Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Australian electricity utilities to supply battery energy storage

battey TeslaAustralian Utilities Cozy Up to Home Storage: ‘If We Don’t Respond, Someone Else Will’ Three Australian power companies are set to offer Panasonic’s residential battery systems. Greentech Grid  Jason Deign  June 5, 2015

Australian utilities are moving to combat the threat of revenue loss from residential energy storage by opting to supply batteries themselves. Three companies — Red Energy, Ergon Energy and ActewAGL — announced trials offering Panasonic battery systems.

“Our customers are already showing interest in this technology, and if we don’t respond to what our customers want, someone else will,” said ActewAGL CEO Michael Costello.

The Australian Capital Territory utility, which already has more than 15,000 residential installations in its catchment area, expects to start offering the systems this October.

“The trial will validate batteries as a product offering in the Canberra environment and evaluate the product functionality,” Costello said.

He confirmed ActewAGL had been working with Panasonic for two years “on how to make a trial of battery energy storage in Canberra a reality.”

Panasonic, which last year won the contract to supply Tesla’s Gigafactory in the U.S., is said to be keen on using utilities and retailers as a channel to the residential market, rather than selling direct to homeowners…….http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/australian-utilities-cozy-up-to-energy-storage

June 6, 2015 Posted by | ACT, storage | Leave a comment

Solidarity between Indigenous Australians and Canadians in fighting fossil fuel pollution

“We are here because we also believe making strong relations with First Nations around the world is essential to the fight with the fossil fuel industry,” said Johnson. “The fossil fuel industry is not the wave of the future.”

The Wangan and Jagalingou people have twice refused to give consent for the mine, despite the company’s offer of compensation for loss of property, said Burragubba.

But Adani is taking the company’s case to Australia’s tribal land court to try to override the objections. That would allow the state to grant the lease. “We do not intend to give consent and no amount of compensation will get us to give consent,” said Johnson.

Aboriginal group fighting massive Australian coal mine consults with Alberta First Nations http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Aboriginal+group+fighting+massive+Australian+coal+mine+consults+with+Alberta+First+Nations/11106554/story.html  BY SHEILA PRATT, EDMONTON JOURNAL JUNE 3, 2015 On Adrian Burragubba’s ancestral lands in Australia — arid pasture land, beautiful mountains, rivers and clear springs — the world’s second-largest coal mine would devastate the wildlife and the land, he says.

“We’re the messengers here to tell the world together we can stop this mine,” Burragubba said Wednesday.

Burragubba and Murrawah Johnson have come to Alberta to learn from Alberta First Nations who have struggled to protect land, wildlife and water in the middle of vast open-pit oilsands mines in the boreal forest.

The $16.5-billion Carmichael coal mine, proposed by Indian conglomerate Adani, Continue reading →

June 6, 2015 Posted by | aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL | Leave a comment

Coal fired utilities stock prices plunged in Europe – next in Australia?

we still occasionally see rubbish published around the place that there are all these coal fired power plants about to begin operation in Germany. The Carbon Tracker report points out that since 2008 there were more than 100 new coal plants announced that have not been built. Once you take into account closures, not just openings, since 2000 there has been a new reduction of 19 gigawatts of coal capacity.

The reality that blogosphere and the conservative press don’t seem to have caught up with is that with wholesale power prices stuck at low levels, construction of a new coal fired power station is a licence to haemorrhage money.  

The circumstances surrounding this European utility decline look eerily familiar to the situation here in Australia. Electricity demand has stagnated, while solar PV in particular has taken off. 

Could this be AGL and EnergyAustralia’s horrible fate?, Climate Spectator TRISTAN EDIS 5 JUN, “……………….A report released by the Carbon Tracker Initiative has collated a huge array of data which provides a striking summary of how Europe’s conventional power utilities have been thrown into financial turmoil since 2008 due to being squeezed at one end by improved energy productivity and at the other end by growing use of renewable energy.

As the chart below [in original article] illustrates the stock market value of the EU’s largest 5 power generators has plunged by over 100 billion euros (or 37% of their value) between 2008 to 2013. The other big utility in the chart below that has beaten the trend has been Enel which moved into renewables….

logo-EnergiewendeThis hasn’t been simply a function of a broader economic downturn in Europe. By contrast with the plunge in these utilities’ stock value Germany’s stock market increased 18% over the same period with a major divergence emerging in performance…..

at the same time as electricity demand was stagnating, renewable energy was being pushed into the system driven by governments’ responding to public concern about climate change and a future industrial opportunity. The chart below [in original article] illustrates that while power demand has stagnated, renewables gained 10% market share from nuclear and fossil fuel generators……… Continue reading →

June 6, 2015 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Renewable energy storage to be sold to Australia’s electricity utilities

battey TeslaPanasonic To Sell Energy Storage To Australian Utilities http://cleantechnica.com/2015/06/04/panasonic-sell-energy-storage-australian-utilities/June 4th, 2015 by  Panasonic  will start to sell energy storage solutions to Australian power companies like Red Energy and ActewAGL this October, according to recent reports. Like Tesla’s energy storage products, built around Panasonic cells, they are lithium-ion batteries. Panasonic energy storage solutions will be available in New Zealand as well.

“Power companies in Australia are faced with dropping sales as the installation of solar panels expand and yet they still need to maintain the grids. We have been exploring ways to work together to benefit both users and retailers of electricity,” explained Katsufumi Miyamato, a Panasonic manager.

Australia reportedly has over one million homes with solar panels. It seems the adding of more solar panels has created much greater interest in energy storage, which is only natural. Additionally, having the ability to store electricity generated by solar panels for the times when sunlight isn’t available makes solar power much more attractive.

In fact, Kane Thornton, CEO of the Clean Energy Council estimated that there are about 1,000-2,000 battery storage systems currently in Australia. The largest power producer in Australia, AGL Energy Ltd., announced recently it would be offering a 6 kilowatt-hour battery storage system for homes sometime fairly soon. Continue reading →

June 6, 2015 Posted by | storage | Leave a comment

Clean Energy Council sees opportunities ahead for Australia’s Renewable Energy Industries

Tough year, but opportunities ahead: CEC  HERALD SUN, STAFF REPORTER JUNE 04, 2015 Last year was a tough one for renewable energy in Australia, with the amount of generation, investment and employment in the sector falling substantially, according to the Clean Energy Australia Report 2014 released by the Clean Energy Council last night.

Clean Energy Council Chief Executive Kane Thornton said 2014 was one of the toughest years for the renewable energy sector for more than a decade. But with a bipartisan deal on the Renewable Energy Target (RET) now agreed between the major parties and legislation being debated in Parliament, the future for the sector was looking much brighter. Continue reading →

June 6, 2015 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

Renewable energy chemicals can be exported to Australia’s energy customers

Any form of renewable electricity can be used in electrolysis, including wind and solar. Research around the world and in Australia continues to aim at reducing the costs of electrolysis………

The possible future scale of producing renewable energy chemicals in Australia is enormous. To imagine it one can mentally sum up all the investments that have made in Australia in coal, in liquefied natural gas (LNG), and that will be made in renewable energy to meet our own domestic energy needs, and more.

Hundreds of billions of dollars indeed. At MEI, we think it is time to start planning how Australia can competitively meet the future renewable energy needs of our traditional energy customers.

Meeting the future needs of Australia’s energy customers with renewable energy chemicals, Climate Spectator TIM FORCEY  4 JUN,  “…… One day those fossil fuel exports and imports will cease as Japan and South Korea continue to improve their energy productivity and expand their use of renewable energy. Some of that will be home-grown – renewable energy that Japan and South Korea can make for themselves. Already Japan is building impressive large-scale solar photovoltaic facilities out over the sea.

However, these man-made solar islands illustrate the physical and economic limits Japan and South Korea face while recognising they will need to rely partly on renewable energy imports. But imports from where? Preferred will be imports from countries that have extensive renewable energy resources that can be harvested and transported at reasonable cost, that are politically stable, and that have long histories as reliable energy suppliers. In other words, countries like Australia.

But how can renewable energy be exported 8000km from Australia to northeast Asia? Continue reading →

June 6, 2015 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, energy | Leave a comment

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