Welcome to Weimar Australia:
The first signs of the price surge feeding through to household power bills came on Tuesday as the Victorian regulator announced a 5 per cent average increase in standing offer power bills from July 1.
Increased standing offer prices are expected to be announced for other states by the Australian Energy Regulator on Thursday, reflecting the leap higher in wholesale costs in recent months.
5 per cent isn’t even the half of it.
Wholesale gas prices have doubled this month, coming on top of electricity forward prices that have risen up to five-fold in 12 months.
Wholesale gas price doubles in a month. I have never seen anything like this.
The price surges have triggered fears of an energy price crisis similar to Europe’s and led to warnings that the new Labor government will fall short of targeted price reductions.
The AER decision was delayed in late March by then federal energy minister Angus Taylor until after the election, in which the cost of living and future energy prices became a heated topic of debate.
That was a promise that Labor knew it would never be able to keep. How about that language:
“..an energy price crisis similar to Europe’s.”
We’re talking about the most developed region in the world facing an energy crisis. This is triggering an economic crisis, and considering that the entire world is being hit by this manmade energy and food supply crisis, it won’t be long before this triggers a humanitarian catastrophe.
The escalation in gas prices on the east coast in May builds on April’s 46 per cent jump and is forcing manufacturers that rely on wholesale tariffs to the brink of closure, as well as squeezing retailers caught in between.
Prices for wholesale power in the 2022-23 financial year have surged almost five-fold in NSW over the past 12 months, and more than trebled in Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, according to energy adviser Energy Edge.
NSW gas wholesaler and retailer Weston Energy became the latest casualty of the crisis on Monday, losing its licence from the Australian Energy Regulator to retail gas, citing an “unprecedented” price spike that trebled its working capital requirement. More than 1000 industrial sites across the east coast that were supplied by Weston were affected and had to be switched to a “retailer of last resort”.
Last week, a small Queensland electricity retailer, LPE, made an exit from the retail market after succumbing to similar circumstances in power.
Energy retailers are dropping like flies and it’s only going to get worse:
But analysts say the price increases allowed from July 1 will not encapsulate the full extent of the surge in wholesale prices.
That will spell difficulties for smaller retailers, in particular, caught by higher wholesale costs and unable to fully pass them on to customers, It also points to further price increases for households down the track, other things being equal.
Analysts warn that the new federal government will need to intervene in the market to have a chance of Labor meeting its targets for wholesale power prices, and say the high prices for the coal and gas still needed to generate most of the country’s power are to blame.
That means Labor’s policy of increasing renewable power penetration to 82 per cent of total power generation by 2030 is unlikely to work on its own for prices to fall to $51 a megawatt-hour by 2025 and $45/MWh by 2030, according to JPMorgan energy analyst Mark Busuttil.
This demonstrates the utter insanity of the so-called “net zero” future which our rulers are hell bent on achieving. Even if it were possible to supply the whole country with so-called “renewable” energy, Australia’s power grid would not be able to deal with the pressures and complexity involved. Hence why the AnAl government wants to waste even more money gold plating the energy grid:
Labor is promising to transform the grid faster by creating a new body called Rewiring the Nation.
It would provide $20 billion of low-cost finance for power companies to build new transmission infrastructure, allowing them to connect more cheap renewables sooner.
“Rewiring the Nation will cover its real costs, not deliver a commercial return to government,” Labor’s Powering Australia policy stated.
“This will lower the cost of the upgrade, helping to ensure consumers get the lowest possible price, by shielding them from the risk of gold-plating in the necessary upgrade of transmission projects.”
You can take that $20 billion price tag and multiply it by ten. For starters. These lunatics are openly talking about removing all of Australia’s remaining coal and gas power stations. Australia is headed for a third world future.
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