How the National Energy Guarantee could work better than a clean energy target

The Turnbull government has announced its new energy policy, called the National Energy Guarantee (NEG). The NEG contains two new obligations on electricity retailers. The first is to ensure we have enough electricity generation available to meet our needs (the Reliability Guarantee). The second is to drive down the sector’s greenhouse emissions (the Emissions Guarantee).

Minister for Energy Josh Frydenberg, Deputy Prime Minister
 Barnaby Joyce and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during a press conference.

No, it’s not Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s Clean Energy Target. But it is a policy that will drive down emissions in the electricity sector after 2020 and can be adapted by the Labor Party to hit the emissions-reduction target of any future Labor government.

In other words, the NEG can offer the previously elusive prospect of a bipartisan and credible emissions reduction policy, of the kind that industry has been crying out for.

Read the piece on The Conversation by an Energy Fellow from Grattan Institute, David Blowers -  “How the National Energy Guarantee could work better than a clean energy target.”