Renewables dominate Australian power proposals

• 11 years ago (2013-08-13)
• Junior Isles

Renewables 776

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A new report from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has highlighted the rapidly changing nature of Australia’s coal-fired dominated energy mix, with all new generation proposals received in the last 12 months being for large scale wind farms or solar facilities.

Of the 1000 MW of new generation proposals in the past 12 months, AEMO says that 945.5 MW came from six new wind farm projects, and a further 45.5 MW from new solar generation.

Over the same period, the 770 MW of coal-fired capacity at the Tarong black coal power plant in Queensland has been mothballed, as well as the 170 MW Collinsville power station, which is being converted to a solar/gas hybrid plant.

AEMO notes the expanding role over the past year of residential rooftop solar PV, which totalled 774 MW of capacity across the Australian National Energy Market (the eastern states and South Australia). A similar amount of rooftop solar PV is expected to be installed during 2013/14, despite the removal of most subsidies, according to analysts.

This figure is comparable with 523 MW of new large-scale generation capacity which came online in 2012/13; 440 MW of which came from new wind energy facilities, 60 MW from a coal plant expansion and 39 MW from two cogeneration and landfill gas facilities.

AEMO even confirmed that there would be no need for any new fossil fuel generation to be built in Australia for at least another decade; with the exception of Queensland under its medium growth rate scenario, and modest requirements in other states under a high growth scenario.

This change could be attributed to the increase in rooftop solar PV conjoined with the demand response to rising electricity prices, and the development of large-scale renewables under the Renewable Energy Target.

This projection is consistent with AGL Energy’s recent assessment that some 9000 MW of baseload generation – equivalent to one third of the entire baseload capacity within the National Energy Market – is surplus to requirements due to reduced demand.