Ted OBrien embarrasses himself

Coalition’s O’Brien prompts walkout at solar event after claiming renewables will lead to blackouts

Ted O’Brien sparked the controversy at the Solar and Storage Live conference on Wednesday with a speech claiming Australia’s wind, hydro and solar power plans would endanger the nation’s power grid and were not capable of meeting its energy needs.

More than 20 attendees walked out during the speech, with one man heckling the Queensland LNP member.

The exodus followed several opening speeches from renewable energy experts, who extolled Australia’s world-leading adoption of solar technology and called for greater investments in battery storage technology to capitalise on zero-emissions energy.

But O’Brien told the audience the Labor government’s moves to replace coal-fired power stations with investments in large-scale wind, solar, and battery projects were an untested experiment that would damage the national electricity grid.

“The days of an affordable, reliable, 24/7 power system will be gone,” he said.

“Australia will be left as a poor and weak nation, highly dependent on foreign supply chains.”

O’Brien said Australia needed to invest in nuclear power plants to meet its net-zero emissions goal by 2050 and avoid “blackouts and brownouts” becoming the norm.