That's an interesting metric to use (subsidy per Mwh)/tonnes of C02 displaced with quite the opposite effect of carbon pricing which favours black over brown coal. The Wheatley study suggests a sliding scale for emissions displacement which could refine those estimates eg only 50% displacement at 20% wind penetration due to inefficient thermal backup. The 2014 RET review found that the average cost of CO2 displaced was $59 per tonne presumably that figure is now about doubled.

The take home message is that the RET is a costly and ineffective way to reduce emissions. In 2017 the large scale RET will be a tad over 26 million Mwh. Times $85/Mwh that's $2.2 bn on power bills yet our emissions are not decreasing. So what is the point of the RET? From the angst over criticism of SA outages (e.g. calling for apologies by the PM) it almost seems like blasphemy ... that is questioning something we have to take on faith.

We've got two energy policies, one by tweedledum and the other by tweedle dumber! And they've done the unthinkable with politicizing it and privatizing it. With the end result a 106% increase in power prices in just ten short years! And just what you'd expect when really dumb economic make the people servants to the economy, the state and privileged special interest! And only possible because politicians as a demographic are never ever asked to wear the consequences of their born to rule decisions! Well that day has all but run its course and to prove it, minor parties are baying at the heels of recalcitrant incompetents.

Our energy policy is a dog's breakfast, designed to encourage speculative debt laden foreign investment, and sell us down the river?

And dumb as dishwater when viewed solely through the prism of results/outcomes! The collapse of manufacture and an energy bill that outstrips wages as we are price gouged out of international markets and worse!

Like foreign investors taking over some of our primary industry. Then using our clean green image to push products produced elsewhere, all while allowing our own industries to wither on the vine.

None of which could ever happen when we Australians and the national interest trumped political self serving self interest; and or diabolically dumb policies! Sadly, and however unpalatable, the only way to change it, is to change those and the mindsets that created it!

Bring on the next election!
Alan B.

The responsibility for the electricity networks in the states is 100% the responsibility of the states. With labor in power for 15yrs there is no one else they can blame, but it won't stop them trying:...

"Following the blackout last Wednesday in South Australia, the fourth in as many months, Labor has made four excuses for why the latest outage occurred. None goes to the heart of the real issue, namely the ideological pursuit of ever increasing amounts of wind and solar power without properly considering the impact on the stability and reliability of the grid.

First, Labor has sought to shift blame to the federal government by suggesting we should have ­directed the Australian Energy Market Operator to “turn on” Pelican Point power station while absolving the Weatherill government of any responsibility. There is no ­explicit provision in the national electricity law, or rules, that give the commonwealth the power to direct AEMO to shed loads or switch on a generator.

But for states it is different. They do have the express power to direct AEMO in an emergency situation. Labor’s energy and ­environment spokesmen, Mark Butler and Tony Burke, seem to be ignorant of these basic facts. Last week Burke said “the state government is not in a position to direct the federal body” and Butler said “the one person who doesn’t have the power to intervene is the South Australian ­government”.

Embarrassingly, Labor could not sustain this position for 24 hours. When it was put to ­Butler the next day that the state government did have the power to declare an emergency situation and direct the AEMO, he meekly conceded “yes, and that is what happened in the statewide ­blackout”."

Yes be scared very scared of the intransigent locked and bolted mindsets on both sides of the isle; that brought with it the collapse of manufacture in this country and all who depend on it!

It's all very well to talk endlessly about technical innovation, but refuse point blank to adopt it?

Why? Because we can't get permission from our political masters?

What else can it be, we are after all, a self governed sovereign nation or were the last time I looked!?

It's not a political football anyone can score political points with, but particularly when their only remedy is to sell the farm, our heritage and economic sovereignty to our international competition.

We need the end of all the blame shifting finger pointing, which needs to be replaced by Australia first, bipartisan pragmatism, as opposed to go absolutely nowhere, political point scoring!

Everybody with a still functional cerebral cortex, knows we need to roll out nuclear power and as tried and not found wanting in any aspect, molten salt thorium power!

What prevents? Lack of permission? Or the fact that many many foreign interests might have to take quite a significant financial haircut?

Or lose their financial grip on our almost bled white economy completely? Tough titties and not what we need at front and centre of this diabolical debacle.

Don't just do something Mal, stand there trotting out a absolute smorgasbord of imbecilic excuses and finger pointing blame shifting! As you use that and other tactics, to endlessly delay fixing anything!

We've had the talk and shoveled by the ship load! Time to walk the walk or hand the reins to someone else with a few (rigidly resisted) new ideas!
Alan B.

Stop the rot! No more RET and rent-seekers. Return power generation to where belongs - in government hands on behalf of the people, not with Chinese price-gougers

SM -
"The responsibility for the electricity networks in the states is 100% the responsibility of the states. With labor in power for 15yrs there is no one else they can blame, but it won't stop them trying:..."

Wrong : from the AEMO function statement...

"As the power systems operator for both the National and Wholesale Electricity Markets, AEMO is responsible for maintaining power system security and reliability.
The Future Power System Security program seeks to identify opportunities and challenges to power system security and stability that could arise in the long-term (nominally a 10-year outlook), and promote solutions as soon as practicable where appropriate."

Clearly SA is NOT responsible for the network nor is NSW, WA, VIC in the context of security and reliability.

SM - "But for states it is different. They do have the express power to direct AEMO in an emergency situation. Labor’s energy and ­environment spokesmen, Mark Butler and Tony Burke, seem to be ignorant of these basic facts. Last week Burke said “the state government is not in a position to direct the federal body” and Butler said “the one person who doesn’t have the power to intervene is the South Australian ­government”."

Wrong : from the AEMO EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT statement

"AEMO’s electricity emergency arrangements provide a framework for the coordination of electricity emergencies across the National Electricity Market (NEM). These arrangements – which are based on national emergency management principles established by Emergency Management Australia – outline the roles and responsibilities of AEMO, government, and industry during an energy emergency. This is key in ensuring the NEM and its participants respond to power system emergency situations in a way that protects:
The safety of employees and the public.
The continuity of supply to customers.
The security of the power system..."

The SA government may request intervention from AEMO but it is AEMO's responsibility to handle the emergency.

So the failure of power in SA is absolutely the fault of the AEMO!

In Winter 2017 after the March 2017 closure of Hazelwood Power Station many old, poor and disabled residents of South Australia and Victoria will freeze next time the LABOR power blackouts happen.

Goodonya LABOR political morons of South Australia and Victoria. Voters should vote Liberal, Conservative or further to the right to restore baseload power after the next State elections. After LABOR is voted out in those States.

A simple explanation for the normal non engineering people to understand
can be expressed this way.
We need a power system that can work at peak times, eg hot wx and strong wind.
So if solar & wind can do that fine do it !
However, sunset at 4-30 pm, and no wind we need a system that can
provide it.
So we need two systems.
The solar wind systems so we are told are cheaper, 66% of coal & gas ?
So we need to spend 2 1/2 times the amount of money to give the country
a reliable power supply.

This of course will turn up on your electricity bill.

Peter King, do you have a link to the Emergency plan for Electricity
Supply Emergency.
I have read the one for liquid fuels and which the States are banned
from having such a plan. I was wondering if the same applied to electricity.

Well If the liberals will bite the bullet and rollout nuclear power, then we need the liberals.

Otherwise we'll be stuck with Mark Butler once again energy minister and his broken record rethoric, nuclear power is not Labor policy.

Why not you may well ask, to which he can be guaranteed to respond, nuclear energy is not labor party policy, full stop! And nearly as smart as the answering machine that also carries the message!

And trotted out to ensure maximised antinuclear forever, green support for an absolute dog's breakfast of an energy policy, only remarkable for just how diabolically dumb it really is!

Am I the only who remembers when we last had affordable power, car manufacturing, profitable aluminum smelting and a steel industry not clinging on by one or two fingernails.

If this is what happens when warring political parties "fix" things, just to stay in power?

Then we need them gone along with the (political masters) green tail that wags the dog!

John Curtin and Ben Chifley must be turning in their graves? A drover's dog couldn't do worse!

We are not two nations at economic war with ourselves, just "one nation" against the rest of the world, and high time our policy paradigms reflected that!

Want more of the same then vote for it! Something else, anything else? Then vote for someone, anyone else! Or, roll over and beg for a tummy rub!
Alan B.

Peter,

You have the function of the AEMO arse about face.

"With its broad national focus for the future, AEMO’s objectives are to promote efficient investment in and operation of Australia’s electricity and gas markets for the long-term interests of consumers – with respect to price, quality, safety, reliability and security of energy supply."

i.e. AEMO operates the network on behalf of the state and provides recommendations with respect to investment to the state to control price, quality, safety, reliability and security of energy supply.

If the State refuses to invest in the network (second interconnector) as advised by the AEMO or implements stupid policies (50% renewables) against the advice of the AEMO, the AEMO can only operate the network with what is available, and the failures fall entirely at the foot of the SA labor government.

The state absolutely has the right to direct the AEMO to bring on additional back up power (far more so than the federal government), as federal labor government had to concede.

Alan B,

I agree that SA is a prime example of where nuclear power is a suitable fit. The problem is primarily SA labor not the federal coalition.

Absolute garbage Peter King.

When & only when AEMO can refuse to take any amount of alternate generated power can they be held responsible for these catastrophes.

While they are operating totally restricted by government regulations, requiring them to take all the wind power available, the only organisation responsible is the government that introduced & maintain those regulations.

Do try to be honest some times.

Hsbeen, I do not think that is quite right.
If the state has declared a state of emergency the Emergency
Controller is God.
He is usually the senior police officer involved.
If you refuse an instruction you will be arrested.
I can see it happening not directly related to electricity generation
but if the situation has a risk of life the state of emergency could be declared.

I have just been looking for a Federal Emergency Plan for electricity
but the various plans such as liquid fuels seem to hidden away.
They used to be readily accessible.

Hasbeen,

I am quoting the AEMO directly and without edits...if you think their statement is "garbage" I suggest you take it up with them.
Also you said "If the State refuses to invest in the network (second interconnector) as advised by the AEMO or implements stupid policies (50% renewables) against the advice of the AEMO, the AEMO can only operate the network with what is available, and the failures fall entirely at the foot of the SA labor government."
Is there any evidence that AEMO have recommended a secondary network connector and more importantly, that the SA government has refused? I doubt it. It is AEMO at the goverment's direction deliberately creating mischief I would suggest.

Bazz you can get the emergency Plan from the AEMO web site...it should be noted also that there is no definition (that I can find anywhere) that covers what constitutes an emergency!

Peter,
I doubt that the AEMO would have the power (sorry pun) to
declare a state of emergency.
That power resides with the minister for emergency services or if
he is not contactable the senior police officer or District
Emergency management officer.
Levels under the minister have never been used as I understand it.
What the AEMO does I expect is declare an emergency situation.
The difference is that the AEMO could not direct any person to take
any reasonable action to assist members of the public. requisition
military assistance, direct fire & SES etc etc.
Also spend lots of money.
When an emergency occurs the emergency order forms appear by magic,
at least that was how it seemed to me.

Peter,

I was quoting the AEMO purpose as on their front page. In simple small words,

The AEMO is responsible for:

1 The operation and maintenance of the network,
2 Giving advice for investment and upgrades of the network,

The AEMO is not:

1 Owned or controlled by the federal government,
2 Responsible for financing the upgrades of the network.

The states are:

1 Responsible for funding investment and upgrades of the network
2 Negotiating year to year the costs and strategies of running, and maintaining the networks including setting the conditions for reliability etc.

Notably the AEMO recommended a second interconnector more than 15 years ago which SA Labor promised and failed to build, which would have prevented most of these black outs.

In short, the responsibility for the network reliability falls completely at the feet of the SA labor government.

sm -"Notably the AEMO recommended a second interconnector more than 15 years ago which SA Labor promised and failed to build, which would have prevented most of these black outs."

It would have been hard for the AEMO to recommend a second conneector 15 years ago since it was only established in 2009.

In 2015 the AEMO produced a report "INTERCONNECTOR CAPABILITIES" in which the only recommendation is as follows;
"2.5.1. Proposed Augmentations
AEMO and ElectraNet have proposed an upgrade to increase the limit on the Heywood AC link from nominal 460 MW to 650 MW in both directions. However, the realised capacity may be lower under certain operating conditions. This project is due to be completed by mid-2016."

Additionally there is a second connector;
Murraylink is a 220 MW DC link between Red Cliffs in Victoria and Monash in South Australia.
It was commissioned in 2002. Runback schemes in South Australia and Victoria were commissioned along with Murraylink, and these handle many of the thermal issues in the Riverland of South Australia and western Victorian 220 kV.

It is also worth noting that the SA government is only peripherally involved in the provision of power as it is a technical issue between AEMO and in the case of SA, TransGrid and Powerlink. The details in the report also show graphically that theer is more than enough capacity on these 2 links to SA to meet the demands up to 2018.

So the SA government have definitely NOT ignored the technical issues; rather hung out to dry by AEMO.

PK,

OK, then it was SA labor that promised in 2002 when it first got into power, on the recommendation of the AEMO's predecessor that a second interconnector to NSW be built. If this second interconnector had been build, it is most probable that none of the black outs in the last year would have occurred.

All the state networks are wholly or partially owned by the states and the federal government has no part in them at all. The states essentially sub contract the AEMO to run their networks on their behalf.

When the coal generator and Pelican point closed down, it was blindingly obvious that the network, which had little to no improvements in nearly 2 decades was hopelessly inadequate.

Shadow: "When the coal generator and Pelican point closed down, it was blindingly obvious that the network, which had little to no improvements in nearly 2 decades was hopelessly inadequate."

You have no evidence that there has been no improvement for 2 decades. As I said before in 2002 another connector, Murraylink was built in 2002 and in 2015 the AEMO reported that there were no issues in the capacity of the connectors.

The decision to not fire up Pelican Point in the last outage was entirely an economic/ideology/political issue unrelated to the renewable supply. The problem is that the feds have deliberately chosen a strategy to undermine renewables by ensuring that national infrastructure is inadequate for the new paradigm.

PK,

Given that Northern power station and half Pelican point closed in 2016, the AEMO's 2015 assessment is certainly redundant.

The reason that Pelican point could not fire up the second part of its generation was because, having mothballed it, its contract only permitted enough gas supply for one unit, and would have been in violation of its contract, and was according to AEM rules not allowed to operate the second generator. Difficult to renegotiate in a few hours.

It now looks like Victoria will soon be facing the same problem.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/energy/power-shortages-loom-following-capacity-shutdowns-20150812-gixitd.html

SM, it seems to me that the political world does not understand what is going on.
If, it is insisted that we must have full solar and wind capability
then we MUST build two energy systems !
One, solar and wind capable of supplying everyone with power.
Two, a coal, gas, & nuclear capable of supplying everyone with power.
If the sun sets and the wind does not blow we use the 2nd choice.
Such a setup will cost close to double the cost of one of them.
How do we get them and the public to understand this ?

However then, can we afford to do that ? Is the finance available ?

New buzz words are "energy security" nonsense words on the basis of some State energy systems have been privatised. "Energy security" had been sold out in the past through privatisation, we are now paying the price

No Ant your logic is wrong.
Privately owned can be reliable, however when you privatise you
cannot change the rules later.
Those that bought the large generators then found that solar and wind
MUST be used if available. That means the large generators were only
able to pick up a full load when the sun set or the wind did not blow.
The result was underutilised plant.
They just could not make money so they switch off and walked away.
Did you expect those companies to subsidise Australia ?

Thanks Bazz, you make my point. Privatisation provides poorer services at greater cost

Ant,

Worldwide experience shows that government owned businesses provide poorer services at higher costs.

No Ant, I did not prove you right.
It is simple enough, if base load stations provide base load they make
money. However if you introduce a rule that says they cannot supply
if solar or wind is available they cannot be economic whether run by
government or business.
Surely that is not hard to understand ?
If you still do not understand that then I suggest you try another web site.
Or perhaps go into politics.