Renewable electricity & pumped hydro Andrew Blakers, Bin Lu, Matt Stocks Australian National University

New generation capacity worldwide

Cost of electricity from new-build generators Sources: ARENA LSS; ACT wind reverse auctions; CO2CRC; gas @ $8/GJ

Retirement of existing fossil fuel plant - PV and wind will replace retiring plant

Pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) Talbingo reservoir - Tumut 3 PHES - Snowy 2.0 - Up to 100% of storage requirement for 100% renewable electricity Pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) - 97% of storage worldwide

Off-river PHES No expensive flood control necessary Daily (not seasonal) storage 20 hectare reservoirs, 25m deep, 750m head  1000 MW for 8 hours Triple the head Tripled power Tripled energy storage  Less than tripled cost

Off-river closed-loop pumped hydro

Araluen - Hypothetical - Canberra district - 100 GL - 25% of national requirement 8 km

Wilmington, east of Port Augusta

Kidston PHES

Strong interstate interconnection Access different weather systems from Qld, NSW, Vic, Tas and SA Greatly reduce storage requirement and cost Possible HVDC connection to Perth and north Qld

Ancillary services PHES is the gold standard Lowest cost storage Spinning reserve Inertial energy from spinning generator Fast start (1 min) Black start

100% renewables without heroic assumptions PV + wind + PHES + strong interconnection All deployed worldwide at > 100 GW Thousands of jobs in regional areas Demand management + electric car batteries

100% renewable electricity No heroic assumptions: we only use technologies with >100 GW deployment Hourly demand, wind, sun data for 2006-10 90% PV + wind 10% existing hydro and biomass Very widely distributed Sample different weather systems Pumped hydro energy storage (PHES)

100% renewables without heroic assumptions 30GW PV, 40GW wind, 17GW PHES 9.3 c/kWh (now) 7.5 c/kWh (future) Levelised Cost of Balancing: < 3 c/kWh = PHES + HVDC + PV/wind spillage (10%) Upper bound on costs – costs will decline Demand management, electric car batteries

Meeting the Paris target

Cheapest way to meet the Paris target Retire CCGT – expensive power at $8/GJ Free up gas for OCGT (peaking plant) Keep brown coal Cheapest generation Electricity needed for Vic, SA, Tas Retire enough black coal to meet target PV + wind replaces retiring coal & gas Reverse auction 20-year contracts Low-risk, low-cost finance

Summary Paris target can be comfortably met with PV, wind and PHES at zero net cost 100% renewable electricity at zero net cost Stronger interconnection between states Some coal/gas generators must close early