Lethal Heating: 01/15/19

15/01/2019

Australia Could Hit 100% Renewables Sooner Than Most People Think

The Guardian - Nicky Ison*

There are still people talking up coal and talking down renewable energy but we have installed more solar panels and wind turbines than ever before

2018 was a boom year for renewable and you can expect it to continue in 2019.
Photograph: Scott Barbour/Getty Images

Not since the invention of the steam engine have we seen the pace of change occurring in energy systems around the world. In Australia our electricity system is changing rapidly, from new technologies and business models to changes in policy and perhaps even regulation. As the year begins, here are five energy trends you should expect to see in 2019.

1. More action towards 100% renewable energy
Last year was a boom year for renewables. Despite rhetoric from some political quarters talking up coal and talking down renewable energy, we installed more solar panels and wind turbines than ever before. There are at least 40 large-scale wind and solar projects in construction in Australia, totalling over 6000MWs of new generation capacity. This means renewables will continue on a steep growth curve as analysis by the Melbourne University Climate and Energy College shows.
This rapid growth in renewables and soon battery storage is at least in part driven by a corresponding reduction in cost. Bloomberg New Energy Finance analysis reveals a compound annual reduction in cost of battery storage of 21% over eight years. Facts such as these are the engine driving us towards 100% renewables at a pace much faster than most pundits think.

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At a political level California has just legislated a move to 100% renewables, while at home South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT are on track to be net 100% renewables in the next few years. With everyone from tech billionaires to school students demanding 100% renewables, pressure for a more rapid shift to renewables is likely to continue to build.
Many still think that 100% renewables can’t be done. In 2017 ANU, Energy Networks Australia and CSIRO joined the ranks of Australia’s leading institutions on energy that have now done their own plans to show Australia can reliably achieve 100% renewables. This takes the number of 100% renewables plans for Australia to more than 10.

In the corporate sector, global initiative The RE100 has arrived in Australia. This initiative which encourages companies to commit to 100% renewables has seen global companies headquartered outside of Australia such as Carlton United Breweries and Ikea lead the way. In late 2018 Commonwealth Bank became the first Australian company to join, signing a large power purchase agreement in the process.

2. Solar for renters and other locked-out energy users
The coverage of rooftop solar hit two million roofs in 2018 – a huge achievement considering a decade ago there were less than 100,000 roofs with solar panels on them. However, while households and businesses that own a sunny roof can now benefit from greater energy independence, lower electricity bills and that good feeling of lessening their climate pollution, there are at least 30% of households that cannot put solar on their roof. These households rent, live in apartments, cannot afford the upfront cost or have shaded roofs. Research by startup incubator Energy Lab found that only 4% of rental properties and 4% of apartments have solar on the roof, compared with 29% of owner-occupied households and 38% of owner-occupied standalone houses.
For a long time these households have been in the too-hard basket for policymakers and industry alike. However, there are signs that in 2019 this could be changing. The Victorian and South Australian governments have announced policies to support 50,000 rental properties to access solar, and for South Australia, batteries also. In NSW the government is trialling a program of solar for 15,000 low-income energy rebate customers. These are small steps, but if scaled could start to change the current trend towards solar energy haves and have-nots.

Proportion of owner-occupiers and renters with rooftop solar
Installations < 10kW per occupied dwellings

Guardian Graphic | Source: ABS, APVI, EnergyLab

Proportion of apartments, semi-detached dwellings
and separate houses with rooftop solar

Guardian Graphic | Source: ABS, APVI Solar Map, EnergyLab

3. Community energy going gangbusters
Communities are also taking matters into their own hands, developing innovative community-owned clean energy projects and implementing plans to move to 100% renewables. Despite a lack of interest from mainstream energy players and little policy support, Australia’s community energy sector has grown to more than 105 groups and 174 operating projects. Most famously the communities of Yackandandah and Daylesford.
Last year Totally Renewable Yackandandah in independent Cathy McGowan’s electorate of Indi set up a community retailer Indigo Power to help it on its way to 100%. In Daylesford, flagship community energy enterprise Hepburn Wind is planning a solar farm and received a Victorian government grant to help them progress.

4. A battle between good and bad hydrogen
Hydrogen fuel is not a new idea, yet in 2019 hydrogen is likely to make significant strides towards becoming a major part of our global energy ecosystem. Last September, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency funded 16 renewable hydrogen projects to the tune of $22m, aimed at helping to drive down costs and create a supply chain. Renewable hydrogen could be huge, using excess wind and solar to split water, create hydrogen and export it to sunshine- and land-constrained countries like Japan and South Korea as a renewable fuel for industry and heavy transport.
However, hydrogen has also been latched on to by the coal and gas industries. Hydrogen fuel can be created from coal, but generates carbon pollution in the process. Hydrogen can also be injected into the gas grid, up to a certain level (with upgrades), which could help prevent gas pipelines become stranded assets as households and industry increasingly electrify.
The question is will hydrogen become yet another lifeline for the polluting coal and gas industries or will it become something that is genuinely used to expand renewables and reduce climate pollution?

5. Clean energy elections

No 2019 trend article is complete without mentioning the upcoming elections. According to researcher Rebecca Huntly climate change is a top issue with the electorate and as such both the NSW and federal elections are going to have a focus on climate and energy policy whether politicians like it or not.
The federal ALP recently announced its energy policy. Their plan does just enough to show they want to do something, but no more than they have to, given they are so far ahead in the polls. At this point, future announcements are likely to focus on climate and clean transport rather than clean energy. It’s true that sectors other than electricity do need attention to reduce climate pollution. That said, refraining from further renewables commitments would be a missed opportunity to capitalise on the popularity of clean energy in the electorate.
The federal Coalition meanwhile looks like it will double down on coal and an electricity price scare campaign if Barnaby Joyce’s diatribe this month is anything to go by. It remains to be seen whether increasing public pressure on the government and the popularity of acting on climate and renewables will lead to a last-ditch course correction as the federal election gets closer; it’s possible, but don’t hold your breath.

*Nicky Ison is a research associate at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney and co-founder of the Community Power Agency.

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Adapting Yourself To Take Action On The Environment

University of Melbourne - Terry Bowles*

Disillusionment with politics is reason enough to want to take action yourself on climate change and the environment, but actually doing it is harder. Here is a model to help you plan and do.

Getty Images

Are you frustrated by the lack of national action being taken to tackle climate change and protect the environment? Have you made a New Year resolution to start doing something yourself?

The good news is that there is plenty of advice out there on what individuals can do, like David Suzuki’s top 10 things to do about climate change. But making the resolution to do something, and even deciding on what to do, is the easy part. The hard part is actually doing it, and that requires not just understanding what needs to be done but going through the next step and organising ourselves and sustaining our commitment.

Taking action to tackle climate change can seem too hard, but having a plan can make action achievable.

Picture: Shutterstock

It requires what psychologists call “adaptive” thinking and behaviour that facilitates people being able to change in response to circumstances and solve problems.
Ordinarily, when we deal with changing our behaviour we tend to use very simple processes and typically rely on specialists (therapists, coaches) to bring about changes that are complex. Even when we make major decisions like job changing, buying a car or a house, we often don’t account for all the elements and consequences of the change, sometimes because it would be overwhelming to think of all of the issues – just as we have collectively done with climate change.
To assist people in adapting to change, we have been developing a model to help better understand effective, positive and adaptive change processes. We call it the Adaptive Change Model. There are eight factors to the model, five of which are processes to consciously follow, and three support factors that help you get where you are going.
Process Factors

Create a mindset of Openness to Opportunities – be truly open to the possibilities, all the possibilities. Look for opportunities and seek out many possibilities before deciding on what to commit to change.
Visualise possibilities and imagine yourself doing things. Perhaps even write out or draw your opportunities.
Plan. Once we have imagined all options we need to make plans that address the complexity and multilayered nature of what needs to be done, and then operate very flexibly, responding to new opportunities and going through more visualisation and planning to refine the action plan.
The next stage is Taking Action and this needs to be strategic, focused, achievable, self-affirming and self-rewarding – and if possible fun and easy, at least in the first instance.
Pursue Closure by soundly defining a measurable achievement, followed by celebration of the achievement.

Managing negative emotions and seeking support from others can help sustain your inner drive.

Picture: Shutterstock

Support factors

Social Support – build networks of people to support every aspect of the five processes and two other support factors
(Management of) Negative Emotions – regulating and channelling negative emotions to focus on the five processes and the other support factors
Inner Drive – providing the grit, gumption, motivation and drive to stay the course and achieve the goals and maintain the five processes and the other support factors

For example, perhaps one evening you notice that there are suggestions on the council’s rates notice on how to reduce your environmental footprint, including installing solar panels on the roof, storing run-off rainwater in upright tanks and setting up a compost bin. You feel excited and motivated (Inner Drive) at the prospect of doing something, but a little anxious (Management of Negative Emotions) because you’ve never done these things before. But you know your partner will support you and work with you on the options (Social Support).
You imagine (visualise) what it would be like to have solar panels on the roof or water tanks or a compost bin. You think about it often and imagine what it will be like. You visit a friend who has gone ‘environmental’ and they talk to you about what they did and how it would fit into your house and lifestyle. You realise this is going to take some effort (Inner Drive) and feel disappointed (Management of Negative Emotions) that it will change your beautifully landscaped backyard. But your partner is still very encouraging (Social Support).
In your plans you commit (Inner Drive) to an easier task to start planning to manage garbage better by putting a compost bin in the backyard. You visit staff at a local Environmental Centre (Social Support) who assist with siting the compost bin, which means taking out some plants (Management of Negative Emotions).

Decide what success is and celebrate it with those that helped you on the way.
Picture: Getty Images

Your friend and partner (Social Support) return with you to the Environmental Centre where you buy the compost bin and worms, which seem expensive (Management of Negative Emotions) but you have committed to this and you think it is worthwhile (Inner Drive).
You are determined to celebrate your achievements, first when you install everything and get it working – and that evening you celebrate with your partner with a glass of wine (Social Support).
You realise that you have committed to a new process that is going to be time-consuming and maybe uncomfortable – you have to tramp outside in the cold of winter or heat of summer (Management of Negative Emotions). However, you’re glad that you’ve committed to this change (Inner Drive) and you’ve decided to celebrate your first bucket of compost, when it’s ready, with your partner and your friend.
Following and managing these processes isn’t easy. Learning to be comfortable with patiently and conscientiously applying new, more complex ways of managing our attitudes, our values, our emotions, our ways of thinking and doing things, requires effort, understanding and self-compassion to become truly adaptive.
People should feel free to experiment with the process and support factors as you work in your own way to meet the challenge of responding to human induced climate change. Failures should be embraced as a learning experience to build on, and when you succeed you should celebrate, with fireworks, if preferred!
Our politicians aren’t yet ready to decisively and collectively lead on climate change, however, if enough individuals begin their own courageous, quiet, personal adaptive change revolution, politicians will follow.

*Associate Professor Terry Bowles has a background in practice and leadership in school, educational and developmental psychological and clinical psychological practice and research. Professor Bowles works at the University of Melbourne, training Educational and Developmental Psychologists and Research Higher Degree Coordinator.

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Business Needs To Get Real On Climate

AFR - Craig Emerson

Craig Emerson is managing director of Craig Emerson Economics, a distinguished fellow at the ANU and an adjunct professor at Victoria University's College of Business.

The looming election will determine the course our nation takes on an issue of vital importance not only for humankind, but for Australian businesses as well. If business organisations such as the Business Council of Australia (BCA) persist with their support for the Morrison government's carbon-emissions target of a 26 per cent reduction on 2005 levels by 2030, they will position their members as being opposed to meaningful action on climate change.
A pattern has already emerged. The BCA backed an emissions-trading scheme – but not the Rudd government's emissions-trading scheme. It continued to mouth support for an emissions-trading scheme after the election of the Gillard government – just not the carbon price, which after three years was legislated to morph into an emissions-trading scheme anyway. Now the BCA is backing the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) that the Morrison government has abandoned but which remains Labor policy – just not one with a 45 per cent emissions-reduction target for electricity generation.
Instead, the BCA describes the 45 per cent target for electricity as "economy wrecking", supporting only a 26 per cent reduction. Modelling by the Energy Security Board forecasts a 24 per cent reduction in emissions from the electricity sector on 2005 levels by 2021-22. This would leave only a 2 per cent reduction to be done from 2022 to 2030 if a 26 per cent target were adopted. During the 2020s, two or more ageing coal-fired power stations will be retired regardless. In other words, the BCA supports the NEG as long as it doesn't do anything.

Earlier droughts underscored the danger of a perfect storm to John Howard. Glenn Campbell

Existing policy settings
The BCA's support for a do-nothing target for electricity generation fails to recognise that the cost of installing and transmitting large-scale renewable energy has fallen so rapidly that increasing renewable energy in the system now drives electricity prices lower.
Prime Minister Morrison has declared Australia will reach its Paris commitment "in a canter" under existing policy settings. That is untrue. Our Paris commitment is a 26 per cent reduction in emissions for the whole economy, not just for electricity generation. Official government projections released, conveniently, just before Christmas are for Australia's total emissions to rise between 2020 and 2030, for an overall reduction on 2005 levels of just 7 per cent – a long way from a 26 per cent reduction. If the Morrison government is re-elected Australia will miss its Paris target by a country mile.
Fortunately some of the BCA's more-enlightened members are supporting the transition to a low-carbon future, installing renewable and low-emissions energy capacity and refusing to buckle to Coalition pressure to keep open coal-fired generators beyond their economic lives. Householders, too, are installing rooftop solar panels at unprecedented rates.
The Coalition's conservative faction, urged on by its backers on shock-jock radio and Sky After Dark, continues to propagate the conspiracy theory that climate change is an elaborate hoax. They are supremely confident that, given a choice between lower electricity prices and emissions reductions, voters will follow the money every time.
There are two problems with this short-term, cynical analysis.
First, voters don't believe they should be required to make a choice; they support lower electricity prices and action on climate change.

The Andrews government's renewable-energy policy went over a treat in the Victorian state election. Supplied

Second, this polling is getting old. When John Howard later reflected on his own announcement of an emissions-trading scheme ahead of the 2007 election, he described the political environment at the time as "a perfect storm". Ironically, chief contributor to the "perfect storm" was the prolonged drought. Voters were constantly reminded of global warming by water restrictions in the cities and horrible images of devastation in the bush.

In for a big shock
History is now repeating. Much of Australia is in the grips of another severe drought. Concern about climate change is firmly back in the public's consciousness. As the Morrison government moves towards the election, musing about the underwriting of new coal-fired power stations and boasting about doing nothing on climate change, it is in for a big shock.
The Andrews government's renewable-energy policy went over a treat in the Victorian state election. Just ask voters in blue-ribbon Liberal seats, several of which fell to Labor and which make up the federal electorates of several staunch Liberal conservatives.
If Labor wins the coming federal election it will try to get an NEG with a 45 per cent emissions-reduction target through a Senate in which conservatives are likely to have a majority. If Labor fails in that endeavour, it will move to contracting for generating capacity consistent with the 45 per cent target and an integrated system plan that addresses and manages reliability and grid stability.
As the BCA and others campaign against that target and in favour of a do-nothing target, they will isolate themselves, forfeiting any influence on government policy and will end up, again, on the wrong side of history.

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