AEMO scales back forecast for new wind farms and transmission lines

3 months ago

The body overseeing Australia’s biggest electricity markets has scaled back its forecasts for new wind farms and transmission lines as rising costs and community unrest take a toll. But the Australian Energy Market Operator says the country can still hit its renewable energy targets and says falling costs for solar panels and batteries can take up much of the slack.

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00:00Every couple of years, the Australian energy market operator releases what's effectively

00:06a blueprint for Australia's transition towards renewable energy.

00:10Of course, the country has a renewable energy target of 82% by 2030, and this integrated

00:16system plan, as it's known, is the roadmap that's supposed to get Australia to that goal.

00:23It sets out the mix of technologies that are supposed to be, or that AEMO thinks are going

00:28to be best placed to get Australia to its renewable energy targets.

00:34Traditionally it's always focused on things like transmission lines to connect with light

00:40wind and solar farms to the grid.

00:42High voltage power lines, of course, have always been the backbone of the electricity system,

00:46but they've historically been the thing that's connected coal-fired power plants to cities

00:51and towns where people actually use the power.

00:54In this updated version, AEMO has bowed to a certain extent to some of the difficulties

00:59that are bearing down on transmission line developers and wind farm developers.

01:04Its expectations or its forecasts for how much of those things are going to get built between

01:08now and 2030 and later still out to 2050 had been quite dramatically scaled back in the case

01:15of wind, whereas AEMO a couple of years ago had been forecasting that something like 42 gigawatts

01:20of wind would need to be online by 2030, it's now saying something like 30 gigawatts will

01:26realistically or more plausibly be online by that time.

01:30And it's a similar story with transmission lines.

01:33AEMO had always said, or at least a couple of years ago, had said that 10,000 kilometres

01:38of new transmission lines would be required to get Australia to net zero by 2050, but it now

01:42says something like 6,000 kilometres is realistically going to be there.

01:47Crucially though, for a lot of viewers, the big high profile projects that have often

01:52proved quite contentious like Humelink and VNI West are still very much on the table for

01:58AEMO.

01:59Whether this plan can help Australia meet its goals by 2030 is hotly contested, Australia

02:05by no means has been keeping up with the sorts of installation rates for wind and transmission

02:13lines for that matter that AEMO says were needed as recently as 2024, but AEMO is remaining hopeful.

AEMO scales back forecast for new wind farms and transmission lines

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