EVEN if the announcement has been made during the holiday "silly season", the various Energy Security Board reports on the state of our electricity grid published yesterday can be endorsed as requisite reading for anyone interested in the future of the infrastructure that makes much of our world go around: the electricity grid.
The main two volumes, under the title Health of the National Electricity Market- known in the industry as the NEM - provide a detailed breakdown of where we are, power-wise, how we got here, and where we are going.
Government reports - even ones commissioned by so-called "independent" bodies - are sometimes accused of dodging controversy so as to not displease the relevant political masters.
It's fair to say the market health report takes a "glass half-full" approach where it can.
The board says "real progress" has been made in the generating capacity of the grid - under the rubric of "reliability" - as well as emission reduction, thanks to coal-fired power station closures, market competition and network investment.
But the board's chair, the storied public servant Dr Kerry Schott, has not minced words in raising continuing concerns, most notably about the system's stability - or its lack of "security" - as well as bill shock for customers, and confidence for investors who are being asked to foot the bill for an increasingly privatised NEM, but who fear their long-term commitments are threatened by unexpected changes in government policy.
The state of the grid has an extra resonance in the Hunter, because our coal-fired power stations are still the beating heart of electricity generation in NSW.
Lobbying saw a Hunter/Central Coast region added, along with the Illawarra, to the Berejiklian government's Renewable Energy Zone policy in November.
Now, the ESB has provided a mass of detail as to how it sees a renewably powered future.
Problems adapting renewables into the grid have become increasingly obvious recently.
Dr Schott says the NEM's rules are "no longer fit for purpose", and that "everyone" agrees with her board's analysis.
A bigger question is whether the major power users, especially, agree with her solutions.
For a power-hungry industrial region such ours, what happens from here will be critical.
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