Northern Territory government announces major investment in power grid

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Northern Territory government has announced a new wave of investment into big batteries that it's pledging will stabilise the power grid and help cut prices. As the debate around energy heats up in the territory, so too do unproven claims by the government that the opposition plans to sell off public power assets if it wins the next election.

Transcript

00:00 In a cost of living crisis, the price of power and new ways to bring it down are on everyone's

00:07 mind.

00:07 Power, yes, well it's going up like everything else and not much you can do about it really.

00:13 Hydrogen is probably the real clean energy source going forward.

00:18 We took advantage of the generous sort of solar incentives, you know, sort of seven

00:22 or eight years ago and yeah that sort of that helped a lot. Prior to having that our, you

00:27 know, the cost was astronomical.

00:29 This is the first of two new big batteries that will help power Darwin, which are being

00:34 billed as ways to drive down power prices ahead of the next election.

00:39 Having these assets in government hands means that we can influence not only the supply

00:44 and security of supply for Territorians but also keep the cost of power down.

00:49 The Chief Minister says the upgrades will help relieve households struggling with power

00:52 bills and stabilise the grid to allow long dormant privately owned solar farms to finally

00:58 come online.

00:59 To make sure that we get to 50% renewable by 2030.

01:04 The solar farms were built at various sites across the Top End years ago but haven't been

01:08 able to come online over concerns they could destabilise the grid.

01:12 This is a very, very typical example of territory labour putting the cart before the horse.

01:17 The NT government also floating the possibility of buying those solar farms and bringing them

01:22 into public hands, but how much that would cost the Chief Minister wouldn't say.

01:27 We need to be able to control the energy that's coming from those so it is an option.

01:32 The more important point is can we afford to buy these things back?

01:36 As the Territory's election year ramps up so too is the debate around the NT's electricity

01:40 network.

01:41 The government is claiming the CLP wants to privatise the Territory's utility companies,

01:45 a claim that the CLP is denying.

01:47 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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