4 ms·

Sorry, that doesn't make any sense. We have no pressing need for additional baseload capacity at the moment. The problem is entirely in high-demand times, and t

Sorry, that doesn't make any sense. We have no pressing need for additional baseload capacity at the moment. The problem is entirely in high-demand times, and that is entirely sourced from dispatchable generation. This is mostly gas and hydro in Australia, and the price of gas drives the price, given the way the AEMO bidding market works. Renewable energy only takes pressure off this demand (i.e. solar is fairly well correlated with hot weather, so actually helps a lot in reducing the peak on hot days (presumably from air-conditioning etc.) by hundreds of megawatts).

roenxi 9y ago
Australia's number 1 problem is that the grid itself is too expensive. That isn't the Coalition, because it has been happening through the late Howard, Rudd-Gillard-Rudd, Abbott and Turnbull governments. Typical slow government problem, not any particular party. Obviously you aren't talking about that, so I didn't mention it. Australia's number 2 problem is all our power plants are aging and shutting down. I addressed that; because you seemed to be talking to it (eg, Liddel is only achieving something like 46% capacity). That is a looming issue. The problem here is also not the Coalition, as I mentioned. Now SA appears to have a tertiary problem which is they have lots of wind energy and not enough storage to balance out the grid. The battery is addressing that and seems to be going well. This is also nothing to do with the Coalition, because the SA state government controls SA and the majority bounces between the two majors. The Weatherill government seems to have had the battery installed extremely quickly despite whatever you think the Coalition did to prevent it. You aren't assigning blame correctly here. The big picture problem isn't that gas prices are high, and power problems aren't happening because of "mostly the Coalition".
- Frqy3 9y ago
  And the grid is too expensive because the regulator allowed an effectively risk-free rate of return on investment that was too good to pass up. In telecoms wholesale pricing in Australia, there would frequently be adjustments to the claimed capital costs to remove this gold plating incentive, but the energy side seemed to be much more accepting of whatever the distributors claimed.

roenxi 9y ago

Australia's number 1 problem is that the grid itself is too expensive. That isn't the Coalition, because it has been happening through the late Howard, Rudd-Gillard-Rudd, Abbott and Turnbull governments. Typical slow government problem, not any particular party. Obviously you aren't talking about that, so I didn't mention it. Australia's number 2 problem is all our power plants are aging and shutting down. I addressed that; because you seemed to be talking to it (eg, Liddel is only achieving something like 46% capacity). That is a looming issue. The problem here is also not the Coalition, as I mentioned. Now SA appears to have a tertiary problem which is they have lots of wind energy and not enough storage to balance out the grid. The battery is addressing that and seems to be going well. This is also nothing to do with the Coalition, because the SA state government controls SA and the majority bounces between the two majors. The Weatherill government seems to have had the battery installed extremely quickly despite whatever you think the Coalition did to prevent it. You aren't assigning blame correctly here. The big picture problem isn't that gas prices are high, and power problems aren't happening because of "mostly the Coalition".

Frqy3 9y ago
And the grid is too expensive because the regulator allowed an effectively risk-free rate of return on investment that was too good to pass up. In telecoms wholesale pricing in Australia, there would frequently be adjustments to the claimed capital costs to remove this gold plating incentive, but the energy side seemed to be much more accepting of whatever the distributors claimed.