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Australia’s national electricity grid currently runs on around 40 per cent renewable energy, with plans to get to 82 per cent by 2030.
Can we get there? Hydro Tasmania’s Erin van Maanen thinks so! Here, she shares her insights into how we’ll do it.
Hey Erin! We hear a lot about solar and wind, but not so much about hydropower — what is it about Hydro that makes it such and important renewable power source?
What’s valuable about hydropower is that it’s a much more flexible power source than wind or solar. All three harness natural resources, but because you can store water in a dam, you have much more choice about when it operates.
Wind and solar generation fluctuates with the seasons and the weather, but with hydro — where you have water storage — you have a choice about when you generate that electricity, and you can match it to when a consumer needs it.
Tasmania is Australia’s number one producer of hydropower, what is it about Tassie that makes it so ideally suited as a hydropower powerhouse!?
To generate hydropower you need lots of water, and steep hills that are suited to creating water storages — both things Tassie has in abundance. In fact the West coast of Tasmania gets some of the highest levels of rainfall in the country.
Tasmania has been touted as the future ‘battery of the nation’, what does this mean?
Yes, that’s because of the amount of water we can store here. Hydro Tasmania has over 30 power stations across the state, with water storage in 54 large dams. Our total renewable energy storage capacity here in Tasmania is more than the rest of the country combined!
Tasmania is already connected to the mainland electricity grid by Basslink — a high-voltage cable linking Victoria and Tasmania, under Bass Strait. But now the development of a new interconnector, Marinus link, is underway, which will more than triple our capacity to transfer electricity to and from mainland Australia.
This will mean Tasmania will soon be able to absorb more excess electricity from the mainland when solar and wind generation is strong in Victoria, and then ‘turn on’ hydro generation and transfer that back to Victoria to fill the gaps when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. This supports reliable electricity supply to Australians, as the transition to renewables continues.
There’s been a lot of debate about whether a fully renewable grid is possible in Australia. What do we need to make it happen?
Australia’s electricity grid is currently at 40 per cent renewable, with plans to get to 82 per cent by 2030. To get to net zero, long duration storage like hydropower will be the key! That’s why we are looking to expand hydropower capacity.
Will the transition to renewables make our power bills more expensive?
No. It’s a front of mind question for people, and one of the things to understand is that the generation assets we have relied upon up until now (primarily coal powered electricity plants) are at their end of life, or will be end of life soon.
So we have to build new assets in the coming years to meet energy requirements, irrespective of renewables.
A GenCost report that the CSIRO produced earlier this year looked at the cost of new energy generation in Australia would be, and found that renewables backed by storage is the lowest cost option – cheaper than building new coal or nuclear power stations – so that will support the lowest possible energy prices in the future.
Ok so we know there are lots of big infrastructure projects that will form part of the Australia’s renewable transition. But is there a role to play for households and individuals in the transition? What can we do?
A lot, and what consumers do will have a big impact, because what we do as consumers defines what the energy demand is, which in turn dictates the amount and cost of electricity needed.
Australia has one of the highest rates of solar panel installation, and that’s something that has really helped us in achieving the levels of renewable energy we already have.
We’re also starting to see households purchase batteries and electric vehicles, which can have a really positive impact in terms of having a cleaner grid.
Are you optimistic about Australia’s renewable energy transition? Will we meet our goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050?
As far as the targets, they won’t be easy to achieve, so we can’t be complacent. Between government, industry and the public we’ll need to be determined to make these changes, but they’re absolutely critical for the future we want to create.
It will take a symphony of different technologies, and changes in consumer behaviour, but we absolutely have the natural resources: the water in Tasmania, the sun, the wind power, and the human capacity to do these things.
From a Tasmanian perspective we have done huge things in the past. When we look back at the construction of our earliest hydropower stations over a hundred years ago, the achievements are unbelievable.
It was done because these visionaries saw how much hydropower would play a role in the economic growth and prosperity of the state. And we need to look at it like that again — seeing our renewable transition as an exciting opportunity, rather than an impossible challenge.
Momentum Energy is 100% owned by Hydro Tasmania — Australia’s largest generator of renewable energy. Find out more about signing up to an energy retailer that supports the transition to renewables.
