In late 2010, after over a century of almost uninterrupted growth, demand for electricity in Australia began to fall. Two previous papers, published in 2013 and 2015, examined possible reasons why demand was falling in the National Electricity Market (NEM), which accounts for nearly 90% of Australian electricity consumption. However, no sooner had the second...

The immediate effect of the 2012 carbon price was to increase the costs faced by most electricity generators, by an amount that varied between individual power stations depending on that station’s emissions intensity (the emissions per unit of electricity). These costs were then passed on in higher prices to consumers. Simple economics suggests that two...

This paper analyses the changes in electricity demand in Australia’s National Electricity Market. Overview Power Down, Australia Institute Paper 14, analysed the changes in electricity demand in Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) between 2006 and 2013. Since 2010, electricity demand has been characterised by an entirely unprecedented steady fall in the total quantity of electricity...

Introduction: Until 2010 – for well over a century, through two world wars and the Great Depression – the quantity of electricity used in Australia each year was greater than the year before. In the three years since 2010, the quantity used each year has been less than the year before, and there is no...

This paper focuses on the domestic energy policies of industrialised states and, in particular, those states which have been at the forefront in applying neo-liberal policies to the reform and restructuring of their energy supply industries. It examines the interactions between the neo-liberal and climate change mitigation agendas, as they have been applied to energy...