To a certain extent the SA Govt is powerless (no pun intended) as the Fed Govt controls the national electricity market. Neither party at the Fed level wishes to cut off the stream of gold from their donors who are quite happy to be making money at the consumers' expense, but then again neither are some states that still own the power plants and are using them to rort the system and drive prices up for their own 'electricity tax'.
With total demand in most states now back to the levels of the early 2000s or even late 1990s many generators had been losing money and then the mis-information campaign began post the wind knocking down the transmission towers.
More recently total demand has been rising again but that is almost totally due to the surge in power required by the Qld LNG plants. Take that out of the equation and SA, Vic, ACT, Tas, NSW, WA and Qld ex LNG are declining in power demand.
Back to yesterday in SA..
If it wasn't for the wind supplying 374MW yesterday afternoon then you would have been blacked out.
The Pelican Point gas-fired plant was only generating at 40% capacity when the fire began and cut it off.
Totally coincidentally - the brown coal plant owned by the same group went to max generation in the La Trobe valley at the new much higher prices. Seems there's a silver (more like gold) lining for every dark cloud.
At least for the duopoly owners that is.
In Qld with next to no wind or commercial PV - they have had more high price events (price per MWh > $5000) this year than SA and Victoria combined.
Seems the two State Govt owned generators are making tens of millions in extra 'electricity taxes' which will then make the State Budget look great for next year's election.
Just a coincidence of course.
Talking directly with these 'players' their response is 'we are just abiding by the rules, our bonuses are linked to how much we make'.
And it is true, just like how power prices get cheaper per KWh the more you use (as a residential dwelling) yet the State Govts say they want people to save power. Strange they penalise the households who use less power.
A study done in 2015 found that pensioners on average paid 27-34% more than the average household. Why - the daily access charge divided by KWh used per day is a much larger figure the less you use.
We're not pensioners but as an example with our family's (none State subsidised) solar panels with 10 cent FIT we use around 4-5KWH from the grid a day and supply the grid with around 5-6KWh a day.
So the effective cost per KWh used = daily access fee / KWh used + KWh cost
= 0.96/4 + 29.5
= 53.5 cents per KWh.
I know of pensioners who use 4 to 5 KWh a day so that's what it is costing them.
I also have friends (with kids), with a pool, air con, etc etc who use over 38 KWh/day.
Their effective per KWh used = daily access fee / KWh used + KWh cost
= 0.96/39 + 23.7 (= weighted avg of prices they pay)
= 26.2 cents per KWh
So pensioners and people with solar panels are being penalised for the benefit of households/aluminum smelters.
Did you read the article about Rio cutting Aluminum production as the 15% of power they don't have under contract is 'too expensive' to make any money using. However the 85% they have under long term contract at prices 1/10th the residential rate sees them making $12m on the other 85%.
The effective subsidy from the tax payer (or other electricity users) is around $180m for that 85% contract per year at the price levels for year-to-date.
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. And they won't mind that the batteries are produced at enormous energy expense and uses materials produced by the wicked mining industry. And they won't mind that the proponent is a rich guy at the head of a multinational corporation. Greens just love rich people - like the greenie millionaire who gave them the biggest single political donation in the last Tas election.
