From Shane Rattenbury, leader of the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) Greens:
High energy prices are dominating the news as the weather has well and truly flicked the switch to winter. The good news for Canberrans at this time is that our commitment to 100% renewable electricity is providing us with more stable electricity prices at a time...
...when market volatility is driving up prices in the rest of the country. Don’t just take our word for it, have a read of what the ABC has to say about it →
[From the ABC]
Australia is on the brink of an energy crisis, if it hasn't already started.
Wholesale power prices are currently more than five times last year's average price, sparking fears that some electricity retailers will collapse.
This calamity has been years in the making, but recent events have supercharged it.
Its causes are many: the war in Ukraine; extended cold snaps during La Niña; a lack of domestic gas supply; unreliable coal-fired power plants; and years of delays in building a grid based on renewable energy and batteries.
But amid this perfect storm of problems, one city — Canberra — is an oasis. Its residents are protected from the panic of electricity markets.
In fact, some of the money other Australians are paying for power will now, indirectly, be given to Canberra households, whose bills are expected to fall by an average of $23 over the next year.
In contrast, the typical household across the border in New South Wales will pay $800 more than its ACT equivalent.
This pay-off for Canberrans is the result of a decision taken a decade ago, which hasn't always been popular in the ACT.
In 2012, the ACT government began to implement its 100 per cent renewable electricity target.
The first step was small: a long-term contract with the Royalla solar farm just outside Canberra.
But the program — the large feed-in tariff scheme — kept growing.
The ACT locked in deals with the massive wind farms at Hornsdale in South Australia, and other large generators.
By 2020, the ACT was buying more electricity from renewable sources than Canberra used. It had reached its target.
There was a cost to going green.
The ACT was an early customer in an emerging industry. The prices in its 20-year supply contracts were above the forecast market electricity price.
Energy Minister Shane Rattenbury said Canberra households were expected, over time, to pay about $5.50 a week extra.
But he argued the environmental benefits were worth it — it was, he said, the price of kickstarting a strategically important industry.
However, markets are unpredictable.
The price in each of the ACT's long-term contracts — the so-called "strike price" — sometimes fell below the market price. This is happening again now.
When this happens, the generators sell their electricity at market price, as usual, but pay the difference to the ACT — and that dividend is used to reduce Canberra households' costs.
In the same way, when the strike price is above the market price, the ACT network pays the generators the difference, leading to higher prices for Canberrans.
The chart below compares the average strike price of the ACT's main renewable electricity contracts with the average market price over the past decade.
