MP fears south-west businesses will go offshore

He said the state government's promise of a low carbon energy future was honourable, but it would require many more facilities to be built to provide energy to the entire state.

"We're only at 20 per cent renewables," Mr Riordan said.

"That's a lot more wind farms and turbines that have to be put into our communities. You can't throw everything out and think renewables will fill in the gap overnight."

Mr Riordan said the state government was "trying to retrofit" the system to allow for the delivery of renewable energy.

He said he regularly monitored the National Electricity Market website, which showed whether coal powered plants and wind farms were operating at capacity.

Mr Riordan said wind farms were often operating at well under their capacity, which would cause issues in the future. "Victorians only need to look at the NEM website to see the vast majority of our energy still comes from traditional sources," Mr Riordan said.

In addition to this, some wind farms, including Mortlake South, have not been connected to the grid because there isn't the capacity to do so, Mr Riordan said.

"The Mortlake South wind farm is sitting there unable to hook into the grid," Mr Riordan said.

Mr Riordan said a failure to keep energy prices down would result in companies relocating offshore.

"The state government is not doing the hard work, which is to put the infrastructure in place," Mr Riordan said.

Mr Riordan said Australia's low energy prices were a "strategic advantage" for business owners.

"We have relatively high wages, that's a good thing, nobody wants slave labour in Australia, but that's OK because we also have cheap energy," Mr Riordan said.

He said the other strategic advantage was access to raw materials.

"If you give up the strategic advantage of cheap energy, we cannot operate the way we have," Mr Riordan said.

Victorian Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change Lily D'Ambrosio slammed Mr Riordan's comments.

"This is ridiculous fear mongering from an opposition that has voted against our renewable energy targets and emission reduction targets every step of the way," she said.

"When they were last in government retail energy prices increased by 35 per cent and they shut down the wind industry - costing Victoria thousands of potential jobs. Victorian households and businesses continue to be better protected from bill increases thanks to our nation leading investments in renewables. This investment is delivering cheaper energy prices for Victorian households and businesses, while we work towards net-zero emissions by 2050."

IN OTHER NEWS:

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content:

Now just one tap with our new app: Digital subscribers now have the convenience of faster news, right at your fingertips with The Standard: