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Electricity demand and Australia’s renewable energy targets: where to?

Crawford School of Public Policy | Centre for Climate Economics and Policy

Event details

Seminar

Date & time

Wednesday 26 August 2015
12.30pm–2.00pm

Venue

Weston Theatre, Level 1, Crawford Building 132, Lennox Crossing, ANU

Speaker

Dr Hugh Saddler, Pitt & Sherry and ANU; Tristan Edis, Climate Spectator.

Contacts

Yanhong Ouyang

Hugh Saddler: What has been happening to residential electricity demand in Australia?

Average annual electricity consumption per residential consumer has been falling steadily in every state since around 2009. The presentation will examine the factors which may explain this reduction and speculate on where electricity consumption may go in the next few years. It will also include some preliminary results from an analysis of how low income households use electricity.

Presentation slides

Tristan Edis: 50 per cent renewables and the death of carbon pricing.

The Labor Party’s recent announcement that they would seek to achieve 50 per cent of electricity from renewable energy by 2030 while at the same time remaining committed to an emissions trading scheme probably comes as completely odd to a trained economist. If you want to reduce emissions then just set a binding emissions reduction target and then let the market sort out how. But if we’re to achieve the emissions cuts necessary by the end of the century we need to get comfortable with designing policy that the populace can understand and embrace. And we might be surprised with just how efficient and effective it can be.

Dr Hugh Saddler is Principal Consultant – Energy Strategies with pitt&sherry, a Research Associate of the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy and a Participant in the Energy Change Institute. He is also a Director of the Climate Institute. He produces Cedex Electricity Update, a monthly newsletter on trends in Australian electricity supply, demand and emissions, contributes articles on electricity economics and policy to The Conversation, and is a regular commentator on these topics on the radio.

Tristan Edis is the Editor of ClimateSpectator.com.au, a publication dedicated to providing daily news and analysis on the business and politics surrounding clean energy and climate change. Prior to this role he was a research fellow on energy at the Grattan Institute. He has more than a decade’s experience working inside and outside government on energy and climate change policy and markets.

Convened by the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy at Crawford School in collaboration with the ANU Energy Change Institute.

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