Australian Capital Territory leads the way on solar power

Liberal government’s ideology threatens renewable energy future, Canberra Times, Mark Diesendorf, 17 Feb “….The initiative of the ACT government and its people is a beacon in these dark times in Australia when the federal and most state governments are trying to squash renewable energy to serve the vested interests in the fossil fuel industries. Frankly, I don’t care whether the ACT’s target is aspirational or not.

The point is that the ACT is actually doing something of substance, unlike federal and state governments. Research at the University of NSW by PhD candidate Ben Elliston, guided by Associate Professor Iain MacGill and myself, shows that we could operate reliably the national electricity market entirely on renewable energy technologies that are commercially available now. The research is based on hour-by-hour computer simulations using real data on electricity demand, wind and sunshine over the region spanned by the market.

Similar results have been obtained independently by the Australian Energy Market Operator, although their simulations included small contributions from technologies that are not yet commercially available, such as hot rock geothermal and wave power.

Furthermore, in peer-reviewed publications, we have shown that renewable electricity systems are affordable and likely to be less expensive than fossil-fuelled systems with hypothetical carbon capture and storage. We used the conservative cost projections for technologies and fuels by the Bureau and Resources and Energy Economics.

Australia does not need to buy its renewable energy from overseas, as Lawder seems to suggest. We have huge solar and wind resources. In the medium term we could have 100 per cent renewable electricity and in the longer term we could be exporting renewable energy to Asia, either by transmission line or modified LNG tankers.

The principal barriers to the transition to a sustainable energy system are no longer technological or economic. Instead they are the unhealthy relationships between the federal and state governments on one hand and the big greenhouse gas emitting industries on the other.

Mark Diesendorf is associate professor and deputy director of the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of NSW. His new book, Sustainable Energy Solutions for Climate Change, is published by the UNSW Press. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/liberal-governments-ideology-threatens-renewable-energy-future-20140216-32u2r.html#ixzz2tbi