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Positive city energy by renewables. Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide

Positive city energy by renewables. Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide

In July 2020, the City of Sydney and City of Adelaide joined Melbourne and went 100% renewable power. What does this mean and how does it work?

Along with the Cities of Melbourne and Adelaide, City of Sydney Lord Mayor, the long standing Clover Moore has been systematically edging the city towards increasing environmental commitments over the past 15 years.The City of Sydney became carbon neutral in 2007, declared a climate emergency in 2019 and this recent shift to renewable power will save an additional 20,000 tons of carbon emissions annually. It will also save the city a pile of money.

Sydney needs power to run 23,000 streetlights, 5 pools, 75 parks, libraries, community halls and office buildings. The majority of power use is in night-lit street lights.This little factoid is important because it means that their highest energy use is at the same time as everyone else's lowest use. That is why it's so common for cities to be powered by Wind energy.

The Cities of Sydney and Adelaide are living examples of how easily infrastructure can be literal economic powerhouses - environmentally friendly, supporting local businesses and create jobs. This very basic council level commitment is also the kind of thing that any citizen in any council can agitate their local councillors to achieve. 

How does it work?

For a city to go 100% renewable is the same basic logic as it has been for anyone of the 2,000,000 Australian household with solar panels on their roof. Just more zeroes after the $ sign and no requirement to have the power generator devices on your own roof.

City of Sydney work with 3 power farms spread across NSW - Sapphire Wind Farm near Inverell, Bomen Solar Farm in Wagga Wagga and Repower Shoalhaven (solar) in Nowra. That is where the power is generated, but as anyone with solar power knows, you can't just go make energy and siphon it off to your home. The only way energy can be delivered to anywhere from somewhere is via our poles and wires system - the national 'Grid'. There is no electricity wifi.

The council's version of household solar is their power farms. City of Sydney goes to a big retailer of electricity, Flow Power, who purchase the electricity equivalent to the city's usage from the suppliers and add it to the national grid. In Sydney's case, 3/4 of the power is wind generated and the rest is solar. The 3 farms are contracted to generate the required power, by type and feed it into the Grid. 

Why buy from distributed power sources?

On the surface, it might seem inefficient, to use 3 different power generators, but it means that a buyer can purchase energy from whichever generator has cheaper electricity at the time it's needed. The electricity market works as if you are physically purchasing power directly, even as it feeds into the Grid. 

Also, if you remember the street lights mentioned earlier, most electricity at night and that means they choose to buy more wind power than solar power. The business of buying energy from a power generator when its output matches your demand is known as load matching. 

Why these deals are so important to everyone

City of Sydney have consciously set out to be both 100% renewable and to support regional NSW business. In the case of Repower Shoalhaven, City of Sydney have partnered with them to help get their project off the ground. Without the investment, Repower Shoalhaven would simply never have existed. 

Images: Hero - Unsplash | Kate Ausburn / Other images: City of Sydney

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