It's a pity that we plebs in the public space can't get a bit more detail of these plans.
Lets leave emission targets aside for a moment and focus just on reliable power 24/7.
One one hand I can see how the renewable energy industry will see this as a handbrake. It could easily slow the rollout of renewable generation infrastructure until such time as firming technology catches up and they can supply power for longer periods.
On the other hand, I can see where the government is wanting to make sure that we have reliable power 24/7.
At the moment we have about 20-25% ( 2020 figures ) of Australia's electricity coming from renewable energy. Given the amount of big projects in the queue, that could jump into the 30s pretty quickly. Even the government's forecast expects around 50% by 2030.
As the amount of renewables without large storage pushes into the market further, the disruption becomes greater. It becomes harder for baseload to operate which may force some of those companies to become even more ruthless and exit the market. Exactly like Engie did with the Hazelwood power station. The Vic government pushed them and called their bluff on royalty increases. Engie figured that if they had to pay those increased royalties, they would lose money over the next ( and last ) 5 years of the power station's life. So, rather than keep operating and lose money, they decided it was financially better to shutdown.
They made a hard financial decision with little concern for the consumer. Whether the Vic government genuinely thought they would do it or not, the end result is that Hazelwood shut down, prices went up and power supplies were pretty tight for a few years. That is really bad management which I assume is what the feds are trying to avoid.
I expect that a similar situation could arise in the near future with more renewables in the system if we were not careful.
So, in theory, some kind of protection or guarantee for the baseload generators to prevent sudden exits makes sense when you look at it from a reliability point of view.
Sadly, this model doesn't appear to be very flexible which is why I assume there is so much opposition to this. Lack of flexibility will slow infrastructure roll out and will drive up/hold up prices.
It would be great to hear from someone in the renewable industry to explain how they can increase their penetration while keeping baseload in the market until such time as we don't need it.
One can only hope the new syncrons and batteries that are being rolled out right now can prove to the market that renewables can provide more reliable power and thus will make the baseload stuff redundant anyway.
