Ten years after South Australia’s statewide blackout became a political weapon against renewables, the state now gets more than three-quarters of its electricity from renewable sources. The technology has raced ahead, even if the politics has barely moved.
Not long after the dramatic statewide blackout in South Australia in September 2016, conservative political types in Australia were hoping for more.
Louise Clegg, the wife of then federal energy minister and now Liberal Party leader Angus Taylor, wrote on Facebook that rolling blackouts were needed to show that “left populism/culture” were “not the answer”.
Clegg was not alone. Conservative shock jock Tom Elliott, the radio talkback host and son of former businessman and Liberal Party grandee John Elliott, wrote that he wanted to see a major blackout to prove his theory that renewable energy doesn’t work.
And ever since, Coalition politicians have been predicting and hoping for blackouts that they could blame on renewables at the start of every summer. Just to prove their point. Taylor himself said two years after the South Australia blackout, and just as he was appointed energy minister, that there was already too much wind and solar in the grid.
There is now twice as much wind and solar in the grid. And, of course, Taylor’s still complaining. The party and the Coalition that he now ‘leads’ (apologies to Pauline Hanson) has vowed to scrap the net zero policies it put in place and take a “chainsaw” to climate and renewable energy policies.
The politics have barely moved, but the technology has
Monday, 28 September, was the 10th anniversary of the start of the South Australia system black – at 4.18pm for those with an eye for detail. And if the politics of the energy transition have barely moved in that time, and might even have gone backwards, the growth of renewables and the technologies that enable it have leaped ahead.
South Australia sourced nearly 40 per cent of its power needs from wind and solar in 2016 and is now running at an average of nearly double that. Its grid runs comfortably even when rooftop solar alone is producing enough power to meet all state demand. It aims to be the first multi-gigawatt scale grid to reach 100 per cent ‘net renewables’ by the end of next year.
Mining giant Fortescue is aiming to reach ‘real zero’ emissions at its massive iron ore mining operations in the Pilbara, which means burning no gas or diesel for power or transport or mining equipment. Several off-grid mines are showing how it can be done, averaging up to 94 per cent renewables from wind, solar and battery storage.
The federal government aims to reach 82 per cent renewables by 2030, and the Australian Energy Market Operator has an engineering roadmap to guide the main grid to operate for extended periods with 100 per cent renewables.
And the country’s biggest energy users, Rio Tinto’s smelters in Gladstone and Tomago, are ditching coal-fired generation to switch to renewables.
Science, technology and economics
The catalyst for all these milestones and targets is a combination of science, technology and economics. Science, which we too often forget, because the climate impacts are becoming immense and increasingly visible and obvious, and because the world needs to move faster.
Economics because most studies agree that replacing fossil fuels with renewables and storage is the cheapest option available. And technology, because the thing that has made all the difference in the last decade is the rise in battery storage – and South Australia is seen as a catalyst for that extraordinary growth.
Republished from Renew Economy
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of Renew Economy, and is also the founder of One Step Off The Grid and founder/editor of the EV-focused The Driven. He is the co-host of the weekly Energy Insiders Podcast. Giles has been a journalist for 40 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review. You can find him on LinkedIn and on Twitter.