WHETHER or not a coal price cap emerges today, the debate over power prices has focused attention on a range of problems within the national electricity market.
For years now, politicians and those with a commercial finger in the renewables pie have been talking a big game about the transition of power from harmful coal to a wonderful new world of cheap, clean power.
As admirable as the desire may be, the Australian public gains little from being signed up to such a process without all of the challenges being acknowledged as well.
The latest version of a long-running coal demonisation story holds that high coal prices are driving up power prices. In a domestic version of NATO attempts to force price caps on Russian fossil fuels, the Albanese Labor government is discussing a similar cap to "help" the electricity grid.
Canberra should have known this before the idea was floated, but our domestic power stations are not, by and large, paying the huge prices that Australia has reaped from others for our top-quality coal.
Instead, our power stations are set up to burn cheaper coal with a lower calorific value and higher ash content.
As the Newcastle Herald has reported this week from Centennial Coal's corporate filings, this coal has brought between $75 and $100 a tonne for most of this year, a fraction of the export price and well within the expected range for the electricity generators.
Coal shortages - and moves from contract coal to the dearer spot market by those power stations scheduled to close - have added to running costs.
Even so, much of the targeted coal will slide under a proposed $125 a tonne cap.
And as the NSW Minerals Council points out, there is nothing to stop sellers reacting to the cap by exporting this coal instead. Even for high-ash coal, there is no shortage of buyers right now.
While coal market differences might be understood in the Hunter and other coal regions, such subtleties can be lost in the noise of a national debate, where the demands are loud for "something" to be done.
The Herald has repeatedly warned against closing coal-fired power stations before the grid has sufficient battery and other "firming" capacity to buttress against the inherently intermittent nature of renewable power.
The coal price cap is a consequence of Labor going to the federal election promising lower power prices.
The take-home from this week may well be that the real task is actually keeping the lights on.
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