He said even people could chip in and help by avoiding putting on the dishwasher until they go to bed. The New South Wales Energy Minister, Matt Kean, has gone as far as calling on residents in his state to reduce their power consumption in the evenings to help the grid cope with a lack of supply. But can you tell me a bit about how various state governments around the country are reacting? What are they saying to the people who live in their state about the issues with supply that they're all experiencing? And I suppose when we look at the current situation, there's a lot of blame to go around. It's a crisis that's been building for years, and the last Federal Labor government can share the blame for not insisting on a reservation policy for gas producers as they began exploiting our vast resources.īut that short sightedness was over a decade ago, and in the years since, the situation has worsened due to a lack of policy development and clarity on the future of coal, gas and renewables. “There are a number of factors that go into price, which I'm not going to speculate on here, but I'm focussed on today, is making sure that we have safe, reliable energy for consumers throughout Australia.” And for as long as this suspension stays in place, it means electricity will be sold to retailers at a fixed price set by the regulator. Now, suspending the markets being the best way to ensure reliable electricity is a pretty incredible thing for the market operator to say. “What we're creating today is a secure electricity system where we're able to manage supply and demand in real time and have visibility on any gaps in between supply and demand for the foreseeable future…” So the Australian energy market operator said for the first time in its history it would suspend the market and said this was the best way to quote ensure a reliable supply of electricity. “The energy regulator has just declared it suspended the spot market in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria, with markets suspended…” After days and weeks of chaos in the market and allegations that generators were withholding supply, waiting for compensation mechanisms to kick in so they could get the top dollar to put their electricity into the grid. Well, basically it means, Ruby, the market between electricity generators and electricity retailers who households buy their electricity from got too difficult to manage this week. Before we get to the politics of it all, Paul, what exactly does suspending the energy market actually mean? Paul, the energy market regulator AEMO took the extraordinary step of pausing the electricity wholesale market this week. Today, columnist for The Saturday Paper Paul Bongiorno, on the suspension of the energy market… and the political blame game that's followed. So - the question now is, how do you fix over a decade of political inaction? It’s the first time the Australian energy market operator has ever had to take that step… to keep electricity flowing to homes and to businesses.īut this crisis has been decades in the making, caused by a policy vacuum that both sides of politics share responsibility for. This week, the wholesale energy market was suspended. From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.
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