One of the biggest issues many small businesses raise with the South Australian Business Chamber is the high cost of energy. Energy costs are certainly keeping many business owners up at night.
Meanwhile, South Australia continues to attract a staggering amount of investment capital with many renewable energy projects on the drawing board, under construction or just getting started. Rarely does a month go by without another large-scale renewable energy project being announced. South Australia has the intellectual and technological know-how to provide the solutions required to mitigate and adapt to a changing climate, but it’s also time for everyone to begin to feel the benefits.
If we can accelerate the transition to a low-carbon future by moving this multitude of large-scale renewable energy projects forward, then our business community and homeowners should soon see lower power prices. The rationale rests with one essential ingredient – more competition.
There is also opportunity for greater innovation to improve energy efficiency in a range of other sectors such as water management, agriculture, low-emissions transport, waste management and the building materials supply chain. In every aspect of our lives, be it at home or in business, we should be asking ourselves what else can we do to save energy or use it more wisely.
Many small to medium-sized businesses are already adapting to climate change and creating energy efficiencies. SMEs and corporates have proven they can be increasingly adept at not only navigating disruption but finding economic opportunity in disruptive change.
South Australians are resilient, adaptive and entrepreneurial. We are early adopters of technology and often see opportunity in change. We adapt because we live in the driest state on the driest continent. We understand what it means to conserve water and why we need to harness the sun and wind’s energy to light our homes and power our factories.
More than 50 per cent of energy supply in South Australia is being generated from renewable sources. This is likely to rise to close to 70 per cent by the end of next year, potentially reaching more than 90 per cent in the 2030s. This is world leading.
South Australia has attracted billions of dollars of private capital investment in wind, solar, battery and other renewable projects. Not just because we have the ideal environmental conditions, but because the business case is strong.
The business community supports these investments along with measures to reduce carbon emissions. In the South Australian Business Chamber’s 2018 Climate Change paper, 61 per cent of respondents thought the Federal Government should adhere to the Paris Agreement to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions to 28 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030. Another 61 per cent thought businesses should do their part to reduce carbon emissions. Most of the respondents to the survey were locally-based SMEs.
South Australia should continue to leverage its advantage of having plentiful renewable resources and create solutions that higher emitting states and nations will look to us for. This can translate to export revenues for South Australian business. Now more than ever, this is our state’s time to shine on renewables. However, it would mean little if our own businesses and households did not see a substantial reduction in future energy costs.
Martin Haese is chief executive of the South Australian Business Chamber.
This article was originally published in the South Australian Business Journalon Tuesday 30 July 2019.
