One might ordinarily cheer this:
Energy giant Shell has approved a 120MW solar plant in Queensland’s Western Downs region, two months after buying a stake in Australian renewable power developer Esco Pacific.
Shell will buy supplies from the Gangarri project near Wandoan, due early 2021, with the same amount of electricity bought from the national grid and sold to its QGC gas business cutting its carbon emissions by 300,000 tonnes a year.
It follows a deal struck by Shell in December with Esco which boosted its renewable project options on the nation’s east coast.
“Solar is one of the building blocks of Shell’s power strategy,” said Greg Joiner, Vice-President for Shell Energy in Australia.
“We are increasingly incorporating renewable energy into customer offers, as we have done here for QGC, by combining renewable energy with a firmed energy solution offering reliable supply, a fixed price and a cleaner lower emission package.”
But becasue Shell is one of the dominant gas careteliers on the east coast, what this is really doing is adding further rents to its vertical energy tower. Since it controls the gas price, and the gas price determines the electrity price, why not shift downstream to cream the power market with cheap remewables on rentier margins as well?
Nice work if you can get it.
