The Malinauskas Labor Government has been totally distracted by green hydrogen promises over the last 4 years while South Australian working families are paying the highest electricity bills on record and
Today we find out the Premier has scrapped the only energy policy he took the 2022 election.
It’s not surprising as his flagship hydrogen electricity project has been taking on water for years and has now sunk.
Let’s remind South Australians what was promised next to a big picture of Premier Malinauskas it stated
Labor will
The first of these promises to go was back in December 2022 when Labor slashed the amount of hydrogen storage to be only 100 tonnes – less than 3% of what was promised
All of a sudden the hydrogen power project was not providing 2 months storage and needed an offtaker to justify such a large bank of electrolysers.
The Premier was now starting to make things up as he went.
In 2023 we had it confirmed by both the Minister for Energy and the CEO of the office Hydrogen Power SA that Labor’s hydrogen power station wasn’t going to bring down power bills for South Australian families with the Minister stating in Parliament
“It's commercial and industrial customers we are targeting.”
With South Australians paying record electricity bills, the Malinauskas Labor government started changing the commentary about this project. They began talking up green steel and tying their green hydrogen fantasy to GFG and Mr Gupta.
Remember, Labor’s 2021 hydrogen policy was all about hydrogen electricity generation to supply "secure power to South Australian based factories and mining companies".
In their 20-page document there was only one mention of green steel.
In early 2024 the Premier broke his next promise
When he gave up on his promise to construct a baseload Combined Cycle Turbine, instead opting for a GE LM6000 aeroderivative Open Cycle Turbine.
Effectively a jet engine that usually hangs off the wing of a plane.
South Australian’s thought they were getting baseload generation, instead the power station would be a peaker.
In May 2024, South Australians then found out from AEMO that the hydrogen plant will not be operational until late 2026, as opposed to December 2025 as was promised.
The government was then forced to admit that they would not be meeting their December 2025 deadline – the third broken promise.
All the time while everywhere in Australia was experiencing major construction cost escalations the Government clung to the illusion their project would still only cost $593 million.
The CSIRO’s draft 2024-25 GenCost report showed electrolyser costs have increased by over 3 times more per MW than the Premier’s costing promise.
Using the CSIRO’s costings for hydrogen electrolysers the 250MW electrolyser would cost $676 million - not the $220 million as promised by Labor in 2021
This massive $456 million blowout sends the project surging past $1 billion for a hydrogen power plant that is not aimed at delivering cheaper electricity bills for struggling South Australian households.
The government knew this by September last year, and so broke it’s electrolyser promise by going out to tender to run the turbines on gas.
Gas that is farcically trucked in by diesel powered B-Double road trains.
The Premier and his Labor Government had now broken ALL of the four main promises in their 2021 Hydrogen Jobs Plan
and these promises were all broken before the issues at the Whyalla steelworks escalated.
We have the Malinauskas Labor Government using the major crisis at the Whyalla Steelworks to break their hydrogen promise
Fixing ramping and hydrogen were the centrepiece’s of Peter Malinauskas’ pitch to the people of South Australia at the last State Election
– now the promise of a hydrogen power plant is in tatters,
ramping is at some of the worst levels ever
it is clear that we cannot trust anything Premier Malinauskas says.
His pre-election hydrogen promises have been revealed as a hydrogen hoax
