Australia could face an energy crisis

July 2022 Australia is on the “precipice” of a UK-style energy crisis that could send many of its power retailers broke and fuel a surge of households unable to pay their bills, a leading expert has warned. The soaring cost of wholesale energy has triggered widespread alarm among observers and there are fears a significant chunk of Australia’s retail electricity market will be wiped out in the crunch. Among those expressing their concern was new Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who used a recent speech to say Australia was facing a “perfect storm” of challenges in energy. Mr Chalmers pointed to revelations yesterday that gas prices in Victoria has jumped more than 50 times higher than normal levels, prompting an intervention from the body that runs the energy market. He said Australia was paying a price — at least partly — for almost a decade of energy policy uncertainty under the previous Coalition government. “On energy in particular, this is an incredibly challenging set of circumstances, particularly for Australian industry, when you consider this spike in gas prices, which goes hand-in-hand with a spike in the price of liquid fuels and a spike in the price of electricity as well,” Mr Chalmers said. “This is, unfortunately, a perfect storm of conditions and challenges in our energy market.” New Zealand - based power provider ReAmped last night became the latest casualty of the squeeze, telling its customers to go elsewhere because it was no longer able to supply an affordable service. The firm has about 80,000 customers across Australia’s east coast but chief executive Luke Blincoe said it had taken the extraordinary decision to step back from the market. Bruce Mountain from the Victoria Energy Policy Centre said ReAmped’s predicament was a familiar story among smaller and start-up energy providers across the national electricity market. “If it wasn’t for the small retailers, the big retailers would face much less competition and they’d charge even more and customers would get an even worse service.

Greek Tribune Adelaide, South Australia