Renewable fuel to raise costs

A study by Port Jackson Partners has warned that retail electricity prices in Australia will probably double by 2015, even without the introduction of an emissions trading scheme. Reasons given include the recently introduced Renewable Energy Target (20% by 2020), encouraging greater use of more expensive renewable energy, and the massive capital commitments required to maintain and expand the generation network to cope with the more decentralized sources of alternative electricity feeding into the grid.(December 30, 2009)