Energy Prices

Ms LUETHEN (King) (14:54): Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is to the Minister for Energy and Mining. Can the minister update the house on its demand management trials to help reduce energy costs for consumers?

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:54): I thank the incredibly diligent member for King, and particularly for her focus, like all of us here, in trying to get electricity prices down. You will notice, Mr Speaker, that in her question she specifically said—

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: She's going to go down to the Modbury Service SA centre.

The SPEAKER: The member for Lee is warned for a second and final time.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: —that she is focused on getting the cost of electricity down for the people in her electorate and the rest of the state.

Before the last election, when we announced our energy policy—a bit over a year ago—we made sure that the demand side was considered. The previous government had nothing on the demand side in either their policies or their actions. We made sure that consideration of the demand side was one of the key planks of our energy policy, and we are now implementing exactly that.

Let me just stress that the demand side participation in the models that we are putting forward at the moment is voluntary for consumers. We want it to be possible for consumers to voluntarily partner with service providers to shift their demand at a time that suits them and to receive financial benefits to them so that if there is a forecast period of a supply shortfall or potential load shedding, then these consumers will in advance have said yes in these types of conditions and, 'I am happy to reduce my demand and receive a financial benefit.'

It might be that they skew their demand so that, as part of reducing their demand at the very tight supply period, they might increase their demand at low demand times, so essentially taking some of the top slice off the peak and putting it into the trough, so to speak. It could be that they cool their houses earlier before getting home so that they are comfortable. They are not inconvenienced too much, but it makes a big difference to the grid.

What is so important about this is not really the benefits to those consumers. We want them to have those benefits, and that is positive. But what is really important are the benefits to all the other consumers who directly or indirectly draw electricity off the grid and who will benefit with greater reliability and improved prices by virtue of the fact that we have in advance mitigated some of those potential supply shortfalls. That would put downward price pressure and upward pressure in regard to reliability on the electricity grid.

We have very recently announced our demand side trials. We are investing $11 million in a series of energy trials aimed at making the grid more efficient. These demand management trials will look at tools that can reduce peak demand, reducing cost pressures on the power network and as a result energy costs to all other consumers.

These trials may include initiatives, such as pre-cooling homes on hot days to reduce peak demand, using batteries or smart controllers to pick the best time to heat and run pool pumps, working out how many homes with batteries can be paid to provide grid stability, and many more options. We have gone with a call to industry and industry groups to put proposals to us. These are very clearly trials that we want to participate in.

We accept that not every trial necessarily will be successful, but while entering into a range of them we will streamline this approach for the benefit of all consumers—clearly, a policy we articulated in the lead-up to the election and very deliberately a policy we are going to implement now with the support of consumers, generators, retailers and industry groups.

We will make sure that this, being one of several key planks of our energy policy, will make electricity more affordable and more reliable for all electricity and energy consumers in South Australia.