With gas prices on the rise and energy bills on the rise, Resources Minister Madeleine King called on coal power plants to increase their output as quickly as possible on Tuesday.
However, Adam Bandt, the leader of the Green Party, believes that this is the wrong step and that the focus should instead be on renewable energy. He also warned against the government subsidizing coal-fired power.
‘It would be pouring good money after bad to prop up these elderly facilities,’ he told the Daily Mail Australia.
‘No amount of fixing these filthy clunkers will solve the situation,’ says the author.
Mr Bandt believes Australia should follow the lead of the Australian Capital Territory, which has been generating all of its electricity from renewable sources since 2020.
While the east coast braces for higher prices, power bills in the ACT are scheduled to drop from July 1, saving consumers $23 per year.
Because it relies on solar and wind power and is less sensitive to global price fluctuations, the ACT is now paying less than a fifth of the NSW market price for electricity.
Mr Bandt stated, “The lesson from the ACT could not be clearer: go 100% renewables, break up with fossil fuels, and reap the benefits of cheaper, cleaner, and reliable energy.”
Labor claims that supplying 82 percent of electricity from cheaper renewable sources by 2030 will save households $275 per year by 2025 and $378 by 2030.
Ms King, on the other hand, stated that additional coal was required for the time being.
‘What we really need to do in the very short term is get the coal power plants back online because that is the missing piece of the puzzle right now,’ she said on ABC radio on Tuesday.
‘There have been unanticipated outages for a variety of reasons, many of which are beyond the operators’ control, and I accept that, but I hope they’re doing everything they can to ensure that this power source gets back online as well.’
Gas prices are under pressure globally as a result of nations’ rejection of Russia’s abundant gas following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Germany has prepared legislation to prohibit coal power plants from being decommissioned, instead mandating that they be kept on standby.
Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Czech Republic are also planning to burn more coal as a temporary measure to minimize their dependency on Russian gas, while the United Kingdom is exploring for more gas in the North Sea.
Due to scheduled and unscheduled maintenance concerns, AGL currently has three coal power units in NSW and Victoria that are either offline or operating at a reduced capacity.
The largest power station in NSW, Origin’s Eraring, has also been hampered by coal production cuts at a nearby conveyor belt-connected coalmine.