David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Saving the best to last! Or almost last. I wish to alert the House and the nation to the nature of our electricity system and the alarming nature of the growing problems it has, particularly with the transmission and distribution system which is colloquially known as 'the grid'.

We have had built in this country a series of world-class grids, built by state governments around the country. On the east coast they've all been joined up by interconnectors and operate in a so-called market, which is actually more like a racket—a series of rules and regulations to favour variable renewable energy at the cost of an almost universally available and cheap electricity.

Increasing amounts of variable renewable energy, which by its very nature is not generated in a synchronous AC manner, is creating huge problems for the grid. If we keep going hell for leather on introducing more and more variable renewable energy with this consequent loss of system inertia, which is a very important physical capability, we will destroy our grid. All grids around the world operate on alternating current and are running at certain voltages and frequencies depending on where you are in the grid, either in the high transmission or the local distribution network. The magic number is 50 hertz, and it has to work at that frequency. With variable sources of energy, if they're coming from photovoltaics, they're converted from direct current into alternating current, and there is no inertia with that.

So the whole premise of our transition to the brave new world is actually full of a lot of major, serious electrical physics problems. We will have increasing instability in our grid, even though on paper the numbers theoretically add up. But that is because people are confused—and I fear there are a lot of bankers and bodies who've invested in this. They equate the nameplate capacity of a variable renewable setup with the actual energy delivered, whether it's a wind farm, a solar farm or someone's rooftop.

Installed capacity is not what is delivered. It depends on how much of it is available over time. For solar energy, on average—even in Australia—it's available about 22 per cent of the time. For wind, offshore wind is probably better, at closer to 35 per cent, while onshore wind is about 30 per cent. That's on average, but there are huge periods of our calendar year where those figures are actually four per cent. That's why, on average, on some beautiful, sunny, perfectly windy days it might be 50 or 60 per cent. Some days you can have a sweet spot, and the whole bang lot in a little state like South Australia, which only needs about 1,900 megawatts, can boast: 'Wow! We're 100 per cent renewable!' Yes, but electricity systems run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I might mention the cost. The member for Sturt mentioned it. The whole premise of the Integrated System Plan that AEMO has released relies on huge, vast overbuilds of grids going everywhere, as well as huge investment in grid-style batteries and everyone else getting batteries. But we are already seeing the voltage in the system. It's not advertised, but instead of our traditional 240-volt system it's often running on 220 volts. If we keep going at this rate, we will imminently have major city blackouts like South Australia did.

The International Energy Agency has documented this. I'm not making this up. They have an integrated system plan and they say that once you get above 10 per cent variables you will run into problems. They say it's almost impossible to maintain it regularly once you're above 30 per cent. So we've got non-generating condensers, big, huge bits of kit that are trying to mimic the effect of electrical generators coming from traditional base-load plants.

This story that variable renewable energy is the cheapest—as a standalone entity, yes, but the whole system doesn't just come from a standalone; it comes via a grid. Grid costs are going through the roof, stability is going down, and we are headed for a major calamity.