Coalition and One Nation’s plan to ditch net zero would not lower power prices, CSIRO report finds

Electricity prices and energy policy remain politically contentious, with the Coalition abandoning a target of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Photograph: Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Electricity prices and energy policy remain politically contentious, with the Coalition abandoning a target of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Photograph: Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images Coalition and One Nation’s plan to ditch net zero would not lower power prices, CSIRO report finds GenCost report contradicts parties’ claims about abandoning emissions target, and finds nuclear would be most expensive way to generate power Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Claims by the Coalition and One Nation that abandoning a net zero climate target would bring down power prices are contradicted in a new CSIRO report on the costs of generating electricity. Generation costs will probably rise after 2030 regardless of Australia’s policy on net zero , according to the CSIRO’s annual GenCost report, but prices should then stabilise at levels below recent price spikes. The report concludes electricity from nuclear plants, which the Coalition and One Nation promote, would be the most expensive way to generate electricity among the current options. Showing the projected low and high levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) in 2030 for each electricity production category. LCOE is a measurement of the average cost of electricity over a power plant’s lifetime A boom in power-hungry datacentres in the United States was driving up the costs of gas turbines, the report said, while batteries were replacing the role of gas in providing electricity during evening peaks in Australia. GenCost is CSIRO’s annual release of the comparative costs of electricity generation technologies and how they could change in the coming years and decades. Electricity prices and energy policy remain politically contentious, with the Coalition abandoning a target of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email One Nation, which is polling close to Labor and above the Coalition, rejects climate change science and would abandon the Paris agreement and any net zero targets. Paul Graham, CSIRO chief energy economist and the report’s lead author, said: “If we abandon net zero, that does not open up some low-cost pathway [for electricity]. “As coal retires, you have to replace it. If that new thing is coal, we still have the same costs [of electricity generation] as we are expecting if we replace it with renewables.” He said if coal plant closures were delayed or new coal plants built, this would mean an increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector. “If you do want to reach net zero then you have to do that abatement somewhere else,” he said. “The analysis shows the cost of abatement is lower in the electri