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South Australia Hits 33% Renewal Energy Target 6 Years Early
ferrisoxide.com writes: South Australia has hit its target of 33% renewable energy by 2020, 6 years earlier than expected, delivering clean power to the state through investment in wind, solar and geothermal energy — mothballing one coal-fired power station in the process. Not content to rest on their laurels, the SA government has now announced a new "stretch" target of 50% by 2025. South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill declared that despite initial upfront costs to renewable energy generators such as wind farms, the 50 per cent target will not add one extra dollar to energy prices.
The nice thing about wind plus solar in southern Australia is that peak electricity usage is on hot days in the summer. These are often windy as well as sunny.
That said, this 33% is for South Australia (pop ~ 1.3 mil) which has a much smaller demand than Victoria (pop ~ 6 mil) with well connected grids. So excess power from SA can be readily exported to Victoria.
As renewable engery use in Victoria increases it will likely be harder to shift excess production. The Victoria/SA market may well face the problem Germany has when wholesale electricty prices drop down to zero. We really need large scale grid storage to get a global SA/Vic production up about 30% from renewables.
Thanks to our privatized system we generally pay up to 30 cents per kwh. 50 per cent of that goes to network charges and a significant amount towards wholesale and retail profits.
Wind has been bringing down the wholesale price significantly - to the point that the coal industry has seriously kicked their political machines into gear to get renewables stomped on.
In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
A nation of 24 million that is the 4th or 5th largest coal producer in the world is saying that they can afford wind, solar and geothermal power.
I live here, it's awesome =)
Seriously though, South Australia, while having a reputation for being a "backward" state, is actually one of (if not the) most liberal, progressive states in Australia. Adelaide has a cool startup culture too!
Wow, 6 years ahead of expectations? Sounds a lot like how publicly traded companies set lower goals so they can over-achieve them. Germany already has over 50% renewable electric power on sunny days, while having about the same insolation as Alaska. 50% by 2025 doesn't seem awfully ambitious to me, especially in Australia. They have the sunshine hours and they have the large, unused areas. What the hell is stopping them? I can only guess: lack of political will.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
The political accolades are deserved as well, but lets face it, southern Australia has a great deal of land and resources relative to the population and demand. I would expect higher standards from those who can meet them. I'm sure Australia will aim high in spite of their clear leadership, and their advantageous location.
120 world leaders meet at the UN this week to try and figure out some sort of plan around climate change. You'd think Australia's PM would bother to show up. Probably wants to avoid the abuse from his peers for canning their working better than expected carbon tax because mining money.
It's a fucking embarrassment.
But at least the individual states are doing something positive.
Eh? How is it not renewable? Every day it starts anew. You don't ever run out, it never stops producing. Sometimes its production is lower and sometimes its higher, but it never runs out.
Granted, coal is sorta technically "renewable" but only on a geological scale that renders the term pointless. We'll mine it all and run out of it all long before any more comes.
See http://www.windpower.org/da/ak... (2013), or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... (28% 2011).
Now that is renewable. Of course the rest is made of coal power to fill the energy holes both in Denmark and in Sweden that is using hydro and nuclear only, and therefore can't supply peak energy on it own.
SA is the state which continues to conjur up all the "think of the children" laws, banning of games, censorship of things and what have you.
I mean the place is referred to as the "city of churches" so, you know?....
None the less good on them for doing something good, for a change.
Sounds like there are significantly fewer hire-purchase politicians and bureaucrats (from whatever combination of energy companies and unions) in SA than in the USofA. Shows what can be done by government initiative.
You mean "they predict they will hit the target in six years." They hit 31.5%, and might have hit the 33% - if you believe a government spokesman.
This is only "locally-generated" power, by the way: they don't count the power imported from other states, and fail to mention that overall power generation in South Australia is expected to decline due to cheaper power imported from places like Victoria.
They also won't add "one additional dollar to energy prices" by adding the many additional dollars to taxes levied by the federal government.
The sun is basically a fusion reactor with a great lifespan, so no, it doesn't ever start anew because it won't ever stop until it runs out of fuel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... (If you're curious)
Either you were drunk writing this or you're in dire need of a new keyboard...
Granted, coal is sorta technically "renewable" but only on a geological scale that renders the term pointles
Actually, most of the coal was formed during the Carboniferous period, where the state of the climate, as well as the biological evolution worked together to create the perfect environment for storing large amounts of coal. The trees at that era had evolved to produce lignin, but the bacteria were not yet evolved to break it down. Similar conditions may not happen again, so we can't even be sure that new coal will form in any useful quantities.
Isn't that a problem with all energy sources? Speaking more realistically, fossil fuels will run out in hundreds of years and solar will last billions. Which would you bet the future on?
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Coal is not only slowly renewable, it is renewable thanks to the sun.
As a direct result of the renewables, the cost of power in South Australia is one of the most expensive rates in the world. I commonly have power bills exceeding ~US$300 per month.
Yes we can. It won't. Useful (in this case) is in terms of human needs. Three hundred and fifty million years is not a useful span for that.
This is great news. Since maintenance of systems like this cost practically nothing compared to buying oil, gas, and coal, I bet in 10 years they'll be one the richest companies with a booming economy simply because energy is practically free. Once you spend the money, you're just playing the long game and it pays off in the end. The US should seriously be dumping even more money into it.
The Oconee Nuclear station built a pumped storage facility nearby so that the nuke could be leveled, with excess power generation used to pump and peak load met by the hydro station.
The Bad Creek Hydroelectric Station is a 1,065-megawatt pumped-storage facility located in Oconee County, eight miles north of Salem, S.C. The four-unit station began generating electricity in 1991, and is the largest hydroelectric station on the Duke Energy system. It is named for the two streams, Bad Creek and West Bad Creek, which were dammed to create the Bad Creek reservoir.
The Bad Creek facility utilizes two reservoirs (or lakes) to generate electricity: an upper reservoir and a lower reservoir. Water stored in an upper lake is released into underground power tunnels. The water rushes down the tunnels, driving huge turbines, which are underground at the base of a dam. The spinning turbines are connected to large generators, which produce the electricity. The water then flows through draft tubes into a lower lake.
A pumped-storage hydroelectric station uses the same water over and over again, making more efficient use of water resources. When demand for electricity is low, operators can refill the lake, as if they were “recharging” a battery. Using power from other generating stations, the generators act as electric motors spinning the huge turbines backward. This pumps water back up the power tunnels into the upper lake. Water is generally pumped back to the upper reservoir at night and on weekends.
If they have excess unused capacity, they should use it to desalinate seawater, turn Austrailailaila into a garden of eden.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but total solar insolation on the lower 48 is 46,700 Quads/year, compared to that the total electricity usage of the USA at 38.2 quads/year is a rounding error, the albedo effect from heavy clouds created by El Nino or heavier than average snowfall in the winter probably has several times more effect on the strength of winds than if we were to tap 100% of our electricity needs through wind.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
> While solar and wind have their place, it would be much more effective to complement them with nuclear instead.
And as soon as you figure out a way to reduce CAPEX by four times, it will.
Every reactor under construction in a country where we can believe the accounting is currently running late, and thus overbudget, and the average CAPEX is around $9/W. A wind turbine goes in for just over $1. That's just the way it is, and until someone fixes that, its going to keep being that way.
Lignite is like soft, claylike mud near the surface. Use giant scoops to put it straight onto the train and send it to the power station. Anthracite is deeper underground, and hard. It is very much more expensive to mine.
No, coal is not renewable.
The conditions that create coal during the Carboniferous era no longer exist.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Burning trees is carbon neutral. Adding trees is carbon neutral.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
$9/W based on watt capacity not watts generated ever time.
That number is often used as a scare tactic to make people thing they will pay 9$ W.
Assuming you're build plants to produce more the 1 GW over time. Ob. if you were to shut it down after producing 1GW, it would need to cost$9 a watt.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I have it straight from the US government that we have the greatest nation on Earth. The foolish idea that nations such as Germany or Australia have done better at alternate energy projects is simply not possible as the US has not done it first. And the three students from Cork, Ireland developing a better method of agriculture must be a lie as we all know that the Irish are all drunks and that schools in Europe simply do not compare with the US. Suggesting that the US does not have the leading Pakistani students in our science courses is about like suggesting that the US does not lead in having the best, black, football and basketball stars. The only good things to come from elsewhere are Pizza and Chinese food. Sadly many Americans think about like the above paragraph.
The conditions that create coal during the Carboniferous era no longer exist.
*created coal during
That is correct but the cool thing about eras is that no matter what there is always a brand spanking new one right around the corner.... so in a million years or so the coal that will exist (but probably won't need to be used) will have been created during the era of misinformed slashdot commenters because Coal formation is a continuing process (some of our newest coal is "just" a million years old) unless you believe these stone cold fuck nuts
https://answersingenesis.org/b...
in which case a few thousand years is enough to make coal
I wanted a Mad-Max style gasoline-fueled hellscape. It's like they're actively trying to prevent that from happening :(
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Which makes it about $9 to $3(wind) when you figure % of usage.
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