User:TGCP/draft/owfD

Electricity in Australia describes production and consumption of electricity in Australia, with summaries of "green"/renewables such as wind and solar power. Energy policy of Australia describes the politics of Australia as it relates to energy.

Overview
The national grid of Australia is not connected to other countries. New and old electricity pylons.jpg The National Electricity Market (NEM) high-voltage transmission network interconnects large parts of five regional market jurisdictions – Queensland, New South Wales (including the Australian Capital Territory), Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania, but not Western Australia or the Northern Territories. It has 45 GW and supplies 9 million customers with 200 TWh per year.

CSIRO ScienceImage 2956 Tarraleah Hydroelectric Power Station.jpg

Some remote areas maintain their own islanded electricity system, not covered by main grids.

Stats http://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Planning-and-forecasting/Generation-information

Historically–and until recent times–electricity in Australia was sourced largely from coal and natural gas, however due to the increasing effects of global warming and human-induced climate change on the global environment, there has been a greater shift towards renewable energy such as solar power and wind power both in Australia and abroad. This in turn has led to a decrease in the demand of coal worldwide.

History
By 2000, Australia's power capacity was 43 GW, comprising 84% thermal and 14% hydro. Production was 202 TWh and consumption was 188 TWh.

Coal
Coal supplies most of Australia's electricity.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global coal production increased 23 percent from 2005 to 2010 and 4.7 percent from 2009 to 2010. In Australia, coal production increased 12.9 percent between 2005 and 2010 and 5.3 percent between 2009 and 2010. Australia was the fourth-highest coal producer in the world in 2009, producing 335 megatonnes (Mt) of anthracite and 64 Mt of lignite.

Australia was the world's top anthracite exporter in 2009, exporting 31 percent of global exports (262 Mt, out of 836 Mt total). Seventy-eight percent of its 2009 anthracite production was exported. In this respect, Australia is an exception to most anthracite exporters. Australia's global anthracite export share was 14 percent of all production (836 of 5,990 Mt).

Newcastle, New South Wales, is the world’s largest coal-exporting port. The Hunter Valley region in New South Wales (NSW) is the chief coal region. Most coal mining in Australia is opencast.

Renewable electricity


Renewable electricity has undergone substantial growth in Australia in the 21st century. It is estimated that Australia produced 35,007 gigawatt hours (GWh) of renewable electricity (or equivalent) over the year ending December 2015, representing 14.6% of the total production in Australia. By way of comparison, in 2006, approximately 9,500 GWh of electricity came from renewable sources, representing less than 4% of nationally generated electricity.

Renewable energy has potential in Australia, and the Climate Change Authority is reviewing the 20-percent Renewable Energy Target (RET). The production of 50 megawatts of wind power (power for nearly 21,000 homes annually) creates about 50 construction jobs and five staff positions.

Several geothermal projects are underway.

Possible future electricity oversupply
TRUEnergy (now Energy Australia) said in 2011 that electricity producers in Australia are not building gas-fired power stations, while the four major banks are unwilling to make loans for coal-fired power stations. Additionally, with increasing energy efficiency and continual investment in renewable energy, Australia is trending towards an oversupply of energy.

Energy efficiency
According to TRUenergy (now EnergyAustralia) lower energy use could save AU$25 billion (£16 billion), or $840 per electric customer.

Climate change
Australian total emissions in 2007 were 396 million tonnes of CO2. That year, the country was among the top polluter nations of the world per capita. Australian per-capita emissions of carbon dioxide in 2007 were 18.8 tons of CO2, compared to the EU average of 7.9 tons. The change in emissions from 1990 to 2007 was +52.5 percent, compared to the EU's -3.3 percent.

The per-capita carbon footprint in Australia was rated 12th in the world by PNAS in 2011.