{"id":27199,"date":"2019-01-16T08:24:38","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T21:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=27199"},"modified":"2019-01-16T08:25:12","modified_gmt":"2019-01-15T21:55:12","slug":"hele-coal-australia-mb0901","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/hele-coal-australia-mb0901\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Power Project Pushing For HELE Coal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Australian<\/a>

Image: stafichukanatoly<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

A new report ranking power prices in the National Electricity Market makes some curious claims about so-called high-efficiency, low emissions (HELE) coal fired power generation.<\/p>\n

The report from the Australian Power Project ranked states in the National Electricity Market (NEM) for the fourth quarter of last year and found South Australians paid the highest prices for electricity.<\/p>\n

Queensland led the NEM states with one of the lowest average bills and better value for money. The report<\/a> (Word) states South Australia and Tasmania, which utilise a greater proportion of gas and renewables, have the highest annual electricity bills.<\/p>\n

Without delving too much into the report’s conclusions on electricity prices, an important thing to note here with regard to South Australia is that it has always had high electricity prices<\/a> – even before the first wind turbine was built or the first solar panel installed. As SQ’s Ronald puts it:<\/p>\n

“South Australia doesn\u2019t have high electricity prices because it has renewable energy. South Australia has renewable energy because it has high electricity prices.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

HELE Coal Good For What Ails Us? Nah.<\/h2>\n

The report then moves into some strange territory. It states:<\/p>\n

“The government\u2019s Finkel Review found new High Efficiency Low Emissions (HELE) coal fired power stations are cheaper to run than wind, solar with storage, and gas. This off-the-shelf solution would deliver the downwards pressure on power prices that Australian households and businesses need.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Huh?<\/p>\n

The Finkel Review report<\/a> (PDF) was released back in June 2017.<\/p>\n

The following is a graph from the report showing the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) of various technologies (click for a larger view). LCOE is the total cost of ownership over an electricity generator\u2019s lifetime divided by energy production.<\/p>\n

\"Levelised<\/a>

Source: Independent Review into the Future Security of the National Electricity Market<\/p><\/div>\n

Looking not too far into the future, that graph shows large-scale solar will be cheaper than HELE technologies – and bear in mind the Finkel Review report started being compiled quite a while before it was published. The renewables sector is evolving rapidly and solar power has continually bettered expectations on cost reductions over the years – and we can probably expect the same for large-scale storage.<\/p>\n

For example, a Lazard report published late last year<\/a> found in the USA, the low-end levelised cost of electricity from unsubsidised<\/strong> utility scale solar was already USD $36\/MWh – so around AUD $50.<\/p>\n

The Finkel Review makes a few other specific mentions of HELE coal, including:<\/p>\n

“To compete with new gas-fired generation from the emissions point of view, new HELE generation would need to be fitted with carbon capture and storage”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

… and that’s very expensive<\/a>. The LCOE costs in the chart above are without capture and storage (CCS).<\/p>\n

The problem is that HELE coal without CCS isn’t all that low in emissions. The Finkel Review report notes the following estimated operating emissions (kg CO2-e\/ MWh):<\/p>\n