South Australia: Electranet’s privately owned and run electricity transmission system is in a mess.
Dennis Matthews , 3rd October 2016
Electranet now wants the public to pay for new infrastructure. Electranet’s proposed investment will be rewarded with a handsome guaranteed return on the amount invested, which will be funded by all South Australian electricity users in the form of increased tariffs.
Why do we need such a high capacity transmission network? It is to service big electricity users to the north of Port Wakefield, like BHP. Getting everyone to pay for the new infrastructure is a huge publicly funded cross-subsidy to the mining industry. It is a publicly-funded disincentive for more efficient and reliable distributed generation. It is anti-competitive.
The windfall profits reaped by Electranet will then go offshore.
This is a win for Electranet and the big energy guzzling mining companies but, as usual, a huge kick in the guts for small businesses and the average South Australian.
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