Firmed renewables our cheapest energy option

I would like to respond to Charles Hemmings’ letter on energy (CCN 476).

He erroneously suggests that renewable energy may be ruinously costly.

The CSIRO reviewed the costs of known energy technologies in their recent GenCost report.

They reviewed coal, gas, nuclear and firmed renewables.

Firmed renewables means factoring in the cost of the required storage, such as batteries and pumped hydro, to make renewables available on demand 24/7.

They found that firmed renewables were the lowest cost option, certainly much lower than nuclear.

Firmed renewables are not weather dependent, hence the ‘firming’.

While there are definitely merits to nuclear, cost, flexibility and 100% availability are not among them.

For example, nuclear plants need to be offline for several weeks every 18 months or so for refuelling.

The biggest issue with nuclear in Australia though, is that nuclear plants cannot reduce their output sufficiently when there is plenty of rooftop solar.

The only way nuclear would be compatible with the Australian grid is for the market operator to be able to turn off rooftop solar on homes and businesses.

Let that sink in: to enable nuclear in Australia, your low-cost solar will have to be turned off, so you can pay for high-cost nuclear instead.

I do concur that there is no ideal solution, but the fact remains that firmed renewables are the lowest cost option to provide reliable energy, while nuclear simply doesn’t work for our grid.

Email, Feb 28
Stephen Sizer, Narara