Australia: Which way is the wind blowing?
A recent survey has found that nine out of ten Australians believe a quarter of their electricity should come from renewable energy by 2020.
The figures - released by the Australian Conservation Foundation - were tallied from a phone poll of 1,200 adults earlier this month and are something to consider with the country's next election only a few short months away.
This comes against a teetering backdrop of success and failure as Australia struggles to keep up with the US and Europe on renewable power - particularly wind energy.
IJ renewables reporter John Kjorstad looks at the recent ups and downs of a country with plenty of potential, but little to show for it.
Perpetual Wind
Australia is well endowed with renewable energy resources. In addition to solar and hot rock geothermal, the country has a lot of open land for development and a fair wind regime to tap into.
The most recent testament to this was the successful financing of the 95MW Hallett wind farm in South Australia.
Hallett was originally developed as Brown Hill Range wind farm by Wind Prospect. The project is now owned by Perpetual Wind, a subsidiary of Perpetual Asset Management. It will be built and run by AGL Energy and should be complete in 2008. Perpetual also has a 25-year PPA with AGL Energy for the power produced.
National Australia Bank acted as the mandated lead arranger on the financing, which closed last month. The bank - with five others - arranged a term loan totalling Aus$242 million (US$210m).
Joining NAB on the transaction were:
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Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ
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Fortis Bank
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Mizuho Corporate Bank
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Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp
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WestLB
NAB took Aus$50 million (US$43m) on its books, while the others took Aus$38.4 million (US$33.3m) each.
NAB is clearly one of the strong supporters backing wind projects in Australia. Earlier this year, it closed the Studland Bay expansion to the 140MW Woolnorth Development [Transactions Database]
Conclusion
To be fair, Australia has more than twice as much installed wind capacity as New Zealand - more than 807MW. According to the Australian Wind Energy Association, the country has 130 operating or proposed projects.
However, given its potential and the shear size of its land mass, development in Australia has been a disappointment.
The country's citizens want green energy and developers want to bring it to them. The bust up results from lack of political will to provide incentives.
While individual states like Victoria and New South Wales have devised schemes like the Victorian Renewable Energy Target and NSW Renewable Energy Target, Howard's ruling Liberal party has largely stood idle and is only now pushing for 'clean' alternatives.
With a federal election looming, it's not surprising to hear the opposition Labor party - currently leading in the polls - talk green as well. They are expected to announce their own targets for renewable energy later this week.
But is it all just talk?
With an election expected in late November, talk is cheap. Action, on the other hand, will have to wait.
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