AEMO launches key energy planning reports - 18 Dec 2009
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has released two new energy planning reports, the 2009 National Transmission Statement (NTS) on the electricity transmission network, along with the first annual Gas Statement of Opportunities (GSOO) designed to help guide development of Australia’s electricity and gas networks as they prepare to address the challenges of a low carbon future.
It was found that the government’s enforceable renewable energy target and proposed emissions trading scheme could lead to a 450% increase in wind power in five years and a tenfold increase in gas power generation over two decades.
This gas and renewable generation would replace some emissions-intensive coal power generation, which would become unprofitable and shut down as a price was put on carbon and emissions trading started.
These changes will alter the generation mix and, as outlined in the NTS, will require upgrades and extensions to the national interconnected electricity grid. This will be required to connect new generation and assist in areas where there will be greater network congestion.
In the NTS report two scenarios have been looked at that include the effects of efforts to reduce the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions produced by electricity generation, as well as the impact of policies designed to achieve the Government’s renewable energy target.
Improvements include upgrading the existing interconnector between Queensland and New South Wales (QNI), extending the 500kV central NSW network, boosting exports from Victoria, and enhancing the capacity of the South Australian interconnector. The first three projects have all been shown to deliver sufficient potential benefits to justify further investigations, and the South Australian project will be analysed further over the next 12 months.
The industry estimates it spends about $1.2 billion a year in capital investments on transmission infrastructure, which carries electricity from power stations to big users and the networks of poles and wires that distribute it to households and business.
The report warns that investment plans for the grid could be plagued by uncertainty for the next 20 years because of extreme weather events related to climate change and uncertainty about the location of renewables such as wind, solar and geothermal.