Amidst all the news about the slowing pace of large scale renewable energy project approvals, their adverse environmental impacts and resultant community backlash, the good news story is simply getting overlooked.
Rooftop solar, local batteries and bi-directional charging can power our cities and our cars with spare left over for the grid. The more we invest in these distributed energy resources (otherwise known as CER or Consumer Energy Resources) the fewer transmission lines, wind farms and utility scale solar farms will be required.
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If we are looking for a renewable energy transition that is easy, equitable and fast – instead of delayed, divisive and expensive – then exponentially expanding the uptake of distributed energy resources in the property sector is the way to go. It’s time we woke up to the obvious!
Across Australia, rooftop solar power already generates about 10 per cent of our grid based electricity and one third of our renewable energy supply. That figure doesn’t include all the solar power feeding directly into the homes where it is generated or the power blocked off from entering the grid on our extra sunny days. And the story gets better.
In 2022, Australian rooftops increased the supply of renewable energy to the grid by 2.7 GW (the increase was 3.3 GW in 2021). Large scale renewables could not compete – they only added 2.3 GW of power to the grid in 2022. We now have 3.5 million rooftops generating over 20 GW of solar power.[1] That’s more than four times the current capacity of Snowy Hydro. So, it is fair to say, at this point in time, “Rooftop solar is driving Australia’s clean energy transition”.
So just how serious a contender is rooftop solar in the race to net zero? In 2022, Australia consumed 189 terawatt-hours of grid fed electricity, that’s a lot more than the 20GW of solar power being fed into the grid. But it turns out we are barely tapping into the potential that we have. In 2019, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation commissioned a report on Australia’s solar rooftop potential.
Applying alternative methodologies, the report estimates (on a fairly conservative basis) the total potential for rooftop solar in Australia is 179 gigawatts, producing an annual energy output of 245 terawatt-hours – a grand 56 terawatt hours over and above our total grid consumption for 2022.
When we combine rooftop solar with local batteries (at vehicle, household, precinct or community scale) and bi-directional charging facilities, we can harness rooftop solar power to supply our demand for clean electricity 100 per cent of the time. It turns out CER can provide THE SOLUTION to all or most of our transition troubles! As the chair of the Australian Energy Market Commission, Anna Collyer, has told us, “Consumers are the hero on the road to net zero”.
So what does all this mean for the built environment?
Sadly, for the most part, the recent flurry of net zero pathway discussion papers seems to seriously under estimate the potential of CER in the built environment. The 2023 PIA report on Achieving Net Zero, for instance, devotes its first section to energy but gives no mention at all to CER. The section on the Built Environment is equally negligent. Only in the section on transport do we find reference to installing EV charging facilities.
The Low Carbon Institute’s Race to Net Zero Carbon report, which describes itself as “A climate emergency guide for new and existing buildings in Australia” prioritises efficiency gains as the main pathway to net zero buildings with only cursory mention of distributed energy generation (p.31).[2]
The level of ambition is uninspiring – rooftop solar, for instance, could take the built environment beyond net zero into the realm of net positive electricity generation (carbon negative emissions) – not something energy efficiency will ever deliver!
Only the 2023 edition of Every Building Counts, a joint publication of the Green Buildings Council of Australia and the Property Council of Australia, highlights the significant under-representation of distributed energy generation in our current policy mix. It correctly identifies we are under-investing in distributed energy resources and thereby failing to deliver an optimal mix or least cost pathway for the energy transition. It makes the case for correcting the historical bias towards supply side measures and identifies a need for “enhanced governance” to set the record straight. A veiled attack on big power generators’ vested interests perhaps?
If so, “Bravo! Bravo!” I say, let’s all sing that song! And, while we’re at it, let’s all hope the Built Environment sector pathway review, due to report in 2024, will uncover the truth, contend with vested interests and their blinkered thinking and give CER the urgent attention and meaningful pathway to implementation that it truly deserves.