Australia plays safe

The Australian government has opted for reliability over renewables in the power sector

In the wake of the "System Black" power failure that knocked out South Australia for up to two days in late 2016, the country's government has dumped the existing clean energy-based policy in favour of a radically different one. This relies more on oil and gas in the interests of grid stability. Known as the National Energy Guarantee (NEG), the new policy will set power suppliers explicit percentages of their energy mix that must be supplied from dispatchable sources such as coal, gas, oil, hydropower and batteries. Previous policy encouraged higher percentages from intermittent renewables such as solar and wind. Although not abandoning emissions goals, the new strategy designed by the Energ