News from Rewiring The Nation

Australian Power Lines

Over the last week Chris Bowen has been selling from everyone to industry to landowners on the government’s $20 billion “Rewiring the Nation” project. He has stated that “securing social license to build the transmission lines is the single most pressing issue for the Australian energy transition.

The proposal involves the development and construction of 10,000km of lines before 2030 and the key to achieving this will be community and stakeholder relationships, which are now being built into the regulatory investment test (RIT-T) process. To facilitate this the NSW and VIC government are offering $200,000 per km for the land crossed by these new infrastructure projects.

Ian Learmonth, the head of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, said that Australia will need an estimated 29GW of large-scale renewables to meet our ambitious goals, which breaks down to around 3.6GW a year.

This compares to last year’s large-scale wind and solar where Australia only installed 2.3GW. The 29GW required to be installed is challenged by the slow progress in developing essential new transmission lines and therefore Australia’s targets are at risk.

Daniel Westerman, the Chief Executive of AEMO, has stated that “From our control room we can see that increasing amounts of solar and wind generation are being curtailed because there’s not enough transmission capacity to transport it.”

Despite this, the share of renewables in the grid is hitting new highs, averaging 37% in Q1, and peaking at 66% for a half-hour dispatch period. As a result, greenhouse gas emissions from the grid were at their lowest recorded ever in Q123.

Additionally, there is concern from AEMO that there is 14GW of coal powered generation capacity retiring by 2030, which exceeds the 8GW of renewables announced so far. The effect of this could be starkest in the short term. With Eraring (2,880MW) due to come off in late 2025, there are concerns of a significant short term firming capacity gap for first few summers in NSW.

However, with a new Capacity scheme expected to be announced in the next few months, and the next ESOO due in October expected to show the shortfall for NSW, the possibility of extension is one being seriously discussed.

With the VIC – NSW West Interconnector final drafts expected soon and Humelink approval expected early next year, the move to new transmission is starting. However, questions remain as to whether it is too late for the government to meet its targets.

Retrofitting old power station sites with renewable generation

wind turbine

As coal fired generation retires the logical solution would be for renwable generation developers to use the existing connection points to install either new generation or energy storage. Generally, these locations have the best transmission infrastructure close by and have favourable loss factors.

Increasingly renewable developers are finding it hard to obtain favourable locations to build new projects particularly for solar and wind. Most developers prefer sites next to transmission infrastructure, but more and more renewable developers are struggling to find sites with good solar or wind potential. The wind sector is most influenced by site selection with the majority of the high wind yielding sites already developed.

The question is, do developers now look at redeveloping existing generation sites rather than start with a greenfield site? While there are benefits of a brownfield site, the registration and connection process of a new project is as arduous as developing a whole new new site. Additional connection studies would need to be undertaken and new projects would need to meet more stringent approval processes.

As developers are forced to develop low yielding sites the output of the projects drops and costs increase, so developing an older site may be beneficial if yield is significantly better.

The earlier wind farms were built in the late 1990’s and are now entering the final years of their life. Are these locations ideal for the next generation of wind farms or will developers opt for new sites?

Overseas data suggests repowering an existing site with new more efficient and larger wind turbines has its benefits. At this stage no Australian wind farms have been repowered.

The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) estimates the average wind farm is 15 years old however some are close to 30 years old. The early wind farms are located where the wind resource was seen to be the best.

With offshore wind the next big thing in the industry will we also see the development of larger more efficient wind farms on the same ground as the industry pioneers?

At Edge 2020 keeping our customers informed on the energy market is a top priority for us. As the world shifts towards a more sustainable future, we are committed to playing our part by procuring from renewable energy sources, whilst continuing to secure cost-effective energy solutions for our customers. If your business is interested in wholesale or retail renewable PPAs we’d love to help you. Contact us on: 1800 334 336 or email: info@edge2020.com.au

Coal and gas moves to renewables and storage

Renewable generators with battery storage

With Enel X announcing the installation of battery storage systems in shopping centres in Melbourne and on the NSW central coast, this year may see a shift in the energy market as we transition from coal and gas to renewables and storage.

Recently AEMO’s CEO Daniel Westerman said, ‘even after factoring the cost of new transmission lines, wind and solar remain by far the cheapest forms of new power generation’.

Key federal policies have underpinned the need to progress an increase in renewable energy. Growth in renewable energy is dependent on the growth of storage to be fully utilised and the need for greater transmission infrastructure is required to link the projects to the end users.

The announcement of the Net-zero emissions target of 43% of 2005 levels by 2030 have pushed other mechanisms to also ramp up across the country. The key federal mechanism is the Safeguard Mechanism, which targets the emissions reduction for Australia’s largest emitting facilities. In line with the Safeguard mechanism the 82% renewables energy target in the National Electricity Market (NEM) by 2030 is also incentivising renewable generation. As both these drivers will require more renewable energy to be rolled out to offset the thermal generation, more storage will be required to compensate for the intermittency of renewable generation and an increase in transmission lines will be required to connect the renewable energy projects with storage and end users.

AEMO has for many years been looking at a fundamental shift in generation, transmission and energy usage. AEMO is now focusing on firming, Electric vehicles and the regulatory framework to enable these changes to occur.

In recent years we have regularly seen that the NEM has the potential to operate with very high levels of renewables, but the limiting factor still remains that thermal generation provides reliability and system security when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining. At the end of December, South Australia produced 104% of its demand with renewable energy and exported the extra electricity to neighbouring regions.

With most states striving for high renewable energy targets, Victoria is hoping to reach 95% renewables by 2035 and Queensland has increased its target to 80% renewables by 2035.

With the recent volatility in the overseas energy markets, in which Australia is a pivotal player in due to the large quantities of coal and gas we export, there is now a greater incentive to shift away from thermal generation due to the volatility and high prices.

AEMO reports show there is currently 21GW of new projects undergoing connection assessment and they expect 5GW of new capacity to be added during FY2023, in addition to the 4GW currently operating.

To assist this influx in renewable generation ARENA granted $176m in December 2022 to fast track 8 new battery projects to bring in 2.0GW/4.2GWh of storage. The plan is to triple the battery storage across the NEM by 2025.

Over the next year we will also see more transmission lines connecting the nation as more renewable energy zones are connected to the load centres under the Rewiring the Nation policy.

The first transmission projects to receive Rewiring the Nation funding were announced following the October 2022 Federal budget. Recently funded projects include the VNI NSW-Victoria interconnect, Marinus Link and various NSW transmission projects connecting the renewable energy zones. This funding will assist in building the transmission lines over the next 10 years.

If your business is interested in wholesale or retail renewable PPAs we’d love to help you. Contact us on: 1800 334 336 or email: info@edge2020.com.au