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Inside South Australia's world-leading energy transition
The world has just seven years to achieve the 2030 sustainable development goals, and we’re way off track. That’s why we’re focusing on pockets of substantial progress, and what we can learn from them.
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Home to 1.9 million people and the city of Adelaide, South Australia is playing an outsized role in the energy transition.
Aside from getting more than 70% of its electricity from wind and solar, the state has pioneered new technologies — including grid-scale batteries and ‘synthetic inertia’ — and set the benchmark for what’s possible with rooftop solar.
And it’s not done yet. Among other projects, the state is adding a green hydrogen-fuelled power plant to its energy mix as part of its plans to get to 100% net renewables by 2030.
We spoke to Nick Smith, executive director of the department of energy and mining’s growth and low-carbon unit, about how South Australia established itself as a world leader in the energy transition — and what comes next.
- Continue reading here.
In the last week of September, the world hit three significant energy transition milestones — one in the US, one in Europe, and one in Australia.
California’s big, grid-scale batteries — the kind that Tesla makes — delivered a record 5.2GW of instantaneous power into the grid during the evening peak on September 24. That’s the equivalent of five typical nuclear plants (albeit temporarily).
On the night of September 25, strong winds, combined with recent grid upgrades, saw the share of wind in Ireland’s electricity mix exceed 100% for the first time.
- Continue reading here.
In the 1990s, Portugal was in the grip of an opioid epidemic – much like the US is today.
The ‘war on drugs’, at least in the traditional sense, wasn’t working. So, policymakers decided to ditch the archaic playbook that had been in place for several decades, and swapped it for a more science-based approach.
In 2001, the government decriminalised drug use and treated the problem as a public health crisis, rather than a criminal one (drug use isn’t legalised today, but it’s no longer a crime).
Users are now regarded as patients, not felons. Those who are ‘caught’ are sent to doctors, social workers and drug experts, who in turn can refer them to treatment and harm reduction programmes. As a result, those with drug problems get the treatment they need, unlike in most other countries, where use is inevitably driven underground.
The results have been remarkable.
- Continue reading here.
The global shift to cheap, clean energy is being driven, in part, by the rise of solar subscription services for households.
GoSolr CEO Andrew Middleton says the subscription model is suited to households that don’t have idle funds at hand, and that prefer a complete power service rather than the traditional, direct-ownership model.
- Continue reading here.
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