Tag Archives: power prices

Why Subsidised Wind & Solar Always Deliver Punishing Power Prices

From STOP THESE THINGS

Every country that’s ‘transitioning’ to wind and solar is suffering rocketing retail power prices. No ifs. No buts. No exceptions.

Australia is a sufficient example, given the delusional obsession with weather and sunshine-dependent occasional power in the land Downunder.

Since July this year, Australian families and businesses have been reeling from 20-30% increases in their power bills – on top of increases of between 10-20% in retail power prices that took effect throughout the financial year – many households and businesses will see a 50% jump in their power bills in less than 12 months. Those on the receiving end of the grand wind and solar transition are understandably aggrieved. Australian power consumers have been lumped with annual, double-digit increases every year, for the best part of a decade.

The first piece from Colin Packham lays out a little of the economic and social misery inevitably caused by the grand wind and solar ‘transition’. The second piece from Judith Sloan cuts to the chase and explains why an energy-rich nation is on track to suffer the highest retail power prices in the world.

A record number of Australians are struggling to pay their electricity bills
The Australian
Colin Packham
30 November 2023

A record number of Australians are struggling to pay their electricity bills after prices rose by as much as 28 per cent in the year ended June 30, the country’s energy regulator has said.

The findings will heighten pressure on the federal Labor government, which is struggling to convince voters that it has taken meaningful action to aid families struggling with high inflation and interest rates at more than a decade high.

The Australian Energy regulator said from June 2022 to June 2023 market offers for residential electricity rose in the ACT, NSW, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania by between 12 per cent and 28 per cent. Gains were less extreme in Victoria, rising by between 5 per cent and 11 cent.

The regulator said the proportion of residential customers with energy debt increased 2.9 per cent, up from 2.5 per cent recorded previously. The number of households and businesses on hardship plans increased 1.4 per cent from 1.1 per cent — both at their highest levels in the past five years.

The AER said retailers are identifying vulnerable customers earlier or with less debt, and more and more people are moving on hardship payment plans with smaller amounts of debt — indicating people are struggling with debts which would have previously been serviceable.

Those on payment plans are also incurring more debt, and the AER said the number of customers exiting hardship programs by clearing their debt is at its lowest level since 2018-19.

Further increases to electricity and gas bills will happen next July. Australians have endured two straight years of price increases of more than 20 per cent.

[The usual wind and sun cult propaganda followed viz, it was all Vladimir Putin’s fault, who somehow managed to wreck Australia’s energy supplies when he attacked Ukraine. Australian retail power prices were already skyrocketing long before Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Then came the standard waffle about prices for Australian coal rising, notwithstanding that prices for coal supplied to coal-fired power plants are contractually fixed, years in advance. Not a word about the $billions squandered on subsidies to intermittent wind and solar and on the totally unnecessary transmission infrastructure built to bring weather and sunshine-dependent power generated occasionally by wind turbines and solar panels from far-flung places to market; and how all of that is driving power prices into orbit.]
The Australian

Chris Bowen throws more cash at renewables, but we foot the bill
The Australian
Judith Sloan
28 November 2023

The idea that Australia can become an energy superpower is impossible to square with taxpayers stumping up billions of dollars to subsidise renewable energy. If renewable energy is really so cheap – the cheapest form of generating electricity, according to embattled Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen – why would the operators need a guaranteed flow of funds from taxpayers? That’s not how markets work.

To be blunt, Australians have been sold a pup when it comes to the energy transition and the benefits that would flow from it. The notion it would be good for the economy, the climate and consumers is disingenuous – and that’s the best you can say. What has been obvious for some time but has dawned on Bowen only recently is that Labor’s grand plan to have 82 per cent of electricity generated by renewable sources by 2030 had become unachievable.

The commissioning of new large-scale renewable energy projects has slowed to a crawl and the rollout of the required new transmission lines is mired in local resistance, escalating costs and delay. The hope of the side – offshore wind turbines – also is looking forlorn.

The real tragedy of this story is the failure to appreciate the complicated features of the electricity grid and how government intervention generally worsens rather than improves outcomes.

In particular, the downside of large proportions of intermittent generation has been vastly underestimated. There is also a wilful ignorance of the vital role played by dispatchable 24/7 generation.

What has emerged is essentially two markets: a day market and a night market. During the day, it’s common for electricity prices to be negative, mainly as a result of the widespread and somewhat unexpected expansion of domestic rooftop solar panels. At night, prices are much higher and it’s when dispatchable power comes to the fore, particularly if the wind is not blowing.

Another important change has been to interest rates. When interest rates were extremely low, the cost of capital to investors was extremely low as well. Now that interest rates have returned to more normal levels, the cost of capital has increased markedly, particularly for renewable energy installations carrying a lot of debt. Add the escalation in the cost of hardware and the shortage of workers, and the result has been an uncongenial backdrop to large-scale renewable energy investment.

This combined with the fact several coal-fired stations are heading towards closure has led to a degree of panic by state energy ministers as well as Bowen. It is surely ironic that the Victorian Labor government, which frequently proclaims its green credentials, is financially supporting the continuation of two brown-coal-fired electricity plants at unknown expense to the taxpayer.

(Note here that coal-fired plants are not a good fit with intermittent energy as they work on the basis of constant spinning. The cost curves of these plants resemble a bath tub: they decline in their early years and rise sharply towards the end of their lives. For instance, it has been estimated that the annual maintenance bill for the Yallourn power station in Victoria is close to $200 million.)

The mistakes made in managing and attempting to transform the east coast grid are too many to list. Mainly driven by politics rather than engineering and economics, the result has been a fiasco.

One example is the planned Marinus Link connecting Tasmania and Victoria. Because of huge cost overruns, the link has been halved and won’t be completed until the next decade. The federal government has agreed to take on a larger share of the cost, relieving the Tasmania government from some of the burden.

We are told six wind farms in Tasmania won’t be viable with this smaller link. But here’s the thing: what made sense was for Tasmania to supply dispatchable power to Victoria to underwrite its renewable energy folly, not to incentivise more renewable energy on the Apple Isle. It’s just one example of woolly, flawed thinking.

So, having come to a clear fork in the road, Bowen has decided the government must direct even more money at renewable energy.

The capacity mechanism known as the Capacity Investment Scheme will be used to spur more investment in renewable energy.

It’s worth describing here what the normal role of capacity mechanisms is. They are used in several places overseas to provide dispatch­able power to grids when intermittent sources of power are unavailable. They are small relative to the size of the grid but involve gas and coal-fired plants being kept on standby.

The owners of these plants are paid to do so as well as for the power they generate if called on. There are several coal-fired plants in Britain, for instance, that are used in case of power shortages.

In what can be described only as an irrational decision, driven particularly by Victoria, our capacity mechanism includes only renewable energy and batteries, specifically barring coal and gas. It makes no sense at all and was driven entirely by ideology.

Bowen is proposing to lift the CIS from 6 gigawatts to 32GW using reverse auctions to underwrite the returns of renewable energy operators, with taxpayers picking up the tab. Where prices are below the strike price, operators will be compensated, but if the prices rise above that level, refunds are payable. The contracts may last for up to 15 years. It’s just another form of government subsidy following on from the Renewable Energy Target.

The key here is that Bowen wants taxpayers to bear the cost year in, year out – total dollar outlays unknown – of this intervention and thereby shield electricity consumers from even higher prices. It’s essentially smoke and mirrors because the costs still have to be borne one way or another. It’s astonishing that Jim Chalmers is going along with this proposal given the pressures the Treasurer faces to manage the budget better lest ongoing inflationary pressures persist.

There is a fair chance that Bowen’s plan B won’t work even though the higher subsidies should induce some additional renewable energy investment. The growing local resistance in the regions and the rapidly rising costs of renewable energy projects are counter forces. It’s why the minister has an equivocal position in respect of gas because open-cycle gas peaking plants are the obvious complement with renewable energy to firm the system.

It also opens the door to the Coalition to make the case for nuclear. It’s a centralised system that can use existing sites and transmission lines. It also provides prized 24/7 power. Other countries are accelerating their investments in nuclear power. We need to take note.
The Australian

Costs Blowout: Rocketing Power Prices Keep Proving Wind & Solar Most Expensive

From STOP THESE THINGS

Households and businesses faced with crippling power bills are just another bad optic for renewable energy rent seekers. The political support upon which the seemingly endless flow of massive subsidies depends, in turn, depends on the proles’ attitude to those charged with delivering reliable and affordable power.

Having just been whacked with 20-30% increases in their power bills – on top of increases of between 10-20% in retail power prices that took effect throughout the financial year – many households and businesses will see a 50% jump in their power bills in less than 12 months. Those on the receiving end of the grand wind and solar transition are understandably aggrieved. Australian power consumers have been lumped with annual, double-digit increases every year, for the best part of a decade (see above).

Alan Moran provides some helpful detail on how and why we’ve landed in a world with increasingly unaffordable power.

Unexpected Costs
Spectator Australia
Alan Moran
17 September 2023

Manipulated estimates of Levelised Cost of Energy tables showing wind and solar to be the cheapest supplies of energy are contradicted by the trends on actual electricity costs and inter-country comparisons.

The readily available data by country for the wind and solar renewables share and price of electricity show a high share of renewables is concomitant with high electricity costs. The cheapest electricity is found in the nations with the lowest renewable energy share: Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, UAE and Korea. Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy have high prices and high renewables shares.

Australia’s renewables share is similar to that of Italy, but (for the time being) has lower electricity prices.

[Note to Alan: the EIA figure in their dataset of US 0.23 per kwh is well below prevailing rates in Australia – the graphic has Australian power prices even cheaper than that, which is not correct. South Australians have just been hit with power bills where their peak rates are AUD 0.495 per kwh, which at current exchange rates translates to US 0.32 per kwh, way above what is represented in the graph above.]

Even so, there is accumulated vested interests in promoting the ‘renewables are cheap(ish)’ myth.

For Australia, this comprises a vast bureaucracy of government departments, research agencies like CSIRO, government-assisted NGOs, an array of educational and financial institutions and, of course, politicians in both the ALP and the Coalition. The National Party, in seeking greater scrutiny of new renewable proposals, is edging its way to abandoning the sacred Net Zero creed. Politicians will shamelessly reverse course on a policy they have championed when it proves to be downright wrong and unpopular. They will avoid the pitchforks by blaming poor advice from the ‘experts’. These experts have also proven adept at dodging the bullets for policy failures (think the 264 UK economists who maintained Mrs Thatcher’s cost-cutting would have catastrophic consequences and the health experts who promoted Covid lockdowns). Once the climate myth and its renewable energy companion are discredited, they will dig deep to find another cause receptive to government intervention.

In spite of renewables requiring massive subsidies to be profitably installed – $10 billion a year in Australia’s case – propaganda about renewables being the cheapest form of energy is unrelenting. But subsidies aside, renewables are only remotely competitive if consumers will take their electricity whenever it is produced and will do without it whenever the vagaries of weather pare back its availability. That’s the equivalent of skiers paying for lift tickets even if there’s no snow and flocking to the slopes in even greater numbers during a blizzard!

For anything approaching the government’s goal of 100 per cent renewables, the backup required is upward of 20 days of storage based on the estimates of Francis Menton. For Australia that is 13,000,000 megawatt hours. Even with highly optimistic assumptions, Paul McArdle of Global Roam came to an estimate of 9,600,000 megawatt hours. Menton cites the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates of storage costs by 2030 at $US200,000 per megawatt hour. This cost means reliability-proofing Australia’s network at an outlay many times the nation’s GNP. And this is just to firm-up the weather-dependent sources of energy, an expense that is not required for coal, gas or indeed, nuclear.

For its part, to accommodate the dispersed nature of wind and solar, the government plans to spend $100 billion for transmission, a five-fold increase on the present system’s costs. On top of this are sums, not yet estimated, for reinforcing the distribution network to allow rooftop generation to be exported.

But like the cunning plans of Blackadder’s Baldrick, these schemes are not panning out.

Farmers, fishers, and other people in remote locations are showing an unexpected truculence; for many, the transmission lines and land-extensive wind and solar operations impose inefficiencies (for example, impeding spraying) additional to the national waste they represent. Other opposition stems from people more fully recognising the visual and noise intrusion. Coordinated local opposition is being generated against individual projects, causing a slowdown in project authorisations. These are bringing unexpected costs to renewable energy proposals and retarding the already ambitious plans for Net Zero. Governments are reacting by seeking to truncate development approval procedures but this may lead to even greater opposition.

In addition, global supply costs are rising. One outcome was a poor response to the UK government’s latest applications for additional wind and solar, despite contracts being offered at prices 2-7 times their actual value. In the US, Danish international offshore leader, Orsted has faced cost escalations bringing a collapse in its share price.

Other international pressures add to the home-grown ones. India, China, and Saudi Arabia have opposed a proposal by Western countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2035. What was once called the Third World now accounts for the great bulk of global CO2 emissions and places a low priority on abating CO2 emissions. Those countries’ actions will kick down the door of the global warming and renewable energy farce. This cannot come too soon.
Spectator Australia

Labor in office: time to take stock
Spectator Australia
Alan Moran
28 September 2023

The Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Energy Minister were supposedly somewhat trained as economists, but all three fail to grasp the discipline’s basic principles.

Energy Minister Bowen claims that his renewables program will create 60,000 jobs by replacing ‘legacy’ coal plants with wind and solar facilities plus the increase in power lines and batteries that replacement will entail.

While increases in jobs (and/or income levels) may result from the services stemming from government spending, Mr Bowen’s numbers refer to the gross jobs involved in the construction activities themselves. As those jobs are tax-funded, they are offset by jobs elsewhere in the economy due to lower spending from individuals whose incomes have been reduced by government taxes and regulatory measures.

Mr Bowen’s claim is especially specious since his program replaces low-cost (coal) with high-cost (wind and solar) energy services and therefore has a negative effect on productivity, incomes, and jobs. Like the Treasurer, his conviction is that forcing a ‘transition’ to high-cost low-reliability energy will bring economic benefits.

The forced transition from low-cost reliable energy is being amplified by the present government. One policy driving this is the ‘Safeguard mechanism’ that requires the top 215 CO2 emitters to reduce emissions by 30 per cent on top of that forced by general requirements.

Subsidies to renewables now amount to over $10 billion a year. That $10 billion of wasteful spending is equal to the market value of all wholesale electricity prior to the price escalation caused by renewable subsidies. The adverse effects of this are compounded forcing unsubsidised power stations to close.

Seemingly unaware of the reality of power cost increases, Mr Bowen, through a spokesman, maintains ‘delivering cleaner, cheaper energy across the country is a whole of society imperative’.

Unfortunately, taking down the economy through imposing higher renewable requirements is not the only delinquent policy Labor is pursuing.

In macro terms, the Treasurer has poured additional fuel onto the big spend Covid programs inherited from the Coalition. There is $61 billion in new spending (to its shame the Coalition has actually supported much of this) with $27 billion of new taxes. He claims a bottom-line improvement but this was due to $42 billion in windfall gains due to high commodity prices and new employment (partly through high immigration levels).

For his part, the Minister for Employment, Tony Burke, claims no training in economics. He can therefore excuse his actions in his crusade to destroy the ‘gig’ economy as due to being totally uninformed by a knowledge of the interactions of politics on costs. The ‘gig’ economy is composed of almost entirely non-unionised workers and allows working arrangements in areas ranging from pizza deliveries to mining services to respond to the needs of customers flexibly at low cost. The proposed rigid IR arrangements will impose massive costs on consumers and business, amplified by affording privileges to union recruiters and a Sword of Damocles of uncertainty over the practical implications of the proposals.

This same cavalier attitude to cost impositions is seen in the environment portfolio. The Minister, Tanya Plibersek, is pouring cold water on new projects in northern Queensland by pandering to UN pressures (and her own Green-challenged constituency) by knocking back mines like Clive Palmer’s Central Queensland Coal Project claiming it was ‘likely to have unacceptable impacts to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park’. Data released by the Australian Institute of Marine Science confirmed the accuracy of measurements and analyses conducted by Dr Peter Ridd that the reef is in great environmental health.

Further courting the environmentalist vote, Ms Plibersek is also reducing the water available to irrigators in the nation’s most important agricultural province, the Murray Darling.

Labor is now halfway through what it hopes to be its first term of government. Aside from driving a cultural divide with its Voice campaign to segregate the nation, so far, its performance has been an unremitting assault on the settings that drive increased productivity and income levels. Sadly, according to opinion polls, the policy is enjoying success in the eyes of an electorate seduced by an avalanche of rhetoric. Hopefully, a realisation of the damage being done will result in policy reversals before the damage becomes permanent.
Spectator Australia

Simply Irresistible: Why Plugging Into Small Modular Reactors Makes Perfect Sense

FromSTOP THESE THINGS

Listen to the wind and sun cult and you’d think that Small Modular Nuclear Reactors are a work of far-fetched Science Fiction. The reality is that some 200 small nuclear reactors are presently powering 160 ships and submarines all around the world, and have been for decades.

None of which sits with the narrative pitched by renewable energy rent-seekers, who are evidently terrified of the prospect of bringing a fleet of those SMRs onshore to provide safe, reliable and affordable power 24 x 365, whatever the weather, with no need for batteries or backup.

Apply our good friends logic and reason and you’ll soon reach the very same conclusion expressed by Tony Grey in the piece below.

SMR option shows the ‘irresistible sense’ of going nuclear
The Australian
Tony Grey
30 August 2023

As Australia’s Minister for Energy, it is of great concern that Chris Bowen should demonstrate such a lack of understanding of one of the globe’s biggest sources of energy, nuclear, in his recent article in this newspaper.

For an energy minister to reveal that he knows little about nuclear, even as a reasonable option for Australia because it is emissions-free, puts into question his ability to manage the portfolio for the people of Australia.

Nuclear energy generation has continued to evolve significantly and the technology attracting the most interest and investment today is the small modular reactor. SMR technology is in an advanced stage of development and changing the nuclear landscape. Chris Bowen mentions SMRs in his article, and acknowledges they are gaining attention, yet he dismisses them in his article as being “small in one sense only: output” because “they can produce just 300MW each”.

While the maximum capacity of individual SMRs is 300MW, their modules (as the name implies) can be placed together to meet demand. A combination of three modules would generate enough electricity for about a million people.

Also, he fails to comprehend the load-following facility of SMRs, which allows them to adjust their output to demand. He makes the astonishing claim that they are “not a flexible source of peaking and firming”. This is from an “energy minister”.

And he doesn’t seem to appreciate the pivotal and economic role that SMRs could play in replacing coal as a firming agent to support renewables when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. For that purpose, they can be built on the sites of closed-down coal-fired stations, use much of their infrastructure, and provide jobs to many of their workers. They are the only emissions-free source that can do that. Renewables can’t.

SMRs are eminently suitable for Australia because of their easy transportability. They can not only be plugged into the existing grid (no need for a $20bn rewire of the nation) but used in off-grid regional areas, even in mining. BHP has publicly called upon the government to change its policy to permit this.

In view of the intransigence of the government on the issue, it’s understandable that the opposition is running a pro-nuclear policy. There is rising public support for at least considering nuclear power to assist in the country’s deeply flawed energy policies.

A recent financial newspaper survey and polls by the Lowy Institute and Institute of Public Affairs reveal a clear majority of Australians in favour of repealing the legislation enacted in 2000 prohibiting use in Australia of nuclear. The IPA poll found a majority of Labor voters supporting use of nuclear. The opposition is merely taking a line adopted by every other advanced nation. Australia is the only top 20 economy without nuclear power.

Safety developments for reactors and the well-publicised progress in Finland of constructing a world-first long-term high-level waste repository at Onkalo, have removed the major public fears about nuclear. The battleground has moved to the economic field just as it did in the struggle over uranium mining (a proxy for nuclear). Opponents of nuclear claim, without credible evidence, that it is too costly.

What about the costs of SMRs? Chris Bowen predictably claims nuclear is “too expensive” when asked about this option. He presumably relies on the CSIRO’s recent GenCost 2022-23 report, which provides estimates for Australian energy costs. In this extensive document only a small section is devoted to nuclear and it is treated superficially. The CSIRO did not commission any credible organisation to review capital costs for SMRs, but merely escalated an out-of-date 2018 figure from a questionable outside source. The result is an overestimate of more than double plausible industry estimates.

This error is demonstrated by a recent Canadian report on SMRs. In many respects, Canadian society and its economy are very similar to Australia’s. It would therefore seem appropriate to consider Canada’s decision to include SMRs in its nuclear program, which supplies 15 per cent of the country’s electricity.

Because of their modular form, SMRs can be manufactured in batches to a single design, which reduces unit costs and facilitates streamlining of regulatory approvals. Financing is made easier when several modules are combined. As one module is finished and starts producing electricity, it will generate a positive cash flow for the next module, as would be the case with NuScale’s project in the state of Idaho of six SMRs of 77MW each, producing a total of 462MW. This would reduce the amount of capital needed for SMRs in Australia.

Elsewhere, 80 SMRs are under development in 19 countries (including the US, Canada, Japan, and many in Europe) with 17 in near-term development. NuScale expects its plant to be operational by 2030.

If so many nations are developing SMRs, with large corporations such as Fluor, Hitachi, Rolls-Royce and others investing their funds, what possible confidence could we have in Chris Bowen’s cavalier claim that SMRs cost too much? At the very least, he and the government should undertake a proper examination of the technology and economics, but from a position of knowledge. For that to happen, the prohibitory legislation must be repealed, as the Liberal Party is now proposing. The lamentable situation we are in today brings to mind George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, where Big Brother proclaims “Ignorance is strength”.

As Australia is way behind the rest of the world in the general understanding of nuclear economics, we could reach out to organisations such as the London-based World Nuclear Association, which has 181 members located in 44 countries and covers 70 per cent of the world’s nuclear generation. It is recognised for its comprehensive information on nuclear energy. I have been assured the WNA would be willing to offer its program to Australia.

With all the uncertainties of our energy industry, as demonstrated by Tasmania’s failure to support growing electricity needs in that state with its hydro power, and the manifest failures of the federal government to map a credible course to exchange our reliance on fossil fuels for zero-carbon sources, the Liberal Party’s call to remove the 24-year barrier to using emissions-free nuclear power, especially in its SMR form, makes irresistible sense.
The Australian

Following California’s Renewable Energy Lead Guarantees Rocketing Power Prices & Blackouts

From STOP THESE THINGS

In their sillier moments, the wind and sun cult point to places like California or Germany as prime examples of energy Nirvana. Then come the facts. California and Germany have most certainly led the charge in backing heavily subsidised and chaotically intermittent wind and solar, but they’ve also led the charge on rocketing power prices and power rationing.

California suffers the highest power prices in the Lower 48 (excluding Alaska and Hawaii): US 30 cents/per kWh, which compares rather unfavourably with the prices enjoyed in Utah, which average US 12 cents/per kWh. Utah’s cheap prices and consistently reliable supply are no mystery: 61.8% is generated using coal, 24.7% using natural gas; a trivial 8.1% is generated (on average) by solar and a minuscule 1.9% is generated (on average) using wind.

Likewise, there is no mystery as to why California suffers the highest prices and routine load shedding and blackouts: in 2018, California had 80 GW of installed generation capacity encompassing more than 1,500 power plants; with 41 GW of natural gas, 26.5 GW of ‘renewables’ (12 GW solar, 6 GW wind), 12 GW of large hydroelectric, and 2.4 GW nuclear. Since then, California’s continued to add even more wind and solar capacity, with inevitable results.

The Australian’s Nick Cater showers a little more rain onthe wind and sun cult’s parade, below.

Why California dreamin’ is a renewables nightmare
The Australian
Nick Cater
21 August 2023

There was little comfort for price-conscious electricity consumers following the news that Australia is partnering with California to drive action to fight global warming.

Global collaboration was critical to deal with “the biggest threat faced by the Indo-Pacific region”, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said last week, making it clear she regards the climate crisis to be at least as dangerous as the emergence of a hostile superpower.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen told ABC Radio National listeners the partnership began with his meeting with California Governor Gavin Newsom a year ago.

California and Australia share a lot in common, he said. About half of California’s energy came from renewables. “Their EV policy is very advanced,” he said. “Governor Newsom made clear to me that he was keen to collaborate on things like EV charging and joint learning.” There are indeed many things we can learn from California about energy policy. The first is that wind and solar power are punishingly costly.

California has the country’s fourth-most expensive electricity, according to the latest data from US Energy Information Administration. California residents pay US30 cents per kilowatt hour – almost three times more than customers in Utah.

A second lesson is that California has some of the least reliable electricity in the US. The California Independent System Operator, which oversees the state’s power grid, was forced to issue an emergency alert during a hot spell last September, pleading with customers to turn off their appliances to stop the grid crashing.

A third “joint learning”, as Bowen called it, is that transmission lines should be kept as short as possible. A recent California auditor’s report cited power lines as the cause of six of the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires since 2015.

And joint learning number four is that Australia needs nuclear power.

Seven years ago, Newsom predicted that Diablo Canyon, the state’s last nuclear power station, would close by 2025. Last year he signed a bill committing $US1.4bn to keep it open.

A fifth lesson is that expensive, unreliable electricity is a great way to kill jobs.

A Hoover Institution study found that companies left California at the rate of seven a month between 2018 and 2021. They included American Airlines, Chevron, Uber, Tesla, Kaiser Aluminium, Hewlett Packard and Oracle.

California used to be where the nation’s downtrodden fled to find work. Today it has the nation’s third-highest unemployment rate.

Bowen’s claim on the ABC that “about half” of California’s electricity comes from renewables – including 27 per cent from solar energy – should have been fact-checked. Over the past 30 days, solar has generated 20 per cent of CISO’s power. Natural gas generated 48 per cent and nuclear 8 per cent. California’s much-hyped batteries, which renewable energy tragics insist will be the answer to our prayers, contributed 0.1 per cent. That was only marginally higher than the amount provided by solar panels at night.

It’s not that there’s been any shortage of investment. Generous subsidies have attracted corporates because that’s what subsidies do.

Yet there is no viable means of reducing the current emission intensity of its grid from the current level of around 270g CO₂eq/kWh to anything close to the world’s best practice of less than 30g CO₂eq/kWh.

Australia has even more work to do. Carbon emissions from electricity generation have been running at around 500g CO₂eq/kWh for the past 12 months. Yet Bowen insists we’ll be up among the world’s leaders by 2030 on the road to becoming “a renewable energy superpower”.

He may well have been referring to this column on the radio last week when he noted that “it’s pretty fashionable for the column inches of a couple of newspapers in Australia at the moment to say our targets are too ambitious, that we won’t get to 82 per cent renewables”.

However, he insisted: “I disagree with that. It is ambitious, but it’s also achievable.”

Bowen’s target is achievable, if not by 2030 then at least by 2035, providing he picks a better role model than California.

His opposite number, Coalition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien, turned to Wyoming for inspiration in a well-informed article in The Australian last week.

Wyoming, a coal state, has a population about the size of Tasmania and produces almost 12 times more energy than it consumes.

It’s the second-biggest net energy supplier after Texas. Wyoming has been the top coal-producing state since 1986, accounting for about two-fifths of all coal mined in the US. The state holds nearly two-fifths of US coal reserves at producing mines.

Wyoming was the eighth-largest crude oil-producing state in the nation and the 10th-largest natural gas producer.

The Wyoming state government read the writing on the wall some time ago, and has sought to diversify the energy economy to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. It leaned heavily into wind but, even as a sparsely populated state, the dream of being powered by wind turbines soon collided with the reality of energy density. The competition for land with farming and nature has provoked a widespread backlash, as in Australia.

Wyoming has jumped ahead of the pack, becoming an early adopter of the latest generation of nuclear small modular reactors. A demonstration unit will be built at a retiring coal power plant in Kemmerer, with the assistance of $US2bn from the Biden administration.

It will be the first Natrium reactor to be commercially deployed, storing heat in molten salt to boost its power from 345 MWe to 500 MWe for as long as 5.5 hours to serve peak demand or fill in for times of lower renewable generation.

It is on track to be completed by 2030, when Snowy Hydro 2.0 is due to come online, and some years before any likely completion of offshore wind generators in Australia.

Wyoming is set on a course to transition from coal straight to nuclear, a journey jurisdictions such as Ontario and Finland have already completed. The good people of Wyoming are unlikely to suffer from Power Bill Stress Disorder, a form of anxiety now commonplace in California and Australia.

They will be free to indulge, should they wish, in reverse virtue-signalling, knowing they have achieved what the great woke state in the West could only promise.
The Australian

The sensible Swedes are all in on nuclear generation, too.

Power Supplier Sued For Gaming Market Around Wind & Solar Output Collapses

From STOP THESE THINGS

Intermittent wind and solar deliver guaranteed grid chaos and rocketing power prices. Every single country that’s chased the wind and solar pipe dream has watched their power prices go through the roof, with no exception.

STT has been banging on about this since December 2012. So, don’t say we didn’t warn you. The graphic above from Dr Michael Crawford spells it out: add massively subsidised and chaotically intermittent wind and solar to your power grid and watch power prices spiral out of control.

As STT has pointed out a number of times, power market gaming – of the kind that made Enron infamous – is a natural consequence of a very natural set of phenomena: wind and solar power output collapses that occur whenever the sun sets and/or calm weather sets in:

Wind Power Output Collapses Send Power Prices into Orbit: The World’s Biggest Joke Just Got Serious

and

South Australia’s Unbridled Wind Power Insanity: Wind Power Collapses see Spot Prices Rocket from $70 to $13,800 per MWh and The Cost of Wind Power: Killing Jobs

and

Crushing Families – SA’s Biggest Smelter Under Threat with 750 Jobs at Risk

Back in July 2018, we produced this detailed wrap-up on how wind and solar output collapses allow generators to game the power market, resulting in skyrocketing wholesale power prices, all passed on to you:

Generators Game Power Market Around Wind & Solar Output Collapses: Spot Prices Routinely Hitting $14,000/MWh

Now a group of their victims has taken one of the main perpetrators, AGL to court seeking compensation for the economic damage caused by the market manipulation made possible by wind and solar output collapses.

Australian Energy Giant Sued for Allegedly Manipulating Electricity Prices
The Epoch Times
Alfred Bui
20 June 2023

One of Australia’s top energy companies has been sued for allegedly using bids to manipulate power prices and inflict financial damage on customers.

In early June, law firm Piper Alderman announced that it had launched a class action lawsuit against energy giant AGL following an investigation into abnormal hikes in electricity spot prices in South Australia, which is part of the National Electricity Market (NEM), between 2013 and 2020.

The NEM has a spot market mechanism in which the electricity supply from power stations is matched with consumption by households and businesses in real time.

All electricity in the spot market is bought and sold at the spot price.

Details of the Lawsuit
Piper Alderman alleges that AGL breached Section 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 by using bidding strategies to inflate electricity prices.

“Certain price spikes have been caused by AGL adopting ‘gaming’ strategies in their supply of electricity,” the firm wrote.

“By gaming of the system, it is alleged that AGL has created an artificial scarcity of supply in the NEM, inflated electricity prices for consumers, and prevented other generators from competing for market share.”

The law firm claimed that AGL made “initial dispatch offers” for the price of electricity generated by its power stations in South Australia and then submitted late-stage rebids to increase the spot prices.

Under current rules, generators make a bid to supply a certain amount of power at a particular price up to a day and a half before the power is needed, and they are required to honour their bids.

However, generators are allowed to submit a new offer in some circumstances, including changes in weather, consumer demand, generator performance, network constraints or bids from other participants, provided that they have legitimate justification.

An analysis by the Australian Energy Market Commission indicated that rebidding could cause a problem where there were high levels of market concentration that allowed dominant generators to set wholesale prices.

“AGL took advantage of its market power for the substantial purpose of deterring or preventing competing generators from engaging in competitive conduct,” said the class action pleadings obtained by AAP.

“AGL’s contraventions were a cause (of) the prices set under default market offers being higher than the prices otherwise would have been.”

Lead Applicant’s Accusation
SA Country Pubs, the lead applicant in the class action, said AGL’s alleged misconduct had caused the business to be overcharged for electricity bills as it had to pay over $474,000 (US$326,000) from June 1, 2017, to June 1, 2023.

The firm noted that AGL had significant competitive power in the South Australian energy market, which had higher barriers of entry for new generators because it supplied over 37 percent of electricity across the state, according to 2017 figures.

It also alleged that AGL’s practice of making rebids at the last minute blocked competitors from entering with lower bids.

“AGL engaged in the short-notice rebidding in reliance on the substantial degree of power held by it in the market,” the statement of claim says.

“(AGL) stood to gain greater financial reward from successful short-notice rebidding than a smaller generator.”

Following the launch of the class action, AGL said it was aware of the lawsuit and stood by its actions.

“AGL takes its compliance obligations seriously and intends to vigorously defend the proceedings,” it said in an announcement to investors.

The lawsuit is scheduled to come before the New South Wales Federal Court on July 13.

If found guilty, AGL could be compelled to compensate overcharged consumers in the state.

AGL Updates Earning Forecasts
In a related development, AGL announced an update to its 2022-2023 earning forecasts.

The company revised its underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation to $1.33-$1.375 billion (up from $1.25-$1.375 billion previously).

Its underlying profit after tax was also predicted to reach between $255 and $285 million (up from $200-280 million).

The company attributed the improved earnings to the sustained high wholesale energy prices as well as the commencement of operation of several projects.

While delivering a brighter outlook for shareholders, AGL CEO Damien Nicks acknowledged the impact high electricity prices had on Australian households.

“We are acutely aware of the impact on our customers in this inflationary period,” he said in comments obtained by AAP.

“It’s a tough period for everyone.”

The CEO also advised customers to switch to monthly from quarterly bills to help them manage living cost pressures.

“We’ll be working with customers to help them as best as we possibly can,” he said.
The Epoch Times

…while helping ourselves whenever we can, of course!

Broken Promises: “A profound slowdown” in Renewable Investment in Australia

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Power prices are rising, despite recent political promises they wouldn’t, and renewable investment has stalled, despite frantic government efforts to attract new capital.

‘Profound slowdown’: Alan Finkel quits Victoria’s SEC

Patrick Durkin BOSS Deputy editor
Jun 23, 2023 – 5.00am

Former chief scientist Alan Finkel has quit his role advising Victoria’s State Electricity Commission, as the organisation’s chief executive warned energy prices will rise, despite Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ election promise the SEC would bring down prices.

…

Chris Miller, appointed interim CEO of the SEC, acknowledged on Thursday the energy transition would cause a large uptick in energy prices, despite Mr Andrews’ election claims.

“We know that getting to 95 per cent renewables in Victoria will require a large uptick in billed build rates [see AFR correction below],” he told the conference.

…

But Mr Miller pointed to warnings by the CEO of the Australian Energy Market Operator, Daniel Westerman, and data from the Clean Energy Council that shows “a profound and recent slowdown in new financial commitments for large-scale user generation projects”.

“In fact, in the first quarter of this year there were no new financial commitments across the nation despite a strong pipeline of projects.”

…Read more: https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/profound-slowdown-alan-finkel-quits-victoria-s-sec-20230622-p5dijw

Part of this slowdown might be a perception that China’s economy is about to fall off a cliff. Australia is heavily dependent on the Chinese economy.

The problem afflicting China is for decades Chinese local officials have been running a Ponzi scheme, borrowing heavily to hit fake economic growth targets, squandering the borrowed money on useless infrastructure projects – to the tune of at least $18 TRILLION Dollars in outstanding Chinese local government debt. Much of that money was spent on purchasing raw materials from Australia to build all that pointless infrastructure.

But now, thanks to their crazy Covid lockdown, China has abruptly run out of cash. The Ponzi scheme is now fully exposed.

Prospects for Australian mineral exports to China are looking a little shaky.

We can only speculate why this public debt fuelled Chinese Ponzi scheme was allowed to grow to the point it threatens the stability of the Chinese state. I suspect it remained concealed for so long, because as local officials were promoted to central committee jobs on the basis of their fake economic achievements, their highest priority has been to conceal their personal financial malfeasance. They couldn’t expose their former underlings continuing the Ponzi scheme, without their own misdeeds being exposed. This has likely created a web of lies and concealment stretching all the way from local governments right up to the central committee.

In Western countries a free press usually uncovers and exposes such public sector financial disasters well before they become a national disaster, though arguably the Western press have been asleep on the job lately, at least when it comes to their handling of Democrat political scandals.

The dire financial distress in China has left Australia flailing. Most current federal and state governments are committed to massive expenditure on greening the Australia economy, but who in their right mind wants to lend money to a country which could be about to lose their biggest customer? As interest rates rise, as the Chinese economy falters, businesses across the country are tightening their belts in anticipation of the coming crash.

As for China, about the only move left in China’s playbook is to create a distraction big enough that people don’t notice their government has squandered all their money.

Whatever China decides to do, none of this bodes well for the Australian economy.

Of course the rapid approach of the Chinese export crisis hasn’t stopped our financially illiterate politicians from spending borrowed money like water, pushing forward with their Nut Zero plans. They’re still demolishing real power stations, offering what’s left of Australia’s manufacturing industry up like a grizzly Aztec sacrifice, perhaps in the hope the gods of green energy fantasies will smile on their mindless abasement.

h/t Nick – AFR has issued a correction: “Correction — An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that interim SEC CEO Chris Miller referred to “a large uptick in billed rates”. The correct reference should have been to “build rates”.” But given elsewhere in the article the AFR quotes an SEC estimate of $320 billion for Australia to transition to renewables, I don’t see how that changes anything. The $320 billion will have to be paid by consumers, either through increased bills or via increased taxes to service government borrowing.

War On Coal-Fired Power Delivers Crippling Power Prices & Record Profits For Generator/Retailers

From STOP THESE THINGS

The obsession with chaotically intermittent and heavily subsidised wind and solar has few winners and plenty of losers. The latter include the householders and businesses being crushed by power price increases of a magnitude that few of them can afford, and none of them expected (having been consistently lied to by the politicos and MSM about the true and inevitable cost of attempting to run on sunshine and breezes).

The victors include the power generators and retailers (sometimes one and the same – referred to as ‘gentailers’) whose profits are inversely proportional to the pain being suffered by their customers.

While STT has reported on the upcoming 25-30% hike in retail power prices – set to take effect from 1 July – that staggering impost comes on top of increases of between 10-20% in retail power prices that have taken effect throughout the financial year. Which means that many households and businesses will see a 50% jump in their power bills in less than 12 months. On top of double-digit percentage increases in their power bills every year since the Green-Labor Alliance ramped up the Federal government’s Renewable Energy Target back in 2010.

Of course, the greatest suffering is being felt in those places where wind and solar generation dominates – Australia’s wind and solar capital, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory, which purports to run with a 100% wind and solar renewable energy target (notwithstanding that it’s connected to the Eastern Grid and chews up mountains of coal-fired power, just like the rest of us).

Here it should be noted that in the piece below the figure recorded for SA of 36.1c/kWh is the base ‘off peak’ rate, whereas the ‘peak rate’ is currently 53c/kWh. Wind and solar ‘powered’ South Australians will see those rates jump by at least 23% next month.

South Australia blew up its last coal-fired power plant in May 2016 which resulted in an instantaneous doubling in wholesale power prices and retail power prices kept rocketing, thereafter. Wiping out energy-hungry businesses such as Stephen Scherer’s Plastic Granulating Services when his electricity bill of about $80,000 a month spiked to $180,000 a month back in June 2017 (see above).

The same metric was in effect when Liddell – a perfectly operable 2,000 MW coal-fired power plant in NSW was shut down in May this year. Predictably enough, wholesale power prices jumped 80%, almost overnight.

Here’s a report on life for the victors of Australia’s war on coal-fired power.

AGL forecasts a huge profit surge as households grapple with their own surge – in power costs
The Australian
Cameron England and Daniel Petrie
16 June 2023

AGL shares surged on Friday after the company forecast its profits would more than double in the coming financial year, during which time households will be grappling with their own surge – in electricity costs.

The energy company’s shares were up more than 14 per cent to $11.05 in early trade on the ASX after AGL said its underlying profit after tax would come in at between $255m and $285m – the top of the previously forecast range.

But the underlying profit after tax would then more than double to between $580m and $780m in the 2023-24 financial year, the company said.

AGL’s huge boost to its profit expectations came as fellow energy retailer EnergyAustralia unveiled price increases of more than 20 per cent for its electricity customers, with households on the default market offer to be slugged with an average increase in NSW of 20.5 per cent, 23.6 per cent in Victoria, 23 per cent in South Australia and 20.3 per cent in South East Queensland.

Its gas customers on the standing offer tariff will be hit with price increases from July 1 of 20.5 per cent in NSW, 15.8 per cent in SA, and 18.1 per cent in the ACT. Victorian customers will not experience a price change.

EnergyAustralia chief customer officer Mark Brownfield said the increases “reflect higher prices for wholesale electricity and gas due to energy market volatility in 2022’’, while the electricity price increases were also related to recent price determinations by the Australian Energy Regulator.

AGL said in a statement to the ASX its better performance in the current financial year, “reflect(s) an improved second half, in line with expectations, driven by increased generation due to improved plant availability and a reduction in forced outages, and higher customer margin due to disciplined margin management and an increase in customer services’’.

“This is partly offset by higher operating costs (excluding depreciation and amortisation) due to increased maintenance costs, seasonal net bad debt expense and the impact of inflation.’’

Data crunched by News Corp shows Australian electricity is among most expensive in the world, with more pain to come after the Australian Energy Regulator last month approved a hike of up to 25 per cent for people on default plans.

News Corp analysed electricity prices based on government figures for average household electricity usage and bill size.

The analysis shows that at 36.1c/kWh, South Australian electricity is the most expensive in the country, while NSW’s was the cheapest at about 26.5c/kWh.

All Australian states and territories were more expensive than the US, where electricity costs about 22.6c/kWh.

AVERAGE ANNUAL POWER BILL BREAKDOWN BY AREA

SEQ: $1,969 (up 21.5 per cent)
Regional Queensland: $1926 (up 28.7 per cent)
Sydney/NSW Central Coast/Hunter Valley: $1,827 (up 20.8 per cent)
Western Sydney, Blue Mountains, the Southern Highlands, Illawarra and NSW South Coast: $2228 (up 21.4 per cent)
Regional NSW: $2527 (up 20.8 per cent)
South Australia: $2279 (up 23.9 per cent)
Victoria: $1755 (up 25 per cent)

South Australia and the ACT, where electricity costs about 29.8c/kWh, were more expensive than the UK, where power costs about 30.8c/kWh.

While the amounts paid by consumers in their power bills also factor in costs such as distribution, AGL’s mega-profit forecast will be a bitter pill to swallow for households struggling to pay their power bills.

AGL chief executive Damien Nicks said the company’s improved performance in the current financial year owed a lot to better performance on the power generation side of the business.

“Looking ahead to FY24, without the challenging energy market conditions that we saw at the start of this financial year, namely widespread planned and unplanned outages coupled with unprecedented market volatility, we expect FY24 to be a stronger year as we see the sustained recovery of wholesale electricity prices roll through.”

AGL said it would benefit next financial year from “sustained periods of higher wholesale electricity pricing, reflected in pricing outcomes and reset through contract positions’’.

It also expected “improved plant availability and flexibility of the asset fleet, including the commencement of operations of the Torrens Island and Broken Hill batteries, and the non-recurrence of forced outages and market volatility impacts’’.

“This is expected to be partly offset by the closure of Liddell Power Station and higher operating costs, including: the impact of higher revenue from pricing outcomes increasing variable costs such as net bad debt expense and anticipated market activity; increased maintenance spend to improve asset fleet availability and reliability; and inflation.’’
The Australian

So far, so obvious and so very predictable: keep knocking out reliable coal-fired power plants and a power pricing and supply calamity, inevitably follows.

If the witless clowns who pretend to govern us were even vaguely concerned about Australia’s economic future, they would stop killing off coal-fired plants, as of now. And, rather, they would, as Michael Asten, explains start building High Efficiency/Low Emissions coal-fired power plants like this country’s wealth and prosperity depends upon it.

Ultra super critical plants fuel hope of clean, cheap coal power security
The Australian
Michael Asten
17 June 2023

We may or may not like Alan Finkel’s vision of “forests of wind farms, and endless arrays of solar panels”, as described in this newspaper last weekend, but there is some arithmetic we have to consider along the way.

Finkel endorses the goals for Australia to have a 43 per cent emissions reduction, and an 82 per cent renewables target by 2030. A sobering counterclaim by Paul Broad, former chief executive of Snowy Hydro, suggests the latter may take 80 years, not eight, to achieve.

Given that the Snowy 2.0 pumped storage project, including its connection to electricity grids, has seen a time blowout of six or more years and a cost blowout from $2bn to a likely $20bn, maybe Broad knows a fairytale when he reads it.

Australia currently produces 75 per cent of its electricity from coal-fired generating plants. Those plants are for the most part using obsolete technology and are progressively being shut down, hence receiving minimal maintenance. New technology where boilers run at higher temperatures and pressures (ultra super critical or USC, also often called high-efficiency low-emissions, or HELE, plants) are vastly more efficient and lower in CO2 emissions, but the tragedy is that our clever country has not adopted these.

Apart from the many countries in the Western world that have, we see that in Asia 10 countries from India and Bangladesh in the west, to Vietnam and China in the east, have USC technology installed, and have additional plants under construction.

What might such technology achieve in Australia? Large coal-fired power plants (think Loy Yang A in Victoria, or Eraring in NSW) have capacities of about 2 to 3GW (gigawatts of output electric power). A detailed study by engineering group GHD in 2017 found that a USC generating plant would cost $2.2bn per gigawatt, or in 2023 money about $5bn for each plant of 2GW capacity. International Energy Agency and Korean construction figures suggest an average construction time of four to six years for a USC power plant.

Australia has about 20GW of conventional coal-fired power plants spread over five states, accounting for 75 per cent of the nation’s electricity generating capacity. So as a cost estimate these now-obsolete plants could be replaced with USC plants for about $50bn, with no add-on costs for fuel supplies or transmission lines since the plants already have that infrastructure.

And the benefits? A huge reduction in CO2 emissions; USC plants are 30-40 per cent lower in emissions than the old technology, so we have the attractive prospect of being able to cut emissions due to power generation by more than a third, using available technology.

And this carries the bonus of supplying baseload energy, thus assuring power supplies to industry and domestic users without threats of blackouts on cloudy or low-wind days.

The $50bn required to achieve this conversion to efficient coal-fired power generation is challenging, but as a nation we are addressing bigger challenges. Our AUKUS nuclear submarine project is estimated to cost up to $368bn over three decades.

The federal budget last year took a step in the direction of funding new energy projects, with an allocation of $20bn over four years for the Rewiring the Nation project, which is designed to “upgrade, expand and modernise Australia’s electricity grid”.

How much more secure we would be, in an energy sense, if we put a similar amount of money into modernising our generators rather than our connectors.

The coal-fired plants envisaged in this discussion will not be the forever solution for our power needs. On the scale of two to three decades, aided by our AUKUS nuclear submarine development, it is likely small modular nuclear plants will become available. Such plants, like USC coal plants, can be sited at existing power stations.

Alan Finkel is confident that an availability of nuclear plants by 2040 will be too late due to the growth of renewable energy sources. However, the growth of nuclear power stations overseas (planned, new and recommissioned from mothballed plants) suggests his view is likely too pessimistic. But the crucial point is that over the next decade, USC coal-fired power is the efficient, secure and achievable option, and replacement with nuclear and/or renewable energy should follow as alternative sources become proven, stable and fit for purpose.
The Australian

Subsidised Wind & Solar Delivering Crushing Power Prices For Energy-Starved Californians

From STOP THESE THINGS

Looking for insight into the wind and solar ‘transition’? Then start with California – where power prices are crushing the poorest households, and blackouts and routine power rationing are now an accepted part of their attempt to run on heavily subsidised and chaotically intermittent wind and solar.

Power prices, already the highest in the USA, continue to rise at a staggering rate. And, as John Hinderaker points out below, in that respect, California is well and truly set on its path to oblivion, with householders in for much, much worse.

Using Electricity to Redistribute Money
Powerline
John Hinderaker
21 April 2023

One of the many problems with “green” energy is that it is ridiculously expensive. Millions of Americans, if they have to pay the cost of wind or solar energy to power their homes, will not be able to afford it, and will have to sell out. Liberals know this, despite their absurd propaganda about wind energy being “cheap.”

So what can they do? Follow the usual liberal playbook: make upper-income people pay the costs of their misguided policies:

California’s electric companies want to charge people based on their incomes rather than their electricity consumption in a bid to make utilities more “equitable.”

Most people think that when two people pay the same price for the same good or service, it is equitable. But not in today’s brave new world of Leftism.

The state’s major electric companies last week submitted an income-based billing proposal to the state government, which last year instructed utilities to “make electric bills more affordable and equitable.” Under the companies’ proposal, low-income households would pay as little as $15 a month in premiums, while high-income households could pay up to $128 per month. They also must pay for usage.

Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s main utility provider, boasted that the plan will “help to limit the impact on disadvantaged communities, as Californians transition to electrification in support of the state’s clean energy goals.”

In a saner world, the “impact on disadvantaged communities” would be averted by using cheap and reliable energy sources, as we have in the past. The “impact” comes exclusively from liberals’ mania for expensive, unreliable energy. Unable to deny the adverse impact of their policies, the best liberals can do is shift the burden to people who comprise a minority of voters. This is naked income redistribution:

PG&E estimates that its lowest-income customers would see a 21 percent cut in their bills, while high earners would see about a 24 percent hike. The company says it would use the profits from high-income users to fund a variety of green energy initiatives, including the purchase of electric vehicles.

Which will continue California on its path to oblivion. If I owned a house in California, I would sell it.

Californians have seen their electricity rates rise nearly 70 percent since 2010, when the state started to break from fossil fuels. California households pay nearly 83 percent more than the average for homes elsewhere in the United States.

Most people think, I am afraid correctly, that California is a lost cause. The state’s crazy left-wing policies have chased away so many normals that there may not be enough left to reclaim power from the far Left. That is a sad scenario, but if nothing else, California’s decline can serve as a warning to the states that still can be salvaged.
Powerline

Europe’s Renewables Reckoning: Power Rationing & Punishing Power Prices Killing Thousands

From STOP THESE THINGS

For the poorest and most vulnerable, staying warm in winter is a daily battle for survival. Thanks to Europe’s (literally suicidal) wind and solar ‘transition’, power prices have spiralled out of control and in Germany power rationing is now routine, likewise in Britain.

The Germans, of course, led the charge when it came to throwing subsidies at chaotically intermittent wind and solar, with Britain in close pursuit.

In each case, it’s the poor and elderly who end up the victims of an ideological obsession.

German power prices are now the highest in Europe and thousands of households have been disconnected from the grid, unable to pay their power bills. Britain isn’t far behind.

The cost in human mortality is staggering. A study carried out by the Economist reckons that some 68,000 Europeans perished last winter thanks to spiralling energy costs. Their data shows that wind and solar-obsessed Britain and Germany suffered the worst mortality amongst their energy-deprived citizens. Had the winter been as bitter as the year before, the numbers would have been greater still.

In the first piece, Noah Carl looks at the (glaringly obvious) relationship between energy poverty and excess mortality. In the second piece, Pierre Gosselin reports on Germany’s plans to restrict access to energy and engage in more power rationing which, in a nutshell, means thousands more will perish next winter. Welcome to the grand wind and solar transition!

High Energy Prices Killed 68,000 Europeans Last Winter, Claims The Economist
Daily Sceptic
Noah Carl
15 May 2023

Last winter’s energy crisis was much less bad than many had predicted – thanks in large part to unusually warm weather. Indeed, 2022-23 was Europe’s “joint-second warmest winter on record”, so demand for natural gas was much lower than it might have otherwise been.

However, it was still cold and people still had to heat their homes. Yet according to the Economist, high gas prices discouraged many Europeans from doing so, leading to 68,000 excess deaths across the continent. The magazine had actually predicted that this would happen and was proven correct – or so it claims.

How did its analysts get to the figure of 68,000? They begin by noting that there were 149,000 excess deaths between November 2022 and February 2023 – which is 8% higher than the five-year average from 2015-2019. About 60,000 were officially recorded as Covid deaths, so these were subtracted from the total.

They then looked to see whether energy prices were correlated with the non-Covid excess deaths rate across European countries, and found that they were – as shown in the chart below.

There’s a strong positive association between energy prices and non-Covid excess deaths per 100,000. Note that Britain had among the highest energy prices and among the highest non-Covid excess deaths.

The Economist ran a model controlling for various factors, and found that “a price rise of around €0.10 per kwh” was associated with “an increase in a country’s weekly mortality of around 2.2%”. Which implies that if energy prices had not risen, there would have been 68,000 fewer deaths in Europe.

Now, I have one quibble with their methodology: they appear to have used the absolute number of excess deaths per 100,000 as their outcome measure – which doesn’t really account for ageing and ‘rewards’ countries with lower birth rates. However, the biases aren’t huge, and it’s unlikely to have seriously affected their analysis. (The true figure might be 10-15% lower.)

Incidentally, they also estimate how many lives were saved by energy subsidies, and come up with a figure of 26,600. Given that subsidies were on the order of €600 billion, that works out to around €25 million per life saved – well-above standard estimates of the ‘value of a statistical life’.

The rise in energy prices last year was partly due to uncertainty sparked by Russia’s invasion, and was therefore probably inevitable. However, it was also due to Europe’s self-imposed sanctions on Russian energy, along with Russia’s decision to cut gas supplies (before the Nord Stream sabotage).

As the Spectator noted in a recent editorial, the sanctions on Russia have largely failed. They haven’t stopped Russia waging war let alone “turned the rouble to rubble”. And they’ve helped the Chinese, our supposed rivals, who’ve been able to buy energy at a discount.

On top of all that, it seems, they got elderly Europeans killed.
Daily Sceptic

Germany’s Federal Network Agency Plans To Ration Electricity As Electric Power Crisis Heightens
No Tricks Zone
Pierre Gosselin
16 May 2023

Nowadays it seems Germany is doing everything possible to warp-speed ruin itself.

If today’s German leaders were driving a car and wanted to go faster, they would ease off the gas pedal and slam on the brakes – and hope it works! That’s basically how they’re handling the country’s energy crisis. Some would understandably equate it all to lunacy.

Going electric while shutting down power plants
While leaders demand citizens quickly switch over to electric mobility and heat pump systems, thus placing ever huger demands on the power grid, they are reacting by shutting off nuclear and fossil fuel power plants, thus making electricity even more scarce than it already is.

Rationing becoming unavoidable
As Germany’s energy shortages intensify, it’s no surprise that rationing is becoming only way out. And so the Federal Network Agency now proposes that grid operators be allowed to ration electricity in the future to avoid possible overloads caused by charging e-cars and heat pumps. This is how grid overloads are to be avoided in the future.

Nightmare for companies
Companies planning to set up shop in Germany may want to think again if they plan on using electricity. Firstly prices have soared and are among the highest in the world, and secondly: don’t expect the supply to be reliable as brownouts are now in the plans.

Even worse for private citizens
For private consumers, it gets even worse. According to the plan, beginning already in 2024, grid operators are to be empowered “to temporarily restrict electricity purchases from private charging stations and heat pumps to avoid peak loads,” reports Blackout News.

Have blankets ready
“If it is proven that the grid could be overloaded, the distribution grid operator has the right to reduce the power,” said Klaus Müller, head of the Federal Network Agency in an interview with BR24. In other words, if it’s January and -10°C outside, your heat pump may be remotely switched off. Have blankets ready.

Power grid totally inadequate
Another problem is the lack of power grid upgrades that are necessary to handle the huge extra demand for power that heat pumps and electric cars will create. The result: severe supply bottlenecks and overloads. Again, the only measure available for the challenge will be rationing.

Lower electric rates for those who have to freeze
“In order to avoid delays in the connection of heat pumps and charging stations, an additional control option by the distribution grid operator is necessary, reports Blackout News. “In the end, a corresponding control means nothing other than a rationing of electricity purchases. As compensation for the affected consumers, it is envisaged that they will receive a reduction in their grid fees.”

Criticism mounts (finally) A number of industry associations have widely criticized the “unilateral and unlimited throttling” of the power supply and warn this would mean “considerable restrictions for consumers and thus also limit consumer acceptance of heat pumps and electric cars”.

Unless Germany radically changes course in its energy policy, citizens who heat their homes with heat pumps and travel with electric cars may find themselves often stranded in unheated homes in the wintertime.

Greatest energy folly of all time?
No one could have imagined a folly of this scale less than 2 years ago, just before the current Socialist-Green government took over the reins of power at the end of 2021. Other countries may want to avoid the idiotic German path.
No Tricks Zone