Don Harwin tells Committee for Economic Development of Australia the ‘self-indulgent climate culture war’ should end

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The Liberal New South Wales energy minister has delivered a speech marking a sharp departure from his federal colleagues saying the coal-fired power industry should accept the clean energy target that will see the industry close in the coming decades as “the best deal that coal will get”.

He also ridiculed claims that expanding gas exploration in NSW was the key to fixing Australia’s gas crisis, saying such an idea was “curious”, and pointedly called for an end to the “self-indulgent climate culture war”.

Don Harwin delivered the speech on Thursday to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia in Sydney.

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He said he took over the portfolio a little over a week before a heatwave hit eastern Australia, threatening NSW with a significant power shortage, which was instructive in the politics and operation of the energy market.

The electricity shortfall was predicted in NSW, just days after the same thing happened in South Australia which eventuated as a blackout.

The federal government blamed renewables, and the treasurer, Scott Morrison, brandished a piece of coal in question time suggesting it was Labor’s fear of the mineral in South Australia that caused the blackout.

In NSW the blackout was avoided partly by getting aluminium smelters – which use large amounts of electricity – to shut down.

In a sharp departure from the comments made by Morrison and other federal Coalition members, Harwin said it was fossil-fuel generators that were causing the problem.

“Clean energy performed as forecast. Thermal generation did not,” Harwin said.

“That day, I acknowledged the role played by all generation technologies in meeting the peak, including the effort of the 350,000 households with rooftop solar.”

Harwin said that day highlighted how the notion of “baseload power” was an outdated paradigm.

“This new paradigm is about better forecasting demand, factoring in intermittent sources, and then balancing the rest through dispatch and demand management.”

He said the role played by clean energy, largely driven by its low cost, would be “dramatic and disruptive”.

Harwin said the NSW target of zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 was pragmatic, since it provided investors with certainty.

“NSW won’t play politics on this question,” Harwin said.

He was angry that NSW was being “sideswiped” by national factors that were driving up prices: lack of confidence among investors and high gas prices.

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Harwin indicated the clean energy target – the only one of 50 recommendations made in the Finkel review not yet adopted by the federal government – was the key to improving investor confidence.

He urged his federal colleagues to adopt the target.

Harwin said “we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good” and said the Finkel process was “the last best chance to deliver good energy policy”.

The federal government “[knows] that NSW at Coag energy council will support initiatives that boost investor confidence”.

“We look forward to them coming back following that additional work that they are going to do on the 50th Finkel recommendation.”

Harwin noted that Finkel’s modelling suggested the clean energy target gave a boost to the life of existing coal-fired electricity generators: “The coal sector should accept the Finkel framework as potentially the best deal that coal will get.”

On gas prices, Harwin rebuked claims made by the federal energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, that increasing gas exploration in NSW could improve the tight domestic supply.

“The idea that NSW’s gas sector was supposed to save the nation from the way the LNG sector grew is curious,” he said. “It was never predicated on it.”

Harwin also gave in-principle enthusiastic support for the Snowy 2.0 idea.

“2,000 megawatts of dispatch is a game-changer,” he said. The scheme could create the electricity storage needed to make 5,000 megawatts of variable energy like wind or solar reliable “even when wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine”.