Broome to get big solar farm and six hour battery to replace gas and diesel contract - 16th May 2025

 The remote pearling and tourism town of Broome – in the northwest of Western Australia – is to have its current supply of fossil fuel generation largely replaced by a large solar farm and six-hour big battery, under proposals unveiled by the state-owned Horizon power.
The plans include a 90 megawatt (MW) solar farm, supported by a 42 MW, 239 MWh battery, and associated network infrastructure.
It is designed to replace the current power contract that relies on gas and diesel for the town of 15,000 people, more than 2,000 kms north of Perth. It says the new renewable based system will be cheaper, cleaner, more reliable and offer more economic opportunities.  (source: https://reneweconomy.com.au/)

The details of the proposal – first flagged several years ago – are revealed in an application to the state Environmental Protection Agency, and while not the first remote town to feature solar and a big battery, it appears to be one of the biggest of its type in Australia, if not the biggest.

Horizon Power says the Future Energy System (FES) in Broome will ensure security of energy supply to Broome after the expiry of the existing power purchase agreement, and will result in higher renewables and a reduction in one million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions over the assumed 20-year lifetime of the project.

Wind energy had been considered, but Horizon says it was rejected because the wind resource was not considered strong, and because of the risk of cyclones.

It also cited the remoteness – high maintenance, logistics, supply issues – higher capital cost compared to solar, and environmental impacts to aerial fauna and the challenge of obtaining environmental and regulatory approvals.

The new solar and battery facility will replace the contract with the existing Broome power station, owned by EDL, which includes 17 small gas generators, and nine back-up diesel generators, with a total of 42 MW. There are more than two dozen different generators because of the varying consumer patterns, and the need for back-up.

Horizon says extending the gas and diesel contract would risk high supply costs, reduced reliability (because of fuel supply chain disruptions), and higher emissions, as well as missed economic opportunities in a renewable transition.

The Broome Clean Energy Report, commissioned by Environs Kimberley and produced by Sustainable Energy Now in 2023, estimated that more than 80 per cent of Broome’s electricity generation could be achieved with renewable energy at three quarters of the price of gas-fired generation.

“Many towns in the Kimberley are powered by high emission fossil fuels such as diesel and gas. In Broome, Horizon Power currently purchases power from an independent power producer,” the application says.

“The power purchase agreement (PPA) is due to expire, providing Horizon Power with an opportunity to integrate gridscale renewable electricity into the town supply.”

It says the final design of the project may change before a final investment decision is made.

The proposals includes a 16 kms transmission line, either underground or overhead, that will follow Broome Cape Leveque Road, Broome Highway, Old Broome Road and Fredrick Street to connect the solar PV and BESS to the existing substation on Fredrick Street in Broome.

Gas industry in damage control as landmark study finds LNG 'worse than coal' for the climate 19th Oct 2024

 

Gas industry in damage control as landmark study finds LNG 'worse than coal' for the climate

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-19/gas-emissions-worse-than-coal-study-finds/104481570

In January this year, seemingly out of nowhere, US President Joe Biden made a decision that sent shock waves through the trillion-dollar global gas industry.

With the stroke of a pen, Mr Biden put a pause on approvals for any new project looking to ship super-chilled liquefied natural gas — or LNG — from US shores.

It was a decision that left many in the industry floored.

After all, within just a few short years America had rocketed from a position of having no LNG industry to being one of the world's biggest exporters of the fuel alongside Australia and Qatar.

And it was a decision that has set off a political firestorm in the US, where energy and America's insatiable needs for it are looming, as ever, as a critical issue in an election year.

Underlying that decision, however, was a landmark report that has cast fresh doubt over the supposed environmental benefits of gas compared with coal.

Gas emissions 'worse than coal'

It's a study that has raised fresh questions over the role of gas as a bridge to a renewable energy future.

The peer-reviewed study by Robert Howarth, a professor at Cornell University, found American LNG, at least, was worse than coal when it came to emissions.

Specifically, the report found greenhouse gas emissions from LNG were 33 per cent greater than those related to coal when measured over a 20-year timeline.

And at the heart of Professor Howarth's finding was not carbon but, rather, methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas.

When it comes to power, solar could leave nuclear and everything else in the shade

 

When it comes to power, solar could leave nuclear and everything else in the shade https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-03/energy-power-solar-leave-nuclear-in-the-shade/104049276

Whereas nuclear power is barely growing, and is shrinking as a proportion of global power output, The Economist reported solar power was growing so quickly it was set to become the biggest source of electricity on the planet by the mid-2030s.
By the 2040s — within this next generation — it could be the world's largest source of energy of any kind, overtaking fossil fuels like coal and oil.

May 22nd 2024 - Powering Australia with nuclear energy would cost roughly twice as much as renewables, CSIRO report shows

 

Powering Australia with nuclear energy would cost roughly twice as much as renewables, CSIRO report shows

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-22/nuclear-power-double-the-cost-of-renewables/103868728

23rd March 2023 - "Can a country run entirely on renewable energy"?

 

Can a country run entirely on renewable energy?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-22/fact-check-dick-smith-renewables-entire-country/103617364

Businessman Dick Smith has thrown his support behind calls to introduce nuclear-generated power to Australia, rejecting renewable-led electricity generation in the process.

Appearing on Sydney radio station 2GB earlier this week, Mr Smith said Australia "should be making a decision to go nuclear now", pouring cold water on suggestions that wind and solar — and renewables more generally — could instead lead the nation's energy transition.

"Look, I can tell you, this claim by the CSIRO that you can run a whole country on solar and wind is simply a lie," Mr Smith said.

"It is not true. They are telling lies. No country has ever been able to run entirely on renewables — that's impossible."

But experts consulted by RMIT ABC Fact Check suggested Mr Smith's statement doesn't hold up.

Mark Diesendorf, an expert on sustainable energy and energy policy from the University of New South Wales, labelled Mr Smith's assertions as "incorrect".

"Several countries (and Tasmania) already run their electricity systems on 100 per cent renewables," he said in an email, noting that such places relied heavily on hydro power.

Even when focusing on wind and solar-generated power alone, experts rejected Mr Smith's claim that it would be "impossible" for it to power an entire country.

Andrew Blakers, a professor of engineering at the Australian National University's Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster solutions, told Fact Check: 

"Several detailed studies show that [getting to] 100 per cent renewables based mostly on solar and wind is quite straightforward, provided that enough transmission and storage is built."

Professor Blakers pointed to studies conducted by his research group investigating the feasibility of 100 per cent renewables in a number of countries, including Australia.

"[Solar] and wind [would] allow Australia to reach 100 per cent renewable electricity rapidly at low cost," concluded one such study, co-authored by Professor Blakers and published in 2017.

As for the countries putting renewable power to the test, Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University in the US, and director of its Atmosphere/Energy Program, pointed Fact Check to a detailed list of countries at or near the 100 per cent renewable energy mark.

"There are four countries running on 100 per cent wind-water-solar (WWS) alone for their grid electricity," he said in an email, noting that a further three countries relied on WWS for 99.78 per cent to 99.99 per cent of their electricity generation, while 45 countries were above 50 per cent.

According to a document produced and supplied by Professor Jacobson, the four countries running on 100 per cent WWS in 2021 were Albania, Bhutan, Nepal and Paraguay.

When it came to regions with a comparable or greater population size to that of Australia, Professor Jacobson pointed to the US state of California, which has a population of around 39 million.

As of Tuesday this week, he said, the state, which is aiming for 100 per cent carbon-free electricity by 2045, had "been running on more than 100 per cent WWS for 10 out of the last 11 days for between 0.25 and 6 hours per day".

While it is not entirely clear what Mr Smith was referring to when he suggested the CSIRO had claimed Australia could run entirely on wind and solar, the national science agency's latest annual GenCost report, released in July 2023, found that wind and solar remained the cheapest form of new-build electricity generation.

An updated draft of the report, released last month after factoring in feedback related to integration costs prior to 2030, also found renewables to be the cheapest form of new-build energy.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has forecast that renewables will be able to meet the entire demand of the national electricity market (NEM) by 2025, albeit for short periods of time (for example, 30 minutes).

Introducing AEMO's 2022 Engineering Roadmap to 100 per cent Renewables, CEO Daniel Westermen wrote that "the power system will require additional engineering solutions to provide essential system services to maintain a stable electrical voltage and frequency and ensure a secure state of operation".

"Proven technologies such as synchronous condensers will play a role, alongside newer technologies such as grid-forming inverters. The human dimensions of this transition are as important as the technical requirements."

In addition, a 2021 report from the Grattan Institute noted that "getting to 100 per cent renewable energy [in Australia] over the next two decades would be expensive unless there are major technological advances to backup renewable supply through rare winter wind droughts".

"That's why Australia should commit only to net zero emissions in the NEM by the 2040s, not absolute zero emissions or 100 per cent renewable energy."

As the institute's James Ha explained at the time, net zero emissions doesn't "require that all electricity people use within the jurisdiction come from renewable sources".

"Some might come from coal or gas-fired generation, but the government offsets this amount by making or buying an equivalent amount of renewable electricity."

Dec 2023 - Yvonne's power bills are less than $80 a month. Here's how she did it.

 

Yvonne's power bills are less than $80 a month. Here's how she did it.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-07/power-bills-renewable-energy-efficient-home/103192374

Key points:

• 
  
• Power bills have risen by 45 per cent in two years

• Experts warn the capital costs of clean energy transition will flow through to consumers

• The transition to renewables is estimated to cost $383 billion by 2050.

Yvonne Parker remembers having to sleep outside in the front yard of her housing commission home as a child when the temperature inside reached 50 degrees Celsius in summer.

This memory of living in a "terrible" uninsulated brick and concrete house inspired her, decades later, to create an energy-efficient home on Victoria's picturesque coastline that's cool in summer, warm in winter and, importantly, immune from rising power prices.

"We find it so utterly liveable, that we just love it," she said, brimming with pride.

The retired social scientist and her daughter spent about $10,400 out of their own pocket and took advantage of $6,500 worth of state government subsidies to install solar panels, a battery, an inverter and heat pump – an investment they predict will take about six years to recoup.

Their power bill is now sitting at around $80 a month, which Ms Parker reckons "is pretty hard to match".

As prices climb, Australians are taking control of their power bills: more than 3.4 million households and businesses have rooftop solar and about 185,000 of them are backed by batteries.

According to the competition watchdog, which analysed retail market offers, the median annual household bill is now sitting around $1,926 across the National Energy Market — a 45 per cent increase in two years.

Politically this figure is problematic for a federal government that was elected on a promise to cut household power bills by an average of $275 a year by 2025.

Instead, prices have gone in the opposite direction, rising by about $600 since that pledge was made.

By 2030 the government wants 82 per cent of Australia's electricity to come from wind, solar and hydro, up from about 32 per cent now, backed by a vast new network of high-voltage transmission lines to connect these far-flung renewables to consumers.

Shifting from fossil fuels to renewables in just seven years is an "economic transformation on the scale of the industrial revolution", according to Ms McNamara, who warns "it's not costless".

A price tag can be found in the Australian Energy Market Operator's own figures, buried deep in its Integrated System Plan, mapping the decades-long clean energy transition.

The total of all costs of phasing out coal and gas-fired power stations and replacing them with wind, solar, hydro and batteries on an industrial scale between now and 2050 is estimated to be about $383 billion.

The UN COP28 Climate Conference Dec 2023

 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-07/andrew-forrest-fossil-fuel-heads-on-spikes-un-cop28-climate/103198354

Andrew Forrest calls for fossil fuel bosses' 'heads on spikes' in extraordinary outburst on sidelines of UN COP28 climate conference

• Australian mining magnate Andrew Forrest is attending the COP28 climate conference in the United Arab Emirates
• He says energy bosses should have their heads "put up on spikes" for not committing to phase out fossil fuels
• It comes as some companies, including the national oil company of the UAE, defy calls for a wind-down of fossil fuel use.

• There have been a flurry of announcements and commitments aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions during the first week of COP28.

  Chief among these was a pledge by more than 100 countries — championed by conference host the United Arab Emirates — to triple the amount of renewable energy across the globe by 2030.

  Mr Forrest said none of the announcements made so far would be enough to ensure the success of this year's conference without a definite commitment to ending the use of fossil fuels.

  He said there was already strong evidence the world was on track to breach the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

  And he took particular aim at the oil and gas bosses who were dismissing the calls, describing them as "selfish beyond belief".

  He said their actions were jeopardising the lives of millions of people in overwhelmingly poor countries who were at risk of "lethal humidity", or an inability to cool themselves down.

• On Monday, Australia's biggest fossil fuel player Woodside joined a host of other major producers in signing up to the COP28 oil and gas decarbonisation charter.

  Under the charter, signatories have agreed to end routine flaring and "near-zero upstream methane emissions" by 2030.

  Woodside chief Meg O'Neill said the charter was historic.

• Mr Forrest's business empire includes Fortescue, which is Australia's third biggest iron ore miner and a massive polluter in its own right.

  This seeming contradiction has been acknowledged by Mr Forrest, who has described himself as a climate "culprit" while stressing his commitment to spending $6 billion cleaning up Fortescue's operations.

•