These people epitomise the moral vanity of those hucksters and believers in alternative fuels as a base load power source and its not before time that such rent seeking climate catastrophists and climate criminals were called out and brought up on charges. When push came to shove it was the much cheaper and reliable coal that saved the day. The talking points from Labor HQ in South Australia is that “the system worked as it was supposed to”. This is just whistling past the cemetery. If the system is designed to “Earth Hour” the entire state in one hit, then SA needs a better, work around system instead of relying on and bludging on the non mendicant states. Worth noting that back in July the spot price for electricity in South Australia went from $100 per megawatt hour to $14,000 (that’s not a typo) per MWh because they put all their eggs in the alternative energy basket. As I’ve been saying for the last 15 or 16 years, renewables are boutique at best and cannot deliver solid, reliable, AND cheap base load electricity.
An extract from the Australian editorial….
“…In May, South Australia’s Port Augusta coal-fired power station generated its last baseload power. Now the state depends on a neighbour (via interconnector with Victoria) and the nation’s biggest share of intermittent power (more than 40 per cent). The Weatherill government, which burnishes its clean, green credentials, relies on dirty brown coal-fired power from Victoria. The weakness of the state’s position was made crystal clear during the July 7 cold snap. The interconnector with Victoria was down, wind was low and gas prices were high. Wholesale electricity prices spiked from an average $100 per megawatt hour to almost $14,000/MWh.
South Australians are expected to pay wholesale electricity prices roughly double those of other states for more than two years. Theirs is a mendicant state with inefficient manufacturing always in search of subsidy yet the competitive advantage of cheap electricity has been frittered away under the Weatherill government. The Premier has been oblivious to this truth. In 2014, when he announced a 50 per cent renewable energy target, he boasted it would “create jobs and drive capital investment and advanced manufacturing industries”. Facts don’t get in the way of green power zealotry. Yesterday, for example, Greens energy spokesman Adam Bandt construed Malcolm Turnbull’s uncontroversial remarks on energy security as a cynical attempt to use a storm “fuelled by global warning” to set back the cause of renewable energy.
The July 7 crisis itself was a cautionary tale for other states thinking of going down the South Australian road. And, in August, a 10-year outlook report from the Australian Energy Market Operator said South Australia would be at greater risk of blackouts with predicted closures of coal-fired power generation in Victoria. The reliability of power supply down the interconnector could not be taken for granted, the report said…”