Prime Minister welcomes SA Liberals’ pledge to let Canberra set renewable energy target

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull has strongly welcomed the SA Liberals’ decision to abandon a state-based renewable energy target, saying it will strengthen power supply and reduce bills.

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PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull has strongly welcomed the SA Liberals’ decision to abandon a state-based renewable energy target, saying it will strengthen power supply and reduce bills.

It came as Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg distanced his Government from the market operator, which Premier Jay Weatherill blamed for causing Wednesday’s blackout by mismanagement.

“Obviously there are differing views and the Labor Party has sought to blame the operator,” Mr Frydenberg told the ABC. “I have confidence in the market operator and the other energy bodies.

“The market operator is not a Commonwealth body. The Labor Party has tried to make clear that it is. It is actually a combination of stakeholders and it is as much a South Australian body.

Mr Frydenberg said the real issue facing SA was a lack of planning to ensure a smooth transition to more renewables.

“In SA they have gone head long in an ideological pursuit of a 50 per cent renewable power. When the wind’s not blowing or the sun’s not shining power’s not being generated,” he said.

Mr Frydenberg conceded that while September’s statewide blackout was “precipitated by an extreme weather event” SA’s “heavy reliance” on wind and solar made the state’s power supply “extremely vulnerable”.

“If they didn’t have such a heavy reliance on intermittent sources in SA they wouldn’t have had the blackouts we’ve seen,” he said.

South Australia could face power shortages as temperatures soar. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

SA Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said Mr Marshall’s move to abolish a state-set renewable energy target was “a complete abdication of leadership”.

“They have shown a propensity to say ‘yes’ to everything the federal Liberals tell them to do,” he said. “When they told them to stay quiet on Holden, they did. When they told them to stay quiet on Budget cuts to health and education, they did. When they told them to stay quiet on building submarines in Japan, they did. At what stage will Steven Marshall ever say ‘no’?”

Mr Koutsantonis said a state green energy target was critical to incentivising new investment in alternative energies, including batteries, that could deliver a secure and lower-carbon future.

“The reason you need state-based energy prices is because there is no price on carbon,” he said.

“The market has already factored in a price on carbon, so they won’t invest in new generation, they won’t give us the new supply we need because of the uncertainty.

“This decision today makes it worse. This is an investment-killing decision.”

Mr Koutsantonis said he would be announcing details of a mysterious but “dramatic” intervention in the market, promised last week following controlled blackouts, “very soon”.

Mr Turnbull was pleased about the decision by the SA Liberals, Victorian Coalition and Queensland LNP to “do away with ad hoc” state targets in favour of a single national approach.

“Bill Shorten wants to adopt South Australia’s failed ideological experiment which will lead to even higher power bills and more blackouts,” Mr Turnbull said.

“The result of unrealistic state-based targets has been huge power bills for families and businesses and unreliable supply. “With a business like, common sense approach we can keep the lights on, keep power bills affordable and reduce emissions. Dangerous Labor-Green ideology has no place in energy policy.”

Relower Port Augusta campaigner Dan Spencer said scrapping the state renewable energy target would harm plans for a new solar thermal power plant in the town.

“Mr Marshall will create more uncertainty for investors after years of Federal Government attacks on renewables which resulted in the loss of billions in investment and jobs in clean power” Mr Spencer said. “This fresh policy uncertainty risks turning away investment in solutions like solar thermal in Port Augusta which the SA Liberals have advocated for.

“Renewable energy supports almost a thousand direct jobs in South Australia.

“Anyone in the renewable sector will tell you that the last thing these businesses need is more attacks on clean power which hurts these businesses.”

Federal Trade Minister Steve Ciobo said the Government was not anti-renewables.

“People generally get that renewable power is a positive thing. We think that a low carbon future is where we’re going as well, but what we need to do is make sure that we address it in a way that doesn’t distort the market to such an extent that you actually end up losing base-load power operators as well,” he told the ABC.

“In South Australia, for example, between day one and day two (Wednesday last week) when it came to renewable energy supply, namely wind power, what we saw was a 95 per cent reduction in wind power that was being used to generate power

“And that’s why the lights went out on day two. This is part of the reason why the Federal Government is determined to make sure that we can help to drive an agnostic, if you want, an agnostic approach to energy generation that says, look, we’ll use clean coal, we’ll use gas, we’ll use renewables, we’ll use whatever is appropriate in order to make sure we can maintain consistency of supply.”

Originally published as Prime Minister welcomes SA Liberals’ pledge to let Canberra set renewable energy target