Energy Production

Australia needs to replace our coal energy fleet with cleaner, greener, firmed alternatives. Personally I'd like to see this happen far sooner than later—certainly far sooner than is scheduled. That is the low-hanging fruit in the decarbonisation transition. Unfortunately, our current approach to energy planning is driving a painfully slow pace and with only limited decarbonisation gains. The use of large, expensive transmission lines to provide more hosting capacity will only have a limited impact, cost tens of billions of dollars and take at least 10 years. As the Chair of the Australian Energy Regulator Clare Savage wisely pointed out in an article recently, 'It is vital that before we build more network, we use more network.' Why did she say this? It's because she acknowledged that network asset utilisation across the NEM has dropped to a mere 40 per cent. In the same breath, she said that she sees 'a wall of capex'—that's money—coming at consumers that could do more than offset the lower costs of wholesale energy. You heard me right. We'll be paying more in supply charges but not necessarily lowering our bills.

On the flipside of this, all that wonderful solar and wind that is out in the regions is not even making it into the NEM. In the middle of the day, between 11 and two, when the sun is shining brightest, it's often curtailed. Yes, it is sometimes for network constraints, but, more often than that, it's being curtailed for economic curtailment. That is, it's a negative price. People have to pay to put it in the grid. That is clean, green energy that we could and should be using for free.