Giles Parkinson is a journalist of 30 years experience, a former Business Editor and Deputy Editor of the Financial Review, a columnist for The Bulletin magazine and The Australian, and the former editor of Climate Spectator.
As long as Australia’s energy networks hold on to their inflated asset base, and generators and retailers to their inflated profit margins, consumers will have no choice but to take matters into their own hands with solar and battery storage. But what a hopeless failure in public policy that would be.
What’s wrong with Australia’s biggest wind farm? Victoria’s 420MW Macarthur facility was supposed to produce 50% more power than it did last year.
AGL says new coal plants not economically rational; facilities like Liddell will be replaced by wind, solar, batteries, pumped hydro and other firming capacity.
AGL’s multi-billion investment in coal generators, and the recent investment drought in new wind and solar plants, have delivered windfall gains to the country’s biggest generator. It also increased its margins from consumers, despite its offer of discounts.
The nuclear “renaissance” in the US is now over, after another two reactors abandoned, leaving consumers holding the bill.
Euro Solar forced to surrender STCs or replace PV modules after being found to have installed non-compliant solar panels, as part of a Clean Energy Regulator crackdown on Australia’s rooftop solar industry.
IPART submission to energy price inquiry appears to suggest it’s OK to exploit consumers if they don’t have time or knowledge to search for discounts.
Tesla, Zen, Lyon and others slam South Australia’s proposed energy security target, saying it lacks technical expertise and will deliver windfall profits to incumbent gas generators, and not encourage new technologies like battery storage.
Tesla says battery storage can deliver many grid services provided by gas generators, and thinking otherwise is like supporting paper records over digital files.
There is increased speculation that the Coalition government is prepared to spend taxpayers money on a new clean/cleaner/cleanish/not-quite-so-dirty coal plant in an effort to get conservative support for a clean energy target and even to appease potential One Nation voters.
Queenslanders apparently blame renewables for price rises, even though they have any. But don’t get between a poll and a Murdoch campaign.
