[Shiraz (Ray)]

Hi Renato.

This is not about global warming (please, please don't hijack the thread with that red herring), it is about the way that the economics of renewables is about to be changed by lower cost energy storage. In my house, short term storage will be a cost effective way to reduce my power consumption around the clock and there are implications for grid-level power and transportation.

The article in the Australian is fairly typical of the approach they take to energy reporting. My understanding is that there was heavy summer demand on the grid that coincided with low wind in SA and Vic (where most of the wind generators are). The low wind power levels reduced the grid power by about 4%(educated guess). Then two major failures at thermal power stations took out maybe another 20-25% (that's another guess, I couldn't find data). The rest of the grid had just enough capacity to keep it all together, but it was close. But what did the Australian and the Fin Review focus on? - they put the primary blame on a lack of wind power, which only contributed slightly to the problem, and completely downplayed the fact that the actual major problems were caused by outages at Loy Yang and Torrens Island thermal power stations (these were mentioned, but the implication was that they were only compounding side issues). It would have been far more accurate to report that the grid was under stress because of unexpected failures at two of the major thermal generators and that this was compounded by the predicted drop in wind power.
I am not saying that the current mix of energy generation resources is perfect and it does seem to be growing without a coherent national plan, but I guess that is what you get when the market reigns. However, it is disingenuous to blame all grid problems on renewables as some parts of the media are only too happy to do.

As to why we need an RET, I guess that the capabilities of renewables have not yet been fully explored and some of the newer technologies will undoubtedly have hidden gotchas - and so the highly conservative management of carbon power companies will not change past profitable practices without some extra incentive. In addition, there is apparently a concerted campaign from various players, including some parts of the media and on the www, to demonise renewables - some incentive has to be given to managers to overcome the reticence that will have been established by that blitz. However, I agree that it is quite possible that RETs will be superfluous in future if likely renewable cost reductions and storage capabilities actually play out in large scale facilities. And I guess that the main point from the various contributions on this thread is that cost effective storage may be coming sooner than expected. In the meantime, even without any cost reductions or storage, solar power is a very good investment for a business that operates during daylight hours - I guess that is why your friend's company is installing solar panels.