Roadmap to Renewables

The Roadmap to Renew­ables report by the Renew­able Ener­gy Expert Pan­el to the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Gov­ern­ment (NTG) was released in Novem­ber 2017. The report con­tains eleven mea­sures the gov­ern­ment should take in order to pow­er the Ter­ri­to­ry with 50% renew­ables by 2030 while main­tain­ing afford­abil­i­ty, reli­a­bil­i­ty and secu­ri­ty. The gov­ern­ment has since sup­port­ed or sup­port­ed-in-prin­ci­ple all eleven recommendations.

By adopt­ing the Expert Pan­el’s rec­om­men­da­tions, the Ter­ri­to­ry can anticipate

• renew­able ener­gy as an agent for eco­nom­ic development
• assur­ance of elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem secu­ri­ty and reliability
• down­ward pres­sure on whole­sale elec­tric­i­ty prices
• ongo­ing future afford­abil­i­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of elec­tric­i­ty supply
• effec­tive gov­er­nance of dis­rup­tive changes in the system
• greater use of renew­able ener­gy gen­er­a­tion sources
• low­ered emissions
• improved plan­ning of the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry ener­gy system
• greater investor certainty

The report out­lines the Gov­ern­men­t’s com­mit­ment to an ​“Alice Springs Cen­tre of Excel­lence” in solar ener­gy to act as a research hub, con­cen­trat­ing resources and capa­bil­i­ty, and shar­ing knowl­edge. The Intyal­heme Cen­tre for Future Ener­gy is the man­i­fes­ta­tion of that com­mit­ment.

The Renew­able Ener­gy and Elec­tric­i­ty Mar­ket Reform Imple­men­ta­tion Plan 2018 – 2020 details how the vision to achieve 50% renew­ables by 2030 will be imple­ment­ed. The sec­ond ini­tia­tive of the plan is to ​“sup­port the research devel­op­ment of tech­nolo­gies and sys­tems, suit­able for the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry, that facil­i­tate opti­mal inte­gra­tion of renew­able ener­gy into the net­works.” One of the actions tak­en to imple­ment this ini­tia­tive is to estab­lish Desert Knowl­edge Aus­tralia​’s Cen­tre of Excel­lence in Renew­able Ener­gy — the Intyal­heme Cen­tre for Future Energy.