Australia can avoid Germany's renewable energy mistakes

Australia's increasing focus on demand response and energy efficiency is setting the country up to bypass the mistakes made by the world leader in renewables, says a German energy expert.

Australia can avoid German's renewable energy mistakes.

"Australia can learn from Germany's mistakes of the last few years," the deputy chairman of the German Business Initiative for Energy Efficiency, the nation's peak energy efficiency body, Christoph von Spesshardt said.

"I can see similarities between the situation in Australia now and Germany 10 years ago," he told Fairfax Media.

Read Cole Latimer’s story from The Sydney Morning Herald - “Australia can avoid Germany's renewable energy mistakes.”

Faulty energy forecasts are costing investors 'hundreds of billions.

Since September 2011, “many hundreds of billions” of investors’ dollars have been squandered due to investment decisions led by poor forecasts, an energy expert has said.

Poor investment decisions made in the American oil, gas and coal sectors, the European power utilities sector and by oil-producing countries have seen investors suffer, the founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), Michael Liebreich said in a September keynote address.

But, these decisions have been informed by forecasts that may not have been up to scratch, he said, arguing that “bad forecasts from authoritative agencies have consequences”.

Read the Nestegg story - “Faulty energy forecasts are costing investors 'hundreds of billions.”