Energy Transition Roadmap

SACOME calls for the prompt development of the South Australian Government’s Energy Transition White Paper and the abolition of the Retailer Energy Productivity Scheme for large industrial users.

SACOME continues to highlight the true cost of the energy transition to commercial and industrial operators and commissioned a peer-reviewed analysis regarding the cumulative costs of market interventions as part of its comprehensive response to the Government’s Green Paper on the Energy Transition.

The costs of market interventions now represent 20-30% of industrial electricity bills. These market intervention costs, alongside other Government interventions, are rapidly becoming a ‘cost of business crisis’ for many manufacturers.

In 2022 SACOME called for establishment of an Energy Transition Advisory Board to advise the Government on the impacts of energy cost, reliability, and sustainability for industrial operators, alongside development of an Energy Transition Roadmap to provide informed strategic direction to the next phase of South Australia’s energy transition.

The Malinauskas Government subsequently convened the Energy Transition Roundtable and released the Green Paper on the Energy Transition in 2023, both of which were welcomed by SACOME. Further to the Green Paper consultation process, SACOME calls for the speedy development of the consequent Energy Transition White Paper, recognising that it is intended by the South Australian Government to be a ‘foundational economic document for the remainder of the first half of the 21st Century’.

SACOME stresses that this ‘foundational economic document’ must be informed by detailed consultation with the resources sector. SACOME also calls for the inclusion of a resources sector representative on the Premier’s Climate Change Council (PCCC) to ensure the PCCC has full representation from industry and access to subject-matter expertise across the areas of the energy transition, industry decarbonisation and climate change.

​SACOME further reiterates its calls for the abolition of the Retailer Energy Productivity Scheme (REPS) for large industrial customers, which has operated to subsidising the REPS initiatives for residential customers at the expense of industrial operators