An analyst is warning the federal government risks creating "zombie" projects through its clean energy investment scheme.
Under the scheme, which the government unveiled in November, taxpayers are set to underwrite a wave of new green energy projects via a series of tenders over coming years. By contrast, Mr Edis said Australia had never built renewable energy projects at such a rapid rate before – committing to less than 1.5GW of mostly wind and solar power last year.
The Clean Energy Investor Group, which represents the financial backers of large-scale green power projects, backed parts of the report.Mr Corbell said the government should ensure it had the ability to cancel the approval of a project under the scheme if developers were unable to meet deadlines."I think when it comes to planning and environmental issues, it's always been important for governments to be confident that projects are well advanced," Mr Corbell said.
A spokeswoman for Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the scheme had been carefully designed after a long consultation process to avoid such pitfalls."And the huge competition and massive oversubscription in early tender rounds is proof it's working, with the sod already being turned on construction of the 500MW Liddell Battery.
Of the six winning bids from the second round, he said just one had so far started construction despite the winners being announced in October 2022. "At the end of the tender the government may end up with a great press release – lots of projects contracted at a low price.Mr Edis suggested the government put in place a number of safeguards to protect against the risk of dud projects.