PLEA Network

29 September 2016, Renew Economy, Coalition launches fierce attack against wind and solar after blackout. The Coalition government launched a ferocious attack against wind and solar energy after the major South Australian blackout, even though energy minister Josh Frydenberg and the grid operators admit that the source of energy had nothing to do with catastrophic outage. Frydenberg, however, lined up with prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts, independent Senator Nick Xenophon and a host of conservative commentators, including Andrew Bolt, Alan Moran, the ABC’s Chris Ullmann, and Fairfax’ Brian Robins to exploit the blackout to question the use of renewable energy. Frydenberg used the blackout to continue his persistent campaign against the renewable energy targets of state Labor governments in South Australia, Victoria and Queensland, saying that the blackout was proof that these targets were “unrealistic.” He made clear that he wanted the states – South Australia and Queensland which are pushing for 50 per cent renewable energy, and Victoria 40 per cent – to abandon their schemes and conform to the federal target, which has target of about 23.5 per cent renewables. The federal scheme effectively ends in 2020, while the state based schemes provide longer term investment signals by providing a 2025 and 2030 time frames. “These states are pursuing these unrealistic targets ,” Frydenberg told ABC’s AM program. “My job is to try and get these states to the table … only the Commonwealth, with 23.5%, is a realistic target.” His comments were later repeated by Turnbull,who accused state Labor governments for imposing “ideological” renewable energy targets, describing the South Australian blackout as a “wake-up call” to focus on energy security. (It should be noted that South Australia’s wind fleet was built via the federal target, which is a bipartisan policy between the Coalition and Labor. It has a state target, but it is aspirational only, it has no particular state measures). Turnbull said there was “no doubt” that the “extremely aggressive” shift to renewables had strained the electricity network. Read More here