What are the most effective and timely pathways to
Zero Emissions?
Most of the systemic actions that can be taken to reduce emissions have a significant lead time.
For example, changing the building code today will only affect new buildings. It will take decades before enough new buildings come on line to make a difference.
The chart below shows notional lead times for actions taken in year one.
There are of course other things we could do to reduce our CO2 footprint.
Common Features:
Australia is a world leader in renewable energy generation from rooftop solar systems, allied to larger-scale solar and wind farms. However, renewable generation is variable and intermittent and the increasing levels are resulting in difficulties for a grid system that was designed for one-way flow from large fossil-fuel power stations, not multiple two-way flows.
These issues are driving energy storage in batteries, hydroelectric and other systems, which allow renewable energy to become dispatchable on demand as well as being widely distributed. Specifically, renewable energy surplus to demand (like in the middle of sunny days) can be stored and then used at peak demand periods.
Australia is thus also becoming a leader in battery storage at both residential and utility-scale. While solar (and wind) generation have matured, battery technologies have significant cost reductions still ahead. Residential batteries remain uneconomic, even with the subsidies available in some states. Cost-benefit arguments can be particularly misleading in not comparing with the solar systems by themselves; these receive export credits that would be partially foregone by storage in a battery.
Nevertheless, the issues of matching supply and demand and of maintaining the stability of the transmission and distribution networks are critical to avoiding curtailment, export limits, and even barriers to grid connection for existing and future renewable generation.
Our two projects address these issues through economies of scale in solar + battery storage:
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at the solar and wind farm level where utility size batteries are becoming a key element in enabling these generators to guarantee 100% renewable power contracts and
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at the local community (residential, commercial, industrial) level
For community groups, shared renewable energy generation, storage and use has parallels in the broader sharing economy, seen in car-sharing, Airbnb and peer-to-peer mortgages and energy trading. One can also achieve energy equity with shared storage, by allowing a broader range of customers to access renewable energy e.g. those renting, apartment dwellers, or without the capital to invest even in residential solar without batteries.
