See: Plunging cost of solar batteries ensure renewables remain lowest cost option for Australia, CSIRO says<\/a><\/p>\n It also comes as the CEO of AEMO, Daniel Westerman, says the Australian power system will be able to run at periods of 100 per cent renewables, which will be essential if the government is to reach that target of 82 per cent renewables (where the periods of low output will be supported by storage and offset by periods of very high, or 100 per cent renewables).<\/p>\n Bowen on Tuesday UN climate chief Simon Stiell, who urged Australia to lead the way with an ambitious emissions reduction target for 2035. \u201cIt\u2019s a critical moment for all countries,\u201d Stiel told ABC Radio National.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut for Australia specifically, there\u2019s an incredible opportunity to demonstrate what ambition looks like, to take full advantage of all of its natural resources in the green energy space, and to accelerate its transition away from its dependence on fossil fuels to new green technologies.<\/p>\n On Monday, the chair of the Climate Change Authority Matt Kean, who is to deliver his recommendations to the federal government in the coming years, urged \u201cmaximum\u201d ambition. <\/p>\n The CCA has previously flagged it was looking at a 2035 target emissions cut of between 65 per cent and 75 per cent. Environmentalists say 75 per cent should be the bare minimum, and the Climate Council says Australia should be aiming for net zero by 2035, rather than 2050, although Coalition MPs are calling for the repeal of the 2050 net zero target.<\/p>\n The original design of the CIS called for 23 GW of new wind and solar capacity and 9 GW of dispatchable capacity (36 gigawatt hours), met mostly with battery storage.<\/p>\n This will now be ramped up with an extra 3 GW of wind and solar, taking that total to 26 GW, and an extra 5 GW of dispatchable capacity, taking that total to 14 GW (56 GWh).<\/p>\n Bowen had already moved to accelerate the process of the CIS, announcing earlier this year that the tender process would be cut to 6 months from 9 months.<\/a> The government has already held its first big wind and solar auction, awarding more than 6.4 GW of capacity, although only one small project has begun construction.<\/a><\/p>\n He says that each of the six tenders that have been held have been \u201cconsistently and massively oversubscribed\u201d, particularly the dispatchable tender which sought 16 GWh of storage and received 135 GWh of bids.<\/p>\n \u201cNow around halfway through the CIS, and with the cost of deploying solar and batteries declining faster than expected, we have an opportunity to supercharge our transition,\u201d Bowen says\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s right that the sunniest and windiest continent remains at the forefront of solar and wind innovation \u2013 and this backing shows the Government intends for it to stay that way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Renew Economy understands that the extra capacity will be added to future tenders \u2013 there is currently one wind and solar tender and one dispatchable tender, seeking a combined 10 GW under way. Results of those tenders are expected in September and October.\u00a0<\/p>\n NSW energy minister Penny Sharpe will also announce at the Clean Energy Summit on Tuesday a new tender to seek 500 MW of \u201cfirming\u201d capacity, through a mix of battery storage, VPPs and gas. The projects have to be built by 2027\/28, to be on line in time for the anticipated closure of the state\u2019s largest coal fired power generator, Eraring.<\/p>\n Another speak at the Clean Energy Summit is Professor Ross Garnaut, the head of the Superpower Institute, who says Australia is currently on a trajectory\u00a0to miss its renewable targets because of low investment and output in grid-scale solar and wind. <\/p>\n \u201cNot by a little, but by a big margin,\u201d Garnaut says. And he adds this is hindering progress on Australia becoming the world\u2019s main exporter of zero-carbon energy-intensive goods.<\/p>\n He says the CIS, and other government schemes, are getting in the way of private investment, not encouraging it, and wants a carbon price \u2013 such as the one he helped design for the Gillard government more than a decade ago \u2013 to be reinstated.<\/p>\n \u201cGovernment policy has pushed private decisions based in competitive markets to the margins of power generation investment decisions, removing a source of knowledge and economic dynamism that is essential for achievement of the objectives,\u201d Garnaut says.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is now almost no new private grid-scale investment in solar and wind generation that is not underwritten by the CIS or by Government through other mechanisms.<\/p>\n \u201cWe run the risk of spending a national budgetary fortune to buy failure. The best cure in the national interest is a carbon price. Not by a little bit, but by a big margin.\u201d<\/p>\n Giles Parkinson is founder and editor-in-chief of Renew Economy<\/a>, and founder and editor of its EV-focused sister site The Driven<\/a>. He is the co-host of the weekly Energy Insiders Podcast<\/a>. Giles has been a journalist for more than 40 years and is a former deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review. You can find him on LinkedIn and on Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal government is to supersize its flagship Capacity Investment Scheme as it races to ensure enough wind,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,952,128],"class_list":["post-29153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-featured","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n