Essay by Eric Worrall
“… AEMO says… some gas and diesel generators are not interested in providing electricity below the ceiling price. It said it would take action to force them online. … ”Remember, Winter has only just begun in Australia.
AEMO warns of widespread offloading in Queensland and NSW on supplies
Giles Parkinson June 13, 2022
The Australian Energy Markets Regulatory Authority has warned of the potential for widespread offloading in Australia’s most coal-dependent states – Queensland on Monday and NSW on Tuesday – because of a lack of supply, or say than lack of will to supply supply below the newly imposed price cap.
The warning of a possible forced outage comes just hours after the market operator extended its price cap for the second consecutive trading day after prices in Queensland breached a trigger point of $1,359 million in the past week. seven days before.
The deepening crisis comes as a quarter of Queensland’s coal capacity remains on the sidelines due to maintenance and unexpected power outages, and some gas and diesel generators are out of service. All in all, more than half of the registered capacity in the state is being provisioned.
AEMO said the risk of offloading is exacerbated by some gas and diesel generators that are not interested in providing electricity below the ceiling price. It said it would take action to force them online.
…
The Australian federal government’s response to skyrocketing prices and scarcity seems to me to refer to as the “Venezuela Solution”, imposing a hard price cap.
Some emergency generator owners have refused to provide electricity below the ceiling price, so the plan is to use threats of prosecution to force generators to operate, regardless of financial situation, to ensure make sure the power grid is not damaged.
I can’t help but think that the Australian government has a gun, effectively prosecuting the heads of electricity suppliers and requiring them to supply energy at the prices the government has set, which could lead to an increase in energy costs. increase the number of generators having “unscheduled maintenance shutdown”.
If electricity suppliers resist and the grid goes down, what is the government’s next step? Bringing in the military to take over power generation facilities by force?
Don’t forget all these problems are caused by decades of government inefficiency on both sides of Australian politics, an irrational obsession with the transition to green energy began in mid 1990s.
If Prime Minister Albanese and his predecessors had not created such a hostile environment for power investors could dispute by voicing the green transition, or not publicly denouncing it. , if some of his companion state governments did not permanently banned from jailbreaking and in some cases encouraged and celebrated the demolition of coal power plants, we will not be in this situation.
Let’s just say I’m glad I upgraded my home backup generator a few weeks ago, before this predictable disaster hit.
Related
