1 week Ago By Rachel Williamson
Regional areas will suffer the most from job and investment losses stemming from the Coalition’s energy promises, according to analyses from alarmed energy sector stakeholders. The Coalition’s push for nuclear, a policy that was but has largely disappeared from the election hustings, will result in the loss of $58 billion in direct investment in renewable and storage, and cause the loss of 42,000 full time jobs, the Clean Energy Council says. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s Budget reply promised to abolish the $19 billion Rewiring the Nation fund will also cause the immediate loss of jobs, the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) says.
The ETU analysis suggests 2000 electrical worker jobs will disappear this year if work stops on major network projects, rising to 7000 job losses in 2029 when building work on new transmission is expected to peak. The costs are the direct impact from the Coalition’s promise to build seven nuclear reactors across Australia. In December, it outlined a vision of small modular reactors becoming operational by a hugely ambitious timeline 2035 – notwithstanding the fact that these do not exist as commercial technology yet – and predicted the first large reactor operational by 2037.
But that vision requires renewable generation taking up no more than54 per cent of the total energy supply in 2050 – compared to Labor’s target of 82 per cent by 2030 – and cutting funding for new transmission by 79 per cent to allow room both in the grid and budget, according to modelling by think tank Frontier Economics. The overall cost of abruptly changing the country’s energy course will be high, according to numbers crunched in a Clean Energy Council analysis. Their data shows the size of the loss in the years before 2030 alone, and the size and longevity of the damage to investment decision making.
“The energy sector doesn’t plan based on three-to-four-year election cycles. These are 30–40-year investment decisions and investors need to see continued confidence in the sector through stable, long-term policy settings to keep investing in Australia,” says CEC CEO Kane Thornton. “We need the right policy settings in place and both government and industry working together to accelerate the delivery of cheap, reliable and modern clean energy that works for Australia.
” Renewable generation is set to reach 54 per cent of the National Energy Market (NEM) by 2028 from projects that are being built or have financial backing today. Preventing renewable energy generation from growing past that level would mean cancelling almost 29 gigawatts (GW) of large scale solar and wind currently proposed or in planning and the $58 billion of capital investment they will need. Some 37,7000 construction jobs per annum won’t happen, nor will 5000 jobs annually in operations and maintenance, just between 2026 and 2030.
Regional areas will miss out on $68 billion of economic activity and landholders will miss out on $2.7-3.4 billion in payments over a 25-year project life cycle.
Communities will lose a further $696 million in direct contributions from renewable energy projects. And to top it off, household bills will be $449 higher, according to the Clean Energy Council NEM bill analysis in March of the impact of going nuclear. While the nuclear proposal is seen by many analysts as a smokescreen for keeping decrepit coal plants running longer, the immediate ramifications will hit hardest and immediately in the regions.
Renewable energy projects are delivering jobs and financial investment in country areas long neglected by national and state budgets, says ‘s David Leitch. “This is the greatest economic opportunity the regions will ever face in Australia, at least in the last 100 years, and probably in the next 100 years,” he said during a Smart Energy Conference talk on Wednesday. Cancelling new transmission projects will decimate opportunities for electrical workers and apprentices in exactly the regional areas where opportunities are needed, says ETU national secretary Michael Wright.
“Peter Dutton is planning a jobs bloodbath for the electrical industry,” he said in a statement. “[Cancelling new transmission construction] deprives nearly 12,000 electrical workers, their communities and their families of a living across the country.” Its analysis suggests that staying the course under the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) Step Change plan would lead to almost 43,000 new jobs by 2050.
Dutton’s energy plan would lead to an aggregate of almost 25,000 job cuts. Other jobs that will disappear include construction workers and truck drivers, due to halting new renewable projects in order to meet the 54 per cent cap, says Thornton. “Capping renewables at 54 per cent would not only see Australia miss out on billions of dollars of capital investment and economic growth, but thousands of jobs.
.. and billions of dollars in community benefits would be left on the table,” he said in a statement.
“We need all sides of politics to embrace this private-sector investment into regional Australia and the thousands of well-paid jobs this industry generates every year. “These are real dollars for farmers, real dollars for country towns and real blue-collar jobs that pay Australians’ bills.”.
