A bitter rift between the former boss of state-owned power provider Snowy Hydro and Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen has widened following claims Labor's green energy plans are "bullshit".
Paul Broad, who ran Snowy Hydro until resigning shortly after Labor won office last year, launched an extraordinary attack against what he said were flawed plans to decarbonise the power system.
In an interview on commercial radio station 2GB, Mr Broad said the government would be unable to meet the target of Australia producing 82 per cent of its electricity supplies from renewable sources by 2030.
The outburst came just a day after it emerged that a project Mr Broad used to oversee — the massive Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro plant — had been hit by further cost and time blowouts.
Instead of being delivered at the end of 2027, Snowy Hydro yesterday conceded the project was unlikely to come online until as late as 2029 and cost even more than the current estimate of $5.9 billion.
It was originally supposed to be finished by 2021.
Earlier Snowy blowouts hidden: Bowen
While acknowledging that supply chain constraints were behind the latest setback, Mr Bowen took aim at the handling of the project by the former government and Snowy management.
Mr Bowen said initial slippages in the cost and time-frame for Snowy 2.0 had been "hidden" until he became minister, a situation he described as "inexcusable".
"When we came to government my incoming minister's brief told me that Snowy 2.0 was running at least 12 months late," Mr Bowen told the Smart Energy Council conference on Wednesday.
"It was the first I'd heard of that.
"The only people who knew it were Snowy and Angus Taylor. It was hidden from the Australian people."
Speaking on Thursday, Mr Broad pushed back against the claims, denying he had withheld any information from the Minister and suggesting he only learnt about earlier blowouts shortly before last year's federal election.
The 72-year-old also took aim at the government's renewable energy plans, labelling them as overly ambitious and unrealistic while claiming they would risk the lights going out.
He cited the delays to Snowy 2.0, saying they were evidence of the difficulty of building enough green energy to replace retiring coal-fired capacity while simultaneously keeping up with increases in demand for electricity.
Transition to take '80, not eight years'
"The notion that you're going to have 80 per cent renewables in our system by 2030 is, to use the vernacular, bullshit," Mr Broad said.
"You can't. This transition, if it ever occurs, it will take 80 years, not eight.
"There are massive changes that need to occur.
"And I'm deeply concerned about the rush, the notion that somehow this is all magic … we'll close a big base-load power plant that's kept our lights on for yours and my life … and there are all these alternatives out there.
"Well, it's not. I can be absolutely, 100 per cent certain it's not available."
Another bone of contention between the pair involved Snowy Hydro's controversial Kurri Kurri gas-fired power plant for the Hunter Valley.
According to Mr Broad, plans by the government to use green hydrogen to drive almost a third of the plant's output were also mistaken, arguing the fuel would not be available in sufficient quantities for "another 10, 20 years at the earliest".
Mr Bowen's office declined to be drawn on Mr Broad's comments.
However, the minister in his speech yesterday pointed to a raft of policies the government was rolling out to ensure its target could be met.
Government 'just getting started'
Chief among them, Mr Bowen said, was the Rewiring the Nation policy, through which $20 billion will be used to help underwrite high-voltage transmission lines enabling renewable energy projects to be connected to the grid.
As well as that, he said the government was encouraging investment in firming, or back-up, projects such as batteries and other pumped-hydro plants via a so-called capacity mechanism.
Meanwhile, Mr Bowen pointed out that the government's safeguard mechanism would also help with the transition by forcing companies and big energy users to decarbonise their supplies.
