South Australia could run on 95% renewables by 2025: Deutsche Bank
The State of South Australia could have up to 95% renewable energy by 2025, almost doubling its current target of 50%, according to Deutsche Bank. The estimates are based on the completion of new wind farms Hornsdale II and III, as well as pre-approved projects amounting to 2,200 MW of wind and almost 1 GW of solar. Deutsche Bank said the state's "excellent wind and solar resources" and the possibility of $10bn investment would help renewable energy take up a greater share, though issues of "capacity and storage" needed to be solved. Nationally, Australia is predicted to have 42% renewable energy by 2030.

The prediction is included in scenarios included in a new analysis of the soon-to-floated renewable energy company Tilt Renewables, a spin-off of New Zealands TrustPower.

South Australia officially sources around 40% of its electricity from wind energy, and another 6% from rooftop solar. But with the completion of two new wind farms in the next 12 months  Hornsdale II and III  the share will likely total more than 50%, nearly 10 years before the governments aspirational target.

Deutsche Bank believes that share will continue to grow, given its excellent wind and solar resources, its stated ambition to attract another $10 billion in renewable energy investment, and the impact of the federal renewable energy target.

"We expect the state to easily achieve this," Deutsche Bank says of the 50% target, given the states significant development pipeline.

By 2020, thanks to the federal RET and the fact that it has a lot of projects in the pipeline  2,200 MW of approved wind projects and approaching 1 GW of proposed solar projects, South Australia could more than double its renewable energy share by 2020 to 84.6% and go even further by 2025.

"We assess that after closures the state would be long 4.5TWh of energy and be 95% renewable  far above the current 50% target."

Its a mind boggling figure, and one that we have canvassed in the past. It would, of course, depend on sufficient capacity and storage of some sort to be installed in the state, and it does depend on much of the existing projects going ahead.

But it indicates the sort of change that is at hand. It also underlines the point that if South Australia is going to attract $10 billion in clean energy investment, it will be achieving a renewables share vastly superior than its current target.

The data appears to include rooftop solar, which the Australian Energy Market Operator has suggested could meet all of daytime demand on certain occasions within 10 years  a scenario likely to be repeated in Western Australia, although the fast fall in battery storage costs could reshape those scenarios and spread the supply through the day.

Deutsche Bank also notes that while the federal government does not have a renewable energy policy that goes beyond 2020, state-based targets will likely further increase investment in renewables beyond 2020.

It says Queensland will like add a further 25,000 GWh by 2030 to meet its 50% renewable target by 2030, and Victoria will add 7,000 GWh of renewables by 2025. These will help Australia reach around 42% renewable energy by 2030, according to Deutsche Bank estimates.

The Deutsche Bank analysis also predicts that coal generation capacity will also halve across Australia by 2030, mostly due to the fact that many coal plants will reach the end of their normal life and wont be worth the expensive of upgrades.

This will leave some states, such as Victoria and New South Wales, short of energy, and others such as South Australia and Queensland long on energy. It is likely to lead to a completely reshaped market, although Deutsche suggests that 3 GW of thermal capacity could be refurbished.

Article reproduced with permission from RenewEconomy.

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