At a recent conference, Mr Harcus detailed the Energy Network Association’s (ENA’s) gas demand study which found that the increased direct use of gas would deliver significant benefits to the Australian economy between now and 2050.
The study found these benefits would include:
- Enhanced energy security;
- Long-term cost competitiveness by delivering an optimum energy infrastructure utilisation;
- Lower delivered gas and energy prices to consumers;
- Enhanced efficiency in energy delivery; and,
- Lower greenhouse gas emissions.
The ENA strategy focuses on encouraging growth in three key segments:
- The direct use of gas in the residential and commercial sector;
- Road transport; and,
- Distributed power generation.
Mr Harcus said “The first is based on the increased substitution of electricity with gas for residential and commercial applications. The road transport model is based on CSIRO modelling conducted for Treasury and for the Federal Government’s Strategic Framework for Alternative Transport Fuels. The distributed generation model is based on analysis by Treasury and CSIRO.
“The distributed generation forecast identified opportunities for greater levels of deployment of small-scale distributed generation, similar to the BlueGen units currently being deployed in trials as part of the Smart Grid Smart City project, along with the uptake of larger-scale cogeneration and trigeneration included in Treasury modelling,”? added Mr Harcus.