Renew Magazine

Jemena, one of Victoria’s five distribution businesses, has jumped ahead of the pack and developed a new web portal that displays a customer’s electricity data online, enabling the household or small business to monitor their electricity consumption, along with a host of other features including a home energy assessment tool. Called Electricity Outlook, the portal is currently being trialled and is set to go live later this year.

Jemena has offered ATA members access to the trial, with many taking up the offer late last year. Participants need to live within Jemena’s distribution network area and currently have a smart meter installed under the Victorian Government rollout program. This is distinct from a bidirectional interval meter, installed to monitor output from a PV system, sometimes incorrectly referred to as a smart meter.

Monitoring benefits
Electricity usage data can be viewed in day, week, month, season or year formats, with both energy use and cost shown for each. Comparisons can be made against your suburb’s average for that time period and you can set yourself a target for energy reduction, for instance a 10% target, and see how you are tracking against that target.

The tariff comparison page allows you to input three different tariff offers, including the fixed charges, tariff rates and the time-of-use tariff structure. The web portal then takes your current electricity use data over the time period specified and provides an overall cost comparison between the different tariff types. It will then tell how much better (or worse) off you would be changing your retail product from your current one: e.g. on one tariff you might have saved $15 over the last month and another might have cost $5 more.

Electricity Outlook features

• See electricity consumption—as well as export for solar customers—up to midnight of the previous day
• View data over different time ranges and in half-hourly, hourly, daily or monthly intervals
• Track changes to see how energy use changes daily or seasonally
• Set and follow a percentage target for reducing energy use
  Compare different tariff offers to determine which retail product would be the cheapest

• Register to connect an In-Home Display (IHD) to view your electricity consumption data in real time, and eventually register other Zigbee Home Area Network devices. For more information refer to Smart meters: a rough guide in ReNew 111. Before buying an IHD, ATA recommends seeing what’s offered in coming months under their inclusion in the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target (VEET)
• Register for power outage and outage restoration notifications via SMS and email.

Smart meter products to expand
While Victoria is the only state with a government mandated smart meter rollout, smart meters are appearing in other states and territories. With the advent of the technology, a range of other products and services associated with smart meters, such as web portals, in-home displays and smart phone apps are beginning to emerge.

Another distributor, United Energy, is trialling a similar web portal for customers in their distribution network and at least two other Victorian distributors are following. With in-home displays soon to be subsidised in Victoria under the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target (VEET), the market for smart meter products and services should evolve considerably in 2012.

But there is another way.

Woodlawn Bioreactor

It’s not perfect but it’s an option that is better for the environment and can also be used to produce electricity. It’s called a bioreactor and is more than just theory: a bioreactor is currently being used to dispose of 400,000 tonnes per year of Sydney’s garbage.

Located near Goulburn in New South Wales, the Woodlawn Bioreactor is run by Veolia Environmental Services. Based on a disused open cut mine, the 6000 hectare site is currently being used to dispose of municipal waste and generate electricity. Aquaculture and horticulture facilities are in trial phases.

The site was originally a copper, lead and zinc mine with major open-cut and underground mine workings. The mine closed in 1998 and Veolia took over the lease for the site in 2004. In addition to the workings, the site is extensively degraded with large tailings dams and unvegetated areas that once housed crushers and other industrial facilities. The underground shafts are abandoned but the huge 25 million cubic metre open-cut pit is being used as the new rubbish repository.

But how does the garbage get to the Woodlawn site, 250 kilometres from Sydney? The major transport component is by train. The garbage is compacted into purpose-built shipping containers at Clyde Transfer Terminal in Sydney. Each container takes the equivalent of three garbage trucks of material. The containers are then placed on railway wagons—no less than 56 of them carrying 1500 tonnes of waste per train.

The train, hauled by three diesel locomotives, leaves Sydney early each week-day morning, arriving at the Crisps Creek Intermodal Transfer Station, near the hamlet of Tarago, at 6am. At the transfer station, built specifically for the bioreactor, large forklifts place the containers on trucks that transport the garbage to the bioreactor, about 10 kilometres away.

Read the full article in ReNew 114

The complexity of carbon pricing impacts was highlighted recently for me when the New South Wales Government announced it would provide cheap black coal for privatised power stations. Some have suggested that this undermines emission abatement. But it’s not straightforward.

Before this announcement, it seemed likely that global coal price pressures would drive up black coal prices. So black coal plants would face both a carbon price and an increased coal price. Victorian brown coal plants would face only a carbon price impact 30% higher than black coal. So the overall outcome might well have made brown coal power stations cheaper to run than black coal.

And, at expected carbon prices, they would still be cheaper than gas and renewables at the margin, especially because gas prices are expected to trend towards much higher international prices when LNG export facilities are built on the east coast and compete for local gas.

So the New South Wales Government subsidy may undermine the financial viability of higher greenhouse impact brown coal power stations, while increasing the financial value of black coal plants.

All Australian export businesses have had to cope with a large increase in the Australian dollar exchange rate, which is a far bigger problem than any carbon price would be. But how many exporters have received compensation? So why does a smaller environmental cost require generous compensation? There is a double standard here.

The way a carbon price will influence any business, household or government will be complex, because it has to compete with many other powerful forces. It will only be one element of a package of measures needed to deliver effective, equitable outcomes.

Carbon Farming Initiative—a step in the right direction?

I am keen to see the Federal Government treat voluntary abatement action appropriately by cancelling Kyoto permits to ensure it is ‘additional’—that is, it should count as global emission reduction instead of just making room under the Kyoto cap for others to emit more. It has been a challenge to get the government to acknowledge the importance of empowering Australians and mobilising voluntary abatement. So I was fascinated when the government recently announced its Carbon Farming Initiative.

The CFI sets an important precedent: the government will cancel Kyoto permits equivalent to certified additional abatement from activities within Kyoto covered sectors (as well as other activities outside Kyoto) in agriculture and forestry. All we need now is for them to apply the same approach to sustainable energy and waste management. Then we can get on with serious abatement instead of battling with econocrats.

Building code in hot water?

From May 2011, the new national 6 Star building regulations will be introduced—with variations in some states. Plumbing is being integrated into what becomes the National Construction Code. It will include not only building energy performance requirements, but also requirements on maximum lighting energy capacity and greenhouse gas emissions from hot water systems. This reflects recognition that, while building envelope performance is uniquely important because of its long life, high upgrade cost, and impacts on health and amenity, other aspects, particularly hot water and lighting, are major contributors to emissions.

Only hot water services that generate less than 100 grams of greenhouse gas per megajoule of heat delivered will be allowed. About eight litres of water heated from 20°C to 50°C (the legal delivery temperature) absorbs 1MJ. Most people interpret this to mean that resistive electric hot water services will not comply, although one-bedroom homes and ‘second’ hot water services of 50 litres or less storage capacity are exempt. This will presumably drive households towards gas, LPG, solar-electric (with at least 70% solar contribution), heat pump (with coefficient of performance of 3 or better), or solar-gas.

While superficially this looks like a sensible ‘performance-based’ approach to regulation, it creates some issues.
For hot water services with high fixed losses (e.g. storage units, shared hot water systems and homes with pumped ring mains), a product may meet the requirement at the ‘standard’ daily draw-offs (125 and 200 litres per day). But for water-efficient or small households, fixed losses may push actual average emissions above the 100 gram limit.

The exemption for small electric hot water services is problematic. A large proportion of apartments, units and granny flats have these units, while second units are typically installed in the largest homes, so substantial emissions may result. But there are situations where resistive hot water services can make practical, financial and environmental sense. Indeed, instantaneous electric hot water units can also avoid most standby losses.

We could require overall compliance with the 100 gram limit for appropriate delivered hot water volumes via either on-site technologies or the purchase of lifetime Renewable Energy Certificates at the time the system is purchased. This would be a comprehensive performance-based approach. The last of these options would encourage growth of the renewable energy industry by removing a lifetime’s worth of RECs from the market today for each hot water system, creating scarcity and driving the REC price higher. This is the opposite of past government approaches, issuing lifetime RECs for photovoltaics and solar hot water, which drove REC prices down and damaged the broader renewable energy industry.

EEO mid-term report
The Energy Efficiency Opportunities program requires large Australian energy users to assess their energy use efficiency and report publicly on identified improvements and what they do about them. There has been some scepticism about the program: econocrats think energy intensive business is already efficient, while interventionists think you need to mandate action to get results.

But EEO is unusual. It mandates a very thorough assessment process, requires preparation of formal business cases and Board sign-off. It makes energy efficiency a corporate and reputation issue.

After two rounds of reporting, cost-effective (i.e. negative carbon cost) savings of 93 petajoules of energy had been identified (seven to nine million tonnes a year of emissions), of which over half were being implemented and only 10% were not to be pursued. Overall, savings of over 8% of assessed energy use have been identified.

A survey showed that the percentage of firms with good documentation and analysis of energy use had risen from 20% to 60%. Existence of barriers to energy efficiency declined markedly. Having no one responsible fell from 45% to under 5%, while lack of senior management engagement fell from 32% to 12%. At the same time, most of the measures identified and implemented delivered payback periods of under two years, so there are still lots of negative cost abatement options to be found.

This is very exciting. It shows that there are real barriers to energy efficiency, even in supposedly efficient energy intensive industries, and that carefully designed programs can change corporate culture and deliver significant outcomes.

The map details the location, megawatt capacity and the company behind some of the biggest proposed solar projects in Australia, as well as potential wave power sites and geothermal hotspots that could be developed across the country in the future.

Easily identifiable on the map are the much lauded ‘Big Solar’ projects – defined in the accompanying ACF report as large scale solar power stations with a capacity greater than 10megawatts.

Several of the projects identified on the map have been shortlisted for the Federal Government’s $1.5 billion Solar Flagships Program that aims to build and expand the solar industry in Australia.

One of the largest proposed ‘Big Solar’ projects to have been shortlisted is the 180MW TRUenergy Mallee Solar Park just outside Mildura, Victoria.

If successful, it is estimated that the Mildura solar facility will use photovoltaic (PV) technology to generate enough electricity to power 60,000 Victorian homes for over 20 years.

Another large ‘Big Solar’ project is the Parsons Brinckerhoff’s 150MW Solar Flair Project in Queensland, which aims to be Australia’s first utility-scale solar thermal project.

While the Solar Flagships program has received a total of 52 applications from potential solar companies, it is expected that only two of the shortlisted projects will receive the funding to go ahead.

The two most successful projects are expected to be announced in mid 2011.

The Federal Government recently announced Newcastle as home to the Smart Grid, Smart City demonstration project, with a consortium led by Energy Australia securing the tender. Up to $100 million has been committed to the project which will deploy a live, integrated, smart grid of commercial size and scope in the Newcastle area, with parts of the trial also conducted in Newington, Sydney’s CBD, Ku-ring-gai and Scone.
According to the Federal Government, spreading the demonstration project across urban, suburban and rural areas helps represent the wider grid so that the results can inform future smart grids in Australia.
Smart grids explained
So, what exactly is a smart grid? Definitions and interpretations abound, but it basically means linking telecommunications and IT to the energy world to automate the network in a way that better balances the demand and supply of energy. One can be tempted to compare the coming of Smart Grids to advances in the telecommunications sector in the last 25 years.
A Smart Grid collects real-time data from existing power infrastructure components as well as sensors and meters to better understand what is happening in the electricity grid. From this information energy demand and supply can be adjusted according to criteria such as efficiency, carbon reduction and power quality maximisation.
Real-time processing of this data allows the grid to make faster and better informed decisions. Further, smart grids allow new services such as sending real time consumption information to users and demand response, and enable the seamless integration of renewable energy, electric vehicles and other novel energy resources.
Power co advantages
For electricity utilities, smart grids allow better monitoring and control of all parts of the grid such as increased automation, faster decision-making and actions for restoration of energy supply during an outage, as well as faster isolation of faults and dispatch of repair crews. This in turn will help lower down time for customers.
Another conceptual advantage of smart grids is their ability to match electricity demand to supply and improve the efficiency of energy production, which is important with more renewable energy contributed to the electricity grid, which can sometimes be subject to variable supply. Thus, a smart grid may allow for matching demand to supply using load shifting devices such as energy storage systems and consumer behaviour strategies such as demand response programs and time of use tariffs.
For consumers, more and more is said about consumer empowerment and active participation in the power system. Basic empowerment is giving real time energy usage feedback such as which appliance is using how much and allowing the consumer to make changes in the way energy is used at home. Further, the consumer can respond to grid needs or market conditions. Householders can respond to different hourly power tariffs or demand response programs, where consumers are encouraged by their utility to shift or curtail their loads during high demand times such as hot summer days, and benefit financially for that.
Additionally, the consumer can also become a power producer, such as when they install grid-connected solar panels at home.
Potential problems
There are immediate advantages associated with smart grids, however, the mass adoption of renewable energy and electric vehicles will definitely put pressure on power systems. The electricity grid is still a centralised structure, where large central generators dispatch power to captive and immobile consumers along the distribution grids. Further, transmission and distribution grid devices were not designed for dual power flows, resulting from customer power supply. Therefore, mass adoption of these technologies may have consequences for the grid in terms of power stability and protection, and these risks will need to be managed.
Electric vehicles will also put a lot of pressure on utility systems. If a large number of EVs are allowed to charge at any time, then there’s likely to be higher peak demands and the need to reinforce the grid with more (and expensive) peaking generators and upgrade the transmission/distribution devices for greater peak power flows. However, if recharging is ‘smartened’ then EVs may charge at the time most suitable to the grid. Furthermore, if EVs are touted as an enabler of the decarbonisation of the transportation sector, then their mass adoption will be followed by the mass adoption of renewable energy. If solar and wind are major contributors, then their variable supply requires the grid to react quickly to match supply and demand and maintain grid reliability and stability.
‘Smartening’ the grid can happen in the areas of generation, transmission, distribution and on the consumer side. Utilities already have energy management systems in place to manage generation and transmission, so the distribution and consumer side will be given the most attention in order to reach a fully ‘smart’ power system.
Large investment in the deployment of new sensors, new communications and IT platforms to facilitate the flow of information, and new control and management platforms to process the gathered data and take necessary management decisions will be needed to smarten the grid. These renovations will enable further interaction between utilities and their customers, including the deployment of new services such as demand response. However, this investment will need to be significant.
There are other complicating factors. Vertically integrated utilities can make the investments and collect the benefits. But in very fractioned markets (where retailers, transmission and distribution companies, generating companies work individually), accruing the costs and benefits of smart grid investments across stakeholders will be challenging.
Further, some benefits such as carbon reduction are difficult to capture without adequate regulatory measures. Current regulatory regimes in general are not designed to get the most energy efficiency, despite market competition (where it exists) or include an increasing number of consumers/producers. Yet, in a resource constrained world, and where carbon is important and consumers are looking for lower power costs and more energy security, regulators and utilities will have to work together, with consumers, to design innovative power regulations that enable these goals.
As well as the smart grid trial in Newcastle, the United States has committed $3.4 billion for Smart Grid trials, and Europe, China, Korea and Japan are also have similar projects. Thus, smart grids are becoming a reality. Let’s trial smart grids so that the technology is tested, consumers participate and the cost benefits of different business models are assessed.

The Alternative Technology Association (ATA) applauded the Victorian Government’s release of  its Climate Change White Paper today.

“This White Paper sets a new climate change policy and action benchmark for Governments in this country,” said the ATA’s Chief Executive Officer Ian Porter.

“The combination of a broad coverage of all emitting sectors, the depth of the regulatory and fiscal tools used, and the strength of the emissions target, make this announcement stand out amongst climate change policies in Australia.”

The ATA was particularly pleased to see a firm and legislated target for emissions.

“Given that we’ve had trouble getting a commitment to a 5% target federally, the Victorian Government’s commitment to a 20% reduction by 2020 is a very pleasing step.”

“Coupled to measures in the White Paper such as the strong energy efficiency target through the doubled Victorian Energy Efficiency Target (VEET) program and the 5% solar target beyond the national Renewable Energy Target (RET), we’ve got some very serious emissions reductions being locked in.”

“The White Paper sets a target which would be 34 Megatonnes below business as usual by 2020, supported by a strong Climate Change Bill,” Mr Porter added.

Policies on renewable energy and energy efficiency were also particularly pleasing.

“Energy efficiency remains a crucial policy direction often underutilised by governments, but the Victorian Government is exploring some very strong commitments here such as the retrofitting of existing homes to an average five star standard.

If done effectively this will deliver substantial social outcomes, such as reduced electricity bills and better standard of housing, as well as reducing emissions. And this need not be expensive, as ATA members have demonstrated for thirty years.”

Taking a national perspective, the ATA sees the Victorian Government’s approach as one which should be followed and hopefully exceeded by other states and territories.

“We would love to see other Governments emulating this approach – strong emissions reduction targets, a feed-in tariff for large scale solar, mandated energy efficiency targets and an aggressive program of building retrofits,” said ATA’s CEO Ian Porter.

“With a lack of action from the Australian Parliament it is time again for the states and territories to lead.”

“Above all, we need Governments to work with communities to help people make change.There is consensus around the need for climate action, and people need to see a strong direction, firm targets and serious commitment from Governments – as we’ve seen today from the Victorian Government.”

“In the long run we will need to make even deeper cuts, but this is a huge step towards that future.”

The Sustainable Cities Index assessed and ranked the cities by looking at their progress in 15 environmental areas such as ecological footprint, action on climate change and green buildings.

It also considered variables of employment, health and household repayments.

ACF project coordinator, Michael Trigg, said the results were quite unexpected.

“We were surprised that Darwin came out on top, given the considerable environmental, social and economic issues still facing that city,” he said.

Despite taking out the title, Darwin is still eight times less sustainable than an ideal city, which would perform highly in all categories.

This led the ACF to conclude that no Australian city can be viewed as complete in its aims to achieve environmental sustainability.

While all states have been given something to work towards, some have a lot more areas of required growth than others.

Queensland was home to five of the top 10 scoring cities, doing significantly better than Western Australia, whose one included city (Perth) got the wooden spoon.

Perth’s main downfalls were its lack of public transport and poor water conservation, despite the WA Water Corporation’s campaigns encouraging Western Australians to “save six buckets of water everyday”.

Melbourne and Sydney will be disappointed with their respective rankings of 7th and 12th, despite appearing to have each performed quite well across the board.

They will both have to improve in the areas of public participation and subjective wellbeing if they hope to perform better in the future.

As well as a number of makes and models, a diverse range of features and functions are (or can be made) available with smart meters. There are various ways in which they can allow a household or business to interact with the electricity network and these are accompanied by various tariff options.

At its most basic, a smart meter is an electronic interval meter with remote communication capability. These two features alone offer benefits primarily to distributors and retailers, however, smart meters can also incorporate features to benefit consumers, and it’s these features that ATA is strongly advocating to be included wherever smart meters will be rolled out.

Such features may include load control options, visual displays of energy consumption and generation, the ability to interface to a Home Area Network (more on those in the next issue of ReNew), better metering for household solar PV and other generators, and the ability to monitor and report the quality and safety of the energy supply to a consumer.

Smart meter tariffs

Smart meters will change the way we pay for energy.

Time of Use tariffs. With interval metering, an energy retailer can see what time of the day the energy is being used. This allows the retailer to offer a Time of Use (ToU) tariff, where consumers pay more for energy used during times of high demand and less when the demand is lower. For example, instead of paying 20c/kWh for all the energy you use, you might pay 30c/kWh during weekday afternoons, 10c/kWh overnight, and 20c/kWh at other times (these figures are indicative only: actual charges and tariff structures will vary between products and retailers).

Critical Peak tariff. Critical peak pricing is a Time of Use tariff where, on those few days of the year that energy usage peaks at its highest (usually hot days in summer but also on cold winter days in some areas), consumers on a critical peak pricing tariff will pay a far more (possibly ten or more times the ‘normal’ charge per kWh) which is compensated by a low tariff at other times.

The logic behind critical peak pricing tariffs is that a large amount of the capital cost of the electricity network is spent building and upgrading the generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure required to keep the electricity network operating on these high-demand days, and critical peak pricing passes more of this cost on to the user.

Controlled load tariff. As an alternative to critical peak pricing (or even in conjunction) some customers may have certain loads, such as air conditioner compressors and pool pumps, switched remotely to reduce strain on the network during times of high demand. In many cases, this can be done in a way that will not affect a customer’s comfort or amenity.

A corresponding tariff for controlled load customers may include a discounted Time of Use rate, or a reduced service charge.

What do smart meters mean for householders?

Smart meters are seen by ATA as a mixed blessing for consumers. On one hand, they offer opportunities to improve energy efficiency, better inform consumers about their energy use and reward them for using less power during times of peak demand. On the other, smart meters and associated infrastructure are costly, still technically immature, and offer benefits to energy distribution and retail businesses that consumers may not gain from.

Can smart meters save consumers money?

The cost of implementing smart meters and associated infrastructure will be passed on to consumers, so to save money for consumers the benefits need to outweigh these costs.

In Victoria smart meters are being rolled out state-wide over the next three years at a total cost of over $1billion. This cost is passed on to consumers in the form of an increased service charge which varies from one distributor to the next and from year to year; an average Victorian household will pay $53 more during 2010 and face a further $25 increase in 2011, even if their smart meter is not installed for another three years.

How any new tariff affects your total bill will depend on the daily pattern of your energy use. Choosing the right energy retail product and understanding how you use energy will be key to getting the most out of smart metering.

Any cost savings will come from reduced energy consumption, using power at different times, or choosing a tariff that gives the best value for your energy use. As mentioned earlier, with a Time of Use tariff energy will cost more during time of high demand (eg midday on weekdays) and less at times of low demand (at night).

This is great for households who can save money by shifting some of their loads (e.g. for washing) from daytime to night, and for working households where nobody is home during weekdays. Yet,  people who are home during the day, including stay-at-home parents, retirees, people with medical difficulties, and whose energy use is not so flexible, may find their bills increasing if they are charged for time of use.

For a number of years now, all energy customers who do not use air conditioners or heaters on high-demand days have been subsidising those who do. Critical peak pricing may be an effective way for customers who are able to avoid using large amounts of energy during temperature extremes to reduce their bills.

Customers with air conditioners may benefit from a controlled load tariff, which will reduce their exposure to high peak energy prices.

Smart meters and consumer choice

As smart meters will be rolled out (installed on a large scale) across most states and territories, relevant state governments will select which features or functions are enabled in their jurisdiction.

The ATA (along with other consumer organisations) is actively involved in advocating for the interests of its members to ensure that features which benefit consumers are included, and that expensive features which do not benefit consumers are kept to a minimum.

Distribution businesses will have the final say on which makes and models of smart meter technology are installed.
While individual households can’t opt out of having a smart meter, ideally many consumers will be able to save money through using the most appropriate tariff option, and some will be able to maximise functionality of the meter by using their Home Area Network.