Australian concerns about nation's power grid

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Risks highlight electricity supply constraints, national grid issues, renewable energy target impacts, reserve shortfalls, and demand response measures as power stations adjust operations to meet environmental mandates in Australia's NEM.

Australia's Ministerial Council on Energy is concerned about the viability and environmental impact of the country's electrical grid.

The Business Spectator reported that the Ministerial Council on Energy commissioned a review and subsequently concluded that the federal government's proposed carbon pollution reduction scheme put forward at the time, along with its commitments to an expanded renewable energy target set in policy, could result in the short term in electricity supplies being stretched beyond critical reserve levels as producers in the country's $9 billion national electricity market struggle to fulfill the new environmental mandates.

The report found that when the nation's power companies attempt to implement the new mandates the national grid was put at a higher risk of technical failure if, as a consequence of the new legislation, the nation's power stations would be required to operate differently, with examples such as a wholesale-retail electricity split being discussed nearby, after the new policies were introduced. The report accordingly recommends that the Ministerial Council on Energy be given enhanced powers during the transitional period, including expanding its ability to tender for major electricity consumers to forgo power or feed their own power into the grid during a supply crisis.

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