One of the most significant attempts to upgrade Australia’s outdated power grid is facing fresh delays, intensifying concerns in the industry about the faltering pace of the energy transition ahead of an approaching wave of coal-fired power station closures.
The lack of enough high-voltage power lines to connect more wind and solar to major cities is becoming one of the greatest obstacles to expanding the clean energy rollout, putting Australia at a heightened risk of blackouts from extreme weather or supply shortfalls as coal-fired power plants retire. It is also jeopardising the federal government’s target to lift renewable energy to 82 per cent of the grid by 2030.
AEMO would contract back-up power supplies in NSW and Victoria to minimise reliability risks over the coming summer, it said.Australia’s coal-dominated energy sector is undergoing a rapid transformation, with at least half of the remaining 14 coal-fired generators on the eastern seaboard due to close within the next decade, while renewable energy’s share of the energy mix continues to grow.
Transgrid chief executive Brett Redman said the first stage of its project, previously scheduled to be in service for the June quarter of this year, was now due to be in service in the September quarter, at which time AEMO would commence inter-network testing. “Australia’s great energy transition – from fossil fuels to renewables – is not going well,” said Tony Wood, energy director at research organisation the Grattan Institute.