The government and Labor will hold talks in a bid to get a deal on the future of the renewable energy target.
Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said he had written to the federal opposition outlining the basis of the talks, which will start at 3.30pm on Wednesday in Canberra.
"That basis is that we will maintain the RET at 20 per cent real," Mr Macfarlane told the National Press Club.
"Secondly, there will be no change to the household photovoltaic scheme."
He said the government would also exempt from the target all energy-intensive trade-exposed industries as currently defined in the legislation, including aluminium.
Two-yearly reviews of the RET would cease.
"It is a plan which will provide the confidence to the renewable energy sector that they need," the minister said.
"If the Labor party and the coalition are able to negotiate an outcome, then the industry can go forward and invest confidently. If we can't, it's the renewable energy industry that will get hurt."
The RET is a bipartisan target of 20 per cent of Australia's energy use to be sourced from renewable energy by 2020.
The legislation specifies the target as 41,000 gigawatt hours.
But the government says changes in Australia's energy use mean that gigawatt-hour figure is likely to represent much more than 20 per cent by the end of the decade and will be costly over time for business and households.
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