Less intervention, more gas can fix energy crisis: Amplitude - The Australian

Amplitude Energy has told The Australian that reducing regulatory intervention and deploying more gas generation capacity can resolve Australia's energy crisis. The submission does not elaborate on specifics but argues that gas, as a flexible dispatchable resource, can stabilize a grid increasingly stressed by variable renewable output.

Where this fits

This lands squarely on the reliability and cost case. Amplitude is naming the firming problem that every renewables-heavy grid encounters: wind and solar do not run on demand. Gas plants provide the firm backup, but they are expensive to build and operate, and the policy impulse has been to phase them out rather than accept them as a necessary staging post. The real cost of the transition is not the solar panels. It is the gas plants that must run alongside them, burning fuel to cover the hours renewables cannot. That cost is invisible in per-megawatt-hour auction prices, but it lands in bills and balance sheets.

What it means

Australia is now caught between two grids. One (renewables-only) is politically preferred but requires either massive battery and hydrogen investment that does not yet exist, or permanent dependence on gas as a hidden backbone. The other (nuclear plus lower-renewable penetration) is legally barred. Amplitude's argument amounts to an admission: the transition as currently designed needs gas to work. The hard question is whether Australia can tolerate that cost and emissions profile, or whether it should reconsider the one firm, low-material alternative available but forbidden by law.