For years now, the Australian Energy Market Operator’s  ‘Step Change’ scenario has served as the official lodestar of the energy transition. It underpinned not just planning for the whole shebang  but entire swathes of government rhetoric. It insisted that decarbonisation could and must proceed by way of massive, centralised, utility-scale renewable build-out, connected by a spiderweb of new transmission corridors carpeting regional and farming Australia.