In a recent article on The Conversation, University of Melbourne Professor Emeritus Frank Larkins wrote that Australia’s targets to increase renewable energy will make electricity more expensive, thanks…
Water storage is used to smooth the output from hydroelectric power - but it can be used with other renewables too.
Martin Kraft/Wikimedia Commons
More and more renewable energy sources are being plugged into Australia’s electricity grids. South Australia, for example, will get 40% of its electricity from wind and solar once the Snowtown wind farm…
If you wonder why there is so much antipathy towards the Renewable Energy Target from the electricity utilities, all you need to do is look at what is happening to demand for poles and wires electricity…
We need more types of electricity in our mix.
Flickr/Chip_2904
Australia has a problem with its power system that goes to the core of many issues we’re facing at the moment — increasing coal and gas prices, changing electricity usage, and climate change. That’s the…
Australia’s energy regulations need a clean up.
Flickr/Looking Glass
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd ducked the question of changes to carbon pricing in his National Press Club address yesterday. But he put energy market reform at the top of his “New National Competitiveness…
Wind power now contributes 3.8% to the electricity market.
Flickr/Bush Philosopher - Dave Clarke
Let’s be honest: the relationship between renewable energy and the electricity market is complex. So what does the latest report from Australian energy research firm RepuTex tell us? Well, for a start…
Giving electricity providers something to aim for could reduce prices.
Ville Miettinen
Better managing peak demand, the primary culprit behind recent rapid price rises across Australia, is a key challenge facing Eastern Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM). To deal with peak demand…
Focusing on Australian electricity competitiveness will drive valuable investment in electricity-intensive industry.
Jake Trussell
Electricity-intensive investment isn’t coming Australia’s way. We use our many natural resources to underpin our productivity and prosperity and we are extracting increasing amounts of metal from the ground…
History suggests privatisation of the electricity industry is not such a bright idea.
Image from www.shutterstock.com
Surging power prices are having savage consequences for household discretionary incomes. Some would blame the government’s carbon tax, but the real culprit is price gouging. Judging from the pronouncements…
The National Electricity Market is in chronic failure mode.
Sveter Sveter
The Senate Select Committee on Electricity Pricing tabled its report in Parliament on November 1. The inquiry found substantial evidence of failures in the rules and operation of the electricity market…
AEMO is modelling the path to 100% renewables.
Stefan Gara
The Federal Government (presumably under pressure from the Greens) has given the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) the job of coming up with a 100% renewable energy scenario for 2030 and 2050. The…
Australian household energy use increased by more than 30% in the past two decades.
ctandjung/Flickr
Electricity prices are a hot topic. Prices have skyrocketed in recent years and politicians have finally realised that people are struggling to pay energy bills. Power of Choice, an Australian Energy Market…
Electricity price rises can be traced to a number of factors.
AAP Image
As the political debate around rising power prices and the carbon tax heats up, there is a renewed debate around the privatisation of electricity distribution in New South Wales. With power prices sure…
Pretty much everyone agrees with Julia Gillard’s assessment of why power prices are up. But there are many views on how to bring them down.
Tom Taker
Mr Abbott has learnt the hard way that the electricity industry is complex and that there is more to rising electricity bills than carbon pricing. Ms Gillard correctly identified rising costs of “poles…
The government should have been addressing electricity arrangements for the last four years.
Laurent LaSalle
The Prime Minister gave a speech on August 7 entitled Electricity prices: the facts. She explained, correctly, that the costs of transmission and distribution (network costs, otherwise referred to as “poles…
Not winning them over… some plain speaking might have helped the Gillard government explain just how the carbon tax will impact on electricity prices.
AAP
Confusion continues on how the carbon tax will hit the electricity bills of Australian households. While messages from electricity retailers may be on their way, Gujji Muthuswamy from Monash University’s…