The head of the Australian Energy Market Operator has called for urgent investment in generation and transmission capacity to support the transition to low-carbon energy, saying this winter’s crisis in the National Electricity Market only highlighted the need to move fast.
Network outages added to the pressures on the grid, limiting the ability to source electrons from the cheapest form of generation. Today, however, Westerman looks back on the winter crisis and takes big positives out of it, especially the proof of the great expertise on hand across the industry to deal with the huge challenges, and the openness, transparency and collaboration between AEMO, governments and industry to tackle them.
Westerman highlighted the need for action in four areas in particular: building low-cost renewable generation; putting in place sufficient firming generation to support peak demand when renewable generation is low; getting transmission built efficiently and in as timely a fashion as possible; and improving the stability of the grid and equipping it to deal with a high penetration of renewable energy.
The grid wasn't 'stretched to breaking point'. The privatised mess simply turned the generators off because it wasn't profitable. Gas/coal prices through the roof + consumers locked into fixed price contracts = unprofitable, so they 'broke' or were 'down for maintenance'.