Electricity Supply

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (14:07): My question is to the Deputy Premier. How will the state government's letter of cooperation with California increase the reliability of South Australia's electricity grid for working South Australian families and small business? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: In 2022, Californians were asked to turn off their air conditioning and cease other electricity usage in the middle of summer to prevent stress on the state's electricity grid that could lead to rolling blackouts.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, Minister for Workforce and Population Strategy) (14:07): As has been so well articulated by the Treasurer, the work that the Premier is doing in California in cooperating between our two states is done in the context of the recognition that climate change is real and requires decarbonising our economy, which requires amongst other things decarbonising our electricity system. Both our states have done this superbly. South Australia leads the world in its percentage of electricity generated by renewable sources that are intermittent.

The only places in the world that do better than us in the percentage of renewable electricity production do so also using hydro. We don't have mountains with rivers and the capacity to dam and a whole lot of rain falling. We don't have the major ingredients that hydro states have, so we have done it the hard way. We have done it with intermittent sources, being both wind and sun. We have done that in a way that has largely maintained the stability of the grid not least because we have been prepared to invest in different ways of doing storage.

With storage, one of those is the big battery that has helped stabilise the grid, and the next one is the production of hydrogen, which will enable us to take the surplus renewable energy that is produced by our relatively high production of wind and sun and relatively low demand during the day to store it and be able to firm more renewable electricity supplies. We have information, we have knowledge, we have experience that will be of use to California as much as the other way around. In fact, I had a similar experience when I went to—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Point of order, sir: I would ask that you bring the member for Hartley to order. He is constantly interrupting. It is a breach of—

The Hon. V.A. Tarzia: What number?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Well, if he was a competent Speaker, he would know that it was 131—but he didn't have long in the role, did he, sir.

The SPEAKER: Did you want to finish? I think they are all quiet over there now and they know that the students are watching them. There will be a report back to the father of the house.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I had a similar experience to the one that the Treasurer had on his travels when I went to COP in Egypt, in Sharm el-Sheikh. In talking about our record in renewable energy production, electricity production, people were amazed that we were able to hit such a high level. Of course, we have the ambition to reach 100 per cent by 2027. We know we need to do this in a way that maintains stability, hence the investment in the big battery and now the investment in the hydrogen plant, but we always have something more to learn from other jurisdictions. What is not able to be ignored, not able to be turned away from, is that we must decarbonise. Last year, 2023, was the hottest year on record. July was not only the hottest July since—

Mr Patterson: You might have to reduce those trips to Canberra.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Oh, wow. Not only was July the hottest July on record, which means to pre-industrial times, but it is likely it was the hottest July for 100,000 years. The reality of climate change is gripping the world, and that means that not only are all economies seeking to decarbonise for the sake of our future but they are also increasingly insisting on only purchasing products that have been produced from a decarbonised economy. If we don't keep pace, if we don't demonstrate our capacity to decarbonise, we will not only pay for it in our lack of contribution to addressing climate change, but crucially we will pay for it in not being able to continue to make exports, initially largely to Europe, but increasingly to other parts of the world. That's why we are being responsible, that's why we are bringing down our carbon emissions and it's also why the Premier is absolutely right to be learning from other jurisdictions about how they have done it.