Sustainable Energy Challenges
The present system in place for energy supply in South-West WA is based on the idea that supply must follow demand. As such, there is little emphasis on moderating user demand. This system works on the basis that our constant energy demand is met by baseload power supplies that are cheap but only when running continuously. To meet the peaks in our energy demand, massive amounts of costly infrastructure is needed for only occasional use, mainly in the summer when airconditioner use drives our energy consumption up dramatically for a few hours on very hot days.
Rethinking our Energy System
In order to moderate our energy use and allow for an influx of renewable energy technologies our energy system needs to be improved. Supply and demand must both be modulated to match each other, reducing waste and cost. This can be achieved by:
- Using a mixture of different renewable energy types that complement each other, thus improving the continuity of supply and making our energy supply more ‘dispatchable’ as needed.
- Implementing fully cost-reflective tariffs that provide incentives to use power during off-peak periods.
- Installing smart grids with two-way data communication to improve our understanding and control of the demand.
- Higher capacity transmision lines at the fringes of the grid to allow for two-way power flow, thus enabling our power generation to be decentralised.
- Implementing demand-side management (DSM) once the smart grid and remote controllable appliances are in place. This would allow supply and demand to be modulated (reduced or increased) to match each other as necessary by the system management, thereby levelling out the load to reduce peaks. Energy transmission efficiency improves when the load is more level and therefore high power efficiency losses are reduced. DSM also allows more energy to be transmitted without increasing transmission power infrastructure, thus reducing costs.
- Some energy storage can be used to both improve the consistency of renewable energy types and also distribute power when it is needed. Storage can be located on site at power plants, such as thermal and flywheel storage, in various locations as pumped hydro or integrated into a Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) system, whereby electric vehicle batteries can be used to store energy when not needed and redraw energy to meet a peak in demand.
