Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Of the 33,000 gigawatt hour total—which, according to the modelling, will see 23 per cent of renewable energy generated in Australia by 2020, comfortably exceeding the 20 per cent target,—the modelling undertaken by ACIL as part of the Warburton review suggests that 750 megawatt hours of new large scale solar capacity would be generated and 4,910 megawatt hours of new wind capacity would be generated. We do note that, elsewhere, there are other estimates. Bloomberg, for example, have suggested that at least one-third of the target may be met by solar, which, of course, would potentially reduce the extent of wind. We know that the modelling in this area is not perfect. We know that because we are here debating this tonight because, when the 41,000 gigawatt hour target was set, that was expected to be 20 per cent of Australia's energy demand. Of course, we have since learnt that it was going to far overshoot the 20 per cent figure and hence we are back here debating a lower target that will still exceed the 20 per cent target but without some of the pressures that would otherwise have occurred.