Lately, Australia has been in hot water due to the Abbott government’s lack of action when it comes to climate change and the impacts this has been having on the solar industry. As a result, the Green Investment Bank and a Chinese partner have given the flagging solar industry a $33.3 million boost in an effort to encourage commercial investment in solar energy.
The Clean Energy Finance Corp will be supplying as much as $20 million to the business project with ET Solar in an effort to make shopping malls more environmentally conscious as well as cutting their power bills.
Commercial solar panel installations set to improve
As per CEFC’s CEO, Oliver Yates, ‘There is a huge scope to expand and deepen the solar PV market in the commercial sector’.
According to a Green Energy Trading analyst, in 2014, 800 megawatts of solar PV capacity was added. Unfortunately, there has been very little change since 2013. This time around, since there is no movement from the government sector, the commercial sector is trying to fill in the gap.
In the current program, ET Solar will be operating and maintaining solar PV systems. It would range from 30 kilowatts to 2 megawatts of power. Once the consumer agrees to buy the electricity from them, they would be doing so at a lower power rate.
Upfront capital is one of the biggest barrier for commercial consumers in regards to investing in the solar industry. The program created by ET Solar is set to help in removing this barrier. Hopefully, many Australian businesses will grab at this opportunity and benefit from ET Solar’s program, helping to reduce not only their energy costs but to also lower emissions.
Calls for business to do their part in lowering emissions
The Abbott government is getting a lot of negative publicity due to the fact they are neglecting their global responsibility when it comes to climate change. In fact, this neglect is so extreme that many people, both belonging to private and public groups, have noticed that instead assisting in creating and improving effective policies on energy efficiency and renewable energy, they are instead simply being blocked.
Cutting the renewable energy target was such a big setback for Australia and it is clear to see that the public is becoming increasingly frustrated by the shortsighted actions of government. Federal ministers are even uncertain in their decision to back up the small scale end of the market which is helping solar PV.
It is a good thing that the commercial sector is breaking away from the direction of government and is instead taking a bigger step in making use of solar energy.
Photo courtesy of Oregon Department of Transportation on Flickr
