AGL Energy (AGL) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Renewable Electricity Guarantee of Origin (REGO) consultation.

The role of the electricity sector in decarbonisation

AGL understands the importance of the energy sector to Australia’s broader economy and the need to decarbonise the energy sector and reduce Australia’s emissions. Reducing emissions in the electricity sector has the potential to unlock substantial reductions in the transport and industrial sectors through fuel switching, and supporting a new era of economic prosperity powered by renewable electricity. Businesses and residential customers may also be able to achieve substantial cost reductions on an individual basis by switching to renewable energy sources.

Certification of green electricity is a key element of driving decarbonisation in the electricity sector, but also supporting decarbonisation of other products and services that use electricity as an energy input. We therefore support the consideration of an appropriate enduring certification program for electricity as has been put forward in the discussion paper.

It is critical that the proposed scheme for certification is resilient, given the scope of renewable electricity development that will be required to support the energy transition both before 2030 and beyond. Helpfully, while the RET continues to be an effective renewable electricity certification for most current purposes, there is a unique opportunity to take some time to carefully consider the best way to structure an enduring scheme for the future.

At the same time, we recognise that there is some immediacy with respect to gaps in coverage of the current RET, which was not established with regard to several issues raised in the consultation paper. While we support swift action to resolve these gaps and to support the acceleration of the energy transition, some caution should be exercised to ensure that immediate actions do not have the effect of unintentionally dampening the important investment signals currently provided by the RET out to 2030.

A copy of AGL’s submission to the REGO consultation is available here.