One of Australia's most prominent businessmen has accused the ACT government of lying about its renewable energy achievements.
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Dick Smith said the territory's claim to have transitioned to 100 per cent renewable energy was "fraudulent" and gave a false impression that the shift to a carbon neutral grid was easy.
"I'm a supporter of them putting money into renewables, but I'm not a supporter of telling lies," Mr Smith said.
The ACT claims it is now powered with 100 per cent renewable energy as it has long-term generation contracts that provide for the total energy usage in the ACT.
The government has acknowledged that not all power in the ACT's grid is generated by renewable sources, and in fact comes from fossil-fuel generation in the NSW grid.
Mr Smith paid for an advertisement in Monday's Canberra Times, calling attention to what Mr Smith said was the government's lie.
"It's a blatant lie and we shouldn't lie because it gives the impression to everyone that moving away from coal and gas is easy," he said.
Mr Smith said large-scale battery storage would be needed to harness renewable energy for use when it could not be generated to truly claim a city relied on 100 per cent renewable energy. He said this would be prohibitively expensive and argued ditching fossil-fuel power generation entirely would be impossible without adopting nuclear energy.
"The problem with renewables, and even though I'm a strong supporter of them, is that the storage is incredibly expensive and batteries, no one has ever come up with any design for grid scale battery storage," he said.
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A spokesman for Energy Minister Shane Rattenbury defended the ACT's claim, arguing the 100 per cent renewables achievement was based on a "net" target.
"This is consistent with national and international practices in renewable electricity procurement, including the Greenpower program, and procurement by large energy consumers," the spokesman said in a statement.
"Achievement of the target from 2020 is measured on an annual basis, rather than at any single point in time. This approach is also consistent with the Commonwealth's large-scale renewable energy target (LRET) methodology, and the methodology for the Greenpower program.
"The bulk of the ACT's renewable electricity target is being achieved through the ACT's large-scale renewable electricity feed-in tariff (FiT) scheme. This source contributes about three-quarters of all the output needed for the ACT's 100 per cent renewable electricity. Other sources include rooftop solar generation in the ACT and the ACT's share of the Commonwealth's LRET."
The spokesman said 11 different wind and solar farms in the ACT, NSW, Victoria and South Australia provide the power in the territory's feed-in-tariff scheme.
But the government's Everyday Climate Choices website said: "Since 2020, 100 per cent of electricity in the ACT has come from renewable sources. The ACT will maintain this from now on."
Mr Smith, who described himself as a renewables enthusiast, said the ACT government should drop its claim to have powered Canberra with 100 per cent renewable energy.
"I drove in the first solar vehicle race from Darwin to Adelaide. I've held the record for driving a solar vehicle from Perth to Sydney. I've got two electric cars, one of them is totally powered from the sun with a huge battery bank and solar cells on the roof," he said.
"So I'm a fanatic for renewables, but I'm not into telling lies about it and I have absolutely no doubt there's no way any country or any city could go 100 per cent renewables.
"Therefore, I support nuclear for Australia."
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