Cutting The Cable: Kangaroo Island Eyes Switch To 100% Renewable Energy

The Guardian - Giles Parkinson

Australia's third-biggest island could combine wind, solar, PV and battery storage to fuel own electricity needs – and set a blueprint for the rest of the country 

Admiral Arch on Kangaroo Island in Flinders Chase national park. Photograph: Alamy

Kangaroo Island is one of the great icons of Australian tourism. As Andrew Boardman, the chief executive of the Kangaroo Island council, says: "You can't buy a name like that."
But now the third-biggest island in Australia, which lies just 120kms from Adelaide, wants to make its mark in a different way: by supplying 100% of its electricity needs and much of its transport fuels through locally sourced renewable energy.
The island is calling for proposals that could use a mixture of its local resources – solar power, wind energy, biomass and even ocean energy – and combine those with battery storage, smart software and the existing diesel back-up. Even more dramatically, it is also supporting a push to cut the island from the mainland grid.
Indeed, the move has been prompted by a need to update and replace the ageing cable that currently supplies electricity from the mainland.
South Australian Power Networks has called for "alternative proposals". If someone can come up with a proposal that matches the $45m to $50m replacement cost of the cable, then they will consider it. They aim to make a decision by the end of the year.
Boardman says: "100% renewable is a very real, very clear target ... Technology is not the issue. We have got solar, wind, wave, tidal, biomass. There is nothing we can't really do."
If the idea works, Boardman says, it could make the island – with a population of 4,600 and 200,000 visitors each year – the first in Australia to be entirely reliant on its own renewable resources for electricity and transport. It could provide a blueprint for others to follow.
Other islands, such as King Island and Lord Howe Island, have or are about to install significant renewable and battery storage arrays but still rely on fossil fuels for 20% to 30% of their electricity needs.
"We could create a centre of excellence," Boardman says. "If we can make it work on Kangaroo Island, it is transferable for other areas."
Boardman says the island has received a "phenomenal response" to the call-out for alternatives and the council has teamed up with the Institute of Sustainable Futures in Sydney to help find the best alternative.
ISF director Chris Dunstan says the institute got involved because he saw the Kangaroo Island tender as an opportunity too important to miss.
"It's not just about deferring spending on networks for a year or two, it's about a whole new energy paradigm," Dunstan says.
He and Boardman are hoping that South Australian Power Networks allows more time for alternative proposals to be put together, which is why the ISF has stepped in to push the idea that there are good alternatives to simply laying a new cable.
Earlier this year, ISF put together a tentative plan that proposes 8MW of wind turbines, 4MW of centralised solar photovoltaics (PV) and 4MW of rooftop PV, with about 3MW battery storage, most of it co-located with solar PV.
This would be combined with energy efficiency measures and continuing the small diesel plant, which would account for just 3% of the load. Dunstan estimates the set-up could cut bills on the island by 30% but his team is also looking at other ideas.
Boardman wants to go one step further and use 18,000 hectares of blue gum plantations – the legacy of investment by the since-failed plantation company Great Southern Plantations – as feedstock for a renewable biofuel.
That could be used to replace the six million litres of diesel it imports at high cost from the mainland each year, as well as providing electricity and waste heat, and the power needed to desalinate water.
There is little else to do with the plantations, he says, as there is no port to export the wood back to the mainland.
And he is keen to play on the island's reputation as an eco-tourism destination. The council already has three Nissan Leaf electric vehicles for hire and six re-charging stations through the island.
The island is encouraging more electric vehicles and Boardman talks of creating the world's first renewable energy-powered "electric vehicle tourism highway", linking the island with Adelaide via the Fleurieu Peninsula. The island already has 50kW of rooftop solar installed on its airport and another 14kW on the council chambers.
Boardman says there is no doubt that the technology is there but he has concerns about other issues such as who runs an island-only grid and who do they answer to? And, in 25 to 30 years' time, when some of the technology needs replacing, who will pay for that? Another potential factor may be the pairing of fibre optic cable with a new electricity cable. Digital isolation is also a major consideration.
Whether the cable is cut or not, Boardman says that the island will need to upgrade its local network anyway. It features a series of "thin wires" or single-wire earth return lines built in the 1960s that no longer have the capacity to meet future demand. He envisages a series of linked micro-grids that can exploit local resources and increase reliability.
And, if the cable is not cut, Boardman sees opportunities for using that cable to export power from the island back to the mainland, taking advantage of its local energy resources, including the eucalypt plantation.
"If we can show that renewable energy is technically and economically viable for Kangaroo Island, it would be a powerful precedent for communities around Australia who are seeking to develop their own renewable energy."

Links

• Climate change: how Victoria trumped New South Wales in the great renewable energy race
• Four visionary renewable energy projects that could pay off for Australia
• Stop spreading misinformation on coal demand
• Climate change: communities and councils fill void on zero emissions targets
• Garbage in, energy out: creating biofuel from plastic waste

This ‘Other’ Form Of Solar Energy Can Run At Night, And It Just Got A Big Backer

Climate Progress - Joe Romm

Nevada's Crescent Dunes concentrating solar thermal plant went online last September. It is 110 Megawatt with 10 hours of built in storage. CREDIT: PHOTO BY AMBLE VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Converting sunlight directly into electricity, the photovoltaic (PV) solar panel industry has dominated the solar generation market recently because of its astounding price drops. Prices have fallen 99 percent in the past quarter century and over 80 percent since 2008 alone. This has also helped to slow the growth of the “other” form of solar, concentrating solar thermal power (CSP), which uses sunlight to heat water and uses the steam to drive a turbine and generator.
Fortunately, one country appears to be making a major bet on CSP — China. SolarReserve, the company that built the Crescent Dunes plant (pictured above) recently announced a deal with the Shenhua Group, the world’s largest coal provider, to build 1,000 megawatts of CSP with storage in China. And the country as a whole has plans to build some 10,000 megawatts of CSP in the next five years.
I say “fortunately” because CSP has one huge potential advantage compared to PV. The heat it generates can be stored over 20 times more cheaply than electricity — and with far greater efficiency. So CSP’s “killer app” is that it can provide power long after the sun has set — and it doesn’t disrupt the grid when a cloud passes overhead.

CSP has several possible designs, including a power tower such as the Crescent Dunes plant (top picture), which uses movable mirrors to focus sunlight on a central tower that holds the engine, and the parabolic trough, which uses mirrors to focus sunlight on a long tube filled with a heat-storing fluid (right).
Because of its built-in cheap, efficient storage, CSP — aka Solar Thermal Electric (STE) — has the ability to directly address the “variability” or “intermittency” problem that PV has when the sun isn’t shining. As a result, the 2014 STE Technology Roadmap from the International Energy Agency (IEA) concludes that while PV could generate 16 percent of the world’s electricity by 2050, as much as 11 percent could be generated by STE at the same time.
In this scenario: “Combined, these solar technologies could prevent the emission of more than 6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year by 2050 — that is more than all current energy-related CO2 emissions from the United States or almost all of the direct emissions from the transport sector worldwide today.”

But this isn’t a forecast or projection by the IEA, it is a roadmap or scenario of what could happen with the right policies and continued technology improvement. In the past decade, though, solar PV has leap-frogged the competition because of aggressive pro-PV policies by governments around the world, most especially in Germany and China.
Both of those countries embraced massive deployment programs that turned PV from an expensive renewable source with limited deployment into one of the cheapest and most rapidly expanding sources of new power in the world:

Solar’s exponentially declining costs and exponentially rising installations (the y-axis is a logarithmic scale).

One technology’s miracle is, however, another technology’s competitive nightmare. And so the question has been, will any country try to do for CSP which Germany and China (and others) did for PV — make major investments to bring CSP down the learning curve?
Both the IEA and the U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab have said that after solar PV makes a deep penetration into the electricity market, CSP will likely become more valuable. A 2014 NREL study found a CSP project with thermal storage “would add additional value of 5 or 6 cents per kilowatt hour to utility-scale solar energy in California where 33 percent renewables will be mandated in six years.”
Right now, solar PV produces power at the most valuable time — the daytime peak in electricity consumption, especially during the summer, when air conditioning use creates a huge power draw. But once solar PV hits 10 percent to 15 percent of annual electric generation in a region, it can become less valuable. The IEA projects that when that occurs, perhaps around 2030, “Massive-scale STE deployment takes off at this stage thanks to CSP plants’ built-in thermal storage, which allows for generation of electricity when demand peaks in late afternoon and in the evening, thus complementing PV generation.”
But, again, that assumes the world sees continued investments in CSP so that its price and performance steadily improve, and it can scale up quickly to become a large-scale contributor to a zero-carbon power grid.
For a while it seemed as if the United States would be that big driver, but CSP was stalled by the collapsing price of PV. Also, the reputation of CSP as “green” was harmed in this country by a shocking estimate of 28,000 birds burned a year by one CSP facility — an estimate that turned out to be no more than pure speculation. The actual number of birds burned in one year appears to be 700 — and that was before any abatement actions were taken. It turns out that just using standard strategies to ward off birds can cut that number by two thirds. And the Crescent Dunes facility built by SolarReserve (see top picture) was able to virtually eliminate bird burning entirely by changing how the mirrors were operated when in standby mode.
But the public relations damage had already been done to U.S. CSP plants. And so this May, SolarReserve announced a partnership with China’s Shenhua Group, the world’s largest coal provider, to build 1,000 megawatts of CSP with storage. The two companies explain:

The unique power dispatch capabilities of these utility scale projects will facilitate the deployment of additional wind and PV generation, while ensuring the reliability and security of the new ultra-high voltage transmission lines being constructed to bring clean, renewable power from the north and west regions of China to load centers in the east.

This is important because China had been forcing wind plants “to shut down at times to let coal power plants meet their generation quotas,” as the American Wind Energy Association explained last year. As a result, some 17 percent of potential wind generation was lost due to curtailment in 2012. The figure may be even higher today.
China has committed to prioritize the dispatch of renewable power first as part of its overall “war on coal,” as we have reported. A big increase in CSP — together with a big planned increase in pumped storage at hydropower plants — could go a very long way to enabling further reductions in coal use in China.
And, indeed, China aims to build 10,000 megawatts of CSP over the next five years (and they have over a dozen plants planned or under construction right now). If China is able to achieve even half that target, they would likely become the world’s largest deployer of CSP. Here’s a chart of current CSP from the recent “Renewables 2016 Global Status Report” by REN21, the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century:

CREDIT: REN21

The continued expansion of CSP worldwide is crucial to reducing its costs, just as it was for wind and solar PV. Obviously, CSP has a very long way to go to catch up to PV, which hit 227 gigawatts of capacity in 2015 and continues to rise rapidly.
That said, SolarReserve CEO Kevin Smith believes that by around 2020, with the help of its Shenua deal, it can reduced the cost of the electricity it provides up to 40 percent, “well into the single digits per kilowatt-hour.” And that’s pretty good for a carbon-free source of dispatchable power — cheaper than new nuclear.
Lastly, the biggest threat to CSP in a carbon-constrained world probably may turn out to be battery technology. If batteries continue their miraculous price drops, then the need for the kind of low-cost, built in storage that CSP delivers may be reduced, especially if electric vehicles also continue their recent exponential growth leading to widespread vehicle-to-grid systems.
May the best technology win!

Links

• Exxon Is Still Helping Fund The Spread Of Climate Denial
• The Republican Party’s Platform Says Coal Is ‘Clean’ Energy
• This Is Why You Could Lose Your Life Protecting Honduras’ Environment
• Here’s A Look At How Catholic Churches Are Taking Pope Francis’ Climate Encyclical To Heart
• Climate Change, Bats, And Zika: 2016’s Weirdest Relationship

Renewable Energy to Surpass Coal and Nuclear by 2030: 7 Key Takeaways from EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2016

Union of Concerned Scientists - Steve Clemmer


As a certified energy geek, I always look forward to this time of year. On July 11 and 12, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) is holding their annual conference to discuss current energy technology, market, and policy issues, and will present results from their new Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) 2016 report.
One of the headlines this year is EIA's new projections for renewable energy, which under their reference case is expected to surpass nuclear power by 2020 and coal by 2028 to become the second largest source of U.S. electricity generation after natural gas (see Figure 1 below).
Here are seven key takeaways from AEO 2016 that explain why EIA is projecting such a large increase in renewable energy this year:

1. Federal tax credits and Clean Power Plan drive growth in renewables
EIA's reference case includes the recent five-year extension of the federal production and investment tax credits for wind and solar passed by Congress in December 2015, and implementation of EPA's Clean Power Plan (CPP). While the U.S. Supreme Court put a temporary hold on the rule in February 2016 until the merits of the case are decided, EIA decided to include the CPP in the reference case because the rule has not been overturned.

Figure 1. Renewables surpass nuclear power by 2020 and coal by 2028. Renewables include wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and hydropower. Source: EIA, Annual Energy Outlook 2016.

The federal tax credits, state renewable electricity standards (RESs), and continued cost reductions for wind and solar will drive significant growth in renewables though 2021 (Figure 1). During this time, EIA actually projects natural gas generation to decline slightly as wind and solar are more cost-effective with the tax credits.
After the CPP targets kick in 2022, EIA projects both renewables and natural gas to grow as the two most cost-effective ways (along with a modest increase in energy efficiency) for states to replace coal and comply with the CPP. These results are consistent with recent analyses by UCS, NREL and the Rhodium Group.

2. Wind and solar lead growth in renewables
The renewable energy (including wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and hydropower) share of U.S. electricity generation grows from 13 percent in 2015 to 24 percent in 2030, and 27 percent in 2040, with almost all of the growth from wind and solar PV (Figure 2).
This is because continued cost reductions are projected for these technologies beyond the 60-70 percent cost reductions already achieved since 2009. Under EIA's reference case with the federal tax credits and CPP, U.S. wind capacity nearly doubles by 2022, reaching 144 GW, while US solar capacity grows five-fold by 2030, reaching 125 GW. Geothermal increases a significant amount in California and the Southwest, but provides a relatively small share of US electricity generation.
EIA also projects virtually no growth in hydro or biopower. Despite EIA's inaccurate assumption that all biomass feedstocks are carbon neutral, biopower is still not economically competitive with wind, solar, and natural gas.  The lack of growth in hydro and biomass is consistent with recent analyses by UCS, NREL, and Rhodium Group that include the federal tax credit extension and CPP.

Figure 2. Renewable electricity generation by fuel. Geothermal = red, biomass = gray. Source: EIA, Annual Energy Outlook 2016.

3. Renewable generation increases in all regions of the country by 2030
The biggest increases occur in the West and Plains, which have abundant, low cost wind, solar, and geothermal (Figure 3).  The Southeast also sees a big increase in solar as costs continue to fall.  The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic see a smaller increase in renewables and a bigger increase in natural gas.
The Southeast also sees a modest increase in nuclear generation due to five new reactors currently under construction or operating in Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee. This growth offsets a modest reduction in nuclear generation in Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states where EIA assumes a small number of existing plants will retire before their current operating licenses expire. (Note that the retirement of Diablo Canyon in California is not included as the announcement was made after EIA completed its modeling). The Midwest/Mid-Atlantic states also see the greatest reduction in coal generation and the largest increase in natural gas.

Figure 3. Renewables increase in all regions under the Clean Power Plan. Source: EIA, Annual Energy Outlook 2016.

4. Renewables generation varies under different Clean Power Plan implementation scenarios

Figure 4. Cumulative difference in generation in the CPP vs. the no CPP case. Renewables = green, natural gas =blue, and coal = black. Source: EIA, Annual Energy Outlook 2016. 

EIA projects renewable generation to increase the most if states chose rate-based rather than mass-based targets as part of their CPP compliance strategies. Broader regional trading with mass-based targets also results in more renewables, less natural gas, and less reduction in coal than the more limited trading assumed in the reference case.
Not surprisingly, in their "extended case" EIA found that continuing to increase the CPP emission reduction targets through 2040 (the current program only goes through 2030) would result in more renewables and natural gas, and less coal than the reference case.

5. Increasing renewable energy is affordable
EIA projects that average retail electricity rates would be 3 percent higher between 2025-2030 in the reference case (with the CPP) than in the no CPP case.  However, total U.S. electricity expenditures would only be 1.3 percent higher in the CPP case over the same period because EIA assumes a modest increase in energy efficiency investments to comply the CPP.
A recent analysis by UCS found that energy efficiency could make a much larger contribution to state compliance with the CPP that would result in cumulative net savings to consumers of $30.5 billion between 2016 and 2030.

6. Renewables are competitive despite lower natural gas prices
While EIA's natural gas price projection is lower in AEO 2016 than it was in AEO 2015 (Figure 5), large amounts of wind and solar are still competitive due to continued cost reductions and the federal tax credit extension.
EIA projects natural gas prices to double by 2025, due primarily to an increase in LNG exports, and greater natural gas use in the electricity and industrial sectors. The competition from renewables helps avoid greater reliance on natural gas that could increase natural gas prices even further.

Figure 5. Average Henry Hub spot prices for natural gas (2015 dollars per million Btu).

7. EIA is finally using more realistic cost assumptions for renewable energy
UCS has been an outspoken critic of EIA's pessimistic renewable energy projections and assumptions for many years. We have written several blog posts on the topic and provided input directly to EIA on a few of their analyses and as a participant on several EIA modeling working groups. We also use a modified version of EIA's National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) in-house to show how renewables could make a larger contribution to the US electricity mix at a much lower cost when using more realistic assumptions.
One of the main reasons why EIA's projections have fallen short is because they have consistently overestimated the cost of renewable energy technologies like wind and solar. They often lag a few years behind what's happening on the ground. However, this year is different. For AEO 2016, EIA finally lowered their costs for wind and solar to be more in-line with cost data from a large sample of recent projects, as documented by DOE's national labs and the national wind and solar trade associations.
In EIA's defense, their reference case for each AEO only reflects state and federal energy policies that were enacted at the time they do their projections, as discussed extensively in a recent EIA report. With Congress allowing federal renewable energy tax credits to lapse several times before extending them for relatively short periods, and states adopting and increasing renewable electricity standards (RES) many times over the past two decades years, it is somewhat understandable that EIA's projections of renewable energy development have fallen short of reality.
While future EIA conferences and AEOs may highlight different topics, I'll remember 2016 as the year EIA turned the corner to show a bright future for renewables.

Links

• The Heat is on Fossil Fuel Companies for Decades of Climate Deception
• Dangerous Heat Wave to Grip the US: Top 10 Lessons to Survive Extreme Heat
• We Need to Hit Net Zero Emissions ASAP: Here Are 5 Indisputable Reasons Why
• World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate (2016)

China Poised To Ban New Coal-Fired Power Stations

Fairfax - Angus Grigg

A ban on new power stations will cut exports of coal to China. Dado Galdier

China's move to ban construction of new coal-fired power stations will accelerate its move away from the once dominant energy source, which is losing out on price to wind, solar and hydro generation.
Amid weak economic growth and tepid demand for electricity, Beijing is expected to "suspend" all new thermal power plants until the start of 2018.
The ban is set to be unveiled as part of its 13th Five Year Plan for the energy sector, which is due to be made public shortly according to the state media.
"Once wind, solar and hydro [power plants] are built they will always be cheaper than coal," said Tim Buckley, a director at the Sydney-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
In each of the last five years China has installed more renewable energy capacity than any other country. This was done in the belief power demand would grow at almost the same pace as the overall economy.

Over-supply
But in the year to May power consumption grew at just 0.9 per cent, compared to GDP growth of 6.7 per cent in the first quarter.
This has left China with an over-supply of power.
"Why would China buy and burn expensive imported coal when they can generate renewable energy for nothing?" said Mr Buckley.
At present much of the country's renewable energy is being wasted, but upgrades to the grid and a central government directive to prioritise renewable energy should see it continue to take market share from coal.
Official figures show 15 per cent of wind generation was not used during 2015 and this increased to 26 per cent over the first quarter of the year.
"Australia should be prepared for further falls to China's coal imports and in the price of coal," said Lin Boqiang, an energy economist at Xiamen University.
China's coal imports fell by 30 per cent last year to 204 million tonnes, the lowest level since 2011.
The price of thermal coal, which along with coking coal is Australia's second largest export, has halved in value over the last five years to around $US50 a tonne.

Weak demand
At the same time the utilisation rate of China's coal-fired power stations was just 48 per cent in the first quarter of the year, down from above 60 per cent in 2011.
This is expected to fall further as State Grid, the government-owned distributor and retailer, prioritises renewable energy over coal-fired generation.
The suspension of new coal-fired plants will be reviewed in early 2018, but is unlikely to be lifted according Mr Lin from Xiamen University.
"The main reason for the suspension is the weak power demand," he said via phone.
He said a drop off in government infrastructure projects had led to a fall in power consumption from heavy industry.
The formal ban on new coal-fired power stations was reported by the Economic Information Daily, which sits under the official Xinhua news agency.
Coal's share of electricity generation is expected to fall below 60 per cent by 2020, after peaking at 79 per cent between 2009 and 2011.

Links

• China moves to stop rush of money into coal-fired power plants
• Sooty clouds that claimed Peabody won't blow over 
• Glencore to close Tahmoor mine in NSW due to low coal prices
• New Rio Tinto boss Jean-Sebastien Jacques says coal investment is off the agenda