100% renewable electricity in Australia

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100% renewable electricity in Australia

(Summarised by Gemini)

Main Points:
*Australia can switch to 100% renewable electricity using solar panels (PV) and wind turbines quickly and cheaply.

*Spreading these solar panels and wind turbines over large areas (10 to 100 million hectares) helps keep costs down.

*Storing extra energy with pumped hydropower is the most affordable option. There are plenty of suitable locations in Australia for this.

*The cost of switching to all renewable energy, including the cost of storing extra energy, is estimated to be around $70 per megawatt-hour (based on 2017 prices).


This exhaustive study:study looked at how Australia's electricity grid would function if it relied entirely on renewable energy sources. Solar and wind power would provide most of the electricity (around 90%), with existing hydropower and biomass filling the gaps.

The study avoided assuming any major technological breakthroughs and focused on using technologies already widely available, like solar panels and wind turbines.

To keep the grid stable, they found that Australia would need more ways to store energy and better connections between different regions.

Pumped hydro storage, where water is pumped uphill and then released to generate electricity, is the most common way to store large amounts of energy. This study found many suitable locations in Australia for building pumped hydro storage facilities.

Spreading solar panels and wind turbines over a large area (10 to 100 million hectares) helps because different areas have different weather patterns. This reduces the amount of energy storage needed and keeps costs lower.

The extra cost of balancing the supply and demand for electricity throughout the day (rather than just looking at yearly averages) is estimated to be relatively small, around $19 to $23 per megawatt-hour.

Considering the cost of everything needed for a 100% renewable system, the overall price per unit of electricity is estimated to be $70 per megawatt-hour (based on 2016 Australian prices). This cost is expected to go down even further as solar and wind technology keeps getting cheaper.

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