The report, Meeting NSW Electricity Needs in a Carbon Constrained World: Lowering Costs and Emissions with Distributed Energy, includes a UTS study that looked at five scenarios for meeting New South Wales electricity needs to the year 2020. Two involved building more large, centralised coal-fired and gas-fired power stations, while three used a range of local distributed energy options such as increased energy efficiency, reducing demand for peak power through “demand side response” and cogeneration (which generates power closer to where it is used and makes use of the waste heat).

“Even if we ignore all the economic and environmental costs of greenhouse gas emissions, the more environmental friendly approach is still less costly over the next decade,” said report co-author and UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures Research Principal Chris Dunstan.

The report was completed by the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) for the Intelligent Grid (iGrid) Cluster, a three year national research collaboration between the CSIRO and the university sector funded under the CSIRO Energy Transformed Flagship. The iGrid research program aims to achieve major greenhouse gas emissions reductions by integrating “distributed energy” technologies into a smarter electricity grid.

“This report challenges the common view that New South Wales has to choose between cheap but dirty power on the one hand, and costly greenhouse emissions reductions on the other,” Mr Dunstan said.

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The report makes a series of recommendation including that the New South Wales Government should adopt a target of meeting all growth in energy consumption to 2020 from green energy sources, and that the government should publish a comprehensive annual assessment of distributed energy potential in the state and plans to tap this potential.

Meanwhile, the state is taking steps to take advantage of growth in the renewable energy industry, with the announcement of a parliamentary inquiry into rural wind farms. “Wind farming is a significant component of the New South Wales renewable energy portfolio and the Australian Government’s proposed Renewable Energy Target (RET). It is forecast to deliver the state of New South Wales considerable growth in the renewable energy industry, increased regional job opportunities and reduced greenhouse gas emissions,” said Chair of the Committee that will conduct the inquiry and Greens MLC Ian Cohen.

“In order to maximise these benefits, appropriate environmental and social planning provisions should be in place.”

Mr Cohen said that the Committee will look at the role of utility-scale wind generation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions generated by electricity production, producing off peak and baseload power, the optimal location for rural wind farms, the impact on rural property values, means of encouraging local ownership and control of wind technology, and the role for energy generated by rural wind farms in relation to the Australian Government’s RET.

The Committee invites written submissions, with a closing date of Friday 21 August 2009. Public hearings and regional site visits will commence in September 2009.