Terry Kallis, managing director of Petratherm, stated that the report by energy economics firm MMA shows that geothermal has the potential to be the cheapest form of renewable energy.
MMA has suggested the Federal Government on the design of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and Renewable Energy Target. MMA was commissioned by the Australian Geothermal Energy Association (AGEA) to generate the report.
The report studied the cost benefit of connecting an electricity transmission line from Innamincka in northern SA via Olympic Dam near Moomba to Davenport near Port Augusta, taking in the geothermal energy projects of Geodynamics in the Cooper Basin and Petratherm in the northern Flinders Ranges.
The report revealed that a $171m investment in transmission would save $860m for South Australian customers and $2,800m for customers of the National Electricity Market (NEM) from 2011 to 2030.
Mr. Kallis, said: “This report shows early investment in transmission will allow low cost geothermal energy to push electricity prices down along with the cost of renewable energy certificates.
“The potential for cheap, base load power coming from the northern part of South Australia is very large. The MMA study demonstrates that the lowest cost solution, in SA, for getting renewable energy into the market is from geothermal power. The report also indicates that transmission line investment can be deemed to be regulated assets.”
