A new tidal power project in WA's Kimberley region (something which has been on the cards for many years) has received approval from the WA environment minister (taking the lead in the race to develop the first tidal power plant in Australia's north).

The project is being proposed by Tidal Energy Australia (TEA), who also seem to have taken ownership of Lloyd Energy's graphite energy storage technology. The project will be located at Doctor's Creek near Derby. TEA are also proposing a tidal power project for the lower Ord river.

The proposed plant will have a capacity of 40 MW - the main obstacle to it actually being built seems to be a dependency on the negotiation of a contract for the construction of power lines to major towns in the West Kimberley. TEA says the project (the design and costing was completed in 2003) is awaiting “a suitable offtake contract” before it can go ahead. Woodside's proposed Browse LNG project James Price Point was originally considered to be the likely customer, however with that project being shelved the company is hoping one of the local diamond or zinc mines will fill that role.

The cost is being speculated to be in the $250-$300/MWh range – not be much of a discount from diesel. RenewEconomy suggests the project would require the support of funding from ARENA or the CEFC. There are no details on which tidal technology would be favoured.

The SMH reports the Reindeer gas field and Devils Creek processing plant projects in WA may go ahead after all - Apache, Santos to revive WA gas project.

Apache Corporation and Santos are seeking to revive a $900 million natural gas project in Western Australia after signing an accord to sell the fuel to an iron ore venture proposed by Citic Pacific.

The restart of work on the project, involving the development of the Reindeer gas field and the onshore Devil Creek processing plant, depends on signing contracts for engineering and construction by mid-March, Houston-based Apache said in a statement yesterday. Previous contracts worth $390 million with Clough Ltd. were scrapped last month after the project was halted.

Citic Pacific said yesterday a unit had signed an agreement to buy gas from the Reindeer project for seven years starting in the second half of 2011. The contract is worth $US1.3 billion, assuming an oil price of $US50 a barrel, it said. The value of Australian mining and energy projects fell 4% in November from April as the economic outlook worsened, the government's commodities forecaster said.

ZDNet has a report on a fairly crude form of demand management being trailed in WA, with local utility Western Power remotely turning off the compressors in customer's air conditioning systems during periods of peak demand - WA utility takes remote control of customers' aircon.

I'd prefer in-house systems that are fed with grid demand and (dynamic) price information that can be configured to make these sorts of decisions on based on the customer's own preferences, but I guess this sort of experiment is a start.

Western Australian energy company Western Power has reduced peak power energy use by 27 percent, or 3.5kW per home, by remotely switching off the compressors in trial customers' air conditioning units for a few minutes. "This is the equivalent of using four microwaves or two pool pumps. It is a substantial saving," WA Energy Minister Francis Logan said in a statement.

The figure was achieved in a trial run conducted with over 400 participants from Nedlands, Claremont and Dalkeith who volunteered to participate in a trial from January to March this year.

Equipment was installed at the substation and also on individual air conditioners. When a signal was sent down the electricity lines from the substation, the device on the air conditioner turns off its compressor, but not the fan, allowing air to still circulate but without creating any more cool air.

The compressor was turned off at peak periods for seven to 15 minutes. The compressors were turned off six times during the trial period, with devices varied so not all compressors were shut off at the same time. Western Power staff manually activated the devices when the temperature went over 36 degrees in the peak electricity usage times, betwen 3pm and 5pm in the afternoon.

According to a survey the company carried out after the pilot, many users didn't even notice the compressor being turned off. The next step, according to the Western Power spokesperson, is more trials.

According to Western Power, peak energy use in Western Australia is driven by air conditioners, with 90 percent of Western Australians owning a unit. Of these, one-third have more than one air conditioning unit in their home. ...

With reductions in peak power consumption, Western Power can delay on building new infrastructure in the short term, the Western Power spokesperson said.

The ABC reports that the WA state government is getting enthusiastic about hot rock geothermal power.

Exploration for geothermal energy may begin in Western Australia by the end of the year. The Government has received 64 expressions of interest since it earmarked land for exploration, including land in Pinjarra, Dunsborough and Kwinana.

Geothermal energy is sourced by drilling into the Earth's crust, and the steam that is produced can provide base load power.

Premier Alan Carpenter says the state is well-placed to exploit the hot rock technology. "Our geothermal energy sources in Western Australia are close to population centres, whereas in other parts of Australia they tend to be very remote and they make scale a problem," he said. "We can have potentially smaller scale geothermal energy production here and it will be economic."

Mr Carpenter's research fellow Professor Klaus Regenauer-Lieb says the potential of the clean energy is huge. "Because we have the heat right where the people are living," he said. "We can use the heat directly to heat, to chill, to do the air conditioning for the city of Perth. And another technology that we think is very interesting is actually heat driven, heat driven geothermal desalination."