The government has come under fire for moving to prevent the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation from backing wind energy and household solar projects.

The Senate had previously blocked the government's attempts to abolish the agency.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said this week the CEFC should not invest in established technologies that can easily attract private funding.

"As long as it exists, it might as well be as useful as possible and … invest in new and emerging technologies, the things that might not otherwise get finance," he said.

That view apparently contradicts comments by Mr Robb in 2011 when the Coalition was in opposition. He said the fund proposed by Labor would be spent on "all sorts of wild and wacky proposals that the banks would not touch in a fit".

"This fund will be a honeypot to every white-shoe salesman imaginable," he added.

Australian Solar Council chief executive John Grimes said on Tuesday the government's draft directive to the corporation shows it is immovably opposed to renewable energy.

Government-held seats have among the nation's highest uptake of rooftop solar and the council is planning a marginal seat campaign against the Coalition at the next election.

"A returned Abbott government, particularly one with a majority in the Senate, would spell the end of our industry," he said.

Mr Grimes said Mr Robb's 2011 comments proved the government was "putting handcuffs" on the corporation "and forcing it to invest in speculative wacky things", to reduce its profitability and make it easier to axe.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt this week said many emerging renewable technologies would be suitable for funding, including large-scale solar, tidal, "run of river" hydroelectricity and geothermal.

Mr Grimes said geothermal technology was "unproven... not yet delivering a profit. It's almost mandating them to fail".

Mr Robb said the spotlight the Coalition shone on the CEFC "has influenced its approach".

"Bear in mind this entity was set up by Labor as a sop to the Greens and the concerns I previously raised about how money could be spent were very valid," he said.

Labor's environment spokesman, Mark Butler, accused government MPs of refusing to "stand up for the renewable energy jobs in their electorates".

Wannon MP Dan Tehan's Victorian seat hosts the southern hemisphere's largest wind farm at Macarthur.

Mr Tehan said he supports the government's wind energy directive, adding it would not be retrospective and the renewable energy target would drive growth in the clean energy sector.

However a wind tower manufacturer in his electorate, Steve Garner, reportedly told the ABC the decision was a "backwards step" that would cost future jobs.

Parkes MP Mark Coulton, whose regional NSW electorate has a high rooftop solar uptake, said the small-scale solar industry had matured, lowering the cost of the technology, and it did not need government funding.

In 2011, Labor MP Penny Wong said the CEFC would most likely focus on new technology and industries, such as geothermal.

However former Labor MP Greg Combet, the corporation's architect, has said this week it was not prevented from investing in any particular technologies, whether proven or emerging.