For Australia’s electricity sector, the 20-teens was largely a decade of lost opportunity. As we enter the 2020s, the opportunity to plot a clear pathway to a new energy future is there to be taken. Yet energy policy decisions must now be framed against the inescapable savagery of this summer’s fires.

In December 2009, wholesale prices in the national electricity market were around $44 per megawatt hour although network prices were rising, electricity sector emissions peaked at 212 million tonnes of CO2-e per annum and the reliability of the power system was unquestioned. Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership had yet to unravel although climate change policy was faltering domestically and internationally.