Eight million Australians urged to turn off lights

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In the event of an energy crisis in New South Wales, the energy minister has urged households to switch off their lights.

If people have a choice, they shouldn't use electricity for more than two hours a night.

He said that he was confident that there would be no power cuts.

The main wholesale electricity market in Australia was suspended because of a price surge.

People living in New South Wales have been asked to conserve electricity.

He said that if you have a choice about when to run certain items, don't run them in the evening.

Australia is one of the world's biggest suppliers of coal and natural gas, but has been struggling with a power crisis. Coal is used to generate three quarters of the country's power. It has been accused of not investing enough in renewable energy.

Several coal-fired power plants have been offline in Australia in the last few weeks due to disruptions to coal supplies.

Technical issues have cut production at two mines that supply the market's biggest coal-fired station in New South Wales, and some coal mines in New South Wales have been affected by flooding.

A quarter of Australia's coal-fired electricity generating capacity is currently out of service due to unforeseen events.

Coal and gas prices have gone up as a result of the sanctions on Russia.

As Australia's economy opens up after Covid-19 restrictions were relaxed, demand for energy has gone up.

All of this has helped drive up power prices on the wholesale market to above the A$300 per megawatt hour price cap set by the market's regulators.

The cap was below the cost of production for some generators.

Aemo suspended the market on Wednesday and said it would compensate generators for the shortfall.

Consumers in New South Wales were asked to reduce their energy use.

Aemo did not give a time frame for when the suspension would be lifted. The price cap will stay in place until cumulative wholesale electricity prices fall below the threshold.

As the national power system operator, Aemo will continue to monitor the situation and give further updates should conditions change.

AGL Energy expects to be able to supply more power to businesses and consumers in the coming days.

There are three units that are out of service at the coal-fired plant.

The power crisis has been caused by a number of planned and unexpected outages.

One of the units will be back online by Saturday, according to AGL.

Anthony Albanese said the crisis would be raised at a meeting with state premiers.

Policymakers have been aware of the risks of aging generators for a long time, according to an energy expert.

Prof Chester said that the sector's regulators and policy makers have ignored the increasing capacity constraints of aging generation assets.

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