Scott Morrison says closing coal power stations will drive up electricity prices. Is he right? | Graham Readfearn

A more unequivocal statement would be hard to come by. But is Morrison right?

Last weekend it emerged that tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and Canadian asset management company Brookfield had launched their extraordinary takeover bid for energy generator and retailer AGL.

The AGL board knocked the bid back, and now the Cannon-Brookes consortium is weighing up its next steps.

But first, what does Cannon-Brookes want to do?

AGL has three large coal-fired power plants that currently emit about 40.5m tonnes of CO2 a year, according to data from the Clean Energy Regulator.

He says the consortium has $20bn to spend to replace the electricity generated by the coal plants with renewable energy and storage, saying confidently this would lower prices, not lift them.

From a climate change perspective, the broad challenge facing governments around the world is to get off fossil fuels as quickly as possible.

McConnell led a study looking at those price rises.

He says while Hazelwood closing did have some direct effect, what was far more important was that owners of coal plants in the electricity market knew that gas was expensive.