If you ever wondered why the sudden and renewed enthusiasm for an emissions intensity scheme from the fossil fuel lobby and their supporters, wonder no more. It will likely save coal and gas generators $30 billion over competing scenarios. But it won’t deliver any savings for consumers.

There were several announcements from Queensland’s Government yesterday in relation to significant wind and solar power projects in the state.

As Australia’s big solar market gears up for a potentially “huge” 2017, 2016 has been chalked up as another record year for utility-scale solar, globally, with cumulative capacity falling just short of 100GW, and a new annual record for new installations set at almost 35GW.

It didn’t take long after the failure of South Australia’s two biggest gas plants late on Friday afternoon for the abuse to start flowing.