Kangaroo Island
At the same time Kangaroo Island Council is
aiming at 100% renewable energy by developing wind, solar and battery
storage.
Kangaroo Island
also is aiming at catering for electric cars.
Six electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, largely solar powered, were
installed in 2013.
EVs are available for hire on the island.
South Australia
The
South Australian state
government had a target of 33% renewable
power by 2020; this was achieved in 2013-14 and was replaced by a new
target of 50% by 2025.
SA update, July 2018
South Australia achieved the 50% renewable energy target seven years early, around 2017.
In early 2018 the Labor government was replaced by a Liberal government.
Surprisingly the new state government seems to have accepted that South Australia's future is with renewable energy; the new state Energy Minister, Dan van Holst Pellekaan,
said in July 2018 that the state was on track to have 75% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025.
The ACT
The Australian Capital Territory has secured the renewable energy
contracts it needs to achieve its aim of
100% clean power by 2020.
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| Graph source: CEDEX Report
| |
The Liberals
Then there is the
Liberal-National
Coalition federal government whose idea of energy innovation is trying to get a little more life out of the dead horse that is the
coal industry, at the
same time seeming to do all they can to
condemn the world to acidification of the oceans and climate catastrophe.
In mid 2016 the South Australian Liberal opposition (and the Murdoch media) were blaming the high wholesale electricity prices on the state's wind and solar power, ignoring what experts were saying about exceptionally high spot prices in all eastern states (graph on the right) and the causes of high electricity prices in South Australia being high gas prices (gas was used to generate the state's non-renewable power) and delays in upgrading an interstate electricity connector due to weather.
The CEDEX Report July 2016 contained the graph shown on the right.
It shows that SA's spot prices are very similar to those of other eastern
Australian states.
BHP Billiton
Mining giant BHP Billiton owns the copper and gold mine at Olympic Dam in
South Australia's far north that has been operating since 1987 and has
taken power from the eastern Australian power grid continually since that
time.
The mine is a major consumer of power and is located in an area that has
the best solar power potential of anywhere in Australia connected to the
grid by a high-capacity power line.
So what has BHP done about harnessing the huge potential of solar power at
Olympic Dam? Nothing at all.
In July 2016 they were complaining about the high cost of grid electricity.
Of course they need lots of power around the clock, not just during daylight
hours, so a solar thermal power station with storage would be ideal.
If BHP was innovative they could use the mined out parts of their Olympic
Dam mine for the development of a
pumped-hydro system to store energy.
BHP Billiton is a
major miner of metallurgical and thermal coal, perhaps this makes
them blind to the possibilities of renewable energy.
Come on BHP, see if you can join the progressive part of the world and kick
the fossil fuel habit.