El Nino summer poses risk to energy grid, says BoM chief Andrew Johnson

Bureau of Meteorology boss Andrew Johnson warns that a hot, dry summer will increase vulnerabilities in the nation’s energy grid.

Bureau of Meteorology chief executive Andrew Johnson has warned that a hot, dry El Nino summer will increase the bushfire risk. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Bureau of Meteorology chief executive Andrew Johnson has warned that the looming El Nino summer will present a challenge to the nation’s energy grid due to the “penetration of renewable ­energy”, with lower than average wind forecast for parts of the country.

Dr Johnson said the arrival of El Nino – a natural weather pattern associated with increased temperatures and low rainfall – would increase sunshine in some parts of the country and decrease wind levels in others impacting solar and wind generation.

The warning comes as Labor ramps up its natural disaster preparedness, with Jim Chalmers set to reveal in a speech at the National Drought Forum in Rockhampton on Tuesday that the Black Summer bushfires and October 2022 floods cost the economy $1.5bn each.

“The latest projections also show the significant impact that climate change could have on our regions,” the Treasurer will say in the speech.

“If further action isn’t taken, Australian crop yields could be 4 per cent lower by 2063, costing us about $1.8bn in GDP in today’s dollars.”

Emergency agencies, local government and industry leaders convened in Canberra on Monday for the nation’s first National Disaster Preparedness Summit, where Dr Johnson told about 250 stakeholders the challenges of managing a national energy grid will “go up another notch” this summer.

“So just in terms of critical infrastructure vulnerability in the summer ahead, we are going to face some challenges,” Dr Johnson said.

“The other thing I’d add is that probably since the last really hot summer, we’ve had a complete step-change in the penetration of renewable energy in our system.

“And so whilst in the summer ahead we are likely to see more sunshine, we are likely to see less wind in the same parts of the country where a lot of electricity generation and transmission ­occurs.

Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt says the Albanese government had already taken steps to improve disaster preparedness. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

“So this interplay between ­having more sun available for solar generation, these are big ­impacts on energy distribution systems which is going to be a tricky one for the electricity managers to manage over the summer ahead.”

Dr Johnson said the impact of the weather on power generation and distribution was so significant that meteorologists were embedded in the Australian Energy Market Operator, with the timing of the sea breeze in Sydney making the difference between “turning off a particular power station on that particular day, or using interconnectors between the states”.

“It’s a very complex job to maintain supply particularly with the penetration of renewable energy in the system at the moment,” he said.

“A former AEMO CEO once told me the history of this country is that our power grid has been run by fossil fuels, well the future of power in this country is weather, so the weather plays an absolutely vital role both on demand and supply side. There are risks every day that are all weather driven.”

Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood said that while extreme weather could have an impact on renewable energy generation, coal-fired power stations were also vulnerable during scorching temperatures.

“Instead of being dependent on a very large power station, as they can get into trouble in hot weather and they can be old and unreliable, having a more distributed power supply means you’ve got more flexibility,” he said.

“If you’ve got a transmission line down from the Latrobe Valley but if you’ve got renewables around you have in theory many more options.

“Because coal-fired power stations all require significant amounts of water for the cooling system … the more traditional sources of energy are not immune to the weather.”