The road to 96% renewables is relatively cheap and easy. So let’s crack on!
A common delaying tactic of the enemies of our environment is to repeatedly remind us getting to 100% renewables, even for electricity generation, is difficult and expensive.
100% renewable is expensive, says Windlab’s David Osmond – but getting nearly all the way there, 96%, is easy and relatively cheap. So there’s no reason to pretend the difficulty of achieving a 100% renewable grid should stop us from converting most of our electricity generation to renewables as fast as possible.
Osmond walked me through the presentation he prepared for last week’s ANU-hosted 100% renewable energy workshop (you can find the presentation slides here).
Rather than using projections of the future in his modelling, Osmond took the most recent three years’ (2016-2019) of AEMO historical generation data (with some supplementation to fill gaps in the AEMO data), and NEM demand data for the same period to examine the impact of a high penetration of renewables on known generation and consumption patterns.
As noted on slide 3, the study “was designed to understand energy flows and variability in a mostly renewable Australia, and to get an idea for storage requirements“.
“I made sure supply matched demand for every 30 minute period over those three years,” he said, “and ended up coming up with an economic solution that would have provided 96% renewable electricity for those three years.”
He told SolarQuotes:
“I’m trying to model that point at which [replacing fossil fuels with renewables] transitions between moderately easy, to starting to get difficult.”
And that’s what yielded the startling conclusion it’s not that difficult to get to 96% renewable electricity generation.
What are the conditions that would have given us a working NEM-states grid from 2016 to 2019, powered mostly by renewables? Here’s the list from Osmond’s slides:
- Generation mix – 62% wind, 41% solar power, and 7% existing hydro (meaning Snowy 2.0 isn’t mandatory for even a high-renewables scenario) – note that Osmond is assuming a 10% overbuild.
- The system would need 24GW/81GWh of daily storage.
- Yes, there are system inefficiencies. Osmond’s model found around 13% of power would be spilled, and 1.5% lost to storage inefficiency. While it’s easy to imagine the do-nothing brigade howling at the waste, the overbuild is a feature of a renewable grid, not a fault.
“It is more economic to build more wind and solar than we need, than trying to save every last kilowatt-hour of summer generation to use in winter,” he said.
And the same will be true in reaching 100% renewable electricity – even more over-generation will be cheaper than “trying to save every last electron”.
Queensland And Tasmania
As the presentation shows, Queensland and Tasmania have important contributions to make to Osmond’s 96%. Tasmania’s role is obvious – it’s got a huge amount of hydro storage available, even more as wind and solar power take on more of the island state’s local electricity consumption.
Osmond said North Queensland is currently under-exploited as a source of wind power.
“Queensland wind is negatively correlated with wind in every other state.”
“The southern half of the nation is dominated by westerly winds,” he explained, “but in northern Queensland, the trade winds dominate.”
While it varies from site to site, the trade wind influence means an easterly prevails in northern Queensland. Queensland is also the best place to host solar energy generation, particularly in winter.
Electric vehicles are an important storage opportunity, but also something of a wildcard since we don’t know how fast they’ll penetrate the motor vehicle market.
“If I were to model future scenarios, there’s no double that having flexible charging of EVs would be greatly beneficial,” he told us, “particularly if a vehicle is only charged a couple of times a week”.
That allows EVs to be demand-managed so they charge at the optimum time. People would go a long way out of their way to buy $1-per-litre petrol, he pointed out, and:
“there’s no doubt people would delay charging their car for a few days if it got them cheaper electricity”.
The Difficult 4%
Osmond said the biggest barrier to filling in the last few percent (those three or so days each year when eastern Australia renewable generation just won’t cover demand) to get to 100% renewables is the cost of storage.
“Batteries are on the verge of being economic if they’re used most days,” he explained, “but it’ll be some time before a battery is economic if it’s only used a dozen times a year”.
So the last 4-5% will probably need different thinking – whether it’s the hydrogen economy, or more storage capacity in Tasmania.
But getting nearly all the way to 100% renewable electricity is so achievable and would cut emissions so much, Osmond can see no reason not to get there as fast as possible.
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As a technologist I absolutely agree that achieving 96% renewables, at least for electricity generation, should be relatively easy – just build enough capacity so that when specific generation is well down (e.g. at night in winter, or at any other time), the demand can still be met.
For me, this is not the issue – the issues are the overall cost to reach this point, and the leadtimes involved. We have a long way to go – I’ve been monitoring the NEM Supply & Demand widget for quite some time now, and presently generation from black coal, brown coal, and natural gas is generally around 65-75% of total generation during the day, and 75-85% during the evening (no sun). Then we need to also consider the contributions from ICE vehicles, agriculture, etc., which also have to be considered. More batteries and more renewable capacity for the EVs, sequestration for agriculture?
I guess the residual 4% non-renewable (probably natural gas, I’d guess) generators – which would only be required to operate 3 or so days a year according to the presented projections – would then be extremely expensive in proportion to the total amount of energy they produce – might make batteries more feasible?
Optomistic article, I’d think…!
Ian Thompson,
You state:
“For me, this is not the issue – the issues are the overall cost to reach this point, and the leadtimes involved.”
Your comment suggests to me you don’t understand what’s at stake.
How about the costs of humanity FAILING to rapidly reduce human-induced GHG emissions in a timely manner, Ian? How do you put a price on the collapse of human civilization within this century (perhaps as early as 2050?) if we don’t begin rapidly reducing GHG emissions now? What price do you put on the future wellbeing of you and your family, Ian?
Do you feel lucky, Ian?
See my earlier comments: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/finkel-hydrogen/#comment-626151
And: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/finkel-hydrogen/#comment-628035
I’d suggest the costs to transition are far, far, FAR less than not transitioning in a timely manner!
See: http://energywatchgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/EWG_LUT_100RE_All_Sectors_Global_Report_2019.pdf
But if we wait a bit longer, humanity won’t have a choice (see Schellnhuber’s quoted statement at the bottom of the 2nd link) – then I’d suggest it’s game over for most of humanity!
A very predictable response Geoffrey.
I had thought to elaborate that I was well aware (without being totally sure of the exact figures), of “the-cost-of-doing-nothing”, specifically to cover your likely response – but felt doing this would be as long-winded as you tend to be.
I WAS NOT for one minute suggesting in the least that we should do nothing. But I remain unconvinced that throwing money towards projects without analysis of a full range of feasible technical solutions, is ill-considered.
The article did not seem to address how the agricultural contribution will be mitigated, nor how we quickly deal with an aged ICE fleet (average age about 10-20 years some time ago – and I expect many potential EV buyers, myself included, are holding off switching to EV’s until the prices fall – further aging the “fleet”).
I implore you to read Steven Pinker’s book “Enlightenment Now” – you may come to them realise that fear-mongering is actually counter-productive.
Ian Thompson,
You state:
“I WAS NOT for one minute suggesting in the least that we should do nothing.”
And yet it seems to me you are suggesting delay, delay, delay, with more “analysis of a full range of feasible technical solutions”. There are numerous analyses – I’ve referred to one in my previous comment, but that’s apparently not good enough for you – it doesn’t apparently fit your narrative for more expensive, untimely and ultimately unsustainable nuclear-fission and ‘Hothouse Earth’ inducing gas technologies that you’ve being promoting in past comments here at this blog, eh Ian?
Sensible risk management requires an HONEST assessment of the situation. It seems to me you refuse to accept the overwhelming scientific evidence. Like a true climate science denier, you invoke the “fear-mongering” moniker. I’d argue that if we can’t face the inconvenient truths then we can’t begin to engage and develop effective solutions – IMO that’s counterproductive.
You must feel lucky, eh Ian? Clearly you see no rush to rapidly reduce GHG emissions – she’ll be right, mate, technology will fix it!
I had a quick look at a review of “Enlightenment Now” by Steven Pinker. It seems to me Pinker is pushing a similar schtick to Hans Rosling at TED talks.
See: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/14/enlightenment-now-steven-pinker-review
See a Feb 2006 talk: [The best stats youve ever seen Hans Rosling] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w
It seems to me Steven Pinker is one of these supreme optimists that thinks geo-engineering technologies that don’t yet exist at large-scale can solve all our climate change problems. IMO, this is an extremely dangerous mindset, to depend on something that doesn’t yet exist, creating a false sense of security that there are easy solutions when none exist.
Pinker asks: “How can we soundly appraise the state of the world?” And he responds with: “The answer is to count.” Does he count how micro-plastic pollution is increasing and invading global food chains, and any effective solutions to mitigate? Anything on:
• Resource depletion – I’ll pick one; an essential element for plant growth: phosphorous?
See: http://phosphorusfutures.net/the-phosphorus-challenge/the-story-of-phosphorus-8-reasons-why-we-need-to-rethink-the-management-of-phosphorus-resources-in-the-global-food-system/
• Topsoil losses and increasing soil salinity?
• Increasing antibiotic resistance?
• Habitat and biodiversity losses leading to numerous species extinctions?
Or, is his analysis all about ‘brightsiding’, telling people what they would like to see/hear and to provide license to uncritical-thinking (or is it really unthinking?) readers to continue doing unsustainable business-as-usual? Is Pinker’s objective to sell more of his books?
I’m not denying the many achievements that have happened and the many benefits that many of us enjoy in our lives, but I’m also cognizant of how unsustainable our civilization currently is.
See: https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/state-of-the-planet/overuse-of-resources-on-earth
Geoffrey Miell
You quote from what I consider to be little more than a left-wing rag, and even the author of the article questions if he may be a “leftist intellectual” (I guess of the type that Pinker criticises as anti-humanitarian, anti-progress, anti-scientific).
Your cavalier attitude in dismissing a serious, professional intellectual so easily – without so much as even reading his book – makes me seriously question the quality of your research – you appear to accept folklore and unquestionable reviews without question.
FYI, what Pinker was saying is that you (we) should work with qualitative evidence, not heresay and urban myth.
You need to take his comments in context, not simply “cherry-pick” what works for your own personal agenda.
To elaborate on what Pinker has stated about “fear-mongering” – and after all, he is a professional ethologist – look up the meaning – his opinion, even if you think you know better, is that fear-mongering if overdone, can result in a vast number of people “giving up”, consequently ignoring attempts and support for renewables, as “what is the point, we’re all done for anyway – we cannot influence the outcome, so may as well live (extravagantly) for today”.
Do you really want that, eh Geoffrey?
You have yet again misled and misunderstood my comments. I HAVE NEVER suggested we plan a future burning natural gas – but I have suggested we will need to burn NG during transition – just like the U.K. has had to do to shut down coal generation 100% for extended periods (a point at which we are well away from achieving in Australia.).
Yes, I agree Pinker feels that nuclear will be inevitably required to facilitate rapid transition away from coal and NG. The UK has considerable nuclear sources, so has been able to leap well ahead of us.
You have chosen to ignore Dr Green’s comments that nuclear fuel is only a small component of nuclear energy production costs, and ocean sources although more expensive to access, will provide a huge life extension. Also, GenIV reactors are far more efficient – and will burn existing waste stockpiles.
No, I am not suggesting delay, delay,
delay. Have you never heard of the concept of “concurrent action”?
Ian Thompson,
You state:
“You quote from what I consider to be little more than a left-wing rag, and even the author of the article questions if he may be a “leftist intellectual””
So what, Ian? – the choice of review from, as you characterize, “a left-wing rag” is IMO irrelevant. Was William Davies’ review falsely quoting Pinker saying:
“How can we soundly appraise the state of the world?” he asks. “The answer is to count.”
…or not?
I note you don’t engage with my argument that relying on non-existent geo-engineering technologies to solve our climate change problems is an extremely dangerous mindset. You don’t engage with the other examples of serious problems throughout the world. It seems to me these are apparently inconvenient to you, so you ignore them and distract with specious arguments about the choice of review and its purported ideological position.
You allege:
“…you appear to accept folklore…”
What “folklore”, Ian? Please be specific. Where? It looks to me more baseless accusations and distractions!
On 14 Feb 2020, at the Melbourne Town Hall, at the National Climate Emergency Summit 2020, Michael E. Mann and David Spratt gave presentations and there was a Q&A, moderated by Jo Chandler. The YouTube video of this session can be viewed here: [National Climate Emergency Summit | The New Climate Reality Check] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L2hcuRnZ2M
In the YouTube video, from about time interval 31:06 a slide is displayed showing future emissions scenarios of global CO2 and the likely global temperature rises and timing. Which ever scenario occurs, we are already likely locked in for a 1.5°C rise (above pre-industrial age) by about 2030, and there’s nothing we can do about it – no point worrying about something we cannot change.
What’s more important is getting human-induced GHG emissions reduced rapidly to 50% of current emissions by 2030, and keep reducing further, and we might just keep at or just below 2°C rise. The overwhelming scientific evidence says that’s what needs to be done – if we don’t then it will be game over for most of humanity in the next few decades. So, if we take the attitude of “giving up” then we will be committed to human civilization collapse and many people likely dying from starvation and wars over diminishing resources. The time to continue ‘mucking about’ is over.
But perhaps you deny the climate science, Ian? You haven’t denied being a climate science denier, have you, Ian?
You state:
“Yes, I agree Pinker feels that nuclear will be inevitably required to facilitate rapid transition away from coal and NG. The UK has considerable nuclear sources, so has been able to leap well ahead of us.”
“Rapid transition” with nuclear? What a joke, Ian! How’s that, Ian? It seems to me you clearly have your head in the sand on the overwhelming evidence (look at some examples: UK’s Hinkley Point C, or France’s Flamanville, Finland’s Olkiluoto-3 and USA’s Vogtle-3 projects) that nuclear-fission technologies are:
• far too expensive;
• take much too long to build to be of any benefit to rapidly reduce GHG emissions;
• leave us with a toxic waste legacy that will long outlast any energy benefits gained;
• and ultimately is unsustainable long-term because the fuel is finite.
That’s delay, delay, delay, if ever there was, eh Ian? Do you want human civilization to collapse, Ian? Your solutions offered suggest that would likely be the case.
And yet Blakers offers a quicker, long-term sustainable, and cheaper solutions (at least for Australia). And you continue to ignore them, eh Ian?
See the post: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/transmission-renewable-energy/
Ian Thompson,
In addition, you state:
“You have chosen to ignore Dr Green’s comments that nuclear fuel is only a small component of nuclear energy production costs…”
Where have I chosen to ignore Dr Green’s comments? Where have I disputed that nuclear fuel is only a small component?
Then you state:
“…ocean sources although more expensive to access, will provide a huge life extension.”
How much more expensive, Ian? How much of a life extension vs increasing costs, Ian? Do you know? Do you have indicative figures and can you nominate practical demonstrations, or are you just ‘hand waving’ again, Ian? All wishful theory and no substance?
And this bold claim you make:
“Also, GenIV reactors are far more efficient – and will burn existing waste stockpiles.”
What “Gen IV reactors” have demonstrated being “more efficient” and “will burn existing waste stockpiles”? Can you name any that actually do so, or are you just regurgitating baseless propaganda and wishful thinking, Ian?
See pages 24 through 30: https://www.tai.org.au/sites/default/files/P782%20Over%20Reactor%20%5BWEB%5D.pdf
If the left over 4% is mostly generated by our more efficient existing natural gas power stations they would emit around 100 kg of CO2 per person per year. If it costs $100 per tonne to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and sequester it long term, that would come to $10 per person per year for the electricity sector to be carbon neutral. That’s $26 per household.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve become aware of two new technologies that I think will be the kind of game changers that will change the landscape yet again.
First the Energy Vault, imagine pumped hydro but replacing water with concrete (or similar) weights. Cheap to build and maintain, can be placed anywhere, long lifetime and cheap cleanup.
Second the advent of the sodium and glass, solid state battery. Sounds like so many other ‘around the corner’ techs doesn’t it, except it was developed by John B Goodenough (Nobel Laureate, father of RAM and the lithium battery) and his team. Again imagine the viability of a cheap EV if it can run over 1500 kilometres on a charge and only take minutes to recharge.
“A common delaying tactic of the enemies of our environment” – Ahh the communist manifesto…
Pollution is bad, CO2 is great… AND if wasn’t for all of us, using coal and oil, and pumping CO2 back into the environment, then all the carbon would be locked away as carbonates – you know as ROCK, and all the plants would die.
Brainwashed commie losers.