Reach beyond and connect the world

Australia has always been a land of extremes and contradictions. It is both the world’s largest island and the smallest continental landmass. If you were to cross it on foot, you’d need anywhere between one to four years. But if you wanted to visit 90% of the people in the country, you would never wander further than 100km from the coast.

Talking about Australia requires a comfort with nuance and complexity, and that is especially true when looking at the country’s challenges for the nation’s energy transition. As the country sets ambitious goals to increase its renewable energy share, the focus intensifies on modernizing the grid infrastructure.

Driving a steady decline in fossil fuel generation

While Australia’s total electricity generation has more than doubled since 1985 to more than 273 terawatts in 2022, the share of renewables has also increased. In 2023, total renewables generation reached 35% of the electricity mix, consisting mainly of solar (15%), wind (12%) and hydropower (6%). The share of renewables is expected to reach 43% in 2026, surpassing coal for the first time and driving a steady decline in fossil fuel generation.

This is, of course, great for the country’s decarbonization goals of reducing emissions by 43% by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050. With an increase in renewables though, the grid will need more resilience. This applies both over longer periods, as electricity gained from renewables fluctuate and needs to be stored, but also in terms of seconds. ?

Power grids need to be able to recover fast from fluctuations. This is done traditionally by having large rotating pieces of equipment provide inertia to the grid. Synchronous condensers using flywheels and gas turbines, when replacing coal power plants, can provide this inertia while reducing carbon emissions. Other options for grid stability and resilience include flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS), which can be integrated at critical nodes of the grid to provide the necessary stability and increase transmission efficiency.

Modernizing the country’s grid infrastructure and decarbonizing the industry

Australia faces another major challenge: how to massively expand the country’s grids. As the share of renewable electricity increases, so does the need for more transmission. In 2022, the Australian Energy Market Operator released the Integrated System Plan, which contained a forecast for the next 20 years of infrastructure needs for the country. The plan showed that by 2050, Australia would need 9 times as much renewable energy generation as it currently has, as well as 10,000 km of new transmission lines. To achieve that, the Australian government has announced $20 billion in investments to modernize the country’s grid infrastructure. Beyond the grid, Australia also needs to start thinking about how to deal with its massive amounts of renewable energy. Thanks to the ample wind and sun in the country, the amount of potential generated electricity from these renewable resources would massively exceed the demand of the country, which would then need to be stored and transported. Converting the electricity into hydrogen via innovative electrolyzers would be one option.

Step by step, the country could use this hydrogen to decarbonize its industry and reduce even those emissions that don’t come from electricity generation. Finally, it could turn into a hydrogen exporter, replacing coal as one of the country’s main contributions to the world economy, and help decarbonize other countries even far away.

These are complex and interconnected challenges, but Australia has never had an issue with complexity. Step by step, it could become the world’s shining example of the energy transition. ??