Labor to tell business it won't let energy policy be held 'hostage'

Extract from The Guardian

Energy

Pat Conroy will tell energy summit that Labor won’t delay action endlessly in a fruitless quest for bipartisanship

Katharine Murphy Political editor

@murpharoo

Wed 20 Mar 2019 04.00 AEDT Last modified on Wed 20 Mar 2019 04.30 AEDT

Bill Shorten unveiled a 10-year plan to boost the share of renewable energy in the grid and retire coal generation. Photograph: David Crosling/AAP

Labor will use an energy summit convened by small business to declare it will not “be hostage to repeal politics” if it wins the coming federal election, warning it will press ahead with emissions reduction in the electricity sector even if the Liberal party won’t reconcile itself to the national energy guarantee.
Pat Conroy, the shadow assistant minister for climate and energy, will tell Wednesday’s summit Labor wants bipartisan agreement post-election, and will pursue the national energy guarantee developed by Malcolm Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg – a policy that remains popular with a number of stakeholders, including business groups, despite being dumped by Scott Morrison.

But Conroy will also use Wednesday’s outing to put business on notice, telling them an incoming Labor government will not delay policy action endlessly in a fruitless quest for bipartisanship.
“We will not allow the energy sector to be hostage to the repeal politics we saw at the turn of the decade,” Conroy will tell the summit. “Instead we will progress a 10-year energy investment plan that will deliver certainty to the energy sector through long-term contracts – contracts that will enable massive investment in new generation at the cheapest possible cost.”
Bill Shorten last November outlined Labor’s plan B in the event Labor wins the May election and the Coalition can’t be persuaded, post-election, to back its own policy with a higher emissions reduction target of 45%.

Pat Conroy will warn that Labor will press ahead with emissions reduction in the electricity sector even if the Liberal party won’t reconcile itself to the national energy guarantee. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Shorten committed to topping up the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to the tune of $10bn and unveiled a new $5bn fund to modernise ageing transmission infrastructure – the ramparts of a 10-year plan to boost the share of renewable energy in the grid and retire coal generation.
The Labor leader said he would use the Australian Energy Market Operator’s integrated system plan as the basis for transforming the energy system, with a Shorten government playing a hands-on role creating renewable energy zones, investing in new generation and transmission infrastructure and also in firming technologies, like batteries and gas peaking plants.

Moving away from the national energy guarantee, even though Labor has clearly telegraphed that possibility, will likely generate pushback in the business community which rallied in support of the policy which became a casualty of the conservative-led push against Turnbull’s leadership of the Liberal party.

While the Morrison government has been attempting to increase political pressure over Labor’s higher emissions reduction target, warning of the costs associated with a more rapid transition to low emissions technologies, Conroy will insist on Wednesday that Labor’s policies will deliver lower energy prices.

He says there has been an increase in wholesale electricity costs principally because of “the failure of the current government to establish and implement a stable and coherent climate and energy policy”.
“We have had nearly 5,200 megawatts of capacity retire in the last seven years, in fact nearly 4,000 megawatts of capacity has retired since August 2014,” Conroy will say.
“This has led to a tightening of the wholesale energy market as insufficient supply has been added, and this has led to black coal and gas generators increasing their share of time as the marginal generator, thereby setting the price.
“Beyond being more expensive forms of generation, the cost of black coal and gas has risen at the same time leading to higher wholesale prices.”

Conroy says Labor’s commitment to achieving 50% renewable energy and the associated investment in transmission infrastructure to make the renewable energy reliable, “will actually deliver lower power prices than what would otherwise be”.