Like pushing on string, adding wind and solar adds nothing to reliable power generation capacity: never there when you need it, and often there when you don’t, wind and solar are just a perpetual irritant to grid managers – the people attempting to keep the lights on and air conditioners humming this summer.

On 25 January, 200,000 Victorian households and businesses were left without power and fuming over what’s been done to their once reliable and affordable power supply.

Their Premier, Daniel Andrews and Minister for Wrecking the Grid, Lily D’Ambrosio danced a jig when a 1,600 MW coal-fired power plant, Hazelwood was knocked out of the game by subsidised wind.

Had that plant been up and running on 25 January, it would have easily covered the 833 MW collapse in wind power output that occurred over the space of a few hours that day. When the power went out…