Evergreen Ratings founder and chief executive Angela Ashton has made the prediction, anticipating coal-fired power stations in Australia will have difficulty arranging insurance beyond 2030.
“Financial advisers will increasingly be called upon to assess and made recommendations on an expanding range of renewable energy focused investments as their clients seek to participate in this exponentially growing industry sector,” she said.
“Total installed wind and solar PV capacity is on course to surpass natural gas in 2023 and coal in 2024. The IEA [International Energy Agency] projects that 60 per cent of the growth in renewables up to 2025 will be solar photo voltaic cells and 30 per cent wind power.”
But as others have noted, the pace of change is being driven by citizens, shareholders and the private sectors generally, instead of government and regulation.
“In Australia, the public and industry were ahead of the legislators on same sex marriage and there is clear evidence that the same is true regarding concern about climate change and enthusiasm for a transition to renewable energy,” Ms Ashton said.
“Despite this, many investors are not riding the renewable wave because of a combination of a lack of investments packaged for the retail investors and a lack of independent analysis of those products that do exist.”
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