Transcript: Energy Insiders Podcast with China coal expert Ryna Cui

This is an edited transcript of the Oct 29 episode of the Energy Insiders podcast, featuring China coal expert Ryna Cui

Opener 

You’re listening to Energy Insiders, a weekly update on clean energy and climate policy with RenewEconomy’s editor, Giles Parkinson, and leading energy analyst, David Leitch. Energy Insiders is brought to you by Pylon, helping solar installers and retailers design high resolution solar proposals in minutes, and Evergen, powering the transition to a resilient, renewable, decentralized energy system of the future.

Giles Parkinson  

Hello, and welcome to this latest episode of the Energy Insiders podcast. My name is Giles Parkinson, I’m the editor of RenewEconomy. And joining me as usual is ITK director, David Leitch. David, I do trust you are well.

David Leitch 

I’m well Giles. I trust all our listeners are well, and following the amazing world of electricity, which seems at least in Southeast Asia to be moving in the right direction for once?

Giles Parkinson  

Well, I think so and I don’t want to sort of correct your geographic sense, but it’s probably just southeast and Eastern and North Asia as well. We’ve certainly seen a lot of moves over the last week or two, of three of Australia’s significant importers of fossil fuels declaring that they’re headed towards net zero emissions by 2050. Or in the case of 2060 . And I guess we’ll come to the response of Australia later on. But I think David, that’s a very good prompt for an interview that you did earlier today with Ryna Cui, I think, from the University of Maryland, and one of the foremost China coal expert experts.

David Leitch  

Yes, we did did that Giles. And let’s listen to Ryna without too much further ado, I do. The point I wanted to make is that, you know, she’s not only a wonderful student of the topic, with a deep knowledge, but also has some fantastic data on on the generation coal generation there. But let’s let’s listen to her.

So welcome to Ryna Cui, who’s the Research Scholar at the Center for Global Sustainability, at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. Ryna, thanks very much for joining the Energy Insiders podcast.

Ryna Cui  

Hello, David thank you for having me. I am thrilled to be here today.

David Leitch  

And we’re thrilled that you can be on your special topics, so to speak his his his coal and China or coal generation in China. And you wrote a piece that really caught my attention or co-authored with a lead author back in January, looking at an ambitious plan to phase out coal generation in in China. I thought we might start by talking a little bit  about how much coal generation capacity there is in China, the kind of and touch a little bit on the average age of it, and how much new capacity has been built and how technically efficient it is, if you just wanted to talk a little bit about that basic framework.

Ryna Cui  

Yeah, Yeah, that’d be great. I think people commonly I think the audience of this podcast like commonly know, like China has a lot of coal. But I think is also overwhelming until you hear about the numbers. So China has right now has over like 1000 coal power plants operating. That’s about 3000 units. In terms of capacity, it has 1040 gigawatt by the end of 2019. It’s like larger than all the other countries combined around the world. So compared to the second place, country, United States is like a four times of the size. So it’s really much higher level compared to all the other countries. And also not only about the size of the overall size, the overall magnitude of the number of coal plants. Another characteristic is like a China’s coal plants are very young compared to the US and the EU. So the majority of Chinese coal plants are being viewed after 2005. So they are supposed to have a couple of decades for continue operation by design of their lifetime compared to what’s in the US and what’s in the European Union. Those plants are mostly built during the 1970s and 1980s. So by now they are already approaching the end of their lifetime. So compared to that the newly built Chinese coal fleet are much larger in size, they have they have higher efficiency. So like they also have a lot of them retrofitted with the emission control technologies for local air pollutant emissions. So if you think about a high ambition coal phase out in China, the level of challenges are totally different than the other countries, they will have much higher risk in stranded assets

David Leitch 

Yes, no, no, that’s right. I and I think, you know, if I was just, it basically requires, frankly, a China to say that, that this was a mistake, this incredibly rapid and massive buildup of an investment in coal fired generation that took place in the 2006 to 2012 period, particularly, in fact, is was was misplaced, with the benefit of hindsight. But at the same time, there’s still ongoing investment for reasons that we’ve talked about on this podcast a little bit before that the regions still find their regional controllers still find it advantageous. And I think there’s still about 150 gigawatts of new capacity being built, but some will retire. Can you talk a little bit about that as well?

Ryna Cui 

Yes, yes, absolutely. That is correct. Your numbers are, like matches what I have. So I think in in in July, we we have this analysis, looking at what’s being currently proposed, we’re under construction. So I think the 150 gigawatt we have is including both are already started construction. That’s 98 gigawatts and 53. Are those already received approval or like the official permits, and there’s about 50 more that’s under like, even early stages of planning. So the the total kind of propose the 150 gigawatt we were talking about that’s most likely to be like more likely to be implemented during the next five years during the 45 year plan. So I think that alone, like a represent a 15% increase from today’s level. Yeah, so it’s like, there’s also we see some kind of backsliding sign in the early 2020. So let me take a few step back. So for for the during the 13th. five year plan, there actually a slowdown of the expansion that’s after 2015, which you mentioned, the the kind of the the boom of the build is before the 2015 period. But after that the expansion slowing down due to various reasons we can get back in a bit. But I think the 2020 kind of the starting a couple months due to the economic impact from COVID there’s a research of applause that getting approved by the official. So I think there there are some concerns that there’s even kind of the trend of new builds start getting back in 2020. So absolutely, there are still a lot of activity is going on for for new for new plants.

David Leitch   

So Ryna, one thing we haven’t mentioned a little bit is about capacity utilization, which, for the last few years for a car plant has been about 50%, I think, on average, and in the largest data I looked at was actually running below that this year, but that’s partly COVID. And for our listeners, as it was explained to me years and years ago, the reason why the most fundamental reason why capacity utilization is relatively low is because nearly all the generation in China is in fact cogeneration historically, and so the plants have to be able to have a lot of spare capacity for the daily and seasonal flicks up and down. But now it’s become, you know, an economic sort of break or handicap.

Ryna Cui  

Yeah, I think you’re you’re you’re right on the point. I think the utilization level has been declining. And I think it’s a indicator a clear indicator of overcapacity, especially after the the 2015 kind of caught like we see this utilization it used to be at like a 5500 hours level. And right now on average is about a 4300. So is like a significantly dropped. So I think it’s it’s been kind of indicator about overcoming capacity issue on the on the like a coal, coal power side. I think that’s also causing a lot of the coal plants kind of running at a loss right now. So the entire sector is facing like a financial difficulties. There’s also kind of development on the renewable, renewable side. So there’s a competition on that side as well, although there’s issues for for for integrating the renewable as well. But I think it definitely shows the, the the existing plants haven’t been utilized that at a higher level of capacity. So really brings the question why we’re adding more really expensive, kind of the large plants for for that will operating for years.

David Leitch 

Okay Ryna. So I think we all agree on that. And I think electricity consumption in China is still growing at just in the last couple of months back to a sort of historic five or 6% pace, which is quite reasonable. And there’s there’s also growth in renewable capacity, a lot of it, which we can talk about, and even and nuclear as well as that. But if why, in your opinion, just the real well, actually, I’ll come back, why are they still building new capacity? If it’s not economically sensible? What can you just briefly explain what the actual underlying reason is?

Ryna Cui  

Yeah, I don’t, I think there’s definitely a complicated story. And I will try to just bring my understanding into this. So I think there’s a kind of a balance between the central government and the local government, I think, for the local government, they will prioritize the economic development and also like employment. So that can be generated when you have a large co-plant coming online with all the construction work, maybe last for two years that will bring the job in the near term, and also will bring in tax revenue for the local government. So I think it’s definitely still thinking about the near term kind of economic short term, like a benefit from this investment, but not like thinking about the long term kind of pathway that the the central government may have already laid out for it for this low carbon transition. And also, I think that the another argument I heard from the from kind of the, the grade or the the grading industry, or the coal industry is like they want to have the coal plants to help integrate renewable in China, which I think it’s like, difficult to to, to absorb the first way for us, hearing it but I think it’s like, China don’t have a lot of other flexible, kind of like the gas plant to help integrating the renewables into the grid. So the idea is to have more coal plants that have the flexibility, retrofitting technology that will help putting more renewable into the grid and help maintain the grid stability.

David Leitch  

Sure, sure. Sure. So, I mean, China has also got 9% of its energy coming, electricity coming from hydro. So I mean, which is, which is very flexible. And just very briefly, what about I mean, one thing it seems to me is that it’s pretty easy to get government money or state capital to actually build a coal plant. I mean, that doesn’t seem to be any financial penalty if a coal plant doesn’t doesn’t make any money that some somebody else’s problem.

Ryna Cui  

Yeah, I think there’s also argument there with the kind of the finance mechanism like how, how the the coal build being financed from the banks, and they are owned by the state owned companies. So like for those investor, they may not have the kind of, having that factor as their decision making like a first priority and their decision making. So I think that’s definitely play a role there. Yeah.

David Leitch  

So let’s move on now to the 14th plan. And in just in the city in the context around a 45 year plan and the recent announcements by the China China, China’s leader leadership about phasing or having a higher ambition for for carbon reduction, but Before Justin, setting the context for that, can you talk a little bit about your understanding of of how strong I guess the environmental lobby is? Or what sort of internal sort of feeling there is within China? About, I guess, the economics and versus the environment, and, you know, the sort of goodwill towards renewable energy, if that exists. And, you know, I want to understand how people within China perceive this to the best from your point of view.

Ryna Cui  

Yeah, there are definitely like a competing multiple, kind of priorities for for, like, for the society. You mentioned already a few of them, like the one is the kind of the environment where the quality of life like public house, and climate change may be a longer factor there. And on the other side, we have like economic and employment. Those are also the priorities that people the government, or the people are trying trying to achieve, but I think that’s a kind of a very, like, how we perceive this question where this challenge traditionally, but I think we should think about you know, the the green growth story like, what are the new economic model that China can pursue. That with all the transit energy system transition that will definitely bring like a technological innovation and also create a new economic opportunities, but I think that haven’t been fully well perceived. Like in China, even like across the word I don’t think it’s like a fully understanded or like a fully perceived by by, by all the people. But I think another, I want to mention is the air quality concern has been a major driver in, in China in like a phasing out the small, inefficient coal plants. I think another number is very interesting, like a US probably has been the largest coal retirement region in the past few years. And China also retired like a 38 gigawatt, although compared to what China has in total is a small portion. But in terms of like it, looking at across regions is not a trivial number. So that’s is driven by you know, the air pollution problem and how people want to kind of address the air quality human health perspective. So the the small, dirty and efficient coal plants has been shut down a lot due to the the that that

David Leitch  

Yes, and the big ones have had, like the Sox and Nox and sulfur dioxide and nitric oxide, which causes the sort of particulate pollution, they’ve been retrofitted with scrubbers and stuff to catch that. So that kind of issue, I think, and I think also, there’s been a sort of trend of actually moving the coal plants away from the population centers, to outer Mongolia or wherever. So, and I may have that geography wrong, but in order to sort of hide the problem. So I think that that will kind of decline as an issue. So I’m actually interested in your perspective on where the balance of forces lies by the people that actually, they’re going to make the policy like who, in your opinion, is in the ascendancy? Who’s going to win this argument at the moment? Or is it going to be win one all at once? Or is it going to be a slow and gradual battle?

Ryna Cui  

Yeah, I think the, with the 2016 carbon neutrality goal announced, I think, is definitely sending a very strong signal, even though like we are still missing the kind of the concrete roadmap, especially for the near term, how we, how China gonna achieve that goal. But I think it definitely have this long term signal like in in people’s mind with the policy with the policy planning. So I think it definitely helps the conversation. So I think be I remember like in in early January, I think that there’s like a very strong voice about the coal continue needs to be maintained as the, kind of the basis for China’s power system or the energy system. But I the think that conversation has been changed just with a new with a new goal announced because people are seeing the long term vision of this so they can start thinking about what needs to be done needed near term. And I think there’s definitely have changed the conversation that we we need to first argue this needs to be done, then change to now how we how we achieved our long term goal. I think that helped a lot.

David Leitch  

Yes, indeed. And do you know why President Xi actually made this announcement as opposed to why he said he made it, you know, what, what, what, what’s, what’s the what’s the reality here?

Ryna Cui  

Yeah, well, I think that’s a really big question. I wish I know, like how the decision has been made but I, I think there’s definitely researchers or like a research team behind, like, supporting the decision making in that regard. Yeah.

David Leitch  

Okay. That’s important to understand. And so essentially that that research team, whoever they may be, actually has the has the ear of the president I mean he’s listened to them. And so when we come to the 14th plan, what what what’s the state of play there, what policies do you expect to be announced that are either pro or against coal and pro renewables, for instance, we’ve seen removal of sub subsidies for electric vehicles, just for instance, and a winding down of the feed in tariffs as I understand it for solar and wind, you know, what, what policies are you looking for?

Ryna Cui 

Yeah, I think that there are many kind of near term actions can be done, but what will be like a non so for the 14th 5 year plan, that they’re still are probably a lot of conversation going on, on the policy side. But I think for me, I feel like the the most important is think about like, the, the no new cost strategy, even though we have maybe started from like a few regions, where in the provinces that already see very low coal plants utilization, I think, similar to the to the the warning system they developed in back in 2016, about which province are have high rates to build to build coal plants, I think, I think like reevaluate that policy and evaluate which province really should start thinking about the no new coal strategy and maybe by the end of 14th five year plan like like all the other the entire country can adopt that strategy. And as of course, as a action early definitely will bring much more benefits. I think the for the for the other elements, I really think what helps the renewable energy to be integrated into the grid is I mean, long term definitely we will need a very advanced power system that has the flexibility that including the modern great infrastructure, you have the electricity storage and also have the smart demand side responses. But I think for for for the near term, what we need to think about is the the electricity market reform that can move eventually to market based dispatch. And also that that can like have incentive for for for the for the renewables to be dispatched and also lower the operation costs of the system. I think another thing will be think about the the interconnection between the different regions because renewable definitely have a geo, geo graphical unbalance in China that in the north and west, the provinces that a lot of resources, but the demand is actually from the Eastern, eastern provinces. So I think,

David Leitch  

Sure, that’s a standard problem all over the world. But I understood that China has been taking the lead in in building a lot of new transmission from the from the provinces, and a lot of it’s been DC transmission. Can you can you just do you understand, you know, um, how much curtailment is there in wind at the moment and even solar and actually who controls what’s dispatched as opposed to what’s curtailed is that the transmission operator and I guess they, as I think China’s transmission company is the biggest single electricity business in the world. And I mentioned it’s a messy bureaucracy. And really, it’s the actual center of power. If you if I, you know, what do you understand about what’s going on there at all?

Ryna Cui  

Yeah, I think I will just provide my, a little bit knowledge on this. I think the, you’re absolutely right, it is controlled by the big, like a great company like in China, and I think it is still using kind of the planned allocation. So it’s not based on economic competitiveness of this. And also, I think, for the transmission line construction, they also have usually have like a large coal plant, kind of come plan together with their transmission line planning. But I think that should be actually planned around where the renewable resources located. So that can really help the the the Northwest region become like a really a provider of the clean energies. So I think there’s, again, kind of two pieces needs to be done, like, what was the market reform? And also like, the infrastructure planning around that?

David Leitch  

Hmm. And, and so, just quickly, when when do we actually, when do you expect the 14th plan which I seem to have been talking about for about five years already, when do you actually expect it to be announced on the actual policies?

Ryna Cui 

I think for the sector planning, it usually came out in probably 2021 or early 2022. So it’s like a one or two years into the five year plan, you will have the economy entire five year plan in announced at the very beginning, but the sectoral plans usually came out, one or two, one year later.

David Leitch 

Yeah. So we’re still going to have to wait a little while to see what the actual announcements are. We’re getting to the end of our time Ryna, it’s been very interesting, and we’ve hardly even scratched the surface, as you might imagine, I just quickly, one sector that’s been concerning me for years is China’s coal to gas sector. Because, you know, there were a lot of big investments announced as usual. And if they went ahead it was going to be, you know, more coal consumption. What is the state of play in coal to gas if you had a chance to have a look at that?

Ryna Cui   

Um, yeah, I’m not like, an expert on the gas sector. But I think for China’s case, it won’t be a major player. For one reason, like China don’t have a lot of cheap gas access. Another reason, I think, eventually just looking at thinking about the long term goal, like gas, even even, it may be like a upgrade technology for the near term into the long term goal. But I think eventually, they will also have to be phased out all the fossil fossil fuel based generation. So I think, I don’t see like a China have like, will deploy a lot of gas plant, just based on you know, the the access where the economics.

David Leitch   

Yeah, sure. So and then, one final question for me is just if we, you always have to look at the coal sector, as well as the coal generation sector. There’s not actually that much employment in coal generation, but there probably is quite a lot of employment in coal mining. And China’s coal production has been stagnant for years and years, even as coal fuel generation has increased. And so I suppose that means more imports, as well as more efficient plants. And the costs of coal in China seem to be quite high by world standards. So do you keep an eye on on on the on the coal sector as well. And do you think there’s any realistic chance of China increasing its actual coal production or getting its costs down? Or, you know, or, or? Yeah.

Ryna Cui  

Yeah, I think that’s you’re right on the point like, the employment from the coal mining sector is much bigger problem than in the kind of the consumption sector like the power I think the the employment in the mining sector already declining due to other reasons like because because of the improvement in productivity, for example, through like a shutting down of the small or inefficient coal mines, by by the government. So I think for some traditionally, coal centered economy like in Hunan Province, where like in the north eastern provinces, the coal mining jobs already declined pretty fast, maybe by half. I could be wrong the number but I think around that level for Hunan, or we’re Heilongjiang, those, those those provinces due to the the non-climate driven reasons. And also, I think China’s productivity on coal mining, it’s, it’s relatively low compared to other reasons, regions. So there’s a lot of potential for improvement in productivity that will drive the employment to going down already. So needs to be prepared for for this just transition question. No matter, you know, whether we think about the climate issues, we’re not, but I think right now, also, we are looking at the long term goal, and definitely, it will be a challenge and also needs to be a focus of the policy. Yeah, so I think the the, that’s kind of come back to my earlier point about thinking, was the new economic growth model that these regions can take, you know, moving from, like a traditionally, very resource centered, coal centered economy and to a more sustainable development pathway.

David Leitch  

Like so many of these issues Ryna, we’ll have to wind it up here. It’s, it’s easier to see the problems and the solutions, and sometimes, but it’s been very, very useful talking to you. And we appreciate your detailed knowledge of the sector. And I think, as you say, it’s an integrated problem, you have to fix the coal problem, and you know, it’s not very profitable electric, I mean in the end of the prices of electricity that China is producing and not great for the manufacturer for China’s manufacturing based economy, which really wants very low electricity prices. But that’s, and can’t get them because ultimately, the coal cost and the capacity utilization, are barriers. But anyway, that’s my take on it. Thanks again, Ryna Cui for for for sharing, sharing your insights today.

Ryna Cui  

Yeah, thank you for inviting me. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Giles Parkinson  

And that was Ryna Cui from the University of Maryland. Fascinating David to hear some sort of insights. It’s gonna be interesting to see how China does actually manage that transition. I mean, it’s talked about this sort of zero carbon or this sort of carbon neutral thing by 2060. I guess the proof in the pudding is going to be in that next five year plan, which I guess we’ll get to see in the next 12 months, because that’ll reveal how serious they are about that.

David Leitch   

Yeah, yes, it will. It will out I don’t think anyone’s under estimating the scale of the task in front of China really, or, nevertheless, the will from the center, when it’s very strong, can’t be ignored. It’s just going to be difficult in all the provinces as time as seen before, but the economics I think, are also working very much in favor of coal struggling. And so that too has to be accounted for.

Giles Parkinson 

Well we’re starting to see a bit of a trend here. I mean, not just China. As we mentioned at the start of the podcast, it’s, Japan has made it very clear its desire to go net zero emissions by 2050. South Korea has followed this week. We’ve had the EU talking about its higher emissions targets by 2030. We even had the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, apparently urging Scott Morrison in a phone call this week to embrace the net zero emissions but no sign that the Australian government’s going to budge at this stage.

David Leitch   

No, I suspect, Scott Morrison to give him his due could have asked Boris, when are you going to get the number of COVID cases down so we can go back to having a normal economy. I mean, not putting too much emphasis on that particular phone call, although it’s certainly a very welcome one to see. And there’s absolutely no doubt that for all of Southeast Asia, the European model is the one to look at. And even in the UK, they’ve been tremendously successful. One of the technologies that I think Giles is going to be very important, we won’t talk anymore on this podcast, for Southeast Asia and moving towards zero emissions, at least in terms of electricity is the offshore wind industry. And we must we must do some more about that because I think it’s going to be one of the most exciting stories of the of the next few years. But the other exciting story as far as Australia goes in 2020 has been, firstly, that we’ve had all this doom and gloom about new wind and solid deal slowing down. But in fact, I haven’t, you know, on the numbers that we had ITK count, I think there’s been over three gigawatts of total approvals this year, which is pretty darn exciting, when you think you only need to get one and a half gigawatts a year to get to 50%, wind and solar by of all energy, electricity by 2030. But the other thing that’s gone on gels is batteries. And we had another battery announcement today or this week.

Giles Parkinson  

We did indeed, David’s and last week, of course, we talked to Rick Francis from Spark Infrastructure. And he gave a hint of his interest in batteries. And of course, Spark Infrastructure, a major shareholder or a shareholder in Transgrid. And Transgrid followed a couple of days later by announcing, my guess would be the biggest battery in New South Wales, because it’ll probably be the first big battery that’s built because it seems to be well on the way. Transgrid will build it and will lease it out to Infigen Energy, an it’s going to do a mixture of the normal grid services, it’s going to do synthetic inertia, which I think’s really interesting. And Infigen will also just use it as part of this general arbitrage and firming asset. David, what do you think about the significance of Transgrid actually building this asset?

David Leitch   

Well, I think it’s great, I think Transgrid and the New South Wales Government, and I think it’s great for Matt Keene as well, who was up on the soapbox again, stating his position. And I think it’s one that many of the Liberal Party are going to end up supporting over time. We also saw today, just in terms of more data, a couple of surveys out from the Australia Institute, and a survey by the New South Wales Government basically showing that there is still this tremendous support for doing more action on climate change. And so Transgrid getting involved is pretty good, but there must be $1 in it for them.

Giles Parkinson  

Well Look, I guess there would be. It’s also one of about 11 batteries I think I counted the other day that have been basically more or less committed in New South Wales. The New South Wales Government is already announced funding for another four batteries done by people like CWP up at Northern New South Wales, the Goldwind, and a couple of others. AGL’s got that  deal with Maoneng to do another four big, big batteries, 50 megawatts and hundred megawatt hours each. And of course, they’re planning their own big  battery at Lidell. So batteries are about to sort of springing up all over the shop in New South Wales, and what you’re saying about those surveys about the eagerness and the willingness of people to embrace this transition, and this has been underpinned, I think by a whole series of international reports, I’m not too sure whether we touched on it last week, the International Energy Agency, which has finally done a 1.5 degrees scenario, as one of its core looks to the future. And that was very important, because it talks about how you get to that, how you get to that target, which is which is critically important, of course, wind and solar and describe solar as the cheapest electricity ever, and solar will be king. That’s been followed by Bloomberg NEF, and their NEO, which is another important document which came out overnight, also talking about the amount that you need to invest, and just for the fast transitioners, there was an interesting report by Tony Seba, a futurist, and a disrupter, I guess you could call him as a specialist in there. And he’s got an incredibly fast transition prediction of everything going renewables by around about 2030, across the globe, with the possible exception of China, I guess, given what we’ve heard today in that podcast. But look, certainly what you say, David, is that the economics are turning. And I think that this is actually driving more ambitious analyses by private people, but also this big shift by international governments.

David Leitch 

When it comes to the market I think there’s going to be a real realization that there’s going to be more wind and solar plants built all over the world, but certainly in Australia. And the point is that getting getting control of those assets is going to be a good thing to do with the market. If you just look at the economics for a moment, the markets actually still reasonably fragmented. And I expect that it’ll tighten up over time as someone gets control over bigger and bigger shares of the wind and solar assets, even even though it’s always easy to build another one. A couple of other points to make out of the thing as out of this whole process, which is going very much even faster. I think the the point that was made by Kerry Schott recently that things are actually going quicker than most people realize is really the point to focus on. But it’s going to leave all those people that were betting on a slow change such as AGL and Origin, wondering how they, are they going to be able to take part in this at all or are they going to be left right out in the cold and similarly, we can see the Federal Government’s gas strategy is struggling in a lot of ways. It’s struggling in a market sense. It’s struggling because the domestic gas reservation scheme is going to be really hated by the domestic gas producers and and not easy to implement. And the economics as we’ve seen all these battery announcements, the economics seem to be showing that at least in the daily peaking market, batteries, investors are increasingly seeing that that batteries can be competitive with gas, we’re seeing new battery plants, we’re not really seeing new gas plants.

Giles Parkinson 

Well, that’s exactly right. And we’ve even had a new progress on a major wind farm and battery storage project in Queensland, the Wambo project in southwest Queensland in the Western Downs region. 500 megawatts of wind, 50 megawatt battery with four hours of storage. So that’s pretty interesting. David, probably time to wrap up. I think we had a quite long conversation there with Ryna, I just want to make a point that before we get together again next week, we’ll have two quite critical elections. One in Australia, the state election in Queensland, which, between Labor and the LNP, who would like you to believe that all renewables are a hoax and don’t support a renewable energy target, so that’s going to be interesting. Whichever way we’re gonna have a new energy minister next week, because Anthony Lyneham has already declared that he will be stepping, stepping aside. And of course the US presidential election and if Joe Biden gets up and wins, then that’s going to be yet a another big market and another major influence on global policy and that could change many many things.

David Leitch 

Have you gotten any, are you bold enough to make predictions for those two elections?

Giles Parkinson 

No, I do have a wish list David, but I don’t want to make any predictions.

David Leitch 

If wishes were poodles what a lot of poodles there would be. I’m gonna I’m gonna be bold Giles. I’m going to tip that Labor can get back in in Queensland, probably with the support of the Greens. From what I’ve read, Jackie Trad, the former Treasurer, will lose her seat to the Greens in inner city Queensland, but that’s just, I’m not at all confident about that. And I’m gonna put my hand up and say that the pollsters have improved. Everything I’ve read about the US election suggests that actually Biden is going to get up no matter how much momentum he’s got over this last few days. But so that’s my predictions. But I wish all our listeners good luck with their predictions on whatever they may be.

Giles Parkinson 

Absolutely. It’s going to be fascinating to watch next Wednesday afternoon, Australian time to see the results coming in. David, thank you very much. Thank you very much for doing the interview today with Ryna. And thank you all to our listeners. And thank you of course to our sponsors Evergen and Pylon, and we’ll be back again next week. Bye for now.

You can listen to the full episode of this Energy Insiders podcast here.