Clean energy
Published in July 3, 2020 |
by Steve Hanley
July 3, 2020 by Steve Hanley
Starting July 1, Sydney, Australia’s largest city, will power all of its operations (lampposts, sports facilities, buildings and the historic City Hall) with 100% renewable energy from local sources. The transition to clean energy, made possible by a power purchase agreement drawn up by Flow Power, is valued at $ 60 million and is projected to save the city more than half a million dollars on its electricity bills each year during the next 10 years.
Sydney began working to reduce its carbon footprint in 2016 when it adopted a plan to reduce its carbon emissions by 70% by 2030. The city estimates that this latest power purchase agreement will help it achieve that goal 6 years before as planned. She also worked hard to ensure that the renewable energy sources she uses are all local to the area, providing opportunities for economic development and job growth for people living in the surrounding communities.
Two solar farms and a wind farm
The PPA will use electricity from three sources: 2 solar parks and a wind farm. Three-quarters will be provided by the Sapphire wind farm near Inverell. It is the largest wind farm in New South Wales with a capacity of 270 MW generated by 75 200 meter high turbines. The reason wind is such an important part of the package is that most of the electricity the city consumes is used to power its 23,000 street lights. Sydney has converted approximately 6,000 of them to LEDs recently and has plans to convert another 12,000 soon.
“The process of buying power from a generator when its production matches its demand is known as load matching. For example, if you use most of your electricity at night, like us, you choose to buy more wind power than solar. It is not just a good financial idea: if all the big energy buyers practiced load adjustment, our electricity grid would become much more stable and sustainable, ”says the city.
Although the wind blows at night when the city uses most of its electricity, Sydney also gets renewable energy from two solar farms, one of which is a 3MW community solar installation. The Shoalhaven project is being developed by Flow Power in association with the local community group Repower Shoalhaven, a voluntary non-profit community business that develops community solar projects.
“When we decided to pursue a 100% renewable electricity deal, we knew we also wanted to help grow the renewable energy sector in New South Wales. We didn’t want to just buy renewable electricity that was already being produced. So we worked with our broker to make sure we were supporting new projects, “says the city.
“We ended up partnering with a community energy group that needed help to launch a project. Repower Shoalhaven could not have been operational without our investment. By partnering with this project, we are stimulating the market and helping the renewable energy sector to grow. ”
Sydney goes solar
Sydney has also installed solar panels on various municipal buildings. “By mid-2021, we expect to have more than 7,800 solar panels on the roofs of our properties. As the combination of storage and generation on our power grid changes, solar solutions like this could provide reliability and resilience to our power grid and potentially prevent blackouts, ”says Mayor Clover Moore. The city has installed a 500 kWh battery storage facility supplied by Tesla to help use that solar energy as efficiently as possible.
While not as large as the Tesla battery located at the Hornsdale facility in South Australia, along with all the solar panels the city is installing, it helped prevent the construction of a natural gas plant in the area that would have thrown carbon emissions into the air for its entire lifespan of over 40 years.
Looking to the future
In its online announcement about the new power purchase agreement, the city says:
“Our new agreement begins on July 1, but we are already looking to the future and how our electricity use could evolve in the coming years. As more Australian individuals and organizations generate power themselves using rooftop solar power, opportunities will increase for a 2-way system that involves power users buying and selling electricity. Many homes in the Sydney city area already sell their excess solar energy to the grid.
“There is also the practice known as demand response. This is when consumers choose not to use electricity in times of high demand in exchange for lower rates or some other form of reward. The NSW electricity market is moving towards a demand response model and we will be at the forefront. That is why we have included demand response provisions in our current power purchase agreement. “
The Australian national government may refuse to tackle climate change and stick its head in the sand when it comes to renewables, despite evidence that investing in renewables creates three times more jobs than investing in fossil fuels, but local communities and state governments are challenging renewable energy. chosen idiots and charting their own course towards a sustainable future.
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About the Author
Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his homes in Florida and Connecticut or anywhere else Singularity can take him. You can follow him on Twitter but not on any social media platform run by evil lords like Facebook.
