Energy
24 September 2018
How Angus Taylor can avoid becoming Minister for Threats and Subsidies
Australians want lower electricity prices and governments are scrambling to give the voters what they want. But in this scramble, base politics is overwhelming good policy and the line between taxpayers and consumers is being blurred to the point of absurdity.
6 September 2018
Australia is well placed to benefit from the widespread uptake of electric vehicles
Electric vehicles offer substantial environmental, social and economic benefits for Australia, and policy makers should do more to encourage their widespread use. In this submission, Grattan’s Tony Wood calls on the COAG Energy Council to support their efficient adoption.
22 August 2018
Capping electricity prices: a quick fix with hidden risks
Governments have got the message: Australians are angry about electricity prices. The federal government has made a decisive shift away from reducing emissions to reducing prices. The good news is that price caps will probably work as advertised. The bad news is that capping prices could also have unintended consequences.
21 August 2018
How the federal government can get to NEG 2.0
The good ship NEG had almost unanimous support from the energy sector’s suppliers and customers. Yet it has been deliberately run aground by the captain and his mutinous crew. Australians are left to wonder what can be salvaged from the wreck, and what the grounding means for investors and consumers.
21 August 2018
We should mourn the NEG, latest victim of the ‘political slaughterhouse’
For more than a decade, integrated energy and climate policy has been the desired pathway to affordable, reliable and low-emissions electricity. One of the more credible vehicles to get us on that pathway, the National Energy Guarantee (NEG), is the latest victim of the political slaughterhouse in Canberra that passes for government. Its death should be mourned by us all.
18 August 2018
Transforming Australia’s energy system should not be beyond us
Over the past 100 years, Australia has built a secure, reliable and affordable energy system, based on large, centralised, fossil-fuelled power stations close to the major cities. Over the next 30 years, this system must be transformed to one based almost entirely on widely-distributed, low-emissions energy sources such as solar and wind with complementary storage. This is an unprecedented economic, political, social and technical challenge.
15 August 2018
All sides of the climate wars should give the NEG a chance
Australian homes and businesses need lower electricity prices. How to make that happen is now a three-way debate between federal Labor, the federal government and a vocal minority in the government. Addressing climate change has been downgraded or vilified.
9 August 2018
What’s your state’s position at the crucial National Energy Guarantee meeting?
State and territory energy ministers will hold a crucial meeting today with their federal counterpart Josh Frydenberg. At stake is the future of the federal government’s flagship National Energy Guarantee (NEG), which if implemented could finally end Australia’s long-running uncertainty over climate and energy policy.
9 August 2018
NEG agreement will be our first step to energy sanity
When they meet on Friday, Australia’s energy ministers can trigger the beginning of the end of the climate wars by cautiously endorsing the National Energy Guarantee. Those who say the guarantee is enormously complex are wrong. It’s alarmingly simple.
24 July 2018
Australia’s emissions reduction targets: predictable flexibility for changing circumstances
The National Energy Guarantee (NEG) provides an opportunity to create a stable energy policy platform for Australia. The NEG must be flexible enough to cope with Australia’s changing energy policy landscape and include emissions targets that are consistent with Australia’s commitments under the Paris Agreement.