Money Could your electricity bill get cheaper? Chief scientist to reveal energy plan for the future

Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel will today release his long awaited review of energy and climate change policy aiming to reduce pollution, cut power bills and end the bitter political fighting over the issue.

It’s understood the plan will include a clean energy target (CET) requiring retailers to buy a certain amount of their power from low emission sources, along with gas and so-called clean coal.

Coal fired power stations may escape penalty which is designed to ensure certainty for energy supply.

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At MIT, researchers want to transform the way we think about solar power.MIT's Vladimir Bulović and his team are looking to design and develop extremely lightweight – and extremely small – solar photovoltaic cells.In February last year, MIT said that Bulović and his colleagues had developed "the thinnest, lightest solar cells ever produced." To give you an idea of just how light and thin the cells are, a soap bubble remains intact when they are placed on top.

"Past energy plans have subsidized some industries, punished others and slugged consumers Mark Wakeham, chief executive of Environment Victoria, a Victoria state-based conservation group Pumped hydro storage can be used to help build a secure and cheap Australian electricity grid with

“What is the point of asking the Chief Scientist of Australia to write a full report on climate change and energy , and then not follow the recommendations?” “What effect it has on electricity prices is pretty tricky to calculate,” he said. “It could lower prices but it may not. “You’ve got to keep in mind that

News Corp reports the plan could cut electricity bills by hundreds of dollars by 2030.

The Coalition’s Christopher Pyne told the TODAY Show relief for households may come sooner.

“There will be effects from the recommendations of the Finkel report felt long before 2030, in fact felt almost immediately, if the Government and the opposition can work out a way forward where we end the 10 years of argument we've had about energy pricing.”

The business community has been calling on politicians to end the fighting over energy policy that has lasted for 10 years.

Some conservative Coalition MPs – including former Prime Minister Tony Abbott – are concerned about its impact on the coal industry and prices.

Labor says it has offered the Coalition an olive branch, indicating it may support a CET. But it wants a price on emissions – something the Government is unlikely to agree to.

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Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk makes a pitch for northern votes with a $386 million investment in electricity — including $200 million for a hydro-electric power station.The investment will include $150 million for a transmission line to connect renewable energy projects, and $200 million to be spent on a hydro-electric power station at the Burdekin Falls Dam.

The [solar] cells are getting cheaper , and it's not at all clear where the bottom for that is. Do your predictions for the electricity generation mix put us on a path to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, as President Obama has Sustainability. The Future of Alternative Energy .

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“We are prepared to be cooperative, get certainty into the system. An emissions intensity scheme is what should happen. Ideally that's what all the energy sector that's what all the economists say should happen,” Labor’s Anthony Albanese told the Nine Network.

“If the Government isn't prepared to do that, but comes up with a second-best option then we'll consider it in a constructive way.”

But the major parties are still bickering over who is responsible for soaring power bills.

Dr Finkel will deliver his report to the Prime Minister, premiers and chief ministers at their meeting in Hobart today.