Renewable energy can add resiliency to electricity grids and there's no reason why individual states can't set their own goals higher than a national target, says a US industry veteran.
Nick Miller, senior technology director of General Electric's energy consultancy, said US states such as Texas now supplied as much as half their electricity from renewable sources.
"If Australia wants to try its own state by state [approach] that is not intrinsically a bad thing," the 36-year GE veteran engineer told Fairfax Media during a visit.
"If some states want to move forward faster, they will reap the economic benefits first, and the states that stay behind — sort of embracing the past — are probably going to get left behind."
Mr Miller's comments will bolster the case made by governments in states such as Queensland, Victoria and South Australia, and the federal Opposition, all of which have set renewable energy targets beyond 2020 unlike the federal government.
They will also stoke debate over the best way to meet Australia's climate goals. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last week drew widespread criticism for ruling out a price on carbon even before his government begins a year-long review from early 2017.
Mr Miller said both Republicans and Democrats had managed to find common ground on clean energy in the US.
"It's not ideologically driven, it's business driven," he said. "There are huge amounts of wind going into Oklahoma and Kansas, and that's as red [Republican] as you get."
GE is a supplier to both the thermal and renewable energy sectors. It's found that, contrary to may public views, wind power actually advances rather than undermines the resilience of the grid.
With modern electronic controls added, a wind plant is now "more tolerant of grid disturbances than the equivalent size synchronous [thermal] plant", he said. "It is extremely agile, and finely and quickly controlled."
While recent blackouts in South Australia show that state's power sector to "very highly stressed", the response should be to increase flexibility in the system by altering market rules and investment incentives.
Fresh spending on coal or gas plants will be needed but not on "obsolete dinosaurs on life support", he says.
Separately, a new report by the Centre for Policy Development and Oxford University found technology gains could support a more secure, climate- and customer-friendly electricity sector but only if regulations were appropriately updated.
The Avoiding Gridlock: Policy Directions for Australia's Electricity System paper warns network service providers had been allowed to gouge consumers, making a so-called "death spiral" more likely by prompting customers to hunt for cheaper solar and soon storage options.
Policymakers should cut network tariffs and also block monopoly service providers from abusing their clout to quell naturally competitive markets, such as those operating "behind the meter", it said.
Network providers should instead be redirected to focus on "whole-of-system survivability" during extreme weather events — such the September 28 monster storm in SA — and diverted from building a grid to meet 100 per cent of demand during peak demand events.
"Distributors should focus on core business — ensuring the security and the resilience of the grid," Alexander Marks, a lead author of the paper, said. "Allowing them to crowd out innovation in naturally competitive areas of the electricity system — such as household battery systems, smart metering or load control — would be a mistake."
