Directing Heat At The Right Target  

The continuing heatwave in Australia and latest round of bushfires and brownouts resulting from it have highlighted the fact that coal fired power has intermittency problems - Victorian Senator's heat directed at wrong target.

"Most of our power system performed very well under exceptional circumstances, but the large Loy Yang A coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley suffered unexpected outages for a long period of time as a result of the heat. No type of power plant can ever be 100 per cent reliable in extreme weather, but when a coal-fired plant suffers a fault the system loses a large amount of power. Wind farms and solar households are made up of thousands of independent generators, so a fault in one makes almost no difference.

“Without rooftop solar power and solar hot water acting to reduce the demand from large-scale power stations, it is very likely that Victoria would have set a new record for power use. And without the contribution from wind and solar energy, more homes may have had their power switched off over the last few days,” he said.

Mr Sonnreich said the Renewable Energy Target had been very successful at delivering large amounts of clean energy from solar power, solar hot water and bioenergy at low cost to consumers, while delivering billions of dollars of investment and tens of thousands of jobs in regional areas.