Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The reality of renewables at present is that they do not stack up, and the various renewable energy target, or RET, schemes should be dropped until such time as they become economically competitive. I fully appreciate the coalition will review the RET in 2014. We have seen the ludicrous proposition put forward by the wind industry that wind power reduces prices in the market. This is based on disingenuous use of data whereby a massive oversupply when wind is blowing, leading to the price going down, but relative undersupply when the wind is not blowing, significantly increases prices. The overall effect is that, for example, South Australian, the wind capital state in Australia, has the nation's highest electricity costs.

If the wind energy proponents were correct in their assertion that wind energy was economically competitive with fossil fuels then there would be no need for RET schemes or subsidies. The big problem for renewables is the requirement for backup when the renewable resource—wind here—is not available. At present storage is even more cost uncompetitive.

This is bad enough in the case of new turbines being erected. Even forgetting the problems related to grid instability due to variability of wind speeds and the incongruity of there being no wind power from South Australia to provide required power to Queensland during Cyclone Yasi, the issue of degradation due to age becomes a factor. The wind generation capacity of a wind farm is also not what the proponents would like to put out. The reality is that the turbines do not generate any electricity with too high or too low a wind speed. The power ramps up and down with increasing or decreasing wind speeds and only has a certain sweet spot in wind speed distribution where it can generate maximum capacity.

The average of all these issues leads to what is known as 'load factor' or the average power generated by wind turbines. A recent study conducted in the UK and Denmark provides a sobering picture. Data for the cost of wind power at present assumes an economic life of 25 to 30 years. Problematically, the data indicates that the load factor in the UK for new-build wind turbines is around 24 per cent, but after 15 years it is down to 11 per cent. The degradation is large but can also be catastrophic in terms of bearing or gearbox failures.

The numbers required are huge as well. If Australia were to have all of its energy generated using wind and if the average new build could be smoothed for an average load factor of 20 per cent, then Australia would need over 50,000 five-megawatt wind turbines.

What of the victims of wind farms—those who have dedicated their lives to living the Australian dream and who will see a substantial loss in property value due to planned wind farms on a neighbouring property. This is the case for Melanie and Craig, who have dedicated their lives to farming in Broomehill WA. They have an 18-month-old daughter, Grace, and hope to have more children in the near future. Farming is tough, but they accept the challenges and would love their life on the land if it were not for the proposed wind farm on the neighbouring property. Melanie and Craig's future and their life as they had planned it is now uncertain. For the past three years they have been fighting to stop the placement of a wind turbine one kilometre from their family home.

The subsidy for wind is more than 100 per cent. The CSIRO estimates that the levelled costs of power to be $168 per megawatt-hour compared with coal, which is $80. These figures are generous in terms of the load factor, but they do not expect wind to be any more competitive by 2030. According to the CSIRO, nuclear is the cheapest method of generating electricity now, and this will also be the case in 2030. Wind power is simply a feel-good option for electricity. It is inefficient and costly.

Investment should be directed at the cheap end of the innovation pipeline: research and development of electricity-generating technology. We must not mandate the use of expensive methods of generating electricity. Given economics and the goals for CO2 reduction, nuclear has to be considered.

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