Federal Government Archives - Northmore Gordon

Targets for the Energy Savings Scheme announced for 2022 to 2050

Northmore Gordon — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 15:08:19 +0000

In case you missed it, the NSW government quietly released the targets for the Energy Savings Scheme (ESS) in December for 2022 to 2050, cementing their commitment to the ESS out to mid-century. The energy saving targets are set based on a percentage of the electricity purchased for supply to end customers and places on obligation on energy retailers to surrender an equivalent amount of Energy Savings Certificates (ESCs) each year.

This announcement increases the previous targets for 2022 to 2025, announced in 2016, by 0.5% per year, meaning the 2025 target has increased from 8.5% to 10.5% of electricity supplied. This rate of increases continues year-on-year through to 2030, targeting savings of 13% of all electricity supplied to end customers. In line with previous target setting, the goal for 2030 to 2050 is currently set at 13% per year, but as the government has done before this likely to be reviewed at the five-yearly target setting. Importantly, this is the first time a target has been set more than ten years in advance and indicates that the ESS is likely to be a key part of NSW goal to achieve net-zero by 2050.

The final certificate target for 2020 is yet to be released by the regulator as the annual compliance deadline doesn’t fall until April, but the 2019 target was 4.6M ESCs. The creation for 2020 activities to date is 3.7M ESCs, down 24% on 2019 with the 2020 compliance surrender yet to be completed. If the 2020 target is similar to 2019, there will be a surplus of 4.3M ESCs – or another way to look at it the program is 11 months ahead of the target.

Looking forward it is hard to know what the annual ESC target will be, as the future energy consumption is not known, but based on the latest NSW consumption forecasts by AEMO out to 2030, the 2021 target could be 5.5M ESCs increasing to 8.4M ESCs per annum by the end of the decade.

During 2019, activities under the ESS saved 2.8 TWh of electricity, 520 TJ of gas, avoided 2.6M tonnes of green house gases, and saved NSW consumers $235M. The cost of the program to electricity customers was estimated to be $88-112M representing a return on investment of 109%. These savings also contribute to demand reduction across the state reducing the cost of transmission and distribution assets.

The Energy Savings Scheme is a market-based mechanism that was implemented in 2009 with the goal to provide financial incentives for business and residential consumers to undertake energy efficiency upgrades. The approved activities cover “deemed” upgrades – where there is a pre-determined level of savings based on the upgrade and is available for specific technologies – there is also the technology-neutral “Measurement and Verification” approach. Whilst an M&V approach is more complex and takes longer to complete it enables the full value of the savings to be realised. The program supports many types of upgrades ranging from industrial boilers, refrigeration, improving NABERS ratings, air-conditioning and HVAC, LED lighting, high-efficiency appliances, and many bespoke upgrades in the commercial and industrial sectors. The NSW government has continued to make the ESS an integral part of their energy strategy, expanding the program into the Energy Security Safeguard which will incorporate a future demand response mechanism.

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Wattly achieves 2 million VEET certificates created, 20th June 2017

Northmore Gordon — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 23:56:59 +0000

Wattly is pleased to announce that we’ve now created over 2 million certificates under the VEET scheme. With the help of our partner installation companies, Wattly has ensured that 2 million tons less CO2 will go into the atmosphere over the next 10 years. The bulk of this abatement has come from LED Lighting upgrades to both commercial and residential buildings.

Managing Director, Hamish McGovern said “LED lighting technology reduces energy consumption by over 80% from existing installed lighting. The potential for energy and dollar savings is available to all sectors of the economy and will generate long term reductions in carbon emissions. We’re now seeing widespread adoption of LED lighting in warehouses and factories throughout Victoria and NSW.” He went on to add, “The Victorian Energy Efficiency Target (VEET Scheme) has been highly successful in driving very fast adoption of LED lighting, at a low cost, and this would not have happened for decades without an incentive scheme such as VEET. We call on the Federal Government to setup a National Energy Saving Scheme so that all Australians can benefit from LED lighting and have a direct and significant impact on the energy crisis trifecta (of security, affordability and reduced emissions)”.

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Adani: It doesn’t make sense not financially, environmentally, nor economically.

Northmore Gordon — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 06:43:58 +0000

The Adani coal mine in Queensland will be one of the largest in the world (if it is built) and further threatens the Great Barrier reef from both ships as well as the carbon emissions from the coal when burnt.

But with waning demand globally for coal and given the excellent financial and market analysis by David Fickling at Bloomberg, it just makes no sense. Yet both the Queensland Labour government and the Federal Liberal government persist in pushing forward with support for it, including providing huge financial support even though it that doesn’t stack up; it creates around ~2,000 jobs as best and less when running, with most profits going offshore. There is overwhelming opposition nationally and a great deal of concern from southeast Queensland, unanimous opposition from all environmental and climate change groups, let’s hope the lack of economics become clear to any investors including our governments. Adani – it just doesn’t stack up.

https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-04-02/coal-s-dirty-australian-secret-it-s-not-coming-back#footnote-1491126934982

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APRA: Climate Change Risk, part of the “new normal” for Financial Services Sector

Northmore Gordon — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 05:13:52 +0000

The speech by Geoff Summerhayes, Executive Board Member of APRA, at the Insurance Council of Australia Annual Forum in Sydney last week made it very clear that the regulator now sees climate change as completely real and something that must be priced into premiums and tested as a system-wide risk for the insurance industry. He also reminded the audience that company directors may be found personally liable if they do “fail to properly consider and disclose foreseeable climate-related risks to their business”.

“I think the days of viewing climate change within a purely ethical, environmental or long-term frame have passed. More and more, the conversations we are having are about the practical realities and consequences of a changing climate. One reason for this is that we now have a much more sophisticated, granular, quantifiable understanding of the impacts, risks and probability distributions around climate change. This is true on the planetary scale.”

It’s amazing that now we have regulators, banks, insurance companies, the Business Council of Australia, state governments and the general public accepting that climate change is very real and needs to be addressed, yet our Federal Government continues to hide their head in the sand or bow to the climate deniers in their party.

Full article – http://www.apra.gov.au/Speeches/Pages/Australias-new-horizon.aspx

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