The Northern Territory is a test case for renewable energy and it’s a bonfire
In 2016, the new Labor Government waved a magic wand and commanded they would be 50% renewable by 2030.
The experts said it was doable and would save $30 million a year. They gave out the permits for large solar installations, which began construction in 2019, but then suddenly changed the rules in 2020, and wouldn’t let the solar plants connect to the main Darwin-Katherine grid. Unbelievably, 64 megawatts of solar panels that cost $40 million dollars have sat, doing nothing, for four long years.
“It’s just reflecting back into space, not being used to power the grid and to substitute for diesel and gas turbine production,” said local vet Peter Trembath, who leased his land to energy company Eni Australia for the solar project.
“It’ll be some technical issue, but you’d reckon they would have sorted that out before Eni spent $40 million to erect it.” — Max Rowley, ABC News June 2022
The reason they couldn’t be connected was that the Territory government suddenly rewrote the rules in February 2020 and insisted the solar generators had to operate like fully scheduled generators, not semi-scheduled ones. Cruelly, they would have to make accurate predictions of what they could supply 30 minutes ahead on a rolling 5 minute basis. This meant they would need their own battery backup with the equivalent of 80% of their capacity and storage that lasted 30 minutes. They’d also need “weather forecasting” ability to predict cloud cover.
The solar owners, Eni, protested that this would cost them $20 million (at least!) making the project unviable. And to make things even worse, the government was saying they had to build the battery at the solar plant, and reserve it to back up their own panels, so they wouldn’t be able to build the battery in Darwin, and use it to help the grid at other times, which would defray the costs. It all seems quite bizarre. (Who would want to run a business in the Northern Territory?)
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