The Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism (DRET) today released the National Energy Security Assessment, alongside the Commonwealth Government’s Energy White Paper. The assessment looks at the impact of temporary and permanent supply shocks in the Eastern Australian energy markets.
Frontier (Australia) was retained to provide forecasts of dispatch and pricing outcomes in the national electricity market and the short term trading market for gas in the event of:
•   a temporary or permanent outage of a Victorian brown coal generator; or
•   a temporary outage of a significant gas pipeline.
Frontier determined that the primary impact of the supply shocks would be an increase in prices, but that reliability would be maintained under otherwise expected conditions. In the event of a temporary shock, this price effect would be short term. For a permanent shock, the pricing effect would be mitigated by rapid investment in peaking plant and subdued in the medium term via investment in baseload capacity. However, it would still lead to permanent increases in electricity prices across the national electricity market.
For more information, please contact Marita O’Keeffe at m.okeeffe@frontier-economics.com.au or call +61 (0)3 9620 4488.
