{"id":50637,"date":"2021-05-26T06:30:10","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T20:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=50637"},"modified":"2021-05-26T06:30:10","modified_gmt":"2021-05-25T20:00:10","slug":"arena-taylor-bowen-mb2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/arena-taylor-bowen-mb2010\/","title":{"rendered":"The R In ARENA Is For Renewable"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-50638\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/arena-bowen-taylor.jpg\" alt=\"ARENA regulations change\" width=\"1200\" height=\"630\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/arena-bowen-taylor.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/arena-bowen-taylor-300x158.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/arena-bowen-taylor-1024x538.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/arena-bowen-taylor-768x403.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Labor says it will attempt to thwart the Morrison Government\u2019s action to divert the Australian Renewable Energy Agency from focusing on renewables.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>ARENA was established in 2011 to improve the competitiveness of renewable energy technologies and increase the supply of renewable energy in Australia. That&#8217;s not my interpretation of its role, it&#8217;s what is stated as the object of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legislation.gov.au\/Details\/C2017C00266\"> ARENA Act 2011<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>ARENA was established by a Labor Government, but with support from the Liberal-National Opposition. That support has wavered at various times since. A guy named <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/arenas-existence-hangs-thread\/\">Tony Abbott took a shot at axing it<\/a>, but was unsuccessful. However, the attacks haven&#8217;t stopped, just changed.<\/p>\n<p>The Morrison Government has wanted ARENA to expand its focus for quite a while; last year pushing for it to support Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), which had been off-limits previously.<\/p>\n<p>But Federal Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor recently expanded ARENA\u2019s remit through a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legislation.gov.au\/Details\/F2021L00590\"> change in regulations<\/a> to again include funding carbon capture and storage (CCS) and also &#8220;clean&#8221; hydrogen projects.<\/p>\n<p>The problem with hydrogen (aside from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?s=hydrogen\">hydrogen hype<\/a> generally) is there are three different &#8220;types&#8221;:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>brown: produced using coal<\/li>\n<li>blue: produced using gas<\/li>\n<li>green: produced using renewables<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It appears that under the regulation changes, blue hydrogen would not be off the table as the Morrison Government considers gas to be low-emissions. Among the concerns about CCS &#8211; aside from its commercial viability &#8211; is it could prolong the use of fossil fuels and all the problems that come with them.<\/p>\n<p>ARENA doesn&#8217;t seem overly fussed about the expanded focus &#8211; but then there&#8217;s the old wisdom about pooping in your own nest; although it could be argued supporting CCS and blue hydrogen would be exactly that.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;This allows ARENA to continue to be the Agency that works at the forefront of innovation,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/arena.gov.au\/news\/arena-welcomes-expanded-mandate-to-support-the-next-generation-of-clean-energy-technologies\/\">stated<\/a> ARENA CEO Darren Miller. &#8220;As technologies such as solar and wind mature, we must be able to move forward and support the next generation of clean energy technologies.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Mr Miller made similar comments last year when the CCS push occurred.<\/p>\n<h2>Renewable: It&#8217;s In The Name<\/h2>\n<p>But Labor is having none of it.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The idea of giving Fantastic Angus a blank cheque to decide what is and isn\u2019t \u2018low emissions\u2019 technology is a joke,&#8221; said Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Mr. Bowen says what Minister Taylor wants to do would require legislation, not just a change in regulations.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Labor will therefore also ask the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation to consider the validity of the Regulations,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chrisbowen.net\/media\/media-releases\/it-s-in-the-name-renewable-energy-agency-should-fund-renewable-technologies\/\">he stated<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Mr. Bowen is calling on the Greens and cross-bench to support Labor&#8217;s motion of disallowance. It shouldn&#8217;t have any problems with the former considering the Greens were dead against the changes from the day the party became aware of them.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Good to hear Labor will also oppose government plan to turn Australia&#8217;s Renewable Energy Agency into a fossil fuel funder, which Greens announced last week we\u2019d move to disallow,&#8221;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AdamBandt\/status\/1397005273827483648\"> tweeted<\/a> Greens leader Adam Bandt yesterday afternoon. &#8220;Together w crossbench we can kill this in the Senate.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Labor says it will attempt to thwart the Morrison Government\u2019s action to divert the Australian Renewable Energy Agency from focusing on renewables.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":50638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[678],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solar-battery-news","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The R In ARENA Is For Renewable - SolarQuotes Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Labor will attempt to thwart the Morrison Government diverting the Australian Renewable Energy Agency from focusing on renewables.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/arena-taylor-bowen-mb2010\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The R In ARENA Is For Renewable\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Labor will attempt to thwart the Morrison Government diverting the Australian Renewable Energy Agency from focusing on renewables.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/arena-taylor-bowen-mb2010\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SolarQuotes Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SolarQuotes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-05-25T20:00:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/arena-bowen-taylor.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Michael Bloch\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@solar_quotes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@solar_quotes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/arena-taylor-bowen-mb2010\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/arena-taylor-bowen-mb2010\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Michael Bloch\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/66afd571aa00c2e442f0192ebac2f6f1\"},\"headline\":\"The R In ARENA Is For Renewable\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-05-25T20:00:10+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/arena-taylor-bowen-mb2010\/\"},\"wordCount\":532,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/arena-taylor-bowen-mb2010\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/arena-bowen-taylor.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"General Solar &amp; 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