Here's a bit more - thank God that muppet Martin "Mumbles" Ferguson has lost control of the purse strings, and thank Milne for that the final quote in this article. Couldn't have said it better myself (I posted this earlier in the morning but it must have vanished into the ether):
GREEN DEALS: New start for green funding
Published 8:59 AM, 8 Jul 2011
Giles Parkinson
Funding for large scale green energy projects and R&D is to be stripped from the control of Energy Minister Martin Ferguson and put under the control of two new independent statutory bodies. The newly formed Australian Renewable Energy Agency will take charge of $3.2 billion of funding for R&D, pilot and demonstration projects, around half of which is already committed, while a Clean Energy Finance Corporation will also be created to ensure the continued rollout of commercial projects around the country.
The creation of two new bodies independent of the Department of Energy was considered to be crucial, as funding for new technologies such as geothermal and solar were constantly delayed and was always focused around the narrow measures of grants based schemes, which made it impossible for many new companies to raise matching funds.
The new institutions will likely consider loan guarantees as well as tariffs to encourage the deployment of renewables, as these have proved to be the most effective in the US and Europe, as well as in South America and Asia. Further details are likely to be unveiled at a solar summit to e held in Canberra on Friday, which will discuss the measures needed to support the rollout of large scale solar projects, which are coming down rapidly in cost and which are now increasingly recognized as critical for the transformation to a low carbon electricity grid.
ARENA will absorb the activities of 10 different programs, including Solar Flagships, the Renewable Energy Development Program, and the Emerging Renewables Fund, as well as the activities of institutions such as the Australian Solar Institute and Australian Centre for Renewable Energy. While Arena will focus on commercialization, the CEFC will have carriage over the deployment of such technologies. Details of ongoing funding will be released as part of the carbon pricing package to be released on Sunday.
Greens Senator Christine Milne said there are currently 11 different funding programs run by the Commonwealth government for renewable energy and, historically, almost none of them have been appropriately run, and many technologies and entrepreneurs had been forced overseas. ?Government funding programs are announced with a big public splash, innovators and entrepreneurs start to gear up to deliver them, and, after months or years of delay, the programs are re-badged, re-allocated, scrapped or so badly designed that nobody is able to take advantage of them," she said.
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