State governments and small communities are filling the gap left by a Federal Government that seems unwilling to change.

With the recent review of the federal Renewable Energy Target suggesting it be cut in order to pose less threat to old coal and gas power stations, the lower tiers of government are taking control of their energy future.

South Australia's Sustainability, Environment and Conservation Minister Ian Hunter says the state “opposes any move by the anti-science Abbott Government to scale back the RET”.

“We are concerned that this Federal Government, which appears to fly against the accepted, worldwide consensus on climate change, will make an ill-considered and ideological decision on this very important issue,” Mr Hunter said.

South Australia is the model state for renewable energy success. Right now, 31.7 per cent of the state's electricity is generated from renewable sources, with some of the largest wind and solar projects in the country.

So, the Sustainability Minister says SA will go it alone.

“We will beat our target of 33 per cent very soon, and have set an increased investment target to further cement our place as leaders in renewable energy and climate change action,” Mr Hunter said.

The ACT’s Royalla Solar Farm has been switched on this week, marking a big step on the Territory’s path to meeting its target to generate 90 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources.

Royalla is comprised of 83,000 solar panels, is the largest solar farm in Australia and the first large scale solar facility connected to the National Electricity Market (NEM).

ACT Environment Minister Simon Corbell, says the federal RET review was “dismally predictable”, “clearly was not an objective assessment” and was affected by the “prejudices of the reviewers”.

Corbell says that if the Federal Government moves on the suggestions of the RET review, he will go directly to his state counterparts to build coordinated policies that will keep the path to renewable energy open.

Meanwhile, a Central Victorian community that funded its own wind turbines wants to know what happened to the government’s support.

Two thousand residents of the Hepburn Shire chipped in for a $10 million project to build two wind turbines and achieve energy self-sufficiency for locals.

Local children put together investments of up to $100, while grown-up community members poured as much as $50,000 of their savings into the effort.

The free energy venture was meant to begin bringing returns this year, but the leader of the local project says returns from renewable energy investments are already crashing because of the poor RET review.

He said the community feels let down that a policy introduced by the Howard government in 1997, which has enjoyed bi-partisan support at successive elections, but now appears to be on the way out.

Similarly, a group of farmers at Crookwell in southern New South Wales has ditched its plan to build 47 wind turbines, a project that would have brought cheap power plus construction and service jobs to the surrounding community.

But the Energy Supply Association of Australia says that the RET is a problem of its own making.

The Association has blamed the RET for creating and electricity over-supply, which has resulted in declining investment in renewable sources.