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Energy Prices Skyrocket in South Australia (yahoo.com)
Slashdot reader sycodon quotes an article from AFR:
Turmoil in South Australia's heavily wind-reliant electricity market has forced the state government to plead with the owner of a mothballed gas-fired power station to turn it back on. The emergency measures are needed to ease punishing costs for South Australian industry as National Electricity Market prices in the state have frequently surged above $1000 a megawatt hour this month and at one point on Tuesday hit the $14,000/MWh maximum price...
"A planned outage of the Heywood Interconnector to Victoria, coupled with higher than expected gas prices and severe weather conditions have contributed to large-scale price volatility in the energy spot market in recent days," said South Australia's energy minister, Tom Koutsantonis. The Australian Associated Press adds that "The state Labor government has invested heavily in wind and solar energy at the expense of baseload power, a move critics say has left the state exposed during poor weather. Mr. Koutsantonis has described the energy volatility as a failure of the national energy market because a lack of interconnection means South Australia often produces more renewable power than it can sell into the grid. But opposition spokesman Dan van Holst Pellekaan said the government had been too hasty to invest in renewables."
"A planned outage of the Heywood Interconnector to Victoria, coupled with higher than expected gas prices and severe weather conditions have contributed to large-scale price volatility in the energy spot market in recent days," said South Australia's energy minister, Tom Koutsantonis. The Australian Associated Press adds that "The state Labor government has invested heavily in wind and solar energy at the expense of baseload power, a move critics say has left the state exposed during poor weather. Mr. Koutsantonis has described the energy volatility as a failure of the national energy market because a lack of interconnection means South Australia often produces more renewable power than it can sell into the grid. But opposition spokesman Dan van Holst Pellekaan said the government had been too hasty to invest in renewables."
Corruption in the power industry has been driving up prices
http://www.smh.com.au/business...
Despite this Australians keep re-electing the corrupt Labor and Liberal parties anyway, so serves them right. You get what you vote for.
Sorry, I'm with the GP. This is clearly a scam. It's not about energy, it's a disagreement over the price. And it's another reason not to privatize critical resources. I am astounded that the people are letting them get away with it. Unfortunately little will be learned from this, as the water issue also illustrates so well.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
One thing the US got right is its regulation of electricity and gas utilities, energy is cheap. The federal govt still owns the hydro dams it built and sells electricity at cost + 11%, in Washington state that equates to about (last time I checked) 5 or 6c/kWh. As a residential consumer in western Washington I pay 10c/kWh, and only have to deal with one choice of company, vs the BS system in NZ with dozens of retailers advertising and cold calling trying to get you to switch to their complex pricing models, meanwhile electricity there is now 25 to 30c/kWh because shareholders need their return on investment, the network gets minimal upkeep, and prices go up every time something breaks down.
My off grid Australian house needs the diesel generator for about an hour a day for five months of the year, and is on solar and lead acids the rest of the time. I bought $40 of fuel in May and haven't used it all yet.