Only renewable energy for Adelaide in 40 years
By Brett Williamson

A fully sustainable and 100 per cent renewable energy source for Adelaide within four decades, that is the hope of Dr Harry Lehmann, a visiting energy expert.

Dr Lehmann, head of Environment Planning and Sustainable Strategies for the Federal Environment Agency of Germany is visiting Adelaide this week as a guest of the Australian Solar Energy Society and UniSA, hosting lectures and speaking with community leaders about how our city could turn off the coal fired power stations and move completely to renewable energy.
"With the right types of demand and supply management, it is possible to achieve a fully renewable energy supply," Dr Lehmann said.

"Not today clearly, we will need time to ... build up not only wind energy but the other renewable energies."

By utilising storage systems and managing supplies, Dr Lehmann believes the Adelaide could be self-sufficient on renewable energy sources, with the country eventually becoming a power exporter.

"You have much more potential; you have much more renewable energy than we [have] in Europe."

Dr Lehmann believes SA will strive forward in the areas of wind, solar and geo-thermal production, and will be able to make strong inroads into cutting power consumption by utilising solar heating and cooling, and wave energy.

To be a strong user of renewable energy, Dr Lehmann says we need to quickly become an industry producer of the technology that is used to convert the resources into power.
"This industry that produces the technology is a start up industry which, in future, will have a much higher importance than the automotive industry.

"In Germany, for example, we have already over 300,000 people working in the renewable energy industry, more or less half of that linked to export technology."

By increasing our current renewable energy production and investing in other types of production and storage, Dr Lehmann believes we could accomplish a fully renewable power supply within 40 years.

"I'm very optimistic that I will see the first 100 per cent renewable energy region in the next decade in Europe, in communities, and then it will grow and probably South Australia and Australia will be in the game of being 100 percent in three or four decades."

Dr Lehmann will speak at the Structure and Dynamic of a 100 percent Renewable Energy Supply for South Australia conference at the University of South Australia City campus from 7:30pm, Thursday 18 February 2010.

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2010/02/17/2822625.htm