Author Archive: roman

South Australia – the state that has become the punching bag for anti-renewable rhetoric, and the basis of the Coalition government’s National Energy Guarantee – is likely to source the equivalent of  100 per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2025.

That, at least, is the assessment of the Australian Energy Market Operator, which makes this prediction as part of its Integrated System Plan, its 20-year blueprint for the integration of renewables into Australia’s electricity grid.

The prediction contrasts dramatically with the modelling prepared for the NEG by the Energy Security Board, of which AEMO is a member.

The ESB modelling suggests that South Australia will reach 75 per cent renewables by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2022 – and then it somehow imagines the state installing not a single added megawatt of large scale solar or large scale wind until after 2030.
— from reneweconomy.com, 17 Sept,  “South Australia will be at 100% renewables by 2025 – market operator” by Giles Parkinson
Read the article for more about the Integrated System Plan which the COAG state energy ministers are keen to implement.

A growing number of Australians are concerned about the impact of climate change, and more than half of a survey of 1,756 voters believe the Morrison government needs to stay in the Paris agreement, despite Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US.

A study tracking voter sentiment for more than a decade, funded first by the Climate Institute and now by the Australia Institute, finds 73% (up from 66% in 2017) of respondents concerned about climate change, and a clear majority, 68%, believes the government should set domestic targets to comply with our Paris commitments.

An increased 67% want coal-fired power to be phased out within 20 years, up from 61% in 2017.

The findings suggest the Morrison government is politically vulnerable on climate change at the next federal election. The prime minister has declared Australia will not pull out of Paris but also abandoned the national energy guarantee that imposed an emissions reduction target on the electricity sector.
— from The Guardian, 17 Sept, “Climate poll shows Morrison politically vulnerable as more voters back action”