State Liberal parties back PM’s renewable energy target call

MALCOLM Turnbull has admitted windmills didn’t cause a South Australia-wide blackout last year as the debate of renewable energy heats up.

The Liberal parties in three Labor-held states have backed Malcolm Turnbull’s call for a single national approach for renewable energy targets. Picture: AP Photo/Matt Young

MALCOLM Turnbull has admitted windmills didn’t cause a South Australia-wide blackout last year as the renewable energy debate heats up.

On the same September evening power went out across the state, Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said the blackout raised questions about the virtue of increasing the amount of renewable energy.

The next day, Mr Turnbull blasted the states for setting aggressive and unrealistic renewable energy targets.

Now, emails released under freedom of information show the prime minister’s own officials were advised that morning the problem had not been SA’s heavy reliance on wind power.

“[Electricity market regulator] AEMO’s advice is that the generation mix (ie. renewable or fossil fuel) was not to blame for yesterday’s events — it was the loss of 1000 MW of power in such a short space of time as transmission lines fell over,” one email read, Fairfax reported.

AEMO’S PRELIMINARY REPORT INTO SOUTH AUSTRALIAN BLACKOUT

The prime minister insisted on Monday the introduction of a massive amount of wind energy made the SA grid very vulnerable.

“Of course windmills did not cause a blackout. The blackout, as I have said many times, was caused by a storm breaching transmission lines,” he said. “That’s perfectly obvious.”

Mr Turnbull insisted renewables have a very big place in Australia’s energy mix.

But he said wind and solar had one specific characteristic: wind didn’t blow all the time and the sun wasn’t always shining.

“So you have to have either storage or backup power to keep the lights on and to ensure that energy is secure and affordable and you meet your targets,” Mr Turnbull said.

The Prime Minister’s comments come as an analysis by the Australian National University’s Centre for Social­ Research and Methods shows electricity prices have soared 106 per cent over the past 10 years.

The analysis, provided to The Australian, shows Queensland has experienced the biggest electricity price hike since 2007 at 135 per cent.

Victoria had the next largest electricity price hike at 117 per cent, followed by NSW at 108 per cent.

As the debate over the South Australian blackout flared, the Liberal parties in three Labor-held states have today announced their support for a single national approach to renewable energy targets.

Mr Turnbull welcomed the decision by opposition Liberal parties in South Australia, Victoria and Queensland to back a national approach over the states having independent targets.

He said that unrealistic state-based targets had caused huge power bills for families and businesses and unreliable supply.

“Dangerous Labor-Green ideology has no place in energy policy,” Mr Turnbull said in a statement today.

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

The Turnbull Government aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 23.5 per cent by 2020, while the federal Opposition wants to increase the renewable energy target to 50 per cent.

The Queensland government has set a target of 50 per cent of renewable energy sources by 2030, South Australia aims to achieve that by 2025, while the Victorian Government hopes to achieve 40 per cent renewable energy by 2025.

The WA Liberal-National Government currently backs the Federal Government’s target, but if the state Labor Party wins the WA election next month, it also aims to boost the amount of renewable energy sources in the state.

Opposition energy spokesman Mark Butler has urged Mr Turnbull to come clean and admit he’s been playing politics with a very serious energy crisis.

“It is quite clear from today’s revelations the prime minister made a deliberate decision to ignore that advice and lie to the Australian people about the cause of this very serious event,” he told reporters.

“Not only did he lie to the nation, he lied to the nation during an emergency, while state emergency officials, people from our defence forces, were out in the field protecting the community from an ongoing risk caused by this extraordinary storm event which also led to very significant flooding.” Labor colleague Sam Dastyari said the power problems on the east coast over the weekend had nothing to do with renewables.

He acknowledged there were problems in the market but said the government is running a scare campaign.

“It just happens to not be on the basis of facts,” he said.

Industry Minister Arthur Sinodinos says recent blackouts have brought the issue of renewables targets to the fore. Picture: AAP / Mick Tsikas

Senior minister Arthur Sinodinos said those blackouts had brought a whole lot of issues to the fore.

“This is not an attack on renewables or coal or anything else, this is about getting the best energy mix at an affordable price which reduces greenhouse gas emissions,” he told ABC TV on Sunday.

“The federal government will lead the development of the national plan because, frankly, we can’t have a situation where states can impose their own policies oblivious to the cost not only to their own systems but the cost across the country.”

His comments come as the Clean Energy Council releases figures showing 22 large renewable energy projects are either being built or will start this year.

They’re worth $5 billion and are expected to create more than 3000 jobs, mostly in regional areas.

Mr Turnbull said a businesslike, common sense approach was needed to “keep the lights on, keep power bills affordable and reduce emissions”.