Latest news with #AustralianEnergyCouncil
The Australian
26-05-2025
- Business
- The Australian
Future of power uncertain and expensive
The Energy Market Regulator on Monday confirmed that households will pay up to an additional $280 a year for electricity. The increase is because of higher prices in the wholesale market caused by lower-than-expected supplies of renewable energy and less reliability from a rapidly deteriorating coal-power fleet. Households in NSW face the steepest increase, up to $280, while Queensland household electricity bills are projected to increase by as much as $77 and South Australia as much as $71. Australian Energy Council chief executive Louisa Kinnear says price pressures will continue as a result of the energy transition, with the costs of the poles and wires as well as retail costs all contributing to price rises. This follows confirmation by the Australian Energy Market Operator last week that the cost of building transmission lines had gone up by up to 55 per cent. As a result, AEMO says it will investigate whether planned transmission projects that have not been committed are still financially worthwhile. More attention will now be paid to how to use spare capacity from household rooftop solar systems and batteries, otherwise known as Consumer Energy Resources. AEMO admits it is a big challenge. While AEMO's 2024 system plan had a focus on five national market regions with about 300 bulk supply points, the 2026 system plan will for the first time consider low-voltage networks. This will involve more than 500,000 low-voltage transformer sites and the CER connected to more than nine million customers. The feedback from power utilities has been informative. In April, Transgrid said assumptions that Virtual Power Plants will experience the same level of availability and flexibility to respond to market conditions as an equivalently sized utility-scale battery energy storage system are not reasonable. Households were unlikely to accept that their assets may be accessed frequently and run very hard because household solar and batteries are primarily investments intended to provide utility and value to consumers rather than the market, Transgrid said. In March, Queensland power utilities Ergon Energy and Energex gave a similar warning. 'We are cautious of the approach to model customer behaviour based on economically rational models, as we consider most CER investments do not conform to these modelling outcomes,' the utilities said. 'For example, based on our anecdotal experience, AEMO's assumptions regarding the level of battery energy storage systems uptake supported by Virtual Power Plants may be overstated.' In short, the costs of intermittent generation and distribution are rising. The reliability of coal is declining. The costs of transmission lines risk becoming uneconomic. The industry is grappling with its social licence in rural and remote areas. The alternative of taking power from rooftop solar and batteries fits with government plans – and industry hopes – for new household subsidies but has many challenges that are known and many yet to be discovered. The future is higher costs and less certainty. Graham Lloyd Environment Editor Graham Lloyd has worked nationally and internationally for The Australian newspaper for more than 20 years. He has held various senior roles including night editor, environment editor, foreign correspondent, feature writer, chief editorial writer, bureau chief and deputy business editor. Graham has published a book on Australia's most extraordinary wild places and travelled extensively through Mexico, South America and South East Asia. He writes on energy and environmental politics and is a regular commentator on Sky News.
ABC News
25-05-2025
- Business
- ABC News
Central Queensland town at centre of 'battery boom' pushes for more input
Nestled among dry rainforest at the base of a mountain range in Central Queensland, a small country town is fighting what it sees as a battle threatening to transform its rural tranquillity: a national battery boom. Five companies are planning to build or expand large-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) in Bouldercombe, or nearby. Mikaela Humble lives in the town of about 1,000 people and is among a group of residents fighting to be part of the planning processes for the facilities. "Some of these developers have been working on these projects for years … they do all their studies and then they present it to the community [at the end] … it's about giving us a voice." The companies are coming to Bouldercombe in large part thanks to a local substation, connected to the power grid. The battery systems work by storing excess generated energy, so that it can be dispatched at other times when the grid needs it. According to the Australian Energy Council's CEO Louisa Kinnear, there is currently a "battery boom", with demand set to increase as the country transitions away from ageing coal-fired power stations. "They provide very rapid and flexible responses to maintain grid stability and that becomes really important in a high renewables grid," Ms Kinnear said. She said combining current and committed projects, the country was looking at a guaranteed battery storage of about 8 to 10 gigawatts in the near future. However, she estimated the country would need 56 gigawatts of battery storage by 2050, though about 30–35 of those gigawatts may come from anticipated home battery systems. She agreed community needed to be involved, especially in locations where multiple projects were being considered. According to Ms Humble, key concerns with the projects were about increased road use and noise, as well as fire risk, following a blaze at a local existing BESS in 2023. She argued the projects could be built in designated industrial areas, separate to rural zoning regions, further from the substation. For the businesses, the closer they are to a sub-station, the cheaper they are to build and operate. Ms Humble said the community had petitioned the Rockhampton Regional Council to request a Temporary Local Planning Instrument (TLPI) from the state's Minister for Planning Jarrod Bleijie, so he could intervene on projects if needed. Last year the council did not approve a development application put forward by ACEnergy for a BESS in Bouldercombe on the grounds it went against the rural zone code, as well as concerns about end-of-life plans and bushfire management. More than 300 public submissions were received on the project, almost all against it. The company is going through court to appeal the decision and said it was also participating in mediation with the council and community representatives. In addition to the ACEnergy proposal, companies Potentia and Silo Energy have also lodged development applications through the council for Bouldercombe and Gracemere, respectively. Both said they would work with the community to address any concerns. Company Genex has a BESS connected to the local substation, but its original development approval included a stage-two expansion, with construction expected to start in 2027 at the earliest. Genex said it too would engage with the community on the expansion and had put up sound-absorbing "sonic curtains" around the current batteries in a bid to reduce noise. It had also installed lighting deflectors and tree screening. Australian Renewable Energy Services (ARES) plans to lodge its development application for a Bouldercombe BESS next year. Managing director Sigi Psutka-Jones said the company was consulting neighbours, and would hold public community consultation sessions this year. In the meantime, despite most of the projects only at the proposal stage, Bouldercombe residents say they are already feeling an impact. "[These projects] really do fracture community groups and friendships," Ms Humble said.
