uncertainty
will continue to cloud investment decisions, he said. Putting a
price on carbon is a significantly cheaper way of reducing
greenhouse gas emissions than prescriptive, technology specific
solar feed in tariffs that have been introduced by different
state governments, Ferguson told the conference.
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To contact the editor responsible for this story:
John Viljoen at +61-2-9777-8657 or
jviljoen@bloomberg.net
