Cut power use to avoid blackouts, Sydney residents urged

MELBOURNE • Sydney residents were urged yesterday to conserve power in the evening as much as possible to avert blackouts, one day after Australia suspended its spot electricity market due to unexpected faults at ageing utilities.

The Australian Energy Market Operator said it was still too early to say when the market would resume normal operations but added that power capacity reserves had improved in the state of New South Wales, home to Sydney which is the largest city in Australia.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen told households in the state to save power without sacrificing essentials such as heating. "We are confident we can avoid blackouts," he said at a televised media conference in Canberra. "If you have a choice about when to run certain items, don't run them from 6 to 8 (pm)."

Power crunches are more likely to occur in the evenings when output from solar and wind farms falls and people head home from work and switch on their appliances.

The suspension of the spot electricity market is unprecedented for Australia and marks the latest drastic step to tackle an energy crisis that began last month. Currently, more than a quarter of the country's coal-fired capacity has been knocked out.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said energy will be on the agenda at a meeting today - the first formal gathering since the new Labor government was elected last month.

A slew of coal-fired units went offline due to scheduled maintenance and unexpected faults, and all efforts are focused on restoring units to normal operations, Mr Bowen said.

Meanwhile, the new government has committed to toughening its short-term targets on cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, a key policy shift in a country long regarded as a global climate laggard.

Mr Albanese confirmed an election pledge to lower carbon emissions by 43 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030, saying the new target would give certainty to citizens and businesses.

While the new target will bring Australia in line with countries including Canada, South Korea and Japan, Mr Albanese's plan remains less ambitious than action promised by the United States, the European Union and Britain.

The policy should spur short-term investment in renewable energy and set Australia up "for a prosperous future", Mr Albanese said in Canberra.

"A future powered by cleaner, cheaper energy. A future in which we make more things here. A future in which we participate in the global effort to deal with the challenge of climate change, but also seize the opportunity that is there from acting on climate change."

His government officially signed the updated climate commitment under the United Nations' Paris Agreement yesterday, the first new targets set since an initial commitment in 2016. The country's previous government had vowed to curb emissions by as much as 28 per cent by 2030, and set a target to hit net zero by 2050.

One of the outcomes of last year's COP26 climate talks was a request for nations to "revisit and strengthen" their 2030 climate targets by the end of this year.

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG