More energy efficiency policies would be smarter than more power stations

Adelaide Advertiser
Tuesday 17/2/2009 Page: 18

A CONSENSUS has emerged that the largescale blackouts in Adelaide and Melbourne in recent weeks were the result of excessive demand being placed on the electricity grid by airconditioning. About one in every two Australian homes currently has at least one airconditioner. They are all being turned on at the same time whenever we experience a heatwave. The grid just can't cope with these peak demands.

Unfortunately, most of the solutions proposed have focussed on the supply side of the equation, including building more power stations (coal-fired no doubt), just so we can meet the surging demand from airconditioning. While this is good news for the construction and mining sectors, it is a cruelly ironic blow to our environment. To me it seems perverse to be suggesting the release of even more climate-warming CO2 into the atmosphere whenever we experience a heatwave.

After the recent Melbourne blackouts, Energy Networks Australia proposed spending about $50 billion of our tax dollars to build extra capacity in the electricity grid. They failed to mention the fact that this extra capacity would get used maybe only half a dozen times a year. I'm no economist but committing billions to new infrastructure that sits idle for more than 95% of its life time doesn't sound like a very sensible use of capital. To my mind a much smarter approach would be to take a close look at the demand side of this peak-demand problem.

In a warming world I think now is the right time to seriously start addressing the many questions related to the use and abuse of energy in general, and airconditioning in particular. The supply side of the electricity sector seems to dominate in this country (that is, let's build more coal-fired power stations). But I think the mining companies and energy utilities shouldn't be the only voices heard on such an important issue.

After all, they're the dinosaurs who led us into this climate change problem in the first place. So why would we be letting them decide our future energy policies? No, energy conservation is a much smarter place to be looking and it doesn't cost billions of dollars. In fact, it saves money and it is effective immediately. The Federal Government has just included a fairly ambitious budget for home insulation in its economic stimulus package.

That's a sensible demand-side policy, although it remains to be seen whether it dampens peak electricity demand on a scale that would avert power blackouts Nevertheless, more energy efficiency policies would be a much smarter move than building more coal-fired power stations. For goodness sake, the Australian economy has barely begun the process of improving energy efficiency for the simple reason that energy is underpriced in this country. Compared to other places, such as Japan and Europe, we still have plenty of low-hanging fruit on the energy efficiency tree just waiting to be picked.

Associate Professor Richard de Dear is with the faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning at the Sydney University.