Power demand trips green targets
SURGING national demand for electricity - requiring new generators worth $35 billion - is casting doubt over South Australia's ability to meet bold greenhouse gas reduction targets.Electricity generators have warned Premier Mike Rann's Climate Change Team that plans to cut emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 will threaten electricity supplies and drive up prices for the state's consumers.
The Energy Supply Association of Australia, which represents coal, gas, wind and solar generators, predicts national electricity demand will grow by more than 65 per cent by 2030.
This will require generators producing an extra 30,000mW, which are likely to cost $35 billion - even without emissions controls or increased renewable energy targets adding to this cost.
An ESAA study to be released early next year finds that cutting greenhouse emissions by 30 per cent from 2000 levels by 2030 would add another $35 billion to $40 billion to this cost.
Alternative energy such as wind and solar alone cannot produce enough electricity to meet the rising demand, generators and planning authorities argue, meaning that more greenhouse gas-emitting coal or gas-fired power plants will be needed in the national electricity market.
"(This) will ... put investment in much-needed infrastructure at risk, while failing to deliver meaningful emissions reduction," Mr Page says. "...South Australia has chosen to implement the most aggressive emissions reduction target to date of any jurisdiction, without any meaningful indication of how such deep cuts are likely to be achieved." The ESAA yesterday told The Advertiser it retained the concerns expressed in Mr Page's letter. Mr Rann on December 6 introduced to parliament "the most advanced climate change legislation in the Southern Hemisphere", which would cut greenhouse gas emissions in the state by at least 60 per cent of 1990 levels by the end of 2050. The Climate Change and Greenhouse Emissions Reductions Bill's other two targets are to increase renewable energy generation and renewable energy use to at least 20 per cent of the state's total by 2015. "It is crucial that what we do as a State to reduce greenhouse emissions goes hand in hand with economic development and community well-being," Mr Rann said when introducing the legislation. "To help ensure this, the legislation also sets up the Premier's Climate Change Council to provide Government with an independent stream of advice on the impact of climate change." The Electricity Supply Industry Planning Council's annual assessment of the state's power system warns it is uncertain whether there will be enough supply in the national market to meet peak demands "beyond the 2007-08 summer". In SA, this peak demand - usually on a hot summer day with widespread airconditioner use - is expected to grow by 1.7 per cent annually, or 60mW per year, during the next decade. Planning Council chief executive officer David Swift said SA's next major conventional electricity plant was likely to be gas-fired, because of plentiful gas for the next 60 years.