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Old 09-18-2009, 01:48 AM
Sparty Sparty is offline
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Default Geothermal will provide Australia with cheaper Electricity

Those of you that have been following my posts will know that I believe that Solar and Wind are going to be very expensive and ultimately ineffective solutions for Australia's need for emssion free electricity. Germany has shown that wind power actually contributes to green house gas emissions and solar is just too expensive... witness the demise of the giant Mildura model.

Geothermal on the other hand can and will be able to provide emission free electricity. The mechanical / practical problems are rapidly being overcome and even though our Labor Govt. is playing games with funding Geothermal will be Australia's base load electricity supplier of choice. Or we will need to go Nuclear. I have no objection to Nuclear power stations as long as they are placed around Canberra and other un-productive regions. But I digress...

What set me off on this diatribe is the article abstracted below:

Early investment for geothermal will pay off: MMA report


Thu, September 17, 2009

Early investment in transmission infrastructure linking geothermal projects in the northern part of South Australia to the National Electricity Market (NEM) will result in lower electricity costs for consumers, according to a new report.

The report, completed by McLennan Magasanik Associates (MMA) for the Australian Geothermal Energy Association (AGEA), found that the benefits of bringing forward lower priced geothermal energy were estimated to be $860 million for South Australian customers and $2,800 million for customers across the Australian NEM.



The report states that these benefits will follow as a direct result of lower cost geothermal energy displacing higher cost forms of renewable energy. It showed that cost benefits substantially increase in the early years of the next decade if transmission investment is undertaken to link the geothermal resources to the NEM. The assessment was made for the period from 2011 to 2030.


The report assumes a lower renewable energy certificate (REC) shortfall penalty of $40/MWh which will now be $65/MWh under the recently passed Renewable Energy Target legislation, meaning the modelled benefits are considered conservative.


The report focused on the potential to connect a 275 kV double circuit line from Innamincka near Moomba via Olympic Dam to Davenport near Port Augusta – taking in the projects of Geodynamics in the Cooper Basin and Petratherm in the northern Flinders Ranges.



AGEA CEO Susan Jeanes said that the benefits would be produced by bringing cheaper geothermal energy into the market earlier.
“Importantly, the report looked at a comparison between the business-as-usual case and that of the bringing forward of transmission expenditure for low cost, base load geothermal energy, and it concluded that early transmission investment would produce the lowest cost solution for renewable energy,” said Ms Jeanes.


“This would place substantial downward pressure on electricity and REC prices in SA and across the NEM by displacing higher cost and intermittent forms of renewable generation such as wind.”


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