Tim Storer (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Energy, Senator Fifield. So far in 2018, the coal and gas plants and the National Energy Market have experienced unscheduled outages a total of 125 times. That's just over one unscheduled outage every 2½ days. Importantly, these failures have not been limited to our older coal plants. Our newer, so-called high-efficiency low-emissions plants have been just as unreliable, with every single one having experienced an unscheduled outage this year. Each time these plants fail without notice, the price of electricity spikes, hurting consumers, and the risk of blackouts increases. Given how unreliable coal and gas powered plants are, why does the government continue to argue that they are the only form of 'fair dinkum' power?