If you really want to understand where the federal Coalition’s nuclear energy policy is taking us, and it’s real purpose, you need to turn to Figure 6 on the costings analysis provided by its consultant Frontier Economics.
This is the estimation of capacity installed on Australia’s main grid over the next 25 years. It is based on Coalition leader Peter Dutton’s preferred scenario – the one he used to emblazon the claims of $260 billion in savings across the front pages of the mainstream media on Friday.
Since this is the comparison that Dutton is seeking to sell to the Australian public, let’s look at in detail.
In contrast to the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Step Change scenario, the one that the federal Labor government has used for its policy and planning blueprint, the Coalition’s Progressive Scenario imagines a world still revolving around the concept of baseload power, of petrol and diesel powered cars, of gas-powered homes and a lot less renewables.
The scenario also assumes a lot less rooftop solar, which means that the Coalition is banking on consumers buying more from the grid, and paying money to big utilities such as the Hong Kong owned ElectricityAustralia.
But the Frontier model focuses only on large scale capacity and generation. For large scale solar it is a bad look: Just a doubling of capacity from 2025 to 2050. Given that 5 GW of capacity is likely already locked in, that reduces the rollout of large scale solar to a trickle over the next two decades.
For wind, the story is actually worse. The modelling assume no offshore wind at all, given the Coalition’s promise to scrap the newly declared offshore wind zones, and despite the legislated target in Victoria of 9 GW by 2040.
For onshore wind, Frontier puts the installed capacity in 2025 at 12.8 GW (according to OpenNEM it would be closer to 14 GW by the end of that year, and predicts the total rising to 28 GW by 2050.
Given that more than 5 GW of wind power is already locked in and under construction or contract, then that is a painfully slow build rate over the coming two decades.
It’s the Coalition telling local and international investors: “F*** off we don’t want you here:” And forcing consumers to buy more power from the big utilities at the same time.
Apart from scrapping the offshore wind zones, the federal Coalition has also promised to “rip up contracts” for large scale underwriting agreements written with the federal government.
Source: Frontier Economics
According to the Frontier report , Large scale renewables total 49 per cent (wind 32 per cent and solar 17 per cent) by 2050, with nuclear likely to be 38 per cent, assuming that everything gets built in time. The graph above shows limited growth in each of wind, solar and utility storage after 2030.
“This … would represent a dramatic slowdown in the installation and investment of renewable energy across Australia and will be a massive shock and concern to investors who have invested $40 billion into large-sale renewable energy in Australia since 2020,” Clean Energy Council CEO Kane Thornton said.
“Australia has been a world leader in rooftop solar with over four million systems installed on homes and small businesses and an additional 300,000 plus systems being installed every year. The Coalition’s plan means millions of Australians would miss out on the chance to install solar.”
And Thornton also pointed out that it would not be good for the owners of rooftop solar. Currently, households are up in arms at the prospect of having their panels switched off – in an emergency – once or twice a summer.
In the Coalition’s nuclear plan, it would likely be a daily occurrence to ensure that the nuclear generators are “always on.”
“A nuclear-powered energy grid would also be a disaster for the four million Australian homes that have already installed a rooftop solar system as a way to lower their power bills,” Thornton said. “These systems would have to be switched off regularly if Australia was to move to inflexible nuclear power.”
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