Australia cogenerators seek action on emissions
Reuters News Service"It was expected that energy market reform would result in emissions reductions of 14 million tonnes per annum by 2010. But to date, emissions have continued to increase," Brazzale said in a statement.
The cogeneration association on Wednesday released its analysis of emissions, based on Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics forecasts for a 54 percent rise in power use and an assessment of existing and proposed generation.
Cogeneration, the production of electricity and useful steam energy from a single fuel source, is typically fuelled by gas or a renewable fuel such as the sugar-milling by-product bagasse.
Most of Australia's major power baseload power generation is from brown and black coal fired generators which emit high levels of greenhouse gases and which are concerned about the impact of abatement measures on their businesses.
Brazzale said Australia needed to take further action, such as emissions trading if it was to meet its Kyoto commitment to limit 2010 emissions to an eight percent increase on 1990 levels.
"To be able to meet the Kyoto commitment we believe that the cost of greenhouse gas emissions needs to be internalised into investment and energy purchasing decisions," he said.
"Cogeneration would then be well placed to deliver nearly half of the emissions reductions required to meet greenhouse reduction targets at lowest net cost to the Australian economy."
The cogeneration study said for the Kyoto target to be met the emissions intensity of power generation would need to fall to 630 kg/MWh in 2010 from 917 kilograms per megawatt hour in 1990
It said based on its current analysis the emissions intensity to 2010 was expected to be 820 kg/MWh.
The Australian Government is yet to back emissions trading, but the Australian Greenhouse Office has said a domestic scheme could be introduced alongside international trading from 2008.
Cogeneration and distributed generation within local power networks at the end of 1999 accounted for 8.3 percent of installed generation capacity in Australia.
Its share is expected to rise due to environmental issues and government measures such as the target for electricity retailers to source an extra two percent of their demand from renewable or waste product energy sources by 2010.
Brazzale said the cogeneration and distributed generation market share should increase to over 20 percent by 2010.