|
As Australia prepares to launch into what is billed as a clean energy future, its largest wind turbine manufacturer has sacked 24 staffbecause of a lack of business. Keppel Prince cut welding, painting and processing jobs at itsPortland plant yesterday after finishing work on the final windfarm on its books, a 13-tower project near Hamilton. Including voluntary redundancies, it has shed about 50 of its 450workers in the past two months. Keppel Prince general manager Steve Garner said wind farmconstruction had stalled across Australia, largely due to a designflaw in federal legislation setting a target of about 20 per centof electricity from renewable sources by 2020. The market for renewable energy certificates created through cleanprojects has been flooded with credits from rooftop solar panels. It has suppressed the certificate price, stymieing the developmentof the cheapest large-scale clean energy – wind farms. Parliament tackled the problem in 2010 by dividing the market intolarge and small-scale renewable energy schemes, but the certificateprice is yet to fully recover. "The wind industry says they are getting projects together,but they are being planned to go in the back end of 2012 and into2013 and we can't convince them to do otherwise," MrGarner said. "Last time this happened I carried people all the way throughand it cost me millions, but in the current economic climate Ican't afford to do that." He said he hoped to be able to eventually rehire workers but warnedthat the delay in construction and state government rules givinghouseholds right-of-veto over turbines planned within twokilometres of their homes could stop the country meeting the 20 percent target. "If you do your numbers you have to have something like 500towers built each year and at the moment we're doing verylittle," he said. Clean Energy Council policy manager Russell Marsh said wind farmplans were also being affected by uncertainty surrounding a reviewof the renewable energy legislation later this year. "In ourview it needs to be done as quickly as possible," he said. Unlike the carbon pricing scheme that will start on July 1, therenewable energy target has bipartisan support. A spokesman for the Climate Change Minister, Greg Combet, said thegovernment had asked the Climate Change Authority to review thelegislation and recommend any changes by the end of the year. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as LCD KVM Drawer , China Rugged Notebook Computers for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Industrial LCD Displays.
Related Articles -
LCD KVM Drawer, China Rugged Notebook Computers,
|
