Sidney, Europe Brief News – Australia’s energy minister has urged Australians in New South Wales to switch off their lights in the face of an energy crisis.
Chris Bowen says people should not use electricity for two hours every evening if they “have a choice”.
However, he added he was “confident” that blackouts could be avoided.
It comes after Australia’s main wholesale electricity market was suspended because of a surge in prices.
Mr Bowen asked people living in New South Wales to conserve as much power as possible.
“If you have a choice about when to run certain items, don’t run them from 6 to 8 [in the evening],” he said during a televised media conference in Canberra.
Australia is one of the world’s biggest exporters of coal and liquefied natural gas but has been struggling with a power crisis since last month.
Three quarters of the country’s electricity is still generated using coal. It has long been accused of not doing enough to cut its emissions by investing in renewables.
In recent weeks, Australia has felt the impact of disruptions to coal supplies, outages at several coal-fired power plants and soaring global energy prices.
Australia is facing an “insurability crisis” with one in 25 homes on track to be effectively uninsurable by 2030, according to a Australia ‘s Climate Council report. Another one in 11 are at risk of being underinsured.
