Question Time

Hydrogen Power Plant

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (14:45): My question is to the Minister for Energy and Mining. Will the government's hydrogen power plant lower electricity bills for South Australian households? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr PATTERSON: The Australian Energy Regulator's recent state of the energy market report has confirmed that the wholesale cost of electricity in South Australia has risen by 69 per cent in the last 12 months, the highest in the nation by a significant amount.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:45): It is pretty fair to say that the electricity market faces some serious challenges—very serious challenges—because of a combination of bad decisions from the former Marshall government, a lost decade—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Colton! Member for Morphett!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: —of policy indecision, no climate policy, no structural reform.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Morphett!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Members opposite yell out and interject—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Morphett is warned.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: —that prices dropped under the previous Marshall government. They did, but they were still higher for each and every year bar one year, when they were cheaper by a dollar than the last year of the Liberal government.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Still more expensive. The member referenced—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Chaffey!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The member opposite references a report by the Australian Energy Regulator and AEMO.

Mr Patterson: Those pesky reports that show that prices are up!

The SPEAKER: The member for Morphett is warned for a final time. You have asked the question; the minister is on his feet attempting to answer it.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: What he doesn't mention is that that report showed that wholesale prices decreased by 56 per cent in South Australia. What he doesn't say is that that was good news for South Australia; he just says, 'But it's higher than everyone else.' He doesn't mention the drop. He also failed to tell the public, when he put out his press release in Moseley Square, about how wholesale prices had actually dropped in South Australia. Nor did the opposition mention that South Australia's wholesale prices were lower than the other states in the preceding three quarters. He doesn't mention that either and he sits there with that smile on his face. While the two market bodies use—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: —different methodology, one based on volume-weighted average, which is the AER report, and one on time-weighted average, which is the AEMO report, they came to the same conclusion. The conclusion is that prices have fallen considerably since the peaks of 2022, when the first shocks of the global fuel crisis were felt from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The important thing to remember here is that what South Australians are paying for is higher prices in the production of fuel for that gap that meets the demand. Renewable energy is cheap—it is cheaper than any other form of energy. What we are paying for is the people who are funding the gap, and the gap is being fuelled by coal and gas, and coal and gas are expensive. That is why prices are higher.

Gas-fired peakers, gas-fired turbines are being dispatched less and less into the grid, but they are needed to maintain reliability. Because those dispatches are happening less often, they seek to recover the same costs over a shorter period of time so their prices are higher. We are paying for the gap. What can bridge that gap? Storage—grid-scale storage like batteries, which they laugh at and mock. Grid-scale storage like hydrogen, which they laugh at and mock.

So, here we are again. When you try to actually fix the problem that is causing higher power prices, they call it experimental. When you say that the globe is heating up and warming and we want to decarbonise, they say that power prices are too high, burn more coal. When we attempt to try to replace coal, they attack it. Whatever we attempt to do, they oppose. Come up with your own plan.