Renewable energy cheaper for WA power Friday, 18 March 2016

A Perth-based volunteer group of engineers and scientists has demonstrated that installing wind and solar PV generation to replace the current aging coal powered generators would cost no more than installing new coal and significantly less than nuclear power.

Sustainable Energy Now (SEN) has used their recently launched simulation package – SIREN Toolkit – to model the costs and carbon emissions of six electricity generation systems for WA’s main electricity grid (the South-West Interconnected System), and identified the most practical, efficient and cost-effective options that could be implemented by 2030.

Key findings include that a system using 85 per cent renewable energy (a combination of wind, solar PV, ‘behind the meter’ batteries and open cycle gas turbines) would produce electricity slightly cheaper than using the current non-sustainable coal and gas resources (12.4c per kWh (kilowatt hour) compared to 12.7c per kWh) but would produce 85 per cent less than current carbon dioxide emissions.

Speaking at the SIREN launch on Wednesday, SEN Chairman Cameron Power said that the cost will reduce even further as renewable energy technology pricing continues to drop, and that surplus electricity generated could be sold cheaply to offset the modest cost of additional transmission lines (less than 1 c/ kWh).

Another benefit is that renewable energy micro-grids with batteries would reduce the current need for thousands of kilometres of poles and wires (and hundreds of transformers) for remote connections and new subdivisions, as well as removing the current expensive requirement to have large coal generators in reserve to prevent blackouts if a generator fails.

The SEN team consists of volunteers from a wide range of backgrounds, including energy science and policy, physics, geophysics, engineering, computer programming and information technology.

They share a passion for sustainability and renewable energy, and are not aligned with any political party.

Image caption: SWIS scenario map. Supplied by Sustainable Energy Now.