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

2. New generation capacity worldwide

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

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

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

6. 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

7. Off-river closed-loop pumped hydro

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

9. Wilmington, east of Port Augusta

10. Kidston PHES

11. 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

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

13. 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

14. 100% renewable electricity
No heroic assumptions: we only use technologies with >100 GW deployment
Hourly demand, wind, sun data for
90% PV + wind
10% existing hydro and biomass
Very widely distributed
Sample different weather systems
Pumped hydro energy storage (PHES)

15. 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

16. Meeting the Paris target

17. 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

18. 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