This is a transcript from an ABC interview and Sarah Ferguson's debunking of Ley's lies
Ley:
The blowing out of costs for the poles and wires—for the transmission infrastructure, for turning the beautiful wind and sun into dispatchable power at the source where you need it—is incredibly expensive. That’s why costs have gone up 40%. That’s why Australians are struggling.
Ferguson:
There are two big components of your power bill.
One: the wholesale price of electricity. The wholesale price of electricity is the cost of making basic electricity. It makes up about 40% of your bill.
According to experts and the energy regulator, the wholesale price of electricity rose sharply when the war in Ukraine broke out, sending the cost of coal and gas globally through the roof. And as coal-fired power stations have become more and more unreliable, other forms of energy have been needed to fill the gap, including gas. In the last decade, the cost of gas has tripled.
Now to part two of your power bill:
About 39% of your bill goes to network costs—the cost of the infrastructure, the poles and wires that bring the energy to your home.
According to experts, only a tiny proportion of the network costs now go to pay for transmission for renewables. Obviously, as the renewables rollout continues, those prices will go up. For now, the existing energy system has a grid that needs to be upgraded—that needs to be paid for—and you pay for it in your bill.
We asked Sussan Ley what facts she was relying on to make the claim that renewables were the cause of your power bills being so high. Her office said the source was the regulator’s plan for Australia’s energy transition. That plan is for the energy rollout projected to 2050. It is not a breakdown of the costs in your bill since the Albanese government came to power.
Power bills are high, but the rollout of renewables is not the cause. According to experts, the bigger point is coal-fired power generation is becoming more and more unreliable. It has to be replaced. Replacing that energy with new coal and gas-fired stations is much more expensive than renewables.