Thursday's editorial misses an important point. Wind energy is now producing power more cheaply than coal, resulting in lower wholesale prices for electricity.
Suppliers of energy compete on price and falling levels of demand make this competition more intense. Because large wind farms have no fuel costs they are consistently bidding lower prices than their competitors.
Coal-fired plants, on the other hand, are finally having to pay for the pollution and health effects they cause through the carbon price and they are unable to match the prices bid by wind farms. This has caused the closure of 3000mW of coal generation in the last year.
A glimpse of how renewable energy is lowering the price of electricity came last week in South Australia where wind supplies 25 per cent of their power.
The Essential Services Commission ruled that energy bills should fall (that's right, fall) by eight per cent, passing on drops in the wholesale cost of power caused by larger amounts of wind energy.
Lower wholesale prices may disturb the owner of Yallourn power station but they are a win for power consumers.
The Renewable Energy Target (RET) is working just as it should. By stimulating development of new wind and solar projects it is bringing down the cost of installation of these technologies. The cost of meeting the target is trivial compared to price rises of poles and wires and it is falling with the falling cost of solar panels.
We should be expanding the RET to lower power bills more quickly.
ANDREW BRAY
Ballarat