Just months before the carbon tax is introduced, an auditor’s report has found that more than one in six major polluters has made ”significant errors” when reporting its greenhouse emissions and energy use to the government.
The report comes as the government suffered a blow to its clean energy efforts, saying it was rethinking its $300 million support for a massive solar power station that is struggling with financing.
Also yesterday, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott made clear on the opening day of Parliament he would continue his 2011 strategy of hammering the government over the carbon tax, due to take effect in July.
Yesterday’s report by the Australian National Audit Office said that in 2009-10, three-quarters of major polluters’ self-assessments - on which the government will depend for calculating how much carbon tax they owe - had errors and 17 per cent had ”significant errors”.
The auditor found the computer system through which companies report their emissions to the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency contained ”significant security vulnerabilities” that could allow an outside person to fiddle the data. It made eight ”high-priority” recommendations on IT security.
Under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme, introduced by the Howard government, 775 major-emitting firms are required to report their carbon emissions. The report noted the department had ”taken steps to improve data quality”.
A spokesman for Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said the department would ”implement the report’s recommendations to manage the risks identified by the (audit office)”.
Coalition climate spokesman Greg Hunt said the government needed to immediately release the names of the 500 companies that will be hit by the tax ”so they can adequately prepare”.
Energy Minister Martin Ferguson has reopened the bidding on a $306 million grant under the government’s Solar Flagships scheme, which aims to encourage investment in large-scale solar projects.
The Moree Solar Farm, a 150-megawatt photovoltaic panel project in northern NSW backed by Pacific Hydro, BP and Spanish firm Fotowatio Renewable Ventures, has failed to secure a power purchase agreement with an electricity retailer - a necessary step to guaranteeing a source of revenue.
”Moree Solar Farm has not met its obligations under its funding agreement,” Mr Ferguson said.
The government will now throw open the bidding to three rival shortlisted projects backed by power firms AGL, Infigen Suntech and TRUenergy. The Moree Solar Farm can renew its bid.
Mr Ferguson said large-scale solar farms were not ”off-the-shelf” projects but rather took great effort and innovation.
Clean Energy Council acting head Kane Thornton said the Solar Flagships scheme was meant to ”demonstrate the technology and learn how to deploy it at scale - and that’s exactly what it’s doing”.
Pacific Hydro said it was ”disappointed” with the decision.
