AUSTRALIAN NUCLEAR FORUM INFORMATION PAPER No.2 Australia’s Electricity Supplies (adopted 20/10/12))

Electric power is essential to the functioning of the nation in the industrial, commercial, and domestic aspects. Electricity is supplied to Australia from a range of electricity generating stations via a 38,000km network of power lines. Currently this country has about 110 Coal fired, Natural Gas and Hydro power stations (of 50 MWe or greater) that supply most of the 56,000 MWe (i.e. megawatts of electric power) to the nation. The largest of these stations burn black or brown coal to obtain the heat energy to convert to electricity. In addition, burning natural gas is increasingly being used to augment supplies, while other sources of note are hydro power (i.e. using the energy of descending water), wind farms (using the energy of wind) and photoelectric panels (using the energy of the sun). Currently the distribution of these sources of electric generating capacity are: coal 54%, natural gas 26%, hydro 13%, and other renewables 4.5%, but in terms of the actual electricity produced (i.e. kilowatt-hours) coal provides 77%, natural gas 15.2%, hydro 4.8 % and other renewables 2.7%. Since Australia is such a large country it is not practical to have a single interconnected system to supply electricity nationally, rather Western Australia has its own separate system as does the Northern Territory whereas Tasmania and South Australia also maintain thei