"The electricity reliability outlook may have improved since May but it is clearer we will not keep the lights on without sustained national effort to speed up the planning, approval and delivery of new energy infrastructure," Innes Willox, Chief Executive of national employer association Ai Group, said today.
"The Australian Energy Market Operator's latest advice shows that approvals and investment decisions on projects like the HumeLink transmission line, big batteries and large scale renewables, together with the two-year extension of New South Wales' Eraring coal plant, have significantly reduced the expected level of energy demand that goes unmet this decade.
"AEMO are also very clear: unless many more planned projects are actually permitted and delivered, we will have serious power shortfalls across NSW, Victoria and South Australia this decade. This is a warning that cannot be ignored.
"There has been substantial effort by the Federal Government, the States and Territories, and industry to accelerate development approval and construction. That work needs to continue and to go further.
"While vital major transmission projects are starting to be approved, building them will take time and could easily be halted by supply chain woes, legal action or policy reversals.
"Big batteries are roaring ahead but major new generation projects, especially wind, are still finding approvals to be too slow.
"Gas peakers play a vital backup role in the electricity system, even as batteries start to meet short-duration flexibility needs. But we don't yet have a plan to ensure adequate gas supply for those peakers to run past 2027.
"Australia can deliver projects faster if we collectively choose to prioritise that. Following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Germany revised its project approval processes in light of the national security threat posed by denial of Russian energy. Today they are connecting four times as much new wind and solar each year as they did before the crisis.
"Here in Australia we face a national security threat too. Our economy will grind to a halt if we fail to replace old coal plants before they fall over. All communities and all sides of politics have a stake in preventing that.
"We have a lot of work to do to keep the lights on. It is too early for self-congratulations about progress so far. It is too late to tear up our energy plans and start again. It's time to knuckle down and get energy projects built – large scale and small – across Australia," Mr Willox said.
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