A coal-fired fizzer

PM rules out taxpayer direct funding for new power plants

TAXPAYERS won’t directly fund any new power plants despite some coalition MPs seizing on a new report to call for a coal-fired power station.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission recommended the government give financial certainty to new power plants, guaranteeing energy will be bought at a cheap price if it can’t be sold.

It’s part of a bid to cut up to $400 a year from average household power prices.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the finance proposal had merit, but he ruled out directly funding specific types of power generation.

“We are not in the business of subsidising one technology or another,” he said yesterday.

“We’ve done enough of that. Frankly … too much.”

Renewable subsidies, designed in the 1990s to make solar and wind technology more affordable, have worked and will end in 2020.

“We should simply allow the technologies to compete, and what we want to have is the outcome of lower prices,” Mr Turnbull said.

Some coalition MPs claim the ACCC’s recommendation to underwrite power generation is vindication for their push to build new coal-fired power plants. But ACCC chairman Rod Sims said no companies had proposed building new coal plants – instead they’re trying to build new gas, pumped hydro or renewable projects.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said Mr Turnbull was offering solutions years away, having overseen a rise in power prices over the past year.

“You don’t just go down to Kmart and get a coal-fired power station off the shelf,” Mr Shorten said, admitting he had not read the ACCC report.

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said the recommendation to underwrite new power generators had a lot of merit, as it would address a market failure.

“What they’re saying is the government needs to step in here to provide some sort of assurance,” Mr Frydenberg said.