Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

South Australia’s iconic opal mining town of Coober Pedy has successfully – and finally – made the shift to clean energy, and is already achieving periods of 100 per cent renewables since the completion of its wind, solar, battery storage and diesel hybrid system last month.

Hydro Tasmania, which engineered and installed the hybrid renewables solution, said on Thursday that the project was performing slightly above expectations in its early weeks, contributing an average of 80 per cent renewables in October, and running the local grid entirely on renewable energy for more than half of that time.

The result notches up another win for Hydro Tasmania, whose busy Hybrid Energy Solutions team recently took Rottnest Island to 45 per cent renewables, with up to 90 per cent instantaneous renewable contribution achievable.

It has done the same for Flinders Island, where a hybrid energy hub will be switched on in December, with the aim of meeting at least 60 per cent the island’s 6.7 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of annual demand with renewables, and minimising the output of its 3MW diesel power station.

And, of course, it has done the same for the large King Island, where Hydro Tasmania’s prototype wind, solar and battery system – aimed at providing 65 per cent of the Bass Strait island’s energy needs from renewables – has regularly achieved 100 per cent renewables, on one occasion for 33 hours straight.

More than half of the European Union’s 619 coal-fired power stations are losing money, according to a new report. As a result, the industry’s slow plans for shutdowns will lead to €22bn in losses by 2030 if the EU fulfils its pledge to tackle climate change, the report warns.

“The changing economics of renewables, as well as air pollution policy and rising carbon prices, has put EU coal power in a death spiral,” said Matt Gray, co-author of the Carbon Tracker report. “Utilities can’t do much to stop this other than drop coal or lobby governments and hope they will bail them out.”

Gray said coal-fired electricity capacity could be replaced by cheaper renewables, with building new onshore wind and solar PV projects projected to be less expensive than operating existing coal plants by 2024 and 2027 respectively. “That is a striking finding, something that would be have been unimaginable five years ago,” he said. “The energy consumer deserves the lower cost options.”

The expected coal use across the globe in coming decades, particularly in Asia, has fallen sharply recently. In 2013, the International Energy Agency expected world-wide coal-burning to grow by 40% by 2040 – it now anticipates just 1% growth.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

UK government to release funding for mini nuclear power stations

Not sure how to call this. £100m isn't actually that much, so I suppose covering all bets is a good idea.

The problem though is that they hope to get them to commercial viability by 2030, and down to a cost of £60/MWh. But on-shore wind and PV are well below that today, and off-shore wind contracts for 2023 are approx £60/MWh and have already been issued. If storage is cheap by 2030, why fill it with nuclear leccy if RE leccy is cheaper.