SA’s vapid Premier, Jay Weatherill about to suffer another power shock.

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The Federal Large-Scale RET has just claimed another scalp in the shape of 1,600MW of reliable base-load plant at Hazelwood, Victoria – as well as more than 1,000 well-paid blue-collar jobs and an entire regional community.

That loss follows hot on the heels of the breathtakingly stupid decision by South Australia’s hapless Labor government to reject, out of hand, offers by Alinta to keep its Port Augusta plant up and running.

Alinta shut its plant as a direct result of the REC subsidies paid to wind power outfits under the Federal government’s LRET (the value of which underpins the guaranteed fixed prices in their PPAs with retailers of around $110 per MWh), whenever the wind blows in South Australia, wind power outfits were able to underbid Alinta (on plenty of occasions paying the grid manager to take their…