Essay by Eric Worrall
Are renewables investors worried the subsidies could cease?
Australia could miss clean energy target as solar and wind investment slumps, investors warn
Expert cautions large pipeline of potential projects will not deliver required energy capacity unless companies make final investments
Graham Readfearn and Adam Morton
Mon 1 Dec 2025 19.22 AEDT…
Clean Energy Regulator data shows the government agency expects 2.5GW of industry-scale renewable energy capacity to reach a final investment decision this year, down from 4GW last year. The 12-month average for investment commitments on new developments is at its lowest since early 2017.
…
… chief executive of the Clean Energy Investor Group, Richie Merzian, said the lower financial investment decisions were a “symptom of deep structural issues, not just a blip”.
“The structural issues include state planning delays, grid connection uncertainty, transmission constraints, rising project costs and lack of long-term revenue certainty,” he said.
Merzian said the underwriting program had helped to develop a large pipeline of potential projects, but that they would not deliver the new energy capacity needed unless companies made final investments.
“The contrast between the large pipeline and the limited number reaching [financial investment decision] indicates a system that is not functioning as intended,” he said.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/01/australia-could-miss-clean-energy-target-as-solar-and-wind-investment-slumps-investors-warn
We know the AI boom is driving demand for electricity, so why the “revenue uncertainty”?
My first thought was perhaps Richie is talking about opposition to power lines spooking investors, but investment capital is not revenue – though delays in connecting the grid to your new renewable plant could disrupt revenue projections.
Could lack of social license be causing revenue concerns?
The Australian Energy Regulator frequently talks about the need for “social license” when building power lines, but in Australia this proclaimed need for social license seems to have taken a back seat to a fast rollout of renewable infrastructure. When attending countryside rallies I’ve listened to horrible stories about farmers being threatened with legal action, and surveyors driving onto farmland without bothering to ask permission, then reacting with hostility when farmers ask what they are doing.
WUWT does not condone or encourage illegal activity, but from what I’ve seen, the anger in the countryside I’ve seen, renewable developers will pay dearly for their failure to obtain social license for their power line projects. Aussie farmers are a law abiding community, so I doubt most of them would personally destroy other people’s property no matter how angry they are, but would someone who feels their rights have been trampled rush to interfere or call the police if they see someone else destroying a power line?
Coincidentally Australia is also experiencing a spike in metal theft, which could be sparking concerns about the security of renewable distribution networks.
Such factors might be contributing to green investor unease, but I believe the main cause of “revenue uncertainty” is the cracking of the bipartisan Aussie climate consensus.
Why has Australia’s mainstream opposition slightly walked back their commitment to Net Zero?
There are people of integrity across the political spectrum, some of whom have campaigned for years to keep the focus on energy affordability. But in my opinion the factor which drove this sudden change of direction is a big jump in support for the One Nation party, whose long standing effort to link Net Zero with surging electricity prices may be gaining traction with voters.
I believe the threat of One Nation staging a Nigel Farage / Reform style breakout into mainstream Aussie politics is what cracked the Aussie Net Zero consensus, and broke renewable investor confidence. The threat of a future climate skeptic coalition pulling government handouts is cratering the subsidy dependent business case for investing in renewables.
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Oh Dear.
What a shame.
Never mind.
The “renewables” investors would be more
direct if they just placed bets on politics in
the predictions markets.
“… indicates a system that is not functioning as intended …”
A hallmark of all government industrial planning. Our current inability to meet our planned progress simply reflects a lack of political will (not enough taxpayer money).
[Don’t worry; the next Five Year Plan will fix the problems of the last Five Year Plan.]
One has to wonder (for a second or two) how many practicing engineers were involved in the planning.
Having a consulting firm give the government what they want is not engineering.
One has to wonder what has to be promised by investors to lawmakers to get them to give assurances about future taxpayer-funded subsidies, without which these development propositions are unviable to proceed.
> …grid connection uncertainty, transmission constraints, rising project costs and lack of long-term revenue certainty…
Four bullets to the head. Sometimes necessary.
But they are zombies
Here in Oz we get lots of “news” items about “clean, renewable energy” delivered by some of the major players. This gives some insight into style and motivations, good enough to bring on a migraine the rest of the day.
Overall, these people are not stupid, but not are they intelligent. If they have qualifications, most are from Arts faculties, seldom from Science or Engineering. (Disclosure – I am a scientist with 50 years of successful career).
The big skill that comes through is slippery cunning. A couple of days ago I listened for as long as I could stand it to one Matt Kean, once identifying as a right wing politician, accountant, Bachelor of Business Sydney University of Technology.
There follows but one example of slippery. It is not verbatim, but close enough. I did not record it. He was promoting clean energy as cheap, when he was asked why power bills kept rising. Oh, he said, they knock around a bit. Then on to next Question. This guy is the left-leaning to Communist Federal Government appointment as Head of the Climate Council of Australia. Our top political gurus rely on his advice when making new policies.
For this position, we voters might have expected a neutral, knowledgeable, even wise Head to do the Talking, not a generalist ideologue.
By their words they shall be remembered. By their knowing deviations from truth, they can expect one day to be prosecuted and be exposed to alternative views, like through steel bars.
Geoff S
It is, but it’s not from one single person. It is the cunning of a machine, the pol doing the talking is a mere mouthpiece. I wonder what position of competence our slimeball gov Newsome would be in without his family connections and the far left machine behind him – selling use cars off a corner lot in Sacramento is my guess.
Joanne Nova’s website had an article recently about rooftop solar’s effect on the grid scale power generators. Australia has the highest market penetration for solar due to abundant sunshine and high electricity prices. This leads to a glut of solar power at midday and very low or negative wholesale prices. Could the need for “long term revenue certainty” be a response to producing too much power when it has no value?
It will get worse for renewable investment before it gets better. Especially when people/governments do the math and figure out they’ve been scammed. The trick now for the renewable industry complex is to hide the truth.
They are much more skilled at hiding the truth than the people are at math or independent thinking.
Why is investment in intermittent power crashing?
As my mother always said the truth has a way of finding its way out.
And for the umpteenth time, please refer to intermittent power as intermittent power. The use of the word renewable is just part of the shell game that has been used to fleece the world.
That intermittent power needs to be renewed every few decades unlike traditional baseload power.
Free wind and solar require copious amounts of free money.
They are admitting the whole scam is dependent upon tax money without actually saying it. Cute.
Yesterday I looked at the situation for the 700MW of utility scale solar in South Australia for the previous 24 hours.. There is an investment of about $1bn in SA solar farms. The period was a solid sunny day. Rooftops supplied 34% of the entire state demand for the 24 hour period. All the solar farms combined earned $9,600 in the energy market and probably paid more than that for the FCAS requirement. So a really good day for sunlight but they lost money because their demand has been robbed by rooftop solar.
Coal, through import, only supplied 10% of the energy but earned $360,000. It would have also been paid for FCAS supply that the utility wind and solar paid for. Wind earned $370.000 in the energy market but some of that would have gone to coal, batteries and gas for FCAS service.
So it is quite clear that utility solar is stranded. Only a moron willing to throw other people’s money down he crapper would be encouraging this mammoth waste and eat away at their demand.
Wind is also losing market rapidly as the household batteries spread the rooftop chasm.
Australia is in the process of rapid de-industrialisaion due to world leading electricity prices.
“Poor fella my country”?
And the irony of “world leading electricity prices” is that it’s driving demand for more rooftop solar installation.
It was the rational choice. But now that Blackout has declared free lunchtime energy, households do not even need solar panels; just the battery. At 7% annual discount a subsidised battery sized for your typical daily demand has a payback of 3 years in South Australia. That is what happens when the grid price is so expensive. So even less wholesale demand and always more cost with less volume to recover the costs from.
Battery installed in houses now exceed the entire grid scale battery fleet.
Is there an estimate somewhere as to how much coal has been burned to date in China to manufacture the solar panels and the batteries now used in Australian utility-solar and roof-top solar applications?
How long do those household batteries systems typically last?
Harold The Organic Chemist Says:
ATTN: Aussies
For an Australia temperature check, I went to:
https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/countries/australia/average-temperature-by-year. The Tmax and Tmin data from 1901 to 2024 are displayed in long table. Here is brief excerpt of the data:
Year—–Tmax—–Tmin—–Tavg Temperatures are ° C
2024—–29.7——15.9——22.8
1901—–28.6——14.5——21.6
Chng. +1.1——+1.4——+1.2
In 1901 the concentration of CO2 in dry air was ca. 295 ppmv
(0.58 g CO2/cu. m.) and by 2024, it had increased to ca. 422 ppmv
(0.83 g CO2/cu. m.). Although there was slight increase in continental temperature after 123 years, it is not due to CO2 because there is very little CO2 in the air.
The questions are: What is the natural variation of Australian continental temperature and how is it computed?
The surface data in Australia has undergone much the same “cooling-the-past” homogenisation farce as USA and many other places.
Surface sites , while not quite as bad as the UK, still have many issues resulting in a lot of spurious Urban Warming as well as other tainted data… which is smeared over much of the continent.
Ken at Kenskingdom has been looking at this data corruption
adjustments | kenskingdom
The website uses NOAA’s temperature data base. Presumably, NOAA uses raw temperature data from the BoM after quality checks.
I briefly slimmed through kenskingdom website and really impressed by the huge amount work he did. Unfortunately his work has had no influence on Premier Anthony A. and the Canberra Climate Cartel (the CCC). What is it going to take for the Aussie government and the CCC to abandon their draconian climate agenda before they sink the economy into depression?
I used the website to check the temperature data for the major cities such as Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. These showed warming up to 2024, which is most likely due to the UHI effect.
However, Adelaide showed no warming from 1887 to 2024.
Shown in the chart (See below) is a plot of the average annual temperature from 1857 to 1999. The chart was obtained from the late John L. Daly’s website. Note his plot starts in 1857. The annual average temperature from his plot in1999 was 16.7° C To get recent temperature data I went to:
https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/cities/adelaide/average-temperature-by-year. The Tmax and Tmin data are displayed in a long table. Here is some recent Tavg data computed from the Tmax and Tmin data :
Year—–Tavg Temperatures are °C
2024—-17.4
2023—-16.7
2022—-16.9
2021—-16.6
2020—-16.7
Note there has been no change in the annual average temperature in this port city. Can this data be used to convince the CCC to abandon their climate agenda?
NB: If you click on the chart, it will expand and become clear.
Click on the “X” in the circle to return to comment text.
To Harold the organic Chemist
From geoff the Physical Chemist
…
Adelaide temperatures are rather more complicated than you suggest.
Try these two articles.
https://www.geoffstuff.com/adelt.docx
https://www.geoffstuff.com/adelwaves.xlsx
As I mentioned, the extreme weather watch website uses temperature data from NOAA’s data base.
At the end of the Tmax and Tmin data table for Adelaide, the weather stations used for temperature data are given. These are:
1956-2025 Adelaide Airport
1750-1955 Adelaide West Terrace.
The 1750 date should be 1850.
When I post comments here with scientific and technical info and discussions, I try to keep these simple since most readers are not scientists.
I skimmed through your two articles which are Adelaide temperature data analytical overkill. What motivated you to undertake such detailed analyses?
As I mention above, what is it going to take for the Aussie government to abandon their climate agenda?
BTW: Have you ever gone to the late John L. Daly’s website? I really like his charts because they are simple and uncluttered.
The reason there is opposition to wind, solar and storage is because they don’t work. Even the strongest supporters admit wind and solar can’t do the job otherwise they wouldn’t need storage and 24/7 backup. Stop wasting our time money and resources on junk that doesn’t work. Fossil fuel and nuclear work, fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear generators, build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators and remove all wind and solar from the grid. This isn’t hard.
Another option is to rule that those companies wishing to hook up wind or solar or any other erratic supply to the grid, MUST provide their own back-up BEFORE the electricity reaches the grid.
That should include the ability to provide solid inertial, synchronous and dispatchable electricity on a 24/7 basis..
The Texas solution? Big Green and its supporters are ardently opposed to sunshine, windmill, and unicorn fart power generation being linked to reliability or financial consequences.
Of course, as a practical matter that will lead to the same result; none would get built.
The only reason they get built now is because the idiots in government have encouraged the grift. Wind and solar are nothing but parasites.
It would seem that a decision to completely nationalize the Australian power grid would guarantee a steady stream of the funding needed to achieve the Albanese government’s vision for an emission-free grid. Why hasn’t nationalization of the Australian power grid been seriously considered?
From what I can see the Australian power grid is still owned in some states e.g. Queensland and Tasmania while South Australia and Victoria are largely (majority?) owned by China. Albanese wouldn’t want to offend Beijing, and nationalising state assets would kick off a huge fight so what’s left to nationalise?
What, you expect them to assume the responsibility for this disaster of their own making?! 😄😅🤣
Reliable energy isn’t being built because investors have zero confidence that they can get a RoI for coal power thanks to Greens, Teals, Labor, and depending on the day, Leybor. For unreliable energy aka Big Green, to be confronted with an equal playing field is fair.
Of course that sucks for anyone in Australia who relies on grid supplied power, but until the cheap reliable energy v ‘Net Zero energy’ divide can be resolved, old coal plants will be switched off, and wind and solar will not be covering the gaps, let alone the growing demand for mass migration and increasing EVs.
On the other hand increasing grid costs and unreliability will make off-grid far more desirable and cost effective. With enough time Australia could see a Third World divide between those who can afford off-grid self sufficiency, and those relying on an exorbitant, unreliable, sunshine, windmill, and unicorn fart driven grid.
Australia – The New Dark Continent?
I believe the threat of One Nation staging a Nigel Farage / Reform style breakout into mainstream Aussie politics…
We desperately need some sort of change-
Sex discrimination commissioner Anna Cody ‘can’t tell a man from a woman’
Pauline ruffles their feathers-
Australia Sen. Pauline Hanson barred from Parliament for wearing burqa in protest
“…unless companies make final investments”
Is a ‘final investment’ your last dollar?
HUME: the proudness of ownership; if one can remmembe what he owns.