The City of Sydney has made headlines by announcing that "it now runs on 100% renewable energy". It has achieved this through a $60 million purchase of the electricity generated by two solar farms and a wind farm located hundreds of kilometers away. Physically, Sydney is still plugged into the New South Wales electricity grid that is over 80% generated by coal, gas and oil. Adelaide and Canberra have entered [...]
The Tasmanian Renewable Hydrogen Industry Development Funding Program is due to close on the 18th of August, 2020. Applicants are invited to submit expressions of interest for projects and feasibility studies related to renewable hydrogen production, storage, distribution, export and domestic use within Tasmania. Burnie has been identified as a potential hydrogen production hub. #cradlecoastgoodenergy #hereforgood The Tasmanian funding program compliments the $70 million national ARENA hydrogen funding program, which [...]
Imagine a place where there was enough funding for all essential services. Where increasing funding to one essential area, such as health, did not require reducing spending elsewhere, such as education. Where helping individuals and businesses recover from major setbacks did not require taking on even more debt. Where each year, as the budget has to stretch a little further, we did not all have to make do with a [...]
Tasmania's reliable hydro electricity generation already plays a key role in supporting supply and price stability in the National Electricity Market (NEM). Major events, such as the widespread bushfires earlier this year, result in the national transmission system being placed under immense stress. TransGrid's (NSW) Transmission Annual Planning Report highlights the growing need for significant transmission and interconnection upgrades to ensure widespread renewable energy generation can replace upcoming coal fired [...]
The last few months have shown that the foundations currently being laid to guide the growth of the renewable energy industry in the Cradle Coast will ensure its resilience and sustainability into the future. On the ground, construction has been continuing at Granville Harbour Wind Farm on the West Coast, while applications and approvals have been progressing for the Jim’s Plain and Robbins Island Renewable Energy Parks in Circular Head. [...]
A lot of the discussion around the "uncertainty" of Australia's future energy needs stems from the uncertainty and complexity of its transition from coal fired power stations to renewable energy. So far, major price and supply disruptions have mostly been avoided while over 80% of Australia's electricity is still generated by synchronous, dispatchable fossil fuels (60% coal, 19% gas, 2% oil in 2018). Currently, variable solar and wind is effectively [...]
The recent interruptions to businesses around the world and resulting supply impacts have brought the subject of supply chain sustainability and the risks of relying on a narrow customer base into focus. Can Marinus Link play a role in increasing the resilience of Tasmania's electricity supply? Although Tasmania has tens of thousands of commercial and hundreds of thousands of residential electricity customers, over 60% of the electricity consumed in Tasmania [...]
Today, the Prime Minister has announced that Marinus Link is one of 15 major national infrastructure projects that will be fast-tracked to speed up the approval process, under a bilateral model between the federal government and the states. Marinus Link, together with Battery of the Nation, were recently identified as “Regionally Important Projects” by the Cradle Coast Authority. For our region, these projects will stimulate economic activity and investment that [...]
Wind grade is calculated by the average annual wind speed, but just like sunshine (there are more hours of sunshine during summer than winter), wind is usually seasonal too. While we have "A Grade" wind here on the Cradle Coast, seasonality is also critical as an increasing proportion of electricity nationally is generated by variable wind and solar. There needs to continually be enough generation to meet demand all day [...]
The Clean Energy Council has released its "Clean Energy at Work" report, the largest study of current and projected employment in the renewable energy industry in Australia. It predicts that around 70 per cent of renewable energy job opportunities to 2035 could be distributed across regional and rural Australia. #cradlecoastgoodenergy #hereforgood Growing renewable energy generation such as wind, pumped hydro, hydrogen and solar will be more dispersed across regional Australia [...]