South Australia's new emergency generators are an essential piece of infrastructure and must never be privatised, Treasurer and Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis says.
Mr Koutsantonis says the nine generators, which will be in place in time for summer, are just as important to the state as the desalination plant.
"Like the desalination plant, this is an essential piece of infrastructure that is an insurance policy for South Australian households and businesses," he said on Wednesday.
Mr Koutsantonis called on the opposition to assure residents the back-up power supply would never be sold off.
The government plans to install the state-of-the-art generators at two temporary locations before being moved to one permanent site.
They have the capacity to provide up to 276 megawatts but will only dispatch energy to the grid if there are shortfalls in electricity supply that could result in load shedding.
They replace the government's original proposal to build a new gas-fired power station and to put temporary diesel generators in key locations across SA.
Premier Jay Weatherill said the generators would be funded within the existing $550 million energy plan, with the bill to be lower than the previous options.
The plan also includes construction of the world's biggest battery in SA's mid-north by tech billionaire Elon Musk and was developed following the statewide blackout in September 2016 and major load shedding in February.
