To achieve its energy aims, Australia may need to look to sources such as renewables to provide reliable baseload power.
Australia’s renewable energy generation capacity is growing rapidly, doubling in the last five years. Much of this is from solar and wind energy. But when the wind stops and the sun goes down, can we maintain a constant power source?
According to Associate Professor Behrooz Bahrani, Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering at Monash University, these renewable energy sources alone are not always capable of providing baseload power.
“They are variable and it depends on weather conditions,” he said.
Australia, a sunny and windy place which also happens to be the driest continent on earth – is increasing investment in renewable energy sources such as utility-scale solar and onshore wind projects to reach a target of 82 per cent renewable energy in the Australian grid by 2030.
So we may need to look to other sources to provide reliable baseload power.
“Geothermal, hydropower or biomass can provide [baseload power] and are proven technologies in certain countries such as Iceland,” he said.
In fact, 100 per cent of the power in Iceland’s grid comes from these renewable sources, and they also have baseload power.
“In Australia, we can potentially use a combination of renewable technologies to provide baseload power.”
Find out what that approach, along with the grid of the future, could look like in the video below.
Reporting by Chloe Hava, video edited by Joseph Harding.