Participants at a roundtable hosted by RBC Capital Markets and KangaNews in Sydney recently, highlighted issues as diverse as manufacturing and supply lines, social licence, and the structure and scale of financing as points of focus for the years ahead.
The time for action is now, as market participants note the increasingly close proximity of some key interim targets: if significant progress is not made by the end of the current decade, at the latest, it may not be possible to get close to Paris Agreement goals. In this context, roundtable participants agreed that Australia is “very much at the beginning” of its energy transition – but there is also hope that the country is sufficiently resourceful that it will be able to pick up the pace.
This means delivery of a vast quantity of renewable generation and ancillary power network and storage infrastructure, at the same time as cost of capital and international competition for resources has increased, and global cooperation has – in many respects – weakened. Australia will have to balance its natural advantages, as a resource producer and its potential for renewables generation – while navigating a local and global landscape that will not always be fully conducive.
Read the full discussion here.