A “buyer’s strike” by two of Australia’s biggest electricity retailers is potentially stalling growth in the renewable energy industry just two weeks after the government gave its backing for the sector, a big renewable energy supplier said.
Andrew Richards, executive manager of corporate affairs at Pacific Hydro, said EnergyAustralia and Origin Energy, which control more than half the national electricity market, had halted the signing of long-term power purchase agreements with wind and other renewable energy suppliers, in effect blocking developers from securing loans for new projects.
“For whatever reason, they’re just not contracting,” Mr Richards said. “Unless they start contracting, you just simply can’t get the finance – particularly non-recourse project finance – to build these projects.”
Last month, the government agreed to leave the renewable energy target largely unchanged after its latest biennial review. Under the policy, large-scale generators must supply 41,000 gigawatt-hours of renewable energy annually by 2020.
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