8 Driving the Renewables Debate
The State wants more secondary processing of energy materials and the best way to achieve this is to develop and incentivise the local market. This can be done by increasing the use of batteries particularly through renewable energy but also through encouraging electric vehicles, industrial power storage or local distributed generation. One key area to focus on is growing renewable energy however for larger scale installations grid interconnection issues are the main obstacles. Germany is often seen as a model for developing and growing renewable energy, which has developed a complex and sophisticated local industry. Germany is recognised as being very renewable energy proactive and has developed a wide compliment of incentives and penalties to encourage renewables. This is especially important in WA to reduce long term power costs, reduce the dependence on imported fuels, increase national security, increase power reliability and reduce transmission costs. Section 8.1 is a summary of the German interconnection situation. 8.1 Residential scale interconnection in Germany European Union (EU) law governs Germany’s interconnection process. Under EU law, member states may prioritize the interconnection of renewable energy generators. Germany passed the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) in 2000 and subsequently updated it four times to 2017. The EEG requires that utilities prioritize connecting renewable energy projects to the grid. However, without a legislated timeframe for responding to interconnection requests, there is the argument that the law still allows utilities to unnecessarily delay PV projects (GSIA 2010). Further, the exact requirements for establishing interconnection, including technical interconnection criteria, vary by utility. Overall there is a strong political mandate to prioritise and interconnect renewables as it fits within the German and EU energy strategy. WA lacks a strategy for energy, but if it did, then renewables would likely be prioritised too, for similar reasons as the EU. The interconnection process in Germany follows the same general process as in WA, including the application, utility review, and commissioning. In Germany grid infrastructure upgrades for interconnection are paid by the utility, in Australia the generator can be liable for all the upgrade costs. 8.2 Commercial- and Utility-Scale Interconnection in Germany In Germany, commercial and utility scale projects basically follow similar interconnection procedures as residential-scale projects. However, there can be delays in grid connections and high fees for installations over 30kWp as there is no legally defined preferred interconnection and this allows transmission operators to obstruct the interconnection process. In addition, larger sources (up to 5MWp) require two additional steps such as determining the capacity of the existing infrastructure to support the project and the location of the interconnection point. Both of these can result in delayed connections. Overall there is the regulatory pressure to prioritise the interconnection of renewable energy projects as this is part of the wider strategy to reduce dependency on foreign fossil fuels, develop a local industry, reduce long term costs, reduce pollution and improve the sustainability of society.
Page 91
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator