Occasionally in our ordinary lives we come across a genuine David and Goliath narrative. Picture a staunch consumer successfully defending their rights against a powerful corporation; a steadfast granny securing a legitimate refund and begrudging admission of error.

Against a backdrop of increasing electricity prices and never-ending renewables dogma, our powerful energy bureaucracies are being challenged by individuals outside the public sector bubble. The CSIRO’s Paul Graham acknowledged that significant up-front costs are excluded from GenCost’s pro-renewables findings. Graham offers some insights into where these costs can be found:

The report does not provide the cumulative cost of all investments up to 2030 because this is addressed in a separate project called the Integrated System Plan of which GenCost is one of many inputs.

A few days later, AEMO joined the fray with a media release defending its work.

The ISP demonstrates that new renewables with new transmission, firmed with hydro, batteries and gas – is the lowest cost way to supply electricity to Australian homes and businesses as coal fired generation retires. 

Aidan Morrison, the sceptical data scientist who raised awareness of GenCost’s arrogant sunk cost ploy, scored on Twitter, this time taking aim at AEMO’s Integrated System Plan. Aidan points out that AEMO’s media release raises more questions than it answers. If AEMO’s plan gives us the lowest cost future electricity system, where is the cost shown? Is it more or less than the current system cost? And is the modelling fit for purpose?

Combined, GenCost and the ISP now resemble Monty Python’s black knight, steadfastly ignoring damage that is taking them out of the game. For that is the reality now faced by the energy bureaucracies. If AEMO and CSIRO cannot or will not provide satisfactory answers to basic questions, their findings can be justifiably dismissed.

These are high stakes. If AEMO is forced to acknowledge their centrally planned renewables utopia costs a lot more than the current 70 per cent coal-fired baseload, the ripples will be felt at the core of our energy bureaucracy. Any policy dependent on the ISP must be revisited. Politicians waving the ISP while pushing the renewables are cheapest mantra must recant. The renewables lobby certainly won’t like it and can be expected to protest loudly at any new transparency.

Alternatively, if the central finding of the key report from the principal agency is that a low emissions electricity system costs less than the current system, why is this not stated explicitly in the ISP? A simple statement like this is absent from the ISP’s 104 pages. There is no comparison to the current system anywhere. Despite scattered references to system cost throughout the ISP and its 380 pages of appendices, absolute figures are left to a series of spreadsheets called Generation Outlook.

From the spreadsheet titled 2022 Final ISP results workbook – Step Change – Updated Inputs, two charts show that AEMO expects a staggering $383 billion must be spent over the next 25 years constructing almost 300 GW of wind, solar, batteries, and hydro generation capacity. Current grid capacity is around 50 GW, so the AEMO plan means a six-fold expansion packaged and sold as the lowest-cost system. On face value that seems much more expensive.

Does $383 billion buy almost 300 GW of wind, solar, batteries, and hydro? Maybe. $1.3 billion per GW feels like it could be a ballpark figure for wind and solar, especially if the modelling builds in cost reductions over time. But does this enormous sum include the cost of batteries and hydro? Does it include costs for the infamous 10,000 km of new transmission lines, or upgrades to the distribution networks in the towns, cities, and suburbs? Does it include the costs of rooftop solar, home batteries, and electric vehicles? Somebody has to pay for all this stuff, and the fact these costs cannot be found in a chart labelled annual system costs is worrisome. Further, the do-nothing option – the status quo universally used in cost-benefit-analysis to determine the relative pros and cons of a big spending decision – is nowhere to be seen.

With only $3 billion per year up to 2030 the chart clearly doesn’t include any of the costs associated with Snowy 2 and its massive transmission lines – does the ISP repeat the GenCost trick and exclude these costs? It is completely unclear. The chart shows that by 2050, AEMO anticipates $15 billion per year spent on generation capacity alone. What about after 2050 – another $15 billion per year, forever?

As I’ve said in these pages before, it is not the workers at these bureaucracies that deserve criticism. Many understand their leaders are damaging the country but find themselves in no position to right the ship. Leadership is the problem, right through to state and commonwealth ministers, who have collectively dug a hole so deep they cannot reverse course. Admitting they are wrong now (that a system based on wind and solar costs more than a system based on coal) means admitting they have been wrong for years, and their egos will not stand for it.

There is a real possibility these independent Davids will critically wound the Goliath bureaucracy, to the point where GenCost and ISP are not able to provide the cover these ministers and energy leaders crave. Will we see a change of heart? Will the targets shrink, will the deadlines relax?

Not likely. The egos won’t allow it.