Renewable energies may meet 100% of Australia’s demand at sure occasions by 2025 – so?

Guest contribution by Eric Worrall

h / t handle; My question, what should we do for the rest of the day?

Renewable energies could meet 100% of Australia’s demand at certain times of the day by 2025, the report said

Energy market operator notes that renewable generation penetration hit record highs of 57% twice in 2021

Katharine Murphy Political Editor @murpharoo
Tue 31 Aug 2021 03.30 AEST

Renewable energies will meet 100% of consumer demand for electricity at certain times of the day through 2025 if large-scale wind and solar development continues at current prices, the Australian energy market operator said.

Aemo’s annual grid reliability snapshot, released Tuesday, finds that renewable generation penetration in Australia hit record highs of 57% twice in 2021 – in April and again in August.

If Australia’s electricity system is designed accordingly, based on current trends, “instant renewable energy penetration of up to 100% could be achieved at certain times of the day all year round by 2025,” it said.

…

As a consequence, Aemo predicts, all mainland states will have minimal operating demand for the next five years, which is the lowest demand from the grid during the day. A falling minimum requirement can lead to technical challenges in the network.

…

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/31/renewables-could-meet-100-demand-in-australia-at-certain-times-of-day-by- 2025 report says

Why would anyone think this is a good thing?

Electricity consumers pay for:

1. Fuel consumption of fossil fuel generators
2. Capital and maintenance costs of fossil fuel generators – enough to provide 100% backup for windless nights.
3. Subsidies to keep fossil fuel generators open to offset reduced profitability and “technical challenges”.
4. High investment and maintenance costs of renewable systems.
5. Capital cost of large batteries to try to keep the grid stable for the five minutes it takes to power up fossil fuel systems.
6. Inefficiencies that let fossil fuel systems idle and then spin them up and down unpredictably throughout the day when clouds cover the solar panel or the wind changes unexpectedly.
7. Failures when the unnecessarily complex power grid fails and fails.

Does anyone think there is a chance this is cheaper than running the system on fossil fuels all day? How can anyone believe that this is more than a pathetic signal of virtue?

Renewable energies could not even reduce CO2 emissions. All renewable systems carry an enormous load of fossil fuels that were consumed during manufacture and installation. Renewables need much more extensive networks that have to be serviced by truck. Light aircraft are often rented to help power line engineers fly power line engineers slowly along the power lines so they can be inspected through binoculars. And as mentioned above, it’s a very inefficient way to run a fossil fuel power plant, keep power plants idle and then turn them up and down randomly.

When you add all of this up, the total possible emissions will actually be beyond what they would be if we just kept the coal-fired power plants.

Everything could have turned out so differently. Australia has world-class uranium deposits, huge empty spaces, and is geologically stable. We could have stayed with fossil fuels or built enough nuclear power to go carbon free without paying for less than useless renewable energy.

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