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Some states are doing better than others at energy (aussie.zone)

submitted 8 months ago by Grail@aussie.zone to c/environment@aussie.zone

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The top graph is South Australia's energy grid. The bottom is Queensland's. Yellow is solar, green is wind, orange is gas, purple is imports, and black is coal.

Over the last week, Queensland used 27.3% renewable power, and South Australia used 81.4%. Source: https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/au/

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[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 3 points 8 months ago

There's a lot more to it than just economies of scale, firstly Queensland has a huge rural population, as a percentage of population it's the only state outside of Tasmania that has a bigger rural population than living in the city

https://www.qgso.qld.gov.au/issues/11951/qld-compared-other-jurisdictions-census-2021.pdf

Coal power and mining represent jobs for rural people because renewables largely don't need anyone to maintain them or dig stuff up out the ground.

This means there has obviously been a laggard effect with rural jobs adding an extra dimension to our renewables push by making it a political issue, hence why we have been delayed in making world leading progress compared to a place like SA.

The friction of rural jobs and wanting to push for renewables resulted in Labors "Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan" https://www.energyandclimate.qld.gov.au/energy/energy-jobs-plan as a way to push renewables and get rural people jobs at the same time, the "Queensland super grid" as you can see goes quite far out into regional areas: https://www.hpw.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/49241/rez-roadmap-a3-poster.pdf

Despite this there are some downfalls with renewables and it impacts SA heavily, without grid firming you have far more volatile electricity prices

South Australia price spikes in Q3 2024

In addition to the NEM-wide volatility events discussed in the previous section, South Australia experienced more extended periods of price volatility resulting in a regional cap return of $77/MWh, well above other regions and contributing 49% of the total NEM cap return. These events were driven by a combination of factors including cold evenings, low wind conditions, and network outages limiting Heywood interconnector flows or constraining some generators in the region at times.

This seems like a constant SA experience compared to other states which is probably why your batteries made the most money arbitraging it:

While all regions experienced growth in energy arbitrage revenue, Victoria and South Australia stood out, with energy arbitrage revenue for Victorian batteries increasing by $13.9 million (+175%) and for South Australia by $18.0 million (+319% ).

https://aemo.com.au/-/media/files/major-publications/qed/2024/qed-q3-2024.pdf?la=en&hash=290E7B2A8048EED183DC7937851379BF

QLD isn't exactly sitting back doing nothing, we have a large amount of grid firming going in:

Proposal to develop a pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) project to supply up to 2,000 MW electricity for up to 24 hours (resulting in a storage capacity of 48,000 MWh)

https://www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/coordinator-general/assessments-and-approvals/coordinated-projects/current-projects/borumba-pumped-hydro-energy-storage-project

Development of a pumped hydropower energy storage project in the Southern Queensland renewable energy zone with the capacity to generate up to 400 megawatts (MW) of continuous electricity for 10 hours per day, and a battery energy storage system with a capacity of 200 megawatt hours (MWh)

https://www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/coordinator-general/assessments-and-approvals/coordinated-projects/current-projects/big-t-pumped-hydropower-energy-storage-project

Pumped hydroelectric energy storage (PHES) and transmission project with a stored capacity of up to 750 megawatts for approximately 16 hours for a 24 hour period.

https://www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/coordinator-general/assessments-and-approvals/coordinated-projects/current-projects/capricornia-pumped-hydro-electric-energy-storage-and-transmission-project

Converting the Mt Rawdon gold operation into a sustainable low cost, large scale pumped hydro power station

https://mtrawdonhydro.com.au/

We're a bit lucky in that thanks to SA we have been able to see that going all out on wind farms and solar isn't a winner, you need grid firming batteries just as much as you need electricity generation.

I have to say it's very odd that despite SA having constantly much higher price volatility and the need to smooth it with firming the Labor government dropped the battery rebate?

Industry stunned as SA Labor dumps home battery subsidy and solar switch program

https://onestepoffthegrid.com.au/industry-stunned-as-sa-labor-dumps-home-battery-subsidy-and-solar-switch-program/

Still very confused about that one, what better way to help people in SA pay less for power and assist the grid than with home batteries?

Despite all the headwinds and with the "economies of scale" we obviously have more solar installed than SA:

New South Wales and Queensland continue to lead the way in rooftop solar capacity and installations. New South Wales, with a capacity of 6.232 GW, holds the top spot, closely followed by Queensland with 6.082 GW. In terms of installations, Queensland leads the nation with a total of 1,015,589, while New South Wales follows closely with 963,524 units.

https://www.energycouncil.com.au/media/fydjqofh/australian-energy-council-solar-report-q12024.pdf

And of course I can't help but boast:

Data from the Clean Energy Regulator shows Queensland has hit a huge milestone in 2023 – hitting one million rooftop solar installations since records began, beating out every other state in the country.

Stephanie Gray, from the Queensland Conservation Council, says that this is a testament to smart government rebates to drive down the price of the technology.

“Rooftop solar plays a very important role in Queensland’s energy mix now with an impressive 5.9 GW of installed capacity – that’s three and a half times the capacity of Queensland’s largest coal-fired power station,” she said.

“Solar in Australia is a success story that demonstrates the power that governments have to make clean technology more accessible to all.”

https://reneweconomy.com.au/sunshine-state-milestone-as-queenslanders-install-one-million-solar-rooftops/ https://www.queenslandconservation.org.au/qld_reaches_solar_milestone

I know it's real easy and cool to be a doomer but we have been making progress, we just have to hope labor gets back in 2028 to keep making progress