Power to the People
Dr Barry Manor, Sustainability Consultant, looks at the state of play of renewable electricity generation in Australia and at the contribution that a fearless visionary like Elon Musk brings to the future of electricity.
There is an enormous amount of activity in the renewable energy space in Australia at the moment. The world’s biggest battery is now patched into the South Australian electricity grid to help stabilise it during an unforeseen event with the main saving is avoiding building another gas-peaking power station.
There are still significant challenges in the development of renewable energy in Australia. We are stuck with the transmission grid because it cost a huge amount of money to put up that infrastructure, the big iron towers with all the struts and beams that support high voltage cables. This grid was designed to move energy from big centralised coal-burning power stations around the countryside. It was not designed to have a large number of smallish renewable generators connected into it at various points along the transmission lines, a two-way transfer of energy. A solar farm, for instance, has to find land that is close to the grid where it has the capacity to accept the energy created. In many cases solar farm owners must build their own grid connections at a cost of $1.2 million per kilometre of cable.
The cost of electricity from a solar farm over its 25 year service life is 3-5 cents per kilowatt hour whereas we are paying 25-30c per kilowatt hour for fossil fuel-based energy. Investment certainty in renewable development is sorely lacking at a federal government level and there is concern is that after the early 2020s there will be no further incentives to develop renewable energy. We hear about loss of jobs in the coal industry but not the gain of jobs in the renewables energy sector.
In another field, the global electric vehicle revolution has begun. Elon Musk from Tesla Motors has launched the Tesla truck, a full-sized heavy haulage truck with a range of 800 km on one charge. The truck can maintain 100 kilometres per hour up a pretty decent hill and when empty can accelerate from 0-11 kph in under 5 seconds. The total cost of ownership of this truck over its service life is 20% lower than a diesel one.
Tesla vehicles (models S and X) are on the road right now. They are high performance vehicles which give petrol cars a run for their money but they do cost over $150,000 in Australia. The Model 3 is intended to cost around US$30,000 which is comparable to family-oriented cars. This model has had 400,000 pre-orders before it went into production, an amazing level of consumer confidence. Tesla has also showcased the Roadster 2 an incredible piece of engineering rumoured to cost around $250,000. It can accelerate from 0-100 kph in 1.9 seconds, faster than anything else on this planet!
In the future renewable electricity generation really will bring power to the people.
