Megan Woods urges a ‘joined up’ energy sector approach to decarbonisation
Speaking at an ENA forum recently, energy and resources minister Megan Woods urged a collective approach across the energy sector to achieve decarbonisation goals.
This applied both to communication with customers and ensuring regulatory arrangements were up to the task.
The minister was asked how best to ensure the inevitable cost increase for lines network upgrades was not politicised, recognising that the overall household energy spend would reduce with lower spending on fossil fuels.
She said it was important for the whole sector to work together to tell the complete story.
Asked if the current regulatory settings allowed for the increased spending EDBs needed to achieve decarbonisation, and whether the regulators were on board with this, the minister said that one of the questions the Electricity Price Review asked was whether the current regulatory arrangements were okay or needed changing.
“I’m sitting in the middle – I think we can have a far more cooperative way in which we think about energy across the three regulators,” Dr Woods said.
“Making sure that we have a true energy approach to this, rather than just the silos of just the EA and GIC [Gas Industry Company] is absolutely critical to getting this right.
“These are the kind of things that this energy strategy gives us the opportunity to lay bare.
There were no simple answers, “but what there has to be is a collective way of approaching it because we will not achieve what we have to do in silos,” she said.
