Major transmission company Transgrid says 100% renewable energy is both feasible and affordable, and is urging policy makers to “step out in large ways” because incremental change will not deliver climate goals or potential cost savings.
Chief scientist Alan Finkel has outlined the case for serious and urgent market reform in Australia’s energy markets, saying the solutions for the massive and “unstoppable” transition to a grid based around wind and solar exist, but the market structures and the supporting policies do not.
If the grid is powered by “variable renewable energy” (or VRE), such as wind and solar (see graph above), what will happen when, as the detractors say, the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine? The answer, of course, is storage. But not nearly as much as the cynics suggest. And at not nearly the cost.
