10 June 2021
Energy market experts have raised more concerns over the Morrison government’s proposal to build a new 660MW gas peaking plant in the Hunter region, saying the benefits of the plant have been overstated and is at serious risk of blowing out the $600 million of public funds allocated to the project.
Analysis of the Kurri Kurri power station proposal, being developed by government-owned Snowy Hydro has been completed by energy sector experts professor Bruce Mountain, Dr Steven Percy and former energy executive Ted Woodley, and published by the Victoria Energy Policy Centre.
The paper, which assessed the merit of the proposed Kurri Kurri gas plant, found that the proposal put forward by Snowy Hydro has potentially significantly underestimated the true cost of building the gas fired generator and overestimated the project’s ability to both deliver power when needed and lower electricity prices.
28 April 2021
A new report has claimed that the cost to solar households of a proposed charge for exports to the grid could be more than double that projected by the Australian Energy Market Commission, potentially leaving many solar homes with little or no income for their surplus generation.
The report, published this week by Victoria University’s Professor Bruce Mountain, critiques the AEMC’s calculation of the impact of the network charge for solar exports, as proposed in a draft determination last month.
As RenewEconomy reported at the time, modelling produced in a 250-page document proposed a tariff of around 2c/kWh for exports in the middle of the day, which the AEMC estimated would cost the average solar household up to $100 a year.
8 April 2021
The ACOSS article seeks to correct what it said were “mis-conceptions and false accusations” in the public debate about the AEMC’s proposed rule to allow networks to charge distributed generators to use the grid.
ACOSS’s article references my previous contributions – here and here – as the source of such mis-conceptions and false accusations. These are serious claims to make. ACOSS is a respectable organisation and I am a university professor and Director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre.
Enough background, on with the debate. Here is my open letter to ACOSS in response.
“Dear ACOSS, thank you for your article. You make many points in it. Let me please respond to the main ones in the order you present them.
Now they want to charge households for exporting solar electricity to the grid — it ll send the system backwards architectureanddesign.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from architectureanddesign.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.