Transgrid wants renewables developers to accelerate clean energy generation
Transgrid says developers must fast-track a pipeline of renewables after data showed a new quarterly low for bringing on clean energy capacity.
NSW power grid owner Transgrid has urged renewables developers to accelerate clean energy generation as figures show new capacity has sunk to its lowest quarterly level on record.
Transgrid, which has set out net zero emissions targets for the first time, said the industry could deliver on a $76bn target by 2030 to achieve the energy transition under Labor’s Powering Australia policy, but warned that investors needed to start committing funding to ensure enough generation was in place as coal exited.
“We don’t have time to waste but we still have time to do it,” Transgrid chief executive Brett Redman told The Australian. “We’re on the ground already building projects like EnergyConnect. So I believe that the transmission lines can and will be built in the time that they’re needed. If renewables developers have confidence in that, they’ll be able to plan themselves appropriately and get there too.”
Three times the current level of renewables is required by 2030, forecasts show, but the Clean Energy Council said just one project reached financial close in the September quarter, with commissioned capacity at its lowest level on record at just 127 megawatts.
“We need to see more projects coming more quickly through state planning systems, and policy settings that send consistent signals for ongoing investment,” Clean Energy Council chief executive Kane Thornton said.
“Reform of the energy market must continue apace to ensure stronger investment signals and certainty and avoid any reforms that might undermine investment confidence.”
Transgrid will on Friday release its first net zero targets after recently vowing to beat an official timeline for $10bn of transmission projects as it fast-tracks efforts to deliver renewables to the national electricity market.
The Sydney-based operator plans to cut 60 per cent of 2021-level Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030, and hit net zero by 2040.
It will target a 48 per cent reduction in Scope 3 emissions by 2030, compared with a base year of 2021, and net zero by 2050.
It described the net zero goals as ‘science-based targets’ in line with the Paris agreement, which aims to keep global temperature increases to 1.5C or well below 2C, compared to pre-industrial levels.
Delivering meaningful Scope 3 targets – the emissions of its customers – has been a vexed issue for big polluters as they try to determine how quickly a decarbonisation push works its way through different parts of the economy.
The Transgrid chief said it was a challenge. “Scope 3 is one of the harder things for us to focus on, because most of it is about the carbon that is in construction materials,” Mr Redman said.
“So when we’re building the big energy highways and the big new transmission lines, there’s a lot of steel and concrete. So what we’re doing is thinking about how can we source green steel and how can we work with other materials suppliers to make sure that as we’re doing these big builds, we can start to reduce carbon.”
Transgrid is developing three major transmission projects: EnergyConnect, which will move energy through NSW, South Australia and Victoria; the HumeLink connecting Snowy Hydro’s 2.0 hydro expansion to the network; and the southern transmission link to Melbourne, called VNI West, later this decade.
The transmission player is working on a plan to integrate the EnergyConnect, HumeLink and VNI West projects into a single program to save time and cut costs after recently completing a smaller upgrade of the Victoria-NSW interconnector VNI Minor.
Some 150 gigawatts of energy supplies, nearly triple the current generation and storage capacity of the Australian market, have been proposed by companies and investors by 2032, with large-scale solar and wind backed up by battery storage accounting for 88 per cent of the project pipeline.
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