Climate and clean energy industry leaders are renewing their call for a national scheme to underpin the “massive” investment in large-scale energy storage that will be critical to the success of the nation’s shift to renewables.
The push for a state and federal government-backed Renewable Energy Storage Acceleration Scheme was launched on Tuesday by the Smart Energy Council, the Clean Energy Investor Group and Climate Action Network Australia.
The trio wants a scheme in place by the end of the year, to drive investment in the full spectrum of energy storage technologies, ranging from batteries on wheels (EVs), to long duration storage like big batteries and pumped hydro.
“We can’t get to 82% renewables by 2030 unless we unleash renewable energy storage,” said SEC chief John Grimes in a statement on Tuesday.
“When it comes to renewable energy storage, we need everything, everywhere, all at once.”
Avoid a state-by-state approach
So far, Victoria’s Labor government is the only one in Australia to propose a dedicated energy storage target, announcing late last month goals of 2.6GW of new capacity by 2030 and 6.3GW by 2035, if re-elected in November.
The Andrews government hopes to use the target to bring online both short and long-duration energy storage systems – including technologies that can hold more than eight hours of energy – taking in batteries, pumped hydro and hydrogen technologies.
NSW and Queensland each have their own storage plans, managed under proposed renewable energy zones in the case of NSW, and underpinned by two massive pumped hydro projects in the case of Queensland.
Environment Victoria CEO Jono La Nauze said he hoped this would inspire similar energy targets in other states and territories, as well as a national target from the Albanese government.
“Energy storage is one of the crucial missing pieces in Australia’s transition to 100% clean energy,” La Nauze said.
“Until now, however, there has been no overarching plan to coordinate public and private investment in storage capacity at either at the state or federal level.”
How a national scheme might work
The national scheme proposed by the group would see Australia’s federal and state governments run a series of tenders for large-scale renewable energy storage projects to meet forecast shortfalls in dispatchable generation and storage.
Proponents would bid a floor price for the project’s net revenue over a defined life, opening the door to low-cost financing that might not be readily available due to uncertainty around storage revenue streams.
The group proposes the scheme should also contain claw back provisions, where storage projects make return payments to government when their net revenues allow, to minimise the cost to the taxpayer.
All the right signals
CEIG chair Simon Corbell, whose pedgree includes being the chief architect of the ACT’s shift to renewables, says the scheme will provide “exactly the right signals” to investors in clean energy storage.
“The Renewable Energy Storage Acceleration Scheme delivers fast, proven and cost-effective renewable energy storage,” Corbell says.
“[It] also retains strong incentives for owners of storage assets to pursue other revenue streams, thereby reducing risk to consumers and taxpayers.”
Glen Klatovsky, CEO of Climate Action Network Australia also notes that the rapid roll-out of energy storage will be critical to getting coal power out of the national electricity system.
“A Renewable Energy Storage Acceleration Scheme provides governments with a genuine way to make sure energy storage is operating and ready to go as our old, polluting coal-fired power stations retire,” Klatovsky says.
“We urge Energy Ministers to put in place a Renewable Energy Storage Acceleration Scheme before the end of the year.”
