It’s time governments stopped lying about renewable energy

It’s time governments stopped lying about renewable energy.

“The federal government’s wind farm subsidies are enriching foreign corporates and leaving Australians worse off, all in an effort to prop up unreliable and inefficient renewable energy projects,” said Mia Schlicht, Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs.

Today, the IPA released new research detailing how the federal government’s Large-scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET) guarantees a river of gold for predominantly foreign owned wind farms and how the cost is transferred to electricity consumers. The research found:

In 2024, through the LRET subsidy scheme, a total of $1.04 billion was paid by electricity consumers to the 50 largest wind farms operating in Australia. 35 of Australia’s 50 largest wind farms, 70 per cent, are entirely or partially foreign owned. Australian energy consumers were forced to pay $689 million to foreign owned wind farms.

“In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, the federal government is forcing Australian electricity consumers to hand over $1 billion through hidden charges on their power bills to largely foreign owned companies, all in the name of net zero,” said Ms Schlicht.

“How can the Prime Minister, having broken his promise to cut household power bills, justify sending over $689 million to foreign companies when mainstream Australians cannot afford their power bills?”

To meet economy wrecking emissions reduction targets, the federal government forces electricity retailers to purchase large-scale generation certificates from renewable energy producers. This artificially inflates the demand for renewables, with added costs passed on to consumers.”

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One of the biggest subsides that renewables get is the renewable energy target that forces energy retailers to buy renewable energy or they get penalised.

This forces demand for renewables up in the short window that the sun is shining which increases the price of energy via your power bill.

This scheme isn’t well understood but it should be, because if people knew how much it was increasing their power bills and that the money was going offshore they would be up in arms.

People First will continue to lobby for the removal of the RET as it is unacceptable the energy prices are being forced up because of it.

Quote from:

https://ipa.org.au/ipa-today/australias-1-billion-electricity-bill-foreign-owned-wind-farm-windfall

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