As Australia’s electricity grid moves towards higher and higher concentrations of renewable energy, the newly appointed head of the Australian Energy Market Operator is pushing for the ability to handle a peak of 100% renewables entering the grid. In a recent speech, Daniel Westerman set 2025 as the target date. … [continued]
It’s about the batteries, stupid! Hardly a week goes by without a story about new battery developments, new battery chemistries, and the building of new battery factories (or gigafactories). Meanwhile, in the Land Down Under, our stories are about size. Big, bigger, and biggerest. South Australia is home to the … [continued]
Yesterday, my neighbourhood had its monthly coffee morning. Four or five neighbouring families get together for a catchup and a chat. We are mostly retired and the chat is usually about grandchildren, home maintenance, and other mundane matters. Tim is a retired high school headmaster, his wife is still working, … [continued]
Great news. However, we have to realise that this comes off a low base. Penetration of the new vehicle market by EVs (BEVs and PHEVS) is estimated to reach 2% in Australia during 2021. It may actually exceed this, as pundits predict that Tesla will ship in 15,000 cars from … [continued]
Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland in Australia, is trialing electric buses with a view to transitioning the fleet. One of the early issues was that the buses were too powerful. Yes, too powerful. The electric buses took off too fast and engineers were worried about passenger safety. This has … [continued]
Before I bought my Tesla Model 3, I anticipated that I would inevitably be asked the question: why an unknown brand and not a more established brand like BMW, Renault, Hyundai, or Jaguar? I list these brands because that was the extent of available BEVs in Australia at that time. … [continued]
I really prefer to write positive stories about the energy transition in Australia. As individuals, councils, and state press forward with a variety of projects involving EVs, wind, solar, batteries, and pumped hydro (and sometimes combinations of all of these) great progress is being made. However, it could be better … [continued]
Will we see 6 million plugin vehicles sold globally this year? The math seems to indicate that it might even be more! From 2010 to 2018, EV sales grew at 60% per year. Starting at 1 million vehicles (just because the math is easier), this is what that looks like … [continued]
