With great fanfare the Victorian government has launched its Climate Change Strategy, a year later than required by legislation (the government granted itself a sick-note as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic last year). The strategy confirmed Victoria’s interim targets for 2025 (28-33 per cent below 2005 levels) and 2030 (45-50 per cent) on the …
The cutting edge: Victoria’s emissions reduction strategy Read More »
The federal government has been furiously spinning Australia’s position in the wake of the Biden-led climate summit last week. It adopts the position that Australia can take some kind of moral high ground in climate negotiations because we meet our commitments, by implication this means that other countries have failed to do so. Is this …
The Morrison government has announced another of its signature energy deal packages with a Coalition-run state, this time South Australia. Following on from last year’s NSW deal, the package is a similar mix of funding announcements for electricity infrastructure, hydrogen pilots and aspirational gas production targets. The so-called Energy and Emissions Reduction Agreement is worth …
The Grattan institute’s latest report Go For Net Zero, attempts to find a middle path between competing visions of the future electricity sector. On the one hand are certain Coalition politicians, who still believe that because Australia is largely powered by coal today, it must be best to keep powering it with coal into the …
The latest Gas Statement of Opportunities (GSOO) for eastern Australia indicates sufficient gas to meet demand provided LNG imports can commence by winter of 2023. This is when existing production from Longford in Victoria (which takes gas from several offshore fields) takes a nosedive. Even then shortages will emerge by around 2026 unless there is additional …
The South Australian Labor Party has announced its first major policy in the run up to the next state election. It is going to build a giant electrolyser and next door to it a power station that will run on hydrogen. It will also build a big tank to store the hydrogen in liquified form …
New rules allow the market operator AEMO to remotely disconnect rooftop solar systems when they deem it necessary to preserve system security. AEMO wielded this power for the first time last weekend, when a sunny day coupled with moderate demand drove SA demand to a dangerously low level. Low demand is a problem because it …
Observers of Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) would be forgiven for thinking the era of high prices has left us for the time being (at least until the next coal plant closes). A minor dampening of demand from COVID and a more significant one from a mild summer has coincided with growing renewables on our …
South Australia: take a ride on the electricity price roller coaster Read More »
Playing the blame game Reading the coverage of the devastation caused to Texas and its power grid by the recent polar vortex has been sobering and instructive. What’s clear is that many see these disasters as a chance to sharpen their knives and have a dig at whichever aspect of the system they don’t like: …
