A shocking truth: diesel is driving Labor’s renewables plan

We now know the Albanese government’s wind and solar renewables power generation plan is based on incorrect data and is in trouble. As it now stands, Australia will depend on large quantities of diesel power generation to satisfy demand during an increasingly likely power shortage crisis. The word from one or two shocked ALP officials is that they now must find a way to look again at nuclear.

The holes in the renewables plan, which emerged last year, were kept secret from Australian voters for over a year. Had they been made public during the election campaign, the result might have been much closer and conceivably could have seen the Coalition in power. The recent debate over a nil emissions target in 2050 was a farce because, again, the current facts were not known.

The data secret was revealed to the nation by my colleague Chris Uhlmann in The Weekend Australian. Before setting out a brief summary of the Uhlmann revelation, I want to canvass who was responsible for the data being kept secret. The knowledge of the data disaster was held in the Australian Energy Market Operator.

Did the top people at AEMO understand the significance of the data they had collected? Assuming they did, then did AEMO tell Energy Minister Chris Bowen the crisis the data showed? Or did they merely tell him what he wanted to hear? If Bowen was told and did understand what had gone wrong, did he tell the Prime Minister?

I do not know the answers to these questions, but it will be the job of the parliament next year to find out. There will be a lot of blame shifting. In today’s commentary, after summarising Uhlmann revelations and their source, I will then go through some of the alternatives we now face as a nation. Many will be shocked.

In the past, myself and other commentators have highlighted the fact that our solar and wind networks are going to cost substantially more than when they were originally planned and the extra cost is going to be paid via higher power prices which are already boosting inflation.

In the original renewables plan, sensibly, AEMO realised that there might be periods when the wind did not blow and the sun was not shining – particularly in winter on the east coast plus South Australia. WA was separate but also impacted. AEMO did its job and looked at past data and established a worst-case scenario when the sun and wind were not producing sufficient energy.

They then looked at the capacity for gas, hydro, batteries and other backup facilities to cover the periods’ shortfall. Gas fired power stations are only capable of operating at full capacity for a limited number of hours per day. AEMO concluded that in an emergency, those generators could operate at full capacity for longer periods using diesel as a fuel.

It looks like the AEMO plan was to truck the diesel to the power generators, but clearly storage would be required. It was not an unreasonable strategy for the worst case scenario.

Uhlmann, in setting out how the AEMO strategy fell apart, gave thanks to research work by the Queensland-based Global Power Energy who revealed that in the 2024 Autumn the renewables generation availability for NSW, Victoria and South Australia fell to about half AEMO’s “worse case scenario” during three separate week-long slumps.

Now AEMO’s “worst case” scenario is the norm, so a new worst case scenario must be established. Accordingly, if the current diesel fuel for gas power stations strategy is maintained it be necessary for much greater amounts of diesel to be used in the gas generators which could cause long term harm.

Huge diesel storage facilities will now be required. For data centres and other big power users, that situation is too risky, and they will need to substantially expand their existing back-up diesel power generation and storage facilities. Once the message gets out, diesel generators will spring up in most supermarkets and other users where electricity is vital.

Two events last weekend underlined the situation. The first was the Prime Minister’s wedding, where most of the inner cabinet were guests. Bowen was not in attendance so it is unlikely that the Uhlmann revelation would have been discussed. But the phones would have been running after the weekend.

Secondly, on that same weekend, there was an enormous recycling plant fire in Sydney. The explosion caused a huge fireball. The fire had absolutely nothing to do with the power grid, but it underlined the danger of the large diesel storage facilities that will be required alongside data centres and gas power stations.

Is there any way out of this mess? I put forward seven scenarios, but there will be more.

• Plough on with renewables and hope that somewhere the wind will blow while the sun is not shining. This is a very high-risk strategy and should not be contemplated. A viable plan for a renewables drought must be worked out.
• Keep coal stations going as long as possible until there is a solution.
• Install diesel storage tanks near major power using facilities like data centres, and encourage those with operations where power is essential (like supermarkets) to install diesel generators.
• Look for rooftop solar hydro and battery opportunities.
• Widen gas pipelines and urgently get more gas to gas fired power stations. Erect new gas fired stations.
• Instead of phasing out coal, put the coal-fired power stations in “storage” and turn them on when the new BOM computer forecasts a wind/solar drought. This is not a good way to use coal.
• Replace coal with small nuclear plants. This is the lowest cost and simplest solution, but the anti-nuclear forces have become akin to a religion in large areas of the ALP. But there are some people in the ALP who are now concluding that the political equivalent of the Second Vatican Council is required.

The Coalition was lucky. Had it decided to back the government in nil emissions by 2050, they would be on the wrong foot when the parliamentary debate on who knew what and when plus solutions takes centre stage in the next parliamentary sitting.

The recent debate over a nil emissions target in 2050 was a farce because the facts were not known.