Australia’s outdated network of transmission lines is being stretched by the hundreds of new renewable energy facilities set to come online as wind and solar farms continue to put downward pressure on energy prices.
The country’s high-capacity transmission lines were designed to service centralised electricity generation from coal-fired power stations.
However, renewable energy projects are being built in parts of regional Australia where wind and solar produce the most energy.
In many cases, these are the areas where the transmission network is weakest, with ageing power lines that were never designed to transport electricity from large-scale renewable generators.
ABC News reports 
in Victoria’s far northwest has 300,000 solar panels that produce enough energy to power around 40,000 homes and it plugged into the grid last year.
David Shapero, managing director of global renewable energy developer BayWa r.e. Wind, Karadoc’s owner, told ABC News Australia’s transmission infrastructure was beginning to hold back the boom in cheap renewable energy.
“At the moment we’ve been able to put most of the renewable energy that’s available to go into the grid, but there’s many more projects to go in,” he told ABC News.
“The transmission infrastructure is filling up and it’s providing more and more electrical challenges.”
Mr Shapero said this could deter investment in the sector if there was effectively no room for new projects to connect to the grid.
“People won’t invest unless they can connect, and so if we can secure a connection, then of course we will invest,” he said.
“As we look to develop new projects, obviously we will be looking for the new infrastructure.”
He believes it is time for Australia’s conservative Liberal-National federal government to step in and give the energy market operator the power to move more quickly on infrastructure projects.
“I find that to be a frustration, and I think they should be given the powers to manage that process and, essentially, just get on with the job, because we know the end result.”
The latest forecasting by Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), the body responsible for running the wholesale energy market, said there was an urgent need for more spending on transmission infrastructure to avoid energy price spikes and blackouts.
“We are going through a transition, probably the most significant transformation in this industry that it’s ever gone through,” AEMO chief executive Audrey Zibelman said.
“One of our concerns is that the transmission capability we have in some of these regions just isn’t enough to accommodate the renewable energy.
“And so we do have to change the regulatory process to make sure that when we identify an opportunity and a need to build transmission, we can do it much quicker than we have in the past.”
ABC News reports Green Energy Markets analyst Tristan Edis, who tracks all the renewable projects being developed across Australia, said the issue of transmission capacity in regional Australia should have been recognised as early as 2007.
“We’re already seeing substantial constraints in probably the areas where we have some of the best wind and solar resources,” he said.
“They include areas around Northern Queensland, north-west Victoria, and large areas of New South Wales, but we also see issues in Western Australia as well.”
He claims the capacity of the renewable projects in the pipeline is now so great that, when it is added to existing green generation, it is almost enough to meet the electricity demands of the entire country.
“Essentially all of the electricity we currently consume could be produced through renewable energy,” Mr Edis said.
“In fact, we could start exporting electricity. We have some of the best resources in the world.”
He added that improved battery technology, as well as other equipment to maintain the quality of the electrical output would also be needed.
Ms Zibelman also acknowledges, “We have lots of resources that are sitting in Queensland, that we can use in Victoria. What we’re missing is transmission.”
She said there are also resources in Tasmania and South Australia that could be used interstate, if the right infrastructure was in place.
Billions of dollars are currently being spent on upgrading the transmission system in regional Victoria and New South Wales, and massive new interconnectors to transfer electricity between states are also under construction.
“If we have transmission, rather than building a generator to be used just for a few hours a year, we can take other sources of supply, which are sitting elsewhere,” Ms Zibelman said.
“One of the great frustrations of developers today, and one of our concerns, is that the transmission capability we have in some of these regions just isn’t enough to accommodate the renewable energy.
“And so we do have to change the regulatory process to make sure that when we identify an opportunity and a need to build transmission, we can do it much quicker.”
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