I think you sum that up well Rob. The need for a strong policy on managing this transition is demonstrated by your post. Unfortunately industry and the market operator are playing catch up because we simply have no policy in this area.
While the wheels appear to be turning on Snowy 2.0 and the Tassie big battery, they are years away. There are several behind the meter home battery storage projects that will be up and running much sooner but they aren't going to be big enough to fix the issue that you highlight.
It may mean curtailment of renewable generation in certain periods. How crazy is that ?
Renewable integration is inevitable however it needs to be managed much better than it is now. The sooner the government gets behing the industry rather than be a giant road block, the better.
We need to have a grown up conversation about this. It may mean building a new coal station to swap out one of the older ones. It may mean that we need to subsidise one or two of the older ones to keep them going a bit longer until we have a decent amount of storage in the grid. And, that storage might need to be partly charged by fossil to prove up the system. There are still plenty of issues to be fleshed out. We have the ability to do this easily and yet we seem to be going about it the hard way.
Unfortunately, it looks like we'll have to wait for a change of government in order to get this sorted out.
