Securing a Clean Energy Future - Energy Action's Overview
On the 10th July 2011, the Australian Government released its latest Climate Change policy known as ‘Securing a clean energy future’. The policy outlines the Australian Government’s intention to:
- Introduce a carbon price
- Promote innovation and investment in renewable energy
- Encourage energy efficiency
- Create opportunities in the land sector to cut pollution
As a result of the legislation, a carbon price of $23 tCO2-e will take effect from 1 July 2012. The carbon price will only apply directly to the country’s top emitters – those who are emitting of 25,000 tCO2 per annum. Amongst these top emitters will be electricity generators, especially black and brown coal fired generators who will be liable to pay the carbon price. Liable generators will look to recover their increased cost of production by increasing their wholesale electricity sell price. Results of this impact have already been seen in the wholesale futures markets.
Having reviewed the full proposal, Energy Action have compiled a detailed overview of the potential impact to Australian businesses, their energy prices and how Energy Action can help your business begin to minimise the potential impact to your 'bottom line' now.
Click here to view Energy Action's Summary of the Clean Energy Future package.
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Click here to download our Quick Reference Guide
To read an update on the Carbon Pricing Scheme, click here
To read an article on the European Unions back-loading of certificates click here.
The below chart documents the price of wholesale electricity in the National Electricity Market (the NEM) over a 16 year period. The historic prices are average annual settlement prices for wholesale electricity. Whereas futures prices are the current perception of the futures price of wholesale electricity for the upcoming years. There are two futures prices charted - carbon exclusive and carbon inclusive futures. This shows the expected impact of the introduction of a price on carbon from 1 July 2012. There are 13 years of historic annual pool prices (blue area) and 3 years of futures prices for carbon exclusive (green area) and carbon inclusive (yellow area) contracts. Data is current as of 1 Feb 2012.
Historic prices are sourced from the Australian Energy markets Operator (AEMO) http://www.aemo.com.au/. Futures prices are sourced from d-cyphaTrade http://d-cyphatrade.com.au/ and AFMA http://www.afma.com.au/.