Matt Cunningham weighs in on NT Government’s Tamboran gas deal and activist reaction

Once all the mad ideology is stripped away, the fastest and least expensive way to a cleaner, reliable electricity network in the Territory is through a partnership between renewables and gas, writes Matt Cunningham.

Tamboran Resources Chief Executive Joel Riddle, Chief Minister Eva Lawler and Minister Mark Monaghan visit the Weddlell Power Station as Energy company Tamboran Resources and the NT government sign a 15-year binding gas sales agreement to supply almost two-thirds of the Territory’s current gas needs from the Beetaloo Sub-Basin. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

The ink was barely dry on the Northern Territory Government’s deal with Tamboran Resources to supply gas for our domestic electricity network before the usual suspects emerged with their claims of “carbon bombs” and “climate catastrophes”.

When it comes to environmental activism, no level of hyperbole is considered too extreme. But for those so adamantly opposed to the government using our own onshore gas to power our electricity network, it’s worth considering the other available options.

The Government has been left in a bind because ENI’s Blacktip field has all but run dry.

We could continue to buy offshore gas from Inpex or Santos as great expense.

Or we could ship in gas from interstate at even greater expense.

There’s a ban on nuclear in this country so that is out of the question.

And I don’t think anyone would propose opening a coal-fired power station.

Some have argued this week that instead of signing a deal with Tamboran, the government should have allocated the funding towards a system that runs on 100 per cent renewables.

The only problem with this idea is that it’s either prohibitively expensive, impossible, or both. Since 2016 this Labor Government has been pursuing a 50 per cent renewable energy target for our electricity network.

More than half way in we are at less than 20 per cent and the policy is causing significant headaches, particularly for the poor system controllers who are charged with the arduous task of keeping the lights on.

Weddell Power Station Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

The government has already been forced to slash the solar feed-in tariff to halt the rapidly rising take-up of rooftop solar that was causing significant grid instability.

In fact, in its most recently published NT Electricity Outlook report, the independent Utilities Commissioner forecasts “risks to maintaining a secure Darwin-Katherine power system as early as 2026-27 (only three years away) due to falling minimum demand during the day as a result of increasing amounts of electricity from uncontrollable residential and commercial rooftop solar PV systems”.

Those risks are even closer now than when this report was published in June last year. Meanwhile, huge solar farms at Manton Dam, Batchelor and Katherine have only just been connected, just one is supplying energy, and it is operating at just a fraction of its capacity. The ideologues would have you believe we just need to build a bit of storage and all will be rosy.

Tamboran Resources Chief Executive Joel Riddle. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

The truth is far more complicated.

The government has spent at least $45 million on the first Battery Energy Storage System, and promised a second one at a cost that is yet to be determined.

But this will have little impact when it comes to allowing more energy from the solar farms. Asked about this at a press conference last month, Territory Generation chief executive Gerhard Laubscher said: “No, this battery one and two doesn’t have much to do with that. We are providing those services at this stage from our spinning machines, from our synchronous machines at this stage from the different stations.”

Those spinning machines run on gas, a reliable baseload energy source that allows the machines to keep spinning in the background when renewable energy is being used, ready to ramp up quickly when the intermittent renewable power drops away.

Solar is the only realistic renewable source in the Territory, but it is next-to-useless without a baseload back-up.

There is no available wind power, and hydro is not an option.

This gets us to the truth of this important issue.

Once all the mad ideology is stripped away, the fastest and least expensive way to a cleaner, reliable electricity network in the Territory is through a partnership between renewables and gas.

Unfortunately, the activists can only see this issue through a narrow prism that tells them renewables are always good, and all fossil fuels are bad.

Originally published as Matt Cunningham weighs in on NT Government’s Tamboran gas deal and activist reaction