Turnbull steps up attack on renewables after South Australia blackout

CANBERRA – Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull stepped up his government’s attack on renewable energy by seizing on a storm-driven blackout in the mainland state that’s most reliant on wind and solar generation.

South Australia, which draws 41% of its energy from renewable energy, is working to restore power after severe storms on Wednesday knocked over transmission towers and triggered a total blackout. Turnbull said there was “no doubt” the state’s move toward renewables had strained the electricity grid.

Some state governments have set renewable energy targets “that are extremely aggressive, extremely unrealistic, and have paid little or no attention to energy security,” Turnbull told reporters in Launceston, Tasmania on Thursday.

The storm should be treated as “a real wake-up call,” he said.

Championed globally as a tool to cut greenhouse gases and combat global warming, renewable energy is contentious in Australia, the world’s biggest coal exporter. Since winning power in 2013 under then-leader Tony Abbott, the Liberal-National government has dismantled a levy on carbon emissions and cut targets for how much energy it aims to draw from wind and solar generation by 2020.

DIFFERENT ISSUES
While Turnbull hasn’t used the language of former Treasurer Joe Hockey, who labelled wind farms “appalling” and “utterly offensive,” the Melbourne-based Grattan Institute said it was incorrect for the federal government to link the power failure with South Australia’s renewable policies.

“I haven’t seen any substance for a connection between the issues,” said Tony Wood, director of the economic think tank’s energy programme. “They are both significant but different. My concern would be the things that have to be done to address each of those issues are quite different and if you try and combine them together you’ll probably get the wrong answer for both.”

The storm in South Australia created winds of up to 115 km/h, damaging towers and causing the state-wide blackout that lasted several hours. About 90 000 to 100 000 homes and businesses remained without power on Thursday afternoon, a spokesman for distributor SA Power Networks said. The national energy market operator said the failure occurred when South Australia’s electricity market disconnected from that of Victoria state.

After Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said in a radio interview on Thursday that South Australia’s reliance on renewable energy had contributed to the blackout because wind farms can’t operate in excessive winds, state Labor Premier Jay Weatherill accused him of conducting a “jihad against wind farms".

“This is a weather event, not a renewable energy event,” Weatherill said.