Renewable energy cutting emissions at a cost to users

Extinction rebels and others whingeing that Australia is not doing its fair share to cut greenhouse gas emissions need a reality check. New research from the Australian National University shows emissions could fall from next year following a boom in renewable power investment. Australia is on track, between last year and next year, to invest in wind and solar power three times faster per capita than Germany, four to five times faster than China, the EU, Japan and the US, and 10 times faster than the global average. The researchers expect emissions to fall by 3 to 4 per cent from next year to 2022.

Environmentalists should be cautious, however, before proclaiming the imminent demise of fossil fuels. Sustaining the fall in emissions would require billions of dollars more to be spent on behalf of taxpayers on energy storage and transmission, Graham Lloyd writes on Thursday. The additional costs would add about $5 a megawatt hour to the cost of power in the national market when there was 50 per cent renewable energy in the system. That would soar to an additional $25/MWh at 100 per cent renewables — on top of at least $50/MWh for generating renewable power, which is heavily subsidised. Conversion of the entire system to renewables would reduce emissions by 33 per cent, the ANU researchers calculated. But without more government spending on storage and transmission, they warn, investment in renewables may slow down, causing emissions to start rising.

While admitting the transition to renewables would not be “without headaches’’, the ANU’s work, which envisages “straightforward solutions to the teething problems of technical change in the energy industry”, is a potential road map towards a long-term transition that could provide reliable, affordable renewable power to domestic and commercial users.

The size of the challenge may have been underestimated by the ANU researchers, however. Other reports have made clear that making the switch becomes progressively more difficult as the percentage of renewable energy in the system increases. Large-scale storage has yet to show that it is both achievable and economically feasible.

While the Morrison government is committed to meeting Australia’s Paris target — to cut greenhouse emissions by 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030 — affordable, reliable power must remain its main energy policy goal. Some states and the opposition are also starting to show a welcome pragmatism. Anthony Albanese and opposition climate spokesman Mark Butler have not ruled out scrapping Bill Shorten’s 45 per cent emissions reduction target, although Mr Butler has rejected frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon’s call to adopt the government’s target, also favoured by the Australian Workers Union. NSW is legislating to stop international emissions being used as a reason to block new mines being approved. That sensible move follows the NSW Land and Environment Court’s rejection of the Rocky Hill coking coal mine, citing “dire consequences” on global pollution. And while Queensland is still refusing to release consultants’ reports on “overseas scope 3 emissions” levels being linked to approvals of resource projects, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says such legislation is not being considered. Nor should it be. Australians’ jobs and quality of life depend on rational energy policies that provide affordable, reliable power, regardless of the source.