The good news is electricity prices are falling, decarbonisation is accelerating, and there should be little need for public subsidies for fossil fuel companies, despite their demands. Michael West speaks with energy finance analyst and renewable energy export Tim Buckley.
Energy consumers are getting used to dancing with their provider each year to not be ripped off. But that’s no easy waltz. The twists and turns can make anyone dizzy. Sandi Logan knows the score.
Multinational oil companies BP and TotalEnergies emerged as winners in Germany’s latest auction for the right to build offshore wind farms in the North and Baltic seas. The companies, which are headquartered in the UK and France, bid a combined 12.6 billion euros to construct turbines with a total capacity of 7 gigawatts (GW), roughly equivalent to 7 large conventional power stations, and almost equalling the country’s entire existing offshore capacity.
On average, excluding publicly owned Essential Energy, network providers are earning a 13-14% super-profit across the east coast and South Australia.
By contrast, Essential Energy, an NSW Government-owned corporation that services rural NSW and parts of southern Queensland, charges no super-profits whatsoever actually taking a 1% haircut on return on investment according to Orme’s analysis.
Another offender is Ausgrid, again formed in 2011 when the NSW sold off its network assets.
SAPN, or South Australian Power Networks, sold by the South Australian government to controlling shareholder Hong Kong-based Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings, and Australian investment fund Spark Infrastructure charges a 15.5% super-profit to its customers.
Since our report was published last October, no action has been taken to stem supernormal monopoly network profits.
With colder winter weather looming, a new analysis released Tuesday shows that the nine largest energy utility companies in the U.S. raked in nearly $14 billion in combined profits during the first three quarters of this year—and dished out roughly $11 billion to their wealthy shareholders—as tens of millions of U.S. households struggled to pay their utility bills due to soaring costs.
The Australian Energy Market Operator is not the right organisation to be conducting the dramatic overhaul required for the economy, writes Zacharias Szumer.
Although in the short-term, we are still reliant on the environmentally destructive gas industry, in the long term, it must be eliminated. As Matt Bruenig from the People’s Policy Project has pointed out, it’s exactly industries like these that ought to be publicly owned and managed. The private market has already shown it can’t lead us towards decarbonization — and now, it can’t even guarantee a reliable supply. It’s time to renationalize energy.
The cost of renationalizing the energy industry is hardly a problem. Purchasing a profitable asset means that it will eventually pay for itself. The only real cost, therefore, would be the interest paid on the debt to purchase it, a fact that even critics of nationalization are willing to acknowledge. And considering fossil fuel subsidies already cost the government an absurd $11.6 billion last year, it’s not as if governments are unwilling to spend big to keep the industry afloat.
Politicians and energy companies say there’s a gas supply crisis, but huge price increases are caused by profiteering private corporations. It’s long past time to renationalize them.
Last year, $322 million, compared to just over $1 billion the year before, was transferred overseas before being taxed in the form of transfers to related companies, while another half-billion was siphoned off in recharges to unspecified associates.
There is simply not enough disclosure about where the money is going or why, but the activities of EnergyAustralia on the tax front have not escaped the attention of the Tax Office. The group disclosed that the ATO had been investigating its affairs.
One of EnergyAustraia’s Mount Piper generators in NSW came online on Tuesday morning, but too late according to a release filed in Hong Kong which said that the company is out billions in potential profit from electricity forward contracts. The company was forced to purchase expensive electricity from the market after having troubles with both its Mount Piper and Yallourn power stations in Victoria.
The company said the overall increase in energy prices will yield higher returns in the long run, so long as it can keep its coal and gas power stations in operation and “purchase fuel as required, generate and dispatch electricity at the higher prices”.
As Australians pay the price for decades of poor energy planning two Hong Kong billionaires Michael Kadoorie and Li Ka-Shing are cleaning up.
Two decades ago, then-treasurer Peter Costello blocked Shell from a takeover of Woodside, arguing that a foreign takeover of the North-West Shelf was against the national interest. It’s happened anyway.
Compo claim Australia’s highly-regulated markets have created infinite opportunities for manipulation and even the government-owned Snowy Hydro has been accused of gaming the system. Power companies say their hands have been forced by perverse incentives. On Tuesday, the nation’s top energy regulator wrote to power generators to remind them of their legal obligations and to suggest they may have engineered recent shortfalls in order to access the compensation payments that companies receive under emergency shortfalls when the government can force them into business.
The cost of living is through the roof, as gas prices make it hard for Australians to keep warm this winter. Labor needs to stand firm against foreign interests and reserve domestic supply. Dave Donovan looks at how we got to this cold, dark place.
He couldn’t tell the truth before he was elected how could he be expected to tell it before this recent election? Energy prices were going up despite the Ukraine not because of it.
On 30 April, less than a month before the election I penned this piece, about the foreshadowed spike in energy prices, about to hit Australian consumers: Coalition promises higher electricity costs! I wrote it because it was quite clear that the Coalition were not going to come clean before the election and it was a known major factor that was going to hit Australian businesses and consumers as winter came on.
Australians will be able to buy a hydrogen-powered car within “a couple of years” – as soon as enough refuelling points are installed so motorists aren’t left stranded.
The world’s largest oil companies are bidding up prices for renewable energy projects, squeezing profits from wind and solar farms just as they’re needed most to avoid climate catastrophe. Companies from BP to TotalEnergies are paying top dollar for clean energy assets as they transition away from fossil fuels, boosting competition and compressing margins for developers. Wind giants Orsted and Vestas Wind Systems reported lower returns in the first quarter, while turbine maker Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy lost money as materials rallied.
Renewables overall increased 9% between 2019 and 2020. About half of US clean energy now comes from solar and wind, and the other half from hydroelectric power.
Australia should embrace the opportunity to become a renewable energy power. If we don’t act now, with the global energy transition gathering pace, Australia could be exposed to a hostile international energy environment with profound economic, security and diplomatic consequences.
If you ask Scott Morrison about electric vehicles he throws poor, and inaccurate, marketing lines at you, such as they will “end the weekend”, they “won’t tow your trailer – it’s not going to tow your boat”, as he did when former Labor leader Bill Shorten backed fairly modest objectives concerning the electrification of our vehicle fleet in the run-up to the last election.
Australia’s electricity market is unsustainable. Texas shows us why. A week ago Texas experienced a bout of severe weather as arctic air reached deep into the state, driving temperature down to levels that had not been experienced for 30 years. The full human toll is yet to be counted, but 20 deaths have so far been associated with motor accidents, from fires lit for warmth and from carbon-monoxide poisoning after residents used their cars to try to warm their homes. At the peak, 4.5 million people were without power in many cases for extended periods. The Texas Poison Centre received 450 calls about carbon monoxide poisoning.
A project on the scale of transforming the energy system will create jobs – many jobs – which is perhaps the economic measure of most importance to the citizenry.
Research from me and others shows that fully renewable electric grids are feasible with current technology at current prices; barriers to using renewable electricity are more political and cultural than technological or economic.
Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor on Sunday used a combination of company statements and analyst forecasts to claim the three largest power companies – AGL, Origin and EnergyAustralia – would see their collective profits almost double in the five years from 2015 to 2020.
Like many other countries, Australian business and consumers have left their political leaders behind, opting for renewables backed up by gas, hydro and, to a smaller but growing extent, batteries.
The national energy guarantee policy is much better than a mere surrender to Abbott and the far right’s theological attachment to coal. It’s policy devised by experts and agreed to by politicians.
The head of the misnamed Coalition backbench environment committee, Craig Kelly, has been all over the media with ever more strident calls to stop all subsidies to renewable energy. His argument, which has been adopted by that jellyfish Frydenberg, is that, if renewables are cheaper then they don’t need subsidies. On June 25, Mr Kelly…
For the last four years we’ve had a fact free zone of bad politics and no interest in understanding energy policy. The biggest losers are electricity consumers
South Australia’s energy wars really began with the privatisation of the electricity network in the 1990s. It’s worth looking at what we’ve learnt since then
As Australia becomes a leader in solar and battery power, our electricity bills will continue to skyrocket thanks to a massive over-investment in the network that we didn’t ask for and will never need.
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump’s Executive Order deregulating dangerous gas emissions is being signed today …
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