Antinuclear

Renewable energy economics – sending shockwaves through fossil fuel lobby

Broader estimates produced by the International Energy Agency and the European Commission suggest that the final outcome of moving to renewables will be cost-neutral over the long term, and may even save money, but will likely cause a rise in costs over the short term because of new technologies and infrastructure investment.

More critically, it will also send shockwaves through the energy industry as economics of fossil fuel generators is undermined

In a renewable world, baseload generation is redundant, REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson  29 March 2012 Energy Minister Martin Ferguson revealed the tenuous nature of his understanding of solar technologies in an interview on ABC TV’s 7.30 Report on Tuesday, referring to Solar Flagships projects as “solar baseload power.”

The Solar Flagships may be many things – big is one of them and possibly what Minister Ferguson meant. Or they may not be anything at all, given their problems in financing. But without storage one thing they certainly will not be is baseload. And even with storage, would solar ever work as baseload energy?

It is a common misconception, given that the energy grids for decades have been based on the principal of providing baseload energy, supplemented by peak-load power when demand is high. The question is often put: How could solar – or any other intermittent renewable ever be considered to be a source of baseload energy?

According to the latest study produced by experts at the UNSW, it may not need to.

The study by the UNSW team of Ben Elliston, Mark Diesendorf and Ian
McGill into how Australia’s National Electricity Market could cope
with 100 per cent renewables suggests that the very concept of a
baseload power station becomes redundant when fossil fuels are
replaced with renewables.

The needs of the grid are met with large penetrations of variable
renewable sources such as wind and solar, and topped up with solar
storage acting as a form of peaking plant, and gas-turbines running on
biofuels that perform a similar function. And, critically, by reducing
peak demand through improved energy efficiency and better demand
management.

The study, a simulation of 100 per cent renewable scenarios for the
year 2010, using actual NEM demand data, weather observations and
technologies that are in either mass production (wind, solar PV, hydro
and biofuelled gas turbines), or limited production (such as
concentrated solar thermal with thermal storage), shows that 100 per
cent renewable energy is technically feasible…….

The UNSW released their first results at the Solar 2011 conference in
Sydney last December. It included a base scenario of 23.2GW of wind
(more than 10 times the current capacity), 14.6GW of PV (10 times
current capacity), 15.6GW of CST (there is none now), 2.2GW of
existing pumped storage hydro, 4.9GW of existing hydro without storage
and 24GW of biofuelled gas turbines. They have recently updated their
findings to see if reliability could be improved, and if the reliance
on gas turbine capacity and use could be reduced.

The biggest changes came through demand reduction – which could be
achieved through a variety of measures to get over winter peaks when
solar and wind generation may contribute little. Reducing these
shortfalls by 10 per cent meant that the gas turbine capacity could be
reduced to 18GW from 24GW, while reducing shortfalls by 19 per cent
could cut the required capacity to 15GW. (If that sounds like a lot,
the Perth Solar City project has recently revealed that air
conditioners operated with remote demand management devices – the
first such trial in the country – achieved a 20 per cent reduction in
peak demand from households, who have been primarily responsible for a
20 per cent increase in peak demand in the state over the past
decade).

The other major development in the new study came from changes in the
mix of solar PV and CST, given the sharp falls in the cost of PV
modules in recent years, and the ability of PV to better cope with
cloud cover than CST. The contribution of PV was increased from 10 per
cent to 20 per cent, while that of CST was reduced from 40 per cent to
30 per cent….
The next stage of the UNSW study will be analysing how much this will
cost. Broader estimates produced by the International Energy Agency
and the European Commission suggest that the final outcome of moving
to renewables will be cost-neutral over the long term, and may even
save money, but will likely cause a rise in costs over the short term
because of new technologies and infrastructure investment. More
critically, it will also send shockwaves through the energy industry
as economics of fossil fuel generators is undermined, as they are
already discovering in Germany and other places where renewable
penetration is reaching 20 per cent or more.

The Australian Energy Market Operator has also been commissioned to
paint two scenarios of reaching 100 per cent renewables by 2030 and
2050. It is expected to release the scope of that inquiry in coming
weeks.  http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/in-a-renewable-world-baseload-generation-is-redundant-21817

March 29, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, energy