Coalition moves to calm investors spooked by nuclear pitch

Peter Dutton’s Coalition is trying to calm spooked investors by promoting the role of renewables as part of their nuclear energy plan and signalling future policies to incentivise household solar and batteries.

Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien will tell a room of clean-energy businesspeople on Thursday that the Coalition sees a central role for wind and solar power if it forms government at the next election, even though the party won’t reveal the proportion of renewables in its plan until a later date.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and his energy spokesman Ted O’Brien.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

O’Brien is the architect of the opposition’s plan to build seven nuclear reactors he says are needed to replace the continuous power from coal plants that will all have shut down by 2040, and to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

His remarks at a private conference on energy transition investment hosted by Citi represent a more pro-renewables stance than recent comments from Nationals leader David Littleproud, who was forced to walk back talk of a cap on renewable projects.

O’Brien will say wind and solar are crucial and, “deployed smartly, renewables working alongside zero-emissions nuclear energy and gas will help Australia get prices down as we decarbonise”.

“Under the Coalition, renewables will play an important role in our future electricity grid but it will be a different role from that envisaged by Labor,” he will say, according to draft speech notes provided to this masthead.

“By seeking a renewables-only grid, Labor is setting renewables up to fail, not succeed.

“Labor wants a 98 per cent renewables grid by 2050, predominantly dominated by wind and solar, but no other economy in the world is going down this path.”

The opposition is running an inquiry into household solar and batteries, and Littleproud and moderate MP Andrew Bragg have floated tax breaks and subsidies to boost uptake.

Coalition figures view household electrification as less contentious among Coalition climate-change sceptics who oppose large-scale renewables, sparking backlashes in some communities.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, right, has helped recruit Matt Kean, a senior Liberal and a public critic of nuclear power, in a way that reminds voters of the gulf within the Coalition on energy and climate.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“It’s imperative that renewables be extended by combining them with storage solutions to avoid straining the system,” O’Brien will say on Thursday.

While there is widespread support for nuclear within the opposition, some MPs and strategists worry Labor’s framing of the Coalition as backward on climate change could hurt the Liberals in the half-a-dozen seats it lost to teal independents at the last election, as well as in a swath of metropolitan seats such as Bennelong, Bradfield, Reid, Chisholm, Menzies, Deakin and Sturt.

O’Brien will repeatedly emphasise the zero-emissions nature of nuclear power, but colleagues who are less accommodating of renewables have emphasised that the plan will reduce the role of renewables.

Labor continued its attacks on Dutton’s nuclear plan on Wednesday in Canberra, with Energy Minister Chris Bowen ridiculing Dutton’s claim that the annual waste from a small modular nuclear reactor would fit in a can of Coke.

“On five separate public occasions, the leader of the opposition has said of waste from a nuclear facility, when it comes to a small modular reactor, you get one can of Coke. What is the real figure, based on analysis from Rolls-Royce? It’s 12,500 cans of Coke.”

The Australian Energy Market Operator released its 25-year road map for the energy grid on Wednesday, predicting that coal plants would exit the grid entirely by 2040 and calling for a faster rollout of renewable energy projects to fill the gap.

Clean-energy investors warned the opposition’s plan to intervene in the market to prop up nuclear energy would derail the renewables rollout, and said AEMO’s report showed the need for private capital to fund a renewables rollout to drive down prices.

“Suggestions that nuclear energy has a role in Australia’s energy mix works directly against that confidence that underpins the near-term investment in new renewable energy supply and risks damaging Australia’s overall prosperity,” Investor Group on Climate Change managing director Erwin Jackson said.

Jackson represents a coalition of 104 global and local institutional investors including AustralianSuper, Cbus, Fidelity, BlackRock and Vanguard.

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