Turnbull on a Snowy Mountains high with bold hydro scheme

This is Malcolm Turnbull’s best and boldest idea since he became Prime Minister.

Expanding the Snowy Hydro scheme is not just a way to generate more electricity. It is also a way to prove to Australians that this troubled government is capable of an ambitious decision rather than prevarication.

Rather than blaming the states for every problem in the national electricity grid, the Prime Minister is going ahead with a solution of his own.

The proposal has a strong chance of widespread support. It will generate more power to replace the closure of old coal-fired stations, while doing so without producing carbon emissions and at the same time helping to ease the reliability problems caused by intermittent wind and solar power.

As the outages over summer showed, Australia needs more reserve power to be brought on line when the nation’s airconditioners switch on. The new plan creates a way to “store” electricity in an existing Snowy reservoir, so water can be released to produce electricity when it is needed most. This could expand the profitability of Snowy Hydro over time, given it can pump water back to the higher reservoir at off-peak prices.

Turnbull will commit federal support today but could find that Snowy Hydro will be able to fund much of the project itself. Yet the sentiment around the plan may end up being more powerful than the electricity itself.

Turnbull is building on a scheme that was dreamt up when Australia had confidence in its future and a willingness to think big. The new proposal may recapture a little of the spirit that built the Snowy during the long boom of the 1950s and 1960s.

This will not do Turnbull any harm. And it may do the country some good.