Never waste a good crisis I guess, From the AFR:
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wants a new national renewable energy target across all states and territories, as he used the state-wide blackout in South Australia to focus on energy security.
…Mr Turnbull said state Labor governments have set “extremely aggressive, extremely unrealistic” targets and he wanted a new unified national renewables target.
“A number of the state Labor governments have over the years set priorities and renewable targets that are extremely aggressive, extremely unrealistic, and have paid little or no attention to energy security. “This is not just focused on SA but the same observation can be made about Queensland or indeed Victoria.
“The state-based targets, some of which are completely unrealistic. Queensland, for example, has 50 per cent renewable target currently, renewables are about 4.5 per cent of their mix. So what’s the pathway to achieve that? Very hard to see it. It’s a political or ideological statement.
“I’ve asked the Energy Minister, my Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, to bring the state Energy Ministers together in what will be a precursor to my discussion with the Premiers to ensure that we move towards a national renewables target,” he said.
And how did these states end up with these beefed-up RET schemes? In part because the Coalition destroyed carbon pricing.
Having said that, nationally co-ordinated RETs would be a lot better even if it does not have a whole hell of lot to do with what happened in SA. When power lines come down it doesn’t really matter who’s generating the electricity.
