SCHOOLS — VIRTUAL POWER PLANTS
689. Dr J. KRISHNAN to the Minister for Energy:
I refer to the McGowan Labor
government's commitment to delivering a clean, green energy future for Western
Australia and targeting net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
(1) Can the minister update the house on the rollout
of virtual power plants in schools, including Rossmoyne Senior High
School in my electorate of Riverton?
(2) Can the
minister outline to the house what virtual power plants mean for the
reliability and stability of the local electricity grid?
Mr W.J.
JOHNSTON replied:
(1)–(2) I thank the member for the question and I congratulate
him on attending Rossmoyne Senior High School yesterday with the Premier and
the Minister for Education and Training to launch the installation, as part of
the $66.3 million renewable energy
investment from the McGowan government that we announced as part of the
recovery plan. With the Premier and the Minister for Education and Training, I was
pleased to make this announcement in July last year. I am pleased that we are
installing batteries in 10 schools across the state. Not only is Rossmoyne part
of this program, so is Kalgoorlie–Boulder Community High School;
Baldivis Secondary College; Belridge
Secondary College, member for Hillarys; Butler College; Coastal Lakes College;
Success Primary School; Gilmore College; Joseph Banks Secondary College; and
Comet Bay Primary School.
These virtual power plants bring
together renewable energy in a battery to allow controllable energies so it can
give bi-directional flow of electricity that provides support to the grid at a local
level and also allows that energy to work in concert with the entire system.
This is all about transitioning to a high renewable future. Already in Western Australia this year, on a number of
occasions, we have had nearly 70 per cent of all the electricity in the south
west interconnected system being provided by rooftop solar. We are the single
largest renewable grid for any isolated grid in the world. We are a renewable
energy success story. Virtual power plants are going to play an important part
in the future of our high renewable energy content system. The Distributed
energy resources roadmap acknowledged that virtual power plants will play a
critical role, which is why I am also pleased to say that we are rolling
out an additional six sites for $4.8 million in Geraldton and Kalgoorlie, at the edge of the grid and where this new
technology will play a very significant part of our energy future. We
have just started Project Symphony to bring together virtual power plants in
the south eastern suburbs to bring together individual homes as well as
businesses in that corridor. We are investing in these new technologies and
investing in the systems that are going to underpin the move to a high
renewable–energy future. That is unlike the member for Cottesloe who is
still committed to building a 1 500-megawatt renewable energy project over 1 000
kilometres north of Perth, which would mean
there would be no more renewable energy on the rooftops. It would squeeze out
all the future mum-and-dad investments in distributed energy. No-one
would be able to put solar panels on their roof if the member for Cottesloe had
his way. That is not our future that we are designing. We are designing a future
in which families, businesses and schools can share in the renewable energy
future.
The SPEAKER: Member for Vasse,
with the last question.