New Australian Energy Minister making right noises

All the action in the electricity sector in coming years will be around the transition from fossil fuels to renewables and how to incorporate a raft of new technologies including batteries, smart grids and energy efficiency.

For too long in Australia the Energy portfolio has equalled fossil fuels and this has worked directly against good outcomes in the Environment portfolio. Anyone watching how inadequate grid and generation planning in renewables-rich South Australia is driving power prices up might consider that the Abbott government's 2015 Energy White Paper, barely rated half a dozen mentions of renewable energy. Previous Energy Minister and fossil fuel diehard, Ian Macfarlane, stubbornly refused to acknowledge the role of renewable energy, despite the fact it was already supplying around 14% of our power. This was a perfect example of how the ideological Abbott administration was so out of touch with what was happening in the real world and we were the losers.

Energy and Environment have been combined in Victoria under current Minister, Lily D'Ambrosio, and the two portfolios have always sat together in the Greens party room, with Larissa Waters taking over Christine Milne who held the joint portfolio for many years.

And on his first outings as Minister, Josh Frydenberg struck the right tone, telling a conference of clean energy professionals that he was "taking Energy into Environment". Coal's share of the power sector was falling and that "wasn't a bad thing". Renewable energy was "indispensable". All good so far.

But his most telling comment so far was his response to the hystrionic media campaign by the Australian against wind power in South Australia, his response was simple - “To say that [this price spike] is the fault of renewables is not an accurate assessment.” He further noted the fact that the increase in wind power had in fact reduced the price volatility in South Australia's market by reducing the number of price spikes above $5,000/MWh, which happened 50 times in 2008 but just once in 2015.

Of course, how these views effect what he does as Minister are the next question. His first big test was at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting of Energy Ministers last Friday where some tentatively positive steps for renewables were overshadowed by a focus on driving gas-burning power.