Australia's main grid 50% clean for first time and supplies 30% renewable energy for a week

Source: RenewEconomy

The growth in wind, solar and battery additions to the main grid, called the National Energy Market (NEM), in eastern Australia has grown rapidly this year, particularly rooftop and large scale solar. So much so that on November 6, 2019, in one trading period, the grid had just over 50 percent of demand as renewable electricity for the first time. This was mostly solar and wind power.

Then just a few days later from November 11-17 this large NEM, ranging from Queensland to Tasmania and South Australia, produced at least 30 percent renewable energy for the entire week. This included mostly solar, wind and hydro power.

I am assuming wind and hydro supplied 30% of the demand at night as it was a windy week and hydro is big in some states. Tasmania and South Australia reach at least 30% renewables most of the time and did export to the other states during this period and on November 6.

Read More:
- Australia’s main grid reaches 50 per cent renewables for the first time. RenewEconomy, November 6, 2019.
- Renewable energy supplies more than half of Australia’s national energy market for first time. ABC News, November 8, 2019.
- Renewables supply 30% of NEM demand over an entire week for first time. Renew Economy, November 20, 2019.

Australia's greenhouse gas emissions are set to fall

One of ACT's solar farms - Majura Solar Farm (photo Julie May)

“For the past few years, Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have headed in the wrong direction. The upward trajectory has come amid overwhelming evidence that the world must bring carbon dioxide emissions down. But the trend is set to change.”

“In a policy brief released today, we predict that Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions will peak during 2019-20 at the equivalent of about 540 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.”

“After a brief plateau, we expect they will decline by 3-4% over 2020-22, and perhaps much more in the following years - if backed by government policy.”

Currently Australia has a renewable energy percentage that is around 25%.

Read more: Some good news for a change: Australia's greenhouse gas emissions are set to fall. The Conversation, October 24, 2019.

Some countries have a date to phase out coal and a few already have high percentages of renewables

The Nesjavellir Geothermal Power Plant in Þingvellir, Iceland (Wikipedia Commons)

“In order to limit warming to 1.5°C, coal needs to go from the world's electricity generation by 2050 and in OECD countries by 2030. With an average lifetime of 40 years, any new coal plant coming online is at risk of becoming a stranded asset, as the world implements the Paris Agreement.” (The Lowdown)

The following countries have made a commitment to phase out coal power by a certain date and take up more renewable energy for electricity: - Austria by 2020 - Chile by 2040 - Finland by 2029 - France by 2021 - Germany by 2038 - Italy by 2025 - Netherlands by 2029 - Portugal by 2030 - Slovakia by 2023 - Sweden by 2022 - United Kingdom by 2025. (The Lowdown interactive tool)

Many countries have not made a date for the phase out coal, some are increasing its use and others use different fossil fuels such as oil and gas for electricity.

However, a small number of countries already have high percentages of renewable energy. They include: Iceland 100%, Paraguay 100%, Costa Rica 99%, Norway 98.5%, New Zealand ~85%, Austria 80%, Brazil 75% and Denmark 69.4%. The main renewables in these countries are hydropower, wind, geothermal and solar.

References:

- The Lowdown v1.0, Climate Analytics: http://tools.climateanalytics.org/lowdown/ , accessed September 17, 2019.

- A 100% renewable grid isn’t just feasible, it’s already happening, RenewEconomy, May 23, 2018.

- Renewable energy New Zealand Environment Guide, accessed September 17, 2019.

Wind and solar energy topped 41% on Australia’s main grid

 Sept 7 2019 NEM Generation, (OpenNEM resource, Climate and Energy College) 

On Saturday, September 7, 2019 wind and solar energy in Australia’s National Energy Market (NEM), covering the eastern states, reached a record level of 40.9% between 11 and 12 pm. A new record was also obtained for all renewables including hydro.

The renewable energy from the different states at this time were as follows:
- South Australia 111%, with excess being exported to Victoria
- Victoria 34%
- Queensland 43% solar, 1% wind
- Tasmania 100% with solar and wind 12.7%, the rest hydro
- New South Wales 34.8% (from OpenNEM-NSW)

References:
- Australia’s main grid hits new peak of 41 percent wind and solar. RenewEconomy, September 9, 2019.
- OpenNEM resource, Climate and Energy College.

Kenya plans to reach 100 percent renewable electricity by 2020

Lake Turkana Wind Farm (Source: Lake Turkana Wind Power)

Kenya has just launched Africa’s largest wind farm, the massive 310 MW Lake Turkana wind farm with 365 wind turbines on the eastern shores of the lake and located in a natural wind corridor. This wind farm brings Kenya’s renewable energy close to its goal of 100 percent renewable electricity by 2020. The country already gets much of its electricity from hydro and geothermal power plants.

Kenya has increased its nationwide electrification from 28% in 2013 to over 60% in 2017, and is on track to achieve 80% electrification by 2020. It was reported that currently six million homes, that is, 69.4 percent of the population have electricity grid connection. In addition, 9 million homes have access to off-grid renewable electricity and this figure is expected to increase in the near future.

Read more:
- Kenya moves closer to 100% renewables with completion of Africa’s biggest wind farm. RenewEconomy, July 23 2019.
- Lake Turkana Wind Power: https://ltwp.co.ke/

“Renewable energy now accounts for a third of global power capacity”

Source: Renew Economy

“The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) announced [on Apr 2, 2019] that 171GW of new renewable energy capacity was installed in 2018, a 7.9% annual increase, and helping renewable energy into a position to provide a third of global power capacity.”

“Solar energy saw the biggest increase again in 2018, adding 94 GW of new capacity, an increase of 24% – dominated by Asia which saw growth of 64 GW, led by China, India, Japan, and South Korea. Other major increases in 2018 were seen in the United States, which installed 8.4 GW of new capacity, Australia, which added 3.8 GW, and Germany, adding 3.6 GW.”

“The wind energy sector installed 49 GW of new capacity, an increase of 10%. China and the United States continued to dominate here, installing 20 GW and 7 GW respectively, while other countries which saw increases of over 1 GW included Brazil, France, Germany, India, and the United Kingdom.”

“Hydropower capacity increased by 21 GW, an increase of only 2%, while bioenergy increased by 6 GW, an increase of 5%. Overall, hydropower accounts for the largest share of renewable energy capacity around the globe, with a total of 1,172 GW – approximately half of the globe’s renewable energy capacity – followed by wind energy with 564 GW and solar energy with 480 GW.”

Read more at: Renewable energy now accounts for a third of global power capacity. Renew Economy, April 3, 2019.

State and territory governments lead the way on renewables and climate policy

Source: Climate Council

Federal climate and energy policy has made so many false starts this year that it’s out of the renewables race altogether. Instead, it’s Australia’s states and territories who are leading the way.

In brief:

• So far, Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and South Australia (SA) are equal winners in 2018’s race, across a range of renewable energy measures – based on each state’s proportion of renewable energy, wind and solar capacity per capita, proportion of households with solar, and renewable energy targets and policies.
• Not counting Western Australia, all states and territories have now committed to renewable energy and/or net zero emissions targets.
• In Queensland, the aptly named ‘sunshine state’, 33% of all households have rooftop solar, closely followed by SA, at 32%.
• SA continues to have the largest amount of installed wind and solar capacity (1,831MW), closely followed by New South Wales (1,759MW) and Victoria (1,634MW). On a per capita basis, SA, the ACT and Tasmania are the leaders.
• By end 2017 Tasmania, with its ample supply of hydro, had the highest percentage of renewable energy with 87.4% (when it gets adequate rain), followed by the ACT with 46.2% and SA with 43.4%.
• The ACT is on track for 100% renewable electricity by 2020. SA is also on track for 73% renewable energy in two years.

Read more:
- States and territories lead way on renewables, climate. Renew Economy, October 16, 2018.
- Powering progress: states renewable energy race. Climate Council, 2018.

China is quickly moving away from coal and oil use for energy and transport

Part of China's huge Gansu wind farm (source TheFifthEstate)

China is using market forces to switch from coal to renewable electricity; for transport it is encouraging both ethanol as a fuel, and electric vehicles.

For nine consecutive days, the 5.6 million inhabitants of China’s Qinghai Province, and their factories and municipal lighting did not rely on coal-fired electricity but on clean energy. From midnight on 20 June to midnight on 28 Jun, the state grid supplied electricity from water, wind and sun power achieving zero emissions - a record. Most of that power came from hydroelectricity.

China is throwing off its dirty coal image faster than any thought possible. In 2017, clean energy generation and installed capacity exceeded 50 per cent of all power generation in the five southern provinces Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou and Hainan, which contain 215 million people.

The clean energy revolution is also sweeping through the Chinese transport sector.

China accounted for more than half of the 1.2 million electric vehicles sold worldwide in 2017. The government has put in measures to trace all the lithium-ion batteries for recycling. China is considering a ban on the production and sale of fossil fuel cars in a major boost to the production of electric vehicles as Beijing seeks to ease pollution. They have not put a date on this ban as yet.

More petrol is also to be replaced by biofuels. Promoting the use of ethanol petrol for vehicles is a national strategic initiative to tackle air pollution from particulate matter and carbon monoxide, with a ban for all petrol based cars to use it from 2020 but it has been thrown into doubt by the current trade dispute with the USA since it could affect supplies of raw materials such as corn.

Read more: China is fast moving its energy and transport away from coal and oil. TheFifthEstate, July 10, 2018.
See also in this blog: China’s solar surge hits new heights. December 2017.

The U.K. recently went for 55 hours without using coal power

A boat passes between wind turbines near London (Source: Bloomberg)

Coal, which fueled the world’s biggest economies for more than a century, is increasingly losing out to renewables. For example, no coal was used for power generation by stations in the U.K. between 10:25 p.m. (GMT) on Monday 16 until 5:10 a.m. on Thursday 18 April 2018, according to grid data compiled by Bloomberg.

At that time most of the power came from wind (33.7%) and gas (28.7%). Low-carbon sources, which include nuclear and hydropower with renewables, at times generated 60 percent of U.K.’s power.

The U.K. was an early adopter of renewable energy and has more offshore wind turbines [at least 30] installed than any other country. It also has fields of solar panels that are meeting more and more demand as old traditional power plants close permanently. The government aims to switch off all coal plants by 2025 and has given renewables priority access to the grid.

Read more:
The U.K. just went 55 hours without using coal for the first time in history. Bloomberg, April 19, 2018.
The UK just went 55 hours without using coal for power. GreenMatters, April 20, 2018.

Two mini hydro electricity systems to help the ACT reach 100% in renewables

Googong Dam Mini Hydro (photo from Icon Water)

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has a goal to have 100% renewable electricity by 2020. This sustainable electricity will supply Canberra’s population of over 400,000 people. It is well on the way to achieve that goal with the main contributors being a number of large-scale solar and wind farms.

However, small initiatives and a mixture of approaches to providing renewable energy all contribute as do these two mini hydro systems. They were commissioned by Icon Water which is owned by the ACT Government and provides water and sewerage services to the territory.

The Googong Dam Mini Hydro system generates 600 kW to power the water treatment plant, pump station and Googong Dam. The hydro system uses the gravity fed environmental flows from the dam to run two turbines and generators.

The Mount Stromlo Mini Hydro system generates 630 kW of electricity which is connected to the grid. The gravity fed water to power the system is a bypass of the west main inlet from Bendora Dam which is at 80 metres higher elevation. The mini hydro is located in a small building at the bottom of the Mount Stromlo Water Treatment Plant.