Response the Energy Security Board’s Recommendations on the ‘Capacity Mechanism’
Labor doesn’t know what it’s doing, and households and businesses will pay the price.
The Energy Security Board has delivered a wake-up call to the new Albanese Government by rejecting Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s request for the Capacity Mechanism to favour new technologies at the expense of gas and coal.
In announcing his instructions to the ESB on developing the Capacity Mechanism, the Energy Minister said: “… the principles I’ve outlined are pretty clear that it should be supporting new technologies and by that I mean, you know – I support storage and renewables.”
The ESB has recommended otherwise by including gas and coal in the technology mix.
This has exposed the nonsensical approach of Chris Bowen and the new Labor Government.
Labor simply does not understand how the market works nor the relationship between intermittent sources of energy such as solar and wind and complementary ones that can back them up including gas and coal.
The increase in renewables is welcomed, but they can’t do it on their own. They must be backed up. It’s all about balance.
Ignorance always has a price and if Labor persists with its approach, Australians will pay.
The ESB’s report shines a light on the need to maintain existing generators.
The replacement of such technology by way of ‘storage’ would require the construction of another Snowy 2.0 to be connected every year from now until 2030. An impossible task.
Instead of trying to create a new climate war that pits technologies against each other, Labor needs to recognise that the answer lies in a balance of technologies.
There is no argument about the need to act on climate change nor the final destination of net-zero by 2050. The real question is how we get there.