Essay by Eric Worrall
Surprise – despite the political promise of cheaper electricity bills, it turns out someone has to pay the trillions of dollars needed to “switch” to renewable energy.
Electricity prices soar as energy transition slows
Angela Macdonald-Smithand Jenny Wiggins
Updated October 10, 2022 – 6:40pm, first published at 2:19pm…
“Next year, using current market prices, tariffs will increase by a minimum of 35%,” said Alinta Energy CEO Jeff Dimery told the summit in Sydney, with disagreements from Origin Energy and EnergyAustralia.
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Mr Dimery warned Australia was “out of time” in providing policies to support investment in newly strengthened renewable energy to replace coal power plants operating at a rapid rate, exacerbating the problem. increase price pressure.
“What’s worth $1 billion to get will cost me $8 billion to replace. So let’s talk about that and still explain to me how energy prices go down, I don’t get it.“
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It will be difficult to achieve the electricity price reductions promised by the Labor Department in 2025 before the election in May, although Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Bowen has not waived that guarantee.
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“It seems that some people think [the energy transition] would be easy and cheap, but I think most people in this room understand that it’s hard and expensive and has the potential to drive up energy bills [up] for the foreseeable future,” said Andrew Richards, CEO of the Australian Energy Users Association.
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“If you look at the amount of investment required… [estimates] consider any investment of $100 to $120 trillion needed to make the transition by 2050. That’s an order of magnitude larger than the supply chain can handle today.”
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Read more (with wall fee): https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/ Electricality-prices-tipped-to-rise-at-least-35pc-in-2023-20221010-p5boif
Can no one run the numbers, before our politicians open their mouths and commit to an energy solution that can’t be expensive?
Note that over US$100 trillion is most likely a global conversion estimate, although this is not clear in context.
By my estimation, transition costs in Australia are around AU$7 trillion, most of which is battery backup. Although this estimate is only the replacement cost of current demand, it does not include the cost of providing additional electricity for the 100% electric vehicle fleet.
And of course, there’s the real question of whether the transition is possible, Solar producers in Europe appear to be choosing to close their plants rather than face the prospect of using their own products to power their operations..
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