Posted in Energy

ACT pours another $5m into battery storage research

An Australian National University research program that aims lead the world in grid-scale battery storage innovation and integration has been awarded $5 million in grant funding from the ACT government.

The funding, announced on Wednesday, has been provided as part of the Renewable Energy Innovation Fund, which was set up off the back of the ACT’s first and second wind energy auctions.

Last week, the Territory government announced the winners of the second round of its battery storage auction, part of a nation-leading plan to deploy 36MW of cutting edge distributed battery storage in more than 5,000 ACT homes and businesses by 2020 –  and the largest government supported battery storage program in Australia by quite a distance.

ACT climate and environment minister Simon Corbell, the architect of the highly successful reverse action schemes, said on Wednesday that the development of the ANU-based Battery Storage and Integration Research program showed his government’s renewable energy initiatives continued to provide benefits for the sector.

The ACT government and ANU will jointly invest the funds in the $8 million Battery Storage and Integration Research Program over the course of five years.

The international effort will be coordinated by ANU’s Energy Change Institute, which will support the program with $3 million in cash and in-kind contributions, including $2 million for new laboratory infrastructure to support battery storage and integration research.

ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt said the Territory’s support would help establish Australia as research leaders in the battery storage field, which was increasingly important as more renewables were brought into the power generation mix.

Schmidt said the ECI would also engage with the emerging renewable energy sector in the ACT, while also fostering international renewable energy partnerships.

“The ACT is one of the world’s leading jurisdictions and the leader in Australia when it comes to renewable energy policy, as exemplified by the innovative wind and solar reverse auctions,” he said.

Professor Ken Baldwin, Director of the ANU Energy Change Institute, also welcomed the announcement.

“As the proportion of renewables in the grid grows, battery storage and its integration are becoming increasingly important to address intermittency in renewable energy supply,” Professor Baldwin said.

“The… funding will generate enormous economic benefits for the ACT.  It will enhance local industry capability and competitiveness, attracting innovative energy companies to the ACT and building the ACT’s reputation as a global leader in renewable energy and storage,” he said.

Read more.

People power is the secret to reliable, clean energy.

Reliable Clean Energy

Australia’s energy watchdog, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), has issued a stark warning: more wind and solar power will demand new approaches to avoid interruptions to electricity supply.

In its annual Electricity Statement of Opportunities, released this week, AEMO indicated that the overall outlook for reliability has improved. So far, so good.

However, South Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales are potentially at greater risk of interruptions within ten years if the current trend of shutting down old coal-fired power stations accelerates, as we can expect from Australia’s efforts to meet national and international climate targets.

The threat of power blackouts is reliable headline fodder as seen in yesterday’s Australian Financial Review. But the solution to this very real challenge is not to cling to ageing fossil fuel power stations.

While there is much excitement about battery technology, it is the oft-forgotten human dimension that offers the greatest potential. We consumers, the so-called “demand side” of the market, can play a crucial role in reducing the strain on the electricity network, which will in turn make for more reliable power.

The biggest variability that the electricity sector has to contend with is not intermittent solar or wind generation output, but the ups and downs of power demand.

People power

Helping business and household consumers manage their demand for power (or “demand management”) is a win-win scenario – lower costs for electricity and a stronger electricity system. Demand management and energy efficiency are key elements in lifting Australia’s energy productivity. Lifting energy productivity means we do not need to slow down the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Research from the University of Technology Sydney’s Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) that supported GetUp!’s Home-grown Power Plan highlights that we can not only retire coal power to achieve our climate targets, but also shift entirely to 100% renewable electricity generation by 2030.

Switching up

The importance of demand management has been recognised since the dawn of the National Electricity Market in 1992. But this potential has never been properly tapped.

Happily, there are signs that this is finally changing. For example, the Australian Energy Regulator has announced a process to design a Demand Management Incentive Scheme. This will provide an incentive for electricity networks to help consumers reduce demand and cut energy costs.

Read more.

Renewable energy fund: QIC, Future Fund back AGL

renewable energy fund

Renewable Energy Fund QIC and the Future Fund will tip $800 million

Renewable energy fund: Queensland Investment Corporation and the Future Fund are set to become major players in the race to meet the renewable energy target, backing a $2 billion-$3bn fund with diversified energy group AGL that will build up to a fifth of the new capacity needed.

QIC and the Future Fund will tip $800 million into a fund that plans to build 1000MW of new wind and solar farms along the east coast in a deal that breaks a long-running deadlock between investors and energy retailers.

AGL chief executive Andy Vesey said the fund, to be announced today, will have $200m of equity from the company as reported by Andrew White.

He said it would be backed by power purchase agreements (PPAs) from AGL that would underwrite returns and aim to stimulate the development of new capacity.

The balance of funding will come from banks to provide levered returns in the fund.

“We are taking down the road blocks one by one and the fund basically shows that there is appetite from quality investors and that we can show that by people bringing equity, there is debt willing to come in,’’ Mr Vesey said.

The deal is a breakthrough for the renewable energy industry, with the Abbott government’s review of the RET in 2014-15 stalling new investment and electricity companies unwilling to provide the 20 year-plus power purchase agreements developers and investors say they need to underwrite new projects.

The industry estimates $10bn needs to be spent building another 5000MW of capacity to meet the 2020 compromise target agreed between the government and Labor last year. If it hits its targets the Powering Australian Renewables Fund could end up building a fifth of the new capacity required and owning 10 per cent of ­Australia’s renewable energy generation.

It will be seeded with AGL’s existing 102MW Nyngan and 53MW Broken Hill solar plants, with the balance of the fund to come from new developments.

Renewable energy fund projects

A decision on the first new project is expected by March next year. QIC, whose involvement was first flagged in the DataRoom column last month, will invest the money for the Future Fund and other clients in its global infrastructure fund.

QIC’s head of global ­infrastructure, Ross Israel, said the deal was a breakthrough for the $70bn investor, which had been looking for a way to get into the renewable energy market in the scale required for a major institution.

“Having those plants in Queensland and NSW provides us with diversification in wind and solar as well as geographic spread, and the PPA with AGL makes it attractive for us in the long term at a time of disruption in the energy market,’’ Mr Israel said.

The PPAs will run for just five to seven years, with Mr Vesey ­saying he was unwilling to risk AGL’s balance sheet on longer agreements when he did not have matching contracts from customers on the other side.

“The kind of people who could cover those would be my non-residential and commercial customers and they tend to churn very highly, so it is very hard to write a contract like that,’’ Mr Vesey said. To read more click here.

Renewable energy fund will be discussed at The National Sustainability in Business Conference; renewables, markets, innovation, opportunities and capital will be held 23 – 24 March 2017 at the Hotel Grand Chancellor, Brisbane.

To express your interest in the Conference CLICK HERE.

Clean energy – current market trends

sustainability for business renewable trendsMarco Stella is Senior Broker, Environmental Markets, at TFS Green Australia. The TFS Green Australia team provides project and transactional environmental market brokerage and data services across all domestic and international renewable energy, energy efficiency and carbon markets. Here, Mr Stella outlines the current market trends.

Large-scale Generation Certificate (LGC) market

It has proven a mixed beginning to 2016 for the LGC market. A solid start across the first two months of the year saw the spot market climb into low $80 territory in February, only to soften back to a low of $75 by late March as buyers disappeared from the market in the period following the end of 2015 compliance. Across April, the pendulum once again changed direction, with the spot market creeping back up to surpass the $80 mark in late April.

On the pivotal issue of project commitments, very little has changed. Only 200 MW of projects have been committed in recent months, making an already highly ambitious build requirement appear almost impossible to meet in time to avoid a squeeze in LGC supply in 2017 and a shortfall in 2018. To avoid such an outcome, by the end of 2016 more than 4000 MW of new projects need to be committed. On this basis, the spot price appears likely to track towards the tax effective penalty level just shy of $93 for Cal 2017 compliance (early 2018). Right now, the only thing that appears likely to prevent such an outcome is regulatory risk.

On that front, Labor has confirmed its commitment to a 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2050, though it appears prepared to consider measures outside the existing Renewable Energy Target to achieve this. More detail on this policy will be keenly sought should the Opposition manage to oust the Coalition at the upcoming election.

Small-scale Technology Certificate (STC) market

There has been little change in recent months to the STC market with activity taking place sporadically around the $39.90 level. Concerns held by some about a considerable reduction in the scheme’s target (Small-scale Technology Percentage or STP), proved unfounded with its eventual release in March reassuring participants. At 9.68 per cent, expected to be equivalent to 16.95m STCs surrendered across 2016, it appears unlikely that 2016 will yield a material STC surplus. Indeed, weekly submissions to-date have fallen short of the target’s requirement
and the Clearing House continues to spend extended periods in deficit.

Energy efficiency market

A substantial shift is currently underway in the Victorian Energy Efficiency Certificate (VEEC) market with the rise of commercial lighting. Across its history, the VEEC market has been dominated by residential activity. Yet the recognition of energy savings in commercial premises that operate beyond standard office hours has opened up a new world of opportunities, to the extent that commercial lighting has gone from representing a negligible proportion of VEEC creation 12 months ago to contributing over 40 per cent of VEEC creation in April. To read more click here.

The Sustainability For Business Conference will be held in Brisbane on the 23-24th March 2017. To register your interest in the Conference CLICK HERE.

The above information has been provided by TFS Green and relates, unless otherwise indicated, to the spot prices in Australian dollars, as of 29 April 2016.

The quest for the perfect wave for renewable energy is being solved by Australian science

wave energyAustralia’s search for the perfect wave is being solved with a wave energy atlas.

The CSIRO wave atlas project is mapping the wave energy potential of Australia’s vast coastline for renewable wave energy farms.

Atlas project leader Dr Mark Hemer said the project found most of Australia’s south west and southern coastline had some of the world’s best wave energy resource.

“We’ve just released a development version of the atlas,” he said.

“Obviously some people are interested, like the project developers themselves or the device developers, potential financiers, [and] marine planners trying to allocate sections of the marine resource.

“We’re trying to meet the needs of all those different groups.”

Dr Hemer said the challenge now was to bring the cost of wave energy down to the point where it was cost-competitive with the alternatives.

He said the online CSIRO atlas used data from weather stations, satellites and other sources to identify the best places for wave energy farms.

Dr Hemer said the project was also identifying the affect wave energy extraction could have on the coastal environment, from both a physical and ecological perspective.

“We want to understand how large the environmental impact is,” he said.

“By taking wave energy out, that will influence what kind of waves and currents are felt by the surrounding marine environment.

“One of the uses that people put forward for wave energy devices is a coastal management system to attenuate the energy and act as a breakwater-type system.”

The CSIRO wave atlas project is supported by The Australian Renewable Energy Agency and wave energy companies BioPower Systems and Carnegie Wave Energy, in their quest to commercial wave energy systems. To  read more click here.