Used EV winners and losers, renewables trump capture and jargon busting
In this issue:
Used EV winners and losers
Thinking of buying a used EV? The good news is it seems battery life is better than many have predicted. Pickles auction house in Australia has studied the batteries of 250 used EVs coming through its books and found relatively low degradation, even in vehicles that have notched up quite a few Ks. For vehicles with more than 120,000Kms on the clock, the average retention was 90%. For vehicles that had travelled between 40,000Kms and 80,000Kms, average retention was at 94.6% and for vehicles with less than 20,000Kms on the clock, retention averaged 98.2%. Across major brands, Hyundai showed the best retention followed by BYD with Tesla adrift.
Energy industry confidence in net zero slipping
The latest update in the Energy Industry Council’s Net Zero Jeopardy series of reports indicates the number of energy professionals who think we can get to global net zero has dropped from 45% last year to just 16% this. Short term confidence has also slipped with 14% believing their country can hit stated 2030 goals, down from 16% last year. The report highlights growing frustrations around unclear regulations and underinvestment.
Elsewhere, plans on the up
Meanwhile, the story is quite different for the UK’s wider business community. The latest energy survey from PwC reports the number of businesses targeting to be net-zero by 2030 has increased from 28% to 47% over the last year. Energy demand is increasing on the back of more energy intensive technologies and expectations of business growth. Reducing emissions is the most cited energy management objective and efficiency as the most significant route to achieve it. Interest in renewable supply agreements is picking up as is interest in on-site solar.
Renewables trump capture
New Zealand is about to incentivise carbon capture by including it in the ETS. However, a just-published study of scenario outcomes comparing the economic, health and emissions impacts of renewables and carbon capture across 149 countries lands unequivocally at the conclusion investing in renewables outperforms investing in carbon capture. The difference in costs is estimated at between US$60 trillion (NZ$106trn) and US$80 trillion (NZ$141trn) over the next 25 years, or that the renewables route would result in 92% lower social costs. The nub is that the capture route still involves combustion and all the emissions and pollutants associated with it, even if some are captured.
The Australian nuclear debate
Nuclear energy is often touted as renewable and emissions friendly and the main opposition party in Australia jumped on board at the end of last year with a proposed policy to build nuclear rather than develop the grid for renewables. The policy was widely criticised at the time and a new analysis published this week by the Climate Change Authority slams the plan even further, claiming it would result in an extra 2 billion tonnes of emissions, cause the country to miss all its international commitments and set it on a trajectory consistent with 2.6C warming. No doubt the debate will continue to rage and it will be interesting to see if it becomes a significant vote winner or loser in the Federal elections to be held later this year.
Temporal flexibility, smooth spikes and randomised delay
These are just some of the jargon terms that could be holding back the adoption of demand flexibility according to a report by the Association for Decentralised Energy (UK), titled Demystifying Flex. It mined numerous industry documents and uncovered 524 unique terms related to energy flexibility and demand-side response. The concern is, this plethora of terms leads to confusion and lack of trust around flexibility and will constrain adoption.
Did you know ……
More land is used for playing golf than for generating renewable electricity? Around 0.01 square kilometres of land is required per MW for utility-scale solar farms and wind farms need 0.12 square kilometres for each MW. Of course, the turbine footprint of wind farms is significantly less than this. In both cases, the land can also have dual use for crops or livestock whereas golf courses require large amounts of water and are often tended using numerous chemicals. New Zealand has 424 courses, the second largest number in the world per capita, surpassed only by Scotland, although the Falkland Islands and Iceland appear as one and two on some lists where a minimum population qualifier is not applied.
