Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

85% renewable electricity system cheaper than renewing the current coal and gas

By Ben Rose - posted Thursday, 30 June 2016


All three major Australian political parties agree, (but not with the same urgency) that 'the science is in' on global warming. It's real, it's a man-made problem and it will have to be solved on a global scale. Global action is slowly accelerating with the signing of the 2016 'Paris COP' agreement of 155 nations.

But the media has largely ignored climate policies in the lead up to the coming election and both major parties have been reluctant to debate and present their policies in any depth.. Nearly all experts agree that the Government's 'plan' – essentially paying polluters for emission reductions they should have implemented anyway and paying farmers not to clear some trees– is entirely inadequate to meet their 26% reduction target, which is considered by most other COP parties to be far too low. Labor has a target of 50% renewable power and a plan for two carbon emissions reduction schemes; an emissions trading scheme for industry and a 'baseline and credit' scheme for electricity, which may work (depending on the 'fine print').

A 97% majority of climate scientists declare that disastrous prospect of 3.5 deg.C warming is inevitable if the world were to adopt Australia's current trajectory and that we (humanity) must step up action to achieve 80% decarbonisation before 2050 keep warming below 2 deg. C. Meanwhile our political class seems to be ignoring the issue , fearful of past ill-informed squabbles about the rate at which emissions should be reduced, how it should be done and what cost is acceptable ; some even argue that we do not have the technology to achieve it.

Advertisement

Reducing carbon emissions primarily involves replacing our aging fossil fuelled electricity generators, which account for 33% of our emissions, with low to near zero technologies. At the same time electrifying most transport can reduce emissions by another 10%, modernizing industrial process another 10%, changing agricultural and land use practices another 10%, energy efficiency another 20% and so on.

The modelling I present here focuses on electricity generation. It disproves two myths –that renewable electricity is not workable without baseload fossil fuelled power and that in any case it is too expensive.

Sustainable Energy Now (SEN) - a Perth-based think tank of engineers and scientists of which I am one - has demonstrated that installing wind and solar PV generation to replace the current aging coal powered generators would cost no more than installing new coal and significantly less than nuclear power.

We used our new digital simulation package – SIREN Toolkit –to model the costs and carbon emissions of six electricity generation systems for WA's South-West Interconnected System (SWIS) The software is open source and can be downloaded free of charge from http://www.sen.asn.au/modelling_overview. The 'Clean Electricity WA 2030' study report and modelling spread sheets can be downloaded from: http://www.sen.asn.au/modelling_findings

We modelled several scenarios including three 100%, a 91% and one 85% renewable energy (RE). Key findings include that a system using 85 per cent renewable energy (a combination of wind, solar PV, 'behind the meter' batteries and open cycle gas turbines) would produce electricity slightly cheaper than renewing the current non-sustainable coal and gas generation i.e. 12.8c per kilowatt hour (unit) compared to 12.9c per kWh. It would reduce current carbon dioxide emissions by 85%, equivalent to saving 4.1 tonnes of CO2e per head of population per year.

Figure 1 below shows one of the modelled scenarios. The small squares represent the actual area that would be occupied by the wind turbines and solar panels and the circles show the relative proportion of capacity installed.

Advertisement

The costing assumptions in the study are conservative. Renewable energy (RE) technology costs continue to fall, for example the cost of wind was assumed to be $85 /MWh and the ACT government recently bought wind generation for $77/MWh. The study also conservatively assumes a carbon price of $30/tCO2e (about $25/MWh generated from a black coal power station) with no renewable energy certificate (REC) price (RECs have averaged $38/MWh and are currently used to subsidize RE). Also surplus generation is costed but assumed to be wasted, when in reality it could probably be sold cheaply to offset the modest cost of additional transmission lines (less than 1 c/ kWh).

The cost and CO2 emissions of the 6 main scenarios modelled are summarized below. Business as usual (BAU) means essentially renewing the existing coal / gas system. (Note that $100 per megawatt hour (MWh) = 10c/ kWh):

  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. All


Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

49 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Ben Rose is a semi-retired carbon consultant, energy auditor and natural resource development officer. He is a committee member of both the Sustainable Transport Coalition of WA and Sustainable Energy Now; his website is www.ghgenergycalc.com.au

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Ben Rose

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Article Tools
Comment 49 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy