The Queensland Government’s Powering Queensland Plan and the Finkel Review have recently recommended additional layers of governance to coordinate national electricity market (NEM) planning. For Qld, this includes an Energy Security Taskforce; nationally an Energy Security Board. QFF contends that these functions should be core to the remit of existing bodies and suggests that the energy markets need an ‘innovation boost’ rather than additional layers of governance.
The energy sector has and continues to undergo technological disruption, both in physical technologies for the generation, storage and use of power; and in ‘soft’ technologies to monitor, manage and securely trade power.
New technologies and business models offer cheap, reliable energy and are encouraging regional customers to consider going off-grid. The challenge for the NEM is to adapt quickly to accommodate these new technologies. Indeed, without better incentives, the CSIRO and Energy Networks Australia (ENA) predict 10pc of customers are likely to leave the grid by 2050. Grid utilisation will continue to decline leading to further regulatory intervention, higher costs and the grid’s ‘death spiral’.
A modern energy system needs to provide the conditions for efficient and cost-effective grid utilisation by quickly adapting to new commercial and technical energy solutions and driving demand management collaboration in regional areas with initiatives such as demand response aggregation. We also need to encourage strategic deployment of renewable generation to provide energy at least cost.
Technology already exists to allow electricity to be securely traded through a genuine net-metered or peer-to-peer trading model. Trading power between nearby sites while paying only for ‘local network use’ may increase grid utilisation and stability, as customers install optimum generation and storage across their sites rather than overcapitalising in plant at individual sites to meet off-grid requirements. It can also offer new network revenue opportunities while encouraging customers to stay grid connected.
This technology would be beneficial for farms with multiple network connections where renewables can be connected to the main account and generation credited against consumption at multiple pump connections. It would also allow sugar mills and intensive animal industries to generate energy from a central bioenergy plant and supply excess power to nearby farms.
QFF is calling for new regulatory frameworks that allow communities to benefit from technological change, giving customers choice and allowing affordable integration of new technologies.
