CEO Matthew Wright explains why Australia’s electricity grid needs more solar — not less — and how flexible exports are helping pave the way for a 100% renewable future.
Transcript — Episode 1: Why There's Still Not Enough Solar
"Welcome to Pure Electric on YouTube. Solar, wind, renewables, storage and efficiency. And on today's episode, we're talking about how there's not enough solar on our electricity grid.
Not enough solar. Now in 2025, we're a long way from the point where there's enough solar on the grid and flexible exports. And those two things go together.
So first up, there's not enough solar on our electricity grid. And there won't be until no more fossil fuels are being burnt. That's no more coal and gas, no more fossil fuels emitting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are being burnt. So we've got a grid that's running 100% renewable energy. That's the point when there'll be enough solar on the grid, when the grid is running at 100% renewable energy and there's no more fossil fuels being burnt.
Today you tune into the ABC or the commercial media and you might hear some fossil fuel industry–driven messaging — that's lies from the fossil fuel industry — that there's too much solar on the grid. And it's just not true. Solar can be managed all the way up to 80% and beyond in our electricity grid. Our National Electricity Market in Australia can be managed up to and beyond 80% penetration before we even consider battery storage, which is already going in — funded by people privately, backed by state governments, and possibly soon a federal Labor victory could give us a wide-ranging battery support scheme.
So even without that, renewables integrate fine. And that's thanks to an initiative of the South Australian government where they forced South Australian Power Networks to implement flexible exports.
And flexible exports is a system whereby on very sunny periods during very quiet days, the grid operator can fairly dial back systems’ production so that we get even access to the grid while providing a stable, secure energy supply that maximises the amount of solar that’s supplied.
So renewables can go up very close to 100% without any issues just by limiting production across the board fairly — say 1%, 2%, 5%, something in that order. Even at 100% renewables, we're only going to look at 10%, perhaps 12%, of overall production being limited.
But in providing that, enabling that technology, it means that we can take our solar on our rooftops well beyond where it is today. We're installing average 10-kilowatt systems and we need to get that average up to 20 kilowatts on half of all roofs.
So we're almost there. We're halfway to the target. And we haven't even worked out that there is a target — but there is. We're the guys who brought you the 100% renewable plan over a decade ago, Zero Carbon Australia. And we've been looking at this, and in our planning, we can see the same holds true today — a 50% solar and 50% wind grid backed by various storage technologies will get us to 100% renewable energy, which is where we want to be.
So flexible exports is something that your system will be automatically signed up to if you install in 2025. So it'll happen for you. The bugs and kinks have almost been ironed out completely. It's working fine in South Australia and soon to work properly in Victoria, and following that, New South Wales, ACT, Queensland and beyond.
We'll be able to manage the integration of very high levels of solar into the grid with no issues whatsoever. To date, we haven't had any integration issues — only speculation and lies that issues were coming. People lying to us. People who've got a bent. They've got a reason to lie to us because they've got a financial proprietary interest in making money off fossil fuels — off us not going to renewable energy. That hasn't eventuated.
And now the technologies are in place, through flexible exports, to achieve a renewable energy future with a high, high integration of solar. So that's all going to work now.
Thanks for your time. If you want to know more about flexible exports, you can leave some comments below, and we'll chat with you about that and answer any of your questions. Thank you."
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