NEM GOES INTO SUMMER IN ‘INTENSIVE CARE’

Josh Frydenberg needs to get out his defibrillator and give some serious CPR to the National Electricity Market (NEM).

In the fifth year of Coalition Government, and heading into what will be another hot summer, according to the Energy Security Board’s (ESB) first Health of the National Electricity Market report, the NEM is in “intensive care.” NEM performance on the three key measures of affordability, reliability and emission reductions are all rated as “CRITICAL” by the ESB.

Immediate symptoms include “a power system where reliability risks are increasing, electricity bills are not affordable, and future carbon emissions policy is uncertain.”

The report goes into detail about how households have suffered through power bill shocks and increases, while businesses have seen their electricity costs under Malcolm Turnbull either double, or even triple.

At the end of a year dominated by the energy crisis, Malcolm Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg have achieved nothing to relieve price pressures, remove investment uncertainty to support new supply into the market, or reduce carbon pollution.

They spent the year backtracking from energy policy bipartisanship by first rejecting an Emissions Intensity Scheme and then a Clean Energy Target, because under this Government the hard right of the Coalition Party Room, which thinks climate action is akin to pagan sacrifice, is dictating energy policy.

Malcolm Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg need to stop trying to strangle renewable energy investment and prop up old coal-fired power stations through their National Energy Guarantee.

The critical health of the NEM desperately needs credible energy policy that supports the transition to a cleaner, more reliable and affordable energy system.