Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen has blamed the intervention by Australia's energy regulator on the electricity market, on under-investment in renewable energy technology:
Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said that he has been working with state energy ministers to devise a "comprehensive plan" to address the energy supply.Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has blamed Australia's previous governments' approaches to renewable energy investment after Australia's energy regulator, The Australian Energy Market Operator , took control today of the national electricity market on Wednesday.
"We have avoided lockouts and avoided load-shedding so far and yesterday was an extreme action, not taken lightly but it was a judgement that it was what was absolutely necessary to act in the best interests of consumers to intervene and close the market and take control and that's what happened yesterday."
"This is a crisis driven by unexpected outages in coal-fired power stations because the fleet is ageing... The previous government played out for nine years and had 23 different energy policies and denied the challenges and opportunities and chance for a comprehensive economic policy."