Page 13 - AsiaElec Week 18

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NEWS IN BRIEF
AsiaElec
RETAIL
Total seeks electricity retail licence in Australia
Total is seeking to expand its Australian electricity retailing business, as part of a global ambition to supply power to 9mn sites by 2023, Kallanish Energy reported.
On March 16, Total Gas & Power Australia (TGPAU) submitted an application requesting the Australian Energy Regulator to issue an electricity retailer authorisation. The company already sells electricity to the Gladstone Liquefied Natural gas (GLNG) project under an exemption granted in March 2015.
The goal now is to supply power to “very large industrial and commercial customers who require a bespoke service,” TGPAU said in the application, made public by the regulator on Monday.
“TGPAU has no current plans to supply electricity to small or medium customers,” the company added, noting it expects to grow its retailing from June.
The company holds a 27. 5% stake in GLNG. Its portfolio in Australia also includes the Ichthys LNG project, solar farms and a battery project. Outside of Australia, Total retails and trades electricity in 10 countries.
In 2018, the group retailed 37 TWh of electricity to more than 5mn customers across 11 countries.
The Australian Energy Regulator is seeking public comments on the application by June 2.
GRID
World’s biggest green
energy hub approved for
Western Australia
The Asian Renewable Energy Hub in the Pilbara region of Western Australia will transfer energy via a lengthy subsea power cable to Singapore and produce green hydrogen at an “oil and gas scale” for export.
“Having assessed the proposal, the Environmental Protection Authority recommends the proposal may be implemented subject to conditions,” the state EPA said this morning.
The project will cost more than A$22bn and is being led by a consortium spearheaded by Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas, US-based Intercontinental Energy and Macquarie Bank.
The Asian Renewable Energy Hub will cover 6500 sq. km of land and is expected to generate more than 15 gigawatts of renewable energy in northern WA.
Around 3GW of energy generated is earmarked for industrial users in the Pilbara, including miners and mineral processers.
However, the bulk of the power generated will be used to produce green hydrogen for export markets, and directly exported through a subsea pipeline to Singapore.
Four export cables will run across the seabed and through the Eighty Mile Beach Marine Port, for direct energy export to southeast Asia.
It has taken six years to get to this stage,
after project development studies began in 2014.
Last year the project was given priority ‘Major Project’ status by the state government.
The A$22bn hub will be constructed in phases over the next ten years and when complete will consist of 1,743 wind turbines with a generating capacity of 7. 5 gigawatts and a 644,600 hectare 3. 5GW solar plant generating more than 40 terawatt hours of electricity a year. It would also produce green hydrogen.
The project, some 220km east of Port Hedland, is being backed by CWP Energy Asia, InterContinental Energy, Vestas and Macquarie Group.
The developers are aiming for first exports of hydrogen by 2027.
COAL
COVID-19 exposes weaknesses of Indian coal
The COVID-19 pandemic and India’s national lockdown has highlighted the growing financial risks to India’s coal-fired power
plant sector, a technology being superseded by international finance investing in new, cheaper, and cleaner renewable energy, finds a new IEEFA briefing note out today.
The note finds renewable energy delivered more than two-thirds or 9. 39GW of India’s new generating capacity additions in the fiscal year 2019/20, while new thermal power plants delivered 4. 3GW, net of the 2. 5GW removed due to end-of-life plant closures.
Further, coal-fired power plants today are running at half the capacity rate assumed in the Central Electricity Authority’s modelling guidelines used to evaluate the financial and operating performance of new coal-fired power plants.
Tim Buckley, IEEFA’s director of energy finance studies, saod the National Electricity Plan of 2018 was predicated on an additional 70GW or more of new coal-fired power plants installed by 2026/27, and the closure of another 39GW.
The note also said that the COVID-19 pandemic India’s national lockdown had reduced power demand in the country, with the casualty being coal-fired power generation.
In the first 33 days of the 2020/21 fiscal year, coal-fired power generation was down just shy of 30 TWh.
“Coal-fired power generation has worn more than 100% of the COVID-19 power
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