(20 June 2022 – Australia) Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese asserts that his plan to invest in battery storage and upgrade the energy grid will deliver certainty corporates need to bump up overdue investment in clean energy.
The new Albanese Australian federal government is seeking to upgrade Australia’s energy transmission grid and invest in community batteries as a means to encourage private investment. It estimates the plan will bring $52 million in private sector investment into cleaner energy in the coming years, creating further business certainty.
Mr Albanese lamented the fact that up to a quarter of the eastern seaboard energy market is out of order due to the “sunsetting” of facilities reaching the end of their operating life.
“Almost a decade of delay and denial under the previous government has thwarted investment into the renewable energy sector. There is a problem of supply when it comes down to energy in Australia, and it is no good gilding the lily and pretending that hasn’t happened. People want an end to the nonsense that’s gone on for the last decade” Prime Minister Albanese stated.
“The plan is no different from people putting solar panels on their roofs. Once you make that outlay, then energy becomes cheaper in the future and then you become so competitive. So if we get this right, this can be an opportunity to drive new jobs, new industries. We need new investment in the system, and the cheapest form of new investment is clean energy.”
“You can’t fix ten years of inaction in just ten days but we are taking immediate action through the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) to make sure that the lights stay on. At the same time, we’re making sure that we create the investment environment to make sure we get it right” Mr Albanese added.
Last week the AEMO suspended the wholesale electricity spot market across all five participating National Electricity Market (NEM) states, stating it has become “impossible” to operate because of the soaring cost of fossil fuels and generators withholding their capacity from the market.