South Australia’s Liberal government is looking to go where its federal counterparts fear to tread, and will shortly unveil an electric vehicle strategy designed to lower emissions in transport and solve some of the key challenges of its high renewables grid.
State energy minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan indicated in a speech late last week that electric vehicles will be a major focus of government policy in 2019 as it seeks to create a more flexible grid to embrace the growing share of wind and solar power.
Van Holst Pellekaan told the audience, as we reported in RenewEconomy, that the state expected to reach “net” 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030, with much of the excess wind and solar to be exported to neighbouring state grids.
He also flagged that this would not simply mean a switch from fossil fuels to wind, solar and various forms of storage, it would also change the way the grid was operated. It needed to be able to deal with high levels of wind and solar, low levels of net demand, and two-way distribution networks.
“We need to rapidly accelerate to a smarter grid,” van Holst Pellekaan said.
“We’re no longer in a world where there is a baseload of demand with a predictable daily peak. We’re now in a world where you must forecast both supply and demand, and then dispatch or constrain one or the other or both to balance the system.”
“A new world of peaks and troughs of both supply and demand. That requires demand to be much smarter and more flexible, and new loads such as batteries and electric cars to soak up supply at the right times.
“That’s why electric vehicles will be another major focus area for us this year.”
To read the full story on RenewEconomy’s electric vehicle dedicated site, The Driven, click here…
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