E&OE….
Topics: Household solar, battery storage, Clean Energy Innovation Fund, refrigerants, Montreal Protocol, electric cars
JON DEE:
Greg Hunt, welcome to Smart Money, thanks for joining us.
I want to start with a good news story. There are now solar panels on 1.5 million rooftops around Australia and many businesses are using them to reduce their power bills.
Are you happy with that result, or could we be doing more to encourage the uptake of solar with businesses?
GREG HUNT:
Look, it's a good result because Australia is the number one country in the world in terms of solar rooftops for households.
We're at about 15 per cent of households. The next best is roughly half that.
So we're almost double the household penetration of the next best country. So that is a very strong platform.
Going forwards though, there are really two big things that we're doing.
We've settled down the Renewable Energy Target and given it a long term sustainable pathway.
For households that means that they have unlimited access within the terms of the existing Renewable Energy Target to solar panels to the extent that they are supported through the rebates –and so that's, I think, really powerful – rebate in the form of a renewable energy credit.
Then the second thing is going forward, we have through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, focused in particular on low income housing – because of course, they're the people who have often missed out, they haven't been able to afford.
And so there's a $250 million package put forward through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to help assist low income households access solar energy.
JON DEE:
Talking of solar, companies like Tesla have now been coming out with solar battery packs that enable businesses and households to store and use solar to use at more expensive times of the day.
Given their potential ability to reduce energy bills, could we be doing more to encourage the uptake of battery storage?
GREG HUNT:
Sure. So, again we look to what we're doing with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the creation of the Prime Minister and the Government's new $1 billion dollar Clean Energy Innovation Fund.
Battery storage is right at the heart of these two sources of funding and the initiatives that we're pursuing.
Battery has probably been 10 to 15 years slower than many people had expected.
In 1990 I remember as a student thinking massive breakthroughs in battery storage were around the corner but they're not – or they weren't. Now they are.
We've just crossed that moment in history, I think, in the last 18 months where battery technology is becoming exceptionally viable.
JON DEE:
Many businesses have now taken the step to introduce LED lighting which, as you know, reduces energy lighting costs by up to 80 per cent.
Is it maybe time to get rid of the older inefficient lighting and make a more solid move to LED?
GREG HUNT:
Well, there is a significant transition but I think we can do better.
I've begun preliminary discussions with the lighting sector about the move to LEDs and they in particular have been very forward looking.
So, I have asked the lighting sector to come back to me with an LED transition plan. There is a very significant cost saving for business.
And for myself looking at Australia's overall emissions, there's an emissions reduction profile.
So, the sector has been very good. They're going to come back to us with a transition plan. And I think there may well be a way that we can do what we did with the incandescent bulb.
JON DEE:
I'd like to talk about natural refrigerants. They reduce energy costs, they reduce energy use. They have a far lesser impact on the environment.
If you look at companies like Unilever here in Australia, they've rolled out natural refrigerants freezers with Streets ice cream across the country, we're seeing many other major companies do the same.
What can be done to encourage the adoption of natural refrigerants and other types of refrigerant gases that reduce cost?
GREG HUNT:
So we're really doing two things, one is global one is national.
At the global level Australia has been the leader, the leader without any doubt, along with working with the United States and with China, with the United Arab Emirates, on driving a new round under what's called the Montreal Protocol, so the ozone protection processes.
We helped broker a deal which was right on the edge of collapse last November, which will see the world achieve about 90 billion tonnes of savings through moving to natural refrigerants, and other lower CO2 forms of gases which are also low-ozone or zero-ozone depleting gas.
So protect the ozone, but make sure you're not having an impact on the overall CO2 and global warming levels.
And at home, we've translated that to a national ozone depleting gas review, and the outcome of that undoubtedly will see us move to save about 82 million tonnes of emissions between 2020 and 2030.
And a significant part of that will be a common playing field, standards, which will allow people to move to natural refrigerants and low CO2 refrigerants.
JON DEE:
Final question. Elon Musk has just launched the Model 3, it's the cheaper all-electric car with a range of 340 kilometres.
It seems that we're on the cusp of electric cars going mainstream, what are the Government doing to encourage the development of electric charging infrastructure, and what are you doing to maybe encourage businesses who might want to adopt electric cars into fleets once they become cheaper?
GREG HUNT:
So there are really two things, and there's very good news here.
In Australia, on Monday the automotive purchasing figures for 2015 were released, that showed a 40 per cent increase in the uptake of low emissions vehicles – defined as less than 120 grams per kilometre.
That's an extraordinary increase in one year, of 40 per cent, and it's taken it up to nearly 5 per cent of the market. All the expectations are that that will continue.
I invited and met with the automotive sector on Monday to put forward proposals to the Government, because here it's a combination of Josh Frydenberg, Paul Fletcher, and myself, but we're working as a single Government in terms of inviting those proposals.
They didn't have them at the time, but I'm now very confident they will come to us with proposals.
And then the second thing is the Emissions Reduction Fund has already put in place two fleet transformation projects.
And so that's about reducing overall fleet emissions, and the Emissions Reduction Fund is available on a ruthlessly cost competitive basis – basically the Clean Energy Regulator runs an auction and the lowest cost per tonne emissions reduction projects are successful.
JON DEE:
Greg Hunt, thanks for joining us.
GREG HUNT:
Pleasure.
(ENDS)