Big windfall for banks
THE urgency for transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy sources in Australia while the rest of the world is building more than a thousand modern coal-fired power plants is concerning.
I thought it was just the
Green left ramping up their urge to save the planet.
However there are signs that this is emerging as a large “money-go-round “with the international players planning to get richer aided by gullible governments.
A recent snippet in The Australian confirms it’s not confined to the overseas traders.
A report says Macquarie Group, possibly the largest of our investment banks, see big dollars in renewable energy.
“It is a sign of growing market confidence and that Macquarie would prove adept at making humungous amounts of money.”
When banks or other large corporations make humungous amounts of money from electricity supply, guess who is the loser.
It is also reported that in
2017 former ACT Deputy Chief Minister Simon Corbell in partnership set up the Clean Energy Derivatives
Corporation to raise $250 million to back contracts with wind and solar farms.
The Queensland and Victorian governments have announced about $3 billion of reverse auction contracts for renewable energy.
The ACT Labor/green Government is a long established player having kicked off when Mr Corbell was Chief Minister.
I am not sure what “reverse auction contracts” are exactly but it seems they provide a windfall for local and foreign consortiums who compete in a bidding war for the right to build and own some hundred or more planned wind or solar farms.
Government guarantees appear to allow winners to forward sell power to retailers even before the project is built.
No wonder former politicians are having a lick.
Maybe some of those more enlightened than me can give a better explanation, though I think it would be hard to reach a conclusion other than that electricity prices are not going south soon.
GRAHAM WHEELER,
Gulliver.