South Australian Government’s focus should be on renewable energy, according to Greens

State Premier Jay Weatherill told a news conference the private sector would also build Australia’s largest battery storage plant, with a 100MW output.

It comes two days after another local ASX-listed player, Carnegie Clean Energy, said that it had been in discussions with the SA government to provide battery storage for the state’s network.

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What’s much easier to believe, though, is that the gas industry is desperate to get its hands on gas supplies that are off limits – especially controversial ones like, say, coal seam gas.

The Prime Minister and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg will be urging gas companies to step up production after a report by the energy market regulator last week predicted a shortage of gas could lead to widespread power shortages as soon as next year.

A new Energy Security Target will increase South Australia’s energy self-reliance by requiring more locally generated, cleaner, secure energy to be used in South Australia.

Premier Jay Weatherill and Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis say the arrangement will put the state’s needs before the national gas market.

It’s been created by policies of state governments that have locked up gas resources over the years, despite many warnings but the time has come for action and for a solution.

“Speaking with Sky News, he said it came as a “$550 million admission of failure” on part of the Weatherill government.

“We haven’t developed an import export capability”.

During the exchange, Weatherill described the Turnbull government’s new $2 billion plan to expand the Snowy River scheme’s pumped hydro capabilities as a demonstration of its “white knuckle panic” about energy policy. “We’ve seen the State Government back the wrong horse today, backing gas and fossil fuels over the abundance of renewable capacity here in our state”, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said. It will give the Minister for Energy new powers to direct the national market in the case of an electricity supply shortfall.

The Turnbull government has also asked for advice on options to improve transparency and competition in the gas market from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and Mike Vertigan, the head of the gas market reform group in the Council of Australian Governments (Coag) energy council.

“They have given us a guarantee that gas will be available to meet demand”, Mr Turnbull said. But advocates of renewables have argued the issues with South Australia’s grid reliability has little to do with wind energy and is more the result of grid management issues and problems with the state’s energy market design.

According to the announcement, the CEFC has been in talks with a number of large-scale battery providers for a while, including such looking at South Australia.