Energy efficiency an ‘industry imperative’, says Energex
By Save Eumundi Team • Jun 15th, 2009 • Category: Featured Articles, Main ArticleEnergy conservation and demand management is “an industry imperative”, Terry McConnell of Queensland electricity distributor Energex told a Sydney energy efficiency seminar on Friday.
“I don’t believe that we as an industry can continue to stand by and spend money at the rate we are doing to build poles and wires that are not being used all the time,” said McConnell, Energex’s business and industry relationship manager.
“We’ve got to do something to reduce kilowatt consumption and greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. “Energy efficiency and demand management are the key.”
McConnell said 65% of homes in south east Queensland now have air conditioning, resulting in a 30% increase in demand for electricity in the state in the last ten years.
He said the traditional approach to managing this growth was to expand and upgrade the network.
In 2008-09, Energex has invested about $830 million on upgrades just to handle peak demand for a few days of the year, with a further $340 million spent just to maintain the network.
“We’re spending about $3 million a day,” he said.
“That sort of expenditure is simply not sustainable.”
McConnell said customers in residential areas pay an average price of electricity, and “the mums and dads out there really don’t understand what demand means”.
“They expect to turn their lights on, they expect to have their plasma television, they expect to be able to turn their air conditioning on. They really are not aware of what electricity costs upstream,” he said.
‘Mutually beneficial’ approaches
McConnell said demand management and energy efficiency is clearly a more effective use of scarce capital, and Energex is trying to design programs that are mutually beneficial for customers and utilities.
The company is about to roll out a smart meter trial which will allow utilities to offer different price structures to customers.
“It puts the customer in charge of how they are using power, they can physically see something happening in the house with digital meters,” he said.
Following the successful introduction of remote cycling technology on electric hot water systems, Energex is trialling the technology on the air conditioners of 200 customers in Brisbane, enabling the company to remotely switch off the compressor in their air conditioners.
This has so far resulted in a 17% to 30% reduction in load in the area over a two-year period, he said.
Swimming pool pumps make a substantial contribution to summer peaks, and Energex is also about to start a trial with customers allowing it to remotely switch off their pumps at peak periods.
McConnell said Energex is actively supporting the shift to newer technologies like distributed energy, cogeneration and trigeneration, solar and wind, “but I think they’ve still got a way to go”.
‘Clear vision on energy efficiency still missing’
Meanwhile, Clean Energy Council policy manager Russell Marsh told the seminar that Australia needs a comprehensive strategy to make sense of the highly complicated and constantly changing mix of Federal and State energy efficiency measures.
Marsh said Australia has clear targets for renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions reduction, but “no-one has a real sense of what we’re trying to achieve with energy efficiency and demand side response”.
“I would say that’s the one thing that’s missing.”
A comprehensive strategy would bring together existing energy efficiency measures and quantify the impact they’re going to have, argued Marsh.
He said Australia needs a vision of what it wants to achieve by 2030 through energy efficiency and demand side measures, so governments can put the necessary policy measures in place.
Source: http://www.cedaily.com.au
Save Eumundi Team is a group of people who are keen to see our environment protected and insisting that the Queensland State Government and its agencies (like Powerlink) consider viable alternatives rather than the business as usual approach to electricity generation and transmission.
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Questions to ask on Queensland Renewable Energy initiatives
Premier Anna Bligh announced regulatory reforms, more action by state-owned energy utilities and a push to prepare ‘clean energy plans’ for major residential and commercial developments as part of a plan to generate 2,635MW from clean energy by 2020. This has raised a number of questions regarding the intentions of these initiatives. These questions are the following:
1. What types of GHG will this program reduce? And at what volumes?
2. What are the penalties for not reducing the projected levels of GHG and generation of renewable energy?
3. In regards to GHG reduction initiatives for this program how do the initiatives compare to world best practice and with the McKinnsey strategy?
4. What mechanisms will the Queensland Government be providing for the market to determine the priority for efficient types of renewable energy technologies by a gross-feed-in-tariff?
5. What will be the amount state budget is on energy efficiency? How much will energy efficiency reduce GHG?
6. To achieve a 300 and 350-millimetre level of GHG what would be Queensland GHG emission? How will this be achieved?
7. Has the Queensland Government undertaken a McKinnsey analysis of energy efficiency and renewable energy at 300 and 350 millimetres?
8. What funds are being spent from this budget on reforming the National Energy Grid from being an energy maximiser?
9. What funds are being allocated for the development of a smart grid as part of a distributed energy system?
10. What is the annual funding by the Queensland Government to the Queensland power industry in the form of grants, subsidies and loans etc?
11. How much does the Government including its agencies pay each year for electricity and gas?
12. What volume of GHG does the Queensland Government including its agencies generate each year? What percentage is this of the total state GHG emissions? What has been the trend of this over the past 10 years?
13. How much does the Queensland Local Government pay each year for electricity and gas? What has been the trend of this over the past 10 years?
14. What volume of GHG does the Queensland Local Government generate each year? What percentage is this of the total state GHG emissions? What has been the trend of this over the past 10 years?
15. What actions are being taken to reduce the impact of GHG refrigeration gases into the atmosphere?
15. In the next 10 years how much will Queensland utilities will spend on coal and natural gas to fuel power plants? What has been the trend of this over the past 10 years?
16. How many kilometres of solar thermal power collectors power our entire electricity system in Queensland?
17. In the next 10 years how will wind power generation be rolled out in Queensland? What inward investment initiatives are being taken for this?
18. Why does the Bligh Government favour solar thermal and geothermal while the Rudd Government’s proposed Renewable Energy Target assists the least-cost approach of wind projects?
19. Will the annual renewable energy network benefit statement by the Queensland owned utilities and developers be made available to the general public? What reporting accountability and transparency be made available for private sector utilities and developers in regards to a annual renewable energy network benefit statement?
20. Why has the Queensland Government included solar hot water as a form of renewable energy power (electrical) generation?
21. What savings is currently being achieved through energy efficiency programs in Queensland? What have been the savings in GHG and energy generation?
22. In the next 10 years how will wind power generation be rolled out in Queensland?
23. What inward investment initiatives are being taken RE investment is Queensland?