The New Zealand financial system must restructure round a restricted provide of renewable energies – what is the level?
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to climate researcher Jen Purdie, even New Zealand, with its abundance of windy mountains, geothermal springs and huge hydroelectric lakes, cannot provide enough renewable energy for people to live comfortably and relaxed.
The author calls it “managing demand,” but the message is clear.
If New Zealand takes climate change seriously, can electricity replace fossil fuels in time?
February 16, 2021 2:15 p.m. AEDT
Jen Purdie
Senior Research Fellow, University of Otago
With fossil fuels phasing out in the coming decades, the Climate Change Commission (CCC) suggests that electricity will fill a large portion of the void, power our vehicle fleet, and replace coal and gas in industrial processes.
But can the electricity system really handle this increased load where and when it is needed? The answer is “yes” with some caveats.
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It’s hard to imagine the size of the new generation, but if wind were the only technology that could meet demand by 2050, it would require between 10 and 60 new wind farms nationwide.
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Demand management
In addition to a better power supply, demand management and batteries will also be important. Our modeling shows that peak demand (which normally occurs when everyone turns on their heaters and stoves in winter at 6 p.m.) could be up to 40% higher by 2050 than it is now.
However, meeting this daily period of high demand could result in expensive equipment being idle most of the time (with the last 25% of generating capacity only being used about 10% of the time).
This is especially a problem in a renewable electricity system when the hydropower lakes are dry, as hydropower is one of the few renewable sources of electricity that can be stored during the day (as water behind the dam) and used over the evening peak (by generating) with the stored water ).
A response to the demand will therefore be required. This can lead, for example, to an industrial plant being shut down if the power grid is too heavily loaded.
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Read more: https://theconversation.com/as-nz-gets-serious-about-climate-change-can-electricity-replace-fossil-fuels-in-time-155123
What a miserable future vision. A future in which energy is rationed. A future where if you try to turn on a device at the wrong time, a government-approved smart meter will annoy you about the bill to be paid or inform you that no laundry or dishwashers will be turned on until 2 p.m. tomorrow, when the solar panels are online.
All of this is only a problem because the New Zealand government is focusing on unreliable zero carbon energy sources.
Even if you think carbon emissions are important, there is an alternative that won’t mess up everyone’s lives. New Zealand’s energy requirements are currently around 900 MW, which is less than the output of a single large nuclear reactor.
One or two decent sized low carbon nuclear power plants and that wouldn’t be required. Modern nuclear power plants are safe – even in seismic New Zealand, passive safe reactor designs such as beds of pebbles, which are physically incapable of melting even with a complete loss of coolant, would not cause a major radiological incident if the reactor were damaged by an earthquake.
Affordable, reliable carbon-free electricity is available anytime you flip a switch.
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