A meltdown in the NSW electricity market has prompted warnings that Australia's energy transition is off course.A huge NSW coal plant will be kept online longer but there are worries about a shortage of new capacity.
It's believed to be only the second time the market operator has had to make such an intervention in NSW — the first being the energy crisis of 2022.One of the affected plants was the giant Eraring power station, which the Minns government this week announced would be kept open until 2027, two years later than planned by its private owners, Origin Energy.
"We're not at the extreme levels with pricing we were at 18 months ago when AEMO had to step in and coordinate the market," Mr Dimery said. "So I think that it's not so much my opinion, it's the facts that are telling us that we're not getting it right." Mr Dimery said adding in ever more intermittent renewable energy without the capacity to back it up for days at a time was fraught.While batteries were extremely well suited to tasks lasting up to about four hours, he said other options were desperately needed for longer-duration requirements.
The Origin chief said the volume of gas that would need to be burnt for electricity in Australia would continue to fall in future as more and more renewable energy was added to the system. Under the deal, the government will underwrite a two-year extension of the 2880MW plant until at least August 2027 at a cost of as much as $225 million a year.Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen stood by the government's decision not to include gas in the capacity investment scheme.