I don’t know why MB is the only one that reports this accurately. Rising energy prices for the past decade has been a gas story. Not renewables. Not coal.
I guess it is typical of the siloing of media into vertical markets. Conservatives cheer coal. Progressives cheer renewables.
Nobody cheers the truth: that gas sets the price of power.
The last 24 hours is a great example.
The gas price has been at a ludicrous $12Gj for weeks, but the cost of wholesale power has kept falling because renewables were strong:
However, the moment that we get cloud or weak wind, gas returns as the primary source of firming power and the electricity price surges:
In the past day, gas volume usage has been double the past few months and power prices doubled:
The Albanese Government is focused on rolling out more renewables rather than boosting clean firming power to replace gas. Even though renewables will come anyway.
Deliberately or, more likely, mistakenly, Albo has made a political decision to prioritise the removal of coal from the grid as soon as possible, over managing the costs of doing so for businesses and households.
That cost is primarily from gas, which Albo fears regulating correctly. As coal exits, the gas cartel will set the electricity price more often. See power futures:
Nor is Albo doing anything much to boost batteries which would substitute the gas cartel.
The fallout of this vertical policy mismatch is landing on state governments that desperately support uneconomic coal plants rather than allow cost blowouts or blackouts.
It is another complete mess by wall-to-wall corporatised Labor governments that do not have the balls nor brains for proper reform.
