Australia’s energy crisis has been ongoing since 2011, and it’s only getting worse. This cannot be blamed on the government or the energy companies in Australia. Instead, it’s symptomatic of some fundamental issues within the Australian economy and society that need to be addressed if we can solve this problem in the future.
Why is Australia in danger of an Energy Crisis?
With a population of 26,079,183, it’s hard to imagine how Australia can go through power quickly. One of their biggest problems is that they have very few domestic resources and depend on other countries for most of their energy.
With such a large population and little domestic resources, it’s no wonder they have a big carbon footprint. In 2014, they ranked 9th in global CO2 emissions per capita with an annual emission of 17 tonnes per person. It’s also estimated that each Australian citizen uses 12.7 tons of fossil fuels yearly to produce energy to meet their current needs.
Crises that Australia is facing
Summer is a dangerous season.
High temperatures are when there is the greatest need for power. High temperatures are when blackouts are most likely. Extreme weather events are also more likely to occur in summer. Air conditioners are everywhere, so there is such a high power demand.
According to one study, 75% of Australian homes had air conditioning units in 2015. This is compared with 33% in 1995. Because air conditioners are affected by the temperature, heatwaves can cause large spikes in electricity demand.
Victoria and South Australia are at the most significant risk for the next few seasons.
The Australian Energy Market Operator has warned South Australia and Victoria residents that there is a greater risk of power cuts shortly. This calls for a long-term solution and political will by the government. Individuals should make extra efforts to prevent these outages because of the delay in implementing political decisions. There will be a reversal in previous government decisions, leading to a new cycle.
Blackouts are very likely.
The AEMO predicts that Victoria’s more than a million homes will be without power this summer (2019-20) unless gas and coal plants are restored. In NSW, 770,000 homes will be affected by the closure of Liddell’s power plant. A backup generator is essential to protect your business and property from these outages.
The leading cause of these blackouts and outages is a massive increase in power consumption due to higher demand for air-conditioning and fridges during heatwaves. According to AEMO’s extreme scenario, if demand keeps rising over recent years, high-impact supply shortfalls could occur, particularly in Victoria and NSW.
The crisis will continue for at least ten years.
These problems are expected to continue for at least ten more years because no planned investment would alleviate them. This means Australia has been at high risk of experiencing power shortages for many years.
Labor Party’s “Powering Australia” plan involves $76 Billion of investment. It will increase renewable capacity to 82% by 2030 and develop a National Electric Vehicle Strategy to achieve 89% of new vehicle sales as electric vehicles by 2030.
But the Australian govt is taking too many actions to help people not suffer more.
Here’s how they’re dealing
Government rebates support the growth of solar generation.
The Renewable Energy Target (RET), a Federal Government policy, aims to reduce CO2 emissions in energy sectors. It encourages residents and businesses to produce energy from more sustainable and natural sources. This policy permits small-scale and large-scale stations to obtain certificates for each MWh of electricity generated.
As consumers have taken advantage of these incentives, they’ve begun to see solar as a more affordable and reliable power source than what’s offered by their local utility companies.
As part of its Renewable Energy Target, the Australian government subsidizes 35% of those costs. The government rebates support the growth of solar generation.
Australia has the highest solar radiation in the world.
The continent receives the most solar radiation per square meter. It averages 58 million PJ annually, ten times more than Australian energy consumption. This is an enormous asset in solar energy generation, especially for the implementation phase of renewable energy.
In addition, Australia has a large number of high-quality solar resources. More than 600 Australian cities and towns can use renewable energy for power generation. In most cases, installing additional infrastructure for storing electricity will not even be necessary. In many places, connecting existing wind and solar power plants directly to power grids is possible.
However, new technologies will become available to balance electricity supply and demand more precisely than conventional solutions such as pumped-storage hydroelectricity or gas-fired power plants.
Solar PV distribution changes by the state in Australia
Despite a focus on large-scale solar in state and federal government solar policy, distributed solar PV remains a significant part of overall PV installations. Solar rooftops make up 20.3% of Australia’s total, and their distribution is uneven across Australia.
- Northern Territory: 11k Installations with a capacity of 71MW
- New South Wales: 450k facilities with a capacity of 1.8 GW
- South Australia: 240k Installations with a capacity of 970MW
- Western Australia: 280k buildings with a 7.9 GW capacity
- Queensland: 592k installed with a capacity of 2.3 GW
- Victoria: Victoria has 372k installations and a 1.5 GW capacity
- Tasmania: 33k installation with a power of 132kW
Wrapping up
Solar panels can be an effective way to lower your electricity bill and help beat the crisis. The total solar capacity has expanded to a record 7,000 megawatts in 2018, which can power over 2 million homes. Going solar will help ease the strain on the grid while also boosting your return on investment as you’ll no longer have to buy expensive electricity from the grid.
So why not go solar today and save money while saving our planet? That’s what we call a win-win!
