South Australia energy minister Tom Koutsantonis has slammed the federal government’s proposed National Energy Guarantee, saying it is nothing more than an attack on renewable energy, and cannot be supported.
“This is of great concern to South Australia,” Koutsantonis said while addressing a conference [South Australian Smart Energy Summit] in Adelaide. “We cannot support the National Energy Guarantee …. And the reason is because at its core, it is an attack on renewable energy.
“The National Energy Guarantee assumes that renewable energy is the problem … it assumes that renewable energy has done harm to the grid and must be stopped somehow.”
“It’s not a National Energy Guarantee at all, it is a guarantee for coal. It is an attempt to subsidise and keep alive coal fired generation in the largest state in country.
“Our fear is that it will do the opposite of lowering prices …. and entrench monopoly behaviour (of fossil fuel generators).”
Koutsantonis’ comments reflect widespread and growing concerns about the nature of the NEG, its failure to address emissions, its modeling that suggests renewables will be stopped in their tracks, its likely impact of raising prices rather than lowering them, and entrenching the power of the incumbent generators and their coal assets.
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“This guarantee …. spells dirty coal. How can any jurisdiction support that?
“It doesn’t meet our needs. It doesn’t meet the Paris agreement … all it is is a nod and a wink to the coal industry. And we can’t support it.”
— excerpts from an article by Giles Parkinson at reneweconomy.com
