Essay by Eric Worrall
First published JoNova; If only all coal plants were forced to close, then there would be no opportunity for greed because there would be no electricity.
Generators fill their pockets again, pushing grid prices to new highs and leaving renewables to cop the blame
Giles Parkinson
Jul 31, 2024Competition, they say, is good for the market. We can but hope. Right now, it is clear there is not enough competition in the Australian wholesale electricity market, and the big players – and some new ones – are intent on making hay while the sun shines, knowing that it is their “cherished” consumers who will have to foot the bill.
Wholesale electricity prices hit a new landmark on Tuesday night when all five states that make up Australia’s main grid, the National Electricity Market, had prices pushed above $15,000 a megawatt hour (MWh) at the same time. According to market observers, this has never been seen before.
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Renewables are supposed to challenge this and lower the price on wholesale markets by introducing competition. But as the number of fully dispatchable generators declines, competition at critical times has actually been reduced – at least for the time – and like seagulls around a box of chips, the market players dive in.
What we see here is naked greed, around an essential service, enabled by the ability to manipulate prices to unreasonable peaks, and the complete inability to keep any sense of proportion or perspective.
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And the problem is that in a hotly partisan energy debate, and a lop-sided and populist media disinterested in actual facts, it will be renewables that get the blame. We saw it last week with the reports on the latest June quarter wholesale prices.
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Read more: https://reneweconomy.com.au/generators-fill-their-pockets-again-pushing-grid-prices-to-new-highs-and-leaving-renewables-to-cop-the-blame/
Greens are deeply concerned that us heartless engineering types are suggesting that adding unreliable energy sources to the grid while punitively discouraging investment in reliable energy facilitated this latest round of hardball supply and demand capitalism.
The reference to “naked greed” and “essential service” in my opinion is thinly disguised call for energy assets to be re-nationalised.
Perhaps greens shouldn’t have fought so hard to stop entrepreneurs from building dispatchable zero carbon nuclear energy. Then they wouldn’t have been exposed as a bunch of incompetents.
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