Does anyone still believe Australia can adhere to its destructive emissions reduction targets?
The Victorian and New South Wales governments are now paying big power companies to keep two of the country’s biggest coal fired power plants – Loy Yang A and Erraring – open so we don’t run out of power.
AGL Director Kerry Schott – the former boss of Sydney Water and the previous chairwoman of the New South Wales Net Zero Emissions and Clean Economy Board – recently told an Australian Institute of Company Directors conference that “getting to 82 per cent renewable is a big challenge and we are probably running late”.
This is the big problem. The Australian Energy Market Operator says we don’t have the power lines to move around all this renewable energy we’re supposed to be creating. But the cost of putting up and maintaining powerlines is a large part of what comes through in your power bills.Power poles and wires are what are called regulatory assets, which in simple terms means the energy regulator guarantees a return on investment to the investor that builds the infrastructure – usually one of the big power companies.
You are guaranteed, by the government regulator, a return on investment that is recouped from us, the consumer.The more powerlines they put up, the more profit they are guaranteed – basically in perpetuity.The Victorian Energy Policy Centre rubbished this idea that we need all these new power lines earlier this year.
Building all this renewable energy costs a bomb to begin with and as Ms Schott has acknowledged, we’re already behind schedule in terms of doing that to try to meet the federal government’s emission reduction targets.
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