There’s nothing like getting on a plane with the excitement of going on a new adventure. But with travel comes the stress of baggage, especially those moments of panic when you don’t know if your bag will arrive at your final destination. And we all remember those photos of lost bags that went viral, which caused everyone to travel with carry-on bags, which is stressful on its own. What if I told you that you didn’t need to bring a bag anymore? What if you could rent the clothes you need for your vacation? And to top it all off, you’d be doing it for the good of the planet.
Japan Airlines is launching a pilot project to allow international travellers the option to rent sets of clothing. Their “Any Wear Anywhere” rental clothing service offers a range of clothing choices which start at less than $30 for two bottoms and three tops. Travellers can rent as many as eight outfits for up to two weeks. All rentals are delivered directly to where the visitor is staying.
The Any Wear Anywhere service is designed to reduce the weight of cargo carried on flights and reduce carbon emissions. Japan Airlines will keep track of the baggage weight reductions and corresponding carbon dioxide emissions reductions due to the clothing rental service and inform their customers.
The airline has already reported that for each kilogram of weight avoided from a flight from Tokyo to New York, the carbon emissions from the aircraft are reduced by 0.75 kilograms. As you can imagine, the more weight you put in an airplane, the more fuel you need to burn to keep it in the air. Which is why airlines have weight restrictions for your baggage.
The Any Wear Anywhere service helps to reduce clothing waste experienced in the fashion industry. All available rental clothing is recuperated from overstock of apparel or gently used clothing that might’ve ended up in the landfill. This helps to reduce the amount of clothing that is produced and discarded, which is a major contributor to environmental problems such as climate change and pollution.
The company offers a variety of clothing options, from casual to smart casual, depending on what you are travelling for. There is an option to rent seasonal clothing, depending on where you travel. This means you can always find the perfect outfit for your trip, regardless of the occasion or the weather.
Any Wear Anywhere also offers clothing sets in a variety of sizes. This is a great option for people travelling with limited luggage space. You can simply rent a set of clothes that are all coordinated, and you will be sure to look your best on your trip. For example, if you are travelling for a business trip, you could rent a set that includes a suit, dress shirt, tie, and pair of shoes. This would ensure that you are always dressed appropriately for meetings and events.
If you travel for a vacation, you could rent a set that includes shorts, t-shirts, and sandals. This would allow you to pack light and have everything you need for a relaxing trip.
The clothing sets offered by Any Wear Anywhere are all high-quality and stylish. They are also available in various sizes, so you can find the perfect fit for your body.
Japan Airlines believes that providing a travel experience with minimal luggage creates environmental value for travellers. Therefore, They can create an environment where travellers can use local options for all aspects of their clothing, food, and accommodation and make their trips more sustainable experience.
It’s an innovative way to reduce carbon emissions when travelling and the waste we’ve generated from the fashion industry. It’s also not an obvious solution but could impact encouraging sustainable travel. In one year, we will see what Japan Airlines passengers thought of the Any Wear Anywhere service and if it will influence other airlines to offer rental services.
The seeds of the Woven City were sown in 2011, after the Great East Japan Earthquake decimated the area of a manufacturing centre and the Higashi-Fuji Plant was moved to the Tohoku area. Before the move, the plant had produced over 7m vehicles and was a “a driving force in the motorization of Japan.”
Toyota has been present in Japan for over 50 years, with manufacturing centers and corporate bases in the country creating employment and investing in community – The Toyota School programme, established in 1977 has educated over 40,000 young minds.
The plant relocation inspired the creation of Woven City, a hub of sustainability, community and mobility designed by Danish architect Bjarjk Ingels and inline with Toyota’s global sustainability promises.
Electricity for the Woven City is primarily generated by hydrogen powered fuel cells, like Toyota’s Mirai vehicle, in an effort to reduce emissions.
“Building a complete city from the ground up, even on a small scale like this, is a unique opportunity to develop future technologies, including a digital operating system for the city’s infrastructure,” says Akio Toyoda, president, Toyota Motor Corporation. “With people, buildings and vehicles all connected and communicating with each other through data and sensors, we will be able to test connected AI technology… in both the virtual and the physical realms… maximizing its potential.”
The Woven City, named for Toyota’s belief that sustainability and technology needs to be woven into the fabric of our future, has begun as home to around 300 residents but will swell to thousands.
The development of the city, despite looking firmly to the future, featured many traditional Japanese woodworking techniques and recycled wood and other materials.
Sustainable tourism for Thailand
Toyota has just partnered with Pattaya City to develop the city as an electric tourism hub, utilizing the development of sustainable energy to enhance service efficiency, reduce costs, and minimize the ecological impact of the city’s operations.
Sustainable transport lies at the center of the city’s developments, including electric buses as the city trials electric baht-busses.
The undertaking falls under criteria from the decarbonized Sustainable City Development Project, created in 2020 to promote sustainable urbanization
Following in the footsteps of the Woven City’s fuel generation, Toyota and Pattaya City aim to establish Thailand’s first hydrogen refueling station for fuel cell electric vehicles, establishing infrastructure for longevity for the development. As electric vehicles grow in popularity, the consistent question is how the infrastructure of charging stations can keep up with the demand.
The partnership aims to pave the way for sustainable tourism developing globally, encouraging profitability without costing the planet.
Like many other countries worldwide, Indonesia has ambitious goals for reducing reliance on fossil fuels. With a population just shy of 300 million people, the results of reducing petroleum consumption would be substantial.
Leaders within the country have expressed interest and intent to reduce reliance on fossil fuels; last year, the country’s president Joko Widodo announced that they are dedicating 700,000 hectares of land to cultivating renewable-based sugar ethanol.
However, small farmers have not seen the benefit of this transition toward bio-diesel production. Large palm oil firms dominate the industry, leaving small farmers without much hope in a transition that will benefit them as much as the environment.
According to Tenny Kristiana of the International Council on Clean Transportation, cellulosic ethanol could be the key ingredient to facilitate a boon in the lives of small farmers and Indonesia as a whole in the long run.
What could be done?
Cellulosic bio-ethanol is a bio-fuel that could be incredibly useful for Indonesian farmers due to its nature in the supply chain. The ethanol is created using traditionally considered waste products, like palm husks, trunks, and empty fruit bunches. These leftovers are either left to rot in the fields or sold overseas to countries like Japan, using the byproducts to fuel their own bio-ethanol industry.
Small farmers would benefit from selling these raw materials to bio-ethanol companies in Indonesia under long-term contracts guaranteeing the benefits for a long time. Expanding this domestic industry would also create jobs in transportation, manufacturing, and plantation work.
Indonesia specifically has large potential in developing its cellulosic ethanol industry, with estimates ranging up to 2 million kiloliters from palm residues alone. This could be the major push that Indonesia needs to support its domestic supply chain and create long-term stability in the job market that they need.
Read also about myECO, An Electric Saving Startup Based in Indonesia.
Being Done Elsewhere Too
This push towards sustainable development in cellulosic ethanol production is not without precedent. Brazil has one of the most successful bio-ethanol programs in the world, making up 50% of all fuel consumption in the gasoline market by April 2008.
This push would also reduce reliance on trade with foreign countries, as the fuel supply would be provided domestically, leaving Indonesia less vulnerable to changes outside its borders.
As the industry expands, they could also expand the inputs in ethanol production. Sugar cane bagasse, corn stalks, rice stems, and others could be used to create bioethanol.
While the long-term goal for many countries is to decarbonize and get off of ICEs entirely, in other countries, the costs outweigh the benefits. In the short to medium term, domestic bioethanol production could be necessary to help small farmers and the Indonesian society at large to buy into the green transition.
Nearly all houses in Tokyo will have to install solar panels after April 2025.
The regulation – passed by the Japanese capital’s local assembly on Thursday – requires 50 major construction firms to equip homes of up to 2,000 square metres with renewable energy power sources.
The rule will help the city transition to green energy, city counsellors declared.
“In addition to the existing global climate crisis, we face an energy crisis with a prolonged Russia-Ukraine war,” said Risako Narikiyo, a member of the local assembly.
“There is no time to waste.”
Why is Tokyo making solar panels mandatory?
Tokyo is the world’s largest city, with a population of nearly 14 million people in its central metropolitan area. Per year, its residents emit an average of 8.6 tonnes of CO2 each.
The IPCC recommends that to meet our decarbonisation goals we should exceed no more than 2.3 tonnes of carbon each, per year.
Tokyo hopes to bring down its emissions footprint significantly in the coming decades. The city’s Metropolitan Government aims to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared with 2000 levels, and to be emission-free by 2050.
But Tokyo lags in its uptake of renewable energy. Just four per cent of buildings with the capacity for solar panels currently have them.
The new rule will help change this.
Overall, the measure will save residents money, the metropolitan government says.
The 4 kilowatt panels will cost around 980,000 yen (€6,725) to install, but the government estimates that this will be covered by electricity sales revenue within 10 years. Subsidies will reduce this pay off time to around six years.
In the transition to a low-carbon world, the sun accounts for an increasing amount of energy produced and consumed. But the energy generated is difficult to regulate as it is dependent on the weather. That is why accurate weather forecasting tools are gaining more traction, as researchers want to know in advance, as closely as possible, the amount of solar energy supply going into their power systems.
In Japan, where the government targets to make renewable sources of energy account for up to 36 to 38 per cent of the power supply by 2030, new technologies supporting the renewables market have sprung up. One of them is Apollon, a solar power generation forecasting system developed by Kansai Electric Power (also known as Kanden), which is based in Osaka and is the largest privately-owned electric utility in Japan.
Apollon, an acronym that stands for areal solar power forecasting system using satellite imagery estimation, uses imagery from the Japanese weather satellite Himawari-8 to predict solar radiation levels, and hence energy supply in the Kansai region in Japan.
Kanden’s manager Naoki Katayama says that while figures for absolute cost-savings cannot be disclosed, “Apollon can save millions of dollars, depending on the commodity prices such as oil and gas”. “If you don’t have good forecasting of solar power generation,” he adds, “then you would have to make fossil fuel power stations stand by, possibly in a wasteful way.”
Mr Naoki Katayama, who is an alumnus of Hitachi Young Leaders’ Initiative (HYLI) in 2005, believes in investing in companies providing environmentally friendly solutions across national borders.
Accurate forecasting systems can help make energy marketplaces more competitive. Katayama explains: “If you have good forecasting systems like Apollon, you can trade your excess energy with others on P2P (peer-to-peer) markets more easily and economically. With a wider spread use of this technology, more and more independent and individual energy distributors will have access to the energy marketplace, and the market will become livelier and competitive.”
“If you have good forecasting systems like Apollon, you can trade your excess energy with others on P2P (peer-to-peer) markets more easily and economically. With a wider spread use of this technology, more and more independent and individual energy distributors will have access to the energy marketplace, and the market will become livelier and competitive.” – Naoki Katayama, manager, Kanden
Katayama is also in charge of the company’s corporate venture capital arm named K4 Ventures. K4 Ventures invests in firms developing low-carbon solutions, storage batteries, AI and so on, and its fund constitutes approximately 9 billion Japanese yen.
In this interview, Eco-Business chats with this industry stalwart, who was trained as a lawyer and is an alumnus of Hitachi Young Leaders’ Initiative (HYLI) in 2005, to learn more about his thoughts on ESG trends in the Asia-Pacific region as well as his experience at the youth development programme.
How has the Covid-19 pandemic spurred investments in ESG-related companies?
I speak in the context of “E”, for environment. As more people work from home, they become more incentivised to reduce their electricity bills, which can make them turn to sources of renewable energy, and take measures like installing rooftop solar panels. This could spur investment in companies whose products are related to the clean energy movement.
What do you see as the key trends in ESG investing in the Asia-Pacific?
I see ESG investments, especially environment-related ones, growing not only within a single country, but across nations in APAC. As far as global warming is concerned, countries are interrelated and affected by one another. I believe that as neighbours living in the APAC region, we will see more movements to invest in companies providing environmentally-friendly solutions across national borders.
Which country is taking the lead for ESG investments in APAC and why? Is Japan poised to be a trendsetter in this area?
Yes, it is. Japan should be one of the leaders because it has been dependent on imports from the rest of the world for natural resources such as oil and gas. Therefore, this country is very keen to develop low-carbon energy-related technology and solutions, especially as we’re currently facing a crisis in energy supply due to the current Russia-Ukraine situation.
Why did you develop Apollon? How did that change how energy is distributed, managed, traded and governed?
Kansai Electric developed Apollon with its subsidiary company Meteorological Engineering Center two years ago, because the technology had the potential to help increase the use of renewable energy in the APAC region. Thanks to this technology, people can get a better forecast of the amount of energy produced by solar power stations, including their rooftop solar panels, and adjust their usage of fossil fuel energy, which also leads to cost reduction in their electricity bills.
Moreover, improved forecasting will make it easier for them to trade excess energy with others, a process called peer-to-peer (P2P) trading. More of such P2P trading can be governed by smart contracts [programmes stored on a blockchain that runs when predetermined conditions are met]. This will help remove the burden on independent and individual energy distributors to make legal contracts by hand.
Can you tell us more about the concept of PEACE, and how your team at HYLI came up with it?
We came up with PEACE (Process for an East Asia Common Economy) to accelerate the integration of economies in East Asia. “Challenges and Opportunities of Asian Economic Integration” was one of the sub-themes at the 7th HYLI. As our team members were aware that East Asian countries faced the challenge of participating in the opportunities of free trade, we came up with a win-win mechanism that would establish a so-called “PEACE Fund” comprised of voluntary contributions from member-nations. These nations could receive incentives, including prioritising sub-contracting and preferential tariffs, from other member countries.
How does Apollon fit into your team’s vision of PEACE?
Apollon will possibly make such an integration of East Asian economies happen by supporting cross-border transactions of solar energy and/or its environmental values on a P2P basis among independent and individual energy distributors in the region who will benefit from its forecasting technology.
How was your experience at the Hitachi Young Leaders Initiative?
PEACE was originally developed for East Asia, but the idea could be widened for the entire APAC. Free trade can potentially happen in the context of exchanging environmental value or carbon credits among different industry players and individuals in the region. My experience at HYLI has enabled me to think more broadly.
It has also motivated me to stay peace-oriented in the real world. Through my discussion with my team members, I learnt to build win-win relationships among different players with conflicting interests across borders. Currently, I always try to keep in mind that my professional skill as attorney at law can be used to make peaceful relationships, especially after long and severe negotiations between different parties.
What advice would you give to youths who are interested in participating in HYLI?
With the Covid-19 pandemic, I imagine that students would have fewer opportunities to communicate with their peers from other countries. HYLI will be an excellent chance to discuss ideas with people from other backgrounds, and is a platform to create longstanding relationships.
Even though I participated in HYLI over 15 years ago, I’m still in communication with my batch mates! Some of my HYLI friends became my classmates at Columbia University in New York, and some even came to my wedding in Tokyo. Make the best use of your time together and get to really know people.
The theme for this year’s HYLI is Social Innovation in the New Normal. The event will be held from 18 to 21 July.
The 1kW pico-hydro generation system can be used with factory drainage systems and irrigation canals. According to the manufacturer, it is made with 3D-printed sustainable materials based on recycled plastics and is able to generate electricity even with a small stream of water. Solar and storage may be linked to the system to ensure stable power supply.
Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company has launched a 1kW pico-hydro generation system that can be used with factory drainage systems and irrigation canals. Pico-hydro systems are all hydropower systems with a capacity of less than 5kW and are commonly used as a cheap and easy-to-deploy source of power in theworld’smost inaccessible places.
Image: Ricoh
“The system can also be used in combination with photovoltaics and batteries to ensure stable power supply, ” a spokesperson from the company told pv magazine. “Depending on the amount of electricity generated, it can be used for IoT devices such as sensors, lighting devices, and charging systems.”
Called 3D-Pico Hydro Generator System, the new product will be initially sold in the Japanese market. “Service validation will begin in Japan, and the system will gradually be offered globally to markets where it is needed,” the spokesperson further explained.
The system was tested at Ricoh’s Numazu Plant. Image: Ricoh
According to the manufacturer, the system is made with 3D-printed sustainable materials based on recycled plastics and is able to generate electricity even with a small stream of water.
It was tested at the company’s Numazu Plant. “In our demonstration experiment using factory wastewater from the Ricoh Numazu Plant, we confirmed the possibility of lighting a lamp and using it as a power source for a security camera for nine months,” the company said. “We are also considering using it as a power source for disaster prevention in combination with battery storage.”
“Ricoh is also planning to improve the system so that it can also be used in microgrids,” the company’s spokesperson concluded.
There are many factors that determine the feasibility of a mini-hydropower project. These include the amount of power available from the water flow, the turbine type, the capacity of electrical loads to be supplied, and the initial and operating costs.
During the past decades, Pico-hydropower systems have been used with success in countries such as Nepal, Vietnam, Laos and Peru, as a way to provide electricity to rural locations.
Australia will export its first load of liquefied hydrogen made from coal in an engineering milestone which researchers say could also lock in a new fossil fuel industry and increase the country’s carbon emissions.
Under the $500m Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC) pilot project, hydrogen will be made in Victoria’s LaTrobe valley from brown coal and transported aboard a purpose-built ship to Japan, where it will be burned in coal-fired power plants.
Carbon capture and storage will be used in an attempt to reduce the carbon emissions associated with making the hydrogen and supercooling the gas until it forms a liquid before it is loaded aboard the Suiso Frontier vessel. The first shipment is due to depart from Hastings in the coming days.
The project is being led by a Japanese-Australian consortium including Japan’s J-Power, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Shell and AGL.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, said on Friday the development was a “world-first that would make Australia a global leader” in the budding industry.
“A successful Australian hydrogen industry means lower emissions, greater energy production and more local jobs,” Morrison said in a statement.
“The HESC project puts Australia at the forefront of the global energy transition to lower emissions through clean hydrogen, which is a fuel of the future.”
Morrison also announced an additional $7.5m to support the next stage of the project, which has a goal of producing 225,000 tonnes of carbon-neutral hydrogen each year and an additional $20m towards the next stage of the CarbonNet project which aims to produce commercial-scale carbon capture and storage.
According to government estimates, this will reduce emissions by 1.8m tonnes a year.
But Tim Baxter, a senior researcher for climate solutions at the Climate Council, said the assumptions were questionable as the reliance on “fossil hydrogen” meant government needed to “come back with a zero emissions hydrogen plan”.
“Hydrogen derived from fossil fuel sources, like what is being shipped out of the LaTrobe Valley, which is derived from some of the world’s dirtiest coal, is really just a new fossil fuel industry,” Baxter said.
“Fossil hydrogen is a whole new fossil fuel industry, regardless of whether carbon capture and storage is attached to it. It results in extraordinary greenhouse gas emissions. It’s not a climate solution.”
Though “clean hydrogen” has become central to the government’s emissions reductions plans, hydrogen produced by fossil fuels is more expensive, will release more greenhouse gas emissions and comes with greater risk of creating stranded assets.
Dr Fiona Beck, an engineer with the ANU Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions, said Friday’s announcement did mark an engineering milestone as it showed it was technically possible to liquefy and store hydrogen for transport, as this was more difficult to do than with LNG.
However, Beck, a co-author of a recent peer-reviewed paper published in the Journal of Cleaner Production that examined the emissions that will be created out of the proposed Japanese-Australia hydrogen supply chain, said if hydrogen made with fossil fuels became the norm, Japan would be transferring its emissions to Australia.
Japan, which has limited options for onshore wind projects, has been looking for ways to reduce its CO2 emissions. One way is by burning ammonia, which is made with hydrogen, in its coal-fired power plants – which are also powered with Australian coal.
Under current CO2 accounting standards by which emissions are measured, Japan would slash its emissions while shifting them across to Australia owing to the CO2 emissions involved in creating, processing, transporting and shipping the hydrogen.
“If you’re importing hydrogen made from coal, essentially the emissions are going to be worse in Australia rather than it would be by just taking that coal and burning it in Japan,” Beck said.
“There’s no policy pressure or economic reason why Japan would buy low-emissions hydrogen when it gets the same benefit by buying cheap, high-emissions hydrogen.”
Beck said that while current government planning stated its intention to reduce emissions associated with creating hydrogen “there’s very few actual mechanisms to do this”.
“Unless Australia has some strong policy to keep its carbon emissions down, we could see a rise in emissions in Australia due to this hydrogen trade.”
There is a $205-billion opportunity in renewable energy for Southeast Asia from which China, Japan, and South Korea could benefit as the biggest energy lenders to smaller countries in the region, Greenpeace has said in a new report.
“These three East Asian countries are top global energy investors, with established ties in Southeast Asia. But coal finance is drying up and banks are struggling to get a grip on clean energy finance. The climate crisis depends heavily on the flexibility and ingenuity of East Asian finance. And state-backed public development banks once again need to play the trailblazer role to engage new markets,” according to Insung Lee, project manager of Greenpeace Japan’s climate and energy team.
Southeast Asian countries, according to the report, will need investments of some $125.1 billion for solar energy over the next ten years, as well as $48.1 billion for wind energy, assuming they want to pursue the renewable energy path instead of sticking to fossil fuels. And China, Japan, and South Korea are in a position to convince them to choose the renewable energy path by investing in solar and wind rather than fossil fuels.
However, the report notes that the three East Asian powerhouses are also large exporters of coal infrastructure and lenders for coal power plants to their neighbors in Southeast Asia. This has to change if they are to reap the benefits of the nascent renewable energy financing market in the region, the report says.
“East Asian finance will be as important for renewable energy in Southeast Asia as it was for coal. Over the past two decades, we’ve seen East Asian banks skew the margins towards coal to keep the fossil fuel profitable despite ballooning financial risk. Over the next decade, we’ll see them apply the same ingenuity to unlock renewable energy from the restrictions of their own financial framework,” Greenpeace Japan’s Lee also said.
Toshiba Corp. has said it will stop taking orders for new coal-fired power plants as it makes a wider push to embrace renewable energy, though it will still complete work on about 10 further facilities.
The engineering and technology giant will continue to manufacture steam turbines, offer maintenance services for existing coal-power plants and work on the construction of plants that have already been ordered.
The shift away from coal highlights differences between equipment suppliers as they move to leave the sector behind and focus on gas turbines and renewable energy.
Samsung C&T Corp. has faced criticism over its intention to complete further coal projects before quitting the fuel, while General Electric Co. said in September it will pursue an exit from its existing obligations.
The firms are under pressure amid investor demands for action on climate change and over the prospect that tighter government policy on greenhouse gas emissions will limit scope for new coal-fired plants — even in Asia, where nations currently remain reliant on the fuel as a form of cheap electricity generation.
“Demand for new coal-power plants has been dwindling,” Toshiba President Nobuaki Kurumatani said during a media briefing Wednesday. “We started considering withdrawing from new coal-plant construction in the previous fiscal year, and finally made the decision” after the government pledged last month to become greenhouse gas neutral by 2050.
Renewable energy-related investments in Japan could total as much as ¥80 trillion ($760.6 billion) over the next decade amid national efforts to lower emissions, Kurumatani estimated.
Toshiba has existing orders for the installation of coal-fired plant facilities in countries including Indonesia and India, according to details listed on its website.
Shares in the firm rose 0.8% in Tokyo trading on Wednesday. The company also released its second quarter earnings the same day, announcing an annual dividend forecast that beat analyst estimates.
Toshiba “needs to change strategy to take advantage of growth sectors,” wrote Llewelyn Hughes, an associate professor at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy, in an email. “Toshiba is able to make this shift because it is a diversified company, so exiting coal is not existential for them.”
The company plans to invest ¥160 billion in renewable energy for its operations through the fiscal year ending March 2023, and also aims to halve carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, including so-called Scope 3 pollution, spokesman Takashi Ebina said Wednesday.
Toshiba aims to increase annual sales from its renewable energy business to ¥650 billion by March 2031, compared to about ¥190 billion in the most recent full year. Sales from thermal coal power and hydrogen businesses amounted to ¥222.5 billion in the year ended March 31, representing 6.6% of total sales.
Australia doesn’t yet export renewable energy. But the writing is on the wall: demand for Australia’s fossil fuel exports is likely to dwindlesoon, and we must replace it at massive scale.
The proposed Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH) will be a huge step forward. It would eventually comprise 26,000 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar energy, generated in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. Once complete, it would be Australia’s biggest renewable energy development, and potentially the largest of its type in the world.
Late last week, the federal government granted AREH “major project” status, meaning it will be fast-tracked through the approvals process. And in another significant step, the WA government this month gave environmental approval for the project’s first stage.
The mega-venture still faces sizeable challenges. But it promises to be a game-changer for Australia’s lucrative energy export business and will reshape the local renewables sector.
The projects promise enormous clean development opportunities for Australia’s north and will create thousands of jobs in Australia – especially in high-tech manufacturing.
Writing on the wall
Australia’s coal and gas exports have been growing for decades, and in 2019-20 reached almost A$110 billion. Much of this energy has fuelled Asia’s rapid growth. However, in recent weeks, two of Australia’s largest Asian energy markets announced big moves away from fossil fuels.
China adopted a target of net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2060. Japan will retire its fleet of old coal-fired generation by 2030, and will introduce legally binding targets to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
There are signs other Asian nations are also moving. Singapore has weak climate targets, but on Monday inked a deal with Australia to cooperate on low-emissions technologies.
Export evolution
The Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH) would be built across 6,500 square kilometres in the East Pilbara. The first stage involves a 10,000MW wind farm plus 5,000MW of solar generation – which the federal government says would make it the world’s largest wind and solar electricity plant.
The first stage would be capable of generating 100 terawatt-hours of renewable electricity each year. That equates to about 40 per cent of Australia’s total electricity generation in 2019. AREH recently expanded its longer term plans to 26,000MW.
The project is backed by a consortium of global renewables developers. Most energy from AREH will be used to produce green hydrogen and ammonia to be used both domestically, and for shipping to export markets. Some energy from AREH will also be exported as electricity, carried by an undersea electrical cable.
Another Australian project is also seeking to export renewable power to Asia. The 10-gigawatt Sun Cable project, backed by tech entrepreneur Mike Cannon-Brookes, involves a solar farm across 15,000 hectares near Tennant Creek, in the Northern Territory. Power generated will supply Darwin and be exported to Singapore via a 3,800km electrical cable along the sea floor.
The export markets for both AREH and Sun Cable are there. For example, both South Korea and Japan have indicated strong interest in Australia’s green hydrogen to decarbonise their economies and secure energy supplies.
But we should not underestimate the obstacles standing in the way of the projects. Both will require massive investment. Sun Cable, for example, will cost an estimated A$20 billion to build. The Asian Renewable Energy Hub will reportedly require as much as A$50 billion.
The projects are also at the cutting edge of technology, in terms of the assembly of the solar array, the wind turbines and batteries. Transport of hydrogen by ship is still at the pilot stage, and commercially unproven. And the projects must navigate complex approvals and regulatory processes, in both Australia and Asia.
But the projects have good strategic leadership, and a clear mission to put Australian green energy exports on the map.
Shifting winds
Together, the AREH and Sun Cable projects do not yet make a trend. But they clearly indicate a shift in mindset on the part of investors.
The projects promise enormous clean development opportunities for Australia’s north, and will create thousands of jobs in Australia – especially in high-tech manufacturing. As we look to rebuild the economy after the Covid-19 pandemic, such stimulus will be key. All up, AREH is expected to support more than 20,000 jobs during a decade of construction, and 3,000 jobs when fully operating.
To make smart policies and investments, the federal government must have a clear view of the future global economy. Patterns of energy consumption in Asia are shifting away from fossil fuels, and Australia’s exports must move with them.
John A. Mathews is Professor Emeritus in the Macquarie Business School at Macquarie University. Elizabeth Thurbon is Scientia Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences at UNSW Sydney. Hao Tan is Associate Professor with the Newcastle Business School, University of Newcastle. Sung-Young Kim (김성용) is Senior Lecturer in the Macquarie School of Social Sciences at Macquarie University. This article was originally published on The Conversation.
