The Labor-held states of Victoria, Queensland and the ACT will urge the Turnbull government to change its energy plan to allow more ambitious cuts to greenhouse gas emissions in the future.
The states will sit down with the federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg on August 10, where the government hopes to secure support for its National Energy Guarantee.
The Labor stakeholders consider the government’s proposed emissions reduction target of 26 per cent by 2030 inadequate. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s federal Labor team want a target of 45 per cent.
Last week, Mr Frydenberg announced there would be an “automatic review” of the target in 2024 – four years after the NEG takes effect in 2020.
But Fairfax Media reports the Labor states want a more concrete mechanism to be defined, so there is a clear process for ramping up the NEG under a future government.
Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Source: AAP
Meanwhile, some conservatives within the Turnbull government are attacking the Energy Security Board’s modelling, which promises savings on household power bills under the NEG worth around $550 per year by the 2020s.
The board’s chairwoman Kerry Scott warned those savings were at risk the longer the political gridlock over energy lasted.
“Any delay, or worse a failure to reach agreement, will simply prolong the current investment uncertainty and deny customers more affordable energy,” she wrote in a letter to state and territory ministers.
But former prime minister Tony Abbott and other backbenchers such as Craig Kelly and Michelle Landry have questioned the projections.
"Frankly, pigs might fly," Mr Abbott told 2GB radio in Sydney on Wednesday.
"It's completely implausible. It's utterly incredible. Every bit of modelling has said in the past that renewables reduce prices, and the fact is the more renewables we've got, the higher prices go."
Mr Kelly said he was concerned the NEG would "make electricity more expensive than it otherwise would be".
"Pigs might fly": Former PM Tony Abbott. Source: AAP
"When I have constituents coming into my office and breaking down in tears in front of me because they can't pay their electricity bill, it is very hard to go into parliament and vote for something that will make electricity prices higher than they would otherwise be," he told The Australian.
A group of backbenchers, particularly in the Nationals, have advocated changes to encourage new investment in coal-fired power generators.
The government insists the policy will remain “technology-agnostic”, forcing generators to meet both emissions and reliability benchmarks.
It will demand a percentage of “dispatchable” power – or power on demand – but this can be achieved with fossil fuels like coal and gas or with renewables paired with battery storage.
