Revelations last week that Labor has plans to progressively retire Australia’s coal-fired power stations put the cat among the energy pigeons, not least for unanswered questions about the security of future energy needs and renewable energy targets.
Nevertheless, the fact is Australia is being buffeted by winds of change blowing far from our shores.
On Nov. 7, the Indian energy firm NTPC Limited made the extraordinary announcement that by 2020, 52 percent of its power would come from renewable sources.
NTPC is little known in Australia but its Indian electricity generation fleet alone is equal to the entire Australian industry. NTPC’s announcement is not just remarkable because of the scale of the ambition but because, in 2011, the company barely owned a solar panel.
It is also on track to cease thermal coal imports next year.
What’s more, NTPC is just one of the four dominant power producers in India all undergoing this same rapid transformation. The others are Reliance, Tata and Adani. Adani, of course, is by far the most recognizable name in Australia, given its stated aims of building a vast new open-pit mine in Queensland.
But Adani’s transition plans are no less far-reaching than NTPC’s. It has over $US10 billion in renewable projects in the pipeline and this year commissioned the world’s largest solar plant.
With rapid growth everywhere in renewables has come equally rapid cost reduction. Since 2011, for instance, the price of installed solar has plummeted by 80 percent, a powerful indicator if ever there was one of the effect of global changes on how electricity is produced and from which sources of energy.
Tim Buckley is IEEFA’s director of energy finance studies, Australasia.
[The original version of this commentary first appeared as an op-ed ($) today under the headline “Coal Power Is Not the Only Way Forward” in the Brisbane Courier Mail]
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