Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697633061881.pdf (Australia)
SUBMISSION TO THE Senate Select Committee into the Resilience of Electricity Infrastructure in a Warming World FEBRUARY 2017 AUSTRALIAN ACADEMY OF TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING Select Committee into the Resilience of Electricity Infrastructure in a Warming WorldSubmission 38 ATSE Submission to the Senate Select Committee into the Resilience of Electricity Infrastructure in a Warming World The Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE) welcomes the opportunity to provide a response to the Select Committee into the Resilience of Electricity Infrastructure in a Warming World.
ATSE advocates for a future in which technological sciences, engineering and innovation contribute significantly to Australia’s social, economic and environmental wellbeing.

The Academy is empowered in its mission by some 800 Fellows drawn from industry, academia, research institutes and government, who represent the brightest and the best in technological sciences and engineering in Australia.
The Academy provides robust, independent and trusted evidence-based advice on technological issues of national importance.

ATSE fosters national and international collaboration and encourages technology transfer for economic, social and environmental benefit.

ATSE is currently participating in the Australian Council of Learned Academies’ (ACOLA’s) project Energy Storage: Opportunities and Challenges of Deployment in Australia.
Delivered as a partnership between Australia’s Chief Scientist and ACOLA, the Energy Storage project is studying the transformative role that energy storage may play in Australia’s energy systems; future economic opportunities and challenges; and current state of and future trends in energy storage technologies and their underpinning sciences.
The project examines the scientific, technological, economic and social aspects of the role that energy storage can play in Australia’s transition to a low-carbon economy over the coming decade and beyond.

Aspects of this project will have direct relevance to the committee’s terms of reference.

The final report will be delivered to the Commonwealth Science Council in mid-2017.
For this project, ATSE has undertaken extensive research and consulted with over 50 with key stakeholder organisations in the energy storage ecosystem (including representatives from industry, business, research, government, and not-for-profit organisations) for this project.

The following observations below arise from this research and from ATSE’s ongoing policy work and advocacy for an affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy system.
The role of storage technologies and localised, distributed generation to provide Australia’s electricity networks with the resilience to withstand the increasing severity and frequency of extreme weather events driven by global warming.

There is a vast range of energy storage technologies available for use within the energy system.

These vary dramatically in scale and other characteristics and are suitable for different applications.
Pumped hydro energy storage is currently the dominant storage technology, accounting for over 99% of grid-connected storage worldwide.

However, with the rapid rise in manufacture and deployment of the lithium-ion battery, batteries for energy storage are currently the subject of much attention.

Energy storage is a key enabler of micro-grids.


A micro-grid refers to a localised collection of interconnected electricity loads and sources (including variable renewable sources such as solar and wind) that can connect to the wider electricity grid and also disconnect from the grid and function autonomously (a condition referred to as ‘islanding’).

Energy storage can allow micro-grids to maintain stable and reliable supply without having to rely on backup fossil fuel generation (e.g.
gas turbines or diesel generators).

The ability for a micro-grid to island itself from the main network is especially valuable during power outages or when grid power quality is poor.

There is interest in implementing micro-grids in fire-prone fringe of grid areas to improve their resilience.
By islanding remote micro-grids on high fire-risk days, Select Committee into the Resilience of Electricity Infrastructure in a Warming WorldSubmission 38 the risk of fires being ignited by transmission line faults could be greatly reduced, without loss of electricity access for the islanded community.
Measures that should be taken by federal, state and local governments to hasten the rollout of such technologies in order to: i. create jobs in installation, manufacture and research of storage and distribution technologies The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is seen as very important for Australia’s energy storage industry and research sector.

Similarly, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has great potential to stimulate growth in this industry.
Energy storage suppliers are currently targeting the small-scale market (including domestic, commercial & industrial businesses, and off-grid).

Current market conditions mean that large-scale storage is not economically viable in most cases.

While carbon emissions remain a market externality, cheap but greenhouse gas intensive resources (i.e.

coal, gas) dominate generation and the provision of inertia and other system services.
Correcting this market externality failure would provide a level playing field for all generation technologies and incentivise development of innovative supply- and demand-side solutions, which are likely to hasten the deployment of significant quantities of energy storage.

Significant local job creation in energy storage manufacturing would be unlikely without government support to attract international partners.
As happened in the photovoltaic industry, it will be next to impossible to compete with established battery manufacturers that all are located overseas, especially in established chemistries such as lead acid, lithium-ion, and sodium sulphur.

Even the more successful products developed from Australian intellectual property – such as the vanadium-flow battery developed at UNSW, the Ultrabattery developed by CSIRO and the zinc-bromine technology commercialised by RedFlow – are manufactured internationally.
Australia is widely recognised for having world-leading electrochemistry researchers, but there is a recognised need to encourage even greater collaboration and coordination between researchers and industry if the Australian-developed intellectual property in batteries is to be commercialised locally.

A relevant Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) or Industry Growth Centre (IGC) for energy storage and clean energy technologies could be a potential avenue to facilitate this.
Other solutions could include the development of a collaborative research hub for energy storage.

ii.

stimulate household and business demand for storage technologies There is potential to exclude key social groups from access to technology if only the wealthy are able to afford energy storage.
Government incentives to stimulate demand should consider the potential for perverse outcomes including increased costs for those unable to afford storage, and whether wider benefit is created by encouraging behind-the-meter storage.

It is generally acknowledged that distributed/behind-the-meter storage has the potential to provide multiple benefits to different stakeholders but the mechanisms through which these benefits are realised and the value shared are not yet established.
The ACOLA Energy Storage project will address this and related issues in greater detail.

Professor Peta Ashworth from the University of Queensland is leading this aspect of the research and may be able to provide further information.

iii.
iii.

anticipate the rapid deployment of localised distributed generation through changes to market rules Market rule changes could consider: 2 Select Committee into the Resilience of Electricity Infrastructure in a Warming WorldSubmission 38  Time-of-use or demand charge pricing to create appropriate pricing signals  Equitable sharing of benefits of distributed energy resources and storage  Peer-to-peer trading  Shorter wholesale market settlement periods iv.
drive the reduction in technology costs through economies of scale Australia’s market is not substantial enough, in a global sense, to have a significant effect on costs for existing storage technologies.

That said, Australia is a beneficiary of continuing price reductions as global volumes of batteries grow significantly.
The important local issue in Australia is to minimise the financing, installation, commissioning and operating costs of energy storage systems here, including the need to ensure that energy storage systems can adequately cope with the high ambient temperatures encountered across Australia during summer months.
v. seize on the opportunities to be a global leader in deploying storage technologies because of Australia’s high fixed electricity tariffs and significant penetration of rooftop solar During ATSE’s initial consultations with energy storage and clean energy experts, system integration expertise has been suggested as one of Australia’s greatest opportunities arising from the deployment of energy storage.
Australia is seen to be a test bed for the impacts of distributed storage (due to Australia’s high fixed electricity tariffs and significant penetration of rooftop solar), and if the appropriate market signals are created then Australia has the potential to be a global leader in the deployment of domestic battery solutions, utility scale storage solutions (e.g.
concentrated solar thermal plants with inbuilt thermal storage, pumped hydro systems, and utility scale battery systems) and the management if electricity grids at all scales that incorporate energy storage with a variety of generation sources.

The co- ordination of the different supply, demand and storage systems will be a challenge and the expertise gained by solving these challenges will be in demand worldwide.
The Academy would be pleased to assist the Committee in its inquiry if this would be helpful.

The contact at ATSE is Mr Dominic Banfield, Research & Policy Officer at or on .

Additional resources The Essential Services Commission (Victoria) is currently finalising its research into the energy and network value of distributed generation.

The findings and draft findings in their Energy Value and Network Value reports have direct relevance to this inquiry and the Academy commends these to the Committee.
See http://www.esc.vic.gov.au/project/energy/22790-inquiry-into-the-true-value-of- distributed-generation-to-victorian-customers/ for further details.

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