Commentary | VEPC

2021

I chose the electricity retailer offering the best deal for my home. That's not what I got

Bruce Mountain, The Conversation, 15 November 2021

Eleven lessons from the blow out in costs for HumeLink transmission line

Bruce Mountain, Ted Woodley & Dr Hugh Outhred, Renew Economy, 26 October 2021

Your household power bills could be 15% cheaper, if Australia's energy regulator was doing its job

Bruce Mountain, The Conversation, 28 September 2021

Consumers will pay the hidden bill for Snowy 2.0

Bruce Mountain & Ted Woodley, Financial Review, 8 September 2021

Solar tax counts cost of panels, but who will pay for Snowy 2.0?

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 13 August 2021

NSW is dropping $78 million on the Blockbuster of energy production when the world has moved to Netflix

Bruce Mountain, Bruce Robertson & Ted Woodley, OPINION - Sydney morning Herald, 12 May 2021

Facts matter, and so does the size of the tariffs proposed for solar export tax

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 29 April 2021

The sun tax debate: misconception and false-accusation?

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 8 April 2021

Now they want to charge households for exporting solar electricity to the grid - it'll send the system backwards

Bruce Mountain, The Conversation, 31 March 2021

Where is the proof that rooftop solar is being subsidised by non-solar households?

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 26 March 2021

Is rooftop solar really causing a network bottleneck?

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 25 March 2021

Subsidy or not, Yallourn deal will likely set a precedent for more coal closures

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 17 March 2021

Texas was a warning. Australia needs to rethink the design of its electricity market

Bruce Mountain, The Conversation, 26 February 2021

Write-down shows AGL has read the writing on the wall

Bruce Mountain, The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 Feb 2021

Do households respond to Time-Of-Use tariffs? Evidence from Australia

Kelly Burns and Bruce Mountain, Energy Economics, Volume 95, March 2021

2020

After two decades, the national electricity market is on its way out, and that’s alright

Bruce Mountain, The Conversation, 10 Dec 2020

Loyalty taxes in retail electricity markets: not as they seem

Bruce Mountain and Kelly Burns, Journal of Regulatory Economics, 23 Nov 2020

Pumped hydro isn’t our energy future, it’s our past

Bruce Mountain and Steven Percy, The Conversation, 29 Oct 2020

A new look inside the workings of Australia’s National Electricity Market

Bruce Mountain and Steven Percy, Renew Economy, 20 Oct 2020

You can’t trust the price-comparison market, as iSelect’s $8.5 million fine shows

Bruce Mountain, The Conversation, 13 Oct 2020

Narrabri gas reality check: it may take big investors to put it out of its misery

Bruce Mountain, The Age, 30 September 2020

AEMO’s Integrated System Plan: Does it leave Snowy 2.0 high and dry?

Bruce Mountain and Steven Percy, Renew Economy, Aug 2020

NSW has approved Snowy 2.0. Here are six reasons why that’s a bad move

Bruce Mountain and Mark Lintermans, Associate Professor, University of Canberra, The Conversation, 21 May 2020

Dont worry: staying at home for months is unlikely to lead to an eye-watering electricity bill

Bruce Mountain, Kelly Burns and Steven Percy, The Conversation, 24 April 2020

COVID-19 and Social Distancing: Does It Show Up in the Demand for Electricity?

Steven Percy and Bruce Mountain, International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE) Energy Forum, COVID-19 Special Issue 2020

Snowy 2.0 is a wolf in sheep’s clothing – it will push carbon emissions up, not down

Bruce Mountain, The Conversation, Mar 2020

Energy oligopoly using market power to profit under cover of rooftop solar

Bruce Mountain and Steven Percy, Renew Economy, Feb 2020

2019

Snowy 2.0 will not produce nearly as much electricity as claimed. We must hit the pause button.

Bruce Mountain, The Conversation, Oct 2019

Ownership, regulation, and financial disparity: The case of electricity distribution in Australia

Bruce Mountain, ScienceDirect, Oct 2019

Victorians who switched energy retailers only save $45 a year – leaving hundreds on the table

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, The Conversation, 2 Sept 2019

Australia’s energy woes will not be solved by reinforcing a monopoly

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, The Conversation, 23 Aug 2019

New demand-response energy rules sound good, but the devil is in the (hugely complicated) details

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, The Conversation, 24 July 2019

Regulator’s ruling on default market offers might not lower prices

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 30 April 2019

Energy price gouging exposed by new regulations

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 14 Jan 2019

New regulations expose energy price gouging through ‘free’ comparison sites

Bruce Mountain, The Conversation, 9 Jan 2019

2018

The verdict is in: renewables reduce energy prices (yes, even in South Australia)

Bruce Mountain, The Conversation, 6 Dec 2018

Consumers are angry about energy policy that doesn’t add up

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, Renew Economy, 13 Aug 2018

Tesla big battery: It earned a lot more money in second quarter

Bruce Mountain and Steven Parker, Renew Economy, 3 Aug 2018

The NEG is a flagship policy. So why hasn’t the modelling been made public?

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, The Conversation, 31 July 2018

NEG emissions plan is a political fix for a non-problem

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, The Australian Financial Review, 30 July 2018

ESB price claims for target already met are not credible

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 26 July 2018

If you need a PhD to read your power bill, buying wisely is all but impossible

Bruce Mountain, The Conversation, 25 June 2018

Electricity market reform in Australia

By Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, Published in Forum (Issue 114, June 2018).

Download Issue 114 of Forum (1.6mb) by clicking on the image (left).

Market Insight: Residential electricity price series

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 4 May 2018

Is the NEG just an EIS in disguise, but with added costs?

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, Renew Economy, 19 April 2018

Three-wheeling towards a poor energy policy outcome

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, Renew Economy, 6 April 2018

NEG: A tangled web of electricity regulation

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, Renew Economy, 16 Feb 2018

2017

Energy prices are high because consumers are paying for useless, profit-boosting infrastructure

Bruce Mountain, The Conversation, 24 Oct 2017

Australian household electricity prices may be 25% higher than official reports

Bruce Mountain, The Conversation, 4 Oct 2017

MarkIntell major retailer residential electricity price series

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 6 July 2017

Competition isn’t working in Australia’s energy retail markets

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 3 April 2017

Comparing Australia’s electricity charges to other countries shows why competition isn’t working

Bruce Mountain, The Conversation, 31 March 2017

MarkIntell’s latest state by state retail electricity market indices

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 15 March 2017

Wholesale price rises whodunit: Gas or renewables?

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 8 March 2017

Time to put energy retailers and their offers under the microscope

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 23 Feb 2017

Australian retail electricity price guide – state by state

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 21 Feb 2017

NEG is supposed to be better than nothing. But is it?

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, Renew Economy, 24 Nov 2017

NEG will replace electricity markets with Soviet-style state planning

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, Renew Economy, 25 Oct 2017

Can two clean energy targets break the deadlock of energy and climate policy?

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, The Conversation, 22 Sept 2017

Finkel’s Clean Energy Target plan ‘better than nothing’: economists poll

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, The Conversation, 25 Aug 2017

Emissions intensity scheme – another act in tragic comedy of errors

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, Renew Economy, 27 Feb 2017

Want electricity reform? Start by giving power back to the states

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, The Conversation, 14 Feb 2017

2016

Coal closures: Will utility margins rise where the sun don’t shine?

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 19 Dec 2016

Solar and battery storage beating best retail offers in SA by a quarter

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 9 Nov 2016

Tesla’s price shock: Solar + battery as cheap as grid power

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 4 Nov 2016

AGL’s new retail offer signals big jump in wholesale electricity prices

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 19 Oct 2016

Making sense of the AEMO report on SA blackout

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 6 Oct 2016

How the South Australia blackout occurred: what the data tells us

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 29 Sept 2016

Does rapid renewables expansion necessarily mean higher electricity prices?

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 26 Sept 2016

Are retailers failing to properly value rooftop solar generation?

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 16 Sept 2016

Australia’s big energy retailers are fattening their consumer margins

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 19 July 2016

Grid parity for battery storage? It’s complicated

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 19 April 2016

2015

Networks continue spending spree, and the customer pays

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 4 Nov 2015

Battery storage and the challenge for networks and regulators

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 29 Oct 2015

Network polemics: Why ENA is wrong on battery storage costs

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 27 Sept 2015

Networks pricing everyone out of grid: It’s time for competition

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 18 Sept 2015

Solar wars: How networks discriminate against solar households

Bruce Mountain, Renew Economy, 25 June 2015

Grattan’s solar report: The numbers still don’t add up

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, Renew Economy, 12 June 2015

Grattan got numbers wrong: Solar policies delivered net benefit of $1.2bn

Bruce Mountain, VEPC Director, Renew Economy, 9 June 2015