Renewable Energy Scenarios for WA
A Discussion Paper by Sustainable Energy Now

6 December, 2010 at 6:00pm
Lotteries House: 2 Delhi St, West Perth

Sustainable Energy Now has prepared a discussion paper, available here, comprised of two detailed scenarios for renewable energy supply to WA’s southwest electricity grid (SWIS): one illustrating 30% renewable electrical energy supply by 2020, and the other 80-100% by 2050.

The paper proposes renewable generation from a mix of wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and wave resources, detailing locations, costs and various system requirements. It finds that the cost of transitioning to a renewable energy system is reasonable compared to the status quo and will become competitive if projected increases in the cost of fossil generation are taken into account.

SEN Chair Steve Gates will present the paper and outline its main propositions. A Q&A session will follow, with panellists from WA’s renewable energy industry:

Jenny Archibald Geothermal Power
Craig Carter Verve Energy
Kyle Jackson Mid West Energy
John Reilly Refgas
Tim Sawyer Carnegie Wave Energy

Steve Gates, Chair of Sustainable Energy Now, is a Mechanical Engineer with 29 years experience in Research and Development in the offshore, defence, manufacturing and agricultural industries. He is passionate about using his engineering and project management background to solve problems, particularly those relating to the environment and sustainability. He has been a registered Professional Engineer in California and is a member of the Institute of Engineers Australia.

Jenny Archibald, Managing Director of Geothermal Power, is a geologist with more than 20 years experience including petroleum exploration, business management, capital raising, public listing and trade sale. She was former Managing Director of Fractal Technologies, former Mayor of Fremantle and former Chair of the Rottnest Island Authority. Jenny is also the Chair of the Direct Heat Committee.

Craig Carter, Senior Planning Engineer for Verve energy, has professional expertise in conceptual project design and smart control of wind/diesel, wind/diesel/storage, and wind/grid systems. Craig has an interest in renewable energy policy, energy management and energy efficiency and promotes the use of renewable energy by electricity utilities, through the development of innovative and economic proposals.

Kyle Jackson, Director of Mid West Energy, is a Chartered Accountant, with 6 years experience in the corporate finance sector. He is experienced in advising clients on raising capital, business divestments, mergers and acquisitions. Kyle was a member of the Climate Change Committee of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Western Australia from 2008 to 2009.

John Reilly is Director of Refgas, Recycled Fuel Gasification. John is an Engineer with many years experience in the British Army, the oil industry and waste management. Refgas is an energy provider through the gasification of biomass waste, producing a syngas which in turn drives engines to generate power.

Tim Sawyer, Site Development Manager of Carnegie Wave Energy, is an Oceanographer with over thirteen years experience in marine environmental management and renewable energy project development. Tim has an in-depth knowledge of wave, tidal and offshore wind energy and has specific experience relating to project development, resource assessment, marine surveying, environmental impact assessment, permitting and approvals and stakeholder consultation.

 

The Smart Distribution System

Professor Peter Wolfs
Western Power Chair, Curtin University

SEN General Meeting
1 November, 2010 at 6:00pm
Lotteries House: 2 Delhi St, West Perth

The West Australian Distribution System will experience three transformations in the next two decades:

• A transition to active management, by the consumer and the network operator, of electrical demand;
• A wide scale deployment of distributed renewable energy sources and storage;
• Electric vehicle loads.

This presentation will focus on current projects and research conducted by the 'Western Power Alliance' – a collaborative effort by Western Power and Curtin University. The project areas include:

• Smart Meters and Home Area Energy networks and their potential in facilitating load and storage management;
• Facilitating high levels of solar electric generation and the Perth Solar City High Penetration feeder trials;
• Electric vehicle impacts on the West Australian Power System;
• The potential for integrating storage within the grid including the 'Energy Edge' project – a solar battery system for rural power support.

Profile: Peter holds the Western Power Chair at Curtin University. This industry funded position focuses on the education of graduate engineers and researchers for the power industry. He supervises many PhD and Masters students undertaking research within Western Power and he teaches transmission and distribution design.

Peter's early research career began in the 1981 with the development of inverters for the then fledgling solar industry. He has had over thirty years of active research and consulting experience in power electronic design for inverters, maximum power trackers, battery storages and electric vehicle charging. Peter captained a World Solar Challenge solar car team in 1999. A spin-off was the development of a distributed maximum power tracking technology, originally to manage curved arrays on solar cars, that is now internationally manufactured and broadly applied to optimise the outputs of stationary solar arrays.

Peter has had a diverse engineering career. He is also known for his work in electric railway traction, Smart Grids, Smart Trains, domestic electrical load control devices, power quality and methods for improving the capacity of rural power networks. He is the author of more than 160 peer-reviewed technical papers, a Fellow of Engineers Australia and Senior Member of IEEE.

 

Electric Vehicles in WA

Patrick Finnegan
Chief Executive Officer, E-Station

David Waplington
President, Australian Electric Vehicle Association Perth

Daniel Booth
Managing Director, EV Shop

SEN General Meeting
4 October, 2010 at 6:00pm
Lotteries House: 2 Delhi St, West Perth

Patrick Finnegan is CEO of E-Station, which was set up in 2009 to serve the emerging electric vehicle market in Australia by providing low cost plug in charge points to cities, local councils and private operators. Patrick will talk about the EV Charge Point infrastructure that will be required to ensure the viability and convenience required to encourage uptake of electric vehicles.

David Waplington is President of the Perth Branch of the Australian Electric Vehicle Association Inc, a non profit association founded in 1973, comprising of individuals and organisations interested in the development, manufacture, sale or use of electric vehicles and their components. David will discuss: the economics of electric vehicles; the cost of conversion; licensing and regulation; the impact on the energy grid; demand and supply; and, the use of renewable energy sources to power EVs.

Daniel Booth is the Managing Director of EV Shop, which has been providing technical, electronic and mechanical repairs to the automotive industry for the past 13 years. Daniel will cover the technical and engineering aspects of electric car conversions and the state of the industry.

 

Pushing the Technology Envelope in Enhanced Geothermal Systems

John Walters
Principal Well Engineer
Lucid Consultants for Geodynamics Ltd

SEN Annual General Meeting
6 September, 2010 at 6:00pm
Followed by presentation at 7.15pm
Lotteries House: 2 Delhi St, West Perth

The concept behind Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) and geothermal energy is relatively simple. Heat is generated by high heat producing granites located from 3-4km or more below the Earth's surface. At the well target depth of 5000m, the temperature is 285 °C, and the bottom hole pressure is 12,000 psi. Overlying sedimentary rocks, which act as an insulating blanket, trap the heat inside the basement granite rock. The heat is extracted from the granite by circulating water through fractures in the rock, to form an engineered, artificial reservoir or underground heat exchanger.

The extraction of geothermal energy relies on existing technologies and engineering processes, such as drilling and hydraulic fracturing, techniques established by the oil and gas industry. As the temperature and pressure of the geothermal resource increases, the value as an energy source goes up, but we begin to approach the limits of those existing technologies. This presentation will give a brief overview of the concept of EGS, and looks at the technology challenges in delivering wells into deep hot geothermal reservoirs.

Geodynamics is the leading Australian geothermal exploration and development company, and possesses some of the best geothermal resources in the world (located in the Cooper Basin, South Australia). Work is on going to develop technology to exploit that resource.

Geothermal energy has the potential to be a critical element of Australia’s future power generation and Geodynamics is at the forefront of this resource development.

Profile: John Walters is Principal Well Engineer with Lucid Consultants, and has been working with Geodynamics for the past 2 and a half years on the development of geothermal well designs and technologies that will help bring geothermal power to commercial reality in Australia. He has over 25 years experience in well design, construction and operations, predominantly in the oil and gas industry. He has a Masters Degree in Offshore Engineering, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Energy Studies from Murdoch University.

 

Western Australia and Energy: A Case Study in Perverse Resilience

Professor Glenn Albrecht
Dean of School of Sustainability
Murdoch University

SEN General Meeting
2 August, 2010 at 6:00pm
Lotteries House: 2 Delhi St, West Perth

Despite political rhetoric about the seriousness of global warming and it’s potentially disastrous impacts on the planet and all its inhabitants, Australian Federal and State governments are going hard for growth in greenhouse gas expansive industries such as coal mining and fossil fuel-based power generation. The refusal to acknowledge the seriousness of the warming of the planet is no better illustrated than with the announcement of three new coal-fired power generation projects in W.A. and the green light for oil exploration in the deep water Cape Mentelle Basin off the Cape to Cape coast. In addition, the massive expansion of the natural gas industry in W.A. will massively add to global greenhouse gas emissions.

Resilience is defined as the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance, reconfigure, but retain basic structure and functions. If we see Peak Oil, oil well accidents (Montara, Gulf of Mexico) and global warming as “disturbances” to the fossil fuel system, clearly the fossil fuel industry and its government support exhibits the property of resilience. However, it is a kind of perverse resilience in operation here, where the very things that are contributing to our non-sustainability, are being subsidised and expanded, while actions that unambiguously support genuine sustainability, for example, clean, safe, renewable energy are still seen as optional extras. Expanding greenhouse expansive gas, oil and coal in the face of unquestionable global warming is clearly not rational. This presentation will examine the perverse resilience of the structure and function of a system that must change.

Profile: Glenn Albrecht is Professor of Sustainability at Murdoch University in Perth Western Australia. He is a transdisciplinary philosopher with a focus on the intersection of ecosystem and human health. He is the author of many book chapters and academic papers on environmental and animal ethics, social ecology and the existential impacts of environmental transformation. Glenn has become internationally well known for creating the concept of ‘solastalgia’ defined as the distress and loss of solace connected to a person’s lived experience of the chronic desolation of a loved home environment by transformational agents such as mining and climate change. Solastalgia is now widely applied in academic contexts and has also inspired creativity in art, literature and music. With around 100,000 hits in a Google search, solastalgia is now well established in many languages and has generated feature articles in the New York Times Magazine, Wired and WorldChanging.

 

Zero Carbon Australia Presentation

Trent Hawkins
Volunteer
Beyond Zero Emissions

SEN Special Event
12 July, 2010 at 6:00pm
43 Below: 43 Barrack St, Perth (corner Barrack and Hay)

The Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Stationary Energy Plan (ZCA2020 Plan) is a detailed and practical roadmap to decarbonise the Australian stationary energy sector within a decade. The full report will be released on July 14 jointly with the Melbourne University Energy Institute.

The project involved a team of engineers, scientists and researchers contributing thousands of hours of pro bono work to put together a detailed plan of the steps necessary to replace our coal and gas infrastructure with proven renewable energy technologies.

The cornerstone of the proposal is solar thermal power, which creates heat that can be stored very efficiently in large tanks of molten salt, and then be used to generate electricity at any time of the day or night, making it baseload power -- a reliable supply 24 hours a day.

The report also recommends the creation of a single national grid and a plan to reduce per capita energy use by 33%, bringing Australia in line with other first world countries. It will result in the creation of at least 155,000 jobs in these new industries.

Over the lifetime of the infrastructure (until 2040) the net costs are about the same as those expected for the energy industry under business as usual. An initial analysis has found that this would only increase the price of electricity by a total of 6.5c/kWh over the next ten years.

Profile: Trent Hawkins is a volunteer for Beyond Zero Emissions and is one the ZCA2020 Report authors. He is a mechanical engineer working as a renewable energy consultant for Victorian company Enhar. Trent was also active in the climate change movement in Perth before moving to Melbourne in 2008. More information about Beyond Zero Emissions and the Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Project can be found online at www.beyondzeroemissions.org.

Please note: Food and drink is available from the bar/restaurant at 43 Below for purchase. You can find the menu on the 43 Below website.

 

Lessons from Beyond the Grid

Mike Laughton-Smith
General Manager, Islanded Systems Development
Horizon Power

SEN General Meeting
5 July, 2010 at 6:00pm
Lotteries House: 2 Delhi St, West Perth

There are 17,000 people living in 287 Indigenous communities in WA who generally suffer poor health and well-being, largely as a result of inadequate essential services, including power, water and waste water.

Horizon Power has developed and deployed a successful regularisation model for power services to these remote indigenous communities. Regularisation means upgrading the generation, network and metering assets and establishing regional systems to deliver the same service standards as other regional towns. The model is based on effective engagement and consultation with the communities.

Horizon selects, develops and deploys power generation, network, metering and retail systems that are sustainable in terms of the communities’ needs, service conditions, operating costs and environmental impact. A particularly exciting new development is the evolution of our Modular, Automated, Renewable and Scalable generation model – MARS. In fact it is a world first. Mike will also share some important learnings from Horizon Power's regularisation journey, many of which have application in larger systems, and the national grid.

Profile: General Manager, Islanded Systems Development (ISD) for Horizon Power, Mr Mike Laughton-Smith has over 20 years experience in the energy industry. With 15 years as a Senior Manager working in diverse roles ranging from isolated system generation, transmission, major customer (including mining enterprises) power supplies, power procurement and renewable energy opportunities.

In his role as General Manager, ISD Mike is responsible for leading Horizon's effort to identify, pursue and exploit opportunities to profitably sell Horizon Islanded System Solutions. Mike also leads, contributes to and oversees the development and implementation of new Islanded Systems.

Currently Mike and his ISD team are managing a number of strategic regional projects including the Marble Bar and Nullagine High Penetration PV Hybrid Diesel Generation and the Aboriginal Remote Communities Power Supply Project.

 

Going Renewable: Germany’s Energy Future

Dr Volker Oschmann
Senior Government official
German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety

SEN General Meeting
14 June, 2010 at 6:00pm
Lotteries House: 2 Delhi St, West Perth

Germany has ambitious targets for renewable energies. The 2006 government’s sustainability strategy aims at supplying half of the overall energy supply with renewable energies by the middle of this century.

The German minister for the environment, with the support of Chancellor Angela Merkel, recently raised the target and is now aiming at supplying ‘almost all energy from renewable sources’.

Volker is going to give us some inside information into Germany’s renewable energy policy and some outside views on Australia’s energy policy.

Profile: Dr. Volker Oschmann is a senior government official within the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.

Volker is the ‘legal father’ of the successful German Feed-In Law (‘Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz – EEG’) that has been emulated by many other countries. As a lawyer within the Ministry, he drafted the law in 2000, including the amendments in 2004 and 2009. He is one of the most knowledgeable German experts on all legal issues arising from the promotion of renewable energies.

Volker is also co-editor of the Journal for New Energy Law (ZNER) and author of several publications on European and German renewable energy law and practice.

Before working with the Ministry for the Environment, Volker was legal adviser to the Hon. Hans-Josef Fell (MP) and the Hon. Dr. Hermann Scheer (MP) in the German Parliament ‘Deutscher Bundestag’.

Currently, he is undertaking research on legal issues arising from climate change at the Centre for Mining, Energy and Natural Resources Law at the University of Western Australia.

Please note: For immediate viewing, play or 'stream' the video on our website. You can also download it by right-clicking on the icon, but be aware that this will take some time as it is a large file.

 

An introduction to Refgas and Biomass Gasification

Giles Perryman
Director, Refgas Australia Ltd

SEN General Meeting
3 May, 2010 at 6:00pm
Lotteries House: 2 Delhi St, West Perth

Refgas combined heat and power (CHP) gasification facilities produce renewable energy from biomass feedstocks. Due to the range of systems and modular design, Refgas can provide facilities as small as 2MW CHP (i.e. 1MWe and 1MWh), up to facilities in excess of 24MW CHP. Using biological feedstocks (e.g. timber residues, wood waste, refuse derived fuels (RDF), compost residues, animal manures, sewage cake, etc) the system produces renewable energy – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The Refgas systems provide the benefits of sustainable energy from renewable sources while being able to utilise some feedstocks that can be considered as wastes, ensuring these resources are recovered rather than disposed of to landfill.

The relatively smaller tonnage of feedstock required for the Refgas units ensures that the proximity principle is followed, ensuring both transport distances for feedstock and electricity transmission losses are minimised, therefore providing further environmental benefits and reduced carbon emissions.

The presentation will provide an overview of biomass advanced gasification, the Refgas system and existing facilities, before highlighting opportunities for their application within Western Australia, such as the proposed project for biomass power generation at Jerramungup.

 

The Perenjori Solar Thermal Project

Kyle Jackson
Director, Mid West Energy Pty Ltd

SEN General Meeting
12 April, 2010 at 6:00pm
Engineers Australia: 712 Murray St, West Perth

Kyle Jackson is a director of Mid West Energy Pty Ltd. Mid West Energy is a WA based private power development company that brings to the Perenjori Project decades of experience successfully developing low emission power projects in Australia. MWE directors have had leading roles in the development and financing of over 2,000 MW of power projects in Australia.

Mid West Energy is proposing to develop the 200MW Perenjori Solar Thermal Project under the Solar Flagship Program. AREVA is technology partner and EPC contractor for the project and is one of the world’s leading power engineering and construction groups. The project will use AREVA’s Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector solar thermal technology developed and commercialised in Australian and the USA by Ausra. AREVA’s solar thermal technology is cost-effective, land efficient and has an output profile ideally suited to the SWIS. The Project is expected to be constructed in two stages of 100MW, with stage one scheduled for completion in 2013 and stage two in 2015.