South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill explains why state election must be a referendum on renewables; hails Tesla battery; and applauds new AEMO boss.

South Australian Jay Weatherill is making renewable energy a centrepiece of the South Australia state election, due in just over three weeks.

In an interview on this week’s Energy Insiders podcast, Weatherill says that dark forces working against renewable energy need to be defeated. He explains why the big push for renewables is no longer an “experiment” but an economic imperative, and explains how he will deal with Nic Xenophon if Labor fails to get the numbers for an absolute majority.

Weatherill also hails the Tesla big battery, which he notes has already “smashed” price gouging in the FCAS market, and says Audrey Zibelman, the new boss of AEMO “has been a breath of fresh air”. Weatherill’s government had blamed AEMO for dropping the ball in the power outages that caused such controversy a year ago.

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