NSW energy minister Matt Kean – the architect of the renewable infrastructure roadmap that has been adopted as a defacto national plan – may have only a few weeks left in his job if the polls are any guide, but he is not going down without a fight.
On Friday he noted how the state has surged ahead of the Labor-led states such as Queensland and Victoria in the construction of new renewable energy infrastructure, according to a new data from the Clean Energy Council.
That report, which we reported on earlier this week, showed that NSW accounted for almost 60 per cent of the renewable energy capacity that was financially committed in the past 12 months.
It noted that this was almost twice the combined effort of Victoria and Queensland, which contributed 21 per cent and 12 per cent respectively of additions to the nation’s pipeline.
“In the last 12 months, we have added 11 renewable energy projects to the NSW construction pipeline, including enough generation to power around 750,000 households,” Kean said.
“Over the same period, Victoria and Queensland, mustered five each.
“This is what happens when you get Labor governments in power with an ideological opposition to private investment in our electricity grid – capital dries up, construction stalls and consumers pay higher bills.
“NSW simply can’t afford to see construction of renewable electricity infrastructure stall to the same sluggish rate of the Labor states.”
To be fair, NSW has not exactly set the world alight in the uptake of renewables, which still represent just 28.5 per cent of its electricity demand in the last year, according to OpenNem data provider. That puts it ahead of Queensland only, and a long way behind South Australia (70 per cent) and Victoria (39 per cent).
But it has recognised that its ageing power stations are likely to retire in the coming decade, starting with the last unit of Liddell next month, and so it has set in place a detailed infrastructure roadmap to ensure enough capacity is built before those coal plants exit the grid.
This includes the creation of five new renewable energy zones, and a series of twice a year auctions that will sell access to the grid, and underwriting agreements to support new wind, solar and storage projects.
Kean’s boasts were targeted at Labor and its leader Chris Minns, who earlier this week made the extraordinary suggestion that a state Labor government might buy the 2.8GW Eraring coal generator, the biggest in the country, to keep it open for longer than the 2025 closure date planned by current owner Origin Energy.
“Chris Minns is already sending out the same investment-killing signals as his interstate Labor mates, running on a platform of greater government-ownership in the electricity system,” Kean said.
He noted that the CEC data showed that NSW had 12 storage projects under construction or financially committed, which was more than Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia combined.
“The pipeline of storage infrastructure currently being rolled out in NSW will deliver 2,276 megawatts of storage capacity – that’s worth 50 per cent of all the projects currently underway in Australia,” Kean said.
“This is despite Chris Minns’ bogus claim that storage is ‘the missing piece of the puzzle’ in the NSW electricity grid. Either Chris Minns is energy-illiterate or he’s willing to say anything if he thinks it’ll win him a vote.”
