Via the AFR:
Two days after slamming South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill for “going it alone” with his SA energy fix, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is to announce his own solo fix for the National Electricity Market.
…But it is light on detail and no solution to the immediate crisis – and the four year timetable and $2 billion price tag for the extra 2000 megawatts to start flowing both look optimistic.
Worse, the big state plunge could freeze a variety of smaller scale efforts by private companies – ZEN Energy and Santos, Lyon Solar, Carnegie Energy, Reposit Power, Greensync, Mojo Power – to help ease the short term crisis.
They plan to do that by building grid scale batteries, rolling out household batteries and demand management software, and better managing peak demand through batteries and a variety of “behind the meter” energy assets.
The timetable outlined to the Financial Review and other media doesn’t appear to allow for an environmental impact statement (EIS).
Nor does it account for Commonwealth/state argy-bargy. Elsewhere:
The nation’s peak business group has joined the chorus backing an emissions intensity scheme for the electricity sector and wants ageing coal-fired power stations required to give three years notice before shutting down.
In its submission to the government’s energy security review, obtained by The Australian, the Business Council of Australia has followed BHP Billiton, Origin Energy, AGL and the National Farmers Federation in backing such a scheme, adding to pressure on the Turnbull government to put the option back on the table.
Amid warnings of an investment crisis in much-needed new electricity generation, the group says a scheme would provide an incentive for investment in lower-carbon power supplies.
But the BCA has cautioned that a scheme should not be rolled out in the short term because it would undermine the security of the electricity system by driving multiple power stations to close in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley.
Instead, the group wants the scheme in place over the medium to long term to help Australia meet its pledge at the Paris climate change talks to slash emissions by 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.
But the designer of the EIS says he’s lost faith:
Frontier Economics’ Danny Price, who devised the EIS for Mr Turnbull when he was in opposition, has advised the Weatherill government in wind-reliant South Australia on a plan to solve its energy woes that includes an energy security scheme which can be absorbed into a national EIS in future.
“Personally I am not confident given the performance of the federal government over energy to date that we are going to get any change. All we have got is full-on politics without any real plan for solving these problems,” Mr Price told The Australian Financial Review.
Same old problem. Because Do-nothing Malcolm privileges tactical solutions over strategic visions, he is always left with a series of brain fart ideas and nothing to tie them to when the going gets tough. This gives him no agenda to pursue, is a red rag to every rent-seeking in the country and collapses the public narrative into chaos. It’s an absence of simple policy process that makes even good ideas appear bad.
At Reneweconomy there is rejoicing:
Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced plans to spend $2 billion on a 2GW pumped hydro scheme in the Snowy Mountains, in a move that will potentially drive a stake through the heart of the fossil fuel generation industry in Australia.
The move is seen as the most significant intervention in Australia in half a century. By promoting pumped hydro, Turnbull is effectively signing the death knell for any new coal or gas fired generation built by the private sector, and is paving the way for a 100 per cent renewable energy grid, driven mostly by wind and solar
It also makes a belated push for nuclear energy from members of his Coalition entirely redundant, because it removes the need to rely on “baseload” generation in the medium to long term.
Assuming this does go ahead at the scale advertised, the conversation around energy delivery will now shift from “baseload” to flexibility, and gas and coal will no longer be able to compete, on either cost or utility, over the medium to long term.
Indeed, the biggest beneficiary of this push into pumped hydro could well be solar PV and wind energy, which are now the clear leaders in energy costs, and their costs continue to fall.
By adding pumped hydro, and distributed battery storage (in homes, buildings and in electric cars), Australia can reach a 100% renewable energy target, possibly within a few decades.
The ANU’s Andrew Blakers, who last month released an analysis that showed Australia could reach 100 per cent renewable energy with solar, wind and pumped hydro, at a cost of around $75/MWh – cheaper than current wholesale prices – describes the move as a game changer.
He estimates that once this scheme is completed, Australia will be nearly half way to having enough pumped hydro and other storage to support a wind and solar grid.
“A 100 per cent renewable energy grid will require around 450GWh of storage,” Blakers told RenewEconomy.
“Pumped hydro is by far the cheapest in the wholesale market,” he says. But around half the storage needed will come in the form of battery storage “behind the meter”, paid for by homes, businesses and electric car owners, and through demand management.
“It’s game over for gas, it’s game over for nuclear. Solar PV and wind have won the race,” Blakers said. It also makes life difficult for proposed solar thermal and storage technologies, unless it can compete in areas unsuitable for pumped hydro.
Australia already has around 2.5GW of pumped hydro, mostly in Snowy Mountains, but also at Wivenhoe and Shoalhaven, and this new initiative to be formally announced by Turnbull in the Snowy Mountains on Thursday, but widely distributed to the main papers overnight.
The idea is to pair the Tantangara and the Talbingo reservoirs. Because the dams already exist, the cost of the pumped hydro is much reduced. The $2 billion will be spent on tunnels, power stations and poles and wires to connect it.
Indeed, there is nearly enough water in these reservoirs to provide enough dispatchable power to meet a 100 per cent renewable grid. But no grid can put all its eggs in one basket, or in one location. So more needs to be built in different places.
When you flip between coal and hydro hour by hour can folks really be blamed for doubting?
