The Business Council of Australia, together with the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Minerals Council of Australia, has issued a joint statement calling for the Renewable Energy Target to be amended.

The statement is accompanied by modelling by Deloitte that assesses the impact of the RET, which indicates that it penalises electricity consumers by underwriting expensive renewable generation – a gross ‘wealth transfer’ of $17 billion to 2030.

The intended target of the RET scheme was to deliver 20% renewable energy by 2020. Lower demand for electricity has meant that, if allowed to continue on its current trajectory, the RET will deliver at least 28% renewable energy by 2020. The flow-on effects to the rest of the economy of this mandated 'wealth transfer' from consumers to producers is large, costing the economy up to $28 billion.

The Deloitte modelling projects that moving to a true 20% by 2020 RET could generate annual reductions of:

• $21 to $36 per year for household electricity consumers
• about $11,500 to $18,500 for commercial customers of electricity with an average annual electricity bill of around $600,000
• about $31,100 to $51,700 for industrial customers of electricity with an average annual electricity bill of around $1.1 million per annum.

Download: Assessing the impact of the Renewable Energy Target (Report by Deloitte)

Download: Assessing the impact of the Renewable Energy Target (Summary of Report)

Submission to the Expert Panel on the Renewable Energy Target Review (June 2014)