Murdoch and the Liberals on the attack against renewable energy

Murdoch and the Coalition: This week targetting renewables, Independent Australia Giles Parkinson 18 July 2016, The Murdoch media and the Coalition are ramping up the war on renewables in the wake of soaring gas prices, writes Giles Parkinson.

THE MURDOCH MEDIA and conservative Coalition parties have ramped up their attacks on renewable energy in light of the big spike in electricity prices in South Australia this week, saying that wind and solar are solely to blame for the state’s electricity problems.

Power prices spiked sharply again this week but energy analysts say that wind and solar are not at fault, pointing out that gas prices have jumped to record highs and the interconnector to Victoria was constrained due to delayed work on network upgrades.

But this has cut no mustard with the Murdoch media and the Coalition, who have used the incidents of the past week to renew their usually skewed attacks against the high levels of wind and solar in the state.

In an editorial entitled ‘SA power prices threaten future of economy‘, The Advertiser, Murdoch’s monopoly daily newspaper in Adelaide, thundered:

‘SA’s reliance on wind and solar power is responsible for these absurd prices.’

And threatened:

‘The state’s electricity supply cannot be left at the mercy of the weather gods and erratic spot prices. Labor’s great green energy experiment will cost it ultimate power in 2018.’

The editorial makes absolutely no mention of the record gas prices, or the energy cartel that it is defending.

Murdoch’s position has been eagerly supported by the local state opposition, which like all Coalition parties across the country – at both the state and federal level – is pushing back against any moves to increase the amount of renewable energy in the electricity system.

Opposition leader Steven Marshall said,

“The (South Australian) government’s complete and utter obsession with renewable energy has left us in a very vulnerable state without a workable energy strategy.”

Marshall also failed to mention the cost of gas.

“I mean continuity of energy supply is absolutely critical, and what we’ve done is we’ve driven out base load power in South Australia because of this obsession that the Labor government has had with renewable energy and we haven’t been able to put that certainty, that continuity into the equation.”

Actually, the state’s largest base load generator, Pelican Point, a 485MW gas-fired plant, has not been operating because gas prices are too high and it cannot make any money out of it — although it did agree to a government request to restart for a short period while the interconnector was repaired………

As a new study released through Cambridge University this week highlights that the obsession, until now, has been with keeping business as usual:

‘Business-as-usual carries on with incremental decisions, made in narrow frames of reference, that continue to build, and lock investments into the conventional fossil fuel infrastructure.’

The major issue, it notes, is profiteering in the wholesale markets. In Australia, various studies have suggested that at different times, the big fossil fuel generators have gamed the market to the extent that more than $400 million was added to prices in Queensland alone in two separate examples in 2015.

Market operators suspect the same thing is happening now, despite the introduction of bidding in “good faith” rules that were introduced two weeks ago.

As one energy market participant said:

“It was as though everyone decided to bid higher at the same time.”

This is not just an Australian phenomenon. Last year, according to the Cambridge study, the U.S. General Accounting Office noted that excessive profiteering in the regional markets had led to unfair electricity prices. It said consumers may have paid an excess $US12 billion in 2011 to generating companies that do not face genuine market competition.

The problem is not wind and solar, it is the absolute power of the incumbents and their high fossil fuel prices. That’s the true cost of a restricted market, where the regulators have been too slow to act.

This article was originally published in RenewEconomy on 15 July 2016 under the title ‘Murdoch, Coalition go in guns blazing against wind and solar’ and has been republished with permission. You can follow Giles on Twitter@GilesParkinson.

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/murdoch-and-the-coalition-this-weektargetting-renewables,9255