Prime Minister Tony Abbott has apparently approached Dick Warburton, head of the RET Review panel, to look more into abolishing the renewable energy target altogether – not reducing it.

There has been so much support for the RET with local forums country-wide overflowing with supporters – but it seems that Abbott has it in for RET. Environmental Minister Greg Hunt – who advocated a diluted RET to represent a ‘true 20%’ target as a compromise – has been sidelined for the remainder of the review and is very unhappy.

Consulting firm Jacobs was commissioned by the Climate Institute to do independent modelling on RET review scenarios. Should the RET be abolished completely, coal-fired generators stand to gain an extra $25 billion in profits between 2015 – 2030.

There would be no reduction to household electricity bills, carbon emissions would increase by 15 million tonnes per year and there would be a 9% increase in coal-fired electricity. Renewable energy investment would lose $10.6 billion.

The Abbott Government has been presented with findings showing that the RET actually does not add significantly to power bills as they argued and yet Tony Abbott is still pushing to get the target completely abolished and asking for “more work on the option of terminating the target altogether”.

“Such a move would be reckless, given the government’s own analysis shows slashing the RET would save no money on power bills, yet would devastate billions of dollars of investments made in good faith in renewable energy projects across the country,” said Clean Energy Council Acting Chief Executive Kane Thornton in reaction to this report.

“It would also be out of touch with the vast majority of Australians who want more renewable energy, as demonstrated by the fact that 99 per cent of the 24,000 submissions to the review of the policy called for it to be maintained or increased –- and the fact that over 4 million Australians already live or work under a solar power system. Australians clearly want to follow the rest of the world in increasing the use of renewable energy.”

Reducing or diluting the RET to a ‘true 20%’ target of 27 000GWhrs (from 41 000GWhrs) would line coal generators pockets with an extra $8 billion in profits and gas generators with an extra $2 billion profit.

EnergyAustralia stands to get an extra $1.9 billion in profits, Origin $1.5 billion and $1 billion for AGL. If AGL acquires state owned Macquarie Generation as planned it stands to gain $2.7 billion.

“Companies like Origin and EnergyAustralia are pushing to weaken the target not, as they like to claim, because that would be good for customers, but because a weaker target is better for their bottom line,” said John Connor, chief executive of the Climate Institute.

Once again, if the target is reduced customers and the environment are going to be hit the hardest. According to Jacobs, wholesale electricity prices will rise around 15% and retail prices around 2.5% by 2030 without adding any inevitable price hikes for network costs. $8 billion in renewable energy investment will be lost and an extra 2 million tonnes of electricity related emissions will be released into our environment each year.

The Abbott Government has had its own research show that diluting or abolishing the RET will not help customers at all – in fact if the RET is maintained power bills will start decreasing each year in a couple of years time and will continue to do so. Yet Abbotts next move is asking for more work to be done in the event of complete termination of the RET? Where is the logic? Do we as locals have a voice?

The Petrie Save Solar Forum will be held at the Redcliffe RSL on Thursday 21st of August from 6pm – 8pm. Please come and show your support for the RET. If we show a united, big voice – maybe the Abbott Government will not be able to ignore what the public thinks.

Jacobs Report can be downloaded here.