Since diesel fuel in Australia will tire out in the foreseeable future, it is reasonable to start planning out converting the current railway system to no longer maintaining its operation depends on diesel. Other factors initiating this decision involves treaty agreements between pressures from the public of the world and a constantly increasing ethical demand for countering the issue of climate change by carry out reduction of carbon emissions. This poses the need of a redesigned, cleaner system of railway compare to the current system which is still highly rely on diesel fuel to encounter for upcoming changes. The new design of the railway system must be able to remain the capability of meeting the operational requirements and reduce the current carbon dioxide emissions without using imported petroleum-based fuel, and minimizing the impact on environment where possible.
In order to achieve the transformation, a new source of energy is required for the maintain the sustainability of the function of the system, while the majority of emissions of carbon dioxide from the current system are associated with the production and burning of diesel fuel for the generation of electricity.
As Australia is an island and most of the major cities lies on the sea shore, which has huge amount of onshore wind, and this natural advantages can be utilised. When it comes to wind power, it is being identified to be the cheapest source of large-scale renewable energy with the current technology. Wind is in fact the cleanest energy among all the other renewable energy options, with the least pollution and high sustainability.
According to Energy Supply Association of Australia, Australia is ranked 11th in the world for its per-capita installed capacity in the world. Although Australia’s wind power generation is largely depending on two states, namely South Australia and Tasmania, a lot of projects has been commissioned and planned in other states.
As stated by the Clean Energy Council, wind power is the cheapest source of large-scale renewable energy. In 2018, Australia’s wind farms produced 33.5% of the country’s clean energy and delivered a total of 7.1% to Australia’s overall electricity [81]. As of 2018, over 867 MW of wind energy was installed via the commissioned of 9 wind farms projects, which makes it the highest ever amount in Australia’s history.
While wind generation is normally available overnight and at higher annual energy contributions than solar power generation, solar power generation is more predictable during daylight hours.
Hence, one of the major ways to improve system efficiency is to diversify the type of renewable generation built. For example, wind generation within a renewable energy zone is likely to be highly correlated to other wind generation within the same renewable energy zone, whereas solar generation is likely to be relatively uncorrelated to wind generation in the same area.
Another way is to diversify the geographical location of where the renewable generation is built. For example, wind generation located in different geographical areas is likely to be less correlated than wind generation within the same geographical area.
The wind farms locations are determined based on the location of the renewable energy zone. The renewable energy zones are defined and located by the Australian Energy Market Operator Limited, which has the following characteristic:
Excellent wind.
Excellent sun.
High quality STORES sites short term storage, which can boost the load factor on transmission lines and convert sun and wind following output to load-following output.
Easy connection to major load centres.
Anti-correlation of the wind and sun within the zone or between the zone and major load centres the, which wind blows more at night or in winter.
Reasonable geological, hydrological, environmental, heritage, land tenure, access and other characteristics.
Likewise, another consideration of the locations of the construction of the wind farm will be the diversity of the location as mentioned in the characteristic and the prospect of renewable energy previously. Diversity indicates the forms of generation of power within the renewable energy zone. By optimising the diversity of the generation, it can also improve the economy and reduce the cost of land acquisition and construction. Diversity can be delivered through:
Geographic location to enhance the contribution of the wind and solar power generation across the renewable energy zone.
The optimal integration of wind and solar technologies in one renewable energy zone.
Extension of time of contribution to the grid scale battery storage through generation and carry out optimisation through demand shifting and response.
With the options of the renewable energy zones identified, the factors that are more relevant to the map of current railway system will be taken into account, and the factors are the following:
The geographical location of the renewable energy zones should be easy to access to and from the current railway system.
The geographical location of the renewable energy zones preferably has exiting transmission facilities or the shortest distance of transmission to the current railway system.
The chosen Renewable Energy Zones have the characteristic of reasonable and stable wind resources and excellent sun (See example figure below).
Demand of the energy is high in that region, which includes the need from the current railway system as well as the surrounding local community.
All in all, I believe Australia has the highest potential among all the other countries to have its entire railway system transformed into a renewable energy only sustainable system.
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