Researchers at the Australian National University, led by Timothy Weber, have found that Australia's electricity system could be run without any fossil gas at essentially the same cost as a gas-dependent grid, in a study ‘ Replacing gas with low-cost, abundant long-duration pumped hydro in electricity systems ’ published in Cell Reports Physical Science. The team argues that many long-term energy plans, including Australia's own, can be biased towards gas because of the way their models simplify decades of weather and demand data, combined with outdated assumptions about how much pumped hydro storage costs and how much can be built. Here's how the researchers uncovered the bias, and what fixing it means for the country's energy future. The study suggests that updating energy models could change how Australia plans for long-term electricity storage.
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