Release: City of Sydney’s $60 Million Green Deal is Smoke & Mirrors

The Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance (ATA), the nation’s largest grassroots advocacy group representing taxpayers, today criticised Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s $60 million Green Energy Deal which is unlikely to deliver value for ratepayers and could make electricity more expensive in the long-term for businesses and homes in the city.

“Clover Moore claims that spending $60 million in ratepayer funds on purchase agreements for wind and solar energy will save the city $500,000 a year in electricity costs.

“This sounds great if taken at face value. Yet even the Australian Energy Market Commission admits that while the increased penetration of renewables through mandates like the City of Sydney’s Green Energy Deal can slightly reduce power bills in the short-term, they are also likely to lift wholesale electricity prices in the longer-term without investment in firming capacity for base-load generation.” (page 44)

“With our coal and gas-fired generators increasingly pushed into premature retirement, this will only worsen electricity price volatility which has punished our homes and businesses while damaging the economy and our international competitiveness.

“It isn’t the City of Sydney’s responsibility to artificially prop up intermittent and unreliable electricity sources for the benefit of wealthy energy companies who already make a killing off federal and state government subsidies for renewables to the tune of $2.8 billion a year, not to mention the fossil fuel power they sell to ensure reliable energy supply. These subsidies are better invested in research to help make clean energy more cost-effective and self-reliant so they can compete on their own footing.

“Alternatively, lifting the bans on nuclear energy as the Federal, NSW and Victorian governments are currently considering, could provide affordable and reliable power with a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions of a solar farm and no need for additional firming capacity at taxpayer or consumer expense.

“In the meantime, council should focus on its core responsibility to provide cost-effective and reliable public services like roads, rates and rubbish.”