Antinuclear

Turnbull’s National Energy Guarantee works against battery energy storage

Battery storage proponents despondent about future under National Energy Guarantee, http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-10-19/concern-energy-policy-will-stymie-growth-in-battery-storage/9061948, ABC Rural, By Babs McHugh, Some in the fledgling tech-metals mining and processing industry are dismayed that the Federal Government’s new energy policy does not appear to support renewable energy storage such as batteries.

Australian Vanadium chief executive Vincent Algar said the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) unfairly pitted the batteries and renewable energy storage sector against fossil fuel electricity producers such as oil and gas.

“With coal and gas considered a dispatchable energy source under the NEG, what incentive will there be to source dispatchable energy from a battery?” he said.

Dispatchable power can be turned on and off and used immediately as needed.

The NEG will mandate that energy retailers need to buy a certain amount of energy from dispatchable sources, which include coal, gas, and pumped hydroelectricity storage.

Lower cost makes coal and gas more attractive

Mr Algar, whose company will mine and process vanadium, as well as promote vanadium battery technology, believes pure economics dictates that energy retailers will go to the much cheaper coal and gas producers.

“If a company is building a renewable energy project, what incentive will there be for them to put that dispatchable energy in the form of a battery?” he said.

“On top of that is the removal of subsidies for renewable energy, and no clean energy target, so it further reduces any incentives.

Mr Algar is also concerned the NEG will bring to a halt the research and development of advanced renewable energy and battery technologies.

“Australia has the runs on the board. It has invented things like the flow battery [which uses vanadium], and they’re doing brilliant work in eastern states that will improve the efficiency of solar panels, for example,” he said.

“These are developments that will generate jobs and make us a net exporter of renewable technology, but this policy could really put a dampener on that.”

October 19, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, energy, politics