AEMO’s summer blackout predictions give Anthony Albanese another reason for an early poll
Anthony Albanese has just been given another reason to consider going to an election before Christmas.
If the energy market operator is right, the lights are going to go out across much of eastern mainland Australia over summer.
The last thing Labor would want is more colour added to the energy nightmare it is already presiding over as it prepares for an election year. But that is what is about to happen.
There are no prizes for guessing what the problem is: The failure by state and federal Labor governments to address the reliability of the national electricity market in anticipation of coal’s exit. The Australian Energy Market Operator’s report is clear.
Reliability has deteriorated in NSW, Victoria and South Australia over the past year, forcing it to warn it will have to bid for emergency power reserves to keep the lights on over summer in the two largest states of NSW and Victoria. South Australia is also again in trouble.
Once again, it is calling for new generation, transmission and storage assets such as batteries.
But then it says there are only limited locations where new supply will actually add benefit to system reliability.
It’s little wonder that the Prime Minister performed his second political volte-face of the year two weeks ago – the tax cuts being the first – when he overturned Labor’s energy policy and announced a new gas plan out to 2050.
This plan is almost indistinguishable from the Morrison government’s net-zero plan to use gas as the transition fuel.
This is an admission that Labor’s renewable energy plan just isn’t going to get the job done if keeping the lights on and prices lower are the priorities.
That he was forced to legislatively retreat last week by the Greens is inconsequential. He simply announced that he would legislate it later.
But the AEMO report highlights the desperation creeping into the government camp on energy reliability.
It’s one thing to hand out $300 to households, but this may do little to ameliorate the anger if those households don’t have power to be subsidised.
Peter Dutton’s energy plans for gas and nuclear to shore up renewables is starting to come into sharper focus. Details are being kept back, but the Liberal leader won’t be able to keep this up for long.
If reliability issues continue in the NEM, Dutton’s case for more non-renewable dispatchable power will only become stronger.
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