The government says it is on track to implement a plan to deliver lower energy bills through renewables as the coalition says it will oppose a bill increasing carbon emissions reductions.
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) led a takeover of the national electricity market last week after operators were accused of prioritizing their profits over household supplies.
The unprecedented intervention came as temperatures plummeted and prices rose with a quarter of coal generators offline, suggesting that the national power supply was in turmoil.
Tony Burke said the government remains on track to deliver its election promise.
But senior minister Tony Burke says the government remains on track to make an election promise to cut household electricity bills by $275 through its Powering Australia policy.
“We’ll get it done,” he said on Sunday. “We stand behind the modeling.
“What we are going to do in particular with transport, you can get cheaper energy on the grid [… that will] cause downward pressure on prices.
“Renewables are the cheapest form of energy, but if you want to get your renewables and your battery storage on the grid, you need to improve transmission.”
Opposition leader Peter Dutton said the coalition would not support legislation for a more expensive 43 percent emissions reduction target by 2030 but declined to specify the size of its more modest target.
“We will announce that before the next election,” Dutton told ABC.
The government will introduce legislation next month that enshrines a higher purpose in the law, which it says will support future investment in renewables.
But the opposition leader denied that the coalition bore any particular responsibility for an energy crisis after nine years in power, suggesting that conflicting reports from state governments contributed to an overall energy policy failure.
“There are mistakes everywhere,” he said.
The government has rejected critics who called for it to invest money in coal-fired generators to support the national electricity grid.
But Mr. Dutton said fossil fuels should remain part of the national energy supply.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton said fossil fuels should remain part of the national energy supply. Photo: Getty
“We have a huge gas supply in the north and west of this country,” he said.
But without additional policy interventions, further gas exploration would eventually increase the volume sold in international markets.
As state governments discuss possible avenues to revitalize the energy market, export controls such as those on Western Australia’s gas market are under consideration.
AEMO led a takeover of the national electricity market after it accused operators of ripping power from sales to drive prices up.
Power companies said they were responding to a newly imposed price cap that made power sales uneconomical.
Under the terms of the current acquisition, producers will receive instructions from AEMO on when to make their generation available to the wider market.
The national market will run according to a historical average of prices.
Earlier Sunday, shadow treasurer and former coalition energy minister Angus Taylor defended the coalition’s record of managing energy supplies under pressure.
“There is no doubt that there has been upward pressure on energy prices around the world; there is no doubt about it,” he said.
“We had successfully accomplished that in the run-up to the elections.
“We showed how you do that when you focus on supplies and don’t demonize traditional fuel sources.”
On Saturday, New South Wales Prime Minister Dominic Perrottet said that energy policy had been consumed by an “ideological war” that had discouraged investment.
