Grant King and Mr King

Queensland: Mr King says about 250 large megawatt utility-scale solar projects would need to be built to meet Australia renewable energy target of 33,000 gigawatt hours by 2020, according to Nine News Australia. That number would need to be much higher to meet the country carbon emission reduction target of 26 per cent by 2030, he said. That the view of Origin Energy managing director Grant King, who has likened the future of solar to that of Queensland multi-billion dollar coal seam gas to liquefied natural gas industry. But he insisted Queensland would become the centre of utility-scale solar, just like it had for LNG production."I would think the next great round of investment in Queensland will be utility scale solar," Mr King told a Centre for Economic Development of Australia lunch in Brisbane on Wednesday."The prospectors are in Queensland looking for utility-scale solar sites - that tells you what going to happen."Ten years ago, 15 years ago the prospectors were in Queensland looking for CSG resources."Mr King said the industry would require tens of billions of dollars in investment from the private sector, which would need to be supported by favourable government policies."I've got no doubt that the private sector has to step up on those investments," he said."And in order to do that, you need a little bit of confidence that the structures that are put in place will sustain, that you can rely on them."Mr King said Queensland was also well placed to help reduce carbon emissions on a global scale. Mr King comments came on the same day Queensland Energy Minister Mark Bailey announced the state government would increase its promised renewable energy auction process, a reverse auction in which the government pays the generator for the difference between a feed-in tariff rate and the prevailing wholesale price of electricity. He said the state carbon-emitting industries such as LNG and coal would do that by exporting more efficient products to replace dirty brown coal used by industrial powerhouses such as China. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.