On a standard day in NSW, renewable energy delivers more than one-third of the state’s power. But some days it soars well above that, and last month the state hit a record. On November 8, almost 83 per cent of NSW’s power was generated from renewables.
Only three weeks later, NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe was urging NSW residents to turn off their dishwashers and not run their pool pumps amid blackout threats in the afternoon peak, as the state baked through November’s hottest day since 2020.
NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe says the state is facing a long, hot summer. But she is confident the lights will stay on. Credit: Oscar Colman
The contrast underscores Sharpe’s challenge in the portfolio where she has the dual, and sometimes conflicting, job of keeping the lights on as well as delivering clean energy to ensure NSW will meet its net zero commitments. At the moment, we are veering off track on the latter.
The rollout of the renewables road map, announced under the former Coalition government but offered bipartisan support when NSW Labor was in opposition, is Sharpe’s No.1 priority. After all, NSW cannot afford any more delays to the delivery of the road map, as the first report from the state’s Net Zero Commission, a NSW Labor election promise, warned.
The commission’s report, released last month, highlighted that the pace of renewables development needs to pick up if NSW is to have any hope of meeting its legislated targets for emissions reductions and net zero by 2050. It also said any expansion of coal mining in NSW would force every other industry to make faster and deeper cuts to greenhouse emissions.
The threat of blackouts on November 27, which ultimately did not eventuate, was because three of the state’s coal-powered generators were offline for planned maintenance. The unseasonably warm weather - Penrith topped 39° that day - had caught everyone off guard.
With repairs done, Sharpe is quietly confident that she will not be urging us to turn off our air-conditioners or other appliances during the summer break.
“All the weather forecasts that I’ve had from the Bureau of Meteorology and from AEMO [the Australian Energy Market Operator] is that it’s going to be a hot summer, and we’ve got to watch that demand,” Sharpe says in a year-ending interview with the Herald.
“I don’t want to make predictions because I can’t control the weather but I feel comfortable we’ve got really good preparations in place.”
Despite the grim outlook in the commission’s first report, Sharpe is upbeat about NSW remaining a world leader in renewables. “NSW is now in a position where 35 per cent of our energy comes from renewables; it used to be 80 per cent coal,” Sharpe says. “That’s a big change. We’re actually well and truly under way.”
Sharpe lists the progress the NSW Labor government has made since being elected in March last year: six large-scale battery energy storage systems, eight large-scale solar farms, six wind farms and the Tallawarra B gas plan.
“This year, so far, we’ve approved six wind [farms], 11 solar [farms], and 14 batteries,” Sharpe says.
Just as crucially, she says, are households, which are leading the charge to electrify. “So this is rooftop solar, batteries, EVs. This has been the quiet achiever in terms of energy, which has just been that households have just got on and done it,” Sharpe says.
NSW now has 1 million households with rooftop solar – the highest penetration in the world. Nonetheless, NSW Labor has been criticised for sticking with fossil fuels, including coal-fired power stations. Approvals by the NSW government since December 2023 include expansions of the Moolarben coal complex near Mudgee, Boggabri open cut coal mine near Narrabri and Glendell open cut coal mine in the Hunter Valley.
The government in May entered into a risk-sharing agreement with Origin Energy, worth up to $450 million over the next two years, to extend the life of Australia’s largest coal-fired power station. Eraring was due to close in 2025.
Sharpe says it would be “unrealistic” for the government to refuse any new mines. “There’s still a market for coal and that is going to continue for a while,” she says.
Despite the state government’s commitment to renewables, Sharpe fears the election of a federal Dutton government – and its promised $331 billion nuclear plan – could undermine investment in the road map in NSW. She says Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s nuclear plans are built on “a hope and a prayer”.
Modelling commissioned by the federal Coalition and completed by Frontier Economics claims Dutton’s plan will cost $331 billion by 2050, 44 per cent less than the consultancy believes Labor’s would cost, based on much cheaper nuclear plant prices than many countries have faced overseas.
The opposition’s plan to build seven nuclear plants would leave less room in the electricity grid for renewable energy, including rooftop solar panels. It has committed to build 13 gigawatts of nuclear power, which it said would supply 38 per cent of the grid’s electricity by 2050.
Sharpe warns that the bipartisan support for the state’s ambitious renewables rollout would be destroyed if the NSW Coalition backs Dutton’s nuclear plans.
NSW Opposition leader Mark Speakman does not agree with Sharpe’s assessment. Speakman insists that the road map can be delivered, at the same time as nuclear is considered.
“The NSW Coalition’s Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap outlined a path to transform NSW’s electricity system in a way that is cheap, clean and reliable. The plan contemplates a significant role for firming infrastructure in our future energy market,” Speakman says.
“Every firming technology must be considered, including nuclear. I agree with Peter Dutton that we can’t be 100 per cent renewables.”
Sharpe says it is unrealistic to think the state can simply turn its back on coal but is adamant that NSW’s best hope of meeting its emissions targets and lowering power bills lies with renewables.
“NSW’s wealth was built off the back of cheap, reliable energy which came from coal. We’re now building the future which is cheap, reliable energy coming from renewables,” Sharpe says.
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