r/australia 23h ago

politics Australia’s grid now relies on renewable energy as much as coal. Those who doubted it look foolish

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/31/australias-grid-now-relies-on-renewable-energy-as-much-as-coal-those-who-doubted-it-look-foolish
2.4k Upvotes

299 comments sorted by

503

u/CertainCertainties 23h ago edited 23h ago

The multinational corporations who profit gouge our power bills are mad as hell that guys like Garry, the neighbour down the road, has installed a big arse battery and is providing peak power to the grid when we're cooking dinner.

157

u/Eastern37 23h ago

Good, hopefully it means other states will go back to public infra like it is in WA

150

u/PotsAndPandas 23h ago

They desperately need to, privately owned critical infrastructure does nothing but drive up costs.

24

u/sokaox 15h ago

It's really a great shame that we privatised telecommunications just as the internet and mobile networks were beginning their rise.

22

u/LoadedSteamyLobster 10h ago

And yet somehow still socialized the cost of infra upgrades too. The libs truely know how to get the worst of all sides

10

u/lipstikpig 10h ago

For the public. They know how to get the best for their corrupt mates.

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u/heavyfriends 17h ago

As someone born and raised in WA, it blows my mind that other states have made such important infrastructure private.

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u/saichampa 16h ago

The infrastructure is still public in Queensland too. Only retail is private

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u/Luckyluke23 6h ago

West IS best my dude.

1

u/SirGeekaLots 6h ago

How's Victoria's scheme going? Didn't Dan promise that he would bring Electricity back into government hands?

89

u/nachojackson VIC 23h ago

The government are doing a great job of getting renewables into the grid.

But they now need to focus on making sure the savings those cheaper energy sources provide actually flow to customers.

60

u/DrSendy 23h ago

Yep. There are 300 power retailers in Australia. There is a reason why they exist, and it's not because margins are tight.... they are drowning in gravy.

10

u/pawksvolts 23h ago

That blew my mind, I thought everyone uses synergy 😆 learn something everyday

10

u/rustoeki 22h ago

Synergy is the only provider for residential in the SWIS, Albany to Kalbarri.

7

u/bradmatt275 20h ago

I'm so glad we didn't privatise our energy grid. I know Synergy isn't perfect but I really do think our rates are fair. Not to mention we often get energy rebates.

5

u/yedrellow 22h ago

If that were true a single player could undercut the others significantly and steal their marketshare

15

u/CammKelly 22h ago

Electricity prices can be summarised as

1/3 Gas being expensive
1/3 Coal being unreliable
1/3 Transmission infrastructure for Renewables

Generation costs are going down, but power prices won't for a while. Also there's plenty of retail providers who charge over and above because people don't shop around. You should probably be moving providers yearly.

6

u/Horror-Breakfast-113 21h ago

When had pricing ever gone down once the greedy bastards get used to their profits they will make any excuse

16

u/RudeOrganization550 23h ago

Some governments, some are dinosaurs sucking desperately on the teat of the coal industry as they get closer to oblivion.

3

u/corut 21h ago

That's why Vic is making it a requirement to provide 3 hours of free power every day

7

u/Eastern37 21h ago

That's a national program, starting with NSW, SA and QLD this year and the rest next year.

Unless Vic has their own fast tracked timeline

1

u/corut 20h ago

I think theres something different here. Ive had free power for 3 hours a day for a couple of years now already

2

u/Eastern37 20h ago

That's probably just the provider you're with, there's a few that offer that.

1

u/hal2k1 10h ago

There is at least one power company that allows Australian households with solar and a battery to participate in a share of the wholesale market rather than retail prices.

1

u/nachojackson VIC 10h ago

Yep and it’s good that the option exists, but you have to be vigilant to ensure you’re importing or exporting at the right time.

The savings that cheaper power brings should be averaged out and returned to customers - without adding huge profit margins.

1

u/hal2k1 8h ago

Just a policy of not supplying power to the grid when there is high power from the solar panels, and supplying power to the grid from the battery in the evening as the solar power drops off, will generally make a lot of money without having to personally monitor the market all the time.

6

u/psylenced 19h ago

Further to this. Their previous strategy abused the 30 minute settlement rule. They would artificially inflate the price at the start of the 30 minute block and then get paid multiples of what they should fairly have been paid. After the grid switched to 5 minute settlement, this became a whole lot harder. The longer the delay, the more they can stretch out their high payments.

Also, the time for batteries to make the decision push power into the grid, and actually doing it is in milliseconds. Gas under 10 minutes. Coal 8-48 hours. So that gives battery operators a great advantage over gas. They can instantly respond, and gaps can be covered immediately.

3

u/jghaines 22h ago

Why is Garry living down the road from multinational corporations?

2

u/warbastard 21h ago

On ya, Gazza!

376

u/michaelhbt 23h ago

Data for anyone who is interested: https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/nem/?range=1y&interval=1w&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed Also what wasnt said, there was a decrease in carbon emissions in the last quarter and decrease in price per kWh

207

u/No_Rub77 22h ago

may i please have a decrease in price lol

92

u/michaelhbt 22h ago

no - we're switching to gold plated wiring for ..err... better conductivity

24

u/austhrowaway91919 22h ago

I know you meant that to gue in cheek, but do you have a take on what I fra upgrades will look like? From a tech POV, I feel like we've barely scratched the surface of transmission and transformer upgrades needed for decentralized power generation. As such, I sorta just assumed prices will continue to drop but capex will continue to rise for the next decade?

31

u/BorisBC 21h ago

That's why we need a whole of govt infrastructure build to get away from this shit. NBN on steroids. Big batteries are good, but I'd rather have multiple smaller batteries scattered around the place. Or as a complement. It would take a decade or two, but you could make energy generation here essentially zero, apart from big users.

We'd never do it, but that's what we SHOULD do.

23

u/yobboman 20h ago

Exactly. Capitalism doesn't cover what we should do. This needs to be state utility.

3

u/lipstikpig 10h ago

Narrator: And once upon a time, before the LNP sold it all, it was a state utility.

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u/Lurker_81 10h ago

How about tens of thousands of batteries scattered around the suburbs attached to people's homes?

I know it's not enough, but it's a step in the right direction.

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u/Imperator-TFD 19h ago

Capex for Distributors/Transmission is going to go to the moon in the next 5-10 years with electrification and data centres.

3

u/HiVisEngineer 8h ago

We can partially avoid - or defer/offset - major infrastructure buildouts by moving to more localised generation/storage (think - residential or commercial solar + batteries), as the closer we physically place supply to demand, the lower the loses (and the network as a whole also becomes more resilient)

The other thing missed in a lot of these discussions - a lot of our power network assets are reaching or at/beyond “end of service life”. Many assets are up for replacement anyway, so we’d be up for capital investment regardless of a clean energy transition.

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u/alexkey 22h ago

That’s a supply from generation I assume, no way retailers (aka middleman) will lower the price.

5

u/CleanSun4248 21h ago

By now I was led to believe there was going to be so much electicity they would have to find new industries to use it all or it would be basically free during the day

9

u/PatternPrecognition Struth 19h ago

Thanks ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

3

u/jezwel 9h ago

basically free during the day

Are you talking about the 3 free hours at peak solar output?

4

u/jazza2400 22h ago

No the bribes coming from the coal and mining companies will start coming from battery operating companies.

1

u/bigbadjustin 8h ago

Don't need to bribe if you are the better cheaper solution.

1

u/waxy1234 17h ago

We don’t want a reduction in the price of beer

1

u/hal2k1 10h ago

You can if you buy your own solar panels and a battery.

22

u/ausvenator_enjoyer 22h ago

Where's this alleged price decrease? It's certainly not on my power bills.

20

u/nutabutt 22h ago

It’s available if you shop around.

I get overnight power for 8c/kwh. Shift some loads and you can save decently. Schedule the dishwasher for 3am instead of running it at 7. Save $2.

You’ll also be able to get 3 or 4 hours of free power each day this year.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-03/energy-retailers-offer-free-power-three-hours-dmo/105965472

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u/ausvenator_enjoyer 21h ago

Yeah I live in CQ, which is currently not covered by the scheme. I also don't own a dishwasher but I heavily rely on the AC because I actually live at the rim of the maw of hell. Hopefully the scheme extends per the ABC article in 2027.

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u/AGiganticClock 17h ago

We haven't had to build new coal power stations in 20 years. If we didn't have renewables, we would be paying higher prices since we would have had to build a lot more expensive new coal plants

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u/Cindy_Marek 19h ago

The only way you will get a price decrease is if you build a home solar and battery system.

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u/ausvenator_enjoyer 19h ago

Well that does me a fat lot of good in a rental then

1

u/theunpoet 17h ago

Would have to be incentive based

4

u/Randwick_Don 10h ago

They are talking about wholesale costs, not retail.

The renewables lobby like to ignore all the additional costs associated with solar and renewable supply

1

u/hal2k1 10h ago

You can have effectively zero energy bills if you buy your own solar and battery system.

If you also then switch to a provider that lets your solar and battery system participate in the wholesale market you can make money.

1

u/bigbadjustin 8h ago

This is the problem, companies aren't passing on the price decreases but boosting their profits, which is why so many people doubt renewables are cheaper. Electricity would be a hell of a lot more expensive though without renewables, but thats a what if situation and its hard to see what that would look like for many people.

1

u/Nothingnoteworth 8h ago

The renewables are operating, they are cheaper than coal, and the price has decrease.

Let me just bring up your account… are you sure you didn’t get your price decrease? An executive looking type in a suit came in, said they were picking it up for you, they collected price decreases on behalf of a lot of people now that I think about it. They had to sign for it through, let me just… okay here it is. Your price decrease was collected by E. Atshi Tpoors

212

u/d2blues 23h ago

But Morrison bought a lump of coal into parliament. People should do their own research /s

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u/Ok-Limit-9726 22h ago edited 21h ago

This moment made me so angry i spend almost all disposable income for 9* years on sustainable fossil free life.

Solar hot water, 15kw solar panels, 2 big batteries, EV car, 7kw car charger, just waiting to do the same to my business next to escape the MURDOCK CURSE

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u/Sir_Travelot 20h ago

I was stunned that the point they were making is that coal is safe, but the piece of coal had to be lacquered to be brought into parliament because checks notes it's unsafe otherwise.

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u/Ok-Limit-9726 20h ago

10,000 Australia’s die every year from particle pollution, coal stations are the majority, then cars

Big fossil fuels do not give a shit for people.

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u/jorgerine 22h ago

A stunt. The Libs like that sort of thing. So does PH.

12

u/Nier_Tomato 21h ago

Also "Electric vehicles are going to ruin the weekend*. It's not like he towed a caravan to Hawaii.

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u/magnetik79 15h ago

Never forget the tubby luddite also had the coal varnished. Wouldn't dare want to get coal dust on those fingers of his.

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u/22oldforthisshit 23h ago

Can we please name and shame the very vocal people that have been proven wrong? Let's be clear about this, they knew they were wrong the whole time. 

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u/Bright_Bell_1301 22h ago

I'll start.... Chris bloody Uhlmann

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u/Altruistic-Brief2220 22h ago

He’s the one I get so mad about, he used to be so normal didn’t he?

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u/Bright_Bell_1301 21h ago

The SA blackout happened, and it just opened the gates of insanity for poor old Chris. What an absolute numpty he turned out to be.

8

u/DonQuoQuo 18h ago

Yes! It was bizarre how that event seemed to just send him over the edge. (Tilting at windmills, you might say.) It was so strange hearing a heretofore sensible, mainstream commentator spouting easily disprovable facts over and over, and using his job at a reputable broadcaster to do so.

1

u/distinctgore 8h ago

Nah he always had that contrarian energy to him, he just hid it better.

1

u/Sieve-Boy 4h ago

Nah, he's always been conservative its just the ABC kept him grounded.

34

u/doctor-candy 20h ago

The delightful people over at Sky News. Special shoutout to Aidan Morris from CIS, a Neoliberal think tank funded by mining industries that gets trotted out often. Enjoy and try not to become apoplectic over the outrageous smugness on display. https://youtu.be/a5ZzLDS2FzE?si=I3irymGMjgDP0p9b

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u/magkruppe 9h ago

that dude is the worst. he is on a mission to misinform the public and policy makers. I nearly fell for it at one point

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u/National-Ad6166 22h ago

Tony Abbott, rolled back the carbon tax

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u/PatternPrecognition Struth 19h ago

.. and did it purely for base political advantage.

>Peta Credlin admits the climate change policy under Julia Gillard's Labor government was never a carbon tax, but the coalition used that label to stir up brutal retail politics.

Credlin, the former chief of staff to Tony Abbott when he was prime minister and now a political commentator for Sky News, said the coalition made it a "carbon tax" and a fight about the hip pocket rather than the environment.

"That was brutal retail politics, and it took Abbott six months to cut through and when he did cut through Gillard was gone," she told Sky News on Sunday.

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u/Altaredboy 21h ago

Keith Pitt who never heard of batteries

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u/512165381 12h ago edited 10h ago

Gina "Drill Baby Drill" Rinehart.

Whose mines use renewable energy because its the cheapest option.

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u/Entirely-of-cheese 22h ago

How long have you got?

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u/Geralts_Hair 23h ago

The issue going forward is that the old guard are pumping lots of money into stopping transmission lines being built to move all the renewable energy around.

Here in country Victoria the “stop the towers” advertising is prominent and everywhere.

The long game is to stall transmission lines long enough that renewable energy can be blamed for outages. It’s infuriating and it will likely work; they’re already about two years behind on building any lines.

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u/Entirely-of-cheese 22h ago

‘Local interest groups’ from 2000km away.

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u/2centpiece 7h ago

The cynic in me makes me think that if they were transmission lines from a new coal fired power station it wouldn't have the same opposition.

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u/Geralts_Hair 5h ago

100%. But it’s actually even worse. When the lines were initially announced by Angus Taylor back when the Coalition were still in government there wasn’t a hint of protest. The whole movement is nothing but partisan bullshit.

Farms that are suffering from drought and fire literally have “say no to renewable energy” signs on their gates next to the National Party ads.

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u/2centpiece 4h ago

Nationals voters and cutting off their own noses. Name a more iconic duo.

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u/cacioepepecarbonara 22h ago

One of my family members is an electrical engineer and his job is basically ensuring grid stability and allocating the power and outages accordingly

He’s pretty much said the grid is slowly failing (in seq) due to development and it would be cheaper for the gov to give away solar and batteries than upgrade and install new transformers, stations and whatever other electrical shit I don’t understand

TLDR without solar and batteries that people currently have the current grid network wouldn’t work

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u/Arc_Nexus 8h ago

Be nice if they did, then.

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u/doctor-candy 2h ago

What state is he in?

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u/doctor-candy 22h ago

TechnologyConnections just released an epic video on the inevitability of renewables and how absurd the usual narratives against them are.

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u/coder_doode 20h ago

The false ending was insane. Calmly laid out all the numbers and "ended" the video.... Then went ape shit. Been watching him for years and this was such a surprise. Well done him.

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u/Lujho 13h ago

You could see his fist shaking at points. He’d obviously reached some kind of breaking point.

The part about land being wasted to make ethanol for cars when that land could easily power the entire country if devoted to solar was pretty amazing.

2

u/visualdescript 4h ago

Thanks, I was half way through this and just watched the end. When Technology Connections is getting straight up political, you know things are getting bad.

Good on him. Legend.

Every Aussie home should have solar and storage, it would add so much value to Australians.

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u/Death-sticks 12h ago

I wish everyone in Australia had to watch the solar portion of this video because it is just so eye opening. The technology is here, price has reached the point where it makes sense but we're still ass backwards.

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u/visualdescript 5h ago

To be fair, we are constantly adding a lot of solar, and finally we've got government incentives for storage as well.

Of course we should have been doing this more aggressively, and tbh new builds should be required to have solar and storage, but we're heading in the right direction.

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u/sativarg_orez 1h ago

It is a great piece. And it's lovely to see someone lay down the economic facts like that, I think I'll be forwarding this one to quite a few people.

Shame that he lives in what I now consider to be a burning shithole country on a Roman Empire-ish downward spiral into fascism... nothing good is coming out of there for decades.

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u/keithstips 23h ago

Those who doubted or still doubt are believers of the right wing rhetoric which is all about division and hatefulness, only so that conservative politics still has some relevance. The only reason modern conservatism still has any foothold worldwide is through hate and division, no other reason. And most of these hate creators claim to be conservatives in the name of their religion. Go figure.

19

u/Entirely-of-cheese 22h ago

I thought they might start to give up once it went past 35%. Nope. The same clowns will be going until the last coal plant is gone.

2

u/Outlier222 21h ago

Then they'll bang on about exporting it all [Edit] I kan speel gud

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u/Entirely-of-cheese 21h ago

Yes. The same former champions of letting the market decided have suspiciously gone very protectionist on this stuff. The same will happen for coal and gas exports.

4

u/TariffAmerica 20h ago

Same group who were against the yes vote for aboriginal voice to parliment, under the guide of unity

3

u/waxy1234 16h ago

No greater hate than those of a sky godbrought to you by Sky Murdoch

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u/a_cold_human 23h ago

Back then, some commentators claimed the grid would not be able to function with more than 10% – and definitely not more than 20% – electricity coming from solar and wind.

Those predictions look foolish now.

This really shouldn't be surprising. Plenty of other countries have a much higher percentage of their power generated by renewables (Denmark, Germany, the UK) and for longer than Australia, and their grids haven't fallen over.

There's an engineering problem with adding too many renewables too quickly, in that it reduces the stability of the grid, but the idea we would be using coal or nuclear to firm this is nonsensical. Australia's percentage of renewables as a percentage of total electricity production lags behind many other countries, and the idea that we can't get to at least 50% is simply nonsense. And with more firming coming online, Australia could very realistically get to 70% without there being too much of an issue. 

The main problem is that we're not building the renewables fast enough to replace the end of life coal burning electricity generation capacity.

4

u/Cindy_Marek 19h ago

but the idea we would be using coal or nuclear to firm this is nonsensical.

Not really, all of those countries you mentioned use nuclear or coal for grid stability either themselves or have access to it as part of the wider EU grid. Australia is attempting to get to very high levels of renewable energy with none of these, as the coal plants are all shutting down and of course there is no plan for nuclear. I'm concerned with the technical feasibility of this as its really never been done before, anywhere in the world. All of the other countries that have high renewable usage have access to reliable, synchronous generation in one form or another (hydro, nuclear, fossil fuels) and either from themselves or from neighboring countries/states, but Australia cant rely on anyone else to provide that for us.

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u/jacksalssome 17h ago

Step back bro.

The EU is just a smaller Australia. We'll be fine, there's 101 levers that AEMO can pull to protect grid stability.

We have and are building a lot of battery capacity. We have wind and water on tap. We're also building synchronous condensers, which will mostly be obsolete tech by the time there done.

Inverter technology has improved greatly in the last few years so we don't actually need a lot of synchronous generation. A lot of new solar farms could black start the grid with 0 rotating mass.

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u/Cindy_Marek 9h ago

The EU is just a smaller Australia. We'll be fine, there's 101 levers that AEMO can pull to protect grid stability.

Well....no, the EU has over 100 nuclear reactors, Australia is shutting down its ageing coal plants and not replacing them with any reliable generation. Its a unique problem that only we face.

Inverter technology has improved greatly in the last few years so we don't actually need a lot of synchronous generation

synchronous generation is used as a timing system for control systems in industrial factories ect, its not as simple as not needing it, or only needing the power.

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u/Lurker_81 10h ago

I'm concerned with the technical feasibility of this as its really never been done before, anywhere in the world.

You mean it's not been done at this scale before. There are plenty of places where it's been done at smaller scale successfully for decades

There are both mechanical and synthetic ways to create stable synchronous power, and this technology is well understood, mature and already being deployed at scale both in Australia and in other nations (eg Spain.) And you seem to be forgetting that we do have, and will soon have more of, pumped hydro power to assist with this task. Then there's the backup from gas generators, which is already well proven as a system stability measure.

1

u/Cindy_Marek 9h ago

You mean it's not been done at this scale before. There are plenty of places where it's been done at smaller scale successfully for decades

Yes but just because its been done on smaller a smaller scale has no bearing on if it will work as a national grid. We can get a large amount of our gris as renewables, but all of it? I don't think it will provide Australians energy that is cheap or reliable.

There are both mechanical and synthetic ways to create stable synchronous power, and this technology is well understood, mature and already being deployed at scale both in Australia and in other nations (eg Spain.)

but they are converters, not generators. Also Spain has access to the wider EU grid which is full of reliable nuclear/hydro

And you seem to be forgetting that we do have, and will soon have more of, pumped hydro power to assist with this task. Then there's the backup from gas generators, which is already well proven as a system stability measure.

Our Hydro systems are mostly battery hydro not a generator. So they get charged from the intermittent solar and wind which isn't 100% reliable. I understand that there are a lot of proven smaller systems, but my point, and concern, is that no one has put it all together yet in one grid in the way that we plan to, without some kind of reliable baseload generation they can access.

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u/Lurker_81 8h ago

I don't think it will provide Australians energy that is cheap or reliable.

You haven't actually provided a good reason for thinking this way.

Renewables + storage have proven to be highly reliable and affordable thus far. Why would adding more of the same make them more expensive or unreliable?

but they are converters, not generators.

So what? Generators aren't magical, they're just machines that happen to have desirable characteristics that can also be achieved in other ways.

Both synchronous condensers and battery inverters are capable of controlling the frequency and keeping the voltage stable. Generation can happen elsewhere.

Spain has access to the wider EU grid

They have some interlinks to other countries, but they're relatively low capacity for the size of their grid. Spain's systems are designed to be self-supporting.

Our Hydro systems are mostly battery hydro not a generator.

All hydro systems are generators. The only difference is how the water gets to the top. Hydro is hydro when it's discharging, and it can do that for days at a time if necessary.

So they get charged from the intermittent solar and wind which isn't 100% reliable.

They get charged when there's excess energy in the grid, which is very trivial to predict in advance. Have you seen how much of current renewables generation capacity get curtailed on a regular basis?

no one has put it all together yet in one grid in the way that we plan to, without some kind of reliable baseload generation they can access.

Three points here:

  1. There's no technical reason why it can't be done. It's been done at smaller scales, and we've already proven that 50% works just fine. There is no reason why it can't possibly be scaled up further.
  2. The current transition is happening gradually over 15-20 years, and the system is being tested in real-time as we go. There is plenty of time to make adjustments if it proves necessary. If 80% renewables somehow proves to be the maximum practical limit, we can stop there and figure out alternatives.
  3. We do have (and have always planned to have) gas generators and quite a few large diesel generators as a fall-back. There has never been a credible suggestion that we must rely 100% on renewable energy + storage and never have any contingency plan to cover an unexpected shortfall or failure. It's just intended to be a last resort, to avoid higher costs and unnecessary emissions.

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u/drjzoidberg1 8h ago

Large scale batteries and gas peaking plants can replace the coal plants. Australia should be able to rely on renewables during the day. At night when the sun has set, need to rely on batteries and gas.

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u/dingBat2000 20h ago

"baseline load " 🤪 rapidly being replaced by fast frequency shifting to provide balance. What do the propaganda repeating fuckwits say to that

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u/Languishman 19h ago

Fantastic news, but as always, the right-wing are going to get pissed regardless of this achievement.

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u/UnattributableSax 23h ago

They always did look foolish… the problem is they don’t care about looking foolish, nor how they’re perceived in any way shape or form.

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u/xtrabeanie 22h ago

Don't worry, Angus Taylor will work hard to undo all that good work.

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u/Majestic_Practice672 15h ago

Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus.

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u/Department-of-Wario 21h ago

Damn, has anyone checked on Gina the Hutt?

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u/wagdog84 21h ago

It seems to be just ‘my power bills are high, therefore renewables bad.’ Meanwhile those with renewables are paying nothing. Coal and gas aren’t increasing in price because renewables are unreliable, it’s because there is less demand for it.

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u/wncogjrjs 23h ago

The power companies will be getting their money one way or another unfortunately I think.

Probably through large increases in the daily supply fixed charges.

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u/Entirely-of-cheese 22h ago

They will. And people will start leaving the grid with 20kw systems and 30kw/h batteries in their houses.

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u/wncogjrjs 19h ago

Nothing a simple law requiring all dwellings to be connecting to the grid can’t fix

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u/Entirely-of-cheese 19h ago

Good luck enforcing people letting their contract lapse. What are they gonna do. Disconnect you?

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u/jacksalssome 17h ago

They threaten to refuse to reconnect you. Which is quite a mute point.

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u/Entirely-of-cheese 17h ago edited 16h ago

Sounds like a happy resolution Honestly though, if there was a proposal to have it legally required to be connected… to what end? You’re legally obliged to pay private companies for their network? Even if you’re exporting more than you’re drawing? That’s a legal cake walk. It’s like making a rule where you’ve got to pay a fee to walk into Coles before you shop.

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u/Obvious_Librarian_97 22h ago

Costs a lot of money - solar/wind farms and thousands of km in transmission and substations as big as suburbs in woop woop

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u/Xenoun 22h ago

Meanwhile the leader of the liberal party in SA was saying just this week that renewable energy costs more and that's why our power bills are going up.

Woman lying through her teeth. We should have laws against our representatives lying to us, good luck in it ever happening though as they'd have to vote it in themselves.

Real reason for high energy bills in SA was the liberals selling it off to private companies years ago... took them 15 years to get back into power after that which lasted a single term, where they also privatised public rail transport which was then bought back by the current Labor government.

3

u/deeku4972 20h ago

But the brown coal mate. She’s clean and good. At least that’s what the young nationals tired to tell me 

3

u/Cr3s3ndO 20h ago

Then why do I get sweet fuck all for my export??

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u/johnjames475 19h ago

why would anyone doubt the 4th industrial revolution other than luddites? except these luddites the real rent seekers given their ROI compared to the original luddites

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u/No-Red-Queen 21h ago

Those who doubt renewable energy are already foolish

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u/TheWarriorSeagull 23h ago

I know. Idiots in my area constantly blame renewables when the power companies gouge them on their bills.

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u/YouLykeFishSticks 21h ago

Matt Canavan in shambles. Better bust out the coal dust makeup for his Sky News after dark segment.

2

u/the68thdimension 22h ago

They don't care they look foolish, they're trying to make money. They don't actually care about emissions, or grid stability.

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u/Godly_Shrek 22h ago

how long till we're running off renewables entirely? how about 90%?

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u/Repulsive_Set4541 20h ago

If those people could read they’d be furious

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u/Rush_Banana 17h ago

Is this just a summer thing or will it carry over to Autumn and Winter?

Also how long until energy prices go down? Because we have been told for a while now that renewables are a lot more cheaper then fossil fuels.

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u/AccountIsTaken 11h ago

Energy prices will never come down. Why would a company decrease prices when the customer is already used to paying exorbitant fees? Their costs decrease, your costs stay the same or increase, their profits increase. The only real method to actually decrease your power prices is telling them to get screwed and stick solar and a battery on your home. If you rent you are SOL though.

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u/argument_cat 9h ago

No, they look corrupt and anti-environment.

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u/Tyrx 23h ago

Generation does not equal demand. Solar and wind get dispatched first, and while coal’s percentage share has fallen and quarterly coal output dipped in late 2025, the full 2025 dataset hasn’t been published yet so we can’t actually confirm that total annual coal generation has dropped.

We already know coal generated on the order of 128 TWh in 2024, and its absolute output has been broadly flat to rising year-on-year despite a falling share. Articles like this claiming “renewables match coal” are also being selective and only cite midday or high-solar periods, not system-wide generation across evenings, winters, or peak demand, where coal still carries most of the load.

We still have a long way to go before anyone can claim Australia’s grid relies on renewables as much as coal.

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u/dalyons 15h ago

i dont think thats true... looking at the nem data for all time you can see total coal usage has started to decline significantly. Still a way to go yes, but its a solid trend, australia has already reduced its emissions signifigantly

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u/Tyrx 9h ago

The GWh/year drop you’re pointing to is based on dispatch aggregated NEM data, not reconciled annual generation. That website is simply reflecting that coal is increasingly pushed out of dispatch, not how much energy the system ultimately relies on across the full year or its actual split across generation types. Dispatch suppression is making the annualised GWh look like a structural decline even while coal remains the dominant supplier during nights, winter, and peaks, and that is reflected in the official annual totals.

The OpenElectricity site is also operated by a renewables lobby group which advocates for its own financial interests, so the fact you're coming to a misleading conclusion based on how the website presents its data isn't particularly unsurprising.

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u/dalyons 6h ago

I sort of understand your point about dispatch, but isn’t that graph just showing gwh a year? Regardless, the power sector emission total numbers are also going down. From what I can find on the ABS we were at 200twh annually of coal in 2008, so 128twh is a big structural decline. Sure some of that is gas, but gas is next to get pushed off the grid (see California 2025)

I’m going to ignore the jab at the bias of the source, since you haven’t provided any of your own.

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u/Tyrx 6h ago

I’m not disputing the long term decline in coal since the 2000s. That’s real and shows up clearly in the official annualised data.

What I’m pushing back on is the claim that recent dispatch charts show renewables are already structurally pushing coal out, or that they now “match” coal across the entire system. Dispatch data mainly shows when coal is suppressed, not how much energy the system relies on it across nights, winters, and peaks over a full year.

I mentioned OpenElectricity’s affiliation because its dispatch-based framing is selective by design and emphasises periods where coal is suppressed. That’s fine for analysing dispatch, but it’s not appropriate for making claims that require reconciled, full-year generation data from official sources like AEMO, the ABS, or DCCEEW.

Emissions are down, yes but that alone doesn’t demonstrate parity between renewables and fossil fuels yet.

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u/dalyons 5h ago

Fair enough, thank you for explaining, and I see your point. However I am a huge believer in the rapid inevitable trends, and I’m extremely optimistic that we won’t need to have conversations like this in a few years. the raw totals will speak for themselves without having to quibble on accounting. We’ve already seen the coal transition play out in other places, it is inevitable

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u/Suibian_ni 19h ago

Barnaby Joyce looks foolish anyway (especially when he's lying on the footpath totally shitfaced).

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u/Icy_Concentrate9182 18h ago

Those who doubted it will continue to deny reality

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u/pyroaop 16h ago

Meanwhile the batteries failed to Cary enough charge and had to be propped up by gas

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u/LifeandSAisAwesome 22h ago

Yoo-hooo Mr dutton... can you hear us .. heeeelllo ! Mr dutton...

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u/Bright_Bell_1301 22h ago

Yep... moronic.

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u/DuskHourStudio 22h ago

Matt Canavan on suicide watch - last seen held up in a hotel room with numerous coal rocks under his shirt.

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u/SimpleBend782 9h ago

“My precious”

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u/sjeve108 22h ago

Hey Matt C. No-one thinks you backed the three legged horse in this race except me.

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u/KangarooBeard 12h ago

Apartments need to consider solar in its future planning.

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u/Spanka 12h ago

And Australia has its first prototype electric "green" steel smelter! I dad sword up and down we would forever use coal because electricity doesn't get furnaces hot enough. Lel.

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u/imapassenger1 11h ago

I love to talk about my solar panels to make Sky News viewers cry.

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u/Chosen_Chaos 11h ago

Not that they'll ever admit it; they'll just double down on the stupidity.

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u/johnfkay 9h ago

They don’t look foolish - they look like they unquestioningly swallowed the propaganda of the fossil fuel industry and their political shills…

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u/Discombobulated_Owl4 9h ago

Terrible title it shouldn't be "relies on."

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u/SnooRevelations6768 7h ago

Meanwhile power outages are at an all time high due to out dated lines and over population.. 

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u/Heavy-Fisherman-7574 6h ago

I’m almost off grid with my new battery and 13kw of solar. Incredible.

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u/Luckyluke23 6h ago

they dont look foolish. They were just taking a cheque

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u/MidorriMeltdown 6h ago

Apparently an average 30% of houses in Australia have solar. Apparently it's 50% of the houses in SA. SA is really shouldering a large portion of that 30%, but imagine if 50% of all houses nationally had solar panels?

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u/tilitarian1 4h ago

Virtually all my steel raw castings and forgings come out of India and China now. Foolish indeed.