Energy plan that cuts risk and puts engineers in front

The incompetence of Energy Minister Chris Bowen has been underscored by Queensland’s new road map.

Queensland’s revised energy road map underscores the benefits that can come from a fresh set of eyes after a decade of incumbent government. The Crisafulli government has put a pragmatic rule over what must be a first-priority issue for all governments: secure and affordable energy.

It is an example that others must follow at both state and federal levels. Queensland Treasurer and Energy Minister David Janetzki has set out a five-year energy road map he says will be “pragmatic, geared towards economics and engineering, and will set aside ideological bias and preoccupation”. This is the exact opposite of what has been on offer from state and federal governments to date.

The detail of the new Queensland government approach is that coal-fired power will be extended and bolstered, and that gas generation will be greatly expanded. More than $400m will be invested into maintenance of government-owned coal-fired generators in 2024-25. A further $134m has been approved for a new gas peaking plant at Kogan Creek.

An additional two new gas-fired generation projects are planned by government-owned generators. Labor’s hydrogen division, which was situated under the former department of energy and climate, has been renamed Gas and Sustainable Fuels and sits within Queensland Treasury.

But the new energy plan is not a zero-sum game. Queensland will remain open for business for renewable energy investments including in wind, solar and pumped hydro. The benchmark for the five-year plan is to ease pressure on the state balance sheet, de-risk the energy future, add significant generation capacity and apply downward pressure on household and business power bills.

The Queensland energy review provides a circuit-breaker for the ideological excesses that would have been a long-term drain on the state budget. These follies were outlined in the former government’s Energy and Jobs Plan, which Mr Janetzki said was not worth the glossy paper it was written on.

Included in it was the Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro project, where costs were estimated to blow out from the original $7bn to $36.8bn.

A reduced CopperString transmission line project in the north of the state will be maintained after costs blew out to $14bn from the $1.8bn when it was first announced in 2020. Labor did not include costings for getting power from the main transmission lines to where it could actually be used.

Queensland Treasurer and Minister for Energy David Janetzki. Picture: Dan Peled / NewsWire

Mr Janetzki says Queensland remains committed to a bipartisan target of net zero by 2050 because this is critical to unlocking private sector funding for the energy transition, but he wants private funding, not state subsidies, to make it work.

The blueprint provides a refreshing review of what had been an energy and planning mess. It is difficult to image the same situation does not exist in other places, most notably in Victoria.

By staying away from the potential for nuclear energy sometime in the future, Mr Janetzki has not done Peter Dutton any favours in the federal election campaign. But nuclear is currently beyond the remit of state governments. And this is the big advance of the Crisafulli government approach. It puts commercial rigour and engineering plausibility ahead of pie-in-the-sky ideological bias and preoccupation.

“We must deal with what is, not what may be or what some might wish for,” Mr Janetzki said. “If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it won’t be pursued.”

He has asked what can the state government control and “what is beyond our sphere of influence”.

Queensland has finally got an energy reality check, something long overdue for the nation as a whole.