Australia is in the news this week because of its intense heatwaves, concurrent with the Polar Vortex in the United States, that's demonstrating the dangers of climate change creating more extreme weather trends. The amount of clean energy in Australia's energy mix and also the overall grid efficiency is a natural next step in that conversation, given how critical the electric power sector is in influencing such climate change. Especially critical is looking at how the heat waves are impacting the energy mix, with an important story from last week being the unexpected tripping of the country's newest and most efficient 'supercritical' coal-fired plant, a 750MW generating station.

Officials, of course noted that the tripping of a coal plant is not unusual and is more of an inconvenience than a real risk of customers losing power. However, the reason these new coal plants have been built in Australia is because they are deemed to be the only reliable source of power-- and their tendency to fail during heat waves (when power demand will peak to ramp up AC use).

These supercritical coal plants, so named because of the purported ability to operate highly efficiently with fewer emissions, reports have found, are actually breaking down at a greater rate than older power stations that aren't 'efficient.' What this demonstrates to me is a bit of a myopic view-- by viewing the technology as being able to create electricity from coal more efficiently before, it has been implemented widely as a way to increase grid efficiency. But the reality that these plants might fail more often and are more vulnerable to extreme heat (when they are needed the most) ends up creating a grid that is less efficient when you actually consider the big picture.

This lesson isn't just one about coal, but one that can and should be applied to any proposed solution to the grid. Efficiency needs to be viewed with a broad perspective and an understanding of how technology fits into the grid and interacts with other parts of it is critical if we are truly to reduce wasted energy. No matter your alignment or sector, eliminating such waste is a unifying goal.