State Electricity Commission launches first project but government silent on how much Victorians will save
Victoria’s first State Electricity Commission energy project has begun operating in Melbourne’s west, but the government won’t reveal how much it will shave off Victorians’ power bills.
Victoria has its first publicly owned energy project, built through the relaunched State Electricity Commission (SEC), but the government will not say how much it will cut from power bills.
In Melbourne’s outer west, the Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub (MREH) started operation on Saturday, bringing online 444 battery units which the government says will deliver up to 1.6 gigawatt hours of storage, enough to power 200,000 homes during the evening peak period.
The batteries, in Melton, are designed to charge when energy is abundant — such as when the sun is shining down on solar panels — and discharge power when supplies are low.
Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said on Saturday morning that the project would drive “downward pressure” but did not quantify just how much the battery would take out of Victorians’ power bills.
Ms D’Ambrosio was asked three times exactly how much the battery would reduce power prices by, but told reporters she would not be “playing this game”.
She instead said that if the energy transition was not undertaken “you will see electricity prices be much, much higher”.
“What I’ve said all along is that Victoria continues to have the lowest wholesale and retail electricity prices in the country because of the massive investment and policies and plan that we have around renewable electricity,” Ms D’Ambrosio said.
“We want to see more of this and we will see more of this as we move towards our targets and replacing the old generators that are becoming less reliable.”
Ms D’Ambrosio pointed more broadly to the “collective effort” across the state to grow renewable electricity, and said it was “no accident” that Victoria has low wholesale and retail electricity prices “because of our plans to grow renewable energy”.
The opening of the project came just one day after AGL Energy walked away from its proposed Victorian offshore wind project, making it the third project in the Gippsland region to pull out.
Liberal MP David Southwick said it showed the government “can’t manage anything properly, and Victorians are paying for it”.
“We know that energy is one of the highest costs for householders to experience each and every day,” Mr Southwick said.
“This is a government that has promised cheaper energy prices, reliability and certainty, and have failed on all three.
“This government continues to fail, and Victorians are paying for it. I would say to Lily D’Ambrosio today, don’t celebrate anything, just deliver what you’ve promised.”
Originally published as State Electricity Commission launches first project but government silent on how much Victorians will save
