The game of blackout roulette this summer will be on again with ever increasing ‘load shedding’ by big electricity users becoming the ‘new normal’ way for the nation to meet ongoing power supply problems and must drive business owners crazy.
A disruption to normal business operations through unreliable power is putting further pressure on businesses to move offshore, similar to Bluescope Steel increasing its investment in the US business by a billion dollars.
Why spend capital in Australia when going overseas has more potential?
A recent report blames ‘old coal fired’ generators’ ongoing maintenance schedules this time around for not being reliable enough when needed over the summer.
These plants were designed to chug out power 24/7 for years and now compete with sudden bursts of cheaper less reliable energy when the sun shines and yet are left to do most of the heavy lifting when it does not.
Surely power generators of all persuasions should meet some kind of ‘reliability’ level for supplying power all of the time which would smooth out solar generation peaks and have more power available over the demand cycle.
Not asking for this kind of commitment from the beginning from big intermittent generators has certainly made life difficult for everyone and a national energy policy is a must.
A solid manufacturing sector is a cornerstone of a balanced and strong economy and here in Australia we are killing it with expensive and unreliable power.
As the reporting season continues a good article from Rudi Filapek-Vandyke in The Weekend Australian says that this reporting season may be a rare beast in having more earnings ‘misses’ than ‘beats’.
According to Rudi the tally so far stood at 33.8 per cent ‘misses’ vs 21.3 per cent ‘beats’ and the rest in line with expectations. With overall earnings weak it is not a great sign for the domestic economy.
A few snippets from the past week include:
* Fixed rate mortgages in Australia are now lower than three per cent if customers have a low loan-to-value ratio as the big banks jostle for the title of ‘the lowest fixed rate’.
* Coles’ first full year report after becoming separately listed shows online sales up by 30 per cent to $1.1 billion and was able to put in the first profit as a division. Earnings from overall ongoing operations were down 8.1 per cent with profit down 9.1 per cent.
* Skincare group BWX saw the share price surge 28 per cent after the company outlined the coming year’s revenue target of 20 to 25 per cent growth as the groups second half performance saw earnings double.
* Qantas saw a 17 per cent fall in before tax profit which included a thumping $614 million increase in the fuel bill. Net profit was down 6.5 per cent to $891 million with overall passenger numbers up 1 per cent to 55.8 million.
* The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is to review the multi-billion dollar retail derivatives market after a review found more than 70 per cent of clients lost money and the ‘leverage factor’ in Australian accounts was greater than global peers and was used by brokers to promote the sector.
* Mortgage debt for the over 55s has doubled to 28 per cent in 2015 from only 14 per cent in 1987.
Trade wise there were no changes this week.
More commentary and charts on the Courier website Wednesday, cheers Charlie.
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Uneven playing field led to energy chaos
Aug 27, 2019
The game of blackout roulette this summer will be on again with ever increasing ‘load shedding’ by big electricity users becoming the ‘new normal’ way for the nation to meet ongoing power supply problems and must drive business owners crazy.
A disruption to normal business operations through unreliable power is putting further pressure on businesses to move offshore, similar to Bluescope Steel increasing its investment in the US business by a billion dollars.
Why spend capital in Australia when going overseas has more potential?
A recent report blames ‘old coal fired’ generators’ ongoing maintenance schedules this time around for not being reliable enough when needed over the summer.
These plants were designed to chug out power 24/7 for years and now compete with sudden bursts of cheaper less reliable energy when the sun shines and yet are left to do most of the heavy lifting when it does not.
Surely power generators of all persuasions should meet some kind of ‘reliability’ level for supplying power all of the time which would smooth out solar generation peaks and have more power available over the demand cycle.
Not asking for this kind of commitment from the beginning from big intermittent generators has certainly made life difficult for everyone and a national energy policy is a must.
A solid manufacturing sector is a cornerstone of a balanced and strong economy and here in Australia we are killing it with expensive and unreliable power.
As the reporting season continues a good article from Rudi Filapek-Vandyke in The Weekend Australian says that this reporting season may be a rare beast in having more earnings ‘misses’ than ‘beats’.
According to Rudi the tally so far stood at 33.8 per cent ‘misses’ vs 21.3 per cent ‘beats’ and the rest in line with expectations. With overall earnings weak it is not a great sign for the domestic economy.
A few snippets from the past week include:
* Fixed rate mortgages in Australia are now lower than three per cent if customers have a low loan-to-value ratio as the big banks jostle for the title of ‘the lowest fixed rate’.
* Coles’ first full year report after becoming separately listed shows online sales up by 30 per cent to $1.1 billion and was able to put in the first profit as a division. Earnings from overall ongoing operations were down 8.1 per cent with profit down 9.1 per cent.
* Skincare group BWX saw the share price surge 28 per cent after the company outlined the coming year’s revenue target of 20 to 25 per cent growth as the groups second half performance saw earnings double.
* Qantas saw a 17 per cent fall in before tax profit which included a thumping $614 million increase in the fuel bill. Net profit was down 6.5 per cent to $891 million with overall passenger numbers up 1 per cent to 55.8 million.
* The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is to review the multi-billion dollar retail derivatives market after a review found more than 70 per cent of clients lost money and the ‘leverage factor’ in Australian accounts was greater than global peers and was used by brokers to promote the sector.
* Mortgage debt for the over 55s has doubled to 28 per cent in 2015 from only 14 per cent in 1987.
Trade wise there were no changes this week.
More commentary and charts on the Courier website Wednesday, cheers Charlie.