Q+A panellists back Labor's grand plan on rewiring the energy grid but warn 'it won't be easy'

Extract from ABC News

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By political reporter Elias Clure

Posted 5 hours ago

The panel hoped the current crisis would create political will to see a massive shift in Australia's energy market.(ABC: Q+A)

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It will be a bumpy and challenging road but Q+A panellists have backed Labor's ambitious, grand plan to rewire the nation's energy grid.

Key points:

• Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the government will look to radically upgrade transmission in Australia
• Scientist Saul Griffith said the nation was way behind in terms of modernising the grid
• Tony Wood said the re-wiring plan would be one of the most challenging in the nation's history

As Australia continues to wade through a national crisis that has seen the wholesale electricity spot market suspended, Energy Minister Chris Bowen on Thursday said the government will stick to its guns and look to radically upgrade transmission in Australia by connecting significantly more renewable power to the grid.

"We need to build 10,000km more of transmission lines, we need to increase our storage by nine times and that's a massive challenge … and we need to get on with it," Mr Bowen said.

Massive challenge

But the task will not be an easy one and the nation is entering one of the most challenging points of the transition to cleaner energy, according to members of the panel, hosted by Virginia Trioli.

Australian Energy Council CEO Sarah McNamara said connecting the huge amounts of clean energy sources coming online will be difficult.

"[We need] to support renewables coming online and acknowledge that we have a lot more distributed energy resources as well now, people in their homes, when you have solar on your roof you're essentially becoming a generator into our grid as well, that's a huge challenge and that's a big reform of this complex machine that is our grid," she said.

Scientist Saul Griffith said the nation is way behind where it should be when it comes to modernising the grid.

"We're trying to take a system that was designed for a few dozens of generators where we're going to have 10-plus millions, we're going to have 30 million batteries on wheels," he said.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen said 10,000 km more of transmission lines are needed.(Q+A)

The Grattan Institute's Tony Wood said the re-wiring plan will be one of the most challenging in the nation's history and currently, Australia does not have the materials or labour to get it done.

"This will be one of Australia's great rebuilding projects, this is bigger than building Snowy hydro after the war, getting the labour, mobilising the materials — any simple numbers will tell you this is an enormous challenge," he added.

Overhaul how Australia's energy market works

The panellists hoped the current energy crisis would create political will to see a massive shift in how Australia's energy market works.

Dr Griffith said the government should look towards investing more in households to ensure they're part of the shift.

"I think about Australia's 10 million households as national infrastructure … we need to finance Australia's households with the same preferential financing that we give to infrastructure in Australia and you should think about our cars and our homes in the same way as we think of Snowy 2.0."

Another consensus on the panel was reached when the discussion turned to the current grid, and the fact it is simply not working.

"In short, no," said Mr Bowen when asked if the system was functioning.

Sarah McNamara said the system had served Australia well but had met its ultimate challenge and a "perfect storm" of events which meant it could not cope.

The often-controversial topic of taxing generators was raised by newly elected independent Zoe Daniel, who proposed energy producers should be taxed as the price of gas skyrockets.

Demand for Australian gas spiked as war broke out in Ukraine, as Russia is one of the world's largest producers of gas.

Ms Daniel suggested the generators could be taxed the difference on what the companies were making before the conflict.

"Consider how much money that might mean and consider what that might mean to put solar on rooftops and create this electrification that we're talking about," she said.

Dr Griffith agreed, stating: "We have to make today's problem solve the next few decades."

He added that Norway had used taxes from gas export profits to help subsidise a transition to electric vehicles.

But Ms McNamara, who represents the generators and energy retailers, said such a task would be tricky.

"It's very difficult for governments to retrospectively apply taxes and controls on resources that are already being exported overseas on long-term contracts," she said.

The panel agreed that reducing emissions was the ultimate goal, but there was a long way to go before it could become a reality.

Watch the full episode on iview or via the Q+A Facebook page.