DO YOUR RESEARCH

In response to Mervin Reed’s “Real Facts Needed” (Letters, September 22) in which he thinks I get my information from “a bunch of stuff announced in industry magazines”, could I suggest he study my words more carefully.

I wrote: “If he read more widely than the Liberal government’s handouts he’d come across the following facts in AEMO’s July (2021) IASR paper.”

For his benefit: AEMO is the Australian Energy Market Operator. That’s the government umbrella body which oversees the entire NEM (National Energy Market) and plans the infrastructure needed to develop our power system. IASR is their latest Inputs Assumptions and Scenarios Report. July 2021 was three months ago, when they published this paper.

AEMO factors in when state governments have mandated targets for renewables development (like Merv’s much-loved 200 per cent TRET (Tasmanian Renewable Energy Target). Hence I am able to claim that Victoria has 7100MW of new wind and 3800NW of new solar generation underway. And that NSW will install 2GW of battery storage (in addition to Snowy 2.0) by 2029, in addition to 12GW of renewables.

This was to counter his unsubstantiated guff that 4500MW of coal-fired energy was to disappear, without any replacement.

I’m not denying huge expenditure and vision is needed. But taxpayer investment needs to be spent wisely.

Technologies are changing rapidly, and it appears Mr Reed hasn’t done much late-night research since he blew out the candle.

Greg Pullen Miena