Under Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, a deep energy crisis has seen power prices skyrocket for households and business, and as a result the viability of tens of thousands of jobs has been placed in jeopardy.
The Labor Party is dedicated to doing all we reasonably can to see a bipartisan solution that brings the energy crisis to an end and transitions our energy system to clean, reliable and affordable power. But Labor will not support a policy that results in the collapse of renewable energy investment, risks thousands of jobs and leads to higher prices and pollution. Labor is committed to modernising our energy system and seeing an orderly transition to clean, reliable and affordable energy.
Federal Labor has been consistently clear there should be no taxpayers money for new coal-fired power stations in Australia. In addition, every serious investor and the industry has made it clear that they are not interested in building new coal-fired power stations, as they are more expensive than alternatives and even so called 'HELE' plants are twice as polluting than gas fired generation, exposing them to significant carbon risk.
That is why the industry has labelled new coal power “uninvestable” and it is why AEMO and all serious stakeholders understand that new coal power plants in Australia are a fantasy.
New coal fired power stations are “uninvestable” not only because they take the better part of a decade to build, are not flexible as a modern energy system requires, and are exposed to high levels of carbon risk, but they also produce relatively expensive electricity. The Australian Energy Market Operator has flagged the un-competitiveness of new coal plants, flagging that inevitably retiring old coal plants will not be replaced with new coal plants; stating: “When existing thermal generation (coal) reaches the end of its technical life and retires, the most cost-effective replacement of its energy production, based on current cost projections, is a portfolio of utility-scale renewable generation, energy storage, distributed energy resources (DER), flexible thermal capacity including gas-powered generation (GPG), and transmission.”
This mirrors the advice of the nation’s Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel, who has said “The actual cost of bringing on new coal in this country per megawatt hour is projected to be substantially more expensive than the cost of bringing on wind or solar”
It is not just energy market bodies and experts that have flagged the relative high cost of new coal. Even the Liberal Government’s Treasurer, Mr Scott Morrison has admitted new coal power stations are not the solution to high power bills, saying “we shouldn’t kid ourselves a new HELE (coal) plant would bring down electricity prices anytime soon” and that “new cheap coal is a bit of a myth."
The facts are clear, the best way to lower power prices is to support new cheap, reliable and clean electricity generation investment, and the cheapest new generation today and into the future is renewables backed up by appropriate firming technology, whether it be battery or pumped hydro storage or gas.
But in order to deliver lower prices through new investment, industry need a pro-investment national energy policy framework. That is what the Abbott-Turnbull Government have been unable to deliver, and it is exactly what Labor will deliver.