Australia's renewable energy drive in jeopardy

The Liberal-National coalition’s rise has set back the country’s green push. But distributed generation still offers plenty of potential

Thirteen years ago Australia became the first sovereign state to introduce a nationwide mandatory renewable energy target (RET). The scope of the policy at the time was limited to adding just another 2% share of renewable energy to an electricity grid dominated by coal-fired power generation. Now, in 2014, Australia may become the first sovereign state to bring its mandatory renewable energy target to a crashing halt – just three years after bipartisan support saw it increased to a minimum 20%. Why the sudden turnaround? There are a couple of key themes at play. One is the election last September of a business-oriented conservative coalition government that is seeking to remove many of the c