Ross Garnaut’s Superpower follow-up tells a story of promise but also of peril

The economist’s new book proposes an expanded Renewable Energy Target and an energy reserve system to ensure grid reliability

The Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) identified “reliability gaps”for eastern mainland states from 2023-24 but a near-miss of major blackouts in June revealed the fragility of supplies. That’s even before AGL’s Liddell plant closes next April, with the country’s largest power plant, Origin’s 2,880-megawatt Eraring, following in 2025.

Aemo’s warning that $12.7bn needed to be spent on 10,000km of new transmission for high-priority “actionable projects” needed ideally well before 2050 to link up new renewable energy sites is assessed closely in the book.

“There is a mammoth task for public policy in planning and implementing the reshaping of the transmission grid so that it is more aligned with the requirements of an electricity system dominated by renewable energy,” writes Dylan McConnell, another of the authors.

“You look at the lead times on these projects and the community consultation, and the planning and then the actual construction,” McConnell says. “These are going to take years and years to build.”

He notes Aemo’s Integrated System Plan no longer contains scenarios that reflect existing policies.

Its so-called Step Change scenario, for instance, is deemed the “most likely” and is the central scenario used for planning purposes. It forecasts 83% of power in the national electricity market will be sourced by renewables by 2030-31, up from 32% in the June quarter of 2022, but is not yet backed by policies to get there.

“It’s like people expect things to happen,” McConnell, an honorary researcher at the University of Melbourne, says.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/02/ross-garnauts-superpower-follow-up-tells-a-story-of-promise-but-also-of-peril