3 minute read
Forewords by CEO Eytan Lenko of Boundless
IN MY VIEW
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John Grimes, Chief Executive Smart Energy Council
IT FEELS LIKE everything has changed.
The Climate Bill is now law, fuel efficiency standards are being reviewed federally, Queensland and Victoria have set fantastic renewable energy targets (along with strong plans to get there), and much more.
Coal generator closures are being announced one after another, and all much sooner than many forecast.
I am just so pleased to be finally focused on the real task at hand, delivering a smart energy roll out on a scale and against a timeframe never seen before.
Customers big and small are ‘all in’ and massive energy bills will drive even more people to install cheap, clean, renewable energy at every scale.
Smart energy companies across the country are well and truly up for the challenge.
They are experiencing rapid growth in what was once a fringe industry but is now at the centre of our national policy.
The year 2022 marks the point when we stopped having to fight governments from dragging us backwards, and instead we have got on to the most pressing work of all: delivering for the economy and for the planet.
A truly inspiring group of people are doing the hard work of transitioning our entire economy to a zero-carbon future.
Eytan Lenko, Chief Executive, Boundless
JEFF BEZOS famously said that all ‘overnight’ successes take 10 years. That is certainly true for the smart energy sector, where we have seen years of hard work and advocacy spectacularly paying off with an incredible list of initiatives and leaps forward over the past few months.
Just a few examples of this are: • Australia significantly raised its 2030 emissions reduction targets • Victoria announced an ambitious
Renewable Storage Target • The Queensland Energy Plan was announced, bringing forward coal closures and rapidly building out renewables • The Victorian government announced its intention to legislate for 80% emission reductions by 2035, and • The federal budget allocated $25bn for climate initiatives
What is really interesting to reflect on is the lack of push back or opposition to any of these ambitious measures. We have well and truly
won the argument that climate action is good for the economy and jobs.
It helps that the last federal election showed clearly that the community is impatient for change and will take matters into their own hands if necessary.
The Smart Energy Council and its members should be congratulated for their role in helping to make all of these incredible things happen.
So we now shift into a new phase where governments, businesses and the community all understand that we are going to do this, that we are racing towards a zero emissions economy. And the penny is dropping that there is a lot to do!
It is easy to be overwhelmed at the scale of what needs to be built, retrofitted and replaced over the next 20 years. The best antidote to that is to simply take steps forward.
Many climate solutions have a technology basis and follow Wright’s law, which says that the more we deploy, the cheaper a technology can be.
Our job is to deploy wherever and whenever we can in order to trigger tipping points, as we have seen with solar energy and LED lighting, where the cost of new technology becomes so low that the market takes over.
Every step we take brings us closer to those tipping points.
My organisation, Boundless Earth, was proud to take a step in partnership with the Smart Energy Council by hosting the National EV Summit in Canberra last August. We brought the industry together and secured a commitment from the federal government to pursue fuel efficiency standards, which should help Australia become a priority market for EV manufacturers.
This will take us towards EVs taking a 10% share of the new car market by 2024, which has been a clear tipping point in other countries.
Let’s take a moment to celebrate our achievements, take a deep breath, and start down our next 10-year journey towards Australia taking its place as a renewable energy superpower.
