6 years ago
LABOR’S ENERGY VISION BACKED BY ENERGY MARKET OPERATOR
THE HON MARK BUTLER MP
In an embarrassing development for Malcolm Turnbull, Labor’s vision for a low pollution, nationally integrated electricity system has been backed by a report from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).
AEMO’s Integrated System Plan consultation report backs the vision for Australia’s energy system outlined by Bill Shorten in his speech to the Australian Financial Review’s energy summit in October last year. In that speech, Bill Shorten said:
“We need a truly national approach to transmission and distribution” which “means making decisions that benefit the nation, not one state or one corporation.”
AEMO have identified these same challenges and opportunities, saying:
“Without a coordinated long-term “national interest” perspective, there is a material risk this could result in uncoordinated development of regional energy infrastructure, which could impose inefficient costs on consumers at times when lowering energy prices is a national priority.”
Labor also committed to Renewable Energy Zones, with Mr Shorten saying:
“with renewables, we have the advantage of geographic diversity… With smart transmission planning we can put this diversity to use in the national interest – moving energy where it is needed, at the fastest speed and the lowest price… a Labor Government would organise Australia into a series of Renewable Energy Zones.”
AEMO endorse a renewable energy future generally, and specifically Renewable Energy Zones, saying:
“Developing new large-scale renewable generation in the right locations will be vital to delivering a reliable and secure energy supply at lowest long-term cost for consumers, as wind and PV generation are now among the cheapest ways to generate new bulk energy in Australia.” and
“There are many potential REZs located across eastern Australia, which could accommodate many times the projected additional renewable generation capacity required in the coming decades.”
The AEMO report assess several scenarios for Australia’s energy future, and in the absence of any Government pollution reduction target post 2030, AEMO adopt a target of cutting electricity sector carbon pollution by at least 70 per cent by 2050, and by as much as 90 per cent.
The report shows Australia can successfully cut 52 per cent of electricity emissions by 2030; a level of climate ambition that puts to shame Malcolm Turnbull’s refusal to take climate action seriously. The latest Coalition fight over the future role of electric vehicles is only the latest example of the chaos and division that characterise the Liberal’s approach to energy and climate policy.
AEMO’s report makes clear that the Liberal’s vision of more coal and strangled renewable investment isn’t shared by the very energy market experts the Government relies on to provide it with advice.
It is perfectly clear that far from engineering and economics, it’s the hard right, anti-renewable, anti-electric car, pro-coal at all cost, rump of the Coalition that dictate energy policy.
Only Labor can deliver the energy policy Australia desperately needs.