# The future of energy generation and storage



## Value Collector

Elon's latest product.


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## pixel

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



Value Collector said:


> Elon's latest product.




Can't wait for it to become available in Australia.
The only major concern is political: Power companies will strongly lobby our Governments to outlaw or at least impede the wide-spread adaptation of this technology. They will be arguing (again) that they need to maintain profits, meaning their margins will have to increase manifold on the backs of those too poor to upgrade and become grid-independent.


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## Value Collector

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



pixel said:


> Can't wait for it to become available in Australia.
> The only major concern is political: Power companies will strongly lobby our Governments to outlaw or at least impede the wide-spread adaptation of this technology. They will be arguing (again) that they need to maintain profits, meaning their margins will have to increase manifold on the backs of those too poor to upgrade and become grid-independent.




I rekon energy retailers could use them as part of the smart grid, eg help shift peak load to off peak times, even without a solar installation.


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## bellenuit

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



pixel said:


> Can't wait for it to become available in Australia.
> The only major concern is political: Power companies will strongly lobby our Governments to outlaw or at least impede the wide-spread adaptation of this technology. They will be arguing (again) that they need to maintain profits, meaning their margins will have to increase manifold on the backs of those too poor to upgrade and become grid-independent.




If the product does what it claims, there might be a case for those unable to afford the batteries outright to have them paid through instalments using as funds what they would have paid in electricity costs.

The economics of this could be interesting, apart from resistance by electricity providers.

I am wondering if it would be feasible for new greenfield suburbs in sunny part of Australia like Perth to not have any grid supplied power at all. Every new home must be equipped with sufficient battery capacity that no grid is needed at all (apart from perhaps runs to key buildings, like hospitals). Also, where particular suburbs are moving to underground power and hitting residents with bills of up to $10K to do this, perhaps this could be an alternative.

A bit far fetched maybe, but why install now new electricity transmission infrastructure that may be redundant in 20 years if the technology of both solar capture and storage continues to improve at the rate it has in recent years.


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## DB008

*http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall*​
Yes, what a game-changer (for the USA at least).

$3500 (plus inverter and taxes) for a 10kw battery system that can be hooked into existing solar.

Will probably be around $10k when it arrives here...

I have been looking to get solar installed at my place, however, l might wait till next year and see what happens in regards to Tesla. The price of solar is dropping so quickly at the moment. I have looked around (QLD) and can see 6kw of panels (Trina Honey) with a 5kw inverter (German Sunnyboy SMA) for ~$6k (installed) available.



> *Tesla reveals Powerwall battery packs for homes, Powerpacks for cities​*
> Elon Musk has revealed Tesla's long-expected battery products and proclaimed they put an end to humanity's production of carbon dioxide as a by-product of energy generation.
> 
> “No incremental CO2 is the future we need to have,” Musk said, during the battery packs' launch, advocating that charging his new products with solar energy is the way to go.
> 
> The battery packs come in two flavours.
> 
> The Powerwall is intended for domestic use, is a 130 cm x 86 cm x 18 cm rechargeable lithium ion battery boasting liquid thermal control and capacity of 10 kilowatt hours for US$3,500. There's also a 7 kWh version for $3000. Both can deliver 2.0 kW continuously with a 3.3 kW peak. Tesla offers a ten year warranty on the device and is willing to extend that by another decade.
> 
> The 10 kWH model is billed as backup for when the grid goes down, the 7 kWh model is suggested for daily loads. Up to nine Powerwalls can be assembled into a single rig.
> 
> Musk said the device can be installed inside or outside a home – its operating temperature range is -20 °C to 43 °C – and said the Powerwall is compatible with solar power systems. It even comes in several colours, in case you want Tesla's logo and a wall-mounted battery to become a part of your decor.
> 
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/01/tesla_reveals_battery_packs_for_homes_and_cities/​


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## ghotib

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



bellenuit said:


> If the product does what it claims, there might be a case for those unable to afford the batteries outright to have them paid through instalments using as funds what they would have paid in electricity costs.
> 
> The economics of this could be interesting, apart from resistance by electricity providers.



Community power schemes and options to lease storage and/or generation are also "interesting" and the responses of power companies are going to be downright fascinating 



> I am wondering if it would be feasible for new greenfield suburbs in sunny part of Australia like Perth to not have any grid supplied power at all. Every
> 
> new home must be equipped with sufficient battery capacity that no grid is needed at all (apart from perhaps runs to key buildings, like hospitals). Also, where particular suburbs are moving to underground power and hitting residents with bills of up to $10K to do this, perhaps this could be an alternative.
> 
> A bit far fetched maybe, but why install now new electricity transmission infrastructure that may be redundant in 20 years if the technology of both solar capture and storage continues to improve at the rate it has in recent years.



That doesn't sound far fetched at all, especially considering that AGL announced a storage product the day after the Tesla announcement. 


> It changes everything. In one fell swoop, Tesla has cut the cost of stationary battery storage by more than half, delivering disruption to the doorsteps of incumbent utilities and fossil fuel generators that most did not imagine would emerge for at least another decade.
> 
> Deutsche Bank says the Tesla lithium-ion battery pricing ($US3,500 for a 10kWh system) translates – after inverter costs and installation – to a price of $US500/kWh, less than half the industry wide costs of $US1,000-$US1,250/kWh. (See full pricing here).
> 
> What it means for the consumer – and conventional energy providers – is that the combination of rooftop solar and lithium ion battery storage is now cheaper than the grid – particularly in places with high electricity costs and good sun, and that means countries like Australia.



http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/tesla-battery-storage-will-accelerate-exit-of-coal-generators-88203


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## DB008

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



ghotib said:


> Community power schemes and options to lease storage and/or generation are also "interesting" and the responses of power companies are going to be downright fascinating




I agree. It will be very interesting to see how/what the power companies will do in the next 12-24 months.

Would be good to get Smurfs opinion on this.


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## pixel

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



DB008 said:


> It will be very interesting to see how/what the power companies will do in the next 12-24 months.




They won't like competition, that's for sure.
Question is, will they be able to persuade Governments to outlaw competition? How will Governments sell that idea to the Electorate when the mantra has always been
*Competition is GOOD and brings prices DOWN*?


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## Value Collector

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



pixel said:


> They won't like competition, that's for sure.




the batteries don't generate power, they just store it. So at first it will be a zero sum game in that any power a household stores for later use is power that isn't being fed into the grid for some one else to use.

eg. if my solar system isn't feeding into my neighbors house while I am away, because the power is charging my batteries, then the neighbors are more reliant on using the grid at large (transmission lines, substations, coal plant etc) than they would be if the power was being sourced locally from the surrounding un used solar generation.


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## pixel

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



Value Collector said:


> the batteries don't generate power, they just store it. So at first it will be a zero sum game in that any power a household stores for later use is power that isn't being fed into the grid for some one else to use.
> 
> eg. if my solar system isn't feeding into my neighbors house while I am away, because the power is charging my batteries, then the neighbors are more reliant on using the grid at large (transmission lines, substations, coal plant etc) than they would be if the power was being sourced locally from the surrounding un used solar generation.




My comment was in the context of community-based solutions:
Stick enough SPV's on the roofs and wire them to a communal bank of batteries, and entire suburbs can remain off-grid. Some Developer will work out the nitty-gritty of critical mass, then run with it.


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## Value Collector

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



pixel said:


> My comment was in the context of community-based solutions:
> Stick enough SPV's on the roofs and wire them to a communal bank of batteries, and entire suburbs can remain off-grid. Some Developer will work out the nitty-gritty of critical mass, then run with it.




Maybe that's the future of the grid, a "Grid-lite" model.

with such a model I guess there wouldn't be as much need for heavy infrastructure to support high peak loads, a much smaller scale network shifting off peak loads around would do.



> Some Developer will work out the nitty-gritty of critical mass, then run with it.




I could see an operator of a caravan park, shopping mall or office building becoming a mini off the grid energy mogul, running his own mini power network and charging tenants for their usage.

I have wanted to put solar panels on my rental properties for years, but can never think of a way this could produce investment returns from the tenant, no tenant wants to pay extra rent to cover the cost of a $10K solar installation, even though it would work out cheaper for them.


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## basilio

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

The game is changing. For years we have been told that solar power  is more expensive than coal fired power stations. 

Maybe ... but the facts are that the original power production costs are only a fraction of what consumers end up paying. The transmission costs and layers of intermediaries make up the final cost to consumers.

So a decentralized system with  (now cheap) solar power production and backed up by cost effective batteries will be more than competitive.  It will all depend on how much profit the new intermediaries want to make.

By the way there is a commercial operation looking at something like this. I suspect a well thoughtout community based model would be more cost effective.



> *Households to reap profits from stored solar power through tech start-up*
> 
> Date
> May 4, 2015 - 12:00AM
> 
> Australian households will have the ability to make money from selling stored electricity into the wholesale power market through a tie-up between Australian technology start-up Reposit Power and US electric car and battery supplier Tesla.
> 
> The deal builds on Tesla's heralded announcement last Friday that it was moving into the home battery storage market, offering re-chargeable lithium-ion battery packs that can store electricity generated from solar panels for use at a later stage when the sun isn't shining.
> 
> Reposit chief executive Luke Osborne said the integration of Reposit's GridCredits technology with Tesla's new home batteries would turn household energy consumers into generators, able to sell surplus electricity at a profit, instead of just sending it into the grid.




http://www.canberratimes.com.au/bus...wer-through-tech-startup-20150503-1my4zr.html


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## basilio

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

Thought I would  copy this from the Climate Madness thread.
______________________________________________

Lets get positive..

I just saw the presentation by Elon Musk on the Tesla powerwall. A simple clean, cheap battery bank that can store solar power and be the missing link to having a totally renewable energy run world.

Only goes for 18 mins and well worth the time.

Towards the end Elon speculates on how many power walls would be required to enable the whole world to run on renewable energy (including transport and heating) He reckons 2 billion units.

Sounds like an insane figure doesn't it ? Inconceivable perhaps?

Well apparently the world currently has 2 billion cars and we add 100 million a year. No problem with that is there ? On that basis one could produce 2 billion powerwalls in say 20 years. In fact these are just cookie stamped generic units in a variety of colours. Simple eh ?

And his Tesla technology is open source. Anyone else can do it if they want to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKORsrlN-2k#t=243


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## Smurf1976

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



DB008 said:


> I agree. It will be very interesting to see how/what the power companies will do in the next 12-24 months.
> 
> Would be good to get Smurfs opinion on this.




The fundamental economic problem with the grid in recent years is that:

1. We've tried to make it be something that it fundamentally isn't good at. The grid is very good at supplying cheap electricity at 99.9 - 99.95% reliability but by its' very nature cannot be 100% reliable. We've spent an outright fortune trying to turn 99.95% reliable into 99.96%.

2. Financial types gained control and engineers largely lost it. Whenever a "financial" person gets control of something, you can be pretty sure it's not going to get cheaper especially when you're starting from a zero profit position.

But let's be realistic. We've got a lot of roofs with solar panels on them but here we are just before noon on a weekday and they're collectively generating less than 6% of the electricity used in the NEM (Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas, SA). And that's 6% now, come back later and it will be zero.

So where next? The real issues are:

1. For very small loads the grid is uneconomic now and has been for years. Think "very small" as in garden lights, electronic road signs outside schools and so on. The capital cost of the solar panel and batteries is less than the cost of the cable to connect to the grid and there's far less labour required too. Those loads will never be grid-connected, at least not for any rational economic or technical reason.

2. Now it's the small (as distinct from very small) loads and particularly so in less densely populated areas. That's houses, particularly ones not in cities or at least a large town. 

There's a lot of parallels between the electricity grid and transport. Think of the grid as being like rail, and solar as being like road freight. There was a time when rail was the only way to move anything of substance on land and so we had rail lines to small towns and things like chocolate factories. Then decent road vehicles came along and became a much cheaper way of moving small volumes, leaving rail as a means of moving bulk quantities. End result is that in due course the rail lines to small towns and things like chocolate factories were abandoned.

Density is a key there. Putting it in international terms then somewhere like Los Angeles, well known as being spread out and without much of a city center as such, the grid is really going to struggle to remain viable. But in a high density place, think downtown New York or Tokyo, the grid is here to stay.

Climate is also a key factor. Off-grid is a lot easier in Queensland than it is in Tasmania due to space heating requirements. If half your total energy consumption is for space heating, and all of that occurs when the solar isn't working too well, then you're going to need some pretty impressive batteries to make that work = the grid is cheaper and easier. But take that heating load away, take the short winter days and low sun angle away and off-grid starts to make a lot of sense in places like Queensland, particularly if you're not in a city.

In 2050 I fully expect the grid to still exist, but the idea that every electrical device would be connected to a single network was very much a 20th Century concept and one that, in Australia, was only ever achieved in two states (Vic and Tas) anyway. 

So how will the grid operators actually respond? My guess is that they won't respond at all for the moment.

What's actually happening is that the generators and retailers, who have in most cases aggregated themselves from formerly separate entities, are the ones now driving the industry. Network companies have become bystanders really. Origin sells solar systems, AGL is getting into batteries, Momentum sells efficient lighting and solar. They are all retailers owned by generators. In contrast, what's your local network operator actually doing apart from making their case to regulators as to how much they can charge? 

In due course the generators / retailers will find the networks enough of a problem that they'll want to buy them so as to fix it. There would be a lot of fuss about any such move, but at some point there's going to be a conflict since network operators and their charges are at some point going to put the generators and retailers out of business (which would also put the networks out of business). How that conflict resolves is harder to predict, but one way or another it will resolve - the current business model of the networks isn't sustainable and the generators / retailers have a big interest in reforming it.

So we go forward a few years and the networks end up with a very different business model, possibly owned by the generators / retailers. The networks then get shut down in those areas where it's cheaper to install stand alone solar. 

The cost saving the enables price cuts for remaining users in higher density areas, thus keeping the solar idea at bay. Also in that context, if consumers have battery storage then that in itself leads to lower costs of running the grid. Firstly because peak demand can be slashed, secondly because instead of aiming for 100% reliability that costs twice as much as 99.95%, we can instead aim for 99.0% and save an outright fortune. The grid becomes a means of cheaply charging the batteries, rather than being something that must always work as such.

All this is from the consumer's perspective. On the other hand, there's a huge role for the grid going forward as means of aggregating a large number of individually small (and often unreliable) generation sources to supply large loads (cities, factories etc). 

In most places, the traditional model involves a very small number of large power stations connected to a very large number of consumers. Going forward, it's more a case of a larger number of much smaller sources of generation being connected only to the larger loads, and the small loads taking care of themselves.

There's a culture shock there. You can certainly get firm, reliable power from a series of individually intermittent generation sources linked together but operating that is extremely different from operating a conventional coal / gas / nuclear plant which has a reasonably stable output.  

From my last electricity bill:

Network (poles and wires) = 58.9%

Generation (power stations) = 23.9%

Retail (sending out the bills) = 13.1%

I'll tell you for certain that there's not a lot of money in generation these days, oh no there isn't. The money disappears into the grid and it costs a lot of money to send out bills too. But electricity per se is cheaper than it's ever been.

For reasons of pure self interest, the generators aren't going to forever sit back and have the networks put them out of business. At some point, there's going to be a lot of pressure to cut costs there and that pressure won't just be from consumers or government, the generators and retailers have a pretty strong interest in it too when most of the money is disappearing into the networks. 

As of right now:

Coal = 71.5% (of which 40% is in NSW)
Gas = 9.2% (of which 58% is in Qld)
Wind = 8.1% (of which 59% is in SA)
Solar = 5.9% (of which 48% is in Qld)
Hydro = 5.3% (of which 79% is in Tas)

Of that lot, Wind and Solar are running to capacity as limited by weather conditions - there's no ability to immediately boost output without a change in weather. In contrast, there's plenty of coal, gas and hydro plant sitting around doing nothing right now - there's several gas and hydro power stations _completely_ idle.

Spot price = 3.01 cents / kWh (about one tenth what you pay at home.....).


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## basilio

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

Great post Smurf. Always good to see your analysis.

It was interesting to see Elon Musk touch on some of the topics you raise in his presentation. For example when he was talking about providing power to the world through solar energy and batteries he was specifically noting that one didn't need to replicate the current model of big power stations and a myriad distribution links.

This in fact would be copying the current communications strategy of bypassing hard wired telephones  and going directly to mobiles in third world rural area.

The more one researches current progress in renewable energy and storage the clearer it becomes that fixed fossil fuel powered  systems have had their day.


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## SirRumpole

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

No one seems to have mentioned that all these batteries need rare metals which are not going  to get cheaper over times as the stocks are used up, a la oil.


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## basilio

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



SirRumpole said:


> No one seems to have mentioned that all these batteries need rare metals which are not going  to get cheaper over times as the stocks are used up, a la oil.




Not necessarily.. Can't pit my finger on it right now but there are already a range of battery technologies that won't use rare metals. Vandium Redox batteries spring to mind. I think even lithium is going to be ok with significant new discoveries.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...newable-energy-economy-just-that-much-closer/
http://trib.com/business/energy/lit...cle_2ca58b1c-31af-5400-a5fa-635cda9c43b0.html
http://www.thegreenmarketoracle.com/2013/04/new-discoveries-of-lithium-deposits.html


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## luutzu

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



SirRumpole said:


> No one seems to have mentioned that all these batteries need rare metals which are not going  to get cheaper over times as the stocks are used up, a la oil.




That's why we'll never leave Afghanistan - some branch of the US armed forces discovered massive deposits of lithium ions and other metals good for new generation of batteries a few years ago. Can't remember the figures but it's massive - in hundreds of billions or trillions.


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## ghotib

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



SirRumpole said:


> No one seems to have mentioned that all these batteries need rare metals which are not going  to get cheaper over times as the stocks are used up, a la oil.




There's always a catch isn't there.  I've extracted this list of "materials used for commercially available cells" from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Materials_of_commercial_cells 

*Positive electrode*
Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide ("NMC", LiNixMnyCozO2)
Lithium Manganese Oxide ("LMO", LiMn2O4)
Lithium Iron Phosphate ("LFP", LiFePO4)

*Negative electrode*
Graphite
Lithium Titanate ("LTO", Li4Ti5O12)
Hard carbon
Tin/Cobalt Alloy
Silicon/Carbon

Anyone know how far we are from Peak any of that lot?  Or what other materials might be used for lithium/ion technology? Or the status of newer technologies?


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## Value Collector

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



SirRumpole said:


> No one seems to have mentioned that all these batteries need rare metals which are not going  to get cheaper over times as the stocks are used up, a la oil.




It will be exactly like oil, the price will sky rocket, then every man and his dog will push capital into discovering more and finding new ways to extract and the price will collapse, just like oil.

But it's a bit better, batteries can be recycled, we can get some of the material back.

Also material science is always improving the life of these batteries.


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## Value Collector

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



ghotib said:


> There's always a catch isn't there.  I've extracted this list of "materials used for commercially available cells" from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Materials_of_commercial_cells
> 
> *Positive electrode*
> Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide ("NMC", LiNixMnyCozO2)
> Lithium Manganese Oxide ("LMO", LiMn2O4)
> Lithium Iron Phosphate ("LFP", LiFePO4)
> 
> *Negative electrode*
> Graphite
> Lithium Titanate ("LTO", Li4Ti5O12)
> Hard carbon
> Tin/Cobalt Alloy
> Silicon/Carbon
> 
> Anyone know how far we are from Peak any of that lot?  Or what other materials might be used for lithium/ion technology? Or the status of newer technologies?




I don't trust peak anything, Human inginuity is just to good at find more, doing more with less, or substituting materials. I would be interested in finding companies who's commodity price may be supported by increased demand though.


The new bhp spin off south 32 produces manganese, and nickel. Bhp produces the copper and the steel.


Does anyone know a lithium producer on the asx


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## pixel

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



Value Collector said:


> The new bhp spin off south 32 produces manganese, and nickel. Bhp produces the copper and the steel.
> Does anyone know a lithium producer on the asx




Galaxy (GXY) comes to mind, although they're a little away from actually producing.
GMM is planning to take over Mt Cattlin, but they want to mine mainly the tantalum with spodumene a welcome by-product..

Some of the other metals, esp. Titanium and Vanadium, could make TNG more attractive.


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## Smurf1976

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

That we have a grid in the first place is fundamentally a consequence of the means of generating the power that goes into it, and that is in turn a consequence of the available resources and technology.

The technology we had a century ago was steam and hydro. To use hydro, you necessarily have to build the power station where the resource is, you can't bring the resource to some other location. With steam, you can move the fuel (coal, gas, oil, uranium) but in the case of coal that's costly, and in the other cases even though the fuel can be moved, it's still far more practical and economical to use them at a few very large power stations rather than everyone having their own small power station at home.

Electricity in the 20th Century was thus naturally a very centralised industry. Generate the power at few large power stations, then distribute it to homes and industry.

The same applies to wind. Whilst there's some wind just about everywhere, relatively few locations have enough wind on a consistent basis to generate a decent supply of power. And those places are, since they are so windy, not where most people would want to live.

What's different with solar is that the primary resource, that is sunlight, occurs naturally where the electricity is required. There's no need to move either the resource or the power, since it's already in the right location. Solar is also practical on a small scale. You can have a few solar panels on the roof far more easily than you could have your own steam turbines and coal-fired boiler at home. Put those two attributes together and, if we're going to use solar as the primary resource, then you don't actually need a grid to distribute the power in most situations. It's already distributed at the time it's produced.

The problems with solar are that (1) it's intermittent meaning that storage is required and (2) is low density. It works to power a home but there's nowhere near enough sun falling on the roof of a smelter to power the activity in the sheds under that roof.

I see a future where we still have centralised generation and we still have a grid, but the smaller loads take care of themselves. The grid will supply factories, CBD offices, trains, electric car charging stations and so on but a home in the suburbs it won't be needed in most parts of Australia. 

As one scenario, you live in a typical suburban house, you have solar and are off-grid (because the grid was turned off in your street a few years earlier). You have an all-electric car and another plug-in hybrid car. Where the interface occurs is via the vehicles. Surplus power at home? No problem, you charge the car with it. Running low on power at home? No problem, you dump some energy out of the car's battery into your house battery. Need to buy some power? No problem, that's what your local "service station" is for - you drive there, charge the car with power from the grid and either use that power to run the car or, if necessary, dump some into your home system.

Under that scenario, there's still a grid and you can still access it but not directly. Service stations won't be routinely busy in Summer but they'll be busy places when there's a few days of cloud.

Another point is about diversity. Go back 50 years and it was all very simple. Most electricity came from the locally available resource - in Australia that's coal for most places, hydro in Tas. Then we used a bit of other fuel, mostly oil, as a "top up" to meet the peaks or when problems occurred with the main means of generation. Cars ran on petrol, of which there were only two grades. Industry used coal or oil. That was pretty much all there was to know about energy in Australia.

Then we started using a lot more oil for power generation in WA and SA since it had become cheaper than coal.

Then gas came along in Vic and SA, soon followed by WA, with SA coming to rely heavily on it for power and the other states using it back then primarily for homes and industry.

Then the environmental movement emerged. A war erupted over a planned oil and gas-fired power station in Vic and another war sprang up over hydro development in Tas. That power station in Vic was only ever half built, and the Franklin River is still flowing free today and probably always will.

Then along came broader concerns about pollution. CBD area coal-fired power stations closed, we started taking the lead out of petrol and we started to worry about CO2. Around the same time health and safety became a similar concern with asbestos bringing about the early demise of quite a few power stations.

Now we've added landfill gas, wind and solar. Cars no longer need just Super or Standard, there's now 7 different fuels available at some service stations. And so on.

The big trend there is diversity. It is no longer a given that a house in Sydney has off-peak hot water ultimately heated by black coal. It is no longer a given that dinner is cooked in Hobart on an electric stove powered by hydro. There's far more diversity at both ends of the line, production and use, than was once the case.

Going forward, there's no inherent need for any new technology to completely replace what already exists. There's no reason why we can't have cars available in either diesel or electric depending on what suits the buyer. There's no reason why we can't have off-grid homes and on-grid CBD's and factories. Etc.


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## SirRumpole

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

Trouble is Smurf that what you say makes sense to non political people.

When you have large vested interests (whether they be coal, gas, or the renewable industry) in the wallets of politicians, then the game changes.

Decisions are no longer being made by scientists or engineers based on the best cost benefit returns, they are being made by some dude in a boardroom concerned about his own job.

The debacle over the Melbourne East West link is a prime example. Pork barrelling at its worst. Infrastructure Australia said the project didn't stack up, so Abbott just took IA out of the picture and said "we know what's best for the country even though we have no qualifications whatever in the industry.

That's why we are stuffed, stupid politicians.


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## skc

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



Smurf1976 said:


> I see a future where we still have centralised generation and we still have a grid, but the smaller loads take care of themselves. The grid will supply factories, CBD offices, trains, electric car charging stations and so on but a home in the suburbs it won't be needed in most parts of Australia.
> 
> As one scenario, you live in a typical suburban house, you have solar and are off-grid (because the grid was turned off in your street a few years earlier). You have an all-electric car and another plug-in hybrid car. Where the interface occurs is via the vehicles. Surplus power at home? No problem, you charge the car with it. Running low on power at home? No problem, you dump some energy out of the car's battery into your house battery. Need to buy some power? No problem, that's what your local "service station" is for - you drive there, charge the car with power from the grid and either use that power to run the car or, if necessary, dump some into your home system.
> 
> Under that scenario, there's still a grid and you can still access it but not directly. Service stations won't be routinely busy in Summer but they'll be busy places when there's a few days of cloud.




This is brilliant stuff. I was wondering how many batteries one would need to maintain say 99% uptime in a solar+storage setup. But this gets around the issue beautifully. 

Perhaps there's another system where these Powerwall's can be replaced like LPG cylinders. If you run out of power at home, just go to the local service station for a swap-n-go.


----------



## Smurf1976

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

Something I'll just add is that all this off-grid solar stuff is, in an economic sense, far more about the grid as such than it is about energy production.

This might surprise a few people, but even if you really do own the electricity company, indeed if you _are_ the electricity company, it still makes sense to use stand alone solar for small loads. Hydro Tas has plenty of small standalone solar systems and has done so for quite a long time now. Some are for monitoring purposes (flow in rivers or canals, levels etc) but there are some others which actually run big mechanical systems which in turn are necessary in order to operate the "real" power stations which feed the grid. Things like opening and closing valves and so on. There's even stand alone solar literally on top of large dams in some cases.

Quite simply, it's cheaper to put in stand alone solar than it is to keep maintaining a power line in the middle of nowhere that is vulnerable to extreme weather etc and which isn't needed by anyone else. That remains true even if you do happen to own the power station that would be feeding power into that line in the first place. 

The financial attractiveness of solar is largely about avoiding network (grid) costs in the first place. The value of the actual power generated is comparatively minor with conventional coal / gas / hydro still far cheaper than solar on an energy only basis.


----------



## ghotib

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



Smurf1976 said:


> Something I'll just add is that all this off-grid solar stuff is, in an economic sense, far more about the grid as such than it is about energy production.
> 
> <SNIP>
> 
> The financial attractiveness of solar is largely about avoiding network (grid) costs in the first place. The value of the actual power generated is comparatively minor with conventional coal / gas / hydro still far cheaper than solar on an energy only basis.



O Wow!! I've been failing to make any sense of discussions about cost of power for YEARS, largely (I think) because it's so often unclear whether cost means cost to generator, cost to consumer, or cost to intermediary. Smurf, would you care to comment on either or both of these two articles: 

1.  About startup company Reposit (http://reposit.com.au ), which provides a system for enabling anyone to store and to trade the electricity they generate. Can you see how this nano-trading, presumably algorithmic, would be worthwhile? http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/households-to-use-solar-storage-to-trade-electricity-with-grid-99142  (Someone - Basilio? - posted about this earlier today)

2.  Rethinking first impressions and concluding that in many places Powerwall makes rooftop solar cheaper than grid power NOW. Written from the US but looks at prices in several countries, including Oz. My biggest question about this one is whether his Powerwall calculations make sense. http://rameznaam.com/2015/04/30/tesla-powerwall-battery-economics-almost-there/

This feels like the week IBM released its first personal computer: geekery flipping over to routinely ubiquitous (well, as we understood ubiquity back then). Powerwall is a lot more elegant than the PC though


----------



## Value Collector

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



skc said:


> Perhaps there's another system where these Powerwall's can be replaced like LPG cylinders. If you run out of power at home, just go to the local service station for a swap-n-go.




I don't know about any plans for the power wall swap, but here is Teslas demo of the automated car battery swap, it's faster than filling your petrol tank, and you don't have to get out of the car.

The battery swap will be a paid for premium service, however tesla charge stations will do a 25 minute super charge for free for the life of the car to anyone who purchases their car.

[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HlaQuKk9bFg[/video]


----------



## McLovin

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

Really fascinating posts, smurf. Anything that moves us from coal to renewable has to be a step in the right direction. I also like your idea about running down to the local Caltex to pick up some power.


----------



## qldfrog

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



ghotib said:


> This feels like the week IBM released its first personal computer: geekery flipping over to routinely ubiquitous (well, as we understood ubiquity back then). Powerwall is a lot more elegant than the PC though



+1
a decisive step for mankind, BUT I expect it to be hard to fight for in Australia.With a lot of government blocages (both sides as a result of the lobbies involved)


----------



## SirRumpole

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

I doubt if purely electric cars will be much more than a curiosity for a while due to "range fear", diesel/electric hybrids seem much more practical.


----------



## Value Collector

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



SirRumpole said:


> I doubt if purely electric cars will be much more than a curiosity for a while due to "range fear", diesel/electric hybrids seem much more practical.




Tesla has quelled that fear a bit in the USA by building their super charge network, also the batteries are getting better.

Did you what the video of the automated battery swap? they did two vehicles in the time it takes to fill a take of petrol.

I linked the battery swap station video above, but here is the free super charger station.


----------



## SirRumpole

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



Value Collector said:


> Tesla has quelled that fear a bit in the USA by building their super charge network, also the batteries are getting better.
> 
> Did you what the video of the automated battery swap? they did two vehicles in the time it takes to fill a take of petrol.
> 
> I linked the battery swap station video above, but here is the free super charger station.





Looks like things are moving in the right direction.


----------



## McLovin

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



Value Collector said:


> Tesla has quelled that fear a bit in the USA by building their super charge network, also the batteries are getting better.
> 
> Did you what the video of the automated battery swap? they did two vehicles in the time it takes to fill a take of petrol.
> 
> I linked the battery swap station video above, but here is the free super charger station.





The development of their autopilot program on the Tesla S is pretty cool too. In a few years you'll be able to drive to where you want to go then program your car to go and find a car spot, then when you're ready get your to come pick you up. There's a pretty good head of steam built up now in the whole renewable space and I reckon we're at a point of inflexion where use of electric cars and renewables will rapidly accelerate.

Who needs Uber!


----------



## sptrawler

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



McLovin said:


> The development of their autopilot program on the Tesla S is pretty cool too. In a few years you'll be able to drive to where you want to go then program your car to go and find a car spot, then when you're ready get your to come pick you up. There's a pretty good head of steam built up now in the whole renewable space and I reckon we're at a point of inflexion where use of electric cars and renewables will rapidly accelerate.
> 
> Who needs Uber!




I think you're spot on McLovin, the electric vehicle is in its infancy, but it is becoming viable for cities. This is where the major population is anyway, so it follows once consumers have the confidence the range and recharge isn't a problem, they will take off.

By the way good call on the banks.


----------



## Smurf1976

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



ghotib said:


> O Wow!! I've been failing to make any sense of discussions about cost of power for YEARS, largely (I think) because it's so often unclear whether cost means cost to generator, cost to consumer, or cost to intermediary.




Let's look at the Vic and NSW spot prices today. They have both behaved much the same (a consequence of demand not being extreme enough to limit transfer between states) and the price has varied between about 1.0 and 4.0 cents per kWh at the wholesale spot price level. Much the same in Qld, Tas and SA today also.

Now, if you can buy at 1 cent and sell at 4 cents later on the same day then that's not a bad trade.

There's a similarity between a battery and conventional (non-pumped) hydro generation, the only real difference being that the battery has to be charged whereas the hydro system is self-charging via rainfall. But they are both able to deliver large amounts of energy quickly in response to price and demand changes.

For example, at 4am this morning the price in Vic was just under 1 cent / kWh. Here in Tas we had Gordon power station (to pick a random example) idling along at a mere 10MW, and even that has more to do with environmental requirements (keeping the river moving downstream) than an actual need for power at that time. But then at 6pm today, the same power station was humming along nicely at 330MW. Quite a few of the others were also ramped up to much higher levels than at night, or brought online (ie were completely shut down overnight).

Individual generating companies have different strategies, but for a hydro operator the crux of it is that Gordon (for example) can't continuously operate at its' full 432MW capacity and was never intended to. The lake holds 2.5 years' worth of inflows, so there's a lot of flexibility as to when to use the water, but ultimately it doesn't run flat out all the time. Overall, that's broadly similar to discharging a battery, apart from the means of charging it in the first place. (Contrary to popular belief, it IS possible to do baseload hydro, we do have some down here, but in most cases it's a better use of the resource to have peaking capacity). 

You can get some idea of how it's all worked out reading this. It's very hydro-specific, but the overall principles apply to anything that is storage based in the electricity market. This is the public "layman's terms" version so nothing too hard to grasp. http://www.hydro.com.au/system/file...out/Whats-that-about_WaterModelling_Apr13.pdf

PS - the same strategy works for trading other things. Oil and US Dollars come immediately to mind as do share market indices.

Trading electricity at home would really be no different overall, although you'd (1) presumably take transmission and distribution constraints into account far more than is relevant at the bulk wholesale level and (2) would need to automate the process to have any real chance of making money - electricity prices are volatile way beyond what happens in any other market with huge price swings happening just about every day and sometimes several times a day.


----------



## Value Collector

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

nice stuff smurf.

Is Tassie a net importer or exporter of electricity?

do you think that if large scale electrical storage became a reality, then it would work in favour of the most efficient coal plants, and cause a flattening of the price which may knock out peaking plants and new renewable developments?


----------



## SirRumpole

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



> Trading electricity at home would really be no different overall, although you'd (1) presumably take transmission and distribution constraints into account far more than is relevant at the bulk wholesale level and (2) would need to automate the process to have any real chance of making money - electricity prices are volatile way beyond what happens in any other market with huge price swings happening just about every day and sometimes several times a day




Isn't there an Electricity Futures Market yet ?


----------



## Value Collector

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



McLovin said:


> The development of their autopilot program on the Tesla S is pretty cool too. In a few years you'll be able to drive to where you want to go then program your car to go and find a car spot, then when you're ready get your to come pick you up.




Yeah, very cool indeed, Elon is doing a great job at pushing the boundaries of technology at both Tesla and space ex.

I have no idea how to value Telsa as a Business, but it is certainly great to watch.

I like the Tesla Model X that's coming out. It would suit my needs perfectly, especially if Tesla build their planned super charge network between Brisbane and Melbourne.


----------



## pixel

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



Value Collector said:


> Yeah, very cool indeed, Elon is doing a great job at pushing the boundaries of technology at both Tesla and space ex.
> 
> I have no idea how to value Telsa as a Business, but it is certainly great to watch.
> 
> I like the Tesla Model X that's coming out. It would suit my needs perfectly, especially if Tesla build their planned super charge network between Brisbane and Melbourne.




The S P85D is no slouch either. Watch it race a Merc 550 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuh_ylt2keg


----------



## Smurf1976

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



Value Collector said:


> nice stuff smurf.
> 
> Is Tassie a net importer or exporter of electricity?




That's a bit of a hard question to answer since it depends on timeframe and what assumptions are made.

2013-14 = a net exporter.

2014-15 = net importer.

If we assume no climate change over the long term then = net exporter.

If we assume that the climate trends since the mid-1970's are not about to reverse then we're a net importer of either electricity as such, or of gas with which to run Tamar Valley power station (noting that importing electricity is currently the cheaper option rather than buying gas and that's likely to remain for a few years at least).

In the shorter term though, it really comes down to the market. 

Broadly speaking for each state:

Qld = exports almost constantly.

NSW = imports almost constantly.

Vic = generally exports except at high demand times when it imports.

Tas = generally imports off-peak, exports at peak.

SA = historically a net importer but exports heavily at times of high wind generation in SA (especially when this coincides with low demand).



> do you think that if large scale electrical storage became a reality, then it would work in favour of the most efficient coal plants, and cause a flattening of the price which may knock out peaking plants and new renewable developments?




Absolutely it will favour the most _economically_ efficient plants regardless of technology. The rise of solar generation, which tends to peak when demand is high, has already done that to some extent. Financially, the lack of very hot days this Summer has pretty much stuffed a lot of the industry as most of the money is made in just a few hours each year and that didn't really happen this Summer. If you look at _nominal_ prices this year then they're basically the same as 15 years ago - that's a pretty big fall once inflation is taken into account.

The only real exception is Queensland, which at 5.627 cents / kWh average thus far for 2014-15 is most certainly the home of expensive electricity (along with WA and NT). For NSW, Vic, Tas and SA it's in the 3 - 4 cent range.

As for peaking plants, the gas ones aren't in a good position financially going forward anyway due to the rising gas price. The broad trend at the moment is less gas and hydro for baseload generation being replaced with coal. Less hydro in the shoulder periods is being replaced with gas, until the gas price goes up some more and hydro pushes it out of the shoulder periods, thus leaving gas largely out of the market apart from the genuine peaks in demand. For the coal and gas operators that's a consequence of their operating costs. For hydro it's a case of knowing what others' costs are and taking advantage of that via storage. Solar, wind etc just generate when the resource is there so they don't "play the game" as such.


----------



## SirRumpole

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

Smurf,

What do you say about the practicalities of power generation using bio ethanol produced from sugarcane ?


----------



## pixel

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



SirRumpole said:


> Smurf,
> 
> What do you say about the practicalities of power generation using bio ethanol produced from sugarcane ?




There are retrofit gadgets that convert diesel generators, allowing a wide variety of fuels to be burned. I remember Eden Energy's "Optiblend": http://www.edenenergy.com.au/optiblend.html. 
The article doesn't specifically mention bio fuels, so you'd have to ask them.


----------



## SirRumpole

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



pixel said:


> There are retrofit gadgets that convert diesel generators, allowing a wide variety of fuels to be burned. I remember Eden Energy's "Optiblend": http://www.edenenergy.com.au/optiblend.html.
> The article doesn't specifically mention bio fuels, so you'd have to ask them.




I was thinking large scale. I saw something a while ago where Brazil I think were converting turbines that ran on natural gas to run on bio ethanol.

I'm sure it's possible, and if its practicable then it could be very good for cane farmers.


----------



## Value Collector

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



SirRumpole said:


> I was thinking large scale. I saw something a while ago where Brazil I think were converting turbines that ran on natural gas to run on bio ethanol.
> 
> I'm sure it's possible, and if its practicable then it could be very good for cane farmers.




ethanol might be ok as a replacement in areas that are currently having diesel trucked in, but gas delivered by a pipeline would be cheaper, unless there was subsidies or laws which warped the economics.

Here is a lecture given by an executive from the Dow chemical company, It's long but he give some great insights into the pros and cons of using different feedstock's for the chemical and energy industries, it really helped me fill in a few areas when it comes to understanding the economics of the industries.

Long story short, a lot of the proposed substitutes are fundamentally flawed.


----------



## luutzu

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



Value Collector said:


> ethanol might be ok as a replacement in areas that are currently having diesel trucked in, but gas delivered by a pipeline would be cheaper, unless there was subsidies or laws which warped the economics.
> 
> Here is a lecture given by an executive from the Dow chemical company, It's long but he give some great insights into the pros and cons of using different feedstock's for the chemical and energy industries, it really helped me fill in a few areas when it comes to understanding the economics of the industries.





Ethanol is a bad idea. Don't think it's economical either.

Shouldn't use food stuff to make fuel. There are other alternatives, like waste and landfill gases to feed the grids.


----------



## Value Collector

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



luutzu said:


> Shouldn't use food stuff to make fuel. There are other alternatives, like waste and landfill gases to feed the grids.




Totally agree, the only time I support it is when it's made using a waste product of an existing industry, eg the sugar refining or the flour milling operations. But even then, I guess you have to look for better opportunities to use the waste in animal feeds or fertilizers if possible, it depends on the waste.


----------



## qldfrog

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

I did half a page answer this morning around 6Am, and then ASF servers crashed on me:



So to summarise:
only ethanol from sugarcane and bio diesel from canola are positive energy wise:
basically ethanol from corn/wheat is only a result of subsidies in the EU and US
Crazy world...But with subsidies it can make sense to burn 2 litres of fuel to get less energy in ethanol and make a profit
That is a first point
For sugarcane, the resulting ethanol has only interest if used as "condensed energy": aka fuel for mobile equipment(car), if you burn it in a turbine or power plant , you are much better off burning the sugarcane directly in a boiler;
The total energy from the raw sugarcane will always be higher than the ethanol produced by the equivalent sugarcane;
No energy get created..ever
So bio ethanol will never be used in power production, ever,  in a rational world (which we are not) but it can maybe be usedin a fully fossil fuel free world for emergency generators in hospital/CBD or for peak time as a stored emergency supply
Am I mostly right Smurf?


----------



## qldfrog

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



Value Collector said:


> Totally agree, the only time I support it is when it's made using a waste product of an existing industry, eg the sugar refining or the flour milling operations. But even then, I guess you have to look for better opportunities to use the waste in animal feeds or fertilizers if possible, it depends on the waste.



And I fully agree with you guys on the ethical side;


----------



## Smurf1976

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



SirRumpole said:


> Smurf,
> 
> What do you say about the practicalities of power generation using bio ethanol produced from sugarcane ?




Technically it's extremely doable and very "off the shelf" in terms of what's required. Ethanol burns, and it's a clean burning liquid at that, which makes its' use in gas turbines or reciprocating engines not overly difficult with some relatively minor modifications.

In terms of resources it would be a tragic waste however, akin to using gold as road base. Using gas to generate electricity is bad enough but to take liquid fuel, and a premium "clean" one at that, and squander it in a power station is just silly. Ethical issues with ethanol aside, it makes far more sense to use whatever ethanol we're going to produce as a transport fuel (replacing oil) than to turn it into electricity that could be produced from so many alternative sources instead.


----------



## Smurf1976

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



qldfrog said:


> No energy get created..ever
> So bio ethanol will never be used in power production, ever,  in a rational world (which we are not) but it can maybe be usedin a fully fossil fuel free world for emergency generators in hospital/CBD or for peak time as a stored emergency supply
> Am I mostly right Smurf?




The simplest way to understand any of this energy stuff is this. With the sole exception of turning electricity into heat, whenever you convert one form of energy into another there will be losses.

Coal (chemical energy) into steam = losses in combustion and heat loss from the boiler itself.

Steam (heat) into mechanical power = losses in the steam turbine.

Mechanical power into electricity = losses in the alternator.

And so on, same principle applies everywhere with the only way to gain energy as such being to (1) extract more of it from whatever natural resource or (2) heat pumps don't produce heat, but they do effectively constitute a gain in practical terms when you can put 1kWh of electricity in and get 5kWh or heat coming out of the device. There's no magic, that heat just came from the outside air, but it could be considered as 500% efficient in the context of heating a room or heating water.

In practical technologies that we actually use, efficiency varies. Eg turning high moisture content coal into electricity is inherently less efficient than if the coal is dry and both are less efficient than a hydro turbine. Same with anything - a small petrol engine is nowhere near as efficient as a large diesel for example. 

We already burn sugar industry waste to generate power on a modest scale in Qld. There's no need to add a whole lot of cost and complexity, plus energy losses, turning it into ethanol first.

About the only situation where I can see ethanol being seriously useful as a means of generating electricity is for running small portable generators in a confined work environment (eg a tunnel). Ethanol burns a lot cleaner than other liquid fuels and doesn't have the hassles of dealing with gas cylinders, so in that situation an ethanol fuelled portable generator could have an advantage in terms of worker safety (that is, less risk of carbon monoxide etc being a problem). But that's an extremely unique situation and LPG is another option if mains power can't be run to the site (or from a petrol / diesel generator outside) for some reason. It's a very trivial market at best.

Ethically and environmentally, I'm very much in favour of using legitimate waste to produce ethanol especially where that waste would otherwise be burnt or dumped. That's a sensible use of an otherwise wasted resource, with the ethanol then displacing the use of oil.

I am totally against the idea of taking food crops and converting them into ethanol however. Firstly there are ethical issues about land degradation, chemical and fertilizer use, impact on food prices etc but it is also fundamentally pointless since they are a net energy sink rather than a gain. 

So I'd like to see waste put to use certainly but the idea of mandating a set level of ethanol in petrol and then turning corn or wheat into fuel is just dumb.


----------



## qldfrog

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

a bit off track but when mentionning electric car (charged from/with your tesla powerplant) powered by your solar panels, worth mentionning are electric truck especially garbage trucks:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/forget-tesla%E2%80%94the-real-revolution-is-electric-garbage-trucks-175357428.html
It actually makes much sense and seems economically  sensible already.


----------



## Value Collector

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



qldfrog said:


> It actually makes much sense and seems economically  sensible already.




sounds good, I imagine city buses could do a similar thing.

The electric power trains certainly have the power to run heavy vehicles, Freight trains have been using electric motors powered by diesel generators for years.

And as he said, on vehicles that stop and start a lot electric motors are much better, conventional engines are not as efficient doing stops and starts, and waste fuel idling. That's why a lot of Taxis are switching to hybrids, because in city traffic they use the electric motor a lot.


----------



## Smurf1976

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

Efficiency of an engine varies with load, it is not a constant relationship between energy input and mechanical power output, and that is true for any internal combustion, gas turbine, steam turbine or hydro turbine.

So far as diesel (or petrol or gas) engines in something like a garbage truck are concerned, there are two big problems. 

First is that the truck spends considerable time stationary, during which time fuel is being burned with effectively zero efficiency. And since the engine needs to be reasonably powerful, in order to move the fully laden truck at a decent speed, it uses quite a bit of fuel just idling. 

Second is that there are a huge number of stops and starts with movement - the truck moves forward a few metres at at time then stops again. A diesel engine is a one way energy conversion device. Diesel goes in and power is produced so as to move the truck forward. The truck's momentum, and that is most of the energy that went into getting it moving in the first place, is then dissipated as heat via the brakes in order to bring it to as stop and empty the next bin. Now repeat that process hundreds (thousands?) of times per day, every day. As an order of magnitude, there's probably somewhere around 2 million garbage truck stops and starts each and every working day in Australia. That's a lot of fuel burned and a lot of heat coming from the brakes.

Now contrast that with an electric drive system. It has zero idling energy consumption, the motor simply stops. And it can recover whilst stopping the energy used to get it moving in the first place. Electricity from the battery goes into the motor and gets the truck moving, the motor then works as a generator to charge the battery in order to stop the vehicle and empty the next bin. There's no huge energy dissipation via the brakes required.

So an electric garbage truck needs far less energy on board, via the batteries, than its' diesel (or petrol or gas) counterpart since it is inherently far more energy efficient in operation.

Even if the power was generated on the truck via a small diesel / gas driven generator, that would be far more efficient running at constant load and with regenerative when compared to using the diesel engine to directly drive the truck. Even better would be to simply charge the truck from the grid at the depot etc where it's parked when not in use.


----------



## orr

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*

Hats off Elon, Lithium based storage, at a price to retail market at US$350/kwh of storage. Using the 10kwh Power Wall unit as a reference What is the usable amount of energy? To extract 10kwh from this unit would imply 100% depth of discharge(DOD).This type of use of Lithium based battery chemistry detrimentally effect the service life of these batteries. So what is the optimal Discharge percentage of the Power Wall and which Lithium chemistry is the Power Wall using?
Whilst Elon makes big of the fact that Tesla is opening their patent box for all to use, If you buy one of his cars try and do any modifications to or any maintenance. The following attachment is to a US Electric Vehicle bussiness Run by Jack Rickard's it goes into explicit detail as the conundrums with what are now being faced with regard as to what should be 'Your right to repair'. Jack,s not outwardly a highly engaging presenter but he's nothing if not across his subject. For those who watch, look for the 100+ used Model S Teslas on the lot in Chicargo, and Jcks insight.
http://evtv.me/2015/04/right-to-repair-why-it-matters/

Now back to home battery storage. What about a battery that has 100% DOD has been tested to date to 5000 cycles is made of non toxic non flammable cheap materials is highly tolerant to 'abuse' and is currently in commecial production. Prior to Elon's dump on the home energy storage market this battery was going to market at US$600/kWh of storage, I'm watching this space. The company is called Aquion, Gates has an interest.

http://www.aquionenergy.com


----------



## Joe Blow

I have split these posts off from the *Do you have solar panels?* thread and created a new thread as the discussion has gradually evolved into the future of energy generation and storage.



qldfrog said:


> I did half a page answer this morning around 6Am, and then ASF servers crashed on me:
> View attachment 62507




If that happens again, go back to the same thread, start another reply and then click "Restore Auto-Saved Content" in the bottom left of the post editor. Posts are auto-saved as they are created and can be restored if the forum goes down or your PC crashes.


----------



## qldfrog

Joe Blow said:


> If that happens again, go back to the same thread, start another reply and then click "Restore Auto-Saved Content" in the bottom left of the post editor. Posts are auto-saved as they are created and can be restored if the forum goes down or your PC crashes.
> 
> View attachment 62538



Thanks Joe, was not aware and as you can imagine, the error notice was followed by a bit of imaginative language..
Good idea to create a new thread, this is an area which is being revolutionised


----------



## sydboy007

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



Value Collector said:


> the batteries don't generate power, they just store it. So at first it will be a zero sum game in that any power a household stores for later use is power that isn't being fed into the grid for some one else to use.
> 
> eg. if my solar system isn't feeding into my neighbors house while I am away, because the power is charging my batteries, then the neighbors are more reliant on using the grid at large (transmission lines, substations, coal plant etc) than they would be if the power was being sourced locally from the surrounding un used solar generation.




The real value will be to swap peak time consumption with off peak.  the power comapnies will die if enough people can do this as most of their profits come from abput 2 weeks of the year when consumption really spikes.  if there's no more periods where electricity is selling for 10K a MWh and they have to make do with a ceiling price of < $100 it will make life very hard for them.  A lot of assets will be worthless, especially gas peaking plant.

Even without solar panels, it could be worth someone installing batteries and charging them in off peak and then using the cheaper power during the day.

if the electricity companies are smart they'll jump on installing it fast to keep retail electricity costs down, otherwise the death spiral is assured.


----------



## sydboy007

I had a good laugh with the below. Makes me thankful I've never had to own a car

http://teslaclubsweden.se/test-drive-of-a-petrol-car/


----------



## Value Collector

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



sydboy007 said:


> The real value will be to swap peak time consumption with off peak.  the power comapnies will die if enough people can do this as most of their profits come from abput 2 weeks of the year when consumption really spikes.  if there's no more periods where electricity is selling for 10K a MWh and they have to make do with a ceiling price of < $100 it will make life very hard for them.  A lot of assets will be worthless, especially gas peaking plant.
> 
> Even without solar panels, it could be worth someone installing batteries and charging them in off peak and then using the cheaper power during the day.
> 
> if the electricity companies are smart they'll jump on installing it fast to keep retail electricity costs down, otherwise the death spiral is assured.




It would hurt leaking plants, but be good for the low cost baseload plants. Instead of having their plant maxed out and losing market share to peaking stations in peak times, and then sitting at 5% of capacity all night, they could just sit at 75% 24hours a day


----------



## Smurf1976

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



sydboy007 said:


> if there's no more periods where electricity is selling for 10K a MWh and they have to make do with a ceiling price of < $100 it will make life very hard for them.  A lot of assets will be worthless, especially gas peaking plant.




It'll hit the entire industry pretty hard, no question there.

Even for baseload plant, most of the time they are running in a price environment which covers marginal costs (eg fuel) but only just, making no return on the original investment. Basically the whole profit comes in just a few hours each year when the price goes through the roof.

I see a future where off-peak prices will have to rise, simply to keep the generators financially viable. If you're not going to have the occasional huge spike, then you can't run a viable business if you're selling in the 1 - 4 cents / kWh range most of the time and your costs are higher than that.

In terms of specific impacts:

Brown coal (and non-exportable black coal in Qld) = marginal costs are ridiculously low, well under 1 cent / kWh in most cases, so it's really a question of asset values and return on that investment. They won't rationally cease to operate due to that factor.

Black coal (exportable) = marginal costs are higher, but still lower than the spot price most of the time. Indeed it is the marginal cost of these plants which in practice often sets the price floor in the first place, since they're flexible enough in operation (can generally stay running down to about 30% of nameplate capacity) to cut output when price and demand drops.

Hydro = depends on the operator, noting that hydro in Australia is dominated by two companies (Hydro Tas and Snowy Hydro) plus a few plants owned by various others in Vic, NSW and Qld. 

So far as Snowy is concerned, they are absolutely focused on peak loads - they've got about two thirds more peak capacity than Hydro Tas has, but with only half the average energy output. Snowy also has some pumped storage as such. I can't imagine the scheme ever being abandoned, but it could end up considerably less viable financially than it is at present if they end up having to sell their output as baseload generation.

For Hydro Tas it's somewhat different since HT was a baseload generator for the first 90 years of its' existence and doesn't actually have a single hydro generating set built to operate as peak generation (though there are 4 small open cycle gas turbines, but they're very much a sideline to the main activities and are usually idle). The hydro system can certainly produce peak power, no doubt about that, but fundamentally it's a baseload operation by design and under certain weather conditions loses a lot of efficiency in order to achieve maximum peak power output. The issue is thus a purely financial one and, since HT currently sells most of its' production either as baseload to heavy industry or to small consumers via its' offshoot retailer Momemtum, that impact won't kill the business. It won't help, but it won't be the end.

Wind = they can't control when they generate so it's the average price received that matters. How they get to that price is less of a concern - if peak prices drop and baseload prices rise then they'll be happy. If average prices fall then they'll be losing money on their original investment but the marginal costs are such that nobody would rationally cease operation until the turbines wear out.

Solar at utility scale is very minor in Australia, but it's the price received when they are generating (ie daytime) that matters. A drop in peak prices won't help them financially that's for sure.

Gas = pretty much game over for these guys. Already we've got Swanbank E (Qld) mothballed and Torrens Island A (SA) about to go the same way. Most of the rest are generating less as gas prices rise. There's also another plant being considered for dismantling and sale (likely overseas) as parts although that's still under consideration as such.

Oil = a minor fuel for grid generation in Australia at present, and would become even less relevant if peak prices flatten out. Qld is the only state that actually runs oil-fired generation with any regularity. There's some capacity in NSW and SA too although that's idle almost all the time, and it's a backup to gas at some (not all) plants in Vic and Tas though not generally used apart from test runs.


----------



## SirRumpole

In reference to the above posts by Smurf and Syd, doesn't it make it all the less reason to sell generating assets (if that is what is being planned) ? 

There would have to be massive subsidies or massive price hikes offered to get any corporations interested I would have thought.

Government ownership that can smooth out the profits and losses over time without worrying about going out of business in the meantime would seem to be the best option, except that the politicians are too lazy to take the responsibility.


----------



## Smurf1976

*Re: Do you have solar panels?*



Value Collector said:


> It would hurt leaking plants, but be good for the low cost baseload plants. Instead of having their plant maxed out and losing market share to peaking stations in peak times, and then sitting at 5% of capacity all night, they could just sit at 75% 24hours a day




Absolutely true in an engineering sense, load leveling has always been the goal for any sensible electricity supplier focused on the engineering side of it.

Finance is where it gets a bit more complex, since the peaks make the $. That's to the point that a certain fairly well known baseload plant, itself owned by a "household name" company, routinely cuts its own production when demand rises so as for force the price up. They sell two thirds as much volume at 10+ times the price = easy money. Needless to say, nobody else in the industry is complaining about them doing that either. 

To be fair, there's more than one who does that, but there's one particular plant that's notorious for it.

PS - I take it that's peaking plants not leaking plants? Not good to have leaks in an oil-fired plant, even worse to have a big leak in a gas-fired one. And if you get a catastrophic leak in an underground hydro station, well, let's just hope that never happens because it won't be pretty if it does.....


----------



## sptrawler

W.A will be an interesting test bed, for private sector accountability, and how they manage their responsibilities.

There is a lot of installed capacity, that has taken free taxpayer money, for doing nothing.
When they are asked to stand up to the plate and deliver, it will be interesting to see what happens.

W.A doesn't have an extension cord to the other States, unlike the East coast.


----------



## ghotib

sydboy007 said:


> I had a good laugh with the below. Makes me thankful I've never had to own a car
> 
> http://teslaclubsweden.se/test-drive-of-a-petrol-car/




Wonderful!!  And so true.  Thank you.


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> In reference to the above posts by Smurf and Syd, doesn't it make it all the less reason to sell generating assets (if that is what is being planned) ?



Indeed and the reason I am so angry at labor in qld whose campaign was based on "no sale of assets" and ended up with a victory;
That the electorate may not know or understand fair, but as a policy maker Labor here could have at least the wit to consider economic sense in their policies;
as the results of the election, qld will not sell any extra  electricity or port assets: all assets currently at the peak of their price due to the world low level of rates, and which have a serious risk of becoming nearly worthless in the next decades

Newman was a tool but that policy at least made economical and fiscal sense


----------



## Smurf1976

One major problem with the ownership question is conflict of interest in policy making.

I have never, ever seen government first sell or outsource something and then implement policy which leaves the private owner or contractor effectively bankrupt, even when doing so is the rational course of action.

That tends to be true even if the private owner does a terrible job and there are plenty of examples. Railways in Tas come immediately to mind. Pacific National messed up big time, leaving the system in ruin to the point of being almost totally inoperable - couldn't run a train from one end of the state to the other even at walking pace without it coming off the tracks (and the locos and rolling stock were incredibly run down too). Government had no choice but to take back ownership, agreed there, but where they went terribly wrong was with the actual transaction. They actually paid PN for the assets! 

As a taxpayer I'm not happy. They ought to have forced PN to either fix the system or at the very least hand the whole lot over at $0 if they really insisted on walking away. There was no reason to pay - it's not as though the assets were actually worth anything other than as scrap metal and PN weren't likely to go around physically ripping up the tracks to sell some rusty iron and rotten timber. 

The private owner took the profits and the taxpayer footed the bill - that's how it works when these privatisations go wrong. Government never, ever sends business broke or even takes a hard line. The taxpayer retains the risk no matter who owns it when it comes to things like transport and energy infrastructure.

If the Qld government sells power stations and the network, then the big problem is that a future government will in practice end up with two choices. Either implement policies which keep them profitable or, if they actually do become obsolete, buy them back at what would likely be the replacement cost of building them in 2030 or whenever it happens. End result is that a private operator takes the profit now, with the taxpayer ultimately carrying the risk either via constrained future policy decisions or an outright bailout.

It's like in SA where they leased the electricity assets. One way or another, you can be pretty sure that those with the lease will either insist that they have some sort of right to keep collecting revenue from the grid, even if it did become obsolete, or will hand the whole thing back to government if they end up losing money. The taxpayers of SA still have the long term business risk, all that was privatised were the profits in the meantime.

Anyway, it's not all doom and gloom. It's not huge but it's publicly announced that we've got some more heavy industrial load signed up in Tas. Nothing major, just 33MW (but that's in addition to the 322MW the same factory already uses - that's a constant load 24/7/365). Manufacturing isn't completely stuffed in Australia it would seem and there's still a market for grid electricity down here at least.


----------



## luutzu

Smurf1976 said:


> One major problem with the ownership question is conflict of interest in policy making.
> 
> I have never, ever seen government first sell or outsource something and then implement policy which leaves the private owner or contractor effectively bankrupt, even when doing so is the rational course of action.
> 
> That tends to be true even if the private owner does a terrible job and there are plenty of examples. Railways in Tas come immediately to mind. Pacific National messed up big time, leaving the system in ruin to the point of being almost totally inoperable - couldn't run a train from one end of the state to the other even at walking pace without it coming off the tracks (and the locos and rolling stock were incredibly run down too). Government had no choice but to take back ownership, agreed there, but where they went terribly wrong was with the actual transaction. They actually paid PN for the assets!
> 
> As a taxpayer I'm not happy. They ought to have forced PN to either fix the system or at the very least hand the whole lot over at $0 if they really insisted on walking away. There was no reason to pay - it's not as though the assets were actually worth anything other than as scrap metal and PN weren't likely to go around physically ripping up the tracks to sell some rusty iron and rotten timber.
> 
> The private owner took the profits and the taxpayer footed the bill - that's how it works when these privatisations go wrong. Government never, ever sends business broke or even takes a hard line. The taxpayer retains the risk no matter who owns it when it comes to things like transport and energy infrastructure.
> 
> If the Qld government sells power stations and the network, then the big problem is that a future government will in practice end up with two choices. Either implement policies which keep them profitable or, if they actually do become obsolete, buy them back at what would likely be the replacement cost of building them in 2030 or whenever it happens. End result is that a private operator takes the profit now, with the taxpayer ultimately carrying the risk either via constrained future policy decisions or an outright bailout.
> 
> It's like in SA where they leased the electricity assets. One way or another, you can be pretty sure that those with the lease will either insist that they have some sort of right to keep collecting revenue from the grid, even if it did become obsolete, or will hand the whole thing back to government if they end up losing money. The taxpayers of SA still have the long term business risk, all that was privatised were the profits in the meantime.
> 
> Anyway, it's not all doom and gloom. It's not huge but it's publicly announced that we've got some more heavy industrial load signed up in Tas. Nothing major, just 33MW (but that's in addition to the 322MW the same factory already uses - that's a constant load 24/7/365). Manufacturing isn't completely stuffed in Australia it would seem and there's still a market for grid electricity down here at least.




It's not so crazy if you're the politicians wanting re-election or cushy speaking fees and a seat on some board after retirement from politics at 50.

To be fair, even honest and public minded politicians couldn't do much but step in and save these utilities and infrastructures when they fail - privately owned or otherwise. They're too big to fail, and they know it.

Apparently it's quite easy to upset the public - most are too busy to do much, and those that do something either protests a while and that's pretty much it. Upset rich and powerful businesses and you're in a whole heap of trouble. So most won't bother.


Here's another conspiracy theory... I never really quite understand why the banks and the rich who runs the world wanted policies like those Austerity measures, low minimum wage etc. Aren't these just short term profit for them? Wouldn't they be richer if the masses could afford more of the goods and services?

I think they know that, but one... profit is good, short term or otherwise; two, if people are poor they're easier to control and influenced, easier to make tough bargains and no wage rises - double profit dips; and three, if the masses are poorer and the gov't can't raise enough tax revenue etc... they'd have to borrow - on favourable terms... and if it get bad enough, they'd be forced to sell major assets and infrastructures.

The poor have no money to buy (yea, through their superfund, right)... and so guess who controls and milk all those wonderful, vitally important assets the public had been funding all these decades?

You got to love the profit motive and corporations. They're literally a big, powerful, amoral living entity that care for nothing and nobody but making the most money in whatever way it can legally - and if not legally it'll weight the fines and costs and gov't inability to do much but step in and bail them out.

... and I'm making a career out of trying to own them. Moral decay man... haha


----------



## qldfrog

I see your point but it has a cost as well, we have billions in value which is going to go in smoke in the next decades, has  a $ value now..well had, 
and would have at the very least allowed the reduction of the current state debt in a state which has a gloomy mid term future;
still not convinced it is a great deal


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf has concisely summarised the pitfalls of private ownership of public assets

If governments publicly disclosed all the details of contracts for sale or lease of assets instead of hiding behind "commercial in-confidence" excuses, I think the public would be far less welcoming of these deals, and they are not particularly welcoming as it is.


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> Smurf has concisely summarised the pitfalls of private ownership of public assets
> 
> If governments publicly disclosed all the details of contracts for sale or lease of assets instead of hiding behind "commercial in-confidence" excuses, I think the public would be far less welcoming of these deals, and they are not particularly welcoming as it is.



True, and should not have to be like that..and I ear the echo:
"Tell him he is dreaming..."


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> I see your point but it has a cost as well, we have billions in value which is going to go in smoke in the next decades




So far as generation (power stations) are concerned, most of them have a finite life and quite a few are already getting rather old.

For a thermal (steam turbine) plant it's generally a case of becoming uneconomic rather than a hard technical limit as such. There's no technical reason why you can't just keep refurbishing a plant, but at some point two problems arise. Firstly, the scale of refurbishment required gets to the point of being effectively a complete rebuild apart from the basic structure of concrete, roof etc. Secondly, the plant's technology becomes obsolete such that a major refurbishment just doesn't stack up economically. So it ends up being a case of keep running the station until it needs major work, that is more than just routine maintenance, and then that's it, game over.

Lifespan of a power station depends on a lot of factors, it's not a hard rule that it will last x years. But a point does come where routine maintenance is no longer sufficient and major work is required. At that point it's a question of whether or not it's worth spending big $ to keep a 40 year old plant going or whether it's more sensible to scrap it.

For a gas turbine plant there are less opportunities for life extension, since major refurbishment basically means replacing pretty much everything that has any real value. That's due to the inherent simplicity of those plants when compared to steam, there's not much too them that isn't directly producing electricity so once it needs a major overhaul that's effectively a new plant anyway or close to it. 

At the other end of the scale is hydro which, due to it's simplicity and very slow rotational speed (almost always below 500 RPM and often less than half that, versus a steam turbine screaming along at 3000 RPM) doesn't suffer a great deal of wear and tear. Also, there's a lot of money tied up in things which deteriorate very slowly - dams, canals etc. Hence we've got a 101 year old power station here in Tas that's still in baseload production, and a 77 year old one has been refurbished internally in recent times to keep it going for many years to come - it will almost certainly still be running (baseload) when it's 100. 

The underlying point here is that the assets in Qld, which are predominantly steam and the rest mostly gas turbines, do have a finite life and quite a lot of the steam (coal) capacity does date from the 1970's and 80's. As such, it will in due course wear out and ought to be being depreciated toward that point thus avoiding any financial "shock" when the end does come.

A very recent announcement this week is closure of Anglesea power station, a 160MW (originally designed as 150MW) coal-fired plant in Victoria. It no longer serves its original purpose of supplying an industrial load (smelter) owned by the same company since the smelter is no longer operating. The power station could continue to just supply the grid, and that's what it is doing right now (and it's running at full output literally right now), but I'll take a guess (I don't have any inside info on it) that at 46 years old it probably needs some $ spent to continue operating. That's the decision point - spend the $ or close the plant and associated mine forever. It has an incredibly low marginal operating cost, it's the 4th cheapest non-hydro plant in the whole grid, bit with the low price of electricity the current owner has decided that it's not worth spending money on and their attempts to sell it to someone else have fallen flat too. So that's it, game over for Anglesea power station at the end of August this year.

So my point here is that coal and gas plants do eventually end up worthless at some point, there doesn't need to be a change in the way we generate electricity to bring that situation about. Looking back in history there have been plenty of closures in the past. Osborne, Playford A, East Perth, South Freemantle, Kwinana, Spencer St, Newport A, B and C, Yallourn A, B, C, D and E, Swanbank A and B, Pyrmont, White Bay, Bulimba, Tennyson, New Farm, Tallawarra, Stokes Hill, Munmorah and on it goes. They were all locally very important in their heyday and all still running within living memory but they're gone now, either completely demolished (most) with a few ending up with some other use of the buildings or with a completely new power station built on the site of the old. There's a casino where Pyrmont power station used to be (Sydney) and there's a sports stadium where Tennyson (Brisbane) once stood.

Going forward, it's inevitable that at some point Loy Yang, Hazelwood, Northern, Bayswater, Eraring, Gladstone, Tarong and all the others won't be generating electricity any more. At some point they will close, that's inevitable. It's only the hydro plants that have any chance of still being around a century from now (and then only if there's still a use for grid electricity).

So the threat of becoming obsolete shouldn't be a deterrent to either public or private ownership. They all end up closed anyway, and the same happens with virtually all capital equipment in any industry. How many offices are still using computers from the 1980's? How many warehouses are running 50+ year old forklifts? When's the last time you caught a bus with wooden floors and a petrol motor? And so on. Even your local fish and chip shop needs to replace their deep fryer at some point.

Back to the industry now, the real problem is a financial one. It's not viable to build new coal-fired capacity and it's not even viable to keep old plants running once a major overhaul is needed - Munmorah, Wallerawang, Swanbank, Redbank, Collinsville, Morwell, Playford B and now Anglesea have all closed or at least been mothballed in recent times. It's not viable to do new baseload gas either with the rising gas price, and we're not building enough renewables to fill the gap.

Keep this up and at some point there's one heck of a shock coming down the wires and that's a shock of the financial kind and/or outright blackouts. If there isn't generation at one end of the line, then you can't run your appliances at the other end.

Whilst demand has declined in recent times, that trend is now flattening out in NSW and Vic and demand is significantly rising in Qld and Tas driven by heavy industry. Only SA and WA, due to local economic factors, are likely to see any real load drops from this point on it seems and in WA that's far from certain (but it's at least plausible).

Photo: New turbine being installed in unit 3 at Tarraleah power station (Tas, hydro) in 2013. Photo by Smurf.

In layman's terms the turbine is the bright shiny metal part on the right hand side of the photo with two parts joined together. The part that produces the actual electricity, the alternator, is the big round thing on the left with a beige metal cover over it. If not for the work being done, there would be a similar cover over the turbine and also the pipes would be visible (removed to do the work). 

For the technically inclined - 6 machines at Tarraleah, 15 MW each, with pelton turbines running at 428 RPM at 299m head and each discharging about 7000 litres / second at full output. Voltage at the alternators is 11kV, stepped up to 110kV for transmission. 

The scale of production is small by modern standards but Tarraleah runs 24/7 and remains a locally important source of generation. It has been in operation since 1938.


----------



## DB008

*Trina Solar launches residential battery, ahead of grid and commercial storage​*


> Chinese solar giant Trina Solar has quietly unveiled its first energy storage offering, with the launch of a small range of lithium-ion batteries targeted at the residential market.
> 
> The batteries, pictured below, come in three different sizes – 3.6kW, 5kW and 9.6kW – and are set to be released on the Australian market – among other select countries – in June, at an expected cost of around $US1200 per kWh.
> 
> Doug Smith, country manager for Trina’s Pacific region, said the company’s “soft launch” of the battery at the sidelines of the Australian Solar and Energy Storage conference in Melbourne this week, was not in response to the sensational arrival of Tesla’s Powerwall, but added that this had given the market a huge boost.
> 
> “Tesla’s certainly doing the world a favour here, for sure,” Smith told RenewEconomy in an interview. “They’ve done a great job in such a short amount of time.”
> 
> According to Smith, Trina – which recently claimed the title as world number one producer of crystalline PV modules – made the strategic decision to get into energy storage more than 18 months ago, forming a new division called Trina BEST (Battery Energy Storage by Trina).
> 
> It has been working on the batteries for 12 months now, says Smith, at a purpose-built in Jiangsu, near Shanghai.





http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/trina-solar-launches-residential-battery-ahead-of-grid-and-commercial-storage-31674​


----------



## sptrawler

DB008 said:


> *Trina Solar launches residential battery, ahead of grid and commercial storage​*
> 
> 
> 
> http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/trina-solar-launches-residential-battery-ahead-of-grid-and-commercial-storage-31674​




The problem with lithium ion batteries, from my understanding, is they start dying as soon as they are produced.
From what I've read 5 - 7 years is their life expectancy, it may have improved.
If the life expectancy hasn't improved, the unit cost will have to drop considerably, to make them viable.IMO


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> So far as generation (power stations) are concerned, most of them have a finite life and quite a few are already getting rather old.
> 
> For a thermal (steam turbine) plant it's generally a case of becoming uneconomic rather than a hard technical limit as such. There's no technical reason why you can't just keep refurbishing a plant, but at some point two problems arise. Firstly, the scale of refurbishment required gets to the point of being effectively a complete rebuild apart from the basic structure of concrete, roof etc. Secondly, the plant's technology becomes obsolete such that a major refurbishment just doesn't stack up economically. So it ends up being a case of keep running the station until it needs major work, that is more than just routine maintenance, and then that's it, game over.
> 
> Lifespan of a power station depends on a lot of factors, it's not a hard rule that it will last x years. But a point does come where routine maintenance is no longer sufficient and major work is required. At that point it's a question of whether or not it's worth spending big $ to keep a 40 year old plant going or whether it's more sensible to scrap it.




I am a great supporter of the Government owning essential services.

However, as Smurph has pointed out, electricity is hugely capital intensive, both in repair and replacement.

It is cheap to produce with existing plant, but capital intensive to repair or replace.

Add to this, the rapid increase in electrical technology and appliance efficiency, and it is a dodgy business to be in. 
Throw environmental and political uncertainty into the mix, and it is probably better to sell the asset before we make them worthless.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> The problem with lithium ion batteries, from my understanding, is they start dying as soon as they are produced.
> From what I've read 5 - 7 years is their life expectancy, it may have improved.
> If the life expectancy hasn't improved, the unit cost will have to drop considerably, to make them viable.IMO




Modern lithium batteries, especially the highly engineered types can last much longer, but even 7 years is ok, did you know the average life of a car in Australia is 7 years?

But when people give life expectancy of batteries, it's normally based on a ratio of its effectiveness, eg, will have 80% of its capacity at 7 years, so it's actually life span may be much longer, you can always just buy another batteries and sit it beside it,

I was speaking to a solar installer, and he mentioned that when solar panels have a 20 year service life guarantee, he said they don't need replacing at the 20 year mark, they just lose 30% of effectiveness, you could just put a fresh set next to them and the old ones would easily continue for another 10 years


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Modern lithium batteries, especially the highly engineered types can last much longer, but even 7 years is ok, did you know the average life of a car in Australia is 7 years?
> 
> But when people give life expectancy of batteries, it's normally based on a ratio of its effectiveness, eg, will have 80% of its capacity at 7 years, so it's actually life span may be much longer, you can always just buy another batteries and sit it beside it,
> 
> I was speaking to a solar installer, and he mentioned that when solar panels have a 20 year service life guarantee, he said they don't need replacing at the 20 year mark, they just lose 30% of effectiveness, you could just put a fresh set next to them and the old ones would easily continue for another 10 years




I think if you read up on lithium batteries, you will find they don't decline, they DIE.

This makes them quite different, from batteries we are accustomed to.

They perform extremely well until their demise, but their demise, is sharp, sudden and finite.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> I think if you read up on lithium batteries, you will find they don't decline, they DIE.
> 
> This makes them quite different, from batteries we are accustomed to.
> 
> They perform extremely well until their demise, but their demise, is sharp, sudden and finite.




I am no battery expert, but the wiki page says that lithium batteries, suffer a loss of 30% after 1000 - 5000 cycles depending on how well they are made.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> I am no battery expert, but the wiki page says that lithium batteries, suffer a loss of 30% after 1000 - 5000 cycles depending on how well they are made.




I think you are talking cycling loss, I'm talking calender loss.

Lithium batteries can be cycled very hard, without degradation, the chemical ageing process in the battery kills them. Well that is my limited understanding.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Battery_Power/Lithium_Ion_Batteries

A small qoute:

Disadvantages[edit]
A unique drawback of the Li-ion battery is that its life span is dependent upon aging from time of manufacturing (shelf life) regardless of whether it was charged, and not just on the number of charge/discharge cycles. This drawback is not widely publicized.

It is interesting reading, and probably explains Lithium batteries, fall on their ar$e overnight.lol


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> but even 7 years is ok, did you know the average life of a car in Australia is 7 years?




The average age of cars on the road in Australia is about 10 years, which implies that the average lifespan of a vehicle is around 20 years.

One issue with lithium batteries is limited real world experience. There's a huge number of petrol engines, fridges and an household wiring in use (to pick random things that people have) and consumers generally know what to expect. 

You don't need to be a mechanic to know that a car that has traveled 50,000 km should still be mechanically sound assuming normal use and servicing but that one that has traveled 200,000 km will likely need work done soon. Likewise we know that fridges last more than a decade, house wiring lasts longer than you're likely to own the house and so on. There's a lot of them and they've been around a long time so we know what to expect in practice.

The trouble with lithium batteries, and other new things such as solar inverters and LED lighting, is that all we really have is theoretical calculations and lab tests. The average consumer has no real idea what to expect and that means there's a risk involved. 

I'll make an educated guess that solar inverters and LED's in particular are going to fall a long way short of what many are expecting. All those cheap solar inverters from China - how many of them are really going to go the distance? And those 30,000, 50,000 or even 100,000 hour claims on LED lights - are they really going to keep working for the next 30, 50 or 100 years in a typical household? And what happens when you've got 20 lights all the same, one breaks and you can't get a replacement that matches it? Electricians aren't about to be short on work...


----------



## DB008

sptrawler said:


> The problem with lithium ion batteries, from my understanding, is they start dying as soon as they are produced.
> From what I've read 5 - 7 years is their life expectancy, it may have improved.
> If the life expectancy hasn't improved, the unit cost will have to drop considerably, to make them viable.IMO




Maybe lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) might be the go then?


----------



## sptrawler

DB008 said:


> Maybe lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) might be the go then?




Also lithium air, is being used, this can accept a rapid charge and behaves somewhat like a capacitor.  It all has a long way to go, but when the breakthrough does come, it will be a game changer.

I'm not convinced lithium is the answer, the energy density isn't there.


----------



## sydboy007

Probablly the wind farm haters will find issue with these too.  I wonder what the recorded noise levels would be?  Could see the possibility of some of them on the edge of parks providing electricity in cities.

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/future-wind-turbines-no-blades/



> The Vortex’s shape was developed computationally to ensure the spinning wind (vortices) occurs synchronously along the entirety of the mast. “The swirls have to work together to achieve good performance,” Villarreal explains. In its current prototype, the elongated cone is made from a composite of fiberglass and carbon fiber, which allows the mast to vibrate as much as possible (an increase in mass reduces natural frequency). At the base of the cone are two rings of repelling magnets, which act as a sort of nonelectrical motor. When the cone oscillates one way, the repelling magnets pull it in the other direction, like a slight nudge to boost the mast’s movement regardless of wind speed. This kinetic energy is then converted into electricity via an alternator that multiplies the frequency of the mast’s oscillation to improve the energy-gathering efficiency.
> 
> Its makers boast the fact that there are no gears, bolts, or mechanically moving parts, which they say makes the Vortex cheaper to manufacture and maintain. The founders claim their Vortex Mini, which stands at around 41 feet tall, can capture up to 40 percent of the wind’s power during ideal conditions (this is when the wind is blowing at around 26 miles per hour). Based on field testing, the Mini ultimately captures 30 percent less than conventional wind turbines, but that shortcoming is compensated by the fact that you can put double the Vortex turbines into the same space as a propeller turbine.


----------



## sptrawler

sydboy007 said:


> Probablly the wind farm haters will find issue with these too.  I wonder what the recorded noise levels would be?  Could see the possibility of some of them on the edge of parks providing electricity in cities.
> 
> http://www.wired.com/2015/05/future-wind-turbines-no-blades/




I'm sure within the next 10 to 20 years, viable electric, hydrogen or hybrid passenger cars will be the norm. Also most households, will have solar/wind/battery combinations, that mitigate their power consumption.

However the electricity grid will still be required for industrial supplies, and backup for domestic supplies, therefore a way of funding it will be required.


----------



## So_Cynical

Something different - The Vortex .Bladeless Wind Generator.
~


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> ...still be required for industrial supplies, and backup for domestic supplies, therefore a way of funding it will be required.




And in terms of generation, households are a minority of overall consumption but a major contributor to peak load and costs.

The other 80% of the load isn't likely to go away anytime soon.


----------



## sydboy007

sptrawler said:


> I'm sure within the next 10 to 20 years, viable electric, hydrogen or hybrid passenger cars will be the norm. Also most households, will have solar/wind/battery combinations, that mitigate their power consumption.
> 
> However the electricity grid will still be required for industrial supplies, and backup for domestic supplies, therefore a way of funding it will be required.






Smurf1976 said:


> And in terms of generation, households are a minority of overall consumption but a major contributor to peak load and costs.
> 
> The other 80% of the load isn't likely to go away anytime soon.




Maybe we need to follow the California Govt and mandate sotrage within the electricity grid.  Prob would have been cheaper, even with technology pricing of a few years ago, than the massive over investment that's occured within much of the network.

California has mandated 1.325 gigwatts of storage by 2024.  This helps to make renewables a better deal for consumers as well as helps to limit the impact of peak demand on the network.

if only we had the foresight to encourage battery research and push the utilities to help with testing new technology to see what can be scaled to the grid.  Might help us to grow a new manufacturing industry, or at the very least gain some IP that would be a source of export income.


----------



## sptrawler

sydboy007 said:


> Maybe we need to follow the California Govt and mandate sotrage within the electricity grid.  Prob would have been cheaper, even with technology pricing of a few years ago, than the massive over investment that's occured within much of the network.
> 
> California has mandated 1.325 gigwatts of storage by 2024.  This helps to make renewables a better deal for consumers as well as helps to limit the impact of peak demand on the network.
> 
> if only we had the foresight to encourage battery research and push the utilities to help with testing new technology to see what can be scaled to the grid.  Might help us to grow a new manufacturing industry, or at the very least gain some IP that would be a source of export income.




Don'y worry about lack of foresight, in battery technology, it is the 'holy grail' there is billions of dollars going into battery research.
It is one area, the Government doesn't need to spend money, the private sector want to crack this one.
Whomever comes up with the viable battery, will be worth trillions.


----------



## SirRumpole

Is there any future for nuclear in Australia do we think ?


----------



## sydboy007

SirRumpole said:


> Is there any future for nuclear in Australia do we think ?




If the UK is anything to go by they've had to guarantee wholesale electricty prices of roughly $160 per MWh to get their latest reactor built.

To put that into perspective, east coast wholesale electricity rates have been under $50 and still on a downward trend.

Factor in that every doubling of PV production sees a 25-50% decrease in production costs, and I really don't see a bright future for solar.  Once battery tech is starting to roll out then renewables become the cheaper option.  Much lower risk as you have smaller projects.  Faster to bring on line ie a solar far could be up and generating electricity in 12-18 months once fully approved.

Wind farms are still cheaper than PV for now.

We have so much renewables potential, we just chose to ignore it and continue to provide big subsidies to the fossil fuel industries.


----------



## MrBurns

I've reserved mine........

http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Is there any future for nuclear in Australia do we think ?




The only way I could see nuclear generation being installed in Australia, would be due to an environmental initiative, or if nuclear fusion reactors were developed.
If fusion reactors are developed, everyone will be using them, massive power output with little or no waste.


----------



## pixel

sptrawler said:


> Don'y worry about lack of foresight, in battery technology, it is the 'holy grail' there is billions of dollars going into battery research.
> It is one area, the Government doesn't need to spend money, the private sector want to crack this one.
> Whomever comes up with the viable battery, will be worth trillions.




The problem is, the comer-upperers won't be Australian companies because the Canberra Vandals have killed the Australian Manufacturing Industry, leaving nobody capable of such innovation. Add cutting costs and corners in Education, the workforce will struggle with even the simplest tasks, like installing gadgets that have been sourced from abroad - at enormous financial drain that could be avoided and directed into "This Clever Country of Ours".


----------



## sptrawler

pixel said:


> The problem is, the comer-upperers won't be Australian companies because the Canberra Vandals have killed the Australian Manufacturing Industry, leaving nobody capable of such innovation. Add cutting costs and corners in Education, the workforce will struggle with even the simplest tasks, like installing gadgets that have been sourced from abroad - at enormous financial drain that could be avoided and directed into "This Clever Country of Ours".




That's all very true pixel, add to those facts, our lack of global clout and small market place. 
It is very difficult to see, how a viable ground breaking technology will be developed here.
We may well discover it, but overseas interests will either buy the company, and or the technology.

This is the awkward situation for Australia, small remote population, in a remote and expensive country.

Why develop here, when you can build the manufacturing plant, where the expertise, population and market is?

It is a bit like why we built our industries, in the cities, rather than in the bush, all the iron ore in the NW of WA yet the only blast furnaces in  W.A were in the Perth region. 
These were shut down ,well before the mining boom really took off, yet no one has suggested reopening or building a steel processing plant in W.A.

One would think we would have a competitive edge, on steel and petro chemical production, as we have the raw products here.

But it is obvious we can't even compete on these fronts, so to think we are going to develop world leading industries here, is bottom of the garden on the bong stuff.IMO

It a bit like Bill Shorten saying they will award 100,000 free degrees in engineering, maths, science etc.
Blind Freddy knows all that will do is lower the standard to fill the seats, as has been done with the whole education system.IMO


----------



## DB008

MrBurns said:


> I've reserved mine........
> 
> http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall




Well done. Please keep us all updated.

Pictures when it happens and is installed.

Probably looking at between 8k - 12k (Tesla Powerwall, import tax/tariff + GST, Aussie tax, inverter, installation)

At the moment, l'm in the process of saving for a Solar Hot Water System (evacuated tube ~$4k), and a 3 - 5 kw solar system ($3k - $6k ). The biggest consumer of electricity in my place is hot water system and fridge.


----------



## sptrawler

DB008 said:


> Well done. Please keep us all updated.
> 
> Pictures when it happens and is installed.
> 
> Probably looking at between 8k - 12k (Tesla Powerwall, import tax/tariff + GST, Aussie tax, inverter, installation)
> 
> At the moment, l'm in the process of saving for a Solar Hot Water System (evacuated tube ~$4k), and a 3 - 5 kw solar system ($3k - $6k ). The biggest consumer of electricity in my place is hot water system and fridge.





With a 5Kw system and solar hot water, if you planned carefully, you could probably run on 0 imported power.

All you would need is a few deep cycle batteries, to run the fridge overnight and the t.v in the evening.


----------



## MrBurns

DB008 said:


> Well done. Please keep us all updated.
> 
> Pictures when it happens and is installed.
> 
> Probably looking at between 8k - 12k (Tesla Powerwall, import tax/tariff + GST, Aussie tax, inverter, installation)
> 
> At the moment, l'm in the process of saving for a Solar Hot Water System (evacuated tube ~$4k), and a 3 - 5 kw solar system ($3k - $6k ). The biggest consumer of electricity in my place is hot water system and fridge.




I've registered and will wait to see what the deal is.


----------



## DB008

*Powerwall: Solar energy storage batteries 'set to transform Australian electricity industry'​*


> Australia's electricity industry is about to undergo a massive transformation, with the advent of cheap storage batteries for solar energy.
> 
> US billionaire Elon Musk, a co-founder of PayPal, this month launched a lithium-ion battery called the Powerwall that is expected to sell in Australia next year for about $5,500.
> 
> It was developed alongside his revolutionary Tesla electric car, launched late last year.
> 
> "You can actually go, if you want, completely off-grid," Mr Musk said of the batteries.
> 
> "You can take your solar panels, charge the battery packs and that's all you use."
> 
> Bloomberg new energy finance analyst Kobad Bhavnagri said the batteries would be "a complete game-changer".
> 
> "They come coupled with solar PV (photo-voltaic panels) that really enable consumers now to become their own new power stations."
> 
> Australia is expected to be one of the Powerwall's biggest markets due to the high take-up of residential solar PV rooftop panels.
> 
> Renew Economy editor Giles Parkinson said he predicted a massive response.
> 
> "It will happen quicker in Australia than it will happen anywhere else in the world because of the high retail prices," he told 7.30.
> 
> "We pay so much just to boil a kettle in the city and now we have a cheaper way of doing it.
> 
> "It's going to be about as big a change as we've seen in the telecommunications industry with mobile phones."




http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-21/powerwall-solar-batteries-to-transform-electricity-industry/6488230


----------



## MrBurns

The cost hasn't been assessed correctly the real cost of setting the whole thing up with solar panels etc is more like $30k


----------



## qldfrog

MrBurns said:


> The cost hasn't been assessed correctly the real cost of setting the whole thing up with solar panels etc is more like $30k



hum I thought then did some raw figures (no gov rebate):

2 powerwall->11k
then 2x4kw system->10k
add a controller for powerwall and install yes not far from 30k but that would cover the need of a pretty goodhousehold
total 24k so not too far from your figures
in Brisbane area, on a year average my 4.5+kw system generates 5400kWh
so two 4kW systems should generate around 9.6kwh per day
plenty enough for standard household who cares a bit
on the grid, you pay:
qld agl:$1 +$2.8= around $4 per day
the system would repay itself after:24k/4=$6000 day or roughly 16y
and if you include interest,not very positive.but this is wo subsidies, 
so we are nearly there


----------



## MrBurns

qldfrog said:


> hum I thought then did some raw figures (no gov rebate):
> 
> 2 powerwall->11k
> then 2x4kw system->10k
> add a controller for powerwall and install yes not far from 30k but that would cover the need of a pretty goodhousehold
> total 24k so not too far from your figures
> in Brisbane area, on a year average my 4.5+kw system generates 5400kWh
> so two 4kW systems should generate around 9.6kwh per day
> plenty enough for standard household who cares a bit
> on the grid, you pay:
> qld agl:$1 +$2.8= around $4 per day
> the system would repay itself after:24k/4=$6000 day or roughly 16y
> and if you include interest,not very positive.but this is wo subsidies,
> so we are nearly there




Too much at this time but great innovation for he future.


----------



## DB008

*Tesla Powerwall: Crunching The Numbers For Australia​*


> Tesla’s Powerwall is a great concept ”” with the potential to reduce electricity costs, tie in with solar and create a smarter, distributed power grid. But how long will it take to actually save you money?
> 
> Buying a Powerwall and inverter, as well as having it installed is estimated at $7340 US by SolarCity, or about $9300 AU at current exchange rates. It’s likely that it will be slightly more expensive here, due to shipping costs as well as increases install costs for our smaller user base. A cost of $10,000 AU installed is a good starting point.
> 
> The daily use Powerwall is rated at 7kWh. The round trip battery efficiency is 92%, and a good inverter can be 95% efficient. A good (if slightly optimistic) starting point is to figure we need to use about 7.5 kWh to charge the Powerwall, and will get about 6.5 kWh back out.




More on link below...

http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/05/tesla-powerwall-crunching-the-numbers-for-an-australian-suburban-home/​


----------



## sptrawler

MrBurns said:


> Too much at this time but great innovation for he future.




Especially if the batteries only last 7 years.

But the media hype, was a sugar fix, for a couple of days.


----------



## Smurf1976

These batteries may well store 7 or 10 kWh, but here's a far more durable (should last a century) and very proven scheme to store 1,650,000 kWh.

http://www.genexpower.com.au/projects/The_Kidston_Project

It's not massive but 330 MW is certainly significant - most gas-fired power stations are of a similar scale magnitude. If built, it will be the fourth pumped storage scheme in Australia (there's currently 2 in NSW and 1 in Qld) and will be the third largest of that lot. So it's significant but not over the top.

In practical operation, it will help displace generation from high cost fuels (gas, oil) and enable a greater proportion of the total load to be met from coal and intermittent sources such as solar, wind etc. 

It also adds firm peak generating capacity to the system (330MW) even though it doesn't produce energy as such.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> These batteries may well store 7 or 10 kWh, but here's a far more durable (should last a century) and very proven scheme to store 1,650,000 kWh.
> 
> http://www.genexpower.com.au/projects/The_Kidston_Project
> 
> It's not massive but 330 MW is certainly significant - most gas-fired power stations are of a similar scale magnitude. If built, it will be the fourth pumped storage scheme in Australia (there's currently 2 in NSW and 1 in Qld) and will be the third largest of that lot. So it's significant but not over the top.
> 
> In practical operation, it will help displace generation from high cost fuels (gas, oil) and enable a greater proportion of the total load to be met from coal and intermittent sources such as solar, wind etc.
> 
> It also adds firm peak generating capacity to the system (330MW) even though it doesn't produce energy as such.




Now that makes sense.

This sort of idea makes much more sense ,than the solar, wind only argument.

Lateral thinking is the way of the future.

You can't build a reliable industrial footing, on a lunatic energy model.

Well that is unless, you want an economy built on making, tourist trinkets made from empty beer cans.


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> Especially if the batteries only last 7 years.
> 
> But the media hype, was a sugar fix, for a couple of days.



where did you get the 7y figure, from memory warranty on offer was  >10Y
In any case pumped storage is definitively a + especially with solar peak wind peak etc expected The only trouble is that you need water and elevation that is not a given in this country!!!
And it will once again be far from the user so rely on heavy infrastructure and losses on wire
But good for industrial users..actually where can I find an industrial user in Australia in 2015???


----------



## Tisme

Says a lot when a producer targets Australia because we are stupid enough to be paying way above the field for something we already own (or did own)


----------



## qldfrog

Tisme said:


> Says a lot when a producer targets Australia because we are stupid enough to be paying way above the field for something we already own (or did own)



Have I lost something there???


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> where can I find an industrial user in Australia in 2015???




Industrial load is now going up again here in Tas. Nothing major, but Bell Bay Aluminium seems to have survived and will be taking another 33MW baseload on top of what it already uses. That's not huge, but it beats them going bust and there are plans for a further expansion down the track. Present load is 322MW (24/7/365). The other big 3 electricity users, that is TEMCO, Norske Skog (Boyer) and Nyrstar ("the zinc works") are still running flat out too.

Back to the generation side, the situation right at this moment illustrates the problem with wind and solar pretty well.

Total load in the NEM (Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas, SA) is 29,506 MW. That's not an extreme but it's reasonably high.

Wind and solar aren't doing much however, producing just 210 MW or 0.7% which is well below their average contribution. Demand is up, wind and solar are down - that's the issue.

So where's the power coming from? 

Coal = 20,614 MW (40% of that in NSW, 29% in Vic, 28% in Qld, 3% in SA).

Gas = 4,387 MW (35% of that in Qld, 25% in NSW, 24% in SA, 17% in Vic).

Hydro = 4,164 MW (47% of that in Tas, 24% in Vic, 23% in NSW, 6% in Qld).

Figures don't add to 100% due to rounding to the nearest whole %.

As for pumped storage, that's included in the hydro total but there's 494 MW from Tumut 3 (Snowy), 203 MW from Shoalhaven (NSW) and 181 MW from Wivenhoe (Qld) in the system at the moment. Tumut 3 is both a conventional hydro plant and a pumped storage scheme - that is, it contributes net energy and has a net flow of water through it in addition to pumped operation. The others are pumped storage as such.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Industrial load is now going up again here in Tas. Nothing major, but Bell Bay Aluminium seems to have survived and will be taking another 33MW baseload on top of what it already uses. That's not huge, but it beats them going bust and there are plans for a further expansion down the track. Present load is 322MW (24/7/365). The other big 3 electricity users, that is TEMCO, Norske Skog (Boyer) and Nyrstar ("the zinc works") are still running flat out too.
> 
> Back to the generation side, the situation right at this moment illustrates the problem with wind and solar pretty well.
> 
> Total load in the NEM (Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas, SA) is 29,506 MW. That's not an extreme but it's reasonably high.
> 
> Wind and solar aren't doing much however, producing just 210 MW or 0.7% which is well below their average contribution. Demand is up, wind and solar are down - that's the issue.
> 
> So where's the power coming from?
> 
> Coal = 20,614 MW (40% of that in NSW, 29% in Vic, 28% in Qld, 3% in SA).
> 
> Gas = 4,387 MW (35% of that in Qld, 25% in NSW, 24% in SA, 17% in Vic).
> 
> Hydro = 4,164 MW (47% of that in Tas, 24% in Vic, 23% in NSW, 6% in Qld).
> 
> Figures don't add to 100% due to rounding to the nearest whole %.
> 
> As for pumped storage, that's included in the hydro total but there's 494 MW from Tumut 3 (Snowy), 203 MW from Shoalhaven (NSW) and 181 MW from Wivenhoe (Qld) in the system at the moment. Tumut 3 is both a conventional hydro plant and a pumped storage scheme - that is, it contributes net energy and has a net flow of water through it in addition to pumped operation. The others are pumped storage as such.




So of 30,000 MW demand, solar and wind is supplying 210 MW.

It kind of highlights, how far we have to go, with renewables.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> So of 30,000 MW demand, solar and wind is supplying 210 MW.
> 
> It kind of highlights, how far we have to go, with renewables.




They could go a lot further if they had the financing of the coal industry


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> They could go a lot further if they had the financing of the coal industry




More energy production when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining certainly, the only limit we have there at the moment is capacity in service and that comes down to $.

But my real point is about the need for storage. If we're going to have electricity 24/7/365 then we need to either store the electricity itself or use sources (fossil fuels etc) which are themselves available 24/7/365. Batteries, pumped storage, compressed air or whatever, but if the source is intermittent then there needs to be storage to make it work 24/7. 

On another matter, the retreat of gas is starting to become rather noticeable outside the actual peaks as the LNG industry in Qld gets going. There's still gas going into power stations, but the volumes are noticeably dropping now. Gone are the days of running 1300 MW baseload gas in Qld - it's only 11:30pm and gas is down to 1662 MW across all states with only 659 MW in Qld. It's not dead yet, but the decline is happening.


----------



## Smurf1976

Another cold evening and once again solar and wind aren't doing much at all.

Solar is doing absolutely nothing and, apart from in SA, wind is pretty much at a standstill too (indeed it's literally at zero in Tas and Qld).

Current generation by state:

NSW: Coal = 86%, Gas = 9%, Hydro = 5%, Wind = 0.2%

Qld: Coal = 79%, Gas = 20%, Hydro = 1%

Vic: Coal = 74%, Hydro = 15%, Gas = 10%, Wind = 0.3%

Tas: Hydro = 100%

SA: Gas = 48%, Coal = 29%, Wind = 24%

I'm all for renewable energy but, apart from hydro, it needs some means of external storage in order to be available when it's needed. 6 degrees outside right now and going down to 1 tonight in Hobart - just as well we've got all those hydro turbines to keep the heaters running otherwise it would be rather uncomfortable to say the least waiting for the sun to come up tomorrow morning.


----------



## drsmith

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm all for renewable energy but, apart from hydro, it needs some means of external storage in order to be available when it's needed. 6 degrees outside right now and going down to 1 tonight in Hobart - just as well we've got all those hydro turbines to keep the heaters running otherwise it would be rather uncomfortable to say the least waiting for the sun to come up tomorrow morning.



Even then ?

How much oomph does the winter sun have in Tasmania ?

Please excuse me for a brief moment while I put some stored energy onto the fire.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> They could go a lot further if they had the financing of the coal industry




So, on those figures they are contributing 1%, yet everyone says solar is costing everyone too much.

How much are you prepared to pay for electricity? before you realise it costs too much.

With current technology, it is all B.S, there isn't any viable alternative to fossil fuels, other than nuclear.

Just because you close your eyes real tight and wish, doesn't make it happen.


----------



## macca

sptrawler said:


> So, on those figures they are contributing 1%, yet everyone says solar is costing everyone too much.
> 
> How much are you prepared to pay for electricity? before you realise it costs too much.
> 
> With current technology, it is all B.S, there isn't any viable alternative to fossil fuels, other than nuclear.
> 
> Just because you close your eyes real tight and wish, doesn't make it happen.




Hi SP,

I would add to this by saying we really need to look at better utilisation of our rainfall. For years water has washed down the gutters of our coastal cities into the rivers, ports and the oceans, taking rubbish and pollution with it.

If all the houses and commercial buildings had rainwater tanks to catch rain then reuse as grey water we could then utilise our dams much more efficiently.

I realise that we are slowly addressing the problem (at the owners expense) but that only gives us a small proportion of rain being caught. Years ago home owners were ordered  to remove water tanks (at their expense) so the Water boards could sell more water  

I also think any river already dammed could have another dam or a weir added if there is sufficient flow at peak times, one to trap drinking water and the other to turn a turbine or two and supply flow in the river. The planners around Brisbane planned that but it was never built.

Greenies can't have it both ways, they use social media for their causes, which means they use a lot of metal products yet they don't want electricity to be produced. 

Imagine if every dwelling in Sydney or Melbourne started using timber to keep warm, they air would be like Beijing !


----------



## sydboy007

sptrawler said:


> So, on those figures they are contributing 1%, yet everyone says solar is costing everyone too much.
> 
> How much are you prepared to pay for electricity? before you realise it costs too much.
> 
> With current technology, it is all B.S, there isn't any viable alternative to fossil fuels, other than nuclear.
> 
> Just because you close your eyes real tight and wish, doesn't make it happen.




Mainly dealing with QLD, but helps to show solar is a net beneft to the system.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au...l&utm_content=1390524&utm_campaign=pm&modapt=





As you can see some customers see half the electricity shipped to them lost in the transmission wires.  Solar panels don't have the same issue



> Yet, guess what they actually ended up doing for estimating the fair value Ergon should pay for solar generation ... they decided to just use the average level of losses avoided in the East Zone! (Which currently stands at 12.3%.)




That's a decent subsidy to Ergon as any solar generation in the high loss zones helps to save up to a 50% via transmission ie 1kWh of solar is the equivalent of 2kWh shipped from the generator.



> It turns out that while power utilities are saying in public that solar PV hurts the poor who don’t have solar systems, some power companies were telling ACIL Allen and the QCA something quite different in an attempt to persuade them to inflate the power price retailers are allowed to charge households.
> 
> The Energy Retailers Association of Australia (which represents major power retailers such as Ergon, AGL, Alinta, Origin and EnergyAustralia) is quoted by ACIL Allen stating it didn’t want the regulator to use actual wholesale market outcomes in Queensland because, according to ERAA, wholesale power prices were being artificially and temporarily reduced by the addition of solar PV.






> In the end ACIL Allen’s own analysis found it was correct that solar PV was reducing wholesale power costs during the daytime period (but didn’t fall for their ploy this was temporary and should be ignored in setting regulated retail power prices). In addition, it also noted:
> 
> *The increase in solar PV installs in Energex (and Ergon) has contributed to a lower price volatility during the day time.*




As for nuclear being a viable alternative, care to put some evidence to that claim.  Outside of China, all new nuclear reactors are 2+ times over budget and years behind schedule.  In China there are now fears being raised there that the speed of construction is a safety concern.  In the UK their latest nuclear reactor has a guaranteed off take price of 92.5 pounds for 35 years, on top of the 14B pound construction cost.  they'll be paying 4 times the current average wholesale price in Australia.  Makes wind and solar look cheap.  We'd be better off building super critical coal plants.

If the Uk is a guide to how much we have to pay for nuclear, and considering we have 0 experience with nuclear reactors while the UK has some, then I say lets stop subsidising the fossil fuels industry and start to be a lot more neutral in letting the market pick the best way forward, though you can't really achieve that while you leave the major external costs of fossil fuels borne by the public.


----------



## sptrawler

sydboy007 said:


> Mainly dealing with QLD, but helps to show solar is a net beneft to the system.
> 
> http://www.businessspectator.com.au...l&utm_content=1390524&utm_campaign=pm&modapt=
> 
> View attachment 62863
> 
> 
> As you can see some customers see half the electricity shipped to them lost in the transmission wires.  Solar panels don't have the same issue
> 
> 
> 
> That's a decent subsidy to Ergon as any solar generation in the high loss zones helps to save up to a 50% via transmission ie 1kWh of solar is the equivalent of 2kWh shipped from the generator.




As Smurph pointed out, on an overcast day with minimum and or excessive wind, solar and winf generation are virtually useless. Consumers still want electricity 24/7, as yet we haven't the technology to supply it reliably with wind/solar.

I do have solar installed.




sydboy007 said:


> As for nuclear being a viable alternative, care to put some evidence to that claim.




Fossil fuel, hydro and nuclear, are the only energy sources we have available, that can supply base laod generation.
The cost difference between them is irrelevant, if fuel supplies, political decisions or climatic considerations dictate one energy source over another.
Our society demands reliable electricity, if nuclear is the only fuel available or it is the fuel of choice, it would be used regardless of increased cost.


----------



## sydboy007

sptrawler said:


> As Smurph pointed out, on an overcast day with minimum and or excessive wind, solar and winf generation are virtually useless. Consumers still want electricity 24/7, as yet we haven't the technology to supply it reliably with wind/solar.
> 
> I do have solar installed.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Fossil fuel, hydro and nuclear, are the only energy sources we have available, that can supply base laod generation.
> The cost difference between them is irrelevant, if fuel supplies, political decisions or climatic considerations dictate one energy source over another.
> Our society demands reliable electricity, if nuclear is the only fuel available or it is the fuel of choice, it would be used regardless of increased cost.




If you are going to compare solar + wind + battery or storage to nuclear at UK pricing then I'd say nuclear is going to lose.

You also have to take into consideration that in the west nuclear plants are taking 10 years or so to built.  That's a long time to wait for new production.  You could get 100s of megawatts of solar and wind into production in a couple of years.


----------



## SirRumpole

Wave power hasn't been mentioned yet. Is that a dead duck ?


----------



## sptrawler

sydboy007 said:


> If you are going to compare solar + wind + battery or storage to nuclear at UK pricing then I'd say nuclear is going to lose.
> 
> You also have to take into consideration that in the west nuclear plants are taking 10 years or so to built.  That's a long time to wait for new production.  You could get 100s of megawatts of solar and wind into production in a couple of years.




Until battery storage becomes viable, and wind farms supply an adjoining H2 plant, they are really novelty value. 
The requirement to have fossil fired reserve generation, to at least equal the installed solar /wind, will be with us for a long time

If nuclear wasn't viable, or required, it wouldn't be built.


----------



## Smurf1976

It's important to note the difference between energy and power in this discussion.

Wind and solar can certainly deliver energy into the grid, that is beyond doubt and they generated about 40% of the electricity used in SA over the past 12 months. They absolutely do work as a means of producing energy.

Where the problem lies is with power, as distinct from energy. If you want however many MW at 6:15pm on a cold Winter evening then no amount of solar is going to help given that it's dark. What's needed is something that works under all conditions, the options there being to use a stored source of energy (fossil fuels, nuclear, water in a dam) or to in some way store energy produced intermittently by means such as wind and solar. That brings us to batteries, pumped storage, heat storage, compressed air and so on.

I have no doubt that solar can operate as reliably fossil fuels, hydro or nuclear with proper design. I've built such things myself and am very familiar with them. Where the trouble lies is an economic one rather than a technical one.

Go forward 100 years and nobody's going to be arguing about coal. Either we'll have burnt all that can be economically mined or we'll have long ago adopted some alternative technology. Either way, we won't be using coal in 2115 to generate electricity. At most, we might still be using it for a few metallurgical and chemical purposes but coal-fired power stations will be as dead as whale oil lamps are today. 

So far as intermittent energy yield is concerned, the absolute worst technology there is hydro. Drought, flood, whatever - inflow basically never matches the need for electricity other than by pure chance. But it works with the highest reliability of any generation technology in commercial use for one very simple reason. First thing you do in building a hydro scheme is work out where to put the dam, and the dam is ultimately just a means of storing the highly variable inflow of water such that it can be released as and when required. Storage is inherent in most hydro systems and that's what makes them work. The actual energy inflow, that is water, is incredibly intermittent - far more so than solar or wind.

Now, if we can find a cheap and easy way to store lots of energy from wind and solar then that fixes everything. But you're not going to put 1,000 GWh into a battery anytime soon.

To put storage into perspective, we'd need about 12 - 15 million of those Tesla batteries just to get Victoria through a single cold day without being recharged. And that's just Victoria - a place where most heating is done with gas anyway. Now realise that if we're going to rely on wind and solar, then we need more than one day's worth of storage - there's the problem.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> It's important to note the difference between energy and power in this discussion.
> 
> Wind and solar can certainly deliver energy into the grid, that is beyond doubt and they generated about 40% of the electricity used in SA over the past 12 months. They absolutely do work as a means of producing energy.
> 
> Where the problem lies is with power, as distinct from energy. If you want however many MW at 6:15pm on a cold Winter evening then no amount of solar is going to help given that it's dark. What's needed is something that works under all conditions, the options there being to use a stored source of energy (fossil fuels, nuclear, water in a dam) or to in some way store energy produced intermittently by means such as wind and solar. That brings us to batteries, pumped storage, heat storage, compressed air and so on.
> 
> I have no doubt that solar can operate as reliably fossil fuels, hydro or nuclear with proper design. I've built such things myself and am very familiar with them. Where the trouble lies is an economic one rather than a technical one.
> 
> Go forward 100 years and nobody's going to be arguing about coal. Either we'll have burnt all that can be economically mined or we'll have long ago adopted some alternative technology. Either way, we won't be using coal in 2115 to generate electricity. At most, we might still be using it for a few metallurgical and chemical purposes but coal-fired power stations will be as dead as whale oil lamps are today.




I'll agree 100% with that analysis.


----------



## Smurf1976

For what it's worth, wind is currently supplying 78% of SA's electricity. Plus gas 33%, coal 13% = 124% in total, with the surplus going into Victoria.

Wind certainly can generate electricity, just not constantly.


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> If nuclear wasn't viable, or required, it wouldn't be built.



SP-> nuclear is never built to create energy, it is built to keep the ability to have a bomb and have an independence on fossil fuel providers.
Even in Japan
Otherwise all reactor would be thorium. A nuclear plant is not economically valid on a life cycle;
you only make money if you built it with government help, then make profit, thenclose it after 30y and leave the crap behing to be paid by public purse after folding your company
We can argue if Australia needs or not the bomb and so a nuclear plant, but that has not much to do with actual energy production.


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> SP-> nuclear is never built to create energy, it is built to keep the ability to have a bomb and have an independence on fossil fuel providers.




+1

Not everything that is done, is done because it's profitable. No doubt some are, but the US nuclear industry collapsed in the early 70's in terms of new plant construction - before the oil shock (1973) and well before Three Mile Island (1979) or Chernobyl (1986). It didn't collapse due to anything about the environment or waste disposal, it was pure economics that killed it.

If you look around the world then places which have nuclear power generally have it for some non-economic reason, generally either military-related, to showcase the nation's supposed technological capabilities or to avoid reliance on imports of fossil fuels.

France - avoids import of fossil fuels. Also historically some military related reasons.

UK - they're well past peak production of coal, oil and gas so it's about avoiding fuel imports. Also historically military reasons.

China - showcasing technological ability and industrial might is one reason, the problems they're having with coal and associated air pollution is another.

US - it pretty much died out for new construction because the US has cheap coal and gas. The US ranks #1 for coal reserves and #2 for production whilst they've always been the technological leader when it comes to oil and gas. No real reason to bother with more nukes at the national level (though there are a few states where it still stacks up).

Australia - if we did it then it would be for political reasons not economic. Between coal, gas, hydro, wind, solar etc we've got more than enough power from other sources available, the only constraint being politics.


----------



## DB008

Some wave/tidal articles...



> *Perth wave energy project producing power and fresh water​*Carnegie Wave Energy based in Perth is a world leader in wave energy technology. In 2014 the company began deployment of three wave energy converters at the Garden Island naval base off the coast near Perth. Large buoys rise and fall with passing waves. Each is tied by rope to the sea floor. As waves pass, the buoys rise, the ropes tighten and extremely high pressure is created in a water-based fluid. This is piped to shore where the pressure powers water desalination and the production of electricity. This technology, known as CETO, has application for small coastal towns and remote islands where oil or diesel is often used in generators. The Perth project is the first demonstration of a complete grid-connected CETO system anywhere in the world.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/perth-wave-energy-project-producing-power-and-fresh-water/6507450#transcript​







> *Wave & Tidal Energy - UK​*Wave and tidal energy will help decarbonise our energy supply; increase energy security and reduce our dependence on imported fossil fuels. The UK is currently the undisputed global leader in marine energy, with around 10MW of wave and tidal stream devices being tested in UK waters, more than the rest of the world combined. The state of the art test facilities at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney and Wavehub in Cornwall provide developers with access to real sea conditions with planning consents and grid connections already in place.
> 
> The ground-breaking Seagen tidal stream generator has been operating in Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland since 2008 and had generated over 9GWh as of March 2014. The world’s first tidal stream farm (also known as an “array”) is currently under construction in the UK, Meygen’s Inner Sound project in the Pentland Firth, Scotland. There are several other wave and tidal stream array projects under development in the UK and the sector has ambitions of ten arrays reaching financial close by 2020 across Europe, with the UK well placed for the lion’s share of this to be built in its waters. Further information on some of the wave and tidal stream technologies being tested.
> 
> RenewableUK also represent tidal lagoons. A planning application for Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon is under consideration by the Planning Inspectorate with a decision expected in 2015. This will be another landmark achievement for the UK as the world’s first tidal lagoon.
> 
> The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) estimates that wave and tidal stream energy combined has the potential to deliver around 20 per cent of the UK’s current electricity needs which equates to an installed capacity of around 30 – 50GW. In addition tidal lagoons could deliver up to 8 per cent of our energy needs according to a recent report by The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).
> 
> http://www.renewableuk.com/en/renewable-energy/wave-and-tidal/​


----------



## DB008

For people based in W.A.




> *Alinta's solar plan to cut bills​*
> Gas giant Alinta is hatching a plan to sell solar panels and batteries to households, allowing them to slash power bills by reducing reliance on the electricity grid.
> 
> Alinta is also weighing the idea of offering micro gas generators, which could pave the way for households to disconnect from the grid altogether.
> 
> The plan looms as a direct challenge to taxpayer-owned electricity provider Synergy, which has been losing millions of dollars as customers switch to solar en masse.
> 
> There are about 170,000 households in the South West grid alone which have photovoltaic cells on their roofs, and this figure is expected to soar by the end of the decade.
> 
> Under Alinta's plan, tipped to start this year, it would lease solar panels to residential customers, who would then provide any power they did not use back to Alinta to sell into the market.
> 
> The Sydney-based company would also offer batteries to store surplus solar power and small gas-fired generators that could be used as a backup in the event it was cloudy for days.
> 
> https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/28289418/alintas-solar-plan-to-cut-bills/​








> *Threat to traditional power grid​*
> But battery systems pose a serious risk to Western Power's traditional grid network.
> 
> Curtin University's Sustainability Policy Institute's Jemma Green said the power grid will become less relevant.
> 
> "The grid will have a place but it will become more of a back up system as electricity prices go up even further and the price of solar and batteries decline further, the economics of grid defection are going to stack up sooner.
> 
> "This is going to have an impact on the utilisation of the grid and therefore the revenue that the government currently derives from using it.
> 
> "I think the grid and the business models of the utilities, that is the generators and the poles and wires will need to evolve to deal with this changing energy system which is effectively a centralised and decentralised energy model," Ms Green said.
> 
> Bosche, LG and Samsung have also indicated they plan to enter the market.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-03/farming-family-opts-for-solar-power-battery-system/6519960​








> *Solar tariff rip-offs, and why utilities may never learn​*
> Greg Bourne, the chairman of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, has just put solar PV on his rooftop and he is not happy. His beef is not with his solar panels, of course, but with his subsequent treatment by one of the big three energy retailers.Bourne, who had solar on his roof in Melbourne way back in 2004, had just gotten around to fixing the roof of his Sydney home for leaks, and recently installed 4kW of solar PV with micro-inverters. What happened next infuriated him.
> 
> The retailer, EnergyAustralia, will pay him just 5.1c/kWh for the electricity he exports back into the grid. Bourne knew that. But he did not expect the jacking up of other charges that followed.
> 
> For the privilege of being a solar household, Bourne’s fixed charge jumped from 85c/day to 91c/day, his peak charge from 49c/kWh to 51c/kWh, the shoulder charge from 19c/kWh to 20c/kWh, and his off-peak charge from 10c/kWh to 11c/Wh. The sum effect was to negate any benefits Bourne would receive from the meagre price offered for his solar exports.
> 
> “What they have managed to do is just rip me off completely,” Bourne told RenewEconomy on the sidelines of the Australian Energy Storage conference this week, where he forecast energy storage to be having its iPhone moment and for mass market take-up. “So I told them I’m moving.”
> 
> Bourne, a former WWF boss who also once headed BP’s oil exploration activities in Australia, shopped around and decided on another big retailer, Origin Energy. He got a discount for moving (paid for by other households under the retail “headroom” allowance that costs everyone about $140 a year) and slightly better tariffs.
> 
> In the meantime, he will use his solar output for underfloor heating in winter and cooling in summer. And then he will install battery storage. And keep a very close eye on tariff changes.
> 
> “To me, this is a stupid way of reacting,” Bourne says. “They knew I was going to draw less electricity from the grid, but they were going to continue to draw their pound of flesh, come what may. It is backwards-looking and they (the retailers) are shooting themselves in the foot over a customer who chose to embrace new technology.”
> 
> 
> http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/solar-tariff-rip-offs-and-why-utilities-may-never-learn-12697​


----------



## Smurf1976

If you were to pick a few images to symbolise the 20th Century then most of them would be in some way energy related. Aircraft, cars, freeways, cities lit up at night, TV and so on. Comparing life in the second half of the 20th Century with all prior human history, there's a huge transformation and energy is absolutely intertwined in that.

Fundamentally though, what we did in the 20th Century was to simply deploy a relatively small number of technologies on a massive scale. Internal combustion engines, gas turbines, incandescent and discharge lamps, electric motors, resistive elements, cathode ray tubes and a few others lie at the technological heart of practically everything that was different in 1980 versus 1880.

Most of those 20th Century technologies aren't particularly efficient in their use of energy. But that didn't stop us, we just worked around it by building power stations and oil infrastructure, plus an associated distribution system, on a scale that few in 1900 would have comprehended as ever being possible. 2,000,000,000 Watts of electric power all coming out of just one power station. Loy Yang alone is bigger than the entire national energy industry was a century earlier. And Loy Yang isn't the only one, indeed it's not even the biggest (though it's probably better known to the public than Eraring or Bayswater).

But I come back to that point about the 20th Century being about a few things scaled up massively. That even comes down to entertainment - it wasn't that long ago that basically everyone watched the same TV programs, read the same news and listened to mainstream music. A few basic inputs were scaled up massively for everyone's consumption. 

In the 21st Century however there is a fundamental shift in just about everything and that is diversity. That goes for everything from the choice of car you drive, or whether to drive one at all, through to entertainment. There's a lot more choice these days in practically everything than there was even one generation ago.

This same basic trend is now impacting energy production and use. It is no longer the case that all cars have petrol engines, all homes in Hobart have electric hot water and everyone in Melbourne heats with gas. On the supply side, not all oil now comes from conventional sources, not all electricity in Brisbane is from coal and further afield, the UK's once mighty coal industry is all but dead.

Wind, Solar and going off-grid fit within this basic pattern. We're not going to see all energy, or even just all electricity, coming from wind and solar anytime soon and we won't likely see the death of the grid either. But we'll have some wind and solar in the mix along with other sources and some users will indeed go off-grid. There's the basic pattern of diversity again. 20th Century = big coal or big hydro produced the power and consumers used it. That was it. It's far more complex in the 21st Century with more sources of supply, many consumers generating some of their own power, and changes in the way it is used.

On a less serious note, it's June and down here in Hobart that means it's time for some "electric" artwork once again. Dark Mofo has, amongst other things, a fire breathing organ (gas powered) this year and apparently you can be "chased" by quite a few kilowatts of electricity too (in the form of 1000 power hungry light bulbs each with its' own sensor - and no they're not LED). All that won't likely warm the place up too much, but it'll brighten the depths of winter that's for sure. If it's electric (and gas too this year) then that's got to be a better kind of art than hanging pictures on the wall, right....


----------



## SirRumpole

> So far as intermittent energy yield is concerned, the absolute worst technology there is hydro. Drought, flood, whatever - inflow basically never matches the need for electricity other than by pure chance. But it works with the highest reliability of any generation technology in commercial use for one very simple reason. First thing you do in building a hydro scheme is work out where to put the dam, and the dam is ultimately just a means of storing the highly variable inflow of water such that it can be released as and when required. Storage is inherent in most hydro systems and that's what makes them work. The actual energy inflow, that is water, is incredibly intermittent - far more so than solar or wind.




So why not use solar or wind to refresh the storage of hydro systems by pumping water from the outlet level back into the storage ? This would even out the variability of the stream inflow and keep the "battery" topped up.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> So why not use solar or wind to refresh the storage of hydro systems by pumping water from the outlet level back into the storage ? This would even out the variability of the stream inflow and keep the "battery" topped up.




Theoretically that's very possible as long as there's somewhere to store the water near the tailrace (outlet). Energy in to pump up hill, energy out when the water is run back the other way. 

Tumut 3 (Snowy) is both a conventional hydro scheme (that is, it generates energy from natural water flow without the need for pumping) but also has the ability to run in pumping mode so as to reuse some of the water. 

Other hydro schemes in Australia are either a pure pumped storage operation (eg Wivehoe) or are conventional hydro which produces energy from a single direction of water flow (eg the entire system in Tas and most others in Australia work this way).

A key point about conventional hydro is that, unless the scheme has literally no storage, there should always be enough water available to operate at times of extreme high demand and price. With normal operation, there's always enough water to run for those few hours when price goes through the roof. 

So any pumping operation added to existing schemes won't increase production at times of highest demand and price. Rather, it would be about pumping at times of low price and generating more at times of low to moderate price. At present that's not economic although if enough wind and solar is built then that situation may well change since then, both supply and demand would be changing versus with coal/gas/hydro where it's really only demand that changes not supply. 

One thing about hydro is that no two schemes are the same, and any similarity is coincidental. Somewhere like Poatina (Great Lake, Tas) there is truly massive storage - equivalent to about 5 years' worth of normal production. On the other hand, there are stations such as Wilmot (Tas) where the storage is equivalent to just 10 days' worth of average production (and only about 5 days if the power station was running baseload). 

Practical operation of such a system is driven by weather. In simplified terms, the stations with limited storage capacity run hard when it's wet and are backed right off, running only at the peaks, when its' dry. So Wilmot, for example, may run baseload all Winter but that 10 days worth of stored water will, if used only to generate when demand peaks, last the whole Summer without problem (and even in Summer it does get a bit of water coming in).

Why not build more storage at those sites with limited storage capacity? It comes down to topography and one or more of three basic limitations. Raising the dam would either (1) result in the water leaking out of some other low point around the lake (2) require a dam that gets ridiculously wide at the top as the valley broadens out above the present dam height or (3) would flood something we don't want to flood - towns, farms etc.

The workaround there is in many cases to build multiple dams on the same river. This image explains the problem and the solution pretty well. It wasn't practical to build one big dam, but 7 smaller dams, and 7 associated power stations (plus another tiny one for environmental flow reasons) is the solution in this case (Mersey-Forth scheme, Tas). http://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/images/Mersey-Forth_draftthree.jpg

So overall, the limitations and issues surrounding turning an existing hydro scheme into pumped storage are:

1. Is there somewhere downstream where the water could be stored? In many cases it's already there (eg a multi-dammed catchment) but on the other hand, there are places where it's either impractical to build a second storage and/or unacceptable for some reason (eg environmental).

2. Would it be more practical and economic to just increase generating capacity and not worry about the pumping. Eg if you have a 150 MW plant that runs on average to 60 MW (limited by inflow), so that's running 40% of the time in simple terms, then you could always just make it a 300 MW plant that runs 20% of the time using the water you already have and not bother with the pumps. If it's only needed for peak load operation then that could well be a sensible solution.

3. Economics of both the pumped storage itself, and the infrastructure required to make it work. Technically it's very doable as long as there's somewhere to have a storage below the power station. The limitation is thus economic rather than technical. 

To the extent that intermittent energy sources, such as wind and solar, produce a greater share of total supply they are likely to eventually swing the economic balance so as to make storage schemes economic. We aren't at that point yet, but if wind etc is the future then at some point storage becomes a must.

I'll add a comment about pumped diversions, as distinct from pumped storage. A pumped diversion is a one-way flow and is net energy positive, versus pumped storage which returns less than it consumes. 

For example, water is pumped from Arthurs Lake (Tas) 140m up to the top of the hill using considerable energy to do so. (Note - all distances here are the straight vertical rise or fall, the actual pipelines are far longer since they're sitting on the ground not going straight up in the air).

Some of that energy used for pumping is is recovered by running it down the other side of the hill through Tods Corner power station, a fall of about 41 metres (vertical). After that, the water is then sitting in Great Lake.

From Great Lake, itself a very major storage with large natural inflows, this water runs through Poatina with a huge drop of 835m into the power station. 

Then the water is used again at Trevallyn (in suburban Launceston) with a drop of 127m, at which point it leaves the power station virtually at sea level.

So overall that's a 140m pump up the hill (energy loss), recovered many times over by the drops of 41, 835 and 127 metres through 3 power stations. This isn't pumped storage, it's a pumped diversion, but it represents a net energy gain rather than a loss. It's by no means a unique arrangement, although 835m is pretty serious pressure.


----------



## SirRumpole

Thanks Smurf, you are always worth reading


----------



## Smurf1976

Wind and solar are doing pretty well right now in some areas, again highlighting that they work but are intermittent.

Figures are % of electrical load within each state and where it's being supplied from. They don't add to 100% due to (1) Qld, SA and Vic are all producing more than they are using and (2) rounding to the nearest whole % for figures 1% and above. 

SA - Wind 82%, Gas 19%, Solar 7%. Surplus is going into Vic.

Vic - Coal 97%, Wind 21%, Solar 5%, Hydro = 3%. Surplus is going into NSW and Tas.

Tas - Hydro 74%, Wind 10%, Solar 1%. 14% of load is being supplied from Vic.

NSW - Coal 68%, Wind 7%. Solar 5%, Gas 3%. 11% of load is being supplied from Vic and 9% from Qld.

Qld - Coal 96%, Gas 14%, Solar 12%. Hydro 0.7%. Biomass 0.1%. Surplus is going into NSW.

So, *wind and solar are producing 89% of SA's electricity right now*. It works, just not constantly.

All states combined, the figures are Coal 69%, Wind 13%, Solar 7%, Gas 6%, Hydro 6%.

As for the operation of hydro schemes and storage, well the spot price in Vic is 2.3 cents / kWh at the moment so for those dams which are not in danger of spilling (noting that it's the wet season for most hydro catchments in Australia so some are in a "use it or lose it" situation), there's no point running the hydro stations too hard in that price environment. Better to save the water now and generate at higher levels when the price is higher.


----------



## drsmith

Smurf,

As a question of curiosity, does the above include grid connected rooftop solar ?

One can imagine that it could potentially include rooftop solar fed into the grid but not the component that's used directly by the household (not fed into the grid).


----------



## Smurf1976

drsmith said:


> Smurf,
> 
> As a question of curiosity, does the above include grid connected rooftop solar ?




Yes, the solar energy going into the grid is primarily from small scale systems (mostly on house roofs).

Figures for solar are calculated based on the voluntary automatic uploading of data by a relatively small proportion of users and extrapolating that to the surrounding region based on the capacity of systems installed in the area. It's not perfect but the general thought in the industry is that it's reasonably accurate. If you look at the load on conventional power generation versus the ups and downs of distributed solar, then it does appear that the solar figures are about right. 

Figures for coal, gas, hydro, wind, biomass and oil are based on measurement at power stations.

Not included is small scale distributed generation other than solar although this is generally a small amount in total due to the small number of such facilities and their small size. 

My point in posting these figures periodically is simply to highlight that wind and solar most certainly can produce large amounts of electricity, it's just that they do so intermittently. The wind is still blowing at roughly the same level it was when I posted those figures earlier such that for SA, wind has easily been the dominant source of electricity in the grid today.


----------



## DB008

Great news for consumers...

*Mercedes-Benz takes on Tesla with a home battery of its own​*


> Guess what, Tesla: you're not the only car maker getting into the home battery game. Mercedes-Benz has unveiled a personal energy cell that, like Tesla's Powerwall, uses giant batteries to store surplus power from your home's solar panels and keep you off the conventional energy grid. The German firm is taking a more modular approach than its American counterpart, though. Each pack only holds 2.5kWh of electricity, but you can combine up to eight of them to hold 20kWh, or twice as much as a Powerwall. That potentially suits it to certain businesses, not just your own abode.
> 
> Whatever you think of Mercedes' pack, it may be your best hope of getting some clean energy storage in the near future. With Tesla's unit already sold out through mid-2016, you may have little choice but to register for the Mercedes equivalent and wait until it ships in September.




http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/09/mercedes-benz-home-battery/​


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf,

Would you care to make a comment on the viability of geo-thermal power in Australia which we don't appear to have discussed yet?


----------



## pixel

SirRumpole said:


> Smurf,
> 
> Would you care to make a comment on the viability of geo-thermal power in Australia which we don't appear to have discussed yet?




+1
I'd love to know more about that as well.
Years ago, I took an interest in PTR. Whatever happened to their "flagship" deep bore at Paralana? Last info I have dates from mid 2014: the Canberra Vandals pulled the pin on ARENA, and Petratherm were left with a $13M funding gap, which forced them to put Paralana on hold. Has the project been mothballed or completely abandoned?
And weren't they going to tap into the Teide volcano on Tenerife?


----------



## Smurf1976

Geothermal.

The resource is certainly there, no doubt about that as such. Even with relatively limited exploration there's inferred resources of about 2,700,000 PJ spread across WA, SA, Vic and Tas. To put that into perspective, we could generate the whole country's electricity for about the next 1000 years if we used all of it.

On a state by state basis, about 77% of the inferred resource is in SA and 13% is in Tas. So geothermal just happens to be concentrated in the already dominant clean energy states. Vic has about 9% of the resource and WA about 1%.

But even in Vic, that 9% could keep the lights on in that state for the next 400+ years so it's a very significant resource.

Without getting company specific, much of the interest thus far has focused on SA for two primary reasons. First is that it's where the bulk of the known resource is, secondly because SA traditionally has higher electricity prices (wholesale) than the eastern states. More broadly, the economic situation in SA isn't good and it's fair to assume that the state government would welcome anything new that promised jobs in an ongoing industry.

Practically however, costs in SA are also likely to be higher since most of the resource is either at the edge of the current grid (which has capacity limits) or is in the middle of nowhere thus requiring new infrastructure to be usable. Water also tends to be a problem in SA.

In contrast to that situation, there's basically nowhere in Vic and Tas that aren't near the grid. Whilst the scale of any geothermal development in Tas would probably be smaller, it would also be cheap - grid nearby and water generally isn't a problem either. 

As such, any large scale (1000+ MW) development would be far more likely in Vic than anywhere else. The load is nearby, Vic has a need to replace over 90% of its' current electricity production over the next 35 years (and half of it within the next 20 years) so there's definitely a market. And whilst they've only got 9% of the resource, that's more than enough given the scale of it.

A smaller scale, say 200 MW initially, development in Tas also isn't out of the question. It's a good place in terms of having things nearby, and Tas is of course electrically connected to Vic (and there are ideas to duplicate this connection at some future time). There is also very strong political (including Liberal) and public support for renewable energy development in Tas which helps too. 

The real question is about practicality and economics rather than the resource. The resource is there, there's a demand for energy, those two things are beyond question especially in Vic and to some extent in the other states. Where it gets more difficult is with how to actually extract that resource and whether it can be done in a manner that's price competitive with other energy sources?

I'm no expert on the economics of geothermal extraction, so I've kept these comments fairly broad to saying where it's likely to happen. The middle of nowhere in SA might have plenty of resource but Vic and to a lesser extent Tas are far more logical places to actually develop it.

Note that I'm only referring to resources into which some degree of effort to quantify them has been put. There's going to be more in practice.

As for whether or not it will actually happen, thus far it has always been one of those "just around the corner" things so far as dry geothermal resources are concerned. It's a more risky technology than just building wind farms, hydro, coal etc in the minds of investors (though the CO2 issue arguably makes coal high risk these days). Hence the bulk of renewable energy to meet RET requirements is, in practice, coming from wind and hydro rather than geothermal. Nobody has really been willing to take the risk in a big way thus far - it hasn't stacked up from an investment perspective versus the proven technologies in wind etc.

Personally I do think that we need to determine technical viability once and for all on this one. Put some decent money in and build, say, a 100MW plant and actually put it into production. It's potentially a real game changer but it needs a public investment to get it going it seems, private investors having found it too risky thus far. For the record, the exact same things happened in the early days of brown coal - private investors failed in Vic and wouldn't go near it in SA as it was just too capital intensive with an uncertainty that it would even work. But with public investment to get it going we've had a century of cheap power thus far and we'll probably get 130 years before it's over at least in Vic.

As for how economic it would be, most estimates suggest a cost that's higher than present electricity prices but lower than the cost of generation from wind, nuclear or gas (once gas price go up in the next 2 years). So it does seem to be in the ballpark of viability, it just needs someone to take the risk and build a decent size plant to prove it. If private won't or can't, then it's not a bad use of taxpayers funds in my view given the game changing potential of it.


----------



## SirRumpole

Thanks Smurf, very informative.

I can't see any funding coming from the current Federal government, and the SA government is strapped for cash, and seeing power stations are closing down due to lack of demand it's difficult to see investment in this area any time soon.

Good to know the resource is there though.


----------



## Smurf1976

Let's put some hard numbers on Australia's energy resources. Once that is done, the sensible options start to become somewhat clearer.

I've used energy units, PJ (petajoules) here to enable comparison between different resource types which would be more difficult if the units were expressed as tonnes of coal, barrels of oil etc. A consistent unit of measurement helps simplify the overall picture.

First, I'll start with oil. That is crude oil, condensate (a thin, light oil that's a gas underground but liquid once brought to the surface - it's refined to produce petrol etc in the same way as crude oil but it can only produce the lighter products, eg petrol and kerosene. It's no good for making other petroleum fuels or things like bitumen for which actual crude oil is needed). Also included here is LPG (which contrary to common belief, is properly considered as a form of oil rather than a gas as such).

Here's where we are now with crude oil and condensate and the situation isn't too good. Past production and remaining reserves by state.

Victoria: Produced = 23,561 PJ. Remaining = 2420 PJ. 

WA: Produced = 14,268 PJ. Remaining = 16,231 PJ. 

NT: Produced = 3685 PJ. Remaining = 3673PJ. 

SA: Produced = 2381 PJ. Remaining = 592 PJ. Note that some of this production occurs from wells physically in South-West Queensland, although all processing and delivery occurs in SA. 

Tasmania: Produced = 22 PJ. Remaining = Remaining = 306 PJ. Note that offshore production in Tas is physically landed in Victoria although the fields are in Tasmanian waters.

Queensland: Produced = 250 PJ. Remaining = 43 PJ. 

NSW: Nil.

National: Produced = 44,167 PJ. Remaining = 23,265 PJ. 

What about consumption? We use about 2300 PJ a year of liquid petroleum products in total in Australia.

So pretty clearly we're not too well off when it comes to oil. Australia may well be a "resources country" but when it comes to oil we've got declining production and rising imports.


----------



## Smurf1976

*LPG*

WA: Produced = 1763 PJ. Remaining = 3610 PJ.

Victoria: Produced = 2553 PJ. Remaining = 609 PJ.

NT: Produced = 386 PJ. Remaining = 1027 PJ.

SA: Produced = 682 PJ. Remaining = 172 PJ.

Tasmania: Produced = 8 PJ. Remaining = 237 PJ.

Queensland: Produced = 49 PJ. Remaining = 10 PJ.

National: Produced = 5441 PJ. Remaining = 5665 PJ.

Consumption is about 100 PJ a year nationally.

The overall supply situation is better than for conventional liquid fuels (petrol etc) but LPG is still an internationally traded product so we're exposed to international pricing. Also worth noting is that most of the reserves, that is in WA and NT, will be exported - we already import LPG into the eastern states from overseas.

My real point in this and the previous post is that whilst most discussion about energy in Australia focuses on ways to generate electricity, that's not where the real problem is. We've got a serious and growing import dependency for transport fuels in a country where oil-based transport is critical to practically everything. Transport fuels, not electricity generation, is the real problem we have with energy in Australia.

Oil = 23,265 PJ remaining in Australia.

LPG = 5665 PJ remaining in Australia.

That's about it so far as transport fuel is concerned. But for electricity generation and other purposes we've got:

Gas = 172,000 PJ

Coal = 5,356,000 PJ

Uranium = 955,000 PJ

Geothermal = Estimates vary as it's a relatively new thing for anyone to be looking for. For consistency with the above figures I'll use the Geoscience Australia data which puts it at 440,000 PJ. Other estimates put it very much higher (eg over 2,500,000 PJ).

Then there's solar, wind, hydro, tidal, biomass etc which are renewable and for which the annual supply vastly exceeds anything we could use to generate electricity with.

So overall, oil is a problem in the short term and at some point gas may well join that list. And those fuels are valuable for transport, industry etc such that using them to generate electricity, particularly for base load, is a tragic waste in my view.

Above data is from "Australian Energy Resource Assessment" (Australian Government) unless otherwise noted. A Google search will find the original document - beware that it's 364 pages long.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> *LPG*
> 
> WA: Produced = 1763 PJ. Remaining = 3610 PJ.
> 
> Victoria: Produced = 2553 PJ. Remaining = 609 PJ.
> 
> NT: Produced = 386 PJ. Remaining = 1027 PJ.
> 
> SA: Produced = 682 PJ. Remaining = 172 PJ.
> 
> Tasmania: Produced = 8 PJ. Remaining = 237 PJ.
> 
> Queensland: Produced = 49 PJ. Remaining = 10 PJ.
> 
> National: Produced = 5441 PJ. Remaining = 5665 PJ.
> 
> Consumption is about 100 PJ a year nationally.
> 
> The overall supply situation is better than for conventional liquid fuels (petrol etc) but LPG is still an internationally traded product so we're exposed to international pricing. Also worth noting is that most of the reserves, that is in WA and NT, will be exported - we already import LPG into the eastern states from overseas.
> 
> My real point in this and the previous post is that whilst most discussion about energy in Australia focuses on ways to generate electricity, that's not where the real problem is. We've got a serious and growing import dependency for transport fuels in a country where oil-based transport is critical to practically everything. Transport fuels, not electricity generation, is the real problem we have with energy in Australia.
> 
> Oil = 23,265 PJ remaining in Australia.
> 
> LPG = 5665 PJ remaining in Australia.
> 
> That's about it so far as transport fuel is concerned. But for electricity generation and other purposes we've got:
> 
> Gas = 172,000 PJ
> 
> Coal = 5,356,000 PJ
> 
> Uranium = 955,000 PJ
> 
> Geothermal = Estimates vary as it's a relatively new thing for anyone to be looking for. For consistency with the above figures I'll use the Geoscience Australia data which puts it at 440,000 PJ. Other estimates put it very much higher (eg over 2,500,000 PJ).
> 
> Then there's solar, wind, hydro, tidal, biomass etc which are renewable and for which the annual supply vastly exceeds anything we could use to generate electricity with.
> 
> So overall, oil is a problem in the short term and at some point gas may well join that list. And those fuels are valuable for transport, industry etc such that using them to generate electricity, particularly for base load, is a tragic waste in my view.
> 
> Above data is from "Australian Energy Resource Assessment" (Australian Government) unless otherwise noted. A Google search will find the original document - beware that it's 364 pages long.




Which is back where we started, when I joined this forum. 
It is a bloody disgrace to put gas through boilers or turbines, to produce electricity, to boil kettles and run stoves to boil water.
We are far better off using coal, and accelerating the development of alternative energy. 
Than depleting a clean fuel source that can be used in essential infrastructure. eg trucks, trains, planes, cars etc.

It is just dumb wastage, at this point of our technological development. Time will tell.


----------



## Smurf1976

Not mentioned in my previous two posts is oil shale.

First, a note about terminology. "Shale oil" is what they're producing lots of in the USA via drilling and hydraulic fracturing. It's oil as such, just tightly held in the ground (hence the fracturing) but apart from that it's just oil.

What I'm referring to in this post is actual "oil shale". That's a hard rock which doesn't contain liquid oil as such. The rock is mined by conventional mining methods, put through a factory that has a few similarities with a metal smelter and oil refinery combined, and out comes some oil. 

We'ge got a lot of oil shale, around 131,600 PJ according to official estimates, but the problem is with actually using it and that's why nobody includes it in oil reserve data.

Mining and burning the shale is pretty easy, Estonia is the world leader there and they do it on a scale comparable to what we do with brown coal in Victoria. And yes, the end product in Estonia is electricity. Using oil shale this way is pretty straightforward - mine it, burn it, then dispose of the vast amount of waste rock, now in powdered form, that is produced - somewhat messy but it works as a means of producing steam to run turbines (same as a coal power station).

Turning oil shale into liquid fuels (eg petrol, diesel etc) is much harder however since it requires that actual liquid oil be produced from what is a solid rock. It can be done, and it was done in the first half of the 20th Century in various parts of Australia (NSW and Tas being most notable) but suffice to say that even a century ago there were complaints about pollution and that was at a time when "environment" wasn't something anyone really thought about.

In more recent times all sorts of organisations have tried this one. The US government had a go, so did various major oil companies and so too have many junior "get rich quick" type companies. They built plants, ran them and either failed technically (or environmentally)  or couldn't make it pay. Closer to home, the Tasmanian government had a serious look in the 1980's given that the state has a very high quality (and globally unique) oil shale resource "Tasmanite". Nothing new was built in Tas (the earlier operation having long since been abandoned) but a very serious look was taken and it reached the same conclusion as everyone else - it would be easier to just take the cash and set that on fire without going to the trouble of actually digging up the oil shale. In South Australia they do actually mine oil shale in order to get to the coal below it at Leigh Creek. But they dump the shale as waste since even if it's literally free (already mined so no additional cost) it's just not worthwhile doing anything with it.

So we've got a lot of oil shale, far more than we have actual crude oil and it's close to natural gas in terms of the resource size, but it's very doubtful that it will ever be used. There's no point mining it for electricity generation since there's other (cheaper) means of generating electricity. And so far at least, there's no point mining the stuff to make liquid fuels unless someone's got some cash they're looking to get rid of.

So, over 130,000 PJ of oil shale, theoretically enough to provide all our transport fuels for more than 50 years, but the odds high are that it will stay in the ground. That brings me back to the previous point - there's lots of ways to generate electricity, that isn't really a problem we jsut have to actually do it, but there's fewer options for process heat (gas, oil) and we've got a looming problem with transport fuel (oil). Well, we have unless electric transport makes serious inroads to displacing petrol and diesel in the not too distant future - possible for cars but we're nowhere near the point where it works for long distance trucks etc.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It is a bloody disgrace to put gas through boilers or turbines, to produce electricity, to boil kettles and run stoves to boil water.
> We are far better off using coal, and accelerating the development of alternative energy.
> Than depleting a clean fuel source that can be used in essential infrastructure. eg trucks, trains, planes, cars etc.




Very strongly agreed there.

So far as I'm concerned, the sensible means of generating electricity is renewables as much as we can and coal for the rest. Using gas and oil to keep the lights on is akin to using gold and silver as road gravel - a tragic waste of a limited and very valuable resource (don't forget all the non-energy things that oil and gas are needed for - everything from plastic to fertilizer to medical drugs comes from gas and oil).


----------



## sptrawler

Smurph, why the hell don't they install h2 plants, next to major wind farm installations?

When they are producing excess generation, they could be producing hydrogen, a clean transport fuel.

It just seems like a logical fit to me, a bit like spinning reserve, shut it down as wind drops and bring on h2 fired gas turbine.

When reserve storage of h2 exceeds reserve requirements, sell the h2 on market.

As GG would say, that's me brain fart, for the day.lol


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Very strongly agreed there.
> 
> So far as I'm concerned, the sensible means of generating electricity is renewables as much as we can and coal for the rest. Using gas and oil to keep the lights on is akin to using gold and silver as road gravel - a tragic waste of a limited and very valuable resource (don't forget all the non-energy things that oil and gas are needed for - everything from plastic to fertilizer to medical drugs comes from gas and oil).




If we have electricity to burn so to speak, and a lack of transport fuel, then it would seem to make sense to electrify long distance freight rail, make that more attractive and get long distance trucks off the roads.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> If we have electricity to burn so to speak, and a lack of transport fuel, then it would seem to make sense to electrify long distance freight rail, make that more attractive and get long distance trucks off the roads.




It is very difficult to to transport electricity over long distances, due to the lines becoming capacitors, the air between the lines becomes a dielectric.
This in turn causes an increase in voltage on the lines, especially when lightly loaded, there won't be an electric indian pacific or ghan in our lifetime.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Smurph, why the hell don't they install h2 plants, next to major wind farm installations?




That idea isn't new. There was a plan to actually set up hydrogen "service stations" here in Tas a decade ago. We even put a hydrogen powered car in an actual car race (Targa) and were pretty well advanced with conversion kits to suit common vehicles.

It all works in theory and it works in practice from a technical perspective. Financial reality says otherwise unfortunately.

A bit more here (note this was 10 years ago). http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1457459.htm

There used to be a plant here in Hobart producing hydrogen from electricity and using that to make fertilizer. Ultimately it just couldn't compete against production elsewhere using natural gas as the feedstock and so that was it, it was closed and has since been demolished. It can certainly be done technically, it was built back in the 1950's, but as with most of this stuff the problem is economic. Even when you've got cheap electricity (and it was ridiculously cheap back then), it's still cheaper to go the direct chemical route of extraction from natural gas (CH4). 

Here's a image of the hydrogen cells I found online. All gone now though. It's old stuff in the photo but the basic technology hasn't changed - electricity into water splits it into oxygen and hydrogen gases. http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.pic-an23167238


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> That idea isn't new. There was a plan to actually set up hydrogen "service stations" here in Tas a decade ago. We even put a hydrogen powered car in an actual car race (Targa) and were pretty well advanced with conversion kits to suit common vehicles.
> 
> It all works in theory and it works in practice from a technical perspective. Financial reality says otherwise unfortunately.
> 
> A bit more here (note this was 10 years ago). http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1457459.htm
> 
> There used to be a plant here in Hobart producing hydrogen from electricity and using that to make fertilizer. Ultimately it just couldn't compete against production elsewhere using natural gas as the feedstock and so that was it, it was closed and has since been demolished. It can certainly be done technically, it was built back in the 1950's, but as with most of this stuff the problem is economic. Even when you've got cheap electricity (and it was ridiculously cheap back then), it's still cheaper to go the direct chemical route of extraction from natural gas (CH4).
> 
> Here's a image of the hydrogen cells I found online. All gone now though. http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.pic-an23167238




Meanwhile we pour money into solar, that has minimal expectation of viable storage at this point.

It all seems ar$e up to me, wind can produce reasonable grunt, but has no storage medium.

Financial reality, when compared to established fossil fuel will never stack up, but if you are producing a fossil fuel replacement from excess renewable energy?

The ABC link was interesting, they may have been ahead of their time.


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> Which is back where we started, when I joined this forum.
> It is a bloody disgrace to put gas through boilers or turbines, to produce electricity, to boil kettles and run stoves to boil water.
> We are far better off using coal, and accelerating the development of alternative energy.
> Than depleting a clean fuel source that can be used in essential infrastructure. eg trucks, trains, planes, cars etc.
> 
> It is just dumb wastage, at this point of our technological development. Time will tell.



+ 1 even if I'd prefer wind and solar to coal but as you say we must cover the transition and it can go quickly
but indeed, gas and petrol should be kept for transport while we transition some to electricity (cars first) and chemical manufacturing:
plastics, fertilisers, etc


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> It is very difficult to to transport electricity over long distances, due to the lines becoming capacitors, the air between the lines becomes a dielectric.
> This in turn causes an increase in voltage on the lines, especially when lightly loaded, there won't be an electric indian pacific or ghan in our lifetime.



you can cross Europe on fast electric train, it is more the fact we would not have enought traffic, but i would think an adelaide to brisbane via melbourne/sydney electric rail highway could replace a lot of the existing trucking


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> Meanwhile we pour money into solar, that has minimal expectation of viable storage at this point.
> 
> It all seems ar$e up to me, wind can produce reasonable grunt, but has no storage medium.
> 
> Financial reality, when compared to established fossil fuel will never stack up, but if you are producing a fossil fuel replacement from excess renewable energy?
> 
> The ABC link was interesting, they may have been ahead of their time.



Hydrogene has a terrible tendency to leak, and for leaks to be pretty nasty...that is one key point as well as the need to compress it to store it
so i doubt we will ever see an hydrogen powered car in a standard household;
but hydrogen cells, even better than burning in a turbine would be a way to go;
Giant Hydrogen "batteries" next to solar farm/wind farms;
I do believe that Tesla style batteries can made a huge difference for households like mine:
plenty of storage space/roof space/technical knowledge to maintain
coupled with electric plug in car and just need another set of solar panel and i am cruising;

but I doubt these batteries are enough for major grid storage on the industrial scale 9even if tesla shows how it is feasible.
But you do need major storage anyway:
ternal solar which buffer day/night, when possible, reversed hydro (pump up storage  and maybe giant fuel cells H2 or otherwise.
We have the technology, but we have to fight lobbies, a situatiion where fossil fuels are subsidised heavily with teh resource being basically free to the taker and people like Abbot who do not "like" windfarms.....
one major deal breaker could be fusion reactors with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell and more interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_beta_fusion_reactor
Note I did buy Lockeed shares


----------



## DB008

*SolarEdge Launching Inverter Designed Specifically For Tesla Compatibility​*


> One of the only companies out there currently that’s offering an inverter that’s compatible with Tesla’s energy storage solutions, SolarEdge, will soon be launching a new version of the StorEdge (a DC-coupled home storage solution) designed specifically with such compatibility in mind, according to recent reports.
> 
> The product (amongst other new ones) is expected to hit the market before the end of 2015, and will also be offered as a retrofit for those that already possess a SolarEdge inverter (applicable to those installed since January 2013, apparently).The new (updated) offering will, as can be expected, allow users to balance self-consumption of electricity and provide backup electricity. The company notes that those who previously were solar PV feed-in-tariff recipients in markets like Germany, where such rates have diminished greatly, could benefit substantially by allowing for self-consumption to be maximized rather than feeding generated electricity into the grid.
> 
> The company, which is based out of Israel (interestingly), won’t likely retain its near monopoly on Tesla compatibility for long, though, despite being designed with compatibility specifically in mind, as there’s now a lot of interest in that field.





http://cleantechnica.com/2015/06/14/solaredge-launching-inverter-designed-specifically-tesla-compatibility/​


----------



## DB008

Saw this on Whirlpool. Thought l would cross-feed if that is ok?

Redflow.

Manufacturing batteries.

QLD based.

Website - http://redflow.com/

Products - http://redflow.com/products/

http://redflow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/RFX-150623-Kick-starting-sales.pdf


----------



## DB008

Ok, help me out. My maths isn't the best....

Just received my latest electricity bill from Origin - Brisbane,QLD.

My 'daily supply charge' has skyrocketed. 

Previous supply charge was 83.414 cents per day

New supply charge is 116.398 cents per day

83.414-116.398=32.984

32.984/83.414=0.39542

0.39542 * 100 = 39.5425%

Is that correct?


----------



## bellenuit

DB008 said:


> Ok, help me out. My maths isn't the best....
> 
> Just received my latest electricity bill from Origin - Brisbane,QLD.
> 
> My 'daily supply charge' has skyrocketed.
> 
> Previous supply charge was 83.414 cents per day
> 
> New supply charge is 116.398 cents per day
> 
> 83.414-116.398=32.984
> 
> 32.984/83.414=0.39542
> 
> 0.39542 * 100 = 39.5425%
> 
> Is that correct?




Yes, spot on.


----------



## DB008

bellenuit said:


> Yes, spot on.




Cheers bellenuit

39% increase.

That's crazy.

Is it legal to raise the price that much when l am locked into a 12 month contract with them?

Oh well, Origin (and the other power companies doing this) sure know how to push customers away.

Jack up their prices while solar system prices are dropping like flies and battery tech is just around the corner.

There is literally a "power" revolution coming. A complete change in the way we get power. This might be the power companies last chance to milk us users. Good luck to 'em. As soon as l can go 'off-grid', l will...


----------



## pixel

DB008 said:


> Cheers bellenuit
> 
> 39% increase.
> 
> That's crazy.
> 
> Is it legal to raise the price that much when l am locked into a 12 month contract with them?
> 
> Oh well, Origin (and the other power companies doing this) sure know how to push customers away.
> 
> Jack up their prices while solar system prices are dropping like flies and battery tech is just around the corner.
> 
> There is literally a "power" revolution coming. A complete change in the way we get power. This might be the power companies last chance to milk us users. Good luck to 'em. As soon as l can go 'off-grid', l will...




Question: What's the new charge for measured consumption, i.e. how did the charge per Kilowatt-hour ("unit" or "KWh") change? Could that have come down?


----------



## DB008

pixel said:


> Question: What's the new charge for measured consumption, i.e. how did the charge per Kilowatt-hour ("unit" or "KWh") change? Could that have come down?




Hi Pixel.

Here is a screen-shot.



​

Peak price has decreased : 25.378 to 22.238 (cents)

Tariff 33 has increased : 18.454 to 18.872 (cents)

Supply charge has increased : 83.414 to 116.398 (cents)

Only got the solar in recently.


What is interesting me at the moment (because I have a SMA Inverter) - 

http://www.sma.de/en/products/battery-inverters/sunny-island-for-increased-self-consumption.html


----------



## Smurf1976

Energy infrastructure can be put to other good uses too, like this... 

http://www.examiner.com.au/story/3189819/down-to-earth-thrills-photos-video/?cs=95#slide=16


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Energy infrastructure can be put to other good uses too, like this...
> 
> http://www.examiner.com.au/story/3189819/down-to-earth-thrills-photos-video/?cs=95#slide=16




There is absolutely no way, I would be getting over that handrail.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> There is absolutely no way, I would be getting over that handrail.




I haven't done the abseil but it's on the list of things to do someday.

Anyone can visit Gordon Dam however, and if you're in Tas then it's worth the trip for the scenery alone (with or without actually going onto the dam) and the road is sealed all the way. 

As for the dam itself, anyone can have a look from the top and it requires no special physical fitness - just the ability to walk down then back up some ordinary stairs from the car park. No chance of accidentally falling off as the rails are chest height.

Back to the future of energy generation and storage, Gordon is a highly unlikely place for a pumped storage scheme since doing that would require another dam downstream. That debate was done to death in spectacular fashion a third of a century ago and won't likely be revived anytime soon - let's not go there now. But there's space in the power station for another 2 machines (there's 3 at present) which would add more peak generating capacity. That would be of use if, at some future time, wind and solar are far larger contributors to the grid than they are at present.

At present, Gordon power station runs inverse to system inflows. That is, it generally runs base load during dry weather and peak load when it's wet. That's in order to use the very large storage capacity to take load off / put more load on other parts of the system which have much smaller storage (relative to annual inflows) according to prevailing weather conditions. It was more of a base load operation, with only 2 machines, when first built but the third machine was added in 1988 to offset seasonal fluctuation in output from the Pieman scheme (which has relatively little storage) commissioned in the 1980's.

It takes about 2.5 years, with zero operation of the power station and assuming average inflows, to raise the storage level from empty to full. That's massive storage and potentially very useful to integrate with intermittent renewables.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I haven't done the abseil but it's on the list of things to do someday.
> 
> Anyone can visit Gordon Dam however, and if you're in Tas then it's worth the trip for the scenery alone (with or without actually going onto the dam) and the road is sealed all the way.
> 
> As for the dam itself, anyone can have a look from the top and it requires no special physical fitness - just the ability to walk down then back up some ordinary stairs from the car park. No chance of accidentally falling off as the rails are chest height.
> 
> Back to the future of energy generation and storage, Gordon is a highly unlikely place for a pumped storage scheme since doing that would require another dam downstream. That debate was done to death in spectacular fashion a third of a century ago and won't likely be revived anytime soon - let's not go there now. But there's space in the power station for another 2 machines (there's 3 at present) which would add more peak generating capacity. That would be of use if, at some future time, wind and solar are far larger contributors to the grid than they are at present.
> 
> At present, Gordon power station runs inverse to system inflows. That is, it generally runs base load during dry weather and peak load when it's wet. That's in order to use the very large storage capacity to take load off / put more load on other parts of the system which have much smaller storage (relative to annual inflows) according to prevailing weather conditions. It was more of a base load operation, with only 2 machines, when first built but the third machine was added in 1988 to offset seasonal fluctuation in output from the Pieman scheme (which has relatively little storage) commissioned in the 1980's.
> 
> It takes about 2.5 years, with zero operation of the power station and assuming average inflows, to raise the storage level from empty to full. That's massive storage and potentially very useful to integrate with intermittent renewables.




Was that the Gordon on Franklin, loonie tunes green fiasco, about twenty years ago?

Now it would save the planet, then it was all about the wilderness, best the greens decide what is important.

Rather than just stopping everything.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Was that the Gordon on Franklin, loonie tunes green fiasco, about twenty years ago?




It was settled in the High Court 32 years ago and the rest is history. A lot of people still have strong views over that issue but my personal view is very much "let it rest" so far as that one's concerned. 

From a purely practical perspective, there's a lot that can be done with solar, wind definitely and maybe geothermal before there's any need to re-run debates about dams in the wilderness. Those things weren't options in an economic sense (technically yes but not economically) back then but they are now. 

Energy efficiency too. There's no point ramping up supply just so that we can leave a few million office PC's running all night for no real benefit. Etc.

The point stands however that hydro, be it natural flow or pumped, is an extremely fast response means of generation and also the only "conventional" source which offers storage as an inherent part of it. It has a role to play in the future from existing schemes certainly and no doubt we'll see some re-working of some of them to direct production to a different profile.

Go forward another decade or two and by that time it ought to be a lot clearer where we're really heading. If solar and batteries haven't worked out on a large enough scale then, and only then, it might make sense to look at more contentious options such as big dams, nuclear etc.

That aspect, time, is why I have no problem with the continued operation of the brown coal plants in Victoria. Close them today and there's not too many real alternatives to building another fossil fuel plant. We're not going to get 6000 or even 1000 MW of base load generation up and running from solar in the next year or three. As such, it's a question of old coal for another 20 years versus new coal for another 50 years, no coal isn't an immediate option. But keep them going and within a decade it ought to be much clearer. With a bit of luck and sensible politics we'll be well down the track of a clear strategy that doesn't require a direct replacement such that a gradual, orderly wind down of coal-fired generation over the period 2025 - 2050 won't be a problem. 

If it becomes clear that we can't achieve a real switch to wind and solar etc, for whatever reason, that's when we're faced with the hard choices about nuclear power, dams in the wilderness and so on. Right now there's no actual need to do either.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> It was settled in the High Court 32 years ago and the rest is history. A lot of people still have strong views over that issue but my personal view is very much "let it rest" so far as that one's concerned.
> 
> From a purely practical perspective, there's a lot that can be done with solar, wind definitely and maybe geothermal before there's any need to re-run debates about dams in the wilderness. Those things weren't options in an economic sense (technically yes but not economically) back then but they are now.
> 
> Energy efficiency too. There's no point ramping up supply just so that we can leave a few million office PC's running all night for no real benefit. Etc.
> 
> The point stands however that hydro, be it natural flow or pumped, is an extremely fast response means of generation and also the only "conventional" source which offers storage as an inherent part of it. It has a role to play in the future from existing schemes certainly and no doubt we'll see some re-working of some of them to direct production to a different profile.
> 
> Go forward another decade or two and by that time it ought to be a lot clearer where we're really heading. If solar and batteries haven't worked out on a large enough scale then, and only then, it might make sense to look at more contentious options such as big dams, nuclear etc.
> 
> That aspect, time, is why I have no problem with the continued operation of the brown coal plants in Victoria. Close them today and there's not too many real alternatives to building another fossil fuel plant. We're not going to get 6000 or even 1000 MW of base load generation up and running from solar in the next year or three. As such, it's a question of old coal for another 20 years versus new coal for another 50 years, no coal isn't an immediate option. But keep them going and within a decade it ought to be much clearer. With a bit of luck and sensible politics we'll be well down the track of a clear strategy that doesn't require a direct replacement such that a gradual, orderly wind down of coal-fired generation over the period 2025 - 2050 won't be a problem.
> 
> If it becomes clear that we can't achieve a real switch to wind and solar etc, for whatever reason, that's when we're faced with the hard choices about nuclear power, dams in the wilderness and so on. Right now there's no actual need to do either.




To me the issue is, what is sustainable, with minimal impact.

Hydro is retention of normal weather events, over a small catchment area, then controlled release of the water.

It has a minimal footprint impact, who knows what impact geothermal heat recovery, will have? 
Especially on multiple large scale installations, that really is a step into the unknown.IMO


----------



## DB008

Could this have something to do with the massive supply charge increase (39% in 1 year) ?


*Queensland Budget: $4.1 billion of State debt to be transferred to power distributors​*



> ELECTRICITY prices won’t rise and no one will be forced from their job when the Government shifts $4 billion in debt on to power company books, according to Treasurer Curtis Pitt.
> 
> Mr Pitt has the revealed plans to reduced Government debt by $4 billion by moving to Government-owned corporations
> 
> Power distributors Powerlink, Energex, Ergon Energy as well as generators CS Energy and Stanwell will pick up the debt, but Mr Pitt said it would not force power prices up.
> 
> “All of our advice is there should be no direct impact what so ever on electricity prices as a result,” he said.




http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-budget-41-billion-of-state-debt-to-be-transferred-to-power-distributors/story-fntuy59x-1227435905506​


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> To me the issue is, what is sustainable, with minimal impact.
> 
> Hydro is retention of normal weather events, over a small catchment area, then controlled release of the water.




Hydro is sustainable, there's no real question about that. You build the scheme, it runs for a century or more, and there's nothing to prevent running it basically forever.

But there's no denying that in order to create a storage reservoir, an area that is currently land ends up under water and as was spectacularly demonstrated a third of a century ago not everyone agrees with that idea....

http://www.hydro100.com.au/sites/hy..._timeline_image/public/GbF2.png?itok=3cx_XGri

I do think that the debate may be re-run someday but it won't be anytime soon in my opinion. There's a lot of easier options now that weren't available back then, so logically we'd build those before getting excited about putting anything under water.

That said, if Abbott continues on the current path then we'll end up with a conflict sooner rather than later. The rest of the world will decide for us that coal isn't the future, the Qld LNG plants have killed the idea of gas for baseload generation whilst government is making sure that non-hydro renewables don't work on a decent scale either. That leaves, in practice, three choices. Nuclear, hydro or shivering in the dark. Well, it's 3 choices unless you count the ridiculous idea of burning forests to keep the lights on.


----------



## DB008

*LG Chem pushes Australian battery storage prices further down the curve​*



> The competition in the nascent battery storage market continues to intensify, with South Korean appliance manufacturers LG Chem launching a new 6.4kWh battery storage system that approaches the key $1,000/kWh mark.
> 
> The new battery storage system is being made available to consumers in the next few weeks, and follows the release into the Australian market of AU Optronics, promoted by AGL Energy, and rival offerings from Samsung,  Enphase, Panasonic and SMA.
> 
> But the LG Chem system is already bringing costs down at the top end of the market – matching the assumed pricing of the much vaunted Tesla Powerwall, with the advantage that it is actually in the market.
> 
> LG’s Chem Residential Energy Storage Unit (RESU) 6.4kWhr battery is similar in size, shape and capacity, to the Tesla offering, and is expected to last 15 to 20 years, or at least 6,000 cycles. It is being offered in Australia at $A6,898. The first supplies have arrived in Australia via wholesalers Solar Juice.





http://onestepoffthegrid.com.au/lg-chem-pushes-australian-battery-storage-prices-further-down-the-curve/​


----------



## overhang

Smurf1976 said:


> Energy infrastructure can be put to other good uses too, like this...
> 
> http://www.examiner.com.au/story/3189819/down-to-earth-thrills-photos-video/?cs=95#slide=16




Isn't the worst part of the abseil the staircase back up?


----------



## ghotib

Smurph? Anyone? Does this apply in Oz?  Is it significant as well as astonishing? 



> ...The reality is that a thousand gas-fired power plants built in the U.S. do not operate properly in white knuckle emergencies. In the discussion with regulatory staff, Troy Blalock, reliability expert at South Carolina Electric & Gas, explained how jaws hit the floor as NERC’s investigation into reliability questions found that all three of the gas generator manufacturers (GE, ABB, Siemens) predominant in the U.S. had for years been delivering equipment that fail to provide this “essential reliability service”. As word spread around the 3-day NARUC conference, this news caused the same speechless, open-mouth expression.




http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/jaw-dropping-news-in-the-solar-vs-fossil-fuels-debate-37496


----------



## Smurf1976

ghotib said:


> Smurph? Anyone? Does this apply in Oz?  Is it significant as well as astonishing?




In layman's terms:

The grid operates with all generation and loads in parallel. That is, your solar inverter at home in, say, Queensland and your toaster are in parallel with the alternators at Loy Yang (Vic), Eraring (NSW) and every other power station in the grid.

Grid frequency is a constant across the entire AC grid. Whatever it is in Adelaide, it will be exactly the same in Brisbane since they are connected to the same AC grid. The only exception is Tasmania, which is linked to Victoria by DC and thus can operate at a (slightly) different frequency. But with AC, frequency is a constant across the grid.

The issue relates to what happens when something goes wrong. For example, suppose that a major fault occurs at Bayswater power station (NSW) and trips two units offline removing 1300 MW of generation. That's a plausible fault and it's not overly unusual for such things to happen. In that scenario grid frequency will start to fall across the entire grid and the reliance is upon remaining generation as the first action to stabilise that frequency by increasing output, the only other defence to prevent an outright system collapse being load shedding (blackouts).

So some generation trips, other generation ramps up output in the short term with the medium term (beyond the first few minutes) solution being to reallocate supply via normal processes which may involve bringing additional machines online (hydro, gas, diesel) or increasing the output of any unit (coal, gas, hydro, diesel) already in operation.

But it's the immediate response that's critical to stabilising the situation. If frequency falls too far then a point comes where other generation units will start to trip involuntarily thus losing more supply and load will be shed. But load shedding isn't the objective, it's the last resort to avoid total system collapse and whilst it works in theory there have been plenty of examples in practice where it has failed to keep the system live. So the immediate response really is critical.

What the problem is, is that the governor settings are wrong. They don't respond to an incident (loss of generation or transmission) in the way that they should. Have enough plants like that and there's a real risk that we all end up in the dark for quite a while.

I don't know if it affects any Australian plants or not. Our frequency is different to the US (they have 60Hz, we use 50Hz) and there are some technical differences in the required response. So there's no chance they have the exact same settings, but it's not impossible that some Australian plants might not behave as desired.

If you were to visit a power station as a member of the public then one thing that's pointed out on tours (here in Tas at least) is frequency control. Show people the equipment, explain how it works (apply more energy to the turbine if frequency drops) and explain that frequency control is a very major focus of operations and that there's very little tolerance allowed. As an analogy, it's the same concept as maintaining the speed of a car's engine at a constant level regardless of whether you're going up hill or down but with no gear shift. In a car, your brain and foot does this, you push harder on the pedal when going up hill so as to put more fuel into the engine and maintain speed then you take your foot off once you reach the top of the hill. Same concept in a power station apart from being automated.

What about wind and solar? Since the energy input is intermittent and highly variable they aren't well suited to frequency control other than by means of deliberately wasting some of the available energy so as to have more available if suddenly needed. Eg if you can produce 100 MW then for economic reasons that's what you normally produce and you can't suddenly ramp that up to 110 MW if something trips offline. But you could just run at 90 MW, wasting the other 10 MW, if you did want the ability to ramp up quickly. That's uneconomic however and with the relatively low proportion of wind and solar in most grids not really necessary at this point in time.

Other means used to lesser extent include flywheels, batteries and braking resistors. A braking resistor is just a load - turn it on if frequency rises too high (eg because a big factory or transmission line tripped offline) to put more load on the system and get rid of the surplus power as heat. That's just a temporary measure and not all grids have such things but they do exist. Batteries etc are normally either not used at all, or are are found only in very small systems. Eg on King Island we've got the lot in an effort to maximise the use of wind and solar energy and minimise the use of diesel. But that's a small system not a major grid.


----------



## Smurf1976

It's working nicely on King Island so now it's time to do the same on Flinders Island which currently relies on diesel for power supply. 

http://www.hydro.com.au/about-us/ne...-work-start-flinders-island-hybrid-energy-hub


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> It's working nicely on King Island so now it's time to do the same on Flinders Island which currently relies on diesel for power supply.
> 
> http://www.hydro.com.au/about-us/ne...-work-start-flinders-island-hybrid-energy-hub




The way the diesel couples, and uncouples from the generator, is clever.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The way the diesel couples, and uncouples from the generator, is clever.




Sure is. Already have one on King Island so this will be the second.

The idea of making it all modular is that it may open up the possibility of sales elsewhere as an off the shelf "packaged" and proven solution. Eg remote towns anywhere that aren't on the grid, mining industry etc. Anyone currently using diesel for permanent power generation.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Sure is. Already have one on King Island so this will be the second.
> 
> The idea of making it all modular is that it may open up the possibility of sales elsewhere as an off the shelf "packaged" and proven solution. Eg remote towns anywhere that aren't on the grid, mining industry etc. Anyone currently using diesel for permanent power generation.




Yes the synchronising time for the diesel has been a major hurdle, that overcomes the issue, great idea.


----------



## sydboy007

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/net...ry-fees-for-all-to-stop-grid-defections-28523



> The Energy Networks Association says the proposals are deliberately calibrated to stop people from leaving the grid, and kicking off what is often described as the “death spiral”, as the networks seek to recover lost revenues from those consumers who remain.
> 
> The change to a decentralised grid, based around solar and storage rather than big centralised generation, is seen as inevitable, and many analysts say that networks – which in Australia account for more than half of most bills following a massive ($45 billion) and questionable spending splurge in recent years – will have to change the way they do business, or even write down the value of their assets.
> 
> *But the networks are digging in, refusing to countenance write-downs, and now want consumers to pay for the networks whether they use them or not. Alternatively, they want any households that leave the grid to pay their “historic” share of grid capacity as a penalty for leaving.*
> 
> Grid defection is likely to become a real option for many consumers, because of the huge falls in the cost of rooftop solar PV, and the falling cost of battery storage. Soaring network fees and rising fixed charges is reducing the pay-back for solar-only installations, but is likely to encourage more battery storage.




Funny how large foreign and / or well connected local companies never seem to have to pay for their mistakes.  Over invest and just work out a way to make the community pay for it.


----------



## SirRumpole

sydboy007 said:


> http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/net...ry-fees-for-all-to-stop-grid-defections-28523
> 
> 
> 
> Funny how large foreign and / or well connected local companies never seem to have to pay for their mistakes.  Over invest and just work out a way to make the community pay for it.




And shows what a con privatisation of the grid system is. It's one of the few times you have to pay for not using a service.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> And shows what a con privatisation of the grid system is. It's one of the few times you have to pay for not using a service.




That could be shortened to "shows what a con privatisation is" since it's not just electricity where what used to be cheap now costs a relative fortune.


----------



## Smurf1976

It's now official public news that Hydro Tas will be permanently closing and decommissioning the Tamar Valley Power Station combined cycle unit.

This is a 208 MW combined cycle gas-fired plant, the only such unit owned by HT. Technically it's fine, but it's just not economic to turn gas into baseload electricity these days and likely won't be in the future hence the decision to sell the equipment for relocation somewhere else (likely offshore).

It was first conceived by Alinta aiming to compete against HT. Then Babcock and Brown owned it but never finished building it, ultimately selling to Aurora Energy who completed the plant but almost went broke running it. 

HT acquired it last year and promptly shut the operation down. The contracted loads and also the gas supply contracts are where the value is, the power station itself is a financial loser. Hence HT shut the plant down as soon as ownership was transferred, supplied the contracted loads from other sources of generation and set up a gas retail business (within Momentum Energy which is owned by HT) to sell the gas to homes and business in Victoria.

The 4 small open cycle gas turbines which can burn either natural gas or diesel (gas is the main fuel in practice) at the site will remain at least for now. 3 x 40MW and 1 x 58MW so nothing major. They're rarely used but are flexible enough in operation to make some $ running during the peaks so might as well keep them.

It's the the first CCGT plant to actually be decommissioned in Australia and with gas prices going up it won't be the last. 

Collinsville (Qld, coal, 190 MW) = closed in practice
Swanbank B (Qld, coal, 480 MW) = closed
Swanbank E (Qld, gas, 385 MW) = mothballed (not closed as such)
Wallerawang (NSW, coal, 1000 MW) = closed
Munmorah (NSW, coal, 600 MW) = closed
Redbank (NSW, coal, 150 MW) = closed
Morwell (Vic, coal, 190 MW) = mothballed
Anglesea (Vic, coal, 150 MW) = closing in a few weeks
Tamar Valley (Tas, gas, 208 MW) = closed
Northern (SA, coal, 540 MW) = closing in a couple of years
Playford B (SA, coal, 240 MW) = mothballed now and closing along with Northern
Torrens Island A (SA, gas, 480 MW) = announced closure 2017

All up there's 4613 MW on that list. That's more than enough to run all of SA and is bigger than any coal (or nuclear or gas) plant we're likely to see in Australia within the next few decades. It's a lot of power. 

Meanwhile NZ is soon to close the last two steam units at Huntly which will mark the end of large scale coal-fired generation in that country (they still have significant use of gas and a modest amount of oil however).


----------



## SirRumpole

Lets hope they can get this working, it sounds like a game changer


Artificial leaf could soon fuel the planet, Melbourne researchers say



> Melbourne researchers say it may only be a matter of years before the artificial leaf is fuelling every community, house and car on the planet.
> 
> The machine they have designed relies on a so-far largely untapped fuel source ”” hydrogen ”” and draws heavily on the plant process of photosynthesis, in which a plant converts sunlight into energy.
> 
> "We have to learn as much as we can from photosynthesis, which is what goes on in leafy plants, because that's where most of our energy comes from in terms of fossil fuels or current kinds of carbon materials that we use either as food or fuel," said Professor Doug MacFarlane from Monash University's School of Chemistry.
> 
> Photosynthesis is nature's most efficient way to make fuel.
> 
> "If we can learn what plants do with sunlight and use it to make carbon compounds, then we can potentially make artificially produced fuels for all of the reasons we need fuels currently," Professor MacFarlane said.
> 
> Over the years, other researchers have used a variety of metals as an artificial catalyst for the process, but many were rare and expensive.
> 
> By using nickel as the catalyst, Professor MacFarlane and his colleagues have been able separate hydrogen from water at a reasonable cost.
> 
> "Obviously the devices we're talking about are expensive to build and install," he said.
> 
> "So the efficiency in terms of producing fuel that it achieves has to be fairly high to make it worthwhile."
> 
> more at
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-17/27artificial-leaf27-an-untapped-fuel-source/6703364


----------



## DB008

The big "G" is now in on it....brilliant!


*Google: Introducing Project Sunroof*​


​


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> Lets hope they can get this working, it sounds like a game changer
> 
> 
> Artificial leaf could soon fuel the planet, Melbourne researchers say





Looks very promising. Clean cheap pure hydrogen.

And then if you want to turn this back into clean electricity just run it through the latest, most cost effective fuel cell on the market.

AFC energy has developed a fuel cell that will revolutionize  electricity generation.

http://www.afcenergy.com/default.aspx

So what's holding us back ?


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> So what's holding us back ?




Coal.


----------



## explod

SirRumpole said:


> Coal.




On which current POLITICIAN'S will hang. 

The money "ralf"  is fluff. Eating rats and digging up the concrete for some greens is where we are soon.


----------



## basilio

Another (very) promising opportunity to create cheap solar power.



> * South African team may have solved solar puzzle even Google couldn't crack*
> 
> Pioneering technology to deliver the cheapest, small-scale concentrated solar power plants in the world could revolutionise the renewable energy market
> 
> These heliostats, or mirrors to concentrate the sun, in a field near Stellenbosch in South Africa could become the most affordable, small, plug-and play solar solutions in the world. Photograph: Jeffrey Barbee/jeffbarbee.com
> 
> Jeffrey Barbee in Stellenbosch
> 
> Monday 24 August 2015 20.44 AEST
> 
> 
> It is a problem that has so far stumped even Google’s brainy engineers – how to generate cheap solar electricity using a small-scale array of mirrors to concentrate the sun’s energy.
> 
> Now a team at a South African university – led by a former Intel strategic planner – believes they have cracked it. Once they have completed a prototype system in October they have big plans for rolling out the technology.
> 
> The idea behind the design – so-called Concentrated Solar Power or CSP – is simple. A field of mirrors on the ground tracks the sun and concentrates its rays on to a central point which heats up. That heat is converted into electricity.
> 
> ...His team’s aim is to produce CSP technology that will be cheap and quick to install. “We are developing plonkable heliostats. Plonkable means that from factory to installation you can just drop them down on to the ground and they work.” So no costly cement, no highly-trained workforce, no wires, just two workers to lay out the steel frames on the ground and a streetlight-style central tower.




http://www.theguardian.com/environm...solved-solar-puzzle-even-google-couldnt-crack


----------



## DB008

> All-in-one solution for homes meet Samsung SDI’s newest All-in-one energy solution that can be directly connected to your PV system.
> With Samsung SDI’s "AWARD WINNING" All-in-one energy solution, you can save space to optimize power consumption and significantly reduce maintenance cost with amsung SDI’s monitoring system that can detect errors in advance and be controlled remotely.
> 
> The 3.6kWh All in One has two solar energy inputs (PV1, PV2). For each input, 3.3kW (per string) is the maximum output. The AC output of the All in One is connected to the Home Load and the Grid. Between the Home Load and the Grid, a Digital Energy Meter (Smart Meter) is placed for power metering. This is a true plug and play system.





http://www.enter-shop.com.au/catalogue/c3/c44/p1267​


----------



## Smurf1976

Tour time again! 

Tungatinah Power Station - Saturday 10th October. 10am - 2pm.

Paloona Power Station - Saturday 24th October. 10am - 2pm.

And after a lot of requests over many years, Poatina Power Station tour will be on Saturday 14th November, 10am - 2pm.

The above are real, working power stations and all located in Tas.

Not too many rules regarding public entry - basically just proper shoes, long sleeves and no drinks, food or bags inside. Cameras are OK. No bookings required, just turn up.

Note - Poatina is underground and yes that's where the tour goes - underground. The other two are above ground.

Details here: http://www.hydro.com.au/community/power-station-tours


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Tour time again!
> 
> Tungatinah Power Station - Saturday 10th October. 10am - 2pm.
> 
> Paloona Power Station - Saturday 24th October. 10am - 2pm.
> 
> And after a lot of requests over many years, Poatina Power Station tour will be on Saturday 14th November, 10am - 2pm.
> 
> The above are real, working power stations and all located in Tas.
> 
> Not too many rules regarding public entry - basically just proper shoes, long sleeves and no drinks, food or bags inside. Cameras are OK. No bookings required, just turn up.
> 
> Note - Poatina is underground and yes that's where the tour goes - underground. The other two are above ground.
> 
> Details here: http://www.hydro.com.au/community/power-station-tours




Sounds good, will avail myself of them, when visiting the apple state.


----------



## DB008

DB008 said:


> Could this have something to do with the massive supply charge increase (39% in 1 year) ?
> 
> 
> *Queensland Budget: $4.1 billion of State debt to be transferred to power distributors​*
> 
> http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-budget-41-billion-of-state-debt-to-be-transferred-to-power-distributors/story-fntuy59x-1227435905506​





Well, well, well...look what turned up...Glad I got my solar system in last quarter.


*Ergon and Energex dividends to Queensland Government triple, electricity lobby group says prices too high​*


> The Queensland Government's dividend from state-owned power companies has tripled in one year, prompting a call for profits to instead be passed onto consumers via lower power bills.
> 
> The Energex annual report, released last week, shows dividends paid to the State Government rose from $406 million in 2014 to $1.3 billion in the 2014-2015 financial year.
> 
> Alliance of Electricity Consumers lobby group spokesman Jonathan Pavetto told 612 ABC Brisbane Ergon dividends rose from $400 million to $1.9 billion over the same period.
> 
> He said profits for Ergon and Energex doubled in one financial year.
> 
> "It's quite clear that electricity prices are too high," he said.
> 
> "These are companies that make money off electricity prices and electricity consumers, and if you're making this sort of money by selling a single product it just shows the price must be too high.
> 
> "Energex and Ergon are responsible for moving the electricity from the power station through to your house or business or industrial centre. They're the poles and wires that run up and down your street.
> 
> "The cost of running their businesses hasn't materially changed in the past 10 years, yet the price of their services has increased by 300 per cent."




http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-06/state-government-power-dividends-triple-ergon-energex/6830614​


----------



## sptrawler

DB008 said:


> Well, well, well...look what turned up...Glad I got my solar system in last quarter.
> 
> 
> *Ergon and Energex dividends to Queensland Government triple, electricity lobby group says prices too high​*
> 
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-06/state-government-power-dividends-triple-ergon-energex/6830614​




Jeez Danny, I thought Labor was all about keeping taxes down, especially indirect taxes that hurt the poor.


----------



## SirRumpole

Home battery storage to 'revolutionise' solar industry in Australia: Climate Council report

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-21/home-battery-storage-to-revolutionise-solar-industry/6870444


----------



## Tom32

what a great thread this is.

Wish I had read this before posting in the climate change thread though, Wouldn't have made a goose of myself over there.

Anyway what I am trying to get my head around: when figures are quoted for power generated by coal v hydro do they take into account or reduce the coal generated power by the amount of coal used to pump water up in the hydro schemes?

About solar: Never had to do the calcs on solar for our house. We look over a golf course and our North facing roof also faces a par 4 tee about 130m from the tees 50m odd off the centre of the fairway.... Solar will never be economic under those conditions.  oddly enough before our new neighbours moved in two years ago they installed solar and the tragedy is the company that installed it didn't warm them they don't work on golf courses.

We have both solar pool heating and solar hot water heating. The solar pool heating is quite robust and the hot water system works without a glass panel over it as it happens....


----------



## Smurf1976

In response to this post in the "Resisting climate hysteria" thread:



> Apart from hydro.
> 
> After reading your posts it has only just dawned on me now that hydro schemes are just like a big battery.
> 
> Are there any of these schemes where wind power is used to run pumps that pump water back above the hydro turbines during high wind and allows water through to generate power the rest of the time? With a big enough wind scheme and pump and storage you would have power all the time even if you had only enough water inflow for losses. You could potentially run the pumps directly from wind rather than an electric pump. Say a direct wind over hydraulic pump.
> 
> Apologies if you have explained all this previously in this thread, as I am new here I haven't had time to read through the 333 pages yet but am considering going back and doing that now.




In Australia we have an assortment of hydro schemes, the main ones being as follows:

Hydro-electricity produced from dams primarily built for other purposes (irrigation or urban water supply) - the big one is the Snowy Hydro system (physically all in NSW but electrically partly in NSW and partly in Vic). Also various other schemes in Qld, NSW, Vic, Tas and WA.

Hydro-electricity produced where the main, or only, purpose of the scheme is electricity production. Most of the Tasmanian system is in this category with some much smaller operations in other states.

Beyond the reasons for original construction, there are also three basic categories in terms of how they operate:

1. Base load power generation. That is, the power station runs most or all of the time and the water enters naturally (from rainfall). Within Australia this approach is primarily confined to Tasmania where hydro has always been the main source of electricity generation and is a significant industry in itself.

2. Power stations which operate intermittently with the timing of operation driven by either the need to release water for other purposes and/or demand for electricity. This is the majority of hydro power production in Australia.

3. Pumped storage which re-uses the same water over and over. Run it through the power station when power is needed, pump it back up at some other time when there's surplus power from other sources.

An example of base load production is the Butlers Gorge - Tarraleah scheme in Tasmania. Apart from maintenance outages it runs 24/7/365 at a steady output. Water falls from the sky, is stored in Lake King William and released constantly via Butlers Gorge and Nieterana power stations (located at the dam), then travels 19km via man-made canals before entering steel pipelines and dropping 300m vertically (much longer actual pipeline distance) down to the Tarraleah power station. 

For pumped storage there are 3 schemes in Australia currently operating although many others are technically possible to build. The 3 are:

Tumut 3 (Snowy Hydro scheme). It's a 1500 MW power station which receives a natural (man-made diversion) flow and thus generates energy as such although the average output is low such that it only operates a few % of the time at full output (or can run for longer periods at lower output). To enable more frequent operation, 3 of the 6 turbines feature pumps which can be used to reverse the water flow so as to re-use the same water. 

Shoalhaven (NSW). A 240 MW scheme primarily associated with urban water supply (pumped to Sydney) but the water can be run back down through the power station instead (then pump it back up again either for supply to Sydney or to use it again through the power station).

Wivenhoe (Qld). A 500 MW scheme, later upgraded to around 600 MW, based on a large water supply dam which supplies much of Brisbane's water. The power station operates independently of water supply to Brisbane - it's the same water reservoir but a separate operation in a practical sense. Pump the water up, run it through the power station, pump it up again. It's a pumped storage power station added to a dam that was built for other purposes (water supply and flood control).

As for hydro schemes which operate intermittently, there's plenty of those. The key differences being when and why they operate. 

Eg those in the Snowy operate in order to achieve water diversion for other purposes (irrigation mostly) and generate their power primarily at times of high electricity demand. But a key point there is that the water needs to be moved and as such they can't not generate power for an extended period. Decide which day and at what time yes, but they have to generate sometime otherwise the water doesn't move and the Murray River dries up.

There are other hydro schemes which work the same way elsewhere, primarily in NSW and Vic, too. They produce energy as such, but the water needs to be released for irrigation etc so there's some limitation in flexibility as to when the power is produced. It can certainly be made to occur when electricity demand is highest (that's what is done in practice) but they can't decide to simply not operate at all for an extended period.

Then there are those for which the sole or primary purpose is power generation. Most of the Tasmanian system is in this category, we built 53 large dams and another 150 weirs for the only real purpose of generating power, any other use of the water being a secondary consideration (and the vast majority of it is not used for any other purpose, simply running out to sea after passing through the power stations).

Looking at the operation of Gordon power station (Tas).

Annual yield in electrical terms is 1472 GWh (gigawatt hours).

Storage capacity is 4699 GWh (that's just over 3 years' worth of inflows).

Power station has 3 x 144 MW machines (total 432 MW).

No re-use of the water downstream but formal environmental requirements require that some river flow is maintained constantly (equivalent to about 20 MW generation).

So an average output of 168 MW and a peak of 432 MW. Practical operation, given the very large storage capacity, is a balance to the rest of the system (Great Lake is used in the same way and has even larger storage).

If the wind is blowing strongly, electricity demand is low and/or there is high inflow to the smaller dams which have limited ability to store water (use it or lose it), then there is simply no need to run Gordon and so we don't. It shuts down almost completely (has to maintain a small level of water flow for environmental reasons downstream) and the lake fills up due to natural inflows.

At the other extreme, if there's no wind, if electricity demand is high and/or there's minimal inflow to the smaller dams then Gordon can be run at high output either during peak demand times (starting and stopping each day) or constantly 24/7 if needed.

So with a storage of that size, there is a complete disconnect between inflows and production. We can run the power station flat out 24/7 during a drought and we can shut it down during a flood. Neither will rapidly fill or drain the lake, only a very sustained period of high or low loading would do that.

Looking at actual operations, Gordon was running hard last night due to lack of wind generation and currently being a priority source of water due to low inflows to the smaller dams (water there being preserved to enable operation of those stations when needed to meet peak demand, or in the case of a breakdown elsewhere in the system). But in contrast, this afternoon Gordon was pretty much idle with the wind blowing strongly.

11pm last night - was generating 280 MW.

3am = 155 MW

8am this morning = 277 MW

3pm this afternoon = 22 MW and that was only to maintain river flows (for environmental reasons) downstream. Wind blowing strongly, not much demand for electricity = no need to run Gordon.

11pm tonight - back up to 190 MW. Power demand is low but there's not a lot of wind either.

Looking at a shorter time frame and another hydro power station, Trevallyn (97 MW capacity, located in suburban Launceston).

Today (21 October 2015)
5:10am = 0 MW (shut down)
5:15am = 5 MW
5:20am = 19 MW
5:25am = 21 MW
5:30am = 21 MW
5:35am = 69 MW
5:40am = 73 MW

Those numbers aren't huge, there are power stations (coal) in Australia producing up to 2800 MW, but they illustrate that hydro is certainly very flexible in being switched on and off.

So yes, we can and do bring hydro stations online quickly if the wind stops blowing, demand goes up or there is some other reason to do so. Output at Trevallyn has been back down, then back up, then down again during the course of today and that's not unusual operation.


----------



## Smurf1976

Tom32 said:


> Anyway what I am trying to get my head around: when figures are quoted for power generated by coal v hydro do they take into account or reduce the coal generated power by the amount of coal used to pump water up in the hydro schemes?




Coal is dominant in Australia, producing 76.5% of total electricity generated in 2014-15. 

Hydro dominates only in Tasmania where it accounts for most electricity produced. It's a modest contributor to total supply in Vic, NSW and Qld (primarily at peak demand times).  

Wind is significant, around a third of total supply, in SA and to a lesser extent in Vic and Tas. 

Gas is dominant in NT and very significant in WA and SA. It's less significant in Qld, NSW and Vic and a trivial source in Tas.

Coal dominates in Qld, NSW and Vic and is a major source (along with gas) in WA. It is a relatively small source (which is about to close down permanently) in SA. There are no coal-fired plants in NT or Tas.

Biomass is a minor source used primarily in Qld.

Oil isn't used on a daily basis (apart from boiler start up etc) in the main grid but there are oil-fired power stations located on the main grid in several states (most notably Qld and SA) which are used at times of very high demand (eg hot weather). Oil is also used as a backup fuel (in case of gas supply interruption) at a number of gas-fired plants (since oil is easy to store onsite whereas storing gas would be far more difficult).

Not included here is small scale generation such as solar. In absolute terms it is largest in Qld but as a % it's largest in SA where at times of bright sunshine and moderate temperatures (no heating or cooling loads) solar is a major source of power into the grid.

Complicating all this is that Qld, NSW / ACT, Vic, Tas and SA are all electrically interconnected such that power can be moved between states. So some SA wind power ends up being used in Vic, some Vic coal power ends up being used in SA, power flows in both directions between Tas and Vic on a regular basis (sometimes changing several times per day), power flows between NSW and Vic in both directions quite often too. The only real constant is that most of the time there's a flow from Qld into NSW (though on occasion it goes the other way).

The bottom line from a climate perspective is that the "green" states are Tas (mostly renewable - hydro and wind) and SA (about 40% renewable - wind and solar). Everywhere else, coal or gas are dominant (hydro and wind are significant in NSW and Vic, just nowhere near as large as coal).


----------



## qldfrog

Tom32 said:


> what a great thread this is.
> 
> About solar: Never had to do the calcs on solar for our house. We look over a golf course and our North facing roof also faces a par 4 tee about 130m from the tees 50m odd off the centre of the fairway.... Solar will never be economic under those conditions.  oddly enough before our new neighbours moved in two years ago they installed solar and the tragedy is the company that installed it didn't warm them they don't work on golf courses.




why would solar not work on golf course?
do you have trees/shades?


----------



## SirRumpole

qldfrog said:


> why would solar not work on golf course?
> do you have trees/shades?




Danger of cracking of solar panels from errant golf balls ?


----------



## Tom32

qldfrog said:


> why would solar not work on golf course?
> do you have trees/shades?




First up big thank you to smurf for the posts above in this thread.

Qldfrog, yes, Golf ball strikes are very potent against hard objects.

So solar panels will never work on every roof.

As I said in the post above the pool solar and hot water heater, minus its glass cover (that we lost to a ball strike) are both fine but solar panels would almost certainly break every time they were struck.

They wouldn't get struck often but in my case I would be lucky to get 2-3 years out of them.

We get around 1 ball a week so there would be parts of the roof that would be shielded enough, however our north and East facing roof is toward the golf course.

Don't get the idea I am complaining though. You gotta take the good with the bad when you cannot afford front row water views. Manicured fairways look ok to me too and the golf balls I expect keeps the price down a little. IMO Champagne views on a chardonay budget.

On the two forms of water heating both run quite efficiently due to a dark roof.

One benefit around the pool heating I have discovered and never read anywhere is that the pool heating appears to keep the house cooler due to taking a few degrees off our north north west facing roof which has what seems like a profound influence on allowing our evaporative air con to keep the house cool on all but the most humid days. Perth of course doesn't get humid days (in summer) very often.


----------



## Tisme

Tom32 said:


> One benefit around the pool heating I have discovered and never read anywhere is that the pool heating appears to keep the house cooler due to taking a few degrees off our north north west facing roof which has what seems like a profound influence on allowing our evaporative air con to keep the house cool on all but the most humid days. Perth of course doesn't get humid days (in summer) very often.




Adiabatic cooling


----------



## qldfrog

Tom32 said:


> First up big thank you to smurf for the posts above in this thread.
> 
> Qldfrog, yes, Golf ball strikes are very potent against hard objects.
> 
> So solar panels will never work on every roof.
> 
> As I said in the post above the pool solar and hot water heater, minus its glass cover (that we lost to a ball strike) are both fine but solar panels would almost certainly break every time they were struck.
> 
> They wouldn't get struck often but in my case I would be lucky to get 2-3 years out of them.
> 
> We get around 1 ball a week so there would be parts of the roof that would be shielded enough, however our north and East facing roof is toward the golf course.
> 
> Don't get the idea I am complaining though. You gotta take the good with the bad when you cannot afford front row water views. Manicured fairways look ok to me too and the golf balls I expect keeps the price down a little. IMO Champagne views on a chardonay budget.
> 
> On the two forms of water heating both run quite efficiently due to a dark roof.
> 
> One benefit around the pool heating I have discovered and never read anywhere is that the pool heating appears to keep the house cooler due to taking a few degrees off our north north west facing roof which has what seems like a profound influence on allowing our evaporative air con to keep the house cool on all but the most humid days. Perth of course doesn't get humid days (in summer) very often.



In your case, I would protect it with a wire mesh, you would still get a lot of output.Agree about solar pool heating, does indeed cool down the house, when you actually need it so double gain!!!


----------



## Tom32

Tisme said:


> Adiabatic cooling




Oh my goodness, tried to get my head around that but I seem to be getting too old to learn new things.

I imagined it was just the cold water in the lines sucking heat out of the roof tiles ie the water warms from the heat in the tiles then the heat energy is transferred into the pool leaving less heat energy on the roof. 

On a hot day with our cool nights if I am naughty and leave the cover off our pool it will be 23deg in the morning and 30deg in the afternoon. 

In 40k litres of water 7deg is a fair whack of energy. Understand much is not straight from the house.

That said if you pumped it around the walls of your house before it went up on your roof it wouldn't cost that much more to pump and give you a more direct benifit as it would be inside your insulated house. Is this an option pool heating companies offer? I don't think it is because as I said I tried googling whether I was imagining the difference the pool heater was making the house and found nothing.


----------



## Tom32

qldfrog said:


> In your case, I would protect it with a wire mesh, you would still get a lot of output.Agree about solar pool heating, does indeed cool down the house, when you actually need it so double gain!!!




Did think about this, though a secondary consideration is we live the normal life of using power in the morning and night.

Solar hot water is spot on because the hot water is made through the day and we use it at night.

When they make batteries cost effective I might look again. That said we are tragic power users and I would need a massive array I imagine to get anywhere near enough power for my family so def never work off the grid. I used to think my old man was a tight a**** for complaining about lights left on etc but I am starting to feel his pain with the way power costs have risen in the last 3-4 years in wa.


----------



## SirRumpole

How governments and electricity companies are ripping off the consumer


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-10/hill-the-great-energy-con-that-is-costing-us-billions/6924272


----------



## Wysiwyg

This is only the beginning of home energy storage and like all new devices the better is yet to come. Tesla Powerwall's battery life, efficiency, storage capacity and cost are questions the Tesla marketing machine will tell you is what you need right now. 




> we have some of the world's highest electricity prices.




Not me. Australia has a high household energy waste habit.


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> How governments and electricity companies are ripping off the consumer
> 
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-10/hill-the-great-energy-con-that-is-costing-us-billions/6924272




That is  a great read. Spells out so clearly how we are being ripped off by big business and government over power costs.

Makes the arguments re a Carbon Tax laughable.  

In a sense it sharpens the discussion about  going to renewable energy ASAP. The final cost to citizens and corporations is only partially dependent on the direct generating costs of electricity. The big bickies/costs are in the various rent gougers in the middle and the poles and wires scam is a big part of the deal.

Anyone for some serious reform of the industry ?


----------



## Smurf1976

1947, that's 68 years ago, there was serious concern in Tasmania that electricity prices needed to be kept as low as possible. That concern came not from consumers or even government, but from the monopoly electricity supplier itself, fearful that industry would locate elsewhere and consumers would use gas if prices weren't kept to the minimum.

That approach was the same in most states and lasted until the "microeconomic reform" political types came along and decided that Australia having the third cheapest electricity in the OECD was "inefficient" and needed to be "reformed". And hey presto! The financial types worked their "reform" magic, and now we've got among the highest electricity prices anywhere on earth.

The problem is not on the generation side, costs there are basically unchanged in nominal terms since the early 1980's and have outright crashed in real terms after adjusting for inflation. There might be some gold plating somewhere but it sure isn't in the power stations.

Anyway, that's the way it is so you may as well parody their marketing efforts and make some money selling electricity. A blatant promotion, but I'll post it anyway.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_jkwyRDpUo


----------



## SirRumpole

G20 countries paying $633 billion in subsidies to oil, gas and coal companies: report

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-12/g20-countries-paying-billions-to-fossil-fuel-producers/6936474


----------



## Smurf1976

"This month, KIREIP supplied all of the island’s energy needs through renewables for a continuous period of nearly 33 hours, an unprecedented milestone"

So that's a whole day running on 100% wind and solar (and it's around 65% over 12 months).

http://www.hydro.com.au/about-us/news/2015-11/round-clock-milestone-renewable-energy


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> Tour time again!
> 
> And after a lot of requests over many years, Poatina Power Station tour will be on Saturday 14th November, 10am - 2pm.




Well I think that counts as a success! Ended up with a 2 hour long queue outside as rather a lot of people turned up...

Good to see parents bringing the kids along to see how things work too.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Well I think that counts as a success! Ended up with a 2 hour long queue outside as rather a lot of people turned up...
> 
> Good to see parents bringing the kids along to see how things work too.




More than turned up to see Charles and Camilla by the sound of it...


----------



## Smurf1976

An end to coal-fired electricity in the UK within a decade according to various news reports.

Considering just how intertwined coal and British industry have been for centuries, it's a somewhat telling development. Less coal perhaps, but none at all? In Britain?

That's like saying that McDonald's have decided to stop selling burgers or that Woolworths are getting out of the retail business. Not just start doing something else, but scrap the historic core _completely_.

It was always going to happen someday but I didn't think we'd get there so soon.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> An end to coal-fired electricity in the UK within a decade according to various news reports.
> 
> Considering just how intertwined coal and British industry have been for centuries, it's a somewhat telling development. Less coal perhaps, but none at all? In Britain?
> 
> That's like saying that McDonald's have decided to stop selling burgers or that Woolworths are getting out of the retail business. Not just start doing something else, but scrap the historic core _completely_.
> 
> It was always going to happen someday but I didn't think we'd get there so soon.




Yes I thought the same. 
Draxs Power Station has been trying to develop carbon capture, bio fuel burning and they have given up.
It will be interesting to see who is going to supply all the base load fuel, gas or nuclear.


----------



## So_Cynical

Smurf1976 said:


> That's like saying that McDonald's have decided to stop selling burgers or that Woolworths are getting out of the retail business.




Playboy is dropping nudes...no more bunnies.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/13/opinions/robbins-playboy-no-more-nudity/

Anything is possible, most things inevitable.


----------



## sptrawler

So_Cynical said:


> Playboy is dropping nudes...no more bunnies.
> 
> http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/13/opinions/robbins-playboy-no-more-nudity/
> 
> Anything is possible, most things inevitable.




Never a truer word said.


----------



## DB008

First gen tech is always expensive I guess. The price will come down, much like the cost of sloar panels....


*Australia, you can now pre-order the Tesla Powerwall​*


> With skin-searing sun and 1.5 million homes already hooked up to solar power, Australia is a perfect candidate for Tesla Energy's Powerwall. And now pre-orders for the device have finally opened.
> 
> Starting from today, anyone looking to trim their power bill can buy the sleek wall-mounted battery from Natural Solar or Origin Energy, but will have to wait until next year for delivery and installation.
> 
> Natural Solar has opened pre-orders for the 5kWp Powerwall to customers in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide, but says the rest of Australia will follow in a nationwide rollout.
> 
> Origin is offering the Powerwall as both a stand alone unit ready to be integrated into existing solar systems, or as part of a package. These packages include Trina solar panels and a Solar Edge inverter, both of which have been approved by Tesla Energy to pair with the Powerwall.
> 
> According to Fairfax Media, Origin's packages will start from $16,500.
> 
> Natural Solar just pips Origin at the post in terms of installation, promising to get Powerwalls rolling out by January, while Origin customers will have to wait until February for installations to commence.



http://www.techradar.com/au/news/world-of-tech/australia-you-can-now-pre-order-the-tesla-powerwall-1310891?utm_source=Reposit+Power+Newsletter&utm_campaign=11e21d31b1-Welcome_Email_CD11_23_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cbad043c27-11e21d31b1-274148677​




*Origin Energy snares deal with Tesla to sell Powerwall battery​*


> Origin Energy has sought to steal a march on its rivals in the home battery revolution by sealing a deal with Tesla that will make it the first local supplier of the much-hyped Powerwall system.
> 
> The sleek, wall-mounted Powerwall battery, launched in a glitzy ceremony by charismatic Tesla chief executive Elon Musk in May, is to be offered with solar panels and an inverter in a package with prices starting at $16,500.
> 
> Origin, like arch-rivals AGL Energy and EnergyAustralia, is tapping into keen popular interest in electricity storage systems and self-generation that is helping subdue demand for power from the grid and keeping wholesale prices low. Morgan Stanley has estimated the Australian home battery market could reach $24 billion in size, based on about 2.4 million households spending up to $10,000 each on a battery that could be retrofitted to an existing solar system.



http://www.smh.com.au/business/energy/origin-energy-snares-deal-with-tesla-to-sell-powerwall-battery-20151209-glj4lx.html​


----------



## SirRumpole

Good news ! Turnbull puts the wind up Abbott !


Federal Government lifts Tony Abbott's wind farm investment ban


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-13/abbots-wind-farm-investment-ban-lifted/7024164


----------



## Smurf1976

It's only about 7 years ago that Australia stopped importing incandescent light bulbs and 6 years ago that they became illegal to sell for the common GLS types.

Now I see that CFL's (compact fluorescent lamps) are rapidly disappearing from the shelves of mainstream retailers. Coles, Woolworths, Bunnings etc still sell them but the range of available products is diminishing, the more specialised and fancy ones are already gone, and there's pretty much always one or more product lines on clearance sale. What remains is the most basic commodity bulbs, the rest are gone now and give it another year or two and I doubt there will be much market for these at all.

Much the same with halogen GLS (240V which look like incandescent bulbs) lamps too - they're still available but the product range is slowly being reduced by the major retailers.

LED's are taking over and the rate of progress there is truly impressive. Not so long ago the range was limited to products of questionable quality and with limited brightness bought online. Now Bunnings are selling LED's equivalent to the old 150W incandescents and Coles have gone as far as having a home brand variery of them.

The overall effect of this is that residential lighting is virtually disappearing as an electrical load in the foreseeable future. A 90% reduction compared to what it used to be makes it pretty much irrelevant really. 

To a lesser extent the same is happening with commercial lighting although that was already more efficient. But still, what used to be a 2 x 36W (make that 80 - 90 Watts once ballast losses are included) has turned into 2 x 28W T5 fluoros and is now becoming a single 30W LED light module or alternatively 2 x 15 - 18W LED tubes. So even starting from a more efficient base, it's still a 60%+ energy saving although will take some years to achieve (since it's a bit more complicated than just replacing a bulb hence there's still 36W fluoros being sold, albeit in decreasing numbers).

So lighting, and that is the most symbolic of all uses of electricity, is coming to the point where it's almost disappearing as a significant load. Amazing progress there and so quickly too.


----------



## basilio

As Smurf puts it the reduction in lighting load is very significant as a way to reduce our electricity use. One of the questions will be how quickly this changeover can be encouraged. If we are serious about tackling the easy parts of energy savings then a five year program to see all lights changed would be excellent.

There is a further energy saving as well in reducing the heat load of commercial buildings which then has to be dissipated by AC.  I can see a very attractive set of figures on the economic returns that will accrue to companies that make these changes. Probably an ROI of 20% plus.


----------



## pixel

SirRumpole said:


> Good news ! Turnbull puts the wind up Abbott !
> 
> 
> Federal Government lifts Tony Abbott's wind farm investment ban
> 
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-13/abbots-wind-farm-investment-ban-lifted/7024164




Hooray at last!

Now: Can he possibly tell King Col to scrap Synergy's intended penalising of Solar households?
Why should the early adapters of new clean technology be singled out to pay the price for planning failures that led to overproduction and ridiculous wholesale peak charges? *Ri-bluddy-diculous! *


----------



## drsmith

While there's an electricity grid going past each property on the street, there will be a need to be a contribution from each property for the maintenance of that grid. That's regardless of whether individual households have their own generation and/or storage capacity. It's no different in principal to mains water or mains sewerage.

What I object to with some of the contributions on households with solar panels is commentary about not contributing to the cost of the grid. Feed in grid connected private generators have contributed to the cost of grid generation capacity through their own investment in it. The broad question is the return these private generators should be entitled to for their investment balanced against the cost of maintaining the grid.


----------



## Smurf1976

drsmith said:


> Feed in grid connected private generators have contributed to the cost of grid generation capacity through their own investment in it. The broad question is the return these private generators should be entitled to for their investment balanced against the cost of maintaining the grid.




There's 4 basic cost components of electricity supply.

1 - Cost of having the grid run to each location that requires it.
2 - Cost of capacity on that same grid.
3 - Cost of peak generating capacity. 
4 - Cost of actually generating energy.

An intermittent embedded (eg household, small business with solar) generator is providing item 4 most certainly. They are generating energy, that is a given.

Depending on location they may or may not also be providing items 2 and 3. That really depends on when the generating plant operates (eg solar during daytime with peak production around noon) and when demand for electricity peaks in that location (suburb or town in the case of the distribution network, state or country in the case of generation and transmission).

In SA the peak is very clearly in Summer and driven by hot weather. Solar PV thus contributes to items 2, 3 and 4 in SA up to the point where Solar PV becomes so large as to mean that the effective peak load on the system shifts to another time. That's starting to happen now, peak demand is becoming later in the afternoon, and if enough solar capacity is installed it will end up with the peak being on hot Summer evenings and cold Winter nights. At that point, further investment in small scale solar does absolutely nothing to offset cost items 2 and 3.

In Tas the peak is around 8am in Winter and driven largely by space heating. Solar makes only a minor contribution to offsetting that, solar isn't producing much under those conditions, but if enough of it was installed then it could foreseeably reduce the 8am peak enough that the secondary peak which is slightly lower, that is around 6pm in Winter, ends up being the peak as such. In Tasmania, solar PV is really only contributing to item 4, it generates energy, and in a very minor way to items 2 and 3.

Nowhere does intermittent generation contribute to item 1, the cost of having the grid there in the first place, unless it operates such that the grid is no longer required at all in some areas. That requires either firm dispatchable generation (gas, diesel, hydro, whatever) as the source of network embedded generation or alternatively requires the use of storage (eg batteries).

Unless we're going to have 100% of homes with stand alone off-grid systems then we're still going to need the grid and as such cost item 1 will still be there, along with some cost for the others.

How to pay for it is the question. In Tas the idea of separating out the cost components and charging accordingly was tried 20 years ago and let's just say that the public reaction was hostile to say the least. It ended up with pricing decisions being transferred to an independent regulator and became a major issue at the state election.

We're now approaching the point where we're going to have to go down that track again although for practical reasons, that is the extent of solar PV uptake by households, SA will be the first and Tas will likely not go there until the other states have done it (makes the politics a bit easier to manage).

As for the value of generation, well I'm very sure that large scale generation is nowhere near the cash cow that the general public seems to think it is. People get rather upset when they hear that some big factory is paying 4 cents / kWh but what they don't realise is that households are actually paying the same price. All the rest, that is the other 80% of the bill, is for the network costs. You might use 2000 kWh and pay $500 for that, but well under $100 ends up going anywhere near an actual power station. All the rest is networks and retail.

Unless they are reducing peak demand, as is the case up to a practical limit in places such as SA, then the value of intermittent generation that works well on some days and not much on others is inherently lower than the value of firm output from steam, hydro or gas turbine based power stations.

Many seem to dislike being paid 5 - 6 cents per kilowatt hour for their solar feed in. Suffice to say that large scale generators are getting considerably less. Whilst the spot price in Vic is forecast to reach as high as 9 cents / kWh tomorrow, and that's unusually high, it's also forecast to fall below 2 cents a few hours from now. Average for this financial year to date varies between states but it's in the range of 3.74 (Vic) to 5.607 (SA).


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> If we are serious about tackling the easy parts of energy savings then a five year program to see all lights changed would be excellent.




In my view it depends on the situation.

Large businesses will, if they have any sense, have someone whose job it is to know about these things and do the numbers. They're already aggressively adopting LED's to considerable extent, and that's despite starting from a base (fluorescent) that was already reasonably efficient. Reducing maintenance costs is a key driver there, energy is only part of the equation, so it really does stack up.

Households will respond largely to what is sold for replacements. A light bulb blows, consumer buys a replacement and installs it. If what is being sold new is efficient then in a relatively short space of time all the high usage inefficient lighting is replaced given that the lifespan of a household incandescent is only 1000 hours an for halogen typically 2000 hours.

For household lighting that is rarely used, I'd argue that it's not worth worrying about. Someone has a spare bedroom and turns the light on for all of 2 hours a year. The incandescent bulb will likely never fail, but it just doesn't matter because it's using so little energy anyway. Given that CFL's and LED's are electronic devices with a practical shelf life, versus the indefinite shelf life of an incandescent or halogen lamp, there's nothing to be gained either economically or environmentally by replacing rarely used lights in homes.

Small business is where there might be a need to encourage upgrades. They don't have the resources to be focused on things like lighting, energy is usually only a minor part of their overall business costs anyway, and they lack the technical expertise and in many cases finances to evaluate and undertake improvements. That many operate from rented premises where landlords have no incentive to upgrade lighting (since they're not paying the operating cost) adds to that problem.

So I can see a benefit in encouraging upgrades in some situations, notably small business, but for large businesses the market will take care of this one and already is. For households the real issue is what gets sold by the major retailers - if they stop selling inefficient products, either due to market demand or regulation, then pretty quickly households will no longer have inefficient lighting in any higher usage applications (the ones that matter).

One potential issue is that whenever someone comes up with a new, less efficient means of lighting consumers seem to embrace it. It was halogen downlights 20 years ago, replacing a say 3 x 60W bulbs with half a dozen 50W halogens thus doubling energy consumption (those halogens also have transformer losses) and lighting the living room as bright as an office. 

Now it's these carbon filament globes, a device that's half as efficient as an old incandescent bulb and which I never thought I'd see anywhere other than a science museum. They've become so popular that all sorts of commercial premises seem to have installed new lights for no purpose other than displaying these bulbs above counters and the like. I suppose it's art in a sense so I'm not complaining, just noting that if someone comes up with an inefficient way of lighting then it does seem to catch on. Maybe whale oil lamps will make a comeback....

As for me, I'm firmly in the "upgrade when it breaks" category. A CFL in the hallway certainly, that light is on quite a lot, and in due course I'll replace it with LED. On the other hand, there's just no point worrying about the lights on the patio which are on for perhaps 10 hours a year at most. There's no gain, economic or environmental, to be had there and the old bulbs will probably outlive me anyway. If a bulb hasn't blown yet, and I've lived at this address for 8 years now, then that's a pretty sure indication that the light isn't being used enough to be worried about.


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## qldfrog

Smurf, you common sense and lucidy is a breath of fresh air.100% agreeing on that last post; I have all types of lights , based on usage


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## pixel

Does anybody know the ratio of lighting requirement for -

private dwellings
commercial/ office space
community/ street lighting?
When I drive at night towards the City, it strikes me how brightly the office towers are shining, although they will be practically empty; add the glaring signs outdoing each other in advertising their respective companies, and the result must be a considerable number of Megawatts.
And then there are the street lights and traffic lights.
Do our councils and traffic authorities apply the same efficiency considerations as home owners and residents? Can someone please shed some light on the issue? I only found an article that LEDs could slash street lighting consumption by 97%: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/leds-could-slash-street-light-energy-usage-by-97-16446
However, I am unsure whether such a move would be high on (some) Governments' agenda, given their entanglement with power producers and their desire to maximise profits...


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## basilio

Your quite right Smurf.  There is little point in changing infrequently used lights for energy saving globes.  In fact one of the "cheats" used by organisations that offer free energy saving lights is changing every light in peoples homes to maximise rebates rather than focusing on, say, 6-10 lights that are most used. There is no way replacing a light that is used for 50 hours a year will make any meaningful contribution to CO2 reduction

I was thinking about the mass commercial use of lighting when I talked about 5 year plans to change all lights. Having said that one thing that *must* be ensured is the life of the replacement units.  I'm fed up with the industry gaming the public with new lighting technology that uses components  that break down far more quickly than they need to - just to ensure repeat sales.


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## Smurf1976

pixel said:


> Does anybody know the ratio of lighting requirement for -
> 
> private dwellings
> commercial/ office space
> community/ street lighting?




Private dwellings it used to be around 7% of electricity used back in the days when it was just about all incandescent. It would be lower now. Key drivers are energy cost and perceived quality and aesthetics of the light produced, since in general labour for replacement is free and consumers tend to place a moderate value (at most) on the energy efficiency aspect.

Commercial it varies depending on the nature of the business, but for offices lighting and air-conditioning are the main loads whereas in a factory the machinery is usually the main energy user. Lighting is also the highest or second highest electrical load in places such as shops. Key drivers are energy cost and maintenance cost, noting that maintenance will almost always involve he use of paid labour. 

Street lighting uses less than you might think. I don't have figures for other states but in Tas it's in the order of 0.2% of all electricity is used for street lighting. In a large city it would be more significant whereas it's negligible in a rural area with just the odd light here and there. Maintenance cost tends to outweigh energy cost considerations, hence why the old 2 x 20W fluoresecent tubes were replaced with less efficient 80W mercury vapour. Energy consumption doubled but a single MV lamp is an awful lot more reliable than two fluoro tubes such that the overall cost ends up lower. There's a recent trend to LED street lighting largely driven by political considerations (saving the planet) and aesthetics (since it's white not orange like sodium lights are - although sodium is in most cases no less efficient than LED).


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## pixel

Thanks Smurf;

I thought you might have the answer. And you didn't disappoint. 

Now, if I get that right, and private dwellings use less than 10% of grid power - what's all the kerfuffel about power companies suffering losses because some of us save with Solar? 
Or were the 7% you mentioned only for lighting? In which case the switch to fluoro and now LED would save a maximum of 7%, in other words: peanuts overall!

From my own experience, I can say that installing Solar Hot Water has made the biggest difference to our average power consumption; replacing the old 3-phase instant heater cut our average by almost a third. A little later, we replaced the incandescent globes, but the effect of that step was next to nothing - except, of course, as a maths exercise. Of course, a couple living on their own can easily adopt the habit of switching lights off where they're not needed. I also use the switches at wall sockets after turning off computers and stereo. But I suspect those habits, while they make fundamental sense, will only save pennies compared to big-ticket items such as aircon, fridge/freezer, and washing machines


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## Smurf1976

Consumption of households versus everything else varies between states and also seasonally.

In Tas households only use about 20% of the total energy generated. I don't have figures for the other states but in general it would be a bit higher as a % of the total but still well below 50% even in states with relatively little industry. Households are not the main driver of electricity load in most places on earth.

In practice, residential lighting would only be 1.4 to about 3% of total power generated depending on location. So there's a saving but it's not a massive one.

Commercial lighting, on the other hand, tends to run for far longer periods and often ends up somewhere approaching half the total load of a business premises in the case of things like offices or shops. That's where any major savings will be made.


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## basilio

Pixel don't kid yourself about the impact of incandescent lights on an energy bill. They can in fact be quite high particularly if a light is left on for long periods. Simple example

60w globe x 24 hrs =1340 kilowatts or 1.3 khwr.  By way of comparison an average household would use around 10-12 kwhrs a day. A fridge uses around 1.5-2.5kwhr a day and that is normally the single largest user of energy ina household.  (That's why the old beer fridge still running in the garage is costing you $150 plus a year)

You get similar figures when you add up the various amounts of power used on stand by ie TVs, microwaves. This is particularly the case for older electrical items where standby power use could be 8-15 watts per item - all running 24/7.


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## basilio

> Commercial lighting, on the other hand, tends to run for far longer periods and often ends up somewhere approaching half the total load of a business premises in the case of things like offices or shops. That's where any major savings will be made. Smurf




Not to mention the attendant A/C load caused by the heat. And that is the market for rapidly moving to long life low energy use leds. (As long as they don't die early...)


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## qldfrog

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-17/what-just-happened-to-solar-and-wind-is-a-really-big-deal
US budget not so discussed but major decision on renewable


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## sptrawler

The problem with batteries, is they rely on a chemical reaction, which takes time and is size, density specific.

They are not the answer in their current configuration, they can't supply enough power/size and they take too long to charge.

A capacitor hybrid will be the end result, if it is achievable, otherwise it will be a fuel cell. IMO


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## Smurf1976

No so much the future of energy generation but the present.

In short, what is now thought to be a major fault occurred on the Basslink cable which links Vic and Tas on Sunday afternoon (20 Dec).

Investigations thus far are to the effect that the fault is not with land based equipment at either the Vic or Tas end as was initially assumed (and hoped since that would be straightforward to fix) but is a fault with the cable itself. Best estimate for the location is about 100km north of Tasmania so that's sitting on the bottom of Bass Strait.

Practical effect is that Tas and the mainland are now completely isolated electrically and running as separate grids whereas normally they are linked with power flowing in either direction as necessary.

The lights won't be going out in Tas anytime soon, there's still a few tricks left in the bag before that happens, but it does make things rather "interesting" that's for sure now that there's no option other than to supply 100% of demand from local generation.

Potential effect on supply security in Vic is harder to assess since it really depends on maximum temperatures and when they occur plus how well generation holds up in Vic and SA. Small chance that there could be a problem but will have to wait and see on that one. If the lights do go out, then it'll be on a working weekday that's 40+ degrees in Adelaide and Melbourne so not good.

Basslink is a privately owned asset and is not owned or operated by Hydro Tas or any other energy company that sells to the public. Cause of the fault is unknown at this stage apart from some estimates (based on tests conducted on shore) of the location.


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## qldfrog

thanks Smuf, should wind be a viable option in Tasmania, in event like this or in drought, I have the feeling hydro may need some booster.
As far as my qld view is, I do not believe there are much wind turbines built in Tassie?Am i wrong?


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## basilio

The breakdown in Basslink  is scary as we go into a long hot summer.  I was thinking as we sweltered through the record breaking heatwave last week that this wasn't the time for a power blackout.

Yet times of extreme heat are prime times for blackouts as the system is strained by maximum use, the infrastructure comes under additional pressure from extra heat loads and power companies decide to take various plants off line for maintenance. (This last situation has nothing to do with possibility that resulting pressures on demand will force up spot prices for power..)

All it needs then is a relatively small breakdown to trigger widespread power cuts which will be at times of absolute peak heat and power usage. I wonder how long many older people would survive without A/C or fans in a heatwave ?


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> thanks Smuf, should wind be a viable option in Tasmania, in event like this or in drought, I have the feeling hydro may need some booster.
> As far as my qld view is, I do not believe there are much wind turbines built in Tassie?Am i wrong?




We've got two significant wind farms in Tas, that being Woolnorth (140 MW) and Musselroe (168 MW). They are geographically dispersed with Woolnorth being at the far NW tip of Tas and Musselroe being at the far NE tip of the state. There are plenty of other sites that could be developed if the economics were right.

In the short term existing wind + hydro will carry the load and everything's OK in that regard. Things aren't great, the dams are a lot lower than would be ideal, but overall there's enough power available based on present circumstances. 

Other options if needed are gas-fired generation at Bell Bay (3 of the 5 units there were given a run for a few hours today and are ready to go into base load production if required with a 4th unit being ready mid-January) and at a number of sites it's possible to draw water storages down below normal minimum levels if there's no alternative. So no blackouts, just some excitement in the media, some noise up at Bell Bay and maybe some unhappy fishermen. And then there's the cost...

What happens next really depends on rainfall and how long Basslink is out of service. They are quoting 60 days at this stage however that's simply because that's what's in Basslink's contract with Hydro Tas. Maximum outage duration is 60 days. So that's an "administrative" figure and not an "engineering" one at this stage. How long it will actually take to fix is an unknown so far but there's a lot of organising to do given that nobody in Australia has the required equipment to repair the cable (and the exact problem is itself unknown).

There are fewer options in Vic, it really comes down to what the actual peak demand is and whether or not that load can be supplied at the time. Very hard to predict that but certainly the Basslink failure does increase the chances of supply problems during a heatwave.


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## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> No so much the future of energy generation but the present.
> 
> In short, what is now thought to be a major fault occurred on the Basslink cable which links Vic and Tas on Sunday afternoon (20 Dec).
> 
> Investigations thus far are to the effect that the fault is not with land based equipment at either the Vic or Tas end as was initially assumed (and hoped since that would be straightforward to fix) but is a fault with the cable itself. Best estimate for the location is about 100km north of Tasmania so that's sitting on the bottom of Bass Strait.
> 
> Practical effect is that Tas and the mainland are now completely isolated electrically and running as separate grids whereas normally they are linked with power flowing in either direction as necessary.
> 
> The lights won't be going out in Tas anytime soon, there's still a few tricks left in the bag before that happens, but it does make things rather "interesting" that's for sure now that there's no option other than to supply 100% of demand from local generation.
> 
> Potential effect on supply security in Vic is harder to assess since it really depends on maximum temperatures and when they occur plus how well generation holds up in Vic and SA. Small chance that there could be a problem but will have to wait and see on that one. If the lights do go out, then it'll be on a working weekday that's 40+ degrees in Adelaide and Melbourne so not good.
> 
> Basslink is a privately owned asset and is not owned or operated by Hydro Tas or any other energy company that sells to the public. Cause of the fault is unknown at this stage apart from some estimates (based on tests conducted on shore) of the location.




It will be interesting to find out the root cause of the failure, be it mechanical, chemical or electrical. It isn't new technology, so there will be a lot of interest in the outcome.


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## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> thanks Smuf, should wind be a viable option in Tasmania, in event like this or in drought, I have the feeling hydro may need some booster.




Wind right now = zero (because the wind stopped blowing).

You can generate power from wind certainly, but it doesn't really help in a crisis. You can't just decide that you're going to run the wind harder because something else stopped working and if you're unlucky then the wind stops too right at the worst possible time.

Solar - well that's not working either because it's dark.

I'm very much in favour of renewables and wind is certainly going to be a big part of that in most places. But situations like the present do highlight the need for firm, dispatchable power in the grid be it from fossil fuels, batteries, hydro or whatever.


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## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> Wind right now = zero (because the wind stopped blowing).
> 
> You can generate power from wind certainly, but it doesn't really help in a crisis. You can't just decide that you're going to run the wind harder because something else stopped working and if you're unlucky then the wind stops too right at the worst possible time.
> 
> Solar - well that's not working either because it's dark.
> 
> I'm very much in favour of renewables and wind is certainly going to be a big part of that in most places. But situations like the present do highlight the need for firm, dispatchable power in the grid be it from fossil fuels, batteries, hydro or whatever.




I would have thought that with the amount of hydro installed, Tasmania would have some storage capacity (pumping back in the dam) for wind production more than elsewhere in Australia. Anyway no big deal for Tassie based on your analysis, more worrying for Victoria /SA in case of a heatwave


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## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> I would have thought that with the amount of hydro installed, Tasmania would have some storage capacity (pumping back in the dam) for wind production more than elsewhere in Australia.




At present, even at the extreme (maximum wind generation combined with absolute minimum system load), wind still only supplies no more than one third of the system load. That being so, we have no need to ever put energy into the hydro system in order to store it, it's simply a case of adjusting how much comes out and that never goes to zero.

Pumped storage could certainly be done at some sites (though it's more involved than simply adding pumps as such) but the system as it stands today was built for base load energy production rather than peak power and as such has no pumped storage facilities at present. There's only 3 of those in Australia presently - 1 in Qld and 2 in NSW.  

We do have a number of diversion pumps in Tas however. In general terms, that's about pumping water x metres (vertically) over a hill to get it into a storage that then feeds a power station. Since the water subsequently falls many times further (vertically) than it was first pumped, that operation is energy positive as such with the amount of energy recovered being many times that used in pumping. Depending on circumstances those pumps may be run at off-peak times (daily or seasonally) but that's just a case of optimising "because we can" rather than something that's essential as such under normal circumstances.


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## qldfrog

Thanks Smurf, you have a great Christmas!


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## basilio

Thought Arnie hit a high note with his view on Renewable Energy/CC



> *I don’t give a **** if we agree about climate change.*
> 
> Arnold Schwarzenegger·Monday, 7 December 2015
> I see your questions.
> 
> Each and every time I post on my Facebook page or tweet about my crusade for a clean energy future, I see them.
> 
> There are always a few of you, asking why we should care about the temperature rising, or questioning the science of climate change.
> 
> I want you to know that I hear you. Even those of you who say renewable energy is a conspiracy. Even those who say climate change is a hoax. Even those of you who use four letter words.
> 
> I've heard all of your questions, and now I have three questions for you.
> 
> Let's put climate change aside for a minute. In fact, let's assume you're right.
> *
> First - do you believe it is acceptable that 7 million people die every year from pollution?* That's more than murders, suicides, and car accidents - combined.
> 
> Every day, 19,000 people die from pollution from fossil fuels. Do you accept those deaths? Do you accept that children all over the world have to grow up breathing with inhalers?
> *
> Now, my second question: do you believe coal and oil will be the fuels of the future*?
> 
> Besides the fact that fossil fuels destroy our lungs, everyone agrees that eventually they will run out. What's your plan then?
> 
> I, personally, want a plan. I don't want to be like the last horse and buggy salesman who was holding out as cars took over the roads. I don't want to be the last investor in Blockbuster as Netflix emerged. That's exactly what is going to happen to fossil fuels.
> 
> .....I have a final question, and it will take some imagination.
> There are two doors. Behind Door Number One is a completely sealed room, with a regular, gasoline-fueled car. Behind Door Number Two is an identical, completely sealed room, with an electric car. Both engines are running full blast.
> 
> I want you to pick a door to open, and enter the room and shut the door behind you. You have to stay in the room you choose for one hour. You cannot turn off the engine. You do not get a gas mask.
> 
> I'm guessing you chose the Door Number Two, with the electric car, right? Door number one is a fatal choice - who would ever want to breathe those fumes?




https://www.facebook.com/notes/arno...-agree-about-climate-change/10153855713574658


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## Smurf1976

Oil also kills people in other ways too.

At least nobody starts wars over wind, solar, hydro or for that matter coal. It's oil and gas that cause that sort of trouble.


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## SirRumpole

Rooftop solar producing more energy than WA's biggest turbine

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-04/rooftop-solar-panels-bigger-than-biggest-turbine-wa/7066240


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## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> The breakdown in Basslink  is scary as we go into a long hot summer.




Basslink's owners are about to give some updates on progress. Not sure what will be released publicly so no comment there at this stage.  

The three FT8's (gas turbines) at Bell Bay are now screaming away around the clock (as of yesterday). The larger (and more efficient) combined cycle unit will be put online at full capacity as soon as it's ready (next week).


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## Smurf1976

The update isn't good unfortunately. Basslink out of service until the 19th of March. 

The lights should stay on but things just got a lot more "interesting" down here that's for sure.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The update isn't good unfortunately. Basslink out of service until the 19th of March.
> 
> The lights should stay on but things just got a lot more "interesting" down here that's for sure.




What's the prognosis smurph, cable failure? or failure of the outer protection?


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> What's the prognosis smurph, cable failure? or failure of the outer protection?




Thus far they've got a ship organised and refitted it in NZ and manufactured some equipment plus getting about 100 people organised to do the job. They haven't actually lifted the cable yet, it's still sitting on the bottom of Bass Strait so nobody's sure what has actually happened. All they've got at this stage is an estimate of the location, that being 100km north of Tasmania and under about 80m of water at that point.

The lights are still on thus far, no supply interruptions have occurred apart from 4 industrial loads immediately after the failure, but nobody would deny that the generation system in Tas is incredibly strained at the moment since the intent prior to the failure was to be running Basslink at close to full load southbound at the present time.


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## qldfrog

stupid question but isn't summer the time you would expect tasmania stored hydro helpING victoria with its maxed out aircond?


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## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Thus far they've got a ship organised and refitted it in NZ and manufactured some equipment plus getting about 100 people organised to do the job. They haven't actually lifted the cable yet, it's still sitting on the bottom of Bass Strait so nobody's sure what has actually happened. All they've got at this stage is an estimate of the location, that being 100km north of Tasmania and under about 80m of water at that point.
> 
> The lights are still on thus far, no supply interruptions have occurred apart from 4 industrial loads immediately after the failure, but nobody would deny that the generation system in Tas is incredibly strained at the moment since the intent prior to the failure was to be running Basslink at close to full load southbound at the present time.




What about the old Bell Bay plant? is it on care and maintenance or defunct?


----------



## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> stupid question but isn't summer the time you would expect tasmania stored hydro helpING victoria with its maxed out aircond?




I would have thought the hydro would be fat out in winter, when the dams are receiving rain, not in summer when the dams have no inflow.


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## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> I would have thought the hydro would be fat out in winter, when the dams are receiving rain, not in summer when the dams have no inflow.



That is if you see hydro as a generator only, not as a storage? probably depends on your aims;
in Europe dams are also used in flood mitigation  and for irrigation: to allow water in summer for human/agricultural used; i would have thought the same here.
Create water flow and power emptying dams in summer.


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## basilio

No Basslink until March 19th... Industry will be starting crank up by now but we are still on school holidays. Probably a fair few people on holidays as well.

In two weeks schools back. All systems go. February heat waves.  Full court press on power supplies in Victoria particularly when there is a heatwave.   And no one has even talked about power plants at Loy Yang going for service. I wonder what back up systems are being devised to forestall this very predictable problem?


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> stupid question but isn't summer the time you would expect tasmania stored hydro helpING victoria with its maxed out aircond?




Vic has its peak demand in Summer certainly, but 99% of the time it's not at peak and total consumption is actually higher in Winter, with a more consistent demand each day, than it is in Summer despite the occasional huge spike.

Tas demand is absolutely higher in Winter by all measures and at all times. Middle of the night in Winter is about the same system load as the Summer "peak" which in Tas isn't really a peak at all.

From a physical production perspective, the intent was to be not generating much base load at all this Summer but still running the hydro system hard when those occasional price spikes occur in Vic. So whilst Basslink would have operated at full capacity northbound on occasion, the overall net flow would be strongly southbound. 

Without Basslink:

Vic loses access to 594 MW of peak generation from Tas. Will only be a problem if demand in Vic + SA rises to the point that other sources cannot supply it in full. Could happen - depends on how hot it gets and how well the Vic and SA power stations work on that day. 

Tas loses access to 478 MW of base load supply that would have been used most of the time. This load has initially been transferred to the hydro system with 201 MW about to be supplied from the CCGT (gas) plant when it starts up next week (wasn't available to run immediately).

So the main effect is significantly higher overall hydro production than had been planned and a consequent increase in water use.

The current storage level is marginally above 20%, the official public figure was 21.2% as of Monday (will be another update next Monday) but it has dropped a bit further since then and is still being drawn down hard out of necessity, the only other option being the lights quite literally going out. 

Realistically, if we get average rainfall and assuming Tamar Valley power station (gas) works flawlessly when started up next week and wind speeds are average then we'll end up around 14% at the end of March. Trouble is, Tasmania is currently in severe drought with much of the state close to breaking records for lack of rain over the past few months such that expecting average rainfall may be a tad optimistic.

If the dry conditions continue then somewhere around 12% is a plausible number for storage overall. That's not an outright disaster, it is still possible to keep the lights on at that level, but it would be an all time record low and is not a good situation that's for sure. Politicians, the mainstream media and to some extent the general public are already ****ing themselves at 21.2% so things could get pretty interesting in that regard if we do end up down at 12% or anywhere close. The public and political "panic" level may turn out to be at a higher % of storage than the actual engineering "panic" level. Time will tell.

What is being done thus far:

*Tamar Valley CCGT (gas) plant will be up and running next week at full load (208 MW gross, about 201 MW sent out to the grid).

*75 MW of open cycle gas turbines are available to run if needed, with a further 103 MW of currently unavailable plant being fixed ASAP. Main issue there is the 58 MW unit which had a major failure a while ago (though it's certainly not old equipment - manufactured 2009) and was shipped back to the manufacturer (overseas) to be fixed. The three 40 MW units (25 years old) just need a bit of work to get them up to full capacity but they're running as such and are being used intermittently.

*TEMCO are bringing forward some equipment replacement and that will result in about 30 MW of 24/7 load being taken off the system for 3 months or so. The plant will still be running, just using 30 MW less than normal.

*Some preliminary work is being done to obtain temporary generation if necessary. This is really just a contingency in case further problems arise. Plant would be gas turbine (preferably) or possibly diesel, depends on what could be obtained at short notice, and would be a temporary installation.

Bringing the old Bell Bay steam units back into production isn't really an option unfortunately as it's decommissioned as such (unit 1 last ran in 2008, shut down abruptly by a major failure whilst unit 2 was closed (but still running as such) in 2009 and work is underway to ultimately demolish the plant completely (though it's still standing as such)).

In terms of water storage effects, the situation is being mostly contained to the major storages thus far. That is, the small storages which are managed to seasonal target levels are still pretty much where they should be (with two exceptions although they aren't a critical problem).


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> I wonder what back up systems are being devised to forestall this very predictable problem?




Electricity companies in Vic are not formally required to ensure that supply meets consumer demand in full and I'm not aware of any backup plans being made or implemented beyond what already existed (which is limited to load shedding a few large users).


----------



## qldfrog

thanks smurf for the update, I had no idea Tassie was already in such a drought, dry in brisbane as we have not yet received summer rains, but with the flooding around newcastle etc i thought the south had no water issue.GHave a great week end go easy on the A/C!


----------



## SirRumpole

I don't know if this had anything to do with Basslink, but I was in Melbourne on Christmas day and the power went off intermittently for about 3 hours from about midday when no doubt everyone was cooking their Christmas dinners with the aircon on full blast on a very warm day.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> in Melbourne on Christmas day and the power went off intermittently for about 3 hours from about midday




Would be some local issue (distribution network) as there was plenty of generation available in Vic on that day from various sources (coal, gas, hydro, wind, distributed solar) despite Basslink not being in service.

Back to the situation in Tas, well we've just passed through the 20% level for system storage this afternoon. The lights aren't about to go out but the politics is getting more interesting by the day.


----------



## basilio

Came across a story on the super rapid uptake of solar power and battery storage in Africa.  Short story is that a company is doing  roaring, unsubsidised trade in bringing cost effective electricity to some of the poorest people in the world - with no grid connection. Simple, cost effective, clean and renewable

It can be* easily* done folks.



> *The off-grid solar company connecting 12,000 homes a month*
> By Giles Parkinson on 19 January 2016
> Print Friendly
> 
> ABU DHABI: Australia thinks it is doing pretty well adding some 12,000 homes and business with solar panels each month. In Tanzania, however, one recent start-up is doing even better – it is adding solar and in some cases storage to 12,000 homes a month with no connection to the grid.
> 
> Many efforts to bring electricity to homes with no electricity are considered something of a niche market. But Off grid Electric, the brainchild of a group of US and UK 30-somethings with experience in sub-Sahara Africa, is proving it can be done on a significant scale.
> 
> The efforts of the past few years has earned the company the prestigious Zayed Future Energy prize, for the SME section, which is presented each year at the World Future Energy in Abu Dhabi.
> 
> The principal behind Off Grid Electric is to create the world’s first massively scalable off-grid electric company. The company says it provides “clean, affordable and transformative energy” directly to households that have never had access to reliable electricity.
> 
> They can choose a single panel to power a few lights, or have the whole solar and storage kit that can power whatever it is that they want or need.
> 
> The success behind Off Grid Electric is that it operates as a service model that removes risk for customers. It uses financing measures – effectively a solar lease – to offer the latest in solar technology for less than or equal to a customer’s average energy spend on kerosene and diesel.



http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/the-off-grid-solar-company-connecting-12000-homes-a-month-19292


----------



## bellenuit

basilio said:


> Came across a story on the super rapid uptake of solar power and battery storage in Africa.  Short story is that a company is doing  roaring, unsubsidised trade in bringing cost effective electricity to some of the poorest people in the world - with no grid connection. Simple, cost effective, clean and renewable
> 
> It can be* easily* done folks.
> 
> 
> http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/the-off-grid-solar-company-connecting-12000-homes-a-month-19292




I think the figure given to replace the power infrastructure for Yarloop in WA is in the order of $6M. 145 homes were destroyed which represent 90% of homes. So if we assume a total of 160 homes and that businesses and other town infrastructure require the equivalent power of 40 homes, then we are looking at a total capacity to power 200 homes.

With the Tesla Power Wall in the order of $10K to provide 7kWh of storage, the 200 equivalent homes could be supplied with the 2 Tesla Power Walls (14kWh) and $10K of solar panels (providing about 10kW) for the same $6M. These obviously are just rough calculations, but one would think that it should be considered as a viable alternative to putting back up timber power poles. 

Should they not look at that option, I would think instead of power poles they should go for underground power and share the installation costs with the NBN which I assume is not yet in Yarloop but is planned for a future date.


----------



## Smurf1976

Update on the current situation in Tasmania:

And the number is.......

18.9%

Actually it rounds to 19.0 if you count everything, but let's not worry about that technicality.

The Tassie media's daily reporting of the "power shortage" (whilst all load is still being supplied and there are no actual shortages) is getting a tad ridiculous. Sells papers I suppose but it's getting a bit over the top. You'd think we were all sitting the dark already. 

It's interesting to watch the speculation though. People speculating on next week's storage figures on newspaper sites in a manner much the same as posters on ASF speculating where the ASX200 will be at some future time. All we need now is for someone to start taking bets on water levels and wind speeds.

Things aren't good, of that I am very sure, but thus far the system's holding up pretty well under the circumstances although some maintenance outages have necessarily been postponed. The lights won't be going out yet although I expect those who go fishing in the lakes are a bit unhappy.


----------



## DB008

*First residential Tesla Powerwall installed in Sydney suburb​*



> THE future of renewable energy in Australia has been given a significant boost with the first residential Tesla Powerwall being installed in a Sydney suburb.
> Nick Pfitzner from Kellyville Ridge said he was excited to be the first residential recipient of the Tesla Powerwall — a home battery that powers your home after charging using electricity generated from solar panels or from the grid when utility rates are low.
> “I have been following Tesla since it has been doing stuff with the electric cars because renewable energy is something I am very keen on,” he told news.com.au.
> “When I saw Tesla was rolling out the Powerwall, I quickly paid my deposit and was ecstatic to find I was going to be the first person in Australia to have one installed residentially. I got to be king of the nerds for one day.”
> Each Powerwall has a 7 kWh energy storage capacity and works by using a solar panel to convert sunlight into electricity that charges the device.
> “The inverter converts direct current electricity from solar panels, the grid and Powerwall into the alternating current used by your home’s lights, appliances and devices,” the website states.






> Mr Williams said his team offered three different options in terms of Tesla Powerwall instillations.
> 
> “It generally takes six — eight weeks for the product to be installed and packages start from $13,000, which includes the government rebate,” he said.





http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/design/first-residential-tesla-powerwall-installed-in-sydney-suburb/news-story/01f781cf4e4350950e6d90464a095bc6​
Good to see the 'Australia Tax' in full swing considering it costs $3000-$3500 for the Powerwall in the USA.


----------



## Wysiwyg

> “I really like what they are doing here with the design of the Powerwall, it’s similar to what Apple did for smartphones,” he said.




Like the first of modern technologies, things can only get better and cheaper.


----------



## SirRumpole

How's it going Smurf ?

Tasmania weather: More rain forecast as clean up from deluge begins

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-...tasmanians-start-clean-up-from-deluge/7126678


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> How's it going Smurf ?




Short version - it's a help but it hasn't fixed the problem, just made it less bad than it was previously. Long version see below.

Some rain has fallen across the whole state but there's a huge variation in the amounts and where it fell.

The heaviest falls were on the East Coast as such, which runs off via local creeks and rivers (not via any power station) and also into the Mersey-Forth and South Esk catchments, both of which are used for power production.

So the practical effect of that rain has been to put Trevallyn power station (South-Esk catchment) and the lower sections of the Mersey-Forth scheme into base load production using the incoming water. This production, along with the present high level of generation from wind, has enabled other parts of the hydro system to be either totally shut down or at least have their output reduced. 

That then helps conserve water elsewhere in the system and is also facilitating some maintenance works at those power stations which draw upon the major water storages and which have been operaing at very high levels in recent times due to the overall situation.

So in short, some rain has fallen and it has lead to high production levels in two schemes but it's nowhere enough to actually refill the major storages. Eg Great Lake (a major long term storage) was 17.55m (measured vertically) below full before the rain and is 17.40m below full now. Arthurs lake has gone from 3.26m up to 3.14m below full. Both of these have received decent rain, with Great Lake also benefiting from the reduced need for power production from that source.

Lake Gordon is 41.57m below full (that's not a typo, it's 41.57m down from the top measured as a straight vertical drop) and hasn't really increasd at all. But with production coming from elsewhere, the decline in the level of Lake Gordon has at least been halted for the moment - in other words it would be even lower now if not for the rain elsewhere.

A key part of the issue here is that the soil was so dry before the rain, much of the state needing around 150mm just to saturate the ground. Only after that does the big run-off occur. So a lot of the rain has simply soaked into the ground, the Mersey-Forth and South Esk catchments being the exception due to the very high rainfalls over a short period.

On other matters:

Gas - there's an open cycle gas turbine overseas being repaired at the moment and it has been decided to air-freight it back after repairs rather than to ship it in view of the overall situation. The bill for the air freight is about $70,000 more than sea freight would have cost but means it will be back in service early in April. This unit is fairly new, 2009, so should be reliable once the problem is fixed.

At present all available gas-fired plant, that is the combined cycle unit and the 3 small open cycle units presently in service, are running at full load 24 hours per day. Open cycle gas turbines aren't ideally suited to that role, and the 3 small ones are fairly old too, but they're working reasonbly well thus far (a few minor hiccups at first but they're going well now).

Diesel - 24 MW of portable diesel generators (1 MW each) have now been sourced from interstate and are on their way to Tas, to be ready for service (base load if necessary) in March. The intent is to source another 34 MW on top of that. These will be connected to the grid and operated collevtively as a power station. They are containerised units, so literally the same size as a shipping container.

The chance that the diesels will actually be run is low, but it is not zero hence obtaining them. The fuel cost is going to be pretty serious if they do need to be run. The 58 generators, plus another couple that we already have as standby mobile generators (bringing the total to 60 MW), will between them use about 400,000 litres of diesel each day.  

Bringing in the diesels and speeding up the return of the gas turbine is basically a plan in case Basslink isn't fixed in March as planned and/or if severe drought continues. Most likely they won't be necessary, but there's a lead time to obtain them, ship them across, get everything set up on site and so on hence doing it now.

Basslink itself is being worked on by the onwers but at this stage nobody seems willing to firmly commit to a date because they still haven't lifted the cable, which is under a metre of sand, to inspect it. That being so, nobody's sure what they're going to find until it is raised to the surface for proper inspection. 

Overall there's still very little chance of the lights going out but it would be fair to say that things haven't been going well lately.


----------



## SirRumpole

Update on the Tesla Powerwall

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-02/tesla-powerwall-what-it-means-for-australia's-energy/7130392

More info on Catalyst tonight 8pm ABC1


----------



## So_Cynical

SirRumpole said:


> Update on the Tesla Powerwall
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-02/tesla-powerwall-what-it-means-for-australia's-energy/7130392
> 
> More info on Catalyst tonight 8pm ABC1




Hoping Redflow will get a mention.


----------



## SirRumpole

So privatisation of the grid leads to cheaper prices ?

Baloney. The consumers have been had.

Household energy prices increase despite drop in usage, Australian Bureau of Statistics says

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-10/abs-energy-stats-show-61-per-cent-increase/7153660


----------



## DB008

SirRumpole said:


> So privatisation of the grid leads to cheaper prices ?
> 
> Baloney. The consumers have been had.
> 
> Household energy prices increase despite drop in usage, Australian Bureau of Statistics says
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-10/abs-energy-stats-show-61-per-cent-increase/7153660








> Household energy prices have increased 61 per cent between 2008 and 2014 despite an overall drop in home energy use, new information from the Australian Bureau of Statistics has shown.
> 
> Since 2002, energy use per household has decreased by 7 per cent.
> 
> That figure includes the energy generated by home solar panels, showing an overall picture of energy efficiency.
> 
> "What we've been doing in the last few years is seeing the fruits of a number of government efforts that stretch back over a decade to enhance the energy efficiency of our homes and of the appliances we use," Green Markets energy analyst Tristan Edis explained.




Crazy, isn't it?

We are getting ripped off by the Government and energy companies. I sure as hell hope that Tesla (and other energy companies) succeed. I would think that in about 5 years time, it will become feasible to cut the wires and be done with 'em.


----------



## DB008

*Telstra takes on energy utilities with home solar and storage plan​*



> Australian telecommunications giant Telstra plans to accelerate the rollout of solar and battery storage technologies, and is looking to offer home energy services to millions of consumers in the first sign it will take on the major energy utilities.
> 
> Telstra has established a dedicated project team to be led by Ben Burge, the feisty CEO of Powershop and Meridian Energy Australia, which has made major inroads into the Australian energy oligopoly, and which has been a keen proponent of wireless technology and smart-phone apps.
> 
> The arrival of a giant corporation such as Telstra into the home energy market signals massive change in the industry, as new technologies such as solar and battery storage, and the “internet of things” offer new avenues to the consumer market.
> 
> Telstra is flagging the possibility of offering home energy services – including solar and battery storage – as part of its bundled services that includes internet and telephone.
> 
> “We see energy as relevant to our Connected Home strategy, where more and more machines are connected in what is called the Internet of Things,” Telstra’s head of new business, Cynthia Whelan says in her corporate blog.
> 
> “We are looking at the opportunities to help customers monitor and manage many different aspects of the home, including energy.”





http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/telstra-takes-on-energy-utilities-with-home-solar-and-storage-plan-40676​


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> So privatisation of the grid leads to cheaper prices ?
> 
> Baloney. The consumers have been had.




Electricity is a natural monopoly, the notion of "competition" being a forced concept which basically involved creating new things and costs which didn't really exist before, then allowing companies to compete in order to lower these additional costs. But it still costs more in the end, that was always a certainty.

The other issue is the disconnect between the industry and its cost drivers and consumers under the new model.

Under the old model, it was very straightforward for the SECV, ETSA etc to communicate an industry message to the public and shape their behaviour so as to minimise costs. Examples of that are things like off-peak water heating and the notion that everyone pays the same tariffs with no option to cost shift from one consumer to another. Simple and straightforward and it was effective.

If you look at the situation now, well system load factor (that is peak load as a % of average load) has declined now that nobody's really pushing an effective message that combines the interests of generation, transmission and distribution. Rather, the distribution networks in particular actually profit from a declining load factor, a truly perverse outcome, and nobody who deals with the public (eg retailers) has an interest in keeping things economical.

For every $100 people around here spend on electricity, the retailer takes 12.7% for their services in sending out bills whilst generation, that is the power stations, gets 22.7% and the networks take 59.6%. The other 5% disappears in the meeting of various regulations.

Now, I suggest that you go and have a look at a power station or two and then go and have a look at an office. Do that and you'll really struggle to understand how the generators can be surviving on 22.7% whilst someone sitting in an office is raking in 12.7%. 

Historically, the generators got about 40% and the rest was network costs. Retail basically didn't cost much at all since in those days nobody spent $60 million on a piece of software and an assortment of Directors, CEO's etc just to make sure they were sending out bills in compliance with all the rules. Nope, that was just a division within the broader electricity entity and didn't cost overly much and cost even less once computers replaced most of the previously labour intensive administrative processes that basically all organisations had.

It wasn't privatisation per se that caused the trouble, although obviously changing from non-profit to a for-profit business will have some impact, but rather it was the change in industry structure that sent network and retail costs through the roof. That happened pretty much everywhere with the change in structure regardless of whether or not they actually privatised as well.

Competition is a nice theory and it works just fine in industries where there is the natural ability to do that (most things). But when you have to create an entire new set of costs, in order to have someone compete to lower them, well that's just pointless really.

In SA they jacked up the gas price for the specific purpose of introducing competition. It was a profitable activity to start with, but not profitable enough to have multiple companies selling the same gas through the same pipes with all the rules and regulations that go with it. Amazing that anyone let them get away with that really but it's what happened.

On other energy things, the current situation in Tas:

The owners of Basslink are still out with a ship trying to fix the cable. Will still be a while yet. Another public announcement is due shortly.

The combined cycle gas plant is running perfectly and supplying about 18% of load. Some hassles with the open cycle units, putting old peaking plant into base load production will tend to do that, but they're running reasonably OK and supplying about 6% of the system load.

Wind is supplying another 10%.

Hydro storages now down to 18.3%. Some operational hassles at one power station with a vortex forming in the lake (like what happens when you empty a bath and air gets sucked down the plug hole) which isn't good although it has been worked around and that plant is still generating. Overall the system is holding up OK so far.


----------



## basilio

Just love your analysis of the electricity industry Smurf. Always succinct, always to the heart of the issues.

Thanks again.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Just love your analysis of the electricity industry Smurf. Always succinct, always to the heart of the issues.




No worries. 

I'll post a bit of doom here though and say that things really aren't going well with the Basslink repairs. Not well at all really.

Basslink can't find the fault with the cable. They're still out there with the ship, working 24 hours per day apparently, but thus far are unable to locate the fault. And, of course, they can't even begin to repair it until they've found it. As such the 19 March estimate for repair now looks almost certain to blow out, possibly quite significantly.


----------



## sinner

basilio said:


> Just love your analysis of the electricity industry Smurf. Always succinct, always to the heart of the issues.
> 
> Thanks again.




I concur, so good we should be paying for it!


----------



## SirRumpole

sinner said:


> I concur, so good we should be paying for it!




Ssshh !


----------



## Smurf1976

Thanks for the positive comments. 

Invoice will be in the mail.... :

Back to energy, this situation just keeps going horribly wrong down here in Tassie. Not good, bad, worse and now even worse.

Not only can they not find where the Basslink cable is broken, now they've had to abandon the effort and head back to port for a few days due to rough weather in Bass Strait. So that's another delay. First the target for repair was about now, then it was pushed to mid-March, now there's no target date at all and it's just a waiting game until the location of the fault is found. 

Biggest problem with finding it is that it seems the cable is now buried under about a metre of sand and silt on the ocean floor. So there's no option to just visually inspect anything without lifting it first. This could take a while it seems.

Storages are down to 17.4% as of yesterday with everything included (the "headline" figure is 17.3% which excludes some minor storages) which is down 1.0% for the week. 

The first generators for Plan D have turned up. That's "D" for Diesel although it also comes after plan A (rain, but that hasn't been happening), Plan B (Basslink, but that broke) and Plan C (gas, that's working at 70% capacity but it's not enough).

6 of the diesels have arrived, there's another 18 sitting in Melbourne about to be shipped across, and another 176 are being obtained.

So the next task is to find somewhere to put all 200 diesel generators and that's not entirely straightforward once you consider electrical aspects, logistics, not keeping people awake all night with the noise, and that they aren't likely to do much good for the surrounding air quality if too many are in the one spot. There are places to put them though, the details are still being worked out for the full 200 however.

There's no certainty that they will actually be used and with a bit of luck they won't be. But if they are used, well running full blast that's about 8000 litres of fuel per day for each and every one of them so 1.6 million litres per day in total. That's not going to be cheap (to put it mildly) and there's also the logistical aspect of shipping that volume in and then road freighting it to the generators too since it's rather a lot of fuel.

Also a couple of gas turbines will be returned to service about the end of March. About 73 MW between them, that's in addition to the 208 MW of gas CCGT and 75 MW of gas OCGT plant that we've got running already.

Don't suppose anyone knows a good rain dance that actually works?


----------



## Ijustnewit

Smurf1976 said:


> Thanks for the positive comments.
> 
> Invoice will be in the mail.... :
> 
> Back to energy, this situation just keeps going horribly wrong down here in Tassie. Not good, bad, worse and now even worse.
> 
> Not only can they not find where the Basslink cable is broken, now they've had to abandon the effort and head back to port for a few days due to rough weather in Bass Strait. So that's another delay. First the target for repair was about now, then it was pushed to mid-March, now there's no target date at all and it's just a waiting game until the location of the fault is found.
> 
> Biggest problem with finding it is that it seems the cable is now buried under about a metre of sand and silt on the ocean floor. So there's no option to just visually inspect anything without lifting it first. This could take a while it seems.
> 
> Storages are down to 17.4% as of yesterday with everything included (the "headline" figure is 17.3% which excludes some minor storages) which is down 1.0% for the week.
> 
> The first generators for Plan D have turned up. That's "D" for Diesel although it also comes after plan A (rain, but that hasn't been happening), Plan B (Basslink, but that broke) and Plan C (gas, that's working at 70% capacity but it's not enough).
> 
> 6 of the diesels have arrived, there's another 18 sitting in Melbourne about to be shipped across, and another 176 are being obtained.
> 
> So the next task is to find somewhere to put all 200 diesel generators and that's not entirely straightforward once you consider electrical aspects, logistics, not keeping people awake all night with the noise, and that they aren't likely to do much good for the surrounding air quality if too many are in the one spot. There are places to put them though, the details are still being worked out for the full 200 however.
> 
> There's no certainty that they will actually be used and with a bit of luck they won't be. But if they are used, well running full blast that's about 8000 litres of fuel per day for each and every one of them so 1.6 million litres per day in total. That's not going to be cheap (to put it mildly) and there's also the logistical aspect of shipping that volume in and then road freighting it to the generators too since it's rather a lot of fuel.
> 
> Also a couple of gas turbines will be returned to service about the end of March. About 73 MW between them, that's in addition to the 208 MW of gas CCGT and 75 MW of gas OCGT plant that we've got running already.
> 
> Don't suppose anyone knows a good rain dance that actually works?




Hi Smurf , we got a big total of 10mm of rain yesterday on this side of the river. Alas that will be all gone by the time the next heat hits Hobart this weekend. As far as those generators go I can see from my deck lots of new bitumen being laid at the Creek Road power station. So lets hope they are not planning to put them there ?
I could see lots of protesters down there if they did think that was a good spot , and I certainly don't need the noise echoing up the hillside. I like to enjoy my views and drinks in peace 
As far your rain dance goes let me know and I will be a willing participant , I have attached the latest ENSO wrap up from the BOM and there is some better news in it. Although I'm not getting too excited and think that this dry is here to stay for long time yet .

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/


----------



## Smurf1976

I'm not 100% certain on this but I don't think Creek Road is on the list of places being considered.

The details are still being worked out for where to put all 200 of them but the intent is to put them at existing hydro generation sites, sub-stations and possibly on (privately owned) industrial sites which have:

A sufficient capacity connection to the grid.

Land to put them on (and agreeable owners in the case of private land).

Easy access for fuel tankers and within reasonable distance of a bulk fuel terminal via decent roads.

Are not near residents, schools or non-industrial businesses. 

There's quite a few sites that meet those criteria around the state but the details are still being worked out as to exactly where they'll all go. A previous plan concluded that at least 60 could be put at Bastyan power station alone - and that's literally in the middle of nowhere so no issues with noise or fumes.


----------



## qldfrog

won't be of much help but also praying for a rain dance here  in brisbane hinterland, this is supposed to be rain season, storm and flooding rivers:
 dry as a bone ->been waiting for the big wet since december, and nothing!!!
I checked the SEQ dams level etc, all good, no alarm yet for this year but I believe they have 3 y reserve or so;
not the same for property dams, and rainwater tanks..
Still dancing, by April/may we should entre our dry season!!!
I can not even imagine the logistic for plan D Smurf, not to think about the greenhouse effects...lucky that oil is so low now.


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> I can not even imagine the logistic for plan D Smurf, not to think about the greenhouse effects...lucky that oil is so low now.




CO2 from diesels isn't much different to coal. Slightly higher than a brand new state of the art coal plant but emissions are lower than a lot of the coal plants actually in use in the other states. So it's broadly similar to coal overall once you include emissions from burning the diesel, plus fuel for the trucks to haul it around, shipping and so on.

Logistics I'll put this way. 

A garden hose flows at about 1000 litres per hour. That varies depending on your local water pressure but that's a rule of thumb and about right.

Now try to visualise 67 garden hoses all flowing at full rate and left running constantly 24/7. If all the generators are run flat out then that's the amount of diesel we're going to have to ship in, road freight to the generator sites and then put in the fuel tanks. It's a lot of diesel - 1.6 million litres per day.

Then there's the aspects of shipping all 200 across from Melbourne, and of course they have to get to Melbourne in the first place before going on a ship. Then moving them all into place in Tas and setting them up in the open at sites that aren't really set up for that sort of thing. Then connecting them all to the grid and getting all this done fairly quickly.

It's not impossible but it's a significant task certainly. No idea what the cost is but it's $$$

Some of the generators are coming from mainland Australia but some are coming from overseas too to my understanding. It's not as though you go down to your local Coates Hire etc and they supply you with 200 x 1 MW generators that they've got sitting out the back.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> CO2 from diesels isn't much different to coal




What about the particulates that are supposed to be carcinogenic ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> What about the particulates that are supposed to be carcinogenic ?




If we only wanted half a dozen of them then I'm sure we could be pretty choosy and make sure they were all nice, modern units in good condition that ran cleanly. But for 200 of them - well in practice I'd expect that some will be nice and clean but some won't be so good most likely.

The basic workaround is put them away from people. Not ideal but there's not a lot of choice really.

They'll reduce the air quality in that area no doubt, but it won't be anything on the scale of the smoke that we've already got with the various fires burning but still not ideal.


----------



## DB008

*Trading solar-generated power between households to change the way consumers buy electricity​*


> The concept of bypassing major energy retailers to trade rooftop solar-generated electricity between households, small businesses and community groups is inching closer to reality.
> 
> This month's arrival of the Tesla battery in Australia is slated as a major shift in favour of consumers taking charge of their energy storage.
> 
> One Sydney entrepreneur has devised a system that would allow consumers to set up a virtual shop to trade their surplus energy with other households, small businesses and community groups in their grid.
> 
> Jitendra Tomar, from the Sydney-based start-up Local Volts, said it was about changing the way consumers buy electricity.
> 
> "Anybody, whether you're big or small, whether you're a farmer or residential person, whether you're a high school or tennis club, can become an energy farmer," he said.
> 
> "If I'm buying electricity, I can say 'well I just want to buy for next month' and I have a preference for rooftop solar coming from Manly, and if that's not enough for me, I will take something from New South Wales as long as it's rooftop solar, and if that's not enough, I'll go for windmills.
> 
> "And if you're people living in an apartment and you want to buy from your tennis club, because you like the price, you have a special price for tennis club members, you say 'yeah, I'll buy electricity from my tennis club'. So finally we're going to have a choice."
> 
> CitiPower and Powercor owns more than half of the poles and wires in Victoria's power network.
> 
> The company is installing 18 test sites for solar battery storage as part of a three-year trial to look at the network impact of solar batteries.
> 
> Glen Thomson, from CitiPower and Powercor, said he could see a future where traditional power generation was bypassed.
> 
> "There's no doubt that over time, the centralised model will come under greater threat, as home-based generation grows," he said.
> 
> "We see our grid as ultimately [being] the spine of allowing that to occur, as micro-grids are formed, as home generation technologies are rolled out over the next decade or so.
> 
> "We are looking at what is the best way to enable our grid to use innovative technologies and enable customer choice."





More on link below...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-17/tesla-trading-solar-generated-power-change-electricity-market/7156934​


----------



## Smurf1976

Ijustnewit said:


> As far as those generators go I can see from my deck lots of new bitumen being laid at the Creek Road power station. So lets hope they are not planning to put them there ?




I'll go one better. We've tracked you down and you'll find a nice surprise roaring away right out the front of your house in the morning.....  :

Seriously, the plan thus far (it's still being worked out, but it's partly ready) has been made publicly available today and Creek Road isn't part of it at least at this stage.

http://www.hydro.com.au/system/file...nergy_Supply_Plan_Update_22_February_2016.pdf

Summary of the situation as of today:

*Total system storage now at 16.8%, down 0.6% for the week.

*Storage levels by catchment (listed from largest storage capacity to smallest) are:

Great Lake = 16.9% full (and presently holding 51% of all stored energy in the system)

Gordon = 9.8% full (19% of total system energy)

Derwent = 27.1% (20% of total system energy)

King = 19.2% (2% of total system energy)

Pieman = 49.8% (4% of total system energy)

Mersey-Forth = 61.1% (4% of total system energy). Production from this source has been limited in recent times by fire damage to transmission lines and also power station maintenance outages. Hence the relatively high level in storage.

Lake Margaret = 22.7% (0.1% of total system energy in storage).

Figures don't add to 100% due to rounding.

Production is presently focused on wind, gas, and hydro from the Great Lake, Gordon, Derwent and on a lesser scale Lake Margaret systems. The other hydro stations are either shut for maintenance (eg the King scheme) or are being held in reserve in case something else goes wrong. The water they have will be used in due course, just not yet (with their lower storage capacity it's wise to keep them fuller in case there's a need to operate at sustained high output, eg if something else breaks).

*As for the diesels, well the first ones are now publicly announced as going at Catagunya and Meadowbank power stations plus some in the Bell Bay area. There are no houses near any of these sites and no schools or things like that either.

Hydro owns the land being used at Catagunya and Meadowbank whilst Tas Networks owns the land at the Bell Bay site.

As background, Catagunya is a small (48 MW) hydro station commissioned in 1962 and Meadowbank has a capacity of 40 MW commissioned in 1967. Both are part of the Derwent catchment and along with 4 others re-use water coming out of Tarraleah and Tungatinah power stations.

Other sites are under consideration for the rest - other power station sites and also some industrial sites. I'm very sure there's no intention of putting them outside someones house however. 

*Still no idea when Basslink will be fixed. Hydro is now planning on the basis of an extended outage of unknown duration. The plan being implemented is, from a purely technical perspective, sufficient to cope without Basslink permanently. Suffice to say it's not cheap however.


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> *Still no idea when Basslink will be fixed. Hydro is now planning on the basis of an extended outage of unknown duration. The plan being implemented is, from a purely technical perspective, sufficient to cope without Basslink permanently. Suffice to say it's not cheap however.




It just keeps getting worse. Still can't find the location of the fault and there are now thoughts that it could be several more months until it's fixed.

Rainfall outlook for March is about average but it's wetter for April and May. The temperature outlook is extreme however (warm that is) so the combination of those two is likely to produce low runoff in March and average at best, quite likely less, in April. 

Thinking positively, all I need to do now is connect a generator to the mouse wheel. Mouse power to the rescue!

Next step is to put the male and female mice in the same cage. That should soon bring a bumper crop of mice. 

Then with enough mice and a shift work arrangement it should be possible to keep the wheels turning around the clock. And I'm going to have a lot of wheels in a lot of mouse power stations - refer step above about producing more mice to run them.

The mouse powerhouses will each be equipped with mouse-activated warning buttons. White one to be pressed if water runs low. Yellow one if food runs low. Brown one if cleaning is required. Big red one to activate a siren and send the mice into a bunker if a snake or cat is spotted. I would have used blue for the water button but the problem is that mice tend to eat blue plastic, hence using white. No black insulation on the wiring either for the same reason - all to be in colours that mice won't eat.

My new enterprise will be officially known as the Mouse-Electric Commission or MEC for short although most will simply call it "the Mouse". In the unlikely event that anyone actually pays their Mouse bill on time, they'll receive a free piece of cheese sent by post. Also as a special offer for those feeling cold, they'll get a 40% discount if they sign up for MouseHeat.

Those who support my new enterprise can express their support by obtaining a "hands off the Mouse" sticker to be placed on the outside of the meter box, rear window of their car or anywhere else they choose. These will be available from your local ALP candidate just before the next state election.

Those who disagree will probably make their own "No Mouse" stickers in the form of a bright yellow triangle and put them just about everywhere to support their campaign of keeping mice wild and not generating power. 20 years later I'll be asking them if they can give me the exact details of their sticker and banner design since I now want one to put in my Mouse Power museum and forgot to grab some back in the day despite thousands of them having been produced at the time. Surprisingly, they'll actually agree to give me one since they were always well organised and kept plenty of spares. 

Slightly more seriously, I also need a shotgun. That's just in case anyone tries stealing my pile of firewood, gas bottles, solar panels or the mouse food. The way things are going these could become rather valuable.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> It just keeps getting worse. Still can't find the location of the fault and there are now thoughts that it could be several more months until it's fixed.
> 
> Rainfall outlook for March is about average but it's wetter for April and May. The temperature outlook is extreme however (warm that is) so the combination of those two is likely to produce low runoff in March and average at best, quite likely less, in April.
> 
> Thinking positively, all I need to do now is connect a generator to the mouse wheel. Mouse power to the rescue!
> 
> Next step is to put the male and female mice in the same cage. That should soon bring a bumper crop of mice.
> 
> Then with enough mice and a shift work arrangement it should be possible to keep the wheels turning around the clock. And I'm going to have a lot of wheels in a lot of mouse power stations - refer step above about producing more mice to run them.
> 
> The mouse powerhouses will each be equipped with mouse-activated warning buttons. White one to be pressed if water runs low. Yellow one if food runs low. Brown one if cleaning is required. Big red one to activate a siren and send the mice into a bunker if a snake or cat is spotted. I would have used blue for the water button but the problem is that mice tend to eat blue plastic, hence using white. No black insulation on the wiring either for the same reason - all to be in colours that mice won't eat.
> 
> My new enterprise will be officially known as the Mouse-Electric Commission or MEC for short although most will simply call it "the Mouse". In the unlikely event that anyone actually pays their Mouse bill on time, they'll receive a free piece of cheese sent by post. Also as a special offer for those feeling cold, they'll get a 40% discount if they sign up for MouseHeat.
> 
> Those who support my new enterprise can express their support by obtaining a "hands off the Mouse" sticker to be placed on the outside of the meter box, rear window of their car or anywhere else they choose. These will be available from your local ALP candidate just before the next state election.
> 
> Those who disagree will probably make their own "No Mouse" stickers in the form of a bright yellow triangle and put them just about everywhere to support their campaign of keeping mice wild and not generating power. 20 years later I'll be asking them if they can give me the exact details of their sticker and banner design since I now want one to put in my Mouse Power museum and forgot to grab some back in the day despite thousands of them having been produced at the time. Surprisingly, they'll actually agree to give me one since they were always well organised and kept plenty of spares.
> 
> Slightly more seriously, I also need a shotgun. That's just in case anyone tries stealing my pile of firewood, gas bottles, solar panels or the mouse food. The way things are going these could become rather valuable.




So smart and a sense of humour as well ! 

A rare combination. 

That last post of yours should be filed away in "Classic General Chat", a masterpiece.

I'm sure you will get plenty of crowd funding for your mouse project. Watch out for the feral cats though.


----------



## Knobby22

Maybe they should hire some electrical engineers. There are ways to send signals down cables to find faults.

Unfortunately running power organisations with accountants, lawyers, project managers and spin doctors doesn't lead to good results.

Just typical. I'm for hire if they can get their heads out of their bums.


----------



## qldfrog

Knobby22 said:


> Maybe they should hire some electrical engineers. There are ways to send signals down cables to find faults.
> 
> Unfortunately running power organisations with accountants, lawyers, project managers and spin doctors doesn't lead to good results.
> 
> Just typical. I'm for hire if they can get their heads out of their bums.



is it just me or by sending pulse and changing frequencies while listening to the "echo"/reflection, you should be able to pinpoint an issue pretty quickly,
I doubt there are any "repeater" along the way!!! Anyway, yeap, they may need to use their/some brain


----------



## Smurf1976

Knobby22 said:


> Maybe they should hire some electrical engineers. There are ways to send signals down cables to find faults.
> 
> Unfortunately running power organisations with accountants, lawyers, project managers and spin doctors doesn't lead to good results.




Hydro still has massive internal engineering and technical capability. It doesn't have the 5000+ workforce it once had during the construction era but it still has a lot of capability as such.

Basslink is privately owned however and I've said plenty in the past about the troubles when things are outsourced (as Basslink effectively is, albeit by outright private ownership but it's still basically a form of outsourcing given the arrangements which underpin it).


----------



## DB008

First Melbourne cab off the rank...

*First Tesla Powerwall installed in Greens leader Greg Barber’s Brunswick West home​*



> IT’S been called the iPhone of the renewable energy scene and is being hailed as a game-changer.
> 
> The first Tesla Powerwall in Melbourne has been installed in Brunswick West and owner Greg Barber, the Victorian Greens leader, believes it is the start of a huge consumer change towards solar power.
> 
> Consumer organisation Choice agrees, with the solar power storage device finally making renewable energy more economical for families.







> Choice energy reporter Chris Doyle said at about $12,000 for a battery and inverter, the Tesla Powerwall was still outside the price range of the average consumer, but early adopters and those who highly valued the environmental benefits were likely to purchase systems.





http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/north-west/first-tesla-powerwall-installed-in-greens-leader-greg-barbers-brunswick-west-home/news-story/7c240d1bd395623d2a56c4a96f0641e5#load-story-comments​


----------



## DB008

Saw this on Bloomberg recently and someone put it up on Youtube.

Nice short vid

​


----------



## SirRumpole

DB008 said:


> Saw this on Bloomberg recently and someone put it up on Youtube.
> 
> Nice short vid
> 
> ​





And the electricity to run these vehicles will come from ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> And the electricity to run these vehicles will come from ?




Mice.  :

Seriously, even if the source of the power is fossil fuels then it's still no worse than a petrol engine and in most applications more efficient to be using electric transport.


----------



## orr

SirRumpole said:


> And the electricity to run these vehicles will come from ?




For a start you could go to last sundays landline and what one lady is doing with pig **** in Young, she's now got that much electicity she doesn't know what to do with it... and solar just keeps getting cheaper ...
Look at this little buggy

http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-ne...the-electric-beach-buggy-you-can-buy-in-2016/

nearly 200km on less than what comes off the roof of a 5kw system on a good day.

Good day.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Mice.  :
> 
> Seriously, even if the source of the power is fossil fuels then it's still no worse than a petrol engine and in most applications more efficient to be using electric transport.




I think diesel electric hybrids is the way to go.

The best of both worlds.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I think diesel electric




"Diesel" and "electric" are words I'm hoping we don't have to associate with each other too much down here in Tas.

Storage down to 16.1% as of a few hours ago and it seems to have become almost a sport with people speculating on the weekly updates. As I saw on another forum, whoever gets closest wins a box of candles...

Given that nothing else is going right, the next plan is to try and make it rain. No rain dances (tried that, went outside and found that the sun was shining so must have done something wrong). So its planes and some science and getting underway at the beginning of April. Going to do farms as well this year since they've dried out too. Now we just need some suitable clouds.

If all else fails well then there's diesel. Not yet at the point where they're needed but the first ones will be ready to go next week and we'll have 100 connected to the grid by the end of March and 200 by the end of April. This could get rather interesting (and noisy, smelly and expensive).

One thing's pretty certain though. It will rain, probably starting about 3 seconds after Basslink is fixed then the next crisis ends up being a flood.


----------



## Monkey C Doo

orr said:


> For a start you could go to last sundays landline and what one lady is doing with pig **** in Young, she's now got that much electicity she doesn't know what to do with it... and solar just keeps getting cheaper ...
> Look at this little buggy
> 
> http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-ne...the-electric-beach-buggy-you-can-buy-in-2016/
> 
> nearly 200km on less than what comes off the roof of a 5kw system on a good day.
> 
> Good day.




so this thing has a 30 kWh battery and will do 200 k's on it's charge
@ 25c per kWh and 40 Kwh needed to charge it = $10  or $5 per 100K
(average mains meter buy price?) 

If you're on a sell back deal for solar @ 60c per kWh - buy a Jeep
If you sell power at 7c per kWh, Charge that car and drive around with a smug look.
If you don't have your own solar setup - buy a jeep

But, in a few years car rego will cost > $5000 per year. No way is the tax man going to write off the fuel excise 
if reaps in off of oil fuels. The time to buy an electric car is now, before everyone jumps on the bandwagon.
Once they are common - there'll be no significant cost benefit in owning them.

I've got an old 2000kg land rover that costs me ~ $11 per 100k
Most of that $11 dollars is government excise - diesel is dirt cheap, it's the tax that is expensive!


----------



## qldfrog

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/queensland-weather-brisbane-records-driest-summer-in-97-years-20160229-gn6sy1.html
ypu are not alone, our power grid does not rely on water level, well not that much as i am sure drought can affect our power plant too, but my garden does!At least solar power does not use water. (once the pv are built)
Good luck for your rain dance, message me if you find a sucessfull one


----------



## SirRumpole

Tasmanian power crisis: Labor calls for long-term gas contract for Tamar Valley Power Station

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-...as-contract-for-power-station-back-up/7218270


----------



## drsmith

A shopping centre in Perth has plastered much of its roof in solar panels,



> The Broadway Fair complex has installed 948 solar panels with the capacity to generate 312 kilowatts of power.
> 
> Broadway Fair general manager Paul Avon-Smith said the move would save the complex about $20,000 a month in power bills, which could be put towards funding capital works.
> 
> "We were looking for soft approach for the cost of doing capital works," Mr Avon-Smith said.
> 
> "It gives us an alternative to help cushion rent increases and price rises for our tenant base in a pretty tough market, but allows us to finance crucial capital works.
> 
> "So that allowed us to do a roof replacement project, plus put the solar in, with there being no upward pressure on our rents for tenants."
> 
> Infinite Energy installed the system at a cost of $600,000.
> 
> Managing director Aidan Jenkins said the huge fall in the cost of solar panels in recent years has meant the business model now stacked up for commercial-sized installations.
> 
> "Solar currently represents the cheapest way to generate electricity, so we will start to see these type of systems become the norm over the next couple of years."




http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-...shopping-centre-wa-largest/7217984?section=wa

The implied install cost per kW from the above numbers is $1923.

Annual generation (based on 2,500kWh/1.5kW) would be 520,000kWh. A bit less, say, 480,000kWh may be more realistic given varying panel orientation. $20,000 per month of savings from grid electricity equates to $240,000 per annum or $0.50/kWh. If the centre uses all it generates (no feed in), the implication is the grid cost of electricity to the centre is therefore $0.50/kWh which is much higher than the WA residential A1 (flat) rate. The article doesn't indicate whether or not there's an element of battery storage as part of the system.


----------



## basilio

drsmith said:


> A shopping centre in Perth has plastered much of its roof in solar panels,
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-...shopping-centre-wa-largest/7217984?section=wa
> 
> The implied install cost per kW from the above numbers is $1923.
> 
> Annual generation (based on 2,500kWh/1.5kW) would be 520,000kWh. A bit less, say, 480,000kWh may be more realistic given varying panel orientation. $20,000 per month of savings from grid electricity equates to $240,000 per annum or $0.50/kWh. If the centre uses all it generates (no feed in), the implication is the grid cost of electricity to the centre is therefore $0.50/kWh which is much higher than the WA residential A1 (flat) rate. The article doesn't indicate whether or not there's an element of battery storage as part of the system.




Doesn't quite make sense does it ?  I think it's great that the centre has covered it's roof with solar panels and I'm sure they will get a good return. But returning $240k a year from an initial cost of $600k seems remarkable in fact incredible.  

The salient words were "would save" .  Let's wait for the figures.


----------



## Monkey C Doo

basilio said:


> Doesn't quite make sense does it ?  I think it's great that the centre has covered it's roof with solar panels and I'm sure they will get a good return. But returning $240k a year from an initial cost of $600k seems remarkable in fact incredible.
> 
> The salient words were "would save" .  Let's wait for the figures.





I'm a maths idiot - but here's what i came up with..

948 panels for 312kW, so each panel is roughly 330w (about right? big panels)

So a max output of 312kW X 8Hours max good sun per day
= 2496kWh per day
@ $0.31per kWh buy price = $773.76 per day 
X365 = $282,422 per year. very roughly  less losses etc say 15%

Not bad at all.


----------



## drsmith

Is $0.31/kWh what a commercial operation of that scale would pay for grid electricity in Perth ?


----------



## Monkey C Doo

drsmith said:


> Is $0.31/kWh what a commercial operation of that scale would pay for grid electricity in Perth ?





I would have thought they'd be paying around 0.15, but google says around 30 - 34c.
It seems parts of WA are in a regulated (price fixed) market.


http://www.finance.wa.gov.au/cms/Pu...overnment/Electricity/Electricity_prices.aspx


----------



## drsmith

30 - 34c won't do it.

2,500kWh per annum average per 1.5kw of generation capacity is about tops for an ideally placed fixed solar array in Perth and that yields $0.46/kWh for the return they are looking for from their system and that's a best case scenario in terms of using it all and feeding none into the grid.

One possibility is that the array may allow transfer from a plan with a high fixed daily cost (S1 or T1) to a plan without. Those fixed daily costs annualised are large and would in themselves account for the vast majority of the $240k return.


----------



## basilio

This is a very interesting analysis. My initial thinking is that the return is just too high to be real. However if it is somewhere in the ball park then the opportunities for a hundred other big retail power users to slash their costs is fantastic.

I can see how the input from solar power may allow a change from fixed costs to TOU tariff.  The problem would be that there will be some days when cloudy skies/rain will reduce power input and that might trigger one off demand peaks.

After looking at the electricity prices in WA and thinking about the amount of sunlight available I think this analysis is lot closer to the mark than I first thought.  Very impressive.

_____________________________________________________

Going back to the original story it does look as if the figures for self generated solar power are now compelling.  You would be mad not to go in this direction on returns of 30% + a year. No brainer


----------



## Monkey C Doo

I'm just trying to work out the true cost of electricity - if (when) solar and batteries become the real deal, without artificial markets, carbon credits, government subsidies and all that bull****..

 - So say a normal expected ROI for a solar setup is 10% ?
 - Grid connection fees @ $600 per year ?? (these can't and won't go away) 
 - 4kWh per 1kW solar panel install ( average over australia??)
 - storage batteries everywhere, pretty much attached to every install (more incentive to up the installed kW)
 - open market for the sale of electricity
 - market costs of 2% ??

Would all this mean Australia will become one of the cheapest places in the world for electricity instead of the most expensive?

Who owns the power lines and how much will they have to charge for monthly connection fees to make their business worthwhile ?? ( if selling power is no longer their core business)

Can solar be bumped up to 11,000 / 22,000 Volts for wider area distribution / big industry?


----------



## SirRumpole

Tasmanian energy crisis: Hydro Tasmania in uncharted territory as dam levels continue to drop

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-07/hydro-tasmania-in-uncharted-territory/7227494


----------



## Smurf1976

On holidays at the moment but will post an update on the situation in Tas shortly. In short though, it's all going so horribly wrong. 

I've come up with a solution though. Forget rain dances, gas turbines, diesel generators and trying to find cable faults. My solution is ethanol, or E85 to be precise.

Now, you might be thinking that running a generator on E85 would be a rather inefficient way to generate electricity and on that point you'd be right. Thankfully Smurf's plan doesn't involve any generators. 

Instead, what you do is put the fuel in cars and conduct a car race on a Sunday afternoon. Well, you try to have a race and then the rain just belts down and completely soaks everything from the track to the spectators and stops the race. This plan worked brilliantly in Adelaide 2 days ago and suffice to say nothing was dry. Shirt, shorts and even shoes full of water. Heck, for that matter I ended up with a wallet full of water too - just as well money is plastic these days rather than paper. 

So on that basis I'm proposing that we hold a car race at Great Lake since that seems to be an effective way to bring thunder, lightning and rain. 

Humour? Well I'm no comedian but I may as well try a few jokes since I'm all too aware just how bad the situation is. It's not good.


----------



## drsmith

Smurf1976 said:


> Instead, what you do is put the fuel in cars and conduct a car race on a Sunday afternoon. Well, you try to have a race and then the rain just belts down and completely soaks everything from the track to the spectators and stops the race. This plan worked brilliantly in Adelaide 2 days ago and suffice to say nothing was dry. Shirt, shorts and even shoes full of water. Heck, for that matter I ended up with a wallet full of water too - just as well money is plastic these days rather than paper.
> 
> So on that basis I'm proposing that we hold a car race at Great Lake since that seems to be an effective way to bring thunder, lightning and rain.



A recreation of Bathurst 92 might be better again in relation to the above.

Avoid the podium presentation though if you want to keep it civil.


----------



## basilio

> Humour? Well I'm no comedian but I may as well try a few jokes since I'm all too aware just how bad the situation is. It's not good.  Smurf 1976




It looks look an absolute train wreck to me.  I'm not an engineer but what I do know about electricity generation suggests that  Tasmania will be having critical power cuts that will virtually close down the State in a very short time.

As I'm seeing it

1) They are just starting up the diesal plants.  How long will this take and how much can they supply ?
2) The alternative gas powered plant has now been delayed for another 3 weeks
3) The Hydro supply is just about spent with the risk of very serious environmental damage occurring if the dam levels fall any further.

How accurate is that summation Smurf ? What are the options ? When should they happen ?


----------



## Smurf1976

We're not quite stuffed yet but there's no denying we're in a rather large spot of bother right now. Big time.

The combined cycle unit (gas) is supplying about 17% of normal load and has bee running perfectly since 20 January. That's the good bit.

The 3 x small and old open cycle units (gas) are undeniably struggling and having quite a few hiccups but supplying about 5.5% of the load on average. 4 of the 6 engines (2 engines per alternator) are running at present and the aim is to keep them going and get the other 2 running (which will take quite a while). 

The 1 x modern open cycle unit (gas) broke a while ago and won't be back for another month after another delay in repairs (which is a manufacturer's warranty job). But if we had it running then it would be supplying a bit under 5% of the load.

The wind farms are running when it blows, doing their usual thing and at this time of year that's 10% of supply.

The above figures are all % of normal load for this time of year. Average load goes up by about 15 - 20% in Winter (and peak load goes up far more) due to heating so the relative contribution of the gas units and wind will decline as the weather cools.

Norske Skog (paper mill) is shutting one (of two) production lines down for a week as of about now. They have paper supply contracts to meet but have basically ceased selling anything beyond that in order to cut production and power demand.

Bell Bay Aluminium has slowed production to the minimum that keeps the whole plant running as such. Anything further and they'll need to actually shut down the pots and that's rather difficult and expensive so they'd rather avoid it.

Nyrstar (the zinc works) have cut load by about 14% until the end of Autumn. That's an outright production cut as such.

TEMCO have brought forward a maintenance shutdown of one furnace (of 4) which takes it offline for 3 months. They've now agreed to shut a second furnace for about 2 months.

So overall load is down about 14% at the moment but that's only a short term solution. Norske Skog needs to put the second line back into production next week to meet contracts for paper whilst TEMCO needs full power about the beginning of May. Bell Bay Aluminium and Nyrstar both still have their entire plants in operation, just slowed down, so don't have so much of a technical limit to when they resume full production but obviously there's an economic issue there.

Hydro storages are about 15.5% at the moment and continuing to decline. Of particular note is the environmental risk at Great Lake where any further water level decline will expose underwater vegetation. Also notable is Lake Gordon, now just over 8% full and still running hard in an effort to keep water in the rest of the system (basically sacrificing Gordon to keep everything else stable).

As for the diesels, well there's 24 now sitting at Catagunya power station and ready to run this week. By the end of March we should have 100 ready to run at various sites. Between all 100, they could supply about 8.6% of average Summer load (7.4% of average Winter load).

There's another 100 diesels currently being sourced with the intent to have them set up by the end of April. Same size and capacity for all of them.

In the longer term, plans are underway to get another gas turbine or two and install them at the Tamar Valley (Bell Bay) site where the present ones are located. These will take a while but should be ready by next Summer if required.

As for Basslink, well they've found the approximate location of the fault and are now going about repairs, expected to be complete by about the end of May.  

I can't say too much on a public forum but you could read between the lines and draw a few conclusions from the above as to what's not being said... 

Failure of the system as such is still highly unlikely as long as nothing else drastic goes wrong. All that gas and diesel isn't going to be cheap however and that's going to be the biggest problem. 

The truth behind all this, if it ever comes out in full, will mark a significant turning point politically I expect (and I'm definitely not the only one thinking that way).


----------



## moXJO

Start putting the unemployed down there on treadmills to generate electricity. Should be enough of them to power Australia.


----------



## SirRumpole

Will the power co's pass on the additional cost of generation to the consumers, or will they cop the loss ?


----------



## luutzu

SirRumpole said:


> Will the power co's pass on the additional cost of generation to the consumers, or will they cop the loss ?




they'll pass on the cost, the add the cost to have to pass on that cost, then add a profit margin on top of those costs too. You do stuff like that when you and a couple other guy control the market.


----------



## macca

moXJO said:


> Start putting the unemployed down there on treadmills to generate electricity. Should be enough of them to power Australia.




That would be giving something back to the people who support them, can't have that, they are Entitled to the Dole, just ask them !


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Will the power co's pass on the additional cost of generation to the consumers, or will they cop the loss ?




The bigger impact will be to the state government generally. Schools, hospitals, their mates in Forestry, their "unsolicited proposal" mates in big business, consultants making a fortune telling mangers what their own staff already know, whatever. No more cash to throw around.

In recent times the basic game has been to rip as much money out of the power industry as possible. Directly handing government debt over to the power industry has been one method whilst extracting huge dividends has been the other. That is ultimately the reason we're in this mess right now.

That was never going to work in the long term. You can't keep paying dividends and leaving no cash to actually run the business with so it was always going to end badly. Suffice to say that idea didn't come from Hydro management but rather from the present state government itself.

If the full truth of all this comes to public attention then the next state election is going to be very interesting indeed.


----------



## Smurf1976

An update on progress with the diesel power stations in Tasmania.

Catagunya will have a capacity of 24 MW and is now being commissioned. See photo. This is located right next to the existing Catagunya hydro plant (48 MW).

Meadowbank will also be 24 MW and is well underway, to be ready about 18th of March. It's near the Meadowbank hydro station (40 MW).

George Town will be 21 MW and will be ready about 25th of March. Location is at George Town sub-station which despite the name is actually at nearby Bell Bay. 

Port Latta will be about 24 MW and also underway with completion aiming for about 25 of March. It's next to the iron ore pelletising plant so located in a heavy industrial area although unlike the others there are a few residences nearby.

Another 7 MW to be put somewhere that's still being worked out but the intent is to have them ready for operation by the end of March.

For the next 100 MW of diesel generation, work has commenced at Tribute power station (hydro, 83 MW), Bell Bay power station and at TEMCO to install them although we don't yet have any of the equipment as such.

How much they will actually be run is uncertain but the message being given to residents near the Port Latta site is "24 hours per day for 3 months" as an indication. It's unlikely that anyone's going to complain since basically anyone living there works in the factory and that needs power otherwise they're out of a job. The other sites are well away from where anyone lives, being either Hydro sites or heavy industrial sites.


----------



## Smurf1976

The first diesels are now online at Catagunya. Only producing 9MW at the moment with the rest of the capacity still being commissioned. The other sites will follow shortly.

And for some more bad news, Basslink communications is now offline for the next 3 months while the cable is cut so that means slow internet. Oh joy. 

http://www.iinet.net.au/status/4635151

So we're running out of power, the traffic in Hobart is suddenly stuffed and now so too is the internet. Welcome to the Tasmanian apocalypse of 2016. 

Maybe this is all part of the government's plan to increase population? Convince everyone to turn the lights out, cripple their internet speeds and maybe they're thinking that we'll have a population boom about 9 months from now.... 

More seriously, maybe we need a government that actually listens to those who know about such things instead of having ministerial advisers telling the experts that they're not allowed to actually tell the Minister the truth and must instead come up with an alternative story. Yep, things are going just great with this sort of leadership.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The first diesels are now online at Catagunya. Only producing 9MW at the moment with the rest of the capacity still being commissioned. The other sites will follow shortly.
> 
> And for some more bad news, Basslink communications is now offline for the next 3 months while the cable is cut so that means slow internet. Oh joy.
> 
> http://www.iinet.net.au/status/4635151
> 
> So we're running out of power, the traffic in Hobart is suddenly stuffed and now so too is the internet. Welcome to the Tasmanian apocalypse of 2016.
> 
> Maybe this is all part of the government's plan to increase population? Convince everyone to turn the lights out, cripple their internet speeds and maybe they're thinking that we'll have a population boom about 9 months from now....
> 
> More seriously, maybe we need a government that actually listens to those who know about such things instead of having ministerial advisers telling the experts that they're not allowed to actually tell the Minister the truth and must instead come up with an alternative story. Yep, things are going just great with this sort of leadership.




Just arrived home from four weeks in Tassie, nobody seemed pre occupied with the problem. 
Hobart traffic, about the same as a reasonable sized country town, but Hobart has much better roads.

Great spot Tassie, if the bass link stays open for long enough, the dams should fill. 
Cloud seeding starting this week, one month early, it could be ice cream and lolly pops all round.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Hobart traffic, about the same as a reasonable sized country town, but Hobart has much better roads.




http://www.premier.tas.gov.au/releases/greater_hobart_traffic_congestion_summit

Nowhere near as bad as a large city, but when a 15 minute trip turns into 90 minutes that does upset a few people. 

It's still a great place to live though. Just frustrates me a lot knowing the background to both issues and wishing there was a better alternative to vote for. Someone who could actually think more than a few weeks ahead would be nice.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> http://www.premier.tas.gov.au/releases/greater_hobart_traffic_congestion_summit
> 
> Nowhere near as bad as a large city, but when a 15 minute trip turns into 90 minutes that does upset a few people.
> 
> It's still a great place to live though. Just frustrates me a lot knowing the background to both issues and wishing there was a better alternative to vote for. Someone who could actually think more than a few weeks ahead would be nice.




I don't disagree with that.

But after four weeks and 7,000klm's, we are thinking of moving there.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf, what's the latest on the Bass link repairs? 
It sounds as though the Government is prepared to run the dam levels down to 6.5%, that's low. What is the peak demand at this time of year and will the back up generation cover it?
I would say there are some very nervous people in management.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> But after four weeks and 7,000klm's, we are thinking of moving there.




Good to hear you enjoyed your trip. And welcome if you do decide to move down here.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Smurf, what's the latest on the Bass link repairs?
> It sounds as though the Government is prepared to run the dam levels down to 6.5%, that's low. What is the peak demand at this time of year and will the back up generation cover it?
> I would say there are some very nervous people in management.




Basslink is anyone's guess. They're aiming for repair by the end of May but now the ship's sitting in Geelong on account of bad weather in Bass Strait.

The cable has been cut and one half tests OK, the other half tests as faulty. Assuming they've cut it in the right place then they now just need to cut a bit more off the faulty part, test again, and do that until they've removed the failed section.

Let's just say that confidence in the Basslink repairs is about as low as is possible. Two missed deadlines thus far and now there's no actual deadline at all, just a "hoped for" date at the end of May. Planning is thus proceeding on the basis that it stays out of service until there's certainty that it's going to be fixed.

Adding to community frustration, cutting of the optical (communications) cable at the same time as the power cable crippled internet speeds for many with certain ISP's that wouldn't pay to use Telstra's two cables (from which they offered capacity to rivals at a regulated price). 

Power situation:

Storage as of Monday was at 14.8%, down 0.7% for the week with no significant inflows to storage. 

That figure combined with a few other things (see below) has produced a noticeable shift in morale among everyone involved. Reality is starting to hit home that we might actually be in serious trouble. Things just aren't going well that's for sure. It's all going wrong really. 

Industrial load shedding was 14% of system energy (that's average load as distinct from peak) but one user needs to go back to full production to meet contracts for their products so that's now reduced to about 10% of load being shed.

So load is only going up from here. Heating load in Winter adds about 25% to total system energy and about 50% to peak demand when compared to Summer. And as the cold weather on Tuesday reminded everyone, Winter is most certainly on the way.

Add in return of industrial load and we're looking at roughly a 45% increase in total system load comparing the end of June with early March.  

The 58 MW gas turbine being repaired overseas has been delayed another 3 weeks by weather where it's being fixed. Now won't be back until sometime in April (then it needs to be reinstalled before it actually produces any power).

A 17.5 MW gas turbine has come to a halt this week. More problems. Nothing major in itself since 17.5 MW isn't much but it's another problem we really don't need right now. You know things are bad when you're worried about 17.5 MW.... 

At least the Mitsubishi CCGT plant is working flawlessly at constant full load (208 MW). If that fails well then I recall a saying involving creeks and not having any paddles which would be appropriate. It does need a 1.5 - 2 week shutdown for maintenance in June that can't be avoided but let's just hope it works perfectly the rest of the time. 

The 6.5% figure isn't a hard "engineering" figure. But someone had to come up with a figure at which point it really is game over and that's the best guess at this point in time. It could vary with a lot of things but it's right in terms of order of magnitude.

For some good news, production is underway from diesel with the Catagunya diesel "power station" now running at close to capacity. Only producing 20 MW but that's better than nothing. More to come as the Meadowbank, George Town, Port Latta and Tribute sites (plus some more TBA) are brought into operation over the coming weeks.

More good news is that there's some rain forecast for tomorrow with 25 - 50mm across most of the catchment areas. The bad news is that's it's a one-off with basically nothing forecast for the next week after that.

Current storage by catchment:

Great Lake / Arthurs Lake = 15.8% 

Gordon = 7.4% and being run very hard in an effort to keep the rest of the system reasonably wet. Basically a case of sacrificing one scheme so as to keep everything else able to operate at full capacity. Won't be a problem given that gas and the diesels will contribute to meeting peak demand. Emptying Gordon doesn't come with any major non-energy downsides (irrigation or town water supply, environmental effects, etc) so is a better choice than draining out any of the other schemes.

Derwent = 21.8% 

King = 20.9% 

Pieman = 52.7% and being kept higher due to peak capacity considerations and noting the relatively small size of the storages relative to the scheme's peak generating capacity.

Mersey-Forth = 53.8% higher than the rest for the same reason as the Pieman. 

Yolande (Lake Margaret) = 20.1% 

Total System = 14.8%

Some uncertainty exists as to how Gordon will operate at even lower storage levels since it has never been operated this low previously (the others have individually all been lower at some point, though not all at once, but it does mean we know what happens with the rest at very low levels).

The basic risk there is that Gordon won't still be able to achieve full output at, say, 1% full. Sometime before that the peak discharge rate is going to be constrained due to insufficient water over the intake. There are models and calculations, but it's always better to have practical experience. So far, so good....


----------



## drsmith

Sounds increasingly like good time in Tasmania to service the chainsaw and sharpen the axe.


----------



## Smurf1976

drsmith said:


> Sounds increasingly like good time in Tasmania to service the chainsaw and sharpen the axe.




I'll have them ready by the front door just in case any politicians come door knocking.


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## nioka

Smurf1976 said:


> I'll have them ready by the front door just in case any politicians come door knocking.




Maybe it is time to get Bob Browns permission to dam the Franklin, create a new man made ecosystem and get Tasmania permanent cheap clean and green power.


----------



## SirRumpole

nioka said:


> Maybe it is time to get Bob Browns permission to dam the Franklin, create a new man made ecosystem and get Tasmania permanent cheap clean and green power.




Maybe it's time to develope Tasmania's geothermal energy capability.


----------



## nioka

SirRumpole said:


> Maybe it's time to develope Tasmania's geothermal energy capability.




I once thought it was a good time to develop Australia's geothermal energy. In Rudd's time I invested good money to back those thoughts. Lost a tidy sum. Still believe in the potential. With one foot in the grave and the other on a banana skin I see it as a long term project and one that is not for me.


----------



## SirRumpole

nioka said:


> I once thought it was a good time to develop Australia's geothermal energy. In Rudd's time I invested good money to back those thoughts. Lost a tidy sum. Still believe in the potential. With one foot in the grave and the other on a banana skin I see it as a long term project and one that is not for me.




Yes, I don't believe it's an area for private investors, it's a national interest project that should be financed and owned by governments.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, I don't believe it's an area for private investors, it's a national interest project that should be financed and owned by governments.




Hydro would likely never have been built at scale without government involvement and brown coal wouldn't have been used _at all_ had it not been seen as important at the time to develop it.

The same factors which put brown coal on hold until there was an outright crisis in Vic and SA are the same factors that are stopping geothermal now. The private sector likes "off the shelf" things and tends to be reluctant to back anything that's going to take a decade to produce any income and then with considerable risk. 

But if Vic and SA had never developed low grade coal, and if Tas hadn't developed hydro, well the economies of those states would almost certainly have seen far less development than has actually occurred so there was a very real benefit in having a local energy supply of reasonable reliability (and despite the current circumstances, Tas hydro still has a better track record than just about anything else).

Back to the situation in Tas, well at least we've had some decent rain and wind today.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Hydro would likely never have been built at scale without government involvement and brown coal wouldn't have been used _at all_ had it not been seen as important at the time to develop it.
> 
> The same factors which put brown coal on hold until there was an outright crisis in Vic and SA are the same factors that are stopping geothermal now. The private sector likes "off the shelf" things and tends to be reluctant to back anything that's going to take a decade to produce any income and then with considerable risk.
> 
> But if Vic and SA had never developed low grade coal, and if Tas hadn't developed hydro, well the economies of those states would almost certainly have seen far less development than has actually occurred so there was a very real benefit in having a local energy supply of reasonable reliability (and despite the current circumstances, Tas hydro still has a better track record than just about anything else).
> 
> Back to the situation in Tas, well at least we've had some decent rain and wind today.




1. I think our governments have gone from nation builders to rent seekers.

2. Good luck with the weather, you really need a deluge to get back to scratch.


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## Smurf1976

And the number is..... 14.6% (or 14.66% if you want to be precise). That's down from 14.8% last week.

I think a few people might have underestimated the rain over the past week and lost their bets with this one. 

System load is now starting to increase with cooler weather (a bit of heating load is now apparent) and also some industrial load back online.

Presently running about 62% hydro, 25% gas, 11% wind, 2% diesel on a weekly average basis.

Progress with gas and diesel generation:

Gas. 

The Rolls Royce unit is fixed and should be back in Tas within a few days. Then just need to re-install it and should be up and running in a couple of weeks. That'll bring gas up to about 30% of total generation. That's the good bit.

The bad bit is one of the small gas turbines has had a problem and not running for a while.  Those things aren't at all reliable, they're nothing but trouble really and were going to be scrapped at the end of 2017, but at least 3 of them are still going. Others will be running in due course. Cooler weather and some tinkering has brought the 3 working ones up close to full capacity however.

Diesel.

Catagunya site is now complete. Meadowbank is about to start running. Still building George Town, Port Latta and Que River and aiming to have them all going by the end of the month which will lift diesel to about 8% of total supply into the grid from a total of 107 generators. Diesel fuel itself has turned up too over the weekend, now in oil company storage tanks and being hauled (by road) to the temporary power stations as they start to operate. More diesels to come next month too.

Less seriously, I'm thinking that we ought to ask Walshy if he can make "rain dance" a feature of this year's Dark Mofo. Get enough people to all do it at once and maybe it will work. That plus conduct the nude swim at Great Lake this year. Just ask everyone to bring a few buckets of water with them, tip them into the lake so there's actually some water in it and all should be good to go. :

Image shows Great Lake between the No.2 (on the left) and No. 3 (on the right) dams. No.2 was built 1922 but replaced with the higher No.3 dam in 1967 (itself raised further in 1982). If it were full, the water would completely submerge the No.2 dam and be near the top of the tower on the right just below the walkway. 

https://www.tasmaniatalks.com.au/assets/images/1919615_1241470565881002_761709071887785770_n.jpg


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## basilio

Came across a thoughtful argument on the applicability of various renewable energy options in different situations. 
Liked it.



> *Energy strategies: horses for courses*
> Posted on March 20, 2016 | 141 Comments
> 
> by Planning Engineer and Rud Istvan
> 
> Just because something works in one place’s circumstances does not mean it will work elsewhere under different circumstances.   Perhaps you’ve seen the posting on the left, or others with a similar message. With any thought though, it soon becomes clear that not “every” parking lot is a good candidate for co-functioning as a solar generation station. Parking lots are incredibly diverse: some lack sun, some can’t support the infrastructure, some are far from power needs and converting some parking lots would unduly sacrifice the local environment.
> 
> The Green Diamond Group was likely engaging in a bit of hyperbole. Unfortunately, many embrace such hyperbole without thinking, such that unrealistic expectations abound when it comes to the potential capabilities, performance and applicability’s of many renewable resources.




https://judithcurry.com/2016/03/20/energy-strategies-horses-for-courses/


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## Smurf1976

If you're in Tas and planning to go fishing then maybe cross Lake King William off the list.

Filmed yesterday and the location is Lake King William, filmed from a point approximately 4km south of the northern most point of the lake and 2km south from where the lake becomes a wide expanse of water (being fairly narrow at the far northern end).

After that we went further south, ultimately reaching a point about 5km south of the northern most point of the lake. Still no water to be found at that point, it's completely dry apart from some water flowing through the natural river channel which is only a few metres wide.

Lake King William is discharged via the small Butlers Gorge power station at the dam and then conveyed by canal to Tarraleah. After that it's re-used at another 6 power stations downstream and a bit is then taken for Hobart's water supply and some irrigation uses. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWWB1tLv-uU


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## nioka

Tasmania once had the chance to have the cheapest power in the nation. Rightly or wrongly that was scuttled by Bob Brown and his followers with the no more dams policy.

Maybe the answer to the current situation is to deny power to those that actively participated in stopping more hydro development.

In stopping hydro development they also stopped Tasmania from becoming a great industrial state. But then maybe that really was the objective. Sort of like a hippy stopping progress but then drawing the dole.


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## sptrawler

Smurph how is it going over there? Any rain, or repairs to the extension cord yet?


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## Smurf1976

Latest update on the situation in Tas and what _should_ (hopefully) be the final plan on how to deal with it.

Water storage = 13.9% as of yesterday and falling. This is an all time record low.

Basslink - fault has been found and now being repaired. Should be returned to service sometime in June. 

Diesel generators - 22 MW is running now, should be up to 57 MW by the end of the week and 89 MW by the end of next week. Then another 35 MW within a few weeks. This is the expected constant power output capability of the numerous individually small (and of multiple different types) generators. Peak power rating is a bit higher and the media seems to be mostly quoting that figure instead. 

Gas generation:

208 MW combined cycle unit is running perfectly. 

Nominally 105 MW (continuous rating) old open cycle units are struggling but managing to produce about 55 MW from 3 of the 6 turbines. Two of the failed ones should be repaired (basically rebuilt in practice, it's a complete overhaul required for what would otherwise be considered as 'end of life' equipment) by about July. Another one failed recently so add that to the list. 

58 MW open cycle turbine is back on site after modification overseas by the manufacturer to correct a design fault. Has been test run on site (all OK) and now being reinstalled as such.

100 MW of new plant has been obtained. Half should be running early in May and the other 2 x 25 MW units (open cycle) by the end of the month.

Whilst the diesel and gas generation units are mostly individually small, it was a case of taking whatever was available and which could be installed quickly given the circumstances. Collectively it all adds up to a significant amount of power, just from a lot of mostly small generators (which then becomes quite a challenge to maintain with so many of them, but that's another story). 

Cloud seeding - gets underway at the start of April in an effort to make it rain.

PS - There's quite a lot of anecdotal evidence that a few people have started to panic. If you're looking to buy a small generator, eg for camping or whatever, then I reckon there will be quite a few "new, unused" ones for sale in Tas once all this is over.


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## sptrawler

I can hear the sphincters releasing from here.lol

It will be interesting to see what the fallout is ,when the dust settles. 
Second Bass link, more dam storage capacity, or limit export when a minimum reserve dam capacity is reached.


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## Smurf1976

The fallout will be interesting indeed, both political and physical.

See image here which shows the damaged cable.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/7280838-3x2-340x227.jpg

Another thing, but it seems that the whole situation has prompted rather a lot of people to go exploring over Easter. Lots of people going down old tracks or roads into empty lakes, trying to find normally submerged ruins (particularly that of a long abandoned copper smelter which seems to have prompted considerable interest), wandering around dams armed with a camera and so on.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The fallout will be interesting indeed, both political and physical.
> 
> See image here which shows the damaged cable.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/7280838-3x2-340x227.jpg
> 
> Another thing, but it seems that the whole situation has prompted rather a lot of people to go exploring over Easter. Lots of people going down old tracks or roads into empty lakes, trying to find normally submerged ruins (particularly that of a long abandoned copper smelter which seems to have prompted considerable interest), wandering around dams armed with a camera and so on.




We did the Queenstown steam train ride, magic, just shows what ingenuity can do, they mentioned the submerged town of Crotty was re emerging. It really was a terrific tourist attraction and that is from one who is most sceptical, of so called tourist attractions.

They mentioned also that the Mount Lyell hydro plant, commissioned in the early 1900's. was  re started recently.
It will be interesting to see if they upgrade it, or has that already been done?

By the way, the photo of the cable damage, looked like something I hit with a shovel in the garden. I certainly hope there is better photos to support the multi million dollar insurance claims.lol


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> They mentioned also that the Mount Lyell hydro plant, commissioned in the early 1900's. was  re started recently.It will be interesting to see if they upgrade it, or has that already been done?




That would be the Lake Margaret power station. Brief history (and yep, the machines really are this small):

Entered service 1914 with 4 x 1.2 MW machines and under private ownership (Mt Lyell Mining & Railway Co.)

1918 - Additional 2 x 1.2 MW machines added.

1930 - Building extended and 7th 1.2 MW machine.

1931 - Lower power station (separate second plant) constructed. 1 x 1.6 MW

1985 - Sold to the HEC (now Hydro Tas)

1994 - Lower power station closed as pipeline at end of life and uneconomic at that time to replace.

2006 - Upper power station shut down due concerns about potential for failure of the wooden pipeline and other structures which were clearly past their useful life and had been kept in service as long as practical.  

2009 - Upper power station returned to service following complete replacement of the wooden pipeline and associated structures. And yes, the new pipeline is wood just like the old one (for heritage preservation reasons).

2010 - Lower power station returned to service with a new pipeline (wood) and new machine. Old machine kept in-situ for herritage conservation reasons.

The whole scheme is formally heritage listed and is pretty much original apart from the pipeline and a few bits and pieces. The machinery itself is original and inside it's absolutely a time warp firmly stuck a century in the past and the intent is to keep it that way. 

The machines may be old and small, but they're actually pretty reliable and between them have sufficient capacity (in base load operation 24/7) to make use of the water inflows to Lake Margaret. So there wouldn't be much gain in upgrading them anyway apart from reducing maintenance costs (one larger machine instead of 7 little ones).

Photos show the old pipeline just before closure in 2006 and also inside the power station around the same time. Note the leaks in the pipe - and that was after a huge effort at patching it up to keep it going. Woodstave pipes do work, there's still some old ones elsewhere in the system actually, but the West Coast climate isn't kind to them.


----------



## sptrawler

Thanks for that smurph, brilliant that they have kept something of historical significance. 
Over here in W.A, it would have been scrapped, that's the mentality here unfortunately.

It is a long time since I've seen salient pole alternators that size, last time was on a large medium speed diesel. Ah getting old, what joy.  lol


----------



## SirRumpole

Australian company launches home solar storage battery to take on electronics giant Tesla


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-...age-battaries-to-take-on-giants-tesla/7284518
--


----------



## DB008

Just saw that myself Rumpy.




> *What is ZCell*
> 
> The Australian-designed ZCell is a storage system built around a unique zinc-bromine flow battery.
> 
> ZCell can deliver 10 kilowatt hours (kWh) of stored energy each day, harvesting energy from solar panels or lower-cost off-peak power, for use when you need it.
> 
> Installing ZCell with a suitable inverter as part of your energy management system can lower your power costs, provide resilience during grid power cuts and increase your energy independence.




https://www.zcell.com/​
Edit - price point is on the ZCell website itself

https://faq.zcell.com/content/2/10/en-us/what-sort-of-price-expectations-do-you-have-for-a-fully-installed-zcell-system.html





> *What could a ZCell based system cost?*
> 
> The total system cost will be determined by your installer (not by Redflow). We supply your ZCell in its outdoor enclosure with the ZCell Battery Management System unit to your chosen system installer as key components of your overall energy system design.
> 
> Based upon your needs and requirements, your installer will work with you to choose an appropriate brand and specification of AC inverter/charger to use with your ZCell. They will also include any additional items (such as solar panels and energy flow monitoring devices) that you may elect to install at the same time.
> 
> Your installer will provide you with a quotation, install the entire system, commission it, and send you the bill. This cost will vary depending upon your needs and requirements.
> 
> We expect the fully installed cost of a 10 kWh ZCell based energy storage system will start from $17,500 - $19,500 including GST.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Thanks for that smurph, brilliant that they have kept something of historical significance.
> Over here in W.A, it would have been scrapped, that's the mentality here unfortunately.




Back in 2006 at the time of closure there was a pretty loud cry from locals in Queenstown that they wanted it kept in place and preferably operating. 

Even within Hydro, there was a lot of "what the hell are we doing to be closing this" and "we just can't let this happen" type thinking and that was at all levels from the top down.

So a way had to be found to make it viable and keep it operating. Financially it was a dud with very high maintenance costs trying to hold the old pipe together plus needing constant manning to run the station. That plus the risk was off the scale in terms of the reality that that old pipe was thinning out, leaking and in very pooe condition so could give way completely at some point. And that would have been a huge problem given that the only the only way to access the water valves (well, without using a helicopter) in order to stop the water flow involves going along the pipeline route to the dam, something that would be potentially impossible if the pipe had failed and was discharging at full flow into the bush. Even worse if it washed away the various bridges and walkway. 

Solution:

1. Build a replacement pipe to avoid the huge maintenance cost and remove the risk of failure. 

2. A small concession to modern technology via the installation of remote shutdown on the machines. There's still a need for manual start up and to change output but having the remote monitoring and automated shutdown means that it can be safely left running unattended once its going, thus removing the need for someone to sit there 24/7 watching over it.

3. Redevelop the lower station, this time with a machine of double the capacity of the old one so as to use the full amount of water discharged from the main (upper) station. That boosts revenue with higher production and the bonus that since it's completely new, it gets REC's on its entire output so brings in some $ that way.

From a technical perspective these days a steel pipeline would be the first choice. But there was a strong desire to keep the whole thing as original as possible, literally a "working museum" as it is often described, and so a new woodstave pipe was built. The only real hassle there was having to re-learn the skill of building a pipeline from wood but it was all done.

Wood was also used for the pipeline to the lower station for the same underlying reason. Keep everything as original as possible. And the extension to the lower station to accommodate the new machine is built in the exact same style as the original part of the building too (nothing fancy, it's just a shed really).

Another feature of the scheme is the walkway and "railway" that is still the only access to the dam. There's little carts that run along the rails, not an actual train, and some special materials carrying equipment was built specifically for the pipeline replacement project. See photo (pipe in the photo is the old one).

The dam wall itself was strengthened by Hydro (whilst still under private ownership) in the 1970's. They used as little cement as possible during the original construction in 1914. Firstly because cement was somewhat hard to get at that time apparently, and secondly because everything had to be carried to the site using muscle power only so they sure weren't going to use any more than they thought necessary at the time. Hence the need to strengthen it later but it's sound as such. 

I'm still impressed at the efforts of those who built it all in the first place. No roads, no trucks, a very harsh environment but they got it done and a century later it's still in use.


----------



## Ijustnewit

Things are getting progressively worse for Tasmania's Hydro and water levels in the dams. Not surprising as the heat and sunny days continue even now we are in April we are still clocking out 25 degree days. And not a drop of rain in sight for months apparently according to the long term forecasters. With the second warmest March and the hottest Summer on record and April already 5 degrees over the record it's now wonder we are stuffed.:1zhelp:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-...-lowest-level-yet/7298272?WT.ac=statenews_tas


----------



## qldfrog

Tasmanian crisis hitting the news: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-05/tasnetworks-investigating-enforced-blackouts-to-save-power/7300150?WT.ac=statenews_tas


----------



## Smurf1976

The situation is far from good but we're nowhere near the point of blackouts yet.

A few points on the present circumstances:

*Inflows have increased due to recent rainfall. This enables more production from the smaller storages and a reduction in water release from long term and larger storages. Release of water from Lake Echo and Lake King William (both in the Derwent catchment) is completely shut off at present as is release from Lake Burbury. Gordon power station is only running 1 (of 3) machine and not at full capacity. Poatina is likewise running well below capacity. Other parts of the system, most notably the Pieman catchment, have increased production due to recent rains.

*Gas generation has increased with the 58 MW unit now back in service and running at full load. The combined cycle unit (208 MW) continues to run flat out and there's about 55 - 60 MW being produced from the old P&W gas turbines. All available gas generation is being run base load (full output 24/7).

*Diesel generation has increased with 53 MW now operating at 4 sites - Catagunya, Meadowbank, George Town and a bit at Port Latta. More diesel capacity continues to be commissioned. The diesel generation is also running base load (full output 24/7).

*Also very good wind generation at the moment although that is of course highly variable.

*A successful cloud seeding flight was conducted in 2nd April over the Gordon catchment and the western part of the Derwent catchment. More to come as suitable cloud conditions arise. 

*Total system storage was 13.6% on Monday, down 0.3% for the week.

There's an issue at Poatina (Great Lake) with some silt (which was always there, the incoming water is pretty clean) having shifted (largely due to wind) and threatening to block the intake. It's being removed at the moment. See here (not my photos): 

http://s24.postimg.org/3m5sv9jet/P1150094c.jpg (the intake itself is at the right but not really visible)

http://s23.postimg.org/4e6el0fxn/P1150105c.jpg

Removing the silt isn't helping the water quality going into Poatina due to it being stirred up but it's still pretty good everywhere else. http://s18.postimg.org/hrbsp45jt/P1150102c.jpg

Rainfall for the week with catchment areas drawn on the map: http://s18.postimg.org/eunfw19eh/20160404_week_rainfall.gif

Clockwise from the "9 o'clock" position the lines show the King and Lake Margaret (West), Pieman (NW), Mersey-Forth (North), Great Lake - South Esk (NE), Derwent (center) and Gordon (SW) catchments. More details about what's in each catchment here: http://www.hydro.com.au/energy/our-power-stations

Quite a lot of people seem to have decided to go exploring the empty lakes recently. As one business operator put it - they used to come here (to Great Lake) to fish but now they're coming to see how shallow the lake is but there's still people coming as such, just for a very different reason.

Plenty of people seem to have gone down into Lake Gordon and quite a few spotted roaming around the Lake Echo dam wall and intake armed with cameras too.


----------



## Smurf1976

A video showing Great Lake. No idea who filmed it (not me) but shows it pretty well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj70RmOveOU

Note that the Poatina intake shown would, if the lake were full, be submerged almost to the top. That it is surrounded by dry land and with just a channel going out into the lake is due to the low water level (and that channel itself being a remnant from the original construction, noting that the lake was dammed for a previous power scheme well before that so a dam of sorts was built around the intake construction area to keep the water out, then breached to let the water in - hence the channel visible at low levels).

At the other end you'll see that there are actually 3 dams.

Smallest one - that's the original one from 1916 and very rarely visible. It's the dam which a private company started building in 1910 before going broke and with government eventually taking it over and completing the work.

Multiple arch dam in the middle - that dates from 1922 and was the first dam of any sort designed and built completely by what is now the Hydro. The design was to minimise the amount of concrete needed, since getting to the site was problematic at the time so there was a need to minimise the amount of material brought in. It was built to increase storage capacity, noting that the newly formed Hydro had increased the capacity of the associated power station by 600% in the space of 6 years so needed more water. This second dam is completely under water when the lake is at a high level but is quite often visible during periods of drought. 

The larger rock fill dam sits after those two and is the structure used to hold the water in today. It was built in 1967 to increase storage capacity as protection against drought, a need recognised earlier but unfortunately the new dam was completed too late to store water before drought which occurred that year. That dam was raised further in 1982 to its present height but has never actually filled to the new maximum level (though it has exceeded the previous maximum level during the mid-1990's). 

Great Lake is 11.2% full at present although the associated Arthurs Lake is 50% full (and being pumped into Great Lake as quickly as possible - the pumps are running flat out around the clock).


----------



## sptrawler

How is the rain situation looking smurph?

The Bass Link failure, will probably result in a maximum export limit, to ensure this doesn't happen again.


----------



## Ijustnewit

sptrawler said:


> How is the rain situation looking smurph?
> 
> The Bass Link failure, will probably result in a maximum export limit, to ensure this doesn't happen again.




Yes Smurf any Hydro news on the rain ? Hobart is just dustbowl and it refuses to rain more than a couple of drops.
From what I have heard the El Nino is strengthening again and the chances of a La Nina are falling by the week. 
Most weather experts are now saying they won't call what is going to happen till at least June , If we get another El Nino I guess it's all over for Tasmania.


----------



## sptrawler

Ijustnewit said:


> Yes Smurf any Hydro news on the rain ? Hobart is just dustbowl and it refuses to rain more than a couple of drops.
> From what I have heard the El Nino is strengthening again and the chances of a La Nina are falling by the week.
> Most weather experts are now saying they won't call what is going to happen till at least June , If we get another El Nino I guess it's all over for Tasmania.




If worse comes to worse, Tasmania may have to source a floating powership and moor it near a suitable switchyard. I guess all options are being investigated.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> How is the rain situation looking smurph?
> 
> The Bass Link failure, will probably result in a maximum export limit, to ensure this doesn't happen again.




Rain - short term looks pretty good and the cloud seeding plane will be in the air at every possible opportunity to add to whatever nature brings. Even the West Coast residents and council seem to have decided that they can live with a seeding-induced drenching or two given the circumstances. The seeding target area has been enlarged too, targeting not only the normal area of hydro catchment headwaters but other areas as well, both hydro catchments and agricultural areas as well - so most of the state really.

The outlook isn't too good for April, the probability does favour dry conditions, but it looks better for May. It's anyone's guess beyond that at this stage. 

Basslink - ongoing implications technically are unknown (ie will it return to full capacity?) but there will also inevitably be the political fallout. That's the tough one, politics, but it's fair to say that the state government now has a couple of problems. One is the immediate (next few years) financial black hole in the absence of Hydro profits propping up the state budget. 

The other is pure politics in that the public is now increasingly aware of what's being going on. Make the budget look good by shuffling money rather than actually fixing anything - even the mainstream newspapers are onto that one now.

Politics is where things could get really interesting especially if the overall budget situation gains any real attention as I think it will.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> If worse comes to worse, Tasmania may have to source a floating powership and moor it near a suitable switchyard. I guess all options are being investigated.




Once all the gas-fired generation is running (June / July) then with full use of all units (CCGT and OCGT) that will stabilise storage levels even in a drought equal to the worst on record. The diesels thus have a short term use only.

The real problem however is economic. The money shuffling game is over and that's where the real problem lies for the state generally. Tough times ahead unless there's a miracle.


----------



## sptrawler

W.A has the opposite problem to Tasssie, they have too much excess generating capacity.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/r...3/collie-big-users-to-lose-in-energy-reforms/

It is funny how things can turn around, 15 or so years ago W.A had a power shortage, private operators were encouraged to install plant by introducing capacity payments.

Now we have 1000MW of excess capacity, roof top solar and energy efficient appliances have made a huge difference.


----------



## Monkey C Doo

sptrawler said:


> W.A has the opposite problem to Tasssie, they have too much excess generating capacity.
> 
> https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/r...3/collie-big-users-to-lose-in-energy-reforms/
> 
> It is funny how things can turn around, 15 or so years ago W.A had a power shortage, private operators were encouraged to install plant by introducing capacity payments.
> 
> Now we have 1000MW of excess capacity, roof top solar and energy efficient appliances have made a huge difference.




And yet you guys are still paying top $ for electricity. Whats up with that? Highest in Australia???
Regulated markets are awesome


----------



## Smurf1976

Add WA to the list of debacles caused by industry "reforms" over the past 20 or so years.

Then add it again once the gas price goes up and someone wonders why the state became so heavily reliant on a single source with doubtful long term viability.

Keep the politicians away and let the engineers etc get on with the job. That approach worked pretty well for decades before someone decided to turn electricity into a commodity, split everything up and sent prices to end users went through the roof.


----------



## Smurf1976

Monkey C Doo said:


> And yet you guys are still paying top $ for electricity. Whats up with that? Highest in Australia???
> Regulated markets are awesome




It's pretty much the same everywhere. Governments split up the industry and created a "market" that does not naturally exist, adding new costs which the various companies "compete" to reduce but never back to what they were originally.

The outcome is the same in most places. Prices are higher in 'real terms' today than before all the reforms started. The old state-run monopolies did have their inefficiencies but were cheaper than what we've got today.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> It's pretty much the same everywhere. Governments split up the industry and created a "market" that does not naturally exist, adding new costs which the various companies "compete" to reduce but never back to what they were originally.
> 
> The outcome is the same in most places. Prices are higher in 'real terms' today than before all the reforms started. The old state-run monopolies did have their inefficiencies but were cheaper than what we've got today.




That's exactly right, in W.A the price has doubled since the industry was opened up to competition, yet the cost to generate hasn't moved much at all.

Now we have a situation where State owned generators are being shut down, to try and force the private suppliers to run their plant.

Increasing the price doesn't seem to have encouraged competition, it has resulted in more installed generation, that gets paid capacity payments to sit there and do nothing.


----------



## basilio

*Turning poo into energy.[/B

Yep not an original idea.  However the most recent trials of a hydrogen Microbial Electrolysis Cell (MEC) in England looks very, very useful.

Well worth a read.




Northumbrian Water reveals Microbial Electrolysis Cell trials

Northumbrian Water and Newcastle University have carried out the first trial of a hydrogen Microbial Electrolysis Cell (MEC) on real sewage at a wastewater treatment works on Tyneside.

Speaking recently at the British Science Festival in Newcastle, experts from Northumbrian Water and Newcastle University revealed how they have harnessed the power of the billions of naturally-occurring microbes in sewage. The process has shown that not only can wastewater treatment plants be completely self-powered and the treatment process improved, they can also be used to produce significant quantities of hydrogen gas, which could be collected and used to power electric vehicles, for instance.

Click to expand...



One of the significant points about the trial is that there is no preparation of the sewage.  Just straight poo




			“What’s really clever about this system is that it works on raw sewage at ambient temperature. Most anaerobic digesters require a high-energy, concentrated food source and heat to work properly which means the water has to be removed first and this is an energy-expensive process.

“What we have developed is a system that feeds on the waste as it arrives at the plant – the whole lot goes in and the microbes do all the hard work.”
		
Click to expand...


http://wwtonline.co.uk/news/northum...robial-electrolysis-cell-trials-#.VweXITHKr1G*


----------



## basilio

*Turning poo into energy.*

Yep not an original idea.  However the most recent trials of a hydrogen Microbial Electrolysis Cell (MEC) in England looks very, very useful.

Well worth a read.


> *
> Northumbrian Water reveals Microbial Electrolysis Cell trials*
> 
> Northumbrian Water and Newcastle University have carried out the first trial of a hydrogen Microbial Electrolysis Cell (MEC) on real sewage at a wastewater treatment works on Tyneside.
> 
> Speaking recently at the British Science Festival in Newcastle, experts from Northumbrian Water and Newcastle University revealed how they have harnessed the power of the billions of naturally-occurring microbes in sewage. *The process has shown that not only can wastewater treatment plants be completely self-powered and the treatment process improved, they can also be used to produce significant quantities of hydrogen gas, which could be collected and used to power electric vehicles, for instance.*




One the significant points about the trial is that there is no preparation of the sewage.  Just straight poo



> “What’s really clever about this system is that it works on raw sewage at ambient temperature. Most anaerobic digesters require a high-energy, concentrated food source and heat to work properly which means the water has to be removed first and this is an energy-expensive process.
> 
> “What we have developed is a system that feeds on the waste as it arrives at the plant – the whole lot goes in and the microbes do all the hard work.”



http://wwtonline.co.uk/news/northum...robial-electrolysis-cell-trials-#.VweXITHKr1G


----------



## SirRumpole

Tasmanian energy crisis: Hydro says early start to cloud seeding has stabilised dam levels

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-09/hydro-spruiks-cloud-seeding-operations/7312512


----------



## Smurf1976

Cloud seeding is in full swing and working well thus far. It does need suitable conditions but it's a well proven process that does work.

Whilst it only adds modestly to actual rainfall, all that comes in the form of heavier and longer falls and without increased evaporation losses so the benefit in terms of inflows to storages is larger than the actual % increase in rainfall.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> Cloud seeding is in full swing and working well thus far. It does need suitable conditions but it's a well proven process that does work.
> 
> Whilst it only adds modestly to actual rainfall, all that comes in the form of heavier and longer falls and without increased evaporation losses so the benefit in terms of inflows to storages is larger than the actual % increase in rainfall.




I wonder if seeding in one area is robbing rainfall from another, I also wonder whether the chemicals used could cause problems to ecosystems if they are used to much, saying that though it's an emergency in tassy at the moment, but I just hope there is no long term impact of it becomes an annual thing that gets over used.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> I wonder if seeding in one area is robbing rainfall from another, I also wonder whether the chemicals used could cause problems to ecosystems if they are used to much, saying that though it's an emergency in tassy at the moment, but I just hope there is no long term impact of it becomes an annual thing that gets over used.




Hydro has been doing it since 1964 using various methods and has conducted a lot of research over that time both internally and in conjunction with others.

Obviously it's adding chemicals to the environment but the information available is that this shouldn't cause a problem. Quantity is a big factor there, since only about 250g of silver iodide is used on a typical flight and that's spread over a wide area. So it's not a lot.

So far as taking rain from one area to another is concerned, that's a concern that farmers have raised in the past but which has died down in recent years. Research by various parties and actual weather data shows it to not be the case at least within Tasmania. Presumably someone, somewhere gets less rain but in practice that would be out at sea.

More information is here: http://www.hydro.com.au/water/cloud-seeding


----------



## nioka

sptrawler said:


> That's exactly right, in W.A the price has doubled since the industry was opened up to competition, yet the cost to generate hasn't moved much at all.
> 
> Now we have a situation where State owned generators are being shut down, to try and force the private suppliers to run their plant.
> 
> Increasing the price doesn't seem to have encouraged competition, it has resulted in more installed generation, that gets paid capacity payments to sit there and do nothing.




I believe the problem with increased price is the result of the state owned enterprise being forced to increase prices dramatically in order to show big profits so that the state received a higher sale price of an asset. Then the companies were allowed to increase prices further. Then again the charges associated with distribution, poles and wires as they say, were increased to establish a high value there as well. All gets down to selling off the farm to pay off the bankcard.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> That's exactly right, in W.A the price has doubled since the industry was opened up to competition, yet the cost to generate hasn't moved much at all.
> 
> Now we have a situation where State owned generators are being shut down, to try and force the private suppliers to run their plant.
> 
> Increasing the price doesn't seem to have encouraged competition, it has resulted in more installed generation, that gets paid capacity payments to sit there and do nothing.




So you are agreeing that public utility assets should not be privatised ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> So you are agreeing that public utility assets should not be privatised ?




I've always said that.


----------



## artist

nioka said:


> All gets down to selling off the farm to pay off the bankcard.




This is, it seems, pretty much how Carlos Slim became the second richest person in the world.

"And the Mexican government deliberately created the monopoly, because it knew that if it auctioned off a monopoly, the sale would raise more money. 

Basically, the Mexican government auctioned off the right to exploit the Mexican people in order to plug a budget hole."

http://toomuchonline.org/the-real-secrets-to-grand-fortune/


----------



## orr

A useful update on the rollout of large scale PV installs. With long term contract prices to the distributers in the $60-$80/Mwh range... From the Economist

http://www.economist.com/news/busin...ednew/n/bl/n/20160414n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/AP/n


----------



## Ijustnewit

Seems poor old Hydro Tas can't take a trick , at least they got a few mm of rain today.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-...y-momentum-energy/7345290?WT.ac=statenews_tas


----------



## Smurf1976

Ijustnewit said:


> Seems poor old Hydro Tas can't take a trick




I think we've upset the gods or something. Pretty much _everything_ has gone wrong lately....

As for that issue, well I do think it's a tad unfair. I mean NO electricity retailer can guarantee where your power comes from and Momentum has _always_ stated on the website and elsewhere that the Smile Power product is not an accredited Green Power product and that Momentum offers a separate product for those who want to purchase accredited Green Power.

Will AGL (Australian Gas Light Company) be fined because most of the power they're selling isn't actually produced from gas?

Will Origin be fined because the fossil fuels they're burning aren't actually "made fresh daily" as their advertising claims but are in fact millions of years old?

Will Bunnings or anyone else who claims "lowest prices" be fined if I find something in their shop that isn't actually at the lowest price available and someone else has it cheaper? Definitely misleading to say you've got the "lowest prices" unless you actually do have the lowest prices, that seems pretty clear to me.

Will the ACCC be fined for botching the gas roll-out in Tasmania? Said that the electricity industry couldn't build it, that would be uncompetitive to have such a monopoly over both electricity and gas, so the end result is that two thirds of it wasn't built at all and that means even less competition.

Hmm.... I think we've just upset someone.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I think we've upset the gods or something. Pretty much _everything_ has gone wrong lately....
> 
> As for that issue, well I do think it's a tad unfair. I mean NO electricity retailer can guarantee where your power comes from and Momentum has _always_ stated on the website and elsewhere that the Smile Power product is not an accredited Green Power product and that Momentum offers a separate product for those who want to purchase accredited Green Power.
> 
> Will AGL (Australian Gas Light Company) be fined because most of the power they're selling isn't actually produced from gas?
> 
> Will Origin be fined because the fossil fuels they're burning aren't actually "made fresh daily" as their advertising claims but are in fact millions of years old?
> 
> Will Bunnings or anyone else who claims "lowest prices" be fined if I find something in their shop that isn't actually at the lowest price available and someone else has it cheaper? Definitely misleading to say you've got the "lowest prices" unless you actually do have the lowest prices, that seems pretty clear to me.
> 
> Will the ACCC be fined for botching the gas roll-out in Tasmania? Said that the electricity industry couldn't build it, that would be uncompetitive to have such a monopoly over both electricity and gas, so the end result is that two thirds of it wasn't built at all and that means even less competition.
> 
> Hmm.... I think we've just upset someone.




Just another **** up, from the clever Country, that shoots itself in the foot at every opportunity.

Men at work, should have written the song, "We are politically correct misogynists, from down under, we don't say much, but are torn asunder".


----------



## DB008

Up here in QLD, the Palaszczuk Government is literally trying to push people to go off-grid and to use battery storage.


Firstly they raise the daily supply charge (I think mine went up 40% in 6 months of moving here)
Then a 6.767 cent daily 'solar meter charge' 
inverters are also capped at 90% capacity output

All of the above has happened since I moved here about 13 months ago...


Now this....




> *Energex to ban battery storage, air-con and appliances from off-peak​*
> Queensland government owned network operator Energex has taken the extraordinary step of banning battery storage, air conditioning and appliances such as washing machines and clothes dryers from off peak loads in a move that has stunned the solar and storage industry.
> 
> The move was announced without explanation in an email to electricians and rooftop solar installers. It seemed hastily cobbled together, it couldn’t spell “tariff” (see below), and energy experts are struggling to see the logic in it.
> Indeed, sources told RenewEconomy that the response was so savage that Energex had advised that the rule changes would be withdrawn by the end of the day, and only re-introduced after proper consultation with the industry. Indeed, that was confirmed by a new email from Energex that it was only a proposal, and apologies for the confusion.
> 
> As it is, the industry is perplexed. They say the proposed changes brings to an end decades of efforts of trying to shift consumption away from peak demand.
> 
> And they pointed out that it made no sense to exclude battery storage from off-peak loads, but at the same time allow electric vehicle batteries – as the load looks exactly the same to the network. And why allow another form of storage – hot water – and not batteries?
> 
> Some suggested it may be a sign of panic in the network industry in the face of the biggest changes to energy demand in a century, or  just a ruse to increase peak load and give the network an excuse to push the case for yet more poles and wires.
> 
> “I have been in this business for 35 years and I am at a complete loss to explain why Energex has done this,” said Mike Swanston, a consumer advocate who was a long-serving senior executive at Energex. “I cannot understand why they would make this ruling, and why there was no consultation with industry to change a decades-old practice.”




http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/energex-to-ban-battery-storage-air-con-and-appliances-from-off-peak-36967​

Some battery tech is coming. LG Chem, Tesla and ZCell.


Once prices drop - people will be cutting wires. Same deal when mobiles came, why pay for a fixed line service?


Here I was thinking the ALP was about looking after the 'common man'. How wrong l was...


----------



## Smurf1976

Here in Tas we're (as usual with all things energy) going in the opposite direction.

The details are still in the works but in short, general tariff (T31 - Light & Power) electricity is about to get cheaper and there's about to be a major push to encourage load shifting from peak to off-peak. At least that's the intent as long as politics etc doesn't get in the way too much.

There's an inherent risk of course in that it's the first major attempt at pricing reform since the mid-1990's and that one was nothing short of an outright disaster. Every other electricity supplier in the country was watching pretty closely at the time, so was Telstra by the way, and let's just say I think they're all glad they weren't the ones to try it. 20 years later it's come to the point where there's not a lot of choice really given the emergence of solar and what looks to be the imminent adoption of electric transport but there's still the inherent public relations and political risk involved.

The plan as it stands now shouldn't upset too many people and there's a focus group involving an assortment of people (including welfare groups) who have shaped it to some extent over the past couple of years. In short (for those in Tas):

Light and power = gets cheaper

Heating (24 hour rate) = gets more expensive and ultimately abolished (ends up the same price as the general Light & Power rate but will take a few years to get there).

Off-peak = to be encouraged (primarily via the promotion of time of use metering)

Solar = nothing specific about FIT rates but if everything ends up on the one meter then that's a "win" for those with solar to the extent that it avoids the problem of simultaneously exporting at 6 cents whilst buying back their own power to run the heating at 15 cents at the same time.


----------



## Ferret

Tassy in for a good soaking over the next few days.
 Hope it makes a big impact on the dam levels.


----------



## Smurf1976

It won't have a huge impact on the system as a whole but it sure will for the smaller storages.

A number of small (relative to annual inflow) storages have been drawn to almost empty over the past few days ahead of the rain and will likely reach high levels as the rain pours down.

Also the diesels are completely shut down now as are the open cycle gas turbines, reason being to make full use of available generation from the smaller storages and thus avoid spill. The CCGT plant (gas) is still running however.

For the major storages, there's zero release at present from Gordon, King William and Echo with only small amounts from Great Lake. The small storages + wind + the CCGT plant are thus carrying the entire system load.

Have a look at this if you want to see an example of just how hard and fast one particular storage has been drawn down. (Link to a live chart so this will date). This storage was 65% full on Monday this week and is now almost at zero so a lot of water has been moved out rather quickly ahead of the forecast downpour (which will result in huge inflows to this lake relative to its size, hence the intentional draining of it).

http://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/water-storage/Web_Lakes_GAIRDNER.pdf


----------



## SirRumpole

I hope this works out for those in Tasmania.

http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDYPME04/20160502_20160509/pme1to8.png


----------



## sptrawler

nioka said:


> I believe the problem with increased price is the result of the state owned enterprise being forced to increase prices dramatically in order to show big profits so that the state received a higher sale price of an asset. Then the companies were allowed to increase prices further. Then again the charges associated with distribution, poles and wires as they say, were increased to establish a high value there as well. All gets down to selling off the farm to pay off the bankcard.




No, nothing has been sold, from memory when SECWA was broken up on a brain fart.

Generation couldn't make money, because they were always the generator of last resort, private generators were paid to sit there whether they were required or not.
Barnett, from years ago was minister for energy pre the break up and was always opposed to privatisation.
The situation after the separation of generation, distribution and retail, from memory, left generation with all the residual debt.
To encourage private generation, investors were offered capacity payments to install generation, this didn't require them to operate just be available to operate.
The problem with that was government generators, were still required to generate if required, there was no such requirement put on the private generators(from my knowledge).

Now we have have situation where the Government has no option other than shut down their plant, to force the private generators to produce.

Well that is my understanding.

But you sound as though you have some further knowledge I'm not aware of.


----------



## Smurf1976

So far, so good. Some rain has fallen and there looks to be a lot more on the way especially over the West Coast catchments.

Having so much come down all at once does create some issues in that some of the storages in that part of the system are relatively small relative to potential inflows during a high rainfall event (unavoidable due to topography) and it's obviously important to avoid spilling the incoming water. But any rain's good rain right now so no complaints there, it's just a question of maximising the benefit of what comes down.

Storage is presently at 13.0%, up slightly for the week. That's the first increase since late January and the largest increase, albeit just 0.138% for the week, since mid-September 2015.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> So far, so good. Some rain has fallen and there looks to be a lot more on the way especially over the West Coast catchments.
> 
> Having so much come down all at once does create some issues in that some of the storages in that part of the system are relatively small relative to potential inflows during a high rainfall event (unavoidable due to topography) and it's obviously important to avoid spilling the incoming water. But any rain's good rain right now so no complaints there, it's just a question of maximising the benefit of what comes down.
> 
> Storage is presently at 13.0%, up slightly for the week. That's the first increase since late January and the largest increase, albeit just 0.138% for the week, since mid-September 2015.




Great news Smurph.


----------



## Smurf1976

I wonder when someone will start getting excited about wholesale pricing?

Prices for this calendar year to date in Qld and NSW are almost back to the level they were at during the carbon tax whilst those in Vic and SA are about half way back from "normal" to that level.

Wallerawang, Munmorah, Redbank, Anglesea and Morwell are all shut down now and not coming back with Northern / Playford B about to join that list this month. Meanwhile Tassie's effectively out of the market, Swanbank is mothballed and bulk gas prices have literally doubled.

If prices were going up due to an actual carbon price then there would be an outcry from one side of politics. So where's the outcry blasting the "competitive market" for raising prices? 

Hmm....


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I wonder when someone will start getting excited about wholesale pricing?
> 
> Prices for this calendar year to date in Qld and NSW are almost back to the level they were at during the carbon tax whilst those in Vic and SA are about half way back from "normal" to that level.
> 
> Wallerawang, Munmorah, Redbank, Anglesea and Morwell are all shut down now and not coming back with Northern / Playford B about to join that list this month. Meanwhile Tassie's effectively out of the market, Swanbank is mothballed and bulk gas prices have literally doubled.
> 
> If prices were going up due to an actual carbon price then there would be an outcry from one side of politics. So where's the outcry blasting the "competitive market" for raising prices?
> 
> Hmm....




I don't know about over East, but here in the West more State owned coal fired plant will be shut down, due to overcapacity.

I hope it doesn't end in tears.


----------



## SirRumpole

'Grave concerns' Tasmanians will face high power prices due to energy crisis

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-...rned-public-will-pay-for-power-crisis/7381082


----------



## SirRumpole

Hey Smurph , hows the rain been in Tassie lately ?


----------



## Smurf1976

A huge amount of rainfall into the catchment area of a number of smaller storages has given rise to a "use it or lose it" situation with some of those storages going from almost empty to literally full in a matter of days, such has been the extent of the rainfall.

With unusually high winds supplying over 20% of the state's power + generation from the schemes with limited storage capacity it has been possible to:

1. Cease releasing water from the major (long term) storages.

2. Shut down the diesel generators completely.

3. Substantially reduce gas-fired generation.

These charts for some of the smaller storages in the system, located on the West Coast and in the North-West (the Pieman and Mersey-Forth catchments) show it pretty well. A huge inflow and they've gone from almost empty to full real quick.

http://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/water-storage/Web_Lakes_GAIRDNER.pdf

http://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/water-storage/Web_Lakes_MURCHISON.pdf

These are updated constantly so will date in due course. The data does go back 12 months however. The sudden drop in the level at Lake Gairdner prior to the rain was intentional - the water was taken out (used for power generation) once the rain was forecast so as to limit the extent of spill once the rain came. Even that wasn't sufficient however and a bit of spill has occurred despite Wilmot power station running constantly at maximum output to use as much of it as possible.

The major storages remain low but are rising. Lake Gordon has risen over a metre, Great Lake has risen about half a metre so that's some progress although there's still a very long way to go there to get back to decent levels. But overall it's good news in that sense.

Why not just move the water from the small storages into larger ones instead of using it? In short that's due to topography and in general the smaller storages are at lower elevation than the large ones and have major mountains in the way. It could be done if someone's got a few $ billion to spare building tunnels and pumps but that would be an awfully expensive way to generate power given that the present arrangement puts the vast majority of available water to good use anyway. Simply not economic to move the water (and up hill at that) and that's why we ended up with a lot of mostly quite small power stations in 7 separate catchments (that is, using the water where it is naturally and moving the electricity produced to where it's needed) rather than having a few large power stations and moving the water to them. Cheaper and a lot easier and it works in practice.

The only downside with present circumstances is that the weather is also delaying repairs to Basslink but there's a natural hedge there. A weather-related delay doesn't really matter as long as it's also wet and windy in Tasmania since that enables the wind farms and small hydro schemes to carry the load. 

Another chart showing recent rainfall on parts of the West Coast:

http://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/water-storage/Web_Rain_ANTHONY.pdf

PS - Whilst 2014 marked the centenary of the Hydro as an organisation, today marks exactly 100 years since its first power station at Waddamana commenced operating with an initial capacity of 7 MW (tiny by today's standards) and a transmission line at 88,000 Volts to Hobart. Waddamana was promptly expanded, reaching 49 MW by 1922 and ran until replaced by the much larger and more efficient Poatina station in 1964 which still operates today. 

Today Waddamana remains fully intact (apart from the upper section of the pipeline) and in "like new" condition inside and is open daily to the public as a museum (free admission, just turn up).


----------



## Ferret

Good news Smurf. 
It looks like more wind over the next few days too, and some more decent rain for the middle of next week.


----------



## SirRumpole

Good news indeed. I presume most of the rain was "natural" as opposed to seeded ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Good news indeed. I presume most of the rain was "natural" as opposed to seeded ?




Largely natural but every possible opportunity to make it rain is being taken with quite a few successful cloud seeding flights adding to the deluge.

http://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/cloud-seeding/2016/Cloud_seeding_summary_for_2016.pdf


----------



## Ferret

Predicted to bucket down over Tassy on Monday!


----------



## Knobby22

Tassies luck is changing. Good news.
When is basslink going to work again?


----------



## Smurf1976

Knobby22 said:


> Tassies luck is changing. Good news.[/CODE]
> 
> I'm wondering if we're going to get a repeat of what happened almost half a century ago? It does seem that we've gone from extreme dry to extreme wet "just like that".
> 
> 1967 = Driest year on record for inflows to the Hydro system
> 
> 1968 = Fourth wettest year on record for the system as a whole, and for some catchments the wettest on record.
> 
> When is basslink going to work again?




Basslink is a privately owned asset (not by Hydro) but they've been saying "mid-June" for quite some time now although this is subject to the risk of weather delaying repairs.

It's no secret that Hydro itself isn't placing too much confidence in when it will be fixed given that the previous two deadlines have been missed by a wide margin.


----------



## Smurf1976

It's all over now for coal in South Australia. That's it, gone.

Unit 1 at Northern Power station, the last operating coal-fired generating unit in SA, was shut down permanently this morning at about 9:45 SA time. Unit 2 closed a few days earlier and the next door Playford B station hasn't run for quite a long time now.

So that's it, no more coal-fired generation in SA. Now let's get cracking and frack those farms in Qld for gas to keep SA's gas-fired stations running...

Meanwhile there's some good news in Tasmania with Hydro storages recording a big jump over the past week, now at 16.27% and rising (compared to 13.0% a week earlier). 

Diesel generators haven't been used in the past week in Tas and there has been little operation of the open cycle gas turbines. The combined cycle gas unit is still online but only operating at about 60% of capacity as it's simply not needed with strong winds and such high inflows to the hydro system (which causes some "use it or lose it" issues with the smaller storages).

There's a lot more rain forecast too over the next week.

On a catchment by catchment basis here's the present storage levels versus (previous week).

Great Lake / Arthurs Lake = 16.8% (14.9%)

Gordon = 8.2% (6.6%)

Derwent = 20.5% (15.1%)

King = 43.1% (29.9%)

Pieman = 72.9% (39.9%)

Mersey-Forth = 65.9% (34.1%)

Yolande (Lake Margaret) = 48.5% (32.3%)

The Pieman and Mersey-Forth schemes are running extremely hard at the moment on account of the massive inflows and the need to put that to use in preference to generation from other sources. Lake Margaret, whilst small, is also running nicely with most other production being from the Derwent stations and some from Trevallyn (using South Esk catchment water from downstream of Poatina (Great Lake)).

Poatina (Great Lake) is running below 1% of capacity most of the time (one machine as spinning reserve for the technically inclined) while Gordon is shut down.

Repairs to Basslink are being disrupted by the weather so there could be some further delays there. That's not an immediate problem however given the high inflows and need to operate the Pieman and Mersey-Forth schemes for base load in order to use the incoming water. And if the rain stops, well that should enable the work to recommence to fix Basslink.


----------



## sptrawler

Great news about the Tassie rainfall Smurph, all should be good with a wet winter.

As with you, I think the shutting down of coal fired generation, will be rued in a few generations.
The wastage of gas, at this stage of our transition to renewables, will leave future generations wedged on fuel sources.IMO


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Great news about the Tassie rainfall Smurph, all should be good with a wet winter




Yep, there's a massive amount of rain falling and the problem of drought has turned to the risk of flood for the western and northern parts of the state. That doesn't fill the major storages but it's putting a lot of water into the system overall, the smaller dams are rising at a rapid rate, so that's definitely good.

It's raining in Hobart but the SE of the state is still fairly dry overall.



> As with you, I think the shutting down of coal fired generation, will be rued in a few generations.
> The wastage of gas, at this stage of our transition to renewables, will leave future generations wedged on fuel sources.IMO




I get the issue with CO2 but as I see it, we've abandoned a working power station that isn't overly old (commissioned 1985) and also the associated coal mine. Meanwhile SA will be using more gas, a premium resource, to generate power.

Northern Power station, the plant that just closed, was originally built specifically because ETSA was extremely worried about SA's high reliance on gas at the time (was about 70% for electricity back then). They were worried enough to have very seriously considered burning coal at Torrens Island, in the Adelaide metro area, and went as far with that plan as designing the last two boilers (2 x 200 MW) to easily accommodate future coal-firing.

Maybe it will all work out OK but once everything associated with producing gas is considered, not just the upset farmers in Qld but also methane leaks (a potent greenhouse gas) then I'm not convinced that switching from coal to gas is really a good idea overall. The environmental benefit is doubtful once everything is considered but there's a definite loss in terms of a resource and energy security.


----------



## Ferret

Seems the wind just keeps on blowing and the rain keeps falling in Tassy.  How are the dam levels looking now Smurf?

I guess this weather is hampering the Basslink repairs.  You might soon need the link to export power to the mainland!


----------



## Smurf1976

The Pieman, Mersey-Forth and Lower Derwent systems are all spilling water right now and the inflows are huge. The King, Lake Margaret and Trevallyn schemes also have very rapidly increasing water levels and Trevallyn in particular will quite likely spill.

So we're running the whole state on wind and hydro once again, and doing so with practically no water release from long term storage since there's so much entering the smaller dams that this + wind can supply the whole load.

Gas and diesel are all completely shut down. Gordon (the largest hydro station) is also shut down as is all water release from the headwaters in the Derwent system (Lake King William and Lake Echo). There's minimal release from Great Lake via Poatina power station, being used only for spinning reserve and a bit of peak load generation occasionally.

If Basslink were in operation then we'd be exporting at off-peak times certainly. As it is, in the middle of the night we're having to back off production from power stations where the dam is spilling so that's a 100% waste of the resource at that time. If we could use it then we would of course, but we're already supplying the whole load from hydro + wind so without Basslink there's nowhere for any additional production to go.

At Lake Pieman (Reece Dam) the water level is 2 metres over the top of the spillway so there's a massive flood going down there. It's similar at many of the other smaller storages too. 

For anyone wanting to take photos of the flood, Devils Gate and Reece dams are arguably the most spectacular in a visual sense when they spill water. Devils Gate has the huge vertical drop straight off the top of the dam down into the valley, so a man-made waterfall basically, whilst Reece has a rather massive spillway structure with the road (open to the public) going straight over the top so it's easy to get a good view.

The long term storages fill far more slowly, that will take years, but they're certainly rising about as quickly as they ever do at the moment. Lots going in and nothing being drawn out.

This chart of the water level in Lake Pieman (Reece Dam) puts the huge inflows into perspective. http://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/water-storage/Web_Lakes_PIEMAN.pdf

Output from Reece power station was low until the beginning of May but has been running heavily since then due to the increase in inflows (output from other hydro schemes, diesel and gas being reduced accordingly).


----------



## SirRumpole

Amazing how the situation turned around so quickly.

Nature is wonderful.


----------



## Smurf1976

It hasn't been so wet in Hobart or Launceston, but over western parts of Tas rainfall over the past week has been roughly half of the amount of rain that Hobart or Melbourne gets in a year. So that's rather a lot of water and it's still coming down. 

Excess water being released via the spillway at Cethana dam. Volume of water being discharged as shown in the photo is about 150,000 litres per second. That's in addition to water going through Cethana power station which is not in the photo but which has been operating constantly at its absolute maximum output for the past 2 weeks since the rain started - and the lake was practically empty at the start of the month so it has filled quickly.

http://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/imagecache/lightbox_image/images/IMG_4541.jpg 

The 110 km/h winds (official BOM measurement there) aren't so good though. I haven't heard any reports of major damage but it sure is noisy trying to sleep with that going on outside. Thankfully it seems to have died down for now but the last two nights have been seriously windy.


----------



## finnsk

http://www.geek.com/news/germany-produced-so-much-renewable-energy-it-paid-people-to-use-it-1654913/

_The weather was the cause of this monumental occasion””it was a particularly sunny and windy day””which allowed the country’s wind, solar, hydro, and biomass power plants to supply the country with 87 percent of its energy._

Why Australia isn't investing more in solar etc is beyond me, can only be because of big coal reserves etc.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The 110 km/h winds (official BOM measurement there) aren't so good though. I haven't heard any reports of major damage but it sure is noisy trying to sleep with that going on outside. Thankfully it seems to have died down for now but the last two nights have been seriously windy.




At those sort of wind speeds the wind turbines, wouldn't be doing much?

Great news about the rain, if Bass link stays oos, your dams will be full in no time.


----------



## Smurf1976

Wind is going pretty well, running at about 80% of capacity at the moment.

Hydro storage was up to 20.0% as of yesterday so that's a decent rise from the all time low of 12.8%.

Things aren't going so well elsewhere though. SA shut the coal plant, now they're relying almost totally on gas right now plus a bit from Victoria given the lack of wind there at the moment. And most of that gas-fired generation is either from the steam units at Torrens Island or from open cycle gas turbines so it's not overly efficient (particularly not 30 year old open cycle GT's).


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Wind is going pretty well, running at about 80% of capacity at the moment.
> 
> Hydro storage was up to 20.0% as of yesterday so that's a decent rise from the all time low of 12.8%.
> 
> Things aren't going so well elsewhere though. SA shut the coal plant, now they're relying almost totally on gas right now plus a bit from Victoria given the lack of wind there at the moment. And most of that gas-fired generation is either from the steam units at Torrens Island or from open cycle gas turbines so it's not overly efficient (particularly not 30 year old open cycle GT's).




It sounds as though S.A will become a total electricity importer, sooner or later.

If Tassie gets back to full storage capacity, I wonder if the export cut off point will be changed, to ensure adequate reserve capacity?
Maybe they will just spend the money and duplicate the Bass link.

Interesting times.IMO

Interesting about the wind turbines, over here in W.A at  wind speeds of 120 km/hr they would lock up and stop generating.


----------



## SirRumpole

*Solar-thermal power station proposed by Solastor for Port Augusta*


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-04/solar-thermal-power-station-solastor-plan-port-augusta/7476968


----------



## Smurf1976

Well it seems that the good people of Queensland have kindly sent some rain down the East Coast of Australia over the past few days. Flooded NSW in the process and we've got some ridiculously high rainfall in Tas too. It's wet, seriously wet.

Lake Gairdner - was 10m below full (near empty) in the early hours of Sunday. Rained so much that the water reached the top of the dam by early afternoon and was 3m over the top by evening.

Lake Cethana much the same. 4m below full (about 10% of capacity) in the early hours of Sunday. Reached full by the end of the day and the water was 5m over the top of the spillway earlier today. A 5m wall of water going down the spillway - that's major.

Lake Pieman - 2.5m below full late last night (bit over a third full). Reached full this morning and now about 1.3m over the top.

Lake Trevallyn - 7m below full (very low) this morning but full this afternoon and now about 1.7m over the top with the water rushing down the Gorge (Launceston).

All quite safe, the dams were built to withstand major floods and won't break but it's seriously wet to say the least. All good. 

For anyone in Tas who wants a photo or two, Devils Gate dam would be the pick there. Water is 3m over the top and that creates a nice man-made waterfall as the water falls straight vertically from the top of the dam (spillway) down to the valley below.


----------



## SirRumpole

Good to hear about the rain, not so good about the floods, but it sounds like you are coping.

How long would it take to empty the dams for power purposes from the state they are now , assuming no more rainfall ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> How long would it take to empty the dams for power purposes from the state they are now , assuming no more rainfall ?




Hypothetically if we had zero rainfall, zero wind, no import or export over Basslink, no generation from gas or diesel then the answer is 4 months.

Realistically though, in recent times we're now getting above average rainfall, wind is extremely unlikely to be zero, Basslink returned to service today and we could run gas and diesel if we had to so a more likely answer is "decades".

Basslink returned to service today at 11:51AM and is now operating normally. Power is flowing Tas to Vic at a moderate volume. Reason for that is that the hydro schemes with dams full or spilling (see below) are all being run flat out as well as whatever wind we get. That's more than consumption in Tas at the moment so the rest is going to Vic and means a bit less coal or gas is being burned somewhere in Vic / NSW / SA / Qld (all the same grid as is the ACT although there aren't any major power stations in the ACT but it's still part of the same grid).

Mackintosh, Bastyan, Reece, Fisher, Rowallan, Lemonthyme, Wilmot, Cethana, Devils Gate, Paloona, Lake Margaret, Trevallyn, Tungatinah*, Liapootah, Wayatinah, Catagunya, Repulse, Cluny and Meadowbank hydro stations are all running flat out (since the dams are full).

*Tungatinah is running 4 machines flat out, the 5th being out of service for a major upgrade. 

For the other hydro stations: John Butters is out of service for maintenance. Gordon, Poatina and Lake Echo are being used minimally (if at all) in order to build up storage as those dams are still very low. Butlers Gorge, Tarraleah and Tribute have plenty of water but aren't spilling and so are waiting for other stations downstream to stop spilling water before running to any major extent.

Gas - The open cycle (peaking) gas turbines will be run if the price in Vic makes it profitable to do so. But with Basslink back, we don't need them as such to maintain supply in Tas.

The combined cycle unit is far less flexible in operation, slow to start and stop, and will likely remain offline until about October with a major maintenance outage done in the meantime.

Diesels - The diesel generators are being removed at George Town, Port Latta, Catagunya and Meadowbank but those at Que River as well as the diesel-fired gas turbines at Bell Bay are being retained for a while longer "just in case" they're needed. The turbines at Bell Bay could be operated for peak supply (export) to Vic if the price is high enough in Vic to make doing so profitable but those elsewhere aren't technically suited to that sort of operation.

As for overall water storage, well we're pretty much back where we started.

Basslink failed on 20 December 2015 with storages at 25%. They're about 26% now.

Lowest storage = 12.89% on 25 April 2016. That is now the all time record low, the previous having been 14.2% during the 1967-68 crisis.

On an individual catchment basis, storage level at 21 December 2015 / lowest level (and date) / level last week

Great Lake / Arthurs Lake: 22.4% / 14.6% (25 April) / 21.4%

Gordon: 16.5% / 5.85% (4 April) / 13.2%

Derwent: 47.3% / 15.1% (2 May) / 39.1%

King: 33.8% / 20.9% (14 March) / 80.8%

Pieman: 60.6% / 39.9% (2 May) / 100% (spilling) 

Mersey-Forth: 73.1% / 34.1% (2 May) / 100% (major flooding)

Yolande (Lake Margaret): 50.0% / 20.2% (14 March) / 100% (spilling) 

So basically back where it all started. Just with a lot of excitement, drought, diesel, gas, fires and then a flood to get there all in the space of 25 weeks.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Hypothetically if we had zero rainfall, zero wind, no import or export over Basslink, no generation from gas or diesel then the answer is 4 months.
> 
> Realistically though, in recent times we're now getting above average rainfall, wind is extremely unlikely to be zero, Basslink returned to service today and we could run gas and diesel if we had to so a more likely answer is "decades".
> 
> Basslink returned to service today at 11:51AM and is now operating normally. Power is flowing Tas to Vic at a moderate volume. Reason for that is that the hydro schemes with dams full or spilling (see below) are all being run flat out as well as whatever wind we get. That's more than consumption in Tas at the moment so the rest is going to Vic and means a bit less coal or gas is being burned somewhere in Vic / NSW / SA / Qld (all the same grid as is the ACT although there aren't any major power stations in the ACT but it's still part of the same grid).
> 
> Mackintosh, Bastyan, Reece, Fisher, Rowallan, Lemonthyme, Wilmot, Cethana, Devils Gate, Paloona, Lake Margaret, Trevallyn, Tungatinah*, Liapootah, Wayatinah, Catagunya, Repulse, Cluny and Meadowbank hydro stations are all running flat out (since the dams are full).
> 
> *Tungatinah is running 4 machines flat out, the 5th being out of service for a major upgrade.
> 
> For the other hydro stations: John Butters is out of service for maintenance. Gordon, Poatina and Lake Echo are being used minimally (if at all) in order to build up storage as those dams are still very low. Butlers Gorge, Tarraleah and Tribute have plenty of water but aren't spilling and so are waiting for other stations downstream to stop spilling water before running to any major extent.
> 
> Gas - The open cycle (peaking) gas turbines will be run if the price in Vic makes it profitable to do so. But with Basslink back, we don't need them as such to maintain supply in Tas.
> 
> The combined cycle unit is far less flexible in operation, slow to start and stop, and will likely remain offline until about October with a major maintenance outage done in the meantime.
> 
> Diesels - The diesel generators are being removed at George Town, Port Latta, Catagunya and Meadowbank but those at Que River as well as the diesel-fired gas turbines at Bell Bay are being retained for a while longer "just in case" they're needed. The turbines at Bell Bay could be operated for peak supply (export) to Vic if the price is high enough in Vic to make doing so profitable but those elsewhere aren't technically suited to that sort of operation.
> 
> As for overall water storage, well we're pretty much back where we started.
> 
> Basslink failed on 20 December 2015 with storages at 25%. They're about 26% now.
> 
> Lowest storage = 12.89% on 25 April 2016. That is now the all time record low, the previous having been 14.2% during the 1967-68 crisis.
> 
> On an individual catchment basis, storage level at 21 December 2015 / lowest level (and date) / level last week
> 
> Great Lake / Arthurs Lake: 22.4% / 14.6% (25 April) / 21.4%
> 
> Gordon: 16.5% / 5.85% (4 April) / 13.2%
> 
> Derwent: 47.3% / 15.1% (2 May) / 39.1%
> 
> King: 33.8% / 20.9% (14 March) / 80.8%
> 
> Pieman: 60.6% / 39.9% (2 May) / 100% (spilling)
> 
> Mersey-Forth: 73.1% / 34.1% (2 May) / 100% (major flooding)
> 
> Yolande (Lake Margaret): 50.0% / 20.2% (14 March) / 100% (spilling)
> 
> So basically back where it all started. Just with a lot of excitement, drought, diesel, gas, fires and then a flood to get there all in the space of 25 weeks.




Sounds like great allocation of resources, as one would expect, hope the rain continues to fill the great lakes.

What was the outcome with the Bass link failure, they should have been able to identify the cause of the rupture, water ingress, physical damage, mechanical failure?

Or will that be locked away in classified information.lol


----------



## SirRumpole

Will the consumer ever win with solar power ?


Solar power: Bill shock looms as lucrative tariffs roll back, advocates warn


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-19/bill-shock-looms-as-lucrative-solar-tariffs-roll-back/7638952


----------



## CanOz

SirRumpole said:


> Will the consumer ever win with solar power ?
> 
> 
> Solar power: Bill shock looms as lucrative tariffs roll back, advocates warn
> 
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-19/bill-shock-looms-as-lucrative-solar-tariffs-roll-back/7638952




What, no more government hand outs?

Its definitely best not to include any tariffs on new solar installs. Our reasons for going solar will not be based on a return on the assets, only the ability to be self sufficient. There still can be enough power to feed into the grid, especially during peak demand when power companies may pay more for power. 

I just want to make use of the sun's power...

Oh, by the way, there's a good show on ABC regarding solar, battery and control technology. I'll see if i can find the link. It was on Catalyst...on Iview.


----------



## qldfrog

CanOz said:


> What, no more government hand outs?



The at least half decent way to go would be for the energy company to buy back at the price they sell at that time, when I produce, the power is used by my neighbour, and both him and I are paying a fee for the priviledge to be connected, I also forget the fact that in qld, solar has avoided the building of a few new power plant already, nice asset expense saved ...
anyway: liberalism a la communism is the way these utiilities water/power/road and infrastructure work in Australia.


----------



## CanOz

qldfrog said:


> The at least half decent way to go would be for the energy company to buy back at the price they sell at that time, when I produce, the power is used by my neighbour, and both him and I are paying a fee for the priviledge to be connected, I also forget the fact that in qld, solar has avoided the building of a few new power plant already, nice asset expense saved ...
> anyway: liberalism a la communism is the way these utiilities water/power/road and infrastructure work in Australia.




Check out that episode of catalyst


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> both him and I are paying a fee for the priviledge to be connected




The problem in most areas is that the fixed supply fee covers only part of the fixed cost of being connected and keeping the grid in place, the rest being recovered by a margin on the volume sale of energy.

That model fails spectacularly if consumers generate their own power or by some other means use less than would normally be the case.

The underlying problem remains and is more acute now that solar has become mainstream. It won't go away that's for sure and the industry is seriously struggling to come up with workarounds that the community might find acceptable. Nobody is keen to re-visit what was tried in Tas 20 years ago that's for sure. My heck that caused a lot of outrage. Long term though I think there will be no choice and slowly but surely there's a move toward that in most states. Pricing the fixed charge to actually recover the fixed costs - do that and it then ceases to matter (within reason) what consumers do with consumption or their own generation.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Nobody is keen to re-visit what was tried in Tas 20 years ago that's for sure. My heck that caused a lot of outrage.




What was that ?


----------



## basilio

City of Melb is developing a creative way of boosting renewable energy supply in Victoria. 

They have formed a consortium which will be a guaranteed buyer of renewable energy for 10 years. Apparently many other cities are looking closely at the model. Quite transportable



> * Climate change: Melbourne renewable energy project provides global blueprint
> *
> The project, which would create a guaranteed market for renewable energy, aims to reduce city’s annual emissions by 138,000 tonnes a year



https://www.theguardian.com/sustain...able-energy-project-provides-global-blueprint


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> What was that ?




Separation of component costs for retail consumers (residential and business).

So it was a charge to cover the fixed costs of providing the network plus another charge for energy consumed, the key point being that the fixed charge was set at the actual cost of providing the service rather than those costs being recovered via a "loading" on energy rates as is conventional practice just about everywhere.

Consumers hated it with a passion, one survey put opposition at literally over 99%, and suffice to say that every other electricity supplier in Australia (and they were all watching closely) is glad they're not the ones who tried it. No chance we'll be doing it again in Tassie anytime soon either - and 20 years later is "far too soon" in that context.

The basic idea was to remove the link between volume consumption and recovery of fixed costs which do not alter based on volume. With that done, there was then no reason for the electricity industry to care about volume sales and no problem if literally anyone wanted to generate power and use the network. Hydro (which at that time still owned the network as well as being the monopoly generator) was looking ahead and seeing that others would be generating power, wanting to send it over the network, and that the conventional pricing model wouldn't work. 

Also considered was that in future consumers would likely have vastly different consumption profiles due to things like electric vehicle charging, use of solar and other non-electrical energy, and energy efficiency. Some will adopt those things and others won't, so the old situation where most homes used roughly the same amount of electricity would no longer apply.

There was also a political angle, the thinking being that promoting energy use was out of step with community concerns about the environment. The CO2 issue was very much alive back then, and at that point Hydro was contemplating what to do next but there was one certainty - with the remaining hydro resource mostly "locked up" and the rest uneconomic, anything new was going to involve burning fossil fuels with the only question being which fuel (coal, oil, gas) and where (burn it in Tas or burn it in Vic and send power across Bass Strait). So there was a definite thinking that a "zero consumption growth" approach might be the way forward and that removing the financial need to keep consumption up was a key to doing so.

With that pricing model spectacularly killed off and a reversion to historic practice the industry was left with only one real choice, that being to go back to selling as much power as possible. Suffice to say that every possible means of pushing up consumption was promptly applied and it was highly successful with strong load growth.

With the mass adoption of solar, every electricity distributor in Australia faces the same dilemma. They're financially dead if consumers draw less power from the grid unless they can work out some way to either recover the fixed costs and/or charge consumers for their self-generated power. Nobody has really worked that out yet, although at least in Tas we do have a positive aspect in that consumption peaks when the sun is down and the scale of that consumption precludes the economic use of batteries, such that to some extent consumers are largely forced to remain on-grid. In other states with warmer climates it's a far bigger problem for the industry - how do you recover fixed costs if the only way to do it is via energy sales but consumers are generating their own energy?

For reference, the actual network charge (20 years ago now) was 96 cents per day fixed with unit consumption rates in the 4.4 to 6.6 cents / kWh range depending on tariff (off-peak versus continuous rate).

If it were done today then the fixed charge would be about $200 per quarter. Politically that's considered outright impossible.


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## drsmith

The only viable economic model I can see for funding the network under the current pricing model is for individual generators to be paid a wholesale price for all the electricity they generate and not just for what is fed into the grid.

This though offers no incentive for batteries however a higher wholesale rate could be offered for those instillations that include batteries to reflect the reduced need for additional grid generation capacity. That though may not be much of an incentive depending on the proportion of grid costs  related to expansion and maintenance of transmission assets and the actual impact private battery storage would have on the need for expanding generation capacity.

A net feed in wholesale rate from private generation such as rooftop solar can only work economically if network and generation costs are reflected accurately in the retail pricing model.


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## Smurf1976

drsmith said:


> The only viable economic model I can see for funding the network under the current pricing model is for individual generators to be paid a wholesale price for all the electricity they generate and not just for what is fed into the grid.




The problem is a political one.

Looking at the past couple of years and ignoring crisis events (notably Tasmania this past Summer and Autumn) bulk electricity as a commodity is worth 3 - 6 cents / kWh depending on location (state). Suffice to say that whilst large scale electricity generation businesses need to survive on those prices, owners of small scale solar systems tend to not be overly happy about it. 

A point that consumers generally struggle to grasp is that electricity as such isn't worth much and hasn't been for half a century now. You might be paying 25 cents / kWh retail but those generating the power are only getting around 20% of your money, the rest being networks, retail and GST.


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## nioka

Smurf1976 said:


> The problem is a political one.
> 
> You might be paying 25 cents / kWh retail but those generating the power are only getting around 20% of your money, the rest being networks, retail and GST.




My bill charges me 152.81c per day "supply charge" That pays for "networks" as I understand it. My usage is charged at 22.18c/kWh. Before GST.

I'm looking at a battery bank to go with the solar but if I stay connected to the grid I'll still get billed the 152.81c + GST. I think the supply charge was inflated to establish a high price for the "poles and wires" when they are sold off.


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## DB008

Which state are you in nioka?


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## noco

With the crisis in South Australia. it is proving to be a fact that renewable energy from wind and solar is not viable having reached too far away from cheap coal fired base load power.

South Australians are now paying the price with very little gain in the reduction of green house gases.

How will South Australia be able to maintain heavy industry let alone build submarines there.

Surely it is a wake up call for the other states to do their homework.

We have an abundant of cheap coal in this country to last 1000 years and what about nuclear.... if the Greens are so worried about green house gases nuclear is the way to go also with  abundant uranium deposits.

And yes I can expect the Greens to hit back and remind us about two nuclear accidents over the last 25 or 30 years...But with modern science and innovation such accidents have been dramatically reduced when one considers  there is now over 600 nuclear power plants around the world. 

Time to stop the madness...Renewable energy can go too far.



http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...s/news-story/1e9ba12eb6060732e300c64cf19d3560

*South Australia is discovering the harsh realities of being the world leader in integrating high levels of intermittent renewable energy.

In the name of action on clim*ate change, that state is an accid*ental experiment in how far you can push technologies such as wind and solar photovoltaic into the grid before something breaks. It is, quite possibly, the most important energy story in the world.

The popular rhetoric around big renewable ambitions is now being tempered with the long-warned-of realities — higher costs and increased risks around reliability, or, as our parents used to say: “It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.”

Those getting hurt are, of course, the state’s industrial customers, who are reeling at the higher cost of electricity in South Australia, and behind them households who are facing steep increases in energy bills.

It is a crisis that has been years in the making, like getting run over by a steamroller. Suddenly the inevitable blame game begins. Popular targets include the privatisation of energy assets, the *National Electricity Market, high gas prices, unreliability in the inter*connectors between South Australia and Victoria, or all of the above.

The simple reality is this: increasing intermittent renewables at scale reduces emissions but ultim*ately increases prices as well as reliability risks.

More than 41 per cent of South Australia’s generation now comes from wind and solar. This is very, very high compared with most large industrialised grids. Until now, the only big renewables *regions were, like Vancouver in Canada or Tasmania, powered predominantly by controllable hydro-electricity. Denmark talks big on its wind energy, but when the wind doesn’t blow it can *import almost all of its power needs from neighbouring Sweden or Germany.

South Australia, by contrast, sits at the edge of Australia’s NEM. It is connected by two transmission lines, which can supply about 25 per cent of South Australia’s maximum demand from Victoria. The rest has to be generated inside South Australia.

In the pre-renewables days, power was supplied by brown-coal generators at Port Augusta and gas power stations located around the state. It was much like the rest of the Australian electricity sector: cheap, stable, and high in greenhouse emissions.

As solar and particularly wind increased capacity, they intermittently took more market share from the conventional power stations. Instead of running all or most of the time, as they were *designed, the conventional fossil-fuel generators have increasingly jumped in and out of the market.

This reduced emissions, but it also reduced the viability of these generators. At low levels of renewables, they could afford to operate. At higher levels, they have begun to exit the market permanently. The coal generators have now gone, and half of the gas plants of Torrens Island and Pelican Point were scheduled to be mothballed, the first step to permanent exit.*

Some reader comments.

NEWS


OPINION
Canary in the coalmine shows way on renewables

Wind generators can only be guaranteed to run at a fraction of their name-plate capacity in heatwaves. Picture: Kelly Barnes
MATTHEW WARRENThe Australian12:00AM July 25, 2016




82 COMMENTS


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Lawrence
Lawrence 59 MINUTES AGO
Above all if the CO2 catastrophists are really honestly terrified of this necessary-to-life gas, why have they NOT  EVER campaigned for the urgent introduction of NUCLEAR power generation into our network?

Where are the professional Engineers in Australia who have remained silent on  this  wind/solar generation destruction of the system of power that generates the very affluence of western developed nations like ours? 




FLAGSHARE2daleKenLIKEREPLY
Brian
Brian 1 HOUR AGO
Even if South Australia decided to go nuclear it would take around 10 years to get approval (6 years for the planning and environmental paperwork and 4 years for the environmentalist's court cases to run their course).  Then say another 5 years to build a nuclear plant.  I think we need to face facts.  The Greens have had their way and the Australian standard of living will collapse over the next decade.  The lack of reliable power will create interesting problems for those living in inner city high rise buildings dependent on  power hungry facilities such as air conditioning and lifts.


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## SirRumpole

South Australia should develop it's reserves of Geothermal energy in the Cooper Basin. Technical issues to overcome, but if you don't try you don't achieve.


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## pixel

SirRumpole said:


> South Australia should develop it's reserves of Geothermal energy in the Cooper Basin. Technical issues to overcome, but if you don't try you don't achieve.




Petratherm were pretty close at Paralana, but failed to secure a capital shortfall of measly $5M. Two years ago, they had to give up:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-21/petratherm-shelves-paralana-geothermal-project/5611990
Looks like Tony Abbott saw the big rig and found it too ugly; just like wind turbines.
Wind and Waves are also around-the-clock options that lack government support.


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## noco

SirRumpole said:


> South Australia should develop it's reserves of Geothermal energy in the Cooper Basin. Technical issues to overcome, but if you don't try you don't achieve.




Tim Flam Flannery did his dough on Geothermal....He got his fingers well and truly burnt....$80,000,000 down the drain.

Nuclear is the way to go.


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## explod

noco said:


> Tim Flam Flannery did his dough on Geothermal....He got his fingers well and truly burnt....$80,000,000 down the drain.
> 
> Nuclear is the way to go.




How would you know noco,  you don't even understand the modern Green's makeup. 

In fact you have failed to provide answers to a lot of questions on your "Pauline Hanson"  thread.


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## qldfrog

Geothermal indeed not Nuke Noco, if you scratch behind the surface, Nuclear energy is NOT economic.
Forget environment impact etc; if we do not have fusion, fission is a money pit;
 the ONLY reason countries do nuclear energy is for weapon: France Uk US/USSR/China/etc or independance (Japan)
Geothermal is definitively a proper answer for SA but huge initial cost before returns.Would sort out the intermittent wind issue Solar thermal could help as well with 2/3 days smoothing ability until we have proper interconnection


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## nioka

DB008 said:


> Which state are you in nioka?




NSW.


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> South Australia should develop it's reserves of Geothermal energy in the Cooper Basin. Technical issues to overcome, but if you don't try you don't achieve.




Who is going to pay for that? and if it fails who is going to pay for that?

Meanwhile who is going to pay for lack of generation?


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## basilio

sptrawler said:


> O.K if geothermal is carried out on a world scale, to replace fossil fuel generation.
> 
> How long before the greens are complaining, that the cooling of the earths core is causing huge climatic problems.
> 
> If we are replacing the heating of the atmosphere due to burning fuel, by the subsequent cooling of the Earths core, how do you reconcile the difference?
> 
> Actually damaging the Earths atmosphere, only ends up with getting rid of us loonies, cooling the Earths core could have much greater reprocussions. OMG




_*So true, so perspicuous !!!

But wait...!!  There is a solution !!! It rises from a million sources in unision.

It warms the earth like a comforting blanket.

Yes it's the billions of gigatons of hot air expelled by Society of Flat Earthers and Naysayers doing their level, level best to beat back the barbarian Warmists.

Go Boys!!!!  Rant,  Rave,  Resile  !!  Save us and our children...!!*_


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## sptrawler

Chemical reaction batteries, aren't the answer.IMO

Jump in at your own peril. Just my opinion.


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## sptrawler

basilio said:


> _*So true, so perspicuous !!!
> 
> But wait...!!  There is a solution !!! It rises from a million sources in unision.
> 
> It warms the earth like a comforting blanket.
> 
> Yes it's the billions of gigatons of hot air expelled by Society of Flat Earthers and Naysayers doing their level, level best to beat back the barbarian Warmists.
> 
> Go Boys!!!!  Rant,  Rave,  Resile  !!  Save us and our children...!!*_




I deleted the post, because I thought it may be a bit outrageous, but seeing your response it obviously wasn't.

Geothermal, will have an effect on the core temperature, as the warming of the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuel does.

With the change in atmospheric conditions, the vegetation changes, as CO2 increases.

We are yet to see how the Earth reacts, to cooling of the core, due to geothermal generation as it is small scale.

Funnily enough we are yet to see the outcome of all the solar absorption by the solar panels.

But I do love your perspective basilio, looking at life through a tube.lol


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## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Who is going to pay for that? and if it fails who is going to pay for that?
> 
> Meanwhile who is going to pay for lack of generation?




It's an infrastructure development so who pays for those ?

At least the government should do a serious feasibility study and make a decision if it's worthwhile.


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## basilio

sptrawler said:


> I deleted the post, because I thought it may be a bit outrageous, but seeing your response it obviously wasn't.
> 
> Geothermal, will have an effect on the core temperature, as the warming of the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuel does.
> 
> With the change in atmospheric conditions, the vegetation changes, as CO2 increases.
> 
> We are yet to see how the Earth reacts, to cooling of the core, due to geothermal generation as it is small scale.
> 
> Funnily enough we are yet to see the outcome of all the solar absorption by the solar panels.
> 
> But I do love your perspective basilio, looking at life through a tube.lol




I did see the funny/outrageous side of your post. That was the cheeky smiley.

But on a practical note I just cannot see how even the widespread use of geothermal energy can have more than an infinitesimal effect on earths core temperature. 

On the other side of the coin replacing non renewable, polluting fossil fuel energy with clean, long term energy has great advantages.  I think if the figures stack up  in the right circumstances that is one of the options we should explore.


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## basilio

Very creative new option for renewable energy.  A hybrid wind and solar farm. Solar for the hot warm days, Wind for nights, windy weather.  Only one connection to the grid saves a packet

It's such a simple idea I'm surprised it has taken so long to be considered.

If you could add a big battery bank to smooth out times there is little sun/wind it could be almost base load.



> * Australia's first hybrid wind-solar farm to be built near Canberra*
> 
> Exclusive: farm gets the green light to be built by Chinese companies after $9.9m grant from renewable energy agency
> 
> A hybrid wind and solar farm. Building the solar farm on the same location as the windfarm means 20% could be saved from construction costs, says Ivor Frischknecht, the chief executive of Arena. Photograph: Alamy
> 
> Tuesday 26 July 2016 06.00 AEST
> Last modified on Tuesday 26 July 2016 08.45 AEST
> 
> Australia’s first large-scale hybrid wind and solar farm is set to be built near Canberra, with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) providing a $9.9m grant.
> 
> The money would go towards the $26m cost of building a 10MW solar photovoltaic plant alongside the existing Gullen Range windfarm.



https://www.theguardian.com/environ...lias-first-hybrid-wind-solar-farm-gets-funded


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## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> Very creative new option for renewable energy.  A hybrid wind and solar farm. Solar for the hot warm days, Wind for nights, windy weather.  Only one connection to the grid saves a packet
> 
> It's such a simple idea I'm surprised it has taken so long to be considered.
> 
> If you could add a big battery bank to smooth out times there is little sun/wind it could be almost base load.
> 
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/environ...lias-first-hybrid-wind-solar-farm-gets-funded




Good idea , but why do the Chinese have to own it ?


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## basilio

This is a big deal in terms of action on CC.  Also sends a big signal to the coal industry about it's future.


> *China's coal peak hailed as turning point in climate change battle*
> 
> Study by economists say achievement by world’s biggest polluter may be a significant milestone, rather than a blip
> 
> 
> Damian Carrington
> @dpcarrington
> 
> Tuesday 26 July 2016 01.02 AEST
> 
> The global battle against climate change has passed a historic turning point with China’s huge coal burning finally having peaked, according to senior economists.
> 
> They say the moment may well be a significant milestone in the course of the Anthropocene, the current era in which human activity dominates the world’s environment.
> 
> China is the world’s biggest polluter and more than tripled its coal burning from 2000 to 2013, emitting billions of tonnes of climate-warming carbon dioxide. *But its coal consumption peaked in 2014, much earlier than expected, and then began falling.
> *
> The economists argue in a new paper on Monday that this can now be seen as permanent trend, not a blip, due to major shifts in the Chinese economy and a crackdown on pollution.
> 
> “I think it is a real turning point,” said Lord Nicholas Stern, an eminent climate economist at the London School of Economics, who wrote the analysis with colleagues from Tsinghua University in Beijing. “I think historians really will see [the coal peak of] 2014 as a very important event in the history of the climate and economy of the world.”




https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ak-hailed-turning-point-climate-change-battle


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## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> Good idea , but why do the Chinese have to own it ?




Because no one in Australia had the courage to put up the idea? 
It is a shame but at least it is happening.

I suspect China will probably construct a million similar farms and throw in the battery bank that will make them effectively base load power stations


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## basilio

Securing renewables
How batteries solve the problem of 
clean electricity
*Battery and other energy storage technologies 
are ready
to solve the problem of 
variability of
renewable energy

Excellent review of the current status of battery technology in Australia
http://www.tai.org.au/sites/defualt/files/P234 renewables and battery storage FINAL.pdf*


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## SirRumpole

Compressed air storage as an alternative to batteries.


http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/compressed-air-energy-storage-beats-batteries


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## SirRumpole

Tesla Discontinues 10-Kilowatt-Hour Powerwall Home Battery 

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Tesla-Discontinues-10kWh-Powerwall-Home-Battery


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Tesla Discontinues 10-Kilowatt-Hour Powerwall Home Battery
> 
> http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Tesla-Discontinues-10kWh-Powerwall-Home-Battery




I was wondering when someone would actually own up, Tesle must have been losing money, hand over fist selling them. IMO

An extract from the article below.

“Even some of the deep cycling lead acid batteries offer 1,000 cycles and cost less than half of the $3,500 price tag for Tesla Powerwall,” said Ravi Manghani, senior energy storage analyst at GTM Research. “For pure backup applications only providing 500 cycles, lead acid batteries or gensets are way more economical.”

The hype might be fading.


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## sptrawler

By the way smurph, how is dam storage inflows going in Tassie. 
From watching the weather, rainfall looks good.


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> By the way smurph, how is dam storage inflows going in Tassie.
> From watching the weather, rainfall looks good.




We had the driest Summer on record and now we've just had the wettest May - July on record.

Storage is now about 35%, up from the low of 12.8%, although for the smaller dams they are mostly either spilling or very close to it with only the long term storage still being low.

Some water was released from Lake Pedder via the discharge valve at Serpentine Dam today. That's the first spill from Pedder since 1988 and illustrates just how wet it has been.

Lake King William, where I produced a video linked earlier in this thread 3 months ago, is about to spill and will do so before the weekend. The area that was completely free of water in that video is now completely submerged.

In general the situation is:

Smaller schemes - either spilling or very close to full. Power stations being run flat out 24/7 at 100% of capacity.

Long term storages - still reasonably low and not being used much if at all (depends on power demand).

Offline: Gordon (not needed, 1 of 3 machines out for maintenance), Lake Echo (not needed, maintenance being done), Paloona (spilling, unavoidable outage). All gas and diesel generation.

Limited use for peak load: Poatina

Operating constantly but not at full output: Tribute. Dam is at a good level but not full.

Operating constantly at 100% of capacity and with the associated storage either spilling or about to: Butlers Gorge, Tarraleah, *Tungatinah, Liapootah, Wayatinah, Catagunya, Repulse, Cluny, Meadowbank, Trevallyn, Rowallan, Fisher, Parangana, Lemonthyme, Wilmot, Cethana, Devils Gate, Mackintosh, Bastyan, Reece, John Buters, Lake Margaret Upper, Lake Margaret Lower.

*Tungatinah has 4 of the 5 machines in service and running at 100% of capacity (actually running a bit over that) 24/7. The other machine is out for a major upgrade.

Overall we've got a lot of "use it or lose it" generation right now. That's meeting Tasmanian demand firstly with, at off-peak times, the surplus going to Victoria. 

Photo: Water being released on 27 July from Serpentine Dam (Lake Pedder) for the first time since 1988. Under normal circumstances all water is used for generation however recent inflows have exceeded the canal capacity and caused the Lake to reach 100% of capacity. Technically, spill is achieved by opening the discharge valve which simply runs water from an intake and out to the river at a rate of 240,000 litres per second. This is in addition to normal use of the water which continues at maximum capacity via the canal. Hydro Tas photo (not mine).

Under normal circumstances the location shown would have no significant water flow, being immediately downstream of Serpentine Dam.


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## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> Compressed air storage as an alternative to batteries.
> 
> 
> http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/compressed-air-energy-storage-beats-batteries



Compressed air is quite a proven technology: a lot of forklifts are using it.


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## qldfrog

Has anyone experience with a solar pool pump (3 phases DC), MPPT, powered by 3/4 panels?
I am thinking about  getting off the grid fully with this one, the pool pump is basically a third of my power use on a yearly average


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## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> Has anyone experience with a solar pool pump (3 phases DC), MPPT, powered by 3/4 panels?
> I am thinking about  getting off the grid fully with this one, the pool pump is basically a third of my power use on a yearly average



I don't know about solar pool pumps, frog, but solar bore pumps are very popular with farmers. Maybe if you contacted a supplier of them, they may have some ideas.


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## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> I don't know about solar pool pumps, frog, but solar bore pumps are very popular with farmers. Maybe if you contacted a supplier of them, they may have some ideas.



Thanks Sptrawler, I have contacted suppliers, there are dedicated systems available but I am keen talking to a user for the pro/cons and not the marketing speech.It is not yet that common. If I proceed one way or another, I will post my findings on this thread.


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## basilio

Looks like Josh Frydenberg is committed to a renewable energy future and totally accepts the reality of human caused global warming.  Big steps for the new government.


> * Turnbull government's green shift to back renewables*
> Mark Kenny
> 
> Mark Kenny
> 
> Malcolm Turnbull's new Environment and Energy Minister, Josh Frydenberg, has welcomed a declining role for coal in Australia's future energy mix, talked up reliable green energy, and locked in the current 23.5 per cent renewable energy target by 2020, in a marked change from the avowedly pro-coal rhetoric of the Abbott government.



http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/fed...shift-to-back-renewables-20160727-gqf6kv.html


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## nioka

qldfrog said:


> Compressed air is quite a proven technology: a lot of forklifts are using it.




Advanced Hybrid Solutions are working on a hydraulic pressurised system that pressurises a nitrogen charged cylinder with hydraulic fluid that can then provide power through a hydraulic motor. Check the website www.advancedhybridsolutions.com


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## ghotib

About that hype: 

https://onestepoffthegrid.com.au/fi...gets-its-first-energy-bill-and-the-saving-is/

Our batteries, Enphase not Tesla, are due for installation in August. Hope we get hype as good as this.


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## qldfrog

nioka said:


> Advanced Hybrid Solutions are working on a hydraulic pressurised system that pressurises a nitrogen charged cylinder with hydraulic fluid that can then provide power through a hydraulic motor. Check the website www.advancedhybridsolutions.com




Yes had been there before and ideal for start/stop usage: garbage truck, postman, etc.
Great!!


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## SirRumpole

Climate Council urges bigger push towards renewables as community energy projects take off


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-...ys-community-renewable-energy-on-rise/7702866


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## SirRumpole

The future of grid-scale battery storage in Australia


http://www.abc.net.au/radionational...-scale-battery-storage-in-australia's/7765486


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## Smurf1976

There's a trial of grid-connected battery storage located at households about to get underway on Bruny Island (Tas).

The island is connected to the main Tas electricity grid via two undersea cables (AC) however peak demand is a problem and at times exceeds capacity of the cables. This is presently addressed by a diesel generator on the island which is used at times of local peak demand (regardless of the supply and demand situation in the rest of the state since transmission to the island is constrained by the capacity of the cables).

The intent is that ultimately battery storage could be a way to replace the diesel generator without needing to upgrade the undersea cables. The trial will assess that potential both on Bruny Island and elsewhere.

More info here: https://www.tasnetworks.com.au/cust...d-outcomes/consort-bruny-island-battery-trial


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## DB008

*Doubling battery power of consumer electronics​*



> *New lithium metal batteries could make smartphones, drones, and electric cars last twice as long.*
> 
> An MIT spinout is preparing to commercialize a novel rechargable lithium metal battery that offers double the energy capacity of the lithium ion batteries that power many of today’s consumer electronics.
> 
> Founded in 2012 by MIT alumnus and former postdoc Qichao Hu ’07, SolidEnergy Systems has developed an “anode-free” lithium metal battery with several material advances that make it twice as energy-dense, yet just as safe and long-lasting as the lithium ion batteries used in smartphones, electric cars, wearables, drones, and other devices.
> “With two-times the energy density, we can make a battery half the size, but that still lasts the same amount of time, as a lithium ion battery. Or we can make a battery the same size as a lithium ion battery, but now it will last twice as long,” says Hu, who co-invented the battery at MIT and is now CEO of SolidEnergy.
> 
> The battery essentially swaps out a common battery anode material, graphite, for very thin, high-energy lithium-metal foil, which can hold more ions ”” and, therefore, provide more energy capacity. Chemical modifications to the electrolyte also make the typically short-lived and volatile lithium metal batteries rechargeable and safer to use.
> Moreover, the batteries are made using existing lithium ion manufacturing equipment, which makes them scalable.
> 
> In October 2015, SolidEnergy demonstrated the first-ever working prototype of a rechargeable lithium metal smartphone battery with double energy density, which earned them more than $12 million from investors. At half the size of the lithium ion battery used in an iPhone 6, it offers 2.0 amp hours, compared with the lithium ion battery’s 1.8 amp hours.
> 
> SolidEnergy plans to bring the batteries to smartphones and wearables in early 2017, and to electric cars in 2018. But the first application will be drones, coming this November. “Several customers are using drones and balloons to provide free Internet to the developing world, and to survey for disaster relief,” Hu says. “It’s a very exciting and noble application.”
> 
> Putting these new batteries in electric vehicles as well could represent “a huge societal impact,” Hu says: “Industry standard is that electric vehicles need to go at least 200 miles on a single charge. We can make the battery half the size and half the weight, and it will travel the same distance, or we can make it the same size and same weight, and now it will go 400 miles on a single charge.”
> 
> 
> *Tweaking the “holy grail” of batteries*
> 
> Researchers have for decades sought to make rechargeable lithium metal batteries, because of their greater energy capacity, but to no avail. “It is kind of the holy grail for batteries,” Hu says.
> 
> Lithium metal, for one, reacts poorly with the battery’s electrolyte ”” a liquid that conducts ions between the cathode (positive electrode) and the anode (negative electrode) ”” and forms compounds that increase resistance in the battery and reduce cycle life. This reaction also creates mossy lithium metal bumps, called dendrites, on the anode, which lead to short circuits, generating high heat that ignites the flammable electrolyte, and making the batteries generally non rechargeable.
> 
> Measures taken to make the batteries safer come at the cost of the battery’s energy performance, such as switching out the liquid electrolyte with a poorly conductive solid polymer electrolyte that must be heated at high temperatures to work, or with an inorganic electrolyte that is difficult to scale up.
> 
> While working as a postdoc in the group of MIT professor Donald Sadoway, a well-known battery researcher who has developed several molten salt and liquid metal batteries, Hu helped make several key design and material advancements in lithium metal batteries, which became the foundation of SolidEnergy’s technology.
> One innovation was using an ultrathin lithium metal foil for the anode, which is about one-fifth the thickness of a traditional lithium metal anode, and several times thinner and lighter than traditional graphite, carbon, or silicon anodes. That shrunk the battery size by half.
> 
> But there was still a major setback: The battery only worked at 80 degrees Celsius or higher. “That was a showstopper,” Hu says. “If the battery doesn’t work at room temperature, then the commercial applications are limited.”
> 
> So Hu developed a solid and liquid hybrid electrolyte solution. He coated the lithium metal foil with a thin solid electrolyte that doesn’t need to be heated to function. He also created a novel quasi-ionic liquid electrolyte that isn’t flammable, and has additional chemical modifications to the separator and cell design to stop it from negatively reacting with the lithium metal.
> 
> The end result was a battery with energy-capacity perks of lithium metal batteries, but with the safety and longevity features of lithium ion batteries that can operate at room temperature. “Combining the solid coating and new high-efficiency ionic liquid materials was the basis for SolidEnergy on the technology side,” Hu says.




http://news.mit.edu/2016/lithium-metal-batteries-double-power-consumer-electronics-0817​


----------



## nioka

qldfrog said:


> Yes had been there before and ideal for start/stop usage: garbage truck, postman, etc.
> Great!!




Their latest outfit is a completely new design with a different type of hydraulic motor. Check out their website www.advancedhybridsolutions.com for the latest news. They are now in discussions with a top university which has approached them to be involved in further research into hydraulic hybrids. They currently are raising funds to move to commercially trialling the garbage compactor and a bus.


----------



## SirRumpole

Geothermal power project closes in SA as technology deemed not financially viable

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-...-closes-deemed-not-financially-viable/7798962

The perils of leaving such things to private enterprise who MUST make a profit. It's not how the Snowy Mountains Scheme was built.


----------



## Smurf1976

I think a mistake made with geothermal is location. 

SA has the attraction of a massive resource and high electricity prices but it's in the middle of nowhere. Higher costs to get everything out there and any large scale development would have required some major transmission lines to move the power to the existing grid.

In contrast there are smaller but still more than adequate geothermal resources in Vic and Tas right next to the existing grid and existing towns. In Tas at least there's also plenty of water available. Surely that would have lowered costs to some extent, particularly if they had gone ahead with a major development. So no real need to be doing things in the middle of nowhere if they just wanted to prove the concept and get a plant up and running. 

See this map: http://www.geothermal-resources.com.au/images/fig2.jpg


----------



## Smurf1976

Just thought I'd mention a project I'm evaluating at the moment. This is a purely personal one, not work related, and involves building a solar-electric space heater.

My intent is to get this up and running and put it into actual use at home, located in the second living area off the kitchen which is semi-open plan to the lounge and dining also.

Thus far I've got as far as a desktop evaluation of the economics (it stacks up well enough to warrant proceeding further with) and have compiled estimated daily heat production data going back 3 years. Next step is to analyze that data in further detail and assuming it's all good then go about sourcing components for the system.

Initial estimates is that I can get everything required and get it up and running for not more than $1000 (valuing my own labour as free) and that the system will produce about 1.7 MWh of useful heat per annum (potential gross output is considerably greater but this figure is for useful heat delivered when the sun isn't shining - it's a storage based system). 

The system will draw zero power from the grid to produce heat, it will be 100% solar, and will only use grid power to operate the heat release mechanism with grid power consumption being equivalent to less than 1% of the heat produced.

This is a long term project with a target commissioning date of 1 March 2019. Reason for that is purely economic (presently receiving 28.283c FIT until 31 December 2018 so no point doing it earlier).

I'm not inventing anything here, just combining proven off the shelf concepts and commercially available products into a working solar heating system. Will post some more at some time when I've got further with it.


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> Just thought I'd mention a project I'm evaluating at the moment. This is a purely personal one, not work related, and involves building a solar-electric space heater.
> 
> My intent is to get this up and running and put it into actual use at home, located in the second living area off the kitchen which is semi-open plan to the lounge and dining also.
> 
> Thus far I've got as far as a desktop evaluation of the economics (it stacks up well enough to warrant proceeding further with) and have compiled estimated daily heat production data going back 3 years. Next step is to analyze that data in further detail and assuming it's all good then go about sourcing components for the system.
> 
> Initial estimates is that I can get everything required and get it up and running for not more than $1000 (valuing my own labour as free) and that the system will produce about 1.7 MWh of useful heat per annum (potential gross output is considerably greater but this figure is for useful heat delivered when the sun isn't shining - it's a storage based system).
> 
> The system will draw zero power from the grid to produce heat, it will be 100% solar, and will only use grid power to operate the heat release mechanism with grid power consumption being equivalent to less than 1% of the heat produced.
> 
> This is a long term project with a target commissioning date of 1 March 2019. Reason for that is purely economic (presently receiving 28.283c FIT until 31 December 2018 so no point doing it earlier).
> 
> I'm not inventing anything here, just combining proven off the shelf concepts and commercially available products into a working solar heating system. Will post some more at some time when I've got further with it.



Smurf,
I assume you are aware and probably a suscriber to Renew?
Just in case you are not, you might find interesting articles around that subject


----------



## sptrawler

Well smurph, it sounds as though t.o.d pricing is coming to W.A. 
Also a higher supply charge to seems to go with the trail. 

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/32487480/will-this-trial-mean-you-pay-more-for-power/#page1

_A potentially controversial aspect of the trial will result in households paying more to be connected to the grid to reflect the big cost of the power plants, poles and wires needed to supply electricity._


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> Smurf,
> I assume you are aware and probably a suscriber to Renew?
> Just in case you are not, you might find interesting articles around that subject




Not a subscriber but well aware of it.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Well smurph, it sounds as though t.o.d pricing is coming to W.A.
> Also a higher supply charge to seems to go with the trail.
> 
> https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/32487480/will-this-trial-mean-you-pay-more-for-power/#page1
> 
> _A potentially controversial aspect of the trial will result in households paying more to be connected to the grid to reflect the big cost of the power plants, poles and wires needed to supply electricity._




Wow, smurph, that didn't take long, the link looks as though it has been taken down.lol

Wish I'd copied and pasted, the whole article.lol


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> the link looks as though it has been taken down.




They probably couldn't afford the cost of power to keep it up....


----------



## SirRumpole

Australia's solar power production to triple with 12 new plants to be built


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-...-triple-with-12-new-plants-beingbuilt/7826302


----------



## Smurf1976

2016 Hydro Tasmania power station tours.

Gordon power station (SW Tas) – 8th October

John Butters power station (near Queenstown) – 15th October

Trevallyn power station (Launceston urban area) – 22nd October

All these are real working power stations.

All tours are free.

Yes you do go right inside and up close to everything, it's not simply a look from a viewing area etc. In the case of Gordon that means you're literally going underground.

Cameras and phones are fine - take as many photos as you like.

Clothing – need to wear long sleeves, long trousers and enclosed footwear (no need for steel caps etc, just normal enclosed shoes so no thongs etc). Hydro will supply ear plugs, helmets and vests.

What you can't bring – no bags, liquids of any kind or food allowed inside any power station.

Booking is required for Gordon and Trevallyn. No bookings needed for John Butters – just turn up.

Who – no problem bringing the kids. Fitness required – if you can walk up and down stairs then you'll be fine.

Anyone with medical devices, pacemakers etc, should not go at least without consulting their doctor first since strong fields inside may interfere with the operation of such devices.

As these are real working power stations and using stairs is required there is unfortunately no disabled access for those unable to use stairs.

More info and link for bookings where required is here: http://www.hydro.com.au/community/power-station-tours


----------



## SirRumpole

A different form of energy conversion, very interesting.

Would like to know the end cost per litre though.


Facility to convert non-recyclable plastic to fuel planned for Canberra

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-12/plastic-to-fuel-facility-planned-in-canberra/7835234


----------



## basilio

Creative thinking.

Using old abandoned gold mines and two huge holes in the ground to create a  cheap renewable energy project. Very clever.



> * Energy storage: how an abandoned goldmine will be converted into a world first*
> 
> Australia has no plan for managing disused mines but a company has a novel solution for producing renewable energy




https://www.theguardian.com/sustain...goldmine-will-be-converted-into-a-world-first


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> A different form of energy conversion, very interesting.
> 
> Would like to know the end cost per litre though.
> 
> 
> Facility to convert non-recyclable plastic to fuel planned for Canberra
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-12/plastic-to-fuel-facility-planned-in-canberra/7835234




Very clever. One of the bottom lines is the cost of the diesel that is produced.  Bit it would also be interesting to see how much "rubbish" plastic can be taken out the waste stream and recycled.


----------



## qldfrog

basilio said:


> Very clever. One of the bottom lines is the cost of the diesel that is produced.  Bit it would also be interesting to see how much "rubbish" plastic can be taken out the waste stream and recycled.



cost of diesel produced should include the waste management avoided and probably a premium for the "crap removed from earth"
Good idea
a civilised technical version of http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/afp/2016/09/syria-conflict-aleppo-fuel.html


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Australia's solar power production to triple with 12 new plants to be built
> 
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-...-triple-with-12-new-plants-beingbuilt/7826302




So much for renewable energy......No problem so long as the Sun shines and the wind blows.

One could say all the other states in Australia would not be envious of what is happening in South Australia.

South Australia's power is inefficient and costly to the consumers.

I trust the other states have learnt their lesson from the mistakes made in South Australia for going overboard with renewable energy......South Australia has heaps of uranium and should be the first state to go nuclear.


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...n/news-story/d97137b0501807a52a96acd2d4db1734


*This winter South Australia got an electricity shock. On the evening of July 7, the wind wasn’t blowing, the sun wasn’t shining, and the interconnector that supplies power from Victoria was down. Gas set the wholesale price, and gas is expensive, especially during a cold winter. At 7.30pm wholesale spot prices soared to $9000 per megawatt hour. For the month they averaged $230 a megawatt hour, when they were closer to $65 in the rest of the country. 

The prices alarmed the state government and outraged big industrial consumers, who buy power on the wholesale market. Commentators hunted for a culprit: wind power, gas generators, the market itself. Everyone demanded that something be done.

Yet, as shown by Grattan Institute’s latest report, Keeping the lights on: lessons from South Australia’s power shock, the market worked. Prices soared then fell back, power was delivered, the lights stayed on. Yet South Australia’s power shock exposed a looming problem in the electricity system — not high prices or the threat of blackouts, but a glimpse of what can happen when climate change policies and the demands of the energy market conflict.*


----------



## Smurf1976

The problem in SA was simple economics at work.

Loss of most interconnection to other states combined with lack of wind generation gave the gas-fired generators the opportunity to make a huge profit and so that's what they did.

If someone doesn't like that outcome then moving from a market based system to regulation or public ownership would be the obvious answers. So long as there's a competitive market in an industry where every player is at times guaranteed to sell their product there will be price spikes to extreme levels.

Same with anything really. If you're guaranteed to sell your product then you can put the price up and most will do so. And the nature of power generation is such that, with present technologies, there's always going to be times when such certainty of finding a buyer exists such that the only real alternatives involve something other than a free market approach.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> The problem in SA was simple economics at work.
> 
> Loss of most interconnection to other states combined with lack of wind generation gave the gas-fired generators the opportunity to make a huge profit and so that's what they did.
> 
> If someone doesn't like that outcome then moving from a market based system to regulation or public ownership would be the obvious answers. So long as there's a competitive market in an industry where every player is at times guaranteed to sell their product there will be price spikes to extreme levels.
> 
> Same with anything really. If you're guaranteed to sell your product then you can put the price up and most will do so. And the nature of power generation is such that, with present technologies, there's always going to be times when such certainty of finding a buyer exists such that the only real alternatives involve something other than a free market approach.




Essential services like power and water should be publicly owned. End of story.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Don'y worry about lack of foresight, in battery technology, it is the 'holy grail' there is billions of dollars going into battery research.
> It is one area, the Government doesn't need to spend money, the private sector want to crack this one.
> Whomever comes up with the viable battery, will be worth trillions.




That's a post from page 5 of this thread, and guess what the CSIRO is coming to the fore, go Aussie.

From Wiki. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UltraBattery

UltraBattery in hybrid electric vehicles[edit]
UltraBattery has several advantages over the existing nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH) batteries currently used in hybrid electric vehicles. They are approximately 70 per cent less expensive, with comparable performance in terms of fuel consumption and faster charge and discharge rates than Ni-MH batteries.[13]

When used in hybrid electric vehicles, the UltraBattery’s ultracapacitor acts as a buffer during high-rate discharging and charging, enabling it to provide and absorb charge rapidly during vehicle acceleration and braking.[13]

Testing of the Ultrabattery’s performance in hybrid electric vehicles by Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium achieved more than 100,000 miles on a single battery pack without significant degradation.[2] Laboratory results of UltraBattery prototypes show that their capacity, power, available energy, cold cranking and self-discharge meets, or exceeds, all performance targets set for minimum and maximum power-assist hybrid electric vehicles.

UltraBattery in Microgrids[edit]
UltraBattery can be used to smooth and shift (i.e. store for later use) renewable energy sources on microgrids to improve predictable power availability. UltraBattery can also be used in standalone microgrid systems, renewables power systems and hybrid microgrids. Standalone microgrid systems combine diesel or other fossil fuels with UltraBattery storage to improve the efficiency of fossil-fuel energy generation. Including energy storage in the system reduces the size of the gen-set (i.e. array of generators) because the batteries can handle peaks in the load. UltraBattery also reduces the fuel consumption of the gen-set, because the generators can run at their highest efficiency, regardless of variations in the load on the system.

Renewables power systems combine UltraBattery technology with the renewable generation source to deliver local power. They can use either photovoltaic, wind or solar thermal energy, and commonly incorporate a back-up diesel generator. Hybrid microgrids integrate renewable generation sources with UltraBattery energy storage and fossil-fuel gen-sets to maximize the efficiency of base-load generation. This can greatly reduce the cost of energy compared with diesel-only powered microgrids. They also substantially decrease greenhouse gas emissions. An example of this type of microgrid is the King Island Renewable Energy Integration Project (KIREIP),[14] being undertaken by Hydro Tasmania. This megawatt-scale renewable energy project aims to reduce both the cost of delivering power to the island and carbon pollution.[12]


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> That's a post from page 5 of this thread, and guess what the CSIRO is coming to the fore, go Aussie.





Yes great news


----------



## SirRumpole

> Store year's worth of power in Hydro Tasmania dams to prevent another energy crisis, industry says
> By Richard Baines
> 
> 
> Tasmania's biggest power users want 12 months' worth of power stored in Hydro dams, after an unprecedented crisis earlier this year.
> 
> In a highly critical submission to the state's Energy Security Taskforce, the Minerals and Energy Council suggested increased power storage was the key to energy security going forward.
> 
> The taskforce was set up after record-low levels at power-generating dams combined with a broken undersea Basslink power cable to plunge Tasmania into an unprecedented energy crisis earlier this year.
> 
> The Minerals and Energy Council, which represents big industrial power users, wants 12 months' worth of storage in future.
> 
> "Build storages such that the 'normal' lower limit [prior to autumn/winter rains] still has a minimum 12-month reserve about the lower practical limit," the submission said.
> 
> "Limit 'power export' via Basslink in order to build storages to an effectively safe minimum ”” in line with targets and milestones."
> 
> In a statement, Hydro Tasmania's chief executive Steve Davy said the government business was working on storage while the taskforce considered its 31 stakeholder submissions.
> 
> "While the taskforce considers that new evidence, Hydro Tasmania is applying additional conservatism to storage management," he said.
> 
> "We're also taking interim steps to further enhance our climate modelling and planning assumptions."
> 
> Mr Davy said "overreacting" to the energy crisis "could be very expensive for Tasmanians".




More at:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-...-store-power-to-prevent-energy-crisis/7884744


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The problem in SA was simple economics at work.
> 
> Loss of most interconnection to other states combined with lack of wind generation gave the gas-fired generators the opportunity to make a huge profit and so that's what they did.
> 
> If someone doesn't like that outcome then moving from a market based system to regulation or public ownership would be the obvious answers. So long as there's a competitive market in an industry where every player is at times guaranteed to sell their product there will be price spikes to extreme levels.
> 
> Same with anything really. If you're guaranteed to sell your product then you can put the price up and most will do so. And the nature of power generation is such that, with present technologies, there's always going to be times when such certainty of finding a buyer exists such that the only real alternatives involve something other than a free market approach.




Looks like S.A power problems, will be front and centre, soon.
Can't wait to see the outcome of this fiasco.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-28/sa-weather-south-australia-without-power-as-storm-hits/7885930

If S.A is going to be cut off completely everytime there is a large storm, it will become very annoying.IMO

Obviously too much wind for the wind farms. I wonder why the gas plant can't be in service, unless there is a distribution issue.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Looks like S.A power problems, will be front and centre, soon.
> Can't wait to see the outcome of this fiasco.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-28/sa-weather-south-australia-without-power-as-storm-hits/7885930
> 
> If S.A is going to be cut off completely everytime there is a large storm, it will become very annoying.IMO
> 
> Obviously too much wind for the wind farms. I wonder why the gas plant can't be in service, unless there is a distribution issue.




I wonder if the gas plant can "black start", smurph? That would be a real Faux Pas, if it can't.lol


----------



## SirRumpole

All of SA is currently without power if you believe this report.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-28/south-australia-without-power-live-blog/7885972


----------



## Smurf1976

I can confirm that the SA electricity system suffered a total collapse this afternoon.

Vic - SA transmission was completely lost (there are two AC and one DC circuit connecting the two states) and all SA generation shut down.

So there's zero availability of electricity from the grid in SA, to anyone *including* essential services, at the present time. Anyone who does have power will be using their own generator, batteries etc to get it since the grid is literally dead throughout SA.

It will take quite some time to get the system back up and running since all SA's power stations will need to be restarted from scratch and that's not something that can be done "just like that".

Supply has been unaffected in other states. 

Immediately upon the failure generation in Victoria, Tasmania, NSW and Queensland was all reduced modestly with maximum power flow immediately occurring on the Vic > NSW and Vic > Tas transmission lines however reaching these limits this caused no significant problems in those states. 

Note that the reduction of generation in other states, and sending power from Vic into other states, are a consequence of the SA system collapse and not the cause of it. You can't put power into the system if there's nowhere for it to go, so with SA disconnected it's a given that generation had to be ramped down elsewhere. So generation was reduced in Vic and as much as possible was sent elsewhere (there's a limit to how quickly any one power station can reduce output in an orderly manner, hence sharing the task).

If you're in SA and reading this then the crux of it is "don't stay up waiting for the power to come back on". Depending on exactly where (electrically) you are in the state will have some influence but for most the answer is likely to be "sometime overnight power will be restored". 

Other services:

Water - I'm not an expert on SA's water supply system but ultimately a lot of water pumps will now be completely idle. It's plausible that some areas may run dry or experience pressure drops.

Communications - To the extent that it's working it will be largely running on battery power with some use of diesel generators. Depending on how long the power's out, don't count on your mobile or other means of communications continuing to work.


----------



## CanOz

Wow, an entire state out of power, that's incredible...i hope everyone stays safe!


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I can confirm that the SA electricity system suffered a total collapse this afternoon.
> 
> Vic - SA transmission was completely lost (there are two AC and one DC circuit connecting the two states) and all SA generation shut down.
> 
> So there's zero availability of electricity from the grid in SA, to anyone *including* essential services, at the present time. Anyone who does have power will be using their own generator, batteries etc to get it since the grid is literally dead throughout SA.
> 
> It will take quite some time to get the system back up and running since all SA's power stations will need to be restarted from scratch and that's not something that can be done "just like that".
> 
> Supply has been unaffected in other states.
> 
> Immediately upon the failure generation in Victoria, Tasmania, NSW and Queensland was all reduced modestly with maximum power flow immediately occurring on the Vic > NSW and Vic > Tas transmission lines however reaching these limits this caused no significant problems in those states.
> 
> Note that the reduction of generation in other states, and sending power from Vic into other states, are a consequence of the SA system collapse and not the cause of it. You can't put power into the system if there's nowhere for it to go, so with SA disconnected it's a given that generation had to be ramped down elsewhere. So generation was reduced in Vic and as much as possible was sent elsewhere (there's a limit to how quickly any one power station can reduce output in an orderly manner, hence sharing the task).
> 
> If you're in SA and reading this then the crux of it is "don't stay up waiting for the power to come back on". Depending on exactly where (electrically) you are in the state will have some influence but for most the answer is likely to be "sometime overnight power will be restored".
> 
> Other services:
> 
> Water - I'm not an expert on SA's water supply system but ultimately a lot of water pumps will now be completely idle. It's plausible that some areas may run dry or experience pressure drops.
> 
> Communications - To the extent that it's working it will be largely running on battery power with some use of diesel generators. Depending on how long the power's out, don't count on your mobile or other means of communications continuing to work.




We in W.A had exactly the same problem in the early 1990's, it wasn't fun, the only station that could black start was Kwinana.

Then you have to decide which unit is the quickest and easiest to bring on line, then closing on consumers without overloading the unit and re establishing other units is a real nervous situation.

Can Torrens Island gas units start? or will they require the interconnect to start auxiliaries?

It sounds really interesting, will be a mini series on t.v soon.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I wonder if the gas plant can "black start", smurph? That would be a real Faux Pas, if it can't.lol




I'd have to check to see exactly what capabilities they have in SA but yes, they can do a black start with some of their power stations.

Layman's terms explanation for everyone other than Smurf and sptrawler:

Power stations have a lot of electrical systems in them, they need power to operate as well as producing it. It varies with the technology (steam turbines, hydro etc) how much is needed but any power station will consume a bit of what it produces and send the rest into the grid.

Normally, to start a power station power is drawn _from_ the grid (from other power stations already operating) in order to start another power station (or another machine at a power station with multiple generating units).

Now, if the whole grid is completely dead as is the case in SA then obviously you can't do that. Can't draw power from another power station to start one when the whole lot have gone down.

This is where "black start" (and that's the proper term for it by the way) becomes critical. You have backup systems at a few power stations which power only the power station itself. That power is then used to start the normal generating units, bring the grid back up (with all loads still disconnected at this stage) and that then enables other power stations (those which don't have black start capability) to be started. Once they're running, then you put the loads back on gradually (can't do it all at once since it takes time to ramp up generation).

As one non-SA example, Gordon power station (Tasmania, hydro) is a black start power station (we also have others). It can be used to bring the grid back up in the case of a total system failure and then get everything else running.

Gordon has 3 x 144MW units that comprise the power station for normal operations. For black starts there's also a completely separate small hydro turbine which can be started manually without the need for external power. Power from that machine can then be used to start the main generating units at Gordon, and they bring the grid back up and start everything else. And just in case that small hydro unit fails for some reason we've got a permanently installed diesel generator located above ground (Gordon PS itself is underground) which is a second option for doing a black start at Gordon. And if Gordon can't do it (for whatever reason) then there's similar things at some other power stations too.

I'm not sure exactly what SA has in that regard but I'm sure they do have black start capabilities so yes, they'll be able to restart the grid. Simplest option is to get the AC link to Victoria back up and use power from Vic to re-start generation in SA but they do have other options too.

Once generation is up and running, it's then a case of putting loads back on. Assuming the AC link to Vic can be brought back online, that will be a big help since it will enable a more rapid restoration with the Vic system absorbing (and partly passing through to NSW and Tas, with NSW able to pass some through to Qld) the "shocks" to the system as loads are turned back on whilst SA generation ramps up gradually.

In layman's terms, think of turning loads back on as THUMP! A bit like suddenly letting the clutch out on a manual car in top gear - that's a sudden shock to the engine and do it too quickly and it will stall (grid goes dead again, all generation shuts down) but being able to pass most of that through to other states will make it a lot easier since that removes the need to closely balance SA generation (slowly ramps up) and load (which for any given distribution line is either fully on or fully off). So power stations in the other states will assist in putting the lights back on in SA as long as the physical means to do so (Vic - SA transmission) is working.

If no Vic - SA transmission then it can still be done but will take longer to get power fully restored since the boilers at Torrens Island (by far the largest power station in SA) can only ramp up at a certain rate and it's the same for every other power station too.

A system black like SA has right now is the power industry's worst nightmare by any measure. It can be dealt with but will take some time (most of the night realistically).


----------



## Smurf1976

Update:

Vic - SA transmission has been established and some power is flowing from Vic to SA. Also some wind generation back up in SA and a diesel-fired gas turbine has been run also.

Roughly 20% of normal load is now back on.

Still zero output from any major power station in SA at the present time.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> A system black like SA has right now is the power industry's worst nightmare by any measure. It can be dealt with but will take some time (most of the night realistically).




I would hate to be the operations manager at Torrens ATM.


----------



## macca

Thanks for the updates, very interesting


----------



## Smurf1976

A bit under 500 MW is now being supplied in SA. That compares with about 1800 MW at this time yesterday and about 1900 MW immediately prior to the failure.

So allowing for day to day variation (due to heating and cooling etc) it's fair to say that 25 - 30% of "business as usual" load is now back on.

About 60% of that supply into SA is coming from Victoria. The rest is some wind and also generation at partial capacity from Quarantine power station (gas) and Port Lincoln (oil). Both of those power stations are relatively small and normally only used for peak loads however.

At present there is still zero output from any major power station normally used for base load in SA (Torrens Island, Pelican Point, Osborne).

Apparently there has been some physical destruction of the transmission grid with reports that a number of steel towers have physically collapsed due to the storms. Apparently they're bent over about a third the way up such that the wires are lying on the ground. That won't keep the whole state in the dark but _might_ (I don't know for sure) cause a localised problem with restoring power in some parts fo the state if there's no transmission still working in that area.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> A bit under 500 MW is now being supplied in SA. That compares with about 1800 MW at this time yesterday and about 1900 MW immediately prior to the failure.
> 
> So allowing for day to day variation (due to heating and cooling etc) it's fair to say that 25 - 30% of "business as usual" load is now back on.
> 
> About 60% of that supply into SA is coming from Victoria. The rest is some wind and also generation at partial capacity from Quarantine power station (gas) and Port Lincoln (oil). Both of those power stations are relatively small and normally only used for peak loads however.
> 
> At present there is still zero output from any major power station normally used for base load in SA (Torrens Island, Pelican Point, Osborne).




Everything coming back under control, at ease everyone, just another day in paradise.


----------



## sptrawler

Well maybe some questions will be asked.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/s...ance-on-renewable-energy-20160928-grqq9k.html


----------



## noco

sptrawler said:


> Well maybe some questions will be asked.
> 
> http://www.theage.com.au/business/s...ance-on-renewable-energy-20160928-grqq9k.html




If the South Australian Government had a least one coal fired or one nuclear power station instead of relying upon the inefficient renewables and Victoria, they would not be in the situation they now find themselves.

The South Australian government should start thinking for themselves instead of being influenced by their Green coalition partners.


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## sptrawler

So now all we need to do over on the East Coast, is shut down Hazelwood and Loy Yang coal fired power stations, then we can really see how renewable energy works.

At least Labor are prepared to put it on the line, no point in being half ar$ed about it, shut them down then sort out the outcomes. 
Labor were going to buy them and shut them down, with the carbon tax years ago, when Ferguson was wearing a guernsey.

Positive reinforcement, that's what we need, some seat of the pants planning. 
Necessity is the mother of invention, go Billy.

My laugh of the day.

There is nothing like mother nature, to give humans a reality check.


----------



## Smurf1976

About a third of supply in SA restored now.

About two thirds of that supply is coming from Vic and the rest from generation in SA. One of the 120MW units at Torrens Island is now up and running so that's a good sign.

There's two things I'm pretty sure will come out of all this:

1. A lot of political witch hunting.

2. A lot of children will be born in SA about 9 months from now..... 

More seriously, hopefully everyone in SA is OK. There's been a massive storm it seems, quite a lot of damage, and in that context having no power for a lot of people isn't going to be their only problem right now. So hopefully no lives have been lost with the weather.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> About a third of supply in SA restored now.
> 
> About two thirds of that supply is coming from Vic and the rest from generation in SA. One of the 120MW units at Torrens Island is now up and running so that's a good sign.
> 
> There's two things I'm pretty sure will come out of all this:
> 
> 1. A lot of political witch hunting.
> 
> 2. A lot of children will be born in SA about 9 months from now.....
> 
> More seriously, hopefully everyone in SA is OK. There's been a massive storm it seems, quite a lot of damage, and in that context having no power for a lot of people isn't going to be their only problem right now. So hopefully no lives have been lost with the weather.




It just goes to show how dependent we are on reliable power, because we have so few of these events, we become complacent.

As you say smurph, all's well that ends well, hope all you crow eaters are doing o.k.



The Bass Link failure and now this extreme S.A storm, just shows how fragile the the link, between our wish for renewables and our reality is.

I think it will be a reality check for a lot of people.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The Bass Link failure




Storage presently at about 38% (from an all time low of 12.5% during the recent crisis) and the Tamar Valley CCGT (gas) will be fired up next month to run base load until sometime in Autumn.

Once bitten.....


----------



## Smurf1976

Last update on the situation in SA at least for today:

About 60% of load is restored now.

Approximately 36% of supply is coming from Victoria, about 8% from SA oil-fired generation and about 56% from SA gas-fired generation. Wind farms are still all off since the last thing anyone wants when trying to restart the system is intermittent generation.

And just for you sp, there's two 120 MW steam units at Torrens Island sitting on just over 100% of rated capacity at the moment. Not a bad effort on the part of the operators to get plant of that age (1960's) up and running and at full capacity pretty quickly under rather difficult circumstances. There's a 200 MW unit at TIPS now ramping up too.


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## macca

Hi Smurf,

A bit off topic but I don't understand how a problem in Pt Augusta stops the flow of power from Victoria to Adelaide.

Pt A is 300kl, the other side of Adelaide.

 if you have the time, could you explain that please

thanks


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> And just for you sp, there's two 120 MW steam units at Torrens Island sitting on just over 100% of rated capacity at the moment. Not a bad effort on the part of the operators to get plant of that age (1960's) up and running and at full capacity pretty quickly under rather difficult circumstances. There's a 200 MW unit at TIPS now ramping up too.




There would have been some busy boys on shift.


----------



## sptrawler

This article gives a very good comprehensive outline of S.A electricity issues, as is said it isn't a report on the failure, but a very well written article.IMO

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-...-reputation:-uhlmann/7888290?section=analysis

The layman should be able to get their head around it no problem, which is good, because too many people are making silly assumptions regarding renewables.IMO


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> This article gives a very good comprehensive outline of S.A electricity issues, as is said it isn't a report on the failure, but a very well written article.IMO
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-...-reputation:-uhlmann/7888290?section=analysis
> 
> The layman should be able to get their head around it no problem, which is good, because too many people are making silly assumptions regarding renewables.IMO



but isn't the key problem the absence of secure interconnection; either we use whatever is available locally: solar in middle of australia, wind in SA, etc and work the load as one big nationwide system or we have to work on a set of small autonomous subsystem each with their peak load, base load and intermittent capacity;
as i read it  the real issue is that SA is too far ahead in the absence of safe and secure interconnection, the fact it is also on the periphery of the east coast states does not help.
In any case, did not work well.interconnection is key to reduce risk as Tasmania was already demonstrating a few months ago


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## SirRumpole

qldfrog said:


> but isn't the key problem the absence of secure interconnection; either we use whatever is available locally: solar in middle of australia, wind in SA, etc and work the load as one big nationwide system or we have to work on a set of small autonomous subsystem each with their peak load, base load and intermittent capacity;
> as i read it  the real issue is that SA is too far ahead in the absence of safe and secure interconnection, the fact it is also on the periphery of the east coast states does not help.
> In any case, did not work well.interconnection is key to reduce risk as Tasmania was already demonstrating a few months ago




As far as I know, and Smurph may be able to confirm this, the key to intermittent renewable energy is storage; ie you don't feed wind or solar PV direct to the grid you use it to charge batteries, pump water uphill or heat molten salts so that you can extract the energy in a constant way later on.

To me, the failure (if it is such) of renewables so far is that it's basically been handed over to private companies whose  sole aim is to maximise their short term profits by investing in as little infrastructure as possible. They have therefore not bothered much with storage, they prefer to wow the consumer by showing them their power meters running backwards. Good while it lasts, but basically useless in the long term national interest.

Governments have to take power supplies back, come up with a nationwide plan for integrated renewables with storage and concentrate on supplying cheap and reliable energy to consumers and industry with profits running a distant second place.

The article quoted by Qldfrog did not even mention storage, perhaps unsurprisingly as it was written by a political reporter who probably has no clue about energy management. Maybe I don't either but I think it's time governments stopped playing politics with power and handed the system back to engineers who should know what they are talking about.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> As far as I know, and Smurph may be able to confirm this, the key to intermittent renewable energy is storage; ie you don't feed wind or solar PV direct to the grid you use it to charge batteries, pump water uphill or heat molten salts so that you can extract the energy in a constant way later on.
> 
> To me, the failure (if it is such) of renewables so far is that it's basically been handed over to private companies whose  sole aim is to maximise their short term profits by investing in as little infrastructure as possible. They have therefore not bothered much with storage, they prefer to wow the consumer by showing them their power meters running backwards. Good while it lasts, but basically useless in the long term national interest.
> 
> Governments have to take power supplies back, come up with a nationwide plan for integrated renewables with storage and concentrate on supplying cheap and reliable energy to consumers and industry with profits running a distant second place.
> 
> The article quoted by Qldfrog did not even mention storage, perhaps unsurprisingly as it was written by a political reporter who probably has no clue about energy management. Maybe I don't either but I think it's time governments stopped playing politics with power and handed the system back to engineers who should know what they are talking about.




The big problem is, how many batteries do you think you would need to store 70% of S.A wind generation? Also who pays for them and where would you put them, then after 7 years you have to replace them and get rid of them?
Currently small pockets of residential populations are being tested with battery storage( I think Alkimos in W.A) is currently trailing it.
But to have enough battery storage to run a State grid is mind bending, same with pumped storage you have to be able to store it,also sodium(salt) storage only works in really fine weather. Unlike what S.A experienced.


----------



## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> but isn't the key problem the absence of secure interconnection; either we use whatever is available locally: solar in middle of australia, wind in SA, etc and work the load as one big nationwide system or we have to work on a set of small autonomous subsystem each with their peak load, base load and intermittent capacity;
> as i read it  the real issue is that SA is too far ahead in the absence of safe and secure interconnection, the fact it is also on the periphery of the east coast states does not help.
> In any case, did not work well.interconnection is key to reduce risk as Tasmania was already demonstrating a few months ago




The big issue from what I read, is the lack of generators on line that could frequency control, wind turbines can't.

Some generation has to be able to absorb load, to reduce the frequency and keep it with safe limits around 50hz.

If not system stability will be lost, as happened. 
I guess there will be new operating instructions, as to how much renewable can be online, in those weather conditions.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> As far as I know, and Smurph may be able to confirm this, the key to intermittent renewable energy is storage




Crux of it is this.

1. Electricity is not easily stored. Until very recently, every grid had no storage at all and even now it's incredibly minor where it does exist. You turn the kettle on, a power station somewhere is producing another 2kW to run your kettle. Etc.

2. Storage is anything but cheap. There are situations where it can make economic sense but it's not cheap as such, just the "least costly" option in some cases.

3. With conventional power generation (coal, oil, hydro, nuclear, biomass in the few places which use it) we can however store the fuel used to run the power station. Coal piled up, oil in a tank, water in a dam, etc. So at least the power station itself can, as long as nothing breaks down, run "as required".

Gas has always been viewed with caution since it's impractical to store significant gas at a power station and there's generally only a modest amount in the pipes (not zero but it's limited). So gas is more subject to sudden disruption than other fuels and for this reason utilities traditionally backed up gas-fired generation with the ability to use some other fuel (usually oil since that's technically the easiest). In more recent times the privately owned gas-fired plants often have no backup since it costs money to have that.

Whilst it's not impossible to have a shortage of coal, water etc at least you normally have plenty of warning. If the dam's half empty then that's not something which suddenly happens just like that. Same if the coal mine isn't operating well and the coal stockpile is shrinking, you've got plenty of warning and time to do something (get coal from somewhere else, run other power stations more to save what fuel is left at the one with trouble, etc).

4. With wind and solar PV generation there is zero storage of the primary energy source. A cloud comes over or the wind drops = power production immediately declines. You can't store sun or wind directly, at most you could store them in another form, and we can't change when the wind blows or the sun shines.

So wind and solar are "use it or lose it" at any given time and for that reason are not a "firm" source of generation since there's no certainty the wind will blow when you need it. It will blow sometime though, and if we store the energy (eg pumped storage, batteries) then it could certainly work to replace coal etc for power generation. That said, there isn't a single wind farm supplying the main grid which has any storage at all and there's stuff all when it comes to solar.

All that said, in the context of the SA blackout the ultimate problem is that transmission lines physically came crashing down to the ground due to structural failure of the towers. That would have blacked out at least part of the state no matter how the power was being generated. 

That said, steam turbines (all coal plants use steam turbines as do some gas and oil-fired plants) or hydro (not that SA has any significant hydro) would have been far more likely to keep going through all those shocks to the system as the lines came down, lightning hit and so on than a wind turbine. Firstly because they're synchronous machines able to control frequency (unlike wind turbines) and secondly because of the sheer physical mass of the rotating machinery and its constant energy input (steam or water) means it does take a fair bit to make it fail.

It's certainly possible to run a grid 100% from wind and solar, Hydro Tas does it routinely on King Island and is building another system like that for Flinders Island, but the actual wind farms and solar we have on the main grids in Australia are not set up to work this way (and it would cost big $ to do so). Rather, they rely on conventional (coal, gas, hydro) generation to maintain grid frequency. Lose that coal, hydro etc and the wind farms will all shut down in an instant.

So you could have a location (major sub-station) with 500 MW of wind generation and 100 MW of load connected to it and with transmission to the rest of the grid. If that transmission fails then the result will be a complete shutdown of that generation and load, causing a blackout in that area plus the loss of the other 400 MW that was going into the rest of the grid. That's because wind turbines can't maintain frequency and thus can't operate without the rest of the grid.


----------



## CanOz

I think it was Musk that made a statement about storage that pretty much summed it up, i just can't recall what it was but yeah, *storage changes everything*...


----------



## SirRumpole

Thank you Smurph.

Indeed storage is not cheap which is why it needs to be a national priority rather than left to the private sector.

Barnaby Joyce is handing out millions to build dams for water storage, I wonder if he ever thought of the dual use of interlinked dams for renewable energy storage.

On a smaller scale, CSIRO has developed a new battery said to be cheaper and have a longer life than current batteries. While you couldn't run a grid off them they could be useful for household storage of intermittent renewable energy.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-...trabattery-for-off-grid-renewable-use/7881656


----------



## moXJO

SirRumpole said:


> Thank you Smurph.
> 
> Indeed storage is not cheap which is why it needs to be a national priority rather than left to the private sector.
> 
> Barnaby Joyce is handing out millions to build dams for water storage, I wonder if he ever thought of the dual use of interlinked dams for renewable energy storage.
> 
> On a smaller scale, CSIRO has developed a new battery said to be cheaper and have a longer life than current batteries. While you couldn't run a grid off them they could be useful for household storage of intermittent renewable energy.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-...trabattery-for-off-grid-renewable-use/7881656




I don't think it's a viable solution just yet and a waste of money. If you were going to put money into something then you would put it into nuke. Pi$$ing around with renewables may feel good,  but I  question it's ability to produce and durability.


----------



## Smurf1976

Electricity is a bit like sound. You can store the means of producing it but you can't store the actual electricity or sound itself.

Every now and then the media uses the term "reserves" in the context of electricity. What that means is that there's unused capacity to generate, not every power station is running flat out to meet the present load on the system, but there's never any reserve of actual electricity as such. The moment generation stops, the lights go out immediately.

If we're going to use resources that are intermittently available to produce a large proportion (or all) of our electricity then ultimately we need a means of storing either the electricity itself or something else which can easily be converted back into electricity since the underlying resource isn't always available. That's where the batteries, pumped hydro, molten salt, compressed air etc come in.

The only real storage we've got at present in Australia is 3 pumped storage schemes at Wivenhoe (Qld), Tumut 3 (Snowy scheme) and Shoalhaven (NSW). All three were built as add on's to water supply / irrigation schemes and intended primarily as a relatively cheap means of adding peak generating capacity to the grid (since the energy to pump the water back up hill has historically been from coal). They could certainly be used to store energy from other sources but even collectively they're nowhere near big enough to run the entire grid, the three between them being about the same size as one major coal-fired plant.

Update on the situation in SA:

All load is restored so far as practical. That is, nobody is in the dark on account of a shortage of power as such but some areas still have blackouts due to lines down etc.

Of the present load, Torrens Island power station is of itself supplying 66% of SA's entire power consumption right now. 

20% is being supplied from Victoria.

12% from Pelican Point power station.

3% is from SA wind generation.

2% from Quarantine power station (right next door to Torrens Island).

Figures don't add to 100% due to rounding. 

No production from Angaston, Lonsdale, Port Lincoln, Snuggery (all oil-fired) or Dry Creek, Mintaro, Osborne, Ladbroke Grove, Hallett (all gas-fired) although some generation has occurred at Port Lincoln, Snuggery and Labroke Grove at various times since yesterday's blackout.

The electricity market in SA remains suspended from a financial perspective.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Thank you Smurph.
> 
> Indeed storage is not cheap which is why it needs to be a national priority rather than left to the private sector.
> 
> Barnaby Joyce is handing out millions to build dams for water storage, I wonder if he ever thought of the dual use of interlinked dams for renewable energy storage.
> 
> On a smaller scale, CSIRO has developed a new battery said to be cheaper and have a longer life than current batteries. While you couldn't run a grid off them they could be useful for household storage of intermittent renewable energy.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-...trabattery-for-off-grid-renewable-use/7881656




Sir Rumpole, you have an obvious concern for the environment and efficient uptake of alternative energy and I assume you live in a rural area.
Maybe there is a opening for developing an electric tractor, that could be charged by solar and wind, thereby reducing the pollution these agricultural monsters pump out.
When you consider how many farms out there are using these diesel powered monsters, the carbon saving would be immense, also the solar array would be easily placed as the paddocks are cleared.

Actually it makes more sense to make farms off grid, as it reduces the pole and wires required, these are a major cost.
Then as these small systems are made more reliable, step up the installations to small towns and slowly decrease the spread of the grid.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Sir Rumpole, you have an obvious concern for the environment and efficient uptake of alternative energy and I assume you live in a rural area.
> Maybe there is a opening for developing an electric tractor, that could be charged by solar and wind, thereby reducing the pollution these agricultural monsters pump out.
> When you consider how many farms out there are using these diesel powered monsters, the carbon saving would be immense, also the solar array would be easily placed as the paddocks are cleared.
> 
> Actually it makes more sense to make farms off grid, as it reduces the pole and wires required, these are a major cost.
> Then as these small systems are made more reliable, step up the installations to small towns and slowly decrease the spread of the grid.




I'm not advocating any percentage of renewables I'm just saying that most renewables are pretty useless without some form of storage. Their intermitedness plays havoc with the grid and they will always need some form of baseload generation, but the uptake of rooftop solar PV and development of advanced batteries shows that they do have a place. The problem I have is that politicians are the ones who seemingly decide what proportion of renewables we have , I just wonder how much they have consulted with engineers as to whether their plans are feasible.

There are new nuclear reactor designs coming on all the time. We seem to be in an excellent position to go down that route. Lots of uranium and thorium and lots of space to store waste. We should have been in the business years ago instead of putting it in the too hard basket.

Electric tractors sound a good idea, but the basic problem is in transport fuel ie trucks and ships. More freight rail and going back to wind cargo ships as some have proposed would go a long way to conserving fuel.


----------



## Tisme

Looking at the power of renewables in South Australia = bending power pylons, flooding rivers, etc I wonder how long before the penny drops with the Liberal Party that harnessing that energy in part might be a good idea.


----------



## noco

Tisme said:


> Looking at the power of renewables in South Australia = bending power pylons, flooding rivers, etc I wonder how long before the penny drops with the Liberal Party that harnessing that energy in part might be a good idea.




I cannot help but think the South Australian Labor Government have gone too far with renewable energy and the whole balance is now out of whack.....I am sure they will be doing lots of heavy thinking down the track and look at clean reliable base load nuclear power.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...s/news-story/fcac47d28f0ee0382bf96bb50927c825


*South Australia’s state-wide power outage has wreaked havoc on some of the nation’s biggest industrial and mining ventures, cutting more than $50 million of revenue at major sites and causing serious damage to the Port Pirie lead smelter and the struggling Whyalla steelworks.

Costs could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars according to the Australian Industry Group, which says the outage has substantially damaged South Australia’s reputation as a place to do business.

Domestic airlines suffered in the power outage, with eight flights cancelled at Adelaide Airport on Wednesday night and another six yesterday morning. There were no cancellations for international flights.

Virgin Australia was hit hardest, with 12 of the 14 cancellations.

The lead smelter, which is the world’s biggest, Arrium’s Whyalla steelworks and its nearby iron ore mines, BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine and OZ Minerals’ Prominent Hill copper mine were all still shut last night, more than 24 hours after going off line.

The outage will cost the businesses an estimated $15m combined in daily revenue, before costs of repairs and start-ups.

PM’s ‘wake-up call’ needs actionOMore: PM’s ‘wake-up call’ needs action
Blackout a wake-up call: PMOMore: Blackout a wake-up call: PM

Once grid power returns, production will take two weeks to *return at Port Pirie, and work is unlikely to be able to start quickly at Whyalla.

Substantial damage has already been reported at the Port Pirie smelter’s blast furnace, which will be offline for up to two weeks because the outage caused slag inside the furnace to freeze, costing up to $7m of lost pre-tax earnings on top of repair costs.

At Whyalla last night, it appeared that emergency power had averted what would have been a disastrous cooling of the steel blast furnace.

But Arrium, being run by administrators KordaMentha, was still racing to find more power to prevent molten steel solidifying in four 180-tonne ladles, an un*controlled cooling of the kiln at the sites pellet plant — which would take three weeks to repair — and freezing of iron ore slurry in pipelines to the pellet plant.

“The major businesses across the state — BHP, ourselves, Port Pirie, Santos — we’ve all been concerned about redundancy risk and now it’s happened,” administrator Mark Mentha told The Australian. “The challenge will be, at a state or national level, how do you shore up the South Australian grid.”

Mr Mentha said the outage “couldn’t have come at a worse time” for Arrium, which was trying to bed down productivity gains to keep the steelworks profitable, so it could be divested through a trade sale or listing, along with the rest of the company’s mining and steel assets.

He would not quantify potential costs of the outage.

“I think we’ve avoided the worst (a blast furnace freeze), but there are residual issues that could still be costly,” Mr Mentha said.

“It’s a crisis that is becoming a bigger one as time passes — the lack of power is exacerbating lots of issues across our plant and mines and the weather is not abating ... we don’t think the outlook for power is great, so we’re trying to find alternative power through generators and the like.”

Whyalla’s back-up gas generator, which had been running in anticipation of a blackout, was itself tripped up when the outage came.

Belgium’s Nyrstar, which acquired Port Pirie from zinc miner Zinifex in 2007, said a back-up generator had sustained the blast furnace for several hours but the prolonged outage had proved too much.

“We are obviously very disappointed that the power supply in South Australia has failed and the impact that this has caused to the Port Pirie plant,” Nyrstar’s Zurich-based chief executive Bill Scotting said yesterday.

Ai Group chief Innes Willox said total costs would probably run into the hundreds of millions of dollars once start-up, clean-up and repair costs were included.

“This puts a dagger in the heart of the reputation of the state as a reliable place to do business,” Mr Willox told Sky News last night.

“The bill for this will be extremely high. The question will be what recourse there is, if they (businesses) choose to go down that path.”

The outage hit on Wednesday afternoon after a severe storm damaged power lines north of Adelaide. The Australian Energy Market Operator said yesterday it was unclear why this had resulted in a “cascading failure of the remainder of the South Australia network” and that this would be subject to further investigation. Last night AEMO suspended the spot market for power pricing, after prices peaked to more than $13,000 per megawatt hour on Wednesday.

Power was restored to Port Pirie and Whyalla residents yesterday.

The state’s two big copper mines suspended production because of the power outages.

It is understood BHP has also been searching for spare generators to try to get as much power as it can at Olympic Dam, near the town of Roxby Downs, until grid power is returned.

“Back-up generators are currently providing power to critical infrastructure, which will allow a restart of operations when power is restored,” a spokesman said.

Adelaide-based OZ said it had no definitive timeline that suggested when power would be restored to its site near the Woomera rocket range.

Insurance companies are closely monitoring the impact of the storm, but with phone lines out across the state, claims have not been flooding in.

What is worrying the insurers, however, is the harsh start to the storm season.

The Insurance Council of Australia last week declared a catastrophe following major flooding in Forbes in central NSW, while western Victoria suffered floods earlier this month. IAG exceeded its natural perils allowance last year, while Suncorp recently bulked up its catastrophe and weather reinsurance program.

A QBE Insurance Australia spokeswoman said the company believed the claims volume would not be as severe as first anticipated.

“At this stage we think the main losses will be for business interruption due to storm damage to the power network and food spoilage, particularly in those areas where power is yet to be restored,” she said.

Santos, which runs the Moomba gas plant in the Cooper Basin that straddles the Queensland and South Australian borders, was unaffected by the outage because it does not use grid power.

The privately owned Coopers Brewery was unaffected by the power disruption as it has its own generator and cogeneration plant.*


----------



## explod

Noco,  you and the Prime Minister (who's become an embarrassment) don't get it.   Well I think you do but continue your oil/coal lobby campaign to confuse the ordinary populace. 

100% perfect neuclear generators would not have made any difference.   What happened in South Australia was a failure of the infrastructure.   The poles blew down and buckled under the exceptional wind gusts and foundations giving way due to extra damp ground from huge rainfall.  

Extreme weather events caused by polar warmth displacement.  Co2 driven climate change.


----------



## Smurf1976

To the extent that there's any issue with too much wind power in SA it comes down to what happens when you let the free market do as it pleases. Engineering considerations go out the window and profit becomes the motive.

That factor, profit, is the underlying reason why so many of Australia's wind farms have ended up in one state. Historically higher electricity prices, due to heavy reliance on gas, combined with good wind resources makes it the most profitable spot to put them.

AEMO has sensibly suspended the market in SA until further notice and now the engineers are firmly in charge and running the power system on a purely technical basis without regard to markets or matters of finance. Market? Well there simply isn't one.

So all available thermal generating plant is online and operating at least at minimum load with the Vic - SA AC interconnector being used as the backup if something in SA fails. The Vic - SA DC interconnect, along with SA thermal generation, is being used to keep flows on the AC line at the desired level (well below its maximum capacity).

What's being done right now is nothing radical, the entire concept of electricity as a tradeable commodity being a relatively recent one, just running the grid on the basis if security first given the risk that further transmission failures may occur given the ongoing weather and the possibility of damage to towers or lines that hasn't yet resulted in something falling over but will if there's another big gust.

In due course the market will be put back in place but for the moment it's basically being run as a single utility along purely technical lines. There's still a notional price but it's irrelevant for practical purposes.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:
			
		

> The only real storage we've got at present in Australia is 3 pumped storage schemes at Wivenhoe (Qld), Tumut 3 (Snowy scheme) and Shoalhaven (NSW).




What about Tarraleah ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarraleah_Power_Station


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> What about Tarraleah ?




Tarraleah is a conventional hydro station in Tasmania comprising 6 x 15 MW units which entered service in 1938 (3 machines), 1943 (1), 1945 (1) and 1951 (1).

The scheme involves long (about 20km) canals from the water source (Clark Dam / Butlers Gorge power station) to Tarraleah. No.1 canal was built first with No.2 canal added in the 1950's.

The canals impose a constraint on water flow equivalent to continuous operation of Tarraleah at 60% capacity from No.1 canal and 20% from No.2 canal. So 80% from both.

As a workaround to this flow constraint, and noting that Hydro had very limited resources building this during the Great Depression and WW2, the "Pump Pond" was built at the Tarraleah end of the canals just before the water enters the pipelines (of which there are 2) and then the penstocks (6) into the power station.

The basic concept of operation is to pump water out from No.1 canal into the pump pond, store it, then release at a later time to enable intermittent 100% capacity operation of the power station. 

When No.2 canal was later built, that discharges into the Pump Pond and has made the pumping from No.1 largely redundant although the pumps are still in place and able to operate.

This is not a pumped storage scheme in the normal sense since there is no ability to pump water back up after it has gone through the power station. So Tarraleah cannot store energy produced somewhere else, the Pump Pond being simply a means of storing water near the power station as a workaround to the limited canal capacity so as to enable peak load operation of Tarraleah on an intermittent basis. 

It's an unusual approach due to the circumstances of the time. Very little money, most of the workforce ended up joining the army, couldn't get (or afford) construction machinery, couldn't get fuel even if machinery had been available, couldn't even get enough concrete (hence why it took 11 years to sort-of finish the dam, with the top not put on until a second effort some years later). Getting steel and everything else was a problem too. Then there was the transport problem - they really did drive a steam engine along the roads (not rail) from Hobart (about 120km) to move the machinery to the site. Trip took 3 days one way, the engine fueled by wood taken from the bush beside the road. And just in case all that's not enough,two of the machines were damaged before they reached Tas due to the war (they came from the UK, ship was bombed) and there's still a brass plaque on them today recognising the difficult circumstances under which it was all built. 

So Tarraleah isn't a true pumped storage scheme, none of the Tas hydro schemes are pumped storage in the normal sense, but incorporates the Pump Pond as a workaround to the limited capacity of the canals.

In practical operation today, Tarraleah almost always runs base load (24/7) at 75 - 80% of capacity using flow from both canals so the Pump Pond is rarely used for its original purpose although it's there if full output is needed.

Hydro Tas has looked at what options exist to increase flow in the canals, particularly the larger No.1 canal, in recent times. There's an ongoing problem with bio fouling of the canal which requires periodic removal (scrub it clean - a substantial task that takes about a week) and the thoughts are to apply a coating that would provide a low friction surface thus increasing water flow and removing the need for cleaning. That approach has been used successfully elsewhere (Liaweenie canal which dates from 1922) and is working well thus far. It's big $ for what amounts to some fancy paint to do it at Tarraleah though so it's a case of seeing how long the Liaweenie one lasts before doing more of that sort of thing. 

Photo of canal being cleaned: https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/...bTNE3oLSZXoCTQEt0LS42C93ZYGyq8B17xGoUi5T34hpQ

Thankfully we've got machines these days. Those who dug it by hand (using pick and shovel) must have been pretty fit that's for sure. At least they would have been by the time it was done.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Tarraleah is a conventional hydro station in Tasmania comprising 6 x 15 MW units which entered service in 1938 (3 machines), 1943 (1), 1945 (1) and 1951 (1)...




Very interesting, thanks.


----------



## noco

The South Australian  government was warned back in 2005 of the poor state of those transmission towers with corrosion having taken place over a 50 year period and no action was taken......They were warned that the towers could collapse in high winds. 


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...o/news-story/abc21f33acf2b752e6ec3e6fcb6e1999

ElectraNet ‘was warned’ of tower risk long ago



An overturned transmission tower knocked over during the recent storm surge in South Australia.

*The operator of South Australia’s high-voltage electricity transmission infrastructure was warned of the risk of tower collapse a decade ago because of poor maintenance, sparking calls for more investment in Australia’s power network in the wake of South Australia’s statewide blackout.

The transmission company Electra*Net in South Australia owns and operates some of the oldest electricity transmission network assets in the nation, with half of the state’s electricity towers due to exceed their use-by dates by 2023.

On Wednesday, supercell storms with cyclonic winds ripped 22 transmission towers in South Australia’s mid-north out of the ground, bringing down three major transmission lines, which is believed to have caused the frequency of the grid to drop to a point where an automatic shutdown of the entire system was triggered. Temporary, replacement transmission towers are expected to arrive in the next few days from interstate.

ElectraNet was first warned in 2005 of the risk that 43 of its *towers could collapse in windy conditions because of corrosion and degradation of foundations.

Nearly a decade later, Electra*Net sought approval from the Australian Energy Regulator to recoup the cost of repairing the towers in its asset refurbishment plan for 2013 to 2018. The company noted that in some cases, foundation reinforcement bars and stubs were missing.

ElectraNet executive manager Rainer Korte yesterday said sev*ere weather that had battered South Australia since Wednesday afternoon meant “forces were put on sections of the lines that they were unable to withstand”.

Tackling coal, wind and ireOMore: Tackling coal, wind and ire

Mr Korte insisted none of the towers brought down on Wednesday had been identified as needing repair and could not say how old those towers were.

ElectraNet had wanted to spend $750.1 million over five years from 2013 to build new facilities or replace ageing transmission infrastructure but the regulator said $691m was sufficient. Company documents show more than 70 per cent of Electra*Net’s capital investment program is focused on replacing and refurbishing the state’s ageing infrastructure.

More than 80 per cent of transmission line failures in Australia are due to high-intensity winds. Energy experts yesterday warned that the ageing infrastructure would be unlikely to meet today’s minimum standards for overhead lines to withstand strong winds.

Energy Networks Association chief executive John Bradley said Australia’s energy infrastructure would be a major driver of network costs for at least the next decade.

With much of Australia’s electricity network built in the 1970s with a working life of up to 40 years, there was a significant need to invest in new infrastructure, he said: “The South Australian event just underscores the need for timely investment in secure and *reliable network infrastructure.”

ElectraNet said its towers were “fit for purpose” as they had worked satisfactorily for the past 50 years.

Queensland University engineer Matthew Mason said damage to towers from winds “generally happens on older line systems”.

“In the last few decades, regulations have been introduced regarding wind speeds they need to be designed for,” Dr Mason said.

“The older stock is not designed to that same standard and generally performs more poorly.”

The South Australian government confirmed that during the storm, a lightning strike hit AGL’s Torrens Island Power Station, the state’s primary gas-fuelled baseload generator. While this could have triggered the shutdown of the state’s main conventional power generator, AGL spokesman Craig Middleton said the plant’s systems did not indicate the lightning strike caused the plant to trip.
*


----------



## noco

here is Paul Kelly's view on South Australia.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/video/id-h0M3A3NjE6W6BkkKBxioSvqCdOZeZngO/Paul-Kellys-View


----------



## noco

More home truths on the situation in South Australia are hitting the news daily.......Wind power is costly and unreliable......If the wind does not blow then South Australia is reliant upon base load from other sources. 

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...e/news-story/76f0fdb110c998fe959bfb343c1d370a


Wind turbines in South Australia were using more power than they generated during the state’s electricity crisis, which has prompted major businesses to threaten shutdowns and smaller firms to consider moving interstate.

The sapping of power by the turbines during calm weather on July 7 at the height of the *crisis, which has caused a price surge, shows just how unreliable and *intermittent wind power is for a state with a renewable *energy mix of more than 40 per cent. Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox *yesterday said the rise in prices, *already the highest in the country, had disrupted industry and served as a warning for the rest of the ****nat*ion. “That is a serious blow to energy users across SA and has disrupted supply chains upon which thousands of jobs depend,” he said.

“The real risk is if this volatility becomes the norm across the *National Electricity Market.

“In June, electricity cost South Australia $133 per megawatt hour on average — already a high price. But since July 1, electricity prices have spiked above $10,000 per MWh at times.”

Mr Willox echoed warnings of the South Australian government on the weekend, saying “We will see similar episodes again, and not just in SA”, and backing calls for major reform of the NEM.

“Changes in the pattern of *energy demand and the ongoing build-up of wind and solar make life increasingly difficult for ‘baseload’ electricity generators across the country,” he said.

Olympic Dam’s supply woesOMore: Olympic Dam’s supply woes

The power crisis comes amid growing pressure from independent senator Nick Xenophon to invest hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into struggling South Australian businesses to save jobs, and as the Turnbull government attempts to establish a hi-tech *submarine manufacturing industry in the state.

An analysis of data from the Australian Energy Market Operator, responsible for the administration and operation of the wholesale NEM, shows the turbines’ down time on July 7 coincided with NEM prices for South Australia reaching almost $14,000 per MWh

*NEM prices in other markets have been as low as $40 per MWh with the AI Group estimating this month’s power surge in South Australian electricity prices had cost $155 million.

While all wind farms in South Australia were producing about 189.72MW between 6am and 7am, by early afternoon the energy generation was in deficit as the turbines consumed more power than they created. By 2.20pm, energy generation by all wind farms was minus-2 MW. The situation forced several major companies, including BHP Billiton and Arrium, to warn the state government of possible shutdowns because of higher energy prices, forcing Treasurer and *Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis to intervene by asking a private operator of a mothballed gas-fired plant in Adelaide for a temporary power spike.

BHP, which employs about 3000 people at its Olympic Dam mine in the state’s far north, said its operations in South Australia were under a cloud.

“The security and reliability of power have been a significant *concern for BHP Billiton and the sustainability of Olympic Dam,” the miner’s head of corporate *affairs, Simon Corrigan, said.

Opposition energy spokesman Dan van Holst Pellekaan said the snapshot of wind power operations in the state showed the Labor government’s energy policies had created an oversupply of cheap wind energy at times but that forced it to import from interstate when prices shot up.

“This wouldn’t be a problem if we still had a reasonable amount of base load generation but we don’t,” he said.

Mr Koutsantonis yesterday said improved interconnection for a “truly national electricity *market” would drive prices down immediately. Federal Energy Minster Josh Frydenberg declined to be interviewed yesterday, but said he would convene a Council of Australian Governments meeting as soon as possible.

Not everyone is unhappy — farmer Peter Ebsary hosts four turbines from the Snowtown wind farm in South Australia’s mid north. The wind farm, owned by TrustPower, is the state’s largest.

“We get a financial return and don’t have to do anything ... we just sit back and collect the money as long as the wind blows,” he said.
*


----------



## Junior

Re SA, so all this concern is about prices skyrocketing for ONE DAY.  Nothing wrong with importing/exporting power between states as long as supply is not disrupted surely?  The pricing clearly needs some kind of ceiling, however.

Also, that article keeps quoting a BHP spokesperson.....I would think BHP might have a little bit of an agenda regarding renewables.


----------



## Smurf1976

noco said:


> The South Australian  government was warned back in 2005 of the poor state of those transmission towers with corrosion having taken place over a 50 year period and no action was taken......They were warned that the towers could collapse in high winds.




I must point out that whilst the SA government probably did get the same warning, the network in SA is privately owned and there's a realistic limit to what government can do when it comes to forcing private owners (of anything) to spend big $ on maintenance.

Transmission, distribution and virtually all generation in SA is privately owned. The only exceptions would be if there's any backup generators in SA government office buildings, water treatment plants and so on but they're not a normal part of the power supply. 

The only other exception is the small Terminal Storage power station but that's owned by the State of Tasmania (trading as Lofty Ranges Power, a subsidiary of Hydro Tasmania) not SA. Even in that situation however, Tasmania is simply operating in the SA market as though it were a private for-profit company (which it is in terms of how the business is structured).


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I must point out that whilst the SA government probably did get the same warning, the network in SA is privately owned and there's a realistic limit to what government can do when it comes to forcing private owners (of anything) to spend big $ on maintenance.




The crux of the problem nationwide.

Such assets should NOT be sold to private enterprise. It may be the IPA's wet dream , but it's $hit for the consumer and the national interest.


----------



## Smurf1976

Junior said:


> Re SA, so all this concern is about prices skyrocketing for ONE DAY.  Nothing wrong with importing/exporting power between states as long as supply is not disrupted surely?  The pricing clearly needs some kind of ceiling, however.




There is a price limit and that's the limit that prices did actually reach. Probably would have gone higher if not for the limit.

Overall it's a bit like saying that you normally buy petrol at $1.20 per litre. Then one day you fill up and it's about $400 per litre and it costs you $20K to fill the tank. Even averaged over 12 months that's still a significant hit financially especially if you've got no choice other than to pay up (can't really store electricity like you could with petrol if you knew the price spike was coming).

Or it's like saying you normally pay $2 per day for your home broadband but on one random day, which we won't tell you about until after the event, it will be $700 as soon as you turn the computer on. That's going to upset a few people.


----------



## noco

Smurf1976 said:


> I must point out that whilst the SA government probably did get the same warning, the network in SA is privately owned and there's a realistic limit to what government can do when it comes to forcing private owners (of anything) to spend big $ on maintenance.
> 
> Transmission, distribution and virtually all generation in SA is privately owned. The only exceptions would be if there's any backup generators in SA government office buildings, water treatment plants and so on but they're not a normal part of the power supply.
> 
> The only other exception is the small Terminal Storage power station but that's owned by the State of Tasmania (trading as Lofty Ranges Power, a subsidiary of Hydro Tasmania) not SA.




So why did Jay Weatherall jump to their defense.......Why didn't he condemn those private operators......Were they reliant on Government subsidy to fix the power poles.......The poles had severe corrosion and the foundation had also deteriorated......Did you bother to read that in the article? ......I think the South Australian Premier has also a lot to answer.

You say there is a limit to what the SA government can do....Well I suggest to you there are authorities who can check the condition of the poles and in the interest of work place health and safety can force those private operators to implement maintenance on a regular basis.

I would say the SA Government were neglect in their duty of care.


----------



## Smurf1976

Should have added to my previous post that Red Energy (Snowy Hydro) and Momentum Energy (Hydro Tasmania) are both active as retailers in the SA market.

Whilst both are ultimately publicly owned they are both operating as "private" businesses in the SA market on a for-profit basis. Neither is associated with the SA government in any way beyond a normal commercial relationship if the SA government chose to buy electricity from them in the same way as any other customer does.


----------



## Junior

Smurf1976 said:


> There is a price limit and that's the limit that prices did actually reach. Probably would have gone higher if not for the limit.
> 
> Overall it's a bit like saying that you normally buy petrol at $1.20 per litre. Then one day you fill up and it's about $400 per litre and it costs you $20K to fill the tank. Even averaged over 12 months that's still a significant hit financially especially if you've got no choice other than to pay up (can't really store electricity like you could with petrol if you knew the price spike was coming).
> 
> Or it's like saying you normally pay $2 per day for your home broadband but on one random day, which we won't tell you about until after the event, it will be $700 as soon as you turn the computer on. That's going to upset a few people.




Is that price limit way too high?  Or is the lack of baseload generation the key issue?


----------



## Smurf1976

noco said:


> The poles had severe corrosion and the foundation had also deteriorated......Did you bother to read that in the article? ......I think the South Australian Premier has also a lot to answer.




Yes I've read the article but it doesn't change the fact that it's a privately owned asset.



> Well I suggest to you there are authorities who can check the condition of the poles and in the interest of work place health and safety can force those private operators to implement maintenance on a regular basis.




I won't claim to know the situation in SA but in Tas at least workplace safety regulators don't really have the technical expertise to be assessing the structural integrity of transmission lines. Assessing the safety of work practices certainly, but not the structural integrity of the asset itself. In any event, that would really only be relevant to the extent that it's a workplace - a moot point if nobody's doing any work on it for maintenance anyway.

I'm not seeking to defend the SA government as a whole when it comes to power but the hands of the present government are tied somewhat. A previous government caused the mess by selling off ETSA, using the State Bank disaster as a convenient excuse to justify the sale. Never mind that the loss of profits from ETSA since privatisation now exceeds the cost of the State Bank disaster and the gap will only grow wider as each year passes. It was all about ideology really, the State Bank was just a convenient excuse and if it hadn't been for that they'd have found some other reason to sell ETSA instead.

One thing though, they leased (not sold) some of the assets and that includes Northern power station (and the next door Playford B station) both of which Alinta has now closed. That one could get interesting - will Alinta maintain the plant and hand back to government a working power station at the end of the lease? Government needs to get tough on that one - if Alinta doesn't want to run it then they can't really do much about that if there's nothing saying it has to run but as with anything leased they need to keep it in good condition and return it to the owners upon expiry of the lease. Given that they've already started work to clear other things on the site I'm guessing they've no intention of doing so (some of the machinery's worth considerable value for sale by the way if that's what they're planning to do with it, Northern power station isn't worn out by any means although Playford B is in poor shape).


----------



## Smurf1976

Junior said:


> Is that price limit way too high?  Or is the lack of baseload generation the key issue?




It comes down to the inherent nature of electricity as a "commodity" which can't economically be stored being traded via what is effectively a commodity market (the National Electricity Market).

Long story short, most of the time there's simply no money to be made in generation and practically all the profits come in during a very short period each year when prices spike. From a consumer's perspective that's somewhat crazy but it's the reality of the situation.

Looking at it right now (and ignoring SA due to the present unusual circumstances there) prices:

Qld = $29.13 / MWh. That will cover the operating costs of a coal-fired plant (but won't cover the fuel cost alone in a gas-fired plant) but provides minimal return on the original investment (not enough to warrant building it in the first place).

NSW = $29.96 so much the same as Qld.

Vic = $-1.17. Yes, the price is negative. Needless to say you can't make money generating power if you've got to pay someone to take it.

So the price spikes are basically keeping the power stations in business.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> It comes down to the inherent nature of electricity as a "commodity" which can't economically be stored being traded via what is effectively a commodity market (the National Electricity Market).
> 
> Long story short, most of the time there's simply no money to be made in generation and practically all the profits come in during a very short period each year when prices spike. From a consumer's perspective that's somewhat crazy but it's the reality of the situation.
> 
> Looking at it right now (and ignoring SA due to the present unusual circumstances there) prices:
> 
> Qld = $29.13 / MWh. That will cover the operating costs of a coal-fired plant (but won't cover the fuel cost alone in a gas-fired plant) but provides minimal return on the original investment (not enough to warrant building it in the first place).
> 
> NSW = $29.96 so much the same as Qld.
> 
> Vic = $-1.17. Yes, the price is negative. Needless to say you can't make money generating power if you've got to pay someone to take it.
> 
> So the price spikes are basically keeping the power stations in business.





Given that the electricity market is non profitable as you say, are the corporations  buying into our power assets a) stupid, b) overly optimistic or something else ? In other words, why would they bother ?


----------



## noco

Smurf1976 said:


> I must point out that whilst the SA government probably did get the same warning, the network in SA is privately owned and there's a realistic limit to what government can do when it comes to forcing private owners (of anything) to spend big $ on maintenance.




So why did Electra Net ignore the warnings........The maximum wind gusts reached 115 kph.....Barely a category   cyclone 1 and the poles could not stand that force ...Psst.

*ElectraNet was first warned in 2005 of the risk that 43 of its *towers could collapse in windy conditions because of corrosion and degradation of foundations.

Nearly a decade later, Electra*Net sought approval from the Australian Energy Regulator to recoup the cost of repairing the towers in its asset refurbishment plan for 2013 to 2018. The company noted that in some cases, foundation reinforcement bars and stubs were missing.

*


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Given that the electricity market is non profitable as you say, are the corporations  buying into our power assets a) stupid, b) overly optimistic or something else ? In other words, why would they bother ?




I don't think those who bought the power stations have made anywhere near as much money as they were expecting but it's profitable overall (just). What happens is that most of the time it's a loss or break even, the market spends a lot of time around the marginal cost of putting fuel into power stations (recovering none of the fixed costs) but every now and then there's a huge spike which sends the price to the moon and then the money rolls in for as long as it lasts (generally 30 minutes to a few hours at most).

Needless to say it's a real bummer if your power station(s) just happen to not be working when a price spike occurs. Couldn't run on that day or three = there goes the whole year's profit.

That said, there's a lot of hedging cover so most aren't directly exposed to the spot price for all (or in some cases any) of their production but ultimately any hedging contract will reflect the average of spot prices in the longer term. If average spot prices double then nobody's going to enter a contract that doesn't reflect that to a reasonable degree.

Different participants take very different strategies in how they operate either at the company or power station level. Retailers do likewise. To pick a few:

Hazelwood power station = just sits there and generates. Price is whatever the market says and they keep plodding along even if there's not a cent to be made. They just mine the coal and generate power, price is whatever it is and at most they'll back off very slightly (few %) but even that isn't too common.

Yallourn power station = much the same as Hazelwood although they tend to back off production to a greater extent if the price gets seriously low.

Company that I won't name (privately owned) = ramps output up and down according to price (nothing wrong with that) but is pretty well known for having some sort of "problem" suddenly arise that requires an immediate drop in output when they've worked out that doing so will send the price to the moon. So they generate a third less power and sell it for 100 times the price. 

Origin Energy is both a generator and a retailer (as well as an upstream gas supplier) but is net short on generation, they only generate about half of what they retail. Their official line is that they've avoided heavy investment in generation, buying from others instead to support their retail base, due to the risk of fossil fuel generation ending up a stranded asset depending on what happens with CO2 etc at the political level.

Then there's an assortment of "pure" retailers who generate absolutely zero themselves. Buy either under contract from someone else or at spot and sell to consumers, that's what they do.

Broadly speaking, there has been a trend for generation and retail to combine themselves (the so-called "gentailers") over the years as a financial risk management strategy. Not everyone has done that but it's the trend overall either by outright buying generation / retailers or by retailers locking in contracts with generators.

Something that may surprise many is that of every $ consumers spend on electricity, most of that money finds its way nowhere near an actual power station. In Tas the figure is 22.7% for residential consumers, that's the amount that pays for generation, and in other states it's not overly different. So where does the money go? Networks are the big one and the rest is retail, market costs and so on.


----------



## SirRumpole

Thanks for the comprehensive reply Smurf.

It only reinforces my view that the consumers are being ripped of when a) companies can manipulate the price of power by varying supply and b) consumers have no idea what they are paying for power at any particular time.

It's political of course, but I won't be voting for any Party that tries to con us that privatisation of assets is good for consumers.


----------



## Smurf1976

noco said:


> So why did Electra Net ignore the warnings........The maximum wind gusts reached 115 kph.....Barely a category   cyclone 1 and the poles could not stand that force ...Psst.




Agreed that the winds were not extreme, at least 115 km/h isn't extreme looking at what happens elsewhere in Australia. So it's not a truly extreme event as such but obviously it's more wind than SA has experienced for quite a while.

As for why the warnings were ignored, well I've absolutely no idea on that one and won't pretend otherwise. I can only assume they either didn't have (or weren't willing to spend) the $ and/or thought something else was more important. One thing's almost certain sure though. I very much doubt such warnings will be ignored in future.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Thanks for the comprehensive reply Smurf.




What will really upset the public is if the idea of passing wholesale prices directly through to small consumers (eg households) on a half hourly basis gains traction.

Put the oven on to cook a roast. Price shot up in the meantime and you didn't notice or didn't want a cold dinner. That's not going to be popular.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Put the oven on to cook a roast. Price shot up in the meantime and you didn't notice or didn't want a cold dinner. That's not going to be popular.




How are we supposed to notice ? I've heard of "smart meters" but I've not seen them advertised and I don't know how much they cost, what their capabilities are or where I can buy them.

Are they just supposed to tell you how much your power is costing atm, do they cut off appliances if the power goes too high, or can they schedule such things as washing machines or driers when prices are low ?

It seem that they are a way of power companies putting the onus back onto consumers to cut their own power consumption, rather than the utilities supplying power at a reasonable price during the whole consumption cycle.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> How are we supposed to notice ? I've heard of "smart meters" but I've not seen them advertised and I don't know how much they cost, what their capabilities are or where I can buy them.




A smart meter in the Australian context is normally just a meter that records consumption in half hourly intervals.

Vic has gone down the track of putting them in everywhere, other states have been less enthusiastic but they do exist.

At the moment whilst the half hourly data is recorded the price is either a flat rate 24/7 or has a few price brackets which apply at set times of the day and which don't change from day to day.

But the idea to pass through the actual wholesale rates, which vary hugely, to consumers is certainly there in some states so it's probably only a matter of time until someone does it.

So it's not an issue now but it's a looming one depending on where you live.

Here in Tas it was concluded that it was all too hard for what it offered really. Confusing to consumers, almost certainly unpopular, and not a lot of benefit to the industry anyway. There was a focus group put together with representatives from networks, generation, retail, community and welfare groups and so on and that was the conclusion. Not worth the hassle.

So we've come up with a workaround - a simple two rate system with one rate during peak times (7am - 10am and 4pm - 9pm Monday to Friday) and the other rate at all other times. That achieves the objective of encouraging consumers to shift loads away from the peak times where practical without anyone needing to do a degree in economics and start speculating on power prices.

So two prices, both of which are fixed rates with any change of pricing done once a year (1 July) and what should be an easy to remember set of times when the higher price is charged. 

The thinking there is that there are some benefits now if consumers choose, so as to save themselves money, to run things like dishwashers, dryers and so on at some time that isn't the peak. The bigger thinking though is that if electric cars become common well we sure don't want everyone charging them at 6pm in the middle of Winter otherwise we'll end up with some pretty big problems. If they can do it for half price starting at 9pm then logically that's what most will do and that fixes any issues.

Even that's completely voluntary by the way. Households in Tas can certainly continue to have flat rate (same price 24/7/365) pricing if they want to although the hope in the industry is that the two rate system will be seen as good enough for consumers to want it as such and change voluntarily. Time will tell.

The NT has decided to go down the same track as Tas by the way. The details differ, since their consumption patterns are different as is the means of generation but overall it's the same concept. Two rates, cheap one and expensive one, with the cheap one applying for long enough that consumers ought to be able to use it quite easily for things that aren't time critical - dishwashers, clothes dryers, charging batteries and so on.

In both cases the "expensive" rate is only moderately higher than the standard 24/7 flat rate price whilst the "cheap" rate is cheaper than the standard flat rate. The idea is to give consumers an incentive to shift some loads away from the peaks where practical but there's no need to send anyone broke in the process.

So Tas and NT have gone for simplicity. Vic is keenest on having prices go all over the place for households but hasn't actually done it yet (yet....). SA has similar thoughts but doesn't have the infrastructure in place. Other states are somewhere in the middle.


----------



## SirRumpole

The two rate system sounds reasonable, most consumers could find some way to reduce their consumption at peak times and therefore ease the load on the grid.

Pushing wholesale prices through to consumers would almost certainly lead to electoral backlash, I doubt if any sensible government would allow it, but then what is sensible these days ?


----------



## Boggo

SirRumpole said:


> The two rate system sounds reasonable, most consumers could find some way to reduce their consumption at peak times and therefore ease the load on the grid.
> 
> Pushing wholesale prices through to consumers would almost certainly lead to electoral backlash, I doubt if any sensible government would allow it, but then what is sensible these days ?




Anything that may impinge of the profit of the Asian "owners" will not be tolerated and Jay Weatherdill seems to be a puppet and they are the puppeteers.

The Chinese don't "donate" $5.5 mill to Australian political parties without expecting a return.
Shanghai Sam falling on his sword is just the scapegoat tip of the iceberg.

In SA the new Royal Adelaide Hospital is up for grabs too by the current SA Gov.

This is the same Gov that paid China $8 mill for a 10 year lease of two smelly panda's for the Adelaide zoo, they will probably do it again when the lease is up !

Extract from the CKI report to the Hong Kong stock exchange in July last...


----------



## Smurf1976

Boggo said:


> In SA the new Royal Adelaide Hospital is up for grabs too by the current SA Gov.




What? They're selling it? Last time I was there (few months ago) they hadn't even finished building it yet!


----------



## Smurf1976

I've said it a few times in this thread and elsewhere. All power pollutes. All of it. We get to chose the location and form of pollution but none of it has no impact environmentally.

There's plenty of people hyping the supposed benefits of going off grid and installing batteries in recent times but they're by no means clean. We just swap one form of pollution for another and change the location but there's still a big impact. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/graphite-mining-pollution-in-china/


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I've said it a few times in this thread and elsewhere. All power pollutes. All of it. We get to chose the location and form of pollution but none of it has no impact environmentally.
> 
> There's plenty of people hyping the supposed benefits of going off grid and installing batteries in recent times but they're by no means clean. We just swap one form of pollution for another and change the location but there's still a big impact.
> 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/graphite-mining-pollution-in-china/




Indeed so.

You may have written about this already, but I'm interested in the consequences of feeding intermittent power like solar and wind straight into the grid. Does this cause problems and if so what's the way around it ?

Your thoughts as always are appreciated.


----------



## noco

No matter how much Jay Weatherall tries to cover up for the chaos  he created for South Australia the truth is he has just gone too far with this subsidised renewable energy.

If he does not turn around and either build a new coal fired power station or go nuclear, South Australia will suffer the same fait.

Who would want to invest in SA with such unreliable power?...I can just imagine the cost blow out in building the subs in SA let alone the chaos the unions will create.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...s/news-story/967b0a585d40dfdc77825c8a01e25eea


*The climax last week of Labor’s 14-year campaign to de-industrialise the state of South Australia was less than triumphant.

Premier Jay Weatherill’s oversized media machine was turning out cheerful press releases early last Wednesday boasting of the government’s preparation for the coming “weather event”, as we are obliged to call it.

Baptist Care would be opening its doors in Adelaide to ensure that homeless people would be warm and fed, we were assured.

There was silence, however, on the government’s crowning achievement: the mother of all Earth Hours that, for an uncomfortable evening, reduced carbon emissions to close to zero. This time, perhaps even Weatherill realised that his hokey, greenish socialism had gone too far.

It is barely two months since Weatherill demanded $100 million from Canberra to keep Arrium Steel working. Yet it was the blackout, a consequence of Labor’s renewables policy, that *finally shut the Whyalla plant down. Enforced idleness is costing Arrium about $4m a day.

Nyrstar’s Port Pirie lead smelter will be out of action for another fortnight. BHP Billiton is unable to say when it will restart mining copper at Olympic Dam.

Where is the old industrial Left when it’s needed? The communists merely wanted to take over the factories. The greenish Left wants to close them down.

When Labor was elected in South Australia in 2002, manufacturing provided more than 15 per cent of gross state product; now it’s less than 10 per cent and falling. The state government employs more staff than the manufacturing sector.

If Weatherill had the slightest comprehension of the damage Labor’s B-grade managerialism has caused he would struggle to crawl out of bed in the morning, let alone stand for re-election.

Economic growth is less than 1.5 per cent, half the national average; unemployment is the highest in Australia; investment has fallen by 0.5 per cent a year since 2011.

Which raises the question: why would anybody invest in South Australia, except out of sympathy? The state’s extraordinary economic growth in the 1950s and 60s that produced jobs, built homes and bought cars was driven by cheap, reliable energy. Who would risk entrepreneurial capital in Weatherill’s energy-deficient jurisdiction? Even basketweavers need a reliable source of light.

South Australian Labor has been boasting for years that its policies are making the state more “sustainable”. Yet if a measure of sustainability is keeping the freezer running, the unfashionably brown coal deposits from Leigh Creek were working better than subsidised windmills. A sobering report from Del*oitte’s last year noted the irony: “Renewable generation is already challenging the sustainability of the South Australian system.” Adding more renewable capacity, it said, would destabilise the system further.

The speed of South Australia’s transition from coal to wind and solar is breathtaking. The state’s renewable generation capacity has more than doubled in the past six years. Other regions that have made transitions on this scale, such as Denmark and Iowa, already had strong network connections with neighbouring producers, making it easy to buy in baseload power when the blades stopped turning. By contrast, as we saw last week, South Australia’s energy link to the outside world seems held together with sticky tape and string.

The state’s capacity to produce its own baseload power from fossil fuels has rapidly diminished. The state’s four largest power stations — two at Port Augusta, Pelican Point and Torrens Island A — will have closed or will be in mothballs by this time next year, made unviable by unpredictable deluges of cheap wind power.

The combined lost capacity of 1250MW represents a third of the state’s generating potential. What has filled the gap? You’ve guessed it: imported power from Victoria, generated mostly by the same brown coal deemed unacceptable in oh-so-clean South Australia.

Upgrading the national grid to give South Australians the comfort of a reliable energy supply will be expensive. The costs inevitably will push up power prices, passed on as another hidden cost of Labor’s carbon fetish.

The same challenge is facing Europe, where a rapid growth in renewable energy in Germany has thrown the energy market out of whack. Last year Germany opened a new coal-fired power station, much to the distress of the Greens. Upgrading cross-border supply across northern Europe is a priority; how else is Germany going to be able to suck up French nuclear power, the production of which is banned within its own borders? The cost of bringing the entire European network up to scratch could cost as much as $500 billion.

One would have thought even the most credulous admirer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s modelling must concede that, short of sending half the planet back to the Dark Ages, their emission targets are impossible to meet. Convoluted interventions into the energy market to give wind and solar a helping hand have caused more problems than they solve, not least because the technology isn’t up to scratch.

There is no feasible way of producing baseload power without fossil fuels in Australia, a continent that lacks the mountains and rain required for hydro-electricity and the political determination required to press the nuclear button. At least one commentator last week suggested South Australia’s energy storage plans could be solved with batteries. Since no one has yet developed a battery capable of powering an iPhone for more than a morning, it seems somewhat ambitious to ask for one that would power a state.

Meanwhile, the South Australian Department of the Premier and Cabinet has invoked the Cuban response, urging consumers to ration consumption.

“Make a habit of turning off lights when you leave the room,” counsels the Easy Energy Saving Tips web page. “Use a shower timer to keep your showers to four minutes or less. Wash clothes in cold water … use a clothes line … hanging clothes out to dry is more energy efficient.”

Sadly, the South Australian government is a world leader in the emission of patronising, unsolicited advice. If only we could come up with a way of extracting the methane from this bureaucratic flatulence, pump it into a turbine and burn it for power.*


----------



## Tisme

noco said:


> No matter how much Jay Weatherall tries to cover up for the chaos  he created for South Australia the truth is he has just gone too far with this subsidised renewable energy.
> 
> If he does not turn around and either build a new coal fired power station or go nuclear, South Australia will suffer the same fait.
> 
> Who would want to invest in SA with such unreliable power?...I can just imagine the cost blow out in building the subs in SA let alone the chaos the unions will create.
> 
> http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...s/news-story/967b0a585d40dfdc77825c8a01e25eea
> 
> 
> *The climax last week of Labor’s 14-year campaign to de-industrialise the state of South Australia was less than triumphant.
> 
> Premier Jay Weatherill’s oversized media machine was turning out cheerful press releases early last Wednesday boasting of the government’s preparation for the coming “weather event”, as we are obliged to call it.
> 
> Baptist Care would be opening its doors in Adelaide to ensure that homeless people would be warm and fed, we were assured.
> 
> There was silence, however, on the government’s crowning achievement: the mother of all Earth Hours that, for an uncomfortable evening, reduced carbon emissions to close to zero. This time, perhaps even Weatherill realised that his hokey, greenish socialism had gone too far.
> 
> It is barely two months since Weatherill demanded $100 million from Canberra to keep Arrium Steel working. Yet it was the blackout, a consequence of Labor’s renewables policy, that *finally shut the Whyalla plant down. Enforced idleness is costing Arrium about $4m a day.
> 
> Nyrstar’s Port Pirie lead smelter will be out of action for another fortnight. BHP Billiton is unable to say when it will restart mining copper at Olympic Dam.
> 
> Where is the old industrial Left when it’s needed? The communists merely wanted to take over the factories. The greenish Left wants to close them down.
> 
> When Labor was elected in South Australia in 2002, manufacturing provided more than 15 per cent of gross state product; now it’s less than 10 per cent and falling. The state government employs more staff than the manufacturing sector.
> 
> If Weatherill had the slightest comprehension of the damage Labor’s B-grade managerialism has caused he would struggle to crawl out of bed in the morning, let alone stand for re-election.
> 
> Economic growth is less than 1.5 per cent, half the national average; unemployment is the highest in Australia; investment has fallen by 0.5 per cent a year since 2011.
> 
> Which raises the question: why would anybody invest in South Australia, except out of sympathy? The state’s extraordinary economic growth in the 1950s and 60s that produced jobs, built homes and bought cars was driven by cheap, reliable energy. Who would risk entrepreneurial capital in Weatherill’s energy-deficient jurisdiction? Even basketweavers need a reliable source of light.
> 
> South Australian Labor has been boasting for years that its policies are making the state more “sustainable”. Yet if a measure of sustainability is keeping the freezer running, the unfashionably brown coal deposits from Leigh Creek were working better than subsidised windmills. A sobering report from Del*oitte’s last year noted the irony: “Renewable generation is already challenging the sustainability of the South Australian system.” Adding more renewable capacity, it said, would destabilise the system further.
> 
> The speed of South Australia’s transition from coal to wind and solar is breathtaking. The state’s renewable generation capacity has more than doubled in the past six years. Other regions that have made transitions on this scale, such as Denmark and Iowa, already had strong network connections with neighbouring producers, making it easy to buy in baseload power when the blades stopped turning. By contrast, as we saw last week, South Australia’s energy link to the outside world seems held together with sticky tape and string.
> 
> The state’s capacity to produce its own baseload power from fossil fuels has rapidly diminished. The state’s four largest power stations ”” two at Port Augusta, Pelican Point and Torrens Island A ”” will have closed or will be in mothballs by this time next year, made unviable by unpredictable deluges of cheap wind power.
> 
> The combined lost capacity of 1250MW represents a third of the state’s generating potential. What has filled the gap? You’ve guessed it: imported power from Victoria, generated mostly by the same brown coal deemed unacceptable in oh-so-clean South Australia.
> 
> Upgrading the national grid to give South Australians the comfort of a reliable energy supply will be expensive. The costs inevitably will push up power prices, passed on as another hidden cost of Labor’s carbon fetish.
> 
> The same challenge is facing Europe, where a rapid growth in renewable energy in Germany has thrown the energy market out of whack. Last year Germany opened a new coal-fired power station, much to the distress of the Greens. Upgrading cross-border supply across northern Europe is a priority; how else is Germany going to be able to suck up French nuclear power, the production of which is banned within its own borders? The cost of bringing the entire European network up to scratch could cost as much as $500 billion.
> 
> One would have thought even the most credulous admirer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s modelling must concede that, short of sending half the planet back to the Dark Ages, their emission targets are impossible to meet. Convoluted interventions into the energy market to give wind and solar a helping hand have caused more problems than they solve, not least because the technology isn’t up to scratch.
> 
> There is no feasible way of producing baseload power without fossil fuels in Australia, a continent that lacks the mountains and rain required for hydro-electricity and the political determination required to press the nuclear button. At least one commentator last week suggested South Australia’s energy storage plans could be solved with batteries. Since no one has yet developed a battery capable of powering an iPhone for more than a morning, it seems somewhat ambitious to ask for one that would power a state.
> 
> Meanwhile, the South Australian Department of the Premier and Cabinet has invoked the Cuban response, urging consumers to ration consumption.
> 
> “Make a habit of turning off lights when you leave the room,” counsels the Easy Energy Saving Tips web page. “Use a shower timer to keep your showers to four minutes or less. Wash clothes in cold water … use a clothes line … hanging clothes out to dry is more energy efficient.”
> 
> Sadly, the South Australian government is a world leader in the emission of patronising, unsolicited advice. If only we could come up with a way of extracting the methane from this bureaucratic flatulence, pump it into a turbine and burn it for power.*




Not withstanding the nonsense link between nature's fury and renewables, wasn't it the Abbott Govt who gutted the SA and Geelong industries by wiping out incentives of the ALPs WW2 legacy of a local car industry?

I'm guessing the article you posted is another rubbish snipe piece from Newscorp? Twisted fantasy look at me  journalism


----------



## noco

Tisme said:


> Not withstanding the nonsense link between nature's fury and renewables, wasn't it the Abbott Govt who gutted the SA and Geelong industries by wiping out incentives of the ALPs WW2 legacy of a local car industry?
> 
> I'm guessing the article you posted is another rubbish snipe piece from Newscorp? Twisted fantasy look at me  journalism




Tisme, sometimes the truth hurts and that is evident from your terse comments...Time will tell if they continue to have strife with their power supply and the high cost there of to the SA consumers.

:topic

The car industry was domed to fail due to the lack of export  sales and high cost of labour thanks to our beloved unions....It is called competition.....No more shoe factories....No more clothing factories.....No more woollen mills....And the steel industry is being heavily subsidised by the  Australian taxpayers.

Gillard gave the car industry millions of dollars which were supposed to keep the car industry going until 2022...This 2016...6 years earlier.


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:
			
		

> There is no feasible way of producing baseload power without fossil fuels in Australia, a continent that lacks the mountains and rain required for hydro-electricity and the political determination required to press the nuclear button.




The problem is my friend, as you evidently fail to realise is that fossil fuels are a non renewable resource and will one day run out. You and I will probably be dead by then but someone will have to deal with it and the longer they leave the decision the harder it will be to make.

There has to be a mix of energy sources. Storage is the key to renewables but it's too expensive for the private operators to invest in, so it has to be government. The Tories (your lot) think that private enterprise will do the lot and make the right long term decisions and investments. What a joke. There has to be a national energy security policy driven by our elected representatives, which is a shame since they spend most of their time talking about gay marriage.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> The problem is my friend, as you evidently fail to realise is that fossil fuels are a non renewable resource and will one day run out. You and I will probably be dead by then but someone will have to deal with it and the longer they leave the decision the harder it will be to make.
> 
> There has to be a mix of energy sources. Storage is the key to renewables but it's too expensive for the private operators to invest in, so it has to be government. The Tories (your lot) think that private enterprise will do the lot and make the right long term decisions and investments. What a joke. There has to be a national energy security policy driven by our elected representatives, which is a shame since they spend most of their time talking about gay marriage.




Firstly, if you do some research, you will find there is enough coal to last 1000 years and South Australia has a heap of uranium for nuclear power......Secondly, I am well aware that fossil fuels are non renewable...What a lot of malarkey.....A grade 2 kid at school would know that.

How can it be possible to store enough power for a city as large as Adelaide......dream on Rumpy...That is all pie in the sky.

You say there will have to be  a mix of energy source so it would appear you have suddenly woken up to the fact that we will always need base power from coal oil or nuclear power......That proves one thing, renewables are very unreliable  and inefficient......Solar and wind power are only 15% efficient in comparison to the cheaper source of coal fired which is 35% .

But in South Australia Electra Net is a private company....Why doesn't the government buy them out and run it themselves?

Your argument is so weak.

It is the Green/Labor coalition who keep stirring the SSM crap instead of being more concentrated and cooperate on paying back the disastrous mess left by the Green/Labor coalition 2007/2013.


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> Firstly, if you do some research, you will find there is enough coal to last 1000 years .




If you do some research you'll find that the more coal that gets used the deeper you have to dig to extract more and the more it costs to get it out, so the price of coal will continue to rise as time goes on. Same with gas, but gas is a viable option for a while as it's cleaner than coal and you can burn it in different ways.

I've said we should be looking at nuclear if it stacks up in a cost benefit analysis. It's a lot more expensive than other sources though.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> If you do some research you'll find that the more coal that gets used the deeper you have to dig to extract more and the more it costs to get it out, so the price of coal will continue to rise as time goes on. Same with gas, but gas is a viable option for a while as it's cleaner than coal and you can burn it in different ways.
> 
> I've said we should be looking at nuclear if it stacks up in a cost benefit analysis. It's a lot more expensive than other sources though.




FFS don't insult my intelligence......you do not know what you are talking about.....I live in Queensland and the 95% of coal is open cut and I have visited these sites on business on more than one occasion....There is miles of open cut coal in Queensland that has not yet been exploited the likes of which you have no conception......So please don't talk as though you are  some authority of what is happening in Queensland....Dig deeper????????.....The only thing we will have to dig deeper for is the subsidised renewable energy tax payer funds.

Yes but it (nuclear power)  would be a bloody side more reliable than an overdose of wind or solar......


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> FFS don't insult my intelligence......you do not know what you are talking about.....I live in Queensland and the 95% of coal is open cut and I have visited these sites on business on more than one occasion....There is miles of open cut coal in Queensland that has not yet been exploited the likes of which you have no conception......So please don't talk as though you are  some authority of what is happening in Queensland....Dig deeper????????.....The only thing we will have to dig deeper for is the subsidised renewable energy tax payer funds.
> 
> Yes but it (nuclear power)  would be a bloody side more reliable than an overdose of wind or solar......




If you want acres of land turned into a lunar landscape, why don't you move out of your comfortable little world and live next to an open cut coal mine ?

They are environmentally disastrous including depositing tonnes of coal dust into the atmosphere. Lets see how breathing that stuff in affects your health.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> If you want acres of land turned into a lunar landscape, why don't you move out of your comfortable little world and live next to an open cut coal mine ?
> 
> They are environmentally disastrous including depositing tonnes of coal dust into the atmosphere. Lets see how breathing that stuff in affects your health.




Once again you do not know what you are talking about....... according to law they have to control that dust and furthermore coal mines are normally in a remote area away from residential town. 

Why don't you move out into an area and live amongst the wind farms ?......Listen to noise night and day and pick up the millions of birds killed each year by those ugly swirling blades...Why aren't you and your Greenie mates complaining about the loss of bird life...You complain every time a dam is proposed that there it is a red nosed hairy wombat  or a rare green frog habitat living in the area so you can't build dam there....People living in the area of wind farms say it is a health hazard.


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> People living in the area of wind farms say it is a health hazard.




I do live in an area near a wind farm and have never heard anyone complain about them.

I doubt if you give a stuff about birds anyway as you don't give a stuff about all the species habitat destroyed by open cut coal mines.


----------



## luutzu

SirRumpole said:


> I do live in an area near a wind farm and have never heard anyone complain about them.
> 
> I doubt if you give a stuff about birds anyway as you don't give a stuff about all the species habitat destroyed by open cut coal mines.




Maybe no one's complaining no more because they've all gone deaf from the noise? jk


----------



## basilio

Only on this thread and on this Board could we still have "people" still thumping the tub for  polluting, non-renewable,  green house gas producing coal fired power stations. 

Just totally xxxxxxxx  moronic..


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> Only on this thread and on this Board could we still have "people" still thumping the tub for  polluting, non-renewable,  green house gas producing coal fired power stations.
> 
> Just totally xxxxxxxx  moronic..




Less and less of them though, and the ones that do are so bigoted that they will never see sense anyway.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> I do live in an area near a wind farm and have never heard anyone complain about them.
> 
> I doubt if you give a stuff about birds anyway as you don't give a stuff about all the species habitat destroyed by open cut coal mines.




How do y0u know that I don't give a stuff about birds.....I bred canaries and budgies for years.....I had all sorts of poultry......white leghorns, black australlops , bantams, Sussex, wine dots, game birds and Rhode Island reds.

Once again you are talking through your hat for I am a bird lover and that is more than I can say about the Green/Labor coalition...They don't give a stuff about the loss of bird life with ugly wind farms so long as they preach their daily monotonous propaganda on Global Warming, sorry it is now Climate Change because we don't have Global warming according to recent reports where by we may be entering into a mini ice age.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Less and less of them though, and the ones that do are so bigoted that they will never see sense anyway.




Same old monotonous reply as parroted by the Green/Labor coalition......One is bigoted if one does not agree with your propaganda....You seem to think free speech belongs only to you and everything you say is correct and you expect others to agree with you....If they don't then they are xenophobic or some other stupid saying now being used by the Green/Labor coalition.

You are a typical Fabian where as nobody else is allowed to express their opinion and if they do express that opinion contrary to yours you then you resort to character assassination by branding people with all sorts of derogatory  names like being a bigot......

And you are not bigoted in your ideology......What a hypocrite.....You should have a long hard look  at your self before you think you have the right to criticize others if they do not agree with you.


----------



## explod

noco said:


> Same old monotonous reply as parroted by the Green/Labor coalition......One is bigoted if one does not agree with your propaganda....You seem to think free speech belongs only to you and everything you say is correct and you expect others to agree with you....If they don't then they are xenophobic or some other stupid saying now being used by the Green/Labor coalition.
> 
> You are a typical Fabian where as nobody else is allowed to express their opinion and if they do express that opinion contrary to yours you then you resort to character assassination by branding people with all sorts of derogatory  names like being a bigot......
> 
> And you are not bigoted in your ideology......What a hypocrite.....You should have a long hard look  at your self before you think you have the right to criticize others if they do not agree with you.




Real bird lovers want to see them happy in the wild. 

Only right wing fascists keep things locked up.


----------



## Tisme

LOL


----------



## CanOz

Anyone who thinks there is any good that comes from Coal, has not been to China. Get rid of this dirty stinking rotten scurge thats choking our planet...Get rid of the old farts that support it too


----------



## luutzu

explod said:


> Real bird lovers want to see them happy in the wild.
> 
> Only right wing fascists keep things locked up.




That's a good one. Been a while since I cracked up like that. 

But to be fair to noco, I think he really love birds though, just loving it his ways.


----------



## luutzu

CanOz said:


> Anyone who thinks there is any good that comes from Coal, has not been to China. Get rid of this dirty stinking rotten scurge thats choking our planet...Get rid of the old farts that support it too




Or drive with their windows down in Sydney. Reminds me, gotta change them air filters. $70 a year man.


----------



## explod

luutzu said:


> That's a good one. Been a while since I cracked up like that.
> 
> But to be fair to noco, I think he really love birds though, just loving it his ways.




Sorry ,

 a bit mean but just seemed a good opening.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Indeed so.
> 
> You may have written about this already, but I'm interested in the consequences of feeding intermittent power like solar and wind straight into the grid. Does this cause problems and if so what's the way around it ?




I'll steer clear of the ideological / political debate that seems to have erupted and will focus on the practical aspects.

Keeping to layman's terms so far as practical:

Electricity by its nature is an instantaneous thing. It exists in real time only, you can't store electricity as such (well, not in any significant quantity) so it's either being produced (by what ever means) when it's used or you can't use it. In that sense it's comparable to light or sound, produced as you see or hear it, and is not comparable to something like wheat or iron ore which can be grown or mined then stockpiled for use whenever.

The second key point is that consumption of electricity varies greatly throughout the day and seasonally. In SA that variation is greater than most places on earth with peak demand on a hot Summer afternoon about 4 times the level seen in the middle of the night with mild weather. 

Within Australia, Queensland and Tasmania are at the other end of the scale with far more stable demand, though there is still significant variation, and other states are somewhere in between. The reason for that greater stability in Qld and Tas relates to the dominance of constant process heavy industrial loads in those states combined with greater weather consistency (Qld is consistently hot in parts of the state for an extended period and Tas is consistently cold throughout winter versus SA with both extremes but most days being neither). 

Since electricity itself cannot be stored, the means of production (whatever that may be) must scale up and down to match that demand exactly as it occurs. In Qld or Tas that means significant variation, maximum is less than double the minimum, whereas in SA greater variation is required since maximum is roughly 4 times the minimum. There are both technical aspects to this as well as economic (generating plant unavoidably sits idle much of the time in a place like SA which adds to the capital cost per unit of actual production).

The next point is about precision. Comparing the grid to a car (since just about everyone is familiar with car travel) and suppose that the speed limit is 100. You'll be in deep **** if you're doing 95, that's an outright disaster that will be headline news, and the same applies if you're doing 105. Even doing 99 is too slow and 101 is too fast. You want to be sticking right smack on 100 at any given time regardless of whether you're going up hill or down. Anyone who has ever driven a car will know that doing that is impractical but it's how the grid needs to operate. So there's very little room for error when it comes to power generation and the means of power generation needs to follow consumption with a very high degree of accuracy.

So what's the problem with wind and solar?

First is that the energy source used is intermittent and fluctuates constantly. Sitting here watching the output of my solar at home earlier this evening, it dropped 7.35% in 24 seconds and then went up 3.79% in the following 12 seconds (6 second data sampling intervals). Nothing unusual about that, it's just what happens when you've got some cloud around. 

It's the same for all grid connect solar unless the sky is completely clear which usually it isn't. That said, put enough of them together, spread over a large area (whole state or country) and those short term fluctuations will balance each other out extremely well such that what occurs overall is a far more gradual change. One goes up, one goes down, it all balances out reasonably well. That said, nothing can stop the inevitable collapse of output when dark clouds roll across a previously clear sky over a city with thousands of solar systems installed.

Wind is very similar. Huge constant variation from individual turbines but put enough together and it becomes more stable. But as with solar, if there's no wind then there's no power and yes periods of very low wind across entire states most certainly do occur periodically (typically happens once every few days). As with solar spreading them over a much larger area (multiple states) would offset that to a considerable extent but at present there's a high concentration of wind in Vic plus a relatively small part of SA and that's a problem in that sense. Reason they're mostly in SA is simply financial - relatively high electricity price and a good wind resource makes it the attractive place to put them if the motivation is $.

All this intermittency means that we can't count on the wind to blow when power is needed. For that reason AEMO considers that the "firm" output of SA's wind farms is 10% of their peak generating capacity. So build 1000 MW and we can be reasonably certain that at least 100 MW will be produced when it's needed (on average it will be more like 350 MW but without storage it's the low point that matters not the average). For Victoria that figure is 7%, for Tas it is 8% and for NSW just 1%. Those figures are for summer when, at the national level, demand peaks (Tas being the only state with peak demand in Winter).

There's some more certainty with solar since there will always be at least some solar production during daylight hours although the amount varies but at least it won't be zero if it's light (and you can be very sure that it _will_ be zero when it's dark so again that's greater certainty). Solar does fit reasonably well in places with a Summer daytime peak demand for that reason, it will always generate something during the peak, although it's completely useless for supplying the secondary peak at 6pm in Winter (so solar only works well up to the point that it brings the Summer peak down to the same level as the Winter peak, after that adding more solar doesn't help in terms of reducing the need to build conventional generation although it still saves on fuel). 

So the bottom line with all that is that in the absence of storage we still need conventional generation (primarily coal, gas and hydro in the Australian context with some oil and a bit of biomass) to be capable of meeting practically the entire system load on occasions when the wind isn't blowing. Solar is moderately effective at meeting peak demand up to a limit.

The second problem with wind and solar is a more technical one, system inertia.

In simplified terms there's a lot of energy embodied in the sheer physical mass of rotating machinery in conventional power stations. Steam turbines spinning at 3000 RPM will automatically release a lot of stored energy if anything tries to slow them down. So too will a hydro turbine which embodies comparable energy despite hydro operating at much lower speeds (vast majority are no more than 500 RPM and plenty are below 200 RPM). Both steam or hydro both embody a lot of energy in that rotating machinery and there's a worthwhile analogy with a freight train there - it's not easy to bring it to a halt suddenly and it will tend to "ride through" any external shock imposed upon it unless something truly catastrophic happens.

In contrast solar has no rotating machinery and wind is at best a poor contributor to system inertia. Impose an external shock on the system and solar / wind simply cannot ramp up because they can't suddenly make the wind blow harder or the sun shine brighter. Even worse, if system frequency drops they  may well give up and stop generating altogether (to a significant extent this does seem to have occurred in SA - wind output went down when the system desperately needed it to go up). Conventional generation will also trip offline if frequency falls in a big way but past experience is that wind and solar tend to fail first and that does seem to have occurred in SA judging by what AEMO has released thus far.

The relevance of all this, in layman's terms, comes down to the need to keep system frequency stable.

First point to note there is that all synchronous machines (conventional power stations) will be running at precisely the same frequency in an AC power grid. So the frequency at Torrens Island (SA) will be _exactly_ the same as the frequency at Loy Yang (Vic), Bayswater (NSW) and Tarong (Qld). Hard though it may seem to comprehend, the turbines at Gladstone (Qld) are joined to those at Yallourn (Vic) just as effectively by virtue of being synchronous machines in an AC network as they would be if they were sitting right beside each other and joined by a physical metal shaft. Unless something goes wrong a synchronous machine by its very nature is locked to grid frequency.  

So what happens in a completely conventional generation system (no wind or solar) if there's a sudden failure of something? 

In short, every generating unit "sees" that fault and everything not already at maximum will add more energy to the system of its own accord "just like that" due to the energy embodied in that rotating machinery itself. In addition the governors will act to add more steam or water and in the case of steam plant other systems will then act to ramp up the boilers. To the extent that grid frequency does fall, literally every generating unit will slow down at once and in doing so they'll all be contributing their inertia to the system thus limiting the rate and extent of the decline.

Reverse the above if the fault is a sudden loss of a large load (big factory, city, whatever) rather than a loss of generation. Everything ramps down, rotating machinery will itself absorb some energy, and the extent of frequency rise is quickly contained before any real problems occur.

So what about wind and solar? Well the crux of it is that the wind and solar we've got right now just doesn't respond in this way. Something goes wrong, frequency starts to fall and the response from solar and wind is either nothing or, worse still, they trip offline too thus adding to the problem.

That leads to a situation where conventional generation needs to control frequency for the entire grid despite not supplying all the load. There's no issue there if wind is supplying 5% of the load but take that to 50% and things get rather difficult.

It's a bit like having a highly leveraged share portfolio. Take it too far and you'll end up wiping yourself out and going broke.

Much the same with power. Having a small amount of conventional generation trying to control frequency of a much larger load, the rest being from wind and solar, is basically applying a lot of leverage to the capabilities of that conventional generation. When something goes wrong, and significant faults with the grid or generation aren't that uncommon, it's problematic when most of the generation either does nothing to assist or worse still adds itself to the problem.

Looking at what happened in SA (simplified to the major points) and noting that all this happened in the space of about 2 minutes. The following is based on AEMO official reports based on what is known at this time (subject to revision if further information is found) with some added comments by Smurf.

1. Prior to the incident SA demand was 1895 MW. This excludes small distributed generation (eg rooftop solar) which has the effect of being "seen" as reduced demand rather than generation as such.

2. Supply was 883 MW from wind, 613 MW from Victoria via the 3 interconnector circuits (2 x AC, 1 x DC) and 330 MW from gas-fired generation in SA. 

Note - the above figures don't add, presumably due to network losses and differences in the time of measurement. I haven't verified the reason, just quoted AEMO's data here.

3. For the gas-fired generation the plant online was Ladbroke Grove units 1 & 2 (gas turbines, nominal capacity 40 MW each) operating at 42MW and 40MW (so running flat out) plus 3 units at Torrens Island B (steam turbines, nominal capacity 200 MW each) operating at 82MW, 84MW and 82MW. All other conventional generation in SA was offline (shut down normally since not needed) at the time.

Detail by the second (hours : minutes : seconds noting that AEMO uses AEST not SA local time)

Note about terminology. 

"Reclosed" = line was turned back on after tripping itself off. 

"Trip" = disconnected automatically by circuit breakers (due to a fualt) or simply failing.

16:16:45 = System normal (pre-incident)

16:16:46 = Fault on a distribution line in Adelaide. No major impact, just a distribution fault and the line was reclosed straight away with no apparent problem or impact. Presumably the trip was just something hitting the line briefly and causing no actual damage (that sort of thing is fairly common in such weather).

16:17:33 - First 275kV (major transmission) line fails. 

16:17:59 - Second 275kV line fault. Line is reclosed after about 1 second. 

16:18:08 - Third 275kV line fault. Line remains out of service. No attempt to reclose due fault being within 30 seconds of previous fault (on the assumption that something serious is going on, potentially posing a danger to life, and it's not just a minor line fault)

16:18:09 - 123MW reduction in wind generation from multiple wind farms. This was an involuntary response, not something intended.

16:18:13 - Fourth 275kV line fault. Reclose attempted but unsuccessful. Now there are 3 x 275kV lines out of service.

16:18:15.1 (yes, down to the 0.1 seconds here) - 192 MW reduction in output from two wind farms occurred. An involuntary response, not intended.

16:18:15.5 - Flow across the AC lines from Victoria measured at 850MW, about 250MW over capacity, as a result of the loss of wind generation in SA.

16:18:15.8 - Victoria to SA lines opened (turned off) automatically to protect themselves from damage given the extent of the overload.

16:16:16 - Complete collapse of the SA power system with all remaining wind farms, all gas-fired generation and the Vic - SA DC interconnect tripping offline. That's an expected and desirable response in all cases at this point due to the massive overload now faced by these generating plants (gas and wind) and the DC interconnector. They'd have been destroyed real quick had they not shut down at this point and instead tried to actually supply the required volume of power into the system which, with the loss of other wind generation and supply from Victoria, now vastly exceeded the capabilities of plant still running at this point.

So wind did not directly cause the SA system black (complete failure of the grid), the ultimate cause was multiple transmission line failures in a very short space of time (far too quickly to do anything about it). That said, wind did fail before conventional generation failed and it was that failure which ultimately brought down the entire system. Lines failed > some wind failed > more lines failed > more wind failed > rest of system now heavily overloaded > literally everything else shut down to protect itself (hard to avoid at this point).

Not known is what happened with small scale solar, output from which wasn't too great anyway due to the weather. The most likely answer to that question is that it failed sometime after the loss of wind generation and before the complete system collapse. Some generation failed, frequency dropped and that would have taken out at least some solar generation before the whole system actually went down. That will probably never be known for sure but it's the likely scenario. While not overly relevant in this case (and that itself makes it hard to measure) it sure would have been if this had happened on a sunny day when solar output was high.

So what's the solution?

Storage in any form gets around the inherent intermittency of wind and solar. We harvest crops intermittently but nobody complains about that since food can be and is stored prior to consumption. You can harvest the wheat today, mill the flour later, bake the bread sometime after that and so on. Storage gets around the problem of the underlying production being intermittent. Fill the storage when there's plenty, take it back out when there's not.

We also need system inertia and that's a bit more tricky. Wind and solar can be configured to do it a bit better than they do now but there are still limits. Storage based on batteries can offer some response too if the electronics driving it are designed appropriately. Ultimately though, big rotating machines win when it comes to this aspect - pumped hydro, flywheels, conventional generation online below capacity.

Looking at a smaller system, Hydro Tas can and does run King Island (a small self-contained power system not connected to anywhere else) on 100% wind at times and does so successfully. To do that, in addition to the actual wind and solar generation, there's:

1. Battery

2. Flywheel coupled to a diesel engine (so the engine is effectively instant starting)

3. A great big resistor (electric heater) to "burn off" any surplus power real quick if frequency starts to rise above 50Hz.

4. A "smart grid" able to disconnect non-critical customer loads (primarily water heaters) immediately so as to assist in controlling frequency. We're not talking conventional off-peak here, we're talking about doing things down to the second or less.

5. Conventional diesel generators able to supply the full load are still in place and ready to start when needed.

Needless to say all that isn't cheap (though it beats running all the time on diesel for a remote system like this) and isn't an economically viable option for supplying an entire state or country at the present time.

Which brings us back to things like pumped hydro if we want to store large amounts of power in the national grid. There's 3 such schemes in Australia presently (2 in NSW, 1 in Qld) but we'll need a lot more of that plus some use of other means of storage if we're going to go completely renewable. And pumped hydro does have that inescapable advantage in terms of stability - great big rotating machines with their inherent inertia. That said, there's a definite role for other types of storage too (though small batteries at the household level aren't too good environmentally that's for sure).


----------



## sptrawler

Brilliant smurph, I hope you saved a copy of it, because you will have to use it when the same question is asked, again and again and again. 
Mate you are a saint.


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## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Mate you are a saint.




Yes he is. Makes some others look pretty cheap.


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yes he is. Makes some others look pretty cheap.




You shouldn't be self self deprecating, we don't think less of you.


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## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> You shouldn't be self self deprecating, *we *don't think less of you.




You mean you and noco, the gang of two ?


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> You mean you and noco, the gang of two ?




No I actually mean people such as yourself, who rant endlessly about subjects you know nothing about.

Then when it all goes pear shaped you start asking for information, that you should have known, before you made your statements..

This is the problem with social media, you get to say what you think, even though you know nothing about the subject.

Unfortunately it is a growing phenomena.


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## luutzu

explod said:


> Sorry ,
> 
> a bit mean but just seemed a good opening.




Not mean at all. Even Noco would probably admired that kind of comeback.

I'm still laughing thinking about it. ah heck, I gotta go out more.


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## luutzu

sptrawler said:


> No I actually mean people such as yourself, who rant endlessly about subjects you know nothing about.
> 
> Then when it all goes pear shaped you start asking for information, that you should have known, before you made your statements..
> 
> This is the problem with social media, you get to say what you think, even though you know nothing about the subject.
> 
> Unfortunately it is a growing phenomena.




Isn't that how we all learn Homer? Thinking we know something, very sure we know it until someone made a persuasive argument that we then look up and think it over then thought, yea I was wrong or was a bit off there.

Takes a lot of intelligence and courage to do that. I know because I'm never ever, ever, wrong about anything 

How have you been btw?


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## sptrawler

luutzu said:


> Isn't that how we all learn Homer? Thinking we know something, very sure we know it until someone made a persuasive argument that we then look up and think it over then thought, yea I was wrong or was a bit off there.
> 
> Takes a lot of intelligence and courage to do that. I know because I'm never ever, ever, wrong about anything
> 
> How have you been btw?




It's annoying, when you are seeing a lot of your workmates laid off, in coal fired power stations.
Then you read the misconceptions behind the closures.

But on a personal note, been retired five years, can't complain.
Get my seniors card this month,yeh.


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## luutzu

sptrawler said:


> It's annoying, when you are seeing a lot of your workmates laid off, in coal fired power stations.
> Then you read the misconceptions behind the closures.
> 
> But on a personal note, been retired five years, can't complain.
> Get my seniors card this month,yeh.




Yea that'd be annoying, but I don't think any coal power plants are ever closed to save the environment; or closed because the greens and SirR give the Premier and Turnbull a call.

So you're officially an old bastard 

I was showing my daughter how to use the calculator the other day and she asks how to work out my age. Yea, I'm much older than I thought I was. Ah crap, my birthday's coming up too.


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## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> No I actually mean people such as yourself, who rant endlessly about subjects you know nothing about.
> 
> Then when it all goes pear shaped you start asking for information, that you should have known, before you made your statements..
> 
> This is the problem with social media, you get to say what you think, even though you know nothing about the subject.
> 
> Unfortunately it is a growing phenomena.




In fact it hasn't gone "pear shaped" because what Smurph said confirmed what I said before in this thread that storage is the key to renewables, as well as wide geographical dispersal and variety of renewable sources, an opinion that was formed by doing research and reading about the subject and which was expanded by asking a few questions of someone who knows what he is talking about.

I'm sure that Smurph's comments enlightened not only me but others who perhaps had not the benefit of doing their own research.

Maybe you had better look at your own prejudices which you have stated yourself regarding friends in the coal industry losing their jobs which has obviously clouded your judgement. How many jobs have been and will be created in the solar PV installation industry ? A lot more than the jobs lost in the coal industry I reckon and maybe some of them are ex coal industry workers.


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> In fact it hasn't gone "pear shaped" because what Smurph said confirmed what I said before in this thread that storage is the key to renewables,.




Yes I noticed you quoted a battery developed in Australia, which I posted, everyone is aware of the storage issue.

The problem is, not many are aware of the system security issue, therein lies the issue.

Also by the way I have been involved in generation most of my life, be it diesel, solar storage generation at Denham and Mekatharra.
In the later part of my career I worked in the control room of a power station that could run on gas,coal or fuel oil and any combination of the fuels.

I don't have a leaning towards coal, just know it is the best resource in Australia to be producing base load from, at this point of our energy/economic cycle.

Ideology isn't my strong point, we tried solar storage at Meeka in the 1980's, in collaboration with M.A.N of Germany, it ended up being sold for scrap.

I take my hat of to smurph, for writing such detailed and descriptive explanations, he obviously has a gift and also an interest.

I personally can't be bothered, maybe if I was at work on night shift, I wouldn't be so short and may engage more.

P.S I'm not prejudice, just understand the issues.


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## Smurf1976

> Did the wind power fail because the wind was actually too strong for the turbines so they had to be shut down ?




At this stage that's uncertain based on the available information.

In that context AEMO will certainly be doing a very thorough review of everything that happened with the aim of determining precisely what occurred and in what order. There's a lot of data to compile there, a lot of engineering work to be done etc determining both exactly what happened and what needs to be done differently (changes to physical infrastructure and/or how things are operated) and that's likely to take a few months. Think in terms of "aircraft crash investigation" type process there - piece it all together and work out the full chain of events and how it could have been avoided.

What can be said at this stage though are that three likely scenarios exist for the loss of wind generation.

1. Voltage increased at the site of the wind farms and caused individual wind generators to trip or reduce output. This is the most likely scenario.

2. A sudden extreme weather event occurred at the wind farms which cut their production. Given the number of wind farms involved and the timing of events this is relatively unlikely for the first loss of wind generation and very unlikely for the second loss but not totally impossible (having so many transmission lines come down in quick succession is also unlikely but it did actually happen....).

3. Tripped due to falling system frequency although it wasn't overly low at this point. Possible but a voltage-related trip seems more likely in the absence of detailed information.

So most likely the wind farms stopped working due to the electrical "shock" they experienced when the lines came down. That's the probable explanation at this stage.

What would have happened if Northern power station, the SA coal plant that was recently closed, had been running at the time?

Given the location of the line faults nearby it's plausible that Northern would itself have tripped offline (shut down) uncontrollably. We'll never know for sure but it's plausible that it could have. That said, it's also plausible that it would have continued operating and that the whole SA system black would never have occurred. That's really speculation though and we'll never know for sure - Northern PS certainly has failed in the past when external grid faults have occurred so there's no guarantee it would have kept going this time (but it might have).

One thing's certain however. If Northern had stayed on then the chance of a system black would have been reduced. A drop in output and ramping up production elsewhere (Torrens Island realistically) would have been needed to avoid overloading the remaining transmission but that would have been orderly rather than sudden. No major overload of the SA - Vic lines would likely have occurred so they wouldn't have shut down and there would also have been no overload of other SA generation causing it to also shut down. But the unknown is whether or not Northern PS would actually have coped with so many line faults occurring nearby causing voltage fluctuations - it's very plausible that it would have tripped under that scenario (as would any power station when confronted with that situation).

So to answer the question about coal versus wind in this situation, it's really to hard to say at this stage. The grid suffered a massive impact, greater than practically any operator anywhere allows for on a routine basis, and that did cause problems with wind generation. But then it may also have caused problems with a coal-fired plant located nearby (ie Northern) so it's wrong for anyone to claim that having Northern in operation would definitely have avoided problems in the absence of a thorough engineering analysis. Maybe it would have, maybe not.



On other matters, supply to Port Lincoln and surrounds was initially restored with generation from Port Lincoln power station (oil-fired gas turbines) however that power station later broke down (for reasons I'm unaware of) with AEMO's multiple attempts to bring it back into operation being unsuccessful.

Prior to that break down Port Lincoln PS was operating as a stand alone power supply - so that's not connected to the rest of the grid, just generating power and supplying the local area (that part of the grid still intact but separated from the rest of the system by faults) directly as a completely separate system. Under normal circumstances this station operates in the grid like any other (although most of the time it is idle, being used only for peak load operation since it's a high cost plant to operate). Since there's more than one generator at this plant and everything failed at once something drastic must have gone wrong to cause that. Weather-related presumably but I'm not sure on that.

In terms of how the system was re-started, the basic process was:

1. Re-establish AC transmission between Vic and SA. Use this to energize the grid in SA but with loads disconnected (so no actual power supplied but parts of the grid live as such).

2. Quarantine power station (gas turbines, gas-fired, Adelaide area) started up.

3. Restoration of high priority loads (hospitals etc) and use the available power to start other power stations*

4. Generation progressively brought online at Torrens Island PS (steam turbines, gas-fired), Snuggery PS (gas turbines, oil-fired) and Pelican Point (combined cycle gas turbine, gas-fired) with load restored progressively as generation availability increased (it taking considerable time to bring 7 units online at Torrens Island, 3 at Snuggery, 2 at Pelican Point and ramp them all up - that's hours not minutes since we're dealing with boilers that need to warm up, build up steam pressure and so on).

*Not all power stations are set up to be capable of starting in the absence of external power from the grid since power stations themselves have electrical systems which need to be operable. So a few plants are equipped with systems (eg diesel generators) to power their own internal systems, start up, and then use power from there to bring other plants into service. That's the standard approach just about everywhere (globally). 

Due to the inherent variability of output at a time when stability was critical, wind generation was intentionally held to either very low levels or literally zero throughout the restart process. With the thermal plant needing to gradually ramp up and with restoring supply to consumers as the priority, it simply wasn't practical to have generating plant with intermittent output in the system at that time hence keeping it shut down. Wind farms in SA have mostly recommenced operating now however (some still being impacted by ongoing transmission problems). 

A bit about terminology here:

Steam turbines - that's a steam turbine driving the alternator ("generator" in layman's terms) plus a boiler to produce the steam and various systems to supply fuel (gas in the case of Torrens Island) and so on. 

Gas turbine - that's a jet engine in layman's terms. Note that the engine is used to turn an alternator and is not used to produce thrust as in an aircraft but it's the same underlying technology just sitting on the ground rather than in the air. These are quick and easy to start up but the downside is higher fuel consumption than other technologies (though it has improved over the years).

Combined cycle gas turbine - that's a gas turbine (jet engine) with the exhaust heat recovered to produce steam which then drives a separate steam turbine. The advantage is fuel efficiency and reduced emissions, roughly 50% more power from the same amount of fuel, with the disadvantages being high cost of construction and a much longer startup time when compared to open cycle gas turbines (gas turbine with no recovery of exhaust heat).


----------



## sptrawler

If Northern was online and did trip, it would have been a "hot start" and getting back online would have been achieved fairly quickly.
I know you can't turn back time, but it does show how fragile the whole Eastern States grid could become, if major thermal plants are abandoned before a sustainable system is in place.
Let's not forget, it wasn't long ago there was talk of the Government buying Hazelwood and Loy Yang, then closing them.
Maybe this failure, may bring some degree of rationale to the debate, and bring about a holistic approach.


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## Boggo

sptrawler said:


> If Northern was online and did trip, it would have been a "hot start" and getting back online would have been achieved fairly quickly....




and the Eyre Peninsula, Port Lincoln etc wouldn't have been offline for three days.


----------



## Tisme

noco said:


> Tisme, sometimes the truth hurts and that is evident from your terse comments...Time will tell if they continue to have strife with their power supply and the high cost there of to the SA consumers.
> 
> :topic
> 
> The car industry was domed to fail due to the lack of export  sales and high cost of labour thanks to our beloved unions....It is called competition.....No more shoe factories....No more clothing factories.....No more woollen mills....And the steel industry is being heavily subsidised by the  Australian taxpayers.
> 
> Gillard gave the car industry millions of dollars which were supposed to keep the car industry going until 2022...This 2016...6 years earlier.




I can tell you up front I never hurt when truth is talking Noco. That piece you posted is akin to a dung beetle that collects a bit of sh17e here a bit of sh17e there and rolls it all into a ball of sh17e to create a masterpiece that will surely impress those who appreciate sh17e as the centre of their world. Give a halfwit the opportunity to choose between Force Majeure and sensationalist fishwifery, a journo will invariably choose the later for those with a tin ear who lap up their master's voice (i.e. Murdoch).

Of course the twisted pylons and the interwoven high voltage lines were because of PV cells and turbines, what else could have caused system to shut itself down from short circuits, brown outs, etc.....surely not the cyclonic winds. How could anyone qualified and experience in the engineering game ever compete with a super sleuth from Liberal Party NewsCorp armed a well  worn anti ALP  poison pen.

If you ever worked in the corporate world you would know the union/wages/satan stuff is scapegoat for executive failure. Corporations much prefer to enterprise bargain and of course both sides of the argument make ambit claims in negotiations....that's how business operates at all levels. The biggest companies have organised work forces, either through unions or through inhouse structures,it is not unusual to have boards of directors who are ex unionists, ALP hacks, etc. It is not unusual to have union representation on executive panels at the bequest of the CEOs to maintain connectivity with the workforce, superannuation panels are the same, etc.


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## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> You shouldn't be self self deprecating, we don't think less of you.




That was a great antidote for the AMS you must have been hit with after the great compliment you gave Smurph.


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## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Maybe this failure, may bring some degree of rationale to the debate, and bring about a holistic approach.




Yes, we need a holistic approach. A national energy grid  needs management by the national government under the guidance of engineers who actually have to make it work, not a hotch potch of State governments with their own agendas and corporate players who are in it for a fast buck.

I can't see this privatisation crazy Federal government providing that leadership, they only seem interested in blaming someone else when things go wrong, not their own lack of foresight.


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## macca

thank you Smurf, your post deserves a wider audience


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## qldfrog

Thanks indeed Smurf.Great complete piece!


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## SirRumpole

qldfrog said:


> Thanks indeed Smurf.Great complete piece!




Agreed. Very tolerant of those with lesser knowledge.


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## noco

Tisme said:


> I can tell you up front I never hurt when truth is talking Noco. That piece you posted is akin to a dung beetle that collects a bit of sh17e here a bit of sh17e there and rolls it all into a ball of sh17e to create a masterpiece that will surely impress those who appreciate sh17e as the centre of their world. Give a halfwit the opportunity to choose between Force Majeure and sensationalist fishwifery, a journo will invariably choose the later for those with a tin ear who lap up their master's voice (i.e. Murdoch).
> 
> etc.




What a load of codswaddle you post......Typical of your usual debauch comments when something does not suit you......Those comments are lower than a rattle snakes belly.

I hope the moderator gives a reprimand.....you will deserve it.


----------



## SirRumpole

The Science Show will be discussing the possibilities of geothermal power in the Latrobe valley, this Saturday 12noon ABC RN or on their website.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/


----------



## explod

To Smurph and Sprawler

Quality information


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## noco

SirRumpole said:


> The Science Show will be discussing the possibilities of geothermal power in the Latrobe valley, this Saturday 12noon ABC RN or on their website.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/




I hope Tim Flannery is not in charge as cost the Government some $80 million in subsidies for the last disaster ....It all went belly up.


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## basilio

Really fascinating to see Smurfs analysis of the intricacies of the power grid and the necessary connectedness of the various supply systems. A critical element in the whole discussion is that the privatisation of the grid has been a body blow to the overall integrity of power supply in Australia. The creation of the SEC (which overtook a motley crew of private power companies) gave Victoria stable and flexible power for many years.

The saddest part of Smurphs story is reflecting on how wilfully ignorant many politicians are on the issue. Stable, secure, clean power is a non-negotiable part of our existence as a industrial society. It's about time it was treated like that.


----------



## Tisme

noco said:


> What a load of codswaddle you post......Typical of your usual debauch comments when something does not suit you......Those comments are lower than a rattle snakes belly.
> 
> 
> I hope the moderator gives a reprimand.....you will deserve it.




For what...telling the truth? It must indeed hurt some people afterall 

Not sure what a codswaddle is, sounds like a codswallop word to me. Also not sure what debauchery has taken place??!!!

Not my fault I have a vocabulary that exceeds your own, but I'll try to dumb it down in the future.


----------



## Smurf1976

Thanks for the positive comments. 

As a bit more info, here's the basics of how the grid is operated under normal circumstances and why failures such as that in SA are rare events.

As a basic principle, the system is at all times (unless it's just not possible) operated such that sudden failure of any transmission line or generating unit does not result in supply interruption to consumers. At worst, a local area might lose supply if there's only one line supplying it but the grid remains stable overall upon the loss of any individual line or up to two generators in any region (in practice a region is generally an entire state under normal circumstances if everything's working normally).

So we can lose one of the transmission lines from the Latrobe Valley (Loy Yang, Hazelwood, Yallourn, Valley Power and Jeeralang power stations) to Melbourne and that alone won't put the lights out. We can lose the largest generating unit in the system, a 744MW unit at Kogan Creek power station (Qld) and also lose one of the 700MW generators at Mt Piper power station (NSW) at the same time and the lights will stay on. There will be a short term frequency drop and the lights might dip briefly at home but the system remains sound and continues to operate.

Once a fault, for example if Kogan Creek really does trip offline, like that occurs then the response is to restore the system to a stable condition as soon as possible. Start up another power station such that we're back to having spare capacity up and running in case something else suddenly fails. In the case of transmission it may require ramping down production at one or more power stations and increasing it somewhere else to limit power flows on the remaining lines in case there's another failure but that's done in an orderly manner - everyone's lights stay on while it happens and nobody outside the industry knows that anything happened.

A point here is that faults do occur. Generators do fail unexpectedly from time to time and transmission lines do trip. No matter how much maintenance is done, when you've got so many systems in a power station there's always a chance that something will fail unexpectedly and it does happen. Likewise a transmission line out in the open over a vast distance will always be subject to the risk that something goes wrong. Hence the system is operated to remain stable if something does happen.

In some situations risks that are normally considered minimal (non-credible contingency in industry terminology) become more likely. 

To pick one example that's reasonably common, the Farrel to Sheffield 220kV (220,000 Volts) transmission lines in Tasmania. There are two lines connecting the Farrell sub-station (West Coast of Tas) to Sheffiled sub-station (in the North-West) however both follow the exact same route indeed they're held up by the same towers. Under normal circumstances any fault will only affect one line but under severe weather conditions (usually lightning) it's plausible that both lines could fail at the same time if lightning were to strike.

On one side of those lines we've got about 640MW of conventional generation (all of it hydro) and a relatively small local load around 80 MW (primarily mining and a few small towns). On the other side we've got the rest of the Tasmanian grid which is also connected to Victoria (and in turn connects to SA, NSW / ACT and via NSW to Qld).

So when the risk of both lines failing is increased (a "credible contingency") due to weather, the system is operated to remain stable if both do fail at once. In practical terms that means having enough generation online to supply the local West Coast load if the lines are lost but not so much as to become a threat to the rest of the system if that supply is suddenly lost. So depending on how much power is being generated at those power stations, this may require either increasing or decreasing production on the West Coast and decreasing or increasing it elsewhere in the system so as to keep flow on those lines down to an acceptable limit. That doesn't mean zero flow, the system can cope with some loss of supply due to both lines failing just as it copes if a generator fails, but it means keeping flow to a limit that the rest of the system, on both sides of the potential fault, can cope with if it really does happen.

How often does that happen? It depends on the weather but we're talking many times each year for that situation alone. We can go months without severe weather and then have multiple occurrences in the space of a few days. Each time the weather poses a threat, system operation is adjusted "just in case" the worst does happen. Usually there's no actual incident, just because there's lightning nearby doesn't mean it will necessarily strike the lines, but it could happen and it has happened in the past.

To do all this rescheduling of generation to keep the system robust in the event that failures occur does, of course, require that there's enough generation available in the first place to be able to limit output as some power stations and increase it elsewhere. You can't do that without putting the lights out if you don't have any spare capacity and need to run everything flat out. In that situation there's no option to do anything to avoid the risk (well, apart from simply initiating a partial blackout and that's not done in practice).

Back to the situation in SA there's a few relevant issues here.

In the context of last week's failure it was simply a case of too many things failing in quick succession. There was simply no time to bring power stations online or meaningfully increase output of those already running so as to work around line faults as they occurred. Plus the transmission system simply isn't designed to operate with that many lines in the same area all missing at once. So in defence of AEMO, there's little if anything they could have done once the failures started as there simply wasn't enough time. Any action would have needed to be taken hours earlier in order to warm boilers up, put generators online and so on.

Looking ahead, there are ongoing constraints in both Victoria and SA which do create a level of vulnerability. 

SA simply doesn't have enough conventional generation to meet peak demand in full even if it all works perfectly (and that itself is an unreasonable expectation - machines do have downtime either planned or unplanned). So on a high demand day either the wind is blowing, SA obtains power from Victoria, or the lights go out. Those are the three options and that becomes two options if the wind isn't blowing (and there have certainly been high demand days with minimal wind in the past so that situation will almost certainly happen again).

Victoria is in much the same situation of having very little generating capacity to spare within the state. Adding in the need to supply SA, Victoria depends on supply from NSW and Tasmania if wind generation is minimal at a time of high electricity demand.

There's a number of risks there. The obvious ones being if transmission is lost from NSW or Tas (and it was indeed lost from Tas throughout last Summer - it was pure luck that Vic and SA generation held up well, demand wasn't extreme and nothing else broke). The other one is that something happens in NSW or Tas such that they don't have power to spare in the first place. That risk is fairly low for Tas, since peak demand in Tas is at a very different time to Vic and SA, but is more significant for NSW if all three states (NSW, Vic, SA) experience high demand simultaneously (generally that doesn't happen but it has done in the past and someday it will happen again).

Putting this into practical perspective, there has been talk recently about closing Hazelwood power station (Vic). Ignoring the politics surrounding that and focusing on the technical issues, if Hazelwood does close then in order to meet peak demand in Vic and SA:

1. Every single conventional generator needs to work perfectly. The whole lot need to run at 100% of capacity with literally nothing going wrong.

2. Transmission from NSW and Tas both needs to be able to run at maximum capacity with sufficient power available in those states.

3. Wind generation in SA and Vic needs to run at about three quarters of its rated capacity.

How likely is it to work?

Conventional generation might be able to do it. It's possible that everything will work perfectly when needed but that's definitely a gamble since power stations do have significant downtime. Machines do break and we're talking about relying on plant that's nearly 50 years old in some cases (well past its original design life). But it might work OK. Or it might not. Gamble.

Transmission will either work or it won't. There won't be a loss of a bit of capacity, either it's working or it isn't. The chance is very high that it will work just fine but it's not 100% certain.

Wind is the real killer here since the vast majority of the time wind runs well below that level. Maybe it will be windy when it needs to be but the chance is very high that it won't. Wind farms with an average output around 35% of capacity and we're going to need double that. AEMO isn't God, they don't control the weather, and expecting something to work twice as well as it normally does is going to end badly sooner or later.

That's not a negative comment about wind energy by the way. It's simply reflecting that if something is designed to do x then it's unwise to rely on it doing twice that and the same applies to any means of generation. Just because we know that gas turbines can be overloaded a bit (quite safely by the way) when the weather conditions are right doesn't mean we should count on doing that all the time. Just because hydro can run flat out 24/7 in a flood doesn't mean we should count on getting a flood every week. Just because your last share trade returned 1000% in a month doesn't mean you can sensibly expect that all the time. Etc. 

So if Hazelwood does close and nothing is done to replace it then either there isn't a heatwave in SA and Vic at the same time. Or any such heatwave doesn't occur on a working weekday. Or the rest of the transmission and generation system works almost perfectly. Politics aside I think most would agree that sooner or later that's not going to happen and then we've got a crisis.

Some may be aware that AEMO have said that the system can cope without Hazelwood. Indeed it can provided that the community accepts the level of supply shortfall assumed in that statement. 

There's the difficult bit - AEMO are quite right in saying that 99.9% of the time the lights will stay on without Hazelwood. But then I could say that SA has had a working power grid 99.97% of the time over the past decade. But that other 0.03% has caused rather a lot of fuss over the past week and I fully expect that any generation shortfall in Vic / SA due to Hazelwood closing would produce an even greater response at the political and public level given that it's an intentional decision and not something that can be blamed on unusual weather. 

So AEMO aren't wrong, they're just assessing based on an agreed national standard and that's fine as such. But Smurf thinks that in view of the recent situation in SA, politicians and the public likely won't accept that standards as good enough when supply really does fail however infrequent that may be. 

My personal opinion is that Hazelwood won't actually close in April 2017 (as rumoured and widely reported) for that reason. Some combination of the Vic, SA and Commonwealth governments will do whatever deal to keep it open for a while yet. That's not about emissions or cost, it's about no government wanting a repeat of the SA situation on their watch however likely or unlikely it may actually be in practice.


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## noco

Tisme said:


> For what...telling the truth? It must indeed hurt some people afterall
> 
> Not sure what a codswaddle is, sounds like a codswallop word to me. Also not sure what debauchery has taken place??!!!
> 
> Not my fault I have a vocabulary that exceeds your own, but I'll try to dumb it down in the future.




There obviously a clown in every circus.


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## SirRumpole

Smurph, you are God, so what would be your ideal nationwide grid design technology mix ? ie what should we be building/ reconditioning/ extending now to give a stable grid in say 2 years, 5 years , 10-15 years ?


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## basilio

Keeping power supplies up is complex isn't it ? I can see a total overhaul of our national power and energy storage systems. 

1) There will be a rapid reduction in the use of base load coal fired power stations. With the Paris climate treaty about to be ratified within a month Australia will (should ?)  be looking for big picture ways to permanently reduce GG emissions. Coal fired power stations are at the top of the list

2) One option to consider will be solar thermal power stations using molten salt as a heat bank

3) The development of local battery banks or energy storage options like pump up hydro

4) Consideration of how to synchronise energy supplies more effectively.  Smurph identified the problems with incompatible electric power sources.  Are there solutions to this ? 

5) Widespread improvements in energy efficiency to reduce the overall need for need plant

6) Consideration of a National energy framework that is not dominated/directed by purely profit considerations. This obviously goes totally against the last 25 years of Privatization but I think it has to be seriously considered if we are going to sensibly invest many, many billions of dollars into a sustainable, secure, clean energy framework.  

And there is no way on earth I would trust the free market to  undertake such a venture.  

__________________________________________

Just saw an article in The Age that explores this question quite well.

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/whats-really-going-wrong-with-electricity-20161005-grvyih.html


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## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> That was a great antidote for the AMS you must have been hit with after the great compliment you gave Smurph.




Don't have any idea what that means, but coming from you, it couldn't have been good.


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## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Keeping power supplies up is complex isn't it ? I can see a total overhaul of our national power and energy storage systems.
> 
> 1) There will be a rapid reduction in the use of base load coal fired power stations. With the Paris climate treaty about to be ratified within a month Australia will (should ?)  be looking for big picture ways to permanently reduce GG emissions. Coal fired power stations are at the top of the list
> 
> 2) One option to consider will be solar thermal power stations using molten salt as a heat bank
> 
> 3) The development of local battery banks or energy storage options like pump up hydro
> 
> 4) Consideration of how to synchronise energy supplies more effectively.  Smurph identified the problems with incompatible electric power sources.  Are there solutions to this ?
> 
> 5) Widespread improvements in energy efficiency to reduce the overall need for need plant
> 
> 6) Consideration of a National energy framework that is not dominated/directed by purely profit considerations. This obviously goes totally against the last 25 years of Privatization but I think it has to be seriously considered if we are going to sensibly invest many, many billions of dollars into a sustainable, secure, clean energy framework.
> 
> And there is no way on earth I would trust the free market to  undertake such a venture.
> 
> __________________________________________
> 
> Just saw an article in The Age that explores this question quite well.
> 
> http://www.theage.com.au/comment/whats-really-going-wrong-with-electricity-20161005-grvyih.html




Your first paragraph was spot on, then you went on to show you have no concept of the issues, but love your enthusiasm.
People with your enthusiasm, keep the issues front and centre, which is the most important thing.


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## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> Don't have any idea what that means, but coming from you, it couldn't have been good.




 I think your sarcastic attack on Rumpole contrasted poorly on the impressive compliments you and Rumpole gave Smurph that's all.  A fleeting moment of bipartisan goodwill.


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## Tisme

noco said:


> There obviously a clown in every circus.




You referring to Andrew Bolt or Newscorp in general?


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## noco

sptrawler said:


> Don't have any idea what that means, but coming from you, it couldn't have been good.




Tisme gets carried away with his own ego which is higher than Mt Everest.


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## Tisme

noco said:


> Tisme gets carried away with his own ego which is higher than Mt Everest.




When you achieve bragging rights for practicing electrical engineering, please feel free to school me how energy generation methods translates in loss of power from cyclonic winds. Of course you will need to consult with unqualified journalists first.

The problem is not power sources, but the gold plated "poles and wires"  that failed the test. That's where the focus should be, on how infrastructure failed.


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## SirRumpole

At least it's good to see Freudenberg take the lead on energy security and start the process off by holding a joint meeting of all energy ministers.

I hope something good comes out of it.


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## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> At least it's good to see Freudenberg take the lead on energy security and start the process off by holding a joint meeting of all energy ministers.
> 
> I hope something good comes out of it.




It's like the last days of the horse and buggy industry watching the first world pass us by, while we admire our inefficiency in power production. Of course we have a pedigree of waiting for others to invent and implement before we take the plunge, which is why for generations we were a dumping ground for superceded consumer technology and hand me down industrial machinery.


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## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> It's like the last days of the horse and buggy industry watching the first world pass us by, while we admire our inefficiency in power production. Of course we have a pedigree of waiting for others to invent and implement before we take the plunge, which is why for generations we were a dumping ground for superceded consumer technology and hand me down industrial machinery.




Probably the Snowy Mountains hydro scheme was the last time we did power generation properly in this country.

 The "system" including generation and distribution needs modernising. A while ago we had tree loppers cutting tree branches away from power lines but we still lost power in a storm when whole trees fell on them, but do you cut down every tree likely to cause a problem, or just patch things up when the worst happens ? Or maybe spend some money and put power lines underground.


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## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> Probably the Snowy Mountains hydro scheme was the last time we did power generation properly in this country.
> 
> The "system" including generation and distribution needs modernising. A while ago we had tree loppers cutting tree branches away from power lines but we still lost power in a storm when whole trees fell on them, but do you cut down every tree likely to cause a problem, or just patch things up when the worst happens ? Or maybe spend some money and put power lines underground.




Underground poses major problems with cable sizing and cost. Low voltage underground run outs to houses are expensive but doable, HV has it's own considerations on top of the cost and resource required. Given that every dollar spent for infrastructure seems to have a high oncost tacked on for consultancy, handling and profit, it might me something be consumers can't afford.

I can only imagine the claims of  phantom feet ailments due to EMI coming up through the dirt and the birds, don't forget the birds and the need for perches instead of bulldozed trees.


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## Smurf1976

In response to various comments:

The big problem is that we don't have a plan. We're talking about critical infrastructure of major importance but we're basically taking random actions at best, doing the wrong thing at worst. Neither public nor private ownership is going to get it right if there's no actual plan in the first place.

A key problem there is that in recent times governments have come to see energy as a financial / economic matter and not an engineering / technical one. Have a look at who the regulators are and you'll find plenty of economists etc and few if any engineers depending on which state you look at. That might be OK if we were getting cheaper prices and the system was working, but pretty clearly there are problems on both fronts.

The first thing we need to decide is what we're actually going to do so far as emissions and renewables is concerned, everything else needs that decided first in order to make reasonable decisions.

The second thing we need to do is decide what else is "off limits". Realistically we're not about to flood the wilderness for hydro and we're unlikely to be using nuclear anytime soon. I can't see the community accepting the logging of old growth forests to fuel power stations either (and I don't advocate that by the way). But we need to decide the details there and what's OK and what's not.

Once that's worked out it's really just an engineering exercise to devise a plan and then a financial + engineering exercise to get it built in an orderly manner with the lights staying on in the meantime.

What I'd do is:

1. Work out the above points. What's the goal for emissions and what technologies or projects are off limits. Fundamentally this is a political decision not an engineering one.

2. Appoint a board of engineers (actual engineers, no CEO's etc required) with a senior engineer as head of that organisation. It needs support from both major political parties and to be free of interference, perhaps having the formal status of a Commission in order to effect that situation.

3. Board of engineers looks at the options and comes up with a comprehensive plan based on what we've got now and it's limitations (every fossil fuel plant we've got today will close eventually since they have a finite life) and where we're going in terms of how we generate power.

4. The board to look at it from a national perspective but with minimal focus on the NT and Tasmania. The reasons being that the NT doesn't use much power to start with and has a reasonably viable (for the next 30 or so years) means of producing it so is a low priority. Tasmania's load is more significant but the state's hydro schemes are incredibly long lived assets that aren't about to disappear so not much needs to be done there (and in any event Tas still has a largely engineering-focused and state owned power industry anyway). So the focus needs to be on Qld / NSW / ACT / Vic / SA interconnected system plus WA (noting that it's not impossible, albeit rather expensive, to link WA to the eastern states).

5. The board then assumes operational control of the entire system. That does not need to involve nationalisation of privately owned assets but if AGL wants to close Torrens Island (for example) then it will be the board of engineers, not AGL, making that decision with AGL's role left to that of carrying out the physical aspects of an actual closure. Same with any other power station. The financial details of all this would need to be worked out but it must surely be doable - we're talking about contracts and $ here over a long period not trying to put a man on Mars by the end of next week.

6. The board also decides what to build and where. Private firms could tender to build and own such assets on a for-profit basis or it could be publicly owned. But private ownership would be just that, ownership for profit, but they won't be deciding how big the facility is or when to run it, just taking an opportunity made available to invest in what the board has decided needs to be built with operation as directed under a centralised system.

So far as specific technologies are concerned (listed in no particular order):

Wind - we can do more with that certainly but it needs diverse location, not all in a small part of SA, and a strong transmission network to support it. That outcome won't happen if left purely to market forces.

Solar - solar thermal with storage has massive potential given the storage aspect and we've got plenty of places to put such facilities. As with wind, strong transmission networks will be needed to support it. We can still add more distributed solar PV (rooftops mostly) in a sensible manner too but there are limits and at some point we'll have enough. Putting it on literally every house doesn't stack up but we can go further than we have thus far.

Hydro - there's more potential than most seem to think and that's especially so if we consider developing hydro resources in PNG and linking that to Queensland. Again it's a lot of transmission but between PNG and non-wilderness sites in Australia we're talking about enough additional hydro to power 100% of Victoria's present consumption or most of Queensland's so it's very substantial.

Pumped storage - developed as a means of storage (as distinct from conventional hydro producing energy as such) and there are numerous sites of high capacity potential in NSW alone with others elsewhere. Development needs to follow the development of wind and solar, as a means of providing the firm generating capacity required to back an intermittent energy source.

Geothermal - we need to prove it once and for all. Either we can make it work or we can't. It's a real game change if we can so we can't afford to leave that question unanswered. This one is clearly something that the private sector isn't going to do so that leaves government as the only real option. The focus there needs to be on the high grade sites in Vic, Tas and NSW not in the middle of nowhere in outback SA (that the private sector did the latter illustrates the problem pretty well - even if it worked they were starting in the wrong place having seemingly thought that power generation was a bit like mining for metals and thus going after the biggest high grade resource they could find rather than one in the right place).

Biomass - has some potential for intermittent use to backup wind and solar over the medium term. Produce the biomass whenever, store it, and fire up the boilers during Winter and to a lesser extent Summer when energy demand is higher and the available supply from other means is insufficient over the medium term (otherwise causing excessive draw on hydro resources especially pumped storage).

Minor sources - things like landfill gas, sewer gas and recovering heat from factories. Leave that one to the private sector and let them build whatever they like. The scale is such that there's no real need to regulate other than at a very local level (impact on specific distribution lines etc).

Batteries - doesn't stack up yet but if someone wants to do it then there's no reason to stop them. Larger scale implementation would be limited to managing peak loads however rather than bulk storage which is more cheaply done with pumped hydro and piling up some biomass.

Coal, gas, oil-fired generation that we've already got - manage operation to maximise efficiency rather than to produce wild price swings in the market. In due course capacity will decline but that needs to be in a planned manner not a series of independent decisions by owners. So the board of engineers will decide when to close Hazelwood, not some CEO in France. That doesn't preclude the present owners selling the plant however, but they'll be told when to close it and that won't be in 2017.

Decomissioned fossil fuel generation - to the extent that physical demolition hasn't got underway we need to not do so until we've got a proper plan and are 100% sure we won't be needing those plants. The last thing we want is to end up building more fossil fuel plant now, only to make it obsolete a third the way through its useful life as we shift to renewables. Some of these old plants still have value as firm generating capacity so let's not knock them down just yet.


----------



## SirRumpole

Sounds pretty good to me.

As you say it comes down to engineering in the end and so engineers have to be involved at the front end and not after the politicians decide what they want. I hope the Frydenberg group love-in today understands that principle.

Thanks again.


----------



## Smurf1976

There's a bigger issue in all of this. That of Australia having largely turned it's back on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) and the related field of manufacturing in favour of finance and the notion that everything can be bought if we've got the money.

There's a legitimate role for finance most certainly but where is this approach really leading us? Unaffordable housing, unreliable power and plenty more looming threats of an engineering nature too.

The solution is not nuclear, coal, hydro, gas, wind, solar, geothermal or whatever. The solution is refocusing our nation's attention onto the things which need to be done and realising that we need more than simply money. Whether you've got $20 or $20 million, we're all screwed if the lights go out, the water isn't safe to drink or there's no fuel. Witness the state of Australia's internet infrastructure and the politics surrounding it, versus the higher standards which many relatively poor countries have actually achieved, if you need convincing that we've got a problem with our general "hands off" approach.

My hope is that the recent crisis in SA leads to a serious wake up. Sadly though I think we'll need a bigger incident, not necessarily electrical but something critical, to get to that point. Hopefully I'm wrong.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> There's a bigger issue in all of this. That of Australia having largely turned it's back on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) and the related field of manufacturing in favour of finance and the notion that everything can be bought if we've got the money.
> 
> There's a legitimate role for finance most certainly but where is this approach really leading us? Unaffordable housing, unreliable power and plenty more looming threats of an engineering nature too.
> 
> The solution is not nuclear, coal, hydro, gas, wind, solar, geothermal or whatever. The solution is refocusing our nation's attention onto the things which need to be done and realising that we need more than simply money. Whether you've got $20 or $20 million, we're all screwed if the lights go out, the water isn't safe to drink or there's no fuel. Witness the state of Australia's internet infrastructure and the politics surrounding it, versus the higher standards which many relatively poor countries have actually achieved, if you need convincing that we've got a problem with our general "hands off" approach.
> 
> My hope is that the recent crisis in SA leads to a serious wake up. Sadly though I think we'll need a bigger incident, not necessarily electrical but something critical, to get to that point. Hopefully I'm wrong.





Yes, I agree. I don't want to get political, but John Howard flushed the proceeds of the mining boom down the loo by giving it to people who didn't need it like wealthy retirees.

 We could have had a world class NBN, plus enhancements to our energy infrastructure , schools , hospitals whatever . Rudd did the right thing by establishing Infrastructure Australia as an independent body, but Abbott re-politicised it so he could use it for pork barrelling.

Rudd probably went a bit far with his pink batts (although that program did contribute to a reduction in energy consumption), but even in these times of "debt and deficit disaster" we can still come up with $50 billion for submarines.

We have a Future Fund though (assets currently $118 billion), and I can't see any reason not to invest some of that fund in our own infrastructure, the NBN and energy security should be the priorities.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, I agree. I don't want to get political, but John Howard flushed the proceeds of the mining boom down the loo by giving it to people who didn't need it like wealthy retirees.
> 
> We could have had a world class NBN, plus enhancements to our energy infrastructure , schools , hospitals whatever . Rudd did the right thing by establishing Infrastructure Australia as an independent body, but Abbott re-politicised it so he could use it for pork barrelling.
> 
> Rudd probably went a bit far with his pink batts (although that program did contribute to a reduction in energy consumption), but even in these times of "debt and deficit disaster" we can still come up with $50 billion for submarines.
> 
> We have a Future Fund though (assets currently $118 billion), and I can't see any reason not to invest some of that fund in our own infrastructure, the NBN and energy security should be the priorities.




You just can't help yourself can you Rumpy.....You have to bring politics into Smufs thoughts.

So now it is John Howard's fault......How much did John Howard flush down the drain as you claim?
He did leave $22 billion for Labor to squander....My oh my, you do have a short memory.

Well, I suggest to you what could we be doing with a $billion a month on the interest we are paying for Labor's over spend just to say we did not go into recession.......and we will, our children and grand children will be paying back for years to come.

I agree with Smurf in what he has quoted but the problem is the argy bargy political interference from the Green/Labor coalition.......Who will make a decision to appoint this Board of Direction without the interference from the hostile socialist left senate...It might get through the lower house, then get stuck in the senate like it usually does even though it is a good idea.....If there is a Board of Directors made up of engineers, how certain can we be that it won't be stacked with some Green engineers just out of university?

The Green/Labor coalition will still go against the board if it does not suit their ideology of more renewables and not less.......The Green/Labor  coalition are determined to bring down our economy in favour of socialist central control.


----------



## noco

explod said:


> Real bird lovers want to see them happy in the wild.
> 
> Only right wing fascists keep things locked up.




Little do you know about birds in the wild.......How long do you  think a canary of a budgerigar would last in the wild before being swallowed up some other predator?

Have you  ever seen any of these rare birds in the wild?


----------



## noco

explod said:


> Noco,  you and the Prime Minister (who's become an embarrassment) don't get it.   Well I think you do but continue your oil/coal lobby campaign to confuse the ordinary populace.
> 
> 100% perfect neuclear generators would not have made any difference.   What happened in South Australia was a failure of the infrastructure.   The poles blew down and buckled under the exceptional wind gusts and foundations giving way due to extra damp ground from huge rainfall.
> 
> Extreme weather events caused by polar warmth displacement.  Co2 driven climate change.




explod for your information I have just learned the transmission poles were blown over after South Australia BLACKED OUT.


----------



## Boggo

The latest engineering project by the wind power addicts...

(click to expand)


----------



## nioka

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, I agree. I don't want to get political, but John Howard flushed the proceeds of the mining boom down the loo by giving it to people who didn't need it like wealthy retirees.
> 
> We could have had a world class NBN, plus enhancements to our energy infrastructure , schools , hospitals whatever . Rudd did the right thing by establishing Infrastructure Australia as an independent body, but Abbott re-politicised it so he could use it for pork barrelling.
> 
> Rudd probably went a bit far with his pink batts (although that program did contribute to a reduction in energy consumption), but even in these times of "debt and deficit disaster" we can still come up with $50 billion for submarines.
> 
> We have a Future Fund though (assets currently $118 billion), and I can't see any reason not to invest some of that fund in our own infrastructure, the NBN and energy security should be the priorities.




"We have a Future Fund though (assets currently $118 billion), and I can't see any reason not to invest some of that fund in our own infrastructure, the NBN and energy security should be the priorities."

WE don't have a futures fund. The futures fund was a creation of Public servants and pollies as a fund to cover their extravagant retirement benefits. It is managed to maximise profit and is not there for the benefit of the general public. The name is a con.


----------



## SirRumpole

nioka said:


> "We have a Future Fund though (assets currently $118 billion), and I can't see any reason not to invest some of that fund in our own infrastructure, the NBN and energy security should be the priorities."
> 
> WE don't have a futures fund. The futures fund was a creation of Public servants and pollies as a fund to cover their extravagant retirement benefits. It is managed to maximise profit and is not there for the benefit of the general public. The name is a con.




Sure, but they have to invest in something in order to make a profit. Essential services like electricity would seem to be a reasonable investment, people have to use it. If private companies find them so attractive to buy, there must be money in it. That doesn't mean the FF has to  screw the public on price but there must be a point where they can make a reasonable profit and provide a good service.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Sure, but they have to invest in something in order to make a profit. Essential services like electricity would seem to be a reasonable investment, people have to use it. If private companies find them so attractive to buy, there must be money in it. That doesn't mean the FF has to  screw the public on price but there must be a point where they can make a reasonable profit and provide a good service.




Nice to see you moving towards capitalism and away from socialism.......But there again profit is a dirty word in the socialism world hey......Yes people have to eat and be clothed as essentials and borrow money from the banks to buy a house all of which entails profit somewhere along the line.

If you don't a profit in business, you go down the gurgler and who cares if you go broke.?

The production of power can become a monopoly where there is no competition...Smurf has the right ideas.


----------



## nioka

SirRumpole said:


> Sure, but they have to invest in something in order to make a profit. Essential services like electricity would seem to be a reasonable investment, people have to use it. If private companies find them so attractive to buy, there must be money in it. That doesn't mean the FF has to  screw the public on price but there must be a point where they can make a reasonable profit and provide a good service.




"That doesn't mean the FF has to screw the public" 

It doesn't mean they HAVE to but it doesn't mean they wont. Remember that government departments and politicians are experts at screwing and the fund is run by them.:frown:


----------



## basilio

Great piece of analysis Smurf - as always. I just feel/fear it is far too sensible to be allowed to see the light of day..

I actually can see The Future Fund being a financier/part owner /whatever of a National Renewable Energy system.  If the criteria was a return of 4% real it would be achieving everything it was supposed to so as a Super Fund. Of course the key to making such an operation work at a reasonable cost would be following something like your guidelines.  
_______________________________________________________________________________
*
Maybe this is the time and opportunity to put together a proposition for the public and politicians along such lines ?* 
By the way it doesn't have to be funded by the Future Fund. Why not put up a proposition with funding coming from a range of current Super funds or private investors ? Same deal.  4% real return, no fees, perhaps Government guarantee if there is oversight of the whole process.  I think this would be a really attractive proposition *as long as the pigs in the trough are taken out and shot first.*


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> By the way it doesn't have to be funded by the Future Fund. Why not put up a proposition with funding coming from a range of current Super funds or private investors ? Same deal.  4% real return, no fees, perhaps Government guarantee if there is oversight of the whole process.  I think this would be a really attractive proposition *as long as the pigs in the trough are taken out and shot first.*




The history of private enterprise funding infrastructure in this country is not brilliant. They usually want government guarantees of no competition before they put their money in. They will wait like sharks untill the government funds it, and then they will try to buy it on a monopoly basis or close to it. Telstra being a prime example, same with the State poles and wires grid.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> The history of private enterprise funding infrastructure in this country is not brilliant. They usually want government guarantees of no competition before they put their money in. They will wait like sharks untill the government funds it, and then they will try to buy it on a monopoly basis or close to it. Telstra being a prime example, same with the State poles and wires grid.




So would you say central control under a Green/Labor socialist government would be better or worse?


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> The history of private enterprise funding infrastructure in this country is not brilliant. They usually want government guarantees of no competition before they put their money in. They will wait like sharks untill the government funds it, and then they will try to buy it on a monopoly basis or close to it. Telstra being a prime example, same with the State poles and wires grid.




Totally agree.. No way I would trust a current private enterprise structure to do a cost effective rebuild of our energy systems.

The old SEC model was effective in achieving an overarching energy system.  I imagine the Snowy Mountain scheme was a similar beast. Really think we can dust off the plans and consider reviving a Quango as the construction and operation model.  The private enterprise is broken.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quango
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_Mountains_Scheme
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/hsc/snowy/investigating.htm


----------



## Smurf1976

So far as public versus private is concerned, a bit of a history lesson and noting that we seem to be repeating how it all started.

To cut a long story short, Victoria and SA both started out with privately owned electricity industries with production based on the use of black coal. Tasmania started out mostly privately owned, using a mix of resources (sub-bituminous coal, oil from shale, hydro).

By 1916 Tasmania's power industry was primarily in public ownership and the state's first major energy-intensitve industry had commenced operation. At this point Tasmania was the only state with a transmission system in operation, indeed at that point Tasmania's was among the longest in the world.

In 1917 another major energy-intensive industry started up in Tasmania. Meanwhile Vic and SA were both grappling with ongoing fuel and power shortages. 

1919 - Tasmania now has a grid as such running from north to south with two power stations connected and works underway to rapidly expand the system. Meanwhile Tas was aggressively marketing it's electricity supply to industry located elsewhere, primarily Victoria, in an attempt to encourage relocation to the island state.

*Victoria sets up the SECV to resolve the state's power situation with a direction that local resources shall be applied to the problem.*

A key point here is that private enterprise has failed to resolve the problem of Victoria's unreliable supplies of coal and in turn gas and especially electricity. With Tasmania now actively trying to poach Victorian industry, the Victorian government had little choice other than to resolve the problem.

In 1924 the SECV had their first brown coal mine (Yallourn) up and running along with a briquette works (producing a substitute for black coal) and power station (Yallourn A) using raw coal straight from the mine also running nearby. In 1928 the SECV had added hydro to the system and in due course an assortment of new brown coal power stations, briquette works and hydro schemes followed.

Victoria also set up the Gas & Fuel Corporation for the same underlying reasons, they needed something that wasn't dependent on unreliable supplies of black coal. In 1954 G&FC had a gas works using brown coal up and running, plus the first gas transmission pipeline in Australia, and was supplying about a third of Melbourne's gas from that source.

SA faced a very similar problem, that of privately owned electricity and gas companies being unable or unwilling to shift to alternative fuel sources (SA also having ongoing shortages of black coal). The SA government had tried for a very long time (decades) to convince the Adelaide Electric Supply Co to use the state's local coal but they point blank refused. 

In due course, and faced with the reality that both Victoria and Tasmania were now far more attractive to industry with their cheap and increasingly abundant power supplies, SA acquired AESCo by force (actively resisted by AESCo) and set up the Electricity Trust of SA (ETSA) to replicate what Victoria had done with the SECV. 

ETSA quickly went about coal production, mixing it with black coal (which at that point was coming from wherever they could get it including imports from overseas) in former AESCo power stations not designed to cope with the local lower quality coal. In 1954 ETSA opened its first purpose built power station using Leigh Creek coal and in 1960 a second, much larger, station was operating. SA had now joined Tas and Vic in having cheap, abundant power with the associated economic benefits.

So historically at least is was certainly the case that private enterprise failed at the task of ensuring a reliable electricity supply and failed even more at the task of changing from established technology to something new. It was simply easier, less risky and not unprofitable to stick with what they'd always done rather than risk a fortune on something that may or may not work (and there were plenty of technical challenges in Vic and Tas).

Other states were slower but in NSW they ultimately had no real choice. Victoria had the massive Hazelwood power station, several times larger than anything in NSW at that time and an order or magnitude cheaper to operate, under construction while Tasmania was building one hydro scheme after another with multiple new schemes under construction at once. And then BHP dropped the bombshell - they'd done the deal and were relocating their entire ferro alloy, a key part of steel production, operations from NSW to Tasmania with power being the reason. All of a sudden NSW was pretty keen on electricity lest other industries also packed up and moved to Vic, Tas or SA.

All that said, public ownership wasn't perfect by any means. It's no secret that unions had a rather strong influence within the SECV, at times crippling power production through their actions (a situation which rather suited Tasmania by the way - not once have the lights gone out in Tas due to a strike and that was always a good marketing point to industry albeit one done discreetly).

Then there were the technical dramas. The SECV put a lot of effort into getting the Morwell mine and briquette works built only to find that the coal was unsuitable in just about any boiler. It seems that nobody thought to test it, simply assuming it to be the same as that found at Yallourn just down the road. For the next half century coal from Yallourn was transported to Morwell, a ridiculously uneconomic operation given the coal is almost 70% water, as raw material for briquette production to work around that problem. Morwell coal was ultimately put to use in Hazelwood power station, being burned at low temperatures (they called it "cold combustion") to get around the fouling problem although that was never perfect and still isn't today.

But despite a few blunders public ownership did achieve the goal of getting a cheap, mostly reliable power supply in Victoria and other states.

Now Vic and SA are both privatised, those states having pursued privatisation earlier and more aggressively than anyone else in Australia. Those two states are now the ones facing the biggest problems with regard to ongoing power supply and that's not a coincidence. It's even funnier when you realise that of the new supply capacity added in Vic since privatisation, the majority is either from Tasmania (which is still publicly owned), or has been brought about by Snowy Hydro (also publicly owned). Hmm...

I'm not ideologically opposed to privately owned electricity though. It could work if set up and regulated properly to achieve the required technical and other (eg emissions) outcomes. Where it fails is if it's left to pure market forces on a commodity basis and there's a simple reason for that - electricity being very different to any other commodity since it can't be stored. Just because the price of the commodity is low right now doesn't mean there won't be a desperate shortage tomorrow and then an oversupply a few hours later. That's massively different to other commodity markets and is why market forces alone won't produce a reliable supply using that model.

Under a different model, one focused engineering rather than financial speculation in a ridiculously volatile market, private ownership ought not be a problem as such. That's a long way from where we are today however with even the remaining publicly owned operators playing the financial game whether they like it or not (they literally have no choice since that's the law).


----------



## Smurf1976

At least half our problems with energy could be fixed if we stopped giving it away.

http://www.examiner.com.au/story/42...australias-offshore-gas-wealth-is-going/?cs=7


----------



## SirRumpole

> By 2021 Australia will eclipse the Persian Gulf state of Qatar to become the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
> 
> In that year, when both countries are forecast to pump and ship roughly 100 billion cubic metres of LNG each, Qatar's government will receive *$26.6 billion in royalties* from the multinational companies exploiting its offshore gasfields.
> 
> *According to Treasury estimates, Australia will receive just $800 million for the same volume of gas leaving its shores.
> *
> The massive disparity – and prospect, first revealed by Fairfax Media, that Australia will receive no significant take from LNG for "decades" – has sparked calls for a public inquiry into the the petroleum resource rent tax or PRRT.
> 
> http://www.examiner.com.au/story/42...australias-offshore-gas-wealth-is-going/?cs=7






Something has to be done about this, we are being ripped off.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Something has to be done about this, we are being ripped off.




Rumpy, whilst I can see where you are coming from and your deep concern that we are not receiving higher royalties and it perhaps does it does throw a shadow over the government, there maybe some factors which have not been taken into consideration.

Firstly, Qatar commenced exporting liquid natural gas back in 1997 with government resources and then left to multi nationals to operate consequently Qatar were able to attract high royalties


Secondly, different to the set up in Australia, the multi nationals injected some $70 billion of own their own resources to kick the project off.....I am not sure how you will read the link below but it would appear the government  is giving some assistance to recover the initial out law before receiving a higher return in later years and I am sure it would have been with the Labor Party blessings.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...ional-wealth-for-decades-20160412-go4kay.html


----------



## noco

noco said:


> Rumpy, whilst I can see where you are coming from and your deep concern that we are not receiving higher royalties and it perhaps does it does throw a shadow over the government, there maybe some factors which have not been taken into consideration.
> 
> Firstly, Qatar commenced exporting liquid natural gas back in 1997 with government resources and then left to multi nationals to operate consequently Qatar were able to attract high royalties
> 
> 
> Secondly, different to the set up in Australia, the multi nationals injected some $70 billion of own their own resources to kick the project off.....I am not sure how you will read the link below but it would appear the government  is giving some assistance to recover the initial out law before receiving a higher return in later years and I am sure it would have been with the Labor Party blessings.
> 
> http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...ional-wealth-for-decades-20160412-go4kay.html




Here is another link which takes in the investment made by the Qatar government.

http://persiangulffund.com/qatar-the-biggest-exporter-of-liquid-gas-in-the-world/

So I think we all take a deep breath and compare apples with apples.

The http://www.examiner.com.au/story/421...is-going/?cs=7 does not appear to have researched the full facts...Only the ones which will make the Turnbull Government look bad in the eyes of the public.


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> Here is another link which takes in the investment made by the Qatar government.
> 
> http://persiangulffund.com/qatar-the-biggest-exporter-of-liquid-gas-in-the-world/
> 
> So I think we all take a deep breath and compare apples with apples.
> 
> The http://www.examiner.com.au/story/421...is-going/?cs=7 does not appear to have researched the full facts...Only the ones which will make the Turnbull Government look bad in the eyes of the public.




It's up to us to decide the price that we sell our assets for, and I think most people would agree that it is currently not enough either in the case of case or minerals.
'


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> It's up to us to decide the price that we sell our assets for, and I think most people would agree that it is currently not enough either in the case of case or minerals.
> '




Did you read the full article of both links...You do not appear to have done so given the quick time of your response.

How much did the Australian Government kick in to help develop such a large project as did the Qatar Government which would appear to be some 50% .


----------



## noco

I believe the Japanese are smarter than us in their thinking of using renewables and are now favouring the use of coal provided emissions from coal can be controlled and if their is a country who could find a way, the Japanese will.

The Japanese maintain renewable are inefficient and unreliable for base load power.



http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...c/news-story/4585967a30cd25450168548c37c983f6


----------



## Tisme

noco said:


> I believe the Japanese are smarter than us in their thinking of using renewables and are now favouring the use of coal provided emissions from coal can be controlled and if their is a country who could find a way, the Japanese will.
> 
> The Japanese maintain renewable are inefficient and unreliable for base load power.
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...c/news-story/4585967a30cd25450168548c37c983f6





I don't know how you get that impression. The bloke saying it is merely a CEO of the 4th largest power production company .... a worker in a feudal society.


“One thing I am troubled by, and I think it’s something that would be shared by my Australian colleagues, is the policy of* increasing the proportion of renewable energ*y,” Mr Hasegawa said.

“*It is definitely a policy that is being implemented in Japan.*”


“Coal has been a baseload fuel but we are seeing a phenomenon where renewable energy sources are infringing on that position,” Mr Hasegawa said.

“I am concerned that renewable energy, which is intermittent and unstable, *is increasing its share* and it may have *some impact on the trade of coal*.”


----------



## orr

Smurf1976 said:


> At least half our problems with energy could be fixed if we stopped giving it away.
> 
> http://www.examiner.com.au/story/42...australias-offshore-gas-wealth-is-going/?cs=7





There is at least one, _at least one_ Federal Senate seat going begging for a single issue Party pushing the necessity of a Sovereign Wealth Fund for this country that extracts for the National benefit a fair return on the sale of our national assets. 
The conspired silence from both major parties on the success of the Norwegian model, which has a per capita worth of in excess of US$160,000 on the back of just the Petroleum assets of that country is in self worthy of a Royal Commission.

Thanks for your earlier post Smurf. The thing that I'd add is the 20 year supply contracts now being locked in the Middle East are for Renewable Energy at a price of (sub)<US$0.03/c per Kilowatt hour. The future is hear, it's just not evenly distributed.
http://analysis.pv-insider.com/mena...prioritize-quality-amid-strong-price-pressure


----------



## SirRumpole

SirRumpole said:


> It's up to us to decide the price that we sell our assets for, and I think most people would agree that it is currently not enough either in the case of case or minerals.
> '




should be "either in the case of *gas* or minerals"


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> should be "either in the case of *gas* or minerals"




With regards to minerals, it would nice to say to our trading partners like China and Japan, hey you fellows, the price of our iron ore i $160 per tonne, take it or leave it, but you don't seem to understand, minerals are based on supply and demand and if demand is reduced then so is the price.

I am not sure how the gas pricing works but it is not in the same category as oil which is governed to a certain degree by OPEC.....I will some research for you.

There you go...that was too easy for this ole codger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_prices


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> With regards to minerals, it would nice to say to our trading partners like China and Japan, hey you fellows, the price of our iron ore i $160 per tonne, take it or leave it, but you don't seem to understand, minerals are based on supply and demand and if demand is reduced then so is the price.
> 
> I am not sure how the gas pricing works but it is not in the same category as oil which is governed to a certain degree by OPEC.....I will some research for you.
> 
> There you go...that was too easy for this ole codger.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_prices




It would be easy enough to put a tax of x% on the price of gas, coal, gold, bauxite or iron ore, whatever x was deemed to be a reasonable return to the owners of the commodity. In fact this could be used to replace a profits tax and the companies wouldn't need to hire expensive accountants to reduce their tax.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> It would be easy enough to put a tax of x% on the price of gas, coal, gold, bauxite or iron ore, whatever x was deemed to be a reasonable return to the owners of the commodity. In fact this could be used to replace a profits tax and the companies wouldn't need to hire expensive accountants to reduce their tax.




At something like less than $50 per tonne for iron iron I doubt if the market would stand RRT of any percentage at this stage........The iron ore miners are struggling to make ends meet at these low prices which I must emphasis again to you is based on supply and demand. 

And please do not over look the royalties the miners have to pay irrespective of the price received.

Labor tried unsuccessfully to apply an RRT which cost more to administer than the return which Wayne Swan told us and that money was supposed to fund the NDIS and Gonsky......So it left NDIS and Gonski under funded.


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> At something like less than $50 per tonne for iron iron I doubt if the market would stand RRT of any percentage at this stage........The iron ore miners are struggling to make ends meet at these low prices which I must emphasis again to you is based on supply and demand.
> 
> And please do not over look the royalties the miners have to pay irrespective of the price received.
> 
> Labor tried unsuccessfully to apply an RRT which cost more to administer than the return which Wayne Swan told us and that money was supposed to fund the NDIS and Gonsky......So it left NDIS and Gonski under funded.




Prices go down and prices go up. A percentage tax is relative to the current price whatever that is.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Prices go down and prices go up. A percentage tax is relative to the current price whatever that is.




But didn't you just state that we are the ones who should  set the price of our minerals?

You are now saying prices go up and down...Now why is that?...Hope you now understand a little better.

Here are some facts to enlighten you on tax and royalties paid to WA by the miners.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-...ed-why-are-rio-tinto-and-bhp-targeted/7908544


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> But didn't you just state that we are the ones who should  set the price of our minerals?




Alright, the market sets the price but we should decide what proportion of that price we get and what proportion the mining companies get. If company A finds the price too high they can move out and let someone else dig them up, or the government could reduce the tax depending on circumstances.

I'm aware of State royalties, there is no reason there can't be a Federal one as well.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Alright, the market sets the price but we should decide what proportion of that price we get and what proportion the mining companies get. If company A finds the price too high they can move out and let someone else dig them up, or the government could reduce the tax depending on circumstances.
> 
> I'm aware of State royalties, there is no reason there can't be a Federal one as well.




Rumpy, you just don't get it do you.......You appear to have very little knowledge on how the mining industry operates.

You say if company "A" finds the price too high they can move out or do mean if the price is too low....If the price of minerals was high, I cannot see a miner moving out.

Miners do have legal rites to a site and can either sit on it until the price rises or they can sell the lease....They are very unlikely to just move out and let some other miner in without some monetary transaction. 

Andrew Forest is sitting a massive nickel deposit at Posiden and has placed it in moth balls until the price of nickel rises to make it a viable project......He has dewatered the incline into Posiden to a depth of some 700 feet and is ready to go as soon as prices improve which I believe maybe early 2017......The nickel that has already been extracted from Posiden is only the tip of the ice berg.

Royalties are a state government right only and the Federal government cannot impose a royalty as well...The states can raise the percentage of royalties when ever the like ...That is if they dare.


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> Royalties are a state government right only and the Federal government cannot impose a royalty as well...The states can raise the percentage of royalties when ever the like ...That is if they dare.




The Federal government can impose other taxes, like a resource rent tax. It works the same way as a royalty , it's just not called a royalty.

The miners and gas exporters are evading company tax anyway they can by transfer pricing or whatever so we have the right to recover that lost revenue by other means if necessary.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> The Federal government can impose other taxes, like a resource rent tax. It works the same way as a royalty , it's just not called a royalty.
> 
> The miners and gas exporters are evading company tax anyway they can by transfer pricing or whatever so we have the right to recover that lost revenue by other means if necessary.





A royalty is totally to a rent resources tax which can be imposed by the Federal Government  but as I explained to you before, Wayne Swan imposed a RRT which failed to meet his prediction......And I will say it again, the RRT cost more to administer than the return...Swannie was going to use it to fund the NDIS and Gonski....those two were never ever funded and is now in the lap of the current government to find the money.

If  you are not up to speed as to what is going on, there are international arrangements being put in place to stop the loop holes of tax evasion...Something Joe Hockey implemented during his term as treasurer and to the best of my knowledge is still under negotiations with other G20 countries.


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> A royalty is totally to a rent resources tax which can be imposed by the Federal Government  but as I explained to you before, Wayne Swan imposed a RRT which failed to meet his prediction......And I will say it again, the RRT cost more to administer than the return...Swannie was going to use it to fund the NDIS and Gonski....those two were never ever funded and is now in the lap of the current government to find the money.
> 
> If  you are not up to speed as to what is going on, there are international arrangements being put in place to stop the loop holes of tax evasion...Something Joe Hockey implemented during his term as treasurer and to the best of my knowledge is still under negotiations with other G20 countries.




Swan was an idiot and let the mining companies design their own tax. God knows why he did it that way, if he designed it properly we would have financed Gonski and more besides. He should have taken a trip to Norway to see how they run their oil and gas royalty system.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Swan was an idiot and let the mining companies design their own tax. God knows why he did it that way, if he designed it properly we would have financed Gonski and more besides. He should have taken a trip to Norway to see how they run their oil and gas royalty system.




Well he didn't and now we are left with the legacy of a another Labor stuff up...AS you say, he is an idiot and had no idea of what he was doing.

How he had the honor of being named the Worlds greatest treasurer know one knows.


----------



## orr

The 'idiots' are those that were able to be convinced by a $7million dollar campaign by the minerals council that the Super profits tax was the economic death knell for the Australian nation when it was exactly the opposite. 
Donald Horne saw and defined these twats years ago. Such is the power of self inflicted ignorance. As the Article pointed out by Smurf explains 'A $20billion a year shot in your own foot' .... Cretin is to kind a word. 

think about a new thread...


----------



## Smurf1976

So far as gas is concerned, my basic thought is that with regard to the Queensland LNG plants specifically they have:

1. Roughly doubled the wholesale price of gas with a consequent huge jump in prices for major users (manufacturing, power generation). Every gas user in Qld / NSW / ACT / Vic / SA / Tas is paying more as a result but in % terms the hit is far greater for large users (since with households the distribution cost is a big % of the gas bill).

2. Some specific industries, eg fertilizer manufacturing, are now largely uneconomic as a result of this. No doubt some others as well.

3. Gas-fired power generation has become uneconomic for base load and to a large extent for anything other than the actual peaks. So we've seen some plant shut down altogether (mothballed), some more planned to be closed and what remains is used far less.

So we've locked ourselves out of gas as an option, leaving renewables and coal as the only real options we've got for power in most of Australia.

If we were making a fortune selling gas then I can see a possible benefit in all that. But in practice it seems that we've allowed an awful lot of local industry to be harmed in order to benefit only gas producers. That might be OK if there was some huge benefit in terms of taxation etc but it seems that's not the case.

Of all significant scale industries ever set up in Australia, the Qld LNG plants are the only one that comes to mind as likely doing more economic damage than it's worth. Just about every business and household across multiple states is paying higher energy costs, harming the economic competitiveness of numerous industries, and all for an activity that's employing relatively few on an ongoing basis, is chewing through a massive amount of power itself and with no apparent taxation windfall either. 

Looking at the cost impact on others, it's a far larger cost increase than the carbon tax was for gas users indeed for a gas-fired generator it's a larger cost than the carbon tax had on a _coal_-fired plant. No doubt there are benefits to the local area where the LNG plants are located but I'm not at all convinced there's a national benefit in this activity overall. Gas users in the affected states are paying roughly $2 billion a year in higher gas prices plus the flow-on effects where a gas-using industry ends up being uneconomic as a result. And that's without mentioning the upset farmers and others.

My personal view is that we should have come up with a national energy plan and only allowed the export of gas if we really weren't going to need it ourselves. Instead we've sold an incredible amount to the point that we've pretty much taken gas off the table as a serious option without having a plan for what we're actually going to do.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, I agree. I don't want to get political, but John Howard flushed the proceeds of the mining boom down the loo by giving it to people who didn't need it like wealthy retirees.




Rumpy, I am still waiting for your answer regarding how much money John Howard  flushed down the drain.

I thought it was the Green/Labor coalitions ideology that the minerals in the ground belong to the people of Australia and that we are entitled to some benefit and  here you are criticizing John Howard for giving some of the benefits of the mining boom to the people of Australia and yet he was still able to hand Labor the gift of $22 billion which they squandered in a matter of weeks plus a hell of a lot more to be absolutely wasted....Oh of course lest we forget the GFC .....

:topic    
Yes I know....But how much longer must I wait for your answer?


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> Rumpy, I am still waiting for your answer regarding how much money John Howard  flushed down the drain.
> 
> I thought it was the Green/Labor coalitions ideology that the minerals in the ground belong to the people of Australia and that we are entitled to some benefit and  here you are criticizing John Howard for giving some of the benefits of the mining boom to the people of Australia and yet he was still able to hand Labor the gift of $22 billion which they squandered in a matter of weeks plus a hell of a lot more to be absolutely wasted....Oh of course lest we forget the GFC .....
> 
> :topic
> Yes I know....But how much longer must I wait for your answer?




Noco, a bit of research by yourself would find the answer. Just Google "John Howard middle class welfare". Here is one to get you going.

http://www.afr.com/opinion/columnis...rds-middleclass-welfare-state-20160229-gn6c7w


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Noco, a bit of research by yourself would find the answer. Just Google "John Howard middle class welfare". Here is one to get you going.
> 
> http://www.afr.com/opinion/columnis...rds-middleclass-welfare-state-20160229-gn6c7w




Rumpy you made a rash statement that Howard had "SQUANDERED" money by giving taxpayers a cut and at the time you had no idea until I forced you find out days later....That link you posted is useless as it is for subscribers only but I was one step ahead of you and had already done my homework and the figure was $30 billion over a period of time......Howard was a good man in giving back to the tax payer some of the wealth from mining of which and your socialists mates are always advocating....We own the minerals in the ground so therefore we should share some of that wealth....RIGHT OR WRONG?

Now then how does that compare with $22 billion Rudd gave away in $900 dud cheques to every man, woman and child both living and dead here and overseas....Bingo all in one week...That was the $22 billion Howard kindly left for Labor to squander.

Next on the list is the tax cuts Paul Keating gave to the rich corporate companies 49% to 33%......Now in our modern era Turnbull wants to cut the rate again from 30% to 25% immediately for small business and larger corporate organizations in 10 years time... and BS Bill Shorten is whinging about it.......What is the word we use?...HYPOCRITES.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-29/fact-check-labor-on-corporate-tax-cuts/7549754

*And Bill Shorten?

Mr Shorten expressed enthusiasm for company tax cuts when a company tax cut was Labor policy.

In November 2010, as the minister for financial services and superannuation, he told the Australian Services Union national conference that Labor's plan for cutting the company tax rate would "keep all sectors of our economy competitive in their own global markets".

"We should never forget that we are just one option for international investors — we have to make sure we offer the most compelling value," he said.

At the same ACOSS conference in March 2011 that Bob Brown addressed, Mr Shorten argued against the Greens' proposal to spend the expected proceeds from the mining tax on a national dental care scheme or an increase to welfare payments rather than a company tax cut.

Mr Shorten said:

    "What this proposal, as well-meaning as it might seem, what it fails to recognise is that we need to encourage employment participation, not greater welfare dependency. Friends, corporate tax reform helps Australia's private sector grow and it creates jobs right up and down the income ladder."

Media player: "Space" to play, "M" to mute, "left" and "right" to seek.
Video: Bill Shorten on corporate tax cuts in 2011 (ABC News)

In August 2011, Mr Shorten told Parliament:

    "Cutting the company income tax rate increases domestic productivity and domestic investment. More capital means higher productivity and economic growth and leads to more jobs and higher wages."

Fact Check does not make a judgment on whether Mr Shorten was right then or now. But it is clear he argued that there were a number of benefits to company tax cuts, whereas now he argues any public benefits are minimal. 
*


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:
			
		

> .We own the minerals in the ground so therefore we should share some of that wealth....RIGHT OR WRONG?




Right of course, but there are various ways to give it back.

Rule 1. Don't spend windfall profits on recurrent expenditure because one day the windfall will disappear as it has now but you still have to find the money for family tax benefits etc.

INVEST windfall profits in infrastructure, power grids, NBN, railways, schools and universities that produce a return on investment.

Costello was always calling Howard a populist wastrel, and he was right.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Right of course, but there are various ways to give it back.
> 
> Rule 1. Don't spend windfall profits on recurrent expenditure because one day the windfall will disappear as it has now but you still have to find the money for family tax benefits etc.
> 
> INVEST windfall profits in infrastructure, power grids, NBN, railways, schools and universities that produce a return on investment.
> 
> Costello was always calling Howard a populist wastrel, and he was right.



\

Do tell all that to the Green/Labor socialist party because they have forgotten how......They have made so many stuff ups it is just too funny.

Don't forget Keating led us into the recession we had to have....He even talked about us becoming a "BANANA REPUBLIC" and that is where we will be if the Green/Labor coalition socialist get back into power......They will send the country broke and then introduce central control.......They already control the ABC, the banks would be next followed by mining, agriculture and manufacturing what is left after the unions destroyed it all.

Do some research and establish what John Howard did for this nation in 10 years.......You might be surprised....You are constantly opening your mouth before getting your brain into gear.

:topic


----------



## Smurf1976

Something I'll add regarding the ongoing situation in SA with a number of large industries still unable to get sufficient power, most notably the steel works at Whyalla.

Hydro Tas has 100 MW of easily transported gas turbines (set up to run on either diesel or gas) that were offered to SA immediately after the storm and blackout. Also diesel fuel tanks, fuel lines, transformers and so on to go with them also offered. Plus people to come and set them up also available. All of this is available very quickly and presently located in Tasmania.

All of this could be shipped across to Melbourne and then taken by road to SA quite easily. Everything is either trailer mounted or fits on a normal large truck so no problems there. According to a media report the RAAF have also offered to transport them by air.

Apparently SA doesn't want them and would rather just continue having industry without power until they get the lines back up to Port Augusta.

OK then.....


----------



## noco

Smurf1976 said:


> Something I'll add regarding the ongoing situation in SA with a number of large industries still unable to get sufficient power, most notably the steel works at Whyalla.
> 
> Hydro Tas has 100 MW of easily transported gas turbines (set up to run on either diesel or gas) that were offered to SA immediately after the storm and blackout. Also diesel fuel tanks, fuel lines, transformers and so on to go with them also offered. Plus people to come and set them up also available. All of this is available very quickly and presently located in Tasmania.
> 
> All of this could be shipped across to Melbourne and then taken by road to SA quite easily. Everything is either trailer mounted or fits on a normal large truck so no problems there. According to a media report the RAAF have also offered to transport them by air.
> 
> Apparently SA doesn't want them and would rather just continue having industry without power until they get the lines back up to Port Augusta.
> 
> OK then.....




What fools they are and to think the people of South Australia have to wait until March 17 2018 for the next election to have their say.


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> \
> 
> Do tell all that to the Green/Labor socialist party because they have forgotten how......They have made so many stuff ups it is just too funny.
> 
> Don't forget Keating led us into the recession we had to have....He even talked about us becoming a "BANANA REPUBLIC" and that is where we will be if the Green/Labor coalition socialist get back into power......They will send the country broke and then introduce central control.......They already control the ABC, the banks would be next followed by mining, agriculture and manufacturing what is left after the unions destroyed it all.
> 
> Do some research and establish what John Howard did for this nation in 10 years.......You might be surprised....You are constantly opening your mouth before getting your brain into gear.
> 
> :topic




It's simply pointless trying to discuss anything with you. I point out a few inconvenient facts and all you do is rant. So I'll look for the Ignore button and get some peace.

Bye.


----------



## SirRumpole

Yet another way of storing energy.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-flywheel-design/


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> Yet another way of storing energy.
> 
> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-flywheel-design/



Flywheel and compressed air are two forms of storage which were used widely when energy was dearer;
 I remember reading that the first metro lines in Paris had a geant flywheel in the driving unit to get the braking energy back and smooth the starts, in such frequent start/stop situation.
Smurf pointed recently the flywheel effect in existing generators, able to smooth short disruptions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_brake for interesting summary


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> It's simply pointless trying to discuss anything with you. I point out a few inconvenient facts and all you do is rant. So I'll look for the Ignore button and get some peace.
> 
> Bye.




Sorry Rumpy but you are a poor loser.
:jump:


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> Smurf pointed recently the flywheel effect in existing generators, able to smooth short disruptions:




Yep, the sheer physical mass of metal rotating at speed in a conventional (coal, oil, gas, hydro, nuclear, biomass) power station is a hard thing to stop and even slowing it releases a lot of energy in order to do so.

Take a grid that's sitting nicely at 50Hz (frequency - that's speed in layman's terms) where it should be (some countries use 60Hz but the same principle applies). Now take a generation source offline suddenly (something goes wrong and it stops working). Frequency will fall gradually as every other generating unit releases that stored energy into the system. Then as something else ramps up to bring it back into balance, frequency will rise slowly as energy is stored by increasing the speed of all generators in the system.

A key point there is that in an AC grid (what we have today) the frequency will be exactly the same wherever you measure it. At any power station, any sub-station or at home it will be exactly the same. If one thing slows, so does everything else since they're all locked to system frequency and that makes the grid a hard thing to suddenly stop.

It's like a fully loaded freight train. Turn the engine off or add some sudden external load (by whatever means) and it slows down only very gradually since there's a lot of energy in that moving mass of the locomotives, rolling stock and whatever it's carrying. Even a car exhibits that to some extent, it doesn't stop the moment you take your foot off the pedal and takes quite some time to simply roll to a stop on a flat road as all that stored energy is released (ultimately being lost to friction in various forms).

One way to add inertia to the grid would be to just have machines spinning without an external (steam, water etc) energy input. Power from the grid brings it up to speed then it just sits there doing basically nothing but ready to release its stored energy if something else stops generating. So that's a bit like taking an empty truck and then putting 20 tonnes of whatever on it - it now takes a lot longer to change speed than when it was empty. In the context of the grid, doing that adds stability even though it's not an energy source as such.


----------



## SirRumpole

If you (not Smurph  ) wondered how a wind turbine could produce a constant frequency when the wind speed and therefore the turbine speed was constantly changing, the answer is a Double Fed Induction Generator explained here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubly-fed_electric_machine#Double_fed_induction_generator

I believe you can also do it by converting the AC output of the wind turbine to DC and passing it through an inverter which puts out a constant frequency.


----------



## SirRumpole

Geothermal energy promising in the Latrobe Valley.

https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pgDPGNLZJV?play=true


----------



## Tisme

qldfrog said:


> Flywheel and compressed air are two forms of storage which were used widely when energy was dearer;
> I remember reading that the first metro lines in Paris had a geant flywheel in the driving unit to get the braking energy back and smooth the starts, in such frequent start/stop situation.
> Smurf pointed recently the flywheel effect in existing generators, able to smooth short disruptions:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_brake for interesting summary




Not unfamiliar with flywheels for both ride through and kinetic storage. I'm old enough to recall the big slow moving wheels with the leather belts driving pinion wheels.

Knowing that the energy is stored in the rims, and that storage varies by the square of the rpm hasn't stopped me from destroying many over machined flywheels in my modified cars LOL.

FW storage farms seem to be getting some attention too.

Of course the flywheel is useless if it can't transfer that stored energy into the power grid because the poles and conductors didn't vote Liberal Party and insist on laying down with their wires in a twist during cyclones. Apparently Greg Hunt et al childish political naivety is what greases the wheels, not engineering preventative maintenance.


----------



## sptrawler

Well it looks as though what was said on here,was fairly close, to what happened in S.A.
If this article is correct.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-...lackout-report-finds/7947478?section=analysis


----------



## qldfrog

http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-just-accidentally-discovered-a-process-that-turns-co2-directly-into-ethanol
was all over the news yesterday

if it works as explained, would be a nice way to convert extra electricity into ethanol and reuse it on peak demand/as a base load; either with ethanol cell or with significant loss  in a burner;
a new type of "battery"/power storage


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> Well it looks as though what was said on here,was fairly close, to what happened in S.A.
> If this article is correct.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-...lackout-report-finds/7947478?section=analysis





There was a very apt quip from one of the telly journoes yesterday saying that the partisan politicking is so invasive these days, no matter the honesty of truth it will suffer.


----------



## Tisme

This is probably Labor's fault:

thank goodness my backup generator is magneto spark. I just need to start stockpiling fuel

http://www.blackoutusa.org/vsl/index.php?r=562&r=5547&hop=69news


----------



## drsmith

Tisme said:


> This is probably Labor's fault:
> 
> thank goodness my backup generator is magneto spark. I just need to start stockpiling fuel
> 
> http://www.blackoutusa.org/vsl/index.php?r=562&r=5547&hop=69news



That's the last time I'll click on one of your web links.

I expected it to be something unrelated but that page takes control of web browser commands. Clicking X to close for example results in a new pop-up window asking "Do you want to leave this page" etc. Upon seeing that, I closed IE from Task Manager.


----------



## Tisme

drsmith said:


> That's the last time I'll click on one of your web links.
> 
> I expected it to be something unrelated but that page takes control of web browser commands. Clicking X to close for example results in a new pop-up window asking "Do you want to leave this page" etc. Upon seeing that, I closed IE from Task Manager.




No problem my end. I run some fairly heavy duty defensive programs, so I would suspect it was merely e.g. a java thing.


----------



## drsmith

Tisme said:


> No problem my end. I run some fairly heavy duty defensive programs, so I would suspect it was merely e.g. a java thing.



No. It was a new pop up browser trying to encourage me to explore the site after clicking X in on the top right hand corner of IE to close the page.


----------



## noco

More cover up by Jay Weatherill  to keep the true facts from the people of SA regarding power generation.

Wearthrill tried hard to stop the letter from Alinta going public.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...p/news-story/0145f400984356fefa8881e23b173de7


*The Weatherill Labor government has released a letter *detail*ing negotiations with the last coal-fired power station in South Australia, after a 16-month battle to keep it secret.

It was released only under the threat of court action and shows that, five months before announcing the closure of its Port Augusta power station, Alinta Energy wrote to the government​ seeking help to increase shareholder confidence for capital investment in the face of a deteriorating wholesale energy market.

It builds on revelations by The Australian that Alinta had *approached the government in January last year for help, with plans to expand the life of the power plant and mine to 2028.

But the government rejected its *approach and the power station closed in May, with South Austral*ians being hit with immed*iate electricity price rises of *almost 75 per cent.

Premier Jay Weatherill revealed on October 7 that he was pursuing legal avenues to block the release of the letter, which South Australian Ombudsman Wayne Lines ruled should be *released in the public interest after a Freedom of Information application by the Liberal Party more than 16 months ago.

But the government released the letter late yesterday, meeting the final deadline set by Mr Lines.

The January 22, 2015, letter from Alinta chief executive Jeff Dimery to Ener*gy Minister and Treasurer ​ ​Tom Koutsantonis said that while the company had invested more than $150 million in upgrades and maintenance of the coalmine and power station since taking ownership in March 2011, the wholesale electricity market in the state had continued to deter*iorate.*

Is it any wonder SA is paying a higher price for power  against anywhere in Australia......Queensland is heading the same way under the Palaszxzuk Green/Labor  socialist left wing coalition.


----------



## Tisme

noco said:


> More cover up .........




I'm not sure what the complaint is and what smoking gun the Murdoch Liberal Party is looking for, but if Govts holding back information from the public is a coverup, the  e.g. Newman Govt would be a lead lined box.

Every Govt withholds information, especially when the fourth estate and fifth column are intent on bringing down that govt. The public interest is always a reason/excuse, as is probity,good governance, competition, etc .


----------



## CanOz

drsmith said:


> No. It was a new pop up browser trying to encourage me to explore the site after clicking X in on the top right hand corner of IE to close the page.





Yeah, I got the same thing....ridiculous prepper site....


----------



## CanOz

Tesla announces solar tiles.....more things to wait for....

These are Tesla’s stunning new solar roof tiles for homes


----------



## SirRumpole

I don't know how people make the connection between smart meters and diconnections, but some have.

Smart meters will lead to more disconnections in SA, social advocates warn

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-...lead-to-disconnections-advocates-warn/7986516


----------



## sptrawler

CanOz said:


> Tesla announces solar tiles.....more things to wait for....
> 
> These are Tesla’s stunning new solar roof tiles for homes





Yep, and now Tesla are ramping up charges to reflect the cost of recharging a 90Kw/Hr battery.

Wow, It doesn't cost nothing to run an electric car, and what do you mean it cost to replace the batteries.

http://www.drive.com.au/motor-news/...its-supercharger-network-20161108-gskggx.html

Somebody has to pay to rapid charge a 90Kw/Hr battery, that is a lot of electricity, it would run your split system for several days.

Maybe better to cycle to work.lol

Just my opinion, but nothing is for nothing, except your own energy. All you have to do is feed it, which we seem to be doing in excess.lol


----------



## basilio

Excellent story on Carnegie Wave energy system. Fully integrated system. Cheaper than diesal and idxeal for island communities.



> Wave energy: Carnegie launches world-leading hub in Cornwall
> *
> The Australian wave energy company’s new hub is the world’s largest and most advanced for developing offshore renewable energy technology*
> CETO 5 being towed to the Garden Island site in Western Australia, where Carnegie deployed the world’s first grid-connected wave energy array.
> 
> Myles Gough
> @MylesGough
> 
> Tuesday 15 November 2016 09.40 AEDT
> 
> Carnegie Wave Energy’s offshore energy-generating infrastructure is purposefully inconspicuous. Its patented CETO buoys, which resemble large circular tanks, are tethered to an anchor in the seafloor and remain fully submerged, out of sight.
> 
> It’s a design feature that prioritises long-term survival in the ocean over efficiency in converting energy, says Michael Ottaviano, Carnegie’s managing director.
> 
> “You could have the most efficient technology, but if it dies after the first big storm then it’s worth nothing,” he says. “We never breach the surface. We can simply ride under a large wave as it comes through, and we follow the peak and the trough up and down.”
> 
> This rise and fall movement is the basis of Carnegie’s world-leading wave energy technology. The movement, in harmony with ocean swells, drives a pump attached to the tether. In its next-generation CETO 6 buoys, a system contained inside the tank will convert that pressurised fluid into clean electricity, which is carried onshore by a cable.




https://www.theguardian.com/sustain...rnegie-launches-world-leading-hub-in-cornwall


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Excellent story on Carnegie Wave energy system. Fully integrated system. Cheaper than diesal and idxeal for island communities.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/sustain...rnegie-launches-world-leading-hub-in-cornwall




It has been around for a long time, and still hasn't got traction, somebody isn't telling the whole story.IMO

It sounds a bit like Sarich orbital engine, which became orbital fuel injection, which became Sarich property developments from my memory of the morphing.
Just became a complete muddle of ideas, from my memory.


----------



## SirRumpole

Are you back yet Smurph ?

Some of us are waiting with baited breath for the inside story on Hazelwood.


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> Are you back yet Smurph ?
> 
> Some of us are waiting with baited breath for the inside story on Hazelwood.




But in the meantime, enjoy your break!!!


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> It has been around for a long time, and still hasn't got traction, somebody isn't telling the whole story.IMO
> 
> It sounds a bit like Sarich orbital engine, which became orbital fuel injection, which became Sarich property developments from my memory of the morphing.
> Just became a complete muddle of ideas, from my memory.




It's in successful operation in West Australia.  The continual development process has ironed out many engineering issues. Did you read the story ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Are you back yet Smurph ?
> 
> Some of us are waiting with baited breath for the inside story on Hazelwood.




Yep I'm back but pretty much exhausted at the moment. Long story here but in short came home to find a disaster at home - a stray cat had got inside and let's just say I was up until 2:30am the following morning cleaning things to get the place reasonable to live in. Roughly 4 hours sleep on the boat, 4 hours the next night due to all that cleaning, been catching up on sleep ever since so I haven't been online much at all.

Now for Hazelwood.

In short, it's not in good shape. There's some uncertainties since management and staff have done a pretty good job of keeping things under wraps until the closure announcement but there's a lot of problems. What I know is:

Unit 3 - has boiler problems such that it was shut down prior to the closure announcement due to being unsafe. Too many leaks and the risk of it going "boom" which could easily injure or kill someone. I'm not sure if workplace safety regulators formally ordered it shut or if it was a case of "shut it voluntarily if you want to avoid a formal order" but either way it's shut. This reality was a trigger event in the overall closure decision.

I'm told (inside info) that they're doing a patch up that should get it going for this Summer but that's only a patch up really and not a proper fix. 

Units 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 are being run but below full capacity. They have an assortment of problems including boiler tube corrosion (as with unit 3) but not to the point of being critical yet but it's not good.  

Unit 7 has been running at close to full output. That had a major rebuild about 20 years ago following catastrophic failure (major boiler damage) on start up. One consequence of that is that it does have newer parts in the boiler than the others now but I'm told that it too does have some issues of the same nature. 

So overall one unit is not running at all, six are running at around 85 - 90% capacity and one is fully operational.

They'd need to spend many $ hundreds of millions to bring the whole plant up to scratch and have decided to close instead. 

Another factor, albeit a lesser one, is that the Vic government has tripled the royalty on brown coal mining thus increasing operating costs for Hazelwood and others. Plus the owner has an ideological view which is to sell (or close) the plant anyway and to not invest further into coal-fired generation. Add that all up and there's no chance of Hazelwood staying in business unless someone with deep pockets bought it which seems unlikely in practice.

Hazelwood was privatised 20 years with an expected 40 year remaining life following major refurbishment work and that time was still being quoted in various contexts until recently. 20 years later it's in a sad state indeed.  

So what happened? Well under private ownership it was far more "efficient" than when the SEC ran it. Constant running at full output with far less staff, less maintenance, less everything. Plus various tweaks to push output up beyond the original design of the plant and keep it there, often going flat out 24/7 at above 100% of design capacity. Pretty clearly this has taken its toll on the equipment and now the inevitable has happened.

A key unanswered question is what other surprises may be on the way with unexpected power station closures?

AGL has been pretty open about Liddell not being in great shape. They plant to close it in 2022 and have this year done a patch up on the boilers to keep it going until then.

Hydro Tasmania certainly hasn't kept it quiet that the P&W gas turbines at Bell Bay aren't too good (and that was before they were run flat out 24/7 during the Basslink failure). As with AGL that information is in the public domain for anyone who wants it.

But there's a definite question as to what's no being said given that Engie (owners of Hazelwood) kept things pretty quiet until just a few months before the end. You can't build a major new power station (of whatever type be it coal, gas, nuclear, wind, solar, hydro etc) in a few months so there's a real issue if more surprises like the Hazelwood closure come up without warning. 

What are the consequences of the closure? Apart from obvious things like workers losing their jobs,

1. Hazelwood's base load energy contribution will in practice now be sourced primarily from coal-fired plant in NSW and gas-fired plant in SA with some contribution also likely from coal and gas-fired plant in Qld, gas in NSW, Vic and Tas and one particular coal-fired plant in Vic.

2. Wholesale prices will rise, indeed future contracts have already shot up in a big way. Consumers lose but just about all generators will benefit financially.

3. Spot market price volatility is likely to greatly increase at times of high demand due to the removal of Hazelwood's 1600 MW capacity. No direct impact on most small consumers, the average price is more relevant there, but it has a direct impact on some large consumers. From the generation side, Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tas are the obvious winners from increased volatility but also the various owners of gas-fired peaking plants.

4. The big one is that there is no longer adequate capacity to meet peak demand in Victoria + SA if the wind isn't blowing. 

Even if literally every coal, gas and hydro plant works perfectly (itself an optimistic assumption since generation outages are common), Basslink also works perfectly and there's maximum transmission from NSW into Vic then there's still not enough to meet peak demand if there's no wind. 

We might not get the right (or you could say "wrong") combination of temperature and wind speed in 2017-18 but at some point it will happen (has in the past) and on that day things are going to get very interesting. Even more interesting if anything breaks down on that day (and there's a good chance it will - thermal power stations are highly complex and prone to faults especially given the age of some plant in those states and considering we're talking about running flat out when it's 45 degrees).

So Morwell (Vic, 170 MW) is gone, Anglesea (Vic, 160 MW) is gone too, so is Playford B (SA, 240 MW) and Northern (SA, 540 MW) and now Hazelwood (1600 MW) is about to shut. Put all that together and power supply in those two states is an awful lot less robust than it was not too long ago.

I'll post some more in a day or two.


----------



## basilio

Welcome back Smurf ! 

What a cat story.  Segues nicely into the *cat*astrophe that is our power plants.  I have had some strong misgivings about our coal fired power stations along the lines you have described and for the reasons you run.  Basically private ownership thrashes it's assets (human and mechanical)  to death and then moves on.

Really think your analysis needs to broadened and brought to public focus as a matter of urgency. This is very big.

Thanks.


----------



## SirRumpole

Sorry about your cat problem Smurph, but thanks for the update.

The power generation situation sounds grim around the country.  I agree that someone should publicise these problems so that the pollies may be stirred into action.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> Sorry about your cat problem Smurph, but thanks for the update.
> 
> The power generation situation sounds grim around the country.  I agree that someone should publicise these problems so that the pollies may be stirred into action.




I think even the most stupid of us can predict that if you add another uncontrollable variable of cost to the consumer equation (i.e. profit) the other variables will necessarily suffer. The smarter of us know that equation is an exponential.

In most industry, fixed routine preventative maintenance has become more a paperwork function and in its place condition monitoring, borrowed from the aviation industry since the 80's, is the great do something prevaricator. We are coming to the horizon many in industry foretold 30 years ago when machinery fatigue would overcome the management blindfolds. Of course we were supposed to have moved on technically and had no use for old monolithic technology by now.


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> I think even the most stupid of us can predict that if you add another uncontrollable variable of cost to the consumer equation (i.e. profit) the other variables will necessarily suffer. The smarter of us know that equation is an exponential.
> 
> In most industry, fixed routine preventative maintenance has become more a paperwork function and in its place condition monitoring, borrowed from the aviation industry since the 80's, is the great do something prevaricator. We are coming to the horizon many in industry foretold 30 years ago when machinery fatigue would overcome the management blindfolds. Of course we were supposed to have moved on technically and had no use for old monolithic technology by now.




It's about time essential infrastructure like this goes back under state control under the auspices of engineers not accountants.


----------



## Smurf1976

All units are running again at Hazelwood, unit 3 returned to service overnight two days ago, but none of them are running to full capacity.

That doesn't change the overall situation really, it's just a short term patch up to get it going for a while longer.


----------



## Ferret

Sorry if slightly of topic, but I saw this story and felt the need to rant about our management of gas resources.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-...alia-about-to-import/8055164?section=business

Australia is soon to become the world’s largest LNG exporter, but it’s recently been reported that treasury is receiving a pittance in revenue from the ballooning LNG exports.

Unfettered capitalism has resulted in three competing LNG export facilities being constructed in Gladstone.  These are ramping up exports, but are barely profitable and may be losing money.  They are sucking up available gas to the extent that gas for domestic users is in short supply and domestic gas prices are rising sharply for industry and consumers.

And now the icing on the cake – we might have to build LNG import facilities and import gas for domestic use.
We once had an abundance of gas resources and cheap gas was giving local industry a competitive advantage and keeping household costs manageable.

Australia’s management of our gas resources is an absolute disgrace.


----------



## SirRumpole

Ferret said:


> Australia’s management of our gas resources is an absolute disgrace.




Correct, and that has been pointed out in this thread before.

Why not put an export tax on LNG exports ? The government would get revenue, and if exporting the gas was un-competitive then the producers could dump it on the local market at cheaper prices.

This government is too welded to big corporate donors to go down that route though.


----------



## Smurf1976

Ferret said:


> Sorry if slightly of topic, but I saw this story and felt the need to rant about our management of gas resources.




No argument from me on that one. Gas was probably the single biggest natural advantage we had after iron ore and coal but we've blown it big time.

Export the gas, more than doubling prices to our own industry, and neither the LNG operators nor government is making any real profit out of doing so. Meanwhile the industry's at war with farmers and others over the environmental impact of it all. It's pure madness really.

As one example of the impact, at Tamar Valley power station (Tas) we've got an extremely efficient gas-fired generating unit (the most efficient one in Australia) and with pre-LNG gas prices we could run that base load (24/7) and produce cheap electricity with emissions about 65% lower than coal-fired generation in NSW using black coal, or about 75% lower than brown coal in Victoria. And since Tas, Vic, SA, NSW, Qld are all electrically interconnected running that plant would indeed mean less generation elsewhere from more polluting sources. And we could also, of course, build more plants like this one in other states if we chose to in order to replace coal.

With today's gas prices there's simply no way that Tamar Valley or any other gas-fired plant can generate at a cost that's competitive for Australian industry. Hydro Tas plans to put it back into production in early 2017 not because it's physically needed or cheap, but simply because power prices in Vic (and other states) are forecast to be high enough to make it marginally profitable to run it (also high enough to kill Australian industry even further).

It's a similar story with the technically similar but moderately less efficient (older design but still pretty good) plant at Pelican Point (SA). It can't generate internationally competitive power at these gas prices but the owners will run it if the power price is even higher than the gas price and it's profitable to run. They've had it shut down in recent times but running it a bit lately (though not at full capacity).

What we've done with gas in Australia is a bit like finding a huge gold nugget then breaking it up and selling it as gravel to use as road base. Madness and yet we've actually done it.

On another matter, I hear there's an aviation fuel shortage at the moment with Melbourne airport running low enough that international flights are diverting via Sydney to take on fuel. That shows just how vulnerable we are with such high reliance on imports - apparently a load of imported fuel had quality problems and we simply don't have a sufficient stockpile to cope. Crazy when you consider that every other developed country, and many poorer nations, holds the recommended 90 days worth of imports in stock and we're the only developed country on earth that doesn't.


----------



## Smurf1976

The Melbourne Airport fuel crisis is another example of just about everyone being kept in the dark until just before the crisis occurs. There's a pattern starting to emerge with that approach.

Not to worry though, the Victorian government's onto it. They've written some letters and are prattling on about competition, neither of which does anything whatsoever to fix the problem (indeed competition may well make it worse if it encourages suppliers to cut costs).

http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/melbourne-airport-fuel-supply/

The real worry is it all shows just how ineffective our governments have become. Letters and economic theories as a response to an real, physical shortage of something rather important due to a lack of emergency preparedness isn't going to cut it but it's the best they can come up with (and for the record I'd be equally critical if the Vic government were of a different political persuasion but taking the same approach as they almost certainly would).


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> All units are running again at Hazelwood, unit 3 returned to service overnight two days ago




That didn't last long. Rapid (for a coal-fired plant) shut down of Hazelwood unit 3 this morning over a period of about 15 minutes. Given the recent history and relatively fast shutdown it does look somewhat ominous although I haven't confirmed what's going on.

Unit 5, which has had rather a lot of stops and starts in recent times, is also down at the moment but that looks to be planned with an orderly shutdown in the normal manner early this morning.

Main point in posting isn't about the details though. Just pointing out that the place seems to have become incredibly run down and that even though official closure is still about 18 weeks away, whatever power comes out of it between now and then isn't going to be overly reliable.


----------



## macca

Smurf1976 said:


> That didn't last long. Rapid (for a coal-fired plant) shut down of Hazelwood unit 3 this morning over a period of about 15 minutes. Given the recent history and relatively fast shutdown it does look somewhat ominous although I haven't confirmed what's going on.
> 
> Unit 5, which has had rather a lot of stops and starts in recent times, is also down at the moment but that looks to be planned with an orderly shutdown in the normal manner early this morning.
> 
> Main point in posting isn't about the details though. Just pointing out that the place seems to have become incredibly run down and that even though official closure is still about 18 weeks away, whatever power comes out of it between now and then isn't going to be overly reliable.




I guess the first test will be the next heat wave in SA and Vic, hopefully those that Must have power for medical reasons are well prepared.


----------



## Tink

Agree, macca.

Victoria has had tragedy with these two culprits before.

We haven't forgotten.


----------



## SirRumpole

Integrating renewable energy into the national grid, a good discussion.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational...ergy-and-the-national-grid/7987134#transcript


----------



## Tisme

Tink said:


> Agree, macca.
> 
> Victoria has had tragedy with these two culprits before.
> 
> We haven't forgotten.




Tink what has actually driven the problems with power down there?

I'm guessing it's mix of things, but people love to just focus on one or two things, perhaps wrongly.

For example is suitable coal supply a problem, is profit motive in privatisation a reason for breakdowns, is it really renewable industry versus polluting, politics for votes, was it inevitable under any party regime, etc.


----------



## drsmith

More electricity problems for South Australia,



> About 200,000 South Australian homes and businesses lost power overnight due to an outage affecting the interconnector from Victoria.
> 
> Just after 1:00am, a problem with the Victorian transmission network during scheduled maintenance cut the electricity supply from the Heywood interconnector, leaving South Australia to manage on its own.
> 
> Authorities said load shedding was needed to balance the network and about 220 megawatts of supply was lost.
> 
> Power was restored for SA properties before 2:30am and the South Australian network reconnected to the national grid just after 5:00am.
> 
> Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said Victorian authorities would investigate what went wrong during the maintenance work.




http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-...night-victorian-interconnector-blamed/8082108


----------



## Smurf1976

I'll post some detailed comments in response to recent posts and issues soonish. Just ridiculously busy at the moment - life, work, everything really.

Hazelwood Unit 3, the one which has had the most problems, has come back online this evening (still ramping up at the moment). Let's see how long it lasts this time.....

PS - Even the AEMO "official" data now shows that there's a crisis on the way in Vic and SA in the 2017-18 Summer. And that tends to be a tad optimistic this far out since any short term problem can't be factored in and zero allowance is made for anything that comes up. 

More info "soon" (week or so with a bit of luck).


----------



## qldfrog

with a heat wave expected to "heat" us ( ) this week end, this could be the trigger for a massive blackout.What do you think?


----------



## SirRumpole

Should Australia be burning rubbish for electricity?



> There are some who believe Australia should be burning its residential and industrial waste for electricity rather than sending it to landfill.
> 
> Others, however, maintain that we should be concentrating on reducing the amount of refuse we create rather than burning it.
> 
> Waste-to-energy technology is used across the world, with countries including Japan, China and Finland burning rubbish to generate electricity.
> 
> The World Bioenergy Association's Andrew Lang said that, by contrast, Melbourne's waste was piling up in a "mountain" at Ravenhall in the city's west.
> 
> "All of that material could be producing, for Victoria, probably 500 megawatts of electricity if it was done with the efficient, best-practice systems," he told 774 ABC Melbourne's Jon Faine.
> 
> It comes as a Senate committee this week recommended the Federal Government adopt a national plan to manage the retirement of coal-fired power stations.
> 
> Planning Panels Victoria is due to report to the Minister for Planning in January regarding a proposal to expand the Ravenhall landfill.
> Europe leading the way, says proponent
> 
> Mr Lang said there were more than 480 plants across Europe generating electricity by burning combustible, non-recyclable residential and industrial waste.
> 
> Countries including Germany, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands had invested heavily in the technology, he said.
> 
> He said Australian states such as Victoria could follow Europe's lead.
> 
> "Victoria is about the population of Denmark, and Denmark is putting 3.5 million tonnes of this sort of material into its waste-to-energy plants."
> 
> He said 20 per cent of central Copenhagen's electricity was generated from the waste of local residents, industries and commerce.
> Emissions 'comparable' with natural gas
> 
> Mr Lang said he visited a waste-to-energy plant in Finland that processed 320,000 tonnes of rubbish from Helsinki's 1.5 million people.
> 
> "They've used that to replace natural gas coming out of Russia," he said.
> 
> He said the Helsinki plant was using state-of-the-art technology to filter its emissions.
> 
> "The emissions out of the stack were comparable to a gas-fired plant."
> Waste-to-energy 'not the most sustainable option'
> 
> But sustainability advocate Joost Bakker said waste-to-energy plants were not the "easy fix" that many people thought they were.
> 
> He told 774 ABC Melbourne's Clare Bowditch that reducing the amount of packaging society consumes would have greater environmental benefits than burning rubbish.
> 
> "My point is we don't need to generate [the waste] in the first place."
> 
> During a recent trip to the Netherlands he said he learned there were moves to reduce the amount of rubbish sent to the country's waste-to-energy plants.
> 
> "Holland has started to realise that [burning rubbish] is not the most sustainable option," he said.
> 
> He said individuals could reduce the amount of rubbish they produced by buying food in bulk and avoiding disposable containers.
> 
> "It's also a mindset and a cultural change from us," he said.
> 
> "I think our children will say 'look at mum and dad, walking around with these stupid takeaway coffee cups, on their phones ”” we're not going to do that, we're going to do it differently'."
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-01/should-australia-be-burning-rubbish-for-electricity/8082768


----------



## explod

> In recent years, Chile has invested so much in its solar power industry that the country is now generating more electricity from the sun than it knows what to do with. A new report reveals that spot prices on solar electricity dropped to zero for 113 days of the year through April, and many more days of free solar power are expected to come. Taking advantage of free solar power is a huge benefit for residents, but analysts are concerned about how this will impact the market, since investors and owners of solar power plants may lose money.




http://inhabitat.com/chile-is-generating-so-much-solar-energy-that-its-giving-it-away-for-free/

The installation of solar panels is increasingly noticeable here at Bendigo.


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> with a heat wave expected to "heat" us ( ) this week end, this could be the trigger for a massive blackout.What do you think?




In practice that's unlikely.

The most likely triggers are:

A simultaneous heatwave in Vic and SA combined with low wind speeds. If that happens then blackouts are _very_ likely one Hazelwood shuts. Virtually certain if we're talking about serious heat (say, 45 degrees) and it happens on a working weekday.

A major cold spell in Winter won't directly lead to blackouts on account of generating capacity but is a plausible trigger for a shortfall in gas supply which in turn disables a substantial amount of gas-fired power generation which then puts the lights out. The issue there is that with the demise of Hazelwood, Northern and others there's an increased reliance on gas which brings the problem.

On a state by state basis, Vic and SA are the places with trouble in the near future. 

The load shedding in SA this week has been pretty well reported in the media but there's a far bigger problem related to that which I suspect may well end up being the "tipping point" for action.

In short, a 5 hour loss of supply to Alcoa in Victoria this week has lead to aluminium solidifying in the one of pot lines (and there's about 200 pots in that line to my understanding). In short, that's pretty much as bad as it gets when it comes to smelters and we're talking tens if not hundreds of $ millions in lost production and damage here.

The basic issue is that once the metal goes cold, there's no practical way to melt it again in the pots. You can't conduct electricity via anode blocks into metal when there's an impenetrable layer of non-conductive material frozen solid on top of it. Solution = jack hammer it all out and we're talking months of work and hundreds of tonnes of metal here, it's not something that can easily be done.

What happens now is hard to predict other than saying I strongly expect it's going to get nasty at the legal and political level. As with all privately owned utilities and essential services, taxpayers always underwrite risk in practice if nobody else pays up.


----------



## Tisme

Smurf1976 said:


> ..............
> In short, a 5 hour loss of supply to Alcoa in Victoria this week has lead to aluminium solidifying in the one of pot lines (and there's about 200 pots in that line to my understanding). In short, that's pretty much as bad as it gets when it comes to smelters and we're talking tens if not hundreds of $ millions in lost production and damage here.




So Ausnet took down one of two 500km supplies from Latrobe Valley to Alcoa for maintenance and the other failed. It was the first time power loss in 30 years. Alcoa's long running, publicly subsidised power deal with SECV ran out Oct31 and a new deal with AGL Loy Yang coal fired in negotiation with Alcoa wanting continued subsidies from beligerant Vic govt.

Alcoa are running at 50% because the solidified pots in one of its two pot lines.

Smurf, did Alcoa to put one of its two lines in standby when one of the two power supply lines is knowingly scheduled out of action and is one of the supply lines redundant?


----------



## CanOz

Utterly amazing.....I'd heard a whisper about that Alcoa thing but I'd no idea the scale of that stuff up....monumental.


----------



## orr

Tisme said:


> Alcoa are running at 50% ....




Anybody here privy to the price Alcoa pays for the electricity used in the smelter in question???


----------



## Smurf1976

Yes, it looks thus far to be easily the biggest energy-related disaster in Australia since the Longford gas plant explosion in 1998 which left Vic with virtually no gas supply for two weeks. 

There are two circuits (transmission lines) supplying Alcoa from the Victorian grid and despite ongoing rumors to the contrary they're pretty efficient (minimal losses) due to operating at 500,000 Volts (high voltage = low current = not much loss, basic electrical engineering principles there).

Both lines individually have sufficient capacity to supply the smelter at full power. So having two lines is a case of redundancy being built-in to the design of the network.

The transmission line was originally built to supply the smelter but later a rather long extension was added to connect SA to the Vic / NSW system (interconnected since the Snowy scheme was built) which entered service in 1990.

I don't have the full details of what went wrong but it shouldn't have happened. Transmission outages for maintenance are necessary from time to time but here in Tas if we were doing something like that with the potential consequences if another line failed then we'd ensure a "return to service" time for the line undergoing maintenance was short enough to avoid a situation where any sort of disaster actually occurs. That means breaking the work into sections such that whatever is being done at any one time can quickly be either finished or put back to it's original condition and the line turned back on. Adds to costs, since that approach tends to reduce labour efficiency, but it's a necessary approach certainly.

Another approach would have been backup from the opposite direction (SA). SA did have sufficient generating capacity available at the time to do that but in short it wasn't running (simply turned off). Hence 20% of SA was blacked out when the fault occurred, that is 20% of SA was being powered via the same line as the smelter, so there was no chance that SA was going to send power back the other way and keep the smelter going. The generating capacity exists but a thermal plant isn't like a hydro plant, you can't just go from a standstill to full output "just like that" and it takes time. It would have needed to be already up to temperature and running to be able to ramp up reasonably quickly.

So far as stopping and starting aluminium smelters is concerned, in short it's a major drama. Bell Bay Aluminium (Tas) took part of their plant out of operation in the mid-1990's for purely economic reasons (couldn't sell all the metal they were producing) and that shutting down took quite a few weeks from memory. They actually shut down half of two potlines (there's 3 in total) rather than completely shutting one on the basis that it would be easier to re-start a line that was already half running. The re-starting also took quite a while (weeks) once they had buyers for the product.

More recently Bell Bay did volunteer to reduce power consumption during the Basslink failure and Tas power supply problems last Summer but were keen to not actually take anything out of service. So they kept everything running, just put less power through and in layman's terms slowed down the whole operation. Power use at the site dropped around 10% with any additional reduction requiring things to actually be taken out of service which they were keen to avoid (and that was avoided, the load reduction being voluntary - not one customer was actually forced to reduce consumption during the problems earlier this year, but if someone was willing to then Hydro was obviously happy to have them do so).

As anyone with a background in safety will be well aware, minor incidents and near-misses need to be taken seriously because they're a warning that things aren't right and that sooner or later you'll have a major incident if nothing is done to change the situation.

Thus far in 2016 with energy we've had the SA system black, other incidents of widespread load shedding in SA, an aviation fuel crisis at Melbourne Airport and now we've done damage (at best, could be bad enough to be literally a write off in the worst case) to a major metal smelting plant in Victoria.

We're now starting to see the sort of things that engineers, tradies and others with relevant knowledge have been worried about for years. We're neglecting to invest in physical infrastructure and we're neglecting the skills required to avoid things going wrong in the first place and to respond quickly when mishaps do occur. 

Something's seriously wrong when someone's running a power station (wind farm in SA in this case, but that's a power station of a sort) and doesn't even know about protection and control settings, what they do and how they should be set. 

If we continue down this track then it's only a matter of time until something truly major goes wrong.


----------



## Tink

Thanks, Smurf, for keeping us updated in this thread.

I mentioned about Alcoa in another thread, Tisme -

_Electricity: price and reliability of supply_
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/f...t=23807&page=2&p=923756&viewfull=1#post923756


----------



## Tisme

Tink said:


> Thanks, Smurf, for keeping us updated in this thread.
> 
> I mentioned about Alcoa in another thread, Tisme -
> 
> _Electricity: price and reliability of supply_
> https://www.aussiestockforums.com/f...t=23807&page=2&p=923756&viewfull=1#post923756




Thanks Tink. 

Whilst I was an integral bit player in the Muja Power Station  and Callide  I really haven't bothered keeping up with coal powered generation.  

Coal fired generation is a dirty business and you (euphemism) take on a smell the longer you are around it. You know your lungs are in danger, it's uber noisy, the whole coal handling system is a rattle and hum and it's not rocket science, being essentially a 150 year old innovation iterated by Werner Siemans, Charles Parsons and Tesla. If it was a locomotive it would be hauling overcrowded rail cars in India.

Having bagged it out, I guess I should also consider that we drive cars that are equally as inefficient as coal fired generators.


----------



## SirRumpole

I'd be interested to hear Smurf's thoughts on this

Basslink: Power bill questions as Hydro Tasmania mulls buyout, regulation options for underseacable

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-07/hydro-tasmania-mulls-takeover-of-basslink/8100378


----------



## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> Thanks Tink.
> 
> Whilst I was an integral bit player in the Muja Power Station  and Callide  I really haven't bothered keeping up with coal powered generation.
> 
> Coal fired generation is a dirty business and you (euphemism) take on a smell the longer you are around it. You know your lungs are in danger, it's uber noisy, the whole coal handling system is a rattle and hum and it's not rocket science, being essentially a 150 year old innovation iterated by Werner Siemans, Charles Parsons and Tesla. If it was a locomotive it would be hauling overcrowded rail cars in India.
> 
> Having bagged it out, I guess I should also consider that we drive cars that are equally as inefficient as coal fired generators.




So what was the area of coal generation, you had a bit play in? It may give some weight to your area of expertise and credibility to your posts. 

Why would Alcoa shut down one of its production trains, when a feeder line is shut down?
One would assume both feeders are capable of supplying full plant capacity.
Alcoa would not reduce output, when it is paying for reliable supply, why would they?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I'd be interested to hear Smurf's thoughts on this




It's a complex problem but at this stage what's being done is pretty simple. 

Basslink is privately owned an unlike most transmission is unregulated. That means that costs are recovered by what the customer (in practice that's Hydro Tas) is paying for the use of it and are not simply passed directly to consumers as is done with a regulated network asset. There's some complexity in those arrangements but that's it at a basic concept level. 

As an analogy it could be compared to a toll road (unregulated) versus every other road that is funded via taxation. If you're the one paying a lot of $ for the toll road then you'd certainly benefit if you could find a way to get all motorists to share the cost. 

Hydro's relationship with Basslink is, to be polite, "strained" (to put it mildly) and so Hydro has decided to look at the options. Seek to have it regulated? Buy it outright? Renegotiate the contract? Or is it best to just carry on business as usual?

Since this is a financial issue rather than a technical one, Basslink will transmit power exactly the same regardless of who owns it, Hydro has brought in external consultants to provide advice on the best way forward. In the meantime it's business as usual.

The recent six month outage of Basslink (itself a contract breach) added to the relationship strain but it's no secret that things weren't great well before that. With that saga having cost Hydro $140 million and the reality that Victoria is about to become critically reliant on supply from Tasmania during demand peaks, now is an obvious time to have a look and see if there's an option to pass some of the cost on to Victorian consumers (regulate the link) or what else could be done.

At a broader state political level, it's a case of Victoria being about to _need_ it but at present Tasmania foots 100% of the bill. Historically that wasn't the case, Victoria didn't really _need_ it as such, it was just a case of Hydro Tas being in the national market for commercial reasons and for physical supply to Tasmania. But now that Victoria actually needs it, rather desperately so, well there's a logic that says Victorian power consumers could cough up some $. 

A counter argument is that when Vic actually needs the power and has no alternative, well Hydro sure isn't going to be giving it away. But then it could be said that AGL or Origin won't be giving it away either, hell no they won't, and they are using regulated networks for which they don't directly pay the cost.

Not directly related to Basslink but something to note is that with the closure of Hazelwood being imminent, we're about to be in a situation where in the context of supply to Vic and SA on high demand days we'll have AGL, Origin, Engie, Energy Australia and others each having a "can't do without us" market position. Needless to say I don't think anyone's expecting prices to drop.


----------



## sptrawler

I guess Tasmania, could be self sufficient with hydro and fossil fuel backup, if it wasn't exporting to the mainland?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Why would Alcoa shut down one of its production trains, when a feeder line is shut down? One would assume both feeders are capable of supplying full plant capacity.




2 x 500kV lines involved and they're major bulk transmission between Vic and SA (lower voltage on the SA side so some transformers involved) with Alcoa basically tapped off that interconnect.

That's a simplification but basically how it is. Lines first built to supply the smelter, then just a few years later extended to link into SA's grid.

One line in Vic was out for planned maintenance and then the other one failed. End result was a total loss of power to Alcoa which after a few hours lead to the aluminium solidifying - and that's about as big a disaster you can have at an aluminium smelter short of someone dropping a few bombs or a sinkhole swallowing the place. 

Once the metal goes cold it ends up with an electrically insulating layer over the top and no way of conducting electricity into the pots to heat them up again and melt the metal. Solution = jackhammers at best, demolish the potline at worst. Seriously big $ there in either case.

Both lines individually have sufficient capacity to supply Alcoa in full.

As for shutting down, that's the crux of it because it takes rather a long time to shut production at a plant like that in an orderly manner. By the time the power's off it's way too late and then it's just case of either get it back on in time or suffer the damage that has occurred.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I guess Tasmania, could be self sufficient with hydro and fossil fuel backup, if it wasn't exporting to the mainland?




Technically straightforward, we ran a reliable grid without being connected to anywhere else for 90 years after all so it's a question of economics and politics.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> 2 x 500kV lines involved and they're major bulk transmission between Vic and SA (lower voltage on the SA side so some transformers involved) with Alcoa basically tapped off that interconnect.
> 
> That's a simplification but basically how it is. Lines first built to supply the smelter, then just a few years later extended to link into SA's grid.
> 
> One line in Vic was out for planned maintenance and then the other one failed. End result was a total loss of power to Alcoa which after a few hours lead to the aluminium solidifying - and that's about as big a disaster you can have at an aluminium smelter short of someone dropping a few bombs or a sinkhole swallowing the place.
> 
> Once the metal goes cold it ends up with an electrically insulating layer over the top and no way of conducting electricity into the pots to heat them up again and melt the metal. Solution = jackhammers at best, demolish the potline at worst. Seriously big $ there in either case.
> 
> Both lines individually have sufficient capacity to supply Alcoa in full.
> 
> As for shutting down, that's the crux of it because it takes rather a long time to shut production at a plant like that in an orderly manner. By the time the power's off it's way too late and then it's just case of either get it back on in time or suffer the damage that has occurred.




I was a shift electrician in a blast furnace, in the mid 70's, same issue you kept it running or someone was called in to get it running.
The point I was trying to  make was, someone indicated Alcoa should have backed off production, when a feeder line was out for maintenance.
That IMO was a dumb statement, as it defeats the purpose of dual redundancy.


----------



## sptrawler

Anyway back to batteries, the stumbling block of mankind. IMO

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-08/vanadium-battery-solar-energy-storage/8094376

One statement from the article below.

"A commercial lithium-ion battery might have a life of between five to eight years, [whereas] you're looking at a vanadium flow battery that might have a life of about 20 years," he said.

"It is able to run and cycle far more frequently without any damage to that cell over a long time.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Anyway back to batteries, the stumbling block of mankind. IMO
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-08/vanadium-battery-solar-energy-storage/8094376
> 
> One statement from the article below.
> 
> "A commercial lithium-ion battery might have a life of between five to eight years, [whereas] you're looking at a vanadium flow battery that might have a life of about 20 years," he said.
> 
> "It is able to run and cycle far more frequently without any damage to that cell over a long time.




So , who are the vanadium miners ?



> Geoscience Australia data indicates that Australia has the world's fourth largest vanadium resource.
> As of Jan 2011 Australian ASX listed companies have ~ 11.4 million tons of vanadium metal equal to 42.25 million tons of V2O5 according to figures collated by Australian Shares.com
> 
> http://www.australian-shares.com/vanadium-australia.html


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> So , who are the vanadium miners ?




Yes and no doubt we will give the vanadium away, same as all our other minerals.


----------



## nioka

Smurf1976 said:


> Technically straightforward, we ran a reliable grid without being connected to anywhere else for 90 years after all so it's a question of economics and politics.




 As I understand it, this came to an end when the "save the Franklin" movement stopped further hydro storage and the deal involved taking (expensive) power from the mainland. Big brother politics ?


----------



## Smurf1976

nioka said:


> As I understand it, this came to an end when the "save the Franklin" movement stopped further hydro storage and the deal involved taking (expensive) power from the mainland. Big brother politics ?




In short the community / politics decided that hydro was off the agenda not just with the Franklin but also at literally every other possible site of any significance (in terms of power output). In some cases the conservation boundaries were drawn just few metres upstream of viable dam sites to ensure that outcome. 

No interest in reigniting that debate here. It was done to death a third of a century ago and has simmered beneath the surface ever since. All I'll say on that is that Hydro itself is no longer in the dam building business, the entire construction workforce and infrastructure is all gone years ago. 

Meanwhile the Greens themselves did actually use the slogan "clean green Hydro" for political purposes, a point that didn't go unnoticed by many. 

Talk to most involved from back then and they'll tell you the same thing - regardless of which side they were on at the time, they see both sides now. It's shades of grey not black and white. As someone who goes bushwalking, and yes I've been in the SW, I share that view. 

From a practical perspective, with hydro off the agenda and demand exceeding capacity it was a case of looking to alternatives. Most, including conservationists, assumed that would mean a coal-fired power station in Tasmania but in practice Basslink and gas were cheaper options so that's what was done. Basslink always was intended to be a net importer despite exporting to Vic during the peaks.

That said, from a technical perspective it's certainly possible to run an isolated grid in any Australian state. The only reasons not to do so are political or economic but technically it's very doable. Tasmania was separate until 2006, SA was separate until 1990 and WA and NT are both still not connected to anywhere else today.

Anyway, for anyone in Tas who finds themselves needing something to do over Summer we've come up with a nice new touring route via the original Great Lake power scheme. This won't be officially launched until next year but the road signs are up and here's a link to the brochure:

http://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/www.hydro.com.au/Highlands_Power_Trail/HPT_Brochure_WEB.pdf


----------



## SirRumpole

Power grid in need of multi-billion-dollar upgrade to safeguard future energy supply, report finds


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-...-multi-billion-dollar-upgrade:-report/8111468


----------



## drsmith

It was only a few short years ago that the public debate was about having gold plated it.


----------



## SirRumpole

drsmith said:


> It was only a few short years ago that the public debate was about having gold plated it.




I think the "gold plating" was the poles and wires, ie the distribution network, not the generators.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I think the "gold plating" was the poles and wires, ie the distribution network, not the generators.




A lot of money was spent on distribution ("poles and wires") but so far as generation is concerned, we're getting pretty close to a crisis point as old power stations wear out and close, not being replaced with new firm (non-intermittent) capacity of whatever type.

With the exception of Tasmania, every other state is set to see substantial chunks of their generating capacity closed within the next few years in the absence of serious $ investment in refurbishment which, given the political uncertainty, few if any would be willing to undertake.

It's a bit like taking rivets out of an aircraft really. Take one out and nothing happens. Take another out and sill it seems OK. But each one you take out weakens it and at some point you've got bits of wreckage strewn everywhere and it's headline news. That's pretty much where we're heading with power generation. 

That we've got some better networks than we previously had doesn't help if there's nothing to put into them in the first place. 

Hazelwood (Vic) is 52 years old and in its final months of operation now. There goes 1600 MW.

Yallourn W (Vic) units 1 & 2 are 43 years old and the clock is ticking. Another 700 MW between them. Units 3 & 4 are newer but still not young (35 years old now).

Liddell (NSW) is 45 years old and AGL have done some "patch up" work to keep it going until closure in 2022. There goes another 2000 MW.

Gladstone (Qld) isn't exactly new either (40 years old now). What condition it's in is pretty much unknown to anyone other than the owners and those who work there but at that age it's unlikely to be in great shape. Capacity is 1680 MW.

Torrens Island A (SA) is 49 years old and was going to be closed next year until AGL changed their mind. As with Gladstone, only those directly involved really know the details but it's unlikely to be in great shape given its age and long history of cyclic operation which adds stresses. Capacity is 480 MW.

In addition to that we've seen Morwell (Vic, 190 MW), Anglesea (Vic, 160 MW), Northern (SA, 540 MW), Playford B (SA, 240 MW), Redbank (NSW, 150 MW), Wallerawang (NSW, 1000 MW), Munmorah (NSW, 600 MW at the time of closure but 1400 MW in its' heyday), Swanbank B (Qld, 480 MW) and Collinsville (Qld, 180 MW) all permanently closed in recent years.

The above are all coal-fired plants with the exception of Torrens Island which is gas (also has the capability to fire oil). 

I've left WA and NT out since they're separate grids. Also left Bell Bay in Tas (closed 2009, oil-fired until 2003 then gas) off the list since it was actually replaced with the new Tamar Valley station (gas although part of it can fire oil as backup fuel if needed) at the same site. 

It's not impossible to refurbish old plant but anything involving high temperature and pressure (and that's exactly what's involved in a coal or gas power station) will suffer degradation over time and a point comes where the cost of refurbishing is huge. WA learned this the hard way when they spent a fortune trying to get Muja A&B (coal, 240MW across 4 units) back up and running. Ended with a huge cost and an explosion. That plus they only ever did get half the plant working (and even then its lifespan is limited) and have given up on the rest.

With hydro plant you can keep it running pretty much forever. Just replace the bits which wear out and that's it really. Hence Tarraleah (Tas, hydro, in operation since 1938) is running flat out at full base load capacity right now and Lake Margaret (Tas, hydro, in operation since 1914) is also fully operational and running base load. Neither are worn out yet although certainly some bits and pieces have been replaced over the years.

That said, hydro is the dominant power source only in Tasmania and in other states runs a distant second in NSW and Vic, is a minor source in Qld, and is trivial in SA and WA (and literally zero in NT) so we're not about to run the whole country with water anytime soon. 

With thermal (coal, gas, oil) plant the fundamental problem is that the bits you need to replace are pretty much everything and doing that is a bit like building a car from spare parts - totally uneconomic.

Overall, the transmission network we've got today is still largely the same one which the former state electricity authorities built decades ago. Much the same with generation in NSW, Vic and SA - the major power stations we have today were built by government decades ago and many are now past or at least rapidly approaching their intended lifespan and we're not doing much in terms of replacement.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I think the "gold plating" was the poles and wires, ie the distribution network, not the generators.




Which is exactly what doc, was saying


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> A lot of money was spent on distribution ("poles and wires") but so far as generation is concerned, we're getting pretty close to a crisis point as old power stations wear out and close, not being replaced with new firm (non-intermittent) capacity of whatever type.
> 
> With the exception of Tasmania, every other state is set to see substantial chunks of their generating capacity closed within the next few years in the absence of serious $ investment in refurbishment which, given the political uncertainty, few if any would be willing to undertake.
> 
> It's a bit like taking rivets out of an aircraft really. Take one out and nothing happens. Take another out and sill it seems OK. But each one you take out weakens it and at some point you've got bits of wreckage strewn everywhere and it's headline news. That's pretty much where we're heading with power generation.
> 
> That we've got some better networks than we previously had doesn't help if there's nothing to put into them in the first place.
> 
> Hazelwood (Vic) is 52 years old and in its final months of operation now. There goes 1600 MW.
> 
> Yallourn W (Vic) units 1 & 2 are 43 years old and the clock is ticking. Another 700 MW between them. Units 3 & 4 are newer but still not young (35 years old now).
> 
> Liddell (NSW) is 45 years old and AGL have done some "patch up" work to keep it going until closure in 2022. There goes another 2000 MW.
> 
> Gladstone (Qld) isn't exactly new either (40 years old now). What condition it's in is pretty much unknown to anyone other than the owners and those who work there but at that age it's unlikely to be in great shape. Capacity is 1680 MW.
> 
> Torrens Island A (SA) is 49 years old and was going to be closed next year until AGL changed their mind. As with Gladstone, only those directly involved really know the details but it's unlikely to be in great shape given its age and long history of cyclic operation which adds stresses. Capacity is 480 MW.
> 
> In addition to that we've seen Morwell (Vic, 190 MW), Anglesea (Vic, 160 MW), Northern (SA, 540 MW), Playford B (SA, 240 MW), Redbank (NSW, 150 MW), Wallerawang (NSW, 1000 MW), Munmorah (NSW, 600 MW at the time of closure but 1400 MW in its' heyday), Swanbank B (Qld, 480 MW) and Collinsville (Qld, 180 MW) all permanently closed in recent years.
> 
> The above are all coal-fired plants with the exception of Torrens Island which is gas (also has the capability to fire oil).
> 
> I've left WA and NT out since they're separate grids. Also left Bell Bay in Tas (closed 2009, oil-fired until 2003 then gas) off the list since it was actually replaced with the new Tamar Valley station (gas although part of it can fire oil as backup fuel if needed) at the same site.
> 
> It's not impossible to refurbish old plant but anything involving high temperature and pressure (and that's exactly what's involved in a coal or gas power station) will suffer degradation over time and a point comes where the cost of refurbishing is huge. WA learned this the hard way when they spent a fortune trying to get Muja A&B (coal, 240MW across 4 units) back up and running. Ended with a huge cost and an explosion. That plus they only ever did get half the plant working (and even then its lifespan is limited) and have given up on the rest.
> 
> With hydro plant you can keep it running pretty much forever. Just replace the bits which wear out and that's it really. Hence Tarraleah (Tas, hydro, in operation since 1938) is running flat out at full base load capacity right now and Lake Margaret (Tas, hydro, in operation since 1914) is also fully operational and running base load. Neither are worn out yet although certainly some bits and pieces have been replaced over the years.
> 
> That said, hydro is the dominant power source only in Tasmania and in other states runs a distant second in NSW and Vic, is a minor source in Qld, and is trivial in SA and WA (and literally zero in NT) so we're not about to run the whole country with water anytime soon.
> 
> With thermal (coal, gas, oil) plant the fundamental problem is that the bits you need to replace are pretty much everything and doing that is a bit like building a car from spare parts - totally uneconomic.
> 
> Overall, the transmission network we've got today is still largely the same one which the former state electricity authorities built decades ago. Much the same with generation in NSW, Vic and SA - the major power stations we have today were built by government decades ago and many are now past or at least rapidly approaching their intended lifespan and we're not doing much in terms of replacement.




Smurph,let's be honest it is a mess and it isn't going to get better until the politics get out of it.

The Government needs to sit back and let the electrical system engineers, work out the difference between the wish list, and the realities.

Currently we have politicians saying what they want, while knowing sod all about the realities of supplying it.

Politicians need to shut up, sit back and listen to people who understand the subject matter.

The same applies to media journalists, social media has given them the forum, to expose their beliefs while lacking any real knowledge.

Is there any wonder, that the silent majority are fed up.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Smurph,let's be honest it is a mess and it isn't going to get better until the politics get out of it.
> 
> The Government needs to sit back and let the electrical system engineers, work out the difference between the wish list, and the realities.
> 
> Currently we have politicians saying what they want, while knowing sod all about the realities of supplying it.
> 
> Politicians need to shut up, sit back and listen to people who understand the subject matter.
> 
> The same applies to media journalists, social media has given them the forum, to expose their beliefs while lacking any real knowledge.
> 
> Is there any wonder, that the silent majority are fed up.




Actually I'm happy that W.A is a segregated grid, the last thing I would want, is to be tied to the Eastern States mess.


----------



## explod

Las vegas now powered by 100% renewables.


----------



## sptrawler

explod said:


> Las vegas now powered by 100% renewables.




How much is hydro from Hoover Dam? and how much is solar, wind?

You should apply for a job with Fairfax, another great headline without much substance.

Las Vegas could have been 100% renewable in the 1930's, if they had bought all their electricity, from the hydro station at Hoover dam.

From my understanding, Hoover dam hydro output is around 2,000MW, that is a really big hydro station.lol

The Cresent Dunes solar plant output is about 110MW, with 10 hours storage, WOW, that is going to keep the lights on.lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project

But it was a great headline.

The problem is the uneducated read this dribble and think, free electricity is just around the corner, as usual they're being sold a bunny.lol


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> From my understanding, Hoover dam hydro output is around 2,000MW, that is a really big hydro station.




Putting it into perspective:

Hoover Dam = 2080 MW peak capacity. Long term average production 4.2 billion kilowatt-hours (or 4200 GWh) per year.

Snowy Hydro (total scheme) = 4100 MW peak capacity with the largest power station being Tumut 3 (1800 MW). Long term average production 4.5 billion kilowatt-hours (4500 GWh) per year.

Hydro Tasmania (total of 30 hydro power stations) = 2300 MW peak capacity with the largest power station being Gordon (432 MW). Long term average production 10.2 billion kilowatt-hours (10,200 GWh) per year (though Hydro uses a figure of 8.7 billion kWh (8700 GWh) for planning purposes to minimise risk in view of climate change).

There's a big difference in the way these three systems operate:

Hoover Dam - water supply is the primary objective with regular but not constant power generation in order to release water. 

Snowy - peak power generation and diversion of water into different catchments for irrigation. Some days it runs a lot, some days it does basically nothing. 

Hydro Tas - base load generation (24/7/365) is the primary purpose with additional production for peak loads as required. Any other use of the water is merely a sideline (vast majority is not used for anything else and ends up in the ocean after it goes through the power stations).


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Putting it into perspective:
> 
> Hoover Dam = 2080 MW peak capacity. Long term average production 4.2 billion kilowatt-hours (or 4200 GWh) per year.
> 
> Snowy Hydro (total scheme) = 4100 MW peak capacity with the largest power station being Tumut 3 (1800 MW). Long term average production 4.5 billion kilowatt-hours (4500 GWh) per year.
> 
> Hydro Tasmania (total of 30 hydro power stations) = 2300 MW peak capacity with the largest power station being Gordon (432 MW). Long term average production 10.2 billion kilowatt-hours (10,200 GWh) per year (though Hydro uses a figure of 8.7 billion kWh (8700 GWh) for planning purposes to minimise risk in view of climate change).
> 
> There's a big difference in the way these three systems operate:
> 
> Hoover Dam - water supply is the primary objective with regular but not constant power generation in order to release water.
> 
> Snowy - peak power generation and diversion of water into different catchments for irrigation. Some days it runs a lot, some days it does basically nothing.
> 
> Hydro Tas - base load generation (24/7/365) is the primary purpose with additional production for peak loads as required. Any other use of the water is merely a sideline (vast majority is not used for anything else and ends up in the ocean after it goes through the power stations).




On the subject of Tasmania hydro, how did the storage situation end up?


----------



## sptrawler

explod said:


> Las vegas now powered by 100% renewables.




On a positive note, it is great that solar storage is being developed and the U.S certainly seem to be taking it in board.
I wonder how they keep the solar reflectors clean, there appears to be a lot of them.


----------



## sptrawler

On the subject of solar generation, this Wesfarmers idea seems like a good one, if it works out it may be a model adopted ny other companies.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-...community-investment/8143048?section=business


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> On the subject of Tasmania hydro, how did the storage situation end up?




Went from one extreme to the other. The worst drought on record was immediately followed by the highest inflows on record.

We did get all the diesel generators installed but only ever put about 40% of them into base load operation. The flood turned up just as the others were ready to run and we ended up shutting the whole lot down and not long after that shutting down all gas-fired generation as well. By the time Basslink was fixed, there was no need to use it for importing power from Vic at all and only in the past few weeks has it actually been used for that purpose to any significant extent.

Lowest storage for the system as whole was 12.5% in early May. That's an all time record low (and the records go back literally 100 years). Never has the system been under more stress than it was at that point. Then we got an outright flood as soon as the rain started falling. Storage was back over 20% just two weeks after the low of 12.5% was reached and ultimately rose to 46.1% in mid-November. As of now it's sitting on 44.9%.

Looking at it on a catchment by catchment basis:

Great Lake / Arthurs Lake = Low was 14.6% on 25th April with Great Lake itself, which feeds Poatina (second largest station in the system) reaching a low of 10.6% at that time. Highest since then for the two lakes combined is 44.6% on 12th December. As of now it's at 44.5%. 

Gordon = Low was an alarming 5.8% in early April and this storage feeds the largest power station in the state. Rather a lot of people went down there taking photos and that image of the intake tower's base "toe" and the intake screens, which are about 46m below the surface when the lake is full, being uncovered and visible for all to see is not something we'll hopefully ever see again. The highest level since the crisis is 32.6% which is the present level. 

Derwent = Low was 15.1% at the beginning of May just before the heavy rain started. Highest was 77.1% at the end of November and it's at 72.5% now. The Derwent system is a high priority for production over Summer and is being run as hard as possible without losing efficiency. Power has to come from somewhere, so with the high levels this catchment has a high priority for production at the moment (thus conserving water in dams which are lower eg Gordon and in due course balancing storage levels across the system).

King = Low was 16.1% in early February. There was a plan to draw it drastically lower, literally "below zero" (that is, below the normal lower limit) if need be with that to commence in May and the work to enable that was ready by that time. But just as that was ready to go, the rains arrived so it didn't need to be done in practice. Storage reached 100% at the beginning of July and remained at or close to that level until mid-November despite constant base load running of John Butters power station since the storage reached a high level in June. Present level is 80.3% and as with the Derwent the King scheme is a high priority for production for the same reasons - makes sense to use a storage that's almost full and conserve water in dams which are lower thus balancing the system over time.

Pieman = Low was 40% on 2nd of May, this scheme intentionally being held higher in % terms due to it's relatively large generating capacity (480 MW) with that being the last line of defence if something else had gone wrong elsewhere in the system (eg if Gordon had run into serious trouble with the low water levels or if something simply broke down). Once the rain arrived it came down so heavily that storage was at 100% and spilling just two weeks after the low was reached. Present level is 51.2% which is about right for this time of year, having been run very heavily over Winter and Spring to drawn down storage (thus avoiding the need to release water from dams which are still low). Operation over Summer and Autumn really depends on the weather since the present water levels are about right in view of the overall storage situation in the system.

Mersey-Forth = Low was 34.1% on 2nd May and the rest is much the same as with the Pieman. Storage hit 100% just 3 weeks after the low. Present level is 45.5%, having been run very heavily (saving water elsewhere) until storage was drawn down to a point that's balanced in view of the system as a whole (also having regard to some maintenance outages in this catchment planned for early next year). As with the Pieman, production over the coming months depends on the weather (unless there's an actual need for a higher level of output) since the present storage levels are about right.

Lake Margaret = Low was 17% in mid-February and the high was 100% with the storage either full or close to full from mid-June to mid-November. Present storage is 91.1% with base load operation for the same reasons as the Derwent and King systems.

Diesel generation = All shut down in May once it started raining heavily. The Meadowbank, Catagunya, George Town, Port Latta and Que River diesel power stations which were set up in a big hurry last Summer were decommissioned recently and most of the associated equipment is no longer physically in the state (everything was rented so it just went back to the owners). 

Incidentally we did offer some 25 MW trailer mounted gas turbines to SA in order to restore power to Whyalla, Port Augusta etc when the line were damaged in the storm in September. For whatever reason they didn't want them however but they were packed up and ready to go and the RAAF was ready to fly them over straight away if they'd wanted them.

Gas generation = All shut down in May due to the heavy rains bringing enough dams up to decent levels that production from the associated power stations met demand without needing gas. The combined cycle plant hasn't run since although the open cycle units have had the occasional run when the combination of gas and electricity prices in Victoria makes it profitable to run them. Depending on rainfall, that is assuming no floods, the combined cycle unit will run early in 2017 for a while (few months).


----------



## explod

Possibilities to alternatives abound:

http://www.seeker.com/disposable-bi..._source=facebook&utm_medium=seekervideosocial

*Disposable 'Bio-Battery' Gets Its Power From Bacteria*
Just one drop of dirty water creates enough charge to power a paper biosensor.


----------



## basilio

*Running an entire country on Renewable  Energy
*
Yes it can be done.  The evidence is in. The how to's and what if's are being sorted.  Check it out

* 'This is possible. We did it': the week Portugal ran on renewables *
Campaigners say the 107 hours when the country was powered by wind, sun and water show they can replace fossil fuels




Renewables kept the lights on in Lisbon for four and a half days in May. Photograph: ImageBroker/Rex/Shutterstock
Sam Jones in Alto Minho

 
@swajones

Monday 26 December 2016 19.00 AEDT   Last modified on Monday 26 December 2016 19.02 AEDT


* Comments*
 487 
...The 130 giant wind turbines that sprout from the peaks, slicing the air with a rhythmic sigh, have helped Portugal to a remarkable achievement. For four and a half days in May the country ran entirely on electricity from renewable sources: wind, hydro and solar power.
Despite fears of a blackout, the lights stayed on for a record 107 hours between 6.45am on Saturday 7 May and 5.45pm the following Wednesday.
Francisco Ferreira, president of the Portuguese environmental NGO Zero, got wind of what was going on when a friend called that weekend. “He said: ‘I’ve been looking at the graphs and for the past two days we’ve been 100% renewable on electricity production.’ After that, we looked at the data and arrived at 107 hours. We confirmed it with the national energy network, who said we’d had 4.5 days.
*“It was great to see that the system was working; to see that we could manage all these renewables even though the circumstances were quite challenging.*”

Ferreira and his fellow clean energy advocates hold up those few days as further proof that renewables can reliably replace fossil fuels.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/20...we-did-it-the-week-portugal-ran-on-renewables


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> On the subject of solar generation, this Wesfarmers idea seems like a good one, if it works out it may be a model adopted ny other companies.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-...community-investment/8143048?section=business





Had a look at this story.  Looks exceptionally good from an investment and sustainability POV. Cost effective power for Wesfarmers, 6% return for investors, long term clean renewable energy .
Let's go..


----------



## orr

basilio said:


> Had a look at this story.  Looks exceptionally good from an investment and sustainability POV. Cost effective power for Wesfarmers, 6% return for investors, long term clean renewable energy .
> Let's go..




Old king coal was a merry old soul... a merry old soul was he??? how are those black lung stats up there in QLD coming along?...well... lets not be too negative.
There's an old adage that talks of the reliability of anvils... Russian tractors are slightly less complex and more reliable... but I'm not here to upset noco.
Sitting some where between anvils and soviet era tractors in this regard are Solar cells.
Solar cells are basically a slither of rock with a couple of wires attached. So if power generation lurches us back to some sort of 'stone' age? I ask what will be the lodgical extension... I'm off to do the research... 'Raquel Welch in 'One Million Years B.C'

Adani are going big on solar...who'd a thought...


----------



## Smurf1976

Well it's now 2017 so how are things going? A few points to note in the Australian context.

Snowy Hydro seem to have adopted a strategy which involves lower production. They did it pretty much at midnight New Year's Eve and have ended their fairly high output levels seen recently in favour of a far more conservative approach. No choice really, they'd run out of water otherwise, but it's a change of some significance compared to the recent past.

Add in the decline in gas-fired generation as the Qld LNG production ramps up and we're back to coal in a big way.

AEMO (Australian Energy Market Operator) is now forecasting a supply shortfall of about 1500 MW between Vic and SA for early 2018. Putting that into perspective, it's about 11% of combined peak demand in those two states and assumes that nothing goes wrong (unlikely in practice) and that maximum supply is available from both NSW and Tas (probably can be done). If something does go wrong then that 11% figure goes up, potentially quite considerably.

So things are going to get rather interesting unless there's no heatwaves in Vic / SA after the present Summer or if such heatwaves only ever occur on non-working days. 

Solutions aren't easy in the available time. Too late to build anything new unless we take a "wartime" approach and just do it with no normal planning processes etc. Can't really keep Hazelwood going since they're struggling to keep it going for the next 3 months as it is and then it's all over. Not totally impossible but it doesn't seem likely to happen now unless someone's got some serious $ to throw at it.

Can't recommission Morwell as that too has problems. Can't recommission Playford B as it's already being knocked down. 

At most there might be a possibility to recommission Northern (540 MW, SA) and possibly Anglesea (160 MW, Vic) if nothing has been dismantled yet. Even that would require some effort though since the associated mines would need to be put back into production and in the case of Northern there's the issue of former mine workers having left the town etc as well. And even if both were recommissioned, that's only 700 MW between them so less than half the gap but at least it's something.

Which leaves the available solutions as blackouts or outright rationing (in whatever form) whenever the temperature goes up and the wind stops. 

NSW - AEMO forecasts that it'll be OK but there's nothing much to spare within the state. So they're reliant on Queensland should anything not work in NSW.

Qld and Tas - Nothing to worry about in terms of having enough bulk power supply. Just the normal risks that a storm brings the lines down in your street etc but there's enough power as such.

So the future's looking rather black. More black coal burnt in Qld and NSW. More blackouts in Vic and SA. Accounts in the black in Tas.

What won't be going black is the hair of anyone in SA trying to run a business that needs reliable power. That'll be either turning white or simply falling out if it hasn't already.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> What won't be going black is the hair of anyone in SA trying to run a business that needs reliable power. That'll be either turning white or simply falling out if it hasn't already.





A sad example of the lack of political leadership that has let the situation deteriorate this far. Liberal- Labor whatever, a pack of short sighted idiots.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> A sad example of the lack of political leadership that has let the situation deteriorate this far. Liberal- Labor whatever, a pack of short sighted idiots.




The last time there was a commitment to build new base load generation in either Vic or SA which was actually built and not subsequently rendered uneconomic was way back in 1988 when Vic decided to build half (that is, 2 units but not all 4) of Loy Yang B. These two generating units commenced operation in 1993 and 1996 so even they aren't exactly new these days.

Pelican Point was built in SA for base load but isn't economic for that use. Half of it isn't running at all and the other half is off more than it's on for that reason.

I won't name it on a public forum at this stage but industry rumour is that there's another significant plant that's in a fairly poor state these days and which could well end up going the same way as Hazelwood before too much longer. Nothing official from the owners at this stage, it's business as usual, but there's plenty of rumours. If it does close then the location is such that it'll directly add to the supply shortfall in Vic + SA.

Outside those states, in NSW the Smithfield plant (171 MW) is closing around the middle of this year whilst Liddell (2000 MW) is closing in 2022. Both of those are publicly announced so no secrets there. 

As for the politicians, I don't think they've got a clue as to how much of a mess we're in really. There might be one or two individuals who "get it" but at the party / policy level they sure don't.


----------



## sptrawler

My guess is it will turn extremely nasty, or extremely expensive, for power over East.
No one has the political will to give guidelines, therefore no one can invest money in power generation, unless it is renewable which adds to the problem.
Australia is tying itself up in knots, over political correctness, which in the end will result in a serious energy crisis.IMO
Time of day pricing will go through the roof,IMO to curb peak demand, then the problem will still accelerate as fossil fuel plants close.
It will be a sad case of "be carefull what you wish for".LOL
I bet Tassie isn't going to run down their reserve capacity, to levels that don't cover domestic demand.LOL


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> My guess is it will turn extremely nasty, or extremely expensive, for power over East.
> No one has the political will to give guidelines, therefore no one can invest money in power generation, unless it is renewable which adds to the problem.
> Australia is tying itself up in knots, over political correctness, which in the end will result in a serious energy crisis.IMO
> Time of day pricing will go through the roof,IMO to curb peak demand, then the problem will still accelerate as fossil fuel plants close.
> It will be a sad case of "be carefull what you wish for".LOL
> I bet Tassie isn't going to run down their reserve capacity, to levels that don't cover domestic demand.LOL




Well the QLD Govt bit the bullet, listened to the electorate and is combining the previously hived off sections that were to be sold under the previous Little Dictator. It will remain in the hands of the public and apparently mean our power will rise ~$30 this year, while others states will be at least triple that.


----------



## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> Well the QLD Govt bit the bullet, listened to the electorate and is combining the previously hived off sections that were to be sold under the previous Little Dictator. It will remain in the hands of the public and apparently mean our power will rise ~$30 this year, while others states will be at least triple that.




What, are the Queensland Government buying back previously sold Power Stations? That's a good sign.


----------



## sptrawler

The other thing that may happen soon, just a guess on my part, but S.A will announce some sort of recommissioning of a large fossil fuel generator and or the building of one.
Time will tell, but relying on the goodwill of other States to supply your electrical reliability, isn't going to cut it .IMO
Maybe that is what Hawke was alluding to, when he said the States needed to be abolished, we may be at a point where an hollistic approach is needed.


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> What, are the Queensland Government buying back previously sold Power Stations? That's a good sign.





I don't think I said that, but the 65% of the state's generation is state owned corporations that were readied for sale.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Australia is tying itself up in knots, over political correctness, which in the end will result in a serious energy crisis.




Smithfield (NSW, 171 MW) closes in the middle of this year and Liddell (NSW, 2000 MW) is publicly announced for closure in 2022 so things aren't getting any better.

Australia had a huge economic advantage with cheap energy but we've managed to completely blow it. Amazing. Truly amazing.



> I bet Tassie isn't going to run down their reserve capacity, to levels that don't cover domestic demand.




Last year's crisis was probably a blessing in disguise since it has mostly got the political interference out of the way.

As for reserves, well the weather is always an unknown but certainly the plan doesn't involve seeing what's on the bottom of the lakes again any time soon that's for sure.

The way it's heading, every single supplier into Vic & SA is going to have the market cornered at times. Either take their power or the lights really will go out. No prizes for guessing that market prices won't be low during these times and those with a constrained fuel supply, that is hydro and a few gas plants, would sensibly be ensuring they've got plenty on hand for when these spectacularly profitable situations arise.

So right now we've got enough water in the system in Tas to be supplying 100% of load quite comfortably. No issues there. But the dams aren't full and with the looming situation in Victoria prices are almost certainly going up. Hence 45% of all supply into Tas is coming from Vic right now, that being the technical limit. At just 2.5 cents / kWh it's almost certainly an outright bargain compared to what it can be sold back to Vic for in the not too distant future (assuming we don't need it ourselves). And if we do need it, well it's still a bargain buying now rather than paying far more at a later time.

So Tas is pursuing a "buy low, sell high" strategy assuming the weather is reasonably normal. If a major drought hits then it's still a winner as a "buy low" strategy. 

There aren't too many times in any market where a jump in price is in effect announced by those causing it before they do so. A rare opportunity for those able to take advantage of it but obviously not good for those at the consuming end of the deal.


----------



## basilio

A new development in carbon capture

This is promising.  If I was into coal fired power stations I 'd be over it in  aflash.

* Indian firm makes carbon capture breakthrough *
 
Carbonclean is turning planet-heating emissions into profit by converting CO2 into baking powder – and could lock up 60,000 tonnes of CO2 a year







Tuticorin thermal power station near the port of Thoothukudi on the Bay of Bengal, southern India. The plant is said to be the first industrial-scale example of carbon capture and utilisation (CCU). Photograph: Roger Harrabin
 
Roger Harrabin


 Tuesday 3 January 2017 17.01 AEDT   Last modified on Tuesday 3 January 2017 17.02 AEDT 


* Comments*
 102 
A breakthrough in the race to make useful products out of planet-heating CO2 emissions has been made in southern India.


A plant at the industrial port of Tuticorin is capturing CO2 from its own coal-powered boiler and using it to make soda ash – aka baking powder. 


*Crucially, the technology is running without subsidy, which is a major advance for carbon capture technology as for decades it has languished under high costs and lukewarm government support.*


The firm behind the Tuticorin process says its chemicals will lock up 60,000 tonnes of CO2 a year and the technology is attracting interest from around the world.


----------



## SirRumpole

Bad housing design is driving up power prices...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-03/why-bad-housing-design-pumps-up-prices-for-everyone/8158168


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> Bad housing design is driving up power prices...
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-03/why-bad-housing-design-pumps-up-prices-for-everyone/8158168





The LNP scrapped the energy efficiency and disclosure legislation of the previous Labor regime because it was too onerous on developers, the Premier at that time being one himself. You couldn't get more poorly designed than having an all brick and tile home in the hottest parts of the country, but that is what you get in WA, even though the earliest housing was light weight, low capacitance structure with novel things called verandahs, tin roofs and eaves.


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> The LNP scrapped the energy efficiency and disclosure legislation of the previous Labor regime because it was too onerous on developers, the Premier at that time being one himself. You couldn't get more poorly designed than having an all brick and tile home in the hottest parts of the country, but that is what you get in WA, even though the earliest housing was light weight, low capacitance structure with novel things called verandahs, tin roofs and eaves.




I was recently in a Chinesified area of Melbourne where the new residents build gigantic horrendously ugly cement rendered mausoleums with huge air conditioners on the roofs. And frequently there are only one or two people living there.

Building codes ? I don't think so.


----------



## Smurf1976

The most significant point in this article isn't what it says but that it appears in the print edition of a News Ltd newspaper.

http://www.themercury.com.au/news/o...r/news-story/1ec3dd2d8fd26c327c10e44dab34b501



> Tasmania has a range of state-owned corporations ranging from the iconic Hydro Electric Corporation to the not so vibrant Macquarie Point Development Corporation.
> 
> ...
> 
> Not one discernible positive outcome came from the splitting of the old Hydro Electric Commission....
> 
> ...
> 
> If the state-owned companies were entirely independent of the government of the day and operated without any political input then the economic base of Tasmania would be vastly different.




So it seems the wheel is starting to turn as it becomes increasingly clear that trying to apply market principles to natural monopolies just isn't working as the economic theorists thought it would.

Someone at the ACCC is probably still recovering after learning that we ended competition in generation in Tasmania in order to cut prices. And prices did indeed drop, the very same day Hydro acquired it's only significant competitor. Engineers, tradies and even the cleaner understand exactly why that's the case but those with their theories are probably still scratching their heads as to why.

The reason, of course, is that the technical inefficiency which comes from operating a single engineering system as discreet parts vastly exceeds any gain you'll ever make by means of labour productivity and so on. And our state owned utilities were the third lowest cost in the developed world to start with so there never was much to be gained.

With prices to consumers now higher in real terms right across the country than they were before this process began and the looming price jumps and supply problems in Vic and SA it's time for a proper evaluation of how to get back to something that's affordable and reliable.

Personally I don't have an ideological view on public versus private ownership, I just want it to be reasonably efficient in operation. Either private with some regulation or public, but the idea that you have numerous players all doing their own thing independently, when we're talking about one underlying technical system, just isn't working.

Latest one - proposed $350 million to build a high operating cost power station in SA generating about 250 MW. It's even sillier when you realise that 2 x 270 MW units are sitting idle at Northern (Port Augusta) and there's 239 MW sitting idle at Pelican Point (Adelaide). There's nothing wrong with any of those, it's just that their owners decided to cease operating.

But sure, spend another $350 million to build what we've already got sitting there unused three times over. No amount of "competition" and giving consumers a choice over what name appears on the bill is going to recover anywhere near that amount of wasted capital.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> but the idea that you have numerous players all doing their own thing independently, when we're talking about one underlying technical system, just isn't working.




+1. Even people not in the industry like me can see it's a dog's breakfast.

I think there has been a lot of stupid thinking that we should be more like the USA and let the market compete without realising that we have a much different dynamics to the US, much smaller market therefore less investment available , spread over the same geographical area as the US.

FFS, we have a population less that of California. We need a national body of engineers to determine our most efficient network based on reliability, price and emissions in that order. The energy market is just one reason to get rid of the States,there are lots of others as well.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The most significant point in this article isn't what it says but that it appears in the print edition of a News Ltd newspaper.
> 
> http://www.themercury.com.au/news/o...r/news-story/1ec3dd2d8fd26c327c10e44dab34b501
> 
> 
> 
> So it seems the wheel is starting to turn as it becomes increasingly clear that trying to apply market principles to natural monopolies just isn't working as the economic theorists thought it would.
> 
> Someone at the ACCC is probably still recovering after learning that we ended competition in generation in Tasmania in order to cut prices. And prices did indeed drop, the very same day Hydro acquired it's only significant competitor. Engineers, tradies and even the cleaner understand exactly why that's the case but those with their theories are probably still scratching their heads as to why.
> 
> The reason, of course, is that the technical inefficiency which comes from operating a single engineering system as discreet parts vastly exceeds any gain you'll ever make by means of labour productivity and so on. And our state owned utilities were the third lowest cost in the developed world to start with so there never was much to be gained.
> 
> With prices to consumers now higher in real terms right across the country than they were before this process began and the looming price jumps and supply problems in Vic and SA it's time for a proper evaluation of how to get back to something that's affordable and reliable.
> 
> Personally I don't have an ideological view on public versus private ownership, I just want it to be reasonably efficient in operation. Either private with some regulation or public, but the idea that you have numerous players all doing their own thing independently, when we're talking about one underlying technical system, just isn't working.
> 
> Latest one - proposed $350 million to build a high operating cost power station in SA generating about 250 MW. It's even sillier when you realise that 2 x 270 MW units are sitting idle at Northern (Port Augusta) and there's 239 MW sitting idle at Pelican Point (Adelaide). There's nothing wrong with any of those, it's just that their owners decided to cease operating.
> 
> But sure, spend another $350 million to build what we've already got sitting there unused three times over. No amount of "competition" and giving consumers a choice over what name appears on the bill is going to recover anywhere near that amount of wasted capital.




Smurph,I must appologies for my earlier post, regarding S.A requiring new or recommissioned fossil fuel generation, after googling it, I see it has been aired.
Unfortunately I was away from mid Nov to Mid December, however I can recommend the "Ovation of the Seas", as a great family holiday idea.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> +1. Even people not in the industry like me can see it's a dog's breakfast.
> 
> I think there has been a lot of stupid thinking that we should be more like the USA and let the market compete without realising that we have a much different dynamics to the US, much smaller market therefore less investment available , spread over the same geographical area as the US.
> 
> FFS, we have a population less that of California. We need a national body of engineers to determine our most efficient network based on reliability, price and emissions in that order. The energy market is just one reason to get rid of the States,there are lots of others as well.




The USA also has some 100 nuclear power stations and we should have our own here with the abundance of uranium in South Australia.

Good news for Townsville ATM ...lots of new coal mines are opening up in NQ...The Greenies are probably arranging a rent a crowd to protest up this way any time soon.

http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.a...t/news-story/ff7ef67c5ca0edfba1dae075286214e2

*NORTH Queensland is on the cusp of a coal boom set to create thousands of jobs and inject millions into Townsville’s economy.

Glencore’s Collinsville Coal Mine is recruiting workers as it restarts operations.

Adani wants to start construction works this year on its Carmichael coal and rail project and has already announced its regional headquarters will be in Townsville.

Stanmore Coal has also started mining at Isaac Plain near Mackay.

Dozens of mining jobs are being advertised, searching for workers living in Townsville for either fly-in or drive-in positions.

Federal Resources Minister Matt Canavan said the price of thermal coal had doubled and coking coal prices had tripled, creating strong market conditions for mines to expand or reopen.

“This is going to be one of the best years for the coal industry,” he said.

“We are one of the best places ... to provide India with coal; we also export a lot of coal to China and we are cost competitive as well.*


----------



## Smurf1976

> Australian manufacturers are struggling to get a hold of enough gas, Industry Minister Greg Hunt warns.
> 
> Manufacturers have warned of a crunch point in supply from mid-2017 to late-2018.




http://www.thebull.com.au/articles/a/64788-manufacturers-struggle-with-gas-shortage.html

We're now staring down the barrel of the situation myself and others in the know have been worried about for years. We've got a major base load power station (Hazelwood, Vic) about to shut down and we're in trouble with gas too.

That's why not one other country, not even the USA with it's love of free enterprise, actually "leaves it to the market" when it comes to energy security. There's only one place on earth doing that - Australia. Everyone else either has it in public hands or regulates private enterprise.

And before anyone thinks there's an easy way out, well I hear on the news today about an imminent jump in oil product prices in Australia too. So forget that as a means of escape.

On a positive note, those running hydro generation seem almost certain to find themselves with rather a lot of cash rolling in as all this unfolds.


----------



## SirRumpole

Effing Greg effing Hunt shouldn't be warning anyone, he and his effing useless mates should be DOING something about it.

For a start they could sequester enough gas for local consumption before any goes overseas, and or put an export tax on what does go elsewhere.

OUR resources, OUR benefit.

I'll vote for whatever Party takes energy security seriously, even if it's Pauline Hanson.

Pity Bob Katter is not in my State, and pity Tony Windsor didn't get elected.

Damn bogan voters in Armidale.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Effing Greg effing Hunt shouldn't be warning anyone, he and his effing useless mates should be DOING something about it.
> 
> For a start they could sequester enough gas for local consumption before any goes overseas, and or put an export tax on what does go elsewhere.
> 
> OUR resources, OUR benefit.
> 
> I'll vote for whatever Party takes energy security seriously, even if it's Pauline Hanson.
> 
> Pity Bob Katter is not in my State, and pity Tony Windsor didn't get elected.
> 
> Damn bogan voters in Armidale.





Rumpy don't get angry.

Confuscius says, "WHEN ANGRY RISES, THINK OF THE CONSEQUENCES".


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Effing Greg effing Hunt shouldn't be warning anyone, he and his effing useless mates should be DOING something about it.




The problem with all this is that it involves real, physical stuff (and big stuff at that) versus politicians living in a largely theoretical and paper-based (or it's electronic equivalent) world where things can be changed on a whim.

To pick some examples from history:

We started building the Snowy in 1949. Didn't get a single kilowatt out of it until 1955 and it wasn't complete until 1974. So that's 25 years of construction to build the whole scheme. Equally relevant is that 68 years after construction started it is still a key part of power supply in NSW and Vic today.

54 years ago SA decided to build the first power station at Torrens Island ("A" station). It along with the neighbouring B station are still the second largest and largest power stations respectively in SA today and between them comprise just under 50% of the state's firm (non-intermittent) generating capacity.

And a brief history of the Mowell mine in Victoria:

1947 - Decision made to develop the mine and associated gas works, power generation and briquette manufacture.

1954 - First town gas produced.

1957 - Decision to develop a large power station to be known as Hazelwood.

1958 - First power generated at Morwell fuel and power complex (aka Morwell power station and later known as Energy Brix after privatisation).

1959 - First briquettes produced at Morwell.

1962 - Morwell power station complete with 5th generator installed.

1964 - First unit online at Hazelwood.

1965 - Second unit at Hazelwood.

1966 - Third unit at Halzelwood. Discovery of natural gas in Bass Strait makes Morwell gas works imminently obsolete as a gas supply for Melbourne. Decision to enlarge Hazelwood from 6 to 8 generating units.

1967 - Fourth unit at Hazelwood which has now overtaken Yallourn to be the largest power station in Vic.

1968 - Fifth unit at Hazelwood.

1969 - Sixth unit at Hazelwood. Closure of gas works due to replacement with natural gas.

1970 - Seventh unit at Hazelwood which is now the equal largest power station in Australia.

1971 - Eighth unit at Hazelwood.

First half of 1980's - Pilot plant producing liquid petroleum fuels from Morwell coal in operation. Technology was successful but abandoned once the oil price crashed in late 1985.

1993 - Major incident severely damages Hazelwood unit 7. Deemed uneconomic to repair at the time due to soft economy and electricity demand.

1998 - Hazelwood unit 7 returned to service.

2014 - Closure of Morwell power station and briquette works.

2017 - Closure of Hazelwood power station and the Morwell mine.

So the whole thing spans literally 70 years from the decision to build to the end of production. That'll be probably 80 years by the time everything is dismantled etc.

Now, can anyone find me a politician or business leader thinking 70 years into the future?

There's the problem.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Now, can anyone find me a politician or business leader thinking 70 years into the future?
> 
> There's the problem.




Well really, the only thinking politicians have to do is to appoint someone with the necessary qualifications to decide what are the best power generation options. I don't pretend that it's an easy decision. It will be like the NBN where people say "let's wait a few years and see where the technology goes". Of course you can do that forever and never get anywhere but sometime someone has to make a decision.

We have an Infrastructure Australia body who are supposed to be the experts. Surely someone in that organisation in consultation with CSIRO could come up with the best plan based on current and anticipated future technology then it's a matter of the politicians accepting that they have the best advice that they can get and acting on it. 

The power options may get built and the next day a better option is discovered, but that's a risk we have to take. As you said the Snowy scheme is still operating after 70 years. I'd like to think solar thermal and PV will figure largely in the mix, but so may nuclear.

Probably the hardest thing is to find someone who doesn't have a close association with a particular sub industry like coal, solar , hydro or nuclear who can make an open minded decision.


----------



## SirRumpole

I'm sure Smurph can tell us more about this...

*Tasmanian power: Hydro prepares state's biggest gas-powered generator to help preserve dam levels*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-09/hydro-to-fire-up-tamar-valley-power-generator/8170590


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> I'm sure Smurph can tell us more about this...
> 
> *Tasmanian power: Hydro prepares state's biggest gas-powered generator to help preserve dam levels*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-09/hydro-to-fire-up-tamar-valley-power-generator/8170590





gas turbines?


----------



## Smurf1976

The generating unit being referred to is a 208 MW gas-fired combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) located at Tamar Valley Power Station.

That is the only CCGT plant in the Tasmanian system. Also at the site are 4 open cycle gas turbines (OCGT's) - 1 x 58 MW and 3 x 35 - 40 MW (exact output depends on conditions). Tamar Valley, also known as Bell Bay, is the only significant non-hydro power station in Tas.

All 4 OCGT's fire gas primarily with diesel as backup. The CCGT fires gas only since backing up with diesel is problematic technically. Gas is the normally used fuel for all units.

The CCGT itself comprises a 140 MW gas turbine, heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) and a separate 68 MW steam turbine. Exhaust heat from the gas turbine is recovered to produce steam to run the steam turbine. In contrast, with an OCGT plant the exhaust heat simply goes to waste (discharged as a lot of hot air).

There are other CCGT plants in Australia, every state except Vic has at least one, but Tamar Valley CCGT is the most technically efficient fuel-burning power power station in the National Electricity Market (NEM).

The decision to put the CCGT into base load (24/7) production is purely a commercial one under present circumstances. Likewise the intermittent running of the 58 MW OCGT this year to date is for the same reason. Cost of gas is less than the value of electricity produced and there's a physical means to absorb that power production within the system in an efficient manner.

So where does the power go? That really depends on circumstances and market prices in Victoria but the answer is a combination of:

1. Increased export to Vic
2. Avoid or reduce imports from Vic
3. Reduce hydro production and keep the water for use some other time

Price will determine what happens at any particular time noting that Hydro is _very_ conscious of the likely jump in Vic (and other states) prices once Hazelwood power station closes at the end of March this year. Hydro is also all too aware that gas prices are going up too. Both of those influence the value of water retained in long term storage and thus it being financially sensible to run the CCGT at this time (and also to run the OCGT's when the gas price makes it profitable).

So there's no technical need to have the CCGT (or the OCGT's) running at present since there's more water in storage than is actually needed. It's just that running the CCGT is expected to be a better outcome financially compared to not running it.

When not running the CCGT is stored in a dry state so there's a bit of lead time to bring it back into operation. Production commenced at 11:45am this morning with a slow ramp up to 60% of capacity at present. It will be further ramped up to 100% soon. It's capable of a faster ramp up but doing so results in greater thermal stresses and wear so it's done very slowly under normal circumstances.

The OCGT's are ramped up a lot faster, a matter of minutes, however since they don't have the complexity of heat recovery and there's no steam involved. Hence running the 58MW OCGT recently on an intermittent basis is no problem whereas the CCGT is planned to be started, run and then stopped once only this season.

Present water storage is at 43.5% so that's a lot better than the low of 12.5% reached during the crisis in 2016. The "official" target is a low of 30% later in 2017 but in practice somewhere around 35% is more likely based on the weather outlook and market situation.

The big unknown which every power generation business in the NEM is anticipating is, of course, exactly what's going to happen once Hazelwood shuts. Who's going to end up generating that power and at what price is the question there. It's possible that the Tamar Valley CCGT will end up with a few % of that in annual energy terms although it's uncertain at this stage.


----------



## Smurf1976

Tamar Valley CCGT reached full output at 11:55am today following yesterday's startup.

Also some of the OCGT's in Tas were run today. That was a purely commercial decision, not required for any technical reason, in response to interstate market prices. Had they not been run then someone else in another state would have supplied that power at whatever price but in short Hydro Tas was offering a lower price than others who had idle or underutilised plant at that time. A commercial decision in all cases. Likewise everyone else with plant running would have been offering supply at lower price than those who had plant sitting idle since price is the basis of dispatch subject to any technical constraints (eg maximum flow on transmission lines) being met.

Today's hot weather in NSW pushed demand there to high levels and that was supplied from Qld and Vic as well as from sources within NSW. With demand fairly low in Vic, Tas and SA the transmission lines Vic - NSW were at their limit transferring power north.

A considerable amount of oil-fired generation, a few hundred MW, was run in Qld today in order to supply power into NSW. That's in addition to coal, gas and hydro generation in Qld. Needless to say, oil isn't cheap.

A point about pricing and dispatch is that different generators (businesses owning power stations) take very different approaches. As some random examples:

Hazelwood (majority owner Engie) almost always just sits there and generates. Price is whatever the market gives them, they don't generally withhold supply or otherwise try to move the price other than by virtue of simply being there.

Hydro generators (Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tas being the dominant two) are necessarily constrained in terms of total output. That is, they can't run constantly 24/7 at maximum output without running out of water (though we do have some individual hydro power stations in Tas which operate constantly but most are set up for higher output intermittently). So they set prices for each station in order to achieve the desired level of output over a given period of time (weeks, months). Eg if we want to run power station x for 60% of the time then set a price that will be exceeded 60% of the time and which will thus result in that plant operating as desired. It's a bit more complex with ramp rates and frequency control etc but that's the basic concept. Work out how much you want to sell (generate), then price in order to achieve that volume.

Then there are those who actively seek to move the price. There's nothing "wrong" about that, it's a market and it's perfectly legal to set prices at whatever level up to the market price cap, but it's generally the larger players who tend to do it mostly. So they'll do things like offering half the capacity of a large, say 500 MW, generating unit at $5 per MWh and the rest at $250 per MWh (random example). Their aim is to push the price up to $250 but their fallback is to keep the plant online, that is to avoid being shut down, if they don't achieve that hence offering half the capacity cheaply.

It's pretty common to see capacity priced just below the expected pricing of competitors with genuinely high cost plant. So a coal-fired plant (cheap) prices just below the cost of diesel when they know that demand is high enough such that other coal, hydro and gas plants won't undercut them on account of already being fully utilised (or they're playing the same game). Since all price bids are made public the next day, and the cost of gas and diesel is no secret either, it's not hard to work out what rival generators are likely to be doing at any given time.

One area where there's a real problem, and this is the point I was referring to before Christmas in relation to the Hazelwood closure, is disclosure of future operations. In terms of plant closures or limitations as of now the following is announced:

Daandine power station (Qld, gas-fired, 33 MW) to close June 2022

Mackay gas turbine (Qld, oil-fired, 34 MW) to close June 2021

Smithfield (NSW, gas, 171 MW) to close 30 June 2017

Liddell (NSW, coal, 2000 MW) to close in 2022

That's it unless you count Hazelwood which wasn't announced until 5 months before the closure date and that's the big concern. It's a big operation and everyone gets just 5 months notice that it's closing. Suffice to say you sure can't build a replacement in 5 months! Full credit to those listed above for giving plenty of notice but the real concern is about what might not be being said? Are there more Hazelwood-like suprises on the way? There's plenty of rumours in the industry about ******** but officially it's business as usual for years to come just as Hazelwood was business as usual for at least the next decade until suddenly it wasn't.

Then there's the question of maintenance outages. Not the minor unpredictable and urgent stuff but the major, long term outages which are planned sometimes years in advance. Let's just say that this Smurf finds it rater interesting that Hydro Tas has publicly announced, via the AEMO (Australian Energy Market Operator), 24 separate major generating plant outages over the next decade (yes really, planned up to a decade in advance). And the total for every other generating company across Qld, NSW, Vic and SA combined? ZERO! Yep, literally zero. Let's say I don't think the full story is being told there. Either that or they genuinely believe they don't need to do any major maintenance (and I sure hope they don't think that's the case).

So there's an issue with lack of disclosure of information. Business as usual in October 2016, then we suddenly find out that the second biggest power station in Vic is closing in 5 months' time. Far too little notice there. And someone IS going to do some maintenance, aren't they? Sure hope so....


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Tamar Valley CCGT reached full output at 11:55am today following yesterday's startup.
> 
> Also some of the OCGT's in Tas were run today. That was a purely commercial decision, not required for any technical reason, in response to interstate market prices. Had they not been run then someone else in another state would have supplied that power at whatever price but in short Hydro Tas was offering a lower price than others who had idle or underutilised plant at that time. A commercial decision in all cases. Likewise everyone else with plant running would have been offering supply at lower price than those who had plant sitting idle since price is the basis of dispatch subject to any technical constraints (eg maximum flow on transmission lines) being met.
> 
> Today's hot weather in NSW pushed demand there to high levels and that was supplied from Qld and Vic as well as from sources within NSW. With demand fairly low in Vic, Tas and SA the transmission lines Vic - NSW were at their limit transferring power north.
> 
> A considerable amount of oil-fired generation, a few hundred MW, was run in Qld today in order to supply power into NSW. That's in addition to coal, gas and hydro generation in Qld. Needless to say, oil isn't cheap.
> 
> A point about pricing and dispatch is that different generators (businesses owning power stations) take very different approaches. As some random examples:
> 
> Hazelwood (majority owner Engie) almost always just sits there and generates. Price is whatever the market gives them, they don't generally withhold supply or otherwise try to move the price other than by virtue of simply being there.
> 
> Hydro generators (Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tas being the dominant two) are necessarily constrained in terms of total output. That is, they can't run constantly 24/7 at maximum output without running out of water (though we do have some individual hydro power stations in Tas which operate constantly but most are set up for higher output intermittently). So they set prices for each station in order to achieve the desired level of output over a given period of time (weeks, months). Eg if we want to run power station x for 60% of the time then set a price that will be exceeded 60% of the time and which will thus result in that plant operating as desired. It's a bit more complex with ramp rates and frequency control etc but that's the basic concept. Work out how much you want to sell (generate), then price in order to achieve that volume.
> 
> Then there are those who actively seek to move the price. There's nothing "wrong" about that, it's a market and it's perfectly legal to set prices at whatever level up to the market price cap, but it's generally the larger players who tend to do it mostly. So they'll do things like offering half the capacity of a large, say 500 MW, generating unit at $5 per MWh and the rest at $250 per MWh (random example). Their aim is to push the price up to $250 but their fallback is to keep the plant online, that is to avoid being shut down, if they don't achieve that hence offering half the capacity cheaply.
> 
> It's pretty common to see capacity priced just below the expected pricing of competitors with genuinely high cost plant. So a coal-fired plant (cheap) prices just below the cost of diesel when they know that demand is high enough such that other coal, hydro and gas plants won't undercut them on account of already being fully utilised (or they're playing the same game). Since all price bids are made public the next day, and the cost of gas and diesel is no secret either, it's not hard to work out what rival generators are likely to be doing at any given time.
> 
> One area where there's a real problem, and this is the point I was referring to before Christmas in relation to the Hazelwood closure, is disclosure of future operations. In terms of plant closures or limitations as of now the following is announced:
> 
> Daandine power station (Qld, gas-fired, 33 MW) to close June 2022
> 
> Mackay gas turbine (Qld, oil-fired, 34 MW) to close June 2021
> 
> Smithfield (NSW, gas, 171 MW) to close 30 June 2017
> 
> Liddell (NSW, coal, 2000 MW) to close in 2022
> 
> That's it unless you count Hazelwood which wasn't announced until 5 months before the closure date and that's the big concern. It's a big operation and everyone gets just 5 months notice that it's closing. Suffice to say you sure can't build a replacement in 5 months! Full credit to those listed above for giving plenty of notice but the real concern is about what might not be being said? Are there more Hazelwood-like suprises on the way? There's plenty of rumours in the industry about ******** but officially it's business as usual for years to come just as Hazelwood was business as usual for at least the next decade until suddenly it wasn't.
> 
> Then there's the question of maintenance outages. Not the minor unpredictable and urgent stuff but the major, long term outages which are planned sometimes years in advance. Let's just say that this Smurf finds it rater interesting that Hydro Tas has publicly announced, via the AEMO (Australian Energy Market Operator), 24 separate major generating plant outages over the next decade (yes really, planned up to a decade in advance). And the total for every other generating company across Qld, NSW, Vic and SA combined? ZERO! Yep, literally zero. Let's say I don't think the full story is being told there. Either that or they genuinely believe they don't need to do any major maintenance (and I sure hope they don't think that's the case).
> 
> So there's an issue with lack of disclosure of information. Business as usual in October 2016, then we suddenly find out that the second biggest power station in Vic is closing in 5 months' time. Far too little notice there. And someone IS going to do some maintenance, aren't they? Sure hope so....




Smurph, does the Eastern States have universal use of smart meters? If so do they already have time of day pricing?
In W.A we only retrofit smart meters if solar panels are installed, and we don't as yet have T.O.D pricing.
Having said that, there seems to be a constant undercurrent of media releases, that would indicate T.O.D pricing is high on the agenda.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Smurph, does the Eastern States have universal use of smart meters? If so do they already have time of day pricing?
> In W.A we only retrofit smart meters if solar panels are installed, and we don't as yet have T.O.D pricing.
> Having said that, there seems to be a constant undercurrent of media releases, that would indicate T.O.D pricing is high on the agenda.



I think all the renewable rah, rah activists ,are going to get exactly what they wished for, really eye watering electricity prices.lol


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Smurph, does the Eastern States have universal use of smart meters? If so do they already have time of day pricing?




Smart meters were rolled out in Victoria amid plenty of controversy. They're not universal in other states and the approach to time of use pricing varies considerably between distributors and retailers.

In Tassie we're still using simple flat rates, same price 24/7, for the majority of residential and small businesses. Anyone on a TOU rate has consciously chosen it, it's not compulsory, and the TOU that we do have is based on set rates which don't vary from day to day. The other states are keener on the "real time" approach.

Long term, the idea down here is to encourage residential consumers onto a simple two rate tariff with set prices adjusted in the normal manner (eg once a year). Peak rate 7am to 10am and 4pm to 9pm Monday to Friday. Off-peak rate at all other times. All the research says this will capture most of the benefits and avoids any major complexity.

NT is going the same way as Tas and also has theirs up and running on a voluntary basis (though their times are different due to a different system load profile).

Other Eastern states generally want to go down the track of market-linked pricing but are struggling to get it up and running due to both technical and political hassles.

There's also some other things being trialed down here based on network demand and with consumers able to monitor their use via a smart phone app. The trial is presently limited to those who have been invited to participate. It's 12 month trial to collect data on how it would work at this stage. 

Process is customer invited to participate > customer accepts invitation if they want to > metering equipment installed and customer's phone set up > data collected > customer paid some $ for their assistance then reverts to standard metering since it's a trial only at this stage to get "real world" data.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Smart meters were rolled out in Victoria amid plenty of controversy. They're not universal in other states and the approach to time of use pricing varies considerably between distributors and retailers.
> 
> In Tassie we're still using simple flat rates, same price 24/7, for the majority of residential and small businesses. Anyone on a TOU rate has consciously chosen it, it's not compulsory, and the TOU that we do have is based on set rates which don't vary from day to day. The other states are keener on the "real time" approach but down here a lot of thinking was done on the subject and it was concluded that it just wasn't worth it. Too much hassle for consumers relative to the benefit.
> 
> Long term, the idea down here is to encourage residential consumers onto a simple two rate tariff with set prices adjusted in the normal manner (eg once a year). Peak rate 7am to 10am and 4pm to 9pm Monday to Friday. Off-peak rate at all other times. All the research says this will capture most of the benefits and avoids any major complexity.
> 
> NT is going the same way as Tas and also has theirs up and running on a voluntary basis (though their times are different due to a different system load profile).
> 
> Other Eastern states generally want to go down the track of market-linked pricing but are struggling to get it up and running due to both technical and political hassles.




Thanks for that, the peak and demand times will be very different throughout the continent, but the effect is much the same.
The two pricing model, is probably the smartest and would encourage innovation around load reduction through peak demand.
The down side IMO would be, the resultant drop in peak demand, would reduce the requirement to install new plant.
This reduced demand eventually disappears due to population growth, then demand far exceeds capacity and when that happens, we end up with the scenario you suggest.
Unless someone stops the train, it will crash.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The two pricing model, is probably the smartest and would encourage innovation around load reduction through peak demand.




There was a pretty substantial consultation process to come up with the best solution. A group was formed consisting of generation (Hydro Tas), networks (Tas Networks is both transmission and distribution) and retail (in practice Aurora Energy) plus an assortment of members of the public, interest groups (welfare etc) and so on.

One big advantage we've got here in Tas is that it's pretty easy to get everyone in the same room from the industry perspective. Not hard when you've only got one generation business, one networks business and only one significant retailer (in theory anyone can compete with Aurora but in practice there's limited competition for the commercial market and zero for residential).

That's a lot easier than trying to get multiple generation owners and retailers to all agree on something (which would probably upset the ACCC anyway if they did agree on things).

The basic outcome of that process was that keeping it simple was important to consumers most of whom have basically zero knowledge on the subject. Hence the initial thought of having 3 rates became 2 rates, simply peak and off-peak, with the times set to meet the objectives of both generation and networks. The concept of maximum demand was also thought to be overly complex for the general public so it was decided that anything of that nature would be purely optional and not forced on anyone. 

Keeping public trust was another issue that came up, the solution to which is just don't force anything. Make the TOU rates available and promote the idea but leave consumers to decide if and when they want to adopt it. So we'll continue with the 4 existing residential tariffs (2 different off-peak rates, heating, general power) in addition to having the time of use option.

A factor in that is changes in how households consume electricity. The prospect of mass adoption of electric vehicles was certainly considered with the two rate system and the times that were chosen. There's an embedded compromise between the technical aspects of system load and what's likely to work for consumers. Getting people to shift loads to 9pm or to the middle of the day should be straightforward whereas getting them to shift loads to midnight wouldn't likely be accepted anywhere near as well. 

The NT has the same advantage of being able to easily get people from all aspects of the industry in the one room. Hence they've done much the same and have their two rate tariff available now.



> The down side IMO would be, the resultant drop in peak demand, would reduce the requirement to install new plant.




That's seen as a good thing down here since the underlying objective is to reduce actual costs rather than to increase revenue. We've already got a very high average load as a % of peak load compared to most other states (Qld is also high) and if we can go further in that direction then that's one sure way to keep prices down.


----------



## Smurf1976

Well it seems that a deal has been done to return the Alcoa Portland smelter (Vic) to production and keep it in operation.

So there goes any notion that closure of this factory was going to be some sort of half-way solution to the power supply crunch when Hazelwood power station (coal, Vic) closes.

This could all get rather interesting....


----------



## sptrawler

This is the down side of politicians, not having to undergo an I.Q test.IMO

It will be interesting to see, the terms of continued operation, that Alcoa extracted from the Government.

I wonder if Alcoa included a guarantee of supply clause, in their memorandum of understanding, if they did I would like to know the penalties for disruption of supply. lol
Australia, the clever Country, the World leader at painting ourselves into a corner.IMO


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It will be interesting to see, the terms of continued operation, that Alcoa extracted from the Government.
> 
> I wonder if Alcoa included a guarantee of supply clause, in their memorandum of understanding, if they did I would like to know the penalties for disruption of supply.




I also wonder what the other party to the deal, AGL, gets from it?

Speculating on what might have been offered but will likely never be said publicly, things involving brown coal mining royalties (AGL) and any future carbon tax or other form of cost (both Alcoa and AGL) come immediately to mind. Notable in that context is that Alcoa also has major operations in WA so they might be part of the deal in some way in addition to Portland. Likewise AGL has may other operations beyond Loy Yang power station and supplying power to Alcoa so it could be quite complex potentially.

As for the guarantee of supply, well this time they seem to have got $240 million for supply having been interrupted. That's to cover physical damage to the plant apparently although it falls short of the actual cost so Alcoa must be throwing in some of their own money which, of course, they wouldn't be doing in the absence if it being an ongoing viable operation once the 200 or so damaged pots are fixed (which is going to take quite a while).

It opens up a huge can of worms though.

What about, for example, they Whyalla steelworks? No doubt they'd like some reasonably priced power too and a guarantee that they won't be left in the dark for days again.

Then there's others. I'm pretty sure that the big 4 energy users in Tas wouldn't mind the Australian Government handing them some cash.

Then there's everyone else in Victoria. Pretty sure they wouldn't mind some cash and/or cheap power if they promise to use it.

Then there's SA. I doubt that anyone in Adelaide would be too upset if someone gave them a guarantee that the power won't fail again and will be handing out $240 million if it does.

A big can of worms there....


----------



## sptrawler

It really does my head in, the lengths we will go to, to cover up politically inept decisions. 
The politicians think, that as long as the issue doesn't blow up on my watch, it is o.k.
They can't see, that it is the stupid decisions they are making, is causing the political backlash from the silent majority.
Pandering to minority groups, being hand fed by the media, is causing a huge ground swell of discontent.
Jeez we need some sensible leadership and neither party has got it.


----------



## overhang

An interesting somewhat balanced read on the Alcoa situation for anyone interested.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/alcoa-insight-cover-shell-20170104-gtm63l.html


----------



## Smurf1976

With reference to that article in the Age and to the situation with Alcoa generally, there's a bigger underlying shift here and one that's relevant to investing in general and thus to this forum.

Slowly but surely the evidence is mounting that globalisation isn't going to be the dominant paradigm going forward. Today it stands roughly where protectionism stood at the end of the 1970's - all over as a concept, just waiting for the physical dismantling to take place. Brexit, Trump, rising nationalism in general - globalisation seems to have run its course.

I very much doubt this will be the last major government intervention for that reason. It's just the beginning in my opinion.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> With reference to that article in the Age and to the situation with Alcoa generally, there's a bigger underlying shift here and one that's relevant to investing in general and thus to this forum.
> 
> Slowly but surely the evidence is mounting that globalisation isn't going to be the dominant paradigm going forward. Today it stands roughly where protectionism stood at the end of the 1970's - all over as a concept, just waiting for the physical dismantling to take place. Brexit, Trump, rising nationalism in general - globalisation seems to have run its course.
> 
> I very much doubt this will be the last major government intervention for that reason. It's just the beginning in my opinion.




No doubt this will have good and bad effects.

Globalisation has probably failed because it did not seek to equalise wages and conditions throughout the world. The result being you have a few very rich people in say China exploiting a large number of poor workers and gobbling up industries in other countries as a result of that exploitation.

So while I think Trump is generally a loose cannon, I agree with him on trying to reverse the globalisation trend (although I think he will probably do it in extremis as he is an extreme personality). 

Turnbull & co still stick to their "free market" delusions, but Labor seems to be wising up and coming around to the idea that local protection needs to be increased.

Yes, a paradigm shift is certainly coming. Protectionism used to be a dirty word but I think it will become less so. I just hope that we can come to a sensible compromise and not go overboard like we usually do.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, a paradigm shift is certainly coming.




I think protectionism now is roughly where globalisation was in 1980 or thereabouts. 

Interestingly, it the decline seems to be following an exact mirror image of the ascent. Globalisation was certainly around as an ideology back in the 1970's but it took the election of Thatcher and Reagan to kick it into gear.

Now we're seeing the exact reverse. Sentiment has been rising in recent years, minor politicians have gone that way but now we've got Brexit and Trump. Love him or hate him, it's pretty hard to simply dismiss the opinion of someone who is about to actually be President of the United States.

Closer to home, Labor seems to have shifted and that was reasonably predictable but ultimately this deal with Alcoa involves the Liberals as well. Neither party has both feet in the globalisation and free market camp it would seem, both are at least part way away from that now.

Back to the thread topic, well if we're going to have industry then we're going to need a means of powering it. Coal, nuclear, gas, hydro, wind, solar, geothermal or whatever but if you want industry then the first thing you need is power. As per an old Hydro Tas print media advertisement which ran internationally during the 1930's in an effort to attract business to the island state, cheap and reliable power really is the "master key to industry" and that remains as true today as it was back then.

With gas prices through the roof and the imminent demise of Victoria's second largest power station this "how to power it" bit is going to be somewhat of a problem.


----------



## sptrawler

Shutting down coal and going all in gas,renewables, is somewhat like what happened in a lot of Cities where they pulled up the tram tracks, to make more room for the cars.
It will do one of two things, make electricity unbelievable expensive, or extremely unreliable.IMO
The other option is nuclear, which maybe the underlying driving force, for such rash decissions.


----------



## noco

It would appear from this link, Loy Yang, the largest coal fired power station in Victoria will finish on the scrap heap if the CFMEU have there way which in turn will affect Alcao and AGL.

The CFMEU have rejected a 20% pay rise over 4 years at Loy Yang so instead of going on strike, 30% of the workers call in sick......This seems to be a loop hole the CFMEU have found to avoid being fined for an illegal strike.......Disruption to make AGL pay the price.....There also appears to be ban on overtime where 50%  would normally respond, the company instead were only able to muster 5%.....The other 45% did not answer phone calls.


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/vi...n/news-story/57c7330db0f77b6eb00cde57a8751289


----------



## sptrawler

noco said:


> It would appear from this link, Loy Yang, the largest coal fired power station in Victoria will finish on the scrap heap if the CFMEU have there way which in turn will affect Alcao and AGL.
> 
> The CFMEU have rejected a 20% pay rise over 4 years at Loy Yang so instead of going on strike, 30% of the workers call in sick......This seems to be a loop hole the CFMEU have found to avoid being fined for an illegal strike.......Disruption to make AGL pay the price.....There also appears to be ban on overtime where 50%  would normally respond, the company instead were only able to muster 5%.....The other 45% did not answer phone calls.
> 
> 
> http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/vi...n/news-story/57c7330db0f77b6eb00cde57a8751289




That is a really dumb move, all it does is give ammunition to the Government to intervene, also gives ammo to the anti coal lobby.
But I wouldn't be supprised if Bill Shorten isn't called in to mediate, or maybe Andrews.lol
Just another example, of the union putting the ideology, ahead of forward thinking and members welfare.IMO
They are lucky Hawke isn't in office, remember what happened during the 1989 pilots strike.
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/i-was-there-the-pilots-dispute-20120719-22cp6.html


----------



## Smurf1976

noco said:


> It would appear from this link, Loy Yang, the largest coal fired power station in Victoria will finish on the scrap heap




There's 4 generating units at Loy Yang A whilst the separate Loy Yang B station right next door has 2 units of comparable capacity.

AGL owns the "A" station and the mine which supplies both A & B stations. B station itself is separately owned and operated (though they buy their coal from AGL).

A station has only had 2 of its 4 generating units running for the past couple of days. I had assumed technical problems of some sort but now I'm wondering if the real reason relates to lack of workers?


----------



## noco

Smurf1976 said:


> There's 4 generating units at Loy Yang A whilst the separate Loy Yang B station right next door has 2 units of comparable capacity.
> 
> AGL owns the "A" station and the mine which supplies both A & B stations. B station itself is separately owned and operated (though they buy their coal from AGL).
> 
> A station has only had 2 of its 4 generating units running for the past couple of days. I had assumed technical problems of some sort but now I'm wondering if the real reason relates to lack of workers?




There is no doubt in my mind......The CFMEU are behind it.....If they go on strike over a pay deal, the CFMEU could be heavily fined so they have resorted to a newfound tactic of sickness and requests for workers to work overtime who have been advised by the CFMEU not to answer their phones.

The CFMEU are making the company pay a heavy price to get what they want.


----------



## sptrawler

Maybe the Loy Yang workers need to read up on a bit of history, like the U.K coal miners strikes.
They have knocked back a 20% pay rise over 4 years, what are they thinking of?


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> There is no doubt in my mind......The CFMEU are behind it.....If they go on strike over a pay deal, the CFMEU could be heavily fined so they have resorted to a newfound tactic of sickness and requests for workers to work overtime who have been advised by the CFMEU not to answer their phones.
> 
> The CFMEU are making the company pay a heavy price to get what they want.




If the CFMEU are as bad as you say they are, and I have no evidence either way, the the Federal government should move to de-register them.

We can do without militant unions in this day and age.


----------



## overhang

sptrawler said:


> Maybe the Loy Yang workers need to read up on a bit of history, like the U.K coal miners strikes.
> They have knocked back a 20% pay rise over 4 years, what are they thinking of?




My understanding is that AGL wanted to change many of the conditions under the existing EBA in return for that 20% pay rise over 4 years.  They wanted to change minimum staffing levels as well as the prohibited compulsory redundancies that existed under the current EBA.  And requests had a lot of merit as Fair Work agreed to throw out the existing EBA to revert to the award wages and conditions for the power sector.



> Under the agreement, which the Fair Work Commission has now agreed to terminate, workers at Loy Yang were being paid between $70,000 and $180,000 a year on average.






> It told the commission it wanted to drastically reduce its overtime bill from $20 million to $10 million claiming 10 workers pocketed more than $100,000 a year in overtime alone.




http://www.theage.com.au/business/w...ssive-pay-cut-to-workers-20170112-gtqk4y.html

It really is wrong that we have workers in these unionised industries so overpaid and then you have young Bakers Delight workers still getting paid under award wages because they're still on Howards work choices EBA.


----------



## Tisme

overhang said:


> My understanding is that AGL wanted to change many of the conditions under the existing EBA in return for that 20% pay rise over 4 years.
> 
> It told the commission it wanted to drastically reduce its overtime bill from $20 million to $10 million claiming 10 workers pocketed more than $100,000 a year in overtime alone.




Why would workers be so valuable they have to work the extreme hours? 

If you have ever tried to deal with AGL in trying to break an unapproved supply connection contract, you would know they aren't a victim organisation, deserving of pity.


----------



## overhang

Tisme said:


> Why would workers be so valuable they have to work the extreme hours?
> 
> If you have ever tried to deal with AGL in trying to break an unapproved supply connection contract, you would know they aren't a victim organisation, deserving of pity.




I would love to know how many hours they're contracted to before they must be paid overtime.  With an overtime bill that high I'm not sure why AGL haven't put more workers on, at $20 million they could employ about 110 workers on that $180k annual income level.

I don't pity AGL but I pity the public who has rising energy bills for many reasons including high wage costs , I pity the workforce who are too naive to realize that coal power stations are shutting down at a rapid rate and if they don't work together to lower the overheads that they will be next.  Now admittedly they have caught a break because AGL have been fortunate enough that they can name their price given the shutdown of Hazelwood.  I imagine this Fair Work application was before the company was aware Hazelwood was shutting down so soon.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> If the CFMEU are as bad as you say they are, and I have no evidence either way, the the Federal government should move to de-register them.
> 
> We can do without militant unions in this day and age.




Turnbull, does not have the gutz to deregister the CFMEU for fear of a back lash at the  ballot box.

If the disruption at Loy Yang power station continues and the cost of producing  power becomes nonviable, something has to give.......The company either passes on those costs to the consumers or shuts the power station down. 

I am not sure whether those workers are over paid or not but they all seem to be doing very well.


----------



## Smurf1976

Tisme said:


> Why would workers be so valuable they have to work the extreme hours?




There's really only two reasons why you need technical workers to work massive hours.

1. You didn't employ enough of them to start with. Or more commonly, management sacks the workers and then realises that they have skills which can't be simply bought "off the street" and then ends up having to pay for serious amounts of overtime. 

2. There's some sort of crisis affecting the operation which requires a big effort to overcome. Something broke down usually.

Personally I've been there, done that with working "extreme" hours. But then we had a crisis and for the record nobody actually claimed payment for all the hours worked, just a reasonable amount. But then we don't have management taking a hard line either so it comes down to "give and take" which works pretty well.


----------



## explod

noco said:


> Turnbull, does not have the gutz to deregister the CFMEU for fear of a back lash at the  ballot box.
> 
> If the disruption at Loy Yang power station continues and the cost of producing  power becomes nonviable, something has to give.......The company either passes on those costs to the consumers or shuts the power station down.
> 
> I am not sure whether those workers are over paid or not but they all seem to be doing very well.



Seem to be doing well you say,   care to clarify that?


----------



## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> Why would workers be so valuable they have to work the extreme hours?
> 
> If you have ever tried to deal with AGL in trying to break an unapproved supply connection contract, you would know they aren't a victim organisation, deserving of pity.




You obviously have no idea of the complexities of running a thermal power station.
We had a similar situation in W.A a few years ago, management said we will just employ more.
They ended up having to import 5 from South Africa.lol


----------



## noco

explod said:


> Seem to be doing well you say,   care to clarify that?




They must be if they are earning $100,000 to $180,000 .


----------



## explod

Dont think your commo's on the floor would be getting half that.  Anyway time to move on, China is:-


"China's energy regulator has ordered 11 provinces to stop more than 100 coal-fired power projects, with a combined installed capacity of more than 100 gigawatts, its latest dramatic step to curb the use of fossil fuels in the world's top energy market.

In a document issued on Jan. 14, financial media group Caixin reported, the National Energy Administration (NEA) suspended the coal projects, some of which were already under construction"

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-coal-idUSKBN151090


----------



## noco

The Industrial Umpire is awake to the CFMEU tactics as are many people.


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/vi...g/news-story/54c27c89f0deb4783f5c663d797ccb76


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> You obviously have no idea of the complexities of running a thermal power station.
> We had a similar situation in W.A a few years ago, management said we will just employ more.
> They ended up having to import 5 from South Africa.lol




Workers as such there are plenty of.

Workers with these sorts of skills and who are worth employing are pretty rare however.

One problem we've got in Australia is a broad culture that could be described as "we learn from out mistakes and move on....". That's incredibly common but as I'm sure sptrawler is well aware, power stations are an extremely unforgiving environment and not a place for making mistakes. Actual competence is required, not trial and error, and the old "you pass or you FAIL" is a far more relevant approach than "every child gets a prize" type thinking.

So that rules out much of the potential workforce. They're also not a good place for anyone who isn't good at becoming an expert on what they're working with and its real world characteristics or who can't stand the constant unchanging drone of machinery. Also need a mindset that does things properly and isn't into "shortcuts" as those tend to end badly.

So that does narrow down the potential workforce quite a bit.


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> You obviously have no idea of the complexities of running a thermal power station.
> We had a similar situation in W.A a few years ago, management said we will just employ more.
> They ended up having to import 5 from South Africa.lol




There you go, it must be pretty complex if they had to import "Afrikaners?". I'm guessing it was a merit based mass appointment?


----------



## Tisme

Smurf1976 said:


> Workers as such there are plenty of.
> 
> Workers with these sorts of skills and who are worth employing are pretty rare however.
> 
> One problem we've got in Australia is a broad culture that could be described as "we learn from out mistakes and move on....". That's incredibly common but as I'm sure sptrawler is well aware, power stations are an extremely unforgiving environment and not a place for making mistakes. Actual competence is required, not trial and error, and the old "you pass or you FAIL" is a far more relevant approach than "every child gets a prize" type thinking.
> 
> So that rules out much of the potential workforce. They're also not a good place for anyone who isn't good at becoming an expert on what they're working with and its real world characteristics or who can't stand the constant unchanging drone of machinery. Also need a mindset that does things properly and isn't into "shortcuts" as those tend to end badly.
> 
> So that does narrow down the potential workforce quite a bit.




I think sptrawler's post was tongue firmly in cheek, but your reply was worthwhile nonetheless.


----------



## Tisme

noco said:


> The Industrial Umpire is awake to the CFMEU tactics as are many people.
> 
> 
> http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/vi...g/news-story/54c27c89f0deb4783f5c663d797ccb76





There will come a time when an educated population will question or just dismiss the labour cost blame for price of goods and services which is actually driven by profiteering, compliance costs and top heavy administration.

All a bit of a yawn these days, reading media that is trying to maintain the rage against the working class... the same working class that forced equality of gender,  universal suffrage, etc ... all the things that allow shallow IQ'd journalists and their families to have an opinion and voice it, unlike a little over 100 years ago.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Workers with these sorts of skills and who are worth employing are pretty rare however.




I guess there could be all sorts of reasons for that, but I would put forward privatisation in general and the withdrawal of governments from trade training schemes and apprenticeships.

Private employers are much more likely simply to import workers that have already been trained elsewhere, and our governments are not really interested if their qualifications stack up to requirements.

Maybe it's not good always harking back to 'the old days' but there seemed to be a better realisation then that skills development locally led to a better end product service. You can see this in many industries, we used to be able to service jet aircraft here now it's mainly done OS, apart from the military.

Imo there has been a negligent "not our problem" mindset from many governments over the years.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> I guess there could be all sorts of reasons for that, but I would put forward privatisation in general and the withdrawal of governments from trade training schemes and apprenticeships.
> 
> Private employers are much more likely simply to import workers that have already been trained elsewhere, and our governments are not really interested if their qualifications stack up to requirements.
> 
> Maybe it's not good always harking back to 'the old days' but there seemed to be a better realisation then that skills development locally led to a better end product service. You can see this in many industries, we used to be able to service jet aircraft here now it's mainly done OS, apart from the military.
> 
> Imo there has been a negligent "not our problem" mindset from many governments over the years.




So why are they sending aircraft over seas to get serviced?


----------



## explod

noco said:


> So why are they sending aircraft over seas to get serviced?



To cut costs of course, and in laying off workers to cut costs there is less local money back in the community and so less business and less trips.  So we are cutting off our noses and taking everything to the cheapest denominator so that eventually the few rich will have it all and the rest of us may as well lay down and die.  You are going to win noco, but what will the prize be????


----------



## noco

explod said:


> To cut costs of course, and in laying off workers to cut costs there is less local money back in the community and so less business and less trips.  So we are cutting off our noses and taking everything to the cheapest denominator so that eventually the few rich will have it all and the rest of us may as well lay down and die.  You are going to win noco, but what will the prize be????




So they want to cut costs?...If the aircraft were serviced here by one company and the others OS, how long would the former company last in a competitive world?


----------



## Smurf1976

Tisme said:


> There will come a time when an educated population will question or just dismiss the labour cost blame for price of goods and services which is actually driven by profiteering, compliance costs and top heavy administration.




I'll quote the words of a supervisor working for a large (ASX listed) contracting company.

"The private sector today has more red tape and bureaucracy than the public service did 20 years ago. Can't get anything done without some form of red tape and we end up spending more time on that than doing the actual work, hence why costs have gone up so much. I hate to imagine what it's like in the public service now but presumably that's even worse".

Or words to that effect.

He's hit the nail on the head there. Comparing now to 20 years ago, which isn't that long really, an entire new industry has sprung up which affects basically everything. Compliance.

Related to that is that no CEO or senior manager in their right mind is going to take even the slightest risk, which could well cost them personally if it goes wrong, when removing that risk isn't costing them personally. It's the old "other people's money" problem.

I'm not against WHS (formerly known as OH&S - that's safety in layman's terms) by any means indeed I'm strongly in favour of it. But we've reached the point where certainly some do see that the best way to manage risk is to remove it altogether. In other words, become purely an administrative operation and pay someone else big $ to take on the risk. 

That ends with things like having a worker who used to do the actual work now administering some contractor who does that work. And the contractor themselves will have an assortment of overheads and administrative costs which they add on to the cost of the work. Plus profit of course. End result is that everything costs a fortune.

It happens in just about every industry involving physical work to some extent but the power industry isn't too far down that track actually, at least not down here. Think of things done directly by government and funded by taxes if you want to know what has gone a very long way down that track.


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> So they want to cut costs?...If the aircraft were serviced here by one company and the others OS, how long would the former company last in a competitive world?




That's the typical "bottom line" approach. Cut costs and you end up risking safety. Just watch "Air Crash Investigation" and you will find many examples of airliners crashing due to maintenance incompetence, illegal (cheap) spare parts and blind eye turning at every level.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> That's the typical "bottom line" approach. Cut costs and you end up risking safety. Just watch "Air Crash Investigation" and you will find many examples of airliners crashing due to maintenance incompetence, illegal (cheap) spare parts and blind eye turning at every level.




+1

There's at least one major power station, I won't name it other than to say it's privately owned, where they've cut maintenance by fully 85% compared to "the old days".

That'll be just fine for quite a few years until suddenly it isn't fine and there's a problem. A big problem most likely. But hey, look how much money we're making right now. And how many workers we've got rid of. And so on until that day occurs when whatever incident leads to an investigation which finds they've got to either spend huge $ or it's all over and they've got to shut the whole place pretty quickly.

Hence why I'm absolutely opposed to the use of nuclear power in Australia and most other places. Regardless of how well it can be designed, built and operated the reality is that shortcuts will be taken in practice at the expense of safety. The plant I'm referring to isn't a nuclear plant obviously, since we don't have any of those in Australia (Lucas Heights reactor is not for power generation), but the same principles apply.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> +1
> 
> There's at least one major power station, I won't name it other than to say it's privately owned, where they've cut maintenance by fully 85% compared to "the old days".
> 
> That'll be just fine for quite a few years until suddenly it isn't fine and there's a problem. A big problem most likely. But hey, look how much money we're making right now. And how many workers we've got rid of. And so on until that day occurs when whatever incident leads to an investigation which finds they've got to either spend huge $ or it's all over and they've got to shut the whole place pretty quickly.
> 
> Hence why I'm absolutely opposed to the use of nuclear power in Australia and most other places. Regardless of how well it can be designed, built and operated the reality is that shortcuts will be taken in practice at the expense of safety. The plant I'm referring to isn't a nuclear plant obviously, since we don't have any of those in Australia (Lucas Heights reactor is not for power generation), but the same principles apply.




So I guess we have some public servant(s) who are supposed to go round and inspect these stations to see everything is up to scratch ? Or as they are privately owned does that no longer apply ?

And I guess even if they are inspected it's not all that thorough because we don't want to upset people so much that they close the thing down and walk away.

I don't object to the stations being leased to private operators, but part of the lease contract should be an agreed standard of maintenance, breaches of which void the lease.

I can't help thinking there have been some very good mates rates involved in "commercial in confidence" privatisations.


----------



## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> I think sptrawler's post was tongue firmly in cheek, but your reply was worthwhile nonetheless.



Actually my post wasn't tonque in cheek, but I doubt you would understand it, the same way management didn't.
Management wanted to employ five power station controllers, who were able to be fast tracked, to operate the plant thereby reducing overtime costs.
After interviewing throughout Australia, they looked overseas, South African applicants were chosen.
They still required two years of plant training, to be deemed competent to operate autonomously. 
The operator was also responsible for deciding the isolation requirements, to enable safe work on any item or system of plant, electrical, mechanical, fabrication, civil, etc.
If anyone was hurt, or plant damage occurred, due to a faulty isolation. The operator faced litigation. One power station controller, I personally know was in and out of court for three years.
So, I'm not sure if the same system is in place over East, but I do know there were many people with degrees, that failed to qualify here.


----------



## sptrawler

To further the explanation, I was involved in an EBA discussion, where I suggested to management we were prepared to take a wage cut.
If the engineers were given the "permit to work" isolation responsibilities. Needless to say, it wasn't warmly taken on board.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> That's the typical "bottom line" approach. Cut costs and you end up risking safety. Just watch "Air Crash Investigation" and you will find many examples of airliners crashing due to maintenance incompetence, illegal (cheap) spare parts and blind eye turning at every level.




How many crashes have occurred involving Australian Aircraft on Australian soil?

Even if servicing is carried out overseas, the Australian air line companies would have a supervisor to check all is carried out efficiently and in a proper manner.

Furthermore, there are tens of thousands of aircraft in the air at any one given time....How many crashes occur on a daily basis.......In many cases the air craft has crashed for reason other than engine failure....Sabotage......weather conditions......pilot error.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> So I guess we have some public servant(s) who are supposed to go round and inspect these stations to see everything is up to scratch ? Or as they are privately owned does that no longer apply ?




In short it's not much different to any other business. Workplace Standards, unions and the EPA will check for the usual things as they'd do in any industrial business.

AEMO want to verify a few things but those are limited to things which immediately threaten system security. That the plant's being under-maintained and will be out of business 5 years from now is outside their role indeed they take the owner's word for it with that sort of stuff (hence their forecasts showed Hazelwood as running for at least the next decade right until the closure announcement).

So there's people worried about safety, working conditions, pollution and things which may cause a sudden blackout but nobody's going around checking that we'll have adequate power as such.

Update on Loy Yang - All 4 units at A station are running now at just below full capacity. Reason for not being at full capacity would be just normal demand and price considerations. 

The separately owned B station has both units running at full capacity.

Nearby Yallourn has 3 of its 4 units able to run (and they're running at full capacity).  

Hazelwood has 6 units operating at reduced capacity (because they're stuffed....), one at full capacity, one offline completely. For the plant as a whole it's running at about 75% of nominal capacity right now.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurph, the sooner this all comes to a head, the better.
Everyone is living in a fools paradise, the sooner they shut down coal generation the better, then the realities of what is achievable will become apparent.
Maybe then the discussion will be about, what is sensibly achievable, without making us a third World nation with a third World electrical supply system.


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> How many crashes have occurred involving Australian Aircraft on Australian soil?




We have been lucky so far, but there have been a number of incidents where Australian aircraft have had to divert from plan due to technical difficulties like smoke in the cabin. As smoking is now banned on flights smoke in the cabin could well be caused by frayed wiring shorting out, and airliners have crashed due to that sort of thing.


----------



## explod

I'd be worried about those coal shares noco.



> Rebounding large scale solar and wind investment, coupled with a stable rooftop PV sector, has seen Australia register almost 50 per cent growth in clean energy investment in 2016.
> 
> Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) figures released this month reveal that total clean energy investment reached $4.29 billion in 2016, up from two weak years, but still below the $5 billion-plus milestone reached between 2010 and 2013.
> 
> Large scale wind and solar project financing was the bright spot in 2016, with BNEF noting that the ACT’s reverse auction attracted US$831 million (AU$1.112 billion) in project investment, while US$1.1 billion was invested towards meeting the Large-scale Renewable Target (LRET).




http://www.echo.net.au/2017/01/renewable-energy-investment-australia-bucks-global-trend/


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> We have been lucky so far, but there have been a number of incidents where Australian aircraft have had to divert from plan due to technical difficulties like smoke in the cabin. As smoking is now banned on flights smoke in the cabin could well be caused by frayed wiring shorting out, and airliners have crashed due to that sort of thing.




What you have mentioned are happenings on rare occasions and it is good with modern technology that they can detect minor faults early but you can't really blame it all on overseas servicing.....You say there have been a number incidents which makes it all sound so bad but we must not exaggeration get in the way of the true facts.

Even with Australian Air Force maintenance on F18 and the Super Hornets, the work carried out by the Avionics crew is checked and cross checked by superiors and modern equipment...My youngest son was with the Avionics crew for 11 years and I had the privilege of a conducted tour of the Williamtown  RAAF base in 2002 and I eye witnessed first hand the procedures in aircraft safety and I would say the same thing occurs in OS servicing.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/5/1...te-7-fire-replacement-plane-battery-southwest

Actually you are safer in the air than you are driving your car on the roads.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> We have been lucky so far, but there have been a number of incidents where Australian aircraft have had to divert from plan due to technical difficulties like smoke in the cabin. As smoking is now banned on flights smoke in the cabin could well be caused by frayed wiring shorting out, and airliners have crashed due to that sort of thing.




Of topic I know.

Here are the statistics of air craft incidents World wide.

http://www.flightsafetyaustralia.com/2017/01/safety-in-2016-accidents-dwarfed-by-traffic-numbers/


----------



## noco

This what is happening the UK with renewable energy........It could happen here in Australia if there is not some more tighter control.

https://climatism.wordpress.com/201...-billion-cost-of-britains-wind-power-debacle/

Here are more lies and propaganda presented by well know Climate Change organizations....It is all a beat up.

https://climatism.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/noaas-tornado-fraud/


----------



## noco

More problems for South Australia.


https://climatism.wordpress.com/201...-power-hits-home-australian-power-bills-soar/
And Germany is starting realize power from wind and the Sun is not what it is cracked up to be.

https://climatism.wordpress.com/201...rid-collapse-looms-due-to-erratic-wind-solar/


----------



## sptrawler

Well it is good to see Australia is taking on board climate change. and shutting down our coal fired Power stations.
Now we can sell off all our coal mines to China, so they can burn it, without the problem of paying us for it.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/mini...ets-to-yancoal-australia-20170124-gty09e.html

I think in 20 or 30 years time, they will make a movie, on the implosion of Australia due to political correctness.


----------



## explod

No one is going to want coal soon.  Its too dirty and compared to the new alternatives also becoming too expensive.



> Because China is such a behemoth, its energy decisions absolutely dwarf anything any other country is doing right now. Case in point: Over the weekend, the Chinese government ordered 13 provinces to cancel 104 coal-fired projects in development, amounting to a whopping 120 gigawatts of capacity in all.




http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/1/17/14294906/china-cancels-coal-plants


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I think in 20 or 30 years time, they will make a movie, on the implosion of Australia due to political correctness.




Just one problem there.

To make a movie requires the use of a camera and lights. To use a camera and lights requires power. Camera and lights should be easy enough but where are we going to get the "power" bit from?

Oh, I get it! The movie will be about the implosion of Australia as a whole but completely filmed on location in only one state, that being Tasmania, since that was the only place with something to plug the lights into that actually had power coming out of it. 

One thing if there's an implosion is that survivors might have decided to build an underground bunker. Now it just so happens that there's quite a bit of spare space at one end of Gordon power station, which is underground, so we could use that for the underground bunker filming location. Needless to say getting power shouldn't be a problem.

Lunch for the film crew will be fish served with fish and a side of fish. Breakfast and dinner will also be fish. Should anyone need a snack then, you guessed it, fish. All fish served will be well cooked - with electricity of course.

Those who need some entertainment other than filming can abseil off the Gordon Dam. The climb back up will ensure everyone has plenty of exercise.

And if we can get this implosion done quickly enough and bring the filming forward then it'll be just in time for this music thingy that's on in a couple of weeks. http://endoftheearth.com.au/

Now waiting for WA to respond with a festival at Muja. Stage set up in the mine and would be best to be a heavy metal festival such that everyone's wearing black T-shirts so as to blend in with the coal. Those needing some further entertainment can abseil down the stacks of C or D station. Smoking will be banned, so as to make sure nobody sets the mine on fire, but those desperate for a cigarette will be taken for a quick trip to the top of the A/B stacks - one breath of that and they'll have all the smoke they ever wanted. 

Seriously, if Rio Tinto are selling their coal mines in NSW then I can only assume that's a strategic move. They're not fools, wouldn't be such a big company if they were, so I can only assume that they either think coal is stuffed or that NSW isn't a good place to be mining it.


----------



## SirRumpole

If we are going to burn fossil fuels then gas would seem the way to go. But the politicians just want it all going overseas and Australians come off second best as usual.


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> To further the explanation, I was involved in an EBA discussion, where I suggested to management we were prepared to take a wage cut.
> If the engineers were given the "permit to work" isolation responsibilities. Needless to say, it wasn't warmly taken on board.




Why would maintenance staff (?) want to take responsibility for work permissions?


----------



## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> Why would maintenance staff (?) want to take responsibility for work permissions?



It would, in some ways, improve productivity if maintenance were carrying out their own isolations. 
In many companies I've worked for, electrical isolations are carried out by electrical personel.


----------



## Wysiwyg

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm not against WHS (formerly known as OH&S - that's safety in layman's terms) by any means indeed I'm strongly in favour of it. *But we've reached the point where certainly some do see that the best way to manage risk is to remove it altogether. In other words, become purely an administrative operation and pay someone else big $ to take on the risk.*



The deciding Risk Score derived from a Risk Matrix by adding Likelihood and Consequence scores is so subjective in that two people will have a different score. A WHS officer sees risk in a different light to the workers doing the work. The WHS officer sees all energy sources as a risk and shall be controlled with Isolation, Lockout and de-energising, draining, testing for dead etc. This is of course absolutely necessary in many cases BUT where I believe they have reduced productivity by up to 20% in our case is by failing in the risk assessment. Failing because all energy sources are deemed a risk and shall be isolated, locked out and de-energised including the equipment workers are required to use for the job. So locks on - sign on, locks off - sign off, locks on - sign on, locks off - sign off all day everyday. Stupid and they have gone too far the other way. End result will be production has dropped off and the upper management wonder why. No worries, everyone's doing less but staying extremely safe. What a joke on themselves.


----------



## Wysiwyg

sptrawler said:


> It would, in some ways, improve productivity if maintenance were carrying out their own isolations.
> In many companies I've worked for, electrical isolations are carried out by electrical personel.



Leckies deal with electricity, Fitters deal with mechanical and welders deal with welding. Up top sees human beings as a drag on company profits and numbers need to be reduced at every (created) opportunity.


----------



## Smurf1976

Well it seems that even the Liberals are finally waking up:

_"the Federal Government warns privatisation and offshoring of critical infrastructure has raised dangers of “sabotage, espionage and coercion"_

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...t/news-story/a7617a1e2c27e30416c4098b3c0bd547

No surprises there, many have been worried about this sort of outcome right from the start. Risks of sabotage, lack of investment putting supply in jeopardy, operators who don't even know what protection settings are and certainly not how to get them right, prices going up and making Australia uncompetitive internationally. 

Remind me again what the point of privatisation and de-regulation was supposed to be? Hasn't worked too well that's for sure.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> "the Federal Government warns privatisation and offshoring of critical infrastructure has raised dangers of “sabotage, espionage and coercion"





This was a "premium article" and therefore unreadable by paupers like me, but The Liberals are warning ?

They are the silly duffers doing all the privatisation in the first place.

Shees !


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> This was a "premium article" and therefore unreadable by paupers like me, but The Liberals are warning ?




Well it's the Australian Government doing the worrying but at the moment that's a Liberal (well, OK, Coalition) one at the moment. Labor would possibly do the same of course, but I mention the party given the irony of a Liberal government suddenly realising the problem with selling our key infrastructure to foreign owners (especially foreign governments as is often the case).

Anyway, the basic concern seems to be that having it all in foreign hands exposes us to the risk of others doing bad things (eg espionage, sabotage) which leave us literally in the dark. All of a sudden energy security (also ports and other key infrastructure) is a priority it seems - and that comes after 20 years of doing the exact opposite and creating the situation we have now.

I think there's a bigger force at work here and it's starting to become apparent. Rising nationalism, Brexit, Trump etc, government stepping in to save a factory in Victoria and so on. The direction we've been heading in for the past 20+ years seems to be reversing rather quickly it seems.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> This was a "premium article" and therefore unreadable by paupers like me, but The Liberals are warning ?
> 
> They are the silly duffers doing all the privatisation in the first place.
> 
> Shees !




Yeah, like the Labor Party sold of the Commonwealth Bank.
Beattie in Queensland sold off the Golden casket that paid for the hospitals.
One is bad as the other....But in in most cases where the Liberals have sold assets. it was to pay for Labor's overspending and high debt.


----------



## Smurf1976

noco said:


> One is bad as the other....




No argument from me there and I'll be critical of any political party which does things lacking foresight as to the eventual consequences. Labor and Liberal are both guilty there, no question, although in the case of the power industry in general the Liberals have done more of it hence my mentioning that party.

But to be fair, whilst it was Liberal state governments which did (or tried to do) most of the selling they did so with the full backing and indeed strong urging of a Labor federal government at the start (and more recently a Coalition federal government).

Both are guilty although the Liberal party seems more ideologically committed to the concept so I'm surprised to see them reconsidering so quickly. I honestly thought anything like that would be decades away.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I think there's a bigger force at work here and it's starting to become apparent. Rising nationalism, Brexit, Trump etc, government stepping in to save a factory in Victoria and so on. The direction we've been heading in for the past 20+ years seems to be reversing rather quickly it seems.




Our governments have had some major scares in the last 10 years or so.

The hacking of the BOM and the census, the ASIO building that was built by foreign contractors and had to be ripped apart to remove all the spy equipment, the importation of cheap steel from overseas that has proven to be not the required standard have all added up and made people realise that we live in an increasingly dangerous world and the only people we can really trust are those who live here (and then there are surreptitious foreign agents in ethnic communities as well).

It's taken some time to realise that globalisation has failed because economics is inseperable from politics.

Hopefully we will learn from our mistakes and learn to do things for ourselves instead of outsourcing to unreliable foreign suppliers.


----------



## basilio

*"The only people we can trust are those who live here.." Sir Rumpole*

It was always clear that the privatisation of power, transport and other infrastructure was going to result in cutting of staff and maintenance and essentially maximising current profits. The theory that this would result in a cheaper but more efficient and effective service was/is a myth. Management and capital can swallow far more savings than are imaginable on heaven or earth.

As far as trusting the people who live here. Frankly if someone wants to hack the computer network of a power or transport company it doesn't matter who or where  the owners are located does it ? As far as dodgy products from overseas ? In fact it is the Australian builders who do not make sure the products are fit for purpose or installed properly. For example the huge new scandal  showing it's face in Australia is Leaky buildings. Basically  thousands of apartments built in the last 10-20 years that have chronic water leak problems that will ultimately destroy the value of the whole structure.

Our own local sharps.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbournes-faulty-building-crisis-20161217-gtdbb0.html:http/
http://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/news/$100-million-leaky-building-class-action-against-j


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## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> Our own local sharps.




Sure, but it's easier to take action against them than a foreign company.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...a/news-story/80ad9555f0b744d95a1be90ffe8dba16


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## SirRumpole

Is 'our' Smurf a tour guide on this trip ?


*Tasmania's hydro power construction and communities celebrated in new signed road trail*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-02/hydro-tasmania-launches-highland-power-trail/8235946


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Is 'our' Smurf a tour guide on this trip ?




Nah, no tour guides since it's a self-drive trip.

It has all been in place since last year by the way. Just waited and made sure everything was sorted before the "official" launch. That plus it would have got lost among everything else people are doing if it was announced over Christmas.

Waddamana Power Station museum is open daily however and anyone can simply turn up for a look with or without following the rest of the route. It's all in top condition inside and looks as though it's ready to go apart from a machine covers etc being removed so that visitors can see what's inside.

There's also an assortment of other equipment which has been relocated to the site, most notably from the former Shannon power station (long ago demolished) and an assortment of old appliances etc.

Waddamana "A" station operated 1916 - 1965 whilst the adjacent "B" station operated 1944 - 1994 (though largely obsolete after 1964 and retained primarily as backup plant). Both stations along with the associated Shannon Power Station (1934 - 1964) were superseded by the far more efficient and larger Poatina Power Station (1964 - present) which uses the same water to produce more energy.

Waddamana "A" station has particular historical significance to the power industry because:

1. It was the first power station operated by any state government electricity utility in Australia, being directly associated with the establishment of "the Hydro" as such.

2. It was the first power station in Australia located remote from any significant use of electricity and supplying an actual transmission grid. That system was itself among the largest in the world when built.

3. Right from the start was associated with efforts to develop energy-intensive heavy industry, Tasmania being the first Australian state to do so.

So Waddamana was the birthplace of the Hydro as an organisation, the use of an electricity grid in Australia, and of energy-intensive heavy industry in Australia.

A few bits of historical trivia:

The plant itself was still in top condition when shut down. It became obsolete but certainly hadn't worn out.

The Hydro was rather worried about security during WW1 and later WW2, going as far as forming it's own "Army" of sorts to patrol the transmission line, power station, pipelines etc.

The Australian Government at the time was negative toward the project, seeing no point in setting up an electricity grid in view of the limited potential uses of electricity. The Tasmanian Government was warned in no uncertain terms that no bailout would be forthcoming should the venture fail.

Ice was an ongoing problem at Penstock Lagoon during the colder months. If the water level dropped then apparently sheets of ice would break loose, fall down vertically below the water and position themselves to block the water intake thus shutting down the power station. Men were employed with sledge hammers to manually smash the ice into pieces, 24 hours per day in freezing conditions, to prevent this.


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## sptrawler

Talking about power stations, built on the cheap, have a look at this Smurph.

https://thewest.com.au/business/energy/bluewaters-power-station-suffers-massive-outage-ng-b88373489z

That was built in Collie, which in winter, resembles Tasmania.lol
I would hate to do overnight isolations, there in winter.lol


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## nioka

noco said:


> Yeah, like the Labor Party sold of the Commonwealth Bank.
> Beattie in Queensland sold off the Golden casket that paid for the hospitals.
> One is bad as the other....But in in most cases where the Liberals have sold assets. it was to pay for Labor's overspending and high debt.



That's a rubbish, biased statement. The Libs have sold infrastructure long before the Labor's spending. Take the sale of Telstra. Sold to fund public service pensions. Baird need not have sold the poles and wires.
Both sides of politics are as bad as one another with regard to the sale of assets.


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Talking about power stations, built on the cheap, have a look at this Smurph.
> 
> https://thewest.com.au/business/energy/bluewaters-power-station-suffers-massive-outage-ng-b88373489z
> 
> That was built in Collie, which in winter, resembles Tasmania.lol
> I would hate to do overnight isolations, there in winter.lol




Hmm....

Here in Tassie we came up with the idea that you put sheets on the framework of a building. You know, stuff like corrugated iron. That keeps the rain and wind out. Works a treat.

It's not a new idea by the way and I'm very sure we weren't the first to do it. Maybe I should set up a consulting business and sell the idea to Bluewaters in WA? 

Being more serious, I see they've had a fault "within the generator" and it followed a sudden trip. Doesn't sound good - I'm guessing a winding fault? It'll be out for months if that's the case.

What it does highlight is that any power station can have a major failure without warning. Proper maintenance minimises the chance but it's never absolutely zero. Coal, gas, hydro, whatever - none of them are totally immune to failure.

Hence why any grid needs reserve generating capacity to maintain supply to consumers when things go wrong. Thankfully WA does seem to have that but in Vic and SA it's about to be the exact opposite with insufficient capacity to meet demand even if everything does work 100% perfectly.

Now suppose that any substantial power station in Vic or SA has a failure like what's happened in WA. With a supply shortfall even with everything working they're going to be in a world of pain if (when) a major failure does occur.


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## SirRumpole

I just love this quaint turn of phrase



> Mr Watters said Bluewaters had* invited *the plant’s manufacturer, US conglomerate GE, to diagnose and fix the problem.




Now if Donald was in charge it would be "get off your backsides and come and fix this thing you morons"


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## Smurf1976

Generation right now in WA:

Coal = 49%

Gas = 45%

Wind = 5%

Minor sources (biomass etc) = 0.5%

Doesn't add to 100% due to rounding.


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## SirRumpole

Is rooftop solar too popular ?

*Uptake in rooftop solar in SA poses risk to energy system security, Australian Energy Council warns*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-22/rooftop-solar-sa-risk-to-energy-system-security-aec/8044642


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## SirRumpole

*Explained: Pumped hydro and its potential role in South Australia*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-03/pumped-hydro-and-its-potential-in-sa-explained/8233342


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## Smurf1976

If you want a high % of intermittent sources of generation in the grid then you need some way to store that energy for use when generation availability falls below demand (Eg the wind isn't blowing much).

There's various ways to do that but in terms of scale, durability, technical characteristics (particularly system inertia) and cost pumped hydro is a very serious option and a well proven one at that. It's far more robust and larger than any battery is likely to be anytime soon.

There are presently 3 pumped storage schemes in Australia - Tumut 3 (Snowy), Shoalhaven (NSW) and Wivenhoe (Qld). Tumut 3 is also a conventional hydro station in addition to its pumped storage capability (that is, it has natural inflows additional to pumping).

There are quite a few pumped diversions in Tasmania but they are diversions from one catchment into another, water flowing up hill, and are not a pumped storage scheme as such since the water never returns to its original location. They add energy however - eg pump up 140m then drop 1000m at a different location and catchment.

PS - the penstocks (pipes) shown in the link are at Tungatinah power station (Tas) although it doesn't say so on the photo (well, they're at Tungatinah unless someone else has built something which looks absolutely identical). Tungatinah is a conventional (non-pumped) hydro station in operation since 1953. It's presently out of service for planned maintenance works but it's still going strong as such and will be for a very long time yet.


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## Smurf1976

Anyone spot any chickens in SA this evening? They've come home to roost!

In layman's terms SA ran out of generating capacity at about 19:33 (SA time) and some areas were intentionally blacked out in order to avoid overloading the system. That wasn't due to a fault with power lines etc, there was simply nothing left to put in the other end and so some consumers had to be cut off. This went on for approximately an hour.

For those for whom this means anything - an LOR3 occurred in SA between 18:03 - 19:00 (Queensland time which is what the power industry uses).

Tomorrow's not looking too great either:

SA peak demand is forecast at 2913 MW with available generation of 2477 MW. The deficit of 436 MW could be supplied from Victoria but:

Vic peak demand is forecast at 8843 MW with available generation of 9486 MW. Adding in the need to supply that leaves just 207 MW spare.

So overall there's basically nothing to spare in those two states apart from supply from NSW and Tas. NSW doesn't have much to spare itself but will be able to put at least 350 MW into Vic so long as nothing breaks and/or they can get it from Qld. Tas can deliver 594 MW into Vic so long as Basslink works (which it is at the moment but it's a single point of failure if something does go wrong).

Now, these numbers might sound like "we've got just enough but no more" until you realise that:

1. Hazelwood power station, which is about to close, is still supplying 1350 - 1400 MW.

2. Forecast temperatures of 41 for Adelaide and 37 for Melbourne are by no means as hot as it gets.

3. Most generating plant is working. There's a unit out at Loy Yang (Vic) and one at Torrens Island (SA) but as a whole most is working. Things do break down however, usually when you were most needing them to work.

4. Wind speed is low but not as low as it gets from time to time. At some future time it will be worse.

Then there's the price. Hitting $14,000 per MWh in SA and $10,000 in Vic. That's around 200 times the average value of electricity. Needless to say that even though most consumers aren't directly paying that price, it will be factored in and one way or another they'll end up paying.

A note about the 350MW I mentioned as being available from NSW. That's the limit of transmission however that itself is highly variable. In short, a number of power stations (hydro) in Vic use the same lines. If they're running then that's about the limit of what can be added from NSW but if those hydro stations are not running then more could be supplied from NSW through the same lines. There's some technical complexity as to the reasons but in short the two largest "Victorian" hydro stations are physically in southern NSW and the connection between the two states runs via them. 

So how much is available from NSW depends on (1) how much spare capacity NSW has in the first place (including that supplied into NSW from Qld) and (2) how much of the transmission capacity is already being used by "Victorian" hydro stations physically located in southern NSW. That plus temperature and wind speed also affects all transmission lines (anywhere). So the 350MW is just a typical value that occurs when demand is high and those hydro stations are running - at other times it can be a very different figure.


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## SirRumpole

So, the system is hanging by a thread. Someone will have to do something real about it soon instead of just playing the blame game.

If SA & Vic had invested in solar thermal with storage they could be making the most of this sun/heat.


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## Smurf1976

For those in NSW thinking they might be missing out on something by not being blacked out, here's the forecast for Friday:

NSW peak demand = 14,167 MW

NSW available generation = 12,492 MW

The lights will stay on, just, so long as the can fill the gap with 1675 MW from Vic and Qld which, as luck would have it, aren't expected to have high demand on that day due to the weather.

That said, even with maximum supply from Vic and NSW there's still only 710 MW left to spare in NSW. Sounds OK until you realise that it would only take a single generation failure to completely wipe that out.

And then I could add that a 170 MW plant in NSW is closing this year and another 2000 MW is closing in 2022. 

Meanwhile our governments do basically nothing as SA, Vic and NSW (in that order) are slowly but surely heading into a crisis if nothing is done to resolve it. In SA it's already too late and Vic isn't far behind (next Summer).


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> So, the system is hanging by a thread.




Pretty much yes. 

The situation has improved in Vic but deteriorated in SA since my previous post.

Another 496 MW of supply expected to be available in Vic and no change to the load forecast, that's the good bit.

An further increase of 99 MW in load forecast in SA with a paltry 3 MW increase in forecast supply. Bad just got worse.

The figures will always jump around a bit due to changes in expected weather (which affects wind generation as well as load), plant conditions and so on but the crux of it is that there's just not enough margin for even the slightest thing to go wrong.

Fast forward 12 months and we'll have Hazelwood long gone and meanwhile Alcoa should be back to full production as well. Better hope it's either seriously windy or it never gets too hot. Or both.


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## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> In layman's terms SA ran out of generating capacity at about 19:33 (SA time)




Mistake on my part there. Happened at 18:03 Queensland time which is 18:33 in SA not 19:33. My error there.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Anyone spot any chickens in SA this evening? They've come home to roost!
> 
> In layman's terms SA ran out of generating capacity at about 19:33 (SA time) and some areas were intentionally blacked out in order to avoid overloading the system. That wasn't due to a fault with power lines etc, there was simply nothing left to put in the other end and so some consumers had to be cut off. This went on for approximately an hour.
> 
> For those for whom this means anything - an LOR3 occurred in SA between 18:03 - 19:00 (Queensland time which is what the power industry uses).
> 
> Tomorrow's not looking too great either:
> 
> SA peak demand is forecast at 2913 MW with available generation of 2477 MW. The deficit of 436 MW could be supplied from Victoria but:
> 
> Vic peak demand is forecast at 8843 MW with available generation of 9486 MW. Adding in the need to supply that leaves just 207 MW spare.
> 
> So overall there's basically nothing to spare in those two states apart from supply from NSW and Tas. NSW doesn't have much to spare itself but will be able to put at least 350 MW into Vic so long as nothing breaks and/or they can get it from Qld. Tas can deliver 594 MW into Vic so long as Basslink works (which it is at the moment but it's a single point of failure if something does go wrong).
> 
> Now, these numbers might sound like "we've got just enough but no more" until you realise that:
> 
> 1. Hazelwood power station, which is about to close, is still supplying 1350 - 1400 MW.




Absolutely beautiful, the Labor /Green push is just starting to show the lunacy, Ferguson was going to shut down Hazelwood 5 years ago.

I can't wait to see, how we promote Australia as a place to do business, bring along your own power station, our power system is no better than Africa.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> So, the system is hanging by a thread. Someone will have to do something real about it soon instead of just playing the blame game.
> 
> If SA & Vic had invested in solar thermal with storage they could be making the most of this sun/heat.




Just a minute, we might be hanging by a thread, but we are leading the World with green power.
Wasn't it you ra ra ing Gillards carbon tax, get rid of coal?
Best move we have ever made, bring it on.
No company can get money to build anything powered by coal, we can't install enough gas powered plant to replace it and renewables are just sad.lol
What a mess OMG, wank#rs running the world, is there any wonder the silent majority are fed up.lol
Won't be long before silly billy wakes up and says, "hey we need to take a deep breath here", populist answers are his forte.
Bit of a tonque in cheek rant, but close to the truth.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Wasn't it you ra ra ing Gillards carbon tax, get rid of coal?




Why assume coal is the only solution ? We have plenty of gas, still CO2 producing but less harmful than coal.

Lot's of other possibilities including solar thermal and tidal which Abbott and Turnbull haven't bothered with.


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## SirRumpole

The SA Energy minister was on ABC saying that there was thermal generating capacity (gas) available which was not turned on because the energy regulator either told then not to or didn't instruct them to turn it on.

He said the national grid concept had failed and SA will now do its own thing as far as power supplys go.

I don't know how much of what he said was true, but it sounds like there is a fundamental management problem with the national grid.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> The SA Energy minister was on ABC saying that there was thermal generating capacity (gas) available which was not turned on because the energy regulator either told then not to or didn't instruct them to turn it on.
> 
> He said the national grid concept had failed and SA will now do its own thing as far as power supplys go.
> 
> I don't know how much of what he said was true, but it sounds like there is a fundamental management problem with the national grid.




I think the fellow who didn't follow instructions might just have an agenda worth investigating by police.


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## SirRumpole

A bit more on the blackout

*SA heatwave forces blackouts to cope with electricity demand, angering Government*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-...rolling-blackouts-angering-government/8252512


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## Smurf1976

I'll post some more info tonight but in short it now looks quite likely that NSW will be in trouble on Friday and that load shedding will be required.

No certainty at this stage but that's how it's looking as of now.


----------



## Tisme

I was wondering if the roaring forties is actually indirectly proportional to the temperature of Adelaide and I found this article from 2014:



> In the past half century, the westerly winds have quickened 10 to 15 per cent and moved 2 to 5 degrees closer to the South Pole – meaning fewer storms are reaching as far north as Australia.
> 
> “That isn’t good news for farmers in the southern parts of Australia who are reliant on the winter winds that come out of the Southern Ocean,” Dr Abram said. Winter rainfall has dropped 20 per cent in south-west Western Australia since the 1960s, with cool-season rain tallies also lower in Australia’s south-east.




http://www.smh.com.au/environment/c...es-become-furious-fifties-20140511-zr9b1.html


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I'll post some more info tonight but in short it now looks quite likely that NSW will be in trouble on Friday and that load shedding will be required.
> 
> No certainty at this stage but that's how it's looking as of now.




Looks like Turnbull will have to blame his mates in the NSW Liberal Party for that.


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## noco

SirRumpole said:


> So, the system is hanging by a thread. Someone will have to do something real about it soon instead of just playing the blame game.
> 
> If SA & Vic had invested in solar thermal with storage they could be making the most of this sun/heat.




But when you have a heat wave there is no wind.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Why assume coal is the only solution ? We have plenty of gas, still CO2 producing but less harmful than coal.
> 
> Lot's of other possibilities including solar thermal and tidal which Abbott and Turnbull haven't bothered with.




Because of the SA Government has failed to provide reliable and cheap electricity from renewables, companies are now installing large diesel power generators to ensure supply.......And  now they will have more CO2 emissions than would have with coal fired power......I can just see all the black diesel smoke pouring out of those generators. 
The SA Government is blaming everybody but themselves for a black out yesterday......Load scheduling has left users without power during the heat wave conditions......Things can only get worse.


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## SirRumpole

noco said:


> But when you have a heat wave there is no wind.




What has wind got to do with solar thermal ?


----------



## moXJO

SirRumpole said:


> Why assume coal is the only solution ? We have plenty of gas, still CO2 producing but less harmful than coal.
> 
> Lot's of other possibilities including solar thermal and tidal which Abbott and Turnbull haven't bothered with.



Like the tidal generator that broke in a storm and is currently rusting and polluting port kembla beach. A lot of this green tech fails or is costly.


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## moXJO

SirRumpole said:


> A bit more on the blackout
> 
> *SA heatwave forces blackouts to cope with electricity demand, angering Government*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-...rolling-blackouts-angering-government/8252512



I wouldn't trust anything the SA govt says. We already have smurf filling us in.


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## Tisme

noco said:


> But when you have a heat wave there is no wind.




Is that true? I know Malcolm said that this morning, but say in Perth the strong easterlies drive up the temperatures for example


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> Looks like Turnbull will have to blame his mates in the NSW Liberal Party for that.





Why is he sticking his nose into State affairs when he can't get his own act together? he can't even control his temper when someone teases him about his good fortune. Of course there is an election in WA that looks like Labor will have a chance at winning.


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## Smurf1976

Things aren't looking good for NSW tomorrow.

At present it looks like load shedding will be unavoidable between 16:00 and 18:30 (NSW time). This is assuming that nothing breaks down etc.

In addition to that, a high risk period where load shedding will be required in the event of a single generation failure between 14:00 - 16:00 and 18:30 - 20:00.

For SA tomorrow they've got just enough spare to say that the system is in a reasonably secure state as long as everything works. That's with about 700 MW coming from Vic and assuming nothing fails with SA generation. It would need at least two failures in SA, or loss of the AC interconnector to Vic, to bring about a supply shortfall in SA tomorrow - possible but unlikely. 

No real concerns in any other state at the present time assuming nothing drastic goes wrong.


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## Smurf1976

moXJO said:


> I wouldn't trust anything the SA govt says. We already have smurf filling us in.




The second unit at Pelican Point power station (SA) which has been unavailable for an extended period has miraculously returned to service this afternoon and is now operating.

Joining the dots there - someone in a high place has been on the phone and some orders have been given. The details will likely never be made public, at least not in full, but it's up and running.

There's 240 MW spare in SA right now, versus demand of 2949 MW, so it's tight but load shedding shouldn't occur today _unless_ something breaks:

Loss of the Vic - SA interconnect would remove 600 MW from SA and lead to a supply shortfall.

Loss of either Pelican Point unit would remove 235 MW. Whilst that leaves 5 MW to spare some load would be shed in practice since that's just too close to risk it with stability of the whole system.

If any of the 4 Torrens Island B station units, 200 MW each, were to fail then that would have the same effect. 

So there's a few things which could go wrong and cause a problem but if there's sufficient power in SA right now if nothing breaks. Loss of a smaller generating unit would reduce reserves but not to a critical level although it would come close.

Meanwhile in Tas we got all excited about something that didn't eventuate. Looked like the price in Vic was going to hit $10,000 per MWh and everything was ready to go to maximise supply Tas to Vic. In practice the price in Vic topped out at $290 so was a non-event really.


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## sptrawler

S.A is really cutting it fine, i wonder what plan B will be?
Will they install more gas plant, or re commission some capacity at Port Augusta, to do nothing wouldn't appear to be an option.
As you have said, Hazelwood is closing, this will put a lot of pressure on State operated generators and political decisions regarding new installations.
IMO the good thing to come out of this event, is it highlights the problem of making political mileage from "Green" decisions, when the politicians have no grasp of the issues.
S.A politicians, will be wishing they hadn't bought the green vote, as they will be having a lot of sleepless nights now.lol


----------



## noco

sptrawler said:


> S.A is really cutting it fine, i wonder what plan B will be?
> Will they install more gas plant, or re commission some capacity at Port Augusta, to do nothing wouldn't appear to be an option.
> As you have said, Hazelwood is closing, this will put a lot of pressure on State operated generators and political decisions regarding new installations.
> IMO the good thing to come out of this event, is it highlights the problem of making political mileage from "Green" decisions, when the politicians have no grasp of the issues.
> S.A politicians, will be wishing they hadn't bought the green vote, as they will be having a lot of sleepless nights now.lol




Weatherill stated the authorities could have brought gas fired power stations on line when the wind generators failed but he obviously does not know it takes 2 to 3 hours from start to production to produce power.
You can not flip a switch and hey presto you have power.


----------



## overhang

Loving the updates Smurf.  Is there any truth that power providers withhold power to drive the prices up?  I thought the role of the AEMO was to prevent just that.  From the outside it seems that trying to progress to a grid less dependent on fossil fuels hits a few snags with the nature of the privatised network.  Power providers due to policies like the RET and talk of a carbon tax see no financial benefit in performing expensive maintenance because they have no long term prospects and decide it's easier to shut the doors.  If it was state owned then at least the government would have more control over the closing of stations and wouldn't be dependent on their profitability.


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## SirRumpole

overhang said:


> Loving the updates Smurf. Is there any truth that power providers withhold power to drive the prices up?




They wouldn't do that, would they ?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> S.A is really cutting it fine, i wonder what plan B will be?




Unknown at this stage but the SA government seems to be serious judging by the words they're using. They have a mandate, backing of the SA population and so on. If it were independent country you'd think they were preparing for war judging by the language.

Pure speculation here but I wouldn't be surprised if they go down the track of regulation now, fully aware that in due course that leads to nationalisation with generation owners all to keen to sell their facilities to government if the regulations are tough enough. That would obviously play out over an extended period (years) if it did happen.

If not that then what? They sound like they're planning a war of sorts certainly.

All generation in SA is "privately" owned, the SA government owns absolutely nothing unless you count backup generators at hospitals etc (though even they might be leased?).

I say "privately" because there's some government involvement, just not the SA government. The French and Chinese governments are significantly involved, via various companies of which they are part owners, with the industry in SA both generation and networks.

On a smaller scale there's a minor (1.9 MW) plant owned by Lofty Ranges Power, a subsidiary of Hydro Tasmania (itself owned by the State of Tasmania). Hydro is also active as a retailer in SA (and in Qld, NSW and Vic) under the Momentum Energy brand (100% owned by HT).

There's also some involvement of the Commonwealth, NSW and Victorian governments via their ownership of Snowy Hydro which operates in SA under the names Red Energy (retail) and Lumo (retail and they also own some diesel generation).

So whilst there's some government involvement, it's not the SA government and that involvement of other governments is via "private" for-profit companies and does not take the form of a public service in any way. Only reason any government from France to Tassie is involved with power in SA is on a purely commercial for-profit basis.


----------



## sptrawler

Yes I noticed today on a news report, that the new naval building facility will be installing their own generating plant, it certainly makes S.A an expensive place to do business.
We keep talking about a new economy, but it seems very unlikely, if we can't provide reliable power at a reasonable price.


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## Smurf1976

overhang said:


> Is there any truth that power providers withhold power to drive the prices up?  I thought the role of the AEMO was to prevent just that.




They generally don't physically withhold, as in an actual refusal to supply, but they certainly can and do adjust pricing upwards when the market is tight. No question there.

AEMO physically dispatches generation. Eg right now there's 865 MW being produced at Torrens Island (SA) and there's 295 MW being produced at Gordon (Tas). In both cases that's because this is the level of generation from those sources with AEMO has dispatched within the limit of capacity made available by the owners of those power stations.

The owners of those power stations, in this case Hydro Tas (Gordon) and AGL (Torrens Island) set prices as they see fit and on that basis AEMO will direct who produces how much at any given time. Same for every other power station, these two are just examples.

In the case of Gordon, being a hydro station not intended for constant maximum output, we can't have AEMO dispatching it flat out 24/7 otherwise we'll end up with no water left (and managing water isn't AEMO's role). There's really only two ways to achieve that in the market. One would be to simply withdraw it intermittently, that is not make it available for use at all, and the other is to set the price to a level that results in it not constantly running (because someone else offered supply at a lower price) but still fully available if demand is such that it's needed and running when demand and price are higher.

Most generators in that situation do the latter, using price, unless they shut down a generating unit completely and there's a long time to restart it (coal, some gas plants are like this for technical reasons) in which case it's simply not available at that time.

Owning a power station is not much different to any other business in a sense. There's no law that says AGL must continue to operate Torrens Island. If they've listed it as available then AEMO can force them to run it. But if AGL decided they were going to demolish it then AEMO can't stop that - all they'd need is to de-register the plant with AEMO, physically disconnect it from the grid and then get the same council etc approvals that anyone else needs to demolish something.

AEMO's role is a bit more complex but you could compare it to the ASX. They run a market, in AEMO's case for the trading of electricity (also gas by the way). They also do the physical dispatch. But AEMO doesn't tell Energy Australia to check the coal mills at Yallourn or that they need to build another gas turbine somewhere. Just as the ASX can't tell Woolworths that they need to keep selling Vegemite or that they ought to replace the roof on one of their shops. Origin, AGL etc can permanently close their power stations and Woolworths can permanently close their shops if they want to. The only real difference in that context is that so long as the power station remains open for business as such, AEMO can direct that it be turned on.

Take anyone completely unfamiliar with all of this and show them how it's done and they'll always make the same observation. "So it's like the stock market" or "it's like a casino". That's largely correct since physical dispatch is on the basis of price, not the reverse.

So in summary:

Physically withholding supply isn't commonly done (but it has happened certainly) other than by means of outright closing a power station (or part of it) as such.

Price most certainly can be adjusted as generation owners see fit. No surprises that someone will put it right up when supply is tight even if it costs them a bit of market share. Different generating companies have very different strategies there - some will try and force the price up, others will just respond to what others are doing, some just run regardless (Hazelwood power station being the extreme case there - just plods along constantly no matter what the price and its closure will have a bigger impact than many are expecting for that reason).

In some cases deliberately pricing generation out of the market when demand is lower is necessary due to that plant not being able to operate constantly. Most (byt not all), hydro, most oil and some gas generation is in this category of having a physically constrained fuel supply which precludes constant running at full output. They can and do run to full output when needed but can't do it 24/7.


----------



## Smurf1976

A real example of why having reserve capacity at all times in the grid is needed.

Wednesday 8th Feb 2017.

Just after 10:15am (NSW time) Mount Piper power station unit 1 tripped offline from almost full load. Maximum capacity is 660 MW and was operating at 659 MW prior to the sudden failure. Output instantly went to zero.

Response came from a total of 33 power stations across Qld, NSW, Vic, Tas and SA which immediately took up additional load upon the loss of supply from one generator at Mt Piper. This immediate response came from as far away as Gladstone (Qld), south-west Tasmania and Adelaide.

Had there not been reserve plant online and running at the time then two possible scenarios could have occurred:

1. System frequency falls and load shedding of some consumers is automatically triggered.

2. Load shedding fails and a rapid cascade system collapse occurs. In laymans terms that means everything shuts down real quick and then nobody has power. Shouldn't happen in theory but nobody will say it's impossible.

Scenario 1 is the intended response but there's always a non-zero chance of ending up with scenario 2. Having reserve plant online avoids either scenario occurring and is thus standard practice everywhere in the world that has a significant power grid.

Now, to have reserve plant online and running ("spinning reserve" in industry speak) you obviously need to have spare generating capacity in the first place. You can't have spare plant already running if it doesn't even exist in the first place.

The other relevant point in this example is that things can and do break down. Nothing mechanical is 100% reliable, failure is always a possibility, so it's unwise to assume that every generating unit will be available to run at any given time. That's the other reason there needs to be more capacity built than the actual demand on the system.

So what's going to happen tomorrow? The latest forecast from AEMO for NSW is:

*High risk period, the system cannot cope with a single failure of generation, from 14:00 to 20:00

*Load shedding will be required from 16:00 to 18:30 even with no failures of generating plant

All times are NSW time.

That's AEMO's "official" forecast at the present time and looks right to me. Situation will improve if demand is lower or intermittent (wind, solar) generation works better than expected. Situation will become worse if demand is higher than forecast or if something breaks down (eg like what happened at Mt Piper on Wednesday).

Forecast demand peak is 14,610 MW. Available generation in NSW is 12,966 MW. Supply available from other states, primarily Qld, expected to be 1256 MW. Shortfall of 388 MW so someone's going to lose power.

SA tomorrow = forecast peak demand 2730 MW. Available generation in SA = 2434 MW. Available supply from Vic = 716 MW. Surplus of 420 MW so OK as long as nothing breaks.

Other states no issues at the moment.


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> They generally don't physically withhold, as in an actual refusal to supply, but they certainly can and do adjust pricing upwards when the market is tight. No question there.




I take it there would be no barrier to governments either State or Federal building and running power stations to add to the supply and therefore stabilise prices ?

If it was a State owned station though they could not guarantee  under the current regulations that their stations power would always go to their own State, which could be a political barrier to building one.


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## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> Yes I noticed today on a news report, that the new naval building facility will be installing their own generating plant, it certainly makes S.A an expensive place to do business.
> We keep talking about a new economy, but it seems very unlikely, if we can't provide reliable power at a reasonable price.




I saw Chris Pyne talking about that half an hour before Malcolm blew his poofer valve. I hope we taxpayers aren't paying for a consortium's responsibility


----------



## Tisme

Watched David on ABC24 a short while ago about the farce and politics of SA blackouts. Very good interview and something Turnbull wouldn't like being splashed across the media.


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## SirRumpole

*Gas and solar mix a possibility for SA to reduce reliance on National Electricity Market, experts say*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-10/gas-and-solar-mix-a-possibility-for-sa/8259768


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## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> *Gas and solar mix a possibility for SA to reduce reliance on National Electricity Market, experts say*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-10/gas-and-solar-mix-a-possibility-for-sa/8259768




So basically they are saying "We relied on renewable energy to much, and the wind didn't blow an we were screwed, so now we are going to add more gas generators"


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## noco

sptrawler said:


> Yes I noticed today on a news report, that the new naval building facility will be installing their own generating plant, it certainly makes S.A an expensive place to do business.
> We keep talking about a new economy, but it seems very unlikely, if we can't provide reliable power at a reasonable price.




So much for renewable energy.....The Naval building facility does not seem to have any confidence in the Wetherill Labor Government.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> So basically they are saying "We relied on renewable energy to much, and the wind didn't blow an we were screwed, so now we are going to add more gas generators"




Possibly yes. It shows the folly of letting politicians think they are engineers and letting them decide what's in or not.


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## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> Response came from a total of 33 power stations across Qld, NSW, Vic, Tas and SA which immediately took up additional load upon the loss of supply from one generator at Mt Piper. This immediate response came from as far away as Gladstone (Qld), south-west Tasmania and Adelaide.
> 
> ---------------------------------
> 
> 
> Forecast demand peak is 14,610 MW. Available generation in NSW is 12,966 MW. Supply available from other states, primarily Qld, expected to be 1256 MW. Shortfall of 388 MW so someone's going to lose power.
> 
> SA tomorrow = forecast peak demand 2730 MW. Available generation in SA = 2434 MW. Available supply from Vic = 716 MW. Surplus of 420 MW so OK as long as nothing breaks.




The fact that the system works as described in the first paragraph amazes me.

Ofcourse everyone in the industry knows it, but wouldn't large scale storage of electrical energy be awesome, imagine if we could store 3 days of power, and power plants just had to run at their most efficient work / maintenance cycles just to keep the battery topped up.


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## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Ofcourse everyone in the industry knows it, but wouldn't large scale storage of electrical energy be awesome, imagine if we could store 3 days of power, and power plants just had to run at their most efficient work / maintenance cycles just to keep the battery topped up.




Best way of doing that is pumped hydro. Batteries are going to be expensive and will wear out. Hydro is initially expensive but will last for decades.


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## Smurf1976

Update on the situation in NSW and SA. 

NSW:

Present load is 13,994 MW with the peak now forecast at about 14,114 so 120 MW above the present level.

Generation in NSW is producing 12,663 MW with a further 374 MW available.

Supply from Qld into NSW is running at 1014 MW with a further 145 MW available for supply to NSW. 

Supply from Vic to NSW is running at 298 MW which is the limit under present circumstances.

So overall there's a spare 519 MW and that looks likely to drop to about 400 MW as demand peaks shortly. So long as nothing breaks down the lights will stay on. But it would only take a single generation failure to lead to load shedding straight away - that's definitely possible but the odds are that it won't happen (things break, that's a given, but the odds of it happening in the next hour or two aren't that high).

For the generation running within NSW it's presently 69% from coal, 21% hydro, 6.5% gas, 2.5% wind, 1% large scale solar, 0.1% oil. Most of the unused capacity is gas-fired. 

All figures above relate to large scale generation (that is, power stations) only and do not include electricity produced at places where power generation is not the primary activity. Most significantly this is rooftop solar systems on houses plus some minor things like landfill gas, co-generation power + hot water systems in hospitals and so on. Production from small scale solar (households etc) is estimated at 271 MW in NSW presently.

Price is presently $12,915 / MWh in NSW which is extremely high.

SA:

Present load is 2749 MW with the peak forecast at 2790 MW so 41 MW above present demand.

SA generation is running at 2141 MW with a further 388 MW available.

Supply from Vic to SA is running at 622 MW which is the limit of what's available under present circumstances.

So it would need two generation failures, or alternatively a loss of the Vic - SA link, to put the lights out in SA today. Possible but unlikely in practice.

Price is presently $442 / MWh in SA.

Of the generation running in SA it's presently 83% gas, 11% wind, 6% oil. 

Not included is small scale generation (household solar etc) which for SA is presently estimated at 231 MW.

A note about price - I've mentioned the current wholesale spot price for both states but it's highly volatile under the present circumstances and jumping around massively.


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## SirRumpole

*AGL cuts power to aluminium smelter to avoid mass power outages across NSW*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-10/nsw-aluminium-smelter-power-down-amid-outage-concerns/8260830


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I take it there would be no barrier to governments either State or Federal building and running power stations to add to the supply and therefore stabilise prices ?




There's no physical or legal barrier, just an ideological one depending on the state in question.

That said, market rules do require that any government owned power station compete on the same basis as anyone else. Using Tasmania (Hydro Tas is 100% government owned), Hydro most certainly isn't protected from competition. Bid too high and we'll have plenty of power flowing from Vic to Tas just like that. Bid lower than those in other states and the reverse will occur. And if someone wants to build a power station down here and compete then Hydro can't stop them.

So government can certainly be in the power industry if they want to under present market rules but they have to compete against everyone else.

The only real advantage government has is that they could, of course, change the rules if they wanted to. But then the private operators do propose rule changes from time to time, some of which have been implemented, but government could of course just ram if through if they really wanted to whereas a private operator can't do that.


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## Smurf1976

It seems that we do indeed have load shedding in NSW, AEMO has issued a direction to cut 310 MW.

Tallawarra power station (gas) stopped generating shortly before the situation arose. Was generating 408 MW then went to zero. Reason unknown (to me) at the present time but presumably something broke.

Also one unit has become unavailable at Colongra (gas).

Also Eraring (coal) seems to be struggling a bit in terms of output although everything's running as such.

Good ole Murphy strikes again. If it can go wrong then it will go wrong at precisely the worst time.


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## Smurf1976

Not to clarify - in terms of what changed, it was the sudden failure of Tallawarra power station plus one unit at Colongra.

The constraints at Eraring were already accounted for in the figures I posted previously saying that everything would probably be OK.

Tallawarra was running at almost full load when it tripped.

Colongra was not running at the time, itself accounting for much of the spare capacity, but 1 of the 4 units hasn't been able to be started it seems. Was running earlier today, then shut down as not needed, then it seems unable to restart. The other 3 are now running at full capacity. These 4 units are all open cycle gas turbines which can be started quickly, hence didn't need to be kept running all day etc.

Underlying cause is unknown (to me) in both cases. Quite likely those on site haven't worked it out yet either given it just happened (well, not unless the cause is fairly obvious).


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## Smurf1976

All back to normal now. Well, AEMO has ended the load shedding direction at least so presumably the smelter is back on (can't confirm if they're actually back on but AEMO doesn't require them to be without power).

Tallawarra power station now restarting and ramping up.

Tomorrow looks much the same as today with only 338 MW to spare in NSW. So if anything breaks, as it did today, then it's load shedding again. No problem if everything works.


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## SirRumpole

It seems like breakages are a fairly regular occurrence.


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## McLovin

SirRumpole said:


> It seems like breakages are a fairly regular occurrence.




Yeah I'm surprised. Smurf how often do these plants go offline? When I fire up the (coal fired) Weber it works every time.


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## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> The fact that the system works as described in the first paragraph amazes me.




It's easier than it sounds.

In an AC power system (what the grid is) all generators will be at the same frequency. If something drops offline then anything and everything that isn't already maxed out can and will respond as system frequency falls from where it ought to be (ideally 50.00 Hz).

Qld, NSW, Vic, SA are all linked via AC transmission lines so they're effectively the same grid. There's also a DC line between Qld and NSW and between Vic and SA - those transfer additional energy but don't directly do anything with frequency by virtue of being DC (which has on inherent frequency at all).

Vic - Tas link is DC so the Tas system isn't frequency locked to the other states. But the link can certainly transfer the effects of a generation failure, either in Tas or another state, by adjusting energy flow. Eg a generator fails in NSW so that directly affects the Qld, NSW, Vic, SA AC system. Basslink can then send more power north thus dumping some of that load onto the Tas system and bringing about the same response of generators operating below capacity increasing their output so as to maintain system frequency.

It's actually easier than it sounds for the AC system. Where DC links are involved it's more complex but ultimately works since a DC link is still AC at both ends where it interfaces with the rest of the grid. AC in, converted to DC, sent across the link, converted back to AC at the other end. Works in practice although the complexity does mean there's more that can go wrong.



> Ofcourse everyone in the industry knows it, but wouldn't large scale storage of electrical energy be awesome, imagine if we could store 3 days of power, and power plants just had to run at their most efficient work / maintenance cycles just to keep the battery topped up.




If anyone can work that out then they'll be the richest person on earth real quick. Either that or someone will buy them out and bury the idea. Or shoot them.

Electricity is very different to any other "commodity" for the simple reason that it cannot at present be stored as such. You can store the means to produce it, eg you can have a stockpile of coal or you can have water in a dam, but you can't store electricity as such. Even a battery is really just a means of production - look inside and you'll see plenty of metal and chemicals but not electricity as such.

Hence there's an immediate problem if the means of production can't keep up with the quantity being consumed in real time.

When AEMO, government or anyone else talks about electricity "reserves" what they really mean is spare capacity to produce it. Power station(s) that aren't needed to be running at full capacity but are ready to ramp up if needed. That's the "reserve" they're talking about - there being no store of electricity as such. Literally it's zero.


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## Smurf1976

McLovin said:


> Yeah I'm surprised. Smurf how often do these plants go offline?




So far as unplanned failures are concerned, well there have been two separate incidents in NSW this week of plant that was running just fine until suddenly it wasn't running at all.

Then we could go for many weeks without a single incident anywhere in Australia.

So it's a bit hard to say when a failure might occur, the one tonight certainly took me by surprise just after I posted that all should be fine, but they do happen.

A related risk is that the "shock" to the rest of the system causes something else to fail immediately (seconds) after the first failure. Something isn't quite right, gets a sudden wobble in system frequency and down it goes.

Standard practice in Australia has always been to keep enough spare plant online ("spinning reserve" in industry speak) to immediately cover the sudden loss of the two largest generating units in service. That's done on a state by state basis given the limited capacity of the interconnectors between states (and the risk that the failure might be the link itself rather than a generator).

Trouble is that NSW, Vic and SA are all in the position at times of simply not having enough capacity to be able to keep some spare whilst still supplying all consumers. Hence the load shedding in NSW today once Tallawarra suddenly shut down.

Other states don't have that problem, they have sufficient capacity, so they do have adequate spinning reserves in case something fails. 

In Tas we have a more complex system than elsewhere on account of having a few individual loads and an individual point of supply (Basslink when flow is southbound) which are very large relative to total load on the grid. Worst case, middle of the night with mild weather, we can have 45% of total supply coming from a single source (Basslink) and 30% of total load being used in a single very large factory. Sudden failure of either that supply or load would be a huge "jolt" to the rest of the system so there's some "smarts" to deal with that risk which are in addition to the standard industry approach which is effectively a second line of defence in this case. No such problem in other states since they don't have such individually large loads or sources of supply relative to their total system size.


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> It seems like breakages are a fairly regular occurrence.




Plant outages in the NEM states. This info is from yesterday.

Qld:
Gladstone Unit 3 (coal, 275 MW each unit) out of service.

Swanbank E (gas, 385 MW) withdrawn from the market for economic reasons (nothing wrong with it, just unprofitable to run it).

NSW:
Some reduction in capacity in the Upper Tumut (1 & 2) (hydro) stations but mostly still available.

*Liddell (coal, 500 MW each) Units 2 & 4 unavailable - that's 1000 MW and highly significant.

Later today (during the peak) problems occurred at Tallawarra (gas, 420 MW) and Unit 1 at Colongra (gas, 181 MW).*

Vic:
Loy Yang A (coal, 560 MW for this unit) Unit 4 out of service.

Some reduction in capacty of the Murray (hydro) stations but mostly still available.

Bairnsdale (gas, 42 MW each unit) Unit 2 out of service.

SA:
Torrens Island A (gas, 120 MW each unit) Unit 1 out of service

Port Lincoln (oil, 25 MW each unit) Unit 3 out of service

Snuggery (oil, 21 MW each unit) one unit out of service

Pelican Point (gas, 234 MW for half the station) half capacity withdrawn from the market for economic reasons (nothing wrong with it, just uneconomic to operate although AEMO did order them to run it for a period). 

Tas:
Reece (hydro, 119 MW each machine) Unit 2 out of service. Planned major maintenance.

Fisher (hydro, 46 MW) power station out of service (single machine station). Planned major maintenance.

Liapootah (hydro, 29 MW each machine) two (of three) machines out of service. Planned major maintenance.

Wayatinah (hydro, 13 MW each machine) two (of three) machines) out of service. Planned major maintenance.

Tungatinah (hydro, 25 MW each machine) one (of five) machines out of service. Planned as part of major upgrade of the whole station done progressively.

Cluny (hydro, 17 MW) power station out of service. Planned major upgrade.

Wilmot (hydro, 32 MW) power station out of service (single machine station). Planned maintenance.

Poatina (hydro, 57 MW each machine) one (of six) machines out of service. Planned maintenance.

Trevallyn (hydro, 20 MW for this machine, not all are the same size) one (of four) machines out of service. Planned maintenance.

Bell Bay Three (gas, 20 MW per gas turbine / 40 MW each generator) - operating with three (of six) gas turbines which drive 3 actual generators (two turbines per generator). Major overhaul to extend life and improve reliability.

Paloona (hydro, 28 MW) power station out of service (single machine station). Major outage due to problems (will be back in service in due course once fixed).


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## Value Collector

Thanks for the info smurf,

So does running the system to its limit such as this create a need for a higher mantenance outages in the coming weeks, I mean is there a limit to how many high demand days we can have before the plants start dropping like flies requiring work.


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## Smurf1976

Running a plant flat out generally won't cause it to break but ultimately maintenance has to be done.

The maintenance strategy varies between companies considerably (run it into the ground at one extreme through to keeping it in top condition at the other) and also varies between coal versus gas or hydro.

That said, there would almost certainly be someone deferring maintenance on something right now given the situation. A point comes where either they do it or failure occurs so you're right in thinking that available capacity would drop if it isn't done.

How quickly it would happen is hard to predict since only AGL (for example) really knows what's going on at the generation they own. Same with every other company.

Broadly speaking, planned maintenance of coal and gas plant focuses on autumn and spring when demand is lower and price spikes are less likely.

For hydro plant it's more complex given seasonal inflow variations and in some cases a need to release water for irrigation etc. If the storage capacity is limited then the preferred time for an outage is when it's dry so as to minimise spill and generation loss. If the storage is large and won't spill then it comes down to demand, market prices and the physical availability of generation from other sources.

Likewise if you're burning agricultural waste as the fuel (done on a modest scale in Qld) then you need the plant running when there's a constant stream of truck turning up with the waste.

Likewise if there was a need to take a solar farm offline then winter would make sense simply to minimise the loss of production.

Another factor is managing the workforce or contractors if you've got multiple generating units at the same site or close by. Can't do everything at once even if that makes sense in other ways.

Also portfolio risk is another one. If your plant in Vic breaks down then you wouldn't sensibly choose to shut your plant in NSW at the same time unless you really had to or had covered yourself financially via contracts with someone else in case the spot price spikes. So there's company financial risk in addition to the overall physical supply issues.


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## Smurf1976

Additional comment regarding plant outages.

The plant offline in Qld is not limiting Qld's ability to send power to NSW since the constraint is the capacity of the transmission lines. With the present plant availability in Qld, there's enough to run the lines to NSW at full capacity whilst still supplying all load in Qld.

Same in Tasmania but for a different reason, that being that system load in Tas peaks during Winter and is far lower in Summer. Hence having so much plant offline for maintenance at the moment - that's intentional since this is the best time of year to do it. We can still fully load Basslink for supply to Vic during the peaks if required. Worst case, if demand was higher than usual in Tas and there was no wind then we'd have to fire the gas turbines up in order to run Basslink at maximum if Vic needed the power but the capacity to do so is available as such.

It's a different situation for NSW and SA however. Neither state would have had their recent load shedding incidents if all generating plant had been available so there's a direct impact there.

The plant offline in Vic has had no impact in practice, it hasn't limited the ability to send power to SA or NSW since the transmission lines are the constraint, but it would have an impact if demand in Victoria had been higher than it has been.

Update on present situation in NSW is that it's almost exactly comparable to yesterday. There's sufficient supply provided that nothing goes wrong. Probably it won't go wrong but as happened yesterday the risk is definitely there between about 16:00 and 19:30 today (Sydney time).

After today, no problems currently expected in any state for at least the next week.


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## noco

Smurf1976 said:


> Additional comment regarding plant outages.
> 
> The plant offline in Qld is not limiting Qld's ability to send power to NSW since the constraint is the capacity of the transmission lines. With the present plant availability in Qld, there's enough to run the lines to NSW at full capacity whilst still supplying all load in Qld.
> 
> Same in Tasmania but for a different reason, that being that system load in Tas peaks during Winter and is far lower in Summer. Hence having so much plant offline for maintenance at the moment - that's intentional since this is the best time of year to do it. We can still fully load Basslink for supply to Vic during the peaks if required. Worst case, if demand was higher than usual in Tas and there was no wind then we'd have to fire the gas turbines up in order to run Basslink at maximum if Vic needed the power but the capacity to do so is available as such.
> 
> It's a different situation for NSW and SA however. Neither state would have had their recent load shedding incidents if all generating plant had been available so there's a direct impact there.
> 
> The plant offline in Vic has had no impact in practice, it hasn't limited the ability to send power to SA or NSW since the transmission lines are the constraint, but it would have an impact if demand in Victoria had been higher than it has been.
> 
> Update on present situation in NSW is that it's almost exactly comparable to yesterday. There's sufficient supply provided that nothing goes wrong. Probably it won't go wrong but as happened yesterday the risk is definitely there between about 16:00 and 19:30 today (Sydney time).
> 
> After today, no problems currently expected in any state for at least the next week.




Smurf, you have written some great article on the subject of power production and can always speak with authority that most of us appreciate.

I would like to know your opinion on renewable energy, whether it should be increased of should we be considering more oil or coal fired base load power stations to be able to always meet demand in hot weather conditions currently being experienced


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## Tisme

I don't know why there is any notion that coal fired stations will continue into the future: the current owners are shutting down the ones that exist and there is no financial incentive to build privately owned new ones.

It's pretty much flogging a dead horse to death. NEMMCO and it's successor AEMO have failed their duty and allowed financial gain to override best practice.


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## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> and there is no financial incentive to build privately owned new ones.




There will be a financial incentive after Turnbull and Morrison raid the Clean Energy Fund.


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## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> There will be a financial incentive after Turnbull and Morrison raid the Clean Energy Fund.




All those voters who cheered on the sale of state essential services are probably the ones who are now throwing tanties at the SA govt or cheering on Malcolm or both. If the LNP had a second term in QLD we'd all be in worse shape, because Campbell Newman wanted to 99 year lease the whole shop to multinationals. QLD has 1000 megawatt buffer/reserve.

 SA's power generation is wholly privatised so why is the govt to blame for price gouging and idle generators ... because family indoctrinated dumb voters are too busy adulating their political champions instead of holding the real culpable leaders and our **** stirring PM to account for the outrageous claims.

The Senate inquiry two days ago found and laid the blame at the feet of the grid operators. Whose jursidiction is grid operator, being a cross border agency?


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## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> All those voters who cheered on the sale of state essential services are probably the ones who are now throwing tanties at the SA govt or cheering on Malcolm or both. If the LNP had a second term in QLD we'd all be in worse shape, because Campbell Newman wanted to 99 year lease the whole shop to multinationals. QLD has 1000 megawatt buffer/reserve.
> 
> SA's power generation is wholly privatised so why is the govt to blame for price gouging and idle generators ... because family indoctrinated dumb voters are too busy adulating their political champions instead of holding the real culpable leaders and our **** stirring PM to account for the outrageous claims.
> 
> The Senate inquiry two days ago found and laid the blame at the feet of the grid operators. Whose jursidiction is grid operator, being a cross border agency?




I couldn't agree more. I shuddered when the NSW Labor government under Morris Iemma and Treasurer Michael Costa first mooted selling off public electricity assets, and now the Baird government has finished it off. AS electricity consumers we are worse off, but I put most of the blame on Abbott/Hockey/Morrison for insisting on "asset recycling" before the States get any more Federal money for infrastructure.


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## noco

SirRumpole said:


> I couldn't agree more. I shuddered when the NSW Labor government under Morris Iemma and Treasurer Michael Costa first mooted selling off public electricity assets, and now the Baird government has finished it off. AS electricity consumers we are worse off, but I put most of the blame on Abbott/Hockey/Morrison for insisting on "asset recycling" before the States get any more Federal money for infrastructure.




And the South Australians are worse off again due to the poor policies of Wetherill..


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## Smurf1976

Responding to posts from noco and others:

Personally I don't have a strong ideological view on any technology so long as it's safe, within our capabilities, affordable, reliable and actually works. 

From a purely technical perspective it is practical to have anything from 0 to 100% renewable in the grid. The arguments for and against renewables are thus economic, scientific (the CO2 issue) and political rather than technical. Either can generate constant power if done properly.

The problem we have is that we're doing "none of the above" meanwhile the existing generation fleet is aging and contrary to the expectations of many the demand for electricity hasn't gone away to any great extent (Qld is at all time record levels and NSW was very close on Friday).

How long a thermal (coal, oil, gas) power station lasts depends on a number of factors from the original design and construction through to operation and maintenance. But the range is 30 to 60 years almost always.

Looking at the present major power stations in the problem states (NSW, Vic, SA) the vast majority is now in that age range so we're certainly going to see more closures over the coming years.

I should also mention that Queensland has the large Gladstone power station which is now 40 years old. Whenever that closes then Qld joins the list of states having power supply problems since it's a very major plant.

So what do we replace all this with?

The real problem is a political one. With so much debate at the federal level over the CO2   issue and associated matters plus so many bits of meddling at the state level, the private sector has simply lost interest in new investment and that has lead us to the present situation.

So the first thing that needs to be accepted is that government is going to have to get involved and take on some risk, that being the risk created by government itself with the constant debate and shifting of policy over the past decade or so.

There's essentially zero interest in building new coal at the moment due to the risk that a carbon tax (or other carbon cost) is introduced.

There is likewise not much interest in a large scale renewables + storage approach due to the risk that a carbon tax is not introduced.

Coal is a viable option technically and so is renewables + storage. But neither will be built on a major scale unless government finds some way to remove the risk of future policy changes.

If that risk cannot be removed then the private sector will at best build things which can be easily sold for relocation overseas if they cease to be viable in Australia. That is, in practice, open cycle gas turbines or diesel engines. Gas wasn't too bad in the past but with the price having tripled isn't a good option today. 

What's really needed is for the Australian Government to keep as far away from the power industry as possible. Make their mind up on the CO2 issue and then get out of the way. 

In the absence of government getting out of the way there's really only one effective option remaining and that is for government to financially back and take the risk associated with whatever is to be built. Either outright government ownership or taking the risk on behalf of private owners. SA has effectively come to that point now and Vic won't be far behind.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> What's really needed is for the Australian Government to keep as far away from the power industry as possible. Make their mind up on the CO2 issue and then get out of the way.




Excellent response as usual Smurph, although I see a inconsistency when you state that governments should a. take a financial risk and b. get out of the way. I don't really see how that is possible.

We have seen the PM writing to the Chief Scientist asking "what do you think about the pumped storage idea" ?. Imo the situation needs better handling than the piecemeal affair of politicians trying to design technical systems that are an engineering concern.

Surely just appoint a Board of Engineers to design the system based on the criteria of a. Energy Security, b. best price for consumers and c. low emissions , let the engineers do their job and the politicians then raise the money to build the system in the time  honoured way of borrowing money to be repaid over time.

I think Hazlewood has shown us that we can't rely on private enterprise when we need to keep a network in place without generators suddenly disappearing on the whim of overseas shareholders. As you cogently pointed out, government has to take some financial risk for the good of system security.

The tripling of the price of gas is the result of a government policy to force Australian consumers to pay world prices. This policy could of course be changed to reserve a certain amount of gas for running power stations at a reasonable price. "Open market" ideology is a great example of ideology getting in the way of public interest in the same way as Labor is charged with being ideologically welded to renewables.

Time for the politics to stop (he said ROFL).


----------



## Tisme

noco said:


> And the South Australians are worse off again due to the poor policies of Wetherill..




If he's to blame then yes Wetherill should take the dagger to the heart. But Rumpole is also correct in that Federal funding for projects was contingent on doing the Federal govt's bidding in return for  the favour of getting national cash to the state.

Poor 'ol WA is under the same pressure right now.


----------



## overhang

Smurf1976 said:


> They generally don't physically withhold, as in an actual refusal to supply, but they certainly can and do adjust pricing upwards when the market is tight. No question there.




Thanks Smurf.  So my understanding is that Pelican Point has been running at half capacity for several years now, so why did the AEMO load shed in SA instead of ordering Pelican Point to turn the 2nd unit on?




> What's really needed is for the Australian Government to keep as far away from the power industry as possible. Make their mind up on the CO2 issue and then get out of the way.




The government really need a bipartisan agreement here where both the Libs and Labor compromise to give the industry the certainty it requires.  The problem is I can't see the Greens ever comprising on this front and the chances are they may hold the balance of power again.  During the 2014 Victoria state election they promised pledged that if they held the balance of power they would push the plan to which would see Hazelwood, Anglesea and one of Yallourn's four units phased out in 2015. In 2023 the other three units in Yallourn and Loy Yang B would be retired.


----------



## nioka

SirRumpole said:


> Possibly yes. It shows the folly of letting politicians think they are engineers and letting them decide what's in or not.



Politicians do make the final decisions but it is usually done on advice received from engineers either within the public service or as consultants. You know of engineer "experts" with university qualifications that have never had to exist in the real world I'm sure. I have a nephew, who has recently retired at 57 by the way, after spending his entire working life "advising" a Premier. I doubt he has had any good knowledge to advise with, he is a complete moron.


----------



## noco

Tisme said:


> If he's to blame then yes Wetherill should take the dagger to the heart. But Rumpole is also correct in that Federal funding for projects was contingent on doing the Federal govt's bidding in return for  the favour of getting national cash to the state.
> 
> Poor 'ol WA is under the same pressure right now.




Yes, but you cannot get away from who makes the decisions to up the anti on renewable energy......It is the ideology of the Green/Labor coalition.
It now very obvious, it staring to come back and bite them on the bum.
All the pain and no gain in reducing green house gases.


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> Yes, but you cannot get away from who makes the decisions to up the anti on renewable energy......It is the ideology of the Green/Labor coalition.
> It now very obvious, it staring to come back and bite them on the bum.
> All the pain and no gain in reducing green house gases.




It's disingenuous to claim that renewable energy is the source of all problems in the power grid.

There is just not enough generating capacity of ANY type.

If people continue to claim that wind power was the cause of SA's total blackout, they are LYING.

The power went out because power lines blew over in the storm. It wouldn't have mattered what generating capacity was available on that occasion.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> It's disingenuous to claim that renewable energy is the source of all problems in the power grid.
> 
> There is just not enough generating capacity of ANY type.
> 
> If people continue to claim that wind power was the cause of SA's total blackout, they are LYING.
> 
> The power went out because power lines blew over in the storm. It wouldn't have mattered what generating capacity was available on that occasion.




No Rumpy you are wrong.......the power poles blew over after the lights went out....The wind generators could not cope with the excessive wind.


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> No Rumpy you are wrong.......the power poles blew over after the lights went out....The wind generators could not cope with the excessive wind.




Fraid not noco.

I refer you to.

https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Fil...-Report-SA-Black-System-28-September-2016.pdf



> Executive Summary
> 
> The particular event *was initiated by the loss of three transmission lines involving a sequence of faults in quick succession tripping generators offline*. Such extreme events occur rarely and are classified as‘non-credible’ in the National Electricity Market (NEM). A numb
> er of wind turbine generators in the mid-north of SA exhibited a reduction in power or disconnected as the number of faults grew. AEMOwas not aware of the protective feature of these generating units that caused these power reductions,and has taken action to ensure the limitations are known and appropriately managed.




(My bolds)


----------



## SirRumpole

Malcolm Turnbull's hypocrisy, bull headedness and lack of vision when it comes to energy.

*Malcolm Turnbull's turnaround on renewable energy, from pro-carbon price to clean coal*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-10/malcolm-turnbull-renewable-energy-turnaround/8258502


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Malcolm Turnbull's hypocrisy, bull headedness and lack of vision when it comes to energy.
> 
> *Malcolm Turnbull's turnaround on renewable energy, from pro-carbon price to clean coal*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-10/malcolm-turnbull-renewable-energy-turnaround/8258502




I think I would prefer to say Turnbull has learned his lesson from Vic. and SA....It is his priviege to change his mind after all Barnacle Bill has change his mind om the reduction of business tax......He was with it one day and against it the next day.

I believe there are some 136 coal fired power station being built as we speak.


----------



## CanOz

136 being built? Where? China?


----------



## noco

CanOz said:


> 136 being built? Where? China?




Actually I think that 136 coal fired power plants may have been in Germany....The number  world wide being built is up around 2,400.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12...l-plants-will-thwart-any-paris-cop21-pledges/


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Excellent response as usual Smurph, although I see a inconsistency when you state that governments should a. take a financial risk and b. get out of the way. I don't really see how that is possible.




What I mean is it's one or the other.

Either create the conditions in which private* enterprise will invest OR alternatively government will have to stump up the cash under whatever arrangements (outright ownership or underwriting a private owner).

At present, the problem is that it's too risky to develop coal and it's too risky to develop renewables + storage on a sufficient scale. When you're talking about infrastructure with a minimum 30 years from the start to when it ceases operating, and in most cases double that or more, it's a given that we'll have both Labor and Coalition governments over that time and almost certainly several of each. So long as both major parties have policies that financially kill one option or the other, nobody in their right mind is going to develop either. At least they won't unless they've got a huge appetite for risk which isn't the way most such companies operate.

*I say "private" enterprise but the same applies to things owned by the states. At the moment the only area getting any real investment is hydro and that's because it stacks up financially under either political scenario. 

Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tas (both publicly owned) have both invested in maintaining and improving their existing infrastructure, in both cases getting a bit more capacity and efficiency out of it as well as ensuring it remains reliable for decades to come. Meanwhile AGL has their nice new 150 MW hydro station in Vic and Genex has their 250 MW pumped storage project in Qld with both of those being privately owned. 

Trouble is, undeveloped hydro potential in Australia that can be done at a cost that works financially under all policy scenarios isn't that much, it's not even close to being what we need. Hence there's other such projects which haven't gone anywhere and that applies to both government owned (Hydro Tas) and privately owned (Origin Energy) who were looking at them. Won't happen unless there's some policy certainty - we're talking about stuff that lasts a century or more here after all, and the odds are high that we'll have a change of government numerous times during that period.

Likewise state owned companies sure aren't lining up to build coal. They've gone cold on the idea of most new non-hydro renewables development too. Exact same reasons as the private companies have lost interest - just too much risk with policy at the federal level.

So it's the risk that is killing investment. The Australian Government is the source that risk and needs to either remove itself from the equation or go down the track of actual or quasi nationalisation. Do neither and we'll literally be left in the dark. 



> Surely just appoint a Board of Engineers to design the system based on the criteria of a. Energy Security, b. best price for consumers and c. low emissions , let the engineers do their job and the politicians then raise the money to build the system in the time  honoured way of borrowing money to be repaid over time.




That's exactly what I'd do although with a bit of thought private sector involvement isn't impossible if done well enough. Eg give them the opportunity to own and operate something but don't give them the choice of what to build and certainly don't let them run it down and close it. That's adding complexity and risk to taxpayers which I don't see as necessary but it wouldn't be impossible if it's the only way to get around political ideologies.



> I think Hazlewood has shown us that we can't rely on private enterprise when we need to keep a network in place without generators suddenly disappearing on the whim of overseas shareholders.




Yep and the biggest problem is that nobody really knows what's going on.

AEMO put out a routine planning report in August 2016 which shows that Hazelwood will still be running at full capacity for at least the next decade based on information from the owners. Then at the beginning of November, less than 3 months later, it's announced that the plant will be completely shut by the end of March 2017 and, in practice, capacity has been cut by about 14% straight away (because it's stuffed.....).

That's not a sensible way to be running things when you consider that it takes years to build a major power station even if you've already got the environmental approvals, design and finance already in place and ready to go (which in practice generally won't be the case so it takes even longer).

A real concern there is the "who's next?" aspect that has plenty in the industry thinking. There's a few rumours but in the absence of formal announcements nobody's going to invest in replacements and that's a rather large.

Looking at what AEMO knows and publicly reports:

Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tas both have some major plant outages planned for various times over the next decade. Strangely nobody else does.

There's some capacity being closed in NSW and Qld:

Smithfield (NSW, gas, 171 MW) closing in mid-2017

Liddell (NSW, coal, 2000 MW) closing in 2022

Mackay (Qld, oil, 34 MW) closing in 2021

Daandine (Qld, gas, 33 MW) closing in 2022

That's it so far as existing facilities closing or having reduced output is concerned. Everything in Vic and SA will still be going strong in 2026 apparently, and will do so without any major maintenance outages along the way (minor outages yes but not major ones). Hmm....


----------



## SirRumpole

Thanks for that Smurph, I think you are quite correct that the real problem is conflicting political ideologies over State ownership of generation and distribution assets, and the fossil fuel/renewable mix plus the usual blame game between State and Federal governments.

My own ideology is that electricity supplies are an essential service which is the responsibility of governments to provide. So I see it necessary for governments to ensure (own) baseload supply,  but also encourage private investors to supplement this with wind farms, solar thermal, solar PV etc and for the government to supply a storage system (likely pumped storage hydro) that they pay private investors to top up and then sell the power later.

The financial processes of this is above my pay grade, but it should be kept as simple as possible. The mix of public and private ownership should help satisfy both the ideologies of total government ownership and the "sell it all off" philosophies. Reality suggests that private investors are not going to build large scale infrastructure like hydro dams so if government doesn't do it then it won't get done.

I saw a government Minister (Chiobo) trying to blame the SA government again for its "ideological" approach to renewables , but not mentioning the Liberals ideology of privatisation and devotion to coal. With dickheads like that running the show it's not surprise to me that we are not getting anywhere.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Fraid not noco.
> 
> I refer you to.
> 
> https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Fil...-Report-SA-Black-System-28-September-2016.pdf
> 
> 
> 
> (My bolds)




15 of the 22 power transmission towers were blown down after the black out.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/a...s/news-story/2110980f03e6ac95fd800c65feb8207d


----------



## SirRumpole

A good analysis which confirms the points that Smurf raised

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-13/ian-verrender-the-simple-truth-on-renewable-energy/8264296


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> There will be a financial incentive after Turnbull and Morrison raid the Clean Energy Fund.





SirRumpole said:


> There will be a financial incentive after Turnbull and Morrison raid the Clean Energy Fund.



So you are saying the Government is going to, in some way, fund coal fired power stations?

Or were you just getting a cheap shot in?

It amazes me, that smurph has given you a fast track power system training module, and you can't help but make politically motivated comment.

Why not think through the issue?


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> So you are saying the Government is going to, in some way, fund coal fired power stations?
> 
> Or were you just getting a cheap shot in?




Why don't you actually do a bit of reading before shooting your mouth off ?



> *Clean energy subsidies could be used to build new coal power plants, Scott Morrison says*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-...und-coal-power-stations-morrison-says/8234118


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> Why don't you actually do a bit of reading before shooting your mouth off ?




Hate is a fickled finger of fate.


----------



## sptrawler

Well maybe it's because off moving targets.lol

https://thewest.com.au/politics/sta...n-50pc-renewables-target-for-wa-ng-b88381004z

Jeez, you guys will have an answer for all the slimy mud.lol
All of a sudden after the poo hits the fan in S.A.
W.A  Labor tries to spay on non stick.lol


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Why don't you actually do a bit of reading before shooting your mouth off ?




Actually, I've always said, to shut down coal is dumb, also I think smurph agrees.
The problem is we have an abundance of coal, and by World emissions are really non existent.
To shut our cheap power production down, in the name of World emissions, is a token gesture which decimates our industry for an ideological belief.
Which might give you a warm feeling, in he pit of your tummy, but it will kill our industry and jobs.

You two, getting some kind of mutual satisfaction off each other, doesn't make your case correct.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Actually, I've always said, to shut down coal is dumb, also I think smurph agrees.
> The problem is we have an abundance of coal, and by World emissions are really non existent.
> To shut our cheap power production down, in the name of World emissions, is a token gesture which decimates our industry for an ideological belief.
> Which might give you a warm feeling, in he pit of your tummy, but it will kill our industry and jobs.
> 
> You two, getting some kind of mutual satisfaction off each other, doesn't make your case correct.




Of course you don't go around shutting down baseload stations without replacing them with something else, so do you replace them (as you will need to because they have a defined life) with other coal stations or something newer and better ?

Gas looks the goods at the moment, plus more hydro plus renewables with storage. There are always options.

Maybe some of the gas turbines can run on biofuels as well, so that's another option.


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> Actually, I've always said, to shut down coal is dumb, also I think smurph agrees.
> The problem is we have an abundance of coal, and by World emissions are really non existent.
> To shut our cheap power production down, in the name of World emissions, is a token gesture which decimates our industry for an ideological belief.
> Which might give you a warm feeling, in he pit of your tummy, but it will kill our industry and jobs.
> 
> You two, getting some kind of mutual satisfaction off each other, doesn't make your case correct.




I have no particular reason, but a myriad of comfort points knowing old clunker technology is chugging along and in govt hands. So I think we should be keeping coal fired stations public and allowing private enterprise to develop alternatives that eventually overtake the fossil fuel production.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Actually, I've always said, to shut down coal is dumb, also I think smurph agrees.



My personal view is to take a pragmatic approach.

If the whole world is going to move away from coal then pouring new investment into coal-fired generation in Australia would seem a high risk strategy.

On the other hand, we need reliable and economical power and I see no valid reason to close existing coal-fired plant and leave ourselves literally in the dark. That's just silly unless the world as a whole really is going to move away from coal far more quickly than seems likely.

So some balance is needed. If it were up to me then I'd be continuing to run existing coal-fired plant for the remainder of its useful life but I would't build new capacity unless it were the only option in a given circumstance. That still moves us away from coal, just in an orderly manner instead of the chaotic one we're pursuing at the moment.

So far as my view on specific energy options we have:

Nuclear - forget it. Too much expense and it will take too much time that we don't have. At best it would be a long term option but it's not a solution to our problems right now or within the next 20 years. Plus I do worry that we'd do it properly. If we can't get wind turbine protection settings right and we end up running coal plants into the ground then I do worry as to how safely we'd do nuclear in practice. "She'll be right" just won't cut it and nor will a focus on profit (noting that if we did have nuclear, then it would have lost money every single year for as long as we've had the National Electricity Market so unless the operator was an actual government department propped up by taxes they'd be under massive financial pressure and that's not a good thing when it comes to safety). I base that claim on the actual cost of nuclear in other developed countries, most notably recent projects in the UK.

Geothermal - closest thing to a "silver bullet" if we could get it working. We ought to put some serious $ in and prove it one way or the other just as we did decades ago when we too big risks with hydro and brown coal, the latter being something we didn't really have a clue about even after construction had started but we made it work.

Hydro - there's a massive resource in PNG being used for absolutely nothing. Origin did look at a 1200 MW (base load) project to supply Queensland but lost interest given all the political risk. Ultimately it could go to at least 4000 MW (base load) and that's enough to run two thirds of Qld (roughly) with 100% renewable and pretty reliable energy (hydro is vulnerable to drought yes, but its actual track record in most places is still better than coal, gas or nuclear). On a smaller scale there's still some undeveloped potential in Australia, outside high conservation value areas, that is worth looking at. It's by no means a total solution but could make a contribution with the key benefit being that it's firm, dispatchable power - works when we need it to work.

Gas - dumbest thing we've ever done as a country is sell practically the whole lot thus depriving ourselves of what would otherwise be a reasonably cheap (not much more costly than coal) and reasonably clean (60% lower emissions than coal for base load operation) energy source. Too late now unfortunately. I reluctantly agree with those opposed to coal seam gas development on farms etc. In theory I'm not opposed but there's just no point in taking even the slightest risk given that any increase in supply just means we'll give more of the stuff away to someone overseas, it won't do anything at all to help Australian industry or homes with energy supply.

SA - building a pumped hydro scheme would make an awful lot of sense given that the basic problem is one of meeting peak demand and that SA has already built a lot of intermittent generation, which at times exceeds the total load within the state, and remains a good place to build more of it. Yes there are plenty of sites in SA where pumped hydro could be built and no they don't involve flooding anything of particular note in terms of nature conservation etc so there's no real reason not to go down that track. It's the one thing that could fix the current problems without investing a cent into new fossil fuel generation that may be rendered obsolete depending on what really happens internationally with the CO2 issue. There are 3 such schemes presently in Australia, two in NSW and one in Qld, and another one planned for Qld but we need to put one in SA and do it ASAP. Also it removes the need for more interconnectors between SA and anywhere else so saves on that cost.

Solar - it was worth building some, which we did (mostly on roofs) as that reduced the summer afternoon peak. That opportunity is now fully exploited in most parts of the country however and building more solar will not greatly reduce the problem we have with meeting peak loads which have now been delayed until after 6pm and being driven by the sun getting lower and solar output falling off. Further development of solar only makes real sense if it is either (1) cheaper than the marginal operating cost of conventional power generation (2) has storage attached (eg solar thermal or the Qld solar + pumped storage project) or (3) we're going to build storage elsewhere in the grid (see point above about pumped hydro).

Wind - much the same as solar. Building more really only stacks up as a solution to the extent that it's either saving on operating costs (which generally it isn't) or if we build storage. Which brings me back to pumped hydro again....

Coal - makes sense to keep what we've got while it lasts but I personally wouldn't build more unless as a last resort option. My reasoning is simply that a new plant will be around for about 60 years from today, that's the time from deciding to build it until it closes, and is far too likely to be rendered obsolete in that time unless the internationally community decides to ignore the CO2 issue (or science finds it's not a problem). I'd get Northern (SA) and Anglesea (Vic) running again though if at all possible and I'd look very seriously to see if Hazelwood can be patched up for a reasonable and run for a few more years - my understanding is it could be done for about $140 million which isn't huge and that would keep it going for 10 - 15 years (after that it really is the end). Reason being to keep the lights on until we get something else built - otherwise we're in a very serious mess less than a year from now.

Biomass - burning it for power generation makes a lot more sense than dumping it in landfill or setting it on fire in the open but there's only a limited amount of it so it's a supplement to other power sources but not a replacement. I personally wouldn't want to see forests being logged for wood to fuel power stations for reasons of nature conservation and suffice to say I don't trust the forestry industry when it comes to that given the track record of woodchipping of "waste" timber which ended up being practically every log taken from the forest in the first place. So waste biomass yes, logging forests no.

Landfill gas - another supplement that can add a bit but nowhere near enough. Makes more sense to burn it in a generator than just letting it escape to the atmosphere though and I think it ought to be mandated at any landfill that has a power line reasonably close by unless there's a good reason to not do it at that specific site.

Wave, tidal etc - worthy of ongoing research and has a lot of potential given the predictability of the tides but it's not ready yet to replace coal etc.

Oil - simply too expensive, as is gas these days, for base load but has a limited useful role as peaking or backup power. Plus it's still the only real option in many remote areas. Given that we're a net importer for two thirds of the oil we use in Australia, from a supply security perspective it's really not a good option to be using it for power generation. Adding wind or solar to remote systems to save on fuel consumption generally does stack up economically so ought to be pursued more aggressively. No major infrastructure is required, just plonk the solar panels or a wind turbine or two somewhere in the the "grid" being supplied by those systems and that's it really.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> My personal view is to take a pragmatic approach.




Any possibility for diesel or gas turbines running on ethanol from sugar cane ?

I don't know about the gas contracts that have been signed, but I reckon we should tear a few of them up and reserve gas for our own use before it goes OS.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Any possibility for diesel or gas turbines running on ethanol from sugar cane ?




For gas turbines they can be set up to burn pretty much anything as long as it's a liquid or gas and doesn't contain solid contaminants (eg heavy fuel oil contains solids). 

I haven't heard of anyone using ethanol to run one but I can't see a reason why it couldn't be done if set up properly.

For diesel engines, and in the context of main grids SA is the only state using them on a permanent basis (apart from backup generators in hospitals etc which are everywhere) they really do need diesel fuel or a direct substitute. So ethanol is a no but things like biodiesel are a possibility within the normal limits applying to diesel engines in general.

For gas-fired internal combustion engines there's a few in most states but they're not a major source of power for the grid, just a supplement. It would be pretty difficult to run them on anything other than gas really since the compression ratios are normally too high to permit the use of liquid fuels (though ethanol is high octane so might be doable, I'm not certain on that point).

Of all that though, gas turbines are the main one. Diesel engines are significant only in SA. Gas engines are a minor source usually associated with co-generation (simultaneous production of power and hot water) at places where electricity generation is not the primary activity (eg there's one at Launceston General Hospital and that's certainly not the only hospital with one. Crown Casino in Melbourne runs some too).

Gas fired steam turbines are a different story and just involve a boiler. If you really wanted to then it's not impossible to modify it to burn just about anything although avoiding air pollution would be important given that the main such facilities we have running in Australia are in the Adelaide and Melbourne metropolitan areas so you don't want clouds of smoke coming out that's for sure.


----------



## SirRumpole

Thanks.


----------



## overhang

Smurf1976 said:


> Gas - dumbest thing we've ever done as a country is sell practically the whole lot thus depriving ourselves of what would otherwise be a reasonably cheap (not much more costly than coal) and reasonably clean (60% lower emissions than coal for base load operation) energy source.




Spot on.  To give you an idea how stupid the Australian government/s have been at giving away our gas.



> By 2021 Australia will eclipse the Persian Gulf state of Qatar to become the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
> In that year, when both countries are forecast to pump and ship roughly 100 billion cubic metres of LNG each, Qatar's government will receive $26.6 billion in royalties from the multinational companies exploiting its offshore gasfields.
> 
> According to Treasury estimates, Australia will receive just $800 million for the same volume of gas leaving its shores.




Our 2nd cheapest option for base load energy and we practically give it away while seeing an enormous increase in the price of gas nationally and then they also complain of a gas shortage due to the CSG moratorium in NSW.  I'm not sure why conservatives aren't up in arms about this.


----------



## basilio

Good analysis of options for power Smurf.  On any analysis  continuing to invest new funds in coal fired power stations is nuts.

I disagree however on the timetable you propose.  The rate at which climate change is happening as a result of CO2 emissions means we have to ramp up no carbon power (and energy conservation) at a far greater rate than if this was a purely economic decision.  The consequences of  continuing on our current path are too dangerous to allow.


----------



## Tisme

overhang said:


> Spot on.  To give you an idea how stupid the Australian government/s have been at giving away our gas.
> 
> 
> 
> Our 2nd cheapest option for base load energy and we practically give it away while seeing an enormous increase in the price of gas nationally and then they also complain of a gas shortage due to the CSG moratorium in NSW.  I'm not sure why conservatives aren't up in arms about this.





We do the same with a lot of our produce too.


----------



## SirRumpole

*Energy Australia boss backs renewables.*

If there are still coal heads out there, you need to read this.



			
				Energy Australia's Managing Director Catherine Tanner said:
			
		

> _*The solution to high prices, she said, was a national plan to transition to the future of energy into renewables.*_
> 
> Energy Australia, which is one of the country's largest operators of coal-fired power stations, took the unprecedented move of taking out a full-page advertisement in a national broadsheet declaring its support for a non-partisan push for clean energy.
> 
> 
> While renewables are more expensive now, Ms Tanna told The Business they were the better option in the long-term.
> 
> "As at today, newer forms of energy are more expensive than some of the older forms of energy, but over the next 20 years those older, cheaper forms of energy are going to retire," she said.
> 
> "That's a reality and that's why we need a plan to transition into those newer forms of energy."
> 
> Her comments echo the sentiments voiced in a joint statement issued from an unlikely alliance of 18 groups — including the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Aluminium Council and World Wildlife Fund — demanding a non-partisan approach to energy policy.
> 
> "Let's understand what the problem is, get the facts on the table and then altogether we have to work on solutions," Ms Tanna said.
> 
> _*"The single-biggest barrier to investment is uncertainty around policy settings," she said.*_
> 
> "So when there is a lot of rhetoric about policy settings changing, no matter who it comes from, or a lot of flip-flopping about the fiscal assumptions it makes it very, very difficult for anyone to make a commitment to new projects."




My bolds and italics

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-14/energy-australia-boss-worried-about-power-bills/8267070


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> *Energy Australia boss backs renewables.*
> 
> If there are still coal heads out there, you need to read this.
> 
> 
> 
> My bolds and italics
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-14/energy-australia-boss-worried-about-power-bills/8267070




Yeah I watched that last night. Very well tempered woman


----------



## noco

overhang said:


> Spot on.  To give you an idea how stupid the Australian government/s have been at giving away our gas.
> 
> 
> 
> Our 2nd cheapest option for base load energy and we practically give it away while seeing an enormous increase in the price of gas nationally and then they also complain of a gas shortage due to the CSG moratorium in NSW.  I'm not sure why conservatives aren't up in arms about this.




The point you fail to make is the the Qatar Government has a 50% plus infrastructure stake in the gas industry where as neither the Australian Government nor the states have no investment outlay so therefore the state government ( not the Federal Government) are reliant on royalties as with other minerals taken out of the ground in that particular state...The Federal Government  does not give away gas but they collect taxes from the operators and the states benefit with royalties.....There is another play that comes into contention and that is called competition...We have to accept the market price. 

I went through this exercise with another ASF member some months ago.

Correct if I am wrong but the $26.6 billion you mention is not just royalties but made up of profit and royalties..


----------



## Tisme

http://reneweconomy.com.au/global-coal-plant-pipeline-slashed-in-past-year-68468/


----------



## noco

noco said:


> The point you fail to make is the the Qatar Government has a 50% plus infrastructure stake in the gas industry where as neither the Australian Government nor the states have no investment outlay so therefore the state government ( not the Federal Government) are reliant on royalties as with other minerals taken out of the ground in that particular state...The Federal Government  does not give away gas but they collect taxes from the operators and the states benefit with royalties.....There is another play that comes into contention and that is called competition...We have to accept the market price.
> 
> I went through this exercise with another ASF member some months ago.
> 
> Correct if I am wrong but the $26.6 billion you mention is not just royalties but made up of profit and royalties..





Further to my post, I was able to find a link relating to the Qatar Government's investment of $10 billion in the gas industry back in 1996....I doubt if you would ever see an Australian Government invest that type of money.

http://www.wrmea.org/1996-may-june/...ive-qatar-world-s-highest-per-capita-gdp.html


----------



## overhang

noco said:


> The point you fail to make is the the Qatar Government has a 50% plus infrastructure stake in the gas industry where as neither the Australian Government nor the states have no investment outlay so therefore the state government ( not the Federal Government) are reliant on royalties as with other minerals taken out of the ground in that particular state...The Federal Government  does not give away gas but they collect taxes from the operators and the states benefit with royalties.....There is another play that comes into contention and that is called competition...We have to accept the market price.
> 
> I went through this exercise with another ASF member some months ago.
> 
> Correct if I am wrong but the $26.6 billion you mention is not just royalties but made up of profit and royalties..




Thanks, I was not aware this was the case, the media were not pointing this out.  Turns out Qatar nationalized the gas and oil industry in 1977 which the country has certainly benefited from.  I think you may be wrong though about the royalties, it appears that figure is based on royalties only and does not include corporate taxes etc. 



> Royalties levied
> on the two companies involved in LNG exports, Rasgas and Qatargas, account for a
> third of total government revenues from natural gas production in Qatar. Government documents
> show that in 2013-14, LNG royalties charged on exports of 104.26 billion cubic metres (bcm) came
> to AU $17.68 billion.
> 
> This is equivalent to 23.35% of the industry's export revenues
> Additional revenues streams include corporate income tax and returns on investments made by
> state-owned companies in the sector.  In 2015 alone, Qatar Petroleum's joint venture partner Shell which has only a 30% holding in one of the seven plant- paid almost US $1 billion in taxes, production share and fees to Qatari government bodies.  Estimated combined total government revenues from LNG production in 2013-14 is AU $53.67 billion.



https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...1749065/ITF+PRRT+Brief+2+Qatar+-+Sept2016.pdf

Australia is far too generous when allowing mostly foreign companies to take our finite resources.  The Turnbull government would rather give a 1 billion dollar loan to a company known for tax avoidance and corruption.


----------



## Smurf1976

The big issue I see with gas is that the construction of the LNG plants in Qld has lead to:

Increase in gas costs for Australian consumers in the eastern states (including SA and Tas) of around $4 billion per annum.

Physical inability for some large users (heavy industry, power generation) to obtain sufficient gas under contract at any price thus leaving them exposed to the spot market.

Has linked Australian domestic gas prices to international oil prices. We'd have been seriously screwed if that had been the case a few years ago when oil prices were much higher and there's always the risk that oil goes up again.

In return we're getting $800 million in tax and that includes from the LNG exported from WA and NT whereas the $4 billion cost is for the eastern states alone.

I fail to see how this is a good deal for anyone really. Well, apart from those making money out of selling gas at triple the former price.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I fail to see how this is a good deal for anyone really. Well, apart from those making money out of selling gas at triple the former price.




Maybe the Senate should hold an inquiry into this. There are probably some shady deals going on.


----------



## SirRumpole

*Gas prices in Australia double those of exports*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-...australia-than-in-export-destinations/7680106


----------



## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> I have no particular reason, but a myriad of comfort points knowing old clunker technology is chugging along and in govt hands. So I think we should be keeping coal fired stations public and allowing private enterprise to develop alternatives that eventually overtake the fossil fuel production.




The problem with private enterprise developing alternatives is, they want huge subsidies to get involved, which leads to the Government underwriting the risk.
To a certain degree W.A has gone down this path, by offering capacity agreement contracts, whereby a new a entrant gets paid for being available to generate, the problem is you can't make them generate.

As I said it is crazy to shut down existing coal, it is our only low cost fuel, at the moment. With regard installing new coal fired plant, it is basically impossible, due to lack of investors and financial backers.

It doesn't bode well for the future cost of our electricity.
As for our gas, it should be taxed by volume, same as all our minerals should.IMO


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> *Gas prices in Australia double those of exports*






> A 2012 report from NIEMIR claimed that for each dollar gained from gas exports $21 in economic activity was lost.




At the risk of saying "I told you so", Smurf has been saying for years that we're heading toward a crisis and we're just about there now.

We had the third cheapest electricity in the OECD back in the state-run utility days. Now we're uncompetitive internationally.

We had cheap gas and now we're one of the most expensive places on earth for gas.

We had a reliable supply of both gas and electricity with load shedding of either being something that you might see once as a child, once again when your own kids are at schoo and once again when you're retired. Now it's become a routine event in SA and other states are set to follow.

Hazelwood power station doesn't have a lot of supporters on account of its emissions but to be blunt it's the last pillar holding everything sort-of up. Once that goes, and thats now only weeks away, we've got two problems:

1. During Summer a lack of peak generating capacity affecting both Vic and SA. It would also affect NSW if the three states were to have a simultaneous heatwave but the primary impact is on Vic and SA.

2. During winter we have enough peak power generation BUT we're going to have to run the gas-fired plants a lot more than in the past. Now, the Victorian gas network especially already struggles to meet demand during cold spells in Winter and I'll add that SA, NSW and Tas all rely partly (SA, NSW) or totally (Tas) on Victoria for gas supplies. It's not rocket science to work out what's going to happen once we start running those gas-fired power stations harder and there's a cold snap in SE Australia. At best we'll be burning diesel in the gas turbines but that's not exactly cheap and it sure isn't "green".

So we'd better hope that it's cool in summer and warm in winter from now on. Constant mild weather all year round is what we'd better have. Good luck with that one.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> As I said it is crazy to shut down existing coal, it is our only low cost fuel, at the moment




Yep. By messing up with gas we're left with coal as the only thing we've got that's already built and affordable to run. Should never have happened but that's the situation we've ended up with.


----------



## sptrawler

If Hazelwood shuts down, my bet is a gas pipeline will have to be built from N/W of W.A to the Moomba gas fields, christ knows what that will cost.
All in the name of getting rid of coal, I think someone is taking the pizz out of us, as if our coal emissions effect the world climate.
We still export the stuff to China and India, why not just refuse to supply their power stations, that would have ten times more effect on emissions.


----------



## sptrawler

My personal guess, as to where we should be heading, at this point in our energy generation evolution.
Well firstly the only sensible cheap renewable, with storage, is Hydro.

Second the only sensible mass renewable, that is fairly cheap to install, is wind generators. They lack storage, but a hydrogen plant could be located adjacent to the wind farm, with a turbine supplied by the plant for back up base load. 
Having said that, it would take a lot of liquid gas storage, to run a large gas turbine for an extended period of time. So it probably isn't feasible.
Molten solar storage, IMO is o.k but it again has to rely on reasonable sunshine, and storage is limited, so the installation/maintenance cost to output, I would think would be questionable.
Household battery storage, IMO is achievable, but I don't think most people with it would go off grid. 
Those who could afford it, couldn't afford a system that could run their a/c for extended low solar generation periods. So it really is a bit of a cottage industry.

So alas, we come back to the system, we want it reliable, affordable and available.
Unfortunately, as usual, we are getting ahead of ourselves.
The politicians know this, but they can't say it because the media and greenies will bag it.lol


----------



## noco

Smurf1976 said:


> Yep. By messing up with gas we're left with coal as the only thing we've got that's already built and affordable to run. Should never have happened but that's the situation we've ended up with.




Smurf, how long will solar panels last before having to be replaced and how long will wind generators last before they break down and have to be replaced?


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> Smurf, how long will solar panels last before having to be replaced and how long will wind generators last before they break down and have to be replaced?




You could Google it yourself.

Solar panels about 25 years, batteries and inverters about 5 years.
Wind turbines about 25 years.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> You could Google it yourself.
> 
> Solar panels about 25 years, batteries and inverters about 5 years.
> Wind turbines about 25 years.




What has it got to do with you Rumpy?...The question was directed to Smurf.....If I want you opinion I will ask for it.


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> What has it got to do with you Rumpy?...The question was directed to Smurf.....If I want you opinion I will ask for it.




Up yours then.


----------



## PZ99

sptrawler said:


> My personal guess, as to where we should be heading, at this point in our energy generation evolution.
> Well firstly the only sensible cheap renewable, with storage, is Hydro.



Hydro, as in wave energy  Australia has an abundance of available sites especially up north.

Somewhere adjacent to the Horizontal Falls is the perfect location.  We even have a cheap wave energy stock ASX-POW in the process of a CR at the moment... 



Spoiler: LOL



Disclaimer: Not a holder


----------



## sptrawler

PZ99 said:


> Hydro, as in wave energy  Australia has an abundance of available sites especially up north.
> 
> Somewhere adjacent to the Horizontal Falls is the perfect location.  We even have a cheap wave energy stock ASX-POW in the process of a CR at the moment...
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler: LOL
> 
> 
> 
> Disclaimer: Not a holder



As you say up north, with the large tidal movement wave generation is feasible, there just isn't much demand for electricity up there.
What demand there is, is easily serviced by the lake Argyle hydro station.

I have also wondered,if there would be any maintenance issues with wave generators, the ocean is a very corrosive environment.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> As you say up north, with the large tidal movement wave generation is feasible, there just isn't much demand for electricity up there.




We have a national grid don't we ?


----------



## PZ99

Current cost is the mitigating factor. Carbon Tax was supposed to fund these sort of projects but now that revenue is gone there's no money. Still, feeding wave power into the NEM either into QLD or S.A. isn't too hard. Other projects include Victoria, King Island, Tassie...
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...s/news-story/1bdd14cd12833f90cbfc359f1e5b0dc0


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> If Hazelwood shuts down, my bet is a gas pipeline will have to be built from N/W of W.A to the Moomba gas fields,.





the link is already being built.

The NT link pipeline will link the east coast grid to the Northern Territory pipeline via mt isa.

The Bonaparte Basin (timor sea) is Australias largest undeveloped gas field, its likely to hold more gas than the western shelf and Queensland coal seams combined.

there is already a sub sea pipe connecting Darwin to WA, so I think Australias gas supply is only limited by the drilling we do.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> The Bonaparte Basin (timor sea) is Australias largest undeveloped gas field, its likely to hold more gas than the western shelf and Queensland coal seams combined.




I just hope our dumb government reserves that for local use, we are already exporting too much as indicated by local prices.


----------



## Tisme

noco said:


> What has it got to do with you Rumpy?...The question was directed to Smurf.....If I want you opinion I will ask for it.





Open forum comes to mind, but that was funny LOL. 

Perhaps you could take it personal messaging instead?


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> the link is already being built.
> 
> The NT link pipeline will link the east coast grid to the Northern Territory pipeline via mt isa.
> 
> The Bonaparte Basin (timor sea) is Australias largest undeveloped gas field, its likely to hold more gas than the western shelf and Queensland coal seams combined.
> 
> there is already a sub sea pipe connecting Darwin to WA, so I think Australias gas supply is only limited by the drilling we do.




Isn't there a pipe going in from PNG to Northern Oz?


----------



## Value Collector

Tisme said:


> Isn't there a pipe going in from PNG to Northern Oz?




I am, pretty sure that got canned, the Bonaparte is much larger anyway, and pipelines can be extended into WA from there easily.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> I just hope our dumb government reserves that for local use, we are already exporting too much as indicated by local prices.




The purpose of the link was to connect the Bonaparte to eastern grid, where it will be able to provide supply to the domestic market as well as the export terminals in QLD.


----------



## Value Collector

Here is a short news segment from when the NT Gas link was announced


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> I am, pretty sure that got canned, the Bonaparte is much larger anyway, and pipelines can be extended into WA from there easily.




They had something like 150 people here in Brisbane working away since the mid 2000's; that would be a big unrecovered cost to Exxon and ESSO


----------



## Value Collector

Tisme said:


> They had something like 150 people here in Brisbane working away since the mid 2000's; that would be a big unrecovered cost to Exxon and ESSO



Maybe we are talking about different pipelines, I was talking about the one APA was considering, but they canned it when it became known the old gas fields could supply enough gas


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Here is a short news segment from when the NT Gas link was announced





Thanks.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> We have a national grid don't we ?



Yes, but it isn't anywhere near the horizontal falls,in the NW of W.A.


----------



## Smurf1976

According to Geoscience Australia there's 668.55 BCM (billion cubic metres) of gas in Bonaparte.

That's equivalent to about 11 years' consumption for the Eastern states including exports (or about 40 years without exports).

So it's significant but it won't keep the lights on forever and it won't change the situation if we simply expand LNG export capacity - and they've already got plans to do just that.


----------



## Smurf1976

noco said:


> Smurf, how long will solar panels last before having to be replaced and how long will wind generators last before they break down and have to be replaced?




In theory it's about 25 years until a wind farm needs major components replaced. For solar there's a slow drop off in production, they lose about 20% over 20 years, and then at some future point total failure would be likely.

The truth is though that nobody really knows for certain. There are old solar panels made 35+ years ago still working today but they are very different to to what is being installed today. We just don't have enough experience with the mass scale installation of a dozen Chinese solar panels on house roofs to know how long they'll really last in practice so it's anyone's guess.

What can be said is that with a typical grid-connect solar system the inverter is the weak link and likely to fail well before the panels fail. A decent one such as SMA should last a decade or more, you can extend the warranty on those up to 20 years for a price, but some of the cheap generic ones went into landfill years ago and not long after installation - and there's plenty of those which have been installed because they're cheap and consumers have bought based on price.

So nobody really knows for certain when it comes to rooftop solar as it has actually been installed with largely cheapish components and installation also done down to a price. That there will be (already are) problems is a given but nobody can be sure what's going to happen 5, 10 or 20 years from now.

For wind there's more experience and the 25 years seems right in an order of magnitude sense. It's not 10 years and it's not likely to be 100, 25 years seems about right. But again there's a lack of experience with current production wind turbines to be certain. It's one thing to say that a 144kW (0.144 MW) machine built in the 1980's is still running but as with solar that's a different beast to the 1.75 - 3 MW machines most commonly used in Australian wind farms. Only time will tell what really happens.


----------



## noco

Smurf1976 said:


> In theory it's about 25 years until a wind farm needs major components replaced. For solar there's a slow drop off in production, they lose about 20% over 20 years, and then at some future point total failure would be likely.
> 
> The truth is though that nobody really knows for certain. There are old solar panels made 35+ years ago still working today but they are very different to to what is being installed today. We just don't have enough experience with the mass scale installation of a dozen Chinese solar panels on house roofs to know how long they'll really last in practice so it's anyone's guess.
> 
> What can be said is that with a typical grid-connect solar system the inverter is the weak link and likely to fail well before the panels fail. A decent one such as SMA should last a decade or more, you can extend the warranty on those up to 20 years for a price, but some of the cheap generic ones went into landfill years ago and not long after installation - and there's plenty of those which have been installed because they're cheap and consumers have bought based on price.
> 
> So nobody really knows for certain when it comes to rooftop solar as it has actually been installed with largely cheapish components and installation also done down to a price. That there will be (already are) problems is a given but nobody can be sure what's going to happen 5, 10 or 20 years from now.
> 
> For wind there's more experience and the 25 years seems right in an order of magnitude sense. It's not 10 years and it's not likely to be 100, 25 years seems about right. But again there's a lack of experience with current production wind turbines to be certain. It's one thing to say that a 144kW (0.144 MW) machine built in the 1980's is still running but as with solar that's a different beast to the 1.75 - 3 MW machines most commonly used in Australian wind farms. Only time will tell what really happens.




Thanks so much for that Smurf...You have answered my questions well...I do hope Sir Rumpole has also absorbed your expertise.


----------



## SirRumpole

noco said:


> Thanks so much for that Smurf...You have answered my questions well...I do hope Sir Rumpole has also absorbed your expertise.




The figures Smurph gave looked remarkably similar to what you could have got yourself, but yes thanks to Smurph for the verification.


----------



## Tisme

So a private operator shed too much power in SA, because of a software "glitch".

Almost like a conspiracy theory set of circumstances that plays well for politics.


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf will be heading to SA tomorrow.

With a bit of luck the lights stay on. But I'll be sure to charge the phone tonight just in case - shouldn't need to make any calls but the torch function could come in handy (let's hope not....). 

As for power supplies, Hazelwood (Vic) seems to be having problems at the moment and is running at 64% of capacity with no unit at full output. I don't know the reason but given the way it's running I'll assume a coal supply problem as most likely.

It hasn't been going too badly in recent times, generally running at about 86% of its original capacity, but with only 43 days left until it's all over I expect it'll be left to start falling in a heap pretty soon. Not much point spending on maintaining anything at this point when the next major planned work on the place is demolition.

Replacement? Um, err, well no actually they're not doing that bit. This will get interesting to say the lest over the coming year physically (power supply), financially and politically.....


----------



## sptrawler

Are they going to demolish or mothball Hazelwood, smurph?


----------



## Smurf1976

The owners (Engie) have said they're going to close by 31 March 2017 and will then go about rehabilitating the site. At this stage everyone, including AEMO, is taking that to mean they'll close on that day not before although it's a fair assumption that not all 8 units will be running on that afternoon.

The coal mine is right next to the power station so the mine would be the focus of that "rehabilitation" work far more than the power station itself but _presumably_ they'll physically knock down the power station.

With the mine to be closed there's zero point keeping the power station in place unless someone thinks it makes a good static monument or something like that. No coal = won't be generating power so it's a closure rather than a mothballing in practice no matter what they do with the power station as such.


----------



## Trembling Hand

Smurf1976 said:


> The owners (Engie) have said they're going to close by 31 March 2017 and will then go about rehabilitating the site.



Which is going to be interesting!



> The owners of the soon-to-be closed Hazelwood power station have conceded the bill to rehabilitate the mine and demolish the ageing plant will run to almost three-quarters of a billion dollars.




http://www.smh.com.au/business/mini...d-743-million-rehab-bill-20170119-gtun85.html


----------



## sptrawler

It certainly appears we are rushing toward the abyss, one would hope there is a soft landing.
At Kwinana, from my understanding, the stage A units were mothballed and the stage c units were just shut down, no nitrogen sealing.
But the scenario here in W.A is somewhat different to the Eastern States, we still have a lot of base load generation, both gas and coal.
Renewables are being adopted, but in a much more controlled manner, it would seem.
It would be difficult to attract heavy industry to Australia, with our power costs and wages costs, I guess one of these will be sorted out eventually.


----------



## Smurf1976

Likely sequence:

Hazelwood closes at the end of March.

No problems apart from a rise in prices until we get a cold snap in Winter. Then the gas price goes through the roof, due to gas-fired generation running more (since we don't have Hazelwood) combined with heating demand for gas (and Vic uses an incredible amount of gas for heating when it's seriously cold). Maybe a few big industries shut down temporarily due to the gas price (those that use a lot of gas).

Then it all calms down.

Then we get a heatwave in SA and Vic next summer and the lights go out in a big way.

Then the political **** storm really gets underway. You ain't seen nothing yet....

Then good ole Murphy strikes. The hydro generators find themselves dealing with a drought so walk away from the base load market (still generating at the peaks of course) and something breaks down with thermal (coal / gas) plant. Now we've got an economic (price) crisis as well as a physical supply one.

Then someone proposes something drastic. New coal plant. Big push into pumped hydro possibly. Nationalisation if the political mood swings that way. But something drastic happens simply because anyone proposing a firm plan that the general public can grasp will find themselves elected on that issue alone.

A decade ago nobody outside the industry or with a personal interest really thought about power supply at all. You turned the switch on and it just worked. Maybe you'd driven past a power station sometime or went on a public tour of one out of interest to see how it worked but that was it really. Nobody seriously doubted that we had a robust system and any level of public interest was about curiosity rather than actual concern.

Now it's an issue with a moderate level of mainstream interest. The masses know things aren't going too well but thus far they can still pay the bill and it still works most of the time. They see a need for action but wouldn't call it a crisis.

Go forward a year and in  the absence of some bigger problem (recession, massive natural disaster, actual terrorist attack etc) the way it's heading it'll be the No.1 issue politically with everyone from your average hair dresser or taxi driver (or anyone else who ordinarily has no interest in things electrical) knowing there's a problem and just wanting it fixed.

The power grid is collectively the largest and most complex machine man has ever built. But it's not rocket science, it's all very well understood how to do it, all we need to do is apply that knowledge in practice. We're not trying to put a man on mars or get people living to age 200 here, power generation is all very well understood in terms of how to do it and just needs to be applied.

We used to be world leaders at this stuff. Vic was very highly regarded in the use of low grade fuels internationally. Tas has plenty of "world first" stuff in the hydro system. The Snowy system is one of the most impressive feats of engineering ever done anywhere. WA got a reputation for getting things done real quick and it all worked. Qld and NSW had the most efficient coal-fired plants on earth at one point. NT had one of the first combined cycle plants in permanent operation. SA didn't have anything remarkable technically but they still had a decent system and managed to keep the cost reasonable despite a smallish scale and using fuel that came from the middle of nowhere. Australia as a whole had the third cheapest power in the OECD, beaten only by NZ and Canada with their heavy reliance on cheap hydro.

That all happened because we focused on the engineering. Politics and profit hasn't been a good replacement for that.


----------



## basilio

Madness isn't it ? It take only a modicum of logic and the capacity to count up generating capacity to recognise that in 12 months we face serious, chronic energy problems.  The stuff that shuts down industry, transport, hospitals, homes businesses.

A problem that can't be solved quickly because essentially we will need more reliable base load power. I wonder what would happen if Smurfs analysis were put on a postcard and sent to every politician in Australia with the phrase.

"xxxxing do something NOW."


----------



## noco

The Labor Party in WA have gone into melt down over it's 50% renewables....Are they eventually seeing the light of day?


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/a...e/news-story/0a679dcfce37c993a7aec4aa3b677fe6


----------



## SirRumpole

This piece could almost have been written by Smurph.

https://theconversation.com/austral...is not agile and innovative enough to keep up


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> This piece could almost have been written by Smurph.
> 
> https://theconversation.com/australias-electricity-market-is-not-agile-and-innovative-enough-to-keep-up-72870?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The Weekend Conversation - 67784967&utm_content=The Weekend Conversation - 67784967+Version+A+CID_4144c2abd1e2d39059aecd53706af213&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Australias electricity market is not agile and innovative enough to keep up




I can see some major holes in that article:

firstly Malcom Turnbull and Coy didn't write it;
it wouldn't pass the Bolt and Newscorp test for dishonesty;
it doesn't blame South Australia for the load shedding in NSW;
it's a blatant piece of leftie propaganda that uses a semblance facts instead of overt fiction to support the argument;
it


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> I can see some major holes in that article:
> 
> firstly Malcom Turnbull and Coy didn't write it;
> it wouldn't pass the Bolt and Newscorp test for dishonesty;
> it doesn't blame South Australia for the load shedding in NSW;
> it's a blatant piece of leftie propaganda that uses a semblance facts instead of overt fiction to support the argument;
> it




Well, nothing is perfect.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> Well, nothing is perfect.





Yeah well if SA had its act together and had 100% power generation for need, the power that Vic sent them could have been used for NSW which would have knocked on to QLD not having to load shed because it was supplying NSW too.... oh hang on QLD didn't need to load shed because the people own our power production with 1000 megawatt spare capacity.


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> Yeah well if SA had its act together and had 100% power generation for need, the power that Vic sent them could have been used for NSW which would have knocked on to QLD not having to load shed because it was supplying NSW too.... oh hang on QLD didn't need to load shed because the people own our power production with 1000 megawatt spare capacity.




You have defined the essential problem, it's State vs State, green ideology vs privatisation ideology.

FFS, politicians should get the hell out of designing power grids and let engineers do it. 

All generators should be Federally owned and run on the principle of equal distribution to all customers. That will reduce the political bs that people like Turnbs is going on with.


----------



## SirRumpole

Where things are at with geothermal.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/educ...tralia-plumbs-the-depths-20150516-gh35jr.html


----------



## sptrawler

The CEO of Bluescope Steel, sums the situation up pretty well, in this article.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/e...-buyback-on-profit-surge-20170219-gugiq6.html


----------



## noco

sptrawler said:


> The CEO of Bluescope Steel, sums the situation up pretty well, in this article.
> 
> http://www.theage.com.au/business/e...-buyback-on-profit-surge-20170219-gugiq6.html




sp, all so very true but the lefties (Greenies and red raggers) will come back and say what a lot of rubbish....That CEO from Blue Scope Steel doesn't know what he is talking about......Just stick up more wind mills, that will fix the problem and pigs might fly....Or just tell the CEO of BSS  to put in his own diesel power plants and pollute the air with more green house gases......What a joke these clowns are.


----------



## PZ99

Interesting article...
*
The federal government wants to use taxpayer funds to support new pumped hydro electricity generation across Australia.*

Only three pumped hydro schemes exist in Australia at the moment.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has given $54 million to a Queensland project that will convert an old mine into a solar farm and pumped hydro generator, and it's expected more projects will follow.

But there are thousands more sites where pumped hydro could be viable, ANU renewable energy Professor Andrew Blakers tells AAP.

WHAT IS PUMPED HYDRO?

A pumped hydro scheme has two water reservoirs at different heights connected by a pipe. When power prices rise or there is low supply from other sources like solar and wind, water is released from the upper reservoir and runs through a turbine into the lower one, generating electricity as it goes. When power is cheaper, the water is pumped back up from the bottom to the top. This has the added advantage of using excess power generation, University of Melbourne's Dr Roger Dargaville says.

WHERE IS THIS USED NOW?

The three existing river-based schemes are at Wivenhoe Dam in Queensland, Shoalhaven in NSW and the Snowy River in NSW.

WHERE ELSE COULD IT OPERATE?

Any hilly farmland where you could build two 10-hectare reservoirs. Blakers says there are thousands of potential sites, including the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range and even "sunny, arid South Australia" including in the mountains from Adelaide up to Flinders Ranges National Park and along the eastern side of the Great Australian Bight.

Dargaville says schemes using sea water could also be an option in SA, meaning only an upper reservoir would need to be built with water pumped from the ocean.

HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO OTHER POWER GENERATION?

Pumped hydro offers all the benefits of other baseload power sources, such as coal and gas, but much quicker, more flexibly and without the emissions. For example, a coal-fired power station can take up to 24 hours to reach full capacity, where pumped hydro can do it in one minute.

Plus, the technology already exists and it's a fraction of the cost of battery storage. "If you want pumped hydro you just ring up a company and they'll build you one, nothing to invent," Blakers says.

WHAT ABOUT THE SCARCITY OF WATER?

Blakers describes the reservoirs as "over-sized farm dams" and says there's little chance of a pumped hydro scheme sitting empty once built, even if Australia goes back into drought. They use much less water than coal plants and recycle the same water over and over, with none lost in clouds of steam like thermal generators.

WHY AREN'T WE USING IT ALREADY?

Essentially, because we still rely heavily on coal-fired power the price of electricity is relatively stable - pumped hydro makes the most sense where there are large spikes and drops in price. Once there is more intermittent power like photo-voltaic solar and wind power in the grid, pumped hydro becomes more viable.

"It's off-the-shelf, waiting for when PV and wind reaches the point that it destabilises the grid then you just go and build it," Blakers says. He expects to see it soonest in SA, where he says the government needs to invest in another interconnector to import electricity from NSW, pumped hydro, or both.

Dargaville says: "By adding large-scale storage into the grid, it will allow more of the world-class renewable wind and solar generation resources in South Australia to be deployed, further reducing Australia's carbon footprint, without the current negative impacts on energy security."

http://www.news.com.au/national/bre...e/news-story/bc1beca0ae140b91e077dc66fa743fee


----------



## basilio

That story on pumped hydro is very interesting. I wonder at what the costings look like. It seems easy to say just build a dam up a hill put in the pipes, the generator , the connecting power lines, the pump to take the water back up the hill, the renewable energy supply to run that pump...

It is an excellent idea.  I think we should see some practical figures .  It also seems to be a project that would work in tandem with wind and solar energy on the one site . .

Just a thought.  I wonder if the open cut coal mines in the Latrobe Valley would be deep enough to be part of a pumped hydro scheme ? They already have the power lines in place.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> That story on pumped hydro is very interesting. I wonder at what the costings look like. It seems easy to say just build a dam up a hill put in the pipes, the generator , the connecting power lines, the pump to take the water back up the hill, the renewable energy supply to run that pump...
> 
> It is an excellent idea.  I think we should see some practical figures .  It also seems to be a project that would work in tandem with wind and solar energy on the one site . .
> 
> Just a thought.  I wonder if the open cut coal mines in the Latrobe Valley would be deep enough to be part of a pumped hydro scheme ? They already have the power lines in place.






SirRumpole said:


> The SA Energy minister was on ABC saying that there was thermal generating capacity (gas) available which was not turned on because the energy regulator either told then not to or didn't instruct them to turn it on.
> 
> He said the national grid concept had failed and SA will now do its own thing as far as power supplys go.
> 
> I don't know how much of what he said was true, but it sounds like there is a fundamental management problem with the national grid.




The biggest problem with dams, is the greenies don't like them, there will be some flower that is only found in the dam catchment area.
Then there will be the rent a crowd, chaining themselves to trees, seen it all before. Won't happen.lol


----------



## Smurf1976

With all the talk about pumped hydro lately I'm thinking that government might be starting to grasp that we've actually got a problem.

Batteries were always a diversion story. Makes people feel good but ensure that coal remains king. Solar thermal storage was a bit better but still has limitations. Pumped hydro, on the other hand, is 100% proven, reliable and actually works. It along with conventional hydro is the key to making the transition to a renewable power supply.

At the risk of boasting, Smurf has been saying for a very long time that we need to go down this track so I'm more than happy that government is finally waking up.

The other pieces of the puzzle are conventional hydro, a strong transmission grid and it would be very nice to have geothermal if we could get it working. That latter point needs the $ spent to prove it one way or the other - and suffice to say that private enterprise has shown pretty clearly that government needs to get involved with this one.

Location - There's no fundamental reason why pumped hydro needs to be at the same site as solar or wind. In all cases the intent is to take advantage of natural conditions and it's not a given that a place that is good for one will be good for the others too although in some cases it will be. The grid itself by its very nature removes any actual need to co-locate pumped hydro with anything else unless doing so just happens to make sense at a particular site.

The only bit that worries me is I've seen a few media comments about it having a 50 year lifespan. Suffice to say that if it's only going to last 50 years then whoever is planning on that is in the wrong job and/or is planning to engage some shoddy contractors to do the work. If they want a figure then 90 years would be a better one to quote although that's by no means the limit.

The 300 MW being talked about in SA would be a help but in itself is not enough once you realise that we need 1500 MW between Vic and SA even if everything works pefectly with 2700 MW being a much safer scenario which does allow for things to go wrong whilst keeping the lights on. Still, it's a start and we can always build more once people decide that having reliable power is a good idea.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The biggest problem with dams, is the greenies don't like them, there will be some flower that is only found in the dam catchment area.
> Then there will be the rent a crowd, chaining themselves to trees, seen it all before. Won't happen.lol



In theory pumped hydro can be done with minimal impact.

But so far as politics is concerned, well the Greens opposing dams is much like saying that Labor supports unions. It's not just some random issue but the very basis on which both parties were formed. It's not going to be easy, in a purely political sense, for the Greens (as in the party) to ever support dams just like it wouldn't be easy for Labor to turn against unions (or the Liberals to advocate unions).

It's something very fundamental there, not just some random issue of the day from asylum seekers to defence to trade. Opposing dams is at the very heart of the philosophy which directly lead to the Greens existing in the first place. Forests, the issue most associate with the Greens, came more than a decade after dams.

If we're talking about building small dams on agricultural or other land of minimal (or no) conservation value then there's no logical reason anyone would oppose that especially not if they actually want a transition away from fossil fuels.

Politics isn't logical however - I could also say there's no logical reason why the Liberals would oppose wind power. For that matter, if you wanted to find a group that you'd expect to be aligned with Labor then coal miners (actual miners, not necessarily mining companies) would be a very classic support base at least in theory being blue collar and historically at least highly unionised. So none of it makes any rational sense when it comes to politics.

There's really only 4 choices in all this however.

1. We're building more coal-fired generation.
2. We're going to at least partly shut down the almost new Qld LNG plants and use gas instead with a market intervention to differentiate Australian prices from the international market.
3. We're going to literally sit in the dark or at least with seriously expensive power.
4. We're building pumped hydro.

Hydro looks the winner to me. It's the only one that has any chance of getting political backing from both major parties. Labor won't back coal. Liberal won't back intervention in the market especially when it leaves investors out of pocket. Neither is likely to see blackouts as a good idea. Which leaves hydro.

Who'd have thought. 2017 and we're faced with an energy crisis the solution to which is the same technology we turned our back on a generation ago (pun intended). And we're likely to build it in, of all places, South Australia. Well I'll be, um, dammed I suppose. 

FWIW - Pumped hydro in SA isn't a new idea. ETSA thought of that one circa 1980 but never went ahead with it since building Northern power station and the Mintaro gas turbines were a better option at that time (cheap gas and nobody worried about CO2) but it was certainly considered.


----------



## SirRumpole

I thought that the Green opposition to dams was mainly to building dams on rivers and therefore interfering with the natural flow and causing problems downstream as well as flooding natural wildlife habitats.

Closed dams would hopefully be a different issue for them, as well as the fact that water can be pumped out of the oceans to a higher level which doesn't appear to be environmentally negative.

The benefits of pumped hydro should appeal to most Greens , but Lee Rhiannon will probably be out waving her red flag simply because money has to be spent and that is horrid capitalism at work.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> I thought that the Green opposition to dams was mainly to building dams on rivers and therefore interfering with the natural flow and causing problems downstream as well as flooding natural wildlife habitats.
> 
> Closed dams would hopefully be a different issue for them, as well as the fact that water can be pumped out of the oceans to a higher level which doesn't appear to be environmentally negative.
> 
> The benefits of pumped hydro should appeal to most Greens , but Lee Rhiannon will probably be out waving her red flag simply because money has to be spent and that is horrid capitalism at work.




It's not as simple as building a cofferdam. The water stored has to be kept clean and suitable for dumping into a river system that in itself may require seasonal low flow for the ecosystem it supports, etc. Farmers would probably end up tapping into it in exchange for money and eventually howls of protest that it was allow to drain down and crops lost.

I would suspect there would be mass deforestation in any possible catchment area, there would be filtration systems, spillways, big out of sight infrastructure, administration, pipelines. We would have to pay for junkets to Sweden to find out how electricity works and put out tenders to Norway, France, Japan and Sweden because we are incapable of anything because our Naplan scores say so.


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> We would have to pay for junkets to Sweden to find out how electricity works and put out tenders to Norway, France, Japan and Sweden because we are incapable of anything because our Naplan scores say so.





We'll be ok, we've got Smurph !

I'm sure there are a few around like him too.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> We'll be ok, we've got Smurph !
> 
> I'm sure there are a few around like him too.




True. How do we get him into parliament? Shall I make a call?


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> True. How do we get him into parliament? Shall I make a call?




Yes, give Frydenberg the flick, he's a dill.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, give Frydenberg the flick, he's a dill.




I like Josh because of his naivety and unconvincing defense of his idiot mates.


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> I like Josh because of his naivety and unconvincing defense of his idiot mates.




He doesn't seem convinced about anything he says, tow the party line and that's about it.


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> the pump to take the water back up the hill,




As far as I know you don't need extra pumps, the turbines can be run in reverse to pump the water back up.


----------



## PZ99

*Pumped hydro plan for SA power security *

When the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow, seawater could keep South Australia powering on.

One of the nation's biggest electricity industry players is looking at building a pumped-hydro generator in South Australia's Spencer Gulf, near industry hotspots Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Pirie.

The federal government has offered Energy Australia $450,000 in taxpayer funds to help with a feasibility study and hinted there could be more financing available if the project is viable.

More here > http://www.news.com.au/national/bre...l/news-story/e6b6f2674f5d224e82f29dc794e21d9d


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I thought that the Green opposition to dams was mainly to building dams on rivers and therefore interfering with the natural flow and causing problems downstream as well as flooding natural wildlife habitats.




The Green movement in Australia all started in Tasmania and hydro dams were the trigger.

The first opposition goes all the way back to 1938 when Lake St Clair was dammed. No real opposition to the dam itself but bushwalkers used to get upset about the fluctuating water levels making it hard to walk along the shoreline.

That all went away once WW2 started, there were bigger problems to worry about, and didn't come back afterward since (1) the Hydro was viewed in almost god-like terms by practically everyone in the state on account of its massive scale creation of employment to which practically nobody was going to object with the Great Depression and WW2 still fresh in everyone's minds and (2) there was a desperate need for power to run industry which was widely known and (3) construction of the Clark Dam (aka Butlers Gorge dam) downstream in 1949 greatly reduced the need to draw down Lake St Clair other than in times of drought - and if there's a drought then nobody's really going to complain too much about a lake being a bit low.

Then it all came back in a big way with the flooding of Lake Pedder in 1972 as part of the Gordon Power Development (Stage 1). That was the trigger event for the formation of the United Tasmania Group, regarded today as the world's first "Green" political party and the predecessors of what became "the Independents" followed by "the Green Independents" and now simply "the Greens".

Then came Stage 2 of the Gordon scheme, more commonly but incorrectly known as the Franklin Dam, and something not far short of an actual war erupted over that one (indeed at the height of the conflict the Feds did actually send the RAAF in for surveillance purposes and that is the only instance in Australia's history of the Australian Defence Force being used against an Australian target, albeit with no actual military conflict taking place in practice).

Stage 2 of the Gordon Scheme was ultimately scrapped following a High Court challenge and that in practice marked the end of large scale dam construction in Australia. Tasmania built two much smaller hydro schemes as a stop-gap measure to keep the lights on and delay a spike in unemployment whilst every other state simply lost interest (and Tas sure wasn't interested in doing anything further beyond those two schemes - zero chance).

The Gordon Stage 2 conflict ran from late 1979 when the scheme was announced until it was scrapped in 1983. In that time a referendum was held, it politically wrecked 2 state Labor premiers and resulted in the Liberals gaining majority government for the first time in Tasmania's history. Notable point there politically is that several unions were publicly backing the Liberal party which supported the dam and urging their members to vote accordingly. Other unions had a lot of internal strife over the issue and for that matter it's no secret that it wrecked quite a few personal relationships as well.  

For the record, anyone who went to Hydro Tasmania's centenary touring exhibition in 2014 would have seen the "No Dams" case presented along with the rest of the organisation's history. A point that surprised many visitors certainly was to find a "No Dams" film running on continuous loop. It gets a mention in "Power of Nature" too, a printed book handed out during power station tours etc. And if you go down to Lake Pedder then you'll find that some signs have been erected acknowledging the conflict and presenting the case against dams - and yes it was Hydro that put them up of its own accord.

There's no hiding from the past and no point dwelling on it now. Moving forward is the way and in that context I'll mention something from both sides. Hydro has zero interest in building big dams today, indeed it no longer has the workforce or construction machinery etc to do so and it would be a massive task to put all that back together. From the other side, well the Greens here in Tas did get enough courage to adopt the slogan "Clean Green Hydro" for a while and use it publicly. As with all conflicts, what was black versus white has become shades of grey over the years. Hydro has people employed looking after threatened species and so on. Plenty of environmentalists have, privately at least, acknowledged the other side of the argument as the world grapples with the problem of fossil fuels.

There is no such thing as totally non-polluting power. It all pollutes something somehow. All we get to choose is how and where but it all pollutes something.

My hope is that all sides can acknowledge the need for large scale energy storage if we're to become reliant on intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar. Acknowledge that there's a very real need for pumped hydro and that the question is where to build it not if to build it. Take that mindset and then have a sensible conversation to identify suitable sites which tick all the boxes - practical, economical and not of high conservation value. Do that, accept that we're going to put some land under water but that we'll go about it sensibly, and it should be possible to get broad agreement.

For the record, the undeveloped potential of large scale hydro in Australia is equivalent to 1.7 times the size of the Snowy scheme with 71% of that undeveloped but identified resource being in Tasmania. So it's significant certainly but we're not going to run the whole country with hydro that's for sure.

A key future role for large scale hydro could be very intermittent operation for when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine to any great extent. So you build conventional (on rivers) large scale hydro (including adaptation of existing schemes) and have it sitting there doing nothing most of the time. Then you run it hard to cover the longer term (days, weeks) periods where solar / wind + pumped hydro will struggle to meet total demand. There's certainly a need for that if we're going to go completely (100%) off fossil fuels but we're nowhere near needing to have that debate yet.

Also worth noting is that there's a massive hydro resource in PNG not being used for anything. We could power two thirds of Qld (in terms of base load supply) with it fairly cheaply and reliably. Whilst it's in another country I certainly think it's worth a very serious look given the scale of the resource, low cost and that it's on the doorstep of our second largest energy consuming state. Origin Energy had some interest in it a few years ago but seemed to lose their nerve unfortunately.

Someone asked about pumps - in short the pump and turbine are on the same shaft. Snowy has a diagram somewhere showing how it all works (Tumut 3 has pumps on 3 of the 6 machines, the others being generation only).


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Also worth noting is that there's a massive hydro resource in PNG not being used for anything.




Sounds good, but the PNG government hasn't exactly been politically stable or corruption free. Could be some problems there down the track.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> Sounds good, but the PNG government hasn't exactly been politically stable or corruption free. Could be some problems there down the track.




This was mooted years ago and the cable was ready to be laid over to the pointy bit ontop QLD and along came some glitch in the system


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> This was mooted years ago and the cable was ready to be laid over to the pointy bit ontop QLD and along came some glitch in the system




This seems to be the latest on the PNG hydro scheme.

Bloody politics again by the look of it.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/origin-energy-shelves-5-billion-png-hydro-project-22315/


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Sounds good, but the PNG government hasn't exactly been politically stable or corruption free. Could be some problems there down the track.



True but it comes down to the old risk versus reward. There's a rather big "prize" at stake with this one and with a sensible approach could benefit both countries greatly.

It's a massive project compared to PNG's present electrical infrastructure though. They've presently got about 200 MW of installed hydro capacity and another 100 MW of oil / gas fired generation. Meanwhile there's over 4000 MW (base load capacity) of hydro potential presently not being used and that's where the opportunity arises.


----------



## Smurf1976

Putting this into perspective, for next summer we need:

1500 MW in total additional supply between Vic and SA. This assumes everything works 100% perfectly so is a somewhat risky strategy.

At least 550 MW of that must be located in SA due to transmission constraints. The rest can be in either Vic or SA (but not anywhere else, again due to transmission constraints).

If we wanted to be able to cope with just one large supply source failure then we need to change those numbers to 2100 MW in total with not less than 800 MW of that in SA.

If we wanted to be able to cope with two failures, and that would be the normally desired approach that an engineer would choose, then we need to increase that to 2650 MW in total with not less than 1000 MW of that in SA and at least a small amount of it in Vic.

So there's no chance that a small pumped hydro station is a total solution even if, hypothetically, we could get it built in time. Likewise a few diesel generators or gas turbines aren't going to do it either.

Long term we need a permanent solution but in the short term the options are realistically limited to using plant that already exists. So what are the options there:

Northern (SA, coal) is 540 MW and to my understanding is just sitting there. The next door Playford B station is being demolished, it's too far gone to contemplate using it now, but to my understanding Northern is still fully intact. Fuel is low grade black coal from Leigh Creek (about 250 km from the power station) hauled by rail.

Pelican Point (SA, gas) has half the plant (an additional 239 MW) not being used. All it needs to get it running is to sort out purely administrative matters - make some gas available, make it financially viable to run the plant and so on.

Anglesea (Vic, coal) was mothballed and to my understanding is still intact (not absolutely certain on that but to my understanding it is). It's a 160 MW plant using brown coal from a mine right next to the power station. A notable point is that it's a separate mine to that supplying anything else, so adds some supply security should some disaster occur at a mine, and that CO2 emissions from this plant are 22% lower per unit of output than they are from Hazelwood power station (also in Vic).

Hazelwood (Vic, coal) is the big one with a capacity of 1600 MW and about to close at the end of next month. It's the most polluting plant in the grid and pretty much worn out but to be blunt we're stuffed without it producing at least some power. Spending $140 million would keep it going for another 10 - 15 years and looks like the best available option, along with doing all of the others I've mentioned, until we can actually get something else built.

Put that lot back into service and all up there's 2539 MW with 779 MW of that in SA. So it comes close to providing a reliable supply but doesn't create a surplus as such.

If it were up to me then I'd be getting them going and, noting that they'll all have a realistic remaining lifespan of 10 - 15 years*, ensuring we get a proper transition underway with alternatives actually built in the available time.

*In Northern's case that assumes only running for 6 months of the year, the issue being that there's not much cheaply mineable coal left. There's plenty as such but most would cost too much to get at so that's a constraint so far as we need to keep the cost low. But intermittent running, when it's actually needed, until the end of next decade is plenty of time to get something else built if we make an effort.

Failing that, those in Vic or SA could consider spending next summer in Qld, NT, WA or Tas all of which have reliable power. NSW is on the edge and heading the same way as Vic and SA so not the best choice.

Or you could just hope that it's always windy when it's hot. Trouble is that typically isn't the case.

My personal expectation is that once a couple of decent failures occur in Vic then that state will end up with out right rationing. Vic governments have traditionally been keener on that approach than elsewhere so quite likely it will happen again. That's just speculation though - I guess someone will look at the politics and decide which is the least bad option politically.


----------



## SirRumpole

So what are they going to do with Hazlewood when it shuts ? Demolish it ?

It seems an opportunity for a government to buy it back at a bargain price. At least there should be some laws requiring the hardware to be left in place so it can be reactivated by a new owner.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> So what are they going to do with Hazlewood when it shuts ? Demolish it ?




Ultimately that's the plan.

No chance it will be a spectacular "implosion" type demolition (apart possibly from the 8 stacks) but they seem to be planning to clear the site as such in due course. 

Biggest problem they'll likely have will be with asbestos and there's plenty of that. They've removed some over the years but there's still plenty there.


----------



## sptrawler

The thing that amazes me, is that they are contemplating shutting and demolishing 1600MW of generation, when they have had power disruptions because of inadequate generation.
So how much will it cost to replace the lost generation, from memory it costs about a million dollars per megawatt, then you have still got the inadequate generation problem, as it it only replacing what was demolished.
Victoria and South Australia certainly seem to need a reality check.
The saving grace, may be all the industry, shutting down.lol


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> Victoria and South Australia certainly seem to need a reality check.
> The saving grace, may be all the industry, shutting down.lol




Perhaps they don't need all that power now Ford, Toyota and Holden are shutting down, plus all the allied industries?

Malcolm, Pyne, Abetz, Bishop, etc should be rather satisfied all those manufacturing and power generation nurseries of unionism are destroyed by taking the floor from underneath the dirty working class who weren't raised in apartments of Vaucluse on the North Shore of Sydney.


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> Perhaps they don't need all that power now Ford, Toyota and Holden are shutting down, plus all the allied industries?
> 
> Malcolm, Pyne, Abetz, Bishop, etc should be rather satisfied all those manufacturing and power generation nurseries of unionism are destroyed by taking the floor from underneath the dirty working class who weren't raised in apartments of Vaucluse on the North Shore of Sydney.




Never fear, there is sure to be a negative gearing led recovery .


----------



## Trembling Hand

*Victoria demands answers from AEMO for blackout risks during NSW heatwave*

http://www.theage.com.au/business/e...isks-during-nsw-heatwave-20170223-gujkud.html


----------



## Smurf1976

Amazing to see the Vic government "demanding" answers for something that didn't even eventuate.

Either they really don't grasp what's happening or they're intentionally playing dumb but they're going to be in for one hell of a shock next Summer if it's the former and will have their spin doctors working some pretty serious overtime if it's the latter.


----------



## Smurf1976

Looks like the wheels are starting to fall off at Hazelwood now.

Plant has 8 completely separate generating units. In simple terms that means there's 8 boilers with 8 sets of everything needed to make them run (coal handling etc) and each boiler is coupled to its own turbine and alternator ("generator"). So 8 sets of everything and they're all independent of each other apart from some common bits like the mine itself.

Go back a few months and it was pretty normal to have all 8 units in full production all at once. So that's 1600 MW (8 x 200 MW).

Then Unit 3 had a problem and was off for quite some time including when the closure announcement occurred. At that time most of the rest were de-rated such that overall capacity became about 1400 MW if all 8 units were running.

Fast forward to right now and only 6 units are running and between them they're producing 990 MW each. Units 3 & 7 are off, Unit 8 is struggling along at 129 MW (that has happened quite a bit lately) and the rest are doing 160 - 181 MW each. It's at 990 MW for the station as a whole or 62% of its rated capacity.

So it's not going well. No surprise there since with closure now only just over 5 weeks away spending anything significant on maintenance won't be happening at this point. Go forward another couple of weeks and even a minor issue won't be worth fixing.

Power supply and environmental issues aside, it's sad to see what was once an engineering masterpiece with such a massive history behind it all now being run into the ground and falling into a heap.

Even sadder when you consider that it represents an era when Australia took on massive projects and made them work. Hazelwood was never straightforward technically, there were problems making it happen right from the start, but we overcame them all and made it happen (and the SECV had to invent what's known as "cold combustion" to make it all work - now there's a term sure to confuse just about anyone).

Now in 2017 we're seemingly unable to build anything to replace it. Not even with off the shelf technology can we get ourselves organised enough to make it happen. So sad.

*Cold combustion - in short the problem is that the coal at Morwell has some rather unique and nasty properties which cause the ash to turn into something not far off concrete if burned conventionally and that's a huge problem. The solution was to burn the coal at a lower temperature than what it naturally burns at but without resulting in incomplete combustion as would normally occur under such a scenario. That all comes down to how the coal and air is mixed in the boiler and how that effects the driving off of water and the actual combustion but it took a lot of scientific effort within the SECV to come up with something that worked at the time.


----------



## sptrawler

It really isn't funny, the reality is, if we can't supply power reliably and at a reasonable cost our industry will go, this will result in a drop in living standards.
Well let's be honest it is already happening, wages and conditions are being squeezed, superannuation is being squeezed, retail is being squeezed.
The welfare bill is spiralling and no one can slow it, so unless someone finds batteries for the magic wand, we are in deep ****. IMO


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Now in 2017 we're seemingly unable to build anything to replace it. Not even with off the shelf technology can we get ourselves organised enough to make it happen. So sad.




I posted an article in the Trump thread that said that Kodak could not build a digital camera these days because the skills to do it have gone elsewhere.

Globalisation is a great thing, not.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I posted an article in the Trump thread that said that Kodak could not build a digital camera these days because the skills to do it have gone elsewhere.




In the context of the power industry we've still got the skill base in Tas, being sustained by doing contract work for anyone who's willing to pay and that includes international as well as Australian clients. List of some projects in recent years (including some local ones) is here: http://www.entura.com.au/projects/

On the subject of Entura and specifically pumped hydro development, see this: http://www.entura.com.au/overcoming-the-barriers-to-pumped-storage-hydropower/


----------



## Tisme

If you want to get an indication of the degeneration of the manufacturing industry...see page 13&14 following. Of course the rate of decline is probably accelerating since this report:

https://industry.gov.au/Office-of-t...nts/aes/2015-australian-energy-statistics.pdf


----------



## nioka

Smurf, You may like to comment on "http://vsunenergy.com.au." and how it may be a help to the SA problems.


----------



## Smurf1976

nioka said:


> Smurf, You may like to comment on "http://vsunenergy.com.au." and how it may be a help to the SA problems.




As a technology there's nothing wrong with it. Stores energy and it works.

From an economic perspective though when it comes to the scale that's required in SA then pumped hydro kills anything based on batteries economically. The lifespan difference and inherent simplicity are the underlying reasons for that. Plus rotating machines (eg hydro turbines) naturally provide inertia to the grid which other means struggle to do (though it's not impossible).

Where we might see big battery systems used in significant numbers is if nothing else is done. If you've got an office or any other situation where your economic loss in the event of a blackout is high relative to the amount of electricity actually consumed then backing up your power supply is a relatively cheap form of insurance against a potentially larger loss. If it only takes one or two blackouts to make having backup the cheaper option then a rational business owner would go down that track unless there's a physical constraint preventing it (eg your're in the CBD and there's simply nowhere to put the equipment).

That approach doesn't work for things like big factories where electricity itself is a major input but it sure does apply to situations where electricity is a minor business input but a critical enabler of everything else you do.

Share trading would be one such example for those who day trade or otherwise need constant access to the markets. Cost of power is trivial and the cost of backing it up isn't much either when compared to the potential financial loss if power fails. Different story when power is 25% of your business costs and a backup would cost $1 billion or more (and that's exactly the case for some energy-intensive manufacturing).


----------



## Smurf1976

nioka said:


> Smurf, You may like to comment on "http://vsunenergy.com.au." and how it may be a help to the SA problems.




I should add that there's a company looking at a reasonably large battery system in SA. That would be a "power station", well a storage system, as such taking energy in and out of the grid and not directly associated with any specific load.

My personal view is that pumped hydro is a better option in terms of longevity (pretty much forever versus the limited life of any battery) and in that it involves big rotating machines with their inherent inertia (a good thing for grid stability) but someone is looking at doing it with some seriously big batteries. 

Obviously I'll change my view if they can get the cost down to a point that makes it the better option over a long time period (noting that they'll have to replace everything several times to get comparable life to hydro) but that remains to be seen.


----------



## Smurf1976

This just keeps getting worse:

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/outlooks/#/rainfall/median/seasonal/0

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/outlooks/#/temperature/maximum/median/seasonal/0

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/outlooks/#/temperature/minimum/median/seasonal/0

Rainfall and temperature are the two key drivers of inflows to hydro catchments, the latter due to the link between temperature and evaporation (mostly on the ground before the water gets to the storage) and the former for obvious reasons. Both are heading in the wrong direction it seems.

This won't affect the ability of either Hydro Tas or Snowy Hydro to produce peak power but it does mean lower inflows. The result of that is that both will be less keen to generate outside the peaks, raising prices to bring that outcome about (there's no other way to do it, that's how the market works) and leaving someone else (coal, gas) to fill that gap. For the smaller hydro operators it's more complex due to water releases for irrigation (eg Dartmouth is primarily an irrigation storage, power being a secondary use) so they may well generate more in the short term since drier weather = more need for irrigation.

The issue here is about price not physical supply and I must point out that there is no physical threat to supply in Tas or anywhere else directly relating to the weather outlook. But to the extent that a cheap source (hydro) produces less and is replaced by a much higher cost source of production then that's going to push prices up even further (and they'll be going up quite a bit with the closure of Hazelwood anyway). 

So it's all going wrong really. Coal plants closing, gas price has gone through the roof and physical supply is scarce, lower inflows into hydro catchments.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> This just keeps getting worse:




Disturbing for farmers as well I would say.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Disturbing for farmers as well I would say.



I'm no expert on farming that's for sure but I do know that a combination of high temperatures (and thus higher evaporation) combined with low rainfall isn't good. At best they incur higher costs for water pumping for irrigation. At worst they run out of water or don't have irrigation in the first place. Either way it's not good if it continues for long enough.

From a power generation perspective, it varies between individual hydro stations but broadly:

For those with limited storage capacity, for example the Mersy-Forth scheme in Tas, it's a case of generation over a relatively short period (months) needing to match inflows. If it's wet then that scheme can and does run at full capacity 24/7. If it's dry then it will run for the peaks and that's it. Somewhere in the middle if rainfall is moderate.

For those with large storage capacity they aren't affected by short term droughts, it's total inflows over many years which matters, but still any reduction in rainfall does ultimately mean less power generated. As with the smaller schemes they'll still generate for the peaks but will get out of the base load market. 

Where that could get interesting is if there's a proper cold spell in Winter affecting SE Australia but it's still dry. Hazelwood gone, gas demand for space heating will be huge so not much left for anything else, hydro generators not keen on running for base load thus leaving gas-fired generation to pick up that. Then we find there's not enough gas to run the gas-fired stations and end up burning diesel....


----------



## SirRumpole

The politics of this proposal will be interesting.

*Feasibility study announced into Australia-first $60m waste conversion energy project in NSW*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-...d-into-australia-first-energy-project/8300484


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> I should add that there's a company looking at a reasonably large battery system in SA.





Did you see Tesla recently installed a commercial scale battery pack in LA


----------



## SirRumpole

I hope that there is a public stink about gas prices. The situation is a farce.

*Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull urged to secure natural gas for Australia as exports threaten jobs*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-...-secure-local-supplies-of-natural-gas/8308542


----------



## explod

The Canadian oil sands are becoming uneconomic so I'd say projects like the Adani one in Qld will succumb to the exponential developments in clean alternatives.  We are now getting somewhere at last I hope.

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Have-The-Majors-Given-Up-On-Canadas-Oil-Sands.html


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I hope that there is a public stink about gas prices. The situation is a farce.




The thing about energy networks and their upstream supply sources is that they aren't really a commodity and nor are they a stand alone business. They are however the enabler of just about every business and commodity that exists.

You can build anything from a car factory to a nightclub. It's completely useless without electricity.

You can have as much gold or copper in the ground as you like but that's exactly where it will be staying if you don't have energy with which to extract it.

If you don't have energy then, to be blunt, you don't really have anything else either. Anyone who disagrees need only avoid the use of purchased energy in any form for the next 24 hours and that will change your mind for sure.

Energy networks and their supply sources as a business thus have a lot more in common with central banking or the military than they do with any other business. Now, I don't see any of the usual suspects suggesting that we privatise the Army and let market forces determine how best to defend Australia. They don't seem too keen on abandoning the concept of central banks either.

Here's a list of countries which have decided to take a fully free market approach to gas: 

Australia

Yep. that's the entire list. One country. Not even the supposed home of capitalism and free markets, the USA, has gone as far down the deregulation track as we have.

It's sad really.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Yep. that's the entire list. One country. Not even the supposed home of capitalism and free markets, the USA, has gone as far down the deregulation track as we have.




It just makes me wonder why.

We have the resources to supply a huge market and those wanting to sell it would still make a fortune even if we did sequester enough for our own use at reasonable prices.

There really should be an enquiry as to who signed the contracts and why they let foreign corporations get away with so much.

I smell a few rats running around on this.


----------



## sptrawler

Just tax our resources by volume, that would give us enough money to build infrastructure, fund R&D , start new industries, buy our own gas.
No that is too simple.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I just hope our dumb government reserves that for local use, we are already exporting too much as indicated by local prices.




If you lived in W.A you would be singing the praises of Barnett the LNP Premier.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-28/colin-barnett-to-eastern-states-copy-wa-gas-policy/8311950


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> It just makes me wonder why.
> 
> We have the resources to supply a huge market and those wanting to sell it would still make a fortune even if we did sequester enough for our own use at reasonable prices.
> 
> There really should be an enquiry as to who signed the contracts and why they let foreign corporations get away with so much.
> 
> I smell a few rats running around on this.




We have enough natural gas for all our needs and export, it really is just a matter of price, people protest exports because they don't want to pay the world price.

They want to go back to the days where producers have limited customers and are forced to sell out the monopoly customer at the end of a single pipe.

Pay the right price and the drillers will drill and there will be all the gas we need, there is no shortage of gas, just a shortage of people wanting to pay market prices.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> We have enough natural gas for all our needs and export, it really is just a matter of price, people protest exports because they don't want to pay the world price.
> 
> They want to go back to the days where producers have to limited customers and are forced to sell out the monopoly customer at the end of a single pipe.
> 
> Pay the right price and the drillers will drill and there will be all the gas we need, there is no shortage of gas, just a shortage of people wanting to pay market prices.




No it is really about reserving an amount for domestic consumption, and then selling the rest at a price that compensates the public, for the loss of an asset.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> We have enough natural gas for all our needs and export, it really is just a matter of price, people protest exports because they don't want to pay the world price.




Sorry, wrong again.

Our exports are causing a regional glut and local consumers are paying* double *the export price.

*Adding insult to injury, it is Australian gas flooding into Asia that has caused a regional glut. Prices have collapsed and Asian manufacturers can now buy Australian gas at half the price local manufacturers are paying.
*
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-...australia-than-in-export-destinations/7680106


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> If you lived in W.A you would be singing the praises of Barnett the LNP Premier.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-28/colin-barnett-to-eastern-states-copy-wa-gas-policy/8311950




I seem to recall that was policy in WA way back when I was a boy discovering girls?


----------



## Logique

Fusion may not be as far away as people think. Even the dear old _Guardian_ thinks so.







> http://www.theguardian.com/environm...s-is-nuclear-fusion-finally-poised-to-deliver  -2016
> “We are standing on the ground that could change the future of energy,” says engineer Laurent Pattison, deep in the reactor pit of the world’s biggest nuclear fusion project.
> 
> Around him is a vast construction site, all aimed at creating temperatures of 150mC on this spot and finally bringing the power of the sun down to Earth. The €18bn (£14.3bn) Iter project, now rising fast from the ground under the bright blue skies of Provence, France..



Although the word 'nuclear' may cause the renewables luvvies to shrink away, and insist instead on windmills and solar panels. I wouldn't put it past them.


----------



## explod

Logique said:


> Fusion may not be as far away as people think. Even the dear old _Guardian_ thinks so.Although the word 'nuclear' may cause the renewables luvvies to shrink away, and insist instead on windmills and solar panels. I wouldn't put it past them.




Not at all, for some tasks we are still going to need the big grunt. Most reasonable peers in the emerging Greens realise and accept this. Most recent plants have become very secure and clean.  However it is going to take at least 10 years to be operational from when a decision is made.  Alternative clean power from wind, solar and wave will be particularly advanced by then in my view.


----------



## SirRumpole

Logique said:


> Fusion may not be as far away as people think. Even the dear old _Guardian_ thinks so.Although the word 'nuclear' may cause the renewables luvvies to shrink away, and insist instead on windmills and solar panels. I wouldn't put it past them.




That article talked about "hundreds of megawatts" from fusion. When you think Hazlewood puts (did put) out 1600 MW, fusion seems a big price for not much.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> That article talked about "hundreds of megawatts" from fusion. When you think Hazlewood puts (did put) out 1600 MW, fusion seems a big price for not much.




There seems to be a few nuclear plants being decommissioned around the world. I'm wondering if govt talk it futile in the face of the energy companies moving to presumably more financially attractive  renewables... you take on that?


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> There seems to be a few nuclear plants being decommissioned around the world. I'm wondering if govt talk it futile in the face of the energy companies moving to presumably more financially attractive  renewables... you take on that?




I came across this article his morning.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-...ables-transform-climate-change-leader/8316660

Looks like the worlds biggest polluter is cutting it's coal consumption. Why would you pay up to $9 billion to build one nuclear plant when you can have multiple redundant sources of renewables around the country all feeding into the grid or into pumped storage (which China is also taking on in a big way).

Nuclear is on the way out imo, but then I'm not an engineer. What do you think ?


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> I came across this article his morning.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-...ables-transform-climate-change-leader/8316660
> 
> Looks like the worlds biggest polluter is cutting it's coal consumption. Why would you pay up to $9 billion to build one nuclear plant when you can have multiple redundant sources of renewables around the country all feeding into the grid or into pumped storage (which China is also taking on in a big way).
> 
> Nuclear is on the way out imo, but then I'm not an engineer. What do you think ?




Your opinion is considered and valued as usual Rumpole  

Yes from what I have gleened I have a suspicion nuclear plants are being closed at a faster rate than builds. Germany, France, Japan, etc should drive new technology.

Australia will probably do what it has always done under it's umbrella of cultural cringe and be a late majority buyer into whatever becomes the dominant model.


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> Your opinion is considered and valued as usual Rumpole
> 
> Yes from what I have gleened I have a suspicion nuclear plants are being closed at a faster rate than builds. Germany, France, Japan, etc should drive new technology.
> 
> Australia will probably do what it has always done under it's umbrella of cultural cringe and be a late majority buyer into whatever becomes the dominant model.




Gracias Senor. 

Any talk of Thorium reactors seems to have died in the ass. I recall they were big news a few years ago.


----------



## explod

Found this on New Science today:-
*A Forgotten War Tech Could Could Safely Power Earth for Millions of Years*




> Called a molten-salt reactor, the technology was conceived during the Cold War and forgoes solid nuclear fuel for a liquid one, which it can "burn" with far greater efficiency than any power technology in existence.
> 
> It also generates a small fraction of the radioactive waste that today's commercial reactors - which all rely on solid fuel - do. And, in theory, molten-salt reactors can never melt down.
> 
> "It's reliable, it's clean, it basically does everything fossil fuel does today," Kirk Sorensen, the chief technology officer of nuclear-energy startup Flibe Energy, told Business Insider.
> 
> Sorensen was speaking during an episode of Business Insider's podcast Codebreaker, which is produced with National Public Radio's 'Marketplace'.
> 
> "And it does a whole bunch of things it doesn't do today, like make energy without emitting carbon," he added, though the same could be said of any nuclear reactor technology.
> 
> What's more, feeding a molten-salt reactor a radioactive waste from mining, called thorium (which is three to four times more abundant than uranium), can 'breed' as much nuclear fuel as it burns up.
> 
> Manhattan Project scientist Alvin Weinberg calculated in 1959 that if we could somehow harvest all the thorium in the Earth's crust and use it in this way, we could power civilisation for tens of billions of years.
> 
> "The technology is viable, the science has been demonstrated," Hans Gougar, a nuclear engineer at INL, told Business Insider.
> 
> Demonstrated, because government scientists built two complementary prototypes during the 1950s and '60s.
> 
> They weren't good for making nuclear weapons, though, among other reasons, so bureaucrats pulled funding for the revolutionary energy technology. The last working molten-salt reactor shut down in 1969.




http://www.sciencealert.com/a-forgo...il&utm_term=0_fe5632fb09-0491165915-365530661


----------



## explod

Interesting to see the facts on power by States.  ABC news just now showing China is very concerned at the damage being done by coal and are leading the world in the manufacture of clean alternatives.





Graph of the Day: Electricity prices rises not driven by renewables
CEC chart illustrates the fact that Australian states with less new renewable energy (and more coal) have seen higher electricity price increases.
RENEWECONOMY.COM.AU


----------



## SirRumpole

explod said:


> Interesting to see the facts on power by States.  ABC news just now showing China is very concerned at the damage being done by coal and are leading the world in the manufacture of clean alternatives.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Graph of the Day: Electricity prices rises not driven by renewables
> CEC chart illustrates the fact that Australian states with less new renewable energy (and more coal) have seen higher electricity price increases.
> RENEWECONOMY.COM.AU




Thanks plod.

There is a lot that the voters are being kept in the dark about (sometimes literally).

It's about time the politicians stopped trying to design energy grids and let the experts to it.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> It's about time the politicians stopped trying to design energy grids and let the experts to it.




That chart doesn't just reflect the reality of wind and solar not being the cause but something else that will just about give the political Right and economists in general a heart attack.

The state with the lowest increases is Tasmania. Yep, that place which has 100% publicly owned generation and networks and minimal competition with retail. Businesses have a choice but Aurora (publicly owned retailer) is dominant. For households you get one choice only and that's Aurora.

Competition? Well we sort of tried that but it was just too expensive. Long story short, Hydro now owns the power station Alinta / Babcock and Brown tried to build (they got it half built then went broke.....). And what did Hydro do once it took that over? Well prices were cut of course due to the technical and operational efficiency gained, the outcome that every engineer, technician and so on understands very well but which has economists scratching their heads to this day.

At the other end of the scale well Victoria is among the most "competitive" electricity markets anywhere on earth. Seems to be working well - prices up, up and up some more.

Theories are all well and good and I do understand the logic behind the argument that competition drives efficiencies and cuts costs. Trouble is, when you're spending a fortune adding new costs that didn't previously exist, in order to try and reduce them through competition, at best you'll get half way back to where you started but it won't be cheaper. The added costs will never go below zero and therein lies the inherent flaw with that approach. The theory doesn't work when you're dealing with what will always be a single thing, that being the power grid and everything that makes it work.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> The state with the lowest increases is Tasmania. Yep, that place which has 100% publicly owned generation and networks and minimal competition with retail. Businesses have a choice but Aurora (publicly owned retailer) is dominant. For households you get one choice only and that's Aurora.




It seems a philosophical argument as to whether power is just another commodity that the private sector can supply or an essential service like police or fire brigades that is best run (at a loss) by governments.

I take the latter view, and if people call me socialist, tough luck. There are some things that governments are better at doing even with the supposed bureaucratic inefficiency and red tape. I can remember very few blackouts when I was growing up in the sixties or seventies and few seemed to complain about power prices either.

There were some electricity shortages in NSW in Neville Wran's time. I remember people taking 25% of flouro light tubes out of action in offices, but  can't really remember the cause and it blew over in a few months.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> It seems a philosophical argument as to whether power is just another commodity that the private sector can supply or an essential service like police or fire brigades that is best run (at a loss) by governments.




I don't have a strong view on public versus private ownership but I do see a problem with the current model which focuses on short term profit rather than long term planning.

A single utility, be it public or privately owned, can make long term plans for the future and put them into action. Give them some appropriate direction, eg to reduce CO2 emissions whilst maintaining supply reliability, let them get on with it and they will come up with plans and implement them in an orderly manner.

But as it stands today, well I'll point out that Torrens Island A (SA) is now 50 years old and units 1 & 2 at Yallourn (Vic) are 44 years old. Both are still fully operational and are key parts of the system in those states but for how much longer? I don't think anyone expects either to still be around 20 years from now.

A single utility would have plans on what to replace them with and when to do it. They'd monitor plant condition and move those replacement plans forward or back as necessary but they'd certainly have a well thought out plan.

In contrast, with multiple operators (either public or private though it's private in this case) it's nobody's actual job to replace them at all and there's the problem. A replacement will only happen when profit is guaranteed and then it's too late. Likewise plant won't be retained for reasons of supply reliability if it's not profitable to do so, another problem we have right now with the closure of Northern (SA) an example. There was nothing wrong with it, it wasn't worn out, it just wasn't profitable and so the owners (private) closed it. Same with half of Pelican Point (SA) not running.

So I don't really care who owns it just so long as they've got some certainty to plan and can operate at a sufficient scale to achieve the inherent economies of scale which are very fundamental in the power industry more so than with most other things. So far as conventional (coal, gas, nuclear etc) generation is concerned, NSW, Qld or Vic are each only big enough to support one operator and that's it. SA, WA or NT aren't big enough for even one company to operate efficiently but you can't really change that unless the population of those states drastically increases.

You can spend serious $ billions on transmission to make the whole thing big enough to support 3 operators across Qld, NSW / ACT, Vic and SA but how much is such competition really going to save versus the cost of all those transmission lines? Don't forget that prior to industry "reforms" Qld and NSW were the global leaders when it came to efficiency with black coal and Vic was the leader with brown coal so we were starting from a low cost base with not a lot to be gained. The industry is far less efficient today when compared to other countries so we haven't gained thus far.

Tasmania is and will always be a different case due to a number of factors. Being an island with the high cost of links to the mainland, a second cable would cost around $1 billion for 600 MW or so, is one reason. That the state has a large number of individually small to medium sized hydro power stations, necessary since the resource at any one location isn't overly large but there's a lot of spots where they could be and were actually built, as the basis of the whole power system is the other factor. Economies of scale don't apply to hydro when the primary resource locations preclude scaling up. Neither of those can realistically be changed so Tas will always be a unique case in that sense.

For the record whilst it's publicly owned the industry in Tas is run for profit not at a loss so there's another model apart from public service as such versus private. The Hydro is run as a business as such, has a board of directors and a CEO, it's employees are not public servants (and are not covered by PS conditions) and so on. It aims to make a profit (and usually does so, last year was bit of a drama obviously but any business will have its ups and downs) and does so competing in a national market against others both public (eg Snowy Hydro) and private (eg AGL, Origin, Engie).

Some of that profit comes about through the generation and trading (key point there - trading) of electricity in the market and some comes about via other things such as consultancy work (eg the Kidston pumped storage project in Qld is one recent example - Entura (Hydro Tas) is doing the engineering work on a commercial for-profit basis but is not the owner of that project). Likewise plenty of people from overseas have come down here for practical training on how best to operate their hydro facilities and yes they're paying for that. For that matter, Entura also does work for BHP in South Australia, designed the flood control system in Kuala Lumpur, did the water supply for a coal-fired power station in Mozambique and informed the owners of a damaged (pretty much wrecked) hydro plant in India how to go about restoration. Plus a lot of other projects on an ongoing basis.

All of that work is on a commercial for-profit basis but the other key aspect is that it keeps the knowledge base here in Tasmania. You can't really keep that if you're not building things so the solution is to do work for others. Anyone who's got the $ and wants something done.

Snowy Hydro is another one that isn't as it may seem. Yes they generate electricity in a physical sense and they've got some seriously impressive physical infrastructure but their trading operations are a very major part of what they do. There's a lot of deals between Snowy and the private generators certainly and that aspect is actually bigger as a business for Snowy than the physical production of electricity. That one party is government (Snowy) and the other is private hasn't been a major problem thus far despite what politicians might like you to think.

The underlying reason for all those deals and trading does, of course, come down to the issue of having multiple operators in the market most of whom aren't that big. Snowy has thus ended up as a sort-of insurer as well as a physical generator of electricity and they've acquired a number of gas and diesel power stations in order to back that position.

I think the general public would be stunned if they knew what a complex web it really has become. Just because you have your electricity account with (say) Origin Energy doesn't mean that Origin are physically generating the same amount of power as they're selling. Etc.

Part of the issue for the remaining publicly owned generators is that if they don't make money then reality is that politicians of a certain persuasion will be all to keen to point that out to the public and propose privatisation as the "solution". Not good but that's the reality of the situation.


----------



## noco

explod said:


> Interesting to see the facts on power by States.  ABC news just now showing China is very concerned at the damage being done by coal and are leading the world in the manufacture of clean alternatives.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Graph of the Day: Electricity prices rises not driven by renewables
> CEC chart illustrates the fact that Australian states with less new renewable energy (and more coal) have seen higher electricity price increases.
> RENEWECONOMY.COM.AU




Perhaps you would like to view this link for ccomparison.


http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...s/news-story/18d9236449dd7ee6c63b39841b401ce9


----------



## Tisme

Germany must be a basket case if power determines competitiveness:







https://www.energycouncil.com.au/analysis/worldwide-electricity-prices-how-does-australia-compare/


----------



## Tisme

Worth listening too if you want a clarity of SA Australia's capacity versus availability, and directions in Oz

http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/nightlife/national-power-grid/8316732


----------



## noco

Tisme said:


> Germany must be a basket case if power determines competitiveness:
> 
> 
> View attachment 70162
> 
> 
> https://www.energycouncil.com.au/analysis/worldwide-electricity-prices-how-does-australia-compare/




That is the reason Germany is moving away from renewables  and building more coal fired power stations for cheaper energy......Solar and wind have let them down just as it has done in South Australia


----------



## noco

noco said:


> That is the reason Germany is moving away from renewables  and building more coal fired power stations for cheaper energy......Solar and wind have let them down just as it has done in South Australia




Canada is second lowest, the reason being :-
Hydro 59%
Nuclear 16.6 %
Renewables 11% ( includes 4% wind power).
And I guess the rest is from coal fired power.
Canada is in the process of building two more nuclear power stations.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I don't have a strong view on public versus private ownership but I do see a problem with the current model which focuses on short term profit rather than long term planning.




Thanks Smurph, I should add that I meant to write that publicly owned utilities could be run at a loss *some of the time*, as befitted the wider national interest.

Someone else is thinking of deprivatisation.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...s/news-story/cf002b6f66e14e313f661786a50a6931


----------



## Smurf1976

noco said:


> Canada is second lowest




We used to be third on that list and for the reasons you mention. Australia as a whole couldn't get costs lower than those with lots of cheap hydro but we were the cheapest "developed" country when it came to power from coal or gas.

For what it's worth, if the Australian states were separate countries then Tasmania would historically have been No.1 on that list easily. Admittedly not too hard when you've got the second highest per capita use of electricity in the world and are doing just about all of it with cheap hydro. But then Victoria would have come in second place back in the 1960's and 70's too since Hazelwood and Yallourn W were also incredibly cheap.

Energy ought to be a key economic strength for Australia. We've got the resources (coal, gas, renewable and nuclear - we're very well placed with everything except oil) and we've got the engineering skills to make it happen. All that stands in the way is politics.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Energy ought to be a key economic strength for Australia. We've got the resources (coal, gas, renewable and nuclear





I thought you had written nuclear off for us ?

Although with plentiful supplies of thorium we could become leaders in the molten salt reactor that plod linked to. I believe there already is some Australian interest in that concept.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Thanks Smurph, I should add that I meant to write that publicly owned utilities could be run at a loss *some of the time*, as befitted the wider national interest.
> 
> Someone else is thinking of deprivatisation.




There used to be some occasional discussion about things in the US and their approach with large privately owned utilities that worked in much the same manner as Australia's former state-run utilities. Being privately owned didn't really make much difference to how they worked apart from adding a profit margin to their prices. They did long term planning, they had a decent engineering capability and so on.

There was also more co-operation between those US privately owned utilities and others than you might expect. When one of them became interested in using low grade coal they simply sent their engineers to Australia to see first hand what the SECV was doing with Loy Yang A having just been built and B station under construction. End result is they built what amounted to pretty much an exact clone, only differences would be in the detail of mining and that their machines would run faster since their grid is at 60 Hz versus Australia's at 50 Hz. But certainly plenty of knowledge was exchanged.

Likewise there's a lot of technical similarity between Gordon (Tas) and a large hydro station in NZ. That's no coincidence. Only real difference is that Gordon's machines run harder (higher output) than those in NZ but other than that it's pretty much the same. Reason for the difference is an environmental operating constraint at the NZ plant.

Also no coincidence that when we built Bell Bay (oil-fired) in Tas (commissioned 1971, no longer in use) it was a copy of what WA had done at Kwinana A and B, SA at Torrens Island A (though theirs has twice as many machines) and NZ at Marsden Point. No point reinventing the wheel when someone else has already done what you want to do yourself, it's cheaper to just ask nicely for the plans and then build it.

Likewise no surprise that when we looked at coal in Tas it was all based on Muja C station in WA which had just been built. SECWA literally sent all the detailed plans over and all that needed to be done in Tas was work out where to put it and where to get the coal from. And for the idea of converting Bell Bay to coal that was based on what WA had just done at Kwinana (built for oil but modified to be able fire coal, oil or gas and for that matter they could switch fuels pretty easily when the need arose). Coal never went ahead in Tas but certainly there was sensible preparation to be ready in case the need arose which was considered plausible at the time (would have if industry had needed more power). We did end up running Bell Bay on gas for a few years though.

Meanwhile in SA ETSA built units 3 and 4 at Torrens Island B based on what WA had done at the technically almost identical Kwinana C (now closed) just in case they ever needed to run them on coal. They still haven't burnt a single piece of coal there but back in the early 1980's it was considered quite likely they'd need to at some point and so plans were made.

I mention all this because there's a fundamental change which has taken place. All that planning didn't cost much at all but it meant that the state utilities were well prepared for whatever situation arose. The future is always uncertain but if you're going to plan then it's better to do it _before_ you're faced with an urgent need to implement it.

Now does anyone think that if Origin (for example) wants to copy what AGL (for example) are doing then AGL are just going to send them the plans and give them some tips on how best to go about it, where would be a suitable place to put it and so on? Hell no they're not! No chance of that happening these days. The focus has shifted from cost minimisation to profit maximisation and that's a huge difference.

As for nationalisation, I do think that recent events with power supply combined with international political factors (Brexit, Trump, etc) are such that the pendulum is now swinging back the other way. It'll quite likely happen at some point, the question being in the detail and how we get there but further privatisation at this point would be a bit like expecting the temperature to go up in Autumn. The seasons have changed and slowly but surely I do think we're heading down that track but it will take a while.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I thought you had written nuclear off for us ?




I have in so far as I don't think we'd be able to do it well.

Nuclear is high capital cost and something that, in practice, is largely built on site with a huge labour input. It can generate reasonably cheap power if you've got cheap labour to build it with but we certainly don't. That combined with lack of experience and smaller scale would put any Australian nuclear plant right at the top of the list globally so far as cost is concerned. The UK can't do it at a price that's anywhere close to being cheap enough and we'd be hard pressed to even match that and certainly not beat it.

Plus I just don't think we're well enough set up to regulate such a facility. Lack of practical experience combined with a "she'll be right, just leave it to the market" attitude is just asking for trouble really.

Plus it would take too long. We're in trouble with power right now and it's going to get worse. 4 weeks from today, almost down to the minute, Hazelwood will be grinding to a halt. Given that any nuclear plant is going to take until at least 2030 before it generates power it's just not a workable solution.

All that said, it's a fact that we're blessed with an abundance of energy resources in Australia and I included nuclear in that for reasons of completeness rather than suggesting that we're actually going to use it. We might, but if we do it will be for political reasons and not because it's the most sensible solution.


----------



## Smurf1976

Major incident today at Torrens Island Power Station (Adelaide). This is by far the largest power station of any type in SA, being about half the state's non-intermittent generating capacity.

About 15:33 local time fire occurred at the power station and this resulted in the simultaneous trip of 3 generating units at Torrens Island B and also the loss of generation from the nearby Pelican Point power station.

Apparently power station staff managed to put the fire out quickly, before the fire brigade arrived.

I don't know the extent of damage but Units 2, 3 and 4 all tripped at Torrens Island B with Unit 1 remaining operational. Torrens Island A station, which is physically right next to B station, was not running at the time. 

Since then Unit 2 at B station has returned to service along with Unit 1 which remained operational. Meanwhile 3 (of 4) units at A station have been brought into operation. Pelican Point has also returned 1 (of 2) unit to operation (the owners only want to run half the plant anyway so it's back to business as usual).

The immediate response did not involve forced load shedding but a significant reduction in load did occur for a period due to (1) price response from some users exposed to the spot price which increased when the fire occurred and (2) voluntary load shedding by households and small business following media reports of the fire and requests to minimise electricity consumption.

Loss of generation from Torrens Island following the fire was covered by increased supply from Vic, increasing the output of the remaining generator still running at Torrens Island B and generation from a number of smaller gas turbine and diesel power stations in SA which thankfully had spare capacity at the time since overall system load wasn't high. They have now mostly shut down as supply from Torrens Island has increased with the A station units brought online.

Supply in SA looks reasonably OK for the next week based on the weather forecast and assuming nothing else goes wrong. But that's pure luck really that it's not going to be overly hot or cold and the wind speed is reasonable. 

What happens next depends literally on the weather and the extent of damage at Torrens Island and how long it takes to get all machines back in service.


----------



## SirRumpole

Good discussion of the grid in general. Technicalities and economics.

http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/nightlife/national-power-grid/8316732


----------



## Smurf1976

I've long thought that who owns what was all cyclical and that someday we'd see nationalisation of utilities again. And after that they'll be privatised again and around it goes.

Looks like it might be happening a bit sooner than I'd expected though if this is any indication. Notable is that the Opposition in SA doesn't seem to be really opposed to it.

http://indaily.com.au/news/local/2017/03/07/take-over-power-station-edb-advises-state-govt/

The only real difficulty with the idea proposed, buying half of Pelican Point, is that there are actually 3 generating units at the power station. Two gas turbines the heat from which drives a single steam turbine (combined cycle plant). So you could have different owners of both gas turbine but what then do you do about the steam turbine which uses heat from both gas turbines? That could get rather complex given that turning on either gas turbine then generates revenue for whoever owns the steam turbine. It would be a lot easier to have one owner of the whole thing.

It won't guarantee that the lights stay on in SA but it would be a help to at least have the plant fully operational. Only 24 days to go now until Hazelwood shuts.


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting times smurph, it will be entertaining watching the finger pointing, as the general public sit there in the darkness. lol
We saw the results of impending generation shortfall in Tasmania, when the Bass link failed, Tasmania could cope due to the small grid load.
The situation developing on the Eastern Australian grid, won't be so easy to cope with, flying in diesel skid mounts and firing up a couple of old gas units won't cut it.
I am looking forward to watching the way the Governments, reverse their way out of the situation, they find themselves in.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Interesting times smurph, it will be entertaining watching the finger pointing, as the general public sit there in the darkness.




AGL have now admitted publicly what many have been thinking for a while. Torrens Island power station is pretty much stuffed.

http://www.thebull.com.au/articles/a/65908-future-of-major-sa-power-station-uncertain.html



> AGL Energy's wholesale markets general manager Richard Wrightson on Tuesday told the senate committee the station has not run at full capacity for more than a year and that it never would again.




Excluding intermittent sources (wind, solar) Torrens Island is literally 50% of SA's total generating capacity so today's acknowledgement from AGL about its poor condition is about as big as it gets so far as news in the power industry is concerned. Capacity at the plant is nominally 1280 MW.

A Station unit 1 hasn't been running for quite a while now. Boiler leaks I'm told.

I'd better not name them since this isn't in the public domain and relates to a private company but let's just say Torrens Island isn't the only one in Vic / SA not in great shape. 

Not that Torrens Island falling apart is the only problem. Having a power station doesn't really help when you haven't got any gas to run it with, a point that AGL has also noted publicly.

All this could get rather interesting it seems.


----------



## noco

sptrawler said:


> Interesting times smurph, it will be entertaining watching the finger pointing, as the general public sit there in the darkness. lol
> We saw the results of impending generation shortfall in Tasmania, when the Bass link failed, Tasmania could cope due to the small grid load.
> The situation developing on the Eastern Australian grid, won't be so easy to cope with, flying in diesel skid mounts and firing up a couple of old gas units won't cut it.
> I am looking forward to watching the way the Governments, reverse their way out of the situation, they find themselves in.




Jay Weatherill tonight blamed Tony Abbott for dropping the carbon dioxide tax....He is now asking big business to install their own diesel generators which will defeat the purpose of going green......The diesel generators will pump out more green house gases and combined may emit more than a coal fired power station....It does not make sense.


----------



## sptrawler

The closing of Hazelwood, will force a lot of generators sitting on the sidelines, to disclose their actual capacity.
What did Warren Buffett say, "only when the tide goes out, do you see, who has been swimming nude". lol
I think, there will be a lot of home truths coming out, very soon.
Hazelwood, may be a blessing in disguise, 1600MW is a lot of capacity to lose, it isn't easily covered.
.


----------



## sptrawler

noco said:


> Jay Weatherill tonight blamed Tony Abbott for dropping the carbon dioxide tax....He is now asking big business to install their own diesel generators which will defeat the purpose of going green......The diesel generators will pump out more green house gases and combined may emit more than a coal fired power station....It does not make sense.



When has, what Labor does, make sense?
Must edit that, when since Hawke and Keating, has Labor done anything sensible?


----------



## basilio

Perhaps one of the options is to follow the Californian example and establish massive battery banks.  They too have had a calamitous experience with failing power supplies and had to craete a solution very quickly.
*
California’s Power Grid Is Running on Batteries *

When a natural gas storage facility in Aliso Canyon, California sprung a leak in 2015, it was seen by most as an environmental disaster. After all, it released massive quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. But it was also calamitous to California’s energy security, and it prompted utilities in the state to contract companies—Tesla notable among them—to create a number of ad-hoc energy storage options. Now, as Bloomberg reports, those oversized battery packs are ready to go live:

_Three massive battery storage plants—built by Tesla, AES Corp., and Altagas Ltd.—are all officially going live in southern California at about the same time. Any one of these projects would have been the largest battery storage facility ever built. Combined, they amount to 15 percent of the battery storage installed planet-wide last year._

These new facilities will help store electricity during times of the day when supply surges, and will release that power back to the grid when demand spikes. It’s an especially necessary complement to renewable technologies like wind and solar power, whose intermittent nature can wreak havoc on grid stability and make the task of matching supply with demand especially difficult. California’s reliance on solar farms for power makes these storage facilities especially important.

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/01/31/californias-power-grid-is-running-on-batteries/


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Perhaps one of the options is to follow the Californian example and establish massive battery banks.  They too have had a calamitous experience with failing power supplies and had to craete a solution very quickly.
> *
> California’s Power Grid Is Running on Batteries *
> 
> When a natural gas storage facility in Aliso Canyon, California sprung a leak in 2015, it was seen by most as an environmental disaster. After all, it released massive quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. But it was also calamitous to California’s energy security, and it prompted utilities in the state to contract companies—Tesla notable among them—to create a number of ad-hoc energy storage options. Now, as Bloomberg reports, those oversized battery packs are ready to go live:
> 
> _Three massive battery storage plants—built by Tesla, AES Corp., and Altagas Ltd.—are all officially going live in southern California at about the same time. Any one of these projects would have been the largest battery storage facility ever built. Combined, they amount to 15 percent of the battery storage installed planet-wide last year._
> 
> These new facilities will help store electricity during times of the day when supply surges, and will release that power back to the grid when demand spikes. It’s an especially necessary complement to renewable technologies like wind and solar power, whose intermittent nature can wreak havoc on grid stability and make the task of matching supply with demand especially difficult. California’s reliance on solar farms for power makes these storage facilities especially important.
> 
> http://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/01/31/californias-power-grid-is-running-on-batteries/



It will be interesting to see the outcome, if it is tested, there is a definite place for battery storage.
I'm yet to see any outcomes, where it has been tested on a large scale grid disruption.
Smurph may be able to explain, how the batteries will cope, with load rejection.
He loves the challenge.


----------



## noco

sptrawler said:


> It will be interesting to see the outcome, if it is tested, there is a definite place for battery storage.
> I'm yet to see any outcomes, where it has been tested on a large scale grid disruption.
> Smurph may be able to explain, how the batteries will cope, with load rejection.
> He loves the challenge.




And how much will it all cost?


----------



## sptrawler

noco said:


> And how much will it all cost?



It isn't so much about what it costs, it is about the amount of current(ampere) demand placed on the system, and how battery banks near the fault would cope with that.
With an interconnected grid, the generators(turbines) have a droop factor, this ensures each generator picks up the sudden load, proportional to its ability to cope.
God knows how you would do that, with batteries scattered around the place, it would be interesting to say the least, how many claims for battery fires would be claimed due to power failures?
This renewable push is great, but it would be nice, if those who were pushing it knew what they were talking about.IMO


----------



## SirRumpole

Another example of deplorable lack of policy at all levels of government.

*Gas supply shortage will threaten nation's power supplies, AEMO forecasts*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-...-will-threaten-nations-power-supplies/8337204


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> Another example of deplorable lack of policy at all levels of government.
> 
> *Gas supply shortage will threaten nation's power supplies, AEMO forecasts*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-...-will-threaten-nations-power-supplies/8337204




Good thing we have Helios and Zephyrus on our side


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Another example of deplorable lack of policy at all levels of government.




At the risk of a bit of chest beating, Smurf saw this coming quite a long long time ago (1997) and it wasn't difficult. Hydro Tas made some comments publicly about long term gas prices about 15 years ago too.

Have no doubt that if Smurf could work it out and if a state-owned business primarily involved with hydro power could work it out then those actually involved with the gas industry must surely have known how this would end up a very long time ago.

Sadly there's no easy way out of the mess.

It'll be even worse once the Bass Strait and Copper Basin (SA) gas fields are drained in order to feed this monster LNG export industry. I'll say it now - that's going to happen a lot more quickly than most seem to be thinking, well within the lifetime of most who will be reading this, and then we've got a truly massive problem indeed. One thing's a given - once it's gone, it's gone forever.

Economists and politicians have failed miserably when it comes to power. It's time to put the engineers back in charge and let them get on with fixing the mess. 

In the meantime, one of these might relieve some stress (no it's not me in the photo): http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/5816174-3x2-700x467.jpg

It was put there a very long time ago, by a mining company incidentally, and a few years ago Hydro restored it using the original design for reasons of historical preservation etc.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Sadly there's no easy way out of the mess.




No, no easy way. People aren't talking much about geothermal either unfortunately. 

Apparently there is quite a lot of it under the coal about where Hazelwood is...


----------



## sptrawler

Well Tesla have the answer (I think not), install batteries, they can supply.
http://www.theage.com.au/business/e...rgy-problems-in-100-days-20170309-guum3v.html

The only part, I thought hit the spot, was this.

Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood said batteries would play a role at a household level, but was sceptical about larger-scale proposals.

"If Tesla think they can do that, what's stopping them? Providing they aren't asking the government for some sort of subsidy and want to risk their own money, fantastic," he said.

Mr Wood said the electricity grid needed reliability and flexibility. That could potentially come from batteries, gas, pumped hydro storage, stronger connections between states and managing demand at peak times. The Turnbull government has earmarked pumped hydro, recently announcing $20 million in research funding.

He warned against putting too much faith in predictions about which energy technologies would prove viable, citing past hype about geothermal energy.

"The one thing you can say about technology forecasts is they're all wrong. The only question is which are going to be less wrong and by how much," he said.


----------



## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Another example of deplorable lack of policy at all levels of government.
> 
> *Gas supply shortage will threaten nation's power supplies, AEMO forecasts*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-...-will-threaten-nations-power-supplies/8337204




And the reason being is Dan "THE MAN" will not allow fracking in Victoria, where there is plenty of gas, because he can't do without the Green vote ......God bless his Green friends.

Thank God I am agnostic.


----------



## noco

noco said:


> And the reason being is Dan "THE MAN" will not allow fracking in Victoria, where there is plenty of gas, because he can't do without the Green vote ......God bless his Green friends.
> 
> Thank God I am agnostic.




Some more to digest in Victoria.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/a...a/news-story/c354fe0954c61720ba9fb5745b4db0b1


----------



## basilio

It's worth recognising just how advanced 3rd generation thin film solar technology is at the moment.
This is solar cells created on a roll of very thin film, at low cost with high efficiency outputs. These are currently 12.6% with 22% achieved in a lab. 

When these come off the factory lines in 2-3 years time we can see low cost PV become a part of the fabric of every new building or car.

*Solliance Sets World Record for Roll -to-Roll Perovskites of 12.6%
Queanbeyan, 
10 March 2017 -
Dyesol Limited (ASX: DYE)
 is very pleased to announce that Solliance has achieved a world record for perovskite solar cell photovoltaic (PSC PV) technology demonstrated on industrially applicable Roll-to-Roll (R2R) 
processes of 12.6% conversion efficiency at cell level.
*
Eindhoven (the Netherlands), Leuven (Belgium),
March
10, 2017
– Solliance announces the demonstration of an industrially applicable roll-to-roll process for the production of solar cells, achieving a record 12,6% conversion efficiency on cell level. This breakthrough result paves the way towards an accelerated market introduction of this attractive new source of renewable energy. Perovskite microcrystals are a promising material to make high-yielding, thin -film solar cells. They can be processed into thin, light-weight and potentially semitransparent modules that could eventually beintegrated in building materials such as windows or curved construction elements. Solliance and its research partners focus on using scalable, industrial processes towards the fabrication of large-area modules, eventually suitable for seamless integration in a broad variety of PV systems.
*

http://www.dyesol.com/media/wysiwyg/asx/2017/DYE0418_-_Solliance_release_10-03-2017.pdf*

:


----------



## explod

Yes some excellent advances of lat Bas, read awhile back that our highway surfaces will also have these flexible solar collecting thingo's.


----------



## CanOz

Musk has offered to supply a solution to SAs power problem within 100 days or its free! On Twitter!


----------



## SirRumpole

CanOz said:


> Musk has offered to supply a solution to SAs power problem within 100 days or its free! On Twitter!




More about this.

http://www.afr.com/technology/tesla...risis-in-100-days-or-its-free-20170310-guvf1x

Yes well. Batteries are only a storage system, the shortfall is in generation.

He may install the batteries in 100 days, but will they really solve the problem ?

Could be a con.


----------



## SirRumpole

*Energy retailers making millions buying solar power on the cheap from homeowners*

*http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-...king-millions-off-solar-feed-in-rates/8342254*


----------



## Smurf1976

Basslink will be out of service from 18 March for about 5 days.

This poses no threat to supply in Tasmania, Hydro is very well prepared to meet all demand in the state from hydro, wind and for purely economic reasons will likely also use gas (so long as the gas price is lower than the future value of water in storage then it makes sense to run the gas-fired CCGT plant). We could also fire up the OCGT's (open cycle gas turbines) on either gas or diesel if a problem did arise although that's extremely unlikely to be required.

Should be no impact on supply in Vic so long as nothing breaks and the weather remains reasonable (no major heatwaves).

Underlying reason is that AGL need to relocate an overburden stacker from the present location to the base of Loy Yang mine and the Basslink overhead line, which connects to the mainland grid at Loy Yang, is in the way so needs to be temporarily removed. Putting it into perspective, this machine weighs 2100 tonnes and is the height of a 10 storey building. AGL expects the 19km journey to take about 4 weeks to complete with a maximum travel speed of just under half a kilometer per hour and a lot of stops to do things like putting rubbber over public roads it needs to cross and so on.


----------



## orr

SirRumpole said:


> More about this.
> 
> http://www.afr.com/technology/tesla...risis-in-100-days-or-its-free-20170310-guvf1x
> 
> 
> 
> *Could be a con*.




Who's got the 'coujes' to call his (in my estimation 'un') bluff...
And if he succeeds problem solved. By free enterprise....

And this while your LNP is looking to invest 'your' taxes into coal fired generation that Knowone will touch ... Economic Managers? Ian McFarlane is managing his bank accout 'ok' though....


----------



## noco

orr said:


> Who's got the 'coujes' to call his (in my estimation 'un') bluff...
> And if he succeeds problem solved. By free enterprise....
> 
> And this while your LNP is looking to invest 'your' taxes into coal fired generation that Knowone will touch ... Economic Managers? Ian McFarlane is managing his bank accout 'ok' though....




So what is your alternative?


----------



## Smurf1976

Hazelwood power station Unit 2 is being ramped down at the moment. Currently producing 56 MW and slowly dropping (full capacity is 200 MW per unit). 

Looks to be a normal planned shutdown in a gradual and orderly manner as would be done for a planned maintenance outage etc. 

There's 8 units at the plant, 21 days at most until the whole lot is shut so I do wonder if this is the end for Unit 2? Just speculating there but if something needs maintenance (must be some reason for taking it offline) and then with the cost of a restart I certainly wouldn't be surprised if this is in practice the end. 

Just speculating but if not now then it can't be much longer until they start shutting the place down.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Hazelwood power station Unit 2 is being ramped down at the moment. Currently producing 56 MW and slowly dropping (full capacity is 200 MW per unit).
> 
> Looks to be a normal planned shutdown in a gradual and orderly manner as would be done for a planned maintenance outage etc.
> 
> There's 8 units at the plant, 21 days at most until the whole lot is shut so I do wonder if this is the end for Unit 2? Just speculating there but if something needs maintenance (must be some reason for taking it offline) and then with the cost of a restart I certainly wouldn't be surprised if this is in practice the end.
> 
> Just speculating but if not now then it can't be much longer until they start shutting the place down.




It won't register with people or the Government, until the plant is shut down, most will believe it to be some sort of bluff for financial support.


----------



## Ferret

Europe seems to be making great progress with renewables.

"Across Europe, the price of building an offshore wind farm has fallen 46 percent in the last five years — 22 percent last year alone. Erecting turbines in the seabed now costs an average $126 for each megawatt-hour of capacity, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. That’s below the $155 a megawatt-hour price for new nuclear developments in Europe and closing in on the $88 price tag on new coal plants, the London-based researcher estimates."

http://gcaptain.com/wind-power-blows-through-nuclear-coal-as-costs-drop-at-sea/


----------



## Tisme

One reason gas goes offshore reminder"

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...hore-gas-wealth-is-going-20161009-gryaoi.html


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> One reason gas goes offshore reminder"
> 
> http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...hore-gas-wealth-is-going-20161009-gryaoi.html




Scandalous.


----------



## CanOz

SirRumpole said:


> More about this.
> 
> http://www.afr.com/technology/tesla...risis-in-100-days-or-its-free-20170310-guvf1x
> 
> Yes well. Batteries are only a storage system, the shortfall is in generation.
> 
> He may install the batteries in 100 days, but will they really solve the problem ?
> 
> Could be a con.



https://www.businessinsider.com.au/tesla-unveils-kauai-hawaii-solar-project-2017-3?r=US&IR=T


----------



## SirRumpole

Looks like the SA government is preparing to get back into the electricity business.

Time to admit that privatisation of essential services doesn't  work and it's time to re-nationalise or at least have a more balanced public-private balance.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-14/sa-government-to-announce-power-intervention-strategy/8350878


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> More about this.
> 
> http://www.afr.com/technology/tesla...risis-in-100-days-or-its-free-20170310-guvf1x
> 
> Yes well. Batteries are only a storage system, the shortfall is in generation.
> 
> He may install the batteries in 100 days, but will they really solve the problem ?
> 
> Could be a con.



Generation isn't the problem, we have lots of generation capacity that sits idle most of the time, it's peak loading that causes the shortage.

If there was enough storage in the system, you could simply charge the storage during the off peak times, and then use it to meet peak demand.

If your system is hand to mouth, you need huge generation capacity to meet peak demand, but when you can store production you can have a much smaller total generation capacity that used to at higher utilization rates.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> If there was enough storage in the system, you could simply charge the storage during the off peak times, and then use it to meet peak demand.




The lack of storage is certainly an issue, hence all the talk about batteries and pumped hydro.

I guess the question is now who builds the storage, private companies like Tesla with batteries or government with pumped hydro, or a mixture of both.

Good to see Turnbull at least interested in storage, but again it's politicians trying to design systems that should be the job of engineers.


----------



## Tisme

More a poles and wires problem than generation in SA


----------



## Smurf1976

A few comments and hard facts about SA and my intent is to be politically neutral here.

I've decided to post in the form of questions with the answers since this may help aid understanding I think.

Q. What is the maximum demand (peak demand) for electricity in SA?

A. At the absolute extreme about 3400 MW. A more certain answer that could be expected to be reached in most years is 3150 MW. This occurs late in the afternoon during Summer when it's hot.

Note that these consumption figures do not include power produced by distributed "behind the meter" sources, most notably rooftop solar. The figures relate only to what's supplied from centralised generation sources (power stations, wind farms) into the grid.

Q. How much generating capacity does SA have at present?

A. The output capacity of power stations is subject to various influences, it's not a "static" number, so I've used the capabilities under hot weather conditions here since that's when demand peaks and power is most needed in SA.

Gas-fired capacity including all of Pelican Point = 2522MW. Of this 229 MW is from the second unit at Pelican Point which is not being run unless the owner (Engie) is directed to do so by AEMO.

Oil (diesel mostly) = 239 MW with Snowy Hydro planning to set up another approximately 30 MW of diesel generators in SA as soon as they can. This plant is being physically relocated from NSW so just needs to be dismantled, transported then reinstalled in SA. They have the site etc ready to go. So should be about 269 MW of diesel generation for next summer.

Wind = That's a hard one since the wind speed is always variable. There should be 1194 MW of installed wind generation in SA for next summer, 100 MW of which is still being built.

Reality however is that the wind tends to not blow too strongly at times of high electricity consumption in SA and for this reason AEMO considers that the "firm" (reasonably certain) output of these wind farms will be 112 MW for next Summer. Anything over that is a bonus which can't be counted upon to be available on any given day (especially when it's hot and most needed).

So in total, the capacity of all gas, diesel and "firm" wind generation in SA is expected to be 2903 MW next Summer.

Q. What about breakdowns?

A. Wind farms comprise a very large number of individually small generators such that one failing makes minimal difference overall. Wind speed is the critical factor there.

For large generating plant any engineer would want the system to be able to cope if the two largest generating units were to both be out of service (for whatever reason) at the time of peak demand and this is also the basis AEMO works on.

Based on that up to 458 MW could be lost from the system due to two faults, that being the capacity of the two largest generating units.

Q. What is the capacity of the transmission lines (also known as interconnectors) between Victoria and SA?

A. There are 3 circuits connecting the two states, one DC system (also known as "Murraylink") and two AC lines following the same route (on the same towers mostly).

The AC lines have a theoretical capacity of 650 MW having recently been upgraded. Actual capacity is presently being limited to 600 MW however.

For the DC line there are network constraints elsewhere in the system, particularly in north-east Victoria, which limit its capacity when demand is high in that local region. This arises due to the original construction having been "opportunistic" and simply joining together the two networks which already existed via the shortest route but did not include upgrades elsewhere in the system to handle higher power transfers. So capacity of the DC line will be high when demand in both states is low but can be reduced, sometimes close to zero, if demand is high enough in north-east Victoria. The absolute limit is 220 MW however.

So the total limit for transfer is 820 MW, potentially increasing to 870 MW, however 220 MW of this depends on network loads and conditions in Victoria.

Q. Does Victoria have sufficient power to supply to SA during the peak?

A. In short, no.

Victoria's peak demand is about 10,400 MW at the extreme and generally occurs at about the same time as SA's peak with only minimal difference between them. That's because both states tend to experience major heatwaves at the same time and there's only a half hour time difference (which affects when people get home and turn the A/C on etc).

Victoria's total generating capacity is as follows (this excludes Hazelwood power station, 1600 MW, which closes at the end of this month):

Coal - 4470 MW

Hydro - 2191 MW

Gas - 2175 MW

Wind - 819 MW installed of which 61 MW is considered to be "firm" based on practical operating experience.

So all up there's 8897 MW of coal, gas, hydro and firm wind generation in Victoria.

In addition Victoria can access 594 MW from Tasmania, limited by the capacity of the Vic - Tas cable (Basslink) and can access 340 MW from NSW.

Note - Supply from NSW comes via the same lines used by several hydro stations. When those hydro stations are not operating, additional power could be transferred from NSW however this doesn't help meet peak demand since it's one or the other, you can't have the hydro stations running and a high rate of transfer from NSW at the same time since both use the same transmission lines (which were built for the hydro stations, that they connected NSW and Vic together being just a side benefit albeit a very useful one).

So the limit of supply available to Victoria is 9831 MW, assuming everything works perfectly and nothing breaks down, versus peak demand of 10,400 MW. So Vic does not have surplus power available to supply SA during peak demand times (though it generally does at other times when demand is lower).

Q. Can NSW and Tasmania be counted on to actually supply that power into Victoria?

A. NSW - Depends on the weather. Yes if demand is low to moderate in NSW. No if there's also a heatwave affecting that state since NSW is also running short of generating capacity.

Tas - Yes so long as no major failures occur, the primary risk being failure of Basslink. Assuming Basslink works it would require multiple transmission or generation failures within the state to cause a problem. For transmission that's plausible if lighting or bushfires occur. For generation that's extremely unlikely (the chance isn't absolutely zero but it hasn't happened yet).

Q. So what's a summary of all this? Add all the numbers up please Smurf!

A. Vic and SA can for practical purposes be considered as the same place at times of peak power demand since neither state has spare capacity to send to the other one. As such there's very little chance, at a time of very high demand, of one state having plenty of power but being unable to get it to the other one due to limits on Vic - SA transmission capacity. So for that reason they're effectively the same place - both are in the same situation at the same time.

On that basis, combined peak demand is about 13,800 MW.

Combined generating capacity from coal, oil, gas, hydro and firm wind generation is 11,800 MW with a further 934 MW available from Tas and NSW (with some risk that NSW may not be able to supply its part).

So overall, peak demand if 13,800 MW at the extreme versus supply of 12,734 MW if everything works perfectly.

Since everything won't work perfectly in practice, a more sensible approach would be to exclude the two largest sources of supply on the assumption that something, somewhere, will break (and that sure does happen in practice!). On that basis supply capacity to the two states is about 11,620 MW.

So overall there's gap of about 2200 MW between what we have and what's needed.

Q. How did we end up in this situation? Why haven't I heard about this in the past? What went wrong?

A. Simple answer, in a technical sense, is that a number of power stations in Vic and SA (and also in NSW) have closed in recent times. List as follows:

Morwell (Vic, 190 MW) - closed 2014
Anglesea (Vic, 160 MW) - closed 2015
Playford B (SA, 240 MW) - closed 2016
Northern (SA, 540 MW) - closed 2016
Hazelwood (Vic, 1600 MW) - closing 31 March 2017

Total of all closures = 2730 MW (versus the shortfall between what we have now and what we need of 2200 MW).

So the problem is a recent one, this summer being the first where we didn't have enough overall capacity, hence why it has suddenly become a mainstream issue.

With the imminent closure of Hazelwood the supply deficit is about to increase dramatically.

Q. So why were they closed? Whose fault is that? Why did government let it happen?

A. All are private businesses following the break up and sale of the SECV and ETSA many years ago and, from a legal perspective, as with any business nobody can ultimately insist that the owners carry on operating if they choose not to. (Note that Anglesea is an exception, having always been privately owned since construction).

From a more pragmatic perspective and trying to be non-political:

Morwell and Playford B = worn out and would need very serious $ spent to keep operating. Just not worthwhile with outdated, inefficient plant that dates from the 1950's and 60's.

Hazelwood = needed a lot of $ spent so the owners decided to close instead of fixing it or trying to sell it. 4 (of 8) units at Hazelwood are known to be in bad enough shape that workplace safety regulators got involved and issued formal demands last year. Of the rest, the general understanding is that 3 are "OK for a while" and 1 is "pretty good". The owners have decided to close the whole lot however.

Anglesea - Owned by a company not primarily involved in electricity generation and with no ongoing interest in running a coal mine and power station. They made a fairly serious effort to sell but ultimately could not find a buyer and so closed instead.

Northern - Simply unprofitable since energy retailers and large users in SA were unwilling to sign contracts at a sufficiently high price to make it viable to continue operating. Those prices were, but the way, somewhat lower than the prices now being experienced on a daily basis although that wasn't the case at the time.

Q. Would it be possible to return any of the closed power stations to operation either permanently or as a temporary measure until something else can be done?

A. Some of the info required to properly answer that is known only to the owners but to my understanding:

Playford B - no chance as it's being demolished already (I'm 100% cetain on that point).

Morwell - too many bits, 8 boilers and 5 generators, for too little output so not really worth bothering with unless someone wanted to resume manufacturing briquettes at the associated briquette factory. In the absence of that aspect, as a power station it would be more sensible to just build something new from scratch.

Hazelwood - doable if someone's got enough money to throw at them. Could run the 4 units that are in reasonable shape and for about $140 million they could get a few more years out of the others too although that would take some time to implement.

Anglesea - unsure whether or not they've started demolishing anything or not. If not then it wouldn't be overly hard to put it back into operation, a few months at most, although the local community had a strong dislike of the plant prior to closure and would thus likely protest etc.

Northern - fairly straightforward. Just need to get miners back at Leigh Creel, start mining again, check that everything's OK to run and and so on. A few months.

Of them all, Northern is in the best condition, is the most modern plant and needs the least effort to do a re-start.

Q. Does the SA government's plan fix the problem?

A. They're going to add 250 MW from gas plus 100 MW from batteries. That does't fix the problem for Vic + SA by any means but it would greatly reduce the frequency of problems in SA if (1) they can ensure that the owners of other power stations don't close them and (2) can make sure that nobody decides to "share the pain" and black out SA in order to send power into Vic.

It's not a total fix for SA, get a properly hot day with no wind and they're still in big trouble, but it will reduce the frequency of blackouts compared to what would occur without it (assuming it's actually built etc). It's nowhere near enough to be a complete solution however.


----------



## SirRumpole

Thanks for that Smurf.

How significant do you think rooftop solar is in the overall equation ? (I understand it's probably difficult to answer that).

If pumped hydro was built could rooftop solar be a large factor in replenishing storage, or is it only operating at the margins ?


----------



## Smurf1976

Rooftop solar generates a lot of power at certain times and that's to the point that it has had the effect of delaying the peak.

Peak in summer used to be around 4pm. Now it's later as the sun starts to set and that time change, and modest reduction in the peak, is due to solar.

At present there's never a situation where solar supplies all load on the system in any state. But if enough of it were installed then sure, there's no reason why that couldn't be used to run a pumped hydro system.

One big advantage of pumped hydro going forward is that it's a load as well as a source of supply. If we do get to the point where solar is generating too much power, more than is being used, then either we have some way to turn off a % of household solar systems or throttle them back, either of which will upset their owners, or we have some way of soaking up that excess power for a useful purpose. Pumped hydro or charging batteries both do that very well.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Rooftop solar generates a lot of power at certain times and that's to the point that it has had the effect of delaying the peak.
> 
> Peak in summer used to be around 4pm. Now it's later as the sun starts to set and that time change, and modest reduction in the peak, is due to solar.
> 
> At present there's never a situation where solar supplies all load on the system in any state. But if enough of it were installed then sure, there's no reason why that couldn't be used to run a pumped hydro system.
> 
> One big advantage of pumped hydro going forward is that it's a load as well as a source of supply. If we do get to the point where solar is generating too much power, more than is being used, then either we have some way to turn off a % of household solar systems or throttle them back, either of which will upset their owners, or we have some way of soaking up that excess power for a useful purpose. Pumped hydro or charging batteries both do that very well.



The biggest problem with pumped hydro, in W.A, is there isn't many suitable places for the storage.
It is a pretty flat landscape over here, and most places that are suitable for a dam, have one for drinking water or irrigation.
I would think battery banks, would take some working out as to location and current capacity, the grid connected inverter would be something else.
I wonder if a completely different protection system would be required, with the advent of battery storage, what do you think smurph?


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## Jorgensen

Smurf...I believe that Northern (Port Augusta) is all but demolished....never to operate again.
I always read your posts on energy,because you clearly know what you are talking about.


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## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> The biggest problem with pumped hydro, in W.A, is there isn't many suitable places for the storage.
> It is a pretty flat landscape over here, and most places that are suitable for a dam, have one for drinking water or irrigation.
> I would think battery banks, would take some working out as to location and current capacity, the grid connected inverter would be something else.
> I wonder if a completely different protection system would be required, with the advent of battery storage, what do you think smurph?





Prohibiting domestic bore pumps sucking all the water out of the Gnangara water mound and surrounding aquifers would save heaps on energy use.


----------



## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> Prohibiting domestic bore pumps sucking all the water out of the Gnangara water mound and surrounding aquifers would save heaps on energy use.




That's true, but from memory it supplies most of Perths drinking water.


----------



## Smurf1976

Turns out that I was wrong there.

Playford B has been undergoing demolition for quite some time but last week they let some explosives off at Northern.

So remove any consideration or returning Northern to service from the range of options.

I do find the ability to demolish somewhat interesting given that the SA government still owns both plants with Alinta simply having a 99 year lease.

Since when did leasing something entitle you to demolish it, sell the valuable bits and keep the money? Sounds like an awfully dodgy deal to me.


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## SirRumpole

Problem solved ?

Who knows.

*Gas companies make guarantee they will meet domestic supply*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-15/gas-companies-guarantee-domestic-supply/8357376


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Problem solved ?




The unanswered question is "at what price?" and also with what, if any, conditions attached?


----------



## Tisme

Smurf1976 said:


> The unanswered question is "at what price?" and also with what, if any, conditions attached?





One would suppose that seeing Brendan Grylls done over like Julia Gillard by the same miners, that no price is too great to keep his top public service job.


----------



## Smurf1976

One thing about fixing the gas supply problem, is that it fixes the gas supply problem.

You can turn gas into electricity certainly, but you need power stations to do that and no matter how much gas we've got available it won't keep the lights on without sufficient generating capacity which SA and Vic don't have.

I do hear however that the SA government is looking at the "Tasmanian solution" to the imminent crisis next Summer. Down here we got about 150 diesel generators + 3 diesel-fired gas turbines, all rented from various sources Australia and international, up and running real quick to feed the grid when we had 3 major issues all at once last summer - worst drought on record, Basslink broke and also a gas turbine had to go back to the manufacturer to fix problems dating from the original design.

We don't have all that gear any more, it was all removed once no longer required, but for the record Hydro Tas did offer the gas turbines to SA available immediately, could have had them there as soon as they could be transported (and the RAAF said they could fly them over no worries or alternatively we could have shipped them across and road freight Vic to SA), but the offer was knocked back.

Now SA is looking to do much the same it seems. Looks like it took them a while to realise how serious the problem is but at least they're doing something now.

Which leaves Victoria still just waiting for disaster....

PS - My apologies for getting it wrong about Northern power station. I didn't realise they'd started demolition yet, thought they'd only started on Playford B which is next door but seems not. Sorry about that.....


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> PS - My apologies for getting it wrong about Northern power station. I didn't realise they'd started demolition yet, thought they'd only started on Playford B which is next door but seems not. Sorry about that....




You did bring up an interesting question about demolition of a leased property.

Maybe it was in the lease contract that the company would be responsible for removing the plant when no longer required, but 99 year leases in principle are absurd as it virtually says that the original owner doesn't give a stuff what happens to their property so they may as well just sell it outright.


----------



## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> Prohibiting domestic bore pumps sucking all the water out of the Gnangara water mound and surrounding aquifers would save heaps on energy use.



Appologies Tisme, I misread your post, but totally agree with you. It would also leave more reserves for drinking water.


----------



## sptrawler

I think S.A is getting a bit ahead of itself with the solution. My call would be two gas turbines and wait on the batteries.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-13/battery-companies-say-they-are-ahead-of-tesla/8349724
Battery technology is screaming ahead, but it is still in its infancy IMO, the time/chemical based degradation is a huge issue.
Anyway, it will be very interesting and at the cutting edge of grid design, we will no doubt learn from it.


----------



## DB008

sptrawler said:


> Battery technology is screaming ahead, but it is still in its infancy IMO, the time/chemical based degradation is a huge issue.




i think Redflow is getting over these issues - better than Tesla/LG Chem (Li Ion batteries)


http://redflow.com/

https://www.zcell.com/​

*What is ZCell?
*​The Australian-designed ZCell is a storage system built around a unique zinc-bromine flow battery.

ZCell can deliver 10 kilowatt hours (kWh) of stored energy each day, harvesting energy from solar panels or lower-cost off-peak power, for use when you need it.

Installing ZCell with a suitable inverter as part of your energy management system can lower your power costs, provide resilience during grid power cuts and increase your energy independence.

Can do 100% DoD no problem sptrawler.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> You did bring up an interesting question about demolition of a leased property.
> 
> Maybe it was in the lease contract that the company would be responsible for removing the plant when no longer required, but 99 year leases in principle are absurd as it virtually says that the original owner doesn't give a stuff what happens to their property so they may as well just sell it outright.



What has surprised me is the speed. Getting on with demolition pretty much straight away.

Given all the circumstances that are widely known, I can't help but think there's an element of making sure that nobody else acquires the plant and runs it. If you've got a power shortage and you've got a perfectly good power station sitting there doing nothing then it's not rocket science for even a purely financial (non-engineering / energy) company to come up with the idea of buying the proven, working plant and putting it back into service. Can't do that if it's knocked down however.

As for the 99 year lease, well that was just a political stunt to convince the public it wasn't really a sale. It's a sale in practice given that nobody alive when it was done will care about it 99 years later and that the assets will be worn out before then anyway.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> What has surprised me is the speed. Getting on with demolition pretty much straight away.
> 
> Given all the circumstances that are widely known, I can't help but think there's an element of making sure that nobody else acquires the plant and runs it. If you've got a power shortage and you've got a perfectly good power station sitting there doing nothing then it's not rocket science for even a purely financial (non-engineering / energy) company to come up with the idea of buying the proven, working plant and putting it back into service. Can't do that if it's knocked down however.




It would appear, the S.A Government has an ideological mission, and it is going to see it through come hell or high water. 
Lucky they are connected to an interstate grid, because if it fails, some else has to bail them out.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> I would think battery banks, would take some working out as to location and current capacity, the grid connected inverter would be something else.
> I wonder if a completely different protection system would be required, with the advent of battery storage, what do you think smurph?




Well I guess David Green has answered my question.

"Before you get to the stage of being able to sign a contract to deliver a project there's about nine months worth of work that goes into identifying the land, going through the network connection process, extensive assessment of network flows and identifying the appropriate configuration of your project.


----------



## Smurf1976

So far as batteries and the grid are concerned, that's a difficult one really in terms of the technical aspects.

Ultimately a charge battery is just a DC voltage and current source so it's the inverter which is relevant so far as meeting grid technical requirements are concerned. That being so I'd expect a battery based system to have similar issues to Basslink (Vic - Tas), Murraylink (Vic - SA) or Directlink (NSW - Qld) all of which are DC interconnectors.

Inverters feeding the grid does work, it's the same thing used with solar just on a bigger scale in this case, but practical experience is that they can and do trip pretty easily when a system disturbance occurs. I've seen it happen more than once with my solar inverters at home, tripped for no real reason just a very minor grid disturbance (and they're decent quality stuff not cheap and nasty) and for that matter we had a sudden Basslink trip only a couple of days ago which gave the Tas grid a pretty good kick (though all fully contained as designed, no blackouts etc).

So a battery system could certainly act to stabilise the system by taking out / putting in energy but I'd be very cautious about any claim of it preventing blackouts. Inverters trip far more easily than synchronous generators (coal, gas, diesel, hydro) do that's for sure. So it addresses one issue but also introduces a new vulnerability, that of the inverter tripping either first or immediately following some other problem in the grid. If it is at high load and then trips following something else tripping then it makes the problem worse rather than better so far as the risk of a system collapse is concerned.

That said, 100 MW isn't huge and I can see the political and potential economic (overall benefits to the state etc) reasons why SA want's to get in early and give it a go. There's some risks yes, but then past risk taking in the power industry by getting into new ideas has paid off pretty well. Victoria with brown coal back in the 1920's worked out pretty well in the end and Tasmania with the first proper transmission system in the country (and for a short period the largest in the world) being among the more notable historic ones. Both were technically daunting projects at the time but we made them work (and both were built by governments by the way).

But if grid stability is the aim well then big rotating machines win for sure. They are to power generation what a fully loaded freight train is to transport. Takes a lot to bring it to a halt. In contrast anything using inverters is more akin to a bicycle - works fine until there's a bump and then it's all over before anyone knows what's happening.


----------



## sptrawler

I hope it all works out well for S.A and Victoria.


----------



## Smurf1976

As a smaller scale example of what's possible, King Island.

The system incorporates wind, large scale solar, battery storage, flywheel for storage coupled to a dedicated diesel engine, a great big heater to "burn off" any surplus power, plus conventional diesel generators. All of this is located at the power station site.

There is also a smart grid system in use with automated switching of certain consumer loads (primarily water heating). This isn't your regular off-peak approach, since the on and off periods can be as short as a second or two if required to balance the system.

As of right now the island is being powered by literally 100% wind energy. The diesels are completely idle, not even turning, and it's working just fine. Surplus energy is going into both the battery and the fly wheel.

You can see live data here: http://www.kingislandrenewableenergy.com.au/

In terms of scale, it's big enough to properly evaluate the technologies but it's a small system as such, being approximately one thousandth the size of the SA grid in terms of capacity. That said, there's no real technical barrier to scaling up.

Also building similar systems for:

Flinders Island: https://www.hydro.com.au/system/fil...f_Grid_Solutions_CaseStudy_FlindersIsland.pdf

Rottnest Island: https://www.hydro.com.au/system/fil...f_Grid_Solutions_CaseStudy_RottnestIsland.pdf

Coober Pedy: https://www.hydro.com.au/system/fil...d_Off_Grid_Solutions_CaseStudy_CooberPedy.pdf

Underlying reason for the module approach is for easier installation, since it can all be built indoors in a factory which reduces the work required on site, and the commercial (marketing) aspects for the system also benefit from that approach given that it keeps everything reasonably straightforward from their perspective.


----------



## sptrawler

It is definitely the way of the future, and S.A going this approach will be a great test bed, I'm sure the other States will be watching with interest.
S.A must be commended for their sink or swim mentality, it will certainly the yardstick, for which the S.A Government will be measured.
If it works, its sunshine and lollypops, if next summer is a disaster, a lot of questions will be asked about blowing up North Power Station.
The longer term viability, of large scale grid connected batteries, is yet to be assessed.


----------



## sptrawler

DB008 said:


> i think Redflow is getting over these issues - better than Tesla/LG Chem (Li Ion batteries)
> 
> 
> http://redflow.com/
> 
> https://www.zcell.com/​
> 
> *What is ZCell?
> *​The Australian-designed ZCell is a storage system built around a unique zinc-bromine flow battery.
> 
> ZCell can deliver 10 kilowatt hours (kWh) of stored energy each day, harvesting energy from solar panels or lower-cost off-peak power, for use when you need it.
> 
> Installing ZCell with a suitable inverter as part of your energy management system can lower your power costs, provide resilience during grid power cuts and increase your energy independence.
> 
> Can do 100% DoD no problem sptrawler.




Yes batteries are definitely where the money is, we did talk about this a while back.

It isn't all about DoD, energy density, cycle ability, cost of manufacture, cost of cooling, chemical degradation rate, internal resistance/age, rate of resistance increase/cycle, charge capacity/age.

But DoD is definitely an advantage, zinc bromide has over lithium, IMO we are on the start of a ski slope.
we haven't taken off yet.

I'm still to be convinced EV's are the answer, rather than H2 power. 
Time will tell, interesting times, capacitors seem to have stalled on energy density.


----------



## sptrawler

Well this could be a game changer, even Tisme/Rumpole may have a smile on their face.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/pm...d/news-story/1ed9ef8ea3f526dd8b0c6fdd317fa665

Pumped storage on steroids.yeah, now that is a Nation building project.


----------



## sptrawler

Here is an extract from the link, as it is a pay to read link, my appologies.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency will examine several sites that could support large-scale pumped hydro-electric energy storage.

Mr Turnbull also yesterday sought a commitment from gas companies to increase production, to ensure there was enough energy for the nation’s domestic and industrial use this winter.

The federal government, after months of complaining about inaction from the states and their high renewable energy targets, is now attempting to assert control of the power crisis.

Mr Turnbull said the new project would help make renewable energy reliable — filling gaps caused by intermittent supply and generator outages.

He said the expansion would also lead to greater energy efficiency and help stabilise future electricity supply.

“This will ultimately mean cheaper power prices and more money in the pockets of Australians,” the Prime Minister said.

“For too long policymakers have put ideology and politics ahead of engineering and economics. Successive governments at all levels have failed to put in place the necessary storage to ensure reliable power supply to homes and businesses,” he said.

I will reserve judgement, I've heard it all before, promise the World and deliver sod all.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Well this could be a game changer, even Tisme/Rumpole may have a smile on their face.
> 
> http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/pm...d/news-story/1ed9ef8ea3f526dd8b0c6fdd317fa665
> 
> Pumped storage on steroids.yeah, now that is a Nation building project.




Thanks for that it looks good.

The Herald Sun article is unreadable for non subscribers, so here is another one.

http://www.afr.com/news/politics/fe...o-major-snowy-hydro-expansion-20170315-guyo3r


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> Here is an extract from the link, as it is a pay to read link, my appologies.
> The Australian Renewable Energy Agency will examine several sites that could support large-scale pumped hydro-electric energy storage.
> 
> Mr Turnbull also yesterday sought a commitment from gas companies to increase production, to ensure there was enough energy for the nation’s domestic and industrial use this winter.
> 
> The federal government, after months of complaining about inaction from the states and their high renewable energy targets, is now attempting to assert control of the power crisis.
> 
> Mr Turnbull said the new project would help make renewable energy reliable — filling gaps caused by intermittent supply and generator outages.
> 
> He said the expansion would also lead to greater energy efficiency and help stabilise future electricity supply.
> 
> “This will ultimately mean cheaper power prices and more money in the pockets of Australians,” the Prime Minister said.
> 
> “For too long policymakers have put ideology and politics ahead of engineering and economics. Successive governments at all levels have failed to put in place the necessary storage to ensure reliable power supply to homes and businesses,” he said.
> 
> I will reserve judgement, I've heard it all before, promise the World and deliver sod all.




Yes I watched the "walk on" interview when it happened. I thought he showed a glimpse of leadership, without overtly blaming Bill Shorten for his sudden courage.

Then later the ABC interviewed a bod from the gas companies who let it be known that we won't be getting any special price breaks and the price itself must reflect costs to date and the $50bn cost of future build to 2030. In other words using the demand as a means of price gouging


----------



## Jorgensen

I only know the situation at Port Augusta because my daughter lives there,and from time to time I drive up Highway one past the rapidly reducing power site.
Weatherill,SA premier,said that Alinta wanted a cash injection to keep the Northern Power station operating.I think 30 million.
The SA government refused this as they thought it would be the thin edge of the wedge...exposing themselves to claims from other private operators.
The old privatise our profits and socialise our losses regime.


----------



## moXJO

Snowy hydro about to get a boost. Interested to hear from smurf about his thoughts.
Seems impressive.


----------



## skyQuake

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...hmidt-flags-promise-of-new-goodenough-battery

Who needs Lithium anyway!


----------



## sptrawler

That sounds promising SkyQuake, because IMO lithium ion in its current form, isn't the answer.
That's why I think S.A would be better served putting in two GT's, rather than ! GT and a battery bank.


----------



## Smurf1976

moXJO said:


> Snowy hydro about to get a boost. Interested to hear from smurf about his thoughts.
> Seems impressive.




In short this week with the Snowy and SA announcements has seen the biggest commitment to new power generating capacity since circa 1980 when NSW decided to build Bayswater power station (2640 MW).

2000 MW from the Snowy is pretty massive. To put it into perspective:

Original capacity of the Snowy when completed = 3740 MW

Present capacity of the Snowy following some recent upgrades = 4100 MW

Loy Yang A+B (combined the largest coal-fired generation complex in Australia) = 3310 MW

Hazelwood power station = 1600 MW

Maximum demand recorded in Victoria = 10,400 MW

Maximum demand recorded in SA = 3400 MW

Capacity of Yallourn when it fist started supplying Victoria back in 1924 = 50 MW (later enlarged to 75 MW in 1928 with B, C, D, E and W stations following over the next 6 decades)

So adding 2000 MW is pretty substantial by any measure.

Whether or not it fixes the problem depends on transmission. Along with the SA gas turbine and battery it's enough (just) provided that all the additional power can be transmitted into Victoria and that requires new lines to be built (ideally connecting into the Vic 500kV system). If the power only goes into NSW however then it doesn't help the situation in Vic and SA at all since the Snowy can already fully load the lines to Vic when needed.

Does it help SA? To the extent that it frees up power in Victoria then yes it sure does since that means more available to SA via the existing lines. At present (post-Hazelwood) Vic doesn't have sufficient capacity during the peaks to supply itself which leaves zero to go into SA. This would substantially address that problem whilst the extra capacity in SA reduces the need for supply from Vic in the first place.

As a power scheme it ticks all the boxes really. Does the job, is a very well proven, reliable and economic technology and it shouldn't upset anyone too much. It's a winner all round.

There's a bigger dimension to all this and that's the political one. In the space of a few days we've seen governments announce plans to build a gas turbine plant, battery storage, and hydro-electric generation along with forcing the hand of the gas companies. This comes not long after government intervention to keep the aluminium industry running in Victoria.

All that seemed politically impossible even just a few months ago but now it has happened.

The world has changed. The overall push to de-regulate, privatise, outsource and otherwise not have government involvement has unraveled far more quickly than practically anyone thought possible.

It's worth adding in that context that there's also a very definite element of nationalism (well, statism but that's not really a word....) in what SA is doing with their patriotic "SA power for South Australians" approach and wanting to control what comes or goes over the border. Look at global politics and the basic pattern seems familiar.

Back to the technical stuff, well hydro has been a dormant technology for development for quite some time. Tas completed its last substantial scheme (the appropriately named Tribute power station, aka the Henty-Anthony Scheme) in 1994 and that was it for large scale hydro in Australia apart from AGL's one-off Bogong power station (aka McKay or Kiewa No.2) in Vic which was completed in 2009. Beyond that it was just Snowy and Hydro Tas tinkering with what they already had and getting a few % more out of it.

More recently we've seen renewed interest in hydro as a technology. First with the Kidston pumped storage scheme in Qld and now with the Snowy expansion. Plus the ideas that are around for pumped storage in SA. So there's definitely more interest in hydro than there has been for a long time and there are other projects being looked at too 

There's no chance that we're going to run the whole country with hydro though, we don't have enough potential to do that, but as a way to integrate with wind and solar it leaves everything else for dead that's for sure. Absolutely proven, highly reliable, reasonably economical, inherently provides stability to the grid since big rotating machines are involved and it lasts a century or more. It ticks all the boxes at least from an engineering perspective.

Environmentally hydro has long been contentious, it was the direct trigger for the emergence of mainstream environmentalism in Australia and the Greens are the direct political descendants of a No Dams protest group. But looking at it from a balanced perspective we've come to the point where we've really only got 5 choices:

Coal. Gas. Hydro in conjunction with wind and solar. Unreliable (wind and solar without large scale storage). Expensive (oil, nuclear).

Faced with that reality, hydro looks pretty good as a concept although obviously there are certain locations which are off limits from an environmental perspective.


----------



## Smurf1976

For reference, here's a list of the 10 largest hydro stations in Australia.

Note - All of the Snowy Hydro stations are physically located in NSW. The Murray 1 and 2 stations are _electrically_ in Victoria however.

10 largest by peak capacity (staion - owner - state - capacity)

Tumut 3 - Snowy Hydro - NSW - 1800 MW
Murray 1 - Snowy Hydro - Vic - 950 MW
Murray 2 - Snowy Hydro - Vic - 550 MW
Wivenhoe - CS Energy - Qld - 500 MW
Gordon - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 432 MW
Poatina - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 342 MW
Tumut 1 - Snowy Hydro - NSW - 320 MW
Tumut 2 - Snowy Hydro - NSW - 280 MW
Shoalhaven - Origin Energy - NSW - 240 MW
Reece - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 238 MW

10 largest by annual generated output over the long term (station - owner - state - output)

Gordon - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 1472 GWh
Murray 1 - Snowy Hydro - Vic - 1408 GWh
Poatina - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 1295 GWh
Reece - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 990 GWh
Tumut 1 - Snowy Hydro - NSW - 894 GWh
Murray 2 - Snowy Hydro - Vic - 816 GWh
Tumut 2 - Snowy Hydro - NSW - 785 GWh
Tarraleah - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 638 GWh
Tungatinah - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 618 GWh
Tumut 3 - Snowy Hydro - NSW - 582 GWh

As a fundamental design basis, the Snowy system was built to maximise peak output whereas the Tasmanian system was built to maximise total energy generated. Hence the lack of correlation between capacity versus actual output between the two systems. Both are the "right" answer to a different underlying question.


----------



## moXJO

Awesome stuff smurf. 
Out of interest how long do the battery storage systems last?


----------



## Smurf1976

moXJO said:


> Awesome stuff smurf.
> Out of interest how long do the battery storage systems last?




That's a hard question since it depends on the technology and how heavily it's used.

But realistically it would be a decade or two making some assumptions about how much use it gets. Every cycle slowly but surely wears out the battery.

For a poorly designed system, well I've seen off-grid solar done by DIY'ers and others without much knowledge completely stuffed in two years and requiring replacement.

For anything else:

Coal, gas - 30 years as an absolute minimum but should go to 40 years. Beyond that they're typically on borrowed time and not worth fixing if something major goes wrong (and at that age, sooner or later something major does go wrong). Hence we've got Liddell (1971), Hazelwood (1964 - 71), Torrens Island (1967 - early 1980's) all in a fairly bad way with the first two of those having announced closure dates (2022 and 2017 respectively) and AGL making no secret that Torrens Island's days are numbered.

Wind - designed for 25 years but there's not enough real world experience to really say. Sure, some were installed back in the 1980's but they were quite a bit different to what's being installed today.

Solar - much the same as wind.

Hydro - pretty much forever if well maintained but maintenance is really the key. They'll fall in a heap if not looked after as will anything but with decent maintenance will last an incredibly long time (centuries potentially).


----------



## sptrawler

In reality the discussion at the moment, is more Nation building and costs $2billion, than the NBN which is going to cost $70 billion.
It isn't meant to be a chap shot, it is just that sensible cheap renewable power, will assist Australia much more than high speed internet.IMO
We aren't there with cheap renewable power, but we certainly have thrown ourselves in the deep end.

I'm sure it will stimulate a lot of new clever technological ideas, it will have to the way we are blowing up base load power stations. but as they say necessity is the mother of invention.

Australia is historically good at overcoming adversity, and is renowned for rising to the challenge, it may actually be something that builds a bit of cohesion and unity.
That would be great, we definitely need that, it may bring the Labor and Liberal Parties to a common focus.
I personally feel the dice has now been rolled, we are the guinea pigs again, so a lot of thought needs to be applied to gain a sensible outcome.
S.A has forced everyone's hand, and to let them go alone won't happen, therefore a more serious approach will be taken.
This really will be interesting. IMO


----------



## moXJO

sptrawler said:


> In reality the discussion at the moment, is more Nation building and costs $2billion




If done near union strongholds then you can blow this figure out to $10-20billion under the libs.


----------



## sptrawler

moXJO said:


> If done near union strongholds then you can blow this figure out to $10-20billion under the libs.



One hopes not, it really does need to rise above personal greed, this is really important for Australia.

At the moment, we have one side of politics blowing up our only source of cheap power, while the other side is pointing the finger and saying that's naughty.
The whole thing is a political fiasco, to the detriment of Australia in general, it is about time they both grew up and sorted it out.
It really is a focal point, as to the financial future, and living standards in Australia. IMO

As someone pointedly said " It's worse than that, Jim".


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> At the moment, we have one side of politics blowing up our only source of cheap power




The sad thing is you're correct. 

Blowing up as in literally blowing up previously perfectly good power stations with explosives. Can't get much more dramatic than that.


----------



## noco

sptrawler said:


> One hopes not, it really does need to rise above personal greed, this is really important for Australia.
> 
> At the moment, we have one side of politics blowing up our only source of cheap power, while the other side is pointing the finger and saying that's naughty.
> The whole thing is a political fiasco, to the detriment of Australia in general, it is about time they both grew up and sorted it out.
> It really is a focal point, as to the financial future, and living standards in Australia. IMO
> 
> As someone pointedly said " It's worse than that, Jim".




The problem is there are too many trying to steer the ship and now it is heading for the rocks.


----------



## sptrawler

moXJO said:


> Awesome stuff smurf.
> Out of interest how long do the battery storage systems last?



From my understanding Teslas battery banks are zillions(exaggeration), but heaps of 2 volt AA batteries, they may be bigger, but you get the idea.
They require heaps of cooling tubes running through the battery banks, from my understanding, it really is in its infancy.
https://yournz.org/2017/01/05/tesla-cars-to-be-powered-by-aa-batteries/

That was a quick link, but I have read a lot of info, that indicates they use a lot of very small cells connected in series, parallel configuration to give the output.
Just do your own research, and read up a bit on the realities.
There is no doubt batteries will be a huge component of our energy distribution future, but as to jumping in big time at this point, I would say tread carefully.IMO


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> At the moment, we have one side of politics blowing up our only source of cheap power, while the other side is pointing the finger and saying that's naughty.




Which side is that ?

The one that sold Hazlewood in the first place ?


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> Which side is that ?
> 
> The one that sold Hazlewood in the first place ?




Truth of the matter is that the Federal Govt have been using SA as the whipping boy for months, but now people are getting true facts and  WA has gone Labor,  Malcolm and his boys want Glasnost. It's been an unedifying display of childish pranks (e.g. lumps of coal), childish arguments and the public have by and large seen through that.

Malcolm's job is on the line so now he's pushing grand halo schemes and interviews explaining he's above politics, while still taking swipes at the Premier of SA. How a paid politician can'purport he's not political is a bit strange.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Hydro - pretty much forever if well maintained but maintenance is really the key. They'll fall in a heap if not looked after as will anything but with decent maintenance will last an incredibly long time (centuries potentially).




Also the possibility of long term drought which is not unknown.

Given that, would it be more sensible to build pumped hydro on the coast, pumping sea water ?


----------



## SirRumpole

Seawater pumped hydro being investigated for SA.

https://theconversation.com/snowy-h...awater-hydro-could-help-south-australia-74442


----------



## moXJO

SirRumpole said:


> Seawater pumped hydro being investigated for SA.
> 
> https://theconversation.com/snowy-h...awater-hydro-could-help-south-australia-74442




Sounds like a better idea then battery storage and a lot longer lasting for the money


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Also the possibility of long term drought which is not unknown.
> 
> Given that, would it be more sensible to build pumped hydro on the coast, pumping sea water ?




Hydro power stations run a lot of water through them but they don't consume it as such.

There's about 32,500 litres per second going through Tarraleah (Tas) at the moment. That's 32,500 litres per second going into the two pipelines at the Tarraleah forebay, the same volume then split into 6 penstocks at the top of the hill and the same volume comes out of the power station into Lake Liapootah. Actual consumption of water is literally zero apart from a minor amount of evaporation and losses in the canals between the dam and the forebay. Every drop of water that goes in is available for other uses (like the 6 other power stations and then Hobart's water supply plus industrial and irrigation use) downstream.

So conventional hydro works by moving water from one place to another at lower elevation with nature (ultimately solar energy) doing the pumping via natural rainfall.

Only difference with a pumped storage scheme is that the pumping up hill is done by pumps as such but there's still no water being consumed apart from evaporation from the lakes.

It's not totally impossible I suppose, but if we ever get a drought bad enough to dry major lakes up due to evaporation then Australia is going to have far bigger problems than electricity. We'd have abandoned practically every rural town and even places like Canberra long before it came to that point. So not totally impossible but certainly unprecedented and if it does happen then electricity will be well down our list of concerns at that point.

In contrast a coal or nuclear plant, plus some gas-fired plants, do actually consume considerable amounts of water in order to operate. In a worst case drought scenario they'd have come to a halt well before we lost all the water in a pumped storage scheme.

So overall it's not totally impossible but it's extremely unlikely.


----------



## Smurf1976

moXJO said:


> Sounds like a better idea then battery storage and a lot longer lasting for the money



Absolutely.

Tas is still running a hydro station built over a century ago and it's working today just as well as it did when new. It's running right now actually. Likewise Tarraleah (1938) also running at the moment and we've got another 5 stations from the 1950's also all still fully operational today with 3 of them running at the moment. 

As for batteries well I'll put it this way. Just about everyone on this forum would own devices which some form of rechargeable battery. Your own experience over the years has likely involved batteries failing and that's the reality of what happens. When you've got a chemical reaction involving corrosion at work then lifespan is ultimately finite no matter how well it's designed and maintained.

Hydro - life is measured in decades and can easily exceed a century or longer.

Batteries - life is measured in years and if it gets to a decade you're doing pretty well.


----------



## Smurf1976

Basslink (Tas - Vic) disconnected for a planned 5 day outage at 4am this morning.

No power supply problems are expected in Tas since we've got plenty of generating capacity and water to run it with. In Vic the weather is forecast to be mild enough to not be a concern.

Coincidentally the gas price has dropped recently so in Tas we're running one of the open cycle gas turbines, the more efficient one, as well as the CCGT but that's for purely economic reasons. The hydro system would easily meet demand without running gas but there's no point using more water now if someone's willing to sell gas at a price that makes more sense to use that instead and keep the water for use at some future time. The 3 less efficient gas turbines aren't being run, since their lower efficiency means the economics don't stack up, but they could be run if the gas price dropped further or as a backup if something went wrong.

So all good there. Now AGL just have to move their great big 2100 tonne mining machine in Vic and then the cable can be put back up. With a top travel speed of 0.5 km/h they won't get done for speeding that's for sure. Looks like a pretty massive task though.


----------



## Smurf1976

Some info on what's going on with the machine being moved:

http://www.latrobevalleyexpress.com.au/story/4479008/road-trip-of-epic-proportions/

A 19km trip that's expected to take almost a month.


----------



## Value Collector




----------



## moXJO

Value Collector said:


>




I wonder how the batteries do in extreme heat?
Can't say I'm sold on the tech just yet.


----------



## Value Collector

moXJO said:


> I wonder how the batteries do in extreme heat?
> Can't say I'm sold on the tech just yet.




I know they have a heat management system in their car batteries, I would imagine if heat were a problem they would have a similar system to deal with it.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> I know they have a heat management system in their car batteries, I would imagine if heat were a problem they would have a similar system to deal with it.




A lot of fans that consume all the power the batteries put out.

Tsk, tsk, cynic.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> A lot of fans that consume all the power the batteries put out.
> 
> Tsk, tsk, cynic.



Their car battery is liquid cooled, so I guess the stationary systems would be too, without the need to be light weight, you could actually have a thermo syphon convection based cooling system, that only needed a fan in extreme cases.


----------



## SirRumpole

I wonder when someone will rediscover the Stirling engine that just needs a thermal gradient to operate. 

There seems to be a lot of heat going to waste.


----------



## Value Collector




----------



## sptrawler

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/01/31/tesla-needs-just-three-months-complete-worlds-largest-grid-storage-facility/https://cleantechnica.com/2017/01/31/tesla-needs-just-three-months-complete-worlds-largest-grid-storage-facility/

That is a lot of individual cells, that will need some sort of management, at the end of their useful life.
Just another take on it, I think Rumpole's idea of pumped storage has a lot more merit, at this point in time.
But hey, it's anyone's guess, which way this energy debacle will fall.

However 6,336,000 cells, seems like a lot to me.


----------



## moXJO

sptrawler said:


> https://cleantechnica.com/2017/01/31/tesla-needs-just-three-months-complete-worlds-largest-grid-storage-facility/https://cleantechnica.com/2017/01/31/tesla-needs-just-three-months-complete-worlds-largest-grid-storage-facility/
> 
> That is a lot of individual cells, that will need some sort of management, at the end of their useful life.
> Just another take on it, I think Rumpole's idea of pumped storage has a lot more merit, at this point in time.
> But hey, it's anyone's guess, which way this energy debacle will fall.
> 
> However 6,336,000 cells, seems like a lot to me.



Look up "flow batteries" The tech can be scaled up very easily. Might still have some cost problems. Heard a little bit about them on the radio today.


----------



## sptrawler

Battery technology is trying to bridge the gap of energy density, and charge time, they are both a major hurdle and overcoming it is proving a massive problem.
Capacitor technology has the charge time advantage, battery chemistry has the energy density, combining the two is the problem which currently is the stumbling block.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> Just another take on it, I think Rumpole's idea of pumped storage has a lot more merit, at this point in time.
> But hey, it's anyone's guess, which way this energy debacle will fall.
> 
> However 6,336,000 cells, seems like a lot to me.




There is huge limitations o pumped storage.

you can't just build a dam system anywhere you want, however you can install batteries pretty much anywhere, in any scale.

and pumped storage is really just a hydro power plant, you are just really adding generation capacity, and generating capacity isn't the problem, the problem is being able to time shift the power, e.g. store renewable energy and use it later in the day.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> the problem is being able to time shift the power, e.g. store renewable energy and use it later in the day.




That's exactly what both pumped *storage *and batteries do. Neither is a generation system, they both need power to 'recharge' , but they can both release the power when needed.

There is no conceptual difference between pumped storage and batteries, the difference is in the technology used.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Neither is a generation system, they both need power to 'recharge' , but they can both release the power when needed.
> 
> .




What is the difference between pumped storage and a regular hydro generation?

I can't see a difference except that the pumped storage dam is built in a poor location that requires refilling by pump rather than natural rain fall.

How fast do you reckon you can setup a decent sized pumped storage dam?
Where can you put it?

Batteries can go anywhere, included in existing substations or even at peoples houses.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> What is the difference between pumped storage and a regular hydro generation?




Pumped hydro recirculates water and is therefore not dependent on rainfall to fill the dam.

There is obviously a place for batteries. You can't build pumped hydro for a house or small business. It's a matter of how well they scale up to power cities. They don't last forever and eventually need to be replaced. In the absence of disasters like earthquakes, pumped hydro will last decades -> centuries.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Pumped hydro recirculates water and is therefore not dependent on rainfall to fill the dam.
> 
> .




Thats my point, its no different to building a regular hydro dam, except you have to pump the water.


> (Batteries) They don't last forever and eventually need to be replaced. In the absence of disasters like earthquakes, pumped hydro will last decades -> centuries




So a hydro system requires no maintenance, for decades or centuries??? 

Sure you have to replace battery cells eventually, their life will get better and better as the chemistry improves, the moving parts in pumps and turbines will need to be replaced also.

Not to mention all the environmental considerations of building dams.


But the concept of pumped hydro has been around for decades, if its the silver bullet, why isn't it already filling the gap, the answer is its not easy to just build pumped hydro everywhere.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> But the concept of pumped hydro has been around for decades, if its the silver bullet, why isn't it already filling the gap, the answer is its not easy to just build pumped hydro everywhere.




Governments don't want to spend money and companies don't want to invest in big infrastructure.

That could be about to change as we seem to have reached a tipping point.

What about the environmental factors of  disposing of used batteries ?


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> T
> 
> 
> But the concept of pumped hydro has been around for decades, if its the silver bullet, why isn't it already filling the gap, the answer is its not easy to just build pumped hydro everywhere.



Value Collector
The reason it sin't already filling the gap is, we didn't need it we had cheap power, until recently.





SirRumpole said:


> What about the environmental factors of  disposing of used batteries ?




That's not the only issue, at present the amount of carbon footprint, digging up the resources and manufacturing batteries has to be taken into the equation. The EV is less polluting than an internal combustion engine vehicle, but they are still polluting.


----------



## Smurf1976

A few comments relating to various recent posts. 

Generation versus storage: If it puts power into the grid then from a technical perspective it's a source of generation. Likewise anything that takes power out of the grid is a load. Beyond that it's all semantics really. 

There is no practical means of storing AC power at present and due to the very nature of it quite likely there never will be. Instead, what we do have the ability to do is to take AC power from the grid, convert it into something else which can be stored, and then use that something else at a later time to produce AC power when we need it. But we can't store AC power as such.

So a battery or pumped hydro system is using stored energy to generate AC power "on the spot" in the same way as a coal-fired plant is using the stored energy in coal to generate AC power "on the spot". Same with nuclear, gas and so on. They all involve taking one form of energy and converting it, often via multiple steps, into AC power.

Coal or nuclear : Chemical energy in the coal > heat > steam > mechanical power > electrical power.

Hydro: Kinetic energy from the falling water > mechanical power > electrical power.

A power station of whatever type is simply a building(s) housing machinery that takes one form of energy (kinetic, chemical etc) and converts it into electrical power. That's it really, everything else is just supporting infrastructure from canals to workshops to cooling towers.

So what's the point of storage then? 

In short it enables AC power to be taken from the grid, converted into something else which can be stored, stores that something else, then runs back the other way to convert that stored energy back into AC power.

Batteries: AC power > DC power > chemical reaction > stored chemical energy. Then to get it back to AC power it's: stored chemical energy > chemical reaction > DC power > AC power.

Pumped hydro: AC power > mechanical power > stored as kinetic energy (water pumped up hill). Then to get it back: Kinetic energy (water run down hill) > mechanical power > AC power.

The underlying reason to have storage is not to store AC power as such, we can't do that at least at present, but to enable the use of an energy source which is intermittently available as the "fuel" to run the generators. Typically that energy source is surplus coal or nuclear power (when demand is low) or intermittent sources such as wind or solar when production exceeds present demand (strong wind in the middle of the night, full sun at noon on a mild day, etc).

The inverter (drawing on the batteries) or hydro turbines are still generators though when they put power back into the grid, at no point do they store AC power as such. All that differs is how we get the energy ("fuel") to run them. Making it using AC power taken from the grid overnight etc versus mining coal or gas. 

So do we need storage?

If we want to use more intermittent sources of generation (solar, wind etc) then yes we do. There will be times when we need more power than the wind etc can produce at that point in time and other times when we have more wind energy than we can use. Using that surplus AC power from wind etc when it's available, storing it as kinetic or chemical energy, and then using that stored energy to run a generator is a workaround to the problem that wind and solar are intermittent.

If we don't want to use more intermittent sources then the only reason to build storage is if doing so is cheaper than building more generating capacity to directly use coal, gas etc. Historically the 3 pumped storage schemes we have now in Australia were built for that reason - taking surplus energy from coal-fired power stations overnight and storing it was cheaper than either building more coal-fired power stations to meet peak demand or alternatively using oil-fired generation (gas wasn't really an option back then).

Lifespan: Hydro, either pumped or natural flow (reservoir filled by a river, the conventional approach to hydro and which does produce energy as such since no pumping is required) is inherently durable since it involves few moving parts, does not involve corrosion as part of its operation (as batteries do) and nothing operates at high temperatures. Keep the machines well maintained, paint the inside of the pipelines every few decades, keep a watch on the dam to make sure it hasn't deteriorated and that's pretty much it. All that stuff lasts a very, very long time if properly maintained.

Looking at the Tasmanian experience, Hydro Tas has 53 large dams, about 150 smaller structures (weirs etc), 30 power stations with 61 generating units and the system was progressively commissioned since 1914. 

Thus far only 2 large dams have required any major work:

Rowallan was given a major upgrade due to concerns that it didn't meet modern standards and could become a risk in the event of a truly major flood. So the top of the dam was literally dismantled, the spillway rebuilt, and the dam put back together again. It now meets modern standards for safety.

Catagunya, the largest dam of its type in the world when built and still internationally significant today, had the steel cables (which are under incredibly high stress constantly) replaced only because Hydro couldn't prove beyond all doubt that they hadn't deteriorated. They may well have been fine but it couldn't be proven that they weren't deteriorating so they were replaced "just in case". Better to be safe than sorry.

The original Miena 1 & 2 dams were replaced by No. 3 dam but that was to increase storage capacity and not due to any problem with the old dams. Just wanted a higher one, something that wasn't done originally since there was no need (or $) at that time.

The others are all monitored but doing fine so far.

For the power stations, they all get very regular maintenance but haven't required replacement as such.

The original Waddamana A & B stations plus Shannon were replaced by Poatina not due to being worn out, they weren't worn out, but because development of Poatina at a different location more than doubled power production from the same water source. It wasn't done that way originally since (1) no need for that much power, Poatina alone generates far more than anyone could have used when Waddamana was commissioned back in 1916 and (2) the technology to build power stations underground with incredibly high water pressure just didn't exist back then. Also there would have been insufficient $ to build it back then even if it had been possible.

Duck Reach was replaced by Trevallyn for the same reason. 40 times the output using the same water. Not done originally because back in 1895 there just wasn't a need for much power.

So none of them have worn out and all the others are still running just fine. Tarraleah (1938) and Lake Margaret (1914) are both old and still going strong today.

For the other bits, well the wooden pipeline at Lake Margaret had to be replaced due to wearing out (but hey, it was built of wood so lasted pretty well actually) and every now and then there's a bit of work done on canals, weirs etc to keep them in good order but it's nothing major, just maintenance really.

So overall the experience has been that a few things will go wrong but overall the system is incredibly robust provided that proper maintenance is done. Yes, Hydro most certainly does check literally everything at regular intervals and if a pipeline needs painting inside then it gets painted. Etc.

The experience with the Snowy scheme and at older hydro plants in Victoria is much the same. A few bits and pieces need to be fixed every now and then, plus regular maintenance, but as whole they're very robust.

So far as I'm aware the only major hydro failure, beyond minor breakdowns etc which happen to all mechanical things, in Australia thus far has been Dartmouth power station (Vic) which failed catastrophically in 1990 when two steel beams entered the turbine, stopping it immediately, and the force of that moved the whole structure about 2 metres. Major damage resulted which took about 3 years to repair. 

So apart from that one incident the track record of hydro in Australia is pretty good. 

So what about batteries then?

There's a lot less experience with large scale batteries but the crux if of it is that they have a limited lifespan by virtue of how a battery works. 10 years is what most will say but you might get 20 if you're lucky and it's not used too heavily. There's not a lot that can be done to extend that - it's not like you can go inside a battery and patch things up.

What about the environment?

Any form of storage has the advantage of enabling greater use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. That's the good part.

Hydro: There's no denying that building a hydro scheme alters the local environment but the actual impacts are extremely site specific. One thing though, the effects are there for all to see - go and have a look at any hydro scheme and you can see the impact for yourself whereas it's much harder to determine the full impact of something like a gas-fired power station once you consider production of the gas as well as the use of it.

Battery: Mining and processing of metals are the big ones environmentally and it's hard to assess every impact given the lengthy supply chain involved. All that can really be said is that it's the opposite of hydro in that it's not really site specific at all, pretty much the same impact no matter where you put it.

Which is better really comes down to the specific site (hydro) and what your environmental priorities are. Some will argue that toxic materials are the biggest problem, others will say it's habitat destruction or river flows which matter most. So it's hard to really compare one to the other without referring to a specific site for hydro and having previously decided what the environmental priorities are.


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## sptrawler

As usual a terrific post smurph, one thing that I feel could be added, pumped storage and hydro gives inertia which you have mentioned in earlier posts.
From my limited exposure to large scale battery/inverter UPS, they wouldn't be able to black start a grid of any magnitude, where as a hydro/turbine could.
I'm not against batteries, far from it, I just think at present it is difficult to sift the advertising bling from facts.
They have a place and they are getting better and better, but IMO they have a long way to go, Tesla stuffing 6,000,000 cells in containers doesn't do it for me.
Could someone tell me how many megawatts the Tesla installation was, and how big an installation the S.A Government is talking about?


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## SirRumpole

You have done it again Smurf, thanks.


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## sptrawler

Smurph, Bass link inverter is what 500MW, could it be used to black start Victoria, or does it need a supply to synchronise to?


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Smurph, Bass link inverter is what 500MW, could it be used to black start Victoria, or does it need a supply to synchronise to?



The output limits are 594 MW into Vic only (for short periods - few hours) and 478 MW in either direction continuously.

I'm actually not certain if it could be used for a black start or not, that certainly hasn't ever been done, but I think the answer is no. 

Certainly here in Tas if we ever had to do a black start (let's hope not but it's not impossible it could happen) then at the main generation level it would be done with hydro. At the house (power station) set level there's an assortment of small hydro units and diesels for that specific purpose. 

In layman's terms - start the small hydro unit, use power from that to start the main generators and then liven up the grid. Diesel engine as a second way of doing it just in case the small hydro unit happened to break at the worst possible time. Also batteries at some power stations. That all gets tested in various exercises, and it does go as far as disconnecting a power station from the grid and black starting that station, but thankfully it hasn't been necessary to do it for the grid as such for a very long time (many decades).


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## sptrawler

In W.A we've had a couple of black starts, we used a small gas turbine, but I've never seen a battery inverter system that can synch a dead system.
The only ones I've seen have been U.P.S systems, three phase, with lead acid batteries. Reasonable size though, they were backup on a communications base.


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## macca

Thanks Smurf, good info, well written so that us laymen can understand it.

It would seem to me that pumped hydro is a reliable proven method and batteries are the latest whiz bang idea. I would be prepared to bet that the SA government will jump at the batteries 

PS: After avidly reading all of Smurfs stuff, we laymen of ASF probably know more about electrical storage and networks in OZ than 95% of the population, including the pollies


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## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> In W.A we've had a couple of black starts, we used a small gas turbine, but I've never seen a battery inverter system that can synch a dead system.
> The only ones I've seen have been U.P.S systems, three phase, with lead acid batteries. Reasonable size though, they were backup on a communications base.




Once upon a time commercial high rise would have backup generators, some synched many not. Should be mandatory in all high rise, including apartments with grid load shed start via the state energy regulator.

My preference was always gas turbine in the 80's


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## basilio

macca said:


> Thanks Smurf, good info, well written so that us laymen can understand it.
> 
> It would seem to me that pumped hydro is a reliable proven method and batteries are the latest whiz bang idea. I would be prepared to bet that the SA government will jump at the batteries
> 
> PS: After avidly reading all of Smurfs stuff, we laymen of ASF probably know more about electrical storage and networks in OZ than 95% of the population, including the pollies




Yep.  But closer to 99.5% of people.  Great analysis Smurf. Much appreciated


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## Smurf1976

Thanks for the positive comments everyone. 

There's a bit of confusion and an assortment of conflicting stories about the detail but the shutdown of Hazelwood is now imminent. Depending on who you listen to the shutdown begins either tomorrow (Friday) or alternatively on Monday, or possibly sometime in between.

Either way it's imminent and now the panic seems to be getting underway with claims and counter claims politically and a few calls for government intervention to stop the shutdown.

There has already been a major effect on prices, with hedge contracts for coming months being close to triple historic prices. Suffice to say that impact makes the carbon tax look rather trivial in comparison.

Hydro Tas was the fist to visibly act with a revaluation of water in storage and Snowy Hydro has since done much the same. Obviously both businesses would have slightly differing views but they both see prices going up. They have no real choice other than to change their own pricing by the way, if they didn't then they'd be drastically undercutting everyone else and the result of that is that AEMO would dispatch them flat out and empty the lakes pretty quickly (especially Snowy). They need to price in a manner that results in physical dispatch matching what's sustainable, limited by water inflows, so that's what they've done.

Snowy has recently become keener on pumping (pumped storage) at Tumut 3, the largest Snowy Hydro station (and the largest hydro plant owned by anyone in Australia). This power station is both a conventional hydro scheme, it generates net energy through water diversion, but also has the ability to pump and that's getting some more use than it has done in recent years.

Hydro Tas has simply looked at the market and is finding that running gas-fired generation is actually profitable at times so that's what it's doing. With the water in major storages having a high value going forward and gas prices moderate at the moment it makes sense to use some gas. So the Tamar Valley CCGT has been running base load since January and recently the modest size (58 MW) OCGT next to it has has been getting some use in preference to the hydro stations. Also no secret in the industry that Hydro has been buying pretty much everything it can get from rivals on the spot market in order to supply its own contracted loads. No point using your own water when it's rapidly gaining value and someone else is still selling cheaply.

A number of generating companies, and that includes publicly listed ones such as AGL and Origin, others such as Energy Australia and government owned ones such as Hydro Tas have all been doing a lot of maintenance lately. If you've got to take plant offline for a while then you may as well do it before Hazelwood closes and sends prices through the roof.

Who's actually going to pick up volume once Hazelwood does shut remains to be seen but most likely the answer is "just about everyone". AGL and Origin will probably gain some volume via their coal and gas plants. Snowy and Hydro Tas will likely generate more from gas and will operate their hydro systems differently. Energy Australia don't have so many options but they've got some as have others.

What Engie, owners of Hazelwood, will do is anyone's guess at this stage given they don't seem overly keen on actually generating power at Pelican Point and they already run Loy Yang B pretty much flat out.

None of the others can add more peak power into Vic without investing in something new however. All they'll be doing is running what they've already got harder in the absence of Hazelwood. Keeps the lights on when demand is moderate but doesn't fix the problem during the peaks.

So we're now pretty much on the eve of all this starting to unfold. If not tomorrow then it's next week. Could get interesting and the biggest issue in the short term is going to be financial rather than physical. Don't be surprised if retailers who don't have their own generation start going broke and if a few factories announce closure in the very near future.

As of now, output from Hazelwood (note that all units are nominally 200 MW although for several years post-privatisation were routinely run at 220 MW constantly. The SECV never went beyond the designed 200 MW so far as I'm aware and typically ran a bit below that.)

Unit 1 = 165 MW
Unit 2 = 180 MW
Unit 3 = 170 MW
Unit 4 = 161 MW
Unit 5 = 174 MW
Unit 6 = 176 MW
Unit 7 = 182 MW
Unit 8 = 128 MW

So all running but not going brilliantly which is no surprise. 5 of them have "fix it or shut it" orders from workplace safety regulators because the boilers are stuffed (in layman's terms the pipes have thinned out too much due to corrosion and are in danger of bursting - and we're talking high pressure steam suddenly being released here if they do fail, hence the interest of workplace safety inspectors).

Pipes? There's a whole lot of pipe here not just a few bits. Think in terms of "boiler is actually built out of pipes" not "there's a pipe coming out of the boiler". However many pipes you're imagining rest assured there's a lot more. A hundred times more than you're likely thinking. Hence whilst patch ups aren't uncommon actually replacing them all is a major exercise (cost if they did it would be over $100 million certainly).

Another problem they have is with the coal mills. Put simply raw coal from the mine goes into the mill and comes out as a fine dust (like talcum powder except that it's coal) and it's that dust which is burnt in the boilers. Now, there's 8 mills per boiler, 8 boilers in the station = 64 mills and I'm reliably told that the whole lot are in bad shape.

You might be getting the impression that the owners have let the place run down......


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## SirRumpole

Meanwhile the politicians run around like headless chooks.

I would like to be in the backup generator business right now...


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## noco

SirRumpole said:


> Meanwhile the politicians run around like headless chooks.
> 
> I would like to be in the backup generator business right now...




Yes, particularly in South Australia and Victoria.....Well, Jay Weatherill has told big business in SA to install their own generators because he cannot guarantee supply .......More diesel generators means more air pollution which they and the Greenies are trying to prevent...It does not really make sense....They are defeating their own purpose with renewable energy which is dearer and unreliable


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## sptrawler

Smurph, it will be interesting if, as happened at North Power Station in S.A, they start blowing it up.

That would really put a cracker up the pollies bums, I bet they are already thinking of nationalising Hazelwood.


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## SirRumpole

The following article was written by a political reporter but contains technical aspects of frequency control that Smurf may like to comment on.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-...s-power-system-weakened-by-wind-solar/8381356


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## sptrawler

Turnbull's statement, may come back to haunt him.

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-po...y-to-keep-hazelwood-open-20170323-gv5d5y.html

An extract below:
In an opinion piece for News Corp, Mr Abbott said taxpayers should subsidise Hazelwood to keep it alive until Mr Turnbull's proposed $2 billion expansion of the Snowy Hydro scheme comes online sometime next decade.

"If we want secure and affordable power supplies, we can't lose the ones we currently have even if they involve burning coal," Mr Abbott wrote.
The push has been rejected by the federal and Victorian governments. Mr Turnbull said Hazelwood's closure was a commercial decision taken by its majority owner, French giant Engie, and there was more than enough generation capacity to cover its loss.


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> The following article was written by a political reporter but contains technical aspects of frequency control that Smurf may like to comment on.



Translating it to layman's terms: 

An AC power system (eg the grid) runs at a specified frequency which in Australia is 50 Hz. So that's 50 complete cycles of the AC sine wave each second.

A key concept is that anything sychronised to the grid will be at the same frequency. So the frequency at Loy Yang power station (Vic) will the same as someone could measure in their home in Brisbane since it's all one big interconnected AC system.

Now, the frequency needs to be controlled pretty tightly. A 1% variation is pushing the limits of what's acceptable. If it's 2% then that's an incident and warrants a proper engineering investigation and report. If we're talking about 5% or more away from where it should be then at that point a total system collapse is a very definite possibility since neither power stations nor connected loads will be happy at that level.

So it's like saying that you're driving a car at 50 km/h. Slow below 49.5 km/h and that's a problem. Below 49 and you'll find yourself being thoroughly investigated as to what went wrong. Below 47.5 and there's a risk that you've just wrecked the car and at the very least it's now coming to a complete standstill, getting it going again will take hours or days.

So it's all pretty unforgiving and there's not much room for error.

If generator output exceeds load then frequency will rise across the entire system. The opposite will occur if generator output is less than load. This all happens pretty quickly - seconds or at the most minutes depending on the severity of the mismatch.

All of which brings about two key requirements for generation:

1. It must match the combined load of all consumers in real time. Therein lies the problem with wind and solar with their uncontrolled and constantly varying outputs versus the directly controllable output from coal, gas or hydro.

2. The more inertia you've got, the better.

Inertia? In simple terms it's just physical mass. You've got a great big steam, gas or hydro turbine with a lot of metal in it. That physical attribute means there's energy stored simply by virtue of it turning and it takes quite a bit of effort to slow it down. Lots of big rotating machines thus naturally tend to stabilise system frequency.

As a concept that's very similar to a fully loaded freight train. It slows down only gradually even if someone were to completely cut power (from whatever source eg diesel) to the engines. The train will travel quite some distance before it completely stops. Even applying the brakes it still takes a while because all that energy, inertia, has to go somewhere (dissipated as heat in this case).

In contrast a solar panel and most wind farms contribute absolutely zero inertia to the grid. Zero. Even though wind does involve big rotating machines, they're not synchronised to the grid directly - and it's hard to do that with wind because if they were synchronous machines then they'd always be turning at the same speed.

There are some partial workarounds to create "synthetic" intertia at wind farms using fancy electronics. That helps but (1) no amount of electronics is at present a full substitute for the sheer physical mass of a great big rotating steam, gas or hydro turbine and alternator and (2) most wind farms don't have that at all since it costs more $ to install, means more things to maintain, and produces no extra revenue.

So a grid being powered predominantly by solar or wind becomes electrically weak. It can still be delivering the exact same quantity of power as if it were supplied from coal, gas or hydro but without those big rotating machines there just isn't the inertia to stabilise frequency. It becomes like a motorbike rather than a freight train - speed increases or decreases very easily.

If there's low intertia then the room for error in matching generation to load decreases accordingly and generation now needs to respond far more quickly to changes in load. Problem is, the very same circumstances which create that low inertia, high use of wind and solar, are the same generation sources which aren't much good at varying their output in response to changes in load.

This creates a situation where the remaining synchronous generators, that's coal, gas, hydro and any oil-fired plant that happens to be running, are now in a situation of generating (say) 30% of the power but having to provide 100% of the response to changing load _and they've got to respond to changing output from wind and solar as well. _If load goes up at the same time as wind and solar output falls, or vice versa, then that's a pretty tough challenge for the few synchronous machines to cope with.

Overall it's a bit like any situation where only a small % of the team are really playing the game and everyone else is along for the ride. Works only as long as it doesn't get too difficult but it's pretty easy to end up in a situation where those seriously playing are "swamped' and just can't cope, after which the whole thing collapses.

As analogy, suppose that you were given the task (with full backing of the law etc so all legit) of stabilising the ASX20. Your job is to keep the index precisely flat overall, with daily variations no greater than 0.5%. You can buy or sell any stock in the index you like, you've got as much cash as you'll need and you can order any company to issue new shares at any time of your choosing so as to dilute their value. Sounds pretty easy doesn't it? Just buy or sell all 20 stocks as needed to keep the price flat. So easy you could do it sitting on the beach just using a smart phone.

Now suppose I change the rules of that game and that you must still keep the ASX20 flat but the only stock you can trade is BHP. Nothing else. You can buy as many BHP shares as you like but you can't increase their price to anything above the historic all time high and you can't decrease it below 20% of its all time high. And you can't do anything at all about the other 19 stocks in the index. 

That's going to work just fine so long as the other 19 stocks only move by fractions of a % but you're completely screwed if there's a decent move. Doubling the price of BHP, whilst the other 19 all fall 20%, isn't going to keep the index stable. It might work this week or even this year but pretty clearly it's going to fail at some point given that you have no control over most of what you're trying to stabilise.

That latter scenario is comparable to the dilemma faced by synchronous generators in a system with heavy use of wind and solar. They can keep frequency stable only as long as nothing major happens. The moment we get a surge in load combined with the wind rapidly diminishing they're pretty much stuffed and the whole system falls in a heap.

Under normal circumstances only the SA and Tasmanian grids are ever electrically "weak".

SA - because at times wind can supply more than 100% of the system load. 

Tas - because under certain circumstances there's a single very large generation source (Basslink supply from Vic) which generally occurs at the same time (middle of the night when power is cheap in Vic so Hydro Tas is a keen buyer) as overall system load is low and just 4 factories are using 70% of all power consumed in the state. 

In Tas the workaround is an elaborate and unique (custom designed and built) system which dumps specific industrial loads in the event of a non-synchronous generation (Basslink) failure before the rest of the grid even "sees" that anything happened. That effectively contains any sudden failure to only affecting specific industrial loads with neither the hydro system nor other consumers "seeing" any impact at all.

In Tas there's also a similar scheme to make the GGCT (gas) plant seem smaller than it is in the event that it suddenly fails. So if the CCGT fails then the hydro system takes about 69% of the "shock" and the rest is dissipated via a specific industrial load. That was done to eliminate risk to the rest of the system if the worst does happen.

It wouldn't be impossible to have the hydro system absorb those shocks, failure of either Basslink or the CCGT, by the way and technically it can certainly do that. Trouble is that doing so means running a lot of machines at low output for extended periods when 99.9% of the time there's no need (knowable only in hindsight). That costs money through loss of efficiency and unnecessary wear on machines so the workarounds were done for economic reasons with the benefits being shared between Hydro and those industries forming part of the scheme.

The underlying issue with Tas is simply that Basslink is the only link to other states. Any failure, even just a random trip for no real reason (and that's an inherent risk with DC interconnectors especially those not running parallel to an AC link), thus results in the Tas system becoming completely independent of the other states. That's not a problem in itself, we just did 5 days running separately due to a planned outage of Basslink, but it creates technical difficulties if such a failure occurs suddenly without warning when Basslink is operating at a high level of transfer. Hence the workarounds to keep the system stable if that occurs (and there have been far more incidents than those reported publicly although most are simply a trip - best analogy would be having to restart a computer after it locked up but after restarting it then works perfectly and there's nothing actually wrong with it as such).  

In SA the present "workaround" involves large scale blackouts. They don't have any elaborate control systems, just the normal UFLS (Under Frequency Load Shedding) that every grid has but nothing else. Beyond that, all they can do is "export" the problem to Victoria via drawing heavily through the interconnector but that has limits and with the system collapse last year those limits were exceeded to the point that the interconnector shut down to protect itself from damage due to being heavily overloaded. There was another very close "near miss" incident more recently when the explosion happened at Torrens Island - the interconnector was certainly overloaded for a brief period and came pretty close to the "throw my hands in the air and give up" point. 

End result is that if something goes wrong when the grid is in an electrically weak position in SA then the lights go out in a big way if the problem is too large to be stabilised via Victoria or whatever synchronous (gas or diesel in SA's case) generation happens to be running at the time.

Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic don't presently have these issues since:

1. At no time is wind, solar or other non-synchronous and controllable generation dominant. The majority of supply being from dispatchable synchronous generation - coal, gas, hydro and on occasion minor amounts from oil. They don't presently have the issue with very high levels of wind and solar, as a % of the total, as occurs in SA.

2. Generally no issues with loss of interconnection. Vic and NSW are strongly interconnected at AC via the Snowy scheme and that applies even if all Snowy power stations are idle at the time (as they commonly are overnight). Qld - NSW are connected by two AC and one DC circuit which are pretty reliable in practice. ACT is simply part of the NSW system, any distinction between the two being purely administrative rather than technical. 

3. No individual loads or generation sources account for a large portion of the total as occurs in Tas.

WA (south west) system is completely separate to anything else and also reasonably robust. There is wind and solar but it's not dominant to the extent that it is in SA. That said, as a smaller system not connected to anywhere else it does have some vulnerabilities, a problem can't be shared with another state but must be dealt with locally, and that has caused some issues in the past but overall it's fairly robust. 

NT has multiple small systems, each completely independent of each other and not electrically connected. Darwin and surrounds is the most significant and does have the vulnerability of high reliance on Channel Island power station and the gas supply to that but its overall track record isn't bad. No real issues with non-synchronous or non-controllable generation.


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## Value Collector

Some thoughts on impacts of dams.


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## ghotib

Kinda the way I feel about space flight


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## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Some thoughts on impacts of dams.





Every form of energy production has an impact. Coal mining, lithium mining, battery disposal, PV production all produce pollution and consume resources.

The cynic in me says your opposition to dams is  maybe because they are not listed on the stock exchange and you therefore can't make money from them ?


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## Smurf1976

I've said it before and I'll say it again. 

ALL power pollutes. ALL of it. What we get to choose is what form that impact takes and where but there's no such thing as energy without some impact on something somewhere.

One aspect of hydro (and also biomass including wood) is that the impacts are pretty much "in your face" and very visible for anyone who chooses to have a look. Here in Tas at least, the Hydro is quite happy for anyone to have a look for themselves and indeed encourages people to do so via an assortment of recreational facilities, power station tours and so on. Snowy is much the same.

In contrast the impacts of fossil fuels and especially nuclear are pretty much hidden from the masses. Even if they do want to have a look you can't see much of it anyway and you won't gain access without working for the company involved.

Go back 40 years and there was quite a lot of public opposition to building a gas-fired power station in Melbourne, the public's preference being for another coal-fired plant in the Latrobe Valley instead. Long story short - half of that gas-fired power station was built as originally planned and the other half was instead built as an open cycle gas turbine plant, which uses more gas and emits more CO2 than the original proposal. But that's all good, people were quite happy with that, because those open cycle gas turbines are near Morwell not Melbourne and thus not visible to the masses. A bigger impact but people can't see it so they're happy.


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## explod

Why cant we dig a couple of decent well reinforced holes in the ground and go thermal.  Maybe dig down at the Morwell pit.

A few cockies up my way near Bendigo (Lockinton and Diggera West) concerned about Turnbulls plan as they are not getting enough irrigation allocation now.  And us activists concerned about the Murray drying up and its life fading as well.


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> One aspect of hydro (and also biomass including wood) is that the impacts are pretty much "in your face" and very visible for anyone who chooses to have a look. Here in Tas at least, the Hydro is quite happy for anyone to have a look for themselves and indeed encourages people to do so via an assortment of recreational facilities, power station tours and so on. Snowy is much the same.




Some benefits of hydro not emphasised besides the power side.

Fishing
boating & other water sports
drinking water
irrigation water
flood mitigation

Some of the above may not be mutually compatible all the time, but with sufficient warning they can be. eg if a flood is coming the dam needs to be drained sufficiently to accomodate incoming water. If it is already full that could be a problem.


----------



## Value Collector

ghotib said:


> Kinda the way I feel about space flight



Space flight is needed, if we want our species to have longterm survival and have cool scienctific advances.


----------



## SirRumpole

I'd say there would be some flood mitigation and storage dams already existing that could have hydro plants built on their release gates ?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Every form of energy production has an impact. Coal mining, lithium mining, battery disposal, PV production all produce pollution and consume resources.
> 
> The cynic in me says your opposition to dams is  maybe because they are not listed on the stock exchange and you therefore can't make money from them ?




In reference to your last point, I have no investment in Tesla.

I did used to own shares in pacific hydro ( the company that operated the ord river dam and many other hydro schemes, before they were taken over by a super fund) 

I just see battery tech as an effective solution with minimal longterm Impact when you factor in that recycling of end of life batteries is going to be a zero waste outcome soon, and battery chemistry is progressing so fast that soon battery chemistry may produce batteries that effectively have near zero degradation over time.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> I've said it before and I'll say it again.
> 
> ALL power pollutes. ALL of it. What we get to choose is what form that impact takes and where but there's no such thing as energy without some impact on something somewhere.
> 
> One aspect of hydro (and also biomass including wood) is that the impacts are pretty much "in your face" and very visible for anyone who chooses to have a look. Here in Tas at least, the Hydro is quite happy for anyone to have a look for themselves and indeed encourages people to do so via an assortment of recreational facilities, power station tours and so on. Snowy is much the same.
> 
> In contrast the impacts of fossil fuels and especially nuclear are pretty much hidden from the masses. Even if they do want to have a look you can't see much of it anyway and you won't gain access without working for the company involved.
> 
> Go back 40 years and there was quite a lot of public opposition to building a gas-fired power station in Melbourne, the public's preference being for another coal-fired plant in the Latrobe Valley instead. Long story short - half of that gas-fired power station was built as originally planned and the other half was instead built as an open cycle gas turbine plant, which uses more gas and emits more CO2 than the original proposal. But that's all good, people were quite happy with that, because those open cycle gas turbines are near Morwell not Melbourne and thus not visible to the masses. A bigger impact but people can't see it so they're happy.




I totally agree that all energy has an impact, My point is just that using hydro dams as your chosen storage is as far as I can see not as versatile, cheap, or environmentally friendly as what batteries will be.

I mean Elon musk has said he can have a solution in 100 days or it's free, I would think that it would take a lot longer to get a pumped storage scheme up and running, am I wrong ? And what would be the cost? 

I do totally disagree with you view on nuclear though, nuclear (including the few accidents) has the best history on pollution, nuclear power plants can point to their back lot and all their pollution is stored, neatly packaged in dry casks or sitting in pools, that is the dream of the fossil fuel industry, millions or dollars are being spent to try and get the fossil fuel industry to that position.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> I just see battery tech as an effective solution with minimal longterm Impact when you factor in that recycling of end of life batteries is going to be a zero waste outcome soon, and battery chemistry is progressing so fast that soon battery chemistry may produce batteries that effectively have near zero degradation over time.




There is no reason why it has to be either batteries OR hydro. I'm sure there is a place for both in the mix and as you pointed out a battery system can be built in a short time. But over the long term I think pumped storage will provide good value for money with other benefits than just power generation.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> There is no reason why it has to be either batteries OR hydro.




I've been involved in debates about energy throughout my entire adult life and if there's one thing I've noticed it's a shift to the middle.

Those who were strongly pro-dams a generation ago tend to see the other side today. There's a definite value in the natural environment "as is" which can't be measured in gigawatt hours.

Those who were strongly anti-dams at that time also tend to see the other side today. With all the problems associated with coal etc it's a reality that we're faced with "anything and everything that works" as the solution we're going to need. There's a role for nuclear, hydro, wind, solar and anything else that works. Even then we're going to be using coal and especially oil and gas for quite a while yet.

There's a valid role for hydro in the system certainly. Long lasting, big rotating machines with the inherent advantages of that, very proven technology and does what we need it to do. But I'll be the first to say that there is ZERO chance that we're going to run the whole country with hydro. ZERO.

So we're going to have wind, we're going to have solar and batteries will definitely play a role too.

Look at the situation in SA, a place with truly excellent wind and solar resources, consumption peaks in Summer when solar works best and which doesn't really use that much power anyway. They're having rather a lot of trouble going without coal and that's despite still using gas and oil.

Now consider how we're going to do this somewhere like NSW. The wind resource isn't as good, power consumption is far higher and there's a significant use of heating in Winter which makes reliance on solar more problematic.

We're going to need to use anything and everything that works if we're actually going to shift away from non-renewable energy sources. Hydro is by no means the total solution but it's part of it.

All this has a lot in common with, say, a car. The brakes, wheels, engine, gears etc are all useless by themselves but put them together and you've got a working system. Much the same applies to diverse energy sources and storage - you need all the bits working together in order to make the whole thing work. Take one out and then we're back to coal.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I've been involved in debates about energy throughout my entire adult life and if there's one thing I've noticed it's a shift to the middle.




There is really only one thing that I know about power grids and that is that people like you should be designing them, not politicians.

I wish the b*stards would realise that and let experts do the job instead of plugging their own pet projects.

Wetherill made a blunder by trying to go 50% renewables and I think the Libs are making a blunder with "clean" coal, but if the experts say that these have a place in the mix then all sides of politics should accept that and get out of the way.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> There is no reason why it has to be either batteries OR hydro. I'm sure there is a place for both in the mix and as you pointed out a battery system can be built in a short time. But over the long term I think pumped storage will provide good value for money with other benefits than just power generation.



Maybe we will have to agree on is agree, or call it my lack of imagination, but I just can't see how if we are planning to go 100% renewable, (which hopefully were are)we can build build enou pumped hydro to meet the storage demands, I reckon battery tech is going to completely leap frog that need.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Maybe we will have to agree on is agree, or call it my lack of imagination, but I just can't see how if we are planning to go 100% renewable, (which hopefully were are)we can build build enou pumped hydro to meet the storage demands, I reckon battery tech is going to completely leap frog that need.




I don't know enough about the technicalities to argue with you, but as I said in my previous post we need experts to design our future grids not politicians.

Hopefully someone will see sense soon.


----------



## skyQuake

So I've heard that with the govt subsidies for solar ending, people are selling power for 5c and buying it for 40c. Is this mostly to do with solar generating during the offpeak (day) cycle and demand coming on during the peak (night) cycle?
And as an aside, would one of those shiny new tesla batteries in every household with solar mitigate that?


----------



## explod

> A German coal mine will be converted into giant “battery station” to store enough renewable energy to power some 400,000 homes.
> 
> The Prosper-Haniel pit in the state of North Rhine Westphalia near the Dutch border, has produced the fossil fuel for almost half a century.
> 
> But now it will find a new purpose as a 200 megawatt pumped-storage hydroelectric reservoir.
> 
> Researchers from a number of German universities are working alongside private engineering companies and the government on the project.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> READ MORE
> *Renewables make up nearly 90 per cent of new power capacity in EU*
> They believe the elevation provided by the pit will provide an opportunity for hydroelectric storage.
> 
> It is thought that water will be able flow downwards, powering turbines and generating electricity, with water pumped back up again during periods of low demand.
> 
> "In regions such as the Rhineland or the Ruhr area, the lack of relief in the landscape does not provide the necessary height differences [for hydroelectric power]," the project's website says.
> 
> Work will begin when the mine closes in 2018.




http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...r-haniel-north-rhine-westphalia-a7648841.html


----------



## Smurf1976

Well today's the last day of full operation of Hazelwood. The shutdown begins tomorrow with 3 units to be taken offline followed by another 3 on Tuesday and the final 2 on Wednesday. After that it's all over.

It's still all working as such, though not overly well being so run down now and getting worse by the day. Presently producing 1276 MW so just under 80% of nominal capacity.

None of the other baseload power stations in Vic are fully operational at the moment either. Yallourn has 3 (of 4) units available to run. Loy Yang B has 1 (of 2). Loy Yang A had 3 (of 4) until one suddenly went to zero (looks like a failure) last night so now it's 2 of 4 that are running. 

Apart from what looks like a failure at Loy Yang, a very sudden shutdown, the rest are just maintenance being done before Hazelwood shuts. They'll be good for a while after that but obviously this won't be the last time that maintenance is needed. Next time's going to be a bit more difficult....


----------



## Value Collector

skyQuake said:


> So I've heard that with the govt subsidies for solar ending, people are selling power for 5c and buying it for 40c. Is this mostly to do with solar generating during the offpeak (day) cycle and demand coming on during the peak (night) cycle?
> And as an aside, would one of those shiny new tesla batteries in every household with solar mitigate that?




My Dad is currently selling excess solar power back to the grid for 12 cents, and buying power back at 28cents. who ever quoted you those numbers needs to get a better plan.

Basically its simple retailing, if you sell a tin of baked beans to woolies, you will probably get 60cents, if you want to buy a tin of baked beans you will pay $1.20.

When you are effectively using the grid as your battery, you are being provided a service, the retailer making money on your sales and purchases is how they make money providing this infrastructure service to you.

you can get around this by using a battery on your property, but that also has a cost.



> would one of those shiny new tesla batteries in every household with solar mitigate that?




The benefit of the battery is that the guy will solar panels can keep his power made during the day when he wasn't home rather than sell it for 12 cents, and use it later after dark rather than pay 28cents.

I have wondered whether using a battery that is charged during off peak times, even without solar panels might be a way to save money,


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I've been involved in debates about energy throughout my entire adult life and if there's one thing I've noticed it's a shift to the middle.




So, given that SA has short term problems, what is the best way to get them out of trouble in the short term?

They are apparently going to build a gas fired plant. It seems that these units are reasonably portable and can get going in a relatively short period of time.

What else wold you suggest ?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> I don't know enough about the technicalities to argue with you, .





I watched a lecture by a guy who specialises in battery chemistry a few weeks ago, and he was basically saying the main reasons lithium ion batteries degrade over time is that plaque builds up on the anode, and he said this problem is being worked on by some of the worlds best, and he said the problem is likely going to be solved in the near future with additives that prevent such plaque build ups, and batteries will effectively be able to operate un limited cycles with near zero degradation.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> I have wondered whether using a battery that is charged during off peak times, even without solar panels might be a way to save money,




I think it would untill everyone starts doing it in which case off peak would turn into on peak.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> I watched a lecture by a guy who specialises in battery chemistry a few weeks ago, and he was basically saying the main reasons lithium ion batteries degrade over time is that plaque builds up on the anode, and he said this problem is being worked on by some of the worlds best, and he said the problem is likely going to be solved in the near future with additives that prevent such plaque build ups, and batteries will effectively be able to operate un limited cycles with near zero degradation.




I'm sure battery technology will keep on advancing.

They still need to mine , transport and process the metals all of which consume resources and generate waste so this has to be taken into account.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> I think it would untill everyone starts doing it in which case off peak would turn into on peak.



Or there is just no more peak and off peak, just one steady lower price.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> I'm sure battery technology will keep on advancing.
> 
> They still need to mine , transport and process the metals all of which consume resources and generate waste so this has to be taken into account.




Resources are needed for everything, that wouldn't be a problem.

end of life batteries can be recycled, in fact Tesla is planning on recycling their batteries so in the future as more and more of their batteries reach end of life, their factory will be producing new batteries with recycled content in an almost closed loop.

there is also actually a second hand market for the batteries from Tesla cars that have been written off in accidents, but people want to repurpose the cells etc.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> My Dad is currently selling excess solar power back to the grid for 12 cents, and buying power back at 28cents. who ever quoted you those numbers needs to get a better plan.
> 
> Basically its simple retailing, if you sell a tin of baked beans to woolies, you will probably get 60cents, if you want to buy a tin of baked beans you will pay $1.20.
> 
> When you are effectively using the grid as your battery, you are being provided a service, the retailer making money on your sales and purchases is how they make money providing this infrastructure service to you.
> 
> you can get around this by using a battery on your property, but that also has a cost.
> 
> 
> 
> The benefit of the battery is that the guy will solar panels can keep his power made during the day when he wasn't home rather than sell it for 12 cents, and use it later after dark rather than pay 28cents.
> 
> I have wondered whether using a battery that is charged during off peak times, even without solar panels might be a way to save money,




I'm sure I've read, if you install batteries, you get no feed in payment, worth checking.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> I'm sure I've read, if you install batteries, you get no feed in payment, worth checking.



Batteries wouldn't stop you selling your excess power, but it probably stops you getting that government subsidy/rebate.

But either way, the idea of batteries is to keep your power rather than feed it into the grid.


----------



## bellenuit

If you have batteries and you are on the grid, are you allowed draw on battery power when there is a grid power failure. I know you cannot use solar panel power when you have no batteries and there is a grid failure for safety reasons, but with battery backup I hope they have come up with some sort of switching mechanism to isolate from the grid so that you can continue to use your battery power.


----------



## Smurf1976

Well the great Hazelwood shutdown is well underway. 3 units gone, 5 still running but not for much longer.

Unit 8 ceased generation at 1:55 am this morning.

Unit 6 stopped at 11:10 am today.

Unit 4 stopped at 16:15 today.

Units 1, 2, 3, 5 & 7 are still operating, producing 820 MW between them.

Prices generally $100 to $240 during business hours today. For reference, long term average price for 2015-16 whole of financial year was $46.15 and for 2014-15 it was $30.35 (these prices are for Vic). This financial year to date the average is $52.55

So far as who's generating the power not coming from Hazelwood is concerned, that has varied throughout the day but the most notable point is that Newport power station (gas, Melbourne metro area) is producing 400 MW (capacity 500 MW) whereas it has been largely idle in recent times.

For other major base load plant in Vic:

Loy Yang A now has 3 (of 4) units running with unit 3 returned to service last night.

Yallourn down to 2 (of 4) units with unit 2 shut down fairly quickly about 12:45 pm today. Not sure of the reason.

Loy Yang B still has 1 (of 2) units running.

Gas price in Vic is sitting on $11.50 at the moment which is higher than it has been recently. 

Hypothetically, if there was a heatwave, then Vic and SA would both be having blackouts every day for the next week (haven't looked at the detail beyond that).


----------



## Smurf1976

bellenuit said:


> If you have batteries and you are on the grid, are you allowed draw on battery power when there is a grid power failure.




Regulations may differ between states but in Tasmania you most certainly can have battery (or some other means eg generator) backup to your household power supply if you want to.

It just needs to meet all technical requirements and that's it really. There's a 100% certainty that an Electrical Inspector will turn up to check the installation but the onus there is on the electrician who installed it to make sure it's right. The inspector may choose to run some actual tests to confirm compliance if they deem that necessary or may simply visually inspect and approve it based on the type of equipment used.

Main thing the inspector will be checking is to make sure there's zero possibility that your system feeds power into a "dead" network beyond your house and that it is electrically safe. Beyond that they're just checking the usual stuff - not going to burn the house down etc.

Requirements may differ in other states.


----------



## sptrawler

Let the fun begin.
Hazelwood shutting down, will make for interesting times, a lot of finger pointing will be the call of the day.


----------



## Smurf1976

Someone's even written a song about the place....


----------



## sptrawler

I just find the whole thing tragic, sad and soul destroying.
How the hell we can allow it to get to this state, and expect to drive a strong vibrant economy is beyond the pale.
What Abbott suggested made sense, pay a capacity payment to keep Hazelwood available, until an alternative is up and running.
All we are doing is selling the farm, to pay for our contribution to a cleaner planet, I hope that gives everyone a warm feeling in their stomachs when it all plays out.
We have a small market place, one of the most expensive wages, one of the highest taxing, one of the highest welfare costs and now one of the highest power costs. I hope someone can come up with a silver bullet.lol

By the way smurph, it was a great song and video clip, brought back memories pre D.C.S, at Kwinana


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I just find the whole thing tragic, sad and soul destroying.




On one hand I most certainly do "get it" about the need for renewable energy. No argument there as long as it's done sensibly.

On the other hand Hazelwood is highly symbolic of what could be referred to as the engineers' vision of a productive Australia. A country that did something other than flipping houses. Seeing it come to an end, with no real alternative in place, is not a good thing at all both practically and symbolically.

In that sense I'll add that Energy Brix is about to be demolished so before long there won't be anything left of the whole Morwell operation apart from a hole in the ground and what remains of the old coal to oil plant.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> On one hand I most certainly do "get it" about the need for renewable energy. No argument there as long as it's done sensibly.




That is the crux of the issue, we all want a clean non polluted Earth for our kids and grandkids, but we both know it isn't by throwing ourselves on the cross.

Geez, I don't think people realise, the ramifications of this.

I think we are trying to put ourselves in front of the game, that is free power, but we are buying the technology from snake oil salesmen.

This is going to end badly.IMO


----------



## luutzu

sptrawler said:


> That is the crux of the issue, we all want a clean non polluted Earth for our kids and grandkids, but we both know it isn't by throwing ourselves on the cross.
> 
> Geez, I don't think people realise, the ramifications of this.
> 
> I think we are trying to put ourselves in front of the game, that is free power, but we are buying the technology from snake oil salesmen.
> 
> This is going to end badly.IMO




Whatever happened to socialised utilities? 

All homes need power right? Economy of scale mean it'll be more efficient if the power plant is bigger. So why this drive towards solar panel on roofs, batteries and no doubt gov't subsidies through either rebate for batteries or tax incentives for the like of Tesla.

Batteries and domestic solar panels have their place, in the outback or sparsely populated area. In high density area, build it bigger.


----------



## sptrawler

luutzu said:


> Whatever happened to socialised utilities?
> 
> All homes need power right? Economy of scale mean it'll be more efficient if the power plant is bigger. So why this drive towards solar panel on roofs, batteries and no doubt gov't subsidies through either rebate for batteries or tax incentives for the like of Tesla.
> 
> Batteries and domestic solar panels have their place, in the outback or sparsely populated area. In high density area, build it bigger.




Yes, we've been through that umpteen times, essential services should be run by Government.
But having been through the system, the argument is that competition drives down prices and the general public say that Government employees are lazy.
I have worked in both Government and Private Industry, I have found Government is much better run and are much more aware of accountability, but you can't sell that to the general public.

I guess also if I wanted to be a cynic, I could say, well you put in batteries to not have to pay for your grid connection.
Don't complain when it isn't there for you.

In my opinion, we are 10 years ahead of technology, and it is going to cost us.
This will manifest in a drop in living standards, IMO, I hope I'm wrong but I can't see any political will to stop the tide.


----------



## Smurf1976

luutzu said:


> All homes need power right? Economy of scale mean it'll be more efficient if the power plant is bigger.




That's how Hazelwood came into being.

The whole concept was about scaling up, massively so, in order to drive costs down. They later took that concept even further at Loy Yang.

Same principle applies to just about everything. If you increase scale then that helps get the cost per unit down.

PS - Unit 2 being ramped down now for the last time, production from the whole station now being down to 682 MW.


----------



## luutzu

Smurf1976 said:


> That's how Hazelwood came into being.
> 
> The whole concept was about scaling up, massively so, in order to drive costs down. They later took that concept even further at Loy Yang.
> 
> Same principle applies to just about everything. If you increase scale then that helps get the cost per unit down.
> 
> PS - Unit 2 being ramped down now for the last time, production from the whole station now being down to 682 MW.




Yea, Australia got a big massive backyard that's sundrenched pretty much all day long. If some 18 panels at about $3,000 could supply an average Aussie home like myself, imagine the cost per unit/kW if a series of massive solar farm are done.

Compliment that with other newer, cleaner power plants and we'd be a long way ahead of job creation, carbon reduction as well as reduced costs on households... well, maybe not the costs since it's all privatised anyway, but even then the AGLs of our fair country couldn't be that greedy.

To go for household panels and batteries... the panels are practically all manufactured in China. The batteries will most likely be from Tesla or some foreign manufacturers. 

So beside maybe a few mining jobs and good profit to S32 and BHP, not much to gain.

That and if we could reduce our carbon footprint, poorer countries like India or China can afford more of our coals and we all die a bit further down the track

Win/Win


----------



## sptrawler

I hope they start blowing Hazelwood up, next week, the sooner this is brought to a head the better.
ATM everyone is living in this fools paradise, how they think our living standards and welfare system can be supported, when our abilities to support it are crumbling around us.
Where the hell, do people think the money is going to come from?
People really need to think about it, what jobs, what industries, why build here?
It is bloody scary.IMO


----------



## luutzu

sptrawler said:


> Yes, we've been through that umpteen times, essential services should be run by Government.
> But having been through the system, the argument is that competition drives down prices and the general public say that Government employees are lazy.
> I have worked in both Government and Private Industry, I have found Government is much better run and are much more aware of accountability, but you can't sell that to the general public.
> 
> I guess also if I wanted to be a cynic, I could say, well you put in batteries to not have to pay for your grid connection.
> Don't complain when it isn't there for you.
> 
> In my opinion, we are 10 years ahead of technology, and it is going to cost us.
> This will manifest in a drop in living standards, IMO, I hope I'm wrong but I can't see any political will to stop the tide.




True. 

If most of us, say, put batteries and panels. It'll reduced the revenues utilities can generate, hence reducing its profit and business case.

The way efficiency and value are measured, profit margin have to rise and revenue better rise as well.

If batteries mean less demand and revenue have to rise... results in higher prices. Higher than their usual hike. 

So we all end up paying for both the battery packs, the panels, its maintenance and replacement; pay indirectly for the mining and manufacturing of these and the inefficiency in small-scale installation... then either have to pay higher power prices or else it'll disappear.

Doesn't make economic sense if we think socially, collectively.


----------



## luutzu

sptrawler said:


> I hope they start blowing Hazelwood up, next week, the sooner this is brought to a head the better.
> ATM everyone is living in this fools paradise, how they think our living standards and welfare system can be supported, when our abilities to support it are crumbling around us.
> Where the hell, do people think the money is going to come from?
> People really need to think about it, what jobs, what industries, why build here?
> It is bloody scary.IMO




It's scary to read that we're in some sort of LNG supply crisis here in the Eastern states when there's like 3 brand spanking new LNG terminals selling overseas. 

Then there's the blackouts in SA; the hiking of gas prices (due to supply insecurity) to households and businesses.

Who runs this place man.

If only we read a couple of Santos' presentations a few years back where they "warn" the NSW gov't of this impending supply crunch if environmental regulations aren't eased off. 

And read a headline today about how the pensioners are going to screw over Australians.

They're living too long, not all are fit and working in their 70s or something, so they'll send Australia broke.

Dam old people letting us down. I mean it'snot like the country and its tax cuts to big businesses are screwing the poor and the elderly; it's actually the reverse - so we must cut it and let them die a bit sooner.


----------



## sptrawler

luutzu said:


> True.
> 
> If most of us, say, put batteries and panels. It'll reduced the revenues utilities can generate, hence reducing its profit and business case.
> 
> The way efficiency and value are measured, profit margin have to rise and revenue better rise as well.
> 
> If batteries mean less demand and revenue have to rise... results in higher prices. Higher than their usual hike.
> 
> So we all end up paying for both the battery packs, the panels, its maintenance and replacement; pay indirectly for the mining and manufacturing of these and the inefficiency in small-scale installation... then either have to pay higher power prices or else it'll disappear.
> 
> Doesn't make economic sense if we think socially, collectively.




Not really, If we all put batteries and panels, it reduces the revenues of the utilities.

But when the system falls on its ar$e everyone says, we may as well catch a boat to a third World Country.
At the moment, I don't see many refugees heading out on boats, not to say it won't happen in the future.


----------



## luutzu

sptrawler said:


> Not really, If we all put batteries and panels, it reduces the revenues of the utilities.
> 
> But when the system falls on its ar$e everyone says, we may as well catch a boat to a third World Country.
> At the moment, I don't see many refugees heading out on boats, not to say it won't happen in the future.




Yea it will reduce their revenues. But they will make up for it by hiking up prices.


well there's always New Zealand and Indonesia.


----------



## sptrawler

luutzu said:


> It's scary to read that we're in some sort of LNG supply crisis here in the Eastern states when there's like 3 brand spanking new LNG terminals selling overseas.
> 
> Then there's the blackouts in SA; the hiking of gas prices (due to supply insecurity) to households and businesses.
> 
> Who runs this place man.
> 
> If only we read a couple of Santos' presentations a few years back where they "warn" the NSW gov't of this impending supply crunch if environmental regulations aren't eased off.
> 
> And read a headline today about how the pensioners are going to screw over Australians.
> 
> They're living too long, not all are fit and working in their 70s or something, so they'll send Australia broke.
> 
> Dam old people letting us down. I mean it'snot like the country and its tax cuts to big businesses are screwing the poor and the elderly; it's actually the reverse - so we must cut it and let them die a bit sooner.




There is always the option, to find a better life, in a new Country.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Where the hell, do people think the money is going to come from?




Stop selling our finite natural resources for bugger all for a start.

Put a tax on exports of all non renewables, and use those dollars to upgrade our electricity infrastructire and don't flush it down the loo in welfare especially thinks like negative gearing , CGT tax discounts, corporate tax cuts and tax free super to people who don't need it.


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> Stop selling our finite natural resources for bugger all for a start.
> 
> Put a tax on exports of all non renewables, and use those dollars to upgrade our electricity infrastructire and don't flush it down the loo in welfare especially thinks like negative gearing , CGT tax discounts, corporate tax cuts and tax free super to people who don't need it.



may I add NDIS on the list and fuel excise payback for miners just to list a few billions of wasted money we do not have.With interest bill of 1 billion a month now, there is quite which could be done if keeping within budget


----------



## Smurf1976

The Hazelwood shutdown continued over the past day. In addition to the 3 units closed yesterday:

Unit 2 shut down at 00:20 this morning.

Unit 7 shut down at 10:35 this morning.

Which leaves units 1, 3 & 5 still running although unit 5 is almost shut down at the moment, generating 32 MW presently. Units 1 & 3 are still running reasonably normally, producing 317 MW between them.

This time tomorrow it will all be over.....

For other things of significance:

Loy Yang A now fully operational with all 4 units running. 

Loy Yang B and Yallourn still both only 50% operational.

Newport (gas, Melbourne urban area) running flat out at the moment and Pelican Point (gas, Adelaide) running at full capacity for the first time in a long time. Notable point there is that not too long ago Engie were all but refusing to run Pelican Point - seems that they've changed their mind. 

AEMO issued an update this afternoon, now showing lack of sufficient reserves for both Vic and SA: Summer 2017-18, March 2018, Summer 2018-19, March 2019. The forecast only goes two years in advance but in the absence of something new being built the problem will persist.

Biggest issue in the short term is price. Plenty of people wondering if anyone's taking a serious bath and will end up broke? Any retailer who was buying mostly on the spot market and who has customers locked in at set prices will be in trouble but nobody other than themselves would know that for sure at this point. Have to see what happens there.


----------



## Smurf1976

luutzu said:


> Who runs this place man.




In ye olde days the answer was that engineers called the shots and got things done, supported in doing so by an army of workers from scientists through to manual labourers.  

Then the financial gurus gained rather a lot of influence, over everything not just energy, and decided that we'd be better off with "the market" working out what to do and getting it done.

It's either working really well or it's a complete disaster depending on how you measure it.


----------



## Smurf1976

And another one gone. Unit 5 shut down at 18:45 (Vic time).


----------



## luutzu

Smurf1976 said:


> In ye olde days the answer was that engineers called the shots and got things done, supported in doing so by an army of workers from scientists through to manual labourers.
> 
> Then the financial gurus gained rather a lot of influence, over everything not just energy, and decided that we'd be better off with "the market" working out what to do and getting it done.
> 
> It's either working really well or it's a complete disaster depending on how you measure it.




Pretty messed up isn't it?

In practically all business and gov't entities, most CEOs and chiefs now came from business and finance schools instead of the technical ones the business is supposed to be working in.

That's not to say that finance guys can't also be competent engineer and such. Just that when you're trained in the art of finance and accounting, everything is about the top and the bottom line.

So instead of being trained and having an interests in building a better mousetrap, thinking far ahead and innovate... a company can make the same kind of money, if not more, by playing with stock buybacks, buying politicians for favourable incentives and deregulation - passing the costs onto the environment and someone else.

Then on top of all these we have the financial markets and its "analysts" who see no further than next quarter's results. So if an investment doesn't pay off in a real hurry, stock price get smashed and the CEO might get replaced or lose their options and bonuses.

But yes, whether it's working or not depends on where you're standing.


----------



## sptrawler

Well the latest from W.A is, the new Labor Government is saying that consumers aren't paying, the real cost of producing electricity.
Well that doesn't sound good, they were saying pre election that privatisation would drive up prices, sounds like they're going to drive up prices anyway.
Wow who would have guessed that.lol


----------



## luutzu

sptrawler said:


> Well the latest from W.A is, the new Labor Government is saying that consumers aren't paying, the real cost of producing electricity.
> Well that doesn't sound good, they were saying pre election that privatisation would drive up prices, sounds like they're going to drive up prices anyway.
> Wow who would have guessed that.lol




A public utility shouldn't be run for "profit". Not profit as measured by costs and revenue.

This is how they prep public enterprise to be sold off and privatised. That it's "losing" money, not efficient etc.

Let say a public utility were to make real money, great return on capital and margins. What would that mean to the overall economy?

Higher costs to business mean those costs plus margin, will go up and pass onto consumers; the average citizen will see their bills go up, they'll try to get a raise, or more likely, fail to get a raise  and so will cut their own consumption. etc. etc.

But of course our public servants chose not to frame it that way. Can't flog off public monopolies if you're honest like that.

So they measure it like a private business where the lower the expenses, the more costs they can pass onto other people, the more "efficient" and "profitable" the business is.

In other words, WA is in trouble if its new gov't talks like that.


----------



## basilio

Great series of pictures and info about Hazelwood in The Guardian.  It is certainly a very tired operation. As Smurph would have noted the major reason it has been closed down is the amount of work required to keep it going is uneconomical.

There is going to be a big whack of money required to clean up the site as well.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...t-days-of-hazelwood-power-station-in-pictures


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Great series of pictures and info about Hazelwood in The Guardian.  It is certainly a very tired operation. As Smurph would have noted the major reason it has been closed down is the amount of work required to keep it going is uneconomical.
> 
> There is going to be a big whack of money required to clean up the site as well.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/austral...t-days-of-hazelwood-power-station-in-pictures




Absolutely, why would they have spent money refurbishing, when Government initiatives were crippling them?

There will be a big whack of money, to clean up the site, also there will be a bigger whack of money filling the generation hole they leave.

I'm just looking forward, to the explanations, as to the Australian social decline that will unfold.
W.A is in a post mining phase recession, Sydney and Melbourne are living on a property boom, where is the REAL growth going to come from?
Where are the real jobs going to come from? it isn't making cars or anything, our education levels are dropping by World standards.
So what is going to save us, and pay for the most expensive power, in the World?
Basillio, you're the champion of the cause, maybe you can enlighten us.


----------



## Tisme

I'm wondering what State Govts actually do these days?


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> I'm wondering what State Govts actually do these days?




What they do they don't seem to do particularly well. 

Like schools. How are our education results these days on an international comparison basis ?


----------



## luutzu

sptrawler said:


> Absolutely, why would they have spent money refurbishing, when Government initiatives were crippling them?
> 
> There will be a big whack of money, to clean up the site, also there will be a bigger whack of money filling the generation hole they leave.
> 
> I'm just looking forward, to the explanations, as to the Australian social decline that will unfold.
> W.A is in a post mining phase recession, Sydney and Melbourne are living on a property boom, where is the REAL growth going to come from?
> Where are the real jobs going to come from? it isn't making cars or anything, our education levels are dropping by World standards.
> So what is going to save us, and pay for the most expensive power, in the World?
> Basillio, you're the champion of the cause, maybe you can enlighten us.




Who will save us? Ask any politician and they'll tell you it's the rich that will save us. 

Just before they do, we'll have to give them more money.


----------



## luutzu

Tisme said:


> I'm wondering what State Govts actually do these days?




Deciding which state enterprise to privatise next?


----------



## Smurf1976

It's all over now.

Hazelwood unit 3 shut down at 10:45 am today. 

Unit 1, the first to commence operation and the last to close, shut down at 17:05.

A short summary of the operating history of lignite (brown coal) fired power stations in Victoria:

Yallourn A: 1924 (expanded 1928) to 1968. 75 MW (6 x 12.5 MW). First major project completed by the SECV who ran it throughout its life.

Yallourn Briquette factory: 1924 to 1970. 10 MW (1 x 10 MW) with power generation a sideline to the main activity producing briquettes. Briquette production capacity 400 tonnes / day originally, expanded to 1200 tonnes per day in 1931. Built and operated by the SECV.

Yallourn B: 1932 (expanded 1938) to 1969. 100 MW (4 x 25 MW). Built and operated by the SECV.

Yallourn C: 1954 to 1984. 106 MW (2 x 50 MW + 1 x 6 MW). First to use pulverised fuel firing, previous plants burnt the coal on a moving grate. There was a spare boiler, 6 installed but only 5 were needed to reach full output, in order to give very high reliability (boilers being the source of most problems hence the spare). Built and operated by the SECV.

Yallourn D: 1958 to 1986. 100 MW (2 x 50 MW). Virtually identical to Yallourn C both technically and in physical form and also had a spare boiler. Built and operated by the SECV.

Morwell: 1958 to 2014. 170 MW (1 x 20 MW, 3 x 30 MW, 1 x 60 MW) plus two briquette production lines with a combined capacity of 4100 tonnes per day. Built by the SECV, privatised in the 1990's with the final owner being Energy Brix.

Yallourn E: 1961 to 1989. 240 MW (2 x 120 MW). First unitised plant with a single boiler per turbine and alternator, all previous plant being of a steam range design (multiple boilers feeding a common steam "range" from which the turbines drew steam). That basic approach to design would still be considered "modern" today although obviously efficiency has improved over the years for newer plant. Built and operated by the SECV.

Hazelwood: 1964 to 2017. 1600 MW (8 x 200 MW). Built by the SECV, various owners from the mid-1990's onward with Engie as the final owner.

Anglesea: 1969 to 2015. 150 MW (1 x 150 MW). Unique among Victorian brown coal power stations in that it was always privately owned by Alcoa throughout its entire history from construction to closure.

Still operating:

Yallourn W: Commissioned 1973 (first stage) and 1982 (second stage). Plant comprises 2 x 350 MW (first stage) and 2 x 375 MW (second stage) units all upgraded in more recent times to about 380 MW each. Built by the SECV, presently owned by Energy Australia.

Loy Yang A: Commissioned 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988 (4 units). Plant originally comprised 4 x 500 MW units, later upgraded to produce 2210 MW units between them. 3 are identical however the other, unit 2, was originally intended to be installed at Newport D power station (gas-fired, Melbourne) but relocated to Loy Yang after the second unit at Newport D was scrapped for political reasons in the 1970's. Built by the SECV, presently owned by AGL.

Loy Yang B: Commissioned 1993 and 1996 (2 units) and only ever half built (originally planned as a duplicate of Loy Yang A). Capacity is 1070 MW although there are plans to increase this modestly toward the end of this decade. Started by the SECV but privatised during construction with the present owner being Engie.

Total: 7001 MW (original designed capacity including Anglesea and the briquette factories) installed in the form of 42 generators located in 11 power stations at 5 sites fed by 4 primary and one supplementary (Yallourn North) mines.

No other Australian state has ever used lignite (brown coal) to fire power stations. The coal at Leigh Creek (SA) was often referred to as being that but it's actually sub-bituminous coal (low grade black coal). SA did have a serious look at building a brown coal plant in the 1980's however as did Tasmania although neither went ahead with it.


----------



## sptrawler

I certainly hope this rapid shift from coal generation, has some upside, just hope we don't become World leaders at shooting ourselves in the foot.
Currently the reasoning appears to be ideology driven, rather than a clever and cunning plan to put us in a World leading position, I really hope someone is at the wheel.lol


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I certainly hope this rapid shift from coal generation, has some upside




I'm pretty sure that every generator still in business can see an upside.

1. Wait for a hot day. Going to happen sometime surely.

2. Put the price up.

Nothing more to it really and have no doubt that's exactly what's going to happen.


----------



## sptrawler

The funny thing is, the Government of the day, got the ball rolling, now it is out of control.
Amazing how history repeats, we never seem to do well, with World leading ideology.
But it really doesn't matter, we have moved on to marriage equality and some 18c thing, but we haven't lost focus on married at first shag, or I'm not gay I just speak funny, or get me out of the jungle, I have creeping heat rash.
It is just great to see, we have all the real issues, front and centre.
Everyone thinks Trumps America is a joke, they should see the fiasco we're running.
If anything is going to burst the housing bubble, it will be energy bills. IMO

W.A's new Labor Government has said, the public has to pay for the real cost of electricity, that's interesting because the seperation of generation and distribution that they enacted last time in office, caused a lot of extra costs.
Hope they do a better job this time.
But cancelling a road, that will have to be put in anyway, doesn't bode well for their intelligence.


----------



## pixel

My Web Host, VentraIP Australia, has started a unique PowerDown™ scheme that transfers sufficient power from their servers in Melbourne and Sydney to safeguard South Australia's needs for years to come. This is their announcemen:


> VentraIP Australia, the largest independant domain name registrar in Australia, has today announced their scheme which will see an end to the ongoing power issues that have plagued South Australia for years.
> 
> VentraIP Australia Chief Executive Officer, Angelo Giuffrida, said the plan will offer enough electricity to keep all of South Australia online for up to 10 years.
> 
> “We’ve done the math and have discovered that by simply shutting down our servers from 10pm until 6am every day for the next 12 months, we’ll have donated enough electricity to power all of South Australia for the coming decade!”
> 
> “The PowerDown™ campaign is an opportunity for VentraIP Australia to once again lend a hand to the local community and help those who really need it. We’re aiming to transport a whopping total of 1.0417 gigawatts from our Sydney and Melbourne NextDC data centres direct to SA. That’s a whole lot of power!”
> 
> Mr. Giuffrida said that with the final stage of the project complete, he is confident that the PowerDown™ scheme will be a great success.
> 
> “The completion of the Ventrasaurusmobile was the final stepping stone in getting the PowerDown™ campaign online. Our first shutdown event will begin at *10:59pm this Saturday.* We can’t wait!”


----------



## SirRumpole

pixel said:


> My Web Host, VentraIP Australia, has started a unique PowerDown™ scheme that transfers sufficient power from their servers in Melbourne and Sydney to safeguard South Australia's needs for years to come. This is their announcemen:




It's not April 1 yet !


----------



## pixel

SirRumpole said:


> It's not April 1 yet !



They give an early warning 
That's why they're Leaders in their field


----------



## SirRumpole

No guarantees there won't be blackouts next summer.



*Summer power blackout warning as Hazelwood, other coal power stations close their doors*



http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-...for-blackout-risk-as-hazelwood-closes/8402446


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## Smurf1976

1.0417 GWh = enough to run SA for about 40 minutes typically or about 18 minutes at the peak.

Peaks generally aren't that high on April Fool's Day however....


----------



## bellenuit

SirRumpole said:


> It's not April 1 yet !




Apparently all the states (with WA being the only dissenter) have come up with a scheme that requires all power generated to be put into a common grid and to be allocated in the same ratio as their GST distribution. So for every MW that WA generates, they will be returned 350KW.

In a joint statement, the non-wa states have said that since WA's financial needs to drive economic activity is 35 cents in the dollar of GST collected (as determined by them), it goes without saying that their power requirements should be in the same proportion.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> No guarantees there won't be blackouts next summer.




From the article linked:

"AEMO chief operating officer Mike Cleary said it hoped to prop up the system with reserves from Pelican Point, which is coming back online in July, and power stations in Swanbank, Queensland and the Tamar Valley in Tasmania."

Now I'm getting worried.

Pelican Point is located in Adelaide and will certainly help the situation in Vic and SA, no argument there.

Swanbank is in Qld, not far from Brisbane, and I'd love to see how someone's going to get that power into Vic or SA given that the only possible route (presently existing) is NSW to Vic via the Snowy and those lines being fully loaded is already factored into calculations which show a supply shortfall. You can't put electricity onto a truck and drive it from Brisbane to Melbourne, you need transmission lines for that and they're already maxed out.

Tamar Valley is in Tasmania and I'll put it this way. Hydro Tas has no problem fully loading Basslink (Vic - Tas) during times of peak demand in Vic and SA since that coincides with low demand in Tasmania (peak demand in Tas being driven by cold weather and heating loads versus hot weather driving the peak in Vic and SA).

Running generation at Tamar Valley serves a purpose for either economic reasons (simply makes a profit by changing the balance of exports and imports over Basslink, a situation which depends on the gas price and the power price in Vic), to conserve water in Tasmanian dams or during hydro plant outages BUT it does absolutely nothing to increase the capacity of transmission Tas to Vic.

Hypothetically if there's 300 MW of unused hydro plant in Tas during the Vic / SA peak with Basslink running at maximum, and that's a fairly typical situation, then running Tamar Valley simply displaces some of that hydro generation, it does nothing to increase supply to Vic. Suffice to say that Hydro Tas already does that when it makes physical or commercial sense (eg has been done for the past 3 months, purely for commercial reasons in this case) to do so and if AEMO thinks we can just fire up Tamar Valley and send extra power to Vic then they're in for a big surprise.

Technical details of relevant plant:

Swanbank E = 385 MW combined cycle gas turbine located in SE Qld near Ipswich (not far from Brisbane). Plant is presently mothballed for economic reasons. Fuel is natural gas.

Tamar Valley comprises 5 generating units as followed, all located at Bell Bay (near George Town, about 45km north of Launceston).

208 MW combined cycle gas turbine. Fuel is natural gas only. 

58 MW open cycle gas turbine. Fairly modern (2010) and efficient so far as OCGT's go. Fuel is either natural gas or diesel (gas is the normal fuel in practice but yes the diesel firing capability is routinely tested in case it's needed).

3 x 40 MW open cycle gas turbines. Part of the Tamar Valley station but officially known as Bell Bay Three (with reference to the former Bell Bay power station units 1 & 2 which are now decommissioned). Old and less efficient than other plant at Tamar Valley but significant $ has been spent in recent months to refurbish them and improve reliability as a backup source of generation if required. Fuel is either gas or diesel same as with the 58 MW unit.

Historic but no longer operating at these sites:

Swanbank A (coal, 396 MW), Swanbank B (coal, 480 MW), Swanbank C and D (oil-fired gas turbines, small but can't remember the exact capacity).

Bell Bay units 1 & 2 (oil-fired steam turbines, 120 MW each, later converted to gas).


----------



## basilio

With the closure of Hazelwood and the heightened risk of blackouts energy storage technology is going to need a kick along.
Good analysis here on the current state of play.

* Salt, silicon or graphite: energy storage goes beyond lithium ion batteries *
Technologies that use gels, liquids, and molten silicon or salt could all claim a slice of the growing renewable energy storage market

*Comments*
 12 
Dyani Lewis

 
@dyanilewis

Thursday 6 April 2017 09.47 AEST   Last modified on Thursday 6 April 2017 10.21 AEST

Between the political bickering following a spate of blackouts in South Australia and the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeting that he had a fix, and then the South Australian government announcing that it will build a grid-connected battery storage facility, interest in renewable energy storage has never been higher.

While lithium ion batteries sold by Tesla and others are perhaps the most widely known storage technology, several other energy storage options are either already on the market, or are fast making their way there.

All are hoping to claim a slice of what, by all indications, will be a very large pie. The Australian Energy Market Operator forecasts that more than 1.1m new battery storage systems will be installed in Australian households by 2035. And, according to a 2015 report by the Climate Council, battery storage capacity is expected to grow 50-fold in under a decade.

“The market for storage is huge,” says Kevin Moriarty, the executive chairman of 1414 Degrees, an Adelaide-based thermal storage company hoping to win South Australia’s 100MW storage system tender. The South Australian system will be the largest in Australia so far but Moriarty describes it as “a drop in the ocean” compared with what will be needed as Australia transitions away from carbon-dioxide emitting fossil fuels.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustain...rgy-storage-goes-beyond-lithium-ion-batteries


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## SirRumpole

Is electricity price re-regulation a valid option ?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-...es-could-be-reregulated-watchdog-says/8435472


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Is electricity price re-regulation a valid option ?



A few thoughts:

Prices are getting a bit out of hand really. 

Average for Vic 2014-15 = $30.35 and for 2015 -16 = $46.14

Past week we're seeing daily averages between $90.88 and $140.99 and that's despite seasonally low demand due to mild weather. Today around $200 during the peak. Tomorrow forecast to be a minimum of $96.50 at the far off-peak period and $150 - $200 during most of the normal business working hours.

Now factor in higher demand when it gets colder. Basic supply and demand there as with any market = price goes up further.

Now consider what happens if there are major plant outages (will be sometime, things break and/or need maintenance). Lower supply = higher price.

Then there's the question about gas supply adequacy to run the increased level of gas-fired generation during winter. Gas price may well go up or become physically scarce particularly in Vic and SA. Hold onto your hats if that happens.

My personal view is that we've seen a "crisis" with physical supply and reliability in SA but the next problem is going to be price. It's only a matter of time until these higher wholesale prices flow through to households and business users. That's not going to go down well politically, it's a disaster for those on low incomes and no doubt many businesses, and it won't help the broader economy as households divert $ away from discretionary spending into paying power bills.

Regulation?

The first problem there is that no retailer is going to sell at a loss and that there's nothing compelling the retailers to sell at all if they choose not to. Looking at those active in Victoria, AGL, Origin and Energy Australia are all either privately owned or owned by foreign governments. Momentum is owned by another state government (Tas). The smaller retailers are all privately owned. Lumo and Red are offshoots of Snowy Hydro and that's the only involvement the Victorian government has via their 29% ownership of Snowy.

So if the Vic government is going to regulate prices then it's going to have to do it in a manner that is still profitable for retailers otherwise they can and will simply walk away. So it's a bit like regulating anything, they could tinker around the edges but ultimately the price still has to be profitable. A 5% drop maybe, 50% no chance.

At a broader economic level the soaring cost of power isn't going to be good that's for sure.


----------



## basilio

Smurf  how much does the wholesale price of electricity actually impact on final consumer prices ? For example if the wholesale price  is $50 (Per what ?) and doubles to $100 how much extra per Kwhr does that the extra $50 represent in raw terms ?

Thanks


----------



## Smurf1976

Electricity is traded in the market in MWh (megawatt hours) whilst at home you will normally be charged on the basis of kWh (kilowatt hours) plus a fixed daily supply fee.

There are exactly 1000 kWh per 1 MWh.

A complexity is transmission and distribution losses. Not all electricity that comes out of power stations actually makes it to consumers, some being lost in the lines as heat. It's less than many seem to think, not much is lost in transmission (big power lines usually on steel towers) but at the local distribution level (lines on poles beside the road or underground) the losses are generally higher due to the lower voltages used. 

As a general ballpark figure, loss from the power station to your home is about 10%. That will vary a lot with location - less in the CBD of a city, considerably more in the middle of nowhere but on average it's around 10%. For heavy industry directly connected to the transmission network it's less than half that.

Then there's also GST to consider, that being applied to consumers bills but not included in the wholesale prices I've referred to.

An increase in wholesale prices of $50 per MWh would thus add about 6 cents / kWh to household and small (in power consumption terms) business electricity prices including GST.

As for the significance of that, prices vary hugely across the country, between retailers and network owners and so on. I'm aware of residential retail prices ranging from 11 to 50 cents / kWh but for most it will be in the high teens to 30 cents range.

So if we take 24 cents / kWh for flat rate (same price 24/7/365 - not "Time Of Use" metering as used in some areas) then a rise of $60 per MWh at the wholesale level is about a 30% increase in unit rates for household consumption. Actual bills would rise by a lesser amount since fixed supply costs won't increase by the same amount.

Where it gets complex is that different retailers, particularly those who are owned by generators, will likely pursue different strategies for commercial / marketing reasons whereas the smaller players who are retailers only don't have that option, at least not unless they can afford to burn cash, beyond the duration of their current hedging contracts.

So it's probable that some retailers will take the hit where customers are willing to sign long contracts. Others might go down the route of rewarding their existing customers with a delay in price rises. And so on, they'll all likely pursue at least slightly different strategies for marketing reasons.

All this does vary a lot depending on usage and circumstances. There are some for whom, if the wholesale prices are fully passed through, will be looking at price rises in the order of 100%.


----------



## basilio

Excellent!! Thanks for that.  It's good to get a clearer idea of how the wholesale price is reflected in the final bill


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Excellent!! Thanks for that.  It's good to get a clearer idea of how the wholesale price is reflected in the final bill




No worries.

Where the complexity does arise though is how the retailers will respond and that is particularly so for those who also own generation.

AGL, Origin Energy, Energy Australia are all involved with both generation and retail. Same with Red and Lumo (Snowy Hydro) and Momentum (Hydro Tas) and others. That compares with some others who are either in retail or generation only but not both.

So the market price in Victoria might have gone from $46 to over $100 but there's nothing to stop AGL etc doing some internal accounting and selling their own generation output into their own retail business at a lower price if they want to. That would cost them money "on paper" but they'd be looking at an overall business strategy and deciding what their approach is. Same with all the others.

One issue is that generation hasn't been particularly profitable in the past. A lot has been said about "gold plating" and associated profits but that's in the networks whereas the reverse is true so far as generation is concerned. No gold sitting around in power stations that's for sure indeed some are in very bad shape (Hazelwood sure isn't the only one falling apart).

So that's why, among others, Snowy and Hydro Tas both decided they needed to get into retail. With the big 3 (AGL, Origin, Energy Australia) already integrated and with not a lot of $ being made just generating it was the most rational way to reduce business risk to sell directly to the public.

I don't know the details of the others but certainly Hydro Tas has a very substantial chunk of generation sold under contract either to Aurora Energy (a separate Tas Government owned energy retailer), its own retailer Momentum and directly to heavy industry. 

There are also quite a lot of financial deals between generators. It's no secret in the industry that Snowy Hydro in particular has a lot of arrangements in place with the big private generators and retailers. Plus they'd obviously have internal arrangements with their own retail operations.

So it's all a bit like banks and interest rates. The RBA could put rates up 1% but it's up to the banks to decide what they actually do in terms of their relationship with customers. Some may just pass it straight through whilst others might get a bit creative if they think they can gain customers or profits that way.


----------



## sptrawler

At least the media are starting to get their heads around the real issues surrounding energy costs.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-13/australia-faces-risk-of-recession-minack/8440570

Not only will the rising cost of energy stop investment, it will increase the cost of living, at a time when unemployment is rising and wages are falling.
How the hell did it get to this? 
Politically motivated lunacy. IMO


----------



## basilio

Hmnn SPtrawler. Not quite sure what you mean by politically motivated lunacy in the context of this topic.
The overall picture which Smurf details exceptionally well notes that most of our coal fired base load power stations are nearing the end of their life and have been effectively worked to death.  There is no economical prospect of renovating/restoring them so they will be closed down.
In terms of replacing this base load power solar and wind technologies are now more cost competitive.  They just need the addition of some storage facility, pumped hyro- , battery banks whatever, to ensure stability of supply.
The big issue I think your referring to is the government decision to allow our national gas supplies to be sold overseas enmasse and the consequent exceptionally steep increase in gas. This will cruel gas fired generators and, as you point out,  have a massive effect on energy intensive industries. 
Cheers


----------



## basilio

Good story on the fundamental changes to Australian manufacturing and movement to renewable energy.

* Renewables roadshow: how Broken Hill went from mining to drag queens and solar farms *
The home of BHP and Mad Max can now take credit for kickstarting the large-scale solar industry in Australia

........
Broken Hill gave birth to one of the least renewable industries on Earth, but it can now claim to be the Australian birthplace of one of the most renewable.

On the outskirts of the city lies a solar farm that covers an area equivalent to 75 Sydney Cricket Grounds. Built by AGL, the 53MW Broken Hill solar plant is one of two solar farms (the other 102MW one is in Nyngan) built in outback New South Wales at the same time. Adam Mackett from AGL, who was the project manager for the Broken Hill plant, credits these farms with kickstarting the large-scale solar industry in Australia.

Officially opened in January 2016, the plants were built with subsidies from the federal government through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena), as well as support from the NSW government.

With that funding, AGL was able to jump into the large-scale solar industry, and in doing so, create a supply chain that is bringing down the cost of solar farms around the country.

*For example, Mackett says a manufacturing plant in the struggling car industry retooled to provide the frames for the solar panels, and is now able to do that for the whole industry.*

“That was something [the plant] didn’t previously do,” Mackett says. “You can imagine they’ve learned a lot about that. And as they learn, they become more efficient and that brings the costs down.”
*

And come down it did. Government subsidies of about $1.50 per watt were needed to get the Broken Hill and Nyngan plants up and running. Last year that fell to just 19c per watt, and construction costs have fallen by about 40%. By kickstarting the industry, supply chains were built and the large-scale solar businesses became “de-risked”, making the cost of capital cheaper for subsequent projects.*

Unsurprisingly, Makett loves the big Broken Hill solar farm. Travelling through the city, we find locals seem to love it too. Big companies sometimes have trouble convincing communities these projects are worthwhile – but not so in Broken Hill.

The deputy mayor, David Gallagher, says: “I’d love to have Broken Hill, being the first iconic heritage-listed city, [also be] the most [successful] renewable energy city in Australia. I believe we can do that – I believe we can go forward.”


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## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> The overall picture which Smurf details exceptionally well notes that most of our coal fired base load power stations are nearing the end of their life and have been effectively worked to death.  There is no economical prospect of renovating/restoring them so they will be closed down.




It's a bit like a car.

If it's a 5 year old car and the engine brakes then it's sensible and worthwhile to repair or if necessary replace the engine since the rest of the car is still in good condition with many years of useful life remaining.

But if the car's 25 years old then it's just silly to spend any significant $ on repairs hence why most old cars are scrapped once something significant needs fixing. Reason being that you could spend $$$ on a new engine and then a month later you've got problems with the gearbox. Fix that and 6 months later the diff starts making noises it shouldn't. And so on. A point comes where pretty much every part in the car is worn out and it's cheaper to replace than to try and keep it running. Only exceptions would be if you're not worried about the cost (classic cars etc) or can DIY all the work and are only paying for the actual parts but even then it gets marginal eventually.

By virtue of operating at high temperature and pressure coal-fired plants do suffer degradation which starts on day 1 of operation. After a few decades it all ends up worn out and it's either spend big $ or close. If you don't see a long term future in it then as an owner you close it rather than spending the $.

It's the same with gas and due to technological improvement with gas-fired generation being greater than with coal there's even less incentive to refurbish an old plant. It's no secret that Torrens Island, by far the largest power station in SA (it's about half the state's non-intermittent generation so hugely significant) is getting *very* tired and having a lot of problems with things failing. 

Hydro does have an inherently long life, that it doesn't involve high temperatures and runs at a much slower speed is a big factor there, but it still needs regular maintenance and a few bits and pieces replaced due to mechanical wear, corrosion and so on. Even things like canals need cleaning if algae growth becomes a problem and restricts the water flow (yes it does matter since it cuts the flow more than you'd expect). It's quite a task to scrub clean a 20 km long canal:


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## qldfrog

basilio said:


> Hmnn SPtrawler. Not quite sure what you mean by politically motivated lunacy in the context of this topic.



I believe SPtrawler is also refering to the change of mind in the last 10 years with each new PM/government unable to made a consistent and technically motivated decision on carbon credit, funding or not of coal/infrastructure/green power;
Which CEO in his right mind would invest the couple of billions required to create new generating power [of any kind] in these circumstances.
a bit like our super/private healthcare but without the legal mandatory stick australians are subject to...
Our politicians be they right or left [as per most of the policies absences in the last 10y or so ] are definitively responsible. you do not govern a country like a facebook page based on number of likes or not.


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## Smurf1976

The problem with politics is the uncertainty rather than any specific policy as such.

Nobody wants to build coal in case a carbon tax is introduced. Nobody's too keen on renewables in case a carbon tax isn't introduced. Gas is way too risky now that we've tied the Australian gas price to the international oil price which has historically been extremely volatile.

The end result of all that is that right now on Good Friday, when most businesses are closed, the weather is mild and demand is low, we've got prices around the $100 mark.

Go back a few years and prices that high were seen only on hot Summer afternoons or cold Winter evenings and then only on a working weekday.

A mild Winter followed by a mild Summer next year could make a fool of me and others worried about physical supply problems. If it doesn't get cold or hot and demand stays down then we'll scrape through and the lights will stay on. What won't likely go away though is the problem of price. You know things aren't good when old, inefficient and expensive to run gas turbines are roaring away and price is at levels which used to only be seen during the peaks even on a major public holiday with mild weather.


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> So if the Vic government is going to regulate prices then it's going to have to do it in a manner that is still profitable for retailers otherwise they can and will simply walk away.




So I'm wondering what will happen if retailers "walk away" ?

The poles and wires won't get maintained so the State government will have to pick up the tab for that, but the gov't will also have access to that retailer's revenue. If it's a profit making business which it must be otherwise they would have walked away before then it's a net win for the government who can then control the prices charged by that retailer and force the prices down. If other retailers then walk away the gov't could take them over too.

I really can't see the point of having multiple retailers, because the original idea was that it would lower prices, but for essential services the competition is likely to be in the other direction, everyone raising prices to get the best return.

The retailers seem to be a middleman that achieves nothing except giving private companies (a lot that are offshore) a chance to rip off consumers for an essential service.


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## Smurf1976

There's a few people, me included, starting to wonder about the macro economic impacts of the electricity price situation. 

Looking at the prices seen since Hazelwood closed, in rough terms the rise is equivalent to about 0.9% of GDP nationally. To put it another way, the increased cost is also equivalent across the entire national economy to an interest rate rise of about 0.64%

If we confine that to the affected states, that being all except WA and NT, then it becomes about 1.1% of GDP. I couldn't find loan data by state but assuming it's roughly proportional to GDP and population then it becomes equivalent to an interest rate rise of about 0.78% in those states.

Now, if the RBA hiked rates 0.75% (since they generally move in 0.25% increments) in one step then I think that would cause a degree of concern. Well the RBA hasn't hiked rates but closing Hazelwood power station has brought about something rather similar via higher energy prices. 

Whilst these figures are all a bit rubbery, it's early days yet, what's happened so far is starting to cause a bit of alarm for those with an interest in broader economics. Whilst electricity isn't interest, the overwhelming majority of economic activity involves electricity in some way so it seems reasonable to assume that electricity price hikes would have a similar effect, albeit with some differences, as an interest rate rise.

The above figures are based on the increase in electricity prices since Hazelwood closed as compared to the 2015-16 financial year average (using AEMO data) and comparing that to total Australian GDP, GSP of the states and APRA data for gross loans and advances for banks operating in Australia with an assumption (based on what seems to happen in practice) that interest rate movements tend to flow through to loans far more than they do to deposits.

Not considered is the impact on the broader economy of increased profits for the power industry. Acknowledged that could be a flaw in my analysis but given at least some of that will go offshore (foreign owners) there's still an impact on the Australian economy.

Where the real pain could be is if the higher prices kill off a few industries. In that case the impact becomes potentially far more significant particularly in the areas where those industries are located.


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## Jorgensen

I heard the last head of ETSA,before it was privatised,speaking about electricity prices.He,rightly stated,that the public had paid for privatisation every year since with the increased electricity prices.The state government got a one off boost to their budget,of course.
Incidentally he also said that ETSA had bought land for a pumped hydro plant in the early nineties,but sold it back to the farmer when it was not viable to proceed.


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## Smurf1976

ETSA and the others had it all worked out with long term plans for all sorts of things which could be built if the need arose.

Victoria had plans for a 4000 MW coal-fired plant plus the mine and everything to go with it. Never happened but the plans were ready in case they were needed. Also had plans for gas-fired generation and pumped hydro if needed.

Tasmania looked into just about every possible option in considerable detail and went as far as identifying suitable sites, costs and so on should we ever need to build a coal-fired plant. Likewise monitoring wind and solar long before they were put to use.

In SA ETSA did a lot of work to identify future options. A lot of drilling exploring for coal and even a small scale "test" mine to validate the suitability of what the drilling had shown to be the best option. Plus they had plans for pumped hydro that go back to the 1980's. Plus they built the last part of Torrens Island to be suitable for conversion to coal just in case it became necessary (and there were indeed plausible scenarios where it would have become necessary hence the planning).

Vic and Tas both had sites identified for nuclear power stations by the way. Tas in particular was never seriously considering doing it, in Vic it was considered more likely, but both thought it prudent a very long time ago to identify where such a facility would be built if it ever was and to make sure nothing else was put on that land. We're talking back in the early days of nuclear power globally here - neither state had a need for it at the time but both thought it was something that might be relevant someday so planned accordingly.

So the big difference is short term thinking versus long term. Have plans on what to do in practically any circumstance and implement them according to what becomes necessary versus virtually no planning at all. 

The barrier to transitioning to renewable energy is not a technical one, there are workarounds for every single problem it presents, but rather is a political one. If ETSA were still around then they'd have built storage _before_ the system fell in a heap without it rather than waiting until there was a crisis. Same approach with the other issues.


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## macca

Interesting comparison with an interest rate hike, I would think it is in fact far worse than your figures show.

If it had been an interest rate hike then the people with mortgages would suffer but those with money in the bank would benefit and spend up a bit but an increase in power costs effect all households and businesses.

Some economists theorise that merely adjusting interest rates is far too simplistic in today's affluent world. In the past when most people had little spare money it worked well but today, when we take interest rates down the older generation stop spending which has a Much bigger effect than retailers will tell.

In our area, when interest rates are high tradies and home maintenance people are flat out, now that interest rates have dropped they are much quieter. Noticeably less money flowing through the area because of it according to my tradie mates.


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## SirRumpole

Some good news for Smurf after today's announcement ?


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## SirRumpole

*Tasmania could become 'battery of Australia' through increased dam storage, Turnbull says*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-...t-to-double-under-plan-to-reuse-water/8457572


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## sptrawler

It is the best sounding 'plan', I've heard so far, hydro storage and pumps powered by renewable energy makes perfect sense.
It makes sense, therefore it probably won't happen.
IMO a lot better than sea containers, full of batteries.lol

All sites in Australia, where pumped storage is feasible, should be assessed for their viability.
At this point in our renewable journey, it is the only realistic large scale option, for storing renewable energy.IMO
Batteries will have their place, but it will be for small scale, their place as large scale backup is very limited.IMO


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## boofhead

I'm not sure how Tasmania could be the battery of Australia if the rest of Australia has limited access to it. Will the feds part fund extra Basslink like cables?


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## sptrawler

boofhead said:


> I'm not sure how Tasmania could be the battery of Australia if the rest of Australia has limited access to it. Will the feds part fund extra Basslink like cables?




They would have to, no private concern, would foot the bill for it. Also the capital cost, of the pumped storage, would have to be part if not all Government funded.

But it will be small change, compared to the NBN, high speed internet that is going to make Australia great again.lol

On a more serious note, we really are getting ourselves wedged, we need to keep the cost of power down to attract business.
The problem is, we have taken a huge step, toward expensive renewable energy.
Now we have to make it work, therefore energy storage is the issue. 
If you are relying on intermittent power sources, you have to put in place reliable storage, for the times that the wind solar isn't working.
Hydro is a very low maintenance, very reliable energy source, if you have the water, that is where pumped storage comes in to its own.


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## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Hydro is a very low maintenance, very reliable energy source, if you have the water, that is where pumped storage comes in to its own.




Also the fact that you can get "free" energy when rainfall fills the storages and you don't need power to recirculate it.


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Also the fact that you can get "free" energy when rainfall fills the storages and you don't need power to recirculate it.




Yes, great point, we're obviously over thinking it.


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## basilio

Our energy future - coming now

*Queensland company to build Australia's largest solar farm, creates 450 jobs *
By Frenalyn Wilson on April 19 2017 6:12 PM












_An employee walks on solar panels at a solar power plant in Aksu, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region May 18, 2012. Reuters/Stringer 

A Queensland company proposes to build the largest solar farm in Australia amounting to $2 billion. The facility is expected to eventually supply at least 15 percent of power needs in south-east Queensland and would create 450 jobs during construction.


Solar Q lodged a development application with the Gympie Council in order to build a solar farm and battery storage facility 30 kilometres north-west of the city. According to ABC, the project would be built in stages. A350-megawatt facility is expected to be built initially as soon as approval is granted.


It will go as high as 800 megawatts after four years. It aims to produce enough electricity that could power at least 315,000 homes.


Managing director Scott Armstrong said the facility is set to be the biggest in the country, but "the way the market is going is that there will be bigger projects that will come on.” He said the project will meet at least 15 percent of south-east Queensland's energy requirements from the 4,000 megawatt hours of energy storage, as well as solar panels.

http://www.ibtimes.com.au/queenslan...s-largest-solar-farm-creates-450-jobs-1550827_


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## basilio

Have to say the proposal to look at extending pumped hydro power in Tasmania seems eminently logical. It will  be interesting to see if the figures stack up versus smaller pumped hydro plants around the country. 

____________________________________________________________________________
If I was coalifile in the *coal*ition I'd be wondering where my next lobbying cheque was coming from.


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## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Our energy future - coming now
> 
> *Queensland company to build Australia's largest solar farm, creates 450 jobs *
> By Frenalyn Wilson on April 19 2017 6:12 PM
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _An employee walks on solar panels at a solar power plant in Aksu, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region May 18, 2012. Reuters/Stringer
> 
> A Queensland company proposes to build the largest solar farm in Australia amounting to $2 billion. The facility is expected to eventually supply at least 15 percent of power needs in south-east Queensland and would create 450 jobs during construction.
> 
> 
> Solar Q lodged a development application with the Gympie Council in order to build a solar farm and battery storage facility 30 kilometres north-west of the city. According to ABC, the project would be built in stages. A350-megawatt facility is expected to be built initially as soon as approval is granted.
> 
> 
> It will go as high as 800 megawatts after four years. It aims to produce enough electricity that could power at least 315,000 homes.
> 
> 
> Managing director Scott Armstrong said the facility is set to be the biggest in the country, but "the way the market is going is that there will be bigger projects that will come on.” He said the project will meet at least 15 percent of south-east Queensland's energy requirements from the 4,000 megawatt hours of energy storage, as well as solar panels.
> 
> http://www.ibtimes.com.au/queenslan...s-largest-solar-farm-creates-450-jobs-1550827_




I love your enthusiasm basillio, unlike smurphs posts, it is all vegie no meat.


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## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Have to say the proposal to look at extending pumped hydro power in Tasmania seems eminently logical. It will  be interesting to see if the figures stack up versus smaller pumped hydro plants around the country.
> 
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> If I was coalifile in the *coal*ition I'd be wondering where my next lobbying cheque was coming from.




That fits better with my limited knowledge, it would probably be cheaper and more efficient to run a second and third Bass link, than to pursue ridiculous amounts of solar generation with no storage facility.
The other upside is, it makes Tassie worthwhile and pays its way, rather than a home for retirees.
O.K sorry, out of line, not acceptable, I'll take myself down the back and give myself a thrashing.


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## Smurf1976

With regard to what's going on in Tasmania, well a few things have changed in a broader context so at the stage it's simply a case of re-evaluating all the options.

What changed?

Electricity prices in Victoria have almost tripled.

Brown coal is now a post-peak and declining energy source. There's not much future, at least at an economical cost, for gas or black coal either.

So the harsh reality is that approximately 90% of Australia's present power generation is either becoming uneconomic to operate or is ceasing production altogether. Swanbank A, B, C and D, Collinsville, Callide A, Munmorah, Redbank, Morwell, Hazelwood, Anglesea, Playford B and Northern are all gone with Smithfield Energy Facility about to join that list in a few weeks. Then there's the reality that Liddell is going in 2022, Torrens Island is getting very tired, Yallourn is old and so on.

Meanwhile in Tasmania we've got plenty of opportunities to add either energy, peak power or both. Technically they're doable, they're not new ideas and have been looked at in the past, but the questions are about economic viability.

Pumped storage - we could build more of that than anyone's likely to want so it's a question of picking what's cheapest and seeing if that's cheap enough.

Energy - there are certainly some opportunities to enhance the existing hydro system. They're not new ideas, just things that weren't viable economically in the past or which simply weren't necessary in a situation where Vic had coal-fired plant running 24/7 and there's only one cable across Bass Strait such that Tas needs to run at least some hydro 24/7.

One specific idea is to put another machine into Gordon power station. There's physically space for 5 but only 3 have ever been installed as the rest just haven't been needed. The other part of that story is that due to an environmental constraint introduced well after the original construction, the power station spends a lot of time with one machine running at low output to maintain the minimum required water flow downstream.

That mode of operation is inefficient, hydro turbines are optimally efficient at higher output levels, so some gains could be made by adding an additional smaller machine to the station specifically to provide that minimum flow whilst operating at its optimum efficiency.

So basically that means using the space that's available for 2 extra machines to install one smaller machine and keeping open the option of a 4th large one at a later time. That gains energy via reducing losses at times of low output (and that's a very common situation).

Another specific idea is to redevelop Tarraleah power station.

When first proposed (1934) Tarraleah was a "make work" project in response to the Great Depression. Generating power would pay the bills but the real aim, at that time, was to put people to work building it and later via the use of that power in industry.

Out of necessity there were an awful lot of compromises made. Those canals were hand dug for the first part of construction. Getting concrete was a problem. Money was a problem too. Heck there wasn't even a road to or anywhere near the site - Hydro had to build that too.

To cut a long story short, the canals are the "weak link" and are sufficient to operate the present Tarraleah power station at an average 80% of capacity over 24 hours. It can reach 100% certainly, but it can't do that constantly as the canals aren't big enough.

That worked just fine back in the 1930's and indeed it still works pretty well at the moment but it's not going to be a good way to operate if we put more transmission across Bass Strait. Do that and then it becomes desirable to shut down Tasmanian generation when the wind and solar is going well interstate and then run at high levels when the reverse occurs. Those canals then become a problem of significance.

So the idea is to look at ways to get more flow from Lake King William to Tarraleah power station, a distance of 17 km in a straight line or about 20 km along the present canal route. That could be in conjunction with using either the present or a replacement power station depending on the economics - a new one of higher capacity has a lot of merit technically but obviously adds to the cost.

A point to mention there is that Tarraleah presently runs base load and does so to a greater degree than even coal-fired plant generally does interstate. It just sits there and runs 24/7 at the maximum flow rate of the canals. Only real exception is due to maintenance outages. Being able to operate intermittently but at higher output has a lot of advantages if the state is more strongly linked to the mainland and we're moving toward wind and solar.

Related to that is that a further 6 power stations re-use the water discharged by Tarraleah. Where part of the benefit of a capacity increase at Tarraleah comes from is being able to better manage that flow downstream. Hold back water when it's wet but then run at higher than presently possible rates when it's dry. That reduces water spilled over the dams downstream and increases overall production.

It's not really a past mistake that it is this way, it's just a case of nobody back in the 1930's having foreseen how it would be operated in 2020 or later. And even if they had foreseen Basslink and interstate reliance on wind and solar, amid the Great Depression they couldn't likely have afforded to build it with higher capacity anyway.

Gordon and Tarraleah aren't the only options by the way.

For example back in the early 1990's interest rates were high but electricity wasn't worth overly much hence Hydro decided to reduce the height of the dam being built at Lake Plimsoll so as to reduce costs. That comes at the expense of losing some water to spill during high rainfall events and with electricity now far more valuable it could well make sense to go back and raise the height. It was built to allow that to be done later, previous effort won't be wasted, but it just wasn't economic at the time to build it higher but it might be now so it's another one to look at.

So there's a lot of options. Most are individually small but collectively they are significant. With prices having tripled in Vic plus various governments in a panic about power supply now's the time to have a look at the economics of those options and see how they stack up.

Adding more peak generating capacity does, in order to be useful, require an increase in transmission capacity across Bass Strait. On the other hand, that's not really a requirement for things which simply add energy to the system but with no or minimal change in peak output. So intertwined with questions about adding to or improving the hydro system is a related question about building Basslink No. 2


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## sptrawler

Smurph, I think everyone loves your posts and it gives them a leg up at the BBQ discussions.
I really don't think many, understand the underlying problem, it is make or break the way we are going.IMO


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> it is make or break the way we are going.



Very true.

From the Tasmanian perspective we've been there before.

First was back in 1914. Private enterprise had built a couple of tiny hydro plants (1.5 MW between them) to run mines and the locally very significant Mt Lyell Mining & Railway Company was building the more substantial Lake Margaret scheme at 4.8 MW and designed for expansion. Launceston City Council had Duck Reach, that was the only public involvement in the industry at that time, and the then Hydro-Electric Power and Metallurgical Company had run out of money trying to build the Great Lake scheme plus the zinc works in Hobart plus a carbide factory.

And so despite all manner of warnings from the Australian Government, Tasmania took the plunge and jumped in head first in 1914 by setting up the Hydro as Australia's first state owned electricity utility. Nobody at that time likely understood what the state had just embarked upon but it all worked out in the end. That gave the privately owned HEPMCo enough $ to finish building their factories whilst the state took over the power supply.

A steep learning curve ensued. Just two years later Tasmania, with it's small population, no real experience and limited resources had Waddamana power station working and was running one of the longest transmission systems anywhere in the world (we think it was actually the longest but it's hard to confirm that). Just 12 months later the power station had doubled in size, another 2 years and it had doubled again as had the grid with the Launceston system now part of what was fast becoming a state-wide grid.

That was the first effort - either get this electricity caper up and running or be left behind. Thank heavens it worked. It scared the absolute **** out of Victoria from an economic perspective, their response being to set up the SECV.

For the record in due course Lake Margaret was indeed expanded and has since been acquired by the Hydro. Launceston's scheme was also sold to Hydro but ultimately replaced by the much larger Trevallyn station in 1955.

Then came the Great Depression which gave rise to the second effort which became universally known as hydro-industrialisation. Build dams and power stations which creates work, sell the power to industry to create more work, build more power stations and establish more industries. Rinse and repeat. That worked fine until Victoria built Hazelwood and started luring industry with cheap power, interest rates went up which isn't favourable to capital-intensive hydro power, the Australian economy started a long term move away from manufacturing and of course the environmental debates although the wheels were already falling off by that time.

And now there's the third major opportunity. Vic and SA are stuffed so far as energy is concerned and NSW is fast heading the same way. Qld has volume but it's not cheap. WA is better placed but it's less of a direct competitor due to both distance and not being linked to the other states either electrically or with gas.

Meanwhile down here we've got identified tidal, wind and of course hydro plus at least some chance of doing something with geothermal - the resource is there and unlike SA it's not in the middle of nowhere.

So it's the same problem as always. If we can do it cheap enough then there's a huge potential gain economically but the key is "cheap".

That's nothing new by the way. It was recognised at least as far back as the late 1920's that there were two options when it came to energy. Do it cheap or don't do it at all. The state removed the Hydro from direct political control and put business people and engineers in charge for that exact reason - it was recognised that politics was a barrier to efficiency and that getting costs down was an imperative. It was reported in those terms though the media at the time - it was very clearly understood that we had to compete internationally.

I've mentioned some very old stuff and there's a reason for that. None of the major issues are new.

Victoria and SA had competing private firms supplying electricity a century ago just as they do now. Yes, there was a crisis back then with failure to invest in new generating plant to use locally available resources. Nothing new there at all.

Political interference in the industry was a problem too, hence why the Tas government removed itself from that back in 1930. Again there's nothing new.

The need to manage demand to drive costs down is also not new. Launceston City Council was doing that back in the 1890's so over 120 years ago. The methods may well have been primative but the concept was well understood and applied to the extent technology allowed. 

The need to be competitive is also nothing new indeed it has never been any different. 

So technology has changed as have attitudes toward the environment but the fundamental economics of the power industry is much the same now as it was more than a century ago. Noting new at all really in that sense.


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## sptrawler

Due to the fact the Governments have washed their hands of responsibility for power generation ownership, doesn't in any way remove the accountability, for reliable supply.

Both sides of politics have to get their head around that, being pedantic about the failings of decisions, isn't addressing the realities that face us.

Having thrown the dice with the carbon tax, the ball is rolling, institutions aren't lending money for base load coal fired generation and gas is in short supply.
Therefore the options are narrowed.

It leaves us in a rather wedged position, the only options IMO are , a gas pipeline in the short term and a pumped storage roll out in the longer term.
How we pay for it will have to be sorted, I've already said the idea of a resource tax on volume, made the most sense to me. It didn't fly.

The one thing that is a given, it has to be sorted, no matter who is in office.
It was a crazy ill conceived idea, to penalise our only real advantage that really is going to cause us a world of pain.
However if it is carried out correctly, it could actually lead to a very renewable future, for the East Coast. 
I'm ever the optimist.


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## basilio

I suggest this a profound review on the future of the energy industry. The whole article is well worth reading IMO.

* Australians could save $100bn on electricity 'if government had clear policy' *
Energy transmission industry ramps up call for market mechanism and says clear regulation could lead to zero net emissions by 2050

The Australian energy market is in the middle of a profound transformation, according to a new report from Energy Networks Australia. Photograph: Paul Miller/AA
*Shares*
14
 
* Comments*
 52 
Katharine Murphy Political editor
Friday 28 April 2017 06.09 AEST   Last modified on Friday 28 April 2017 06.12 AEST

Australia’s electricity and gas transmission industry has intensified a call for a market mechanism to drive orderly transformation in the energy sector, warning a lack of clear regulation will result in higher prices for consumers and a less secure grid.

Energy Networks Australia (ENA) says clear policy settings could ultimately save Australian energy customers $100bn, and allow a smooth transition, where large-scale variable renewable energy can be integrated securely, creating the prospect of Australia’s electricity sector achieving zero net carbon emissions by 2050.

A new roadmap from the ENA to be released on Friday says the energy market is in the middle of a profound transformation that will only intensify over the next two decades.

Modelling produced for the report suggests that by 2050, up to 45% of Australia’s electricity supply could be provided by millions of distributed, privately owned generators, in homes and businesses.

...... Bradley says the intense transformation required in the electricity sector will only be possible if the industry agrees on a clear roadmap, and with “stable and enduring carbon policy to support investment”.

A range of influential organisations have told the current Finkel review of the national electricity market the Turnbull government needs to put a price on carbon or adopt a market mechanism to drive emissions reduction.

A string of peak bodies have used the review to call for the adoption of a market mechanism, including the National Farmers’ Federation, the Investor Group on Climate Change and the Business Council of Australia, which explicitly called for an emissions intensity scheme.

The current industry consensus around carbon pricing is a major turnaround in a very short period of time.

Three years ago some of the same groups urged the parliament to get out of the way so that Tony Abbott could repeal the Gillard government’s “carbon tax”

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...on-electricity-if-government-had-clear-policy


----------



## basilio

Guess who else wants to see a clean, renewable energy future using carbon pricing ?
Yep the *National Farmers Federation.
*

* National Farmers' Federation joins calls for market mechanism to lower carbon emissions *
NFF submission to Finkel review joins AGL, Energy Australia and Business Council in supporting mechanism such as emissions intensity scheme


  A water irrigation system in Kununurra, Western Australia. The National Farmers’ Federation has called for a market-based mechanism to secure clean and affordable energy. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
@Paul_Karp 
Tuesday 7 March 2017 08.59 AEDT   Last modified on Tuesday 14 March 2017 12.50 AEDT

The National Farmers’ Federation has called for a market-based mechanism to secure clean and affordable energy, such as an emissions intensity scheme, joining a long list of organisations urging an end to Australia’s policy impasse.

In a submission to the Finkel review, the NFF calls for the government to reconsider its opposition to an EIS and institute a market-based mechanism by 2020 because it would be the cheapest path to low-emissions power generation.

The NFF joins many organisations calling for consideration of a market mechanism including network company Energy Networks Australia, retailer Energy Australia, electricity provider AGL, the Climate Change Authority, the Business Council of Australia and the CSIRO.

The chief scientist, Alan Finkel, has also given implicit support for an emissions intensity scheme, saying it would integrate best “with the electricity market’s pricing and risk management framework” and “had the lowest economic costs and the lowest impact on electricity prices”.

In December the energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, ruled out pursuing an EIS, pre-empting the findings of the Finkel report by taking one of the most widely supported policies to meet Paris climate targets off the table.

On Tuesday the NFF president, Fiona Simson, told ABC’s AM the current system was “broken”, citing blackouts in South Australia and poor energy reliability and affordability in the agricultural sector.

Simson said some farmers faced power bills of double or triple the rates in previous years, labelling price spikes “indefensible”.

“In agriculture it’s absolutely devastating – we have businesses that rely on secure, reliable and affordable electricity to conduct cool stores that store fruit, for example, that run their milking machines for their cows, that run irrigation pumps for their fruit and their vegetables.”

Simson said that an evidence-based policy would result in “the market sorting it out” and called for a technology neutral approach.

An emissions intensity scheme is part of Labor’s climate change policy and has been backed by the South Australian government, which the Coalition has used to revive a scare campaign about power prices despite findings that policy stability can reduce prices.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...or-market-mechanism-to-lower-carbon-emissions


----------



## SirRumpole

More evidence on why Turnbull is out of touch on coal.



*Investors snapping up community energy projects, with some selling out in minutes*



http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-30/community-energy-projects-selling-out-within-minutes/8476794


----------



## drsmith

From the link above,


> The company Bakers Maison will pay investors for the solar energy it uses over a period of between seven to 10 years. The investors get a 7 per cent return on the money they put in.
> 
> After that time, the business owns the panels and will use its energy for free.




What's the nature of the specific investment arrangement ?


----------



## basilio

The details of the investment arrangement for the community solar energy projects are spelt out on the Clear Sky Solar website.

Have to say it's a very attractive return and appears reliable.
_
"The end user pays less for their electricity and at the end of the seven years inherits a solar PV installation that will go on producing free power for another 15-20 years. Each new project contributes to the bottom line of the installation company, creates local jobs and boosts Australia's clean energy sector. Investors can feel a sense of ownership and monitor how their system is performing as well as getting a reliable income stream over a 7 year period"_
http://www.clearskysolar.com.au/howitworks.php


----------



## basilio

It would be interesting to compare these returns against current power companies.


----------



## drsmith

From the link above,


> *One year after the system is switched on, you will receive your first payment. It will be whatever the system has generated over the past year multiplied by the price per kWh for that year set out in the contract with Smart Commercial Solar.* You will have direct access over the Internet to the system's inverter so you can check for yourself how much the system generated over the last year (broken down into individual days if you wish). Using this facility you will be able to calculate exactly how much you will receive each annual payment based on what proportion of the trust units you hold. *Each annual payment has a capital repayment component equal to one seventh of the sum advanced, and a profit share component. The profit share component has to be declared as income tax.*




With regard to the Bakers Maison system above as reported above by the ABC, what is the period over which investors will receive payments (7 to 10 years according to the ABC but the above suggests 7) and the price per kWh paid to investors ?

My bolds.


----------



## basilio

Not sure exactly of the specific figures for Bakers Maison. Looking at the overall model it seems that the investment period for the client company is around 7 years. It seems that the company agrees to the solar panels going on their premises at no cost to them.  They then pay for  the electricity generated at an agreed price which is less than current market cost so they are saving money. After the agreed contract time - say 7 seven years, the company gets the full value of the cheap solar power for the remaining life of the panels. This should be another 15-20 years

During the seven year investment period the investors get a return of between 6-9% on their funds and ongoing payback of the principal. Obviously the organisers get some sort of return as well.


----------



## drsmith

From information in the ABC article above it is possible to determine the price per kWh required to generate a return to investors of 7% pa.


> Within six hours, 20 investors had pitched in almost $400,000 to install a huge 230 kilowatt solar system on the bakery's roof.




$400k for 230kW represents $1,739 per kW of installed capacity.

Based on the generation from my 1.5kW system over a period approaching 6 years, I'd estimate that 1kW of solar capacity with a favourable solar aspect could generate 1,600kWh of electricity per annum or 16,000kWh over 10 years.

This equates to 10.9 cents/kWh for a return of capital over 10 years. That essentially needs to be doubled to generate a 7% pa compound return on investment over the same period.

For 7 years, it's 15.5 cents/kWh for a return of capital and 24.9 cents/kWh for a 7% pa compound return on investment over that 7 years.

Anyone else clipping the ticket is additional cost as is the cost of grid connection where the system doesn't include battery storage.


----------



## basilio

Nice set of figures there Dr Smith. I believe however there would be additional income from RET payments?  I  also understand the solar panels are treated as a lease item so there would be tax deductibility involved which would not apply to a domestic user.
It's also possible/probable that current solar panels would generate more  power than units installed 6-8 years ago. There have been improvements in efficiency.


----------



## drsmith

basilio said:


> Nice set of figures there Dr Smith. I believe however there would be additional income from RET payments?  I  also understand the solar panels are treated as a lease item so there would be tax deductibility involved which would not apply to a domestic user.
> It's also possible/probable that current solar panels would generate more  power than units installed 6-8 years ago. There have been improvements in efficiency.



I'm not surprised there's government subsidies in there. Looking quickly at the present cost of retail packages, I note that per unit of installed capacity, these are much cheaper than for the investment install above. Is the purchase price net of any RET credits or are the RET credits paid over time after install and is there any distinction between small scale and large scale installs ?

http://www.solarwa.net.au/solar-systems-special-offers/?gclid=CLrI797mzdMCFcMrvQodN58IQA

The panels themselves have become more efficient over time but a unit of installed capacity (or multiple thereof) is a unit of installed capacity regardless of the efficiency of the panels.


----------



## sptrawler

Well doc IMO, the writing is on the wall for W.A, a mate of mine has just had his meter updated to a smart meter for free.
That tells me something, they are running at a loss that Labor says requires a 7% increase in charges.
Yet they can afford to replace a perfectly good meter with a 'smart meter' for nothing, if it smells like a rat, it probably is a rose, if your a Labor voter.lol


----------



## Tisme

The charge rate for one building I operate in has increased by 100% this year due to elimination of bulk buy tariff.

Meanwhile the argument is on here for Hydro versus Coal up North for a new power station. QLD could make a motsa selling power to SA and VIC


----------



## basilio

Good luck with Adani and co selling coal to India. That boat has sailed and sank.

* Indian solar power prices hit record low, undercutting fossil fuels *
Plummeting wholesale prices put the country on track to meet renewable energy targets set out in the Paris agreement


Solar panels for sale at a market in New Delhi. India’s solar power prices have fallen to 2.62 rupees per kilowatt hour. Photograph: Saurabh Das/

* Comments*
612 
Michael Safi

 
@safimichael

Wednesday 10 May 2017 22.29 AEST Last modified on Thursday 11 May 2017 08.21 AEST
Wholesale solar power prices have reached another record low in India, faster than analysts predicted and further undercutting the price of fossil fuel-generated power in the country.
The tumbling price of solar energy also increases the likelihood that India will meet – and by its own predictions, exceed – the renewable energy targets it set at the Paris climate accords in December 2015.
India is the world’s third-largest carbon polluter, with emissions forecast to at least double as it seeks to develop its economy and lift hundreds of millions of citizens out of poverty.
Ensuring it generates as much of that energy as possible from renewable sources is considered crucial to limiting catastrophic global temperature increases.
At a reverse auction in Rajasthan on Tuesday, power companies Phelan Energy and Avaada Power each offered to charge 2.62 rupees per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity generated from solar panels they hope to build at an energy park in the desert state. Last year’s previous record lowest bid was 4.34 rupees per kWh .







Analysts called the 40% price drop “world historic” and said it was driven by cheaper finance and growing investor confidence in India’s pledge to dramatically increase its renewable energy capacity.

It reduces the market price of solar tariffs well past the average charged by India’s largest thermal coal conglomerate, currently around 3.20 rupees per kWh . Wholesale price bids for wind energy also reached a record low of 3.46 rupees in February.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ices-hit-record-low-undercutting-fossil-fuels


----------



## SirRumpole

Another breakthrough by our scientists. Let's hope the politicians don't stuff it up...



*Renewable hydrogen could fuel Australia's next export boom after CSIRO breakthrough*



http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-...uld-fuel-renewable-energy-export-boom/8518916


----------



## macca

*Printed solar panels demonstration site unveiled by University of Newcastle's Professor Paul Dastoor. *

*http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4660645/a-new-way-to-power-the-city-written-in-ink/?cs=303*


----------



## basilio

In all the flurry about developing clean, renewable energy sources it's worth recognising the gaming and damage done with current coal fired power stations.

It also underlines why we need a determined and well resourced Environmental Protection Authority. 

* 'Mindblowing': NSW EPA probes coal-fired power plants over pollution claims *






*Peter Hannam*
Claims that one of the state's largest power stations used the partial monitoring of its units to manipulate pollution estimates have prompted the environment watchdog to investigate all plants in NSW.

*The Bayswater power station in the Hunter Valley was only required to report pollution from one of its four generation units. Staff were instructed to supply lower sulphur coal to the unit being monitored while dirtier coal was burnt in the other three, according to participants attending a public meeting held with current plant owners AGL in Muswellbrook in March.*

*The future of energy in Australia*
Coal has dominated the National Energy Market, but the closure of Hazelwood power station heralds a potential transition to renewables.

AGL does not deny the station, which it bought from state-run Macquarie Generation in 2014, deliberately blended coal to mask the true emissions of nitrous oxides, sulphur dioxide and other pollutants. The company says it can't comment on operations prior to its takeover and has since introduced monitoring of all four units.

"Blending of coal can be done, at the coal mine or power station, to meet supply agreement conditions, and ensure compliance with air quality protection guidelines and [Environment Protection Authority] licence requirements," Rob Cooper, an AGL spokesman said. "This is common practice in the industry."

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/env...ts-over-pollution-claims-20170510-gw26lb.html


----------



## macca

New technology always has teething problems 
http://www.smh.com.au/business/fast...lar-boost-project-failed-20170516-gw5p2u.html


----------



## basilio

*More big players in Lithium Ion batteries
*

*Daimler begins construction on a $562 million lithium-ion battery factory in Germany*
*German automaker wants to bring 10 new electric models to the market by 2020. *
Megan Geuss - 5/23/2017, 8:45 AM






Enlarge / Federal Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel in a conversation with Dieter Zetsche (Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars) and others.
Daimler
 69 

On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the site of a future lithium-ion battery factory in the eastern German town of Kamenz. The factory is being developed by Mercedes-Benz manufacturer Daimler, which will devote approximately €500 million (or $562 million) to churning out batteries for electric vehicles and stationary storage

........According to Reuters, Chancellor Merkel said on Monday, “We need long-term horizons and companies that invest in the future. It is important that electric mobility is ready for the market as quickly as possible." She had noted earlier in the week that the German government had invested €35 million in battery research, and *she claimed she “had been briefed about the latest lithium cells which could allow cars to travel up to 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) without needing to be recharged,” Reuters said.*

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Daimler’s Kamenz plant will be the biggest battery factory yet in Europe, with large lithium-ion battery factories planned for Sweden, Hungary, and Poland. *The research organization estimates that by 2021, the cost of batteries will drop 41 percent, from $271 per kWh today to $156 per kWh.*

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/0...a-562-million-lithium-ion-battery-in-germany/


----------



## noco

Coal is still a major commodity for producing cheap power.

https://www.facebook.com/energyinaustralia/


----------



## Value Collector

noco said:


> Coal is still a major commodity for producing cheap power.
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/energyinaustralia/




One by One they are falling though.


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> One by One they are falling though.





They sure are:

https://www.msha.gov/news-media/spe...le-dust-rule-historic-step-forward-effort-end


----------



## drsmith

Redflow looks like it's struggling to compete,


> The Strategic Review notes that Redflow batteries are more expensive than commercially mature and volume produced lithium-based batteries. Despite this price differential, Redflow’s ZCell battery is achieving success with early-adopter and technically sophisticated customers who are prepared to pay a higher purchase price for an energy storage system they identify as technically superior.
> 
> The review anticipates that this may not translate into strong sustained sales growth in the mid and late majority residential market, due to the price-sensitivity of competitive, highly commoditised markets, which tend to prioritise a low purchase price over technical advantages, such as those offered by Zinc-Bromine flow batteries



http://newwebchart.weblink.com.au/news/pdf_2\01859111.pdf


----------



## basilio

One of the big technological changes to our current energy system is dealing with the demise of our large end-of-life coal fired power stations and developing robust alternatives.
It seems as if the new head of Australia's power grid has the experience and smarts to make that happen. Very interesting read.

* Power grid head Audrey Zibelman: the good news about sustainable energy *

*Melissa Fyfe*





Audrey Zibelman. Photo: Simon Schluter
*The new head of Australia's power grid is drawing on her experience in the US to make our electricity supply more reliable and sustainable. Melissa Fyfe hears an energising message.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/goo...about-sustainable-energy-20170529-gwffcz.html*


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> One of the big technological changes to our current energy system is dealing with the demise of our large end-of-life coal fired power stations and developing robust alternatives.
> It seems as if the new head of Australia's power grid has the experience and smarts to make that happen. Very interesting read.
> 
> * Power grid head Audrey Zibelman: the good news about sustainable energy *
> 
> *Melissa Fyfe*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Audrey Zibelman. Photo: Simon Schluter
> *The new head of Australia's power grid is drawing on her experience in the US to make our electricity supply more reliable and sustainable. Melissa Fyfe hears an energising message.
> http://www.canberratimes.com.au/goo...about-sustainable-energy-20170529-gwffcz.html*





I reckon Smurf should have got the job.


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> I reckon Smurf should have got the job.




He certainly should have a few words with the lady. She'd appreciate an insiders heads up on the situation.


----------



## basilio

*The reality of renewable energy in Australia
*
A few new stories are coming up which reiterate the practical economic reality of renewable energy as our future.

1) Sun Metals in North Queensland  is building a `116mw solar energy farm to underpin its zinc mine operations
2) The Queensland Government is building a new transmission line to connect 2000 MW of wind solar and hydro projects. Apparently these will come in at $55-70a MWH vs the current $100 MWH for coal fired power.
It just makes sense

There is an An interesting footnote to this situation
_"Xstrata, now part of Glencore, opted for a new gas-fired power station instead, despite advice that the renewables option would be cheaper in the long run. 
Glencore is now talking of closing the Mt Isa mining and smelting operations because the price of gas power has risen so high."_
http://reneweconomy.com.au/if-glencore-wants-cheap-energy-for-mt-isa-it-should-go-solar-25999/
http://reneweconomy.com.au/sun-meta...-will-underpin-zinc-refinery-expansion-28753/
http://reneweconomy.com.au/queensland-eyes-new-transmission-line-to-unlock-cheap-renewables-59037/


----------



## basilio

And before I go to beddy by.
*Guess which other major, major Australian company has decided to buy into it's own Solar farm to contol it's energy spend. ?*

*Yep Telstra .*


*Telstra signs deal for 70MW solar farm to cap energy costs*
By Giles Parkinson on 31 May 2017




One Step Off The Grid






Telstra has signed a contract to build a 70MW solar farm in north Queensland in a bid to cap energy costs, and as the first part of its long-awaited rollout of the Telstra Energy strategy, which may see it compete against major utilities.

The company says it has signed a long-term contract to buy the output of a new solar farm near Emerald, which will be built by RES Australia. In doing so, it is following in the footsteps of Sun Metals, the zinc producer building its own 116MW solar farm, and Monash University, which has tendered for a 40MW wind farm or solar farm.

All are investing directly in renewable energy to reduce their electricity costs, which continue to soar in Australia as network costs and wholesale prices rise unchecked.

The deal was unveiled by Ben Burge, who Telstra snapped from Powershop last year to head its new Telstra Energy division. He says it is an important step in Telstra’s strategy to more actively manage its energy consumption and costs, and to reduce emissions.

“We are proud to be taking an active role in Australia’s transition to a lower emissions economy, complementing our long-standing energy efficiency and sustainability programs that saw our emissions intensity per unit of data fall by 56 per cent over three years,” Burge said in a statement.

“The Emerald project is part of Telstra becoming a more active participant in the energy market to reduce costs while at the same time building resilience in our network and contributing to a more stable energy system.”

Telstra is being coy about how many other contracts it may sign for solar or wind farms, but it expects the corporate PPA market in Australia to finally take off, as businesses understand that renewable energy is a cheaper option to the grid.

“This is about managing risk,” says James Gerraty, Telstra Energy’s head of strategy.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/telstra-signs-deal-for-70mw-solar-farm-to-cap-energy-costs-78281/


----------



## SirRumpole

Someone tell Tony Abbott



*'Clean’ coal-fired power will not work: industry insider*



http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-15/clean-coal-will-not-work-industry-insider/8618836


--


----------



## sptrawler

Well it doesn't seem to matter what fuel we're burning, electricity prices to go up around 15-20%, that's got to hurt.lol
The other problem is, the increase in price, isn't reflecting the capital cost required to overcome the instability in the system.
So my guess is electricity will continue its price march, to eye watering levels, over the next 5-10 years.
Interesting times ahead.IMO

Someone tell Tony Abbott, that no one cares, what electricity costs. 
Also tell him he was dreaming, when he said superannuation was the peoples money, not the Governments.
Yep tell Tony, you would rather go down the back and whip yourself, rather than agree with him.lol


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Yep tell Tony, you would rather go down the back and whip yourself, rather than agree with him.lol




I agree with Abbott when he is right. He was right about turning back the boats. He's wrong about coal.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I agree with Abbott when he is right. He was right about turning back the boats. He's wrong about coal.




Well strap yourself in for ridiculous cost increases, over the next few years, replacing base load quickly with gas and renewables, is going to cost heaps.
As smurph has said on numerous occasions, generation isn't the major cost, distribution is.
Well if you hit coal generation hard, generation costs will sky rocket and add to distribution costs.
Lets see how that works out, thank god W.A is an island system.

As for Abbott, he is a sensible bloke with no charisma, the media has a field day with him, but as channel 10's demise shows they don't do so well themselves.
Turnbull on the other hand is just like Shorten, Mr Beige, he may as well be wall paper, nobody notices or cares what he says.
That's the problem with Australia, we hate being told the truth, much rather have wilting flowers telling us everything is fine.

By the way, the last thing you would do is agree with Abbott, you would rather crash and burn. lol


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Well strap yourself in for ridiculous cost increases, over the next few years, replacing base load quickly with gas and renewables, is going to cost heaps.




It wouldn't have to be done quickly if governments had taken a responsible attitude in the first place and built new generators to replace coal with the money they got from selling/leasing existing generators or networks, but instead they used the money to pay off debt or build roads or otherwise patch up their deficits and make them look like 'responsible economic managers'. LOL.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> It wouldn't have to be done quickly if governments had taken a responsible attitude in the first place and built new generators to replace coal with the money they got from selling/leasing existing generators or networks, but instead they used the money to pay off debt or build roads or otherwise patch up their deficits and make them look like 'responsible economic managers'. LOL.




That is a weird answer, the Governments sold off old generators, at a time when they were worth something.
If they tried to sell them now, nobody would buy them, so they made a lot of money to pay off debt and build roads. What was your point?
It would have been difficult to sell old generating plant, while saying they are going to use the money to put in new generating plant. Why would anybody buy the old plant?

In my opinion, Australia being a minor CO2 emitter by World standards, should sit back and take a measured approach.
Technology in this area is moving along at a fast pace, Australia doesn't need to throw itself on the cross, to be seen to be leading the World.
But for our inferiority complex, we could take a breath and adopt World leading technology. Rather than jumping in and taking any technology, that pops it head up on the internet, but then we would miss out on the "Kev" look at me, look at me effect.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> If they tried to sell them now, nobody would buy them, so they made a lot of money to pay off debt and build roads. What was your point?




My point was that privatisation of generators and networks created the impression in State and Federal governments that the power grid was now "someone else's problem" and that they failed to do due diligence to ensure that power supplies were adequate to meet increasing demand and that existing generators would be replaced when they inevitably reached the end of their lives.

Governments abrogated their responsibility for a one-off intake of cash and now they are in a cold sweat because they realise that elections could be lost on power prices.


----------



## sptrawler

The power supplies were adequate when privatised, the advent of the global warming scare and subsequent Government policy on carbon, has put the cat among the pigeons.

If there was certainty in electricity pricing and Government carbon policy, I'm sure the coal fired generators in S.A and Victoria would still be participants, why wouldn't they be?

The problem is without certainty, why would a company throw money into retrofitting and maintaining the plant, let alone installing new plant.

If anything the Federal Governments lack of direction when implementing the carbon tax, has caused the absolute shambles we have now. 
There is no money for coal, there isn't enough gas and the only thing idiot State Governements have supported is renewables.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> My point was that privatisation of generators and networks created the impression in State and Federal governments that the power grid was now "someone else's problem" and that they failed to do due diligence to ensure that power supplies were adequate to meet increasing demand and that existing generators would be replaced when they inevitably reached the end of their lives.
> 
> Governments abrogated their responsibility for a one-off intake of cash and now they are in a cold sweat because they realise that elections could be lost on power prices.





Once upon a time it was municipal competition with private franchises in a few states and private in others. Gradually it moved to municipal retailing and  high voltage transmission under the state govt and finally vertical aggregation of the whole lot into state owned and run.

The 1993 idea of privatisation and disaggregation was sustainable reductions in power cost


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> The 1993 idea of privatisation and disaggregation was sustainable reductions in power cost




I think the current condition is called "market failure".


----------



## Junior

It is not acceptable for a country with vast, vast reserves of coal, natural gas, uranium, sun, geothermal, tidal, and hydro resources to have some of the most expensive power prices in the world.  Epic failure and short-sighted planning.


----------



## SirRumpole

*Why you're about to pay through the nose for power*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-19/why-youre-about-to-pay-through-the-nose-for-power/8629090


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> *Why you're about to pay through the nose for power*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-19/why-youre-about-to-pay-through-the-nose-for-power/8629090



As I said in the other thread, where you and you siamese twin, posted the link.
Obviously all the efforts, that smurph has put in, are for nought.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Obviously all the efforts, that smurph has put in, are for nought.




Really ? Verrender's article just highlights what Smurf has been saying imo. Another opinion never hurts does it ?


----------



## sptrawler

Well that sums it up. 
There is no point in discussing it, no matter what it costs Australia by introducing the carbon tax, just rewrite history.
Australians swallow anything, if they're told it enough times.
We really are a sad insecure lot. lol


----------



## moXJO

Is Germany still building coal plants?


----------



## sptrawler

moXJO said:


> Is Germany still building coal plants?



Is Germany exporting thermal coal? While demonising the use of it?

With regard Germany and coal firing I did find this report.

https://carboncounter.wordpress.com...ear-phaseout-is-leading-to-more-coal-burning/

Don't know if it helps?

Like I've said earlier, I don't have any issue with doing away with coal fired power generation, but it must be done in a measured approach.
What is happening currently, everyone is jumping on the latest wizz bang technology and when it falls on its ar$e, there is nothing to turn to.


----------



## moXJO

sptrawler said:


> Is Germany exporting thermal coal? While demonising the use of it?
> 
> With regard Germany and coal firing I did find this report.
> 
> https://carboncounter.wordpress.com...ear-phaseout-is-leading-to-more-coal-burning/
> 
> Don't know if it helps?
> 
> Like I've said earlier, I don't have any issue with doing away with coal fired power generation, but it must be done in a measured approach.
> What is happening currently, everyone is jumping on the latest wizz bang technology and when it falls on its ar$e, there is nothing to turn to.



I have to agree. 
Renewables will not cut it. Spending billions on something lasting 25 years if lucky. And 10 years of life on battery backup. Both having diminishing returns during, is not going to cut it. Gas is expensive.  Nuke, not ever going to pass and not that cheap or fast to roll out.
We probably need coal now.


----------



## moXJO

_*When wind and solar are not available to generate electricity, German power buyers turn to coal. In fact, Germany opened over 10 gigawatts of new coal fired power plants over the past 5 years.*_

The debate here is stupid. We need base load so build it.


----------



## SirRumpole

moXJO said:


> _*When wind and solar are not available to generate electricity, German power buyers turn to coal. In fact, Germany opened over 10 gigawatts of new coal fired power plants over the past 5 years.*_
> 
> The debate here is stupid. We need base load so build it.




Different countries, different dynamics, not necessarily applicable to Australia, but, the more generation types in the mix the less we rely on any one of them.

Baseload can be satisfied by a number of means; stored energy from renewables; combined cycle gas turbines that can run on a variety of fuels; nuclear,  coal or a combination of those.

It's a MIX , it's not renewables vs the rest.


----------



## sptrawler

moXJO said:


> _*When wind and solar are not available to generate electricity, German power buyers turn to coal. In fact, Germany opened over 10 gigawatts of new coal fired power plants over the past 5 years.*_
> 
> The debate here is stupid. We need base load so build it.




I didn't realise you were sympathetic to the coal issue.
The whole topic is going stupid, due to political beliefs and ideology, it really needs someone to tell the politicians to butt out.
Then their bolted on believers might shut up, which would be a saving grace. 
I'm fed up with technical issues, being directed by political beliefs and followers rantings.
We have had a situation in W.A, where coal/gas fired plant has been shut down and now the Government has to sell off pre paid gas because they can't burn it.
Politicians need to get out of the engineering game, it's becoming too cut throat, the stroke of a pen hurts people today it didn't 30 years ago.


----------



## moXJO

SirRumpole said:


> .
> 
> It's a MIX , it's not renewables vs the rest.



Tell parliament that.


----------



## SirRumpole

moXJO said:


> Tell parliament that.




Finkel did.


----------



## basilio

*New* coal fired power stations won't cut it. They are simply more expensive than wind or solar alternatives. 
Adding some form of battery or pumped hydro component to ensure certainty of supply is just the most practical solution.
The only reason coal fired stations are currently  more cost effective is because they have been paid for. But the ongoing reality is they are old and getting past their use by date. As Smurph has noted  inevitable costly maintenance is going to kill the coal stations.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> *New* coal fired power stations won't cut it. They are simply more expensive than wind or solar alternatives.
> Adding some form of battery or pumped hydro component to ensure certainty of supply is just the most practical solution.
> The only reason coal fired stations are currently  more cost effective is because they have been paid for. But the ongoing reality is they are old and getting past their use by date. As Smurph has noted  inevitable costly maintenance is going to kill the coal stations.




Agree completely with that statement, at least it has some non political merit, thanks basilio


----------



## SirRumpole

Speaking of Germany:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/how-germany-generates-its-electricity


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> *New* coal fired power stations won't cut it. They are simply more expensive than wind or solar alternatives.
> Adding some form of battery or pumped hydro component to ensure certainty of supply is just the most practical solution.
> The only reason coal fired stations are currently more cost effective is because they have been paid for. But the ongoing reality is they are old and getting past their use by date. As Smurph has noted inevitable costly maintenance is going to kill the coal stations.
> 
> *Agree completely with that statement, at least it has some non political merit, thanks basilio*




Sorry, isn't that what others (like me) have been saying, and have been ridiculed by you for saying so ?

What hypocrisy.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Sorry, isn't that what others (like me) have been saying, and have been ridiculed by you for saying so ?
> 
> What hypocrisy.




Just wallow around in your own lunchbox mate, you say whatever the media/Labor says, basilio has to be respected for maintaining a consistent view.
His views haven't changed and aren't politically biased, you and Tisme would get a lot more traction, if you tried a bit of his etiquette.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Just wallow around in your own lunchbox mate, you say whatever the media/Labor says, basilio has to be respected for maintaining a consistent view.




And being an ex coal employee you just say what you know and don't bother thinking outside your lunch box.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> And being an ex coal employee you just say what you know and don't bother thinking outside your lunch box.




Actually if you removed your head, you would notice, I critisised the W.A Government, for the ridiculous situation they find themselves in, regarding gas.
It was no fault of the current Labor Government, but a huge stuff up by the previous Liberal Government, but as with Tisme, your so focused on politics you can't see the wood for the trees.

I'll give you the tip, if some serious size coal generation isn't installed on the East Coast, you are in for some really big price rises over the next 5 years.lol


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> your so focused on politics you can't see the wood for the trees.




No , I don't think so. I would support coal if not for the fact that it is a polluting and expensive way of power generation which we are stuck with for historical reasons and will be for a number of years, and if you pulled your head out you would see that one of Australia's largest operators of coal fired power stations (Energy Australia) agrees :

*"The solution to high prices, she said, was a national plan to transition to the future of energy into renewables.


While renewables are more expensive now, Ms Tanna told The Business they were the better option in the long-term.

"As at today, newer forms of energy are more expensive than some of the older forms of energy, but over the next 20 years those older, cheaper forms of energy are going to retire," she said."*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-14/energy-australia-boss-worried-about-power-bills/8267070

So that is Labor Party propaganda is it ?


----------



## moXJO

basilio said:


> *New* coal fired power stations won't cut it. They are simply more expensive than wind or solar alternatives.
> Adding some form of battery or pumped hydro component to ensure certainty of supply is just the most practical solution.
> The only reason coal fired stations are currently  more cost effective is because they have been paid for. But the ongoing reality is they are old and getting past their use by date. As Smurph has noted  inevitable costly maintenance is going to kill the coal stations.



Pumped hydro as storage over battery. But we are going to need big investment soon and solar or wind don't look to be able to fill the gap. 
Wind and solar alone  won't meet demand.


----------



## moXJO

SirRumpole said:


> No , I don't think so. I would support coal if not for the fact that it is a polluting and expensive way of power generation which we are stuck with for historical reasons and will be for a number of years, and if you pulled your head out you would see that one of Australia's largest operators of coal fired power stations (Energy Australia) agrees :
> 
> *"The solution to high prices, she said, was a national plan to transition to the future of energy into renewables.
> 
> 
> While renewables are more expensive now, Ms Tanna told The Business they were the better option in the long-term.
> 
> "As at today, newer forms of energy are more expensive than some of the older forms of energy, but over the next 20 years those older, cheaper forms of energy are going to retire," she said."*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-14/energy-australia-boss-worried-about-power-bills/8267070
> 
> So that is Labor Party propaganda is it ?



The maintenance on older plants is expensive but they lasted 50+ years. Solar 25 years at diminished returns and only when the sun shines. Wind works intermittently.
If all those older plants are going down then you still need coal. Nuke and gas I thought were more expensive.
Build the base load first then plan and fit the renewables to the grid.


----------



## moXJO

Hydro would probably be the cheapest and longest lasting, but I'm not sure how many you could practically set up across the nation.


----------



## SirRumpole

moXJO said:


> Build the base load first then plan and fit the renewables to the grid.




Yes, that's a good plan. The question is , what sort of baseload ?

Gas turbines that can run on a variety of fuels seems to be the go.

Gas is expensive here because of the export contracts that create a shortage here. That can be corrected by reserving a suitable portion of our gas for domestic use. We can also turn sugarcane into ethanol and burn that. Coal plants can only run on coal.

As for renewables, we live in a large country. The sun will be shining and the wind will be blowing somewhere in the country, the point is to scatter these installations over a wide area to make the most of the resource, and to provide adequate storage.

Tides are as regular as clockwork day and night and hot rock geothermal has potential for baseload so there are plenty of options.


----------



## PZ99

Some people might view this as an assault and battery of the land 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-20/new-solar-battery-storage-project-for-nowingi/8632628


----------



## basilio

I thought the story earlier this year about just printing solar panels off a commercial press was pretty exciting.

It is at production and testing stage and apparently could end up cost $10 a sq metre. The panels themself are also not as sensitive the light ie they will work in a wider variety of situations than current solar panels.
Well worth a read.

[URL='http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-15/printed-solar-trials-helping-energy-crisis-in-australian-first/8526868#'][URL='http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-15/printed-solar-trials-helping-energy-crisis-in-australian-first/8526868#'] Print  Email  Facebook  Twitter  More
*Lightweight 'printed solar' touted as a way to provide electricity in times of disaster*
1233 ABC Newcastle
By  Kerrin Thomas [/URL][/URL]

A solar panel development that has taken decades is a step closer to reality.

Final trials of printed solar panels on sheets of plastic are underway at the University of Newcastle in the New South Wales Hunter region.

Using conventional printing technology, electronic ink is printed onto clear plastic sheets with the finished product incredibly lightweight.

The creator of printed solar, Professor Paul Dastoor, said the emerging technology is expected to shine in disaster-affected areas.

"What we do know right now is that if there's a disaster the first thing people need is power," Professor Dastoor said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-15/printed-solar-trials-helping-energy-crisis-in-australian-first/8526868


----------



## moXJO

We are probably screwed either way. Coal is cheap but dirty. However you would expect the newer generators to be less polluting then what we have.
Solar and wind seems great for reducing pollution and adding to the grid. I'm not convinced it is where it needs to be in servicing the country's needs. Realistically higher electricity prices now is probably making everyone put one on their roof anyway.
Looking towards Germany to see what issues they have had and how they are moving forward is probably a safe bet.
Something needs to be done though. There are too many party lines being drawn in parliament just for points scoring.


----------



## moXJO

basilio said:


> I thought the story earlier this year about just printing solar panels off a commercial press was pretty exciting.
> 
> It is at production and testing stage and apparently could end up cost $10 a sq metre. The panels themself are also not as sensitive the light ie they will work in a wider variety of situations than current solar panels.
> Well worth a read.
> 
> Print Email  Facebook  Twitter  More
> *Lightweight 'printed solar' touted as a way to provide electricity in times of disaster*
> 1233 ABC Newcastle
> By  Kerrin Thomas
> 
> A solar panel development that has taken decades is a step closer to reality.
> 
> Final trials of printed solar panels on sheets of plastic are underway at the University of Newcastle in the New South Wales Hunter region.
> 
> Using conventional printing technology, electronic ink is printed onto clear plastic sheets with the finished product incredibly lightweight.
> 
> The creator of printed solar, Professor Paul Dastoor, said the emerging technology is expected to shine in disaster-affected areas.
> 
> "What we do know right now is that if there's a disaster the first thing people need is power," Professor Dastoor said.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-15/printed-solar-trials-helping-energy-crisis-in-australian-first/8526868



Bluescope had something in the pipeline 12 or so years ago. They had some kind of coating for colorbond sheets I think it was. I've been waiting years for all this stuff to hit the building market and I am still waiting. 
I always hear stories, enquire and then find its not going ahead. Very frustrating.

 In the next 20-30 years I'm sure we will have tech advancement in renewables that will do away with the need for dirty energy. I'm not seeing reliable, cost efficient, long lasting solutions beyond hydro just yet.

Theres a tidal generator rusting off port kembla. Was destroyed in a storm.


----------



## basilio

Just came across across an innovation that makes so much sense.
One of the realistic problems with electric cars is recharging them away from home. Setting up charging stations is expensive and takes up more space.
*How about turning current power poles into charging stations ?*
It's been done. Relatively cheap and currently operating in London .

*Simple conversion that could turn our 7.5m street lamps into electric car chargers - and they're already being used in London*

*A panel on existing streetlamp posts is replaced with a socket in 30 minutes*
*Users will have to buy the smart cable which holds all the usage information*
*Billing details are sent to the user's rolling monthly electricity contract*
*The cost of electricity is similar to domestic rates, currently around 15p per kWh*
*Councils can apply to tap into a £2.5m government pot for residential chargin*

Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...turn-lampposts-EV-chargers.html#ixzz4kXnCbiSP 
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Gas is expensive here because of the export contracts that create a shortage here. That can be corrected by reserving a suitable portion of our gas for domestic use. We can also turn sugarcane into ethanol and burn that. *Coal plants can only run on coal*.




Where the hell do you get your information from?
Many coal fired thermal stations, can run on other fuels.  There is one in W.A, that could fire gas, coal or oil, in any combination.
It could run on gas only, coal only or oil only and as I said any combination of the fuels.
But don't let facts, ruin your stories.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Where the hell do you get your information from?
> Many coal fired thermal stations, can run on other fuels.  There is one in W.A, that could fire gas, coal or oil, in any combination.
> It could run on gas only, coal only or oil only and as I said any combination of the fuels.
> But don't let facts, ruin your stories.



Would that be a certain plant built as 4 x 120 MW + 2 x 200 MW all originally oil-fired?

With 2 x 200 MW and 2 x 120 MW converted to also fire coal following the 1970's oil price hikes and all units converted to also fire gas from the NW Shelf once that became available?

From memory I think there was a 21 MW or thereabouts oil-fired gas turbine there too prior to the much larger ones being built far more recently.

Just a guess... 

I don't know if this was something those working there ever realised but plenty of other utilities held SECWA in pretty high regard for the engineering in that place and, more critically, the speed at which it was all done. SECWA had largely done it in terms of moving away from oil whilst others were still firming up their plans.


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> Where the hell do you get your information from?
> Many coal fired thermal stations, can run on other fuels.  .




How many is "many" and what % of total domestic generation do they represent?

I recall kwinana was converted from bunker oil to coal in the 70's with a couple of the generators able to run on gas coal and oil, but not sure how that is readily deployed and if they work in combination?


----------



## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> How many is "many" and what % of total domestic generation do they represent?
> 
> I recall kwinana was converted from bunker oil to coal in the 70's with a couple of the generators able to run on gas coal and oil, but not sure how that is readily deployed and if they work in combination?




When Kwinana was converted to coal, in the 1970's, the station consisted of 2 x 200MW units and 4 x 120MW units, making it the largest Station on the grid by a large margin. 
The next largest was Muja with 4 x 60MW units.
The 2 x 200MW units and 2 of the 120MW units were converted to fire both coal and oil. So as a percentage of domestic generation, they were the largest by far, Muja didn't get any 200MW units until the early 80's. Funnily enough I did my apprenticeship at Muja A/B and worked on the construction of Muja C.
When the natural gas pipeline to Perth, was completed in the mid 1980's, all six units at Kwinana were converted to run on gas.
As for the flexibility of fuel usage, the Kwinana Stage C 200MW units and the 2 x 120MW that were converted, could fire any or all of the fuels in any configuration.
Power System Control, loved them, they could expedite fuel usage to match gas supply requirements. If they hadn't used enough gas as per contract obligations, the phone rang "take the mills out and go to maximum gas firing" or "take out x number of mills".
As for flexibility, the Kwinana units were the ones taken off and returned to service every night, they were great units. As per usual politics became involved.

As per usual smurph had the facts right,


----------



## SirRumpole

I humbly apologise for one inaccurate statement. 

Good to see Turnbull finally having the guts to restrict gas exports. Lets see what it does to prices, we may end up paying as little as the Japanese or maybe they will pay as much as we do.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I humbly apologise for one inaccurate statement.
> .




It isn't the inaccuracy that is the problem, in the scheme of things it is the general perception that is the problem, coal station = dirty so knock it down.

In South Australia's situation I think, it would have been far smarter to convert the Port Augusta station to fire gas/coal.
Firstly it could have been done quickly and then used as standby, until a long term solution was decided upon.
The advantages would be, the high voltage transmission line and switchyard are already there and the plant was still available.
The second major point would be, the gas turbines that they are going to install, could be installed there and utilise the same gas  supply and H.V electrical infrastructure.
Then when the gas turbines are commissioned, knock over the old station, only my humble opinion.
Of course it would depend on the age and serviceability of the plant, but with current perceptions, nobody would have given a thought to its viability.
Especially politicians, knee jerk vote stunts, are the call of the day.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> In South Australia's situation I think, it would have been far smarter to convert the Port Augusta station to fire gas/coal.




Sounds reasonable if the station was serviceable and not so neglected by lack of maintenance that it was going to fall down.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Sounds reasonable if the station was serviceable and not so neglected by lack of maintenance that it was going to fall down.




The difference is, you now have a tiny bit more knowledge and hopefully it gives you a more tempered attitude toward coal Power Stations.

The only reason they are coal fired, is because coal was the fuel of choice, at the time they were built.
They can be operated on gas,oil,coal or bio fuel.

The real problem is people with no knowledge making assumptions, then they espouse those assumptions as fact, to anyone who will listen to them.

That is why politicians make so many stupid decisions, they listen to the white noise, rather than the experts.


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> When Kwinana was converted to coal, in the 1970's, the station consisted of 2 x 200MW units and 4 x 120MW units, making it the largest Station on the grid by a large margin.
> The next largest was Muja with 4 x 60MW units.
> The 2 x 200MW units and 2 of the 120MW units were converted to fire both coal and oil. So as a percentage of domestic generation, they were the largest by far, Muja didn't get any 200MW units until the early 80's. Funnily enough I did my apprenticeship at Muja A/B and worked on the construction of Muja C.
> When the natural gas pipeline to Perth, was completed in the mid 1980's, all six units at Kwinana were converted to run on gas.
> As for the flexibility of fuel usage, the Kwinana Stage C 200MW units and the 2 x 120MW that were converted, could fire any or all of the fuels in any configuration.
> Power System Control, loved them, they could expedite fuel usage to match gas supply requirements. If they hadn't used enough gas as per contract obligations, the phone rang "take the mills out and go to maximum gas firing" or "take out x number of mills".
> As for flexibility, the Kwinana units were the ones taken off and returned to service every night, they were great units. As per usual politics became involved.
> 
> As per usual smurph had the facts right,





Interesting you worked on Muja C. I was a trouble shooter for some of that project. I remember all too well staying at the Crown Hotel in Collie and freezing my a4se off. Also worked on Callide, etc.

In the scheme of things what % of total gneration in Oz is dual or triple fuel optioned these days?


----------



## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> Interesting you worked on Muja C. I was a trouble shooter for some of that project. I remember all too well staying at the Crown Hotel in Collie and freezing my a4se off. Also worked on Callide, etc.
> 
> In the scheme of things what % of total gneration in Oz is dual or triple fuel optioned these days?




Well we would have met.

As for what the East Coast is doing I have no idea.
My career is limited to maintenance, installation and operation of W.A power infrastructure.
Large thermal, down to small remote diesel and solar thermal generation.
What amuses me is the current trend to just blow up viable plant, with no regard for the possibility of extending its life, also no regard for the capital cost to replace it.
I'm guessing the gas pipeline from the Cooper basin, down to Adelaide, goes fairly close to Port Augusta.
Therefore, from what I've read, the Power Stations at Port Augusta could probably been saved if converted.
But as is the way with politicians, no way we are not going coal, blow it up.
Just dumb politics.
If they had converted it to run gas/coal, maybe the transition to renewables wouldn't be so painfull, for S.A.
But on the other hand, it does give the ignorant empowerment, to just bag dirty coal and highlight their limited knowledge of thermal generation.


----------



## Smurf1976

So far as the Port Augusta stations are concerned:

Playford B was pretty much stuffed. Hadn't reached full output for a very long time, I can't actually remember the last time it did but it would be sometime last decade, and for the past few years wasn't running at all (literally not at all). Hardly surprising for a plant built in 1960 with a steam range design and run extremely hard until Northern came online (1985) and still used quite a bit after that. Nominal capacity was 240 MW but in the latter years it very rarely exceeded about 150 MW in practice.

Northern was in pretty good shape though so far as I'm aware. Commissioned 1985 and no major problems although at a guess it was coming up for some significant maintenance (that's just a guess as the owners didn't go into such details publicly). Capacity was 540 MW and could go a bit higher under the right conditions.

The first plant, Playford A, closed a long time ago (1989) after 35 years of mostly base load operation. The three small 30 MW units and boilers half that size just weren't economic at that point. Too much work to maintain 3 turbines / generators and 6 boilers to produce 90 MW when compared to modern plant that is much larger and more fuel efficient too.

Prior to Playford A (1954) most power in SA was generated at Osborne (Adelaide) apart from relatively small amounts at Port Lincoln. Supplies of imported (from NSW) coal were extremely unreliable as had also been the case in Victoria and this ultimately prompted the move to use locally mined coal in SA and construction of the Port Augusta power stations to use it.

Upon completion of Playford B the two stations at Port Augusta accounted for half SA's generating capacity and around three quarters of power actually generated since they were the priority source. Next came Torrens Island, built for oil but converted to gas two years after opening.

By the early 1980's SA was somewhat desperate to move away from gas as a fuel and plenty of options were examined. Numerous sites for new coal-fired plant were investigated as was the possibility of converting Torrens Island to coal as WA had done at Kwinana. They even had a pretty hard look around the state to see if they could do something, anything at all, with hydro since the need to move away from gas as a matter of urgency was clearly understood. 

Ultimately building Northern won out since it could generate about 40% of SA's total annual electricity consumption at the time and with Playford B remaining in service this would halve the state's use of gas for power generation in one fell swoop. At that time the added generating capacity was a bonus which helped tip the balance in favour of building Northern rather than converting Torrens Island but the real objective was to do something, anything that worked, to cut reliance on gas and to do it ASAP.

ETSA's future planning at that time was to in due course build more coal-fired capacity plus a pumped hydro scheme thus moving further away from reliance on gas. Both aspects were investigated in some detail and suitable sites identified but it never went ahead since the industry changes happened in the meantime.


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> Well we would have met.
> 
> As for what the East Coast is doing I have no idea.
> My career is limited to maintenance, installation and operation of W.A power infrastructure.
> Large thermal, down to small remote diesel and solar thermal generation.
> What amuses me is the current trend to just blow up viable plant, with no regard for the possibility of extending its life, also no regard for the capital cost to replace it.
> I'm guessing the gas pipeline from the Cooper basin, down to Adelaide, goes fairly close to Port Augusta.
> Therefore, from what I've read, the Power Stations at Port Augusta could probably been saved if converted.
> But as is the way with politicians, no way we are not going coal, blow it up.
> Just dumb politics.
> If they had converted it to run gas/coal, maybe the transition to renewables wouldn't be so painfull, for S.A.
> But on the other hand, it does give the ignorant empowerment, to just bag dirty coal and highlight their limited knowledge of thermal generation.




I can't remember if I'm against coal or not, but I do like the technological side of new frontiers and the knowledge boost plus mind challenging problems looking for solutions that comes with them.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Northern was in pretty good shape though so far as I'm aware. Commissioned 1985 and no major problems although at a guess it was coming up for some significant maintenance (that's just a guess as the owners didn't go into such details publicly). Capacity was 540 MW and could go a bit higher under the right conditions.
> years after opening.




Well smurph, from wiki they are two 260MW generators, their boilers could have been quite easily converted to gas.

The problem is Government's spending tax payer's money, doesn't seem to come under investigation, as long as you have plenty of hysteria surrounding it.

As can be seen on this forum, all and sundry know everything about  Power Generation, just keep feeding them the anti 'coal' garbage. 



Smurf1976 said:


> By the early 1980's SA was somewhat desperate to move away from gas as a fuel and plenty of options were examined. Numerous sites for new coal-fired plant were investigated as was the possibility of converting Torrens Island to coal as WA had done at Kwinana. They even had a pretty hard look around the state to see if they could do something, anything at all, with hydro since the need to move away from gas as a matter of urgency was clearly understood.
> 
> Ultimately building Northern won out since it could generate about 40% of SA's total annual electricity consumption at the time and with Playford B remaining in service this would halve the state's use of gas for power generation in one fell swoop. At that time the added generating capacity was a bonus which helped tip the balance in favour of building Northern rather than converting Torrens Island but the real objective was to do something, anything that worked, to cut reliance on gas and to do it ASAP.
> 
> ETSA's future planning at that time was to in due course build more coal-fired capacity plus a pumped hydro scheme thus moving further away from reliance on gas. Both aspects were investigated in some detail and suitable sites identified but it never went ahead since the industry changes happened in the meantime.




So why was the anti gas so prevalent in the 1980's?
I know the Cooper Basin is rather depleted now, but what was the problem back then?


----------



## sptrawler

Actually when you check out the route for the gas pipeline from Moomba to Adelaide.

http://www.epicenergy.com.au/index.php?id=32

My guess would be, gas turbines will be installed, where North Station was blown up.


----------



## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> Interesting you worked on Muja C. I was a trouble shooter for some of that project. I remember all too well staying at the Crown Hotel in Collie and freezing my a4se off. Also worked on Callide, etc.




So who did you work for Aitons, Ical or Parsons?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Well smurph, from wiki they are two 260MW generators, their boilers could have been quite easily converted to gas.




250 MW each when installed, later tweaked to get a bit more out of them which took them to 270 - 280 each depending on if everything was going perfectly or not.



> So why was the anti gas so prevalent in the 1980's?
> I know the Cooper Basin is rather depleted now, but what was the problem back then?




Concerns about wasting a premium resource and running out of it.

At the time Torrens Island PS was using 70% of all gas in SA and was by far the largest gas consumer in Australia. With much of the Cooper Basin gas locked up in contracts to supply NSW, the fear was that SA could be left completely without gas (literally zero) by the late 1980's. 

Against that backdrop the SA government did legislate to prohibit the future sale of gas produced in SA outside of the state. That was contrary to the Australian constitution which prohibits restraint on trade between states but they did it anyway (governments actually governed back then). They also ramped up exploration both privately funded and government funded - heck they even drilled near Tasmania.

Ultimately they did find more gas in the Cooper Basin and that along with reduced consumption and later supply from Vic prevented a crisis but it was very real at the time.


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> So who did you work for Aitons, Ical or Parsons?





That portal closed when it became evident you have no desire for open conversation, preferring to maintain the personal attacks on Rumpole and myself. If you were a child you would have been chided by your mother by now.  I'm not handing you a ticket to ride the troll train.

You have a perfect role model in this very forum of how hate transforms men into gnarly old goats, yet you miss the obvious signs.


----------



## Tisme

Smurf1976 said:


> 250 MW each when installed, later tweaked to get a bit more out of them which took them to 270 - 280 each depending on if everything was going perfectly or not.
> 
> 
> 
> Concerns about wasting a premium resource and running out of it.
> 
> At the time Torrens Island PS was using 70% of all gas in SA and was by far the largest gas consumer in Australia. With much of the Cooper Basin gas locked up in contracts to supply NSW, the fear was that SA could be left completely without gas (literally zero) by the late 1980's.
> 
> Against that backdrop the SA government did legislate to prohibit the future sale of gas produced in SA outside of the state. That was contrary to the Australian constitution which prohibits restraint on trade between states but they did it anyway (governments actually governed back then). They also ramped up exploration both privately funded and government funded - heck they even drilled near Tasmania.
> 
> Ultimately they did find more gas in the Cooper Basin and that along with reduced consumption and later supply from Vic prevented a crisis but it was very real at the time.




Smurph do you know the current capacity of combined coal and/or oil and/or gas (dual or triple) mainstream generators are operating in Australia ATM?


----------



## SirRumpole

Even the LNP's traditional mates are telling them that their policies are stuffed.


*AGL boss rejects Government's coal plans and supports Finkel recommendations.*

*http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-...ver-govt-coal-energy-plans-by-agl-ceo/8639992*


----------



## SirRumpole

I wonder if Smurf has read the Finkel report ? If so I'm sure we would be interested in his thoughts on it.


----------



## Value Collector

APA is a company I have been invested in for 17 years, I think they own a great portfolio of assets for the changing energy landscape. Not only to they hold the largest integrated gas distribution network in Australia (great assets as we wean from coal), but they also as investing in renewable energy infrastructure.

http://www.asx.com.au/asx/statistics/displayAnnouncement.do?display=pdf&idsId=01865579


----------



## sptrawler

As was pointed out on this forum several years ago, the way customers were being charged for electricity, would have to change.
The current method of charging for usage, isn't as effective with appliances become more efficient, and solar panels reducing demand.
The probable outcome, would be an ever increasing service cost, for connection.
Well the W.A Government has taken to the idea, with both hands.

https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/power-surge-to-hit-solar-homes-ng-b88515496z

This charge will increase from 48.6¢ a day to 94.9¢ a day. WOW


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> As was pointed out on this forum several years ago, the way customers were being charged for electricity, would have to change.
> The current method of charging for usage, isn't as effective with appliances become more efficient, and solar panels reducing demand.
> The probable outcome, would be an ever increasing service cost, for connection.
> Well the W.A Government has taken to the idea, with both hands.
> 
> https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/power-surge-to-hit-solar-homes-ng-b88515496z
> 
> This charge will increase from 48.6¢ a day to 94.9¢ a day. WOW




The inevitable victims will be those who can't afford solar panels and will now find their power bills massively increased.

A very courageous decision by the government politically.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> The inevitable victims will be those who can't afford solar panels and will now find their power bills massively increased.
> 
> A very courageous decision by the government politically.



the increase in service charge is just a recognition that the costs involved in providing power to homes and businesses comes in two parts.

1, Generation costs (vary depending on usage)

2, cost of distribution infrastructure (largely fixed costs)

People with solar still require a link to the grid, and benefit from using the grid as their "battery" so to speak, So its unfair to have the people without solar paying for the solar peoples "Battery".

So the daily service costs have to increase, so that the solar uses end up paying for their fair share of the grid costs.

This then should mean usage charges should come down a little, or atleast not go up as high as they otherwise would have if the service charge wasn't increased.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> the increase in service charge is just a recognition that the costs involved in providing power to homes and businesses comes in two parts.
> 
> 1, Generation costs (vary depending on usage)
> 
> 2, cost of distribution infrastructure (largely fixed costs)
> 
> People with solar still require a link to the grid, and benefit from using the grid as their "battery" so to speak, So its unfair to have the people without solar paying for the solar peoples "Battery".
> 
> So the daily service costs have to increase, so that the solar uses end up paying for their fair share of the grid costs.
> 
> This then should mean usage charges should come down a little, or atleast not go up as high as they otherwise would have if the service charge wasn't increased.




All this treats electricity as just another commodity where the suppliers have to make a profit. (Think health)

Electricity is actually an essential service and should be delivered by governments for the benefit of the whole economy. This means that the State budget sometimes have to take a hit in order to achieve the lowest cost to the public, and doesn't have to feed the pockets of foreign shareholders who don't actually have to depend on the service.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> All this treats electricity as just another commodity where the suppliers have to make a profit. (Think health)



Profit margins are regulated in most cases, and are limited to what is considered a reasonable return based on the capital they have invested and the risks etc. most regulated assets are earnings some where between 8% and 12% ( generally at the lower end)


> Electricity is actually an essential service and should be delivered by governments for the benefit of the whole economy. This means that the State budget sometimes have to take a hit in order to achieve the lowest cost to the public, and doesn't have to feed the pockets of foreign shareholders who don't actually have to depend on the service.




Lots of things are essential, Farms, airlines, trucking, supermarkets, steel mills, mobile communication towers etc etc , that doesn't mean that government is the best managers or these things or that those that invest their capital into the required infrastructure don't deserve to generate a return on their investment.


----------



## SirRumpole

*Solar penalised, 'death spiral' for power grid, critics warn after power supply charge increase*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-...uld-send-power-grid-into-death-spiral/8644258


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> *Solar penalised, 'death spiral' for power grid, critics warn after power supply charge increase*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-...uld-send-power-grid-into-death-spiral/8644258



If you have Solar, and you want to use power at night, you need a way to store your excess power during the day and then draw it back at night.

At the moment the cheapest place for you to store and retrieve this power is the grid, and it is silly to expect to use this service for free.

Using WA's 94.9 cent per day charge, the grid costs about $3,464 for 10 years.

If you chose to go "Off grid" for 10 years, you would need to spend about $10,000 on batteries (up front), then maintenance and insurance costs are on you, and there are also other cons such as once your batteries are full, your excess power production is wasted, and on those dark winter days, you might have to chose between heating the house and having a hot shower or cooking dinner and charging your car.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> At the moment the cheapest place for you to store and retrieve this power is the grid, and it is silly to expect to use this service for free.




Who said people expect it for 'free' ? 

Whether you have solar or not you still pay an access charge and a usage rate, but the argument seems to be that solar users have reduced demand so the company will jack up everyone's rates and serves them right.

This is where national interest and company profits clash. It's in the national interest to reduce power consumption by installing solar cells (and Finkel recommends subsidising people to do this), but when this results in a fall off of company profits the prices get hiked so people are effectively punished for reducing consumption. And what about the solar cell users return on investment ? Obviously that doesn't matter.

This is one case where national interest and company profits are mutually exclusive and national interest needs to win in this case.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Who said people expect it for 'free' ?
> 
> Whether you have solar or not you still pay an access charge and a usage rate, but the argument seems to be that solar users have reduced demand so the company will jack up everyone's rates and serves them right.
> 
> This is where national interest and company profits clash. It's in the national interest to reduce power consumption by installing solar cells (and Finkel recommends subsidising people to do this), but when this results in a fall off of company profits the prices get hiked so people are effectively punished for reducing consumption. And what about the solar cell users return on investment ? Obviously that doesn't matter.
> 
> This is one case where national interest and company profits are mutually exclusive and national interest needs to win in this case.




it is simply that the charges are being changed to actually reflect the real cost, Service charges are being raised to cover the full amount of the infrastructure, rather than the service charge being artificially low and being subsidised by usage charges.

Solar cell users "return on investment" comes in the form of lower usage charges, but they still have to pay the service charge because they are still using the grid, unless they go "off grid" by making a further investment into batteries, which is more expensive than just using the grid.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Who said people expect it for 'free' ?
> 
> .




Actually lots of people around the world expect it for free.

There was a huge uproar in Nevada in recent years when the Utility companies wanted to start charging solar cell owners a service charge, and reduce the rate they get paid for the excess production to the whole sale rate.

Solar Owners in Nevada want to pay no service charge (even though they rely on the infrastructure just as much as every one else), and the want full retail rate credit for any excess power they send to the grid, e.g. they want to get paid the retail rate for their excess production.

So yes, that would mean the solar users become a drag on the system, and are getting subsidised by non solar users.

----------------------
The fairest out come is for all connected grid uses to pay a service charge, and then pay a fair retail rate for usage.

People adding power into the grid, should then be paid a wholesale rate for the electricity they supply.

This system would mean all the investors in infrastructure (including solar owners), and customers and retailers are all being treated fairly.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> The fairest out come is for all connected grid uses to pay a service charge, and then pay a fair retail rate for usage.




It all depends on the definition of "fair" doesn't it ?

Lets face it, a privatised power system is contrary to the national interest.

The national interest says reward customers for reducing consumption and therefore saving on infrastructure costs, and privatisation means penalising everyone for a reduction in demand for power in order to maintain profits.

Privatising an essential service doesn't work , it's blatantly obvious in this case.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> It all depends on the definition of "fair" doesn't it ?
> 
> Lets face it, a privatised power system is contrary to the national interest.
> 
> The national interest says reward customers for reducing consumption and therefore saving on infrastructure costs, and privatisation means penalising everyone for a reduction in demand for power in order to maintain profits.




customers do get lower usage charges if they reduce consumption or invest in solar.

Also, Profit margins are regulated by the government, So the providers aren't making excessive margins on their invested capital, as I said it's normally around 8 - 12%, most of the time at the lower end of that range.




> Privatising an essential service doesn't work , it's blatantly obvious in this case.




Did you know that the Utility owned by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathway, provides power cheaper than neighbouring states where the utilities are government owned?


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Did you know that the Utility owned by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathway, provides power cheaper than neighbouring states where the utilities are government owned?




I didn't, but the USA is not Australia, the markets are totally different, same sized country much bigger population in the US, I don't think that the US is comparable to Australia.

Secondly Buffet is not as profit motivated as some. He also lives in the country unlike the foreign investors in Australia's grid eg Enegie that just shut down Hazlewood.


----------



## Smurf1976

We tried this caper of higher network service charges in Tasmania back in the mid-1990's and it didn't go well.

The arrangement was 96 cents per day fixed charge with unit consumption at 6.6 cents / kWh for general supply, 5.5 cents for heating (24/7 flat rate), 4.4 cents off-peak plus typically a 10% discount on the off-peak for those who could be bothered filling out the form.

Suffice to say it was a public relations disaster. Big time. Second only to the Gordon-below-Franklin dam in terms of things the Hydro has come up with that have provoked a degree of upset from the general community.

And so the Liberal government lost its majority at the next election and formed the only Liberal-Green government we've ever had.

Then the prices oversight commission was formed to review prices.

Then the whole system was scrapped and went back to lower fixed charges and higher unit rates. The industry responded in the only way that made sense with an extremely aggressive sales campaign to drive load up as high as possible thus keeping the unit price per kWh down despite having to recover fixed costs as part of it.

It made a lot of sense and was based on some very sound logic, foreseeing a future where literally anyone could generate power and access the network, but politically it became impossible and down here at least there are still quite a few bitter memories of that experience to this day.

It's an oddity really. People pay relatively large amounts, say $100 per month, in fixed fees for a smartphone and don't seem to have a problem with that. Few if any are paying per call and per unit of data without some sort of fixed charge. And yet ask people to pay just a third of that as a fixed charge for electricity and a war starts.

I'm _very_ sure that every electricity retailer in the country was watching closely what happened in Tas back in the 1990's and were glad they weren't the ones who tried it. Telstra wanted to do it with fixed home phones too but lost their nerve.

Electricity pricing is a problematic issue from a broader social perspective as well as the economic and environmental issues. That point is reinforced once you realise just how many bills are paid late or on some sort of payment plan. It's not 5% and it's not 10% - in some areas it's far higher than that (as in 50% or thereabouts). With the steep price rises in most mainland states that situation isn't going to improve.

Anyway, things aren't too bad here in Tassie:

For King and Flinders Islands electricity prices will increase 1.5% on 1 July.

For the rest of the state the following changes on 1 July:

Tariff 31 (general light & power) = fixed supply charge up 0.3%, energy charge per kWh down 0.6%

Tariff 41 (24 hours supply for heating and hot water) = fixed metering charge down 3.4%, energy charge per kWh up 7.0%

Tariff 61 (off-peak with afternoon boost period) = fixed metering charge down 5.8%, energy charge per kWh up 7.0%

Tariff 62 (off-peak night period only) = fixed metering charge down 10.0%, energy charge per kWh up 7.0%

Feed-in Tariff for small scale solar, hydro, wind etc systems = energy payment per kWh up 33.8%

There will be some print media advertising regarding the new prices over the next few days.


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> customers do get lower usage charges if they reduce consumption or invest in solar.




No they don't. The overall price jumps in line with govt policy to offset the lost revenue to renewables contributing to lower demand.

The policy is to protect the private power companies profitability and investment, while poorly keeping price increases in check from gouging.

So the more renewables and battery storage causing falling demand, we can expect the prices of power bills to sky rocket, which will drive the demand for renewables and domestic storage even higher ...it's currently a loop with govt regulation putting the brakes on in to maintain a healthy private sector margin; if it was a control loop, the setpoint would be the margin, demand the variable and the output the price , but price is being manipulated rendering the loop unstable and volatile.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> We tried this caper of higher network service charges in Tasmania back in the mid-1990's and it didn't go well.





If there is no fixed charged for solar users, then the only way to get them to pay their fair share of the grid expenses is to lower the credit they receive for the KW/h they feed back into the grid, to 1cent or 2 cents, and charge them the full rate for the KW/h they draw back at night.

Personally I would rather pay a fixed access fee of some where between 50cents and $1 per day, and earn 6 -12 cents credit for every kw/h I sent back.

People that say a $1 per day access fee will cause people to go off grid just don't understand the costs of going of grid, and the negatives involved with being off grid.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> If there is no fixed charged for solar users,




There *is* a fixed charge, the point is are you going to reward people for taking a load off the grid, or punish everyone by raising charges because solar users are reducing demand thereby saving the expense of building extra infrastructure ?

This seems to be a case of reverse capitalism. Less demand should result in lower prices as the retailers try to sell more product, but in the case of electricity they have everyone by the balls and they know it so they can raise charges at their whim.

The system is broken, which is why Finkel recommended more regulation.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> There *is* a fixed charge, the point is are you going to reward people for taking a load off the grid, or punish everyone by raising charges because solar users are reducing demand thereby saving the expense of building extra infrastructure ?
> 
> This seems to be a case of reverse capitalism. Less demand should result in lower prices as the retailers try to sell more product, but in the case of electricity they have everyone by the balls and they know it so they can raise charges at their whim.
> 
> The system is broken, which is why Finkel recommended more regulation.




It's not about "rewarding people that take load off" or "punishing people that put load on"

It's about realising that we all rely on the grid (even solar users), and the cost of the grid needs to be fairly spread amongst all users, those people without solar should not be subsidising those with.

The system isn't broken, pricing structures just need to be adjusted, we can't do without the grid, even when we are 100% renewable, we will still have to be moving around energy, between producers and users at various times throuout the day.

There isn't less demand for the grid, solar users still use the grid 24 hours a day, all day every day they are either putting energy in or taking it out, it's their battery,


----------



## sptrawler

As smurph said a long time ago, but as usual no one understands, the cost of generation hasn't changed much, if at all.
If anything, the cost of generation has fallen, fuel is cheaper.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> As smurph said a long time ago, but as usual no one understands, the cost of generation hasn't changed much, if at all.
> If anything, the cost of generation has fallen, fuel is cheaper.




In Tasmania the reality is that Hydro gets 24.6% of what households spend on electricity (or 27.1% if you base it on the GST-exclusive price).

It's broadly similar nationally. Networks are where your money is going and the share of network and retail costs as a % of the average power bill has increased over the years.

20 years ago generation was about 40%.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> It's not about "rewarding people that take load off" or "punishing people that put load on"




The Chief Scientist disagrees. Perhaps you should read his report.

http://www.environment.gov.au/syste...es/electricity-market-review-final-report.pdf


----------



## Tisme

Smurf1976 said:


> In Tasmania the reality is that Hydro gets 24.6% of what households spend on electricity (or 27.1% if you base it on the GST-exclusive price).
> 
> It's broadly similar nationally. Networks are where your money is going and the share of network and retail costs as a % of the average power bill has increased over the years.
> 
> 20 years ago generation was about 40%.




I think the projections for SA and Tas are different to the rest of Oz.

Something to remember is that generation is:

Federally supervised reduction of emissions 28% pf 2005 by 2030
Federally supervised retirement of in excess of 12% of incumbent coal powered capacity
Federally imposed target of 33,000GWh renewables by 2020 (LRET ans SRES)
Known to charge more dollars because of retention of inefficient (end of economic life) generators. than would have been for new entry builds.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> The Chief Scientist disagrees. Perhaps you should read his report.
> 
> http://www.environment.gov.au/syste...es/electricity-market-review-final-report.pdf





Why?  It seems your ill informed posts have a bad habit of coming to reality, while the anti Rumpole oracles scores are pretty much zip  ... I'm betting on you bhagwan.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> As smurph said a long time ago, but as usual no one understands, the cost of generation hasn't changed much, if at all.
> If anything, the cost of generation has fallen, fuel is cheaper.



I am not talking about generation, I am just talking about accessing the grid, e.g. The poles and wires that allow the transport / trading of energy to happen, solar users rely on it, and should pay to access it


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> The Chief Scientist disagrees. Perhaps you should read his report.
> 
> http://www.environment.gov.au/syste...es/electricity-market-review-final-report.pdf



If he thinks solar users should be a special class that don't have to pay to access infrastructure which they rely on just as much as everyone else, then he is wrong, as I said even if we went 100% renewable, we would still require a grid and it needs to be paid for.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> solar users rely on it, and should pay to access it




FFS, they already do, just like everyone else who is on grid. (for about the forth time).

Poles and wires are essentially a monopoly , privatising them is a big mistake.


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> Why?  It seems your ill informed posts have a bad habit of coming to reality, while the anti Rumpole oracles scores are pretty much zip  ... I'm betting on you bhagwan.




Bless you my son.


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> I am not talking about generation, I am just talking about accessing the grid, e.g. The poles and wires that allow the transport / trading of energy to happen, solar users rely on it, and should pay to access it




Distribution network charges are around 38% of residential bills and being a monopoly (see economics 3001 "natural monopoly") the recovery rate is reviewed every 5 years by the AER, so the idea of disassociated frequent laissez faire changes to poles and wire charges seems a bit far fetched.

However West Oz being what it is and the NT are open to manipulation.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> Bless you my son.




Oh my gosh, thank you so much for being so sweet!!


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> Distribution network charges are around 38% of residential bills and being a monopoly (see economics 3001 "natural monopoly") the recovery rate is reviewed every 5 years by the AER, so the idea of disassociated frequent laissez faire changes to poles and wire charges seems a bit far fetched.




So that means that electricity users can be ripped off for 5 years before anything can be done about it ?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> FFS, they already do, just like everyone else who is on grid. (for about the forth time).



So what is your point? I thought your were arguing that fixed access charges were bad.

All I am saying is that fixed access charges make sense, and raising them to the point where subsidy from usage is minimal is probably a fairer thing, rather than loading all the grid charges onto those that either can't have or can't afford solar.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> So that means that electricity users can be ripped off for 5 years before anything can be done about it ?



It also means the grid owners can be under paid for 5 years before anything can be done about it.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> So what is your point? I thought your were arguing that fixed access charges were bad.




I accept fixed access charges as a component of the system. I'm saying that hiking these charges in response to a drop off in demand for power is contrary to the principle of rewarding consumers for more efficient use of energy (as recommended by Finkel), and is a consequence of the privatisation of networks and the desire of companies to maintain profits, when the grid is an essential service that should be managed nationally for the benefit of national interests and not to line the pockets of shareholders, many of whom probably don't even live here.

I hope that makes my position clear.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I accept fixed access charges as a component of the system. I'm saying that hiking these charges in response to a drop off in demand for power is contrary to the principle of rewarding consumers for more efficient use of energy (as recommended by Finkel), and is a consequence of the privatisation of networks and the desire of companies to maintain profits, when the grid is an essential service that should be managed nationally for the benefit of national interests and not to line the pockets of shareholders, many of whom probably don't even live here.
> 
> I hope that makes my position clear.



So what is the answer?

They either charge more for the service cost, which then spreads the cost over all users.

Or raise the unit cost, which applies the cost to those who can't afford solar, or renters who aren't able to access solar.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> So what is the answer?




The answer, (but it's probably too late) is not to have privatised networks in the first place but run the grid holistically to achieve the lowest prices.

eg hospitals have to be maintained and new ones built but we don't get slugged with these charges every quarter, and nor should we get slugged with Medicare increases because less people get sick and don't use the hospitals as much.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> I accept fixed access charges as a component of the system. I'm saying that hiking these charges in response to a drop off in demand for power is contrary to the principle of rewarding consumers for more efficient use of energy (as recommended by Finkel), and is a consequence of the privatisation of networks and the desire of companies to maintain profits, when the grid is an essential service that should be managed nationally for the benefit of national interests and not to line the pockets of shareholders, many of whom probably don't even live here.
> 
> I hope that makes my position clear.




As I explained earlier, the charges aren't being "Hiked", they are just being allocated more fairly, because it would be unfair to have a system where solar users pay only a fraction of the services they are using, while people who can't have solar are expected to make up the difference.



> when the grid is an essential service that should be managed nationally for the benefit of national interests and not to line the pockets of shareholders, many of whom probably don't even live here.




Listen to what Buffett says here at the 7.45 min mark, he explain how the Berkshire owned network sells power at a cheaper rate on the other side of the river than the government owned network that supplies his office on his side of the river, and he doesn't expect to have to raise rates on the privately owned infrastructure until 2029, but the government owned network is raising rates next year (and probably every year)

So the government owned network, pays no tax (even its bondholders pay no tax), charges customers more, has less renewables. Private one pays tax, delivers returns to shareholders, delivers cheaper energy to consumers and emits less carbon.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> The answer, (but it's probably too late) is not to have privatised networks in the first place but run the grid holistically to achieve the lowest prices.
> 
> eg hospitals have to be maintained and new ones built but we don't get slugged with these charges every quarter, and nor should we get slugged with Medicare increases because less people get sick and don't use the hospitals as much.




Well W.A hasn't privatised the network and the Government has just put up the service cost nearly 100%. 
They also say, the same will be done again next year.

But that still doesn't answer the question I posed, how do you increase the cost, to reflect actual supply cost?

1. Increase the unit cost, which means those who can't afford solar and those who rent, disproportionately pay for it.
Or
2. Increase the service cost, so everyone who is connected to the supply, shares the burden.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Well W.A hasn't privatised the network and the Government has just put up the service cost nearly 100%.
> They also say, the same will be done again next year.
> 
> But that still doesn't answer the question I posed, how do you increase the cost, to reflect actual supply cost?
> 
> 1. Increase the unit cost, which means those who can't afford solar and those who rent, disproportionately pay for it.
> Or
> 2. Increase the service cost, so everyone who is connected to the supply, shares the burden.




Your question is irrelevant because you are treating electricity as another commodity that has to pay for itself when it's an essential service like health or education that we pay for with taxation.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Your question is irrelevant because you are treating electricity as another commodity that has to pay for itself when it's an essential service like health or education that we pay for with taxation.




Well that's nice, but the Governments, both Federal and State, don't agree.

The die was cast years ago, when the Governments desegregated generation and distribution. From that point on the cross subsidy from cheap generation, to loss making distribution, wasn't possible.
This in effect brought about the loss of Government control, as someone has to pay for the distribution.
So in reality you have answered the question, you say that it should be paid for with taxation, which means by everyone. As everyone uses electricity, it follows,the service cost should carry the brunt.
Solar should only mitigate the usage cost, not the distribution cost, as those with solar are still availing themselves of the distribution service.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> This in effect brought about the loss of Government control, as someone has to pay for the distribution.




Totally agree, which is why we are in the situation we are now and why Finkel recommends "stronger governance"; ie more regulation. Governments thought that once they could sell off their assets they were no longer responsible, but the voters will let them know otherwise.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> you are treating electricity as another commodity that has to pay for itself




Offcourse it should pay for itself, it makes complete sense to me that the costs of the infrastructure should be covered by those that use it.

I can see the same thing eventually happening with the roads, the roads are largely funded by the fuel tax, however as electric cars take over, it would be silly to assume the fuel tax can just keep going up on user that have combustion engines without expecting an increasing number of electric car users to pay some sort of contribution to the maintain and build roads.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> As I explained earlier, the charges aren't being "Hiked", they are just being allocated more fairly,




I'm afraid that statement is b.s. because if we go back to the orginal story : 

https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/power-surge-to-hit-solar-homes-ng-b88515496z

everyone is being charged the new fixed rate  not just solar users, so I can't see how you can describe this as "fair".


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Totally agree, which is why we are in the situation we are now and why Finkel recommends "stronger governance"; ie more regulation. Governments thought that once they could sell off their assets they were no longer responsible, but the voters will let them know otherwise.




Well the W.A Labor Government, still owns the distribution network and the majority of generation.
They have just put up the service cost nearly 100%, and are going to do the same again next year.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Offcourse it should pay for itself, it makes complete sense to me that the costs of the infrastructure should be covered by those that use it.




We all use it, we all pay tax.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Well the W.A Labor Government, still owns the distribution network and the majority of generation.
> They have just put up the service cost nearly 100%, and are going to do the same again next year.



Those with solar are still better off, as they are still mitigating their unit usage.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> I'm afraid that statement is b.s. because if we go back to the orginal story :
> 
> https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/power-surge-to-hit-solar-homes-ng-b88515496z
> 
> everyone is being charged the new fixed rate  not just solar users, so I can't see how you can describe this as "fair".




Just charging solar users would be  "Unfair".

"Fair" is charging everyone who connects to the grid a service charge that covers the cost of the grid existing, and then a usage charge to cover the cost of the generation capacity they consume or a usage credit for the generation capacity they supply back.


> We all use it, we all pay tax.




so what, we all use water, but we still pay a connection fee and a usage fee.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Just charging solar users would be  "Unfair".
> 
> "Fair" is charging everyone who connects to the grid a service charge that covers the cost of the grid existing, and then a usage charge to cover the cost of the generation capacity they consume or a usage credit for the generation capacity they supply back.




The WA government has just almost doubled the "cost of the grid existing" by doubling the service charge.

Lets see them justify how the cost of the grid could double overnight.


----------



## Tisme

So Western Australia has an inefficient publicly owned system. Perhaps privatisation would be key to reducing costs?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> The WA government has just almost doubled the "cost of the grid existing" by doubling the service charge.
> 
> Lets see them justify how the cost of the grid could double overnight.



It's not that the cost of the grid has doubled, its that the artificially low grid service charge was being subsidised before hand by a usage charge that was higher than it had to be.

--------------

Imagine you had a helicopter business, and your revenue came by charging customers $10 / litre of fuel used, the fuel only really cost you $1.5 / litre, So the excess fuel charges actually funded your maintenance and replacement of your helicopters.

However a portion of your customers started using their own fuel, they still used your helicopters every day, but a growing number were not buying the same amount of fuel, so you could no longer maintain and replace helicopters as well.

Now your customers still rely on your services, even though they get most of their own fuel they still rely on your helicopters, so ofcourse you need to change your pricing.

The fairest system is a system that allows the customer to benefit from the fuel they are providing, while still contributing to the system that keeps the helicopter fleet in top condition.


----------



## Value Collector

Tisme said:


> So Western Australia has an inefficient publicly owned system. Perhaps privatisation would be key to reducing costs?



Selling up to Warren Buffet appears to be the key to longterm stability and lower cost.


----------



## SirRumpole

Yes I understand your helicopter point, but if people don't like your helicopter charges they can drive or take a train, it's not an essential service.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Selling up to Warren Buffet appears to be the key to longterm stability and lower cost.




Buffet is going to die sometime and whoever takes over from him may not take such a benevolent attitude.

Governments can always be voted out.


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> Selling up to Warren Buffet appears to be the key to longterm stability and lower cost.




So it seems. 

Of course the more cynical amongst would presume the high cost of power in WA and QLD could be old fashioned taxation by stealth 

and similarly employment participation rates by stealth, using the public sector purse as a labour soak of people who would otherwise find themselves on the street as surplus to private enterprise requirements.


----------



## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> So Western Australia has an inefficient publicly owned system. Perhaps privatisation would be key to reducing costs?




Actually Rod Simms, chairman of the ACCC, thought so.

https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/accc-backs-western-power-sale-030152489.html

I personally would have preferred if all electricity supplies were Government owned, as an essential service, but we are way too far down the track for that to happen.
Therefore as was said on here years ago, the service cost will have to be the main price driver, as more and more customers use less and less power.


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> Actually Rod Simms, chairman of the ACCC, thought so.
> 
> https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/accc-backs-western-power-sale-030152489.html
> 
> I personally would have preferred if all electricity supplies were Government owned, as an essential service, but we are way too far down the track for that to happen.
> Therefore as was said on here years ago, the service cost will have to be the main price driver, as more and more customers use less and less power.




West Australians are/were very protective of some things... would ownership of power production, poles and wires be one of those? It certainly helped Labor win last election in QLD by insisting they wouldn't sell or lease that asset base.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Yes I understand your helicopter point, but if people don't like your helicopter charges they can drive or take a train, it's not an essential service.




People can go off grid, with solar cells, Batteries and back up generators if they don't want to pay for grid access.

As I pointed out though going off grid is much more expensive than the grid access costs, so it kind of makes their argument about the grid costs bunk.


> Buffet is going to die sometime and whoever takes over from him may not take such a benevolent attitude.
> 
> Governments can always be voted out




he isn't benevolent, he is in it for the money.


----------



## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> West Australians are/were very protective of some things... would ownership of power production, poles and wires be one of those? It certainly helped Labor win last election in QLD by insisting they wouldn't sell or lease that asset base.




It definitely helped Labor win here in W.A, the problem will be where do Labor get their money from?
The measures they have mention up to now, are really tinkering at the edges, they are looking at a bank tax same as S.A.
The problem with that is, it will end up being worn by the public, who are already stretched to the limit.
There is very limited ways of generating new revenue, other than to take more off the taxpayers, a general tax on mineral extraction would appear to be one of the only options.IMO
Small business is dependent on consumer spending, taking more and more off the consumer, will end up in recession.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Small business is dependent on consumer spending, taking more and more off the consumer, will end up in recession.




+1.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> as more and more customers use less and less power.





Thats Myth, Consumers are going to be using more power in the years to come and relying on the grid more.

All that will change is that they will generate some of this themselves and need to trade this power with each other throughout the day, which requires the grid.

The rest of the generation is going to be more diverse and more spread out, coming more from renewables, which again requires the grid to transport and trade.

Extra Electricity demand is going to come from steady introduction of electric vehicles, which can take the average homes weekly electricity usage to charge from 0% to 100%.

After that a move away from Natural gas for household heating, hot water and cooking might follow, moving more household energy demand to electricity. 


Electricity is going to take over most forms of energy use eventually, and production will be more and more spread out, the grid is here to stay.


----------



## Value Collector

Value Collector said:


> Thats Myth, Consumers are going to be using more power in the years to come and relying on the grid more.
> .




Just to explain what I meant a bit better, and how much extra electrical demand will come about because of a gradual shift from Diesel/petrel to electrical power.

Take a look at Tesla's latest move in the vehicle game, the Tesla Semi Trailer truck.

Adding 1 Electric semi trailer to the national vehicle fleet, would be the same as connecting 700 new homes  to the grid (without solar)


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Just to explain what I meant a bit better, and how much extra electrical demand will come about because of a gradual shift from Diesel/petrel to electrical power.




None if diesel-electric hybrids catch on, but you're right Teslas etc are likely to cause a big increase in demand for power and the costs to the grid of these is being swept under the carpet.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> None if diesel-electric hybrids catch on, .




Full electric vehicles are going to kill Hybrids over time, especially in transport which access to the grid is widely available e.g. almost everywhere.



> but you're right Teslas etc are likely to cause a big increase in demand for power and the costs to the grid of these is being swept under the carpet




Owners of electric vehicles will pay for their usage just like anyone else, Also given that home charging could largely be done at off-peak times, it would be good for the industry.

---------------

But also, a system where the costs are distributed out to the users fairly, the costs don't matter so much, because the users are covering the costs.

It's only when the system is subsidising some people, while over charging others and is being used for other political purposes etc, while not encouraging new investment that there are problems.

--------------

Look at Buffets company, happy to build a grid that suits its market, and keep adding new investments, and lowering costs so long as he can generate a reasonable return on the capital outlaid. 

Buffet doesn't care if the utilisation rates of his grids go up, its good for him, it means he can make further investments.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Electricity is going to take over most forms of energy use eventually, and production will be more and more spread out, the grid is here to stay.




The grid is here to stay because of industrial loads.
Domestic demand IMO will continue to drop as appliances become more and more efficient and the domestic use of solar/battery  increases.
As for electric vehicles, I still think the product we see currently, is nothing like where it will end up.
It won't be a plug in vehicle that takes the massive current injection, that those today use.
My guess is still hydrogen as the future fuel staple, either liquid or fuel cell.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> The grid is here to stay because of industrial loads.
> .




Yes.


> Domestic demand IMO will continue to drop as appliances become more and more efficient and the domestic use of solar/battery  increases.




People will still need the grid to take their excess supply during the day, and meet their demand at night.

The grid connection is much cheaper and more versatile than going off grid with batteries, even if the price of batteries comes down by a lot, a home battery pack and solar would struggle to supply enough energy during winter (especially when charging a car) and not have enough capacity to store all the power generated if you were away for a few days.



> As for electric vehicles, I still think the product we see currently, is nothing like where it will end up.
> It won't be a plug in vehicle that takes the massive current injection, that those today use.
> My guess is still hydrogen as the future fuel staple, either liquid or fuel cell




Hydrogen fuel cells can't compete with full electric vehicles.

electricity is the perfect fuel, it can be generated through so many means, and is available every where.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Full electric vehicles are going to kill Hybrids over time, especially in transport which access to the grid is widely available e.g. almost everywhere.




It's going to be a long time. Why take the risk of being caught short on volts with an overnight charge time when you can just fill up a hybrid at any garage ?

Range fear is one reason why fully electric cars are going to meet consumer resistance for a long time.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> It's going to be a long time. Why take the risk of being caught short on volts with an overnight charge time when you can just fill up a hybrid at any garage ?
> 
> Range fear is one reason why fully electric cars are going to meet consumer resistance for a long time.





I'm not so sure of that, the Tesla is an urban trophy car around Brisbane so resistance hasn't really factored yet.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> It's going to be a long time. Why take the risk of being caught short on volts with an overnight charge time when you can just fill up a hybrid at any garage ?
> 
> Range fear is one reason why fully electric cars are going to meet consumer resistance for a long time.




with a Tesla, if you have to drive more than the 350km or 400km range, you just pull into a super charger for 20mins and then keep going, and the next generation of super chargers is going to be even less time.

You can actually drive Brisbane to Melbourne in a Tesla using the super charger network. But for most people beginning every day with a full battery they charged at home means they have more than enough power.


*Super Charging, Brisbane to Melbourne*


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> I'm not so sure of that, the Tesla is an urban trophy car around Brisbane so resistance hasn't really factored yet.




Yeah, well one day people may wise up and start thinking "now we are reliant on electric cars how much are they going to put power prices up". Think of how much the governments now rip off us with fuel taxes.


----------



## Tisme

See there is voter discontent at the Turnbull Govt's criticising the SA energy situation  Another example of Crow Eaters disliking interference in domestic matters by interloping Cornstalks and Gumsuckers

Labor 56% , LNP 44%


----------



## Value Collector

Value Collector said:


> with a Tesla, if you have to drive more than the 350km or 400km range, you just pull into a super charger for 20mins and then keep going, and the next generation of super chargers is going to be even less time.
> 
> You can actually drive Brisbane to Melbourne in a Tesla using the super charger network. But for most people beginning every day with a full battery they charged at home means they have more than enough power.
> 
> 
> *Super Charging, Brisbane to Melbourne*





So Tesla has got your long trips covered with the super charger network.

But as I said, electricity is the perfect fuel because its available everywhere, there is no reason why every light post and power pole can't be an electric vehicle charge point.

This Company is converting ordinary light posts to electric vehicle charge points, and bills customers monthly to their account.

*As I said, will be available every where, not need for tanker trucks of petrel or hydrogen*


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> This Company is converting ordinary light posts to electric vehicle charge points, and bills customers monthly to their account.




Sure and once everyone gets hooked on electric cars, watch the power prices sky-rocket.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Sure and once everyone gets hooked on electric cars, watch the power prices sky-rocket.




Power prices are regulated, which means power companies can not make excessive profits based on the capital invested, so in general higher utilisation rates on the installed infrastructure lowers prices. (over all utilisation, not just high peak loads, high peak loads tend to increase costs)

However as I suggested before, some sort of tax on electric vehicles will be needed eventually to cover the the building and maintenance of roads.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> People will still need the grid to take their excess supply during the day, and meet their demand at night.
> 
> The grid connection is much cheaper and more versatile than going off grid with batteries, even if the price of batteries comes down by a lot, a home battery pack and solar would struggle to supply enough energy during winter (especially when charging a car) and not have enough capacity to store all the power generated if you were away for a few days




I didn't say consumers will go off grid, just that their consumption will reduce, due to energy efficiency and domestic solar/battery installations.
This will require Governments and or energy retailers, to increase service charges more and more, as usage reduces.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Hydrogen fuel cells can't compete with full electric vehicles.
> 
> electricity is the perfect fuel, it can be generated through so many means, and is available every where.




Well I'm not convinced.

http://www.drive.com.au/motor-news/the-breakdown-hydrogen-on-the-horizon-20170623-gwxnp2.html


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> This will require Governments and or energy retailers, to increase service charges more and more, as usage reduces.



As I pointed out, demand for electrical energy is going to increase, not reduce.

electric vehicles are going to lead to a much higher utilisation rate of the infrastructure, which means costs per kw/h will reduce all things being equal.

I agree service charges will increase, becasue they don't represent true cost at the moment, but over all cost won't change that much (outside of inflation or interference by the government)

If you currently have solar and have been under a plan which wasn't charging you for your use of the grid properly, your costs will rise.


----------



## fiftyeight

Value Collector said:


> As I pointed out, demand for electrical energy is going to increase, not reduce.




For sure, but say the tesla trucks for example they will be charging at large hubs in industrial areas. If driverless car networks take off they will all be getting charged at a hub somewhere. Who knows in the future you may call uber to come and charge your house??


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> Well I'm not convinced.
> 
> http://www.drive.com.au/motor-news/the-breakdown-hydrogen-on-the-horizon-20170623-gwxnp2.html



listen to what he says at the 3.50 mark, basically agreeing with me.

Hydrogen fuel cells are to late to the game, full electric has leap frogged them.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> listen to what he says at the 3.50 mark, basically agreeing with me.
> 
> Hydrogen fuel cells are to late to the game, full electric has leap frogged them.




Time will tell.


----------



## Value Collector

fiftyeight said:


> For sure, but say the tesla trucks for example they will be charging at large hubs in industrial areas. If driverless car networks take off they will all be getting charged at a hub somewhere. Who knows in the future you may call uber to come and charge your house??




And where will these "hubs" be getting their power from? from scattered renewable energy projects, including under utilised roof top solar in the suburbs, both the hubs, and the solar cells need to be connected to the grid, its the most efficient way to transport and distribute the energy.


----------



## fiftyeight

Value Collector said:


> And where will these "hubs" be getting their power from?




TBH not sure where grid owners make their $$$ so there is still probably money to be made.

For residential, as long as connecting to the grid is cheaper than what average person could sell back to the grid per year everyone will stay connected. If that changes there may be a lot of unused infrastructure in the future


----------



## Value Collector

fiftyeight said:


> TBH not sure where grid owners make their $$$ so there is still probably money to be made.
> 
> For residential, as long as connecting to the grid is cheaper than what average person could sell back to the grid per year everyone will stay connected. If that changes there may be a lot of unused infrastructure in the future




The "distribution lines", eg the local wires and poles going out to individual homes and businesses, earn a fee for each connection.

The "transmission lines", eg the big power lines that transport over long distances, rent capacity and generally get paid whether it's used or not.

It's a different business to the generation business, the fees you can charge are decided by the regulator, and are based on the capital value of the assets. The regulator will set a price based on expected utilisation rates, that is supposed to provide the owner with enough revenue to maintain the assets, and provide a profit margin a set percentage above the rate earned on government bonds.
-----------

But from the consumers perspective, the grid is just like a big battery, it's a place to sell/ store the excess electricity during daylight hours, and to rebuy the power you need at night.

The grid offers solar users a much needed service, at a low price compared to alternatives, and if they own a decent sized system, they can probably pay for grid access through solar credits, rather than cash.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> After that a move away from Natural gas for household heating, hot water and cooking might follow, moving more household energy demand to electricity.
> 
> Electricity is going to take over most forms of energy use eventually, and production will be more and more spread out, the grid is here to stay.




Agreed with the point you're making. Looking at just natural gas, a point not well known outside the energy industry is that in Victoria during winter gas provides roughly twice as much energy to consumers as electricity does. Gas is in first place, electricity runs a distant second.

Even if the most efficient available technologies were used to replace gas with electricity, it's still at least a 50% increase in electricity load during Winter. And since it's during Winter, there's zero chance that consumers are going to be generating that + their present consumption themselves with solar so the grid is here to stay yes.

Then add in electric transport, which is year round, plus growing population and it's very plausible that we'll see the total electrical load in Victoria literally double over however long the transition takes.

On the other hand, somewhere like Tasmania it wouldn't make anywhere near as much difference. Far higher per capita electricity use at present, limited use of gas and relatively short transport distances so it's not a drastic change.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Power prices are regulated,




They may be now, but if some IPA influenced Right wing looney removes that restriction, the prices will rise dramatically.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> They may be now, but if some IPA influenced Right wing looney removes that restriction, the prices will rise dramatically.




With household prices from the privately owned, "competitive" and "efficient" electricity system in South Australia now almost literally double those charged by the state owned "monopoly" in Tasmania I think it's pretty clear who was wrong and who was right in the great privatisation debate.

It's to the point that running an off-peak water heater in Adelaide is now in fact more expensive than paying full peak rate in Hobart. That's just ridiculous and whilst the cost advantage of hydro-electric generation in Tas does help it's by no means the full story here. Back in the ETSA days SA's power industry was clearly more economically efficient than it is today.

The question now is how on earth do we fix the mess?

And what do we do about the broader economic and social impacts of the recent price hikes which have turned prices in SA in particular from "way too high" to "outright insane"?


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> The question now is how on earth do we fix the mess?
> 
> And what do we do about the broader economic and social impacts of the recent price hikes which have turned prices in SA in particular from "way too high" to "outright insane"?




Maybe the Federal government should cap power prices before they wreck consumers, businesses and the whole economy.

That's the only way out that I can see in the short term anyway.

Longer term is government investment in new generation and storage (Snowy Hydro 2.0 looks good). The Australian market is too small to depend on private investment, although they provide an important backup in smaller capital generation like wind and solar.

The Finkel report is a good start imo, what do you think ?


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> With household prices from the privately owned, "competitive" and "efficient" electricity system in South Australia now almost literally double those charged by the state owned "monopoly" in Tasmania I think it's pretty clear who was wrong and who was right in the great privatisation debate.
> 
> It's to the point that running an off-peak water heater in Adelaide is now in fact more expensive than paying full peak rate in Hobart. That's just ridiculous and whilst the cost advantage of hydro-electric generation in Tas does help it's by no means the full story here. Back in the ETSA days SA's power industry was clearly more economically efficient than it is today.
> 
> The question now is how on earth do we fix the mess?
> 
> And what do we do about the broader economic and social impacts of the recent price hikes which have turned prices in SA in particular from "way too high" to "outright insane"?




In your opinion what is the problem in SA? is the Generation side or the distribution side of the equation?

From my understanding SA has been let down on the generation side, which is somewhat political, e.g. No company is going to make big investments into long payback cycle fossil fuel generation (e.g. coal) because they don't know how the government will tax them in 5 years time and funding is difficult because of environmental groups pressuring the banks to deny credit.

So SA went instead with more expensive renewables, which proved unreliable and cause spikes in spot electricity prices, which off course need to be factored in to the retail price.


----------



## Value Collector

Value Collector said:


> In your opinion what is the problem in SA? is the Generation side or the distribution side of the equation?
> 
> From my understanding SA has been let down on the generation side, which is somewhat political, e.g. No company is going to make big investments into long payback cycle fossil fuel generation (e.g. coal) because they don't know how the government will tax them in 5 years time and funding is difficult because of environmental groups pressuring the banks to deny credit.
> 
> So SA went instead with more expensive renewables, which proved unreliable and cause spikes in spot electricity prices, which off course need to be factored in to the retail price.


----------



## DB008

Australia, land of the great red tape...

Is the energy industry in bed with Standards Australia? Sounds like it.

So, it's ok to park your Tesla in your garage and charge it overnight, but not a battery for your home?

Sounds like the muppet brigade is at the wheel again...


*The new standard that could kill the home battery storage market*
​The battery storage industry is warning that the market for lithium-ion battery installations could be killed even before it has taken off if proposed new Australian standards do not fall in line with international installation guidelines.

As we reported last month, the draft from Standards Australia will effectively ban lithium-ion battery storage inside homes and garages after declaring it to be a category 1 fire risk. It will mean any installations will need to be built in a concrete bunker, making it impossible for many homes and costly for others.

The proposals have been described as a massive case of over-reach, even by groups whose members form part of the standards advisory committee. Some have suggested that the standards process – which normally takes several years – has been rushed.

Most of all, they point out that the new standards do not reflect international practice, nor are they based on any known threat. Home battery storage systems would be banned, while lithium-ion batteries for laptops, mobile phones and other devices, electric vehicles, and gas bottles are not.

Glen Morris, from the Australian Storage Council, says even the prospect of these new rules could see a dent in the market, just as it begins to take off with the release of the new Tesla Powerwalls, and new models and products from the likes of LG Chem, Sonnenbatterie, BYD and many others.

The European standard, known as IEC 62619:2017, sets out in detail the operating requirements of battery storage devices, but does not go to the extreme of banning them outright from homes and buildings.

The US standard, which is similar to IEC 62619, cannot be adopted by Standards Australia because there is no commercial arrangement between the two organisations.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/the-new-standard-that-could-kill-the-home-battery-storage-market-93609/​


----------



## basilio

Thanks DB. Good story.  Absolutely ridiculous draft standard proposal. Just cannot understand how it has gotten this far.


----------



## Tisme

DB008 said:


> Australia, land of the great red tape...
> 
> Is the energy industry in bed with Standards Australia? Sounds like it.
> 
> So, it's ok to park your Tesla in your garage and charge it overnight, but not a battery for your home?
> 
> Sounds like the muppet brigade is at the wheel again...
> 
> 
> *The new standard that could kill the home battery storage market*
> ​The battery storage industry is warning that the market for lithium-ion battery installations could be killed even before it has taken off if proposed new Australian standards do not fall in line with international installation guidelines.
> 
> As we reported last month, the draft from Standards Australia will effectively ban lithium-ion battery storage inside homes and garages after declaring it to be a category 1 fire risk. It will mean any installations will need to be built in a concrete bunker, making it impossible for many homes and costly for others.
> 
> The proposals have been described as a massive case of over-reach, even by groups whose members form part of the standards advisory committee. Some have suggested that the standards process – which normally takes several years – has been rushed.
> 
> Most of all, they point out that the new standards do not reflect international practice, nor are they based on any known threat. Home battery storage systems would be banned, while lithium-ion batteries for laptops, mobile phones and other devices, electric vehicles, and gas bottles are not.
> 
> Glen Morris, from the Australian Storage Council, says even the prospect of these new rules could see a dent in the market, just as it begins to take off with the release of the new Tesla Powerwalls, and new models and products from the likes of LG Chem, Sonnenbatterie, BYD and many others.
> 
> The European standard, known as IEC 62619:2017, sets out in detail the operating requirements of battery storage devices, but does not go to the extreme of banning them outright from homes and buildings.
> 
> The US standard, which is similar to IEC 62619, cannot be adopted by Standards Australia because there is no commercial arrangement between the two organisations.
> 
> http://reneweconomy.com.au/the-new-standard-that-could-kill-the-home-battery-storage-market-93609/​




How do you store a battery powered car?


----------



## Smurf1976

Anyone in the solar installation business will be familiar with the term "Clowns" or "Clown Corp".

Suffice to say it's a reference to those who set standards and keep changing them so often that pretty much any system already in use won't comply and will cost serious $ to make even the smallest change as a result (since it will all have to be brought up to the new standards).

When you consider the incredibly frequent changes of technical standards, licensing requirements, council regulations and government policies it's truly amazing that the industry has got as far as it has.

If only the same degree of vigilance had been applied halogen downlights, TPS cable insulation, flexi hoses and building materials generally then Australian consumers would be in a much safer situation today.

All that has a lot in common with the overall energy situation in Australia. We had a system that worked, was the third cheapest in the OECD and was technically robust.

25 years later and SA has the highest electricity prices in the world with other states having also greatly increased. Technical integrity has fallen in a heap and continues to decline at an alarming pace. Australia is an outright joke so far as any notion of being internationally competitive with energy is concerned. 

Looking at the situation now, well residential prices in Adelaide are about double those of Hobart per kilowatt hour consumed. Adelaide is also about 60% more expensive than either Perth or Darwin.

Now, fundamentally Darwin ought to have the highest cost. I've nothing against PAWA but ultimately it's a very small power system in terms of generating capacity, is a long way from anywhere and is based on a relatively expensive resource (gas). And yet they've beaten the absolute **** out of the "efficient" private suppliers in SA. No surprises there.

WA ought to be cheaper than the NT but suffice to say that Synergy are slowly but surely being dragged down the "competitive market" path with government owned power stations being closed in order to ensure the profits of their privately owned competitors. So it's no surprise to see the warnings of big power prices on the way.

As for Tassie, well I think (hope) we've finally worn down those in Canberra and in the ACCC who would gladly have us on the same path the other states have already gone down. With the wheels falling off just about everywhere else their attention has been diverted for now at least. That plus it's getting rather hard to deny that their "brilliant" ideas aren't exactly going too well in other states.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> WA ought to be cheaper than the NT but suffice to say that Synergy are slowly but surely being dragged down the "competitive market" path with government owned power stations being closed in order to ensure the profits of their privately owned competitors. So it's no surprise to see the warnings of big power prices on the way.




In W.A, the Libs were going to sell Western Power to pay down debt, Labor said it would drive up prices.
Labor have won the election and are now driving up prices, to encourage competition, to drive down prices?

Labor in W.A had the perfect opportunity, to re establish the State owned and operated Power System, there is an abundance of State owned generating capacity.
But alas, Labor doesn't seem to be interested in the option either.
They instead, are going to strip any value out of Western Power, before they sell it.

Obviously both sides of politics, are singing from the same song sheet, it's just the chorus that changes.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> They instead, are going to strip any value out of Western Power, before they sell it.



Unless the plan has changed in the past couple of months (?) then they're going to close:

Muja AB - yep closing the place not long after the $$$ was spent to bring it back into operation.

Mungarra - units 1, 2, 3 being closed

Kalgoorlie - units 2 & 3

Kwinana - the last remnant of KPS, the 21 MW gas turbine, being closed.

All done in order to meet a government directive to reduce state owned generating capacity so as to ensure revenue to the private operators.

I'm not opposed to private ownership of electricity infrastructure per se. The problem however is the structure and the insistence of politicians and others that it be spread across multiple owners who "compete" for business. Trouble is, as anyone with an understanding of the related economics are all too aware that approach sends costs sky high to start with in the hope of then bringing them back down a bit.

Looking at SA as an example, under private ownership we've seen Pelican Point, Labroke Grove, Lonsdale, Angaston and Quarantine power stations all built and now AGL is about to replace 2 units at Torrens Island A.

The trouble is that scale is critical to keeping costs down and every single one of those is way below optimum scale with only Pelican Point coming anywhere close. So that approach has sent costs sky high to start with and even if the private owners somehow managed to reduce non-fuel variable costs to literally zero they'd still be more expensive than if optimum scale plant were built in the first place.

The ACCC and others would have a fit at the suggestion but the best possible outcome at this point would be for the management of AGL, Origin, Energy Australia and others to sit down and work out a plan. Decide who's doing what and then get on and build things at an efficient scale and operate them efficiently.

Competition in the supply of an undifferentiated product like electricity is not a rational objective in itself. Lower prices and greater efficiency are rational objectives as are various environmental and other matters but whose name is in the bill is of little relevance to consumers. Now, competition does in theory drive efficiency but if the cost of implementation exceeds the absolute limit of the benefits, and it is clear that in practice prices are going up not down under this approach, then a rational person would see that it has failed and change course.

The crux of the problem is that the economic theorists and their political supporters seem incapable of accepting that their policies, whilst seemingly reasonable in theory, have failed in practice.

The figures vary a bit between states but as an overall ballpark figure we'd need a 40% cut in residential prices and a 10% improvement in thermal efficiency (and thus emissions) per unit of production just to break even with the efficiency of the former state run monopoly utilities. That's a pretty dismal result by any measure. 

As I said though I'm not opposed to private ownership per se. For somewhere like SA or WA it's a given though that there will only be a single operator calling the shots if efficient scale is to be achieved. 

So the choice is a government owned monopoly, a privately owned monopoly, or a fragmented industry that is nowhere close to achieving optimum scale and which costs a fortune. 

Of that lot a government owned monopoly is likely the lesser evil unless someone can come up with a way to ensure that a private monopoly doesn't price gouge (actually, the Americans did have a reasonably effective way of doing that in the past so it's not out of the question).


----------



## sptrawler

Like I said, both the Libs and Labor, sing from the same song sheet.
First the breaking up of generation, supply and distribution, in the name of efficiency.
When in actual fact, from my memory, generation had to carry all the debt associated to the spinning off, of Alinta.
The rest is history, it is just really sad, when the Government could still take over the supply and distribution.
But don't want to.
Politics has obviously, become a career, rather than a calling.
It really is a sad situation, it reminds me of when I discussed with a union lawyer, the unfairness of a particular ruling which benefited upper managers.
His response,"who said it has to be fair".
Well I lost my drive, for the better 'good' when I heard that.

Like I've said before, Governments work on a long time scale, when we're gone there is a new norm.
Obviously supplying essential services, on a not for profit basis, doesn't fit in.LOL


----------



## SirRumpole

Volvo to ditch all ICE vehicles, moving to all electric or hybrids.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-...c,-ditches-cars-powered-solely-by-gas/8683850


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Volvo to ditch all ICE vehicles, moving to all electric or hybrids.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-...c,-ditches-cars-powered-solely-by-gas/8683850




With the Chinese owning them, it probably makes a lot of sense, it will be a niche market with a brand name.
Volvo would make up a minor part, of Geely's operations. and probably contributes minimally to their bottom line.
It is a very clever move on their part, the product will get better acceptance with a brand name, while it is developed. IMO


----------



## orr

"One Hundred Days or it's free" 
Here we go

_The world's largest lithium ion battery will be installed in South Australia under an agreement between Tesla, Neoen and the State Government, Premier Jay Weatherill has announced.

The energy storage systems from Tesla will be paired with French renewable company Neoen's Hornsdale Wind Farm and installed before summer.

According to the Government, Tesla boss Elon Musk has confirmed his commitment to deliver the battery within 100 days or it is free.

The 100 days starts once the grid interconnection agreement has been signed.

The Government has said the 100*-*megawatt (129 megawatt hour) battery places SA at the forefront of global energy storage technology.

_
Where's the down side??
Tesla has a bulging order book for the Model3; Any dormant car plant anyone can think of?

The GigaFactory is a proto type designed for duplication....


----------



## DB008

*France will 'ban all petrol and diesel*
*vehicles by 2040'*​
France plans to ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040, the country's new environment minister has announced.

Nicolas Hulot made the announcement as he unveiled a series of measures as part of newly elected President Emmanuel Macron's plan to make the country carbon neutral by 2050.

Mr Hulot said he recognised the target would put pressure on France's car manufacturers, but he said they currently had projects which "can fulfil that promise".



http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/france-petrol-diesel-ban-vehicles-cars-2040-a7826831.html​


----------



## SirRumpole

DB008 said:


> *France will 'ban all petrol and diesel*
> *vehicles by 2040'*​
> France plans to ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040, the country's new environment minister has announced.
> 
> Nicolas Hulot made the announcement as he unveiled a series of measures as part of newly elected President Emmanuel Macron's plan to make the country carbon neutral by 2050.
> 
> Mr Hulot said he recognised the target would put pressure on France's car manufacturers, but he said they currently had projects which "can fulfil that promise".
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/france-petrol-diesel-ban-vehicles-cars-2040-a7826831.html​




Typical socialist government, dictating to the marketplace.

Cutting off your options and pinning your hopes onto one form of transport is silly policy imho.


----------



## luutzu

Junior said:


> It is not acceptable for a country with vast, vast reserves of coal, natural gas, uranium, sun, geothermal, tidal, and hydro resources to have some of the most expensive power prices in the world.  Epic failure and short-sighted planning.




It's "failure" by design.


----------



## luutzu

SirRumpole said:


> Typical socialist government, dictating to the marketplace.
> 
> Cutting off your options and pinning your hopes onto one form of transport is silly policy imho.




North West Africa is running out of gas and oil; Australia and the Middle East belong to Uncle Sam... So they have to play another game else it'll be Earth Hour every hour in a few decades


----------



## SirRumpole

orr said:


> Where's the down side??




The batteries only last 15 years. 

Hopefully they will do other things as well in the meantime like pumped storage.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Typical socialist government, dictating to the marketplace.
> 
> Cutting off your options and pinning your hopes onto one form of transport is silly policy imho.



It's going that way anyway.

22 years from now, I would imagine the vast majority of the vehicle fleet will have already moved away from ICE power trains.

Electric vehicles make a lot of sense in France, they already export large amounts of electricity, due to over capacity


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> It's going that way anyway.
> 
> 22 years from now, I would imagine the vast majority of the vehicle fleet will have already moved away from ICE power trains.
> 
> Electric vehicles make a lot of sense in France, they already export large amounts of electricity, due to over capacity




The world got too reliant on oil and the consumers get gouged at the whim of the oil companies.

The same will happen if the world gets too reliant on electricity.

That's why I reckon hybrids are the best bet. The best of both worlds.


----------



## CanOz

SirRumpole said:


> The world got too reliant on oil and the consumers get gouged at the whim of the oil companies.
> 
> The same will happen if the world gets too reliant on electricity.
> 
> That's why I reckon hybrids are the best bet. The best of both worlds.




Sir, with all due respect you do realise that electricity is just a conversion of one form of energy to another?? How can we become too reliant on electricity? That is a bizarre statement on its own, perhaps you can add some clarification....is there another power source you're not telling us about? Back to steam perhaps?


----------



## SirRumpole

The same will happen if the world gets too reliant on electricity.[/QUOTE]


CanOz said:


> Sir, with all due respect you do realise that electricity is just a conversion of one form of energy to another?? How can we become too reliant on electricity? That is a bizarre statement on its own, perhaps you can add some clarification....is there another power source you're not telling us about? Back to steam perhaps?




I was commenting on France banning the Internal Combustion Engine in vehicles by 2050, basically putting all its eggs in the electricity basket. So who controls the electricity and the prices charged ? If electric vehicles are the only form of transport allowed, where is the competition ? It will be like the oilogopoly we have today.

I was simply making the comment that there should be some choice for consumers, and banning one form of transport fuel (diesel, petrol) and forcing people to use only one alternative is akin to socialism and restriction of choice.

Maybe the market will go that way anyway, but it should be for consumers to decide not an authoritarian government.


----------



## CanOz

Sir, the French own almost all the power producers, over 70% is nuclear. It is a socialist government as you say, so it should be the antithisis of what Australia is today and therefore an ideal model if you don't prefer to see the sector privatised. 

I'm confused, if you don't like privatised power, what do you want if its not the French model??


----------



## SirRumpole

CanOz said:


> Sir, the French own almost all the power producers, over 70% is nuclear. It is a socialist government as you say, so it should be the antithisis of what Australia is today and therefore an ideal model if you don't prefer to see the sector privatised.
> 
> I'm confused, if you don't like privatised power, what do you want if its not the French model??




No, I don't like privatised power, but we don't rely on electricity for transport at the moment and *banning* a particular form of transport reduces competition and freedom of choice .  Would you like to see governments ban rooftop solar so we all had to rely on power generated by others ? If that happened there would probably be another revolution.


----------



## notting

What SA Gov did today with Musk is totally awesome, especially in a country so rich in resources that are profitable but destroying mans ability to inhabit the world.
It's the best thing I have seen in Ausi Admin/politics ever.
Musk is the man who's vision, guts and cunning to maneuver around all the crap that big oil interest throws at his Telsa's etc is saving the world.
Fantastic what Volvo announced about electric cars the other day too.  All because of Musk, 
TOTAL LEGEND Guts all around.
Great day for Australia


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> The same will happen if the world gets too reliant on electricity.





I was commenting on France banning the Internal Combustion Engine in vehicles by 2050, basically putting all its eggs in the electricity basket. So who controls the electricity and the prices charged ? If electric vehicles are the only form of transport allowed, where is the competition ? It will be like the oilogopoly we have today.

I was simply making the comment that there should be some choice for consumers, and banning one form of transport fuel (diesel, petrol) and forcing people to use only one alternative is akin to socialism and restriction of choice.

Maybe the market will go that way anyway, but it should be for consumers to decide not an authoritarian government.[/QUOTE]
Electric vehicles bring about a lot more competition in energy.

At the moment ice cars have one source of fuel, eg oil wells.

Electric cars still have the option of getting energy from oil wells eg gas, oil or diesel power plants

But electric cars can also get their fuel from many other sources, eg coal mines, uranium, wind turbines, solar cells, wave power, hydro, geothermal, biomass, wave power and probably others.

So you are actually opening up the vehicle market to a lot more competition in potential energy supply.


----------



## SirRumpole

> But electric cars can also get their fuel from many other sources, eg coal mines, uranium, wind turbines, solar cells, wave power, hydro, geothermal, biomass, wave power and probably others.
> 
> So you are actually opening up the vehicle market to a lot more competition in potential energy supply.




Fine, I'm not arguing against electric vehicles, just against banning the ICE, thus giving consumers no choice.

Consumers can't control the price of electricity any more than they can control the price of oil, but competition between petrol/diesel and electricity stops either of those getting a monopoly.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Consumers can't control the price of electricity any more than they can control the price of oil, but competition between petrol/diesel and electricity stops either of those getting a monopoly.




Electricity is not supplied by one company, there are many retailers competing for customers, and generators competing to sell To the retailers, and more and more consumers are installing their own generating capacity.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Electricity is not supplied by one company, there are many retailers competing for customers, and generators competing to sell To the retailers, and more and more consumers are installing their own generating capacity.




So you would be in favour of banning ICE vehicles ?


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Electricity is not supplied by one company, there are many retailers competing for customers,




There is more than one bank, but they all rip off customers.


----------



## Junior

Agree with Notting.  One of the planet's most inspiring and powerful entrepreneurs & thought leaders, coming to agreement with SA state government, who would have thought??

Even if the battery bank is not the solution, it's a step in the right direction & it's forward thinking.  Battery technology is evolving rapidly, by the time this system reaches the end of its useful life there will be far better technologies available with which to replace it.  Additionally as this a system of unprecedented size, there will be much to learn from the experience.

This is a refreshing development, when compared to the already-tired debate of coal vs. wind power - as if there's only two options and everyone has to choose a side.


----------



## SirRumpole

Junior said:


> This is a refreshing development, when compared to the already-tired debate of coal vs. wind power - as if there's only two options and everyone has to choose a side.




A battery doesn't do away with the coal v wind debate because it still has to be charged by some form of generation, but yes it's a move forward so best of luck to them.


----------



## McLovin

SirRumpole said:


> So you would be in favour of banning ICE vehicles ?




I would. We're not near the point of being able to do that, but I hope in a decade or so it starts to become a viable option.


----------



## SirRumpole

McLovin said:


> I would. We're not near the point of being able to do that, but I hope in a decade or so it starts to become a viable option.




So you would replace one oligopoly with another.

Batteries have their own drawbacks, limited life, reliance on a diminishing source of rare metals, and then you have the extra infrastructure required to charge all these electric vehicles overnight, most likely requiring a massive investment in nuclear power which is not cheap and consumers will end up paying through the nose for it.


----------



## McLovin

SirRumpole said:


> So you would replace one oligopoly with another.




If that's how you want to frame it, then yes. I see it as replacing a form of energy with high externalities and a diminishing supply that needs to be sourced from tin-pot dictatorships to a form of energy that is none of those things.

ETA: (the above is obviously predicated on a move away from the rock that is good for humanity)


> Batteries have their own drawbacks, limited life, reliance on a diminishing source of rare metals, and then you have the extra infrastructure required to charge all these electric vehicles overnight, most likely requiring a massive investment in nuclear power which is not cheap and consumers will end up paying through the nose for it.




Given most of the cost of power is in transport not generation, what is the actual cost of constructing nuclear power plants on end users? Maybe *smurf *can chime in with the answer to that. The corollary of that is with everyone charging their cars at night high fixed costs can be spread over kw/h.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> So you would be in favour of banning ICE vehicles ?




More than a thousand people in Sydney die of air pollution from vehicles each year it's something worth considering. If we had a nuclear plant that was releasing radiation and killing 1000 people every year it would be shut down tomorrow, but we are fine with smoke and soot for some reason.

I mean we have banned smoking in all sorts of pubic areas, but we are fine with a diesel truck blowing a plume of black smoke in our face as it leaves the traffic lights.

I am not a fan of drastic changes, but a 22 year program to phase something really damaging out seems ok to me.



> There is more than one bank, but they all rip off customers.




Some people say, but their return on equity is fairly moderate in my opinion, which shows that they aren't ripping people off.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> More than a thousand people in Sydney die of air pollution from vehicles each year




Would you provide a source for that ? How is that figure calculated ?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Would you provide a source for that ? How is that figure calculated ?




_"The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW 2016) has estimated that about 3000 deaths (equivalent to about 28,000 years of life lost) are attributable to urban air pollution in Australia each year (Figure ATM29). The health costs from mortality alone are estimated to be in the order of $11–24 billion per year (Begg 2007, Access Economics 2008). *The health risk assessment undertaken for the review of Australia’s air quality standards* (Golder Associates 2013) *found that the most severe effects, in terms of overall health burden, were linked to long-term exposure to high levels of PM. Better control of nonroad spark-ignition engines and equipment to reduce emissions could avoid health costs by up to $1.7 billion* (COAG 2015a)"

https://soe.environment.gov.au/theme/ambient-air-quality/topic/2016/health-impacts-air-pollution_


----------



## McLovin

Value Collector said:


> _"The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW 2016) has estimated that about 3000 deaths (equivalent to about 28,000 years of life lost) are attributable to urban air pollution in Australia each year (Figure ATM29). The health costs from mortality alone are estimated to be in the order of $11–24 billion per year (Begg 2007, Access Economics 2008). The health risk assessment undertaken for the review of Australia’s air quality standards (Golder Associates 2013) found that the most severe effects, in terms of overall health burden, were linked to long-term exposure to high levels of PM. Better control of nonroad spark-ignition engines and equipment to reduce emissions could avoid health costs by up to $1.7 billion (COAG 2015a)"
> 
> https://soe.environment.gov.au/theme/ambient-air-quality/topic/2016/health-impacts-air-pollution_




And there's the externalities...


----------



## SirRumpole

McLovin said:


> And there's the externalities...




And people get electrocuted too.

Anyway I'm not against electric cars, just the banning of alternatives.

If you are content to let governments dictate to you that's up to you, I prefer that consumers get a choice and decide what is best for them.

Nuclear power has its externalities too, and there is no point turning to Smurf for an examination of nuclear power, he's already said we shouldn't have a bar of it. (Post 802 in this thread).


----------



## McLovin

SirRumpole said:


> And people get electrocuted too.
> 
> Anyway I'm not against electric cars, just the banning of alternatives.




Why? The government regulates things all the time that reduce consumer choice. If replacing a dirty source of energy with a clean source reduces consumer choice I'm not going to lose any sleep.

I'm not sure that being electrocuted while using electricity can be considered an externality.


----------



## SirRumpole

McLovin said:


> Why? The government regulates things all the time that reduce consumer choice. If replacing a dirty source of energy with a clean source reduces consumer choice I'm not going to lose any sleep.




That's a very simplistic argument, you have basically ignored the cost of infrastructure required to charge electric vehicles. Power prices are already getting out of reach in this country, sending businesses broke and consumers into more debt, imagine if we have to pay even more to charge our cars.

An all electric vehicle fleet is pie in the sky befitting the dreams of Lefty ideologues.


----------



## McLovin

SirRumpole said:


> That's a very simplistic argument, you have basically ignored the cost of infrastructure required to charge electric vehicles. Power prices are already getting out of reach in this country, sending businesses broke and consumers into more debt, imagine if we have to pay even more to charge our cars.




All this seems predisposed on the notion that the change would be overnight. I imagine it will be more like the introduction of unleaded petrol. There are still many questions that need to be figured out. My own problem is that I have no off-street parking, so there is no real way for me to charge my car, at the moment. 



> An all electric vehicle fleet is pie in the sky befitting the dreams of Lefty ideologues.




Lol. You'll fit right in here.


----------



## SirRumpole

McLovin said:


> All this seems predisposed on the notion that the change would be overnight. I imagine it will be more like the introduction of unleaded petrol. There are still many questions that need to be figured out. My own problem is that I have no off-street parking, so there is no real way for me to charge my car, at the moment.
> 
> 
> 
> Lol. You'll fit right in here.




Ha ha ha, here I am arguing for freedom of choice and less government interference. Some Lefty.


----------



## Value Collector

McLovin said:


> My own problem is that I have no off-street parking, so there is no real way for me to charge my car, at the moment.



It's coming

Lamp post charging is already being installed across London and Berlin.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> you have basically ignored the cost of infrastructure required to charge electric vehicles. Power prices are already getting out of reach in this country, sending businesses broke and consumers into more debt, imagine if we have to pay even more to charge our cars.



 You know vehicle owners already pay ship loads to fuel their vehicles right? it's not like the current ICE cars are free to run.

There are plenty of companies (and even consumers) willing to make longterm investments in the electricity grid and generation capacity.

Also, higher utilisation rates of the existing infrastructure lowers costs.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Anyway I'm not against electric cars, just the banning of alternatives.





When the government banned the burning of household rubbish across Sydney suburbs, were you against that?

Surely, when it comes to improving the Air quality (and saving lives), some personal freedoms take a back seat.

We already have rules about how much pollution an ICE vehicle is allowed to pump out, it makes sense that when alternatives become viable, the use of ICE cars could be banned.


----------



## orr

McLovin said:


> And there's the externalities...




and another little one here ... Coal has 'given' us so much


----------



## SirRumpole

> We already have rules about how much pollution an ICE vehicle is allowed to pump out, it makes sense that when alternatives become viable, the use of ICE cars could be banned.




So what is your plan for generating the power to charge these vehicles ?

How much extra will be required ? How much will it cost ? How many more power stations do we need to build ?

I don't think you have thought it all through, if you had you would have realised that hybrids are a better way to go. They generate their own electricity which means owners are not dependent on finding a charging station, although they can use one if they want.


----------



## Wysiwyg

SirRumpole said:


> The batteries only last 15 years.



That is why Musk is in the "renewable" energy game. Every so often the batteries have to be renewed. Smart (yet vacuous) Musk, desperate S.A. government.


----------



## SirRumpole

Wysiwyg said:


> That is why Musk is in the "renewable" energy game. Every so often the batteries have to be renewed. Smart (yet vacuous) Musk, desperate S.A. government.




I guess the SA government is buying some time so they can build gas turbine stations like they said they would, and maybe some pumped storage.

They would be crazy to rely just on batteries.


----------



## moXJO

This battery storage won't exactly power many homes off the figures will it?
After 10-15 years is it just a right off apart from the infrastructure?
Seems like a "look at me, I'm green" political statement.


----------



## Wysiwyg

moXJO said:


> This battery storage won't exactly power many homes off the figures will it?



I heard 30 000 homes.


> After 10-15 years is it just a right off apart from the infrastructure?



There is the disposal, recycling and replacement of the exhausted batteries. 


> Seems like a "look at me, I'm green" political statement.



Yes.


----------



## moXJO

Wysiwyg said:


> I heard 30 000 homes.
> 
> There is the disposal, recycling and replacement of the exhausted batteries.
> 
> Yes.



Thats the figure they gave, I'm hearing figures from 30000 to 1300 depending on length of time and consumption. I'll have to find the figures.
SA just seems to be mashing the grid with populist solutions. I'm all for green tech. But rolling out long lasting well thought out plans is important as well. If electricity remains high you can say goodbye to the economy and frivolous tech solutions.

Elon Musk is one of the great pioneers of our time. His strike rate isn't the best though.


----------



## Smurf1976

I'm keeping my posts brief and infrequent at the moment - something called "life" is taking up my time presently... 

Somewhere in the last page or two someone was asking how much power a house uses and thus how many houses this 100 MW / 129 MWh battery could run. Here's some data:

For SA, an average household consumes 587 Watts from the grid on average. This is the second lowest in Australia (Vic is the lowest at an average 560 W per household and Tas is the highest at an average 1006 W per household). Those figures are for residential electricity as such, so they do not include general business, heavy industry, street lighting etc.

Seasonal variation in total consumption in SA is actually quite modest. The low being an average of 502 W in Autumn and the high being an average of about 665 W in Winter.

Daily and hourly variation is far more extreme however and in this regard SA is about as extreme as it gets anywhere. Push the temperature up to 40+ degrees and total power consumption in SA literally doubles. Given that there would be no high temperature related increase in demand from industrial processes, electronic devices, lighting and so on it can be said with confidence that more than 50% of all electricity at those times is powering cooling devices. At the extreme it's would be nudging 60% used for cooling if some assumptions are made that as a whole there are probably less people running welders, using electric lawnmowers, cooking a roast and so on when it's 45 degrees than would be the case on a milder day (that is, non-cooling related consumption likely goes down at least to some extent when it's seriously hot such that the total cooling load is likely somewhat higher than simply the difference between a 45 versus 22 degree day).

So how many houses could be powered by this battery varies hugely depending on the time of day and weather and the time. But if you want an average then the answer is 199,000 homes could be powered using a maximum discharge rate of 100 MW. That is, of course, until the battery goes flat which would take about 77 minutes at that rate. Power fewer homes with it it you want it to discharge more slowly.

Overall it's a help but it's not massive. A pragmatic way to view it is that it's able to supply about 3% of the state's extreme peak demand so is comparable to a smaller but still significant power station.

So a 100 MW battery. For reference:

Torrens Island power station (literally half of SA's non-intermittent generating capacity that's still operating but some of the machinery is getting _very_ tired and worn out these days ) = 1280 MW

Northern Power Station (closed, SA) = 540 MW

Hazelwood Power Station (closed, Vic) = 1600 MW

Anglesea (closed, Vic) = 160 MW

Playford B (closed, SA) = 240 MW

Morwell (closed, Vic) = 170 MW (potentially up to 190 MW)

Closest to 100 MW:

Mintaro (SA, gas turbines, fully operational) = 90 MW

Trevallyn (Tas, hydro, fully operational) = 95 MW

So the battery is significant but not massive. It's better than nothing that's for sure and there are circumstances where it will avoid or at least reduce the scale of load shedding that would otherwise occur.


----------



## Junior

I don't see this issue with infrastructure.....isn't it just plugging the car into a power socket?  We have electricity everywhere already.  Once the likes of China decide they are going all-in, economies of scale for any required infrastructure should mean it's not an expensive transition, we can follow their lead.

Furthermore surely the manufacturers of electric vehicles will forge the way in this area; the ability to charge ones' vehicle as and when required will need to be proven.

We just need to sort out the 'energy crisis' in this country as demand could go through the roof.


----------



## SirRumpole

Junior said:


> I don't see this issue with infrastructure.....isn't it just plugging the car into a power socket?




I hope you are joking.

Yes we can turn a water tap on too, but the water has to come from somewhere. We are currently in a power drought after Hazlewood was shut down and other generators go down for maintenance or out of business permanently due to age.

Do you remember that NSW and Victoria were on the brink of blackouts last summer ? The generating capacity isn't there at the moment to guarantee that the lights won't go out, never mind charging thousands of electric cars.


----------



## moXJO

SirRumpole said:


> I hope you are joking.
> 
> Yes we can turn a water tap on too, but the water has to come from somewhere. We are currently in a power drought after Hazlewood was shut down and other generators go down for maintenance or out of business permanently due to age.
> 
> Do you remember that NSW and Victoria were on the brink of blackouts last summer ? The generating capacity isn't there at the moment to guarantee that the lights won't go out, never mind charging thousands of electric cars.



We seem a bit complacent in this country regarding power.
"Let's wait till things really fcuk up" seems to be the publics attitude.


----------



## CanOz

SirRumpole said:


> I hope you are joking.
> 
> Yes we can turn a water tap on too, but the water has to come from somewhere. We are currently in a power drought after Hazlewood was shut down and other generators go down for maintenance or out of business permanently due to age.
> 
> Do you remember that NSW and Victoria were on the brink of blackouts last summer ? The generating capacity isn't there at the moment to guarantee that the lights won't go out, never mind charging thousands of electric cars.




In Australia, almost all power for electric cars has the potential to be free, after installation and maintenance costs.


----------



## SirRumpole

CanOz said:


> In Australia, almost all power for electric cars has the potential to be free, after installation and maintenance costs.




Could you explain that ? Solar cells on top of vehicles perhaps, unless they are parked in underground car parks.


----------



## SirRumpole

Looks like consumers have given electric cars the thumbs down in favour of hybrids.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/technol...d/news-story/a6213d73c01820a90edd87e6c2fa1103


----------



## McLovin

SirRumpole said:


> Looks like consumers have given electric cars the thumbs down in favour of hybrids.
> 
> http://www.heraldsun.com.au/technol...d/news-story/a6213d73c01820a90edd87e6c2fa1103




Of course they have. There is no infrastructure for electric cars at the moment. A horse was still the preference over a Model T before petrol stations became ubiquitous.


----------



## SirRumpole

McLovin said:


> Of course they have. There is no infrastructure for electric cars at the moment. A horse was still the preference over a Model T before petrol stations became ubiquitous.




Chicken and egg. Who is going provide electric car infrastructure without a demand, and who is going to buy EV's without infrastructure ?


----------



## Junior

SirRumpole, are you proposing ECs should be disregarded because it's all too hard?

I'm well aware of the energy/power generation issues in this country.  However, they are absolutely not insurmountable.  We have vast resources, wealth and the technology is there to ramp up energy production.  Just need some half decent leadership and we'll get there eventually.

The alternative is to do nothing and continue to breathe in toxic fumes and be held hostage to the price & availability of oil.


----------



## McLovin

SirRumpole said:


> Chicken and egg. Who is going provide electric car infrastructure without a demand, and who is going to buy EV's without infrastructure ?




The infrastructure is being rolled out. The charging stations cost sweet FA and can make carparks additional money. The price of batteries keeps falling and the capacity keeps growing. It's not going to happen overnight, but I don't think anyone is arguing it will. This all seems to be getting a bit defeatist. None of the hurdles that EVs currently have are insurmountable. Then again, in this country we seem to not look further than our feet. Probably why we have clowns hauling lumps of coal into the national parliament with stupid grins on their faces proclaiming it's the future.

Let's see where it is in 10-15 years, not six months or a year.


----------



## sptrawler

Junior said:


> I don't see this issue with infrastructure.....isn't it just plugging the car into a power socket?



If it was that easy everyone would have one, the issue is time taken to charge the battery, distance the battery can propel the car and how long the battery will last, before it requires replacing.
When those problems are solved, EV's are a winner.
At this point in time H2 fuel cells, have more scope for development. Just my opinion.


----------



## SirRumpole

McLovin said:


> This all seems to be getting a bit defeatist.




People seem to equate electric vehicle infrastructure with just adding a few power points here and there. 

The electricity has to be generated. It was estimated that about 20 nuclear power stations would need to be built to supply all the electric cars in Britain assuming they were all electric. That means about 5 here. Expecting renewables to carry that load is wishful thinking imo. 

Anyway, maybe it can be done. My argument goes back to the banning of alternatives and the restriction of choice on consumers. You don't have a problem with that, that's up to you. I do have a problem with being dictated to by elected representatives.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> the issue is time taken to charge the battery, distance the battery can propel the car and how long the battery will last, before it requires replacing.




And how much it actually costs to charge the battery. When the elcos have the customers hooked, it's charge through the nose lads ! (Pun intended).


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> If it was that easy everyone would have one, the issue is time taken to charge the battery, distance the battery can propel the car and how long the battery will last, before it requires replacing.
> When those problems are solved, EV's are a winner.
> At this point in time H2 fuel cells, have more scope for development. Just my opinion.




Teslas model 3 will get a bit over 400KM's per charge. (heaps especially when you wake up ever morning with a full charge)

The Battery will last longer than the expected life of the vehicle.

Long distance driving possible with 20 min chargers on the super charge network.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> So what is your plan for generating the power to charge these vehicles ?
> 
> .




There is already quite a lot of spare capacity in the network, only peak loads at certain times of the day at certain times of year are a problem, but battery large amounts of charging can be managed to utilise current unused capacity.


> How much extra will be required ? How much will it cost ? How many more power stations do we need to build ?




With the utilisation of current unused capacity, plus further introduction of roof solar and other renewables, there won't be a problem.

There are plenty of companies out their willing to invest large mounts of money into the grid and generation if the returns are resonable. 





> I don't think you have thought it all through, if you had you would have realised that hybrids are a better way to go. They generate their own electricity which means owners are not dependent on finding a charging station,




Which Hybrid are you talking about that doesn't require either a charging or a filling station.


----------



## McLovin

SirRumpole said:


> People seem to equate electric vehicle infrastructure with just adding a few power points here and there.




A the moment, it is exactly that.



SirRumpole said:


> Expecting renewables to carry that load is wishful thinking imo.




Maybe. I doubt it though. It's not as though anyone in Australia has actually tried. If Germany can be 100% renewable for domestic supply now on a sunny day, I wouldn't want to be betting on it not being achievable in 10-20 years in a country bathed in sunshine like Australia.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> There is already quite a lot of spare capacity in the network,




I don't think you have been reading Surf's comments about the shaky state of our generating system. A lot of it is falling apart at the seams and is ready to be retired with little sign of replacement. A massive investment will be required to satisfy current demand without considering the extra load of EV's.

Power prices are going through the roof now, I'd hate to be charging my car every night as well.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Teslas model 3 will get a bit over 400KM's per charge. (heaps especially when you wake up ever morning with a full charge)
> 
> The Battery will last longer than the expected life of the vehicle.
> 
> Long distance driving possible with 20 min chargers on the super charge network.




I think they are great, just not the long term answer, with current technology.
Hopefully there is a breakthrough with hybrid battery/capacitor technology, then a lot of the current issues disappear.
When we have enough installed renewable energy capacity, in our electrical grid network, there will be an excess capacity for a majority of the time as happens now.
Then that excess capacity can be used to produce hydrogen, which in turn is a ultra clean fuel, that can be used in all forms of transport.
It can be used to power turbines for generation backup or turbines in aircraft, it can also power cars, trucks etc. 
The downside with hydrogen at this point in time, is the use of fossil fuel to produce it, once it can be produced and compressed with total renewable generation it becomes the ultimate fuel.IMO


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> I don't think you have been reading Surf's comments about the shaky state of our generating system. A lot of it is falling apart at the seams and is ready to be retired with little sign of replacement. A massive investment will be required to satisfy current demand without considering the extra load of EV's.
> 
> .




Thats not because the gris is impractical or because there is a lack of people willing to make longterm investments, it's because there is a lack clarity in the future Penalities that a volatile government / public will want to put on fossil fuels. 



> Power prices are going through the roof now, I'd hate to be charging my car every night as well





> Expecting renewables to carry that load is wishful thinking imo.




What is crazy is the two opposing arguments are being used against the grid.

1, People say that roof top solar is going to kill demand for the grid longterm, which will raise the cost of the grid due to the high fixed costs being spread among less people due to lower utilisation rates

2, People say EV's will cause such high demand for the grid that the grid won't cope and the high utilisation will cause prices to rise.

Now, which is it?

I think it is somewhere right down the middle.

1, Roof top solar and more efficient techs will reduce conventional demand on external generation sources

2, EV's will gradually come in and fill this gap bringing on more demand, at flexible usage times, meaning grid generators can use their latent capacity more effectively spreading fixed costs across more consumers.

3, Grid Batteries/ other storage, will allow the grid to cope with peak loads, while maintaining smaller generating capacity, and outside "peak" season the batteries can pay for themselves by time of day arbitrage of electricity sales and purchases.


----------



## sptrawler

McLovin said:


> If Germany can be 100% renewable for domestic supply now on a sunny day, I wouldn't want to be betting on it not being achievable in 10-20 years in a country bathed in sunshine like Australia.




It still comes back to storage and spinning reserve capacity, renewables (sun, wind) in themselves don't have storage and or inertia.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> When we have enough installed renewable energy capacity, in our electrical grid network, there will be an excess capacity for a majority of the time as happens now.
> Then that excess capacity can be used to produce hydrogen, which in turn is a ultra clean fuel, that can be used in all forms of transport.





You are far better just using that electricity to charge batteries.

The amount of electricity it would take to produce the Hydrogen to just run one vehicle, is roughly the amount of electricity it would take to charge 3 EV's.

Not to mention the storage and transport of the hydrogen via tanker trucks and service stations.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Thats not because the gris is impractical or because there is a lack of people willing to make longterm investments, it's because there is a lack clarity in the future Penalities that a volatile government / public will want to put on fossil fuels.
> 
> 
> 
> What is crazy is the two opposing arguments are being used against the grid.
> 
> 1, People say that roof top solar is going to kill demand for the grid longterm, which will raise the cost of the grid due to the high fixed costs being spread among less people due to lower utilisation rates
> 
> 2, People say EV's will cause such high demand for the grid that the grid won't cope and the high utilisation will cause prices to rise.
> 
> Now, which is it?
> 
> I think it is somewhere right down the middle.
> 
> 1, Roof top solar and more efficient techs will reduce conventional demand on external generation sources
> 
> 2, EV's will gradually come in and fill this gap bringing on more demand, at flexible usage times, meaning grid generators can use their latent capacity more effectively spreading fixed costs across more consumers.
> 
> 3, Grid Batteries/ other storage, will allow the grid to cope with peak loads, while maintaining smaller generating capacity, and outside "peak" season the batteries can pay for themselves by time of day arbitrage of electricity sales and purchases.




The problem is, it is ideologically driven, with passionate followers having the ear of the media. who have a vested interest in causing turmoil.
The practical problem that is obvious, is the massive amount of money required to change technologies and if it isn't done in a technically based manner, it costs a fortune ala S.A.
This cost is worn by the everyday people, not the politicians, they just wallow around in their own egos.
Everyone needs to take a deep breath IMO, we are way too focused on, renewable energy and other non critical issues.
The massive issue for Australia, is how are we going to pay for it all, when we can't even pay for what we are doing already.
Living standards are dropping and all we do is stick more on the wish list, it is about time someone turned the debate around, to how are the general public going to pay for it. Again just my opinion


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> I think it is somewhere right down the middle.




You are probably right as long as we don't get a Tony Abbott in government who will kill the solar PV industry as well as the renewable industry in general.

Idiots passing around lumps of coal in Parliament are not going to go anywhere near solving the problem.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> You are far better just using that electricity to charge batteries.
> 
> The amount of electricity it would take to produce the Hydrogen to just run one vehicle, is roughly the amount of electricity it would take to charge 3 EV's.
> 
> Not to mention the storage and transport of the hydrogen via tanker trucks and service stations.




Yes, but the outcome is far better, also as I said the excess power generation is lost, if it isn't stored.
Hydrogen is a far more versatile fuel than a battery, it can power an existing internal combustion engine, it can fuel a jet engine, it can power a rocket, it can even be converted back to electricity with a fuel cell.

Batteries are a great storage medium, but they are heavy and can only run an electric motor.
They are the immediate answer, but it is a stopgap and really only suitable for vehicles. IMO.

Of course the other issue is left over product, with batteries there is still a waste of resources, in the manufacture and when it has finished its usefull life. ( I know they recycle, but that isn't 100% efficient either).

With hydrogen, the only left over by product is water, it just makes absolute sense in the longer term, when it can be produced with excess renewable energy.


----------



## CanOz

SirRumpole said:


> Could you explain that ? Solar cells on top of vehicles perhaps, unless they are parked in underground car parks.




I'll be charging my EV from home most of the time, electricity from my panels and battery. 

Charging stations have the potential to be independantly solar powered as well.


----------



## Junior

When EVs & home battery systems become the norm, there will effectively be a huge amount of battery storage spread right across the country.  Stored power can be continuously transferred between the grid, plugged in vehicles, home battery & commercial/large-scale battery storage systems.  Smart meters & programming means that energy could be used at appropriate times.  i.e. when you plug your car in at night, energy can be drawn from the grid OR from home battery storage dependent on the state of demand on the grid.  At times of low demand all surplus energy will power up batteries across the system.

A look at human history will show that the biggest and seemingly most daunting problems are always overcome and then consigned to history.  I firmly believe that energy will become very, very cheap & plentiful in the coming 10 or 20 years - hopefully sooner.  Technology is evolving very rapidly in this space.  Of course, the state of politics in Australia means that we won't be at the forefront of all this, we will have to eventually follow the lead of others.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> Of course the other issue is left over product, with batteries there is still a waste of resources, in the manufacture and when it has finished its usefull life. ( I know they recycle, but that isn't 100% efficient either).
> 
> With hydrogen, the only left over by product is water, it just makes absolute sense in the longer term, when it can be produced with excess renewable energy.




So you are counting the end of life batteries as waste (even though they will be recycled, and new chemistry my make batteries that last almost indefinitely)

But then you say Hydrogen's only waste is water ( thats like saying EV's only waste is heat)

End of life Hydrogen fuel cells / Tanks etc are still waste.

Not to mention the elephant in the room with hydrogen is that it is only economical when its sourced from natural gas.

Again, Your "Hydrogen" answer is only viable when linked to Natural gas.

Rumpoles 'Hybrids', are linked to oil.

EV's not limited to any only fuel source, Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Hydro, Coal, Natural gas, Nuclear, bio mass, wave power, crude oil you name it, EV's can run on it, and they use it more efficiently than other designs, its only limited by the amount of infrastructure we build, not anyone natural resource.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:
			
		

> EV's not limited to any only fuel source, Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Hydro, Coal, Natural gas, Nuclear, bio mass, wave power, crude oil you name it, EV's can run on it, and they use it more efficiently than other designs, its only limited by the amount of infrastructure we build, not anyone natural resource.




You have bought an EV I take it ?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> You have bought an EV I take it ?



I have a Tesla Model 3 Reservation, Probably won't get it till the end of next year. The first model 3 destined for consumers only rolled off the production line on Friday, and there are about 400,000 reservations in front of me.



> EV charging wastes time, EV's are less environmentally sound




Here is a video doing the Math debunking these claims, (Spoiler alert - Fueling your car at a petrel station wastes more time than charging an EV)


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> I have a Tesla Model 3 Reservation, Probably won't get it till the end of next year. The first model 3 destined for consumers only rolled off the production line on Friday, and there are about 400,000 reservations in front of me.




I hope it works out well for you, perhaps you can keep us updated on it's pro's and cons.

How much are they ?


----------



## Wysiwyg

CanOz said:


> In Australia, almost all power for electric cars has the potential to be free, after installation and maintenance costs.



Yes the home solar array charging the home battery pack which can both power the home and charge the vehicle. 



> *Using a Battery-Backed Solar System*
> With a battery-backed system, it’s entirely possible to charge your electric vehicle soley from the sun’s rays.  This is because during the day your home will use solar energy and any excess will feed into your battery’s energy supply.  Long after the sun goes down, you’ll still be enjoying the sun’s ability to provide energy for your home.  Now, keep in mind that to truly be “off-grid” and avoid using any energy from your local utility it is likely that you’ll need a sizable solar array and a meaty battery system.


----------



## SirRumpole

Wysiwyg said:


> Yes the home solar array charging the home battery pack which can both power the home and charge the vehicle.




Unless you want to use your vehicle during the day.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Not to mention the elephant in the room with hydrogen is that it is only economical when its sourced from natural gas.
> 
> Again, Your "Hydrogen" answer is only viable when linked to Natural gas.
> .




I don't understand what you mean by that?

 In electrolysis, electricity is run through water to separate the hydrogen and oxygen atoms. This method can use wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, fossil fuels, biomass, nuclear, and many other energy sources.

As I said earlier, when there is sufficient excess renewable generation, the excess can be used to produce hydrogen, at no cost.

Also as I said earlier, it is a far more flexible energy source, than batteries. it can also be used in its raw state.


----------



## CanOz

SirRumpole said:


> Unless you want to use your vehicle during the day.



Charge at night....use back and forth to work or shopping....whatever....400 + kms lasts me two weeks.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> I have a Tesla Model 3 Reservation, Probably won't get it till the end of next year. The first model 3 destined for consumers only rolled off the production line on Friday, and there are about 400,000 reservations in front of me.




Ah, now I understand where you are coming from, insufficient positive reinforcement.


----------



## Wysiwyg

sptrawler said:


> Of course the other issue is left over product, with batteries there is still a waste of resources, in the manufacture and when it has finished its usefull life. ( I know they recycle, but that isn't 100% efficient either).



The mining of oil/gas and minerals is required to create anything for modern human so there is also that on going affect.


----------



## Wysiwyg

SirRumpole said:


> Unless you want to use your vehicle during the day.



The battery storage can do the night. Here is the link to the article I referred to.  There is some math under the map half way down the page so the battery capacity would obviuosly be relevant.
https://understandsolar.com/how-many-solar-panels-to-charge-an-electric-car/


----------



## Wysiwyg

This subject interests me but won't be near term necessary with an annual non solar electricity bill of around 1000 dollars (average 250 qtr.).


----------



## Value Collector

Research it, all commercially viable hydrogen production uses natural gas as a feed stock.

Sourcing hydrogen by using water electrolysis is a very expensive and inefficient use of the electricity.

As I said earlier, you could charge an ev multiple times with the amount of electricity it would take to make the hydrogen to fuel a car just once.

This was actually brought up in that video you linked the other day.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> Ah, now I understand where you are coming from, insufficient positive reinforcement.



Nice try, I don't need any more positive reinforcement than the facts.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> How much are they ?



Base model starts at $35,000 USD.

Final price will depend on the exchange rate an the options I select. I will be doing the autopilot upgrade and the larger battery, so I am guessing it will be somewhere between $50k and $65k.


----------



## Value Collector

Why hydrogen isn't the next big thing.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> Research it, all commercially viable hydrogen production uses natural gas as a feed stock.



The electrolysis route has been used commercially in the past, including not far from where I'm sitting right now, but the overwhelming majority of current production is based on natural gas certainly as that's a far cheaper way of doing it.

The problem with the electrolysis approach is that that you're starting with a relatively high cost input (electricity) and then losing part of that in the production of hydrogen. In contrast natural gas is a far cheaper feedstock.

The electrolysis approach really only stacks up at present where you need relatively small quantities of hydrogen for some specific purpose other than as bulk energy source, in which case the electricity to make the hydrogen is really just another cost input to the industrial process. Other than that, it really only works if you've got cheap electricity (eg hydro), no natural gas and are making a product (eg fertilizer) protected from import competition from places that do have natural gas.

A long time ago there was a plant in Hobart producing ammonium fertilizers using electricity as the feedstock. Opened in the 1950's and at that time it was viable due to (1) cheap electricity and (2) no competition from fertilizer production from natural gas, noting that there was no significant natural gas industry in Australia at the time.

Then along came natural gas in Brisbane in the 1960's from Roma and an associated fertilizer plant. Ultimately that was the beginning of the end for use of the electrolysis route to hydrogen in order to make fertilizer in Australia.

The plant in Hobart didn't officially close until the mid-1980's although production was minimal in the latter years (it really only ran if there was surplus power that would otherwise go to waste, a situation that was pretty common in the 1970's but pretty much non-existent by 1983).

Fueling cars isn't making fertilizer obviously but ultimately it's still commercial production of hydrogen. Electrolysis can certainly do it but natural gas is the cheaper way at present.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Base model starts at $35,000 USD.
> 
> Final price will depend on the exchange rate an the options I select. I will be doing the autopilot upgrade and the larger battery, so I am guessing it will be somewhere between $50k and $65k.




Quite a bit cheaper than I thought it would be.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Base model starts at $35,000 USD.
> 
> Final price will depend on the exchange rate an the options I select. I will be doing the autopilot upgrade and the larger battery, so I am guessing it will be somewhere between $50k and $65k.




I'm also shocked, from what I've read, that isn't much more than the cost of the batteries.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The electrolysis route has been used commercially in the past, including not far from where I'm sitting right now, but the overwhelming majority of current production is based on natural gas certainly as that's a far cheaper way of doing it.
> 
> The problem with the electrolysis approach is that that you're starting with a relatively high cost input (electricity) and then losing part of that in the production of hydrogen. In contrast natural gas is a far cheaper feedstock.




We were producing hydrogen from electrolysis, at Muja, when I was an apprentice and that was a long time ago.
Like I said earlier, it will only become viable, when there is a major swing toward renewables.

They are using natural gas currently, but when that is depleted which in real terms wont take long, a man made replacement fuel will be required.

Hydrogen IMO is the only clean fuel, other than nuclear, that I can see on the horizon.
Batteries just seem to be bogged down, with chemical reaction and the associated mass required to store it.
If they can better develop the battery/capacitor hybrid technology, where the rapid charge of the capacitor and the energy density of a battery can be mated, they may have something.
But I still feel the versatility and sustainability, of hydrogen, will win the day.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> I'm also shocked, from what I've read, that isn't much more than the cost of the batteries.



Tesla have said their production costs for the batteries is about $125 per KWh, so for a 70Kwh hour battery (which is average size for a tesla vehicle) they battery cost would be under $9000 USD.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> We were producing hydrogen from electrolysis, at Muja, when I was an apprentice and that was a long time ago.
> Like I said earlier, it will only become viable, when there is a major swing toward renewables.
> 
> They are using natural gas currently, but when that is depleted which in real terms wont take long, a man made replacement fuel will be required.
> 
> Hydrogen IMO is the only clean fuel, other than nuclear, that I can see on the horizon.
> Batteries just seem to be bogged down, with chemical reaction and the associated mass required to store it.
> If they can better develop the battery/capacitor hybrid technology, where the rapid charge of the capacitor and the energy density of a battery can be mated, they may have something.
> But I still feel the versatility and sustainability, of hydrogen, will win the day.



Hydrogen isn't a "clean fuel" it is just a way of storing energy, you still require an energy source, just like you do for charging a battery.

Getting hydrogen from electricity doesn't solve any problems because it is still a very inefficient use of that electricity.

For example, a hydrogen car is still an electric car, it's just that rather than get the electricity from a battery, it has a tank of flammable gas, which it pumps through a fuel cell, to create a current that runs the electric motor that powers the car.

Electric vehicles system,

Produce electricity - charge battery- battery powers motor

Hydrogen vehicle system,

Produce electricity - pass electricity through water- capture and compress hydrogen- load onto tanker truck- transport to filling station- fill cars tank- pass hydrogen through fuel cell- fuel cell powers motor.

Now before you even factor in the cost of transport etc, you have to realise that you could charge 3 electric cars directly with the amount of power needed to produce the hydrogen for just one car.


----------



## DB008

*Shell Plans to Spend $1 Billion a Year on Clean Energy by 2020*​
Royal Dutch Shell Plc plans to spend as much as $1 billion a year on its New Energies division as the transition toward renewable power and electric cars accelerates.

“In some parts of the world we are beginning to see battery electric cars starting to gain consumer acceptance” while wind and solar costs are falling fast, Shell CEO Ben Van Beurden said in a speech in Istanbul on Monday. “All of this is good news for the world and must accelerate,” while still offering opportunities for producers of fossil fuels.

Shell sees opportunities in hydrogen fuel-cells, liquefied natural gas and next-generation biofuels for air travel, shipping and heavy freight -- areas of transport for which batteries aren’t adequate. The intermittent nature of wind and solar energy means power plants fired by natural gas will have a long-term role, Van Beurden said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-10/shell-plans-to-spend-1-billion-a-year-on-clean-energy-by-2020​


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Hydrogen isn't a "clean fuel" it is just a way of storing energy, you still require an energy source, just like you do for charging a battery.
> 
> Getting hydrogen from electricity doesn't solve any problems because it is still a very inefficient use of that electricity.
> 
> For example, a hydrogen car is still an electric car, it's just that rather than get the electricity from a battery, it has a tank of flammable gas, which it pumps through a fuel cell, to create a current that runs the electric motor that powers the car.




The thing with hydrogen, it can be used as you suggest above, but it also can be used by direct injection into an internal combustion engine, the same as lpg.
Also it can be used to run jet engines or rockets.
The only difficulty with hydrogen, at this point in time, is the amount of electricity required to produce it.
This won't be an issue when we have ample renewable energy.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> The only difficulty with hydrogen, at this point in time, is the amount of electricity required to produce it.
> This won't be an issue when we have ample renewable energy.




It would still be expensive, building renewable energy infrastructure is expensive, and that cost needs to be covered by the sale of that electricity, no infrastructure group is going to purposefully over build infrastructure just so it can make a loss selling Hydrogen below cost. 

Niche hydrogen applications yes, vehicle fuel no.


----------



## Tisme

Energy Renaissance building a gigafactory in Darwin.

This kind of free enterprise will rip the heart out of the LNP's blame the ALP game and must stop.


----------



## Value Collector

Just incase people think my opinion of electric vs Hydrogen or Electric vs ICE is swayed by some investment interest I have is Tesla or Lithium or something, you couldn't be more wrong.

I have no investment exposure to Tesla at all, and no exposure to lithium(that I know of)

I actually have investments in the opposite side, I would benefit greatly from the continued use of ICE cars because I have investments in Oil and Gas wells, Oil Refineries and General Motors.

And I would benefit greatly from the use of hydrogen because I own APA who are the biggest transporter of Natural gas in Australia, I own Gas Pipelines in the USA and as I said I own oil and gas wells around the world.

so yeah, its not that I have a vested interest in electric cars at all, the opposite is true.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> so yeah, its not that I have a vested interest in electric cars at all, the opposite is true.




I'm sure we all appreciate your altruism in this matter.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> Just incase people think my opinion of electric vs Hydrogen or Electric vs ICE is swayed by some investment interest I have is Tesla or Lithium or something, you couldn't be more wrong.
> 
> I have no investment exposure to Tesla at all, and no exposure to lithium(that I know of)
> 
> I actually have investments in the opposite side, I would benefit greatly from the continued use of ICE cars because I have investments in Oil and Gas wells, Oil Refineries and General Motors.
> 
> And I would benefit greatly from the use of hydrogen because I own APA who are the biggest transporter of Natural gas in Australia, I own Gas Pipelines in the USA and as I said I own oil and gas wells around the world.
> 
> so yeah, its not that I have a vested interest in electric cars at all, the opposite is true.




Wait, do you own these the way we all own RIO, BHP, CBA and the likes? Or own them, own them? 

If so, how can we be sure you're not going to buy Tesla and lithium tomorow?


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> Wait, do you own these the way we all own RIO, BHP, CBA and the likes? Or own them, own them?



lol, I own shares, not whole companies.

General Motors, Oil refineries and gas pipelines via Berkshire hathaway

Oil and gas wells via BHP

More gas pipelines via APA



> If so, how can we be sure you're not going to buy Tesla and lithium tomorow?




If so, why would I be talking them up today, that would make it more expensive for me.

Maybe one day I will buy Tesla, but I am not smart enough to know how to value it today, as for lithium maybe if BHP or FMG buy a mine somewhere, but thats it.


----------



## qldfrog

Another issue I have learnt in the past with H2 is its leakeability; it is VERY hard to contain with tanks, caps/seals/etc much harder than normal compressed gas.Have I been told wrong?
The advantage I see is that you could envisage combustion engines made with H2 so an easy(ier) replacement for existing fleet; it is also possible to extract from in situ underground seam coal combustion.
Not a renewable energy but a market for the owners of existing coal resources.So we may see some hydrogen in the future but I do not expect to drive an hydrogen car ever in my lifetime, Electric?definitively


----------



## SirRumpole

qldfrog said:


> Another issue I have learnt in the past with H2 is its leakeability; it is VERY hard to contain with tanks, caps/seals/etc much harder than normal compressed gas.Have I been told wrong?




As a gas, that is quite true. It's the smallest known molecule and will leak out of most containers.

There have been some moves to lock up the hydrogen in metal hydrides which release the gas when heated. I don't know how far that has gone.

It can be liquefied, but that requires more energy input.


----------



## SirRumpole

Isn't South Australia part of the national grid ? Don't we need all the generators we can get ?

Surely there is a market for Zen's proposed plant nationally.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-10/zen-energy-reconsiders-battery-plan-after-tesla-deal/8694018


----------



## Value Collector

An Interesting Discussion about wind Power.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Don't we need all the generators we can get ?




It's more about managing peak demand, to manage peak demand you have two options.

1, traditional method of just adding lots of generation capacity, that can cope with the super high peak demands twice a year, and then let it sit idle at between 50% and 60% of its max capacity the rest of the time.

2, Build storage, which allows you to have a lower maximum generation capacity that is just utilised at higher rates.

Think of it like your home internet broadband.

If you have a house with 3 teenagers + you and your wife all wanting to download movies and other data between 5 pm and 9 pm every night, you are going to need a super fast connection to cope, but for the rest of the time that connection sits unused.

However, if you had a hard drive capable of storing pre downloaded content, you could have a much, slower connection that just works at a slow and steady rate 24 hours per day, filling up the hard drive with all the content needed to be consumed during the peak times.


----------



## Value Collector

Here is a good live graph of Australias electricity production, its up dated every 5 mis.

http://www.energymatters.com.au/energy-efficiency/australian-electricity-statistics/


----------



## Value Collector

Sorry, this is the video with the more interesting discussion, (the other is good also, but this one brings up some interesting points.)


----------



## SirRumpole

Robert Llewellyn should put his Kryten head back on.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Isn't South Australia part of the national grid ? Don't we need all the generators we can get ?



It would be an economic reasoning mixed with a bit of politics.

SA has 3 transmission circuits linking the state to Victoria. 2 x AC lines and 1 x DC. 

At times they can and do become congested, power flow has to be limited to less than the ideally preferred level because the lines are already at capacity, and that can and does lead to the price in SA diverging from that of the other states (typically upwards).

Now, if SA is short on generating capacity locally at the time then price can reach extreme levels. The battery won't eliminate that but as another source of generation should make it a less common occurrence.


----------



## Smurf1976

In the long term I absolutely agree with the notion that we're moving to electric transport. In the shorter term however we're a very long way from that point.

For a start, right now every Australian state except Tas is burning significant volumes of gas in order to generate electricity for the main grid. 

100% of supply in most of the NT (those parts with a grid), Pilbara region in WA and in the Mt Isa region in Qld. 

56% in SA

14% in Queensland

13% in Victoria

4% in NSW / ACT

Those figures vary constantly but the point is there's some high grade fossil fuel, natural gas or oil, in the mix virtually all the time now with the demise of Hazelwood, Munmorah, Wallerawang, Northern and so on coal-fired stations.

The logical aim of electric transport is to (1) avoid the use of high grade fossil fuels and (2) address issues with local air emissions etc. With our present energy supply infrastructure simply adding electric vehicles fails when it comes to avoiding the use if high grade fuels. At best we end up swapping petrol for gas and if we're going to do that then doing so via electricity and batteries is a lot more difficult than the alternative of just running an engine on CNG.

Even within the power industry you'll find the odd token electric car here and there at best. Even if you really are the electricity company it still makes more sense to just buy petrol or diesel to run your fleet vehicles.

It'll happen eventually but I'm not expecting it to be anything like the speed at which smartphones replaced simple mobile phones or other recent technological developments. It'll be more like the speed at which tobacco smoking has been phased out - half a century and we're still not there yet. 

We've already been going down the electric car path for a rather long time now and thus far it has been baby steps rather than a revolution. The Toyota Prius has been on sale for 20 years now in Japan and 17 years globally but you can still walk into pretty much any car dealership and find a vehicle powered by a non-hybrid petrol or diesel engine. 

There's also a pragmatic point locally here in Australia. Our electricity and gas are in such a mess that if you were building a new home today and wanted hydronic heating, something so common it's taken for granted in Europe, then depending on location I could make a very strong argument on pure economics as to why you'd give diesel a serious look as the heat source. Yes seriously, that's how ridiculous the whole situation has become.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> The logical aim of electric transport is to (1) avoid the use of high grade fossil fuels and (2) address issues with local air emissions etc. With our present energy supply infrastructure simply adding electric vehicles fails when it comes to avoiding the use if high grade fuels. At best we end up swapping petrol for gas





Actually Electric power drive trains use the energy is a much more efficient way than a ICE powered car, So even if we decided that we were going to stick with fossil fuels, Electric cars still make sense.

Simply taking Crude oil, burning it in an efficient power plant and charging EVs, means you would get more driving kilometres per barrel of oil than you would by refining that barrel into unleaded and diesel and then combusting it in an ICE to power a car.

Not to mention, you can burn the fossil fuel away from population areas, and you have more types of fossil fuel available and whatever renewables you add.


----------



## Value Collector

Your average ICE car uses less fuel when going down hill or slowing down for that red light, But in an electric car going down hill or slowing down actually adds "fuel to your tank" (so to speak)


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> lol, I own shares, not whole companies.
> 
> General Motors, Oil refineries and gas pipelines via Berkshire hathaway
> 
> Oil and gas wells via BHP
> 
> More gas pipelines via APA
> 
> 
> 
> If so, why would I be talking them up today, that would make it more expensive for me.
> 
> Maybe one day I will buy Tesla, but I am not smart enough to know how to value it today, as for lithium maybe if BHP or FMG buy a mine somewhere, but thats it.




Not buying Tesla but GM? I guess you did take Elon's put down to people who don't like losing money funding his dreams.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Your average ICE car uses less fuel when going down hill or slowing down for that red light, But in an electric car going down hill or slowing down actually adds "fuel to your tank" (so to speak)





No reason you can't use regenerative braking on a ICE or hybrid vehicle to wind up a spring or spin a flywheel or even charge a battery for a power reserve.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> No reason you can't use regenerative braking on a ICE or hybrid vehicle to wind up a spring or spin a flywheel or even charge a battery for a power reserve.



A hybrid is obvious better than a pure ice car, because it is part ev, it's the part of it that is ev that makes it better.

But a hybrid is still locked into 1 fuel source e.g. Refined oil, unless it's a plug in hybrid, which again is only better because it's more like an ev.

So yes I agree, the more an Ice car becomes like an ev, the better it is, but pure Evs win out.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> Not buying Tesla but GM? I guess you did take Elon's put down to people who don't like losing money funding his dreams.




I am buying a tesla though. 

I didn't choose GM myself, Warren chose it for me.

I trust his judgement that we can make some money there, he has also bought some dying newspapers recently, not because he believes they are a wonderful product, but because he thinks he can got them so cheap he can collect dividends until they die and then strip assets and make decent money.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> So yes I agree, the more an Ice car becomes like an ev, the better it is, but pure Evs win out.




To each their own, but to me it's just a matter of economics.

The more ev's there are the higher the  demand for electricity and therefore the price of electricity will rise and the price of petrol/diesel will fall so a vehicle that can play off petrol/diesel price against electricity price has more flexibility in reducing the running costs of the vehicle and getting a better deal as a consumer.

But I admire you for taking a punt on the ev. In 20 years they may be dominant but I doubt if I will still be around to see it.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> To each their own, but to me it's just a matter of economics.
> 
> The more ev's there are the higher the  demand for electricity and therefore the price of electricity will rise and the price of petrol/diesel will fall so a vehicle that can play off petrol/diesel price against electricity price has more flexibility in reducing the running costs of the vehicle and getting a better deal as a consumer.
> 
> But I admire you for taking a punt on the ev. In 20 years they may be dominant but I doubt if I will still be around to see it.



Oil / petrel has a long way to fall before it becomes competitive with other energy sources, hence why no one is building oil power plants anymore.

But even if Evs did cause the oil price to drop, it would still be more economical to burn it in an efficient power plant than in a ice car.

Hell, if petrel really got cheap I could just buy an efficient little petrel generator and charge my car using that, and then leave it at home, with a hybrid you are forced to carry your fuel tank and generator around with you all the time, even when you just want to run it in ev mode.

By the end of next year you will probably start to see a lot of model 3 tesla a around.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Hell, if petrel really got cheap I could just buy an efficient little petrel generator and charge my car using that, and then leave it at home, with a hybrid you are forced to carry your fuel tank and generator around with you all the time, even when you just want to run it in ev mode.




Well lets face it, it's going to be a long time before there are sufficient charging stations around to conquer 'range fear', especially for people like me in regional areas. OK for those in suburbia perhaps.

You make your choice, but it's not for me at the moment.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Well lets face it, it's going to be a long time before there are sufficient charging stations around to conquer 'range fear', especially for people like me in regional areas. OK for those in suburbia perhaps.
> 
> You make your choice, but it's not for me at the moment.




I think you are over estimating how much people will rely on charging away from home, while also underestimating the speed Tesla is building their super charger network.

Tesla is already building out the super charger network in preparation for the model three, you can drive Brisbane to Melbourne no worries already.

You already drive pretty much anywhere across the USA and Europe using the super charger network.



Brisbane to Melbourne - no worries.


----------



## SirRumpole

You can hire a Tesla now, so why not hire one for a month, drive Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane and see if it lives up to expectations ?

https://www.eveeh.com.au/


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> You can hire a Tesla now, so why not hire one for a month, drive Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane and see if it lives up to expectations ?
> 
> https://www.eveeh.com.au/




The Model I am getting isn't available yet, the first one only came off the production line on Friday.

But there are plenty of videos and reviews online of people doing long road trips using the super charger network.

But for me, I drive Sydney to Brisbane probably twice a year, and the super chargers are placed pretty close to my usual stops, I would have to charge 3 times for 20mins each time and thats about my usual drive rest cycle. 

But for the 99% of the rest of the year, starting each day with 400km's of charge is more than enough.

------------------

Old mate here drove from England to Italy in a Tesla.


----------



## qldfrog

Value Collector said:


> But for the 99% of the rest of the year, starting each day with 400km's of charge is more than enough.




I agree with that.More a psychological issue than a real one when your range is >400km


----------



## brty

Every major manufacturer is now throwing billions at EV R&D with many models planned for the near future. VW the world's largest car manufacturer, is planning for a quarter of their fleet to be EVs by 2025. 
Yes it has been a slow start over the last 2 decades, but the next decade will reach the tipping point of wide EV adoption.
For governments of oil importing countries (most), it is a godsend for economic reasons, especially if they can produce their own electricity.


----------



## SirRumpole

brty said:


> For governments of oil importing countries (most), it is a godsend for economic reasons, especially if they can produce their own electricity.




Is it really ?

Do you realise how much money governments rip off motorists in fuel excises ?

How are they going to replace that ?

It seems pretty obvious that governments will have to impose some sort of  tax on electric vehicles to raise the cost of a charge equal to the same as a tank of petrol, otherwise they will lose billions in revenue. So where has the price advantage of ev's gone ?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Is it really ?
> 
> Do you realise how much money governments rip off motorists in fuel excises ?
> 
> How are they going to replace that ?
> 
> It seems pretty obvious that governments will have to impose some sort of  tax on electric vehicles to raise the cost of a charge equal to the same as a tank of petrol, otherwise they will lose billions in revenue. So where has the price advantage of ev's gone ?




I agree some sort of tax will have to be applied eventually, but it won't have to raise the charge price to the cost of a tank of petrel, it will just have to cover the cost of the 30cent per liter tax.

Evs will still be cheaper to run, coal is about $100 per tonne, unleaded fuel is about $1500 per tonne.

As I said, there is a reason oil power plants don't exist.

Also with the adoption of solar, charging an ev is a good use of the excess power, rather than selling it back to the grid at 6cents a kilowatt. 

The grid only pays you roughly  $4 for the amount of power it takes to charge an ev, so it's much better to use it to fuel your car than to send it back to the grid.

So what a solar user gets paid $4 for today, can offset a $80 petrel expense, that's lots of room to pay the $15 tax a tank of fuel generates and you are still no where near the cost of a tank of petrel.


----------



## Tisme

I don't watch Sunrise or whatever the other morning show is because I think the level of discussion is an insult to thinking people, but this popped up on my facebook:

https://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/vid...rnment-urged-to-act-over-energy-crisis/#page1


----------



## Tisme

Still gunner do, but still Labor's fault ...always Labor's fault, gunner, gunner, gunner.

Perhaps selling our taxpayer built generation to money making enterprise might a small reason for the situation

https://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/vid...ralians-will-die-as-energy-prices-soar/#page1


----------



## Tisme

ON the otherhand I seem to recall that due to Paul Keating's intrusion into state govt power regulation, the cost of power was the cheapest in the world by 2000.

Then renewable energy became the generation darling and things have headed south for us ever since.


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> Then renewable energy became the generation darling and things have headed south for us ever since.




Privatisation is the reason things are 'heading south'. Governments thought that energy supply was no longer their problem and dropped the ball.


----------



## SirRumpole

*Alinta Energy drafting plans for 300MW power plant north of Adelaide*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-14/alinta-energy-seeking-permit-for-300mw-power-plant/8709748


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Privatisation is the reason things are 'heading south'. Governments thought that energy supply was no longer their problem and dropped the ball.




I think you will find the Federal Governments, over the past couple of decades, penalised State Governments which didn't pursue privatisation.
I'm only going from memory, but I can recall, funds being withheld from States that didn't pursue competition through privatisation.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I think you will find the Federal Governments, over the past couple of decades, penalised State Governments which didn't pursue privatisation.
> I'm only going from memory, but I can recall, funds being withheld from States that didn't pursue competition through privatisation.




Quite right, I've mentioned this before. "Asset recycling" it was called.

I think it started in the Costello days.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I think you will find the Federal Governments, over the past couple of decades, penalised State Governments which didn't pursue privatisation.



I'm _very_ sure there has been massive pressure applied.

Here in Tas the Liberals tried going down that track in 1998 and there have been various rumblings on and off since that time.

It wasn't until the mainstream media started referring to Liberal as a "minor party" and with big business and unions both on the same page backing Labor that they realised they'd better bury that idea. 16 years in opposition, at one point being close to total irrelevance, no doubt gave them time for a bit of contemplation.

We've got a Liberal government here now though and there has been some very well publicised "interference" in the power industry which didn't end well. The truth has not been made public, the Treasurer is using every legal trick in the book to try to avoid that, but I think most will have read between the lines and worked it out by now.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Oil / petrel has a long way to fall before it becomes competitive with other energy sources, hence why no one is building oil power plants anymore.
> 
> But even if Evs did cause the oil price to drop, it would still be more economical to burn it in an efficient power plant than in a ice car.
> 
> Hell, if petrel really got cheap I could just buy an efficient little petrel generator and charge my car using that, and then leave it at home, with a hybrid you are forced to carry your fuel tank and generator around with you all the time, even when you just want to run it in ev mode.
> 
> By the end of next year you will probably start to see a lot of model 3 tesla a around.




Wouldn't it just be easier, to run all the cars on lpg or cng, rather than burning gas to make electricity to charge your silly car batteries?

It's a bit like running gas turbines to make electricity, to send down the line, to boil the water in your kettle.
Why not cut out all the losses, and run gas to the house, oh they do that.


----------



## SirRumpole

The asset recycling failure, according to some.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...iting-but-its-the-last-gasp-of-a-failed-model


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> *Alinta Energy drafting plans for 300MW power plant north of Adelaide*




In some ways that's great but in other ways it's terrible.

The good news is that it's more generating capacity in a place that desperately needs it.

The bad news is that this is yet another sub-optimal committment to infrastructure with a long lifespan. Alinta and this plant. AGL with theirs. Origin built some stuff a while ago and so did others.

Trouble is that none of this is anywhere close to optimum from a scale and efficiency perspective. In other words, it works but costs far more than it should.

SA is too small (electrically) for a single company to achieve optimum scale, indeed Victoria and Qld are barely big enough either. It thus goes without saying that further fragmenting the industry into multiple competing companies each building their little plants and with their own retailers and all the associated costs is slowly but surely sending prices through the roof and there's more to come.

An economist will tell you that, all other things being equal, increased demand will mean higher prices. An engineer will note that increased scale lowers the cost and thus price. That we have so many generation and retail companies, each too small to be efficient, is a big part of the problem. That the networks are separately owned and not taking a holistic generation (including fuel supply) + networks + retail view is the other big part of the story. Everything else is comparatively minor.

That the economists are calling the shots but fail to grasp this basic reality is really the crux of the problem we have. There simply isn't room for so many companies to be in the business and if we're going to achieve an efficient industry then a lot of mergers, either outright or at least in a practical operating sense, are required.

As I've said many times, I am not ideologically opposed to the concept of privately owned utilities be they gas, electricity or whatever. But we do need them to be efficient and the harsh reality is that despite economists' theories to the contrary the competitive market model is leading to far higher prices not lower. Lack of scale and co-ordination at all levels is the underlying reason for that.

The ACCC and others are still scratching their heads about what happened with Tamar Valley in Tasmania. Long story short - it was privately built, Hydro ended up owning it following a long saga and upon returning to what amounts to an effective monopoly position promptly cut prices. An outcome that makes absolute sense to engineers, tradies and everyone else other than economists who fail to grasp that achieving scale and a unified approach to operations is far more important than anything else so far as minimising costs is concerned.

There's no reason why we can't have AGL, Alinta, Engie, Origin and others as joint owners of the power system in SA or any other state. But we desperately need them to join forces and implement one unified plan rather than each doing their own thing at far too small a scale with a mix of technologies and an operating strategy that has more to do with trying to out maneuver each other than with actually generating power. If they want to put 4, 5 or however many names on the front gate then that's fine with me but please stop the nonsense, join forces and do things efficiently.

As it stands right now, the brilliance of this fragmented "competitive" approach has pushed prices up approximately 80% in real terms in SA compared to the old days with ETSA. It's time for those who thought this approach was going to work to accept that it in practice it has failed miserably.

In the immediate term, with flat rate electricity prices for households now around 40 cents / kWh in SA, recently increased 20% or so in some other states and with gas prices having also gone through the roof there's about to be an awful lot of pain as the Winter bills start turning up and ordinary people find themselves struggling to pay.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> As I've said many times, I am not ideologically opposed to the concept of privately owned utilities be they gas, electricity or whatever. But we do need them to be efficient and the harsh reality is that despite economists' theories to the contrary the competitive market model is leading to far higher prices not lower. Lack of scale and co-ordination at all levels is the underlying reason for that.




Maybe a reasonable model is that governments own large scale infrastructure like gas turbine generators, what coal is left and large storages like hydro and big batteries, and private operators get paid to fill up the storages with their own generators. That will allow small scale private enterprise like wind and solar farms to invest amounts that private enterprise are willing to invest without taking huge risks on large infrastructure, similar to a feed in tariff paid to roof top solar.


----------



## Wysiwyg

SirRumpole said:


> Maybe a reasonable model is that governments own large scale infrastructure like gas turbine generators, what coal is left and large storages like hydro and big batteries, and private operators get paid to fill up the storages with their own generators.



I remember seeing the QEGB (queensland electricity genarating board) business in the main street. On research I found that first there was local gov. control and then it went state.



> The history of power generation and distribution in Queensland can be considered in three major phases: Initial local generation and distribution; creation of a statewide body and the consequent creation of an extensive network; and the restructure to enable integration with the NEM.



It is still believed gov. assets are better sold off for, I assume, a professionally focussed business management.

Interesting picture of the Brisbane Power House chugger.


----------



## Wysiwyg

Interesting picture of the Brisbane Power House chugger.


----------



## Smurf1976

To expand on my point about scale and industry structure, here's a list of generation that the private sector has actually built as stand alone power stations in SA since the demise of ETSA.

Angaston - 50 MW, diesel engines

Hallett - 216 MW, open cycle gas turbines (OCGT), gas / diesel. Machines are low efficiency, second hand units from overseas.

Ladbroke Grove - 84 MW, OCGT, gas

Lonsdale - 21 MW, diesel engines

Pelican Point - 474 MW, combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT), gas

Port Lincoln - 74 MW, OCGT, diesel

Port Stanvac - 58 MW, diesel engines

Quarantine - 220 MW, OCGT, gas / diesel

Wind - 1595 MW at numerous sites mostly not far apart in the SE of the state

Now, looking at thermal plant only this comes to:

474 MW of combined cycle plant at one location

594 MW of open cycle plant at 4 locations and all with different machine types and sizes. Some are gas-fired, some are diesel-fired, some use either. Some are new, some are second hand.

129 MW of diesel engine plant at 3 locations, two of which are right next to each other.

It would be hard to come up with a more costly and inefficient way of building 1197 MW of generation if you tried and that is my fundamental point here. 8, yes 8, power stations in order to get 1197 MW. That would be unavoidable if we were talking about building hydro and all you've got in terms of resources is a lot of individually small sites and thus no choice but it's pure madness when we're talking about using easily transported gas or oil as the fuel in a place where 70% of the population lives in a single city.

I left Osborne power station off the list since that was built where it was for specific reasons of using the waste heat from generation at a factory next to the power station (though that factory has since closed). Plus there was no shortage of distribution infrastructure nearby given that Osborne is the historic heart of SA's power industry anyway with 2 previous power stations having operated pretty much next door to where the present one is. So that one actually did make sense.

There's some logic in the gas turbines at Port Lincoln too as they're intended for islanded operation in the event of a network failure (though they failed to work following the statewide blackout last year) but the rest could have been built far more simply, cheaply and efficiently as a single power station somewhere near Adelaide which is exactly what any sensible utility, regardless of ownership, would have done.

Then there's the closure of Northern which didn't really stack up either once all the costs are considered. Cost of running it was less than the cost to consumers of not running it but, due to the multiple companies involved and resultant accounting, Alinta themselves were actually better off without it. Heck, they even tried literally giving it away at one point.

Too many cooks spoil the broth. Or too many power companies make it so expensive that nobody can afford to cook in the first place.

My point isn't about private ownership versus government. I've no doubt that AGL in particular are capable of effectively running an entire power system with private ownership just as ETSA did under government ownership. Some of the others, notably Origin, could also probably do it as a single utility. The trouble is having so many parties involved and a complete lack of any real plan.

Right now we've got Alinta planning some gas tubines, AGL planning some major new internal combustion plant and the SA government also planning some gas turbines. And yes, you guessed it, all at 3 separate sites, all using different machinery, all done as expensively as possible with no real plan.

Building one proper power station would be a far more rational way to go about it and it matters not who owns it. They can have a dozen different names on the front gate if they want - but building all these separate little plants is just inefficient and silly.

It is quite literally taking the industry back to the approach that existed a century ago and which the likes of the SECV, ETSA and so on spent much of the 20th Century getting rid of and for good reason. It's just too expensive using that approach.

Even worse, you could just tally up the numbers and realise that the sum total of those 3 power stations proposed, built at a cost of many $ hundreds of millions which will ultimately be paid by consumers somehow, is almost exactly the same as what Alinta just closed and literally blew up at Port Augusta. I kid you not.

Public, private or whatever - it just needs one utility running the show and able to get on with it efficiently without being almost totally focused on trying to out maneuver their rivals just to stay in business. There have been many such organisations run successfully in Australia and overseas under either private or government ownership with appropriate regulation so it's a question of structure not who owns it as such.

Competition? Well with the old state owned monopolies we had the third cheapest electricity in the OECD. Now with a competitive market we've got among the most expensive power anywhere on earth. However imperfect the single utility model might be, it was approximately 45% cheaper for consumers, and somewhat more reliable at least at the generation level, than the mess we've got now (referring specifically to SA there).

I do grasp the theory about competition leading to lower prices and so on and I don't dispute that as a broad concept it does work. But in the specific case of the power industry it has failed dismally for the simple reason that the loss of scale and technical efficiency outright swamps any savings achieved through innovation elsewhere. It's like spending $100 in order to pick up a few coins, it just hasn't been a winner overall from the consumer's perspective and nor has it done much good for the environment, workers or anything else I can think of.


----------



## Smurf1976

Wysiwyg said:


> Interesting picture of the Brisbane Power House chugger.



I think it's some sort of performing arts venue or something like that now?


----------



## sptrawler

I suppose from the perspective of the major electricity suppliers, the headlong push toward renewables, is a win, win situation.
They can install large scale solar and wind, which from a capital and operational point is relatively cheap, when compared to a major steam plant.
The resultant loss of system stability, is worn by the Government, as they are the ones driving the agenda.
If the situation becomes critical, and it requires some serious thermal plant to be built, the Government will have to either sign long term supply contracts or build it themselves.
Maybe the major players are working on the long game, while the Government thrashes around, trying to find batteries?


----------



## basilio

Nice work Smurf (as usual.)

Really think an edited collection of many of your posts with an Executive Summary and recommendations would make excellent bed time material for a few pollies.
I remember from my history that the establishment of the SEC in Victoria in the mid twenties was against the fierce opposition of the then fragmented private electricity suppliers. 
But it's success was the very best outcome for the State, our industry and the people.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> Wouldn't it just be easier, to run all the cars on lpg or cng, rather than burning gas to make electricity to charge your silly car batteries?
> 
> It's a bit like running gas turbines to make electricity, to send down the line, to boil the water in your kettle.
> Why not cut out all the losses, and run gas to the house, oh they do that.



No, using using fuel in a combustion engine to power the drive chain directly is inefficient.

If you used 1 liter of fuel to run an efficient generator to charge an ev, you would get more kilometers of driving than you would if you were to use that same amount of fuel to run a similar size internal combustion engine car, that's why hybrids beat regular cars.


----------



## Value Collector

Value Collector said:


> If you used 1 liter of fuel to run an efficient generator to charge an ev, you would get more kilometers of driving than you would if you were to use that same amount of fuel to run a similar size internal combustion engine car, that's why hybrids beat regular cars.




To explain what I mean, the Holden/chevy Volt, Is a fully electric car with a built in Petrol engine used drive a generator to charge a battery (it can also be plugged in).

Its petrol engine does not power the drive chain of the car directly, when it burns petrol it is simply charging the battery.

By using the petrol motor to charge the battery, the motor can sit at its peak load/RPM efficiency, meaning it can operate more effectively than an engine who's load/RPM have to keep fluctuating and sometimes just idles at traffic lights, and can't recoup energy through regen braking.

The Chevy Volt in Petrol mode uses 5.64 Litres / 100km, it's sister vehicle the chevy Cruze uses 7.4L / 100km.

--------------------------

However, Combustion engines only operate at around 25% efficiency, So an electric vehicle charged using the grid where efficiency is often over 60%, is even more efficient than the chevy volt style of hybrid.

using home solar, even better.

But yeah, in Rumpoles hypothetical world where electric vehicles some how lower the price of petrol to less than the price of electricity, electric cars could be charged using petrol generators and still be better than ICE cars (but that won't happen)


----------



## Tisme

Smurf1976 said:


> I think it's some sort of performing arts venue or something like that now?





Yeah and New Farm is gentrified around it.


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> To explain what I mean, the Holden/chevy Volt, Is a fully electric car with a built in Petrol engine used drive a generator to charge a battery (it can also be plugged in).
> 
> Its petrol engine does not power the drive chain of the car directly, when it burns petrol it is simply charging the battery.
> 
> By using the petrol motor to charge the battery, the motor can sit at its peak load/RPM efficiency, meaning it can operate more effectively than an engine who's load/RPM have to keep fluctuating and sometimes just idles at traffic lights, and can't recoup energy through regen braking.
> 
> The Chevy Volt in Petrol mode uses 5.64 Litres / 100km, it's sister vehicle the chevy Cruze uses 7.4L / 100km.
> 
> --------------------------
> 
> However, Combustion engines only operate at around 25% efficiency, So an electric vehicle charged using the grid where efficiency is often over 60%, is even more efficient than the chevy volt style of hybrid.
> 
> using home solar, even better.
> 
> But yeah, in Rumpoles hypothetical world where electric vehicles some how lower the price of petrol to less than the price of electricity, electric cars could be charged using petrol generators and still be better than ICE cars (but that won't happen)





Hang on a minute here VC.

Efficiency of power generation to customer is about 30% after losses and inefficient burning of fuels.
A car is about 32% efficient burning fuel.


----------



## Value Collector

Tisme said:


> Hang on a minute here VC.
> 
> Efficiency of power generation to customer is about 30% after losses and inefficient burning of fuels.
> A car is about 32% efficient burning fuel.




No, A car engine might be 32% efficient, but only about 6% of the total energy ends up moving the car, there rest is lost in the process I described.

----------------------

power plants are generally over 60% efficient, but yes you lose some in transmission to, but that is nothing compared to the energy lost in getting the 1L of petrol to the car.

For example,

to get the 1L of petrol into your car you lose heaps of energy along the way, much more than electrical transmission.

1, Oil is transported from wells in Middle East to a port (using energy)
2, Loaded onto a ship (using energy)
3, Shipped 14,000 Km's to Sydney on a ship (using energy)
4, Unloaded from ship (using energy)
5, Refined into unleaded fuel (using and losing heaps of energy)
6, chemical additives added (using energy to produce)
7, Trucked to service station (using energy)
8, Pumped into your car (using energy)

Then after all that loss, the remainder that is left is burned in the engine at 32% efficiency, but the mechanical drive chain wastes most of that 32% through.

1, idling losses
2, not regenerative braking
3, gear box losses etc

So if you want to compare the energy losses of the grid, compared to the supply chain of the petrol, you would have to say the petrol is about 1%  efficient "Well to wheels"

------------------
So comparing a petrol engine efficiency of 32% to loses of the electrical grid, while Ignoring all the energy lost id transporting and refining Oil is not the correct view.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> 1, Oil is transported from wells in Middle East to a port (using energy)
> 2, Loaded onto a ship (using energy)
> 3, Shipped 14,000 Km's to Sydney on a ship (using energy)
> 4, Unloaded from ship (using energy)
> 5, Refined into unleaded fuel (using and losing heaps of energy)
> 6, chemical additives added (using energy to produce)
> 7, Trucked to service station (using energy)
> 8, Pumped into your car (using energy)




All those things are factored in to the price of the fuel, in a lot of places the infrastructure needed to produce the fuel was paid for by other countries, oil wells etc.

The generation infrastructure to charge all your electric vehicles will have to be paid for by the consumer (us), it currently does not exist. That charge has to be factored in and the consumer will pay for it. One charge might end up being the same cost as a tank of petrol.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> All those things are factored in to the price of the fuel,
> 
> The generation infrastructure to charge all your electric vehicles will have to be paid for by the consumer (us),




Aren't those two statements the same thing???

But, we are talking about which is the most efficient way to use fuel, lets not derail my point with a discussion on pricing


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Aren't those two statements the same thing???
> 
> But, we are talking about which is the most efficient way to use fuel, lets not derail my point with a discussion on pricing




Yes, but you seem to be claiming that EV's will always have a lower cost per km than other vehicles. 

Correct or not ?

What matters in the end is how far you can go per $.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, but you seem to be claiming that EV's will always have a lower cost per km than other vehicles.
> 
> Correct or not ?
> 
> What matters in the end is how far you can go per $.




Yes they do provide more Kilometres per $1,

1, partly because they use the in energy a more efficient way so require less raw energy material input, and

2, partly because they can take advantage of cheaper energy sources not available to ICE cars.

for example,

1, If you burned a barrel of oil in a really efficient power plant, and used all the energy out put to charge cars, you would get more Kilometres than you would if you refined that same barrel into petrol, diesel and LPG, and burned it in ICE cars.

That alone saves $$$ and less waste, but then add.

2, Rather than use Oil which is currently much more expensive fuel, you can use a selection of alternatives such as burning a cheaper fuel e.g. coal, or using renewables. which lowers the cost down even lower.


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> No, A car engine might be 32% efficient, but only about 6% of the total energy ends up moving the car, there rest is lost in the process I described.
> 
> ----------------------




I don't think so. When you do those tractive effort calcs for gear box ratio selections, do you use 6% or the actual power? You know what the irreversible losses (e.g. friction, combustion heat, etc)  are so what's left is the work extraction efficiency.

Sure there are drivetrain losses, etc, but ~30-32% is a number you should be using.


----------



## Value Collector

Tisme said:


> I don't think so. When you do those tractive effort calcs for gear box ratio selections, do you use 6% or the actual power? You know what the irreversible losses (e.g. friction, combustion heat, etc)  are so what's left is the work extraction efficiency.
> 
> Sure there are drivetrain losses, etc, but ~30-32% is a number you should be using.



No, 32% is the efficiency of the engine itself, thats how much energy is left to be transferred to actually go into mechanical power.

However, trying to use this power output to power the drive chain of the car directly means you can never capture the full 32% because

1, When the engine is idling, none of the energy is being used to move the car, ( electric cars don't idle, think of your electric drill, you only start using power when you pull the trigger)

2, When it comes time to slow down for that red light or down hill, you waste all that energy you used to create the forward momentum, in friction with the brakes, (electric cars can recoup some through regen braking)

3, some of the power is also lost operating water pumps and fans just to cool the engine.

This is what I mean when I say Electric cars use the energy in a more effective way, But not only that, they can also get their energy input from more efficient systems than  traditional refined oil petrol and diesel powered combustion engines.


----------



## Value Collector

This short video / article from the union of concerned scientists explains why electric cars beat petrol cars.

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/life-cycle-ev-emissions#.WWxiysZL2Po




Not to mention that as time goes on the grid is going to get cleaner and cleaner, while Oil production gets more and more dirty.

check out this Oil sand Mine, they have to spend Diesel, Natural gas and electricity just to source and refine the sand into Oil, and thats before the Oil itself needs to be transported, refined in petrol, transported again and then used inefficiently.


----------



## Wysiwyg

I heard someone on the radio asking why Australia doesn't prcess it's natural resources. I think for the lithium mines that would be a smart idea to process the spodumene to lithium here, instead it is sent overseas to be processed. Must be too expensive to process in Australia. Goes something like -- here, process our ore and sell us back the useful stuff. Duh.


----------



## sptrawler

Wysiwyg said:


> I heard someone on the radio asking why Australia doesn't prcess it's natural resources. I think for the lithium mines that would be a smart idea to process the spodumene to lithium here, instead it is sent overseas to be processed. Must be too expensive to process in Australia. Goes something like -- here, process our ore and sell us back the useful stuff. Duh.




The Chinese are building a plant to produce lithium hydroxide, in Kwinana W.A

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-...ssing-plant-gets-green-light-600-jobs/7820452

I can't see why we couldn't build and own it, oh I forgot, we don't own anything.


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> The Chinese are building a plant to produce lithium hydroxide, in Kwinana W.A
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-...ssing-plant-gets-green-light-600-jobs/7820452
> 
> I can't see why we couldn't build and own it, oh I forgot, we don't own anything.




The old cultural cringe that permeates our combined national psyche. That and the pursuit of instant high yield ROIs instead of investment in long term growth and guaranteed solid returns like is the Asian way and their 25 year horizons.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> This is what I mean when I say Electric cars use the energy in a more effective way, But not only that, they can also get their energy input from more efficient systems than  traditional refined oil petrol and diesel powered combustion engines.




For interest sake, how long do Tesla guarantee their car batteries, from what I've read lithium batteries have a life of around 7 years.
The other thing is, do Tesla guarantee their batteries, to perform as per built specifications? Or is there a built in battery degradation of performance clause?


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


>





Once again there is a mismash of terms and conditions. If you are going to use the power station versus car engine you have to line them up. An idling coal fired power station has a different efficiency too but, true, diversity of load will be greater in a car application than a big arsed Parsons machine.

Battery to wheel efficiency is around 68% while fuel tank to wheel efficiency is around 32x 75% = 24%. That's without cylinders on demand unloaders etc.  As an IC engine unloads the amount of fuel decreases and efficiency decreases even as stoichiometric ratios increase and knock sensors alter spark timing in an attempt to reduce wasted fuel.


But the shear mass of batteries and electric motors has to be considered.

You can do your own calcs, if you have a decent car with an ECU that gives you average consumption versus travel distance. Work the calorific values back to kWh .

The Tesla car uses 0.2kWh per km . Petrol yields 8.7kWh per litre, which I reckon is going to be 0.24 x 8.7 =~ 2.0 kWh/litre. at the wheels. For an 8 l/100km car that's 16kWh/100km = 0.16kWh per km


----------



## Smurf1976

At one end of the scale, if you're at the end of a long distribution line and the power is coming from an old gas turbine then it could be less than 15% from fuel in the ground to electricity in your home. Worst case, if the fuel was LNG used in an old open cycle gas turbine and it was a hot day and you're at the end of the line then it could be barely 10% efficient. That's an extreme though.

At the other extreme if you're standing right next to a hydro power station and that's the source of power charging your car then you're looking at 90% efficiency. Heck, even ye olde working museum (aka Lake Margaret power station, built 1914) achieves 80% efficiency.

Realistically though most won't be charging their car in the middle of nowhere during a heatwave and most won't be parking literally outside a power station either.

For the vast majority of thermal plant in operation in Australia the efficiency is in the range of 30% to about 37%. There's some below that (worst are down around 20%) and some above that (best is a bit over 50% for a stand alone fossil fuel power station) but the vast majority of power actually generated is coming from plants with efficiency in that range. That's the efficiency of the power station only.

Now take out the energy required to extract the fuel from the ground, process and transport it. How much that is varies hugely but it's typically only a few % thankfully.

Then take out energy loss in transmission and distribution. For a typical suburban house that's about 10% of what comes out of the power station is lost in transmission and, more importantly, distribution.

Put all that together and as a generic answer grid electricity is very close to 30% efficient from fuel in the ground to power in your home. Higher in some places, lower in others and it will also vary with time of day and seasonally but as a whole that 30% is typical.

So in the context of electric vehicle charging in Australia, 30% is a reasonable figure to use for the efficiency (fuel in ground to power in your home) of grid electricity although the actual figure will vary depending on circumstances.

As for electric vehicles, my personal view is that yes it will happen but not as quickly as many are expecting or hoping. We're a minimum 30 years away from the point where seeing any petrol / diesel powered vehicle being driven on public roads becomes unusual to the point that such a vehicle stands out among the rest.

People often look at devices such as mobile phones and extrapolate the short lifespan (in practice) of those to other things. But that tends to fail in practice.

Go stand beside any public road looking for cars from the 1990's being driven. It won't take you long to spot one, at least not unless you intentionally go looking in a wealthy suburb but anywhere else there's still plenty around.

There's still plenty of heavy industrial equipment from the 1980's in use today.

Those with $ to splurge might do it differently but in practice there's no shortage of major appliances being used in Australian homes which date from last century.

Overall, the turnover time for all this stuff is longer than many (particularly government) seem to assume.

Hypothetically there's a transition over the next decade so that 10 years from now all new vehicles are EV's. Do that and it'll be well into the 2040's when petrol consumption has fallen to the point that it's no longer viable to run a business based around selling it. 

All that said, if you really go into it then you'll find that petrol and diesel have oh so many evils from toxicity through to terrorism. Even if there's no benefit to efficiency or the environment and we generate 100% of the power from coal that still beats petrol or diesel in many ways simply because it gets us off the oil addiction.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Put all that together and as a generic answer grid electricity is very close to 30% efficient from fuel in the ground to power in your home. Higher in some places, lower in others and it will also vary with time of day and seasonally but as a whole that 30% is typical.




When you compare that to a small diesel, it really isn't that great.
I do agree, electric or fuel cell cars, will become the norm in the long term.
However, the increase in the  efficiency of diesels and petrol engines, will see them used for a very long time.
Also IMO, Tesla will be in the news, for all the wrong reasons in the future.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-...ion-loses-13000-car-made-ahead-model-3-launch

If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck.
Only my opinion and I have been wrong, on countless occassions.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> For interest sake, how long do Tesla guarantee their car batteries, from what I've read lithium batteries have a life of around 7 years.
> The other thing is, do Tesla guarantee their batteries, to perform as per built specifications? Or is there a built in battery degradation of performance clause?



The whole battery degradation thing is a non issue, the batteries will out live the car, they are expected to have over 90% of their original capacity after 10years.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> When you compare that to a small diesel, it really isn't that great.




You are a bit confused, smurf is talking about how efficient the energy is delivered to user, that's part 1 of the story, part 1 is about comparing the grid to the oil supply chain, eg that litre of diesel doesn't just appear at the service station, it has to be produced, refined and transported which is a very energy intensive process, where a lot of the energy content of the oil is lost

So when people say a Diesel engine operates at 30% efficiency, that's 30% of the energy in diesel put in the tank makes it out of the engine as potentially usable, but before the diesel got into the tank there has already been huge energy losses during its production and transport.

 part 2 is how efficiently the vehicle uses that energy, once it gets loaded onto the vehicle, again electric cars use this power much more efficiently than ice cars, because of that 30% of "usable energy" that leaves the engine a large portion is lost due to idling, non regenative braking and other incidentals, even the hybrids that burn unleaded onboard the vehicle to produce electricity get more km's per litre than the cars that use it to power the drive chain mechanically.


----------



## Value Collector

Tisme said:


> The Tesla car uses 0.2kWh per km . Petrol yields 8.7kWh per litre, which I reckon is going to be 0.24 x 8.7 =~ 2.0 kWh/litre. at the wheels. For an 8 l/100km car that's 16kWh/100km = 0.16kWh per km




I think the comparison of the Chevy volt and the Chevy Cruze is a good example of how electric drive chains are superior.

The Chevy volt drives about 20% further on a 1L of fuel than the Cruze, both burn fuel in a cumbustion engine , except the Volt uses the engine to run an electrical generator where as the Cruze uses it to power a mechanical drive chain.

If there were no benefit to the electrical drive chain the Cruze and the volt should have the same mileage, or the Cruze should beat the volt.

Then when you factor in the ev only mode of the volt when it's charged via plug in rather than using the engine, the running costs halve.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> You are a bit confused, smurf is talking about how efficient the energy is delivered to user, that's part 1 of the story, part 1 is about comparing the grid to the oil supply chain, eg that litre of diesel doesn't just appear at the service station, it has to be produced, refined and transported which is a very energy intensive process, where a lot of the energy content of the oil is lost
> 
> So when people say a Diesel engine operates at 30% efficiency, that's 30% of the energy in diesel put in the tank makes it out of the engine as potentially usable, but before the diesel got into the tank there has already been huge energy losses during its production and transport.
> 
> part 2 is how efficiently the vehicle uses that energy, once it gets loaded onto the vehicle, again electric cars use this power much more efficiently than ice cars, because of that 30% of "usable energy" that leaves the engine a large portion is lost due to idling, non regenative braking and other incidentals, even the hybrids that burn unleaded onboard the vehicle to produce electricity get more km's per litre than the cars that use it to power the drive chain mechanically.




Well no matter how you want to dress it up.
I can travel from Perth to Sydney on 4 tanks of diesel.
Be that in a Jeep 3L which will use about 350litres, or in a VW Golf that will use about 231 litres.
I doubt anyone can travel from Perth to Sydney in an electric vehicle, even if they could, stopping every 400k's to recharge wouldn't cut it.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> So when people say a Diesel engine operates at 30% efficiency, that's 30% of the energy in diesel put in the tank makes it out of the engine as potentially usable, but before the diesel got into the tank there has already been huge energy losses during its production and transport.
> .




This is the other problem with your quotes, the diesel cycle is about 50% efficient, you seem to quote figures of the Otto cycle, as representing the diesel cycle.
It makes me wonder if you have studied thermodynamics, or are just quoting internet snippets?
Or maybe quoting Tesla's advertising?


----------



## orr

Value Collector said:


> To explain what I mean, the Holden/chevy Volt, Is a fully electric car with a built in Petrol engine used drive a generator to charge a battery (it can also be plugged in).
> 
> Its petrol engine does not power the drive chain of the car directly, when it burns petrol it is simply charging the battery.
> 
> By using the petrol motor to charge the battery, the motor can sit at its peak load/RPM efficiency, meaning it can operate more effectively than an engine who's load/RPM have to keep fluctuating and sometimes just idles at traffic lights, and can't recoup energy through regen braking.
> 
> The Chevy Volt in Petrol mode uses 5.64 Litres / 100km, it's sister vehicle the chevy Cruze uses 7.4L / 100km.
> 
> --------------------------
> 
> However, Combustion engines only operate at around 25% efficiency, So an electric vehicle charged using the grid where efficiency is often over 60%, is even more efficient than the chevy volt style of hybrid.
> 
> using home solar, even better.
> 
> But yeah, in Rumpoles hypothetical world where electric vehicles some how lower the price of petrol to less than the price of electricity, electric cars could be charged using petrol generators and still be better than ICE cars (but that won't happen)





One thing also I'll add to the information above on the Chevy Volt; It's my understanding that as the first Volts rolled off the production line, circa 6 years ago the cost of battery storage/kwh was in the realm of $1000US/kwh as of October last year(2016) the price was down to $140US/kwh. It is Tesla's objective to be under $100/kwh as the production of the Model3 ramps up.

Work currently being undertaken will likely see increases in capacity of Lithium Ion batteries;

https://qz.com/929794/has-lithium-b...nough-done-it-again-colleagues-are-skeptical/

John Goodenough does have a few runs on the board in this regard, he was after all instrumental in the development of the modern Lithium ion battery, working at he time with Panasonic, Tesla current partner in the GigaFactory...  And there is more than a few on a similar quest.

My personal opinion is that the market is gagging for a for an all electric One-tonne pickup... The  Ford F100 and GM equiverlent were the most profitable vehicals every produced by these companies.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> I doubt anyone can travel from Perth to Sydney in an electric vehicle, even if they could, stopping every 400k's to recharge wouldn't cut it.



Why not? 

The Brisbane to Sydney route is already completed with super chargers. I am not sure how popular the Sydney to Perth route is but if it is there is nothing stopping it.

You can already drive from LA to New York, and London to Moscow.

After 4 hours of driving most people don't mind stopping for 30minutes to stretch, do a wee and have a burger.

Not to mention the latest supercharger has a charger will charge a car in 15minutes, Andy this will start to be rolled out this year.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> This is the other problem with your quotes, the diesel cycle is about 50% efficient, you seem to quote figures of the Otto cycle, as representing the diesel cycle.
> It makes me wonder if you have studied thermodynamics, or are just quoting internet snippets?
> Or maybe quoting Tesla's advertising?



you are missing the point, the point is that regardless even if you use the same engine with the same fuel, an electric drive chain beats a mechanical one.

If you used your beloved Diesel engine to power a generator, that powered an electic drive chain in your car like the chevy volt, you would get more kilometers per liter.

The second part of the story is that if you simply burned the entire barrel of oil to generate the electricity rather than just the refined product, it would be even more efficient.


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> I think the comparison of the Chevy volt and the Chevy Cruze is a good example of how electric drive chains are superior.
> 
> The Chevy volt drives about 20% further on a 1L of fuel than the Cruze, both burn fuel in a cumbustion engine , except the Volt uses the engine to run an electrical generator where as the Cruze uses it to power a mechanical drive chain.
> 
> If there were no benefit to the electrical drive chain the Cruze and the volt should have the same mileage, or the Cruze should beat the volt.
> 
> Then when you factor in the ev only mode of the volt when it's charged via plug in rather than using the engine, the running costs halve.





Once again you are picking the intermediate bits, instead of merely looking at the whole.

We can all add in all sorts of various factors to win an argument; it's a tradition of fans for brands, rear wheel drive versus front wheel, carbs versus injection, turbo versus charger versus nitrous.

I'm not up to speed with the Volt anymore, but I seem to recall the traction motor increasingly becomes inefficient as speed increases, eventually hitting 110 kph a second motor kicks in and drives a planetary gear set. When the battery is cactus the planetary gears are driven by the petrol engine directly. The Volt is an admission that battery electric only cars still not an ubiquitous solution


Traction motors are definitely a proven performer in the rail system for many many decades and should translate into cars well.


----------



## moXJO

orr said:


> My personal opinion is that the market is gagging for a for an all electric One-tonne pickup... The  Ford F100 and GM equiverlent were the most profitable vehicals every produced by these companies.




I'd have a look at buying a few. 
It would strain those batteries with the loads you would carry though? 

Some of the newer battery technology will be the game changer. It will be very cheap and easy to produce. Once these products hit the market,  I feel EVs will seriously be looked at. 
Mechanics must be looking on with fear.


----------



## Tisme

moXJO said:


> Mechanics must be looking on with fear.




and electrical fitters with glee


----------



## Tisme

https://www.inverse.com/article/34239-how-many-solar-panels-to-power-the-usa

"Surprisingly, Musk said he does feel some pity for big oil, in that when those companies were founded more than 100 years ago, there was very little indication that their logos would be seen as villainous a few generations later.

“They worked really hard to create those companies,” Musk said. “They feel like they are being attacked on moral grounds. And it is true that we cannot instantaneously change to a sustainable situation.”

He added one caveat, though: “But then those guys will also fight pretty hard to slow down the change, and that’s really what I think is morally wrong.”"


----------



## moXJO

Tisme said:


> and electrical fitters with glee



Electric motors and cars should be pretty cheap in comparison  (bar the batteries) you would think? 
I wonder if each company will lock down their IP and only allow repairs by their dealerships.


----------



## Tisme

moXJO said:


> Electric motors and cars should be pretty cheap in comparison  (bar the batteries) you would think?
> I wonder if each company will lock down their IP and only allow repairs by their dealerships.




Well if it's anything like the open protocols of Bacnet then yes; there is only so much openness when it comes to commercial advantage.

Big commercial opportunity for AIXI workaround tools as electric moves into self drive.


----------



## Value Collector

Tisme said:


> The Volt is an admission that battery electric only cars still not an ubiquitous solution
> 
> 
> .




Except with 500,000 people that have already put deposits down on the Tesla model 3, the All electric vehicles are set to blow the VOLT out of the water.

Even chevy's own All electric Model the "BOLT" is catching up to the "Volt" is sales.

And Volt owners do there best to avoid having to put petrol in the car.

There is a website tracking owners usage in this link, you can see pretty much all of them on the list are over 80% battery operation, and that is with a tiny battery that only does 50 Miles.

Once you remove the Engine and fuel tank and replace it with a larger battery, and have a super charger network like Tesla have built, you can operate in all electric all the time, which is what people want, even volt owners.

https://www.voltstats.net


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> Except with 500,000 people that have already put deposits down on the Tesla model 3, the All electric vehicles are set to blow the VOLT out of the water.




Be interesting to see what the uptake is and how many give up their place in the queue and ask for their $1000 deposit back


----------



## Value Collector

moXJO said:


> Electric motors and cars should be pretty cheap in comparison  (bar the batteries) you would think?
> I wonder if each company will lock down their IP and only allow repairs by their dealerships.




Looks like Tesla wants the Service business to themselves, and is focusing on customer service and ease to lock it in.


----------



## SirRumpole

*Power prices: Australia has a gold-plated electricity grid that consumers can't afford*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-18/australian-gold-plated-power-grid/8721566


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> *Power prices: Australia has a gold-plated electricity grid that consumers can't afford*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-18/australian-gold-plated-power-grid/8721566



trouble is this is not new, and we discussed that here and in the AFR for years yet we end up with generators lacking, power outage and nothing being really done to fix this 
Be sure that by the time people will start disconnecting from the grid as a result, they will be slammed with extra fees or levies to have the priviledge not to be connected.
Same here in qld after the drought: huge infrastructure put in place, water consumption collapsed and stay low..which should be good?
=> boost connection fees, create "independent" water board with cushy position for your mates, and charge a shed [I have] with 0 water usage ever 250$ a quarter for the priviledge to be connected/or be able to be connected;
Does not even matter if you have a pipe going into your property or not;
Will be same with power:
Australia the land of no rule but the free abuse of power


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> *Power prices: Australia has a gold-plated electricity grid that consumers can't afford*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-18/australian-gold-plated-power-grid/8721566




That is one of the down sides of regulation, But at least we have a grid that can handle a lot more capacity than it currently does, so the grids capacity to move energy around is no problem, we just need to sort out the lack of generation in some areas, and storage solutions would be good too.


----------



## Value Collector

qldfrog said:


> huge infrastructure put in place, water consumption collapsed and stay low..which should be good?





It is good, but the costs keeping the system running doesn't halve just because you halve the amount of usage.


----------



## Value Collector

Value Collector said:


> It is good, but the costs keeping the system running doesn't halve just because you halve the amount of usage.




Actually is reminds me of a recent trip to NZ, Scenic helicopter flights in a 4 seater chopper, but were charged as follows.

1 person $1100.............. (total $1100)
2 people $575 / person... (total $1150) 
3 people $400 / person... (total $1200)
4 people $315 / person... (total $1260)

So basically he needed around $1000 to cover costs regardless of the number of passengers, and reducing the passenger count didn't reduce the over all costs that much, so it dramatically increases the prices charged to the remaining users.


This is true for any business or infrastructure with high fixed costs.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> This is true for any business or infrastructure with high fixed costs.




My understanding is that the retailers get a guaranteed return on their investment. What other business gets that guarantee ?

There should be some tradeoff between security of income and the prices they can charge.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> My understanding is that the retailers get a guaranteed return on their investment.




The retailers of what?


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> The retailers of what?




Electricity.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-10/hill-the-great-energy-con-that-is-costing-us-billions/6924272


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Electricity.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-10/hill-the-great-energy-con-that-is-costing-us-billions/6924272




No, electricity retailers have no guarantee, they can lose money and go bust just like anyone.

Electricity retailers are just the people that send you the bill, there is an ever growing number of them, some disappear new ones pop up.

Some of the big "retailers" also have investments in generation, but not all.

But, Generation, Transmission, Distribution and retailing are all separate businesses, with different players in each one.

The "retailers" are the ones you get the annoying phone calls and door knocking from to try and get you to start receiving their bills in stead of the other guys bills.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> The "retailers" are the ones you get the annoying phone calls and door knocking from to try and get you to start receiving their bills in stead of the other guys bills.




OK, so it's the distributors, the ones that own the poles and wires that get a guaranteed return. So what other businesses get such a guarantee ? That's what is putting the prices up, lack of competition.


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> OK, so it's the distributors, the ones that own the poles and wires that get a guaranteed return. So what other businesses get such a guarantee ? That's what is putting the prices up, lack of competition.



they were garanteed from memory a 8% return, could have been ok at the time  but imagine now..rubbing hands


----------



## qldfrog

Value Collector said:


> It is good, but the costs keeping the system running doesn't halve just because you halve the amount of usage.



so having my own business, some fixed costs as you can imagine , why can I not charge the local council for the service I could provide them should they want to ask for it?


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> OK, so it's the distributors, the ones that own the poles and wires that get a guaranteed return. So what other businesses get such a guarantee ? That's what is putting the prices up, lack of competition.




State sanctioned oligopolies. 

Howard did the same and the LNP carry on the same game e.g. propping the likes of Telstra to make sure selling off the farm doesn't reveal the real loss making ventures they would be in the face of real competition and lean management (free of political party cronies).


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> OK, so it's the distributors, the ones that own the poles and wires that get a guaranteed return. So what other businesses get such a guarantee ? That's what is putting the prices up, lack of competition.



I wouldn't call it a guaranteed return, they can certainly still go and of business or lose money.

But the regulator sets pricing, they have no control over what prices they charge their customers, they are told what the prices will be.

So it's the regulators job to set prices as low as they can, while still leaving enough on the table for the distributors and transmission owners to earn a reasonable return on their investment, which is generally a much lower rate than most other businesses.

They are given performance standards to meet and other rules also.


----------



## Value Collector

qldfrog said:


> so having my own business, some fixed costs as you can imagine , why can I not charge the local council for the service I could provide them should they want to ask for it?



Council hasn't demanded that you install certain infrastructure for them, and they aren't regulating your pricing.

But yes if you purpose built infrastructure for the council (or any customer), I would expect you would operate on a take of pay contract, this is common place across many industries.

One of the companies I invest in is building a gas pipeline and private power station for a mining company in the WA gold fields, and that project wouldn't be built if the mining company didn't sign a take or pay contract, the fact that in 2 years they might get some more efficient machines doesn't reduce our capital costs and the reality that we need to recoup that(plus a profit margin) over the life of the project, so there is still minimum charges we need to charge.


----------



## Value Collector

qldfrog said:


> they were garanteed from memory a 8% return, could have been ok at the time  but imagine now..rubbing hands



It changes depending on the rate of Bonds etc. basically it's a certain margin (3% or so) above other lower risk investments such as bonds depending on the asset.


----------



## Smurf1976

Comparing now with the old pre-"reform" days, there's a lot of costs in the industry which simply didn't exist at all in the past.

Wholesale market price risk. No such concept previously but now it's a very real thing and a "risk premium" tends to be attached to a market that can rise 35,000% and then crash 99% in less than a day.

Retail cost is another big one. Used to be very cheap to just send out the bills and take payment but now it's $ hundreds per year for each household. It's a cost comparable, in some cases larger, to that of the fuel going into power stations.

All those regulations and regulators don't come cheap either and nor do the assortment of non-engineering focused things they come up with. Ultimately that's how networks ended up costing a fortune.

Then there's the underlying motive of the industry and this is a very key point. Today we have numerous companies all with their own set of overheads and all seeking to make a profit. 

Now go back 25 or more years and read the annual report of any of the fully integrated state electricity authorities. SECWA, ETSA, SECV, HEC and PAWA were all the same. In the report you'll find a description of what they were up to at all stages of the industry from generation to retailing but there's one theme that was incredibly consistent year after year and that was cost minimisation.

All of them could and did supply power, that was a given, so to the extent that there was something to be achieved it was to drive down costs. The SECV and HEC were the ones vying for top spot in that game, and in different ways both achieved it, whilst the others were also incredibly focused but had the natural disadvantages of higher cost available resources although their achievements were still impressive by any international mesure.

That competition was pretty intense at times since they all saw that broader economic development was an unstated part of their mandate. Driving down costs was the key to making that work so that's what they did.

That model gave Australia as a whole the third cheapest electricity in the OECD, beaten only by Canada and NZ with their large hydro resources. From an environmental perspective it's worth noting that we also had the most energy efficient fleet of fossil fuel power stations anywhere, Australia was No.1 in that regard.

I left Qld and NSW out of that list because they had a different model with generation being separate from the distribution and retail side. It worked just as well both physically and in achieving cost minimisation but turned out to be more prone to political interference in practice.

Not a lot more can be said really. No amount of economic theory will change the reality that from the perspective of consumers the present system is far less efficient (both economically and technically) than what it replaced.


----------



## SirRumpole

Thanks for that Smurf, as you say  not much more that can be said. The politicians stuffed up, and now we are paying for it.


----------



## Smurf1976

Something I'll add is that the idea of linking the states to form a national (well, Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas, SA at least) grid was envisioned as being about cost reduction through the exploitation of the technical efficiency gain through that increasing of system scale.

It took politicians to see it as a means of creating what amounts to a casino.


----------



## qldfrog

Value Collector said:


> Council hasn't demanded that you install certain infrastructure for them, and they aren't regulating your pricing.



I have not demanded to have that infrastructure installed and was happy/am happy not to have service connected ...This has a name extorsion.End result, my tenant (business) has closed...one more...
this is Qld: unemployment figure can only stay flat if the state government adds 30000 civil servants in a year to fill pre election targets....ah well more debt


----------



## qldfrog

Value Collector said:


> lower risk investments such as bonds d"



 lower? with a government guarantee??just a cash machine


----------



## qldfrog

qldfrog said:


> lower? with a government guarantee??just a cash machine



Anyway if people are happy to pay $1000 a year to have the knowledge that there is a pipe of water along the road, what can I do, this country deserves its leaders.
More and more parasites, less and less productivity.


----------



## Value Collector

qldfrog said:


> I have not demanded to have that infrastructure installed and was happy/am happy not to have service connected ...




Which service are you talking about?


----------



## Value Collector

qldfrog said:


> lower? with a government guarantee??just a cash machine



Not sure what you are talking about? What government guarantee?

It's bank depositors and government bond holders that have a government guarantee.


----------



## Smurf1976

If there's something I haven't said much about it's my real reason for concern. It's somewhat more basic and less specific to the industry than you might be expecting.

Firstly, electricity and/or gas is an input to the overwhelming majority of all economic activity. With very few exceptions, just about every business uses electricity and/or gas in some way.

So in moving from among the cheapest energy in the world to being among the most expensive we have in one fell swoop increased the costs and reduced competitiveness of practically every business in the country. From a political perspective I'll add that the extent of this impost far exceeds that of the much talked about carbon tax and also exceeds anything most unions have been party to in recent times.

Then there's the human side to it all. It's inevitable that, a few weeks from now, we'll be hearing plenty of stories about people receiving massive electricity or gas bills. Winter is the season of highest total consumption in many areas and with the recent price jumps it's going to have a pretty big impact on many.

The only way such stories won't be in the news is if the media chooses to not run them but there's going to be a lot of pain arriving pretty soon as the bills turn up.

Overall it just saddens me that heating a house, having a hot shower without using an egg timer and cooking dinner is fast becoming a symbol of wealth rather than the taken for granted entitlement it was not too long ago. This just shouldn't be a problem in a country with such an abundance of resources.

It would be bad enough if the situation had arisen due to unavoidable factors. That it happened for no reason other than the blind pursuit of ideology is just ridiculous.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> If there's something I haven't said much about it's my real reason for concern. It's somewhat more basic and less specific to the industry than you might be expecting.
> 
> Firstly, electricity and/or gas is an input to the overwhelming majority of all economic activity. With very few exceptions, just about every business uses electricity and/or gas in some way.
> 
> So in moving from among the cheapest energy in the world to being among the most expensive we have in one fell swoop increased the costs and reduced competitiveness of practically every business in the country. From a political perspective I'll add that the extent of this impost far exceeds that of the much talked about carbon tax and also exceeds anything most unions have been party to in recent times.
> 
> Then there's the human side to it all. It's inevitable that, a few weeks from now, we'll be hearing plenty of stories about people receiving massive electricity or gas bills. Winter is the season of highest total consumption in many areas and with the recent price jumps it's going to have a pretty big impact on many.
> 
> The only way such stories won't be in the news is if the media chooses to not run them but there's going to be a lot of pain arriving pretty soon as the bills turn up.
> 
> Overall it just saddens me that heating a house, having a hot shower without using an egg timer and cooking dinner is fast becoming a symbol of wealth rather than the taken for granted entitlement it was not too long ago. This just shouldn't be a problem in a country with such an abundance of resources.
> 
> It would be bad enough if the situation had arisen due to unavoidable factors. That it happened for no reason other than the blind pursuit of ideology is just ridiculous.




It's not easy being green, I guess those feeling the pinch, will have to get a warm feeling from their sacrifice for the greater good.
IMO it isn't ridiculous, it's sad, but being pursued at a ridiculous pace.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> It's not easy being green, I guess those feeling the pinch, will have to get a warm feeling from their sacrifice for the greater good.




I think you have the wrong ideology there. You say "green" ideology is the problem, but it's actually privatisation policy that is the problem, and the splitting off of the various parts of the energy supply spectrum into their components all with their inbuilt costs and profit margins thus eliminating the benefits of cross subsidising the various elements of generation, distribution and retailing.

The cost of green power has been steadily reducing, rooftop PV has been reducing some of the demand, but since Hazlewood was taken out of the picture by a foreign private company thanks to Kennet selling it off there is a generation shortfall because politicians thought that privatisation solved the problems for them and they dropped the ball on maintaining and replacing the old coal stations in an orderly process.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I think you have the wrong ideology there. You say "green" ideology is the problem, *but it's actually privatisation policy that is the problem, and the splitting off of the various parts of the energy supply spectrum into their components all with their inbuilt costs and profit margins thus eliminating the benefits of cross subsidising the various elements of generation, distribution and retailing*.
> .




Yes, I think I said that  a while back.
When I discussed the desegregation of Western Power in Western Australia.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> The cost of green power has been steadily reducing, rooftop PV has been reducing some of the demand, but since Hazlewood was taken out of the picture by a foreign private company thanks to Kennet selling it off there is a generation shortfall because politicians thought that privatisation solved the problems for them and they dropped the ball on maintaining and replacing the old coal stations in an orderly process.




If that was the only problem, companies would be putting in new coal fired power stations, as coal is still a cheap fuel.
They aren't, because of the blind "green" push, which will manifest itself in a drop in living standards.IMO


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> I think you have the wrong ideology there. You say "green" ideology is the problem, but it's actually privatisation policy that is the problem, and the splitting off of the various parts of the energy supply spectrum into their components all with their inbuilt costs and profit margins thus eliminating the benefits of cross subsidising the various elements of generation, distribution and retailing.
> 
> The cost of green power has been steadily reducing, rooftop PV has been reducing some of the demand, but since Hazlewood was taken out of the picture by a foreign private company thanks to Kennet selling it off there is a generation shortfall because politicians thought that privatisation solved the problems for them and they dropped the ball on maintaining and replacing the old coal stations in an orderly process.



I don't agree, there is a lot more to it.

I mean some of the cheapest suppliers around the world are privately owned systems, and some of the "cheap" government ones are cheap because the are subsidised by tax payers.

Offcourse there is expensive private too, and some genuinely cheap state owned, but it's not as simple as saying private = expensive, state owned =cheap.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> I don't agree, there is a lot more to it.
> 
> I mean some of the cheapest suppliers around the world are privately owned systems, and some of the "cheap" government ones are cheap because the are subsidised by tax payers.
> 
> Offcourse there is expensive private too, and some genuinely cheap state owned, but it's not as simple as saying private = expensive, state owned =cheap.




I agree with that, but to raise money from distribution, when you don't own the product is a difficult proposition.
Therefore to cover your costs, you can only charge the user, you have no control over the product.
This would be fine if it was a static model, but it isn't, the network degrades loads increase which require the installation of upgrades coverage increases etc.
When the Governments owned the "whole" system, a small increase in costs, could be spread over the generation, distribution and administration.
Now that isn't possible, so a slight reduction in fuel costs, isn't transferred to a slight increase in distribution costs.
The slight decrease in fuel cost, is not passed on and the slight increase in distribution cost is.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> If that was the only problem, companies would be putting in new coal fired power stations, as coal is still a cheap fuel.
> They aren't, because of the blind "green" push, which will manifest itself in a drop in living standards.IMO




Well, SA has admitted it made a mistake and is building gas turbine stations as well as battery supplies so maybe there will be some sense coming back into government decisions where they can achieve a reliable and cost effective mix of technologies.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> I agree with that, but to raise money from distribution, when you don't own the product is a difficult proposition.
> Therefore to cover your costs, you can only charge the user, you have no control over the product.
> This would be fine if it was a static model, but it isn't, the network degrades loads increase which require the installation of upgrades coverage increases etc.
> When the Governments owned the "whole" system, a small increase in costs, could be spread over the generation, distribution and administration.
> Now that isn't possible, so a slight reduction in fuel costs, isn't transferred to a slight increase in distribution costs.
> The slight decrease in fuel cost, is not passed on and the slight increase in distribution cost is.



I am not entirely sure of your point.

But the cost of fuel is a relatively small part of the cost base, a 10% reduction in the price of fuel would never flow to a 10% reduction in the price of electricity.

It's exactly the same in the petrol supply chain, a 50% reduction in the price of oil will never mean a 50% reduction in the price of unleaded fuel, it would probably only relate to a 15% - 20% reduction in the price of unleaded, due to the large amount of fixed costs.

e.g, Oil might drop 50%, But because the price of oil is only a portion of the price you pay per litre of fuel, the total price you pay won't drop.

Service station rent + other site costs, Government fuel tax, refining costs, trucking costs, Insurance, staff wages, the list is huge, none of these costs drop just because the price of fuel went down.

when you pay $1.5 for a litre of unleaded, as little as 40cents of that relates to the price of a barrel of oil, so if oil drops 50% you can expect fuel to drop 20cents.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> I am not entirely sure of your point.
> 
> But the cost of fuel is a relatively small part of the cost base, a 10% reduction in the price of fuel would never flow to a 10% reduction in the price of electricity.
> 
> It's exactly the same in the petrol supply chain, a 50% reduction in the price of oil will never mean a 50% reduction in the price of unleaded fuel, it would probably only relate to a 15% - 20% reduction in the price of unleaded, due to the large amount of fixed costs.
> 
> e.g, Oil might drop 50%, But because the price of oil is only a portion of the price you pay per litre of fuel, the total price you pay won't drop.
> 
> Service station rent + other site costs, Government fuel tax, refining costs, trucking costs, Insurance, staff wages, the list is huge, none of these costs drop just because the price of fuel went down.
> 
> when you pay $1.5 for a litre of unleaded, as little as 40cents of that relates to the price of a barrel of oil, so if oil drops 50% you can expect fuel to drop 20cents.




I was talking about the ability to cross subsidies, when the whole supply chain was a Government body.
Also Government = cheap and Private = dear, is usually the case. This is due to any profit, being returned to consolidated revenue, where as with private the profit is returned to shareholders.
The other issue of course is, the Government is providing a service, the private sector is driven by a desire to increase profit.
There isn't anything wrong with that, but is does leave the public, having to pay more for the same service.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> Also Government = cheap and Private = dear, is usually the case. This is due to any profit, being returned to consolidated revenue, where as with private the profit is returned to shareholders..





Not really, there are examples of private systems that are much cheaper than a lot of the state owned peers.

Also, if the government system is cheap because it is being subsidised it's not really cheap.

Governments have a way of under charging consumers for years, while letting assets depreciate, then when they need to be replaced, they are counted as new investments and funded by new debt, and then those assets get depreciated while consumers are under charged, never actually retuning any "profit" to reduce the loans incurred, thats subsidy.

Telstra is a good example, over the 20years or so since its been private costs have fallen. Today you pay less than you probably did 20 years ago, and get more.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Also, if the government system is cheap because it is being subsidised it's not really cheap.




So we should have medicines charged at their full price ?

The idea of subsidisation of essentials is that everyone gets a fair share of the cake.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> So we should have medicines charged at their full price ?
> 
> The idea of subsidisation of essentials is that everyone gets a fair share of the cake.




Healthcare is different, but even with electricity I have no problem with those in need e.g. the elderly, disabled, single mums, unemployed and those down on their luck being subsidised directly, but I don't think the government should be subsidising the cost of electricity through blanket measures.

I think the users of the energy should pay a fair rate for the service that covers its costs and a reasonable return to those that have capital invested (even if that is the state)


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Healthcare is different, but even with electricity I have no problem with those in need e.g. the elderly, disabled, single mums, unemployed and those down on their luck being subsidised directly, but I don't think the government should be subsidising the cost of electricity through blanket measures.
> 
> I think the users of the energy should pay a fair rate for the service that covers its costs and a reasonable return to those that have capital invested (even if that is the state)




On the contrary, subsidising the cost of electricity helps the economy because the less people have to pay for it the more they can spend on other things and so other business get the benefit of low electricity costs. It's in the national interest to have power costs as low as possible to maintain national competitiveness and ensure that money keeps flowing around the whole economy.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> On the contrary, subsidising the cost of electricity helps the economy because the less people have to pay for it the more they can spend on other things and so other business get the benefit of low electricity costs. It's in the national interest to have power costs as low as possible to maintain national competitiveness and ensure that money keeps flowing around the whole economy.




Either way someone is paying the full cost of it, either the people who are getting the benefit from it e.g. user pays, or we socialise the costs and those of us in businesses and homes that use less subsidise those that use more.

We can socialise the cost of running Aluminium smelters and Google data centres probably owned by overseas companies paying little tax here if you want, we can add an electricity levy to our taxes along with the medicare care levy and see how it goes, I am not convinced it would work out well.

But going by your theory why don't we subsidise everything, lets subsidise steel production, plastic production, glass, timber, bricks, concrete, petrol and diesel, rice you name it, would that be good for the economy.

Do you think the government should pay say 10% of the cost of every litre of unleaded and diesel used in Australia?


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Do you think the government should pay say 10% of the cost of every litre of unleaded and diesel used in Australia?




In effect government pays a subsidy to every business expense in this country, they are called tax deductions, something to which the general consumer has no access to. So if business gets a subsidy I see no reason why everyone else shouldn't get one either.

The point is, electricity is an essential input to every person or business, whereas I don't have to eat rice if I don't want to.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> In effect government pays a subsidy to every business expense in this country, they are called tax deductions, something to which the general consumer has no access to.




Every single person that pays tax can claim deductions for expenses they had to pay to earn that revenue/profit.

It's not a subsidy, its just part of the concept of taxing Profits not revenue.

e.g. Company sells $1000 worth of bricks, but it cost it $400 for materials, It can a deduction for the $400 so It only pays tax on the $600 profit.

thats not a subsidy, a subsidy would be the government reducing the price of the materials, or providing a bonus payment of some sort. 



> The point is, electricity is an essential input to every person or business, whereas I don't have to eat rice if I don't want to.




Some businesses use a lot more than others, But so is Diesel, so should we subsidise diesel?


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Some businesses use a lot more than others, But so is Diesel, so should we subsidise diesel?




Electricity is not just another commodity , it's an essential service whose price should be kept as low as possible. 

Smurf has pointed out how this has been achieved in the past and the fact that we now have one of the most expensive electricity infrastructure in the world means that the current (no pun intended) system is cr@p.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Electricity is not just another commodity , it's an essential service whose price should be kept as low as possible.




Wouldn't you say thats true of diesel and Unleaded? should these be subsidised?


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Wouldn't you say thats true of diesel and Unleaded? should these be subsidised?




There are alternatives. Public transport, freight rail, working from home ....

What alternatives to electricity ?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> There are alternatives. Public transport, freight rail, working from home ....
> 
> What alternatives to electricity ?



All those things use diesel.

Even electricity requires diesel.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Not really, there are examples of private systems that are much cheaper than a lot of the state owned peers.
> 
> Also, if the government system is cheap because it is being subsidised it's not really cheap.
> 
> Governments have a way of under charging consumers for years, while letting assets depreciate, then when they need to be replaced, they are counted as new investments and funded by new debt, and then those assets get depreciated while consumers are under charged, never actually retuning any "profit" to reduce the loans incurred, thats subsidy.
> 
> Telstra is a good example, over the 20years or so since its been private costs have fallen. Today you pay less than you probably did 20 years ago, and get more.




Is that due to privatisation, or due to the ACCC allowing access to Telstra's infrastructure, which the public paid for.
The overseas companies didn't have the cost of the capital outlay, they just had to install equipment in Telstra exchanges, then they could offer the service at a much reduced price.
To say privatising Telstra drove down prices, is a bit of a con.
In a way the public is being taxed twice, for the infrastructure, they have paid for.
The public paid for Telstras infrastructure, but were receiving a dividend, due to Telstras profits.
The Government sold of Telstra, and allowed overseas telecom companies cheap access, to the existing infrastructure.
Now the public is being taxed again, to replace the privatised infrastructure, so the private companies have a better product to sell back to the public.
So with the NBN, the public are replacing the system they paid for originally, so that the private telco companies don't have to pay for it, sounds like a great scam to me.

It is just another case of "rope the dope".


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> All those things use diesel.
> 
> Even electricity requires diesel.




So your tesla requires diesel?


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> So your tesla requires diesel?




Yeah, if it is being charged with coal fired electricity, the coal won't dig itself up, the diggers and dump trucks are all diesel powered ( for now atleast)

In regards to Telstra, even with twenty years of inflation, calls are cheaper, and they have been paying dividends to share holders for 20 years, while also building mobile phone towers like crazy


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> In regards to Telstra, even with twenty years of inflation, calls are cheaper, and they have been paying dividends to share holders for 20 years, while also building mobile phone towers like crazy




Sounds like the general public were ripped off again, and shareholders walk away laughing.


----------



## Wysiwyg

Smurf1976 said:


> Then there's the human side to it all. It's inevitable that, a few weeks from now, we'll be hearing plenty of stories about people receiving massive electricity or gas bills. Winter is the season of highest total consumption in many areas and with the recent price jumps it's going to have a pretty big impact on many.



Different from State to State. Southern States for sure keeping warm but up here in Qld. Winter time is occasionally cold along the coast. April to October are the least cost period because I don't need a heater. Air cooling conditioners are the largest energy drain in late Spring, Summer and Autumn. Electricity bills can be several hundred more in these months but that is Qld.


> Overall it just saddens me that heating a house, having a hot shower without using an egg timer and cooking dinner is fast becoming a symbol of wealth rather than the taken for granted entitlement it was not too long ago. This just shouldn't be a problem in a country with such an abundance of resources.



When things are cheaper people tend to be even more wasteful than usual so considering energy consumption is generally a good thing I reckon.


> It would be bad enough if the situation had arisen due to unavoidable factors. That it happened for no reason other than the blind pursuit of ideology is just ridiculous.



Yes the gas shortage issue is an oversight. It seems the numbers didn't stack up as far as adequate supply for the new LNG industry.


----------



## SirRumpole

Future battery types...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-...-where-is-our-next-gen-energy-storage/8722670


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> Sounds like the general public were ripped off again, and shareholders walk away laughing.



The general public got lower prices, the government got a big lump of cash, and continues to receive tax income,


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> Yeah, if it is being charged with coal fired electricity, the coal won't dig itself up, the diggers and dump trucks are all diesel powered ( for now atleast)
> 
> In regards to Telstra, even with twenty years of inflation, calls are cheaper, and they have *been paying dividends to share holders for 20 years*, while also building mobile phone towers like crazy




The last few with gifted public money via the snout in trough NBN monopoly granted them by the current ruling class in Canberra. I'm surprised the cost is only twice the original taxpayer estimated contribution. Now if the LNP could only find a national infrastructure bonanza for Myer shares


----------



## Value Collector

I am n


Tisme said:


> The last few with gifted public money via the snout in trough NBN monopoly granted them by the current ruling class in Canberra. I'm surprised the cost is only twice the original taxpayer estimated contribution. Now if the LNP could only find a national infrastructure bonanza for Myer shares



I am not a Telstra or NBN expert, but apparently the NBN build out is putting downward pressure on Telstra dividends.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...e/news-story/db7d31d4fb9250eff096c9f2411367c2


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> I am n
> 
> I am not a Telstra or NBN expert, but apparently the NBN build out is putting downward pressure on Telstra dividends.
> 
> http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...e/news-story/db7d31d4fb9250eff096c9f2411367c2




 Dividends perhaps, but they have an open cheque so the money is going somewhere e.g 

Cormack Foundation Pty Ltd ~$200k


----------



## Smurf1976

Public versus private ownership?

Well we had privately owned gas utilities in the past and they did supply gas quite economically and reliably. AGL wasn't simply another name selling gas in Sydney, at one point they were the entire gas industry and even when natural gas replaced town gas AGL was still the network operator and sole retailer. Likewise there were privately owned gas utilities in Brisbane and in Tasmania.

Now, if we compare AGL's gas pricing 30 years ago, that is just a few years before all the "reform" talk started, you'll find that AGL and their gas monopoly did indeed provide an economical supply of gas to homes and businesses in Sydney.

30 years later and there's at least 7 companies selling gas in Sydney, all of them at prices higher in real terms than that which AGL charged in the past.

The same pattern pops up everywhere. Competition's a great thing where it naturally exists and drives business efficiency but it's a real bitch when it adds an entire suite of additional costs to implement it with no prospect of getting back to where you started. That's the crux of the problem with our gas and electricity industries - SA for example isn't big enough for one electricity company to achieve optimum scale and yet they've got half a dozen. No prizes for guessing it's not working too well.

The problem isn't who owns it as such, the track record in Australia is that proper utilities can operate economically under either private or government ownership. Where it went wrong is when someone came up with the grand idea of slicing and dicing the entire industry to the point where each piece is far too small to be efficient and with a hefty cost overhead to make that whole approach at least function.

It's a case of missing the point really. The point of having competition in the supply of an undifferentiated product or service is to drive down costs, that being the only possible advantage to consumers. It's pointless if implementing it costs more than it saves but thus far our political leaders seem incapable of getting their minds around this.

For the record, the state with the biggest jump in residential and small business gas prices over recent years has been the one with the least scale - Tasmania. Yep, the very same state that the ACCC and government thoughtfully "saved" from the electricity industry's idea of reticulating gas to an area 150% larger than the actual present network in order to increase scale and drive down costs in the gas industry. But no, we can't have the electricity industry also owning gas and so the end result is that only about 15% of the state's households even have the option to use gas, supplied by a company that has nothing to do with electricity of course, and two thirds of those aren't using it anyway because it's just too expensive.

Who owns it is less important than achieving scale and efficient operation. Both government and private ownership have done it cheaper in the past than the present "sliced and diced" structure and that's a national problem not confined to any one state or owner.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> Public versus private ownership?
> 
> Well we had privately owned gas utilities in the past and they did supply gas quite economically and reliably. AGL wasn't simply another name selling gas in Sydney, at one point they were the entire gas industry and even when natural gas replaced town gas AGL was still the network operator and sole retailer. Likewise there were privately owned gas utilities in Brisbane and in Tasmania.
> 
> Now, if we compare AGL's gas pricing 30 years ago, that is just a few years before all the "reform" talk started, you'll find that AGL and their gas monopoly did indeed provide an economical supply of gas to homes and businesses in Sydney.
> 
> 30 years later and there's at least 7 companies selling gas in Sydney, all of them at prices higher in real terms than that which AGL charged in the past.




AGL was in fact the second company to be listed on the stock exchange, and has been a privately owned energy company since 1841, so yes private ownership can provide cheap power.

However I think you are wrong if you think it was adding more retailers that has raised the price of gas.

In fact, it was two different things.

Firstly, AGL spun off their gas transmission business, into a new company called APA (as I said before I have owned for 17 years)

Then apa transformed over time from a company that owned one main pipeline connecting 1 producer to 1 market/customer, to a company owning an east coast grid connecting all major suppliers to all major markets, including export markets via the lng terminals.

If anything has increased the price of gas in Sydney, it's that there is no longer a single market holding a single producer hostage, due to apa's network producers can move their gas anywhere in sa, Vic, nsw, qld and even internationally. 

That's just natural market action, nothing about public vs private.

It also allows a much greater utilization of gas for electricity.


----------



## Tisme

The past of energy generation:

http://blog.lostcollective.com/wangi-power-station-years-gone-by/


----------



## sptrawler

I really can't see how the cost of electricity, to the consumer, is going to be brought under control without direct government intervention.

https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/household-utility-bills-pain-soars-ng-b88542678z

IMO, they need to bite the bullet, admit they were wrong and take control of the problem.


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> I really can't see how the cost of electricity, to the consumer, is going to be brought under control without direct government intervention.
> 
> https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/household-utility-bills-pain-soars-ng-b88542678z
> 
> IMO, they need to bite the bullet, admit they were wrong and take control of the problem.





Well for all the lessons we had in the 80's and 90's about the benefits of vertical integration, the govts saw fit to break it apart and add profit on profit oligopoly stages of production. I'm guessing they had external advisers who stood to gain financial advantage with a such a plan.


----------



## Value Collector

Tisme said:


> Well for all the lessons we had in the 80's and 90's about the benefits of vertical integration, the govts saw fit to break it apart and add profit on profit oligopoly stages of production. I'm guessing they had external advisers who stood to gain financial advantage with a such a plan.



What was the price of a Kilowatt Hour in 1997 vs 2017.

Has it really outpaced inflation that much over that time? I mean a Big Mac was $2.25 in the 90's, now its $5.65, has the price of electricity outpaced the price of Big Macs?

I remember a kilowatt being 12 cents in QLD in the 90's when I was growing up, now my parents are paying 26 cents, am I missing something or is the price inflation no that much more than inflation in most other things?


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> What was the price of a Kilowatt Hour in 1997 vs 2017.
> 
> Has it really outpaced inflation that much over that time? I mean a Big Mac was $2.25 in the 90's, now its $5.65, has the price of electricity outpaced the price of Big Macs?
> 
> I remember a kilowatt being 12 cents in QLD in the 90's when I was growing up, now my parents are paying 26 cents, am I missing something or is the price inflation no that much more than inflation in most other things?




We were never in a position where businesses were going broke over power prices and pensioners can not afford to pay power bills untill now.

Power prices are an input into everything the economy produces or consumes and they need to be controlled before the economy is wrecked.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> We were never in a position where businesses were going broke over power prices




Are you sure about that? electricity is one of the smaller costs most businesses face?

What data do you have that suggests power prices are causing more businesses to go broke now than they have in the past?



> and pensioners can not afford to pay power bills untill now.




Why is that?

Could it be that pensioners have always struggled to Mae ends meet?

Could it be that maybe pensions in general have not kept pace with inflation?

Is it possible that pensioners now live houses with more modern conveniences such as air conditioning are consuming more power?






> Power prices are an input into everything the economy produces or consumes and they need to be controlled before the economy is wrecked.




Didn't really answer my question, have they increased at a rate faster than inflation?

If so, what has been the rate of increase over the last 20 years compared to the general price level of everything else.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Are you sure about that? electricity is one of the smaller costs most businesses face?
> 
> What data do you have that suggests power prices are causing more businesses to go broke now than they have in the past?




You could try doing a bit of research, but here is one for you.

http://www.afr.com/news/politics/co...alling-wholesale-power-prices-20170706-gx5pji


----------



## Country Lad

Value Collector said:


> Didn't really answer my question, have they increased at a rate faster than inflation?




Yes, the average compound annual growth rate of Australian wholesale electricity prices is twice that of CPI over the past 20 years, 5.1% compared to 2.5% and that doesn't allow for the additional ever increasing access fees, way above that of CPI for domestic users.


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> What was the price of a Kilowatt Hour in 1997 vs 2017.





I think you have to factor in consumption increases due to lifestyle changes e.g 20% over that period. There is also comparative pricing on a global scale then and now..., but


----------



## Smurf1976

The crux of it is that the delivered cost of electricity in Australia to consumers has increased both in "real" terms relative to inflation and also relative to other countries.

We used to be third cheapest in the OECD but we're a long way down that list today.

So far as gas is concerned, well it's approaching the point that those running boilers would be better off ditching gas and converting to oil. That's an unheard of concept just about anywhere but it illustrates just how incredibly expensive it has become.

It's not all about wholesale gas prices either. Looking at Sydney as an example, well even if you completely remove the wholesale gas price from the retail price then the retail price today is higher in real terms than it was _including_ the cost of the actual gas in the past. So in other words the total of transmission + distribution + retail is costing far more than it used to and it's much the same elsewhere too.

As for whether or not it matters, for pensioners and lower income earners it most certainly does. Wealth redistribution could fix that but that only passes the cost onto others.

For business the significance of energy varies. There's a few for whom it's the single largest cost but quite often it's between fifth and third. So for most it's more important than (say) communications costs or insurance but it's less than wages for most. For a few big industries though, well given the choice they'd take a 10% pay rise over a 10% power price rise any day since wages are a smaller cost than energy for those operations.

So I ask a question: Does Australia need to compete economically with other countries? If we do then we've got a pretty big problem given that energy was one of our few competitive advantages until we blew it. If we don't need to compete, because we're going back to trade barriers etc, then arguably it's not so important.

Something that cuts across all of this but is usually missed is a simple term. "Resources and energy". Yep, there it is - Resources and energy are two different things. That our politicians failed to grasp the difference is where it all went wrong. Energy is the enabler of all other resources - take that out and the rest is for practical purposes completely useless. 

My personal opinion is that with Australia now being economically uncompetitive at just about everything it won't end well in the longer term.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> As for whether or not it matters, for pensioners and lower income earners it most certainly does. Wealth redistribution could fix that but that only passes the cost onto others.




Well unfortunately, that was the excuse for going to a cost for electricity that reflected actual cost, as opposed to the old model.
The old model was a reasonable cost for elecricity, that was subsidised by the taxpayer, well wouldn't that be the ideal model?
The taxpayer, is someone earning enough to pay tax, the needy don't pay tax?
Where was the problem?
Now we have a situation, where the cost isn't subsidised by the taxpayer and the poor can't afford it.

We certainly have lost our way.
One could say, we are a bunch of dick wits.IMO
Christ knows how politicians get elected, it certainly isn't on an I.Q test.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The old model was a reasonable cost for elecricity, that was subsidised by the taxpayer




That one might vary between states.

Certainly in Tasmania the industry has always paid its' own way in full, the only exception being King and Flinders Islands where electricity has long been sold at a loss as a form of community service given the very high cost of supply there. 

For the other 99% of the state the power industry has always been self funding. Indeed I could point out that over the 103 years of its existence thus far the Hydro has at any point in time been either neutral or a contributor to government revenue. It never was funded by the taxpayer.


----------



## Value Collector

Country Lad said:


> Yes, the average compound annual growth rate of Australian wholesale electricity prices is twice that of CPI over the past 20 years, 5.1% compared to 2.5% and that doesn't allow for the additional ever increasing access fees, way above that of CPI for domestic users.



What about retail price though, as I said I remember the price in the mid 90's being 12cents, and that puts it bang on inflation rate.


----------



## Value Collector

Tisme said:


> I think you have to factor in consumption increases due to lifestyle changes e.g 20% over that period. There is also comparative pricing on a global scale then and now..., but
> 
> View attachment 71984



Yeah I think that's why people feel it more, because they all have air con now, so it's more to do with using more.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> That one might vary between states.
> 
> Certainly in Tasmania the industry has always paid its' own way in full, the only exception being King and Flinders Islands where electricity has long been sold at a loss as a form of community service given the very high cost of supply there.
> 
> For the other 99% of the state the power industry has always been self funding. Indeed I could point out that over the 103 years of its existence thus far the Hydro has at any point in time been either neutral or a contributor to government revenue. It never was funded by the taxpayer.




Yes, sorry smurph, only talking about W.A's sad excuse for going to reflective pricing.
Now that they have moved to reflective pricing, they are now talking about not cross subsidising regional W.A.
Well when I was installing generators in the mid 80's, regional diesel were costing around a $1 a Kw to run, christ knows what they cost now.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> What about retail price though, as I said I remember the price in the mid 90's being 12cents, and that puts it bang on inflation rate.




Read my post, W.A has moved to a cost reflective of supply, not a taxpayer subsidised model.
One would assume other States have moved to the same model, to justify privatisation, private operators aren't going to enter the market, unless they make money.
Therefore the old cross subsidisation model had to go, therefore the old people and the people without money have to pay more, so the private operators can make money.

I can't type it any slower than that.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> Read my post, W.A has moved to a cost reflective of supply, not a taxpayer subsidised model.
> One would assume other States have moved to the same model, to justify privatisation, private operators aren't going to enter the market, unless they make money.
> Therefore the old cross subsidisation model had to go, therefore the old people and the people without money have to pay more, so the private operators can make money.
> 
> I can't type it any slower than that.



I was wondering if any one had some actual data about how much the average person pays per kilowatt now vs 20years ago, and whether this price has outpaced inflation, and it so by how much.

I know electricity prices have gone up, but so has everything, e.g. No more $2.25 Big Macs.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> I was wondering if any one had some actual data about how much the average person pays per kilowatt now vs 20years ago, and whether this price has outpaced inflation, and it so by how much.
> 
> I know electricity prices have gone up, but so has everything, e.g. No more $2.25 Big Macs.



Electricity in W.A has doubled since 2010.
I haven't got a post, but if you want it I can get it, but really as Rumpole said you should do some of your own research before making statements.
It's actually called referencing, otherwise it's just your opinion, which is probably outstanding but confirmation helps.

https://www.finance.wa.gov.au/cms/P...ustralia/Electricity/Electricity_pricing.aspx

Here's a start.


----------



## Smurf1976

I don't have data for all states or all years but way back in 1987 gas in Sydney was about 0.7 cents / MJ as one example. 

General residential electricity in SA was 14.3 cents / kWh about the year 2000. It is roughly 40 cents now and that's getting seriously expensive compared to anywhere (globally) apart from remote areas etc.

Somewhere I've got gas and electricity prices for every state from the 1980's although I don't know where that document is at the moment. I'll see if I can find it.


----------



## sptrawler

I thought when the residential feed in tariff was first introduced at about 50c, that must be the price they thought was cost reflective, of the real price they expected.
They wouldn't just pull a figure out of the air, it must be somewhere near the cost, they expect it to settle at.IMO It had to become cost neutral in the analysis.

So strap yourselves in IMO.

I guess that is the price, where electricity, is a real money making venture.

I have been known to be wrong before on numerous occassions, so as others say, take what I say with a pinch of salt. lol


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> Electricity in W.A has doubled since 2010.
> I haven't got a post, but if you want it I can get it, but really as Rumpole said you should do some of your own research before making statements.
> It's actually called referencing, otherwise it's just your opinion, which is probably outstanding but confirmation helps.
> 
> https://www.finance.wa.gov.au/cms/P...ustralia/Electricity/Electricity_pricing.aspx
> 
> Here's a start.




I remember when I moved from WA to QLD. the bill in Brisbane was less for 90 days than 60 days in Perth. But then again (in QLD) fuel was cheaper, food was cheaper, water was free, hospitals were free, if you smoked cigs they were cheaper, alcohol was cheaper, car rego was a peppercorn by comparison, cops were rarely seen on the roads.....within ten years that all changed as PC and social engineering became the agenda in Australia and worldwide


----------



## Country Lad

I care little about the electricity prices as they were or as they are, my concern is where the industry (and its costs) is going. 

I was involved in the industry immediately after the restructure in Q’ld in the early days in 1998 and we traded half the Q’ld generated capacity.  If you think the restructuring and so called privatisation (which would supposedly drive down costs) was chaotic and really a nonsense, you are lucky you didn’t see it from the inside.

The title of this topic includes “storage” which is going to become the real issue in the short and long term.  The ability to go off grid is going to become easier and cheaper and will severely disrupt the industry.  The participants are not able to come to grips with the consequences except to charge all sorts of access and other fees because it goes past the front door even if you don’t use it.

The disrupters will continue to come out of the woodwork and Tesla et al will see increasing competition from all sorts of new storage methods.

Here is the latest updates from one of those, so keep an eye out for this one when it lists.



> Dear Country Lad,
> 
> I wanted to give you a brief update on 1414 Degrees.
> Our IPO will likely be in the third quarter of this year, rather than June as previously communicated. This will allow us to advance some important projects that have been proposed to us in the past month.
> As you are aware from previous communications, we are still receiving a lot of worldwide interest in our solution, and are currently in discussions with one of the biggest electricity users in South Australia.
> We are also talking with several public and private sector entities across Australia. We are working through these opportunities - it is an exciting time and we look forward to sharing announcements on planned installations.
> We have also released some short videos, explaining more about us, the solution and the impact we want to have.
> You can view these here:
> 
> ·       Why we exist
> 
> ·       The future of energy
> 
> ·       Applications of 1414 Degrees
> 
> ·       How it works
> 
> Thank you for your interest and support.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> *Dr Kevin Moriarty
> Executive Chairman*


----------



## SirRumpole

Infinite life batteries ?

https://theconversation.com/how-to-make-batteries-that-last-almost-forever-79750


----------



## SirRumpole

As if we didn't know...

*ACCC accuses states of price gouging residents over electricity supply*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-...price-gouging-over-electricity-supply/8748766


----------



## orr

Molten salt? Molten Silicon? who's to say?
But this, silicon,  possibility is happening here in South Australia.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/sa-made-silicon-energy-storage-system-ready-close-grid-gap-23607/

And the engineering appears to be far more capable of diffuse deployment/rapid deployment and with free market capital investment... As opposed to say something as cumbersome and bureaucratically compromised  as the proposed reassessment of pumped 2.0 snowy hydro. But fair-play to _Coal-ition, _most  likely though through oversight, they've federally funded this to the tune of $400k....


----------



## Smurf1976

I see that the ANZ is now fretting about rising power bills dampening consumer spending. No surprises there.

http://www.thebull.com.au/articles/a/68584-power-bill-shock-to-drag-retail-lower:-anz.html


----------



## brty

Molten silicon from 1414 degrees has a lot of hype about it due to a IPO float soon. 
At 31% electrical efficiency, it just does not fly compared to Li-on batteries and pumped hydro storage.

Li-on batteries with a long life and at $US100/kwh will likely out compete all others within a few years.
LG sold GM Li-on batteries for the new bolt at $US145/kwh last year, and the price is still dropping rapidly.


----------



## SirRumpole

Where batteries come from.

https://theconversation.com/politically-charged-do-you-know-where-your-batteries-come-from-80886


----------



## SirRumpole

A challenge ahead for the Tesla model 3 says Musk.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-...-cheaper-tesla-electric-car-challenge/8756786


----------



## sptrawler

It will be interesting to see what the story is, when the right hand drive models, start getting produced in 2019.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> A challenge ahead for the Tesla model 3 says Musk.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-...-cheaper-tesla-electric-car-challenge/8756786




Looking forward to getting mine, about 18months away though.

Some interesting info in this video, the Model 3 actually out performs the Volvo in safety.

number of super chargers to triple by end of 2018.

Tesla battery factory now the biggest in the world.

longrange version will get 498 Km's

0 - 100 km/hr in 5.1 seconds


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> Looking forward to getting mine, about 18months away though.
> 
> Some interesting info in this video, the Model 3 actually out performs the Volvo in safety.
> 
> number of super chargers to triple by end of 2018.
> 
> Tesla battery factory now the biggest in the world.
> 
> longrange version will get 498 Km's
> 
> 0 - 100 km/hr in 5.1 seconds





Have been playing around at one of their new premises and the whole concept of a car shell with buggerall parts, smaller workshops, reduced servicing, etc is a great business model.


----------



## Smurf1976

Tisme said:


> Have been playing around at one of their new premises and the whole concept of a car shell with buggerall parts, smaller workshops, reduced servicing, etc is a great business model.



One thing about electrical technologies in general is that they require less (or in many cases no) regular maintenance when compared to the alternatives.

In the case of cars if you look at regular servicing of a conventional petrol / diesel powered car then the service intervals are set primarily due to what the engine needs. Sure, some other bits and pieces of the car get checked at the same time but that's substantially due to convenience. Take out the petrol / diesel engine, put a lot less wear on the brakes due to regenerative braking and all of a sudden you don't actually need to do much to keep the car running.

Not specifically Tesla but for some of the other electric cars the routine service is something that anyone could do. Change the cabin air filter for the air-conditioning and check the wheels and tyres. That's it. Nothing else and you sure don't need to put the car in a workshop all day to do that. 

It's the same with electrical technologies generally. However much maintenance they require it's almost always less than the alternatives require. Eg gas ducted or hydronic heating is supposed to be serviced professionally at least once every 2 years. No such requirement with an electrical heating system however - it's an air filter clean at most and that's an easy DIY job. 

So one consequence of any major move to pure EV's is that we're going to have a lot less jobs maintaining them. That doesn't necessarily affect car manufacturers but it impacts the business model of dealerships in a pretty big way when selling the car becomes their only real line of business unless it actually breaks down which most of them won't.

It's an even bigger impact for independent mechanics. The big dealerships will no doubt get the right staff to maintain electric cars, albeit with far smaller workshops and fewer staff than they need at present, but for the independent guys it's going to be drastically harder to transition to a new business model that only involves fixing things that are actually broken and where reasonably high DC voltages are present.

One thing I'm wary of though is manufacturers or dealers coming up with artificial service requirements as a condition of warranty. There's a few things like that around in other aspects of electrical work so someone will try it as a means of generating physically easy but highly profitable work checking or swapping things that don't really need to be checked or swapped unless actually faulty.


----------



## sptrawler

Electric vehicles, are definitely the future, the energy storage medium is the stumbling block.
Every one and their dog, will be trying 1000%, to come up with the answer.
Now Governments, like the U.K are putting in place time frames, it will happen. The question is when?


----------



## Smurf1976

Not directly related to vehicles but AEMO has done some forecasting recently regarding future maximum and mimimum system loading for centralised generation on the grid (that is, power that needs to be supplied from things other than small solar on houses etc).

The results are interesting and most states are going to have a real problem unless we actually build large scale energy "sinks" to soak up surplus generation at times when it occurs. Without them it's going to be rather hard when you consider that all of SA and most of Vic will be running entirely from solar at times just 20 years from now.

Comparing now with 20 years into the future:

NSW: Maximum demand up 10%, minimum down 54% from the present.

Qld: Maximum demand up 7%, minimum down 29%

Vic: Maximum demand up 3%, minimum down 81.5%

SA: Maximum demand no change, minimum down 191% (that is, it goes negative)

Tas: Maximum demand up 11%, minimum up 9%

So there's a real issue emerging in Vic and SA with small scale generation pumping out so much power that it actually exceeds (SA) or almost matches (Vic) consumption within the entire state even once you include load from factories, electric trains and so on. At the risk of sounding alarmist that's going to make system control one hell of a difficult task unless we build storage (of whatever type).

So far as electric cars are concerned, that raises the prospect that it makes far more sense to charge in the daytime than at night. So we're going to need charging facilities in car parks, including on streets, rather than the idea that they'll be charged overnight at home.

That's not undoable, it just needs to be done. In Paris they already have on-street electric car charging facilities to a limited extent. Park the car, plug it in and leave it. So it can be done certainly.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> So far as electric cars are concerned, that raises the prospect that it makes far more sense to charge in the daytime than at night. So we're going to need charging facilities in car parks, including on streets, rather than the idea that they'll be charged overnight at home.
> 
> That's not undoable, it just needs to be done. In Paris they already have on-street electric car charging facilities to a limited extent. Park the car, plug it in and leave it. So it can be done certainly.




It also brings up a few questions as to standardising plugs, charge voltages and current delivery.
It is all a bit disjointed, somewhat like when mobile phones were brought out, every phone had a different charger, connector and charge voltage.
Actually it is seeming to follow the same path, even though mobile phones have improved in functionality, the battery is still the stumbling block.
I don't want to appear negative, it is just I can see the whole debate being railroaded, the same as coal fired generation. We will be banning fossil fueled cars, before we have a viable alternative, we seem to excel at shooting ourselves in the foot.IMO


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Not directly related to vehicles but AEMO has done some forecasting recently regarding future maximum and mimimum system loading for centralised generation on the grid (that is, power that needs to be supplied from things other than small solar on houses etc).
> 
> The results are interesting and most states are going to have a real problem unless we actually build large scale energy "sinks" to soak up surplus generation at times when it occurs. Without them it's going to be rather hard when you consider that all of SA and most of Vic will be running entirely from solar at times just 20 years from now.
> 
> Comparing now with 20 years into the future:
> 
> NSW: Maximum demand up 10%, minimum down 54% from the present.
> 
> Qld: Maximum demand up 7%, minimum down 29%
> 
> Vic: Maximum demand up 3%, minimum down 81.5%
> 
> SA: Maximum demand no change, minimum down 191% (that is, it goes negative)
> 
> Tas: Maximum demand up 11%, minimum up 9%
> 
> So there's a real issue emerging in Vic and SA with small scale generation pumping out so much power that it actually exceeds (SA) or almost matches (Vic) consumption within the entire state even once you include load from factories, electric trains and so on. At the risk of sounding alarmist that's going to make system control one hell of a difficult task unless we build storage (of whatever type)..




Frequency control will be a nightmare, maybe they will pay people to install airconditioners, to absorb the excess capacity. lol dream on

Actually wouldn't it be nice to install air cons, in the homes of poor people to absorb the excess capacity and provide them warmth in the winter months.
Sounds like a great book.
As someone posted recently, hope springs eternal.
On a serious note, as you say, some serious storage needs to be installed.


----------



## SirRumpole

*Thousands of viable pumped hydro sites in Australia researchers say.*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-03/pumped-hydro-thousands-of-opportunities-australia/8768450


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> *Thousands of viable pumped hydro sites in Australia researchers say.*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-03/pumped-hydro-thousands-of-opportunities-australia/8768450



http://reneweconomy.com.au/batteries-vs-pumped-storage-hydropower-place-87554/


----------



## Value Collector

BP looking to roll out Electric car charging at is service stations.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bp-ceo-idUSKBN1AH4HW


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> *Thousands of viable pumped hydro sites in Australia researchers say.*




There certainly are, no question there whatsoever.

There's a place for batteries certainly but at present the fundamental problem with storage isn't technical but cost. Pumped hydro isn't cheap and batteries cost even more over the long term.

That being so we'd logically use pumped hydro as the backbone and use batteries where they gain additional benefits through addressing network limitations. That is, do what's cheapest.

I personally don't accept the "there's no time" argument as a reason to favour batteries simply because that's just getting someone off the hook for truly crap planning. We know right now that every single coal, gas and oil-fired plant will close and we've even got a reasonable idea as to when that's likely to occur since they do have a finite life. Waiting until it's too late and then going for high cost solutions is the sort of nonsense that happens when politicians have too much say and we'll all end up poorer if we go down that track. With even the cheapest option costing more than we'd like we really can't afford to not keep costs to a minimum.

There's a role for batteries though and that is especially so where network constraints exist. Here in Tas there's a "trial" (permanent as such but the "trial" bit is to assess costs, any technical hassles with a view to wider deployment in the future) using battery storage to overcome constraints in the distribution network. The batteries will replace a diesel generator presently being used for that purpose. That's a good use of batteries certainly.


----------



## Smurf1976

For those who haven't heard the news already, the SA government's power station is to comprise 9 x OCGT's (Open Cycle Gas Turbines) with a combined output of about 275 MW (the actual figure will vary with ambient temperature so that's an approximation).

They're being installed at two sites and will initially be fired with diesel. In the longer term the intention is to put them at a single site and use gas as the fuel but they don't seem to have worked out where to put them in the long term yet.

They're not a guarantee of no blackouts, they can meet less than 9% of the state's peak demand, but certainly they'll help close the gap and reduce the risk very substantially.

Fuel consumption I haven't seen the actual specs but it would be roughly 70,000 litres of diesel per hour with all 9 units at full output.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> For those who haven't heard the news already, the SA government's power station is to comprise 9 x OCGT's (Open Cycle Gas Turbines)




Why wouldn't they use a combined cycle system ? 

Aren't they more efficient ? 

Cost ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Why wouldn't they use a combined cycle system ?
> 
> Aren't they more efficient ?
> 
> Cost ?



Combined cycle results in about 50% more output from the same fuel so it's far more efficient yes.

Downsides are several however:

1. Less flexible in operation. Slower ramp up and down.

2. Very much more expensive to build.

3. Zero chance of getting it built in time for next Summer due to the substantial on-site work required verus the literally trailer mounted OCGT's being used.

4. It's not impossible but is somewhat problematic to fire diesel in a CCGT. Doable yes but there's risks with soot going through the HRSG (Heat Recovery Steam Generator) such that gas is the preferred fuel.

Given the intent is to not run them very often the approach does make sense. 

Where it fails however is, as I've said previously, the lack of a co-ordinated approach across the industry.

SA already has diesel engines in the grid. They already have OCGT's both gas-fired and diesel-fired. It would be more rational to build a new CCGT and use the existing plant for peaking but because there's zero co-operation between the SA government, AGL, Alinta, Origin and others that's not happening so we end up with a less efficient, higher cost and more polluting outcome.

So we've got AGL and their proposal, Alinta with theirs and the SA government with theirs. All smallish and sub-optimal. The smartest move would be to combine the three into one proper power station incorporating some of Origin's existing generation into that as well. 

That makes absolute sense from an engineering perspective as a means to drive efficiency and minimise costs but it's at odds with prevailing economic theories and would have the ACCC up in arms big time.


----------



## Wysiwyg

Someone may have already posted this but going on what this company states, salt for energy storage is the best method.  Can someone ring the Premier of S.A. and advise him. On a side note, congrats. to Elon Musk for reaping millions from the early adoption fanatics. http://www.solarreserve.com/en/technology/molten-salt-energy-storage


----------



## Smurf1976

In response to posts in another thread which mentioned the closure of Liddell power station (NSW) in 2022 I thought it would be useful to put it all into perspective in terms of the impact of these closures.

So I've listed for each relevant National Electricity Market state the year of maximum installed generating capacity and deemed this to be 100% as the starting point. Subsequent years indicate what % of that capacity is expected to still be working at that time.

All years are as at 31 December and all plant ratings are based on Summer conditions which take the impact of higher temperatures into account.

I have also indicated the basis of projections. It's either actual historic data, is based on what has been publicly announced or is my estimate. Since the vast majority of generation owners have not announced their long term intentions to anyone, a degree of crystal ball gazing is unavoidable and for that I have assumed that each generating unit operates for its full technical life and performs in the manner typically expected for that type of equipment in terms of lifespan.

So the figures are the % of "original" (pre-closures) capacity still operating by that time.

NSW:
2011 = 100%
2017 = 85% (so 15% of the capacity we had in the peak year, 2011, is now closed)
2022 = 75% (based on publicly announced closures)
2029 = 67% (my estimate)
2034 = 50% (my estimate)
2035 = 35% (part of which is due to publicly announced closures)
2043 = 27% (the end of coal-fired generation in NSW in the absence of new plant being built)

Qld:
2010 = 100% (actual)
2017 = 93% (actual)
2018 = 96% (publicly announced)
2021 = 95% (publicly announced)
2026 = 82% (my estimate)
2034 = 70% (my estimate)
2038 = 65% (my estimate)
2043 = 53% (my estimate)

Vic:
2010 = 100% (actual)
2017 = 82% (actual)
2019 = 83% (publicly announced)
2023 = 77% (my estimate based on condition of a particular plant that's very widely rumoured in the industry but not publicly announced)
2030 = 72% (my estimate)
2031 = 66% (my estimate)
2034 = 61% (my estimate)
2035 = 56% (my estimate)
2036 = 51% (my estimate)
2038 = 46% (my estimate)
2039 = 45% (my estimate)
2040 = 43% (my estimate)
2043 = 38% (my estimate)
2046 = 33% (my estimate and the end of coal-fired generation in Vic - for the record AGL has publicly announced "by 2050" which broadly aligns with my attempt to be more precise)

SA:
2010 = 100%
2016 = 79% (actual, noted due to the well known problems)
2017 = 91% (due to the new diesel-fired gas turbines and battery)
2019 = 90% (publicly announced)
2021 = 87% (my estimate)
2023 = 83% (my estimate)
2027 = 78% (my estimate)
2029 = 72% (my estimate)
2031 = 67% (my estimate)
2033 = 58% (my estimate)
2038 = 56% (my estimate)
2044 = 54% (my estimate)

In the context of all that I will point out that any _economical_ replacement will take typically 5 - 15 years to go from concept to generation. Certainly things like diesels can be done quickly but that's a sure fire way to go broke with the running costs.

SA with its large wind and solar resources, modest demand most of the time and potential for individual pumped hydro schemes (or anything else) to make a meaningful impact is perhaps in the best position when it comes to finding a way forward.

At the other extreme NSW has one almighty problem to sort out if they don't want to end up either in the dark or spending $ billions on diesel fuel. Two thirds of all present generating capacity gone in 20 or so years and most of what remains is peaking plant not capable of sustained high output anyway. So they're pretty much starting from scratch, rebuilding the entire industry, and without the wind resources that SA has which is only going to make it harder.

I left WA and NT out of the list since they're not part of the NEM. I left Tas out since there are no likely plant closures in that state over the next 30 years apart from possibly some gas-fired plant which may become redundant (not worn out but simply redundant - it's a plausible outcome).

As a summary of it all:

Vic and SA = in trouble now.

SA is sort-of buying its way out, at high cost, assuming they can actually pull off their "closing the border" approach and that everything works 100% perfectly at a technical level. In practice they'll still have problems just nowhere near as often.

Vic doing pretty much nothing and that's where the next crisis is likely to be.

NSW OK for the moment but in serious **** five years from now and there's not enough time left to fix that in an economical manner. It's no secret that Liddell is patched up and limping along as it is so delaying the closure isn't a likely option. That's assuming it actually makes it through to 2022 of course - it's not in good shape that's no secret.

Qld is a decade away from any major problems but all that means is there's just enough time to build a solution if we get on with it ASAP.

Not much to worry about in WA as long as the gas keeps flowing and the coal mines don't go broke. That bit about mines going broke is serious by the way - it's a risk certainly.

NT all good as long as they've got gas to run their power stations with.

Tas all good as long as it rains.

Biggest problem with it all is the complete lack of planning.

Northern (SA) had another 20 years left in it when it closed. It wasn't old by any measure.

Anglesea (Vic) could have gone at least another 5 years.

Wallerawang (NSW) was big, 1000 MW, and could have gone another 10 - 15 years pretty easily but it was closed instead.

Fail to plan = plan to fail.


----------



## SirRumpole

Jay Wetherill seems to have done an about face; from a clean energy target to a secure energy target, but obviously there are detractors.

It's well above my pay grade, maybe Smurf can explain it all...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-08/sas-energy-plan-wont-reduce-prices,-industry-says/8786308


----------



## Smurf1976

In short the SA government is trying to guarantee the viability of synchronous generation within SA by forcing retailers to buy 36% of their power from such sources.

Synchronous generation? In practice that's what most people understand to be a "conventional" power station. Coal, gas, oil, hydro, nuclear - all use synchronous machines. So it's not wind or solar and they're not including power supplied from synchronous sources interstate either.

My view is that it's a clumsy workaround at best. Using laws in order to force the market to deliver one aspect of an engineering requirement but not the rest.

As for the cost, well the basic premise is forcing the use of high cost generation in place of lower cost generation. In the short term at least that pushes prices up not down but the SA government's hope seems to be that it avoids more closures and thus may keep prices lower in the long term.

It's a workaround to the reality that government can't, or at least won't, tell the generation owners to not shut down and walk away.

My view is that the engineering aspects need to come first and the market and economic theories adjusted to fit around that. The trouble there is, of course, politics and ideology which places engineering well down the list of priorities and which lead to the mess in the first place.


----------



## Value Collector

Two interesting videos regarding batteries.

part 1 Chemistry



Part 2 Engineering


----------



## Wysiwyg

Bird and insect kills from irradiance.


----------



## Value Collector

Wysiwyg said:


> Bird and insect kills from irradiance.





Poor little fellas.

I have actually driven past that tower, it's located on the drive between Las Vegas and LA.

I stopped to take a photo, and if you look at the top of the tower for to long you get sore eyes, it's a pretty intense amount of light being reflected up on those things.


----------



## qldfrog

http://interestingengineering.com/concrete-gravity-trains-may-solve-energy-storage-problem/
interesting, could be more applicable to Australia actually, when you look at the Toowomba range or any of the great dividing range to coast road-> and we can have rail easily done regarless of water scarity;
Smurf-> would also provide regulation/restart capacity no?
And can be automated....obviously friction, wear and tears etc but maybe not be that stupid, think about the way your great grandfather wall clocks were powered....


----------



## SirRumpole

qldfrog said:


> http://interestingengineering.com/concrete-gravity-trains-may-solve-energy-storage-problem/
> interesting, could be more applicable to Australia actually, when you look at the Toowomba range or any of the great dividing range to coast road-> and we can have rail easily done regarless of water scarity;
> Smurf-> would also provide regulation/restart capacity no?
> And can be automated....obviously friction, wear and tears etc but maybe not be that stupid, think about the way your great grandfather wall clocks were powered....




No big deal, its still using gravity to generate power, only pushing concrete uphill instead of water.

With pumped hydro though, if rain fills up the storage you essentially get free power, I don't see a concrete equivalent of that.


----------



## basilio

I am impressed with the concrete trains concept of storing and reproducing energy. It would be interesting to see independent analysis of the companies figures and comparison with alternatives.

I think various pumped energy solutions will depend on the physical geography of locations. It sounds like the Nevada location is well suited to this particular application.


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> No big deal, its still using gravity to generate power, only pushing concrete uphill instead of water.
> 
> With pumped hydro though, if rain fills up the storage you essentially get free power, I don't see a concrete equivalent of that.



true, but we often have a power issue here in Oz so that is one way around, obviously, given the choice, hydro is much better, but with rail, you do not have to wait for 10y of green tape


----------



## qldfrog

basilio said:


> I am impressed with the concrete trains concept of storing and reproducing energy. It would be interesting to see independent analysis of the companies figures and comparison with alternatives.
> 
> I think various pumped energy solutions will depend on the physical geography of locations. It sounds like the Nevada location is well suited to this particular application.



with rail, you need space, pb with water, and not too high a slope..which is what we have here
a modern clockwork mecanism..so my interest


----------



## SirRumpole

A very interesting development.

*Solar thermal power plant announced for Port Augusta 'biggest of its kind in the world'*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-...r-plant-announcement-for-port-augusta/8804628


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> A very interesting development.
> 
> *Solar thermal power plant announced for Port Augusta 'biggest of its kind in the world'*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-...r-plant-announcement-for-port-augusta/8804628




20% less cost per unit



> The Government will pay a maximum of $78 per megawatt hour.
> 
> Govt says solar thermal was the cheapest offer by far. @JayWeatherill says new coal stations can’t be built for under $100MWh


----------



## Smurf1976

From a technical perspective if it moves or gets hot then it can be used to produce electricity.

So using trains to store energy is certainly doable, no question about that, since once moved up hill they'll come back down due to gravity and return most of the energy used to push them up hill in the first place (80% or so). So it's the same concept as pumped hydro albeit with a very different form and means of moving the physical mass required to make it work but it's ultimately the same principle being applied. Concrete on rails versus water in penstocks but it's still just a physical mass being moved up hill then back down.

One thing though would be durability. Hydro is among the most durable things built by man. There's plenty of old hydro stations still happily roaring away today ("roaring" being an appropriate term since the old machinery isn't exactly quiet). Lake Margaret is 103 years old and Tarraleah (both in Tas) is 79 years old and both still run base load today. Build it properly to start with, do proper maintenance on it and it's incredibly durable.

Railways aren't too bad in that regard but they're higher maintenance than hydro certainly.

It's an interesting concept though and there are certainly places where something based on trains could be built where pumped hydro couldn't and vice versa. AS with all this, cost will be what it comes down to in terms of viability.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> A very interesting development.
> 
> *Solar thermal power plant announced for Port Augusta 'biggest of its kind in the world'*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-...r-plant-announcement-for-port-augusta/8804628




A few questions jump out, like is there 8 hours of storage, when it is running?
What happens on overcast days? How much is it de rated.
Well at least S.A is making the big gambles, it will be a good test bed.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> A few questions jump out, like is there 8 hours of storage, when it is running?



I assume it will operate in much the same way as a hydro scheme with limited storage.

Eg Trevallyn (Tas) has only minimal storage in Lake Trevallyn. 8 GL of water stored with an average daily inflow of a bit over 5 GL. So not much storage relative to inflows.

If it's raining a lot then Trevallyn runs base load. If it's dry then it runs for peak load only. Run it during business hours but not overnight when flows are in between the extremes. And if there's an outright flood well then the rest goes over the top of the dam and half of Launceston turns up to take photos (it's a pretty spectacular sight downstream in the Gorge with a decent flood going through).

End result is it never runs dry and the power station can always operate at full capacity during demand peaks if required. All that changes is the daily energy output and that is balanced using other parts of the system with larger storages (eg Gordon has 30% of system storage, it stores 2.5 years of average inflows, and thus runs hard when it's dry and is used for peak load only (and then only if demand is high enough to need it) when it's wet.

Same basic concept would apply to the solar thermal I expect with the only real difference being that the balance is being met by gas-fired generation rather than drawing on another storage as is done with hydro but it's the same concept on an individual power station basis. Always run for the peaks and use whatever energy is available beyond that at other times.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I assume it will operate in much the same way as a hydro scheme with limited storage.
> 
> Eg Trevallyn (Tas) has only minimal storage in Lake Trevallyn. 8 GL of water stored with an average daily inflow of a bit over 5 GL. So not much storage relative to inflows.
> 
> If it's raining a lot then Trevallyn runs base load. If it's dry then it runs for peak load only. Run it during business hours but not overnight when flows are in between the extremes. And if there's an outright flood well then the rest goes over the top of the dam and half of Launceston turns up to take photos (it's a pretty spectacular sight downstream in the Gorge with a decent flood going through).
> 
> End result is it never runs dry and the power station can always operate at full capacity during demand peaks if required. All that changes is the daily energy output and that is balanced using other parts of the system with larger storages (eg Gordon has 30% of system storage, it stores 2.5 years of average inflows, and thus runs hard when it's dry and is used for peak load only (and then only if demand is high enough to need it) when it's wet.
> 
> Same basic concept would apply to the solar thermal I expect with the only real difference being that the balance is being met by gas-fired generation rather than drawing on another storage as is done with hydro but it's the same concept on an individual power station basis. Always run for the peaks and use whatever energy is available beyond that at other times.




So if it is running at MCR all day, would there be 8 hours of storage, when the sun goes down?

On an overcast day, what would be the output and what would be the reserve capacity, when the sun goes down?

Will it be just another scam perpetrated on S.A, at a huge cost? 
I hope not, it will have far reaching ramifications for the Greenies, if it all turns out to be a joke.
Seriously it seems that S.A is becoming a test bed, the initial post commented on the cost of molten salt vs coal. What has to be remembered, S.A just knocked over a fully functioning coal fired power station.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> A very interesting development.
> 
> *Solar thermal power plant announced for Port Augusta 'biggest of its kind in the world'*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-...r-plant-announcement-for-port-augusta/8804628




These solar thermal plants often still use a fair bit of natural gas, they use gas to kick start them as the sun comes up, and then as the sun goes down, and also on cloudy days.


Not a big problem, because over all it's less carbon intensive than pure gas plants, I just thought it's an interesting point.

http://theconversation.com/if-a-solar-plant-uses-natural-gas-is-it-still-green-50046


----------



## Wysiwyg

Value Collector said:


> These solar thermal plants often still use a fair bit of natural gas, they use gas to kick start them as the sun comes up, and then as the sun goes down, and also on cloudy days.
> 
> 
> Not a big problem, because over all it's less carbon intensive than pure gas plants, I just thought it's an interesting point.
> 
> http://theconversation.com/if-a-solar-plant-uses-natural-gas-is-it-still-green-50046



Ivanpah doesn't have storage.

http://helioscsp.com/brightsource-i...oure-going-to-see-storage-in-future-projects/


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> These solar thermal plants often still use a fair bit of natural gas, they use gas to kick start them as the sun comes up, and then as the sun goes down, and also on cloudy days.
> 
> 
> Not a big problem, because over all it's less carbon intensive than pure gas plants, I just thought it's an interesting point.
> 
> http://theconversation.com/if-a-solar-plant-uses-natural-gas-is-it-still-green-50046




That makes a bit more sense, thanks for the post Value Collector.
Using gas to prewarm and keep the medium heated, makes sense, but could be costly.
However, cycling steam turbines, has its own issues as steam temps have to be kept within limits.
My guess, after your post is once the thing is running, it keeps running. The long term costs will be interesting, I think everyone is buying the dream, reality may not live up to it, time will tell.
The other issue of course is cleaning the solar panels, I know they have vibrating technology, but with the dust from the Flinders Ranges I think it will create a lot of cleaning jobs.LOL


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## SirRumpole

Coal cheaper than renewables ?

Yes and no.

https://theconversation.com/factche...per-than-renewables-as-an-energy-source-81263


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Coal cheaper than renewables ?
> 
> Yes and no.
> 
> https://theconversation.com/factche...per-than-renewables-as-an-energy-source-81263




The problem with the article is, it doesn't factor in the cost of building synchronous generation, that is required for frequency control when using wind. 
With coal that backup isn't required, if they are going to compare apples with apples, it should be in the cost base analysis.


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## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The problem with the article is, it doesn't factor in the cost of building synchronous generation, that is required for frequency control when using wind.
> With coal that backup isn't required, if they are going to compare apples with apples, it should be in the cost base analysis.




So what do you think that would add to the $kwH price for wind ?


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> So what do you think that would add to the $kwH price for wind ?



It would be dependent on a few factors, the load/size of the network, the amount of renewable capacity installed and what percentage is dispatched as a safe maximum.
Then it would depend on the type and size, of synchronous spinning reserve, you choose to install.


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## basilio

The commissioning of a cost competitive solar thermal power station looks like a milestone in moving away from the gross pollution of coal fired stations.
Perhaps it's worth recognising one of the big reasons (and certainly not the main one)  to retire coal in power generation.

* Australian coal-power pollution would be illegal in US, Europe and China – report *
Environmental Justice Australia report says Australian coal-fired power plants regularly exceed lax limits imposed on them




A representative of Victoria’s Yallourn power plant, pictured, told the EPA it did not report when pollution levels were exceeded. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images


*Shares*
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Tuesday 15 August 2017 04.00 AEST   Last modified on Tuesday 15 August 2017 07.25 AEST

Australian coal-fired power stations produce levels of toxic air pollution that would be illegal in the US, Europe and China, and regularly exceed even the lax limits imposed on them with few or no consequences, according to an investigation by Environmental Justice Australia.

The report reveals evidence that operators of coal power plants in Australia have been gaming the systems that monitor the deadly pollution, while others have reported figures the federal government says are not reliable.

EJA’s investigation reveals further cases of allegedly misleading behaviour. In Victoria, regulators are investigating one case in which a representative of a coal power plant allegedly said it regularly “simplifies” reporting during periods of excessive pollution by just reporting the figure allowed by its licence, rather than the actual amount.

Pollution from coal power plants kills hundreds of people each year in Australia. In Sydney alone, about 130 premature deaths are thought to be caused each year by coal-fired power stations, with worse impacts in regions near the stations.

Nationally, the health effects from the pollution emitted by coal-fired power plants are estimated to cost $2.6bn – a figure that would amount to $13.20 a megawatt hour if it were added to power costs.
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ould-be-illegal-in-us-europe-and-china-report


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## Smurf1976

I'm unconvinced that it's killing people in Sydney given that the nearest coal-fired power station is rather a long way away and there are a lot more significant air pollution sources within Sydney itself.

Find some old photo of Hazelwood, Yallourn etc and you'll see very clearly that the SECV did reduce emissions over the years very considerably. Needless to say once it was all sold off the new owners weren't so interested in that sort of thing as it's a cost which produces no revenue.

It's sad when you consider that at various times NSW and Vic were both world leaders in this area. Still would be if the old research labs and so on still existed.

Here's an old photo of Yallourn showing, from left to right, C, B, A, D & E stations all in operation. Vic government photo from 1964. Note the two stacks on the right, that's E station and almost new when that photo was taken showing that things were getting cleaner as technology improved. 

http://www.victorianplaces.com.au/s...ked/public/exhibits/JYB0207.jpg?itok=B3ljWnrT


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## Smurf1976

Tasmania has decided to boost large scale renewable (hydro and wind) generation by 10% as a priority.

It's somewhat of a triumph politically to have a situation in any policy area with Labor, Liberal and the Greens all on the same page. It's an even bigger one given that it involves the power industry.

The details of how to do it are still being worked out but the short answer is more wind and hydro since those are the resources we've got with substantial potential at an affordable cost.

At an organisation level there's also a lot of acknowledgement within Hydro Tas that there's a need to better communicate all this to the general public. Letting the public have a look inside power stations, running traveling exhibitions, printing books and making films is one thing but that hasn't been enough since it only reaches those keen to know and with time to spare. There's a real need to get the message across to the rest of the community as to how such an incredibly complex system actually works and what's being done to ensure the lights stay on into the future.

So SA has their plan to fix their problems, Tas is doing OK anyway but has a plan to make sure it stays that way. Meanwhile Victoria seems to be blissfully unaware that they're staring down the barrel of a crisis with NSW next in line. Interesting times.


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## SirRumpole

Electric cars on Australian roads- viable ?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-21/can-electric-cars-go-the-distance-on-aussie-roads/8827926


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## qldfrog

https://www.wired.com/story/bill-joy-finds-the-jesus-battery
could be the revolution we needed battery wise:remove need for liquid in battery replacing it by a 'plastic"-> far far less wear, less fire and safety risk and allow rechargeable batteries made from less expensive material; could be a deal breaker especially for static application: a big but cheap and going forever battery in each house/flat, massive storage capacity on the grid
.wait and see


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## sptrawler

At least the article was honest about the limitations of batteries, as we know them. I think your last statement is accurate "wait and see". Batteries have to move away from chemical reaction, how that is done, is the $60B question. IMO


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## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> At least the article was honest about the limitations of batteries, as we know them. I think your last statement is accurate "wait and see". Batteries have to move away from chemical reaction, how that is done, is the $60B question. IMO



by moving away from liquid, we are half way there.in a (remote...) way in a semi conductor, you have a chemical reaction (exchange of electron from one atom to the other) so chemistry is not bad in itself;
The point they do not mention is the interface behaviour between that solid conductor and the various metallic components of the battery.I would expect some "wear"(pollution there) but not my domain of expertise.


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## Smurf1976

I've dealt with plenty of different battery types over the years and they all have something in common. They work just fine until the inevitable happens - either capacity is lost or one or more cells fail completely.

If someone can come up with a practical, light weight, safe and truly durable battery then that will be right up there with electricity itself as a real game changer. No doubt about that.


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## Smurf1976

Tamar Valley combined cycle gas turbine plant in Tasmania is planned to be started up tomorrow and placed in base load service for an extended period (no date is set but it's likely to be well into 2018).

The reason is a purely commercial decision. Tasmania doesn't have a problem supplying power without it under present circumstances but in view of gas and electricity prices in Victoria it's expected to be profitable hence being done.

The practical effect is that Tas will supply more power to Vic than would otherwise have been the case. There's some complexity there in how that comes about, since Basslink can be fully loaded Tas to Vic during the Summer peaks with or without running Tamar Valley CCGT, but it will increase average northbound flow. Tamar Valley CCGT is significantly more fuel efficient than any gas-fired plant in Vic or SA so has an advantage over others due to that.

In other happenings in the power industry, Delta Electricity is planning to build a 45 MW solar farm next to the existing 1320 MW Vales Point coal-fired power station in NSW. They've engaged Entura (Hydro Tas) on a commercial basis to progress the engineering of the project and are presently planning to start construction next year. It's not huge obviously but it's another step.


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## SirRumpole

Turnbull tries to keep Liddell open.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-...-keep-liddell-coal-power-station-open/8874874


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Turnbull tries to keep Liddell open.



He'll need a lot of luck to make that work.

Liddell is akin to an elderly person reliant on a walking frame to get about and an assortment of drugs to keep them alive. They might be around 5 years from now but 10 is seriously pushing it. There's a fair bit of speculation that it might not even make it to 2022 given how it's going at the moment and in the recent past. If it does then it'll be like the marathon runner who falls over the finish line and collapses in a heap, it's not going to run another few km just for fun that's for sure.

Liddell is 46 years old now and from an engineering perspective pretty much at end of life. Much the same problems that Hazelwood had in a technical sense and would cost serious $ to properly fix. The plant has officially been de-rated from 2000 MW to 1800 MW but struggles to get much over 1600 MW and then only if all 4 units are actually running. Suffice to say the load shedding in NSW earlier this year was directly because Liddell fell in a heap on those days.

Wallerawang (1000 MW) was in better shape. Newer, two units commissioned in 1976 and 1980, and in overall better condition. It has been permanently closed however.

Redbank was much smaller (150 MW) but the newest coal-fired plant in NSW. It too has been closed.

Munmorah is undergoing demolition but had 2 x 350 MW units not run since about 1990 and in good shape since they were commissioned in 1967 so hadn't had a huge amount of use. They would have needed new emissions controls fitted to meet modern standards but it could have been done. Too late now though since the stacks have been blown up and the rest is being demolished along with the other two units that were still running until a few years ago.

Smithfield was a gas-fired plant (171) MW and closed just a few weeks ago. Another one gone in NSW.

So roughly the same amount of capacity as Liddell has been scrapped in NSW in recent years, all of it in better shape than Liddell is. Now there's panic and trying to keep Liddell open. 

From that ABC report I note it mentions imminent problems in Vic and SA this coming Summer.

It's the old practice of slowly changing the language. Everyone was trying to say it would be OK just a few months ago but now there's warnings of blackouts. No surprise there, it's just the old practice of slowly changing the language and letting the bad news out to the masses.

Whether or not Vic has a problem this Summer really does depend on the weather. If it's hot and still then there's a problem. But if there's no heatwave, or it's windy when it does get hot, then the system will scrape through so long as nothing breaks. It's a gamble.


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## Tisme

Smurf1976 said:


> He'll need a lot of luck to make that work.
> 
> Liddell is akin to an elderly person reliant on a walking frame to get about and an assortment of drugs to keep them alive. .




The owners are an Aged Care home getting every penny out of the old girl before she keels over?


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## sptrawler

The way things are going over East, the major power suppliers, will be paid to put in plant. lol

What a mess we have made of things, from one of the cheapest Countries for electricity to one of the dearest, in such a short period of time.
We are certainly doing a great job, of screwing a Country, but don't worry we will sort out gay marriage, maybe.


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## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> We are certainly doing a great job, of screwing a Country.




Yep, when governments handed over to private companies the rights to an essential service things headed downhill fast.

Governments should accept that it's their responsibility to provide essential services and go back to building and running generation and distribution.


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## SirRumpole

SirRumpole said:


> Yep, when governments handed over to private companies the rights to an essential service things headed downhill fast.




Hazlewood - sold by Liberal Premier Jeff Kennett
Liddell         - sold by Liberal Premier Mike Baird

And I keep hearing that idiot Turnbull going on about "ideological" blunders by the Labor Party, what a hypocrite.


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Hazlewood - sold by Liberal Premier Jeff Kennett
> Liddell         - sold by Liberal Premier Mike Baird
> 
> And I keep hearing that idiot Turnbull going on about "ideological" blunders by the Labor Party, what a hypocrite.




Stupidity doesn't appear to be party specific.
Labor in S.A and Victoria allowed the power stations to be knocked over, if they were worried they could have bought them and kept them running.
It was only one post earlier, you were suggesting just that, they could have got them for a song, then run them as a State enterprise.
But that would have been too smart, better to let everyone believe they are not needed and sell the Labor/Green dream.


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## Smurf1976

Tisme said:


> The owners are an Aged Care home getting every penny out of the old girl before she keels over?



I don't doubt the technical competence of the owners (AGL) but ultimately Liddell is already at the point where it's worn out and struggling to keep going.

They did a patch up last year but still struggled to keep it going when the weather got hot. Half the plant failed outright, the other half couldn't get up to full capacity, and load shedding in NSW was the result.

Right now Liddell is three quarters operational as such. Of the 3 (of 4) units operating they're running at 84% of capacity and that's as hard as they're able to push it really. 

Going forward unit 2 (idle at present) will run again yes but others will have outages. And there's no chance they'll push it up to full output even in an emergency. It just can't get there and if it did then there's a fair chance of bad things happening. It's not in good shape.

It's not the only one in that situation. Torrens Island A (SA, 4 x 120 MW) has similar problems and has also been patched up. It also wasn't fully operational during the load shedding last Summer although the individual units can and do still reach full capacity when they're running. Just don't count on it being reliable (a point that AGL themselves have noted publicly to the point that they're not confident they'll _ever_ get the whole Torrens Island station up to full capacity all at once ever again).

There's also some unconfirmed but widespread rumours that another significant power station in NSW / Vic / SA (I'm intentionally not naming it) has much the same problems rapidly approaching and that a Hazelwood style rapid exit is a plausible outcome.

So far as major plant overhauls and maintenance are concerned, well suffice to say that Snowy and Hydro Tas are really the only two that actually do complete plant overhauls and bring everything up to "like new" condition on a routine basis. The others tend to be shorter outages to meet regulatory requirements (inspection of pressure vessels etc) or fixing things once they break. That said, at least AGL do seem to have a pretty good idea as to the condition of their plants and are willing to make that information public.

Engie are going to do some major works at Loy Yang B to get a bit more capacity out of it but that's about it really so far as that sort of thing is concerned.


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## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I don't doubt the technical competence of the owners (AGL) but ultimately Liddell is already at the point where it's worn out and struggling to keep going.
> 
> They did a patch up last year but still struggled to keep it going when the weather got hot. Half the plant failed outright, the other half couldn't get up to full capacity, and load shedding in NSW was the result.
> 
> Right now Liddell is three quarters operational as such. Of the 3 (of 4) units operating they're running at 84% of capacity and that's as hard as they're able to push it really.
> 
> Going forward unit 2 (idle at present) will run again yes but others will have outages. And there's no chance they'll push it up to full output even in an emergency. It just can't get there and if it did then there's a fair chance of bad things happening. It's not in good shape.
> 
> It's not the only one in that situation. Torrens Island A (SA, 4 x 120 MW) has similar problems and has also been patched up. It also wasn't fully operational during the load shedding last Summer although the individual units can and do still reach full capacity when they're running. Just don't count on it being reliable (a point that AGL themselves have noted publicly to the point that they're not confident they'll _ever_ get the whole Torrens Island station up to full capacity all at once ever again).
> 
> There's also some unconfirmed but widespread rumours that another significant power station in NSW / Vic / SA (I'm intentionally not naming it) has much the same problems rapidly approaching and that a Hazelwood style rapid exit is a plausible outcome.
> 
> So far as major plant overhauls and maintenance are concerned, well suffice to say that Snowy and Hydro Tas are really the only two that actually do complete plant overhauls and bring everything up to "like new" condition on a routine basis. The others tend to be shorter outages to meet regulatory requirements (inspection of pressure vessels etc) or fixing things once they break. That said, at least AGL do seem to have a pretty good idea as to the condition of their plants and are willing to make that information public.
> 
> Engie are going to do some major works at Loy Yang B to get a bit more capacity out of it but that's about it really so far as that sort of thing is concerned.




As you said a while back smurph, life is going to get interesting and expensive, on the East Coast.
It sounds as though a bit of panic is setting in, as the severity of the situation, starts to dawn on the pollies.
The power companies don't appear to care, I also guess, they can only win from any crisis.


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Stupidity doesn't appear to be party specific.




Liberals are know it all meddlers whereas Labor tends to rely on the advice of department heads and the like. 

There's also a difference in the approach to financial management. Labor tends to openly borrow money. Liberal tends to raid internal accounts, delay things are so on and hides the deficit. The net effect is much the same, all that differs is visible (Labor) versus hidden (Liberal).

Those are the main differences I've observed and I've seen enough to know.


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> As you said a while back smurph, life is going to get interesting and expensive



Yep. 

I've said plenty about it on this forum well before it became mainstream news. I'm no genius but it's not exactly rocket science to add up the capacity of all generating plant, compare that to consumption and realise it's not going to work.

Thankfully WA, NT, Tas and for the short term at least Qld are in decent shape but things aren't going to go too well in Vic and SA that's for sure and there's not a lot of hope to fix it in NSW either before the clock runs out.


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## Tisme

QLd govt has secured a deal with Shell to provide gas to an idle 385MW station (that's right QLD has excess capacity) Swanbank E, to bolster summer load.


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## sptrawler

Maybe everyone is getting ahead of themselves, or maybe just a speed bump, on the highway of life.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-07/battery-scheme-under-the-spotlight/8883330

It's o.k to replace stuff, when there isn't many with it, i wonder what will happen in a couple of years if the gear isn't compatible?
Maybe this is a bellwether.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-05/sa-power-customers-to-miss-compensation/8499414


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## Smurf1976

Tisme said:


> QLd govt has secured a deal with Shell to provide gas to an idle 385MW station (that's right QLD has excess capacity) Swanbank E, to bolster summer load.



Qld's strategy has their state-owned generation pursuing volume rather than price. No doubt that's not impressing their privately owned rivals but it's keeping prices a bit lower and results in Qld supplying quite a lot into NSW.

Qld and Tas are both propping up NSW, Vic and SA so far peak generating capacity is concerned although there's a limit to how far that can really go given the limits of transmission between states.

As with any dependency, have no doubt that the suppliers won't be losing money in the long run.


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## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Qld's strategy has their state-owned generation pursuing volume rather than price. No doubt that's not impressing their privately owned rivals but it's keeping prices a bit lower and results in Qld supplying quite a lot into NSW.
> 
> Qld and Tas are both propping up NSW, Vic and SA so far peak generating capacity is concerned although there's a limit to how far that can really go given the limits of transmission between states.
> 
> As with any dependency, have no doubt that the suppliers won't be losing money in the long run.




Qld and Tassie are going to be in the box seat, this summer, they should make a killing. I suppose Tassie is keeping dam storage levels high, in preparation.


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## Country Lad

Smurf1976 said:


> Qld's strategy has their state-owned generation pursuing volume rather than price. No doubt that's not impressing their privately owned rivals but it's keeping prices a bit lower and results in Qld supplying quite a lot into NSW.




Unless things have changed since I was involved in the transfer of the PPAs to the government generators, the volume should not be an issue as the PPAs determine the return to the private generators, not the price or the volume and, in fact, they will be happy not to run the generators hard to save on the R&M costs.


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## sptrawler

At last a glimmer of intelligence in South Australian politics.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...a/news-story/838c139b13595d1cfe8699e9fda82b6d


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## Smurf1976

Country Lad said:


> Unless things have changed since I was involved in the transfer of the PPAs to the government generators, the volume should not be an issue as the PPAs determine the return to the private generators, not the price or the volume and, in fact, they will be happy not to run the generators hard to save on the R&M costs.



I don't know the details of those arrangements but so far as daily operations are concerned, the Qld government generators certainly seem to be pursuing a policy of maximising volume (regardless of price) at the moment. That's among the most noticeable changes in the overall market in recent terms along with the various closures and the impact of higher gas prices.

On another matter, well it's spring and it seems that people are starting to receive the inevitable huge power bills due to heating over winter. Got a call from a friend last week, bill over $1100, and that's in Tas with most of that consumption for heating at 16 cents / kWh (that's 24 hours supply not off-peak) and the rest for general power at 26c. God only knows how those living in SA paying around 40c are coping - shivering in the dark presumably.

All this isn't much of an issue for those who live in the CBD of a capital city in an apartment. A very long way down the list to be cut off if there's a supply shortage and if they're at work all day then consumption and cost won't be that much. At the other end of the scale, it's a nightmare come true for larger families living in the suburbs or for those (elderly etc) who spend a lot of time at home and need to keep warm. First to be cut off when the inevitable happens in Vic and SA (and soon to be NSW) and huge bills too.

Plus of course it's bad for businesses - firstly due to higher direct costs and secondly because it's siphoning off money that consumers would otherwise spend on whatever and which now goes into paying for power.

At this point there's no quick fix for the problems unfortunately.


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> At the other end of the scale, it's a nightmare come true for larger families living in the suburbs or for those (elderly etc) who spend a lot of time at home and need to keep warm. First to be cut off when the inevitable happens in Vic and SA (and soon to be NSW) and huge bills too.




Fortunately it's been an unseasonably warm summer, I managed to reduce my consumption by 11% from last year, and my bill by about $300.


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## basilio

Fully electric cars are coming a lot quicker than we might think.

* China to ban production of petrol and diesel cars 'in the near future' *
Announcement aimed at tackling pollution will prove a huge incentive to development and sale of electric and hybrid vehicles






	

		
			
		

		
	
China says it plans to ban petrol and diesel cars ‘in the near future’. Photograph: Tyrone Siu/Reuters

* Comments*
 10 
Agence France-Presse

Monday 11 September 2017 05.52 BST

China, the world’s biggest vehicle market, is considering a ban on the production and sale of fossil fuel cars in a major boost to the production of electric vehicles as Beijing seeks to ease pollution.

The move would follow similar plans announced by France and Britain to outlaw the sale of petrol and diesel cars and vans from 2040 in order to clamp down on harmful emissions.

Xin Guobin, vice-minister of industry and information technology, told a forum in the northern city of Tianjin at the weekend that his ministry had started “relevant research” and was working on a timetable for China.

*Xin said the policy would be implemented “in the near future”, according to the official Xinhua news agency.*

These measures will promote profound changes in the environment.

Xin Guobin, vice-minister of industry
“These measures will promote profound changes in the environment and give momentum to China’s auto industry development,” he said in remarks broadcast by CCTV state television.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-of-petrol-and-diesel-cars-in-the-near-future


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## Wysiwyg

Great to see the government (Barnaby 'get those dogs out of here' Joyce) stand up and say - we are not ashamed of using coal to create power. He splutters and farts but he is straight down the line.

Please use clean coal technology and only until renewables are confirmed base load capable.


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## basilio

And what if the engineers and the bean counters said "Hey this new clean coal plant (which actually isn't) will cost a bomb more than a renewabe energy plant like say  a solar thermal plant or wind/solar with battery back up ?

Ask Smurf


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## basilio

* Global shockwaves from electric cars will be here sooner rather than later *
Governments, the oil industry and car makers are waking up to the profound changes battery-powered cars will bring
*Shares*
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Sunday 10 September 2017 07.00 BST

When Jaguar Land Rover followed in the tracks of Volvo last week with its shift to an electric-powered future, the car maker didn’t just talk about hybrids and batteries.

Its chief executive also showed that his company, like governments and oil firms, is finally waking up to the global shockwaves electric cars will bring about. They are far more profound than whether drivers top up via a pump or a plug.

Ralf Speth cited the impact battery-powered cars will have on oil demand, and the “considerable stress” that could have for major oil-producing countries’ budgets.

“Many [governments] could be forced to impose substantial spending cuts within the next five years, straining living standards and so creating unrest in areas already suffering from instability. So changes in mobility, in technology, will change the geopolitical map of the world,” he said.

Those changes seem a lot closer after this summer’s rush hour of electric car announcements.

Carmakers have queued up to pledge that soon all their new models will be either hybrids or electric. Elon Musk’s Tesla delivered the first production versions of its mass market Model 3.
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-all-electric-car-future-shorter-than-thought


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## SirRumpole

Pragmatism not panic in the electricity market ?

https://theconversation.com/time-for-pragmatism-not-panic-for-the-electricity-market-83577

For crying out loud, if private investors aren't interested in investing in our electricity generation, the government will just have to do it. Build less motorways and submarines and more power generation. Prioritise.


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## brty

Clean coal, myth, described here.....

"Mississippi power plant's shutdown confirms that 'clean coal' as an industry savior is a myth"

"The faith of coal advocates in the doctrine of “clean coal”— technology that would allow utilities to burn coal for electricity without somehow poisoning the environment — has suffered a possibly fatal blow.

Southern Co., which has been building a “clean coal” plant in eastern Mississippi since 2010, has just pulled the plug on the project and is preparing to take a loss of as much as $3.4 billion.

The company and its utility subsidiary Mississippi Power didn’t actually have much choice. The state’s utility regulators, the Public Service Commission, said late last month that they wouldn’t allow the company to charge electricity customers for the plant. They said discussions about what to do with the plant, including whether to convert it to all-natural gas fuel, should begin as soon as Thursday.

survey by Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported, “especially once construction began in 2010 and the company discovered that many of the original designs needed major changes.” The current estimate is $7.5 billion.
“Clean coal” technology involves turning coal into synthetic gas before burning it to produce electricity. The Kemper plant was designed to strip carbon dioxide out of the exhaust and pump it underground so it couldn’t contribute to climate change.


The Obama administration showed great interest in clean coal technology, and it’s a centerpiece of the Trump administration’s promise to save the coal mining industry — a goal that many energy experts consider hopeless.

Expectations for the Kemper plant, which is located next to a mine for lignite, the dirtiest form of coal, always were ambitious; coal gasification never had been used to produce commercial electricity, according to climate experts."

Full article here..
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-clean-coal-20170705-story.html#

I've been making a lot from renewable energy companies over the last couple of years, how have coal companies gone, some OK, as in where they were 5 years ago (WHC, SMR) many poorly (NHC, YAL, ATU, AQC, TIG, etc)
The price of the coal company's tells us what the market thinks of the long term reality of "clean coal", and just coal in general.


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Pragmatism not panic in the electricity market ?



Capacity markets can work in theory but the rest of the country would be wise not to follow what WA has done with theirs.

Long story short, it has lead to the construction of totally uneconomic to operate generation which is profitable only because it receives the capacity payment and the owners are counting on not actually operating it much (or at all). Cheap to built but expensive to run. And it's no secret that at least some of it hasn't been built overly well either. Who needs a roof and walls on a power station.....? 

So the WA government has responded by limiting the total capacity of state owned generation, forcing existing plants out of the market due to the capacity cap, in order to create a market for the higher cost privately owned generators.

WA's problems are different to the eastern mainland states. Enough capacity yes but at a rather high price and power bills are now starting to catch up with plenty more pain to come financially.

It could be done but need to get it right. I'm not sure I trust our politicians with the "get it right" bit unfortunately.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> For crying out loud, if private investors aren't interested in investing in our electricity generation, the government will just have to do it.



That one can easily be answered with a few questions.

Which states have the biggest problems now? Vic and SA.

Which states were the first to privatise? Vic and SA.

Which state is next in line for major problems? NSW

Which state was next to fully privatise? NSW

Which states have power prices that aren't increasing significantly? NT and Tas

Which states haven't privatised any substantial part of their power systems? NT and Tas.

No coincidence in any of that.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> That one can easily be answered with a few questions.
> 
> Which states have the biggest problems now? Vic and SA.
> 
> Which states were the first to privatise? Vic and SA.
> 
> Which state is next in line for major problems? NSW
> 
> Which state was next to fully privatise? NSW
> 
> Which states have power prices that aren't increasing significantly? NT and Tas
> 
> Which states haven't privatised any substantial part of their power systems? NT and Tas.
> 
> No coincidence in any of that.




Trouble is both parties have blood on their hands when  it comes to privatisation, so you don't hear a lot of criticism of it by Labor.

Michael Costa and Morris Iemma (former Labor NSW Treasurer and Premier) both wanted to sell off NSW's generators but they were knocked back by their Party rooms. Liberal Premier Mike Baird finally did the deed.


----------



## Junior

A fair chunk of our electricity & gas bills must be passing through into these figures:




> Energy provider and retailer AGL Energy says its underlying profit could pass $1 billion in the current financial year as its electricity business generates more earnings and its gas business improves margins.
> 
> AGL Energy has posted an annual profit of $539 million for the year to June 30, 2017, up from the prior year's loss of $408 million loss which was due to one- off items and fair-value movements.
> 
> Australia's second-largest energy retailer's underlying profit, which excludes one-off items and fair-value movements, rose 14.4 per cent to $802 million - above AGL's guidance range of $720 million to $800 million.


----------



## Value Collector




----------



## Value Collector

Watch this from the 3.20min mark, I really interesting show and tell of the Tesla app showing usage of the solar/battery/car power usage under different loads.

It confirms my position that the grid is here to stay.


----------



## Smurf1976

Junior said:


> A fair chunk of our electricity & gas bills must be passing through into these figures:




I have intentionally not commented on specific investment opportunities in this thread, preferring to focus on the industry itself and let others join the dots as to how to profit, but so far as generation is concerned:

1. If a company is net long generation or at least even (that is, they generate more than they retail or at least even).

2. That generation has low operating costs (coal, hydro) and isn't falling apart or running out of fuel.

3. You're going to be making an increased profit in practice. Selling price of your product went up a lot but your own costs haven't increased to the same extent.

AGL is in that category since whilst they do own significant gas-fired generation they also have plenty of coal-fired capacity and are among the more significant owners of hydro generation that you could actually invest in (given that both Hydro Tas and Snowy Hydro are not listed companies and are owned by governments). They're not going to lose from the situation that's for sure.


----------



## Tisme

I'm guessing this mob of vision laughing at their success in repealing the Carbon Tax aren't so happy at finding out they got outmanouvred by the energy retailers.


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> I'm guessing this mob of vision laughing at their success in repealing the Carbon Tax aren't so happy at finding out they got outmanouvred by the energy retailers.
> 
> View attachment 72610




Bunch of w@nkers.

The whole electricity debacle is the fault of the Liberal Party. Kennet sold Hazlewood, Baird sold Liddell, and the Liberals broke up an efficient cross subsidised industry into separate parts that all wanted a share of the pie so prices rose.

They really are hopeless, after 6 years it will be time for another change.


----------



## overhang

If we were to build a grid from scratch today, ignoring any priority towards lower emissions would we actually still build a coal fired power station?


----------



## SirRumpole

overhang said:


> If we were to build a grid from scratch today, ignoring any priority towards lower emissions would we actually still build a coal fired power station?




If we were fitting out a modern office would we still buy typewriters ?


----------



## Value Collector

overhang said:


> If we were to build a grid from scratch today, ignoring any priority towards lower emissions would we actually still build a coal fired power station?




I think so, if pollution wasn't an issue, either coal or nuclear. If you could erase the negatives of the two options that is.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> If we were fitting out a modern office would we still buy typewriters ?



No we would buy computers, that require loads more electricity than typewriters hence the need for the coal power stations


----------



## Value Collector

In depth look at the power wall 2, and the app, plus questions answered, very interesting video.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> No we would buy computers, that require loads more electricity than typewriters hence the need for the coal power stations




Install a pedal powered generator for each computer. A great way to work and stay fit.


----------



## overhang

Value Collector said:


> I think so, if pollution wasn't an issue, either coal or nuclear. If you could erase the negatives of the two options that is.




It's interesting because it seems for new built generation wind is cheaper but that doesn't take into account storage requirements.  It doesn't give coal any extra value for being a base load generator.  Either way it seems RET or no RET we were going to see a hefty increase in energy prices as these aging coal plants need to be replaced.


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> No we would buy computers, that require loads more electricity than typewriters hence the need for the coal power stations





Maybe true, but in the old days there were contiguous typing pools where vast amounts of energy were expended in relatively small footprints. 300 watts from each typist compares less favourably with PC/user replacements operating on more sedentary and sparse occupancy per sq metre .


----------



## Value Collector

Tisme said:


> Maybe true, but in the old days there were contiguous typing pools where vast amounts of energy were expended in relatively small footprints. 300 watts from each typist compares less favourably with PC/user replacements operating on more sedentary and sparse occupancy per sq metre .



The largest amount of energy waste in that scenario is the waste of human effort, the word processor freed up a large amount of that talent to be used in other areas.


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> I think so, if pollution wasn't an issue, either coal or nuclear. If you could erase the negatives of the two options that is.





When I think back at the good old days of carburated, leaded petrol engines, open fireplace fires, close proximity industry, coal fired steam locos, etc ..... I think we should be marching on to better solutions than coal,

 but if we could put big mother unit in the outback, fence them off and allow refugees to live as ground keepers until they prove themselves worthy, perhaps it's not a bad idea. We could build a massive inland sea by ripping out all the mineral wealth and giving it to China, generate power that drives pumps. that feed water to the Snowy Mountains "Turnbull Cofferdam" plus tourist hamlets along the way, where gravity turns the water back into electricity, which is delivered to the home.


----------



## traderxxx

it was early 2015 when this original elon musk post was started
now 2 years of extra technology later in late 2017 the sa government over here
is going to team up with musk to provide a 50 million dollar battery.

all our problems will be solved now because when we have our next blackout
this battery will keep things going for an extra
4 MINUTES.


----------



## sptrawler

traderxxx said:


> it was early 2015 when this original elon musk post was started
> now 2 years of extra technology later in late 2017 the sa government over here
> is going to team up with musk to provide a 50 million dollar battery.
> 
> all our problems will be solved now because when we have our next blackout
> this battery will keep things going for an extra
> 4 MINUTES.




Yep, that kind of puts it in context, but if it is a major blackout the battery will do nothing.

However, I think the S.A Government will be hoping, Joe average puts batteries in his garage.   Then he can wear the cost of installation and replacement, all the Government then needs to do is up the supply charge, they have already sorted out the unit price.


----------



## macca

After reading about the push for electric cars, where are we going to get the power to recharge all of them ?

Twenty years from now, peak demand could be between 10pm and 6am when all the cars are plugged in


----------



## SirRumpole

macca said:


> After reading about the push for electric cars, where are we going to get the power to recharge all of them ?
> 
> Twenty years from now, peak demand could be between 10pm and 6am when all the cars are plugged in




Very good question.


----------



## Value Collector

macca said:


> Twenty years from now, peak demand could be between 10pm and 6am when all the cars are plugged in




There may be no "peak demand", the generation mix, smart grid and storage capacity (both consumer storage and industrial storage) may balance out and arbitrage away all the major peaks and valleys in electricity supply.

Cars can be charged any time


----------



## Smurf1976

traderxxx said:


> all our problems will be solved now because when we have our next blackout this battery will keep things going for an extra
> 4 MINUTES.



A more accurate way to look at it is that the battery being built in SA can supply 100 MW peak power and has 130 MWh of storage capacity.

So in a situation where demand peaks at 3000 MW and there's only 2900 MW of supply available from wind, gas, diesel and the interconnector (which maybe zero given the circumstances in Vic) the presence of the battery avoids load shedding altogether so long as the duration of the supply gap isn't long enough to discharge the battery.

In other circumstances it may not avoid load shedding due to the extent of the supply deficit but it still means a reduction in the duration and extent equal to the battery's capacity.

So in a practical sense it's just another power station on the grid, the only real differences being how it works, that is primary energy source is stored electricity rather than wind, gas or diesel and that it has a relatively limited supply of "fuel" in the form of stored energy. 

Overall it's useful but it's only a partial solution and by no means a total one.


----------



## Smurf1976

macca said:


> After reading about the push for electric cars, where are we going to get the power to recharge all of them ?
> 
> Twenty years from now, peak demand could be between 10pm and 6am when all the cars are plugged in



A huge unknown is how consumers as a whole will actually use electric vehicles in practice.

Here in Tas the thinking is definitely that most charging could be done during a fairly wide off-peak period if consumers are encouraged to do so. Hence Tariff 93, a residential time of use tariff which replaces all existing metering for those who choose it, with the cheap (off-peak) period intentionally set wide at 10am - 4pm and 9pm - 7am Monday to Friday plus all weekend. Logically it ought to be possible to do most "slow" electric vehicle charging during those times although the big unknown is what consumers will _actually_ do.

Tas is a unique (within Australia) situation so far as all things relating to energy are concerned however. Hydro generation being dominant is one factor but the others are:

60% of total generation goes into heavy industry and only about 20% is for households. The other 20% is non-industrial businesses, agriculture, public services (eg street lighting, traffic lights), offices, schools and so on. But industry is absolutely the main game and the largest factory uses more power (base load) than the average demand of every house in the state. Yep, a quarter of the entire load is at one site and there's 3 others which collectively comprise the "big 4" guzzling through 50% of supply.

That electricity is dominant is another thing in Tas which isn't the case elsewhere. Gas is extremely widely used in Victoria and significant in every state apart from the NT (gas does supply a lot of energy in the NT, actually it supplies almost the whole lot excluding transport, but virtually all of that is in the form of gas-fired power generation with minimal direct use of the fuel for other purposes). But ultimately Victorian households use as much gas in one day as Tasmanian households do in a whole year - that's a huge difference even when you take population difference into account.

So in that context adding electric transport doesn't require a great increase in total power generation at least in Tasmania. I don't have the figures handy but Hydro did crunch the numbers and concluded that a fully electric car fleet would use less than what's going into any one of the "big 4" factories and less than households presently use for water or space heating (bearing in mind that well over 90% of water heating in Tas is electric and so is two thirds of residential space heating).

For the other states it's a more significant issue, Tas being at the extreme of low impact.

Firstly the other states all have higher average distance traveled per vehicle so that logically means more power used.

Secondly the other states have a smaller present electrical load per capita. Victorians use only half as much electricity per head of population as Tasmanians do and most other states are similar except the NT which also has a high rate of consumption albeit for very different reasons.

Put those two together and it's a larger impact in the bigger population states certainly. Just how large is a bit hard to answer but it's an impact certainly.

The big question though is about how to actually charge such vehicles?

The idea of plugging them in at home overnight sounds reasonable until you look a bit deeper.

What about all those inner city older houses in places like Sydney? In general there's no practical way to get power to where the car is parked since it's parked on the street. That could be built, on a small scale other cities such as Paris do have on-street vehicle charging, but it's not there now.

Then there's the question of whether or not someone who drives 20km to and from work is going to bother charging the car every night? Or do they instead plug it in on Saturday morning since that's more convenient?

And how significant will the use of fast charging at public facilities, which may well take the form of otherwise conventional looking fuel stations, be? To the extent it occurs it will primarily be during business hours and that does include the actual or at least close to peak demand times in all states.

So there's a lot of unanswered questions about it all and they largely relate to human behaviour more than "hard" technical limits.

Then there's the issue of self driving cars. Once we go to electric cars, will it still even be normal for everyone to own one? Or will a relatively smaller fleet of self-driving vehicles provide transport "on demand" in a manner similar to taxis thus bringing us to the point where we see a boom industry ripping out driveways and converting garages into rooms since households no longer own cars? Another big unanswered question.

One thing though, to the extent that the self-driving model does catch on those vehicles are going to be doing a lot of km each day. They're not going to be waiting for spare power to be available to charge them and will instead need to be charged whenever they're not in use for transport. That wrecks the idea that most charging will be done at times which best suit the grid.

Overall there's a lot of unknowns with the only certainty being that electric vehicles MUST result in more electricity being consumed than would otherwise be the case. Everything else, the detail, is less clear at this stage.

Then there's the question of what happens with oil if demand for petrol and diesel diminishes. High cost oil likely stays in the ground but to the extent that there's still at least some reasonably low cost oil available it could well end up competing with coal and gas for use as boiler fuel, process heat, power generation etc. Another uncertainty.


----------



## Wysiwyg

> all our problems will be solved now because when we have our next blackout
> this battery will keep things going for an extra
> 4 MINUTES



Elon Musk swooped on the opportunity for recurring business. No business people snart enough in Australia.


----------



## macca

Looking at the stats there are over 16million cars and light commercial vehicles in Australia, if they all change over to electricity within 30 years, it is going to alter power demands that is for sure.

Unlike Tasmania there would be parts of Oz where private demand takes up the majority of the supply but in the Hunter Region of NSW there is the Tomago aluminium smelter. They have been negotiating with AGL in preparation for any power shortages. They have 3 potlines and 3 hours without power means a $300m problem

http://www.portstephensexaminer.com.au/story/4919006/smelters-100m-decision/?cs=761


----------



## Tisme

https://money.good.is/articles/port...utm_source=121&utm_medium=FB&utm_campaign=swp



> You’d be forgiven if the phrase “Portland goes green with innovative water pipes” doesn’t immediately call to mind thoughts of civil engineering and hydro-electric power. And yet, that’s exactly what Oregon’s largest city has done by partnering with a company called Lucid Energy to generate clean electricity from the water already flowing under its streets and through its pipes.
> 
> Portland has replaced a section of its existing water supply network with Lucid Energy pipes containing four forty-two inch turbines. As water flows through the pipes, the turbines spin and power attached generators, which then feed energy back into the city’s electrical grid. Known as the “Conduit 3 Hydroelectric Project,” Portland’s new clean energy source is scheduled to be up and running at full capacity in March. According to a Lucid Energy FAQ detailing the partnership, this will be the “first project in the U.S. to secure a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for renewable energy produced by in-pipe hydropower in a municipal water pipeline."


----------



## SirRumpole

The pros and cons of hydrogen cars.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-...-are-they-and-when-will-we-drive-them/8946184


----------



## sptrawler

Well Rumpole, the problem with battery electric cars is, how much of an upgrade to the domestic power distribution system will be required?
It will be an NBN on steroids, all the low voltage distribution network will need to be upgraded to cope with the current draw.
That will include replacement of most pole top distribution transformers, and upgrading the low voltage distribution cable to the house, if you thought the NBN was expensive ,wait until the cost of  power supply upgrade to the residence comes in. lol
IF South Australia goes ahead with off peak hydrogen generation, they will be ahead of the World in the clean energy future, they could actually have stumbled to the head of the game by accident. IMO
Hydrogen is future power source for cars, IMO, if S.A embraces it and produces heaps of it, they can just put hydrogen tanks in petrol stations same as LPG.
They could even use swap out tanks from road trains, it would be easy, I just hope they go this track, it could save their ar$e.
Renewable energy at this point, is only good, for supplying power for non economical processes, the capital cost is offset by the non economical gains from the free generation.
Once the penny drops, I think the oil companies, will be jumping into hydrogen generation from renewables, big time. Just my opinion.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Well Rumpole, the problem with battery electric cars is, how much of an upgrade to the domestic power distribution system will be required?




Indeed , as I have said all along. Going electric vehicles will require a massive investment in generation
, and it just replaces an oil oligopoly with an electric one which is why I think hybrids are the way to go, with regenerative braking technology as well.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Indeed , as I have said all along. Going electric vehicles will require a massive investment in generation
> , and it just replaces an oil oligopoly with an electric one which is why I think hybrids are the way to go, with regenerative braking technology as well.



Once there is a large amount of electric cars, they could actually be used to support the grid, as a whole even if just 10% of the electric vehicles battery capacity was used to support the grid while idle, it would be a huge storage network.


----------



## Value Collector

Smarter grids will manage loads, and intergrate renewables and storage.


----------



## satanoperca

Very enlightening


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Indeed , as I have said all along. Going electric vehicles will require a massive investment in generation
> , and it just replaces an oil oligopoly with an electric one which is why I think hybrids are the way to go, with regenerative braking technology as well.




So you think the oil companies, with their money, are just going to sit back and say "oh well we're stuffed".
How dumb do you think they are, or maybe you think they haven't got a plan B, best of luck with that.
If we at ASF forum level, can see the problem for the oil industry, you can be sure they can.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> How dumb do you think they are,




Perhaps you would like to address that question to VC, he's the electric car campaigner, I really don't give a stuff as I'd rather have a hybrid.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Perhaps you would like to address that question to VC, he's the electric car campaigner, I really don't give a stuff as I'd rather have a hybrid.



I think you're right, at the moment, due to the distance problem in Australia, an electric car with a high efficiency diesel alternator is a no brainer .
I think Musk, is trying to blind side everyone, by shoving batteries down everyone's throat.
However hydrogen produced from renewables is the obvious answer, at this point of our evolution, the only non polluting technology we have available.
Fill the car in three minutes and travel 500 klm, that has to be a winner.IMO

Musk can talk it up as much as he likes, but fuel cells are the answer, at the moment.
I'm just glad the S.A Government, has realised it is the only way they can, get any advantage from over investment in renewables.
I think they would have been far better off ,spending the money on an electrolysis plant, rather than a battery.
They have to make use of the excess generation.IMO

Also regarding my previous post, I wouldn't be suprised to see oil companies installing wind/solar plant, to generate hydrogen and supporting fuel cell technology.
They have the distribution network in place, they just have to adapt it to a different fuel.


----------



## SirRumpole

I think there is a place for ethanol too, as long as we make it from sugar cane and not corn like the Yanks do.

It's clean burning and easier to store and transport than hydrogen and can be burned in gas turbine power stations as well as as a transport fuel.

The politicians just don't seem interested though, but as you say that's probably the oil company's Plan B, get to our leaders before they damage their vested interests.


----------



## sptrawler

The big problem I see is, if it isn't handled well, there will be a massive social upheaval.
Imagine the panic, if everyone thought their internal combustion engine car, would be worthless in five years.
How many car yards and distributorships, would be worthless? How many jobs would be lost? How much GST would be lost?
What would we do with all the useless vehicles?
So the U.K and other countries including China have laid down a time frame, which tells us that it will happen, I just think batteries aren't the answer.
Time will tell, everyone thought that battery operated digital watches, were the end of automatic watches that work on physical movement.
How did that go.


----------



## Tisme

I wonder if someone will pick up where Aquion left off


----------



## SirRumpole

A very interesting article. Maybe community power is the way of the future.

*Off-grid trial gives WA farming community cheaper, more reliable power*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-...hium-batteries-big-success-wa-farmers/8954740


----------



## satanoperca

Off-Grid is happening and will continue to grow, Solar + Battery is the way of the future, clean, reliable energy.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Perhaps you would like to address that question to VC, he's the electric car campaigner, I really don't give a stuff as I'd rather have a hybrid.



 The oil companies will be fine, the transition period will be long, and with coal being offset by gas, there will Be plenty of investments for oil companies in drilling for gas for the foreseeable future.

Not sure why you guys think electric car range is a problem, the tesla will do 498kms on a charge, more than most people do in a day, and if you need to you can fast charge it at a super charger.


----------



## Value Collector

satanoperca said:


> Off-Grid is happening and will continue to grow, Solar + Battery is the way of the future, clean, reliable energy.



 Agreed, batteries are the future, but you still need the grid,


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> I think there is a place for ethanol too, as long as we make it from sugar cane and not corn like the Yanks do.





ethanol is only viable if it is using a waste product as its feed stock, as for farming crops specifically to generate ethanol, that is uneconomic and very wasteful, its a niche product at best.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> ethanol is only viable if it is using a waste product as its feed stock, as for farming crops specifically to generate ethanol, that is uneconomic and very wasteful, its a niche product at best.




Sugar cane is a viable ethanol source. Corn and other food crops should not be used to produce ethanol.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Sugar cane is a viable ethanol source. Corn and other food crops should not be used to produce ethanol.




For niche applications where you are happy to waste a lot of good farming land, water and fertiliser to get a liquid fuel, but as a large scale energy source its a wasteful use of resources, and there are better options.

for example, if you covered and acre of land with solar panels, you would collect a lot more usable energy each year than you would by planting that acre with sugar cane and then brewing ethanol, so that one acre would equal a lot more kilometres of driving via electric vehicle than it would using ethanol in a ICE vehicle.

Also, you wouldn't have to actually put the solar panels on farming land, you could put it on roof tops or land not suitable for farming, so then you don't have to compete with food crops for space.

Not to mention that farming that acre land needs constant labour, fertiliser, pesticides, herbicides, water etc every year, but once you built the solar panels, there would be very little further input needed each year when it comes to resources.


----------



## Value Collector

Take a look at this, this is a Tesla power pack and solar installation in Hawaii, this offsets a lot of imported diesel. If they tried to use that same parcel of land to make ethanol or biodiesel, they wouldn't get any where near the amount of energy they get from those panels, plus they have to continually be farming and have risks of crop failure etc.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Take a look at this, this is a Tesla power pack and solar installation in Hawaii, this offsets a lot of imported diesel. If they tried to use that same parcel of land to make ethanol or biodiesel, they would get any where near the amount of energy they get from those panels.




You make a good point. It's above my pay grade to consider all the economics of solar panels vs ethanol, however untill all the vehicles run on batteries (which will be a LONG time down the track) we will still need an oil substitute for transport and bio ethanol is one solution. Brazil is an example of what can be done with ethanol.


----------



## Boggo

Interesting...


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> we will still need an oil substitute for transport and bio ethanol is one solution.




It was only a few posts back you guys thought that the oil industry was trouble, and might be in danger of losing their markets for their oil, if the oil companies are having trouble making money selling oil there won't be room for ethanol in the market, there is plenty of oil left in the ground, beyond using waste products I can't see a need for ethanol as fuel.


----------



## Value Collector

Boggo said:


> Interesting...
> 
> View attachment 72677



So our export coal industry will be in good shape,


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> It was only a few posts back *you guys *thought that the oil industry was trouble, and might be in danger of losing their markets for their oil,




Sorry, but I never said that. 

I've always made the case for hybrids (fossil fuel +electricity) because I see a purely electric market as a long way in the future. Oil or its derivatives will be around for 50 years at least.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> I've always made the case for hybrids (fossil fuel +electricity)




If you were worried about a shortage of fossil fuels, the answer would be to stop using hybrids and go full electric, rather than try and get the liquid fuels from farming.

Our fertiliser mines are a precious resource in my opinion, especially with a growing world population, diverting potassium and phosphate resources into production of biofuels is wasteful.

Phosphate


Potassium


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> For niche applications where you are happy to waste a lot of good farming land, water and fertiliser to get a liquid fuel, but as a large scale energy source its a wasteful use of resources, and there are better options.
> 
> .




The sugar cane industry is not going too well atm. In QLD the vast expanses of cane farmland are not much good for much else except for things like lemon grass. Residential developers are eyeing off the areas near Brisbane & Gold Coast, the only thing stopping them is the QLD development plans.


----------



## Value Collector

Tisme said:


> The sugar cane industry is not going too well atm. In QLD the vast expanses of cane farmland are not much good for much else except for things like lemon grass. Residential developers are eyeing off the areas near Brisbane & Gold Coast, the only thing stopping them is the QLD development plans.



Put some solar panels on it then. 

If there is a surplus of cane farming land and we have no other option but to brew ethanol, then do as they do in Bundaberg, and sell it as rum, you will get more than $1.20 a litre then, and have a higher value export product.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> If you were worried about a shortage of fossil fuels, the answer would be to stop using hybrids and go full electric, rather than try and get the liquid fuels from farming.




This argument keeps going around like "there's a hole in the bucket..."

We don't have enough generating capacity to keep the lights on next summer, let alone to feed millions of electric cars. Do you know how many power stations we would need to do that ?

Solar charging MAY provide some input, but what if you get a spell of rainy or cloudy weather ? 

A generation network to feed electric cars would require billions of investment in probably nuclear reactors and I don't see anyone coming up with that sort of cash any time soon.


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> Put some solar panels on it then.
> 
> If there is a surplus of cane farming land and we have no other option but to brew ethanol, then do as they do in Bundaberg, and sell it as rum, you will get more than $1.20 a litre then, and have a higher value export product.




 There's that I guess. The other problem is that the crushing and processing plants aren't in too good a shape with all the bandaids.


----------



## Tisme

How does one spell lip service?

from the Australian:



> Australians are set to pay $300 million in subsidies to an outback solar farm owned by a Saudi Arabian billionaire in a new test of the federal government’s looming energy reforms, escalating a dispute over whether to cut the handouts to keep coal-fired power stations alive.
> 
> AGL’s controversial Liddell coal power station in the NSW Hunter Valley generates 50 times as much electricity as the Moree solar farm in the state’s north, which stands to gain big subsidies from households from higher electricity bills until 2030, as the government vows to ease the pressure on prices.
> 
> The project’s owner, Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel, is expanding into new solar farms across Australia after the federal government backed the first development with grants and concessional loans as well as guaranteed credits for more than a decade.
> 
> The scale of the financial aid has triggered calls to scale back the subsidies as Nationals MPs warn that jobs will be sent overseas if Australia does not find a way to drive down energy costs.
> 
> Scott Morrison challenged Labor late yesterday to drop its “coal veto” when the energy plan goes to parliament, arguing new measures will be needed to extend the life of Liddell and other power stations to bring stability to the electricity grid. The Treasurer said the government wanted a “durable” outcome in parliament on the investment rules for the energy sector but did not say this would be a clean energy target, the proposal put forward by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel.


----------



## SirRumpole

Electric car sales are dismal in Australia, people prefer hybrids.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/technol...d/news-story/a6213d73c01820a90edd87e6c2fa1103


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## sptrawler

My call, try not to buy any new car, for five more years. By then the dust will have settled.IMO


----------



## Smurf1976

I'm in favour of using agricultural and other suitable wastes to produce ethanol. That just makes sense to put a waste product to good use rather than burning it off in the open or burning it to produce low value base load electricity.

The problem however is that ethanol is one of those things that doesn't scale well.

As a rough indication, if we took 100% of the food eaten by Australians and turned that into ethanol then we'd have enough to run the cars in South Australia. That's cars only, not trucks, buses, railways, aircraft, factories, power stations, agricultural machinery or anything else. Just cars.

Once you factor in the fuel needed to run the farm machinery and to transport the crops from the farms to ethanol producing plants and then transport the ethanol to consumers it gets considerably worse. Estimates vary but at best we'd now only have enough for the cars in Adelaide (excluding the rest of SA) and at worst we'd have barely enough to fuel every car in Tasmania.

So it's of some use to the extent that waste materials can be used as the feedstock but beyond that it hits a wall pretty quickly.

To put it into perspective, all the food an average adult eats in a day contains the energy equivalent of 0.25 litres of petrol. Your car eats a lot more than you do, hence the problem with agricultural production as a source of automotive fuel. It can help to an extent but it's not a complete replacement for petroleum by any means.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> It can help to an extent but it's not a complete replacement for petroleum by any means.




That is a shame.

Do you think we can do an all electric transport system as well as current (!) requirements as oil runs out ?


----------



## Smurf1976

So far as vehicle engine technologies are concerned, I think we'll see a mixed approach for quite some time to come.

20 years ago there were very, very few cars on Australian roads with anything other than a petrol engine. Those that weren't petrol were LPG conversions or a very small number of diesels mostly of European origin. 

Today hybrid and diesel vehicles are so common that they attract no attention and owning one isn't in any way notable. Tell someone you bought a new car and asking what sort of engine it has, and by that I mean is it petrol or something else, is a perfectly reasonable question given the options.

My local council has plans for an EV fast charger near a major shopping area. And only yesterday I noticed that the vehicle I was following just happened to be a Tesla. There aren't many but it's a far cry from not too long ago when literally the only road registered electric car in the whole state (Tas) was a converted Daihatsu which could generally be found parked next to the admin building at the Hydro workshops in Derwent Park.

Petrol, diesel, EV's and hybrids will all be around for quite some time I expect. No single technology is likely to become dominant, in the next few years at least, in the way that petrol was until not that long ago.

The one fuel I don't see getting anywhere for transport use is compressed natural gas. Gas companies have been trying to get that one off the ground in Australia since about 1980 and just about every gas network company has at some point had a go at promoting it. There have been buses running on it, gas company fleets and a few local governments and so on but but it just hasn't got anywhere as a fuel for private vehicles. Given the recent hike in the price of gas and the emergence of other alternatives to petrol that seems unlikely to change anytime soon. Trucks on LNG yes, but not private cars.


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## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> This argument keeps going around like "there's a hole in the bucket..."
> 
> We don't have enough generating capacity to keep the lights on next summer, let alone to feed millions of electric cars. Do you know how many power stations we would need to do that ?
> 
> Solar charging MAY provide some input, but what if you get a spell of rainy or cloudy weather ?
> 
> A generation network to feed electric cars would require billions of investment in probably nuclear reactors and I don't see anyone coming up with that sort of cash any time soon.



The power shortage is a political one, not an engineering or investment one.

And it's an issue of peak loading, not total generating capacity.


----------



## Value Collector

Speaking of trucks, The tesla semi is due to be unveiled next month


----------



## Junior

I have spotted 3 Teslas this week around inner South East Melbourne.


----------



## Value Collector

Junior said:


> I have spotted 3 Teslas this week around inner South East Melbourne.




And those are model S and X, which are well over $100K.

Once the Model 3 begins shipments to Australia you will see a big boom in Tesla numbers.


----------



## Value Collector

Value Collector said:


> Speaking of trucks, The tesla semi is due to be unveiled next month





Electric Trucks could make transport between the east and west coast so much more energy efficient, and lower carbon emissions. 

At the moment we have trucks carrying valuable goods back and forth between the two coasts, but we also have to have a fleet of trucks (and ships) delivering fuel to certain points along the route.

However with electric trucks, at certain points along the route you could have charging stations powered by a solar and battery pack installation, which would get rid of the need to have a fleet of trucks and ships delivering fuel to remote locations.

e.g. a mini version of this every 500 kms, and we wouldn't be having to pump oil, refine it, and transport it.


----------



## Wysiwyg

Value Collector said:


> Once the Model 3 begins shipments to Australia you will see a big boom in Tesla numbers.





> Tesla will begin mass producing the Model 3 for global markets with Australia expecting to get its first deliveries in early 2019. It should land here at around $50,000...



First adopters should start saving now.


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## SirRumpole

*Pumped hydro storage 'could make Australia run on renewable energy alone within 20 years'*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-...e-energy-sites-australia-anu-research/8966530


----------



## PZ99

Yeah, we have everything we need. Vast sparely populated sunny land girt by sea.

No need to burn anything.


----------



## sptrawler

PZ99 said:


> Yeah, we have everything we need. Vast sparely populated sunny land girt by sea.
> 
> No need to burn anything.




Yes, pumped storage everywhere, so we can recharge our Tesla on the go.

It will be magic.


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## PZ99

QLD already rolling it out. They're calling it a super highway...

... off memory I think LPE are involved in it. (Not holding at present)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-...boost-queensland-electric-car-numbers/8748246


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## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Yes, pumped storage everywhere, so we can recharge our Tesla on the go.




Some people think it can all be done on renewables + storage. I don't know about that.

How much solar and wind are needed to supply daytime power AND recharge the pumped storages for overnight ? 

Where is the spinning reserve ? 

What about periods of adverse weather conditions, overcast and little wind ? 

I think we need thermal backup, coal or gas as well.


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## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> ?
> I think we need thermal backup, coal or gas as well.




Coal will be phased out very slowly, that should allow for a steady ramp up of renewables.

Then you also have natural gas, which should be there to fill any gap.

I don't see storage (in the shorter term) as a way of getting rid of coal and gas, but as a solution to the current problems we have in meeting peak demands, while also allowing us to run the most efficient power plants at higher utilisation rates.

e.g. currently the most efficient power plants can't meet peak demand, so we have to switch on less efficient plants at peak times, but at off peak times the really good plants might drop to 60% capacity.

The storage would allow those efficient plants to operate at higher rates for longer periods, which is good for the environment, customers and the plants owners.


----------



## Value Collector

Check out this state by state real time 24 hour demand charts, you will see some pretty big peaks and valleys that storage will be able to level out, meaning we could actually deal with less over all capacity.

https://www.energymatters.com.au/energy-efficiency/electricity-demand-price/

looking at the demand charts (the green line), I just realised that the Tesla power wall would be perfect to help shift loads, because the middle of the day is quite low demand, so the market doesn't need all that solar energy peoples empty homes are producing, so its best to put most of it into the battery, then use that when we get home at night, because thats when demand sky rockets.

It also means that there is capacity to charge cars not only at off peak at night, but also while people are at work, when demand is low during the day.


----------



## Wysiwyg

Value Collector said:


> And those are model S and X, which are well over $100K.



Yeah well


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Where is the spinning reserve ?
> 
> What about periods of adverse weather conditions, overcast and little wind ?
> 
> I think we need thermal backup, coal or gas as well.




So does South Australia.

The major issue is, who the hell is going to pay for this pie in the sky stuff, in the timeframe that is being banded around.


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## PZ99

I don't want to burn anything. I'd rather export it - and use the money to build pumped hydro.

That article Horace linked to earlier said there are 20,000 available sites for pumped hydro - far in excess of our needs.


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## Wysiwyg

sptrawler said:


> The major issue is, who the hell is going to pay for this pie in the sky stuff, in the timeframe that is being banded around.



That is my cue to introduce you to Sarah Hanson Young.


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> *Pumped hydro storage 'could make Australia run on renewable energy alone within 20 years'*



Smurf's known that for a very long time..... 

If we're going to use energy sources which are inherently intermittent then we need some means of storage. Batteries and things like compressed air have a role certainly but hydro is the big gun with that one in terms of scale, technical suitability (big rotating machines win over anything else when it comes to inertia) and cost.

From a technical perspective it's certainly possible to have a fully renewable electricity supply system if we build enough storage facilities to make it work. Not all but most of those storage facilities will in practice need to be pumped hydro.


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> From a technical perspective it's certainly possible to have a fully renewable electricity supply system if we build enough storage facilities to make it work. Not all but most of those storage facilities will in practice need to be pumped hydro




I heard a suggestion of covering the surface of these storages with solar PV panels to reduce evaporation. Practicable ?

There seemed to be a bit of blue sky optimism in the article I quoted.



> Professor Blakers said if pumped hydro storage facilities were built at * just a handful of sites *spread out nationwide, Australia could run on renewables alone.




A "handfull" is 5 sites ? Surely it can't be that easy ?


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## Smurf1976

Rottnest Island in WA is getting more serious about renewable energy:

https://www.hydro.com.au/about-us/news/2017-09/renewable-rottnest


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## Wysiwyg

Smurf1976 said:


> From a technical perspective it's certainly possible to have a fully renewable electricity supply system if we build enough storage facilities to make it work. Not all but most of those storage facilities will in practice need to be pumped hydro.



That's it! A solar power plant (panels and batteries) to run pumps. Multiple pumps for maintenance/backup purpose. Pump the water straight back up again. As Rumpole posted evaporation and water loss rates would have to be known.


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## basilio

Wysiwyg said:


> That's it! A solar power plant (panels and batteries) to run pumps. Multiple pumps for maintenance/backup purpose. Pump the water straight back up again. As Rumpole posted evaporation and water loss rates would have to be known.




And guess what ? The first candidate for such a project can come online by 2021.. It will provide 25% of the soon to be closed Liddel power station. 

* Pumped hydro project that reuses old goldmine expected to win federal funding *
Combined solar and pumped hydro generator set to provide quarter of shortfall from Liddell power station’s closure

• How an abandoned goldmine will be converted into pumped hydro storage




The two disused pits that will be repurposed as part of the combined solar and pumped hydro project at the old Kidston goldmine in north Queensland. Photograph: Genex


*Shares*
23
 
* Comments*
 182 
Australian Associated Press

Thursday 21 September 2017 08.42 BST   Last modified on Thursday 21 September 2017 08.52 BST

A pumped hydro project that reuses an old goldmine in north Queensland is close to securing federal funding.

The combined solar and pumped hydro generator is set to provide a quarter of the power needed to cover the shortfall from the closure of the Liddell coal-fired power station in New South Wales and can do it before 2021.

Experts have also identified more than 22,000 prime sites around Australia where additional pumped hydro storage could be quickly built.

The Kidston mine project, being built by Genex Power with some assistance from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, starts with a solar farm that will be ready to send power to households during the coming summer.

The Genex executive director, Simon Kidston, says the first electricity will be generated in the first week of December and it will be brought up to the full 50 megawatt capacity by early February.

The company is finalising its finance to build the second phase of the project and is close to receiving approval for a loan from the federal government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.

*The plan is to build a world-first integration of solar generation and pumped hydro storage, repurposing the two 300-metre deep disused mine pits to create 250MW capacity that can run for six hours continuously.*

*“It really makes intermittent energy reliable and dispatchable – and that’s really the holy grail of the renewable energy industry,” Kidston said.
*
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...-old-goldmine-expected-to-win-federal-funding


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I heard a suggestion of covering the surface of these storages with solar PV panels to reduce evaporation. Practicable ?
> 
> There seemed to be a bit of blue sky optimism in the article I quoted.
> 
> A "handfull" is 5 sites ? Surely it can't be that easy ?




5 sites is not enough but the real point is that there's truly massive potential compared to what we actually need. So we can pick the best ones and ignore the rest.

Best? Low cost, near existing transmission lines, not going to upset anyone due to environmentla or other reasons, reasonable distance from a town so there's somewhere to base the maintenance workers without huge commuting distances. Bonus points if the water reservoir has some other practical use in addition to power.

As for covering it with solar panels, well I suppose that could be done but it's not a necessity. How much it would cost I've no idea but it sounds like a rather complex way of generating solar power compared to just putting the panels on conventional mounts sitting on the ground. Less evaporation yes, but evaporation isn't a massive issue anyway for most potential sites (especially those using sea water or in places with lots of fresh water available).

Key point though is that there's thousands of potential sites and we only need to use a few % of them to make this work. If there's some problem with one particular site such as geology or an endangered species living there then just cross that one off the list and develop a different one instead. There's plenty to choose from.

The technology is all absolutely proven. Water storage, pipes, pumps, turbines and generators, conventional high voltage electrical equipment. Absolutely noting needs to be invented, it's just a case of designing, building and operating.

Lifespan? As with any hydro scheme it's indefinite with proper maintenance but for accounting purpose 90 or 100 years is normally used as the lifespan. It's not like coal where there's a practical limit around 50 years before the boiler tubes thin out and the whole place is falling apart and needs to be rebuilt.

Maintenance is the key if you want it to last though. At any given time there's almost always something being pulled apart for inspection or put back together down here in Tas so any problems are spotted early and can be addressed. In the other states some companies are pretty good at that but others aren't......


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## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> 5 sites is not enough but the real point is that there's truly massive potential compared to what we actually need. So we can pick the best ones and ignore the rest.
> 
> Best? Low cost, near existing transmission lines, not going to upset anyone due to environmentla or other reasons, reasonable distance from a town so there's somewhere to base the maintenance workers without huge commuting distances. Bonus points if the water reservoir has some other practical use in addition to power.
> 
> As for covering it with solar panels, well I suppose that could be done but it's not a necessity. How much it would cost I've no idea but it sounds like a rather complex way of generating solar power compared to just putting the panels on conventional mounts sitting on the ground. Less evaporation yes, but evaporation isn't a massive issue anyway for most potential sites (especially those using sea water or in places with lots of fresh water available).
> 
> Key point though is that there's thousands of potential sites and we only need to use a few % of them to make this work. If there's some problem with one particular site such as geology or an endangered species living there then just cross that one off the list and develop a different one instead. There's plenty to choose from.
> 
> The technology is all absolutely proven. Water storage, pipes, pumps, turbines and generators, conventional high voltage electrical equipment. Absolutely noting needs to be invented, it's just a case of designing, building and operating.
> 
> Lifespan? As with any hydro scheme it's indefinite with proper maintenance but for accounting purpose 90 or 100 years is normally used as the lifespan. It's not like coal where there's a practical limit around 50 years before the boiler tubes thin out and the whole place is falling apart and needs to be rebuilt.
> 
> Maintenance is the key if you want it to last though. At any given time there's almost always something being pulled apart for inspection or put back together down here in Tas so any problems are spotted early and can be addressed. In the other states some companies are pretty good at that but others aren't......




So what is the hold up? Are they not profitable? 

I mean if they could earn some where between 8% - 12% Roc, I thought companies like Apa would be all over it, with 75% debt funding you would have a pretty decent Roe.

I am thinking environmental concerns might be the hold up, there would be loads of red tape, gas fired peaking plants are probably easier and quicker to organise, and could earn around the amount.


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## Smurf1976

In short it's uncertainty. That there's no clear consensus politically as to where we're going so few are willing to take the risk of investing in a very long term asset.


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## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> So what is the hold up? Are they not profitable?
> 
> I mean if they could earn some where between 8% - 12% Roc, I thought companies like Apa would be all over it, with 75% debt funding you would have a pretty decent Roe.
> 
> I am thinking environmental concerns might be the hold up, there would be loads of red tape, gas fired peaking plants are probably easier and quicker to organise, and could earn around the amount.




I think the hold up will be the guarantee of supply, the government will be looking for some guarantee of supply, if they don't get that they will be just throwing away money.

Any idiot can put their hand out for Government money, to put in some crack pot generator.
If the Government requires some guarantee, that the generator will perform to a standard for a defined period, then there will be a bit of gagging going on.
That is unless you do it like Labor, then just pay out the money and who gives a rats as to the outcome.


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Any idiot can put their hand out for Government money, to put in some crack pot generator.
> If the Government requires some guarantee, that the generator will perform to a standard for a defined period, then there will be a bit of gagging going on.



Which puts Snowy Hydro with their "Snowy 2.0" project and Hydro Tasmania with their multiple projects as the front runners along with projects built by others but drawing on their engineering expertise.

That's not to say that nobody else could do it but there's a definite advantage in already being a large hydro operator proposing to do more versus someone looking to cash in on the latest trend.

Hydro is a very workable technology but it does require a lot of engineering work designing it all since everything is site specific. It's not like just buying some gas turbines and plonking them on the ground wherever. That aspect alone would likely be scaring off some who have the $ but not the engineering background.

Where it could get complicated is with funding.

"Snowy 2.0" (Snowy Hydro) is around $2 billion for the power stations, tunnels etc. Plus another $1 - 2 billion for transmission infrastructure to make it work so $4 billion all up. That gives 2000 MW.

"Battery Of The Nation" (Hydro Tas) comes to about $5 billion for 2500 MW.

Now, where are we going to find that sort of money?


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## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> Where it could get complicated is with funding.
> 
> "Snowy 2.0" (Snowy Hydro) is around $2 billion for the power stations, tunnels etc. Plus another $1 - 2 billion for transmission infrastructure to make it work so $4 billion all up. That gives 2000 MW.
> 
> "Battery Of The Nation" (Hydro Tas) comes to about $5 billion for 2500 MW.
> 
> Now, where are we going to find that sort of money?




Those numbers aren't overly big, there are a lot of very big balance sheets out there.

To put it in perspective, Fortescue invested $12 Billion to build their 4 mines, train lines and port, and other infrastructure.

Apa group has around $15 Billion of assets on their balance sheet.

Berkshire Hathaway (one of the worlds biggest investors in electricity infrastructure) has $60Billion of cash (yes that's just their cash).

There is plenty of cash looking for a home at 6% for bonds and 12% for equity, these deals would be financed easily if they were viable and would generate the required returns.


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> "Snowy 2.0" (Snowy Hydro) is around $2 billion for the power stations, tunnels etc. Plus another $1 - 2 billion for transmission infrastructure to make it work so $4 billion all up. That gives 2000 MW.
> 
> "Battery Of The Nation" (Hydro Tas) comes to about $5 billion for 2500 MW
> Now, where are we going to find that sort of money?




No more corporate tax cuts ?

Negative gearing costs $8 billion pa.

Tax concession on superannuation cost $30 billion pa.


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## Smurf1976

I should clarify and say that I don't doubt the money exists as such, just that neither Snowy nor HT has it sitting in the bank.

Politics is where it could get interesting.

Snowy is owned 58% by the NSW government, 29% by Victoria and 13% by the Australian government so to do anything major there's three owners who need to agree.

Hydro Tas is owned 100% by the Tasmanian government so only one government involved but not one that has any spare cash.

Private investment in the form of equity would be difficult in either case for political reasons so realistically we're looking at long term debt. That's where the debate could get more difficult.


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## SirRumpole

*The truth about soaring power prices: wind and solar not to blame*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-25/the-truth-about-soaring-power-prices/8979860


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## sptrawler

Well I don't know about the costs over East, but soaring costs here are associated with solar, as can be seen by this report in today's paper.

https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/wa-h...y-15-rise-in-electricity-prices-ng-b88611273z

A couple of extracts:

_Mr Wyatt told a Budget estimates hearing into Synergy that the forecast improvement in the power supplier’s bottom line for this financial year was largely because of the decision to impose the price increase on “fixed” charges.

For residential customers, this is the supply charge and is separate from consumption charges.

It was increased to 98.9¢ a day from 48.6¢ last year — an increase of $169 a year. A typical household power bill is $1722 a year, according to Treasury.

With assumed price increases in the State Budget of 7 per cent, 5.6 per cent and 3.5 per cent between 2018-19 and 2020-21, Mr Wyatt said “there is probably still more to come” in Synergy’s shift towards a greater reliance on fixed charges.

He said that the changes announced as part of the Budget had slashed the State-owned utility’s operating subsidy — which will fall from $280 million last year to a forecast $146 million this year and zero next y
“This has been a big part of the tariff reform that we did earlier to try to get more into the fixed charge and there is probably still more to come when more of the tariff needs to be attached to the fixed charge,” Mr Wyatt told the hearing.

“That 10.9 per cent increase allocated and tied to the fixed charge went a long way ... in securing the revenue flow for Synergy.”

Until this year, about 80 per cent of the average annual power bill was based on consumption.

Critics claim the situation is inequitable because some households have been able to avoid higher consumption charges by installing solar panels or energy efficient appliances.

The WA Council of Social Service said the changes disproportionately affected poorer households because they lacked the means to minimise their exposure. Its chief executive Louise Giolitto called on the Government to ensure low-income households were properly compensated for further rises.
ear._


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## Tisme




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## sptrawler

Good on Pauline. She seems to be the only one in politics, prepared to "grow a pair", so to speak.


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## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Good on Pauline. She seems to be the only one in politics, prepared to "grow a pair", so to speak.




Indeed, she also put Labor to shame by default.


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## basilio

Nice clear explanation of why the Liddell Power station has to close and the practical options to make up the loss of power before shutdown.

* AGL says it can replace Liddell with renewables, gas power and batteries *
Annual general meeting told of plans for ageing power station, including reiteration of reasons it should be decommissioned

*Shares*
28
 
* Comments*
 85 

Wednesday 27 September 2017 04.52 BST   Last modified on Wednesday 27 September 2017 05.53 BST

AGL has proposed to replace its ageing Liddell power station with renewables, batteries, gas power, upgraded coal power and demand response. And the company again outlined a laundry list of problems with the federal government’s request for it to extend the plant’s life or sell it.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ddell-with-renewables-gas-power-and-batteries


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## sptrawler

Let's be honest basilio.
AGL says it can replace Liddell with renewables, gas power, batteries, upgraded coal power and demand response.
If you're going to quote, quote the lot.


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## PZ99

I noticed we haven't discussed evaporation engines yet so I'll kick it off with this...

*Radical plan to produce power from evaporation of lakes could provide an almost endless source of energy*

A miniature version of the engine was first developed by scientists in 2015
It could be scaled up to cover 70% of the US's energy production from that year
It could yield between 2W and 10W per square metre, three times wind power
By covering water supplies with generators this would help to conserve them
Full article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4923068/Radical-plan-produce-power-evaporation.html

The concept was invented here if I remember correctly ?


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## basilio

sptrawler said:


> Let's be honest basilio.
> AGL says it can replace Liddell with renewables, gas power, batteries, upgraded coal power and demand response.
> If you're going to quote, quote the lot.




Che ?? 

1) Did you read the introduction I clipped ?
_"AGL has proposed to replace its ageing Liddell power station with renewables, batteries, gas power, upgraded coal power and demand response. And the company again outlined a laundry list of problems with the federal government’s request for it to extend the plant’s life or sell it."_

2) Did you bother to read the rest ?


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## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Che ??
> 
> 1) Did you read the introduction I clipped ?
> _"AGL has proposed to replace its ageing Liddell power station with renewables, batteries, gas power, upgraded coal power and demand response. And the company again outlined a laundry list of problems with the federal government’s request for it to extend the plant’s life or sell it."_
> 
> 2) Did you bother to read the rest ?




Yes, it was your big bold statement, that I thought was misleading, you must write headlines for Fairfax. lol


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## basilio

SP I just cut and pasted the headline and first paragrph. 

You reckon I should have changed the headline? I thought the article was exceptionally good at accurately summarising the AGL agenda in the first paragraph.

And it was well worth reading in full. Basically puts to the sword all teh rubbish of defenders of coal fired powered stations into the future.  The figures are just wrong.


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## sptrawler

basilio said:


> SP I just cut and pasted the headline and first paragrph.
> 
> You reckon I should have changed the headline? I thought the article was exceptionally good at accurately summarising the AGL agenda in the first paragraph.
> 
> *And it was well worth reading in full. Basically puts to the sword all teh rubbish of defenders of coal fired powered stations into the future.  The figures are just wrong*.




I really don't see where draw that conclusion from, he said Quote: “it’s our obligation to you, our shareholders, to address carbon risk through the transformation of our business,”.

That is fundamentally because of the underlying carbon tax risk, not because some figures are wrong. Like I said you are putting your bent on it.
We are still exporting thermal coal and thermal coal power stations, are still being built.
Just because we have a vocal left wing lobby, that believes whatever they say is true, doesn't make it so.
We are racing headlong into unknown territory, on a belief that we can change the World, if our power system over east falls in a hole who will carry the can? Not the vocal minority. 

It makes absolute sense for the power companies to install renewables, the cost overheads for fuel and labour once installed is minimal, when compared to coal fired thermal stations.

The advantage the power companies have at the moment is, they don't have to take any responsibilty for the system if it fails, because they are being pushed to put in non synchronous plant and have a ready excuse for not installing base load.
If it causes massive system unreliability, they just say "oh well you will have to pay more for us to put in base load generation", it's a win win for them.
For the general public, they are taking all the risk and costs associated with the generation shift.
If it works out, it will at best be reliable, at worst very very expensive unreliable power.


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## SirRumpole

South Australia's battery is half complete says Musk.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-...-biggest-battery-reaches-halfway-mark/9001542


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## basilio

From a 100 megawatt battery bank to a 1/10th watt gravity powered light. Lots of solutions.

*This Ingenious $20 Lamp Gets All Its Energy From Gravity*
*Three years ago, GravityLight raised a ton of money through crowdfunding. Then it was time to actually make it work. *

1/11 The ingenious GravityLight gets all its energy from its own weight.
By Ben Schiller2 minute Read
The ingenious GravityLight–a light that gets all its energy from its own weight–first appeared about three years ago. We wrote about it as it was launching on Indiegogo and went on to raise $399,590.

It provides free light (after you’ve bought it). It’s cheap. And it has none of the environmental or health side-effects as do other light alternatives in the developing world. But even all those things aren’t necessarily enough if it’s to reach its potential. If the company and foundation behind the device are to make it a success, they need a reliable product; they need to distribute it in places where distribution can be difficult; and, more fundamentally, they need to explain why someone should buy a GravityLight when there’s plenty of good, cheap solar on the market today.

https://www.fastcompany.com/3050137/this-ingenious-20-lamp-gets-all-its-energy-from-gravity


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## SirRumpole

Peer to peer energy trading, a goer or not ?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-11/perth-start-up-using-blockchain-technology/9035616


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## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Peer to peer energy trading, a goer or not ?
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-11/perth-start-up-using-blockchain-technology/9035616




Not really "Cutting out" the middle man, rather you are just changing your relationship with the middle man, which would have pros and cons.

You would still need access to the grid, and hence would still need to pay a service charges.

But I guess what will change is just how you are billed, so your relationship with the retailer is what will change.

Currently, retailers give you the ability to sell unlimited amounts of excess to them for about 12cents a kilowatt (regardless of market price) and to buy unlimited amounts of power for about 26cents a kilowatt (regardless of market price)

switching to a peer to peer platform basically just means your retailer would take a step back, and instead of offering guaranteed pricing, will charge you a service fee (either hidden or open) for operating the platform, and allow the market to determine pricing.

I struggle to see how it would be a genuine peer to peer network though, due to nearly 100% of the people using it would be trying to dump power at the same times, while having no excess during peak times.

to me it sounds like a gimmick, either its a retailer trying to make themselves look like a peer to peer network because thats popular at the moment, and they want to get some pattsy investors to give them funds.

I reckon the guy in the article will lose his money.

The smart grid is coming, thats for sure, but it won't be a genuine peer to peer network.


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## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> to me it sounds like a gimmick, either its a retailer trying to make themselves look like a peer to peer network because thats popular at the moment, and they want to get some pattsy investors to give them funds.




Yes, a gimmick is what I thought too, just like the whole bitcoin scene it will eventually collapse.


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## Smurf1976

For those in Tas who want to have a look:

Meadowbank power station open day on 14 October.

Cerhana PS open day 28 October.

Poatina PS open day 11 November.

All are real, fully operational hydro power stations. 

All tours are free but bookings are required via the Hydro website www.hydro.com.au

No age restrictions, bring the kids, but the nature of power stations is that you do need to be able to walk up and down stairs etc and there's no access for wheelchairs.

Long sleeves, full length trousers and proper shoes required for safety. Hydro will supply hard hats, ear plugs etc as needed. No bags, food or liquids of any kind allowed inside.

Note that Cethana and Poatina power stations are both underground so that's where the tours go - underground. Meadowbank is above ground.

Meadowbank is a single machine station (40 MW) and should be running on the day.

Cethana is a single machine station (98 MW) and may or may not be running - depends on circumstances that are too hard to predict in advance.

Poatina is a six machine station (342 MW) and will likely have at least one machine running during the tour. Could be more depending on circumstances with power demand and the operation of other stations.

Depending on station output Poatina can get quite hot inside regardless of the temperature outside. Not too warm if only one or two machines are  running but it gets pretty hot in there if all six are running flat out. 

The others don't get overly warm inside.


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## Smurf1976

Typo in my last post - it's Cethana power station. That's a t not a r.


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Typo in my last post - it's Cethana power station. That's a t not a r.




Maybe someone could make a video of the tours and put it online so people who can't get there can see it.


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## Smurf1976

A video isn't a bad idea....

It looks quite different to any of the stations with open days this year but here's someone's video walking past the machines from the open day at Tarraleah PS in 2014.

Yep, Hydro does let visitors get up close to it all and not just look from a viewing area etc. And yes it's pretty noisy.

Tarraleah is old (1938) but still in full operation. The machines in the video are horizontal axis with the turbine at the same level next to the generator whereas the more modern stations use vertical axis machines (turbine at the bottom with a shaft connecting to the generator above).



And here's someone's video of Paloona from a previous open day there. Ignore their comments at the start however since they got that wrong - Paloona does have some storage (though not a lot but there's a dam and a lake) and capacity is 28 MW (so it's a small power station).

They didn't record the "official" commentary but it still shows what's inside. The actual generator is what's inside the big hexagonal box that people are standing on near the start of the video. After that it shows the ancillary equipment on the second level (that is, below what's shown at first). Not shown but below that level is the turbine - it's all connected together mechanically via the shaft.

In terms of visual appearance both Cethana and Meadowbank are broadly similar. Poatina also sort of similar, machines are vertical axis, but on a much larger scale with 6 of them.



The pipes visible are for lubricant and cooling oil not the water going through the turbine. That's a far bigger pipe, right at the bottom of everything, with over 100,000 litres per second going through.

Comparing a hydro station with a coal or gas fired plant there's not much in common in terms of how it all looks although the same principles apply. Turbine spins and is connected via a shaft to the generator.

Coal or gas plants in general also sound quite different due to the differences in rotational speed. 3000 RPM versus the much slower speed in a hydro station (about 150 to 750 RPM depending on design with most at the lower end of that range).

Also a coal plant will typically have much larger machines. Eg 200, 500 or 700 MW. 

In contrast hydro generally involves a larger number of power stations but smaller generators in each since it's generally not practical to exploit the full possible water drop in a single location due to topography and where nature decided to put rivers.

For gas the machine sizes vary from very small to large so there's no general rule of thumb there.


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## Smurf1976

I see via the media that the Qld government is now warming of power shortages and restrictions being imposed this coming summer.

In theory Qld has sufficient supply so either there are problems with one or more major power stations in Qld  that is being kept quiet, they haven't got enough fuel to run them with because it has all been sold overseas or it's some weird political strategy to have a shortage when there isn't one.

Regardless of the reason that leaves Tas, NT and WA with a reliable power supply. That said, in WA the government is doing everything possible to push the cost up so having plenty may be a moot point if it ends up too expensive to use.

So sad that we're in this mess given it has been readily apparent to many for fully 20 years what was coming.


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## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I see via the media that the Qld government is now warming of power shortages and restrictions being imposed this coming summer.
> 
> In theory Qld has sufficient supply so either there are problems with one or more major power stations in Qld  that is being kept quiet, they haven't got enough fuel to run them with because it has all been sold overseas or it's some weird political strategy to have a shortage when there isn't one.
> 
> Regardless of the reason that leaves Tas, NT and WA with a reliable power supply. That said, in WA the government is doing everything possible to push the cost up so having plenty may be a moot point if it ends up too expensive to use.
> 
> So sad that we're in this mess given it has been readily apparent to many for fully 20 years what was coming.



Yes smurph, everyone has capitalised on the the global warming, coal is poison.
Now they are trying to work out a solution, to a self imposed problem.
What a bunch of dicks.

I was reading an article today, that said base load was a myth, it is a fantasy.
Well I hope he is involved, in a State wide black start, with renewables.
I've been there done that, and it is a very tense operation, even with synchronous rotating plant.
Renewables can be done and should be done, but in a structured manner, not a State generated brain fart, as garpul would say.


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Well I hope he is involved, in a State wide black start, with renewables.
> I've been there done that, and it is a very tense operation



At least in WA you could go to the beach when it was all done.

Seems to be a WA thing with Kwinana, Bunbury and before that South Fremantle power stations all built literarally right next to the beach. Convenient for cooling water and I suppose also convenient if someone wanted a swim after work.

What's really needed is to get innovation back nationally. There used to be a lot of competition there, some more serious than others, but it pushed things forward.

Every state was trying to do it better and cheaper. Scale was the key with bigger generators, higher transmission voltages, higher pressure both steam and hydro. And so on. Scale it up and it gets cheaper per unit of production.

Nobody at the political level seems interested in that approach of keeping costs down these days.


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## basilio

Part of the conversation about the future of energy generation is the role of coal fired power stations. So what is happening in this area and how is it being reported? This analysis is worth reading in full. It details the rapidly decreasing role of coal fired power around the world
However as usual one of the key take home message is

*Never, ever, ever believe anything Andrew Bolt says without independent verification. *
*     _______________________________________________________*
* The world is going slow on coal, but misinformation is distorting the facts *
A recent story on 621 plants being built globally was played up in various media – but the figure is way off the mark




China still uses a stack of coal but data shows it has stopped construction at 33 sites in the past three months. Photograph: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

*Shares*
221
 
* Comments*
 200 
Adam Morton

 
@adamlmorton

Monday 16 October 2017 00.38 BST   Last modified on Monday 16 October 2017 02.28 BST

This is a story about how misinformation can take hold. It’s not always down to dishonesty. Sometimes it’s just a lack of time, a headline and the multiplying power of ideological certainty.

Last week, China announced it was stopping or postponing work on 151 coal plants that were either under, or earmarked for, construction.

Last month, India reported its national coal fleet on average ran at little more than 60% of its capacity – among other things, well below what is generally considered necessary for an individual generator to be financially viable.

Neither of these stories gained much of a foothold in the Australia media. But one story on global coal did: that 621 plants were being built across the planet.

*The line was run in print, repeated on national radio and rippled out on social media among likeminded audiences. Some politicians and commentators claimed it showed it was strange, maybe even ridiculous, that MPs, financiers and energy companies said new coal power stations had no role to play in Australia.


But the figure is wrong. Way off, in fact. According to the most recent data, there are 267 coal stations under construction. More than 40% of those are not actually new ones, but expansions of existing generators.
*
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ing-slow-coal-misinformation-distorting-facts
*
*


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## Smurf1976

Like most people there aren't many things I'd consider myself an expert on. Power is one, a couple of other technical things too and that's it really.  

Same with everyone. We have our areas of knowledge but for 99.9% if things we know enough to go get by through to nothing at all. 

So I can only judge the mainstream media by how it reports things where I know the truth. So far as energy is concerned it wasn't too bad until about 20 years ago when whoever decided to replace hard facts with warm and fuzzy stuff. Numbers are out, meaningless waffle is in. Same with most subjects I expect other than those where the facts are reasonably well known - sports results, who actually won an election and yesterday's weather.

But even weather is getting a bit sensational these days with how it's reported. A forecast top of 29 in Hobart and the media is talking about a heatwave. Seriously! Now Tassie isn't exactly the hottest place but 29 isn't too uncommon and happens at least once most years. The all time record high for Hobart is 41.8 after all so 29 isn't extreme by any means.

Likewise one decent downpour in Sydney and the media turns that into predictions of an impending apocalypse. Pure sensationalism since rain in Sydney is a routine event, indeed it's the wettest of the state capitals.

Back to energy, the reason I see it as so important isn't purely related to personal interest. To quote a very old Hydro Tas newspaper advertisement which ran internationally circa 1930, cheap and reliable power really is the master key to industry. It was back then and still is today.

Can anyone name a single economic activity that doesn't in some way involve powered transport, process heat or electricity? Heck even a brothel uses a bit of power and a whale watching tour relies on people being able to get there. 

Take away the power and the rest is useless. Even somewhere like WA with all those minerals - the whole lot is absolutely useless if there's no power, of whatever form, to extract, transport and ultimately process those resources into something useful. Use up all the NW Shelf gas, shut the coal mines at Collie and stop importing or refining diesel, petrol etc and that's it, WA's economy grinds to a halt and no amount of gold or iron will change that. Same concept anywhere else.

In getting ourselves into a situation where electricity and gas are expensive and becoming unreliable we've undermined 90%+ of all economic activity in the affected states. 

God help us if the supply of petroleum products, which is incresingly vulnerable as domestic production falls, refineries close, demand rises and international tensions rise is actually disrupted.

I wonder how many realise that Australia has gone from 90% net self sufficiency in oil with 10 major refineries 30 years ago to barely 30% net self sufficiency and just 4 refineries today?

That's an incredible level of vulnerability and yet, with our heads firmly in the sand, we're the only developed country that chooses to not meet IEA recommend stock levels which we agreed to do. Even a lot of Third World countries, which are not formally obliged, have seen the need and are doing so anyway.

No matter what politicians do in the short term it seems that it's going to take a far bigger crisis to get the problems properly addressed. Running your air-conditioning will be the least of your worries if (when) there's a lack of petrol or diesel or you haven't got a job because businesses couldn't afford ever increasing electricity and/or gas costs.


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> No matter what politicians do in the short term it seems that it's going to take a far bigger crisis to get the problems properly addressed. Running your air-conditioning will be the least of your worries if (when) there's a lack of petrol or diesel or you haven't got a job because businesses couldn't afford ever increasing electricity and/or gas costs.




Indeed so.

I see Adam Bandt today was calling for regulation of power prices. It would be a drastic move, but market economics in the power industry has failed dismally and regulation may be the only way out, at least temporarily until the infrastructure is renewed.


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## sptrawler

The Government is going to have to step in and regulate IMO, otherwise the fall in living standards, will be too rapid.
The Government tax take, won't be enough to support the welfare increases required, all sorts of "shonky" accounting is going to be required, to stop public unrest. Again only my humble opinion.


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## Smurf1976

It comes down to a more fundamental question in my view.

Do we want untilites such as gas, water and electricity to be profit making business like any other business ? Or do we want them to be a public service?

And if they are to be a public service then should that be one that recovers costs and no more? Or should it make a reasonable profit as a form of taxation? Or should it run at a loss, subsidised by taxpayers, in the interest of some greater good?

Traditionally the state owned utilities were essentially not for profit public services. As a whole they recovered costs but no more. Any profit in one year was used to avoid increasing, or in some instances outright reduce, prices charged in the following year. They held modest cash reserves in case unforeseen things went wrong but they didn't exist to make a profit as such.

One thing they did do was cross subsidise some consumers at the expense of others. Broadly speaking that meant those in the cities (lots of people) paid a few % above the actual cost and that money was used to provide the exact same prices to those in country areas (relatively few people) where the cost of supply is far higher due to distance and lack of scale. Tasmania still does that today, every household pays the exact same prices regardless of location, but it has become less common in other states.

Complicating any change is that the privately owned power stations, networks and retailers have all bought or established their businesses on the basis of government policies which encouraged, or in some cases outright guaranteed, that they were buying a profit making business. It wouldn't be fair to blame AGL, Origin, Energy Australia or anyone else for making a profit when that's what, as per government policy and indeed the law in the case of listed companies, they're supposed to be doing.

Even where there is still government ownership the electricity entities are today run as a for profit business. I'm not saying that's wrong or right but it's how it is and, to be fair, their privately owned rivals would be screaming pretty loudly if that wasn't the case.

Someone living in SA could choose to buy electricity from Red or Lumo (both owned by Snowy Hydro), they could choose to buy from Momentum (owned by Hydro Tas) or they could choose any of the many privately owned suppliers. Snowy is owned by the NSW (58%), Vic (29%) and federal (13%) governments and Hydro Tas is 100% owned by the Tasmanian state government. But when it comes to selling power in SA they're doing it to make a profit as everyone else indeed their owners do ultimately require them to run as businesses.

So it does come down to the fundamental question of what society wants electricity companies to be?

A for profit business?

A cost neutral public service?

Something else?

Perhaps the biggest problem though is that there's actually a focus, and it has become the dominant focus, with whose name is on the bill. Sending out invoices and taking payment ought to be the easy bit versus maintaining supply in a cost effective manner whilst addressing the CO2 issue which is an actual challenge requiring some genuine effort to resolve.

So far as the big picture on the supply side is concerned, if it were up to me then in the year 2028 (so a year to work out the details then 10 years to get it done) I'd be aiming for:

40% of all electricity generated nationally to be from non-fossil fuel sources which emit CO2 to the atmosphere.

If one company or one grid can't or doesn't want to meet that target then no problem so long as they arrange with someone else to exceed it. The aim is 40% nationally for all commercially generated electricity.

A maximum 3% of electricity generated from resources produced outside Australia unless the source country has no physical infrastructure with which to sell their energy resources to anyone else such that Australia is their only market with supply reasonably assured. So if it comes via a pipeline or cable from PNG then that's fine but oil shipped from the Middle East isn't. Reason = security of supply. Target to apply nationally with trading between regions etc OK.

Not more than one third of supply to any major grid to be reliant on any one piece of infrastructure (eg mine, rail line, gas plant, pipeline or gas field) or imported fuel sourced from a non-captive supply source. Exemption where the primary or only purpose of the power system is to supply mining or in remote areas where multiple supply sources are simply impractical. Reason = security of supply in the event of equipment failure, natural disaster, terrorism, international tensions etc.

A 50 year proven reserve requirement at the national level for coal and gas to meet present Australian consumption. Only reserves surplus to that are available for export.

A target 55% net self sufficiency in liquid fuels used for transport and lubricant purposes and the ability to produce that volume of refined products within Australia from domestic resources. No requirement in relation to oil used as boiler fuel etc. This is by far the most difficult and in practice requires some combination of fuel substitution to reduce demand for liquids (eg electricity or natural gas used to run cars, trucks, buses, trains and domestic shipping), making every possible effort to maximise Australian oil discovery and the production of liquid transport fuels from unconventional resources such as natural gas (to produce petrol, diesel etc not just LNG), biomass, oil shale or coal. Reason = national security given that we're absolutely stuffed in this country without access to liquid transport fuels and the international supply chain is vulnerable to say the least).

Immediately meet IEA agreements for 90 days worth of net oil imports held in stock at all times. And do so without resorting to arguments that no country other than Australia has proposed that natural gas or even coal still in the ground should be counted as oil (yep, the Australian government tried to argue exactly that a few years ago). Oil means exactly that - either crude oil, condensate or refined products which have already been produced and are promptly deliverable for consumption). Note that the 90 days storage need not be a government owned stockpile. It could be held by oil companies with a legislated requirement to do so and normal commercial stocks are included in this figure (but not including fuel held at service stations or in vehicle fuel tanks etc). It's not hard - we're the only developed country not already doing what we agreed to do with this one.

The figures I mention aren't intended as an ultimate solution. They're just what I'd get done by 2028 if it were up to me. After that I'd increase both the % of renewable electricity and self sufficiency in transport fuels in an orderly manner over time.

It's not up to me though so hopefully our politicians "get it" before it's too late.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> So it does come down to the fundamental question of what society wants electricity companies to be?
> 
> A for profit business?
> 
> A cost neutral public service?
> 
> Something else?




It's an essential service as far as I'm concerned and should be the responsibility of government to see that it operates in the national interest, which means provision of power at a price that does not put business at a disadvantage to overseas business, and is pegged at percentage of say the OAP to domestic consumers, but there should be some financial penalty on high household usage to discourage waste.

It's probably too late to re-nationalise the whole industry, but governments should be financing and owning capital intensive strategic power assets like spinning reserves; ie pumped hydro, batteries, the remaining coal stations and gas turbine stations and private suppliers can own renewables like solar and wind. 

Consumers who install solar systems should be able to depreciate them on their tax returns to encourage take-up of these systems.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> Take a look at this, this is a Tesla power pack and solar installation in Hawaii, this offsets a lot of imported diesel. If they tried to use that same parcel of land to make ethanol or biodiesel, they wouldn't get any where near the amount of energy they get from those panels, plus they have to continually be farming and have risks of crop failure etc.




Not sure why Elon think, well I know why he think it's a good idea... but why would anyone else think it's a good idea to install a solar farm in Hawaii.

It's an island, surrounded by water, big water, salty water (Trump on PR )... So why not wind?

Or geothermal... being directly on top of an active volcano or two.

Unless you're a US billionaire, land is pretty scarce and expensive.

But yes, sure beat biofuel on the same parcel.

Most of the world is starving but some idiot think it's a good idea to turn corn and food into fuel for combustion engines.


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## luutzu

SirRumpole said:


> It's an essential service as far as I'm concerned and should be the responsibility of government to see that it operates in the national interest, which means provision of power at a price that does not put business at a disadvantage to overseas business, and is pegged at percentage of say the OAP to domestic consumers, but there should be some financial penalty on high household usage to discourage waste.
> 
> It's probably too late to re-nationalise the whole industry, but governments should be financing and owning capital intensive strategic power assets like spinning reserves; ie pumped hydro, batteries, the remaining coal stations and gas turbine stations and private suppliers can own renewables like solar and wind.
> 
> Consumers who install solar systems should be able to depreciate them on their tax returns to encourage take-up of these systems.





Chomsky: The interests of corporations and its owners is the "National Interest". All other interest are "Special Interest".

"What's good for GM is Good for America" [read by Reagan, written by GM].

And while it certainly is a great idea you got there with nationalising solar, wind and other renewable power stations of the future... Reality is we taxpayers of the (Western) world pay for the early stages of those development; subsidise the risky and unprofitable early construction and adoption stages.

Then once it starts to be all built, proven safe, reliable and profitable... our dear leaders privatise it off to friends and masters. 

Owning stocks is definitely the right way to making money that's for dam sure.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> It's probably too late to re-nationalise the whole industry




I'm not advocating it, I've said before it's more about the what and how it's structured than who owns it, but it has been done before.

WA, SA and Vic all started out with private ownership of electricity. Tas had private ownership in Hobart and on the west coast with local government ownership in Launceston.

WA went for state ownership to get the East Perth power station built to make power available to the whole city using a local resource (coal from Collie). They tried to privatise almost as soon as it was built - only reason it didn't happen was because nobody wanted to buy it. Not one serious offer was made apparently.

Vic and SA did it in order to substitute locally mined coal rather than rely on unreliable supplies from NSW which were frequently (and intentionally) cut off.

The organisation now trading as Hydro Tasmania (which is a trading name only by the way - it's still the Hydro-Electric Corporation in a formal sense) started out under private ownership as the Hydro-Electric Power & Metallurgical Company. The state took over for two reasons - first because HEPMCo ran out of money and couldn't complete building the Waddamana power scheme and secondly due to a broader vision of massive expansion as a means of boosting the state's economy.

It's more complicated in Qld and NSW with a lot of local government involvement in the early years and then in NSW the state railways were also the power generation business. Both ended up with a state owned utility eventually though.

So whilst I'm not directly advocating it, it has certainly been done before.


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## Wysiwyg

Smurf1976 said:


> Traditionally the state owned utilities were essentially not for profit public services. As a whole they recovered costs but no more. Any profit in one year was used to avoid increasing, or in some instances outright reduce, prices charged in the following year. They held modest cash reserves in case unforeseen things went wrong but they didn't exist to make a profit as such.



What happens when State owned businesses get privatised ...
1) Employee numbers get slashed heavily
2) Those that survive the cut have to fight (with Unions) to maintain at least the same level of wages and conditions. Company threatens alternate awards unless agreement is met.
3) Whole business sectors are deemed unsustainable and are contracted out or sold off completely.
3) Company policies and new work practices take control of your personal life by changing roster hours to meet business requirements and what you can and can't say about the business on social media. (yes employees disciplined over social media comments, social media policed?)
4) Management levels get large pay rises,  Board members get massive pay increases. (one example by a union delegate was that it would take a worker 60 years to earn what the CEO earned in one year, a gob smacking fact.) 
5) Company profits get passed to share holders because the business exists purely to satiate the share holders desire for more dividends and more profits yoy.
6) The business is always going through an apparent tough period and changes need to be made with cost reductions and employee involuntary redundancies while still profiting yoy.

I reckon the workers of Australia are getting taken for mugs.


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## sptrawler

It sounds as though the government has finally had the penny drop. They apparently will make energy companies meet reliability and emissions quotas, or face being de registered.
Finally something that puts the onus on the supplier, to provide *reliability*.
The way it was going, the energy companies would make money by shutting everything down, no fuel cost no wages, no reliability. 
But that wouldn't be their fault, they would have satisfied the clean energy target, no problem.


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## SirRumpole

Excellent interview with Mark Collette , energy head for Energy Australia, explaining some of the problems with power supply in NSW.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-17/business-backs-national-energy-guarantee/9059844


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## Macquack

Wysiwyg said:


> What happens when State owned businesses get privatised ...
> 1) Employee numbers get slashed heavily
> 2) Those that survive the cut have to fight (with Unions) to maintain at least the same level of wages and conditions. Company threatens alternate awards unless agreement is met.
> 3) Whole business sectors are deemed unsustainable and are contracted out or sold off completely.
> 3) Company policies and new work practices take control of your personal life by changing roster hours to meet business requirements and what you can and can't say about the business on social media. (yes employees disciplined over social media comments, social media policed?)
> 4) Management levels get large pay rises,  Board members get massive pay increases. (one example by a union delegate was that it would take a worker 60 years to earn what the CEO earned in one year, a gob smacking fact.)
> 5) Company profits get passed to share holders because the business exists purely to satiate the share holders desire for more dividends and more profits yoy.
> 6) The business is always going through an apparent tough period and changes need to be made with cost reductions and employee involuntary redundancies while still profiting yoy.
> 
> I reckon the workers of Australia are getting taken for mugs.




I remember going to a protest rally against the proposed privatisation of electricity in NSW. I can't remember the year, but Morris Iemma was the Premier.

High school economics taught me that only a fool sells a goldmine and also that a monoply in a essential utility will lead to price gouging, profiteering and pain and suffering for the end consumer.

Turnbull's solution is to force the power companies to show the consumer the best plan that best suits their needs. What a load of bull****. Electricity is not the same as some exotic mobile phone plan.


----------



## SirRumpole

Macquack said:


> I remember going to a protest rally against the proposed privatisation of electricity in NSW. I can't remember the year, but Morris Iemma was the Premier.
> 
> High school economics taught me that only a fool sells a goldmine and also that a monoply in a essential utility will lead to price gouging, profiteering and pain and suffering for the end consumer.
> 
> Turnbull's solution is to force the power companies to show the consumer the best plan that best suits their needs. What a load of bull****. Electricity is not the same as some exotic mobile phone plan.




 I was pretty disappointed with a Labour government's decision to sell public assets but I wonder how much the decision was influenced by Peter Costello's "assets recycling" policy which meant that States got no money for new infrastructure unless they sold existing assets first.

One of the great ideological obsessions that has landed us in the mess we have now.


----------



## Macquack

SirRumpole said:


> I was pretty disappointed with a Labour government's decision to sell public assets but I wonder how much the decision was influenced by Peter Costello's "assets recycling" policy which meant that States got no money for new infrastructure unless they sold existing assets first.
> 
> One of the great ideological obsessions that has landed us in the mess we have now.



The dopey NSW Labor Party (infiltrated by capitalist pigs) also sold off the NSW Lotteries Office. How f*cking stupid can you get.


----------



## Smurf1976

Some of the private owners are far better than others.

There's at least one that has technical competence, has been reasonably open about what they're doing and does seem to "get it".

There's another that's fairly well known in the industry for doing precisely the opposite of what makes sense.

There are others who are OK with the business side but lack technical knowledge.

There are others who aren't so interested in power at all and are more focused on something else. Their power stations do at least work however so they must be employing the right people even if the board is focused elsewhere.

Then there's those who decided that they didn't need walls on their nice new plant. Walls cost money you see. One of these days they might get it working as well as the early 1980's power station not far away which government built. One is running nicely and one isn't - no prizes for guessing which is which.

So it's a mixed bag as with anything.

To be fair the old state utilities weren't perfect either although they usually got it right.

The former SECV wins the prize there. You know things have gone wrong in a big way when it's not just that it stopped generating but the whole power station physically moved a couple of metres from where it was previously. Now that's a failure! I don't think anyone was hurt thankfully and the plant has since been repaired and still operates today but it was certainly a major incident at the time.

To their credit though they had a properly designed and operated system as a whole so the loss of that generator didn't result in even one blackout to anyone. Easy when you've got sufficient reserves in the system to cover things going wrong.


----------



## Smurf1976

Regarding the recent policy announcement, like just about everyone I'm yet to see all the details but one thing I'll note is this.

It is NOT an energy policy.

At most it is an electricity generation policy.

The reasons for that comment are simply this.

So far as electricity is concerned it focuses on generation only. It doesn't seem to do anything with networks and it doesn't do anything with retail apart from placing some obligations on retailers to keep generation in business.

Ordinary consumers don't generally care too much about power stations so long as they exist, are working as intended and aren't causing a fuss with things like the environment or safety. 

What consumers of all kinds (individuals, business, anyone) do care about is that the energy they purchase is affordable, safe, reliable and acceptable in terms of the environment and other matters.

The trouble is that electricity is not the only energy form used by end consumers indeed it's not even the largest. Nationally electricity accounts for 20.0% of energy supplied to end consumers.

Oil is the big one at 51.5%

Gas comes next at 20.2%

Electricity is 20.0%

Wood and other solid biomass are 4.4%

Coal is 3.5%

Solar used on site is 0.3%

Refined biofuels are 0.2%

All figures rounded to the nearest 0.1% from Australian Government data.

Note that this is for energy sold to consumers. So I'm not including coal going into power stations so as to avoid double counting with the end product (electricity). These figures are for the electricity, gas, petrol and so on as used by households, industry, general businesses, public services and so on.

We've seen rather a lot of fuss about ethanol over the years. An awful lot given it's only 0.2% of the energy supplied to end users.

Now we've got a new policy for how to generate, but not how to transmit, distribute or retail, electricity.

I don't disagree with the but a policy which covers one part of the industry which supplies 20% of the energy used by end users isn't a national energy policy by any means.

Meanwhile the elephant in the room is met with deafening silence. Yep, the 51.5% of energy supplied to end users in the form of petroleum, over 60% of which is imported.

If the oil stops arriving then to be blunt we're stuffed. Nothing that's happened with blackouts in SA or power price hikes in various states comes anywhere near to the chaos an oil supply disruption would unleash.

For those interested, some more facts and figures.

The largest end use sector is industrial (including mining) which is 42.3 of end use energy. Of that, gas is the largest source supplying 35.2% of the total. Oil 30.2%, electricity 19.7%, coal 7.8%, wood 7.2%

Second largest end use sector is transport which is 38.2% of end use energy supplied. Oil supplies almost the whole lot being 98.2% of all transport energy. Of the other sources, electricity and refined biofuels are 0.6% each, coal 0.4%, natural gas 0.2%

Third largest end use sector is residential at 11.5% of energy supplied to end users. Of that electricity is 47.8% of the total, gas is 34.2%, wood 11.6%, oil 3.7%, solar used on site 2.6%

Fourth largest end use sector is non-industrial business (which also includes public services) at 8.1% of end use energy. Of that 73.8% is electricity, 15.9% is gas, 9.7% oil, 0.3% coal, 0.3% solar.

Compiled by Smurf from various official Australian Government statistics sources.

Note that by definition LPG is a petroleum product and is included in the "oil" figures. This approach is used internationally.  

So what about coal? Well the primary use of that is to generate electricity and at the national level it is by far the largest source of electricity. Use for other purposes is far less although it is significant for industrial purposes.

At a state level the major variations from the national figures are:

Gas is the most important fuel in WA with oil in second place. A lot of WA's electricity is also produced using gas in addition to that very high level of direct use.

Oil and electricity account for virtually all energy in the NT with everything else being trivial at most. That said, most electricity in the NT is produced from gas but other uses of gas, apart from power generation, are very minor.

Electricity is in top spot in Tasmania, an unusual situation even at the global level, very closely followed by oil. The use of gas is low compared to the national average on a per capita basis but the use of coal (in heavy industry) and wood (mostly residential) are above average.

I've posted all this hoping that it puts things into perspective in terms of how it affects end users. Electricity is essential to modern life but it certainly isn't the only form of energy used by individuals or business indeed except in Tasmania it isn't even the largest.

Oil's the real danger and there's some emerging gas supply constraints in Vic and SA too. This winter was OK but getting the storage in SW Vic filled over summer is going to be problematic if there's a need to run gas-fired power generation at reasonably high levels in Vic as seems likely unless it's an abnormally cool summer.


----------



## SirRumpole

Yes, any decent government Labor or Liberal would come up with an energy security policy that covers all of your quoted inputs, but as usual they are focussed on the short term hit the other side over the head type stuff. 

This article shows that the military is concerned about oil dependancy, and surely the government would listen to them ? 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-...south-china-sea-tensions-nrma-advisor/7149648


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## Smurf1976

An oil disruption is a plausible event.

There was trouble during WW2, in 1973-74 and again in 1979. 

The first one affected Australia greatly. Then rapidly increasing production from Bass Strait saved us on the latter two occasions although some oil products became physically scarce (heavy fuel oil in particular).

So it's in the "probably happen someday" category. Given the extreme consequences such a risk warrants a plan to address it. 

If it was a workplace safety issue then with that combination of probability and consequence even the most basic WHS training will tell you that it's unacceptable to not have a plan to manage the risk.


----------



## sptrawler

There is probably a, "she'll be right, as long as it doesn't happen on my shift", going on.
Whichever side of politics addresses the problem, will give the budget a very,very, very big hit.


----------



## sptrawler

This article in today's "West", gives a good explanation of the state of play, in W.A.

https://thewest.com.au/opinion/opinion-clock-ticks-fast-on-green-power-ng-b88632788z

It also explains a few facts on renewables.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> This article in today's "West", gives a good explanation of the state of play, in W.A.
> 
> https://thewest.com.au/opinion/opinion-clock-ticks-fast-on-green-power-ng-b88632788z
> 
> It also explains a few facts on renewables.




So how much subsidies have been given to fossil fuels over the years ?

I don't necessarily begrudge those subsidies, but it's pretty hard to argue that subsidies for fossil fuels should remain while renewables shouldn't get any.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> So how much subsidies have been given to fossil fuels over the years ?
> 
> I don't necessarily begrudge those subsidies, but it's pretty hard to argue that subsidies for fossil fuels should remain while renewables shouldn't get any.




I would say most of the fossil fuel was originally put in by the Government, then sold off.
So how you would work that out would be difficult.

I don't think the subsidies are the issue, it is the fact the public is paying for companies to put in renewables, with no regard for reliability or to be more accurate system stability. That is the issue.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I don't think the subsidies are the issue, it is the fact the public is paying for companies to put in renewables, with no regard for reliability or to be more accurate system stability. That is the issue.




Finkle's recommendation is that renewable energy providers also guarantee security by providing storage or thermal backup.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...face-new-security-and-reliability-regulations


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Finkle's recommendation is that renewable energy providers also guarantee security by providing storage or thermal backup.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/austral...face-new-security-and-reliability-regulations




I didn't realise we were discussing the Finkle report.
But on that subject I thought most of the report was adopted, it was just the target that was in disagreement.


----------



## explod

I wonder sometimes why there is any argument.  Renewable power from combined wind and solar is taking over efficiently around tge world.  Know a bloke at Little River (towards Geelong from Melbourne) who's been off the grid for five years now.  He's never had to start his engine driven generator backup.  Many countires,  particularly Europe are passing the fifty percent margin.

Admittedly weve had plenty of cheap coal to hold things and quite apart from the environmental aspect,  wind and solar are now as cheap and a little bit of effort (from Guvnmints)  towards aiding willing consumers we could do so much more.  On a hot day for example an airconditioner could run off a few solar panels independant of the grid.

We offer (rightfully) huge incentives to medical science as one example so why not for further alternative energy research.   And as pointed out by Sir Rumpy,  at least match what has been going in to hold up coal.


----------



## sptrawler

explod said:


> I wonder sometimes why there is any argument.  Renewable power from combined wind and solar is taking over efficiently around tge world.  Know a bloke at Little River (towards Geelong from Melbourne) who's been off the grid for five years now.  He's never had to start his engine driven generator backup.  Many countires,  particularly Europe are passing the fifty percent margin.
> 
> Admittedly weve had plenty of cheap coal to hold things and quite apart from the environmental aspect,  wind and solar are now as cheap and a little bit of effort (from Guvnmints)  towards aiding willing consumers we could do so much more.  On a hot day for example an airconditioner could run off a few solar panels independant of the grid.
> 
> We offer (rightfully) huge incentives to medical science as one example so why not for further alternative energy research.   And as pointed out by Sir Rumpy,  at least match what has been going in to hold up coal.




I think everyone is in agreement with you, on the fact renewable energy is the future, the only debate is how fast we pursue it.
S.A has shown, less haste may in fact, produce a faster and better result.


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## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I didn't realise we were discussing the Finkle report.
> But on that subject I thought most of the report was adopted, it was just the target that was in disagreement.




Yes, funny how he could get 49/50 so right, but completely **** up the CET isn't it ?


----------



## Smurf1976

I'd certainly like to see a move to renewables. Even without the CO2 issue it's a reality that non-renewable resources are just that, a finite resource that will become increasingly expensive over time as the best sources are used up first.

With oil that's already underway. Sure, there's no shortage of petrol or diesel at the pumps but nobody in their right mind would be drilling in huge depths of water, near the North Pole or messing about fracking tiny wells in the US which deplete incredibly fast if there was still plenty of cheap and easy oil available from traditional sources. We're not out yet but we're going down the curve certainly.

 In due course gas and finally coal would end up following the same path indeed that there's already an industry tapping relatively more expensive gas from unconventional sources tells the story there.

Then there's the political aspects. For both oil and gas a handful of countries, many of them unstable or not politically friendly, hold most of the reserves. Russia, Iran and Qatar between them have two thirds of all known gas reserves globally.

Then there's all the non-CO2 environmental effects of which there are plenty.

And of course there's CO2 as another problem with fossil fuels.

So renewables are inevitable in the long term. Ultimately it's either that or sit in the dark. We're not going to be using coal etc forever that's a given.

The problem with renewables however is that apart from hydro and biomass they're akin to a reverse casual worker. An arrangement where the workers not the business sets the hours.

Now suppose that you run a business which operates either 24/7 or at night. Would you have an arrangement where all your staff choose their own hours? No you wouldn't because your 24/7 fast food outlet just isn't going to work when nobody turns up to work in the middle of the night or simply because it's a nice day and they've gone to the beach. Your restaurant's going to do even worse when most of your staff decide to work 9 to 5 and nobody turns up on Saturday night.

So we need power generation sources which work when we need electricity not just at random.

If we're going to use renewable resources then the workaround is to store energy when it's available to use it when we need it. Hydro and biomass do that by default but they're limited in this country which leaves things like wind and solar which are intermittent by their nature.  

Solution to that is to build separate storage systems. Pumped hydro is proven, efficient and durable. Batteries aren't overly durable but they work and are another option. Then there's possibilities with compressed air, heat storage and some really "out there" ideas like running trains full of concrete up and down hills not to deliver the concrete but simply to store and release energy.

Making it work isn't impossible. We just need to get the politicians out of the way and let the engineers and others get on with it.

10 years and 5 prime ministers is a long time to be arguing about how to spin magnets inside coils of wire (which is in fundamental terms how a generator works - everything else is about how to produce the mechanical power to make it spin).

We just need to get this one sorted. Then with a bit of luck we can start addressing the real energy elephant in the room and that's oil not electricity.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, funny how he could get 49/50 so right, but completely **** up the CET isn't it ?




That is, of course, if in fact a CET is the way to go.
Everything is very subjective at the moment, which isn't the ideal situation, with something as important as power security and distribution.

There are numerous ways of bringing about a reduction in emissions, and I'm sure as technology improves, it will get easier.

The problem at the moment is, it is a political point scoring excercise.
When in fact it should be a sensible bipartisan approach, that achieves the desired result, with the minimum cost to the tax payer and a reliable supply of electricity.

Currently all the talk is about the emission reduction, that's easy, just have rolling blackouts over peak periods or periods of low renewable output. lol
People would soon focus on security of supply then.

I get the distinct impression at the moment, politicians are focused on their wage packet, rather than what is best for us. Not that that is unusual.IMO

We would probably get better outcomes if all politicians recieved the same pay, instead of if they are opposition or not.


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Then with a bit of luck we can start addressing the real energy elephant in the room and that's oil not electricity.




Coal to oil ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_liquefaction


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, funny how he could get 49/50 so right, but completely **** up the CET isn't it ?




It looks as though you don't need to worry yourself about it, apparently it isn't a **** up.
Billy will be unhappy, he will look like a real dick, if he opposes it.
Maybe some, who are on the boards of renewable companies, will be pissed because the gravy train is slowing.
But we, the general public, will be far better off.IMO

Quote:
Chief Scientist Alan Finkel has also given his tick of approval, saying that it is not much different to the proposed clean energy target which had the enthusiastic backing of Labor.

Indeed, Finkel said this week that had he modelled the NEG alongside the CET and Labor’s first preference of an Emissions Intensity Scheme and there would be little difference in the price between the policies for consumers.

While slightly different to Finkel’s recommendation (perhaps mainly that it didn’t mention the word “clean”), the Chief Scientist said the Government’s alternative policy would still meet the same objectives as a CET.

“The important thing is that they’re effectively adopting an orderly transition that covers a trajectory encouragement of low-emission energy into the market and ... an obligation on the system to deliver electricity when needed,” he said.

Far from the cries of catastrophe coming from the renewables sector and the Greens, Finkel said the policy was “logical”, would still serve as a “credible mechanism” and would allow Australia to meet its emission target obligations.

https://thewest.com.au/opinion/sara...has-a-clean-energy-breakthrough-ng-b88634230z


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## Smurf1976

Meanwhile a local council wants to build a coal-fired power station in Tas.

They're looking for ways to create jobs in their area and I don't blame them for that, they've got coal in the ground so there's some logic there, but I reckon there's more chance of me landing on Mars and getting there on a sleigh drawn by flying pigs than of such a power station being built.

Same idea has been looked at previous in the late 1960's, again during the great dams debate of the early 1980's and again in the 1990's and didn't stack up financially on any of those occasions since something else was always cheaper.

Nothing's impossible I suppose.

On another note pensioners in Tas will be getting a cheque for Christmas from the state government. Yep, there's an election due early next year....


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Meanwhile a local council wants to build a coal-fired power station in Tas.




I didn't think councils were that rich. What would it cost, half a billion ?


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I didn't think councils were that rich. What would it cost, half a billion ?



They're not proposing to build it themselves, just trying to get broader support for the idea.

At least one federal politician (Liberal) seems to be keen on it.


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## basilio

We "know" about pollution but perhaps we don't fully understand how toxic the effects of millions of tons of emissions from coal fired power plants, petrol powered transport and industrial plants powered by fossil fuels. Not to mention the rest of teh toxic waste from out industrial civilisation. This is the latest most extensive analysis.

So with this reality in mind and the now cost effective clean, renewable  alternatives what reasons are left for not moving ASAP to a cleaner, renewable energy future ?

* Global pollution kills millions and threatens 'survival of human societies' *
Landmark study finds toxic air, water, soils and workplaces kill at least 9m people and cost trillions of dollars every year




A Bangladeshi rickshaw puller rides past smoke created by burning waste materials on a street in Dhaka. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

*Shares*
297
 
* Comments*
 123 
Damian Carrington Environment editor

 
@dpcarrington

Thursday 19 October 2017 23.30 BST   Last modified on Friday 20 October 2017 02.18 BST

Pollution kills at least nine million people and costs trillions of dollars every year, according to the most comprehensive global analysis to date, which warns the crisis “threatens the continuing survival of human societies”.

Toxic air, water, soils and workplaces are responsible for the diseases that kill one in every six people around the world, the landmark report found, and the true total could be millions higher because the impact of many pollutants are poorly understood. The deaths attributed to pollution are triple those from Aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

The vast majority of the pollution deaths occur in poorer nations and in some, such as India, Chad and Madagascar, pollution causes a quarter of all deaths. The international researchers said this burden is a hugely expensive drag on developing economies.






* Pollution responsible for quarter of deaths of young children, says WHO *
Read more
Rich nations still have work to do to tackle pollution: the US and Japan are in the top 10 for deaths from “modern” forms of pollution, ie fossil fuel-related air pollution and chemical pollution. But the scientists said that the big improvements that have been made in developed nations in recent decades show that beating pollution is a winnable battle if there is the political will.

“Pollution is one of the great existential challenges of the [human-dominated] Anthropocene era,” concluded the authors of the Commission on Pollution and Health, published in the Lancet on Friday. “Pollution endangers the stability of the Earth’s support systems and threatens the continuing survival of human societies.”

Prof Philip Landrigan, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, US, who co-led the commission, said: “We fear that with nine million deaths a year, we are pushing the envelope on the amount of pollution the Earth can carry.” For example, he said, air pollution deaths in south-east Asia are on track to double by 2050.

Landrigan said the scale of deaths from pollution had surprised the researchers and that two other “real shockers” stood out. First was how quickly modern pollution deaths were rising, while “traditional” pollution deaths – from contaminated water and wood cooking fires – were falling as development work bears fruit.

“Secondly, we hadn’t really got our minds around how much pollution is not counted in the present tally,” he said. “The current figure of nine million is almost certainly an underestimate, probably by several million.”

This is because scientists are still discovering links between pollution and ill health, such as the connection between air pollution and dementia, diabetes and kidney disease. Furthermore, lack of data on many toxic metals and chemicals could not be included in the new analysis.

The researchers estimated the welfare losses from pollution at $4.6tn a year, equivalent to more than 6% of global GDP. “Those costs are so massive they can drag down the economy of countries that are trying to get ahead,” said Landrigan. “We always hear ‘we can’t afford to clean up pollution’ – I say we can’t afford not to clean it up.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...s-millions-threatens-survival-human-societies


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## SirRumpole

Why we need an east coast gas reservation policy.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-23/the-case-for-an-east-coast-gas-reservation-policy/9074896


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## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Why we need an east coast gas reservation policy.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-23/the-case-for-an-east-coast-gas-reservation-policy/9074896




We can have all the gas we need, if drillers are allowed to drill.

Its groups like these and their crowd pleasing pollies that have set back the gas supply.


----------



## fiftyeight

We have enough gas offshore. No need to put our agricultural land at risk. 

It should of been a condition of granting approval for places like Gorgon and Gladstone that domestic supply is guaranteed at a maximum of market price (probably should be guaranteed at a discount to the marker price to stimulate the rest of our economy) . These projects are so big and will generate huge profits, there is enough fat to secure the domestic market at good prices and for the companies to generate profits


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## Value Collector

fiftyeight said:


> We have enough gas offshore. No need to put our agricultural land at risk.
> 
> It should of been a condition of granting approval for places like Gorgon and Gladstone that domestic supply is guaranteed at a maximum of market price (probably should be guaranteed at a discount to the marker price to stimulate the rest of our economy) . These projects are so big and will generate huge profits, there is enough fat to secure the domestic market at good prices and for the companies to generate profits




Basic economics of it mean that domestic supply will always be available at a rate lower than export rates.

It costs money to freeze the gas, load it on a ship and sail the ship to china, So when deciding to divert gas into the Australian pipelines or to a ship, Australian pipelines will always have a pricing advantage, local users will always be able to under cut the export market by the amount of the shipping costs.

There is no doubt that supply issues are due to groups making it difficult to drill in qld and nsw, not because of any geological limit we have reached.

two things need to happen.

1, Drillers need to be allowed to drill.

2, Local users need to accept the market price, they still have the advantage, its just the spread has narrowed.


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## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Basic economics of it mean that domestic supply will always be available at a rate lower than export rates.




But that is simply not happening. Australian gas is cheaper overseas than it is domestically, that's a fact.


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## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> But that is simply not happening. Australian gas is cheaper overseas than it is domestically, that's a fact.




Have you got a link to that information? you aren't comparing retail Australian rates to wholesale export rates are you?

the only way I can see that happening is if you are talking about an old contract that locked in a lower pricing model before the government and protestors restricted new supply coming on.

Any new supply contracts being negotiated would be at market rates, where domestic users have the advantage.

Think about it, if you are in the business of selling baked beans,

and a guy in china is willing to pay you $1 per tin, but you have to pay 10cents shipping, while I am sitting next to you also willing to pay 92 cents for the tin, you are much better off selling it to me.

off course it costs money to ship gas through Australian pipelines also, But foreign users still face those costs to after the gas hits their shores.


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## fiftyeight

Value Collector said:


> Local users need to accept the market price, they still have the advantage, its just the spread has narrowed.




Why do they need to accept it? Many markets are manipulated why should this one not be manipulated to assist the economy


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## Value Collector

fiftyeight said:


> Why do they need to accept it? Many markets are manipulated why should this one not be manipulated to assist the economy




What makes this the best market to manipulate?

Can you think of any other commodity where a shortage has been fixed by holding prices down?

Supply and demand 101 - higher prices facilitate a surge of investment in new supply, thus ending a shortage, 

Ofcourse that can only happen if the new supply isn't curtailed by alarmist protestors and reactionary knee jerk political decisions.


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## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Have you got a link to that information? you aren't comparing retail Australian rates to wholesale export rates are you?




You really should DYOR sometimes.

https://theconversation.com/gas-cri...-for-australian-lng-than-australians-do-74438


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## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:
			
		

> Ofcourse that can only happen if the new supply isn't curtailed by alarmist protestors and reactionary knee jerk political decisions.




Fracking can have serious consequences for the environment. There should be restrictions but not necessarily a blanket ban.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> You really should DYOR sometimes.
> 
> https://theconversation.com/gas-cri...-for-australian-lng-than-australians-do-74438




You should try to do some real research.

As I thought, you have been reading bogus claims that compare "Retail Australian Prices" to the "Whole international price"

check out this chart.

https://www.appea.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/International_gas_price_comparisons.jpg








> In recent weeks, several politicians, commentators, industry bodies and activist groups have repeated an Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis claim that domestic customers pay 65 per cent more for Australian gas than Japanese customers do.
> 
> This is simply not true.
> 
> Australian domestic gas prices are NOT higher than prices prevailing in Australia’s major LNG export markets – let alone double the overseas prices.
> 
> A respected consultancy, EnergyQuest, has shown that the household cost numbers cited by the IEEFA make no sense.
> 
> A price of $A8.42/GJ in Japan is about the same as the price of Australian LNG on delivery to Japan – not the price of gas supplied to households. In August, Tokyo Gas was actually charging a standard residential customer $A41.67/GJ.
> 
> The IEEFA is comparing retail prices to wholesale prices – or apples to oranges.
> 
> Industrial gas prices in Japan, Korea and China are also much higher than in Australia.  Yet an ABC report on 1 August quoted the Australian Industry Group as saying “Asian manufacturers can now buy Australian gas at half the price local manufacturers are paying”.
> 
> All Japanese gas is imported as LNG. In June 2016, the average import price of Australian LNG before regasification and transmission to local customers was about $A8.68/GJ.  Tokyo Gas quotes the price for industrial customers as being ¥30/cubic metre or $A10.45/GJ.
> 
> Similarly, prices for Korean industrial customers were $A16.65/GJ in Q1 2016 and in August Chinese prices ranged between $A11.48 and $A26.69/GJ. These are much higher than Australian prices.
> 
> In its comprehensive east coast gas market inquiry, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission recently found: “Some users raised concerns in the course of the Inquiry that domestic prices in the east coast gas market were now higher than gas prices paid by overseas users purchasing LNG on international markets. The evidence obtained by the Inquiry does not support these claims — domestic gas prices in the east coast gas market are still generally lower than prices paid by overseas users that purchase LNG.” (p 36)





https://www.appea.com.au/2016/08/the-truth-about-domestic-and-export-gas-prices/


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## Junior

It is very clear that 'market competition' and a lack of regulation in the energy sector simply isn't working.  We have access to vast natural resources, yet have some of the highest energy prices in the world..... I'm not happy lining the pockets of AGL just for the sake of the free market.  How is competition amongst energy retailers supposed to benefit the consumer:  THEY ARE ALL SELLING AN IDENTICAL PRODUCT.

Electricity is a basic need and we have an abundance of resources, which should result in very cheap power prices, and a therefore thriving economy.

The current system is very very broke, and if it takes Government intervention to change that, then so be it.

The Government has invested vast swathes of public money in coal power plants in the past, why can't we invest vast amounts in renewable projects today??  Sell them off at completion if need be, but just get the ball rolling, and fast.  Build some large, large scale solar farms.  Invest in a new Hydro project, with storage.  Let Elon Musk move out to rural Vic and set up one of his solar factories.  

Do Something!


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## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> You should try to do some real research.




As I thought, you have been reading bogus claims that compare "Retail Australian Prices" to the "Whole international price"

check out this chart.

Appea "the voice of the Australian Oil and Gas industry".

No bias there then ?


----------



## Smurf1976

Logic says that gas would be cheaper in Australia than overseas given the significant cost of liquefaction and shipping.

In reality however there are large buyers in Australia finding they either can't get a long term supply at any reasonable price or at best it's at a price higher than that prevailing in international markets.

So what should logically apply isn't happening in price it seems.

Who?

Rio Tinto have publicly said they're having trouble getting any long term supply contracts for some of their operations.

It's public knowledge that Hydro Tasmania has been trying to do a deal for quite some time at a price that would make Tamar Valley power station, the most efficient gas-fired plant in the National Electricity Market, viable to operate on a permanent basis so as to supply additional electricity from Tas to Vic. In the absence of a suitable deal Hydro will just keep the plant as a backup and operate it if either gas versus electricity spot prices happen to be favourable at any given time or if there's a problem with power supply in Tas (the latter being possible but the probability in % terms is pretty low).

AGL have gone as far as seriously pursuing a proposal to import LNG as a lower cost and more abundant alternative to trying to get enough gas from Australian producers at a price that's cheaper than imports + the cost of the facilities AGL will need to build to make imported LNG a workable option.

These 3 are all significant businesses not just some random operator. Two are big cap stocks listed on the ASX and the other has the backing of a state government in addition to $ billions worth of assets. Not certain about Rio Tinto but the other two have both been around more than a century. So nobody can say they're not creditworthy etc.

The problem is real unfortunately.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> As I thought, you have been reading bogus claims that compare "Retail Australian Prices" to the "Whole international price"
> 
> check out this chart.
> 
> Appea "the voice of the Australian Oil and Gas industry".
> 
> No bias there then ?




So you don't see a problem with comparing a retail rate of gas delivered to an Australian household, (e.g. that includes taxes, retailer profit margin, distribution fees etc) to the price at which the gas is unloaded at the docks in Japan?


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> In reality however there are large buyers in Australia finding they either can't get a long term supply at any reasonable price or at best it's at a price higher than that prevailing in international markets.
> 
> So what should logically apply isn't happening in price it seems.
> 
> .





yep, and thats due to new supply being curtailed, as the export contracts expire they will face the same issue.


----------



## fiftyeight

Value Collector said:


> What makes this the best market to manipulate?
> 
> Can you think of any other commodity where a shortage has been fixed by holding prices down?
> 
> Supply and demand 101 - higher prices facilitate a surge of investment in new supply, thus ending a shortage,
> 
> Ofcourse that can only happen if the new supply isn't curtailed by alarmist protestors and reactionary knee jerk political decisions.




I have no doubt GLOBAL demand will stay high and prices will react accordingly. Australia is a spec on the demand side but we have huge gas deposits. I doubt securing a below market price deal for our own gas would change price globally or the profitability of the big players


----------



## Value Collector

fiftyeight said:


> I have no doubt GLOBAL demand will stay high and prices will react accordingly. Australia is a spec on the demand side but we have huge gas deposits. I doubt securing a below market price deal for our own gas would change price globally or the profitability of the big players




Individual projects will need to compete for capital, if you want private industry to produce the gas supply, 

1, they have to be allowed to produce.

2, they need a decent return on capital or the investment funds will head to other oil and gas fields.

if the producers are having trouble getting projects started due to greens, and then get told the projects that do go ahead have price limits, they will not bother.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> So you don't see a problem with comparing a retail rate of gas delivered to an Australian household, (e.g. that includes taxes, retailer profit margin, distribution fees etc) to the price at which the gas is unloaded at the docks in Japan?




Regardless of what spin you put on it, it comes down to this



> Japan is our biggest buyer. Businesses there have been reportedly able to buy Australian gas at around half the price to that available to Australian manufacturers.




So that is cost to the end user.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-...australia-than-in-export-destinations/7680106


----------



## fiftyeight

Value Collector said:


> they need a decent return on capital or the investment funds will head to other oil and gas fields.
> 
> if the producers are having trouble getting projects started due to greens, and then get told the projects that do go ahead have price limits




Not limited prices, domestic gas should be pegged to the market. As long as Australia receives a discount to the market and ensures we have an advantage.

Gorgon does have a domgas line so it is definitely feasible, all I am saying is that the Australian market should be supplied with discount gas. I really doubt this small extra burden would be a deal breaker in a $50b project


----------



## Smurf1976

Depending on what source of data you look at and what assumptions you make about price, Australia has between 0.4% and 2% of world gas reserves.

Russia, Iran and Qatar are the big players in terms of gas in the ground. Depending on what data source you look at between those three they've got between half and two thirds of global reserves.

From the perspective of the Australian east coast (including SA and Tas) market is:

Cooper basin (SA) production is well past peak with around 80% of discovered reserves having been used.

Bass Strait reserves are roughly 50% depleted and in the case of the Otway basin production is in decline. Gippsland basin production isn't presently limited by reserves but it's not really worthwhile investing to increase the extraction rate given the short lifespan any new processing capacity would have.

NT, WA and Qld have plenty in the ground relative to consumption in those states but have committed the bulk of it to export. As such there's not all that much available to increase supply domestically.

Which leaves NSW as the only place known to have significant reserves which could be made available. Developing that will only help however if it's not exported.

That there was a long term deficiency of supply in SE Australia was known 40 years ago so it's nothing new. SA in particular was in a huge panic at one point - the recently closed coal-fired Northern power station being part of their steps to shift away from gas.

I'm not arguing for artificially cheap gas in the domestic market but physical volume ought to be assured with only actual surplus exported.

The LNG companies in Qld will no doubt say they're committed to contracts but if so that's a blunder in itself.

Firstly because surely they'd have realised that government would step in to ensure physical supply locally.

Secondly because plenty of other big oil and gas exporters routinely inform customers at to what % of contracted volume, and that means an amount less than 100%, will actually be delivered. Nobody's taking them to court over that or refusing to deal with them so if the Australian suppliers don't have that flexibility then pretty clearly they didn't negotiate the contracts as well as their overseas rivals did.

I don't begrudge AGL for pursuing it, they don't have many options and it beats doing nothing, but the idea of importing LNG is absurd in so many ways. First due to cost and secondly due to the massive energy loss and resultant emissions involved in the process.

Produce too much LNG in Qld thus reducing the flow of gas from Qld to Moomba (SA).

That then reduces the flow from Moomba into SA and NSW.

Then import LNG to Victoria to increase the flow from Vic to SA and NSW.

The net result is that it's importing LNG in order to enable more production of LNG for export.

Anyone with a shred of intelligence would see the logical alternative of supplying the export market with the same LNG we're proposing to import and skipping the physical steps of turning LNG into gas in order to turn gas into LNG. Just redirect a cargo of LNG is the obvious answer there saving a lot of $ and emissions.

As it stands now it's akin to depositing money in a bank account which incurs account fees and pays no interest and then borrowing money from the same bank which charges you fees and interest on the loan.

Nobody in their right mind would do that unless there's some ulterior motive involved.


----------



## fiftyeight

Smurf1976 said:


> Secondly because plenty of other big oil and gas exporters routinely inform customers at to what % of contracted volume, and that means an amount less than 100%, will actually be delivered.




Wish I could like this post twice. I agree with the entire post but don't want to clog the thread with a massive quote. As always well informed and well written!!!!


----------



## boofhead

The workplace where I am has been negotiating gas prices with 2 companies (both owned by the same parent) in Tasmania. They eventually got wind if intention of the workplace install their own tanks and importing and reduced price a little. The workplace is still considering the tanks. Gas and electricity are major input costs.

Seems governments crossed their fingers for too long hoping things would work out and it didn't. Unfortunately the higher costs for the consumer is the new reference point instead of 15 years ago + inflation.


----------



## SirRumpole

How to con the taxpayers out of $729 million.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-...for-peanuts-becomes-730-million-asset/9077582


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> So that is cost to the end user.




Where are the facts to back that up.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Regardless of what spin you put on it, it comes down to this
> 
> 
> 
> So that is cost to the end user.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-...australia-than-in-export-destinations/7680106




This is the most important paragraph in that article


> The exporters, struggling to fulfil contracted orders written years ago when the plants were in planning stage, have begun raiding gas from the domestic market to meet their contracts.




They are struggling because they are not being allowed to drill.

Thats my point all along, its an artificial shortage, caused by politics, not geology or free market capitalism.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> This is the most important paragraph in that article
> 
> 
> They are struggling because they are not being allowed to drill.
> 
> Thats my point all along, its an artificial shortage, caused by politics, not geology or free market capitalism.




There are two ways to have a shortage;

Not producing enough, or selling too much of what you have.

Why give the rest of the world an advantage from our assets without looking after ourselves first ?

If you were a dairy farmer I think you would supply your own needs before you sold the stuff elsewhere.

If oil companies over contracted for exports, that's their problem, they must have known that the government has the power to reserve production for local use.


----------



## Value Collector

I always wondered what all that steam was that you see venting at various places around New York.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> I always wondered what all that steam was that you see venting at various places around New York.





Yes that interesting. I thought the steam was just an effect in Batman movies.


----------



## Smurf1976

Lots of steam pipes under NY and when they release some steam there's a big plastic pipe thing which sits over the vent (eg in the middle of the road).

Those also can be seen in the background in various movies and TV shows.

Those vent pipes get quite warm by the way but not hot. Smurf being Smurf had to investigate......


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> Lots of steam pipes under NY and when they release some steam there's a big plastic pipe thing which sits over the vent (eg in the middle of the road).
> 
> Those also can be seen in the background in various movies and TV shows.
> 
> Those vent pipes get quite warm by the way but not hot. Smurf being Smurf had to investigate......



investigated that in my last trip there after seeing an "exhaust" in a street.have not watched the video but I was not aware until that trip and thought it was hot kitchen water in sewer or similar;
The US were so ahead a century ago, as China is now....


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> The US were so ahead a century ago, as China is now....



Closer to home....

If you generate electricity from fuel then the waste product is heat and lots of it. Actually more heat than electricity comes out of all but the very best fuel burning power stations.

In Adelaide and Perth they've had fuel burning power stations running base load in the urban area for as long as they've had electricity.

East Perth, South Fremantle, Kwinana and whilst they're now closed there's modern plant still operating next to the old Kwinana station.

In Adelaide first it was Grenfell St (Adelaide CBD), then the two Osborne stations, then Torrens Island  (still operating) and more recently a new plant at Osborne and also Pelican Point are all in the urban area and all produce hot water as a by-product.

Historically also thermal plant in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane indeed there still is in Melbourne although it operates intermittently.

So there's a massive amount of heat going to waste there. It's literally just dumped in the sea.

Meanwhile every house, office building, factory and apartment complex has at least one hot water service, the vast majority of which use electricity or gas to operate.

Plus there's also a significant space heating load in winter.

There's no reason apart perhaps from economics why we couldn't have put that waste heat to use. Doing so would have saved a truly massive amount of energy over the years.

It's silly when you think about the overall process.

Burn fuel to boil water to produce steam which spins a turbine to produce electricity. Historically two thirds of the heat has been lost in that process. Then we use quite a lot of that electricity to heat water or buildings. Silly when you really think about it especially when the other two thirds of that energy is going to waste not far away.


----------



## Tisme

*US coal production up as Trump vows to end 'war' on industry*


https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/925447637708496897


----------



## Smurf1976

An update on the power supply situation for this coming Summer. This is all based on AEMO published data.

Vic and SA are both in serious trouble in the event that it gets hot (40+) on a working weekday and there's not overly much wind at the time. There's no way around that and the problem exists even with every coal, gas, oil and hydro station fully operational (itself an extremely optimistic assumption) and maximum supply from NSW and Tas. So it's all in the hands of the weather - a mild summer and there will be no problem. A major heatwave and not a lot of wind and there's going to be trouble. Even bigger problems if major plant failures were to occur.

The new generation in SA, which is now partly operational, and the big battery are certainly a help but they're by no means enough to address the combined problem between the two states. 

NSW will scrape through but only just since there's nothing to spare. Even the slightest problem will require supply from Qld or (if available at the time) Vic to avoid blackouts. So a supply shortfall probably won't happen but it could if Liddell (or any other plant) falls in a heap again as happened last year.

Qld has some to spare. They'd need a few failures or to be sending a large amount into NSW to have a problem. Not impossible but unlikely in practice.

It would take multiple major failures to put the lights out in Tas. Not impossible but extremely unlikely. That said, the system will certainly need to be pushed pretty hard at times trying to keep the lights on in Vic and SA. 

WA should have no problems as long as the gas supply doesn't fail.

NT should be OK but with a small system (in terms of capacity and output) like that there's always the vulnerability that one problem in a small system has a much bigger impact than if the same problem occurred in a larger system. So there's always the risk of equipment breakdowns etc but no problems as long as things work as they should, there's enough capacity as such.

So that's how it looks at the moment based on what's known. Obviously I haven't factored in things like natural disasters, industrial action or very major incidents (mines catching fire, gas plants blowing up etc) into that.


----------



## Gringotts Bank

Smurf1976 said:


> Vic and SA are both in serious trouble in the event that it gets hot (40+) on a working weekday and there's not overly much wind at the time.




Well that's definitely going to happen this summer.  Will be interesting watching the politicians blame everyone but themselves when the elderly and newborns start dying from heat exhaustion.

https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/will-the-tesla-powerwall-let-you-go-off-grid-for-3500/

I'd happily sign over the whole country to Tesla.  Musk is trustworthy - politicians aren't.


----------



## Wysiwyg

Gringotts Bank said:


> I'd happily sign over the whole country to Tesla.  Musk is trustworthy - politicians aren't.



The 100mw battery was a great publicity and advertising stunt for capitalist Musk and a smoke screen for Wetherall's butt for failing to consider energy generation for the state. The issue didn't suddenly happen one Summer day morning. Absolute incompetence and Musk is NOT the solution. We don't need foreigners making our future.


----------



## Gringotts Bank

Wysiwyg said:


> The 100mw battery was a great publicity and advertising stunt for capitalist Musk and a smoke screen for Wetherall's butt for failing to consider energy generation for the state. The issue didn't suddenly happen one Summer day morning. Absolute incompetence and Musk is NOT the solution. We don't need foreigners making our future.




We clearly do need foreigners (of the right sort).  You said yourself this has happened over a long time, caused by Australia's own pathetic, USELESS politicians.


----------



## Smurf1976

Putting the SA battery (properly known as Hornsdale Power Reserve) into perspective:

Peak output is 100 MW and storage capacity is 129 MWh or 0.129 GWh

That compares with the largest individual generating unit in SA at 239 MW (of which there are two at Pelican Point power station) and the largest in Australia which is 750 MW at Kogan Creek (Qld).

The largest power station in SA, with all its generating units included, is 800 MW at Torrens Island B (4 x 200 MW) or you could say it's 1280 MW if you count both the A and B stations together (4 x 120 MW in the A station).

The largest power station in Australia is Eraring (NSW) at 2880 MW (4 x 720 MW). Alternatively it could be argued that it's Loy Yang (Vic) if the two adjacent stations, which have separate owners but share some common infrastructure, are counted as a single plant. Together they have a capacity of 3260 MW.

So the 100 MW from Hornsdale Power Reserve is not huge but it is significant. It's comparable to an older steam turbine generating unit (eg one of the units at Torrens Island A), a smaller gas turbine station (eg Mintaro (SA) is 90 MW) or a smaller hydro station (eg Bastyan in Tas is 80 MW).

That 100 MW is about 3% of SA's peak demand as another way of looking at it.

So all up it's an improvement but not a total solution. It reduces the gap between peak demand and available supply but does not of itself eliminate it.

The diesel-fired gas turbines the SA government has installed are more substantial with a capacity around 275 MW depending on conditions (ambient conditions affect gas turbines significantly so it's a nominal rating not a firm number).

Taken together the gas turbines and battery have roughly halved the supply gap in SA in a heatwave + no wind + no supply from Vic scenario. So a step forward certainly but the risk hasn't gone entirely.

So far as the politics is concerned, I think the best I can say there is that at least SA comprehend that they've got a problem. In contrast at some point Victorians and their state government are in for one hell of a surprise since they seem completely oblivious to what's heading their way.

The situation in Vic will be even worse if something breaks. That sort of thing does happen and as an example one of the generators at Loy Yang failed suddenly on 18 October and won't likely be running for a few weeks yet. Better hope nothing like that happens in late January or February when demand is high.....


----------



## Gringotts Bank

Smurf1976 said:


> That 100 MW is about 3% of SA's peak demand as another way of looking at it.




We could have built 50 big batteries if billions hadn't been wasted on ceiling insulation, buildings for schools, failed NBNs, cash handouts (stimulus), plebiscites, Medicare rorts, welfare rorts, international companies evading tax,.... etc etc.  This country has been absolutely buggered by politicians.


----------



## Smurf1976

Just an update on what's going on in the power industry:

The SA government's diesel-fired gas turbine power stations are now ready to operate when required. Capacity is 276 MW (nominal) split between two sites in the Adelaide urban area.

Also the Hornsdale Power Reserve (aka the big Tesla battery) is now registered with AEMO for both generation and load (charging) so that's another 100MW of peak supply.

So things are looking better in SA although it's not enough to say that the supply is secure. Less at risk than it would be without these new sources of supply but the risk of a supply shortfall isn't zero by any means.

Meanwhile in Victoria I hear that there's about to be some rather strong encouragement to simply switch things off. So you can use your air-conditioner sure, but they'd like you to turn if off when it's hot outside to keep system load down since there's insufficient supply to meet the peaks. The details are a bit uncertain but in short it's a case of offering $ to not use electricity during the nominated times with metering data used to confirm that individual consumers did in fact turn things off.

Here in Tas we've got quite a bit of generating plant out of service at the moment. Nothing to panic about, it's just planned maintenance to make sure it all keeps working reliably and that Basslink (the Tas - Vic power cable) can be fully loaded supplying into Vic when demand spikes in that state.

At Cluny PS (Tas) a complete major overhaul has been done over the past few months and the power station will soon return to operation. It wasn't broken, it was fully operational the day it was shut down, but it was time to thoroughly check and as needed replace things to return it to "as new" condition to ensure it remains reliable.

As part of the work at Cluny a new turbine runner is being installed which is an improvement on the original design by using a hub that isn't filled with lubricating oil as Kaplan turbines normally are. That sort of technology wasn't around when it was originally built and whilst there has never been a major incident, the surest way to make sure you don't have an oil spill is to not have oil in the first place (noting that 60% of Hobart's water supply is pumped from the river downstream so an oil spill wouldn't be good). This follows the same approach being applied successfully at Paloona and Meadowbank power stations in recent years (not without some initial problems but that's all sorted now).

Also major maintenance works (complete overhauls not just regular maintenance) in Tas are about to happen at Devils Gate, Wilmot, Liapootah*, Wayatinah* and Repulse power stations over the next year. In NSW Snowy Hydro is doing some similar major works at Tumut 1 PS.

*Liapootah and Wayatinah each have 3 generators and work on some units has already been done. Do one then do the next etc so that the power station can remain partly operational during the work - this is desirable in order to move water through them for use by other stations both upstream and downstream.

Bottom line - things are a bit better in SA but still not great. Vic has lots of problems just waiting for the inevitable. NSW / ACT is borderline. Nothing to worry about elsewhere unless there's a truly major incident.


----------



## Value Collector

Shell introduces its first "rapid charger"


----------



## SirRumpole

Excellent. When there is one in every petrol station I may think of switching. PS the take up of purely electric cars in Australia has been abysmal whereas hybrids are booming.


----------



## SirRumpole

SirRumpole said:


> Excellent. When there is one in every petrol station I may think of switching. PS the take up of purely electric cars in Australia has been abysmal whereas hybrids are booming.




PS did you say you were a mate of Robert Llewellyn ? Could you ask him where I can get videos of Scrapheap Challenge, I can't find them anywhere.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Excellent. When there is one in every petrol station I may think of switching. PS the take up of purely electric cars in Australia has been abysmal whereas hybrids are booming.




If you owned an electric car, you would just charge at home, you only need external charging on road trips, So you don't really need them at every service station.

So far its only really luxury cars that are electric, But they are on their way, Tesla emailed me a few days ago saying mine will be here in early 2019, I am guessing from 2020 onwards you will see a huge spike in EV sales.

I don't know Robert Llewellyn with personally, I just watch his videos


----------



## overhang

Value Collector said:


> If you owned an electric car, you would just charge at home, you only need external charging on road trips, So you don't really need them at every service station.
> 
> So far its only really luxury cars that are electric, But they are on their way, Tesla emailed me a few days ago saying mine will be here in early 2019, I am guessing from 2020 onwards you will see a huge spike in EV sales.
> 
> I don't know Robert Llewellyn with personally, I just watch his videos




Australians love their road trips though, so while not at every service station a significant roll out needs to take place to give Aussies the confidence that EVs are suitable for the Australian way of life.


----------



## basilio

The Trump administration is attempting  to promote coal fired power stations as part of the future energy mix at the Bo0nn Climate  Change conferance. Just hasn't gone down very well..

*Tobacco at a cancer summit': Trump coal push savaged at climate conference *
The US administration’s attempt to portray fossil fuels as vital to reducing poverty and saving US jobs is ridiculed in Bonn
*Shares*
6125
 
* Comments*
 223 
Damian Carrington in Bonn

 
@dpcarrington

Monday 13 November 2017 21.40 GMT   Last modified on Monday 13 November 2017 21.42 GMT

The Trump team was heckled and interrupted by a protest song at the UN’s climate change summit in Bonn on Monday after using its only official appearance to say fossil fuels were vital to reducing poverty around the world and to saving jobs in the US.

While Donald Trump’s special adviser on energy and environment, David Banks, said cutting emissions was a US priority, “energy security, economic prosperity are higher priorities”, he said. “The president has a responsibility to protect jobs and industry across the country.”

Other attendees at the summit condemned the argument.
*

“Promoting coal at a climate summit is like promoting tobacco at a cancer summit,” said Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor and a UN special envoy for cities and climate change. *

Benson Kibiti, from the Kenya Climate Working Group, said: “More coal will entrench poverty.” 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/13/bonn-climate-summit-trump-fossil-fuels-protest


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## Value Collector

overhang said:


> Australians love their road trips though, so while not at every service station a significant roll out needs to take place to give Aussies the confidence that EVs are suitable for the Australian way of life.




Tesla already rolled out super chargers between Brisbane and Adelaide. and more are coming rapidly. So road trips are not a problem, especially considering you can charge at your destination.

You can drive pretty much anywhere across the USA using the super charger network.

this guy drove Brisbane to Melbourne in his Tesla showing all the superchargers, and the more cars that sell the more charging locations will be built.


----------



## Value Collector

Value Collector said:


> If you owned an electric car, you would just charge at home,




Don't under estimate how awesome home charging is, and how little you will need external charging.

Most of you would visit a fuel station once a week, So you are very rarely (if ever) using more than a tank of petrel in a day, so you would never need to charge away from home.

Think about it, if every day you magically started with a full tank of petrol would you ever need to go to a service station? nope. except for that road trip, but then you just use a super charger.

Thats the beauty of home charging, you start each day with a full tank. So many times on a Saturday night my partner has said "don't forget we are going up to the coast to visit Mum tomorrow" and then I remember that I need fuel so have to make a special trip to the petrol station that night because I don't want the hassle in the morning, with an electric car I would just plug it in and and not have to worry.

*Petrol engine vehicle owners waste more time filling their cars than Electric vehicle owners spend charging theirs.

EVs save you time.*


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> and then I remember that I need fuel so have to make a special trip to the petrol station that night because I don't want the hassle in the morning, with an electric car I would just plug it in and and not have to worry.




Yes it is convenient. The other parameter though is cost. You either depend on the grid suppliers who will charge (?) through the nose if they could, or spend money installing your own solar panels (which are pretty useless anyway to charge your car overnight). Cars with exchangeable batteries would be useful so you can charge them from your home during the day and swap them over at night. That's a fair way away I suspect.

Maybe if an EV with solar PV on the roof is parked out in the sun all day it may charge while people are at work, I don't know, but then you have to consider rainy days, and parking in a covered car park is useless unless the car park provides charging points.

A lot of parameters to consider here, it's a question of whether governments want people to take up EV's or not and whether they want to supply the infrastructure first and how much tax they have to place on electricity to replace fuel excise.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Yes it is convenient. The other parameter though is cost. You either depend on the grid suppliers who will charge (?) through the nose if they could, .





AGL have unlimited electric car charging plan for $1 per day at the moment.

https://refer.agl.com.au/electric-car-plan/


----------



## Wysiwyg

Maybe foldup battery charging solar panels with a car socket for emergency car charge or at work top up would be a good invention. I know there are foldup panels for camping now.


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## Value Collector

Massive game changer, Tesla just announced their new truck.

800 km range.
30 min charging. (Drivers must take 30min break by law anyway, diesel trucks take 15min to fill)
0 - 60 mph in 5 secs (15 seconds with max legal load)
50% faster up hills than best diesel trucks.


----------



## Smurf1976

Unit 1 at Loy Yang A failed suddenly a month ago and is still being repaired.

Unit 2 at the same plant now seems to be having issues, output is down around 20% which is not normal for a plant that typically runs flat out.

Yallourn has Unit 4 offline for maintenance (nothing to worry about there, maintenance is necessary from time to time) but Unit 1 at Yallourn went down suddenly at about 5pm (Vic time) today. I don't have any official info from them but it sure didn't look like a planned shutdown so something seems to have gone wrong.

Both of the above plants are located in Vic.

This doesn't pose any immediate threat to supply but there'd be major problems if the same thing happened when the weather wasn't so mild. The capacity lost due to these problems is just over 10% of Vic's peak demand (or just under 14% if the maintenance outage of Yallourn Unit 4 is included).

These sort of failures have always happened, things break, but in the past there was spare capacity to be able to cope but that's all gone these days.

I've said it before but it's only a matter of time until the ducks line up and Vic has a problem that makes SA look like a minor hiccup in comparison. When is anyone's guess but at some point it'll happen in the absence of some pretty major actions to avoid it.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Shell introduces its first "rapid charger"





There was a lot of uming and aghing, probably because the reporter didn't ask, what happens when the servo is full of people having a sandwich and a coffee waiting for the car to charge.
Once the number of chargers are taken, you could be waiting ages, for your turn.
That is the whole issue, at the moment the servo gets heaps of through put when it takes 3 minutes to fill, what happens when it takes 30 minutes to fill?
Like I said it isn't an issue at the moment, because there are so few electric cars, but when you have 8 chargers in a servo, and even if it takes only 10 minutes to fill it will be a nightmare.
Also the servo will have to charge enough for their electricity, to compensate for lack of throughput and still make money on the investment.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> Once the number of chargers are taken, you could be waiting ages, for your turn.
> That is the whole issue, at the moment the servo gets heaps of through put when it takes 3 minutes to fill, what happens when it takes 30 minutes to fill?




99% of people with EV's be charging at home while 1% will use charging stations vs petrol cars where 0% of people fill at home and 100% need to go to the servo, so there is a huge difference in demand.

Also, electricity is everywhere, not only will most people be charging at home, but charging stations will pop up all over the place in the most unconventional locations eg Supermarket and shopping centre car parks, workplaces, car washes, hotels, restaurants, cafes, hospitals, train stations, office building carparks this company is even turning every day lamp posts into charging stations.



Pretty much every where you go you are only metres from an electricity supply, it doesn't take long for people to use their imagination and work out solutions.



> Also the servo will have to charge enough for their electricity, to compensate for lack of throughput and still make money on the investment.




Once EV's are the norm, a lot of servos will go out of business, only ones in Key locations will survive, one's in locations that do a lot of convenience store business for example or are nice places to stop.


----------



## SirRumpole

Going off grid may not be all that green.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-11-19/offgrid-may-not-be-as-green-as-it-seems/9154266


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Going off grid may not be all that green.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-11-19/offgrid-may-not-be-as-green-as-it-seems/9154266




going off grid isn't a good idea, but having a battery might be.

The article claims you would be better off using the battery money for more panels, which might be true, however having a battery to use as the sun goes down takes pressure off the grid during peak time,


----------



## Wysiwyg

I will be going off grid for the household first, planet second. Dependence on others for anything is vexing. Staying on grid dependence to assist others to lower their bills is a nice gesture.


----------



## SirRumpole

Residents sharing energy create virtual power station.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-20/solar-energy-used-to-create-virtual-power-plants/9171666


----------



## Value Collector

Wysiwyg said:


> I will be going off grid for the household first, planet second. Dependence on others for anything is vexing. Staying on grid dependence to assist others to lower their bills is a nice gesture.



Staying in the grid will probably help you lower your power bill.

Even if you have a battery, you will probably still generate excess power which you could sell rather than waste, and if you end up getting an electric car, it will be cheaper for you to charge at home(requiring the grid) than to rely on a public charge station.


----------



## Smurf1976

Thursday this week is looking somewhat risky in Victoria at this stage.

Forecast load = 7502 MW

Generation available in Vic = 5805 MW

NSW, Tas and SA between them have a spare 2640 MW available for supply to Vic (in SA's case the limit is the amount of spare generation capacity in that state whilst also supplying the SA load. For NSW and Tas the limit is transmission capacity to Vic) but even with that there's not a lot of room for anything to go wrong without putting the lights out.

Why?

Apart from issues of plant closures as such there have been a few failures recently.

Loy Yang A (owner = AGL) had what is generally understood (they haven't said too much, at least not that I've seen) to be a major failure of one unit (there's 4 at the plant) last month and they're also having significant trouble with a second generating unit which is now running at half capacity. So as a whole Loy Yang A is about two thirds operational at present. 

Yallourn (owner = Energy Australia) has one unit (there's 4 at the plant) out of service for planned maintenance but another one suddenly failed a few days ago. So as a whole Yallourn is running at 50% of capacity.


----------



## SirRumpole

I thought this was more relevant in this thread rather than "Electric Cars" where there was a discussion of various energy supplies.

Coastal hydro power systems.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/ener...ustainable-energy-source-20171002-gyt5uq.html


----------



## SirRumpole

Copied from the Electric Car thread. Another of Smurfs classics.

↑
Smurf do you have any comments on this ?

[The assertion that coal plants have to run full-time]



			
				Smurf1976 said:
			
		

> As a generation technology coal is high capital cost but low (in some cases _extremely _low - you'd be amazed how cheap the Latrobe Valley brown coal stations are to operate) running cost. There's also a cost, for auxiliary fuel (usually oil or gas) to start up as well as additional wear and tear on the plant.
> 
> From a purely technical perspective stopping and starting a plant using high grade coal isn't overly difficult. It does cost $ however and that aspect combined with the low running cost but high capital cost means that coal is best suited for economic reasons to continuous operation.
> 
> For a plant using low grade coal with a high water content, and Latrobe Valley coal is up to 70% water (so it's water with some coal rather than coal with some water) there are some technical issues with starting up quickly. It's not impossible to do it but in practice not done unless under emergency conditions.
> 
> So if we put the CO2 issue to one side and focus purely on the traditional economic aspects then it makes sense to build coal to the extent that we need some form of generation to run constantly. In that role it's cheaper than gas or oil easily. And once it's built it makes sense to run coal plant in preference to oil or gas since it's cheaper to operate.
> 
> So coal does have the ability to generate at low marginal cost once it's built. Total cost is higher obviously but for a plant that's already there it doesn't cost much to just put more coal in and run it a bit harder when it would otherwise be under-utilised (eg overnight).
> 
> From a total cost perspective it also makes sense to flatten out the load so as to be able to meet as much of the total demand from low cost (coal) plant as possible and to minimise the use of oil and gas.
> 
> So it's an economic issue more than a technical one where black coal is concerned.
> 
> For other technologies:
> 
> Gas or oil - capable of running constantly if needed but the marginal cost of operation is high (but capital costs are lower than with coal). Hence such plant is normally built to meet that part of the load which is intermittent in nature (eg driven by weather or the normal daily cycle of human activity).
> 
> Hydro - costs a fortune to build but it's incredibly cheap to run. Hydro plant is capable of changing output incredibly fast, seconds, but in the Australian context in most cases the water resource is quite limited such that the best use (economically) is to install a lot of generating capacity using the relatively limited water resource and use it for peak loads. The generators aren't expensive, it's the dam and civil works that costs serious $, so that's the most economic way to use it. There are some exceptions in Tas where we do have true base load hydro stations - Butlers Gorge, Tarraleah and Wayatinah in particular plus a number of others which go to low load overnight but never to zero (unless due to maintenance) due to the need to keep the water moving - Meadowbank is the most obvious example (Hobart draws 60% of its water supply from Meadowbank's discharge so it can't stop) with Cluny and Repulse also not normally going to zero (but they do go to low output routinely).
> 
> How cheap? That's generally confidential information in the context of the competitive National Electricity Market but it was publicly disclosed a few years ago that Hydro Tas has marginal costs of running versus not running of around 0.2 cents per kilowatt hour and it's no secret that the brown coal plants in Vic are similar. That was a few years ago, costs are a bit higher now due to inflation, but it's still incredibly low.
> 
> For black coal it depends on the fuel price but we're talking 1.5 - 3.0 cents / kWh for most Australian plants to run versus not run.
> 
> For gas it varies but 4 - 10 cents / kWh covers most of them.
> 
> Note that those are marginal costs of running versus not running and that total costs are far higher. Cost to build in the first place, cost to pay staff and so on don't change just because the plant is or isn't running (well, not unless you close it outright and lay off the the staff etc).
> 
> Also note that those are short term costs which don't include the cost of an eventual refurbishment although that's not directly proportional to output. A plant that's run 20% of the time won't last 4 times as long as one that's run 80% of the time indeed in some cases there would be virtually no difference. Longer running hours are balanced out by having fewer stops and starts causing wear.
> 
> There's also efficiency to throw into the mix. Gas turbines in particular suffer huge efficiency losses at low output, at very low output their efficiency is truly shocking, but all plant has an optimum operating point. For coal or gas that's generally somewhere near maximum capacity. For hydro it varies with the technology of a particular plant but for Gordon PS (Tas) it's optimum is about 77% of capacity. Running at 100% loses a few % of efficiency but go down to 10% and it's a pretty big loss (hence why Hydro Tas is currently looking at adding a 4th machine, smaller than the rest, at Gordon specifically to enable better efficiency at low output).
> 
> Gas turbines also suffer efficiency losses as the temperature increases. The colder the better.
> 
> Then there's the issue of "use it or lose it" generation such as wind, solar and any hydro scheme where the dam is full (which does happen with the smaller ones).
> 
> Put all that together and there's a definite advantage in shifting electrical load away from the peaks if possible and in the case of electric vehicles charging them overnight. Helps keep efficiency up, maximises the use of cost or "use it or lose it" generation and doesn't add much to the need to run high cost plant such as oil or gas.
> 
> Added to all that there's the original design of the plant itself. What was it built to do? A coal plant can certainly be built to optimise performance for peak load use if that's the intent just as a gas-fired plant can be built to run base load if that's how it's planned to be operated.
> 
> Most of the NSW coal-fired plants are pretty good at following load and getting down to low outputs. Getting down to one third of capacity they do easily. In contrast the Vic brown coal plants weren't built with that intention - anything below about 55% of capacity isn't so easy (not impossible but some issues arise).
> 
> Newport (Vic) and Torrens Island (SA) both use steam turbines with gas-fired boilers (not gas turbines) but were built to be flexible. Regular starts and stops and operating anywhere from 20% to 100% of capacity they do pretty easily.
> 
> Then there's things like Tamar Valley CCGT (Tas), a gas-fired plant built specifically for base load. It operates intermittently as such but wouldn't normally drop below two thirds of capacity when running and is typically stopped and started a few times a year at most. The plus side of that inflexibility is that it's the most efficient plant in the National Electricity Market.
> 
> In short - yes coal can stop and start but for economic reasons that's not an ideal situation. Doable but if we can use the power for a worthwhile purpose, instead of drawing that power when demand is high, then it makes massive sense to do so.


----------



## Smurf1976

> You have done it again Smurf, thanks for taking the time.
> 
> Maybe some of the water resource drawbacks of hydro could be overcome by coastal plants using seawater ? The upper reservoir would still have to be built, but the lower one is already there. Pros and cons ?




From the "Electric cars?" thread.

Hydro fits into two categories:

1. Conventional hydro which produces energy as such.

Water sourced naturally at high elevation is dropped to a lower elevation via a power station(s) and generates electricity in doing so.

Depending on the scheme the same water may be dropped either in one go or in several stages. Eg in the Derwent system in Tasmania water starting out at Lake St Clair goes through a total of 8 power stations at progressively lower elevations so as to exploit the maximum possible head (drop) of water as per natural topography.

Lake St Clair > Lake King William (storage) > Butlers Gorge PS > Tarraleah canals > Tarraleah PS > Lake Liapootah > Liapootah PS > Wayatinah Lagoon > Wayatinah PS > Lake Catagunya > Catagunya PS > Lake Repulse > Repulse PS > Cluny Lagoon > Cluny PS > Lake Meadowbank > Meadowbank PS > a minor amount is used for Hobart's water supply and the rest ends up in the sea.

Further complicating that is Tungatinah PS which is almost opposite Tarraleah PS but drawing from a separate catchment. Water from both flows into Lake Liapootah. Upstream of Tungatinah is another power station, Lake Echo, with Lake Echo itself a major storage.

This photo (not mine) of a public information sign shows how it works: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--dmxGcVOL10/UNz2Pc3XhZI/AAAAAAAABvg/4V6S1JFxx8c/s1600/IMG_4302.jpg

In other places such as Poatina the water from Great Lake is dropped literally 835 metres, measured as a straight vertical drop and ignoring the horizontal distance, in one stage before being used again at a much lower head many km away at Treavallyn. That's pretty serious pressure by the way, 835 metres head is equivalent to about 8200 kPa or 1200 PSI which is around 15 times the water pressure you have at home or 40 times the air pressure in a car tyre.

At the other extreme, Cluny (one of the stations in the Derwent scheme) has a head of just 17 metres. There are some overseas with even lower heads - there's one near Salzburg in Austria with a head of only 5m or so but it works due to the massive water volume they've got.

The key to getting a useful amount of energy from conventional hydro is simply water head x volume. Double the head but halve the volume and you've still got the same power output. Etc. To build a practical scheme simply requires that the available water x the head which can be achieved = enough power to make the whole thing worthwhile.

So the reason there's so much hydro potential in Tasmania and very little in SA isn't simply about water. SA is pretty dry but it does rain there. Trouble is SA is also mostly flat so there's very few places in that state with water at the top, a steep drop nearby and somewhere to put the water at the bottom of the hill. In contrast there's no shortage of mountains in Tasmania and those mountains are also where most of the rain falls.  

Here's a diagram showing how the Mersey-Forth scheme (Tas) works. It's the second most complicated scheme in Tas after the Derwent. https://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/MRWMR/art-for-cover.jpg

2. Pumped storage hydro which takes electricity from the grid, pumps water up hill, then reverses that to put power back into the grid.

All you need for that to work is somewhere to store the water at the top and the bottom with not too much horizontal distance between them. You do need a source of water too but since it's not being consumed but is simply being pumped up hill and run back down again over and over not a lot of water is actually needed after the initial fill.

Hence it's not a problem to be building pumped hydro at Kidston (Qld) or near Whyalla (SA) despite there not being a lot of water around. The reservoirs are already built (old mines) so all that needs to be added is water and a power station plus associated infrastructure.

Hence it's practical to put a pumped hydro scheme somewhere fairly dry as long as you've got somewhere to store the water at the top and bottom, somewhere to put the power station and enough water to fill it with. There are literally thousands of such places in Australia.

Using sea water as the bottom reservoir wouldn't be a problem so long as there's somewhere suitable to build an upper reservoir and any issues relating to storing salty water on the land can be dealt with (eg line it with something to stop leakage). Plus use suitable materials for the turbines and penstocks to avoid excessive corrosion due to the salty water. Address those two and there's no reason it can't be done.

A pumped storage scheme does not actually add energy to the system however. It simply takes it from the grid at one time and returns it at another time with roughly a 20% loss in doing so. So for it to work there needs to be surplus power available, on an intermittent basis, from some other source.

Traditionally coal (and overseas nuclear) plants have provided that source of surplus power (overnight) but wind and solar could certainly do it to (pump water when there's plenty of power from the sun and wind, run the hydro station to keep the lights on when it's dark and/or calm). That would be the practical use somewhere like SA.

3. In some cases hybrids exist. Conventional hydro schemes built with an additional reservoir below the power station plus pumps and larger generators than would otherwise be used.

This does produce net energy from the natural inflow of water but adds the ability to re-use some of it in order to store energy from other sources in the same scheme.

Tumut 3 (Snowy Hydro) is an example of that. It produces energy as such from the diversion of water through the power station but also has the ability to pump back up from a smaller reservoir below the power station. That arrangement enabled Tumut 3 to be built far larger than it could sensibly have been built without the pumping aspect (originally 1500 MW and more recently upgraded to 1800 MW - that's comparable to a typical coal or nuclear plant).

Hydro Tas is presently evaluating the same approach noting that due to the multi-dammed approach used in past construction, done to exploit the maximum possible head and thus maximise energy production, both the upper and lower reservoirs already exist at numerous locations. So all that would be needed is to put bigger generators and pumps in plus the associated pipes and tunnels etc and increased electricity transmission capacity.

This project has the official name of "Battery of the Nation" and is envisaged as a 2500 MW increase in Hydro Tas' generating capacity without building new dams. To be useful as a means of supplying other states it does of course require that Tas - Vic transmission also be greatly upgraded and that forms part of the evaluation process.

Snowy Hydro also have their "Snowy 2.0" project which is a different but broadly similar concept with a capacity of 2000 MW. It needs a lot more tunnels and so on than Hydro Tas would need (and tunnels aren't cheap.....) but doesn't have the cost of across Bass Strait transmission so is likely to be comparable in terms of overall costs.

Given that Victoria alone has a peak demand of over 10,000 MW there's definitely room for both Battery of the Nation and Snowy 2.0 if we're going to replace coal with renewables indeed in due course we'll need to go even further.

Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tas are the dominant hydro operators in Australia, accounting for about 90% between them. On a smaller scale there are other conventional hydro schemes in Vic, NSW and Qld plus there's the Wivenhoe (Qld) and Shoalhaven (NSW) pumped storage schemes.

Snowy and Hydro Tas are dominant in different ways. Snowy has almost twice the peak generating capacity that Hydro Tas does. But then Hydro Tas accounts for about 60% of all hydro power actually generated in Australia with Snowy about 30%.

In short that's because Snowy's power stations were built firstly to shift the water and secondly to produce peak power in states (NSW and Vic at the time, SA and Qld being connected to Vic and NSW much later) where fossil fuels (mostly coal) are dominant. They have a lot of capacity but most of it only runs for peak loads.

In contrast the Tasmanian system was built as the primary source (only source for much of its history) of power in Tasmania. The Tasmanian hydro stations are considerably smaller than Snowy's on an individual basis but run much harder in terms of operating hours and there's also 4 times as many of them.

Largest by peak capacity is Tumut 3 (Snowy Hydro) with 1800 MW capacity. Annual output, excluding the pumped storage aspect, is 582 GWh.

Largest by annual output is Gordon (Hydro Tas) with 1472 GWh. Peak capacity is 432 MW.

So a big difference in the mode of operation there.

Can we power the whole country with hydro? In short no, there's simply not enough of it although there are undeveloped resources in several states so an increase isn't out of the question.

What it can do however is reliably (very proven technology and lasts a century or more), efficiently (80% round trip) and on a large scale store energy produced from intermittent sources such as wind or solar. That aspect is critical if we're going to use wind and solar as the primary source of supply in the future. Batteries are also likely to have an ongoing role but they're far less durable that's for sure.

Another aspect of hydro is system inertia. That's getting into power engineering as such but in short you can't easily stop a great big rotating machine. Something goes wrong in the grid and there's a lot of mechanical inertia in that machinery - it'll keep going whilst things like wind will far more easily give up. Think "trying to stop a fully loaded freight train" versus "trying to stop a bicycle" sort of difference. That's also a feature of steam turbines (coal) and to some extent gas turbines and is a necessary property in terms of maintaining a stable system. Batteries might be able to replicate that electronically although it remains to be seen how that works when a real incident occurs.

Incident? Something suddenly fails either generation or transmission. That sort of thing is more common than the general public would realise - there have been two such incidents in Victoria alone in the past few weeks. That nobody outside the industry knows about them is because that sheer mass of rotating machinery - coal, hydro and gas - absorbed the shock whilst other generating plant ramped up.

Link to Snowy 2.0 (Snowy Hydro): http://www.snowyhydro.com.au/our-scheme/snowy20/

Link to Battery of the Nation (Hydro Tas): https://www.hydro.com.au/energy/battery-nation

Both projects are still at the investigation stage so there's a limit to how much info is being made available but there's some on both websites.


----------



## Wysiwyg

The Big Battery tourist attraction in South Australia has been completed within 100 days.


> Tesla has completed construction of its giant lithium ion battery, described as the world's most powerful, with testing expected in coming days ahead of a December 1 operation deadline.
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-...ul-lithium-ion-battery-finished-in-sa/9183868



Throw in some dirty diesel gen. sets for a bit of yesteryear feel.


> The plan also included a fleet of diesel-powered backup generators, which have already been installed ahead of summer*.*



Better than nothing.


> The new battery will produce enough energy to power about 30,000 homes for a little over an hour.


----------



## Value Collector

> The new battery will produce enough energy to power about 30,000 homes for a little over an hour.




I think thats the wrong way to look at it, I don't think its about powering a set number of homes for 100% of their power for a set period of time. 

Its about providing that that extra 1% 2% or 5% of power during that peak surge to prevent black outs, it could be feeding power in taking power back at various times through the day as supply fluctuates will wind and solar and as demand fluctuates.

not to mention for the rest of the year it could be used to profitably arbitrage power, buying off times, selling peak times etc.


----------



## Smurf1976

The way I look at the Hornsdale Power Reserve (aka the big battery in SA) is simply this.

Generating capacity in SA (firm capacity based on hot weather conditions)

Torrens Island B (steam turbines, natural gas / heavy fuel oil) = 780 MW
Torrens Island A (steam turbines, natural gas / heavy fuel oil) = 480 MW
Pelican Point (combined cycle gas turbines, natural gas) = 458 MW
Hallet (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 193 MW
Quarantine (gas turbines, natural gas) = 186 MW
Osborne (combined cycle gas turbine, natural gas) = 172 MW
Dry Creek (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 112 MW
Ladbroke Grove (gas turbines, natural gas) = 68 MW
Mintaro (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 68 MW
Port Stanvac (diesel engines) = 58 MW
Port Lincoln (gas turbines, diesel) = 58 MW
Snuggery (gas turbines, diesel) = 54 MW
Angaston (diesel engines) = 50 MW
Lonsdale (diesel engines) = 21 MW

Firm capacity of all wind farms combined = 128 MW (from 1359 MW of installed capacity)

Hornsdale Power Reserve = 100 MW

SA Government "temporary" generators (gas turbines, diesel) = 206 MW 

Import from Victoria = 820 MW maximum (subject to Vic having sufficient power available)

Total = 3192 MW of firm capacity located within the state. Plus up to another 1231 MW from wind if it's blowing enough. Plus up to 820 MW from Victoria if that state happens to have sufficient power available (which it doesn't during a heatwave in Vic).

SA's peak demand, if it gets hot enough, tops out in the 3300 - 3400 MW range.

So the battery and "temporary" generators are a step in the right direction but they're not enough to "blackout proof" the state even under circumstances where literally nothing goes wrong. To meet maximum demand requires that either the wind is blowing at a decent rate and/or there's supply available from Victoria.

Given that Vic can't meet its own maximum demand even with maximum supply from NSW and Tas (and there's no guarantee that NSW can actually supply that anyway) there's not much chance that Vic is going to prop up SA's supply in the event of simultaneous high temperatures in both states.

I've used AEMO data here although for the record I personally disagree as to their assessment of firm wind capacity. Based on actual performance I'd put it at half the figure they're using at most noting that wind speed is often minimal at the very same demand peaks. Get a properly hot day and wind farm output falls during the afternoon as demand rises with wind generation often reaching a very low level just as demand reaches maximum. Figures below the 128 MW AEMO are using are not uncommon in practice so I disagree with them on that.

If someone handed me responsibility for ensuring a reliable power supply in SA then I'd have another 550 MW of firm capacity under construction ASAP. Anything less and it's only a matter of time until the lights go out - but with the new gas turbines and battery it will happen less often than it would without them.

So why then wasn't there outright chaos in the past if there's really such a problem now? Isn't Smurf just being a bit alarmist here?

Here's the answer in numbers.

Northern and Playford B power stations in SA have both been closed. So too have Hazelwood, Morwell and Anglesea in Victoria. Meanwhile everything else is getting older and more worn out.

Northern = 546 MW
Playford B = 240 MW

Hazelwood = 1600 MW
Morwell = 190 MW
Anglesea = 160 MW

So that creates two issues in the SA context. First is a reduction of 786 MW of local generation, partly offset by 100 MW from the battery and 206 MW from the gas turbines = a net reduction of 480 MW. 

In the Victorian context the closure of 1950 MW of capacity means that state cannot now meet its own maximum demand and thus doesn't have spare power to send to SA. NSW (with support from Qld) and Tas will do what they can to keep the lights on in Vic but there are "hard" technical limits to that since the lines from NSW and Tas into Vic don't have unlimited capacity and NSW in particular doesn't have a lot of spare electricity anyway.

So the reason it's a problem now is the double impact of less generation capacity in SA combined with no longer being able to depend on supply from Victoria.

SA residents will no doubt be aware that there were a few mishaps with supply from Vic over the years but to be fair it did work well over 99% of the time to the point that it was headline news when it didn't. So that's gone from a mishap every now and then but normally available to a situation where it can't be counted on at all. That's not because there's something wrong with the transmission lines but because Vic simply doesn't have enough generating capacity.

Then there's the issue of breakdowns which WILL happen with the only question being when. Nothing mechanical or electrical is immune to failure and if you've ever been inside any power station involving steam turbines in particular then you'll have noticed that there's a lot that could (and from time to time will) go wrong.

It's no secret that Torrens Island A is worn out and AGL have acknowledged publicly that they're not confident they'll ever again get all 4 generators running at full capacity all at once. So don't take its 480 MW capacity too seriously.

There some others that I won't name publicly which are generally thought to not be in great shape either.


----------



## Smurf1976

Expanding on the previous post by including data from Victoria (since Vic and SA are both in the same situation).

Loy Yang A (steam turbines, coal) = 2121 MW
Yallourn W (steam turbines, coal) = 1420 MW
Loy Yang B (steam turbines, coal) = 980 MW
*Murray 1 (hydro) = 950 MW
*Murray 2 (hydro) = 560 MW
Mortlake (gas turbines, natural gas) = 518 MW
Newport D (steam turbine, natural gas / fuel oil) = 475 MW
Jeeralang A & B (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 405 MW
Laverton North (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 300 MW
Mackay (hydro - total output for the scheme) = 300 MW
Valley Power (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 270 MW
Dartmouth (hydro) = 170 MW
Somerton (gas turbines, natural gas) = 134 MW
Eildon (hydro) = 113 MW
Bairnsdale (gas turbines, natural gas) = 78 MW
West Kiewa (hydro) = 68 MW
**Hume (hydro) = 29 MW

*Murray 1 & 2 are physically located in NSW but are electrically in Victoria.

**Hume power station is shared between Vic and NSW. Capacity is Victoria's share noting that there's only one physical plant shared between the two states not two separate power stations.

Plus firm wind capacity of 69 MW (from an installed base of 916 MW).

Plus 594 MW supply from Tasmania which is assured so long as the Vic - Tas cable doesn't fail.

Plus supply from NSW. This is a hard question to answer since capacity is limited by the fact that most of the Vic hydro stations share the same transmission lines which continue on to NSW. So there's no single figure here but take 250 MW as "certain" and 400 MW as "probable". Anything above that is only possible if the hydro stations aren't running at the same time - so in practice supply from NSW over 400 MW is a backup to those hydro stations in the event that something goes wrong but it is not a backup to anything else.

So all up that's 9954 MW including all generation in Vic, wind at the firm capacity level, 400 MW from NSW and 594 MW from Tas.

Putting that into perspective Victoria's demand peaks at about 10,400 MW which exceeds capacity.

Then there's plant outages etc to consider. Right at this moment there's over 1800 MW of plant unavailable to operate in Vic and about 1200 MW of that is due to breakdowns as such (as distinct from planned maintenance outages).

I'll also add that the 170 MW of capacity at Dartmouth is only able to operate if the dam is at least one third full. Irrigation is the priority use, not power, and they can and will draw the dam below that level if needed to supply water for irrigation etc. So in a drought the hydro station potentially becomes high and dry quite literally with the water dropping below the power station's intake. This is not a normal situation with hydro power stations but it is in this case.

Also worth mentioning that Valley Power is prohibited from operating more than 10% of the time over 12 months due to air pollution and associated regulations. So it's a peak load station as such and not allowed to run more extensively.

In summary:

If we get a mild summer and nothing breaks down then it's possible that neither Vic nor SA will experience blackouts.

If we get a heatwave then unless it's abnormally windy at the same time there will be insufficient power.

If we get a heatwave with typical wind and there are significant generating plant breakdowns then it will be headline news nationally and politicians will still be fighting over it a year later.

Smurf's been around long enough to know that the latter situation will happen eventually. The only question is when. At best there will be a few days warning when it arrives and at worst literally zero ability to warn anyone even within the industry.


----------



## basilio

This is serious, serious xhit.  One would have to think that if Smurf can pull these figures together then they have to be on hand with those responsible for power generation in Victoria as well as the Premier.

If they don't have this analysis.. WTF ?

The  (95%) certainty is that heat waves will affect  SA, Vic, Tas and NSW simultaneously. Will be a challenging summer.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:
			
		

> Smurf's been around long enough to know that the latter situation will happen eventually. The only question is when. At best there will be a few days warning when it arrives and at worst literally zero ability to warn anyone even within the industry.




There seems to be total silence on this publicly. It seems a case of "it's always been like this, so why worry anyone", or people are crossing everything and hoping for the best.

At what stage I wonder will anyone communicate to the public that blackouts are likely to happen. At the last minute ? Either that or "it's going to be 40 deg tomorrow so don't turn your air con on or the system will go down". Either way people won't be very happy.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> The way I look at the Hornsdale Power Reserve (aka the big battery in SA) is simply this.
> 
> Generating capacity in SA (firm capacity based on hot weather conditions)
> 
> Torrens Island B (steam turbines, natural gas / heavy fuel oil) = 780 MW
> Torrens Island A (steam turbines, natural gas / heavy fuel oil) = 480 MW
> Pelican Point (combined cycle gas turbines, natural gas) = 458 MW
> Hallet (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 193 MW
> Quarantine (gas turbines, natural gas) = 186 MW
> Osborne (combined cycle gas turbine, natural gas) = 172 MW
> Dry Creek (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 112 MW
> Ladbroke Grove (gas turbines, natural gas) = 68 MW
> Mintaro (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 68 MW
> Port Stanvac (diesel engines) = 58 MW
> Port Lincoln (gas turbines, diesel) = 58 MW
> Snuggery (gas turbines, diesel) = 54 MW
> Angaston (diesel engines) = 50 MW
> Lonsdale (diesel engines) = 21 MW
> 
> Firm capacity of all wind farms combined = 128 MW (from 1359 MW of installed capacity)
> 
> Hornsdale Power Reserve = 100 MW
> 
> SA Government "temporary" generators (gas turbines, diesel) = 206 MW
> 
> Import from Victoria = 820 MW maximum (subject to Vic having sufficient power available)
> 
> Total = 3192 MW of firm capacity located within the state. Plus up to another 1231 MW from wind if it's blowing enough. Plus up to 820 MW from Victoria if that state happens to have sufficient power available (which it doesn't during a heatwave in Vic).
> 
> SA's peak demand, if it gets hot enough, tops out in the 3300 - 3400 MW range.
> 
> So the battery and "temporary" generators are a step in the right direction but they're not enough to "blackout proof" the state even under circumstances where literally nothing goes wrong. To meet maximum demand requires that either the wind is blowing at a decent rate and/or there's supply available from Victoria.
> 
> Given that Vic can't meet its own maximum demand even with maximum supply from NSW and Tas (and there's no guarantee that NSW can actually supply that anyway) there's not much chance that Vic is going to prop up SA's supply in the event of simultaneous high temperatures in both states.
> 
> I've used AEMO data here although for the record I personally disagree as to their assessment of firm wind capacity. Based on actual performance I'd put it at half the figure they're using at most noting that wind speed is often minimal at the very same demand peaks. Get a properly hot day and wind farm output falls during the afternoon as demand rises with wind generation often reaching a very low level just as demand reaches maximum. Figures below the 128 MW AEMO are using are not uncommon in practice so I disagree with them on that.
> 
> If someone handed me responsibility for ensuring a reliable power supply in SA then I'd have another 550 MW of firm capacity under construction ASAP. Anything less and it's only a matter of time until the lights go out - but with the new gas turbines and battery it will happen less often than it would without them.
> 
> So why then wasn't there outright chaos in the past if there's really such a problem now? Isn't Smurf just being a bit alarmist here?
> 
> Here's the answer in numbers.
> 
> Northern and Playford B power stations in SA have both been closed. So too have Hazelwood, Morwell and Anglesea in Victoria. Meanwhile everything else is getting older and more worn out.
> 
> Northern = 546 MW
> Playford B = 240 MW
> 
> Hazelwood = 1600 MW
> Morwell = 190 MW
> Anglesea = 160 MW
> 
> So that creates two issues in the SA context. First is a reduction of 786 MW of local generation, partly offset by 100 MW from the battery and 206 MW from the gas turbines = a net reduction of 480 MW.
> 
> In the Victorian context the closure of 1950 MW of capacity means that state cannot now meet its own maximum demand and thus doesn't have spare power to send to SA. NSW (with support from Qld) and Tas will do what they can to keep the lights on in Vic but there are "hard" technical limits to that since the lines from NSW and Tas into Vic don't have unlimited capacity and NSW in particular doesn't have a lot of spare electricity anyway.
> 
> So the reason it's a problem now is the double impact of less generation capacity in SA combined with no longer being able to depend on supply from Victoria.
> 
> SA residents will no doubt be aware that there were a few mishaps with supply from Vic over the years but to be fair it did work well over 99% of the time to the point that it was headline news when it didn't. So that's gone from a mishap every now and then but normally available to a situation where it can't be counted on at all. That's not because there's something wrong with the transmission lines but because Vic simply doesn't have enough generating capacity.
> 
> Then there's the issue of breakdowns which WILL happen with the only question being when. Nothing mechanical or electrical is immune to failure and if you've ever been inside any power station involving steam turbines in particular then you'll have noticed that there's a lot that could (and from time to time will) go wrong.
> 
> It's no secret that Torrens Island A is worn out and AGL have acknowledged publicly that they're not confident they'll ever again get all 4 generators running at full capacity all at once. So don't take its 480 MW capacity too seriously.
> 
> There some others that I won't name publicly which are generally thought to not be in great shape either.




Yeah I wan't saying the batteries will fix everything, just that thinking of it as 30,000 homes will be powered for 1 hr, is not really the correct way to think of it.

Of course the longterm solution will be more generation capacity or a lot more storage.

but, yeah people acting like the battery is nothing because its only "30,000 homes for 1 hour" just irks me a little"


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> There seems to be total silence on this publicly. It seems a case of "it's always been like this, so why worry anyone", or people are crossing everything and hoping for the best.
> 
> At what stage I wonder will anyone communicate to the public that blackouts are likely to happen. At the last minute ? Either that or "it's going to be 40 deg tomorrow so don't turn your air con on or the system will go down". Either way people won't be very happy.




it's weird at the moment.

Large scale generation is slowly going off line, meanwhile the public want to vilify and protest any banks or investors that dare at capacity using fossil fuels, and anyone that would ignore the public and add capacity is still scared of future governments penalising what would have to be a 30 year investment.

Then you have guys like Elon and a few pollies willing to stick their neck out on a solution and the nay sayers try and vilify them too.

as surf would agree its not an engineering issue, it's political.

No one wants the government to spend money.
yet they don't want private investors either.

I don't know the answer to the political issue.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> I don't know the answer to the political issue.




Alan Finkel had a non political solution but Turnbull turned it into a political one over one point of the 50.

If he had the guts to accept the whole report I reckon he would have got bi-partisan support.

As for governments spending money, I haven't heard any real objections to Snowy Hydro 2.0, which has expert support. I think that if the government follows expert advice that is factually and engineeringly supported then they will get support.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> This is serious, serious xhit.  One would have to think that if Smurf can pull these figures together then they have to be on hand with those responsible for power generation in Victoria as well as the Premier.
> 
> If they don't have this analysis.. WTF ?




The information as to plant capacity under hot weather conditions and historic levels of consumption under those same conditions is no secret indeed it's all publicly available on the AEMO website.

The only thing that's somewhat a secret is the condition of individual power stations. AGL, Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tas put long term planning information out publicly via various means but the others don't generally say much.

So it's possible that the Vic government doesn't know what condition power station x is really in and how reliable it's likely to be but they absolutely do know its capacity when it's working. That information is available to literally anyone with access to the internet and it's completely free of any cost or other restrictions.

At a guess, politicians are just hoping that either there aren't any heatwaves this Summer, they only happen sometime like Christmas Day when businesses are shut or there's a huge amount of wind at the time and nothing breaks down.

Either that or they've got some plan to twist the story which goes to the media outlets to their advantage.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Alan Finkel had a non political solution but Turnbull turned it into a political one over one point of the 50.
> 
> If he had the guts to accept the whole report I reckon he would have got bi-partisan support.
> 
> As for governments spending money, I haven't heard any real objections to Snowy Hydro 2.0, which has expert support. I think that if the government follows expert advice that is factually and engineeringly supported then they will get support.




When I say political, I don't just mean current government, I mean all the people protesting the banks and companies etc, and also the general mood among investors to  not want to invest in anything thats not renewable for fear they will be targeted with penalty taxes 2 years into a 30year investment, everyone remembers the carbon tax.

The carbon tax was brought in to discourage investment in fossil fuels, congratulations, it worked. (even though its dead, its effect remains)

Smear campaigns like this get a following on face book, cause lots of negative feedback, and then can cause funding to dry up for essential infrastructure. How much are green peace investing to keep the lights on??? ahh zero, yet they want to stop others investing.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> Large scale generation is slowly going off line, meanwhile the public want to vilify and protest any banks or investors that dare at capacity using fossil fuels, and anyone that would ignore the public and add capacity is still scared of future governments penalising what would have to be a 30 year investment.



To put the time involved into perspective:

1947 - The SECV concludes that Morwell will be the location for a future coal mine and power stations.  

1953 - Go ahead for the Morwell power station, briquette works and separate gas works.

1956 - First gas produced at Morwell

1957 - Decision to build Hazelwood power station using coal from Morwell

1958 - First power generated at Morwell power station.

1959 - First briquettes produced at Morwell.

1964 - First power generated at Hazelwood.

1969 - Gas works closed as now obsolete (replaced by natural gas). Hazelwood power station being enlarged from 6 generators to 8 since there's enough coal to do so with the gas works no longer needing it.

1971 - The entire project complete.

2014 - Morwell power station and briquette works closed.

2017 - Hazelwood power station and Morwell mine closed. 

Now the demolition work gets underway and that will take a few years. 

So that's fully 70 years from having identified that it was to someday be built to closing the operation plus a few more for demolition. Our current batch of politicians don't do anything on anywhere near that sort of planning horizon.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Smear campaigns like this get a following on face book, cause lots of negative feedback, and then can cause funding to dry up for essential infrastructure. How much are green peace investing to keep the lights on??? ahh zero, yet they want to stop others investing.




As I've said before, the privatisation of essential services like power was a mistake.

There were very few complaints with either prices or supply when power was delivered by State run utilities, now it's been privatised it's just a blame game between the governments and power companies.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> When I say political, I don't just mean current government, I mean all the people protesting the banks and companies etc, and also the general mood among investors to  not want to invest in anything thats not renewable for fear they will be targeted with penalty taxes 2 years into a 30year investment, everyone remembers the carbon tax.
> 
> The carbon tax was brought in to discourage investment in fossil fuels, congratulations, it worked. (even though its dead, its effect remains)
> 
> Smear campaigns like this get a following on face book, cause lots of negative feedback, and then can cause funding to dry up for essential infrastructure. How much are green peace investing to keep the lights on??? ahh zero, yet they want to stop others investing.





I don't think Green Peace's business plan is about investing in energy and minerals. So of course they invest zero to keep the lights on... well, beside paying the bills, the electrician, pay for the bulbs and all that.

A fairly large chunk of my portfolio is currently in fossil and mining. So maybe I'm a hypocrite... but then I didn't have much of a conscience  or environmental awareness when I made those investments, your honour. 

Electricity, fuel... we all need and want them. It doesn't mean we're hypocritical to want electric and save the planet at the same time. We can have both. 

It'll be cheaper for all consumers if energy comes from clean and renewable... so we all want things cheap and any survey will tell you that.

That and it creates more jobs, greater innovation, not pollute the air or being inefficient in mining/extracting then transport, refined, burnt etc. etc. Aren't those things what this great capitalism is all about?


And it's not a smear if those mock ads are saying the truth. Truth can be uncomfortable, and ugly, but it's no smear in and of itself.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> As I've said before, the privatisation of essential services like power was a mistake.
> 
> There were very few complaints with either prices or supply when power was delivered by State run utilities, now it's been privatised it's just a blame game between the governments and power companies.




Privatisation wasn't the mistake, discouraging investment both directly and indirectly was.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> I don't think Green Peace's business plan is about investing in energy and minerals. So of course they invest zero to keep the lights on... well, beside paying the bills, the electrician, pay for the bulbs and all that.




Maybe instead of running smear campaigns they should be using their donated funds to actually invest in a solution, rather than just pointing expensive fingers.




> Electricity, fuel... we all need and want them. It doesn't mean we're hypocritical to want electric and save the planet at the same time. We can have both.
> 
> It'll be cheaper for all consumers if energy comes from clean and renewable... so we all want things cheap and any survey will tell you that.




of course, but that doesn't happen over night, if we banned petrol cars tomorrow, you can bet there would be a shortage of cars in a couple of years.

I am all for investing in renewables, and new tech as you can see from my support of Tesla, but the transition needs to happen slowly, other wise you have to expect disruptions.



> That and it creates more jobs, greater innovation, not pollute the air or being inefficient in mining/extracting then transport, refined, burnt etc. etc. Aren't those things what this great capitalism is all about?




So where are all these jobs? to seems to me like next to nothing is happening. people are even complaining about the Tesla battery.



> And it's not a smear if those mock ads are saying the truth. Truth can be uncomfortable, and ugly, but it's no smear in and of itself.




it is a smear campaign, because we can't stop using coal tomorrow, So we need to still be investing in fossil fuel in the medium term as we slowly wean ourselves off.

If the country relies on coal, there is nothing wrong with banks loaning some money to keep the coal supply going, especially if not enough people are putting up equity in alternatives.


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## Value Collector

As I have pointed out before, some of the worlds cheapest and greenest electrical networks are privately owned.

Berkshire Hathaway owned electricity network sells power at half the price of the state owned system across the river, and is heading to 100% wind power.

When you set it up so investors are comfortable investing stuff gets done.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> Maybe instead of running smear campaigns they should be using their donated funds to actually invest in a solution, rather than just pointing expensive fingers.




I don't know anything about GreenPeace beside their stopping the Japanese from whale hunting for "scientific research". 



Value Collector said:


> of course, but that doesn't happen over night, if we banned petrol cars tomorrow, you can bet there would be a shortage of cars in a couple of years.




Who says the world need more cars? Maybe rail, trams, bicycles, feet to walk with.
No one's saying a ban should happen overnight... just maybe don't freaking subsidise those established fossil giants.

Adani got $1B in subsidies from our tax office. Other oil giants and car manufacturers get billions in subsidies per year.

There's a few bucks given to renewable. I guess Turnbull's plan for that innovation boom starts with a fizzle to spark things up.



Value Collector said:


> I am all for investing in renewables, and new tech as you can see from my support of Tesla, but the transition needs to happen slowly, other wise you have to expect disruptions.




Buying a cool piece of toy can't be said to be supporting it. Right? Just buying something cool and enjoying it. 

If Tesla is a clunker that would probably kill its drivers and you still risk putting money into it... that's showing support.




Value Collector said:


> So where are all these jobs? to seems to me like next to nothing is happening. people are even complaining about the Tesla battery.




Saw some news where NYC got better employment figures recently because it's increasing its investment in renewables.

China seems to be employing a fair number of people rolling out its solar farms and literally trying to green the Inner Mongolian desert. That's the only place, if I heard right, that actually increase its green footprint.

That and in general, new industries hire more people. Established industries soon enough have the cash to automate, fire most of its labour force and/or know people who know people who can make laws to keep wages down in the sector. WalMart, McDonalds etc., place where an average full time worker there can't afford to live (in the US) and often have to either get food stamp and/or a second or third job.

New companies and young upstarts tend to be more focused on the tech and market dominance so they tend not to have time yet to screw their workers. So workers win, for a while.



Value Collector said:


> it is a smear campaign, because we can't stop using coal tomorrow, So we need to still be investing in fossil fuel in the medium term as we slowly wean ourselves off.
> 
> If the country relies on coal, there is nothing wrong with banks loaning some money to keep the coal supply going, especially if not enough people are putting up equity in alternatives.




Don't stop using coal tomorrow, but if you subsidise and permit extraction for some 20 years... that's not helping the day after tomorrow (or it does, depends on the movie reference )


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> As I have pointed out before, some of the worlds cheapest and greenest electrical networks are privately owned.
> 
> Berkshire Hathaway owned electricity network sells power at half the price of the state owned system across the river, and is heading to 100% wind power.
> 
> When you set it up so investors are comfortable investing stuff gets done.





So how do you set it up so investors get comfy?

Subsidies? Remove "red tapes" and strangling regulation that strangles freedom, capitalism, investment and save the children?

The US FCC chair is proposing to remove Net Neutrality. He also said it's for greater investment, competition and all that green goodness. 

Capitalists are a bit over-rated.


----------



## sptrawler

You guys are funny, now the penny is dropping, coal isn't so bad. lol

The problem with the righteous way, it isn't always the best way, as has been proven many times.

The Chinese, didn't just buy Loy Yang B for the fun of it, they don't throw away money.
They know we are painting ourselves into a corner, and they will make plenty of money supplying base load, when we have finished whipping ourselves into a renewable catastrophe.
It is a shame we spend so much time and effort addressing our social ethos, without giving a thought to our economic survival.
We are the dumbest people on the planet.IMO


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> They know we are painting ourselves into a corner, and they will make plenty of money supplying base load, when we have finished whipping ourselves into a renewable catastrophe.




The take up of solar pv and batteries may prove you wrong. I can see them being mandatory on new housing in a while.


----------



## Wysiwyg

The Government could return some of our tax dollars via a heavily subsidised domestic solar panel and/or battery storage scheme which would reduce demand on the existing base load. If the Gov. paid half the cost for a Powerwall, that would make a huge difference to demand issues and place Elon (Value Collector) Musk in some serious truffle.


----------



## Wysiwyg

luutzu said:


> Electricity, fuel... we all need and want them. It doesn't mean we're hypocritical to want electric and save the planet at the same time. We can have both.



Unfortunately all that will happen is the slowing of anthropomorphic planetary destruction. In the known Universe, nothing exists in the same state forever so this human process can be seen as natural as we assume to be in control.


----------



## $20shoes

Why is it the nuclear is not a discussion in Australia? To me the Gen IV reactors should be considered a real alternative. It's difficult to argue that they are a threat given their construction and that pollution is responsible for > 2000 preventable deaths per year. 

Just say they're available in 2030, it give us time to plan and budget for the mid 2030s. China will be happy to help  Theyre building a crap load of plants at the moment.  

Fuel is plentiful. And we can make inroads into emissions outside of electricity production - one massive benefit is the output of hydrogen we can then use to make inroads into transport and industrial sectors. SA are big on hydrogen production (see CSIRO work). Given electricity generation/production only accounts for a small portion of our overall energy consumption, renewables will only ever do so much. 

Fuel costs are not really a concern in plant life. The costs in running a plant are very fixed and knowable. I suppose gas is definitely the competitor and huge upfront capital costs are unpalatable. But I feel we should consider it seriously.


----------



## SirRumpole

$20shoes said:


> Why is it the nuclear is not a discussion in Australia? To me the Gen IV reactors should be considered a real alternative. It's difficult to argue that they are a threat given their construction and that pollution is responsible for > 2000 preventable deaths per year.
> 
> Just say they're available in 2030, it give us time to plan and budget for the mid 2030s. China will be happy to help  Theyre building a crap load of plants at the moment.
> 
> Fuel is plentiful. And we can make inroads into emissions outside of electricity production - one massive benefit is the output of hydrogen we can then use to make inroads into transport and industrial sectors. SA are big on hydrogen production (see CSIRO work). Given electricity generation/production only accounts for a small portion of our overall energy consumption, renewables will only ever do so much.
> 
> Fuel costs are not really a concern in plant life. The costs in running a plant are very fixed and knowable. I suppose gas is definitely the competitor and huge upfront capital costs are unpalatable. But I feel we should consider it seriously.




If a nuclear reactor stacks up in a cost benefit analysis against other forms of energy over it's lifetime (including decommissioning, cleaning up etc) then it should be considered. Nuclear technology like any other technology is advancing all the time. I don't think it does compete at the moment.

Personally I wouldn't trust China to build anything in this country, their standards are so low that I would be very worried about accidents , poor structural work and bad management.


----------



## $20shoes

SirRumpole said:


> If a nuclear reactor stacks up in a cost benefit analysis against other forms of energy over it's lifetime (including decommissioning, cleaning up etc) then it should be considered. Nuclear technology like any other technology is advancing all the time. I don't think it does compete at the moment.
> 
> Personally I wouldn't trust China to build anything in this country, their standards are so low that I would be very worried about accidents , poor structural work and bad management.




I agree on the China point. With these plants you need multi-generational expertise, so thats a concern unless we spin out a capable workforce - not out of the question with a push for students to move into Science and Engineering. But it would take a mindshift. At the moment I think its too big a leap (even putting aside a cost benefit analysis), but I would be in favour of seeing more rigorous debate in this area from industry leaders/pollies/media. I know..."good luck with that" haha


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> Who says the world need more cars?
> 
> )




It wouldn't be that we need more, it's that you need to add 1,000,000 cars to the Australian fleet each year just to maintain the number of cars we have, becasue you lose cars every day.

Same with big generation, we are losing coal plants just to natural attrition.


> Adani got $1B in subsidies from our tax office.




The government earns alot of money from mining royalties, and other taxes, if they have to put in some money to kick start a 25 year revenue stream, and take a few 1000 people out of the dole queue it can be a good investment





> Buying a cool piece of toy can't be said to be supporting it. Right? Just buying something cool and enjoying it.
> 
> If Tesla is a clunker that would probably kill its drivers and you still risk putting money into it... that's showing support.




Not sure what you are talking about here





> Saw some news where NYC got better employment figures recently because it's increasing its investment in renewables.




As I said, where the political and social system is set up right people will make the investment.


----------



## Value Collector

$20shoes said:


> Why is it the nuclear is not a discussion in Australia? To me the Gen IV reactors should be considered a real alternative. It's difficult to argue that they are a threat given their construction and that pollution is responsible for > 2000 preventable deaths per year.
> 
> Just say they're available in 2030, it give us time to plan and budget for the mid 2030s. China will be happy to help  Theyre building a crap load of plants at the moment.
> 
> Fuel is plentiful. And we can make inroads into emissions outside of electricity production - one massive benefit is the output of hydrogen we can then use to make inroads into transport and industrial sectors. SA are big on hydrogen production (see CSIRO work). Given electricity generation/production only accounts for a small portion of our overall energy consumption, renewables will only ever do so much.
> 
> Fuel costs are not really a concern in plant life. The costs in running a plant are very fixed and knowable. I suppose gas is definitely the competitor and huge upfront capital costs are unpalatable. But I feel we should consider it seriously.




Nuclear is not going to happen in Australia, their is simply to much misunderstanding about it.

It would need the support of the Banks, and green peace and co would be trashing any Bank that thought about looking at it.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> The take up of solar pv and batteries may prove you wrong. I can see them being mandatory on new housing in a while.




That would have a major effect on demand, but large system disturbances, would still be an issue. Solar/battery installations are very much a passive device, which follow the synchronous system,


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> It wouldn't be that we need more, it's that you need to add 1,000,000 cars to the Australian fleet each year just to maintain the number of cars we have, becasue you lose cars every day.
> 
> Same with big generation, we are losing coal plants just to natural attrition.
> 
> The government earns alot of money from mining royalties, and other taxes, if they have to put in some money to kick start a 25 year revenue stream, and take a few 1000 people out of the dole queue it can be a good investment
> 
> Not sure what you are talking about here
> 
> 
> As I said, where the political and social system is set up right people will make the investment.




People can't be employed on clean and renewable projects? Know what $1B, instead of being subsidised to a multibillion corporation from India, can do if it's towards a new industry like renewable?

"A lot" is relative. 

Maybe taxes and royalties paid are in the billions. So that's a lot.

A billion dollar on real profit of $50 or $100B is peanuts. And as we all know, the likes of BHP and RIO don't book their real profit in Australia do they? They sell to their subsidiary in Singapore or Panama at a low margin... those then onsell to the end users at massive markup... and that's as far as I know, I'm sure they do more than that.

And that doesn't count the costs of polluting the air, the land, leaching into and spoiling them massive aquifers etc. etc.

I was saying that "supporting" a struggling business by buying its goods/services. That's supporting. 

To buy a Rolex or a pink diamond then say you're supporting watch makers and struggling miners isn't the same. I mean, you do pay for the goods, but don't do so to support them so much as to just enjoy the goods from them.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> People can't be employed on clean and renewable projects? Know what $1B, instead of being subsidised to a multibillion corporation from India, can do if it's towards a new industry like renewable?
> 
> "A lot" is relative.
> 
> Maybe taxes and royalties paid are in the billions. So that's a lot.
> 
> A billion dollar on real profit of $50 or $100B is peanuts. And as we all know, the likes of BHP and RIO don't book their real profit in Australia do they? They sell to their subsidiary in Singapore or Panama at a low margin... those then onsell to the end users at massive markup... and that's as far as I know, I'm sure they do more than that.
> 
> And that doesn't count the costs of polluting the air, the land, leaching into and spoiling them massive aquifers etc. etc.
> 
> .




The government already has and does subsidise renewable projects, it also provides incentives to mining sometimes, the big difference is the government has a vested interest in mining projects, becasue it gets royalties, so in some cases it makes sense to invest a bit to gain a long term revenue stream.



> I was saying that "supporting" a struggling business by buying its goods/services. That's supporting.
> 
> To buy a Rolex or a pink diamond then say you're supporting watch makers and struggling miners isn't the same. I mean, you do pay for the goods, but don't do so to support them so much as to just enjoy the goods from them




I still have no idea what this analogy has to do with me.


----------



## Smurf1976

$20shoes said:


> Why is it the nuclear is not a discussion in Australia?



Historically Victoria had the SECV as among the world's best with using low grade coal. Massive scale plants churning out cheap power and nothing could compete for base load. They were even doing it cheaper than hydro power at one point.

Tasmania had the Hydro as not just a source of cheap power but as a means of economic development as such.

NSW and Qld had their Electricity Commissions which whilst they couldn't beat Vic or Tas came pretty close.

SA, NT and WA historically didn't use enough power to be overly worried about and whilst not as cheap as the other states ETSA and SECWA certainly weren't high cost operations by any means in terms of bulk generation. Distribution costs hit them pretty hard due to the low population density but so far as generation was concerned they did it pretty cheaply by global standards. NT always had lack of scale as a problem but did pretty well all things considered.

Plus of course the Snowy providing additional power to NSW and Vic.

We had the third cheapest electricity in the developed world back then as a national average and nuclear simply wasn't competitive. Vic, NSW and Tas all looked at it and went as far as identifying suitable sites to build it but concluded that continuing with coal or hydro development was cheaper at the time.

That's all history but it's worth noting that most of the power we use today still comes from power stations designed and built by the former state utilities so it's still of relevance today and will be for at least another 3 decades.

I could be wrong but I doubt that the private sector would be interested in building nuclear generation in Australia. We're talking about a very long lead time project, a lot of money put in that doesn't earn a cent in revenue for at least the first decade, and then a fairly low rate of return after that with a very large liability in the event of a mishap. Broadly speaking only governments even contemplate that sort of thing.

I'm not totally opposed to the concept if everything's done right but I don't see it as a "silver bullet". It works certainly but it has never been a cheap technology in countries with tight regulations and local availability of alternative resources. Hence most nuclear generation built in recent decades has been either for political / strategic / military reasons, in countries without viable local alternatives or in places with cheap labour. None of those apply in Australia at present.

All that said, it wouldn't surprise me to see a government propose building nuclear power generation to come online in the mid-2030's and located in either NSW or Vic. Politics is against that now but a few blackouts would quite likely change that. Time is running short though - it's late 2017 now so if we want to replace the many coal-fired plants likely to close in the 2030's with nuclear then we need to get moving. 18 years from 2017 to 2035 isn't a long time with this sort of stuff (seriously, 18 years isn't long and that's part of the problem since many do actually think that's a long time. With smartphones maybe it is but with power generation it's not at all long).


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> As I have pointed out before, some of the worlds cheapest and greenest electrical networks are privately owned.



I don't doubt for a moment that private enterprise could do it.

As one example AGL ran the gas supply in Sydney for over 150 years without much drama. Costs were kept down and they built the entire thing from scratch as a for-profit company. Their prices weren't expensive.

Now there's competition for the supply of gas however. Long story short you won't see anyone offering it anywhere near as cheaply as AGL's monopoly did in the past. Faced with competition and the need to offer competitive pricing AGL itself now charges 89% more in real terms (inflation adjusted) for gas in Sydney than it did 30 years ago in 1987.

There's the "competition equals lower prices" myth blown to pieces right there and it's the same nationally for both gas and electricity so far as residential and small business consumers are concerned.

Prices up 20% for electricity in several states this year for households. Here in Tas there's no competition, no choice of supplier, so residential prices went up 2% and small business prices were cut in nominal terms.

Economists will fall of their seat reading that one but it makes perfectly good sense to those on the technical side of it all. If you're running one system where scale is key and with most costs incurred during construction rather than operation then splitting it up, having multiple operators of physical assets and even more wanting to put their name on your bill never was going to result in lower prices. There will be some benefits of competition yes but they're blown out of the water but the higher costs due to loss of scale.

Alinta, AGL and the SA Government are all building (or have just built in the case of government) new generation in SA but not one of those plants is optimally efficient either technically or economically. A smart person would get the engineers of all 3, plus those from every other company who owns or is planning to build significant power generation, in the same room and coming up with a proper plan that is efficient and cheap. Trouble is the ACCC would have the CEO's in prison if they did that.

There's an inherent conflict between the economic ideology of competition versus trying to get the best outcome technically (which also minimises costs). Hence why competition has not in practice delivered lower prices - it creates an incentive to be more efficient but imposes serious technical inefficiencies in the process of doing so. At best the various companies will find ways to offset part of the costs imposed but none of them have got back to neutral on that one.

A single private company without such restrictions could do it reliably and cheaply for sure as could a well run government utility. Ownership is not the problem - industry structure and the triumph of economic theory over sound engineering is the problem.

We had the third cheapest electricity in the OECD with the state run utilities and that came with first rate engineering by any definition. Countless achievements at the time which others globally sought to replicate. Canada and NZ with their large hydro resources were the only ones doing it cheaper than Australia although for the record if Tasmania had been a separate country then it would have been #1 on that list for low costs (and would also have been #1 on the list for highest per capita consumption globally and that's no coincidence - scale is critical to minimising cost)

55 years after it was built Catagunya is still among the highest pre-stressed dams in the world today. It was the highest when built, the whole thing is a very different design to most dams being anchored to the ground via internal cables and being very light weight in terms of materials, and has stood the test of time. 30 years later Hydro Tas did the impossible and put the spillway straight down the face of a new rockfill dam - something which gained international attention and a few awards at the time and which a few others have since copied. Hydro Tas still sells its engineering expertise on a consultancy basis both nationally and internationally today. 

The SECV was pretty proud of the fact that Hazelwood churned out power from coal at a cost no higher than hydro which was until that time always the cheapest way. Tasmania would have preferred they hadn't managed to do it of course but it illustrates the point that cost was always a key focus. 20 years later and they had Loy Yang up and running with generators 150% larger than Hazelwood's and a design that was directly copied by others (a private utility in the US bought the plans and replicated the whole thing).

The rest of the developed world was trying to work out the quickest way to cut reliance on oil circa 1980. In due course it was realised internationally that SECWA had already done it whilst others were still coming to grips with the problem. Power stations that could not just burn coal, oil or gas in the same plant but switch between them whilst remaining fully operational and even burn multiple fuels in the same generating units all at once if they wanted to. More world class engineering and importantly it was done specifically as a means of minimising costs.

And so on. There wasn't a problem until politicians decided there was a need for "reform". Ideology took over and now we've got among the most expensive power on earth, expensive gas too, increasing reliance on diesel-fired plant and an aging fleet of thermal power stations (coal, gas) that would normally be found only in poorer countries who used to buy second hand equipment from Australia and elsewhere because they couldn't afford the latest things. 

Ownership isn't the problem, public or private it can be done well. Just keep the ideologically driven politicians out of the way.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> The government already has and does subsidise renewable projects, it also provides incentives to mining sometimes, the big difference is the government has a vested interest in mining projects, becasue it gets royalties, so in some cases it makes sense to invest a bit to gain a long term revenue stream.
> 
> 
> 
> I still have no idea what this analogy has to do with me.




The amount the gov't put towards renewables are minuscule compare to what they give to fossil corporate giants. And it's not because coal or fossil fuel return more royalties or tax, more to do with political influence.

Just saw Robert Reich's new documentary - Saving Capitalism. ExxonMobil and the likes get about $4Billion in tax subsidies per year. That's on their profit of some $40B.

How many jobs does an oil rig or a pipeline need? Even at the construction phase. And if those big oil even have a half decent tax advisor, how much profit do you think they can hide and offshore?

Again, if there's an oil spill, an accident, or just plain old hurricane passing through and spreading all the toxic they stored in their ponds... who's going to pay for it?

The BP disaster costs how many jobs in fisheries and clean up? How many jobs in tourism? The taxpayers pay for it first, the residents and wildlife next, then after a couple of years in and out of court BP got fined the equivalent of a quarter's profit spread over a decade or so. 

Capitalism and all that entrepreneurial stuff is great. Just that when a corporation gets to a certain size, they will push their weight around and stop being productive or progressive. Then start to hinder innovation and progress that affect their monopolies and well-oiled operation. That's just natural.

So while it's all fine and good for gov't to subsidise and nurture industry, the focus should be on smaller operators and in new industry. The big boys have enough profit to take care of themselves. 

That would ensure less political influence/corruption, increase democratic rule as the captains don't control the people's representatives. 


So take coal mining. OK, it create a few thousand jobs in mining. Great. So would solar or wind projects. For every dollar invested, new industries tend to employ more people... more workers, more taxes to the coffer. That and less risk of black lung disease where the taxpayers will ultimately be paying for down the line. 

It's fine that capitalists and business managers just think about their own corporation's bottom line. You'd expect political leaders to think longer terms... and they can't do that if their career are made or end at the whim of those of massive wealth and what it can buy.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Ownership isn't the problem, public or private it can be done well. Just keep the ideologically driven politicians out of the way.




I think that the main ideology was that some politicians thought that they could a. get lots of cash for power stations and networks and b. shift the responsibility for electricity to someone else. 

As it was the public blamed the politicians anyway when things went wrong, but most of those responsible like Kennett and Baird had already jumped ship.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> I don't doubt for a moment that private enterprise could do it.
> 
> As one example AGL ran the gas supply in Sydney for over 150 years without much drama. Costs were kept down and they built the entire thing from scratch as a for-profit company. Their prices weren't expensive.
> 
> Now there's competition for the supply of gas however. Long story short you won't see anyone offering it anywhere near as cheaply as AGL's monopoly did in the past. Faced with competition and the need to offer competitive pricing AGL itself now charges 89% more in real terms (inflation adjusted) for gas in Sydney than it did 30 years ago in 1987.





Back then AGL was pretty much the only purchaser of gas from the suppliers.

We had a few suppliers competing to sell a limited amount of other wise stranded gas to the one buyer, So AGL was able to screw the suppliers price down.

Now however its no longer 1 pipeline with 1 customer at the end, Due to the great work of APA building a "National Gas Grid" and other companies building infrastructure to connect that grid to global markets, Suppliers are now spoiled for choice and have countless potential customers all over Australia and Asia, AGL can't screw them anymore.

Also not to mention Coal, which is a big competitor of gas in the electricity market, is being held back from competing, and new gas suppliers are being held back from entering new supply, So its a sellers market.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> And as we all know, the likes of BHP and RIO don't book their real profit in Australia do they? .




Some how they usually always end up in the top 10 largest tax payers in Australia.

In 2015, they were 1 & 2 on the list.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/here-are-the-16-biggest-tax-paying-companies-in-australia-2015-12


The ATO only disputes $667 Million of BHP tax for the last 11 years, meanwhile they having been paying Billions in tax to Australia every year, So you claim is pretty over the top.

You didn't just read the headlines and assume they don't pay tax did you?

--------------------------

Countries always fight over which country should be able to charge tax, Australia obviously wants to get tax dollars that are currently being paid in Singapore, they may be right to want that or they may be wrong, it depends on the details, and how much value is being added by the marketing teams in Singapore.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> Some how they usually always end up in the top 10 largest tax payers in Australia.
> 
> In 2015, they were 1 & 2 on the list.
> 
> https://www.businessinsider.com.au/here-are-the-16-biggest-tax-paying-companies-in-australia-2015-12




Tax equality can't be measured on a nominal/dollar basis. 

Like I said before, paying millions or billions in taxes sounds like a lot, and it is a lot. But it's peanut if the *real* profit is many times what is claimed on the financial statement.

Didn't an enquiry a few years back found that BHP and RIO under-declare their actual profit? The recent leaks revealed in the Paradise Papers revealed the likes of Nike and Glencore making billions of profit on Bermuda - at 0% tax too. You see any mines or Nike stores on Bermuda?

To see whether a corporation or a person is paying their fair share, you'd have to do two things:

1. Figure out what their actual, real profit is - not the reported profit after tax games and creative accounting.

2. Reduce it to a percentage.

So if BHP and RIO, say, sell the ores and other commonwealth of Australia's assets to a subsidiary or ten of theirs at little or no profit. Then those subsidiaries onsell almost immediately, through a few keystrokes, to the end customers at massive profit... you know the maths right?

But it's all legal so I guess those who pay the most amount is the most productive and patriotic corporate citizens.

Like Jesus says, a poor man who gave a $5 that is half his assets is not as kind as a rich man who gave $500 that is his pocket change.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> Tax equality can't be measured on a nominal/dollar basis.
> 
> Like I said before, paying millions or billions in taxes sounds like a lot, and it is a lot. But it's peanut if the *real* profit is many times what is claimed on the financial statement.




The ato has been looking in BHP for years, and have only disputed $667 Million in tax over the last 11 years, this compares to BHP's actual tax paid to Australia of more than $20 Billion over that time, I see that as peanuts.

A good marketing team does add value to a miner, other wise why do they employ people to market the ORE?

-----------------------------------------------

Let me use another example to highlight what I mean.

Take the iPhone as an example (or any gadget)

Apple designs it in California
Builds it in China for $200
Then sells it in Sydney at the apple store for $1000.

Lets say it cost them $200 to make it, and they had an $800 profit.

Was that full $800 earned in China when the product was Built?

or was it made in Sydney when the phone was sold?

or was it the design team in California?

The correct answer would be all three places.

But if china tried to say that all the $800 should be reported and taxed in china they would be wrong, because clearly the marketing team in Sydney added value.

If Apple's manufacturing division in china sold the phone for $400 to the marketing division in Sydney then the marketing division sold it for $800, but then the marketing division also paid a royalty to their design division, in California, all the countries might fight about who should be getting the tax dollars, but not real tax avoidance may be happening.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> If Apple's manufacturing division in china sold the phone for $400 to the marketing division in Sydney then the marketing division sold it for $800, but then the marketing division also paid a royalty to their design division, in California, all the countries might fight about who should be getting the tax dollars, but not real tax avoidance may be happening.




Profit is only made when the goods are actually sold which is in Australia. 

Profit is so easy to manipulate which is why I think we should be moving towards another system that is harder to avoid like a tax applied to all monies leaving the country, say x%, which is on the total price charged to the customer and remitted to the company. If the companies think that x is excessive then they would have to show that their total profit on the item is less than x% of the selling price.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Profit is only made when the goods are actually sold which is in Australia.




So Bhp and Rio shouldn't be paying much tax in Australia at all, considering most of their products are exported and sold overseas.

Be careful what you wish for.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> The ato has been looking in BHP for years, and have only disputed $667 Million in tax over the last 11 years, this compares to BHP's actual tax paid to Australia of more than $20 Billion over that time, I see that as peanuts.
> 
> A good marketing team does add value to a miner, other wise why do they employ people to market the ORE?
> 
> -----------------------------------------------
> 
> Let me use another example to highlight what I mean.
> 
> Take the iPhone as an example (or any gadget)
> 
> Apple designs it in California
> Builds it in China for $200
> Then sells it in Sydney at the apple store for $1000.
> 
> Lets say it cost them $200 to make it, and they had an $800 profit.
> 
> Was that full $800 earned in China when the product was Built?
> 
> or was it made in Sydney when the phone was sold?
> 
> or was it the design team in California?
> 
> The correct answer would be all three places.
> 
> But if china tried to say that all the $800 should be reported and taxed in china they would be wrong, because clearly the marketing team in Sydney added value.
> 
> If Apple's manufacturing division in china sold the phone for $400 to the marketing division in Sydney then the marketing division sold it for $800, but then the marketing division also paid a royalty to their design division, in California, all the countries might fight about who should be getting the tax dollars, but not real tax avoidance may be happening.




Tax "minimisation" on that scale and that open, yet it's legal. That's a problem right there.

So past 11 years BHP paid $11B in taxes.

At 30% tax rate, its net profit over that same time would be 11x3 =$33B?

So if BHP paid its fair, legally specified, tax, its net profit would be $33B or there about.

As shareholders, and assuming BHP paid all its net earnings to shareholders... that's net profit paid as dividends of 33-11 = $22B in dividends.

Oh look... over the past decade it paid its shareholders $62B, US dollars. 

Where's the extra $40B of earnings/profits from?

From the BHP Plc half? 

Come on man.








And yes, it did also say it paid $US84B around the world in taxes, royalties and "other payments"... what's the other payments? Charities, fines?


----------



## luutzu

SirRumpole said:


> Profit is only made when the goods are actually sold which is in Australia.
> 
> Profit is so easy to manipulate which is why I think we should be moving towards another system that is harder to avoid like a tax applied to all monies leaving the country, say x%, which is on the total price charged to the customer and remitted to the company. If the companies think that x is excessive then they would have to show that their total profit on the item is less than x% of the selling price.




The Four Corners investigation on the Paradise Papers show how one of the schemes used by these multi-nationals to reduce tax is by indebting their subsidiaries in "high" tax countries like Australia. Interest is tax deductible so why not invest for the future here? 

On tax havens like Bermuda... not much expenses, just billions in profits, at zero tax. 

From the same report, Nike don't even have a shoe shop over in Bermuda yet it somehow managed to earn crap load of profits there. Incredible.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> So Bhp and Rio shouldn't be paying much tax in Australia at all, considering most of their products are exported and sold overseas.
> 
> Be careful what you wish for.




Pretty sure they don't sell it overseas. 

They send it overseas, but sold it here in Australia.

And you can't tell me that their marketing team in Singapore earn the extra mark up because buyers like the presentation and brochures and good manners.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> Tax "minimisation" on that scale and that open, yet it's legal. That's a problem right there.
> 
> So past 11 years BHP paid $11B in taxes.
> 
> At 30% tax rate, its net profit over that same time would be 11x3 =$33B?
> 
> So if BHP paid its fair, legally specified, tax, its net profit would be $33B or there about.
> 
> As shareholders, and assuming BHP paid all its net earnings to shareholders... that's net profit paid as dividends of 33-11 = $22B in dividends.
> 
> Oh look... over the past decade it paid its shareholders $62B, US dollars.
> 
> Where's the extra $40B of earnings/profits from?
> 
> From the BHP Plc half?
> 
> Come on man.
> 
> View attachment 84914
> 
> 
> 
> And yes, it did also say it paid $US84B around the world in taxes, royalties and "other payments"... what's the other payments? Charities, fines?




Dude your math needs some work, not all profit is generated in Australia, so they pay a lot of tax over seas e.g. the $84 billion.

Eg,

If they earn $1billion mining copper in South America and pay 25% tax there, they only have to pay an additional 5% tax here to bring it up to the 30% tax rate.

So the $1 billion would look like this.

$250 Million tax to chile
$ 50 Million tax to Australia
$700 Million available for dividends.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> Pretty sure they don't sell it overseas.
> 
> They send it overseas, but sold it here in Australia.
> 
> And you can't tell me that their marketing team in Singapore earn the extra mark up because buyers like the presentation and brochures and good manners.




The marketing division can do all sorts of things, hedging, negotiations, dealing contracts etc.

A good marketing team do create value, otherwise why are they there.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> Dude your math needs some work, not all profit is generated in Australia, so they pay a lot of tax over seas e.g. the $84 billion.
> 
> Eg,
> 
> If they earn $1billion mining copper in South America and pay 25% tax there, they only have to pay an additional 5% tax here to bring it up to the 30% tax rate.
> 
> So the $1 billion would look like this.
> 
> $250 Million tax to chile
> $ 50 Million tax to Australia
> $700 Million available for dividends.




Fair enough. 

Just somehow I doubt the majority of their earnings are from overseas though. 

$11B to the ATO, some $88B to shareholders [rate at 70centUS]... 

Historical payout ratio seems to be around 80%, so that's [$88/80]*100 = $110B over 10 years profit after tax.

Tax assumed at 30%... $110B is 70% of earnings before tax. That gives it [110/70]*100 = $157B profit before tax.

At 30% tax, that's 0.3*157 = $47B. 

Of that $47B, ATO got $11B, or 23%.... 

So can we assume that, according to that rough estimate, 1/4th of BHP's earnings are in Australia, from Australian resources?

Let's dig up its revenues by geography shall we.


----------



## luutzu

Oh look, most of its noncurrent assets are in Australia.

The least profitable assets are where BHP made its fortunes. Strange how it makes the least profit from resources closest to its biggest customer... and those ores and assets are known to be of high quality too


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> The marketing division can do all sorts of things, hedging, negotiations, dealing contracts etc.
> 
> A good marketing team do create value, otherwise why are they there.




Strange how them marketing hub tend to be in the lowest tax havens. 

I guess sunshine and sea breezes away from Australia help with the creative juices.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> Fair enough.
> 
> Just somehow I doubt the majority of their earnings are from overseas though.
> 
> $11B to the ATO, some $88B to shareholders [rate at 70centUS]...
> 
> Historical payout ratio seems to be around 80%, so that's [$88/80]*100 = $110B over 10 years profit after tax.
> 
> Tax assumed at 30%... $110B is 70% of earnings before tax. That gives it [110/70]*100 = $157B profit before tax.
> 
> At 30% tax, that's 0.3*157 = $47B.
> 
> Of that $47B, ATO got $11B, or 23%....
> 
> So can we assume that, according to that rough estimate, 1/4th of BHP's earnings are in Australia, from Australian resources?
> 
> Let's dig up its revenues by geography shall we.



Where are you getting the $11 billion tax figure from? They paid over $3billion in 2015 alone and $1.7 billion last year.

I have looked at all the years but I thought it would be more than $11 billion


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> Strange how them marketing hub tend to be in the lowest tax havens.
> 
> I guess sunshine and sea breezes away from Australia help with the creative juices.



Singapore is where the metals exchange is, and has grown as a large trading and financial centre, did bhp start all that? 

Singapore has been a hub for international trade for years

They also have a trading hub in London.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> So past 11 years BHP paid $11B in taxes.
> 
> At 30% tax rate, its net profit over that same time would be 11x3 =$33B?





Can you check your claim here. 

Because the Numbers I am seeing say BHP paid an average of $5.85 Billion per year year in Australia from 2005 to 2014, which blows your entire premise out of the water.

Where are you getting the $11 Billion in 11 years number from?


----------



## SirRumpole

Hey guys, this is an electricity thread not a tax thread !


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> Where are you getting the $11 billion tax figure from? They paid over $3billion in 2015 alone and $1.7 billion last year.
> 
> I have looked at all the years but I thought it would be more than $11 billion




Was late, I saw 11 years and thought $11B. 

So you said they paid some $20B over the past 11 years, right? Can we assume that the 11th year [2006], during a mining boom, their income tax to the ATO would be... average of the $3B in 2015 [the bust year?] and $1.7B... so that's $2.35B... take from the $20B over 11 years leave $17.65B to the ATO.

I'm assuming my maths on the estimate is somewhere about right...

At 30% tax, that's 0.3*157 = $47B in tax.

Of that $47B, ATO got $17.65B [not the $11B]. So that's 37% instead of 23% I mistook before.

From the couple of charts and figures above, BHP has some 51% to 61% of their long term assets [non-financials, i.e. mines and a few buildings and tool sheds]... more than half in Australia.

So if more than half of their assets are in Australia, why are they paying some 1/3 of taxes to the ATO?

Dam unions!


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> Singapore is where the metals exchange is, and has grown as a large trading and financial centre, did bhp start all that?
> 
> Singapore has been a hub for international trade for years
> 
> They also have a trading hub in London.




Like I said, it's legal. I'm not saying they're breaking the law, just maybe they have politicians write laws to make business more efficient and things of that nature. If being efficient mean paying less taxes, I guess that's alright.

So if you have an orchard or a mine that you own and you lease it to me at a very, very low fixed price plus bigger royalties on the profit.

I take your assets, I set up subsidiaries, push as much expenses into those sub as I could get lenders to lend me... then I claim a low profit margin. Then to add the cherry on top I don't actually sell those assets of yours to the end customer... I sell it to my other businesses, at market price of course... then that other businesses of mine trade it onto the end customers at a great mark up.

That's cool with you?

I know you're a better person than me because you believe these are all acceptable practices, that's why you would own them. Me, I know they're screwing people but I needed the money so yea. 

Dam, the moral decay is worst than I thought.


----------



## luutzu

SirRumpole said:


> Hey guys, this is an electricity thread not a tax thread !




You pick fights wherever you find them man.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> So you said they paid some $20B over the past 11 years, right?!




I said more than $20 Billion, I was estimating.

But it turns out its alot more, it's $59 Billion in the last 11 years.

And the ATO is disputing $667 Million, Which is 0.01% of the total.

For every $59 they paid already, the ATO wants another 67cents, thats hardly a sign of a massive tax dodge, you can't say they aren't paying a lot of their tax here.

So your claim that,



> the likes of BHP and RIO don't book their real profit in Australia do they? .




Is totally false, Turns out you pay to much attention to headlines.

The fact that the dividends are franked is a clear sign that those dividends are being paid from taxed income.


But lets not clog this thread, Start another one if you want to discuss more.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> I said more than $20 Billion, I was estimating.
> 
> But it turns out its alot more, it's $59 Billion in the last 11 years.
> 
> And the ATO is disputing $667 Million, Which is 0.01% of the total.
> 
> For every $59 they paid already, the ATO wants another 67cents, thats hardly a sign of a massive tax dodge, you can't say they aren't paying a lot of their tax here.
> 
> So your claim that,
> 
> 
> 
> Is totally false, Turns out you pay to much attention to headlines.
> 
> The fact that the dividends are franked is a clear sign that those dividends are being paid from taxed income.
> 
> 
> But lets not clog this thread, Start another one if you want to discuss more.




Alright, I take your word for it man.


----------



## Value Collector

An interesting video on the complexity of Nuclear waste.


----------



## $20shoes

Ive seen that video before. It's quite interesting. The focus on nuclear waste may actually help its cause in the long run. There's no clear waste bank right now and I know some U miners silo their waste in 100 year containment chambers until a better methodology surfaces.  Of course theres concepts around using up various elements in the fuel cycle that only leave short half lives left as waste, but I think we can all agree its definitely bloody complex.

The reason I think the scrutiny serves a purpose is because its probably one of the few energy sources that really must have inscrutable regulation around storage/emissions. Coal as an example obviously releases its waste into the atmosphere in un uncontrolled manner (of course, you cant compare the two from a safety perspective) including mercury.

There are initiatives to deal with nuclear waste outside of storage. Probably the most mature is Bill Gate's Travelling Wave Reactor (needs about 8 tonnes of waste to power 2.5 million homes for a year).
ITs another Gen IV reactor and ANSTO are part of the framework. Once again China is getting on with it...

http://www.smh.com.au/business/ener...first-nuclear-technology-20171106-gzfrf0.html

I dont know...I love a world that's shifting to renewables but we need to consider that peak demand for EVs and charging will probably start kicking in in the mid 2030s. As well just as global temperatures rise another 0.5C by 2040  - our population gets home at 6pm. We all start charging our EVs and crank up the air con. Thats a lot of peak Electricity.

The UK has forecast their peak energy demands to rise by an additional 25GW by 2050 including a peak hour requirement for up to 8GW additional.   They are already constructing energy sources with Steady State targets to achieve by 2050. They are aiming for pumped storage to reach 10.7GW by 2050, whereas Hinckley's plants will provide 20GW Steady State by 2033. The UK are also expecting to increase the number of required gas plants going beyond 2050. 

If you ever want to take on a project guaranteed to run over time and over budget, and be fraught with technical difficulty, build a nuclear power plant. That said, these still a lot of interest in it:

*South Africa grants environmental permit for new 4,000 MW nuclear plant-letter OCt 2017

Argentina to start building two new nuclear reactors in 2018 (SNC) - Nov 2017

Russia bidding to construct 16 nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia - Nov 2017
*
And of course China is going all out on both renewables and nuclear. They seem to have a stockpile of > 7 years worth of U308 for over 50 nuclear plants (constructed or being constructed). They started buying it heavily following fukushima and will be enriching their own fuel. 

And to be honest, I jsut love this live graph of ontario's emissions:

http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html

As I am writing this they released 140 tonnes of emissions for the day. 
Victoria releases about 220,000 tonnes per day


----------



## $20shoes

Sorry that should read that utilities would store their waste in silos - not miners of course.
But waste is indeed another economic consideration. Not cheap, and potentially not safe.


----------



## $20shoes

Oh and the Ontario emissions are per hour not per day. But still very impressive and something to strive for


----------



## Smurf1976

That the Saudi's are suddenly so keen on solar, nuclear and indeed anything other than oil meanwhile starting to sell off Aramco says an awful lot. There's really only two plausible explanations which make any sense:

1. Those who've long suspected they've got less oil than they claim are correct and the Saudi's now see oil as too valuable to burn for power generation. 

2. The Saudi's seriously expect international action on CO2 to the point that oil becomes worthless and they're not even allowed to burn it themselves without sparking some sort of conflict internationally.

Either way it suggests that it's not a wise move for anyone to be relying too much on oil into the future.


----------



## Smurf1976

Yallourn power station (Vic) is back to full production with unit 1 started up this morning. A slightly chaotic startup by the looks of it but it's up and running with the whole station (4 units) at full output right now.

Loy Yang A is still having problems. There was a major failure of unit 1, quite a bit of damage it seems, back in October and it's still being fixed. Units 2 and 4 also have some issues and are down in output about 10% each. Unit 3 is running normally and so is Loy Yang B station next door.

Tomorrow looks to be a very tight supply situation in Victoria.

Forecast demand = 9274 MW

Available generation in Vic = 8467 MW

Available supply from Tas, SA and NSW combined = 1277 MW.

Reserve (total available supply - forecast demand) = 471 MW

So it will only take one fault to tip the system over the edge tomorrow. Loss of any of the 5 currently operating units at Loy Yang A & B would do it as would loss of Newport D power station's single machine or loss of supply from Tasmania.

So there's 7 things which, if any of them actually fail, will individually bring about a supply shortage since there's not a lot of room to move.

Loss of any 1 of the 4 generators at Yallourn wouldn't tip the system over the edge but would reduce the reserve to a trivial amount. Or it could be enough if load is even slightly higher than forecast.

So all pretty fragile really.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Yallourn power station (Vic) is back to full production with unit 1 started up this morning. A slightly chaotic startup by the looks of it but it's up and running with the whole station (4 units) at full output right now.
> 
> Loy Yang A is still having problems. There was a major failure of unit 1, quite a bit of damage it seems, back in October and it's still being fixed. Units 2 and 4 also have some issues and are down in output about 10% each. Unit 3 is running normally and so is Loy Yang B station next door.
> 
> Tomorrow looks to be a very tight supply situation in Victoria.
> 
> Forecast demand = 9274 MW
> 
> Available generation in Vic = 8467 MW
> 
> Available supply from Tas, SA and NSW combined = 1277 MW.
> 
> Reserve (total available supply - forecast demand) = 471 MW
> 
> So it will only take one fault to tip the system over the edge tomorrow. Loss of any of the 5 currently operating units at Loy Yang A & B would do it as would loss of Newport D power station's single machine or loss of supply from Tasmania.
> 
> So there's 7 things which, if any of them actually fail, will individually bring about a supply shortage since there's not a lot of room to move.
> 
> Loss of any 1 of the 4 generators at Yallourn wouldn't tip the system over the edge but would reduce the reserve to a trivial amount. Or it could be enough if load is even slightly higher than forecast.
> 
> So all pretty fragile really.




So true smurph, when you consider summer isn't here yet.


----------



## Smurf1976

30 MW being supplied by Hornsdale Power Reserve (SA big battery) into the grid at the moment.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> 30 MW being supplied by Hornsdale Power Reserve (SA big battery) into the grid at the moment.




Just interested if there is an on-line diagram of all the power stations in the country and how much they are producing at the moment and what the demand is. Or is that commercial in-confidence ?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Just interested if there is an on-line diagram of all the power stations in the country and how much they are producing at the moment and what the demand is. Or is that commercial in-confidence ?




This one breaks it down by state and source.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/nem-watch/


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Just interested if there is an on-line diagram of all the power stations in the country and how much they are producing at the moment and what the demand is. Or is that commercial in-confidence ?



There are paid services which show exactly that but access requires paying $$$ as they're provided by third parties.

Typical users are electricity generation companies to explain it all to the board etc (many of whom will have business or finance backgrounds) and in some cases visitors (school or university groups, media etc).

AEMO does publish all the data, updated every 5 minutes, on their website however and that's free for anyone to access. That's live output data for every scheduled (over 30 MW) generator and a few others (smaller ones) who choose to be included updated every 5 minutes. It's just an Excel spreadsheet however and requires some background knowledge of what's what but it's here: http://www.nemweb.com.au/REPORTS/CURRENT/Dispatch_SCADA/

Total demand, generation capacity, generation output and interconnector (between states) flows are also on the AEMO website updated every 5 minutes. This is aggregated at a whole of state level however not for individual power stations. Here: http://www.nemweb.com.au/REPORTS/CURRENT/DispatchIS_Reports/

Current bids are not published for all to see in real time but historic data is publicly available at no cost. This spreadsheet shows actual output and available capacity for the previous day if you look at columns E (time), G (name of power station or generating unit), O (actual output) and AE (available capacity at that time from that generator).

Note that time is always Qld time for all locations, so no adjustment is made for Daylight Saving or the 30 minute difference in SA.

Also note that the capacity shown is what was available to run at that time and offered to the market - a value of zero doesn't necessarily mean the plant was broken, it could just mean it isn't being offered to the market at that time (eg it is shut down but could be started up if needed). AEMO can and will direct generation owners to make plant available if it's capable of running and there's a need for more supply although most of the time that's not necessary but it does occur. Obviously they can't direct someone to run if it's broken etc. 

This spreadsheet is here (one file for each day and the list goes back over a year): http://www.nemweb.com.au/Reports/CURRENT/Next_Day_Dispatch/

Following is a third party website with a single, easy to understand graph showing total generation by fuel type in each state. It shows that only and does not show load or interconnector flows, just how much is coming from what fuel (coal, wind, gas, hydro etc) including an estimate of generation from small scale (household) solar systems. It's pretty widely looked at by the way and the simplest way to get a "big picture" view of where power is coming from at any given time. Most data is sourced from AEMO and the solar estimates are generally regarded as pretty accurate. Note that since it doesn't show interconnector flows the figures for each state are generation only which may be quite different to consumption if there's a large transfer between states occurring at the time. 

Most of it is self explanatory (coal, gas, hydro, wind etc) but "other" generally means biomass largely (Eg waste from sugar processing burnt to generate power is a modest but big enoug to be worth measuring source in Qld). 

Note that the "large solar" is referring to big solar installations such as at Broken Hill and this data is measured and sourced from AEMO. Panels on roofs etc are "small solar" and that data is estimated.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/nem-watch/

The other generating companies generally don't have anything comparable but Hydro Tas has a simplified line diagram showing the main water storages, their current level, where the water flows and the capacity of each power station. Note that this is station capacity not current output. Water level figures are in GWh (how much energy they hold) and not water volume (litres etc) as such and are updated weekly. Note also that the power station rated outputs are conservative "as designed" ratings - most of them can be pushed a bit harder if really necessary. Here:  https://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/water-storage/storage.pdf

Hydro also publishes key storage level data for the past 5 years as a spreadsheet updated weekly. This is partly to enable public scrutiny but also saves rival generators the hassle of having someone driving around the state looking at the dams trying to work out how full they are (yep, one of the interstate privately owned companies did just that some years ago). Here: https://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/water-storage/storage_summary-4.xls

Not so related to energy as such but Hydro Tas meteorological data is here. This is in most cases collected to proper meteorological standards (same as what the Bureau of Meteorology does) and the BOM does use it as a legitimate data source in addition to their own observations. https://www.hydro.com.au/water/water-levels-and-flows-map

Back to electricity as such, AEMO publishes these graphs looking forward the next 2 years for each state. The basis is the highest demand likely for that time of year since obviously they don't know exactly which days will be hot etc. Also generation capacity is based on what's known at this time and subject to change since obviously it's only planned outages that are shown that far in advance not any breakdowns etc. The red bars on the charts for Vic and SA are supply shortfalls (in layman's terms that means someone loses power aka blackouts).  http://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/...Market-NEM/Data-dashboard#medium-term-outlook

There's a lot more data available (free of charge) from AEMO via their website bit most of it would be incomprehensible or misleading to anyone without a lot of background knowledge so I've just pointed to the stuff that's in sort-of layman's terms here.

The link to the Reneweconomy site above is the simplest way to get your mind around what's powering your computer or toaster right now. It doesn't show what the limits are but it shows where it's coming from in real time.


----------



## Smurf1976

AEMO are now showing reserve capacity in Vic tomorrow at 434 MW so less than previously.

At that level it will only take a single problem or for demand to be a tad higher than forecast and there's a shortfall. 

It wouldn't surprise me if AEMO drops some load off anyway in order to keep the overall system stable in case something does fail since with such low reserve the vulnerability is uncomfortably high.

The danger there is that with total reserve capacity less than the 7 largest sources of supply and only marginally higher than 4 others, if any one of those suddenly failed that would immediately produce a shortfall and if that's not fixed real quick then it ends with an SA style collapse real quick.

It's one of those things where whatever they do will be wrong in hindsight. Shed some load and nothing fails = media gets excited and so on. Or don't drop some load and something does fail = everyone's angry when it all falls in a heap. So they can't win there, whatever they do will likely be less than optimal in hindsight since we're dealing with risks not certainties.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> AEMO are now showing reserve capacity in Vic tomorrow at 434 MW so less than previously.
> 
> At that level it will only take a single problem or for demand to be a tad higher than forecast and there's a shortfall.
> 
> It wouldn't surprise me if AEMO drops some load off anyway in order to keep the overall system stable in case something does fail since with such low reserve the vulnerability is uncomfortably high.
> 
> The danger there is that with total reserve capacity less than the 7 largest sources of supply and only marginally higher than 4 others, if any one of those suddenly failed that would immediately produce a shortfall and if that's not fixed real quick then it ends with an SA style collapse real quick.
> 
> It's one of those things where whatever they do will be wrong in hindsight. Shed some load and nothing fails = media gets excited and so on. Or don't drop some load and something does fail = everyone's angry when it all falls in a heap. So they can't win there, whatever they do will likely be less than optimal in hindsight since we're dealing with risks not certainties.




So what is the long term prognosys ?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> So what is the long term prognosys ?



Long term as in how long?

If you mean "next 24 hours" then the latest update now has Vic reserve down to 427 MW tomorrow. So as weather etc inputs are updated it's getting a bit worse each time.

If you mean longer term as such, well suffice to say that with the generation availability of just a few days ago tomorrow's forecast load simply couldn't have been supplied. So if the system scrapes through tomorrow then the proverbial bullet will have been dodged THIS TIME.

What should be ringing some serious alarm bells is that tomorrow isn't forecast to be an extreme weather day by any means. 35 degrees in Melbourne, 34 in Adelaide, 33 in Hobart, 30 in Canberra, 27 in Sydney. 

So supply is stretched under circumstances where it shouldn't even be an issue. 35 degrees in Melbourne isn't extreme by any means.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Long term as in how long?
> 
> If you mean "next 24 hours" then the latest update now has Vic reserve down to 427 MW tomorrow. So as weather etc inputs are updated it's getting a bit worse each time.
> 
> If you mean longer term as such, well suffice to say that with the generation availability of just a few days ago tomorrow's forecast load simply couldn't have been supplied. So if the system scrapes through tomorrow then the proverbial bullet will have been dodged THIS TIME.
> 
> What should be ringing some serious alarm bells is that tomorrow isn't forecast to be an extreme weather day by any means. 35 degrees in Melbourne, 34 in Adelaide, 33 in Hobart, 30 in Canberra, 27 in Sydney.
> 
> So supply is stretched under circumstances where it shouldn't even be an issue. 35 degrees in Melbourne isn't extreme by any means.




Yes smurph, I meant long term, in respect to getting some long term viable solutions in place that will mitigate the problem.
I would think with the impending closure of more coal plant, the issues are going to get far worse, before they get better.
As you have said, major generating plant takes years to design and implement, yet the current issues seem dire.
So will the bullet be dodged this summer, and if so how will the problem compound next summer?


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> 30 MW being supplied by Hornsdale Power Reserve (SA big battery) into the grid at the moment.



30MW being supplied, would indicate it is in frequency control mode, it must have some clever control systems in place.


----------



## Smurf1976

Looks like the bullet has been dodged today in Victoria.

Ended up with about 500 MW spare within Vic + 400 MW from NSW and 500 MW from SA.

Reasons = cool change came through in Melbourne a bit after 5pm and Adelaide also cooling down. Plus wind generation worked better than expected and is producing about 900 MW between Vic and SA at the moment.

For the record:

Coal-fired plant in Vic is running flat out to the limit of available capacity. Yallourn is working fine as is Loy Yang B. Loy Yang A has 2 units with reduced capacity and 1 not running at all due to October's failure.

Supply from Tasmania is running at the absolute limit of Basslink's capacity (the constraint being transmission Tas to Vic rather than a generation limit as such).

Vic hydro plant not quite fully utilised but very close.

Vic gas-fired plant is mostly running but some isn't and that accounts for most of the unused capacity available within Vic.

SA diesel generation not being used and there's a bit of spare gas-fired capacity also but not a huge amount.

Now, if the wind hadn't worked as well as it did and/or it had been a bit hotter then it would be a very different story but the bullet was dodged this time.

PS - In case anyone noticed that the open cycle gas turbines in Tas are being run today and wondered why, there's a few reasons.

1. Extra capacity online ensures that supply to Vic won't be disrupted if something failed.

2. No point running the hydro stations to their limit when you've got the option to instead run them at their optimum efficiency point which is below full capacity.

3. Avoided the need to disrupt planned maintenance work. The water will be kept for use later and with the power going to Vic someone else is in practice paying for the cost of running them anyway so no big deal. Costs $ today but saves money overall in the long term using that approach.

4. Bastyan power station is being run only if there's no alternative at the moment since maintenance works have unavoidably cut off the upstream water supply. It can still run if needed, there's some water stored there, but the aim is to only run it if there really is no other option due to the limit on water availability.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> 30MW being supplied, would indicate it is in frequency control mode, it must have some clever control systems in place.




It switched back and forth quite a few times between charging and discharging on Thursday night. Not sure if that was related to final testing or operation as such.

On other energy things:

Victoria is doing their own version of what has become known in the industry as the "Tasmanian approach". Yep, they're setting up 100 individual diesel generators outside a power station as an emergency supply to the grid. At roughly 1 MW each that's 100 MW.

They're being put outside the now closed Morwell power station and briquette works.

It's sad in a way to see diesels running on imported fuel being installed in the Latrobe Valley which has truly massive coal resources, equivalent to about 7% of the whole world's oil reserves, but that's what's happening.


----------



## orr

Smurf1976 said:


> It's sad in a way to see diesels running on imported fuel being installed in the Latrobe Valley which has truly massive coal resources, equivalent to about 7% of the whole world's oil reserves, but that's what's happening.




You can't read the phrase...'coal is dead and buried' and not see that as fact in every way.
It's a transition Smurf; I'm reading the hard headed  reports from the likes of Origin that wind and solar are the cheapest options of generation going into the future. 
*22,000* that's twenty two thousand pumped hydro sites identified by the Turdbull govs own  inquirey into exactly those pumped hydro possibilities, a tiny fraction of this capacity capable of allowing 100% transition to a non carbon future giving a 100% 'deliverable' capacity. more than a few of those jobs created in this build  would be dumped in Townsvilles surrounds. 
 By the way, at the stroke of a nationalistic parlimentry pen those deisel generators could be made to run on Australian natural gas. APauline could come in handy on something like this.


----------



## Smurf1976

orr said:


> You can't read the phrase...'coal is dead and buried' and not see that as fact in every way.




No argument from me there. But diesel is even less sustainable than coal in practically every way.



> It's a transition Smurf; I'm reading the hard headed  reports from the likes of Origin that wind and solar are the cheapest options of generation going into the future.




And therein lies my point.

There's a transition which ought to be done in an orderly manner which minimises costs and maintains supply reliability.

Instead we've ended up with among the most expensive power anywhere, a system which can't meet actual demands which are known to occur when it's hot, and we're now plonking shipping containers with diesel generators in them outside former power stations as a *partial* workaround that won't avoid blackouts but can be pointed to as "doing something".

It's hard to imagine a more chaotic approach to it all.



> *22,000* that's twenty two thousand pumped hydro sites identified by the Turdbull govs own  inquirey into exactly those pumped hydro possibilities, a tiny fraction of this capacity capable of allowing 100% transition to a non carbon future giving a 100% 'deliverable' capacity.




As first discussed by Smurf on this forum many years before anyone thought Tony Abbott would become PM and long before Turnbull was on the scene in that sense. Nothing new there - the industry knew that back in the 1970's.

Actually building them before shutting too many coal-fired plants would have avoided a lot of pain though that's for sure.



> By the way, at the stroke of a nationalistic parlimentry pen those deisel generators could be made to run on Australian natural gas.




Only if they source dual fuel capable units and can get the gas supply connected in time.

Based on the experience in Tas where that idea was looked at I'd say there's no way it could be done. There's a reason why we ended up with big tanks of diesel sitting literally right next to a major gas pipeline - all the gas stuff just couldn't be done quickly enough so diesel was the workaround.

Given that the ones in Vic need to be running immediately after the New Year, so early January, they've barely got enough time to plonk them all on the ground and hook the wiring up so it's too late for gas.

So it's another thing that could have been done but which was left too late. Shut some of the LNG production in Qld, redirect that gas to Moomba and from there to NSW and SA, thus enabling more gas from Longford (Vic) to be retained in Vic. The infrastructure is already there.

Overall I most certainly "get it" so far as where things are going and have done so for a very long time. None of this is a surprise to anyone in the know. Problem is, those who should have worked it out either didn't or took no action and now we're in a huge mess.


----------



## sptrawler

orr said:


> By the way, at the stroke of a nationalistic parlimentry pen those deisel generators could be made to run on Australian natural gas. APauline could come in handy on something like this.



We did it in Carnarvon in the late 1980's, it isn't as easy as changing the fuel tank for a gas tank or supply line.
They had to have twin injection and fired up on diesel, then there was a fuel rack change over, which cut back the diesel and introduced the LNG.
Like smurph said, the first thing you need is the LNG supply, then you need units set up to fire dual fuel, they aren't on the Bunning shelf.


----------



## Smurf1976

It all comes down to planning.

Once you've left it too late it's diesel or nothing.

Not an unreasonable thing to do in a genuinely unforeseeable emergency situation, it beats sitting in the dark, but not a good outcome where the need was easily foreseen.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> It all comes down to planning.
> 
> Once you've left it too late it's diesel or nothing.
> 
> Not an unreasonable thing to do in a genuinely unforeseeable emergency situation, it beats sitting in the dark, but not a good outcome where the need was easily foreseen.




It's a bit like when I go bush camping, I take a dual fuel cooker, not an lpg cooker.
In the middle of nowhere, you can always pick up unleaded fuel, not so easy to get lpg.

Like you say, it goes back to the six P's, piss poor planning = piss poor performance.


----------



## Value Collector

Value Collector said:


> Elon's latest product.





In only about 2.5 years since this thread opened with the above post about Elon announcing the Power wall, we now have the worlds largest battery operating right here in Australia.


----------



## Smurf1976

The SA mining town of Coober Pedy has cut back on diesel, now sourcing 70% of its electricity from wind and solar whereas previously it was 100% diesel.

The power supply now comprises 4 MW of wind generation, 1 MW solar, a 1 MW / 0.5 MWh battery and an existing 3.9 MW diesel power station. 

The system is owned by Energy Developments Limited who contracted Hydro Tasmania for design and partial construction of the project. The system operates using Hydro Tasmania's proprietary control and integration technology which following earlier development in Tas has now been containerised as a commercial product. This enables off-site construction in a factory and easy transport to the site which is simpler than building it all in-situ and minimises weather-related delays.

https://www.hydro.com.au/about-us/news/2017-11/hydro-tasmania-fuels-renewable-oasis

http://www.energydevelopments.com.au/casestudies/coober-pedy-renewable-hybrid-project/


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The SA mining town of Coober Pedy has cut back on diesel, now sourcing 70% of its electricity from wind and solar whereas previously it was 100% diesel.
> 
> The power supply now comprises 4 MW of wind generation, 1 MW solar, a 1 MW / 0.5 MWh battery and an existing 3.9 MW diesel power station.
> 
> The system is owned by Energy Developments Limited who contracted Hydro Tasmania for design and partial construction of the project. The system operates using Hydro Tasmania's proprietary control and integration technology which following earlier development in Tas has now been containerised as a commercial product. This enables off-site construction in a factory and easy transport to the site which is simpler than building it all in-situ and minimises weather-related delays.
> 
> https://www.hydro.com.au/about-us/news/2017-11/hydro-tasmania-fuels-renewable-oasis
> 
> http://www.energydevelopments.com.au/casestudies/coober-pedy-renewable-hybrid-project/




Certainly sounds like a sensible holistic approach, if a politician had been involved, they would have halved the size of the diesel.


----------



## macca

Media is starting realise there is a problem, they should be reading ASF

<<The ASX future contracts have already set bidding prices for the 2018 first quarter at $169 a megawatt hour, and bids have even reached $173.25 a megawatt hour, whereas its 2019 first quarter price is only two-thirds the price, at $116 a megawatt hour.>>

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/5107409/2018-tipped-to-be-sas-toughest-energy-year-yet/?cs=9


----------



## Smurf1976

macca said:


> Media is starting realise there is a problem, they should be reading ASF



To put that into perspective, not too long ago $40 was an average price (roughly) and at $80 the hydro generators were running flat out to maximise revenue from their limited water resources.

Now we're talking about average prices in SA at double what a peak price used to be.

However bad it is in SA though it's worse in Vic. That's the thing few seem to have worked out yet. Sure, it's not impossible that SA ends up in the dark whilst Vic doesn't but from a probability perspective Vic is in a worse situation certainly. Not many seem to have worked that out yet it seems.

PS - The photo in that article most certainly isn't Hazelwood power station. Looks like units 3 & 4 at Yallourn W a few km away.


----------



## sptrawler

macca said:


> Media is starting realise there is a problem, they should be reading ASF
> 
> <<The ASX future contracts have already set bidding prices for the 2018 first quarter at $169 a megawatt hour, and bids have even reached $173.25 a megawatt hour, whereas its 2019 first quarter price is only two-thirds the price, at $116 a megawatt hour.>>
> 
> http://www.theherald.com.au/story/5107409/2018-tipped-to-be-sas-toughest-energy-year-yet/?cs=9




Yes the media, is always arriving after the $hit has hit the fan, and covered them.

The good thing about the media, is they just jump ship, and argue the next perspective.
As long as it sells, who cares about the outcomes, perpetrated on the consumer.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Yes the media, is always arriving after the $hit has hit the fan, and covered them.



That can be advantageous from an investment perspective.

When the media is full of hype about whatever investment then that's usually a good time to be selling and vice versa.


----------



## sptrawler

macca said:


> Media is starting realise there is a problem, they should be reading ASF
> 
> <<The ASX future contracts have already set bidding prices for the 2018 first quarter at $169 a megawatt hour, and bids have even reached $173.25 a megawatt hour, whereas its 2019 first quarter price is only two-thirds the price, at $116 a megawatt hour.>>
> 
> http://www.theherald.com.au/story/5107409/2018-tipped-to-be-sas-toughest-energy-year-yet/?cs=9




Just a sad , sorry mess, S.A, it is. Says Yoda.

Absolute FW's.

They just have to thank god, that all their industry was shut down. lol


----------



## Smurf1976

Another tight supply situation coming up in Vic on Wednesday 13 December.

Forecast maximum load = 8966 MW

Generation available within Vic = 7513 MW

Available supply from NSW, Tas, SA (combined) = 1941 MW 

Reserve capacity = 489 MW

Now, there's 7 individual sources of supply currently in operation supplying Vic which are each larger than 489 MW. If any one of them fails then that's a problem (load shedding aka blackouts). There would be another one but that died in a big way back in October (it's a major failure not just a breakdown there).

I wonder how many more bullets will be dodged before the inevitable happens?


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Another tight supply situation coming up in Vic on Wednesday 13 December.
> 
> Forecast maximum load = 8966 MW
> 
> Generation available within Vic = 7513 MW
> 
> Available supply from NSW, Tas, SA (combined) = 1941 MW
> 
> Reserve capacity = 489 MW
> 
> Now, there's 7 individual sources of supply currently in operation supplying Vic which are each larger than 489 MW. If any one of them fails then that's a problem (load shedding aka blackouts). There would be another one but that died in a big way back in October (it's a major failure not just a breakdown there).
> 
> I wonder how many more bullets will be dodged before the inevitable happens?




What I would be concerned about, isn't dodging the bullet, as I've seen that happen on many occasions.
What to me, is more concerning, is that it is happening so early in summer.
On a balanced grid, where the time is arriving that more plant is required, there may be a couple of scary days at the peak of summer.
But to have a tight margin in early summer, is really scary.


----------



## Value Collector

Some interesting points about solar.


----------



## Smurf1976

Tight supply situation in NSW tomorrow.

Forecast load = 13,580 MW

Available generation within NSW = 12,477 MW

Available supply from Qld and Vic (noting that Vic is in turn getting much of that from SA and Tas) = 2038 MW

Reserve = 935 MW

At that level it will probably be OK but it's uncomfortably low given that the largest generating units in NSW are 700 MW each and there's a total of 12 units each in the 660 - 700 MW range of which 11 are currently operational. Plus there's another 5, 4 of which are operational at present, in the 400 - 450 MW range. 

So should be OK but it's a lower reserve than desirable and it would only take one failure to push the system right to the edge. If two failures then it's game over.

Mt Piper power station presently has one unit (660 MW) out of service due to boiler leaks although that's only a minor problem and shouldn't take too long to fix.

More seriously Liddell (yep, that place.....) has unit 2 out of service due to turbine cracks and it'll be toward the end of Summer at the earliest before that's likely to be fixed at this stage.

So another bullet which may or may not be dodged tomorrow, this time in NSW. 

That all assumes, of course, that they don't run out of gas for gas-fired generation. Not impossible given it actually did happen earlier this year and caused some load shedding in NSW. Yep, they really did drain the pipe until it stopped working due to lack of pressure. 

If it wasn't for Qld and Tas having reliable systems able to prop up the other states to some extent then things wouldn't be good at all with Vic and NSW both having run out of capacity within the state in recent days (the lights staying on due to supply from Qld, Tas and believe it or not SA).  

Smurf's not predicting the end of the world here, just pointing out that this has all become alarmingly fragile and that critical infrastructure isn't in great shape really.


----------



## sptrawler

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-23/coal-fired-loy-yang-b-sold-to-alinta-owners/9185354

Well someone has faith, in being able to make money, from coal fired generation.

The Greens response, just shows how fanatical they are, god help us if they got into office.


----------



## sptrawler

Thankfully it sounds as though, long term planning is taking traction.
Even if it is only one small step, it is one giant step in the right direction, fffing 100MW batteries, give me a break.
"Sorry battery banks 1,3,5 and 7 can't respond, need replacement, won't take a charge". Copy that.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-20/malcolm-turnbull-argues-snowy-hydro-2.0-is-good-to-go/9277368

The only long term solution for on demand base load, at this point in time, unless you go nuclear.

How come when anything that sounds positive is given a negative by the Gratten Institute?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-...be-magical-solution-to-power-problems/8360320

extract:
"And whether it's privately owned or publicly owned, is this a good use of public funds? That's going to be the trick for the feasibility of the study to determine.

Wow I wonder if they asked that question of the NBN?


----------



## basilio

Good story on the exponential growth in solar energy led by China, India and Third World countries.

*Analysis: How developing nations are driving record growth in solar power*

*Emerging markets now account for the majority of growth in solar power, according to new data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

Led by China and India, these developing economies are behind dramatic recent growth in solar capacity, which expanded by 33% in 2016.

China alone installed 27 gigawatts (GW), around 40% of the world’s new solar last year. Brazil, Chile, Jordan, Mexico and Pakistan all at least doubled their solar capacity in 2016.

In total, solar accounted for 19% of all new generating capacity in the emerging markets tracked by BNEF.

However, solar still only accounts for 5% of capacity and 1.3% of electricity generation globally. But its exponential growth in recent years has been driven by national policies and a combination of photovoltaic module prices falling more than threefold.

Exponential growth
Over the past decade, solar capacity has increased exponentially, driven by falling module prices and national commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or expand access to electricity.

While Europe, the US and Japan led the way in early solar installations, over the past few years most growth has been driven by developing countries, with China in particular starting to dominate the solar sector.

The figure below shows total global solar capacity installed each year from 2003 through to 2016 by region.

&lt;br /&gt;

Cumulative solar photovoltaic capacity by region and year from 2003 through 2016. Based on data from BNEF/Climatescope and the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.
Europe drove much of the early solar capacity growth – and cost reductions. In 2016, however, Asia became the dominant region. North America has also ramped up its solar capacity considerably. While still relatively small, solar capacity in Africa and South and Central America also experienced rapid year-over-year growth from 2013 onwards.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-developing-nations-driving-record-growth-solar-power
*


----------



## $20shoes

I'm a little skeptical when I read articles that just mention potential GW. I have the potential to earn a million bucks a year but I never get remotely close  Same as renewables really. Their capacity to produce electricity is poor. 

China's wind capacity factor without curtailment is somewhere near 25% (they'll always have a cutailment though. Solar is at 15%. Thats a lot of investment for a pretty poor return.


----------



## SirRumpole

Another opinion on the failure of governments to secure energy security and affordable pricing.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-...ctricity-bills-air-conditioning-costs/9298346


----------



## SirRumpole

Interesting that Jim Molan has bought up the question of a lack of fuel stockpiles which Smurf raised some time ago.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-04/jim-molan-issues-stark-warning-over-adf-capabilities/9303810


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting that Jim Molan has bought up the question of a lack of fuel stockpiles which Smurf raised some time ago.



It's by far our biggest economic and military vulnerability in my view. An extremely high level of dependence on fuel from places like the Middle East (a pretty unstable region) and we're the ONLY developed country without a stockpile either government owned or privately owned under a government mandate.

Even most relatively poor countries are taking it more seriously than we are. They might not have the recommended 90 days' worth of imports stockpiled but they've gone as far as they can reasonably afford and have 45 days or 60 days etc which is at least better than nothing. Every other OECD country either has the 90 days' stockpile or does it in conjunction with neighbouring "friendly" countries (eg EU member countries).

I find it truly ridiculous that we've got problems with electricity and gas despite having abundant means of supply for both in our own backyard. Oil's the only one that's actually difficult in an Australian context but we're not even paying attention there since we're so pre-occupied trying to keep the lights on which ought to be incredibly straightforward.

Go back 30 years and we were global leaders when it came to electricity, third cheapest in the OECD and the most efficient thermal generation anywhere, and we were also about 90% self-sufficient with petroleum fuels meanwhile the Victorian state government was running the most effective gas distribution network on the planet in terms of market penetration and doing so incredibly cheaply. Oh how far we've gone backwards.....


----------



## basilio

The 100 megawatt Tesla battery in South Australia is proving exceptionally effective at intercepting power outages.  This analysis is well worth reading.
* 'All happening very quickly': Tesla battery sends a jolt through energy markets *







.....
*'Outstanding'*
While the hype rings a bit hollow in that instance, there's no doubt the battery has been making a difference, responding to four coal generator trips in December alone.

Franck Woitiez, managing director at Neoen – the French operator of the battery – told Fairfax Media its performance had been "outstanding". (Tesla, as is its wont, declined to comment.)

"We are very proud of the battery performance throughout December and the start of January," Mr Woitiez said, adding the company had received "quite a few inquiries" about its operations.

Critics have quibbled at the battery's size, highlighting that alone it could only supply perhaps 30,000 homes for an hour or so, at a cost guessed at $US50 million ($64 million).

But such figures ignore the many benefits – including supporting the security of the grid – that are only beginning to be understood.

"The battery has been dispatched on multiple occasions for both energy and FCAS," a spokesman for the the Australian Energy Market Operator tells Fairfax.

For December, "the battery was dispatched for energy on over 380 separate five-minute dispatch intervals, and enabled on over 4600 separate dispatch intervals in one or more FCAS markets", he said.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/env...t-through-energy-markets-20180103-h0cxr7.html


----------



## Smurf1976

There's a lot of people saying the battery can only supply 30,000 homes and so on.

At peak demand that's about right but I look at it a very different way.

The battery can supply 100 MW into the grid. That's about 3% of the whole of SA's maximum load and compares to the largest generator in the grid at 239 MW so it's not insignificant.

Angaston, Lonsdale, Port Lincoln, Ladbroke Grove, Mintaro and Snuggery power stations (all in SA) are each individually smaller than the battery in terms of peak output. On an individual generator basis Dry Creek's 3 machines and 4 out of the 5 units at Quarantine power station are also smaller.

Back to houses, well if we take a typical household in SA then the battery could supply 175,000 of them for 77 minutes which again is not insignificant given that's enough time to start from cold any open cycle gas turbine or diesel generator and it's roughly a quarter of all houses in SA that could typically be supplied for that time.

I don't see batteries like this one as a total solution by any means, first because it stores electricity but does not produce it as such and second because it's a relatively expensive means of storage, but it has a role to play. It's not insignificant in scale by any means and it could, of course, be easily duplicated and given the nature of batteries subsequent installations could be located practically anywhere. Could even go in the Adelaide CBD if not for the cost of land likely being too high for that to be sensible but there's none of the siting issues that apply to any form of power station as such.


----------



## Logique

Cheers Smurf. A $550 Mill energy plan for South Australians, of which $50 Mill to subsidize the Tesla batteries, which would supply 30,000 home for one hour.  One hour. If they happen to be charged up at the time.

Pity the poor South Australian taxpayer. Actually all Australian taxpayers, as the GST is redistributed to these wastrels.

"_I find it truly ridiculous that we've got problems with electricity and gas despite having abundant means of supply for both in our own backyard_... (Smurf)".  Ain't that the truth.


----------



## Tink

I was told a few suburbs in Melbourne had their power turned off for two hours on Saturday afternoon.


----------



## Tisme

Smurf1976 said:


> There's a lot of people saying the battery can only supply 30,000 homes and so on.
> 
> At peak demand that's about right but I look at it a very different way.
> 
> The battery can supply 100 MW into the grid. That's about 3% of the whole of SA's maximum load and compares to the largest generator in the grid at 239 MW so it's not insignificant.
> 
> Angaston, Lonsdale, Port Lincoln, Ladbroke Grove, Mintaro and Snuggery power stations (all in SA) are each individually smaller than the battery in terms of peak output. On an individual generator basis Dry Creek's 3 machines and 4 out of the 5 units at Quarantine power station are also smaller.
> 
> Back to houses, well if we take a typical household in SA then the battery could supply 175,000 of them for 77 minutes which again is not insignificant given that's enough time to start from cold any open cycle gas turbine or diesel generator and it's roughly a quarter of all houses in SA that could typically be supplied for that time.
> 
> I don't see batteries like this one as a total solution by any means, first because it stores electricity but does not produce it as such and second because it's a relatively expensive means of storage, but it has a role to play. It's not insignificant in scale by any means and it could, of course, be easily duplicated and given the nature of batteries subsequent installations could be located practically anywhere. Could even go in the Adelaide CBD if not for the cost of land likely being too high for that to be sensible but there's none of the siting issues that apply to any form of power station as such.





Highly successful companies like Tesla would do the maths before their boss "gambled" the profits. They knew what they were doing, even without Malcolm Turnbull telling them how to.


----------



## basilio

Logique said:


> Cheers Smurf. A $550 Mill energy plan for South Australians, of which $50 Mill to subsidize the Tesla batteries, which would supply 30,000 home for one hour.  One hour. If they happen to be charged up at the time.
> 
> Pity the poor South Australian taxpayer. Actually all Australian taxpayers, as the GST is redistributed to these wastrels.
> 
> "_I find it truly ridiculous that we've got problems with electricity and gas despite having abundant means of supply for both in our own backyard_... (Smurf)".  Ain't that the truth.




I believe you have misunderstood the role of the 100 mw battery bank. It is there to stop sudden collapses of the power system  when  larger generaters fail and load smooth. If you read the article in full that becomes very clear. What was particularly important was it's capacity to come on line almost instantly.

It also acts as a storage for wind/solar power generators to spread their capacity to produce power.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> I believe you have misunderstood the role of the 100 mw battery bank. It is there to stop sudden collapses of the power system  when  larger generaters fail and load smooth. If you read the article in full that becomes very clear. What was particularly important was it's capacity to come on line almost instantly.




That's one of the things it does certainly but not the only one. The other is providing energy storage and peak generating capacity into the grid. As part of that there's some opportunistic trading (buy low / sell high) on a routine basis.

From a technical perspective there's no "barrier" between the two functions but from a contractual perspective there's a "bucket" of capacity for one purpose and another "bucket" for the other.

Thus far it has been used to stabilise the system during a number of incidents (generator trips) which have occurred interstate but there hasn't (yet) been a need to call upon it as a source of peak generating capacity as such.

Main point of my post though is a counter to all who say it's too small to be of any importance. 100 MW peak capacity isn't massive but it sure ain't trivial and as you say the ability to act real quick (FCAS - Frequency Control Ancillary Services) is also very useful especially in the SA context. 

It's an impressive sight by the way. Been there and seen it first hand. It's bigger (physically) than I was expecting it to be.


----------



## SirRumpole

How have things been going with generation vs demand in the current heatwave Smurf ?


----------



## sptrawler

The take up of solar in W.A is causing its own problems, the Government has doubled the supply charge, which in turn has caused a rapid increase in disconnections. Thankfully it is a Labor Government, otherwise there would be hell to pay, in the media.
https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/elec...n-wa-after-power-bill-increases-ng-b88705976z

The other problem is, W.A is shutting down coal generators, in response to the reduced demand.
I wonder if we will end up like S.A, who knows, maybe that is the intention.
It will bring about large increases in power costs, maybe this will be used to install reliable backup, in one form or another.

https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/solar-may-threaten-grid-says-expert-ng-b88584548z

Even business leaders, are frustrated with the lack of realistic energy policy.
If they have a plan, they aren't telling us, because it will have scary outcomes, it has scary costs or it is going to have a big impact on our lives.
I personally don't believe, this is just an out of control train, if it is, there will be a lot of politicians in the firing line when the wreck happens.IMO

https://thewest.com.au/business/aus...y-wa-fund-manager-packer-and-co-ng-b88707679z


----------



## Logique

_"I believe you have misunderstood the role of the 100 mw battery bank. It is there to stop sudden collapses of the power system when larger generaters fail and load smooth." _(Basilio)

For just 30,000 SA homes, for one hour!

Mind you, at $50Mill it's been cheaper than estimates on Malcolm and Josh's _Snowy 2.0_ roulette wheel - $2Bill .. no $4Bill .. no $10Billion, and rising.  Never going to happen.


----------



## basilio

Logique said:


> _"I believe you have misunderstood the role of the 100 mw battery bank. It is there to stop sudden collapses of the power system when larger generaters fail and load smooth." _(Basilio)
> 
> For just 30,000 SA homes, for one hour!
> 
> Mind you, at $50Mill it's been cheaper than estimates on Malcolm and Josh's _Snowy 2.0_ roulette wheel - $2Bill .. no $4Bill .. no $10Billion, and rising.  Never going to happen.




Why not check out Smurfs analysis of how the battery bank works Logique and the value it offers to stabilising the SA power system. 

Really we have one of the most honest and insightful energy specialist inour forum. Bit of waste of resources if we can't respect his skills.


----------



## Logique

basilio said:


> Why not check out Smurfs analysis of how the battery bank works Logique and the value it offers to stabilising the SA power system.
> Really we have one of the most honest and insightful energy specialist inour forum. Bit of waste of resources if we can't respect his skills.



Smurf said correctly, that the Musk bank '_isn't massive_', and made no mention of the $50Mill price tag.  Don't distort Smurf's words to suit your personal agenda.


----------



## SirRumpole

Logique said:


> Smurf said correctly, that the Musk bank '_isn't massive_', and made no mention of the $50Mill price tag.  Don't distort Smurf's words to suit your personal agenda.




$50 million compared to what ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> $50 million compared to what ?




That is exactly right.
The battery is a very expensive, very limited in its ability for longer term outages, and will require replacement in a relatively short time( in electrical generating plant terms).

Having said that it is probably very good for instantaneous frequency control, and it would reduce the incidence of load shedding, as long as there is some spinning reserve or fast start gas turbine generation available.
The problem is, the whole agenda is now being driven by crisis management, not by sensible long term planning.
Australia's whole electrical system is now more about the political outcome, than the delivery of a safe, secure and affordable electrical network.
Common sense, has gone completely out the window. IMO But then again isn't it happening on most fronts, everything is about smoke screens and mirrors, nothing is about the economy and how it will support our living standard.
God no don't talk about the economy, it reminds me of the Paul Hogan show, when 'Luigi the magician' stuffed up it was "dance Maria, dance Maria".

It smells like a looong, slooow, controlled, drop in living standards. IMO


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> That is exactly right.
> The battery is a very expensive, very limited in its ability for longer term outages, and will require replacement in a relatively short time( in electrical generating plant terms).
> 
> Having said that it is probably very good for instantaneous frequency control, and it would reduce the incidence of load shedding, as long as there is some spinning reserve or fast start gas turbine generation available.
> The problem is, the whole agenda is now being driven by crisis management, not by sensible long term planning.
> Australia's whole electrical system is now more about the political outcome, than the delivery of a safe, secure and affordable electrical network.
> Common sense, has gone completely out the window. IMO But then again isn't it happening on most fronts, everything is about smoke screens and mirrors, nothing is about the economy and how it will support our living standard.
> God no don't talk about the economy, it reminds me of the Paul Hogan show, when 'Luigi the magician' stuffed up it was "dance Maria, dance Maria".
> 
> It smells like a looong, slooow, controlled, drop in living standards. IMO




Just stumbling along, avoiding the shadows:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-...south-china-sea-tensions-nrma-advisor/7149648


----------



## sptrawler

Tisme said:


> Just stumbling along, avoiding the shadows:
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-...south-china-sea-tensions-nrma-advisor/7149648




That is scary reading.
But we have dealt with SSM.


----------



## Smurf1976

Right about now reality might be starting to sink in that geology most certainly does not yield to politics or neo-liberal economics. Never did and never will.

http://www.thebull.com.au/articles/a/71789-vic-gas-reserves-'not-commercially-viable'.html

Finite resources are, well, finite by their very nature and in the case of gas we're pretty much stuffed 20 - 30 years from now with the rate it's being extracted and sold overseas.

We might have alternative means of heating water and cooking dinner but we're a very long way from the point where industrial furnaces and petrochemical feedstock are being run / produced from the sun and wind. Technically it's possible but it sure ain't cheap at least at present.


----------



## orr

Smurf1976 said:


> Right about now reality might be starting to sink in that geology most certainly does not yield to politics or neo-liberal economics. Never did and never will.
> 
> http://www.thebull.com.au/articles/a/71789-vic-gas-reserves-'not-commercially-viable'.html
> 
> Finite resources are, well, finite by their very nature and in the case of gas we're pretty much stuffed 20 - 30 years from now with the rate it's being extracted and sold overseas.
> 
> We might have alternative means of heating water and cooking dinner but we're a very long way from the point where industrial furnaces and petrochemical feedstock are being run / produced from the sun and wind. Technically it's possible but it sure ain't cheap at least at present.




On reading the report it explains the current estimate of offshore Victorian reserves at more than 10,000 petajoules. Current annual Victorian use 260 odd petajoules...
It's the onshore reserves that are uneconomic to extract, or of course you could take Fruadenberg and Turnbulls advice which flys in the face of the report.

With the time scales mentioned, extracting a more resonable royalty from the export of Australias Natural Gas and funding education at world class levels  would be a good step toward averting the country 'being stuffed in twenty to thirty years'...
Does anyone here see the cognative dissonance issues with Trumps proclomation on wanting more immagrants from Norway and the public policy programmes that have made the country what it is that are an anathama to his world view... Sovreign Wealth fund just for a start.. (please excuse spelling)


----------



## Smurf1976

orr said:


> On reading the report it explains the current estimate of offshore Victorian reserves at more than 10,000 petajoules. Current annual Victorian use 260 odd petajoules...



Plus about that much again for NSW, ACT, SA and Tas.

NSW, ACT, SA are increasingly sourcing gas from Vic since (1) SA's reserves are heavily depleted and production peaked long ago and (2) consumption has shot up recently in SA in particular following the closure of various coal-fired power stations in several states and the in practice transfer of that load onto gas-fired generation in Adelaide.

Tas is for practical purposes just an extension of the Vic gas system anyway and a relatively trivial one (in volume terms) at that.

So the rate of gas extraction in Vic is significantly higher than that needed to meet Vic demand only, the state being an exporter of gas to the other states. That then enables less flow from Qld into SA with that gas going to the LNG plants instead.

Note that I'm not saying Vic is running out of gas next week but it's not an unlimited resource by any means.


----------



## sptrawler

orr said:


> On reading the report it explains the current estimate of offshore Victorian reserves at more than 10,000 petajoules. Current annual Victorian use 260 odd petajoules...
> It's the onshore reserves that are uneconomic to extract, or of course you could take Fruadenberg and Turnbulls advice which flys in the face of the report.
> 
> With the time scales mentioned, extracting a more resonable royalty from the export of Australias Natural Gas and funding education at world class levels  would be a good step toward averting the country 'being stuffed in twenty to thirty years'...
> Does anyone here see the cognative dissonance issues with Trumps proclomation on wanting more immagrants from Norway and the public policy programmes that have made the country what it is that are an anathama to his world view... Sovreign Wealth fund just for a start.. (please excuse spelling)




Actually I see you trying to discredit common sense, with verbosity, but hey that seems to be the way these days.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> How have things been going with generation vs demand in the current heatwave Smurf ?



A moderate risk today (Thursday), there's more risk than normal and less ability to withstand failures, but as long as nothing major breaks the lights will stay on.

SA and Vic both have forecast demand which exceeds supply within the state. Not a problem so long as NSW and Tas make up the shortfall. Should be no problem doing so as long as nothing goes wrong but there's definitely more risk than on an average day.

For Friday at this stage there's a significant gap between demand and available supply in Vic but not in any other state (although SA is pretty close). Again not a problem, NSW and Tas (and to a minor extent SA - where the power actually comes from depends on who offers what price subject to the technical constraints of transmission) can fill the gap, just so long as nothing goes wrong.

For Monday next week it looks like being a similar situation in NSW. Demand is forecast to exceed supply available within the state but shouldn't be a problem in practice since Qld and Vic (which in this context includes potential supply from SA and Tas) will fill the gap.

In layman's terms it's a bit like saying there's a high fire danger but thus far no actual fire. A warning that, if things did go wrong, the situation will change from good to bad real quick since there's not a lot of room to move but so far it's still good.


----------



## Smurf1976

Extremely tight situation in Vic and SA at the moment following the failure of a generating unit (Loy Yang B unit 1) today.

All available generation of all types in Vic is now running at maximum capacity.

Supply from Tas and NSW into Vic is now running at maximum capacity.

The SA battery is feeding 30 MW into the grid.

Total demand between the two states is about 12,500 MW including distributed generation.

Unused capacity totals about 600 MW, all of that in SA, with about half being at Torrens Island power station and the rest split between the SA government's "temporary" generators and the unused capacity of the battery.

So it might all scrape through today but it'll be another bullet dodged if there isn't a problem. One of these days that plan's not going to work......


----------



## sptrawler

Isn't it great, when the public sit there in blissful ignorance, thinking all is fine. lol
It really is amazing how many times, the system is on the brink, and then the sea breeze comes in.


----------



## basilio

Has the Loy Yang Unit 1 been fixed? Are we still on a knife edge re power supplies coming into a 40 degree  plus day ?
I wonder what the Plan B/C/D is if blackouts become inevitable? 2 hour rolling stoppages perhaps ? Cuts to large industrial plants ? Attempting to protect high rise buildings , hospitals, shopping centres ?


----------



## Tisme

I'm guessing the big battery fixed SA's problem so no need for Snowy MKII?

Malcolm's halo legacies now a staggering....... 1 = SSM


----------



## basilio

Tisme said:


> I'm guessing the big battery fixed SA's problem so no need for Snowy MKII?
> 
> Malcolm's halo legacies now a staggering....... 1 = SSM



More drivel.


----------



## Tisme

basilio said:


> More drivel.




Good to see you are condensing your posts into a self deprecating statement.


----------



## basilio

Tisme said:


> Good to see you are condensing your posts into a self deprecating statement.



No just succiently commenting on the distractions you serve up. 

Give it up Tisme. This thread is about energy generation and storage. What was the point of a misleading comment on SA battery storage and then segueing into a Malcom bash on SSM ?


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Has the Loy Yang Unit 1 been fixed? Are we still on a knife edge re power supplies coming into a 40 degree  plus day ?




In short it's very much on a knife edge.

Loy Yang is back in full operation but with demand so high that's still not really enough. The "official" advice from AEMO for both Vic and SA is, in layman's terms, that it will only take one failure to tip the system over the edge since there's pretty much nothing to spare. So an incident like the trip of a generator at Loy Yang B which occurred yesterday would, if it happened today, be a rather big problem.

To put some factual data on the table in the context of Vic & SA today:

Forecast maximum load = about 12,250 MW not including load supplied from unscheduled generation (rooftop solar, some of the early and generally small wind farms, etc).

Available non-intermittent generation within the two states = 11,466 MW including the SA battery (100 MW) and the SA government's "temporary" generators.

Supply from Tas = 478 MW limited by transmission. 

Supply from NSW = Capacity varies hugely due to transmission constraints, since some generation in Vic uses the same transmission lines with only the spare capacity able to bring supply from NSW, but realistically 200 MW is a "safe" assumption during the peak (but at other times it can go over 1000 MW - just not when generation using the same lines is running heavily and it's hot). 

So all up that's about 100 MW less supply from non-intermittent sources than the forecast load. As such, ability to meet demand really comes down to quite literally the wind. So long as it's blowing all will be well but there really is no "backup" available today if wind speeds drop too low.

Generating plant unavailable as of earlier today:

Torrens Island A unit 2: 120 MW, fuel is gas, located in SA 

Jeeralang A units 3 & 4: 54 MW each so 108 MW total, gas, Vic.

Valley Power units 4 & 5: 45 MW each so 90 MW total, gas, Vic.

Eildon unit 1: 55 MW, hydro, Vic.

Hallett power station: Not sure which units but 50MW, gas, SA.

Port Lincoln: One 23 MW unit unavailable, oil-fired gas turbine, SA.

Overall that's 446 MW out of service. That's only 4% of installed capacity unavailable in Vic and SA so it's not a bad level of performance indeed it's considerably better than anyone would sensibly depend on. 

So as an overall summary - it's extremely tight and there's no room for anything to go wrong. Demand higher than forecast, a generator failing or the wind speed dropping to low levels would individually be difficult to cope with today. 



> I wonder what the Plan B/C/D is if blackouts become inevitable? 2 hour rolling stoppages perhaps ? Cuts to large industrial plants ? Attempting to protect high rise buildings , hospitals, shopping centres ?




First option is things like running backup diesel generators in buildings etc and voluntary load reduction by some industries. The paperwork is already in place for that to occur, it's just a matter of AEMO "pulling the trigger" to make it happen. It's not without costs though - running diesel generation in the Melbourne CBD isn't exactly going to help the city's air quality and lost production from industry is an economic cost.

If that's not enough then what remains is blackouts. The list of who gets cut first is decided long in advance (it permanently exists) by state governments but in short maintaining supply to hospitals and critical infrastructure plus anything likely to suffer damage (some industries) or harm the environment (eg sewage treatement) is the first priority. Next comes the capital city CBD and then other significant city CBD's. Exact details vary between states.

So if you're not some sort of known critical infrastructure where lack of power causes a serious risk to human life, the environment or property and you're not in the CBD of either the capital or at least a significant other city then you're on the list.


----------



## Smurf1976

Tisme said:


> I'm guessing the big battery fixed SA's problem so no need for Snowy MKII?



I'll keep out of any personal debates and simply say:

The battery supplied about 1% of SA's actual demand during the peak. This was using 30% of the the battery's capacity as a source of bulk supply into the grid as intended with the other 70% reserved for frequency control etc and emergency use.

It provided part of the immediate response when Loy Yang B unit 1 tripped in Victoria. This was brief and made use of the battery's capabilities and that of conventional generating plant also.

The overall circumstance is that of a lack of installed firm (non-intermittent) generating capacity. Batteries are one way to fix that. Pumped hydro is another. So are coal, nuclear, oil, gas, biomass, geothermal or anything else that can generate power regardless of the short term weather. They all work if assessed in a strict engineering sense.

Beyond that technical aspect it's an economic and political debate as to what's the best means plus, hopefully, proper consideration of non-engineering disciplines such as biology, climate science and so on.


----------



## Smurf1976

Currently about 1450 MW spare between Vic and SA (including the SA govt generators)

Demand is expected to rise a further 1000 MW during the afternoon.

630MW is presently being supplied by market scheduled wind generation.

So as long as it doesn't stop blowing and nothing breaks then all should be fine. It's a rather precarious way to be running critical infrastructure though.


----------



## overhang

Smurf1976 said:


> Currently about 1450 MW spare between Vic and SA (including the SA govt generators)
> 
> Demand is expected to rise a further 1000 MW during the afternoon.
> 
> 630MW is presently being supplied by market scheduled wind generation.
> 
> So as long as it doesn't stop blowing and nothing breaks then all should be fine. It's a rather precarious way to be running critical infrastructure though.




Has another trip just occurred Smurf, spot price in Vic and SA have just jumped to 14k?


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> Currently about 1450 MW spare between Vic and SA (including the SA govt generators)
> 
> Demand is expected to rise a further 1000 MW during the afternoon.
> 
> 630MW is presently being supplied by market scheduled wind generation.
> 
> *So as long as it doesn't stop blowing and nothing breaks then all should be fine. It's a rather precarious way to be running critical infrastructure though.*




In the running for_ Understatement of the Year_ award.. 

Will someone take Murphy away and put him a cool pub with a cold beer.


----------



## Smurf1976

overhang said:


> Has another trip just occurred Smurf, spot price in Vic and SA have just jumped to 14k?



A few things happened.....

At 15:00 (Vic time) AEMO intervened in the market via pre-arranged contracts with entities not normally involved in the power industry to reduce load from the grid. How they achieve that is up to them, some will simply shut down and others might have backup generators that they start up but the effect is less power drawn from the grid by those users.

That's a form of load shedding on the grid due to inability to meet demand, albeit a voluntary one on the part of those affected but it's load shedding nonetheless. Note that "voluntary" means "were paid to do it" in this context.

Where it gets complex is the politics. Technically someone will likely say there was no load shedding and they're right that nobody was _forced_ off today. But if there weren't volunteers to cut load then the same volume of load would have been forced off anyway. So it's a bit like someone resigning in order to avoid being sacked or something like that. Same outcome in practice but the details of how they got there are vastly different in a political or legal sense.

So yes, there was a shortfall of supply in the context of being able to carry on "business as usual" today. That nobody was involuntarily cut-off was only be cause AEMO found some volunteers first. This continued for about 6 hours in total. 

At 15:30 (Vic time) AEMO decided to intervene due to the physical flow of electricity between Vic and SA being the opposite of what _financial_ considerations say it ought to be. That is, flow from a high priced region to a lower priced region was occurring for engineering and practical reasons so AEMO decided to put a stop to that. It worked, achieved what they wanted, and sent the price through the roof in doing so. Half an hour after that stated they decided to call and end to it.

Let's just say I'm not a fan of that approach. Normally you have the dog standing still and the tail wagging. AEMO decided to grab hold of the tail and see if the dog started wagging which it sort of did. Surely there's a better way or, if the financial objectives really must be met, at least don't do it in a way that physically ramps generation up in one place and down in another when the system's under massive stress already. That's just asking for trouble in my view.

Later in the day concerns about severe weather threatening the system in SA (don't forget _that_ blackout.....) lead to constraints being imposed on flow Vic - SA which again sent the price in SA to the moon.  

On the other side of the equation, some things went right with one generating unit at Eildon (Vic, hydro) and Valley Power (Vic, gas) returned to service during the day and adding a bit more supply.

Then there's the financial side. Quite a bit of money changed hands today with some losers and some winners. Commercial strategy varies between the generating companies. Eg some pursued volume and just took whatever price was on offer all day whilst others did their best to spike the price and in due course managed to do so.


----------



## basilio

Fascinating Smurf.  Learn something new every day from your analysis of energy production.

One can see how the really big money in power generation is made from crisis situations and shortages. It opens the question of moral hazard when companies that are producing our power  (or their associates) have the capacity to vastly increase their profits if perchance  a couple of power stations go offline for a  few hours
Thx.


----------



## Tisme

https://goo.gl/2hKBPr


----------



## Tisme

https://theconversation.com/a-month-in-teslas-sa-battery-is-surpassing-expectations-89770



> .............
> Following the early success of the SA model, Victoria has also secured an agreement to get its own Tesla battery built near the town of Stawell. Victoria’s government will be tracking the Hornsdale battery’s early performance with interest.
> 
> *Generation and Consumption*
> Over the full month of December, the Hornsdale power reserve generated 2.42 gigawatt-hours of energy, and consumed 3.06GWh.
> 
> Since there are losses associated with energy storage, it is a net consumer of energy. This is often described in terms of “round trip efficiency”, a measure of the energy out to the energy in. In this case, the round trip efficiency appears to be roughly 80%.
> The figure below shows the input and output from the battery over the month. As can be seen, on several occasions the battery has generated as much as 100MW of power, and consumed 70MW of power. The regular operation of battery moves between generating 30MW and consuming 30MW of power.
> .


----------



## basilio

Tisme said:


> https://theconversation.com/a-month-in-teslas-sa-battery-is-surpassing-expectations-89770




Excellent analysis on the performance of the Tesla battery bank. Clearly seems to be filling it's role in *instantaneously* smoothing disruptions in power supply as well as boosting overall supply when shortfalls become apparent.

Sounds like everyone is more than happy with the result, which, I guess is why Victoria and other states are moving quickly in that direction.


----------



## overhang

Thanks Smurf, your knowledge is really appreciated.  From my observations it really surprises me how often the Tesla battery is charging during times of high demand when SA is importing from Victoria.  I would have thought they would wait for lower spot prices and SA to have excess generation via wind to charge but I guess they prioritise keeping the battery at 100% over the price or energy source used to charge the battery.


----------



## $20shoes

Smurf any insights into what happened in Victoria today? Were  there new  faults or was it more a case of demand outstripping supply? You've been warning of such a day for some time


----------



## Junior

Government is claiming there was no supply shortage, and that the blackouts were due to blown fuses and equipment failure.

Smurf, do you believe this to be accurate?


----------



## Smurf1976

In short there wasn't a shortage of electricity in Vic overall.

What happened was that the distribution networks in some areas couldn't cope with the load and thus failed. At the time of maximum load in Vic yesterday there was about 1134 MW of spare capacity which is _just_ enough to consider the system as being in a secure state but with no real extra as such.

With that level of generation available the system could have coped, just, with the loss of the two largest generators. That's the standard so no issues as such there.

It was a near miss in some other ways though which are best explained with some figures:

*1134 MW of spare capacity available to Vic.

*There was 353 MW of intermittent, mostly wind, generation in Vic at the time. That this was available was pure luck.

*SA was able to supply a maximum of 596 MW to Vic and was actually supplying 571 MW at the time of peak demand. That the power was available from SA was only possible because there was a huge amount of wind at the time in that state generating 1472 MW.

*It was a Sunday with a lot of businesses, schools etc being shut and that keeps demand lower than if the same weather occurred on a weekday.

*Generation worked pretty well. In terms of issues actually affecting supply to Victoria only about 275 MW was unavailable. That's roughly 3% so not too bad. There was some more capacity unavailable within the Snowy system but that was able to be fully offset by supply from NSW using the same transmission lines so had no impact on supply capacity to Vic in practice.

Now, if it had been a weekday. Or if it had not been so windy in SA. Or if any large generating unit in Vic had failed. Or if demand had been high in NSW. Any of those would have greatly tightened the situation and resulted in an outcome ranging from "lack of reserves" if it was higher demand in NSW to "oh s***" if the wind wasn't blowing.

Needless to say the situation would also have been tighter in terms of overall supply if the distribution network faults hand't occurred and blacked out a few suburbs. That alone wouldn't have tipped the overall supply over the edge but it would certainly have reduced the available margin which was just enough as it was.

So it was another bullet dodged by virtue of timing. The concern I and quite a few others have seems to be playing out. We'll keep being lucky, keep dodging bullets because heatwaves arrive on a weekend etc, and then one of these days we'll end up with a truly massive failure when the ducks line up and the heatwave arrives on a working weekday with a generator or two offline.

Relating to that is the age and condition of generating plant itself. There's some that's in good shape in Vic and SA but quite a bit that's getting rather old.

Torrens Island A station (SA) was already running before man landed on the moon.

Dry Creek (SA) and Yallourn W Stage 1 (Vic) both pre-date the introduction of colour TV to Australia. I don't know if the opening was on the evening news but it would have been shown in B&W if it was.

And so on. A lot of it's getting pretty old and tired these days which does increase the chances of failure.

As for the distribution networks, well clearly they haven't been upgraded with sufficient capacity to cope with increasing load in those areas. Fixing that is relatively straightforward, it's just a case of designing and building, so long as someone's willing to spend the $. That last but, $, being the likely obstacle.


----------



## $20shoes

Thanks for the summary, Smurf. Very interesting.


----------



## Smurf1976

Adding to my last comment..... 

Maximum temperature in Melbourne today was 33.5 but today was a working weekday. End result is that peak power demand was only about 400 MW lower than yesterday.

If yesterday's heat had been just one day later then the overall situation would have been "interesting" to say the least. That it's blowing strongly in Vic and SA might have saved the situation but it would have been close even with that.

So it's down to the weather quite literally.


----------



## sptrawler

It looks as though the Energy Sector, is starting to get the real attention of the politicians, the penny is finally dropping and the severity of the issues might have finally gotten through.
The problem isn't going to be resolved overnight, but the slide into darkness, might be halted.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-...strict-foreign-ownership-20180201-p4yz6k.html


----------



## Smurf1976

A somewhat tight supply situation in Vic and SA today, tomorrow and Friday.

The lights will stay on as long as no more than 1 supply source fails, NSW and Tas can keep pumping out the juice and the weather turns out as forecast.

So another bullet fired and will probably be dodged through luck. Someday that's not going to work though.....


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> A somewhat tight supply situation in Vic and SA today, tomorrow and Friday.
> 
> The lights will stay on as long as no more than 1 supply source fails, NSW and Tas can keep pumping out the juice and the weather turns out as forecast.
> 
> So another bullet fired and will probably be dodged through luck. Someday that's not going to work though.....




Maybe a blackout are the best way to get the problem fixed. The politicians will be covered in mud and they won't be able to back out so they will have to do something (whether it's the best thing or not is another matter).


----------



## Smurf1976

SA are working their way out of the mess slowly but surely. It’s Vic that’s asleep at the wheel.

A private developer today announced plans for a 300 MW / 1350 MWh pumped hydro scheme at the fringe of the Adelaide suburban area. They also are planning a 21 MW / 26 MWh battery located elsewhere.

All up that plus what others have already built or are building will bring the total storage capacity to 451 MW in SA which is pretty significant.


----------



## basilio

There are excellent opportunities for small investors to be part of community renewable energy projects.  Useful returns and the opportunity to be active supporters of large scale professionally run projects. The whys and hows are also interesting.

*Pioneering an Australian First*

It’s the way of the future: the opportunity to invest directly into local community infrastructure assets. CWP is proud to be pioneering Australia’s first community co-investment into a large scale wind farm. Community co-investment is where members of the community are invited to invest in a renewable energy project that’s developed, financed and managed by a third party

http://www.sapphirewindfarm.com.au/community-investment/
http://www.sapphirewindfarm.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Sapphire-Wind-Farm-CIT-Report-2017.pdf


----------



## basilio

There are other organisations that have simple processes to finance smaller scale solar energy projects through smaller investors.
Returns are around 7% for a 7-10 year project.

http://www.clearskysolar.com.au/howitworks.php


----------



## orr

basilio said:


> There are other organisations that have simple processes to finance smaller scale solar energy projects through smaller investors.
> Returns are around 7% for a 7-10 year project.
> 
> http://www.clearskysolar.com.au/howitworks.php





Add to that Bas;
This lifted from Jack Rickards EV forum Dec 21...
http://evtv.me
_
On October 3rd, 2017 , the Saudi energy ministry said Abu Dhabi’s Masdar and Electricite de France SA bid to supply power from a 300-megawatt photovoltaic plant for as little as 6.69736 halalas a kilowatt hour, or 1.79 cents.  If awarded, that would beat the earlier record for a solar project in Abu Dhabi for 2.42 cents a kilowatt-hour. Solar is now EGGREGIOUSLY less expensive than coal to produce electricity. And it is destined to approach the cost of sand – although you don’t burn it up – you can use it for 30 years. The plant is slotted to be online by June 2019, that’s how fast this is moving and it is part of a plan to deploy 9500 MW of solar in Saudi alone by 2030.  They see the writing on the wall for oil, but their vast deserts have no shortage of sunshine._
_
..................................
_
Oh and Trawler Luv'd your retort back a page or so. I immediately thought of that soccer player Beckham's  responce when the media confirmed his move from Manchester to, I think a Spanish club ... " I'll have to learn a langage"
Trawler, You'll like Jack , his politics are just to right of Gengus Khan(he was a Mogol Emperor of some renoun, Khan, that is)....


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> A somewhat tight supply situation in Vic and SA today, tomorrow and Friday.
> 
> The lights will stay on as long as no more than 1 supply source fails, NSW and Tas can keep pumping out the juice and the weather turns out as forecast.
> 
> So another bullet fired and will probably be dodged through luck. Someday that's not going to work though.....




It sounds as though their luck ran out.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/thousands-of-houses-in-victoria-without-power-20180207-p4yzmy.html

http://www.theage.com.au/business/t...icity-price-on-wednesday-20180206-p4yzkh.html

It will be interesting to see how Victoria responds to the impending crisis.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> SA are working their way out of the mess slowly but surely. It’s Vic that’s asleep at the wheel.
> 
> A private developer today announced plans for a 300 MW / 1350 MWh pumped hydro scheme at the fringe of the Adelaide suburban area. They also are planning a 21 MW / 26 MWh battery located elsewhere.
> 
> All up that plus what others have already built or are building will bring the total storage capacity to 451 MW in SA which is pretty significant.




S.A certainly are embracing their issues and getting on with forward thinking remedial action, good on them.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/s-a-to-host-australias-first-green-hydrogen-power-plant-89447/


----------



## sptrawler

Well it didn't take long for the 'panic' button to be pressed.IMO
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-...-shake-up-its-power-grid-20180216-p4z0m1.html

Stored hydrogen, is a huge threat to battery storage, I think both will be used but one will end up winning out, much like cassette's and eight tracks.


----------



## Macquack

sptrawler said:


> http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-...-shake-up-its-power-grid-20180216-p4z0m1.html



EnergyAustralia chief executive Cath Tanna told Fairfax Media large-scale batteries would play a major role in its future.

“We need to learn how to integrate batteries at scale; this is another piece of the puzzle, learning how to integrate this into the new energy system - learning by doing,” Ms Tanna said.

"Learning by doing" sounds like "trial and error", or that they don't know exactly what they are doing.


----------



## CanOz

sptrawler said:


> Well it didn't take long for the 'panic' button to be pressed.IMO
> http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-...-shake-up-its-power-grid-20180216-p4z0m1.html
> 
> Stored hydrogen, is a huge threat to battery storage, I think both will be used but one will end up winning out, much like cassette's and eight tracks.




Sp can you link some articles or something to show how you've come to that conclusion regarding stored hydrogen?


----------



## brty

I'm sorry SPTrawler, but I have to disagree that Hydrogen is a threat to batteries as a method of energy storage.

I've just spent a bit of time reading around the net on the efficiency of such a set-up.

http://www.catalyticengineering.com/terawatt-hour-energy-storage-power-to-gas/
*
"Energy storage in hydrogen*

Electrolyzers convert water to hydrogen, consuming electricity in the process. The cells aren’t cheap as they require specialized materials, and you lose more than 30% of the energy in conversion. One energy storage concept is to store that hydrogen, then run it back through a fuel cell to convert the hydrogen directly to electricity. But this is expensive, since two stacks are needed (electrolyzer and fuel cell) and the round-trip efficiency is poor (70% electrolyzer x 50% fuel cell = 35% round trip at best). In addition, large high-pressure tank farms would be needed to store appreciable amounts of energy in the form of hydrogen."

That's the theoretical, this one is in an actual test, using the oxygen to increase efficiency.............

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319904001788

"An electrolyzer and a fuel cell have been integrated in a small-scale stand-alone renewable energy system to demonstrate that hydrogen can be used for long-term stationary energy storage. The economic and environmental performance of such a system is strongly related to the ability of the electrolyzer to convert electrical energy to hydrogen and the ability of the fuel cell to convert hydrogen back to electrical energy, which together define the round-trip efficiency of the hydrogen storage system. One promising way to improve the efficiency as well as to decrease the capital costs of the fuel cell is to recuperate the oxygen from the electrolyzer and use it as the fuel cell oxidant instead of compressed air. This paper presents the modifications made to the system in order to implement oxygen recuperation. The round-trip system efficiency was found to be 18% with oxygen recuperation and 13.5% without it."

Those energy efficiency numbers are horrible compared to Lithium-ion batteries, plus I suspect the capital costs of electrolyzers, fuelcells and storage containers for the hydrogen too be way in excess of inverters and lithium-ion batteries.
Li-on batteries do not last forever, but neither do fuel cells, so there is a weak point on both methods.

Just what Toyota are now doing, by starting to play catch up to other car manufacturers, by heading into battery electric vehicles, when they were the leaders in Hydrogen vehicles, tends to indicate which they think will be cheaper in the long run.


----------



## sptrawler

Time will tell.


----------



## Smurf1976

Pumped hydro versus batteries versus hydrogen versus heat versus anything else as a means of energy storage is very much an “it depends” question.

It’s like someone asking me how they should power their house so as to be most economical. I wouldn’t even try to answer that question without at least knowing the location, building type and what relevant infrastructure is already there and in serviceable condition.

Likewise answering the question of energy storage also first requires answers as to location, situation and what infrastructure already exists.

Building a pumped storage scheme in the suburbs of Adelaide or on a larger scale up in the mountains of NSW or Tas is one way to store energy but I’ll give you an absolute guarantee that you won’t see someone driving a car with a water tank on the roof and a pipe leading down to a pelton wheel as a means of powering the car. Oh no you won’t, at least not if the intent is to move it more than a few metres on perfectly flat ground.

What works, both technically and economically, and what doesn’t absolutely depends on the circumstances.


----------



## brty

I 100% agree Smurf on the circumstances dictating future outcomes, but I see how BEVs are going to be mass produced in the short term, while FCVs are niche. This leads to a much greater research expenditure into Battery technology than Hydrogen and fuel cells. Given the inherent inefficiencies of electricity - conversion to hydrogen - storage - conversion to electricity, than electricity - battery - electricity, I see batteries beating hydrogen hands down on a comparison basis between both. Pumped Hydro is a different beast, and will certainly have applications in the right locations. 

As of 1st January we received a 14% increase in our power costs for peak, off peak AND service to property charges. Peak rates are now over 40c/Kwh with off peak now up to 20c/Kwh. Luckily we receive the PFIT in Victoria for a 5kw system. With these types of increases it will not be long before an entire off grid system becomes cheaper, allowing for batteries to be replaced every 10 years.

On the current topic of Batteries vs Hydrogen, I'm in particular concentrating on transportation. For myself a battery operated vehicle charged from my own solar makes a lot of financial sense, given decreasing costs of lithium batteries and solar installations. I already have a separate off grid 20Kwh battery storage electric micro-grid, on a separate property from the mains connection. If I was not on the PFIT it would be cheaper electricity than the grid.


----------



## sptrawler

brty said:


> I 100% agree Smurf on the circumstances dictating future outcomes, but I see how BEVs are going to be mass produced in the short term, while FCVs are niche. This leads to a much greater research expenditure into Battery technology than Hydrogen and fuel cells. Given the inherent inefficiencies of electricity - conversion to hydrogen - storage - conversion to electricity, than electricity - battery - electricity, I see batteries beating hydrogen hands down on a comparison basis between both. Pumped Hydro is a different beast, and will certainly have applications in the right locations.
> 
> As of 1st January we received a 14% increase in our power costs for peak, off peak AND service to property charges. Peak rates are now over 40c/Kwh with off peak now up to 20c/Kwh. Luckily we receive the PFIT in Victoria for a 5kw system. With these types of increases it will not be long before an entire off grid system becomes cheaper, allowing for batteries to be replaced every 10 years.
> 
> On the current topic of Batteries vs Hydrogen, I'm in particular concentrating on transportation. For myself a battery operated vehicle charged from my own solar makes a lot of financial sense, given decreasing costs of lithium batteries and solar installations. I already have a separate off grid 20Kwh battery storage electric micro-grid, on a separate property from the mains connection. If I was not on the PFIT it would be cheaper electricity than the grid.




I haven't got a vested interest in either batteries or hydrogen, I am just basing my ideology on experience.
Batteries have a place and always will, but as they are made up of finite resources (of which some are fairly scarce), they will have a problem with supply as demand exceeds it.
If all vehicles use batteries and all house's use batteries and all industry use batteries, it is only a matter of time before the resource becomes an issue, recycling hasn't proved to be a major driver in reducing the demand for iron ore etc.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, so the availability isn't an issue, the only issue everyone keeps bringing up is the cost to produce it.
If it is produced from excess renewable energy, when people aren't using it for heating or cooling, the cost really isn't an issue.

The major benefit in the fuel cell is, from what I've read, the longevity.
Also hydrogen is a permanent storage medium, fill up a cylinder and you can use it when and where you like, batteries can't do that.
Hydrogen, the same as LNG, can be used as a fuel for internal combustion engines, turbines, fuel cells, even as a fuel for your BBQ and there is no residue left over or given off.

The energy density of a kg of liquid hydrogen, will go a lot further than a kg of lithium based batteries. 
Liquid hydrogen has an energy density of 33 Kwhr/ kg,  lithium/ion has an energy density of 120Whr/kg, like that isn't really brilliant eh.

The only issue with hydrogen is the cost to produce it, but as is happening in S.A, if it is made with surplus renewable energy, that isn't an issue.
It gives off no polution when burnt, it requires minimum polution to make it.
Whereas minerals for batteries require mining then chemical and mechanical energy to produce the battery and when it is dead you have to deal with the residue.

Batteries have a life of approximately 10 years, then they require replacement, hydrogen can be stored indefinitely and used when and where required.

Like I said IMO batteries have a place and will be with us forever, at the moment they are the obvious answer for the immediate problem, however IMO large scale energy storage will end up being hydrogen.
As I said time will tell and it is only my humble opinion.


----------



## moXJO

I'm not sold on batteries just yet. Seems like a quick solution with a very small working life.


----------



## sptrawler

moXJO said:


> I'm not sold on batteries just yet. Seems like a quick solution with a very small working life.




Yes all I'm hearing is, "batteries are the answer, I have some", doesn't seem to be based on energy density just availability.


----------



## CanOz

I think the Achilles heel of the lithium battery will be how well a recycling industry does once the thousands of large batteries start hitting the battery graveyard. That's the elephant in the room. If tesla alone reach thier sales goals we could literally have mountains of recycling to do....one hopes it's lucrative because not too many forms of recycling are really lucrative enough for it to be done perfectly.


----------



## sptrawler

CanOz said:


> Sp can you link some articles or something to show how you've come to that conclusion regarding stored hydrogen?



Well canOz, you've answered one of the questions you asked me, in your last post.
For further explanation of my basis, read my last post #2186.


----------



## Smurf1976

CanOz said:


> If tesla alone reach thier sales goals we could literally have mountains of recycling to do....one hopes it's lucrative because not too many forms of recycling are really lucrative enough for it to be done perfectly.



Worth noting in that context that the existing recycling industry is just about to collapse right now.

Practically every council in Australia will have had discussions with their garbage collection contractor (if they outsource collection) in the past few weeks or is themselves trying to find a solution ASAP.

Nobody wants to say it but sending the majority of it straight to landfill is the likely outcome in practice. At the moment it’s just piling up but there’s only so much space in the sheds etc.


----------



## CanOz

sptrawler said:


> Well canOz, you've answered one of the questions you asked me, in your last post.
> For further explanation of my basis, read my last post #2186.




Yeah and it's on my mind too but I don't think the scale of it has hit home yet....

Agree smurf....and we thought that was simple, household recycling.


----------



## Smurf1976

My thinking at this stage is that batteries and hydrogen will have their niches largely where the end use is mobile but that pumped hydro will do most of the “grunt work” so far as the grid is concerned.

Take SA as an example. Biggest battery in the world and one of the worst places imaginable for anything hydro given it’s mostly flat and dry.

But then I could mention that current pumped hydro proposals collectively are 10 times the peak generating capacity of the big battery.

If pumped hydro can beat batteries in SA then there’s no contest just about anywhere else.

Batteries do have a role though, I can think of a use for a modest sized one even in Tas, but under present circumstances pumped hydro beats them as a means of bulk on-grid storage.

Durability has much to do with it. A decade for a battery versus a century or more for pumped hydro. 

Not much exotic material with hydro either - concrete, steel and a bit of copper and aluminium covers most of it.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> My thinking at this stage is that batteries and hydrogen will have their niches largely where the end use is mobile but that pumped hydro will do most of the “grunt work” so far as the grid is concerned.
> .




Pumped hydro is magic, if you have hills, which equals fall.
W.A isn't so well endowed.
For those without pumped storage, hydrogen is the only viable alternative, other than nuclear. IMO
I am only guessing, more learned posters, can correct me.
To qualify the statements, I'm talking clean energy storage.
The good thing with hydrogen storage is, if you don't use it, just add storage.
Then all of a sudden you have two days storage, then two weeks storage, then two months storage.
It is really difficult to do that with batteries, they end up being a city of building blocks.
Like I said they have a place, but it ain't bulk storage of energy.IMO


----------



## sptrawler

To take the debate one step further, IMO hydrogen is the only clean fuel, other than nuclear, that we can produce at this point in time.
Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It is really difficult to do that with batteries, they end up being a city of building blocks.
> Like I said they have a place, but it ain't bulk storage of energy.IMO



If someone looked at the big battery in SA and didn’t know what it was they’d likely assume it to be a row of shipping containers. 

That’s pretty much what it looks like until you get close enough to see that it’s electrical.

As for scale, well the Hydro Tas system stores 112,263 times as much energy as SA’s big battery so no contest there. Not in the same league by any means.

That said, if the energy source is wind and sun then you don’t necessarily need as much storage as if the energy source is water. Droughts tend to last longer than periods of calm or cloudy weather.

Best of all is to integrate the lot. There’s some obvious benefits in having sun, wind and rain as inputs to the same system since you’ll get at least one of those practically every day thus greatly reducing the scale of storage required compared to a system based on only one of those resources.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> As for scale, well the Hydro Tas system stores 112,263 times as much energy as SA’s big battery so no contest there. Not in the same league by any means.




SA basically needed a stop gap so they could say they solved the problem untill they got around to a more long term solution. You can't build pumped hydro in 90 days, and the battery is some sort of solution that they can go to an election with.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> If someone looked at the big battery in SA and didn’t know what it was they’d likely assume it to be a row of shipping containers.
> 
> That’s pretty much what it looks like until you get close enough to see that it’s electrical.
> 
> As for scale, well the Hydro Tas system stores 112,263 times as much energy as SA’s big battery so no contest there. Not in the same league by any means.
> 
> That said, if the energy source is wind and sun then you don’t necessarily need as much storage as if the energy source is water. Droughts tend to last longer than periods of calm or cloudy weather.
> 
> Best of all is to integrate the lot. There’s some obvious benefits in having sun, wind and rain as inputs to the same system since you’ll get at least one of those practically every day thus greatly reducing the scale of storage required compared to a system based on only one of those resources.



Yes but having said that, batteries are fine for a short term stop gap, but it isn't long term bulk storage of energy.
I know what you're saying with the fact sun, wind doesn't require long term storage, but if base load coal, gas disappears, bulk storage will be required. 
Maybe I'm wrong and I don't know the whole picture, that has happened before.lol


----------



## Tisme

Did flywheel storage ever come off?


----------



## sptrawler

CanOz said:


> Sp can you link some articles or something to show how you've come to that conclusion regarding stored hydrogen?




CanOz, here is a good summary, about hydrogen production in Australia.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustain...en-to-export-its-solar-power-around-the-world


----------



## CanOz

sptrawler said:


> CanOz, here is a good summary, about hydrogen production in Australia.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/sustain...en-to-export-its-solar-power-around-the-world




Well there you go, lithium battery storage is here now happening....hydrogen is where???


----------



## explod

Not sure how well this would go or considered but seems like a good supporting option:-
*
Underwater Ocean Turbines: A New Spin on Clean Energy?*
By Tanya Lewis, Staff Writer | August 5, 2014 09:09am ET


 0
 0
MORE







Credit: Crowd Energy
A new technology that harnesses the power of ocean currents could provide a clean and limitless form of renewable energy, some scientists say.

A group of scientists and engineers who describe themselves as "nerds in wetsuits and flippers" has launched a crowdfunding campaign, called Crowd Energy, to do just that. Their idea is to use giant underwater turbines to capture the energy from deep-ocean currents, such as the Gulf Stream off the coast of Florida.

While energy generated from these turbines may not be able to completely replace fossil fuels, as the group claims, the devices could still be an important source of clean energy, experts say.

https://www.livescience.com/47188-ocean-turbines-renewable-energy.html


----------



## basilio

Hydrogen produced from solar power is on the cards in Dubai.

*DEWA to pilot region’s first solar-driven hydrogen facility*
6 days ago
0 0 0 0

*Dubai Electricity and Water Authority and Dubai Expo 2020 Bureau have signed a memorandum of understanding to kick start a pilot project for the region’s first solar-driven hydrogen electrolysis facility.*





	

		
			
		

		
	
Joe Kaeser, President and CEO of Siemens, HE Reem Al Hashimy, UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation and Director General, Dubai Expo 2020 Bureau, and HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, managing director and CEO, DEWA.

The facility, which will be located at DEWA’s outdoor testing facilities at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in Dubai, aims to test and showcase an integrated MW-scale plant to produce hydrogen using renewable energy. By collecting this from solar photovoltaic plates at the Solar Park, the facility will then store the gas and deploy it for either re-electrification, transportation or other industrial uses.

http://inbusiness.ae/2018/02/13/dewa-to-pilot-regions-first-solar-driven-hydrogen-facility/


----------



## Value Collector

brty said:


> I'm sorry SPTrawler, but I have to disagree that Hydrogen is a threat to batteries as a method of energy storage.
> 
> I've just spent a bit of time reading around the net on the efficiency of such a set-up.
> 
> http://www.catalyticengineering.com/terawatt-hour-energy-storage-power-to-gas/
> *
> "Energy storage in hydrogen*
> 
> Electrolyzers convert water to hydrogen, consuming electricity in the process. The cells aren’t cheap as they require specialized materials, and you lose more than 30% of the energy in conversion. One energy storage concept is to store that hydrogen, then run it back through a fuel cell to convert the hydrogen directly to electricity. But this is expensive, since two stacks are needed (electrolyzer and fuel cell) and the round-trip efficiency is poor (70% electrolyzer x 50% fuel cell = 35% round trip at best). In addition, large high-pressure tank farms would be needed to store appreciable amounts of energy in the form of hydrogen."
> 
> That's the theoretical, this one is in an actual test, using the oxygen to increase efficiency.............
> 
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319904001788
> 
> "An electrolyzer and a fuel cell have been integrated in a small-scale stand-alone renewable energy system to demonstrate that hydrogen can be used for long-term stationary energy storage. The economic and environmental performance of such a system is strongly related to the ability of the electrolyzer to convert electrical energy to hydrogen and the ability of the fuel cell to convert hydrogen back to electrical energy, which together define the round-trip efficiency of the hydrogen storage system. One promising way to improve the efficiency as well as to decrease the capital costs of the fuel cell is to recuperate the oxygen from the electrolyzer and use it as the fuel cell oxidant instead of compressed air. This paper presents the modifications made to the system in order to implement oxygen recuperation. The round-trip system efficiency was found to be 18% with oxygen recuperation and 13.5% without it."
> 
> Those energy efficiency numbers are horrible compared to Lithium-ion batteries, plus I suspect the capital costs of electrolyzers, fuelcells and storage containers for the hydrogen too be way in excess of inverters and lithium-ion batteries.
> Li-on batteries do not last forever, but neither do fuel cells, so there is a weak point on both methods.
> 
> Just what Toyota are now doing, by starting to play catch up to other car manufacturers, by heading into battery electric vehicles, when they were the leaders in Hydrogen vehicles, tends to indicate which they think will be cheaper in the long run.




I tried to explain the energy loss to him a while back, his answer is just that so much excess renewable electricity will be produced in the future it will able to be wasted in the hydrogen process.

Not sure how you can come to that conclusion, because renewable projects aren’t free, and they need to generate a return on investment.


----------



## sptrawler

CanOz said:


> Well there you go, lithium battery storage is here now happening....hydrogen is where???




I agree completely, it will be 20 to 30 years before hydrogen gets traction. 

 As I said in my earlier post:

Like I said IMO batteries have a place and will be with us forever, at the moment they are the obvious answer for the immediate problem, however IMO large scale energy storage will end up being hydrogen.
As I said time will tell and it is only my humble opinion


----------



## moXJO

sptrawler said:


> I agree completely, it will be 20 to 30 years before hydrogen gets traction.
> 
> As I said in my earlier post:
> 
> Like I said IMO batteries have a place and will be with us forever, at the moment they are the obvious answer for the immediate problem, however IMO large scale energy storage will end up being hydrogen.
> As I said time will tell and it is only my humble opinion



I agree about the current batteries. Expensive, low life, surely heat will be a factor. But they are quick to install for political mileage.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> I tried to explain the energy loss to him a while back, his answer is just that so much excess renewable electricity will be produced in the future it will able to be wasted in the hydrogen process.
> 
> Not sure how you can come to that conclusion, because renewable projects aren’t free, and they need to generate a return on investment.




I did post that the S.A Government is installing a hydrogen plant with a 10MW turbine and a 5MW fuel cell at Port Lincoln.
So it is easy to draw that conclusion, when it is a fact, not a conclusion. 
So in reality, you appear to be just ignoring anything, you don't agree with.

I will re post a link to the facts.
https://indaily.com.au/news/business/2018/02/12/bigger-lng-sa-get-first-green-hydrogen-plant/

http://ourenergyplan.sa.gov.au/hydrogen

I know you tried to explained the energy loss to me, maybe you should try explaining it to the S.A Government.


----------



## SirRumpole

*Solar power: What happens when we start producing more electricity than we can consume?*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-07/solar-power-what-happens-when-theres-too-much/9522192


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> *Solar power: What happens when we start producing more electricity than we can consume?*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-07/solar-power-what-happens-when-theres-too-much/9522192




there are a few ways that can help with that.

1, Growing popularity of Home based batteries - means that less Electricity will be fed back to the grid, on a smart grid these could be centrally managed so they didn't start charging till there was an excess in the middle of the day. eg solar feeds into grid in morning and late afternoon when production is lower, but charges batteries at peak solar time.

2, Electric cars - As with home batteries they would absorb solar production, and on a smart grid the power company could control charging of those cars plugged in to off-peak charging to absorb excess loads.

3, Large scale Grid battery storage - to absorb the production that makes it past Home battery and electric vehicle charging.

4, Shifting some of the off peak times to midday.

5, encouraging large businesses and office buildings to install battery packs, and allow them to charge them at off-peak rates during midday.


----------



## Wysiwyg

Apologies if this has been done already.



> *'World's largest' solar and wind hydrogen plant proposed for regional SA*
> The Crystal Brook facility will produce up to 400 megawatts of solar and wind power each day, which will power the site's hydrogen 'electrolyser' to potentially produce 20,000 kilograms of hydrogen daily.
> 
> The SA Government has said that exporting the hydrogen products created at the plant to markets in Asia was a possibility.
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-...d-wind-hydrogen-plant-proposed-for-sa/9526706



Wondering where 20 tonnes of hydrogen is going to go if export to Asia is only a "possibility"?


----------



## sptrawler

Wysiwyg said:


> Apologies if this has been done already.
> 
> 
> Wondering where 20 tonnes of hydrogen is going to go if export to Asia is only a "possibility"?




The Crystal Brook hydrogen plant, is the second hydrogen plant S.A has announced.
There won't be any problem finding something to do with 20 tonnes of hydrogen, it could run a gas turbine at the site, when the wind isn't blowing.
The other great thing about hydrogen it has unlimited storage potential, if you don't use it, you just store it until you need it.


----------



## Value Collector

Wysiwyg said:


> Apologies if this has been done already.
> 
> 
> Wondering where 20 tonnes of hydrogen is going to go if export to Asia is only a "possibility"?




I can't see it being shipped to Asia, the energy loss is just to great.

You lose about 60% of the energy just converting the electricity to hydrogen.

Then, you would have to liquify it, which means cooling it to -250 degrees (consuming more energy).

Then the transport ship consumes energy going there and back.

After doing all this you are basically converting 5 units of energy available in SA, to 1 unit of energy for sale in Asia, Seems crazy to me, especially when you could just build the solar and wind farms in Asia, and not have the full 5 units of energy available, rather than just 1 unit.

and all this energy loss to try and export power from a state that has an energy crisis,


----------



## Wysiwyg

Value Collector said:


> and all this energy loss to try and export power from a state that has an energy crisis,



This is a 2006 article but still it would be interesting to know if electrolysis (River Murray source?) is right.


> *Why a hydrogen economy doesn't make sense*
> * December 11, 2006, Phys.org*
> 
> In a recent study, fuel cell expert Ulf Bossel explains that a hydrogen economy is a wasteful economy. The large amount of energy required to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds (water, natural gas, biomass), package the light gas by compression or liquefaction, transfer the energy carrier to the user, plus the energy lost when it is converted to useful electricity with fuel cells, leaves around 25% for practical use — an unacceptable value to run an economy in a sustainable future. Only niche applications like submarines and spacecraft might use hydrogen.
> 
> “More energy is needed to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds than can ever be recovered from its use,” Bossel explains to _PhysOrg.com_. “Therefore, making the new chemical energy carrier form natural gas would not make sense, as it would increase the gas consumption and the emission of CO2. Instead, the dwindling fossil fuel reserves must be replaced by energy from renewable sources.”


----------



## Value Collector

Wysiwyg said:


> This is a 2006 article but still it would be interesting to know if electrolysis (River Murray source?) is right.




Electrolysis is a way to convert electricity into hydrogen, by cracking water molecules, however that process wastes a lot of energy, So the energy you have left over in the hydrogen, is about 60% less than what you had in the electricity to begin with, then if you want to store that hydrogen you have to use more energy to compress it or freeze it, using further energy.

So you have to weigh up whether it makes more sense to just use the electricity in its original form, or whether it makes sense to convert it to hydrogen, if the end result you want is electricity, then its going to make more sense to skip the hydrogen process.


----------



## boofhead

Electrolysis has been improved with various catalysts. One method uses cobalt and tungsten and alternative is something involving nickel. Still more work needs to be done though.


----------



## Value Collector

boofhead said:


> Electrolysis has been improved with various catalysts. One method uses cobalt and tungsten and alternative is something involving nickel. Still more work needs to be done though.




What is the efficiency of these new methods?


----------



## Wysiwyg

Wysiwyg said:


> This is a 2006 article but still it would be interesting to know if electrolysis (River Murray source?) is right.



Oh not the Murray, long way from it. Probably desal. or bore water source.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The other great thing about hydrogen it has unlimited storage potential, if you don't use it, you just store it until you need it.




It's pretty hard to store.

If you store it as a gas it leaks out, if you store it as a liquid it has o be refrigerated.

It can be stored in metal hydrides, but that's a developing technology.


----------



## Wysiwyg

sptrawler said:


> The Crystal Brook hydrogen plant, is the second hydrogen plant S.A has announced.
> There won't be any problem finding something to do with 20 tonnes of hydrogen, it could run a gas turbine at the site, when the wind isn't blowing.
> The other great thing about hydrogen it has unlimited storage potential, if you don't use it, you just store it until you need it.



Okay I found the S.A. Hydrogen Road Map. It is the governments plan to run public transport off hydrogen. Rail, bus and governement vehicles.



> South Australia can play a role in creating a regional economy where public transport
> fleets here and across Asia can refuel using hydrogen imported from centralised
> production facilities built in this State. Our own transport fleets will also be able to
> refuel using hydrogen created by electrolysis plants powered by our expanding
> renewable energy infrastructure.




Asia will make their own hydrogen I would think but I am not university educated soooo.


> The *South Australian Government, transport and energy industry leaders and our research institutions recognise an emerging opportunity in the coming decade* to accelerate this State’s transition to a hydrogen economy so that we can attract the investment required to create a nation-leading hub for the production, use and export of hydrogen.


----------



## Wysiwyg

From CSIRO - 







> The Australian 1:04PM May 4, 2017
> 
> *CSIRO on brink of breakthrough in enabling hydrogen fuel cell supplies*
> CSIRO is developing technology to export Australia’s supply of gas and renewable energy in a form that can power next generation hydrogen fuel cell transport.
> Australia’s prime research body says it is developing tech that will solve the problem of transporting hydrogen to bowsers that will refuel cars. The technology will also make it commercially viable to export hydrogen overseas as ammonia (NH3) for use in fuel cells
> *...*
> *
> However the commercial viability and safety of transporting hydrogen to bowser points is a sticking point and it’s here where CSIRO has announced a two-year project to make this possible domestically and internationally*.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> It's pretty hard to store.
> 
> If you store it as a gas it leaks out, if you store it as a liquid it has o be refrigerated.
> 
> It can be stored in metal hydrides, but that's a developing technology.




Large alternator rotors run in hydrogen and have done for over half a century, storing the hydrogen in cylinders hasn't been a problem, that is how the hydrogen is fed into the generator casing. 
So I really fail to understand what you mean by it is pretty hard to store. 
Muja Power Station has been making hydrogen since I was a boy( which is quite a long time ago), and storing it in red cylinders not unlike oxy bottles.


----------



## sptrawler

Wysiwyg said:


> Okay I found the S.A. Hydrogen Road Map. It is the governments plan to run public transport off hydrogen. Rail, bus and governement vehicles.
> 
> 
> 
> Asia will make their own hydrogen I would think but I am not university educated soooo.




Yes, if you read post 2207, further down the page there are a couple of links to the S.A Government initiative.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Electrolysis is a way to convert electricity into hydrogen, by cracking water molecules, however that process wastes a lot of energy, So the energy you have left over in the hydrogen, is about 60% less than what you had in the electricity to begin with, then if you want to store that hydrogen you have to use more energy to compress it or freeze it, using further energy.
> 
> So you have to weigh up whether it makes more sense to just use the electricity in its original form, or whether it makes sense to convert it to hydrogen, if the end result you want is electricity, then its going to make more sense to skip the hydrogen process.




The end result is you have a fuel in storage, that can be used to generate electricity by running a gas turbine, you can also run it through a fuel cell and make electricity, you can use it to fuel an airplane, run an internal combustion engine, you can even pump it into your LNG gas main to supplement or replace natural gas at you cooktop, HWS.

The good thing is there is no left over residue, there is no raw materials, other than water and your left over waste is water.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> What is the efficiency of these new methods?




Who cares? 
If for example, you have say 2000MW of installed wind generation which is your peak load.
Then overnight, and during the off peak period during the day, your load drops to say 500MW, you have 1500MW of available generation that can be used to make H2 fuel.
This can then be stored and if not required kept, then if the next day the same circumstances prevail, you have twice as much stored fuel...
You seem to have some problem with the process, due to the efficiency, what does it matter if the generated energy would otherwise be lost.
It is no different to pumped storage, it is using available excess renewable generation, and using it to store energy in another form.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> It's pretty hard to store.
> 
> If you store it as a gas it leaks out, if you store it as a liquid it has o be refrigerated.
> 
> It can be stored in metal hydrides, but that's a developing technology.




Another thought hit me Rumpole, google hydrogen bottles and click on images, you will see how they store it ready for use.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Another thought hit me Rumpole, google hydrogen bottles and click on images, you will see how they store it ready for use.




Yes , I guess hydrogen can be stored as a gas like any other, but the molecule is so small that losses due to leakage are larger than for other gases.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yes , I guess hydrogen can be stored as a gas like any other, but the molecule is so small that losses due to leakage are larger than for other gases.




Whatever.

If that was the case, commercial buyers, would be asking BOC for a discount on their H2 bottles. FFS


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> The end result is you have a fuel in storage, that can be used to generate electricity by running a gas turbine,
> you can also run it through a fuel cell and make electricity,




But you have to weigh that against just feeding the electricity into the grid to begin with, without the loss of turning it into hydrogen first



> you can use it to fuel an airplane,




Really? which planes?


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> Who cares?
> .




you have to weigh up the storage options, and go for the most efficient storage.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> Whatever.
> 
> If that was the case, commercial buyers, would be asking BOC for a discount on their H2 bottles. FFS




Sir Rumpole is correct, Its called Hydrogen permeation, it can slowly pass through metals in much the same way helium leaks out of balloons and the balloons don't float after a day or too.

There is also the embrittlement problem, hydrogen makes metals more brittle over time as it passes through.

Natural gas pipelines are setup to carry Methane, which is a much bigger molecule so it doesn't leak, also I am not sure the owners of the pipelines would be ok with transporting Hydrogen if it is going to damage their pipes over time.


----------



## Wysiwyg

Value Collector said:


> the same way helium leaks out of balloons and the balloons don't float after a day or too.



The people who do those mass balloon releases at social events need a good slap. The balloons come down and end up in water ways and oceans. Completely inconsiderate and unnecessary.


----------



## Smurf1976

The only real concern I have, beyond any technical difficulties, with the idea of exporting hydrogen is who is going to buy it?

The idea that someone wants to import hydrogen supposes that they lack some source of energy and/or water themselves *and* are willing to pay a premium price to avoid the use of fossil fuels (most hydrogen being produced from natural gas).

SA is a good place in terms of sun and a reasonable one in terms of wind but water is scarce enough to actually be considered a valuable resource in itself. In that regard, and looking at places that are part of the main Australian electricity grid, northern Queensland or alternatively Tasmania would both seem to have advantages with the latter also having a slightly better wind resource than SA does.

That said, SA does have the advantage of actually doing it. It's much the same as Snowy 2.0 and Battery of the Nation (Hydro Tas) in that regard. Actual, real projects that just need politics on side to make them happen versus an assortment of academic ideas with no firm proposal.

My own view on hydrogen for transport fuel is undecided at this stage. It's a contest between batteries versus hydrogen that's comparable to the battle between internal combustion versus batteries a century ago to power cars and then once internal combustion won, it became a battle between petrol versus ethanol for a while as a means of fueling those engines. 

As for large scale storage in the grid, pumped hydro leaves hydrogen for dead in my view. I say that noting that even in SA, a place not normally associated with hydro, there's at least one viable site of significant scale just 12km of the Adelaide CBD. At 70 - 80% efficiency, lifespan of a century and using large synchronous machines it's hard to beat.

On a smaller scale though hydrogen and batteries do have a use. Even in Tas there's at least one obvious place to put a modest scale battery in the grid and in the other states there are far more.


----------



## Smurf1976

Wysiwyg said:


> The people who do those mass balloon releases at social events need a good slap. The balloons come down and end up in water ways and oceans. Completely inconsiderate and unnecessary.



There's also a point that helium is an important gas for uses far more necessary than balloons and is scarce.

Once released it escapes the earth's atmosphere so unlike most other gases can't simply be stripped from air as a source. No, we're reliant on stripping it out of natural gas.

That's one reason I'm firmly of the view that natural gas is a valuable resource too precious to be squandering as boiler fuel etc. Even if we go 100% renewable for energy, we still need gas for quite a few other things which don't involve burning it.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> there are a few ways that can help with that.
> 
> ...
> 
> 4, Shifting some of the off peak times to midday..




There's really two issues. Too much electricity as such and too much being produced in residential areas and fed into a distribution network which can't cope.

In SA there are known problems already in the distribution network in areas with high penetration of solar PV. In some cases they have been worked around by SA Power Networks (SAPN) adjusting the off-peak water heating timers to operate during the period 10am - 3pm but that only works in areas where there's enough off-peak water heaters, it doesn't work if everyone's using gas or solar hot water.

Nobody's sure how much, but undoubtedly some solar PV generation is being lost (in most cases without the system owner being aware of it) because grid voltage rises too high and the solar inverters throttle back. Nobody knows for sure how much but in SA it's definitely happening and it probably happens in other states (Vic and Qld especially) too.

On a larger scale, too much electricity as such, any sort of storage fixes that be it battery, hydrogen or pumped hydro. As per my previous comments there's a role for batteries certainly but for sheer scale and "grunt" pumped hydro leaves everything else for dead at the moment. That might change someday but we're not there yet.

For the timing of this problem, there are various estimates but on present trends:

SA - it's a problem now with large scale wind generation routinely being turned off (when there's plenty of wind) in order to cope with high levels of PV generation and maintain a stable power grid. Estimates vary but we're talking about "a few years, maybe 5 or so" before there's a major problem with too much solar power going in and no means of dealing with it on mild days when consumption is low.

What happens if nothing is done? Let's just say SA's going to have a rather big problem if there's no solution and the link to Vic fails. You can't run a grid, even briefly, if there's over supply and no means to deal with it. Try doing that and you'll end up with a system collapse real quick.

Solutions = Additional interstate links and/or building more storage locally. In that context note that the need is for something which can soak up power over many hours continuously and that "close to empty" becomes the required status of that storage at 10am on a sunny day since the need is to be able to fill it not necessarily to discharge it as such (though obviously it will be discharged later that evening or overnight).

Vic - heading the same way as SA but is quite a few years behind. Solutions = realistically they'll export the problem to NSW and/or Tas via Snowy 2.0 and/or Battery of the Nation.

Qld, NSW / ACT, Tas - The dominance of large industrial load (Qld, Tas), existing network control systems (Qld, NSW), an unusually strong distribution network (Tas) and the capabilities of existing large scale pumped storage generating plant (Qld, NSW) can cope with any likely growth in solar PV for quite some time to come. I won't say there will never be a problem but it's nowhere near as soon as it is in SA and Vic.

I don't have enough info about some details in WA and NT to comment there.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> There's really two issues. Too much electricity as such and too much being produced in residential areas and fed into a distribution network which can't cope.
> 
> In SA there are known problems already in the distribution network in areas with high penetration of solar PV. In some cases they have been worked around by SA Power Networks (SAPN) adjusting the off-peak water heating timers to operate during the period 10am - 3pm but that only works in areas where there's enough off-peak water heaters, it doesn't work if everyone's using gas or solar hot water.
> 
> Nobody's sure how much, but undoubtedly some solar PV generation is being lost (in most cases without the system owner being aware of it) because grid voltage rises too high and the solar inverters throttle back. Nobody knows for sure how much but in SA it's definitely happening and it probably happens in other states (Vic and Qld especially) too.
> 
> .




Thats why I was suggesting introducing localised home based storage systems, like the Tesla power wall for example, if these were programmed to start charging during peak solar times, we would have less of the solar production hitting the grid during those times.

Also, electric vehicle charging would give the grid managers more off-peak outlets on top of the hot water you said they are already trying to utilise.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> But you have to weigh that against just feeding the electricity into the grid to begin with, without the loss of turning it into hydrogen first



You can't just keep pumping electricity into the grid.




Value Collector said:


> Really? which planes?




https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/hy4-fuel-cell-plane/index.html

https://www.greencarreports.com/new...y-make-sense-for-airplanes-replacing-jet-fuel


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> you have to weigh up the storage options, and go for the most efficient storage.




Sustainability is paramount, that's where batteries fall behind pumped storage and hydrogen storage.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Sir Rumpole is correct, Its called Hydrogen permeation, it can slowly pass through metals in much the same way helium leaks out of balloons and the balloons don't float after a day or too.
> 
> There is also the embrittlement problem, hydrogen makes metals more brittle over time as it passes through.
> 
> Natural gas pipelines are setup to carry Methane, which is a much bigger molecule so it doesn't leak, also I am not sure the owners of the pipelines would be ok with transporting Hydrogen if it is going to damage their pipes over time.




While your on the phone to the S.A Government, regarding their folly with hydrogen generation.
You might as well tell them about their error, with regard blending hydrogen with the LNG.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-08/trial-to-inject-hydrogen-into-gas-lines/8782956


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> Thats why I was suggesting introducing localised home based storage systems



No argument there. I should perhaps have clarified that I’m adding to your comments not disputing them.

So long as it adds electrical load during the middle of the day, but does not add load late in the afternoon or early evening, then it helps address the problem. Obviously that added load should be for a useful purpose etc.

How to go about it is a bit like arguing the merits of cars versus trucks (or batteries versus pumped hydro). Both have a valid role.

The only gripe I have with the whole thing is that in order to change a time switch in SA to heat water during the middle of the day, as a workaround to the problem of excess solar generation, SAPN actually wants the home owner to pay them for changing the times. Needless to say not too many have actually been changed thus far.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> You can't just keep pumping electricity into the grid.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/hy4-fuel-cell-plane/index.html




Rather than create hydrogen to turn back into electricity later, why not just use the electricity to offset the gas fired power plants that are already running?

So no actual plane of use?


> Sustainability is paramount, that's where batteries fall behind pumped storage and hydrogen storage.




Hydrogen falls behind Batteries and pumped hydro.


> While your on the phone to the S.A Government, regarding their folly with hydrogen generation.
> You might as well tell them about their error, with regard blending hydrogen with the LNG.




I have been a longterm investor in APA, since they listed. There main business is moving Natural gas around the country via pipelines, they also have a growing investment in Solar and wind farms, not once have I heard them suggest that moving Hydrogen via their pipelines is the future.

If it were viable to add hydrogen into the pipelines, no one would benefit more than APA, so it would benefit me, but as I have said its just not practical yet, and may require a lot of new pipelines.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Rather than create hydrogen to turn back into electricity later, why not just use the electricity to offset the gas fired power plants that are already running?




There is something called "system stability", that stops that idea working


----------



## sptrawler

There seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, at least for W.A, maybe just maybe Governments are starting to realise some things should remain Government not for profit run.

https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/syne...er-monopoly-in-wa-set-to-remain-ng-b88767464z

Well worth a read. IMO


----------



## Smurf1976

A contractor doing work in Victoria has broken Basslink (the Vic - Tas power cable) with repairs likely to take until at least mid-April.

This is onshore damage not offshore.

There shouldn’t be any problems maintaining power supply in any state but that’s largely due to timing since loads are well below the peak at this time of year plus Easter reduces consumption further. Still not good to have contractors breaking things though.

There’s no immediate need to run them but three gas-fired generators in Tas that haven’t had much use in recent times were given a thorough test run today just in case they’re needed. The other two have been run recently enough to not need a test as such. There’s no need to run them now so they’re off after the test but they’re ready to go if needed.


----------



## CanOz

Jeez, how does one break Basslink? What’s the diameter of that cable?


----------



## Wysiwyg

CanOz said:


> Jeez, how does one break Basslink? What’s the diameter of that cable?



Lol, looks like about 100 - 150mm dia. and presumably well marked.


----------



## SirRumpole

Would the contractor be foreign by any chance ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Would the contractor be foreign by any chance ?



No idea.

Basslink is privately owned by Keppel Infrastructure Trust.

Hydro Tasmania has (in layman's terms as it's rather complex) financial obligations and usage rights but doesn't own or operate it as such.

So Basslink have had a planned outage and doing some works and during that a contractor has caused damage at the AC - DC (since Basslink is a DC link and the grid is AC) conversion station in Victoria.

At the moment they're saying it'll be out until mid-April but nobody's counting on that being a precise date.

In terms of the effects, it amounts to a weakening of the system but it's not posing an immediate problem in any state. It does increase vulnerability however, particularly in Tas and Vic but there are flow on effects elsewhere (particularly SA) depending on circumstances, but there would need to be another major problem to actually put the lights out in any state. So the overall system is weaker but not to the point of causing a problem as such. Just more exposed in the event that anything else goes wrong. Reason is simply that load is low at this time of year due to seasonal factors.

So the implications at this stage are economic in practice. Cost to fix the damage. Cost of running higher cost generation in place of cheaper supply that could have been obtained in either direction across the link. A reduced ability to take other plant out for maintenance which may impose some costs of rescheduling.


----------



## Smurf1976

For those with an interest in technical things:

http://www.wattclarity.com.au/2018/03/power-system-frequency-what-is-it-doing-why-does-it-matter/

The crux of what's said is that the approach to controlling the system across Qld, NSW/ACT, Vic, SA is at best described as "sloppy" and that leads to an unnecessary vulnerability to a system collapse (like what happened in SA) occurring across a much wider area (worst case would be whole lot goes down).

It's one of those things that might not happen or it might but there's a vulnerability which ought not exist.


----------



## Smurf1976

Adding to the previous post, the underlying concern is that there has been a marked deterioration in recent times and it’s getting worse.

It’s one of those warning signs that won’t matter until suddenly it does in a big way.

Suffice to say if my car’s brakes were feeling “loose” then I’d be finding out what’s going on without delay and wouldn’t be ignoring the change just because they’re still working.


----------



## SirRumpole

Elon's battery outperforming coal and gas in some cases...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-06/tesla-battery-outperforms-coal-and-gas/9625726


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Elon's battery outperforming coal and gas in some cases...
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-06/tesla-battery-outperforms-coal-and-gas/9625726




Here is Europes biggest pumped hydro storage, for all the pumped hydro fans.


----------



## Value Collector




----------



## SirRumpole

This may interest some.

Coal to hydrogen project.

 Print  Email  Facebook  Twitter  More
*World-first coal to hydrogen plant trial launched in Victoria *

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-12/coal-to-hydrogen-trial-for-latrobe-valley/9643570


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> This may interest some.
> 
> Coal to hydrogen project.
> 
> Print Email  Facebook  Twitter  More
> *World-first coal to hydrogen plant trial launched in Victoria *
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-12/coal-to-hydrogen-trial-for-latrobe-valley/9643570





SirRumpole said:


> This may interest some.
> 
> Coal to hydrogen project.
> 
> Print Email  Facebook  Twitter  More
> *World-first coal to hydrogen plant trial launched in Victoria *
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-12/coal-to-hydrogen-trial-for-latrobe-valley/9643570




Still has the trouble of what to do with those pesky carbon atoms once you have separated the hydrogen from them.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> Here is Europes biggest pumped hydro storage, for all the pumped hydro fans.




Strangely enough I’ve been right outside it but didn’t go into the power station or even the visitors centre.

On holidays you see. It may however have caused Ms Smurf some temporary stress to realise that despite being on the other side of the world we’d turned up at a place with lots of transmission lines and a dam.

Not to worry though, we were there for the steam trains and it’s not a bad ride. One train goes on flat land beside the lake. Another one goes up the mountain and that’s more exciting. The slate mining museum was interesting too.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> Still has the trouble of what to do with those pesky carbon atoms once you have separated the hydrogen from them.



For the pilot plant they’re not going to worry about it, it’s a truly trivial amount after all, but if a permanent operation were to be set up then the idea is to pump it into the depleted Bass Strait gas fields as a nearby place proven over millions of years as suitable for storing gas.

This would be a lot easier than trying to capture CO2 from power stations since it’s a relatively pure gas stream.

Economics and practical aspects of the whole thing are somewhat uncertain hence spending $500 million to find out (that being loose change when it comes to anything of this natue).


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> but if a permanent operation were to be set up then the idea is to pump it into the depleted Bass Strait gas fields as a nearby place proven over millions of years as suitable for storing gas.
> 
> This would be a lot easier than trying to capture CO2 from power stations since it’s a relatively pure gas stream.
> 
> .




Has that even been done before?



> Economics and practical aspects of the whole thing are somewhat uncertain hence spending $500 million to find out (that being loose change when it comes to anything of this natue)




Yes, it comes done to the economics in the end.

ie. Does the end result of mining the coal, separating the hydrogen, transporting and storing the carbon, then distributing the hydrogen end up with enough hydrogen to sell to cover the costs of the whole process.

I have no idea, but running a car on hydrogen from natural gas is already more expensive than charging an EV, and thats without the carbon capture.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> Has that even been done before?



It’s routine practice in the oil and gas industry historically as a means of increasing oil recovery and more recently for environmental reasons.

As for the overall project, whether it’s viable remains to be seen but I’m not overly confident that it will be.


----------



## basilio

Sweden is developing electric charging of cars and trucks through electric rails embedded in the road. 

Be interested to know how much power can be transferred and if these short term fillups would be detrimental to battery backs.

* World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden *
Stretch of road outside Stockholm transfers energy from two tracks of rail in the road, recharging the batteries of electric cars and trucks

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ed-road-for-charging-vehicles-opens-in-sweden


----------



## SirRumpole

Another example of government negligence and "market" politics.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-07/australia-has-limited-emergency-fuel-stocks-left/9734164


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Another example of government negligence and "market" politics.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-07/australia-has-limited-emergency-fuel-stocks-left/9734164




Another good argument for increasing the ratio of electric vehicles in the national transport fleet.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Another good argument for increasing the ratio of electric vehicles in the national transport fleet.




Yes you can do that as well, but they aren't here yet and millions of liquid fuel cars, trucks, aircraft, buses and ships are.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Another example of government negligence and "market" politics.



Hopefully the fact that a few people in the military have started publicly speaking out on this one will be sufficient to put enough pressure on government to do something.

They can ignore engineers, environmentalists, economists and so on but it's a bit harder to ignore when your own defence forces are saying you'd better be doing something.

My own view is very firmly that we ought to maintain the 90 days' stockpile that we are bound by international agreement to do and should not be looking for ways to cheat (like a former PM arguing that coal in the ground should be counted the same as petrol or diesel in storage tanks - yes seriously!).

Australia is at present the only OECD country not doing what was agreed so it's time to get our act together.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> My own view is very firmly that we ought to maintain the 90 days' stockpile that we are bound by international agreement to do and should not be looking for ways to cheat (like a former PM arguing that coal in the ground should be counted the same as petrol or diesel in storage tanks - yes seriously!).
> together.




Is that 90 days of business as usual or 90 days of rationing?

Also, who's job is it to maintain this stock pile? does the government need to organise to store and hold it, or should they provide incentives to the industry to keep more stock on hand?

If they are going to legislate that private energy companies need to hold 90days of stock, that is a whole lot of capital, they would probably need to be paid at least 4% on that capital to make it worth while for them.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> If they are going to legislate that private energy companies need to hold 90days of stock, that is a whole lot of capital, they would probably need to be paid at least 4% on that capital to make it worth while for them.




It's a national security issue and companies should be expected to tow the line regardless of whether there is anything in it for them.


----------



## Smurf1976

It’s 90 days of net imports “business as usual”.

EVERY other OECD country already does it and so do most others so it’s no big deal in that sense. Plus we agreed 40 years ago that we’d do it too and until a few years ago we did so.

The actual means could be either privately owned or a government owned stockpile. Other countries use both approaches although private is the more common way.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> It's a national security issue and companies should be expected to tow the line regardless of whether there is anything in it for them.




If a company only needs 30 days supply to maintain the functioning of their business, but the government wants 90 days for some national security purpose, I think the government needs to build the infrastructure for holding that additional 60 days supply and outlay the capital for buying the excess stock.

If it is truly for the "national good" then the nation needs to cover the additional expense, it would be unfair to expect the share holders of the company to take a dividend cut or have their company take on more debt just to hold an additional 60 days of stock that just sits there, without getting any incentive for doing that.

otherwise the cost of the insurance policy is being lumped on a couple companies, when the beneficiaries of the insurance policy are the whole nation.

------------
In the USA the national oil reserve is run by the government, the government owns the storage infrastructure and owns all the oil.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> It’s 90 days of net imports “business as usual”.
> 
> EVERY other OECD country already does it and so do most others so it’s no big deal in that sense. Plus we agreed 40 years ago that we’d do it too and until a few years ago we did so.
> 
> The actual means could be either privately owned or a government owned stockpile. Other countries use both approaches although private is the more common way.




It is like everything else in this Country, no one wants the holding costs, no one wants to make the hard calls.
Eventually, avoiding the hard decisions, will be our downfall and I'm not just taking about fuel reserves. lol


----------



## basilio

So how about a simple, cheap way to produce endless non polluting Hydrogen as a fuel ?  Can we just do it ?

*Exeter electrode harvests hydrogen by splitting water with light*
30th April 2018 10:48 am
*A team from Exeter University has made a significant hydrogen energy breakthrough, developing an electrode that splits water using only light.*






The photo-electrode, made from nanoparticles of lanthanum, iron and oxygen, absorbs light before initialising electrochemical transformations to extract the hydrogen from water (H20). According to the Exeter team, the LaFeO3 device is not only cheap to produce but can also be recreated on a larger scale for mass use. Hydrogen energy produced using the photo-electrode would be free from carbon emissions and virtually limitless. The work is published in the journal _Scientific Reports_.    

“We have shown that our LaFeO3 photo-electrode has ideal band alignments needed to split water into its constituents (H2 and O2) spontaneously, without the need of an external bias,” said lead author Govinder Pawar, who works at the university’s Environment and Sustainability Institute in Cornwall.

“Moreover, our material has excellent stability where after 21 hours of testing it does not degrade, ideal for water splitting purpose. We are currently working on further improving our material to make it more efficient to produce more hydrogen.”

Water splitting was first demonstrated by Fujishima and Honda using a titanium dioxide electrode. Since then, scientists have been on the hunt for the ideal material to perform the task. While many semiconductor materials have been found to be capable, none have been both abundant enough and functional in the visible part of the light spectrum to be considered practical for mass industrial use. 

https://www.theengineer.co.uk/exeter-electrode-harvests-hydogen/


----------



## basilio

Another breakthrough in Li-Ion performance. Will have implications for electric vehicle capacities.
Short story.

_Test Results - Performance benefits over reference anode graphite
• 20% higher capacity (total energy)
• 20% higher power (fast charge/discharge)
• No capacity fade after 300 cycles (>99% energy retention) See test results to compare with reference anodes.
• 94% first cycle efficiency
• Successful scale up - from half coin cells to commercial size pouch cell

*Cost and other efficiencies over current commercial anode graphite *
• No micronisation
• No spheronisation
• No milling losses (high yield)
• No coating
• Potentially less waste, energy and environmental impacts

http://www.talgaresources.com/irm/PDF/2226_0/TALGABREAKTHROUGHINLIIONBATTERYPERFORMANCE_


----------



## Value Collector

This is what they were talking about when they said the Tesla Battery in SA was saving the State money by supplying the frequency balancing service on top of the peak demand supply service.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> So how about a simple, cheap way to produce endless non polluting Hydrogen as a fuel ?  Can we just do it ?
> 
> *Exeter electrode harvests hydrogen by splitting water with light*
> 30th April 2018 10:48 am
> *A team from Exeter University has made a significant hydrogen energy breakthrough, developing an electrode that splits water using only light.*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The photo-electrode, made from nanoparticles of lanthanum, iron and oxygen, absorbs light before initialising electrochemical transformations to extract the hydrogen from water (H20). According to the Exeter team, the LaFeO3 device is not only cheap to produce but can also be recreated on a larger scale for mass use. Hydrogen energy produced using the photo-electrode would be free from carbon emissions and virtually limitless. The work is published in the journal _Scientific Reports_.
> 
> “We have shown that our LaFeO3 photo-electrode has ideal band alignments needed to split water into its constituents (H2 and O2) spontaneously, without the need of an external bias,” said lead author Govinder Pawar, who works at the university’s Environment and Sustainability Institute in Cornwall.
> 
> “Moreover, our material has excellent stability where after 21 hours of testing it does not degrade, ideal for water splitting purpose. We are currently working on further improving our material to make it more efficient to produce more hydrogen.”
> 
> Water splitting was first demonstrated by Fujishima and Honda using a titanium dioxide electrode. Since then, scientists have been on the hunt for the ideal material to perform the task. While many semiconductor materials have been found to be capable, none have been both abundant enough and functional in the visible part of the light spectrum to be considered practical for mass industrial use.
> 
> https://www.theengineer.co.uk/exeter-electrode-harvests-hydogen/




The momentum toward hydrogen is ever increasing, as it is the answer, to clean fuel.

https://thewest.com.au/business/energy/woodside-eyes-hydrogen-supply-for-japan-ng-b88836800z


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> The momentum toward hydrogen is ever increasing, as it is the answer, to clean fuel.
> 
> https://thewest.com.au/business/energy/woodside-eyes-hydrogen-supply-for-japan-ng-b88836800z




And yet... If Woodside(or anyone else)  has a look at the Exeter electrode process there is no need to even consider the problem of leftover carbon.  A different, cleaner process.

I suspect Woodside is trying to reform its LNG assets and there are a number of promising new leads in that area apart from the most obvious one of reforming methane in the traditional way.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-envi...drogen-fuel-technology-economy-hytech-storage
https://arstechnica.com/science/201...gas-to-hydrogen-without-any-carbon-emissions/
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-...uld-fuel-renewable-energy-export-boom/8518916


----------



## basilio

The Greatest Love Story of the 21st Century meandered  out of their wedding into the sunset

Naturally,  being English they tottled off in .... a silver blue open head E Type Jag.

Naturally,  being environmentalists... it was in fact running on lots of little Li Ion batteries. Cute.


*Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Drove a Vintage Jaguar E-Type to Their Wedding Reception*

*It was first produced in 1968 and has been converted to run on electric power.*

By Sam Dangremond
May 20, 2018
691
 
When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle left the luncheon after their wedding at Windsor Castle, the newlyweds hopped into a snazzy vintage Jaguar that looked straight out of a James Bond movie.





 
Looking like James Bond himself, Prince Harry helps his new bride into the Jaguar before the drive to Frogmore House.

The silver blue Jaguar E-Type was first manufactured in 1968, but last year Jaguar Land Rover revealed it had electrified the vehicle to create what it called the E-Type Concept Zero, a zero-emissions version of what Enzo Ferrari once dubbed “the most beautiful car in the world.”

The electric model is quicker than the original E-Type—going from 0 10 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour) takes just 5.5 seconds, about one second faster than a Series 1 E-Type.
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/a20759902/royal-wedding-car-vintage-jaguar-e-type/


----------



## SirRumpole

Bond never drove an E-Type, only Aston Martins and the occasional BMW.

The electrified Jag is a great idea though, it's not going to overheat and cost a fortune to fix.


----------



## Darc Knight

AGL announces it won't sell Liddell power station, wants to close it down.

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-21/agl-knocks-back-offer-for-liddell-coal-plant/9782252

Trying to keep the competition for it's Solar and Wind generators out???


----------



## SirRumpole

Darc Knight said:


> Trying to keep the competition for it's Solar and Wind generators out???




I think that would be a reasonable assumption.

If the Fed govt want it so much they could put a heritage order on it and buy it themselves.


----------



## SirRumpole

More pumped hydro coming.



http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-07/how-does-pumped-hydro-power-work/9843804


----------



## Country Lad

SirRumpole said:


> More pumped hydro coming.




Chicken or the egg?



> The feasibility study is important in developing decisions on the interconnector," Mr Frydneberg said, when asked about possible funding sources.




A second interconnector has proposed for a long time, but would likely cost $1 billion, and there is no resolution on who would pay for it.  It might be prudent for a decision first and then spend the money on feasibility studies for pumped hydro sites.


----------



## Joules MM1

local company ASX : POW in the battery game







they own 50% of the resource required https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20180417/pdf/43t89sh2z61tkl.pdf


----------



## SirRumpole

Too much solar in Qld ?

Encouraging people to install batteries would seem the best idea.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-...r-rooftop-installations-flooding-grid/9845924


----------



## Smurf1976

Situation is a bit precarious in NSW at the moment with rather a lot of generation faults as follows:

Bayswater power station (2640 MW total capacity) - 3 of 4 units are not running so only 660MW available.

Liddell (1680 MW total capacity) - 1 of 4 is not running.

Mt Piper - (1400 MW) 1 of 2 is not running.

Vales Point (1320 MW) - 1 of 2 is not running.

Colongra (700 MW) 1 of 4 not running.

Tallawarra (435 MW) Not running.

Supply was adequate, but only just, due to the wind blowing fairly well plus supply at a high level from Qld and Vic, the latter being partly sourced from SA and Tas. 

Had it been even modestly colder in Sydney then it would have been a very different story with load shedding unavoidable. Likewise it would have only taken one more fault, or the wind to stop blowing, to have produced the same outcome.

On other maters, so far as pumped hydro is concerned it's all quite simple really.

There may or may not be better options to build something in Victoria instead of building it in Tasmania for the purpose of supply to Vic.

It is reality however that Hydro Tas has a firm proposal and the ability to deliver it. In contrast thus far there's nothing even remotely comparable actually proposed from anyone in Vic and thus no chance of it being built. Given the increasing urgency of the situation Hydro's "Battery Of The Nation" project wins simply because it's being put forward.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Encouraging people to install batteries would seem the best idea.




In theory that works but one limitation of presently available "consumer" batteries is their limited functionality.

In broad terms, for those who remember it's all very reminiscent of what computers were like back in the 1980's. A lot of potential and things which "obviously" could be done but which were out of reach of anyone lacking substantial "geek" skills due to the limitations of commercially available software. 

Still on the 1980's theme, they're actually one step behind VCR's from the early 80's since whilst it was well known that many struggled to do so it was at least possible to program the VCR to record different channels at different times over the next week or two. Some minor complexity counting the days but most certainly possible. 

Batteries are much the same as early computers and a step behind 1980's VCR's at the present time. If you want it to work in a way that's dead simple then yes it does that. Introduce even the slightest bit of complexity and now you're into the world of attaching some third party device and programming it yourself, something that 99% of users lack the skills, time and/or interest to do (and many of the remaining 1% will have concerns about voiding warranty etc).

So what's wrong with "dead simple" operation? In short the battery will grab all the spare solar power it can get. So you get a nice sunny day in Summer and the battery will be charging as soon as the sun comes up and fully charged by mid to late morning. There's the problem - now you've got the entire output of the solar power system, less any consumption in the house which naturally tends to be low at this time, going into the grid. The battery has done nothing at all to help.

Change that to have the battery charge only using generated power above x level and starting at y time then it all looks very different. Now it works and even better if you can automatically link that to a live weather forecasting system.

What's needed is for someone to come up with the equivalent of Windows / Mac OS for batteries. Something that average people can use to automatically control the system and make it do what they want it to do. FWIW there are some "serious" professional usages of computers which have gone down that track successfully, think critical infrastructure here, so it's perfectly good enough for controlling a battery at home and dead easy to use.

As it stands right now, the batteries themselves are good enough but getting them to work optimally is only going to happen if you're the sort of person who doesn't mind spending a lot of time for no $ return. 99% won't go there and that needs to change.


----------



## SirRumpole

In Central West NSW we had a power outage for about 2 minutes at around 8pm.

Would that likely be load shedding or a fault ? It doesn't seem likely that they could fix a fault in such a short time.


----------



## Smurf1976

There was no involuntary load shedding instructed by AEMO so far as I'm aware and no incident of load being dropped automatically due to insufficient generation. Came close but didn't reach the actual limit so any issue would be something local - distribution problem etc.

Looking at the next 7 days for NSW:

On every day consumption in NSW exceeds available supply within the state.

The lights should stay on however so long as Qld and Vic can keep pumping out the juice.

Qld should be no problem. Some generation outages but mostly going OK and load isn't that high at this time of year so fully loading the transmission lines Qld to NSW shouldn't be a problem.

Vic there's spare capacity most days but nothing of significance on Tue and Wed next week at this stage. The ability to transfer power from Vic to NSW on those two days will depend absolutely on supply coming into Vic from SA and Tas - shouldn't be a problem but when keeping the lights on in Sydney actually depends on things working in Adelaide and in Tasmania that's a sure sign that things are getting stretched.

So in short it's a bit shaky, it wouldn't take a lot more to go wrong to end up with problems, but the most likely outcome is no drama from the perspective of consumers.


----------



## sptrawler

Country Lad said:


> A second interconnector has proposed for a long time, but would likely cost $1 billion, and there is no resolution on who would pay for it.  It might be prudent for a decision first and then spend the money on feasibility studies for pumped hydro sites.



$1 billion for a second interconnect, that will give 100% backup capacity is chicken feed, we can spend $50 + billion changing your phone line and everyone cheered. lol


----------



## Smurf1976

I see the media's onto it about industry having to shut down in NSW:

https://www.smh.com.au/business/mar...-as-power-supply-falters-20180608-p4zkbw.html

More drama on its way again this evening for NSW. 

AEMO are currently seeking voluntary load reductions from industrial users.

Supply from Qld to NSW and Vic to NSW is in both cases maxed out to the limit of what the transmission lines can carry, and between them that's about a quarter of all load in NSW at the peak, so the other states can't do any more. 

For the record supply Tas to Vic is also running to the limit of transmission. SA to Vic isn't at maximum but is at a fairly high level.


----------



## Country Lad

> Tomago Aluminium, Australia's biggest smelter of the metal, warned on Friday that it may be forced to curtail operations for a third time this week because of power shortages across the national electricity market
> As of Friday afternoon, NSW plants reporting outages or reduced output included the gas-fired Tullawarra power station, Mt Piper coal-fired power plant - both owned by EnergyAustralia.
> Also reporting coal-fired power units offline were Sunset Power's Vales Point and AGL's two Hunter Valley stations, Bayswater and Liddell.
> Tomago said it had been forced to halt each of three potlines this week - one on Tuesday and two on Thursday - because of a lack of reserve across the grid serving eastern states.
> Matt Howell, Tomago's chief executive, told Fairfax Media on Friday lunchtime, the company was concerned it may face another curtailment of operations later in the day.  Tomago accounts for about a tenth of the state's electricity use.
> Australia is "at a crisis point with our energy system", Mr Howell said in a separate statement.




When I was in the electricity supply game interruption of supply to the Boyne Island smelter was a concern during the couple of years of shortages. Even then, the cost of failure of potlines was in the order of $300 million.


----------



## sptrawler

Sounds like the Government, has put the wind up the Eastern States electricity companies, maybe  Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg isn't as bad as everyone thought.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...berg-puts-them-on-notice-20180617-p4zm08.html


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Sounds like the Government, has put the wind up the Eastern States electricity companies, maybe  Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg isn't as bad as everyone thought.
> 
> https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...berg-puts-them-on-notice-20180617-p4zm08.html




Putting them on notice would be to cap power prices at the average of our international competitors and tough luck if people say that's socialism.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Putting them on notice would be to cap power prices at the average of our international competitors and tough luck if people say that's socialism.



Even that's a pretty easy target given Australia used to be third cheapest in the OECD, beaten only by Canada and NZ with their much larger share of hydro generation when compared to Australia.

Even then, the unavoidably higher costs in SA, NT and WA were buried in the figures somewhat since Vic, Tas and Qld were all doing it seriously cheaply with NSW not too far behind.

There's a privately built clone of Loy Yang power station in the US. Not because someone in the US loved the Victorian government or the SEC but because by that point they'd even beaten the Germans when it came to turning low grade coal into electricity.

Trouble is, politicians just don't value this stuff because it's a world away from their own personal background in most cases. I doubt that many of them could do any sort of physical work using tools if their life depended on it.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Even that's a pretty easy target given Australia used to be third cheapest in the OECD, beaten only by Canada and NZ with their much larger share of hydro generation when compared to Australia.
> 
> Even then, the unavoidably higher costs in SA, NT and WA were buried in the figures somewhat since Vic, Tas and Qld were all doing it seriously cheaply with NSW not too far behind.
> 
> There's a privately built clone of Loy Yang power station in the US. Not because someone in the US loved the Victorian government or the SEC but because by that point they'd even beaten the Germans when it came to turning low grade coal into electricity.
> 
> Trouble is, politicians just don't value this stuff because it's a world away from their own personal background in most cases. I doubt that many of them could do any sort of physical work using tools if their life depended on it.




From reading snippets in the media, I do think the Government has got some technical advice, and their recent announcements would indicate the electrical companies have been given notice.
Also AGL's response, to Alinta's purchase of Liddell Power Station, wouldn't have gone down well.
It was a case of the dog wagging the tail. lol


----------



## SirRumpole

Are power bills beyond the ability of customers to decipher ?

Why not a standard power bill that everyone can understand ?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-...ity-bill-power-costs-best-power-deals/9905848


----------



## SirRumpole

Does new coal stack up financially ?

This report says not.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-27/new-coal-doesnt-stack-up-just-look-at-queensland/9913882


----------



## PZ99

Solar/hydro looks better for me.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-...ed-hydro-storage-$500m-loan-aus-first/9890466


----------



## sptrawler

I would just like someone to put their name down, as being responsible if the system falls on its ar$e, due to over exposure to renewables and overstating their robustness.

People expect reliable electricity supply, they pay electricity bills in the expectations of on going supply, they expect the Government to regulate it to ensure the companies are fulfilling their obligations.

Now we have a situation where public ideology, wants the industry to meet their warm feel good beliefs, while expecting it to be met regardless of outcome.

It really is time, the electricity supply, was put back in the hands of engineers.
At the moment, it is being driven by emotional, political and ideological factions, who don't have a clue and no responsibility for the outcome. IMO


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I would just like someone to put their name down, as being responsible if the system falls on its ar$e, due to over exposure to renewables and overstating their robustness.
> 
> People expect reliable electricity supply, they pay electricity bills in the expectations of on going supply, they expect the Government to regulate it to ensure the companies are fulfilling their obligations.
> 
> Now we have a situation where public ideology, wants the industry to meet their warm feel good beliefs, while expecting it to be met regardless of outcome.
> 
> It really is time, the electricity supply, was put back in the hands of engineers.
> At the moment, it is being driven by emotional, political and ideological factions, who don't have a clue and no responsibility for the outcome. IMO




Yes, years of disastrous policy errors including privatisation, lack of government investment and direction and over hyping of renewables has led to a laughable situation if it wasn't actually killing the economy.

There are some green shoots, like the realisation of the necessity of storage for renewables a la Snowy Hydro 2.0, but even that is a recognition of the need for governments to invest and not just leave it to the private sector.

The real issue in the future is our reliance on imported oil, and to alleviate that we need to electrify the transport sector, which requires a quantum leap in investment in power generation & storage and hydrogen fuel cell technology. Whether this need has actually penetrated the thick heads of our politicians is anyone's guess.


----------



## PZ99

Tasmania is 95% hydro and the rest is solar, wind, gas. 66 dollars per MW/h. No coal.

Victoria on the other hand is 70% brown coal - 108 dollars per MW/h

My view is it's better to sell/export the coal rather than burn it


----------



## sptrawler

PZ99 said:


> Tasmania is 95% hydro and the rest is solar, wind, gas. 66 dollars per MW/h. No coal.
> 
> Victoria on the other hand is 70% brown coal - 108 dollars per MW/h
> 
> My view is it's better to sell/export the coal rather than burn it




Yes, it does highlight your understanding of the issue.

You think Victoria should go hydro, solar or wind?


----------



## PZ99

sptrawler said:


> Yes, it does highlight your understanding of the issue.
> 
> You think Victoria should go hydro, solar or wind?



In the long run I think they should go for a massive pumped hydro rollout. Solar is OK but better used in northern states. Coal is our second largest export income. Sell more coal to fund hydro.


----------



## sptrawler

PZ99 said:


> In the long run I think they should go for a massive pumped hydro rollout. Solar is OK but better used in northern states. Coal is our second largest export income. Sell more coal to fund hydro.



Sounds good, what excess generation, are you going to pump the hydro with?


----------



## PZ99

sptrawler said:


> Sounds good, what excess generation, are you going to pump the hydro with?



Victoria is connected to the NEM. So the "solar spills" from QLD would be a good starting point. 

The amount of output is so high it's actually flooding the grid during the day.


----------



## sptrawler

PZ99 said:


> Victoria is connected to the NEM. So the "solar spills" from QLD would be a good starting point.
> 
> The amount of output is so high it's actually flooding the grid during the day.



Sounds like a plan.


----------



## PZ99

"A sharp rise in the number of solar rooftop installations in Queensland is flooding the network and could lead to blackouts or frequency issues, Energy Networks Australia says.

Chief Executive Andrew Dillon said the electricity grid was not designed to cope with the amount of energy being generated in the middle of the day when demand is low, resulting in "solar spill".

"We have almost one in three households in Queensland that have solar panels on their roof and to be honest, by world standards, that is off the chart," Mr Dillon said.

"Places like Hawaii and California are more like 20 per cent so Queensland is really a world leader.

"So that's great for renewable energy generation but it's creating some real challenges for the networks operating the grid when you have that much energy coming back in in the middle of the day."

Mr Dillon said most networks were created in a time when there was a significant one-way flow from major coal fired power stations into households.

"For a while the network has operated really well to be honest, as a solar sponge being able to soak up this generation — but once we get to certain levels, if we don't start getting smarter about how we manage it, we will see some technical issues," he said.

Mr Dillon said if the issue was not addressed, problems could occur.

"The first one is we start to get voltage and frequency issues, which can damage equipment or even localise outages," he said.

"The second one is we have networks saying to customers wanting to connect solar, 'No you can't do it because we're full'."

Or, he said, the networks may end up having to spend a fortune to upgrade their facilities.

Queensland Energy Minister Dr Anthony Lynham said the Government had introduced several measures to future-proof the network.

*"We have to move the peak that we're seeing during the middle of the day when we have solar, to that night time cooking peak, and we're doing that," Dr Lynham said.

"The big thing we're doing obviously is the pumped hydro, the big Wivenhoe pumped hydro storage solution. That's 570 megawatts … that's a coal-fired power station.

"So during the middle of the day when all the solar panels on roofs are working, we're storing energy through pumping water up the top of the hill at Wivenhoe and at night time we're driving it back down."*

Dr Lynham said the Government was taking a smart approach to the issue.

"We're bringing on an interest-free loan scheme for batteries later on this year," he said.

"Instead of peaking your hot water at night when power used to be cheap, you peak your hot water during the day, you have your pool pump running during the middle of the day when the solar is on.

"And also you can't have a normal meter installed in a house — if you build a house or change your meter it must be a smart meter so all those controls are available to the household."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-...r-rooftop-installations-flooding-grid/9845924

Sounds like a plan


----------



## sptrawler

Sounds like you have worked it out.
I look forward to the outcome.


----------



## Smurf1976

Vic is part of the NEM and so is Qld yes but there's a problem in so far as Qld > NSW transmission is already heavily loaded much of the time. For NSW - Vic it depends on everything from temperature (load) to wind speed in SA but it's moderately common that NSW > Vic is at maximum (and has been very common in the past few days).

So I'm not saying "can't be done" just saying that there's some significant bottlenecks to overcome first.

As for solar, well closer in the context of Vic is SA which has a more extreme version of the situation in Qld. Already the lowest loads in SA are occurring during the early afternoon on mild days, not the middle of the night, and with ongoing rapid deployment of solar generation that's going to increase.

Once SA gets to the point of distributed generation supplying the whole load, well then that starts to get rather tricky technically and since it's not far away, a few years at most, it's something that really does need to be addressed without delay.


----------



## PZ99

LOL > OK. Pretty sure a solar farm won't be restricted to just QLD and SA 

Maybe we should just leave it to the engineers as previously stated. 

Oops... can't do that either. They're endorsing renewables too


----------



## sptrawler

PZ99 said:


> LOL > OK. Pretty sure a solar farm won't be restricted to just QLD and SA
> 
> Maybe we should just leave it to the engineers as previously stated.
> 
> Oops... can't do that either. They're endorsing renewables too




Nobody disagrees with renewables, and electric cars, and homes being self sufficient regarding energy.
It just has to be managed, with system demands and dynamics, and what is realistically feasible at this point in time.
We are getting way ahead of the curve. IMO
But your heart is in the right place.


----------



## moXJO

Smurf, do smart meters log your  energy use data?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Nobody disagrees with renewables, and electric cars, and homes being self sufficient regarding energy.
> It just has to be managed, with system demands and dynamics, and what is realistically feasible at this point in time.



Yep.

Using SA as an example there's rather a lot of renewable energy going to waste from facilities which have been built but are forced off due to network limitations.

Things being what they are, even the most blindingly obvious workaround of changing the time of heating water is turning out to be more difficult to get done than it ought to be. 

So yes this can be done but there's a lot of things which need to be brought along for the ride both technical and in terms of cultural and bureaucratic things as well otherwise less than ideal results are achieved.

The really big one though is the prospect in SA of rooftop solar generation exceeding total (state wide) demand within just a few years. Once that happens, it becomes problematic to operate the SA grid without the link to Vic being there. 

So if the link fails then the immediate consequence is a surplus of generation in SA and a need for a small number of large power stations to stay running and effectively force the solar inverters to throttle back. Works in theory but nobody has tested it on anything approaching the scale involved here so how it works in practice is an unknown. Could be OK or could end up with no power anywhere between Mount Gambier and Penong.

I'm by no means against going forward with all this. It's just that in Australia we're more enthusiastic about the building bit than the planning and I'd like to see a balance there.


----------



## Smurf1976

moXJO said:


> Smurf, do smart meters log your  energy use data?



What they record depends on where you are.

Vic is the only state that has done a comprehensive roll-out of them. They record in a lot of detail about volume of consumption and when it occurs which is accessed by electricity retailers.

Other states have some but haven't done a bulk roll-out as Vic has, they've just put them in when meters need changing for whatever reason and aren't generally using the data in the detail that it is used in Vic.

A complication is that as part of the latest national "reforms" we now have electricity retailers looking after metering and they're not all doing the same thing. Some just stick with whatever meter the customer has but others are very keen to put a smart meter in.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> What they record depends on where you are.
> 
> Vic is the only state that has done a comprehensive roll-out of them. They record in a lot of detail about volume of consumption and when it occurs which is accessed by electricity retailers.
> 
> Other states have some but haven't done a bulk roll-out as Vic has, they've just put them in when meters need changing for whatever reason and aren't generally using the data in the detail that it is used in Vic.
> 
> A complication is that as part of the latest national "reforms" we now have electricity retailers looking after metering and they're not all doing the same thing. Some just stick with whatever meter the customer has but others are very keen to put a smart meter in.




In W.A the owner has to replace the inductive disc meter, with a smart meter, if they install solar.
The Government, seems to be slowly replacing all meters with smart meters, but I don't think there is a concerted push. ATM


----------



## Value Collector

BP and Shell are investing Big into Electric charging infrastructure.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> BP and Shell are investing Big into Electric charging infrastructure.





With no thought of monopolies in transport fuel ?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> With no thought of monopolies in transport fuel ?




Its going to be very hard for them to get a monopoly, with people being able to charge at home for household electricity rates it would put a cap on what people would be willing to pay.

Not to mention the dozens of competitors from other unrelated industries that will pop up offering free or subsidised charging to try and get people in to use their services.

Eg.

NRMA is currently building a nation wide charging network that will be Free for their road side assistance members.

I could also see Coles or woolies offering free or low rate charging while you shop if you spend a certain amount.

Parking garages might offer cheap charging to customers to get people to choose their parking locations over competitors.

I could see towns on traditional road trip routes that have been bypassed offering free charging to try and get people to turn off the freeway and into their town for a rest stop. 


With electricity available anywhere, people will be going to traditional service stations less often, mainly on road trips, and the places they choose to stop might not be traditional service stations, charging points will probably pop up in nicer places.

without having to have all the cost and drama of storing flammable fuels, we might see a whole host of new businesses popping up trying to attract the travellers, offering all sorts of rest stop features.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> without having to have all the cost and drama of storing flammable fuels, we might see a whole host of new businesses popping up trying to attract the travellers, offering all sorts of rest stop features.




Given that the supply of solar PV in Qld now exceeds the demand in that State there will be plenty of opportunities to buy the excess and charge vehicles.


----------



## Value Collector

On a road trip, I normally make 3 types of stops.

1, Toilet Break and leg stretching - Normally at road side rest stops and parks etc.

2, Food and drink stops - Normally at a take away shop or cafe.

3, Fuel stops - Normally 2 stops at a smelly petrol station.

If I could cut out having to stop at a petrol stations (3), and instead charge for 15mins when I make one of my stops at (1) and (2), Not only would I save time, But I would probably have a more enjoyable trip, I would much rather stop at a nice rest stop than a busy fuel station.

It would be super easy to add charging facilities with Tap and pay, at rest stops.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> On a road trip, I normally make 3 types of stops.
> 
> 1, Toilet Break and leg stretching - Normally at road side rest stops and parks etc.
> 
> 2, Food and drink stops - Normally at a take away shop or cafe.
> 
> 3, Fuel stops - Normally 2 stops at a smelly petrol station.
> 
> If I could cut out having to stop at a petrol stations (3), and instead charge for 15mins when I make one of my stops at (1) and (2), Not only would I save time, But I would probably have a more enjoyable trip, I would much rather stop at a nice rest stop than a busy fuel station.
> 
> It would be super easy to add charging facilities with Tap and pay, at rest stops.




The only problem VC, is when will you get the car?
Get your money back and buy a Nissan Leaf, just my thoughts, the Tesla and your deposit will go the same way.
The Nissan is probably the leader of the pack, at the moment and is priced well.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> I would much rather stop at a nice rest stop than a busy fuel station.



Agreed although to me a nice rest stop is next to the park, lake, bush or whatever and definitely not outside any sort of business.

No reason chargers can’t be put in such places though. Just means probably owned by the council etc and not some cafe that charges $5 for a piece of cake so small it’s hardly worth bothering with. (Yeah, I’m not a cafe person that’s for sure......).


----------



## Country Lad

We stayed here a few nights ago







Just in behind here




Only about two kilometres off the road down a dirt track.  Nice spot for a charging station.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> Agreed although to me a nice rest stop is next to the park, lake, bush or whatever and definitely not outside any sort of business.
> 
> No reason chargers can’t be put in such places though. Just means probably owned by the council etc and not some cafe that charges $5 for a piece of cake so small it’s hardly worth bothering with. (Yeah, I’m not a cafe person that’s for sure......).




Yeah, I was thinking discreet tap and pay charging poles at rest stops would be a good passive income for councils to help fund the rest stop,

I am not a “fancy” cafe person either, but “Rosie’s cafe”, in johns river does an awesome salad sandwich if you are ever on the Brisbane - Sydney route, good prices and good food,


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> The only problem VC, is when will you get the car?
> Get your money back and buy a Nissan Leaf, just my thoughts, the Tesla and your deposit will go the same way.
> The Nissan is probably the leader of the pack, at the moment and is priced well.




I am happy to wait for the model 3, it will eat the Nissan Leaf alive, no rush here, my current car is still going good.


----------



## Value Collector

Country Lad said:


> We stayed here a few nights ago
> 
> View attachment 88070
> 
> 
> Just in behind here
> View attachment 88071
> 
> Only about two kilometres off the road down a dirt track.  Nice spot for a charging station.




The more remote the route, the more electric cars make sense, solar panels and a few batteries powering a charging station in the middle of no where sure makes a lot more sense than a systems pipelines, then a ship, the a refinery, then another ship, then a truck to the middle of no where.

Once built, solar powered charging stations make a lot more sense.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> Once built, solar powered charging stations make a lot more sense.



Also in many cases the grid exists in places a very long way from an oil refinery.

Broken Hill is connected to the main grid for example. Also has a large solar power station but it’s part of the national grid too.

Mt Isa isn’t on the main electricity grid but it is part of the gas grid and does have a substantial gas-fired power station.

Alice Springs is another one. Not connected to anything of a national nature but they do have gas produced in the NT and delivered by pipeline and a gas-fired power station to use it. Beats hauling petrol or diesel from Adelaide or Darwin.

Or south-west Tasmania. There’s a sign warning tourists that there is no fuel available at the end of the trip so they need enough to get there and back. No petrol that’s true but there’s a major hydro power station down there and the majority of visitors will park at Ted’s Beach, Gordon Dam or the Lake Pedder accommodation all of which have mains power (indeed generating power is ultimately the only reason any of those things or the road itself were built in the first place).

So even if the energy is coming from a large coal, gas or hydro power station it’s still a lot more convenient and sensible than trucking fuel into places that are a long way from anywhere.

That’s not to dismiss solar etc, just saying that electric vehicles have advantages no matter how the power is generated.

For things like mine machinery and vehicles, well there’s a lot of advantages if the fuel just comes down a wire from whatever source rather than having to truck huge amounts of diesel to the mine.

In terms of logistics, electric vehicles versus petrol or diesel is much like comparing email and the internet versus postal mail and printed newspapers. No contest really especially in a remote area as long as you’ve got a means of going online.


----------



## sptrawler

The push to renewables continues, home based solar to hydrogen electrolyser being developed in Perth, well we have to start somewhere.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-03/recycling-solar-promises-green-hydrogen-breakthrough/9934862


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> The push to renewables continues, home based solar to hydrogen electrolyser being developed in Perth, well we have to start somewhere.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-03/recycling-solar-promises-green-hydrogen-breakthrough/9934862




I would like to see an economic comparison of converting the excess electricity to hydrogen vs just feeding it back into grid for a credit vs charging a home battery system.


----------



## SirRumpole

Burning rubbish to generate power.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-04/incineration-clean-energy-finance-corporation/9935186


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> I would like to see an economic comparison of converting the excess electricity to hydrogen vs just feeding it back into grid for a credit vs charging a home battery system.




As with most experimental things, we won't know the profit or loss, until the outcome is reached. If it is successful, then it could make a huge difference, if not it will be back to the drawing board.
But the push to hydrogen will continue.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> As with most experimental things, we won't know the profit or loss, until the outcome is reached. If it is successful, then it could make a huge difference, if not it will be back to the drawing board.
> But the push to hydrogen will continue.




I mainly mean the cost of converting to hydrogen, vs battery vs grid.

for example.

If I generate 1.0 KWH of excess electricity,  I can feed it into the grid and get enough credit to purchase 0.4 KWH of electricity on demand later, I lose 0.6 KWH, But I also don't have to purchase a Battery or Hydrogen machine, So its a viable low cost solution to storing my personal production.

If I put the 1.0 KWH of excess electricity into a battery, I can pull out 0.9 KWH on demand later So I retain double the electricity of feeding it to the grid, However I have to spend $7,000 on Battery.

I would like to know how much of my 1.0 KWH I will be able to draw back on demand later via the Hydrogen machine, and how much I have to outlay up front.

If I end up losing more electricity than I do just feeding it into the grid, but I have to spend $1,000's upfront, it simply won't be worth it, if the hydrogen machine is cheaper than the battery, but I lose more electricity in the processes, it still wouldn't be worth it.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> I mainly mean the cost of converting to hydrogen, vs battery vs grid.
> 
> for example.
> 
> If I generate 1.0 KWH of excess electricity,  I can feed it into the grid and get enough credit to purchase 0.4 KWH of electricity on demand later, I lose 0.6 KWH, But I also don't have to purchase a Battery or Hydrogen machine, So its a viable low cost solution to storing my personal production.
> 
> If I put the 1.0 KWH of excess electricity into a battery, I can pull out 0.9 KWH on demand later So I retain double the electricity of feeding it to the grid, However I have to spend $7,000 on Battery.
> 
> I would like to know how much of my 1.0 KWH I will be able to draw back on demand later via the Hydrogen machine, and how much I have to outlay up front.
> 
> If I end up losing more electricity than I do just feeding it into the grid, but I have to spend $1,000's upfront, it simply won't be worth it, if the hydrogen machine is cheaper than the battery, but I lose more electricity in the processes, it still wouldn't be worth it.




I don't think stand alone off grid systems, will ever be viable, in a grid covered area i.e City.
Well not with current technology.
Where something like this style of H2 generator will be useful, will be in remote off grid applications, where diesel generator backup is currently used.
If it can be made cheap enough and compact enough, it may even be useful at farm level.


----------



## sptrawler

I see Daniel Andrews has come up with a way, to cut electricity demand, in Victoria.

https://www.theage.com.au/business/...ctorian-water-heater-ban-20180705-p4zpqh.html


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I see Daniel Andrews has come up with a way, to cut electricity demand, in Victoria.



They've got it the wrong way around.

With the rapidly increasing use of wind and solar to generate electricity SA already has problems with what to do with all the power on mild days (or overnight from wind) and Vic is heading the same way.

I could make a pretty convincing case against gas water heating and in favour of electric due to all this. Water has to be heated somehow and since hot water is very easily stored it's a good use of renewable energy that would otherwise be wasted rather than using fossil fuels to do the job. That may not be the situation just yet but it will be within the lifespan of any water heater installed today so it's time to look to the future not the past.

If they were forcing heat pumps or solar as the replacement with support for those unable to afford the upfront cost then that would make sense in terms of resources and the environment. But gas? Seriously? Gas made a lot of sense 10 years ago but it makes far less sense now and the advantage is rapidly moving toward electricity for everything. To be clinging to gas for heating water just as there's a consumer move away from it and a serious push for electric vehicles says it all really. It's a short term focused policy not a future focused one.

To cut a long story short I'm pretty sure this has more to do with the gas industry starting to struggle as increasing numbers of consumers are disconnecting and those remaining are using less gas (both points being backed up by the statistics) than any real concern about energy or the environment. Government knows full well that in practice the policy will push consumers toward gas just as the same policy has in SA which now has wind and solar routinely going to waste whilst bringing gas in from Vic and Qld and soon to be overseas.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> They've got it the wrong way around.
> 
> With the rapidly increasing use of wind and solar to generate electricity SA already has problems with what to do with all the power on mild days (or overnight from wind) and Vic is heading the same way.
> 
> I could make a pretty convincing case against gas water heating and in favour of electric due to all this. Water has to be heated somehow and since hot water is very easily stored it's a good use of renewable energy that would otherwise be wasted rather than using fossil fuels to do the job. That may not be the situation just yet but it will be within the lifespan of any water heater installed today so it's time to look to the future not the past.
> 
> If they were forcing heat pumps or solar as the replacement with support for those unable to afford the upfront cost then that would make sense in terms of resources and the environment. But gas? Seriously? Gas made a lot of sense 10 years ago but it makes far less sense now and the advantage is rapidly moving toward electricity for everything. To be clinging to gas for heating water just as there's a consumer move away from it and a serious push for electric vehicles says it all really. It's a short term focused policy not a future focused one.
> 
> To cut a long story short I'm pretty sure this has more to do with the gas industry starting to struggle as increasing numbers of consumers are disconnecting and those remaining are using less gas (both points being backed up by the statistics) than any real concern about energy or the environment. Government knows full well that in practice the policy will push consumers toward gas just as the same policy has in SA which now has wind and solar routinely going to waste whilst bringing gas in from Vic and Qld and soon to be overseas.




From my limited knowledge of Daniel Andrews, the last thing he wants, is convincing arguments especially if he has made his mind up.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> From my limited knowledge of Daniel Andrews, the last thing he wants, is convincing arguments especially if he has made his mind up.




As you say, if we are going to continue the push to "free" renewable energy, we will have to end up with a huge overcapacity, to allow for the unreliable nature.
Therefore it makes sense to install electric water heating, or solar water heating to reduce the requirement for the renewable. Installing gas, another finite/polluting resource, just shows the lack of understanding, of the underlying issue. IMO


----------



## SirRumpole

Sorry if this is a naive question, but who controls the time when the water is heated and how ?

Thanks.


----------



## basilio

Talking about moving away from gas..

I have a hydronic heating heating that works exceptionaly well.  Is there a reasonably practical way to replace the current gas fired  water heater with another source ?  (It could be an option for many other similar customers)


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> They've got it the wrong way around.
> 
> With the rapidly increasing use of wind and solar to generate electricity SA already has problems with what to do with all the power on mild days (or overnight from wind) and Vic is heading the same way.
> 
> I could make a pretty convincing case against gas water heating and in favour of electric due to all this. Water has to be heated somehow and since hot water is very easily stored it's a good use of renewable energy that would otherwise be wasted rather than using fossil fuels to do the job. That may not be the situation just yet but it will be within the lifespan of any water heater installed today so it's time to look to the future not the past.
> 
> If they were forcing heat pumps or solar as the replacement with support for those unable to afford the upfront cost then that would make sense in terms of resources and the environment. But gas? Seriously? Gas made a lot of sense 10 years ago but it makes far less sense now and the advantage is rapidly moving toward electricity for everything. To be clinging to gas for heating water just as there's a consumer move away from it and a serious push for electric vehicles says it all really. It's a short term focused policy not a future focused one.
> 
> To cut a long story short I'm pretty sure this has more to do with the gas industry starting to struggle as increasing numbers of consumers are disconnecting and those remaining are using less gas (both points being backed up by the statistics) than any real concern about energy or the environment. Government knows full well that in practice the policy will push consumers toward gas just as the same policy has in SA which now has wind and solar routinely going to waste whilst bringing gas in from Vic and Qld and soon to be overseas.




I actually suggested that my Dad convert from his current LPG Gas hot water heater to heat pump electric type.

the LPG heating used to be cheaper when he first installed it in the early 1990's, but today with his solar panels, we could be running the heat pump instead of exporting power to the grid during the day.

the Gas bottle refills are pretty expensive, compared to the using the electricity he would only get a 12 cent credit for.


----------



## Value Collector

basilio said:


> Talking about moving away from gas..
> 
> I have a hydronic heating heating that works exceptionaly well.  Is there a reasonably practical way to replace the current gas fired  water heater with another source ?  (It could be an option for many other similar customers)




Maybe talk to some heat pump specialists.

they maybe be able to use your existing in house pipes, and just install the external pipes.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Sorry if this is a naive question, but who controls the time when the water is heated and how ?




No such thing as silly questions. 

In the Australian context the answer varies between states:

Qld, NSW, ACT = it's a remote control system such that the times are easily adjusted from one day to the next to suit prevailing conditions. In simple terms high frequency a pulse is sent over the power lines as a communications signal to turn the water heaters on and off.

Vic, Tas, SA = a timer at the switchboard either as part of the meter (newer installations) or a separate sealed device (older ones). So it can't be adjusted day to day but with some thought it's possible to set the correct times and make it work.

Tas has looked seriously at a remote control system on a number of occasions but thus far it hasn't stacked up although it's one of those "keep it under watch" things. It has been done on King Island where it made sense to enable higher use of wind and solar there.

WA = they had timers but have lost interest in it and are pushing everyone to gas.

NT = water heating was never an issue since the need for it is relatively limited due to climate, solar is common and demand naturally tends to occur at times when other uses of electricity are lower. As such they've never worried about any sort of control system.

At present we have about 35% of homes in both SA and Qld with solar on the roof, plus a rapidly increasing number of large scale solar farms, plus very significant wind generation particularly in some states particularly in SA but growing elsewhere too.

In short the power has to go somewhere and that brings us to storage. Since hot water is easily stored in a very cheap and low tech manner it is the most obvious way to put otherwise surplus renewable energy to good use when it's available.

Ideally a remote control system is the best way to do that but even with timers it can be made to work reasonably.

At present SA in particular has two related problems. They've happened first in SA due to the higher uptake of solar and wind plus having less heavy industry using power all day than the other big solar state (Qld).

As of right now there's about 295 MW of wind energy from already built wind farms going to waste in SA.

Get a mild sunny day in Adelaide and nobody knows for sure how much potential solar output goes to waste but it is known with certainty that it is happening and that a lot of properties are affected, usually unknown to their owners. With lack of load the voltage comes up and forces the inverters off. Or in layman's terms with present infrastructure there's just nowhere for the power to go.

Then at other times we're burning fossil fuels flat out trying to keep the lights on. Or using fossil fuels, mostly gas, directly to do things like heat water.

Heating water with electricity is hugely inefficient if the starting point is fossil fuels but if a substantial % of the power is coming from renewable energy that otherwise goes to waste then using gas isn't the right solution. Even less so when you consider the technical need to stabilise load on the power grid.

Back to those rules in Vic, well if they were trying to push people to heat pumps or solar then that's a perfectly reasonable idea. I'm not saying we must cling to old style electric systems, but looking even a few years ahead gas is not a better alternative so it's just not smart to be saying no, you can't replace a failed electric system with another one the same but you can have gas instead. That's a bit like saying you'll stop eating at McDonald's, implying you're going to be eating a healthy diet from now on, but then going to Hungry Jacks every day instead. It's legal technicalities stuff not actually fixing things when it comes to resources or the environment.

Gas for space heating arguably has some merit and same with cooking. Not necessarily economically but in terms of resources, infrastructure and so on it makes some sense. But when it comes to heating water, the ability to store heated water cheaply and easily is such that the advantage is very rapidly swinging toward systems powered by electricity and able to cope with an intermittent or time controlled supply. That's heat pumps preferably but conventional electric water heaters aren't as bad as they used to be due to the changes with upstream electricity supply.

Hence my claim that the Vic government is about 30 years late with this one.


----------



## SirRumpole

Thanks for that Smurf, added to the knowledge base.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> I have a hydronic heating heating that works exceptionaly well.  Is there a reasonably practical way to replace the current gas fired  water heater with another source ?  (It could be an option for many other similar customers)




Switching between any combustion sourced heat (gas, oil, wood, coal, whatever) is straightforward but there's some complexity involved with electric heat pumps and the issue comes down to water temperatures.

Gas, oil, coal, wood etc work pretty much the same whether the water is heated to 80 degrees or 40 degrees. Any efficiency difference is minor when you're starting with a flame temperature of 1950 degrees C. For reasons of cost most hydronic systems are thus designed to operate at relatively high water temperatures. That keeps the pipes and radiators smaller.

Heat pumps however are far more efficient at lower water temperatures and efficiency drops of dramatically at the sort of temperatures common with gas (or oil or wood etc) hydronic systems. It can be done most certainly but the usual workaround is larger radiators operating at lower water temperatures in order to maintain heat output to the room.

So the short answer is that retrofitting a heat pump as the heating source for a relatively high temperature hydronic system tends to be problematic unless the radiators happen to be over sized which usually they aren't.

For situations where lower temperatures are involved, such as normal household hot water or heating a swimming pool, it's dead easy and purely an economic question.

I've been heating my own hot water with a heat pump since 2009 with zero problems thus far (and there's no booster in the system by the way). I'm about to move house however, I'll resume packing boxes in a few minutes after posting this (it's a mind numbing task......), so won't get to see how long that system lasts etc. New house has nothing fancy when it comes to energy (indeed it's pretty much the opposite but fear not, Smurf will fix that that in due course.... ).


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Maybe talk to some heat pump specialists.
> 
> they maybe be able to use your existing in house pipes, and just install the external pipes.





Looks like there may be quite a bit of excavation for the ground pipes. Expense ?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Looks like there may be quite a bit of excavation for the ground pipes. Expense ?




Yeah, they can lay them in a shallow trench horizontally if you have the space which is cheaper, or in vertical drill holes if you have a smaller back yard.

Or you can just use Air based heat exchangers, but they aren't as efficient but they still work well, thats basically what a reverse cycle air conditioner is, thats why when you are running your Air con in Heat mode, Cold air blows out the unit out side, it is stripping the heat from the air.


----------



## Value Collector

Air based heat pump


----------



## Smurf1976

There are exceptions but the vast majority of heat pumps are air sourced since that's the cheapest and easiest way to do it, albeit not the optimum for efficiency.

For heating water for household use though a Sanden heat pump will achieve a COP of 4.5 so that's 4.5 kWh of heat for each 1 kWh of electricity used. Many reverse cycle air-conditioners achieve similar results for space heating. So while you could improve further, they're already pretty good these days. 

Higher temperatures such as for hydronics is where it gets more difficult though.

As for heat sources other than air, the Hydro Tas office building in Hobart had a heat pump system using the river (sea) as the heat source for many years although it has since been replaced with an off the shelf air-sourced system mounted on the roof.

Not sure if they still do but for a long time Hobart City Council was using the warm water in sewer pipes as the heat source for heating a large public swimming pool with the heating done via a heat pump system. With the warm input it achieved very high efficiency. Not sure if that's still running or not.

My 9 year old air-sourced water heating heat pump achieves a COP of about 3 in practice.


----------



## Wysiwyg

I look forward to when Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries become mainstream for residential. To me it will be like buying another piece of furniture with the added bonus of it producing something usable.


----------



## Smurf1976

With regard to my previous posts about water heating I must apologise for an omission.

As has been drawn to my attention, the Victorian government has already mandated gas connection for all new homes in the state. That's right, you can not in practice choose to not connect gas to a new home in Victoria and that applies regardless of economics.

Electric hot water? Nope, you can't have that.

Solar with electric boost? Nope, that's not allowed either.

Heat pump? No, can't have that. Keep trying....

Your choice is either gas or cold showers! You can put some solar panels up too if you like but you're having gas like it or not and will be charged for doing so since that's the law.

I will confess that I have never liked the broad attitude of Victorian governments to most things, the state has long seemed to have a ridiculous number of rules for just about everything, but this one "smells" rather strongly to me and even more so when I mention the same government funding the installation of new gas pipes which private companies then charge for the use of and make profits from. That smell's getting rather strong and warrants investigation not by a gas fitter but by ICAC or whatever the equivalent organisation is in Victoria.

I'm not opposed to governing but it's getting a bit ridiculous when government decrees how to warm the bath.

To put some numbers on it, comparing a modern heat pump to gas, the end use efficiency of the heat pump results in 30% lower fossil fuel consumption even if we assume that 100% of all electricity it consumes is supplied from the least efficient plants in the grid. On any more realistic scenario it's closer to a 50% saving. And so the reason new homes are forced to use gas is? See my bit about needing an investigation because it sure does smell.

At least WA, SA and Tas are reasonably progressive with all this. Imperfect but at least looking to the future not the past.

I don't hate the gas industry but I do lament consumers being forced to use it in a circumstance where there is no sound economic, resource or environmental justification for such a policy. That's blatant industry protection, nothing more and nothing less.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> With regard to my previous posts about water heating I must apologise for an omission.
> 
> As has been drawn to my attention, the Victorian government has already mandated gas connection for all new homes in the state. That's right, you can not in practice choose to not connect gas to a new home in Victoria and that applies regardless of economics.
> 
> Electric hot water? Nope, you can't have that.
> 
> Solar with electric boost? Nope, that's not allowed either.
> 
> Heat pump? No, can't have that. Keep trying....




That is completely absurd, anti-competitive and totalitarian.

I expected the Liberals to protect their industry mates, but as you said, this completely stinks.

I have never had gas connected to any house I've lived in and don't want it.

Fortunately I'm not in Victoria.


----------



## Smurf1976

To clarify the situation in Vic and what the rules say:

If there is reticulated gas available in the street then for a new house you cannot install:

Conventional electric hot water
Solar hot water with an electric booster
Heat pump hot water
If the supply of electricity to the system is connected to the mains (which for 99.99% of homes in areas also having gas it will be).

In practice and assuming you want a normal supply of hot water that leaves gas with or without also using solar energy as the only realistic means to heat the water for the vast majority of consumers.

"Electric" Smurf doesn't hate gas, for the record there's a gas cooktop in my kitchen, but I sure don't like policies which dictate what consumers can and can't do with no valid reason. That's just over-governing and industry protection dressed up as having something to do with saving the planet.

Banning conventional electric systems for new homes might make some sense but there's nothing wrong with solar or heat pumps from an environment or energy efficiency perspective that's for sure.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> That is completely absurd, anti-competitive and totalitarian.
> 
> I expected the Liberals to protect their industry mates, but as you said, this completely stinks.
> 
> I have never had gas connected to any house I've lived in and don't want it.
> 
> Fortunately I'm not in Victoria.




Is Victoria a Liberal State? I thought Andrews was Labor, my appollogies.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Is Victoria a Liberal State? I thought Andrews was Labor, my appollogies.



No they are Labor.

It has long been the case though, regardless of which party is in government, that Victoria seems to make a point of having rules for things.

Just something I noticed years ago and it has always been the case.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Is Victoria a Liberal State? I thought Andrews was Labor, my appollogies.




My astonishment was that Labor would protect a fossil fuel industry, whereas the Liberals have always done so with coal.


----------



## Smurf1976

My guess is that their logic has been:

Coal is bad.

Most coal in Vic is used to generate electricity and coal is the largest source of electricity = electricity is bad.

Water heating is the second largest household use of energy in Vic after space heating.

OK then we will ban new homes using any form of water heating involving electricity.

Without having done the maths which, if they did do them, would reveal that heat pumps in particular are a good thing not a bad one.


----------



## sptrawler

It sounds like really dumb politics to me, a bit like someone putting 6Kw of solar on their roof and then putting in gas hot water, gas cooktop and gas oven.
Just shows Andrews`isn't very smart, which the East West Link $1billion cash throw away hinted at, but this actually proves the point.
He is a goose.


----------



## macca

This is heading down a similar path to the dills who run the water supply in metro NSW.

In the 80's they went around and ordered people to remove water tanks from their houses if they were connected to water and sewer network. Those who did not comply were threatened with fines.

The attitude was "We have plenty of water in the dams and we want to charge you for using it"

Now it is a requirement to have a water tank plumbed into new buildings and we have a huge desalination plant sitting idle and costing the state millions in maintenance every year.


----------



## Smurf1976

Very limited transmission capacity between Vic and SA today. Also minimal wind in SA and not much sun.

End result was almost total reliance on fossil fuel generation within the state and of note is that oil-fired plant (diesel, kero) was heavily utilised with all such plant maxed out at one point (excluding the SA government's "backup" plants which remain off).

So that's Angaston, Lonsdale / Port Stanvac, Port Lincoln and Snuggery power stations all had a pretty decent run today and reached maximum capacity whereas most days they do absolutely nothing at all.

There are conflicting theories as to why some the gas-fired stations weren't running anywhere near capacity. I don't know for sure what the truth is so I won't speculate but the theories / rumours circulating are either:

(1) traders deliberately holding back supply and trying to push the price up.

(2) they couldn't physically get enough gas to run more heavily so no choice.

I don't know for sure so no comment but it sure did push the price up.


----------



## sptrawler

At last a glimmer of hope on the political horizon.

https://thewest.com.au/politics/coal-needed-for-decades-to-come-report-ng-s-1877653

Maybe now Labor and the Greens will see sense, but I wouldn't hold my breath, never will logic's get in the way of fanatics on a mission.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> At last a glimmer of hope on the political horizon.
> 
> https://thewest.com.au/politics/coal-needed-for-decades-to-come-report-ng-s-1877653
> 
> Maybe now Labor and the Greens will see sense, but I wouldn't hold my breath, never will logic's get in the way of fanatics on a mission.




Sure, keep the old boilers running untill alternatives have been put in place, but as most coal stations are now privately owned how is the government going to force the operators to keep them running ?

They are all pretty old now and the maintenance costs must be pretty horrific. Replacing them, with combined cycle gas systems would seem a viable option.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Sure, keep the old boilers running untill alternatives have been put in place, but as most coal stations are now privately owned how is the government going to force the operators to keep them running ?




That will be the next big political football, it is in the private operators interest, to close down steam plant. 
With renewable's, they save on maintenance, labour and fuel costs, and they seem to have disavowed themselves of any responsibility for system security and stability.



SirRumpole said:


> They are all pretty old now and the maintenance costs must be pretty horrific. Replacing them, with combined cycle gas systems would seem a viable option.




I would think it doubtfull, there are adequate gas reserves, to replace the amount of base load in question.


----------



## Logique

Surprising nobody, the Andrews Labor government in Victoria behaves erratically on energy policy.

The Peoples Republic of Victoria.  The Victorian government now dictating how householders may or may not power their own hot water tanks! 

Electricity will be nearly as expensive as in SA, already the most expensive in the world.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I would think it doubtfull, there are adequate gas reserves, to replace the amount of base load in question.




We seem to be exporting gas to the max, surely some of that should be reserved for our requirements.


----------



## explod

We sold huge reserves off WA to China a few years back for 4 cents a litre.

Theses resources in fact belong to our future generations.

System is stuffed, just enjoy the party


----------



## SirRumpole

explod said:


> We sold huge reserves off WA to China a few years back for 4 cents a litre.
> 
> Theses resources in fact belong to our future generations.
> 
> System is stuffed, just enjoy the party




 Do I detect some cynicism there plod ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Replacing them, with combined cycle gas systems would seem a viable option.




Gas would have been a dead easy option if we hadn’t sold it all overseas.

Qld gas is contracted overseas.

SA and Vic are rapidly running out.

WA and NT kept enough for WA and NT but not the rest of the country.

Tas doesn’t have any so far as is known.

Imports work but too expensive for base load power.

Options = get fracking big time in NSW or ar least partially shut the LNG export plants in Qld.

What a mess.....


----------



## Smurf1976

The big problem with coal is that we’ve closed the wrong power stations.

Wallerawang was in decent shape and Redbank (both in NSW) was barely run in but we closed both and are trying to keep Liddell, which has plenty of issues, going a bit longer at huge expense.

Northern in SA was one of the better plants certainly but it was closed. Meanwhile it’s no secret that the comparably sized Torrens Island A (gas) isn’t in good shape.

Anglesea in Vic was old but actually pretty efficient compared to quite a few others, because the coal had a lower difference between HHV and LHV (getting technical there - in layman’s terms it burns with greater efficiency) and had a few more years left in it. Meanwhile we’re trying to get another 14 years out of the already 45 years old and becoming somewhat problematic units 1 & 2 at Yallourn.

So we’ve closed some perfectly good plants that had another 5 - 35 years left in them without any real difficulty but kept others which are in poor enough shape that they can’t even reach rated output safely and that’s when they’re working.

There should have been a plan.....


----------



## SirRumpole

> A gas reservation policy - or national gas reserve - means that a small portion of a nation’s gas is reserved for domestic use at an affordable price.
> 
> With a gas reservation policy, gas exporters would still be permitted to sell Australian gas to foreign nations at the high global price - but on the condition that a percentage of the gas extracted would have to be reserved for sale at an affordable domestic price.
> 
> *With a gas reservation policy, gas companies still generate major profits through exports, but the gas-producing nation retains its competitive energy advantage.*
> 
> Because Australia has such abundant gas reserves, only a relatively small percentage of Australian gas would have to be reserved to keep our gas prices affordable.
> 
> _*Currently, Australia is the only nation in the world allowing gas companies completely unrestricted access to natural gas reserves for export. All other major gas producing nations around the globe have some form of gas reservation policy or equivalent laws to ensure the national interest is served.
> *_



_*

http://www.reserveourgas.com.au/how_would_a_gas_reservation_policy_work*_


----------



## explod

A few years back I followed and played some companies into fracking in the US.   They almost all failed but not before being hailed up from a few cents to 30cents, some to a dollar and then collapsing.  Those on the inside would have made a fortune.

I wonder and fear that similar could be behind some of this.

My first ever investment was in an explorer in Qld called Exoil, 1968.   Was shearing up there at the time.  We got in at 10 cents and at the pub we were told it was not looking good, I sold at 85 cents but did not trust trading for 30 years after that.

And yes I'm a sceptic.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> _*
> http://www.reserveourgas.com.au/how_would_a_gas_reservation_policy_work*_




I think it should be sold at the market rate, what ever that is, and if the price is high it will just cause producers to explore and produce more, while also giving renewables a chance to compete and take market share.

the problem is red tape, not supply.

If we make gas artificially low, it will be at the expense of renewables which could be competing in the market more and more.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> I think it should be sold at the market rate, what ever that is, and if the price is high it will just cause producers to explore and produce more, while also giving renewables a chance to compete and take market share.
> 
> the problem is red tape, not supply.
> 
> If we make gas artificially low, it will be at the expense of renewables which could be competing in the market more and more.




If the price fluctuates with the market then there is no consistent direction for competitors. A good investment for solar today will be cr@p tomorrow.

IMO the domestic price should be some median of prices over the last 10 years or so, it will still fluctuate but those fluctuations will be smoothed to a longer term trend and will give a better investment signal to the rest of the market.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> If the price fluctuates with the market then there is no consistent direction for competitors. A good investment for solar today will be cr@p tomorrow.
> 
> IMO the domestic price should be some median of prices over the last 10 years or so, it will still fluctuate but those fluctuations will be smoothed to a longer term trend and will give a better investment signal to the rest of the market.




Prices don’t have to fluctuate daily , retailers contract with suppliers for contacts that last for years, but pricing of those contracts should be driven by market forces, not regulated pricing.

There is no reason why local retailers shouldn’t compete for contracts with the export market, the local retailers always have an advantage anyway, simply due to location.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> I think it should be sold at the market rate




There are plenty of buyers who'd love that to happen.

Problem is the gas companies won't sell at market rate because they've locked in deals overseas. End result is that even the likes of Rio Tinto, a very large company, has serious trouble getting gas as does pretty much everyone else.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> There is no reason why local retailers shouldn’t compete for contracts with the export market, the local retailers always have an advantage anyway, simply due to location.




The trouble with that argument is that you look at it from a purely commercial point of view, from the IPA bible.

Gas and power are essential services that everyone has a right to access at an affordable price.

If you had a stack of wood in your backyard that you had to heat and cook with would you let someone else  come in and take it, sell it to someone else, give you a pittance in return and let your own family freeze ?


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> There are plenty of buyers who'd love that to happen.
> 
> Problem is the gas companies won't sell at market rate because they've locked in deals overseas. End result is that even the likes of Rio Tinto, a very large company, has serious trouble getting gas as does pretty much everyone else.




The supply issues are a result of red tape and restrictions. 

Get rid of the red tape and let the drillers drill, and there will be more than enough gas.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Gas and power are essential services that everyone has a right to access at an affordable price.




If you switch the word “affordable” to “market” I agree with you.

However when you say “everyone” you probably mean “some people” eg Australian citizens.

When I say “everyone” I truly mean “everyone” eg all citizens of the globe.

I don’t much care whether the gas is boiling potatoes in Bendigo or rice in Tokyo, both families need energy and the best way to supply that energy and guarantee future supply to “everyone” is to allow the price to be affected by supply and demand, and allow the drillers to drill.

The family in bendigo will always have pricing power over Tokyo, simply due to logistics.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> Prices don’t have to fluctuate daily , retailers contract with suppliers for contacts that last for years, but pricing of those contracts should be driven by market forces, not regulated pricing.




I have no problem with that and I don't think anyone would but the gas companies should be forced to offer such contracts which, in recent times, they have been refusing to do.

Truth is the gas companies over invested in the Qld LNG plants and trying to avoid writing off a few $ billion. That's ultimately what it comes down to.

Australia is the only country in the world which exports gas under a free market arrangement. Everyone else imposes various rules which ensure supply is physically available, either at market price or some other price, to local users. Australia's the only one where local users need to physically ship gas from overseas as is proposed for both NSW and Vic.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> I have no problem with that and I don't think anyone would but the gas companies should be forced to offer such contracts which, in recent times, they have been refusing to do.
> 
> Truth is the gas companies over invested in the Qld LNG plants and trying to avoid writing off a few $ billion. That's ultimately what it comes down to.
> 
> Australia is the only country in the world which exports gas under a free market arrangement. Everyone else imposes various rules which ensure supply is physically available, either at market price or some other price, to local users. Australia's the only one where local users need to physically ship gas from overseas as is proposed for both NSW and Vic.




Again, it’s red tape.

They invested in export plants because they believed they would be allowed to keep drilling.

I was invested in he drillers when they were proving up so much gas that they literally had to invest and build gas power stations just to use up the gas, the export terminals were just a way to get rid of all the gas they were drilling, but then the governments stopped the drilling and the flow of gas has slowed.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> The supply issues are a result of red tape and restrictions.
> 
> Get rid of the red tape and let the drillers drill, and there will be more than enough gas.



Pointless drilling more when they'll just send more of the stuff overseas as they're already doing with 70% of what comes out of the ground.

What happens 30 years from now when there's nothing at all left apart from whatever is kept off limits from the drillers who would export if they could?

Anyone who thinks we've got enough gas to last 100 years is in for one hell of a shock. We did until we tripled the rate of extraction.

I'm not generally in favour of red tape but I just can't see how more of the same is the answer. If a 200% increase in production hasn't fixed the supply issue, because they've just siphoned off all that into exports, then how does a further increase do any good when they've already built the capacity to export that as well?


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> When I say “everyone” I truly mean “everyone” eg all citizens of the globe.




Well that's jolly altruistic of you, or if I'm being cynical better suited to your investments,  but my own selfish view is that we use our own resources to benefit our own citizens first, like every other country besides us does.


----------



## Smurf1976

The "market" approach would work a lot better if we were talking about a market that works the same way it works with oil.

It's these decades long locked in contracts that cause the problem with gas. It gives rise to a situation where even paying double the market price won't get you physical supply.

Other countries, including the major oil and gas exporters, have a workaround whereby they deliver a % of the contract volumes which can be and is frequently changed at short notice. So you contract for 1 million tonnes and they'll tell you what % of that will be physically delivered and generally it's not 100%. OPEC members change the figures literally every month (well, OK, sometimes it's the same figure but they set them as such monthly).

So there's a solution that works for others. Gives a market and gives certainty of domestic supply. Just gets rid of the notion that contract volumes are fixed - a notion that really only exists in Australia anyway.


----------



## Country Lad

Smurf1976 said:


> It's these decades long locked in contracts that cause the problem with gas. It gives rise to a situation where even paying double the market price won't get you physical supply.




I was involved in the early days of CSG exploration and extraction including the first commercial horizontal drilling by CH4 for our gas supply (and btw, it was considered there was no need for fracking.

A problem with the big players diving into CSG production was that they had little experience with it,  over estimated the amount that could be extracted over time and underestimated the rate at which it could be extracted.  When the export contracts were signed a few of us reckoned that the required supply volumes could not be achieved.  Hence the fracking to accelerate the extraction rate (doesn't materially increase the amount extracted per well), the now shortage domestically and the need for most of the players to purchase gas overseas to meet their contract commitments.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> Pointless drilling more when they'll just send more of the stuff overseas as they're already doing with 70% of what comes out of the ground.
> 
> What happens 30 years from now when there's nothing at all left apart from whatever is kept off limits from the drillers who would export if they could?
> 
> Anyone who thinks we've got enough gas to last 100 years is in for one hell of a shock. We did until we tripled the rate of extraction.
> 
> I'm not generally in favour of red tape but I just can't see how more of the same is the answer. If a 200% increase in production hasn't fixed the supply issue, because they've just siphoned off all that into exports, then how does a further increase do any good when they've already built the capacity to export that as well?




Exports are limited to the capacity of the LNG plants, 

But, every new well thats proved up, will be contracted to someone, and the more that is proved up, the more there are for local retailers to bid on, and local retailers will always have an advantage do to the added costs of shipping etc the export market has.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> but my own selfish view is that we use our own resources to benefit our own citizens first, like every other country besides us does.




Our citizens will always have a natural cost advantage to export markets.

But the current issue is that the government is restricting the amount of capital that can be invested to increase supply.

The Market would naturally adjust if the government hadn't prevented the investment of capital to increase supply.

You want to regulate lower prices, but the lack of supply and high prices only exists because of government intervening and retarding the amount of capital able to be invested to boost supply.


----------



## Country Lad

Value Collector said:


> Exports are limited to the capacity of the LNG plants,
> 
> But, every new well that's proved up, will be contracted to someone, and the more that is proved up, the more there are for local retailers to bid on, and local retailers will always have an advantage do to the added costs of shipping etc the export market has.




As more wells are developed they will go into the export market to cover the contract shortfalls and there will not be the opportunity for bidding.  The saving grace will only be a reduction in the global gas price so that it becomes more economical to access overseas supplies to meet existing contracts freeing up local gas for domestic market.



Value Collector said:


> The Market would naturally adjust if the government hadn't prevented the investment of capital to increase supply.




The market stuffed it up in the first place by contracting more than could produce in the early stages of the contracts.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Our citizens will always have a natural cost advantage to export markets.




If that was true then there would be no problem with gas supply.

But there is a problem.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> local retailers will always have an advantage do to the added costs of shipping etc the export market has.



So why don't local retailers, or even big mining companies, have such an advantage at the moment?

It has come to the point where it is cheaper for AGL to build an LNG import terminal and import LNG from overseas to supply Vic and SA whilst another company plans to do the same for NSW.

The facility AGL plans to construct will be able to meet over 50% of Vic's maximum (coldest day) gas demand and could supply up to 75% of all gas used in Vic over the course of a year. A similar proposal by another company could supply about 75% of that state's demand.

I'm not ideologically opposed to the concept that Australian gas prices ought to match those internationally but something is very, very wrong when it stacks up financially to import large volumes of gas into Vic and NSW so that gas flows from Moomba (SA) to Sydney and Adelaide can be reduced or reversed, with that gas redirected into Qld so as to produce LNG. That's nothing short of outright madness and shows very clearly that Australian gas prices are above the level available internationally.

I'm not opposed to the concept of a market so long as it works but at the moment it's not working at all well. Looking at it internationally, the price in Australia's east coast markets (Qld, NSW, Vic, ACT, Tas and SA) is about 2.4 times that of the USA (which exports gas) and is slightly higher than the UK and EU countries (which import gas).

So we have the situation where not only has the transport advantage theoretically available to Australian consumers disappeared it has actually reversed. Places which _import_ LNG have lower prices in their domestic market than we do and yet we're exporting the stuff.

The problem I see with this is that it's effectively a tax on just about all businesses and all consumers across most of the country since there aren't many who use literally no mains electricity (the price of which is heavily influenced by gas) and/or gas at all.


----------



## sptrawler

Here is a nice chart showing the rise in electricity prices/time

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-18/electricity-price-rises-chart-of-the-day/9985300


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Here is a nice chart showing the rise in electricity prices/time
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-18/electricity-price-rises-chart-of-the-day/9985300




Frightening.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> If that was true then there would be no problem with gas supply.
> 
> But there is a problem.




As I said the problem with gas supply is the red tape that restrictions the driller face.

The gas export deals were signed before all the restrictions were put in place, they sold the gas because they thought they were going to be able to keep drilling and open up new areas, however that has been stopped, But Offcourse the contracts still need to be filled, so there is an artificial shortage of gas available for NEW contracts.

NSW, could be producing alot of its own gas if it weren't for the restrictions, There is even companies wanting to search for gas offshore on the central coast and Newcastle, but the nimbys are trying to squash it.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> As I said the problem with gas supply is the red tape that restrictions the driller face.
> 
> The gas export deals were signed before all the restrictions were put in place, they sold the gas because they thought they were going to be able to keep drilling and open up new areas, however that has been stopped, But Offcourse the contracts still need to be filled, so there is an artificial shortage of gas available for NEW contracts.
> 
> NSW, could be producing alot of its own gas if it weren't for the restrictions, There is even companies wanting to search for gas offshore on the central coast and Newcastle, but the nimbys are trying to squash it.




I assume the red tape is in opposition to fracking which has been shown to be an environmental risk. 

Too bad if companies have signed overseas contracts based on blue sky projections, governments have the right to take some of that for local use, it's the way democracies work.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> So why don't local retailers, or even big mining companies, have such an advantage at the moment?
> 
> .




Because of the artificial supply restrictions due to red tape.

If the international price of gas is say $6 Australian Producer has 2 options,

1, Sell it overseas for $6 but have to pay an extra $1 in transport (real revenue of $5)

2, Sell it in Australia for $5.10 ($0.90 cheaper than international price but, but higher profit to producer)

So when New contracts are up for bids, Australian consumers will always have an edge.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> I assume the red tape is in opposition to fracking which has been shown to be an environmental risk.
> .




The restrictions of fracking are based more on public opinion, than facts.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> The restrictions of fracking are based more on public opinion, than facts.




If fracking is allowed it should be by government agencies not private companies that will just shut up shop and move elsewhere if they stuff things up.


----------



## Smurf1976

I think most on this forum would have a good understanding that a naked short position with no means of exit is a very high risk strategy.

That's what the gas companies did, spending $ billions to sell gas that hasn't even been proven to exist, and they need to accept that they took a very high risk approach that hasn't worked out.

There's also the reality that anyone should have been able to see that one way or another gas would have to go into the domestic market. Contract or no contract anyone should have been able to see that gas consumption wasn't about to suddenly stop and would have to come from somewhere.

As for environmental rules, well I think it's pretty well established as a concept that you generally can only access somewhere around 50% of a resource. The other half is off limits due to either technical, economic of environmental factors. Maybe in a specific case it will be 60% or 40% but the broad concept that it's around half has played out so many times around the world with resource development that anyone in that industry ought to be aware of it.

In the case of gas, they may not have known the detail of what was off limits but they should reasonably have assumed that there would be areas with gas under them that would be declared off limits for environmental reasons. Plus there would be some that is technically too hard. Plus there would be some that is simply uneconomic. Plus anything with a city or town on top of it won't likely go ahead either. 

You can't just look at a map of the gas basins showing how much is theoretically there and assume all of that is available. That's the sort of resource economics done at a high school level and it's not bad in that context but one would hope those investing $ billions realise it's more complicated in practice and the available reserve base is always lower than what's in the ground.

Even with renewable resources the same principles apply. You can never use all of it, there's always some reason why you can't.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> The restrictions of fracking are based more on public opinion, than facts.



Agreed there.

A few dodgy operators overseas have given it a bad name but there are numerous very successful applications of it as well over many years.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> The restrictions of fracking are based more on public opinion, than facts.




The NT has just lifted a ban on fracking, so maybe some more will come out of there, if it does there should be a domestic reserve policy for it.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> The NT has just lifted a ban on fracking, so maybe some more will come out of there, if it does there should be a domestic reserve policy for it.




There is so much gas available in the NT, the Northern pipeline that is currently under construction will help bring gas from the NT into the east coast grid and offshore NT, is a huge gas resource that has be largely undeveloped,

But, even a pipeline across the desert gets the nimbys upset as soon as. the word "fracking" is used, its the new "Nuclear"


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> But, even a pipeline across the desert gets the nimbys upset as soon as. the word "fracking" is used, its the new "Nuclear"




Once "traditional" landholders get their hooks in, you know there will be trouble.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> the word "fracking" is used, its the new "Nuclear"



Much as I have some disagreement with the way gas companies go about things (I'll post some more reasons) I do strongly agree that they whole anti-fracking thing has been massively overdone.

Yes it can be done badly but so can anything from running an orchard to building a high rise. Anything can be done badly but that's not a reason to not let anyone do it.

I'm in favour of oil and gas exploration certainly. How we put to good use what's found is where my concerns lie.

57% of world energy supply is from oil and gas and in Australia it is 62%. In specific regions or in some industries, for example transport or agriculture, dependency on these resources is far higher and in many cases 100% or very close to it.

Energy is the enabler if everything else. If you don't have energy then for practical purposes you don't have an economy. Nor do you have food or a military. The whole damn lot depends on energy otherwise it's useless. Even the water supply depends on it these days.

On the supply side the big problem is that reserves are heavily concentrated in a small number of countries, many of which have tended to have strained (at best) relations with the West over an extended period. Given the critical reliance on ongoing supply of oil and gas this gives rise to a major political, economic and military risk.

Russia, Iran and Qatar between them have 52% of the world's known gas. Add in Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, UAE, Venezuela, Nigeria, Algeria and Iraq and that's almost 72%.

Oil is a similarly concentrated resource as is well known.

Now get yourself a meeting with any of the gas company CEO's and start a conversation about national security and strategic interests. Almost certainly you'll get a response along the lines of "that's a matter for government, we're just a gas company".

Hence why it is entirely reasonable and necessary for government to regulate the extraction of oil and gas noting that there is no gas exporting country other than Australia which does not do so. Not one. Left to market forces the outcome will be the most rapid possible rate of extraction and a situation not too long into the future where there's not much left with all the problems that brings.

Much of this comes down to timeframes. 10 years is short term when it comes to this sort of thing but speak to those on the financial side and they're not joking when they say they consider 10 years to be "long term". In finance it might be but when it comes to energy and resources it's short term indeed and that's where the conflicting objectives originate.

Overall I'm in favour of exploration for oil and gas and there's nothing wrong with exporting the surplus but it seems entirely reasonable to me that domestic demand be met first. Australia is, after all, the only gas exporter in the world to have gone down a "free market" approach. There's a reason why the rest haven't.

In all this it must be remembered that Australia's oil production is down more than 50% over the past 15 years due to depletion. Oil and gas are finite resources which do indeed run out, they're not some sort of magic pudding like a farm is. For those who think it's limitless - I remind you that the greater than 50% decline is actual fact not a forecast and whilst that relates to oil it's inevitable that gas will be in the same position eventually. Ensuring long term supply, not turning reserves into cash as fast as possible, is the rational objective of government but that does conflict with the likely objective of most gas producers.


----------



## SirRumpole

The politics of power.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-19/how-fear-fuelled-diy-power-boom/10009872


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> The politics of power.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-19/how-fear-fuelled-diy-power-boom/10009872




It probably won't be too far into the future, that is is legislated that all new houses, have to be built with solar panels fitted.
Seems like the obvious way, to ensure the transition isn't stalled and that the required amount of overcapacity is reached.
Then the base load stations can be phased out, as synchronous renewable generation, becomes feasible.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> It probably won't be too far into the future, that is is legislated that all new houses, have to be built with solar panels fitted.
> Seems like the obvious way, to ensure the transition isn't stalled and that the required amount of overcapacity is reached.
> Then the base load stations can be phased out, as synchronous renewable generation, becomes feasible.




I'm not sure that they could legislate that without appropriate housing estate planning to ensure that all houses have a northerly aspect and so can take advantage of panels.

But if Andrews in Vic can legislate a gas requirement I don't see why it can't be done.

What you do with over capacity is an issue. Why not feed it into water heaters and then into batteries.

Legislation is not a free market policy though is it ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> What you do with over capacity is an issue. Why not feed it into water heaters and then into batteries.




Why not use it for your pumped hydro, charging batteries, making H2?


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Why not use it for your pumped hydro, charging batteries, making H2?




Of course, the "market" should be building more storage like Snowy Hydro 2.0. I doubt if you would get companies interested in such infrastructure so it would likely be governments shouldering the burden.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Of course, the "market" should be building more storage like Snowy Hydro 2.0. I doubt if you would get companies interested in such infrastructure so it would likely be governments shouldering the burden.




Yes, but if you require massive overcapacity, to have the surplus generation required to pump your reserve hydro water up to storage. 
The only way you will get that installed renewable capacity fast, will be to legislate to have it installed when the property is built, as insulation is at the moment.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Yes, but if you require massive overcapacity, to have the surplus generation required to pump your reserve hydro water up to storage.
> The only way you will get that installed renewable capacity fast, will be to legislate to have it installed when the property is built, as insulation is at the moment.




Are you implying "domestic" hydro storage per house ?

The amount of water you would need to store to provide an average house with overnight power would be so large it would be economically unfeasible.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> The amount of water you would need to store to provide an average house with overnight power would be so large it would be economically unfeasible.




That's why you need multiple storage mediums, not just pumped hydro.
Therefore if we want to have any chance of replacing fossil fuel, we will need a enormous amount of renewable energy and enough storage to carry the system through a period of low generation output.
The capacity required of both generation and storage, is enormous, I don't think the general public has any idea of the enormity of the problem.

By the way, why are you talking the average house? I'm talking system capacity, not individual domestic needs.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> By the way, why are you talking the average house? I'm talking system capacity, not individual domestic needs.




You said

"The only way you will get that installed renewable capacity fast, will be to legislate to have it installed *when the property is built*, as insulation is at the moment."

So I assumed you were talking individual properties.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> You said
> 
> "The only way you will get that installed renewable capacity fast, will be to legislate to have it installed *when the property is built*, as insulation is at the moment."
> 
> So I assumed you were talking individual properties.




The amount of renewable's Australia will need, to become non reliant on fossil fuel, is mind boggling.
If every house in Australia was fitted with solar panels, the sum total feed in, would go some way to providing a large proportion of what is required.
It would be just about impossible to make people retro fit solar, but it could be made a requirement for future builds, also Government social housing could be retro fitted.
It will not supply enough, but it will help reduce the requirement for private sector investment, to build major solar/wind/tidal etc installations.
Like I said the amount required to be installed is unbelievable.
Someone needs to put it into context, so people can really understand the magnitude of the problem.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The amount of renewable's Australia will need, to become non reliant on fossil fuel, is mind boggling.
> If every house in Australia was fitted with solar panels, the sum total feed in, would go some way to providing a large proportion of what is required.
> It would be just about impossible to make people retro fit solar, but it could be made a requirement for future builds, also Government social housing could be retro fitted.
> It will not supply enough, but it will help reduce the requirement for private sector investment, to build major solar/wind/tidal etc installations.
> Like I said the amount required to be installed is unbelievable.
> Someone needs to put it into context, so people can really understand the magnitude of the problem.




Why not business and industry as well be required to install solar? 

We also have to consider what the power requirements would be if electric vehicles become more common.

But lets face it, the amount of non useful acreage that we have in this country would more than supply our needs, considering that already there is a power surplus in Qld on hot sunny days from residential solar.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Why not business and industry as well be required to install solar?



As you know, it is difficult to get business to install anything, they don't get a commercial return on.
The general public isn't as fortunate, all the Government has to do is make it a rule and everyone has to comply. A bit like the house insulation thermal rating standard, we didn't ask for it, but it is now in the housing standards and factored into the build cost.



SirRumpole said:


> We also have to consider what the power requirements would be if electric vehicles become more common.



They may actually be beneficial to the grid, as I'm sure the charge points will have to be designed, to use the batteries in a system disturbance. 



SirRumpole said:


> But lets face it, the amount of non useful acreage that we have in this country would more than supply our needs, considering that already there is a power surplus in Qld on hot sunny days from residential solar.




The problem with that is, someone has to stump up the money to buy the land and install/maintain the equipment, for that to happen there has to be a commercial benefit or the Government has to build/maintain it.


----------



## basilio

*The  economic reality of renewable energy in 2018*

*This is how coal dies — super cheap renewables plus battery storage*
*New Colorado wind farms with batteries are now cheaper than running old coal plants*
Joe Romm Jan 10, 2018, 12:35 pm


SHARE
Credit: Martin Barraud via Getty Images
Solar, wind, and battery prices are dropping so fast that, in Colorado, building new renewable power plus battery storage is now cheaper than running old coal plants. This increasingly renders existing coal plants obsolete.

Two weeks ago, Xcel Energy quietly reported dozens of shockingly low bids it had received for building new solar and wind farms, many with battery storage (see table below).

The median bid price in 2017 for wind plus battery storage was $21 per megawatt-hour, which is 2.1 cents per kilowatt-hour. As Carbon Tracker noted, this “appears to be lower than the operating cost of all coal plants currently in Colorado.”

The median bid price for solar plus battery storage was $36/MWh (3.6 cents/kwh), which may be lower than about three-fourths of operating coal capacity.  For context, the average U.S. residential price for electricity is 12 cents/kWh.

https://thinkprogress.org/colorado-wind-batteries-cheap-12e82b91a543/


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> But lets face it, the amount of non useful acreage that we have in this country would more than supply our needs, .




Just the shear acreage of roof top space in vast.


----------



## Tisme

What happens when all those lithium cells start to give up? Will they be like car tyres where even the council won't take them?


----------



## Smurf1976

It's not causing any immediate threat to supply but Loy Yang power stations in Vic look to be having significant difficulties.

This evening production between the A & B stations has been cut about 50%, with one unit at A station taken offline altogether.

An assumption on my part is that they're having trouble with mining the coal and/or getting it to the power stations. That's the most obvious common element.

Present supply in Vic:

Loy Yang A & B (coal): 32.5%

Yallourn (coal): 30.3%

Wind (various wind farms): 23.4%

Tasmania: 9.7%

NSW: 3.7%

Murray (Snowy Hydro): 1.8%

Somerton (gas): 1.6%

Others: 1.0%

Export to SA: 4.4% of Vic demand (13.5% of SA demand supplied from Vic)

There's no immediate problem, there's plenty to spare at the moment including some of the above (eg Murray and Somerton are both operating well below capacity and the other Vic hydro and gas stations are sitting around doing nothing at the moment) so just posted for interest really showing a real time response to problems.

That it just happens to be very windy makes it easier of course. Note that figures don't add to 100% due to rounding.


----------



## Ferret

Smurf, there's a high probability that Sydney's mothballed desalination plant will be fired up soon.  
Any idea how significant its power demands will be on the NSW grid?


----------



## PZ99

FWIW > The desal plants' power consumption was to be offset by the windfarm in Goulburn.

Strictly speaking it should be less than zero (net) but that's open to interpretations 

But... 250GwH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Desalination_Plant


----------



## basilio

One of the interesting observations that has come from discussions on the " Is Global warming becoming unstoppable " thread is the question of how robust our energy generation and air conditioning systems will be as temperatures steadily increase.

We probably feel  a bit protected from CC because we think that we can always move into an A/C environment if things get too hot and sticky. But accepting Smurfs analysis we are probably fooling ourselves.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> We probably feel  a bit protected from CC because we think that we can always move into an A/C environment if things get too hot and sticky. But accepting Smurfs analysis we are probably fooling ourselves.




From memory, all A/C's sold in Australia for quite some time, had to be fitted with remote switching ability. So Power System can switch them off, if required.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> From memory, all A/C's sold in Australia for quite some time, had to be fitted with remote switching ability. So Power System can switch them off, if required.




That is not quite what I was referring to SP. Smurf was saying that as temperatures increase there is real risk of A/C systems breaking down - along with power generators. Not something to look forward to during an a 45C  heatwave ..


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> From memory, all A/C's sold in Australia for quite some time, had to be fitted with remote switching ability. So Power System can switch them off, if required.




Not in QLD at least. Max demand calcs are carried out by the supply authority and pad mounts or pole mounts installed accordingly. Anything over 5kWR must have soft starters to meet supply authority rules. MEPS also dictates COPs and QLD has a more stringent COP requirement than other states (or it did) which means suppliers can't legally sell the Thailand low grade knockoffs. In the process of legislating better efficiencies, Australian mass production of ACs has ceased.

With the new gases and VRF the 55degC condensing temps have uprated so they can run at fairly extreme temps compared to the old R22 days, even swapping out R22 for 407c results in net gains on old compressors.  With split ducteds in remote places like inland pilbra with ambient design temps of 46Cdb the condensing units are sized for a reduced temperature split but maintained condensing temps so they run quite happily in comparative extremes.


----------



## Smurf1976

I’ll post some more about the other stuff mentioned here in due course but for now, well it seems that Loy Yang are having trouble with coal again.

They were down to 3 - 4 hours worth in the bunkers the other night, then got it all going again, but seem to be having more trouble since yesterday afternoon.

No immediate problems due to that, generation is just transferred to hydro and gas in practice, but it’s never good to have major stuff not working well. Apart from the cost and using up water it just leaves the whole system more vulnerable should anything else fail.


----------



## SirRumpole

Here's one for sptrawler. Hydrogen technology breakthrough by CSIRO.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-...-csiro-game-changer-export-potential/10082514


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Here's one for sptrawler. Hydrogen technology breakthrough by CSIRO.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-...-csiro-game-changer-export-potential/10082514




I should have read this post, before making mine in the electric car thread, my appologies Rumpy.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I should have read this post, before making mine in the electric car thread, my appologies Rumpy.




No problem, it was a toss up which thread I was going to post it in.


----------



## Smurf1976

Liddell power station has attracted much attention in recent times.

Just thought I'd mention that unit 3 hasn't been running for a while and unit 4 failed suddenly whilst at full load last night.

That leaves unit 1 running at 300 MW max and unit 2 is running at 420 MW max.

All were originally rated at 500 MW but are presently rated at 420 MW due to condition etc.

There's supply from other sources without problems at the moment so no panic but it would be fair to say that Liddell isn't going too well. 1 out of 4 units fully operational, 1 out of 4 running with issues, 2 out of 4 not running at all.


----------



## Wysiwyg

Interesting recent video on the battery technologies at present.


----------



## Tisme

It's been almost 60 year since Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit all by his lonesome and we are still just efficiency tweeking old tech instead of breakout innovation.


----------



## Smurf1976

A lot of technical issues with coal-fired plant in NSW at the moment. Of the 16 major coal-fired generating units:

7 are fully operational

4 are running with reduced capability due to problems

5 are out of service completely

For the total fleet that's 63% of design capacity actually available to run. Of the other 37% there's some planned maintenance in there but there's also some that's simply broken or in a rather sad state.

As of right now, supply into NSW:

Coal = 56%
From Victoria* = 13%
From Queensland = 10%
Hydro = 10%
Gas = 9%
Wind = 2%
Oil = 0.2%

*Noting that both Tas and SA are feeding into Vic at present.

All OK at the moment but one of these days luck's going to run out with all this increasingly old equipment parts of Australia are relying on.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> A lot of technical issues with coal-fired plant in NSW at the moment. Of the 16 major coal-fired generating units:
> 
> 7 are fully operational
> 
> 4 are running with reduced capability due to problems
> 
> 5 are out of service completely
> 
> For the total fleet that's 63% of design capacity actually available to run. Of the other 37% there's some planned maintenance in there but there's also some that's simply broken or in a rather sad state.
> 
> As of right now, supply into NSW:
> 
> Coal = 56%
> From Victoria* = 13%
> From Queensland = 10%
> Hydro = 10%
> Gas = 9%
> Wind = 2%
> Oil = 0.2%
> 
> *Noting that both Tas and SA are feeding into Vic at present.
> 
> All OK at the moment but one of these days luck's going to run out with all this increasingly old equipment Australia is relying on.




Meanwhile the games continue, regarding the future and system reliability.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-24/no-resolution-on-energy-after-coag-meeting/9189104


----------



## explod

"Last week, Massachusetts utilities disclosed in filings the prices they will pay for electricity from the Vineyard Wind project, an offshore wind farm that will be largest in the country.

*The initial number is so low that a nation of energy experts did a spit-take.

The price is $74 per megawatt-hour in the first year and then increases 2.5 percent each subsequent year of the 20-year deal.*

_“I don’t know anyone who was expecting prices to be this low,” said Michael O’Boyle, electricity policy manager for Energy Innovation, a think tank. “I was extremely excited.”_

For some perspective, let’s look at a report issued this March by Moody’s Investors Service about the promise of offshore wind in the Northeast. It said prices could fall to $80 per megawatt-hour in “the longer term,” citing several forecasts.

As the report noted, the country’s only operating offshore wind farm, Block Island in Rhode Island, was selling power for $244 per megawatt-hour. Meanwhile, two projects being built in Maryland had contracts to sell power for $132.

At $74, Vineyard Wind is competitive with other forms of renewable energy in a region where solar and wind can be difficult to build because of high population density and challenges in getting approval for power lines.

*Massachusetts officials say Vineyard’s prices are projected to save consumers up to 1.5 percent on their bills, compared to energy sources that otherwise would be used.

Keep in mind that almost nobody was expecting offshore wind to be even close to cost competitive at this point. The idea of consumers saving money is remarkable.*

Some caveats: Massachusetts has substantial wind resources and so the Vineyard project, with 800 megawatts, has economies of scale that will not exist for other projects. I would not be surprised if new projects off of New York, New Jersey and other states come in at higher prices. Also, the competitive bidding process being used in Massachusetts likely contributed to lower prices than if the state had used some other method to select projects.

Vineyard Wind is being developed by Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. It is a history-making project in many ways, as I noted when writing about it a few months ago.

And, it shows some of the benefits that Massachusetts will reap by setting ambitious targets for offshore wind, O’Boyle said. Indeed, the Vineyard Wind project was proposed as part of a larger effort to develop 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind, a target that will double under legislation I wrote about last week."


*Clean Economy Weekly <newsletters@insideclimatenews.org>*


----------



## SirRumpole

Sorry to bring politics into this thread, but if we are going to have a power guarantee system which aims to reduce prices, then why isn't there a price guarantee built into the system, instead of just modelling that estimates what might happen to prices ?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> why isn't there a price guarantee built into the system, instead of just modelling that estimates what might happen to prices ?




The are to many variables that factor into price that can't be fixed, you can aim to reduce costs where it is possible, but things such as inflation and interest rates affect prices and can't really be predicted accurately.

for example the regulators put limits on what the companies can earn, and they use the prevailing interest rates as a guide to what is the fair compensation for the risk the company is taking.

They may say X company is allowed to charge a price that will ensure a return on the capital invested is 3% higher than a government 5 year bond etc, considering they could invest risk free in the government bond they will earn 3% more for the extra risk and effort to put that money into infrastructure.

But as the Bond interest rate goes up, so will the amount the have to charge to earn the regulated return.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> The are to many variables that factor into price that can't be fixed, you can aim to reduce costs where it is possible, but things such as inflation and interest rates affect prices and can't really be predicted accurately.




You could just use the average OECD price, that would smooth out all the cost factors.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> You could just use the average OECD price, that would smooth out all the cost factors.




I don't think that would work, it wouldn't actually be smoothing out any of the costs, it would just be picking an arbitrary number to charge.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> I don't think that would work, it wouldn't actually be smoothing out any of the costs, it would just be picking an arbitrary number to charge.




It's not arbitrary, it's realistic based on the cost that other countries can deliver power for .


----------



## Smurf1976

To be fair to all players in the industry, the basic structure imposed by government precludes any of them operating as efficiently as they otherwise could.

So if you go to SA, as the smallest mainland state in electrical terms, then you'll find that there isn't a single retailer able to come anywhere near matching prices in Darwin or Hobart and for the record that includes Momentum (Hydro Tas) who as with the rest simply can't do it without going broke. The reasons come down to industry structure and the fundamental cost base not profits or how much the staff are being paid.

There are huge structural inefficiencies embedded at every level. Retail is one, it ends up costing $ hundreds per year for something that should be straightforward, and it's no better at the technical level.

As someone in regional Victoria just pointed out to me, they've just realised that a proposed new transmission line crosses another line and the end result is one carries power one way and the other carries it the other way. Should that not be confusing enough, the line is being built by governments as part of an associated wind farm development. Not the Victorian state government of course, they flogged off the SEC years ago, but a joint venture of the Chinese government and the Tasmanian state government via corporations owned by them (Shenhua and Hydro Tasmania respectively). Why? Well it's an investment opportunity and business is business - and it probably beats sitting in the dark from the perspective of Victorians since they're not exactly having to fight anyone else wanting to build it that's for sure. It's hard to see it as a logical process though because it isn't and nobody would sensibly pretend it was.

So it's all a big mess really and whilst profits are being made they're not the primary cause of such. Embedded inefficiency is costing far more than that.

My real concern though is engineering more than it is price. Using NSW as the example, there's 17 large generating units intended for base load operation, 16 coal and 1 gas, and of those 6 are out of service at the present time and another one has issues restricting its output. Some of that is planned maintenance yes but not all of it is that's for sure. And of course not too long ago there were 6 more of them which have since closed either totally (5) or partially closed and converted to peaking operation (1) and needless to say those who like explosives have been busily blowing them up just to be sure.

That's not good and one of these days Australians will rue the day economics took precedence over engineering. At some point it's not going to be price but actually keeping the lights on that matters indeed if it wasn't for mild weather things would be really "interesting" at the moment in NSW.

More engineering and less politicians and economic types with their ideologies that invariably fail is what's needed.

On the positive side, well those of us who have seen this whole process right from the start were effectively given a fantastic insight into a way of thinking we otherwise wouldn't have been aware of. Reverse engineer the process, apply the same logic to investing, and take the profits. So far, so good at a purely personal level.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> You could just use the average OECD price, that would smooth out all the cost factors.



For reference Australia was third cheapest in the OECD before all the "reforms" came along to make things more efficient.

Being third was a pretty good achievement when you consider the low population density and lower share of cheap hydro generation when compared to other countries.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Being third was a pretty good achievement when you consider the low population density and lower share of cheap hydro generation when compared to other countries.




So we should be able to do even better now, considering our current population and natural resources.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> So we should be able to do even better now, considering our current population and natural resources.




I don't think our population density, on a national per unit area has changed much, we still hang around the cities on the South coast.
Also I don't think the natural resources have increased our ability to produce hydro, we haven't made many more mountains, but the resources boom are taking a few down. lol


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Also I don't think the natural resources have increased our ability to produce hydro, we haven't made many more mountains, but the resources boom are taking a few down. lol




Yes, but 50 years ago there wasn't the technology for solar and wind power.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, but 50 years ago there wasn't the technology for solar and wind power.




Yes but the problem of lightly loaded lines, feeding low population densities, spread over a massive land area isn't changing.
Also I don't think the reforms, in question, were 50 years ago.


----------



## Humid

As of the 1 September 2018 a paper bill fee of $1.27 will take effect for customers who choose to receive bills by post.
To the endless queues at Australia Post paying bills here’s another one for yah* when paying your power bill*


----------



## Tisme




----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


>





Joh Bjelke Petersen was touting a water powered car back in the 80's. 

Nothing came of it obviously.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/125650175


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> It's not arbitrary, it's realistic based on the cost that other countries can deliver power for .




Which makes it kinda arbitrary, because most of the variables are different from country to country.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Which makes it kinda arbitrary, because most of the variables are different from country to country.




Of course they are, that's why averaging smoothes them out as I said before.

If we could be third cheapest as Smurf said, it doesn't seem far fetched that we could be only average.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Of course they are, that's why averaging smoothes them out as I said before.
> 
> If we could be third cheapest as Smurf said, it doesn't seem far fetched that we could be only average.




Averaging just puts you in the middle of the pile, So you are pretty much guaranteed to be either or charging to much or undercharging, and neither option is good longterm. 

Its the job of regulators to set pricing, they will weigh all the costs involved and the capital expended to make the prices as low as possible while still living the the investors with enough return to get them to continue investing.

Saying you want to just set prices based on averages, is not going to be accurate.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Sorry to bring politics into this thread, but if we are going to have a power guarantee system which aims to reduce prices, then why isn't there a price guarantee built into the system, instead of just modelling that estimates what might happen to prices ?




Here you go Rumpy, you will have to find something else, to be upset with the Libs about. 

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/...the-agenda-in-energy-fix-20180815-p4zxp8.html


----------



## Value Collector

This is a pretty could video,


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Here you go Rumpy, you will have to find something else, to be upset with the Libs about.
> 
> https://www.theage.com.au/politics/...the-agenda-in-energy-fix-20180815-p4zxp8.html




If Turnbull wants to price fix electricity, good on him. I won't vote for him but I'll support his dying gasp.


----------



## SirRumpole

Interesting report from California, remarkably similar to what we have been discussing here.

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting report from California, remarkably similar to what we have been discussing here



It all comes down to electricity being instantaneous.

If it was like wheat and could be simply kept in a silo then 99% of the issues would go away just like that. It's needing to match production and consumption precisely and do so in real time that makes it all difficult.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> It all comes down to electricity being instantaneous.
> 
> If it was like wheat and could be simply kept in a silo then 99% of the issues would go away just like that. It's needing to match production and consumption precisely and do so in real time that makes it all difficult.




It just surprises me that the Yanks, great engineers that they are did not forsee or plan for these problems.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting report from California, remarkably similar to what we have been discussing here.
> 
> http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/




"Well, actually better than free. California produced so much solar power on those days that it paid Arizona to take excess electricity its residents weren’t using to avoid overloading its own power lines."

say wot?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> It just surprises me that the Yanks, great engineers that they are did not forsee or plan for these problems.



That tends to happen when politics and ideology gets in the way.

I've lost count of the number of times, including at least once on this very forum, I've been shot down for saying we need storage and in practice that means large scale pumped hydro.

Now that we're on the edge of a crisis it's flavour of the month just about everywhere.

It's just human nature I think. People won't accept things until the evidence is truly overwhelming and then it's too late to not have a crisis.

Asbestos, smoking, climate change - all the same pattern really and energy supply is another one.

Those really paying attention to all this stuff will of course have noted the real elephant in the room:

Global oil supply capacity is increasingly stretched with limited spare capacity
Oil is priced in US Dollars 
The Australian Dollar looks to be trending down
Australian LNG is to considerable extent priced with reference to the oil price
LNG sets the value of Australian domestic gas prices
Australian gas prices to considerable extent set the value of electricity
So the rather nasty feedback loop there is that if someone starts a war in the Middle East, or even if it's just something like Iran or Saudi saying stuff it and stopping their own exports, then not only does the price of petrol go up in Australia but so does gas and electricity. 

That's one of the reasons why you won't find anyone willing to give any guarantees about pricing. They can't guarantee their own input costs so they'd be taking a massive risk if they guaranteed retail prices. 

Now if we go back a few decades then if there was one theme that was consistent across all the state utilities it was their efforts to not be reliant upon imported resources and preferably to use resources obtained within the same state. The inherent dangers of being exposed to imports actually being the very reason the SECV and ETSA were set up in the first place.

So we've forgotten the lessons of history and now get to learn them again.


----------



## Tisme

50 years of oil reserves left at current rates. Coal and uranium will be king, but will we sell it at a premium or just go for peppercorn royalties?


----------



## Smurf1976

In regards to various threads in various places on this forum and the whole current national political debate about energy, the bit being seriously overlooked is supply reliability.

As with anything, power stations and network infrastructure don't have a precise lifespan but they do wear out. If you want magic number then most thermal (fuel burning) power stations don't get much past 50 years old although anytime from around 40 years onwards they can and have ended up being either impractical or uneconomic to continue operating.

In that context here are the significant thermal plants commissioned prior to 1980 and still in operation:

*Plant name, state, capacity, fuel, year first unit commissioned*

Torrens Island A, SA, 480 MW, gas, 1967 (Closure of 2 units announced for 2019, 1 more in 2020, final unit closing 2021)

Liddell, NSW, 2000 MW derated to 1680 MW, coal, 1971 (Closure announced for 2022)

Dry Creek, SA, 156 MW derated to 143 MW, gas, 1973

Yallourn W units 1 & 2, Vic, 760 MW, coal, 1973

Mackay, Qld, 34 MW, oil, 1975

Gladstone, Qld, 1680 MW, coal, 1976

Torrens Island B, SA, 800 MW, gas, 1977 

Snuggery, SA, 75 MW derated to 63 MW, oil, 1978

Vales Point B, NSW, 1320 MW, coal, 1979

Jeeralang A, Vic, 224 MW, gas, 1979

I'm not suggesting all this will fall in a heap tomorrow but as plant ages a few things happen. One is more minor faults crop up and it becomes less reliable. Another is the probability of a major failure occurring increases and related to that another is that it becomes less economically worthwhile to fix a major failure if it does happen.

It's like owning a 20 year old car. Fine whilst it's running and needs routine maintenance but even a minor crash will see it written off so far as insurance is concerned and you wouldn't spend $ putting a new engine in when the rest of it's getting pretty old and tired anyway. So you might plan to keep it for another 5 years and then find that it all ends real quick one afternoon a year from now when the engine makes some bad noises. Etc.

So in short yes, there most certainly is a need for investment in power generation in Australia. The technology and costs are one thing but from a purely technical perspective if the supply can't meet load then load shedding (aka "rolling blackouts") or outright rationing become the only options available.

Try to ignore it and actually overload the system and that ends seriously badly with everyone in the dark. That's not in the category of being like, say, eating unhealthy food that will do you harm eventually. Overload the electricity system, load exceeding generating capability, and it's coming down in a matter of seconds if some load isn't taken off one way or another. So there's no "ignore it" option if the crunch does come.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> So in short yes, there most certainly is a need for investment in power generation in Australia. The technology and costs are one thing but from a purely technical perspective if the supply can't meet load then load shedding (aka "rolling blackouts") or outright rationing become the only options available.




What would you be building Smurf ?


----------



## sptrawler

From memory, it takes about five years to build coal fired plant, correct me if I'm wrong smurph.

So even if they decided to build a coal fired station, it would be at least 2023-2024, before any of it was running. Gas plant is much faster to build, but the Eastern States seems to be short on fuel.
So whatever way they go, they will have to get moving on something, especially if Liddell shuts down.
No one seems to be placing any urgency on the issue though, so maybe the politicians know something we don't.


----------



## TLS

I must admit that I haven't read the whole thread.

But, with the ever increasing amount of residential and commercial properties reducing their requirement for utilising distributed power via installing solar panels and in some cases battery storage. I'm left a bit confused. Battery storage to me is still too expensive but when technology eventually drives prices down it would surely become the new norm. Ie. Slowly making those power generators less relevant. However, unfortunately I don't think the distributors and whole-sellers can really be avoided.

I realise a lot are benefiting from the ever reducing feed in tariffs etc but that to me is a short term bonus that expires in 2028.

Yes a power station or even solar panels both have a life span but at the moment it seems more economical to generate your own subsidised power even though you are still paying a hefty loss for their rights to re-distribute and re-sell it.

Mmm ... I'm really at a loss on this subject ... current power prices are ridiculous for the resources our country holds  .... comments are welcome.

Call, me cynical but what concerns me more is where will the government eventually get their slice of the action. 

 - You install rain water tanks. next thing they'll require a meter to tax you.
 - You install solar panels. next thing they'll require a meter to tax you.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> What would you be building Smurf ?



If it were all up to me then what I'd have done / do is:

Continue operation of the now closed and demolished Northern power station (SA, coal, 546 MW) to approximately 2035 running on an intermittent (seasonal) basis.

Continued operation of the now closed and being demolished Anglesea power station (Vic, coal, 160 MW) in the short term only.

Continued operation of the now closed and being demolished Wallerawang power station (NSW, coal, 1000 MW) until the late 2020's.

Continued operation of the mothballed Redbank power station (NSW, coal, 150 MW) for the foreseeable future with no set closure date.

No new coal-fired stations in any state.

Would not have permitted the export of LNG from Queensland on such a large scale.

Construction of pumped hydro facilities in all states plus large scale wind and solar and associated transmission as a replacement for what would, with the above life extensions, be an orderly and gradual transition away from coal reaching 100% renewable by the year 2050. 

We can't turn back the clock however so the only real choice we've got is the "crash course" approach involving pumped hydro and whatever renewables anyone wants to build. Snowy 2.0 and Battery Of The Nation (Hydro Tas) may or may not be the best options but they're the only proposals of any real substance and are thus the best of what's actually being proposed.

I say that as someone who is neutral with respect to all things proposed in Tasmania since, as I have mentioned in another thread, I am personally pursuing a new direction in life which among other things involves moving permanently to SA. I'll be back down in the garage packing boxes in a few minutes.

From that neutral position I will say though that HT is absolutely capable of delivering and it's a serious proposal with the only real stumbling blocks being national politics and how to finance it all. The technical side is the relatively easy bit in that context.

Snowy is also most likely capable of delivering but is more closely tied to the Australian Government. That's good or bad depending on how you look at it. Under present circumstances it's probably not helpful.


----------



## Smurf1976

TLS said:


> Mmm ... I'm really at a loss on this subject



From a technical (engineering) perspective it all comes down to two things really. Energy and power - and they're very different things.

Energy is the total. It's like saying how far you drove. Note that just because you've traveled 1000 km, that says absolutely nothing about how you did it or how long it took, it's only a measurement of how far you've gone.

Power is the rate. It's like saying the speed at which you traveled. If you're traveling at 100 km/h then that tells you the rate but it doesn't tell you how far you've gone. Could be on a suburban highway or you could be driving between Perth and Adelaide.

So energy = how much. Power = rate of use.

Now the great problem with electricity is that it's like light or sound, you can't store it as such. You can store a means of producing sound yes but you can't store actual sound anywhere and for practical purposes it's the same with electricity, we can store water in a dam or coal in a fuel hopper but we can't in practice store the electricity (even a battery is a chemical change).

So production needs to match consumption in real time and that's where all this gets hard. In places like SA, where maximum rate of consumption is about 4 times the minimum rate, it's especially difficult and the great problem there is that wind and solar generation, driven by the weather, don't always align well with when the electricity is actually needed.

Looking at Qld, NSW, Vic, ACT, Tas, SA (the National Electricity Market states) as a whole, at 12:00 today (eastern states time) when combined solar output peaked it was supplying 12.9% of the total demand of 26,728 MW. So that's 4005 MW of solar and 22,723 MW of everything else.

6.5 hours later at 18:30 demand peaked at 30,137 MW and solar was zero.

So there's the great difficulty in using solar energy. We get the maximum supply at a time when demand is a fair way below maximum, then we get no supply when we need it most.

Wind doesn't have the same daily cyclic pattern as solar but it does still vary very significantly and often dies out at just the wrong time. Eg yesterday at 14:30 demand was 23,100 MW which was the low point for the afternoon. Of that solar was 3051 MW and wind was 2783 MW. Then just 4 hours later demand has risen to 28,274 MW but wind has dropped to 1892 MW and solar's gone to zero.

Those figures are total across the NEM states but at a local level far more extreme things can and do happen. Eg available output from wind farms can exceed 100% of load in SA on occasion, that has actually happened it's not just some theoretical calculation. At other times, and it has also actually happened many times, every wind farm in SA simultaneously has zero or negligible output.

Now in the context of all that I must point out that shutting down and restarting coal-fired plant doesn't come cheap, there's a lot of cost there both economic and emissions and they also have some pretty serious limits in how low the output can be taken whilst continuing to run. It varies but in general they can't really go below 30% - 55% of capacity depending on the plant in question. Now if you get a lot wind and sun on a mild afternoon (not much heating or cooling being used so low demand for electricity) then that situation suddenly becomes a very real problem. Lots of wind and solar, not much load, coal plants don't want to shut down given that starting up again takes hours and they'll need to be running flat out at 6 o'clock that night. It's manageable in a technical sense, just run coal at minimum and cut the output from wind and solar, but that's rather wasteful economically and not a great outcome environmentally either.

Build enough large scale storage, be that hydro or something else, and all these problems can be overcome. That takes considerable time though - hydro projects tend to be measured in years not weeks or months, and big $. That said, once built it's all incredibly durable stuff.

Batteries are an option for storage but in short they're the quicker but more expensive and shorter lived way to go about it all. There's a role to a point but for the big "grunt work" type of application they're an expensive choice.

I'm very sure it's all solvable though. Just needs the politicians to make their mind up over things like emissions targets and then get out of the way and stop playing politics with it all. 

An important point is that nothing actually needs to be invented here. The required technology is all proven stuff and it's just a case of applying established electrical, civil, materials etc engineering to work out the details then it's civil construction, trades etc to build it. There's no "trying to put a man on Mars" aspect to it all.


----------



## Tisme

TLS said:


> I must admit that I haven't read the whole thread.
> 
> But, with the ever increasing amount of residential and commercial properties reducing their requirement for utilising distributed power via installing solar panels and in some cases battery storage. I'm left a bit confused. Battery storage to me is still too expensive but when technology eventually drives prices down it would surely become the new norm. Ie. Slowly making those power generators less relevant. However, unfortunately I don't think the distributors and whole-sellers can really be avoided.
> 
> I realise a lot are benefiting from the ever reducing feed in tariffs etc but that to me is a short term bonus that expires in 2028.
> 
> Yes a power station or even solar panels both have a life span but at the moment it seems more economical to generate your own subsidised power even though you are still paying a hefty loss for their rights to re-distribute and re-sell it.
> 
> Mmm ... I'm really at a loss on this subject ... current power prices are ridiculous for the resources our country holds  .... comments are welcome.
> 
> Call, me cynical but what concerns me more is where will the government eventually get their slice of the action.
> 
> - You install rain water tanks. next thing they'll require a meter to tax you.
> - You install solar panels. next thing they'll require a meter to tax you.




I'd suspect you aren't as lost as you make out. The basics are that power prices are ridiculous and I would say that is because the sweeteners provided to attract the sale of public assets were overly generous ... a sacred cow with a blank cheque without any oversight


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> at 12:00 today (eastern states time) when combined solar output peaked it was supplying 12.9% of the total demand



A typo there sorry, that should be 14.9% not 12.9%.

Sorry about that.


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> I'd suspect you aren't as lost as you make out. The basics are that power prices are ridiculous and I would say that is because the sweeteners provided to attract the sale of public assets were overly generous ... a sacred cow with a blank cheque without any oversight




Weren't the "sweeteners" more of a big stick. ie the asset recycling policy of Costello, which meant that the States got no more more for infrastructure unless they sold existing assets ?


----------



## Smurf1976

For those interested, generation into the NEM states for the past 7 days 

Coal = 66% 
Wind = 10.9% 
Hydro = 10.8% 
Gas = 7.1% 
Solar = 4.9% (of which 4.0% is the estimated output of small systems and 0.9% is large scale)
Biomass = 0.2% 
Oil = Minor contribution 

Average spot price for the week (with the previous week's average price in brackets):

NSW = $86.78 / MWh ($87.08)
Qld = $76.97 / MWh ($79.92)
Vic = $67.16 / MWh ($67.28)
SA = $66.85 / MWh ($63.33)
Tas = $18.15 / MWh ($25.41)


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Weren't the "sweeteners" more of a big stick. ie the asset recycling policy of Costello, which meant that the States got no more more for infrastructure unless they sold existing assets ?



My interpretation of it at the time was that it was a way to pressure those states which hadn't already sold to hurry up and do so. 

FWIW in NSW some of the stuff was pretty much given away. Liddell really was given away and Vales Point went for a mere $1 million or less than 0.1% of replacement cost. Even the relatively new Mt Piper station went for a bargain price with the Wallerawang station nearby effectively thrown in for free. "Fire sale" would be an extreme understatement to say the least.

There are arguments for and against governments owning utilities indeed perhaps the most difficult one is the situation which has existed for many decades in Tasmania. Who really owns who? Government owns the utility? Or the power utility owns the government? Quite a few detractors of public ownership have argued the latter over the years.

On the other hand in the interest of balance the counter argument would be about big business buying favours from government thus ending up with the same result but a different motive - private profit versus public service. 

The key point from my perspective in it all is that decisions to privatise anything are usually made from an ideological perspective with whatever arguments support it being constructed to suit that pre-determined outcome. I've seen rather a lot of that and that's always the pattern - make the decision then find the reasons. If they can't find the reasons then just make something up which sounds like there's a problem which privatising will fix. Seen that game.....


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> Weren't the "sweeteners" more of a big stick. ie the asset recycling policy of Costello, which meant that the States got no more more for infrastructure unless they sold existing assets ?




Victoria is doing quite nicely with that similar Turnbull pork barrelling, while QLD misses out because it wouldn't sell its power stations to LNP mates or anyone else.


----------



## SirRumpole

Solar power creates a job boom in Darling downs.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-...hundreds-of-jobs-to-rural-queensland/10118134


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Solar power creates a job boom in Darling downs.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-...hundreds-of-jobs-to-rural-queensland/10118134



I would say most of the jobs, will be cleaning solar panels.

Certainly an impressive sight.


----------



## Smurf1976

Whilst our politicians in Canberra squabble over who gets to steer the sinking ship the sort of problems that I and others have been warning about draw closer:

https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...a-faces-summer-blackouts-20180823-p4zzd4.html

It's a bit like termites really. Keep hollowing out the wood and eventually the structure falls in a heap but the exact timing is anyone's guess. It'll happen though that's a given. Likewise if not this summer then next. If not Victoria then NSW. But if nothing's done then one way or another we're going to end up in the poo with this one.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Whilst our politicians in Canberra squabble over who gets to steer the sinking ship the sort of problems that I and others have been warning about draw closer:
> 
> https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...a-faces-summer-blackouts-20180823-p4zzd4.html
> 
> It's a bit like termites really. Keep hollowing out the wood and eventually the structure falls in a heap but the exact timing is anyone's guess. It'll happen though that's a given. Likewise if not this summer then next. If not Victoria then NSW. But if nothing's done then one way or another we're going to end up in the poo with this one.




As has been shown on this forum, people won't believe it, untill they experience it.

It is all well and good, having a burning desire to do the right thing by the environment, we will see how people's commitment to the cause goes when they are sitting in the dark.

By then it will be too late to fix it quickly, so be it, people get what they deserve.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> It is all well and good, having a burning desire to do the right thing by the environment, we will see how people's commitment to the cause goes when they are sitting in the dark.




Whether or not its the fault of the power companies for not maintaining THEIR equipment properly ?


----------



## Junior

sptrawler said:


> By then it will be too late to fix it quickly, so be it, people get what they deserve.




It's a complex problem, I don't think it's fair to blame the general population.  

A key part of the Government's role is ensuring we have affordable and reliable energy, and they have failed miserably in this area.


----------



## HelloU

The job of a listed electricity company is not to make electricity............ 

the job of a listed electricity company is to make a profit...........

I never lose sight of that subtle difference when I invest.


----------



## Junior

HelloU said:


> The job of a listed electricity company is not to make electricity............
> 
> the job of a listed electricity company is to make a profit...........
> 
> I never lose sight of that subtle difference when I invest.




Years ago I took a job with a financial planning firm.  The guy running it said to me:  

"We're not in the business of financial planning, we're in the business of MAKING MONEY FROM financial planning"

I didn't last long working for that ********.


----------



## sptrawler

Junior said:


> It's a complex problem, I don't think it's fair to blame the general population.
> 
> A key part of the Government's role is ensuring we have affordable and reliable energy, and they have failed miserably in this area.




The problem is only just manifesting itself, the Libs are tearing themselves apart trying to avoid a disater, Labor are just telling lies and saying what problem.


----------



## Junior

It's all very sad and pathetic....look at Norway with their sovereign fund.  If we had half a brain in this country we would have taxed the **** out of iron ore and coal exports for the past 20 years and stashed the proceeds in a massive fund.  

We'd then have the capital to build all the infrastructure required to provide cheap and abundant energy in this country.  Imagine how strong the economy would be here, if utilities bills were 50% cheaper than they are!


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Whether or not its the fault of the power companies for not maintaining THEIR equipment properly ?




When the poo hits the fan, the private company say's it isn't our job to install plant for expected growth, it is our job to supply the existing load.
If we start putting in plant because the Government expects a population growth of x by 2025, and the population doesn't grow, we go broke. How is that in the best interest of the shareholder? Better still how is it our responsibility, it is like telling a shopping centre to build larger, because your expecting more people to move into the area.

How does the Government of the day answer that.

Well Abbott and the loony right, say it is the Governments responsibility and they should be addressing it by building a power station. 

The Turnbull centre are saying, we will smack them if there is a problem, and make them fix it.

Labor's saying who gives a $hit, we will make it worse by putting in more unabated asynchronous generation.

So Abbott's solution is put to the torch, by the media and the general public.

Malcolm's do nothing and pray solution, crashes and burns around his ears.

Labor's warm feel good sit in the dark solution, is embraced by the media and the general public have a group hug to keep warm, while singing a chorus of Kumbaya.

What a hoot, you couldn't write this stuff, the Big Bang Theory is finishing this year, they should do a comedy series on Australia.


----------



## HelloU

Smurf1976 said:


> Whilst our politicians in Canberra squabble over who gets to steer the sinking ship the sort of problems that I and others have been warning about draw closer:
> 
> https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...a-faces-summer-blackouts-20180823-p4zzd4.html
> 
> It's a bit like termites really. Keep hollowing out the wood and eventually the structure falls in a heap but the exact timing is anyone's guess. It'll happen though that's a given. Likewise if not this summer then next. If not Victoria then NSW. But if nothing's done then one way or another we're going to end up in the poo with this one.



(Hmm....I feel your frustration)
speaking of Big Bang.....this will eventually sort itself as more and more tubes get plugged or a blade fatigues...... and in the mean time chugging along at midday on a windy day with superheaters getting caked in crap is not a great option either ... I do not think the throwing of taxpayers money at base load and network issues has really started yet.... but I expect it will.


----------



## sptrawler

HelloU said:


> (Hmm....I feel your frustration)
> speaking of Big Bang.....this will eventually sort itself as more and more tubes get plugged or a blade fatigues...... and in the mean time chugging along at midday on a windy day with superheaters getting caked in crap is not a great option either ... I do not think the throwing of taxpayers money at base load and network issues has really started yet.... but I expect it will.



Ah a man after my own heart. 

The real problem is, if it is left untill the "big red panic button is pressed", we all known what happens, any crap is installed it is flung in costs 10 times more than it should.
It becomes another pink batts disaster, but hey everyone seems to love crisis management, politics is an absolute disaster in Australia.
Yet they all sit there in Parliament looking smug, it makes you want to vomit.

They sit there trying to pretend, they are there looking after our best interests, when that is obviously the furthest thing from their minds. IMO

My rant for the month.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Whether or not its the fault of the power companies for not maintaining THEIR equipment properly ?



Looking at the technical side I just see a crisis waiting to happen and the masses won't be happy when it does. For that matter most businesses won't be happy either.

What concerns me more though is that it would be an amazing coincidence if the thing I know most about just happened to be the only area where there's a problem. Possible but that seems very unlikely so I suspect there's a lot of other infrastructure and other "physical" type of problems brewing.

One that comes to mind is urban public transport. I don't live in Sydney but suffice to say I keep hearing about the trains being in chaos. Last time, a few days ago, that was quite literally "the trains are running but we don't know where they are". I know nothing about running a train system but that rings an awful lot of alarm bells to me if you've got trains running on tracks and you've got no idea where they are. 

And so on. Regardless of who owns it or should be fixing things our nation's infrastructure does look to have some issues.


----------



## Smurf1976

SA as of right now:

Small scale solar is estimated to be supplying just over 25% of total consumption.

Gas-fired generation is either at minimum output to efficiently stay running (Osborne, Pelican Point, Torrens Island B) or is shut down altogether (all the others). All liquid fulled plant is shut down.

Exports to Vic are at maximum and equivalent to about 45% of SA consumption or 31% of production in SA at the moment. That's the limit, can't push any more down the lines.

Some large scale solar and wind is going to waste. Nowhere for it to go so no choice.

Come back in 4 hours and it'll be the opposite with no solar, demand substantially higher and gas-fired plants running hard.

Therein lies much of the problem. The mismatch between when the wind blows and the sun shines versus consumption of electricity.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> SA as of right now:
> 
> Small scale solar is estimated to be supplying just over 25% of total consumption.
> 
> Gas-fired generation is either at minimum output to efficiently stay running (Osborne, Pelican Point, Torrens Island B) or is shut down altogether (all the others). All liquid fulled plant is shut down.
> 
> Exports to Vic are at maximum and equivalent to about 45% of SA consumption or 31% of production in SA at the moment. That's the limit, can't push any more down the lines.
> 
> Some large scale solar and wind is going to waste. Nowhere for it to go so no choice.
> 
> Come back in 4 hours and it'll be the opposite with no solar, demand substantially higher and gas-fired plants running hard.
> 
> Therein lies much of the problem. The mismatch between when the wind blows and the sun shines versus consumption of electricity.




What's the status of Elon's battery ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> What's the status of Elon's battery ?



It,s charged. Lol


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> It,s charged. Lol




Going well apparently.

Victoria is getting one too.

https://theconversation.com/a-month-in-teslas-sa-battery-is-surpassing-expectations-89770


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Going well apparently.
> 
> Victoria is getting one too.
> 
> https://theconversation.com/a-month-in-teslas-sa-battery-is-surpassing-expectations-89770



Only another 200,000 needed. Lol


----------



## moXJO

How much does it cost to change all the batteries after 10 years or so?


----------



## sptrawler

moXJO said:


> How much does it cost to change all the batteries after 10 years or so?



Ship loads, but where do you store all the stuffed ones?


----------



## luutzu

moXJO said:


> How much does it cost to change all the batteries after 10 years or so?




(Initial installation costs + Inflation)*3 for hook, line and sinker. 

I'm no electrical surgeon but the idea of literal battery packs on an industrial scale just doesn't sound right. 

There's wind, solar, hydro as "batteries"; there's the national grid I imagine you could shift power around. 

To store excess power generated in batteries that aren't exactly cheap, and won't last too long.. a decade is practically nothing in utilities right? Doesn't sound like a lot of serious long term thought were used.


----------



## sptrawler

luutzu said:


> (Initial installation costs + Inflation)*3 for hook, line and sinker.
> 
> I'm no electrical surgeon but the idea of literal battery packs on an industrial scale just doesn't sound right.
> 
> There's wind, solar, hydro as "batteries"; there's the national grid I imagine you could shift power around.
> 
> To store excess power generated in batteries that aren't exactly cheap, and won't last too long.. a decade is practically nothing in utilities right? Doesn't sound like a lot of serious long term thought were used.



It isn't a good long term solution, but it's great food for the chooks.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> What's the status of Elon's battery ?



It was charging this afternoon when I posted.

So it was soaking up some electricity from renewables that would otherwise have gone to waste, only problem being scale.


----------



## moXJO

So the batteries are used mainly to soak up excess energy from renewables? 

So larger scale RE you would eventually need pumped hydro to soak up the excess?


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> It was charging this afternoon when I posted.
> 
> So it was soaking up some electricity from renewables that would otherwise have gone to waste, only problem being scale.




So smurph, at lunch time S.A was exporting 31% of its production, because it couldn't use it.

Now you're saying the battery was charging this afternoon and it was soaking up electricity that would otherwise have gone to waste.

Your sounding very huggy huggy, feely feely, don't want to say it as it is.

The battery was charged at 10 minutes after 9 this morning, and did sod all for the rest of the day. 
They will discharge it to 80% overnight, so as not to damage the battery and it will soak up another 20MW by 9 o'clock tomorrow morning, then sit there most of the day. 
Only my guess, it may differ slightly in reality, but no one appears to care about the reality, so it should go through to the keeper.lol


----------



## luutzu

moXJO said:


> So the batteries are used mainly to soak up excess energy from renewables?
> 
> So larger scale RE you would eventually need pumped hydro to soak up the excess?




Woo... maybe they should use the excess to pump water back up the dam. Store it there then release it as needed.


----------



## sptrawler

This thread is like time lapse photography.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Your sounding very huggy huggy, feely feely, don't want to say it as it is.



I always aim to be factual whether I "like" the answers or not. 

At the time of my previous post the battery was indeed charging and, since renewable energy was going to waste in SA, it would be a fair comment to say that the energy going into the battery was otherwise useless in practice. That's not to say they don't also charge it using power originating from fossil fuels at other times.

There are undeniably limitations to what batteries can do but in the case of the Hornsdale Power Reserve in SA it does what it's claimed to do. Peak capacity 100 MW, run in practice to 30 MW for generation due to contractual requirements, and with a storage of 129 MWh.

So as a source of peaking generation it works in the same way that a 30 MW gas, hydro or steam unit works if it's got a limited supply of fuel on hand. It runs but not for too long but as a peaking plant that's not necessarily a problem although depending on circumstances it could be.

The other 70MW (or more if the battery isn't discharging 30 MW at the time) is for practical purposes spinning reserve in conventional terminology and also works.

There's nowhere near enough storage in SA, or indeed any mainland state, go facilitate a transition to intermittent renewables in a reliable manner but the big Tesla battery in SA certainly does seem to be working as promised thus far.

I don't see that as sugar coating anything, just being neutral and saying that yes the equipment does work but also that there's a lot of broader system limitations.

It's a bit like saying my Victa lawn mower runs fine and does exactly what the manufacturer said it would whilst at the same time acknowledging that it's nowhere near big enough to be a practical way of mowing the entire MCG indeed even mowing the local sports field would be a challenge. But the blades turn and it cuts grass yes so it works as designed. Same concept.


----------



## Smurf1976

Thinking about all this, I think the biggest issue isn’t coal versus solar or that certain power stations are gradually falling in a heap but politics.

It’s not necessarily a question of what Australia’s policy is going to be but when, or perhaps even if, we’re going to have one at all.

I won’t be surprised if one consequence of this week’s goings on in federal politics is that in practice it’s now up to the states and that’s it.

In that context it’s anyone’s guess what’s going to be done physically.

It’s hard to see the private sector investing amidst all the uncertainty and at this point I wouldn’t be betting on government investing either until such time as the situation is clarified.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> There are undeniably limitations to what batteries can do but in the case of the Hornsdale Power Reserve in SA it does what it's claimed to do. Peak capacity 100 MW, run in practice to 30 MW for generation due to contractual requirements, and with a storage of 129 MWh.




I would hope that the SA government only saw the battery as a short term, easily built solution while they got on with building something more permanent.

But then, that's a rational approach which may not apply in the real world.


----------



## Triathlete

In my view the issue is not that we do not want renewables and to get rid of fossil fuels type energy but  we are  destroying businesses that rely on the cheaper power prices using the old technology before we have a chance to get there.
I am no expert but to develop the renewables to power the whole of Australia will probably take another 40 or 50 years in the  meantime we continue to lose jobs and businesses close down or move o/seas.......????


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Thinking about all this, I think the biggest issue isn’t coal versus solar or that certain power stations are gradually falling in a heap but politics.
> 
> It’s not necessarily a question of what Australia’s policy is going to be but when, or perhaps even if, we’re going to have one at all.
> 
> I won’t be surprised if one consequence of this week’s goings on in federal politics is that in practice it’s now up to the states and that’s it.
> 
> In that context it’s anyone’s guess what’s going to be done physically.
> 
> It’s hard to see the private sector investing amidst all the uncertainty and at this point I wouldn’t be betting on government investing either until such time as the situation is clarified.



My apologies smurph, your posts are much appreciated, one too many reds last night.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> My apologies smurph, your posts are much appreciated, one too many reds last night.



All good. 

For the info of all, there has just been a significant power system incident affecting Qld, NSW, Vic and SA (noting that the ACT is part of NSW in this context)

At 13:12 today, so about an hour ago:

*Qld electrically separated from the rest of the system. In layman's terms that means power stopped flowing between Qld and NSW.

*SA electrically separated from the rest of the system. So power stopped flowing between SA and Vic.

At the time this occurred power flow was from Qld to NSW and from SA to Vic.

Transmission between Tas and Vic (flow being Tas to Vic) and between Vic and NSW (flow being Vic to NSW) remained in operation.

As a consequence 800 MW, or about 10% of all load in the state, was shed (turned off) in NSW and for Victoria the figure was 280 MW or about 6% of load in that state.

In layman's terms this was a "near miss" serious incident and not at all good. Had it happened at a time when load was higher, so that is either hot or cold weather, the effects could very easily have been an order of magnitude worse in terms of the consequences.


----------



## Smurf1976

luutzu said:


> a decade is practically nothing in utilities right?



Very true.

Coal, oil, gas you’re looking at 40 - 50 years of useful life.

For hydro it’ll keep going so long as it’s properly maintained. Eg Lake Margaret power station is 104 years old, still runs base load today, and is by no means worn out although it did need a new pipeline and a bit of concrete works a decade ago.

Tarraleah is 80 years old, also still running base load, and the only reason replacement is being considered is that it would make sense to double or more the size and turn it into a peak load operation to help support intermittent renewables natuonally. If it wasn’t for that aspect then it could simply be maintained as is (indeed that option hasn’t been ruled out).

Batteries are very short lived by comparison.


----------



## SirRumpole

> In layman's terms this was a "near miss" serious incident and not at all good. Had it happened at a time when load was higher, so that is either hot or cold weather, the effects could very easily have been an order of magnitude worse in terms of the consequences.




Do we know why this happened ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Do we know why this happened ?



It's one of those things where AEMO will need to (and no doubt will) examine all recorded data closely to work out exactly what happened.

What can be said though is that 3 transmission lines tripped in NSW, two of which which are parallel to the same places. 

Things like SA disconnecting from Vic would be a consequence of that. That is one of those things that ideally wouldn't have happened but it has always been the case, anywhere, that power systems are a bit like a whole lot of dominoes standing on end. Once one thing fails it quite often will in practice take something else down with it. That is not itself an unusual scenario - one generating unit tripping will sometimes take out another one. One transmission line tripping can do likewise. Once you get a system disturbance the risk that something else also fails becomes dramatically higher.

In a robust system where there's always enough spare capacity to cover the loss of the two largest generators or a transmission line trip that's really just a nuisance. Trouble is, those sort of buffers have been considerably eroded and there are situations now where such a buffer simply isn't available (though that wasn't a problem today) and it's under those conditions where "one domino fell over and knocked another one over with some minor consequences" as happened today changes to "one fell and before we knew it the whole lot were down" as famously occurred in SA and has also happened in other places previously.


----------



## SirRumpole

Thanks Smurf .


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> All good.
> 
> For the info of all, there has just been a significant power system incident affecting Qld, NSW, Vic and SA (noting that the ACT is part of NSW in this context)
> 
> At 13:12 today, so about an hour ago:
> 
> *Qld electrically separated from the rest of the system. In layman's terms that means power stopped flowing between Qld and NSW.
> 
> *SA electrically separated from the rest of the system. So power stopped flowing between SA and Vic.




Smurph, when this happens, one assumes S.A is running very high renewable generation, how does the system cope with the VARs?
Do they have large static Var reactors installed? The system configuration has changed so much, with the closing of Power Stations like Port Augusta, I was wondering if it has changed the Var control in any way. 
I suppose they can remotely control the tx taps, but I would have thought it must cause some weird swings, with the high reliance on renewables.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Smurph, when this happens, one assumes S.A is running very high renewable generation, how does the system cope with the VARs?



Exactly how it's set up in SA isn't something I know about in sufficient detail to comment but one thing is that renewable generation was pretty low at the time (purely coincidental).

Some observations (following figures are all for SA only). There's unavoidably a lot of numbers here.

Note: Osborne and Pelican Point are separate combined cycle gas turbine power stations located in suburban Adelaide. Torrens Island B is a steam turbine power station with gas-fired boilers also located in Adelaide. These 3 plants were all fully operational, though not actually running at full capacity, during the incident. Other gas and diesel plant in SA was offline at the time due to not being needed.

Prior to the incident:

Demand: *734 MW* (excluding rooftop solar)
Intermittent renewables generation: 215 MW
Osborne, Pelican Point and Torrens Island B power stations combined: 808 MW
Battery charging at 37.1 MW

Immediately after the incident:

Demand: *784 MW* (excluding rooftop solar)
Intermittent renewables generation: 140 MW
Osborne, Pelican Point and Torrens Island B power stations combined: 654 MW 
Battery charging at 39.5 MW

So the effect of the incident in SA was:

Reduced intermittent renewable generation from 215 MW to 140 MW. No problem that's an expected response.

Reduced thermal generation from 808 MW to 654 MW with all units at the power stations in operation reducing output. No problem that's an expected response.

Battery was already charging so couldn't do much. Presumably the 39.5MW was the maximum it could take if already almost full so it couldn't really do anything to help.

*Demand went up 50 MW or 6.8%
*
Now it is pure speculation on my part but I'm assuming that 50 MW of small scale private generation, which would be rooftop solar in practice, was knocked offline by the system disturbance and resultant frequency increase. Either that or perhaps clouds swept across Adelaide at the same time by pure coincidence (not joking there, it's at least possible). _Something_ happened at that time and suffice to say that one thing power system disturbances don't normally cause is a sudden rise in demand.

If that is the case, if small solar systems reduced output in practice, then they helped stabilise the system within SA which is a desirable outcome under the circumstances.

Following all this, and noting that the cause was the loss of 2 transmission lines between NSW and Qld, AEMO has imposed an operating constraint to limit power flows on those lines to a level at which simultaneous loss of both lines would be manageable without a repeat of today's drama. That limitation causes other issues so isn't a long term option but it's a workable and sensible measure in the short term given that whilst the lines are back in service, the underlying cause of the fault is not known.

In layman's terms that means they reset it, it works, there's uncertainty as to exactly what happened so they'll limit power flow to a level that won't really matter if it fails until the answers are determined. Then fix whatever the underlying cause was, then go back to operating at full capacity.


----------



## SirRumpole

Ian Verrender on the power crisis.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-...-fall-guy-in-the-national-power-play/10166882


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Ian Verrender on the power crisis.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-...-fall-guy-in-the-national-power-play/10166882




He sums it up pretty accurately, it doesn't change the problem, renewables at this point can't replace the coal and it is shutting down or breaking down.
There will be a major shortage, unless someone comes up with a viable solution, no one has yet.
He is only saying what smurph has been saying, shame Verrender can't articulate the severity of the problem, instead of repeating what is already known. IMO


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> He sums it up pretty accurately, it doesn't change the problem, renewables at this point can't replace the coal and it is shutting down or breaking down.
> There will be a major shortage, unless someone comes up with a viable solution, no one has yet.
> He is only saying what smurph has been saying, shame Verrender can't articulate the severity of the problem, instead of repeating what is already known. IMO




Be interesting to see what the cost implications are going to be when the renewable machinery like turbines, bearings, glass, etc need replacing


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> He sums it up pretty accurately, it doesn't change the problem, renewables at this point can't replace the coal and it is shutting down or breaking down.




Well the point is do you replace obsolete coal power stations with more coal or something else ?

CCGT stations with a sensible domestic gas reservation policy would be the most cost efficient way to go imo.

They take much less time to build than coal, can be ramped up and down faster, and generate less emissions, so why not ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Well the point is do you replace obsolete coal power stations with more coal or something else ?
> 
> CCGT stations with a sensible domestic gas reservation policy would be the most cost efficient way to go imo.
> 
> They take much less time to build than coal, can be ramped up and down faster, and generate less emissions, so why not ?



Because I didn't think there was enough gas to go around over east. If there is plenty of gas I would say combined cycle is the way to go 55% efficiency, even HEGT's are good these days, around 40%. The only downside is GT's require rebuilding much more often than steam sets, due to high inlet temps, other than that they are great units, we have a couple of CCGT and HEGT's at Kwinana.
Like I said from what I've been reading on here and in the media, there isn't enough gas, allocated. Obviously if you're going to replace 10- 15,000MW of coal with gas, you are talking serious amounts of gas.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Like I said from what I've been reading on here and in the media, there isn't enough gas, allocated. Obviously if you're going to replace 10- 15,000MW of coal with gas, you are talking serious amounts of gas.




That is why the need for a gas reservation policy that cuts into current contracts if necessary. 

Just because gas companies over committed on exports doesn't mean that the local market has to go short.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> That is why the need for a gas reservation policy that cuts into current contracts if necessary.
> 
> Just because gas companies over committed on exports doesn't mean that the local market has to go short.




And meanwhile the problem just keeps worsening.


----------



## luutzu

SirRumpole said:


> That is why the need for a gas reservation policy that cuts into current contracts if necessary.
> 
> Just because gas companies over committed on exports doesn't mean that the local market has to go short.




Santos calls it "energy security", for each state 

Somehow they also get to *not *pay a royalty for the gas in QLD for 3,000 days.

Good thing every Australian is a shareholder so all Aussies gain... oh wait.


----------



## sptrawler

luutzu said:


> Santos calls it "energy security", for each state
> 
> Somehow they also get to *not *pay a royalty for the gas in QLD for 3,000 days.
> 
> Good thing every Australian is a shareholder so all Aussies gain... oh wait.




Well someone is going to get paid ship loads, to sort the problem out, sooner or later.


----------



## luutzu

sptrawler said:


> Well someone is going to get paid ship loads, to sort the problem out, sooner or later.




For sure. Then somebody is going to get fired! (then be re-employed by some lobbyist)


----------



## sptrawler

I guess an election will bring about a decisive result, then the ball will be pushed into motion and the reality will be highlighted.
Then whoever is in Government will say, this is worse than we were led to believe and drastic action will be required. Unfortunately we will have to put our initial policies in abeyance, until a later date, when we have over come this dire situation.


----------



## Smurf1976

Something I will note is that when I first posted on this forum about Australia’s looming energy problems, the Prime Minister’s name was John Howard.

Since then it has gone from a problem on the horizon to one bashing on the front door and no government, of either persuasion, has sensibly addressed it.

It’ll take the lights actually going out in NSW or Vic to bring about change.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Something I will note is that when I first posted on this forum about Australia’s looming energy problems, the Prime Minister’s name was John Howard.
> 
> Since then it has gone from a problem on the horizon to one bashing on the front door and no government, of either persuasion, has sensibly addressed it.
> 
> It’ll take the lights actually going out in NSW or Vic to bring about change.



The obvious problem is smurph, most think the looming issue can be solved with the wave of a wand, but when they wave it they will find the magic wand's batteries are flat.

I just don't think people understand, how much 20,000MW of base load power is, they think it's like 100 football fields of solar panels will fix it, just do it.

I don't think either party, or the media has explained how much energy is required 24/7 at call, they just don't seem to visualise the issue.

They show Liddell Power Station 2,000MW, people think oh big shed a couple of paddocks of solar will pizz that off, no one has put the issue in perspective. lol

I'm just glad I live in W.A.


----------



## Smurf1976

It's all back to normal now with transfer capacity between states. Indeed it has been for a couple of days, I was just a bit slower in posting than AEMO were in sorting it all out.

There's still quite a bit of generating plant offline in NSW, a bit over 3000 MW in total, although it poses no immediate threat so long as Qld and Vic can continue to pump out the juice, the latter somewhat reliant on Tas and SA in order to do so but it should all work.


----------



## Smurf1976

Queensland are setting up a new state-owned electricity generation business focused on renewables.

http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2018/8/30/cleanco-to-make-power-bills-cheaper

I make the observation that it's another thing which adds to the overall situation that WA, NT, Qld and Tas all have reasonably well run and reliable power systems whereas NSW/ACT, Vic and SA are in rather a lot of trouble going forward.

SA has taken some steps forward, albeit not enough thus far, but NSW and Vic are barreling down the road toward a cliff hoping that Qld and Tas are going to bail them out.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Queensland are setting up a new state-owned electricity generation business focused on renewables.
> 
> http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2018/8/30/cleanco-to-make-power-bills-cheaper
> 
> I make the observation that it's another thing which adds to the overall situation that WA, NT, Qld and Tas all have reasonably well run and reliable power systems whereas NSW/ACT, Vic and SA are in rather a lot of trouble going forward.
> 
> SA has taken some steps forward, albeit not enough thus far, but NSW and Vic are barreling down the road toward a cliff hoping that Qld and Tas are going to bail them out.



Yes, I was reading RCR Tomlinson are putting in a few solar plants for them. Seems one of the farms is going to cost RCR dollars with miss quoting and running over budget.
But they do sound like decent installations.


----------



## Tisme

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-20/storage-will-be-the-next-biggest-thing-in-energy

"...........As a result, the cost of new-build renewables has been sinking. The highest-cost solar and wind projects in the U.S. will now produce electricity at least as cheaply as the lowest-cost coal plants, according to a report last year by Lazard Inc.........."


----------



## Smurf1976

AEMO has declared a Lack Of Reserve level 1 for NSW between 18:00 and 19:30 today.

In simple terms that means the system is two steps away from blackouts. One generator failure could be coped with but anything beyond that and the lights go out.

There's about 3400 MW of generating plant out of service in NSW at the moment.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> AEMO has declared a Lack Of Reserve level 1 for NSW between 18:00 and 19:30 today.
> 
> In simple terms that means the system is two steps away from blackouts. One generator failure could be coped with but anything beyond that and the lights go out.
> 
> There's about 3400 MW of generating plant out of service in NSW at the moment.



Should be really interesting when Liddell goes, taking 2000MW out of the equation. What is the difference, between peak winter and peak summer load, smurph?
Even Labor must be getting nervous.


----------



## Tisme

Average retail gross margin per household is between $550 and $800 ? No wonder the bill shock


----------



## sptrawler

Apparently the answer is simple.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-...inister-power-price-solution-curious/10188496

At last you people over East can sleep easy, the problem is sorted, from the article:

"The lowest cost replacement for this retiring capacity and energy will be a portfolio of resources, including solar (28 gigawatts), wind (10.5 GW) and storage (17 GW and 90 GWh), complemented by 500 megawatts of flexible gas plant and transmission investment," it said.

Sorry for my concern, I didn't realise, it was that easy.

Only 500 megawatts of flexible gas plant, that is a really small power station, should be able to put that in suburbia or just outside.


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> Apparently the answer is simple.
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-...inister-power-price-solution-curious/10188496
> 
> At last you people over East can sleep easy, the problem is sorted, from the article:
> 
> "The lowest cost replacement for this retiring capacity and energy will be a portfolio of resources, including solar (28 gigawatts), wind (10.5 GW) and storage (17 GW and 90 GWh), complemented by 500 megawatts of flexible gas plant and transmission investment," it said.
> 
> Sorry for my concern, I didn't realise, it was that easy.
> 
> Only 500 megawatts of flexible gas plant, that is a really small power station, should be able to put that in suburbia or just outside.




I'm surprised Angus isn't suggesting putting more suburban pad mounts in to solve the shortage.


----------



## sptrawler

Here we go, the gas industry is saying we are stopping foreign investment in taking more of our gas, because we want to keep some for ourselves. WTF

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-...overnment-policy-investor-confidence/10204284

It really is about time we taxed them by volume, rather than by what they say, they make from it.
They can justify charging us 10%gst on what we import from overseas on ebay, but they can't charge resource companies for what they export.


----------



## luutzu

sptrawler said:


> Here we go, the gas industry is saying we are stopping foreign investment in taking more of our gas, because we want to keep some for ourselves. WTF
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-...overnment-policy-investor-confidence/10204284
> 
> It really is about time we taxed them by volume, rather than by what they say, they make from it.
> They can justify charging us 10%gst on what we import from overseas on ebay, but they can't charge resource companies for what they export.




But if the gov't were to do tax these companies proper, they'll move their business elsewhere and Australian battlers won't have any jobs. Wait... 

If they're taxed, the gov't will get their PM replaced, again. 

Soft targets. You take candies from babies, not the 100 pound gorillas who might get you or your kid a job or two after they graduate.


----------



## Smurf1976

Physical supply isn't going well in Vic and NSW at the moment. Just as well the temperature is mild and there's some wind.

Loy Yang A in Vic, the state's largest power station, is only 39% operational at present. Two units dead with a failure at about 2am this morning, one fully operational, one has problems. 

Plus every other coal-fired station in both states has at least one generating unit not operational at present.

Whilst I'm doing something else now and indeed living in another state (SA), I'll simply say that the Tas system is subject to a very well thought out approach to maintenance. I won't claim that nothing has ever gone amiss but suffice to say it's working an awful lot better than generation in NSW and Vic is at the moment and just as well. 

If stuff keeps breaking then price will be the least of anyone's worries really.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Here's one for sptrawler. Hydrogen technology breakthrough by CSIRO.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-...-csiro-game-changer-export-potential/10082514




My favorite subject, H2 from renewables.
W.A is jumping on the band wagon, with S.A, installing hydrogen plants. 
It will all take a long time, but it will happen.

https://thewest.com.au/business/energy/canadians-join-wa-hydrogen-race-ng-b88946782z


----------



## overhang

I really don't think these articles improve the current debate around energy policy, just because something is possible doesn't mean it should be done. Referring to the below article

*Australia could be 100% renewable by 2030s, meet Paris targets by 2025*

https://reneweconomy.com.au/austral...ble-by-2030s-meet-paris-targets-by-2025-2025/


----------



## sptrawler

overhang said:


> I really don't think these articles improve the current debate around energy policy, just because something is possible doesn't mean it should be done. Referring to the below article
> 
> *Australia could be 100% renewable by 2030s, meet Paris targets by 2025*
> 
> https://reneweconomy.com.au/austral...ble-by-2030s-meet-paris-targets-by-2025-2025/




You are spot on, they don't talk about storage and extended periods of low renewable output.
That is the only problem, any muppet can say all's good while the wind is blowing and the sun is shinning, it's what happens when neither happens for a few days or weeks.
I just wish the ABC, who we pay for, would get out there and explain the truth.
Isn't that why we fund them? FFS


----------



## Smurf1976

overhang said:


> I really don't think these articles improve the current debate around energy policy



Strongly agreed.

Simple solutions to the energy problem are much the same as simple solutions to investing.

Buy low and sell high. That’s it, easy and anyone can do that.

Management’s another one. Just make a profit, hire staff, fire anyone who’s no good.

Of course anyone who has ever invested or managed anything knows that actually doing these things is where it gets difficult.

Once you actually look at the details all this energy stuff becomes an order of magnitude more complex and rarely is there an easy answer to even one piece of the puzzle.

Having an over abundance of wind and solar on a mild Sunday afternoon in SA doesn’t help just a few hours later when the sun goes down and electricity consumption goes up. It doesn’t fly planes or harvest crops either.

There are ways forward but over simplification isn’t helpful.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Having an over abundance of wind and solar on a mild Sunday afternoon in SA doesn’t help just a few hours later when the sun goes down and electricity consumption goes up. It doesn’t fly planes or harvest crops either.




Solved by storage surely ?

But I guess that's an over simplification too.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Solved by storage surely ?
> 
> But I guess that's an over simplification too.



People in Australia have an expectation of electricity 24/7, when they switch on a switch they expect something to happen, they live in a first World country and pay a lot of tax.
It is the same with water, they expect to turn on a tap and get drinking water or press a button on a toilet and it flushes.
At the moment both expectations are met, when they lose the ability to do both, they won't accept the politicians saying well that is just a consequence of going green.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> People in Australia have an expectation of electricity 24/7, when they switch on a switch they expect something to happen, they live in a first World country and pay a lot of tax.




Yes, we pay a lot of tax, but the pollies have divested the supply of power to private companies and now they are finding that the public still holds them (the government) responsible for the supply of essential services.

The gov't might as well take back responsibility for power delivery, because the public will judge them on its delivery anyway, while private companies will just walk away if it gets too hard, like they did with Hazlewood.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, we pay a lot of tax, but the pollies have divested the supply of power to private companies and now they are finding that the public still holds them (the government) responsible for the supply of essential services.
> 
> The gov't might as well take back responsibility for power delivery, because the public will judge them on its delivery anyway, while private companies will just walk away if it gets too hard, like they did with Hazlewood.




Well no doubt Bill will sort it out.
Abbott said buy Liddell and keep it going, or build a new one, he was shot down as usual.


----------



## HelloU

(without distracting from the general thread progress because the point being made is valid - when it is said that the private COY walks away from things like Hazelwood that is a $750M and 30 year 'walk' before handing back following rehabilitation - no idea about enforcement of that though)


----------



## Tisme

Clive's our future 

https://www.4ca.com.au/news/local-n...ounces-plans-for-new-coal-fired-power-station

_"Clive Palmer, has announced plans for a new $1.54 billion coal-fired power station in Queensland’s Galilee Basin. Launching the proposal in Brisbane today, Mr Palmer, Chairman of Waratah Coal Pty Ltd, said the 700 MW high efficiency low emission ultra-supercritical power station would be established on the mining lease for Waratah Coal’s Galilee Coal Project, approximately 30km north of the Central Western Queensland township of Alpha. “I am putting my money where my mouth is by announcing this new station so we can power Queensland and help bring down energy costs which continue to escalate,” Mr Palmer said. “At full scale, the project will comprise two open cut and four underground mines, as well as supporting infrastructure, and will produce 40 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) of high quality thermal coal for export markets. “The Galilee Power Station will be developed as a contingent component of the overall project, providing the power needs for the mine operations, coal transportation and port operations, ready for export coal to Gladstone and future power needs for our proposed North Galilee coal mine development,’’ he said. Mr Palmer said the project would bring considerable social and economic benefits for the region. “We anticipate a workforce of approximately 1000 likely to be employed over the 36 to 42 month construction period, and up to 90 operational workforce to be required during the estimated 30-year power plant life,’’ he said. “As for the larger Galilee Coal Project, the intent is to utilise local workforce wherever possible,” Construction of the Galilee Power Station is planned to commence in June 2020 and to have a build period of three years for the first unit with the second unit being commissioned six months later. The commissioning and operations of the high efficiency low emission ultra-supercritical power station would be ready to provide power to the Galilee Coal Project during December 2023. This timing and scheduling would allow for the Galilee Coal Project to deliver first coal to Gladstone during the first quarter of 2024. Waratah Coal, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mineralogy Proprietary Limited, is a privately owned Australian coal exploration and coal development company that holds extensive mining concessions within the Galilee Basin, including the approved Galilee Coal Project, of which this project will be an element. The company is seeking an amendment to their draft Environmental Authority to include a 700 MW power station and associated transmission lines, coal handling facilities, ash containment facility and water storage facility. Mr Palmer said Waratah Coal was committed to the sustained development of local communities and would undertake effective community engagement throughout the construction and operational phases of the proposed development."
_


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> "Clive Palmer, has announced plans for a new $1.54 billion coal-fired power station in Queensland’s Galilee Basin. Launching the proposal in Brisbane today, Mr Palmer, Chairman of Waratah Coal Pty Ltd, said the 700 MW high efficiency low emission ultra-supercritical power station....




If he wants to use his own money without any government guarantees then go for it.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> If he wants to use his own money without any government guarantees then go for it.




His enemies will try to infer the money belongs to Townsville workers


----------



## sptrawler

I'll believe it when I see it, Clive has more moves than a Swiss watch.


----------



## PZ99

The Clive Adani Network - CANdo 

Meanwhile...

"Deloitte's Global Renewable Energy Trends report released on Thursday says declining costs and advances in technology are driving demand for renewables, with solar and wind reaching price and performance parity on and off the grid.

The report says wind and solar are now viewed as solutions to strengthening grid resilience and reliability, rather than being seen as an obstacle.

Smart inverters and advanced controls mean wind and solar can provide reliability linked to frequency, voltage, and ramping "as well or better" than other generation sources."

https://www.news.com.au/national/br...y/news-story/41a68097833a74eedba2d0eafbed0ac8


----------



## Tisme




----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


>





Do we know where the blades were made ?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Do we know where the blades were made ?




Unsure, But I know Europe are exporters of wind turbines, especially Denmark.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Unsure, But I know Europe are exporters of wind turbines, especially Denmark.





If Denmark can do it, we should be able to.


----------



## CanOz

I'm sure Australian manufacturing has the capability but what makes you think Australia would be the most productive?


----------



## SirRumpole

CanOz said:


> I'm sure Australian manufacturing has the capability but what makes you think Australia would be the most productive?




Being "the most productive" is over rated, having the capability counts for a lot, and anyway Denmark is pretty similar to us in terms of labour rates and living standards, so why should we not be able to compete with them ?


----------



## CanOz

Denmark is more productive than Australia...


----------



## SirRumpole

CanOz said:


> Denmark is more productive than Australia...




Why ?


----------



## CanOz

Statistically Denmark is more productive.


----------



## SirRumpole

CanOz said:


> Statistically Denmark is more productive.




That's not a reason to throw our hands up, it's an opportunity to be more productive.


----------



## overhang

Well Keppel Prince in Portland do manufacturer the wind towers, I know they had job losses a few years ago because projects began importing the towers instead but I think they have won a lot more contracts in recent years and expanded the workforce.  Mathew Guy if he were to be elected would require renewable energy projects over $50 million use 75% local Victorian materials, supplies and labour.  All though I feel this would completely cripple wind farm projects in Victoria and is completely pointless without offering any type of R&D funding for companies to produce the blades and the generators.  Then again it is Mathew Guy so the aim is probably just to kill off the industry. 

A local project recently damaged one of the blades during installation, this actually meant the other 2 blades were useless as they are balanced as a set of 3.  Apparently the blades were just going to be put to scrap as it was cheaper ordering new ones than sending them back overseas to be balanced.  At least that's what I was told.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> That's not a reason to throw our hands up, it's an opportunity to be more productive.




Don't take this as having a go at our workers, but it probably highlights the issues with doing business in Australia, I have been on extended strikes so do understand what they are going through.
But having said that, it does show why companies find it expensive to set up shop here.
Please read the article and make up your own mind.

https://thewest.com.au/business/min...intain-indefinite-strike-action-ng-b88932432z

The workers main grievance, I think is, they apparently want a guaranteed job.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Don't take this as having a go at our workers, but it probably highlights the issues with doing business in Australia, I have been on extended strikes so do understand what they are going through.
> But having said that, it does show why companies find it expensive to set up shop here.
> Please read the article and make up your own mind.
> 
> https://thewest.com.au/business/min...intain-indefinite-strike-action-ng-b88932432z




As usual there would be faults on both sides.

That's why there is the Fair Work Commission.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> As usual there would be faults on both sides.
> 
> That's why there is the Fair Work Commission.



Yes it is a bit sad really, they are the main employer in the area, a bit like cars in S.A.


----------



## Smurf1976

So far as issues of productivity are concerned, a big part of that is that Australia has developed a very risk averse culture in recent times.

Only last Friday an engineer I know who lives in Sydney called me asking if I wouldn’t mind giving my opinion about something that isn’t quite in accordance with Australian Standards.

Long story short, we discussed the theoretical side and the practical difficulties in actually complying with the Standard as well as what could go wrong if not compliant, what the consequences would be and so on.

Then I dropped the bombshell by stating “when I actually tested this at full scale......”.

And so that was it. I’ve been there and actually tested at full scale to see exactly where the stray (electrical) current would end up and with what practical consequences.

As he then went on to say, pretty much nobody would be brave enough these days to do a lab test and they sure as hell wouldn’t do a full scale one. Sure, you can make sure it doesn’t kill anyone and so on but still, there’s no chance he was going to be able to conduct such a test under any circumstances.

That broad risk aversion, even where everything is being done sensibly albeit not to the letter of what it says in a Standard somewhere, is a massive barrier to innovation and productivity in the real world.

Same concept applies right across the economy really. Everyone’s terrified of getting it wrong so just doing things the way they’ve always been done becomes the only “safe” option. Thing is, that guarantees stalling productivity whilst everyone else overtakes us.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> So far as issues of productivity are concerned, a big part of that is that Australia has developed a very risk averse culture in recent times.
> 
> Only last Friday an engineer I know who lives in Sydney called me asking if I wouldn’t mind giving my opinion about something that isn’t quite in accordance with Australian Standards.
> 
> Long story short, we discussed the theoretical side and the practical difficulties in actually complying with the Standard as well as what could go wrong if not compliant, what the consequences would be and so on.
> 
> Then I dropped the bombshell by stating “when I actually tested this at full scale......”.
> 
> And so that was it. I’ve been there and actually tested at full scale to see exactly where the stray (electrical) current would end up and with what practical consequences.
> 
> As he then went on to say, pretty much nobody would be brave enough these days to do a lab test and they sure as hell wouldn’t do a full scale one. Sure, you can make sure it doesn’t kill anyone and so on but still, there’s no chance he was going to be able to conduct such a test under any circumstances.
> 
> That broad risk aversion, even where everything is being done sensibly albeit not to the letter of what it says in a Standard somewhere, is a massive barrier to innovation and productivity in the real world.
> 
> Same concept applies right across the economy really. Everyone’s terrified of getting it wrong so just doing things the way they’ve always been done becomes the only “safe” option. Thing is, that guarantees stalling productivity whilst everyone else overtakes us.




It is our culture at the moment, there is no bouquets, only brickbats.
Just read the comments on here, regarding a Royal commission into aged care.

We really are in a sad place at the moment, and I personally place all the responsibility, at the feet of the media.
They are in a death spiral IMO, and are using populist attention grabbing news, as a grappling hook. IMO it is at the expense of decent journalism.
I may be wrong and it is only my opinion, but I personally am repulsed at the media, they will go broke which is a shame.
But they are stifling everything, you can't do or say anything, without fear of retribution.
Not only could that be by your peers, but it could well be by the Country if the media take a dislike to your perception.
Probably drifting off thread, but it is a real problem for Australia, with regard anything be it politics, energy production, social engineering, manufacturing, teaching, any aspect of our lives.
If the journalists don't agree, $hits are trumps.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Being "the most productive" is over rated, having the capability counts for a lot, and anyway Denmark is pretty similar to us in terms of labour rates and living standards, so why should we not be able to compete with them ?




Give it a go, start a company, do a capital raising and if you are right you might be the next Andrew Forrest, until then its all speculation. 

The guys that want to invest in building and owning a wind farm will buy the best equipment they can at a price that makes the project make sense, If its not available in Australia they will import.

It would be silly to avoid building a wind farm just because the current suppliers are located over seas.

But if you think you can compete with the foreign manufacturers, Go for it, nothing is stopping you.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> But if you think you can compete with the foreign manufacturers, Go for it, nothing is stopping you.




I'm saying there is a place for government(taxpayer) funding of essential services like power that has kept the system going for decades, where quality and standards are more important than doing things on the cheap and making the maximum profit before cutting out when things get tough, like closing Hazlewood.

Competition does not necessarily produce the best results, virtually as soon as power was privatised in this country, the pooh hit the propellor.

People never talked about power prices before that.


----------



## Tisme

Read and weep:

https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Fil...projections_Final-Public-Report-June-2017.pdf


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Competition does not necessarily produce the best results, virtually as soon as power was privatised in this country, the pooh hit the propellor.
> 
> People never talked about power prices before that.



What most fail to realise is that the costs subject to competition are predominantly costs which exist only because of it. As such it is simply impossible for the end result to be a reduction in prices.

Sadly very few seem able to grasp this concept.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> I'm saying there is a place for government(taxpayer) funding of essential services like power that has kept the system going for decades, where quality and standards are more important than doing things on the cheap and making the maximum profit before cutting out when things get tough, like closing Hazlewood.
> 
> Competition does not necessarily produce the best results, virtually as soon as power was privatised in this country, the pooh hit the propellor.
> 
> People never talked about power prices before that.




Could you imagine the damage we would do to Qantas if we said they had to only use Australian made Planes?

It would be a disaster,.. of course we could mandate that only Aussie built planes were allowed to land in Australian airports, and that would force airlines to buy some Aussie planes, But ticket prices would rise, and we would make the whole system less efficient, we would all be paying more and flying less, and some Aussie manufacturer would have a nice fat cat monopoly, at our expense.

I think owning and operating a manufacturing plant making wind turbines, is a very different business to owning and operating a wind farm.

I see no issue with people who want to own and operate a wind farm (public or private), buying their equipment based on quality and price, and importing equipment.

Denmark would have some natural advantages over an Australian manufacturer due to its location.

They are situated in the middle of a huge local wind turbine market, where they can sell directly to Britain, France, Norway, Germany, Spain, Sweden etc etc, this gives them the ability to produce on a scale that Australia could never support.

95% of Denmarks contracts would be lower cost local ones, and 5% might be higher cost exports to Australia and other.

Where as if Australia wanted to match their production scale we would be the opposite.

eg. 95% of contracts would be higher cost exports, and only 5% would be lower cost local sales.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Could you imagine the damage we would do to Qantas if we said they had to only use Australian made Planes?




That's a straw man argument if ever I saw one.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> That's a straw man argument if ever I saw one.




How is it a straw man?

I am simply pointing out that forcing operators of expensive pieces of equipment to use only Australian made equipment could have quite bad effects on customers and the industry in general.

Saying to a power company that is looking to build and operate a wind farm that they can only purchase Australian made equipment, is not any different to telling qantas they can only buy Australian made planes.

How is limiting a company with a fleet of wind turbines to only purchasing Aussie turbines, any different from limiting a company with a fleet of jets to buying only Aussie jets?

The the power company and the airline will want to get the best deal on their equipment, so they can have the lowest costs possible.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> How is it a straw man?




Because you continue to deny that privatisation of power in Australia has made it more expensive, not less.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Because you continue to deny that privatisation of power in Australia has made it more expensive, not less.




That has nothing to do with where the wind turbines are made, we aren't even discussing who owns the electricity company, we are talking about where the equipment is made.
eg. Even if Qantas was still government owned, it would be stupid to avoid buying planes from Boeing and Airbus.

Even if the Electricity company were publicly owned, they would still need to source their wind turbines and the rest of their equipment from a manufacturer.

Owning and operating a fleet of generation assets, is a completely different business to running a wind turbine manufacturing operation. (in fact, even owning the turbines and operating them are often two separate businesses)

Even if the electricity network was 100% government owned, it would still make sense to buy the equipment based on quality and price, rather than where the factory sits geographically.


----------



## luutzu

SirRumpole said:


> I'm saying there is a place for government(taxpayer) funding of essential services like power that has kept the system going for decades, where quality and standards are more important than doing things on the cheap and making the maximum profit before cutting out when things get tough, like closing Hazlewood.
> 
> Competition does not necessarily produce the best results, virtually as soon as power was privatised in this country, the pooh hit the propellor.
> 
> People never talked about power prices before that.




Who needs competition when a wink and nod will make both duopoly rich?


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> That has nothing to do with where the wind turbines are made, we aren't even discussing who owns the electricity company, we are talking about where the equipment is made.
> eg. Even if Qantas was still government owned, it would be stupid to avoid buying planes from Boeing and Airbus.
> 
> Even if the Electricity company were publicly owned, they would still need to source their wind turbines and the rest of their equipment from a manufacturer.
> 
> Owning and operating a fleet of generation assets, is a completely different business to running a wind turbine manufacturing operation. (in fact, even owning the turbines and operating them are often two separate businesses)
> 
> Even if the electricity network was 100% government owned, it would still make sense to buy the equipment based on quality and price, rather than where the factory sits geographically.




Maybe a gov't owned electricity company will see a lot of sense in setting up their own manufacturing plant to support the hardware they need.

I mean, if the entire country's power system depends on your company alone... and the country owns you... it'll start to make a lot of sense to invest in a few manufacturing plant to build and innovate the stuff you need. 

For one it create jobs among your plebs. Two, the freight costs is a couple shipload cheaper per project. Three, you can sell your innovation and export it to other lego nation who privatised all their manufacturing like it's a disease.


----------



## SirRumpole

luutzu said:


> Maybe a gov't owned electricity company will see a lot of sense in setting up their own manufacturing plant to support the hardware they need.
> 
> I mean, if the entire country's power system depends on your company alone... and the country owns you... it'll start to make a lot of sense to invest in a few manufacturing plant to build and innovate the stuff you need.
> 
> For one it create jobs among your plebs. Two, the freight costs is a couple shipload cheaper per project. Three, you can sell your innovation and export it to other lego nation who privatised all their manufacturing like it's a disease.




Exactly. Importing stuff from half way around the world makes little sense when we can do it here and get expertise that would spin off into other areas, like making aircraft wings perhaps.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> Maybe a gov't owned electricity company will see a lot of sense in setting up their own manufacturing plant to support the hardware they need.
> 
> .




They would have to weigh up their options, and judge them as to separate businesses, because they are separate businesses.

Because if the government was going to invest in some government owned manufacturing enterprise, who is to say that wind turbines is the one they should choose? 

No doubt the same government owned electricity company buying the wind turbines, would also be buying Millions of dollars worth of vehicles every year (as does the rest of government)

So do you just choose to build a wind turbine factory "just because", or do you continue importing the wind turbines, and instead invest the public's money to start a vehicle manufacturing business, and supply the electric company (and the rest of the government) with Australian build vehicles?

or there some other manufacturing business that the government should take on, Bulldozers??? Computers??? MRI machines???

Is the government likely to produce any of these things Better and Cheaper??? if not why do it.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> or there some other manufacturing business that the government should take on, Bulldozers??? Computers??? MRI machines???




Bushmasters ? 

It wasn't long ago that you were touting the benefits of this Aussie made vehicle.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> They would have to weigh up their options, and judge them as to separate businesses, because they are separate businesses.
> 
> Because if the government was going to invest in some government owned manufacturing enterprise, who is to say that wind turbines is the one they should choose?
> 
> No doubt the same government owned electricity company buying the wind turbines, would also be buying Millions of dollars worth of vehicles every year (as does the rest of government)
> 
> So do you just choose to build a wind turbine factory "just because", or do you continue importing the wind turbines, and instead invest the public's money to start a vehicle manufacturing business, and supply the electric company (and the rest of the government) with Australian build vehicles?
> 
> or there some other manufacturing business that the government should take on, Bulldozers??? Computers??? MRI machines???
> 
> Is the government likely to produce any of these things Better and Cheaper??? if not why do it.




Upstream and downstream stuff right?

A large organisation with a secure market monopoly that is also gov't owned [own by the taxpayers] will find it more economical to reinvest their profit into manufacturing a large chunk of the parts they need. 

Much like Henry Ford owning the steel mills, a large chunk of the Amazonian forest etc., when his Ford was very much the main game in town. 

Private companies, particularly one on the smaller side of things, will find it cheaper, less risky, to just buy off the shelves. Get one project done and hope there's another not too far away.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Exactly. Importing stuff from half way around the world makes little sense when we can do it here and get expertise that would spin off into other areas, like making aircraft wings perhaps.




Did you know even Boeing makes its wings on the other side of the world to where they assemble their planes.

Boeing has manufacturing plants all over the world making different parts and sections of their planes and transports sections of the planes to their assembly plant to be put together.

Manufacturing is a global business.

Here is their "Dreamlifter" aircraft that transports plane sections from around the world to the assembly plant.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> A large organisation with a secure market monopoly that is also gov't owned [own by the taxpayers] will find it more economical to reinvest their profit into manufacturing a large chunk of the parts they need.




So do you choose the wind turbines or the vehicles?


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> So do you choose the wind turbines or the vehicles?




Depends on what monopoly is get to run


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Manufacturing is a global business.




Except for Australia, we just import.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> Did you know even Boeing makes its wings on the other side of the world to where they assemble their planes.
> 
> Boeing has manufacturing plants all over the world making different parts and sections of their planes and transports sections of the planes to their assembly plant to be put together.
> 
> Manufacturing is a global business.
> 
> Here is their "Dreamlifter" aircraft that transports plane sections from around the world to the assembly plant.





Some of the spreads is necessary to save money; some to scare labours and unions; most of it is to grab politicians by the balls. 

Did I hear that the honourable so and so did not vote to approve a national defence budget to fund our largess? Why would they do such a thing if it'll mean we get to shut down a factory or two in their electorate? 

Are the workers in this factory asking for a raise, better working condition? Why would they do that if we got spare capacity just south of the borer?

Grand strategy my friend. It's priceless.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> Depends on what monopoly is get to run




Even if it had the government had the monopoly on electricity, that doesn't automatically mean it would be best to invest in manufacturing wind turbines, because wind turbines might be a smaller cost compared to the number of vehicles the government buys.


----------



## luutzu

SirRumpole said:


> Except for Australia, we just import.




But we export brain power and managerial know-how... oh wait, we also import most of those too. 

You'd be surprised at how many senior positions are occupied by foreigners at major gov't projects.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Except for Australia, we just import.




As I said before, if you feel you can compete, start a manufacturing business and try and win some Boeing contracts. (or you can just buy some Boeing shares) and enjoy the dividends, and spend the dividends in Australia.

Watch this video at the 9.45 mark, you will see even "British made" Jet engines are made from parts sourced all over the world, and then the jet engines are sent to boeings plant in Seattle USA, to be fitted onto a plane.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> But we export brain power and managerial know-how...




That is true, Because the average Aussie is either to gutless or to short term to invest capital into businesses they see as risky, They are all to busy wanting to invest in property or not save at all.

And those that do have the mind set and patient capital to invest, are put off by the unions, and high costs.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> Watch a bit of this from the 9.45 mark.
> 
> You will see even the British company, that assembles the Jet engines
> 
> 
> Even if it had the government had the monopoly on electricity, that doesn't automatically mean it would be best to invest in manufacturing wind turbines, because wind turbines might be a smaller cost compared to the number of vehicles the government buys.




Then maybe we ought to kick-start an OZ-mobile industry, again. 

Aren't we concerned about our gov't officials riding in foreign made vehicles? Bugs, spying, "accidents" once those self driving tech gets use.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> As I said before, if you feel you can compete, start a manufacturing business and try and win some Boeing contracts. (or you can just buy some Boeing shares) and enjoy the dividends, and spend the dividends in Australia.




Boeing and most other US aircraft manufacturers are heavily dependent on government military orders, it's not as if they are a startup company competing on their merits against global competition. 

In fact most manufacturers around the world have been or are supported to a certain extent by their governments, it's just that us Aussies especially the Tories think that it's Socialism, and so we just lose the jobs elsewhere.


----------



## Value Collector

Thanks to Warren, I am now a part owner of this company.

Precision cast parts is just one of the many suppliers that supplies parts to Boeing and airbus, and even they have over 160 factories in 13 countries and they only supply certain parts.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Boeing and most other US aircraft manufacturers are heavily dependent on government military orders, it's not as if they are a startup company competing on their merits against global competition.




So what, My point is that even they rely on parts being made all over the world, from 1000's of different factories.

Nothing except the simplest and crude products have centralised and integrated manufacturing these days.

Whether you are building a wind turbine or a jet engine you are going to need many parts made all over the world.

Nothing is stopping an Australian business from entering any of these markets and competing for contracts.

But check out that precision cast parts video I linked above, you will see the competition is pretty stiff.


----------



## Tisme

Value Collector said:


> So what, My point is that even they rely on parts being made all over the world, from 1000's of different factories.
> 
> Nothing except the simplest and crude products have centralised and integrated manufacturing these days.
> 
> Whether you are building a wind turbine or a jet engine you are going to need many parts made all over the world.
> 
> Nothing is stopping an Australian business from entering any of these markets and competing for contracts.
> 
> But check out that precision cast parts video I linked above, you will see the competition is pretty stiff.




Be interesting to see if tariffs change that model.


----------



## Value Collector

If you listen at the 1 minute mark, This precision cast parts rep does actually mention Australia as being part of their supply chain.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> Then maybe we ought to kick-start an OZ-mobile industry, again.




I might just stick to my holding of precision cast parts, Hahaha.

I am happy to just be a cog in a global machine, I am not sure trying to separate ourselves and be our own integrated machine is the key to prosperity, for investors or customers. 

I think we are better off finding ways we can contribute our labour and capital resources into the wider global machine, than we are to try and force the labour and capital into areas that we don't have an advantage in.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> than we are to try and force the labour and capital into areas that we don't have an advantage in.




"Advantages" don't just happen, at least in a country of our size. They need to be created and that includes keeping competition out until the home grown industries are strong enough to compete.

That's how all the world's big manufacturers started.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> I might just stick to my holding of precision cast parts, Hahaha.
> 
> I am happy to just be a cog in a global machine, I am not sure trying to separate ourselves and be our own integrated machine is the key to prosperity, for investors or customers.
> 
> I think we are better off finding ways we can contribute our labour and capital resources into the wider global machine, than we are to try and force the labour and capital into areas that we don't have an advantage in.




Yea, but that doesn't necessarily mean we contribute mainly with the ores and minerals. Those will run out one day. 

There's quite a few ingenius OZ invention and tech. Such as that wifi/bluetooth patent from the CSIRO. There's a few biotech that I've heard of. Just that we as a country tend not to develop and specialise on them... leaving the few to stand all by themselves. Then soon enough they either die, gets taken over or move offshore to gain more talent, bigger market, additional scale etc.


----------



## fiftyeight

We cannot dig holes forever, at some point the gov is going to have to pick up the bill (maybe a mining tax could of funded these future bills). 

Grants, tax breaks, gov projects using local parts and labour, in industries like manufacturing, tech, management or an industry yet to be invented. At some stage it will cost $$$

Why do I get the feeling that, what and who to fund will be analogous to the The future of energy generation and storage, decision paralysis caused by political BS and point scoring


----------



## Smurf1976

I’m strongly in favour of having productive industry in Australia but I’m also pragmatic - at no point did we make literally every component of any large scale power generating system in Australia.

Of more immediate concern to me is the ability to carry out maintenance and actually doing so.

Within the power generation industry that ranges from in-house heavy workshop and manufacturing capability through to pretty much zero.

Some are very capable technically but others are really just operators in practice, reliant on external expertise.

Some companies cooperate with rivals and have no problem contracting them to undertake physical work on their equipment. Others would rather have their plant fall apart than hand the maintenance work to a rival generating business.

That’s a consequence of splitting up the industry. Power stations within sight of each other but those working for x aren’t even allowed on site at y who send great big pieces of equipment overseas to be fixed. Another thing the economic and political types didn’t understand when they split it all up.

I do think we should at least have the ability to carry out major maintenance work in Australia. There are gaps at present certainly.


----------



## bellenuit

SirRumpole said:


> "Advantages" don't just happen, at least in a country of our size. They need to be created and that includes keeping competition out until the home grown industries are strong enough to compete.
> 
> That's how all the world's big manufacturers started.




Aren't you the one that was saying a few months back that companies should only be allowed carried forward losses for a couple of years instead of until they are eliminated by profits. Your attitude seemed to be that if a company couldn't get to profitability within a few years they should go out of business, even though things like carried forward losses are just simply a means of not taxing companies on profits that haven't yet exceeded their accumulated losses.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> "Advantages" don't just happen, at least in a country of our size. They need to be created and that includes keeping competition out until the home grown industries are strong enough to compete.
> 
> That's how all the world's big manufacturers started.





It was the chairman of the Bank of Japan in the early 50s who is quoted as saying (paraphrasing) that international division of labour made it meaningless to develop a local car industry. So the local makers made pommy and french cars under licence until they learned how do it themselves.


----------



## SirRumpole

bellenuit said:


> Aren't you the one that was saying a few months back that companies should only be allowed carried forward losses for a couple of years instead of until they are eliminated by profits. Your attitude seemed to be that if a company couldn't get to profitability within a few years they should go out of business, even though things like carried forward losses are just simply a means of not taxing companies on profits that haven't yet exceeded their accumulated losses.




Thinking about that, I now believe that companies should be able to write off all their losses, but not in one go, but at a maximum rate of say 10% per year. ie they could only reduce their profit by 10% a year from accumulated losses. That would get them paying tax each year while still allowing writing off losses.


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> It was the chairman of the Bank of Japan in the early 50s who is quoted as saying (paraphrasing) that international division of labour made it meaningless to develop a local car industry. So the local makers made pommy and french cars under licence until they learned how do it themselves.




Yep, very clever of them.


----------



## Smurf1976

Regarding previous discussion about productivity, a relevant question is “of what?”

Broadly speaking there’s an inverse correlation between labour productivity and plant productivity in the industry at present.

Company A has pursued labour productivity most certainly and let’s just say they’ve now got a level of plant reliability and productivity that others would find embarrassingly low.

Company B hasn’t worried so much about labour productivity, seeing that as a relatively minor cost compared to the need to maintain plant reliability and productivity.

The lights have stayed on because thus far those in the “B” category have been able to step up and generate when those in the “A” category have yet another problem which brings operations to a halt.

Those in the “B” category are however all too aware that they won’t be able to cope when the inevitable happens and the others fall in a heap when demand is higher than their capacity. It’s pure luck that the problems have been fortunately timed thus far.

I won’t name names but one company in particular seems to have a lot of issues technically in recent times. They’re making big profits however.


----------



## bellenuit

SirRumpole said:


> Thinking about that, I now believe that companies should be able to write off all their losses, but not in one go, but at a maximum rate of say 10% per year. ie they could only reduce their profit by 10% a year from accumulated losses. That would get them paying tax each year while still allowing writing off losses.




It could still drive them out of business.

If they have accumulated losses of $10M and then the next year they make a profit (before applying carried forward losses) of $2M, then by your system they can apply just $1M of accumulated losses. So they will be taxed on $1M, which is $300K at 30%.

In general, it will be far better in the long run for the ATO to allow the company to become cumulatively profitable and survive rather than impose unjustifiable taxes on a start-up or company recovering from bad times. In the above example, if profit recovers by $1M per year, thus $2M, $3M, $4M and $5M,it will only be 4 years after the non-profitable year(s) before the company is now fully profitable and paying tax on all profits. By your system they will be hit with taxes of $300K, $600K, $900K in those start-up or recovery years, even though they have not made a cumulative profit to date. Start-ups in particular need to invest in themselves. Having to pay taxes on income they haven't yet earned is going to kill most start-ups. 

Let the greedy government wait until the company has earned more than they have spent before applying an unnecessary impost.


----------



## SirRumpole

bellenuit said:


> Having to pay taxes on income they haven't yet earned is going to kill most start-ups.




So you give startups a tax holiday.

I wouldn't call a company like Qantas a "startup".

How long since they paid tax ?


----------



## bellenuit

SirRumpole said:


> So you give startups a tax holiday.




Do you not even understand the basics of business. A start-up that hasn't made a cumulative profit since starting up is not getting a tax holiday. It's costs to date still exceeds the revenue it has earned to date.



> I wouldn't call a company like Qantas a "startup".




Neither would I. It is a company that went through a bad time but has now been turned around.




> How long since they paid tax ?



 2017-2018, the tax year just ended, is the first time it paid tax since 2009, although it probably won't be physically paid until the due date. It has finally paid off its cumulative losses.


----------



## luutzu

bellenuit said:


> Do you not even understand the basics of business. A start-up that hasn't made a cumulative profit since starting up is not getting a tax holiday. It's costs to date still exceeds the revenue it has earned to date.
> 
> Neither would I. It is a company that went through a bad time but has now been turned around.
> 
> 2017-2018, the tax year just ended, is the first time it paid tax since 2009, although it probably won't be physically paid until the due date. It has finally paid off its cumulative losses.




So how long will they continue paying tax?

Oil price already risen, forecast to rise higher rather than lower.

There's possible crackdown on certain practises JetStar engages in. Such as using cheap overseas flight attendants on domestic flights.

Then there's the credit crunch, property collapse, tourism bye bye.


----------



## luutzu

SirRumpole said:


> So you give startups a tax holiday.
> 
> I wouldn't call a company like Qantas a "startup".
> 
> How long since they paid tax ?




Know how Socialism claims to protect society? What does Capitalism protect? Capitalists. 

And for the bonus round... one of them is lying.


----------



## SirRumpole

bellenuit said:


> Do you not even understand the basics of business. A start-up that hasn't made a cumulative profit since starting up is not getting a tax holiday. It's costs to date still exceeds the revenue it has earned to date.




One of the basics of business is that shareholders take a risk and have to bear some of the downsides as well as the upside. If a business is profitable currently they should be paying some tax, even if they can reduce it somewhat from previous losses. The government still needs revenue for services and infrastructure that business requires.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> Thinking about that, I now believe that companies should be able to write off all their losses, but not in one go, but at a maximum rate of say 10% per year. ie they could only reduce their profit by 10% a year from accumulated losses. That would get them paying tax each year while still allowing writing off losses.




The loss made by the company is a profit made by another . The net tax take remains the same, so  the tax on the 90% is a windfall take and crippling to the business.


----------



## luutzu

Tisme said:


> The loss made by the company is a profit made by another . The net tax take remains the same, so  the tax on the 90% is a windfall take and crippling to the business.




Not necessarily the case though. 

One's expense is another's revenue. But revenue doesn't always equal profit. Just ask practically all major corporations who barely made any profit to tax much from.


----------



## SirRumpole

Tisme said:


> The loss made by the company is a profit made by another .




The business that makes the profit may not pay tax in our juridisction so the net tax may be negative.


----------



## luutzu

SirRumpole said:


> One of the basics of business is that shareholders take a risk and have to bear some of the downsides as well as the upside. If a business is profitable currently they should be paying some tax, even if they can reduce it somewhat from previous losses. The government still needs revenue for services and infrastructure that business requires.




That's what personal income and consumption taxes are for. 

That and speeding tickets, fines and nasty letters from Centrelink.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> The business that makes the profit may not pay tax in our juridisction so the net tax may be negative.




But the net is the same, balance of trade is not the concern local business. If you tax based on balance of trade we would have zero business.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> Yea, but that doesn't necessarily mean we contribute mainly with the ores and minerals. Those will run out one day.
> 
> There's quite a few ingenius OZ invention and tech. Such as that wifi/bluetooth patent from the CSIRO. There's a few biotech that I've heard of. Just that we as a country tend not to develop and specialise on them... leaving the few to stand all by themselves. Then soon enough they either die, gets taken over or move offshore to gain more talent, bigger market, additional scale etc.




You know the part of Adam smiths “wealth of nations” where he says it would be silly for America to invest secondary industries when they hadn’t yet exhausted their ability to invest into primary industries such as agriculture? I think a similar thing applies here.

Sure, in a few hundred (or thousand) years we might have depleted our mining ability, but that doesn’t mean that’s not he best use of our capital and labour today.

And we don’t have to limit ourselves to mining, eg tourism, agriculture, services and many other industries can be done, we just done have to have the idea that we need our economy to be fully intergrated to prosper, and as a nation we can invest overseas also, if that’s the best way to deploy capital into a certain industry.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> "Advantages" don't just happen, at least in a country of our size. They need to be created and that includes keeping competition out until the home grown industries are strong enough to compete.
> 
> That's how all the world's big manufacturers started.




How exactly would you want this happening?

Would you want a wind turbine 100% manufactured here? Eg all 30,000 or so parts?

Or are you happy with imported parts as long as the “assembly plant” is here?

Do we force the companies that are willing to invest in wind power plants to buy the local equipment? What if that scares them off developing a project at all?

Would you be happy with less total number of projects reaching completion? Or should the focus just be on getting as many renewable projects funded and completed regardless of if the components are imported?

I just see that any law or rule that forced project developers into buying only from local suppliers would have a net negative effect.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> You know the part of Adam smiths “wealth of nations” where he says it would be silly for America to invest secondary industries when they hadn’t yet exhausted their ability to invest into primary industries such as agriculture? I think a similar thing applies here.
> 
> Sure, in a few hundred (or thousand) years we might have depleted our mining ability, but that doesn’t mean that’s not he best use of our capital and labour today.
> 
> And we don’t have to limit ourselves to mining, eg tourism, agriculture, services and many other industries can be done, we just done have to have the idea that we need our economy to be fully intergrated to prosper, and as a nation we can invest overseas also, if that’s the best way to deploy capital into a certain industry.




No I don't know because I haven't read it, all, yet 

I know what you're saying... and Australia is an incredibly rich, and lucky, country. Just that the wealth doesn't trickle down to a fairly large chunk of the population.

The reason, I think, is because we have replaced our manufacturing jobs with... bugger all really.

There's the automation in mining and mineral exploration. The mainly flight by night kind of operations. Cutting of funding to higher education to grow that future innovative workforce. 

So for most whose education and training doesn't easily transfer them to more specialised work, removing that manufacturing base will create generations of "unskilled" trades, "redundant" workers who either take an application with Uber or at Bunnings stacking stuff. 

For those with capital... it's a lot easier to move their stash to where return is highest, more immediate. That's fair enough.

But I think that as a national strategy, or whatever you'd call it... often the best and most profitable investment are long-term, probably illogical and hopeless kind of capital waste. 

It's a bit like a parent investing in their kids education.

The little bastards might end up learning nothing, should probably be more useful working at a coal mine or Maccas the moment they can get a tax file number... But if given enough guidance, good books... might end up being an investor or something 

Or take two examples I read... When Thomas Jefferson decided to buy the Louisiana  estates from Napoleon, many call him an idiot who will send the country broke. Same with some other dude's purchase of Alaska from the Tsar of Russia. 

I mean, if those two investment weren't made, how will the US arms industry thrive and enable it to liberate the world to kingdom come?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> One of the basics of business is that shareholders take a risk and have to bear some of the downsides as well as the upside. If a business is profitable currently they should be paying some tax, even if they can reduce it somewhat from previous losses. The government still needs revenue for services and infrastructure that business requires.




How about a company just pay tax once they have made an actual profit,

Eg, if they lose $10 Million a year for the first 5 years, ($50 Million loss) then we don’t charge them taxes until they have made that $50 million  loss back.

Seems pretty simple to me.


----------



## luutzu

Tisme said:


> But the net is the same, balance of trade is not the concern local business. If you tax based on balance of trade we would have zero business.




No, there would still be local businesses. Employing local labour and paying taxes locally. 

Most business entrepreneurs, despite what we're told, do not stop working or stop creating a business if the tax is at x or y%. You'd only care about that after you've made money and needed a fifth estate by the snowy mountain for completely legitimate tax-deductible business meetings.

Corporations are becoming too big they no longer just exploit the brown and black and yellow people "over there". They've become what some egghead call a virtual global Senate supplanting democracy like all upper houses democracies over.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> No I don't know because I haven't read it, all, yet
> 
> I know what you're saying... and Australia is an incredibly rich, and lucky, country. Just that the wealth doesn't trickle down to a fairly large chunk of the population.
> 
> The reason, I think, is because we have replaced our manufacturing jobs with... bugger all really.
> 
> There's the automation in mining and mineral exploration. The mainly flight by night kind of operations. Cutting of funding to higher education to grow that future innovative workforce.
> 
> So for most whose education and training doesn't easily transfer them to more specialised work, removing that manufacturing base will create generations of "unskilled" trades, "redundant" workers who either take an application with Uber or at Bunnings stacking stuff.
> 
> For those with capital... it's a lot easier to move their stash to where return is highest, more immediate. That's fair enough.
> 
> But I think that as a national strategy, or whatever you'd call it... often the best and most profitable investment are long-term, probably illogical and hopeless kind of capital waste.
> 
> It's a bit like a parent investing in their kids education.
> 
> The little bastards might end up learning nothing, should probably be more useful working at a coal mine or Maccas the moment they can get a tax file number... But if given enough guidance, good books... might end up being an investor or something
> 
> Or take two examples I read... When Thomas Jefferson decided to buy the Louisiana  estates from Napoleon, many call him an idiot who will send the country broke. Same with some other dude's purchase of Alaska from the Tsar of Russia.
> 
> I mean, if those two investment weren't made, how will the US arms industry thrive and enable it to liberate the world to kingdom come?




We have people complaining that our mines, farms, infrastructure and even branded companies are being bought by over seas investors, which is a clear sign not enough local capital is being invested in these areas.

But then these same people want to divert our small amount of capital away from these areas and into “pie in the sky” projects.

I am a firm believer that if local investors put more capital into existing industries which require capital, the whole economy would do better and eventually capital saturation would mean capital would naturally flow into other areas.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> "Advantages" don't just happen, at least in a country of our size. They need to be created and that includes keeping competition out until the home grown industries are strong enough to compete.
> 
> That's how all the world's big manufacturers started.




Funnily enough, we agree again.
Some of the Australian Government owned companies, that have been sold off:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Bank
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSL_Limited
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optus

Those were companies, sold by Hawke and Keating, and that is just a quick google search.
So it really isn't party specific, they are all ar$es, I just hate that some can't see that both sides do exactly the same.
Oh and let's not forget Qantas. lol


----------



## fiftyeight

Value Collector said:


> But then these same people want to divert our small amount of capital away from these areas and into “pie in the sky” projects.




Is our pool of super that small?


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> No, there would still be local businesses. Employing local labour and paying taxes locally.
> 
> Most business entrepreneurs, despite what we're told, do not stop working or stop creating a business if the tax is at x or y%. You'd only care about that after you've made money and needed a fifth estate by the snowy mountain for completely legitimate tax-deductible business meetings.
> 
> Corporations are becoming too big they no longer just exploit the brown and black and yellow people "over there". They've become what some egghead call a virtual global Senate supplanting democracy like all upper houses democracies over.




Corporations becoming “big” is good.

When they were small enough to be controlled buy robber barons, the everyday people had no way of getting ahead.

Now, anyone and everyone can invest  and become an owner of pretty much any of the big corporations for as little as $500.

It’s never been easier to gradually move from relying 100% on labour, to building a capital base.


----------



## Value Collector

fiftyeight said:


> Is our pool of super that small?




Obviously it is, other wise it is just totally misdirected.

What other reason is there for our infrastructure, farms, businesses etc being bought up by foreigners, and Aussie businesses relying on overseas bonds.

If there was enough local capital, then asset prices would be higher, and not attractive to outsiders.


----------



## bellenuit

SirRumpole said:


> One of the basics of business is that shareholders take a risk and have to bear some of the downsides as well as the upside. If a business is profitable currently they should be paying some tax, even if they can reduce it somewhat from previous losses. The government still needs revenue for services and infrastructure that business requires.




Profit is related to a period of time not a point in time. So being "profitable currently" although a term that is used often is meaningless. A company is not profitable until it has turned a profit. For taxation and accounting purposes we use a financial year as the basis of measuring what is owed in tax and what the status of the company is, but because a company may make a profit in a financial year does not mean it is profitable. A company becomes profitable when its income to date exceeds its expenses to date.

And yes, you are correct. When a company becomes profitable it should start paying tax on the profits. And that is what happens. The taxation department realises that even though a company may make a profit within a tax year, it is still not profitable if it has losses that can be applied against those profits. So that is why current year profits are not taxed if they are exceeded by prior year losses. That is just fairness in the tax system.

Your use of the word risk is inappropriate here. *As a generalisation* the fact that startups incur huge costs up front is a fact of business not a risk that can be overcome by good management. It is only when the company has paid down those costs that you can say it is profitable and that is what the ATO says too. Starting to tax them before they have paid down costs will at best stifle their growth or at worse drive them out of business. Where on earth do you think the tax take gets paid from?


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> Corporations becoming “big” is good.
> 
> When they were small enough to be controlled buy robber barons, the everyday people had no way of getting ahead.
> 
> Now, anyone and everyone can invest  and become an owner of pretty much any of the big corporations for as little as $500.
> 
> It’s never been easier to gradually move from relying 100% on labour, to building a capital base.




True. That's a good point.

But then if we keep letting fund managers managing our super and savings, its pretty much the same. But definitely potential there to democratise it. 

'til then, owning a few thousands worth of stocks just doesn't get the CEO or the Chairman to answer your call as it used to.


----------



## luutzu

sptrawler said:


> Funnily enough, we agree again.
> Some of the Australian Government owned companies, that have been sold off:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Bank
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSL_Limited
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optus
> 
> Those were companies, sold by Hawke and Keating, and that is just a quick google search.
> So it really isn't party specific, they are all ar$es, I just hate that some can't see that both sides do exactly the same.
> Oh and let's not forget Qantas. lol




It's called sharing the wealth. Where you take what we all share and share all of it to a few who know how stock ownership works.

I read in its Annual Report that CSL have a contract with the gov't to guarantee certain kind of drugs in case of a pandemic or outbreaks. 

For that guarantee, the taxpayers get to fork out an annual fee about $50M [?] to CSL to make sure they don't sell all of it to the Chinese or something.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Obviously it is, other wise it is just totally misdirected.
> 
> What other reason is there for our infrastructure, farms, businesses etc being bought up by foreigners, and Aussie businesses relying on overseas bonds.
> 
> If there was enough local capital, then asset prices would be higher, and not attractive to outsiders.



That isn't exactly accurate, there is plenty of O/S super funds buying up our infrastructure at a reasonable price, it is just Aussie super funds want instant hit high numbers.
They get their management bonuses, based on yearly performance, therefore they trade in high growth high spec not long term dividend.
I lost a lot of money on Government/Private motorways, River City(Brisbane) and East Link(Melbourne).
They made a lot of sense, but were just a Government ponzi scheme, that was sold to overseas pension funds for nothing. Australian Governments are a disgrace IMO.
There is no way I would want the Australian Government, spending taxpayers money on any industry, because as has been shown as soon as it is worth anything it is sold.
We are much better off just letting private invest their money, and force the industry to pay tax, and regulate as required.


----------



## sptrawler

luutzu said:


> It's called sharing the wealth. Where you take what we all share and share all of it to a few who know how stock ownership works.
> 
> I read in its Annual Report that CSL have a contract with the gov't to guarantee certain kind of drugs in case of a pandemic or outbreaks.
> 
> For that guarantee, the taxpayers get to fork out an annual fee about $50M [?] to CSL to make sure they don't sell all of it to the Chinese or something.




Yes, they were about $27 seven years ago.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> Corporations becoming “big” is good.
> 
> When they were small enough to be controlled buy robber barons, the everyday people had no way of getting ahead.
> 
> Now, anyone and everyone can invest  and become an owner of pretty much any of the big corporations for as little as $500.
> 
> It’s never been easier to gradually move from relying 100% on labour, to building a capital base.




Another problem with too big too fail corporations, as John Raulston Saul pointed out, is that they standardised and commoditised everything. 

There's two problem with that... one is the lost of cultural identity, local manufacturing, most local operations offering similar goods. 

That as a corporation gets bigger, economy of scales and financial muscle mean that they have to expand, offering the same stuff all over the place.

That in turn mean the need to over extract whatever ingredient it is they need to produce it. To the extend that it supplant and destroy resources and produce more suitable to the local environment. 

The example he gave was an apple from NZ having been shipped to Canada. Why? It costs less than the Canadian ones... but the gov't subsidies to NZ farmers, the fuel to transport, the chemicals and resources to store etc., Why all the trouble when there are perfectly good apples in Canada... or maple syrups.

The good thing is you get apples all year round I suppose.


----------



## luutzu

sptrawler said:


> Yes, they were about $27 seven years ago.




Yea, I made "good" money on CSL. Bought around low $30s, sold for a cool $42 in a year 

I think I made about $1,000 profit on that one. 

The first million is the hardest... tell me about it.


----------



## sptrawler

luutzu said:


> The example he gave was an apple from NZ having been shipped to Canada. Why? It costs less than the Canadian ones... but the gov't subsidies to NZ farmers, the fuel to transport, the chemicals and resources to store etc., Why all the trouble when there are perfectly good apples in Canada... or maple syrups.
> 
> The good thing is you get apples all year round I suppose.



The same applies to us exporting iron ore, rather than cars.
China makes about 30million cars a year, we can fill a ship to 60% capacity with iron ore, it would be about 2% capacity with cars.
How much fuel would be wasted transporting cars, instead of iron ore?


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> We have people complaining that our mines, farms, infrastructure and even branded companies are being bought by over seas investors, which is a clear sign not enough local capital is being invested in these areas.
> 
> But then these same people want to divert our small amount of capital away from these areas and into “pie in the sky” projects.
> 
> I am a firm believer that if local investors put more capital into existing industries which require capital, the whole economy would do better and eventually capital saturation would mean capital would naturally flow into other areas.




Yea, as private investors we should do that. 

For gov't though... I think the same rules of finance and economics doesn't apply as much. 

I mean, they can print money and tax people. That alone mean they can do financially stupid stuff and it could make money if it's spent on productive things. Like roads, bridges, affordable housing.


----------



## fiftyeight

Value Collector said:


> other wise it is just totally misdirected.




This was my point


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> we can fill a ship to 60% capacity with iron ore, it would be about 2% capacity with cars.



Rationally we’d make steel and fill the ship to effectively 100%


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> How about a company just pay tax once they have made an actual profit,
> 
> Eg, if they lose $10 Million a year for the first 5 years, ($50 Million loss) then we don’t charge them taxes until they have made that $50 million  loss back.
> 
> Seems pretty simple to me.




OK then, how about individuals don't pay tax until they have paid off their home loans ?

Seems pretty simple to me.


----------



## overhang

luutzu said:


> Yea, I made "good" money on CSL. Bought around low $30s, sold for a cool $42 in a year
> 
> I think I made about $1,000 profit on that one.
> 
> The first million is the hardest... tell me about it.




We must have got in about the same time, made a nice 40% and was quite happy at the time. Wish I held onto it, such a solid bluechip.  Meanwhile I still have that speculative mining stock worth stuff all and lucky to do 10k $ volume a year that just won't die off yet but is still there in the portfolio to remind me of my stuff up those years back.  

Mean while the Vic Greens have all the answers, turn us into the next California and beat SA to do it  https://reneweconomy.com.au/greens-call-to-phase-out-coal-in-victoria-100-renewables-by-2030-2030/

If I recall at the last VIC election the Greens said if they hold the balance of power they would shutdown all Vic coal plants by 2025.  Guess we'll have some nice big redundant Holden and Ford sheds to put the homeless in.


----------



## SirRumpole

bellenuit said:


> Your use of the word risk is inappropriate here. *As a generalisation* the fact that startups incur huge costs up front is a fact of business not a risk that can be overcome by good management. It is only when the company has paid down those costs that you can say it is profitable and that is what the ATO says too. Starting to tax them before they have paid down costs will at best stifle their growth or at worse drive them out of business. Where on earth do you think the tax take gets paid from?




Not all companies are  startups. It's reasonable to give them a fair period of time before they reduce some of their startup losses.

Qantas paid dividends during the time it wasn't paying tax, so if it and other companies can do that then investors can afford to take a haircut as well.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> OK then, how about individuals don't pay tax until they have paid off their home loans ?
> 
> Seems pretty simple to me.




Companies don't get to write loan principle repayments off on their tax, only interest is a tax deduction. Companies with loans still pay tax.

Are you talking about investors?

Debt is generally paid off with profit, Principle payments aren't a tax deduction, only interest payments.

So if you have enough income to reduce your investment home loan by $10,000 after you have paid all your expenses including depreciation, that $10,000 loan reduction is your profit, and it taxable.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> Like roads, bridges, affordable housing.




They are already doing those things.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Qantas paid dividends during the time it wasn't paying tax, so if it and other companies can do that then investors can afford to take a haircut as well.




You can make genuine non cash losses while still having cashflow to pay dividends.

eg. Imagine You had $1,000,000 of money in the bank that has already been taxed, So its yours free and clear.

Say you decide to put it into a $1 Million dollar house boat, that you rent out for $100,000 per year, But it turns out the house boats life is only 10 years.

Each year you get $100K in income that you can pay as a dividend to yourself, But the House boat also goes down in value by $100K a year as it eats into its 10 year life span.

Your investment is generating a return to you, but its not making a profit that is taxable, The $100K you are getting paid is offset by the $100K capital loss in the value of the asset.

In reality you are just getting your original $1 Million capital paid back to you over 10 years, you never earned any additional profit.

If the boat ends up lasting 15 years, so you do end up getting an additional $500K over that extra 5 years, then you will start paying tax, because then you have made a profit, but until then you don't get taxed.

If you boat ends up only lasting 5 years, you make a $500K loss, which you can write off against future profits from other ventures, The fact is you shouldn't have to pay tax until you have actually made a profit on that original $1M.

------

In qantas example, if they had been depreciating assets with a life of 20 years, but it turns out they only ended up lasting 10, they may get a big write off in one year that flows over to the following years meaning they pay no tax, but in reality this is because they paid to much tax in the prior 10, by not writing their equipment off based on the actual 10 year life that happened, because they had assumed a 20 year life.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> They are already doing those things.




Affordable housing? Where?


----------



## luutzu

overhang said:


> We must have got in about the same time, made a nice 40% and was quite happy at the time. Wish I held onto it, such a solid bluechip.  Meanwhile I still have that speculative mining stock worth stuff all and lucky to do 10k $ volume a year that just won't die off yet but is still there in the portfolio to remind me of my stuff up those years back.
> 
> Mean while the Vic Greens have all the answers, turn us into the next California and beat SA to do it  https://reneweconomy.com.au/greens-call-to-phase-out-coal-in-victoria-100-renewables-by-2030-2030/
> 
> If I recall at the last VIC election the Greens said if they hold the balance of power they would shutdown all Vic coal plants by 2025.  Guess we'll have some nice big redundant Holden and Ford sheds to put the homeless in.




I put most of my stocks back then into RIO and BHP. For safe keeping and such as I was getting "a real job". Those and ABC Learning. 

So I still got two stocks reminding me of blindly following the "long term" investment strategy.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Rationally we’d make steel and fill the ship to effectively 100%



I thought that, but talking to someone fairly high up in the business, he says it isn't economical to make the steel here.
Firstly to fill the ship to capacity it would have to be in ignot form not rolled, therefore would require re processing, at destination.
If the steel was in rolled form, the amount you could fit in the vessel would be restricted.
I think if you fill a ship to 100% capacity, it sinks, something to do with displacement I think.
Way above my pay grade, but he said the most efficient way, is to pour in iron dust until the ship reaches its plimsoll line then off it goes.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> In qantas example, if they had been depreciating assets with a life of 20 years, but it turns out they only ended up lasting 10, they may get a big write off in one year that flows over to the following years meaning they pay no tax, but in reality this is because they paid to much tax in the prior 10, by not writing their equipment off based on the actual 10 year life that happened, because they had assumed a 20 year life.




Sounds like creative accounting to me.



Assets are written off over their lifetime, in your scenario few companies would pay any tax at all. It's the operating profit not capital profit that is taxable.


----------



## Value Collector

luutzu said:


> Affordable housing? Where?




$650,000,000 was spent in this Minto estate alone.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Sounds like creative accounting to me.




Nah, assets wear out, especially planes.

Of course you can get creative and write them of quicker than they actually wear out, But this just delaying the taxation, it doesn't reduce the over all amount.

Also, sometimes you will be writing things off over longer periods, and then suddenly the item is obsolete and it turns out you should have been writing it off over a shorter period the whole time.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> I thought that, but talking to someone fairly high up in the business, he says it isn't economical to make the steel here.
> Firstly to fill the ship to capacity it would have to be in ignot form not rolled, therefore would require re processing, at destination.
> If the steel was in rolled form, the amount you could fit in the vessel would be restricted.
> I think if you fill a ship to 100% capacity, it sinks, something to do with displacement I think.
> Way above my pay grade, but he said the most efficient way, is to pour in iron dust until the ship reaches its plimsoll line then off it goes.




China probably deals will unions and greenies more effectively that we do to.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> $650,000,000 was spent in this Minto estate alone.





Not sure I can trust a video with music and voice over like a propaganda piece man. 

Yea, there are a few new social housing estates that I'm aware. They're very impressive. Good to see. 

See how socialism is good for everyone?


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> Nah, assets wear out, especially planes.
> 
> Of course you can get creative and write them of quicker than they actually wear out, But this just delaying the taxation, it doesn't reduce the over all amount.
> 
> Also, sometimes you will be writing things off over longer periods, and then suddenly the item is obsolete and it turns out you should have been writing it off over a shorter period the whole time.




The human body wears out too right? Most parts are irreplaceable. Sooo... where's the tax deduction on that?


----------



## SirRumpole

luutzu said:


> The human body wears out too right? Most parts are irreplaceable. Sooo... where's the tax deduction on that?




Yeah, we should all be able to claim depreciation on our bodies.


----------



## Smurf1976

overhang said:


> If I recall at the last VIC election the Greens said if they hold the balance of power they would shutdown all Vic coal plants by 2025.



Ultimately yes but nobody with an understanding of the technical and resource issues would think that sensible even if unlimited funds were available.

What we need is to get the politics out of it.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Yeah, we should all be able to claim depreciation on our bodies.




Maybe, but it would be net zero effect, Because then the government would then apply a capital value to you at birth from which the depreciation charge is deducted each year and if labour get in, they might want to limit your rights to claim the depreciation, but also tax you an additional tax on the capital value of your body


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Assets are written off over their lifetime, in your scenario few companies would pay any tax at all. It's the operating profit not capital profit that is taxable.




This is how its done, and plenty of companies pay tax.

But obviously tax is only due on Profits, and you can only say you made a profit if over an assets life you extract more $$$ out of it than it cost to Buy it, Run it and eventually dispose of it.

Using the wind turbines as an example.

They have a 20 year life, if the cost $100 Million and generate $10 Million a year in cashflow from electricity sales, then they aren't making $10 Million a year in profit, they are only making $5 Million a year.


Over the 20 Year life they will bring in a total of $200 Million in cashflow, But the $100 Million original capital value has been depleted to $0 because the assets are now worthless, so the total profit is only the $100 Million additional cashflow that was brought in over and above the capital cost. They would have paid tax on the additional earnings over the life of the project at the rate of $5 Million taxable income each year, while $5 Million cashflow returned to their bank without being taxed, because that was their original capital returning.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Over the 20 Year life they will bring in a total of $200 Million in cashflow, But the $100 Million original capital value has been depleted to $0 because the assets are now worthless, so the total profit is only the $100 Million additional cashflow that was brought in over and above the capital cost. They would have paid tax on the additional earnings over the life of the project at the rate of $5 Million taxable income each year, while $5 Million cashflow returned to their bank without being taxed, because that was their original capital returning.




Well that's why they can deduct depreciation.


----------



## luutzu

Value Collector said:


> Maybe, but it would be net zero effect, Because then the government would then apply a capital value to you at birth from which the depreciation charge is deducted each year and if labour get in, they might want to limit your rights to claim the depreciation, but also tax you an additional tax on the capital value of your body




Can't argue with a capitalist now can you?


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Well that's why they can deduct depreciation.




Thats the point, sometimes you might have to write of a bunch of things early, and it wipes out all profit for a couple of years, so no tax is due, But you could still pay dividends, because its not a cash flow loss, you have just lost some of your capital that was employed.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Thats the point, sometimes you might have to write of a bunch of things early, and it wipes out all profit for a couple of years, so no tax is due, But you could still pay dividends, because its not a cash flow loss, you have just lost some of your capital that was employed.




The simple point is, if the company can afford to pay dividends they can afford to pay tax, either way it's dead money to the company.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> The simple point is, if the company can afford to pay dividends they can afford to pay tax, either way it's dead money to the company.




Do you understand you can have the cash flow to pay a dividend, while also losing a chunk of your capital? so you aren't actually making a profit.

Imagine if something happened that made you wind farm totally obsolete and worthless in year 5 of its 20 year life span, 

It would have been worth $75 Million to you, You may still have got $10 Million revenue that year, but you have lost $75 Million of your capital, It would be wrong for the government to try and tax that $10 Million, because you have made a Loss, not a profit, you are poorer, not richer regardless of the dividend, that $10 Million dividend is just your capital being returned.

Cashflow and profit are two different things. 

If you happen to have some other investment generating profits, those profits won't be taxable till you make back the $75 Million you lost on the obsolete wind farm.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Do you understand you can have the cash flow to pay a dividend, while also losing a chunk of your capital? so you aren't actually making a profit.




Tax is also paid from cash flow.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Tax is also paid from cash flow.




Tax is "Paid from" cashflow, But it based on your "profit", not your "cashflow".

eg, If you have $1,000,000 and you give it to me interest free, and I pay it back to you over 20 years at $50K a year, you are generating a $50K per year "Cashflow" but not a $50K "Profit", it would be wrong for the government to tax you, you are simply getting your capital returned to you.

Its the same when you put the money into a capital asset with a certain life, part of the cashflow is not profit, its just your capital returning to you.

If I paid you $55K a year for 20 years, you have made a profit of $5K each year, $5 K would be your taxable income, not the entire $55K cashflow.


----------



## Smurf1976

So far as tax and energy companies are concerned, for the record government owned corporations, at least in the case of Hydro Tas, do indeed pay tax despite most assuming they don’t. 

There are some significant differences in how it’s administered, since strictly speaking the federal government is precluded from taxing the states, but state owned corporations do ultimately have the same costs as their private rivals. The differences are administrative in how it’s done.

Not sure what arrangements apply to Snowy but from memory something was put in place such that they don’t gain a competitive advantage through not paying tax despite being government owned.


----------



## sptrawler

I guess the only question that hasn't been asked by the media, is how Labor expect to achieve their 50% carbon reduction target, I wonder why?
It is a great story, they should have some underlying expertise behind their ridiculous claim, that could be checked for authenticity.
What a laugh that would be, why can't the ABC and SMH get onto that?
If they can come up with a plausible way to achieve that, with proven technology in the required time frame, I will vote for them.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I guess the only question that hasn't been asked by the media, is how Labor expect to achieve their 50% carbon reduction target, I wonder why?
> It is a great story, they should have some underlying expertise behind their ridiculous claim, that could be checked for authenticity.
> What a laugh that would be, why can't the ABC and SMH get onto that?
> If they can come up with a plausible way to achieve that, with proven technology in the required time frame, I will vote for them.




Yes, heading into the election the alternative governments policy on energy needs to be put under the spotlight. We haven't heard much from them apart from a few hand waving arguments and distractions.

I believe they said they would back all the Finkel recommendations, we need to know if they stand by that.


----------



## overhang

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, heading into the election the alternative governments policy on energy needs to be put under the spotlight. We haven't heard much from them apart from a few hand waving arguments and distractions.
> 
> I believe they said they would back all the Finkel recommendations, we need to know if they stand by that.




I guess this all depends on if they happen to win government and if they will hold a majority in the senate.  If they need the Greens to form government then energy policy will be stuffed in this country for another 3 years.


----------



## sptrawler

Looks like Carnegie is having trouble, getting the Albany wave generation project, off the sea bed. So to speak.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-21/carnegie-wave-farm-plans-in-doubt-wa/10249500


----------



## Tisme




----------



## sptrawler

Apparently the companies building the solar farms in Queensland, are finding it difficult to find local workers.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-...g-backpacker-labour/10302500?section=business


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Apparently the companies building the solar farms in Queensland, are finding it difficult to find local workers.




I suspect they’re onto the same dodgy practices as some farmers.

Locals need not apply. Anyone not needing the labour hire company’s overpriced backpacker accommodation has zero chance of getting the job picking fruit or whatever. 

Not uncommon in farming so wouldn’t surprise me if others are doing the same thing in places well away from the cities.


----------



## fiftyeight

Maybe it is naivety, but have things ALWAYS been so cut down the left and right. 

This seems to be another issue where reasonable people presented with the same information could come up with a similar answers.....if politics are removed.

Either there is a net positive or a net negative?

https://www.news.com.au/technology/...d/news-story/4c6dbf0505b6b0a6697ab8fc97cdf9b2


----------



## SirRumpole

Tesla's SA battery defies it's critics.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-...leading-source-of-dispatchable-power/10326420


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Tesla's SA battery defies it's critics.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-...leading-source-of-dispatchable-power/10326420




It is doing a good job of rapid response frequency control.


----------



## Smurf1976

Both yesterday (Monday, a public holiday) and the previous day in SA there was a period of negative prices for electricity on the spot market and also a shutdown of large scale solar generation.

Reason is simply that the weather was mild in Adelaide, and with SA’s population so heavily concentrated in one city there’s no real within state diversity in terms of weather and electricity demand, plus high generation from wind and solar there was simply nowhere for the power to go.

Transmission was running at maximum from SA to Vic, the battery was being charged and the rest went to waste.

In keeping with recent discussion about the emphasis of posts on ASF I’ll point out that this is an economic issue far more than it is any problem technically. Those buying electricity on the spot market were paid to take it, not the reverse. 

That has implications for those with existing storage (eg the Tesla battery) as well as anyone considering building new large scale storage (eg the various pumped hydro proposals or more batteries). If the spot price is negative then you’ll make a cash profit simply charging, whatever you get from selling at a later tine is another profit on top. That’s akin to running a shop and on a random Sunday a truckload of stock turns up which the supplier then pays you to take. Can’t lose.

For the generators, some gas-fired plant was still running and must remain so for reasons of system strength (that’s a technical issue - in simple terms it’s about the ability to cope with faults without the entire grid going down). They’d have been making money through providing those services and/or under direction from AEMO. At the corporate level AGL is the most consistent operator in that space but not the only one. Origin and Engie also have plant located in SA with the required technical capabilities. There’s not much profit for them under such circumstances however but they do have means to avoid bleeding cash if the original investment costs are ignored.

As I said, what I’m referring to here is a financial occurrence far more than a technical one. Turning off zero marginal cost solar generation and/or selling at negative prices doesn’t pose a problem technically but it’s either a dead loss or an outright winner financially depending on which side of the market you’re on.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> As I said, what I’m referring to here is a financial occurrence far more than a technical one. Turning off zero marginal cost solar generation and/or selling at negative prices doesn’t pose a problem technically but it’s either a dead loss or an outright winner financially depending on which side of the market you’re on.




Does any of this have an impact at the consumer end ?

Do customers get money deducted from their bills ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Do customers get money deducted from their bills ?




You should have posted that in the joke thread.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> You should have posted that in the joke thread.




Probably, it's still a valid point though. Competition, best return for the consumer, that sort of neo Liberal stuff.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Do customers get money deducted from their bills ?



Directly = not apart from a very small number of large users who have choosen to be exposed directly to the spot market.

For everyone else any effect comes about via a reduction in the average spot price which in due course reflects in contracts and retail prices.

It’s certainly not the first time it has occurred, I’m just drawing it to attention. 

The big problem with wind and solar in SA is that it’s pretty much either a feast or a famine. Just a few hours after yesterday’s surplus solar the comvined wind + solar output was stuff all and most electricity in SA wasncoming from gas plus a bit from interstate.

Storage is the obvious solution especially if it’s going to cost nothing to fill it up. Batteries are one way to do that and on a larger scale there’s pumped hydro. 

Biggest project being looked at in SA in that area is a 300 MW pumped hydro scheme on the outskirts of Adelaide at Highbury (about 15km from the Adelaide CBD). Company looking at this one is Tilt Renewables (ASX: TLT).


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Biggest project being looked at in SA in that area is a 300 MW pumped hydro scheme on the outskirts of Adelaide at Highbury (about 15km from the Adelaide CBD). Company looking at this one is Tilt Renewables (ASX: TLT).



Smurph, do you know how many hours storage the quarry would have, at MCR.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Smurph, do you know how many hours storage the quarry would have, at MCR.



I found the info smurph, interesting proposition.


----------



## sptrawler

It isn't only Liberal Governments that sell off assetts, the W.A Labor government is selling its Albany wind farm.
https://thewest.com.au/business/energy/synergy-sells-albany-wind-farms-for-34m-ng-b88980794z

From the article:
_Privatising Synergy’s green assets sparked controversy last year with claims from private power providers that it was “crowding out” the market for projects required to meet the Federal Government’s 2020 renewable energy target.

There were also claims Cbus had been brought into the deal to appease unions upset about foreign ownership of the fund, though these were dismissed by Energy Minister Ben Wyatt.

Mr Wyatt said Bright Energy Investments was the most “fiscally responsible” way of the State meeting its renewable energy obligations_.

I'm not commenting whether it is right or wrong, just pointing out that it happens just as much as when the Libs are in office, just when labor do it it slides through to the keeper.


----------



## Value Collector

The Big Battery continues to operate well.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> The Big Battery continues to operate well.





Who's the big prawn now Scott ?


----------



## SirRumpole

Moree powers Sydney Councils.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-04/moree-solar-farm-to-power-sydney-councils/10336952


----------



## HelloU

SirRumpole said:


> Who's the big prawn now Scott ?



prolly the aussie taxpayers whose tax money is going to France and the USA.


----------



## explod

Vanadium (better than Lithium) looks like the next big advance for batteries, storage in particular and they are giving them a 20 year battery life.

Forget fossil fuels, the sun wind and water currents will very shortly have it all licked.  Vanadium can also store the power for up to a year.


----------



## SirRumpole

HelloU said:


> prolly the aussie taxpayers whose tax money is going to France and the USA.




The battery is doing what it was designed for and we don't make them here (yet), so....


----------



## sptrawler

Now they are starting to talk real renewables, H2 isn't too far away. IMO

https://thewest.com.au/business/ene...renewable-energy-hub-in-pilbara-ng-b88983687z


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Now they are starting to talk real renewables



I think the location is the most significant bit.

If gas is no longer a goer for electricity generation in one of the few places on earth where existing gas infrastructure is far more substantial than existing electricity infrastructure then that says it all really.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Biggest project being looked at in SA in that area is a 300 MW pumped hydro scheme on the outskirts of Adelaide at Highbury (about 15km from the Adelaide CBD). Company looking at this one is Tilt Renewables (ASX: TLT).




TLT are under a take over offer ATM. Good info smurph.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I think the location is the most significant bit.
> 
> If gas is no longer a goer for electricity generation in one of the few places on earth where existing gas infrastructure is far more substantial than existing electricity infrastructure then that says it all really.



As you know LNG is reticulated over that region, so it isn't about supplying power to the NW grid, an 11GW plant to supply a 1GW load, I don't think so.
It is either for pumping water, or making H2 IMO, maybe both.


----------



## sptrawler

The pace of change is accelerating, Australia may well have found something sustainable to export. Not that I'm biased or anything.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/...ipping-sunshine-to-japan-20181009-p508mq.html

Another article, on the subject.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...-to-replace-fossil-fuels-20181009-p508mj.html

From the article:
Over the next 30 years, creating a hydrogen export industry to match the existing LNG industry would require several hundred gigawatts of extra dedicated electricity, meaning new solar and wind projects would be needed, Dr Finkel said.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The pace of change is accelerating, Australia may well have found something sustainable to export. Not that I'm biased or anything.
> 
> https://www.theage.com.au/national/...ipping-sunshine-to-japan-20181009-p508mq.html




Knowing the quality of our governments they will let this slip by too.


----------



## SirRumpole

*NEG architect slams policy 'anarchy'*

https://www.theage.com.au/business/...ott-slams-policy-anarchy-20181010-p508s1.html


----------



## sptrawler

Wouldn't this become a good pumped storage facility?
https://www.domain.com.au/news/deve...age&utm_medium=link&utm_content=pos4&ref=pos1

I guess if it was the Greenies and Labor would be all over it. lol
What a joke.


----------



## PZ99

sptrawler said:


> Wouldn't this become a good pumped storage facility?
> https://www.domain.com.au/news/deve...age&utm_medium=link&utm_content=pos4&ref=pos1
> 
> I guess if it was the Greenies and Labor would be all over it. lol
> What a joke.



That's where all the plastic bags will go. You wouldn't live there. 

Probably become toxic over time like the other area did.


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> Wouldn't this become a good pumped storage facility?
> https://www.domain.com.au/news/deve...age&utm_medium=link&utm_content=pos4&ref=pos1
> 
> I guess if it was the Greenies and Labor would be all over it. lol
> What a joke.




How much energy is going to be used filling the thing with contaminated dirt, demolition material and asbestos? (just supposing it will be like they do with mined holes here in QLD)


----------



## sptrawler

I think there should be some long term caveats, put on this foreign investment into renewables, it all just seems a bit open ended IMO.  It could become a bit like our Farm Land, overseas institutions buy it, with the obvious ambition of feeding their own people. There is nothing wrong with the principle, but we do need to have enough land and water left, to feed ourselves.
Maybe I'm just shadow boxing.

https://thewest.com.au/business/energy/merredin-to-have-was-largest-solar-farm-ng-b88988238z 

From the article:
_Risen Energy director of Australian projects John Zhong said the company intended to progressively invest in more than of 2000 megawatts of renewable projects in Australia, *with later investments in storage*_*.*

I just hope we don't end up in a situation like the LNG problem over East.
If foreign companies, end up owning most of our renewable generation, then install Hydrogen production facilities for their own export market. 
We could be left with no capacity to produce enough for our own needs, it just seems like we are going to be the mules to get the renewables installed, with no say in what the storage capacity is used for.

It could be used for stand by generation, transport fuel and or export, unless the guidelines are put in place early, it will be hard to implement controls later.IMO


----------



## SirRumpole

*Electricity distributors warn excess solar power in network could cause blackouts, damage infrastructure*

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-...-warn-excess-solar-could-damage-grid/10365622

Someone has to find a way to store all this excess power.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> *Electricity distributors warn excess solar power in network could cause blackouts, damage infrastructure*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-...-warn-excess-solar-could-damage-grid/10365622
> 
> Someone has to find a way to store all this excess power.




Like we have been saying frequency control and system stability, is a real problem. It can be overcome, but it will cost a lot of money, that is the whole problem when you make change in an uncontrolled ideologically driven manner, instead of being pragmatic about it.
It looks as though it is at least coming to a head, so the narrative can turn to how we achieve a reliable electricity grid, rather than just keep throwing renewables in and shutting synchronous generators down.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Like we have been saying frequency control and system stability, is a real problem. It can be overcome, but it will cost a lot of money, that is the whole problem when you make change in an uncontrolled ideologically driven manner, instead of being pragmatic about it.
> It looks as though it is at least coming to a head, so the narrative can turn to how we achieve a reliable electricity grid, rather than just keep throwing renewables in and shutting synchronous generators down.




Maybe more incentives for consumers to install Powerwall systems instead of feeding excess into the grid.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Maybe more incentives for consumers to install Powerwall systems instead of feeding excess into the grid.



Like I said once before, I tend to think it will become a requirement of the building codes, eventually.
Similar to the insulation energy efficiency class requirement now, all builders will have to include solar and batteries, in the price of new build houses.
It still leaves a huge problem in the distribution system, controlling volts, new pole top transformers with auto tap changes will end up being required IMO.
But with regard the 'bigger picture', household solar and batteries is a pimple on an elephants arse, when taken in context to the size of the problem.

What did Finkle say, we need about 200GW of renewables, when you consider smurph said a while back the total load on the Eastern States grid was 30 GW, that tells you how much is going to be required.
200GW is a mind boggling amount of solar and wind generation.
With gas, steam driven generation you only need enough to run the system, with a bit extra for standby, because you just fire it up when you want it, 100% is ready to go at the turn of a switch when it is driven by fossil fuel.
With renewables, you have to have enough to operate the system, then extra to allow for unreliable generation due to weather/ time of day or night, then more to be able to make some form of stored energy.


----------



## Tisme

SirRumpole said:


> *Electricity distributors warn excess solar power in network could cause blackouts, damage infrastructure*
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-...-warn-excess-solar-could-damage-grid/10365622
> 
> Someone has to find a way to store all this excess power.





Well feedin is regulated by an approval process in conjunction with AS4777. So distributors would be to blame if they can't govern their own excess limits.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> What did Finkle say, we need about 200GW of renewables, when you consider smurph said a while back the total load on the Eastern States grid was 30 GW, that tells you how much is going to be required.
> .



200GW is a mind boggling amount of solar and wind generation.
To put it a bit more into context, the total rated output of all the installed rooftop solar systems that have been put in as at January 2018, is 7GW.
That is every one at rated output, which they never achieve, so you could probably say on a good day when the sun is at its zenith 5GW. That is from 2 million houses.
There are about 10million houses in Australia, not all will be suitable for solar, due to location, design, environment etc
So if you say 8 million are suitable, if they all had solar on them, it is 28GW for about some part of the day. As most will be on the East Coast, but some central and others on the West Coast.

https://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/aussie-rooftop-solar-installations-2-million/


----------



## SirRumpole

Alan Finkle speaks on future developments in the power industry.

Some good news for H2 enthusiasts.

https://theconversation.com/the-sci...t-creating-our-low-carbon-future-today-104774


----------



## Smurf1976

Tisme said:


> Well feedin is regulated by an approval process in conjunction with AS4777. So distributors would be to blame if they can't govern their own excess limits.



Technical reality pays no attention to anything of a regulatory, political or economic nature as the powers that be are now discovering the hard way.

In terms of solutions, multiple things are required if the aim is to do it economically and reliably:

Load shifting brought about by pricing differentials, network switched loads and adjustment of timer switching systems.

In simple layman’s terms that means running water heaters 10am - 3pm instead of during the peaks or at night and it means encouraging consumers to run dishwashers, clothes dryers, pool filters etc and charge anything with batteries duringnthe middle of the day.

We also need batteries at the local level either in homes or at substations.

The big one though is pumped hydro. That’s the third thing that will make or break the entire transition really.

Nothing else comes close with the combination of scale, cost, durability and technical efficiency. Everything else has at least one major shortcoming.

At present there are 3 pumped storage schemes in Australia:

Tumut 3 (Snowy) is a part pumped storage system and part conventional hydro station. Capacity is 1800 MW generation / 600 MW pumping.

Wivenhoe (Qld near Brisbane) has a capacity of 500 MW.

Shoalhaven (NSW) has a capacity of 240 MW.

There are various modest proposals in SA at present plus the Kidston project in Qld. The big ones though are:

“Snowy 2.0” (Snowy Hydro, 2000 MW as a single project).

“Battery of the Nation” (Hydro Tasmania, multiple projects planned to be 2500 MW but could be built smaller or larger if needed by adding or removing components).

Both of the above involve significant transmission being built as well as the actual pumped storage scheme. That aspect does give some initial advantage to projects like the 300 MW one located about 15 Km from the Adelaide CBD but they are limited in scale so ultimately the big ones are needed.

From an economic perspective, Hydro Tas can almost certainly do the actual storage bit considerably cheaper than Snowy can but the cost of transmission across Bass Strait means there’s not a huge difference overall. 

Both will be built is my expectation, the question being about timing more than anything else.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Alan Finkle speaks on future developments in the power industry.
> 
> Some good news for H2 enthusiasts.
> 
> https://theconversation.com/the-sci...t-creating-our-low-carbon-future-today-104774




i think you will a softening of the conversation against coal, as the reality of the task ahead sinks in, then the screaming heads will realise they aren't being realistic and accept that it will be a slow transition at best.
The only sure fire way of fast tracking to clean emission energy, is nuclear and no one wants that.


----------



## $20shoes

I honestly don't get what the world is doing ...the Paris Climate is now just an unreachable aspiration. We're now talking about trying to contain temperature rises somewhere within the next 100 years; its absolutely stupid to keep talking about limiting us to a 2C degree rise; for one, fossil fuels are too entrenched and still needed where counties need to build cities and infrastructure. And two, no one really knows what happens if we reach that goal anyway. Coal will be well and truly entrenched well past 2050.

"Yet carbon emissions began growing again last year after a three-year plateau as fossil-fuel emissions hit an all-time high. Emissions have quadrupled since 1960, and globally the last four years have been the warmest four on record, according to an international report released in August"- Latest UN climate report. 

This, after spending $280B on renewables last year alone. 

There was an article on huffington post the other day suggesting that the only way to reach climate targets in 20 years was to go nuclear. Will never happen in Australia...I get that...but Id like to see nuclear championed more. This makes sense in highly urbanised areas - energy demand is set to soar in the coming years according to the IEA's World Energy Outlook. I just cant see major urban cities trying to rely 100% on renewables with storage. 

Here's a good example of nuclear efficiency under load...

https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article219511690.html


----------



## sptrawler

I don't think there is enough area on Earth, to fit enough renewables, to replace the generation that is already in service.
Whether people like it or not, once the pissing contest between the greens and the realists is over, nuclear unfortunately will be the only answer. IMO
The problem is between now and when that becomes obvious, a lot of money and heartache has to happen.
Even a Country like Australia, which has vast empty spaces and plenty of sunshine, will struggle. That is with a relatively small energy consumption, check out how much power the USA and China use. Lol


----------



## Smurf1976

An example of the technical difficulty with intermittent renewables was seen in SA a short time ago.

Between 12:10 and 12:15 local time the total statewide demand for centrally generated electricity, that is power produced at power stations, went up 13%.

That’s 13% in five minutes, a truly staggering rate of increase.

Cause? Clouds came across Adelaide and as a result solar output from house roofs fell jn a heap.

There were some other abrupt jumps as the clouds rolled jn and by 13:25 local time demand for centrally generatd power was 48% higher than it was just 75 minutes earlier.

Those figures are for the whole of SA and include consumption in industry and in towns quite some distance from Adelaide with different weather timing.

If you measured it just in the suburbs of Adelaide then the increase would be truly staggering. I don’t have that data but it would be well over 100%.

Suffice to say that some equipment copes with this just fine but there are other things for which it’s a real struggle. And that’s with ~35% of homes in Adelaide having solar, the results will become even more dramatic as that fugure increases.

That’s not to say it can’t be done, just that there’s a lot more to it than simply installing solar panels and wind generators. They’re the easy bit.


----------



## Smurf1976

Adding to the previous post, demand in SA just dropped 10% in 10 minutes.

Cloud is clearing.....


----------



## basilio

There can be all sorts of conversations about the optimal, cost effective way to migrate to a renewable energy future. If this was 2005 or 1995 it would be a relative soda. One could take a longer term approach and wind down fossils fuels in an orderly way while replacing them with clean renewable energy.

But it is too late for that approach in 2018. We need to move immediately to renewable energy to drastically reduce the Greenhouse Gases that are creating runaway global warming. The most recent report from the IPCC points out that time is well and truly up. If we want  to (somehow..) keep global warming to 1.5C we have to achieve  world wide zero GG emissions by 2050. This is a truly heroic task and trying to do this "cost effectively" now is just imposssible.

_The report finds that limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require “rapid and far-reaching”transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities. Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050. This means that any remaining emissions would need to bebalanced by removing CO2 from the air.
“Limiting warming to 1.5ºC is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would 
require unprecedented changes,” said Jim Skea, Co- Chair of IPCC Working Group III.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/session48/pr_181008_P48_spm_en.pdf
_
Could this be achieved and at what cost ? Theoritically... yes. How?  There is a rough estimate in Greg Jerichos article.  Not cheap but doable. And when one looks at the consequences of not reining in global warming actually quite a bargain.
* Australia's climate idiocracy must end – and there's no time to waste *
Greg Jericho
The Liberal party’s biggest con was the idea that reducing emissions could be done without pain and at little cost

 @GrogsGamut 
Sun 14 Oct 2018 08.00 AEDT   Last modified on Sun 14 Oct 2018 10.10 AEDT

*Shares*
1196
 
* Comments*
 728 
 
Michael McCormack, Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg, who bragged that ‘emissions on a per capita and GDP basis have come down to their lowest level in 28 years’. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian
This week came the news from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that we are screwed. I wish I could be more optimistic. I wish I could hold out some hope that things are about to improve. But I look at actions by governments around the world, and the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments, and I find the ability to retain a positive outlook smothered in the face of feckless indifference and wilful ignorance.

The IPCC report is not actually, as some would have you think, a prophecy of doom – it is a call for action. Rather than talking of what will happen if the planet warms by 2C above industrial levels, its focus is on how much lower the risks are if we limit it to 1.5C.

And the good news is this can actually be done.

The bad news is we need to do it by 2030 and it is going to cost, on average, about US$2.4tn every year until 2035 – equivalent to 2.5% of the world GDP.

For Australia, that translates to around $46bn – the same amount the government spends on the aged pension. Even if we argue that as we only contribute about 1% of total global emissions we should only contribute 1% of the US$2.4tn cost, we are chipping in $33bn a year in Australian dollars – or equivalent to the combined amount spent this year on the NDIS, Newstart and the childcare subsidy.

Not cheap.

But keeping temperatures at 1.5C reduces the risk of, for example, all of the Great Barrier Reef dying (we’re still likely to lose 70% to 90%). Our farmers would certainly notice the difference as the reports suggests that biome shifts in Australia (which would see our arid, temperate and tropical regions shift) “would be avoided by constraining warming to 1.5C as compared with 2C”.

In a pure dollars sense, the report notes that “the economic damage in the United States from climate change” is around 1.2% of GDP per 1C increase.

So it is pretty clear that limiting the temperature rise to 1.5C is worth it. The problem is it is harder to achieve. It requires, for example, reducing emissions to zero by 2050 rather than 2075.
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...diocracy-must-end-and-theres-no-time-to-waste
_

_


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> So it is pretty clear that limiting the temperature rise to 1.5C is worth it. The problem is it is harder to achieve. It requires, for example, reducing emissions to zero by 2050 rather than 2075.
> https://www.theguardian.com/comment...diocracy-must-end-and-theres-no-time-to-waste




As well as our sunshine and wind, we also have uranium and thorium for reactors, and large tracts of desert to put them in in case something goes wrong.

Someone has to give nuclear serious consideration.


----------



## basilio

Our Chief Scientist Alan Finkel  echoed the need to just get on with achieving zero net emissions ASAP. He had an interesting twist however with suggesting a focus on creating a new Hydrogen industry  using renewable energy. Good story.

*  The science is clear: we have to start creating our low-carbon future today *

*...*
It would be possible for the public to take from this week’s headlines an overwhelming sense of despair. 

The message I take is that we do not have time for fatalism.


We have to look squarely at the goal of a zero-emissions planet, then work out how to get there while maximising our economic growth. It requires an orderly transition, and that transition will have to be managed over several decades.

That is why my review of the National Electricity Market called for a whole-of-economy emissions reduction strategy for 2050, to be in place by the end of 2020.

...My own focus in recent months has been on the potential for clean hydrogen, the newest entrant to the world’s energy markets.

_ * Read more: How hydrogen power can help us cut emissions, boost exports, and even drive further between refills * _

In future, I expect hydrogen to be used as an alternative to fossil fuels to power long-distance travel for cars, trucks, trains and ships; for heating buildings; for electricity storage; and, in some countries, for electricity generation.

We have in Australia the abundant resources required to produce clean hydrogen for the global market at a competitive price, on either of the two viable pathways: splitting water using solar and wind electricity, or deriving hydrogen from natural gas and coal in combination with carbon capture and sequestration.

Building an export hydrogen industry will be a major undertaking. But it will also bring jobs and infrastructure development, largely in regional communities, for decades.
https://theconversation.com/the-sci...t-creating-our-low-carbon-future-today-104774


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> i think you will see a softening of the conversation against coal, as the reality of the task ahead sinks in, then the screaming heads will realise they aren't being realistic and accept that it will be a slow transition at best.
> *The only sure fire way of fast tracking to clean emission energy, is nuclear and no one wants that*.




I obviously spoke too soon.

https://thewest.com.au/politics/fed...ear-power-if-economics-stack-up-ng-b88993214z


----------



## Tisme

sptrawler said:


> I obviously spoke too soon.
> 
> https://thewest.com.au/politics/fed...ear-power-if-economics-stack-up-ng-b88993214z




Would nuclear power stations be a deterrent to attack ...... e.g. New Zealand decides to invade WA and impose really annoying accents on the population, Smurph could threaten to let the core go into meltdown and irradiate the 100 strong army of enemy soldiers? Or would that be bad form ... you know, unfair to the 99 women and 1 cisgender in that troop?


----------



## CanOz

That's the second stupid thing he's said in two days.....if Australia can't do renewable then no one can....


----------



## SirRumpole

It's a lot cheaper to build storage for wind and solar than nuclear, but still if someone comes up with an economic nuclear proposal why not consider it ?


----------



## Smurf1976

CanOz said:


> That's the second stupid thing he's said in two days.....



The political “debate” over this issue is looking awfully like there’s a pre-determined outcome and the “debate” is just to make it look legitimate.

Whatever that pre-determined outcome is, it will involve dodgy dealings somewhere almost certainly.

We’ll know for sure if someone comes up with an “unsolicited proposal” or words to that effect.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> It's a lot cheaper to build storage for wind and solar than nuclear, but still if someone comes up with an economic nuclear proposal why not consider it ?



I’m not opposed to nuclear in principle but suffice to say I have a lot of concerns as to what sort of “deals” may lead us to that point.


----------



## Tisme

Smurf1976 said:


> The political “debate” over this issue is looking awfully like there’s a pre-determined outcome and the “debate” is just to make it look legitimate.
> 
> Whatever that pre-determined outcome is, it will involve dodgy dealings somewhere almost certainly.
> 
> We’ll know for sure if someone comes up with an “unsolicited proposal” or words to that effect.




"first I've heard of it", "no truth in the rumour", "no consensus" etc

Who benefits financially from building a nuclear reactor is the real quiz ...Wentworth?


----------



## $20shoes

Yes interesting timing. A lib/national senator is up for putting nuclear on the agenda. 

https://www.afr.com/opinion/modest-member-go-nuclear-for-a-clean-energy-future-20181014-h16m17


----------



## CanOz

If Australia goes nuclear we will be moving....

One of the many things I love about this country is the fact that it doesn't rely on nuclear power...


----------



## $20shoes

I assume because of the potential for radiation exposure Canoz? Or the fact that you dont think its necessary in a land blessed with natural gas, sunshine and at least some hydro?


----------



## CanOz

Yeah, all of the above!


----------



## sptrawler

At this point in time, nuclear is probably the only realistic way, to transition to 'clean' energy in a reasonable  timeframe.
Anything else will take 30-50 years. IMO


----------



## Darc Knight

CanOz said:


> If Australia goes nuclear we will be moving....
> 
> One of the many things I love about this country is the fact that it doesn't rely on nuclear power...




Where you going then? Lot a lot of options.


----------



## CanOz

New Zealand....


----------



## $20shoes

The fear paradigm is the single biggest obstacle to nuclear uptake, and the irony is that the nuclear industry built and continues to instill this fear through its safety and regulatory bodies.

As an example, the safety bodies continue to use a Liner no threshold model for radiation dosing that is contentious. I won't bore you with the pro and con arguments (you can argue it both ways), but it is the foundation from which springs policy, regulatory and design considerations.

I think the biggest lessons learnt from Fukushima is that there was a lack of understanding and high levels of confusion following the disaster which compounded the misery of their citizens. Education has to reach the highest level policy makers.


----------



## CanOz

It's not just a fukushima style event that bothers me, its just not as clean a fuel as people think. You've got to dig the stuff up and then bury it all somewhere too...


----------



## $20shoes

Thats a fair point. Tailings and waste is definitely an issue!


----------



## Smurf1976

If you can’t safely drive around the paddock or car park in an old Corolla then I think most would agree that driving a V8 at highway speeds in heavy rain would not be a wise move.

Likewise it would not be wise to go nuclear because we can’t manage to properly maintain and operate the comparatively straightforward subcritical coal-fired plants we’ve got.

Suffice to say things aren’t going at all well there and if the truth were known to the media it would probably be headline news.

The people of NSW should be thankful that the various Queensland government owned electricity generators, Snowy Hydro, an assortment of privately owned gas-fired plants in Victoria and SA as well as Hydro Tasmania are between them filling the gap and keeping the lights shining in Sydney.

There’s a lot of coal-fired capacity that’s not in running condition at the moment. A lot.


----------



## SirRumpole

ACCC chair changes his mind on gas reservation policy, says it's now needed.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10...d-to-lower-prices-save-manufacturers/10392064


----------



## Value Collector

CanOz said:


> It's not just a fukushima style event that bothers me, its just not as clean a fuel as people think. You've got to dig the stuff up and then bury it all somewhere too...



Better than digging it up and then releasing it into the atmosphere.

Nuclear plants can literally point to their pollution, because it sits in pools and dry casks, coal plants can’t.


----------



## Smurf1976

To clarify my previous comments about NSW coal-fired plant, here's the current status:

Bayswater = 3 out of 4 units operational
Eraring = 2 out of 4 units operational
Liddell = 3 out of 4 units operational at reduced capacity
Mt Piper = 1 out of 2 units operational
Munmorah = closed and partly blown up with explosives
Redbank = mothballed not running
Vales Point = 1 out of 2 units operational
Wallerawang C = closed being demolished

For Victoria:
Anglesea = closed and blown up with explosives
Hazelwood = closed being dismantled
Loy Yang A = 3 of 4 units operational
Loy Yang B = Both units operational
Morwell = closed and becoming derelict apart from some temporary diesel generators sitting outside
Yallourn = 2 of 4 units operational

For SA:
Northern = closed and blown up
Playford B = closed and partly torn down, partly blown up

Changing the means of producing the steam won't fix the overall situation any more than changing brokers will make your trading profitable. The problems in the industry are far bigger than that.

I'm not outright opposed to nuclear but I'm opposed to it until such time as the focus is shifted toward engineering and away from politics and financial games. Those things are bad enough with coal or gas, potentially catastrophic with nuclear.

On other matters well this Smurf now lives in SA doing something different but for the record Hydro Tas recorded a $168 million profit last financial year. That's in a competitive national market, except for the fact that Hydro prices below market for sales within Tasmania, and for the record yes it most certainly does have the same costs for tax that a private entity does. Not bad for something that hasn't cost the taxpayers a cent and which the Feds proclaimed back in 1914 to be a pointless venture.  

At least Vic and SA received a pile of cash when they sold it all. In NSW they basically gave much of it away so I've no idea how that stacks up.


----------



## $20shoes

Some of you might enjoy this documentary that was just released. 
(itunes in Australia at the moment). 

https://www.newfiremovie.com/


----------



## overhang

Whats the installed wind capacity in Australia?  I notice that at 5:30pm wind was producing just 236MW, yet earlier in the week it was producing 3400MW at one stage. With the exception of snowy 2.0 are there any other hydro projects that have been given the go ahead?


----------



## sptrawler

The best thing for Australia's energy future, is for Labor to win office, with a massive mandate.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The best thing for Australia's energy future, is for Labor to win office, with a massive mandate.




Good that you have seen sense at last.


----------



## explod

Vanadium which I noted here a week or so back is going to be the absolute storage revolution.:-

https://secure.outsiderclub.com/o/w...c8ae8eebe5495f9133bcbc4a7b4a1&utm_referrer=64


----------



## explod

explod said:


> Vanadium (better than Lithium) looks like the next big advance for batteries, storage in particular and they are giving them a 20 year battery life.
> 
> Forget fossil fuels, the sun wind and water currents will very shortly have it all licked.  Vanadium can also store the power for up to a year.




A repost, I cannot believe that no one has taken note of this revolution on the way.


----------



## SirRumpole

explod said:


> A repost, I cannot believe that no one has taken note of this revolution on the way.




I have. I'll be keeping an eye on how some of these miners perform.


----------



## Darc Knight

explod said:


> Vanadium which I noted here a week or so back is going to be the absolute storage revolution.:-
> 
> https://secure.outsiderclub.com/o/w...c8ae8eebe5495f9133bcbc4a7b4a1&utm_referrer=64




Don't know anything about Methane Power Plants do you Mr Plod?
I'm told they're still a bit cumbersome but are improving. Dosent the International Space Station use them or something?


----------



## PZ99

SirRumpole said:


> I have. I'll be keeping an eye on how some of these miners perform.



Here you go mate...

https://smallcaps.com.au/vanadium-stocks-asx-ultimate-guide/

Might like to pick one over 1c and put it in the November tipping comp


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Good that you have seen sense at last.



Yes I've seen the error of my ways, and finally realise Labor are the only ones, who can give the East Coast the electrical system they deserve.


----------



## SirRumpole

Will the government's power plan reduce electricity prices ?

Or is it another NEG ?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10...-save-households-hundreds-of-dollars/10418994


----------



## explod

Yep, no one wants to admit they are wrong or lose their money in coal etc.

Interesting change happening IMHO


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Will the government's power plan reduce electricity prices ?



What I see is far more profound than household bills.

My view is that we're going down the track of regulated monopoly utilities. That's probably not the actual intent yet but it's where it'll all end up.

The idea of a "competitive" National Electricity Market (NEM) has been on the ropes for quite a while with various things happening:

*Queensland government owned generators have been pushing out supply at any price that does't actually lose money, lowering market prices being the intent.

*Tasmania decided the national market price was too high and a credible threat to the state's economy so has been ignoring it other than from a purely administrative perspective. It's a money go round as I call it - can't really avoid the market but there's no law saying you can't offer a contract at a cheaper price than the going rate.

*SA intervened by getting a diesel-fired gas turbine plant and also the big batter built. They're planning to privatise the gas turbines now but they're still physically there as a supply source.

*SA and Vic have both launched initiatives which have as their aim a major increase in the use of small scale distributed batteries and/or solar.

*In NSW there's the crap fight over Liddell power station between the Australian Government and plant owner AGL.

*AEMO have brought about various occurrences such as, among others, big diesel generators sitting outside the closed Morwell power station. That's just one example.

*Australian Government threats to prevent gas exports.

And now the big one - price regulation. If the above hadn't convinced anyone that governments were moving toward greater control then it ought to be pretty obvious now.

So for the first time ever we have the Australian government controlling electricity prices via a mechanism which amounts to a price cap in practice. Making some assumptions about politics, well it seems reasonable to assume that they're not going to go to an election promising to raise the price now are they? No, there's far more votes to gain by keeping it down.

Unlike any form of taxation, simply holding down the electricity price has no direct impact on government revenues other than in a very minor way via Snowy Hydro (which is a fairly minor player at the retail level, being concerned primarily with generation).

So on day one we have a price cap.

Go forward however many years and the price is such that no retailer would even contemplate offering anything lower since it's barely profitable anyway.

At that point there's zero practical difference between retailers. Same power. Same price. All that differs is the name.

Then we'll see "unthinkable" mergers and acquisitions actually taking place is my expectation. There won't be resistance from the ACCC or anyone else since that would be pointless in an environment of regulated prices and everyone charging the same.

I won't speculate on the precise actions of listed companies but some things I'll note:

*At Loy Yang there's a mine and 4 generating units owned by AGL and right next door another 2 generating units, burning coal mined by AGL and carried up the very same conveyor belts, owned by Alinta. I can see that changing and one company owning the lot at some point.

*On Torrens Island there's Torrens Island A power station, Torrens Island B PS and the new Barker Inlet PS under construction all owned by AGL. Also on the island is Quarantine PS owned by Origin, who also have Osborne just across the water and just up the road is Pelican Point owned by Engie. All burning gas from the same two pipelines and all feeding the same transmission lines. Another obvious place for ownership consolidation.

And so on.

It'll take years to play out but 20 years from now I wouldn't be surprised if in practice we've got a re-emergence of ETSA, the SECV and ECNSW just under different names and privately owned. Draw lines on a map and carve up who owns what - that's the track I think we're heading down and price regulation is a trigger event.

Where to draw the lines? Broadly speaking state borders would be the answer there and it just so happens that we've got 3 big energy companies and an emerging one, Alinta, which makes 4 and there's 4 mainland NEM states. So split the 4 mainland states between the 4 companies and leave Hydro Tas to its home state and it all adds up rather nicely.

Everyone who isn't one of those becomes a supplier to the big operators - which for the record is pretty much the model being used with the new privately owned wind developments in Tasmania. They're selling their output to Hydro Tas.

The details will differ but broadly speaking that's where I think it's ultimately heading. It'll take many years to get there however.

In keeping with recent discussion regarding the content on ASF I'll point out that there's an awful lot of relevance in the above if you're a shareholder of either AGL or Origin or any other energy industry participant. It doesn't really fit into any individual stock thread but it's not every day that government announces price controls on anything. Today's 1.05% drop in the ASX200 was routine in comparison. AGL shares dropped 2.71% and Origin Energy fell 4.42%.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> In keeping with recent discussion regarding the content on ASF I'll point out that there's an awful lot of relevance in the above if you're a shareholder of either AGL or Origin or any other energy industry participant. It doesn't really fit into any individual stock thread but it's not every day that government announces price controls on anything. Today's 1.05% drop in the ASX200 was routine in comparison. AGL shares dropped 2.71% and Origin Energy fell 4.42%.




So in reality, it is going down the same path as telecommunications, Telstra was forced to on sell services at a regulated price determined by the ACCC.
Therefore if there is a fixed cap on the wholesale price of electricity, as with the telco sector, who is going to install new plant with no guaranteed profit only projected growth?
Sounds to me like when push comes to shove, the taxpayer will be installing plant, on projected growth forward estimates.
Another NBN in the making. IMO
A great opportunity, for bassilio's Government superannuation slush fund, to throw money at. lol
Not that there are many other options than capping prices, ATM it is so open to manipulation as to be useless.
Just wait until Labor throw the carbon target curve ball in, that will cause massive disruption, which should bring it to a head real quickly. IMO


----------



## explod

Sorry Smurf but householders are (only a drip yet) realizing they can go their own way right off the grid.  Its happening with phones, Kogan for instance $21 a month, unlimited calls and texts with 16 gigs.  The grid is a joke.

Power companies and the guvmint are going to soon sink in their own ignorance.


----------



## sptrawler

explod said:


> Sorry Smurf but householders are (only a drip yet) realizing they can go their own way right off the grid.  Its happening with phones, Kogan for instance $21 a month, unlimited calls and texts with 16 gigs.  The grid is a joke.



How much in reality, do you think that has cost the Australian taxpayer?
A taxpayer owned telco system, that we have all but renewed, with taxpayer money.
So overseas Companies and shareholders take the profit, rather than it going back into consolidated revenue.
It is amazing how people look at the small picture, rather than the big one. IMO


----------



## Smurf1976

explod said:


> Sorry Smurf but householders are (only a drip yet) realizing they can go their own way right off the grid.



It's not impossible to do it but under most circumstances grid power is cheap compared to off grid. Even the off grid enthusiasts will mostly acknowledge that upfront.

Obviously it depends on location but Vic, Tas, ACT, southern NSW or most of SA it's problematic during winter since energy use goes up due to heating at the same time rooftop solar production goes down. That's where it gets hard and $$$.

But certainly there are some situations where going off grid makes sense yes. FWIW there's at least one substantial electricity generating company which has rather a lot of off-grid solar systems in its own operations. Reason = it's cheaper than maintaining the grid to supply small volumes of power to remote places and that's still true even if you really are the electricity company.


----------



## explod

The herald sun feeds my chip heater for a nice warm shower in a five minute burn.  The extreme costs are returning us back to the old ways.

Power companies took a bloke to Court in little River six years back for going off the grid.  He's never had to start his diesel backup.  A friend is on the grid to get $8,000 per year back but his own power use is all his own extra generation.

The word is getting around.


----------



## Smurf1976

explod said:


> The herald sun feeds my chip heater for a nice warm shower in a five minute burn.



Well that's one good use of Murdoch's newspapers.....


----------



## sptrawler

explod said:


> The herald sun feeds my chip heater for a nice warm shower in a five minute burn.  The extreme costs are returning us back to the old ways.




They were a great bit of gear, the chip heater at the end of the bath, the Meters wood stove in the kitchen and the wood heater in the lounge.
Shame they were banned, because of the pollution they produced, now they are embraced as a sensible way ahead.
Life goes round in a circle, you probably find all the greenies using them, ironic really.
I wish I could install them again, I would in a minute, just efficiency personified.


----------



## Value Collector

Rate setter  will be funding SA home battery storage

https://onestepoffthegrid.com.au/ra...e-south-australias-100m-home-battery-finance/


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> Rate setter  will be funding SA home battery storage



Well how about that. 

I've just spent the past few hours confirming exactly what equipment to get under this scheme....


----------



## explod

Its happenning:-  below just a part of the following article.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...energy-is-cheap-surging-and-headed-for-a-fall


"Meanwhile, rooftop solar panels are being installed at an astonishing rate. In May, the head of the Australian Energy Market Operator, Audrey Zibelman, said six panels were going up across the continent every minute, adding the capacity of a large coal power station each year. The consumer watchdog recently recommended incentive schemes for small-scale systems be wound back. Some in the energy industry have suggested there will soon be more solar power coming into the grid than Australia can use but a new study by consultants Green Energy Markets, which examined the amount of solar power expected every 30 minutes out to 2021, rejects this idea. The energy minister, Angus Taylor, says the federal incentive scheme will stay.

The investment avalanche is driving an unprecedented transformation of the electricity grid. At the time of writing, clean energy had met 21.8% of national electricity market demand over the past week, suggesting the country is on the cusp of meeting the 2020 renewable energy target of about 23% ahead of schedule. The Clean Energy Council’s chief executive, Kane Thornton, says the momentum is massive; Green Energy Markets suggest it could mean renewable generation hits 33.3% by 2020. Analyst and advocate Simon Holmes à Court says it is likely as much clean energy capacity will be built over the next two years as over the previous 40.

In July, the market operator found a business-as-usual path, without policies ramping up, was likely to lead to about 46% clean energy by 2030. It underlined the hollowness of the government’s now-dumped pledge to introduce a national energy guarantee to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electricity by 26% below 2005 levels over that timeframe, and implied Labor’s 50% renewable energy target would take little effort. (Both targets are less than the change in coal use the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests is necessary for Australia to play its part in limiting global warming.)"


----------



## SirRumpole

explod said:


> Analyst and advocate Simon Holmes à Court says it is likely as much clean energy capacity will be built over the next two years as over the previous 40.




Private enterprise can build the renewable generation like solar panels and wind farms but governments have to build the storage, hydro and batteries, because no private enterprise entity will take on the risk of public liability cost if anything goes wrong.


----------



## Junior

Meanwhile, in parliament.....


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Private enterprise can build the renewable generation like solar panels and wind farms but governments have to build the storage, hydro and batteries, because no private enterprise entity will take on the risk of public liability cost if anything goes wrong.



There are some who are willing to give it a shot.

Genex, Origin Energy and Tilt Renewables being the notable ones with pumped hydro. 

Plus AGL (ASX: AGL) did build a conventional hydro scheme (Bogong power station) a few years ago which they sensibly kept rather quiet about. It's in Victoria and an additional stage to a scheme built by the SECV decades ago but it's a new power station as such. That they've said not much about it was a smart move in my view.

Origin Energy (ASX: ORG) have got some government $ for their feasibility study but what they're looking at isn't new, they've been considering it for quite a while now and there's basically two options which are mutually exclusive. Expand an existing power station and get 160 MW or build something that in layman's terms is akin to a highway bypassing a town, albeit with tunnels, water and a power station not asphalt and traffic, to get 237 MW. The big one is the option they're keenest on. This is an extension of the existing Shoalhaven scheme.

Tilt Renewables (ASX: TLT) has their 300 MW project on the edge of suburban Adelaide.

Genex (ASX: GNX) have their 250 MW pumped storage project in Queensland. 

So there's some private interest but the big problem is with operation rather than construction. The last thing we need is multiple owners competing to empty the lakes and put the lights out. Co-operation is what's required and that's not how the market works at present (well, some companies do co-operate within reason but they can't go too far or the ACCC will ping them for collusion - that being problematic in a renewable energy system where you need everyone on the same team in order for it to work reliably and efficiently).


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> (well, some companies do co-operate within reason but they can't go too far or the ACCC will ping them for collusion - that being problematic in a renewable energy system where you need everyone on the same team in order for it to work reliably and efficiently).




It's pretty sad if companies can't cooperate to give consumers the best deal.

Competition policy doesn't really work for essential services.


----------



## explod

SirRumpole said:


> It's pretty sad if companies can't cooperate to give consumers the best deal.
> 
> Competition policy doesn't really work for essential services.



Once upon a time we tried to follow the principles of Maslow.  Necessities of life were in the public domain and our Government supported us.  But Gough Whitlam came and went too soon unfortunately.


----------



## Value Collector

I saw an advert today for a “smart hot water system”
The “solahart powerstore” 

https://www.solahart.com.au/products/battery-storage/solahart-powerstore/

Rather than sending your excess solar electricity to the grid, this system first uses it to heat your hot water tank, it monitors your solar generation and household consumption, increases or decreases the rate it heats your water so it is not drawing from the grid and can accept any excess power you produces as you production and demand fluctuate.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> Well how about that.
> 
> I've just spent the past few hours confirming exactly what equipment to get under this scheme....




What do you think about smart hot water systems, that work similar to batteries, eg automatically switching on and off accepting you excess generation throughout the day as you produce it.


----------



## sptrawler

The H2 future is coming quicker than many expected.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/aust...-renewable-exports/ar-BBP8IpZ?ocid=spartandhp


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> What do you think about smart hot water systems, that work similar to batteries, eg automatically switching on and off accepting you excess generation throughout the day as you produce it.



As a technical concept it's a great idea beaten only by network switching of the same loads (in the Australian context only Qld, NSW and a few small isolated systems eg King Island have the infrastructure set up to do that).

There's a lot to love technically about having loads which automatically respond to solar generation. The only thing better is the ability to directly control the loads in response to all system conditions but doing it automatically in response to solar is the next best thing.

As a consumer financial decision I'll sound a big word of caution however and say that the concept won't meet consumers' expectations of lowering bills in many, perhaps most, cases. That's the short answer, what follows below is the detail if you want it.

The concept is to take electricity that would be fed into the grid during daytime and use that to heat water, thus avoiding the cost of some other means of heating the water (eg off-peak electricity).

Now where the problem arises is when you do the maths.

*The energy you divert has a cost of lost income, that being at whatever feed-in tariff (FIT) rate you receive.

*The energy you are replacing will in the vast majority of cases be off-peak electricity if the same water heater is used or alternatively gas if we're talking about a new system replacing something existing.

Now the trouble is that for a lot of Australians their FIT rate will be very similar to what they could buy off-peak electricity for meaning that there is nothing to be saved. That is the first problem.

The second problem is that every commercially available product I've seen which does this requires that either a 24/7 electricity supply is connected and used as the booster, or that if an off-peak supply is connected the booster be manually operated. I've yet to see any "off the shelf" product which is able to automatically boost using a separately metered off-peak supply.

If you have time of use (TOU) metering with everything through the one meter (fairly common in Vic and NSW, exists in other states with the notable exception of SA), or if you live in a place where there's only one flat rate tariff (NT and a large portion of consumers in WA and remote towns not on the main grid on other states) that won't matter in the slightest since you'll incur no cost penalty, compared to how you'd otherwise heat the water, when boosting.

If however you have a separately metered supply for water heating, which is almost always the case in Qld, NSW, ACT, Tas and SA and also for many in Vic, then even a small amount of boosting at peak rates will blow any savings to pieces. There's the big flaw.

As an example, suppose that:

FIT = 20 cents / kWh
Off=peak price = 24 cents / kWh
Continuous tariff price = 42 cents / kWh.

Those are the actual prices, rounded to the nearest cent, charged by a major ASX listed retailer in SA.

Now you're likely to heat somewhere around 70% of your water using the solar in SA's climate. Yes everyone knows that SA gets seriously hot and has lots of sun, it's 1am and outside my house it's 29.5 degrees right now, but there are also quite a few days with no sun at all and those just happen to be mostly in Winter when the incoming water is coldest thus requiring the most heating.

So let's do the maths.

70% at 20 cents and 30% at the continuous tariff of 42 cents = 26.6 cents per kWh on average.

So you'll be paying ~11% more to heat your water than if you just stuck to good ole off-peak from the grid. That also doesn't require purchasing an approximately $1000 device to control the water heater, plus installation by a licensed electrician, or alternatively a "smart" water heater at whatever that costs.

Now you are probably thinking why not just rig it up to boost using the off-peak?

Technically that can be done but I've yet to come across anything "off the shelf" which does it. Whilst you could wire it up quite easily to work that way, any electrician is going to be more than a tad reluctant to be doing so given issues of compliance with Australian Standards, electricity distributor standards and the consequences if anything goes wrong given that the installation contravenes manufacturer's instructions (versus the law which specifically requires electricians to adhere to the manufacturer's instructions). Doing this is commonly referred to in the industry as the MacGuyver approach to heating water (a reference to a well known 1980's TV program for those not familiar) and for good reason. It'll work but it's a lot of bits stuck together.

But let's suppose you do go down that track. Divert the solar and boost with off-peak.

70% of water heated from electricity that you'd otherwise receive the FIT for and 30% heated from the off-peak grid supply = you'll save 11.67% using the prices I quoted from a major retailer.

So, a ~12% saving that'll cost you ~$1000 for equipment plus an electrician's labour charges and some minor materials to install (if you can find anyone willing to set it up that way). Hmm....

Just in case that didn't convince you, it gets even worse if you just ask the electricity retailer for a better price. Sign up with Origin, take all the discounts for direct debit, not receiving paper bills etc and you'll have an off-peak water heating rate that is less than the FIT. In that case diverting solar into the hot water would be completely pointless.

In contrast a decent quality heat pump will actually save energy as such and we're talking a 70- 80% saving there. The good ones will work just fine on off-peak supply also so there's no issue with using less but paying more for it.

At a suitable property a solar water heater will save 50 - 100% of the energy otherwise used and if correctly designed will boost with off-peak electricity or alternatively gas. So no costly peak rate power involved there.

For others gas can still be worth a look. It's a bit out of fashion at the moment but depending on circumstances I wouldn't write it off by any means. Really comes down to the house design and so on - there are situations where gas wins simply because it's physically more practical.

Overall, there are circumstances where the idea of diverting solar to heat water can work. If you're on a flat rate for all electricity consumed and the FIT is considerably lower than the price you pay for power from the grid is one scenario. If you've got a truly massive solar system and will never need to boost the hot water is another. If you've got Time Of Use metering and a low FIT that's another. For the majority though the finances aren't that great.

Alternative options sort-of achieving the same end result:

Tasmania - Tariff 93 is a Time Of Use (TOU) product for all your household electricity including solar feed-in. As part of that you get off-peak rates weekdays 10am - 4pm and 9pm - 7am as well as all weekend. Now just use a simple timer to heat the water 10am - 4pm and your solar will automatically be the priority source with any additional energy always charged at the off-peak rate. Done!

SA - Not available yet but there's a definite thought about doing something which will look awfully like the Tasmanian approach. Times for the cheap rate are likely to include 10am - 3pm and 1am - 6am. Just heat the water 10am - 3pm and you've got your solar being used as priority and backup at the off-peak rate. Nothign fancy required, just any old electric water heater and a simple timer. Note however this doesn't exist yet, it's just at the planning stages.

SA - If you want a battery then AGL still has some heavily subsidised ones available including Tesla Powerwall 2 and LG systems. There are some conditions, like needing to sign up with AGL for your electricity and participate in their Virtual Power Plant program, but they're offering huge discounts on normal pricing so it may interest some. This is an AGL scheme.

SA - The state government has a battery subsidy scheme available, the rate being $500 per kWh for most and $600 per kWh of capacity for concession holders with a maximum payment of $6000. At present it only applies to systems manufactured in SA, which gives you a choice of Sonnen products only, but next year it becomes broader and others will be available.

Vic - I'm not sure of the exact details but the state government is handing out $ for solar in a pretty big way. At present Vic has a considerably lower % of homes with solar as compared to Qld or SA so they could add quite a lot before any real technical issues emerge (but go too far and they sure will).


----------



## SirRumpole

Snowy hydro dumps coal power in favour of wind and solar for pumping water.

Another kick in the guts for coal companies. 

https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...-solar-to-pump-its-water-20181101-p50dh0.html


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Snowy hydro dumps coal power in favour of wind and solar for pumping water.
> 
> Another kick in the guts for coal companies.
> 
> https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...-solar-to-pump-its-water-20181101-p50dh0.html



What if there isn't enough wind and solar, to pump the water?

I just hope one day all the coal power stations say, ok we won't put any on today, that would be a real hoot.


----------



## sptrawler

At last, some are starting to talk sense.

https://thewest.com.au/politics/power-giants-face-government-backed-plants-ng-s-1903868

Jeez it is about time.


----------



## SirRumpole

Maybe Smurf can comment on this and if its a big deal or not.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11...ng-increased-electricity-consumption/10460212


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Yes, I was reading RCR Tomlinson are putting in a few solar plants for them. Seems one of the farms is going to cost RCR dollars with miss quoting and running over budget.
> But they do sound like decent installations.



That was back in August, sounds like things have got worse since then, I suppose funding these projects is a real issue.
Also getting people to work in the middle of nowhere, is becomming harder and harder.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/turmoil...-rcr-stock-suspended-on-earnings-fears-60418/


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Maybe Smurf can comment on this and if its a big deal or not.



There are technical issues with maintaining stable voltages certainly but the claims being made in that link are a huge exaggeration of the consequences.

Yes the kettle will boil faster at higher voltage but that just means it turns off sooner. Increase in energy consumption = zero.

Pretty much the same scenario for a lot of things whilst for any modern electronics there will be a switchmode power supply inside which takes care of that.

What will actually use more energy at a higher voltage?

Incandescent, halogen or old (but not modern) fluoro lights. Most likely you won't have many of these running when voltages are highest though (generally around midday and between midnight and dawn).

Heating elements that are manually turned on for a set time period, for example a heater in a bathroom, and which don't have a thermostat.

Older or very simple electronics with linear power supplies. Eg clock radios.

So not that much really. It's not going to add some huge amount to your bill, we're talking minor amounts here.

So far as controlling it is concerned, it's basic physics that if the transformer puts out exactly 230V then the further down the line you go, and the more load is applied, the more that voltage will shift to something else. 

Since load will result in the voltage falling, traditionally the approach was always to send out something a bit higher than the standard which used to be 240V and is now 230V. Send out 250 and those at the end of the line will get something between 230 and 240 depending on load at the time with those closer to the transformer getting something higher (but not higher than what the transformer is sending out).

Solar has complicated all that since households feeding into the grid will push the voltage on the line up rather than down. 

Now where the problem arises is what voltage should the transformer be sending out?

Use 250 and you'll get a lot of complaints about solar inverters shutting down due to excessive voltage.

Drop it down to 230 and then you'll get complaints that houses are only getting 220 or less when it's cold and dark in winter. That doesn't work too well with appliances that were intended for 240V.

Depending on the location and how much the load varies, it might be a simple case that there is indeed somewhere in the middle which works just fine. For other places though, well there's simply no one voltage at the transformer that actually works in this scenario. Anything low enough to avoid problems during daytime from solar is too low to avoid problems in winter at 6pm and vice versa, there's literally nothing that overcomes it.

The solution obviously is to dynamically change line voltages. Yes that can be done but suffice to say that in general the infrastructure isn't in place. The grid was built for one-way traffic not two way and the increasing use of solar is stretching the limits of what existing systems can cope with in some areas.

Then there are differences between states as to how "strong" the network was built in the first place and thus how well it can cope with solar being added and power flow now being in the opposite direction.

The situation there is the predictable one. Any problems in Tasmania will be isolated instances but there are known widespread issues in SA including across suburban Adelaide. 

Part of the issue there is that even before solar, SA had one of the most variable electrical loads of anywhere in the world with weather being the primary influence. Plenty of mild days where no heating or cooling is required but then there's those days well into the 40's and likewise nights well down into single figures. So that gives a lot of variation. Now add solar on top of that and the situation is that load in the suburbs goes pretty close to zero now on a mild day but the peak hasn't changed much when it's hot.

So there are issues yes and if you aren't getting the expected output from a solar system then I strongly recommend that the mains voltage be investigated (by an electrician unless you're competent to safely measure it yourself) but as a rule no, you don't need to buy someone's overpriced device to control your supply voltage and it most certainly won't save you a fortune in any normal residential situation. 

The ABC ought to have done some more research in my view since what they've done basically amounts to an advertorial for a commercially available product which the majority of consumers would gain no benefit from.


----------



## SirRumpole

Chinese scientists move closer to a workable nuclear fusion reactor.



https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-15/china-attempts-to-create-an-artificial-sun/10495536

--


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Chinese scientists move closer to a workable nuclear fusion reactor.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-15/china-attempts-to-create-an-artificial-sun/10495536
> 
> --



The holy grail of power generation.


----------



## sptrawler

Well Smurph's predictions, appear to be just around the corner, at least it should start and bring some reality into the debate.
It is o.k saying we want all these Power Stations shut down, but when people are sitting in the dark sweltering, it gives them an opportunity to consider the reality.

https://thewest.com.au/business/energy/a-summer-of-blackouts-bc-5967600368001


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Well Smurph's predictions, appear to be just around the corner, at least it should start and bring some reality into the debate.
> It is o.k saying we want all these Power Stations shut down, but when people are sitting in the dark sweltering, it gives them an opportunity to consider the reality.
> 
> https://thewest.com.au/business/energy/a-summer-of-blackouts-bc-5967600368001




Government paralysis. The Libs don't want to upset the power companies so they sit on their hands and try and pretend that everything is OK.

I really don't know if Labor can do any better, but I'm willing to take the chance that they will at least try.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Government paralysis. The Libs don't want to upset the power companies so they sit on their hands and try and pretend that everything is OK.
> 
> I really don't know if Labor can do any better, but I'm willing to take the chance that they will at least try.



Well it certainly will be entertaining watching, that is of course if you live in W.A, or Tasmania.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Well it certainly will be entertaining watching, that is of course if you live in W.A, or Tasmania.



Vic, SA, NSW/ACT in that order is where the problems are with Vic being considerably worse than the other two.

For the other states they'd need something to go horribly wrong to end up in the same situation. Not impossible but unlikely in practice. 

There are of course financial impacts for relevant companies, some of which are listed, in all of this.


----------



## sptrawler

Well at least the Greens have the balls, to put their cards on the table.

https://thewest.com.au/business/coa...a-crime-with-risk-of-jail-time-ng-b881023858z

Hopefully Labor follow suit, rather than hiding in the shadows and snipping.

What the Greens are doing is making a statement that can be tested, they can change or reinforce that statement as it is tested, good on them . IMO


----------



## sptrawler

It sounds as though the Government is well aware of the issues, but as usual, political and media posturing will just push us further toward the precipice.
Well that is those over East, but they probably need a dose of reality anyway.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...er-to-break-up-companies-20181119-p50h03.html

maybe one of these babies, in the garden shed, will be the go.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-Pow...m=352143214370&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851


----------



## PZ99

Russia has unaccounted for RTG's lying all over the place. Grab one of them


----------



## sptrawler

PZ99 said:


> Russia has unaccounted for RTG's lying all over the place. Grab one of them



Yes, I'll buy it, then we can put it in your shed and run an extension cord to my place.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Like I said once before, I tend to think it will become a requirement of the building codes, eventually.
> Similar to the insulation energy efficiency class requirement now, all builders will have to include solar and batteries, in the price of new build houses.
> It still leaves a huge problem in the distribution system, controlling volts, new pole top transformers with auto tap changes will end up being required IMO.
> But with regard the 'bigger picture', household solar and batteries is a pimple on an elephants arse, when taken in context to the size of the problem.
> 
> What did Finkle say, we need about 200GW of renewables, when you consider smurph said a while back the total load on the Eastern States grid was 30 GW, that tells you how much is going to be required.
> 200GW is a mind boggling amount of solar and wind generation.
> With gas, steam driven generation you only need enough to run the system, with a bit extra for standby, because you just fire it up when you want it, 100% is ready to go at the turn of a switch when it is driven by fossil fuel.
> With renewables, you have to have enough to operate the system, then extra to allow for unreliable generation due to weather/ time of day or night, then more to be able to make some form of stored energy.




Well I tend to think silly Billy is going to demand solar is fitted to all new builds, possibly batteries and heat pumps also. I suppose he will make them tax deductable. lol

https://thewest.com.au/business/markets/renewable-targets-will-hurt-cows-minister-ng-s-1907184

From the article:
_Labor has flagged sector-specific emissions reduction targets within their policy, such as within agriculture and housing_


----------



## Smurf1976

Some excitement at Loy Yang A, the largest power station in Victoria, over the past 24 hours.

Capacity of the plant is 2210 MW.

At the low point, 11:40 this morning Vic time, 2 (of 4) machines, Units 1 & 2, were running producing a total of 390 MW. I don't know the exact reason for what was going on but it wasn't due to lack of demand for power that's for sure.

That follows attempts on Tuesday morning to return Unit 3 to operation which didn't go to plan. Online then tripped twice and still off now.

It's going a bit better as of now, still only running units 1 & 2 but they're at full output, current situation in Vic as follows:

Load in Vic = 4567 MW

Loy Yang A = 1090 MW (coal) (AGL)
Loy Yang B = 1065 MW (coal) (Alinta)
Yallourn = 755 MW (coal) (Energy Australia)

From South Australia = 325 MW
From NSW = 322 MW
From Tasmania = 299 MW

Wind (various sites) = 297 MW

Mortlake power station = 263 MW (gas) (Origin Energy)

Dartmouth = 158 MW (hydro) (AGL)
Hume = 36 MW (hydro) (Meridian Energy)

Supply doesn't exactly match load due to transmission losses and minor differences in the timing of data.


----------



## sptrawler

I guess the coal generators are patching, rather than comprehensive rebuilds of boilers, it would obviously be throwing good money after bad.
IMO things will come to a head sooner, rather than later.
I guess the other thing supporting my belief is, they are blowing up serviceable coal power stations, why would you invest major capital into long term repairs?


----------



## PZ99

Bill Shorten... after blocking the NEG is now going to adapt it.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-21/labor-energy-policy-ahead-of-election/10519018

And just for a bit of irony - here's a flip flop circuit with a green button


----------



## SirRumpole

PZ99 said:


> Bill Shorten... after blocking the NEG is now going to adapt it.




Maaate, the NEG was blocked by the likes of Tony Abbott.


----------



## PZ99

SirRumpole said:


> Maaate, the NEG was blocked by the likes of Tony Abbott.



Yeppers. And he will probably block it again if 2GB (aka coals-radio) tell him to.

I'm more interested in why the ALP have suddenly changed their mind on it. Especially if I add that to Malcolm's comments on qanda. Two and two is two squared 

P.S. here's an article on what we discussed earlier > https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11...eatens-renewable-future-expert-warns/10511696


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Yes, I was reading RCR Tomlinson are putting in a few solar plants for them. Seems one of the farms is going to cost RCR dollars with miss quoting and running over budget.
> But they do sound like decent installations.



That post was August, it looks like RCR Tomlinson, aren't going to survive the hit.
Sad really, another good Aussie company down the chute.

https://thewest.com.au/business/ene...rs-from-mcgrathnicol-appointed-ng-b881028694z


----------



## Smurf1976

PZ99 said:


> I'm more interested in why the ALP have suddenly changed their mind on it



A relevant factor is that the ALP has extremely good access to all the right people in regard to this stuff. So they can get every perspective from senior management to engineering through to day to day practical operations stuff.

The Liberals in particular have in practice cut themselves off from that sort of thing long ago.


----------



## PZ99

Smurf1976 said:


> A relevant factor is that the ALP has extremely good access to all the right people in regard to this stuff. So they can get every perspective from senior management to engineering through to day to day practical operations stuff.
> 
> The Liberals in particular have in practice cut themselves off from that sort of thing long ago.



Very true. I just hope they can actually roll this one out and do it competently.
After 10 years, 6 Prime ministers and 6½ policy changes it's time to get something done.

It's been a very embarrassing decade and a very expensive one all for the sake of nothing.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> The Liberals in particular have in practice cut themselves off from that sort of thing long ago.




I'd have to say that the much reviled Turnbull did actually avail himself of scientific and engineering opinions such as the Finkel report and the engineering basis for Snowy Hydro 2.0. It was the far Right idealogues of his party that shut themselves off and it looks like they are the ones who will lose the Libs the next election.

Good thing too.


----------



## Smurf1976

PZ99 said:


> After 10 years, 6 Prime ministers and 6½ policy changes it's time to get something done.



Prior to all this I used to put the great Tasmanian dams debate of the early-1980's into context by explaining that it extended over a period of 3 years and 9 months, wrecked 2 state Premiers and gave the state it's first ever majority Liberal government.

Many didn't believe it could possibly have been so drastic and so the newspaper headlines were on hand to back up the claim that it indeed was true.

I never thought I'd live to see the question of how to generate electricity become such a dominant issue at a federal level that's for sure and certainly not to the point where the duration and political fallout now makes the dams debate seem rather trivial in comparison.

Perhaps the only real difference is that with this national debate there's not the same level of personal engagement and belief in relation to any one option. It's no secret that the dams debate in Tas did lead to a few divorces and other family splits at the time due to strongly held opposing views but there doesn't seem to be the same degree of deep seated commitment toward one option or the other this time around at a federal level. Perhaps if there was it would have been sorted by now.

I do wonder how it will all be viewed in the future though?


----------



## PZ99

LOL - yeah I do seem to remember some of those dam-nation debates


----------



## So_Cynical

PZ99 said:


> I'm more interested in why the ALP have suddenly changed their mind on it.




Its a decently green policy that the LIB govt has already passed at party room level twice, its genius to adopt the LIB policy and run with it, the greens wont like it but they never do like anything the main stream party's adopt..


----------



## sptrawler

So_Cynical said:


> Its a decently green policy that the LIB govt has already passed at party room level twice, its genius to adopt the LIB policy and run with it, the greens wont like it but they never do like anything the main stream party's adopt..



It certainly wedges the Libs, unless they can show why it was flawed and not adopted. 
The battery idea, will be another brain fart idea, that will come back to bite Labor. IMO
Would you like pink batts with that?


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The battery idea, will be another brain fart idea,




Wasn't it you who said solar panels and batteries should be compulsory ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Wasn't it you who said solar panels and batteries should be compulsory ?



Absolutely and the system is in place to facilitate it, to add a new level of complexity to the funding system is dumb and open to new scams. IMO
Obviously you can only speculate, but from what I read it is only open to low income earners, which is fine, however.
Most systems low income earners would have installed, would not have a hybrid inverter, that can control domestic demand/battery charging and export, so they will require a new inverter or control unit. Which will add $2,000 to $4,000 to the battery install.

Secondly, low income families according to Labor are struggling, so giving them a deposit on something they can't afford now, is just doing what the banks are in the $hit for.

Thirdly, as everyone on here keeps telling me, the cost of batteries is falling exponentially, so why would you stitch up the poor now. It sounds more like a silly billy santa package to me.

That is just a few off the top of my head, like I said there is a well tested rebate system, that is making solar system installs cheap already. 
Why not just tweak that, to get the desired outcome, obviously most of the cowboy's have been weeded out already.
Start a new funding system, starts new battery install industry, fly by night get rich quick start ups. But maybe that's the game?


----------



## SirRumpole

*Rare earth mineral discovery set to make Australia a major player in electric vehicle supply chain*

*https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2...ind-to-boost-electric-vehicle-sector/10562460*


----------



## PZ99

SirRumpole said:


> *Rare earth mineral discovery set to make Australia a major player in electric vehicle supply chain*
> 
> *https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2...ind-to-boost-electric-vehicle-sector/10562460*



If you post that in the NTU thread you could use that as your December tip


----------



## SirRumpole

PZ99 said:


> If you post that in the NTU thread you could use that as your December tip




Done.


----------



## Smurf1976

Some recent goings on in the National Electricity Market:

Sunday 2nd December saw negative prices in SA and Victoria, that is the spot price was below zero, between 9:30 am and 3:30 pm. The drivers were high levels of wind power generation, widespread sunshine and mild temperatures in Adelaide and Melbourne which resulted in low consumption.

Transmission capacity to both NSW and Tas was running at the limit, flow being from Vic to those two states, such that there was no ability to shift any more. Wind and solar were supplying about 63% of demand in Vic and SA at the time, with thermal (coal, gas) plant still online for reasons of system strength* and due to the technical and economic difficulties of a short term shutdown of plant that needed to operate at high outputs once the sun went down.

*System strength - in layman's terms that could be considered as inertia. Like a freight train moving at 100 km/h has a lot of intertia whereas a feather moving at the same speed doesn't. That inertia and other things like the ability to adjust output to match demand are critical to controlling the system and in the ability to "ride through" unexpected incidents (faults) without the risk of a system black (that is, the whole system ending up dead). In simple terms when something goes wrong that "freight train" might slow down slightly whereas the feather comes to a complete halt. Hence with present infrastructure going to zero conventional generation (coal, gas, hydro, oil) isn't an option even briefly.

At present there is very limited storage capacity of any type within Vic / SA. There's the Hornsdale Power Reserve (aka the Tesla "big battery") in SA and that was being charged through much of this time and there's also some smaller battery systems but they're by no means enough.

Power that went to NSW and Tas displaced other generation rather than being "stored" as such. That said, since in Tas the generation displaced was hydro, and that water is held in the dams, that's a sort-of means of storing it in practice. 

Meanwhile demand in NSW and Qld looked more like a typical weekday than a weekend, being driven by hot weather. This was to the point that some high cost oil-fired plant in Qld had a run for a few hours.

The obvious point there is that more transmission capacity between (Vic + SA) and (NSW + Qld), treating that as two regions not four, would have been beneficial. The details don't really matter so long as it means either more flow from Vic to NSW, or from SA to NSW, or from SA to Qld.

To that end there's a proposal being progressed to link SA and NSW early next decade. The trouble however is that with about 2000 MW of new wind and large scale solar, plus however much small (rooftop) solar, about to be built in Vic and SA that new link is already insufficient with only about 40% of that capacity. Plus it must be said that there's a limit to how much NSW itself could absorb, since NSW also has solar and wind generation.

All of which brings us to storage of this intermittently available surplus electricity especially since:

On current forecasts consumption in SA on Thurday 6th of December, with a forecast maximum of 39 degrees in Adelaide, will be almost exactly equal to available generating capacity within the state. So there's nothing to spare except supply available from Victoria. But:

On the same day demand in Victoria is currently forecast to reach 7605 MW, versus supply within the state at 7206 MW. The lights will stay on so long as nothing disrupts supply from Tas and NSW but there's not a huge amount of room to move.

The following day, Friday 7th, the situation is forecast as about a 650 MW gap between supply versus demand in Vic. Demand should be down in SA however due to cooler temperatures so flow SA to Vic is likely in addition to supply available from Tas and NSW.

If this sounds like a lot of juggling and all getting a tad precarious then that's not far from the truth. There are a couple of significant generating units out of service in Vic at present, Loy Yang A unit 4 and Yallourn unit 3, the latter having had a recent fatal incident.

There is also some less significant (smaller) plant that isn't running and probably won't be for quite a while. The details of that aren't public knowledge so far as I'm aware so I won't elaborate beyond saying it's in the Vic + SA combined region. It's old stuff yes.

Whilst forced load shedding or blackouts aren't expected at the present time, it's still a bit tight and we're only looking at 36 degrees in Melbourne and 39 in Adelaide which aren't extreme.

So any form of storage would be useful amidst all of this given there's a surplus shortly followed by a fairly tight supply situation.


----------



## sptrawler

The renewable issue we have been talking about is coming to a head, here comes the brake pedal.

https://thewest.com.au/business/ren...ler-bids-to-limit-solar-output-ng-b881043608z

Cycling plant to facilitate renewables, will be causing huge headaches, not to mention permanent damage due to fatigue.
Just my opinion.


----------



## Humid

I currently run my pool and bore after 9pm at 14 cents/kw during the day it’s 28 cents.


----------



## Smurf1976

Humid said:


> I currently run my pool and bore after 9pm at 14 cents/kw during the day it’s 28 cents.



If you're in NSW, ACT, Qld or NT it's not a problem yet.

Other states it's a case of price structures failing to adapt to a changed situation quickly enough.


----------



## Smurf1976

Genex pumped hydro project in Queensland looks to be a goer:

http://www.thebull.com.au/articles/a/79169-genex-hydro-project-gets-funding-green-light.html


----------



## Wysiwyg

So the pumping of water is done with the use of coal fired electricity generation in off peak hours? Wiki. says the plants are net consumers of electricity because of the energy used to pump water up hill.


----------



## sptrawler

Wysiwyg said:


> So the pumping of water is done with the use of coal fired electricity generation in off peak hours? Wiki. says the plants are net consumers of electricity because of the energy used to pump water up hill.



Probably initially that may be the case, as it is much more efficient, to leave steam generators on line than to take them off and put them back on again. The process takes a few hours and burns fuel just to attain pressure and temperature conditions, to enable it to be put online again.
So if the plant is required for morning and evening peak, it makes sense to leave it on in the middle of the day to pump the hydro storage, then take the unit off overnight and use the pumped storage.
When there is enough renewables, to supply the load and run the pumped storage, then we won't need the steam plant.
I don't think I will be around to see it happen.


----------



## Humid

https://thewest.com.au/politics/sta...-synergy-mired-in-costs-crisis-ng-b881057551z

Talk to the peanuts who predicted the figures
I want one of them jobs where your constantly wrong and not held accountable


----------



## Wysiwyg

Yes it makes sense to have a solar and wind energy farm running the pumps so the storage, pumps/generators should be built together for a more efficient solution.


----------



## Wysiwyg

Humid said:


> https://thewest.com.au/politics/sta...-synergy-mired-in-costs-crisis-ng-b881057551z
> 
> Talk to the peanuts who predicted the figures
> I want one of them jobs where your constantly wrong and not held accountable



Their services are now less required and have not made the adjustments. Typical of any business really.


----------



## Smurf1976

Wysiwyg said:


> So the pumping of water is done with the use of coal fired electricity generation in off peak hours?



Any source of surplus generation be it coal or otherwise.

The basic problem here is that if you get a mild sunny day with plenty of wind then you've got very strong generation from solar and wind plus low demand due to no use of heating or cooling and especially so when this occurs on a weekend. Now what, exactly, do we do with the power? It's use it, store it or lose it.

At present that's an issue in SA and soon to be one in Victoria. Qld and NSW don't have enough wind and solar for that to be a problem yet but it will be in due course.

Then at other times there's high demand and little or no solar or wind generation. It varies a bit from day to day and seasonally but demand peaks around 6pm when solar generation isn't working overly well and it may or may not be windy. Keeping the lights on requires that some form of dispatchable (not weather dependent) generation exists of sufficient capacity be it coal, gas, oil or hydro.

Building pumped storage thus addresses both problems and is an alternative to building new coal, gas or oil (diesel, fuel oil, kero) generation.

In the short term yes it will in practice mostly store energy produced from coal or gas but anything hydro has an _extremely_ long life compared to anything else mechanical or electrical and for most of its lifespan is likely to be storing energy produced from solar or wind. That said, even where it does store energy from coal it will be improving the efficiency of coal or gas-fired generation by stabilising load.

Gas turbines in particular are terribly inefficient at partial load, they're best run either flat out or not at all. Meanwhile coal plant incurs substantial energy losses to start and stop so there's a benefit in maintaining a more constant load.

When I say hydro has a very long lifespan, well the best way to put that is to say that if you go to Queenstown Tasmania you will find the Lake Margaret power station not far out of town.

Lake Margaret's machines were running during World War 1 and they are still running today and apart from the pipeline replacement 2006 - 2009 they've rarely stopped in all that time. That's the original machinery sitting in exactly the same place it has always sat and doing what it has always done.

There aren't many things built by humans which are more permanent than that and there would be very few mechanical or electrical things which were around for both World Wars and are still in full use serving their original purpose today.


----------



## Smurf1976

An old photo of a now closed power station that I'm posting since I believe it may have some personal relevance to another member of ASF (though they've probably seen an aerial shot of it sometime anyway.....).

Note the absence of coal conveyors - this was prior to the fuel conversion.  

The photo isn't mine but was placed in the public domain by the plant's owner many years ago. Has been scanned from paper.


----------



## basilio

It is startling to see the march of solar and wind energy through the the Australian energy system. The trick now is to create intermittent storage capacity and clearly some form of pumped hydro is easiest cab off the ranks.

I do think however that there should be a very close look at the reliability of the current coal and gas fired generators.  I think Smurf has made many observations about the outages in these systems and perhaps the  commercial temptation to allow such events to happen if it results in a juicy price spike.

The forecast for increasing summer heatwaves doesn't sit well with the current system.


----------



## Wysiwyg

What about the amount of electricity that could be generated if all current dams and reservoirs that supply town water were put to use. There is non reusable water flowing constantly somewhere that could be generating electricity.


----------



## Smurf1976

Wysiwyg said:


> What about the amount of electricity that could be generated if all current dams and reservoirs that supply town water were put to use.



There are some examples where it is done but certainly more opportunities.

There's quite a few smaller ones in NSW (other than the Snowy scheme) operated by Meridian Energy (ASX: MEX) whilst in Victoria there's some larger ones such as Eildon (100 MW) and Dartmouth (165 MW) in addition to dams built primarily for power generation operated by AGL (ASX: AGL). Also some smaller examples in other states too.


----------



## Wysiwyg

Interesting to read that the Dartmouth Dam cold water killed off many fish stocks in the natural river systems. Also the turbine inside the dam wall being jammed by some steel doing serious damage. 


> A breach of the wall would have obliterated only a couple of small towns


----------



## Smurf1976

Wysiwyg said:


> Interesting to read that the Dartmouth Dam cold water killed off many fish stocks in the natural river systems. Also the turbine inside the dam wall being jammed by some steel doing serious damage.



The dam itself was built for water storage for irrigation, power is just a by-product, so water release and consequent effects are really a function of that purpose (irrigation (agriculture)) rather than the power per se. If that makes sense.....

The incident was certainly among the most dramatic occurrences at any power station in Australia that's for sure. It didn't simply wreck the machine but rather, it moved the whole structure. 

It's not just the impact of the beams jamming the turbine but that doing so slammed all the vanes shut and stopped the water flow. Water hammer is a rather drastic thing when it happens on that scale.

Anything involving lots of energy has the potential to go horribly wrong. The risk is never zero although in this case it happened to a relatively cautious operator.

Here's a video of a load rejection test at Liapootah power station (Tas). It's a "real" test, that is an actual removal of load from the unit and then see that everything works as it should. It's a lot of water but the volume involved at Dartmouth was about 3.5 times the quantity. Stop that in an instant and the result isn't good.


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting article in the 'West', I guess it will provoke a bit of debate in Canberra.

https://thewest.com.au/business/ren...ens-green-energy-plan-revealed-ng-b881057010z

If it is accurate, that is a hell of a lot of money, for a State with a population of 2.5 million. Lucky we get to keep more of our gst, by the sound of it, we will need it. lol


----------



## Wysiwyg

Smurf1976 said:


> It's a lot of water but the volume involved at Dartmouth was about 3.5 times the quantity. Stop that in an instant and the result isn't good.



Considering 1 litre of water equals about 1 kilogram, it is understandable.


----------



## Smurf1976

Wysiwyg said:


> Considering 1 litre of water equals about 1 kilogram, it is understandable.



To put some figures on it:

Discharge at Liapootah as shown in the video I linked is about 34,000 litres per second per machine, there being 3 machines only one of which is tripped for the test.

Discharge at Dartmouth when operating at full capacity was 117,000 litres / second from its single when originally built (completed 1980). After the incident it was enlarged by about 10% during the reconstruction.

With a Francis turbine, slamming the turbine vanes shut as occurred when the steel beam entered also has the effect of shutting off the water flow in addition to mechanical impacts on the turbine from the steel itself. Hence the Dartmouth incident was dramatic and happened extremely fast - all over in just one revolution of the turbine.

The track record of Australian power stations is generally good in that major incidents have been rare but it's a reality that anything involving high temperature, pressure or voltage does have the potential to go horribly wrong.


----------



## basilio

The latest analysis of the costs of new energy production energy kills coal stone dead.  Be interesting to see the impact of this report in 2019.

*CSIRO/AEMO study says wind, solar and storage clearly cheaper than coal*

 Giles Parkinson  21 December 2018    Comments 
share

Australia’s leading scientific research group and the country’s energy market operator have released a benchmark study that shows the cost of new wind and solar – even with hours of storage – is “unequivocally” lower than the cost of new coal generation.

The joint study – GenCost 2018 – by the CSIRO and AEMO shows that the levellised cost of energy (LCOE) of solar and wind is well below that of any other generation source.

Even adding two and six hours of storage with batteries or pumped hydro still leaves the cost of “firm” solar and wind power cheaper than any fossil fuel alternative.

The study follows similar conclusions from the likes of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and the observations of big utilities such as AGL, Origin, and the government’s own Snowy Hydro. But it has added significance because of the importance and reputation of the two institutions involved.

“I fully expected the LCOE of renewables to be cheaper,” CSIRO economist and lead author Paul Graham told RenewEconomy in an interview. “I thought that once you added storage, maybe it would be line ball. But it is unequivocally cheaper. Wind and solar are still lower cost even if you take into account those balancing costs.”

And Graham says these are conservative estimates. He points out, as previous studies from the CSIRO and chief scientist Alan Finkel have shown, that the level of storage required for wind and solar is minimal up to a point of around 50 per cent.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/csiro-a...-and-storage-clearly-cheaper-than-coal-45724/


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## basilio

*What changed our world in energy generation in 2018 ?*  Some very significant events. Well worth a read to understand why not moving to renewables is just dumb.

*Six developments that changed the world of energy in 2018*
https://reneweconomy.com.au/six-developments-that-changed-the-world-of-energy-in-2018/


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## Smurf1976

An update on current circumstances given the high temperatures.

In short there are no current problems meeting demand and none expected within the next week. Yes it's hot but underlying demand is seasonally low due to schools being closed, many businesses closed, people on holiday not at home, etc.

Current operational details as follows for the 3 common problem states. Note that supply won't exactly match demand due to compilation from different data sets a few minutes apart plus transmission losses.

Solar generation and total demand figures include _estimated_ output from small systems (households etc) since this is not directly measured in real time. All other data is measured.

SA:
Demand = 2430 MW
Wind = 954 MW
Gas = 943 MW
Solar = 483 MW
From Victoria = 97 MW

Vic:
Demand = 7278 MW
Coal = 4337 MW
Hydro = 901 MW
Solar = 739 MW
Wind = 675 MW
Gas = 491 MW
From Tasmania = 469 MW

NSW:
Demand = 10,822 MW
Coal = 7430 MW
Solar = 1282 MW
From Queensland = 1201 MW
Hydro = 537 MW
From Victoria = 201 MW
Wind = 186 MW
Gas = 19 MW


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## Smurf1976

A significant occurrence is currently forecast for tomorrow (3 January) in the electricity market in SA.

AEMO is currently forecasting, for the SA region:

Maximum demand of 2811 MW at approximately 18:30 market time (19:00 SA local time).

Available generation within SA at this time = 2791 MW

Available supply from Vic to SA at this time = 797 MW

*Spot price = $10,262 / MWh* between 18:00 and 19:00 market time (18:30 - 19:30 SA local time) which is over 100 times the 2018 average spot price of $98.10

Price is forecast to exceed $1000 / MWh in SA constantly between 17:00 and 20:00 market time.

This does not pose a credible threat to supply* since there's still a reasonable margin between capacity and demand which allows for unexpected problems but anyone who isn't hedged and is buying from the spot market is about to have their finances burned. No households are in that situation but some businesses are by choice.  

*Nobody will ever give you a 100% guarantee that all this stuff works because the nature of it is that things can and do fail. Supply is still secure at that level within accepted industry practices based on engineering however, it would take 3 separate supply failures to cause a shortfall, so this could be considered a financial event not a physical one.

The above could of course change real quick if traders decided to bid supply at lower prices. Doing so needs most of them to do it however (there are some who will already be bidding low prices but the highest accepted sets the spot price as with any market).


----------



## Smurf1976

It seems that one or more traders has "blinked" and the current forecast for prices in SA this afternoon is now drastically lower.

The highest price forecast is now $578.81 in the 18:30 - 19:00 period (market time) so that's drastically lower than the previous forecast.

SA generators are at the margin bidding high prices however with transfer Vic to SA forecast to run close to the technical limit during the peak (supplying about 26% of SA load at that time) whilst considerable generating capacity in SA sits idle. Reason = price the traders want for output from those facilities in SA exceeds the marginal price of supply from interstate. Note that forecast wind output at this time is minimal so wind farms aren't in the market beyond a fairly minimal level whilst solar is always fairly low at that time.

Note - Market time in the National Electricity Market is always AEST without Dayling Savings taken into account (so that's Qld time year round) regardless of the state in question. So during Summer SA is 30 minutes ahead of market time whilst NSW, Vic and Tas are 1 hour ahead (the ACT is part of the NSW electrical region whilst the NT and WA are not part of the National Electricity Market.


----------



## Smurf1976

The next few days are set to be somewhat "interesting" to say the least. 

Circumstances can and do change at short notice. First because things fail unexpectedly and second because an electrical load forecast is ultimately a derivative of the weather forecast and likewise solar and wind generation forecasts are also derivatives of the weather forecast.

So there's some uncertainty but for tomorrow, Monday 14 January 2019:

Victoria forecast maximum electricity demand = 8407 MW
Victoria forecast available supply within state = 8292 MW

Now from a physical perspective filling a 115 MW gap from NSW, Tas or SA isn't difficult, each of those three states could do that volume individually and collectively they certainly can, but it does bring about two issues.

First is price. Electricity in Vic is currently trading at about $80 / MWh with prices forecast by AEMO to exceed $14,000 tomorrow afternoon. To put it into perspective, at that level electricity in Victoria is quite literally a $2 million per minute industry all up.

Second is there's not a lot of room to cope if anything goes wrong with supply. On AEMO's official scale of 0 to 3, with 0 being normal and 3 being blackouts, tomorrow has been declared a 2 in Victoria during the peak. In layman's terms that means if all goes to plan then that level of demand can be supplied but it will only take one significant mishap and down we go. 

The rest of the week, thus far at least, looks somewhat worse in both NSW and Vic. Any business buying from the spot market is about to have their funds drained.....


----------



## sptrawler

Oh well, it looks as though the gas pipeline from the NW of WA to the Eastern States isn't yet viable, at least the project was assessed properly. They should have some valuable info, that will drive future discussion on the viability.

https://thewest.com.au/business/energy/west-east-gas-pipe-dream-fails-to-add-up-ng-b881075919z


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## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Current operational details as follows for the 3 common problem states. Note that supply won't exactly match demand due to compilation from different data sets a few minutes apart plus transmission losses.
> 
> Solar generation and total demand figures include _estimated_ output from small systems (households etc) since this is not directly measured in real time. All other data is measured.



Smurf, this links to a *live graphic* of electricity supply & demand.
I found it interesting to see how strongly renewables contributed in South Australia.
The other interesting take was how State subsidies for solar have skewed PV output - NSW is a laggard.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Smurf, this links to a *live graphic* of electricity supply & demand.
> I found it interesting to see how strongly renewables contributed in South Australia.
> The other interesting take was how State subsidies for solar have skewed PV output - NSW is a laggard.



Great link there rederob, well done.

It kind of puts things in perspective.


----------



## Ann

rederob said:


> Smurf, this links to a *live graphic* of electricity supply & demand.
> I found it interesting to see how strongly renewables contributed in South Australia.
> The other interesting take was how State subsidies for solar have skewed PV output - NSW is a laggard.




I agree with sptrawler, very interesting link thanks Rob and I was quite shocked to see no gas fired power in either Vic or NSW. I understand gas to be the most efficient of all the fossil fuels for energy generation.

Looks like Vic and NSW are about to get some more coal-fired power stations. I am surprised the LCP are doing this, I would have thought it would kill any chance of being re-elected. If some miracle happens and they are re-elected it might be the beginning of the end for renewables to any major degree.

_*St Baker, China Partner Plan A$6 Billion Coal Plants: Australian*
 By 
David Stringer

January 19, 2019, 12:08 PM GMT+11
_

_ Tycoon will set out plans for Australia projects next week _
_ Energy policy a key issue ahead of country’s looming election _
_ 


Australian power-sector tycoon Trevor St Baker will set out plans to build new coal-fired plants under proposals for A$6 billion ($4.3 billion) of developments with a Chinese joint venture partner, the Australian newspaper reported.

St Baker, founder of ERM Power Ltd. and chairman of privately-held Sunset Power International Ltd., will submit plans next week to Australian Energy Minister Angus Taylor, according to the newspaper. Taylor has called for new investment in coal-powered plants and demanded generators help to lower electricity prices.             _More........

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...n-a-6-billion-coal-plants-proposal-australian


----------



## explod

Renewables cheaper than coal, says Gupta, “it’s obvious”

"Even UK steel billionaires get the blues. For more than a year now, Sanjeev Gupta has been letting his actions – and investments – do the talking on renewables in Australia.

Since his GFG Alliance bought the ailing Arrium steel producer in Whyalla last July, Gupta and his team have been detailing bigger and better and clearer plans to build up to 10GW of solar, as well as storage, to power his own and other energy intensive industrial majors, and generally revitalise Australia’s manufacturing sector.

But still, the message is not getting through – at least, not to some. And the frustration is starting to show.


“It’s still everybody’s perception that it is cheaper to make power from coal than it is from renewables, and it is no longer the case,” Gupta told Guardian Australia in an interview on Monday."

https://reneweconomy.com.au/renewables-cheaper-than-coal-says-gupta-its-obvious-10880/


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## rederob

explod said:


> Renewables cheaper than coal, says Gupta, “it’s obvious”
> "Even UK steel billionaires get the blues. For more than a year now, Sanjeev Gupta has been letting his actions – and investments – do the talking on renewables in Australia.



Almost 8 years ago Ross Garnaut prepared an excellent report on the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) - used as a common cost measure for testing the financial viability of power generation.
Skip to page 12 for the the key results with respect to LCOE forecasts for 2020, 2030 and 2040.
Now compare these results to Lazzard's latest LCOE. 
Garnaut almost got wind right, but badly miscalculated solar - not a bad effort overall.
Only combined cycle gas comes close to wind and solar.
Thermal coal is best left in the ground.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Smurf, this links to a *live graphic* of electricity supply & demand.
> I found it interesting to see how strongly renewables contributed in South Australia.
> The other interesting take was how State subsidies for solar have skewed PV output - NSW is a laggard.






AEMO puts out all the data in real time, the public website version is updated every 5 minutes, and there are a number of third party websites which present that raw data in an easier to understand form.

That's much the same as saying that the ASX provides data in real time which your broker's website or any other service you are using then presents in a more useful form via charts, scanning tools and so on. Same concept in that there's an "official" data source which others then do various things with.

What the electricity generating companies themselves do with it depends heavily on their own capabilities and strategy. It ranges from absolutely nothing, being purely a passive participant, to a fully fledged trading room with monitors everywhere displaying exactly what every plant, regardless of who owns it, is doing and which looks much like the sort of thing you'd see on financial news coverage in the background to some commentator speaking or footage of the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange.

In terms of physical control, AEMO has two complete setups to run the National Electricity Market (Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas, SA). One's in Brisbane and the other is in Sydney and both are fully capable in the event that one were to be blown up by terrorists or whatever.

In addition to that Hydro Tasmania also has it's own fully fledged control room capable of running everything in Tasmania from the one place. Since Tas is part of the NEM that's effectively a backup to AEMO's systems but it's fully setup and could be considered as "plan C". For the record if the worst did happen then there are further options beyond that.

The other states don't have a single control room capable of running the whole show from one place but the power stations do have their own control rooms to run that power station and there are other places for controlling networks etc.

The one big word of caution I'll sound when looking at data is to realise that it is instantaneous unless stated otherwise. For example there's more than 2000 MW of gas-fired plant in Victoria literally none of which is running at the moment. Yes it can and does run but right now there's no need since demand is low, wind and solar are producing significant outputs, and with one exception all coal-fired plant is running flat out. So there's gas-fired plant which exists but if you look at anything displaying "live" production data you could well come away completely unaware of that.

The only other "catch" with data websites is that they don't distinguish when a fuel other than the main fuel is being used. Eg a lot of gas-fired plant fires oil as a backup fuel but they won't pick that up, since they just have power station x listed as "gas", and will thus show the source as "gas" even though oil is being fired in practice. That said, it's not common to fire oil in plant that mostly uses gas but it does happen from time to time - it was done in two generating units at one particular power station in SA last week for example.

Oil? Depending on the plant in question that's fuel oil (a thick black liquid), diesel, kerosene (jet aircraft fuel) or LPG ("BBQ gas") all of which are liquids partly (LPG) or entirely (the others) derived from crude oil. For convenience they're generally lumped together and referred to as either "liquid fuels" or simply "oil".

In terms of efficiency, that's a complex one. Coal plant efficiency doesn't vary hugely across the present fleet. The absolute worst is about two thirds as good as the absolute best so the variation isn't massive and the majority is in a narrower range in the middle. The difference isn't simply due to technology although that's a factor. The composition of the coal used is a major influence on the level of thermal efficiency which can be achieved and climate is also a factor.

For gas and oil fired plant however the differences are far greater with the worst gas-fired plant using more than twice as much gas, per unit of output, as the best and it's similar where liquid fuels are involved.

On a state by state basis over the past 12 months:

NSW:
Coal = 77.9%
Import from other states = 8.0%
Solar = 4.3% (3.0% houses etc, 1.3% large solar farms)
Wind = 4.2%
Hydro = 3.9%
Gas = 1.8%
Oil = minor
Export to other states = 0.4% of NSW supply

Qld:
Coal = 83.1%
Gas = 9.1%
Solar = 6.0% (of which houses etc 4.8%, large scale solar 1.2%)
Hydro = 1.2%
Biomass = 0.4%
Wind = 0.2%
Imports from NSW = 0.1%
Oil = 0.01%
Export to NSW = 8.5% of Qld supply

Vic:
Coal = 74.2%
Wind = 9.1%
Hydro = 5.8%
Gas = 4.3%
Solar = 3.7% (houses etc = 3.4%, large scale = 0.3%)
Imports from Tas, SA, NSW = 2.9%*
Exports to SA, Tas, NSW = 4.4% of Vic supply

*A complicating factor with Vic is that fairly often exports from one state to Vic are ultimately transferred to another state and recorded as such in the other state's figures. The physical quantity imported to Vic as a transit route, eg Tas or SA to NSW, is thus significantly greater than the 2.9% shown. A similar complexity exists with exports.

SA:
Gas = 42.9%
Wind = 39.0%
Solar 9.2% (houses etc 8.3%, large scale solar 0.9%
Import from Vic = 8.5%
Oil = 0.1%
Exports to Vic = 7.1% of SA supply

Tas:
Hydro = 81.9%
Wind = 8.7%
Import from Vic = 4.9%
Gas = 3.3%
Solar = 1.2% (all of which was small scale on houses etc)
Export to Vic = 14.5% of Tas supply

Those figures are annual for the past year. 

In the short term however, wild variations can and do occur. Eg looking at the week ahead on the 24th forecast load significantly exceeds supply available within the state in Victoria. There is thus a significant reliance on Tas, SA and NSW to keep the lights shining in Melbourne on that day and not much room for anything to go wrong without ending up in trouble. Ultimate cause = hot weather.

So in the space of a few hours it goes from lots of plant sitting idle to a scramble to find adequate supply. That's a pretty routine occurrence.


----------



## Smurf1976

In addition to the previous post, I don't have data for locations outside the NEM but for the bigger separate systems:

Mt Isa region and surrounds in Queensland = almost totally from gas.

NT = gas in Darwin and Alice Springs. Other towns it's either gas or diesel.

WA (South-West Interconnected System including Perth) = it's about half from coal, 40% gas, rest is wind and solar. Roughly.

WA (North-West Interconnected System) = all gas apart from a bit of diesel as backup fuel.

For those not aware, the SWIS and NWIS in WA are completely separate systems not connected to each other (too far apart to economically do so). The NWIS serves, in practice, mostly the mining industry and associated towns. 

Plus some minor sources like rooftop solar etc in all the above.


----------



## basilio

Cam across this interview with a scientist at Toyota.  Hydrogen fuelled cars seem far closer to reality than some would believe. I have been following AFC energy fuel cell progress so I can see where he is coming from. Liked his conclusion.


*Exclusive: Toyota Hydrogen Boss Explains How Fuel Cells Can Achieve Corolla Costs*
Hydrogen fuel cells have been written off for decades, but Toyota's Katsuhiko Hirose says they area just coming into their own.

http://www.thedrive.com/tech/26050/...ains-how-fuel-cells-can-achieve-corolla-costs

_......Hirose is an outspoken man, and he doesn’t “like the term hydrogen society,” as he admits. “Hydrogen society means we fully bet on hydrogen. Instead, we should bet on a portfolio of solutions for a sustainable society. Of course, the government can incentivize, but in the long term, we need to provide what the customer likes to choose. This is not about batteries vs. fuel cell. It is about sustainable, zero emission transportation, and about customer choice.”_
_
 “A sustainable society is a lot of work,” Hirose says as he collects his things to catch his Shinkansen back to Nagoya, “but if we postpone decisions about matters like global warming, we steal the future of our children. As a company man, I should not say this,” he tells me, “but maybe you can.”_


----------



## basilio

Interesting new development in  the application of fuel cell technology.

AFC Energy has launched a low cost fuel cell to recharge EV's. One of the questions about the extensive use of electric vehicles is the requirement for far more mains supplied electricity to charge the batteries. Good description of the technology and the options to provide the hydrogen. 

* UK firm launches fuel cell charge point for electric cars – but will hydrogen power our electric dreams? *
 
 share   





The BMW i8 plugged in to the first ever hydrogen fuel cell EV charging station 

Ed Wiseman
 18 January 2019 • 8:00 AM
British firm AFC Energy has launched the first ever hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle charger, a system it describes as a “breakthrough” in clean mobility.

By using hydrogen fuel cells to recharge battery-electric vehicles in car parks and service stations, the system will help bridge the growing gap between electricity need and generation capacity caused by a projected rise in EV uptake. The modular, low-cost charger also solves some of the logistical issues currently associated with electric car charging, and can even operate entirely off-grid. It's a completely different model to our current use of hydrogen in mobility, in that the vehicles themselves are BEVs rather than FCEVs, and could be deployed extremely rapidly. 


“The UK government has targets for electric vehicle uptake, aiming for 100 percent of new cars to be zero-emission by 2040,” says Adam Bond, CEO of AFC Energy.

“The additional power required is somewhere around 27 gigawatts. That’s 17,000 wind turbines; one hundred London Arrays. It is enormous power that hasn’t been considered within the context of the policy on EV charging.

“It is one thing to stick a couple of EV charger points on the motorway, but that is not going to deliver the policy. What we are trying to do is take from government or industry the need to create another 20 gigawatts of power, and displace that with localised, decentralised, standalone clean energy solutions that will operate 24/7, as and when you need them.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/ne...uel-cell-charge-point-electric-cars-will/amp/


----------



## basilio

A further report/analysis on the AFC fuel cell charge point.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/01/18/bmw-gets-a-new-hydrogen-powered-twist-for-ev-charging-but-why/


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Interesting new development in  the application of fuel cell technology.



There would be potential applications for it but at a national level what they're proposing is:

Take electricity that is generated by whatever means.

Turn it into hydrogen.

Use the hydrogen to generate electricity to charge EV's, thus avoiding the need for additional mains electricity to charge EV's.

It's a potential workaround to distribution network constraints and is a means of storage via the hydrogen but ultimately it means significantly more, not less, actual electricity is required. As such it's not a solution to that problem - there's no free lunch and hydrogen is not itself an energy source, since it first has to be produced.

There's a potential role for it but it's akin to a bank account and using EFTPOS to make purchases. Convenient and gets around any hassles with carrying physical cash but it doesn't replace the need for an income, or electricity, in the first place since you still need that to fill the bank account or make the hydrogen, there's no magic involved.


----------



## basilio

One of AFC's objectives is to use current waste hydrogen from industrial process to power the fuel cells.
Because they don't need totally pure hydrogen they can stand some contaminants.

The hydrogen could come from excess electricity production from PV or Wind generation. Certainly plenty of concern about how these will be managed.

But I agree with the overall premise - the power has to come from somewhere..


----------



## Smurf1976

Thursday 24th January looks like it's going to be an interesting day.

Melbourne is forecast to be warm with a top of 38 whilst Adelaide will enjoy a pleasant 44 degrees.

SA forecast electricity consumption peak is 2978 MW with available supply within SA of 2894 MW. 

Vic forecast consumption peak is 8992 MW with available supply within Vic of 7961 MW.

In addition to that forecasts show that critical power generation and supply infrastructure in Adelaide will be subject to slightly higher temperatures, forecast to reach 46 degrees, than the city's official weather station near the CBD. Such temperatures reduce the capacity of gas turbine generating plant in particular. These effects are included in the capacity forecast.

Allowing for the Vic and SA peak expected to be about an hour apart (yes, an hour not 30 minutes) overall the combined shortfall of the two states is roughly 900 MW.

Tasmania can fill 478 MW of that gap, that being the limit of transmission capacity across Bass Strait.

That leaves ~450 MW needing to come from NSW to Vic. Given that a number of power stations in Vic share the same transmission lines, which were built for them not specifically to interconnect with NSW, that's pushing the limits really indeed it's considerably higher than the typical spare capacity on those lines under such conditions which is around 250 MW.

Forecasts aren't precise but hmm, yeah, it all looks a bit fragile for the 24th really especially in Vic.

Note that the supply figures include generation from coal, gas, hydro, liquid fuels, wind, solar and also the large battery storage systems. Not included is a bit over 300 MW of diesel plant across both states that isn't normally offered to the market but which should be available. 

Consumption figures are the forecast actual consumption assuming no network faults cause localised blackouts etc and assuming there's actually sufficient supply available.

The 25th also looks problematic in Vic but I won't comment on that yet to reduce the chances of a changed weather forecast making it all wrong.


----------



## Darc Knight

So Qld powering other States again.


----------



## Smurf1976

Darc Knight said:


> So Qld powering other States again.



Basically yes.

The situation's looking increasingly dire for the 24th and now also the 25th.

Unit 3 at Loy Yang A power station (Victoria) failed on Tuesday afternoon so that's 560 MW of supply gone just like that.

The forecast maximum temperature for Adelaide has been increased to 45 degrees and the Bureau of Meteorology has publicly acknowledged that even higher temperatures are a possibility.

The end result is that SA needs an estimated 45 MW at a minimum from Vic to meet peak demand of 3038 MW and Vic needs a rather large 1583 MW from other states to meet it's forecast peak of 8862 MW.

Tasmania can supply 478 MW, the limit being transmission Tas to Vic rather than generation. 

Qld and NSW between them could cover the rest but getting that from NSW to Vic is going to be pushing the limits in a big way that's for sure.

On AEMO's official scale of 0 (normal) to 3 (lights go out) it's a 2 and that's for both SA and Vic. If nothing else goes wrong and the weather and load forecasts don't get any worse then it seems doable but it only needs a bit more load, a bit less supply or anything to go wrong and then there's a problem. 

The SA government's controversial diesel-fired gas turbines might finally be used "in anger" after all.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> The situation's looking increasingly dire for the 24th and now also the 25th.



Bringing this all back to the topic proper, "future" energy demand can be forecast with a good degree of predictability based on weather and known energy use patterns, as Smurf's posts show.
Fitting *renewables *into the energy mix is often touted as throwing some great *unpredictability *of weather, _viz. _wind and solar, into the equation.  However, insolation and wind speeds are not so difficult to forecast - just as Smurf is using a temperature proxy for differential demand - so we have a pretty good idea of what generation capacity can be anticipated from these sources.  Moreover, as more data becomes available from solar and wind farms, the easier it gets to hone the numbers.
As battery storage prices continue to decline in coming years, data on its effects on necessary generation requirements will no doubt continue to inform energy regulators.
I see the incremental changes as occasionally confounding but very manageable.
What I don't see is a national energy policy that allows infrastructure decisions on large scale capacity to occur so that we are insulated from electricity supply meltdowns.


----------



## sptrawler

The reduction in demand for fossil fired generation, brings with it the loss of skills, required to maintaining the existing plant.

http://www.thebull.com.au/articles/a/79697-general-electric-to-cut-up-to-468-jobs-in-france.html


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> What I don't see is a national energy policy that allows infrastructure decisions on large scale capacity to occur so that we are insulated from electricity supply meltdowns.




I think that will be the norm for quite some time, untill the technical experts in the field, are left to decide on the correct path to follow.
While it is being driven by political policy, to facilitate political outcomes, duplication and disasters will be the norm. IMO


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Fitting *renewables *into the energy mix is often touted as throwing some great *unpredictability *of weather, _viz. _wind and solar, into the equation.  However, insolation and wind speeds are not so difficult to forecast - just as Smurf is using a temperature proxy for differential demand - so we have a pretty good idea of what generation capacity can be anticipated from these sources.



To clarify, the AEMO forecasts I'm quoting do include forecast wind and large scale solar generation in addition to available generation from more traditional sources.

Small scale solar generation is in practice captured via a reduced demand forecast compared to what it would otherwise be. That's since it's not measured directly and simply "appears" as reduced load on the distribution networks and thus transmission and generation.

So it's all captured yes.

In terms of the future, there's no one "silver bullet" that fixes everything but I certainly agree that if you combine wind + solar + hydro + batteries + anything else you happen to have (eg landfill gas etc) then from a technical perspective there's no reason why that can't work reliably.

The problem at present is simply a failure to actually do what needs to be done. Politics and economic arguments have become dominant and engineering has been pushed aside in what is very obviously an engineering focused industry. It's akin to running an airline with all you need except planes and pilots.

In Vic in recent years we've seen the closure of Anglesea (160 MW), Morwell (190 MW) and Hazelwood (1680 MW) power stations meanwhile all that has been built, apart from some very minor things, is intermittent renewables (wind and solar). 

Wind and solar can certainly generate electricity, no argument there, but where the problem lies is that they don't necessarily do so when you most need it. Eg looking at SA today, at 5am (SA time) wind was generating 935 MW and total system demand in SA was 1588 MW so that's 59% from wind. By 13:20 wind output had fallen to 187 MW and is still falling meanwhile demand has almost doubled to 2991 MW. That basic pattern where wind works well overnight then gradually dies out during the day as load increases is unfortunately a common one.

So by all means build wind and solar but what we need to go with that is a means of storage that works on demand. Generate lots of energy from wind and solar, store it when there's a surplus, generate from that storage when required.

Batteries have a role especially for meeting short term peaks and variations. They're incredibly good at that. Pumped hydro is however the big "grunt" option when it comes to bulk storage and realistically the sensible way forward will involve both.

The barrier isn't a technical one, that's all solvable, or even really an economic one since the costs aren't massive. The problem is a political one - creating constant uncertainty, trying to push ideas that aren't based on sound practices and letting various ideologies get in the way of actually making things work.

My updates on the situation is really just to highlight with real, practical examples how close to the edge all this really is. It's not some academic exercise, we really are staring down the barrel of failure at this point. That this is happening with weather that's not extreme in Vic and with only two significant generating units not running is the really alarming bit since it would be perfectly reasonable to expect a higher generation outage rate to occur at some point in the future given how old and tired some of this stuff is getting.

Then there's the financial aspect to it all. Average spot prices used to be around $40 but they're around $100 these days typically. Tomorrow they're forecast to reach $14,500 in both SA and Vic. Over 5 hours that makes grid electricity a roughly $800 million industry across those two states. Any business or retailer buying from the spot market is about to be burned in a big way but for everyone else, well ultimately contract rates are a reflection of average spot prices so there's a consequence.


----------



## Smurf1976

I'll post some further details later but in short:

*The situation has continued to deteriorate in Victoria and South Australia.

*AEMO has officially declared this a 3 out of 3 on the scale for both states. In layman's terms that means blackouts are now the expected outcome around 18:00 market time (which is 19:00 Vic local time and 18:30 SA local time) in both states.

*Assuming no improvement AEMO will issue the appropriate directions tomorrow morning. In simple terms if anyone's sitting on generating plant not being run then their management will be overridden and it gets run. If there's nothing to direct in that sense then the alternative is to direct that load be turned off (someone loses power).


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I'll post some further details later but in short:
> 
> *The situation has continued to deteriorate in Victoria and South Australia.
> 
> *AEMO has officially declared this a 3 out of 3 on the scale for both states. In layman's terms that means blackouts are now the expected outcome around 18:00 market time (which is 19:00 Vic local time and 18:30 SA local time) in both states.
> 
> *Assuming no improvement AEMO will issue the appropriate directions tomorrow morning. In simple terms if anyone's sitting on generating plant not being run then their management will be overridden and it gets run. If there's nothing to direct in that sense then the alternative is to direct that load be turned off (someone loses power).




When does Liddell Power station shutdown?


----------



## qldfrog

https://www.afr.com/business/energy...ower-grid-as-heatwave-strikes-20190123-h1adbu
At least this is now common knowledge yet the emphasis is on the exceptional weather.good for Basilio thread but leave our politicians free of blame...


----------



## rederob

qldfrog said:


> At least this is now common knowledge yet the emphasis is on the exceptional weather.
> *good for Basilio thread but leave our politicians free of blame...*



Not sure what that means.
Thanks to Smurf and articles like this we can get an idea of what's happening, even before it happens.
Industry needs a degree of certainty if it is going to invest billions in major supply capacity.  The present government has firmly sat on its hands in the face of almost guaranteed blackouts across the past few summers - even on the basis of availability of supply at full capacity (ie no "breakdowns").
Little wonder affordable and cost effective smaller scale renewable projects are ramping up.  These can at least guarantee a payback without stretching into borrowings.


----------



## Darc Knight

Remember when Enron went into the Energy business and they were deliberately shutting down supply to drive up the cost of Electricity.


----------



## qldfrog

Anyway, with limitlrss solsr and voal gas, we still pay among the most expensive power on earth, not that reliable and not even green
What a shamble but what can you expect when neither side of the politics can even maintain the same leader for 3y...how can we achieve anything in this country but popup shops?


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Not sure what that means.
> Thanks to Smurf and articles like this we can get an idea of what's happening, even before it happens.
> Industry needs a degree of certainty if it is going to invest billions in major supply capacity.  The present government has firmly sat on its hands in the face of almost guaranteed blackouts across the past few summers - even on the basis of availability of supply at full capacity (ie no "breakdowns").
> Little wonder affordable and cost effective smaller scale renewable projects are ramping up.  These can at least guarantee a payback without stretching into borrowings.



You do realise the electricity supply is a function of the States, not Federal.

The situation S.A finds itself in is a result of renewables at any cost, the fact the Federal Government now takes the blame, is a result of reckless pursuit by the States. IMO

To highlight this, the S.A Government was offered the North Power Station for a song, and refused it so it was blown up.
If they had picked it up they wouldn't find themselves in the predicament they are now in, and would have the necessary base load to underpin the system, while they march on toward fully renewable.
The way they are doing it, shows a degree of immaturity, irresponsibilty and or ignorance. IMO


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> You do realise the electricity supply is a function of the States, not Federal.
> 
> The situation S.A finds itself in is a result of renewables at any cost, the fact the Federal Government now takes the blame, is a result of reckless pursuit by the States. IMO
> 
> To highlight this, the S.A Government was offered the North Power Station for a song, and refused it so it was blown up.
> If they had picked it up they wouldn't find themselves in the predicament they are now in, and would have the necessary base load to underpin the system, while they march on toward fully renewable.
> The way they are doing it, shows a degree of immaturity, irresponsibilty and or ignorance. IMO



First, if the North Power station was such a good deal it would still be operating.
Secondly, States do not make national energy policy, and these decisions affect investment in capacity.  The States have been trying to get something coherent from the feds in meetings of Ministers, to no avail.
We are also in a national energy market situation, albeit confined to States other than WA.
The SA government changed last year, so exactly what is it they are they doing?  Well, they are not stupidly planning a coal powered generator, but are actually trying to lead the world in renewables.
As to SA's predicament, it's no different to that of Vic or NSW in terms of blackouts, depending on demand and capacity.
In the 2017 "SA blackout" Frydenberg and others were very quick to condemn the march to renewables, while they sat on their hands.  In the meantime SA got Tesla involved in the largest battery project of our time to solve a problem that the feds had no interest in.  The big Tesla battery continues to show the rest of the world what can be done, and how effective the unit is in meeting a range of supply issues.
*The feds to this day want to attract investment in coal power*.  It seems no amount of evidence that coal is uneconomical (aside from CO2 issues) will sway them.  And this is a government priding itself on its economic credentials - what irony


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> First, if the North Power station was such a good deal it would still be operating.
> Secondly, States do not make national energy policy, and these decisions affect investment in capacity.  The States have been trying to get something coherent from the feds in meetings of Ministers, to no avail.
> We are also in a national energy market situation, albeit confined to States other than WA.
> The SA government changed last year, so exactly what is it they are they doing?  Well, they are not stupidly planning a coal powered generator, but are actually trying to lead the world in renewables.
> As to SA's predicament, it's no different to that of Vic or NSW in terms of blackouts, depending on demand and capacity.
> In the 2017 "SA blackout" Frydenberg and others were very quick to condemn the march to renewables, while they sat on their hands.  In the meantime SA got Tesla involved in the largest battery project of our time to solve a problem that the feds had no interest in.  The big Tesla battery continues to show the rest of the world what can be done, and how effective the unit is in meeting a range of supply issues.
> *The feds to this day want to attract investment in coal power*.  It seems no amount of evidence that coal is uneconomical (aside from CO2 issues) will sway them.  And this is a government priding itself on its economic credentials - what irony



Well that is journalistic license at its best.


----------



## boofhead

Federal coalition governments at times have provided financial incentives for states to privatise. I don't see how a political party nationally and in most states have decided it is good to sell off such assets and fail to acknowledge that if such assets were left fully in state control there would be suitable scale and also a centralised organisation that could be pressured to fix such issues.

NSW Labor messed up. Tas Labor was saved from itself by losing a state election.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> First, if the North Power station was such a good deal it would still be operating.



The big problem in all of this is too much influence of ideology and not enough pragmatism.

Or to be more specific politicians and free market ideologues need to be reined in and engineers, scientists (including environmental roles) and their associated army of blue collar workers left to get on with the job.

Northern PS is a classic case of that. Was if financially viable as a stand alone operation? No, it was losing $ millions a year.

Without Northern however SA consumers have paid $600 million for some generators and are paying a broadly similar amount again every year (as with any market, precision is difficult since "what's normal?") through increased wholesale prices which one way or another ultimately are passed onto consumers.

That's an order of magnitude more than what it would have cost to continue operating Northern PS.

Don't assume it's an environmental winner either. Northern was one of the better plants and what's happened in practice is that power not being produced there is produced at something older and less efficient instead. Closing Northern didn't make the wind blow more strongly or the sun shine brighter, it just transferred production from a mid-1980's plant to stuff from the early 70's and late 60's.

None of that is an argument saying we should build a new coal-fired power station. How we manage what's already built and which has a useful remaining life is a very different question to whether we should or shouldn't build the same thing from scratch. Much like nobody's sensibly going to build a 1980's house from scratch today but that doesn't mean it's sensible to knock all the present ones down.

It must be considered however that having prematurely closed Northern as well as a number of other coal-fired plants and doubling the wholesale price of electricity has, combined with politics, created a situation where the chance of a building a new coal plant probably isn't zero. I'm not advocating it, just assessing that the chance doesn't seem to be zero.

If we do end up with a new coal plant then suffice to say that another decade operating an existing plant would have emitted far less CO2 than a 40 - 50 year commitment to running a new one.

All this is a bit like saying my budget can't afford a few nights at the caravan park given I'll still have the costs of the house I already own. So in a stroke of pure genius I've fixed that problem by cancelling the booking of a cabin at the park and having booked a few nights in a 5 star hotel instead.

You'd need a pretty pedantic accounting system for that to make any sense and it's the same with Northern PS.

What all this needs is an orderly plan rather than constant chaos and lopsided accounting which says $ millions is too expensive but spending an order of magnitude more is just fine because it's coming out of a different bucket of money. That's bean counting gone crazy.

I don't dispute that we're moving away from coal but the way we're doing it thus far is a ludicrously expensive way to go about it. Even if you put the unions in charge you'd get a cheaper outcome (I mean that literally by the way - one of the great problems in all of this is that labour productivity across the industry is lower now than it was decades ago back when unions ruled the roost).

My view on all this is really very simple:

1. Build renewables and build hydro and battery storage certainly but do it in a planned, orderly manner that puts the right things in the right place. Otherwise we're going to end up with a lot of stuff that's close to useless in practice.

2. Close existing coal plant only when there's no further need for it and do so in a lagging manner such that there's some spare plant sitting around "just in case" because reality is things can and do go wrong.

3. When closing existing plant obviously close first what's worn out instead of this silly idea of closing mid-1980's plant, and even plant from 2001 in one case, whilst trying to patch up stuff from 1971 as we're doing at the moment. The reverse approach makes far more rational sense.

4. Keep the politicians and ideologues well away.


----------



## sptrawler

Not wanting to be antagonistic smurph, but no matter how many times you explain the issue, in a perfectly worded logical manner. 
Five minutes later the ideologists, start spouting the same illogical, emotionally driven arguments all over again.
I take my hat off to your patience, as you will obviously have many years, of explaining the limitations and technical difficulties with a large interconnected grid.
Unfortunately it is given to an audience that listens and nods, then continue on with their ill informed opinion, that is backed by very limited knowledge.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Closing Northern didn't make the wind blow more strongly or the sun shine brighter, it just transferred production from a mid-1980's plant to stuff from the early 70's and late 60's.



Northern was closed by Alinta on commercial grounds - that's the reality.
It's all good and well to talk about an "*orderly plan*", but there's no underpinning energy policy to work off.
As I said earlier, we are talking about massive investment decisions when it comes to dispatchable energy.  With a NEM we need all parties to get together *after *they have some certainty from the federal government on a wide range of issues affecting the market.  What needs to be done has been outlined for some time. Attempts to get agreement at COAG Energy Council meetings continue to be futile: the present federal Minister is a troglodyte and his predecessor bowed to fossil fuel interests.


----------



## Smurf1976

As an update on the present situation:

Current estimates from AEMO are that Vic and SA will just scrape through with nothing to spare.

So the lights stay on so long as there's not even a slight error in the forecast and nothing goes wrong. So it's a very borderline situation really.

The temperature in the Adelaide CBD has exceeded 46 degrees and it's about 47 in some suburbs. It's warm outside yes.


----------



## basilio

*I agree with Smurf on the practical engineering process of moving from coal to renewables for our electricity supplies.* In fact this process should have been on the table many, many years ago and if it was, the measured practice Smurf is advocating would have been the best way forward.

*In 2019 however we have an additional  issue offering far more urgency.* The ongoing effects of GG on global warming are now absolutely clear. While once upon a time we could have had an orderly retirement and replacement of coal fired power, we now need to move far more quickly if we are to have any chance of  winding back CO2 emissions.  And inevitably there will be stranded assets.

Mind you if one wanted to think about the waste of resources in stranded assets perhaps cast an eye on the trillions of dollars of weaponry that is continually created, deployed and then retired as it makes way for the next trillion dollar deal. Just to put this in perspective..


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Northern was closed by Alinta on commercial grounds - that's the reality.
> It's all good and well to talk about an "*orderly plan*", but there's no underpinning energy policy to work off.
> As I said earlier, we are talking about massive investment decisions when it comes to dispatchable energy.  With a NEM we need all parties to get together *after *they have some certainty from the federal government on a wide range of issues affecting the market.  What needs to be done has been outlined for some time. Attempts to get agreement at COAG Energy Council meetings continue to be futile: the present federal Minister is a troglodyte and his predecessor bowed to fossil fuel interests.



Well that underlines what I said.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Northern was closed by Alinta on commercial grounds - that's the reality.



I’m not suggesting Alinta did anything wrong in a corporate or legal sense.

My argument is more that we shouldn’t have multiple competing entities making such important decisions on that basis in the first place with no overall plan.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> The ongoing effects of GG on global warming are now absolutely clear.



New all time record temperature in Adelaide today and the breaking of records in general is starting to become rather common.

What’s the chance that Adelaide’s new record high remains the record for a long time? On current trends I’d say not very - I’ll probably live to see it broken again more than once.

That said, I still see a need to ensure the lights stay on, actually it’s even more important if the weather’s getting more extreme, but that’s not to dismiss the issue of emissions in any way.

Noted about arms etc yes.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I take my hat off to your patience, as you will obviously have many years, of explaining the limitations and technical difficulties with a large interconnected grid.
> Unfortunately it is given to an audience that listens and nods, then continue on with their *ill informed opinion*, that is backed by very limited knowledge.



An interesting comment.
I have followed this issue for some years - I am pretty sure I can spot ill-informed when I see it.
The limitations of the current system relate to capacity and dispatchable energy.  
Additionally, money needs to be spent on better integrating renewables into the existing grid.
The technology to make a complex system work has been in place for a very long time.  
The last COAG EC meeting was late December 2018 and they received advice from AEMO that they would struggle to get through the coming months without load shedding - read *blackouts *- somewhere.  What happened?  Well, the federal Minister reckoned he achieved everything he wanted, but the meeting was yet another failure to act decisively on the most pressing issues.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> *In 2019 however we have an additional  issue offering far more urgency.* The ongoing effects of GG on global warming are now absolutely clear. While once upon a time we could have had an orderly retirement and replacement of coal fired power, we now need to move far more quickly if we are to have any chance of  winding back CO2 emissions.  And inevitably there will be stranded assets.




It isn't a lack of will or wanting to, it is the lack of available technology and the time it will take, to carry out the replacement.
Firstly, the only high output renewable power generating technology available ATM, is molten salt storage.
There are about three in the World and S.A is going to build the biggest 150MW, from memory we need about 50GW to replace fossil fuel, that is about 300 of those generators.
And we then need to have about 100GW of storage.
So to put that into perspective, the generators are $650m each and would take years to build and commission.
Then with the storage, all the pumped hydro storage facilities have to be built and a huge amount of batteries will be required.
We are talking a lot of money and a lot of time, it will happen, but blowing up usable power stations because ideology is dumb as $hit.
Northern Power Station was probably not commercial, as it would have had to be cycled to allow room for the renewables, coal isn't suitable for that.
However as a perfectly good reliable generator, it doesn't have to be commercially viable, if it is Government owned.
It can be just a unit available to allow other units on the system to be taken off for maintenance or to cover unscheduled outages.
It becomes a public service, you know those things we pay for, so we can have a more comfortable life.
What did the S.A Premier say, when it was offered to them for peanuts, "coal doesn't fit in our renewable plan".
Well I guess that is a luxury, when you can bludge off other States for your power, maybe they will think about it when they are sitting in the dark. lol


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> An interesting comment.
> I have followed this issue for some years - I am pretty sure I can spot ill-informed when I see it.
> The limitations of the current system relate to capacity and dispatchable energy.
> Additionally, money needs to be spent on better integrating renewables into the existing grid.
> The technology to make a complex system work has been in place for a very long time.
> The last COAG EC meeting was late December 2018 and they received advice from AEMO that they would struggle to get through the coming months without load shedding - read *blackouts *- somewhere.  What happened?  Well, the federal Minister reckoned he achieved everything he wanted, but the meeting was yet another failure to act decisively on the most pressing issues.



Again very eloquently written, but saying very little, however I do love your passion.


----------



## qldfrog

Exactly how long did it take?
(Refering to sptrawler comment after smurf perfect technical answer)


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> I’m not suggesting Alinta did anything wrong in a corporate or legal sense.
> My argument is more that *we* shouldn’t have multiple competing entities making such important decisions on that basis in the first place with no overall plan.



Alinta made a commercial decision.
Who is your "we" (which I highlighted above)?
We (the likes of you and me and those many hearing what the politicians spout) are being told that competition is *good *and that it serves to drive down prices.  So which is it?  
Meaning no disrespect, you have got it a bit back to front.  Because there is no *overall plan* for any State to sign up to, market operators will act in their best interests, and making a loss isn't usually a part of it.  However, providing the opportunity for multiple competing entities to competitively tender to fill voids in the market, on the basis they understand the rules of the market they will be entering, should benefit all participants.


----------



## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> Exactly how long did it take?
> (Refering to sptrawler comment after smurf perfect technical answer)



2 minutes, a new all time record, there is no knocking the typing skills.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Alinta made a commercial decision.
> Who is your "we" (which I highlighted above)?
> We (the likes of you and me and those many hearing what the politicians spout) are being told that competition is *good *and that it serves to drive down prices.  So which is it?
> Meaning no disrespect, you have got it a bit back to front.  Because there is no *overall plan* for any State to sign up to, market operators will act in their best interests, and making a loss isn't usually a part of it.  However, providing the opportunity for multiple competing entities to competitively tender to fill voids in the market, on the basis they understand the rules of the market they will be entering, should benefit all participants.



You will get your plan, in about 6 months time, it should be fun.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> It isn't a lack of will or wanting to, it is the lack of available technology and the time it will take, to carry out the replacement.
> Firstly, the only high output renewable power generating technology available ATM, is molten salt storage.
> There are about three in the World and S.A is going to build the biggest 150MW, from memory we need about 50GW to replace fossil fuel, that is about 300 of those generators.
> And we then need to have about 100GW of storage.
> So to put that into perspective, the generators are $650m each and would take years to build and commission.
> Then with the storage, all the pumped hydro storage facilities have to be built and a huge amount of batteries will be required.
> We are talking a lot of money and a lot of time, it will happen, but blowing up usable power stations because ideology is dumb as $hit.
> Northern Power Station was probably not commercial, as it would have had to be cycled to allow room for the renewables, coal isn't suitable for that.
> However as a perfectly good reliable generator, it doesn't have to be commercially viable, if it is Government owned.
> It can be just a unit available to allow other units on the system to be taken off for maintenance or to cover unscheduled outages.
> It becomes a public service, you know those things we pay for, so we can have a more comfortable life.
> What did the S.A Premier say, when it was offered to them for peanuts, "coal doesn't fit in our renewable plan".
> Well I guess that is a luxury, when you can bludge off other States for your power, maybe they will think about it when they are sitting in the dark. lol



Thank you for an enjoyable read.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Thank you for an enjoyable read.



It is an interesting subject, bound to generate robust debate.
The end outcome is a given, the journey getting there, is the intriguing part.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> It is an interesting subject, bound to generate robust debate.
> *The end outcome is a given*, the journey getting there, is the intriguing part.



Please explain.
If it were *a given*, then the basis for the outcome would already be apparent.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Please explain.
> If it were *a given*, then the basis for the outcome would already be apparent.



Living on a planet, with finite resources and a growing population, we either make our energy renewable and sustainable or perish. Just my opinion.
But we will probably perish anyway, probably from starvation.


----------



## sptrawler

It sounds as though tomorrow, may be more of an issue, regarding power.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/com...wer-as-victoria-swelters-20190124-p50tat.html

From the article:
_Victoria is now facing a power shortfall larger than Australia's biggest coal-fired power station on Friday as it swelters through an ongoing heatwave and power stations break down.

It said there was a minimum energy reserve requirement of 3179 megawatts needed, however, the state only had reserves of 41 megawatts secured.


This shortfall of 3130 megawatts is larger than Origin's Eraring coal-fired power station, which is the largest in Australia_.

Yep, keep blowing up those coal fired stations boys.

Here you go, not exactly the answer, but will help until renewables take over.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/FUJI-MI...h=item257f7da44e:g:gegAAOSw8~NcPmy9:rk:9:pf:0 

Going by the number sold, people obviously aren't over confident.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> It sounds as though tomorrow, may be more of an issue, regarding power.



Yes, and if you bothered to quote the real reason you would have discovered this:
*"The current tight conditions have been caused by a combination of the ongoing heatwave and two major coal-fired power stations experiencing generator breakdowns.
EnergyAustralia's Yallourn coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley has taken one of its generators offline for maintenance. Its Tallawarra gas-fired power station, in Wollongong, NSW, is also offline after breaking down last week, further reducing backup power capability.
AGL said a 560 megawatt generator at its Latrobe Valley-based Loy Yang A power station was taken offline on Tuesday due to a tube leak, which could take three to four days to repair."*​While renewables sites are not of themselves big generators of supply, many could break down and have a relatively insignificant impact on capacity.  This is not the case with fossil-sourced energy supply.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Who is your "we" (which I highlighted above)?




Australia including its states, people and businesses.



> We (the likes of you and me and those many hearing what the politicians spout) are being told that competition is *good *and that it serves to drive down prices.  So which is it?




It's a quarter of a century since we started down this path. Took the state utilities, split them up into parts, then further split those parts into lots of little bits and sold them meanwhile encouraging others to also enter the market.

I grasp the concept that competition should lower prices but I'm a realist. Thus far the "benefits" of all this have been a 20 - 110% increase in real (inflation adjusted) prices for small consumers such as households, a major reduction in the technical integrity of the system, a drop in labour productivity and a stalling on technological progress.

As with anything, if it's not working then a smart person accepts that they've got it wrong and doesn't keep doing the same thing. 

As with anything, if the game's killing you then it's not unreasonable to change the rules.



> Meaning no disrespect, you have got it a bit back to front.  Because there is no *overall plan* for any State to sign up to




Choosing to not have a plan is itself a plan of sorts given that it's a conscious choice to have moved to that situation (since we did have plans in the past).

As I've said though, I take no issue whatsoever with Alinta acting in their own interests within the law. The issue I see is with a regulatory system which left them to make that decision in the first place given we're talking about critical infrastructure upon which the community relies.

To that end I'd come back to the "competition" bit and the problems there. If there was proper communications between the various companies then a lot of the silly things would stop happening. Trouble is, the ACCC calls that "collusion" and hands out huge fines. See point above that competition hasn't really worked anyway hence it's all a bit silly pretending otherwise.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Yes, and if you bothered to quote the real reason you would have discovered this:
> *"The current tight conditions have been caused by a combination of the ongoing heatwave and two major coal-fired power stations experiencing generator breakdowns.
> EnergyAustralia's Yallourn coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley has taken one of its generators offline for maintenance. Its Tallawarra gas-fired power station, in Wollongong, NSW, is also offline after breaking down last week, further reducing backup power capability.
> AGL said a 560 megawatt generator at its Latrobe Valley-based Loy Yang A power station was taken offline on Tuesday due to a tube leak, which could take three to four days to repair."*​While renewables sites are not of themselves big generators of supply, many could break down and have a relatively insignificant impact on capacity.  This is not the case with fossil-sourced energy supply.



Yes we know, but we haven't got the renewables to replace them and we are blowing them up.
This is just the type of situation, where Northern would have been put into operation.

Something obviously isn't connecting here.


----------



## Smurf1976

To clarify:

All generation in Vic is at maximum and so is all generation in SA except the government's diesel-fired gas turbines which are idle.

Supply from Tas > Vic and NSW > Vic is at maximum. In both cases the limit is transmission capacity.

116 MW of load has been turned off in Vic. That's voluntary agreements with industry etc, not blackouts as such, but I'll say that's being a tad pedantic really since it's still something that would be running normally but isn't now.

It has a lot in common with the old story of someone about to be sacked asking the boss if they'll accept a resignation instead. It changes the technicality of the outcome and looks a lot better on paper but from a practical perspective it's the same end result that they're no longer employed / load is being shed.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> To clarify:
> 
> All generation in Vic is at maximum and so is all generation in SA except the government's diesel-fired gas turbines which are idle.
> 
> Supply from Tas > Vic and NSW > Vic is at maximum. In both cases the limit is transmission capacity.
> 
> 116 MW of load has been turned off in Vic.




Not wanting to be pedantic, but Northern Power Stations 450MW, would be quite helpful. 

The really funny part is, these issues are only just beginning. I believe things will get a lot worse, before they get better.
I think any large industry considering building anything in the Eastern States, will want a guarantee of supply, and or compensation clause built into any power purchase agreement.
Interesting times ahead. IMO


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Something obviously isn't connecting here.



True.
Facts are not important to you.
Fact = we have capacity to meet typical summer demands because we can count that capacity and there is enough.
Fact = we *cannot *meet demand with capacity because the biggest suppliers are presently offline.
Fact = renewables are *not* offline and are operating within expectations.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> True.
> Facts are not important to you.
> Fact = we have capacity to meet typical summer demands because we can count that capacity and there is enough.
> Fact = we *cannot *meet demand with capacity because the biggest suppliers are presently offline.
> Fact = renewables are *not* offline and are operating within expectations.




Facts might be important to you,  but reality seems to escape you.
Fact= renewables, by the bar graph you posted early supply *very little* of the load in Victoria.
Fact = you are having outages because of lack of generation and summer demands aren't typical, isn't it getting hotter?
Fact= Boiler tubes blow, due to age and erosion, they are not getting younger.
Fact = we *cannot* meet demand because aging plant isn't being replaced, and isn't likely to
           be in the near future.
Reality, another 2000MW getting shut down by AGL apparently.


----------



## Smurf1976

I'll pass on the politics and simply provide another update (last one for a while).

282 MW of load is being shed at present "voluntarily" across Vic and SA. This is increasing.

AEMO estimates 78 MW of "involuntary" load shedding across the two states starting fairly soon. In layman's terms that's blackouts.

Current supply by source (pretty much all running flat out).

Victoria:
Coal = 3551 MW
Gas = 2219 MW
Hydro = 2141
Tasmania = 478 MW
Wind 368 MW
Large scale solar = 196 MW
NSW = 132 MW
Batteries = 14 MW
Plus estimated 259 MW from rooftop solar which is reflected as lower demand.

SA:
Gas = 2465 MW
Oil (diesel) = 305 MW
Wind = 246 MW
Large solar = 119 MW
Batteries = 36 MW
Plus estimated 179 MW from rooftop solar which is reflected as lower demand.

Transfer between the two states is presently 31 MW from SA to Vic but that's somewhat irrelevant given that both have problems. Changing that volume or direction just moves the problem it can't fix it.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I'll pass on the politics and simply provide another update (last one for a while).
> 
> 282 MW of load is being shed at present "voluntarily" across Vic and SA. This is increasing.
> 
> AEMO estimates 78 MW of "involuntary" load shedding across the two states starting fairly soon. In layman's terms that's blackouts.
> 
> Current supply by source (pretty much all running flat out).
> 
> Victoria:
> Coal = 3551 MW
> Gas = 2219 MW
> Hydro = 2141
> Tasmania = 478 MW
> Wind 368 MW
> Large scale solar = 196 MW
> NSW = 132 MW
> Batteries = 14 MW
> Plus estimated 259 MW from rooftop solar which is reflected as lower demand.
> 
> SA:
> Gas = 2465 MW
> *Oil (diesel) = 305 MW*
> Wind = 246 MW
> Large solar = 119 MW
> Batteries = 36 MW
> Plus estimated 179 MW from rooftop solar which is reflected as lower demand.
> 
> Transfer between the two states is presently 31 MW from SA to Vic but that's somewhat irrelevant given that both have problems. Changing that volume or direction just moves the problem it can't fix it.




WOW, is that a *FACT.*


----------



## qldfrog

I think you underestimate the fanatism of the globalists.
They prefer a blackout today with a few deads in Australia than a few 0.01c increases due to australian role in gw, moreover for one life in Australia you could have 10 or so in the middle of africa or other galoping demographic area
.all life being equals and nations being a dirty word, it makes perfect logic for them to blow up all coal power stations in Australia today, irrespective of any local consequences.it is for the better good...of the planet
Couple that mindset with a few Abbott style coal maniacs on the other side, we are going into a wall.
Remember Turnbull snowy scheme version 2, a great idea in my opinion, not much heard about that since the coup?
it is ok, i have a generator...just wonder how long it will be before having one is  forbidden
Rant over, pretty cool and sunny today in China.better than being in Adelaide today
Stay safe


----------



## sptrawler

S.A burning 305MW of diesel, that has got to hurt.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Choosing to not have a plan is itself a plan of sorts given that it's a conscious choice to have moved to that situation (since we did have plans in the past).



The problem with that statement is the States want a plan and the feds cannot provide it.  Moreover, the *plan *was available to the feds in 2017 but it failed their ideology.


Smurf1976 said:


> As I've said though, I take no issue whatsoever with Alinta acting in their own interests within the law. The issue I see is with a regulatory system which left them to make that decision in the first place given we're talking about critical infrastructure upon which the community relies.



Please correct me if I am wrong, but as I understood it the *regulatory *framework cannot impose commercial arrangements on suppliers.  That's pretty much why AGL has told the feds to f#ck off when it comes to Liddell. 
I get it that energy supply is critical, and that's why it's imperative that the feds put in place policies that will allow investment.  *But they refuse.*


----------



## SirRumpole

If the States wanted a plan they shouldn't have sold their Elco's in the first place.

Competition between States to try and attract business and industry was the only thing keeping power prices down.

These are (were) the the public's assets and I don't recall any party taking their sale to an election, they just sold them afterwards.

The biggest political stuff up in the country's history imo.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I get it that energy supply is critical, and that's why it's imperative that the feds put in place policies that will allow investment.  *But they refuse.*




They did a carbon tax, since then it has been impossible to get funding, to install coal fired generation.
The gas supply problem, limits gas fired installations and renewables cant cut it yet.
So the problem just gets bigger.
You posted up the bar graph, of fuel supplying generation, you should have a look at it.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> my comments are in *blue*



Facts might be important to you,  but reality seems to escape you. *Facts inform reality.*
Fact= renewables, by the bar graph you posted early supply *very little* of the load in Victoria. *Renewables are being added:  but capacity from fossil fuel generators was meeting demand until it kept breaking down*
Fact = you are having outages because of lack of generation *false - large fossil fuel generators are offline - broken down *and summer demands aren't typical, *false - **this was expected and AEMO told the federal and State Ministers over a month ago  *isn't it getting hotter *yes - it's summer*?
Fact= Boiler tubes blow, due to age and erosion, they are not getting younger.* So what?  This is a failure of policy makers to ensure industry has the backup necessary for peak demands. Moreover, all businesses plan for routine maintenance to occur when demand is at its low point.*
Fact = we *cannot* meet demand because aging plant isn't being replaced, and isn't likely to
           be in the near future *it could and would be if industry had certainty in delivering a product to market.  Currently there is a dog's breakfast and the feds will not clean it up*.
Reality, another 2000MW getting shut down by AGL apparently.  *Again, it's a commercial decision.  You want to blame someone for a company making a decisions that wont send them broke !*

*This really is not hard.*
*There is a NEM.*
*There is no plan/policy that warrants commercial suppliers spending billions to solve a problem which is not of their making.*
*The federal government has been given a solution but refuses to act.*


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Facts might be important to you,  but reality seems to escape you. *Facts inform reality.*
> Fact= renewables, by the bar graph you posted early supply *very little* of the load in Victoria. *Renewables are being added:  but capacity from fossil fuel generators was meeting demand until it kept breaking down*
> Fact = you are having outages because of lack of generation *false - large fossil fuel generators are offline - broken down *and summer demands aren't typical, *false - **this was expected and AEMO told the federal and State Ministers over a month ago  *isn't it getting hotter *yes - it's summer*?
> Fact= Boiler tubes blow, due to age and erosion, they are not getting younger.* So what?  This is a failure of policy makers to ensure industry has the backup necessary for peak demands. Moreover, all businesses plan for routine maintenance to occur when demand is at its low point.*
> Fact = we *cannot* meet demand because aging plant isn't being replaced, and isn't likely to
> be in the near future *it could and would be if industry had certainty in delivering a product to market.  Currently there is a dog's breakfast and the feds will not clean it up*.
> Reality, another 2000MW getting shut down by AGL apparently.  *Again, it's a commercial decision.  You want to blame someone for a company making a decisions that wont send them broke !*
> 
> *This really is not hard.*
> *There is a NEM.*
> *There is no plan/policy that warrants commercial suppliers spending billions to solve a problem which is not of their making.*
> *The federal government has been given a solution but refuses to act.*



You obviously have some serious issues, best of luck mate.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Facts might be important to you,  but reality seems to escape you.



https://www.smh.com.au/business/com...wer-as-victoria-swelters-20190124-p50tat.html
From the article:


sptrawler said:


> Fact= renewables, by the bar graph you posted early supply *very little* of the load in Victoria.



_Winds were also light in Victoria with wind farms operating at around 35 per cent capacity and producing about 6 per cent of the state's output in the mid-afternoon_.




sptrawler said:


> Fact = you are having outages because of lack of generation and summer demands aren't typical, isn't it getting hotter?




_Energy Minister Lily D'Ambrosio said Victorian summers were getting hotter and longer because of climate change and that this was putting more stress on the energy system.
"We know that we’ve got ageing brown coal generators here in Victoria and they are actually feeling the stress as we speak," Ms D'Ambrosio said_

If they had sufficient excess capacity, it wouldn't be a problem, like if they stopped blowing up power stations that are still serviceable.



sptrawler said:


> Fact= Boiler tubes blow, due to age and erosion, they are not getting younger.




_"Clearly as generators age, we are running them very hard and with the hot weather and the fact that the weather is getting hotter in Victoria, we’re running them more," Ms Zibelman said.
"And so there is an expectation that like any old machines - think of old cars - that over time if you run them harder you are going to see more operating conditions that have to be fixed_."



sptrawler said:


> Fact = we *cannot* meet demand because aging plant isn't being replaced, and isn't likely to
> be in the near future.



It is a delusional  to think renewables can replace coal in the near term, and given the age of the generating plant, some will need replacing in the near future.



sptrawler said:


> Reality, another 2000MW getting shut down by AGL apparently.



Whether it is a commercial decision to close it, doesn't really change the reality, it will worsen an already precarious  situation. Someone will have to build some seriously big plant and if it is gas fired, they will have to find the gas to run it.
If that can't be done, coal or nuclear will have to be considered, because wind and solar wont do it.
Also if private wont build it, Government will have to. IMO
Interesting the difference in perceptions, of the same issues. Your post #2891 and mine.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> https://www.smh.com.au/business/com...wer-as-victoria-swelters-20190124-p50tat.html
> From the article:
> 
> _Winds were also light in Victoria with wind farms operating at around 35 per cent capacity and producing about 6 per cent of the state's output in the mid-afternoon_.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Energy Minister Lily D'Ambrosio said Victorian summers were getting hotter and longer because of climate change and that this was putting more stress on the energy system.
> "We know that we’ve got ageing brown coal generators here in Victoria and they are actually feeling the stress as we speak," Ms D'Ambrosio said_
> 
> If they had sufficient excess capacity, it wouldn't be a problem, like if they stopped blowing up power stations that are still serviceable.
> 
> 
> 
> _"Clearly as generators age, we are running them very hard and with the hot weather and the fact that the weather is getting hotter in Victoria, we’re running them more," Ms Zibelman said.
> "And so there is an expectation that like any old machines - think of old cars - that over time if you run them harder you are going to see more operating conditions that have to be fixed_."
> 
> 
> It is a delusional  to think renewables can replace coal in the near term, and given the age of the generating plant, some will need replacing in the near future.
> 
> 
> Whether it is a commercial decision to close it, doesn't really change the reality, it will worsen an already precarious  situation. Someone will have to build some seriously big plant and if it is gas fired, they will have to find the gas to run it.
> If that can't be done, coal or nuclear will have to be considered, because wind and solar wont do it.
> Also if private wont build it, Government will have to. IMO
> Interesting the difference in perceptions, of the same issues. Your post #2891 and mine.



You have not said anything that we don't already know.
You seem to want to attribute blame.
The problem, as outlined by industry and the States, is that we have been in an energy policy vacuum for many years now and the federal government continues to *not *act.
Immediately the federal government delivers policy certainty then industry will act because profits can be made.
Unlike your ideas, neither coal nor nuclear will be in remote consideration by industry because they are not viable options.
CCGT will be the likely choice for dispatchable supply.  However, this will be contingent on locking in a long term gas supply agreement and I don't know who presently has uncommitted capacity.
Your idea that it "_is a delusional  to think renewables can replace coal in the near term_" only depends on what you define as near term.  Here's what the Saudis are presently financing.   Note that for a smaller solar farm project last fall, Saudi Arabia awarded a contract to a bidder offering costs per kilowatt-hour of 1.786 cents.  
At Saudi's Kwh prices massive investment in solar with storage options via battery and pumped hydro will make sound commercial sense.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> You have not said anything that we don't already know.
> You seem to want to attribute blame.



Not at all, I was just pointing out, that my information came from the article.
Your information, came from your interpretation.
You certainly seem to take anything, that doesn't agree with your interpretation, as a personal affront.
We are just giving our opinions, they are worth what they cost, neither of us has the answers or the ear of anyone that does. IMO
CCGT's are good 54% efficient, but as you say they need the gas to run them.
HEGT's are ok too 40%+ efficiency, but again gas is an issue.
The only viable renewable of size ATM is windfarms, the molten salt is still fairly untested technology. 
Also I would guess it uses gas when the sun isn't shining, and for achieving steam conditions, pre RTS of the turbine to control differential expansions.


----------



## Smurf1976

I'll aim to steer clear of the politics and just state what has happened and some observations.

*A total of about 630 MW of load was ultimately shed across Vic and SA. Of this, about 365 MW was shed voluntarily (industry etc) and the remaining 266 MW was done by force (blackouts).

To put this in perspective it's about 5% of the load at the time or about 10% of average load. So it's not a disaster but it would be fair to say it was a significant event given that it did ultimately involve involuntary cuts (blackouts).

*All available coal, gas, hydro, diesel, battery, wind and solar generating plant in Vic and SA was fully utilised with an additional 478 MW from Tasmania and a varying amount, generally in the vicinity of 200 MW, from NSW.

*Overall generation in Vic and SA worked better than could reasonably be expected with a total of 1002 MW of plant not running. That is an imperfect result but anyone who has spent much time around power stations wouldn't consider an overall outage rate of 8.5% as being particularly bad, especially not when it is considered that virtually all of that involved thermal (fuel burning) plant more than 30 years old.

*The modeled "firm" wind generation between the two states is 210 MW and this is what is assumed to always be available (that is, it doesn't go to zero). Actual wind generation between the two states varied as it always does but it was consistently above this figure during the load shedding and most of the time was at least double that amount. 

*Batteries in both states also worked as intended but in practice the discharging commenced significantly earlier than necessary, when the alternative option existed to increase generation from conventional sources (particularly diesel) with the result that in both states the batteries went flat during the period of load shedding, loss of that supply adding to the problem.

So far as the politics is concerned, I'll simply note that over the past day or so there were plenty of "experts" assuring the public via the media that all was well. This Smurf however told you there was a problem. Not because I'm a genius, I ain't no genius, but perhaps because I'm not seeking to be elected to anything and have no reason to not call it as it is.

Yes the breakdowns at Loy Yang and Yallourn could be labelled as the "cause" but then nobody who has spent time around this stuff would not be expecting something to break somewhere, the only question being the details.

A finger could be pointed at discharging the batteries prematurely. They wouldn't have avoided all problems but could have reduced it if only used when absolutely necessary. Blame the "market" way of doing things for that occurrence - they were discharged to make a profit for the operators. That said and to be fair, there would have been grounds for forcing more sensible operation if the looming problem had been more readily acknowledged.

Ultimately though it all comes down to their being insufficient capacity in the system to cope with a normal level of plant outages occurring when it gets hot.


----------



## Smurf1976

Looking at tomorrow:

NSW forecast maximum demand = 12681 MW at 17:00 market time
NSW forecast supply from within the state = 12414 MW

Vic forecast maximum demand = 9251 MW at 14:30 market time
Vic forecast supply within the state = 8124 MW

AEMO is currently forecasting forced load shedding (blackouts) in Victoria during the period 12:00 to 15:00 market time (so that's 13:00 to 16:00 Vic local time).

Supply Qld > NSW fixes the NSW issue so long as nothing goes wrong.

For Victoria, whilst AEMO is officially forecasting blackouts I'm not convinced that it's unavoidable noting the very much lower demand in SA enables a strong supply SA > Vic and the time differential with the NSW peak enables supply from NSW up to the limit of transmission. Add in maximum supply from Tas and between them that should fill the gap. Tomorrow we'll find out. 

One thing I do omit in posts on this subject is the financials but there are many implications.

Electricity futures are one. That a number of listed companies are involved in the industry is another. That a number of listed companies have electricity as a major cost is another. 

Amidst all of this also a mention specifically of Torrens Island "A" power station in SA. 52 years old and the oldest steam plant in the system but all four units were pushed right up to their original (1967) rated output today of 120 MW each and the plant has worked flawlessly. A credit to everyone from the original designers to current operations and maintenance staff.


----------



## PZ99

After reading the above post from @Smurf1976 they've switched on the diesel generators in anticipation 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01...d-on-in-sa-to-deal-with-extreme-heat/10747886


----------



## $20shoes

rederob said:


> You have not said anything that we don't already know.
> 
> Unlike your ideas, neither coal nor nuclear will be in remote consideration by industry because they are not viable options.
> CCGT will be the likely choice for dispatchable supply.  However, this will be contingent on locking in a long term gas supply agreement and I don't know who presently has uncommitted capacity.
> Your idea that it "_is a delusional  to think renewables can replace coal in the near term_" only depends on what you define as near term.  Here's what the Saudis are presently financing.   Note that for a smaller solar farm project last fall, Saudi Arabia awarded a contract to a bidder offering costs per kilowatt-hour of 1.786 cents.




I read so many different stories about what the Saudis are doing witht their energy policy.
I think this is reasonably accurate (nov 2018) from the different articles ive read (basically they'll diversify):

_Generating capacity is over 60 GWe. Demand is growing by 8-10% per year and peak demand is expected to be 70 GWe by 2020 and 120 GWe by 2032, driven partly by desalination increase. However, in October 2015 the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KA-CARE) said: “The annual increase in domestic demand for energy ranges now between 6% and 8%. Forecasts indicate that the Kingdom will have to increase its generated power by 80 GWe by 2040." Saudi Arabia is unique in the region in having 60 Hz grid frequency, which severely limits the potential for grid interconnections – it has no electricity import or export.

The Ministry of Water & Electricity (MOWE) is broadly responsible for power and desalination in the country.

It had plans to install 24 GWe of renewable electricity capacity by 2020, and 50 GWe by 2032 or 2040, and was looking at the prospects of exporting up to 10 GWe of this to Italy or Spain during winter when much generating capacity is under-utilised (cooling accounts for over half the capacity in summer). The 50 GWe in 2032 (later: 2040) was to comprise 25 GWe CSP, 16 GWe solar PV, 4 GWe geothermal and waste (together supplying 150-190 TWh, 23-30% of power), complementing 18 GWe nuclear (supplying 131 TWh/yr, 20% of power), and supplemented by 60.5 GWe hydrocarbon capacity which would be little used (c10 GWe) for half the year. The nuclear target date has now been put back to 2040. In 2016 renewables targets were scaled back from 50% to 10% of electricity (by 2040) as plans shifted more to gas, so that it would increase its share from 50% to 70%.
_


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Not at all, I was just pointing out, that my information came from the article.
> Your information, came from your interpretation.



Whereas in fact I copied directly from an article to show that *you hid* *that breakdowns were the main problems.*  I offered no interpretation.
You continue to attribute blame, as in this quote from you "*Yep, keep blowing up those coal fired stations boys*."


sptrawler said:


> You certainly seem to take anything, that doesn't agree with your interpretation, as a personal affront.
> We are just giving our opinions, they are worth what they cost, neither of us has the answers or the ear of anyone that does. IMO.



I seldom offer opinions, and nearly always state clearly when I do.  
I continue to clarify or correct your remarks - it's no skin off my nose so don't presume things you know nothing about.
You said, "You do realise the electricity supply is a function of the States, not Federal." 
I don't know how far in the past you live, but this is how the market nowadays operates.  
You clearly offer opinions regularly, as in:
The situation S.A finds itself in is a result of renewables at any cost, the fact the Federal Government now takes the blame, is a result of reckless pursuit by the States. IMO​That's fine.
But I look at the evidence.
All the States have been pressing the feds for clear policy on a national energy plan. The COAG energy Council has met over 20 times and as recently as December 2018 nothing happened.  I linked to an article where State Ministers showed their displeasure.


sptrawler said:


> The only viable renewable of size ATM is windfarms, the molten salt is still fairly untested technology.



That is *not *true.  China had a *1 GW PV array *back in 2016 and larger ones have been built since especially in India.  Solar concentrators date back to first commercial installation in 1984
 and the technology has only improved since.
IRENA's latest data shows that both solar PV and CSP - your *molten salt* - " is now the most competitive form of power generation in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region"; that's a region similar to South Australia.  
Back to solar PV for a moment.  Using LCOE data, battery and storage prices compare favorably with CCGT.  However, it makes no commercial sense at the moment to add batteries unless the market receives certainty on a policy direction which will actually tap into what is stored.
AEMO has proven that by tapping into every conceivable supply at its disposal, domestic demand can be catered for in the harshest of circumstances.
But at a national level the Business Council of Australia regard this is inadequate, because what they acknowledge we do not have is generation capacity to simultaneously also meet the demands of industry.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Whereas in fact I copied directly from an article to show that *you hid* *that breakdowns were the main problems.*  I offered no interpretation.
> You continue to attribute blame, as in this quote from you "*Yep, keep blowing up those coal fired stations boys*."



Because They do.



rederob said:


> I seldom offer opinions, and nearly always state clearly when I do.
> I continue to clarify or correct your remarks - it's no skin off my nose so don't presume things you know nothing about.
> *You said, "You do realise the electricity supply is a function of the States, not Federal."
> I don't know how far in the past you live, but this is how the market nowadays operates.*
> You clearly offer opinions regularly, as in:
> The situation S.A finds itself in is a result of renewables at any cost, the fact the Federal Government now takes the blame, is a result of reckless pursuit by the States. IMO​That's fine.
> But I look at the evidence.
> All the States have been pressing the feds for clear policy on a national energy plan. The COAG energy Council has met over 20 times and as recently as December 2018 nothing happened.  I linked to an article where State Ministers showed their displeasure.




If as you say they are waiting for Federal Government direction.
South Australia wouldn't already have 60% renewables installed, they have done so, not at the request of the Federal Government.
That's because it is a function of the State FFS. 
They didn't have to ask permission of the Federal Government, before going ahead, because it's a function of the FFing State. 
In W.A the Government has recently shut down the second largest Power Station, do you think they asked the Federal Gov for permission, NO, because they don't have to it is a State decission.
I don't know how many ways I can put it so you understand it.
I think it is obvious you are very happy with your own opinion, and are no doubt an expert on most things, it is pointless continuing I'll let you get back to your mirror.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> However, it makes no commercial sense at the moment to add batteries unless the market receives certainty on a policy direction which will actually tap into what is stored.




Is this the sort of thing that is needed ?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11...p-the-market-for-household-batteries/10545102


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> My comments are in *blue*



If as you say they are waiting for Federal Government direction.
South Australia wouldn't already have 60% renewables installed, *completely FALSE - wind accounts for maybe 10% of capacity (Smurf will have more accurate figures) and commercial solar about 5% *they have done so, not at the request of the Federal Government.
That's because it is a function of the State FFS. *Whereas this has been a slow build of capacity for renewables and is based on sound commercial principles.  ...read on...*
They didn't have to ask permission of the Federal Government, before going ahead, because it's a function of the FFing State. *FALSE.  States serve to facilitate the market.  A friend recently bought acreage near Beaudesert and was going to be charged about $30000 to get poles and wire to their new home.  They spent less going completely off-grid and have never since had to pay a penny more for electricity.  I suggest you read the link I provided about how the market works.*
In W.A the Government has recently shut down the second largest Power Station, do you think they asked the Federal Gov for permission, NO, because they don't have to it is a State decission. *Yes, a decision made in 2016 by former (Liberal) State energy minister Mike Nahan to shut down 380MW of fossil fuel capacity.  Did you forget to say this was about Muja's then 52 year old power station which some years earlier had over a $300m blowout on refurbishment costs?  *
I don't know how many ways I can put it so you understand it.  *Maybe get your facts right and you might work out how the system operates rather than have me inform you all the time.*
I think it is obvious you are very happy with your own opinion,  *I do not have one here, so you need to learn how to distinguish opinions from evidence.* and are no doubt an expert on most things, it is pointless continuing I'll let you get back to your mirror. *Again, when you do not know things, best you keep opinions to yourself.*


----------



## basilio

Melbourne affected by power outages. Basically load shedding to protect the whole system


 
Here is more from *AEMO* chief *Audrey Zibelman* about what load shedding actually means and how it works in practice.

What they do is based on the maximum amount that they can take off in an area ... it’s an equitable distribution across the entire region. So, everyone does their fair share. But they’re looking to make sure it’s sort of the maximum benefit in terms of reduction, they look at the amount of demand in a particular area, and they’ll take that off first, and then it rolls through.

Zibelman says that these “short breaks” are to “top the entire system straining”. The loadshedding – that is, outages – will be rotated around.

It’s up to two hours, is what we’ve asked for. So, hopefully what we’ll do is we’ll see it through, it will be for a temporary period of time, they’ll restore it. And if we do additional load shedding, usually the process is they go to different areas. So, it is – we call it rotating brown-outs for that very reason. As I said, you try to get people off for a short period, and then get them back on so, you know, because to give people relief.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...eme-heatwave-victoria-tasmania-bushfires-live


----------



## Smurf1976

An update on the current situation:

Firstly - well I got it wrong in my thinking that load shedding might be avoidable in Victoria today. In my defence, well I didn't expect Yallourn Unit 3 to fall in a heap last night and Loy Yang A unit 2 to be operating at ~75% capacity due to problems but fact is there are problems and a power shortage.

The present supply situation in Vic is as follows:
Coal = 3076 MW (AGL, Alinta, Energy Australia)
Hydro = 2137 MW (Snowy Hydro, AGL)
Gas = 2086 MW (Energy Australia, Origin, Snowy Hydro, AGL, Alinta)
From SA = 596 MW (Various)
From Tas = 478 MW (Hydro Tasmania)
Wind = 419 MW (Various)
Solar = 193 MW for large scale solar plus an estimated 518 MW of small scale (households etc).

Everything that works is at maximum and significant load shedding is now occurring. This affects industry as well as the general community with the following areas targeted:

Epping, Mill Park, Lysterfield, Rowville, Clyde, Cranbourne East; Southbank, Armadale, Toorak, Camberwell, Fairfield, Northcote, Caulfield, Elwood, Beaumaris, Bulleen, Burwood, Riversdale, Bentleigh, Heathdale, Balaclava, Malvern, Balwyn, Surrey Hills, Essendon, Essendon North, Strathmore, Glenroy, Oak Park, Kalkallo, Broadmeadows, West Footscray, Fairfield, Ivanhoe, Alphington, Airport West, East Keilor, Niddrie, Ascot Vale, and Moonee Pond, Camperdown, Weerite, Yarrawonga, Bundalong, Castlemaine Muckleford, Lara, Corio, Norlan, Herne Hill, Hamplyn Heights, Balmoral, Haven, Woolsthorpe, Grassmere and Mailers Flat.

I'm not overly familiar with Victorian geography, that's just a cut and paste not my list as such. For any given location the blackout duration should be about two hours. After that, if there's still a need to load shed, other areas are turned off and those above are turned back on hence the layman's term "rolling blackouts".

Reason those areas were targeted is simply that someone has to go, there's no option there. The details of what is priority and what isn't comes from a pre-determined list which is set by government not the industry. That list is confidential but in short it's voluntary cuts by industry > forced cuts of specific large loads > residential in that order with the intent being that the capital city CBD and any sort of critical infrastructure, especially hospitals, are never cut.

No doubt on the news you will hear many people coming up with all manner of excuses as to why this has occurred. I'm not overly keen on political nonsense but I'll simply note that I and others have warned for quite some time that this day would come. Not because I'm some sort of genius, I'm not, but because the warning signs have been readily visible to those paying attention.

I'll add to that that unless something radically changes then this will not be the last time and it will not be by any means the biggest problem. There's far more pain than this on the way, the only unknown being exactly when it turns up but it will.

Generating plant outages in Victoria:

Loy Yang A unit 3 - 560 MW (coal, AGL)

Loy Yang A unit 2 - 130 MW (capacity reduction from 530 to 400 MW) (coal, AGL)

Valley Power unit 6 - 50 MW failed a short time ago (gas, Snowy Hydro)

Yallourn W unit 3 - 380 MW (failed last night) (coal, Energy Australia)

Yallourn W unit 4 - 380 MW (coal, Energy Australia)

Overall that outage rate of just over 15% is about what would be expected. On an individual plant basis some is obviously doing much better than others but across the entire system, that is all generation, it's about the outage rate that would normally be used as a basis for design. So it's not good but it's not bad as such if viewed in terms of the total installed generating capacity.

For other states:

No issues as such in SA. There's not a lot of gas around, so about 400 MW of gas-fired plant is running on oil and some other oil-fired plant has been run in preference to gas only plant, but no problems beyond that. There's enough generation to supply local load and maximum transfer to Vic.

Some fire threats to various parts of the transmission system in Tas but it's all working at least for the moment. Given the fire and weather situation in Tasmania at present, parts of Hobart have reached 40 degrees which is truly extreme weather by local standards, it's difficult to know how it will all play out.


----------



## Smurf1976

Temperature is dropping in Melbourne and AEMO has authorised the reconnection of power to approximately 130,000 blacked out properties.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> If as you say they are waiting for Federal Government direction.
> South Australia wouldn't already have 60% renewables installed, *completely FALSE - wind accounts for maybe 10% of capacity (Smurf will have more accurate figures) and commercial solar about 5% *they have done so, not at the request of the Federal Government.
> That's because it is a function of the State FFS. *Whereas this has been a slow build of capacity for renewables and is based on sound commercial principles.  ...read on...*
> They didn't have to ask permission of the Federal Government, before going ahead, because it's a function of the FFing State. *FALSE.  States serve to facilitate the market.  A friend recently bought acreage near Beaudesert and was going to be charged about $30000 to get poles and wire to their new home.  They spent less going completely off-grid and have never since had to pay a penny more for electricity.  I suggest you read the link I provided about how the market works.*
> In W.A the Government has recently shut down the second largest Power Station, do you think they asked the Federal Gov for permission, NO, because they don't have to it is a State decission. *Yes, a decision made in 2016 by former (Liberal) State energy minister Mike Nahan to shut down 380MW of fossil fuel capacity.  Did you forget to say this was about Muja's then 52 year old power station which some years earlier had over a $300m blowout on refurbishment costs?  *
> I don't know how many ways I can put it so you understand it.  *Maybe get your facts right and you might work out how the system operates rather than have me inform you all the time.*
> I think it is obvious you are very happy with your own opinion,  *I do not have one here, so you need to learn how to distinguish opinions from evidence.* and are no doubt an expert on most things, it is pointless continuing I'll let you get back to your mirror. *Again, when you do not know things, best you keep opinions to yourself.*




As per usual, what you have written says nothing, installation of generating capacity, is a State function, not a Federal function.
The States do not have to get federal permission to change their fuel mix and or installations. Your claim that the States are hamstrung waiting for a Federal directive, is utter nonsense, same as most of your points. As I said South Australia, is installing a molten salt generator this year, yet you say they can't do anything because the Feds are sitting on their hands.
You go on about commercial decisions, being the correct way to make a judgement on viability. Well the Muja A/B $300m stuff up, was another commercial decision gone wrong.

As for wind power in South Australia.
_Wind energy is a popular alternative to the fossil fuels like coal, gas and oil in terms of better sustainability, economically feasible and environmental friendly. The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) 2010 SA Supply Demand Outlook estimates that in 2009-10, 18% of the state’s energy production came from wind power.[27] In July 2014, South Australian wind farms produced enough power to meet 43% of the state's electricity needs, up from the previous record of 38% in August 2013.[28]_
What did you say 10%, obviously truth isn't a high priority in you waffle.
That isn't including solar.

As you say, when you don't know things, best you keep your opinion to yourself.
When you present some evidence, people might respond to it, currently it is obvious you know very little on the subject. By the way evidence doesn't just mean, because you said it, unless you have some qualifications in the subject. 
It has actually got bear some semblance to the truth, try presenting some.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> If as you say they are waiting for Federal Government direction.
> South Australia wouldn't already have 60% renewables installed,*1 **completely FALSE - wind accounts for maybe 10% of capacity (Smurf will have more accurate figures) and commercial solar about 5% *they have done so, not at the request of the Federal Government.
> That's because it is a function of the State.   *.2* *Whereas this has been a slow build of capacity for renewables and is based on sound commercial principles.  ...read on...*
> They didn't have to ask permission of the Federal Government, before going ahead, because it's a function of the FFing State. *3* *FALSE.  States serve to facilitate the market.  A friend recently bought acreage near Beaudesert and was going to be charged about $30000 to get poles and wire to their new home.  They spent less going completely off-grid and have never since had to pay a penny more for electricity.  I suggest you read the link I provided about how the market works.*
> In W.A the Government has recently shut down the second largest Power Station, do you think they asked the Federal Gov for permission, NO, because they don't have to it is a State decission.* 4* *Yes, a decision made in 2016 by former (Liberal) State energy minister Mike Nahan to shut down 380MW of fossil fuel capacity.  Did you forget to say this was about Muja's then 52 year old power station which some years earlier had over a $300m blowout on refurbishment costs?  *
> I don't know how many ways I can put it so you understand it.* 5* *Maybe get your facts right and you might work out how the system operates rather than have me inform you all the time.*
> I think it is obvious you are very happy with your own opinion, *6* *I do not have one here, so you need to learn how to distinguish opinions from evidence.* and are no doubt an expert on most things, it is pointless continuing I'll let you get back to your mirror. *Again, when you do not know things, best you keep opinions to yourself.*




Now lets get onto this problem you have, differentiating between opinion and evidence.
*Point 1*, absolute rubbish:
The 2017 South Australian Renewable Energy Report (SARER) focuses on the performance of wind and rooftop photovoltaic (PV) generation in South Australia over the last five financial years (2012–13 to 2016–17).  South Australia had the highest penetration of renewable generation of all NEM regions in the last five years.  Total renewable generation in South Australia (including wind and rooftop PV) for 2016–17 was 5,359 gigawatt hours (GWh), the highest production in the last five years.  Both wind generation capacity and rooftop PV capacity have increased in the five years to 2016–17:  *Rooftop PV installed capacity rapidly increased from 402 megawatts (MW) in 2012–13 to 781 MW in 2016–17.* More than 30% of dwellings in South Australia now have rooftop PV systems installed. 1  *Registered wind capacity increased about 41%, from 1,203 MW in 2012–13 to 1,698 MW in 2016–17*.

And here is a link, so that you can supply EVEDENCE next time.

https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Fil...h-Australian-Renewable-Energy-Report-2017.pdf

2. Gobledegook-

3. Your mates hobby farm, has nothing to do with the issue.

4. Nonsense, there was an over capacity situation, whereby standby generators were getting capacity payments, and not being required to run. Both Kwinana and Muja A/B have been de commissioned, in the last 4 years.
The Muja cost blow out was due to the Station being taken over by a private firm, with the condition that they refurbished it and then Synergy would buy generation from them.
The company went broke during the refurbishment, and Western Power took on the completion of the project.

5. You are the one have trouble with facts, not I.

6. So now to address your problem, with understanding the difference, between opinion and evidence.

*Evidence*:  available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid

*Opinion*:  a view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

Your remarks, definitely fall into the opinion category, the lack of facts or information, preclude it from being evidence.
But you do spin a great yarn.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> As per usual, what you have written says nothing, installation of generating capacity, is a State function, not a Federal function.



States do not have that role but work in the NEM to facilitate it.  You still have not read the link explaining how the system works.  If any entity satisfies AEMO that it is a *generator *in accordance with the National Electricity Rules (under a federal law) then it is available to supply the market. Nothing prevents SA from becoming a renewables behemoth and selling its energy to the eastern seaboard via additional interconnectors, if that what market participants agree on.


sptrawler said:


> The States do not have to get federal permission to change their fuel mix and or installations.



I have never made that claim.


sptrawler said:


> Your claim that the States are hamstrung waiting for a Federal directive, is utter nonsense, same as most of your points.



That is *not *my claim.
There is a commercial environment for energy supply.
Industry will not act in a climate where a policy void prevents them from making sound business decisions.


sptrawler said:


> As I said South Australia, is installing a molten salt generator this year, yet you say they can't do anything because the Feds are sitting on their hands.



I never made that claim.  In fact the very reverse.  Because the feds are sitting on their hands the SA government went this one alone, as they did with the Tesla battery project.


sptrawler said:


> You go on about commercial decisions, being the correct way to make a judgement on viability. Well the Muja A/B $300m stuff up, was another commercial decision gone wrong.



I guess that makes sense to you.  A decision was made about 3 years ago to close a then 52 year old power station that was costing more to repair than was possible to recoup.  AGL will be closing Liddell in several years on commercial grounds.  The feds have made repeated overtures to AGL to get them to reverse their decision, and pulled a range of other stunts, but to no avail.


sptrawler said:


> As for wind power in South Australia. ...



I admit to not having the information at hand when I quickly posted a reply - my bad, but your 60% claim was way off. I also should have been a lot more careful with my language.  I used  installed *capacity*, whereas capacity and supply, are very different.  So is where supply comes from as on average about 20% of supply is not local to SA.  Using financial year 2017 data wind accounts for about a third (33%) of *total supply*.  However *registered capacity* for wind under AEMO is about 15% of supply - so there is a massive difference between the two.  Private solar PV accounted for about 8% of total supply, but just 5% of registered capacity.
So when I said 10% wind and 5% solar *capacity*, I was off by 5 percentage points.  My apologies.


----------



## qldfrog

Smurfs,
Woukd not it make sense that we see more outages and breakdowns afterbperiod like this where the system is pushed to the limits.i would also assume maintenance shutdown need is low low priority right now
Si can all this not cascade in an unpleasant way if the heat stays


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> States do not have that role but work in the NEM to facilitate it.  You still have not read the link explaining how the system works.  If any entity satisfies AEMO that it is a *generator *in accordance with the National Electricity Rules (under a federal law) then it is available to supply the market. Nothing prevents SA from becoming a renewables behemoth and selling its energy to the eastern seaboard via additional interconnectors, if that what market participants agree on.
> 
> I have never made that claim.
> 
> That is *not *my claim.
> There is a commercial environment for energy supply.
> Industry will not act in a climate where a policy void prevents them from making sound business decisions.
> 
> I never made that claim.  In fact the very reverse.  Because the feds are sitting on their hands the SA government went this one alone, as they did with the Tesla battery project.
> 
> I guess that makes sense to you.  A decision was made about 3 years ago to close a then 52 year old power station that was costing more to repair than was possible to recoup.  AGL will be closing Liddell in several years on commercial grounds.  The feds have made repeated overtures to AGL to get them to reverse their decision, and pulled a range of other stunts, but to no avail.
> 
> I admit to not having the information at hand when I quickly posted a reply - my bad, but your 60% claim was way off. I also should have been a lot more careful with my language.  I used  installed *capacity*, whereas capacity and supply, are very different.  So is where supply comes from as on average about 20% of supply is not local to SA.  Using financial year 2017 data wind accounts for about a third (33%) of *total supply*.  However *registered capacity* for wind under AEMO is about 15% of supply - so there is a massive difference between the two.  Private solar PV accounted for about 8% of total supply, but just 5% of registered capacity.
> So when I said 10% wind and 5% solar *capacity*, I was off by 5 percentage points.  My apologies.



As per usual another load of waffle , to cover your lack of knowledge.
I stated a fact on installed capacity, you said it was false, now your thrashing around in your nonsense.
Mate you are full of it.


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> Smurfs,
> Woukd not it make sense that we see more outages and breakdowns afterbperiod like this where the system is pushed to the limits.i would also assume maintenance shutdown need is low low priority right now
> Si can all this not cascade in an unpleasant way if the heat stays



You've hit the nail on the head there. A bit of detail about the problems which occurred:

Loy Yang A #3, Yallourn #3 and Valley Power #6 were all unplanned events. That is, equipment failed. Valley Power #6 has since been fixed and is running at the moment.

*Yallourn #4 had two prior attempts at planned maintenance postponed and it came to the point where there was simply no option other than to take it offline.* That's the sort of scenario you're referring to.

*Loy Yang A #2 was de-rated yesterday due to a problem and has been shut down completely not long ago.* In better circumstances they'd have shut it yesterday but they limped along until this afternoon in practice at about three quarters of normal output.

Note for those not aware regarding all this "#2" or "#4" etc stuff. In short if you've got 4 separate generating units at the one power station then accepted convention (in most countries at least) is to simply number them for easy reference. So units 1, 2, 3 and 4 are four completely separate generating units at the one physical power station at Yallourn for example.  

For outages in SA:

Quarantine in Adelaide has unit #1 on a long term outage. It would have only produced about 19 MW during the hot weather though so nothing major. Origin Energy owns this facility.

Snuggery has 3 small gas turbines fueled only by diesel. They had them all running yesterday until something went amiss with one of them but I've no info as to what the problem was. They had all 3 machines running for a while today so whatever the trouble is they seem to have fixed it. Capacity is about 16 MW for each turbine if it's seriously hot but they'll go to about 21 MW in cooler weather. Plant owner is Engie.

In addition to that there's also the problem that gas was getting scarce in SA. You can suck it out of the pipe faster than it's going in the other end but only for so long. Quite a bit of the SA gas-fired plant can use oil as a backup which frees up gas for the rest but that too has a limit in that there's only so much oil in storage and it all has to be shipped in and for some cases then trucked to the power station (via normal road tankers like those used for petrol). That's oil as in heavy fuel oil and diesel depending on the plant in question.

So ultimately yes if the heat continued then more problems would develop.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> As per usual another load of waffle , to cover your lack of knowledge.
> I stated a fact on installed capacity, you said it was false, now your thrashing around in your nonsense.
> Mate you are full of it.




Are you well pleased at being "absolutely right" ?  And totally sure you can prove it  (in your mind)?
Was it worth it SP?
Your call..


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Are you well pleased at being "absolutely right" ?  And totally sure you can prove it  (in your mind)?
> Was it worth it SP?
> Your call..



No it wasn't worth it, it is a forum, not a place to have a slanging match.
But it is difficult to not respond, when someone is constantly accusing you, of supplying false information. Especially when you are posting official data to substantiate it. I also spent my whole working career in power generation, so do have a basic idea of how it works.
Next time I will say nothing, as is expected, by those who have a barrow to push.
I should have responded as smurf did to the#2870 post, and not get drawn in, my bad.


----------



## qldfrog

basilio said:


> Are you well pleased at being "absolutely right" ?  And totally sure you can prove it  (in your mind)?
> Was it worth it SP?
> Your call..



Basilio,
Some people are so full of BS it is often better to just add them  to ignore.
What is the point to even discuss?
PS
As you can see, you are not in my ignore list


----------



## Smurf1976

I'm keeping out of the politics but I'll say that all this does reflect something far broader, which extends well beyond anything involving energy supply.

As a society we've become far too focused on regulations, law and ideology and nowhere near enough focused on science and making things happen.

We've become a country with "tick a box" safety inspections which are good at identifying that there should be a line painted on the ground but which fail to identify things which pose a real danger.

We're good at regulating just about everything to the point of strangulation except the one thing that really has shown it needs heavy regulation, that being banks and finance.

We've got an aggressively pursued illusion of competition in utilities whilst neglecting to make sure there's any power in the first place.

And so on. So long as Australia keeps neglecting science, engineering and so on in favour of an obsession with laws, regulations and theories we'll continue heading down this track.

The ultimate consequence, so far as the power grid is concerned, will likely unfold in one of two ways:

1. A major incident which leaves NSW and/or Victoria completely blacked out.

2. A serious failure of infrastructure which results in multiple load shedding incidents over a relatively short period to the point that the normal functioning of society is significantly impacted.

Which one is detail but keep doing what we're doing and we'll get one or the other outcome in due course.

To further illustrate the problems, look at what government itself is doing:

In SA the new state government did a review of the backup gas turbines which found they weren't needed. Who did the review? A lawyer. Yes, seriously, a LAWYER! 

Now I've nothing against lawyers but of all possible professions or backgrounds to evaluate a power system they'd be an extremely long way down the list. Rather, what you want is preferably an electrical power engineer. 

If you can't get that then get someone with experience in power generation as an operator or technician who understands from experience what goes wrong or get some other sort of engineer, eg civil, who will at least realise what they don't know. 

Failing that, at least get someone with experience with complex systems and numbers.

Choosing a lawyer makes about as much sense as choosing a horticulturalist or surgeon, it's completely the wrong background. They're probably fine as a lawyer but no surprise they got their engineering assessment wrong.

Or in Victoria and with the other side of politics guess what the Minister's background is? Yep, you guessed it, unions and politics.

So there we have it. The unionists and lawyers strike once again. As I've said previously, there's a role for them and I intend no disrespect but there's far too many of both involved with things they know nothing about. 

So long as the focus of all this remains politics, point scoring and ideology rather than sound practices it's inevitable we'll end up with a major incident which makes today's seem trivial.


----------



## qldfrog

And this is in the area you know.in IT, startup and mining, 3 areas i have a decent background, same story, latest being the requirements to break privacy on government request and have prepared holes in security..here goes our software industry orvehat is left of it.no atlasian #2
In a world with more and more sophisticated technology, we have a population more and more ignorant, and leaders hardly better.
What can go wrong?


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> And this is in the area you know.in IT, startup and mining, 3 areas i have a decent background, same story



What concerns me is that if the area I know about is in such a mess then that seems an amazing coincidence. Almost certainly rather a lot of other things are in a similar state it's just that I'm unaware of the details.

As a broad generalisation, if you're having minor incidents then that's a pretty strong warning that there are problems and you're vulnerable to a major incident. That goes for anything really from human health to the safety of airlines to the operation of complex things like the power grid. If you're having more incidents than you'd reasonably expect then that's a major warning that things aren't as they should be. Look what happens to stock markets near a major top and it's the same story - volatility goes up.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> No it wasn't worth it, it is a forum, not a place to have a slanging match.
> But it is difficult to not respond, when someone is constantly accusing you, of supplying false information. Especially when you are posting official data to substantiate it. I also spent my whole working career in power generation, so do have a basic idea of how it works.
> Next time I will say nothing, as is expected, by those who have a barrow to push.
> I should have responded as smurf did to the#2870 post, and not get drawn in, my bad.



You need to learn to read for understanding.
I have shown that you made claims which do not stack up.
You say things without evidence, or hide information that does not support your case.
You probably, at best, have a *basic *idea of how the system works.
The issue of supply is clearly a massive problem.
What needs to be discussed is how to address this problem.
And in case you have not been watching, where has the federal Minister been during this supply debacle, or for that matter what has the PM had to say?


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> What concerns me is that if the area I know about is in such a mess then that seems an amazing coincidence. Almost certainly rather a lot of other things are in a similar state it's just that I'm unaware of the details.




Like sykscrapers cracking up perhaps.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> And in case you have not been watching, where has the federal Minister been during this supply debacle, or for that matter what has the PM had to say?




"It's a issue for the private sector to fix".


----------



## Tink

“We’ve become a third world state today,”

The Energy Minister says she’s not embarrassed by blackouts on Friday.

Hundreds of thousands of Victorians had their power cut in scorching heat due to “load shedding”.

Lily D’Ambrosio said there wouldn’t be only hours earlier.

Tom Elliott spoke with her on Friday.

https://www.3aw.com.au/tom-elliott-grills-energy-minister-over-friday-blackouts/


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm keeping out of the politics but I'll say that all this does reflect something far broader, which extends well beyond anything involving energy supply.



As I understand it, your comments relate to an industry which operates under a national framework, ultimately overseen by the COAG Energy Council.  Please correct me if I am wrong. 
If that is the case, then your comments reflect the outcomes of a political process. 
You either present the numbers objectively, which you do most of the time, or buy into the politics once you do overstep.
You have feet in both camps.


Smurf1976 said:


> As a society we've become far too focused on regulations, law and ideology and nowhere near enough focused on science and making things happen.



Even if that were true for "society" it is not relevant to what has been happening in the national energy market unless you want to deny the evidence.
So here's a snapshot of that evidence:
"The National Electricity Market (NEM) is not in the best of health. The immediate symptoms are a power system where reliability risks are increasing, electricity bills are not affordable, and future carbon emissions policy is uncertain."​That was from a December *2017 *Report to COAG.  The Report itself was a response commissioned through COAG to specifically advise on the health of the market given the clearly articulated concerns of industry and the States about their being no national policy.
All that has materially changed is that over a year on, and more and more reports to COAG that something needs to be done, the Chair of COAG continues to report that it's doing what needs to be done.


Smurf1976 said:


> We've got an aggressively pursued illusion of competition in utilities whilst neglecting to make sure there's any power in the first place.



That is something I did not know and would be grateful for your evidence.
I recall the SA Premier a few years ago said he was moving to get the Augusta solar thermal plant installed due to a lack of competition, but have not found a link to confirm it.
I do know there is an aggressive retail market, having had a regular stream of cold canvassers to the door and an unlisted number, aside from occasional spam, wanting me to move from A to B.
There is an undeniable supply problem and utilities should be falling over themselves to capture an increased share of that market.
Far from an illusion of competition, there is a palpable dearth of it.


----------



## Darc Knight

SP claiming others are pushing a Barrow  I sometimes worry about that old heart of yours Homer, pushing that anti anything not Conservative Barrow of yours!


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> "It's a issue for the private sector to fix".



For electricity, like road, telco, i would usually prefer a national..not state..ownership and management.
The trouble is that Australia has reached such a low in term of government ability and civil servants incompetence that, right now, i prefer seeing agl or engie in control for example than daring thinking of establishing a new federal entity.
Lost competencies can not be gained by 3 months training courses ,and seeing another lawyer in charge or importing a lady from a US PR company to lead it on a gold package is not something to wish for


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> You need to learn to read for understanding.
> I have shown that you made claims which do not stack up.
> You say things without evidence, or hide information that does not support your case.
> You probably, at best, have a *basic *idea of how the system works.
> The issue of supply is clearly a massive problem.
> What needs to be discussed is how to address this problem.
> And in case you have not been watching, where has the federal Minister been during this supply debacle, or for that matter what has the PM had to say?



The situation in Victoria, will provide the impetus to drive the change, whatever that may be.
There are technical limitations, and time constraints, so whatever is decided will probably be a stop gap.
I will watch on with amusement, as I should have earlier.


----------



## rederob

qldfrog said:


> For electricity, like road, telco, i would usually prefer a national..not state..ownership and management.



You mean *communism*?


qldfrog said:


> The trouble is that Australia has reached such a low in term of government ability and civil servants incompetence that, right now, i prefer seeing agl or engie in control for example than daring thinking of establishing a new federal entity.



There is a "free market" to supply. 
It's a regulated market.
Just like the ASX regulates listed companies, *generators (*ie utilities*) *need to meet the conditions they agreed to when entering the market.


qldfrog said:


> Lost competencies can not be gained by 3 months training courses ,and seeing another lawyer in charge or importing a lady from a US PR company to lead it on a gold package is not something to wish for



AEMO can only play the cards in her hand.
The problem is that her cards are so old that she's told the dealer the game is stacked against her and she cannot win unless a new deck is opened.
As much as Smurf knows about this industry, I doubt he could play the game any better with a deck stacked against him.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> You mean *communism*?




Whatever it takes.

Power companies were owned by the States for decades and no one complained about prices or lack of supply.

Now that they are privatised the energy sector is a disaster.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> The situation in Victoria, will provide the impetus to drive the change, whatever that may be.



Ok, so please explain how this will occur.
Remember that this issue has not been dealt with for many years, is *not *confined to Victoria, and requires physical things in place to generate the required electricity. Which utilities are out there offering to build what is required?


sptrawler said:


> There are technical limitations, and time constraints, so whatever is decided will probably be a stop gap.
> I will watch on with amusement, as I should have earlier.



Please explain the technical limitations.
The time constraint is superseded by there being no investment decision to put in place a stop gap.  You appear to be missing some steps in the process.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Whatever it takes.
> 
> Power companies were owned by the States for decades and no one complained about prices or lack of supply.
> 
> Now that they are privatised the energy sector is a disaster.



Think about your argument.
At what point did the sector begin to fall apart?
As for your solution -  "*Whatever it takes*" - raises the question of *who*.  Who do you have in mind?


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Ok, so please explain how this will occur.
> Remember that this issue has not been dealt with for many years, is *not *confined to Victoria, and requires physical things in place to generate the required electricity. Which utilities are out there offering to build what is required?
> 
> Please explain the technical limitations.
> The time constraint is superseded by there being no investment decision to put in place a stop gap.  You appear to be missing some steps in the process.



Fill the blanks in yourself, you have all the answers.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Think about your argument.
> At what point did the sector begin to fall apart?




I believe the rot began with the sale of Hazlewood, and the decision by it's (foreign) owners to scrap it on three months notice.

That should have been the warning sign to politicians that the risks of privatisation were not worth the one-off income from the sale, but a few ideologists on the Right then proceeded to screw up the rest of the network.



> As for your solution -  "*Whatever it takes*" - raises the question of *who*.  Who do you have in mind?




The States and Federal government should re-enter the generation & storage markets. This is being done with the SA battery and Snowy Hydro 2 and should be continued with extra government owned infrastructure that  engineers advise to be the most effective long term solutions.


----------



## qldfrog

I am just afraid at the lost of competences in the government.
their expects are mostly compliance experts ..this is what their role has been for so long and they are
 ill adviced in designing or properly supervise new design processes
Hope i am wrong


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> I believe the rot began with the sale of Hazlewood, and the decision by it's (foreign) owners to scrap it on three months notice.
> That should have been the warning sign to politicians that the risks of privatisation were not worth the one-off income from the sale, but a few ideologists on the Right then proceeded to screw up the rest of the network.



Let's assume that's when the rot began and that the *message *was clear.
The purpose of privatisation was manifold, albeit largely sold to us on the basis that our bills would be cheaper.
Privatisation also led to a NEM - what we now have to live with!  The framework is supposed to ensure that a viable market for energy is available on commercial basis, underpinned by regulatory guarantees.  I don't buy into ideologies: the framework is transparent.
If I follow through your reasoning then it's a problem of the Right, but the nature of the network was already in place.
I suspect if I followed through SP's reasoning then it's a problem of the Left.
Given we had a NEM when Hazelwood closed, it seems to me that the issue was really about how the NEM would foster competition to replace generating capacity. We all know there is a capacity issue in summer on the eastern seaboard.  We also know nothing is being done to address the concerns of those who are best placed to step in to fill the gap - and that's States or/and the private sector.



SirRumpole said:


> The States and Federal government should re-enter the generation & storage markets. This is being done with the SA battery and Snowy Hydro 2 and should be continued with extra government owned infrastructure that engineers advise to be the most effective long term solutions.



The States & Cwlth can and do participate, as you outlined.  
I doubt Snowy 2 cost Malcolm his job, but it did internally set the fossil fuel lobby against him.  My view is that pumped hydro has a role to play in our energy future, but using the off peak spinning power from coal might not be the best way to go about it for large projects like Snowy 2.  That aside, we are still about 5 years away from getting any benefit from Snowy 2, so until then....
While not disagreeing with your sentiment, the unresolved issue remains.  Specifically *WHO* (ie. which person) will act?


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Fill the blanks in yourself, you have all the answers.



You presented ideas and leave them in the air.
Getting used to that here.


----------



## basilio

qldfrog said:


> Basilio,
> Some people are so full of BS it is often better to just add them  to ignore.
> What is the point to even discuss?
> PS
> As you can see, you are not in my ignore list




Not necessarily.  IMV this is a very complex topic. We are effectively talking about the total overhaul of our electricity system to make it clean, reliable, diversified   and capable of supplying not just current needs but an electric vehicle industry. Huge call.

SP has a life work history in the power generation field around coal and gas.  Why should that knowledge of working power systems be ignored ? On the other hand there is a rapidly emerging wind/solar/battery industry that has challenged the economics, reliability and diversity of historical energy suppliers. And this is still developing.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Specifically *WHO* (ie. which person) will act?




It should come right from the top, ie the PM through his Minister. It's a national issue and you rightly point out that it's not being addressed by the current government, so the only alternative is the Opposition.


----------



## Smurf1976

So far as the politics of all this is concerned, I'll make an observation that ultimately nobody at the political level knows how to fix it.

Politicians collectively created a situation where we have one system owned by multiple entities who are precluded by law from even talking to each other about how to best do things.

Any attempt by government to fix the mess is in practice an attempt to produce a specific outcome from a free market. An outcome that isn't in the financial interests of those required to produce it.

Any COAG or other meeting won't be talking about the detail of how to fix the situation. Rather, it will be a lot of airy fairy words of a theoretical academic nature relating to economics. More of the exact same stuff which lead us to where we are now.

The S&P/ASX200 closed at 5905.6 and yes that has some relevance. If any politician wanted to adjust that outcome, so as to have the close at 6500 on the 30 June 2019, then doing so would be relatively straightforward compared to the electricity mess.

To push the ASX up, simply issue a formal direction to the RBA to make it happen. Buy shares, doing so in a manner which triggers a "buy" signal with common T/A approaches thus getting investors on board and minimising the cost to government. Make sure the media's hyping up the bull market to get the public in and hey presto! Up goes the index. However much you need to spend, just spend it. Print money if you have to but get the index up. It will happen.

In contrast to fix the electricity mess, both technical and economic, you need to control the individual actions of multiple companies some of which are listed companies, some of which are privately owned and not listed, some of which are owned by foreign governments, one of which is owned by the Commonwealth and a number of which are owned by the states.

There's also a vast difference in the technical capabilities of the various entities which range from extremely good to not good at all. Having a system where you know you've got some very dubious operators running bits of it is another problem in itself.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Which utilities are out there offering to build what is required?



The only two which have expressed major interest are both government owned but operated as commercial entities.

Snowy Hydro (Australian Government) and Hydro Tasmania (Tas state government) have between them proposed 4500 MW of pumped storage supplying into Vic and NSW.

Both are relying on an assumption that others, that is the private sector, will develop wind and solar generation as the source of electricity for pumping water. Thus far the private sector does seem to be interested in doing it so this seems workable.

Beyond that there's some very limited interest from others. In the NSW and Vic context, Origin are perhaps the most likely to actually go ahead with their scheme (240 MW) given they already have a lot of the infrastructure in place and can presumably afford to build it.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> As much as Smurf knows about this industry, I doubt he could play the game any better with a deck stacked against him.



If someone handed me formal responsibility for fixing the situation then I'd be changing the cards that's for sure and doing so quite radically.

That doesn't mean nationalisation, there's no reason why private enterprise can't run this stuff,  but it does mean radical change in how it's all approached. Otherwise, well if you keep doing the same or very similar things then you get the same or very similar results.

In short I'd separate the corporate stuff from the operations stuff on a day to day basis. Those in suits can go and do whatever they like so far as business is concerned but I'd disallow that to in any way obstruct efficient operation of generating plant or the grid. 

It's rather silly when you've got a crisis going on at one power station and the better experienced technical workers, with virtually identical plant, just down the road aren't allowed anywhere near the place. That's the sort of thing I'd want a stop put to real quick.


----------



## ghotib

Smurf1976 said:


> ...In short I'd separate the corporate stuff from the operations stuff on a day to day basis. Those in suits can go and do whatever they like so far as business is concerned but I'd disallow that to in any way obstruct efficient operation of generating plant or the grid.
> 
> It's rather silly when you've got a crisis going on at one power station and the better experienced technical workers, with virtually identical plant, just down the road aren't allowed anywhere near the place. That's the sort of thing I'd want a stop put to real quick.



That sounds very like the way aviation works... hundreds of operators of varying levels of skill, capacity, and honesty; mandated problem reporting and a culture of open-ness (more or less) among technicians; constant tension between commercial pressures and technical best practice; an expectation that things will go wrong and constant efforts to prepare for problems. No doubt this picture is idealistic as well as sketchy, but is it a fair suggestion of how the energy system could work?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Power companies were owned by the States for decades and no one complained about prices or lack of supply.
> 
> Now that they are privatised the energy sector is a disaster.




The problem is more about the concept of a competitive market than who actually owns things.

AGL has a history going back to the 1830's and is among the oldest companies of any sort in Australia. For the vast majority of that time AGL's sole function was as a monopoly gas supplier in Sydney. They ran the whole show and could simply be described as a privately owned utility.

I can't remember the company names but same arrangement in Brisbane.

In Tasmania the Launceston Gas Company operated from the 1850's as a privately owned utility comparable to AGL in Sydney. Via a series of corporate actions dating back to the 1980's the LGC ended up as what is now the very much larger company Origin Energy. For the record Origin does officially acknowledge it's historic origins going back to Launceston.

The US in particular has a long history of privately owned electricity utilities comparable to the former state authorities in Australia.

Now at this point someone's going to scream at me and say something about monopolies price gouging and so on.

In theory I take that point as it sounds like a very reasonable one.

In practice though I'm going to drop the nuclear bomb on it and point out that AGL in 2019 charges more for gas in Sydney in a competitive market than it charged the exact same customers years ago as a monopoly.

That last paragraph sums of much of where this has all gone so terribly wrong. Blind faith in economic ideology that hasn't worked in practice but which is taken so seriously that it gets in the way of doing what needs to be done. 

Get away from that ideology and it all starts to become a lot easier to find way forward in all of this.


----------



## SirRumpole

According to this story, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01...used-them-and-is-this-the-new-normal/10751412

"He said the National Energy Market had a "reliability standard" which allowed 36,000 customers to be without power for an entire 24 hours, or 88,000 customers to be without power for 10 hours."

So don't complain about a blackout for a couple of hours.


----------



## qldfrog

basilio said:


> Not necessarily.
> ..
> SP has a life work history in the power generation field around coal and gas.  Why should that knowledge of working power systems be ignored ? On the other hand there is a rapidly emerging wind/solar/battery industry that has challenged the economics, reliability and diversity of historical energy suppliers. And this is still developing.



The ignore recommendation was obviously not to ignore SP but for entries which are just ideological warfare.
And while we often differ Basilio, we can agree on many points and agree to disagree on others


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> The States and Federal government should re-enter the generation & storage markets. This is being done with the SA battery and Snowy Hydro 2 and should be continued with extra government owned infrastructure that  engineers advise to be the most effective long term solutions.




IMO and I know it will start another rant, you are spot on Rumpy.

The problem with electricity is it is an essential service, people want and need it.

The problem with supplying it is, you have to install a lot more than you actually need. 
This is to cover the load that exist today, the load that is expected in the foreseeable future due to natural growth, expected retirement of existing plant and unavailability plant due to planned and unplanned outages.
This IMO is where the private model doesn't work, someone has to install and pay for this excess plant, that isn't required all the time.
When it was Government it wasn't an issue, new plant was installed before it was actually needed, maintenance was carried on a regular basis and plant was retired in an orderly manner.
Now we have an issue, because no private operator wants to spend money re tubing a boiler, when they may not run enough time to repay the capital outlay. 
The banking sector wont lend any money to replace existing coal generation, as it is obviously on the nose.
So that leaves gas, nuclear, and renewables.
 Or the Government building a new very large coal station, and retire the old stations.
This would solve a lot of the problems IMO, you have a new higher efficiency power station, that shuts down existing old unreliable plant.
The Station would put a bottom line on generation costs, as the privates would be competing against it, also it would give breathing space to give time to install the pumped hydro and renewable generation.
To meet our carbon targets, we need to cut our coal generating capacity from about 23 GW to 5.5GW. 
So build the power station to 5.5GW output Government owned and start getting the privates to change over to renewables.
As the renewables increase, you just reduce production at the oldest coal fired  station, untill the point you close it and blow it up.
Then when they are all blown up, you only have the Government one left, and when it is no longer required. Switch the lights off coal.
There you go, my idea, tear it to bits I won't be entering a slanging match over it.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> The problem with electricity is it is an essential service, people want and need it.



True for the greater part, but the NEM can be avoided by industry and individuals nowadays by installing their own systems, eg solar PV off grid.


sptrawler said:


> This IMO is where the private model doesn't work, someone has to install and pay for this excess plant, that isn't required all the time.



It's not a *private *model, but it's true that *someone has to install and pay for this excess plant. *To achieve this we have a NEM, operating under force of laws prescribed through National Electricity Rules.  For those not appreciating this point:
*National electricity objective* 
The objective of this Law is to *promote efficient investment in*, and efficient operation and use of, electricity services for the long term interests of consumers of electricity with respect to— 
(a) price, quality, safety, reliability and security of supply of electricity; and 
(b) the reliability, safety and security of the national electricity system.​The singular failure of the NEM is evidenced by Smurf's advice that the only entities presently willing to invest are the federal government (which bought out Snowy Hydro Ltd on 1 July 2018 so it could implement Snowy 2.0 unimpeded) and the Tasmanian government.


sptrawler said:


> Or the Government building a new very large coal station, and retire the old stations.  This would solve a lot of the problems IMO, you have a new higher efficiency power station, that shuts down existing old unreliable plant.



Let's look at that idea:
For the federal government to do that would be *contrary to law*.
It defeats the purpose of a NEM.
It would involve massive borrowings, which was a key reason States wanted to divest the undertaking in the first place.
It would not be available for quite a few summers so we would be destined for more blackouts over coming years, irrespective.


sptrawler said:


> The Station would put a bottom line on generation costs, as the privates would be competing against it, also it would give breathing space to give time to install the pumped hydro and renewable generation.



This would only be a yardstick for fossil fuel generators.  On an LCOE basis wind will be cheaper and so will solar PV&storage on the basis of present cost curves.
The obvious problem is dispachable power with solar PV alone, and variable capacity with wind.
The practical problem is that we have a government unwilling to put in place a policy framework so that *any *potential/existing generators can make a commercial decision to add more capacity to the system.

(Smurf, most reading here probably share your concerns about the system.  However, it's so tightly tied itself in knots that even Houdini could not escape.  Nevertheless imperfect systems can still work.  It's a bit like untrained people with perfect ingredients a detailed recipe and baking instructions cooking a decent cake.  It can be done if you follow the rules etc.. But the NEM is missing the principle ingredient, viz., capacity, and is cooking up a disaster.)


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> For the federal government to do that would be *contrary to law*.
> It defeats the purpose of a NEM.




Governments make the laws, governments can change the laws.

It's a matter of what is best for the country, not someone's ideological wet dreams.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Governments make the laws, governments can change the laws.
> 
> It's a matter of what is best for the country, not someone's ideological wet dreams.



This has nothing to do with ideology.
So let's look at your idea:
Immediately any State government changes the National Electricity Law it falls outside AEMO and will immediately face the prospect of load shedding.
Moreover, like it or not, the market does drive electricity prices down because the need for additional capacity, correctly noted by SP, is nowadays shared across 6 State/Territory boundaries rather than each jurisdiction independently.
As a result, any jurisdiction wanting to opt out will in advance need to install additional capacity or face the consequences at the next election.
And on that last point, why do you think that the feds were quiet all last week?
Frydenberg dragged SA over the coals (irony ) when he blamed their push for renewables as the reason for blackouts.  But over the last week renewables have been a saving grace, and only fell short because not enough has actually been invested in them.  
I scoured the media to see where *blame *was being sheeted last week; it was principally to capacity failure from aging fossil fuel generators.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Governments make the laws, governments can change the laws.
> 
> It's a matter of what is best for the country, not someone's ideological wet dreams.



If they can't build it, I wonder how they are going to do Snowy 2.0 ?
I wonder why they even talked about it, if it against the law.

As for costing a lot, probably $4B due to economies of scale, not a lot for a secure power system, we spent 10 times that replacing telephone lines. At least everyone will want and use the power generated, not everyone wanted or needed the nbn.
There isn't much sense to me, in spending $50B on internet speed to download pr0n faster, when you haven't got the power to run anything.

In the scheme of things, it to me is the only safe secure way, of suppling power at a reasonable cost, while we transition.
But hey as someone will tell you, i know sod all. 
That's it from me, keep up the good work Rumpy, don't let the spin doctors get you down, it is a public service as you say.


----------



## Humid

And in the West the Libs were trying to flog Western Power ......Homer your mob


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> If they can't build it, I wonder how they are going to do Snowy 2.0 ?
> I wonder why they even talked about it, if it against the law.



Go and read about how the system works.  You still have not figured it out.



sptrawler said:


> As for costing a lot, probably $4B due to economies of scale, not a lot for a secure power system, we spent 10 times that replacing telephone lines.



For all intents and purposes Snowy 2.0 is a giant battery. It cannot of itself add to new capacity.



sptrawler said:


> In the scheme of things, it to me is the only safe secure way, of supply power at a reasonable cost, while we transition.



Hmmm, you are supposed to know a bit how energy supply works.
Whatever energy Snowy 2.0 puts back into the NEM, it must have originally *drawn more energy* from the NEM to begin. 
As to being *the only safe secure way, of supply power at a reasonable cost, while we transition*, you do realise we are talking about *late 2024* if all goes well - ie. in about 6 years time.  We are already in transition, and that's why we are already in trouble.


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> And in the West the Libs were trying to flog Western Power ......Homer your mob



That was the dumbest thing ever, especially when I worked for them. 
Barnett was going to sell them because, he couldnt get any backing, to get the GST back. Funny how we now get the GST fixed, when the Feds see a strong Lib, thrown out on his ar$e.

As for my mob, that is a term for someone who blindly follows a certain Party.
That's not me, I think McGowan is doing a good job, I will vote for him next election.
I think Barnett did a good job, I think the Libs in W.A without him, are a bunch of muppets.


----------



## Humid

How much CRC did it take to loosen the rust.......


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> How much CRC did it take to loosen the rust.......



Just took labor to put forward a sensible moderate leader, to me McGowan is putting the State first not the Party ideology, I like that.
To me that is what politics and politicians should be about.
IMO recently politics has become about, what the politician can get out of it, and what yarn he or she has to spin to get the media and vocal minority behind them, because they are Party driven by ideology.
Unfortunately they mostly put Australia second, to their own personal goals.
It is like the electricity crisis over East, who gives a $hit what caused it, FIX IT that's what you are voted in for.
As with the pilots strike years ago, Hawke fixed it, the unions didn't like it( I didn't like it, as a unionist) but he did fix it.
I'm sure if Hawke, Keating or Howard were in, they would FIX IT, Australia has lost leaders. IMO
IMO politics and Parties are just a job recruitment industry, for out of work lawyers and public servants, that want to get more money.


----------



## Humid

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-23/the-case-for-an-east-coast-gas-reservation-policy/9074896

Another Labor government Homer


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-23/the-case-for-an-east-coast-gas-reservation-policy/9074896
> 
> Another Labor government Homer



Alan carpenter, another great leader who led by example, he asked the polies to not accept the stupidly generous superannuation as it sent the wrong message.
From memory, he was the only one that did, top bloke. sad he didn't stay in long, i think he became fed up with the people he had to work with.


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-23/the-case-for-an-east-coast-gas-reservation-policy/9074896
> 
> Another Labor government Homer



You should start a thread, "Great Australian P.M's and Premiers and what made them Great", it might give the current crop something to read up on.

We are probably getting completely off thread.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Governments make the laws, governments can change the laws.
> 
> It's a matter of what is best for the country, not someone's ideological wet dreams.



Have you noticed a common trait, in the thread Rumpy, it is called negativity, Abbott used it to great effect.

You criticise anything another poster puts froward, then ask them to put more ideas forward and criticise that.
As happened with Abbott, when he was asked to put forward his ideas, he was found wanting.

There is a lot of similarities on this thread, where some posters criticise, yet put nothing forward themselves. 
You don't have to go very far back, to see examples of this unpopular trait.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Have you noticed a common trait, in the thread Rumpy, it is called negativity, Abbott used it to great effect.
> 
> You criticise anything another poster puts froward, then ask them to put more ideas forward and criticise that.
> As happened with Abbott, when he was asked to put forward his ideas, he was found wanting.
> 
> There is a lot of similarities on this thread, where some posters criticise, yet put nothing forward themselves.
> You don't have to go very far back, to see examples of this unpopular trait.



That's so funny.
There you are thinking something allowable under the NER is illegal.
Then there are other ideas above that do not pass any test of reason.
The Snowy 2.0 is a great initiative, but it's *not* going to add network capacity and it's 6 years away at best.
Then there's the *blame game*.
The solution is not hard.
All the options for market participants are available to add capacity.
But you and others here have not worked out that until there is a clear policy framework for them to commercialise their options, there is no point investing into a potentially poisoned pot.
In fact, I have yet to see that anyone else has mentioned the problem of a policy framework.
As a minimum it needs to consider a price on carbon, and it needs to reward an investment in storage.
Over and above that, the framework *must *model displacement effects because EVs are likely to be the principal purchase off showroom floors by the mid 2020's and beyond.  If that proves the case then generator investment decisions made in the next few years will need to accommodate that further increased demand.


----------



## sptrawler

See what I mean Rumpy, no mention of what is going to replace 23GW of aging generation, in the near term. 
Just a mention it needs replacing and more is needed on top of that for E.V's


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> See what I mean Rumpy, no mention of what is going to replace 23GW of aging generation, in the near term.
> Just a mention it needs replacing and more is needed on top of that for E.V's



You have issues with basic comprehension - that was covered:


rederob said:


> The solution is not hard.
> *All* the options for market participants are available to add capacity.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> See what I mean Rumpy, no mention of what is going to replace 23GW of aging generation, in the near term.
> Just a mention it needs replacing and more is needed on top of that for E.V's




Che ?? What will replace 23 GW of aging generation ? A swarm of small and large scale solar, wind, possibly wave , maybe solar thermal projects. And backing them up  and providing flexibilty will be a range of batteries, pumped hydro and perhaps linked domestic battery systems

These are all available and looking for an opportunity to be built and brought on line SP.  They also also more cost effective than new coal fired power stations - quite apart from the health and environmental problems these present.

But these investment cannot go ahead in a unified way until a National energy framework is established that offers clear guidelines and structures for this new  direction and investment.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> But you and others here have not worked out that until there is a clear policy framework for them to commercialise their options, there is no point investing into a potentially poisoned pot.




Wasn't that framework the Finkle report, before it was poisoned ?


----------



## rederob

basilio said:


> What will replace 23 GW of aging generation ? A swarm of small and large scale solar, wind, possibly wave , maybe solar thermal projects. And backing them up and providing flexibilty will be a range of batteries, pumped hydro and perhaps linked domestic battery systems



Projects like this are becoming the new normal.
They can be put together quickly, but they don't provide dispachable supply.
These ones do.
This article gives some idea of how battery storage costs are reducing.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Wasn't that framework the Finkle report, before it was poisoned ?



Yes.
We got the NEG instead.
Not much point to cheap electricity during a blackout.


----------



## sptrawler

You guy's are funny.


----------



## Smurf1976

So far as anything which could be termed a "market reform" is concerned, the reason I say not much and am unenthusiastic about the details is simply that nothing I've seen thus far suggests that the Australian Government, regardless of which party is in power, is willing to go far enough so as to enable suitable outcomes at the technical level.

CO2 and fossil fuels are an issue but the trouble we have would to a large extent still have occurred even if those issues did not exist at all. The basic problems being two:

1. Proper co-ordination of the operation of assets is required.

2. There will always be some assets which are unprofitable in a financial sense under any realistic arrangement but necessary at the technical level. Someone necessarily owns those and needs to be willing to keep coming up with the money.

With regard to point 1, there are many issues there but as one example I'll point to the operation of battery systems in SA and Vic during the recent load shedding. Having a battery that can be dispatched when required is all well and good - but not if you commence discharging it two hours before it's needed and it then runs flat when you actually do need it, load shedding the being the result.

Yep, that's exactly what happened. Comes back to the problem that rival companies aren't co-operating at the technical level out of fear that the ACCC will whack them over the head for doing so (and legally the ACCC has the law on their side absolutely - my point being to change the law or change how the market works).

With regard to point 2, I'll point to Wallerawang power station as an example. There was nothing major wrong with it, just needed maintenance as usual, but ultimately the owners could make more money without it than with it and so they closed it. End result = now NSW is on the edge and there's all the fuss about trying to patch up Liddell, which is in far worse shape than Wallerawang was, until Snowy 2.0 is built in a hurry.

Focusing on the technical aspects I really don't mind what those on the financial side do but it needs to enable appropriate technical outcomes if we want supply to be reliable. In other words, Wallerawang needed to stay open and if that costs $x million a year then so be it. Work out some way to pay for it.

In that context it's fair to say that just about everyone on the "technical" side would have a lot more sympathy for the "market / financial" approach if it had actually reduced costs to consumers. In practice however it has lead to major price increases in real terms whilst also compromising the system technically. It is thus rather hard to see what the actual point of it all has been.

So overall I just don't have confidence that any "reform" proposed by politicians is going to bring about a situation that, using the above examples, would have lead to technically appropriate operation of the batteries or which would have compelled the owners to keep Wallerawang open.

Since we're always going to have something in the grid that's unprofitable on a stand alone basis, and we're having more and more batteries, if we keep going as we are then we'll keep getting the same results. We'll keep knocking down power stations and then having to build new ones and we'll keep having batteries discharged at the wrong time.

The examples I cite are just that, examples. There's a lot more of those, including some which push emissions up unnecessarily, but they all come back to the same problems. Different bits being owned by different companies who don't co-operate well together due to economic ideology and the law taking precedence over sound technical practices. Plus the problem that someone has to own the unprofitable bits and in a competitive market nobody's keen on holding the hot potato.

I just don't see government being willing to make the necessary changes until such time as we've had a crisis big enough that forces it.

CO2 is relevant in all of this but the problems would still exist, at least to considerable extent, without it. Wallerawang didn't close because someone forced them to not emit any CO2 and the batteries weren't discharged too early because of CO2 either. Emissions are a problem but only part of it.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> You should start a thread, "Great Australian P.M's and Premiers and what made them Great", it might give the current crop something to read up on.
> 
> We are probably getting completely off thread.




The point was the reliable gas supply for power and industry


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> (Smurf, most reading here probably share your concerns about the system.  However, it's so tightly tied itself in knots that even Houdini could not escape.  Nevertheless imperfect systems can still work.  It's a bit like untrained people with perfect ingredients a detailed recipe and baking instructions cooking a decent cake.  It can be done if you follow the rules etc.. But the NEM is missing the principle ingredient, viz., capacity, and is cooking up a disaster.)



That's not a bad way of putting it really.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> See what I mean Rumpy, no mention of what is going to replace 23GW of aging generation, in the near term



If I look ahead at what I'll call "short term", since I think we both know that anything less than a decade is indeed short term when it comes to this sort of stuff, then for NSW, Vic, SA:

*Lots more wind and solar all over the place.

*There's a couple of 25 - 30 MW battery projects in Vic (2019)

*New 210 MW Barker Inlet gas / diesel power station in SA (2019)

*Progressive closure of 480 MW at Torrens Island A in SA (2019-21)

*Upgrade of Loy Yang B to add 80 MW in Victoria (2020)

*New 800 MW line between NSW and SA (rough guess 2021)

*Closure of 1680 MW at Liddell in NSW (2022)

*Addition of 2000 MW via Snowy 2.0 in NSW (realistically probably not before the 2024-25 summer).

The sum total of all the above is a gain of about 200 MW which is not totally irrelevant but it's pretty close. That's less than 1% of combined peak demand across the three states.

Everything else is either just an idea or uncommitted proposal at this stage. 

Plus I will speculate that if you consider the age of other plant in the system and the varying quality of maintenance then whilst it's hard to guess the details the odds are something not listed above will fail or at least be de-rated during that period. 

Plus there's the question of the supply of gas and what limits that may place on the operation of gas-fired generation. That in itself is a problem, since gas is widely used for things other than generating power, but it's a likely truth that in the event of a shortfall the first thing to be cut will be supply to power stations (since cutting one big gas load is a lot easier than cutting a million small ones). 

So overall as yet there's no actual proposal to fix the problem. All we've got is what amounts to a net zero with a big hole in peak capacity during the 2022 - 24 period.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> *Addition of 2000 MW via Snowy 2.0 in NSW (realistically probably not before the 2024-25 summer).



Smurf, this is not additional.
And the near certainty of over a million EVs need charging by 2025 isn't accounted for.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Che ?? What will replace 23 GW of aging generation ? A swarm of small and large scale solar, wind, possibly wave , maybe solar thermal projects. And backing them up  and providing flexibilty will be a range of batteries, pumped hydro and perhaps linked domestic battery systems



Don't stress smurf, a swarm of solar plants large and small, possible wave and maybe a couple of thermal projects, plus a range of batteries.

It will be interesting, when you consider that you need to install double the capacity of renewables, to cover on demand fossil fueled generation.
So back of the napkin, that's about, 46GW of renewables , that's 46,000MW OMG.

I don't think people can visualise, how much that is in size of installations, they obviously think it is a battery here and there and a couple of wind farms, house batteries and a couple of solar thermal plants.
I know it doesn't have to be put in tomorrow, however some of this old coal plant is going to have to keep running for a long, long time, before sufficient renewables are installed to close them. 

You are certainly going to have your work cut out for you.


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> *Lots more wind and solar all over the place.



Smurf this is most certainly the big unknown. I suppose the question is how much will be established and what sort of policy framework is required to encourage further developments.

The next question is how quickly these can come on line. There is certainly a big hole to fill in the near term. And as SP points out it is a heck of a lot of  planning, siting and construction.  It is not just a couple of units here and there at all.

Having said that perhaps what this country needs now is an energy engineering led economic recovery with a number of projects  across the country.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> It will be interesting, when you consider that you need to install double the capacity of renewables, to cover on demand fossil fueled generation.
> So back of the napkin, that's about, 46GW of renewables , that's 46,000MW OMG.



*UK's installed wind power capacity hits 20 GW.*
If a small country like the UK can add that much via wind alone then we won't have trouble getting there with wind and solar.
You need to stop thinking like a troglodyte.
That's aside from more bad maths.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> *UK's installed wind power capacity hits 20 GW.*
> If a small country like the UK can add that much via wind alone then we won't have trouble getting there with wind and solar.
> You need to stop thinking like a troglodyte.
> That's aside from more bad maths.



Yep, i'll head back into the cave and watch with interest, it will certainly will be an interesting period in Australian history.

One closing comment rederob:#2900
My quote:
The only viable renewable of size ATM is windfarms, the molten salt is still fairly untested technology.
Your answer
That is *not *true. China had a *1 GW PV array *back in 2016 and larger ones have been built since especially in India. Solar concentrators date back to first commercial installation in 1984
and the technology has only improved since.
Now your quoting wind to support your argument.


----------



## basilio

The *possibility* of Australia making giant strides with offshore wind farms is there
The *probability *such a program will be implemented ? Only if we are dead set serious. But it could be done.

I had another thought for a partial solution. (I don't see an single silver bullet here).  Across all the big cities are industrial parks , shopping centre, schools with thousands of acres of flat roof space and capable of being oriented in any direction. They all use power as well.

Why not encourage and enable these roofs to have solar panels and incorporate a good sized battery bank between a certain number to enable storage capacity as well ? With a guaranteed number of customers costs could very quickly become more competitive. It would certainly require some policy work but from my understanding the financial figures are very favorable for the tenants.

Minimal  energy transport losses. Scaleable. Decent enough individual projects to get economies of scale. Great employment opportunity. Potential good investment opportunity. Great way to stimulate local solar and battery industries. Great opportunity to develop a process that can be exported as well.
https://www.australianvanadium.com.au/vanadium-batteries/


----------



## basilio

Not surprisingly the concept and execution of an integrated energy creation and storage system for an industrial plant is already in place. This one in Germany uses the Vanadium Reflux battery as it's storage unit.
https://www.vsunenergy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Bielefeld-Brochure.pdf


----------



## basilio

For some background on the reliability of current as well as proposed new coal fired power plants.

*Coal units cut out as report warns ‘HELE’ plants “just as unreliable”*
https://reneweconomy.com.au/coal-units-cut-out-as-report-warns-hele-plants-just-as-unreliable-23879/


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Smurf, this is not additional.




Yep, Snowy 2.0 is indeed additional peak capacity via a completely new pumped storage scheme (well, the reservoirs are existing but everything else is new). Include with it is additional transmission to NSW and to a lesser extent to Vic.

It's not really an overall addition once you count closure of Liddell and Torrens Island A that's true but I've included those in the list.



> And the near certainty of over a million EVs need charging by 2025 isn't accounted for.




Hopefully they're not mostly going to be charged during the peaks. If they are, well then we're going to be in a world of pain in oh so many ways.

The problem is that with the current way the industry works there's nobody really planning for EV's in an effective manner. Nobody working out exactly how consumers will really charge them in the real world and whether some intervention, of whatever sort, is required there or not. And even if there was, well there's nobody to really make that happen anyway.

By the time someone does realise then we'll have a million of them and a mad panic to implement something.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> The *possibility* of Australia making giant strides with offshore wind farms is there
> The *probability *such a program will be implemented ? Only if we are dead set serious. But it could be done.
> 
> I had another thought for a partial solution. (I don't see an single silver bullet here).  Across all the big cities are industrial parks , shopping centre, schools with thousands of acres of flat roof space and capable of being oriented in any direction. They all use power as well.
> 
> Why not encourage and enable these roofs to have solar panels and incorporate a good sized battery bank between a certain number to enable storage capacity as well ? With a guaranteed number of customers costs could very quickly become more competitive. It would certainly require some policy work but from my understanding the financial figures are very favorable for the tenants.
> 
> Minimal  energy transport losses. Scaleable. Decent enough individual projects to get economies of scale. Great employment opportunity. Potential good investment opportunity. Great way to stimulate local solar and battery industries. Great opportunity to develop a process that can be exported as well.
> https://www.australianvanadium.com.au/vanadium-batteries/



Interesting stuff Bas, big changes coming.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Yep, i'll head back into the cave and watch with interest



Do I get a look in the cave? 

We'll get there in the Trabant from another thread. 

Back on topic, this may sound eerily familiar..... 

Tuesday 29 January 2019
Location = Victoria
Forecast generation available within the state =  6640 MW
Forecast maximum load = 7761 MW
Needed from SA, Tas, NSW = 1121 MW which is doable so long as nothing goes wrong but there's stuff all to spare.

Wednesday 30 January 2019
Location = Victoria
Forecast generation available within the state = 7172 MW
Forecast maximum load = 8459 MW
Needed from SA, Tas, NSW = 1287 MW which is pretty much the limit and there's no margin for even the slightest error in the forecasts or operational difficulties on the day.

Further to the above:

Load exceeds within state supply in NSW on 30 Jan so the ability to transfer NSW > Vic relies on supply from Qld > NSW and nothing failing in NSW itself.

Tasmania has a major problem with fires at present being fought by local professional firefighters + volunteers + crews from Vic, SA, NSW and NZ. Of particular relevance is multiple transmission lines affected by heavy smoke, which itself can cause lines to trip, and fire in very close proximity to those lines. It's not just a small fire and one or two lines, it's a widespread issue with a lot of stuff affected with the big difficulty being the uncertainty as to exactly what will trip and when. At the moment there's nothing to prevent maximum supply Tas to Vic but there's a definite risk there.


----------



## Humid

If they focus immigration from 3rd world countries at least they would be used to the infrastructure


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf when you consider it is still the holiday period, it could easily get worse next month. Is there any major plant due back


----------



## noirua

It does seem that there will be an increasing number of variations for producing energy.  The lesser the need for storage by volume the better. The biggest eventual winner for Australia will be harnessing heat and sun and make the country expand rapidly at some point.
 Areas of Australia are wasted scrub land. Maybe the population of Australia by 2300 will expand to 300 million people.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Yep, Snowy 2.0 is indeed additional peak capacity via a completely new pumped storage scheme (well, the reservoirs are existing but everything else is new). Include with it is additional transmission to NSW and to a lesser extent to Vic.



Do you and SP take lessons from each other?
Snowy 2.0 will *remove energy *from the grid to pump water to its reservoirs so that it can supply the market as AEMO chooses.
As a *battery *Snowy 2.0 is very different from those attached to wind or solar because these source their energy directly from the wind/sun rather than *steal *from the grid.


Smurf1976 said:


> The problem is that with the current way the industry works there's nobody really planning for EV's in an effective manner.



The maths is not difficult.
The amount of energy required for our vehicle fleet simply needs to be calculated, as this is what will progressively feed from the grid to charge batteries as EV ownership increases.
The point is that the net addition is not built into existing calculations that I am aware so more load shedding will occur as a result.


sptrawler said:


> Now your quoting wind to support your argument.



That's a different argument I responded to, which I will address from your next quote.
So here's what solar PV arrays could do:
20 x 1 GW PV arrays = 20GW - which matches the UK number on wind capacity. 
Or how about 2 x 1 GW PV arrays = 2GW - so we can get over load shedding next summer?




sptrawler said:


> It will be interesting, when you consider that you need to install double the capacity of renewables, to cover on demand fossil fueled generation.
> So back of the napkin, that's about, 46GW of renewables , that's 46,000MW OMG.



First, I have never seen anywhere that renewables need to rate at twice the capacity of fossil fuels in the energy mix.  Do you have a reference? 
As I see it, you can only arrive at that number if you dodgy the maths.
Wind and solar plus storage potentially allow a lesser total capacity than the former fossil fuel equivalents.  The simple reason is that excessive storage capacity could be available to smooth the peaks.  Storage capacity is not yet cost effective, but the cost curve is continually reducing so it may well be a viable option in the next decade.


----------



## SirRumpole

"Blown fuses, not lack of supply, to blame for Adelaide blackouts, SA Power Networks says"

My mind goes back to Smurf's warnings about how power supplies will fail in excess heat.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-25/sa-blackouts-related-to-heat-not-network-sapn-says/10748884


----------



## basilio

rederob said:


> Snowy 2.0 will *remove energy *from the grid to pump water to its reservoirs so that it can supply the market as AEMO chooses.




My understanding of the process is that current surplus grid energy would be used to pump the water. That would be off peak power from coal power stations or excess wind/solar power generation. 

Smurf  acknowledged  this as well in his explanation

_Hopefully they're (new pumped hydro units)  not mostly going to be charged during the peaks. If they are, well then we're going to be in a world of pain in oh so many ways._

Any other knowledge ?


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> First, I have never seen anywhere that renewables need to rate at twice the capacity of fossil fuels in the energy mix.  Do you have a reference?
> As I see it, you can only arrive at that number if you dodgy the maths.
> Wind and solar plus storage potentially allow a lesser total capacity than the former fossil fuel equivalents.  The simple reason is that excessive storage capacity could be available to smooth the peaks.  Storage capacity is not yet cost effective, but the cost curve is continually reducing so it may well be a viable option in the next decade.



Alan Finke was being interviewed, and he said due to the variable nature and intermittent output of renewable energy, as opposed to the 24/7 nature of always available fossil fuel plant.
Twice as much renewable capacity will be required and three times the capacity in storage, I will try and locate the interview.
When he said it I thought that made sense, if you only have output during the day and when the wind is blowing, you would need a lot more capacity, one to service your current load and two to fill up your storage medium.
You will probably disagree with the logic, but it makes sense to me.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> When he said it I thought that made sense, if you only have output during the day and when the wind is blowing, you would need a lot more capacity, one to service your current load and two to fill up your storage medium.
> You will probably disagree with the logic, but it makes sense to me.



I will instead show what is possible:
For simplicity lets say an isolated coastal town needs a maximum of 10000Kw to meet demand on the hottest day of a year.
Assume a studied mix of wind and solar (ie accounting for trends in prevailing winds and insolation), plus excessive storage.
Make the rated capacity of wind and solar 1.2 times peak = 12000Kw
Make battery storage cater for 2 days peak = 20000kw
Leading into peak the excess capacity completely fills the batteries.
Indeed, at most times during the year the batteries would only be marginally drawn down (depending on mix of wind & solar).
This coastal town could survive 2 days on batteries alone, yet capacity is only 20% higher than required to satisfy peak demand.
While this is for illustrative purposes only, you recalled Finkel saying 3 times storage would be needed.  Maybe, but imho even 2 times seems excessive as during the hottest periods of the year insolation peaks, so even 3 days completely windless is possible in a doddle.



basilio said:


> My understanding of the process is that current surplus grid energy would be used to pump the water. That would be off peak power from coal power stations or excess wind/solar power generation.



Correct Bas.
That *capacity *is being removed from the *grid *and being *stored *for later.  In other words it is capacity which has already been counted.
It therefore cannot be counted as a net addition, and that's what Smurf did.
Moreover, Smurf snuck in *peaking capacity*, and that's a whole new ball game.


----------



## basilio

rederob said:


> Correct Bas.
> That *capacity *is being removed from the *grid *and being *stored *for later. In other words it is capacity which has already been counted.
> It therefore cannot be counted as a net addition, and that's what Smurf did.
> Moreover, Smurf snuck in *peaking capacity*, and that's a whole new ball game.




There is confusion here. Up until now it has been recognised that the off peak capacity of our power supply are often  underutilised and in fact wasted. Part of the solutions to managing our power supply is finding ways to smooth energy usage particularly if baseload power supply from coal fired stations cannot be readily turned off. In fact of course the national energy system as it stands is a process of sharing power around the country to use the swings and roundabouts approach.

Creating a giant new hydro battery to use this supply is part of the picture of dealing with increased demand. Yes it is not true new capacity in the sense that it is completely additional supply. But it should enable load shifts of coal and wind power and excess solar to increase the capacity to deal with higher peak demands.

Potential problems ? Certainly. As Smurf pointed out you better have full dams in peak period. And when electric cars come on line the demand for off peak power will increase. Lot's of changes have to be made


----------



## basilio

This article shows what a total renewable energy Australia would look like. The full paper goes into the nitty gritty.
It's doable, practical and encouraging.  Certainly not cheap but the final result will be a cleaner,  more reliable, more flexible and cheaper energy system.

Of course it is largely new stuff. If we were only considering practices and technology from 30-40-50 years ago little would make sense.

* What would Australia look like powered by 100% renewable energy? *
Nicky Ison
Our electricity system of the future could be powered by sun, wind and waves


.....There are now at least nine studies conducted during the decade that have analysed how Australia can move from an electricity system based on polluting coal and gas to one powered by the sun, wind and waves.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) – the body tasked with making sure we have energy when we need it – found there were “no fundamental limits to 100% renewables”, and that the current standards of the system’s security and reliability would be maintained.

These studies show different pathways towards 100% renewable energy, but what they all agree on is that it can be achieved.

So how would it work? If we get our policies and regulation right, the electricity system of the future could look something like this:
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...lia-look-like-powered-by-100-renewable-energy


----------



## basilio

The full story of Repower Australia is here. An excellent short story introduction with much detail in the rest of the report. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. 
http://cpagency.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Repower-Australia-HPP-version-2-FULL.pdf


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I will instead show what is possible:
> For simplicity lets say an isolated coastal town needs a maximum of 10000Kw to meet demand on the hottest day of a year.
> Assume a studied mix of wind and solar (ie accounting for trends in prevailing winds and insolation), plus excessive storage.
> Make the rated capacity of wind and solar 1.2 times peak = 12000Kw
> Make battery storage cater for 2 days peak = 20000kw
> Leading into peak the excess capacity completely fills the batteries.
> Indeed, at most times during the year the batteries would only be marginally drawn down (depending on mix of wind & solar).
> This coastal town could survive 2 days on batteries alone, yet capacity is only 20% higher than required to satisfy peak demand.
> While this is for illustrative purposes only, you recalled Finkel saying 3 times storage would be needed.  Maybe, but imho even 2 times seems excessive as during the hottest periods of the year insolation peaks, so even 3 days completely windless is possible in a doddle.
> .




Going from my personal experience in Perth, I have a 6.4KW solar system installed capacity.
On a bright sunny day, it can generate 5KW, due to inherent loses in PV panels and inverter efficiency.
On an overcast day it puts out about 2KW.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> This article shows what a total renewable energy Australia would look like. The full paper goes into the nitty gritty.
> It's doable, practical and encouraging.  Certainly not cheap but the final result will be a cleaner,  more reliable, more flexible and cheaper energy system.
> 
> Of course it is largely new stuff. If we were only considering practices and technology from 30-40-50 years ago little would make sense.
> 
> * What would Australia look like powered by 100% renewable energy? *
> Nicky Ison
> Our electricity system of the future could be powered by sun, wind and waves
> 
> 
> .....There are now at least nine studies conducted during the decade that have analysed how Australia can move from an electricity system based on polluting coal and gas to one powered by the sun, wind and waves.
> 
> The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) – the body tasked with making sure we have energy when we need it – found there were “no fundamental limits to 100% renewables”, and that the current standards of the system’s security and reliability would be maintained.
> 
> These studies show different pathways towards 100% renewable energy, but what they all agree on is that it can be achieved.
> 
> So how would it work? If we get our policies and regulation right, the electricity system of the future could look something like this:
> https://www.theguardian.com/comment...lia-look-like-powered-by-100-renewable-energy




Good article Bas, 70% wind, I thought it would be the obvious choice for the bulk of the generation, it still provides inertia just requires droop characteristics fine tuning.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> That *capacity *is being removed from the *grid *and being *stored *for later.  In other words it is capacity which has already been counted.
> It therefore cannot be counted as a net addition, and that's what Smurf did.
> Moreover, Smurf snuck in *peaking capacity*, and that's a whole new ball game.



You are confusing _energy_ and _power_. 

Power = rate at which work is done. Analogy = speed of travel eg 100 km/h but this says nothing at all about the distance, only the speed.

Energy = quantity of work done. The area under the curve. Analogy = distance traveled eg 200 km but this says nothing about the speed, only the distance.

Installed capacity = the power rating of the generator(s) in question either at an individual level or across an entire system. That is, the maximum _power_ output of the machines but this says nothing at all about how much _energy_ is actually involved, it only tells you the maximum power of the machine. For example a backup generator that rarely runs or an identical one that runs 24/7 have the exact same installed capacity but vastly different energy outputs.

In the context of electricity grids another term is relevant, that being "firm capacity" or alternatively "dispatchable power". In simple terms that's the amount you can reliably depend on being available once you account for variability in the output of intermittent sources (eg wind, solar) and outages of other generating plant (coal, hydro, gas) due to maintenance or breakdown. This cannot be calculated accurately for an individual generator, since the answer will always be zero, and necessarily needs to take into account the entire system or at least all wind farms or all solar etc.

Putting this into practical example using real generating plant which actually exists or is being built:

In 2020-21 when current projects are completed Victoria's wind farms (based on AEMO data which is publicly available):

Installed capacity = 3085 MW

Firm capacity = 249.9 MW based on AEMO's calculations regarding wind speed variability etc.

Energy output =  Not assessed by AEMO but a reasonable estimate would be around 9500 gigawatt hours or, for simplicity, an average of 1080 MW.

All three of those figures are relevant in practice but the one that matters most in terms of avoiding blackouts is the 249.9 MW, that being the firm capacity or in simple terms what we can count on. Anything above that may or may not be available at any given time. The energy output is relevant in terms of overall contribution and the operation of storage schemes whilst the peak output is of relevance primarily to transmission, system control and system strength.

For another example, Loy Yang B power station in Victoria (coal).

Installed capacity (hot weather rating) = 980 MW. Cold weather rating and station peak output is 1070 MW.

Firm capacity = you wouldn't assess it individually but if you did then the answer is literally zero as is the case with many others. In practice it counts for around 800 - 850 MW a part of a large integrated system.

Energy output = depends on how much you operate it but the answer is, over the long term, the limit is around 7500 gigawatt hours or for simplicity an average of about 855 MW.

For another example, Tumut 3, that's a conventional hydro + pumped storage scheme in NSW.

Installed capacity = 1800 MW.

Energy output = 582 gigawatt hours or for simplicity an average of 66 MW if operated solely as a conventional hydro scheme without pumping.

Operation as pumped storage is a net consumer of energy, but enables increased running hours of the 1800 MW of capacity. Do enough pumping and you could get the net energy down to zero or even negative but it is still a 1800 MW capacity power station and still contributes 1800 MW supply to the grid at peak times with all machines in service. Note that the pumping capacity at Tumut 3 is 600 MW not 1800 MW so it's a fairly slow process.

Back to Snowy 2.0

Building a 2000 MW power station most certainly does add generating capacity so long as it works and the storage isn't empty. It doesn't add energy*, it's a net consumer of that, but that's not a problem assuming more wind and solar will be built + there's at least some periods when thermal plant operates below capacity. It adds generating capacity, lack of which is the immediate problem. 

*In a strict physics sense a coal or gas power station also adds no energy, it simply turns 20 - 55% of the energy in fuel into electricity and the rest into heat, but that's being a bit pedantic. For simplicity I'll take it that it adds _electrical_ enery to the system since it does.


----------



## basilio

Thanks for that Smurf. We needed that clarification. 
I'm interested/fascinated/concerned about the analysis of the Victorian wind farms.  You suggest that the nominal capacity of 3085 MW translates into a general energy output of 1080MW and  a firm capacity of 250MW. 
When the farms are constructed what figure is used to describe their output ?


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Going from my personal experience in Perth, I have a 6.4KW solar system installed capacity.
> On a bright sunny day, it can generate 5KW, due to inherent loses in PV panels and inverter efficiency.
> On an overcast day it puts out about 2KW.




What’s your feed in tariff and your investment projections on that system
I noticed on another thread your not getting solar hw but opting for electric?


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> What’s your feed in tariff and your investment projections on that system
> I noticed on another thread your not getting solar hw but opting for electric?



I had a 1.5KW system, with a feed in tarrif of 47cents, I removed and replaced it with a 5Kw system F.I.T 7cents.
The 47cent tarrif was finishing toward the end of this year, my 10 years would be up.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> I'm interested/fascinated/concerned about the analysis of the Victorian wind farms.  You suggest that the nominal capacity of 3085 MW translates into a general energy output of 1080MW and  a firm capacity of 250MW.
> When the farms are constructed what figure is used to describe their output ?




Most companies would state the installed capacity in anything said to the public since that's the most certain factually correct number whereas everything else depends on the wind and is thus variable. It's also the biggest number so makes the project sound the most impressive and so on.

All their internal financials and sales contracts (eg it's owned by xyz who is selling the output to Energy Australia under a 25 year contract etc) will be based on the forecast annual output generally with a clause that says it's an estimate in good faith done using proper modelling but that payment will be based on actual output in practice.

Those looking at the lower figure will only be those either operating other sorts of generating plant (coal, hydro, gas, batteries, whatever), AEMO or anyone else pondering the question of what to do when the wind speeds are well down on average.

A big difficulty in all of this is that the average person has no grasp of the different sets of numbers since that situation doesn't apply to most things in life. $1000 or 50 litres of petrol are things that people easily understand since there's only one figure to deal with.

In contrast with electricity if someone's told that there was a 500 MW shortfall of supply and that a 500 MW wind farm is being built then it's rather difficult to explain why that's not a direct fix for the problem but that it could still be a good idea as such. That there's multiple sets of numbers for the same thing and all of them are "right" in a different context leaves most people bewildered and fair enough.

That there's so much politics surrounding it all adds to that problem since any attempt to explain tends to be met with an assumption that some agenda is being pushed. Tell them that 3085 MW of wind only gives a firm output of about 250 MW and they assume you're pushing coal. In reality AEMO is neutral on that and I'm just quoting their figures but the extent of politics in it all does obscure the message I think.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> You are confusing _energy_ and _power_.
> 
> Back to Snowy 2.0
> 
> Building a 2000 MW power station most certainly does add generating capacity so long as it works and the storage isn't empty. It doesn't add energy*, it's a net consumer of that, but that's not a problem assuming more wind and solar will be built + there's at least some periods when thermal plant operates below capacity. It adds generating capacity, lack of which is the immediate problem.
> 
> *In a strict physics sense a coal or gas power station also adds no energy, it simply turns 20 - 55% of the energy in fuel into electricity and the rest into heat, but that's being a bit pedantic. For simplicity I'll take it that it adds _electrical_ enery to the system since it does.



I never confused anything, but thanks for the explanations.
With Snowy 2.0 your explanations are deceptive.  Capacity and energy are inextricably linked, even by your own definition.  To avoid confusion I will just use *electricity*.
You cannot generate electricity from Snowy 2.0 unless you keep using electricity from the grid to replenish Tantangara dam. Fortunately Snowy 2.0 will be able to dip into (that is *remove *some of the) *888MW of new capacity* that it has tendered out to assist in that.  
The simple bottom line here is that *Snowy 2.0 in net terms reduces the amount of electricity available*.
The advantage of Snowy 2.0 is that it acts as a gigantic battery.
The nature of Snowy 2.0's battery effect is very different from an actual battery attached to a wind turbine.  No electricity is used by a wind turbine to generate the stored electricity in its batteries.  Accordingly, *wind turbines are electricity accretive*.


----------



## sptrawler

I think what you are explaining smurf, is what some people don't seem to grasp, in their debated position.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I think what you are explaining smurf, is what some people don't seem to grasp, in their debated position.



Do you know how to construct an argument?
If you did, and given your experience in the electricity market, it should have been dead easy to show that your referenced remarks from Finkel stood up.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> You cannot generate electricity from Snowy 2.0 unless you keep using electricity from the grid to replenish Tantangara dam.




Surely the dam could be filled by rainfall ? That's then free energy isn't it ?


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> Surely the dam could be filled by rainfall ? That's then free energy isn't it ?




I don't believe so.  I would guess it doesn't have a catchment area actually feeding it. It is more of a storage dam. 
If anything evaporation would diminish it's capacities.


----------



## basilio

So the take away from these conversations is that constructing storage capacity for wind and solar power is essential and that nominal energy capacities should be treated with care.


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> I don't believe so.  I would guess it doesn't have a catchment area actually feeding it. It is more of a storage dam.
> If anything evaporation would diminish it's capacities.




Pretty poor design if that's the case.

Why wouldn't you take advantage of natural inflow ?


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> I think what you are explaining smurf, is what some people don't seem to grasp, in their debated position.



Actually smurf you should think about lecturing, you have a great manner, some have the knowledge others have the manner you IMO have both.


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> Pretty poor design if that's the case.
> 
> Why wouldn't you take advantage of natural inflow ?




I suspect the placement of this dam would be somewhere far uphill of a current dam. It would necessarily be downstream of good river catchment.

I think...


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Do you know how to construct an argument?
> If you did, and given your experience in the electricity market, it should have been dead easy to show that your referenced remarks from Finkel stood up.



What has become obvious is ,you have a great understanding of the politics of the grid and very little knowledge of mechanics and dynamics of it.
IMO ,it is a waste my time, debating it with you any further.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> What has become obvious is ,you have a great understanding of the politics of the grid and very little knowledge of mechanics and dynamics of it.
> IMO ,it is a waste my time, debating it with you any further.



You offer nothing to debate, so you have wasted a lot of effort on nothing particularly important.
And I do not go on pretending that a net loss of electricity can somehow add to the grid.
There's lots of very relevant stuff that you could link to or work off.  For example, this explains AGL's rationale for Liddell's closure.  It includes a number of themes I have covered and tends to dispel the notional importance of baseload to a generator.
Here's another option.  In a fashion it's a small scale variant of Snowy 2.0 but, I suspect, far more efficient in that spinning power is not wasted.  Instead, it has borrowed from Hornsdale's Tesla battery approach.  
But the elephant in the room is a price on carbon.
Not many posting here want to see it.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> I suspect the placement of this dam would be somewhere far uphill of a current dam. It would necessarily be downstream of good river catchment.
> 
> I think...



That would have a lot to do with it I think bas, the higher the head of water, the smaller the size of the turbine for a given output. Smurf will be able to explain it, he has had a lot to do with hydro.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> You offer nothing to debate, so you have wasted a lot of effort on nothing particularly important.
> And I do not go on pretending that a net loss of electricity can somehow add to the grid.
> There's lots of very relevant stuff that you could link to or work off.  For example, this explains AGL's rationale for Liddell's closure.  It includes a number of themes I have covered and tends to dispel the notional importance of baseload to a generator.
> Here's another option.  In a fashion it's a small scale variant of Snowy 2.0 but, I suspect, far more efficient in that spinning power is not wasted.  Instead, it has borrowed from Hornsdale's Tesla battery approach.
> But the elephant in the room is a price on carbon.
> Not many posting here want to see it.



I've wasted very little effort, I'm time poor, so i look at the forum when I have a bit of spare time. I answer what I think i can with my current knowledge and belief's and ask questions, get opinions just a general chat.
You asked a few posts back, can't I construct an argument, I don't want an argument. I just want to have a chat share a few opinions.
Take today, I'm in sunny Mandurah, holiday weekend with my lovely wife, the youngest daughter brought down the grandkids, life's great.
Why would I be sitting on the computer constructing an argument, about the Eastern States Power Grid, firstly I'm in W.A. secondly I really don't give a $hit, thirdly I retired a few years ago at 55 and really am over arguing.
If someone wants to discuss it, fine i will respond, if someone is looking for an argument, I really can't be bothered.


----------



## Smurf1976

A simple description of Snowy 2.0

Uses two existing reservoirs which were built as part of the existing Snowy Hydro scheme. That is Talbingo Dam as the lower storage (elevation 546m ASL) and Tantangara Dam as the upper storage (elevation 1222m ASL).

There's no need to fill the reservoirs - they're already there right now.

Electrical specifications are a generating capacity of 2000 MW with energy storage of 350 GWh. So that's enough to operate at constant full load for 175 hours (or half load for 350 hours etc).

In operation it's essentially a battery. Take electricity from the grid (generated from solar, wind, coal, gas or anything else) when there's a surplus available and use that to run the pumps transferring water from Talbingo to Tantangara. Then when there's a need to operate the power station run the water back down the other way by gravity.

There's no magic here and it's all absolutely proven technology with many comparable schemes in operation worldwide. In Australia we have Tumut 3 (1800 MW generating / 600 MW pumping, Snowy Hydro), Wivenhoe (500 MW, Qld government) and Shoalhaven (240 MW, Origin Energy).

We also have other proposals in Australia including a 300 MW scheme on the edge of suburban Adelaide with storage for about 4.5 hours (Tilt Renewables), the 250 MW Kidston project in Qld with storage for 8 hours (Genex Power), an additional 160 - 240 MW capacity at Shoalhaven (Origin Energy) and an assortment of projects totaling 5000 MW, of which the intention is to build approximately half, in Tasmania collectively known as "Battery of the Nation" (Hydro Tasmania). For the record with the exception of Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tas which are government owned, the rest are listed companies. AGL and Energy Australia have also publicly disclosed their interest in building similar schemes, likely to be on a smaller scale comparable to the other privately owned ones.

So do we have surplus power with which to pump the water?

The short answer is yes. In the short term that would be unused capacity from existing coal or gas plants but in the longer term it will be renewables.

If we look at Victoria during the past week for example then total demand, supplied or not supplied, has ranged from a bit under 4000 MW to a bit over 10,000 MW. Generation from solar, including small scale on houses, has ranged from literally 0 up to about 1200 MW and wind has had approximately the same range during the past week.

Or to be somewhat more blunt, there was a pretty decent surplus in Victoria just a few hours before the lights went out and there was once again a surplus that night after all the drama.

Now consider that SA already has periods when wind + solar exceeds total consumption. Consider also that Victoria is about to triple its wind generating capacity. NSW and Vic between them are about to add another 1500 MW of large scale solar farms. Qld is adding about 500 MW more wind and also increasing large scale solar. And that's just the firmly committed projects 100% certain to be built in the next two years. Plus there is small scale solar being installed nationally by homeowners and others.

So on the energy side we have an increasing supply from renewables and there's nothing to say we have to stop building 2 years from now so those figures can be pushed higher, the only obstacle there is government policy.

The harsh reality however is that with the peak demand late in the afternoon solar is of limited (most states) or close to zero (SA) effectiveness at supplying it directly unless by pure chance the peak happens to come earlier in the day (as it did on Friday in Victoria but that isn't usually the case). Likewise the wind also frequently dies late in the afternoon. Meanwhile we have periods, for example very commonly on weekends during daytime, when existing hydro and gas plant is shut down, coal is operating well below capacity and there's plenty of wind and sun. That's before we build all the new wind and solar farms....

That's not to say we could never be lacking in energy. If we stop building wind and solar and let the coal plants fall in a heap, or if we run out of coal or gas to run them with, then absolutely we could be seriously short on energy and it must be said that the gas supply situation is indeed problematic.

That's sort of a different issue though and applies regardless of whether or not we build Snowy 2.0 given that any realistic alternative also requires that we obtain energy from wind, solar, coal or gas. Nobody's seriously proposing nuclear or geothermal at this point, it's really just a question about the relative shares of coal, gas, wind and solar and the technology used in conjunction with them.

What about emissions?

Short term it's really no benefit. More efficient running of fossil fuel plant offset by pumping losses. Longer term though it avoids investing in new fossil fuel plant with a long lifespan and is very long lived infrastructure of use in a predominantly or totally renewable system. It could in that sense thus be considered an investment that pays dividends down the track but not from day one (unless of course we build enough wind and solar by 2024 which is possible).

Snowy 2.0 is not a silver bullet however. It provides 2000 MW of firm generating capacity assuming there's energy to pump the water with at other times. So it does rely on the assumption that we keep running existing coal and gas until we've built more wind and solar and that we actually do build more wind and solar.

It is also only 2000 MW. That's a lot but consider that NSW peak demand is about 14,500 MW and Victoria's is about 10,500 MW and it's clear that it's ultimately not enough. It's the first big step but it won't be the only one we need to take, not by any means.

In a practical operational sense it's all fairly even really in that the peak generating capacity of Snowy 2.0 is roughly equal to that being closed elsewhere (coal and gas). So it stops the problem getting worse more than fixing it as such. Got to start somewhere though.

What are the alternatives? Realistically considering time, politics and so on:

*Other pumped storage schemes of which Battery of the Nation (Hydro Tas) is the only large scale advanced proposal.

*Coal

*Gas but only if someone can work out a sufficient source of gas which is problematic.

*Diesel or other petroleum fuels if someone's keen to burn money.

Anything else either doesn't have major energy storage potential at an economic price (batteries are economic for a few hours but not a week although there's certainly a role for them), would in practice take far too long to be up and running (nuclear) or will give us a very hit and miss power supply (more wind and solar without storage).

For the record I have no association with Snowy Hydro unless you count being a taxpayer.


----------



## SirRumpole

Just to clarify Smurf, if there was a water inflow into Tantangara from natural runoff in excess of releases needed to generate power (+ environmental and other releases) there would be no need to pump water back from Talbingo would there, so a saving could be made ? Or is it the case that water gets pumped anyway to suck up excess power from the coal generators ?


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> First, I have never seen anywhere that renewables need to rate at twice the capacity of fossil fuels in the energy mix.  Do you have a reference?
> As I see it, you can only arrive at that number if you dodgy the maths.
> Wind and solar plus storage potentially allow a lesser total capacity than the former fossil fuel equivalents.  The simple reason is that excessive storage capacity could be available to smooth the peaks.  Storage capacity is not yet cost effective, but the cost curve is continually reducing so it may well be a viable option in the next decade.




http://energy.anu.edu.au/files/renewable electricity in Australia.pdf

A summary of the contents below:
_In the absence of long-range planning by authorities for a high-renewable grid, the best studies have come from universities.35 In February 2017, the ANU published a clear vision for our future grid.36 Its researchers found the most economic combination for a fully-renewable grid comprises: • wind farms (45,000 MW) • solar farms (23,000 MW) • rooftop solar (17,000 MW) • existing hydroelectric and biomass generators (10,800 MW)37 • pumped hydro energy storage  • extra transmission lines. 
Total generation capacity is 93,300 MW, nearly double our grid’s generation capacity of 48,000 MW38 in 2017. This is due to “over-building” wind and solar to cater for their intermittent nature. Generators are spread widely to ensure that some of them are always generating well regardless of weather conditions, as the whole continent is never calm and cloudy simultaneously. 

To transport electricity around the NEM, the ANU proposes a new transmission “backbone”, roughly following the Great Dividing Range and onward into South Australia and Tassie. The ANU’s study only considered the National Electricity Market, so the separate grids in WA and NT were excluded. 

Energy storage requirements are relatively modest – enough to supply average grid demand for 30 hours without any generation. Off-grid households know this concept as “days of autonomy”. Such families typically have batteries large enough to supply 3 to 5 days of average electricity demand with no generation. An off-grid house requires a relatively large amount of storage because it can harvest solar and wind energy from only a single location, so it’s vulnerable to localised stretches of cloudy, calm weather. 

Detailed simulations determined that this combination of generation and energy storage keeps the grid reliable even under rare weather conditions. This includes supplying heavy industry such as smelters. Existing hydroelectric power stations (e.g. the Snowy hydro scheme) and existing biomass generation (e.g. burning sugar cane residue) are used when the weather is particularly unfavourable. 

 34 Independent Review into the Future Security of the National Electricity Market, June 2017, Alan Finkel. Recommendations 5.1 and 5.2. http://www.environment.gov.au/syste...es/electricity-market-review-final-report.pdf 35 For a list of previous studies, refer to ATA’s paper “100% renewable electricity grid – feasible?” 36 “100% renewable electricity in Australia”, Andrew Blakers, Bin Lu and Matthew Stocks, Australian National University. http://energy.anu.edu.au/files/100% renewable electricity in Australia.pdf 37 AEMO generator registra_tion list, accessed 18/10/17, type “generato

*Now for how long it will take according to Alan Finkel:*
https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/scien...australias-new-chief-scientist-dr-alan-finkel

From the transcript:

*So you think we can get there?*
We can, but it's a very, very long term effort. The current energy industry is massive, most people don't appreciate the enormous scale – turning it around is more difficult than turning around the proverbial supertanker. We can get there, but there's going to be a 20-30 year time-frame to get where you, and I, and others want to be.

But my most important point about the 30-year time frame is that the slower we start, the longer it will take. We have started, but it needs to be done even more effectively. To do that, we need to develop more cost-effective, highly efficient technology and develop storage that goes with solar and wind.


----------



## Smurf1976

Current operation is that Tantangara is a natural catchment with the lake formed by a dam. Water from this is diverted via a tunnel to Lake Eucumbene, the largest storage in the Snowy scheme at 1200m ASL so only slightly lower elevation than Tantangara.

Water then flows Lake Eucumbene > Tumut 1 power station > Tumut 2 power station > Talbingo Reservoir > Tumut 3 power station > Jounama pond > Jounama power station (small) > Blowering Reservoir > Blowering power station into the river.

Water also separately flows from Lake Eucumbene via Murray 1 power station > Murray 2 power station > Khancoban Pondage > Murray River. Allocation of how much water from Lake Eucumbene goes via this route and how much goes via the Tumut stations is an arbitrary one not an actual hydraulic or electrical constraint (within reason) and comes down to where the water ends up since they're discharging into different rivers.

Building Snowy 2.0 thus effectively "short circuits" the existing route from Tantangara via Lake Eucumbene and Tumut 1 & 2 power stations into Talbingo Reservoir. Note that this doesn't prevent simultaneous operation of Tumut 1 & 2, it just provides an alternative pathway for the water to the same end point at Talbingo.

Now, being creative, it should be noted that whilst pumping can only occur via via the new station, generation can occur via either route or both. That is, some of the water that currently goes via Tumut 1 & 2 could instead be sent as net flow via the new station. Or some of the water pumped from Talbingo could be then sent into Lake Eucumbene and via Tumut 1 and 2 to come back down.

Without wishing to blind anyone with maths or science, that means there's an option to modify the operation of Tumut 1 & 2 in addition to the new scheme. They could be run less often, thus reducing the amount of pumping with water sent directly via the new station, or the amount of pumping could be increased such that the new station pumps more water than it discharges, the rest coming back down via Tumut 1 & 2.

How to operate in practice will depend on external factors. That is the supply and demand balance for electricity from other sources and would likely change over time as the generation mix changes.

There would also be seasonal variations in operation. The likely scenario there is that pumping would exceed generation in Spring and Autumn with the reverse in Summer and especially Winter. That aspect, the large storage capacity and potential for seasonal variation, is where a scheme like this leaves batteries for dead.

Capacities of the relevant power stations:
Tumut 1 = 330 MW
Tumut 2 = 287 MW
Tumut 3 = 1800 MW generating / 600 MW pumping
Jounama = 14 MW
Blowering = 80 MW
New station Snowy 2.0 = 2000 MW

In practice Blowering is used primarily to re-regulate water flow into the river and as such does not normally operate at full capacity since the primary focus is water flow rather than electricity. The others operate independently of that consideration due to their water ending up in Blowering Reservoir.

Other power stations in the scheme not directly relevant to the Snowy 2.0 proposal:

Guthega = 60 MW
Murray 1 = 950 MW
Murray 2 = 550 MW
Jindabyne = 1 MW (the flow from which is environmental release out of the scheme)

Note that Murray 1 & 2 are electrically in Victoria whilst the rest are in NSW. Electrical boundaries don't strictly follow state actual boundaries.

For reference Tumut 1 & 2 are located underground but the rest are above ground (on the ground).


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> You asked a few posts back, can't I construct an argument, I don't want an argument. I just want to have a chat share a few opinions.
> Take today, I'm in sunny Mandurah, holiday weekend with my lovely wife, the youngest daughter brought down the grandkids, life's great.
> Why would I be sitting on the computer constructing an argument, about the Eastern States Power Grid, firstly I'm in W.A. secondly I really don't give a $hit, thirdly I retired a few years ago at 55 and really am over arguing.
> If someone wants to discuss it, fine i will respond, if someone is looking for an argument, I really can't be bothered.



An argument here is not a "fight".
And it's not an "opinion".
It's about how what you say is reasonable.
You can go an facebook and talk about the weather or your family to people who value knowing about that.
I prefer to keep a thread *on topic*.
Thank you for the linked article - again it covers a lot of what we are discussing.   Here's its major caveat:
*We exclude batteries*. Batteries located in homes and electric cars may contribute very substantially to future energy storage, either directly through bi-directional energy flow or indirectly through control of the timing of battery charging.​It further notes:
If the future fleet of cars is of a similar size but entirely electric, with an average of 50 kWh of useable storage per car, then the* usable storage is 900 GWh. This is twice the storage envisaged in our modelling.*​*Finally, it notes:*
*Our cost estimates do not include a carbon price or subsidies. PV and wind costs are very likely to continue to fall.*​


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> An argument here is not a "fight".
> And it's not an "opinion".
> It's about how what you say is reasonable.
> You can go an facebook and talk about the weather or your family to people who value knowing about that.
> I prefer to keep a thread *on topic*.
> Thank you for the linked article - again it covers a lot of what we are discussing.   Here's its major caveat:
> *We exclude batteries*. Batteries located in homes and electric cars may contribute very substantially to future energy storage, either directly through bi-directional energy flow or indirectly through control of the timing of battery charging.​It further notes:
> If the future fleet of cars is of a similar size but entirely electric, with an average of 50 kWh of useable storage per car, then the* usable storage is 900 GWh. This is twice the storage envisaged in our modelling.*​*Finally, it notes:*
> *Our cost estimates do not include a carbon price or subsidies. PV and wind costs are very likely to continue to fall.*​



I am not on Facebook, never will be.


----------



## basilio

It could be a discussion.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I am not on Facebook, never will be.



Just like you seem never able to present an argument.


basilio said:


> It could be a discussion.



With whom?
Here are some innovative options:

Introduce the concept of *climate holidays, *but only to energy intensive industry sectors
within these sectors incorporate a worker payment structure that allows for up to 5 days additional unplanned paid work days off.  These days would be mandated by the regulator on advance warning from BOM such that load shedding would never be necessary because known demand was removed from the system.
the affected industry sectors would be compensated for by a specific reduction in their tax rate.
the tax take could be re-adjusted by allowing the regulator to marginally increase electricity charges, and a set percentage of the total income from retailers could then be quarantined as it is now for the Medicare levy.
given that the last few percent of supply to meet peak demand is a disproportionate cost, billions of dollars worth of capacity could be avoided.

Ensure all new EVs after a particular date are capable of bi-directional energy flow so that vehicles act as a national energy bank
ensure metering arrangements compensate owners on an as necessary basis
use the software embedded into load shedding by suburb to equally reward EV owners over time

Ensure all new EVs after a particular date incorporate available AI in their software to control  the timing of battery charging
incorporate a pricing regime which greatly rewards owners tapping into forecast low demand cycles

Change building codes for detatched houses (and elsewhere as required):
in anticipation of an EV future, mandate technology enabling EVs to power a home (or other building) instead of relying on Tesla-type power walls
alternatively mandate technology enabling EVs to be able to act as a national energy bank


----------



## basilio

A discussion with whom ? Everyone who contributes constructively.
There is no "one solution" to this thread topic. It starts with the premise that we need to reform our current energy systems because
1)  Many are coming to the end of their life
2)  New technologies offer far most cost effective  and environmentally effective  opportunities
3)  We absolutely  must reduce our GG emissions ASAP if we to have a ghost in hell of a chance of reducing the effects of CC.

I don't believe anyone is arguing against the premise.  So what we are doing is discussing/ kicking around the options we have and hopefully creating a  community awareness that we must take up new opportunities and not be stuck with systems that are failing and if replaced in kind will fail us in an even more spectacular way.
_______________________________________________________________

Some really interesting ideas in Rederobs suggestions. IMO they do point to a need for clear regulatory oversight and national plan that sees a big picture for use use and attempts to integrate them effectively.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Introduce the concept of *climate holidays, *but only to energy intensive industry sectors



I'm aware of one agreement between an electricity generation company and a major user which uses that concept in a sort-of way.

It's based on electricity supply / demand not specifically weather although obviously the two are linked.

Basically the industry gets cheap power at a rate that's internationally competitive versus major rivals but loses supply under some circumstances. As part of the deal the electricity generator insisted that all workers remain on full pay during any shutdown and excluded labour costs in all calculations regarding the cost and value of production and so on. Whether the staff remain at work or are sent home is up to the company but they're on full pay regardless so that removes any concerns from unions etc.

The arrangement has only been used once thus far. It's an emergency thing not intended to be regular but it's there.

One difficulty in the SA and Vic context is, of course, that if you're going to switch industry off for a while then you need to have industry in the first place. Pretty easy in Qld, WA or Tas but not so easy in Vic or especially SA.


----------



## rederob

basilio said:


> A discussion with whom ? Everyone who contributes constructively.
> There is no "one solution" to this thread topic. It starts with the premise that we need to reform our current energy systems because
> 1)  Many are coming to the end of their life
> 2)  New technologies offer far most cost effective  and environmentally effective  opportunities
> 3)  We absolutely  must reduce our GG emissions ASAP if we to have a ghost in hell of a chance of reducing the effects of CC.
> 
> I don't believe anyone is arguing against the premise.  So what we are doing is discussing/ kicking around the options we have and hopefully creating a  community awareness that we must take up new opportunities and not be stuck with systems that are failing and if replaced in kind will fail us in an even more spectacular way.
> _______________________________________________________________
> 
> Some really interesting ideas in Rederobs suggestions. IMO they do point to a need for clear regulatory oversight and national plan that sees a big picture for use use and attempts to integrate them effectively.



Next option:
Strategic microgrid funding:

Given a quantifiable shortfall in supply during last week's heatwave, develop a shared cost model for, say, 100,000 homes to install battery banks which fall within agreed microgridded suburbs.  Maybe Smurf can give a smarter number on the how many homes would be needed, based on the below assumptions.  

The purpose of the model is to allow AEMO to avoid load shedding


This model shares battery purchase costs evenly between the Commonwealth and home owners, while the States pick up the tab on microgrid infrastructure.
Participating homes must agree to be able to contribute no less than 20KWh and in turn the Commonwealth will reimburse a maximum of $10k each.  Thus the program would cost the Commonwealth up to $1bn.  I have no idea how much it would cost the States.
I estimate that a 20KWh battery bank could cost the home owner about $16k in a competitive market, with costs progressively lowering. I estimate the subsidised cost pays back in about 5 years, while gel batteries have approximately 10 years working life.  Others with a practical knowledge can improve my rubbery figures.
The microgrids could either island or contribute power to the megagrid, as determined by AEMO.
Unlike Snowy 2.0, this model is energy accretive.
On the above assumptions (and assuming 100,000 homes is enough), then this would cost the federal government about 20% of Snowy 2.0's cost.
The model is clearly not an immediate fix as it will take time to develop an implementation framework and then find enough workers to install 100,000 20KWh+ batteries.  There might be enough capacity within 2 years to prevent another 2019 summer load shedding event.

A possible side benefit of the model is that its scale could lead to substantial reductions in residential home battery costs.  If that were the case, home solar & storage could become the norm and of itself over time prove to be a key ingredient in balancing the system as more commercial renewables are added to the mix.


----------



## basilio

basilio said:


> I had another thought for a partial solution. (I don't see an single silver bullet here). Across all the big cities are industrial parks , shopping centre, schools with thousands of acres of flat roof space and capable of being oriented in any direction. They all use power as well.
> 
> Why not encourage and enable these roofs to have solar panels and incorporate a good sized battery bank between a certain number to enable storage capacity as well ? With a guaranteed number of customers costs could very quickly become more competitive. It would certainly require some policy work but from my understanding the financial figures are very favorable for the tenants.
> 
> Minimal energy transport losses. Scaleable. Decent enough individual projects to get economies of scale. Great employment opportunity. Potential good investment opportunity. Great way to stimulate local solar and battery industries. Great opportunity to develop a process that can be exported as well.




Nothing wrong with settling up microgrids and battery banks but I suggest the use of industrial sized warehouses and industrial/commercial energy might make more sense.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> *Revised and reprinted here with author's permission:*
> I agree that the eastern seaboard needs to add capacity.
> In summary, the problem is the owners of the generators don't want them. The reason being they have to put their units on and take them off to make way for for the renewables.
> They don't want to do it because with a steam turbine, you have to cool the turbine down over a few hours at reduced load, to take it off line, otherwise you cant get it again because of the different expansion rates between the lighter spinning rotor and the heavy outer case.
> Then in the morning you have to fire the boiler for 1 to 2 hours, to get the steam temps and pressures right, so that when you put steam to the turbine, the shaft doesn't shink or expand too quickly. If the differential expansion goes out of spec you have to trip the turbine and start again, Power systems don't like that. With the clearances you are only talking 1-2mm on 30 rows of blades spinning on a 50 ton shaft at 3000RPM, one touch and there is $50m worth of damage.
> So getting back to the issue, I don't believe we have enough time to install adequate renewable energy and storage to replace the coal generators and, in any case, the owners would rather get rid of them because they are a pain in the ar$e.
> But at this point in time we need them, so as I said earlier, if we want green replacement right now, it is either gas or nuclear. If we want to reduce emissions now and there is't enough gas.  The Government will have to build a 5GW station 10 x 500MW units, and close down some of the crap stations.
> The Government will have to step in because private operators won't want to; they cannot afford to invest in stranded assets.
> This will give the Government a steering hand in coal plant closures and keep the grid secure while renewables are installed.
> I see it taking up to 30 years - we physically cannot install the amount of gear required much quicker.  Recall that the mining boom caused a labour shortage, so this will make that look like a play in the sand pit.
> It is hard to try and explain the enormity of the problem, I am all for renewables, they are great.
> But there is a long road ahead, business and the public will demand secure power supplies, while we travel that road.
> Anyway hope that gives a bit more insight.



SP clearly shows the trials and tribulations of FF generators - who wants them when even they do not .


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> SP clearly shows the trials and tribulations of FF generators - who wants them when even they do not .



To qualify that, it was just my opinion, and we know what that is worth, as much as it cost.
But it is a big problem, it is a bit like owning a fart in an elevator.


----------



## rederob

basilio said:


> Nothing wrong with settling up microgrids and battery banks but I suggest the use of industrial sized warehouses and industrial/commercial energy might make more sense.



Political expediency is more palatable when the outcome is essentially the same, especially given  governments are paying for the solution.
Would you rather have 200,000 voters liking what you did for them or a few thousand employers?


----------



## Smurf1976

Batteries - I'll be able to put a more precise figure on it when I get prices for one I'm considering buying but as an order of magnitude, around $1000 per kWh fully installed is close to the mark for residential systems using what are for practical purposes lithium electric vehicle batteries made user friendly for home use. Eg Tesla Powerwall 2 or LG RESU.

On other matters, there was a comment about steam turbine ramp rates and the problems with intermittent renewables and so on.

Main comment I'll add is that nuclear is just another way of boiling water. It's still a steam turbine power station and one that's even less flexible in operation and less thermally efficient than coal. It is thus not a solution to any technical limit on coal-fired plant. Economic or emissions issues perhaps but not technical limits since it's the same basic system simply with a different heat source.

Looking at what AGL are doing at Barker Inlet is much closer to it. Great big diesels basically. Primary fuel is natural gas but they're diesels as such and can run diesel as backup fuel. 210 MW for $295 million isn't bad (although that doesn't include gas supply and also doesn't include any new transmission).

Cold to full load at Barker Inlet should be about 5 minutes and the engines are 17.5 MW each. Efficiency should get up to about 44% under optimum conditions, a bit less in the real world.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> U.
> 
> On other matters, there was a comment about steam turbine ramp rates and the problems with intermittent renewables and so on.
> 
> Main comment I'll add is that nuclear is just another way of boiling water. It's still a steam turbine power station and one that's even less flexible in operation and less thermally efficient than coal. It is thus not a solution to any technical limit on coal-fired plant. Economic or emissions issues perhaps but not technical limits since it's the same basic system simply with a different heat source.




That's very true and I agree with the problems cycling, however they can to a certain degree ,be classed as "green", when considering emissions.

Therefore in theory at least, it would reduce the haste with which the renewables would have to be installed. Also apparently there has been a lot of progress, in small nuclear reactors, basically skid mounts that can be trucked in.
https://www.nei.org/news/2018/nuscale-showcases-small-nuclear-reactor

https://www.greentechmedia.com/arti...lear-reactors-moment-of-reckoning#gs.O5aDzCoJ
As with any new technology, the sales brochure is sometimes better, than the product
I just thought, I wonder if they are navy derivatives ?(Sub, Ship)



Smurf1976 said:


> Looking at what AGL are doing at Barker Inlet is much closer to it. Great big diesels basically. Primary fuel is natural gas but they're diesels as such and can run diesel as backup fuel. 210 MW for $295 million isn't bad (although that doesn't include gas supply and also doesn't include any new transmission).
> 
> Cold to full load at Barker Inlet should be about 5 minutes and the engines are 17.5 MW each.




We converted the diesels at Carnarvon, to run on LNG back in the 1980's, basically added a second fuel rail and rack, started on diesel then changed over to LNG.
It worked well.


----------



## basilio

rederob said:


> Political expediency is more palatable when the outcome is essentially the same, especially given  governments are paying for the solution.
> Would you rather have 200,000 voters liking what you did for them or a few thousand employers?



I think I would have a different perspective on the options.

*First I think people or businesses should carry a proportion of the financial cost.* If this is going to result in a reduced energy cost to the user/owner the really they should invest some of their own cash

*Secondly I'm more focused on the energy outcomes and  resources required to achieve those results*. I think it would be far more efficient to use labour,  large batteries  and big solar panel arrays on a big warehouse rooftops rather than smaller fiddly house lots. Just makes practical sense.

I can see lots of technical issues with the 100,000 houses program RR.  From a political  and practical point of view I'd rather have a substantially smaller number of projects to keep on top of and if they were involving factories  and warehouses rather than homes with Women, Children and fluffy pets... . Yeah not so much capacity for drama.

SP made a valid point in noting the huge task of repowering the nation. I'd pose the question as *" How can we achieve this outcome in the most practical way"* Asking that question would take me to the larger projects rather than the smaller ones unless the smaller ones were done with peoples own resources.

*That doesn't mean we ignore households*. One of the big opportunities/necessities will be encouraging/supporting/whatever households and industry to be more energy efficient.  If we made 5-10% efficiency gains that would amount to a hell of a lot of juice.

We already have example of this approach in Victoria. A consortium of businesses , councils and universities  has signed up to buy the power from a proposed wind farm. Bang. There's another 80MW of wind power being established. And they are going to get very good value as well.

*Crowlands wind farm underway, as ground breaking bulk-buy scheme bears fruit*

 Sophie Vorrath  23 March 2018   2  Comments 
share

View of Pacific Hydro’s 35-turbine Challicum Hills Wind Farm, Victoria. Source: Wikimedia Commons
_Construction has begun on an 80MW wind farm near Ararat in regional Victoria, marking the fruition of a ground-breaking Melbourne-based bulk buy renewables project developed by a consortium of 14 of leading local universities, cultural institutions, corporations and Councils.

The consortium, known as the Melbourne Renewable Energy Project, alongside project developer Pacific Hydro, said on Friday that ground had been broken at the Crowlands wind farm site, starting with the construction of access roads and bridges._
https://reneweconomy.com.au/crowlan...d-breaking-bulk-buy-scheme-bears-fruit-73088/


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> To qualify that, it was just my opinion, and we know what that is worth, as much as it cost.
> But it is a big problem, it is a bit like owning a fart in an elevator.



So true.  Any idea who removed this sign from the lifts at a WA Power Station a few years ago?





Back on topic, here's a solar snapshot from 10 years ago.
While at end-September 2018, there were over 1.95 million PV installations in Australia, with a combined capacity of over 10GW.  This site shows the exponential growth of solar.  An extra 3 GW was added over the past year.
Meanwhile commercial projects like this are popping up regularly - this one adding 170MW, plus battery tba.
There's a big gap that will need filling in the capacity market as more of the FF generators come to the end of their working lives.  Solar alone is unlikely to fill it, although as prices continue to fall, commercial proposals become increasingly viable.
Falling solar pv prices lead to some interesting situations. 
First, homeowners exiting lucrative feed rates may consider adding a little more capacity to their old systems to both compensate for degradation and optimise savings.  Depending on circumstances, even without subsidies the payback can be as soon as 5 years.  Selling houses that don't get thousands of dollars in electricity bills is a bonus.  
Secondly, even without subsidies you can nowadays install a solar system for less than most did many years ago when locking in their high FITs.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> That's very true and I agree with the problems cycling, however they can to a certain degree ,be classed as "green", when considering emissions.
> 
> Therefore in theory at least, it would reduce the haste with which the renewables would have to be installed. Also apparently there has been a lot of progress, in small nuclear reactors, basically skid mounts that can be trucked in.
> 
> We converted the diesels at Carnarvon, to run on LNG back in the 1980's, basically added a second fuel rail and rack, started on diesel then changed over to LNG.
> It worked well.




Could these units be converted to run on hydrogen ? There is much talk about creating a hydrogen economy and one of the pressing needs from an environmental POV is  eliminating more GG emissions. 
How doable would this be ?


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> First, homeowners exiting lucrative feed rates may consider adding a little more capacity to their old systems to both compensate for degradation and optimise savings.  Depending on circumstances, even without subsidies the payback can be as soon as 5 years.  Selling houses that don't get thousands of dollars in electricity bills is a bonus.
> Secondly, even without subsidies you can nowadays install a solar system for less than most did many years ago when locking in their high FITs.




This in itself is about to highlight the next problem, there is going to be a hell of a lot of waste solar panels, I've got 8 in my patio as we speak.
A friend of mine who is waste recycling technician(garbo), says they will become a bigger problem than mattresses. 
Apparently mattresses are a real problem.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Could these units be converted to run on hydrogen ? There is much talk about creating a hydrogen economy and one of the pressing needs from an environmental POV is  eliminating more GG emissions.
> How doable would this be ?



In theory, hydrogen can run anything LNG or petrol can run, eg gas turbine, kitchen cooktop, petrol engine, jet engine, diesel engine, steam boiler.

I haven't read up a lot on these SMR's but as smurf said, nuclear works as a gas or coal fired station does, where it superheats the water in a boiler then runs the steam through a turbine.
So only the fuel differs, in theory, however in practice there is subtle differences.

For example a brown coal 200MW boiler in the Latrobe valley, would be a lot bigger than a 200MW gas fired boiler, the reason being the coal requires a longer residence time in the furnace area to burn. Where as gas burns very quickly, therefore you don't require as big a furnace.
So getting back to the small modular nuclear reactor, it would depend on how it converts the heat to work. What I mean is, where the heat from the nuclear fuel is converted to steam, may be too small to facilitate the heat transfer from a gas flame.
Nuclear as far as I know is radiant heat, where gas uses convection heat, there is a huge difference. It is an interesting question Bas, I will look into it.
Smurf might know more about them, I only read up on them, while looking for the info on the amount of renewables required.


----------



## basilio

I was more interested in the diesel generators being converted to run on hydrogen.  Or the gas turbines . Perhaps there is a way to produce enough hydrogen at a competitive price  and end up with a system that doesn't produce any GG .

If that was the case I think there would be strong interest in  keeping gas turbines and changing the fuel.
A nuclear reactor is not going to run on anything except nuclear fuel I believe.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> I was more interested in the diesel generators being converted to run on hydrogen.  Or the gas turbines . Perhaps there is a way to produce enough hydrogen at a competitive price  and end up with a system that doesn't produce any GG .
> 
> If that was the case I think there would be strong interest in  keeping gas turbines and changing the fuel.
> A nuclear reactor is not going to run on anything except nuclear fuel I believe.



Diesels and gas turbines can run on hydrogen.
Hydrogen is going to be the fuel of the future, but it is a long way off. IMO
I did a bit of reading on SMR's, and to me they look more suitable as alternatives, where renewables aren't effective.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Whatever it takes.
> 
> Power companies were owned by the States for decades and no one complained about prices or lack of supply.
> 
> Now that they are privatised the energy sector is a disaster.




When you can build unlimited amounts of coal fired power stations, subsidized by cheap government loans and slush funds, without any protests or fear of being made obselete by a carbon tax 3 years into a 30 year investment, it would be pretty easy to maintain prices.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> When you can build unlimited amounts of coal fired power stations, subsidized by cheap government loans and slush funds




I'm not sure about other states but in some at least it was the reverse.

The Victorian and SA governments were both propped up by cheap SECV and ETSA funds over the years never the reverse. That's why the utilities ended up in quite a bit of debt - the state government in Victoria especially held a gun to the head and demanded huge dividends for which money was borrowed to pay. By the early 1990's the debt in Vic was crippling and that was the end of it. 

NSW government got up to similar antics even before that and their subsequent panic and over-reaction, following by another stuff up by a later state government, has quite a bit to do with where we are today. 

Labor governments in all cases for the record except the latter debacle in NSW which was Liberal.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> There is no "one solution" to this thread topic. It starts with the premise that we need to reform our current energy systems because



There's really four aspects to the overall dilemma:

1. Need to meet the technical (electrical) requirements. Fail that and the lights really will go out, no question about it.

2. Financial cost both in terms of the actual costs and the price charged to consumers.

3. Use of natural resources. 50Hz AC power does not exist anywhere in nature, it is a completely man-made thing, and in order produce it requires that some source of primary energy be used. Some of the available sources of primary energy are plentiful and with minimal consequences to their use but others are physically limited, or entail broader implications such as importing from unstable or unfriendly sources, and a valid question exists as to whether or not is is sensible to use these resources to generate electricity? That is particularly so in the case of relatively limited non-renewable resources which have important uses for other purposes.

4. Environment. The mainstream environmental movement is often associated with trees and whales but it's a matter of historical fact that in the Australian context the movement had already tackled issues relating to hydro-electric schemes versus the wilderness, pollution and the use of limited resources at gas-fired power stations and the generic concept of building a nuclear power station several years before the movement focused on anything relating to trees.

The above are in no real order but ultimately they're all critical factors in the modern era noting that point 4 is subject to international agreements and to a minor extent so is point 3.

Tied up in those are many sub-issues and complexities. Eg point 3 potentially brings in matters of national security and strategic issues. Point 4 involves many issues not just the well known CO2 one.

Which brings me to a point. I've heard many argue to the effect that Australia had an energy policy under a previous government, that being the carbon tax.

My response is simply that no, a carbon tax or an ETS is not an energy policy. It is one aspect of an environmental policy which involves energy but it is not an energy policy. It does nothing in respect of any technical matter. It does nothing in respect of the use of natural resources or supply security. It does nothing about environmental issues other than CO2. It's an energy policy in the same way that a ban on showing M rated programs on TV before a certain time is a media policy. It's not - its just one minor component of a policy but it sure isn't all that's required or even half of it.

So far as I'm aware we've really only had one serious attempt which could really be described as an actual energy policy in Australia's history and that was introduced during the Fraser government. Don't remember it? Well that's probably because half the current population wasn't born yet but for anyone not aware Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister 1975 - 83 (Liberal). CO2 didn't get a mention in that but to be fair it wasn't widely considered as an issue at the time, the focus being on not squandering limited resources, reducing other forms of air pollution, security of supply and some concern about other environmental issues such as wilderness.

My focus is primarily on the technical side but I most certainly acknowledge the other issues including the environmental and natural resource ones.

Of particular relevance technically is also the financial side. No matter what we do the reality is that some capacity in the system will earn far more money than other capacity and there are very valid reasons for that. It is also true that at various times over its lifespan an individual generating unit will range from highly profitable to a drain on finances.

From a technical perspective I don't particularly care how it comes about but one way or another we do urgently need to come up with a way that keeps that "unprofitable" plant in the system. Removing it being the specific, exact cause of the problems we now have. Unprofitable for the owner but not unprofitable for the overall system and most certainly necessary.

I'll leave that one to finance people but ultimately it needs to happen and could be considered a non-negotiable. If the model of competing companies and a market can't deliver that, because nobody's putting their hand up to hold the bits that produce stuff all revenue, well then we need to change the market. Simple as that and if the game's killing you then changing the rules is indeed the rational thing to do. It's not as though countless other industries and investors haven't had the rules changed at some point.


----------



## Smurf1976

The forecast for Wednesday 29th at this stage is a near miss in NSW.

NSW forecast maximum demand = 12,970 MW
Generation available in NSW = 12,399 MW

Supply from Qld can fill the gap but there's not a lot of room to move if anything fails. AEMO estimates the spare capacity available at 856 MW so it would only need a generation fault or the weather to be a bit warmer and there'd be a problem.

That's not trying to run around saying the sky is falling but just pointing out this is all rather stretched really.

Current plant outages in NSW:

Eraring #3 - 700 MW (coal, Origin Energy) 
Liddell #2 - 420 MW (coal, AGL)
Tallawarra - 435 MW (gas, Energy Australia


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm not sure about other states but in some at least it was the reverse.
> 
> The Victorian and SA governments were both propped up by cheap SECV and ETSA funds over the years never the reverse. That's why the utilities ended up in quite a bit of debt - the state government in Victoria especially held a gun to the head and demanded huge dividends for which money was borrowed to pay. By the early 1990's the debt in Vic was crippling and that was the end of it.
> 
> NSW government got up to similar antics even before that and their subsequent panic and over-reaction, following by another stuff up by a later state government, has quite a bit to do with where we are today.
> 
> Labor governments in all cases for the record except the latter debacle in NSW which was Liberal.



From memory similar happened in W.A, the generators, ended up carrying most the debt from the gas pipe and the take or pay contract Kwinana was converted to burn gas. Again from memory I'm pretty sure most of Alinta's debt was handed to the generators, when Alinta was privatised.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The forecast for Wednesday 29th at this stage is a near miss in NSW.
> 
> NSW forecast maximum demand = 12,970 MW
> Generation available in NSW = 12,399 MW
> 
> Supply from Qld can fill the gap but there's not a lot of room to move if anything fails. AEMO estimates the spare capacity available at 856 MW so it would only need a generation fault or the weather to be a bit warmer and there'd be a problem.
> 
> That's not trying to run around saying the sky is falling but just pointing out this is all rather stretched really.
> 
> Current plant outages in NSW:
> 
> Eraring #3 - 700 MW (coal, Origin Energy)
> Liddell #2 - 420 MW (coal, AGL)
> Tallawarra - 435 MW (gas, Energy Australia



Smurf do you think it will be more difficult as summers go on, or is there some serious generation coming in the near future, before Snowy2?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Smurf do you think it will be more difficult as summers go on, or is there some serious generation coming in the near future, before Snowy2?



For NSW there was a change of decision by the owners of a small CCGT plant. It was 171 MW with 3 gas turbines and 1 steam turbine and was going to close in 2018 but with the situation they changed their mind and kept the three small gas turbines in open cycle configuration with a combined output of 109 MW. The steam turbine is gone though.

So I suppose that could be counted as, well it's not additional but it was a planned closure and they're still open so it's at least not a loss of supply. The plant's less efficient and a third smaller but it still generates something. Location is an industrial area in western Sydney.

There's a plan to upgrade 4 existing units at Bayswater (coal) from 660 M to 685 MW each in 2020, 21, 22, 23. Owner = AGL.

Origin have their pumped storage expansion plans at Shoalhaven to add either 160 MW or 240 MW depending on how they go about it. They're targeting the bigger option and if that doesn't stack up will look at the smaller one. Timing is uncertain but the dams are already there as are two power stations, they just need to add tunnels and a third one, and given the distances are fairly short etc they could probably beat Snowy 2.0

New 800 MW line between SA and NSW isn't 100% committed but I think rather a lot of people would be stunned if it didn't go ahead. It's almost in the "too big to fail" category really for political reasons more than anything else.

Other than that the only thing committed in NSW is wind, solar and closure of Liddell (1680 MW) in 2022. Nothing wrong with wind and solar of course, they'll work nicely with the pumped storage, but there's a big hole in firm generating capacity 2022 - 24 assuming 2024 is the date for Snowy 2.0 so that's when it could get interesting.

With noting that NSW is unique in having a major peak in both Summer and Winter with minimal difference in peak on a properly cold day versus a properly hot one. In contrast all other mainland states are strongly Summer peaking and Tasmania is strongly Winter peaking.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> There's really four aspects to the overall dilemma:
> 
> 1. Need to meet the technical (electrical) requirements. Fail that and the lights really will go out, no question about it.
> 
> 2. Financial cost both in terms of the actual costs and the price charged to consumers.
> 
> 3. Use of natural resources. 50Hz AC power does not exist anywhere in nature, it is a completely man-made thing, and in order produce it requires that some source of primary energy be used. Some of the available sources of primary energy are plentiful and with minimal consequences to their use but others are physically limited, or entail broader implications such as importing from unstable or unfriendly sources, and a valid question exists as to whether or not is is sensible to use these resources to generate electricity? That is particularly so in the case of relatively limited non-renewable resources which have important uses for other purposes.
> 
> 4. Environment. The mainstream environmental movement is often associated with trees and whales but it's a matter of historical fact that in the Australian context the movement had already tackled issues relating to hydro-electric schemes versus the wilderness, pollution and the use of limited resources at gas-fired power stations and the generic concept of building a nuclear power station several years before the movement focused on anything relating to trees.



I frame the problems from different perspectives, noting you tackle them in a fashion.
1. Not enough spare capacity to address present weather extremes simultaneously with plant outages

this will be exacerbated if responses do not account for future plant closures 
2. Investor unwillingness to commit to fund large scale projects without clarity on a price on carbon 

COAG EC opted for a NEG rather than Finkel's blueprint for transition
3. We need to incentivise solutions to intermittency in a transitioning market

cost curves for FF energy and renewables (VRE) trend opposite such that CST for example, will be cheaper than coal in the early 2030's
4. We need a commitment to fund the spine of a fully interconnected eastern seaboard grid, and upgrade the technical componentry to progressively tie-in VRE  

The adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" *cannot apply if it ain't there*. 
Finkel wanted it all to be there because Australia is to big for a one size fits all solution.  
The feds want - and it's their policy - that what we already have must be *cheap for consumers* as we lead into the next election.  But a lot of *what's there is already broke and needs fixing.*

Skipping directly to 2 as it solves 1. Investors understand the global market either already has or is putting a price on carbon.  Should that occur after an investment decision is made, the commercial viability of a project can disappear.  As SP noted earlier, generators don't want to be burnt by stranded assets.  That leaves governments to fill any void.  However, the States seem unwilling given it defeats the purpose of a NEM, while the Commonwealth quickly splurges up to $5bn on a giant battery that removes electricity from the grid and won't be available for about 6 years.

Point 3 is pivotal.  Finkel's approach included utility-scale renewable generation, storage technologies, flexible thermal supply (CST) and distributed energy resources (of which microgrids and bi-directional energy flows from EVs are subsets).  This paper shows that CST will in future become cheaper than coal and could prove a quicker fix to intermittency than Snowy 2.0.  It also solves energy problems for more remote regions of Australia.

Point 4 just adds to Smurf's point 1 in that we need additional interconnector infrastructure as well as the concomitant technology to tie-in the many VRE options.

My argument from the outset is that we have *political failure to act*.  The options are available to get on top of and ahead of out energy dilemmas.  COAG EC has received excellent advice and understands what the future holds.
In the meantime we, the consumers, are being screwed over.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> However, the States seem unwilling given it defeats the purpose of a NEM,




Yes, but the NEM is an ideological framework formed by the *belief *that privatisation  always results in the best deal for consumers. That is patently not the case in the electricity market and other essential services, so why cling to a failed belief system ?


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, but the NEM is an ideological framework formed by the *belief *that privatisation  always results in the best deal for consumers. That is patently not the case in the electricity market and other essential services, so why cling to a failed belief system ?



You can call it what you want, but it is the *lawful operational framework we operate within*.
Within that framework the problems we recently faced were made known well in advance, and Finkel synthesised solutions in his transitional blueprint so they did not recur.
There is a head to the monster but, sadly, a non-functioning brain.


----------



## sptrawler

So getting back to the problem, again smurf sorry to pick your brains, do you have any idea of the expected load growth for 2019-2020?
That will be a major driver of any requirement, if the load is expected to fall due to reduced economic activity, uptake of PV etc, they may be expecting the problem to be self resolving.
That is only a thought, but it may actually be the case, a long shot. IMO


----------



## basilio

Excellent article on ABC on the Snowy  project. Very challenging project.  Also a good p\icture of teh planned shutdowns of coal fired stations.
* Hydro and seek *
Snowy Hydro 2.0 – will it ever be built?

By Melissa Clarke
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-30/snowy-hydro/10683112


----------



## sptrawler

It was a good picture of the planned closing times, it will be interesting to hear surf's comments.


----------



## basilio

Very dangerous fires in Tasmania at the moment. What did catch my eye was comments about threats to power generation and transmission lines. Could cause trouble there and in the Eastern States as they export power.
* Tasmania fires: scores of blazes rage as residents asked to conserve water *
Fears Tasmanian bushfires will worsen as temperatures forecast to peak in mid-30s with winds up to 40km/h

....Chief fire officer Chris Arnol has warned it is likely more homes will be lost. There is also a threat to critical infrastructure including power generation and transmission lines.
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...zes-rage-as-residents-asked-to-conserve-water


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Very dangerous fires in Tasmania at the moment. What did catch my eye was comments about threats to power generation and transmission lines. Could cause trouble there and in the Eastern States as they export power



It's not a good situation in multiple parts of Tas at the moment with the fires. Hence the crews from Vic, NSW, SA and NZ attending in addition to local fire crews and volunteers.

From an electricity perspective there's rather a lot of transmission infrastructure surrounded by heavy smoke and that in itself is a problem with or without actual fire affecting it although there's that too. A few line faults have occurred with some brief losses of industrial load as a result.

As a whole, it would be fair to say the system's somewhat beaten up but it's still going apart from a few towns where the distribution network is now a tangled mess lying on the ground but in terms of generation and bulk supply it's still working thus far.

There's a lot of shuffling around of generation between power stations to deal with that and also Vic - Tas transmission is switched off in order to simplify things but it's not broken (could be operated manually if required but it would be a brave move, too risky, to do things automatically at the moment so manual control it is).

The one big advantage Tas does have over the other states is that all the limits are known and there's no need to worry about administrative details. As things unfold there's plenty of operators, tradespeople and engineers who between them hold vast knowledge on exactly what everything can and can't do, where the absolute limits sit and what workarounds exist.

In contrast the other states are in practice far more reliant on what it says on the spec sheet and following rules and so on. Some companies have very thorough knowledge of their own stuff, others are in a bit of trouble there , but there's overall quite a different approach and rules tend to triumph over keeping the lights on whereas Tas is the reverse - just because you've got a rule doesn't mean you need to follow it.....


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Very dangerous fires in Tasmania at the moment. What did catch my eye was comments about threats to power generation and transmission lines. Could cause trouble there and in the Eastern States as they export power.
> * Tasmania fires: scores of blazes rage as residents asked to conserve water *
> Fears Tasmanian bushfires will worsen as temperatures forecast to peak in mid-30s with winds up to 40km/h
> 
> ....Chief fire officer Chris Arnol has warned it is likely more homes will be lost. There is also a threat to critical infrastructure including power generation and transmission lines.
> https://www.theguardian.com/austral...zes-rage-as-residents-asked-to-conserve-water




Fires can be a big problem, they trip lines very easily.
I was at work in the 1990's, when the two transmission lines between Muja and Perth (Kwinana) tripped, 'blacked' out the grid.
That wasn't a fun day, Kwinana was the only station that could black start, so as you could imagine it was a busy time.
The two major Power Stations, silent and all the units red hot, so getting them on was a nightmare.
Meanwhile you have the phones running just as hot, as everyone including parliament are sitting around in the dark, navel gazing.
I remember holding up the phone, when someone high up rang about the situation, "I said can you hear anything, he said no I said, neither can I but we have to get something happening and been on the phone to you isn't helping".


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, but the NEM is an ideological framework formed by the *belief *that privatisation  always results in the best deal for consumers



As a general comment debates about energy have long tended to take on a religious like nature and that goes back a very long way.

People become fixated on a concept and just won't consider any alternative. Plenty of examples of that over the years and it's one of the reasons it all changes so slowly, attitudes and beliefs become very entrenched.

That's more a public and political phenomenon than an industry one but it has been pretty consistent over the years with everything from petrol specifications to the choice of resources used to generate electricity. There's always a section of society, often the majority, with an entrenched belief that's very hard to change. 

On the specific question of privatisation and the NEM, my observation is that it's the market structure rather than who owns it as such.

AGL, a listed company, in 2019 charges more for gas in Sydney than the inflation adjusted price during their long period as a monopoly supplier.

Snowy Hydro under the separate brands Red and Lumo, and Hydro Tasmania under the brand Momentum, are both owned by governments and both retail electricity in the high priced SA market. Suffice to say neither can beat the privately owned retailers in the same market to any major extent since they're all faced with similar costs.

The market structure, far more than who owns it, is the issue there. It creates competition yes but it adds a lot of costs in doing so.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Suffice to say neither can beat the privately owned retailers in the same market to any major extent since they're all faced with similar costs.




Sure government controlled retailers in many ways can't compete with privates but they are expected to be there tomorrow and next year as opposed to companies than can close their books at any time, declare bankruptcy, avoid social obligations and leave an unsightly mess behind.

There is room for both in the market, just as there is room for public and private schools and public and private hospitals, but inevitably it's the public sector that end up carrying the load when businesses fail, the trick is getting the mix right and not letting ideology get in the way.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Sure government controlled retailers in many ways can't compete with privates but they are expected to be there tomorrow and next year as opposed to companies than can close their books at any time, declare bankruptcy, avoid social obligations and leave an unsightly mess behind.



True but my point is more that the market structure as it exists today increases costs for anyone regardless of ownership.

AGL, Alinta and Snowy Hydro all have different ownership structures (listed company, not listed, government) but all incur costs in retailing that need not be there due to the current market design.

The way the market works is an issue in itself regardless of who owns things.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Fires can be a big problem, they trip lines very easily.
> I was at work in the 1990's, when the two transmission lines between Muja and Perth (Kwinana) tripped, 'blacked' out the grid.



The good thing though is that SECWA had planned ahead just in case something like that ever happened and put an OCGT out the back of Kwinana PS just in case.

An assumption on my part here but presumably that would have been used during the system restart. 

That's the sort of thing that costs money to build and maintain, produces no revenue and sure can't make a profit, but which is critical to system integrity. The kind of thing that in a competitive market nobody wants to own.

For others who have no idea what I'm on about  Kwinana is a now closed power station in its original form in WA. There are other generators at the site installed much later however but the original facility is shut.

Kwinana comprised 4 x 120 MW built in two stages or two units each (stages A and B) and 2 x 200 MW (stage C) steam turbines plus a 21 MW open cycle gas turbine. 

The whole lot was built as oil-fired plant and initially that was the only fuel used. Following the oil crisis stages C and A were converted to also fire coal and SECWA received a fair bit of attention internationally for the speed at which this was all done. With the development of the NW Shelf natural gas fields the whole lot was also converted to fire gas whilst retaining the ability to use coal or oil.

Location - an industrial area not far from Perth.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Sure government controlled retailers in many ways can't compete with privates but they are expected to be there tomorrow and next year as opposed to companies than can close their books at any time, declare bankruptcy, avoid social obligations and leave an unsightly mess behind.



Given the NEM does not work that way, the expectation is unrealistic.


SirRumpole said:


> There is room for both in the market, just as there is room for public and private schools and public and private hospitals, but inevitably it's the public sector that end up carrying the load when businesses fail, the trick is getting the mix right and not letting ideology get in the way.



The difference is that the NEM is the principal market, and other generators need to apply to the regulator to *not *come under AEMO.
Last December was the 20th year of the NEM and despite a lot of the issues identified by smurf it was reasonably reliable until the COAG EC Chair impeded investment decisions on ideological grounds.
For very understandable reasons I know why smurf avoids any comment with a political tone, but I am not shackled.
The Abbott government's opposition to renewables was immediately transparent, and for over 5 years we have had attempt after attempt to maintain a fossil fuel energy future despite increasingly overwhelming evidence that it's a fatally flawed policy stance.
The palpable position of the feds was best demonstrated by its protracted and failed attempts to have AGL maintain Liddell beyond its commercially viable life.  What was most striking if you followed what was happening is that AGL clearly stated its intention to replace lost capacity with other technology.
That was not good enough so the feds pressured AGL to sell to Alinta.  
Now that might sound ok to some reading here because it looked like Turnbull was doing the right thing to keep the lights on.  But in fact it was desperation from the PM knowing that the COAG EC was avoiding Finkel's solution which was effectively predicated on a price on carbon. 
Turnbull's next desperate step, so as to ensure the lights would not go out, was a decision to spend $6b buying out the State's shares in Snowy Hydro.  This measure meant that nothing short of a change in federal government would stop another $4b to $5b being spent on this project (as has been already evidenced in redacted sections of the plan to date).
What is now ironic is that the lights have since gone out and are likely to keep going out for the many years ahead because Snowy 2.0 is simply too slow in coming.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> What is now ironic is that the lights have since gone out and are likely to keep going out for the many years ahead because Snowy 2.0 is simply too slow in coming.




Yes.

The situation as I see it, from  my amateur point of view is,

* Our current coal stations are getting towards the end of their lives and those that own them don't want to maintain them any more.

* New coal stations take a long time to build. (6+ years)

* Large scale storage like more hydro is going to take a long time to build, so a lot of renewables will go to waste.

* Intermittency of current renewables is a problem for the grid without sufficient storage.

* Baseload power will still be needed untill storage and more renewables come online.

* We have a lot of gas which we are currently exporting at cheap prices.

Therefore my conclusion is that the best medium term solution is to build more gas fired plants, both open cycle (online sooner) and CCGT (more efficient) to fill the baseload power gap while we are building Snowy Hydro 2.0 and other Hydro sites and more renewables.

Whatever we do is going to cost a lot of money. We should aim for the best technical solution , penny pinching is going to do more harm than good in the long run.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yes.
> 
> The situation as I see it, from  my amateur point of view is,
> 
> * Our current coal stations are getting towards the end of their lives and those that own them don't want to maintain them any more.
> 
> * New coal stations take a long time to build. (6+ years)
> 
> * Large scale storage like more hydro is going to take a long time to build, so a lot of renewables will go to waste.
> 
> * Intermittency of current renewables is a problem for the grid without sufficient storage.
> 
> * Baseload power will still be needed untill storage and more renewables come online.
> 
> * We have a lot of gas which we are currently exporting at cheap prices.
> 
> Therefore my conclusion is that the best medium term solution is to build more gas fired plants, both open cycle (online sooner) and CCGT (more efficient) to fill the baseload power gap while we are building Snowy Hydro 2.0 and other Hydro sites and more renewables.
> 
> Whatever we do is going to cost a lot of money. We should aim for the best technical solution , penny pinching is going to do more harm than good in the long run.



Good summation Rumpy, you have been listening to smurf.

The one thing you have a bit wrong, is the time it would take to build a new coal station, if the used a site like the old Hazelwood site a lot of the infrastructure is already there coal handling, switchyard, etc.
As Hazelwood was 2,000MW, I would guess you could get 4 X 500MW units up within 4 to 5 years


----------



## rederob

rederob said:


> Next option:
> Strategic microgrid funding:
> 
> Given a quantifiable shortfall in supply during last week's heatwave, develop a shared cost model for, say, 100,000 homes to install battery banks which fall within agreed microgridded suburbs.



Next option is a variant of Snowy 2.0, but with fully accretive solar capacity values:

Build a virtual battery via new solar farms and massively excess battery storage capacity
scale the battery size such that it would be in sufficient excess of probable worst case scenarios using last weeks load shedding as a base case.
this is a variant to traditional ideas in that the battery size would take days to weeks to be fully charged 
while the objective of the virtual battery would be to prevent future NEM load shedding, nothing would prevent it in the interim from being fully functional when known weather patterns would not require it to be drawn upon
I will message Elon and ask him how Tesla2.0 sounds .

This option has no engineering impediments, could be in place comparatively quickly - depending on siting - and has the potential to place solar farms in geographic regions where supply is now or in future problematic, eg mining projects (Olympic Dam, Carrapateena) .
I have no idea how much it would cost, but it superior to Snowy 2.0 in that it would be designed for immediate purpose and be scalable as the electricity landscape changed.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Good summation Rumpy, you have been listening to smurf.
> 
> The one thing you have a bit wrong, is the time it would take to build a new coal station, if the used a site like the old Hazelwood site a lot of the infrastructure is already there coal handling, switchyard, etc.
> As Hazelwood was 2,000MW, I would guess you could get 4 X 500MW units up within 4 to 5 years



Didn't have time to finish, got side tracked.
It would take another couple of years to install the other 6 units, but that would be 5,000MW of brand new plant, that would close down 5,000MW of existing coal plant.
Gas is a better option, but from what I've read I don't think there is the gas available to run it.
That is a lot of gas 5GW.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Good summation Rumpy, you have been listening to smurf.



We all listen to smurf .
And the problems have been well known for a long time - the point of #3057.
The NEM is presently ignoring its clearly outlined *objective *under National Electricity Law "*to promote efficient investment in, and efficient operation and use of, electricity services for the long term interests of consumers....*"
I can only repeat what I have now said many times, until the market has a clear policy framework to underpin their investment decisions, it's unreasonable to expect billions of dollars being committed to capacity builds.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> We all listen to smurf .
> And the problems have been well known for a long time - the point of #3057.
> The NEM is presently ignoring its clearly outlined *objective *under National Electricity Law "*to promote efficient investment in, and efficient operation and use of, electricity services for the long term interests of consumers....*"
> I can only repeat what I have now said many times, until the market has a clear policy framework to underpin their investment decisions, it's unreasonable to expect billions of dollars being committed to capacity builds.



I agree with that, I'm only talking from a practical position as to what IMO, is a realistic way to stop aging plant falling over and causing blackouts and achieving it it a reasonable time frame.
The politics of it is way above my pay scale.
I guess it will be hard to get efficient investment, in an assett that will lose value as soon as you build it.
If it's gas it will cost more and more to run, if it's coal well only the Government can build it. Rock and hard place comes to mind.
If it's renewables, well get used to blackouts, for a while longer.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> If it's renewables, well get used to blackouts, for a while longer.



Nope .


----------



## basilio

rederob said:


> Nope .



Good find Rederob.  That is one big Virtual Battery.  
Also thought the underground desalination reservoir was a story and a half.

*The UAE has built the world’s largest desalinated water reserve—under a desert*
https://qz.com/1180035/uae-has-built-the-worlds-largest-water-reserve-in-liwa-desert/


----------



## basilio

Excellent summary of what happened to our energy supplies in the heatwave - and the options we have. 
Nick has clearly been following this thread..

* What happened to our electricity system in the heat? Coal and gas plants failed *
Nicky Ison
We still have time to avert the worst impacts of climate change, but heatwaves are now an inevitable part of Australia’s future
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...system-in-the-heat-coal-and-gas-plants-failed


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Nope .




Well extrapolating on your post, if my back of the napkin is correct.

The* UAE grid is 119GW*, which is about what we need to install, but say we already have 30GW the article gives a hint at what it will cost.

Going from your article:
_ The country plans to spend *$160 billion by 2030* on renewable energy, setting a 2050 goal to get more than 60% of its electricity from carbon-free sources_.

That means, again back of the napkin, $160B probably U.S so *$200B aussie, to put in 71GW of renewables.
*
Well that is going to make electricity expensive, by my reckoning, if you want any return on capital. It is probably o.k if you own an oil well, but problematic for the average Aussie.
Like I said waiting for that to happen any time soon, you had better get used to blackouts.
The immediate problem is replacing some of the old generators.
It will be very interesting, to see what the experts come up with.
Just my opinion


----------



## basilio

It has been brought up earlier but it bears remembering. *In 2019 new renewable energy including storage is cheaper than new coal.
*
https://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-r...finds-renewables-are-cheapest-new-build-power


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> It has been brought up earlier but it bears remembering. *In 2019 new renewable energy including storage is cheaper than new coal.
> *
> https://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-r...finds-renewables-are-cheapest-new-build-power



*But as has been shown, you need to build twice as much of it and add to that the cost of storage*.
Not saying don't put it in, just saying quickest cheapest way to get us over this hump, for a few years.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> It has been brought up earlier but it bears remembering. *In 2019 new renewable energy including storage is cheaper than new coal.
> *
> https://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-r...finds-renewables-are-cheapest-new-build-power



Thinking about the issue from your perspective Bas, I would guess if Labor get in, which is very likely.
The way they do things, I would guess they will use taxpayers money, to pay the generators to refurbish the old stations accelerated depreciation.
This will do two things, reduce the need for a new fossil fueled station and remove the cost of refurbishment from the owner.
It is kicking the can down the road a bit, but hey, who cares.
Just a thought, it is all very intriguing.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Well extrapolating on your post, if my back of the napkin is correct.
> 
> The* UAE grid is 119GW*, which is about what we need to install, but say we already have 30GW the article gives a hint at what it will cost.
> 
> Going from your article:
> _ The country plans to spend *$160 billion by 2030* on renewable energy, setting a 2050 goal to get more than 60% of its electricity from carbon-free sources_.
> 
> That means, again back of the napkin, $160B probably U.S so *$200B aussie, to put in 71GW of renewables.
> *
> Well that is going to make electricity expensive, by my reckoning, if you want any return on capital. It is probably o.k if you own an oil well, but problematic for the average Aussie.
> Like I said waiting for that to happen any time soon, you had better get used to blackouts.
> The immediate problem is replacing some of the old generators.
> It will be very interesting, to see what the experts come up with.
> Just my opinion



I cannot find your numbers anywhere.
Are you talking about capacity or consumption? 
Consumption is presently almost 150GWh 
Consumption is expected to increase so we should also see it being accommodated by capacity.
You might want to add a growth factor to the back of your napkin.
But none of that changes the fact that renewables can incorporate batteries... intermittency problem solved.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I cannot find your numbers anywhere.
> Are you talking about capacity or consumption?
> Consumption is presently almost 150GWh
> Consumption is expected to increase so we should also see it being accommodated by capacity.
> You might want to add a growth factor to the back of your napkin.
> But none of that changes the fact that renewables can incorporate batteries... intermittency problem solved.



reading back through the article, I think you are right, it is referring to consumption it is written a bit ambiguously .
This would mean the installed capacity is considerably less, which makes the quoted costs astronomical, there must be something wrong with the $160B figure.

Here is a post on the UAE renewable plan.
https://www.export.gov/article?id=United-Arab-Emirates-Renewable-Energy

Interesting that they still envisage coal in the mix.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> *But as has been shown, you need to build twice as much of it and add to that the cost of storage*.
> Not saying don't put it in, just saying quickest cheapest way to get us over this hump, for a few years.




The requirement to double capacity was based on 100% renewables *without *storage according your linked Report:
*Importantly, the LCOB calculated in this work is an upper bound – we use 2016 prices and do not include demand management or batteries. A large fraction of LCOB relates to periods of several successive days of overcast and windless weather that occur once every few years.*​Clearly batteries affect the equation markedly, and storage capacity build is a given in the present system.  Just a matter of how much and how fast.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> reading back through the article, I think you are right, it is referring to consumption it is written a bit ambiguously .
> This would mean the installed capacity is considerably less, which makes the quoted costs astronomical, there must be something wrong with the $160B figure.
> 
> Here is a post on the UAE renewable plan.
> https://www.export.gov/article?id=United-Arab-Emirates-Renewable-Energy
> 
> Interesting that they still envisage coal in the mix.



Always hard to tell what is covered in a scant report.  I assumed the figure included 4 nuclear reactors which have been commissioned - who knows?
Anyhow, I used Lazzard's LCoS calculations where AUD$150/MWh gets utility scale PV and storage.  Those numbers keep falling, and given we are only talking about filling an intermittency void it's not a big investment in the greater scheme of things, given the PV capacity was going to be added anyway.  This compares favourably with Lazzard's LCOE average price of coal power, which is AUD$125/MWh.


----------



## sptrawler

There you go, your OCD approach and my lack of interest, are blending beautifully. Lol


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> Thinking about the issue from your perspective Bas, I would guess if Labor get in, which is very likely.
> The way they do things, I would guess they will use taxpayers money, to pay the generators to refurbish the old stations accelerated depreciation.
> This will do two things, reduce the need for a new fossil fueled station and remove the cost of refurbishment from the owner.
> It is kicking the can down the road a bit, but hey, who cares.
> Just a thought, it is all very intriguing.



I'm not sure if it would really make sense to refurbish a failing coal power station. One would have to ask how much would it cost vs investing that amount and obviously a bit more in latest gen wind/solar/ and battery. Perhaps if the cost was invitingly low you might.

But if I was an engineer I would ask where do you start and where do stop with refurbishing ? It wouldn't be hard to see some big bills and in the end the breakdown will happen with the parts that havn't been replaced.

In the renewable  example one gets cheaper ongoing power with no use of water,  particulate pollution or GG emissions.  It could be a bit like deciding to fix up a tired car vs buying a new  well priced electric car.
________________________________
With regard to building double the amount of renewable to equate a coal fired station ? I would be  highly confident that that would be the parameter around which they measured the costs.  It is just too basic an item to overlook. They have to equate arguably equal outputs if they are going to provide a fair cost comparison.


----------



## rederob

basilio said:


> I'm not sure if it would really make sense to refurbish a failing coal power station. One would have to ask how much would it cost vs investing that amount and obviously a bit more in latest gen wind/solar/ and battery. Perhaps if the cost was invitingly low you might.
> 
> But if I was an engineer I would ask where do you start and where do stop with refurbishing ? It wouldn't be hard to see some big bills and in the end the breakdown will happen with the parts that havn't been replaced.
> 
> In the renewable  example one gets cheaper ongoing power with no use of water,  particulate pollution or GG emissions.  It could be a bit like deciding to fix up a tired car vs buying a new  well priced electric car.



Bas, the NEM would likely *not *allow it.  It's effectively outside its scope to have the Commonwealth prop up a generator.  And the Commonwealth would, in any case, need to open its offer to all market participants on a fair and equitable basis if it stepped outside the NEG.
None of it makes any sense, from any level of sanity.


----------



## basilio

There is another excellent analysis of the role of EV in Australia and the need for a serious government plan. As we have said if/WHEN we go this way we need to  seriously upgrade our power supplies and hopefully plug the cars into the national grid as a sort of super virtual battery.

* Road to nowhere: why Australia lags behind in electric vehicle revolution *
Report recognises urgent need for national plan, as the rest of the world powers ahead
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ia-lags-behind-in-electric-vehicle-revolution


----------



## basilio

rederob said:


> Bas, the NEM would likely *not *allow it.  It's effectively outside its scope to have the Commonwealth prop up a generator.  And the Commonwealth would, in any case, need to open its offer to all market participants on a fair and equitable basis if it stepped outside the NEG.
> None of it makes any sense, from any level of sanity.




Hey that wasn't *my* idea !  I was trying to let SP down gently...

I know enough about engineering (and I am not an engineer..) to realise refurbishing a tired coal plant is not a great idea for all the practical (as well as regulatory) reasons I outlined.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> I'm not sure if it would really make sense to refurbish a failing coal power station. One would have to ask how much would it cost vs investing that amount and obviously a bit more in latest gen wind/solar/ and battery. Perhaps if the cost was invitingly low you might.
> 
> But if I was an engineer I would ask where do you start and where do stop with refurbishing ? It wouldn't be hard to see some big bills and in the end the breakdown will happen with the parts that havn't been replaced.
> 
> In the renewable  example one gets cheaper ongoing power with no use of water,  particulate pollution or GG emissions.  It could be a bit like deciding to fix up a tired car vs buying a new  well priced electric car..




The difference is the Power Station is already there, so you are not starting from scratch, also the Government doesn't have to stump up any money.
Just loses some tax, it will all be very interesting, there will be a lot of very smart people doing the sums.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> there will be a lot of very smart people doing the sums.



A big problem is that in all states you will fine some sort of "office of energy" buried within another government department.

Now go to said "office" and find out who's there and what they do. Purely admin people aside you'll find people worried about compliance, theoretical economic stuff, CO2 and maybe various subsidy or concession schemes.

What you won't find is anyone focused on the actual physical supply of energy, something that used to be the focus of the monopoly utilities but which has been abandoned since their demise.

It's a bit like having a ministry of agriculture that focuses on pretty much anything other than farming. Or a media office which deals with everything except newspapers, TV, radio and the internet. Hmm....

A big part of the problem is that governments in particular didn't and to a large extent still don't perceive it as a problem. They see it as a question of regulation or economics, the idea that supply is at risk just isn't something they grasp.

As such it's like the overweight heavy smoker who refuses to acknowledge the risks or the inexperienced driver who refuses to accept their own vulnerability. We all know how things like that usually end.....

My guess is that ultimately this ends with a major failure. The timing and details are anyone's guess but so long as the technical side is considered secondary to everything else it's pretty much inevitable it will happen at some point.

Until that time we'll just see the slow but inevitable erosion of safety margins, technical standards and so on.


----------



## sptrawler

I certainly hope it isn't that bad , over East.
In W.A the Government is still the biggest supplier of power, so a lot of the old style departments are still active, they still have Muja C and D, Collie North and the CCGT at Kwinana.


----------



## sptrawler

Are AGL installing high twist blades, on some of the units smurf?

http://www.thebull.com.au/articles/a/80024-agl-to-spend-$25m-on-loy-yang-upgrade.html


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Are AGL installing high twist blades, on some of the units smurf?



I don't know the details of what they're planning to do.

What I do know however is what they've got now:

4 boilers and cooling towers all the same.

3 turbines and generators were originally ordered specifically for Loy Yang A and were originally rated at 500 MW each, later upgraded to 560 MW each. These are units 1, 3 and 4 commissioned 1985, 86 and 88 respectively.

The other turbine and generator (Unit 2) was originally ordered as the second unit for Newport D power station (Melbourne metro area) which was only ever half built with one generating unit installed. The other one ended up as Unit 2 at Loy Yang A, commissioned 1984 at 500 MW and later upgraded to 530 MW.

Literally right next door, and burning coal 100% of which is mined by AGL, is Loy Yang B owned by Alinta with 2 x nominally 500 MW units which run to 535 MW each in practice and in service since 1993 and 96. Alinta is planning to upgrade each by another 40 MW or so with work to commence soon. Loy Yang B is technically similar but not identical to Loy Yang A.

Exactly how AGL plan to get another 15 MW I'm not sure. It's a marginal change though given existing capacity at Loy Yang A is 2210 MW.


----------



## sptrawler

Sounds like everyone in NSW will get solar.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...lds-to-get-rooftop-solar-20190209-p50wrl.html

The cut off for the subsidy is $180,000, and satanoperca says, hardly any households in NSW earn that so most should qualify.
Well done all.


----------



## SirRumpole

Bio mass generation for regions.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-02-10/western-australia-oil-mallee-could-power-town/10640764


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Bio mass generation for regions.




As a concept it’s a good one.

Just need to be careful that it doesn’t get out of hand and lead to forests being cut for no purpose other than to fuel a power station. There are certainly some politicians around who would steer it that way if given the slightest chance.

So in my view it’s a good thing subject to being kept to sensible applications.


----------



## sptrawler

Well Rumpy, how long ago did we say, that solar installations on houses will become mandatory?
They just make it part of the building requirement, then eventually the cost is absorbed by the purchaser.
Well it sounds as though the penny has started to drop, make it mandatory with a subsidy sweetener, then make the subsidy disappear. Walah as if by magic.
It isn't in yet, but the wheels are in motion.

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/...teries-for-all-new-homes-20190211-p50x2h.html


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Well Rumpy, how long ago did we say, that solar installations on houses will become mandatory?
> They just make it part of the building requirement, then eventually the cost is absorbed by the purchaser.
> Well it sounds as though the penny has started to drop, make it mandatory with a subsidy sweetener, then make the subsidy disappear. Walah as if by magic.
> It isn't in yet, but the wheels are in motion.
> 
> https://www.smh.com.au/environment/...teries-for-all-new-homes-20190211-p50x2h.html




It's only the NSW Greens sp, who listens to them ?


----------



## SirRumpole

Power lines can't cope with increases in renewable energy production.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02...networks-to-buckle-under-wind-energy/10808534


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Power lines can't cope with increases in renewable energy production.



Yes, but the article did go on to say that "The AEMO is calling for immediate investment to the tune of $370 million to upgrade the network...." And that an "expression of interest for developers wanting to build, own or operate the new infrastructure closes on Monday."
One of the great side effects of renewables is the decentralisation of employment creation and net additional jobs to more and more country locations.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Yes, but the article did go on to say that "The AEMO is calling for immediate investment to the tune of $370 million to upgrade the network...." And that an "expression of interest for developers wanting to build, own or operate the new infrastructure closes on Monday."
> One of the great side effects of renewables is the decentralisation of employment creation and net additional jobs to more and more country locations.




I'm not knocking renewables rederob. I just think there is a need for better strategic thinking when applying technology , rather than a piecemeal approach of putting in new generation, waiting for something to fall over then having to fix it.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> I'm not knocking renewables rederob. I just think there is a need for better strategic thinking when applying technology , rather than a piecemeal approach of putting in new generation, waiting for something to fall over then having to fix it.



That is not a reasoned comment.
Wind and solar are not going to be built where old power stations existed.
So whenever and wherever additional renewable capacity is built, we cannot expect that grid infrastructure will magically appear, or be adequate.
Furthermore, it's not happening on a piecemeal basis.  The planning process is well known and as your linked article showed, arrangements for the necessary infrastructure went out to market.
That is very different to saying "*waiting for something to fall over then having to fix it*."


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> The planning process is well known and as your linked article showed, arrangements for the necessary infrastructure went out to market.




Expressions of interest went out, how many will be taken up ?

In my view supply of essential services are a government responsibility and governments should be the prime investors in this infrastructure.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Expressions of interest went out, how many will be taken up ?
> 
> In my view supply of essential services are a government responsibility and governments should be the prime investors in this infrastructure.



I cannot imagine nobody bidding, so whatever is on offer will be awarded.
As for what you think should be a government responsibility, it does not square with the real world.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> I cannot imagine nobody bidding, so whatever is on offer will be awarded.




Someone is sure to bid for a monopoly, but to the detriment of consumers.

As for "the real world", the real world of commercial competition in the electricity sector has resulted in massive price increases and "load shedding", so if that's the real world I would rather have the service back as it was in fantasy land.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Someone is sure to bid for a monopoly, but to the detriment of consumers.



Except that it has not been a monopoly for a long time.



SirRumpole said:


> ...the real world of commercial competition in the electricity sector has resulted in massive price increases and "load shedding", so if that's the real world I would rather have the service back as it was in fantasy land.



No argument from me on the matter of prices.
However, the present federal government is assuring us that their policies are driving down prices.
Did we all miss something.


----------



## Smurf1976

Planning:

To the extent there's a failure it's a comprehensive one not simply about any particular transmission line or wind farm.

One issue there is that from an operational perspective one thing you really, really wouldn't want to do is put lots of wind farms in a small area which will all experience the same weather patterns. That firstly cuts the price received for the output of those wind farms (a point that will come as a rude shock to some of these companies) and second it creates a constant "boom / bust" cycle in wind energy generation into the grid with that full occurring as often as daily.

Transmission but that's the easiest to fix. Just build it.

How to manage the existing generation fleet is the other gaping hole in planning. In the Victorian context the minimum turndown of existing coal-fired plant and how to deal with "must run" hydro generation are the two key issues there. Both problems are amplified by having lots of wind farms in the one location. 

In layman's terms if you need coal plant online because the wind's going to fall in a heap when the sun sets and demand goes up at that time, then what do you do with its output during the middle of the afternoon? We're going to end up with some serious inefficiencies there - coal burnt to generate no power or alternatively wind farms constrained off. Either way it's the same outcome in an overall sense. There are workarounds to that which could be built but you won't find anyone who expects them to actually be built by the time they're needed - that's 1 or 2 years at most since the wind farms are being built now.

Stand by for a few screams when reality becomes undeniable.

Government ownership:

The notion that government's shouldn't own power infrastructure is in practice primarily a NSW, Vic and SA thing.

The Commonwealth owns Snowy Hydro and for those not aware that's not just the Snowy scheme itself but also gas-fired generation in NSW and Vic plus diesel generation in SA.

The Queensland government is the producer of a considerable amount of all electricity used in NSW.

Hydro Tasmania, 100% owned by the Tas state government, operates as a "private" business outside the state under various names (Hydro Tasmania, Entura, Lofty Ranges Power, Momentum Energy and others) and has won contracts in every Australian state in recent times as well as overseas. That includes involvement with some of the Victorian wind farms by the way. 

I'm not sure about the others but Hydro Tas gains no advantage by virtue of government ownership. Yes it pays taxes and so on, the only difference being with some of the wording used in the accounts but the end result is the same financially so there's no advantage gained over competitors by virtue of ownership. Not sure about the others.

Also there's plenty of involvement of the governments of China, Singapore and to a lesser extent France. There are also foreign owned non-government participants in the industry too.

Outside of the National Electricity Market the WA and NT governments also own power generation in their respective state / territory. WA in particular competes directly with privately owned operators in that state.

So the notion that government shouldn't be involved is a NSW, Vic and SA thing really. There's plenty of government involvement in the industry in those states - it's just not their own state government that's involved.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Government ownership:




So can you explain something please.

Company A owns power lines, and you could have say 5 generators sending power through those lines at once each perhaps charging a different amount for the power they generate?

So how does Company A make it's money ? Does it say we will only let the cheapest power through so we can add a greater markup and therefore maintain our profits ? Can it isolate power  to one particular generator or does it just average out the prices each generator charges then add it's markup on top of that ?

Or is it more complicated ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> So can you explain something please.
> 
> Company A owns power lines, and you could have say 5 generators sending power through those lines at once each perhaps charging a different amount for the power they generate?
> 
> So how does Company A make it's money ?



There's complexity but leaving that aside and sticking to the concepts:

*Generators (power stations, wind farms etc) offer supply at whatever price they choose to offer it at.

*AEMO (Australian Energy Market Operator) dispatches generation starting with the cheapest until sufficient power is generated to match demand.

*The capacity of transmission lines will limit flow under certain circumstances as will an assortment of "what if?" technical constraints which aim to maintain system stability in the event that something fails. This precludes, for example, ever having a situation where no gas or diesel fired plant is running in SA even though wind generation + supply from Vic could meet the entire load. It could, but not if there's a sudden fault hence the constraint and there are many like that.

*The practical effect of constraints is to push some generation onto higher cost (what price the owners are offering it at, not necessarily what it actually costs to operate) plant.

**The vast majority of transmission and distribution is subject to price regulation* and is funded by electricity consumers. The owners of these assets have no reason to be concerned about where the supply is coming from or going to - they're being paid a regulated return regardless.

*Main exception is Basslink, that is Tas - Vic transmission, which ultimately operates as a commercial for-profit operation.

*Where it all gets complex is that there's nothing to stop any power station pricing different volumes of output at very different prices if they want to. Some do, some just set one price and that's it.

*Prices can be negative. If there's oversupply then those with high costs to shutdown and restart will send prices below zero in an effort to avoid being the ones who are shut down by AEMO. Anyone buying electricity from the spot market would literally be paid to take it under those circumstances.

*Every company has their own strategies and the most substantial operators all have "trading rooms" where it's all done from.

*It's no secret that some companies use a strategy of reverse engineering the market. They're aiming for certain volumes and just set whatever price results in that volume being dispatched by AEMO over whatever period they're focused on (right now, today, this week, etc). If volume is higher than they want then they'll just raise prices and vice versa. Hydro operators needing to manage limited volumes of water are the main ones using this approach but anyone who's running low on coal etc will tend to do it also.

*There are also some who will just run flat out and take whatever price the market gives them. The now closed Hazelwood power station were particularly well known for doing that.

*The spot market is the means of determining physical dispatch but none of this precludes other financial arrangements between generators and retailers or other customers. Such arrangements generally have the effect of stabilising price and revenue for both parties.

*There's no law against contracts between rival generators and numerous such arrangements exist. There are some companies who refuse to deal with others but there's a lot of such arrangements overall.

*Also some instances of generation fully under contract to someone else. Eg Energy Australia doesn't own Newport D power station (Vic) but they have the rights to 100% of its output, they decide the pricing strategy and they supply the gas. The actual owners are rent collectors basically. That's just one example it's not the only one. One of the more complex would be Pelican Point in SA - Engie owns and operates it, Origin has half of it under contract for supply of gas and the electricity generated but the other half is Engie's as such.

*There are also a few instances of legislated operating limits on particular power stations in addition to physical limitations. Valley Power (Vic) is a 300 MW gas-fired plant owned by Snowy Hydro and subject to an operating hours limit of 876 hours per year imposed by the Victorian EPA. Another one is the 40 MW Eraring gas turbine (NSW) owned by Origin and subject to an annual 200 hour operating limit from the NSW EPA.


----------



## sptrawler

It tells you things aren't as good as they could be, when the Energy Market operator advertises, what to do in case of extended blackouts.
https://www.theage.com.au/environme...ak-summer-hits-home-hard-20190114-p50ral.html


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It tells you things aren't as good as they could be, when the Energy Market operator advertises, what to do in case of extended blackouts



I don’t like things which appear to tempt fate.

It’s not a rational approach I’ll admit but I’ve been bitten by that sort of thing more than once so prefer to avoid it.

Plus if anyone actually needs advice on what to do if the power fails then I think we’ve got bigger problems.


----------



## Smurf1976

Here comes the inevitable:

http://www.thebull.com.au/articles/a/80301-gas-shortage-to-hit-qld-lng-plants:-study.html

I've said it all before. The outcome was foreseeable, and was actually foreseen, before they were even built.


----------



## qldfrog

Weird situation oil wise..but as Smurf already explained, oil is not oil..many different types
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/twelve-empty-supertankers-reveal-truths-125018041.html


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Here comes the inevitable:
> 
> http://www.thebull.com.au/articles/a/80301-gas-shortage-to-hit-qld-lng-plants:-study.html
> 
> I've said it all before. The outcome was foreseeable, and was actually foreseen, before they were even built.



Yes, but has the everyday media run this story?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Yes, but has the everyday media run this story?



Not so far as I'm aware.

The link appeared on the news feed on ASF though


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Not so far as I'm aware.
> 
> The link appeared on the news feed on ASF though



Yes, but the so called energy expert journalists, have to spend some time thinking how they can put a positive spin, on an obviously dire situation.
Gas is the go-to fuel, to carry us over the fossil fuel to renewable generation chasm, well it is untill it starts to run out.lol

It is a bit like just trying to make it to the next fuel station, when you don't know how far it is, but your fuel gauge is showing empty.lol

Can't wait untill the AEMO, start running how to make your own candles, adverts.lol


----------



## Smurf1976

There's no cause for panic at present but the situation in Victoria for Friday 1st of March looks a bit stretched. There's enough supply forecast to be available but there's less margin than this Smurf would like to see and it would only take a couple of technical hiccups to end up with a supply problem as happened a few weeks ago.

Looking ahead, increased transmission capacity between Vic and Tas looks almost certain to proceed now that Liberal and Labor are both backing the project and the Greens have given conditional support also.

Marinus Link is a proposed 2 x 600 MW HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) link between Tasmania and Victoria built as two independent systems. This is additional to the existing 478 MW Basslink cable which would remain in service.

Plans at this stage are for commissioning of the first 600 MW stage in 2025 and the second in 2028 although those dates are by no means firm at this point in time.

So it's not 100% certain but it does now seem extremely likely to go ahead.


----------



## qldfrog

6y (planned)to drop a cable?


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> 6y (planned)to drop a cable?




All the planning and environmental studies to meet regulatory requirements etc. Don't underestimate that one - a few years were spent on that with Basslink but it came pretty close to not being enough to keep everyone happy in all sorts of ways. 

Manufacturing the cable will take considerable time - it'll be made to order it's not something that's off the shelf. And of course nobody's going to sign off on a $ billion order without first having done all the studies etc so it can't run concurrently with that.

Lots of engineering work to be done to integrate that into the system and ensure it doesn't result in anyone being literally left in the dark. That can run concurrently with the rest yes.

Testing and commissioning process bearing in mind it's not just a cable but also a rectifier and inverter at each end plus also the AC transmission infrastructure and, at the Tas end at least, elaborate control and protection schemes.

In a technical sense sure it could be done a lot faster but we live in a world full of processes....

I know what you mean though.


----------



## qldfrog

Thanks Smurf, i noticed the DC part.
when a kid at school, i was told AC was used to reduce loss on long distances,
Are we planning to boil tea in the tasman sea?
More seriously do you know why DC..and so inverters etc?


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> Thanks Smurf, i noticed the DC part.
> when a kid at school, i was told AC was used to reduce loss on long distances,
> Are we planning to boil tea in the tasman sea?
> More seriously do you know why DC..and so inverters etc?



It's High Voltage DC so current and thus losses are kept low. Eg the existing Basslink cable operates at 400,000 Volts DC.

There's really two categories of reasons to not run it as AC:

1. Capacitance losses over that distance. Noting in that context that Basslink was the world's longest undersea power cable when built and is still the 4th longest today.

2. It enables precise control of power flow and that's important when there's no other link between the two systems which are of very different scale. Since that includes transfer of frequency control, it enables problems and disturbances to intentionally be "dumped" onto one side or the other in order to stabilise the other side.

In a not so strict engineering sense there's also the pragmatic aspect that it enables different standards to apply on both sides and that fits well with what works in practice. The key differences being:

*Tasmania runs transmission lines a hell of a lot harder than the other states will and does so via elaborate control and protection schemes combined with real time monitoring. The other states take a very much more conservative approach without a comparable level of monitoring or protection schemes.

*Tas frequency control is under normal circumstances very much tighter than that of the other states, it's very precise, versus that of the mainland system which basically drifts back and forth constantly between the upper and lower limits.

*The presence of a few very large loads, relative to overall system size, and the seasonal shifting of generation does mean the Tas system is at times unavoidably vulnerable to major disturbance in the event of a line or load trip. Whilst "normal" frequency control in Tas is far tighter than the other states, under fault conditions the upper and lower limits actually reached will depart further from "normal" than is likely to occur in the other states due to the scale, in % terms, of load or generation lost following a worst case fault.

Putting all that together DC with its ability to impose very specific control over throughput does have advantages in practice although it also has disadvantages.

The big downside of DC is its inherent complexity and also the operational restrictions - can't reverse the direction of flow quickly and there are "no go zones" which prevent the transfer of small quantities. As a whole though it still wins.

That's not to say that an AC link wouldn't or couldn't be built if it were found to be the best way. It's just that it hasn't been thus far in the Vic - Tas context but decent length ones have been built overseas.


----------



## qldfrog

Thanks..indeed very high voltage.....


----------



## basilio

God you wouldn't want anything to go wrong with that cable.

Could be a hell of a lot of fried fish ..


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> God you wouldn't want anything to go wrong with that cable.
> 
> Could be a hell of a lot of fried fish ..



When the original idea first emerged there were thoughts of installing only half the circuit as an actual cable and using the sea itself as the return path.

As a concept that's very workable but gave rise to a lot of concerns as to the consequences if it didn't go to plan and current ended up flowing where it shouldn't. 

Biggest concern is that there's a gas pipeline, which is steel and therefore highly conductive, following a similar route across Bass Strait and at the Tasmanian end it comes ashore within a short walk of where Basslink also terminates. The idea that we could end up with a situation where DC current ends up flowing through the gas pipe and possibly exiting back to the sea somewhere along it brought those thoughts to an end real quick since that would produce an _extremely_ corrosive situation with obvious consequences.

That was one of those ideas that was fine in a laboratory and could be done in theory but had too many bad consequences if it went wrong.


----------



## Smurf1976

It's starting to look rather ominous for power supply in Victoria this Friday.

Might scrape through with maximum supply from other states but it's looking very marginal with nothing really to spare.


----------



## Ann

Smurf1976 said:


> It's starting to look rather ominous for power supply in Victoria this Friday.
> 
> Might scrape through with maximum supply from other states but it's looking very marginal with nothing really to spare.



I should keep my candles and matches at the ready Smurf?


----------



## Smurf1976

Ann said:


> I should keep my candles and matches at the ready Smurf?



It's at the point where I won't predict a blackout but nobody would sensibly say there won't be one either. It looks to be a very tight situation but possibly doable if nothing goes wrong. 

If there was a problem though then it would likely be late afternoon - early evening so before it's dark. That's when demand is forecast to peak - about 6pm Vic local time.


----------



## Ann

Smurf1976 said:


> It's at the point where I won't predict a blackout but nobody would sensibly say there won't be one either. It looks to be a very tight situation but possibly doable if nothing goes wrong.
> 
> If there was a problem though then it would likely be late afternoon - early evening so before it's dark. That's when demand is forecast to peak - about 6pm Vic local time.



Thanks Smurf, I will organize dinner on the BBQ with salad just in case.


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting thing happened today, friends over the road asked me to come and have a look at their solar inverter, it had tripped.
I had a look and it is U/S fault code up, relays fried.
I told them they will have to get in touch with ABB, the supplier and see if they will fix and or replace it.
It is a 3.6 Kw 7 years old unit, and only had a 5 year warranty, so I don't hold out much hope.
They said if it costs $1000 to replace it, which I think is ball park, they wont bother.
That is the other side of this renewable coin, what if most people don't fix or replace, stuffed systems?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> That is the other side of this renewable coin, what if most people don't fix or replace, stuffed systems?



There are certainly differences in the technical competence and enthusiasm of the large scale generation operators but even the absolute will at least know if their plant is running or not.

The same unfortunately can't be said for generation owned by households or small businesses and I've no doubt that there will be some that don't work in practice. How many is anyone's guess but anecdotal evidence suggests it's a few % not just one or two random ones.


----------



## Value Collector

Then their power bills will rise, and they will pay well over $1000 over the next 12 months.

I think a sudden increase in power bills will be a remedy for most people.


----------



## Smurf1976

Those in SA may have spotted a full page article in the Advertiser today regarding SA Power Networks' proposal for Time Of Use (TOU) pricing. To their credit, they've done a surprisingly good job of explaining it. 

In short the idea is a simple approach based on the notion that it's either a peak time, an off-peak time, or a time when lack of load is actually a problem. So that translates to one peak price and two off-peak prices one cheaper than the other.

Peak = 6am - 10am and 3pm - 1am

Off-peak = 1am - 6am

Really cheap off-peak rate because lack of load is actually becoming a problem = 10am - 3pm.

The concept of TOU pricing isn't new but it is so far as households in SA are concerned and the simple "it's peak or it's not" approach, with no "shoulder" period between the two, is also not common in places where TOU is used. Most have a more complex approach.

Apart from the detail of the actual times which have been changed to suit local conditions, the SAPN proposal is essentially the same as Tariff 93 in Tasmania which was intentionally designed to be a simple as possible for consumers so as to increase acceptance.

As many in Tas have worked out, this works extremely well as a means of maximising use of your own solar power since the cheapest off-peak rate becomes the automatic backup during the part of the day when the sun shines strongest. That makes it very straightforward to use simple timers to control water heaters etc, without spending $1000+ on a box of fancy electronics to try and match load to the solar system's output.

The underlying logic here is that to the extent consumers are are willing to go along with it, changing behaviour is a lot cheaper than building more sub-stations, upgrading distribution lines and adding whatever method of storage (hydro, batteries). In doing so this then becomes a cheap workaround to multiple problems:

*Solar and wind generation going to waste in the middle of the day due to network voltage control limitations and lack of load. In the case of small scale generation, that is rooftop solar, nobody actually knows the true extent of the losses but the one certainty is that it's not zero since numerous occurrences have been confirmed. Higher load, encouraged by the lowest prices, is a potential solution here.

*System instability during the middle of the day as a problem next decade as solar continues to increase relative to load or, worse still, exceeds it.

*Network and generation peak demand early in the evening. Moving load to either the middle of the day or the middle of the night will, to the extent consumers do so, reduce the evening peak.

So a potential workaround for multiple issues.

Now just have to see if it gets past the regulators......


----------



## basilio

One of the usual pieces of disinformation sprouted about renewable energy is its cost and statements that subsidizing solar/wind power is somehow unfair.

Richard Denniss does an excellent job of dissecting the double standards behind this argument as he goes through the history and current practices around Government subsidies.
* Here's why Australia needs to keep subsidising renewables *
Richard Denniss

The idea that ‘the markets’ make all the big decisions about our society has eaten away our democracy

 @RDNS_TAI 
Wed 20 Mar 2019 01.43 GMT   Last modified on Wed 20 Mar 2019 02.19 GMT


*Comments*
 106 
 
Subsidies that encourage people to install solar and batteries on their homes speed up the rate at which renewables squeeze the coal-fired power stations out of business. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP
Conservatives love subsidies because they know that they work. It’s why they spend $11bn subsidising private schools and $6bn subsidising private health insurance. It’s why they’re so keen to subsidise new coal mines and coal-fired power stations. And of course, it’s the reason that they are so obsessed with renewable energy subsidies — they know just how effective they would be.

There are those who think mining more coal is a good way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and then there are those who don’t. I’m definitely one of the latter. And for those who want to see Australia’s emissions fall, there is no doubt that we need more subsidies for renewables.






*  Renewables need urgent investment to ease Australia's transmission bottlenecks, experts warn  *
Read more
These days, the rightwing commentators who once asserted “climate change isn’t real” typically prefer to argue that measures to tackle climate change are either ineffective, or too expensive. One of their favourite arguments is that if renewables are now cheaper than coal, then why should Australia subsidise renewables at all? It’s a good question, but there are plenty of good answers.

The first is that we need to keep subsidising renewables because we don’t have nearly enough of them and we are in a race against physics. The fact is, new build renewables with storage are now cheaper than new build coal, but that won’t cause existing coal-fired power stations to shut down, which is the only way to make emissions fall. Subsidies that encourage people to install solar and batteries on their homes however speed up the rate at which renewables squeeze the coal-fired power stations out of business.
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ustralia-needs-to-keep-subsidising-renewables


----------



## sptrawler

In W.A the Collie locals are getting restless.

https://thewest.com.au/news/south-w...n-you-cant-live-without-us-yet-ng-b881128154z


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> In W.A the Collie locals are getting restless



They're not the only ones:

https://thewest.com.au/business/ren...o-bring-down-perths-power-grid-ng-b881140226z

One good thing about the big blackout in SA is it has prompted an evaluation of system stability risks in other states which otherwise probably wouldn't have occurred until it was too late.


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## sptrawler

Like we said smurph, everything is getting ahead of itself, time to take a breath and formulate a technical plan not a political or emotional one.


----------



## SirRumpole

Price gouging by power companies ?

I find that hard to believe. 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03...customers-hazelwood-electricity-bill/10910948


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Price gouging by power companies ?
> 
> I find that hard to believe.



I will simply say that the result in practice is the one I and others predicted indeed I said so on this forum at the time.

That's most certainly not trying to put me up on a pedestal but rather, it's expressing a frustration that there's an army of people in government, universities and elsewhere who have precisely zero practical experience in anything electrical but who are taken far too seriously with their theories which keep failing.

If the public wants this to work reliably and efficiently then there's a pretty straightforward solution. Stick to science, engineering and practical stuff and keep the ideological theories well away.


----------



## Smurf1976

Some statistical information that may be of interest in the context of various discussions about energy, climate change and also relevant to some ASX listed companies in the gas and other energy industries.

Figures compiled by Smurf from official Australian Government data. 

All commercial energy, including small scale production (eg household solar systems) is included. Small scale production is estimated, everything else is as measured.

*Electricity generation by fuel source for calendar year 2018. *All figures rounded to nearest 1% except those below 1% (rounded to nearest 0.1%) and those below 0.1% (rounded to nearest 0.01%).
*
NSW*
Coal = 79%
Hydro = 7%
Solar = 5%
Wind = 4%
Natural Gas = 3%
Biomass = 2%
Oil = 0.6%

*Queensland*
Coal = 75%
Natural Gas = 15%
Solar = 5%
Biomass = 2%
Oil = 1%
Hydro = 1%
Wind = 0.2%

*Victoria*
Coal = 76%
Wind = 10%
Natural Gas = 6%
Solar = 4%
hydro = 2%
Biomass = 1%
Oil = 0.3%

*WA*
Natural Gas = 60%
Coal = 25%
Oil = 6%
Wind = 4%
Solar = 3%
Hydro = 0.5%
Biomass = 0.4%

*SA*
Natural Gas = 48%
Wind = 40%
Solar = 10%
Oil = 1%
Biomass = 0.6%
Hydro = 0.04%

*Tasmania*
Hydro = 84%
Wind = 9%
Natural Gas = 5%
Solar = 1%
Oil = 0.3%
Biomass = 0.2%

*NT*
Natural Gas = 69%
Oil = 27%
Solar = 4%
Biomass = 0.2%

*Australia*
Coal = 60%
Natural Gas = 19%
Hydro = 7%
Wind = 6%
Solar = 5%
Oil = 2%
Biomass = 1%

*Leading state by resource*
Coal = NSW is the largest user of coal-fired generation, accounting for 37% of the national total.
Natural Gas = WA is the largest user of gas for electricity at 49% of the national total.
Hydro = Tasmania is the largest user of hydro-electricity at 59% of the national total.
Wind = SA is the largest user of wind energy at 35% of the national total.
Solar = Queensland is the largest user of solar electricity at 31% of the national total.
Oil = WA is the largest user of oil-fired electricity generation at 48% of the national total.
Biomass = Queensland is the largest user of biomass for electricity at 42% of the national total.


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## Smurf1976

Now the data for all energy consumption. That is energy for all purposes including but not limited to electricity generation. 

Figures rounded to the nearest 1%

*NSW*
Oil = 43%
Coal = 41%
Natural Gas = 9%
Renewables = 6%

*Queensland*
Oil = 37%
Coal = 35%
Natural Gas = 20%
Renewables = 8%

*Victoria*
Coal = 41%
Oil = 35%
Natural Gas = 20%
Renewables = 4%

*WA*
Natural Gas = 50%
Oil = 35%
Coal = 13%
Renewables = 2%

*SA*
Natural Gas = 43%
Oil = 37%
Renewables = 11%
Coal = 9%

*Tasmania*
Renewables = 40%
Oil = 36%
Natural Gas = 12%
Coal = 12%

*NT*
Natural Gas = 58%
Oil = 41%
Renewables = 1%

*Australia (Total)*
Oil = 38%
Coal = 32%
Natural Gas = 25%
Renewables = 6%


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## moXJO

Smurf1976 said:


> Now the data for all energy consumption. That is energy for all purposes including but not limited to electricity generation.
> 
> Figures rounded to the nearest 1%
> 
> *NSW*
> Oil = 43%
> Coal = 41%
> Natural Gas = 9%
> Renewables = 6%
> 
> *Queensland*
> Oil = 37%
> Coal = 35%
> Natural Gas = 20%
> Renewables = 8%
> 
> *Victoria*
> Coal = 41%
> Oil = 35%
> Natural Gas = 20%
> Renewables = 4%
> 
> *WA*
> Natural Gas = 50%
> Oil = 35%
> Coal = 13%
> Renewables = 2%
> 
> *SA*
> Natural Gas = 43%
> Oil = 37%
> Renewables = 11%
> Coal = 9%
> 
> *Tasmania*
> Renewables = 40%
> Oil = 36%
> Natural Gas = 12%
> Coal = 12%
> 
> *NT*
> Natural Gas = 58%
> Oil = 41%
> Renewables = 1%
> 
> *Australia (Total)*
> Oil = 38%
> Coal = 32%
> Natural Gas = 25%
> Renewables = 6%




Wow... renewables are lower than I thought.


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## Junior

Smurf1976 said:


> *Australia*
> Coal = 60%
> Natural Gas = 19%
> Hydro = 7%
> Wind = 6%
> Solar = 5%
> Oil = 2%
> Biomass = 1%




Hi Smurf, thank you for putting this together, very interesting.  Based on projects currently being constructed or in planing over the next couple of years, what's your very rough estimate of how these figures will change for calendar years 2019 and 2020?  In terms of whether the Renewable %% will jump up in any meaningful way, or not.


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## basilio

I accept Smurfs report on electricty and energy generation. I'm also surprised at the seeming low amount of renewable energy.

There is another story which slices and dices the figures in a different way.  

* Renewables produced more energy than brown coal and gas over summer *
Report finds rise in solar and wind generation almost eclipsed capacity lost when Hazelwood power station closed

Lisa Cox

Thu 28 Mar 2019 21.43 GMT   Last modified on Thu 28 Mar 2019 23.21 GMT

Shares
1,172

 
The Hazelwood power station in 2018. Almost all of the generation capacity lost in Hazelwood’s closure has been replaced by renewables. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Growth in wind and solar energy over the past two years has almost entirely replaced the lost output from the Hazelwood power station during summer, a new report says.

The latest Green Energy Markets report says renewable energy produced 128% more megawatt hours of electricity than gas and 23% more than brown coal over the 2018-19 summer in the national electricity market states.

It also shows that output from solar energy alone exceeded that from brown coal and gas when averaged across the 9am-5pm period.

Demand for electricity hits a peak between 11.30am and 5.30pm in the summer months. 
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...re-energy-than-brown-coal-and-gas-over-summer


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## Zaxon

This is recent data, showing that some renewables are outright cheaper than coal.


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## Smurf1976

As a bit of background, my reason for posting the above data was due to my post in one of the stock threads (Leigh Creek Energy) where I stated the size of the gas market so as to put the company's recently announced reserves into perspective.

Looking at what I'd posted, my thought was that further explanation of the broader issue was required since it's not intuitive. Someone just reading that post would likely be somewhat doubtful that SA really does use almost as much gas as NSW or that the NT uses about 4 times as much as Tasmania. Those aren't intuitive, considering the population of NSW versus SA or that everyone knows Tas is far colder than the NT.

So I thought I'd just post a lot of data in an easily understandable form and that would prompt some thinking.

I say that with the notion that if I were to ask a hundred random people then I suspect most would be somewhat surprised to find that there is any coal used in SA or Tas at all. Likewise many would be surprised that Vic uses as much gas as NSW, SA and Tas combined. Also many wouldn't associate oil as a resource used to generate electricity.

So what I've done is taken official Australian Government statistics and very slightly simplified them. By that I mean I just grouped all types of coal together and called it "coal" since that's what it is. And if it came from oil (petrol, diesel etc) the I've just called it "oil" to keep it simple. Beyond that minor simplification however I've simply posted government data. Should you wish to see the raw data, it's in the spreadsheets at www.energy.gov.au which is an Australian Government site.

With regard to renewables being lower than most were expecting, the simple answer there is that the direct use of liquid and gas fuels by end users (homes, industry, etc) is greater than the use of electricity and firewood. That's a constraint on the share of renewables since most renewables produce electricity or are in the form of wood, with minor exceptions they're not generally in the form of liquids or gases.

Looking at electricity as a % of energy supplied to consumers by state:

WA = 15%
NT = 17%
Vic = 17%
Qld = 19%
SA = 20%
NSW = 23%
Tas = 39%

The simple explanation there is that transport accounts for 39.5% of all energy use nationally with over 98% of that supplied by oil. Apart from suburban trains and a few freight lines, electricity isn't in that market to any meaningful extent at the present time. Electric vehicles might be common at some future time but at present they account for a very minor portion of the transport task.

Then consider things like furnaces and boilers in industry (gas, oil, coal), gas cookers and hot water systems, central heating and so on all of which use lots of energy which isn't at present coming from electricity and you start to understand why electricity as a % of the total is far less than you were expecting. Agriculture is another one that uses quite a bit of energy but very little in the form of electricity (it's mostly diesel).

So that's how we have (for example) just over 50% of the electricity in SA coming from renewable sources but only 11% of total energy from that source. It all adds up once you realise that electricity is only 20% of the energy used by end users in SA and a bit of firewood and trivial amounts of ethanol added to petrol (E10 fuel is a niche thing in SA - it exists but most servos don't sell it) accounts for the remainder of the renewables.

Whilst my intent here is to avoid politics and stick to facts, I'll make the observation that if we're going to use a greater share of renewables then there's a limit to how far that can go just replacing other means of generating electricity. We also need to shift more of the energy use to electricity - electric vehicles instead of petrol, fast trains instead of planes between cities (aviation accounts for 19.7% of transport energy use) and so on.

Some of the barriers there are technical, battery powered planes aren't an idea that's ready yet, but some are economic. For example, about half of all the coal used in Tasmania is used at one industrial facility to fire the kilns. That's not generating electricity or even boiling water, it's just coal straight in and burned to produce high grade heat and that's it. The cost of that is around $15 per megawatt hour and there's no way any form of electricity (or gas or oil) comes anywhere near to being competitive hence the coal. And since most of that product is shipped out of the state, they can't simply raise the price unless either their competitors likewise raise production costs or we go down the route of tariffs etc which is a whole debate in itself.

As I said, I've aimed to just stick to facts here not politics - too much politics is the trouble with all this in the first place.


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## Smurf1976

Total wind + solar power generation in SA exceeds total electricity consumption in SA at the moment.

Just posted for the record that it does happen. There’s still some gas-fired plant running for reasons of system stability and the overall surplus is going to Victoria.

Now about that electric car I don’t have. Now would be a great time to charge it.....


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## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Whilst my intent here is to avoid politics and stick to facts, I'll make the observation that if we're going to use a greater share of renewables then there's a limit to how far that can go just replacing other means of generating electricity.



There's a commercial reality that it cannot be done quickly, and also be profitable.
But the physical reality is that Australia has sun and wind available to have massive excess energy capacity in the future.
The technology to harness that via hydrogen is available, and maybe in future there will be something else even more efficient.
Putting renewables into the present electricity network such the dispatchable power is not problematic, however, is a very different kettle of fish.


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## Smurf1976

Another way to look at this issue with how to increase the market share of renewables is instead of asking the question as to how we power things, revers that and ask the question of what we actually do with fossil fuels? That's a related but slightly different way of looking at it.

*Oil*
Transport uses = 69% of consumption
Manufacturing = 10%
Mining = 9%
Agriculture = 5%
Electricity generation = 2% 
Other = 2% (lubricants, chemicals etc)
Commercial = 2% (businesses other than factories, mines, farms etc)
Construction = 0.9%
Residential = 0.6% (mostly LPG)

*Coal*
Electricity generation = 89%
Manufacturing = 11%
Mining = 0.2%
Other = 0.005 % (BBQ's, tourist trips on steam trains, etc)

*Natural Gas*
Electricity generation = 37%
Manufacturing = 26%
Mining = 20%
Residential = 11%
Commercial = 4%
Transport = 1%
Other = 0.6% (includes use within the gas industry itself)
Construction = 0.2%
Agriculture = 0.07%

*Combined coal, oil and gas direct use (where the fuel is actually burned)*
Electricity generation = 40% 
Transport = 28% 
Manufacturing = 14% 
Mining = 9% 
Residential = 3% 
Agriculture = 2% 
Commercial = 2% 
Misc others = 0.9% 
Construction = 0.4% 

I've intentionally just posted the data here without comment. I'll let the data speak for itself noting the highly political nature of all this.

I will add though that the last set of figures, that which combines all three fossil fuels, is the one which best illustrates the overall situation.

Note that the % figures are all for energy supplied. That is, they are not CO2, cost or anything else although obviously those things are related.


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## sptrawler

This is exactly what we are talking about when we say, the renewables push is getting way ahead of itself, the 150MW solar salt storage generation plant in S.A is not going ahead.
So that puts the renewable future and large capacity solar generation behind the eight ball, it is a shame because it would have been cutting edge, but it blows big holes in coal replacement. IMO

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04...nt-will-not-go-ahead-in-port-augusta/10973948

It created a lot of headlines and gave a lot of people a lot of hope, but it is still in its infancy and getting funding will always be problematic. Just ask Carnegie clean energy.
150MW with 13hrs of storage on a good day, for nearly $1b , is always going to have trouble getting finance. IMO


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> 150MW with 13hrs of storage on a good day, for nearly $1b , is always going to have trouble getting finance. IMO



As a technical and environmental concept I like it and as you say, losing it does poke a hole in plans to replace coal.

As an economic concept though, well solar PV (solar panels) + wind turbines combined with pumped hydro and some batteries seems to be a cheaper way forward. In the SA context, pumped hydro is the bit that's missing thus far although there are certainly suitable sites where it could be developed.


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## Smurf1976

http://www.thebull.com.au/articles/a/81216-energy-sector-seeks-calm-over-grid-intervention.html



> Right now, it is being reported that there are daily interventions to keep the grid running smoothly, with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) taking control as necessary.




Yep, that's what's happening.

Engineers having re-gained some influence once those in charge realised the lights really were going out beats any alternative though. Just don't expect those on the economics / finance side to be too happy about it all.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> http://www.thebull.com.au/articles/a/81216-energy-sector-seeks-calm-over-grid-intervention.html
> 
> 
> 
> Yep, that's what's happening.
> 
> Engineers having re-gained some influence once those in charge realised the lights really were going out beats any alternative though. Just don't expect those on the economics / finance side to be too happy about it all.




At last the politicains must have realised, this is serious $hit, that they shouldn't be playing with.


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## HelloU

question:
if we replaced the coal with gas does that reduce the co2 emissions by any worthwhile amount?
better, worse, sameish


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## sptrawler

HelloU said:


> question:
> if we replaced the coal with gas does that reduce the co2 emissions by any worthwhile amount?
> better, worse, sameish



Less CO2 more SO4, waste of the best most versatile fuel we have available.
They will wake up when they have depleted the gas reserves.
But hey that's life, what was the song, you don't realise what you've got till it's gone. Lol
As long as the vocal sector is appeased, then it is all worthwhile, no matter what the outcome.


----------



## HelloU

sptrawler said:


> Less CO2 more SO4, waste of the best most versatile fuel we have available.
> They will wake up when they have depleted the gas reserves.
> But hey that's life, what was the song, you don't realise what you've got till it's gone. Lol
> As long as the vocal sector is appeased, then it is all worthwhile, no matter what the outcome.



thanks
prolly should have just looked it up (like i just did and it took 2 seconds)
and i see co2 for gas is slightly more than half of the co2 for coal (per energy equivalent output). 
(i never appreciated that previously)


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## Smurf1976

Smurf installs solar power at home. 

The very next day was heavily overcast with the lowest solar insolation of any day in almost 6 months (official BOM data). Knew that would happen...... 

Tech specs for those interested:

Panels = 14 x 365W (can't fit any more on the roof in unshaded areas)

Inverter = SolarEdge 5.0kW hybrid inverter

Battery = LG RESU10h (9.3 kWh usable capacity)


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## Belli

Nice.  So that's 5.11 kW on the roof and the inverter hasn't been overclocked.  Am I right there with the numbers?

Also did you install power optimisers?  One of the PV solar systems I have is a battery-ready SolarEdge with 19 x 345w Q Cel panels with optimisers due to some shading issues.  Nevertheless, the output is broadly similar to the SMA inverter with the other 19 x 345w Q Cels (Yeah, 38 panels and only little roof space left!)

Haven't been able to monitor production for the last few days as I've installed a new modem in preparation for the NBN and haven't yet worked out how to re-connect to the data from the inverter.  Doesn't matter much I suppose as all the sums for the bottom line of money are done by the smart meter.


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## Belli

No surprise.  Contacted the crew which installed the PV systems.  To change the password for the SolarEdge requires the front panel to be removed.  I'm not going to mess around with that.  For the SMA inverter they may have to contact SMA for updated details.  Obviously there will be a charge.  A small price to stop me possibly electrocuting myself and even smaller in the context of the cost of the systems.

I had a look and in March when both systems became fully operational the amount of energy recorded as being received by the retailer was 1,488 kWh.  That was about 90% of the reported combined production of the systems.

And how they operate individually in the early morning I found was intriguing.

For example, at around 7 am the SMA on the Eastern end of this house could be producing 1.5kW and the energy produced was 500wh whereas the SolarEdge on the Western end may be 800w but has produced 1.2 kWh.  In the afternoon the situation appears to reverse.  Roof is facing North-East.


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## basilio

Looking at the big picture on the future of energy generation.
There are  practical, cost effective  ways and means to re engineer all of the worlds energy supplies to renewable energy and reach zero emissions before 2050. 
I wonder how quickly we will  examine and begin such a journey ? And if, as they suggest,  it would pay for itself through energy savings alone*  Why wouldn't we do it ?*

* The world could transition entirely to cheap, safe renewable energy before 2050: Finnish study *
 12 April 2019 Yle News  0 Comments climate change, emissions, energy, global warming, Renewables
FacebookTwitterWhatsAppEmail
PrintFriendly









A study from the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and the Energy Watch Group (EWG) from Germany says a global transition to the exclusive use of renewable energy is possible before 2050. (iStock)
*A global transition to the exclusive use of renewable energy sources is not only possible but also cheaper and safer than reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear energy, according to a new study from the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and the Energy Watch Group (EWG) from Germany.*

The study claims that the rapid development of renewable energy sources and energy storage technology will likely make it possible for the entire planet to reduce its CO2 emissions to zero even earlier than the current 2050 deadline.

The report is the first of its kind to suggest a cost-effective, all-inclusive, global roadmap to keep average global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius. It is also the first planet-wide climate change resistance plan that suggests not using carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) techniques to mechanically remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

According to the model, in 2050 some 69 percent of the world’s energy would come from solar panels, 18 percent from wind power, 3 percent from hydropower systems and 6 percent from bioenergy.

Fossil fuels and nuclear power would not be needed at all. Cars, planes and ships would run on carbon-neutral synthetic fuels produced from hydrogen and carbon dioxide.

*“Only way”*




The report is the first of its kind to suggest a cost-effective, all-inclusive, global roadmap to keep average global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius. (Nancy Russell/CBC)
*The study indicates that its sweeping plans for all sectors – energy production, heating, traffic, water systems, and others – could be funded by the savings accrued from giving up fossil fuels entirely.*

The team of researchers said that the energy revolution is a matter of political will, not of technology or financing.

“The study was set up with the belief that rapid and effective climate protection is the only way to save a planet worth living on for generations to come,” the research paper’s foreword reads, authored by EQG’s Hans-Josef Fell.

“This project was set up to show how techno-economic facts open the door for a much faster and more rigorous shift to renewable energy sources in order to trigger an even more dynamic technology development worldwide, and in addition a chance for all world regions to gain energy independence and benefit from the associated prospects of peace and conflict resolution.”

LUT and EWG promised in their study that the massive amounts of information the model is based on would be used to draw up guidelines for renewable energy transition for every country in the world.

“The study shows that all countries can and should speed up the fulfilment of the goals of the Paris Agreement,” said Christian Breyer from LUT, who headed the 14-person research effort.

The team’s model used a simulation of the world’s energy production and consumption on an hourly level, in five-year phases, between 2015-2050. Such data has never been gathered before.

The team dedicated the study to Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and the global #FridaysForFuture movement she has inspired in which students stage a climate strike every Friday instead of attending school. In March more than a million people marched for better climate change prevention measures around the world.
http://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/2019/04/12/renewable-energy-global-study-transition-100/


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## rederob

basilio said:


> There are  practical, cost effective  ways and means to re engineer all of the world's energy supplies to renewable energy and reach zero emissions before 2050.
> I wonder how quickly we will  examine and begin such a journey ? And if, as they suggest,  it would pay for itself through energy savings alone*  Why wouldn't we do it ?*



Bas, a few years ago I was all for more intervention.
Today the free market is voting with its pockets. 
All the electrical energy producers in Australia know that building coal plants will leave them with expensive stranded assets.
For that matter, the nuclear option makes even less sense while renewables are cheaper by the day.
The present transitional impediment is battery storage costs.  Curiously it's not a big expense in the greater scheme of things.  However, to recoup battery costs we need to be in a situation where intermittency and peak demand are not met by other means, such as wasteful pumped hydro.
What I see happening is a continuation of large scale renewables to a point where they overcompensate for daily baseload, and then are producing excess power during the evenings.  I see that excess energy going into storage.  More importantly, as EV take up increases, overnight charging from what began as excess energy, begins to make sense.


----------



## basilio

rederob said:


> Bas, a few years ago I was all for more intervention.
> Today the free market is voting with its pockets.
> All the electrical energy producers in Australia know that building coal plants will leave them with expensive stranded assets.
> For that matter, the nuclear option makes even less sense while renewables are cheaper by the day.
> The present transitional impediment is battery storage costs.  Curiously it's not a big expense in the greater scheme of things.  However, to recoup battery costs we need to be in a situation where intermittency and peak demand are not met by other means, such as wasteful pumped hydro.
> What I see happening is a continuation of large scale renewables to a point where they overcompensate for daily baseload, and then are producing excess power during the evenings.  I see that excess energy going into storage.  More importantly, as EV take up increases, overnight charging from what began as excess energy, begins to make sense.




The point of the research was to show how the world could, with decent planning and policies , move to total decarbonisation in energy  in 30 years. It is not a process for government control but rather policy settings and encouragement of processes beyond the maximisation of profits.

Yes the market is now moving rapidly to lock in profits from renewables. And that will go a certain distance. But achieving total changeover to no carbon fuels won't happen unless the direction is set by governments.


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## Smurf1976

Comparing batteries versus pumped hydro as a means of storage:

Hornsdale Power Reserve (aka the Teslsa "big battery" in SA):
Peak Power: 100 MW
Energy stored: 0.129 GWh
Cost: $90 million

Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro:
Peak Power: 2000 MW
Energy stored: 350 GWh
Cost: $5.1 billion (estimated)

For peak power, Snowy 2.0 estimated cost is 2.8 times as much as the Hornsdale Power Reserve cost. If the only criteria were peak power, Snowy 2.0 could instead be built using batteries for about $1.8 billion rather than the estimated $5.1 billion.

For bulk energy storage, Hornsdale Power Reserve cost is 48 times the estimated cost of Snowy 2.0. To build the equivalent energy storage to Snowy 2.0 using batteries would cost around $245 billion versus the estimated $5.1 billion for Snowy 2.0.

Batteries have a definite role as a source of short term peak power. That is, for daily cyclic application.

For bulk energy storage however at that price they're just not an option at the present time. Even with a 90% cost reduction they'd still be hugely expensive given the relatively short lifespan.

Relevant listed companies (among others):

Origin Energy is proposing a 160 or 240 MW expansion of their existing Shoalhaven pumped hydro scheme in NSW, the choice of which option to go with is under investigation.

AGL is proposing a modest but significant battery installation in NSW and is also looking seriously at pumped hydro on a scale similar to Origin's. AGL is also actively investing in new gas-fired generation in SA, and proposes to do so in NSW, and LNG import facilities in Victoria.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Comparing batteries versus pumped hydro as a means of storage:



Accepting your sums, the issue is that to get each 350 GWh of pumped storage you need to expend more than that amount of energy.
In fact Snowy know they will only be able to use, on an annual basis, a small fraction of the theoretical capacity of the dam were the dam to be available for ongoing daily generation.


----------



## Belli

I have an interest in technology and am surprised to an extent at how quickly things develop and evolve.

This is one of those.  Probably well known to others here 

https://reneweconomy.com.au/gelion-...l-battery-to-take-on-lithium-mainstays-28079/


----------



## rederob

Belli said:


> This is one of those.  Probably well known to others here
> https://reneweconomy.com.au/gelion-...l-battery-to-take-on-lithium-mainstays-28079/



I will ask smurf to check my zeroes, because my back of the envelope has this product at $3.5b compared to Snowy2.0 at over $5b for equivalent storage.


----------



## Belli

Yeah, there was a doco on Catalyst about it a few years ago which got me interested in developments of this nature.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro:
> Peak Power: 2000 MW
> Energy stored: 350 GWh
> Cost: $5.1 billion (estimated)



Snowy2.0 has had a ling gestation.
Here's some early calculations and commentary.
So 10 years ago the cost was estimated at well over $6b.
Back then the author said "*Pumped hydro will not reduce the CO2 emissions intensity. It actually increases it because the efficiency of the pumped storage system is about 75% to 80%. So we need to burn say 5 tonnes of coal for pumping and then we get the energy equivalent of only 4 tonnes of coal when we generate from the pumped hydro. Gas generators would not be used for pumping because gas is far too expensive*."
The big difference now is that wind and solar could top up the storage dam at a lesser cost than coal, and without additional CO2.  The problem is, however, that there is no present excess wind capacity to top up a prospective Snowy2.0.  
However, if wind/solar were to be be built principally for topping up Snowy2.0, at present demand we would not need Snowy2.0 as a "battery."  There are more cost effective battery options which could be added to the NEM on an incremental basis..


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Here's some early calculations and commentary.



Taking a neutral perspective, the big question is what is the ultimate goal?

Most analysis of energy options over the past 50 years, that being as long as there has been any real contention about the issue in Australia, from an "environmental" perspective have always implicitly assumed that fossil fuels, primarily coal, would remain the predominant source of generation indefinitely.

That assumption was embedded in the debate about Newport D power station in the 1970's. Coal was going to be the future, anything else including Newport D was a sideline.

It was also the underlying assumption of all anti-nuclear argument here and overseas. Indeed one anti-nuclear catchphrase at the time widely used in the USA was simply "why not coal?".

From the 1990's to today there has been a lot of argument favouring the direct use of gas in homes and businesses for space heating and in particular water heating. That ended up going as far as one state government (Victoria) making it all but compulsory to do so and two others (WA, SA) gave a push in that direction. Again, the underlying assumption was "coal forever" so far as electricity generation is concerned.

Now with Snowy 2.0, or indeed any pumped hydro, the same argument once again applies. Assuming coal remains the predominant source of generation indefinitely then two things are true. One is that it would increase emissions compared to a new coal-fired power station and the other is that there's no actual need.

On that I will make two observations, one of which is fact and one of which is opinion. Note that I am referring to the combined NSW, ACT, Vic and SA region in this context. That is, the National Electricity Market excluding Queensland and Tasmania due to the different circumstances in those two states and the constrained interconnector capacity Qld - NSW and Tas - Vic.

The first, factual, one is that if coal is to remain the mainstay of generation then we need to build more capacity to replace that which is wearing out. Liddell is 48 years old and not in good shape, Yallourn W 1 & 2 are 46 years old and so on. All except two coal-fired generating units in NSW, which have a combined capacity of just under 10% of the state's peak demand, are likely to be shut by the mid-2030's with significant closures during the 2020's.

Meanwhile Victoria already lacks sufficient generating capacity to reliably maintain supply - this summer's load shedding certainly won't be the last such incident if nothing changes and it was pure good luck with the weather that such a high level of supply just happened to be available from SA at the time, otherwise it would have been far worse. No guarantees that there's a cold change in Adelaide next time it gets hot in Melbourne of course.

Whilst wind and solar are adding _*energy*_ as many have pointed out, they are not adding much in terms of useful firm _*capacity*. _In the context of a predominantly fossil fuel based system they reduce the quantity of coal (or other fuel) consumed and associated emissions and they reduce the electricity generated by coal-fired power stations but they do not meaningfully reduce the installed generating capacity needed.

The simple reason there is that demand peaks late in the afternoon / early evening when solar output falls steeply and wind generation is commonly low under the same conditions. At least it is at all present wind farms sites in SA, Vic and NSW.

As such, and in view of the impending closure of existing plant, there's a need to build _something_ which operates as and when required. From a technical perspective it matters not whether that's coal, gas, oil, nuclear, hydro or whatever so long as it generates regardless of the short term weather.

The second point, which is my opinion only, is that the CO2 and climate change issue is probably real and that, whether or not it is real, the international community seems to be moving firmly in the direction of reducing emissions.

I have zero qualifications concerning climate but having read plenty on the subject over the past 30 years that's my conclusion. No doubt there will be some political posturing and so on involved but the issue as such does seem to be real. Regardless, it seems that action is going to be taken.

That being so, it seems very plausible to me that the underlying assumption that coal remains the predominant, and marginal, source of generation is incorrect. An alternative future where coal-fired generation progressively declines to literally zero by the late 2040's seems at least plausible. Critically, it is the assumed future and business plan to which all major owners of current coal-fired generation are actually working - all existing coal plant in the NEM is planned to be closed within the next 30 years and most of it considerably sooner.

If that's so, if coal is going to zero, well there's not much point committing to new coal-fired plant now and then having to build batteries or pumped hydro to replace the relatively new plant a few years later. May as well just do it once, build the pumped hydro now, and live with any short term costs either economic or emissions.

The life cycle of all this stuff is relatively long. The decision to develop Yallourn W was made in 1966 and it's still fully operational today (announced closure is in 2032). Bayswater and Eraring commitment was late 1970's and both will be generating through to the mid-2030's. Etc, it's all fairly long term stuff.

I haven't mentioned gas for the simple reason that, on the context of south-east Australia, there's quite a scarcity of the stuff and we are of course already effectively committed to ongoing use in homes and business through to at least 2050 indeed the infrastructure is still being expanded. That in itself isn't a great idea if we do end up with 100% renewable electricity or close to it, but that's another story.

In SA the Cooper Basin production is slowly trending down and has been for years. It used to supply all of SA, NSW and the ACT but SA itself now uses more than it produces and that's due to production decline not rising consumption. NSW, ACT and Tas are all totally reliant on supply from interstate.

And of course the big one, Victoria which presently supplies it's own consumption, 100% of Tasmania's and a fair bit of that for NSW/ACT and SA. All good until the expected production nosedive about 5 years from now turns Victoria itself into a net importer of gas. Importing from ??? Importing from overseas realistically hence the now 4 LNG import terminal proposals - one each in NSW and SA and two in Vic.

All that being so, the choice for new dispatchable generation capacity really comes down to:

Open cycle plant fueled by imported LNG or diesel. This carries the risk of fuel prices, physical supply from overseas and the value of the AUD given that pricing is in foreign currency.

Coal. Could be done but in practice would be a government project and carries the risk that the international community forces cuts in emissions within the next ~50 years.

Nuclear. As with coal would be a government project in practice almost certainly. Big hassle would be getting it done quickly enough - construction alone would use up most of the available time so would need a "wartime" approach where planning proceses are suspended and construction just gets going ASAP using an "off the shelf" design purchased from France, UK, USA, China or wherever. Chance of it actually happening = virtually zero.

Pumped hydro built upon an assumption that new wind and solar is later built to do the pumping. It carries the risk that the future does turn out to be coal or that battery prices plunge. That said, in the event that the "problem" is cheaper batteries, the pumped hydro remains useful as such just unnecessarily expensive.

So there's no no-risk option but personally I'd take pumped hydro (or batteries) and a gamble that wind and solar will be built over a gamble on international oil/gas prices or that the CO2 issue turns out to be false. Nuclear I just can't see happening in the required time so I don't take it seriously for that reason.

For reference, announced closures of existing plant over the next 15 years:

Torrens Island A (SA, gas, AGL), 480 MW closing progressively 2019 - 21

Liddell (NSW, coal, AGL) - 1680 MW in 2022

Vales Point (NSW, coal, Sunset Power International) - 1320 MW in 2029

Yallourn W (Vic, coal, Energy Australia) - 1480 MW in 2032 (but a lot of speculation that could go earlier given the age of units 1 & 2).

Closely followed by Bayswater (NSW, coal, AGL) - 2640 MW and Eraring (NSW, coal, Origin Energy) - 2800 MW in the mid-2030's with both companies having announced plans to that effect.

Whilst everything I've written here is "off the top of my head", if you were to read a stack of AEMO reports and those of generating companies and gas companies then ultimately the information is all publicly available. None of it's secret in any way, including the closure dates I've mentioned - they're the dates given by the relevant companies and being used by AEMO and others (including rival generating companies) for planning.

At a recent workshop run by AEMO there was agreement among multiple generating companies and others (networks etc) that one thing needing to be considered is that these dates could well be earlier but are unlikely to be later. That is, if something has a technical life through to 2032 then that's a "hard" limit but it doesn't preclude earlier closure due to financial concerns or if a major incident were to occur (eg fire etc). AEMO are going to try and model some more realistic scenarios taking this into account.

Another complexity is fuel prices and any emissions price. For one random example, if AGL are going to become a major gas supplier (importer) in Victoria as seems reasonably likely then what price will Energy Australia be paying for AGL's gas which EA will then use to compete directly against AGL in the electricity market? That's not suggesting any wrongdoing by either company, for the record Alinta already buys 100% of their coal from AGL's mine literally just across the road, but it does get a but murky in trying to work out the costs and what decisions that will prompt.


----------



## Ann

Smurf1976 said:


> Pumped hydro built upon an assumption that new wind and solar is later built to do the pumping. It carries the risk that the future does turn out to be coal or that battery prices plunge. That said, in the event that the "problem" is cheaper batteries, the pumped hydro remains useful as such just unnecessarily expensive.




Thank you Smurf, your whole post was incredibly interesting.

Wind power may have serious limitations as a viable source of reliable energy with things such as El Nino events taking place....
From the last ASX Notice from IFN...Infigen Monthly Production - March 2019


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Pumped hydro built upon an assumption that new wind and solar is later built to do the pumping. It carries the risk that the future does turn out to be coal or that battery prices plunge. That said, in the event that the "problem" is cheaper batteries, the pumped hydro remains useful as such just unnecessarily expensive.




Just a thought from an amateur, give priority for pumped hydro in areas of high rainfall eg FNQ so that the storages will be filled to a greater degree from natural inflow rather than pumping ?


----------



## rederob

I like your details, but am picky as always:


Smurf1976 said:


> The first, factual, one is that if coal is to remain the mainstay of generation then we need to build more capacity to replace that which is wearing out.



This is an *assumption*.
The fact is more capacity is being built.
What remains to be seen is how much capacity will be built in the absence of a national energy policy which continues to stymie large scale investment.


Smurf1976 said:


> Whilst wind and solar are adding _*energy*_ as many have pointed out, they are not adding much in terms of useful firm _*capacity*._



This is true within the context of existing infrastructure.  However, interconnector skeletons with a spine up the eastern seaboard, plus battery storage (and here I include small-scale pumped hydro like that being planned by AGL recently), has the capacity to negate the need for Snowy2.0.


----------



## rederob

Intermittency - light reading:
The solution is easy to follow
Some technical stuff:
Home solar PV & battery
Wind farm & battery
A case for flow batteries
Battery optimisation - wind


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> I like your details, but am picky as always:
> This is an *assumption*.
> The fact is more capacity is being built.
> What remains to be seen is how much capacity will be built in the absence of a national energy policy which continues to stymie large scale investment.




More than happy to be picked on. 

Using AEMO data which is publicly available for the whole NEM (that is, Australia excluding WA, NT and remote areas), committed new capacity (including upgrades of existing plant) as follows:

Coal = 180 MW (upgrade of Loy Yang B (Vic) and Bayswater (NSW))
Gas = 210 MW (new - Barker Inlet power station (SA))
Biomass = 24 MW (Tabeland Mill expansion in Qld)
Battery Storage = 77 MW (several sites, 25 MW in SA, rest in Vic)
Wind = 3622 MW (numerous sites)
Solar = 3267 MW (numerous sites)

Announced closures:

Coal = 2000 MW (Liddell, NSW, 2022)
Gas = 480 MW (Torrens Island A, SA, 2019 - 21 in stages)
Diesel = 34 MW (Mackay OCGT, Qld, 2021)

Now where the complexity arises is with _energy_ versus _dispatchable power_.

So far as energy is concerned, the wind farms and solar will generate around 15,000 - 16,000 GWh per annum give or take a bit (using typical values, I haven't calculated that using any detailed site specific factors). That's somewhat more than the actual output of Liddell, Torrens Island A and Mackay OCGT combined.

Add in the energy capabilities of Barker Inlet power station and the coal upgrades and biomass and all up it's roughly double the actual annual energy output of Liddell, Torrens Island A and Mackay OCGT in practice.

Where the problem exists however is with firm _dispatchable power_ or in layman's terms generation that can be operated based on demand rather than the weather (wind sun) where the generating plant is located.

For that there's only 710 MW being added versus 2514 MW being closed.

Coal upgrades add 180 MW
Barker Inlet adds 210 MW
Biomass in Qld adds 24 MW
Batteries in Vic and SA add 77 MW subject to being managed appropriately (discharged at the right time)
Wind adds 219 MW based on AEMO's calculations
Solar adds zero since peak demand occurs just on sunset (summer) or when it's completely dark (winter).

There's the problem. Wind and solar is going gangbusters in terms of adding energy but it's not replacing the dispatchable capacity which is already problematically short in one state (Vic) and too close for comfort in two others (NSW and SA).

The realistic solutions to that, other than blackouts or forced restrictions, are (in no particular order):

Shift demand away from the peaks. That is, convince end users to use less electricity during peak times (generally by means of using more at some other time).

Install new generation which takes some sort of primary energy resource (fossil fuels, biomass, hydro, nuclear) and turns it into electricity. That is, build what most people mean when they refer to a power station.

Install any system which is able to provide dispatchable capacity when required, but which is "charged" by means of drawing from the grid at some other time. In practice that's either pumped hydro or batteries (or both).

From a technical perspective it really makes no difference so long as the end result is that the megawatts can be injected to the grid when demand requires it, regardless of what the wind or sun happens to be doing at the time. That said, a storage based solution also gets around the problem of what to do with surplus wind and solar generation when it occurs. That's a problem already in SA, presently it just goes to waste, and is a looming problem in Vic and WA (the latter being a separate grid).

If nothing gets built and the closures go ahead? It'll work at all times when the available supply from remaining conventional generation + wind and solar exceeds current demand but the lights really do go out the moment it doesn't. Given that it's straightforward to turn the power off to an area (eg suburbs or a whole town) the consequences are in practice inconvenience plus whatever economic and political fallout ensues. The grid as such can work with loads being turned on and off - consumers probably won't see it so calmly however.



> This is true within the context of existing infrastructure.  However, interconnector skeletons with a spine up the eastern seaboard, plus battery storage (and here I include small-scale pumped hydro like that being planned by AGL recently), has the capacity to negate the need for Snowy2.0.




In a purely technical sense, so long as it's built big enough and operated in a coordinated manner, then sure it's an alternative.

In practice though, well I won't claim to know how I'd go about getting it done since it requires a pretty big shift in politics and current thinking.

At the investment and construction level, it needs the politicians out of the way.

At the operational level, it needs commercial rivalry put to the side and operate the storages based on technical factors not who bid the best price for this 30 minutes.

That commercial aspect was an actual problem this past summer in Victoria and really did put consumers in the dark. The owners of batteries decided to discharge them at a time when other companies still had spare capacity available (within Vic and also from SA) in order to profit from the high spot price. In doing so they ran the batteries completely flat by the time they were actually needed. Same thing happened twice - first one shut down some industrial load and the second one blacked out homes and small businesses with that second incident making the mainstream news with its consequences (but not the cause).

I acknowledge that Snowy 2.0 and Battery Of The Nation may not be the best possible solutions to the overall problem. What they have in their favour however are that they are big projects with a single operator of each, thus substantially getting around the commercial rivalry issue, and they are actual proposals not hypothetical.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Now where the complexity arises is with _energy_ versus _dispatchable power_.



Yes, that's been covered many times now.


Smurf1976 said:


> Install new generation which takes some sort of primary energy resource (fossil fuels, biomass, hydro, nuclear) and turns it into electricity. That is, build what most people mean when they refer to a power station.



*NO*!
That's old thinking.
You answered it with:


Smurf1976 said:


> Install any system which is able to provide dispatchable capacity when required, but which is "charged" by means of drawing from the grid at some other time. In practice that's either pumped hydro or batteries (or both)



That's the point I made previously.
You also noted that some wind energy is now being "wasted."  Which means that there is already an incremental capacity that can be channeled into flow batteries (or small pumped hydro).
Your subsequent comments note the issues that need to be resolved to make this happen.
Snowy2.0 is now owned by the federal government.  I cannot see how it would ever be a viable proposition in the private sector.
I have not seen you show how the economics would stack up, let alone explain how the project becomes practical without about 20% greater equivalent additional electricity capacity being available over and above Snowy2.0's generation, so that the dam is topped up after each energy dispatch.
I am not having a go at you here, but am pointing out that you seem to keep overlooking this factor which *must *be in place concurrent with Snowy2.0 coming online, and *not *afterwards.  In other words, there is no point in building Snowy2.0 unless you also build no less than an equivalent amount of generating capacity.  If there is a logic to that approach, then I am lost.


----------



## rederob

Lazard has detailed storage options, presented from a commercial perspective.
Rather than begin at page 1, you can jump to pages 21 onwards to see real world value snapshots.
The bit that is most enlightening is that flow batteries are expected to decline in cost by between 38 and 45% over the next 5 years.  
Tesla's Hornsdale battery was an effective solution to a very small fraction of the overall problem.  In 2022 terms it will likely be viewed as a comparatively expensive option.
In fairness, it's a bit like buying most things electronic nowadays.  In a few years time you will get significantly better performance for the same price, or less.


----------



## moXJO

rederob said:


> Lazard has detailed storage options, presented from a commercial perspective.
> Rather than begin at page 1, you can jump to pages 21 onwards to see real world value snapshots.
> The bit that is most enlightening is that flow batteries are expected to decline in cost by between 38 and 45% over the next 5 years.
> Tesla's Hornsdale battery was an effective solution to a very small fraction of the overall problem.  In 2022 terms it will likely be viewed as a comparatively expensive option.
> In fairness, it's a bit like buying most things electronic nowadays.  In a few years time you will get significantly better performance for the same price, or less.



Do you work in the industry rob? 

Flow batteries do look interesting. Whats the lifespan?


----------



## rederob

moXJO said:


> Do you work in the industry rob?
> Flow batteries do look interesting. Whats the lifespan?



No, I don't work in the industry.
A few years back flow batteries were not in the ballpark for residential use.  Nowadays they are, and are cheaper on a life cycle basis than Tesla type batteries given there is minimal storage capacity degradation after 10000 cycles (or 25 years of total daily discharge, which is unlikely), and up to 20000 cycles is possible.
Sydney University's Gelion batteries may prove to be even cheaper once scaled into commercial production.

The bit I did not add to smurf's points was that AEMO has views on home battery storage which, if combined with microgrid technologies, could also potentially negate the need for Snowy2.0.  
With the rate of decline in price of flow storage batteries it may well be the case that most homes by 2030 which presently have PV arrays will also have an appropriately scaled battery.  Indeed, it may be that homes add extra PV panels when installing their batteries depending on the opposite trajectories of price with cost of electricity.


----------



## moXJO

rederob said:


> No, I don't work in the industry.
> A few years back flow batteries were not in the ballpark for residential use.  Nowadays they are, and are cheaper on a life cycle basis than Tesla type batteries given there is minimal storage capacity degradation after 10000 cycles (or 25 years of total daily discharge, which is unlikely), and up to 20000 cycles is possible.
> Sydney University's Gelion batteries may prove to be even cheaper once scaled into commercial production.
> 
> The bit I did not add to smurf's points was that AEMO has views on home battery storage which, if combined with microgrid technologies, could also potentially negate the need for Snowy2.0.
> With the rate of decline in price of flow storage batteries it may well be the case that most homes by 2030 which presently have PV arrays will also have an appropriately scaled battery.  Indeed, it may be that homes add extra PV panels when installing their batteries depending on the opposite trajectories of price with cost of electricity.



There are a huge range of different batteries vying for mass adoption.
I do hope these get up.

 I get sick of the promise of something then the failure to materialize in a way the consumer can take advantage of.


----------



## rederob

moXJO said:


> There are a huge range of different batteries vying for mass adoption.  I do hope these get up.
> I get sick of the promise of something then the failure to materialize in a way the consumer can take advantage of.



Labor has a policy to subsidise 100000 home batteries initially, with a target of 1 million by 2025.
Let's pretend for a moment it happens and, for ease of maths, they add a 10KW battery.  That becomes 10GW capacity through household batteries by 2025.  Now look at these numbers, and compare them to generation capacity numbers in some of smurfs posts above: Snowy2.0 becomes a stranded white elephant.


----------



## moXJO

rederob said:


> Labor has a policy to subsidise 100000 home batteries initially, with a target of 1 million by 2025.
> Let's pretend for a moment it happens and, for ease of maths, they add a 10KW battery.  That becomes 10GW capacity through household batteries by 2025.  Now look at these numbers, and compare them to generation capacity numbers in some of smurfs posts above: Snowy2.0 becomes a stranded white elephant.



But what batteries?  
Will there be pollution caused when the battery life ends? 
And in the example of the roof batts we had cheap sht that contained chemicals coming in from china.
Can we trust the government and consumers looking for lowest costs on something like that?


----------



## basilio

moXJO said:


> But what batteries?
> Will there be pollution caused when the battery life ends?
> And in the example of the roof batts we had cheap sht that contained chemicals coming in from china.
> Can we trust the government and consumers looking for lowest costs on something like that?




Fair comment.  Lets take Rederobs analysis of the potential of adding 100,000 10kw home batteries to the national grid by 2025.
Then look at the lifecycle values of flow batteries and in particular cheaper low pollution options like zinc bromine technology from Redflow.

If a government chose to establish a set of parameters for  battery storage that they would subsidise  that encompassed long life and little pollution,  they could encourage development in these particular areas.
The partial subsidy of the batteries would ensure a more economic outcome than just throwing many billions of dollars at a Snowy 2 scheme.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/redflow-seeks-18-million-scale-flow-battery-production-62976/


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Labor has a policy to subsidise 100000 home batteries initially, with a target of 1 million by 2025.
> Let's pretend for a moment it happens and, for ease of maths, they add a 10KW battery.  That becomes 10GW capacity through household batteries by 2025.  Now look at these numbers, and compare them to generation capacity numbers in some of smurfs posts above: Snowy2.0 becomes a stranded white elephant.




I don't get why excess capacity is a bad thing.

Sell it off cheap to start up businesses to encourage more industry into the country.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> I don't get why excess capacity is a bad thing.
> Sell it off cheap to start up businesses to encourage more industry into the country.



How do you sell something which is already in oversupply, and available cheaper by other means?
That's exactly what would happen if 1 million 10KW household batteries were installed before Snowy2.0 was finished.
Here's Snowy2.0's maths in basic form:
1MW electricity generation came from a 1.15MW input into refilling the top dam.


----------



## moXJO

basilio said:


> Fair comment.  Lets take Rederobs analysis of the potential of adding 100,000 10kw home batteries to the national grid by 2025.
> Then look at the lifecycle values of flow batteries and in particular cheaper low pollution options like zinc bromine technology from Redflow.
> 
> If a government chose to establish a set of parameters for  battery storage that they would subsidise  that encompassed long life and little pollution,  they could encourage development in these particular areas.
> The partial subsidy of the batteries would ensure a more economic outcome than just throwing many billions of dollars at a Snowy 2 scheme.
> 
> https://reneweconomy.com.au/redflow-seeks-18-million-scale-flow-battery-production-62976/



I like the product pitch,  but they seem a long way out from decent production capacity.


----------



## moXJO

rederob said:


> How do you sell something which is already in oversupply, and available cheaper by other means?
> That's exactly what would happen if 1 million 10KW household batteries were installed before Snowy2.0 was finished.
> Here's Snowy2.0's maths in basic form:
> 1MW electricity generation came from a 1.15MW input into refilling the top dam.



I'm still not convinced we can get to 1 million batteries in a reasonable time frame? 

Maybe mixed but not solely flow batteries. And if it ended up being left to the market,  I can guarantee we will end up with terrible products.


----------



## rederob

moXJO said:


> I'm still not convinced we can get to 1 million batteries in a reasonable time frame?
> Maybe mixed but not solely flow batteries. And if it ended up being left to the market,  I can guarantee we will end up with terrible products.



I too find 1 million batteries ambitious, but 100,000 would mean the base case for a Snowy2.0 is tenuous, and that's not including the multi-megawatt batteries that each installed wind turbine could top up free of cost (and yes, I have mischievously excluded opportunity cost in order to make a point).  This product in a wind farm as pictured could  top up a 100MW battery bank (via 3 hours at maximum capacity) each day and still contribute significant additional power to the grid.
And your point about flow batteries is true to the extent that there are few producers for residential applications.  This link is a good present state of play locally.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> I am not having a go at you here, but am pointing out that you seem to keep overlooking this factor which *must *be in place concurrent with Snowy2.0 coming online, and *not *afterwards.  In other words, there is no point in building Snowy2.0 unless you also build no less than an equivalent amount of generating capacity.  If there is a logic to that approach, then I am lost.




Happy to answer the question etc. 

Only concern there is being mindful that ASF is a stock forum not an engineering one although that said this subject does have relevance to multiple listed (and other) companies.

Starting from the basics, the key point is that electricity (by which I mean AC power in the grid) cannot itself be stored at all. We can store other things (chemicals, heat, water etc) which can be used to produce AC power but we cannot store AC power itself.

That is in the same way as we cannot store sound or light. A record, CD or MP3 file plus a player, amplifier and speakers is a means of reproducing sound, with some imperfections from the original, but does not store actual sound as such. That is somewhat pedantic but of relevance to the point.

Electricity demand in the NEM (National Electricity Market - basically the whole country except WA, NT and remote areas including Mt Isa) is 21,013 MW. 

In order for it to work, everyone's lights stay on, generation output needs to match load in real time and at all times. The margin for error there is trivial and if, for whatever reason, generation cannot or does not match load then that's a huge problem.

If generation is insufficient then, for a known problem, a human directs load shedding. Someone in charge directs that x MW be switched off and that's passed to the network operators to do it as per a pre-determined plan (the details of which are confidential in most states but are public in SA).

If the problem is not foreseen, eg because something suddenly fails, then Under Frequency Load Shedding (UFLS) should come to the rescue and automatically disconnect loads so as to restore the supply and demand balance. At that point it's involuntary so far as humans are concerned - load is going off and there's no choice in that.

The prospect of UFLS operating tends to send shivers down spines for good reason in that it works fine in theory but not always so well in practice, the usual failing being that far more load ends up being disconnected than really ought to be.

The complete blackout ("System Black") in SA was an example of that. Transmission failure caused a loss of generation which ultimately ended up tripping all generation and supply from Victoria in a matter of seconds. Not the intended result but anyone who tells you that isn't a risk when UFLS operates is I would suggest a tad too confident in their engineering. It can go spectacularly wrong yes and that most certainly isn't the only incident to ever have occurred and it's not even the most recent.

On 25 August 2018 the mainland (ex-Tasmania) NEM unintentionally split into three, that being Qld and SA both disconnecting from NSW and Vic respectively. The cause was a lightning strike affecting Qld - NSW transmission causing that to trip and everything else became a consequence of that. SA - Vic power flow became unstable and tripped, frequency slid in NSW and Vic which tripped load in both states, supply from Tas > Vic went to its absolute limit and in doing so tripped some industrial load in Tas. 

The responses were intended but in saying that, they have a bit in common with BHP intentionally derailing their runaway freight train or a pilot choosing to intentionally land a plane on water. Intended responses only in the context of being the least bad outcome from a situation which has already gone horribly wrong.

If the above all sounds like a near miss that could have ended seriously badly then that's a fair summary of it yes. There's an AEMO report available publicly (online) for those interested and suffice to say that changes are afoot to prevent a recurrence. Changes of the sort which have broader implications politically and financially but that's another story.

So operating any sort of automated load shedding is something you do only if it's unexpected. If it's expected then a human directs action before the critical point arrives. Action as in blackouts.

If the reverse problem occurs, too much generation, then so long as you have control of the generation then ultimately it can be stopped. Not always without difficulties, particularly when it comes to restarting and the time that takes, but it can be stopped as such.

The exception there is distributed generation (primarily rooftop solar) the overwhelming majority of which is not under any form of central control. Too much power? Can't stop it other than by means of deliberately raising voltage and/or frequency which has its own problems. That's not currently an actual problem but it could become one if enough such systems are installed (and AEMO forecasts this point to be reached by the mid-2020's in SA with Vic coming next).

So to summarise on that point, *AC power going into the grid must always equal consumption + losses in real time.
*
Now the limitation of wind and solar is that operation relies on an energy source, sun or wind, which is not stored and which arrives intermittently at the location of the generating plant. Or in layman's terms, output is highly variable on any shorter timeframe - hour to hour or day to day. Only in the long term, at least monthly, is it anywhere approaching consistent.

Hence the issue that whilst wind and solar most certainly can generate electricity, they do not contribute in any meaningful way to the ability to match supply and demand in real time.

If wind and solar are generating then yes, that means less need at that moment for some other source of generation.

*If wind and solar are not generating then there needs to be sufficient generating plant, of some other type, to meet demand in full at that point in time.
*
In that context coal does not itself produce AC power. Coal produces heat. Heat + water = steam. Steam drives the turbine which turns the alternator. It is the alternator which produces the AC power. Point being that no amount of coal, gas or anything else produces AC power without having the required equipment in place. 

That is like saying petrol doesn't move the car. The engine moves the car. Petrol is just stuff you need to make the engine work but petrol of itself cannot move the car. Take the engine away and the petrol is useless by itself.

Which in the context of electricity means that we need a set of non-wind and non-solar generating plant capable of meeting the entire demand for electricity less any "firm" amount we determine that we can count on wind + solar not going below. Trouble is, that "firm" amount is only a few % of capacity for wind and it's literally zero for solar.

Following are some charts for the entire NEM for the past 7 days showing only wind and solar generation:






Spot the problem?

At times wind + solar are close to a third of the total load but at other times production falls in a heap. Now consider that demand is generally high just as the sun sets and solar stops generating and on a daily basis the problem is obvious - wind and solar generate energy but they don't generate AC power on a firm basis as and when it's needed.

They have a lot in common with your neighbour who on some days offers you a free ride into town and back since they travel at the same time you do. That's nice but since they don't do it every day, it doesn't change the fact that you need to own a car. It just means you drive it less.

Now to clarify a point about what is, and isn't, a generating plant.

In a practical operational sense, if it puts AC power into the grid then it is a generating plant.

What it costs, what resource it is using, how much CO2 comes out and so on don't change the fact that it puts AC power into the grid.

What about storage?

_At the time of generation_, a battery or pumped hydro is a generating plant like any other. It puts AC power into the grid right now. That it can only do so after having previously taken AC power out of the same grid means it is not a *net* source of generation, since it uses more than it returns due to losses, but if we had 21,013 MW of pumped hydro and batteries then right now they could run the entire grid so long as they're not empty. As a means of balancing supply and demand in real time it works.

Batteries and pumped hydro thus add firm generating capacity, that is they can put AC power into the grid to match demand in real time, despite being a net loss so far as energy is concerned.

In that context they have something in common with a loan. You give me AC power right now, on demand, and I'll pay you back with interest. That in simple terms is the deal.

On the other hand solar and wind intermittently put AC power into the grid but cannot be depended upon to do so at any particular time. They are an intermittent source of energy but are not a reliable source of dispatchable generation. Refer to the chart.

Put the two together and so long as everything's big enough they do indeed cover all aspects. Solar and wind supply the energy with the first priority being supplying load on the grid and the surplus pumps water and charges batteries. When solar and wind fall short then the pumped hydro and batteries supply the required dispatchable capacity, all the way up to well over 90% of load at times. So long as everything is sized adequately, and that's really just a combination or meteorological data + engineering, then it works.

Now here's a chart showing daily generation from wind and solar across the NEM for the past 12 months:






It's all pretty easy in spring and summer to be charging batteries or filling up small pumped hydro schemes perhaps not every day but certainly every few days. That high demand is somewhat correlated with high solar production during those seasons helps in that regard.

I draw to everyone's attention however what happened in the second half of Autumn and on various occasions during Winter last year. It wasn't an isolated occurrence, same thing has happened previously, and there's the problem.

Now about this idea of storing relatively small amounts of energy in batteries or pumped hydro and charging them on a daily basis.

How do we charge them during those weeks?

The answer realistically, unless we oversize wind and solar to huge extent, involves some "big" source of generation which can be turned on and run 24 hours per day, thus reducing load on the batteries and small pumped hydro during the peaks and providing some opportunity for recharging when demand falls off.

The options for that in practice:

Coal, oil or gas could do it so long as we have coal, oil or gas-fired power stations and a stockpile of fuel ready to go.

Existing conventional hydro (Snowy, Tas, to a lesser extent AGL) can do it within the capacity limits of those schemes. Hydro Tas is certainly well aware of that one and already doing serious work, and by that I mean drilling holes in the ground not just something in an office, with a view to improving the ability to run the system intermittently.

Large scale pumped hydro capable of sustained high output can do it so long as the water was pumped up at some previous time.

Beyond that it's really about economics, environment, politics, business trying to make a profit, etc.

In practice though, you won't find too much opposition to what Snowy or Hydro Tas want to do from competitors and there's a reason for that. Scratch beneath the surface, pick any large player in the industry and investigate all their financial deals and you'll probably find Snowy and or HT in there somewhere via a hedging arrangement or some other deal. 

It's a great big tangled web in that regard. AGL's power stations do indeed burn gas produced by Origin and others. Alinta burns coal mined by AGL. There's hedging arrangements all over the place. Origin supplies half the gas used by Engie at Pelican Point and takes half the power from it. AGL Hallett is actually owned by Energy Australia. And so on. Things aren't entirely as they seem.

So what about the original question and Snowy 2.0 specifically?

With the closure of multiple existing power stations over the coming years there is a requirement to build substantial new dispatchable generating capacity. Without that, demand can't be supplied in real time and load shedding (blackouts) is the inevitable result.

From a purely technical perspective it makes no difference what sort of firm dispatchable capacity that is, so long as we're talking about capacity that works regardless of short term weather.

So long as there is either unused capacity at fossil fuel power stations on occasion, or there is surplus wind or solar, then building new dispatchable generation which is based on storage, charged by drawing AC power from the grid at a previous time, is a technically viable option.

The other technically viable option is building new conventional generating plant of whatever type.

In the context of storage based options, if the long term intent is to rely primarily on fossil fuels (or nuclear) then the large storage capacity of Snowy 2.0 would be pointless in practice. It would make sense only if it were the cheapest option on a peak capacity basis which it isn't.

If the intent is to rely primarily on wind and solar, gradually phasing out fossil fuels, then Snowy 2.0 or an equivalent is highly useful in achieving that due to it's ability to operate during lulls in solar and wind generation without recharging on a daily basis. 

Snowy 2.0 is of itself nowhere close to being large enough. All present hydro both government owned and private in all NEM states, plus Snowy 2.0, plus Hydro Tasmania's projects, collectively meet less than 40% of current system peak demand. As such, and noting that plant closures in Vic and NSW alone over the next 20 years are likely to be more than twice the size of Snowy 2.0 and Battery Of the Nation combined, there is a very substantial opportunity for others wishing to develop storage projects or other new firm dispatchable generation.

On the question of coal I will note that all options are a fossil fuel option in the short term. 

Build new capacity based on coal, gas or diesel = that's a fossil fuel option.

Build batteries or any pumped hydro = ultimately in the short term that's a fossil fuel option with added losses on top.

The difference is that the former locks in fossil fuels indefinitely whereas the latter is based upon the notion that fossil fuel based generation will be phased out well within the life of the project such that, for most of its life, its a non-fossil option even though on day one it certainly isn't.

Note that what I haven't said here is whether or not there ought to be a bias toward fossil fuels / nuclear or toward wind and solar. I've very deliberately avoided that due to the controversy surrounding it although I will make the observation that if you look at those who are significant players then none of them are actually working on the basis that coal is the future.

As for the politics of it all, I will simply note that the time for implementing an optimal solution has already passed. It's simply too late now to avoid either spending $$$ more than would have been necessary with earlier action or alternatively accepting supply shortfalls and load shedding. What actually happens there - anyone's guess really.


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## Smurf1976

Some more charts for those interested. This one for battery operation in all NEM states over the past 7 days. In practice it is primarily the Hornsdale Power Reserve (aka the "big battery") in SA but does include others in SA and Vic.

As you can see, it's used for very short term "fine tuning" in practice, not bulk energy storage, and does that extremely well.





Next chart shows past week's hydro generation and pumping loads. Generation from this source is low at this time of year due to lower than average electricity demand - a look at the same data in mid-winter or during hot summer weather would show peaks more than double those seen here.

Note that the volatility is intentional, tracking the combined effects of varying electricity demand as well as varying wind and solar generation. Note the peak around 6pm.






Something else I'll add to all this is about the future and changes in demand.

Electric vehicles are one that will likely happen.

The other one I'll note is simply this. A typical Winter day has ~600 GWh of load across all NEM states and ~250 GWh of gas space heating in Victoria. That's only gas heating, not including gas used in industry or for heating water, is only for Victoria, and doesn't include other fuels such as wood.

There will be changes in the means of generation and in end uses but electricity as such isn't going away anytime soon. Especially so if we're to see a move away from the direct use of fossil fuels in engines and heating applications.


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## Smurf1976

Final comment for the moment is about market prices.

Looking at the spot price received (or paid in the case of pumping or battery charging) on average across the NEM over the past 12 months:

All prices are per megawatt hour.

Market average = $97.51

Biomass = $81.66
Wind = $86.94
Coal = $91.45
Solar = $96.10
Hydro = $107.47
Gas = $142.25
Battery Discharging = $213.04
Diesel = $1821.24

Energy used for pumping = $64.39
Energy used for battery charging = $76.56

A reminder that those are the market prices received (based on the spot price) for the generated output. That is a simple calculation of volume x price at the time = average over the year. They do not necessarily reflect the cost of production which, as with anything, isn't necessarily the same as the selling price.


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## SirRumpole

Smurf, you are a gem for taking the time to write such a detailed explanation, thank you.

Two things, geothermal wasn't mentioned, I take it that possibility is a fizzer ?

What about concentrating solar plants with molten salt storage ? Any possibilities there ?


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## macca

Brilliant posts Smurf, thanks


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## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Happy to answer the question etc.



Except that you never responded to the point I made.
If you rely on thinking in terms of what there is, you will overlook where change is occurring, and that appears the case with your detailed replies.
Our renewables market is immature and grid infrastructure deficient.  For example, Tasmania's Battery of the Nation will require significant infrastructure investment to be viable, and without an eastern seaboard interconnector spine, is dead before crossing the water
Look closely at your charts on wind generation and you will clearly see that the early gaps in wind generation on a daily basis are being filled.  Australia's wind market is in its infancy, as in mature markets (which is interesting of itself in that renewables -mostly grid scale wind/solar - don't have a long history) solar is subservient.  Wind therefore has a very long and profitable road ahead, clearly being one of the cheapest forms of new capacity generation.  Moreover, as shown in the link, the areas of best wind potential have not yet been tapped.

Back to my point about Snowy2.0 and using your data for clarity & simplicity.  The present summertime eastern seaboard generation shortfalls would, by 2025, cease to be a problem if Labor's plan of 1 million home batteries were installed (assuming a 10KW battery), as that's nearly half of total daily demand.  It's ambitious, but even getting part way there negates Snowy2.0.
Assuming battery cost continue on their downward trajectory, especially given that scaling has not occurred for the domestic market (as it has for solar panels), then residential battery penetration will be higher than Labor's target even without subsidies, although not for around 10 years.

Clearly winter will not have much solar potential, but your charts suggest that present wind capacity is in areas which show greater generation in these months than in summer months.  Were investment trends commensurate with seasonal generation patterns to date, then wind & battery could easily smooth the daily variability.  The data from wind farms that I have read suggest that unless wind farms are spread greater 1200km - and are interconnected - then seasonality is difficult to mitigate.
However, there is 2000km of coast from Adelaide to Perth which would overcome this problem, and this (see figure 2) is in one of the world's best untapped wind resources.

Let's now assume Snowy2.0 is built and we pump water into it so that it can generate electricity.  Let's generate 1MWh in this example and use smurf's (above) spot prices (not the best metric?).
We need to take about 1.15MW from the grid to generate the 1MW from Snowy2.0.
Using *average *spot prices, that would otherwise have earned $112.13 (1.15 x $97.51).
Using the pumping spot price is, however, the economic path so to get the water in the dam will now only cost (1.15 x $64.39 =) $74.04
Snowy2.0 then sells the 1MW into the spot market and receives $97.51
The margin is therefore $23.47 per megawatt.
The question is why would a generator want to derive $23.47 per megawatt when investments in other carbon neutral generation capacity such as wind would derive $86.94 or $97.51 from the present mixed energy offering?
Put differently, the federal government could better spend it's money facilitating both grid scale and residential battery storage while putting in place the necessary infrastructure.


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## Smurf1976

Looking at SA right now:

Wind farm output = 69% of load within the state
Solar output (all solar) = 36% of load within the state

So wind and solar combined exceed total load in SA.

Due to the need to have synchronous plant, that is big rotating machines attached to alternators, online for system strength, all units are running at Pelican Point (Engie / Origin Energy) generating 26% of load in SA and one unit is online at Torrens Island B (AGL) generating 3% of load. Pelican Point and the one unit that's online at Torrens Island B are all running at the minimum technical output whilst keeping the machines running as such as they need to be.

So that's total generation of 135% of load within SA, the surplus 35% going to Victoria where it's supplying 11% of that state's consumption (or to be more precise, it's adding to the export from Victoria to both NSW and Tasmania).

Now, and of direct relevance to two ASX listed companies, is what's forecast currently by AEMO in the SA region.

For the 03:30 - 15:00 period tomorrow the forecast is for negative prices in SA, mostly at or close to negative $1000 per megawatt hour. Prices during other periods are also mostly quite low.

To keep the currently operating synchronous units online during that period would amount to, after the cost of gas is included, an overall loss in the order of $4 million. There's no electricity law saying they can't burn money but responsibilities to shareholders means they won't do it voluntarily.

To cut a long story short, AEMO has issued directions, likely to be in effect until 23 April based on present forecasts.

A direction is a formal "you will" sort of direction and is not negotiable. You will keep the plant running.

Note however that a direction is not a fine or penalty, it's simply a direction on what to do. In other words it's overriding the market because the outcome produced on account of the financial aspects isn't one that's technically suitable.

Such directions are common in SA in particular but not overly common elsewhere.

Once the direction is in effect, those operating under it can recover their actual costs but that's it, they're not operating for profit when under direction. Direction ends when normal market processes produce technically suitable outcomes once again, that in itself being a function of market prices and decisions made by the traders at the relevant companies.

This situation is symptomatic of the great dilemma in the entire industry. What's needed technically and what's profitable converge only partially. Some things which are profitable are not actually needed. Some things which are critical to have are not profitable.

So far as the renewables versus fossils debate is concerned, ultimately the idea of "100% renewables" isn't profitable. Hence why you see companies like AGL contracting or building some renewables but also spending $ hundreds of millions on new gas infrastructure and gas-fired generation. They're expecting a future with more renewables and a gradual winding down of fossil fuels but not to the point that they can't still be burning coal well into the 2040's and gas sometime beyond that.

Others have a view that involves the idea of going 100% renewable. That in practice is the future that Snowy and Hydro Tas are assuming with their ideas. Both do own gas-fired generation but they're not seeing that as more than a fairly temporary thing.

It's no coincidence of course that the government owned entities with a greater engineering influence are biasing more toward renewables whilst the listed companies with a financial focus are more toward gas. That's exactly the outcome that one would rationally expect.


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## explod

This may have already been shown here but these batteries are certainly getting very good:-

"
A company called CCT Energy Storage just put Lonsdale, South Australia firmly on the map. In late March, the start-up unveiled the very first high-density thermal battery, which out-performs its lithium-ion and lead-acid counterparts many times over. Called a Thermal Energy Device (TED), the modular unit stores electricity as latent heat, which can be converted back into energy on demand.

A standard TED unit can store 1.2 megawatt-hours of power and has a life expectancy of at least 20 years. “After 3,000 cycles of service on the test bench,” CCT’s CEO Serge Bondarenko says it shows no signs of degradation (compared to a lithium-ion battery, which drops 20 percent of its capacity after about 5,000 cycles). “In fact,” Bondarenko adds, “it appears silicon even gets better at storing heat after each cycle.”

TEDs accept any kind of electricity you throw at them—solar, wind, hydro, fossil-fuel, grid-fed—converting and storing that energy at more than 12 times the density of a lead-acid battery and six times the density of lithium-ion. They can charge and discharge concurrently, saving time and wasted energy. Compact and durable, the devices require very little maintenance and are 100 percent recyclable. And perhaps most surprising, they’re cheap: about three-quarters of the cost of an equivalent lithium-ion setup.

CCT—which stands for Climate Change Technologies—designed the units to be easily scalable and just as appropriate for small 5kW applications as they are for entire remote communities, business districts, telecommunications networks, and transport systems requiring “hundreds of megawatts of instantaneous power.” This speaks to the company’s vision of a safe, sustainable energy source that can be used anywhere in the world regardless of urbanization, economics, or infrastructure.

CCT’s Thermal Energy Devices have huge implications for the renewable energy industry. Intermittent sources such as solar and wind depend on versatile, long-lasting storage solutions to bank extra power generated during peak production times. TEDs have the potential to make renewable energy a round-the-clock alternative energy source for any locale.

Through a manufacturing agreement with MIBA Group, the new tech will begin production for European and Australian markets this spring. By 2020, production is expected to increase exponentially in quantity and scale as negotiations with other countries get underway.

Suddenly, the idea of a clean energy future feels a little less remote, thanks to a Down Under start-up with a go-for-broke vision to provide “affordable power to those who need it most.” The global energy market will never be the same."

https://www.popularmechanics.com/te...unwuEzOLNiKZ6Vxllhn8__tC8uztbEZtAPE6oKN-3ouo4


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## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> So far as the renewables versus fossils debate is concerned, ultimately the idea of "100% renewables" isn't profitable.



Except that you have no data.  And the global reality is that wind/solar+storage is  beginning to take shape.


Smurf1976 said:


> They're expecting a future with more renewables and a gradual winding down of fossil fuels but not to the point that they can't still be burning coal well into the 2040's and gas sometime beyond that.



That's a guess.
The cost curves (see @ 1:15 here) show that renewables+storage, with the right policy settings (and this does not yet include the NEM) will likely have made most FF capacity "stranded" by the early 2030s.


Smurf1976 said:


> Others have a view that involves the idea of going 100% renewable. That in practice is the future that Snowy and Hydro Tas are assuming with their ideas.



See here at 23:15 where wind/solar+battery at 50% shares and small overcapacity can satisfy the market.


Smurf1976 said:


> It's no coincidence of course that the government owned entities with a greater engineering influence are biasing more toward renewables whilst the listed companies with a financial focus are more toward gas. That's exactly the outcome that one would rationally expect.



Except that government entities can run their own race with fleeting regard to profit, while market players play to the rules of the NEM and obligated to their shareholders to deliver returns.
Market players want a policy setting that gives them a degree of certainty regarding future spends, and we are here talking ballpark $*tens of billions *rather than stopgap measures.  Until that situation is in place, rational decision making is out the window.


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## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Except that you have no data.




I have posted you the actual performance of the sum total of all wind and solar currently in the NEM.



> That's a guess.




It's a guess backed by significant amounts of shareholder's money.

Newcastle gas storage for peak demand = $310 million (in operation)

Barker Inlet power station = $295 million (under construction, completion 2019)

Victoria LNG import terminal = $250 million (proposed)

Newcastle open cycle gas turbines = estimated up to $400 million (completion 2022) plus investigation of additional capacity about double the size of that presently planned.

Bayswater upgrade additional 100 MW (coal, NSW) = estimated $200 million (completion 2023)

That is just AGL's current and recent fossil fuel projects. They also are doing / planning wind, solar, batteries and small pumped hydro. Eg Bells Mountain pumped hydro in NSW with 250 MW capacity, 2 GWh storage for $450 million is under investigation.

Point being they are developing renewables backed by a combination of gas and short term storage, they are not going down the track of total reliance on renewables since as you point out the large scale storage required doesn't come cheap.

AGL won't be spending / have recently spent almost $1.25 billion of shareholders funds on new gas and gas-fired generation plus $200 million on upgraded coal-fired generation without having concluded that doing so is the financially prudent course of action.



> See here at 23:15 where wind/solar+battery at 50% shares and small overcapacity can satisfy the market.




Indeed they can and neither I nor anyone would sensibly dispute that. 50% renewables backed by fossil fuels works most certainly and doesn't require more than modest storage to achieve that.

Build more renewables, build the smaller scale storage to go with them, build new fossil fuel plant to replace what's wearing out and we'll be right for decades to come. Easy.

There is however a view, which is broadly pushed by the environmental side of politics, that a 50 / 50 fossil fuel / renewable mix might not be acceptable in the long term, or even for the relatively short period of half a century, and there could be a need for a lower use of fossil fuels due to the CO2 issue.

I have no expertise on climate science but that argument is certainly around, that getting to 50% renewables isn't really where it stops, and that thinking underpins the ideas put forward by Snowy and Hydro Tas which represent some of the infrastructure required to go to much higher levels of renewables in a reasonably economic manner.

Large scale storage doesn't compete against small pumped hydro and batteries. Rather, it plus additional wind and solar competes against fossil fuels for filling in the gaps, in practice that's primarily gas.



> Except that government entities can run their own race with fleeting regard to profit, while market players play to the rules of the NEM and obligated to their shareholders to deliver returns.




All participants regardless of ownership are bound by NEM rules and they are strictly enforced with the exception of very small generators (households) although distributors do enforce some rules there.

Hydro Tas doesn't have the same profit motive that the listed companies do that is true but it certainly doesn't have the option of running up losses on an ongoing basis given it's a self-funded entity not something funded by taxpayers. The difference is thus about rate of return not whether there's a return on investment. For the record, yes government entities like that do pay taxes as anyone else, the only real difference being in the accounting terminology used.

In Snowy's case I'm not sure what arrangements apply so no comment there.



> Market players want a policy setting that gives them a degree of certainty regarding future spends, and we are here talking ballpark $*tens of billions *rather than stopgap measures.  Until that situation is in place, rational decision making is out the window.




No disagreement there although I'll note that if you look at AGL, Snowy and Hydro Tas then their actions and proposals all have one thing in common despite their technical and ownership differences.

They can't really lose once they've built it. First mover advantage. Nobody's going to build anything to compete directly against what's already been built given that (1) there's plenty of upcoming opportunity to build other things which aren't competing against others and (2) they know that doing so would crash the price.

In that context I note that Alinta, Origin and Energy Australia have all invested $ firming up plans and in some cases have gone as far as land, permits, public announcements and so on for their own various plans.

For the listed and private for-profit companies they won't really care how it all plays out. AGL, Alinta, Origin or EA can build their gas, small storage and wind + solar or alternatively they can build less gas and more wind+solar in order to supply energy for pumping to Snowy and Hydro Tas and then sign hedge contracts with them to gain access to firm generation. Either way they win so long as they invest in something and do it in an efficient manner.

Only way they'll really lose is if someone comes along and builds large scale storage _after_ the others have already invested in new gas-fired generation and small pumped hydro / batteries on the assumption that large storage won't be built. That would hurt but we're a long way from that point being reached.


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## Smurf1976

The way I see it regarding the risks of Snowy 2.0 and Battery Of The Nation:

If nobody comes up with something cheaper as a means of bulk storage and there is future pressure to go beyond 60% or so renewables then they will have been a good investment.

If someone does come up with a cheaper way of bulk energy storage and there is a need to go beyond ~60% renewables then the loss is the cost difference between these two projects and the cheaper means. Given that much of the cost is for civil works, they will have amounted to a blue collar make work scheme in regional locations.

If there is no future need to go beyond ~60% renewables then they will represent a loss to the extent that new gas-fired generation would have been cheaper. Based on AGL's recent cost estimates, a gas equivalent to Snowy 2.0 would cost $2.8 billion to build so that's $2.3 billion less than Snowy 2.0. The saved $2.3 billion would then cover the gap between buying gas, versus the cost of energy for pumping, for decades assuming the money is invested at commercial rates and drawn upon to fund the gas purchases over and above the cost of pumping.

So there's undeniably a financial risk but the extent of that risk is considerably less than the cost of construction. They will have an ongoing value, the only question will be whether or not they could have been done more cheaply or not in hindsight but the practical value remains. 

Regardless of whether these projects are built or not, time is running out to get _something_ built and to that end I'll simply say that the longer a decision takes, the more likely the ultimate outcome involves use of the word "diesel" and I doubt that anyone would consider that to be a good outcome given it's both polluting and expensive.


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> The way I see it regarding the risks of Snowy 2.0 and Battery Of The Nation:
> 
> If nobody comes up with something cheaper as a means of bulk storage and there is future pressure to go beyond 60% or so renewables then they will have been a good investment.
> 
> If someone does come up with a cheaper way of bulk energy storage and there is a need to go beyond ~60% renewables then the loss is the cost difference between these two projects and the cheaper means. Given that much of the cost is for civil works, they will have amounted to a blue collar make work scheme in regional locations.
> 
> If there is no future need to go beyond ~60% renewables then they will represent a loss to the extent that new gas-fired generation would have been cheaper. Based on AGL's recent cost estimates, a gas equivalent to Snowy 2.0 would cost $2.8 billion to build so that's $2.3 billion less than Snowy 2.0. The saved $2.3 billion would then cover the gap between buying gas, versus the cost of energy for pumping, for decades assuming the money is invested at commercial rates and drawn upon to fund the gas purchases over and above the cost of pumping.
> 
> So there's undeniably a financial risk but the extent of that risk is considerably less than the cost of construction. They will have an ongoing value, the only question will be whether or not they could have been done more cheaply or not in hindsight but the practical value remains.
> 
> Regardless of whether these projects are built or not, time is running out to get _something_ built and to that end I'll simply say that the longer a decision takes, the more likely the ultimate outcome involves use of the word "diesel" and I doubt that anyone would consider that to be a good outcome given it's both polluting and expensive.




Do you see any future for this ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Do you see any future for this ?



That sort of thing was the big hope for many years and as a concept it still has technical advantages.

The problem and the reason there’s not a lot of interest really comes down to one word.

China.

Solar panels have become so cheap with massive scale production, primarily in China as with a lot of manufactured goods, that it’s hard for any other way of using solar energy to compete.

It now costs more for site works, frames, cables and so on to install the panels than the panels themselves are worth such is the extent of the price fall.

That’ great news in terms of increasing the use of solar but not so good for any other technology.

Given that the market pays for energy but it doesn’t pay for peak capacity or reliability that’s another issue which favours whatever is the cheapest “grunt” approach.

That said an issue for all developers is making sure everything’s in place and agreed up front.

I won’t name it, I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be public knowledge or not, but there’s one rather expensive large scale renewable energy project that has been mostly ready to go for months but is sitting there doing almost nothing in practice.

There’s another one, in a different state, that’s limited to about 25 - 40% of capacity depending on circumstances.

So it’s important for any devloper to get everything in place right from the start. Otherwise it’s a tad embarrassing if you can’t get the power out of the place or forgot that there’s a market you’re going to be participating in. 

If you’re investing then make sure whoever’s doing it knows what they’re doing. A wind or solar farm doesn’t have much in common with a wheat farm.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> I have posted you the actual performance of the sum total of all wind and solar currently in the NEM.



So what?
We have a very immature market for grid scale renewables.
You need to present data for more mature markets, and you will see that the "gaps" disappear in the manner I explained.


Smurf1976 said:


> It's a guess backed by significant amounts of shareholder's money.



Yes, it's still a guess.
And again, the shareholders do not get a say in NEM policy, and that's the heart of the problem.


Smurf1976 said:


> They can't really lose once they've built it.



They are hardly going to build it unless the grid infrastructure is in place.
Tassie's case, imho, is far superior to Snowy2.0 because they literally have nowhere near the upfront costs.


Smurf1976 said:


> ...or alternatively they can build less gas and more wind+solar in order to supply energy for pumping to Snowy and Hydro Tas and then sign hedge contracts with them to gain access to firm generation.



The trend is for renewables+storage to increase ten fold in ten years.
The most recent US supply contract I saw was renewables+storage at 3.9cents/Kw.  That's where we can be in Australia with the right policy settings.
The base case for *all *pumped hydro is to use the lowest cost excess or spinning reserves to refill the dams off peak. Generators will opt for the best price they can get for all future capacity builds, and that will not be for pumped hydro unless the government owners are happy to subsidise big business  - not a good look.
With regard to your ideas on "bulk storage," the future is not in large scale as you keep suggesting.  VPP's/microgrids and integrated renewables+storage is where the rest of the world in now heading.  It's a very simple direction dictated solely on economics.
Yes, grid infrastructure needs to be massively upgraded, but that's inevitable under all future scenarios.
And I agree that "decisions" need to be made soon.  But without credible policies for the NEM, any stopgaps will merely subject consumers to ongoing higher prices.  I cannot see the big players in the market losing in the near term, no matter how they get over the hump in the next few years.
We as consumers will keep carrying the can for governments that refuse to listen. 
It's a travesty that there are years of reports to the various federal Energy Ministers who have refused to acknowledge that NEM policies need to price in carbon some way, and therefore lock us into not just more load shedding, but the incremental costs of continually accessing the highest priced electricity during peak periods.


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## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> And I agree that "decisions" need to be made soon.  But without credible policies for the NEM, any stopgaps will merely subject consumers to ongoing higher prices.  I cannot see the big players in the market losing in the near term, no matter how they get over the hump in the next few years.
> We as consumers will keep carrying the can for governments that refuse to listen.
> It's a travesty that there are years of reports to the various federal Energy Ministers who have refused to acknowledge that NEM policies need to price in carbon some way, and therefore lock us into not just more load shedding, but the incremental costs of continually accessing the highest priced electricity during peak periods.



On that I think we can agree. 

The deadline for making least cost decisions was 2010 in practice. That's when the current circumstances were irreversibly locked in through gas policy and consequent effects on electricity generation.

If I were to make one big prediction it's that the next government, whichever side that is, will seek to remove the issue from mainstream attention and will do whatever it takes to do so. Money will be spent, deals will be done, any obstacles will be removed, a few rules will be bent and so on but they'll want it out of the news.

Snowy 2.0 - I reckon there's more chance of an actual Labor-Liberal coalition government than there is of Snowy 2.0 not being built. I'll be amazed if it doesn't happen at this point given that both major parties support it, contracts are signed and so on.

Battery Of The Nation - Stage 1 is almost certain in my view. Stage 2 is probable. The second half is anyone's guess - I wouldn't place any bets.

Just my thoughts.


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## kahuna1

Smurf1976 said:


> Nuclear. As with coal would be a government project in practice almost certainly. Big hassle would be getting it done quickly enough - construction alone would use up most of the available time so would need a "wartime" approach where planning proceses are suspended and construction just gets going ASAP using an "off the shelf" design purchased from France, UK, USA, China or wherever. Chance of it actually happening = virtually zero.




Fantastic thread .... wow !!
Nuclear, have written a few papers over the years on this topic. Economically, it is a no go. Not even close in MW hour costs. Ignoring as smurf said the political and risk side, the economics don't work out. Not likely to either, again as he said.

Like most things, Nuclear industry has a massive lobby group in the USA and with ancient reactors. nearing or at the end of their life, they would LIKE to build new ones, lobby for it, to remove restrictions, but PURE economics no one likes to mention is the *COST*.  Whilst my papers on this are now 10 years out of date, pointing out at the frenzy of the Uranium market, new reactors DO NOT ECONOMICALLY work out, things have not gotten any better. Worse if anything.

Outside an ultra low cost labor nation like China or India, construction costs are horrendous and make the whole project ignoring other fears, totally uneconomic.  Nuclear whilst a great power source for peak loads and constant power, its NOT able to compete with other things outside China or say India if they steamroll the construction.

Nuclear will always be a part of Australia, not for power generation, but for essential nuclear medicine needs. We need Lucas Heights and will need something for these applications for the foreseeable future. Lucas heights is not about power generation ... but research and the Medical side of the equation.

Battery stuff, and stored energy with renewable s interest me greatly as the future, and thanks for the posts here and learning from masters !!

Some other forms, again with fleas, but massive potential are a maybe for the future. Whilst say building a solar farm in central Australia is good, transmission of that electricity becomes and issue and a DC system would need to be built. So too catching the roaring 40;s wind off the coasts of WA and SA, again a very long way from  consumers.

Tide and wave power interest me but, again, a nightmare in some cases politically. I do like another one of storing the power via a similar way to Snowy 2 power of pumping water back uphill during peak production times and when prices are low and demand also, but this one built on the coast and in effect pumping the sea water from either wind or wave electricity generation, pump water up a cliff to a storage tank on a hill when its not needed, and then when it is needed, like a dam, the water is released back down, generating electricity.


Looking at COST per MW hour generation costs ARE ... actually wrong in most cases. A hydro system built 50 years ago, has been paid off to a great extent, a nuclear reactor 40 years old, same thing, and the tendency of the coal and self interest groups is to IGNORE ... the NEW cost of production whilst bagging other alternatives to push their own agenda. As such I tend to treat a lot of the estimates at cost per MW hour with great caution. Extreme in fact when compared to alternatives. One is forced to use today's costing, the other, often from 40 years ago and just the current running costs are used !! 

All pie in the sky stuff with the political climate even here what it is. Thanks for the great posts again.

Cheers


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## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Snowy 2.0 - I reckon there's more chance of an actual Labor-Liberal coalition government than there is of Snowy 2.0 not being built. I'll be amazed if it doesn't happen at this point given that both major parties support it, contracts are signed and so on.



Building Snowy2.0 sounds like a good idea.
But who has seen the business case?
Shorten has not.
In fact nobody outside a select few in the Coalition and at Snowy have the numbers at hand.
The energy modelling that allows for Snowy2.0 to be viable is also nowhere to be seen.  So Shorten got Snowy2.0 dead right, "*It's sort of like the government is going to give you a battery with no plug, because they won't back in renewable energy*."

But if the "*plug*" is going to be built before Snowy2.0 and actually incorporates storage at source - at about a 95% conversion factor of energy into the battery - it is more efficient than pumped hydro which achieves an optimistic conversion factor of 85%.
Aside from the dodgy economics, the logic to the project is unsound.
I personally am disgusted that *our *government can be so cavalier with taxpayer monies that it has already committed $1.38b to Snowy2.0 on the PM's *belief *that it's a good idea.  
If it's such a good idea, why were we never shown how it stacked up?

If Labor gets in, I hope they run the numbers for Snowy2.0 against forward projections for the price of electricity in a renewables+storage (literal) energy landscape.  The project will prove to be one massive white elephant.


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## rederob

kahuna1 said:


> Whilst say building a solar farm in central Australia is good, transmission of that electricity becomes and issue and a DC system would need to be built. So too catching the roaring 40;s wind off the coasts of WA and SA, again a very long way from consumers.



Not really problems given there are proven examples of HVDCs in excess of 2000km. 
South Australia is to renewables, via energy potential, as Saudi Arabia has been to fossil fuel delivery.


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## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Building Snowy2.0 sounds like a good idea.
> But who has seen the business case?
> Shorten has not.
> In fact nobody outside a select few in the Coalition and at Snowy have the numbers at hand.



That is certainly true but on the other hand, pretty much every significant participant in the industry would have a pretty good idea via their own modeling. Some pretty serious effort gets put into that sort of thing. 

In practice big industry, unions and Labor could get that sort of information off the back of the proverbial truck if they really wanted it. Same with anything really. 

As for the issue, well there does seem to be a pretty fundamental shift in thinking underway which amounts to a rejection of the approach taken over the past 25 or so years. That's not surprising since I don't think there's anyone, other than those with a vested interest in it, who would seriously argue it has worked well.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> In practice big industry, unions and Labor could get that sort of information off the back of the proverbial truck if they really wanted it. Same with anything really.



When you are tendering for contracts from government you do not worry about project economics - just about winning the job and getting paid!

Here is a recent and massive Report on the case for Snowy2.0 which fleetingly covers renewables in various chapters.
I had used a 15% energy loss, however "Snowy 2.0 is proposed to have a cycle efficiency of 76%" (page 58), so it's calculated here at 24%.  As I said previously, the energy loss from renewables directly into grid-scale battery is about 5%.
The Report is so poorly based in terms of attempting to reflect the emerging energy landscape that if I had commissioned, I would not have paid for it.
A detailed critique is here.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> When you are tendering for contracts from government you do not worry about project economics - just about winning the job and getting paid!



That is true but same with anything.

Someone tendering for a contract with Smurf Enterprises has no real reason to be worried about whether I make a profit out of it so long as I pay the contractor for their work.

As for the issue, well there's an ideological divide that won't be solved anytime in the next 30 years I expect.


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## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> As for the issue, well there's an ideological divide that won't be solved anytime in the next 30 years I expect.



Not quite sure what "issue" you are referring to here.

If it's about the economics of renewables, the debate is over.  They are proven cheaper than FFs.

If it's about 100%renewables, then grid-scale storage needs to be implemented.  It was benchmarked in 2018 in the USA for solar+storage as far cheaper than pumped hydro on almost any metric you choose.

If it's about Snowy2.0 then I am 99% sure the project will be an economic white elephant. 
Two simple interlinked reasons include the project's failure to address pumping energy requirements, and the market distortion Snowy2.0 creates.
Example: let's assume Snowy2.0 runs for 6 hours at capacity and cranks out 12GWh of electricity. 
It will need to plug in to off-peak spinning (or whatever other excess is available), drawing some 15GWh from the network. To put that into perspective, that is equivalent to what Victoria, Queensland and NSW combined required to meet their demand between 6am and 7am today.  The pumping requirement itself will be difficult to achieve - or draw - from excess capacity during summer and winter peaks. So what was supposed to be pumping based on low cost off-peak will cease to be the case.  But the real problem arises with displacement effects of regularly running Snowy2.0 which turns it from a battery into a generating behemoth at 2GWh (again, that's the present load requirement for Tasmania and South Australia combined from 6am to 7am this morning). 
Market pricing will have a new dynamic where off-peak will barely exist in the south east of the continent, and separately a massive share of private sector power generation will have to close down each day to keep the government's Snowy2.0 in the picture.  The problem with the picture is that Snowy2.0 was not conceived to be a key market generator, but unless it is, it will never deliver a return.
A third reason, acknowledged by everyone who read the linked Report, is that it presented costings for renewables which were overstated, while for other battery energy storage systems the metrics were so outdated as to be useless.  For example the unsubsidised LCOS/MWh for a flow battery of US$373–950 (see Table 8) versus Lazard's current US$115 - 167 (or for Lithium at US$108-140).

If it's another "issue" I am sorry I missed it.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Not quite sure what "issue" you are referring to here.



It all comes down to various ideologies attempting to overrule what would naturally occur.

Ownership was a debate in the past but that one's largely settled and rarely mentioned these days. The listed, private and government companies have in most cases ended up heavily involved with each other anyway.

Free market economics versus engineering and planning has been quite a battle and through to the end of 2015 it was undeniable that the economists held sway. The various incidents plus the reality that multiple industry participants, both privately owned and government, have been burned financially out of it all means that nobody's really arguing on that one. Engineering and technical stuff is back in vogue.

On the question of renewables there wouldn't be too many who aren't expecting that in practice we'll have somewhere between 60% and 90% renewables in the grid in 2050. Hence why there's an abundance of private sector interest in building wind, solar and gas which fits with that.

What is highly contentious is government interference trying to produce some other outcome that doesn't really make sense.

In that context I mean government as in politicians not the government owned companies who are ultimately just another participant in the market. Snowy or Hydro Tas building pumped storage and transmission isn't a huge problem for the private companies with the exception of those whose plans are entirely based around gas. For everyone else it changes their business but doesn't kill their business - just means they need to shift more toward energy and less toward capacity than they otherwise would.

What is a very real threat is governments constantly changing the rules.

When it comes to rules, it's not so important what they are but that they don't keep changing. If someone's making an investment that takes a decade to come to fruition and then operates for 25 - 50 years then the last thing they need is governments changing the rules.

So there's a very real need for policy certainty over things like gas exploration, end user policies, CO2 and so on to be settled in a manner that brings certainty. Until that happens nobody's going to invest in things beyond that which they're confident will be worthwhile regardless of the policy settings and that's nowhere near enough.

The industry can't really tell government to go away though and the combination of political needs and business necessity of various companies does demand solutions on the price issues faster than anything's going to be built physically so it's hard to see government not being involved there one way or another. 

Note: To correct one of my previous comments there are actually 5 separate LNG import terminals now proposed. I overlooked the second one in NSW. So all up that's two each for NSW and Vic plus one for SA.

I haven't considered the implications but for investors in gas pipeline companies this is something to be mindful of since it potentially changes flows quite dramatically.

As an example of the issues with government, obviously the LNG import proponents would like to see the issues surrounding gas exploration and production in Vic and NSW firmly settled before they build their rather expensive facilities.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> It all comes down to various ideologies attempting to overrule what would naturally occur.



It's a regulated market, so ideologies are subservient to agreed principles.
Necessary decisions are not being made, so what are these "attempts"?


Smurf1976 said:


> What is highly contentious is government interference trying to produce some other outcome that doesn't really make sense.



I can see  indecisiveness more than anything else, so what is this *interference*?


Smurf1976 said:


> Snowy or Hydro Tas building pumped storage and transmission isn't a huge problem for the private companies with the exception of those whose plans are entirely based around gas.



So you don't think a Snowy2.0 generating 2MW isn't going to have a massive displacement effect once in operation?


Smurf1976 said:


> What is a very real threat is governments constantly changing the rules.



When was government last responsible for a significant rule change?  Or do you mean a government policy decision that requires rule changes?

Lots of mentions of politics throughout your post, but no clarification of exactly what it is that they are doing to affect the market.  Are you able to drill into something specific?


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> I can see indecisiveness more than anything else, so what is this *interference*?




Interference occurred by the Howard/ Costello government when they insisted that States adopt "asset recycling" under which they were forced to sell existing assets before they got money to buy new ones.

That policy disrupted the competition between States to reduce power prices in order to attract businesses and industries to the States, prompted a selloff of national assets and resulted in the mess we are now in.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Interference occurred by the Howard/ Costello government when they insisted that States adopt "asset recycling" under which they were forced to sell existing assets before they got money to buy new ones.
> That policy disrupted the competition between States to reduce power prices in order to attract businesses and industries to the States, prompted a selloff of national assets and resulted in the mess we are now in.



Dragging up the past is relevant in what way?
I thought we were talking about the present situation.

Detailed posts about present capacity and utilisation are handy to know.  But isn't it more important to try and distill the politics if there are constant references to it, but without saying exactly what the politicians are or are not doing?


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Dragging up the past is relevant in what way?




Lessons may be learned.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Lessons may be learned.



The structure of the market is completely different.
The processes for changing the market are significantly different.

Given the event you referred to is old, what do you think we could apply if anything was learned?


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Given the event you referred to is old, what do you think we could apply if anything was learned?




Don't sell essential services off to private enterprise.

There is a place for government in the power industry just as there is in the health industry and education services.

The existence of government competition in all those areas moderate the private sector and prevent runaway prices for those services.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Don't sell essential services off to private enterprise.
> There is a place for government in the power industry just as there is in the health industry and education services.
> The existence of government competition in all those areas moderate the private sector and prevent runaway prices for those services.



That's not of any relevance to the present situation.
Moreover, the Snowy2.0 construction decision was the result of the government buying back all the shares of an entity so that it could push ahead with the project before showing it had a viable case.  
So that's how clever government ownership can be!


----------



## SirRumpole

Renewable energy prices are tumbling. Sop when will our power bills follow ?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04...ment-maybe-heading-from-boom-to-bust/11041964


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## Smurf1976

A lot of recent comment here can be addressed by looking at current developments in Victoria and the actual situation today. I'll also comment on SA and other states to the extent they are relevant to Vic.

Firstly a look at large scale wind and solar generation, so that's not including rooftop solar, using AEMO data current as at 21 January 2019. Note these figures are for Victoria only and that forecasts are based only on committed projects which have land, funding etc in place (so not including anything that's simply a proposal).

Installed capacity of wind generation Summer 2018-19 =  1111.5 MW
Installed capacity of wind generation Summer 2019-20 = 2559.4 MW
Installed capacity of wind generation Summer 2020-21= 3085 MW

So we have a very rapid growth of wind generation in Victoria, almost tripling over about 2 years with most of that increase occurring this year indeed some of it already has to around 1500 MW.

Now for SA:

Summer 2018-19 = 1280.3 MW
Summer 2019-20 onward = 1525.7 MW

So combining the two we have:

2018-19 = 2391.8 MW
2019-20 = 4085.1 MW
2020-21 = 4610 MW

Now what about solar? How much is added to rooftops is a guess at best but we're talking about hundreds of MW over the next couple of years in Vic alone almost certainly. For large scale solar generation:

Victoria 2018-19 = 315.8 MW
Victoria 2019-20 = 724 MW

SA 2018-19 = 110 MW actually running
SA 2019-20 = 315 MW

Now if we combine large scale wind and solar for both states, which is appropriate given the relatively high capacity interconnection between the two and critically the very high weather correlation between both wind and solar in the two states:

2018-19 = 2817.6 MW wind and solar across both states
2019-20 = 5124.1 MW
2020-21 = 5649 MW

So almost exactly a 100% increase in two years. That's strong growth by any definition.

Now let's look at today and see how things went noting that it was rather windy although not consistently sunny (so a "mixed" day really - combined wind + solar could have been higher but it could also have been lower).

At 13:00 AEST (so that's Vic time):

Victoria wind generation = 1510 MW so basically flat out
Victoria large scale solar generation = 124 MW so just puttering along

SA wind generation = 1213 MW so close to full capacity
SA large scale solar generation = 153 MW so close to full capacity

OK, lots of numbers here Smurf and what on earth is the point of them all other than to tell me that it was windy today?

*Spot price in Vic = $9.10
Spot price in SA = $7.93
*
So trading at more than a 90% discount to average spot prices in both states. Couldn't sent any more to NSW and Tas hence the focus on Vic and SA as effectively the one place that was jointly in the same situation.

Unfortunately it gets worse once we look at thermal and current hydro generation:

Vic hydro generation all off. During Summer there's commonly a "must run" situation in order to release water for irrigation and that can lead to around 250 MW of forced generation from Eildon (100 MW) and Dartmouth (150MW) but no such issue at present due to the seasons. Both of those stations are operated by AGL by the way.

Vic coal plant was running at 3463 MW or about 1350 MW above absolute minimum turndown for plant online at the time (that being all four units at Loy Yang A (AGL), three units at Yallourn (Energy Australia), one at Loy Yang B (Alinta)). Can't go below about 2100 MW from that lot without getting into nasty consequences both economic and environmental.

SA gas-fired plant online was one gas turbine and the steam turbine at Pelican Point (Engie / Origin Energy) plus two units at Torrens Island B (AGL), all of which was sitting on minimum output (and losing money) at a total of 255 MW. Can't turn those off due to the need to have synchronous plant online for system strength, indeed the limits there are already being pushed (couldn't really allow any more wind in SA without also putting more synchronous plant online).

So overall we had a day that was windy in both Vic and SA, wasn't particularly sunny in the places most people live but had some decent sun on the big solar farms. It was a working weekday but a Friday after a public holiday so let's say it was sort-of a working day (almost certainly there would be more people than average on leave at the moment but most businesses are open as such). Or in other words, you could say it was somewhere in the middle.

Against that backdrop there was about 1350 MW of room left to move technically and prices were below $10 in both states.

Now we're about to add another ~2800 MW of wind and large scale solar across the two states in the next two years with ~2300 MW of that being done this calendar year.

Plus there's new rooftop solar systems going up in both states literally every business day unless the weather's bad enough to stop work. That's not included in the figures I've shown.

Investors in all this are in for some rude shocks if they weren't expecting to find prices going negative and their nice new wind or solar farms in practice shut down on days when there's lots of wind. Technically no problem but I doubt that too many will have based their business case around that idea.

So why not do what seems obvious then? Shut down some of those coal-fired generators either altogether or at least temporarily if too much power's a problem. Makes sense surely?

First reason not to do that is system strength although I won't get into detail due to not having any firm figures for what the limits there would be for Victoria. For SA though the limit was the actual output from gas-fired generation at midday today.

Second is to see what happened to all that wind and solar later today.

SA + Vic combined wind and solar at 13:00 AEST = 3000 MW from large scale plant as above plus an estimated 305 MW from small solar (houses etc) in SA and 676 MW from small solar in Vic. So 3981 MW all up.

Now if we take a look 6 hours later at 19:00 we find 748 MW of wind in SA, 798 MW of wind in Vic and no solar in either so 1546 MW across both states.

The response to that?

All operating coal plant in Vic running at maximum available capacity.

Newport D (Energy Australia, gas), one unit at Mortlake (Origin, gas) and various hydro plants (AGL, Snowy Hydro) started up in Vic. What was export from Vic _to_ NSW and Tas at maximum capacity is now import _from_ both of those states.

Both units at Ladbroke Grove (Origin, gas), one unit at Quarantine (Origin, gas), the second unit at Pelican Point (Engie / Origin, gas) and one unit at Torrens Island A (AGL, gas) all brought online plus the first unit at Pelican Point and two operating units at Torrens Island B all ramped up to higher output in SA.

Price at this time?

$88.98 in SA and $92.07 in Victoria so a bit over 10 times the price during the middle of the same day just six hours earlier.

Now none of this should be taken as meaning I'm opposed to renewables. If that was the case then I wouldn't have a rather expensive battery on the wall at home and some similarly expensive panels on the roof.

I am however well aware of the technical issues and that getting from the present 48% (SA) and 19% (Vic) share of renewable electricity involves a lot more than simply building wind and solar farms indeed they're the easy bits.

Wind and solar are great sources of electrical energy but they are not a reliable source of electricity generating capacity and those are two very different things. Those basing decisions on simply adding up gross annual outputs are in for a shock that's for sure when they realise that approach relies upon the notion that a lot of other things are in place which aren't in practice.

At a financial level well a few wind and solar (but mostly wind) developers have had their hands bitten recently with all of this. Standby for some outright screams to come forth from a few more over the next year as the reality sinks in as to where it's all at.

Charts are zero scaled so no trickery.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> I can see  indecisiveness more than anything else, so what is this *interference*?



There's an order of magnitude difference in the time scales of politics, finance and engineering in all this.

If the board of xyz signs off on whatever new development then most likely it'll survive 20 or so federal parliament terms, and several different governments, over its lifetime. In that context the idea that we've got one party waving lumps of coal around in parliament whilst threatening to break up listed companies, another wanting to go in the exact opposite direction and another one who seems to have a foot in each camp is just far too risky against all that.

If rules need to change due to scientific discovery then fair enough but to be basing decisions about assets with multi-decade lifespans on pure politics and 3 year election cycles is just crazy.



> So you don't think a Snowy2.0 generating 2MW isn't going to have a massive displacement effect once in operation?




It would have a massive effect certainly but I don't see that as a huge problem.

First because "free market" is a means to an end and is not rationally an end in itself.

Second because the free market isn't really that free anyway given that everyone of any significance is certain to win a prize of some sort.

Third because the affect compared to doing nothing is to tilt the market in favour of building intermittent renewables which whilst imperfect is not a bad outcome given the CO2 issue.

Fourth because if you look at Origin (for example) well a third of "their" generation is simply contracted from others anyway. I don't know the exact details of Origin's arrangements but you'll find the government owned entities on the other end of deals with most of the "private" generators and that's no secret.

That they do so comes down to two things really. One is risk management on everyone's part. The other is the listed companies generally aren't keen on owning things which produce highly intermittent cash flow. If they can get out of that they will, someone would need to point the proverbial gun to make them do it, but the same business model isn't such a problem for a government entity which can simply take a rolling 5 or 10 year average of the profits and has no share price to worry about.



> When was government last responsible for a significant rule change?  Or do you mean a government policy decision that requires rule changes?
> 
> Lots of mentions of politics throughout your post, but no clarification of exactly what it is that they are doing to affect the market.  Are you able to drill into something specific?



An example is gas.

In Victoria it's almost impossible to build a new house in an area where natural gas is available without connecting it. The rules state thou shalt not use grid-supplied electricity for heating water, including as the booster for a solar system or to run a heat pump, and whilst that doesn't stipulate gas it pretty much does in practice.

(Note that I've been told there's a workaround which involves paying quite a bit of money for someone to deem that an alternative is acceptable off but I'm also told that less than 1% of people do so, so it's gas or nothing in practice).

Now despite this government enthusiasm for gas there are also a lot of restrictions, and some outright bans, on drilling for the stuff. That's a problem given that the currently producing Gippsland, Otway and Bass Basin fields are all heavily depleted with production set to fall off the proverbial cliff around 2024 or 5 years from now. Given the lead time for anything new is several years in practice that's an extremely urgent situation.

So there are proposals from AGL and BHP / Esso Joint Venture to develop separate LNG import terminals as a means of continuing gas supply in Victoria. These are separate to the proposals of other companies to build such terminals in NSW and SA.

The problem though is that the Victorian government keeps dropping hints that maybe they might someday say gas drilling is OK.

Needless to say if AGL or BHP / Esso are going to each spend $ hundreds of millions of shareholders funds on a gas import facility as well as contracting ships and a supply of LNG then they're going to be downright furious if government changes the rules after they've done so, thus allowing someone else to drill for gas and easily undercut the LNG imports thus making the terminals pointless.

The argument there isn't about saying AGL or BHP / Esso should be protected, just that government should make its mind up. Whatever the rules are, make a decision based on firm reasoning and stick to it unless there's a genuine scientific reason to change it (not just politics). Same problem as the feds and climate change - make a decision and stop waving lumps of coal around etc.

For reference SA has a milder version of the same policy. Don't have to use gas but there's a few obstacles placed in the way of not doing so and there's a few obstacles in the way of drilling for it. It's of less consequence than in Vic but it's still the sort of policy that investors lack confidence in not being changed the day after they've committed serious $ to something.

I could condense all this as:

*Either we have a free market or we don't.

*If we're having a free market then government needs to get right out of the way at the political level. That doesn't outright preclude government owning assets in the market but there should be no political involvement in their operation as a business.

*If we're not having a free market then it's time to stop pretending we are and get on with a different way forward be that a regulated market, dividing it up with lines drawn on a map, nationalisation or whatever.

My own main concerns, and I could be fairly accused of not having stated this previously so that would be a fair point hence I'll say it now:

*At the technical level the electricity system has fallen into a rather poor state particularly in Victoria but it's not great in NSW or SA either.

*Vulnerability to a major plant failure is high and given the age of much plant in service, the probability of it occurring is also higher than it ought to be.

*Time is rapidly running out to build firm dispatchable generation to replace end of life plant and that is true regardless of the CO2 issue (eg new coal isn't an easy option either due to the time it takes).

*That is not to dismiss the CO2 issue which, whilst I claim no expertise on the subject, does appear to be requiring a prompt and effective solution.

*Price is a problem in terms of being internationally competitive. A very big problem given quite a few major contracts come up for renewal over the next 3 or so years.

*Gas supply in the same states is heading the same way. This precludes "quick fix" options of building gas turbines unless we also obtain gas to run them.

*That hydro storages have been heavily drawn down particularly in NSW precludes any further major draw down in an emergency due to failure of something else (gas or coal). That does not affect peak power generation but it does remove an option for dealing with fuel shortages, infrastructure failure and so on. Such operation is not unprecedented so not having that ability is a further weakness at the preset time.

*One other issue I can't and won't mention but it's a plant failure risk. No comment as to where or who owns it beyond saying that all my comments here relate to NSW, ACT, Vic, SA as a combined place.

*I also consider that the whole issue has chewed up far too much time and effort. At the political level it wouldn't be untrue to say that we've now had a number of Prime Ministers come to an end for reasons at least partly related to the question of how to keep the lights on. A concept that would have seemed quite bizarre had it been suggested a decade or so ago that this would ultimately occur.

At the corporate level there's no shortage of companies for whom energy is their third largest (typically) cost which have expended great effort at the management level pondering what to do about the whole situation. Effort that could otherwise be expended running and growing the business.

That there's any point in me posting this here is further evidence that the issue has become more dominant than it ought to be. The NEM wasn't intended to be the ~$2 billion a month market it has ended up being.


----------



## Smurf1976

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04...laid-off-after-temporary-halt-rebate/11045054

Smurf gets on soapbox, bangs head against wall, says something about business needing certainty not constant on again / off again.


----------



## rederob

First, I appreciate the huge effort you put in to your posts above.
But you know I remain picky:


Smurf1976 said:


> There's an order of magnitude difference in the time scales of politics, finance and engineering in all this



This was not addressing your point about "political interference" but, instead, proved my point point about not doing anything - except perhaps grandstanding.


Smurf1976 said:


> It would have a massive effect certainly but I don't see that as a huge problem.
> First because "free market" is a means to an end and is not rationally an end in itself.



I agree with much of your commentary.
The problems of displacement relate to demand shifts, therefore pricing (a skewing of the present to a 2GW paradigm when Snowy2.0 operates for the limited time it would,- daily), and countering shutdowns, therefore prices (ie. the mechanisms available to recover lost income over the longer term).  I do not see Snowy2.0 as a means to lower consumer prices overall, if at all.

I did like this:


Smurf1976 said:


> That they do so comes down to two things really. One is risk management on everyone's part. The other is the listed companies generally aren't keen on owning things which produce highly intermittent cash flow. If they can get out of that they will, someone would need to point the proverbial gun to make them do it, but the same business model isn't such a problem for a government entity which can simply take a rolling 5 or 10 year average of the profits and has no share price to worry about.



It plays entirely into the hands of poor policy direction.
On one hand we put in place a NEM to lower prices by improving market efficiency and having the whole industry play by largely one rule book.  And now we have the backhand, where governments bankroll an expensive project because they failed to put in place the policies needed to do what they set out to do.


Smurf1976 said:


> An example is gas.



I thought we were discussing the NEM?


Smurf1976 said:


> I could condense all this as:
> *Either we have a free market or we don't.



Your points are excellent - and you are right - we do not have one.

My observations:
Firming is only an issue because of poor policy, combined with failure to prepare for a renewable world. At a policy level we should not be approving renewables capacity unless it can guarantee a stabilised supply for a specified minimum period say, 4 hours.  This is not difficult with scalable modular storage.
Europe has integrated renewables across national borders, so the intermittency and technical issues are only insurmountable to the point that we in Australia have failed to look for extant solutions.
The price discount on renewables in the present market is due to a failure to put a price on carbon.  As a result, we have a situation where consumers are continuing to prop up are prices for FF energy while the inevitable transition to renewables remains in a policy void.


----------



## rederob

rederob said:


> Firming is only an issue because of poor policy, combined with failure to prepare for a renewable world.



Just to put some flesh on my comment, here's where America is presently at.
Funnily enough US States run pretty much their own race on energy policy, albeit within the FERC framework.  That has seen 6 US States legislate 100% renewables by either 2045 or 2050.
Meanwhile Europe continues massive solar investment through to at least 2024.  Equally remarkable is that if we transfer the $/Wdc metric to Australia we get an equal grid scale capacity to Snowy2.0 installed for under AUD$3b (admittedly without battery backup).  
Except we do not need a 2GW displacement of daily demand some time around 2025 when it will be too late anyways, because incremental capacity with storage is going to be so much cheaper to build in the interim.
Snowy2.0 is the sledgehammer solution to a problem best solved by lots of people with staplers.  It's like driving a huge spike into the system when the framework solution is met by neatly pinning the energy fabric across a larger body.


----------



## moXJO

rederob said:


> Just to put some flesh on my comment, here's where America is presently at.
> Funnily enough US States run pretty much their own race on energy policy, albeit within the FERC framework.  That has seen 6 US States legislate 100% renewables by either 2045 or 2050.
> Meanwhile Europe continues massive solar investment through to at least 2024.  Equally remarkable is that if we transfer the $/Wdc metric to Australia we get an equal grid scale capacity to Snowy2.0 installed for under AUD$3b (admittedly without battery backup).
> Except we do not need a 2GW displacement of daily demand some time around 2025 when it will be too late anyways, because incremental capacity with storage is going to be so much cheaper to build in the interim.
> Snowy2.0 is the sledgehammer solution to a problem best solved by lots of people with staplers.  It's like driving a huge spike into the system when the framework solution is met by neatly pinning the energy fabric across a larger body.



Europe runs a lot of hydro I thought,  NZ was high for renewables and lots of hydro (80% ?).
 Is there anywhere running a similar model to what you are suggesting?  
I'm not up to speed on who is doing what atm.


----------



## rederob

moXJO said:


> Europe runs a lot of hydro I thought,  NZ was high for renewables and lots of hydro (80% ?).
> Is there anywhere running a similar model to what you are suggesting?
> I'm not up to speed on who is doing what atm.



Germany is getting there.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> I thought we were discussing the NEM?



Basically yes but gas has very similar problems in terms of the investment climate etc and is intertwined with electricity due to multiple factors:

1. Gas is the second largest source of electricity in Australia and is a major source in SA, WA, NT plus the Mt Isa separate system in Qld. Elsewhere it's significant but not major.

2. Broadly similar regulatory, political etc background and mostly the same companies involved. There are some differences, eg BHP / Esso or Santos produce gas but aren't overly involved in electricity, but AGL, Origin, Energy Australia, Alinta, Engie etc all have a major presence when it comes to the gas industry at the retail end (and in some cases production) and for that matter Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tas do have various contracts and so on in place regarding gas too.

3. To the extent that homes and businesses use gas directly, virtually all of that is in place of using some other fuel or, in the case of industry, relocation to some other place where gas is available.

In the context of residential, gas is extremely dominant in Victoria for example whereas the opposite is true in Tasmania. 83% of Victorian homes, 93% of those in Melbourne, are connected to gas whereas only 4% in Tasmania are connected to mains gas.

The largest residential energy use in both states is space heating. 67% of Tasmanian homes are heated with electricity and 27% with firewood, the remaining 6% being split between mains natural gas, LPG, wood pellets and liquid fuels. In contrast in Victoria the figure is 68% using natural gas and 19% using electricity with most of the rest using firewood and the remainder using LPG or other means. 

Same for the other big household energy use where fuel substitution is possible, water heating. Gas has just under 70% market share in Victoria whereas in Tasmania electric systems have an 88% market share. Both of those figures exclude boosting of solar, noting that this is almost always electric in Tasmania whereas solar boost is commonly gas in Victoria - add that in and the true market share of gas in Victoria and electricity in Tasmania is even higher.

The point being that the different fuels ultimately do compete, even if consumers don't consider that to be so on a day to day basis. Every house with gas hot water is a house that doesn't use electricity to heat water. Or someone in the gas industry would probably see that as every house with electric hot water is a house that's not using gas to heat water. Same thing, different perspective.

That becomes particularly significant when it's realised that the volume of energy sold to end users in the form of natural gas in Victoria substantially exceeds the volume of energy supplied in the form of electricity. In contrast, no prizes for guessing that in Tasmania electricity is a very much larger industry than gas.

So if there were to be an significant change in the % of households using natural gas (or any other non-electrical energy source eg wood or LPG) for heating and/or hot water then to considerable extent that change will bring about an increase or decrease in electricity consumption. It would take time, but it would happen.

So gas and electricity are different things but my argument is that they're intertwined in much the same way as public transport and cars are intertwined in a city. For every 10 people who catch a train it's a fair assumption that at least 9 would be using traveling in some some sort of road vehicle (car, bus) if there were no trains. Same logic as gas versus electricity basically.


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## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Basically yes but gas has very similar problems in terms of the investment climate etc and is intertwined with electricity due to multiple factors:



But we were talking about your response to this question: "When was government last responsible for a significant rule change? Or do you mean a government policy decision that requires rule changes?"
You explained the operational aspects which are affected.  However, the "rules" pertaining to gas under our national energy policy are different.
In July 2017 the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism commenced as a temporary measure  to ensure that the domestic market did not experience gas shortages due to export commitments.
The mechanism supports what we have in place already rather than what might be proposed in future.  What it does not do is foster the gas industry as a beneficiary of energy generation reform over the burning of coal.  Nor does it lower prices of generation.  Some relief came last year through a new Heads of Agreement, but that's just another stopgap as a result of an inept government when it comes to energy policy. 
The takeaway, however, is that Australia dropped the ball on the use of gas for electricity generation because of abundant coal supplies. And to transition from coal to gas is not supported by the NEM as a result of policy retardation.


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## basilio

The opportunities of using pumped hydro to store renewable energy and replace gas powered power stations are already being  planned.

*AGL plans 250MW pumped hydro plant in South Australia as replacement for gas*
 Giles Parkinson  16 April 2019  0   Comments 
share

AGL Energy, the owner of the biggest gas generation fleet in South Australia, has announced plans to build a massive 250MW/2000MWh pumped hydro energy storage project in an old copper mine about 55km south-east of Adelaide.

The company said on Tuesday that it has agreed to pay $31 million for the rights to develop the pumped hydro project at the old Kanmantoo mine from Hillgrove Resources, using the existing open mine pit, with a new upper pond to be built on nearby land.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/agl-pla...south-australia-as-replacement-for-gas-17008/


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## Smurf1976

This chart shows volume (main chart) for large scale solar generation (only) in SA for the past week. So that's the output of big solar farms and nothing else.

I draw your attention to the past two days in particular. 







The reason for the reduced production wasn't lack of sun but rather, lack of transmission capacity out of the state combined with high wind generation and modest consumer demand for electricity at the time. That sent spot prices below zero and forced a reduction in output from some sources including large scale solar.  

Focusing purely on the investment aspects, well it sure doesn't help the economics of a facility if you have to cut production thus wasting the completely free sunlight whilst you've still got all your expenses to pay in full. 

Hedging arrangements might cover the owners on a day to day basis, but ultimately any such arrangement will just be a reflection of average market conditions tilted slightly in favour of whoever's taking the risk. 

This is not the only situation of this nature, it's just one that has actually occurred in a very obvious manner recently so is a good example, but it's something to be aware of in evaluating any company investing in this field. It's all well and good to generate electricity, but you also need to be able to get it to consumers and the existing grid does not have unlimited capacity as a few wind and solar developers seem to be learning the hard way.

My point here being an investment one not an argument against solar energy. For any wind or solar developer, location is critical not just in terms of sunlight or wind but also wherever they're connecting to the transmission network.


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## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> My point here being an investment one not an argument against solar energy. For any wind or solar developer, location is critical not just in terms of sunlight or wind but also wherever they're connecting to the transmission network.



And the point I have consistently made is that there is a failure in policy where we allow "free" energy to be displaced by fossil fuel energy *because we have not put a price on carbon*.
Indeed, your post clearly demonstrates the short sightedness of policy makers with respect to national energy planning.  
It's exemplified thus: The lights go out in Melbourne so we will build a big battery that will fix the problem in six or seven years time.  But not next summer when we need the fix, or the next few summers after that.  That's how smart the people who lead our nation on energy policy are, and that's why we are in the shambles we are.


----------



## HelloU

preface: i have only read the last 2 posts and do not intend to read back further - if this causes a reader too much distress then i recommend, or tell, or advise them to just ignore this post, save me ur outrage (not sure which applies)


when there is too much supply, did the solar get dumped coz the contract price was greater than the coal price on that above thing? I would think that there is a supply hierarchy contract.

what i mean is when in the future renewables are "cheaper" than coal will the supply contracts just get written to use the cheaper renewables first anyway and sorta speed up the end of coal anyway once renewables can actually supply enough energy to keep the lights on? wont the coal "problem" sorta self fix?


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## basilio

Found a good simple video outlining the range of energy storage options  to enable a versatile, stable renewable energy based system.

The video didn't mention it but I think a really elegant solution will be widespread use of electric cars and hooking up the associated batteries into the grid. Excess power in. Necessary power out


----------



## Belli

Oh fruit it.  NBN can cost.

Transitioned to NBN not so long ago - all went OK.  However, new modem, new passwords, etc.  However, as a result the Wi-Fi connection for monitoring of the inverters was lost.  Decided rather than fool around with something I know little about to have a service call made and recommission the bloody things.  That costs money but what the heck.

I suppose I could have done without it as it is only internal monitoring which I rarely do and the important numbers are done through the smart meter.


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## Belli

I guess it worked.  Received the electricity statement.  Essentially full two months of solar production with two separate PV systems was sufficient not only to eliminate the electricity bill but will provide a refund.

Only time I'll ever live in a house which has created an income.  Tax free too.


----------



## rederob

Another entrant: unique zinc-air flow-battery technology.


----------



## SirRumpole

The crazy gas situation and its effect on power prices.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05...r-electricity-price-rises-job-losses/11121120


----------



## lusk

Amazing that Australia is about to become the largest LNG exporter in the world yet we get jammed.
The final kick to the balls is they probably pay SFA tax.


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> The crazy gas situation and its effect on power prices.



There’s plenty more to come on the job loss front from this one. 

The companies affected by the high costs pay tax too so that also will be lost.

To be blunt it’s harder to think of a worse action taken against your own country by anyone anywhere than the Australian government allowing this one to go ahead. 

There are now 5 separate proposals to import gas to NSW (2), Vic (2) and SA (1) all of which are interconnected anyway and via SA are connected to Qld and NT. 

I expect we’ll see more actions in due course like the dispute between Hydro Tasmania and the operators of the Vic - Tas gas pipeline. It ended up in formal arbitration with a confidential decision binding on both parties but in short Hydro’s argument is pretty straightforward. 

Generating power to sell to industry which operates in a global market. If the gas price goes up then that doesn’t mean the electricity price can go up due to the need to be globally competitive. It is thus a question of who takes the loss, either the pipeline operator or Hydro hence the dispute.

It’s no secret that, bearing in mind the arbitrated outcome is of limited duration, the likely outcome is that the most efficient gas-fired power station in the NEM will be permanently shut in the 2020’s unless the economics of gas improve.

Don’t be surprised to see similar action from others looking to spread the pain.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> To be blunt it’s harder to think of a worse action taken against your own country by anyone anywhere than the Australian government allowing this one to go ahead.
> There are now 5 separate proposals to import gas to NSW (2), Vic (2) and SA (1) all of which are interconnected anyway and via SA are connected to Qld and NT.



6 years of a COAG Energy Council sitting on its hands on this front, and Scomo is asking for more of the same!
It's what you get when the "big end of town" gets to talk to turkeys in government, so their press releases make them look good, but us poor.
I know Smurf likes to play the honest broker here but, honestly, this is a broken government that all the king's horses and all the king's men shouldn't even try to put back together again.


----------



## Smurf1976

Worth a read for those wanting another voice, other than mine, saying the same thing that we need cooperation not competition at the technical level if all this wind and solar is to actually work and not end up as a wasted effort. 

https://reneweconomy.com.au/its-not-easy-to-build-a-solar-farm-in-australia-any-more-59308/

As someone (not me) has responded "The free market design on the mainland part of the NEM has no doubt led to a lot of wasted effort, whereas in Tasmania it is more centrally led so no-one is brave enough to expend much on project development without agreement from Tas Hydro."

That nails it basically. There's noting wrong with the idea of multiple owners of wind farms, solar etc, and there are certainly private wind and solar developers in Tas, but there does need to be central coordination of what's going on from a technical perspective otherwise it ends up a mess. 

The problem isn't lack of technical competency in the other states but of hands being tied. Someone knows that what rival companies are doing isn't going to work technically but isn't allowed to bring them all together and come up with solutions. That basic issue goes right through every aspect of the industry from generation through to household metering.


----------



## rederob

Whatever happens with Adani, the future for those who invested their votes in long term jobs may not be as bright as they had hoped.
Here's what's happening in the USA to coal-fired power plants.
The interesting takeaway is that battery backup prices are falling at 10-15% per annum, depending what is used.


----------



## basilio

This looks like a promising development in low cost battery storage .
https://www.mgxrenewables.com/media/downloads/presentation.pdf


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> This looks like a promising development in low cost battery storage .
> https://www.mgxrenewables.com/media/downloads/presentation.pdf



Yes, it looks similar to the redflow zinc bromine flow batteries, IMO this sort of technology is much better for the domestic installation.


----------



## rederob

basilio said:


> This looks like a promising development in low cost battery storage .
> https://www.mgxrenewables.com/media/downloads/presentation.pdf



You missed this !


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Yes, it looks similar to the redflow zinc bromine flow batteries, IMO this sort of technology is much better for the domestic installation.



Except MGX's battery can charge and discharge simultaneously.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Except MGX's battery can charge and discharge simultaneously.



That's an interesting concept, are they two independent sections and functions? I'll send the info to my son, he is wanting to go off grid, he is like a dog with a bone on this stuff.lol


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> That's an interesting concept, are they two independent sections and functions? I'll send the info to my son, he is wanting to go off grid, he is like a dog with a bone on this stuff.lol



One unit, but with separate modules sharing the same battery solution (they call it "fuel").


----------



## sptrawler

At last a line drawn in the sand, instead of the generators saying "she'll be right", they will be in deep $hit if she isn't right.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/com...er-warns-power-companies-20190522-p51q5g.html
To replace 1680MW of dispatchable generation, with 1600MW of renewables and 250MW of storage, is taking the pi$$.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> At last a line drawn in the sand, instead of the generators saying "she'll be right", they will be in deep $hit if she isn't right.
> https://www.smh.com.au/business/com...er-warns-power-companies-20190522-p51q5g.html
> To replace 1680MW of dispatchable generation, with 1600MW of renewables and 250MW of storage, is taking the pi$$.




A "three phase plan" eh ? 

I wonder if that little pun was intended, probably the reporter didn't even realise it.

I also wonder if the NEG will suddenly return, it has(had) the support of the Opposition.


----------



## Smurf1976

Hate to say it but there's a degree of political posturing here akin to someone swearing at the lawnmower on Saturday morning.

If it won't start well then it won't start but at least with all that yelling everyone knows we tried to get it going.

Some of this stuff's really not in good shape and what was in much better shape has been literally blown up with explosives.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Hate to say it but there's a degree of political posturing here akin to someone swearing at the lawnmower on Saturday morning.
> 
> If it won't start well then it won't start but at least with all that yelling everyone knows we tried to get it going.
> 
> Some of this stuff's really not in good shape and what was in much better shape has been literally blown up with explosives.



At least they are talking about it, in the past the problem seems to have been more about political mileage, one side saying something the other side disputing it. Then one side dropping an idea, because of media backlash and the other deciding it wasn't a bad idea after all.
At least know someone has to make a decision and wear it, there is no finger pointing, it's Morrison's problem and he has to sort it.
As you know any action is going to take some time and some money, and if the action is renewables it is a whole lot more money and time, so they need to get started on something.
As you rightly have pointed out, existing plant is getting older, probably not getting maintained and no one will do anything unless a big stick is threatened.
If nothing is done, then the system fails and something has to be done, probably in an untimely and uncoordinated manner with a very poor outcome.
Just my opinion.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> At least they are talking about it



Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a bad thing.

I'm just considering background knowledge and seeing that if it all gets through without a crisis of some sort then, well, let's just say a lot needs to go right for that to happen.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> akin to someone swearing at the lawnmower on Saturday morning.
> 
> If it won't start well then it won't start but at least with all that yelling everyone knows we tried to get it going.




On a serious note,

I bought myself one of these, and it’s a dream, 

no problem starting, just push as button, 
no need for a catcher it mulches clippings perfectly, 
No need to mix fuel or run to petrol station, it runs for 40 mins and takes 30mins to charge, so with 2 batteries I can mow, whipper snip and use the blower continuously (although I have never used more that 1.5 full charges and I have a large yard)

Ditch the clunkers and make mowing. Pleasure.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> On a serious note,
> 
> I bought myself one of these, and it’s a dream,
> 
> no problem starting, just push as button,
> no need for a catcher it mulches clippings perfectly,
> No need to mix fuel or run to petrol station, it runs for 40 mins and takes 30mins to charge, so with 2 batteries I can mow, whipper snip and use the blower continuously (although I have never used more that 1.5 full charges and I have a large yard)
> 
> Ditch the clunkers and make mowing. Pleasure.





That is a serious bit of gear, I see these silly 18v and 36v light weight bits of junk and think not yet, but 82v now you are getting serious.
I just checked up the wattage 1200, still a bit small, would like to see a 2hp in myself 1500w


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> That is a serious bit of gear, I see these silly 18v and 36v light weight bits of junk and think not yet, but 82v now you are getting serious.
> I just checked up the wattage 1200, still a bit small, would like to see a 2hp in myself 1500w




It’s pretty good, and the guy in the video is correct, electric mowers are such a pleasure to use, I do find myself wanting to get out and mow more, it just doesn’t seem like a chore as it does with a clunker.


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## Value Collector

Here is the matching chainsaw,
This is going to be my next purchase.


----------



## peter2

You may not be able to buy your chainsaw. Product recall.

https://www.productsafety.gov.au/system/files/recall/Recall advertisement 82V_0.pdf


----------



## Value Collector

peter2 said:


> You may not be able to buy your chainsaw. Product recall.
> 
> https://www.productsafety.gov.au/system/files/recall/Recall advertisement 82V_0.pdf




Looks like it only affects chainsaws sold before November 2017.

You had me worried there for a second, because I need to buy one soon, I have 6 trees I need to cut down, and a hedge to remove, the the old petrol model is a pain in the A.


----------



## HelloU

the irony for me is that i usually associate battery powered thingoes as saving the planet .....

on that other, be careful in the dark with that thing (lol)


----------



## SirRumpole

Good to see Victa still exists even if it's owned by the Yanks..


----------



## Smurf1976

I just find it rather sad that right now we have large scale solar turned off in SA, so going completely to waste, whilst just a few hours from now gas-fired plant will be running heavily.

There’s a need to do this better with shifting loads (eg water heating) to when there’s an abundance of renewables and via storing energy in batteries and pumped hydro. There’s a role for all that - let’s get on with it is my view.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I just find it rather sad that right now we have large scale solar turned off in SA, so going completely to waste, whilst just a few hours from now gas-fired plant will be running heavily.
> 
> There’s a need to do this better with shifting loads (eg water heating) to when there’s an abundance of renewables and via storing energy in batteries and pumped hydro. There’s a role for all that - let’s get on with it is my view.




Don't worry, the market will fix it.


----------



## moXJO

SirRumpole said:


> Don't worry, the market will fix it.



Its obviously an area that needs attention. You just need someone smart enough to monetize.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Don't worry, the market will fix it.



I still think the Government will have to build something, the only other obvious option would be private to build it and the Government to have a take or pay contract. Those contracts usually end up in tears, the Government has to play with the cards face up.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I still think the Government will have to build something,




Probably best for government to build long term assets like hydro storage and let the private sector build the short term stuff like wind farms so they can get out quick when it suits them.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Probably best for government to build long term assets like hydro storage and let the private sector build the short term stuff like wind farms so they can get out quick when it suits them.



That's if they have enough time, to put in enough capacity and storage, highly doubtful. IMO


----------



## qldfrog

It is easy to smash the private sector in the energy field, but they are not exactly playing in an even field
For the last 20y, ground has been shifting and distorted by various pending policies, agenda
It is an area i would run away quickly if i was a ceo..and they did
Most of these companies are big boys, they do not need to be in Australia or invest much, and why should they?
We pay the price of incompetence, high taxation and instability
Remember the banana republic quote?
Now look at power gas situation, mining tax and export live cattle


----------



## rederob

qldfrog said:


> It is easy to smash the private sector in the energy field, but they are not exactly playing in an even field
> For the last 20y, ground has been shifting and distorted by various pending policies, agenda
> It is an area i would run away quickly if i was a ceo..and they did
> Most of these companies are big boys, they do not need to be in Australia or invest much, and why should they?
> We pay the price of incompetence, high taxation and instability
> Remember the banana republic quote?
> Now look at power gas situation, mining tax and export live cattle



I was going to suggest you stick to what you know.
But your posts suggest you don't know much.
Your first claim is dead wrong - the rules of NEM are clear and apply to all market participants.
Next, the last 20 years are not relevant to the NEM.
Next, CEOs are not running away.
Next, energy generators need to invest billions to stay in the game, not as your claim suggests.
The rest of your post is the usual nonsense.


----------



## moXJO

moXJO said:


> Its obviously an area that needs attention. You just need someone smart enough to monetize.



Something for the solar homeowner:
https://www.solarpro.com.au/solar-power/appliance-control-devices/

Im sure there are a few products available.


----------



## basilio

As Gomer Pyle would say "Surprise, surprise, surprise"

It seems that the new Liberal Government thinks a low carbon renewable energy future is  inevitable and an opportunity rather than a cost...  I wonder if he has told Andrew Bolt yet ?

Who would have thunk it ?

* Josh Frydenberg: low-emissions future is inevitable and a huge opportunity *
Katharine Murphy, Political editor
Treasurer signals new infrastructure for renewable zones, and says Coalition will pursue climate policy it took to the election

Josh Frydenberg says Australia needs to roll out new infrastructure in the coming term of government to support renewable energy zones, and has declared that the “inevitable” transition to low-emissions sources creates an opportunity for the country.

In his first wide-ranging interview since holding his Victorian seat last weekend, where he was subjected to a concerted campaign from the Greens and the climate-focused independent Oliver Yates, Frydenberg told Guardian Australia the Coalition would implement the $3.5bn climate policy it took to the election rather than pursue a reboot.

But echoing the Liberal senator Arthur Sinodinos, who has urged colleagues to use a changing energy market to bolster the Coalition’s environmental credentials and be positive about the increasing share of renewable energy, Frydenberg said emissions reduction and a strong economy were not mutually exclusive propositions.

“I do see the energy transition as an opportunity,” the treasurer said. “I’m really excited by the technology developments – the peer-to-peer lending, microgrids, the improvements in solar panels, battery storage, Snowy 2.0, the Tasmanian renewable energy resource and the potential we will get from a second interconnector.

“One thing we really need to do, which I will be thinking about as the treasurer, is putting in place the infrastructure nationally that the Australian Energy Market Operator has talked about to create the renewable energy zones and to ensure we have the transmission and distribution networks to prepare our country for the long term.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...s-future-is-inevitable-and-a-huge-opportunity


----------



## sptrawler

Bas, just because they don't go round shooting from the hip, doesn't mean they don't understand the problem.
You don't have to loud, proud and in the face, to be intelligent.


----------



## HelloU

no idea what the NEM really does, but will make the point that not all electricity (east coast) is "sold" via the spot market.

my head says any ceo worth their salt that intends to provide a new supply would be crazy to not have supply contracts in place ......... and the greater the capex the greater the revenue certainty needs to be for roi. 
when liddell and the rest start shutting i can only assume that a black hole may be left, i can only imagine that governments will be climbing over each to lock in further supply and throw money at producers..... just like sth oz has been doing.


----------



## Smurf1976

HelloU said:


> when liddell and the rest start shutting i can only assume that a black hole may be left, i can only imagine that governments will be climbing over each to lock in further supply and throw money at producers..... just like sth oz has been doing.



Where the difficulty lies on the purely physical side of it is volatility.

Eg on the 24th and 25th of January this year there was forced load shedding in Victoria.

Well, OK, technically it was voluntary on the 24th but only because industry said they'd do it before AEMO formally gave the orders but that's dealing with semantics really since there was no choice but to turn some load off.

On the 25th it was forced via blackouts to homes and small businesses etc. Those who'd done it the night before were still stabilising their production process so simply couldn't put their hand up gain no matter how much money anyone offered.

So load shedding on the evening of the 24th and around midday on the 25th.

But if you'd taken a look around Victoria's power stations in the early hours of the 25th then you'd have found quite a few completely silent. Shut down and doing nothing as there was simply no need.

That level of volatility on the physical supply side is inherent to electricity but doesn't really happen in any other commodity industry. You don't have for example a wheat shortage at midday then a glut later that same day, every other commodity moves far more slowly than electricity does.

Spot price is likewise. Just because it went from around $100 all the way up to $14,000 at 7pm doesn't mean it won't be down below $50 well before midnight. So again that's extreme volatility compared to other industries.

Then there's the project life cycle and this is where the big problem lies in the immediate term:

2019 - New power station at Barker Inlet (SA) adds 210 MW and mothballing of Torrens Island Power Station (TIPS) A units 1& 2 removes 240 MW so no real change.

2020 - Mothballing of TIPS A unit 3 removes another 120 MW.

2021 - Mothballing of final TIPS A unit removes another 120 MW.

2022 - Permanent closure of Liddell (NSW) removes 1680 MW.

Then there's things like a recent incident. I won't go into details, to my knowledge there's no official public release of the information, but suffice to say there's been an incident at a power station and several hundred MW won't be running for quite some time. Best estimates at this stage are ~ 4 months to return to service but that's subject to change. It's pure good luck that it didn't happen a few months earlier and that there will _probably_ be sufficient supply available from other sources to cope without it until it's back in service.

Now the point there is that any "good" option from a longer term perspective has the problem that it would be extremely difficult to get it built in time and for some of them it's just not going to happen.

Of the things which could be built in that time, they have the problem of being higher cost than the other options in an environment where that cost can't realistically be passed through to consumers. They can be done physically but cost is the problem.

Extending the life of Liddell seems too difficult politically. It's probably the most well known power station in the country for all the wrong reasons so don't go there. It is also by far the least reliable power station in the NEM by the way - the outage rate is _extremely_ high compared to anything else.

So what happens?

The new NSW - SA line should be built by 2022 indeed I'll speculate that nothing will stop that. That helps to the extent that SA and NSW don't usually experience high demand at the exact same time.

A few open cycle gas turbines, diesel engines and medium size batteries will likely appear somewhere.

Politically far easier than extending the operation of Liddell would be to keep TIPS A running a bit longer. It's far smaller but still enough to be of use (480 MW versus 1680 MW) and has the advantage that whilst very much outdated (in operation since 1967) it does work fairly reliably (it's orders of magnitude less trouble than Liddell) and the big one is that it's not the subject of any political debates. Keep that going along with more transmission and a few batteries or diesels etc and we'd likely scrape by. If there's no gas to run it then fear not - Torrens Island also has the ability to fire oil which isn't cheap but it's a workaround if needed.

Note that the last two paragraphs are speculation on my part and aren't something actually proposed by anyone, at least not at present.

As for Liddell, well if it makes it through to 2022 then it's going to be like the marathon runner who collapses to the ground with one hand across the finish line......

The mistake in all of this in my view is that the wrong plants were closed. Wallerawang (NSW, 1000 MW), Northern (SA, 546 MW) and Redbank (NSW, 150 MW) were between them the same size as Liddell and in vastly better condition. Returning Redbank to service wouldn't be impossible but that's only 150 MW and the other two are too far gone - literally blown up with explosives in the case of Northern. 

Anglesea (Vic, 160 MW) was small and getting old but also another one that's gone (and been blown up) but which worked far more reliably than Liddell.


----------



## SirRumpole

Cheap solar panels and batteries are inefficient and dangerous...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05...heap-solar-derailing-market-insiders/11139856


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Cheap solar panels and batteries are inefficient and dangerous...
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05...heap-solar-derailing-market-insiders/11139856



This is another problem with the renewable issue, who is going to ensure the installations are maintained and replaced as they fail?
I know the people who live over the road from me, have had their inverter fail I checked it out burnt cct board, they said unless insurance cover it they wont replace it.
The situation as it is, means it is up to the homeowners discretion, but the electricity supply assumptions are being based on that generation remaining ad infinitum.
The person in your example, is going to replace an $8,000 system, on the hope the next one last longer? Because there is no way it will have paid for itself.


----------



## Smurf1976

I see the first drops of what's going to be an outright flood are starting to receive some attention:

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/05/defence-orders-marshmellows-gas-disaster-locks/

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/05/nsw-import-bricks-gas-gangsters-steal-economy/

There's a reason why no other country has gone down this track and suffice to say there's plenty more news like this coming, some of it already baked in the proverbial cake. 

One thing's for sure, the cost of all this makes some of the issues which dominated the recent federal election campaign seem child's pocket money in comparison.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I see the first drops of what's going to be an outright flood are starting to receive some attention:
> 
> https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/05/defence-orders-marshmellows-gas-disaster-locks/
> 
> https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/05/nsw-import-bricks-gas-gangsters-steal-economy/
> 
> There's a reason why no other country has gone down this track and suffice to say there's plenty more news like this coming, some of it already baked in the proverbial cake.
> 
> One thing's for sure, the cost of all this makes some of the issues which dominated the recent federal election campaign seem child's pocket money in comparison.




What people here have been saying for a long time.

The politician's skulls must be made of lead if they haven't seen a disaster coming over gas supplies.


----------



## basilio

It's crazy really. On any way of thinking moving  quickly to a renewable energy economy makes absolute sense.

I was really delighted to her Arthur Sinodinis attempt to eocourage the Liberal party into recognising that such a policy platform was inevitable and  just had to be done to not look like complete twits. And of course it would completely disarm the Labour Party and Greens.

And then he flits off to battle Trump and  Angus Christian decides the previous BS Liberal policy was what they should do because "they had a mandate" .  What about the Senate ? What about the centrist Libs ?
What about the entire business sector wanting to move to a clean and cheaper energy future ?

Just madness all over again..


----------



## Smurf1976

Another one bites the dust......

https://www.theage.com.au/business/...jobs-alarm-on-gas-crisis-20190528-p51s2s.html

Get used to this sort of news 

The smartest move at this point would be to just bite the bullet on the costs and fix the mess since the longer it's left the bigger it gets. Taxpayers are going to foot the bill one way or another, the only question really is about the detail of how, so may as well just accept the inevitable and get on with it before the whole thing gets any bigger.


----------



## moXJO

SirRumpole said:


> Cheap solar panels and batteries are inefficient and dangerous...
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05...heap-solar-derailing-market-insiders/11139856



Funnily enough the solar installer interviewed  has made roofs leak after his installation. Minor stuff but tried to pin it on someone else.


----------



## basilio

AFC has tested and proven the use of Ammonia as the hydrogen source for its fuel cells. The hydrogen that is produced by cracking ammonia is not as pure as other sources but, *critically*, this lack of purity doesn't affect their fuel cells. Their SP has jumped in the past few days.  See AFC energy on UK stock market

Ammonia is cheap and easily transportable.

*AFC Energy Successfully Concludes Ammonia to Power (“A2P”) Fuel Cell Generator Trials and Confirms Plan for Scalable Commercial System*
AFC Energy (AIM: AFC), the leading alkaline fuel cell power company, announces the successful results of an 18 month Ammonia to Power (“A2P”) trial and confirms plans to conclude work on the business case and engineering of an integrated, scalable ammonia fuelled clean power generator.

The system, which expects to utilise existing ammonia cracking technology alongside AFC Energy’s proprietary fuel cell system, would enable the use of AFC Energy’s fuel cells in off-grid locations where electricity would be generated through the consumption of ammonia; a low-cost commodity chemical that is readily available in industrialised and developing countries.

Highlights

Proof of concept for the use of AFC Energy’s fuel cell system with cracked ammonia fuel to provide clean electrical power in remote, off-grid applications where premium power prices are available

Negligible difference in fuel-cell performance witnessed between direct hydrogen gas sourced from industrial gas companies, and that sourced from cracked ammonia

Ability to utilise “off the shelf” ammonia crackers readily available in today’s market without the need for further research and development costs that would otherwise likely delay go to market strategies

Completion of full third-party safety review demonstrates safe operation of the integrated system

Clear ability to scale up power production with increases in the size of the cracker capacity and fuel cell to deliver multi-MW solutions for powering remote or off-grid communities

Work has commenced on the design and business case for an integrated power system that is fully consistent with AFC Energy’s approach to the identification of third party hydrogen solutions within its off-grid power generation unit

Uses commodity ammonia as fuel that is readily available as one of the world’s most produced inorganic chemicals for its use as a fertiliser.

https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/afc...confirms-plan-for-scalable-commercial-system/


----------



## Smurf1976

I see that AGL have now publicly announced the incident at Loy Yang to which I have previously referred to in non-specific terms.

They're putting the cost in the $60 to $100 million range with an expected return to operations in December this year. That's AGL's publicly stated estimate.

In layman's terms for what happened - there was an electrical short circuit whilst at full output last month and it's a mess. Think in terms of cooking and melting sort of mess.

Affected plant is Unit 2 at Loy Yang A power station in Victoria. This is a 530 MW conventional steam driven plant using coal to fire the boiler.

Losers = AGL plus anyone buying from the spot market who isn't hedged are short term losers. Longer term, consumer prices reflect the underlying market so expect your bills to go up a bit in due course.

Winners = Rival generating companies who are exposed to the spot market and/or which have the ability to boost production plus the suppliers of fuels used by them.

Partly related but elsewhere, Unit 4 at Torrens Island B (SA, owned by AGL) ran at sustained high output burning fuel oil throughout Wednesday and Thursday this week due to a scarcity of natural gas in south-eastern Australia caused by high demand and a gas production outage in Victoria. So if you're in Adelaide and saw smoke coming out of Torrens Island PS then that's what was going on.

The generating unit in question at Torrens Island is a 200 MW conventional steam driven unit using gas / fuel oil to fire the boiler. Typical operation is load following and system security (so a highly variable output) using gas as the fuel and not the constant high output using oil as took place this week. In simple layman's terms you could say it was switched to doing "grunt work" just sitting there churning out bulk power during the gas supply squeeze. 

AGL's media release and some media coverage regarding the incident at Loy Yang:

https://www.agl.com.au/about-agl/me...20-impact-of-extended-unit-outage-at-loy-yang

https://www.theage.com.au/business/...NiBn_PPo2hBMUScTb8nzBVN5XjvCek5gz77ev0E_SfpTY


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> I see that AGL have now publicly announced the incident at Loy Yang to which I have previously referred to in non-specific terms.



Just curious about your post being in a thread on renewables.
I thought I was more lost than usual .


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I see that AGL have now publicly announced the incident at Loy Yang to which I have previously referred to in non-specific terms.




Great concern from AGL regarding it's own financial loss , little concern for the load it's put on other generators and no admission that maybe it was lack of essential maintenance that caused the problem in the first place.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf I saw a headline, that another big unit in the Latrobe Valley, has gone AWOL.


----------



## SirRumpole

Electric cars and renewables could boost outback jobs.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06...ergy-driving-new-outback-mining-boom/11196732


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Electric cars and renewables could boost outback jobs.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06...ergy-driving-new-outback-mining-boom/11196732



Exactly what we have been saying, there is no practical reason why a battery industry can't be developed here.
The old chestnut that you can't fill the ships to capacity, doesn't cut it with batteries, we should demand they do it here or charge them a tax for every ton of lithium that goes out.


----------



## sptrawler

This article about facebook's entry into the solar market, puts a bit of perspective to the enormity of the challenge facing us.

https://www.fastcompany.com/9035669...reds-of-millions-in-a-gigantic-new-solar-farm

If we take the article as being fairly accurate, we can determine the size and cost of a solar installation, to replace Liddell Power Station.
Liddell is 2000MW, so we require 4,000MW of renewables to replace it, for the sake of simplicity forget storage.

Facebook is building a 380MW solar installation, which will cost $600m AUD and cover an area of 4,600 acres.
So for the sake of rounding call it a 400MW solar farm, so just multiply the figures by 10, that is $6billion and covering an area of 46,000 acres or 186 sq/klm.
That is going to take some building, if you can find the land suitable, and do it in a couple of years.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Smurf I saw a headline, that another big unit in the Latrobe Valley, has gone AWOL.




That's the AGL one at Loy Yang and the "incident" to which I've referred a few times.

Since it's a listed company I've been careful to only state what the company has said about it publicly - it had an internal short circuit and there's damage to the stator and rotor. 

In layman's terms that's a serious incident and hard to fix - bit like saying someone had a heart attack or that your car's lying upside down at the bottom of the hill. It's a big problem not a minor one.

Official word from the company is it'll be fixed in December this year but that's an estimate subject to revision.

From an investment perspective AGL is a loser out of it but it's more complex when it comes to who wins. Origin Energy is the obvious potential winner so far as listed companies are concerned but where it gets complex is with the hedging arrangements in the market and the participation of other companies which aren't listed. What benefit may arise to Origin is thus far from certain (and noting that around a third of Origin's generation is under contract from others anyway and not actually owned by them).


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> That's the AGL one at Loy Yang and the "incident" to which I've referred a few times.
> 
> Since it's a listed company I've been careful to only state what the company has said about it publicly - it had an internal short circuit and there's damage to the stator and rotor.
> 
> In layman's terms that's a serious incident and hard to fix - bit like saying someone had a heart attack or that your car's lying upside down at the bottom of the hill. It's a big problem not a minor one.
> 
> Official word from the company is it'll be fixed in December this year but that's an estimate subject to revision.
> 
> From an investment perspective AGL is a loser out of it but it's more complex when it comes to who wins. Origin Energy is the obvious potential winner so far as listed companies are concerned but where it gets complex is with the hedging arrangements in the market and the participation of other companies which aren't listed. What benefit may arise to Origin is thus far from certain (and noting that around a third of Origin's generation is under contract from others anyway and not actually owned by them).



Thanks for the info, I thought the report was referring to a second incident, winding damage is very serious and difficult to repair especially in the stator.


----------



## Smurf1976

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/...-reliable-in-the-country-20190614-p51xvb.html

I won't say much beyond:

*Keep piling more and more straws on the camel and its back really will break yes. Rather a lot of pain and cracks there already and it's only a matter of time.

*Most will of course blame the camel not those who kept loading on more straws.

*If you're trading electricity for speculative purposes or are investing in companies which are exposed then do so with an understanding that the physical supply situation, particularly in Victoria, is rather precarious as I've said on many occasions.


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting article on CSIRO outlook, for the future of energy in Australia.

https://thewest.com.au/politics/csiro-maps-outlook-for-australia-in-2060-ng-s-1950305

What I find interesting is the following sentence:
_Australia could have 37 per cent renewables by 2060 and 'net zero' greenhouse gas emissions by 2050_.

If 37% is supplied by renewables, what is the other 63% supplied by, that is 'net zero' greenhouse gas.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> What I find interesting is the following sentence: *Australia could have 37 per cent renewables by 2060 and 'net zero' greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.*
> If 37% is supplied by renewables, what is the other 63% supplied by, that is 'net zero' greenhouse gas.



That's because they do not understand the Report. Here's what it actually outlines at page 52:
*"Renewables (including biofuels) account for 25–37% of total primary energy use, including almost 100% of electricity generation." *


----------



## basilio

Understanding the Australian Energy Market in 2.5 minutes.


----------



## Smurf1976

A somewhat eventful week in SA and Vic in the energy market. Nothing major but it was out of the ordinary.

*Pretty much no wind in either state after Tuesday. It ramped down in an orderly manner and went very close to zero.

*Being around the shortest day of the year so solar performance also at its worst.

*Average daily electricity demand was higher than the annual average due to heating requirements.

*Gas demand for direct use running heaters in Victoria in particular was huge. On some days the energy used by gas heaters in Victoria, assuming that the difference between mild day consumption versus that which actually occurred under cold conditions is attributable to heating, exceeded all other uses of gas and all uses of electricity (including heating) combined. Total gas consumption in Victoria peaked at over 1.25 PJ / day (versus mild day consumption around 0.3 PJ).

*Another trip at Loy Yang A power station on Wednesday, this time unit 3, caused a bit of panic until it turned out to be a minor issue. It was off from 8:30am until late afternoon.

*Putting all that together - those with reliable generating plant, either owned or contracted, which is able to run consistently during these conditions are making money.
*
Gas storage at Iona in Victoria was drawn upon heavily, at times at the maximum withdrawal rate, and decreased from 77% full this time last week to 73% now. Lots of gas burned in power stations as well as heating homes.

Most hydro plant in Vic and Tas was also run heavily during the week due to the circumstances. That's AGL hydro plants in Vic as well as Snowy and Hydro Tas all running hard.

For those investing in the sector, well you'd be wise to be investing in companies who are going to make money and I strongly recommend paying attention to the detail of what they're doing since simply cranking out megawatt hours isn't a guaranteed way to make money in a market where price can go negative. It's not just about how much you can or do generate but about being able to do it when demand's there and others are idle.

As for the major failure at Loy Yang A, well I won't spread rumours given it's a listed company etc but I'll note that the machine type is extremely uncommon such that there isn't a pile of used ones just sitting around somewhere waiting for a buyer. So that means repairing not replacing unless by some miracle one turns up.

Trying to fit a completely different unit in wouldn't be totally impossible but runs into lots of problems akin to trying to put Ford parts into a Toyota. Literally nothing fits so it's a last resort option basically to do something like that.


----------



## SirRumpole

Demand response. A way to save money, but also to entrench energy retailers profits ?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06...ith-demand-response-but-big-retailer/11232056


----------



## sptrawler

At last hydrogen, is getting serious, it will be interesting to see the energy landscape in 10 years.

https://www.gasworld.com/uks-first-hydrogen-train-set-for-testing/2017393.article


----------



## SirRumpole

A cat among the pigeons ?

Industry super funds willing to invest in nuclear power.

Should cause a stir up in the political scene.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-26/industry-super-funds-consider-the-nuclear-option/11248202


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> A cat among the pigeons ?
> 
> Industry super funds willing to invest in nuclear power.
> 
> Should cause a stir up in the political scene.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-26/industry-super-funds-consider-the-nuclear-option/11248202



Its the only obvious short term answer, other than gas and that isnt a long term answer.


----------



## qldfrog

lo


sptrawler said:


> Its the only obvious short term answer, other than gas and that isnt a long term answer.



only long term I believe you meant, the other one is keep coal obviously or investing heavily in massive storage capacity ..not batteries but hydro most probably
with the amount of available land here, just block an estuary and pump up water with solar and win, let it flow by night time/calm days
the simpler the better but not if we have to wait 10y for the impact on old mitten, and the NIMB effect


----------



## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> lo
> only long term I believe you meant, the other one is keep coal obviously or investing heavily in massive storage capacity ..not batteries but hydro most probably
> with the amount of available land here, just block an estuary and pump up water with solar and win, let it flow by night time/calm days
> the simpler the better but not if we have to wait 10y for the impact on old mitten, and the NIMB effect



Hi frog, what I meant was nuclear is the only clean generation medium that can be installed, without affecting emissions.
Gas is cleaner than coal, but if we use it to replace coal firstly it still has emission issues and secondly it will run out fairly quickly.
Then we are back with the problem we already have.


----------



## qldfrog

Think about the paradox, considering replacing co2 emissions unknown damaging effect whatever your gw fanatics tell you, against 10000y half life expensive proven  deadly energy, poisoning earth for the next 2 or 3 civilizations
And we talk about an oil or cosl lobby
ROL
Ps my higher studies were done in a university branch named higher institute of matter and radiations...
But  I'm not a qualified climate scientist..what is that? So i am ignorant and should follow the sheep endorsing uranium fission 
Sickening


----------



## sptrawler

Hi frog, I would guess if we did decide on nuclear, it could quite possibly be thorium reactors, rather than uranium.
It wouldn't matter , we have plenty of both.lol


----------



## Macquack

I have a fairly simple question (I think) for our resident guru of power generation, obviously being Smurf.

Would you Smurf be earning more money in your job in the power industry if we had the old system where the utility of power was provided only by some form of government rather than the current complex system of mainly private ownership?


----------



## IFocus

Macquack said:


> I have a fairly simple question (I think) for our resident guru of power generation, obviously being Smurf.
> 
> Would you Smurf be earning more money in your job in the power industry if we had the old system where the utility of power was provided only by some form of government rather than the current complex system of mainly private ownership?




In the 80's I worked for SECWA in remote ares (power stations) (wanted to live in Carnarvon so I could surf Red Bluff and Gnaraloo....of course) I think I was paid about 30% less than say mining but my conditions would have been harder work wise.

Would be interested in Smurf's opinion.


----------



## sptrawler

Another thought that flashed through the empty vessel, I call my head, last night.
If a 400MW solar farm covers 160sq/klm, that is a lot of land that is no longer going to be available to be farmed, or if you want to put it in a non agricultural area a lot of land to be cleared.
Especially if you are talking ten times that area, for a respectable 4,000MW.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Another thought that flashed through the empty vessel, I call my head, last night.
> If a 400MW solar farm covers 160sq/klm, that is a lot of land that is no longer going to be available to be farmed, or if you want to put it in a non agricultural area a lot of land to be cleared.
> Especially if you are talking ten times that area, for a respectable 4,000MW.



I think your figures are out by a fair margin.   I believe Bulli Creek solar farm will have a 50sq/km footprint and generate 1.2GW when completed.
The entire electricity demands of the USA can be met from solar in a small part of the region known as the Permian Basin (which now has the greatest oil reserves in the world).


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I think your figures are out by a fair margin.   I believe Bulli Creek solar farm will have a 50sq/km footprint and generate 1.2GW when completed.
> The entire electricity demands of the USA can be met from solar in a small part of the region known as the Permian Basin (which now has the greatest oil reserves in the world).



I hope you are right, I was only going off the figures quoted for the U.S solar farm that facebook is funding, so hopefully my figures are wrong.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> In the 80's I worked for SECWA in remote ares (power stations) (wanted to live in Carnarvon so I could surf Red Bluff and Gnaraloo....of course) I think I was paid about 30% less than say mining but my conditions would have been harder work wise.
> 
> Would be interested in Smurf's opinion.



That's interesting Ifocus, I worked for Regional Power Stations in the mid 80's, no doubt we know each other. lol
Back then, the project guys had to work five weeks on one week off, wouldn't happen today.


----------



## Smurf1976

Macquack said:


> Would you Smurf be earning more money in your job in the power industry if we had the old system where the utility of power was provided only by some form of government rather than the current complex system of mainly private ownership?



At a purely personal level it's hard to answer since there's so many "what if....." sort of things. That is, it's not just a matter of comparing what a given position pays but considering the differences in how private versus government goes about doing things.

Comparing the two and for this purpose I'm taking "government" to mean either a government monopoly utility or the public service as such in other areas.

I say that since in their present form Hydro Tasmania and Snowy Hydro are better described as government owned companies. I'm not sure about the specifics of Snowy but certainly Hydro Tas is a "private" business in the way it operates - it has a board and a CEO, it pays taxes, it aims to make a profit, it competes directly against others and so on. It has done at least some work in every Australian state, has operations overseas and various subsidiary companies and so on. So it's owned by a government but it's a business not the public service - and note that it's employees are not Public Servants and aren't covered by any PS award.

That said, it's still somewhat influenced by virtue of government being the only shareholder (and "shareholder" is indeed the correct term since that's the structure) in so far as there's a political limit to things like CEO pay rates and there's a greater focus on service delivery over profit. In that sense it's a sort of "half way" between a government utility, which it isn't, and an actual privately owned company which it mostly emulates but isn't actually.

Government (in the traditional sense of the term) has a much flatter pay structure than private enterprise. The gap between those right at the top and those at the bottom is far steeper in private industry than in government. So those in higher positions tend to be paid more in private, those in lower positions more in government.

A "good" tradesman is roughly the mid point there. Below that and you're better off in government. Above that and private pays more and the further from that mid point you get, the greater the difference.

Where the biggest differences arise is with work culture and ethos.

In government it's live and breathe it sort of stuff and there's a very high degree of staff "ownership" of it all. The work has to be done, the lights must stay on no matter what, and if that means doing whatever well then it happens and the idea of doing otherwise is anathema to those involved.

Private enterprise, in general, if there's no money changing hands then it's not happening. Things certainly happen but it first requires that someone has the money, second that they're willing to spend it, and third that they understand the need for x to be done in the first place. In contrast in government workers tend to just do things.

Where you will really see the difference is with the operation and maintenance of plant. Looking at the extremes and without naming companies it's a stark difference with the private company I won't name versus Hydro Tas as an example of government ownership.

HT is very much a cautious operator. They've got the oldest generating fleet in the country by far, literally half of all hydro generating units in Tas are more than 60 years old, but it's all running pretty nicely and that comes down to a few things. Very solid engineering and construction, regular inspections by people with a lot of "ownership" of it all, cautious operation, things get repaired as the need arises and so on.

On the other side well there are some private operators who are very good with a similar approach and others who aren't so there's no one answer there. There are certainly some good operators, but on the other hand when it gets to the point of the minimum of inspections and maintenance by a workforce that lost those with the most skills and experience on plant that's constantly pushed to its absolute limits and with urgent repairs delayed until failure then that's a recipe for disaster.

In fairness however it must be said that there are certainly good private operators and there were some not particularly good government ones. International Power / GDF Suez pushed Hazelwood along a lot longer than the SECV would likely have kept it running and you won't find many who'll challenge that statement. That said, the SECV would certainly have planned for its replacement far better, which wouldn't have been difficult simply by having any plan at all.

Then there's the unions and a lot of differences there. In Tasmania the workers and unions alike have in the past made the point that not once have the lights gone out due to a strike and that's in more than a century of operations. In contrast in Victoria it was almost an annual event at one point in the SECV days. That said, that's a more general sort of thing not confined to things owned by government or to the power industry.

So overall there are good and bad points to both approaches and I don't have a strong ideological view one way or the other. There are some good private operators and there are bad ones. Some of the government utilities ran far better than others. Etc.

What I will say though is that those who don't get along well with others, and by that I mean others in the industry, unions, governments etc, also tend to treat machinery in much the same way and vice versa.

In terms of arrangements between companies, well if you were to read Origin Energy's (which is a listed company) annual reports and so on then you'll find that about a third of their generation is in fact contracted from others. Yes there are most certainly plenty of such arrangements and having a government owned entity on one side and a privately owned or listed company on the other isn't uncommon. Business is business and the ownership structure isn't a barrier.

If you want to look for inefficiencies then it's not so much with who holds the shares but with the design of the market itself. There's a lot of inefficiencies embedded there which apply regardless of ownership.

As for working conditions, well I'm pretty sure that when I'm retired if I look back then the longest days and weeks I ever put in at work will have been working for government not private. To the extent there's a stereotype about work ethic etc in government my experience is that it's a voluntary thing. Those who choose to slack off are more likely to get away with it in government but so too are those who do the opposite and push themselves so there's a greater spread.


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> That's interesting Ifocus, I worked for Regional Power Stations in the mid 80's, no doubt we know each other. lol
> Back then, the project guys had to work five weeks on one week off, wouldn't happen today.




I moved on in 84 so may have just missed each other. I was based at Carnarvon and at one stage had from Onslow to Kalbrrii out to Gascoyne Junction also did breakdowns in Meeka and Wiluna.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> I moved on in 84 so may have just missed each other. I was based at Carnarvon and at one stage had from Onslow to Kalbrrii out to Gascoyne Junction also did breakdowns in Meeka and Wiluna.



I was a bit later, worked with Dave Taylor and John Sparks, the guys at regionals were paid less than those in major stations, but had much worse conditions. I could never understand it, a great bunch of blokes to work with. We converted the Allen diesels at Carnarvon to start on diesel and run on LNG, really interesting project.
It has all changed now, through the mid west, all the diesel stations have gone replaced by skid mount gas.
Sad really, there was nothing like the sound a Mirrlees K8 Major grabbing a handfull of load. The resulting plume of black smoke, was always a problem though.


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> I was a bit later, worked with Dave Taylor and John Sparks, the guys at regionals were paid less than those in major stations, but had much worse conditions. I could never understand it, a great bunch of blokes to work with. We converted the Allen diesels at Carnarvon to start on diesel and run on LNG, really interesting project.
> It has all changed now, through the mid west, all the diesel stations have gone replaced by skid mount gas.
> Sad really, there was nothing like the sound a Mirrlees K8 Major grabbing a handfull of load. The resulting plume of black smoke, was always a problem though.




After my time SP Keith Diemal would likely to have been still been around Carnarvon? wasn't much Keith didn't know about anything,  I think I personally blackout most of the towns I worked in for one reason or another .

Yeah nothing like standing amongst 500 to 1 meg diesel sets as the station it takes a hit from a big outside fault, governors fly open followed by screaming turbo's always liked the V16 Allens same motor they used in submarines I believe.


----------



## Smurf1976

Here's a chart for wind generation across the entire NEM (all states except WA and NT) over the past month:







That wind generates electricity is beyond doubt but also beyond doubt is that every winter for the past few years the same thing has occurred. A period of a week or so of low wind output combined with sustained high demand due to heating loads.

Thus far the problem is dealt with by ramping up production at gas and hydro facilities, indeed balancing wind and solar generation is to considerable extent the purpose of gas and hydro these days meanwhile coal chugs along in the background fairly consistently.

The above covers all NEM states but it was the same basic pattern in each individual state. Qld, NSW, Vic, SA, Tas - all had the same issue with wind generation dropping to low levels at or about the same time thus debunking the claim that simply spreading the turbines apart gets around that. It's an often made claim but those who live and breathe the real situation are still waiting to see evidence that it works. Thus far, the same problem has occurred each and every winter - all the wind farms go low and demand is fairly high at the same time.







Looking ahead, there's some things which are highly probable and a big unanswered question upon which a lot of the background debate now centers.

Coal will decline over time that's a given in the absence of government insisting otherwise.

Wind and solar are increasing, also a given unless government insists otherwise.

Batteries and potentially small pumped hydro work nicely to provide spinning reserve and deal with short term imbalances in supply and demand. Also fairly clear although be wary of "batteries are coming down in price" claims since that seems to have stalled.

What's unanswered is hydro versus gas for filling in the gaps as shown above. Both do it at present but which do we ramp up in a big way, along with wind and solar, to replace coal?

Both work in a technical sense and everything involved is very proven.

Ideologically they differ - gas (and diesel to the extent we use that too) is a fossil fuel so we're not doing any "100% renewable" stuff so long as that's the means of filling the gaps. But then big dams also tend to be rather controversial - and if it can't run heavily for days on end then, as shown above, it's not a solution.

Behind the scenes quite a bit does center on that aspect of it all.

On one side it's Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tasmania wanting to do bulk storage and seeing the ultimate goal as "100% renewables" or very close to it. 

On the other side there's those who want to become large scale LNG importers. They'll supply the gas and "win" regardless of who then turns it into electricity although some are in that business too.

It's all doable but my point here is that the big unanswered question at present is whether we're going to be storing bulk energy via large scale hydro or whether we're going to continue with some reliance on gas on a permanent basis?

The reason I've posted it now is because we've just had an excellent example of the issue. A period of sustained low winds followed by a period of sustained high winds. Not a problem if you've got storage that can charge or discharge constantly for days but not so good for those who are planning to fill their batteries daily or even twice daily.


----------



## sptrawler

The other issue, that no one seems to be mentioning is, will the greenies allow dams to be built everywhere? There will have to be some habitat issues, one would think.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The other issue, that no one seems to be mentioning is, will the greenies allow dams to be built everywhere?



The Snowy and Tasmanian projects both have the advantage of not needing any major dam that isn't already there. Also pretty hard to argue that doing works at an existing hydro scheme is harming a pristine environment - that argument shoots itself in the foot when you think about it.

The small peak load / daily sort of pumped hydro that AGL, Genex and others are proposing is making use of former mine sites etc so it would be pretty hard to argue that filling a man made hole in the ground with water is going to make anything much worse than it already is from a purely ecological perspective.

Ultimately though, well those will get us quite some distance down the road but they won't get us to 100% renewable energy in a reliable manner and that's when things get more difficult but for the moment there's plenty to do which avoids that so that's where the focus is. That is, there's a move toward a much higher use of renewables but not to actually eliminate fossil fuels completely. Hence new investments in gas etc.


----------



## qldfrog

I noticed the start of a campaign against gas
In a nutshell:
gas is fossil fuel,
True
 any gas plant built now will so mean fossil fuel use for decades
True
So fight gas as it embeds fossil fuel usage for decades and so dooms the earth, us and we will all be cooked in 20y because it is a proven fact that CO2 is evil
So be ready to see superglued green peace militants on gas projects in the next years


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> That wind generates electricity is beyond doubt but also beyond doubt is that every winter for the past few years the same thing has occurred. A period of a week or so of low wind output combined with sustained high demand due to heating loads.



We have an immature renewables market and most of the NEM wind capacity is within a 700km radius of Bendigo.  That means it is possible for slow moving weather systems (with weak winds) to significantly impact total NEM wind generation capacity, as their footprints can consume the entire region.
Most of Australia's best wind generation is untapped and lies between Perth and Adelaide:




It's also useful to appreciate this same region is blessed with solar generation potential.
The commercial imperative to invest in the best regions does not exist, and will require a Snowy Hydro type thinking to get off the ground.
The good news is that Prof. Alan Finkel is heading a National Hydrogen Strategy Taskforce and will be reporting to COAG as it progresses its findings.  An excellent read is found here.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> .
> Most of Australia's best wind generation is untapped and lies between Perth and Adelaide:



Right smack bang in the middle, of where no one lives, unfortunately.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Right smack bang in the middle, of where no one lives, unfortunately.



Which makes it perfect!
Nobody to complain about unsightly wind turbines and no farmers to complain about arable land being consumed by either solar or wind farms.
Looks like a *win**d* *win**d .*


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## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> The commercial imperative to invest in the best regions does not exist, and will require a Snowy Hydro type thinking to get off the ground.



Agreed that there's a big difference between what could be done versus what is actually being done at present.

At present, well there are some in Qld, NSW and Tas but the wind energy industry is centred on the region between Adelaide and Melbourne basically which isn't that far being less than 750km between the two city CBD's and even less in terms of where the wind farms actually are.

That causes a problem where wind as a whole, and certainly in terms of the grid in SA and Vic, tends to be either "on" or "off" and transitions quite rapidly (few hours) between those two extremes.

Sometimes there's up to 2800 MW of wind between the two states which to put that into perspective, compares with consumption right now of about 1560 MW in SA and about 6000 MW in Victoria so that's a huge amount of generation to have coming and going. At the moment wind output is about a tenth of that between the two states.

Spreading them out would help, at least theory says it should I agree there, but with the rate of construction it's fast becoming an academic concept. We're not far off, in terms of timing, having over 4500 MW of installed wind generation between SA and Vic and once it's built it can't be moved. Roll forward another year and most of that will be up and running.

The big thing missing in all of this is an overall plan. All ideologies, both for and against, any specific technology or proposal aside it would be hugely helpful if there was an actual plan of some sort being worked to. Not necessarily a precise detailed one, there's no reason why companies can't come up with the specifics, but at least identifying where things like wind need to be built.

It all reminds me of this picture from the early days of the oil industry. Spreading them out a bit is a better idea......

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/...LN_GqnqwG4-phA3vsL7COJWLnrfyq6ApLIloRe4SIavgg


----------



## basilio

Excellent analysis Smurf. What would be the problem with using hydrogen as the fuel for short term turbines ? Obviously it has to be produced and stored but that could be an offshoot of surplus wind/solar power.  How much re enginering would be required to run gas turbines on hydrogen (or even a  substantial mix ?) 
Thoughts ?


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Excellent analysis Smurf. What would be the problem with using hydrogen as the fuel for short term turbines ?



Technically it's no problem since any liquid or gas fuel that doesn't contain solids can be used in a gas turbine with only minor modification.

Most gas turbines are set up for natural gas or diesel (power generation) or kerosene (aviation) but there's the odd one running on something else like LPG or off-spec fuels as a means of getting rid of them in a useful manner (got to do something with it).

15% hydrogen in natural gas is a dead easy "just do it" thing but beyond that it's not overly difficult, just adjust the fuel / air ratio etc.

The main problems however are:

1. Hydrogen is somewhat difficult to contain without it leaking out of whatever you try to keep it inside of and 

2. Electricity > hydrogen > open cycle gas turbine > electricity will at best return a third of the electricity that goes into it back again so it's an inefficient means of storage when compared to pumped hydro (70 - 80%) or batteries (real world figures seem to be in the order of 85%).

That said, I do think hydrogen will have a role to play in all of this yes.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> The other issue, that no one seems to be mentioning is, will the greenies allow dams to be built everywhere? There will have to be some habitat issues, one would think.



Funny I brought the issue of dams and public backlash, on Tuesday, then in todays paper.

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/...mittee-worry-over-values-20190703-p523wr.html

I don't know how we will go with all this pumped storage, that will be required. 
It isn't as though Australia is covered in areas that are mountainous and suitable for damming.
The other problem of course is if the dams are built on low hills, the area they cover will have to be larger to get the volumetric flow rate required, therefore more land will be affected.
It is going to be very interesting, when is someone is going to bite the bullet and address the real issues.

From the article:
The World Heritage Committee also noted that it considered any construction of dams with large reservoirs within the boundaries of World Heritage properties "incompatible with their World Heritage status".

It urged all governments to "ensure that the impacts from dams that could affect properties located upstream or downstream within the same river basin are rigorously assessed in order to avoid impacts on [their] outstanding universal values".

Bob Debus, a former NSW Environment Minister who presided over the successful nomination of the Blue Mountains region for World Heritage state, told the Baku gathering that as much as 65 kilometres of wilderness rivers would be flooded if the dam wall were to be raised.


"The area proposed for inundation includes at least 300 known Gundungurra Aboriginal cultural sites, which would be damaged," he said. "Its cultural and conservation value is exceptional even within the Blue Mountains area


----------



## basilio

SP the issue with pumped hydro is* not *the same as constructing another Snowy Mountains hydro scheme. These will all be quite small developments intended to create power on an intermittent basis to supplement wind and solar.

The research for finding suitable pumped hydro sites  around has been done. Its all doable without a huge fuss.

*Pumped hydro storage 'could make Australia run on renewable energy alone within 20 years'*
Australia has the capacity to store up to 1,000 times more renewable energy than it could ever conceivably need, according to an analysis by researchers at the Australian National University (ANU).
Key points:





Investment in renewables will see an increased need for hydro storage, researchers say

Study found at least 22,000 suitable locations for pumped hydro sites 

Researchers say Australia could transition to 100pc renewable energy in 20 years if just a few of those sites were built


ANU engineering professor Andrew Blakers has conducted a study looking into pumped hydro sites and has concluded that there are at least 22,000 suitable locations nationwide.
Professor Blakers said if storage was built at just a tiny fraction of those places, Australia could transition to 100 per cent renewable power within two decades.

"No matter where you are in Australia, you will find a good pumped hydro site not very far away from where you, or your wind or your solar farm is located," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09...e-energy-sites-australia-anu-research/8966530


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## sptrawler

basilio said:


> SP teh issue with pumped hydro is* not *the same as constructing another Snowy Mountains hydro scheme. These will all be quite small developments intended to create power on an intermittent basis to supplement wind and solar.
> 
> The research for finding suitable pumped hydro sites  around has been done. Its all doable without a huge fuss.
> 
> *Pumped hydro storage 'could make Australia run on renewable energy alone within 20 years'*
> Australia has the capacity to store up to 1,000 times more renewable energy than it could ever conceivably need, according to an analysis by researchers at the Australian National University (ANU).
> Key points:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Investment in renewables will see an increased need for hydro storage, researchers say
> 
> Study found at least 22,000 suitable locations for pumped hydro sites
> 
> Researchers say Australia could transition to 100pc renewable energy in 20 years if just a few of those sites were built
> 
> 
> ANU engineering professor Andrew Blakers has conducted a study looking into pumped hydro sites and has concluded that there are at least 22,000 suitable locations nationwide.
> Professor Blakers said if storage was built at just a tiny fraction of those places, Australia could transition to 100 per cent renewable power within two decades.
> 
> "No matter where you are in Australia, you will find a good pumped hydro site not very far away from where you, or your wind or your solar farm is located," he said.
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09...e-energy-sites-australia-anu-research/8966530




Time will tell Bas.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> "No matter where you are in Australia, you will find a good pumped hydro site not very far away from where you, or your* wind or your solar farm is located*," he said.




While we are on the subject of wind farms Bas.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07...calls-for-windfarm-eagle-death-study/11274334

This whole thing has only just started Bas, at this point in time the media is only pushing the renewable side, wait untill the greenie's get involved and split the media circus down the middle.
Then add to that, nuclear will probably end up in the mix, as it is the only practical solution long term.
Wow we are in for some interesting "morning show" entertainment. IMO


----------



## Smurf1976

On the question of storage, a few comments:

So far as dams are concerned they're absolutely a site specific thing in every way - cost, effectiveness, ecological impact.

For example the Miena dam (Great Lake) and the now demolished Lagoon Of Islands dam in Tasmania are less than 25km apart measured in a straight line.

Miena has been an outstanding success, having improved endangered species habitat as a benefit aside from that of storing water. In all honesty I've never heard even one person argue that it shouldn't have been built - even the more hard line greens don't seem to take issue with it and that's a proper big dam not something small. There's plenty of other big dams much the same - nobody with any credibility has any real objection to them on ecological grounds.

Lagoon Of Islands however, well from an environmental perspective it was the biggest failure so far as dams actually built in Tas are concerned and after half a century of trying to make it work ecologically, and building additional things like a canal to achieve that, well the Hydro finally gave up and demolished it. By "demolished' I mean that literally - it's outright gone, removed in total. Not just the water let out or the dam breached but the entire dam wall and everything associated with it has been removed completely. It's really gone.

A point about dams though is that to the extent they have an impact it's largely one that's reversible on a human time scale. If the dam is no longer required then drain the water out, revegetate the area, and within a century it'll be back almost perfect to how the area was before the dam was built. That's a point that even those who were firmly in the No Dams camp during the big debates have made in more recent times - the impact is largely a reversable one.

At the very least, the impacts of a dam are an order of magnitude more reversable than the impacts of coal mines, fossil fuel combustion, nuclear waste and so on. They beat all of those.

So far as the need for dams or other means of storage is concerned, I'll refer back to the chart of wind energy output I posted earlier.

Small pumped hydro schemes with "turkey nest" dams and/or batteries do the job of meeting daily (summer) or twice daily (winter) peak demand without difficulty so long as they can be and are recharged between those times. That's dead easy so long as the backbone of power generation is fossil fuels (or nuclear).

In a 100% renewable system however, and faced with a week long wind drought right in the middle of Winter when solar yield is at its worst and daily energy demand is high, that idea fails completely. No longer is is charge and discharge twice a day. Now it's discharge and then discharge again and keep discharging.

Wind and solar, no storage, gets to ~ one third renewable energy without any hassle at all.

It gets to about 50% with some minor shooting of itself in the foot, loss of efficiency at fossil fuel power stations, but it does get there.

Add small pumped hydro and batteries and lifting that to ~75% is pretty straightforward and all very doable.

For the remainder to work in an economical manner (note "economical" as opposed to "technical" since the economic constraint is the harsher of the two) realistically it's big hydro or it's fossil fuels.

A related issue there is that whilst peak power demand in most states peaks in summer, total energy use peaks in winter. If look at Victoria for example, well the amount of energy used for heating buildings during Winter, almost all of which is supplied from gas, exceeds the total electricity consumption of Victoria, SA and Tas combined.

Assuming the ultimate intent is to go to renewable energy, not just renewable electricity generation, then heating loads are a major consideration since it means that maximum consumption occurs at the time of year when wind and especially solar are least effective. A point that brings us straight back to big storage projects which are able to run solidly for extended periods without recharging.

In that context I'll note that the existing NSW, Vic and Tas hydro assets, with some reworking, and proposed large scale pumped storage schemes get us a long way down the road but not to the end.

More will need to be done, particularly in the 2040's, but so long as the approach toward dams is pragmatic rather than ideological it ought to be doable. 

There's no need in 2019 to be contemplating building dams which flood areas of high conservation value. There was an argument there in a world where wind and solar weren't viable options, oil supplies were threatened and prices had just tripled whilst taxpayer funds weren't available to subsidise energy projects which had to be cheap and pay their own way. That was the world of 1979 but it is not the world of 2019.

On the other hand, deliberately putting the boundaries of National Parks and the like just a few meters past a dam site for no reason other than to stop it being built, the stuff worthy of conservation being downstream not upstream, is just playing politics and not at all sensible or helpful in a move toward greater sustainability. Pragmatism not ideology is what's required in all of this. 

There's also the question of whether or not we're actually going to 100% renewables? Or are we going to some lower figure in practice?


----------



## sptrawler

Thanks smurf, I'm all for this stuff, just being the devils advocate.
I think you know as I do, it is a long road with many speed bumps and it wont be traveled as smoothly as many think.


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> More will need to be done, particularly in the 2040's, but so long as the approach toward dams is pragmatic rather than ideological it ought to be doable.




Plus you get recreation, fishing , sailing and water supply advantages too.

You don't get those with batteries.


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Thanks smurf, I'm all for this stuff, just being the devils advocate.
> I think you know as I do, it is a long road with many speed bumps and it wont be traveled as smoothly as many think.



There's really two big points the general public seems unaware of or is choosing to ignore:

1. Electricity is not all energy indeed it's not even most of it. Except in Tasmania (sticking to the Australian context here) it's actually quite minor compared to the direct use of gas and transport fuels. So if we're going to stop using those and replace them with electricity then we end up with a much bigger electricity industry and we need big transmission and storage to go with that. 

That reality also puts an abrupt end to any thought that rooftop solar is going to make the grid obsolete. It could run your house sure, but then you replace gas with electricity and you replace petrol / diesel with electricity and at that point it's out of the question.

2. That wind and sun are highly variable on a daily and weekly basis and we can simply charge batteries etc literally every day. 

In reality that ability to charge batteries once or twice a day only works if you've got a fuel driven or large scale hydro backup to those days and even entire weeks (see the chart I posted) where the wind and sun go low.

All this is doable but it's not as straightforward as many seem to be assuming. I liken it to when trains were invented - someone probably did think of just putting the rail tracks down the existing streets but as we all know that idea only worked for small rail vehicles moving at low speed which we call trams, it didn't work for large trains which performed the bulk people and freight moving task.

Same when cars and trucks became common. A few could be driven on existing roads sure but entire new concepts of managing traffic, parking and storing large numbers of vehicles and building roads which intentionally went past towns not through them became necessary. 

I'm not sure how long building railways and highways took but it was quite a while certainly. Likewise the internet has been a general public thing for a quarter century now but we're still building the NBN and there's still the odd video store, bookshop and CD retailer around and you can still buy printed newspapers despite the proverbial writing having been on the wall for all of those for many years now.

All this stuff does take quite some time but it does happen.


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Plus you get recreation, fishing , sailing and water supply advantages too.
> 
> You don't get those with batteries.




Having seen more dams than most people ever will, I do see both sides of the argument and there's definitely a valid "No Dams" case in some instances since they undeniably do radically change the environment of the area flooded. The extent to which that matters and is sensibly worth worrying about is, as per my earlier post, very much site specific.

I'll be clear and to the point though in case the thought has occurred to anyone. No, I am not in favour of resurrecting the Gordon-below-Franklin scheme in south-west Tasmania. The argument for that project back in 1979 as a source of bulk _energy_ addressed a very different need, a real one but a very different one, from that being faced going forward at a national level which relates to _dispatchable power _and energy _storage_ as distinct from supply as such_. _

There are however other places in Tas and other states where dams could sensibly be built in the absence of some better solution emerging. It's not the right time yet, there's room to go forward further before they're necessary, but it would be silly to rule it out since large scale stored hydro does represent the most workable non-fossil solution to the problem of wind and solar "droughts" lasting a week or more, plus the seasonal issue of heating loads particularly in Victoria.

All that changes of course if someone makes a major breakthrough with large scale batteries or the efficiency of the round trip storage using hydrogen. Note in that context that the need for any bulk storage projects which actually do involve big new dams is a 2030's decision for operation in the 2040's and a lot could change in that time.

Perhaps the thing which will change most is the climate issue. One way or another, 15 years from now either it's being seriously addressed at the global level or it'll be past the point where it's worth worrying about if emissions in the mid-2030's are still trending up as they are today. That in itself, along with technology, will inform what's rational in terms of what we do then.


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## Smurf1976

Something I'll add is that the private firms seem very keen on building wind farms and solar and are moderately keen on short term storage - small pumped hydros and batteries.

They're completely uninterested, thus far at least, in any long term storage though. In that regard they're seeing gas or oil-based fuels as an idea but not storage.

The two big hydro operators, both of which are government owned, already have plenty of contract arrangements with the private companies and I don't doubt that, with one possible exception, the private companies will be more than happy to let them run the long term storage so long as the privates get to do most of the wind, solar and short term stuff so a bit of a demarcation line has emerged there.


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## sptrawler

I hope the long term major bulk storage dams, can be integrated with the farming/irrigation plan in the North, it in some ways it would kill two birds with one stone.
Having the large catchment in the high rainfall tropics, then feeding the the discharge through hydro with a trickle down system, to the Murray/Darling catchment basin.


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## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Electricity > hydrogen > open cycle gas turbine > electricity will at best return a third of the electricity that goes into it back again so it's an inefficient means of storage when compared to pumped hydro (70 - 80%) or batteries (real world figures seem to be in the order of 85%).



Hydrogen has a few advantages that give it a bright future with the right planning and investment.
First, in a CO2 riddled planet where a price on carbon looks more inevitable each year, it offers an energy source which solves that problem (assuming the process is via hydrogen electrolysis).
Second, hydrogen offers opportunities for synergy with variable power generation, especially because the cost of wind and solar power continues to drop.
Third, while battery storage is presently cheaper than hydrogen from renewables, the capacity of hydrogen is not limited in the way that a full battery (even a full dam) is in terms of stored power.
Fourth, hydrogen is easily transportable.  This makes it a very desirable energy commodity, especially in terms of developing a multibillion dollar annual export market in the future.
Fifth, the energy density of hydrogen makes it ideal for aircraft (presently about 2% of global CO2 emissions), heavy transport, and all types of watercraft.
A separate point relates to using fuel cells to translate the hydrogen back to electricity, rather than burning it inefficiently in turbines.  Fuel cell efficiency varies from 40 - 60%.
Australia's massive advantage over most countries for a hydrogen economy is its bountiful solar capacity in a world where we are now getting grid scale at under two cent a kilowatt.  So while there is an undoubted inefficiency in producing hydrogen, it will be very cheap in terms of initial energy input costs.


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## IFocus

rederob said:


> Hydrogen has a few advantages that give it a bright future with the right planning and investment.
> First, in a CO2 riddled planet where a price on carbon looks more inevitable each year, it offers an energy source which solves that problem (assuming the process is via hydrogen electrolysis).
> Second, hydrogen offers opportunities for synergy with variable power generation, especially because the cost of wind and solar power continues to drop.
> Third, while battery storage is presently cheaper than hydrogen from renewables, the capacity of hydrogen is not limited in the way that a full battery (even a full dam) is in terms of stored power.
> Fourth, hydrogen is easily transportable.  This makes it a very desirable energy commodity, especially in terms of developing a multibillion dollar annual export market in the future.
> Fifth, the energy density of hydrogen makes it ideal for aircraft (presently about 2% of global CO2 emissions), heavy transport, and all types of watercraft.
> A separate point relates to using fuel cells to translate the hydrogen back to electricity, rather than burning it inefficiently in turbines.  Fuel cell efficiency varies from 40 - 60%.
> Australia's massive advantage over most countries for a hydrogen economy is its bountiful solar capacity in a world where we are now getting grid scale at under two cent a kilowatt.  So while there is an undoubted inefficiency in producing hydrogen, it will be very cheap in terms of initial energy input costs.




Add to that our fuel reserve (dependant on overseas supply chain) is 26 to 28 days makes the above a imperative strategically sooner rather than later.


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## Smurf1976

IFocus said:


> Add to that our fuel reserve (dependant on overseas supply chain) is 26 to 28 days makes the above a imperative strategically sooner rather than later.




Setting aside all ideological issues about who owns things, environmental impacts and so on this is the biggest elephant in the room by far.

If the diesel stops then to be blunt we're looking at noting short of an outright disaster.

No diesel = no farm machinery and no trucks = no food for those in cities which is most of the population.

Sure we can turn gas or coal into diesel and there's oil shale in Qld, NSW and Tas and so on but no chance we're going to get that up and running in the 3 or 4 weeks that we'd have to go from nothing to fully operational. Zero chance.

We signed up 40 years ago that we'd maintain a 90 day stockpile and every other OECD country does it so there's no excuse on this one. We did it in the past but not now.

Political responses seem to range from totally ignoring the issue through to trying to argue with the International Energy Agency that coal still in the ground ought to be counted as petrol in tanks.  The IEA weren't impressed with that argument by the way.


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## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Hydrogen has a few advantages that give it a bright future with the right planning and investment.
> First, in a CO2 riddled planet where a price on carbon looks more inevitable each year, it offers an energy source which solves that problem (assuming the process is via hydrogen electrolysis).
> Second, hydrogen offers opportunities for synergy with variable power generation, especially because the cost of wind and solar power continues to drop.
> Third, while battery storage is presently cheaper than hydrogen from renewables, the capacity of hydrogen is not limited in the way that a full battery (even a full dam) is in terms of stored power.
> Fourth, hydrogen is easily transportable.  This makes it a very desirable energy commodity, especially in terms of developing a multibillion dollar annual export market in the future.
> Fifth, the energy density of hydrogen makes it ideal for aircraft (presently about 2% of global CO2 emissions), heavy transport, and all types of watercraft.
> A separate point relates to using fuel cells to translate the hydrogen back to electricity, rather than burning it inefficiently in turbines.  Fuel cell efficiency varies from 40 - 60%.
> Australia's massive advantage over most countries for a hydrogen economy is its bountiful solar capacity in a world where we are now getting grid scale at under two cent a kilowatt.  So while there is an undoubted inefficiency in producing hydrogen, it will be very cheap in terms of initial energy input costs.



Which encapsulates, what I have been saying for 10 years, thanks for putting it in such a well phrased way rob.


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## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> while there is an undoubted inefficiency in producing hydrogen, it will be very cheap in terms of initial energy input costs.



This is a point worth repeating as it's often (intentionally) confused by critics of renewable energy.

If the resource is limited then efficiency is important for all sorts of reasons.

If the resource is not limited then efficiency matters only in the context that improving it might be a way to cut costs and so on but there's no actual problem with wasting sunlight like there is with wasting oil.

So sure, by the time we go sunlight > electricity > hydrogen > transport the hydrogen or store it at high pressure etc > back into electricity we could end up with efficiencies well under 10% in the use of that sunlight but it doesn't matter in the slightest when there's plenty of it.

One thing about all of this is that it does have something in common with how the current and past energy system evolved.

There were plans for each and every step but there was no plan for the journey.

Pick any state or look overseas and it's the same story. There was a huge effort put into identifying the available resources, eg hydro, coal etc, and suitable sites for power stations and there was a huge effort put into getting it right with each project that was built but there was no master plan for the end result as such.

In WA for example they built East Perth, then South Fremantle (4 x 25 MW), then Bunbury (4 x 30 MW) then Muja A & B (total 4 x 60 MW) based on coal but the next project, Kwinana A, was 2 x 120 MW using oil as the fuel and likewise Kwinana B (2 x 120 MW) and C (2 x 200 MW) also oil-fired plus they had a 21 MW oil-fired gas turbine out the back.

What happened in WA was that oil simply got cheaper, a situation completely outside local control, but it made sense to respond accordingly and so they did. Then oil suddenly got more expensive, dramatically so, resulting in Kwinana A & C being converted to coal. The availability of cheap natural gas then came along and resulted in the addition of gas firing to A, B and C.

Much the same everywhere. There was no thought of adding gas turbines, not then invented, when the first power station was built at Osborne (Adelaide) but there is indeed a combined cycle gas turbine right next to where the old steam plant used to be, indeed it's the only plant now in operation at Osborne. For the old station, well it started out with coal, the B station was converted to oil progressively during the 1960's and part of it was later converted to gas.

And so on. Same everywhere. There was plenty of detailed planning when Loy Yang was built in Victoria but only in the context that the main alternative at the time, a nuclear power station, hadn't been chosen instead and there was an abundance of effort put into evaluating the nuclear option certainly right down to the detail of site layout and so on.

Likewise there was plenty of effort put into the coal-fired power station that was never built in Tasmania. 4 possible sites were considered using 3 different sources of coal and so on. None of them turned out to be the best option at the time but it was impossible to know that without proper evaluation.

Today it's really much the same. Any hydrogen, pumped storage, solar, wind or whatever project needs detailed analysis which proponents will certainly do but at this point in time I don't think anyone would sensibly claim to know exactly what we'll have 30 years from now. All we can really say is that wind and solar are going to be key energy sources, whatever hydro is built will still be working, and that hydrogen is going to be in there somewhere. It would be a brave move to try and put any precise figures on the scale though.

Then there's things like synthetic fuels. Eg jet fuel or diesel manufactured from CO2 (from the air) and hydrogen (from solar, wind etc). Technically it's possible and there's an awful lot of current infrastructure to use such fuels so it could well happen at least to some extent.

............

In the much shorter term, well it wouldn't be good if too much more went wrong in Victoria. Busted stator at Loy Yang A unit 2 isn't going to be an easy fix, the gas import terminal has been delayed from 2021 to 2023 and there's not much water in most of the hydro storages. There's no immediate crisis but there's not much of a buffer if anything does go wrong - the situation there is considerably more precarious than in any other state that's for sure.


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## Smurf1976

This is the sort of thing which hands an abundance of ammunition to those opposed to moving away from fossil fuels:



Just stick to shifting to EV's and clean means of power generation and drop the social engineering stuff telling people what they can afford and how to live their lives if the aim is to actually gain public support.

Much the same could be said for the debate in Australia over the years. A carbon price of itself has some merit but not when it comes with all sorts of socialism and obscure rules bundled into it which defeat the very concept of being based around a free market. 

Edit: No idea why it won't let me post a link to the story but it's a BBC news story which basically says that "Car use will still need to be curbed even when all vehicles are powered by clean electricity, a report has said." and then goes on about needing to make people walk more and so on.

Nope - just stick to the fuel aspect since that's the issue to be resolved.


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## Smurf1976

As some may have read via the mainstream media, there has been another major incident at a power station in Victoria, this time at Mortlake.

Mortlake power station is a 2 x 275 MW gas-fired plant located in south-west Victoria and is the largest gas-fired plant in the state. Owner and operator is Origin Energy (ASX: ORG)

In layman's terms unit 2 suffered major damage in an incident yesterday morning and whilst Origin are still assessing the extent of the damage, realistically it's going to be out of service for ~6 months - that's a typical repair time for a fault of that nature assuming they throw everything at it in terms of resources. Unit 1 continues to operate normally.

This is additional to the major incident recently at Loy Yang A unit 2 (ASX: AGL) which has put that out of operation. Capacity lost there is 530 MW.

In the short term on a day to day basis the workaround to both is to simply shift generation around to other sources. That comes with higher costs and also potentially may run into limits with operating hours at Victorian hydro plants, most of which are operated to release set volumes of water for irrigation, at at the Valley Power gas-fired plant (capacity 300 MW, owned by Snowy Hydro) which is restricted by law to operating not more than 876 hours per year due to pollution. It's not out of the question that we could see some bumping up against limits there depending on how things play out although that's not an immediate problem.

At times of high demand and if the wind isn't blowing, which it sometimes is and sometimes isn't under those circumstances, the outcome in practice will be an LOR3 - that's forced load shedding more commonly known as blackouts. Realistically that would be most likely to occur when temperatures are high across Victoria, particular if it is also hot in populated parts of SA.

In the event that anything else fails then things are going to be looking rather grim, or should I say dim, indeed. Whether that happens is anyone's guess but with two major failures in a system that was already of inadequate capacity well it wouldn't be good to have anything else fail.

A complication of these failures will of course be that scheduled maintenance becomes rather more difficult on other plant due to not being able to take it out of service. Last summer there was an incident of that nature, maintenance repeatedly delayed until it became a forced situation and that then added to the load shedding which occurred. May or may not happen again but the risk is real.

Also impacts in SA due to all this - the risk of blackouts there is higher than it would otherwise be. 

From a financial perspective, well it won't kill Origin but it won't be a cheap fix either and there will also be market pricing impacts and that means upward. That then affects other industry participants not just Origin.


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## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Hydrogen has a few advantages that give it a bright future with the right planning and investment..




The early indications of hydrogen being taken seriously.

https://thewest.com.au/business/ene...o-test-hydrogen-as-fuel-source-ng-b881247826z


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## Smurf1976

Take note for those investing in gas either those who produce it or those who consume it:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/program...-high-pressure-gas-preservation-deal/11297514



> The Centre Alliance says it has a deal with the Government to bring down the exorbitant price of gas and part of that could be a natural gas reservation policy


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Take note for those investing in gas either those who produce it or those who consume it:
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/program...-high-pressure-gas-preservation-deal/11297514




Good news for consumers.

Interesting that a few powerful gas producers can convince the government that their needs are more important than all the businesses that consume gas and are being driven out of business by high gas and power prices.


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## sptrawler

A new 250MW hydro station for North Queensland.

https://smallcaps.com.au/genex-power-debt-facility-naif-fund-kidston-stage-hydro-project/


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> A new 250MW hydro station for North Queensland.



Quite a few involved with that one although Genex, the developer, is the only one that's a listed company.

The others being J Power (overseeing construction and operations), Entura aka Hydro Tasmania (engineering design) and Energy Australia (long term contract for energy storage). Plus there's the federal government involvement with finance and the Queensland state government has underwritten some revenue aspects of it.

Another 250 MW in Queensland will help ensure reliability up there certainly. Things aren't going so well in Victoria though with another failure this morning, this time at Yallourn. I don't know the cause so no comment on the seriousness or otherwise but it came to an abrupt halt, a trip from full load, about 8am this morning. There was no impact on supply to consumers with output ramped up elsewhere in Vic and interstate. There's rather a lot of plant off in Vic at the moment though so thankfully the wind's blowing nicely.


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## basilio

How serious is the news of continual long term failures of Victoria's power supply? As I am watching it it seems almost certain that a cold snap (in winter...) with some calm frosty nights is going to trip the switch soon.

That doesn't even consider the summer outlook if these units stay off line of more go down. 

It also seems to me that the overall reliability of our coal plant is failing. Is that a fair observation ?


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> How serious is the news of continual long term failures of Victoria's power supply? As I am watching it it seems almost certain that a cold snap (in winter...) with some calm frosty nights is going to trip the switch soon.
> 
> That doesn't even consider the summer outlook if these units stay off line of more go down.
> 
> It also seems to me that the overall reliability of our coal plant is failing. Is that a fair observation ?



That is the issue smurf has been talking about for the last 12 months, old base load generation failing and nothing being done to replace it, renewables can't in the time available, there isn't enough gas and no one wants coal or nuclear.
We are painting ourselves into a corner, there is no way a major business is going to invest in major manufacturing, while we have this diabolical third world power grid.


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## basilio

sptrawler said:


> That is the issue smurf has been talking about for the last 12 months, old base load generation failing and nothing being done to replace it.




Yes.  It is just that I suspect  that 12 months ago the issue was conceptual but  in the last few months the long term breakdown of major elements in our power supply has sharpened the focus.
Certainly brings up the urgency of more solar and wind power as well as battery  and hydro storage.


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## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Yes.  It is just that I suspect  that 12 months ago the issue was conceptual but  in the last few months the long term breakdown of major elements in our power supply has sharpened the focus.
> Certainly brings up the urgency of more solar and wind power as well as battery  and hydro storage.



There is nothing conceptual about blowing up power stations, that adds load to the rest of the aging infrastructure, it works in the generators interest to bend to public pressure and remove coal generation.
What is the down side to them? they get paid more for the remaining plant to generate, they get rid of workers and they can pretend they are going to fix it with renewables.
Your last sentence, is the very reason we find ourselves in this situation, politicians being driven by delude public opinion to resolve what is a technical issue.


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## basilio

That's funny SP.  I was under the impression you had finally understood and agreed that the future of energy generation in Oz was with cheaper non polluting renewable energy with  supporting battery and hydro - as distinct from keeping  very tired, grossly polluting and unsustainable coal fired power stations operating.


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## sptrawler

basilio said:


> That's funny SP.  I was under the impression you had finally understood and agreed that the future of energy generation in Oz was with cheaper non polluting renewable energy with  supporting battery and hydro - as distinct from keeping  very tired, grossly polluting and unsustainable coal fired power stations operating.



You were under the impression I understood, your funny.
I know enough on the subject, to know it can't be done before the existing generation falls in a heap.
As I've said before, it isn't lack of will, it is lack of time and suitable alternatives at this point.
But as always the vocal minority wont listen to reality, it is a sign of the times, everyone with no knowledge has all the answers.
Luckily W.A hasn't got itself into the mess, the eastern States have.


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## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> How serious is the news of continual long term failures of Victoria's power supply?



I'll steer clear of the politics and focus on the technical and financial (including investment) aspects of it all.

*Firstly, what has happened?*

Following is the status of all out of service plant in Victoria. Where I haven't stated a reason that's because it's not public knowledge and whilst in some cases I know the answer, it would be inappropriate to say so.

Loy Yang A unit 2 - major damage requires a complete rewind of the alternator, at a cost of $57 million, to repair. AGL has awarded a contract to GE Power Australia to perform this work. They're aiming for a return to service in December 2019. Capacity of this unit is 530 MW and the fuel is coal. Owner = AGL.

Mortlake unit 2 - major incident will take a few months to fix but Origin haven't confirmed the details there yet beyond saying they're aiming for 20 December 2019. Capacity is 275 MW and the fuel is gas (open cycle gas turbine). Owner = Origin.

Yallourn W unit 3 - tripped yesterday morning due to a boiler tube leak. In layman's terms - pipe has a big hole in it. Solution = put the fire out (easy just stop feeding coal in), let it cool down, humans go in and fix it, start it back up again all of which will take a few days so it's not a major drama. Capacity is a bit variable subject to conditions but ~380 MW. Owner = Energy Australia.

Newport D (single unit station) - tripped this morning from full load about 8:45am. No major problem, just a minor hiccup, and commenced startup about 10:15 and has been at full load since about 5pm. Capacity is 510 MW and the fuel is gas with diesel as backup (this is a steam turbine plant not gas turbine). Owner = Energy Australia.

Somerton is a 4 x 40 MW open cycle gas turbine station. Two units, so 80 MW, hasn't been available for quite some time now. Fuel is gas. Owner = AGL.

Loy Yang A unit 3 - 560 MW coal-fired plant is out for maintenance. Owner = AGL

Yallourn W unit 4 - 380 MW coal fired plant out for maintenance. Owner = Energy Australia.

Jeeralang B unit 1 - 84 MW open cycle gas turbine. Fuel is gas with diesel as backup. Owner = Energy Australia.

Clover whole station (2 x 13 MW) - out of service for major maintenance. This is a hydro plant owned by AGL.

*Does all this matter?
*
In the short term it's an economic issue but not one which threatens supply. Power not generated cheaply at Loy Yang or Yallourn is being produced more expensively elsewhere. Spot prices are higher than they otherwise would be, there are impacts on individual companies since those who are filling the gaps aren't necessarily the same companies who are having problems, but overall it's an economic issue.

That it's an economic issue not a threat to supply is primarily because demand in Victoria peaks during Summer not Winter such that having some plant out isn't a problem within reason. That the Murray-Darling Basin Authority wants to transfer quite a lot of water out of Dartmouth reservoir into Hume dam (for reasons completely unrelated to electricity supply) is a bonus since that means substantial running of Dartmouth power station (hydro, 160 MW, AGL) which is adding more supply than it would if not for the bulk water movement objective of the MDBA. 

In Summer however it's a very different story since even with all plant in service, total demand can exceed capacity in Victoria meaning that any problem, however minor, adds to the shortfall and that remains true even with maximum supply from other states included.

Further, supply in SA tends to be finely balanced during extreme hot weather such that any problem can only be addressed by means of supply from Victoria. Supply which won't be available if there's plant out of service in Victoria.

The reason this matters is simply due to that lack of sufficient capacity. It's the same with anything eg let's consider a large workforce as an analogy:

52 weeks in a year.
Less 4 weeks recreation leave. That's 8% downtime in itself.
Less an average say 1 week sick. There's another 2%.
Less any workers compensation issues
Less any other sort of leave eg paternity or leave without pay
Less unfilled positions due to staff turnover for whatever reasons
Less long service leave for those who are there long enough.

End result being that if you simply must have 100 people on the job each day and can't go below that well then you need somewhere around 120 employees in order to have 100 actually turn up on any given day.

Now this is where the trouble starts.

Talk to an engineer about all that and you'll get a lot of nodding and so on even if said engineer has never given any previous thought to human resources. It's just maths and it all makes sense really.

Talk to an economist or business guru and depending on their view of the world they'll be getting all excited saying this is inefficient and must change. Can't have 120 employees to do the work of 100 that's too inefficient and so on. That might sound familiar to many.....

Same problem with power generation. You need spare capacity, 20% or so, to account for the inevitability that things can and will fail and they need maintenance. If it's all new and well maintained then you might get away with a 15% margin but if it's older then you'll need 25% due to more problems being inevitable. If the standard of maintenance and operation is less than perfect then it'll be even higher especially as plant gets older and the effects of past operation and maintenance take their toll.

That Victoria doesn't have that 20% margin, indeed its actual capacity is about 88% of historic peak demand on a stand alone basis or 94% with supply from Tas and NSW included so that's a negative reserve margin, is why it's rather precarious and any plant outage during Summer does pose a direct threat to supply.

Amidst all this, AGL have changed their mind about mothballing Torrens Island A units 1 & 2 in SA. These are old (in service since 1967) steam units originally designed to burn oil in the boilers but later converted to gas and with a capacity of 120 MW per unit. They were about to be shut in a few weeks but for the moment at least they've been given a reprieve - that's the second time they've been saved from the scrap heap now. Getting hold of enough gas is likely to be somewhat problematic at times but there's always oil as a workaround to that albeit an expensive and smelly workaround.

The TIPS A units are functional but, well, it's 1960's plant that's been run pretty hard over that time and as has been noted elsewhere it's a credit to the original designers, who did it all with pencil and paper no computers back then, that it still runs pretty much perfectly (it was run right up to 100% of its original design capabilities last Summer without any drama). It's inefficient by today's standards most certainly, technology has improved greatly since it was designed and built, but it works. There's a limit to how much more it's got left in it though - 52 years and counting is certainly getting old for steam plant. 

The big trouble here is that the whole thing is seen as an ideological debate rather than a technical problem. 

I've intentionally made no comment on the merits of one technology over another here and that's because the technology itself isn't the problem but rather, the use of it.

If you've got antique steam plant well then there's no real point anyone standing around acting surprised when there's a breakdown. I mean seriously - who here drives around in a 1973 car or has their 1968 washing machine still in regular use and expects it to work flawlessly day after day? Anything which runs at hundreds of degrees and high speed has a finite life that's the nature of it.

Likewise there's no point anyone blaming the machinery or its original designers and builders if it fails due to poor operating and maintenance practices. That's a fault of one lot of humans who ignored the other humans saying there was a need to check things with the machine, it's not the fault of the machine itself that it needs maintenance otherwise it breaks. 

No point blaming genuine bad luck for causing a problem when anyone with knowledge knows that bad things do happen and that there's a need to be prepared hence the spare capacity. Every grid in the world, at least in developed countries, was designed with that in mind. Heck there's even a completely fictional novel, written by a fiction author not an engineer, based around the concept and that book's 40 or so years old.

Likewise no point in blaming something brand new like a battery if the humans choose to run it flat before its needed, meaning it can't do anything when it needs to. 

And so on.

As with investing and trading, if you want it to work then stick to facts and maths not ideology and politics.


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## sptrawler

Smurf, I was of the understanding that you understood that all we need is some more renewables and storage, I mean you do seem to have a grasp of the situation whats the problem ffs.  Lol


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I mean you do seem to have a grasp of the situation whats the problem ffs.




Lack of common sense is the problem but that extends far beyond issues of power supply and covers rather a lot of things.

Coal is bad they tell us. Meanwhile there's people posing for the perfect "selfie" at an ash dump:

https://www.news.com.au/travel/trav...e/news-story/9c84e6bd6ae44a8e0158babe66e96fa4

I've seen enough politics to regard most of it, from all sides, as a load of nonsense really. If the people in those photos knew it was coal ash then they'd be running away in horror and then wondering why the lake isn't black.

Public debate on all scientific matters has simply become far too lightweight, lacking in detail and centred around ideological "beliefs" rather than any actual science and that's the ultimate cause of rather a lot of problems from the energy situation through to households being in so much debt.

We're living in a more technologically complex world than ever and yet somehow we've managed to produce a general public which seems incapable of applying high school level maths and science in their thought processes and actually thinking.


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## qldfrog

Can not say it better, and that public or its representatives is in control and make laws
How can Putin and Xi not be ROL.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> On the question of storage, a few comments:
> 
> So far as dams are concerned they're absolutely a site specific thing in every way - cost, effectiveness, ecological impact.
> 
> For example the Miena dam (Great Lake) and the now demolished Lagoon Of Islands dam in Tasmania are less than 25km apart measured in a straight line.
> 
> Miena has been an outstanding success, having improved endangered species habitat as a benefit aside from that of storing water. In all honesty I've never heard even one person argue that it shouldn't have been built - even the more hard line greens don't seem to take issue with it and that's a proper big dam not something small. There's plenty of other big dams much the same - nobody with any credibility has any real objection to them on ecological grounds.
> 
> Lagoon Of Islands however, well from an environmental perspective it was the biggest failure so far as dams actually built in Tas are concerned and after half a century of trying to make it work ecologically, and building additional things like a canal to achieve that, well the Hydro finally gave up and demolished it. By "demolished' I mean that literally - it's outright gone, removed in total. Not just the water let out or the dam breached but the entire dam wall and everything associated with it has been removed completely. It's really gone.
> 
> A point about dams though is that to the extent they have an impact it's largely one that's reversible on a human time scale. If the dam is no longer required then drain the water out, revegetate the area, and within a century it'll be back almost perfect to how the area was before the dam was built. That's a point that even those who were firmly in the No Dams camp during the big debates have made in more recent times - the impact is largely a reversable one.
> 
> At the very least, the impacts of a dam are an order of magnitude more reversable than the impacts of coal mines, fossil fuel combustion, nuclear waste and so on. They beat all of those.
> 
> So far as the need for dams or other means of storage is concerned, I'll refer back to the chart of wind energy output I posted earlier.
> 
> Small pumped hydro schemes with "turkey nest" dams and/or batteries do the job of meeting daily (summer) or twice daily (winter) peak demand without difficulty so long as they can be and are recharged between those times. That's dead easy so long as the backbone of power generation is fossil fuels (or nuclear).
> 
> In a 100% renewable system however, and faced with a week long wind drought right in the middle of Winter when solar yield is at its worst and daily energy demand is high, that idea fails completely. No longer is is charge and discharge twice a day. Now it's discharge and then discharge again and keep discharging.
> 
> Wind and solar, no storage, gets to ~ one third renewable energy without any hassle at all.
> 
> It gets to about 50% with some minor shooting of itself in the foot, loss of efficiency at fossil fuel power stations, but it does get there.
> 
> Add small pumped hydro and batteries and lifting that to ~75% is pretty straightforward and all very doable.
> 
> For the remainder to work in an economical manner (note "economical" as opposed to "technical" since the economic constraint is the harsher of the two) realistically it's big hydro or it's fossil fuels.
> 
> A related issue there is that whilst peak power demand in most states peaks in summer, total energy use peaks in winter. If look at Victoria for example, well the amount of energy used for heating buildings during Winter, almost all of which is supplied from gas, exceeds the total electricity consumption of Victoria, SA and Tas combined.
> 
> Assuming the ultimate intent is to go to renewable energy, not just renewable electricity generation, then heating loads are a major consideration since it means that maximum consumption occurs at the time of year when wind and especially solar are least effective. A point that brings us straight back to big storage projects which are able to run solidly for extended periods without recharging.
> 
> In that context I'll note that the existing NSW, Vic and Tas hydro assets, with some reworking, and proposed large scale pumped storage schemes get us a long way down the road but not to the end.
> 
> More will need to be done, particularly in the 2040's, but so long as the approach toward dams is pragmatic rather than ideological it ought to be doable.
> 
> There's no need in 2019 to be contemplating building dams which flood areas of high conservation value. There was an argument there in a world where wind and solar weren't viable options, oil supplies were threatened and prices had just tripled whilst taxpayer funds weren't available to subsidise energy projects which had to be cheap and pay their own way. That was the world of 1979 but it is not the world of 2019.
> 
> On the other hand, deliberately putting the boundaries of National Parks and the like just a few meters past a dam site for no reason other than to stop it being built, the stuff worthy of conservation being downstream not upstream, is just playing politics and not at all sensible or helpful in a move toward greater sustainability. Pragmatism not ideology is what's required in all of this.
> 
> There's also the question of whether or not we're actually going to 100% renewables? Or are we going to some lower figure in practice?





If you don't like dams, you can try this system of hauling railway carriages uphill and letting them run down again.

https://www.aresnorthamerica.com/ar...il-energy-storage-using-trains-to-store-power


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## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> f you've got antique steam plant well then there's no real point anyone standing around acting surprised when there's a breakdown. I mean seriously - who here drives around in a 1973 car or has their 1968 washing machine still in regular use and expects it to work flawlessly day after day? Anything which runs at hundreds of degrees and high speed has a finite life that's the nature of it.
> 
> Likewise there's no point anyone blaming the machinery or its original designers and builders if it fails due to poor operating and maintenance practices. That's a fault of one lot of humans who ignored the other humans saying there was a need to check things with the machine, it's not the fault of the machine itself that it needs maintenance otherwise it breaks.
> 
> No point blaming genuine bad luck for causing a problem when anyone with knowledge knows that bad things do happen and that there's a need to be prepared hence the spare capacity. Every grid in the world, at least in developed countries, was designed with that in mind. Heck there's even a completely fictional novel, written by a fiction author not an engineer, based around the concept and that book's 40 or so years old.




Lets get it clear folks. An engineer like Smurf is pointing out that our coal fired power plants are well and truly run down and on the way out. Repairs are possible but expensive and probably throwing good money after bad (even if it is essential in the short term)

In 2019 the most cost effective and environmentally appropriate solution is fast tracking of cheaper, cleaner , renewable energy supplies with necessary hydro and battery  back ups. And I'm sure there will be some extra items for good measure.

Trying to say we should repair old coal plant indefinitely or build new coal fired power stations flies against all economic and environmental  factors.  

I thought this thread was trying to take us in a constructive direction as to how we make a power grid fit for purpose in the 21st Century - not just defend old technology that has clearly passed its use by date.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Lets get it clear folks. An engineer like Smurf is pointing out that our coal fired power plants are well and truly run down and on the way out. Repairs are possible but expensive and probably throwing good money after bad (even if it is essential in the short term)
> 
> In 2019 the most cost effective and environmentally appropriate solution is fast tracking of cheaper, cleaner , renewable energy supplies with necessary hydro and battery  back ups. And I'm sure there will be some extra items for good measure.
> 
> Trying to say we should repair old coal plant indefinitely or build new coal fired power stations flies against all economic and environmental  factors.
> 
> I thought this thread was trying to take us in a constructive direction as to how we make a power grid fit for purpose in the 21st Century - not just defend old technology that has clearly passed its use by date.




I give up. Lol


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## Humid

https://www.smh.com.au/national/gor...mbarrassing-in-new-twist-20190711-p5269z.html

Cleaner....
This joint runs 5 gas turbines for the fridge


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## basilio

basilio said:


> Lets get it clear folks. An engineer like Smurf is pointing out that our coal fired power plants are well and truly run down and on the way out. Repairs are possible but expensive and probably throwing good money after bad (even if it is essential in the short term)
> 
> In 2019 the most cost effective and environmentally appropriate solution is fast tracking of cheaper, cleaner , renewable energy supplies with necessary hydro and battery back ups. And I'm sure there will be some extra items for good measure.
> 
> Trying to say we should repair old coal plant indefinitely or build new coal fired power stations flies against all economic and environmental factors.
> 
> I thought this thread was trying to take us in a constructive direction as to how we make a power grid fit for purpose in the 21st Century - not just defend old technology that has clearly passed its use by date.






sptrawler said:


> I give up. Lol




Totally understand your sentiments SP.  

I mean we could reference all the  (CSIRO) analysis which shows how much more cost effective  new renewable energy sources are compared to coal fired stations - even when they include back up batteries.

We could talk about the rapid rate of improvement of these new technologies in terms of cost effectiveness ie 3rd gen solar cells, rapidly reducing battery costs, flow battery technology,  distributed small scale hydro to store excess solar energy.

We could recognize the huge health effects of coal fired power stations through particulate pollution let alone their impact  on global  heating. 

Maybe we can see how much water is required to cool these power  stations (a *VERY* big amount) and ask if we can afford to use that resource so recklessly.

Perhaps  we could look at the the value of a  decentralized  power system in terms of creating  extra power redundancy across the country, increasing local employment, giving local communities an opportunity to be self sufficient in their critical energy needs.

Finally we can assess the current state of Oz's coal fired power stations and realise they are generally on their last legs and as result costing a bomb to keep operating.  They will need to be replaced and given the rising maintenance costs and reliability issues  isn't sooner rather than later a good idea ?

In fact I think this thread has covered all of these bases.  But as you say so eloquently  "LOL". 

_You can take a horse to water but you can't make him drink._


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> Amidst all this, AGL have changed their mind about mothballing Torrens Island A units 1 & 2 in SA.



A minor error on my part there - the plan was to mothball 2 x 120 MW units but they were numbers 2 & 4 not 1 & 2.

There's 4 x 120 MW at Torrens Island A commissioned 1967 - 70 and 4 x 200 MW at Torrens Island B commissioned progressively 1977 - early 80's.

All "A" units were built to fire oil and later converted to gas. B units 1 & 2 are gas only, B 3 & 4 are gas or oil (and can switch between them whilst remaining fully operational) and were built with provision for the addition of coal firing although that was never done (that is, the coal handling equipment etc was never installed so not one piece of coal has ever been used, but the boilers and site layout were designed to allow for it to be easily added if required).

At present only B1 and B4 are running and both at about 60 MW each so 30% of capacity, the rest are idle, due to high wind generation and low demand in SA. In that role they're primarily providing stability to the system (aka system strength) with their actual output being incidental to that role. 

This facility was originally built by the Electricity Trust of SA, that is the state government, and is now owned by AGL. 

Photo (not mine) for those interested: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CGoU0lRUQAIiv3a.jpg


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Totally understand your sentiments SP.
> 
> I mean we could reference all the  (CSIRO) analysis which shows how much more cost effective  new renewable energy sources are compared to coal fired stations - even when they include back up batteries.
> 
> We could talk about the rapid rate of improvement of these new technologies in terms of cost effectiveness ie 3rd gen solar cells, rapidly reducing battery costs, flow battery technology,  distributed small scale hydro to store excess solar energy.
> 
> We could recognize the huge health effects of coal fired power stations through particulate pollution let alone their impact  on global  heating.
> 
> Maybe we can see how much water is required to cool these power  stations (a *VERY* big amount) and ask if we can afford to use that resource so recklessly.
> 
> Perhaps  we could look at the the value of a  decentralized  power system in terms of creating  extra power redundancy across the country, increasing local employment, giving local communities an opportunity to be self sufficient in their critical energy needs.
> 
> Finally we can assess the current state of Oz's coal fired power stations and realise they are generally on their last legs and as result costing a bomb to keep operating.  They will need to be replaced and given the rising maintenance costs and reliability issues  isn't sooner rather than later a good idea ?
> 
> In fact I think this thread has covered all of these bases.  But as you say so eloquently  "LOL".
> 
> _You can take a horse to water but you can't make him drink._




Well obviously there is nothing to worry about then.


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## qldfrog

@basilio, do you really not understand that the problem is NOT cost or even sheer amount of energy produced overall but stability of the system?
How many more reports Smurf need to write on that thread?


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## Smurf1976

I'm intentionally staying out of politics but so far as matters of politics, the environment and so on are concerned I will simply say:

*CO2 is a real problem so far as I can determine based on all I've read on the subject. It's a theory that's well understood and goes back at least to the 1890's and possibly earlier (the oldest reference to it that I've personally seen and able to verify as legitimately from that time is from 1890).

*There are other issues with nature, wilderness etc some of which are legitimate and some of which are pure politics for the sake of politics.

*We live in a society which absolutely depends on large scale energy supply. Without that, it is not an exaggeration by any means to say that a substantial portion of those living in the major cities would in practice die of starvation or thirst within a relatively short period. No electricity = no water pretty quickly. No diesel = no food.

*There are credible threats to the supply of electricity, gas and liquid fuels including diesel in Australia in the short to medium term. A crisis with any of those could plausibly occur in the near future - there's no certainty that it will but the risk is real and the consequences extremely serious if it did occur. 

*Alternative technologies based on resources other than fossil fuels or nuclear most certainly can work from a technical perspective so long as they are properly applied. This is beyond doubt and for anyone who does doubt it, well you might be rather surprised to find that the hydro and mining industries both make use of solar themselves, including in some critical applications. 

*Much of the public debate centres around politics and point scoring rather than anything factual and that applies to all sides. There are those on the engineering or related side who deny the existence of environmental concerns and there are those on the environmental side who simply refuse to accept fundamental physics as true. Neither are much help in moving forward and there are some well known individuals in that category.

As a more specific list of problems being faced in Australia at present:

*Liquid fuel stockpiles are well under the level agreed with the International Energy Agency as being necessary and which Australia is formally obligated to hold. This affects all states and territories.

*Developed sources of natural gas supplying NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas and SA are rapidly reaching exhaustion and a serious supply shortfall is expected from approximately 2024 onward at the latest, with some risks prior to that.

*Dispatchable electricity generating capacity is inadequate across NSW, ACT, Vic and SA if the objective is to maintain a reliable supply at all times. 

*A considerable portion of the existing generation fleet in these states is approaching end of life in the foreseeable future. As such, failures are more likely and ultimately this capacity will (must) close in much the same way as ultimately you and I will (must) die.

*A consequence of insufficient and increasingly unreliable generation is a loss of ability to manage fuel supplies effectively across the fleet, with unintended levels of operation being required at some facilities in order to maintain supply leading to vastly more fuel and/or water being used than was intended and problems with obtaining that.

*Cutting across all of this, an economic problem with electricity and gas prices now being relatively high by global standards versus second (gas) or third (electricity) cheapest among developed countries a quarter century ago.

*The CO2 emissions issue also cuts across all of the above and needs no further explanation.

Putting all that together, there's a need for change but it's a need for change which involves building first, proving second and demolishing third not the reverse and doing so in a very timely manner.

That I've given up on the political aspects is because politics seems incapable of achieving any of the above, indeed it's an obstacle to most of it.


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## sptrawler

It will come to a head and then the emotion and politics will be stripped away, the truth will then have to be accepted and technical realities will prevail.
Therefore in a lot of ways the problem will be self resolving. IMO


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## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> @basilio, do you really not understand that the problem is NOT cost or even sheer amount of energy produced overall but stability of the system?
> How many more reports Smurf need to write on that thread?



It comes down to multiple parameters all of which need to be met in order for it to work.

Energy, that is power x time, is one and there are lots of ways to do that. Wind, solar, coal, conventional hydro, gas, nuclear, oil etc all do that. Pumped hydro and batteries can not do this however.

Dispatchable power, that is the ability to match input to the grid with load in real time, requires that generating plant can ramp up and down accordingly. In order to do so it needs to have access to an energy source available in real time as required. Coal, conventional or pumped hydro, gas, nuclear, oil or batteries can all do this. Wind and solar cannot directly do this, they can only do it indirectly as the energy source for pumped hydro or batteries (or other methods of storage like running trains up hills etc). Or they can do it crudely when the sun is shining / wind is blowing by simply wasting some of their potential output - but they can only do that so long as the sun / wind doesn't drop below the required level and trouble is that happens extremely often.

System strength, that is a generic term encompassing serious power engineering aspects, requires that generating plant can in real time control frequency and voltage plus deliver high fault currents as required. An inverter and battery system can do part of that but struggles with the fault current. Synchronous condensers can handle the voltage and fault currents but don't add any energy. Big rotating synchronous machines driven by steam / hydro / gas turbines or diesel engines can do the lot. Wind and solar, of themselves, aren't much help hence the situation in SA where wind generation is off loaded at times and gas-fired plant directed to run despite losing money - that's for system strength not because AEMO likes burning gas.

Now if the aim is to have a system which doesn't require fossil fuels then it can be built certainly. Just needs lots of wind and solar, lots of energy storage, big synchronous machines (hydro) and big inverters (batteries) and a sufficient transmission grid and it will all work yes.

Where it goes wrong is when I hear people claiming that building 3000 MW of wind farms in Victoria is somehow replacing the 1500 MW Yallourn power station since both will produce a similar energy output over a 12 month period. Same energy yes but the wind farms aren't adding much dispatchable power at all and do nothing much for system strength either. As such, those wind farms are not actually a replacement for Yallourn.

Now if someone built 1500 MW of large scale pumped hydro to go with the wind farms and put some synchronous condensers in the network in appropriate places well then that's now a replacement. It also works if some (note "some" not "all") of that hydro is replaced with batteries so long as they're big enough.

What I hear a lot of though is akin to suggesting that a truck load of bricks and roof tiles is a replacement for a house. It's a replacement for the bricks and tiles which comprise a house yes but with no framework, ceilings, plumbing, floors and so on it's not an actual replacement for a house it's only part of what's needed to build one.

In saying all that, there's no choice but to ultimately make renewable sources work for the simple reason that's in the name. They're renewable whereas fossils are finite even without considering the CO2 problem. So it has to happen, and it can be done, but we need to build the complete house before knocking the old one down (or having it fall down of its own accord), we can't just dump a few pallets of bricks and tiles on the site and say there's your house.


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## Macquack

Smurf1976 said:


> Loy Yang A unit 2 - major damage requires a complete rewind of the alternator, at a cost of $57 million, to repair. AGL has awarded a contract to GE Power Australia to perform this work.



Geez, that's a lot of money for a alternator repair. Can't they get a cheaper Chinese exchange unit off ebay?


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## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:
			
		

> In saying all that, there's no choice but to ultimately make renewable sources work for the simple reason that's in the name. They're renewable whereas fossils are finite even without considering the CO2 problem. So it has to happen, and it can be done, but we need to build the complete house before knocking the old one down (or having it fall down of its own accord), we can't just dump a few pallets of bricks and tiles on the site and say there's your house.




I really hope that there is someone like you giving advice to the government and I really, really hope that they are listening.


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## qldfrog

I am afraid SirRumpole  it is unlikely.you will have some pro coal per se on the right and so anti coal per se in the labour/ green fanatics
Look here...
Until power stops and people actually die, no hope of a technically and economically sensible outcome..


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> It comes down to multiple parameters all of which need to be met in order for it to work.
> 
> Energy, that is power x time, is one and there are lots of ways to do that. Wind, solar, coal, conventional hydro, gas, nuclear, oil etc all do that. Pumped hydro and batteries can not do this however.
> 
> Dispatchable power, that is the ability to match input to the grid with load in real time, requires that generating plant can ramp up and down accordingly. In order to do so it needs to have access to an energy source available in real time as required. Coal, conventional or pumped hydro, gas, nuclear, oil or batteries can all do this. Wind and solar cannot directly do this, they can only do it indirectly as the energy source for pumped hydro or batteries (or other methods of storage like running trains up hills etc). Or they can do it crudely when the sun is shining / wind is blowing by simply wasting some of their potential output - but they can only do that so long as the sun / wind doesn't drop below the required level and trouble is that happens extremely often.
> 
> System strength, that is a generic term encompassing serious power engineering aspects, requires that generating plant can in real time control frequency and voltage plus deliver high fault currents as required. An inverter and battery system can do part of that but struggles with the fault current. Synchronous condensers can handle the voltage and fault currents but don't add any energy. Big rotating synchronous machines driven by steam / hydro / gas turbines or diesel engines can do the lot. Wind and solar, of themselves, aren't much help hence the situation in SA where wind generation is off loaded at times and gas-fired plant directed to run despite losing money - that's for system strength not because AEMO likes burning gas.
> 
> Now if the aim is to have a system which doesn't require fossil fuels then it can be built certainly. Just needs lots of wind and solar, lots of energy storage, big synchronous machines (hydro) and big inverters (batteries) and a sufficient transmission grid and it will all work yes.
> 
> Where it goes wrong is when I hear people claiming that building 3000 MW of wind farms in Victoria is somehow replacing the 1500 MW Yallourn power station since both will produce a similar energy output over a 12 month period. Same energy yes but the wind farms aren't adding much dispatchable power at all and do nothing much for system strength either. As such, those wind farms are not actually a replacement for Yallourn.
> 
> Now if someone built 1500 MW of large scale pumped hydro to go with the wind farms and put some synchronous condensers in the network in appropriate places well then that's now a replacement. It also works if some (note "some" not "all") of that hydro is replaced with batteries so long as they're big enough.
> 
> What I hear a lot of though is akin to suggesting that a truck load of bricks and roof tiles is a replacement for a house. It's a replacement for the bricks and tiles which comprise a house yes but with no framework, ceilings, plumbing, floors and so on it's not an actual replacement for a house it's only part of what's needed to build one.
> 
> In saying all that, there's no choice but to ultimately make renewable sources work for the simple reason that's in the name. They're renewable whereas fossils are finite even without considering the CO2 problem. So it has to happen, and it can be done, but we need to build the complete house before knocking the old one down (or having it fall down of its own accord), we can't just dump a few pallets of bricks and tiles on the site and say there's your house.



Great summary Smurf  And I'm glad your analysis is understood and accepted by the broad group of posters on ASF.

I will defend my POV however in saying that I  totally recognise  the complexities of * changing an entire power system*  to renewable energy  in a relatively short space  of time. In fact of course if we are intending to use electricity to power cars/trucks/buses etc we need to increase the total capacity of our energy system. And on the way through attempt to reduce our energy demand through efficiency measures. (just makes sense )

My argument was simple. We need to move exceptionally quickly along this path and, obviously, all the elements of supply, storage and synchronicity need to be addressed. I brought this up because it is becoming clear that the engineering plant in current system is failing and perhaps more quickly that was imagined. I would also suggest that extended heat waves, higher demands on the systems (because of breakdowns) will a accelerate this process.

It was almost a throw away line but I  noted we should not be building new coal fired power stations in any way shape or form. In terms of the economics and the environment our focus needs to be with renewables and the infrastructure required to make them work.


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## rederob

Back on renewables generation, this is an excellent read.
It's apparent that Australia will have massive excess energy generation potential and the only issue is how quickly this energy future will be realised.
The short term problems of getting enough energy into south-eastern States next summer may cause some consternation, but in terms of building *capacity *the question is more about how it is integrated rather than there is a problem. 
I do not doubt for a moment that there are technical matters to address, but these are all solvable and comparatively cheap.  Possibly more problematic is how the NEM has tied the electricity market in knots which makes technical solutions cumbersome, rather than hard.


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## rederob

qldfrog said:


> Until power stops and people actually die, no hope of a technically and economically sensible outcome..



truly bunkum!


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## basilio

The AEMO is focusing on the infrastructure required to enable a fast transition to a renewable energy grid.
*AEMO pushes storage, new links as renewables head for 60% share*
 Giles Parkinson  10 July 2019  0   Comments 
share

The Australian Energy Market Operator, charged with keeping the lights on as it shepherds the country’s grid through a renewable energy revolution, has turned its focus once again on the needs for more storage and more and bigger links between the various state networks.

AEMO boss Audrey Zibelman on Wednesday released the first of a series of “insights” that will lead up to the second, updated version of its Integrated System Plan, its blueprint on how to manage the grid over the next 20 years as it heads towards a 60 per cent share in electricity generation for renewables, and likely much more.

The document includes new analysis on the impact and benefits of the proposed Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme and Tasmania’s rival “battery of the nation” project, which the federal government has committed to (in the case of Snowy), or promised to support (in the case of Tasmania).
It also highlights the critically important role of shorter period storage, such as smaller pumped hydro projects and batteries, in dealing with intraday and overnight needs, and in meeting daily peaks.

And while AEMO sees Snowy and the Tasmania “battery” largely for seasonal and longer period storage, and as a back-up in case of drought and coal plant failures, it sees an important role for them if – as widely expected – coal generators make an early exit from the grid.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/aemo-pushes-storage-new-links-as-renewables-head-for-60-share-69957/


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## basilio

This is our energy future.

* 'Just a matter of when': the $20bn plan to power Singapore with Australian solar *
Ambitious export plan could generate billions and make Australia the centre of low-cost energy in a future zero-carbon world

Adam Morton Environment editor

 
 @adamlmorton 
Sun 14 Jul 2019 02.52 BST   Last modified on Sun 14 Jul 2019 02.55 BST


 

 

 

 
Shares
122





There are ambitious solar and wind projects planned for both the Northern Territory and the Pilbara in Western Australia. Photograph: Alice Solar City/AAP
The desert outside Tennant Creek, deep in the Northern Territory, is not the most obvious place to build and transmit Singapore’s future electricity supply. Though few in the southern states are yet to take notice, a group of Australian developers are betting that will change.

If they are right, it could have far-reaching consequences for Australia’s energy industry and what the country sells to the world.

*Known as Sun Cable, it is promised to be the world’s largest solar farm. If developed as planned, a 10-gigawatt-capacity array of panels will be spread across 15,000 hectares and be backed by battery storage to ensure it can supply power around the clock.*

Overhead transmission lines will send electricity to Darwin and plug into the NT grid. But the bulk would be exported via a high-voltage direct-current submarine cable snaking through the Indonesian archipelago to Singapore. The developers say it will be able to provide one-fifth of the island city-state’s electricity needs, replacing its increasingly expensive gas-fired power.

This will be the channel through which Australian energy production will greatly reduce [global] emissions

Ross Garnaut
After 18 months in development, the $20bn Sun Cable development had a quiet coming out party in the Top End three weeks ago at a series of events held to highlight the NT’s solar potential. The idea has been embraced by the NT government and attracted the attention of the software billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, who is considering involvement through his Grok Ventures private investment firm

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...plan-to-power-singapore-with-australian-solar

https://www.suncable.sg/


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## basilio

Why we shouldn't be considering any new coal fired plants.

*Age of cheap coal power is over for Australia, says BNEF*
 Sophie Vorrath  8 May 2019  0   Comments 
share


The era of cheap coal power in Australia is over; brought to an abrupt end by ever cheaper solar and wind power generation, and by rising coal prices, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s Kobad Bhavnagri.

And, Bhavnagri told the 6th Australasian Emissions Reduction Summit in Melbourne on Wednesday, while this was expected, it has happened more quickly than even the most optimistic predictions.

“This is something that we only projected would occur in the mid 2020s. But the change in economics, particularly the increase in domestic coal pricing, has meant that this tipping point is already upon us today,” Bhavnagri said.

It’s not exactly news – at least not for regular RenewEconomy readers – but it bears repeating, with the federal election less than two weeks away, and the Liberal National Party continuing to insist that coal power is cheap, and fundamental to the health of Australia’s economy.

*Certainly, the fact that solar and wind have become the cheapest forms of new bulk electricity supply in almost every major energy market around the world – including Australia – is well accepted, including by the Australian Energy Market Operator.

“It’s cheaper to build new solar and new wind than it is to build new coal or new gas,” Bhavnagri reminded the conference, echoing the findings of a joint CSIRO and AEMO study, and of its own reports.*

*“It’s also cheapest, now, to build bulk dispatchable capacity from a wind farm, coupled with a battery, than it is to build a new coal-fired power station – or gas.*

“The cost of building new peaking generation in Australia now favours batteries. For short durations, for an hour or so, a battery is cheaper than building an open cycle gas turbine or a gas reciprocating engine.”

But the fact that Australia’s existing coal power fleet is – already – no longer the cheapest form of energy generation has not yet sunk in, Bhavnagri says, even against the backdrop of the global climate emergency.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/age-of-cheap-coal-power-is-over-for-australia-says-bnef-31415/


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> It was almost a throw away line but I  noted we should not be building new coal fired power stations in any way shape or form. In terms of the economics and the environment our focus needs to be with renewables and the infrastructure required to make them work.



I certainly wouldn't propose building new coal at this point in time.

That's not to say that coal should never have been built, most (not all but most) of it was a rational decision at the time all things considered, but I wouldn't be building more now. Even from a purely financial perspective doing so doesn't make sense.

That said I also wouldn't have closed quite a bit of what has been closed until such time as alternatives were actually built. That's in the same way as I wouldn't trade in my car or sell my house without having the replacement car or somewhere to live already sorted. It's not an argument about coal but a pragmatic one about supply reliability and not being painted into a corner with that.

If it were up to me then I'd also be keeping politicians right out of it. National emissions targets yes, that's a role for government, and let them cut a ribbon and have their photo taken to declare something open if they want to but keep them away beyond that international treaty and ceremonial sort of stuff. Don't let them make decisions on the technical side of how to make things happen as they're massively out of their depth on that.

I'd also like to see a lot less of the public jumping on the bandwagon and a lot more genuine understanding and that goes for all issues not just the energy one. We're living in an era of unprecedented access to information and yet we've got people with entrenched positions on both sides of all sorts of issues but very few among them who can really explain what it's all about. If I'm going to march through the streets, well personally I wouldn't do that without knowing exactly why I'm doing it and having considered the pros and cons of all the options.

The other thing the masses really need to grasp is the concept of resource constraints. Australians seem willing to see water as scarce, which it is or isn't depending on location, but there's a real denial about the situation with gas. There's not a lot left in Bass Strait so far as is known but there's a huge denial about that one from the general public and politicians alike.

There's a good reason why the former SECV saw coal, nuclear and hydro as the only real options in Victoria and had experimental wind and solar up and running in the 1980's whilst seeing the % of electricity generated from coal + hydro (or in other words that not generated from oil or gas) as a key benchmark. It all came down to the reality that there's just not enough oil or gas to be using it that way. If there was, well nobody would muck about with brown coal if they didn't have to given its energy density per unit mass is only 16% that of natural gas or 20% that of oil which are vastly better fuels in every way except their limited supply. My point there isn't "coal is good" but to stress the point about the supply problem with gas.


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> I am afraid SirRumpole  it is unlikely.you will have some pro coal per se on the right and so anti coal per se in the labour/ green fanatics



The ideological aspect of it all stands in the way of progress really.

Not much more can be said. Too much politics and not enough action.


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> That's not to say that coal should never have been built, most (not all but most) of it was a rational decision at the time all things considered, but I wouldn't be building more now. Even from a purely financial perspective doing so doesn't make sense.




Creating the  SECV in the 1920's to make a unified power grid in Victoria was a masterstroke. And it was not an easy gig. Then (as now) the calls for private electricity suppliers was very loud and  it was not an easy ride.

It was also a masterly piece of engineering to make the low value wet brown coal into an effective fuel. Full kudos to Sir John Monash who lead this engineering masterpiece.

But as  we know the 21st century is a whole new ball game.


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## basilio

Worth recognizing the value of a high quality engineer with outstanding people skills  and a very strong will as head of an organisation

_Then in late June 1920 came the offer of the general managership of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, which he was happy to accept, withdrawing from the Reinforced Concrete Co. 

His new task was of great public importance, difficulty and attractiveness to an engineer. Making abundant cheap power available by harnessing the huge deposits of Gippsland brown coal would remove a crippling handicap to development of industry. He had strong fellow commissioners—Sir Robert Gibson, (Sir) Thomas Lyle and George Swinburne—and Hyman Herman as chief technical expert; Monash himself was soon appointed chairman. Unexpected high moisture content of the coal produced a grave early crisis, but power from Yallourn, the model garden-town, was turned on in 1924. German technology was used to solve many problems. Monash faced great political difficulties and distrust of the project which required all his forceful pugnacity to overcome; he could not tolerate (Sir) Frederic Eggleston, his minister in 1924-27, who distrusted Monash's 'ruthless egotism'. He survived a major inquiry in 1926, and next year the commission showed a profit. By 1930 the initial task was completed, the S.E.C. grid covered the State and the commission was established as a highly successful state enterprise. Monash himself had inspired a degree of creativity, loyalty and affection, probably unparalleled in any other large Australian corporation then or since. As in the A.I.F. he displayed his gift both of exciting their best from his colleagues and making them his personal friends. 'He was a great leader', Herman wrote, 'and a genius in getting to the heart of any problem and finding its solution … the ablest, biggest-minded and biggest-hearted man I have ever known'._


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> It was also a masterly piece of engineering to make the low value wet brown coal into an effective fuel. Full kudos to Sir John Monash who lead this engineering masterpiece.



The challenge today is different but remarkably similar.

A century ago the problem was that black coal was an unreliable source of energy in Victoria. Local supplies were extremely limited and NSW routinely cut off supplies to Victoria (and SA) plunging both states into crises lasting weeks or months at a time. That practice went on for several decades, it wasn't a one-off by any means.

And so the SECV was established with the specific mandate that it should rely only on resources found within the state of Victoria. Further, it should aim to replace the use of black coal for other purposes so far as practical.

The resources known to exist at the time were brown coal and hydro both of which were applied to the task. Brown coal first, since manufacturing briquettes to fire the existing power stations was a necessary part of the plan and was the first thing up and running (1921) along with building the first station at Yallourn (in operation 1924), then next came the Rubicon and Kiewa hydro schemes and later schemes involving Lake Eildon and finally Dartmouth.

That Yallourn was built was not an objective in itself. It was simply the consequence of defining the problem, identifying all available resources and coming up with a scheme to fix the problem using only those resources considered suitable (that is, those within Victoria).

The same approach has a lot of relevance today. Define the problem (need power), identify all the available resources (wind, solar, hydro, others), design a scheme to fix the problem using only those resources then get on and build it.

The basic history of it all is similar in SA with the Leigh Creek coal mine being developed as the solution to the same underlying problem.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The same approach has a lot of relevance today. Define the problem (need power), identify all the available resources (wind, solar, hydro, others), *design a scheme to fix the problem using only those resources then get on and build it.*
> .




That is the crux of the matter, as with anything, time is the biggest problem.
Time to design the system, time to procure the land and the equipment, time to install it.
Time that the existing infrastructure can be kept operable, when another couple of major plants are due to be shut down, in the next couple of years.
Hopefully they are a long way down the path, of obtaining the required equipment and suitable locations to install sufficient renewable capacity.
They may well be and we just don't know about it.
Time will tell.


----------



## qldfrog

And the same forces crying for wind and hydro use will then protest and delay projects for years as they do fight new dams or new wind turbine installation
We will run out of time purely due to the legal red tape green tape obstruction
Until blackout and death will enable a postiori emergency power fast setup and solution but then the need for speed might select suboptimal solutions and for a much higher cost

Aka desalination plant and not dams in our last drought in Qld
Hopeless


----------



## rederob

qldfrog said:


> Hopeless



As there is no evidence that your posts have merit, I would agree - *hopeless*.


----------



## basilio

qldfrog said:


> And the same forces crying for wind and hydro use will then protest and delay projects for years as they do fight new dams or new wind turbine installation
> We will run out of time purely due to the legal red tape green tape obstruction
> Until blackout and death will enable a postiori emergency power fast setup and solution but then the need for speed might select suboptimal solutions and for a much higher cost
> 
> Aka desalination plant and not dams in our last drought in Qld
> Hopeless




What an absolute load of rubbish! The groups trying to stop wind turbines have been climate denier fronts. There is little point to large scale hydro dams (_Snowy Mountains  2 is  a possibility but questionable_.). The conversation is about small dams to  recycle water as " short term storage batteries" .
There may be good questions about the best design and  locality of some of these things  but the government that decides to declare an emergency to repower Australia through renewable energy will get the full support of "the greenies". 

Hell.  They have writing the blueprints for this project for decades.  Check out the range of research undertaken on  these topics.
https://bze.org.au/research/renewable-energy-plan/


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> There may be good questions about the best design and locality of some of these things but the government that decides to declare an emergency to repower Australia through renewable energy will get the full support of "the greenies".




To use renewable energy efficiently you need storage, and the best way to get storage is hydro.

Greenies have been opposing dams for decades. They keep on finding endangered species to delay projects. One day they have to decide their priorities.

Batteries are expensive and need replacement. So far there doesn't appear to be viable large scale options for storage other than hydro. So , when it comes to the crunch, which way will greenies go ?


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Batteries are expensive and need replacement. So far there doesn't appear to be viable large scale options for storage other than hydro. So , when it comes to the crunch, which way will greenies go ?



It is nowadays significantly cheaper to attach flow battery storage with renewables, rather than building dams. Flow batteries have lifespans in excess of 20 years.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> It is nowadays significantly cheaper to attach flow battery storage with renewables, rather than building dams. Flow batteries have lifespans in excess of 20 years.




IMO flow batteries will be much more practical in larger installations, than lithium, which are just another problem being built into the system.IMO
However serious long term storage, will definitely be hydro, where it is practical, as Rumpy says the arguments haven't started about the environment. YET.

Lithium is best in the mobile applications such as small vehicles e.g cars and motor bikes, where they can be designed for easy swapping out, in the vehicle design. Also the energy density is more suited for that style of application.
I still feel H2 fuel cell will be used, in heavy mobile installations, such as trucks, trains etc. The batteries would adversely affect the weight carrying capacity and also the energy density isn't enough for long distance haulage. IMO
As I said, only my opinion.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> However serious long term storage, will definitely be hydro, where it is practical, as Rumpy says the arguments haven't started about the environment.



You can add battery storage to any solar project, and at *any scale*. 
You do not need hills or water, rivers or dams, and the batteries can be integrated into the footprint of a solar project.  So no permitting issues or related environmental concerns.
Given best solar sites have little or no practical hydro potential, batteries are a natural fit.
However, I definitely prefer a single solution in moving immediately to large scale hydrogen electrolysis, rather than an intermediate step of adding batteries.


----------



## basilio

rederob said:


> It is nowadays significantly cheaper to attach flow battery storage with renewables, rather than building dams. Flow batteries have lifespans in excess of 20 years.




That was an amazing story. I suggest it is worth expanding to show just how much more cost effective renewables  plus storage are at teh moment.

*New Solar + Battery Price Crushes Fossil Fuels, Buries Nuclear *
 
 Jeff McMahon    Contributor
 Green Tech 
From Chicago, I write about climate change, green technology, energy.









BARREN RIDGE, CA - APRIL 4: The new project will join the current large Barren Ridge solar panel array in Kern County, California. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)

Getty Images
Los Angeles Power and Water officials have struck a deal on the largest and cheapest solar + battery-storage project in the world, at prices that leave fossil fuels in the dust and may relegate nuclear power to the dustbin.

Later this month the LA Board of Water and Power Commissioners is expected to approve a 25-year contract that will serve 7 percent of the city's electricity demand at 1.997¢/kwh for solar energy and 1.3¢ for power from batteries.

"This is the lowest solar-photovoltaic price in the United States," said James Barner, the agency's manager for strategic initiatives, "and it is the largest and lowest-cost solar and high-capacity battery-storage project in the U.S. and we believe in the world today. So this is, I believe, truly revolutionary in the industry."

It's half the estimated cost of power from a new natural gas plant.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmc...hes-fossil-fuels-buries-nuclear/#1e9fcb765971


----------



## sptrawler

A good article on the issue of renewables, from the left leaning Grattan Institute, the area that we constantly debate he calls challenges.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/program...-12/tony-wood-speaks-to-the-business/11305642

He also mentions the 'skid mount' modular nuclear generators, we have talked about.


----------



## Smurf1976

I'll try and avoid the politics and simply say this:

The political debate as such is a real killer of investment into any comprehensive solution. It leads to a situation where the only willingness to invest is into things which make a quick profit and/or have a certain role to play no matter what happens next.

This approach will not get us to 100% renewbles but it will get us to somewhere around, as a rough order of magnitude, 75%. Hence AGL, for example, spending $295 million on 12 x 17.5 MW internal combustion driven generators whilst having site permits to double that and at the same time buying the rights to develop a pumped hydro scheme as an alternative. They're hedging their bets so to speak but they're not aiming for 100% renewables in the medium term and nor is anyone else of significance.

Related to that lack of certainty and short term approach comes higher than necessary costs and realistically, we're not far away (3 years at the most, probably less) from facing the inevitable with industry demanding that government bridge the gap between internationally competitive energy prices and Australia's actual, far higher, prices which are the direct result of government stuffing things up over an extended period.

On the politics itself I will simply say that regardless of which side you are on, your side most certainly has contributed to the problem and pulled some elaborate stunts in all of this. That includes pretty much everyone really, I can't actually think of an exception. In no particular order - Labor, Liberal, the industry, environmentalists, bulk consumers - the details differ but all have engaged in some silliness one way or another.

On some of the specific technical and politics I'll add:

Batteries, running trains up hills, small pumped hydro etc all works fine if you just want to meet peak demand at 6 pm and find a use for surplus generation around midday and in the early hours of the morning. That assumes of course that most of the generation fleet has a reasonably consistent output.

In practice wind routinely gives us a week or more of high output and a week or more of low output. The lows in wind also just happen to unfortunately occur at the same time of year when total daily energy demand is high and solar generation is lowest.

Because of that we're not actually going to be charging batteries every day from the wind and solar alone. A lot of days yes but not all of them and realistically that gets us to somewhere around three quarters renewable energy pretty easily.

Where the ideological, political and financial battle exists surrounds the remainder. On one side it's the proponents of big hydro schemes as the workaround to multiple consecutive days when the wind doesn't blow, load is persistently high and there's not much sun. On the other side are those who wish to import LNG for use in both their own gas-fired power stations and those owned by others.

My personal view is that the biggest mistake anyone could make is demanding perfection in any of this and likewise it's a mistake to fail to acknowledge competing demands.

It's all well and good to get excited about hydrogen storage or whatever but the reality is that what's on the table right now comes down to pumped hydro versus natural gas / diesel so far as the means of filling in the longer gaps in wind and solar generation are concerned. There's no actual proposal to build longer term bulk storage using hydrogen or batteries as the technology so it's very unlikely to happen as the next step. It's hydro or it's gas / diesel in practice.

Related to that are the financial and political implications. If AGL, Origin, Energy Australia and others want to build (or contract others to build) smaller pumped hydros, batteries, wind and solar to work in conjunction with larger pumpd hydros (Snowy etc) as an integrated system well then that gives them a viable business role in it all. It ticks a box.

If big engineering things get built well then that's another group for whom a box is ticked. Not just actual engineers but civil contractors, members of the public who like seeing big "permanent" sort of things built, unions and so on. 

If the gas industry wants to put hydrogen in the pipes, and that's about to start on a small scale in Adelaide, well then there's no reason to stand in the way. It keeps another group on side, it removes a potential opponent of it all and so ticks another box even if in an imperfect manner it's still a step forward.

If politicians can go around cutting ribbons whilst standing in front of big civil infrastructure well then that ticks another box. Make sure everyone who builds anything has the grand opening complete with ribbon and scissors.

And so on. Pragmatically there's more to it than just the engineering aspect of it all and keeping naturally conflicting interests reasonably happy is part of that.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:
			
		

> And so on. Pragmatically there's more to it than just the engineering aspect of it all and keeping naturally conflicting interests reasonably happy is part of that.




I think you probably said it before. "Anything that works" is good.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Greenies have been opposing dams for decades. They keep on finding endangered species to delay projects. One day they have to decide their priorities.
> ?




Is this the sort thing we are talking about Rumpy? 

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/07/bob-brown-turns-wind-farm-nimby/

Here we go, here we go, here we go. 
Lets form a circle.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Is this the sort thing we are talking about Rumpy?
> 
> https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/07/bob-brown-turns-wind-farm-nimby/
> 
> Here we go, here we go, here we go.
> Lets form a circle.




Exactly. Some people will never be happy.


----------



## qldfrog

Energy density is a very inconvenient fact, a huge plus for fossil fuels, which is badly understood by many
A lot of km traveled with 100kg of diesel, not that much with 100kg of batteries and heavier batteries lead to increased energy use


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Exactly. Some people will never be happy.



Wait until we get thousands of hectares of solar panels, that will have them falling out of the trees, well the trees that haven't been cut down to install the panels.
Bob Brown will have kittens.


----------



## rederob

qldfrog said:


> Energy density is a very inconvenient fact, a huge plus for fossil fuels, which is badly understood by many



Given the energy density of hydrogen is 3 times that of diesel, what is your point?
Both hydrogen and battery power can be "free," which cannot be said of fossil fuels.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Is this the sort thing we are talking about Rumpy?



That sort of thing is where the "anti-everything" argument comes from and it's not hard to see why.

Environmentalists said no to hydro acknowledging coal as the alternative.

Then coal was bad but gas was promoted for the next ~25 years as the better way forward.

Until someone got fracking, which was always inevitable if we ramped up gas use, and then all of a sudden gas was bad we should use wind.

Then came the objections about wind farms spoiling the view and so on meanwhile there's opposition to the gas import plans in Victoria too.

Can't win.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> That sort of thing is where the "anti-everything" argument comes from and it's not hard to see why.
> 
> Environmentalists said no to hydro acknowledging coal as the alternative.
> 
> Then coal was bad but gas was promoted for the next ~25 years as the better way forward.
> 
> Until someone got fracking, which was always inevitable if we ramped up gas use, and then all of a sudden gas was bad we should use wind.
> 
> Then came the objections about wind farms spoiling the view and so on meanwhile there's opposition to the gas import plans in Victoria too.
> 
> Can't win.




Yes and the really funny bit is, all of these issues are going to be resolved, before they shut down Liddell in 2022.
Can't wait to see that.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Yes and the really funny bit is, all of these issues are going to be resolved, before they shut down Liddell in 2022.
> Can't wait to see that.



That ultimately is the elephant in the room along with the prospect of sudden failures elsewhere and the prospect of running short of fuel with which to operate plant that's still working.

With regard to the fuel supply issue, there have been a couple of days this year when gas ran short in SA and fuel oil was burned as a workaround plus there's an ongoing problem with getting enough coal in NSW particularly at Mt Piper (2 x 700 MW, Energy Australia) but other NSW coal-fired plant has had similar problems.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> That ultimately is the elephant in the room along with the prospect of sudden failures elsewhere and the prospect of running short of fuel with which to operate plant that's still working.
> 
> With regard to the fuel supply issue, there have been a couple of days this year when gas ran short in SA and fuel oil was burned as a workaround plus there's an ongoing problem with getting enough coal in NSW particularly at Mt Piper (2 x 700 MW, Energy Australia) but other NSW coal-fired plant has had similar problems.



Like we keep saying it is a time issue, not a lack of will, from where I sit it doesn't seem possible to reconcile all the issues in the time available.
On another subject these small nuclear power reactors, sound like they tick a lot of the boxes, especially in Australia's grid.
https://www.world-nuclear.org/infor...er-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
They would be a perfect fit for W.A, sub 300MW, good turn down. They would be just about a straight swap out, for one of the existing coal sites.
Interesting times ahead.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Like we keep saying it is a time issue, not a lack of will, from where I sit it doesn't seem possible to reconcile all the issues in the time available.



I'm not keen on nukes, we've had two things go "kaboom!" with power generation recently but at least it's an easy cleanup when it's not radioactive, but certainly agreed about the timing issue with it all.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm not keen on nukes, we've had two things go "kaboom!" with power generation recently but at least it's an easy cleanup when it's not radioactive, but certainly agreed about the timing issue with it all.



I agree 100% the only thing is it is the only 'clean' substitute, if renewables for some reason can't achieve 100% capacity + reserve margin.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Like we keep saying it is a time issue, not a lack of will, from where I sit it doesn't seem possible to reconcile all the issues in the time available.
> On another subject these small nuclear power reactors, sound like they tick a lot of the boxes, especially in Australia's grid.
> https://www.world-nuclear.org/infor...er-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
> They would be a perfect fit for W.A, sub 300MW, good turn down. They would be just about a straight swap out, for one of the existing coal sites.
> Interesting times ahead.




People live around small nuclear reactors in submarines and aircraft carriers producing a few hundred kW, so the technology is there.

Putting a few outback where the threats can be managed would at least be worth considering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_marine_propulsion


----------



## Value Collector

qldfrog said:


> Energy density is a very inconvenient fact, a huge plus for fossil fuels, which is badly understood by many
> A lot of km traveled with 100kg of diesel, not that much with 100kg of batteries and heavier batteries lead to increased energy use




But look at all the transport and refining that has to go into retrieving that diesel.

When you could charge the batteries with solar panels locally where the energy needs to be consumed.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm not keen on nukes, we've had two things go "kaboom!" with power generation recently but at least it's an easy cleanup when it's not radioactive, but certainly agreed about the timing issue with it all.




How do we “clean up” after the carbon emissions?

I am pro nuclear, but I also understand it will never happen I. Australia.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> People live around small nuclear reactors in submarines and aircraft carriers producing a few hundred kW, so the technology is there.
> 
> Putting a few outback where the threats can be managed would at least be worth considering.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_marine_propulsion




They are called VSMR very small modular reactors, having said that they aren't measured in the KW they are still around 10MW, but in a renewable grid for stability it would make sense having them spread out at the extremes.
As smurf will no doubt explain VAR control is just as important as frequency control, especially in a grid covering a huge area, you can use static VAR reactors etc, but having generation at the end of the line can help stability a lot.


----------



## basilio

The conversation about introducing nuclear power in Australia has so many practical and  legislative problems it seems completely impossible  to see it leap frogging proven, clean, cheap renewable options (plus back up)

This article goes into the weeds on the topic.  Well worth digesting.

* The idea of producing nuclear energy in Australia before 2040 is absurd *
John Quiggin
There is no chance of deploying it in the required timeframe. Fortunately, there are alternatives
 
 @JohnQuiggin 
Tue 16 Jul 2019 19.00 BST   Last modified on Tue 16 Jul 2019 19.49 BST

The debate about nuclear power in Australia flickered to life with the suggestion by the New South Wales deputy premier, John Barilaro, that small modular reactors could be constructed in regional centres. Prominent backbencher Barnaby Joyce followed up with a call for a parliamentary inquiry.

Joyce and Barilaro revived this idea after the release of a report by Industry Super Australia, which took as the starting point the need to replace most of Australia’s coal-fired power stations by 2040. The report concluded: “It is difficult to see how the the problem can be resolved without some nuclear in the mix.”

It would perhaps be churlish to observe that the small reactors advocated by Barilaro exist only as designs and may never be built. There is a much bigger obstacle which is essentially impossible to overcome.
To make the central point as bluntly as possible: even with a crash program there is no chance of deploying nuclear power in Australia in the required timeframe. I looked at this question in a submission to the South Australian royal commission into the nuclear fuel cycle and concluded that “there is no serious prospect of Australia producing nuclear energy before 2040”.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ear-energy-in-australia-before-2040-is-absurd


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> even with a crash program there is no chance of deploying nuclear power in Australia in the required timeframe



That's what it comes down to and why, along with the financial aspects, I see it as a waste of time to be pursuing regardless of any technical merits to the idea.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> That's what it comes down to and why, along with the financial aspects, I see it as a waste of time to be pursuing regardless of any technical merits to the idea.



There is one thing for sure smurf, something definite, will have to be formulated in the next 5 years.
If your take on the system is accurate.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> There is one thing for sure smurf, something definite, will have to be formulated in the next 5 years.
> If your take on the system is accurate.



It's one of those things where nobody can be sure of the details but with so much old plant in service, it's only a matter of time......


----------



## qldfrog

At least some are aware
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07...ow-energy-users-to-sell-back-to-grid/11319494
I have finally found how to have a successful business in Australia
Buy a money loosing energy greedy plant rendered uncompetitive by our energy costs, minimal wages and regulation
And get paid to stop it while you threaten to restart production
Total madness in the whole
Ps.i understand the need now for this type of action, but this is crazy to arrive to these extremes


----------



## SirRumpole

*Oil and gas giant Eni starts work on Northern Territory's largest solar farm in race to 50pc renewables by 2030*

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2...rt-building-biggest-solar-farm-in-nt/11317072


----------



## SirRumpole

*AEMC urges change to allow users to sell power back to the grid to guarantee energy demand*

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07...ow-energy-users-to-sell-back-to-grid/11319494

Why do I get the feeling that so many rules, regulations , incentives and disincentives are being added to try and compensate for other rules and regulations that we are losing sight of the main game, which is just to match supply with demand ?

Or are these rules and regulations a natural consequence of the deregulated market ? And is that previous statement just an oxymoron ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> *Oil and gas giant Eni starts work on Northern Territory's largest solar farm in race to 50pc renewables by 2030*
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2...rt-building-biggest-solar-farm-in-nt/11317072



There is no down side for these companies installing solar, it reduces their operating costs as it will probably be Gov underwritten offtake and if it all goes pear shaped they still have the fossil fuel.
Another interesting part of the article, is the mention of a 15,000 hectare (150sq/Km) solar farm in the Barkley area, it's all going to be very interesting.
Wait till Bob Brown reads that.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> There is no down side for these companies installing solar, it reduces their operating costs as it will probably be Gov underwritten offtake and if it all goes pear shaped they still have the fossil fuel.
> Another interesting part of the article, is the mention of a 15,000 hectare (150sq/Km) solar farm in the Barkley area, it's all going to be very interesting.
> Wait till Bob Brown reads that.




Yes, but all the endangered species will be able to shelter under the solar panels. 

Problem solved.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, but all the endangered species will be able to shelter under the solar panels.
> 
> Problem solved.




There is talk of a 300sq/Km one in the NW of W.A, it won't be a sunburnt Country. 
I suppose the decision will have to be a solar farm, or a food farm.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> *Oil and gas giant Eni starts work on Northern Territory's largest solar farm in race to 50pc renewables by 2030*
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2...rt-building-biggest-solar-farm-in-nt/11317072




Here you go Rumpy, that isn't a solar farm, this is a solar farm.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/pilbara-green-hydrogen-project-grows-to-15gw-wind-and-solar-97972/

As we said when it was first suggested, I hope they have a domestic reservation policy, before all this land is taken up to make and export our hydrogen.


----------



## SirRumpole

*Victorian solar farm to generate enough electricity to power Melbourne's entire tram network*

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-20/numurkah-solar-farm-to-power-tram-network/11327346


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> *Victorian solar farm to generate enough electricity to power Melbourne's entire tram network*
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-20/numurkah-solar-farm-to-power-tram-network/11327346



Interesting read Rumpy, I noticed in the article they are getting worried about losing farming land, well I wondered when that would be brought up.


----------



## qldfrog

I think if done properly you could still graze sheeps  in a de facto shaded area, but i am afraid it is not currently designed for this


----------



## Smurf1976

There was about 900 MW of wind and large scale solar generation off loaded today mostly in Vic and SA but a bit elsewhere too. High wind + sunny + low demand = nowhere for it to go and that persisted from about 10:30 to 16:00 eastern states time.

That's additional to storage based hydro (Tas, Vic) and most gas (except the minimum required in SA for stability) being off and coal plant (Vic) ramping down. Spot prices were negative for much of this time too.

The impacts won't please the owners of some of these facilities. Be careful what you invest in.

It probably won't please some governments either once they realise that simply building enough wind and solar to generate 50% of the state's power doesn't mean you'll actually be using 50% wind and solar when some of it's going to waste. 

For the solutions, that really comes down to a combination of things. Storage of the sort that's able to charge consistently for hours on end not just an hour or two plus big transmission projects are the solution ultimately as well as things like shifting the timing of some loads.


----------



## Smurf1976

Adding to the above that gas-fired generation was ramped up from about 17:30 onwards.

So wind and solar going to waste for 5.5 hours, then an hour and a half after that ended we're burning gas to keep the lights on.

Hence the value of being able to store that surplus and then use it later. Or at least send it to another state and put it to use in NSW or Qld thus saving gas or coal rather than having it go to waste.


----------



## sptrawler

A bit more on the 1GW wind farm, that Bob Brown doesn't want.
I can understand his concerns, but everywhere is going to have an issue, of one sort or another.
There is going to have to be a LOT of BIG wind farms and solar farms, so there will be something ecologically displaced in lots of places.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07...tion-to-wind-farm-labelled-hypocrisy/11345200


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> A bit more on the 1GW wind farm, that Bob Brown doesn't want.
> I can understand his concerns, but everywhere is going to have an issue, of one sort or another.
> There is going to have to be a LOT of BIG wind farms and solar farms, so there will be something ecologically displaced in lots of places.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07...tion-to-wind-farm-labelled-hypocrisy/11345200




Quite a few countries have wind farms off-shore.

Harder to maintain perhaps, but maybe more efficient at catching sea breezes and easier on wildlife..


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Quite a few countries have wind farms off-shore.
> 
> Harder to maintain perhaps, but maybe more efficient at catching sea breezes and easier on wildlife..



Yes, I saw a lot in the U.K and Europe, it may depend on the depth of the offshore water.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Quite a few countries have wind farms off-shore.
> 
> Harder to maintain perhaps, but maybe more efficient at catching sea breezes and easier on wildlife..



That's precisely the attraction of an island just off the coast.

It gets a consistent breeze but, since it's still technically on land, avoids most of the extra construction and maintenance costs.

Therein lies the big problem with all this.

The single largest hydro-electric dam that could possibly be built in Australia, in terms of annual output, is the one that Bob made very sure wasn't built 36 years ago. That was the end of hydro construction in Australia at a national level basically - very little has been done since that, it became far easier politically to go with coal or gas (and yes that was a definite consideration, of that I am 100% certain). 

The single best place to put wind farms is the one that's subject to this current disagreement. Exactly how it pans out is anyone's guess but suffice to say we're already hitting the "running out of low hanging fruit" problem with having so many in Vic and SA so they need to go somewhere else if we're to keep growing the use of wind overall and do so in an economic manner. Wipe the best sites off the map and that dents the economics of it all.


----------



## Smurf1976

Addition to previous post: 

The point being that whether it's hydro, wind or anything else the best places to put things, in terms of resources, often conflict with other values such as conservation or scenery.

Conservation of things worthy of conserving I'm in favour of but if it's just about scenery, well that's a very temporary impact and anyone even slightly concerned about the CO2 issue isn't sensibly going to be too worried about how any solution looks aesthetically.


----------



## sptrawler

Well smurf, don't say, we told you so.
The really funny part is, it has only just started, wait untill they start a 15GW solar farm on sacred land. Lol
Bob and the boys, stopped onshore processing of LNG at James Price Point near Broome, it was going to cover 10 to 20 hectares. Cant wait to hear what they think about 5000hectares.


----------



## Smurf1976

Giving this wave energy idea another shot:

https://reneweconomy.com.au/wave-swell-energy-set-to-test-new-power-generator-off-king-island-12735/



> Wave Swell is partnering with local utility Hydro Tasmania on the pilot project, by integrating the wave power unit with wind, solar generators already installed as part of the ground-breaking KIREIP (King Island Renewable Energy Integration) project.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Giving this wave energy idea another shot:
> 
> https://reneweconomy.com.au/wave-swell-energy-set-to-test-new-power-generator-off-king-island-12735/




I first saw a system like this on tv about 10 years ago and wondered why it never caught on.

Good to see it making a comeback. It seems pretty simple and long lasting compared to wind turbines or solar panels.


----------



## SirRumpole

Renewable energy boom, can it last ?

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-energy-makes-staggering-leap-but-can-it-last


----------



## SirRumpole

Some may think it's a waste of time to discuss, but research on nuclear fusion continues.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2016-02-08/clean-nuclear-energy-are-we-there-yet/6777180


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Some may think it's a waste of time to discuss, but research on nuclear fusion continues.



The holy grail, at this point apparently it uses more energy than it generates, but it will be great if it gets there. It is never a waste of time discussing new developments in energy generation. IMO

This kid is dedicating his future to nuclear research and development, he built a fusion reactor in his parents garage when he was 14 years old, or so the story goes.
He is a very interesting and engaging young man, he is now in his mid 20's.


----------



## sptrawler

Here is another Taylor Wilson clip, on where he thinks power generation will go, obviously there are some bright people working on it. The clip is a few years old, but it gives a bit of insight into his ideas.


----------



## Junior

All this Solar means we're all good for power during daylight hours.....how do we fill the gaps?  I feel like we're going to be short on power between 5pm and 10pm.



> *Is this the end of the renewables boom?*
> *Angela Macdonald-Smith*and *Mark Ludlow*
> Jul 30, 2019 — 12.00am
> Soaring solar generation has meant that renewables provided 30 per cent of Australia's midday power supply most days last month, depressing wholesale power prices and piling pressure on coal-fired generators unable to ramp down their operations,
> 
> But the price impact of the massive influx of renewables into the National Electricity Market has also triggered warnings that the end of the investment boom in wind and solar could be approaching as the economics of some plants exposed to wholesale prices are undermined.
> 
> The new figures to be released on Wednesday by respected analysis firm Green Energy Markets found that total solar power generation doubled in June compared with two years previously. Power production from solar was large enough to drive renewable energy's share of the market up above 30 per cent in the middle of the day for 20 of the 30 days in June, for the first time ever in winter.
> 
> The share of renewables reached a peak of 39.2 per cent on June 30, helping drive wholesale prices down to zero for a five-minute period right across the NEM, understood to be unprecedented for the market for winter.
> 
> Average wholesale prices in Victoria and South Australia were down more than 60 per cent on that day compared to the same day in 2017, and more than 40 per cent lower in NSW and Queensland, according to Australian Energy Market Operator data.
> 
> zero or negative prices on the NEM to become a lot more common in the next 12 months across other states as well as South Australia.
> 
> "It will be very interesting to see what happens in spring with a few more projects online and when solar irradiance picks up while demand for electricity will be low," said Mr Edis, adding that new state renewable energy auctions would be needed to prevent a steep fall-off in investment. He said that the risk may not have been fully appreciated in a recent upbeat assessment of future investment in renewables by the Clean Energy Regulator.
> 
> The warning comes as Clean Energy Finance Corporation chief executive Ian Learmonth declared the taxpayer-funded body will look at emerging technologies, such as battery storage, because there was already enough wind and solar investments already in the market.
> 
> Mr Learmonth said the mandate of the CEFC, which is investing $10 billion into renewable projects, had changed because of the market dynamics.
> 
> "We are evolving with the market and it's happening rapidly," Mr Learmonth said in an interview with _The Australian Financial Review_.
> 
> "There is a conscious move to focus more on storage, pumped hydro and firming technology because we do acknowledge wind and solar are mature technologies and a lot of people out there who are banking on them, so there's less need for the CEFC to be involved."
> 
> *Reverse auctions*
> The CEFC will announce on Tuesday it had committed $1.5 billion to new clean energy investments in the 2019 financial year, across 30 transactions with a total value of $6.3 billion.
> 
> Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor, who has vowed to bring down wholesale power prices to $70 per megawatt hour, has expressed concerns about the rate of renewables projects coming into the market, especially in Victoria and Queensland which have set ambitious targets, and about the need for firming capacity.
> 
> State Labor governments in Victoria and Queensland have held "reverse auctions" in which taxpayers underwrite large-scale solar projects by buying the output under long-term contracts.
> 
> Project proponents rely on the power purchase agreements to get financing.
> 
> Coal-rich Queensland and Victoria are aiming to reach 50 per cent renewable by 2030.
> 
> Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood said it was likely the influx of renewables would put pressure on existing coal-fired power plants, such as EnergyAustralia's Yallourn in Victoria.
> 
> He said there would also be a domino effect on the renewables roll-out in Victoria and Queensland, with cheaper renewable energy also putting pressure on older coal-fired power plants in NSW.
> 
> "Victoria and Queensland tend to go much more aggressive than NSW. One possibility is all the extra renewables in Victoria will make it harder for Yallourn, but it could export power into NSW.
> 
> "It's possible it could be black coal generators in NSW that get into trouble."
> 
> *'All the risk is with the taxpayer'*
> Mr Wood said the renewables crunch would really hit home within the next five years, especially when Snowy 2.0 comes on-line.
> 
> He said government intervention at both a state level (through renewable energy targets) and at a federal level (Snowy 2.0, underwriting generation) would come home to roost.
> 
> "What's more concerning is the government is involving itself so much more frequently in the market and all the risk is with the taxpayer," he said.
> 
> And companies such as Alinta, Origin Energy and AGL are finding harder to compete because they are not competing by the same rules."
> 
> A recent Industry Super Association report on the electricity sector warned of the risk of "stranded assets" if the penetration of renewables topped 50 per cent.
> 
> "It is possible that beyond about 50 per cent of electricity, some solar and wind may become stranded assets. This would begin to raise serious questions about the trajectory of the energy system," the report said.
> 
> "If carbon capture and storage is not developed the eventual transition away from coal is almost certain."
> 
> The ISA report recommended keeping nuclear energy and carbon capture and storage projects on the table to help secure reliable energy supply over the next few decades.
> 
> Meanwhile Mr Taylor told Parliament on Monday that he intended to introduce the "big stick" energy legislation later this year, bringing forced asset divestments for integrated energy suppliers back onto the table.


----------



## sptrawler

Junior said:


> All this Solar means we're all good for power during daylight hours.....how do we fill the gaps?  I feel like we're going to be short on power between 5pm and 10pm.



Batteries, pumped hydro and wind farms, apparently.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Batteries, pumped hydro and wind farms, apparently.




Gas & diesel too.


----------



## Smurf1976

Junior said:


> All this Solar means we're all good for power during daylight hours.....how do we fill the gaps?  I feel like we're going to be short on power between 5pm and 10pm.



If the solar is used to charge batteries or pump water up hill (or some other means of storage eg compressed air, running trains loaded with weights up mountains, etc) then we can use solar energy 24/7 but the key is actualy building those things.

Thus far the big problem is that we're closing things which can operate at any time of the day or night (eg coal but also others) but not actually replacing it with the pumped hydro or batteries etc. That then creates the situation as you describe - all good when it's sunny but a problem when it's not.

That diminishing ability to supply when it's not sunny or windy is what's causing so much angst among those aware of the technical aspects of the situation. It's not about an ideological opposition to wind and solar or that anyone loves coal, just that there's a very real technical problem if supply and demand don't match in real time and the ability to ensure this is being eroded since we're really only building one half of the new system - we're putting up the wind and solar farms and closing existing coal-fired generation a lot faster than we're putting in pumped hydro, batteries or other means of storage.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Gas & diesel too.



It would be fair to say that everyone is going to be watching to see how AGL operate their new facility at Barker Inlet (SA).

This consists of 12 internal combustion engines, 17.5 MW each, and they're capable of operating on either gas with diesel as the pilot fuel for ignition or on straight diesel. Efficiency is stated as about 44%, which is better than steam plant or open cycle gas turbines but inferior to combined cycle gas, and they're capable of starting up and getting to full load within a few minutes and likewise ramping back down again quickly.

Cost - AGL would know how they're going in practice but the plan is $295 million. Construction is well underway but not yet complete.

It's not experimental as such, the technology is all off the shelf and AGL have simply bought the equipment they haven't invented anything, but it'll be the only such facility in the National Electricity Market (much smaller ones exist at mines etc) so there's some general interest in terms of how it will be operated in practice which comes down largely to financial considerations.

Location is about 15km north-west of the Adelaide CBD (next to Torrens Island B power station also owned by AGL).


----------



## sptrawler

At last there seems to be a glimmer of common sense prevailing.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/...r-battle-with-government-20190802-p52d6b.html

From the article:
_AGL has delayed the closure of the Liddell power plant following a protracted dispute with the federal government over the lifespan of the ageing coal-fired facility.

The plant in NSW's Hunter Valley was scheduled to end operations in 2022, taking 1680 megawatts out of the grid. AGL has come under intense pressure over the plan, with the government warning the company to renovate the plant or sell it to ensure ongoing energy reliability_.
Also:
_Earlier this year, Mr Taylor said the company had to either delay the closure, sell it to another energy provider or develop an alternative to secure adequate supply of reliable power.

A new "Retailer Reliability Obligation" came into effect from July 1, compelling energy providers to meet demand for "despatchable, 24/7 power" and outlining penalties for any breaches.


The company is continuing to work on a $1.36 billion plan to replace the power supply lost with the Liddell closure.

The three-phase plan includes an upgrade of the nearby Bayswater power plant, building 1600 megawatts of renewable generation capacity and 250 megawatts of battery storage over five years_ .


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> At last there seems to be a glimmer of common sense prevailing



There's a bit going on behind the scenes and has been for a while...... 

What's announced publicly:

AGL will continue to operate three (of four) units at Liddell (NSW) until April 2023 with the first one closing in 2022. This follows an engineering assessment of the plant.

AGL has revised the planned closure dates for the four Torrens Island A units (SA) to two in September 2020 and one each in September 2021 and 2022. This will need approval from the SA state government on account of pollution given that it represents a change from the planning approvals granted in respect of the adjacent Barker Inlet power station, noting in particular that actually achieving simultaneous high output from the whole lot will require significant use of oil.

That said, I'd be highly surprised if permission wasn't granted given that it's more about compliance with permits than an actual environmental problem as such - it's not as though there's smoke belching out of the place and I doubt that government wants to cop the blame for the lights going out.

The "official" return to service for Loy Yang A2 (AGL) and for Mortlake (Origin) remains December 2019 but I'll offer my opinion that there aren't too many who are particularly confident since it's a rather ambitious target. That's not to say it's impossible, but it's an ambitious target given the scale of work required so there's a lot of doubts around and a thinking that the odds are at least one will be later in practice. Time will tell.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Well smurf, don't say, we told you so.
> The really funny part is, it has only just started, wait untill they start a 15GW solar farm on sacred land. Lol
> Bob and the boys, stopped onshore processing of LNG at James Price Point near Broome, it was going to cover 10 to 20 hectares. Cant wait to hear what they think about 5000hectares.




To highlight the issue, I mentioned in a previous post.
Here is an article of native title being tested retrospectively, with regard mining at Gove, so one would hope all these people installing these solar farms are doing their homework. It could become a very expensive excercise, paying compensation for dreaming.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08...-to-launch-compensation-mining-claim/11381034


----------



## rederob

Odd that the Coalition's inquiry into nuclear power generation announced last week got no traction here!
Anyway, if it was a good idea, the USA would now be building them across their nation, and they are not.  Moreover, some recent builds have gone belly up.
Nuclear is only viable with multi billion dollar funding assistance from state players as the lead time for private sector operators to generate profits means carrying debt for far too long, and the risks are too great.
Nuclear would solve a baseload issue, however, doing the sums on the declining cost of battery backup suggests that it would never be able to compete with wind/solar/battery.  Moreover, wind/solar/battery is scalable to locality whereas nuclear requires maximum market volumes in order to recover costs.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Odd that the Coalition's inquiry into nuclear power generation announced last week got no traction here!
> Anyway, if it was a good idea, the USA would now be building them across their nation, and they are not.  Moreover, some recent builds have gone belly up.
> Nuclear is only viable with multi billion dollar funding assistance from state players as the lead time for private sector operators to generate profits means carrying debt for far too long, and the risks are too great.
> Nuclear would solve a baseload issue, however, doing the sums on the declining cost of battery backup suggests that it would never be able to compete with wind/solar/battery.  Moreover, wind/solar/battery is scalable to locality whereas nuclear requires maximum market volumes in order to recover costs.



From my perspective, I think at this point in time it is a wait and see, I have nothing to add to the debate untill there is a more defined way over the obvious issues.
At least they are going to extend the life, of the current generation, over one more summer so that gives some time for a solution to found.


----------



## SirRumpole

Nothing will come of the nuclear enquiry.

It's just to satisfy a few of the Coalition's mates in the business or their own people with possibly a vested interest.

Labor and the Greens will never back it, so nuclear is *always* going to be a dead duck in this country unless there are dramatic technological advances like fusion.


----------



## Smurf1976

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/...y-emergency-oil-supplies-20190801-p52cti.html

Realising we've got a problem with not complying with international agreements = good

Trying to change the rules so that we comply without really doing anything = cheating

Counting oil on the other side of the world or still at sea on foreign owned ships as part of Australia's reserves = remind me why, exactly, we are paying the clowns who come up with this rubbish?


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Odd that the Coalition's inquiry into nuclear power generation announced last week got no traction here!



What we need is energy that's cheap, reliable, environmentally acceptable and preferably independent of other nations for its ongoing operation.

Nuclear is reasonably reliable that's true.

It fails dismally on the "cheap" bit however and arguably fails on the other two points as well depending on how it's approached. As such it doesn't seem a realistic solution to the problem at least not using conventional fission reactors.

Meanwhile in WA, another one's set to bite the dust. A combination of economically priced gas, rising coal costs as the best has already been used and intermittent renewables are pulling the rug from under coal-fired generation with Muja C set to close one unit in 2022 and the other in 2024, leaving the two D station units as the only operating plant at Muja.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/wes...f-collie-coal-generators-20190805-p52e4e.html


----------



## StockyGuy

sptrawler said:


> Here is another Taylor Wilson clip, on where he thinks power generation will go, obviously there are some bright people working on it. The clip is a few years old, but it gives a bit of insight into his ideas.





Yowsers!  The lad even looks like a certain stereotype of genius.  I'm thinking the hawkish nose and natural leanness...sort of like Nikola Tesla.  That type the retarded BBT show was going for with Sheldon Cooper character.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Meanwhile in WA, another one's set to bite the dust. A combination of economically priced gas, rising coal costs as the best has already been used and intermittent renewables are pulling the rug from under coal-fired generation with Muja C set to close one unit in 2022 and the other in 2024, leaving the two D station units as the only operating plant at Muja.
> 
> https://www.smh.com.au/national/wes...f-collie-coal-generators-20190805-p52e4e.html



The two units closing are Parson 200MW units, circa late 1970's early 80's, piles of you know what. The Stage D units are 200MW Toshiba units, later fitted with high twist blades to upgrade them to 220MW always been great units.
I would be surprised if Muja D closed before Bluewaters.


----------



## sptrawler

It takes time, but at last mainstream media is up to speed, they are starting to realise this headlong rush to renewables will end in disaster. This article is saying exactly what smurf has been saying for the last couple of years.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...ewables-are-even-clearer-20190807-p52esi.html

From the article:
_The Australian Energy Market Commission’s reliability panel reported this year that system strength is declining across north Queensland, south-west New South Wales, north-western Victoria and South Australia.


South Australia’s power system is on life support, kept afloat by now routine interventions by the energy market operator. That means directing wind farms to shut down and telling gas suppliers to tool up just to keep the system secure and the lights on.

The panel notes all this intervention comes at a huge cost to wholesale marker prices - more than $270 million as of September last year.

The science tells us that integrating intermittent renewable energy to a grid that was not designed to deal with it brings a host of significant technical problems. It is distorting the market and stressing old baseload suppliers which must work harder pick up the slack, particularly in times of peak demand, when unsupported wind power routinely underperforms.

*In time we will solve these problems but if we run too fast the system will fall over.

It is something we need to debate rationally. And we should listen to the scienc*e_ .


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I would be surprised if Muja D closed before Bluewaters.



You likely know more about it than me given it's in WA but suffice to say I've heard plenty about Bluewaters and none of it particularly enthusiastic.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It takes time, but at last mainstream media is up to speed



The big problem is those making decisions failing to grasp the difference between a system and a market. Or for that matter even realising that the two are in fact separate and opposing concepts.

Related to that is a lack of public understanding of the whole thing. If I were to ask 1000 people in Vic then I doubt that even one of them would realise that 12% of all electricity in Vic is coming from SA at the moment and a further 8% from NSW and Tas.

The big problem with this and indeed various other things is that despite having the most highly educated population we've ever had, we seem to be in what could be broadly described as an anti-intellectual era. Climate change, anti-vaccination, troubles with the power grid, the saga of various public infrastructure projects and so on. The common theme in all of those dramas is ignorance taking precedence over proper science and other factually based approaches.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> The big problem is those making decisions failing to grasp the difference between a system and a market. Or for that matter even realising that the two are in fact separate and opposing concepts.
> 
> Related to that is a lack of public understanding of the whole thing. If I were to ask 1000 people in Vic then I doubt that even one of them would realise that 12% of all electricity in Vic is coming from SA at the moment and a further 8% from NSW and Tas.
> 
> The big problem with this and indeed various other things is that despite having the most highly educated population we've ever had, we seem to be in what could be broadly described as an anti-intellectual era. Climate change, anti-vaccination, troubles with the power grid, the saga of various public infrastructure projects and so on. *The common theme in all of those dramas is ignorance taking precedence over proper science and other factually based approaches.*




And vested interests too.

Like rejection by a few rednecks of a scientifically based National Energy Guarantee which has left the energy grid in limbo again.


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> The big problem with this and indeed various other things is that despite having the most highly educated population we've ever had, we seem to be in what could be broadly described as an anti-intellectual era. Climate change, anti-vaccination, troubles with the power grid, the saga of various public infrastructure projects and so on. The common theme in all of those dramas is ignorance taking precedence over proper science and other factually based approaches.




Spot on.  Almost identical observations made by the Judge who presided over the Royal Commission into the Banking system.
 
* Kenneth Hayne says trust in politics and institutions 'damaged or destroyed' *

In withering attacks, banking royal commissioner says reasoned policy debates have been replaced by three- or four-word slogans
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...olitics-and-institutions-damaged-or-destroyed


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The big problem with this and indeed various other things is that despite having the most highly educated population we've ever had, we seem to be in what could be broadly described as an anti-intellectual era. Climate change, anti-vaccination, troubles with the power grid, the saga of various public infrastructure projects and so on. The common theme in all of those dramas is ignorance taking precedence over proper science and other factually based approaches.



It certainly applies to the debate around our power grid smurf, from the article I posted earlier, the author highlights that exact point quite succinctly:
_Listen to the science. It's a perfectly rational statement often used by those urging others to accept that the climate is changing and human activity is driving it.

But many who make this point tend to become irrational when someone dares question their preferred remedies or points out that making rapid changes to complex systems, like our energy grid, might be a tad harder than they claim_.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> It certainly applies to the debate around our power grid smurf, from the article I posted earlier, the author highlights that exact point quite succinctly:
> _Listen to the science. It's a perfectly rational statement often used by those urging others to accept that the climate is changing and human activity is driving it.
> 
> But many who make this point tend to become irrational when someone dares question their preferred remedies or points out that making rapid changes to complex systems, like our energy grid, might be a tad harder than they claim_.




It isn't easy to make rapid changes to complex systems.  But it is essential - so lets do it.

The most apt comparison with dealing with CC  in our current situation is total mobilisation for a war. Everything changes because it has to.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> It isn't easy to make rapid changes to complex systems.  But it is essential - so lets do it.
> 
> The most apt comparison with dealing with CC  in our current situation is total mobilisation for a war. Everything changes because it has to.



The problem is, it is going as fast as it can, we are adopting renewables faster per capita than any other Country in the World. 
The problem is the constant chant, makes people believe it can be done faster, without having unintended consequences, when in reality if it ends in disaster those who shouted the most are the least accountable.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The problem is, it is going as fast as it can, we are adopting renewables faster per capita than any other Country in the World.
> The problem is the constant chant, makes people believe it can be done faster, without having unintended consequences, when in reality if it ends in disaster those who shouted the most are the least accountable.




The problem simply is that renewables without storage is destabilising. Wind farms are easy to put up, but batteries or hydro needs government assistance. The public and private sectors are out of synch and so is the power supply.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> *The problem is, it is going as fast as it can, we are adopting renewables faster per capita than any other Country in the World. *
> The problem is the constant chant, makes people believe it can be done faster, without having unintended consequences, when in reality if it ends in disaster those who shouted the most are the least accountable.



Shirley you can't be serious!!
There is absolutely no way we are going "as fast as we can" in terms of adopting renewable energy.  That is just not true in any way shape or form. 
From an engineering and resource point of view I'd be 100% confident  Australia could build far more renewable energy plant if there was direction and/or incentive. 

Where I would agree is in the overall planning of this new investment and ensuring that there is sufficient infrastructure to make sure it all works the way it is supposed to. The issue of storage and  transport are very real.

By the way where did you come up with the statement that we are adopting renewables faster per capita than any country in the world ? Who was the source?


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Shirley you can't be serious!!
> There is absolutely no way we are going "as fast as we can" in terms of adopting renewable energy.  That is just not true in any way shape or form.



Shows how little grasp you have of the reality.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08...st-energy-companies-over-sa-blackout/11390400
When you have the market operator taking generators to court, because they made a system unstable, you have a problem. Obviously a bit beyond you Shirl.



basilio said:


> From an engineering and resource point of view I'd be 100% confident  Australia could build far more renewable energy plant if there was direction and/or incentive.



On what engineering or technical knowledge do you base that? Or is it just another off the cuff makes it right statement?



basilio said:


> Where I would agree is in the overall planning of this new investment and ensuring that there is sufficient infrastructure to make sure it all works the way it is supposed to. The issue of storage and  transport are very real.



That will make everyone feel secure, knowing you aware of the storage and transport issues.


basilio said:


> By the way where did you come up with the statement that we are adopting renewables faster per capita than any country in the world ? Who was the source?



The statement was made in one of the journals i was reading regarding the installation rate in 2018.
However a quick google brought this article up first.
http://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/publications/assets/100renewables.pdf
Maybe a little reading, may help with a more holistic appreciation of the issues, the Guardian isn't the only source of info.
It also wouldn't hurt your knowledge base either, as your statements don't seem to reflect any under pinning knowledge.

Or are you going to complain about the ANU now? Francis


----------



## sptrawler

A 'like' is nice basil, but an apology wouldn't go astray. 

Or on the other hand, you could tell me where you sourced your information, for saying the installation of renewables could be done quicker.
Maybe it was just another chant.


----------



## basilio

*Fantastic SP.  That was a brilliant information source you provided regarding the rate of uptake of renewable energy, its relative ease and overall low cost.  I will definitely be using it. Much appreciated.*

When I questioned your statement about going as fast as we can I was just thinking in terms of our overall economic system that is *not *currently attempting to move to a totally renewable energy system.  I would have thought we are simply  seeing a range of market factors at work rather than physical limits of engineering capacity or finance. But of course "storage and infrastructure" is then the issue..

I acknowledged your point about storage and infrastructure. Smurf has drummed it into everyone and  I think every parrot on this forum has understood these issues.  Clearly I am another parrot!!

The fact that the energy regulator is having a go at the wind companies is interesting. I don't know enough to say who or what is at fault. Maybe you do ? Maybe the cyclonic conditions just created a situation that couldn't be dealt with by the system ? Perhaps there is a need for more redundancy in the system and better mechanisms to prevent total power failures ?


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> The most apt comparison with dealing with CC  in our current situation is total mobilisation for a war.



Agreed but there's one big difference - in a war things are directed to happen and they happen.

In contrast with the energy situation we've got a situation where nobody, not AEMO, not government, not other generators, knows for sure what any particular operator is going to do and other than in the short term there's really nobody calling the shots. There's also no real strategic plan of any sort, the closest we get to that is some guesses as to what might happen - that's "rear view mirror" planning not a forward plan and then implementing it.

That sort of approach wouldn't be tolerated for even 5 minutes in an actual military war - it's directly comparable to the troops considering the orders they've been given, then deciding to do something completely different. Or of having whatever munitions manufacturer deciding that the Army ought to be using different ammunition so they just change what they supply and when that doesn't fit in the guns it's not their problem.

To be fair to the companies involved, Snowy and Hydro Tas have for a long time made their plans public (via AEMO) a decade in advance on a detailed basis so that's major plant outages and so on. AGL decided to go along with that, not the full decade but 5 or so years, which seemed a pretty reasonable step forward. Sadly they ended up in a major crap fight with the federal government for doing so. So they basically were punished for voluntarily doing the right thing.

From a technical perspective it's doable certainly but it really needs the politics, ideology and bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy swept aside which is exactly what does happen in a war.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> *Fantastic SP.  That was a brilliant information source you provided regarding the rate of uptake of renewable energy, its relative ease and overall low cost.  I will definitely be using it. Much appreciated.*
> ?



Like I said, that was the first thing that came up, when I googled 'Australia's renewable energy installation rate', there is heaps of info available.
The subject interests me, probably due to my background, many probably find it a dry subject.
This is why most only have a surface knowledge, of the enormity, of the task that is faced.
It would be much easier to say, all cars in Australia will be electric by 2030, than making our whole electricity grid completely renewable based by 2050.IMO
Cars aren't an essential service, electricity is, our Country would come to a standstill, if we have a catastrophic failing of the grid.
Tasmania even though small in both size and population, gave an indication of what can happen, when something unforeseen goes wrong ala the Bass Link failure and subsequent dam storage issue.

*Just read your post smurf agree completely with the sentiment*, but it isn't mobilising troops or build tanks to send to war, it is building infrastructure that wont pay for itself for a long time.
If we were a communist Country, like China not a problem, just do it, but we aren't and it wont happen that quickly.
Speed is the issue, the Government can't afford it, the private will only put in what they can get a return from, meanwhile the generators get older and older.
If AGL want to close a 2000MW station, they should have to install 4000MW of renewables IMO, otherwise the instability will just increase.
The Government could own and install the dams and hydro's, to build in the storage and own the water, then the system might have a chance of being built right and built once.
Just my opinion.


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> Agreed but there's one big difference - in a war things are directed to happen and they happen.




Which is the point isn't it ?

I remember an observation made in WW2 when President Roosevelt made plans for  *MASSIVE* production rates of planes and boats etc. The  manufacturing companies fretted that they couldn't possibly achieve those goals  with all the cars they were making.

Roosevelt said  "Don't worry. Your not making cars any more..."


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> The fact that the energy regulator is having a go at the wind companies is interesting. I don't know enough to say who or what is at fault.



In layman's terms they built the wind farms and got them running but failed to properly assess how they'd perform in the event of an external grid disturbance and it turned out that the answer was "not very well".

In any power system things will go wrong, that's life and it happens no matter what technology. Eg with coal there was the dramatic failure of unit 2 at Loy Yang A (AGL) a few months ago - zero to nothing just like that in an instant. Much the same happened with Mortlake unit 2 (gas, Origin) more recently. Such problems tend to be less common with hydro plant but it's not unprecedented to have sudden total failure of plant. Same with transmission - lines can trip yes, that's always a risk.

The idea is that when something goes wrong in the system, everything else acts to contain that problem and keep the overall system stable.

Eg as a simple example, if there's 10 generators online each of the same capacity and running at 50% of capacity and one fails, we should now have 9 running at a higher output such that there's no interruption to supply and nobody outside the industry knows that anything went wrong. 

That this approach has historically worked almost flawlessly is why the general public tends to be unaware of just how common generating plant trips really are - it's not a daily event but it's not at all unusual that a unit trips offline, goes to zero, due to whatever problem and that has always been the case since with steam plant in particular there's a lot that can go wrong. That everything worked as it should in those situations is why most people are unaware that it happens and it's fairly frequent - as a consumer you don't see any change.

What happened with the wind farms in SA is that they were set up incorrectly and instead of continuing to operate when external faults occurred, they threw in the towel and shut down even though there was nothing wrong with them. The result of that was that in addition to the loss of transmission there was now also a loss of numerous generation sources, the wind farms, and once something like that happens the outcome will at best be widespread blackouts and at worst it ends with a total system collapse as occurred in practice.

As a concept that mode of failure is a bit like taking some pieces out of a structure, weakening it to the point that the whole thing then collapses. Top of it fails, that falls and hits the next level and breaks that, the combined weight of all that then breaks something else and within seconds you've got nothing more than a pile of rubble and a lot of dust everywhere. Same concept that like a row of dominoes, once control is lost the whole thing ends up going down real quick.

It's impossible to say with absolute certainty that the SA grid would have survived the physical destruction of multiple transmission lines as occurred but there would have been a much better chance of retaining supply to at least part of the state if the wind farms hadn't given up. You can't put power through lines that are down but you don't want to be shutting down generation connected to lines that are still up that's for sure.

All of that is ultimately not so much a failing of wind as a technology but a failing of humans to do things properly. That wind requires to be set up correctly, whereas it's an inherent and unavoidable feature of steam, gas turbine or hydro plant, means wind is to blame in that sense but only in that humans didn't do what needed to be done in view of the differences. The real failure was with humans not the wind.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Which is the point isn't it ?
> 
> I remember an observation made in WW2 when President Roosevelt made plans for  *MASSIVE* production rates of planes and boats etc. The  manufacturing companies fretted that they couldn't possibly achieve those goals  with all the cars they were making.
> 
> Roosevelt said  "Don't worry. Your not making cars any more..."




That comes down to the "free market economics" versus "central planning" approach really.

You'd never win a war without some degree of central planning but we are in practice trying to do just that with energy.

I don't have some ideological view that we should become socialist or anything like that, I'm not opposed to private ownership of utilities as a concept, but in order to run a system efficiently you need to take a system view of it and that's the bit that's missing. There's a failure to have anyone looking at the overall picture and that's what has lead us to where we are now.

To pick one random example, witness Alinta versus AGL shuffling about in SA a few years ago over who closed a power station? AGL went first, then Alinta jumped in and AGL backtracked, then once it was too late Engie scrapped generation in Victoria meaning that nothing should have been closed in SA - hence the state government's diesels being hastily installed. So a plant that was already there and medium cost to operate was replaced with some diesels of half the capacity, at a cost of ~$600 million and which cost a fortune to fire up. And now there's even more money being spent to put synchronous condensers, so that's big rotating machines, almost right next to the power station that was closed and blown up. Um..... 

Using that example, what's needed is a system wide view of it where someone makes a decision not one where everyone's trying to second guess everyone else and ends up getting it wrong and where nobody's actually responsible for the big picture.


----------



## basilio

Have to say that SP's source for how well Australia is moving into renewable energy, the savings that are being made and the opportunity to  dispense with many other energy sources ( petrol, gas) in favour of clean, cheap, renewable PV/Wind/ Hydro is compelling reading.

SP may have thought it a bit dry but I suggest it is very exciting and very encouraging. Wonder if our pollies can read ?

http://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/publications/assets/100renewables.pdf


----------



## Smurf1976

Current harsh weather conditions are producing an unusually wide variation in electricity spot prices between states. At present:

Qld = $0.00 (yep, literally free)
NSW = $1.68
SA = $20.20
Tas = $150.04
Vic = $163.44

The simple explanation is the wind and sun.

Lots of wind in the mainland states but not so much in Tas on the generation side plus lots of sun in Qld.

On the transmission side flow between SA and Vic has been restricted due to concern about potential failures (eg lines coming down) due to the weather whilst that between NSW and Vic is simply maxed out.

No prizes for guessing that with those prices water is being pumped in the Wivenhoe and Shoalhaven pumped hydro schemes in Qld and NSW respectively.

The end result is a fragmented market. Abundant generation in Qld, NSW, SA has pushed prices down there but can't get it into Vic where supply is tight with high demand due to the weather and significant coal-fired plant outages with the wind being insufficient to offset that within the state. That supply tightness in Vic has also dragged up the spot price in Tas with substantial volume being transferred Tas > Vic.

Just posted it for info for anyone who's interested in trading electricity which ultimately is a financial market much the same as anything else, albeit one that not many speculate on but still.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Just posted it for info for anyone who's interested in trading electricity which ultimately is a financial market much the same as anything else, albeit one that not many speculate on but still.




I didn't know you could trade electricity.

Given the criticism of water trading recently, I wonder if there is any inherent advantages to the consumer of electricity trading ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I didn't know you could trade electricity.



I should clarify a distinction in that my comments were about short term happenings in the spot market whereas any speculator would realistically only be able to trade futures but ultimately that sort of thing will influence the futures to the extent that it happens and has a risk of happening again (which it will).

https://www.asx.com.au/products/energy-derivatives/australian-electricity.htm

So the market with the ASX covers Qld, NSW, Vic and SA. 

Tas is part of the NEM but the market price is more about aligning with national systems than anything of consequence given that pretty much all bulk loads (retailers and heavy industry) is under contract anyway such that the market price is inconsequential therefore no active market in it. 

For WA and NT all very different......


----------



## Belli

A tale of two electricity bills.

First off, as I have said way back in this thread, I have two PV Solar systems.  One a 5kW SMA inverter with 19 x 345w panels.  The other a battery ready 5kW SolarEdge inverter with 19 x 345w panels and power optimisers.

The first bill covered the period 9 Feb to 8 May and provided a $123.23 refund.  The current bill is for the period 9 May to 8 August and the amount due is $591.10.  Net result is over 180 days the cost to me has been $467.87.  Not too bad as far as I am concerned.  This compares with a total of $1,210.96 for the pcp.

The current second period includes extensively operating the ducted recycle system for heating - after all, I do live in Canberra.

I ignored the, um, expert advice of my former electrician neighbour, who told me to set the timer to heat the house up in the morning.  OK so it's -4C ambient and probably -7C actual, the unit would go through a defrost stage and then consume heaps of energy heating a house from, say, 11C to a more comfortable 18C.

While the house is double glazed it will still gradually lose heat throughout a cold night.

So overnight I set the thermostat to the minimum allowed of 16C, unit is idle 70% to 80% of the time and only has to operate if the internal temperature drops by about 1C which seems consistent with the advice provided to me by the installers.

During the evening I do not have to set the thermostat to anything above 20C as, for me at least, that temperature is very cosy.  Others who have been in here mention that.

Also the second bill includes a 300 litre tank Solar Hot Water Service with an electrical boost. The 18 year old HWS blew up and rather than mess around I decided to throw money at the problem.  Cold showers in Canberra when it's -4C in the morning ain't my thing.  To overcome potential issues when solar production is lousy the electric boost does not operate on an off-peak basis as the house is on a night-time for that.  The difference between day/night off-peak and the peak rate is $0.80c per kWh.  Didn't seem worth doing to me.


----------



## Belli

Correction to the following.  The difference is actually $0.008 per kWh.  Putting the decimal point in the right place is a good idea.


Belli said:


> The difference between day/night off-peak and the peak rate is $0.80c per kWh. Didn't seem worth doing to me.


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting development in the NW of W.A, oil and apparently lots of it, it's just going to cost a lot to get it.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08...roject-using-fracking-west-kimberley/11389046


----------



## sptrawler

This lack of water and rainfall over East, is another problem that will affect the pumped storage debate, if there isn't enough storage to supply potable water, there may be a requirement to use some of the pumped storage sites.
Then they still require enough rainfall to fill and maintain the level in the pumped storage, I don't think it is all going to be as straight forward as people seem to think.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/...or-first-time-since-2004-20190815-p52hfx.html
The existing desalination plant output is going to be doubled already, which means more generation required, bit of a vicious circle really.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> The existing desalination plant output is going to be doubled already, which means more generation required, bit of a vicious circle really.



Just read up a bit more on the desal plant, and apparently a windfarm has been built, to mitigate the demand. looks as though they thought ahead a bit.


----------



## qldfrog

Actually desalination is one activity you could fluctuate based on wing power production.not optimum but easier than smelters..


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Harder to maintain perhaps, but maybe more efficient at catching sea breezes and easier on wildlife..




Aren’t the animals in the ocean “wild life” too?

————

I am not that concerned about solar panels and wind farms using land, at the end of he day it’s a temporary use of the land, unlike an open pit coal mine.


----------



## sptrawler

Unless the two OOS units get repaired as promised, by December, there is every likely hood of power outages in Victoria this summer.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08...power-supply-not-improved-aemo-warns/11436518


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Unless the two OOS units get repaired as promised, by December, there is every likely hood of power outages in Victoria this summer.




The reality of the situation is starting to sink in it seems. There's more bad news to come but at least the penny's dropped that ending up with millions of people literally left in the dark is a very real possibility just months from now.

Victoria's in the worst shape by far, being heavily reliant on surrounding states to keep the lights on.

Then there's the real elephant in the room - the imminent sharp decline in Victoria's gas production. Can't run gas-fired generation without any gas! Some of it has diesel as backup but quite a bit doesn't.

On the financial side I will simply say that there's a lot of risks here when prices normally around ~100 / MWh spike to $14,000+. A lot of money starts changing hands real quick under those circumstances and you don't want to be an unhedged buyer from the market at that point. You don't really want to be owning shares in anyone in that situation either.

Whilst this is posted in General Chat there are undoubtedly financial implications for quite a few listed companies and not just the obvious ones like AGL or Origin.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The reality of the situation is starting to sink in it seems. There's more bad news to come but at least the penny's dropped that ending up with millions of people literally left in the dark is a very real possibility just months from now.
> 
> Victoria's in the worst shape by far, being heavily reliant on surrounding states to keep the lights on.
> .




I noticed in the article the AEMO, is starting to state the obvious, something has to be done in the foreseeable future.
It is all starting to get a bit wobbly.


----------



## moXJO

sptrawler said:


> I noticed in the article the AEMO, is starting to state the obvious, something has to be done in the foreseeable future.
> It is all starting to get a bit wobbly.



It amazes me that we even got to this point.....
The government needs to step up and get it done.


----------



## sptrawler

moXJO said:


> It amazes me that we even got to this point.....
> The government needs to step up and get it done.



IMO it isn't that easy, everyone believes it can be fixed with renewables, when in reality the time constraints make that impossible.
If we had 20-30 years no problem, we don't in reality from the sound of the condition of the existing power stations, something is needed in the next 5 or so years because the problem is compounding.
It isn't a static problem, in 5 years stations fall over, while others are getting older and are used and abused more, therefore they start falling over. IMO a circuit breaker is needed, something that is new that can take the stress of the existing plant, as more renewables are installed.
So it is either coal, gas, diesel, hydro or nuclear, none of which are easy for different reasons.
Coal- no problems with supply, but no one wants it.
Gas- big problems with supply of gas.
Diesel- bloody expensive to run, I mean eye watering expensive.
Hydro- way to go, but long planning and lead times (snowy 2.0) is already in planning and Tasmania is increasing hydro generation and storage.
Nuclear- ticks all the boxes with emissions, but huge amount of money, huge lead time, huge public backlash.
No quick fix.
Just my opinion.


----------



## moXJO

sptrawler said:


> IMO it isn't that easy, everyone believes it can be fixed with renewables, when in reality the time constraints make that impossible.
> If we had 20-30 years no problem, we don't in reality from the sound of the condition of the existing power stations, something is needed in the next 5 or so years because the problem is compounding.
> It isn't a static problem, in 5 years stations fall over, while others are getting older and are used and abused more, therefore they start falling over. IMO a circuit breaker is needed, something that is new that can take the stress of the existing plant, as more renewables are installed.
> So it is either coal, gas, diesel, hydro or nuclear, none of which are easy for different reasons.
> Coal- no problems with supply, but no one wants it.
> Gas- big problems with supply of gas.
> Diesel- bloody expensive to run, I mean eye watering expensive.
> Hydro- way to go, but long planning and lead times (snowy 2.0) is already in planning and Tasmania is increasing hydro generation and storage.
> Nuclear- ticks all the boxes with emissions, but huge amount of money, huge lead time, huge public backlash.
> No quick fix.
> Just my opinion.



You are absolutely correct. 
This has been seen as a problem for over a decade with little action. If decisive action was taken earlier we wouldn't be in this mess.


----------



## sptrawler

moXJO said:


> You are absolutely correct.
> This has been seen as a problem for over a decade with little action. If decisive action was taken earlier we wouldn't be in this mess.



Also if perfectly good power stations weren't blown up, until an alternative had been installed, they wouldn't be in this situation.


----------



## Smurf1976

moXJO said:


> You are absolutely correct.
> This has been seen as a problem for over a decade with little action. If decisive action was taken earlier we wouldn't be in this mess.



Agreed but the big problem, the real underlying one, is not that it's difficult from an engineering perspective but that the law makes anything sensible rather difficult.

A market and a system are different things.

The electricity grid is a system but problem is that politicians insist on treating it as a market. That's the ultimate cause of the situation we have now - actually planning anything isn't simply not being done, it's illegal in practice for anyone with the ability to make it happen to be doing so.


----------



## moXJO

sptrawler said:


> Also if perfectly good power stations weren't blown up, until an alternative had been installed, they wouldn't be in this situation.



Yeah its crazy stuff. Ideology trumps reality these days,  both ways.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Also if perfectly good power stations weren't blown up, until an alternative had been installed, they wouldn't be in this situation.




Alinta shut a perfectly good power station because they weren't in on AGL's plans to close Torrens Island A or Liddell, they weren't aware of what Engie were doing with Hazelwood, Alcoa with Anglesea or of the SA - NSW transmission line either.

All comes down to it being viewed as a market when in reality it's a system.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Alinta shut a perfectly good power station because they weren't in on AGL's plans to close Torrens Island A or Liddell, they weren't aware of what Engie were doing with Hazelwood, Alcoa with Anglesea or of the SA - NSW transmission line either.
> 
> All comes down to it being viewed as a market when in reality it's a system.



Also the S.A Government, refused to take it over, because it didn't fit in with their ideology.
Yet they are still part of that grid and it would have assisted in the stability of the grid. 
Instead they have a situation, where they have had to stick diesel gen sets all over the place, weird logics. IMO
It really is a shocking mess. IMO


----------



## SirRumpole

Risks of blackout unlikely in next 10 years says AEMO.

(With fingers firmly crossed).

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-23/dont-panic-the-lights-will-probably-stay-on/11439600


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Risks of blackout unlikely in next 10 years says AEMO.
> 
> (With fingers firmly crossed).
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-23/dont-panic-the-lights-will-probably-stay-on/11439600



As per usual it boils down to who is writing the article.


----------



## sptrawler

This article, gives an indication of the issue I brought up earlier, about how much arable land and habitat will be lost by this solar panel installation plan.
I think it will be a huge issue, when the 'Greenies" wake up IMO. 

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australian-sunshine-could-soon-be-farmed-to-power-an-asian-nation

_From the article.
David Griffin is an entrepreneur and leader in the development of Australia's renewable energy industry and his ambitious new plan to power Singapore from a 15,000-hectare solar farm in the Northern Territory has investors taking interest worldwide.
The solar farm would sprawl over 15,000 hectares, backed by a 10-gigawatt plant.

The Northern Territory Government recently granted ‘major project’ status with construction expected to start in 2023. Environmental approvals are pending_ .

Also that is to supply someone else, we will need several more of these scale plants, to supply ourselves, interesting times ahead.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> This article, gives an indication of the issue I brought up earlier, about how much arable land and habitat will be lost by this solar panel installation plan.



There is no need at all to put solar where arable land is.  However, there are already solar farms integrating with cropping, with the panels providing essential shading from the severe heat during the hottest months.
In terms of total required for solar to power the whole of Australia i hope you realise that we are talking a small fraction of one percent of the continent's size.  However, much of suburbia will, in years to come, be energy sufficient as battery and panel prices continue to decline.  Furthermore, an international energy export market will be in play before the end of the 2020s and Australia needs to take decisive action sooner rather than later in order to capitalise.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> There is no need at all to put solar where arable land is.  However, there are already solar farms integrating with cropping, with the panels providing essential shading from the severe heat during the hottest months.
> In terms of total required for solar to power the whole of Australia i hope you realise that we are talking a small fraction of one percent of the continent's size.  However, much of suburbia will, in years to come, be energy sufficient as battery and panel prices continue to decline.  Furthermore, an international energy export market will be in play before the end of the 2020s and Australia needs to take decisive action sooner rather than later in order to capitalise.



That still wont change the backlash, that hasn't picked up pace yet. IMO
Just an observation, not an issue to start debating, the outcome will be self resolving.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> That still wont change the backlash, that hasn't picked up pace yet. IMO
> Just an observation, not an issue to start debating, the outcome will be self resolving.



You realise you are "forecasting" an outcome based on a poor understanding?
That's not to say there will be imbeciles who are incapable of simple maths and also jump to a false conclusion, as there is zero need to put solar farms on arable land.
Additionally, solar farms are being placed where land is dirt cheap, and rainfall is low (given cloud cover reduces solar output).  So more remote regions will be most profitable.  The greater initial cost will be connecting them to the grid.
This shows the area needed to meet Australia's power needs:






But as I said previously, residential solar (and storage in particular) will continue to increase, so that *dot *above will remain very small.

Very different story with wind, as the footprint of a wind turbine is fractional and will have minimum impact on agriculture. 
What I am not grasping is the type of "backlash" you are suggesting is likely.  Exactly what will people be concerned about?


----------



## sptrawler

The World as Uncle Rob sees it.
In a lot of people's eyes, no matter where they put them it is somethings habitat and some people will take exception to it. Ala Bob Brown and the wind farm on an Island in Bass Straight.
Jeez you really do take yourself seriously don't you, is everyone who doesn't say what you want to hear an idiot?
Here are a few proposed solar farms.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2...e-energy-potential-to-power-indonesia/8853238

https://reneweconomy.com.au/pilbara...-to-11gw-as-macquarie-provides-capital-47749/

https://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/worlds-largest-solar-farm-nt-singapore/

This is just the beginning and you don't think people will say something? Best of luck with that.
The above is without considering the installations Australia needs for its own use.
The other problem is, if they are installed where there is no cloud cover and low rainfall, dust will be a huge issue. Dust cover can reduce output 40% no problem.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/sc...ollution-can-block-25-percent-of-solar-power/

https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/08/23/2988933.htm
From the article:
_"A dust layer of 4 grams per square metre decreases solar power conversion by 40%," he says.

"In Arizona, dust is deposited each month at over 4 times that amount. Deposition rates are even higher in Australia, the Middle East, and India_.

They still haven't come up with a way of auto cleaning on a mass scale and from your article 900sq/klm . and that is just for us.
Your funny Rob.


----------



## bellenuit

I think the solar foot print is a non-issue, particularly in Australia.  We are currently only scratching the surface of where solar collectors can be located. Solar panels are just the first iteration of solar collectors and even those can have their foot print much reduced by proper design of new buildings and factories. Roof design to optimise solar collection should be a huge factor in all new building design. But there are also advancements being made in alternative collectors such as paint, road surfaces and car roofs. Cost is a huge factor, but that will improve over time. Potentially every surface exposed to the sun can become a collector. It is just a matter of whether it is a cost effective source.


----------



## sptrawler

bellenuit said:


> I think the solar foot print is a non-issue, particularly in Australia.  We are currently only scratching the surface of where solar collectors can be located. Solar panels are just the first iteration of solar collectors and even those can have their foot print much reduced by proper design of new buildings and factories. Roof design to optimise solar collection should be a huge factor in all new building design. But there are also advancements being made in alternative collectors such as paint, road surfaces and car roofs. Cost is a huge factor, but that will improve over time. Potentially every surface exposed to the sun can become a collector. It is just a matter of whether it is a cost effective source.



I agree with you on a technical basis.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Jeez you really do take yourself seriously don't you, is everyone who doesn't say what you want to hear an idiot?



I asked about the *backlash*, and you offered nothing.
Wind turbines can be unsightly in pristine wilderness environments and the questions Bob Brown has asked are legitimate.  The south coast of Australia's mainland - from Albany to Port Augusta - is probably a better option for turbines, but won't win any votes.
Rather than invent problems, how about you stump up with the issues you consider are going to cause concern.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I asked about the *backlash*, and you offered nothing.
> Wind turbines can be unsightly in pristine wilderness environments and the questions Bob Brown has asked are legitimate.  The south coast of Australia's mainland - from Albany to Port Augusta - is probably a better option for turbines, but won't win any votes.
> Rather than invent problems, how about you stump up with the issues you consider are going to cause concern.



Well I actually did offer something, I  said quote:
In a lot of people's eyes, no matter where they put them it is somethings habitat and some people will take exception to it. Ala Bob Brown and the wind farm on an Island in Bass Straight.
Now to move on.
From your posted article, it states that Australia for domestic supply requires 900sq/klm of solar farms, that is nearly half the size of Victoria.
The proposed farm in the N.W of W.A is expected to cover 7,000 sq/Klm, which is nearly 3 times the size of Victoria.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/huge-pi...igger-as-focus-turns-to-green-hydrogen-64292/
Then add to that the proposed solar farms in the N.T and North Queensland, also the requirement to dam suitable sites, you are bound to come into the cultural, flora and fauna issues, as happened with the James Price Point proposal near Broome, the Roe 8 freeway extension in Perth etc.
I hope it all goes well but I doubt it will, everyone has vested interests, but it will be self resolving as I said.
People will demand safe, reliable power.


----------



## rederob

@sptrawler - please do your maths better.
As to your Bob Brown quote, you need to context it to his overall comments, and you did not.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> @sptrawler - please do your maths better.
> As to your Bob Brown quote, you need to context it to his overall comments, and you did not.



Wow. 
Good point.
The issue still remains, with regard backlash, take Gove peninsula for example.
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...cts-unmerciful-destruction-of-indigenous-land
To think there wont be a backlash is not realistic IMO.
You are talking about clearing a lot of vegetation, it isn't sand hills out there and people will react sooner or later. IMO


----------



## rederob

Australia’s land area is 7,692,000 km² and to generate the energy for the country would require 919km² complete coverage, or 0.01% of Australia.  Solar farms have lots of ground uncovered.
One of the world's biggest solar farms is the 2,000 megawatt Pavagada solar park, which spans a total area of 53km² across the villages of Nagalmadike Hobli, including Vallur, Balasamudra, Tirumani, Rayacharlu, and Kyataganacharlu in Pavagada:







sptrawler said:


> The proposed farm in the N.W of W.A is expected to cover 7,000 sq/Klm, which is nearly 3 times the size of Victoria.



Very creative maths - or are you talking about a different Victoria?


----------



## sptrawler

Yes my stuff up on the maths, too much happening at home, lol
I can't see how they are working out the amount required, the one in NW W.A is going to be 11GW and cover 7,000sq/km.
The Eastern States need a lot more than 11GW yet from your article, it will only cover an area of 900sq/km, something doesn't add up.
If system load is 30GW at 5PM, they need the storage and generation to supply it, that is a lot of  generation.
Like I say, it will be self resolving and it will be very interesting, I'm really looking forward to see it unfold.


----------



## SirRumpole

Yet another report on the viability of nuclear power from the Australia Institute a progressive think tank.

I wonder if we will ever get a truly independent report on our future power needs. (maybe if Smurf writes it )

Ziggy Switowski reckoned we should have 25 nuclear reactors by 2050.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08...ower-is-not-the-answer-for-australia/11450850


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yet another report on the viability of nuclear power from the Australia Institute a progressive think tank.
> 
> I wonder if we will ever get a truly independent report on our future power needs. (maybe if Smurf writes it )
> 
> Ziggy Switowski reckoned we should have 25 nuclear reactors by 2050.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08...ower-is-not-the-answer-for-australia/11450850



Like I said to Rob, the issue will become self resolving, if renewables can't cut it, then something will be put in be that nuclear or fossil fuel, whether the left like it or not.
If renewables can effectively run the system 24/7 for 365 days of the year, then that is great and they will be the answer, time will tell.
There is one thing for sure, if the East coast is sitting there in the dark, with no power untill the sun comes up, something will be done.
A good test, would be to cut the power lines into S.A and see how they go, without running their fossil fueled stations.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I asked about the *backlash*, and you offered nothing.
> Wind turbines can be unsightly in pristine wilderness environments and the questions Bob Brown has asked are legitimate.  The south coast of Australia's mainland - from Albany to Port Augusta - is probably a better option for turbines, but won't win any votes.
> Rather than invent problems, how about you stump up with the issues you consider are going to cause concern.



Hi Rob, I saw this on the internet this morning, just as a point of interest.
https://www.yasstribune.com.au/stor...up-raises-concerns-about-solar-farm-proposal/
From the article:
_The Sutton Solar Action Group (SSAG) has continued to express its concerns and awareness about a proposed solar farm on Tallagandra Lane, about 3.5km northeast of the ACT–NSW border.

The $150 million Springdale Solar Farm by Renew Estate is proposed to have a 30-year lifespan and would be on 350 hectares of land currently used for grazing.

SSAG, which was formed by 10 Sutton residents in November 2017, said the development was a solar-power station rather than a solar farm.

Top among the group’s concerns is the location and size of the proposal.

“We are not against the development of renewable energy technologies as an alternative to fossil fuels.

“We do, however, believe that our community is not the appropriate location for a hub of large-scale developments of this kind,” SSAG spokesperson Peter Gillett said.

The proposal will consist of more than 400,000 solar panels, which would have supporting infrastructure of commercial buildings covering 3,500m2_.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I can't see how they are working out the amount required, the one in NW W.A is going to be 11GW and cover 7,000sq/km.
> The Eastern States need a lot more than 11GW yet from your article, it will only cover an area of 900sq/km, something doesn't add up.



The theoretical total area of panels at maximum efficiency needed to power Australia was identified, rather than the "practical" size of any solar installations.


sptrawler said:


> If renewables can effectively run the system 24/7 for 365 days of the year, then that is great and they will be the answer, time will tell.



The intermittency issues of wind and solar are well known, and the energy regulator needs to ensure that policies - like those now being adopted in the USA - which integrate capacity with battery storage, are essential to the success of renewable adaptation.
We continue to raise here the fact that government policy making has been sadly and glaringly lacking for a vary long time on energy policy matters.  The "fix" is simple.  The willingness seems to dissipate into the ether.


sptrawler said:


> Hi Rob, I saw this on the internet this morning, just as a point of interest.
> https://www.yasstribune.com.au/stor...up-raises-concerns-about-solar-farm-proposal/



I am not aware this project is going ahead.  It is very poorly sited, and had as its main advantage simple and immediate access to the grid.  I would have joined SSAG, as I lived in Canberra and know exactly where the site is having worked occasionally on a friend's farm in the area.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Yet another report on the viability of nuclear power from the Australia Institute a progressive think tank.
> 
> I wonder if we will ever get a truly independent report on our future power needs. (maybe if Smurf writes it )
> 
> Ziggy Switowski reckoned we should have 25 nuclear reactors by 2050.




The big problem is that most reports, studies etc are done by someone with a vested interest in a specific outcome.

Aspiring gas importers unsurprisingly come up with solutions which involve using gas.

Mining companies come up with solutions which involve something being mined.

Transmission companies come up with solutions which involve a lot of transmission lines.

And so on.

Big problem is that nobody's looking at the whole picture and that hasn't really been done for a quarter century now hence the mess we're in.

At a personal level I've concluded that it will take a major crisis to bring any real action and I know I'm not the only one who's come to that conclusion. Government and much of the population have their heads so far in the sand it ain't funny.

No energy supply = no food or water for most of the population. And yet bizarrely we have lots of apparent concern about farms and water but not the diesel and electricity without which they fail to function.

Looking at the immediate future, Victoria's in a world of pain if the various major problems aren't fixed by the end of the year. With the major failures at Loy Yang A and Mortlake, the extended outage of two units at Somerton, ongoing issues at Yallourn and now a major transmission failure onshore in Victoria cutting all supply between Tasmania and Victoria, it's all rather shaky that's for sure.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> The big problem is that most reports, studies etc are done by someone with a vested interest in a specific outcome.
> 
> Aspiring gas importers unsurprisingly come up with solutions which involve using gas.
> 
> Mining companies come up with solutions which involve something being mined.
> 
> Transmission companies come up with solutions which involve a lot of transmission lines.
> 
> And so on.
> 
> Big problem is that nobody's looking at the whole picture and that hasn't really been done for a quarter century now hence the mess we're in.
> 
> At a personal level I've concluded that it will take a major crisis to bring any real action and I know I'm not the only one who's come to that conclusion. Government and much of the population have their heads so far in the sand it ain't funny.
> 
> No energy supply = no food or water for most of the population. And yet bizarrely we have lots of apparent concern about farms and water but not the diesel and electricity without which they fail to function.
> 
> Looking at the immediate future, Victoria's in a world of pain if the various major problems aren't fixed by the end of the year. With the major failures at Loy Yang A and Mortlake, the extended outage of two units at Somerton, ongoing issues at Yallourn and now a major transmission failure onshore in Victoria cutting all supply between Tasmania and Victoria, it's all rather shaky that's for sure.




You would have thought that the Finkle report was written by someone without a vested interest in anything, but as usual for political reasons his report is gathering dust on a shelf somewhere.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Yet another report on the viability of nuclear power from the Australia Institute a progressive think tank.
> 
> I wonder if we will ever get a truly independent report on our future power needs. (maybe if Smurf writes it )
> 
> Ziggy Switowski reckoned we should have 25 nuclear reactors by 2050.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08...ower-is-not-the-answer-for-australia/11450850



Most Australians are clueless about what going nuclear would mean, because they only really think about the problem of waste storage.
The practical reality is that for us to go nuclear would put us at energy peril, because the nuclear processing cycle exists overseas and Australia does not have the technical skills, nor the "volumes" to make it a viable industry here.
In lay terms, it means we send uranium oxide (aka yellow cake - ie, the  uranium concentrate powder obtained after leaching mined ore) overseas for enrichment and use as an end product, and once that's occurred we become a customer of those companies. 
That makes little sense as we would relinquish our energy independence, while we are awash with coal, gas, and renewable energy potential.
There is this cute idea that "small" nuclear reactors could be placed all over the nation, or that thorium is the answer.  These ideas prosper in cyberspace, and nowhere else.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Most Australians are clueless about what going nuclear would mean, because they only really think about the problem of waste storage.



Nailed it.

There are places in the world where nuclear is arguably a sensible choice but quite simply Australia isn't one of them since the conditions which favour it are, broadly speaking, the opposite of the circumstances we have in Australia. 

That said, the way things are going we'll end up with an "anything that works" approach regardless of how sensible it is.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Nailed it.
> 
> There are places in the world where nuclear is arguably a sensible choice but quite simply Australia isn't one of them since the conditions which favour it are, broadly speaking, the opposite of the circumstances we have in Australia.
> 
> That said, the way things are going we'll end up with an "anything that works" approach regardless of how sensible it is.




That is the whole issue IMO, the unbending demand that only renewables be installed, meanwhile existing base load gets older and fails more.
Eventually it all falls on its ar$e and as you say, anything that works will get the nod.

The way things are going over East, something big will have to be built in the next 5-10 years, what it is will depend on how dramatic the system failures become. IMO
If there are a few minor stem failures, we will muddle on.
If there are huge areas blacked out, for extended periods, on a regular basis.
Then there will be a call, for something major to be built.
Time will tell, it will be self resolving.


----------



## IFocus

No policy, no plan, think about the size and complexity 5,10,20,30, even 40 year planning give capital certainty as to the model / system at the moment it just seems random although there must be some thing happening in the back ground surely?


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> That is the whole issue IMO, the unbending demand that only renewables be installed, meanwhile existing base load gets older and fails more.



That's a complete misunderstanding of where we are at.
Without an overarching policy on energy there is no incentive for the private sector presently to spend on more baseload given that the best bang for their buck is from renewables, even if it's idle.
At best Snowy 2.0 is 2024, so that is not going to keep the lights on as the south east swelters through another 5-6 hot summers.
The federal Minister should be sacked, and someone competent be put to the task.  But that will not work either, because the Coalition are ideologically opposed to the concept that renewables should be predominant.  So long as we have the private sector investing in the cheapest form of energy, and no national policies to ensure energy security for consumers, we will remain in this rut.
The notion that this will be "self resolving" is really code for "things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get any better."


----------



## Smurf1976

IFocus said:


> there must be some thing happening in the back ground surely?




The big problem is the lack of room to move when things go wrong, due to insufficient capacity, and the amount of problems actually occurring now being rather high.

I've previously mentioned the major failures at Loy Yang A and Mortlake plus the onshore transmission fault in Victoria which has cut all supply to and from Tasmania.

I don't think the details are public so I won't say much but on 28th August another significant source of supply in Victoria failed in the early hours of the morning.

It's pure good luck that the weather is mild due to seasonal factors but if it was properly hot / cold or if much more went wrong then things would be rather interesting in Victoria yes.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> That's a complete misunderstanding of where we are at.
> Without an overarching policy on energy there is no incentive for the private sector presently to spend on more baseload given that the best bang for their buck is from renewables, even if it's idle.
> At best Snowy 2.0 is 2024, so that is not going to keep the lights on as the south east swelters through another 5-6 hot summers.
> The federal Minister should be sacked, and someone competent be put to the task.  But that will not work either, because the Coalition are ideologically opposed to the concept that renewables should be predominant.  So long as we have the private sector investing in the cheapest form of energy, and no national policies to ensure energy security for consumers, we will remain in this rut.
> The notion that this will be "self resolving" is really code for "things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get any better."



Very rousing, maybe you could make a suggestion, as to what size renewable generating and storage plant could be installed to overcome the obvious problem with base load dispatchable power.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> The big problem is the lack of room to move when things go wrong, due to insufficient capacity, and the amount of problems actually occurring now being rather high.
> 
> I've previously mentioned the major failures at Loy Yang A and Mortlake plus the onshore transmission fault in Victoria which has cut all supply to and from Tasmania.
> 
> I don't think the details are public so I won't say much but on 28th August another significant source of supply in Victoria failed in the early hours of the morning.
> 
> It's pure good luck that the weather is mild due to seasonal factors but if it was properly hot / cold or if much more went wrong then things would be rather interesting in Victoria yes.




IMHO, instead of stuffing around waiting for the private sector to do something, State and Federal governments should be building new combined cycle gas plants and making sure, through a reservations policy that we have the gas to feed them, plus encouraging the development of other fuels like ethanol or hydrogen as  reserve fuels.

The policy vacuum is going to weigh heavily on us very quickly if no action is taken.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Very rousing, maybe you could make a suggestion, as to what size renewable generating and storage plant could be installed to overcome the obvious problem with base load dispatchable power.



Baseload is not the issue.
The issue is capacity in extreme circumstances.
To propose renewables as a problem ignores the issue of policy settings necessary to ensure that load shedding events can be circumvented.
While electricity prices are high enough to signal new entry for lower cost plant technologies, barriers to entry have for a number of years now stalled investment in non-renewable generation.
Investors continue to cite a lack of stability and predictability in government energy policy, market interventions (eg Snowy 2.0), government ownership in the industry (look at Tassie!), difficulties in obtaining finance given policy uncertainty, vertical integration, and contract market liquidity as barriers.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Baseload is not the issue.
> The issue is capacity in extreme circumstances.
> .



Base load is a problem, otherwise overnight your storage is being used, when morning load starts coming in at 0600, there is no point having most of yesterdays storage gone.
 It may well be an overcast day, with no wind, meanwhile everyone is looking at the depleted storage levels, of course base load is an issue.
If you have several days, where renewables can't cover the day time load and top up the storage, then you have a major issue.
What isn't an issue is the evening peak, everything should be ready and charged, covering that is the easy part.IMO
If as you say, it is only times of extreme circumstances, they can be circumvented by voluntary load shedding.


----------



## basilio

This story is for anyone  who wants to open a conversation about the economics and practicalities of  a nuclear power station vs renewable energy.

A rolling absolute disaster. The wiki article has some  horrible insights.

* Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant *
Illustration for Hinkley Point nuclear plant long read Illustration: Guardian Design Team
Building Britain’s first new nuclear reactor since 1995 will cost twice as much as the 2012 Olympics – and by the time it is finished, nuclear power could be a thing of the past. How could the government strike such a bad deal? By Holly Watt

https://www.theguardian.com/news/20...deal-behind-worlds-most-expensive-power-plant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Base load is a problem, otherwise overnight your storage is being used, when morning load starts coming in at 0600, there is no point having most of yesterdays storage gone.
> It may well be an overcast day, with no wind, meanwhile everyone is looking at the depleted storage levels, of course base load is an issue.
> If you have several days, where renewables can't cover the day time load and top up the storage, then you have a major issue.
> What isn't an issue is the evening peak, everything should be ready and charged, covering that is the easy part.IMO
> If as you say, it is only times of extreme circumstances, they can be circumvented by voluntary load shedding.



Nope.
You are inventing a problem which did not exist.
For many decades there was plenty base load power and renewables were never part of the mix.
Nowadays renewables are eating into the time of day where energy is most required, not when it is least required.
You need to apply critical thinking to this issue.
The correct issue to address is ensuring that known consumption peaks are married to capacity.
In that regard, the policy makers have failed.
As existing generators break down or are phased out, replacement capacity should be matching it in every regard.  But there is no investment incentive for this to occur.  So, investment is instead in the cheapest sources of energy, and there is no requirement that they have concomitant storage.
Your ideas were along the lines of there being some agenda that demanded only renewables be installed, whereas it is a simple investment decision being made while the policy makers do their vacuous best.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Nope.
> You are inventing a problem which did not exist.
> For many decades there was plenty base load power and renewables were never part of the mix.
> Nowadays renewables are eating into the time of day where energy is most required, not when it is least required.
> You need to apply critical thinking to this issue.
> The correct issue to address is ensuring that known consumption peaks are married to capacity.
> In that regard, the policy makers have failed.
> As existing generators break down or are phased out, replacement capacity should be matching it in every regard.  But there is no investment incentive for this to occur.  So, investment is instead in the cheapest sources of energy, and there is no requirement that they have concomitant storage.
> Your ideas were along the lines of there being some agenda that demanded only renewables be installed, whereas it is a simple investment decision being made while the policy makers do their vacuous best.




As far as I know, the problem is the only investment ATM, is in renewables.

But I do find your definitive answers compelling, their is an air of authority and knowledge about them.


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> This story is for anyone  who wants to open a conversation about the economics and practicalities of  a nuclear power station vs renewable energy.
> 
> A rolling absolute disaster. The wiki article has some  horrible insights.
> 
> * Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant *
> Illustration for Hinkley Point nuclear plant long read Illustration: Guardian Design Team
> Building Britain’s first new nuclear reactor since 1995 will cost twice as much as the 2012 Olympics – and by the time it is finished, nuclear power could be a thing of the past. How could the government strike such a bad deal? By Holly Watt
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/news/20...deal-behind-worlds-most-expensive-power-plant
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station




As pointed out in the first article, power generation and cost benefit analyses are secondary as far as nuclear reactors in the superpowers are concerned.

The main reason they were constructed in the first place and are still being constructed is to provide fuel for nuclear weapons and nuclear submarines, the rest is just for show.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> As pointed out in the first article, power generation and cost benefit analyses are secondary as far as nuclear reactors in the superpowers are concerned.
> 
> The main reason they were constructed in the first place and are still being constructed is to provide fuel for nuclear weapons and nuclear submarines, the rest is just for show.



Several are becoming expert and repeating what has been discussed at length previously. IMO


----------



## Smurf1976

On the question of government versus private ownership I'll note a few things (in random order):

*Electricity is fundamentally a system not a market. This point was recognised by government in Tasmania back in the 1990's when the privatisation question seriously arose - you could privatise Hydro Tas successfully so long as you sold the whole lot to one operator. Split it up and then you've got entrenched inefficiencies and that's exactly what has happened in places which went down that track.

*Hydro Tas isn't perfect but it's a reasonably efficient operator as confirmed by external reviews. To the extent that any cost reduction is possible, it thus relates primarily to the cost of capital not to operational expenditure. That is, private ownership could do it cheaper only by accepting a return on investment below the long term government bond rate. That's the inescapable reality when most costs are up front and already incurred.

*The market in Tasmania is and has always been highly focused on trade exposed industry and heat applications in competition with other fuels. That was the case a century ago and it still is today. Just because the market price has risen nationally doesn't mean it can be passed onto consumers - international factors and the cost of other fuels determine that. 

*There's no lack of willingness to invest in Tasmania at present indeed there's somewhat a boom going on down there with intermittent renewables. That investors are able to avoid most of the technical and regulatory risks by going to the island state and working with HT rather than trying to compete against them is ultimately driving that.

*To be clear, the market in Tas is open should anyone wish to compete and same goes for Queensland. They will of course need to seriously sharpen their pencils - in both states they're competing in a market driven by trade exposed industry where the focus will be on overseas pricing not what some other company is doing locally.

*Snowy Hydro, Hydro Tas and the Queensland government owned electricity entities are not themselves government despite being owned by it. Snowy in particular is however an obvious and convenient target for those who wish to express frustration with the Australian government over the whole situation. 

*Most players in the industry realised long ago that they needed to understand how the others work. That is, those who are privately owned realised they needed to understand how government owned companies and government itself works and thinks. Meanwhile the remaining government owned entities realised that they needed to fully understand how large privately owned  businesses function and some of them took that to extremes to get the detail right. Those on both sides who failed to do so have either ended up with someone else owning them or are having an awful lot of drama because of it. 

*There are plenty of contracts between parties including those with a privately owned company on one side and a government owned one on the other. Business is business no matter who the shareholders happen to be.

*There's one particular company which has managed to get pretty much everyone offside one way or another with their adversarial approach. Workers, unions, governments, equipment suppliers, rival companies, everyone really. For the others, well business is business just get on with it no need to throw stones at everyone and start a war and to be clear there are plenty of (perfectly legal) arrangements between a number of "rival" companies on commercial terms.

*To the extent there's a rather visible divide between the two big government owned hydro operators and some of the big private operators it really comes down to what the end game is.

One one side it's big pumped hydro, smaller privately owned storage schemes (hydro and battery) and privately owned renewables as the energy source for a "100% renewable" grid which in due course also replaces the direct use of other fuels, eg gas, for heating etc.

On the side other it's a combination of privately owned renewables, smaller privately owned storage schemes (hydro and battery) and an expansion of gas production and/or imports and a system that eventually uses no coal bit with significant use of gas for power and no intention of ever replacing gas for water heating etc.

Those two objectives, 100% renewables via big storage projects versus expanding the use of gas, are mutually exclusive and thus put their proponents on a direct collision course with each other. That one side is backed by two companies which are both government owned, and the other is backed by private enterprise, adds a broader ideological and political aspect to that divide.

Amidst all that there are some who are finding a way through better than others. If you're a privately owned generator and can own wind and solar, and you can sign contracts with Snowy selling to and buying from them, and you can be the retailer, well then there's still a very viable business in that so long as you can put aside any ideological thoughts about who owns what and the merits of gas. There are companies doing just that certainly.

On the whole issue more broadly, well I could have said 6 hours ago that:

1. There's no immediate crisis but there's not a lot of room left in Victoria between demand and supply. 

2. Wind and solar is going to waste in Victoria and SA right at this moment.

Both would be absolutely true statements just a few hours ago but I reckon I'd have maybe 1 or 2% of the population able to grasp that without further explanation and therein lies the problem in all of this. It's a technical field which under normal circumstances would be of no real interest to most people just like they don't really care how air traffic control or the 4G network functions so long as it does.

To that end I'll simply say that yes wind and solar most certainly can work as can coal or nuclear and there's no sensible reason for the ideological battle over it all. With all technologies though it needs to be done properly and that's where the problems arise since doing it "properly" inevitably adds to the cost. End result = not done properly = fails = public thinks the idea is a dud.

To that end engineers and economists are at opposite ends of the spectrum. From an engineering perspective, inventory and co-operation are precisely what we need. From an economists perspective the former is to be avoided and the latter brings talk of literally putting people in jail. That divide, far more than any technical problem or issues of who owns things, is a barrier to progress in all of this. Remove all that and it's not overly difficult to make a power system work. Just design and build basically, nothing actually needs to be invented since it already has been.


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> when morning load starts coming in at 0600, there is no point having most of yesterdays storage gone.
> It may well be an overcast day, with no wind, meanwhile everyone is looking at the depleted storage levels, of course base load is an issue.
> If you have several days, where renewables can't cover the day time load and top up the storage, then you have a major issue.




Hence the battle of the gas drillers / importers versus the big pumped hydro proponents. Those are the two realistic paths to solve this one - serious bulk storage of renewables or alternatively using gas.



> What isn't an issue is the evening peak, everything should be ready and charged, covering that is the easy part.




In theory yes although in practice the batteries were flat during the load shedding incident in Victoria earlier this year. Flat because they were discharged too early when there was no technical need to do so - that's what happens when it's viewed as a market rather than as a system.

In theory though, as long as that sort of thing can be stopped then batteries and the small pumped hydro schemes can do it pretty easily yes.

Where the issue arises is how to charge them when wind and solar yields are down - and that's big pumped hydro versus gas basically plus perhaps a bit of diesel.

My expectation there is that we'll end up with some of both. Snowy and Hydro Tas will build their projects but they won't go so far as to put the gas companies out of business, they'll still have a market. That's my expectation anyway.


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> The policy vacuum is going to weigh heavily on us very quickly if no action is taken.



It's one of those things where a medium scale incident would probably be a blessing in disguise.

It would shock governments into action and avert a major incident down the track.


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## qldfrog

Now Smurf, is there a way to make some profit on the asx from our know established knowledge?
After all, this is a stock market forum 
Do i buy santos or origin?
You all get the idea


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## SirRumpole

qldfrog said:


> Now Smurf, is there a way to make some profit on the asx from our know established knowledge?
> After all, this is a stock market forum
> Do i buy santos or origin?
> You all get the idea




Hedge your bets would be my advice.


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## qldfrog

Basically it is a given we will have a severe blackout down south
So should i buy funeral services, energy, if only to benefit a spike after the event when it becomes bbq talk..
That us where i d like to steer the conversation in parallel with flawless input from @Smurf1976 and @sptrawler etc


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## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> That us where i d like to steer the conversation



Agreed - we're here to make money not design something etc.

Quite a few of my posts are alluding to something that I won't say outright for my own reasons and to ensure ASF doesn't end up with any legal issues. There are certainly companies who aren't telling investors the full truth about their circumstances with regard to energy however. 

I'll give some more thought to the money making aspect and post something in a day or two.


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## qldfrog

Much appreciated.
I also understand that having inner knowledge of the shortcut of a company does not give you a free ticket to fortune.
I worked for a small asx listed IT company which technically is a failure..yet i should have kept shares in them...
So no expectation of results, but would be an interesting exercise to go from scenarios to winners selection


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## Smurf1976

I'll start on the making money aspect by first looking at something I'd be very, very cautious about investing in.

Note that my focus here is financial based on technical (electrical) considerations and that I'm not buying into political ideology and so on.

First here's a chart of electricity demand and spot price in NSW covering the past 24 hours and forecast through to the next 30 hours ahead.







Source of the above chart is AEMO and this chart plus the data behind it is publicly available via their website www.aemo.com.au

With reference to the chart, the thick bold line is price with scale on the left in $ per megawatt hour (MWh) and the thin line is system demand (electrical load) with scale on the right in MW. To clarify - the left hand edge shows a price around $120 and load around 8600 MW.

Now looking at that chart, note in particular what happened today around midday. Price went below zero yes, to about $-15.78 actually. That's a negative price below zero and no there's no error in the chart.

Then we see prices up around $150 during the evening peak and forecast up close to $300 during the peak tomorrow evening. Around midday tomorrow though it's back down to $40 or so.

Now here's another chart, this one's for today's large scale solar generation output in Queensland. I've deliberately used different states here to illustrate that this is a national issue not simply a local one:






And here's one for large scale solar, that is commercially operated solar farms, in SA over the past 3 days:






Note what happened today in SA, and yesterday, and the day before and also what happened in Queensland. There was no solar eclipse in SA on Saturday, just nowhere for the power to go. Likewise the sun hasn't suddenly started rising twice each day in Queensland - it's just that the electricity price went a long way negative and solar farms cut production.

Source for the above two charts is Open NEM (www.opennem.org.au) produced using AEMO supplied data.

To clarify, the first chart shows price and demand in NSW. The other two show large scale solar (only) generation in Qld and SA. I'm using different states to make the point that it's similar everywhere but to clarify that here's the price and load chart for Queensland:






Note that negative price down to about $-250 during the middle of today in Queensland and that the forecast is for negative prices again around the same time tomorrow.

Now the large solar farms will generally have a PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) with someone which investors find nice and reassuring that they aren't exposed to the spot price. So far, sounds good......

Now I certainly don't know exactly what it says in all of those contracts but it's no secret that two things typically apply:

1. Few if any will pay for power that wasn't generated.

2. At least some include a clause that they pay the fixed price only if the spot price is above zero. At a spot price below zero the PPA is worthless.

Given that the costs of a solar farm are fixed regardless of whether it operates or not, and that there's no ability to ever recoup lost production, all this shutting down of production and/or selling it at prices at or below zero means that someone is going to be getting burned financially. You'd need to know the specific contract details to know who exactly that is, but there's a fixed cost for something that isn't producing the output that was expected and ultimately someone's taking a hit for that financially.

The missing piece of information there is that all this has come as quite a surprise to some of those involved. Certainly there are some competent operators in the industry but there are others who I'm very sure didn't factor in any off loading at all and nor did they factor in prices going below zero. There are some whose revenue expectations will never be met for that reason.

For the vertically integrated companies (eg Origin) they are internally hedged. A low spot price may well cause a loss on the generation side of the business but it boosts profits on the retail side. So there's an internal hedge there.

For anyone else though, those who generate only, if you're going to invest in someone who owns solar farms then I'd be checking very carefully:

1. Exactly how their hedging arrangements work. In particular, is there some price at which the agreement ceases to apply?

2. Can they actually get their output into the grid physically? That's rather critical since almost certainly any hedging won't cover lost output.


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## qldfrog

Amazing this cutoff of solar production when at its optimum,
This seems like a cry for short temporary storage in the farms during these negative costs


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## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> Amazing this cutoff of solar production when at its optimum,
> This seems like a cry for short temporary storage in the farms during these negative costs



Looking at SA specifically, we had some wind generation curtailed between 5am and 7am, a lot of solar off between midday and 3pm but by 5pm most supply was from gas indeed combined cycle plant had to start coming on when solar was still constrained, from about 2pm, to be ready in time due to ramp rate limitations.

Load shifting of non time critical loads is one thing that would help but ultimately it needs storage and if you look at Saturday as an example, the need is for storage that can be charged constantly for 5 - 6 hours not just 1 or 2 hours.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Load shifting of non time critical loads is one thing that would help but ultimately it needs storage and if you look at Saturday as an example, the need is for storage that can be charged constantly for 5 - 6 hours not just 1 or 2 hours.



Which is probably the very reason, that twice as much renewable generation is required, to replace fossil fuel dispatchable generation.
Not only does it have to supply the load, it has to recharge the storage and that includes days of low renewable output i.e overcast and low wind speeds.


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## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Which is probably the very reason, that twice as much renewable generation is required, to replace fossil fuel dispatchable generation.
> Not only does it have to supply the load, it has to recharge the storage and that includes days of low renewable output i.e overcast and low wind speeds.



Again, this is a failure of policy, and casting renewables as a villain is Trumpian!
US States are now mandating dispatchable power on a contract basis for *time of day*.  Which means renewables and storage, which will still usually be cheaper than other forms of energy generation -especially to *build *- is being installed.
Such a policy is really easy to implement and starts to backfill the long tail of baseload.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Again, this is a failure of policy, and casting renewables as a villain is Trumpian!
> US States are now mandating dispatchable power on a contract basis for *time of day*.  Which means renewables and storage, which will still usually be cheaper than other forms of energy generation -especially to *build *- is being installed.
> Such a policy is really easy to implement and starts to backfill the long tail of baseload.



No body is casting renewables as a villian, I'm sure everyone thinks they are brilliant, I have solar on two houses.
It is just the reality of the situation at hand, not everyone is fanatical and single minded about the way to overcome the immediate issues, some have a more balanced and realistic view on the options.
I like the idea of electric cars, but I wouldn't bring about the change, by saying no more fossil fuel cars can be built from today.
IMO emotion as taken over the whole debate, as seems to happen on every issue in Australia at the moment.
I guess a lot of the issues are being sorted out of the public eye, as they have to be these days, once it hits the press the chanting begins.
Just my opinion.


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## rederob

sptrawler said:


> It is just the reality of the situation at hand, not everyone is fanatical and single minded about the way to overcome the immediate issues, some have a more balanced and realistic view on the options..



The balanced view has been implemented in the USA, and it was not difficult.
Most recent solar+storage in the USA is coming in at around US$35 per megawatt hour. 
The fact is that our Energy Minister is not keen on renewables, and we are not looking to the future wrt to storage, except for pumped hydro.
This is a solved problem looking for a policy to support it, and to suggest it is fanaticism suggests you need a broader perspective on the energy equations as the answers are available if you look.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> The balanced view has been implemented in the USA, and it was not difficult.
> Most recent solar+storage in the USA is coming in at around US$35 per megawatt hour.
> The fact is that our Energy Minister is not keen on renewables, and we are not looking to the future wrt to storage, except for pumped hydro.
> This is a solved problem looking for a policy to support it, and to suggest it is fanaticism suggests you need a broader perspective on the energy equations as the answers are available if you look.



I don't disagree with your stance Rob, it is just you are cherry picking, to try to substantiate the reasoning.
I personally don't want to get into an argument about it, I just personally feel the time and scale of renewable/storage installations required, will take far longer than time permits.
Us whipping ourselves into a lather about it, wont change the realities, if renewables can mange great if they can't they need a plan B. Simple really.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I don't disagree with your stance Rob, it is just you are cherry picking, to try to substantiate the reasoning.
> I personally don't want to get into an argument about it, I just personally feel the time and scale of renewable/storage installations required, will take far longer than time permits.



Fact = renewables get cheaper every year as innovation and scale have not yet been maximised
Fact = cost of storage is declining at around 10% year on year (some suggest closer to 15%)
Fact = in the USA renewables have already been able to surpass coal generated electricity:






The idea that renewables could outperform coal by 2020 was unthinkable in the USA 20 years ago, yet here we are!
Please come up with facts that support what you say rather than accuse me of cherrypicking.  Cherrypicking is finding data inconsistent with trends, and I do not do that.


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## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Fact = renewables get cheaper every year as innovation and scale have not yet been maximised
> Fact = cost of storage is declining at around 10% year on year (some suggest closer to 15%)
> Fact = in the USA renewables have already been able to surpass coal generated electricity:
> 
> The idea that renewables could outperform coal by 2020 was unthinkable in the USA 20 years ago, yet here we are!
> Please come up with facts that support what you say rather than accuse me of cherrypicking.  Cherrypicking is finding data inconsistent with trends, and I do not do that.




Well then renewables will obviously be used, problem solved.


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## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Fact = renewables get cheaper every year as innovation and scale have not yet been maximised
> Fact = cost of storage is declining at around 10% year on year (some suggest closer to 15%)
> Fact = in the USA renewables have already been able to surpass coal generated electricity:




*In the U.S as a percentage of total electricity generated 2018*:

*Fossil fuels are the largest sources of energy for electricity generation*

Natural gas was the largest source—about 35%—of U.S. electricity generation in 2018. Natural gas is used in steam turbines and gas turbines to generate electricity.
Coal was the second-largest energy source for U.S. electricity generation in 2018—about 27%. Nearly all coal-fired power plants use steam turbines. A few coal-fired power plants convert coal to a gas for use in a gas turbine to generate electricity.

*Nuclear energy provides one-fifth of U.S. electricity*
Nuclear energy was the source of about 19% of U.S. electricity generation in 2018. Nuclear power plants use steam turbines to produce electricity from nuclear fission.

*Renewable energy sources provide nearly 20% of U.S. electricity*
A variety of renewable energy sources are used to generate electricity and were the source of about 17% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2018

Hydropower plants produced about 7% of total U.S. electricity generation and about 41% of electricity generation from renewable energy in 2018. Hydropower plants use flowing water to spin a turbine connected to a generator.

Wind energy was the source of about 7% of total U.S. electricity generation and about 39% of electricity generation from renewable energy in 2018. Wind turbines convert wind energy into electricity.

Biomass, the source of about 2% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2018, is burned directly in steam-electric power plants, or it can be converted to a gas that can be burned in steam generators, gas turbines, or internal combustion engine generators.

Solar energy provided about 2% of total U.S. electricity in 2018. Photovoltaic (PV) and solar-thermal power are the two main types of solar electricity generation technologies. PV conversion produces electricity directly from sunlight in a photovoltaic cell. Most solar-thermal power systems use steam turbines to generate electricity.

Geothermal power plants produced less than 1% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2018. Geothermal power plants use steam turbines to generate electricity.

_Last updated: April 19, 2019
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php_


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## sptrawler

So Rob, if we now look at Australia:
*CLEAN ENERGY GENERATION*
*In 2018, the percentage of renewable energy passed 20 per cent for the first time, with clean energy contributing 21.3 per cent of *Australia's total electricity generation. This was a significant increase compared to 2017, when renewables were responsible for 17 per cent of total electricity generation.

Hydro generation was again Australia's renewable energy leader, accounting for 7.5 per cent of Australia's total national electricity generation in 2018. However, wind was close behind, contributing 7.1 per cent of total electricity generation throughout the year.

*Percentage of renewable generation by technology type*



35.16%Hydro
33.47%Wind
19.58%Small-scale solar
7.09%Bioenergy
3.9%Large-scale solar
0.8%Medium-scale solar
Small-scale solar19.6
*Annual electricity generation*



21%Renewables
79%Fossil fuels
Fossil fuels79
*Percentage contribution to total annual electric*
*https://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/resources/resources-hub/clean-energy-australia-report*

You say we should look at the U.S and model off them, when in actual FACT, we are doing better than them?
Especially when it comes to solar, we are actually putting in more as a percentage of generation.
So there isn't really any need to keep thrashing us, we are doing o.k.


----------



## Smurf1976

I'll keep out of the politics apart from noting that politics itself is a game which requires there to always be a problem.

That leads to those involved opposing things they would in principle support simply because politics itself requires that a conflict exists.

As a made up but realistic example of how it works:

1. Say we should have more tourists.
2. Tourist numbers increase.
3. Complain that we have too many tourists.
4. Tourist numbers decrease.
5. Complain that the drop in tourists is killing tourism businesses.

That's a made up example but it's how the game is played. In the context of energy, I'll simply make the prediction that the many who talk of a grid "death spiral" and otherwise wanting less transmission infrastructure will before too much longer be screaming rather loudly once they realise that lack of sufficient transmission is harming the renewables they generally support and that EV's and an off grid world don't generally go together (exceptions of course). That scenario is almost certainly one that will unfold and I'd be surprised if it didn't happen within 18 months at most.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> That's a made up example but it's how the game is played. In the context of energy, I'll simply make the prediction that the many who talk of a grid "death spiral" and otherwise wanting less transmission infrastructure will before too much longer be screaming rather loudly once they realise that lack of sufficient transmission is harming the renewables they generally support. That scenario is almost certainly one that will unfold and I'd be surprised if it didn't happen within 18 months at most.



It wasn't long ago that everyone was screaming that too much money was spent 'gold plating the poles and wires', now we find out, we need to spend a lot more on poles and wires. 

As I posted earlier in this thread, Australia is leading the World installing renewables, but you can't please everyone. Some just love to make issues and debate issues, it can become a pastime.

http://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/publications/assets/100renewables.pdf

https://reneweconomy.com.au/how-quickly-can-australia-transition-to-100-renewables-31673/

I'm with you on the politics smurf, when it comes to the crunch, it will be sorted. 
No point in going off half cocked, as they usually do, it is a big job and will take a lot of critical path management.


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## Smurf1976

Following from yesterday's look at solar, I will now look at wind farms from a financial perspective.

My aim here is not to say "buy shares in xyz" but rather to point out what you should look for when investing in any company which operates these assets. There are similarities to solar so if you haven't read that then read it before reading the following.

First I'll post a couple of charts which show the total output of all wind farms in Victoria and SA over the past 7 days.












Note the correlation between the two. SA leads Victoria a bit as you'd expect with weather moving across, and there are occasions when they aren't correlated, but broadly speaking we do see both going to very low and very high outputs at the same time.

Between the two it amounts to a ~3000 MW supply source that is running flat out sometimes, is virtually at zero at other times, and is somewhere in between that. 

Where this matters from an investment perspective is two fold:

1. The combined average load across the two states is about 6850 MW including that supplied by customer owned generation (eg rooftop solar). As such that 3000 MW represents a very significant portion of supply, especially if it occurs at times when demand is below average and/or solar is producing high outputs, and the consequences of that are just basic supply and demand economics.

The average spot market price received by wind generation in SA over the past 12 months was $83.18 which compares with the average for all electricity (all sources) of $140.74 so there's a substantial price discount associated with that "all or nothing" aspect.

2. Physical constraints causing generation to be constrained off. In the SA context total within state wind generation above about 1295 MW is technically problematic without bringing additional gas (or diesel) plant online to provide sufficient inertia and having the required system load to enable that to occur. That's getting a bit technical but in short you can't generate power that has nowhere to go and the wind generation does require synchronous plant (that is, gas or diesel in practice) online at low output to support it technically.

Due to the low prices which occur at times of high wind output the gas-fired plants owners generally don't want to be running and the diesels most certainly don't. For this reason AEMO frequently issues directions which compel them to remain on when they otherwise wouldn't due to it being uneconomic to do so.  

There are works planned in SA to install synchronous condensers (that's a great big rotating machine that's connected to the grid and spins - in layman's terms it's a motor but its purpose is to tweak the grid not to move anything mechanically) which along with the SA - NSW transmission line provide a workaround up to a point. There will still be limits though as there are in every other state.

So what does this mean for investors?

First and foremost - if you're investing in wind then what you want is your wind farm to be somewhere that:

1. Has a decent wind resource. Might seem obvious but the point does perhaps need to be made that not everywhere is suitable, there's good spots and there are bad spots.

2. Can physically get its output into the grid without local constraints. The transmission lines leading to it need to be able to handle the load, as an issue that's separate to the broader one of what's going on within the state or nationally in total.

3. Is not near other wind farms influenced by the same weather which then brings about low prices and/or state wide limitations on total wind farm production. This is particularly an issue in SA at present but Victoria is fast approaching the same point. Eventually so will the other states.

4. As with solar, it is wise to understand how their Power Purchase Agreement actually works. Specifically, does it have limitations such as not applying if the spot price goes below zero? And does it cover the full output of the wind farm or only a portion?

Have a look at this map: https://www.ecogeneration.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/ECO_Wind_Map_201802.pdf

It shows clusters of wind farms in NSW, SA and especially the area west of Melbourne through to the far south-east of SA hence the "all or nothing" issue being seen at state level which depresses market prices when they're all running heavily.


----------



## Smurf1976

Adding to my recent posts on solar and wind from a financial perspective, I should perhaps clarify that electricity is a market in the say way that shares or oil are a market.

There are electricity futures traded on the ASX.

Physical dispatch of generation is via the spot market administered by AEMO.

Any substantial generating company will have a trading room which looks much as you'd expect it to look. It's a trading operation in much the same way as any other apart from the fact that it's linked to physical production.

So looking at it right now and using plant in Victoria as the example, we find (among others) that the two (of four at the plant) currently operating units at Loy Yang A are both running at full output, that Mortlake Unit 1 (the half that didn't go boom recently) is running at just under half its capacity and that all machines at Jeeralang are off.

That this is so comes down to price subject to technical limits. That is, whatever price AGL are offering supply from Loy Yang A at right now is cheap enough to see it fully dispatched for the units online. Whatever price Origin are offering from Mortlake has resulted in it running at just under half capacity (of the one machine they have running) and whatever price Energy Australia are offering for supply from Jeeralang has priced them out of the market given there's no need under current circumstances for all plant to be running.

If AGL upped their price enough then they'd be switched off by AEMO. If Energy Australia dropped their price from Jeeralang then they'd be running. Etc.

Note there that price bids can be complex and contain multiple bands. That is, for the one physical generating unit a company might offer 50% of its capacity at one price, 40% at a higher price, 10% at a price that's seriously high. They'd do that if they want to keep the plant running and can't go below 50% capacity for technical reasons, are happy to run it up to 90% so long as they're making money but don't want to flog the absolute crap out of the machinery running flat out unless they have to. So they're using price to keep the plant running at 50% minimum but not beyond 90% unless there's a compelling need.

Note that's a hypothetical example not a real one used by any particular company. Pure coincidence if anyone has that exact bid in but the principle is used by most of having different amounts of capacity at different prices with the "must run" volume for technical reasons generally priced extremely low to ensure it gets dispatched.

The primary difference to the share market is that with electricity the volume is outside the control of traders. If you, I and everyone else turns the air-conditioning on then volume is going up no matter what, that's not something the traders have control over. That's unlike shares where there's no external influence requiring that x number of shares in BHP or Woolworths change hands tomorrow.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> You say we should look at the U.S and model off them, when in actual FACT, we are doing better than them?
> Especially when it comes to solar, we are actually putting in more as a percentage of generation.
> So there isn't really any need to keep thrashing us, we are doing o.k.



What I said was that the USA is integrating solar and storage as a "package."  And States are contracting for capacity by time of day, as distinct from just any capacity, which is *not *the case in Australia.
Australia is in a policy vacuum and has been for years.
The other point is that neither Australia or the USA are the "world."  
Global investment in renewables is almost 3 times that of new coal and gas-fired generating capacity.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Australia is in a policy vacuum and has been for years.



On that point everyone should agree. 

I'll go a step further though and say that in some aspects not having a policy has been the policy. That is, it wasn't simply that we didn't have a policy but rather that a conscious policy decision had been made to not have an energy policy.

It seems strange but it's arguably true that this has been the case particularly in regard to gas.


----------



## sptrawler

From the article I posted earlier:
_AEMO is currently the only organisation with a blueprint and a vision for the future. In the next few weeks, AEMO is to release the scenarios for the next version of its Integrated System Plan, its 20 year blueprint on how to manage the transition in the grid that will be released later this year.

It won’t be for 100 per cent renewables, although it might not be that far short.

Its first version focused largely on the policies being proposed by the two major parties – the 26-28 per cent emissions reduction target from the Coalition and the 50 per cent renewable energy target and a 45 per cent emissions cut by 2030 proposed by Labor_ .

Unlike some I don't profess to be the font of Knowledge, but I do think too many politicians make statements and set goals, that they have no idea if they are at all possible to achieve.
So is it better to have a policy that drives investment, without direction, co ordination or underlying business plan, or devise a plan then encourage the investment.
I personally would rather the Government left the technical side to engineering, then formulated a plan based on the outcomes of that engineering blueprint, one would think we have grown past the knee jerk back of the napkin policy formulation.
This isn't batts in ceilings, or even telephone lines, the grid is the backbone of the economy, stuff it up and we are in deep manure.
There is no point in having a policy, if it is a crock of $hit, IMO.
One hopes that when Morrison does make a policy decision, it is something that can be achieved, with the minimum of fuss and the best outcome for Australia.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Unlike some I don't profess to be the font of Knowledge....



If you have facts which are different  from sources I have used then please provide that information.
FYI, AEMO is not a policy making body but, instead, the *operator *of the market that results from government policy.
The rules for how our electricity market works are enshrined in federal legislation called, unsurprisingly, the "National Electricity Law."
As smurf1976 notes, a lot of what occurs in the market is transparent, and how the NEM treats participants - including the financial framework - are summarised here.


sptrawler said:


> So is it better to have a policy that drives investment, without direction, co ordination or underlying business plan, or devise a plan then encourage the investment.



An excellent question.
The most recent COAG Energy Council Meeting was 19 December 2018. As smurf1976 also notes, a policy of no policies again ensued, as attested by the communique.
So we have neither a plan to drive investment, nor a framework setting that encourages investment under laissez faire.


----------



## sptrawler

Unfortunately policy is clap trap, if it is based on ideologically driven beliefs, as has been proven over and over again.
As the article said, the AEMO is setting out a blueprint of scenarios, to achieve a safe secure transition to renewables, the Government will no doubt then develop a policy to support that blueprint and achieve the goal.
You really need to settle down a bit Rob, you will give yourself a heart attack, as I said it will be sorted.
At last we may have a Government that does it once and does it right, rather than throw the crap at the fan and hope for the best, to appease a vocal illogical minority.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> At last we may have a Government that does it once and does it right, rather than throw the crap at the fan and hope for the best, to appease a vocal illogical minority.





A statement of supreme optimism if ever I heard one.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> A statement of supreme optimism if ever I heard one.



I did say MAY, it would be novel.
At least they are taking their time, rather than making crazy policy to feed the media circus, I hope it shows a degree of maturity.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Unfortunately policy is clap trap, if it is based on ideologically driven beliefs, as has been proven over and over again.



Where is any policy?
If there is one in the wind... what do you think it will look like?


sptrawler said:


> As the article said, the AEMO is setting out a blueprint of scenarios, to achieve a safe secure transition to renewables, the Government will no doubt then develop a policy to support that blueprint and achieve the goal.



AEMO does *not *need any government policies to support its operation.  It already has a legislated framework allowing it to adapt to the market, and that is why it can accommodate changes in government ideology.


sptrawler said:


> You really need to settle down a bit Rob, you will give yourself a heart attack, as I said it will be sorted.



Ok, by whom?
You have made this comment dozens of times here and there is nobody with a clue trying to "sort it."


sptrawler said:


> At last we may have a Government that does it once and does it right, rather than throw the crap at the fan and hope for the best, to appease a vocal illogical minority.



You realise this government will commence its 7th year in power this week.
So please tell me when they are going to do something, anything, just once instead of sitting on their hands and leaving us with the crap that keeps hitting the electric fan.


----------



## sptrawler

With regard the grid, you are better off having no policy and regulating the suppliers, than having poor policy that brings about a catastrophe.
Too much policy in the past has been driven by emotional clap trap, that is pushed by a rampant media feeding an ideological pack of chanters, to do it with the electricity network would end up in tears.
I think wait and see, rather than pushing a barrow. Just my opinion.


----------



## Smurf1976

To clarify, my recent posts about solar and wind are focusing purely on investment in the sector, eg buying shares in company which owns or is planning to develop, such assets.

I'm intentionally ignoring what's wrong or right and just focusing on what is with regard to the market and what makes a good wind / solar development versus a bad one from a financial perspective.

What's good in a broader national economic or environmental sense, or good technically, is of course a different thing and not necessarily the same. Some of what's needed from a technical perspective is rather unprofitable by its very nature hence the problem that in a competitive market nobody wants to own those bits. That's another story from my posts about assessing one company's assets versus another from the perspective of investing in that company however.


----------



## sptrawler

The network tends to get smaller the further you move away from the load and the generators, one of the problems will be, that is exactly where you want to put your solar farms and wind generators. So in reality exactly the opposite to what is there.

Also with the system, I guess you will want to be able to push a lot of power from an area of high output and low demand, to an area of low output and high demand. That will require some robust multi way interconnectors.

So I guess smurf, a lot of money is going to have to be spent on the H.V transmission system, the Federal Government will probably have to stump up a lot of it, but it will be a hell of an infrastructure project. IMO
Done properly, it could be amazing.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> With regard the grid, you are better off having no policy and regulating the suppliers, than having poor policy that brings about a catastrophe.



 Operation of the grid is legislated, and requires no policy, as it's AEMO's role.  Legislation to change the National Electricity Law is the only way to change how AEMO operates the grid.


sptrawler said:


> Too much policy in the past has been driven by emotional clap trap, that is pushed by a rampant media feeding an ideological pack of chanters, to do it with the electricity network would end up in tears.



The NEM was developed over 20 years ago, and refined a bit by successive governments.  The ideological framework for the NEM was based on largely economic principles, with technical considerations an afterthought. 







sptrawler said:


> I think wait and see, rather than pushing a barrow. Just my opinion.



Who is pushing a barrow?
And what are we waiting for?  A policy that 7 years on they still cannot work out?


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> The NEM was developed over 20 years ago, and refined a bit by successive governments. The ideological framework for the NEM was based on largely economic principles, with technical considerations an afterthought.




And ever since then power prices have sky rocketed.

Are you defending the NEM ?


----------



## sptrawler

It will be interesting to follow the progress of this proposed solar farm in W.A, they are suggesting putting it in the most fertile agricultural area of W.A, which is also irrigated. It will be a bit of a litmus test IMO, at the moment everyone is giving it the thumbs up, time will tell.

https://thewest.com.au/news/harvey-waroona-reporter/solar-farm-proposed-ng-b881250751z


----------



## sptrawler

A pumped storage facility to be installed near Townsville.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09...ject-set-to-have-ghost-town-bustling/11467992

From the article:
"The effect of the pumped hydro project generating into the network in peak times will act to depress those peak prices," Mr Harding said.

"The overall benefit will be over $500 million over the term of the project."

*Powerline will 'ruin our business': farmer*
Genex Power said it had secured most approvals and funding, including a Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility loan of up to $610 million.

It had been waiting on the Queensland Government to agree to help fund the construction of a high voltage transmission line to link the project to the National Electricity Market.

After years of consultation and assessments, today the Queensland Government announced it would spend up to $132 million for Powerlink to build and operate a single circuit transmission line and substations from Kidston to Mount Fox, subject to agreement of final conditions with Genex .


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> A pumped storage facility to be installed near Townsville.



An example of what co-operation, rather than competition, can achieve.

Genex will be the owner, Entura (aka Hydro Tas) has worked on the design and Energy Australia has underwritten it via power contracts.

So that's an ASX listed company working with a government one and a private one on the same project along with an assortment of other contractors and so on.


----------



## sptrawler

A new solar farm in Numurkah, Victoria.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-05/solar-farms-helping-revitalise-rural-towns/11481510

From the article:
_The state currently has 14 large-scale renewable energy projects under construction, with a further 46 large-scale wind and solar projects in the planning stages _.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> The ideological framework for the NEM was based on largely economic principles, with technical considerations an afterthought.



I think the most common misconception among the general public and in particular business was that the state utilities were inefficient and that the NEM was going to lower costs.

I've still got a stack of printed documentation from that era. Threw a wheelbarrow load out when moving interstate but kept some and in short it was clearly understood by 1993 that additional costs and loss of efficiency, both economic and resource use, would occur and that the expectation of large price reductions was a false one. Words to that effect can be found in documentation from the time.

About the thing that has really played out differently to expectations is solar. As recently as a decade ago not even the most hard line "green" people seemed to think that solar PV was going to be a serious bulk energy source in the near future. At that point it was still very much about what was possible in the longer term not what was actually going to happen right now indeed even those working in the sector saw it as a government project not something that stacked up of its own accord. That's the one thing which I think took everyone by surprise right across the industry and outside it - nobody seriously expected that a third of all homes would have solar on them in two states in 2019 and that solar would collectively be the second largest generation source in the grid when the sun is shining.

Other than that though, well the constraints on Bass Straight gas, that coal-fired plants wear out, that wind energy was going to become viable, that the climate was likely to change etc were all understood back in 1993 with the only uncertainty being the precise timing of events but it was known they would occur most certainly.

Overall the NEM has delivered broadly what it was expected to deliver by those in the know back then. Whether or not that's a good thing is another matter but no real surprises apart from minor detail.

Perhaps the biggest "detail" surprise is in ownership. That gas companies would end up buying major non-gas power stations and becoming dominant in electricity generation and retail wasn't really expected at the time. Once it was privatised many were expecting Telstra to get involved or possibly Coles / Woolworths (especially Coles given that Wesfarmers already had coal mines and an LPG processing plant) but gas companies ending up as the major players wasn't really what most expected.


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> A new solar farm in Numurkah, Victoria.
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-05/solar-farms-helping-revitalise-rural-towns/11481510
> 
> From the article:
> _The state currently has 14 large-scale renewable energy projects under construction, with a further 46 large-scale wind and solar projects in the planning stages _.



Isn't it actually a terrible news considering they will have to shut production whenever it becomes worthwhile every day around noon?
We should rejoice at every energy storage project, not production
What a twisted world we live in


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> I think the most common misconception among the general public and in particular business was that the state utilities were inefficient and that the NEM was going to lower costs.



Might have depended who you were and where you lived.
I recall back in those days a lot of commentary about how the private sector would need to raise prices in order to generate returns to investors.
The other issue I recall was that States were reluctant to spend big money on new power plants, which put businesses at risk of load shedding events.
It seems this latter issue has carried through to the NEM as a result of the policy void relating to incentivising investment.
Gold plating wires and poles in recent years has been the curse of consumers as that investment has had a huge impact on electricity prices as the monies spent are clawed back.


sptrawler said:


> A new solar farm in Numurkah, Victoria.
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-05/solar-farms-helping-revitalise-rural-towns/11481510.



This project demonstrates that solar farms can not only coexist with agriculture, but the pv panel infrastructure actually enhances plant growth for grazing (or croping).  There are similar projects in many other countries where arable land is being earmarked for solar farms.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> This project demonstrates that solar farms can not only coexist with agriculture, but the pv panel infrastructure actually enhances plant growth for grazing (or croping).  There are similar projects in many other countries where arable land is being earmarked for solar farms.




I personally think it is a bit early to draw that assumption, it will take a couple of years of complete weather cycles, to be able to qualify whether it makes a difference or not. If you look at the last of the distance shots, the area surrounding the farm appears a lot more lush, there is growth under the panels, but nothing like the adjacent fields.
But it doesn't bother me one way or another.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Might have depended who you were and where you lived.



I should have clarified that I was referring to politicians, business lobby groups etc.

The general public was far more skeptical and rightly so but big business and allied politicians were pretty keen on the whole thing until they realised that their costs were going up not down and then they went really quiet.

As with any issue, I never take for granted that governments or business leaders are thinking too far ahead. Sometimes they do, very often they don't, and the consequences of that are something we see all the time in the stock market (in all sorts of companies not necessarily related to energy).


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> If you look at the last of the distance shots, the area surrounding the farm appears a lot more lush, there is growth under the panels, but nothing like the adjacent fields.



I would hope so as this region has hundreds of irrigated farms  .


----------



## Smurf1976

There's a bit of a battle going on between the coal-fired generation owners at the moment.

In one camp is the one who's actively trying to get their plant to run at lower minimum output so as to fit better with wind and solar. There's another company which has also expressed an intent to invent that wheel who'll no doubt try and do so once the first one has done it. It's the same equipment in both stations after all, so they've only got to come up with the same solution and it should work.

Meanwhile there's some others who are going flat out to maximise market share and send huge amounts of large scale solar output to waste in the process. In doing so that's also discouraging the first group who are well aware that their innovation is really only handing market share to another coal plant and not having the intended effect with renewables.

Regardless of how convinced anyone is or isn't about the CO2 issue, I doubt that anyone would seriously argue that it's sensible to waste the output of solar facilities which have already been built. Any debate there is about the merits of building them in the first place but once they're built, the cost is incurred so there's no rational reason to not be making full use of their output except when technical issues preclude it which isn't the case in this instance.

If ever there was a straightforward demonstration of Australia's policy dysfunction then this is it.


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> There's a bit of a battle going on between the coal-fired generation owners at the moment.




I generally avoid naming companies but over the weekend some pushing of the boundaries has been going on:

Energy Australia have been running unit 1 at Mt Piper power station (coal, NSW), down below 20% of capacity at times, which is a long way below normally accepted lower limits.

Origin Energy have been doing the same with unit 4 at Eraring (coal, NSW) running down to about 29% of capacity which is also rather low with the rest of the station operating normally.

Running coal plant at low output is problematic for a number of reasons, not least of which is that great big boilers with little coal fires in them have a habit of ending up without a flame which is obviously not the desired outcome. In addition there's issues with temperature, pressure and so on.

Being able to push the boundaries, get down to lower output levels, makes these existing plants more useful in conjunction with variable energy sources such as wind and solar, thus saving emissions and also saving the companies money. In EA's case there's also the not insignificant point that one of the problems they have with this particular coal-fired power station is a shortage of coal.

So there's a bit of a different thinking in all of this. Some trying to get lower output. Others in the supposed sunshine state intent on making sure the sun doesn't displace coal as a source of electricity. Hmm.....


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I generally avoid naming companies but over the weekend some pushing of the boundaries has been going on:
> 
> Energy Australia have been running unit 1 at Mt Piper power station (coal, NSW), down below 20% of capacity at times, which is a long way below normally accepted lower limits.
> 
> Origin Energy have been doing the same with unit 4 at Eraring (coal, NSW) running down to about 29% of capacity which is also rather low with the rest of the station operating normally.
> 
> Running coal plant at low output is problematic for a number of reasons, not least of which is that great big boilers with little coal fires in them have a habit of ending up without a flame which is obviously not the desired outcome. In addition there's issues with temperature, pressure and so on.
> 
> Being able to push the boundaries, get down to lower output levels, makes these existing plants more useful in conjunction with variable energy sources such as wind and solar, thus saving emissions and also saving the companies money. In EA's case there's also the not insignificant point that one of the problems they have with this particular coal-fired power station is a shortage of coal.
> 
> So there's a bit of a different thinking in all of this. Some trying to get lower output. Others in the supposed sunshine state intent on making sure the sun doesn't displace coal as a source of electricity. Hmm.....



A lot depends on the type of mills they are using, ball tube, rotating table bowl or rotating hammer pulverizer, the turn down ratio is very different on each type. Also the style of boiler, front fired, corner fired, fuel support etc can make a difference.
But running coal boilers at really low load and keeping a stable flame is awkward, as you say, it is easy to snuff it out.


----------



## sptrawler

A good article, that re iterates what smurf has been saying, it shows we are on our way but there is a way to go.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09...not-help-consumers-in-the-short-term/11485614


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> A good article, that re iterates what smurf has been saying, it shows we are on our way but there is a way to go.




Almost certainly there's going to be some "burned" participants from a financial perspective with all of that. Many of the wind and solar owners seem to have gone in on the basis that electricity was electricity, anytime anywhere, and a few didn't even have trading rooms of any sort. 

No doubt they'll be having a rethink on some of that in view of more recent happenings with prices going below zero. Happened over the weekend in SA by the way.


----------



## Smurf1976

I'll post it here since it affects all companies in the industry and the spot price too but suffice to say some more drama in Victoria.

Loy Yang A (owned by AGL), the largest power station in Victoria, is currently three quarters shut down.

Unit 2 = major failure earlier this year.

Unit 1 = off for maintenance etc.

Unit 3 = shut down in an orderly manner on Monday 16th September. Not sure exactly what happened but it was an orderly shut down not an abrupt halt so it'll be a fixable problem.

That leaves unit 4 as the only operational part of the plant.

The lights aren't about to go out but that's really down to good luck in that there's decent wind generation in Victoria, demand is moderate due to temperatures and there's plenty of supply from other states especially SA.

A short time ago, supply to Victoria by source:

Loy Yang B (fully operational, coal, Alinta) = 23%
Yallourn (three quarters operational, coal, Energy Australia) = 23%
From SA = 13%
Loy Yang A (one quarter operational, coal, AGL (*ASX: AGL*)) = 11%
Newport D (fully operational, gas, Energy Australia) = 10%
From NSW = 8%
Wind (various owners) = 8%
Murray 1 & 2 (hydro, Snowy Hydro) = 4%
West Kiewa (hydro, AGL (*ASX: AGL*)) = 0.7%
Hume (Meridian Energy (*ASX: MEZ*)) = 0.6%

Rounded to the nearest 1% except those below 1% rounded to the nearest 0.1%. Figures don't add to 100% due to rounding.

To have Newport D running to its absolute limit in the middle of the night, or to have any hydro generation at all on in Victoria apart from Hume (needed to keep the Murray flowing), is unusual.

Also unusual to have maximum transfer from SA to Vic in the middle of the night and burning gas to generate the power - the plants doing that being owned by Engie, Origin Energy (*ASX: ORG*) and AGL and located on the outskirts of the Adelaide metro area. That's in addition to the very substantial output from wind generation in SA - right now it's equal to 79% of consumption within SA so the reason for running so much gas-fired plant is about supplying Victoria mostly.

I don't know what AGL's hedging position is but I'd be surprised if they weren't incurring any pain at all with the situation at present in Victoria. They're doing somewhat better elsewhere, particularly NSW, however. Worth adding there that the coal being burned by Alinta in Victoria is 100% supplied by a mine owned and operated by AGL.

Companies where I haven't indicated the stock code are not listed. Snowy Hydro is Australian Government owned and the rest are foreign governments or private (non-listed).

Not mentioned but also of relevance is the major outage of half of Mortlake power station (Origin Energy) and the disconnection due to problems in Victoria of all transmission to and from Tasmania until mid-October. Of less consequence there are also generating units out of service at Somerton (gas,


----------



## basilio

That is an absolute knife edge of power supply for Victoria Smurf. A pleasant (not too hot/cold) , sunny, windy spring day in Vic basically keeping us in power.
Many of the base load coal stations are out of commission for a range of reasons - some quite serious. 

Sounds like a case for serious energy conservation as well as accelerated wind and solar  installationa and storage capacity.

But we knew that all along didn't we ?


----------



## SirRumpole

Renationalise the energy grid ?

Some experts think it's a good idea, (and a lot of voters do too, but we don't really count do we ?).

https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-renationalising-australias-electricity-grid-73951


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> That is an absolute knife edge of power supply for Victoria Smurf. A pleasant (not too hot/cold) , sunny, windy spring day in Vic basically keeping us in power.
> Many of the base load coal stations are out of commission for a range of reasons - some quite serious.




It could all be summarised as saying three things really:

1. There's not enough capacity installed in Victoria to ensure reliability, thus leading to a situation where something goes wrong and creates a very precarious situation. The same sort of fault if it happened in WA or Tas would be a nuisance and a cost to fix it but that's all.

2. As plant gets older, and in some cases is now old as such, reliability tends to fall.

3. That there hasn't been a supply disruption comes down to sheer luck that the timing of these problems has been when demand is low or moderate. It would be unwise to count on such luck continuing indefinitely however......

My main point in posting it is to say that if you're investing in this sector then be sure to understand what you're really investing in. What assets the company has, what risks they're exposed to, etc. Given that wholesale electricity prices are known to spike more than 100 fold on occasion and can also go negative, anyone exposed to the spot market does have a significant degree of risk associated with that. It's not like say wheat or oil where you can be reasonably sure of roughly what price you'd pay if you needed to buy on the spot market, worst case it doubles or something like that, whereas electricity is several orders of magnitude more volatile.


----------



## Smurf1976

ExxonMobil to sell all its operations in Bass Strait:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09...th-east-victoria/11524416?WT.ac=statenews_vic

As by far the largest supplier of gas to the combined NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas and SA market, this has implications for:

*BHP* in particular since they are the joint venture partner in the Bass Strait oil and gas fields.

Anyone who buys gas directly from producers. That is, gas retailers, power stations and the largest industrial users. 

Depending on how it all unfolds it may also have implications for other energy companies which either produce alternatives to gas (eg they generate electricity from coal or solar) or which plan to import LNG to Vic, NSW or SA (or theoretically Tas but there's no current proposal to do so there).

Plus likely political implications.

Whether or not they can find a buyer will be the big question. Personally I wouldn't be counting on that - it's a very risky thing to be going into at this point in time, on the cusp of major production decline, given the political risk.


----------



## sptrawler

There could be a bit of carrot and stick motivation in the pipeline, hopefully some concessions and subsidies to counteract it. 

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...n-t-cope-with-more-solar-20190925-p52uvv.html

From the article:
_Consumers are already doing their part and investing in their own rooftop energy generation but distribution networks are not moving quickly enough to realise the value of those investments," Mr Pierce said.


The AEMC's economic regulatory framework review found a system that does not provide consumers with choice or reward supportive behaviours could drive up costs_ .
_Customers in NSW and Victoria are already battling energy price rises of up to 10 per cent a year.

"Failure to act now would mean either fewer people are able to export solar to the grid, or all consumers will pay more to build new substations and poles and wires that are rarely needed," Mr Pierce said.

The regulator's concerns echo those of the government-backed Clean Energy Finance Corporation. The $10 billion green bank is increasingly shifting its focus away from new renewable technologies towards bolstering the grid so that renewables can be transmitted.

Would you like pink batts, with your batteries._


----------



## SirRumpole

Traditional power companies feel the heat from solar.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09...synergy-posts-massive-financial-loss/11550420


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> There could be a bit of carrot and stick motivation in the pipeline, hopefully some concessions and subsidies to counteract it



The big problem with this whole issue is summed up not in the article you linked but in the link itself:

smh.com.au/*politics*/*federal
*
There's the problem. An engineering issue which comes back to fundamental physics and exists at a very local level, street by street, but we in Australia insist that it's political and federal when it ought be neither.

Same applies right across the spectrum of everything involving this issue from the supply of oil and gas through to transmission line capacity. Far too much politics and far too little focus on the actual issue as such. 

At a much smaller but practical level my new Sanden heat pump is working nicely. An 80% energy saving for water heating so can't complain about that.

Not to be outdone though, my next step will be to link its operation to the existence of surplus solar power. If there's large scale solar being turned off during the day, and that happened again today in SA, then it makes sense to be doing non-time critical things like heating water during those times. Won't likely save me any money but I'm keen to push the concept so am looking at practical means by which to do it automatically.


----------



## sptrawler

I was thinking the only obvious way to mitigate the problem, in the short term, is to encourage domestic battery installation.
The difficulty with that is the cost of the batteries, the saving vs payback of the capital as a ratio of the life of the battery.
People aren't going to spend $10k on batteries, that take 20 years to pay for themselves and only last 10 years before they need replacing.
So that screams Government intervention one way or another, they either subsidies the batteries, or spend a lot more money on transmission and distribution.
Just my opinion.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> People aren't going to spend $10k on batteries, that take 20 years to pay for themselves and only last 10 years before they need replacing.




As opposed to solar panels with about the same lifetime ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> As opposed to solar panels with about the same lifetime ?



Well the problem is, that obviously has been done to death, now we need the hangover remedy. Lol


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> As opposed to solar panels with about the same lifetime ?



Both my solar panels installation were in the black in less than 5y
Battery do not make sense yet economically.i am moving and the big idea is going battery AND include an EV battery as part of the new place
Leverage battery of ev for domestic use and power the lot via panels
I am retired now and can always use the ice car if ev battery flat
Will see how it goes but need to sell current place first


----------



## qldfrog

An info @Smurf1976  will be interested in as he kindly raised the shipping fuel issue with us
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ships-set-burn-raw-crude-230100180.html
Ships are not going ev yet..well for containers at least


----------



## basilio

Common sense in dealing with maintaining long power lines in the outback.
*Standalone solar replaces power lines in remote WA farming community*
A deadly bushfire in a remote West Australian farming community has led to a renewable energy first in Australia.

Key points:

Hundreds of power poles were damaged or destroyed when deadly bushfires swept through the Esperance region four years ago

450 locals were without electricity for months, prompting many to rely on generators

Horizon Power has been trialling standalone solar panels on some farms, with more to follow


A government-owned electricity company is taking customers off the grid by giving them standalone solar units, so they can pull down ageing and costly power lines. 
In November 2015, bushfires swept through the Esperance region, 800 kilometres south-east of Perth. 
Four people lost their lives, thousands of livestock perished, and 30,000 hectares of crops were destroyed.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-05/standalone-solar-replaces-power-lines/11572762


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> Common sense in dealing with maintaining long power lines in the outback.
> *Standalone solar replaces power lines in remote WA farming community*
> A deadly bushfire in a remote West Australian farming community has led to a renewable energy first in Australia.
> 
> Key points:
> 
> Hundreds of power poles were damaged or destroyed when deadly bushfires swept through the Esperance region four years ago
> 
> 450 locals were without electricity for months, prompting many to rely on generators
> 
> Horizon Power has been trialling standalone solar panels on some farms, with more to follow
> 
> 
> A government-owned electricity company is taking customers off the grid by giving them standalone solar units, so they can pull down ageing and costly power lines.
> In November 2015, bushfires swept through the Esperance region, 800 kilometres south-east of Perth.
> Four people lost their lives, thousands of livestock perished, and 30,000 hectares of crops were destroyed.
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-05/standalone-solar-replaces-power-lines/11572762




Will be interesting to see if these customers can go totally off grid. Interesting that they still need a backup generator for when the sun doesn't shine.


----------



## sptrawler

It isn't all sunshine and lolltpops in W.A.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10...d-to-bill-hikes-or-taxpayer-bailouts/11579864

From the article:
*The cost of keeping the lights on*
_A bigger issue for Mr McHugh was the need for reform in the South West electricity market.

He said the rules and regulations governing the market were designed for a 20th century electricity system, which was rapidly changing into something different.

Key to the required changes was appropriately rewarding and providing incentives for services that stabilised the grid and ensured there was always enough back-up power supply to keep the lights on_.
_At the moment, Mr McHugh said those essential services were largely provided by Synergy as a matter of course — and often by the traditional power plants that were increasingly uneconomic.

But he said Synergy was barely paid for those services, if at all.

Mr McHugh said plans to modernise WA's electricity system and make the switch to renewable energy depended on such "ancillary" services being properly recognised.

"There is a sense of urgency," he said.

"We're seeing the demand hollow out in the middle of the day. That's the major issue at the moment … the imminent threat in a sense.

"And that then starts to force generators off the system that currently provide various services like voltage and inertia … that keep the system stable.

"Those services have been provided for free for a long period of time. They've never really been thought about until we've got to this situation where we're starting to see less and less of them on the grid in the middle of the day.

"We've now got to rethink how those services are provided and, most importantly, at least cost."
_
*Reform timing uncertain*
_With the McGowan Government more than halfway through its first term, Mr Johnston insisted such reforms were at the top of his agenda.

He said the Government's "energy transformation strategy" was aimed at ensuring ancillary services were properly rewarded and that companies in the market which contributed to costs — including renewable energy projects — paid for them.

But the Minister was unable to say when the Government would implement the changes.

"We'll know where we're going by the middle of next year, absolutely," he said_.


----------



## sptrawler

The problem W.A has is just the same as the East Coast, where renewables push fossil fueled units off the grid, then they have to be brought back on as the renewable generation falls away which wears out the generators.
To me this is where nuclear actually makes sense, if the underlying base load is say 1GW and a 1GW nuclear station was built to underpin that load. 
Firstly all the coal fired could be taken off line, the other thing that could be done is a huge hydrogen plant could be built alongside the nuclear station, then when the renewable output increased the nuclear plant would stay at full load making hydrogen instead of feeding the load.
As the renewables output falls off, the hydrogen production is reduced and the load is supplied by the power station.
That would get rid of the emissions problem, produce $hit loads of hydrogen and keep the generators online to stop the wear and tear from cycling and also allow more renewables and storage to be installed which would allow more hydrogen to be produced a win/win.
It wont happen because the emotional road show would get wound up and glue themselves to the road. 
Just my opinion.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It isn't all sunshine and lolltpops in W.A.



All things considered, WA is in better shape than NSW / ACT / Vic / SA but is ultimately heading the same way just more slowly and with a later starting date.

What they do in the next few years will determine which way it all goes really. Biggest problem is that fundamentally WA's economy isn't particularly electrified with electricity accounting for only about 15% of all energy supplied to end users. Fossil fuels, particularly gas, are absolutely entrenched for direct use as well as accounting for 60% of electricity generation. Ultimately that's not sustainable.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> The problem W.A has is just the same as the East Coast, where renewables push fossil fueled units off the grid, then they have to be brought back on as the renewable generation falls away which wears out the generators.
> To me this is where nuclear actually makes sense, if the underlying base load is say 1GW and a 1GW nuclear station was built to underpin that load.
> Firstly all the coal fired could be taken off line, the other thing that could be done is a huge hydrogen plant could be built alongside the nuclear station, then when the renewable output increased the nuclear plant would stay at full load making hydrogen instead of feeding the load.
> As the renewables output falls off, the hydrogen production is reduced and the load is supplied by the power station.
> That would get rid of the emissions problem, produce $hit loads of hydrogen and keep the generators online to stop the wear and tear from cycling and also allow more renewables and storage to be installed which would allow more hydrogen to be produced a win/win.
> It wont happen because the emotional road show would get wound up and glue themselves to the road.
> Just my opinion.



The USA must be streets ahead of us, with a recent solar+battery project coming in at about $US22/MWh or about $A33/MWh.  Admittedly its not large scale storage, but only last year CSIRO projected that on an LCOE basis batteries *with 2 hours storage* would cost in the range $A100-150/MWh by 2020.
By the way, small scale nuclear comes in as the most expensive option by a very long margin.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> The USA must be streets ahead of us, with a recent solar+battery project coming in at about $US22/MWh or about $A33/MWh.  Admittedly its not large scale storage, but only last year CSIRO projected that on an LCOE basis batteries *with 2 hours storage* would cost in the range $A100-150/MWh by 2020.
> By the way, small scale nuclear comes in as the most expensive option by a very long margin.



Yes, I wasn't commenting on the cost just the practical application, it would resolve a lot of the emission problems while renewables build to the critical mass required and would also kick start the H2 industry.
A nuclear plant will never be built here, but if all the negatives are ignored (cost, waste etc), as i said it would resolve a lot of the current issues.


----------



## Value Collector

I think if you have a large north facing section of roof that isn't shaded, solar panels are one of the best low risk investments you can make.

Even allowing for a 12 year depreciation of the system, my system is earning about 15% return on investment, and that's a tax free return pretty much risk free.

And I am not talking about the sweet heart government deal from a few years back.
-------

My house is now 100% electric eg. Air con, Hot water, Kitchen, Car, Mower, whipper snipper etc all electric, and all powered by my 8.23KWH system, not a single petrol or gas piece of equipment in site.

My bills have gone from circa $650 for 90days to a net credit, and now I drive a Tesla my weekly petrol bill has disappeared same with the mower etc


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> The USA must be streets ahead of us



In short they're much more able to "just do it".

They have red tape yes but seem to have become better at busting through it. Australia today is where the US was with this stuff 20 or so years ago. Everything gets bogged down and grinds to a halt in some parts especially.

Victoria in particular has a lot in common with where California was in the late 1990's with it being rather hard to get things done. The Americans moved on in due course, as no doubt will we, but that's where it's at right now not for everything but with a lot of it.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> In short they're much more able to "just do it".
> 
> They have red tape yes but seem to have become better at busting through it. Australia today is where the US was with this stuff 20 or so years ago. Everything gets bogged down and grinds to a halt in some parts especially.
> 
> Victoria in particular has a lot in common with where California was in the late 1990's with it being rather hard to get things done. The Americans moved on in due course, as no doubt will we, but that's where it's at right now not for everything but with a lot of it.




They have Berkshire Hathaway investing there for a start, thats a huge plus, installing massive amounts of renewables, and closing coal while also reducing prices.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> They have Berkshire Hathaway investing there for a start, thats a huge plus, installing massive amounts of renewables, and closing coal while also reducing prices.




The big hurdle in Australia is regulators.

By that I'm referring to the variety which sit in offices not the sort which maintain a stable frequency or voltage.

The frequency governors have been mostly disabled anyway, a comment that will cause alarm for those familiar with the concept and no I'm not joking. Regulators of the suited variety kept trying to fine the owners of generating plant when the governors kept the frequency stable by ramping output up or down automatically. So they decided they'd just stop doing it then, disable primary frequency control on the machines, and end result is the system's far less stable and more prone to collapse as a result.

The problems with all this are mostly not technical ones. There are issues but there are solutions too. To some extent there are real economic issues but far more significant is the regulatory obstacles. In contrast the Americans don't have that problem, they're not placing artificial barriers in the way of getting things done. End result = they can do it far more easily and cheaply hence they are.


----------



## bi-polar

Don't get it. Why?  And does the Official Regulator Grade I (a 3.2) have a frequency dial on his desk and how frequently would he enforce his authority?


----------



## Smurf1976

bi-polar said:


> Don't get it. Why?



Simplest layman's terms way to explain it is this:

Most people would have used a lawn mower with a petrol engine at some point so would be familiar with how it works. The engine runs at a constant speed, you push the mower into the grass, and the engine slows down only very slightly under load.

Reason it does that is there's a simple mechanical governor on the engine. You put it under more load, it slows down, the governor opens up the throttle. Vice versa when there's less load and it speeds up.

Now with a mower that's a very simple arrangement since it's not critical that the engine maintains a constant speed. If it's 10% out then that's not really going to matter all that much - worst case you've got to push it a bit more slowly etc but it's no big deal.

With the power grid the same basic concept applies, a governor on the machines (steam / hydro / gas turbines driving alternators) with the only real difference being it's far more precise since even a 1% speed variation is a big deal. Not a problem there though, having accurate governors isn't out of the question when you're dealing with $100 million+ sets of equipment you can afford to put proper controls on it (versus the mower that's intentionally kept down in cost).

Now for the painful bit.

If there's an incident in the grid, something causes frequency to drop a bit, then the natural response of the machines is to increase their output so as to return frequency to where it should be. That's what the governor does.

A typical cause of that is either a sudden change in load, eg industry turned something big on, or failure of a generator which isn't overly uncommon. So more power needed = all machines able to do so ramp up which restores system frequency then human intervention brings another generator online if one's failed or otherwise acts to shift production around to the preferred arrangement with the aim of being ready as soon as possible for another incident lest one occurs.

Trouble is, those looking at the financial and rules side of all this realised that anyone generating more power than they should have was also being paid for doing so. Well yes they are but the power has to come from somewhere, right?

Slowly but surely the various generating companies got fed up with being fined, or threatened with fines, and simply disabled primary frequency control on the machines to the point where most ended up being disabled. End result is that frequency wobbles all over the place in a manner that's akin to having a car wandering from the left to right hand side of the road constantly. Bump left, bump right, bump left, bump right, bump left.......

Suffice to say the engineers would have the governors back on in an instant but unfortunately it's economics and bureaucracy which carry more weight these days.

There was a near miss with all this a while ago. A single transmission issue ended up splitting the mainland grid in to three with Qld disconnecting from NSW and SA disconnecting from Vic and quite a few blackouts in NSW because of that. That rang some serious alarm bells in quite a few minds yes.

Some experiments have also been conducted in Tasmania in regard to all this. Reason for doing it in Tas is two fold. First because of the ability to isolate the state from anywhere else pretty easily but critically because nobody was actually going to get in trouble. One generating company runs the lot so to the extent there's a crime of sorts, the victim and the perpetrator just happen to be the same entity so nobody's going to pursue it in practice. Those experiments with changing the way things work and so on produced the expected results by the way - everything was very closely monitored and logged as this was intended to be proper research not just someone mucking about.

Now all that's a very simplified layman's summary but ultimately the crux of it is that we've got all manner of rules and red tape standing in the way of getting things done.

A more recent example is there's a fuss about solar and network congestion which seems to have reached the media and there's a few people getting excited and so on. What's probably been missed is that some of what the regulators are demanding the networks do ASAP is literally the exact same things the regulators refused to allow the networks to do when they wanted to do it proactively. 

I could go on with many more examples but ultimately it all comes back to the problem that legal, financial and politics is in charge and anything technical runs a very distant second to all that.

With a bit of luck from 1 July 2020 we _might_ be able to start addressing the solar energy that's going to waste during the daytime in SA. Might but don't get too excited because there's the problem of regulations, who pays, who benefits and all that.

I don't hate any regulators personally by the way, heck I know some such people and they're acting in good faith, but I'm very much of the "get it done" mentality. Regulation and administration should meet the needs of production not the reverse. Dog wags the tail, not tail wags the dog.

I'm no climate scientist but given all the concern about that issue I just don't think we can spend a decade deciding on whether or not to pick a piece of low hanging fruit. We need to go faster, much faster, than that. If something's actually difficult or expensive then that's one thing but if it's staring us in the face, and would save money too, well stuff the red tape just get it done is my view.

That the Americans have gone that way explains much of the difference there. If it stacks up and saves money then nobody really stops it happening.

To be clear though, my comments are for explanation and that's it. I'm not whinging about it, there's no point doing that, but we do have a situation where we're trying to run with our feet tied together pretty much and the rather odd situation where everyone from small consumers through to the big energy companies isn't happy with current circumstances.


----------



## bi-polar

Yes that's what you said.  It's the middle bit about "getting paid for more power" that stumped me. Loads vary but there's a fine for it. Still don't get it. 'Lucky country' they say which means the opposite of what it's supposed to mean.


----------



## Smurf1976

bi-polar said:


> Yes that's what you said.  It's the middle bit about "getting paid for more power" that stumped me. Loads vary but there's a fine for it. Still don't get it. 'Lucky country' they say which means the opposite of what it's supposed to mean.




Simple version:

1. Generator (company that owns the plant) offers supply at $x

2. AEMO directs the physical dispatch of generation according to price (cheapest first) subject to meeting technical constraints.

3. Something goes wrong. Whatever - eg a generating unit trips.

4. If primary frequency enabled then machines will of their own accord increase output to maintain system frequency.

5. Those looking to regulate economic things get seriously unhappy that someone who was supposed to generate 200 MW generated 220 MW. They get really, really unhappy about this.

6. After realising it was going to make life miserable, the owners of generation simply disabled the governors rather than keep being belted over the head for keeping the system stable.

7. End result is the electricity system is now far less robust and stable than it was previously.

That's a simplified version but it's how it has all gone. If anyone wants a more technical understanding of the issue then see here: 

Be aware it's over an hour and goes into detail - it's not aimed at a general public audience but it's probably the best explanation I've seen and it's a comprehensible one for those keen to understand. 

My real lament though isn't the technical detail but the reality that there's something in common with a lot of things in all this. Electricity is one, hospitals are another, climate change is another.

What??? I hear you say! Hospitals? Climate change?

The common link is that engineering is the practical application of science and trades are the practical application of engineering. Equivalents to that exist in medicine and many other fields - there's the underlying science, there's a white collar profession based around it and there are all sorts of people who do physical things based around what that profession has determined need to be done.

The common theme with energy, climate, hospitals and so on is that as a society we're choosing to ignore the science in favour of an ideological debate. In order to do that we have various political constructs and other things which ensure that we don't have engineers, doctors, climate scientists and so on making the decisions but rather, it's passed to someone in a completely unrelated field.

So the details differ but the same fundamental issues exist across multiple fields. Have a proper chat to someone in medicine who grasps the big picture there and it's alarmingly familiar.

With regard to the energy debate I'll observe that those who I'll put in the "engineering" camp and those who I'll put in the "environmental" camp have a lot more in common than may seem apparent. Put aside the extreme ones with hard line ideological views and focus on the future without disrespecting the past and there's an awful lot in common. Both are ultimately lamenting the same fundamental problem - a society which chooses to ignore the science.

Note that I said engineering not energy and I said environmental not climate. That's because the same concept applies far more widely than just energy and climate change. Those certainly aren't the only issues where the science is being ignored with building things or when it comes to the natural world. And of course there's those trying to run hospitals who face the same basic issue too as do others.

All this stuff used to worry me somewhat but it doesn't so much today. It's so widespread, across so many seemingly unrelated fields, that it's way out of my hands to do anything about it. Beyond sensible preparation at the personal level and investing to make a profit, that's about it really. There's not much chance that I'll be reversing something which has spanned multiple governments of both persuasions and to which the significant minor parties haven't effectively opposed either. 

Once there's a big enough problem, only then will it be possible to go forward but we're not at that point yet. It'll happen, and we'll only know when in hindsight, but we're not at that point yet.


----------



## sptrawler

So true smurf, so many "experts", so little clue.


----------



## bi-polar

It recalls communist planning where good and services were allocated by Moscow to the furthest regions without regard to reality.  One example was a bicycle pump shop at Murmansk which was stacked with pumps, in Solzhenitsyn's book.  The Aral sea is an example , people were penalised for saying there was a problem.


----------



## IFocus

Smurf1976 said:


> Simple version:
> 
> 1. Generator (company that owns the plant) offers supply at $x
> 
> 2. AEMO directs the physical dispatch of generation according to price (cheapest first) subject to meeting technical constraints.
> 
> 3. Something goes wrong. Whatever - eg a generating unit trips.
> 
> 4. If primary frequency enabled then machines will of their own accord increase output to maintain system frequency.
> 
> 5. Those looking to regulate economic things get seriously unhappy that someone who was supposed to generate 200 MW generated 220 MW. They get really, really unhappy about this.
> 
> 6. After realising it was going to make life miserable, the owners of generation simply disabled the governors rather than keep being belted over the head for keeping the system stable.
> 
> 7. End result is the electricity system is now far less robust and stable than it was previously.
> 
> That's a simplified version but it's how it has all gone. If anyone wants a more technical understanding of the issue then see here:
> 
> Be aware it's over an hour and goes into detail - it's not aimed at a general public audience but it's probably the best explanation I've seen and it's a comprehensible one for those keen to understand.
> 
> My real lament though isn't the technical detail but the reality that there's something in common with a lot of things in all this. Electricity is one, hospitals are another, climate change is another.
> 
> What??? I hear you say! Hospitals? Climate change?
> 
> The common link is that engineering is the practical application of science and trades are the practical application of engineering. Equivalents to that exist in medicine and many other fields - there's the underlying science, there's a white collar profession based around it and there are all sorts of people who do physical things based around what that profession has determined need to be done.
> 
> The common theme with energy, climate, hospitals and so on is that as a society we're choosing to ignore the science in favour of an ideological debate. In order to do that we have various political constructs and other things which ensure that we don't have engineers, doctors, climate scientists and so on making the decisions but rather, it's passed to someone in a completely unrelated field.
> 
> So the details differ but the same fundamental issues exist across multiple fields. Have a proper chat to someone in medicine who grasps the big picture there and it's alarmingly familiar.
> 
> With regard to the energy debate I'll observe that those who I'll put in the "engineering" camp and those who I'll put in the "environmental" camp have a lot more in common than may seem apparent. Put aside the extreme ones with hard line ideological views and focus on the future without disrespecting the past and there's an awful lot in common. Both are ultimately lamenting the same fundamental problem - a society which chooses to ignore the science.
> 
> Note that I said engineering not energy and I said environmental not climate. That's because the same concept applies far more widely than just energy and climate change. Those certainly aren't the only issues where the science is being ignored with building things or when it comes to the natural world. And of course there's those trying to run hospitals who face the same basic issue too as do others.
> 
> All this stuff used to worry me somewhat but it doesn't so much today. It's so widespread, across so many seemingly unrelated fields, that it's way out of my hands to do anything about it. Beyond sensible preparation at the personal level and investing to make a profit, that's about it really. There's not much chance that I'll be reversing something which has spanned multiple governments of both persuasions and to which the significant minor parties haven't effectively opposed either.
> 
> Once there's a big enough problem, only then will it be possible to go forward but we're not at that point yet. It'll happen, and we'll only know when in hindsight, but we're not at that point yet.





Afraid very little difference in large private companies at least it was my experience in chemical manufacturing company, it was world wide 5000 to 8000 employees, consultants and ideology used to drive us nuts, all we wanted to do was clever stuff to be better (and did) all every other mug manager wanted to do was what some unrelated industry did that didn't work (would ring up the industry and ask reply was usually laughter follow by you poor souls).


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Afraid very little difference in large private companies at least it was my experience in chemical manufacturing company, it was world wide 5000 to 8000 employees, consultants and ideology used to drive us nuts, all we wanted to do was clever stuff to be better (and did) all every other mug manager wanted to do was what some unrelated industry did that didn't work (would ring up the industry and ask reply was usually laughter follow by you poor souls).



You are spot on IFocus, it always amazed me how every new manager NEVER came in and said " this is running great I will leave it as it is", no they had to come in a fffff everything up.


----------



## bi-polar

I know nothing but taxi companies have phones ( plastic box with numerals and sound app).
To save on being fined , couldn't a generator mechanic ring another plant and ask who's cheaper and who flicks the switch?


----------



## Smurf1976

IFocus said:


> Afraid very little difference in large private companies



I think what that comes down to is something far broader and that's about the quality of leadership very broadly in the West.

Everything from why we haven't been back to the moon, indeed why we can't even get a man in space without Russia's help, through to issues of hospitals and gas supplies can all be traced back to that really.

On the energy issue specifically though, I'll pass on calling for anyone to resign (see below) and simply note that the ACCC has an inherent flaw in being involved in this area in that it's founded upon an article of faith that competition necessarily leads to efficiency. That article of faith, and that's exactly what it has become in Australia, fails to differentiate between a _market_ and a _system_ and there's the flaw in it. 

In reality energy company A competes with energy company B in much the same way as the Sydney Harbour Bridge competes with Victoria Road, there's zero chance that either's going out of business and any actual change in volume will be a minor one around the edges. It's not like say Coles versus Woolworths which is actual competition. That's the difference between a system and a market, a point lost on most.

That said, the following does sum up the gas situation rather well albeit bluntly: https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/10/rod-sims-must-resign-over-energy-markets-failure/

Note in particular the big white area under the line for 2025 for which no supply exists in the absence of drilling and discovery, pipelines or imports. Note also that it won't take until 2025 for that gap to appear - it'll be here on a smaller scale well before that. 

There is of course an investment opportunity there for anyone with a plan to fix it and there's a few possible companies there.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> You are spot on IFocus, it always amazed me how every new manager NEVER came in and said " this is running great I will leave it as it is", no they had to come in a fffff everything up.



I've actually worked for someone who did indeed do just that.

Came in, all running nicely, kept it going.

Under that management the staff pushed themselves hard of their own accord - everyone wins.

Agreed it's rare though yes.


----------



## sptrawler

Well it sounds as though the dog has sparked into action and started wagging its tail, at last a plan it may be just the beginning but IMO a step in the right direction, once the actual requirements are defined the policy can be developed to support it.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...-plan-for-wind-and-solar-20191013-p53083.html

From the article:
_It said the electricity system of the future was likely to feature renewable plants that were much smaller than today's coal-fired power plants, in a system much more geographically dispersed than today's.

It also said these plants were "unlikely to be located where there is substantial existing transmission to serve them and is instead being connected in sunny or windy areas at the edges of the grid, where the network is less strong"
The AEMC has proposed that for the first time large-scale generators would be paid a localised price for their power at the wholesale level, which it said better reflected the marginal cost of supplying power at that location.
And while some generators were seeking connections to transmission lines at the edge of the grid, others were connecting at locations where power stations were already located, which meant that transmission lines were becoming heavily congested.

AEMC chairman John Pierce said the growth of dispersed renewable energy generation and battery storage required comprehensive reform of the electricity market


The commission has also proposed the introduction of something it called electricity grid "transmission rights", which generators would have to pay for. AEMC said this would give power generators more investment certainty while ensuring that power networks were used more efficiently.

"Money raised from the sale of these rights would be used to offset consumer bills," AEMC said.


The model the commission has proposed is similar to electricity markets overseas, including in the United States and New Zealand.

"The underlying rationale for the designs elsewhere are the same as those outlined above: a desire to provide appropriate, location-specific price signals for generation and transmission network service providers, and the tools to allow them to manage risks," AEMC sai_d .


----------



## SirRumpole

Doubts cast on Snowy Hydro 2.0 costs and effectiveness.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10...nsive-and-wont-deliver-energy-expert/11594768


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Doubts cast on Snowy Hydro 2.0 costs and effectiveness.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10...nsive-and-wont-deliver-energy-expert/11594768



There wasn't much of substance in that report, maybe there will be a second episode that gives some information, as to what will supply the storage if Snowy 2.0 doesn't go ahead.
As usual two people in the article, make up the whole basis of the article, no doubt we will have people marching in Sydney to ban Snowy 2.0 tomorrow.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> There wasn't much of substance in that report, maybe there will be a second episode that gives some information, as to what will supply the storage if Snowy 2.0 doesn't go ahead.




The simple answer as to who loses if Snowy 2.0 and the Tasmanian pumped hydro projects are built is the gas industry.

Long term a mix of wind, solar, small storage schemes and gas is one option.

Wind, solar and a mix of both large and small storage schemes is the competing option in practice assuming nobody's going to build new coal or nuclear.

Snowy is the easier target of the two projects for many reasons. That it's a federal government owned entity is one aspect and the politics associated with that.

That Hydro Tas has made it rather clear that gas prices are too high to produce electricity at internationally competitive prices, and has taken that to formal arbitration, would also make those on that side of the fence inclined to keep clear.


----------



## sptrawler

The problem with that of course is, gas isn't clean either, it is just less polluting than coal. So it will only be a matter of time before it is seen as evil also.


----------



## basilio

Guess hat ? Apparently the Lithium Ion battery ( actually the designers)  have won a Nobel rize .

*Lithium Batteries Finally Get their Due with Nobel Prize Win*
Mike Jacobs, Senior energy analyst | October 9, 2019, 12:57 pm EDT





Today’s award of  the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to the scientists that created lithium ion batteries marks the common heritage of mobile communications (laptops and smart phones), electric vehicles, and a new era in energy storage for our electric system.


The award recognizes John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino for discoveries that made lithium ion batteries possible.  These discoveries in turn made possible the commercialization of the nascent technologies of portable phones and electric cars. Lithium is the lightest of the metal elements, and making batteries lightweight is important for mobile uses, such as laptops, phones and vehicles.

https://blog.ucsusa.org/mike-jacobs/lithium-batteries-nobel-prize-win


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> . So it will only be a matter of time before it is seen as evil also.



Currently there is a campaign against hydro 2, and a new one trending aiming at removing existing hydro in Tasmania, to restore to its primal beauty
There is no limit to fanatism, definitely neither science nor common sense or reality


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## SirRumpole

qldfrog said:


> Currently there is a campaign against hydro 2, and a new one trending aiming at removing existing hydro in Tasmania, to restore to its primal beauty
> There is no limit to fanatism, definitely neither science nor common sense or reality




Replace a dam with a lot of windmills.

Talk about obstructing the scenery.


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## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> Currently there is a campaign against hydro 2, and a new one trending aiming at removing existing hydro in Tasmania, to restore to its primal beauty
> There is no limit to fanatism, definitely neither science nor common sense or reality




I'll declare my bias in that I played a role in pulling the rug from under the last such proposal back in 1995. I didn't ask the questions but I did write some of them.

Ultimately though it's purely an ideologically driven idea. Greens cannot and will not support hydro in the same way as Liberal cannot and will not support unions. Simple as that.

A wind farm is not an alternative to having inflows to long term storage by the way and I can assure you that those advocating this are well aware of that point indeed last time around they did end up publicly admitting it (followed by a prompt defence that coal isn't really so bad).

There are many who grumble about the CO2 issue but when it comes to actually reducing emissions support is far weaker in practice. Hence why there's quite a few who could be considered as on the "inside" who've privately given up on the issue - it won't be fixed, not much chance of that since there's always some excuse as to why it isn't the priority and here's another example of that.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I asked about the *backlash*, and you offered nothing.
> Wind turbines can be unsightly in pristine wilderness environments and the questions Bob Brown has asked are legitimate.  The south coast of Australia's mainland - from Albany to Port Augusta - is probably a better option for turbines, but won't win any votes.
> Rather than invent problems, how about you stump up with the issues you consider are going to cause concern.



Well Rob don't say I didn't tell you, there would be a backlash against the renewables by the 'greenies, well it is starting to wind up. 

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...-in-worst-possible-place-20191015-p530vu.html


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## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Well Rob don't say I didn't tell you, there would be a backlash against the renewables by the 'greenies, well it is starting to wind up.
> 
> https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...-in-worst-possible-place-20191015-p530vu.html



Anything built has an environmental footprint - that's trivial.
Isn't the issue here that what is being proposed isn't necessary, is too expensive, and will be too late.  I have never been a fan of Snowy 2.0 and have made that clear in these threads.  Localised wind/solar plus storage is a far more practical solution as is scalable and far easier to integrate into the grid.
That said, the reality is if you had asked most people if they prefer Snowy 2.0 or massive coal/gas plants instead, there won't be many putting their hands up for the latter.  If you asked "greenies," it's a no contest.
So the backlash is not about "renewbles" as the preferred energy source, but being smart about it.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Anything built has an environmental footprint - that's trivial.
> Isn't the issue here that what is being proposed isn't necessary, is too expensive, and will be too late.  I have never been a fan of Snowy 2.0 and have made that clear in these threads.  Localised wind/solar plus storage is a far more practical solution as is scalable and far easier to integrate into the grid.
> That said, the reality is if you had asked most people if they prefer Snowy 2.0 or massive coal/gas plants instead, there won't be many putting their hands up for the latter.  If you asked "greenies," it's a no contest.
> So the backlash is not about "renewbles" as the preferred energy source, but being smart about it.



A reliable 2GW pumped storage, would go a long way to supporting renewables and their intermittency, but it will be difficult to get agreement with the contesting parties as usual.
As for integrating it with the grid, it would be far easier, than multiple smaller ones at this point in time, there would be much fewer transmission lines required.


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## qldfrog

Jesus, with mentality like that, we will still burn coal in 100y 
Get some real facts
You put wind turbines where it is windy, solar farms where it is sunny, not where it is convenient
And seldom matching ..
So you need storage if you want renewable, especially with all the extra refugees CC will bring us
And no, batteries is not an option
Read @Smurf1976 to educate yourself


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Localised wind/solar plus storage is a far more practical solution as is scalable and far easier to integrate into the grid.



That is the solution being proposed by AGL and similar companies.

Wind + solar + small storage + gas.

Hence AGL spending $295 million on 210 MW of new gas-fired generation in SA and choosing technology that’s economically and technically best suited to operating not continuously but a lot of the time. It’s not a base load plant but it’s certainly not a peaking or backup operation either - it’ll be run quite a bit.

Likewise AGL’s planned LNG import terminal.

Likewise AGL’s already built LNG production and storage facility in NSW to meet peak gas demand and the plan to locate new gas-fired generation not too far away.

Other companies much the same, I’ve just picked AGL since they’re big and well known and it makes the point.

They’re all looking at a mix of intermittent renewables of gas somewhere in the order of 50/50 or looking at doing one side of that on the assumption others will do the other side.

Hence the other LNG import and gas-fired generation proposals from various companies and others who intend drilling for gas in Australia instead particularly the NT.

Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tasmania’s proposals aren’t competing against others building small storage systems, they’ll still be needed albeit a bit later, and they giving a leg up to add very much more wind and solar.

They are however a credible threat to pull the rug from under the gas aspect of what others are planning and will face huge opposition for that reason.

It’s a case of two irreconcilable long term visions.

Wind + solar + small storages + gas

More wind + more solar + small storages + big pumped hydro. No gas.

Answering the question of which is best first requires answering a policy question.

Tell me how much gas we aim to be using in the long term, 2050 and beyond, and it’s then very easy to answer the question regarding the big hydro proposals and whether or not they’re needed or worthwhile.

It’s a gamble basically. If someone is looking at this in 2050 then was going mostly renewable the right decision? Or is gas still pretty cheap such that we shouldn’t have bothered with expensive storage schemes?


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## SirRumpole

What are these "small storages" ?

Batteries ?


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> What are these "small storages" ?
> 
> Batteries ?



Batteries yes but also small pumped hydro schemes.

Those which would typically have a capacity of ~300MW and store enough water to run for ~5 hours to cover the peaks.  

A perfectly workable idea but it relies on being always able to pump the water back up each day. Wind and solar when available, gas (or coal) when it’s not.

In contrast Snowy 2.0 has a capacity of 2000 MW and the ability to run at constant full load for a week.

In a fully renewable grid there would be occasions when SH2 runs flat out through the night, so base load, and other occasions when it pumps constantly. 

Another way to look at is that it becomes the “reserve bank” for the smaller storages which still eventually get built for their peak capacity. They get filled each day and SH2 and the Tas system operates to balance total input (wind and solar) with demand. 

SH2 and Tas levels rise each day when there’s more wind and sun than there is electricity consumed and fall when the reverse occurs. Meanwhile the small storages cycle daily to cover the hour by hour variations.

Meanwhile in SA right at this moment the large solar farms are all completely shut down and going to waste. Can’t use it, can’t store it so it’s wasted. Not there yet but Vic will end up with similar problems before too long, that’s the track they’re on.


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## IFocus

About gas

"Norway delivered its oil & gas riches to its people, Australia delivered the profits into foreign hands, having done the exploration, spending years and billions proving up giant gas fields. As the gas cartel rakes in the profits exporting LNG at the expense of local consumers"

https://www.michaelwest.com.au/gas-how-australia-privatised-the-profits-and-socialised-the-losses/


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## qldfrog

Which means our gas electricity will be more expensive and probably burn imported foreign gas while exporting our own gas on cheaper contract, the irony , the waste and carbon cost, but it's ok, we will eat less meat, Bangladesh as a role model?


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## Smurf1976

Regardless of whether or not Snowy 2.0 is built, _something_ needs to be built if we're not going to have people sitting in the dark and to be clear, that something needs to be firm dispatchable generation not simply more intermittent renewables. The latter are useful as such, but they don't address the issue of peak generating capacity in an effective manner.

Planned closure dates of existing plant in the NEM (all states except NT and WA) over the next decade. There's plenty more coming after that but the next 10 years makes the point. Note that I've only included units with capacity exceeding 10 MW to keep the list short.

Note that "gas" means natural gas unless stated otherwise and for simplicity I've simply referred to any fuel produced from oil (diesel, kero, fuel oil etc) as "oil" since the detail isn't important there. 

Plant ratings shown are nameplate ratings which are the same as actual ratings except at Liddell where the machines have been derated to 420 MW each and at Yallourn where they run to around 360 - 380 MW depending on various factors.

Closing in 2020:
Torrens Island A unit 2: 120 MW, gas, SA.
Torrens Island A unit 4: 120 MW, gas, SA.

Closing in 2021:
Mackay: 34 MW, oil, Qld.
Torrens Island A unit 1: 120 MW, gas, SA

Closing in 2022:
Daandine: 33 MW, gas, Qld
Torrens Island A unit 3: 120 MW, gas, SA
Liddell unit 4: 500 MW, coal, NSW

Closing in 2023:
Osborne: 180 MW, gas, SA
Liddell Unit 1: 500 MW, coal, NSW
Liddell Unit 2: 500 MW, coal, NSW
Liddell Unit 3: 500 MW, coal, NSW

Closing in 2024 (none)

Closing in 2025:
Clayton: 12 MW, landfill gas, Vic
Lucas Heights 2: 17 MW, landfill gas, NSW
Oaky Creek: 21 MW, waste coal mine gas, Qld

Closing in 2026:
Broken Hill: 50 MW, oil, NSW

Closing in 2027:
Glennies Creek: 13 MW, waste coal mine gas, NSW

Closing in 2028:
Swanbank E: 385 MW, gas, Qld

Closing in 2029:
Yallourn W unit 1: 350 MW, coal, Vic
Vales Point B Unit 1 (aka Vales Point PS unit 5): 660 MW, coal, NSW
Vales Point B unit 2 (aka Vales Point PS unit 6): 660 MW, coal, NSW

So all up that's 4895 MW of plant being closed over the next decade and a lot more coming in the 2030's. Source for the above information is various AEMO data sets.

Then there's the question about the use of renewable energy and how all that fits in. In the absence of someone coming up with economical and practical means of supplying renewable gas or petrol, a renewable energy economy is an electric economy at the point of use. 

With that in mind it's worth noting that whilst Australians tend to think "electricity" if someone says "energy" the reality is that except in Tasmania, electricity is a relatively minor player in terms of the energy supplied to end users. 

Based on Australian Government statistics and avoiding double counting, so that is looking at the forms of energy "as supplied" to end users so that's petrol or diesel not oil, it's electricity not the coal used to produce it, etc, then the figure for electricity is very much lower than most would be expecting:

Tas = Electricity is 39% of all energy supplied to end users.
NSW = 23%
SA = 20%
Qld = 19%
NT = 17%
Vic = 17%
WA = 15%

Figures calculated by Smurf from Australian Government statistics which can found at energy.gov.au

That the figures are so low is best explained by saying that if we take Victoria as an example, well natural gas is a bigger industry in terms of energy supplied to end users (so excluding gas-fired power stations) than is electricity whilst petroleum products (petrol, diesel etc) are larger again. It's even more extreme in WA and then there's things like wood fires in homes, coal used in industry (steel, cement, paper and others), the use of fuel oil to fire boilers etc and so on plus of course transport.

Where all that goes is that if we're going to be moving away from the direct use of fuels to heat water, move vehicles and so on then we're going to be using more electricity not less and considerably so. 

There's definitely opportunities to invest in the sector. Just be careful to pick the companies which are getting on with it not the ones which do a lot of jumping up and down.


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## SirRumpole

Small gas turbine might take homes off the grid.

http://theleadsouthaustralia.com.au...s-turbine-could-help-take-homes-off-the-grid/


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Small gas turbine might take homes off the grid.
> 
> http://theleadsouthaustralia.com.au...s-turbine-could-help-take-homes-off-the-grid/



Just another nonsense pizz ant idea, over East you guys are going to need some grunt, when they shut down major stations, all this airy fairy stuff is nonsense and window dressing.
The only winners will be the big companies, they will get a blank cheque to get you out of the $hit.
Just my opinion.
The funny thing is, everyone is letting the same companies and the greenies, get you in the mess in the first place.lol
Hope it all works out well.


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## Smurf1976

I can see a military advantage with this in that it's far lighter than conventional diesel generators and has flexibility to use basically any liquid or gas fuel, whatever's available.

I've never served in the military but I'd expect those attributes of lightweight and being able to use a range of fuels would be advantageous from a practical and logistical perspective?

Cost not such an issue in that situation since it's not competing with grid power and the military would presumably be willing to spend the $ if there are practical advantages.

I don't think the company is listed however?


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## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I can see a military advantage with this in that it's far lighter than conventional diesel generators and has flexibility to use basically any liquid or gas fuel, whatever's available.
> 
> I've never served in the military but I'd expect those attributes of lightweight and being able to use a range of fuels would be advantageous from a practical and logistical perspective?
> 
> Cost not such an issue in that situation since it's not competing with grid power and the military would presumably be willing to spend the $ if there are practical advantages.
> 
> I don't think the company is listed however?



Smurf what do you think the efficiency of something like that would be?


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Smurf what do you think the efficiency of something like that would be?



Don't know really but if pressed then I'd guess about 30%. That's really just a guess though.

Smaller usually means less efficient than something larger but if it's for military use then throwing $ at it for exotic materials etc could push the efficiency back up.

Considering though that a large scale commercial OCGT doesn't go much past 40% and in practice usually lower so it's hard to see this being better than that in terms of its electrical output. Obviously higher if the heat could be put to use.


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## Smurf1976

A significant occurrence in SA today with demand for power from the grid dropping to a low of 432 MW, down from the previous non-fault low of 501 MW.

The conventional explanation is the rise of rooftop solar, that the weather was mild and that it's a Sunday. Whilst I agree with that, I do wonder to what extent there may also be an economic signal of reduced consumption hidden in that? Speculation there but it's possible.


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## sptrawler

It is good to see AGL not capitulating to a group shareholders, wanting the closure of Liddle Power Station closing early, their response sounds very measured.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/com...oal-power-plant-closures-20190919-p52sve.html

From the article:
_The resolution, brought by shareholder activist group Market Forces, would have required AGL to quit coal-fired power generation by 2030 – two decades before the company's planned exit date of 2050.

AGL's board on Thursday succeeded in recommending its shareholders reject the push, insisting that climate change and emissions were priorities for the company but that the transition away from coal must take place in an "orderly manner"_ .


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It is good to see AGL not capitulating to a group shareholders, wanting the closure of Liddle Power Station closing early, their response sounds very measured.



AGL has an advantage in coal-fired generation. As you're no doubt well aware, one thing you really need at a coal-fired power station is coal and AGL have this.

It would be a real nuisance for anyone else who had a coal-fired plant and didn't have enough coal to run it with.


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## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> AGL has an advantage in coal-fired generation. As you're no doubt well aware, one thing you really need at a coal-fired power station is coal and AGL have this.
> 
> It would be a real nuisance for anyone else who had a coal-fired plant and didn't have enough coal to run it with.



I think maybe AGL has come to the party, might be an orderly transition, possible accumulation opportunity?


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## Belli

Smurf1976 said:


> rise of rooftop solar




Speaking of which one of the PV systems installed has a tendency to trip at the switchboard.  It's done it a few times over the last few days and it isn't blazingly hot weather (around 28C now) although clear and sunny.  The installer advised it isn't common with the systems the company has installed but has happened and they are heading out with electrician in tow.  They consider the 25A at the switchboard and the 24A limit at the inverter may not be sufficient or the 25A is faulty.  SolarEdge inverter.

I was pretty surprised how much the other PV system (SMA inverter) has pumped out over the last 12 months.  The company estimated 8,500 kwH over 12 months but the production reached 10,000 kwH in 11 months.  It just lucked it to be in the right position apparently.

The solar hot water which was installed in August this year is going gang busters.  I know little about them and was concerned at how much water was being released in the late morning.  The plumber contacted me and after a bit of discussion told me it was doing what it should to stop blowing up.  A 300 litre tank for a 4 bed room home fits but there is only one person (me) in the house so little hot water is used.  As the tank can get to 180C, the pressure relief value is doing it's job.  He suggested I can switch off the electric boost as apparently I don't need it on during this warmer period.  According to the manufacture's the system will tend to release a comparatively large amount for safety reasons during the first Summer of operations after which it will settle down.  We'll see.


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## rederob

Dragging this subject back from the climate threads.
This was what I was talking about.
No clarity or policy direction but, instead, brickbats from the inept Energy Minister.


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## basilio

Great new opportunities for engineers in the oil an gas industries. 
Certainly a good news story.

*Offshore windfarms 'can provide more electricity than the world needs'*
Supplies from turbines will prove to be the next great energy revolution, IEA predicts

Erecting wind turbines on the world’s best offshore sites could provide more than enough clean energy to meet global electricity demand, according to a report.

A detailed study of the world’s coastlines has found that offshore windfarms alone could provide more electricity than the world needs – even if they are only built in windy regions in shallow waters near the shore.

Analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA) revealed that if windfarms were built across all useable sites which are no further than 60km (37 miles) off the coast, and where coastal waters are no deeper than 60 metres, they could generate 36,000 terrawatt hours of renewable electricity a year. This clean energy boom would easily meeting the current global demand for electricity of 23,000 terrawatt hours.

“Offshore wind currently provides just 0.3% of global power generation, but its potential is vast,” said the IEA’s executive director, Fatih Birol.

The study predicts offshore wind will grow 15 fold to emerge as a $1tn (£780bn) industry in the next 20 years and will prove to be the next great energy revolution.

The IEA said earlier this week that global supplies of renewable electricity were growing faster than expected and could expand by 50% in the next five years, powered by a resurgence in solar energy. Offshore wind power would drive the world’s growth in clean power due to plummeting costs and new technological breakthroughs which include turbines close to the height of the Eiffel Tower and floating installations that can harness wind speeds further from the coast.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...provide-more-electricity-than-the-world-needs


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## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> Great new opportunities for engineers in the oil an gas industries.
> Certainly a good news story.
> 
> *Offshore windfarms 'can provide more electricity than the world needs'*
> Supplies from turbines will prove to be the next great energy revolution, IEA predicts
> 
> Erecting wind turbines on the world’s best offshore sites could provide more than enough clean energy to meet global electricity demand, according to a report.
> 
> A detailed study of the world’s coastlines has found that offshore windfarms alone could provide more electricity than the world needs – even if they are only built in windy regions in shallow waters near the shore.
> 
> Analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA) revealed that if windfarms were built across all useable sites which are no further than 60km (37 miles) off the coast, and where coastal waters are no deeper than 60 metres, they could generate 36,000 terrawatt hours of renewable electricity a year. This clean energy boom would easily meeting the current global demand for electricity of 23,000 terrawatt hours.
> 
> “Offshore wind currently provides just 0.3% of global power generation, but its potential is vast,” said the IEA’s executive director, Fatih Birol.
> 
> The study predicts offshore wind will grow 15 fold to emerge as a $1tn (£780bn) industry in the next 20 years and will prove to be the next great energy revolution.
> 
> The IEA said earlier this week that global supplies of renewable electricity were growing faster than expected and could expand by 50% in the next five years, powered by a resurgence in solar energy. Offshore wind power would drive the world’s growth in clean power due to plummeting costs and new technological breakthroughs which include turbines close to the height of the Eiffel Tower and floating installations that can harness wind speeds further from the coast.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/environ...provide-more-electricity-than-the-world-needs




Not good news for seabirds.


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## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Not good news for seabirds.




Or coral reefs, good luck putting anything offshore within a stones throw of the barrier reef.


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## Smurf1976

http://www.wattclarity.com.au/artic...-reflections-on-frequency-control-in-the-nem/

In short the frustrations expressed, politely, there sum it all up rather well.

Frequency control is as fundamental as it gets really. It's the sort of thing that's actually explained to visitors (general public) to power stations etc - it's really fundamental stuff. Much like someone explaining that the locomotive pulls the rest of the train along the tracks or that the heart pumps blood around the body - it's basic fundamentals as to how it works.

If we're still struggling to get that one fixed, despite well known solutions with a century of proof that they work, well then suffice to say why most who've seen this sort of thing have given up when it comes to relatively more complex things like the CO2 issue. If you're struggling to jog around the block then there's not much chance of winning anything at the Olympics, right?

This is an issue that was indeed done correctly and working just fine for many decades until the powers that be, with no relevant technical knowledge, decided to undo it. As I say - anyone expecting leadership from government on anything even slightly scientific or technical in any field from environment to medicine would be wise to not hold their breath waiting.

I think that underlying reality explains why discussions on such subjects go around and around aimlessly. NBN, CO2, the Murray River, energy and so on - they're all essentially akin to boarding a bus that goes around and around the same roundabout and never takes you to your destination. That's the inevitable consequence when you've got a scientific issue being run by people who don't think science is too important. Well, um, er......... 

Hence my point about focusing on the practical aspects - in the context of this forum that's mostly what to invest in and more broadly it's what else you ought to do. Just don't be waiting on anyone connected with the federal government. 

In the case of energy, it'll take a monumental debacle to force change in my view. Probably much the same with the other intertwined issues. No point stressing about it though.


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## sptrawler

I find it hard to believe they have disabled the governor droops on the units, that is a real recipe for disaster, if the units can't pick up the load relative to their size it wont take much for a domino effect to happen.


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## sptrawler

This was taken from an article by a consultancy group, I found it really supports what we have been saying, regarding storage and transmission which I feel the Governments both Federal and State need to progress with ASAP.

https://www.pv-magazine-australia.c...renewable-energy-projects-swells-over-130-gw/
From the article:

_The recent renewable energy boom, according to the Australian National University (ANU), will see Australia’s carbon emissions decline by as much as 4% over the next few years. Noting that Australia’s solar and wind deployment is 10 times faster per capita than the world average, Professor Andrew Blakers says: “This is a message of hope for reducing our emissions at low cost. Solar and wind energy offers the cheapest way to make deep cuts in emissions because of their low and continually falling cost.”

However, ANU researchers underline the emissions cuts will depend on the support of the federal government and, to a lesser extent, state governments to further expansion of solar and wind by ensuring adequate new electricity transmission and storage. “If the renewable energy pipeline is stopped or slowed down because of insufficient transmission and storage, then emissions may rise again from 2022,” . end
_

_*IMO* It does look as though projects are starting to come through, which is good news.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...ends-underwriting-scheme-20191017-p531nj.html
If one can keep emotion out of the debate, the article sounds like a sensible approach, for the Government to take._


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## sptrawler

Here is an interesting article on an experimental fusion reactor, which if successful will answer a lot of the Worlds energy problems.

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2019-iter-nuclear-fusion/?srnd=premium-asia


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I find it hard to believe they have disabled the governor droops on the units, that is a real recipe for disaster, if the units can't pick up the load relative to their size it wont take much for a domino effect to happen.



It's true sadly, no joke, and I'm sure you're well aware of the potential consequences across the mainland NEM states all of which are AC interconnected.

There was a near miss last year which resulted in Qld and SA both disconnecting from NSW and Vic respectively at the same time and some residential and general business load was shed in NSW due to that. It could have been far worse as I'm sure you understand.

In layman's terms for everyone else - it's akin to driving a car by deciding that you won't steer, at all, and will only "correct" the position of the car on the road when the right hand wheels hit the centre line or the left hand wheels hit the edge of the road. At all other times your hands are and will remain off the wheel. End result is the car bounces back and forth between the two edges of the lane and should a cop spot you they'll assume drink driving and pull you over to ask some questions. That's pretty close to how the grid's actually being run at the moment - and suffice to say you won't need to go too far to find an engineer, technician or operator who's anything but happy about it. This affects the whole of the mainland NEM so that's Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic and SA if you're on the main grid in those states.

I never thought such silliness would prevail. But then I never thought we'd have a coal-fired power station without any coal either. 

On a positive note though, if there's no coal to burn well that's one certain way to address the CO2 issue very effectively. Not without some rather drastic downsides but it fixes one problem.


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## sptrawler

If the plant that has been damaged isn't back in service for summer, I'm sure the system will have some interesting episodes over summer peak period.


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## SirRumpole

Has the Coalition finally cottoned on ?

New money for clean energy.

Craig Kelly will be ropeable. 

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...-into-clean-energy-projects-to-stabilise-grid


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> If the plant that has been damaged isn't back in service for summer, I'm sure the system will have some interesting episodes over summer peak period.



Official word from AGL is that Loy Yang A unit 2, the one which had a rather bad incident, should be back in service mid-December on current plans. Capacity is 530 MW and this is steam turbine plant (coal-fired boiler).

Haven’t heard from Origin about Mortlake unit 2 which also had a rather bad incident. This is a gas turbine (open cycle) with capacity nominally 259 MW but goes to about 265 in practice.

Both the above are located in Victoria.

In SA the Barker Inlet station commissioning is still underway with plenty of short test runs occurring. Capacity will be 210 MW from 12 x 17.5 MW internal combustion engines (main fuel is gas but can run diesel).

NSW is the state where there’s lots of capacity offline at the moment indeed  about half of all coal plant isn’t running and there’s a current lack of reserve notice from AEMO.

Some of that’s off for maintenance, some due to failure, some because of missing the magic ingredient. Coal power doesn’t go too well if you ain’t got no coal...... 

Liddell’s still going though. Imperfectly, there’s no chance of getting the old plant up to full capacity these days it’s too worn out for that, but they’ve got plenty of coal and it’s humming away well enough albeit far from perfect. The lights will go out in parts of NSW if it stops so better hope it keeps going.

Liddell, Barker Inlet and Loy Yang A are all fully owned and operated by AGL.

Mortlake is fully owned by Origin Energy.

I haven’t named who’s got no coal as I’m not sure how public that info is. It’s in NSW though.


----------



## sptrawler

AGL to install some decent size batteries.

https://www.theage.com.au/business/...in-time-for-liddell-exit-20191030-p535mf.html


----------



## SirRumpole

Some realities about the global hydrogen market.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-31/hydrogen-strategy-fossil-fuels-versus-renewables/11653336


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> Some realities about the global hydrogen market.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-31/hydrogen-strategy-fossil-fuels-versus-renewables/11653336



I could not access the thread this morning, i highly recommend the article especially once past the usual ABC anti coal tirade.some interesting facts on how uncompetitive we are even in producing H2


----------



## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> I could not access the thread this morning, i highly recommend the article especially once past the usual ABC anti coal tirade.some interesting facts on how uncompetitive we are even in producing H2



The thing is as VC says there is no sense in using fossil fuels to make hydrogen, the loss in efficiency is astronomical, in reality it is only viable from renewables. IMO
The other issue for a lot of Countries like the U.S is, their domestic requirement, would make the possibility of exporting excess highly unlikely. Again just my opinion.
That is unless they come up with a clean way of making power, in large quantities, that can be used to supplement renewables and both supply the load and produce hydrogen.


----------



## sptrawler

It sounds as though a very big solar/storage facility project, destined for Kilcoy Qld, is facing wind up action in the Supreme Court, another one that didn't make it maybe.

https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/sunshine-energy-solar-stoush-mb0950/

https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/projects/sea-kilcoy-solar-farm-australia/

I did mention to rederob, that there will be a lot of public backlash against all these proposed 'solar farms'. I think it is like a lot of things, it's all good, as long as it isn't in my backyard.
https://www.change.org/p/somerset-regional-council-reduce-size-of-massive-solar-farm


----------



## basilio

IMV this is an exceptionally clever way to use the energy intensive aluminium industry to balance the fluctuating energy demands of a renewable energy grid.

Well worth reading.

* Australia's aluminium sector is on life support. It can and should be saved *
Simon Holmes à Court
Technology and leadership could save thousands of jobs and accelerate Australia’s energy transition

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...is-on-life-support-it-can-and-should-be-saved


----------



## Knobby22

Very good article.
It would be tragic to lose the plant.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> IMV this is an exceptionally clever way to use the energy intensive aluminium industry to balance the fluctuating energy demands of a renewable energy grid.




The presence of large loads which can endure _short term_ interruptions without major drama is of huge value in operating the system regardless of what energy source is used.

Lose that load permanently and then we've got two options basically. Either we focus on much firmer security of supply or we use some other large load block, which realistically would be entire suburbs of the capital cities (because there's not much else that could be used) to perform that role.

Lack of industrial load is already a problem in SA, the sum total of all heavy industrial load in SA being considerably less than the other states, and is part of the reason why costs have always been higher in SA. That's also a chicken and egg thing since higher costs = lack of industry = higher costs = lack of industry.

Queensland and Tas are at the other end of the scale in terms of their main grid so no surprise to see them doing it cheaper and more reliably. The two issues are linked and interdependent. Big constant loads drive down costs and add stability from a technical perspective which then encourages more big constant loads which keeps costs down and stability up. A chicken and egg situation.

Much has been said about the towers falling over and the system black in SA three years ago but what is often missed is that Qld and Tas have also both suffered effectively the same incident, a sudden and total failure of transmission linkage to NSW and Victoria respectively, on more than one occasion but neither suffered a system collapse resulting from that. Indeed there was no loss of residential or general business load at all, the problem being completely contained within generation and a few major industries and then promptly rectified. 

Big, stable loads which can be instantly tripped in an emergency, and by that I mean it's off before any human even realises something's gone wrong, then restarted in an orderly manner based upon a grid that's already stabilised itself following whatever went wrong and all without causing disruption to the general public has a huge value no matter what source of energy is being used.


----------



## qldfrog

https://reneweconomy.com.au/agl-signs-huge-battery-storage-deal-hails-dawn-of-battery-age-32169/


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting article from Industry Super Australia. It brings up some taboo subjects.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-26/industry-super-funds-consider-the-nuclear-option/11248202

From the article:
_In addition to nuclear, the report argued technologies such as solar, wind, coal, gas generation and carbon capture and storage need to be considered.

The study also raised concerns about battery schemes, finding that using Tesla batteries to achieve 1.5 days power backup would cost $6.5 trillion, or the cost of building around 1,000 nuclear reactors_ .
_It warned that generating power for a renewable energy system in the same period would require 100 Snowy Hyrdo 2.0 schemes at a cost of $700 billion_ .


----------



## basilio

I found that article bewildering in the extreme.  I havn't read the full story but the excerpts published on the ABC don't make sense.

Firstly no-one is suggesting that Australia should create a battery bank to last 36 hours. This is an extreme straw man argument.  Batteries or pumped hydro are short term stabilising energy sources to be used in conjunction with widespread solar and wind power. They are never intended to supply all the energy requirements  for 36 hours

Other energy sources like tidal or wave energy would never be capable of meeting the entire energy needs of Australia. They are always going to be niche suppliers in favorable locations - if the technology is sorted.

The overwhelming reason why nuclear is off the table is financial.  A nuclear power plant will take many years to get off the ground and is still far more expensive than comparable solar/wind/battery/pumped hydro combinations.


----------



## basilio

There is a detailed breakdown of the figures behind the ISA Report.  Destroys the argument comprehensively.

_There’s no discussion in the ISA report about the opportunity costs of going nuclear, neatly summarised by Peter Farley, a fellow of the Australian Institution of Engineers, in RenewEconomy earlier this year:

“As for nuclear the 2,200 MW Plant Vogtle is costing US$25 billion plus financing costs, insurance and long term waste storage. … For the full cost of US$30 billion, we could build 7,000 MW of wind, 7,000 MW of tracking solar, 10,000 MW of rooftop solar, 5,000MW of pumped hydro and 5,000 MW of batteries. … That_ is why nuclear is irrelevant in Australia. It has nothing to do with greenies, it’s just about cost and reliability.”

https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-war-erupts-between-australian-super-funds-47766/

Another excellent analysis of the cost benefits of renewables over fossil fuel and nuclear.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/how-did-wind-and-solar-perform-in-the-recent-heat-wave-40479/


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Firstly no-one is suggesting that Australia should create a battery bank to last 36 hours. This is an extreme straw man argument.  Batteries or pumped hydro are short term stabilising energy sources to be used in conjunction with widespread solar and wind power. They are never intended to supply all the energy requirements  for 36 hours




Where the issue arises is that there's a portion of the population, and I'm referring to the general public here not anyone on this thread, which does seem to think that if we just put up some solar panels, wind farms and batteries then that's it, all our energy problems are fixed forever.

Have a look at the Facebook page of any of the major energy companies. They're full of comments from people to that effect - why on earth are you guys stuffing about with gas or hydro when we can just use solar and batteries?

In reality batteries with present and near term foreseeable technology have an application for peak capacity, frequency control and as short term backup at the fringes of the network but that's about it.

Looking at wind and solar data the reality is both good and bad.

The good bit is there's plenty of it and it works.

The bad bit is the poor seasonal alignment with overall energy consumption and in particular heating loads. At the same time as total energy (not just electricity but all forms) consumption peaks in the southern parts of the country, solar is at its seasonal minimum and wind is subject to all too frequent "droughts" which see low output in all states for a week or more.

Therein arises the requirement that we have something which isn't wind, solar or batteries which is capable of carrying serious load for a week or more constantly.

Hydro is one option and the obvious one if the aim is to use renewable energy. Failing that, large scale hydrogen production and storage could work but does involve a lot of losses - it could well be part of the solution though.

Beyond that though, well pragmatic reality is that there are 5 LNG import proposals and numerous gas-fired power generation proposals across NSW, Vic and SA with the Barker Inlet power station (gas) opened in SA today (more info about that in the AGL thread).

That's the divide basically. Private enterprise favours wind, solar and gas with a few batteries here and there. Under that model gas provides around half the total supply.

On the other side, the two big hydro operators propose themselves building big pumped hydro schemes, others building more wind and solar and smaller hydro and battery systems, and in due course minimal use of gas.

Something needs to be done though. If you went to Yallourn right now you'd find three quarters of the plant's idle and the rest's struggling along. No Sir, it ain't going at all well not in the slightest. Not to worry though - the politicians of all colours will have already rehearsed their speech for when old grandpa tries to run another marathon this summer and keels over in the heat. "Not our fault" they'll scream whilst throwing a few stones at the other side of politics.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Beyond that though, well pragmatic reality is that there are 5 LNG import proposals and numerous gas-fired power generation proposals across NSW, Vic and SA with the Barker Inlet power station (gas) opened in SA today (more info about that in the AGL thread).




Do you have a view on fracking Smurf if that is in your area ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Do you have a view on fracking Smurf if that is in your area ?




It's not something I'll claim to have any expertise on but my response would be "see what the science says" and that it needs to be considered in the context of how it compares to the alternatives.

That is, the science will definitely say "there's an impact" but how does that compare to anything else? Make a decision on that basis.

It is of course not going to achieve anything at all with domestic supply if it simply means an increase in gas exports. There's no point turning up the taps if you haven't put the plug in the bath.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Something needs to be done though. If you went to Yallourn right now you'd find three quarters of the plant's idle and the rest's struggling along. No Sir, it ain't going at all well not in the slightest. Not to worry though - the politicians of all colours will have already rehearsed their speech for when old grandpa tries to run another marathon this summer and keels over in the heat. "Not our fault" they'll scream whilst throwing a few stones at the other side of politics.




Meanwhile the general public, sit around listening to Dusty Sprinfield singing "wishing and hoping".
Can't wait to see how it goes, when power rationing comes in.


----------



## Smurf1976

As warned of previously in this thread minus the names, it seems to now be out in the public domain:



> Wind and solar farms owned by AGL Energy and QIC are among renewable power plants that are set to be even worse hit by transmission losses next financial year as developers pay the price for the uncoordinated flood of new capacity onto remote parts of the grid.
> 
> The scale of the problem has triggered warnings of significant financial distress and even default among some projects as revenues are slashed.




https://www.afr.com/companies/energ...it-as-grid-congestion-worsens-20191105-p537h7

And another one:



> Last month UK-based infrastructure developer John Laing Group took a £66 million ($119.7 million) write-down on renewable energy assets in Australia due to transmission losses on projects and put new renewables investments in the country on hold.




https://www.afr.com/companies/energ...p-to-smooth-energy-transition-20190829-p52lwq

As I and others have said many times, this is all doable but there's far more to it than just putting things up and hoping it'll work. It's nothing even remotely "plug and play" like setting up a modern computer or sound system where it all just works - this stuff needs "real" engineering right from the start if it's to work as intended.

Be very, very careful where you put your money if you're investing in this area.


----------



## sptrawler

Hopefully Snowy 2.0 and the Tassie battery are well along the design stage, the sooner they get installed and can soak up some of this generation the better, transmission lines are easier and quicker to install than mega dams and pipework.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> As warned of previously in this thread minus the names, it seems to now be out in the public domain:
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.afr.com/companies/energ...it-as-grid-congestion-worsens-20191105-p537h7
> 
> And another one:
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.afr.com/companies/energ...p-to-smooth-energy-transition-20190829-p52lwq
> 
> As I and others have said many times, this is all doable but there's far more to it than just putting things up and hoping it'll work. It's nothing even remotely "plug and play" like setting up a modern computer or sound system where it all just works - this stuff needs "real" engineering right from the start if it's to work as intended.
> 
> Be very, very careful where you put your money if you're investing in this area.




Here is another article on the same issues smurf, hopefully they are upgrading the transmission where it is needed most.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09...e-holding-back-renewable-energy-boom/11457694

It is quite interesting, that various Governments and businesses were 'bagged' for gold plating the network and costing the public more for electricity. Now similar people are complaining that we need more spent on gold plating transmission.
It all is very familiar, when those with the biggest voice, don't in most cases have the knowledge. It just shows engineering is badly needed, not media and Government intervention. IMO
From the article:
_Andrew Dillon from the industry peak body Energy Networks Australia agrees that more transmission lines are needed to cope with the transition to renewable energy.

But the companies building and maintaining the electricity network infrastructure are still dealing with the fallout from spending billions of dollars on so-called 'gold-plated' poles and wires.

"If you go back just two or three years there were a significant number of stakeholders that were complaining we built too much in the energy network space, and many of those same people are now saying we haven't built enough," he told 7.30.

"We can't have it both ways. There's either too much network, or there's not enough."

Mapping by network operator Transgrid shows the capacity to connect new energy to the grid across much of New South Wales is next to zero.

Andrew Dillon says that's a significant challenge.

"Transgrid is one network some people have accused of overbuilding in the past, and yet again many of the main stakeholders are now claiming Transgrid doesn't have enough to connect the new capacity._"


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It is quite interesting, that various Governments and businesses were 'bagged' for gold plating the network and costing the public more for electricity. Now similar people are complaining that we need more spent on gold plating transmission.



The trouble with all this is that it's a subject inherently different to anything that ordinary people have practical experience with. Tell them at 2pm that there's a surplus right now but in 4 hours time the lights will go out due to a shortage and most people do struggle to get their minds around that concept.

Combine that reality with governments having tended to put in charge people from backgrounds where the opposite is true, economics and law, and it explains how we've ended up where we are now.

From an investment perspective it's a situation where there's massive potential for companies to invest in things and for their shareholders to benefit but there's also massive potential to end up toasted.


----------



## SirRumpole

Ross Gaurnaut's views on power and climate.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11...climate-change-theres-a-way-to-avoid/11673836


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> Ross Gaurnaut's views on power and climate.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11...climate-change-theres-a-way-to-avoid/11673836




On a more positive note from Ross Gaurnat that article offers a clear, cost effective route to a zero carbon energy system - as well as revitalizing our industry. 
We would be crazy not to do it..


----------



## basilio

*Ross Garnaut: three policies will set Australia on a path to 100% renewable energy*
The economist’s new book, Superpower, sets out how the government can embrace low-carbon opportunities in this term






Ross Garnaut has no doubt renewables can meet 100% of electricity requirements by the 2030s, with high degrees of reliability and at lower prices. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Australia could set a path to 100% renewable electricity, a highly reliable grid and significantly cheaper wholesale prices than today by introducing a handful of policies consistent with the Morrison government’s election platform, the economist Ross Garnaut says.
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...t-australia-on-a-path-to-100-renewable-energy


----------



## sptrawler

Nothing like having an economist, tell you how to fix an electrical engineering problem.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Nothing like having an economist, tell you how to fix an electrical engineering problem.




Not as ridiculous as having a failed ad man as Prime Minister.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> Nothing like having an economist, tell you how to fix an electrical engineering problem.



 How much do you know about Ross Garnaut and his extensive research in the field?


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> How much do you know about Ross Garnaut and his extensive research in the field?



Well from the article, all he has done is regurgitate what is already common knowledge, but as long as it is an article in the right direction it can't hurt.
As for how much I know about Ross Garnaut, i would say about as much as you know about the power system and its operation.


----------



## basilio

https://www.rossgarnaut.com.au/


----------



## basilio

*Ross Garnaut is a professorial research fellow in economics at the University of Melbourne, chairs the international advisory board of the Australian German Energy Transition Hub and is a Distinguished Fellow of the Melbourne Energy Institute. He is chairman of, and a shareholder in, Sunshot Energy and a shareholder in SIMEC ZEN Energy, both of which are engaged in the development and trade of energy.* *He conducted the 2008 and 2011 climate reviews for the Rudd and Gillard governments. His book Superpower — Australia's Low-Carbon Opportunity, is published today by BlackInc with La Trobe University Press.* *This article originally appeared on The Conversation.*


----------



## Smurf1976

As a concept I totally agree with what he's aiming for.

That said, it's not exactly an original thought since it's pretty much 20th Century Tasmanian style hydro-industrialisation on a national scale and using a different power source. It's the exact same logic however - produce lots of cheap power, shove it down a transmission line to wherever and use it to run industry, doing so as a key economic policy rather than purely an energy one. Set up the power source and so long as you're the cheapest then you'll have no trouble finding someone wanting to use it.

Victoria later replicated that policy albeit without naming it. It did however lead to the state pressing hard for the Snowy to be built, Victoria wanted power whereas NSW was really only interested in the water aspect, and it also lead to the massive scaling up of generation based on coal, most notably the now closed Hazelwood power station followed by Yallourn W and Loy Yang A both of which still operate.

The devil is in the detail however and I'll point there to his bit about splitting Snowy Hydro. You won't get prices down with that sort of 1990's economic thinking indeed that's what has driven prices up in the first place. If he was talking about Snowy buying out the other hydro operations in the Murray catchment then that would make far more sense as a means of lowering costs than to be splitting anything up.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> *Ross Garnaut is a professorial research fellow in economics at the University of Melbourne, chairs the international advisory board of the Australian German Energy Transition Hub and is a Distinguished Fellow of the Melbourne Energy Institute. He is chairman of, and a shareholder in, Sunshot Energy and a shareholder in SIMEC ZEN Energy, both of which are engaged in the development and trade of energy.* *He conducted the 2008 and 2011 climate reviews for the Rudd and Gillard governments. His book Superpower — Australia's Low-Carbon Opportunity, is published today by BlackInc with La Trobe University Press.* *This article originally appeared on The Conversation.*



Read smurfs post.

Then re read what I said.
_Well from the article, all he has done is regurgitate what is already common knowledge, but as long as it is an article in the right direction it can't hurt_.


----------



## SirRumpole

We will never go back but it just seems to me that having State governments owning the three areas of generation, distribution, retailing and competing against the other States to deliver the lowest prices was the most efficient (in terms of final price) than the system we have now with the mostly privatised national grid.

What exactly has been gained by the privatisation of national assets ?

One of the highest power prices in the world and a basically stuffed generation system.

But then, I'm just a troglodyte who can't keep up with the times I guess.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> We will never go back but it just seems to me that having State governments owning the three areas of generation, distribution, retailing and competing against the other States to deliver the lowest prices was the most efficient (in terms of final price) than the system we have now with the mostly privatised national grid.
> 
> What exactly has been gained by the privatisation of national assets ?
> 
> One of the highest power prices in the world and a basically stuffed generation system.
> 
> But then, I'm just a troglodyte who can't keep up with the times I guess.



Well everyone said that Government run organisations were fat and inefficient, I worked in power generation for my whole career, for both Government and private.
What I can say from my experience is, Government was built and run to a standard, as opposed to a price and a commercial outcome.
But having said that, it was also the very argument that everyone used, to force privatisation. So as per usual everyone got what they deserved.
Just my opinion.


----------



## Knobby22

SirRumpole said:


> What exactly has been gained by the privatisation of national assets ?
> 
> .




Never get between a Premier and a bucket of money- Paul Keating


----------



## SirRumpole

Knobby22 said:


> Never get between a Premier and a bucket of money- Paul Keating




I'm not sure that was entirely the case.

Howard/ Costello had an "asset recycling" policy whereby the States wouldn't get any more money for infrastructure unless they sold off existing assets.

It's hard to resist that sort of pressure.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> We will never go back but it just seems to me that having State governments owning



Separate ownership, government, private or a mix, can work provided that there's someone in overall control of the whole show.

Two notable past examples of that:

Victoria - the SECV was in control as such from 1918 but up to 1932 the Victorian Railways (VR) owned the largest power station and Melbourne City Council (MCC) remained the third largest through to 1959. It was all under SECV control though, everything was interconnected and operated as a single system apart from the minor hurdle of the VR's need for 25 Hz supply.

There was no active attempt to get rid of that, indeed the MCC invested in new plant as late as the early 1950's and was still in the power generation business until 1983. Meanwhile the SECV built two new stations physically joined to the VR's and all sharing common facilities and fuel supply and effectively operating as one. That also continued until the early 1980's when the old parts of that operation closed and later demolished although Energy Australia still operates the remaining power station at that site today.

Tasmania - at one point the Launceston City Council and the Mt Lyell Mining & Railway Co were operating hydro stations in parallel with the HEC system and in both cases that continued for decades. No particular difficulties arose, the HEC was clearly in charge of running the show, and the final relics of that weren't sorted out until the end of 1994. There was also the small privately owned Moorina station which operated 1907 - 2007 and for the latter half of that as part of the statewide grid just under a different owner.

Likewise no issue over the years with various industrial companies running steam generating plant in parallel with the main state-owned system. They had direct lines to System Control, everyone worked on the basis that they were running one system despite the differences in ownership, and no drama. The divide was purely an accounting one not a practical or technical one.

Eg BHP have owned generating plant embedded in industrial operations in NSW, Vic, Tas and SA - and the latter three are still physically operating today (SA and Tas under different owners). Or I could mention that next time you buy anything frozen you probably wouldn't associate Birds Eye with generating power but incidentally yes they do own a small gas turbine plant in Tas. They want the "waste" hot water from it, they need huge amounts of that, but the actual electricity just goes into the grid mostly.

So different owners, including a mix of government and private, can work so long as there's a clear understanding that it's one system and someone's in charge with the authority not only over day to day operations but when it comes to directing investment etc too.

To clarify that, taking the MCC as the example they generated as directed by the SECV and plant outages, fuel supply etc were also co-ordinated as though it were all under the same ownership. Likewise much of the electricity the MCC supplied to the public, they had a defined supply area, was sourced from the SECV not MCC's own facilities. For that matter, going back further at one point the VR was generating a quarter of all power in the state and that certainly wasn't all going into trains. So all operating as a single system not just day to day but with planning etc as well.


----------



## sptrawler

Here is a good article on the Energy networks in Australia, explains ownership and layout and function of the energy systems.

https://www.energynetworks.com.au/resources/fact-sheets/guide-to-australias-energy-networks/


----------



## sptrawler

Renewables hit 50% of generation demand, for the first time, that is a big achievement.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...emand-on-australias-power-grid-for-first-time

From the article:
The report said Australia was now ahead of schedule in meeting the large-scale target of 33,000 gigawatt hours of renewables generation by 2020.

Other analysts say that clean energy could make-up 35% of Australia’s electricity needs within two years


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Renewables hit 50% of generation demand, for the first time, that is a big achievement.



It is but on the other hand, 7 out of the past 7 days in SA there has been curtailment of solar farm output.

That's not a technical problem as such, in that it's not going to put the lights out etc, but _someone_ is going to be taking a bath financially as a result of that. Who that is I haven't tried to work out but ultimately the costs have been incurred, and that is almost entirely a fixed cost not related to actual output, but with less output there's going to be less revenue than was presumably expected.

Hence my comments about being extremely cautious with any investments in this area.


----------



## SirRumpole

Morrison does backflip on SA battery.

Just shows how cynical politicians are.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-19/sa-big-battery-set-to-get-even-bigger/11716784


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Morrison does backflip on SA battery.




The battery itself gets 50% bigger but the portion traded into the market under normal circumstances increases by a greater amount.

Now = 100 MW power / 129 MWh storage of which 70 MW / 11.7 MWh is reserved by a contract with the SA government, leaving 30 MW and 117.3 MWh available for Neoen to trade into the market.

After expansion = 150 MW power / 193.5 MWh storage so that means 80 MW and 181.8 MWh is available to trade into the market.

It's no silver bullet but it's dispatchable generation and it works so long as it's charged at least each day (assuming it's discharged daily).


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> Morrison does backflip on SA battery.
> 
> Just shows how cynical politicians are.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-19/sa-big-battery-set-to-get-even-bigger/11716784



So not such a backflip...never trust their ABC, or Murdoch, of the Washington Post..Pravda is gone...
But batteries remain a useful indeed but surface only cosmetics.
What is the real financial advantage past smoothing the peak, of investing in a backup systems which needs a more powerful backup in place
It would be an interesting financial equation to reveal the threshold where more batteries are actually a waste of money vs using your gas whatever backup load that os needed anyway
The above only true if you really care about power continuity.you can go 100pc battery if you accept no power after 2 cloudy still days


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> What is the real financial advantage past smoothing the peak, of investing in a backup systems which needs a more powerful backup in place



The battery I've got at home will run the inverter at constant full output for 1.75 hours.

Broadly speaking that's where the financial sweet spot is turning out to be for most - somewhere around the 2 hour mark give or take a bit. 

That's useful for shifting some solar output from midday to evening and it's useful for frequency control and as peaking plant but it's only a minor step away from fossil fuels. Whether it's Neoen's about to be 150,000 kW / 193,500 kWh battery or it's the little 5 kW / 8.8 kWh battery I've got at home the same applies. They have a role but they're not an actual replacement for other dispatchable generation beyond purely peaking plant. They're still relying on a guaranteed ability to be charged daily regardless of the weather.

The good news though is looking at the performance of the one I've got at home during Saturday's incident in SA, it did what it ideally ought to do. Both AC lines tripped between SA and Vic, the DC line was already out, and that resulted in separation of SA from the rest of the grid. Since power flow was from SA to Vic at the time, that transmission loss caused the frequency to rise in SA and my system did respond in a desirable manner, albeit on a scale too small to be of any importance but it proves the concept. Some energy was shoved into the battery that otherwise wouldn't have been and load on the grid increased accordingly. That's the desired response in that situation so it worked as intended.

Not that my 5kW is going to do overly much but the concept works so if enough of them are installed then it becomes significant.


----------



## basilio

Some Big Business interests in  really big renewable energy projects.
 
* Billionaires invest in giant Australian solar farm to supply power to Singapore *
Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest joins Mike Cannon-Brookes to raise tens of millions of dollars for Sun Cable

The mining magnate and philanthropist Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest has joined fellow billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes in raising tens of millions of dollars to build a giant solar farm in the Northern Territory to supply electricity to Singapore.

The company behind the project, Sun Cable, said Forrest’s Squadron Energy and Grok Ventures, the investment firm of Cannon-Brookes and his wife, Annie, had become co-lead investors in the $20bn-plus development.

David Griffin, Sun Cable’s chief executive, said the company had raised “less than $50m, but in the tens of millions” in an oversubscribed capital raising that would fund development work for what it calls the Australia-Singapore Power Link.

If successful, the development would include a 10-gigawatt-capacity array of panels spread across 15,000 hectares near Tennant Creek, backed by about 22 gigawatt-hours in battery storage.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...alian-solar-farm-to-supply-power-to-singapore


----------



## Smurf1976

A couple of extremes in SA over the past few hours:

About 4am this morning, electricity from Victoria supplied 71.4% of load in SA. Can't push transmission between the two states much harder than that. 

About 1pm today solar generation within the state was equal to 81.5% of load in SA. That's large scale solar farms as well as the estimated output of small systems on house roofs etc. Add wind to that and total supply available from renewables exceeded consumption and power was flowing from SA to Vic.

So two opposing extremes just 9 hours apart which illustrates the volatility in all this. Times are SA local time.

PS - AGL are still testing and commissioning their new Barker Inlet plant. They've had it up to full capacity a couple of times now.


----------



## SirRumpole

Wireless power transmission.

Seems a great idea to get rid of all the power cords in homes/offices.


----------



## qldfrog

Nice


----------



## basilio

*Superpower: Australia’s low carbon opportunity*

‘The fog of Australian politics on climate change has obscured a fateful reality: Australia has the potential to be an economic superpower of the future post-carbon world.’—Ross Garnaut

We have unparalleled renewable energy resources. We also have the necessary scientific skills. Australia could be the natural home for an increasing proportion of global industry. But how do we make this happen?

In this crisp, compelling book, Australia’s leading thinker about climate and energy policy offers a road map for progress, covering energy, transport, agriculture, the international scene and more. Rich in ideas and practical optimism, Superpower is a crucial, timely contribution to this country’s future.

Well worth reading.  Great investment opportunities as well! Particularly if we are still around to enjoy the value..

https://www.rossgarnaut.com.au/australian-economy/superpower-australias-low-carbon-opportunity/


----------



## SirRumpole

Problems with solar power in WA.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12...ar-power-jeopardising-wa-energy-grid/11731452


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> Where the issue arises is that there's a portion of the population, and I'm referring to the general public here not anyone on this thread, which does seem to think that if we just put up some solar panels, wind farms and batteries then that's it, all our energy problems are fixed forever.
> 
> Have a look at the Facebook page of any of the major energy companies. They're full of comments from people to that effect - why on earth are you guys stuffing about with gas or hydro when we can just use solar and batteries?
> 
> In reality batteries with present and near term foreseeable technology have an application for peak capacity, frequency control and as short term backup at the fringes of the network but that's about it.
> 
> Looking at wind and solar data the reality is both good and bad.
> 
> The good bit is there's plenty of it and it works.
> 
> The bad bit is the poor seasonal alignment with overall energy consumption and in particular heating loads. At the same time as total energy (not just electricity but all forms) consumption peaks in the southern parts of the country, solar is at its seasonal minimum and wind is subject to all too frequent "droughts" which see low output in all states for a week or more.
> 
> Therein arises the requirement that we have something which isn't wind, solar or batteries which is capable of carrying serious load for a week or more constantly.
> 
> Hydro is one option and the obvious one if the aim is to use renewable energy. Failing that, large scale hydrogen production and storage could work but does involve a lot of losses - it could well be part of the solution though.
> 
> Beyond that though, well pragmatic reality is that there are 5 LNG import proposals and numerous gas-fired power generation proposals across NSW, Vic and SA with the Barker Inlet power station (gas) opened in SA today (more info about that in the AGL thread).
> 
> That's the divide basically. Private enterprise favours wind, solar and gas with a few batteries here and there. Under that model gas provides around half the total supply.
> 
> On the other side, the two big hydro operators propose themselves building big pumped hydro schemes, others building more wind and solar and smaller hydro and battery systems, and in due course minimal use of gas.
> 
> Something needs to be done though. If you went to Yallourn right now you'd find three quarters of the plant's idle and the rest's struggling along. No Sir, it ain't going at all well not in the slightest. Not to worry though - the politicians of all colours will have already rehearsed their speech for when old grandpa tries to run another marathon this summer and keels over in the heat. "Not our fault" they'll scream whilst throwing a few stones at the other side of politics.




Hey Mate,

What are your thoughts on "Sun Cable", eg the company planning to build solar panel farm in NT and export to Singapore.

Is this Viable from an engineering standpoint? do you think this sort of project can deliver a return on capital to make it worthwhile for investors.

I mean if we can deliver solar power via a cable to Singapore, It means we could deliver it anywhere inside Australia, I mean we could have Solar panels in WA (at 3pm local time) delivering power into the east coast 6pm peak period, and maybe Auckland and Perth could absorb excess East coast Australian Solar during midday Sydney time, and Sydney could use off peak Kiwi hydro during the night.

Is this sort of thing possible???


----------



## bellenuit

Value Collector said:


> Hey Mate,
> 
> What are your thoughts on "Sun Cable", eg the company planning to build solar panel farm in NT and export to Singapore.
> 
> Is this Viable from an engineering standpoint? do you think this sort of project can deliver a return on capital to make it worthwhile for investors.
> 
> I mean if we can deliver solar power via a cable to Singapore, It means we could deliver it anywhere inside Australia, I mean we could have Solar panels in WA (at 3pm local time) delivering power into the east coast 6pm peak period, and maybe Auckland and Perth could absorb excess East coast Australian Solar during midday Sydney time, and Sydney could use off peak Kiwi hydro during the night.
> 
> Is this sort of thing possible???




Not to pre-empt Smurf's expert knowledge on this, but what would worry me about such large scale solar projects is how do you compete long term when the cost to produce solar power is falling year by year at a fairly significant rate. IMO you would need a positive return on the total project within a 5 to 7 year time frame, otherwise competing projects will be coming on line with a cost structure that is perhaps half of what this project cost.


----------



## Value Collector

bellenuit said:


> Not to pre-empt Smurf's expert knowledge on this, but what would worry me about such large scale solar projects is how do you compete long term when the cost to produce solar power is falling year by year at a fairly significant rate. IMO you would need a positive return on the total project within a 5 to 7 year time frame, otherwise competing projects will be coming on line with a cost structure that is perhaps half of what this project cost.




I think the most of the value would be in the cables moving the energy around, I mean even if in 7 years there is some super efficient solar cell available, some one wanting to built a solar farm would still have to build their own cables to transport the power to its destination or beg for space on the existing cables.

my main question though is how likely is it that long distance cables become a viable thing.

As I said, being able to transport excess midday east coast solar over to Auckland and Perth would be convenient, and transporting off peak newzealand hydro and excess Perth solar back to the east coast would be good to.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> I think the most of the value would be in the cables moving the energy around, I mean even if in 7 years there is some super efficient solar cell available, some one wanting to built a solar farm would still have to build their own cables to transport the power to its destination or beg for space on the existing cables.
> 
> my main question though is how likely is it that long distance cables become a viable thing.
> 
> As I said, being able to transport excess midday east coast solar over to Auckland and Perth would be convenient, and transporting off peak newzealand hydro and excess Perth solar back to the east coast would be good to.




This may answer some of your questions.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2012/12/121206-high-voltage-dc-breakthrough/


----------



## basilio

Another round of gas price rises is coming through the system

I received an email this morning outlining costs for next years gas.  Interestingly enough the heading of the email said that my gas bill would rise by an estimated $31 a year - only 1.47% increase.  No real biggie there...

Anyway I went through the tariffs and realised there is something seriously wrong in their "calculations". The Winter Gas tariff after the first 100 Mj per day has jumped by *23.1% .*  It went from .0147 to .0181c

Other increases in monthly charges and general rates  are smaller but still well over "1.47%" .

I have opened a conversation with the company to explain the discrepancy.  Anyone else received information on gas increases for next year ?


----------



## Value Collector

basilio said:


> Another round of gas price rises is coming through the system
> 
> I received an email this morning outlining costs for next years gas.  Interestingly enough the heading of the email said that my gas bill would rise by an estimated $31 a year - only 1.47% increase.  No real biggie there...
> 
> Anyway I went through the tariffs and realised there is something seriously wrong in their "calculations". The Winter Gas tariff after the first 100 Mj per day has jumped by *23.1% .*  It went from .0147 to .0181c
> 
> Other increases in monthly charges and general rates  are smaller but still well over "1.47%" .
> 
> I have opened a conversation with the company to explain the discrepancy.  Anyone else received information on gas increases for next year ?




Do you normally go over the 100mj per day by much? Maybe only a small part of your bill is a the higher rate.

As much as I hate to say it as an APA share holder, I think if you have a good location at your house for solar panels, it can be worth it to go electric for everything, even just the saving in connection fee adds up.


----------



## basilio

Value Collector said:


> Do you normally go over the 100mj per day by much? Maybe only a small part of your bill is a the higher rate.
> 
> As much as I hate to say it as an APA share holder, I think if you have a good location at your house for solar panels, it can be worth it to go electric for everything, even just the saving in connection fee adds up.




I live in a colder area and have hydronic heating.  My wife also runs 2 degrees colder than me and (like many other couples)  we have long conversations about hot and cold.

In Winter the energy use is well over the 100mj per day. In any case all the elements of the  account have gone up by more than the alleged 1.47% rise.  However the biggest increase is the additional winter Tariff.

Already have solar and it does make a big difference. Wife would take a very dim view of giving up her gas stove...

Still waiting to hear from the energy company about the figures. They are  just  nowhere near right.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> Hey Mate,
> 
> What are your thoughts on "Sun Cable", eg the company planning to build solar panel farm in NT and export to Singapore.
> 
> Is this Viable from an engineering standpoint? do you think this sort of project can deliver a return on capital to make it worthwhile for investors.
> 
> I mean if we can deliver solar power via a cable to Singapore, It means we could deliver it anywhere inside Australia, I mean we could have Solar panels in WA (at 3pm local time) delivering power into the east coast 6pm peak period, and maybe Auckland and Perth could absorb excess East coast Australian Solar during midday Sydney time, and Sydney could use off peak Kiwi hydro during the night.
> 
> Is this sort of thing possible???




*Short answer = it could be done but there are limitations which need proper engineering.*

The above answers the question. Following is just a layman's terms explanation for those who want to know: 

Looking at existing HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) transmission, there are already links up to ~2400km operating successfully in China and some of those transfer serious amounts of power eg 8GW. To put that into perspective, 8GW is not far short of the all time record peak demand for electricity in Victoria (10.4GW) and is about twice the generating capacity of the present Snowy scheme.

For an AC power system, the longest one in the world is rather close to home - that being the one which stretches from north Queensland to just west of Ceduna (SA) and supplies practically all electricity across Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic and SA. Tasmania's system is separate from an AC power perspective but is connected via a HVDC link.

If we're going to be building things with any significant portion under water then HVDC is the practical means unless we're talking about short distances. For anything that's completely on land well you can build big AC power systems although that does then require that you operate it as one big AC power system. In contrast, if the only connection is DC then you've got two separate AC systems in practice. Depending on circumstances, either wins.

For the record, Qld - NSW are presently linked by one DC and two AC circuits and the same between Vic and SA. For other states NSW and Vic are linked at AC only and Vic and Tas are linked at DC only.

There are however a number of complexities in all of this which means it's all a case of bespoke design. It's not a "plug and play" situation like consumer devices are these days. Rather, it's all down to "real" engineering and the big issues relate to the existing system at both ends.

Trying to keep this to layman's terms, if you want to transfer what most people think of as "power", that is _true power_, then that's not particularly difficult. Once you want to transfer other technical characteristics, there's more to electricity than simply the true power aspect, well then having a long transmission line in the middle is problematic since it changes (AC) or completely nullifies (DC) those attributes. You're then reliant upon recreating them at the other end in order for it to work - that's doable so long as you've first worked out exactly what and how much you need to be doing which will be a dynamic thing it won't be constant.

As a practical example of that, there's a need to run synchronous generating plant (in practice gas but if it existed then coal, hydro, nuclear etc could also do it) in SA at all times even if the _true power_ it produces isn't actually needed. That's for reasons of inertia (also known as "system strength"), reactive power (that's getting into the technical stuff.....) and so on and comes down to the limitations of non-synchronous plant (wind and solar) in that regard plus the limitations of long distance transmission at transferring those things from Victoria. 

There are workarounds to that which are being built but point is you first have to know you need them (that point was missed in SA until the state ended up in dark.......) then you need to build them and then operate as required. In the meantime, running some gas-fired generation at all times is the workaround not because it's gas as such but because it's already there and can do what's required in purely electrical terms. 

The other issue is a practical and economic one about scale. Scale it up and the unit cost comes down since it doesn't cost twice as much to build twice the capacity on an otherwise identical project. Trouble is, the bigger it is the more difficult it is to deal with failure when the inevitable happens. And once you get a "too big" fault on a system, well then in the best case you're going to black out a lot of customers and in the worst case the entire show comes to a halt real quick. One moment everything's normal, a few seconds later and an entire city, state or country is in the dark.

As background for that, if we look at Australia well we run the frequency at 50Hz and for other countries it's either 50 or 60Hz. In layman's terms frequency = speed.

Now think of what happens if you put a sudden load on an engine. Push the mower into long grass for example. The engine slows down and it slows down rather a lot yes.

Now back to the power grid, well if that 50Hz drops by 5% that's about the point where it's all over. At 48Hz the system should hold up but not without shedding quite a bit of load, at 47Hz I sure wouldn't bet on it staying energized at all, at 45Hz no we'll be in the dark before we get to that point. 

The infamous big blackout in SA was an event of that nature. Loss of some supply > more supply tripped off as frequency and voltage fell > rest slowed down even further > all over and the only option is restart everything from scratch and all in a matter of seconds. That's the nightmare scenario with power systems but for clarity, SA certainly isn't the only place where it has ever occurred. 

Now for a practical example with a link between A and B consider that the load on the SWIS (South West Interconnected System) in WA is running at about 2800 MW presently and should get down to about 2000 MW overnight. Meanwhile the total load in the eastern states (the NEM including SA and Tas) is currently about 21,000 MW (that's fairly low given the time of day).

Now suppose that we wanted to link the SWIS with the NEM (National Electricity Market). It could be done but a major consideration is what happens when the inevitable trip of that line occurs at some random unknown time?

What happens to the WA system if it's 5am and half the supply is coming from interstate and that suddenly disappeared? As "seen" by the power stations in WA, that's akin to pushing the mower straight into long grass! Frequency would drop and either generation takes up that lost supply real quick, or some loads are cut immediately, or south-west WA (including Perth) will be in the dark. 

Or the opposite direction. What if there's say 3000 MW of load in WA and 1000 MW being sent from the SWIS to the NEM and the line trips? Loss of that load on the grid in WA means there's now too much supply and frequency will be rapidly rising as a result. Can generation cut output quickly enough? If not then we'll see it outright trip due to frequency rising out of spec and worst case that results in an over-reaction which ends up tripping the whole lot.

Now there are solutions to that but it's the sort of thing that needs to be properly engineered and looking at both ends of the line. Whichever is the smaller one (electrically) will pose the biggest issues but that's not to say there won't be any problems on the other end too. It needs a proper examination of the existing power system and crunching the numbers on what works and what doesn't. That's certainly something which can be done but it's real, proper sort of engineering not something that's done in an afternoon.

For an Australian project currently being looked at, that is Marinus Link (aka Project Marinus - building additional HVDC lines between Vic and Tas), there's an obvious financial incentive to go as big as possible. The limits are being pushed there but to cut a long story short it seems that around 750 MW is going to be about it give or take a bit. That doesn't mean 3000 MW can't be built, just that it'll need to be done as 4 x 750 MW in order to keep the maximum size of any failure within manageable limits.

An exception to all this is if one end of the link exists only to supply the link itself. That is, the "grid" at one end isn't really an actual power grid but is simply a power station of whatever sort (eg a solar farm plus some batteries, wind, pumped hydro etc but point is it's only there to supply the link, it's not also supplying a local city etc). In that case well there's no real need to have that side remain energized (electrically live) if the link trips, and you're never going to send power in the reverse direction since there's nothing to use it, so you've only got to worry about the receiving end. Eg for a link from Australia to Singapore, the main concern is about what happens in Singapore if it trips, there's no need to ensure the sending (Australian) end remains live following a trip so long as nothing's physically damaged by that. 

That aspect of only needing to worry about one direction of power transfer and only needing to worry about maintaining stability at the receiving end does obviously reduce the amount of engineering work required. It also means that things which wouldn't be acceptable for two way flow will be acceptable in practice given that the concern is really only about one end.

So how likely really is this concern about lines tripping?

Short answer is "it happens". It's 3 weeks to Christmas and odds are something, either transmission or generation, somewhere in the NEM will unexpectedly trip between now and Christmas Day. I can't tell you what or when, that's anyone's guess, but it happens most certainly.

For a recent example generating unit number 1 at Torrens Island B (largest power station in SA) tripped on Monday afternoon and a couple of weeks ago there was a trip of both AC transmission lines between SA and Vic. 

That neither of those incidents became newsworthy was because everything worked pretty much as it should work. Eg with the trip at Torrens Island other sources of generation in the NEM immediately took up the load, then units 1 - 3 at Dry Creek and unit 5 at Quarantine power stations (which were previously idle) in SA were started up to restore the system to a secure state (so that's back to being ready just in case anything else goes wrong), then in due course the more efficient but much slower to start Pelican Point station ramped up and Dry Creek + Quarantine were shut down as no longer needed given low demand at the time. 

That's how it's supposed to work. Unless you're in the industry or happened to be near Dry Creek power station, which is a peaking and backup plant that's normally idle, when all 3 generators suddenly roared into action then you'd be unaware that anything even happened. For ordinary consumers be they homes or business, life carried on business as usual.

A bad but not disastrous response to the same incidents would be a major deviation in frequency, some consumers blacked out but the system remains alive as such.

A disastrous response to the same would be frequency falls too far, generation trips and down goes the whole show thus requiring a complete restart from scratch. Avoiding that is the first and foremost focus of it all really.


----------



## Smurf1976

Something I will add to previous comments in regard to undersea cables is that whilst it's possible, noting that 2400km onshore cables have indeed been built overseas, that does depend on:

1. That the ocean floor is suitable for laying a cable on. So it's not all mountains and valleys etc.

2. That someone's got the money because this stuff isn't cheap.

In that context it's worth noting that Basslink (Tas - Vic) at 290km was the longest such cable in the world when built and since then others of about twice that length have been built overseas.

Going to NZ at close to 2000km or to Singapore at ~3500km is a pretty big leap. It should be a doable leap but it's a leap nonetheless and will need someone with $$$ willing to back it. That's perhaps the biggest hurdle.


----------



## Smurf1976

On other matters relating to this industry:

*Origin Energy (ASX: ORG) have released an updated schedule for returning Mortlake power station unit 2 to service following a major failure earlier this year. The updated return to service date is now 30 December 2019. Mortlake is a gas-fired peaking plant located in Victoria comprising two units each of approximately 260 MW capacity.

*Origin has extended their deal with rival company Engie (not listed) in respect of Pelican Point power station (SA). The extension runs from 1 July 2020 for four years and in simple terms Origin supplies the gas (gas being the only fuel used at this facility), pays Engie and takes the electricity produced with Engie as the physical operator. This applies to half the plant only, the other half continuing to be run by Engie as their own business. Capacity is nominally 478 MW but can exceed that a bit in practice. Location is Adelaide metro area.

*AGL (ASX: AGL) are still testing their new Barker Inlet plant in SA but given that it has generated just over 10% of all electricity used in the state over the past 24 hours it would be fair to say that testing seems to be going pretty well. Plant capacity is 210 MW located in the Adelaide area.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> *Short answer = it could be done but there are limitations which need proper engineering.*
> 
> The above answers the question. Following is just a layman's terms explanation for those who want to know:
> 
> Looking at existing HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) transmission, there are already links up to ~2400km operating successfully in China and some of those transfer serious amounts of power eg 8GW. To put that into perspective, 8GW is not far short of the all time record peak demand for electricity in Victoria (10.4GW) and is about twice the generating capacity of the present Snowy scheme.
> 
> For an AC power system, the longest one in the world is rather close to home - that being the one which stretches from north Queensland to just west of Ceduna (SA) and supplies practically all electricity across Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic and SA. Tasmania's system is separate from an AC power perspective but is connected via a HVDC link.
> 
> If we're going to be building things with any significant portion under water then HVDC is the practical means unless we're talking about short distances. For anything that's completely on land well you can build big AC power systems although that does then require that you operate it as one big AC power system. In contrast, if the only connection is DC then you've got two separate AC systems in practice. Depending on circumstances, either wins.
> 
> For the record, Qld - NSW are presently linked by one DC and two AC circuits and the same between Vic and SA. For other states NSW and Vic are linked at AC only and Vic and Tas are linked at DC only.
> 
> There are however a number of complexities in all of this which means it's all a case of bespoke design. It's not a "plug and play" situation like consumer devices are these days. Rather, it's all down to "real" engineering and the big issues relate to the existing system at both ends.
> 
> Trying to keep this to layman's terms, if you want to transfer what most people think of as "power", that is _true power_, then that's not particularly difficult. Once you want to transfer other technical characteristics, there's more to electricity than simply the true power aspect, well then having a long transmission line in the middle is problematic since it changes (AC) or completely nullifies (DC) those attributes. You're then reliant upon recreating them at the other end in order for it to work - that's doable so long as you've first worked out exactly what and how much you need to be doing which will be a dynamic thing it won't be constant.
> 
> As a practical example of that, there's a need to run synchronous generating plant (in practice gas but if it existed then coal, hydro, nuclear etc could also do it) in SA at all times even if the _true power_ it produces isn't actually needed. That's for reasons of inertia (also known as "system strength"), reactive power (that's getting into the technical stuff.....) and so on and comes down to the limitations of non-synchronous plant (wind and solar) in that regard plus the limitations of long distance transmission at transferring those things from Victoria.
> 
> There are workarounds to that which are being built but point is you first have to know you need them (that point was missed in SA until the state ended up in dark.......) then you need to build them and then operate as required. In the meantime, running some gas-fired generation at all times is the workaround not because it's gas as such but because it's already there and can do what's required in purely electrical terms.
> 
> The other issue is a practical and economic one about scale. Scale it up and the unit cost comes down since it doesn't cost twice as much to build twice the capacity on an otherwise identical project. Trouble is, the bigger it is the more difficult it is to deal with failure when the inevitable happens. And once you get a "too big" fault on a system, well then in the best case you're going to black out a lot of customers and in the worst case the entire show comes to a halt real quick. One moment everything's normal, a few seconds later and an entire city, state or country is in the dark.
> 
> As background for that, if we look at Australia well we run the frequency at 50Hz and for other countries it's either 50 or 60Hz. In layman's terms frequency = speed.
> 
> Now think of what happens if you put a sudden load on an engine. Push the mower into long grass for example. The engine slows down and it slows down rather a lot yes.
> 
> Now back to the power grid, well if that 50Hz drops by 5% that's about the point where it's all over. At 48Hz the system should hold up but not without shedding quite a bit of load, at 47Hz I sure wouldn't bet on it staying energized at all, at 45Hz no we'll be in the dark before we get to that point.
> 
> The infamous big blackout in SA was an event of that nature. Loss of some supply > more supply tripped off as frequency and voltage fell > rest slowed down even further > all over and the only option is restart everything from scratch and all in a matter of seconds. That's the nightmare scenario with power systems but for clarity, SA certainly isn't the only place where it has ever occurred.
> 
> Now for a practical example with a link between A and B consider that the load on the SWIS (South West Interconnected System) in WA is running at about 2800 MW presently and should get down to about 2000 MW overnight. Meanwhile the total load in the eastern states (the NEM including SA and Tas) is currently about 21,000 MW (that's fairly low given the time of day).
> 
> Now suppose that we wanted to link the SWIS with the NEM (National Electricity Market). It could be done but a major consideration is what happens when the inevitable trip of that line occurs at some random unknown time?
> 
> What happens to the WA system if it's 5am and half the supply is coming from interstate and that suddenly disappeared? As "seen" by the power stations in WA, that's akin to pushing the mower straight into long grass! Frequency would drop and either generation takes up that lost supply real quick, or some loads are cut immediately, or south-west WA (including Perth) will be in the dark.
> 
> Or the opposite direction. What if there's say 3000 MW of load in WA and 1000 MW being sent from the SWIS to the NEM and the line trips? Loss of that load on the grid in WA means there's now too much supply and frequency will be rapidly rising as a result. Can generation cut output quickly enough? If not then we'll see it outright trip due to frequency rising out of spec and worst case that results in an over-reaction which ends up tripping the whole lot.
> 
> Now there are solutions to that but it's the sort of thing that needs to be properly engineered and looking at both ends of the line. Whichever is the smaller one (electrically) will pose the biggest issues but that's not to say there won't be any problems on the other end too. It needs a proper examination of the existing power system and crunching the numbers on what works and what doesn't. That's certainly something which can be done but it's real, proper sort of engineering not something that's done in an afternoon.
> 
> For an Australian project currently being looked at, that is Marinus Link (aka Project Marinus - building additional HVDC lines between Vic and Tas), there's an obvious financial incentive to go as big as possible. The limits are being pushed there but to cut a long story short it seems that around 750 MW is going to be about it give or take a bit. That doesn't mean 3000 MW can't be built, just that it'll need to be done as 4 x 750 MW in order to keep the maximum size of any failure within manageable limits.
> 
> An exception to all this is if one end of the link exists only to supply the link itself. That is, the "grid" at one end isn't really an actual power grid but is simply a power station of whatever sort (eg a solar farm plus some batteries, wind, pumped hydro etc but point is it's only there to supply the link, it's not also supplying a local city etc). In that case well there's no real need to have that side remain energized (electrically live) if the link trips, and you're never going to send power in the reverse direction since there's nothing to use it, so you've only got to worry about the receiving end. Eg for a link from Australia to Singapore, the main concern is about what happens in Singapore if it trips, there's no need to ensure the sending (Australian) end remains live following a trip so long as nothing's physically damaged by that.
> 
> That aspect of only needing to worry about one direction of power transfer and only needing to worry about maintaining stability at the receiving end does obviously reduce the amount of engineering work required. It also means that things which wouldn't be acceptable for two way flow will be acceptable in practice given that the concern is really only about one end.
> 
> So how likely really is this concern about lines tripping?
> 
> Short answer is "it happens". It's 3 weeks to Christmas and odds are something, either transmission or generation, somewhere in the NEM will unexpectedly trip between now and Christmas Day. I can't tell you what or when, that's anyone's guess, but it happens most certainly.
> 
> For a recent example generating unit number 1 at Torrens Island B (largest power station in SA) tripped on Monday afternoon and a couple of weeks ago there was a trip of both AC transmission lines between SA and Vic.
> 
> That neither of those incidents became newsworthy was because everything worked pretty much as it should work. Eg with the trip at Torrens Island other sources of generation in the NEM immediately took up the load, then units 1 - 3 at Dry Creek and unit 5 at Quarantine power stations (which were previously idle) in SA were started up to restore the system to a secure state (so that's back to being ready just in case anything else goes wrong), then in due course the more efficient but much slower to start Pelican Point station ramped up and Dry Creek + Quarantine were shut down as no longer needed given low demand at the time.
> 
> That's how it's supposed to work. Unless you're in the industry or happened to be near Dry Creek power station, which is a peaking and backup plant that's normally idle, when all 3 generators suddenly roared into action then you'd be unaware that anything even happened. For ordinary consumers be they homes or business, life carried on business as usual.
> 
> A bad but not disastrous response to the same incidents would be a major deviation in frequency, some consumers blacked out but the system remains alive as such.
> 
> A disastrous response to the same would be frequency falls too far, generation trips and down goes the whole show thus requiring a complete restart from scratch. Avoiding that is the first and foremost focus of it all really.




thanks for that,

outside of engineering problems, can you see any financial problems, eg Would The saleable electricity that comes out the other end in Singapore  still be able to be sold at a profit, or is there a chance transmission losses are so huge that it’s not viable?


----------



## SirRumpole

Demand management...cutting power bills and taking the load off the grid.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12...offer-hope-for-reliable-clean-energy/11766766


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> Demand management...cutting power bills and taking the load off the grid.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12...offer-hope-for-reliable-clean-energy/11766766




Excellent story. Controlling peak demand has always been the holy grail of the electricity industry.

Certainly makes huge sense and having thousands of micro cuts and load levelling  across  industry and  households is a clever way to spread the energy demand.

I think the really big deal will be when we have substantial numbers of electric cars on the roads and a system is devised where cars can be plugged into the grid when they are not on the road and act as flexible battery banks.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> outside of engineering problems, can you see any financial problems, eg Would The saleable electricity that comes out the other end in Singapore  still be able to be sold at a profit, or is there a chance transmission losses are so huge that it’s not viable?




I'm not aware of any proper calculations for losses on that project (it might have been done, just not something I'm following) but as an order of magnitude we're talking about 15% not 50%. Don't take that 15% literally, it's an educated guess not based on any actual design, but point is yes there will be losses but most of the power gets from A to B.

An issue there is that HVDC losses aren't linear. There's a loss at both ends, so a line twice as long won't have double the losses, and also losses go up as a % of total power transmitted as power throughput increases. Run the same line at higher capacity and loss goes up in % terms. End result is there's no single figure for losses.

There's also more than one approach to the design and construction itself which will again affect losses. Bearing in mind that the electrical current always needs a return path to form a circuit, there's more than one way of doing that when it comes to cable under the ocean.

One is to have two conductors to form the circuit. The other is to have one conductor only and use the ocean as the second one.

The latter is far cheaper but does create concerns relating to corrosion since the surest way to outright ruin anything metallic is to have stray DC currents going into and out of it in sea water. Do that and anything metal will be full of holes in no time.

The ocean return approach was originally going to be used with Basslink (Tas - Vic) but in short everyone lost their nerve as to exactly where current might end up flowing. Through the water yes but through what else? Oil rigs and gas pipelines for example and that could end very, very badly for obvious reasons. With that in mind the idea was dropped like a hot potato but at very considerable expense financially and the cable was built with a metallic return instead.

It has been done elsewhere overseas though using just a single pole and the ocean as the return.

So the detail of the design will affect losses and costs and without knowing that I'm really just putting 15% forward as a ballpark sort of number. 

As for whether or not that matters, at that point it's purely business like any other situation. If 15% of the stock from your shop routinely gets stolen or 15% of your crops aren't of suitable quality for sale well then it really just comes down to whether or not it's still a viable business based on revenue from the other 85% or not? In the case of energy, it's just business at that point - does the project stack up financially or not? 

A point of relevance there is that about 95% of Singapore's electricity is presently produced from gas and the cost of the gas itself, as distinct from the cost of machinery etc, is the most important driver of the cost of that operation. 

As such, the profitability of generating renewable energy in Australia and sending it to Singapore is primarily a function of the cost of building the overall scheme (everything - cable, solar farm, etc) and the price of natural gas which is variable subject to market forces. Presumably various contracts would underpin an actual development, but ultimately _someone_ is going to be making a profit / loss on it to the extent that the gas price moves up or down.

A related factor there is how will investors (whoever) perceive the whole thing? There's no real precedent for locating a power station in another country over 3000km away from the load to be supplied with virtually all that transmission being under water. There are certainly power stations built on the other side of a border, eg Mexico and the USA or plenty of examples in Europe, but that's a comparatively simple operation compared to having it thousands of km away separated by water.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Demand management...cutting power bills and taking the load off the grid.



As a concept I'm enthusiastic.

In practice I'm cautious in view of the troubled history of making what should be easy happen in practice. Think "politics" there rather than "engineering" or "finance".

I say that based on observation of actual occurrences rather than cynicism. We're having a lot of trouble changing some timers which are already installed, all that needs to happen is change the settings, so needless to say I'm cautious about anything even slightly more ambitious. 

That's not wanting to sound negative, it's just having seen the degree of politics standing in the way of all this.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Another round of gas price rises is coming through the system




Of relevance to those investing in companies which produce or consume significant amounts of gas, or using it themselves, is the supply situation going forward.

ExxonMobil have scrapped their proposed LNG import terminal in Victoria altogether.

AGL's LNG import terminal in Victoria seems delayed until 2023 and faces considerable opposition.

No change so far as I'm aware to the other LNG import proposals in SA (1) and NSW (2).

Something to bear in mind if you're investing in gas either producing or consuming.


----------



## qldfrog

About the Singapore deal, one point i am unaware of, maybe @Smurf1976  can help :do they really plan to go all the way, or could it not be cheaper to just land on the Indonesian grid and feed it there with the Indonesians feeding an equivalent to Singapore
Far less cost and losses..but some important geopolitical and tech reliability issues.
If i was Indonesian, i would try this and get extra expertise for my own grid for free or cheap, and maybe strengthen my own grid as a result


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm not aware of any proper calculations for losses on that project (it might have been done, just not something I'm following) but as an order of magnitude we're talking about 15% not 50%. Don't take that 15% literally, it's an educated guess not based on any actual design, but point is yes there will be losses but most of the power gets from A to B.
> 
> An issue there is that HVDC losses aren't linear. There's a loss at both ends, so a line twice as long won't have double the losses, and also losses go up as a % of total power transmitted as power throughput increases. Run the same line at higher capacity and loss goes up in % terms. End result is there's no single figure for losses.
> 
> There's also more than one approach to the design and construction itself which will again affect losses. Bearing in mind that the electrical current always needs a return path to form a circuit, there's more than one way of doing that when it comes to cable under the ocean.
> 
> One is to have two conductors to form the circuit. The other is to have one conductor only and use the ocean as the second one.
> 
> The latter is far cheaper but does create concerns relating to corrosion since the surest way to outright ruin anything metallic is to have stray DC currents going into and out of it in sea water. Do that and anything metal will be full of holes in no time.
> 
> The ocean return approach was originally going to be used with Basslink (Tas - Vic) but in short everyone lost their nerve as to exactly where current might end up flowing. Through the water yes but through what else? Oil rigs and gas pipelines for example and that could end very, very badly for obvious reasons. With that in mind the idea was dropped like a hot potato but at very considerable expense financially and the cable was built with a metallic return instead.
> 
> It has been done elsewhere overseas though using just a single pole and the ocean as the return.
> 
> So the detail of the design will affect losses and costs and without knowing that I'm really just putting 15% forward as a ballpark sort of number.
> 
> As for whether or not that matters, at that point it's purely business like any other situation. If 15% of the stock from your shop routinely gets stolen or 15% of your crops aren't of suitable quality for sale well then it really just comes down to whether or not it's still a viable business based on revenue from the other 85% or not? In the case of energy, it's just business at that point - does the project stack up financially or not?
> 
> A point of relevance there is that about 95% of Singapore's electricity is presently produced from gas and the cost of the gas itself, as distinct from the cost of machinery etc, is the most important driver of the cost of that operation.
> 
> As such, the profitability of generating renewable energy in Australia and sending it to Singapore is primarily a function of the cost of building the overall scheme (everything - cable, solar farm, etc) and the price of natural gas which is variable subject to market forces. Presumably various contracts would underpin an actual development, but ultimately _someone_ is going to be making a profit / loss on it to the extent that the gas price moves up or down.
> 
> A related factor there is how will investors (whoever) perceive the whole thing? There's no real precedent for locating a power station in another country over 3000km away from the load to be supplied with virtually all that transmission being under water. There are certainly power stations built on the other side of a border, eg Mexico and the USA or plenty of examples in Europe, but that's a comparatively simple operation compared to having it thousands of km away separated by water.




thanks,

yeah that’s the part I was trying to work out, eg can they lose 15% of their stock and still be able to sell the remaining 85% at a price that atleast matches the competition Eg the oil fields and LNG carriers. 

I love the idea of being able to make a continental size international grid capable of trading and storing renewable energy, it opens up a vast area of investment for Australians.


----------



## SirRumpole

Are solar panels still worth the money ?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-05/solar-panels-rebates-energy-is-it-worth-it/11738270


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Are solar panels still worth the money ?
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-05/solar-panels-rebates-energy-is-it-worth-it/11738270




Yes, Yes, Yes.

Adding solar panels can be the highest return investment there average family is likely make.

Even after taking $1000 per year of depreaciation of the panels into
account, you will still be earning around 17% return, and what makes that better is that 17% return doesn’t hit your tax return, it’s all gravy.

Now, I can’t think of any other Low risk investment that the average family has access to that can earn 17% tax free.

——————

even if you can’t afford to pay cash for the panels a great strategy is to redraw the $8000 you need for your solar system from your home loan, and then increase your home loan payments by the amount you normally spend on your electric bill.

That way your house hold cashflow stays the same, but that 17% return will flow directly into paying your home off quicker, via the electric bill funds you are directing into your home loan.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> I love the idea of being able to make a continental size international grid capable of trading and storing renewable energy, it opens up a vast area of investment for Australians.



It will happen.

Look how far we’ve come in a relatively short time.

Next Tuesday marks the 124th anniversary of public electricity supply in Launceston. 

Whilst it certainly wasn’t the first place to use it, it was notable as the first in the first place in the Southern Hemisphere and possibly the world where a utility would simply supply electricity to anyone who wanted it, for any purpose, 24 hours per day no restrictions or questions asked. 

That was a revolution of sorts at the time since the established business model elsewhere was charging customers “per light” or “per horsepower of motor capacity” and commonly with limited hours of supply. Simply selling the power, charged on the basis of consumption, and leaving the customer to do whatever they liked with it was a new idea certainly.

The first proper transmission system in Australia was also in Tasmania, operation commencing in 1916. There’s no actual proof so the claim isn’t officially made but there’s a general acceptance that by 1919 it might briefly have been the largest system, in terms of interconnected route length, in the world. 

Victoria came next in 1924 and promptly did the same thing as Tasmania - just keep building more and more until it covers the state.

The other states generally didn’t get excited about it until after WW2 and Queensland didn’t do anything really major until the 1970’s. They were still running 3 separate grids within the state up to that point.

NSW and Vic were interconnected in 1955. 

SA with Vic in 1990.

Qld with NSW in 2000.

Tas with Vic in 2006.

In terms of physical size we’ve already got the biggest system in the world and there’s a current plan to extend that in a westerly direction in Qld therough to Mt Isa with a new 1100km line.

So going international will happen, the question is of timing and detail.

Origin Energy (ASX listed) were looking very seriously at building transmission between Qld and PNG some years ago. Reason was to enable deveopment of PNG’s vast hydro resources which, if fully developed, would supply about 60% of Queensland’s electricity (though Origin planned an initial development at 30% of that scale). It didn’t happen, gas got in the way, but the idea was around certainly.

So the trend’s pretty clear over time, it’s just a question of detail and keeping politics out of it.

FWIW the USA hasn’t really managed to do it, they’re split into 3 systems across the lower 48 states although they do have connections to Canada and Mexico.

Middle East can’t even manage to agree on running gas pipelines between countries due to politcs.

The EU is mostly fairly well tied together including to some extent with the UK.

China’s the place building seriously big stuff though and arguably the leader these days. Before that it was the USSR prior to their collapse - there’s still half built infrastructure which was never finished but it was world leading stuff at the time.

From an investment perspective though it’s all very case by case. Not just physical aspects but also the underlying merits of linking two presently separate systems and crucially the funding model for building the connection.

In the Australian context, but it’s similar in many places, a key question for investors is that of a (financially) regulated project versus an entrepreneurial one. 

The former carries inherently less risk for the owners but also no real potential to increase profit - it’s a regulated investment basically.

In contrast an entrepreneurial link exploits the pricing difference between two regions as its source of revenue.

In Australia it would be fair to say that there’s not a lot of interest in the entrepreneurial approach to interconnectors.


----------



## IFocus

Smurf1976 said:


> *Short answer = it could be done but there are limitations which need proper engineering.*
> 
> The above answers the question. Following is just a layman's terms explanation for those who want to know:
> 
> Looking at existing HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) transmission, there are already links up to ~2400km operating successfully in China and some of those transfer serious amounts of power eg 8GW. To put that into perspective, 8GW is not far short of the all time record peak demand for electricity in Victoria (10.4GW) and is about twice the generating capacity of the present Snowy scheme.
> 
> For an AC power system, the longest one in the world is rather close to home - that being the one which stretches from north Queensland to just west of Ceduna (SA) and supplies practically all electricity across Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic and SA. Tasmania's system is separate from an AC power perspective but is connected via a HVDC link.
> 
> If we're going to be building things with any significant portion under water then HVDC is the practical means unless we're talking about short distances. For anything that's completely on land well you can build big AC power systems although that does then require that you operate it as one big AC power system. In contrast, if the only connection is DC then you've got two separate AC systems in practice. Depending on circumstances, either wins.
> 
> For the record, Qld - NSW are presently linked by one DC and two AC circuits and the same between Vic and SA. For other states NSW and Vic are linked at AC only and Vic and Tas are linked at DC only.
> 
> There are however a number of complexities in all of this which means it's all a case of bespoke design. It's not a "plug and play" situation like consumer devices are these days. Rather, it's all down to "real" engineering and the big issues relate to the existing system at both ends.
> 
> Trying to keep this to layman's terms, if you want to transfer what most people think of as "power", that is _true power_, then that's not particularly difficult. Once you want to transfer other technical characteristics, there's more to electricity than simply the true power aspect, well then having a long transmission line in the middle is problematic since it changes (AC) or completely nullifies (DC) those attributes. You're then reliant upon recreating them at the other end in order for it to work - that's doable so long as you've first worked out exactly what and how much you need to be doing which will be a dynamic thing it won't be constant.
> 
> As a practical example of that, there's a need to run synchronous generating plant (in practice gas but if it existed then coal, hydro, nuclear etc could also do it) in SA at all times even if the _true power_ it produces isn't actually needed. That's for reasons of inertia (also known as "system strength"), reactive power (that's getting into the technical stuff.....) and so on and comes down to the limitations of non-synchronous plant (wind and solar) in that regard plus the limitations of long distance transmission at transferring those things from Victoria.
> 
> There are workarounds to that which are being built but point is you first have to know you need them (that point was missed in SA until the state ended up in dark.......) then you need to build them and then operate as required. In the meantime, running some gas-fired generation at all times is the workaround not because it's gas as such but because it's already there and can do what's required in purely electrical terms.
> 
> The other issue is a practical and economic one about scale. Scale it up and the unit cost comes down since it doesn't cost twice as much to build twice the capacity on an otherwise identical project. Trouble is, the bigger it is the more difficult it is to deal with failure when the inevitable happens. And once you get a "too big" fault on a system, well then in the best case you're going to black out a lot of customers and in the worst case the entire show comes to a halt real quick. One moment everything's normal, a few seconds later and an entire city, state or country is in the dark.
> 
> As background for that, if we look at Australia well we run the frequency at 50Hz and for other countries it's either 50 or 60Hz. In layman's terms frequency = speed.
> 
> Now think of what happens if you put a sudden load on an engine. Push the mower into long grass for example. The engine slows down and it slows down rather a lot yes.
> 
> Now back to the power grid, well if that 50Hz drops by 5% that's about the point where it's all over. At 48Hz the system should hold up but not without shedding quite a bit of load, at 47Hz I sure wouldn't bet on it staying energized at all, at 45Hz no we'll be in the dark before we get to that point.
> 
> The infamous big blackout in SA was an event of that nature. Loss of some supply > more supply tripped off as frequency and voltage fell > rest slowed down even further > all over and the only option is restart everything from scratch and all in a matter of seconds. That's the nightmare scenario with power systems but for clarity, SA certainly isn't the only place where it has ever occurred.
> 
> Now for a practical example with a link between A and B consider that the load on the SWIS (South West Interconnected System) in WA is running at about 2800 MW presently and should get down to about 2000 MW overnight. Meanwhile the total load in the eastern states (the NEM including SA and Tas) is currently about 21,000 MW (that's fairly low given the time of day).
> 
> Now suppose that we wanted to link the SWIS with the NEM (National Electricity Market). It could be done but a major consideration is what happens when the inevitable trip of that line occurs at some random unknown time?
> 
> What happens to the WA system if it's 5am and half the supply is coming from interstate and that suddenly disappeared? As "seen" by the power stations in WA, that's akin to pushing the mower straight into long grass! Frequency would drop and either generation takes up that lost supply real quick, or some loads are cut immediately, or south-west WA (including Perth) will be in the dark.
> 
> Or the opposite direction. What if there's say 3000 MW of load in WA and 1000 MW being sent from the SWIS to the NEM and the line trips? Loss of that load on the grid in WA means there's now too much supply and frequency will be rapidly rising as a result. Can generation cut output quickly enough? If not then we'll see it outright trip due to frequency rising out of spec and worst case that results in an over-reaction which ends up tripping the whole lot.
> 
> Now there are solutions to that but it's the sort of thing that needs to be properly engineered and looking at both ends of the line. Whichever is the smaller one (electrically) will pose the biggest issues but that's not to say there won't be any problems on the other end too. It needs a proper examination of the existing power system and crunching the numbers on what works and what doesn't. That's certainly something which can be done but it's real, proper sort of engineering not something that's done in an afternoon.
> 
> For an Australian project currently being looked at, that is Marinus Link (aka Project Marinus - building additional HVDC lines between Vic and Tas), there's an obvious financial incentive to go as big as possible. The limits are being pushed there but to cut a long story short it seems that around 750 MW is going to be about it give or take a bit. That doesn't mean 3000 MW can't be built, just that it'll need to be done as 4 x 750 MW in order to keep the maximum size of any failure within manageable limits.
> 
> An exception to all this is if one end of the link exists only to supply the link itself. That is, the "grid" at one end isn't really an actual power grid but is simply a power station of whatever sort (eg a solar farm plus some batteries, wind, pumped hydro etc but point is it's only there to supply the link, it's not also supplying a local city etc). In that case well there's no real need to have that side remain energized (electrically live) if the link trips, and you're never going to send power in the reverse direction since there's nothing to use it, so you've only got to worry about the receiving end. Eg for a link from Australia to Singapore, the main concern is about what happens in Singapore if it trips, there's no need to ensure the sending (Australian) end remains live following a trip so long as nothing's physically damaged by that.
> 
> That aspect of only needing to worry about one direction of power transfer and only needing to worry about maintaining stability at the receiving end does obviously reduce the amount of engineering work required. It also means that things which wouldn't be acceptable for two way flow will be acceptable in practice given that the concern is really only about one end.
> 
> So how likely really is this concern about lines tripping?
> 
> Short answer is "it happens". It's 3 weeks to Christmas and odds are something, either transmission or generation, somewhere in the NEM will unexpectedly trip between now and Christmas Day. I can't tell you what or when, that's anyone's guess, but it happens most certainly.
> 
> For a recent example generating unit number 1 at Torrens Island B (largest power station in SA) tripped on Monday afternoon and a couple of weeks ago there was a trip of both AC transmission lines between SA and Vic.
> 
> That neither of those incidents became newsworthy was because everything worked pretty much as it should work. Eg with the trip at Torrens Island other sources of generation in the NEM immediately took up the load, then units 1 - 3 at Dry Creek and unit 5 at Quarantine power stations (which were previously idle) in SA were started up to restore the system to a secure state (so that's back to being ready just in case anything else goes wrong), then in due course the more efficient but much slower to start Pelican Point station ramped up and Dry Creek + Quarantine were shut down as no longer needed given low demand at the time.
> 
> That's how it's supposed to work. Unless you're in the industry or happened to be near Dry Creek power station, which is a peaking and backup plant that's normally idle, when all 3 generators suddenly roared into action then you'd be unaware that anything even happened. For ordinary consumers be they homes or business, life carried on business as usual.
> 
> A bad but not disastrous response to the same incidents would be a major deviation in frequency, some consumers blacked out but the system remains alive as such.
> 
> A disastrous response to the same would be frequency falls too far, generation trips and down goes the whole show thus requiring a complete restart from scratch. Avoiding that is the first and foremost focus of it all really.




Great post Smurf


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> As a concept I'm enthusiastic.
> 
> In practice I'm cautious in view of the troubled history of making what should be easy happen in practice. Think "politics" there rather than "engineering" or "finance".
> 
> I say that based on observation of actual occurrences rather than cynicism. We're having a lot of trouble changing some timers which are already installed, all that needs to happen is change the settings, so needless to say I'm cautious about anything even slightly more ambitious.
> 
> That's not wanting to sound negative, it's just having seen the degree of politics standing in the way of all this.




I guess it also papers over the cracks to some extent that the delivery system is unable to match the demand and therefore may take the heat off those in charge of generation and put the onus back onto the consumers who are expecting service in return for one of the highest power prices in the world ?


----------



## basilio

Controlling domestic solar power to protect the grid is relatively straightforward and seemingly well supported in WA..
Comprehensive story.

 Print Email  Facebook  Twitter  More
*Authorities look to control household rooftop solar power systems to stabilise the grid*

The body that runs WA's main electricity market wants the ability to remotely dump excess solar power from households — cutting the bill rebates people receive — to safeguard the grid from surging levels of renewable energy and avoid rolling power cuts.

...* Clean Energy Council supports move*
Darren Gladman, the Clean Energy Council's distributed energy director, fully backed AEMO's push, saying the difficulties posed by solar panels were largely technical and smart inverters were needed to help overcome them.

He said if people wanted to see ever growing rates of renewable energy on the grid, they needed to accept the role the market operator would play in regulating the system.

"The really important thing that relates to smart inverters is that it's able to understand what's happening on the grid and provide support to the grid when it needs it," Mr Gladman said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12...trol-house-rooftop-solar-power-in-wa/11773436


----------



## Value Collector

basilio said:


> Controlling domestic solar power to protect the grid is relatively straightforward and seemingly well supported in WA..
> Comprehensive story.
> 
> Print Email  Facebook  Twitter  More
> *Authorities look to control household rooftop solar power systems to stabilise the grid*
> 
> The body that runs WA's main electricity market wants the ability to remotely dump excess solar power from households — cutting the bill rebates people receive — to safeguard the grid from surging levels of renewable energy and avoid rolling power cuts.
> 
> ...* Clean Energy Council supports move*
> Darren Gladman, the Clean Energy Council's distributed energy director, fully backed AEMO's push, saying the difficulties posed by solar panels were largely technical and smart inverters were needed to help overcome them.
> 
> He said if people wanted to see ever growing rates of renewable energy on the grid, they needed to accept the role the market operator would play in regulating the system.
> 
> "The really important thing that relates to smart inverters is that it's able to understand what's happening on the grid and provide support to the grid when it needs it," Mr Gladman said.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12...trol-house-rooftop-solar-power-in-wa/11773436




I think the grid operators need to be very careful with how they handle this situation, if they simply decide to start dumping or shutting down Solar production when there is an excess of supply, an this causes the owners of the solar panels to have their production reduced, or their export earnings reduced, then they will end up creating a massive incentive for people to leave the grid all together.

When you factor in the $365 it costs per year to be connected to the grid today + the Spread between the Buy and sell price (minimum 9 cents per Kilowatt) vs installing a battery + smart hotwater system, the grid only has a few marginal benefits.

I think it is in the grid operators long term interests to focus on strategies, that utilise the peak solar productions rather than seek the easy way of dumping them or idling them back.

Large scale storage, smart timing of off peak systems etc are better ways in my opinion.

Or even providing incentives to get households with solar to purchase batteries which the grid can control partially to decide when they charge etc, eg having batteries that only start charging during peak solar times, but allow the house hold to export solar production in the morning and afternoon.


----------



## basilio

The story explores those options VC.  Quite right about not just dumping people. Far better to set up battery banks both on site and in local communities.

But this seems eminently doable.


----------



## Value Collector

basilio said:


> But this seems eminently doable.




At the moment I get paid 16 cents for each 1 KWH I send to the grid (regardless of time of day), and charged 25 cents for each 1KWH I import from the grid regardless of the time of day and 18 cents off-peak hotwater.

So I already have my hot water and electric car set up to soak up production that would other wise be charged at rates higher than the 16cents export credit, and if I had a battery this would be even better.

Imagine a world where the smart system made everything just flow based on the best minute by minute economics rather than timers though, So through out the day my solar is either being exported or sent to my cars battery, house battery or hot water system based on system wide demand and production.

Owners of batteries and electric cars could even choose to switch their batteries to export mode when they go on holidays to earn a better export rate by sending the electricity to the grid at dinner time instead of midday when it was produced eg earn 16cents if they export at midday, but earn 20cents if they charge the battery and export on demand later,

I just see a world of possibilities, I just hope the engineers and managers see the same things.


----------



## qldfrog

Just a word of caution, about demand management, the beauty of it
We tend to see the world with our eyes, but most of the world still has a manufacturing industry, not just offices, cafes and shopping centres.
Most of our consumption except heating is by day and can be powered by solar.a bit of battery tweaking to smooth peak and we could be nearly ok
For the rest of the industrial world, power goes mainly to factories 24/7 and even with global warming, heating is on 24/7 for 6 months of the year.


----------



## qldfrog

qldfrog said:


> Just a word of caution, about demand management, the beauty of it
> We tend to see the world with our eyes, but most of the world still has a manufacturing industry, not just offices, cafes and shopping centres.
> Most of our consumption except heating is by day and can be powered by solar.a bit of battery tweaking to smooth peak and we could be nearly ok
> For the rest of the industrial world, power goes mainly to factories 24/7 and even with global warming, heating is on 24/7 for 6 months of the year.



So it is not tomorrow that co2 will be removed from even the most fanatical green western country of any importance
We can probably reduce by 50 to 60pc, but that is peanuts vs China and India extra emissions for power alone
Sorry to be the bad news bearer but co2 emission from power will keep increasing overall.there is only so much industry and improvement we can do with population going from 8 to 12 billions
Just maybe of course it could be easier to target that, obviously on a planet scale, but i thought this was the point.anyway, on a pure individual Australian basis, i think it can now be reasonable to be self-sufficient power wise and would not mind buying an off the grid house as my next place


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> I just see a world of possibilities, I just hope the engineers and managers see the same things.




Crux of it is that yes the engineers and in most cases managers absolutely "get it" but you won't find too many who haven't lost their enthusiasm amidst a political and regulatory regime that's standing firmly in the way of progress.

However bad you think that might be, rest assured it's far, far worse.

As a case in point, in SA we have some significant issues relating to the high uptake of solar:

1. Network voltage issues noting that over a third of all homes in SA have solar, daytime load is commonly low in residential areas whenever the weather is mild, and much of the distribution network is of relatively low capacity compared to other parts of Australia.

2. System strength issues in the grid. In simple terms non-synchronous plant such as solar (especially small scale) and wind doesn't have that "freight train" like response of just carrying on regardless when it hits a bump. There are workarounds but at present gas-fired generation is being run, and wind or solar going to waste, pretty often (not every day but several times in a typical week).

3. Overall system load at midday is becoming low to the point of being a problem from an operational perspective. Even on a day like today, which reached 39 degrees in Adelaide, load at midday was lower than it was in the early hours of the morning. Cause = because small scale solar is supplying most consumption at that time, it goes as high as ~two thirds of the total load.

Now one obvious solution to this is to take advantage of the ~40% of SA homes with electric hot water and operate those during the 10am - 3pm period instead of switching them all on at night when demand is now considerably higher (even without the water heaters on) than it is during daytime.

To cut a long story short - it's 7 years and counting from when the issue was seriously recognised trying to get these clocks changed. Even brand new installations today are going in set to operate overnight only despite SA Power Networks encouraging operation during the 10am - 3pm period.

SAPN was putting them in set to operate during daytime, then the regulators brought "Power Of Choice" in and transferred metering to the retailers 2 years ago, and they've gone back to nighttime despite it costing them more (since electricity spot prices are now consistently lower at midday than at midnight) and reducing their margins by doing so.

Then there's governments getting in the way with regulations which send consumers in the opposite direction to what makes sense. At a time when there's excitement about electric cars it seems rather odd that Victoria in particular is hell bent on making sure we go the opposite direction for heating water and use gas. A number of other states are less strict but nonetheless push consumers in the same direction.

From a technical perspective there are solutions to all this, it's pretty straightforward and all very explainable. That it's not happening comes down to the regulating and governing types standing firmly in the way.

Realistically, the view of many is that we'll get a solution to this only by means of a proper crisis. Sad but it seems to be where it's heading. I don't like to sound negative but I'm just being realistic - whatever's achieved is in spite of government (at the federal level) not because of them. 

At a personal level, well I do have a battery at home yes. Over the past month:

41% of electricity consumed drawn from the battery which is charged from solar
34% from the grid
25% directly used solar


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> Crux of it is that yes the engineers and in most cases managers absolutely "get it" but you won't find too many who haven't lost their enthusiasm amidst a political and regulatory regime that's standing firmly in the way of progress.
> 
> However bad you think that might be, rest assured it's far, far worse.
> 
> As a case in point, in SA we have some significant issues relating to the high uptake of solar:
> 
> 1. Network voltage issues noting that over a third of all homes in SA have solar, daytime load is commonly low in residential areas whenever the weather is mild, and much of the distribution network is of relatively low capacity compared to other parts of Australia.
> 
> 2. System strength issues in the grid. In simple terms non-synchronous plant such as solar (especially small scale) and wind doesn't have that "freight train" like response of just carrying on regardless when it hits a bump. There are workarounds but at present gas-fired generation is being run, and wind or solar going to waste, pretty often (not every day but several times in a typical week).
> 
> 3. Overall system load at midday is becoming low to the point of being a problem from an operational perspective. Even on a day like today, which reached 39 degrees in Adelaide, load at midday was lower than it was in the early hours of the morning. Cause = because small scale solar is supplying most consumption at that time, it goes as high as ~two thirds of the total load.
> 
> Now one obvious solution to this is to take advantage of the ~40% of SA homes with electric hot water and operate those during the 10am - 3pm period instead of switching them all on at night when demand is now considerably higher (even without the water heaters on) than it is during daytime.
> 
> To cut a long story short - it's 7 years and counting from when the issue was seriously recognised trying to get these clocks changed. Even brand new installations today are going in set to operate overnight only despite SA Power Networks encouraging operation during the 10am - 3pm period.
> 
> SAPN was putting them in set to operate during daytime, then the regulators brought "Power Of Choice" in and transferred metering to the retailers 2 years ago, and they've gone back to nighttime despite it costing them more (since electricity spot prices are now consistently lower at midday than at midnight) and reducing their margins by doing so.
> 
> Then there's governments getting in the way with regulations which send consumers in the opposite direction to what makes sense. At a time when there's excitement about electric cars it seems rather odd that Victoria in particular is hell bent on making sure we go the opposite direction for heating water and use gas. A number of other states are less strict but nonetheless push consumers in the same direction.
> 
> From a technical perspective there are solutions to all this, it's pretty straightforward and all very explainable. That it's not happening comes down to the regulating and governing types standing firmly in the way.
> 
> Realistically, the view of many is that we'll get a solution to this only by means of a proper crisis. Sad but it seems to be where it's heading. I don't like to sound negative but I'm just being realistic - whatever's achieved is in spite of government (at the federal level) not because of them.
> 
> At a personal level, well I do have a battery at home yes. Over the past month:
> 
> 41% of electricity consumed drawn from the battery which is charged from solar
> 34% from the grid
> 25% directly used solar




I would get a battery, even though the economics are marginal, except I am planning on moving shortly, so it’s not that viable for me. 

I guess all I can hope for is that either the grid operators eventually sort things out, or some disrupter company comes out with so off grid tech that allows people to move offgrid cheaply and manage their power needs via batteries.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> I guess all I can hope for is that either the grid operators eventually sort things out




It's one of those things that will be fixed that's a given, the question being how we get there.

That is, do we get there with or without a crisis either physical (lights go out) or financially?

Who gains either individuals (especially politics) or businesses?

Who loses? 

In that sense we've had a decade or so of political argument, it has been a consistent theme throughout the 2010's with the related climate and energy subject, and thus far there's no resolution. It can't continue like that however for the very simple reason that time's running out which forces some sort of solution one way or another.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> At the moment I get paid 16 cents for each 1 KWH I send to the grid (regardless of time of day), and charged 25 cents for each 1KWH I import from the grid regardless of the time of day and 18 cents off-peak hotwater.
> 
> So I already have my hot water and electric car set up to soak up production that would other wise be charged at rates higher than the 16cents export credit, and if I had a battery this would be even better.
> 
> Imagine a world where the smart system made everything just flow based on the best minute by minute economics rather than timers though, So through out the day my solar is either being exported or sent to my cars battery, house battery or hot water system based on system wide demand and production.
> 
> Owners of batteries and electric cars could even choose to switch their batteries to export mode when they go on holidays to earn a better export rate by sending the electricity to the grid at dinner time instead of midday when it was produced eg earn 16cents if they export at midday, but earn 20cents if they charge the battery and export on demand later,
> 
> I just see a world of possibilities, I just hope the engineers and managers see the same things.



Two things that come to mind from a W.A perspective, firstly the feed in tarrif is 7cents, as opposed to 16cents and if you install batteries, the tarrif is stopped.
So there is a lot of work to be done, in all aspects of the transition to renewables, as some on here have mentioned it is all getting a bit ahead of itself.
But in the scheme of things, it isn't a bad thing, we will require twice as much renewable generation capacity installed, than we actually need to supply the load.
Therefore paying for that will be unsustainable, so the ability to be able to throttle the generation as and when required, will still allow the required capacity to be attained while ensuring the system security isn't compromised.
It wont be long before the Goverment in W.A starts building a H2 plant IMO, due to the flat topography W.A doesn't lend itself to pumped storage and batteries are not the long term solution.
It will be interesting to see what develops in W.A, being a relatively small islanded grid, it lends itself to a flexible, affordable and sustainable renewable solution.


----------



## Value Collector

Here is a question I haven’t been able to find an answer to.

if my Solar system is generating 6kwh, and my hotwater is using 3 and aircon using 4.

I am importing 1 kWh, but will this 1kwh import be on the main circuit at 25cents or through the hotwater offpeak at 18cents?


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Here is a question I haven’t been able to find an answer to.
> 
> if my Solar system is generating 6kwh, and my hotwater is using 3 and aircon using 4.
> 
> I am importing 1 kWh, but will this 1kwh import be on the main circuit at 25cents or through the hotwater offpeak at 18cents?



Do you have two meters? If not it will be charged at the prevailing T.O.D price i.e peak or off peak rate, I would assume.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> Do you have two meters? If not it will be charged at the prevailing T.O.D price i.e peak or off peak rate, I would assume.




It’s a smart meter, but the off peak circuit runs all day, except between 4pm and 10pm.

so in the middle of the day my hotwater can still draw power at offpeak rates 18 cents , even while Everything else is being charged at 25 cents.

hence I was wondering when both air con and hotwater are running, and imported power is needed, which gets the solar power first and which has to draw from grid, or is it 50/50 split.


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## qldfrog

As a cynical, VC, i would bet the answer will be whichever combination is the more costly for you.the customer.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> It’s a smart meter, but the off peak circuit runs all day, except between 4pm and 10pm.



Details of how it's set up vary between states but in general the controlled load is "import only" so the full volume of consumption is charged at that rate.

The main exceptions are:

1. Where the off-peak comes via a Time Of Use (TOU) meter which covers all consumption. In that case the controlled load is the same as any other load.

Some states have arrangements which work better than others in that regard. Eg Tariff 93 in Tasmania is intentionally set with the lowest price applying between 10am - 4pm as well as 9pm - 7am and all day weekends. Given that a standard water heater heats from cold to full temperature within 6 hours that works very nicely.

Same arrangement as T93 in Tas _should_ be in SA very soon albeit with some minor tweaks. The lowest price will be 10am - 3pm. That's if the retailers go along with it - unlike Tas can't get everyone in the same room and just agree what to do but should happen.

For the SA variant the network charges, with respect to the standard flat rate (Residential Single Rate - RSR) are to be 25% during the period 10am - 3pm, 50% during the period 1am to 6am and 125% at all other times.

The Tas arrangement very roughly prices off-peak at a 55% discount to peak and has only two rates - it's always either Peak or Off Peak (hence the marketing strategy calls it just that "Peak and Off Peak").

Other states it really depends on what price you're paying and when - check locally but in most cases it's not particularly solar friendly.

2. A situation unique to Tasmania is that of two peak rate meters per household. One for heating and air-conditioning, which can also be used for storage hot water so long as it heats slowly (so no instant or quick recovery systems), and the other for everything else with the former being charged at a 40% discount.

Long story short - whilst most are installed on the Light & Power (Tariff 31) meter, there's no problem with installing a solar system on the Tariff 41 (space heating and hot water better known by the old marketing term of "HydroHeat"). Regardless of which meter it's on though, the other meter can't "see" the solar so becomes an import-only arrangement unless of course you have two systems and put one on each.

That arrangement is unique to Tas though and doesn't exist elsewhere in the context of ordinary private homes. For all other states it's either a Time Of Use arrangement as in point 1 or it's a single flat rate for everything except water heating which will be on a separate single flat rate with restricted hours at a lower price.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> Details of how it's set up vary between states but in general the controlled load is "import only" so the full volume of consumption is charged at that rate.
> 
> The main exceptions are:
> 
> 1. Where the off-peak comes via a Time Of Use (TOU) meter which covers all consumption. In that case the controlled load is the same as any other load.
> 
> Some states have arrangements which work better than others in that regard. Eg Tariff 93 in Tasmania is intentionally set with the lowest price applying between 10am - 4pm as well as 9pm - 7am and all day weekends. Given that a standard water heater heats from cold to full temperature within 6 hours that works very nicely.
> 
> Same arrangement as T93 in Tas _should_ be in SA very soon albeit with some minor tweaks. The lowest price will be 10am - 3pm. That's if the retailers go along with it - unlike Tas can't get everyone in the same room and just agree what to do but should happen.
> 
> For the SA variant the network charges, with respect to the standard flat rate (Residential Single Rate - RSR) are to be 25% during the period 10am - 3pm, 50% during the period 1am to 6am and 125% at all other times.
> 
> The Tas arrangement very roughly prices off-peak at a 55% discount to peak and has only two rates - it's always either Peak or Off Peak (hence the marketing strategy calls it just that "Peak and Off Peak").
> 
> Other states it really depends on what price you're paying and when - check locally but in most cases it's not particularly solar friendly.
> 
> 2. A situation unique to Tasmania is that of two peak rate meters per household. One for heating and air-conditioning, which can also be used for storage hot water so long as it heats slowly (so no instant or quick recovery systems), and the other for everything else with the former being charged at a 40% discount.
> 
> Long story short - whilst most are installed on the Light & Power (Tariff 31) meter, there's no problem with installing a solar system on the Tariff 41 (space heating and hot water better known by the old marketing term of "HydroHeat"). Regardless of which meter it's on though, the other meter can't "see" the solar so becomes an import-only arrangement unless of course you have two systems and put one on each.
> 
> That arrangement is unique to Tas though and doesn't exist elsewhere in the context of ordinary private homes. For all other states it's either a Time Of Use arrangement as in point 1 or it's a single flat rate for everything except water heating which will be on a separate single flat rate with restricted hours at a lower price.




The offpeak circuit definitely draws from my solar when there is solar available, I can see it on the live graph, so it’s not setup as import only, I have the hot water system set up come on in the middle of the day, but noticed that when the aircon is running full speed at the same time as the hot water system I am importing some.

it would be great if the solar production went to the aircon first, and the excess imports needed for the hotwater system came from the off peak.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> The offpeak circuit definitely draws from my solar when there is solar available, I can see it on the live graph, so it’s not setup as import only, I have the hot water system set up come on in the middle of the day, but noticed that when the aircon is running full speed at the same time as the hot water system I am importing some.




A couple of questions:

1. Is this controlled via your own timer or via the ripple control relay / sealed timer (depeding on what state you're in) belonging to the distributor?

2. Is your electricity pricing based on Time Of Use (TOU) rates for everything? Or do you have one flat rate for everything except hot water which has its own flat rate (controlled load also known as off peak). If unsure then see what items you're paying for on the bill?


----------



## Value Collector

The Hot water system is on a grid operated controlled load I think its called T33 in Qld, it operates 18 hours per day, only shutting down between 4pm - 10pm.

However, I have installed a timer on it so I can choose when it operates during those 18 hours between those times.

I have a monitoring system where I can see my production and usage, So an see it drawing off the solar when it comes on.

The Solar installer did tell me that the new meter that was installed would sent all solar production to the house before any is exported, which is true as far as my graphs show,

However I am just confused about how it would allocate the imported load when usage is higher than production.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> The Hot water system is on a grid operated controlled load I think its called T33 in Qld, it operates 18 hours per day, only shutting down between 4pm - 10pm.
> 
> ...
> 
> I have a monitoring system where I can see my production and usage, So an see it drawing off the solar when it comes on.




Well I've learned something today. 

That must be a Queensland specific arrangement. T33 is as you describe and there are equivalents in other states (but note for others reading this that the actual names and numbers are different in every state) but in other states the controlled load off peak can't "see" the solar and the solar can't see it. So in other states they're separate as such.

I'll have to ask a few questions and see if I can find out how this functions in Queensland. Sounds like a good idea though I must say. There were some other states trying to do it but they ran into software problems - I'll have to find out where it's at.


----------



## qldfrog

Based on what i know here in qld, t33 is a separate circuit up to the meter with wired appliances only, i do not believe a solar system would be connected on it so in effect your panel could not power your hot water if it is on t33 but happy to be proven wrong


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> The Hot water system is on a grid operated controlled load I think its called T33 in Qld, it operates 18 hours per day, only shutting down between 4pm - 10pm.
> 
> However, I have installed a timer on it so I can choose when it operates during those 18 hours between those times.
> 
> I have a monitoring system where I can see my production and usage, So an see it drawing off the solar when it comes on.
> 
> The Solar installer did tell me that the new meter that was installed would sent all solar production to the house before any is exported, which is true as far as my graphs show,
> 
> However I am just confused about how it would allocate the imported load when usage is higher than production.



Certainly a lot more advanced than W.A.


----------



## Value Collector

qldfrog said:


> Based on what i know here in qld, t33 is a separate circuit up to the meter with wired appliances only, i do not believe a solar system would be connected on it so in effect your panel could not power your hot water if it is on t33 but happy to be proven wrong




Apparently the new meter they installed does allow solar to flow to the t33 circuit, where as the older system where there was two meters doesn't.

As I said I can see where my solar goes via my App, and at exactly the time my hotwater system comes on, the app shows solar usage rise by 3.6KWH which is exactly what the Hotwater system uses.


----------



## Value Collector

Here is a Graph showing my solar production and the usage.

The blue is production and orange is usage.

I have pointed out three periods of high usage, 

1, is car charging at 6.30

2, is the hot water system coming on for a bit

3, is my aircon coming on and then spiking down even more as the hotwater comes on again as my Mrs has a shower while the aircon is running.

Light orange shows usage being supplied by solar, dark orange shows usage being imported.

you can see while the aircon and hot water were both running we imported for a while, I would love to know which circuit the import is coming from.


----------



## qldfrog

Value Collector said:


> Apparently the new meter they installed does allow solar to flow to the t33 circuit, where as the older system where there was two meters doesn't.
> 
> As I said I can see where my solar goes via my App, and at exactly the time my hotwater system comes on, the app shows solar usage rise by 3.6KWH which is exactly what the Hotwater system uses.



Good to know, thanks
It is hard to keep up to scratch and make good decisions in such a shifting environment


----------



## Value Collector

Value Collector said:


> View attachment 98972
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here is a Graph showing my solar production and the usage.
> 
> The blue is production and orange is usage.
> 
> I have pointed out three periods of high usage,
> 
> 1, is car charging at 6.30
> 
> 2, is the hot water system coming on for a bit
> 
> 3, is my aircon coming on and then spiking down even more as the hotwater comes on again as my Mrs has a shower while the aircon is running.
> 
> Light orange shows usage being supplied by solar, dark orange shows usage being imported.
> 
> you can see while the aircon and hot water were both running we imported for a while, I would love to know which circuit the import is coming from.




just to explain the chart further,

dark blue is production exports while light blue is production used.

dark orange is usage that was imported, light orange is usage supplied from panels.


----------



## sptrawler

At last we are starting to get a critical planning pathway sorted, for the orderly transition to renewables, the green shoots are appearing.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12...040-to-replace-coal/11790276?section=business
From the article:
In a "roadmap" for the next 20 years, AEMO said renewable energy with dispatchable power would be the lowest cost for consumers.

Rooftop solar is set to play a role, with nearly a quarter of all energy consumption to come from residential and business solar panels by 2040.
To offset the decline of coal there would need to be a more-than-tripling of renewable energy plants that are already established or will be installed in the next two years, the forecast said.
he draft report highlights several "priority" projects for investment including:


A new undersea power link between Victoria and Tasmania
A new transmission line from Robertstown in South Australia to Wagga Wagga in NSW
A new connection from Western Victoria where wind plants are being built, to southern NSW and the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro
Upgrades of the existing interconnection between Queensland to NSW and Victoria to NSW
Improvements to the transmission system in Victoria to allow renewable energy to get to homes. 
The report said 15 gigawatts (GW) or 63 per cent of Australia's coal-fired generation is likely to retire by 2040.

This will have to be replaced by at least 30 GW of new grid-scale renewables above what is already committed.

"More renewables are required to replace conventional generators because of their naturally lower capacity factor,'' said the report.

Renewable energy development zones are earmarked across the five states.

On a different note, it doesn't sound good for Victoria, as smurph has been saying.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12...arns-about-power-outages-this-summer/11762774

From the article:
Up to 1.3 million Victorian households without power on extreme weather days if supply was not improved and major generators were not repaired

And to support the transition away from a coal-based market, there needs to be up to 21 GW of dispatchable resources through pumped hydro or battery storage.

Efficient gas plants could be effective, especially if gas prices came down


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> At last we are starting to get a critical planning pathway sorted, for the orderly transition to renewables, the green shoots are appearing.
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12...040-to-replace-coal/11790276?section=business
> From the article:
> In a "roadmap" for the next 20 years, AEMO said renewable energy with dispatchable power would be the lowest cost for consumers.
> 
> Rooftop solar is set to play a role, with nearly a quarter of all energy consumption to come from residential and business solar panels by 2040.
> To offset the decline of coal there would need to be a more-than-tripling of renewable energy plants that are already established or will be installed in the next two years, the forecast said.
> he draft report highlights several "priority" projects for investment including:
> 
> 
> A new undersea power link between Victoria and Tasmania
> A new transmission line from Robertstown in South Australia to Wagga Wagga in NSW
> A new connection from Western Victoria where wind plants are being built, to southern NSW and the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro
> Upgrades of the existing interconnection between Queensland to NSW and Victoria to NSW
> Improvements to the transmission system in Victoria to allow renewable energy to get to homes.
> The report said 15 gigawatts (GW) or 63 per cent of Australia's coal-fired generation is likely to retire by 2040.
> 
> This will have to be replaced by at least 30 GW of new grid-scale renewables above what is already committed.
> 
> "More renewables are required to replace conventional generators because of their naturally lower capacity factor,'' said the report.
> 
> Renewable energy development zones are earmarked across the five states.
> 
> On a different note, it doesn't sound good for Victoria, as smurph has been saying.
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12...arns-about-power-outages-this-summer/11762774
> 
> From the article:
> Up to 1.3 million Victorian households without power on extreme weather days if supply was not improved and major generators were not repaired
> 
> And to support the transition away from a coal-based market, there needs to be up to 21 GW of dispatchable resources through pumped hydro or battery storage.
> 
> Efficient gas plants could be effective, especially if gas prices came down




We are definitely on the cusp of an unstoppable wave, looking forward how are we going to monetize This situation.

IMO opinion, possible good deployments of capital are.

1, Your own personal solar system.

2, lending out funds via companies such as Rate setter to others Needing funding for their green energy equipment.

3, Investment banks focused on funding these big projects Eg Mqg.

4, Companies committed to investing in large renewable projects, that also have exposure to transition fuels, eg Apa.

5, Maybe companies like Tesla, Who have exposure to Solar panels, Batteries, and Cars that can make the most of these new fuel sources.

any other thoughts?


----------



## qldfrog

Value Collector said:


> We are definitely on the cusp of an unstoppable wave, looking forward how are we going to monetize This situation.
> 
> IMO opinion, possible good deployments of capital are.
> 
> 1, Your own personal solar system.
> 
> 2, lending out funds via companies such as Rate setter to others Needing funding for their green energy equipment.
> 
> 3, Investment banks focused on funding these big projects Eg Mqg.
> 
> 4, Companies committed to investing in large renewable projects, that also have exposure to transition fuels, eg Apa.
> 
> 5, Maybe companies like Tesla, Who have exposure to Solar panels, Batteries, and Cars that can make the most of these new fuel sources.
> 
> any other thoughts?



Hi VC, got 1 and 2, was burnt with Macquarie wind a couple of years ago, should have bought the bank itself to leverage its scrxxxing of the investors...
After it is hard to be sure of the winners
To be realistic, we still need fosil fuel so gas for power, and when the news are bad, get some big exxon shell player, we will still burn oil for a while, and even more than now in adia


----------



## sptrawler

The trick is, there is only money, in something that makes money (well mostly), so the problem lies in the fact that we need twice as much capacity than required, therefore a lot wont be bought.
Also we need three times as much storage, as generation, so how do you make money on building that?

I've been asking this question for a long time and the answer seems to be "just do it", which in reality doesn't cut it, but is the nonsensicle demand of the plebs.

That is where we are fast approaching, the point where someone has to fund it for very little return.
That is why MQG is spending a lot of money, building massive solar hydrogen plants, for export potential.
Meanwhile the plebs in the Cities are marching around with banners with questions but no answers.
That is untill you question them, then they have all the answers, but actually don't know the question.
It's a funny World ATM, those who want the problem solved, aren't asking the question of those who can solve it, they are asking politicians who have no technical ability at all.
Seems to me that the $50B spent on the NBN, would have been better spent on this problem IMO.
If the telco's wanted a better backbone infrastructure, they should have paid for it, not us.
I would rather have spent the money, on changing electrical supply system to renewables, than having faster internet that I don't need but costs me $hit loads more.
But hey everyone was screaming the NBN had to be done, so in reality it is just a screaming bunch, moving on to another issue, as long as they are loud and proud who gives a crap what the issue is as long as they get their way. 
Just my opinion.


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> The trick is, there is only money, in something that makes money (well mostly), so the problem lies in the fact that we need twice as much capacity than required, therefore a lot wont be bought.
> Also we need three times as much storage, as generation, so how do you make money on building that?
> 
> I've been asking this question for a long time and the answer seems to be "just do it", which in reality doesn't cut it, but is the nonsensicle demand of the plebs.
> 
> That is where we are fast approaching, the point where someone has to fund it for very little return.
> That is why MQG is spending a lot of money, building massive solar hydrogen plants, for export potential.
> Meanwhile the plebs in the Cities are marching around with banners with questions but no answers.
> That is untill you question them, then they have all the answers, but actually don't know the question.
> It's a funny World ATM, those who want the problem solved, aren't asking the question of those who can solve it, they are asking politicians who have no technical ability at all.
> Seems to me that the $50B spent on the NBN, would have been better spent on this problem IMO.
> If the telco's wanted a better backbone infrastructure, they should have paid for it, not us.
> I would rather have spent the money, on changing electrical supply system to renewables, than having faster internet that I don't need but costs me $hit loads more.
> But hey everyone was screaming the NBN had to be done, so in reality it is just a screaming bunch, moving on to another issue, as long as they are loud and proud who gives a crap what the issue is as long as they get their way.
> Just my opinion.



I think it is the growth of the empowered ignorant, out of university with a degree in gender studies or sociology and parrotting well rehearsed propaganda, with shared pre made answers:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-11/how-to-win-a-climate-change-debate/11787486
I am a real partisan of solar and wind but facts mean it can not be enough wo storage, and the same crowd complains about hydro 2, wants to install batteries..really? or demand management.LOL
All nice side help but we need a baseload somewhere, nuclear or fossil fuel
Hydro would be good but it is  negligible here..sad geographic reality


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It's a funny World ATM, those who want the problem solved, aren't asking the question of those who can solve it, they are asking politicians who have no technical ability at all.



It's all very solvable, it just requires a focus on actually solving it rather than focusing on ideology of any sort since that's what's standing in the way.

Looking at the short term, the situation in Victoria is basically a game of russian roulette. The gun is loaded in so far as installed generating capacity is inadequate and some of what does exist is in pretty poor shape thus liable to experience rather a lot of problems. That said, it's anyone's guess as to when the ducks line up and that actually becomes a crisis. Could be next week, could be next year, might be years away. 

The key drivers are basically time,weather and plant performance:

*Temperature has a strong influence on load. In Victoria's case, the hotter it gets the higher the load.

*Humidity also affects load. If it's hot then for the same temperature a higher humidity will lead to higher load compared to having lower humidity with otherwise identical conditions.

*Day of the week has a significant influence on load although less so than temperature. Monday - Friday is highest, Saturday is a bit lower but not greatly so, Sunday and any Public Holiday is lower again. 

*An absence of cloud increases solar generation but also increases load when air temperature is high. It makes the situation far better during the day but worse around sunset when the effects of the sun shining on building walls etc are still present but solar power has stopped generating.

*Wind speed affects wind power generation most obviously but also has effects on transmission line capacity and to some extent load due to building heat gain / loss effects.

*High temperature reduces the capacity of quite a lot of generating plant. In the Victorian context it hits some of the open cycle gas turbines petty hard and has lesser effects on coal and gas-fired steam plant. It also cuts the output from solar compared to lower air temperature but with equal sunlight. No real effect on hydro or wind but that does suffer some indirect impacts due to higher temperatures reducing the capacity of transmission lines. So overall higher temperatures do reduce generating capacity.

Now if you put all that together you get the overall situation at any given time. Suffice to say there's a lot of variables there and you won't find anyone willing to place a bet on when the ducks actually do line up and put the lights out.

Worst case would be a hot, humid and calm working weekday where there's some amount of plant unavailable due to whatever technical problems. When that happens is anyone's guess but the maths and historical data says it will occur with the only question being the timing. 

With regard to the various interstate transmission projects, main thing I'll note is that Marinus Link (Vic - Tas) is a 1500 MW project but physically built as 2 x 750 MW. So it could be half built if desired, it's not an all or nothing thing.


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> It's all very solvable, it just requires a focus on actually solving it rather than focusing on ideology of any sort since that's what's standing in the way.
> 
> Looking at the short term, the situation in Victoria is basically a game of russian roulette. The gun is loaded in so far as installed generating capacity is inadequate and some of what does exist is in pretty poor shape thus liable to experience rather a lot of problems. That said, it's anyone's guess as to when the ducks line up and that actually becomes a crisis. Could be next week, could be next year, might be years away.
> 
> The key drivers are basically time,weather and plant performance:
> 
> *Temperature has a strong influence on load. In Victoria's case, the hotter it gets the higher the load.
> 
> *Humidity also affects load. If it's hot then for the same temperature a higher humidity will lead to higher load compared to having lower humidity with otherwise identical conditions.
> 
> *Day of the week has a significant influence on load although less so than temperature. Monday - Friday is highest, Saturday is a bit lower but not greatly so, Sunday and any Public Holiday is lower again.
> 
> *An absence of cloud increases solar generation but also increases load when air temperature is high. It makes the situation far better during the day but worse around sunset when the effects of the sun shining on building walls etc are still present but solar power has stopped generating.
> 
> *Wind speed affects wind power generation most obviously but also has effects on transmission line capacity and to some extent load due to building heat gain / loss effects.
> 
> *High temperature reduces the capacity of quite a lot of generating plant. In the Victorian context it hits some of the open cycle gas turbines petty hard and has lesser effects on coal and gas-fired steam plant. It also cuts the output from solar compared to lower air temperature but with equal sunlight. No real effect on hydro or wind but that does suffer some indirect impacts due to higher temperatures reducing the capacity of transmission lines. So overall higher temperatures do reduce generating capacity.
> 
> Now if you put all that together you get the overall situation at any given time. Suffice to say there's a lot of variables there and you won't find anyone willing to place a bet on when the ducks actually do line up and put the lights out.
> 
> Worst case would be a hot, humid and calm working weekday where there's some amount of plant unavailable due to whatever technical problems. When that happens is anyone's guess but the maths and historical data says it will occur with the only question being the timing.
> 
> With regard to the various interstate transmission projects, main thing I'll note is that Marinus Link (Vic - Tas) is a 1500 MW project but physically built as 2 x 750 MW. So it could be half built if desired, it's not an all or nothing thing.



@Smurf1976  question on the above , asking the pro
In term of percentage, what is the loss of efficiency for these power station with higher temperature
Outside air temp varies by around 50C or so in australia when you are unlucky, and i i alwa thought, has this got a material effect on the efficiency? Thermodynamic says it should but by how much, or is it more the issue of lubricant becoming too liquid, or in europe having to heat piping to allow fuel fluidity..
A little bit off subject but when the grid is on breaking point a few % can make all the difference


----------



## Smurf1976

Looking at temperature effects, for steam plant it comes down to cooling. 

If it's air cooled, so heat dumped into the air as hot air, for example Kogan Creek (CS Energy, Qld, coal) then air temperature is the key driver of that. Nominal capacity is 750MW and at 15 degrees that's achievable but at 37 degrees output is reduced to 713MW so a 4.9% reduction.

For evaporatively cooled plant, that is with cooling towers with condensed "steam" coming out the top, then it comes down to temperature as well as humidity. Using data for Loy Yang A (AGL, Vic, coal) nominal capacity is 2210 MW and under most circumstances that can be achieved. At 41 degrees however it's de-rated to 2144 MW so a reduction of 3%.

For plant cooled into a large body of water, either a lake or the ocean, it simply comes down to the temperature of that water not the air. Air might warm the water up eventually if it stays hot for long enough (has happened overseas) but it's the water temperature as such which matters. There are some where that has a minor impact, for example Newport D (6km from the Melbourne CBD, gas-fired boiler and owned by Energy Australia) but it's only minor and if we look at Vales Point B (Sunset Power International, NSW, coal) well it's rated at 1320 MW at 42 degrees and won't go any higher even if it's snowing so no real issue there.

For gas turbine plant it's far more severe and relates to the lower air density as temperature goes up. Eg if we look at Mintaro (open cycle gas turbine, SA, owner = Synergen Power) well it's nominally 90 MW (3 x 30 MW) but comes down to 68 MW at 43 degrees and will go lower if it gets hotter than that. So that's a 25% loss of capacity on a hot but not extreme day. It varies a bit with design but a lot of the open cycle plant is of that order in terms of temperature effects - hot weather isn't at all kind to them and it's not unknown to see a 30% capacity loss if it's hot enough.

There's a workaround if the air's dry via water injection (evaporative cooling) but you need a pretty decent amount of nice high quality drinking water that you're prepared to have blowing away into the air in order for that to work. That approach is used but not universally, it's easier done somewhere like Tasmania than it is in SA or on a remote mine site in WA, and its effectiveness is subject to humidity. 

For combined cycle plant it's in the middle. Losses on the gas turbine but little or no loss on the steam turbine side depending on the means of cooling. 

For internal combustion (diesel or gas engines), wind and hydro there's generally no impact unless via indirect means . For example cold weather causes a gas shortage because everyone's using it for heating and that stops the power station from running. Or the transmission lines can't take the full output if it's hot so that limits operation even though there's no problem with the power source as such. 

Solar loses output as temperature goes up regardless of what that temperature actually is (in terms of practical real world scenarios). For solar to work you need light, not heat, and it's roughly a 0.5% output loss per degree rise in temperature. That's cell (panel) temperature not air temperature so wind plays a role there as well as the air temperature itself. So it's more complex than just the temperature but if all other things were equal then going from 25 to 45 degrees air temperature should knock 10% or so off the panel output.

Another factor with solar is the inverter. For small scale (homes, small business) situations it's no secret that rather too many inverters are installed in locations exposed to direct sunlight. They do have temperature limits and will throttle production, or outright shut down, if those are exceeded but I'm not aware of any research into how significant an issue it actually is in practice. It wouldn't be zero though, there are certainly consumer reports of it happening, but the exact amount I've no idea and to my knowledge nobody's really tried to work it out. For large scale installations, solar farms, that _shouldn't_ be a problem though assuming they've worked it out and designed appropriate cooling for the equipment.

Another one is batteries and again this is about small scale (home) ones not large installations such as the Neoen one (the SA "big battery") or AGL's planned 4 large batteries in NSW.

Information is very limited and I'm hoping to obtain some more data, albeit from a very small sample size, of how residential batteries perform during the coming hot weather in SA. Anecdotally though, it seems that at least some of the popular ones are not capable of sustaining high rates of charge or discharge at high ambient temperatures.

The specifications for one major manufacturer involve a ramping down of capacity from 45 degrees, reaching zero at 55 degrees. That might not sound too bad until you realise that's the battery temperature, not the air temperature, and that the battery will itself generate some internal heat when charging or discharging. Plus there are radiant heating effects to consider if it's installed somewhere exposed to direct sunlight. At what air temperature capacity drops is a good question, that's what I'm aiming to get some data on.


----------



## qldfrog

Thanks @Smurf1976 , i had no clue it was that high, especially the high effect on gas turbines.
I knew about solar cell reduced output but these are considerable effect for example with the coming heatwave in southern Australia.Monday may be a day where you need to have your batteries charged and generator ready


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> Monday may be a day where you need to have your batteries charged and generator ready



At this stage Wednesday looks very tight in Victoria.

Unlikely to affect households or non-industrial businesses but it's tight enough that the spot price will probably go crazy, we could well see a 10000% jump and no that's not a typo I mean literally a 100 fold increase in the spot price, and there's some chance of industrial load being cut but that's a maybe not a given.

At present AEMO is forecasting:

Supply available within Victoria = 8064 MW
Maximum load within Victoria = 9220 MW

So that needs 1156 MW from interstate to avoid any load shedding.

Tas can do 478 MW that's a "hard" number due to the limits of transmission.

SA up to 720 MW (transmission limit) but for technical reasons unlikely to get there and will top out in the 600's in practice.

NSW the lines were built to connect Snowy generation, and there's some of that counted in the Victorian figures anyway, and anything beyond that is a "do it if we can but no promises...." sort of bonus. 200 MW is an indicative figure there on top of what's already included the Vic generation figures.

So all up there's stuff all room to move. End result = it's not a big enough problem to affect households or most businesses (unless something goes wrong which is a moderate possibility) but there's a risk to industrial load and so far as price is concerned, well since every supplier is critical that means they all have the market cornered. That being so, may as well whack a couple of zero's on the price then and that's what they'll probably do and I mean that literally. A 100 fold price spike is a plausible occurrence although we'll have to wait and see what actually happens but certainly that wouldn't be unprecedented in similar circumstances.

Financial impact on listed companies operating in the industry really depends on their individual circumstances. Anyone who's buying at spot in order sell to others at a fixed price is something I wouldn't want to invest in - they're a blow up waiting to happen basically. The big names don't do that but it's not unknown as a concept. 

Households and most businesses won't directly be paying that price but ultimately a wholesale price spike will come through to retail pricing to the extent that it moves the average price. One way or another it's being paid for.


----------



## qldfrog

Temperature forecast could be extreme so the scary bit.Pretty tight indeed.As manufacturing and heavy industry disappear as fast as our generation ability, it will get harder and harder to find big users we can remove from the grid easily.


----------



## Humid

https://electrek.co/2019/12/14/tesla-giant-new-home-solar-system/
The comments at the end are a good read


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> https://electrek.co/2019/12/14/tesla-giant-new-home-solar-system/
> The comments at the end are a good read



Good article humid, I think leasing batteries will be the way forward, people buying them then having to replace them after x years will wear thin with people.
It will be ok when they are working and have to fork out the cash, but when things tighten up or they retire, the money wont be there to replace the batteries.
When it can be accurately forecast, how much battery capacity a household requires to mitigate its usage, then an accurate savings can be factored into whether the lease is viable or not.
Also as with car tyres at the moment, getting rid of the expired battery costs money, so if the battery is leased disposal is the suppliers problem.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> Good article humid, I think leasing batteries will be the way forward, people buying them then having to replace them after x years will wear thin with people.
> It will be ok when they are working and have to fork out the cash, but when things tighten up or they retire, the money wont be there to replace the batteries.
> When it can be accurately forecast, how much battery capacity a household requires to mitigate its usage, then an accurate savings can be factored into whether the lease is viable or not.
> Also as with car tyres at the moment, getting rid of the expired battery costs money, so if the battery is leased disposal is the suppliers problem.




Of course turning a large capital cost into a payment plan makes it seem easier for the average Joe, however inducing a financing company into the deal will make it more expensive, because there will be interest payments, (saying that, head over to Rate setter and we will happily fund your solar project at 6.3%+fees)

The batteries will have a scrap value, I you will be able to "trade in" your old battery for a new one, and receive a credit for the scrap metal value, it won't be a cost.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> The batteries will have a scrap value, I you will be able to "trade in" your old battery for a new one, and receive a credit for the scrap metal value, it won't be a cost.



That used to be the case for second hand worn out tyres, until the supply exceeded demand, now there is a cost to get rid of second hand tyres.
Not that it should be a problem with batteries, it will probably be factored into the purchase cost and that is continuing to fall.


----------



## Smurf1976

Looking at the near term:

Victoria looks rather precarious for Wednesday. No real threat to households but a price spike is very likely and it's plausible but not certain as to whether or not any industrial load is cut at this stage. Depends how accurate the forecasts are both for load and intermittent (wind and solar) generation and whether or not anything fails.

AGL are promising that they're on track with their previous promise to have Loy Yang A unit 2 back up and running on Thursday after a 7 month outage following a major incident. After that the weather's likely to improve plus it's Christmas so no short term concerns. Wednesday's when any trouble is likely to arise.

Origin Energy are aiming to get Mortlake unit 2 back into operation by the end of 2019 following an incident very similar to the one at Loy Yang. They won't be ready this week though - December 30 was their last public statement on it.

As for batteries at home, I'll simply say that yes they work and under mild sunny conditions no problem. Reality is though that once the weather turns properly hot or cold, you're going to need an awfully big battery to keep the A/C or heating running late into the night. The grid isn't going to disappear for most users anytime soon, the exception being where the cost of mains supply is such that throwing serious $ at batteries is a viable alternative.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> That used to be the case for second hand worn out tyres, until the supply exceeded demand, now there is a cost to get rid of second hand tyres.
> Not that it should be a problem with batteries, it will probably be factored into the purchase cost and that is continuing to fall.




Used Batteries will be able to be broken down to their raw metals and the raw materials used to make new batteries, it is very different to retreading tyres.

the market for retread tyres is small compared to the market for new tyres.

How ever just like steel or aluminum, the metals from batteries will just become material for new batteries.


----------



## Value Collector

Interesting video about Battery recycling future of EV and Tesla.


----------



## basilio

Lets talk practical on dealing with a new renewable energy system for the Australian community.
How much do we think we could contribute that would make a HUGE difference to our  systems ?

How about, say, the cost of a cup of coffee or a beer once a week. ? Say $200 over a year ?
Check out what that could achieve.
*What you’d spend to prevent climate change — and what you could get with your money*
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12...limate-change-and-what-you-could-get/11784704


----------



## sptrawler

Victorians hoping for the weekend to come.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...twave-strains-power-grid-20191217-p53knp.html
From the article:
Ahead of scorching temperatures of more than 45 degrees across parts of the state, authorities are bracing for a supply squeeze and have issued a level-two "lack of reserve" warning from 3.30pm to 6.30pm on Wednesday, when millions of people will arrive home to power up their air conditioners .


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> From the article:
> Ahead of scorching temperatures of more than 45 degrees across parts of the state, authorities are bracing for a supply squeeze and have issued a level-two "lack of reserve" warning from 3.30pm to 6.30pm on Wednesday, when millions of people will arrive home to power up their air conditioners .




Looking at it right now, if the actual weather is no calmer than forecast, if the electrical load is no higher than forecast and if nothing that isn't broken now breaks within the next 24 hours then we'll scrape through.

So there's a possibility of industrial load being cut but it's by no means certain to occur. Could happen but not a given at this stage. 

What is very likely though is a price spike - AEMO currently forecasts the spot price in Victoria to rise from a low of $39.59 overnight to $110.42 at 16:30, $588.12 at 17:00, $14499.99 at 17:30 and $14700.00 at 18:00 then start coming down from 20:30 onward - should be back under $100 by 22:30 

Now if only there was a practical way for small investors to trade in that market.....


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Looking at it right now, if the actual weather is no calmer than forecast, if the electrical load is no higher than forecast and if nothing that isn't broken now breaks within the next 24 hours then we'll scrape through.
> 
> So there's a possibility of industrial load being cut but it's by no means certain to occur. Could happen but not a given at this stage.
> 
> What is very likely though is a price spike - AEMO currently forecasts the spot price in Victoria to rise from a low of $39.59 overnight to $110.42 at 16:30, $588.12 at 17:00, $14499.99 at 17:30 and $14700.00 at 18:00 then start coming down from 20:30 onward - should be back under $100 by 22:30
> 
> Now if only there was a practical way for small investors to trade in that market.....




Electricity futures ?


----------



## Smurf1976

So chalk that one up as a non event.


SirRumpole said:


> Electricity futures ?




An individual could certainly trade electricity futures, it's a commodity market the same as any other, but not on a time scale so as to take advantage of a brief price spike lasting an hour or two.

Probably just as well though since today turned out to be largely a non event. It was fairly tight but not enough to get a major price spike - it went up a bit but nothing in any way exciting.

On the physical side, SA and Vic were effectively one due to the simultaneous high temperatures and load and on that basis:

All available coal plant in Vic was run flat out and, with the exception of the previously out of service unit 2 at Loy Yang A, worked flawlessly.

Hydro plant in Vic ran to its limit and worked perfectly. Supply from Tas and NSW was at maximum and no problems.

Gas was heavily used but not to the limit. A few minor hiccups technically but ultimately there was more capacity available in both states than actually needed on the day. Not a lot more but there was some spare so not out of bullets.

Batteries made a meaningful contribution. Not a huge one but they worked as intended yes so there's no reason to doubt them. Only issue is that at the moment there aren't many of them, so it's only a small contribution, but they work certainly. That's referring to large scale batteries not small ones in homes etc - suffice to say my research into the latter is turning up a few issues yes. In short some of them really don't like the heat.

Wind and solar - conditions weren't great, that was part of the concern, but they were generating. That's not a criticism or a bias, just reflecting the reality that production can't be controlled, we can't make it shine or blow, so it's everything else which needs to balance supply and demand and as such that's where the focus tends to be. That said, if there hadn't been any wind or sun then the lights would have gone out - that's the big that leads to much concern since wind going to zero isn't uncommon and of course the sun goes down every day.

Diesel plants in SA didn't even get warmed up as simply no need.


----------



## qldfrog

For China, future remains coal:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...reatening-global-targets-20191217-p53ks6.html
Just a statement of facts from the biggest economy in the world


----------



## qldfrog

Note:
Not an endorsement...just that we'd better spend billions in dams and forest management than trying to reduce our own coal station numbers past the technical common sense


----------



## sptrawler

148GW  to be constructed, well if W.A shuts down its 1.5 GW that will help.
From the article:
"_In other words, even if the rest of the world phased out all coal power use by 2035, China's coal power generation alone would greatly exceed the global limits determined by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] for coal power use," the paper found_.

Greta had better get on her bike and have a word with China.
On a more serious note, someone had better come up with a low cost nuclear option, for us all to survive. Or else we had better get out and plant a lot more trees.
Just my opinion.


----------



## moXJO

Is China still classed as a developing nation?


----------



## sptrawler

moXJO said:


> Is China still classed as a developing nation?



It still classes itself as a developing nation, but having said that it is lending money to Victoria, to drag itself out of its first world financial mess. 
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12...up-to-china-belt-and-road-initiative/11811638


----------



## qldfrog

moXJO said:


> Is China still classed as a developing nation?



Yes, and so get some WTO special treatment for tariffs etc.
Trump complaints about it so can not be true


----------



## chiff

qldfrog said:


> Yes, and so get some WTO special treatment for tariffs etc.
> Trump complaints about it so can not be true



What I heard,and I may need to be corrected,is that you are classed as a developing nation if your per capita income is under about $12000 .China's is around $8000.


----------



## sptrawler

Australian miners starting to install renewables, to reduce reliance on diesel.

https://www.mining.com/2019-tipping-point-for-renewable-energy-at-mine-sites/


----------



## qldfrog

chiff said:


> What I heard,and I may need to be corrected,is that you are classed as a developing nation if your per capita income is under about $12000 .China's is around $8000.



Toward 9k usd this coming year, but with a fixed exchange rate so Trump angst
If China is a developing country many parts of the west must be requalified


----------



## bellenuit

qldfrog said:


> If China is a developing country many parts of the west must be requalified




Anyone with a military spend over a certain % of GDP should also be classified as developed, irrespective of per capita income.


----------



## Smurf1976

bellenuit said:


> Anyone with a military spend over a certain % of GDP should also be classified as developed, irrespective of per capita income.



If we’d stop this silly notion of trying to compete on price with China then the issue becomes straightforward to resolve.

Just needs most (not necessarily all) countries to agree to a global price on emissions and that anyone not complying will have a special tax imposed on the import of all goods produced there. Done.

No “per capita” excuses. No % reductions and so on. Just a global permit system and associated price to emit, with enforcement, and a tax on anyone who cheats.


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> If we’d stop this silly notion of trying to compete on price with China then the issue becomes straightforward to resolve.
> 
> Just needs most (not necessarily all) countries to agree to a global price on emissions and that anyone not complying will have a special tax imposed on the import of all goods produced there. Done.
> 
> No “per capita” excuses. No % reductions and so on. Just a global permit system and associated price to emit, with enforcement, and a tax on anyone who cheats.



and embed the transportation price: sending parts as we do now from north Mongolia to Melbourne could justify local manufacturing maybe?
On an interesting area discussed a lot lately:
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/wo...-secures-crucial-backing-20191223-p53mbe.html


----------



## Smurf1976

It probably won't receive much media attention given the time of year but on 30 December in layman's terms:

*Transmission failure in southern NSW required supply from Victoria as the only available option to work around it. That was due to transmission problems not a lack of power within NSW as such - just couldn't get it to where it needed to be.

*Supplying into NSW combined with the hot weather and high demand resulted in a shortfall of supply in Victoria despite large volumes coming from both SA and Tas into Vic.

*AEMO activated RERT arrangements which in simple terms means some industrial load was turned off in Victoria but in an agreed manner not strictly a "forced" one. That said, there was no real choice, either agree or be forced.....

So all that could be considered as a small scale incident of sorts and yes it sent market prices haywire until it all settled down.

Origin Energy (ASX: ORG) have successfully returned Mortlake #2 to service and were operating at partial capacity during the above. Given the extent of work there's some tests etc hence not at full output straight away but it's going again as such.

AGL (ASX: AGL) have had Loy Yang A unit 2 running in recent days but it's off again at the moment to address some minor issues etc. That's unsurprising given the scale of the work - it's one of the bigger industrial repair tasks, to anything, done in Australia for quite some time so some tests, adjustments etc are to be expected.


----------



## orr

Go coal go ....
The Chinese with their 7.5tonnes/per capita, make how many gigawatts of solar panels per year?
The Chinese with their 7.5tonnes Co2/capita make how many gigawatts of litium storage?
How many electric vehicles?
I can go on...
And Australia with it's 15.5tonnes Co2/capita puts how much industrial effort into what is the inevitable low intensity carbon future?
Young Ms Thunberg, as a Swede puts out 4.5 tonnes 

You can be part of the solution or  'The Problem'.
Over to you Trawler...  @ post#3769
The world could  only  do with about another 100 'GigaFactory' size lithium Battery Factory's ...
Tesla's aim is that it's factory's edge toward 100% renewable power....
 Go Canavan Go Angus Go Schmo... Craig Kelly just follows them around with his pants on backwards and inside out.
What a team....


----------



## orr

And Trawler at the same post, And here tell me more if any of this is wrong. 
The Modular Factory produced Nuclear Reactors that are being put forward as an option are projected at this point to start coming out of  South Korea in 2025,  all going to plan. So this as yet untried untested  broadly dispersed technology is in a limited form possibly   available in five years.
But as we type today Twiggy Forest and Cannon Brookes are sitting pretty with an over subscribed initial offering to a $25 Billion Solar/Storage  and tranmission project at Tennant Creek. Aimed at selling into Asia.
Who's off with the fairy's here??? 
one guess... Ahhh??? The Minerals Council....


----------



## sptrawler

orr said:


> And Trawler at the same post, And here tell me more if any of this is wrong.
> The Modular Factory produced Nuclear Reactors that are being put forward as an option are projected at this point to start coming out of  South Korea in 2025,  all going to plan. So this as yet untried untested  broadly dispersed technology is in a limited form possibly   available in five years.
> But as we type today Twiggy Forest and Cannon Brookes are sitting pretty with an over subscribed initial offering to a $25 Billion Solar/Storage  and tranmission project at Tennant Creek. Aimed at selling into Asia.
> Who's off with the fairy's here???
> one guess... Ahhh??? The Minerals Council....



Good points Orr, the modular nuclear reactors are in their infancy, but IMO are probably the way to go in the immediate future, their safety should be many times times greater than large scale built on site nuclear generation.
There is going to be lots of different options that will require considering, not every Country has the land mass and or the mountains to use, to generate enough capacity to feed their power use.
Add to that the World population is increasing exponentially, therefore the load is increasing also.
It no doubt will all be resolved.
Also with regard the Tenant Creek solar storage, there is a couple of very large ones to be built in W.A, one inland from eighty mile beach, North of Port Headland.


----------



## sptrawler

orr said:


> And Australia with it's 15.5tonnes Co2/capita puts how much industrial effort into what is the inevitable low intensity carbon future?
> Young Ms Thunberg, as a Swede puts out 4.5 tonnes
> 
> You can be part of the solution or  'The Problem'.
> Over to you Trawler...  @ post#3769
> .



http://theconversation.com/australi...eader-in-building-new-renewable-energy-123694
From the article:
_In Australia, renewable energy is growing at a per capita rate ten times faster than the world average. Between 2018 and 2020, Australia will install more than 16 gigawatts of wind and solar, an average rate of 220 watts per person per year.

This is nearly three times faster than the next fastest country, Germany. Australia is demonstrating to the world how rapidly an industrialised country with a fossil-fuel-dominated electricity system can transition towards low-carbon, renewable power generation_.







We are doing something, despite what the media and serial 'chanters' keep telling everyone, we are actually doing it that quickly we are making our electrical distribution system unstable.
While on the subject of battery giga factories, Australia IMO will be the Worlds biggest exporter of H2, so I'm kind of wondering what you are getting at?
Maybe a bit of non fiction reading would help, rather than the regurgitated rubbish the daily rags and morning programes churn out IMO.
Over to you Orr at #3780


----------



## Smurf1976

orr said:


> Go coal go ....
> The Chinese with their 7.5tonnes/per capita, make how many gigawatts of solar panels per year?
> The Chinese with their 7.5tonnes Co2/capita




The big problem is the last word there.

“Per capita” won’t cut it sorry - the issue’s about absolute quantities not “per capita” and the troube with China is there’s more people in that country alone than we should probably have on the entire planet.

Plausibly acceptable if they all agreed to be extremely poor but the planet’s toast now that China alone is using more coal than every other country combined. That it’s low per capita doesn’t help when there’s over a billion people doing it.

For the record though the highest penetration of rooftop solar in the world is in Queensland and South Australia. We’re not doing too badly there.

If Tasmania became a separate country then it would rank second globally for electricity use per capita and almost all of that’s renewable. For much of the 1900’s it would have ranked #1 and it literally was 100% renewable.

The situation in Australia isn’t all bad, it’s mixed overall although the rising population and the country’s economic reliand on three commodities, two of which are fossil fuels, are an obvious problem needing to be resolved.


----------



## orr

Bit busy round my way ATM, Trawler of course picked me like nose, so much to keep up to date with with the 'Fruit Loop' TV. And they're a mob that know all to well how good it feels to get a medal for coming Last. 15.4tonnes per person and heading north. Thats us...  Smurf  Tas is a suburb. 
Modular nuec's might as well be fairy land. 
Here's a bet; $2 dollar lottery ticket?
There'll be a Tera Watt /annuum of Lithium Battery production(30x todays) before there's a Giga watt of small nuec output. 
Bankable Battery Factory's today.

Or, you can take another slurp on the Minerals Council 'Koolaid' .... Hydrogen so beautifully synthesised for Natural Gas.(transitionally of course)

I do like my medal though, makes me feel so much  less than ordinary.


----------



## moXJO

Smurf1976 said:


> The big problem is the last word there.
> 
> “Per capita” won’t cut it sorry - the issue’s about absolute quantities not “per capita” and the troube with China is there’s more people in that country alone than we should probably have on the entire planet.
> 
> Plausibly acceptable if they all agreed to be extremely poor but the planet’s toast now that China alone is using more coal than every other country combined. That it’s low per capita doesn’t help when there’s over a billion people doing it.




Strongly agree with this. Per capita is not the "be all" measurement it's made out to be. We can double our population to reduce emissions (govt has been doing this already). Easy to fudge the numbers and hides the level countries are actually polluting at.


----------



## SirRumpole

moXJO said:


> Strongly agree with this. Per capita is not the "be all" measurement it's made out to be. We can double our population to reduce emissions (govt has been doing this already). Easy to fudge the numbers and hides the level countries are actually polluting at.




Yes , but we sell the large capita countries a lot of coal to pollute with.

Why not put an export tax on it so they end up paying for the pollution and we can use the proceeds to reduce our own emissions and fight the fires that result from global warming ?


----------



## moXJO

SirRumpole said:


> Yes , but we sell the large capita countries a lot of coal to pollute with.
> 
> Why not put an export tax on it so they end up paying for the pollution and we can use the proceeds to reduce our own emissions and fight the fires that result from global warming ?



Obviously we are too stupid to do so. That and other countries will pick up the contract.


----------



## Smurf1976

orr said:


> Tas is a suburb



The economic structure of Australia and the way it has changed has a lot to do with the energy and emissions problems we have today, indeed it is largely the cause.

Within living memory the nation’s economy was radically different and far more sustainable from a resource and environmental perspective than it is today.

NSW and Vic were the heavyweights doing everything but Tas and SA were far more significant than they are today.

Of particular relevance there is that so far as heavy industry and energy is concerned, Tasmania ranked third nationally and wasn’t far behind second place Victoria. Late 1960’s and 23% of all industrial electricity use in Australia occurred in the island state, a figure which exceeded Queensland, WA, NT and SA combined.

Meanwhile the nation’s third largest city at one time was Adelaide with its economy based around the manufacturing of finished goods, largely using refined metals and other materials produced elsewhere in Australia.

Then came the big shift to mining with iron ore in WA and coal in Queensland and it all happened rather quickly.

By the mid-1970’s Queensland finally had a proper state electricity grid and in one fell swoop, Gladstone power station, it became bigger than Tasmania or SA’s.

Growth of the coal and more recently gas industries in Queensland made the factories in other states, especially SA and Tas, economically inconsequential at the national level and lead directly to the situation we have today with economic reliance on coal and gas exports and an inadequate domestic supply.

Why persist with hard, clever stuff like refining and making things when we can just dig coal out of the ground instead? Quite simply we didn’t.....

About the same time the situation was paralleled in WA with the growth of iron ore mining. It took longer than Queensland but in terms of the broader development which flowed locally from it, and in particular noting the energy aspects, by the mid-1980’s the South West Interconnected System (that is, the grid) was now larger in capacity than Tasmania’s, WA was also exporting fossil fuel and in the following years Perth firmly overtook Adelaide as a city in terms of population.

Now my point isn’t a parochial one or suggestion that one state is or ought to be better than another or anything like that. Absolutely not.

My point is simply that Australia’s economic reliance on exports of iron ore, coal and gas is a recent thing and that within living memory those industries were inconsequential (iron, coal) or simply didn’t exist at all (gas exports only go back 30 years).

That we’re the kings of coal exports and are domestically short on gas is a created situation. It’s not how the nation evolved of its own accord, traditionally we were far more focused on innovation and technology and were often world leaders.

Trouble is, now that we’ve hitched ourselves so firmly to three commodities plus the two big city economies it’s rather hard to go back and do anything else. Can’t simply return to the factories when they’ve been mostly bulldozed and we’re way too far behind technically to start again and be competitive.

Bottom line is we’ll keep pushing coal for as long as anyone’s buying it.


----------



## SirRumpole

moXJO said:


> Obviously we are too stupid to do so. That and other countries will pick up the contract.




We have the mostest.

http://www.worldstopexports.com/coal-exports-country/


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The economic structure of Australia and the way it has changed has a lot to do with the energy and emissions problems we have today, indeed it is largely the cause.
> 
> Within living memory the nation’s economy was radically different and far more sustainable from a resource and environmental perspective than it is today.
> 
> NSW and Vic were the heavyweights doing everything but Tas and SA were far more significant than they are today.
> 
> Of particular relevance there is that so far as heavy industry and energy is concerned, Tasmania ranked third nationally and wasn’t far behind second place Victoria. Late 1960’s and 23% of all industrial electricity use in Australia occurred in the island state, a figure which exceeded Queensland, WA, NT and SA combined.
> 
> Meanwhile the nation’s third largest city at one time was Adelaide with its economy based around the manufacturing of finished goods, largely using refined metals and other materials produced elsewhere in Australia.
> 
> Then came the big shift to mining with iron ore in WA and coal in Queensland and it all happened rather quickly.
> 
> By the mid-1970’s Queensland finally had a proper state electricity grid and in one fell swoop, Gladstone power station, it became bigger than Tasmania or SA’s.
> 
> Growth of the coal and more recently gas industries in Queensland made the factories in other states, especially SA and Tas, economically inconsequential at the national level and lead directly to the situation we have today with economic reliance on coal and gas exports and an inadequate domestic supply.
> 
> Why persist with hard, clever stuff like refining and making things when we can just dig coal out of the ground instead? Quite simply we didn’t.....
> 
> About the same time the situation was paralleled in WA with the growth of iron ore mining. It took longer than Queensland but in terms of the broader development which flowed locally from it, and in particular noting the energy aspects, by the mid-1980’s the South West Interconnected System (that is, the grid) was now larger in capacity than Tasmania’s, WA was also exporting fossil fuel and in the following years Perth firmly overtook Adelaide as a city in terms of population.
> 
> Now my point isn’t a parochial one or suggestion that one state is or ought to be better than another or anything like that. Absolutely not.
> 
> My point is simply that Australia’s economic reliance on exports of iron ore, coal and gas is a recent thing and that within living memory those industries were inconsequential (iron, coal) or simply didn’t exist at all (gas exports only go back 30 years).
> 
> That we’re the kings of coal exports and are domestically short on gas is a created situation. It’s not how the nation evolved of its own accord, traditionally we were far more focused on innovation and technology and were often world leaders.
> 
> Trouble is, now that we’ve hitched ourselves so firmly to three commodities plus the two big city economies it’s rather hard to go back and do anything else. Can’t simply return to the factories when they’ve been mostly bulldozed and we’re way too far behind technically to start again and be competitive.
> 
> Bottom line is we’ll keep pushing coal for as long as anyone’s buying it.



Absolutely spot on smurf, I was in the NW as  13 year old and we exported 5m tons of iron ore, in Perth at the same time they made everything from stoves to railway engines and carriages.
Now we produce nothing, and export over a billion tons of iron ore, it is going to end badly IMO.
You cant maintain a first World living standard and welfare system  with a third World materials export economy. IMO.


----------



## Smurf1976

In my shed there are old fluoro lights made in NSW. Still working and they look to be circa 1970.

Plenty of old green or yellow handle screwdrivers made in Tas.

Etc you get the point. Can’t buy any of those new today, it’s all imported now.

Meanwhile back to the energy stuff well there’s enough infrastructure threatened by fire right now that whilst the details are anyone’s guess, there’s a fair chance that something will end up burning or at least with a flashover. It looks to be a question of what and when more than if - it’ll be a miracle if nothing cops it.

The Snowy scheme transmission, some other hydro facilities in Victoria, connection between Vic and NSW and transmission in SA to the Eyre Peninsula and west to the end of the grid are most notably at risk.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> In my shed there are old fluoro lights made in NSW. Still working and they look to be circa 1970.
> 
> Plenty of old green or yellow handle screwdrivers made in Tas.
> 
> Etc you get the point. Can’t buy any of those new today, it’s all imported now.
> 
> Meanwhile back to the energy stuff well there’s enough infrastructure threatened by fire right now that whilst the details are anyone’s guess, there’s a fair chance that something will end up burning or at least with a flashover. It looks to be a question of what and when more than if - it’ll be a miracle if nothing cops it.
> 
> The Snowy scheme transmission, some other hydro facilities in Victoria, connection between Vic and NSW and transmission in SA to the Eyre Peninsula and west to the end of the grid are most notably at risk.



In WA we had a total State grid blackout in the 1990s, due to bushfires tripping the transmission lines between Collie Power Stations and Perth Power Station.
Loss of major transmission lines, causes serious issues.
As you well know.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Absolutely spot on smurf, I was in the NW as  13 year old and we exported 5m tons of iron ore, in Perth at the same time they made everything from stoves to railway engines and carriages.
> Now we produce nothing, and export over a billion tons of iron ore, it is going to end badly IMO.
> You cant maintain a first World living standard and welfare system  with a third World materials export economy. IMO.




Did you support the Australian car industry during that time or just talk the talk in you Datsun.....


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Did you support the Australian car industry during that time or just talk the talk in you Datsun.....



At 13 I didn't have a car, but the old man had a 1964 XM Falcon station wagon 170 pursuit motor 
I was doing high school by correspondence.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> At 13 I didn't have a car, but the old man had a 1964 XM Falcon station wagon 170 pursuit motor
> I was doing high school by correspondence.




It shows


----------



## moXJO

Humid said:


> It shows




As a miner isn't the default preference  a Toyota Hilux?


----------



## Humid

No as a minor he couldn't drive.....


----------



## Humid

moXJO said:


> As a miner isn't the default preference  a Toyota Hilux?




Not at home
Lot of money for what you get
At least there all autos these days


----------



## Smurf1976

A significant incident has occurred due to the fires, that being the loss of all electricity transmission between NSW and Victoria.

That means we now have two separate "national" grids with Qld and NSW in one and Vic, SA and Tas in the other and nothing can flow between them. It also means that southern parts of NSW, eg Wagga Wagga, are now in Victoria from an electrical perspective and being supplied from the Vic side of the grid.

On the southern side there's no current issue with available supply substantially exceeding consumption due to mild weather in the major population areas plus being a weekend. No problem there indeed to the extent there's been any issue it has been with getting generation down low enough and doing so quickly enough - always can be done but sometimes in a rather messy fashion.

On the northern side however supply is extremely tight, AEMO is looking to disconnect some industrial etc loads by activating pre-arranged plans in NSW, and prices have spiked from about $60 per MWh before the separation up to $14,700 so a rather big increase there.

No real issue in Qld however. Supply Qld to NSW is at maximum, the limit of the transmission lines, but there's sufficient generation in Qld to keep that up so long as Qld weather stays reasonable and nothing breaks. Looks OK for the next week at least.

It's all rather precarious in NSW now though.


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> We have the mostest.
> 
> http://www.worldstopexports.com/coal-exports-country/



Because we are a small country and do not burn much at home
208m tonnes thermal coal exported, the coking one is irrelevant as there is no substitute but teach that to an extinction rebellion or a green
China yearly production is 3523mt
So our thermal coal yearly export is roughly 6pc of Chinese production, i do not count indonesia, columbia or the us india
We are peanuts so any tax will just mean we will be poorer, someone else richer.. or the usual australian economy story...
Anyway the figure of the day our annual thermal coal export are less than 6pc of China production
Source for thermal coal export the Guardian..lol


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> It shows



I think so, where did you go to school? South or North Island?


----------



## Humid

Here


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Here




It shows.


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting article regarding the bushfires and Snowy 2.0, I hadn't read much about any progress on Snowy 2.0, but it sounds as though construction is underway.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01...nowy-hydro-cabramurra-damage-rebuild/11845590


----------



## sptrawler

It may prove to be a bit of a god send, that the S.A molten salt storage generator didn't get off the ground, a lot of the hype revolved around the 'Crescent Dune' plant in the U.S. which was touted as the way of the future.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-before-it-ever-went-online?srnd=premium-asia
From the article:
_In 2011 the $1 billion project was to be the biggest solar plant of its kind, and it looked like the future of renewable power. Citigroup Inc. and other financiers invested $140 million with its developer, SolarReserve Inc. Steven Chu, the U.S. Department of Energy secretary at the time, offered the company government loan guarantees, and Harry Reid, then the Senate majority leader and senior senator from Nevada, cleared the way for the company to build on public land.

SolarReserve may have done its part, but today the company doesn’t rank among the winners. Instead, it’s mired in litigation and accusations of mismanagement at Crescent Dunes, where taxpayers remain on the hook for $737 million in loan guarantees. Late last year, Crescent Dunes lost its only customer, NV Energy Inc., which cited the plant’s lack of reliability. It’s a victim, ironically, of the solar industry’s success over the past decade. The steam generators at Crescent Dunes require custom parts and a staff of dozens to keep things humming and to conduct regular maintenance.

Crescent Dunes has been shut down since April, and the Energy Department took control of it in August, according to a lawsuit SolarReserve filed in Delaware Chancery Court seeking to reverse the takeover. The plant’s technology was designed to generate enough power night and day to supply a city the size of nearby Sparks, Nev. (population 100,000), but it never came close.
Its power cost NV about $135 per megawatt-hour, compared with less than $30 per MWh today at a new Nevada photovoltaic solar farm, according to BloombergNEF, which researches fossil fuel alternatives_.

It looks as though Australia dodged a bullet yet again and just underlines the blind charge on ideology, is fraught with danger, as smurf and others have mentioned on numerous occasions.
There is a need to convert to renewables, it make sense on all levels, not just climatic. 
However it must be done in a sensible measured orderly manner, not in the usual brain fart method that we so often seem to embrace with gusto.


----------



## basilio

For the engineers on ASF there is a detailed road map on how Australia can make a transition to a totally renewable energy economy by 2050.
Worth a read ?

*A Green New Deal for Australia*
This cataclysmic bushfire season demonstrates the risk that climate change poses to Australia’s economic and social prosperity. Stanford’s international roadmap to freedom from fossil fuels by 2050 says Australia needs another 280 GW of solar PV and tens of billions of dollars of investment to turn down the heat.

https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2020/01/06/a-green-new-deal-for-australia/


----------



## basilio

To add another piece to the transition to renewable energy economy consider this story.
Doesn't it make simple sense to use the  taxpayer funds currently going to the fossil fuel industry to support the new direction in Australia's future ?

* Should fossil fuels pay for Australia's new bushfire reality? It is the industry most responsible *
Amanda Cahill
It is unconscionable that the taxpayer funds fossil fuels to the tune of $1,728 per person per year. What if we channelled this into climate adaptation?

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...e-reality-it-is-the-industry-most-responsible


----------



## sptrawler

Jeez I wish you would get counselling Bas.
What about if all you dicks went back to basics and didn't use electricity, then we wouldn't have to listen to you and you wouldn't be polluting.
Your sitting there on your power sucking computer, in your air conditioned room to stay out of the way of your missus, while telling everyone they should be not using electricity.
Maybe you should do a TAFE course on electricity, then have some knowledge of what you are talking about, that would be great.
Because at the moment, all it appears is, you are a repeater station for any stupid comment that you think fits the rhetoric.
You don't seem to be interested in increasing your knowledge, because even though accurate information is given to you, you still chose to ignore it and regurgitate the same rubbish.
Why not question the crap you post, before posting it?


----------



## ghotib

sptrawler said:


> Jeez I wish you would get counselling Bas.
> What about if all you dicks went back to basics and didn't use electricity, then we wouldn't have to listen to you and you wouldn't be polluting.
> Your sitting there on your power sucking computer, in your air conditioned room to stay out of the way of your missus, while telling everyone they should be not using electricity.
> Maybe you should do a TAFE course on electricity, then have some knowledge of what you are talking about, that would be great...



Jeez I wish engineers would stop assuming that they have professional insight into how other individuals use electricity. And while they're at it, I wish engineers would realise that calling a comment stupid is not the same thing as disproving it.

Please sp, apply your engineering mind (which I respect even when it's making me cranky) to checking the fossil fuel subsidy figure Basilio cited. Whatever the actual figure turns out to be, I'd love to hear some engineers' ideas about how the money could be used for the greatest national benefit.


> Why not question the crap you post, before posting it?



.
I reckon we could all do better at that, except maybe Smurf.


----------



## sptrawler

ghotib said:


> Jeez I wish engineers would stop assuming that they have professional insight into how other individuals use electricity. And while they're at it, I wish engineers would realise that calling a comment stupid is not the same thing as disproving it.
> 
> Please sp, apply your engineering mind (which I respect even when it's making me cranky) to checking the fossil fuel subsidy figure Basilio cited. Whatever the actual figure turns out to be, I'd love to hear some engineers' ideas about how the money could be used for the greatest national benefit.
> .
> I reckon we could all do better at that, except maybe Smurf.




Well with due respect ghotib, I try to read completely every thread relating to power generation, as it was my whole working career.
The problem with Bas is IMO, he copies and pastes everything that comes up on the media, so I have tended to just give it a cursory glance. Which may be a fault on my part, but many of the links are just absolute garbage, so now I look at the first few lines and asume from there. MY Bad.
With regard smurf, he would have been at least one pay grade above me when I worked and as such members should feel privileged to have his input.
Maybe it would be best for people like myself and smurf to not post our thoughts?
I would definitely not post my thoughts and or would distract them, if smurf asked me to, because I would defer to his knowledge.
 I wont detract to someone of less knowledge, because in reality that is bullying, which probably you don't agree to.
To cut it short Bas is a dick, unfortunately, typical teacher IMO.
Saying that my FIL was a headmaster, and he was a dick too.
They have answers for everyone else's problems, except for our failing education standards.
Maybe they should post there?


----------



## sptrawler

ghotib said:


> Jeez I wish engineers would stop assuming that they have professional insight into how other individuals use electricity. And while they're at it, I wish engineers would realise that calling a comment stupid is not the same thing as disproving it.
> 
> Please sp, apply your engineering mind (which I respect even when it's making me cranky) to checking the fossil fuel subsidy figure Basilio cited. Whatever the actual figure turns out to be, I'd love to hear some engineers' ideas about how the money could be used for the greatest national benefit.
> .
> I reckon we could all do better at that, except maybe Smurf.




Sorry about that ghotib, maybe go over to the scomo thread I have been arguing the same issue with Knobby, it is really hard to be dealing with the same issues on different threads, about the same silly arguments.
Read the Scomo thread from post #1154, it will answer a lot of your questions.
I'm over being bombarded with the same illogical stuff on multiple threads.
If you want change to to the power system put it in the power thread.
If you want change to the climate put it in the climate thread and switch off your main switch.


----------



## sptrawler

ghotib said:


> st national benefit.
> .
> I reckon we could all do better at that, except maybe Smurf.



So ghotib, if we have to go through the same process, as I went through from post #1154 on the scomo thread, every time someone posts up rubbish, it would take up a lot of our lives.
So therefore sometimes we get a bit short with posters, that constantly post up nonsense, in the hope it will convert others to the cause.
Everyone accepts the cause, but some don't see it as a cult extreme, that must be achieved next week in Australia or the World is doomed.
No amount of logical explanation will reduce the chanting, jeez the media have a lot to answer for.
Just my opinion.
Obviously Australia has too many bored people, with too much money, they obviously don't have enough to worry about.
Maybe I'm just getting too old, maybe time to leave. lol


----------



## SirRumpole

Lithium sulfur(sulphur) batteries could provide an advantage over Li-on batteries according to a researcher.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01...y-greener-cheaper-and-more-efficient/11849590


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> Lithium sulfur(sulphur) batteries could provide an advantage over Li-on batteries according to a researcher.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01...y-greener-cheaper-and-more-efficient/11849590



Thanks but..another one...
Am I the only one at getting really disillusioned with the weekly new battery greener cheaper etc
Absolutely nothing with your post SirRumpole , a very general comment but reading news, seems like we are progressing at light speed here..we do not
No mistake, energy storage is the holy grail but each time a research project needs a funding extension, we got another headline
De facto, incremental improvements are what will make a difference in the short term, yes we should find a revolutionary technology but sadly this is not IT, basic chemistry and an atomic table show you the fundamental restrictions.
My guess is that a completely different field advance will do the level of magnitude battery nirvana
A cathode material, a new fabrication process or way to "melt graphite" differently
In a way this type of headlines produces the Basilios of the world, taking concepts and wishes as established technology


----------



## SirRumpole

qldfrog said:


> Thanks but..another one...
> Am I the only one at getting really disillusioned with the weekly new battery greener cheaper etc
> Absolutely nothing with your post SirRumpole , a very general comment but reading news, seems like we are progressing at light speed here..we do not




You may be right. Interestingly the article was written by a researcher involved on the project, not an independent reviewer. Has the ABC gone into advertising these days ?

And I acknowledge that a lot of interesting developments disappear without a trace and are never heard from again, however I thought it useful to keep updated on the various possibilities.


----------



## basilio

*From the desk of "Dick" Bas.  *
Yes I do spend too much time  on the  computer banging on about a situation that is effectively destroying the world as we know it.
I am also totally xissed off at a stream of lying trolls who have spent their lives undermining the work of climate scientists, biologists, glaciologists, etc whose expertise would have saved us if we followed their findings.

And why havn't we "followed the science" ?   Look at the main CC deniers and  figure it out .

My post from Stanford University, which had been taken from PV magazine, offered a detailed road map on the costs and opportunities of Australia moving rapidly to a renewable energy future.  It is a technical paper and part of an overarching project which offered similar analysis for all countries to move rapidly and effectively to a fossil free energy future. It didn't fall off the back of a truck or was made up in some trolls basement. 

I introduced it for  professional comment from  the  known engineers on ASF - SP and Smurf in particular (apologies to others I have overlooked) 

The second post which explored how we might pay for this transition had as its reference a paper from the International Monetary fund which detailed all the fossil fuel subsidies made by governments to the industry around the world. I suggest it has weight.

Yes one of my careers has been in teaching.  And from that I have appreciated how to look for information and  how to assess it for accuracy. Because CC is the issue that will destroy us it has taken a big chunk of my focus. Looking for ways to address the issue - technically, socially and politically  is  the next step.   

This shouldn't be /can't be a "Left Right" issue.  We are affected by the same physics.  The only other subcontext is the belief of some people that they can buy their way of the mess with enough money while the rest of us  face the music.

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications...Update-Based-on-Country-Level-Estimates-46509

*Could every country have a Green New Deal? Stanford report charts paths for 143 countries*
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-country-green-stanford-paths-countries.html


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> You may be right. Interestingly the article was written by a researcher involved on the project, not an independent reviewer. Has the ABC gone into advertising these days ?
> 
> And I acknowledge that a lot of interesting developments disappear without a trace and are never heard from again, however I thought it useful to keep updated on the various possibilities.



No problem at all, this has to be posted here, but as per my rant, it is often biaised and dreams more than facts
The ABC should probably not publish this at this stage...
Partly part of this fake news trends... anything to tweet post need to push something out
The Kardashians of news are everywhere


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> *From the desk of "Dick" Bas.  *
> Yes I do spend too much time  on the  computer banging on about a situation that is effectively destroying the world as we know it.
> I am also totally xissed off at a stream of lying trolls who have spent their lives undermining the work of climate scientists, biologists, glaciologists, etc whose expertise would have saved us if we followed their findings.
> 
> And why havn't we "followed the science" ?   Look at the main CC deniers and  figure it out .
> 
> My post from Stanford University, which had been taken from PV magazine, offered a detailed road map on the costs and opportunities of Australia moving rapidly to a renewable energy future.  It is a technical paper and part of an overarching project which offered similar analysis for all countries to move rapidly and effectively to a fossil free energy future. It didn't fall off the back of a truck or was made up in some trolls basement.
> 
> I introduced it for  professional comment from  the  known engineers on ASF - SP and Smurf in particular (apologies to others I have overlooked)
> 
> The second post which explored how we might pay for this transition had as its reference a paper from the International Monetary fund which detailed all the fossil fuel subsidies made by governments to the industry around the world. I suggest it has weight.
> 
> Yes one of my careers has been in teaching.  And from that I have appreciated how to look for information and  how to assess it for accuracy. Because CC is the issue that will destroy us it has taken a big chunk of my focus. Looking for ways to address the issue - technically, socially and politically  is  the next step.
> 
> This shouldn't be /can't be a "Left Right" issue.  We are affected by the same physics.  The only other subcontext is the belief of some people that they can buy their way of the mess with enough money while the rest of us  face the music.
> 
> https://www.imf.org/en/Publications...Update-Based-on-Country-Level-Estimates-46509
> 
> *Could every country have a Green New Deal? Stanford report charts paths for 143 countries*
> https://phys.org/news/2019-12-country-green-stanford-paths-countries.html




No doubt to me that fossil fuel subsidies should be "gradually" reduced and transferred to cleaner forms of energy and then phased out from those as well as clean energy should be able to pay for itself eventually.

The problem with The Guardian article that Bas quoted (and which appears to have been moderated out as well as the replies) was that it suggested that fossil fuel subsidies should be immediately removed. Considering that FF's provide a substantial amount of our electricity that would result in massive price increases for power and would most likely ruin the economy.

Whatever is done should be transiitional , but should be clearly defined so that there is a known way forward that all sectors of the economy are aware of and can adapt to.

Panic pieces in the media aren't really helpfull.

But I do get a laugh when people like Craig Kelly complain about subsidies to clean energy when their favourite coal is one of the most subsidised industries in the country. 

PS, good to see you are still cracking on Bas.


----------



## sptrawler

Another nail in the coffin of coal fired power generation.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/ban...argest-fund-manager-says-20200115-p53rix.html
The increase in pressure to find funding for coal fired generation, will in turn accelerate the adoption of new generation, the companies are definitely going to have to source replacement energy supplies in the very near future.
The transition is definitely well and truly on the move, once large investors remove themselves from the stocks, generating new cash becomes very difficult I would assume.


----------



## sptrawler

Denham in W.A to go complete solar/hydrogen. Jeez it only seems like yesterday, we were replacing the Blackstone diesels with Cummings. 
It has been a bit of a test bed for renewables over the years, wind diesel being the current format.
I think the headline is BS, as usual, but it is a step in the right direction.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01...st-wa-town-to-be-powered-by-hydrogen/11870472


----------



## qldfrog

interesting, I like the comment by the "expert " who reflects my own doubt about hydrogen, but as a buffer overnight or so,as explained here, it is perfect, you do not have to compress much and do not store for long so leaks are reasonable.
Interesting to follow, imagine if we could get hydrogen fuel cells as batteries in a closed circuit for residential use:
100l of purified water, a bit of cooling, add panels and Bob is your uncle


----------



## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> interesting, I like the comment by the "expert " who reflects my own doubt about hydrogen, but as a buffer overnight or so,as explained here, it is perfect, you do not have to compress much and do not store for long so leaks are reasonable.
> Interesting to follow, imagine if we could get hydrogen fuel cells as batteries in a closed circuit for residential use:
> 100l of purified water, a bit of cooling, add panels and Bob is your uncle



At least it is good for modelling, they will learn a lot from it, as it is an isolated small grid.
In the early 1980's M.A.N and W.A's Electricity Company, built a parabolic mirror steam generator, in Meekatharra, in the end the result was it used 500Kw more than it produced.
But it did give a huge amount of usefull information, for remote controlled mechanical solar tracking electronics.
After a couple of years it was sold for scrap.


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> At least it is good for modelling, they will learn a lot from it, as it is an isolated small grid.
> In the early 1980's M.A.N and W.A's Electricity Company, built a parabolic mirror steam generator, in Meekatharra, in the end the result was it used 500Kw more than it produced.
> But it did give a huge amount of usefull information, for remote controlled mechanical solar tracking electronics.
> After a couple of years it was sold for scrap.




Remember looking at that when they were setting it up and being surprised how small the turbine was also remember the German bloke working on it looking worried


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Remember looking at that when they were setting it up and being surprised how small the turbine was also remember the German bloke working on it looking worried



It worked but the oil circulating pumps, steam condensing system and mirror solar tracking motors i.e parasitic load, used more than was generated.
But a lot of great data was collected with the solar tracking equipment.
Now all through that Gascoyne, mid west area, it is skid mount gas turbines, because the gas pipe was run from Karatha through Newman, Meeka. Mt Magnet, Kal, to Esperance.
Makes life so much easier.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> But it did give a huge amount of usefull information, for remote controlled mechanical solar tracking electronics.



Yep - sometimes it's worth taking the hit just to gain the knowledge for future uses be that technical or financial aspects of it.

As for Denham, well incidentally if there's an award for the most miserable shower anywhere then the place we stayed at would win it. Not complaining but suffice to say it was extremely economical in water use.....  I guess water's a tad scarce there? All good otherwise though.

No complaints though, went to the place not far away with the dolphins in the morning and all good yes.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It worked but the oil circulating pumps, steam condensing system and mirror solar tracking motors i.e parasitic load, used more than was generated.
> But a lot of great data was collected with the solar tracking equipment.
> Now all through that Gascoyne, mid west area, it is skid mount gas turbines, because the gas pipe was run from Karatha through Newman, Meeka. Mt Magnet, Kal, to Esperance.
> Makes life so much easier.




A look on Google Earth finds that there's a small solar farm at Meekatharra too. 

Comparing that with an obviously older street view image, looks like they had diesels previously and have put new diesels or gas turbines (assuming that's what the white objects are, bit hard to tell from the image) next to where they were, removed the old stuff and put solar there and out the back of it.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> A look on Google Earth finds that there's a small solar farm at Meekatharra too.
> 
> Comparing that with an obviously older street view image, looks like they had diesels previously and have put new diesels or gas turbines (assuming that's what the white objects are, bit hard to tell from the image) next to where they were, removed the old stuff and put solar there and out the back of it.



The old diesel station used to be on main street, right next to the swimming pool.
Just went to google maps, street view savage st, there is still one exhaust stack standing.
I have photo's of us putting them up in 1986, lol, time moves on there were six of them. I'll rumage through the boxes and post up a pic. lol
I wouldn't have a clue where the Power Station is now, it isn't high on my list of must visit again places, the few months I spent there were enough to slate my appetite for the place.
These days if I travel through, I only stop to pick up fuel, while heading North for winter.
looking on Google Earth, it looks like they have moved it out past the high school, on the Landor road, which goes to Mt Augustus for those who want to find big rocks.
My guess 10 skid mount GT's and 2 diesel back ups. Not a lot of solar, PR value only.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The old diesel station used to be on main street, right next to the swimming pool.



Found it on Google.

I've been straight past for the record but don't recall even contemplating that there was a power station there. LOL.

Something I did spot in WA though is that they seemed to be running small (remote area) power stations from a CNG tank and that it's being done by means of swapping the tank over not transferring the fuel to a permanent tank. So basically running the power station from a great big gas bottle roughly the size of a shipping container and when it's empty just connect up the prime mover (truck) and drive it to wherever to fill it then bring it back. A different approach to delivering gas to the site and storing it in permanent tanks.

I didn't spot anyone to ask but that seemed to be what was going on so far as I could tell. Haven't seen that done anywhere else. Looked to be internal combustion plant using it.


----------



## sptrawler

There appears to be the start of a major bottleneck, with the installation of large scale solar, The States are going to have to increase their spending on network infrastructure.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/victori...-new-projects-may-be-blocked-from-grid-82973/
From the article:
_Solar and wind farm developers contacted by RenewEconomy say they have been told that AEMO has now bundled affected projects into three distinct groups.

The first are those that have already had their maximum output cut in half – the Wemen, Gannawarra, Bannerton and Karadoc solar farms in Victoria, and the Broken Hill solar farm in NSW.  Some of these solar farms had been operating for a year or more without issue. This has taken 170MW of capacity from well established solar projects off the grid.

Another five projects – ready for commissioning – have been told that they had been placed in a queue which would not be advanced until the issues with the first group had been resolved. They would also only be allowed to connect one at a time. Delays to otherwise ready projects could last months, or even a year, developers fear.
Another group of projects under construction have also been warned of further delays. RenewEconomy understands the projects potentially affected include the Murray Warra and Bulgana wind projects, the Yatpool, Kiamal and Cohuna solar farms in Victoria, and other projects in NSW, including Limondale and Darlington Point solar projects.

On top of that, further constraints could be placed on other projects, including those on the line between Horsham and Ballarat, where a limit of 600MW will be applied. This could impact the Waubra, Crowlands, Ararat and the soon-to-be completed Bulgana wind farms.

AEMO’s latest letter warns that it could be years until the issues in the region are finally resolved. Apart from the potential short-term fix of changing the inverter settings, one medium term option is to install “synchronous condensers” in the region to maintain that system strength
“Generators may also identify the need for plant modification in order to meet performance standards on an ongoing basis. Thermal and stability limits mean it will not be possible for many of these projects to connect or generate at full output ahead of significant investment in network infrastructure_.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> There appears to be the start of a major bottleneck, with the installation of large scale solar




At the risk of standing on the soapbox - it's a situation as warned of right here in this very thread on ASF. 

If you're investing in this area then be _extremely_ careful to ensure that whoever's involved has all the technical boxes ticked and knows what they're doing and don't assume that even the major players have got it right. Some perhaps, others definitely not.....


----------



## Smurf1976

Just about out of juice in NSW at the moment.

High temperatures, fires and so on.

All coal units are at maximum apart from one that's out of service, all gas is running flat out, hydro plant's fairly heavily loaded but not to the limit, there's a couple of diesel / kero fueled gas turbines running and AEMO has declared an intervention event (that's code for saying some big users have been asked to cut back etc). Market price has been all over the place up and down.

Meanwhile in Victoria and SA, well spot prices are negative. Literally can't give it away at the moment. Cool weather so nobody's running air-conditioning, the wind's going nicely and can't get anything into NSW where it would be extremely useful right now.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Just about out of juice in NSW at the moment.
> 
> High temperatures, fires and so on.
> 
> All coal units are at maximum apart from one that's out of service, all gas is running flat out, hydro plant's fairly heavily loaded but not to the limit, there's a couple of diesel / kero fueled gas turbines running and AEMO has declared an intervention event (that's code for saying some big users have been asked to cut back etc). Market price has been all over the place up and down.
> 
> Meanwhile in Victoria and SA, well spot prices are negative. Literally can't give it away at the moment. Cool weather so nobody's running air-conditioning, the wind's going nicely and can't get anything into NSW where it would be extremely useful right now.



Those inter State grid H.V interconnectors could be very usefull ATM, how long is the expected time to commissioned on the new one between NSW and S.A?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> how long is the expected time to commissioned on the new one between NSW and S.A?




2022.

Bearing in mind the following generating plant closures in the two states in the next few years:

2020 - Torrens Island A units 2 & 4 (SA, gas, total 240 MW)
2021 - Torrens Island A unit 1 (SA, gas, 120 MW)
2022 - Torrens Island A unit 3 (SA, gas, 120 MW) and Liddell unit 4 (NSW, coal, 420 MW)
2023 - Osborne (SA, gas, 180 MW) and Liddell units 1,2 & 3 (NSW, coal, total 1260 MW).

Osborne is owned by Origin, the rest by AGL.

Osborne is also occasionally referred to as "Osborne C" due to the historic presence of the unrelated Osborne A (1923 - 1968) and Osborne B (1947 - 1990) stations both of which are now completely demolished and were never in any way technically related to the current plant apart from the location a short distance north of the present station.


----------



## sptrawler

That will mean a tight couple of summers to come. Hopefully there is more renewables coming online in SA in the next couple of years, then when the interconnect is online, NSW might get some benefit.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It may prove to be a bit of a god send, that the S.A molten salt storage generator didn't get off the ground, a lot of the hype revolved around the 'Crescent Dune' plant in the U.S. which was touted as the way of the future.



The flip side is that the situation at Port Augusta is yet another one of a failed promise.

"Stop coal and do x instead" is the argument. Employment won't be a problem because "x" will employ more than coal did anyway.

All sounds good until the coal or other polluting etc industry shuts, "x" fails to happen and the workers and indeed entire community bear the cost.

On one hand I do "get it" that there's a problem with coal and likewise there's a case for conserving natural things and so on.

On the other hand if all past promises of alternatives were actually delivered then there'd be an economic boom from doing so. Until such time as they are actually delivered, it's not hard to see why people in mining towns and so on aren't buying it and why the various academics etc who hype such ideas have lost credibility with the workers.


----------



## SirRumpole

Not so sunny in the solar industry.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01...ened-by-nem-rules-killing-investment/11903706


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Not so sunny in the solar industry.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01...ened-by-nem-rules-killing-investment/11903706



This paragraph sums it up.
_*Network constraints:* The GSD data looks at generation constraints from a number of different angles, and none of them are particularly flattering for the likes of Coleambally. There are a number of factors constraining generation, but put simply the network is like a freeway with a speed limit of 100kmh, but traffic runs much slower in peak hour. Solar generators, without storage, generally have to merge into peak-hour conditions, limiting their capacity to contribute_.

Untill there is somewhere to store the excess generation, it has to restricted.
When Snowy 2.0 is built and the interconnector between NSW and S.A is completed, the excess power in S.A from renewables, will be able to be sent to NSW, to either pump up Snowy 2.0 or be used to feed NSW load.
Also power will be able to flow from NSW to S.A when the renewables aren't generating.
Well that is my reasoning, I'm sure smurf will give a more accurate description, he has been mentioning the problem for ages.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> This paragraph sums it up.
> _*Network constraints:* The GSD data looks at generation constraints from a number of different angles, and none of them are particularly flattering for the likes of Coleambally. There are a number of factors constraining generation, but put simply the network is like a freeway with a speed limit of 100kmh, but traffic runs much slower in peak hour. Solar generators, without storage, generally have to merge into peak-hour conditions, limiting their capacity to contribute_.
> 
> Untill there is somewhere to store the excess generation, it has to restricted.
> When Snowy 2.0 is built and the interconnector between NSW and S.A is completed, the excess power in S.A from renewables, will be able to be sent to NSW, to either pump up Snowy 2.0 or be used to feed NSW load.
> Also power will be able to flow from NSW to S.A when the renewables aren't generating.
> Well that is my reasoning, I'm sure smurf will give a more accurate description, he has been mentioning the problem for ages.




I just see a few growing pains, but the good thing is its growing.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> I just see a few growing pains, but the good thing is its growing.



It certainly is and it is growing in a sensible manner, which is the good thing. 
The horse is leading the cart, rather than the normal way, where we are chasing the cart down the road with the horse in tow. 
Building the renewables, the H.V network and the storage, then phasing out the coal in an orderly manner is a much better plan IMO. 
Than blowing up the coal, then wondering how you are going to supply the electricity, with an unsuitable H.V network and very little storage.
Time will tell, but I think there will be a very orderly ramp up of renewables.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I'm sure smurf will give a more accurate description, he has been mentioning the problem for ages.



Basic problems are multiple:

*Generation at a time when demand is naturally not that high. Solar peaks at midday whereas demand in Winter peaks at 6pm with a lower peak around 8am and in Summer it peaks mid-late afternoon (which due to significant solar still being on at that time is now a peak on conventional generation around 6 - 7pm).

*Network issues which could be likened to traffic congestion. The road (power lines) were built for the town of 200 people, they weren't built for someone to put a freight depot at the end of it with trucks going in and out constantly. Same concept, the power lines to Broken Hill (for example) were built because running diesel generation was costing too much, so that is the lines were sized for the town and mining, they weren't intended to be flowing in the reverse direction with a huge amount of generation connected.

Beyond those two concepts there's a lot of regional variation and broadly speaking SA and Tasmania are at the opposite extremes:

*Load in SA is extremely variable, with load during the middle of the day under mild sunny conditions not unknown to fall to around 15% of peak load which occurs during heatwaves. Load is dominated by residential and non-industrial business.

*Load in Tasmania is pretty relentless, the absolute minimum is about 50% of the absolute peak and that minimum is very rarely reached. Load is dominated by large manufacturing operations running 24/365.

*End result of the above is that total load on centralised generation in SA is 16% higher than in Tasmania (despite having 3.4 times the population) but the minimum load in SA, which occurs when solar is at maximum, is about 45% _lower_ than minimum load in Tasmania (but peak load in SA is 80% higher than Tas). So one's incredibly volatile and erratic whilst the other simply plods along non-stop.

*Networks have some similar differences. SA transmission is fairly robust but the distribution network is of considerably lower capacity per household than in Tasmania. SA thus has more issues with maintaining a stable voltage under fluctuating load conditions (whilst also having far more fluctuation in load in the first place).

*Other states are in the middle somewhere. Queensland and Tas are much the same in every aspect apart from Queensland having a lot more solar. For the rest, Vic is closest to the SA situation followed by WA. NSW still has a fair bit of room to move but the limit will be reached in due course (and that could all happen rather quickly). For the NT and remote towns in other states it varies locally since there's no single big system covering those.

In terms of how to resolve it, there's several aspects:

*Load shifting is one. That is, intentionally shift some loads to the middle of the day when the sun's shining eg water heating, dishwashers and so on. Qld and NSW are onto it to some extent via changing existing systems, Tas is ramping up an aggressive marketing effort to persuade everyone even though there's no real urgency, in SA "we'll get there but slowly.....". WA they seem to know there's a problem but aren't doing much about it. Victoria they're, um, well they say if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything so I won't say anything then.....

*Storage near the source is an option to address network constraints affecting solar and wind farms. Having a battery means they can get the energy into the grid by spreading it over more hours, charging the battery when the lines are already fully loaded, but beyond a point that ends up meaning it has to be discharged at times when the energy isn't worth much (eg middle of the night) and that sinks the economics. It's a solution with definite limits.

*Storage without such constraints, that is pumped hydro with new transmission lines or batteries close to major loads (cities) or other strong points in the network (eg old power station sites or former mine sites will be network strong points), gets around the overall supply and demand issue but it comes at a price. Thus far there's interest from the private sector (eg AGL and Origin are both involved) in storage (battery or hydro) sufficient for the day to day cycle of peak and off-peak but so far as long term storage, how to offset good versus bad weeks or even months, it's only the two government-owned hydro operators (Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tasmania) that are seriously interested there. The private operators would generally prefer to stick with gas for that purpose and it comes down to project lifecycles, risk, rates of return and so on basically.


----------



## rederob

Taken from a different thread to put it where it belongs:


Smurf1976 said:


> Emissions are roughly one third electricity, one third other energy use, one third everything else. Roughly.
> Most debate focuses on electricity. When you hear someone talking about phasing out coal or using renewables, they're talking about how to generate electricity. There's dramatically less discussion about the other two thirds of emissions, including the one third which comes from non-electricity uses of energy.



This is true.
The problem with your idea, however, is that you have neglected the fact that electricity can be stored *and *can be converted into other forms of energy.
In the context of renewables, the energy dense storage option of hydrogen (of 120 MJ/kg or 33 kWh/kg) through electrolysis solves most of the below CO2 emissions scenarios.





Flow or cell battery energy options solve most of the rest of the above. 
These options are outlined in Finkel's watered-down COAG Energy Council report called "*Australia's National Hydrogen Strategy.*"
Unfortunately we have a government which is inept in terms of energy policy and also hypocritical. PM Morrison might say he believes in a *"fair go for those who have a go" *but that does not apply to his government (as evidenced by his continued support of embattled rorter Bridget McKenzie).
Morrison is welded to the fossil fuel industry and his lump of coal trick in the federal Parliament shows how much of a waste of space he is.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

Value Collector said:


> I just see a few growing pains, but the good thing is its growing.



Buy the gate keeper EOL esp with 5 minute pricing?


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> IT isn't a failure of *POLICY, it's an orderly transition, without the public paying for it.*



Please show where there is evidence of this?
As you know, we have energy curtailment from the solar farms, and if your claim was true, this would not be occurring.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Please show where there is evidence of this?
> As you know, we have energy curtailment from the solar farms, and if your claim was true, this would not be occurring.



As you well know, the curtailment is happening as the States reconfigure their networks to faciltate further renewable capacity in remote areas.
Also installing the infrastructure isnt done with a magic wand.
Your politically motivated nonsense just gets annoyingly repetitive.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> As you well know, the curtailment is happening as the States reconfigure their networks to faciltate further renewable capacity in remote areas.
> Also installing the infrastructure isnt done with a magic wand.
> Your politically motivated nonsense just gets annoyingly repetitive.



*So your comment *"IT isn't a failure of *POLICY, it's an orderly transition" is not true.
It is not as though the people in the electricity industry were caught by surprise, it's that they have refused to properly plan for it.*


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> It certainly is and it is growing in a sensible manner, which is the good thing.
> The horse is leading the cart, rather than the normal way, where we are chasing the cart down the road with the horse in tow.
> Building the renewables, the H.V network and the storage, then phasing out the coal in an orderly manner is a much better plan IMO.
> Than blowing up the coal, then wondering how you are going to supply the electricity, with an unsuitable H.V network and very little storage.
> Time will tell, but I think there will be a very orderly ramp up of renewables.




Not looking to orderly in Victoria at the moment.

I am surprised you continue to defend the indefensible.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Not looking to orderly in Victoria at the moment.
> 
> I am surprised you continue to defend the indefensible.



Ok Ive asked Rob this question and he couldnt answer it, so maybe you can.
What can the Federal Government do that will speed up the reconfiguring of the HV transmission system, which is where the bottle neck is.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Not looking to orderly in Victoria at the moment.
> 
> I am surprised you continue to defend the indefensible.



By the way WTF has the poor state of Victorias power Stations got to do with the Federal Government, it is Victorias fault they are in the manure. Doing sod all to make sure their power stations are maintained and reliable, lucky it isnt a Liberal State Government or you be getting up them.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> By the way WTF has the poor state of Victorias power Stations got to do with the Federal Government, it is Victorias fault they are in the manure. Doing sod all to make sure their power stations are maintained and reliable, lucky it isnt a Liberal State Government or you be getting up them.



Again, please explain where your so-called "*orderly transition"* is that is supposed to be preventing this.
Also, last time I checked (2 minutes ago to be exact) we had a *NATIONAL *Energy Market being overseen by a federal Energy Minister who was supposed to be working through the COAG Energy Council to ensure the lights stayed on.
You seem to make a lot of claims about the electricity market without understanding it particularly well.


----------



## Smurf1976

IFocus said:


> Not looking to orderly in Victoria at the moment.



You've nailed it with that one.... 

Vic and SA have just had one hell of a shake electrically this afternoon. There's a degree of luck that they're not now in the dark but load is being shed in Vic yes.

SA gained part of western Vic all of a sudden, tripped some wind generation and a steam unit at Torrens Island, gave the system frequency a decent shake and now there's no AC transmission between Vic and SA, the systems have separated. *Underlying cause is transmission failure, a physical structural collapse, in Victoria. This is serious...... *

In Vic well the SW has no transmission to the rest of the state and that includes Mortlake power station and Alcoa so that's all somewhat of a problem (to put it very mildly). So AEMO has intervened and there's some load being shed (again putting it mildly).

Load is on in SA however, some serious excitement but it's on. Plus a bit being fed into Vic via Murraylink at about 100 MW. SA spot price sitting around $300 / MWh.

Vic market price is hard on the price cap at $14,700 / MWh

NSW also extremely stressed and the price is circa $13,000 / MWh. AEMO intervention in the market is imminent (that's the polite way of saying some load gets turned off).

Supply from Qld and Tas is both at the limit of transmission capacity. No problems also keeping the lights on in either state. Qld spot price is sitting at $67.70 and in Tas it's at $44.68.

My point here is essentially a news item of a current emergency situation, which has the potential to do some serious $$$ damage by the way and is causing some outright panic in certain areas, but to the extent there's any politics I'll just refer to the last paragraph above and note that the integrity of the Qld and Tas systems is in spite of, not because of, successive federal governments of both persuasions.


----------



## Smurf1976

To clarify my comment about a collapse - I mean what most people think of when someone says "collapse".

Stuff lying on the ground when it's supposed to be standing up sort of collapse. Serious problem.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> To clarify my comment about a collapse - I mean what most people think of when someone says "collapse".
> 
> Stuff lying on the ground when it's supposed to be standing up sort of collapse. Serious problem.




Amazing how little of this gets into the media.

It seems it only happens when the lights actually go out and people want to know why.

Where are the whistleblowers and why aren't the media on to it  I ask.

There is this though, is that what you mean Smurf ?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01...adelaide-hospital-amid-severe-storms/11918354


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Again, please explain where your so-called "*orderly transition"* is that is supposed to be preventing this.
> Also, last time I checked (2 minutes ago to be exact) we had a *NATIONAL *Energy Market being overseen by a federal Energy Minister who was supposed to be working through the COAG Energy Council to ensure the lights stayed on.
> You seem to make a lot of claims about the electricity market without understanding it particularly well.



When someone amswers my question with an answer, rather than a long winded political speach that pertains to FA to do with the question.
You still havent answered my question of , WHAT WILL A FEDERAL POLICY DO TO HELP THE STATES UPGRADE AND RECONFIGURE THEIR HV TRANSMISSION SYSTEM.
Last thing you mentioned was a brain fart HV DC main down the East Coast, which shows how much of an idea you have of the issue.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> When someone amswers my question with an answer, rather than a long winded political speach that pertains to FA to do with the question.



I have pointed out that your claims about an orderly transition are not true, and you have no defense.
Again, can you explain where this *orderly transition* is occurring?







sptrawler said:


> You still havent answered my question of , WHAT WILL A FEDERAL POLICY DO TO HELP THE STATES UPGRADE AND RECONFIGURE THEIR HV TRANSMISSION SYSTEM.



That's not a relevant question to begin with.  The issue is that the government has not supported the renewables sector and as a result there is curtailment.  If the government supported renewables we would not have energy going to waste and it would instead be working to reduce electricity costs.







sptrawler said:


> Last thing you mentioned was a brain fart HV DC main down the East Coast, which shows how much of an idea you have of the issue.



On the contrary.  All you are able to do is think that we should be catering to the fossil fuel sector's transmission needs.
I suggest you look at the maps in Finkel's Hydrogen Report which I linked and you can work out for yourself why an HVDC spine makes sense.  Do you actually understand why HVDC makes more sense in a renewables future?  Or are you going to go off like a wonky alarm clock again?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Amazing how little of this gets into the media.
> 
> It seems it only happens when the lights actually go out and people want to know why.
> 
> Where are the whistleblowers and why aren't the media on to it  I ask.
> 
> There is this though, is that what you mean Smurf ?
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01...adelaide-hospital-amid-severe-storms/11918354




To clarify what has happened (in layman's terms):

There are a number of transmission towers, that is the big steel towers, which have physically collapsed in Victoria. That is the towers and the lines they carry are now physically lying on the ground and no longer standing up. There's several of them like that.

These towers carry the 500kV (500,000 Volt) lines between south-west Victoria and the rest of the state. These lines are particularly significant because of where they lead:

*Mortlake power station

*Alcoa Portland aluminium smelter

*Several wind farms

*Various towns etc in the area

*The AC connection, that is the main one, between Victoria and SA

With those towers on the ground, all of that is physically and electrically isolated from the rest of the state.

Consequences of this were loss of supply to the Portland smelter, complete shutdown of Mortlake Power station and a major "shock" to the system in SA which prior to the incident was sending large volumes into Victoria via these lines. A consequence of that was a number of wind farms tripped offline and so did one generating unit at Torrens Island A power station in Adelaide (later restarted successfully).

So what's happening now is that south-west Victoria, including Alcoa, Mortlake Power station, the wind farms and the various towns, are all electrically part of SA and will be until such time as the towers in Victoria are rebuilt and the lines put back up.

Short term, the next few days at least, the SA grid can handle the additional load. That said, if a heatwave occurs or if any generation were to fail, especially Mortlake, then it would become somewhat more precarious but it looks OK over the next week at least so long as nothing breaks. 

A consequence whilst all this was going on was considerable frequency instability in SA. In layman's terms - the speed wobbled around. That's not surprising when you've got the state suddenly disconnected from the rest of the grid, load being tripped, generation being tripped and so on. So the frequency, in layman's terms speed, has been somewhat unstable.

Anyone monitoring frequency and looking for a problem as a trigger to do something, eg to switch on a backup generator, will have seen that (well, their computer will have seen it). That would be the most likely explanation for what happened at the Royal Adelaide Hospital - system saw the unstable grid frequency and decided to fire up the generator. That said, obviously it didn't work as intended if it blacked out the hospital, that's not the intended outcome, but that would be the likely "trigger" event.

Sort-of separate but related has been some load shed in Vic and NSW. In short they ran out of power and AEMO activated pre-arranged agreements which involve certain users reducing consumption. Those users are things like manufacturing, water pumping and so on, in some cases even offices if they've got their own backup generators, but not households.

If anyone doesn't have power at home presently then it's not due to AEMO having turned it off, things aren't quite that bad despite all the chaos. Reason would be that there's a network fault of some sort - it's an issue for your electricity distributor to fix but there's sufficient power at the present time. 

In terms of duration, well that's a good question but the work required is to physically fix the towers and associated lines, it's not just a case of resetting something. Around 2 weeks has been suggested to restore the lines in Vic but that's speculation at this stage. 

In the meantime, south-west Vic is electrically part of SA, including the major items mentioned above, and the only link between SA and any other state is the relatively low capacity DC link, known as Murraylink, between SA and Vic which will carry 220 MW at the absolute limit (versus 600 - 650 MW through the AC lines which are now kaput).


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> There are a number of transmission towers, that is the big steel towers, which have physically collapsed in Victoria. That is the towers and the lines they carry are now physically lying on the ground and no longer standing up. There's several of them like that.




Amazing.

Failure due to fires ? storms ? , metal fatigue ? 

The prospect of those fallen lines starting fires is a bit of a worry.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Amazing.
> 
> Failure due to fires ? storms ? , metal fatigue ?




I don't know other than to say that the *assumption* is an extreme wind event, a tornado or something like that, since for several to go all at once it must be weather related.

What I do know however is that assistance has been offered from SA, NSW and Tas in addition to local resources in Vic so far as fixing it is concerned but no firm time for restoration has been announced thus far.


----------



## Knobby22

It amazes me how often emergency power generation such as at the hospital fails.
Usually due to poor design, trying to feed too much load, and/or poor maintenance.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I have pointed out that your claims about an orderly transition are not true, and you have no defense.
> Again, can you explain where this *orderly transition* is occurring?That's not a relevant question to begin with.  The issue is that the government has not supported the renewables sector and as a result there is curtailment.  If the government supported renewables we would not have energy going to waste and it would instead be working to reduce electricity costs.On the contrary.  All you are able to do is think that we should be catering to the fossil fuel sector's transmission needs.
> I suggest you look at the maps in Finkel's Hydrogen Report which I linked and you can work out for yourself why an HVDC spine makes sense.  Do you actually understand why HVDC makes more sense in a renewables future?  Or are you going to go off like a wonky alarm clock again?



Again another load of crap, you may be good at writing speaches, but you have FA idea of how an electrical distribution system works.
With regard the Finkle report, if you ask VC or Rumpy, you will find Im one of the biggest backers of H2.
I suggested to the energy minister of W.A in the 1990,s that the first wind farm built near Cervantes, should have a H2 plant built next to it to capture wasted energy.
So don,t try and push H2 up my nose.
Just answer my F#$%cking question. FFS


----------



## basilio

The fact that already a number of towers have fallen over is a concern. We still have the threat of major storms coming over tonight/tomorrow

On the longer term I wonder if we have to review the specs on these towers to cover more violent weather events ?  Are there simpler ways to strengthen the towers?  Can we retro fit .

Is it feasible to put some huge guy ropes  on  electricity towers  to provide more support under extreme conditions ? Probably cheaper than a total rebuild.


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> Just answer my F#$%cking question. FFS




Your kidding right?

1st you have to end your love affair with Morrison, look he is a drop kick like Abbott all politics no action forget the Liberal / Labor thing Morrison is not going to fly it will be another wasted term of government.

Seriously you have read Smurfs detailed commentary, Robs detailed commentary and you know there is no policy from the Federal government on energy because of the Coalitions opposition against climate change and renewables it all has to be together.

We are moving to renewables that will happen....right?

All this is on the public record.

What should the government do....really?

Its really simple listen to the advice of treasury and government department heads not fu(king political spin doctors. Tell me a news conference Morrison has given that's not full on political BS i.e. how we are all working together.......vomit.

Talk to all stakeholders like the states  (remember the east coast is interconnected sort of becomes a federal issue hun)

Stake holders are also private capital looking for investment opportunities but there are bits of the transmission system that will require government funding and organization federal and state .....where is the vision / plan.

This why you have solar unable to connect no fu(king plan.

That's not happening in a planned fashion it's all ahoc.

This all requires policy and planning FFS it requires planning and vision for the next 20 years private capital requires certainty currently there is SFA but amazingly money is still coming in imagine what would happen if there was a serious plan.

This is the biggest transition in Australia's history and you ask what should the government do?


----------



## IFocus

Knobby22 said:


> It amazes me how often emergency power generation such as at the hospital fails.
> Usually due to poor design, trying to feed too much load, and/or poor maintenance.




Its generally pretty ordinary, run right on its limits, sizing is usually as installed then load added to with out serious considerations seen it in private industry often as well.

Add to that pretty rare for load testing of system then there is the change over system which is normally impossible to test due to configuration (have to turn the power off back on then back off then back on.)

Last place I worked at if the power went off it was a mad sprint to the MCC / genset to make sure it all worked.....I recon it had about a 60% successes rate


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Your kidding right?
> 
> 1st you have to end your love affair with Morrison, look he is a drop kick like Abbott all politics no action forget the Liberal / Labor thing Morrison is not going to fly it will be another wasted term of government.
> 
> Seriously you have read Smurfs detailed commentary, Robs detailed commentary and you know there is no policy from the Federal government on energy because of the Coalitions opposition against climate change and renewables it all has to be together.
> 
> We are moving to renewables that will happen....right?
> 
> All this is on the public record.
> 
> What should the government do....really?
> 
> Its really simple listen to the advice of treasury and government department heads not fu(king political spin doctors. Tell me a news conference Morrison has given that's not full on political BS i.e. how we are all working together.......vomit.
> 
> Talk to all stakeholders like the states  (remember the east coast is interconnected sort of becomes a federal issue hun)
> 
> Stake holders are also private capital looking for investment opportunities but there are bits of the transmission system that will require government funding and organization federal and state .....where is the vision / plan.
> 
> This why you have solar unable to connect no fu(king plan.
> 
> That's not happening in a planned fashion it's all ahoc.
> 
> This all requires policy and planning FFS it requires planning and vision for the next 20 years private capital requires certainty currently there is SFA but amazingly money is still coming in imagine what would happen if there was a serious plan.
> 
> This is the biggest transition in Australia's history and you ask what should the government do?



Again you say nothing.
Why do you guys have so much trouble answering simple questions?
Because you dont accept the issues.
I will put it really simply, so people wont give you likes for silly meaningless comments.

Right in simple terms, our power grid hss been constructed on a centralised power generators system, they produce the power and send it out to tbe extremities.
Now we have the introduction in the last 15 years of cheaper and cheaper renewables, but they are feeding back into a system that wasnt designed for it.
So the system has to readjust, which has happened and rooftop solar has taken off, this has had a dramatic effect on the local distribution system.
Now what has happened in the last 10 years, the private sector has seen the opportunity of just putting in solar generation and expect the system to be able absorb it.
Well the transmission systems which are State owned cant, so the State owned transmission systems will have to be upgraded.
The AEMO put forward recomendations late last year as to what the felt needed doing, as far as I know that is being done, untill it is done the amount of renewables that the system can cope with is saturated.
So going to what a Government policy can do, well in reality all a Government policy can do to increase the installation of more renewables IMO,
Is guarantee that any further renewables installed will be paid for generation we cant use.
Which in reality has been done in the past, but has been proven that the tax oayer gets raped, as the installed plant sits there and does f@#k all.
But alas it seems that is what the ranters and chanters want.
Another NBN on the way, the tax payer forks out to replace something they own, so that those who should replace it can charge you more to use it.
Is there any wonder Australias going down the toilet.
By the way I will defer to smurf, he actually knows what he is talking about, Rob knows about as much about the electrical system, as I or you know about Mongolian goat herding.
He is just a talking head.
Dont get me wrong, I think it could be done if the Federal Goverment, puts out a policy, just do it.
But then I think you will have a pink batt situation on steriods, you will get a zillion solar farms everywhere, that you will pay for and wonder how the fluck your going to use them.
Then in 30 years you actually get them on the grid and they are all flucked from old age.


----------



## IFocus

SP I think you missed the point move on nothing to see here


----------



## sptrawler

Knobby22 said:


> It amazes me how often emergency power generation such as at the hospital fails.
> Usually due to poor design, trying to feed too much load, and/or poor maintenance.



Like IFocus said, they are usually sized to initial requirements, then the installation it is feeding grows, but no one looks at the emergency backup.
In power stations they have a seperate control power supply which is DC, this is so that an earth fault in the control system doesnt trip the cct.
The DC system has a battery back up, it is amazing in Country towns with their own Power Stations, that when the town grows and more units are put in the batteries arent increased.
So when the proverbial hits the fan, all of a sudden the control system voltage drops like a bag of poo.
Been there seen that.lol


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> SP I think you missed the point move on nothing to see here



I guess so, all I see with the Feds getting involved, is another big mess.
The privates charge us for electricity, if they want to change over, which they do, make them pay for it.
There is a backlog of solar wind ready to go, they know they can beat the established generators on price.
The transmission system needs reconfiguring and interstate interconnectors put in, which is being done.
Snowy2.0 is being built and the extra undersea cable to Tasmania is being done.
Why the hell would the Feds want to walk in a nd say  we think this should be done?
Everything they have done up untill now has been a stuff up, they should stay out of it untill it isnt going ahead.
Jeez every time the Feds do anything, the private sector take them to the cleaners, why would this time be different?
Li ke I said explain to me what policy the Feds could put in place, that would make the changes to the grid happen faster, because the grid is the bottle neck.
Once the grid is able to take the renewables and Snowy2.0 and Tasmania can absorb the excess midday generation.
The coal generators will be forced off the grid, they have a limited turn down ratio and take a long time to get back on the system.
So it will be a case of natural attrition, when the storage and power shifting facilty is installed.
There is no need IMO for any intervention, other than funding storage and interstate interconnectors, renewables are cheap they are lining up to put them in.
The media is stirring up a storm in a tea cup.IMO
Let the AEMO say what is required IMO, it is a technical issue, not a political one.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> On the longer term I wonder if we have to review the specs on these towers to cover more violent weather events ?  Are there simpler ways to strengthen the towers?  Can we retro fit



I think it needs to be looked at certainly.

First time it happened in SA it could be dismissed as a freak event but now it's happened in Victoria less than three and a half years later. 

I suspect it's another case where something was designed for the climate which existed at the time but where that design is not adequate now.

The details of how to fix it I really don't know. It's a structural and civil engineering sort of issue rather than an electrical one as such - from the photos I've seen they appear to have quite literally fallen over and are now laying horizontally on the ground. Assuming nobody finds evidence of explosives or some other form of deliberate damage then I can only assume it's due to some localised extreme wind event.

Prior to the SA incident in 2016 the idea of transmission lines blowing over just wasn't something that was given any thought. Being damaged by fires yes. Being impacted by some sort of wind blown object (especially anything metal eg roofing iron) yes. Plane crashes etc yes. Ice yes but there are workarounds for that one (just make sure there's a lot of current flowing through the line that stops ice forming in practice). Just blowing over wasn't something anyone was really thinking of though.


----------



## Smurf1976

IFocus said:


> SP I think you missed the point move on nothing to see here




I'm intentionally keeping out of this argument but I'll say this.

The federal government has been nothing short of a nuisance (that's being extremely polite) when it comes to all this stuff for quite some time.

I agree that they ought to have a role but to be blunt they need to cast off an awful lot of baggage and start focusing on the real task at hand and forget about all their ideological nonsense. I'd very much like them to do that, that's an entirely reasonable thing to be doing, but they're so far entrenched in ideology that it's akin to the 50 year old couch potato telling me they're going to run a marathon - I'll believe it only when I see them actually running.

If there's one thing the events of yesterday have shown it's that electricity is a _system_ far more than it's a _market.
_
It works because we've got Origin running Mortlake to supply a very large customer for which AGL holds the contract. It works because we've got TransGrid, ElectraNet and TasNetworks willing assist AusNet to fix the damage. It works because AGL supplies coal to rival Alinta. It works because Origin gives gas to Engie and takes the electricity produced. It works because practically every privately owned generation company has some dealings with Snowy and/or Hydro Tas. And so on. FWIW most of them have got BHP somewhere on one side of the ledger too by the way and in some cases on both sides.

It works because it's a system. There's nothing wrong with the concept of a market, it's a perfectly reasonable idea as such, but the feds really need to take about 50 steps backward from the ideological obsession they've got with that bit and instead see it as what it really is - a relatively minor detail in how an extremely complex system actually works.

I'll be blunt and say that it's just nonsense to be not telling company A what companies B and C are doing when they're all using the same line which isn't big enough for all of them. That's literally where at lot of it has gone wrong - they all have a proposal which individually works but nobody's allowed to tell them that there's two others doing something which pulls the rug from under it all. End result is 3 companies end up each owning an asset that's two thirds useless and that's a dead loss from an overall Australian perspective to be doing that.

It's just a silly ideological battle really. It's not as though you can really hide a power station or a solar farm so this nonsense about keeping "competitors" in the dark and getting them to blow their money is all a bit dumb really. Especially so once you consider that the real, actual competitors for the major loads are overseas anyway - it's Russia, USA, South Africa and so on that we need to worry about not AGL versus EA versus Origin versus any of the government owned entities.

As I said, I'm not against the concept of a competitive market but it needs to be toned down and not allowed to overshadow the technical aspects.

It shouldn't overshadow the environmental issues either - running inefficient high emissions plant when someone else's plant that uses half as much fuel is under-utilised is just silly. Ramping diesels up and down for literally 5 minutes is even worse. Again it comes back to the "market" tail wagging the technical dog - it needs to be reigned in to a more sensible approach.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Again another load of crap, you may be good at writing speaches, but you have FA idea of how an electrical distribution system works.



Think what you like, but you simply do not understand that the issue is about how renewables have been discounted by the federal government and as a result we have not built a framework which is supportive.
I also note your later explanation of the grid.
It reinforces what I have said: you are talking about a grid that keeps pandering to old systems of electricity generation and has not been forward looking.  Despite this you say there is an "*orderly transition"* but cannot show it is occurring *or *that it will occur. 
If you thought there was going to be an orderly transition, then you should look at AEMO's Integrated System Plan and ask yourself why there is no clarity about where Australia sees its energy future.  







sptrawler said:


> With regard the Finkle report, if you ask VC or Rumpy, you will find Im one of the biggest backers of H2, I suggested to the energy minister of W.A in the 1990,s that the first wind farm built near Cervantes, should have a H2 plant built next to it to capture wasted energy.



That may be so, but the point I raised related to where renewable energy potential was greatest, but there is no infrastructure being contemplated to tap into it.


sptrawler said:


> Just answer my F#$%cking question. FFS



I did. 
But you want an answer to a question which relates mostly to the legacy grid infrastructure supporting fossil fuel generated electricity.  That's exactly the poor thinking that has held back Australia's renewables future.  In a different thread I mentioned how the UK and Germany had led with supportive renewables policies and now have comparatively large percentages of their electricity from renewables.  Moreover, Europe's integrated grid structure has been well planned with renewables in mind, and HVDC is going to play a greater role through major interconnectivity projects.
Despite your claims about what you think I know you then say:







sptrawler said:


> Dont get me wrong, I think it could be done if the Federal Goverment, puts out a policy, just do it.



So you seem to agree the federal government has *no *policy.

I have followed European energy policy for a long time.  I have seen how they had to cooperate internationally or bear crazy energy costs through insularity.  I have watched the UK respond to Stern to become a world leader in renewable contributions to their national grid.
You seem to think Australia will be some kind of renewables experiment.  Sadly, we are a backwater as the lead comes from overseas and we are wondering if we should play catchup.

Finally, you might want to read about how affordable a 100% renewables future could be. Note the map with an HVDC spine as a response to your earlier points which were as well formed as your other  opinions.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> I have seen how they had to cooperate internationally or bear crazy energy costs through insularity. I have watched the UK respond to Stern to become a world leader in renewable contributions to their national grid.





Are you counting nuclear as renewable ?




IFocus said:


> Its really simple listen to the advice of treasury and government department heads not fu(king political spin doctors. Tell me a news conference Morrison has given that's not full on political BS i.e. how we are all working together.......vomit.




And hope that Treasury and DH's listen to and are capable of understanding the advice of engineers and scientists, because these are the ultimate experts.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Are you counting nuclear as renewable ?



Definitely not.
Nuclear is the most expensive source of electrical energy by a very long margin.


----------



## IFocus

SirRumpole said:


> And hope that Treasury and DH's listen to and are capable of understanding the advice of engineers and scientists, because these are the ultimate experts.




Agree and they do get it wrong hence governments (Ministers)  have to talk to all stakeholders / experts and form a policy.

Katharine Murphy has long followed the energy problems for a long time writes a good peace on the latest announcement.

*PM's energy plan isn't really a plan – but it's a step in the right direction*

Katharine Murphy 

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...-a-plan-but-its-a-step-in-the-right-direction


----------



## IFocus

rederob said:


> Definitely not.
> Nuclear is the most expensive source of electrical energy by a very long margin.




Lead time is also massive and that's before you get to enrichment (which leads to security risks) and who's backyard you are going to build in.

Only works if you are building a bomb.


----------



## rederob

IFocus said:


> *PM's energy plan isn't really a plan – but it's a step in the right direction*



QUOTE:
*"Instead of having a clear, national policy mechanism to drive the transition to low emissions, a coherent framework to drive new investment in least-cost abatement, you have the equivalent of the mandated, Soviet-style, five-year plan. Except it’s not really a plan. Morrison doesn’t yet have the courage for a plan. It’s a set of propositions that might hold together, or might pull in different directions."*
Thanks for the link @IFocus.
@sptrawler says:







sptrawler said:


> The media is stirring up a storm in a tea cup.IMO



But he cannot come up with anything to show any semblance of "*order*" or a "*plan*."
This link provides a better perspective on what the grid needs now, and why.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> QUOTE:
> *"Instead of having a clear, national policy mechanism to drive the transition to low emissions, a coherent framework to drive new investment in least-cost abatement, you have the equivalent of the mandated, Soviet-style, five-year plan. Except it’s not really a plan. Morrison doesn’t yet have the courage for a plan. It’s a set of propositions that might hold together, or might pull in different directions."*
> Thanks for the link @IFocus.
> @sptrawler says:But he cannot come up with anything to show any semblance of "*order*" or a "*plan*."
> This link provides a better perspective on what the grid needs now, and why.




What I've said is, at the moment there is a backlog of renewables that can't fit on an already conjested grid, so untill the bottle neck is sorted a plan isn't really needed.
Once the grid is able to cope with a mass migration from fossil fuel to renewables a plan will be required, but ATM all that would happen is the Government would end up getting ripped off.
The real issue isn't here yet, it will be in the foreseeable future when mass renewables can be accomodated, then the coal generators wont be competitive.
That is when a plan nationally will be imperative, because someone is going to have to subsidise the base load more and more, untill it is no longer required.

As IFocus said, time to move on.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> What I've said is, at the moment there is a backlog of renewables that can't fit on an already conjested grid, so untill the bottle neck is sorted a plan isn't really needed.



That's a clear failure of policy.
We knew this was going to be an issue a long time ago.
We know the cost of solar is cheaper than coal, but we curtail solar, so electricity prices are not as cheap as they could be.


sptrawler said:


> The real issue isn't here yet, it will be in the foreseeable future when mass renewables can be accomodated, then the coal generators wont be competitive.



I suggest you read my earlier link.  Coal is already behind renewables and the big issues (from an economic perspective) now are:

Providing a grid infrastructure to better capture renewables potential (given they are cheaper); and
Storage/firming capacity.


----------



## basilio

Excellent explanation of why a plan is needed to re design our energy systems and thge role of Government in laying out the  agenda.

It is the link Rederob  has highlighted previously
https://www.ey.com/en_au/power-utilities/grid-expectations-how-to-solve-the-energy-impasse


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> That's a clear failure of policy.
> We knew this was going to be an issue a long time ago.
> We know the cost of solar is cheaper than coal, but we curtail solar, so electricity prices are not as cheap as they could be.
> I suggest you read my earlier link.  Coal is already behind renewables and the big issues (from an economic perspective) now are:
> 
> Providing a grid infrastructure to better capture renewables potential (given they are cheaper); and
> Storage/firming capacity.



Which is exactly what all my posts say.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Which is exactly what all my posts say.



You have talked about an *orderly transition* occurring, and you know that is not the case.
I actually agree with a lot of what you say, but the root cause of our problems remains the inability of our federal government to see that renewables were going to be our energy future and, as a consequence, deliberately stymie their ability to supplant the fossil fuel sector.  We are so far behind that AEMO is still trying to get a rule change into the NER that encapsulates energy storage systems (ESS) in the NEM to support variable renewable energy (VRE) - ie. bi-directional electricity flows.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Let the AEMO say what is required IMO, it is a technical issue, not a political one.




Absolutely.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> You have talked about an *orderly transition* occurring, and you know that is not the case.
> I actually agree with a lot of what you say, but the root cause of our problems remains the inability of our federal government to see that renewables were going to be our energy future and, as a consequence, deliberately stymie their ability to supplant the fossil fuel sector.  We are so far behind that AEMO is still trying to get a rule change into the NER that encapsulates energy storage systems (ESS) in the NEM to support variable renewable energy (VRE) - ie. bi-directional electricity flows.



No here you go again, you are the one going on about Government policy intervention, and I have been saying it hasnt been required so far, as the problem is with the grid infrastructure not lack of will participants in supplying solar and wind.
Stop miss quoting.
We will need policy when the States and the AEMO, get the system in place to take the backlogged renewables.
ATM Im just thrilled the general public is wearing the cost of installing the solar and wind plant, usually it all just gets added to our debt.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Absolutely.



AEMO do not determine priorities and nor do they determine the framework for capital investment certainty.  They keep the lights on as best they can with the hand they are dealt.
As a result we don't know who is going to do what next.  And if anyone moves, there's no guarantee the system can accommodate it unless it's a bolt on.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> No here you go again, you are the one going on about Government policy intervention, and I have been saying it hasnt been required so far, as the problem is with the grid infrastructure not lack of will participants in supplying solar and wind.
> Stop miss quoting.
> We will need policy when the States and the AEMO, get the system in place to take the backlogged renewables.



I suggest you do a bit more reading about the energy system and how it fits to the prevailing policy framework.
You do not understand it.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I suggest you do a bit more reading about the energy system and how it fits to the prevailing policy framework.
> You do not understand it.



And I suggest you read up on a HV distrubution system, you obviously fail to understand that.
The prevailing policy framework does not rebuild a State owned  100year old power distribution network.
Politicians and accountants dont fix technical problems, they just create ways of making the taxpayer fund the work.
It is time the politicians waited untill the technical side is sorted, then enact policy that enables an orderly transition.
There is no point having a policy when they havent a system in place to faciltate the adoption of said policy.
History shows we stuff it up when the politicians try and guess what is required.
Look at the ridiculous situation of our telecommunications, driven by policy, rather than by common sense.
I guess we just have to agree to disagree as usual.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> And I suggest you read up on a HV distrubution system, you obviously fail to understand that.



Fail on your part.  Stick to what you know.


sptrawler said:


> The prevailing policy framework does not rebuild a State owned 100year old power distribution network.



That's exactly what the NEM was tasked with achieving.







sptrawler said:


> It is time the politicians waited untill the technical side is sorted, then enact policy that enables an orderly transition.



COAG Energy Council determines what is prioritised.  







sptrawler said:


> There is no point having a policy when they havent a system in place to faciltate the adoption of said policy.



You have this back to front: The "system" has always been there, but it has lacked direction. 







sptrawler said:


> Look at the ridiculous situation of our telecommunications, driven by policy, rather than by common sense.



You mean the policy that got changed by the Coalition because Turnbull thought he knew better and could save billions of dollars?  A policy that was originally comprehensive and was turned into a dog's breakfast.


sptrawler said:


> I guess we just have to agree to disagree as usual.



Get your facts straight and we can all see.


----------



## sptrawler

One thing it does show Rob, you obviously have a much higher regard for our current politicians than I do.


----------



## SirRumpole

Haven't all these problems been sorted in other countries ?

Why not just adopt the most successful global policy instead of trying to reinvent the wheel ?


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> One thing it does show Rob, you obviously have a much higher regard for our current politicians than I do.



I doubt it.
We have no policy on carbon pricing, so generators are reluctant to commit to building the scale we need.
We have no policy on renewables: they are just part of the mix and have to be retrospectively integrated.
We have not identified renewables corridors so we have no ability to easily integrate the best renewable sites into the grid.
We have no policies on storage.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> We are so far behind that AEMO is still trying to get a rule change into the NER




It comes down to the economic ideologues and regulator types having far too much influence over the whole show.

That they’ve pushed the cost up ~80% in real terms whilst sending technical and environmental standards down the drain means there’s really no benefit to their involvement. Nothing of note has actually been improved by this approach.

It’s a tail wagging the dog problem.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> AEMO do not determine priorities and nor do they determine the framework for capital investment certainty.  They keep the lights on as best they can with the hand they are dealt.
> As a result we don't know who is going to do what next.  And if anyone moves, there's no guarantee the system can accommodate it unless it's a bolt on.




AEMO are becoming slowly but surely more heavy handed and that’s a good thing not a bad one. The various generating companies are getting rather used to the idea of being given orders and AEMO does seem to be getting better at managing the government. Government and the media are increasingly quoting word for word and so on.

That said, there’s still a long way to go. The politicians haven’t been beaten into submission yet but they’re finding themselves on shakier ground which is a positive sign.

Whether or not that’s the “correct” approach the reality is that some leader emerges amidst a vacuum. If the government won’t govern then others will in practice fill their shoes and in the context of this industry there’s been growing shift over the past 4 or so years. Whether privately owned or government, leadership is emerging from within. 

Now it just needs to get better at actually managing the government. It’ll happen.

Perhaps not overly democratic but the politicians simply aren’t up to the task that’s very clear. Heck they can’t even cope with fixing a few sports ovals without stuffing it up.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I doubt it.
> We have no policy on carbon pricing, so generators are reluctant to commit to building the scale we need.
> We have no policy on renewables: they are just part of the mix and have to be retrospectively integrated.
> We have not identified renewables corridors so we have no ability to easily integrate the best renewable sites into the grid.
> .



And you think the politicians can sort that, without guidance from the technical side?
Best of luck with that, we have history to prove the politicians make policy, giving no regards to the reality.
Just check out the Roe highway, in W.A to find out how Government policy, completely stuffs up a technical plan.
Almost every time a Government gets involved in a technical issue, their self serving interests overtake the technical aspects.
Best of luck thinking this will be any different.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> And you think the politicians can sort that, without guidance from the technical side?



None of the points I made had anything to do with technical issues.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> None of the points I made had anything to do with technical issues.



Im only interested in the technical side, the politics just ends up ruining a technically sound project.
The technical people should say, this is where we need to build the wind and solar farms, to strenghen the grid and get the best outcome regarding weather conditions, now politicians organise the land content by aquiring the locations.


----------



## Smurf1976

Almost out of juice again in NSW with AEMO looking to intervene (that is, cut some load). If so then that'll be the fourth time in a month, the others being 4th, 23rd and 31st of January.

Also two recent incidents in Victoria on the 30 December 2019 and 31 January 2020.

So it's all a bit precarious these days yes as many have warned would end up being the case. It'll get worse before it gets better.....


----------



## sptrawler

Looks as though the East Coast has got some gas reserves set aside, for generation.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01...-energy-deal-with-federal-government/11916314
From the article:
_A "landmark" agreement between the Morrison and Berejiklian governments that will see more than $2 billion invested into a new gas-fuelled energy deal has been slammed as "climate criminality" by the Greens.
The bilateral deal aims to lower energy bills, strengthen the grid and reduce emissions throughout the state, through the "critical" supply of an additional 70 petajoules of gas into the east coast market.
Just one petajoule is enough gas to fuel a large regional centre like Wollongong, and NSW uses about 120 petajoules a year.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the deal would secure energy supply as Australia moves towards renewable power sources_.

_NSW will receive $960 million in federal funding to upgrade the energy grid and invest in emissions reductions initiatives.

*The state and federal governments will jointly underwrite the grid upgrades in the HumeLink interconnector from Snowy Hydro to southern NSW, as well as the Queensland-NSW interconnector*.
*The plan also promises financial support for a new pilot renewable energy zone in the Central West to help large-scale renewable generators pump energy into the grid*.
"*NSW already has a pipeline of around $26 billion of large-scale renewable and non-renewable energy projects and the NSW Government has introduced a range of rebates to help keep prices down as well as a five-year, $1.4 billion Climate Change Fund," Ms Berejiklian said*_.

_Chris Gambian from the Nature Conservation Council said it was good that action was being taken but "gas is not a realistic or viable transition fuel" in the long term.
"We seem to have taken a step towards a serious plan, rather than the rhetoric and bluster that we've seen in the past," he said.
"So, I hope that what we see today is a plan that'll take us forward for the next 10 or 20 years, and that we can just get on with the job of addressing climate change_.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Looks as though the East Coast has got some gas reserves set aside, for generation.



Another massive subsidy to get fossil fuels into the grid while they otherwise remain in a policy vacuum.
Also from the press release:
"An undertaking from the NSW Government to *remove barriers to coal supply* to the Mount Piper Power Station."
So much for Morrison's action on climate!


----------



## sptrawler

Hydrogen/solar microgrids appear to be popular ATM.
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/threads/the-future-of-energy-generation-and-storage.29842/

From the article:
Queensland’s world heritage-listed Daintree region could be the site of an Australian-first solar power to hydrogen gas-based microgrid, with newly announced federal government funding tipped to help make the 100 per cent renewable project shovel ready.

As we reported here, the Morrison government last week unveiled plans to underwrite the establishment of up to 50 “affordable and reliable” renewable microgrids around the country, via a new $50.4 million purpose-built fund.
“This power will be used to help power the hydrogen cell; the hydrogen gas produced will be collected and stored and used to fuel large scale generators. The only by product of this system is hot water,” he told local paper Newsport.

Aslo in western Australia.
https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/western-australia-denham-to-demonstrate-hydrogen-power/

https://horizonpower.com.au/our-community/news-events/news/denham-to-demonstrate-hydrogen-power/
From the article:
A solar farm will generate electricity which will power an electrolyser. The electrolyser splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, with the hydrogen to be stored in a fuel cell. The fuel cell generates electricity for Denham customers.

The benefit of this “green hydrogen to electricity” supply chain is that the storage of the hydrogen ensures the availability of power 24/7. By comparison, the electricity output from a conventional solar farm is dependent on the sun shining.

Horizon Power has sought expressions of interest for the supply of the hydrogen electrolyser and fuel cell and to design and construct of the plant. If the project is determined to be viable, construction would begin in February 2021.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Also from the press release:
> "An undertaking from the NSW Government to *remove barriers to coal supply* to the Mount Piper Power Station."
> So much for Morrison's action on climate!



On one hand I agree.

On the other well it’s silly to have the newest coal-fired plant in NSW being constrained in operation due to insufficient coal with the gap filled by higher emissions sources.


----------



## sptrawler

I see the Federal Government is adding money, to fast track the second undersea HV cable to Tasmania (Marinus Link Project).

https://www.nationalresourcesreview...celerate-a-second-bass-strait-interconnector/


----------



## sptrawler

The Federal Government to underwrite the development of the Tassie battery, which will unlock 1,200MW of new renewable generation.
The project will be led by Hydro Tasmania, with the help of the Federal Government ARENA Agency.

https://www.hydro.com.au/news/media...dorsement-to-accelerate-battery-of-the-nation

https://arena.gov.au/


----------



## sptrawler

For those who care to read what the experts recommended, late last year, which in reality is a couple of months ago.
https://aemo.com.au/energy-systems/...stem-plan-isp/2020-integrated-system-plan-isp

A summary of the recommendations, which one would hope a Government policy is derived from, as against asking for a policy for the last four years, based on F#$k all but ranting and chanting.
Now there is something to measure achievements against, as there is an ongoing adjustment to the changing generation profile and transmission reconfiguration.
These are a summary of recommendation:

_Rooftop solar capacity is expected to double or even triple, providing up to 22% of total energy by 2040._
_More than 30GW of large-scale renewable energy is needed to replace coal-fired generation by 2040, with 63 per cent of Australia’s coal-fired generation set to retire by then._
_Up to 21GW of new dispatchable resources are needed to back up renewables, in the form of utility-scale pumped hydro or battery storage, demand response such as demand-side participation, and distributed batteries participating as virtual power plants._
_System services including voltage control, system strength, frequency management, power system inertia and dispatchability all need to be managed as the generation mix changes._
_Targeted and strategic investment in the grid is needed to balance resources across states and unlock much needed Renewable Energy Zones (REZ)_.
You may note in my post #3896, a renewable energy zone in NSW, is mentioned.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Looks as though the East Coast has got some gas reserves set aside, for generation.




The big problem with gas is that for the past third of a century pretty much everyone has seen it as the solution to some problem.

The Australian Labor Party, Margaret Thatcher, BHP, Rio Tinto, Greenpeace and an assortment of local councils are an unlikely bunch to have anything at all in common but they do when it comes to gas.

Many associate the Coalition, or COALition as they prefer to call it, with coal. I won't argue about that but to the extent that's true, it could also be said that the ALP has been pretty close to the gas industry since the 1980's. 

Thatcher liked gas since it was one of the keys to smashing the coal unions in the UK. Not many jobs to be had running gas turbines and it was a direct alternative to coal. That it just happened to greatly lower CO2 emissions made it an easier sell once that issue entered the mainstream consciousness. 

Mining companies jumped on board because they needed power in the middle of nowhere. With governments not threatening to tax it as with diesel, and the simplicity of just plonking a pipeline in or even on the ground, it's a winner.

Greenpeace liked it because it seemed the easiest solution to avoiding Chernobyl Mk 2 and it also offered an alternative to coal. Plenty of other environmental groups have jumped on the gas bandwagon over the years, seeing it as preferable to everything from transmission lines to coal. 

During the carbon tax era in Australia, there was very strong support from those on the "environmental" side for building a 2GW baseload gas-fired power station in Victoria to partly replace coal. Energy Australia almost went ahead and did it, all that stopped them was the political instability around it all.

Local councils liked it too. It's one sure way to get wood smoke out of the air if everyone heats with gas.

And of course households, commercial building managers and manufacturing companies have likewise been more than happy to use an energy source that turns up via a simple pipe in the ground, creates no waste to dispose of, needs little or no labour to use and which raises no objections. 

And so on. Pretty much everyone's seen gas as the solution to something or at least a "less bad" alternative.

Trouble is, as was pointed out on this forum a decade ago and has been noted by many over literally the past 50 years, gas is a finite resource and in terms of conventional reservoirs a fairly limited one. If we're going to use it then over time the harder, more costly and more environmentally damaging sources of supply will inevitably be brought into production to supply demand.

That it has come to the point where the east coast (which in this context means the whole country except WA and NT) of Australia finds itself short on gas is a classic case of lack of foresight. Failing to grasp that there's no magic pudding, it's a finite resource, and that exporting two thirds of production is a sure fire way to deplete the currently producing fields rather quickly.

I'm not arguing that we should frack all the farmland and so on but there's a reality of numbers at work here. Can't burn it without producing it and all up rather a lot of gas consuming infrastructure has been built which now needs gas to operate.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> .
> 
> Trouble is, as was pointed out on this forum a decade ago and has been noted by many over literally the past 50 years, gas is a finite resource and in terms of conventional reservoirs a fairly limited one. If we're going to use it then over time the harder, more costly and more environmentally damaging sources of supply will inevitably be brought into production to supply demand.
> 
> That it has come to the point where the east coast (which in this context means the whole country except WA and NT) of Australia finds itself short on gas is a classic case of lack of foresight. Failing to grasp that there's no magic pudding, it's a finite resource, and that exporting two thirds of production is a sure fire way to deplete the currently producing fields rather quickly.
> 
> I'm not arguing that we should frack all the farmland and so on but there's a reality of numbers at work here. Can't burn it without producing it and all up rather a lot of gas consuming infrastructure has been built which now needs gas to operate.




So true smurf, we discussed this a decade ago, gas is too good a fuel to be pushing through boilers, or gas turbines, it basically is the only clean go to fuel that can instantly replace oil.
The problem is we are going to burn it at a ever increasing rate, as it replaces coal, I just hope the transition to renewables happens as quick as the ranters and chanters want it to.
But the reality is IMO, it won't and I think we will run out of gas before we can run a viable World economy on renewables.
So IMO it wont end nicely, but I wont be here to see it.
Just my opinion.
P.S that is unless they embrace thorium reactors.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Another massive subsidy to get fossil fuels into the grid while they otherwise remain in a policy vacuum.
> Also from the press release:
> "An undertaking from the NSW Government to *remove barriers to coal supply* to the Mount Piper Power Station."
> So much for Morrison's action on climate!



Hey Rob, remember when we were talking about all the pumped storage, that is going to be required? 
I said there will be a lot of backlash against it, that would make it difficult to achieve the storage, you as usual said that is rubbish and then continued to deride me about it.
Well here is the latest on Snowy 2.0, which is a pretty integral part of the renewable story.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-01/snowy-2.0-environment-concerns/11563048


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> On one hand I agree.
> 
> On the other well it’s silly to have the newest coal-fired plant in NSW being constrained in operation due to insufficient coal with the gap filled by higher emissions sources.



Given they are approving a gas supply contract surely they could convert it to the lesser pollutant.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Given they are approving a gas supply contract surely they could convert it to the lesser pollutant.



Maybe they are, maybe it is going to replace older less efficient and less reliable older plant first?


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Maybe they are, maybe it is going to replace older less efficient and less reliable older plant first?



You don't approve what you don't need, unless you are incompetent.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> You don't approve what you don't need, unless you are incompetent.



Ill let everyone else judge that one.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Ill let everyone else judge that one.



Seriously!
Anyone committed to reducing emissions would have conditioned the financing on the basis of a gas conversion.  But Morrison is wedded to coal.


----------



## sptrawler

Australian Federal Government Renewable Energy Agency, to help fund the first pumped storage facility in South Australia.
That is https://arena.gov.au/

https://eutility.com.au/article/agl-energyaustralia-vie-for-40m-pumped-hydro-funding/
From the article:
_AGL Energy and EnergyAustralia have muscled in on an opportunity to secure federal government funding to support pumped hydro storage projects in South Australia.

The two will face off against Trevor St Baker’s Delta Energy and newcomer Rise Renewables for $40 million of funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to fast-track the first pumped hydro storage project in South Australia and beef up security of supply_.

_ARENA chief executive Darren Miller said that with half of South Australia’s energy generation already coming from renewables and rising, there was an increasing need for energy storage “to firm and balance the system in that state”_.


----------



## sptrawler

It will be interesting to see how many runs are on the board, for the Federal Government by the next election, maybe that is why you aren't hearing much from the opposition?
Maybe they aren't keen on blowing their feet off, could be a much smarter Labour Party IMO.
Which is a real breath of fresh air, rather than ranting and chanting, they are taking a measured approach.


----------



## sptrawler

The Hornsdale Power Reserve Battery (Tesla Big Battery) to get a 50% capacity upgrade, the Federal Government ARENA agency to contribute $8m toward the upgrade.

https://www.pv-magazine-australia.c...50-bigger-upgraded-to-provide-system-inertia/


----------



## sptrawler

The Federal Government ARENA agency to contribute $24m toward Alinta/ Fortescue solar/gas hybrid power hub in the Pilbara of Western Australia
https://reneweconomy.com.au/fortesc...use-solar-to-power-huge-iron-ore-mines-14603/
From the article:
_Power utility Alinta Energy and resources giant Fortescue Metals have won federal government backing for their plans to help power the miner’s Pilbara iron ore operations solar and battery storage.
All told, the solar and storage are expected to displace around 100 million litres a year of diesel currently used in the Christmas Creek and Cloudbreak power stations.

The project will go ahead with $24.2 million in funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), and $90 million from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF), subject to ratification from the W.A. government_.


----------



## sptrawler

At least the Government is trying to get ahead of the curve, they are funding $15m into end of life issues for solar panels, which obviously will become a real issue in a few years time.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/12...rch-funding-into-end-of-life-solar-pv-issues/
From the article:
_At the National Smart Energy Summit in Sydney earlier this week, Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) CEO Audrey Zibelman made the exciting claim that by 2040, 25% of Australia’s electricity will come from rooftop solar. With this increasing rate of PV deployment, it is only logical that ARENA will provide significant funding for research to reduce the cost of sustainably managing panels at the end of their life cycles.

ARENA’s funding round aims to improve the economics of recycling, specifically concerning upfront design. It is designed to improve the management of recovered materials, while facilitating the development of innovative ways to reuse, repurpose, and recycle used panel components. ARENA believes the savings made in such areas could significantly lower the overall cost of both large-scale solar PV and rooftop PV generation by responsibly managing waste.

“Currently, solar PV panel recycling adds a cost to the supply chain,” said Darren Miller, CEO of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). “R&D can help find innovative solutions to reduce this cost, enabling sustainable and cost-effective management of solar panels at the end of their life_.”

You never know, it may stop a recurrence of this problem?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05...overnment-for-compensation-pink-batts/7441782


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Given they are approving a gas supply contract surely they could convert it to the lesser pollutant.



Noting that you didn't suggest converting all coal-fired generation to gas, but to put some figures on it (using government data) for the whole country and noting that all figures are annual:

Coal input to power stations = 1642 PJ
Gas input to power stations = 572 PJ
Petroleum input to power stations = 51 PJ

Coal used for all other purposes (mostly manufacturing) = 114 PJ
Gas used for all other purposes = 943 PJ
Petroleum used for all other purposes = 2264 PJ

Gas exported = 3376 PJ
Gas imported = 187 PJ (some production which comes ashore in the NT is technically an import since it's from foreign waters offshore. Physically though the gas lands in Australia).

An issue with gas is that exports occur from WA, NT and Qld whilst the other states are becoming somewhat physically short on supply. There's no current gas production of any significance in NSW, ACT or Tas whilst reserves are seriously depleted in SA and Vic with production in decline.

Looking at gas consumption by state for all purposes except exports (figures don't quite add the national total due to rounding to the nearest PJ) 

WA = 594 PJ
Qld = 309 PJ
Vic = 287 PJ
NSW / ACT = 139 PJ
SA = 126 PJ
NT = 48 PJ
Tas = 13 PJ

Any replacement of the coal input to power stations in NSW or Vic would thus require that a new gas source be made available. The scale of coal use for power generation between those two states is close to 1000 PJ at present. Noted that you didn't suggest doing that, just pointing out the figures. 

If new power stations were built using latest technology then the gas needed to replace coal across NSW and Vic comes down to about 600 PJ per annum with the downside being inflexible operation, that sort of plant isn't well suited to integrating with intermittent renewables.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The Hornsdale Power Reserve Battery (Tesla Big Battery) to get a 50% capacity upgrade, the Federal Government ARENA agency to contribute $8m toward the upgrade.



FWIW the new ones have already arrived physically.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> For those who care to read what the experts recommended, late last year, which in reality is a couple of months ago.



Please realise that there are *NO* *recommendations *in this paper.  
AEMO is aware of what needs to be done and has spelled out the options, but are rudderless.
The big failing of the ISP is that *it is not visionary*.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> ... the Federal Government ARENA agency to contribute $8m toward the upgrade.



It's wonderful that you are digging up a lot of articles about renewables, but *ARENA was created by Labor *in 2011, and Abbott wanted it axed while Morrison now appears to have no intention of refunding it.
So when you say things like:







sptrawler said:


> At least the Government is trying to get ahead of the curve



 you are *not* actually referencing government initiative at all but, instead are talking about an *agency *which the federal government proposes to discontinue despite its leadership in fostering renewable energy .


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Any replacement of the coal input to power stations in NSW or Vic would thus require that a new gas source be made available. The scale of coal use for power generation between those two states is close to 1000 PJ at present. Noted that you didn't suggest doing that, just pointing out the figures.



Thanks @Smurf1976.
No, I would have made the suggestion about full-scale conversion but I know that the federal government has failed to lock down a policy requiring that a proportion of Australia's gas reserves be quarantined from export so that it could be used for domestic energy.
The point I was making in this case was about an opportunity to show leadership and sensitivity to our emissions by demanding that the gas resource be integrated into use by coal-fired power stations wherever possible.  But with Morrison there is no such thought.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Thanks @Smurf1976.
> No, I would have made the suggestion about full-scale conversion but I know that the federal government has failed to lock down a policy requiring that a proportion of Australia's gas reserves be quarantined from export so that it could be used for domestic energy.
> .



Hi Rob, how come Western Australia has a domestic reserve for Australian gas? 
Could that be because the State Government did it.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Hi Rob, how come Western Australia has a domestic reserve for Australian gas?
> Could that be because the State Government did it.



You keep missing the point and add your strawmen.
But yes, Labor in WA introduced the policy in 2006.
The Coalition are more keen to ensure the big corporates bankroll their elections so would never do that.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> You keep missing the point and add your strawmen.
> But yes, Labor in WA introduced the policy in 2006.
> The Coalition are more keen to ensure the big corporates bankroll their elections so would never do that.



I was just wondering why the States fidnt do it, when you consider they have the gas turbines and domestic usage?
I dont think anyone misses your point Rob.lol


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Thanks @Smurf1976.
> No, I would have made the suggestion about full-scale conversion but I know that the federal government has failed to lock down a policy requiring that a proportion of Australia's gas reserves be quarantined from export so that it could be used for domestic energy




Another aspect is that having a coal-fired power station intentionally located where the coal is but ending up without any coal to run it with is itself a prime example of the lack of foresight.

Environmental issues aside, if you’re going to burn coal well then at the risk of stating the obvious you need coal to burn. Exporting it all until there’s nothing left isn’t particularly smart.

This is the third time it has happened by the way. A coal-fired power station surrounded by coal mines ending up without any coal because the mines were over worked, the coal exported, and it ran out thus leaving the power station without any fuel.

Same thing happened at Munmorah in NSW and at Swanbank A and B in Queensland. All ended up being knocked down although the latter was road hauling (yep, trucks not trains) coal from about 200km away for a while.

The whole thing needs some planning and foresight.


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> I was just wondering why the States fidnt do it, when you consider they have the gas turbines and domestic usage?
> I dont think anyone misses your point Rob.lol




The Liberals Australia wide are big on free markets, in Australia that's the title they give to monopolies clearly the East Coast is a major fail regarding domestic gas supplies particularly when states are scrambling to build import terminals.

The electricty prices are another complete disaster (that free market again) but note I know off a proposal to build a high tech facility here in WA with power supplied cheaper than China.........


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> You keep missing the point and add your strawmen.
> But yes, Labor in WA introduced the policy in 2006.
> *The Coalition are more keen to ensure the big corporates bankroll their elections so would never do that*.



Collin Barnett (Coalition) also made the gas reservation conditions on the W.A gas discoveries, Alan Carpenter was the Labour Party Premier who introduced the policy.

Here is a old news article for you Rob, just to add a bit of balance, to cover your comment above, that I highlighted.
http://www.miningweekly.com/article...gas-reservation-policy-2016-04-12/rep_id:3650
From the article:
_Speaking at the opening of the eighteenth liquefied natural gas (LNG) conference, in Perth, on Tuesday, Barnett noted that gas *reservation had been in place in Western Australia since the 1980s, and had more recently been defined as an equivalent of 15% of LNG exports to be made available to the domestic market*_.

There you go Rob, maybe you can do a bit of checking.

The other interesting thing is Federal Labour didn't back Barnett when he pushed for onshore processing of the Browse Basin gas, so now we have a ship sitting 100klm offshore processing our gas and sending it away.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> The Liberals Australia wide are big on free markets, in Australia that's the title they give to monopolies clearly the East Coast is a major fail regarding domestic gas supplies particularly when states are scrambling to build import terminals.
> 
> The electricty prices are another complete disaster (that free market again) but note I know off a proposal to build a high tech facility here in WA with power supplied cheaper than China.........



Labour in W.A are proving to be really good, not so much in Queensland, they helped put in the gas export terminal now they probably have to help with an import terminal.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Environmental issues aside, if you’re going to burn coal well then at the risk of stating the obvious you need coal to burn. Exporting it all until there’s nothing left isn’t particularly smart.




And then they made the same mistake with gas.

What morons.


----------



## Smurf1976

As an update on the situation in south-west Victoria and in SA:

*All load is being supplied business as usual. Nobody's in the dark, industry is running and so on. This SA + south-west Vic system represents approximately a one third increase on normal load in SA so combined with the electrical separation of SA from the other states, apart from via a low capacity DC link, is a very significant abruptly forced change.

*This power system is currently in a configuration for which there is zero prior operating experience but so far, so good. AEMO is continuing to monitor and evaluate the situation and may well make changes.

*Compared to normal the current configuration has unavoidable fragility in parts, has a reduced ability to meet peak demands, a restricted ability to utilise wind and solar generation, substantially higher operating costs and higher CO2 emissions. AEMO is looking to see if it can be improved but bottom line is that it was up and running within 3 hours of the unexpected incident on Friday and so far it's working.

*Best estimate is mid-February to return one of the two damaged transmission lines to service. Restoring one line will not resolve all the issues, there's a valid reason for having two, but it'll be a vast improvement on the current arrangement and at least partially resolves every aspect of the situation. 

*More work will then follow to make permanent repairs and do the second line. No set date as yet but it's the sort of thing that won't be delayed any longer than it has to be.

*The Bureau of Meteorology has examined the situation and concluded that a "convective downburst" occurred. This is a weather phenomenon not an electrical one so I won't claim to know much about it other than that in layman's terms it means seriously strong wind occurred over a localised area and this wind is the almost certain cause of the towers falling over.

*Analysis thus far shows that a large volume of rooftop solar in SA temporarily shut down on Friday immediately following the incident and restarted later as system frequency returned to normal. This was the desired response, removing supply from the system following the loss of load (flow on the lines was at high levels SA into Vic when it occurred), and it's good to see that these systems worked as intended under a real major incident scenario.

There's a photo showing some of the damage here (link to Channel 10 news Twitter) :


----------



## sptrawler

A very good article on the ABC website today, explaining the technical difficulties that the AEMO is experiencing, with the solar Farms in the mid West of NSW.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02...duce-output-to-grid/11912848?section=business
From the article:
_The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) says the scale and pace of solar and wind generators being connected in remote areas of the national grid is "presenting unprecedented technical issues" affecting the grid's performance and operational stability.

The five solar farms in the so-called the West Murray region — which spans north-west Victoria and the far west of NSW taking in Broken Hill, Bannerton, Wemen, Gannawarra and Karadoc — were ordered by AEMO to cut their energy output after a technical fault in September put the stability of the entire national grid at risk.
Work is under way to come up with a solution to the problem but the exact nature, causes, and extent of it are still becoming apparent._
*Complications a surprise*
_According to the market operator, its decision to cut the farms' output was made to "protect the integrity of the electricity system".

It followed a transmission fault in September traced back to the solar farms which had produced "voltage oscillations" that exceeded regulated limits, an AEMO spokesman said.

Mr Grant said there was "clearly a need to reconfigure the network" from what he called the "hub and spoke model" — where large thermal generators in Victoria's Latrobe Valley and the NSW Hunter Valley are linked to major urban centres on the east coast via "transmission backbones".

While planning for that was well under way, Mr Grant said the problems that forced the curtailment were not entirely anticipated.

"It wasn't clear that there would be this level of technical problem in the early stages," Mr Grant said.

"So all of these projects were built, they were commissioned, they received a registration from AEMO and were operating quite normally, until the third quarter of last year when AEMO decided that collectively they were posing a problem to the system's security.
I think AEMO have been using the West Murray as a bit of a laboratory on how to look at bringing on clusters of projects.

"Individually, all these projects met their registration and commissioning requirements with AEMO. It was only when they looked at them as a group they decided there was something they didn't like.

"So the process now for other projects, as they come to completion of construction and into commissioning, is they will bring them on one-by-one and look at them as a cluster or a wide area network of generation."
"In fairness to [AEMO], they are very busy in trying to manage this very rapid transition and resourcing up their organisation and bringing in the right technical capacities to be able to assess the impact of multiple new generators joining the market in a relatively short period of time, with relatively new technology — particularly in the solar space where the system control capabilities of the inverters that sit within the solar farms is quite sophisticated.

"I think there is a fair bit of learning by doing at AEMO as well."
An AEMO spokesman said the West Murray area was still attracting significant new investment interest "despite being a remote and electrically weak part of the electricity network".

"Thermal and stability limits mean it will not be possible for many of these projects to connect or generate at full output ahead of significant investment in network infrastructure," the spokesman said.
In its latest integrated system plan, the market operator has identified two infrastructure projects it says would help alleviate the issues in the area — a new interconnector between South Australia and NSW which is likely to be delivered within the next five years, and another longer term project to build an interconnector linking Victoria and NSW near Kerang.

"This is an emerging phenomenon that has not been seen at scale in other developed power systems around the world," the AEMO spokesman said.

"The nature, extent, and causes of these issues are only becoming apparent with advanced and detailed modelling capability that is now essential for technical assessments in remote and weak areas of the grid.

"NEM requirements are leading the development of this capability_."

As you said smurf sounds like a lot of technical effort will be required, big job, by the sounds of it.


----------



## Smurf1976

One problem with inverters, and they're present in every solar or other DC system feeding the grid, is that they can be a bit like humans. Fine individually but they don't always play nicely together and "strange things happen" which can have rather nasty consequences.

At the extreme, I'm aware of the existence of a few ~1 kW inverters which reliably pick a fight with a 478,000 kW one. They lose every battle, reset and restart, then try again next time the big one's in the 0 - 50,000 kW output range. They'll never win but suffer no harm engaging in a twice daily punch up which they've been doing for over a decade now.

Have a few big ones on the same end of the line generating serious power and then it's far more of a concern if they don't play nicely which it seems they don't in the case you're referring to.


----------



## macca

I find this interesting, are we that far ahead of the world with bulk solar power output that we need to invent a way of managing the energy produced. It would seem that the SA/NSW link could have an extra benefit if we can link that to the farms
_
"This is an emerging phenomenon that has not been seen at scale in other developed power systems around the world," the AEMO spokesman said._


----------



## SirRumpole

macca said:


> I find this interesting, are we that far ahead of the world with bulk solar power output that we need to invent a way of managing the energy produced. It would seem that the SA/NSW link could have an extra benefit if we can link that to the farms
> _
> "This is an emerging phenomenon that has not been seen at scale in other developed power systems around the world," the AEMO spokesman said._




Well, Turnbull had the right idea with Snowy Hydro 2.0, but the current government doesn't seem interested in doing much of anything in the area of storage.

Didn't Morrison once describe SA's battery as a "big banana" ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Well, Turnbull had the right idea with Snowy Hydro 2.0, but the current government doesn't seem interested in doing much of anything in the area of storage.
> 
> Didn't Morrison once describe SA's battery as a "big banana" ?




Is that a 2017 in the corner of the clip?
Also the Government has put money in, to increase the SA battery size by 50%, smurf said it is actually happening ATM.
With regard the Snowy 2.0, I posted up an article that said their workshop and vehicles were hit by the fires, so it sounds as though there is work happening on the ground there.
But I personally think the Federal Government should be focusing on storage, the ROE on storage will be nowhere near as good as generation, so the Government should be heavily subsidising it IMO.
As you say, they don't appear to be doing a lot in that space.


----------



## sptrawler

macca said:


> I find this interesting, are we that far ahead of the world with bulk solar power output that we need to invent a way of managing the energy produced. It would seem that the SA/NSW link could have an extra benefit if we can link that to the farms
> _
> "This is an emerging phenomenon that has not been seen at scale in other developed power systems around the world," the AEMO spokesman said._



Our HV grid is pretty unusual as it covers a massive area, and in a lot of the areas are lightly loaded, this causes a lot of problems with stability.
The other issue is the power lines as they go further out get smaller, because they are carrying less load, now we are putting in solar generators and connecting to these small lines, this also cause stability and heating problems.
In reality a lot of our H.V transmission has to be re built and sizes increased, to be able to accept this extra power being injected, it is being done but it takes time.
Smurf will probably explain it better.
Here is an article including a diagram showing our H.V transmission system, it is a bit old, but gives an idea of the layout.
https://electrical-engineering-port...-australias-electricity-transmission-networks


----------



## IFocus

Sounds like AEMO  are under funded or under resourced to look at the engineering over all. 

Have seen that repeatedly in industry where there simply are not enough eyes looking at detail.

The engineering here is not that technical but clearly outside of the AEMO experience.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Sounds like AEMO  are under funded or under resourced to look at the engineering over all.
> 
> Have seen that repeatedly in industry where there simply are not enough eyes looking at detail.
> 
> The engineering here is not that technical but clearly outside of the AEMO experience.



I'm not sure, but maybe the AEMO started as more of a regulatory body than a technical body, but obviously as you say they need to pick up the pace on the technical side even if that means outsourcing it.
I suppose then though you end up with the same situation as the NSW building problems, with things falling to bits, catch 22 really under investment in technical people situation normal.


----------



## Smurf1976

macca said:


> I find this interesting, are we that far ahead of the world with bulk solar power output that we need to invent a way of managing the energy produced.




SA is at the extreme globally so far as any substantial power system is concerned in that wind + solar can at times go well over 100% of consumption with the rest sent to Victoria. Household systems alone can and do meet over 50% of total system load on occasion.

The basic issues which come from all this are many:

Small solar systems are not under any form of central control, they keep generating regardless of consumption. That's fine if they're only 1% of the total but when they are collectively supplying more than half the load then that's an issue if a major load (eg mines, factories, the CBD) is lost due to a fault. Can't stop all that solar without pushing system frequency up and that's akin to slowing the car down by deliberately running off the road.

That power flows in the network have greatly changed means there are a lot of bottlenecks that weren't previously an issue. What was of adequate capacity becomes inadequate if someone sticks a great big wind or solar farm at the end of it. It's akin to someone opening up a freight depot at the end of a quiet suburban street - all of sudden there's a problem now that you've got road trains going past on a road that just wasn't built to take them.

That production doesn't follow demand well is another one. Midday is peak solar output but has never been a time of high demand - it's always been somewhere in the middle. That problem can however be fixed by a combination of batteries and small pumped hydro (daily storage to soak up the midday surplus and use it during the evening etc) and large scale pumped hydro (longer term storage because not every day is windy or has a lot of sun). The "big Tesla battery" in SA is an example of the former as are AGL's planned batteries in NSW whilst Snowy 2.0 is an example of the latter. Ultimately more will be needed but they represent a step forward, they give some capacity to fix this part of the issue.

Where there's more concern and a lack of practical experience in the real world is with how all this responds under fault conditions. The entire grid and the concepts surrounding it all rely on the notion that a short circuit = extremely high current flow which trips the circuit breaker and disconnects the problem. Everything from the wiring in your house to major transmission lines all rely on that principle. To work though that requires that the source of generation can deliver that huge current when required and there's the difficulty.

Hydro and steam plant is very much like a freight train - it just plows on ahead no matter what, you won't stop it easily. If you've got a few hundred tonnes of metal spinning and being pushed along by 100,000 litres of water per second going through a turbine or steam at over 500 degrees and with a pressure of 16,000 kPa well then you're not going to be stopping that too easily. There's a lot of sheer mechanical grunt there - if anything gets in the way then rest assured that the machine will barely slow down.

Gas turbines aren't quite in the same league, in layman's terms they're a jet engine sitting on the ground turning an alternator, but there's still some decent mechanical grunt involved there. Same with diesel engines.

An inverter however has far more in common with a computer indeed it is in fact a bunch of electronics. That's where some of the difficulty arises - as anyone who's used computers will know, they're far more fussy than something that's purely mechanical and if things aren't right then there's a good chance that they throw in the towel completely and just don't go. That's not a desirable response in a power system reliant on huge fault currents being delivered with the generation source being "dumb" and just plowing ahead akin to the freight train.

There are workarounds to all that yes but, and here's the pointy bit of the argument, that comes down to proper design, testing and operational experience and there's a couple of issues there.

First is that what we're doing, particularly in SA, is akin to someone circa 1920 deciding that they'd build a huge airplane comparable to an A380. The rest of the world's putting fairly modest amounts of wind and solar into existing strong grids whereas in SA we're in a situation of having wind and solar at times able to supply literally the entire load and that's in a system that's rather weak (electrically) to start with. There's not a lot of experience to draw upon here, we're making it up as we go to some extent.

Lack of big industrial loads in SA is a problem in that regard. The presence of the separate aluminium, manganese and zinc smelters in Tasmania for example is a huge benefit in stabilising the system since they can and do vary load immediately in response to any disturbance.

Likewise the presence of the large aluminium smelter in Victoria is rather critical in operating the rest of the system - take that out and it becomes far more difficult to accommodate the movement of electricity between Victoria and NSW for example, since the smelter's providing a lot of frequency control services back into the grid. etc.

Can't vary the input to big electrolytic smelting loads in SA since in order to do that you need to have such a thing in the first place.

Finally there's the dilemma of AEMO in all this and the problem's explained in the name. Australian Energy *Market* Operator.

In function it's not overly dissimilar to the ASX. It operates a market. What the politicians forgot about in setting it up though is that it really also needs to perform a lot more functions than just that - engineering for example.

A problem when the utilities were split up and mostly privatised is that there used to be lots of people doing technical things both day to day and of a forward planning or purely research nature. Most of that was simply abandoned completely since it just didn't fit with any one company and in any event, doing it requires full access to the details of everything regardless of who owns it.

To cut a long story short there's been a pretty major ramping up of that sort of thing following the 2016 system black in SA but there's a lot of hands tied due partly to politics and partly the ownership structure. AEMO can't go and build anything for example but they can and do make the issues known with the intent that someone else picks up the idea and builds. AEMO can write a lot of reports, they can be very specific and they can make sure the right people know those reports exist but they can't force someone to build a $100 million asset.

As for the politics well that's just a pain. It's all down to tip toeing around issues lest it gets anyone offside. So they can't say that the intent is to close coal but they can do a hypothetical exercise as to what would happen if someone built lots of wind and solar and it just so happens that the outcome of that is using less coal. Same thing just a different way of saying it.

The politics is far easier in Tas and SA than elsewhere however and for much the same reason in both states. SA has a small oil and gas industry, Tas has a small coal mining industry, but in both states renewables development offers a far more likely path to an economic boom than do fossil fuels and that's readily apparent to the public so it's a losing game for any side of state politics to argue otherwise. Both states thus have the somewhat intriguing situation of a Liberal government that's pro-renewables and says so publicly.


----------



## sptrawler

Absolutely brilliant write up smurf. Priceless mate.


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> Labour in W.A are proving to be really good,




Pretty much similar to Barnett Gov except for Metronet and a hand full of other issues thankfully no scandals from either governments, shezzas if only the federal government be 1/2 of a Barnett  government instead of the over top  BS politics played by this mob.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Is that a 2017 in the corner of the clip?




Yes, he ridiculed the battery in 2017 because the Labor party were in then but now his lot are in in SA suddenly he thinks it's a great idea.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> As an update on the situation in south-west Victoria and in SA:
> 
> *All load is being supplied business as usual. Nobody's in the dark, industry is running and so on. This SA + south-west Vic system represents approximately a one third increase on normal load in SA so combined with the electrical separation of SA from the other states, apart from via a low capacity DC link, is a very significant abruptly forced change.
> 
> *This power system is currently in a configuration for which there is zero prior operating experience but so far, so good. AEMO is continuing to monitor and evaluate the situation and may well make changes.
> 
> *Compared to normal the current configuration has unavoidable fragility in parts, has a reduced ability to meet peak demands, a restricted ability to utilise wind and solar generation, substantially higher operating costs and higher CO2 emissions. AEMO is looking to see if it can be improved but bottom line is that it was up and running within 3 hours of the unexpected incident on Friday and so far it's working.
> 
> *Best estimate is mid-February to return one of the two damaged transmission lines to service. Restoring one line will not resolve all the issues, there's a valid reason for having two, but it'll be a vast improvement on the current arrangement and at least partially resolves every aspect of the situation.
> 
> *More work will then follow to make permanent repairs and do the second line. No set date as yet but it's the sort of thing that won't be delayed any longer than it has to be.
> 
> *The Bureau of Meteorology has examined the situation and concluded that a "convective downburst" occurred. This is a weather phenomenon not an electrical one so I won't claim to know much about it other than that in layman's terms it means seriously strong wind occurred over a localised area and this wind is the almost certain cause of the towers falling over.
> 
> *Analysis thus far shows that a large volume of rooftop solar in SA temporarily shut down on Friday immediately following the incident and restarted later as system frequency returned to normal. This was the desired response, removing supply from the system following the loss of load (flow on the lines was at high levels SA into Vic when it occurred), and it's good to see that these systems worked as intended under a real major incident scenario.
> 
> There's a photo showing some of the damage here (link to Channel 10 news Twitter) :





Is Murrylink still operational?


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Pretty much similar to Barnett Gov except for Metronet and a hand full of other issues thankfully no scandals from either governments, shezzas if only the federal government be 1/2 of a Barnett  government instead of the over top  BS politics played by this mob.



Absolutely, McGowan is doing what Barnett did, says nothing and just gets on with the job. Very little BS, plenty of action, the way Government should be IMO.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Collin Barnett (Coalition) also made the gas reservation conditions on the W.A gas discoveries, Alan Carpenter was the Labour Party Premier who introduced the policy.
> 
> Here is a old news article for you Rob, just to add a bit of balance, to cover your comment above, that I highlighted.
> http://www.miningweekly.com/article...gas-reservation-policy-2016-04-12/rep_id:3650
> From the article:
> _Speaking at the opening of the eighteenth liquefied natural gas (LNG) conference, in Perth, on Tuesday, Barnett noted that gas *reservation had been in place in Western Australia since the 1980s, and had more recently been defined as an equivalent of 15% of LNG exports to be made available to the domestic market*_.
> 
> There you go Rob, maybe you can do a bit of checking.
> 
> The other interesting thing is Federal Labour didn't back Barnett when he pushed for onshore processing of the Browse Basin gas, so now we have a ship sitting 100klm offshore processing our gas and sending it away.




You might be confusing Woodside with Shell


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> You might be confusing Woodside with Shell



No I know they are two seperate gas issues, Allan Carpenter organised the first gas reserve issue with Woodside from memory, then Barnett set up the 15% reserve for the Chevron Barrow Island and Scarborough field in the Kimberly from memory.
I would have to read up on it all to get the exact scenario, but both Carpenter and Barnett, went against big business in the best interest of W.A.
Also because of the gas reserve policy, the coal is shutting down very quickly in W.A, which is becoming a bit of a political hot potato with Collie.
There are 4 large gas turbines at Kwinana, currently Stages A and C steam turbines are being demolished, one would guess another four gas turbines will be installed in their place.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> Is Murrylink still operational?



Yes - Murraylink (the DC link between Vic and SA) is still in normal operation.

For practical reasons it's running up to about 160 MW most of the time (capacity is 220 MW).

Flow has been in both directions but currently SA to Vic. If the wind stops or demand goes up (eg hot or cold weather) then it would be flowing in the other direction.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> No I know they are two seperate gas issues, Allan Carpenter organised the first gas reserve issue with Woodside from memory, then Barnett set up the 15% reserve for the Chevron Barrow Island and Scarborough field in the Kimberly from memory.
> I would have to read up on it all to get the exact scenario, but both Carpenter and Barnett, went against big business in the best interest of W.A.
> Also because of the gas reserve policy, the coal is shutting down very quickly in W.A, which is becoming a bit of a political hot potato with Collie.
> There are 4 large gas turbines at Kwinana, currently Stages A and C steam turbines are being demolished, one would guess another four gas turbines will be installed in their place.




Nah Carpenter introduced it in 2006 same policy nothing to do with your idol Col
The ship offshore is The Shell Prelude Woodside are bringing Browse through Karratha they didn’t want Cols James Price Point
The Prelude was underway before they abandoned James Price Point


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> You might be confusing Woodside with Shell



Actually if you want to go back even further, Charlie Court (Liberal) Premier organised the first gas installation in the late 1960's. 
He signed the W.A Government up to a take or pay contract, for gas they couldn't use, then SECWA converted Kwinana power station over from oil fired to oil/gas fired so that some of the gas could be used.
So in reality it isn't which Party is in Power it is the quality and vision of those in the Party that dictate how well they do. 
That is why I'm not rusted on anyone, IMO in recent history Federally neither Party has been endowed with good politicians, it is just IMO the Coalition has been the lesser of two evils.


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Nah Carpenter introduced it in 2006 same policy nothing to do with your idol Col
> The ship offshore is The Shell Prelude Woodside are bringing Browse through Karratha they didn’t want Cols James Price Point
> The Prelude was underway before they abandoned James Price Point



Nah if you want to be pedantic, Carpenters reservation policy, was a copy of Charlie Courts.

*Domestic gas reservation policy[edit]*
In 2006, the state government announced a policy requiring that future developers of export gas projects set aside 15% of the reserves in each gas field for domestic use within the state.[35] This policy replicated the initial State Agreement for the North West Shelf Project, and was based on a perceived decline in the availability of gas from non-export developments.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Actually if you want to go back even further, Charlie Court (Liberal) Premier organised the first gas installation in the late 1960's.
> He signed the W.A Government up to a take or pay contract, for gas they couldn't use, then SECWA converted Kwinana power station over from oil fired to oil/gas fired so that some of the gas could be used.
> So in reality it isn't which Party is in Power it is the quality and vision of those in the Party that dictate how well they do.
> That is why I'm not rusted on anyone, IMO in recent history Federally neither Party has been endowed with good politicians, it is just IMO the Coalition has been the lesser of two evils.



Only when it’s not your party is what you mean
Carpenter legislated it in 2006 end of story


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Only when it’s not your party is what you mean
> Carpenter legislated it in 2006 end of story



Yes however that didn't cover Gas in Commonwealth waters from memory. Barnett formalised the agreement with the Federal Government. You really need to lighten up comrade. Maybe a glass of rainex rust converter?

*What happens if gas is processed offshore?*
_New developments in technology mean that:_

_gas projects which previously had to be processed onshore can remain entirely in Commonwealth waters; and_
_gas can be transported large distances through a subsea pipeline for downstream processing in other jurisdictions._
_In these instances the WA Government has no formal ability to enforce the Domestic Gas Reservation Policy_.
_Premier Barnett has stated that the WA Government has approached the Commonwealth Government to include a domestic gas requirement as a condition for the grant or renewal of offshore petroleum leases in Commonwealth waters. It is so far unclear whether the Commonwealth Government is open to such a requirement._


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Yes however that didn't cover Gas in Commonwealth waters from memory. Barnett formalised the agreement with the Federal Government. You really need to lighten up comrade. Maybe a glass of rainex rust converter?
> 
> *What happens if gas is processed offshore?*
> _New developments in technology mean that:_
> 
> _gas projects which previously had to be processed onshore can remain entirely in Commonwealth waters; and_
> _gas can be transported large distances through a subsea pipeline for downstream processing in other jurisdictions._
> _In these instances the WA Government has no formal ability to enforce the Domestic Gas Reservation Policy_.
> _Premier Barnett has stated that the WA Government has approached the Commonwealth Government to include a domestic gas requirement as a condition for the grant or renewal of offshore petroleum leases in Commonwealth waters. It is so far unclear whether the Commonwealth Government is open to such a requirement._




Have you got a link to that agreement 
Just wondering how they get 15% of their gas here if it isn’t processed here


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Have you got a link to that agreement
> Just wondering how they get 15% of their gas here if it isn’t processed here




https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov....ate-gets-new-domestic-NWS-gas-commitment.aspx

Here is another Barnett article that is interesting, as IFocus says, we Barnett always had W.A at heart.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-28/colin-barnett-to-eastern-states-copy-wa-gas-policy/8311950

Allan Carpenter was a great Premier, it just shows there are some great reporters, he only stayed for a short period couldn't stomach the BS in politics. Top bloke, a man of principles IMO.

Getting back to the domestic reserve policy, what cracks me up is, the Federal Government is getting the blame for it when it is a State issue.
Some people are just weird.


----------



## Humid

It’s not like Woodside had an option it was legislated in 2006
Where’s the link to Cols commonwealth agreement?


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> It’s not like Woodside had an option it was legislated in 2006
> Where’s the link to Cols commonwealth agreement?



Jeez talk about rusted on, you even said yourself, how could you reserve gas if it isn't processed onshore three posts ago. Just can't bring yourself to give any credit to anyone but Labour, you need to open up a bit, one side of politics doesn't have the monopoly on quality people, both sides have them.
Anyway back to the offshore gas, Barnett wouldn't let them develop it unless they agreed to his demands, a shame Eastern States didn't have the same attitude.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/wa-deal-lets-browse-project-process-lng-offshore/news-story/af0944896331e9002ed86c60b1987348&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium

Also with regard the gas reservation policy, like I said Charlie Court started the reservation and it was formalised by Carpenter in 2006, but that was due to run out in 2020 when the last of the gas contracts was due to expire.
Barnett renegotiated an agreement in 2014, that included new gas fields, gas contracts and offshore processing, if you want any more info, look for it yourself it isn't that hard.
https://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/Hansard/hansard.nsf/0/7263acb6e65e387948257dc8000d9178/$FILE/A39 S1 20141126 p8830c-8832a.pdf

You know you can google the information yourself, while you're sitting in the donga.

 On the same subject this is also why it is a State issue to reserve gas, they use it, the contract for gas reservation is between the supplier and the user.


----------



## Humid

Humid said:


> Have you got a link to that agreement
> Just wondering how they get 15% of their gas here if it isn’t processed here




So you obviously made this agreement up


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> So you obviously made this agreement up



Paragraph 6 in the Hansard report, you can use your fingers, if required.
You certainly are a strange person.
Been in the 'wet' canteen have you?


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Jeez talk about rusted on, you even said yourself, how could you reserve gas if it isn't processed onshore three posts ago. Just can't bring yourself to give any credit to anyone but Labour, you need to open up a bit, one side of politics doesn't have the monopoly on quality people, both sides have them.
> Anyway back to the offshore gas, Barnett wouldn't let them develop it unless they agreed to his demands, a shame Eastern States didn't have the same attitude.
> https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/wa-deal-lets-browse-project-process-lng-offshore/news-story/af0944896331e9002ed86c60b1987348&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium
> 
> Also with regard the gas reservation policy, like I said Charlie Court started the reservation and it was formalised by Carpenter in 2006, but that was due to run out in 2020 when the last of the gas contracts was due to expire.
> Barnett renegotiated an agreement in 2014, that included new gas fields, gas contracts and offshore processing, if you want any more info, look for it yourself it isn't that hard.
> https://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/Hansard/hansard.nsf/0/7263acb6e65e387948257dc8000d9178/$FILE/A39 S1 20141126 p8830c-8832a.pdf
> 
> You know you can google the information yourself, while you're sitting in the donga.
> 
> On the same subject this is also why it is a State issue to reserve gas, they use it, the contract for gas reservation is between the supplier and the user.






sptrawler said:


> Jeez talk about rusted on, you even said yourself, how could you reserve gas if it isn't processed onshore three posts ago. Just can't bring yourself to give any credit to anyone but Labour, you need to open up a bit, one side of politics doesn't have the monopoly on quality people, both sides have them.
> Anyway back to the offshore gas, Barnett wouldn't let them develop it unless they agreed to his demands, a shame Eastern States didn't have the same attitude.
> https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/wa-deal-lets-browse-project-process-lng-offshore/news-story/af0944896331e9002ed86c60b1987348&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium
> 
> Also with regard the gas reservation policy, like I said Charlie Court started the reservation and it was formalised by Carpenter in 2006, but that was due to run out in 2020 when the last of the gas contracts was due to expire.
> Barnett renegotiated an agreement in 2014, that included new gas fields, gas contracts and offshore processing, if you want any more info, look for it yourself it isn't that hard.
> https://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/Hansard/hansard.nsf/0/7263acb6e65e387948257dc8000d9178/$FILE/A39 S1 20141126 p8830c-8832a.pdf
> 
> You know you can google the information yourself, while you're sitting in the donga.
> 
> On the same subject this is also why it is a State issue to reserve gas, they use it, the contract for gas reservation is between the supplier and the user.




There’s a paywall on you Link which means you obviously subscribe to it

Explains everything


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> There’s a paywall on you Link which means you obviously subscribe to it
> 
> Explains everything



No I don't subscribe, but if you open the link and wait 5 seconds, there will be a brief summary which explains the issue.
It must be lonely up there.
By the way, I don't subscribe to any newspaper or any other material, also don't watch the news, I read and gather information then work out the $hit from the clay. It would be great if everyone did it.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Paragraph 6 in the Hansard report, you can use your fingers, if required.
> You certainly are a strange person.
> Been in the 'wet' canteen have you?




Ffs
Do you understand the difference between the north west shelf and browse


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Ffs
> Do you understand the difference between the north west shelf and browse



FFS can't you read, or google $hit, or is English your second language?
Now do your own research.
https://www.energynewsbulletin.net/australia/news/1090525/woodside-barnett-agree-on-browse-base
From the article:
_Putting a supply base in Western Australia was one of the conditions Premier Colin Barnett put on the state renewing the portion of the retention leases covering those gas fields that are within WA waters.

*The rest of the retention leases are in Commonwealth waters*.

Barnett sensationally told the recent Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association conference in Perth that i*f the Browse joint venturers wanted the retention leases renewed they had to commit to a supply base in WA and a domestic gas allocation*_.


----------



## Value Collector

Infigen (IFN) seem to be snuggling up with Tesla.

Infigen have installed a Large 25MW/52MW Tesla battery at their one of their wind farm sites to help smooth/firm up output from one of their 8 wind farms.

But, they have also announced they are now the supplier of electricity to Teslas National super charging network.

----------------
Infigen operate 8 wind farms and a solar Farm and all have contracted supply from 2 other renewable projects owned by others.

They also own a Tesla Battery and an Open cycle Gas power plant in western Sydney which they use to firm up contracted supply from their wind farms.

They are still a relatively small company $770 Market cap, But they have a pretty interesting strategy.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/infigen...esla-australia-ev-supercharger-network-50181/


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Didn't Morrison once describe SA's battery as a "big banana" ?





He is a Turd.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> FFS can't you read, or google $hit, or is English your second language?
> Now do your own research.
> https://www.energynewsbulletin.net/australia/news/1090525/woodside-barnett-agree-on-browse-base
> From the article:
> _Putting a supply base in Western Australia was one of the conditions Premier Colin Barnett put on the state renewing the portion of the retention leases covering those gas fields that are within WA waters.
> 
> *The rest of the retention leases are in Commonwealth waters*.
> 
> Barnett sensationally told the recent Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association conference in Perth that i*f the Browse joint venturers wanted the retention leases renewed they had to commit to a supply base in WA and a domestic gas allocation*_.




An imaginary supply base complete with imaginary FLNG ship
It's going through Karratha pops


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> FFS can't you read, or google $hit, or is English your second language?




From a bloke that can't spell Labor


----------



## Humid

Your hero Barnett put the Browse gas field 5 years behind by trying to ram James Price Point down Woodsides neck


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> On the same subject this is also why it is a State issue to reserve gas, they use it, the contract for gas reservation is between the supplier and the user.



States can certainly negotiate agreements with producers for supply.  However, it is completely wrong to suggest that "*it is a State issue to reserve gas*" as the federal government is able to legislate on national energy policy, which has an *overarching *impact on all States.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> States can certainly negotiate agreements with producers for supply.  However, it is completely wrong to suggest that "*it is a State issue to reserve gas*" as the federal government is able to legislate on national energy policy, which has an *overarching *impact on all States.



As long as it was reserved, I guess it doesn't matter who did it, as long as it was done.
Way too much finger pointing and grand standing. IMO


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> As long as it was reserved, I guess it doesn't matter who did it, as long as it was done.
> Way too much finger pointing and grand standing. IMO



Well it was great for WA to do it, but as it was not part of any national plan, those States without significant gas reserves don't get to have a say in what their needs are.
So yes, it does matter who does it as what is happening is not equitable.


----------



## basilio

Excellent new technology to create emission free hydrogen from natural gas.
AFC energy fuel cells are going places.
*AFC Energy Inks Pact With HiiROC To Produce Clean Hydrogen*
from Alliance News | 27th January 2020 13:55

(Alliance News) - AFC Energy PLC on Monday said it has entered into an agreement to use HiiROC Ltd's plasma process to convert natural gas into a clean hydrogen stream for fuel cell.

AFC, a developer of alkaline fuel cells which use hydrogen for electricity production, has entered into binding preliminary agreement with green hydrogen generation technology developer HiiROC under which the companies intend to commercialise HiiROC's plasma-based technology.

HiiROC's technology produces clean zero carbon dioxide emission hydrogen through a plasma process fuelled by natural gas or biogas, converting hydrocarbons into a clean hydrogen and solid carbon.

Under the commercialisation agreement, AFC will get global preferential rights to integrate HiiROC's plasma-based technology with the company's proprietary H-Power fuel cell, which is expected to lead to a GBP2 million initial reduction in hydrogen cost to AFC Energy
https://www.ii.co.uk/news/afc-energ...-produce-clean-hydrogen-al1580133316431407900


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> However, it is completely wrong to suggest that "*it is a State issue to reserve gas*" as the federal government is able to legislate on national energy policy, which has an *overarching *impact on all States.



For the record SA had the idea of reserving gas for use only within SA back in the 1980’s.

Laws may have changed but the legal situation at the time turned out to be that doing so would have been contrary to the Australian Constitution which says something about free trade between states being a given that can’t be stopped unless for reasons of quarantine etc.

Victoria had similar ideas about thwarting any attempt to build a Vic - Tas pipeline during the great dams debate of the early 1980’s. No real fuss ensued since such a pipeline wasn’t built at the time, the idea later revived in the 1990’s with the pipeline finally operating in 2002.


----------



## sptrawler

Shell to build a 120MW solar farm at Wandoan, Queensland.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-shell-australia-solar-idUSKBN20104W


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Shell to build a 120MW solar farm at Wandoan, Queensland.




Shell have tip toed around the edges of the power industry since the early 1980's but never really got anywhere apart from selling oil and gas to power stations.  This might finally change that......

Meanwhile Smurf gets on soapbox and says something about avoiding those who are burning investors' money in this sector since there's quite a few doing that as I've been on about for a while: https://www.theage.com.au/environme...iled-as-grid-links-stall-20200209-p53z3l.html

It's all possible, it can be made to work, but all this stuff isn't even slightly close to being "plug and play" and is no place for those who don't have an extremely firm grip on the technical side.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Shell have tip toed around the edges of the power industry since the early 1980's but never really got anywhere apart from selling oil and gas to power stations.  This might finally change that......
> 
> Meanwhile Smurf gets on soapbox and says something about avoiding those who are burning investors' money in this sector since there's quite a few doing that as I've been on about for a while: https://www.theage.com.au/environme...iled-as-grid-links-stall-20200209-p53z3l.html
> 
> It's all possible, it can be made to work, but all this stuff isn't even slightly close to being "plug and play" and is no place for those who don't have an extremely firm grip on the technical side.



As the article points out:
*"If AEMO had performed their role as the network planner properly, they would have forecast these problems occurring well beforehand, thereby avoiding pushing these projects to the economic brink after they are built."*
@sptrawler keeps saying it will all work itself out, and I keep saying that there is no policy supporting renewables.
There was a comment earlier that Australia's problems in accommodating the the technical integration of renewables are somehow unique.  I doubt that as both China and the USA have similar issues in terms of geographic separations, while Europe has managed very sophisticated network integrations.  
Meanwhile we have the Coalition wanting millions of dollars to investigate the feasibility of another coal-fired power plant... sheer lunacy!


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Shell have tip toed around the edges of the power industry since the early 1980's but never really got anywhere apart from selling oil and gas to power stations.  This might finally change that......
> 
> Meanwhile Smurf gets on soapbox and says something about avoiding those who are burning investors' money in this sector since there's quite a few doing that as I've been on about for a while: https://www.theage.com.au/environme...iled-as-grid-links-stall-20200209-p53z3l.html
> 
> It's all possible, it can be made to work, but all this stuff isn't even slightly close to being "plug and play" and is no place for those who don't have an extremely firm grip on the technical side.



A lot of what is in the article is a repeat of the ABC article last week, but the more of these reporters that actually come to grips with the reality of problem the better, at least then the focus will be on the real issue rather than the perceived and emotional issues. IMO
From the article:
_This is an emerging phenomenon that has not been seen at scale in other developed power systems around the world," he said, adding that the issues were the result of the heavy concentration of new renewable energy plants "in an area that is weakly connected to the ‘backbone’ of the grid_"

The more the focus is placed on this issue, the quicker it will be resolved, way too much energy is being wasted on politicising a technical and logistical problem IMO.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> A lot of what is in the article is a repeat of the ABC article last week, but the more of these reporters that actually come to grips with the reality of problem the better, at least then the focus will be on the real issue rather than the perceived and emotional issues.



It's very clear that there is no policy and as a result there is poor planning.
Do you have an alternative reality?


----------



## sptrawler

The Federal Government might at last put a lid on all the ranting and chanting.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...o-glasgow-climate-summit-20200209-p53z4b.html
From the article:
_Australia will take a new long-term emissions reduction target to November's UN climate summit, as the Morrison government weighs up whether to join more than 80 countries to commit to net zero carbon emissions by 2050_.
_Mr Taylor said on Sunday the government believed the answer was not a new tax or more bureaucracy but "practical change" driven by science and technology.

"The pathway to meaningful impacts on global emissions is through development and deployment of new technologies," Mr Taylor said.

"That is where Australia can have the biggest impact on reducing global emissions."

He confirmed the government expected to deliver a long-term emissions reduction strategy before the Glasgow summit_.

_When asked directly about the 2050 target, Mr Morrison said he would "never make a commitment like that if I couldn’t tell the Australian people what it would cost them”.


Mr Taylor and Mr Morrison have continued to declare Australia would "meet and beat" its 2030 Paris targets of reducing emissions by between 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels, potentially without using Kyoto carryover credits_.

_The government is also close to finalising its draft Technology Investment Roadmap, which it says will set a framework for investment priorities in emissions-reducing technologies over the short term (to 2022), medium term (to 2030) and long term (to 2050)_.

It sounds as though the Government is actually working on a plan, without the use of a napkin, which is new and novel method that might show a degree on maturity which would be a new and novel approach.lol
That should make everyone feel better, they can sit down and have a nice cup of tea now, it is all going to be fixed.
Without shooting from the hip.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> The Federal Government might at last put a lid on all the ranting and chanting.
> 
> https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...o-glasgow-climate-summit-20200209-p53z4b.html
> From the article:
> _Australia will take a new long-term emissions reduction target to November's UN climate summit, as the Morrison government weighs up whether to join more than 80 countries to commit to net zero carbon emissions by 2050_.
> _Mr Taylor said on Sunday the government believed the answer was not a new tax or more bureaucracy but "practical change" driven by science and technology.
> 
> "The pathway to meaningful impacts on global emissions is through development and deployment of new technologies," Mr Taylor said.
> 
> "That is where Australia can have the biggest impact on reducing global emissions."
> 
> He confirmed the government expected to deliver a long-term emissions reduction strategy before the Glasgow summit_.
> 
> _When asked directly about the 2050 target, Mr Morrison said he would "never make a commitment like that if I couldn’t tell the Australian people what it would cost them”.
> 
> 
> Mr Taylor and Mr Morrison have continued to declare Australia would "meet and beat" its 2030 Paris targets of reducing emissions by between 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels, potentially without using Kyoto carryover credits_.
> 
> _The government is also close to finalising its draft Technology Investment Roadmap, which it says will set a framework for investment priorities in emissions-reducing technologies over the short term (to 2022), medium term (to 2030) and long term (to 2050)_.
> 
> It sounds as though the Government is actually working on a plan, without the use of a napkin, which is new and novel method that might show a degree on maturity which would be a new and novel approach.lol
> That should make everyone feel better, they can sit down and have a nice cup of tea now, it is all going to be fixed.
> Without shooting from the hip.



You seriously trot that out!
It actually says *NOTHING*.
If you think otherwise, then please explain exactly what they are going to do next, or do at all.


----------



## SirRumpole

Why use coal when you can use gas ? It's cheaper, less polluting and easier to ramp up and down according to demand.

We will need some form of baseload in case there is a long drop off in renewable supply (lots of overcast weather for example) . The government should be building gas baseload stations because the private companies don't want an asset that is going to lie idle for large amounts of time unless they can charge exhorbitant amounts when those assets are needed. Consumers should not be exposed to profiteering in times of need.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Why use coal when you can use gas ? It's cheaper, less polluting and easier to ramp up and down according to demand.
> 
> We will need some form of baseload in case there is a long drop off in renewable supply (lots of overcast weather for example) . The government should be building gas baseload stations because the private companies don't want an asset that is going to lie idle for large amounts of time unless they can charge exhorbitant amounts when those assets are needed. Consumers should not be exposed to profiteering in times of need.



They are all going to be stranded assets, so unfortunately the Government will probably either have to underwrite the building, or the running of whatever is built. I doubt the Banks will want to stump up the money, when there is so much negative sentiment against anything fossil fuel.
This to a large degree is happening in W.A, the Government coal fired stations are closing and the only private coal station and the associated mine are facing financial difficulties.
The Eastern States are a bit different, in the fact the grid is big enough to be able to keep quite large coal units on, without the need to cycle them.
Just my opinion.


----------



## Smurf1976

On the subject of planning I'll simply say that the problem, the real problem, is that Australia has lost focus on technical things in general.

Australian Energy *Market* Operator which replaced NEMMCO, that being the National Electricity *Market Management* Company. 

Engineering? Well to be blunt that was simply taken for granted, a given if you like, and there wasn't much interest in it. To say it was overlooked is quite an understatement really.

There were plenty who mocked when almost 20 years ago all the calculations were done in Tasmania about integrating high levels of wind power into a system which also had a DC interconnector to Victoria. What was the point? Look here - you don't have an interconnector working yet and you don't have wind farms either so this looks rather like a "make work" exercise to keep people in a job.

That was very much the thinking from one side of politics. 20 years later and there is indeed an interconnector, there are indeed wind farms, and in 2016 we had another state, SA, completely blacked out because they failed to do the same exercise. Technical people 1, conservative politicians 0.

Reality is that the technical side of all this has been overlooked, taken for granted, since most of the people who did such things were purged out in most states back in the 1990's. It's to the point that in some cases there's simply nobody still working in Australia with the required skill, literally the whole lot are gone, so there's no option other than to bring people from overseas.

What's needed is a return to focusing on the technical aspects first and foremost rather than this "tail wagging dog" obsession with economic theory and politics which dominates at present.

I don't blame AEMO, they're in the somewhat impossible situation of being a financial organisation running a technical operation without the required authority to do so. AEMO themselves get plenty of knockbacks when they want to do things, they spend plenty of time arguing with the various regulators and so on. There's an awful lot of obstruction thrown their way by politicians and the assortment of government bodies from the ACCC to the AEMC to the AER and so on and it all has one very clear message - anything technical shall be subservient to finance, markets and economic theory and is considered a very, very low priority even if it's an actually drastic problem.

On a positive note, well there's people like Kate Summers who don't hold back in calling it like it is. She's had plenty to say on the madness of it all from a purely technical perspective.

Then there's those at the corporate level who in layman's terms have more guts than the rest so far as keeping control is concerned. There's not enough of them but it's not zero thankfully and ultimately they'll drag the rest forward even if it does take a decade or two longer than it ought to.


----------



## Smurf1976

As an update on the situation in SA + south-west Victoria:

So far, so good. It's very much a "reverse" way of running a power system but it's working. Downside = burning a lot of gas and costing a lot of money. It's working though.

Examination and testing thus far finds no evidence of fatigue, corrosion or anything like that having caused the failure. The Bureau of Meteorology's "downburst" theory, whilst unproven by any actual measurements at the time, seems to be the explanation in the absence of any other cause being identified.

Looking ahead, one transmission circuit should be back in operation this coming weekend. This has been installed on temporary transmission towers. That'll put the south-west Vic loads back in Vic as such and greatly improve the situation. Second transmission circuit should follow ~3 weeks later also on temporary towers.

Proper reconstruction on permanent towers isn't sorted out but the answer is "second half of calendar year 2020".

Looking at the operational statistics of this arrangement for the past week:

Total electricity supplied = 351 GWh or an average of 2089 MW including estimated rooftop solar production. Of this:

211 GWh from gas, 85 GWh from wind, 58 GWh from solar, 0.7 GWh from diesel. 8 GWh was supplied from Victoria via Murraylink (the DC interconnection) and 11 GWh was sent from SA to Vic via the same link.

Of the gas-fired generation, 80 GWh was from Mortlake power station (Origin) in south-west Vic and the rest from plants in SA.

Of the solar, the split was 47 GWh estimated from rooftop systems (houses etc) and 11 GWh from large scale solar farms with the latter operating significantly below capacity, on occasion completely shut down, due to the technical issues at present.

In terms of the financial implications, various generating companies have been operating under directions from AEMO which have the practical effect of forcing them to operate at times and output volumes that they wouldn't otherwise choose for purely economic reasons. These companies, some of which are ASX listed, are able to claim back these costs under established processes so ultimately consumers are footing the bill. 

For those technically unable to operate due to the situation it's tough luck unless they've got some form of insurance.

There are also others who are able to run but who are not running in practice since there's no need physically, and no point financially, under current circumstances of mild weather and so on. That they weren't chosen to be directed comes down to the technical characteristics of plant - the decision is made on a purely technical basis without regard to who owns it.

The great problem with this industry is of course that many on the political / economics / regulatory side of it all would read the above and struggle to stand up and explain what on earth it's all about. Those people are the ones approving and managing most of this grand transition and therein lies a fair bit of the problem.

My comment there is nothing personal, I know some of those people, but it's akin to putting the chief accountant in charge of advertising. They might be brilliant as such but they're the wrong person for the task at hand, there's a need for a much greater technical emphasis in all this.


----------



## SirRumpole

Upcoming on National Press Club today (12/2/2020)

Alan Finkel on "managing the transition to an electric planet".

Should be a interesting talk, 12:30 on ABC20.

https://www.npc.org.au/speakers#upcoming-speakers-4e56bae8-19e5-4e1a-98b9-db2f50c87e58


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Upcoming on National Press Club today (12/2/2020)
> 
> Alan Finkel on "managing the transition to an electric planet".
> 
> Should be a interesting talk, 12:30 on ABC20.
> 
> https://www.npc.org.au/speakers#upcoming-speakers-4e56bae8-19e5-4e1a-98b9-db2f50c87e58



Did you read his recent Report?
I found it wishy washy and was extremely disappointed.
We need real leadership to transition and presently there is none.
The government keeps saying it does not want to lose jobs and increase electricity prices.  Yet by failing to grasp the opportunities out there we will be losing jobs and electricity cannot be cheaper in years ahead as the levers will have driven the prices well above what renewables would have achieved.


----------



## sptrawler

Ausgrid found to be undermanned, no wonder they were calling for the Defence Forces to help.lol

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-13/ausgrid-accused-of-understaffing-amid-storm-cleanup/11962908


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Did you read his recent Report?
> I found it wishy washy and was extremely disappointed.
> We need real leadership to transition and presently there is none.
> The government keeps saying it does not want to lose jobs and increase electricity prices.  Yet by failing to grasp the opportunities out there we will be losing jobs and electricity cannot be cheaper in years ahead as the levers will have driven the prices well above what renewables would have achieved.




Are you an electrical engineer or scientist specialising in that field rob ?

To me, the problem is all about environmentalists or politicians trying to design power grids to suit their own ideals without paying attention to realities like grid stability, need for baseload backup etc.

Now I'm not an expert in those things either but if you listen to engineers then you realise that such things are important and you need backup systems that you can switch on and off if necessary and are able to run for as long as they are needed  and not just until the battery runs down, and gas is a way you can do that.

If you have any other problems with Finkel's report, please let us know.


----------



## sptrawler

IMO this sort of issue is the problem when Governments get involved.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/aurora-what-you-should-know-about-port-augustas-solar-power-tower-86715/

https://reneweconomy.com.au/why-solar-towers-and-storage-plants-will-reshape-energy-markets-73278/

Now I was one of the believers in this technology it sounded wonderfull in theory, but as history showed the Plant couldn't get funding, yet contracts had already been written for the power.
If there had been a Government guarantee on the cost to build, it would probably have been built already.

But now with the benefit of hind sight it would probably have been a big white elephant, that may have cost the taxpayer a hell of a lot of money for a long period of time, the private sector wouldn't fund it for a reason.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/arti...olar-power-companies-have-all-but-disappeared
From the article: *Dated 20 January 2020*
_SolarReserve, which developed the 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in Nevada, is thought to have halted operations after losing its only income-generating U.S. contract and selling foreign projects including Aurora in Australia and Likana in Chile last year.

The company could not be reached by email or phone this month, and its website was no longer active. Industry veteran Luis Crespo, president of Spanish CSP association Protermosolar, told GTM he believes SolarReserve is no longer operational and its assets have been sold off as part of a liquidation.

*Santa Monica, California-based SolarReserve lost the income from its only U.S. power-purchase agreement, with the Berkshire Hathaway-owned Nevada state utility NV Energy, last October, according to a lawsuit filed at the time. NV Energy had agreed to buy electricity from Crescent Dunes up until 2040 but broke off the contract over performance failures at the plant*.

*Crescent Dunes was developed with $737 million in U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantees and run by a SolarReserve-linked entity called Tonopah Solar Energy*. SolarReserve’s October lawsuit claimed the Department of Energy had gained control of Tonopah’s board in a bid to close Crescent Dunes after receiving NV Energy’s default notice.

The move “exposes SolarReserve’s equity to the uncertainty of a Tonopah bankruptcy filing,” said the suit at the time.  
*But problems at Crescent Dunes were nothing new. Commissioned in 2015, the plant never managed to achieve its average expected monthly output, according to a late-2019 market outlook from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.  And last August, S&P Global Platts said the plant had only achieved a 0.3 percent capacity factor in the second quarter of 2019, delivering a paltry 765 megawatt-hours of power to the grid*_.

To me that pretty well sums up the cart before the horse, I've been talking about and why Government guarantees can end up costing taxpayers a fortune.
If we had an agressive Federal Government climate change pro active regime in place, my guess would be we would be already rueing the day it was started and we would be up to our ears in financial problems associated with it.
Just my opinion.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> To me, the problem is all about environmentalists or politicians trying to design power grids to suit their own ideals without paying attention to realities like grid stability, need for baseload backup etc.



Given they are not involved in the design of the grid, it is a matter of the problem resting squarely with all industry players.


SirRumpole said:


> Now I'm not an expert in those things either but if you listen to engineers then you realise that such things are important and you need backup systems that you can switch on and off if necessary and are able to run for as long as they are needed and not just until the battery runs down, and gas is a way you can do that.



This is a "so what" issue.  Industry knows what is needed and needs to make sure it happens.  If the expertise is not here then get it: there is a wealth of technical expertise in Europe.







SirRumpole said:


> If you have any other problems with Finkel's report, please let us know.



It's a great idea, but didn't tell us anything we did not know.  All it really says is here's what we are doing already and we should try to do more.
Big deal.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Given they are not involved in the design of the grid, it is a matter of the problem resting squarely with all industry players.




So why haven't they done it ?

You are continually complaining about "no plan" from government, but here you are saying that it's industry's job to sort out.

Which is it ?


----------



## sptrawler

From your post smurf a national body that overseas the roll out and design of the grid is required, maybe the AEMO needs to be beefed up, but to ask politicians to decide whats needed technically is bottom of the garden stuff. IMO fairy land.
On a side note, there was an argument put up here that we could already be running on renewables, the roadmap plan they posted on this forum included 18 concentrated salt storage power stations to close coal down by 2030.
Funny that argument has been dropped.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> We need real leadership to transition and presently there is none.




The detail of that leadership is necessarily technical if we want a good outcome.

That's "technical" as in electrical power engineering, civil engineering, ecology, meteorology, accounting and so on sort of "technical" just just the engineering side only. Technical as in not political or ideological.

That said if "team Australia" isn't performing well, and on this one we very clearly aren't, well then the buck stops with the captain and right now that is Scott Morrison. Same in any situation - if the factory's not running or the planes aren't flying then ultimately the buck stops with the CEO.

Being objective though, the last time the team was performing on top we had Hawke as PM. The slide got well and truly underway when Keating was in and for various reasons has continued ever since. Some may have tried, others didn't, but ultimately if you look at the overall situation well then any real planning for the future was scrapped by about 1993 and the overall health of infrastructure at least in the now problematic states peaked prior to the turn of the century.

At the state level well a lot of silly things were done in the 1990's by Liberal governments but to be fair some of the seeds of trouble were sown as far back as the late 1970's and that was under Labor in NSW and under both Liberal and Labor governments during the late-70's and throughout the 1980's in Victoria.

It would be a mistake to think that politics offers a solution when it created the mess in the first place. What it does need to do though is remove the barriers and put in place those things which can bring about a way forward.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> So why haven't they done it ?
> 
> You are continually complaining about "no plan" from government, but here you are saying that it's industry's job to sort out.
> 
> Which is it ?



Government sets the policy.
There is no coherent policy on renewables so sorting out the problems with the grid is not their concern as they have continued to pander to fossil fuels.  
The grid works fine for fossil fuel inputs as that is what it was designed for.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> IMO this sort of issue is the problem when Governments get involved.



The SA government was trying to shore up it's energy needs given the inaction at a federal level.
It's what happens when you get no leadership at the national level.
So what you really have shown is what happens when the the government which is supposed to be involved fails to do its job.
I harp on about policy because that was my background for 8 years in Canberra, and I know that good policies come from great leadership and are driven by commitment.  Neither of these latter qualities prevail in the federal sphere, so here we are.
And don't think it is going to change.
Any budget surplus Australia might have under Morrison will be due in no small part to coal and gas exports.  They are not going to kill off this cash cow.
Labor knows it too.  So their credentials for economic management would be down the gurgler in one term if they tried to change things drastically on coming in to government.
The sad part here is that what we the public are being told is less than honest.  So when it comes to election time we will get another round of spin that puts climate change as the most important concern, but is not affordable to be fixed.
Over 99% of the population have no idea of LCOE.
And even if they had heard of it, they would not be able to understand its complexities.  It's a bit like climate change.  But there's just one matter to bear in mind with climate, and that's CO2.  And with renewables it's that *they are cheaper than any FF alternative*.
So do what Elon Musk did and design a system that works for your product rather than treating it as an afterthought.
Elon Musk had the vision to make his BEV idea work.  And he has consistently done this by getting the smartest and best operators on board.


----------



## ghotib

This is a question for the engineers among us. I know it comes from ignorance, but I hope it's not silly. 

In TV news aerial shots of the Collinsville open cut coal mine it looks like a mighty big hole, which leads to the question:  Is it big enough to make its feasibility as the energy source for a pumped hydro power station worth investigating? I assume (bravely) that any such investigation would include the feasibility of converting (surely not?) the existing generator or building a new one?

Thanks


----------



## qldfrog

ghotib said:


> This is a question for the engineers among us. I know it comes from ignorance, but I hope it's not silly.
> 
> In TV news aerial shots of the Collinsville open cut coal mine it looks like a mighty big hole, which leads to the question:  Is it big enough to make its feasibility as the energy source for a pumped hydro power station worth investigating? I assume (bravely) that any such investigation would include the feasibility of converting (surely not?) the existing generator or building a new one?
> 
> Thanks



Not stupid, in north qld, a water battery is being buit using an old gold mine pit
Coal is a bit different as open cut coal is not usually very deep.for economic reasons.if the coal seam is too deep, you move to underground mining and so much smaller capacity with flooded galleries
Gold copper mines etc can go very deep 1km or so for gold so that offer indeed great opportunity in term of a surface dam and bottom of pit one
The bhp olympic dam mine in South Australia goes nearly 1km deep and was supposed to be transformed to an open pit one.but i think it has been canned
That would become a massive opportunity for energy storage past its life


----------



## sptrawler

ghotib said:


> This is a question for the engineers among us. I know it comes from ignorance, but I hope it's not silly.
> 
> In TV news aerial shots of the Collinsville open cut coal mine it looks like a mighty big hole, which leads to the question:  Is it big enough to make its feasibility as the energy source for a pumped hydro power station worth investigating? I assume (bravely) that any such investigation would include the feasibility of converting (surely not?) the existing generator or building a new one?
> 
> Thanks



Not a stupid question at all, the stupid question is one not asked and making an assumption instead.
I wont give the long winded version, because I really cant be bothered.
But pumped hydro relise on three things, a dam or water catchment at the bottom, a dam or water catchment at the top and water.
Right next issue is the power to turn the turbine comes from one of two things, first pressure which means dam A has to be a lot higher than catchment B, or volume, which means there is a lot of water in dam A.
This is because you get nothing for nothing, to get a lot of power to turn the alternator, you need a lot of head pressure, or you need a really big impeller and a lot of volume to drive it.
Smurf will explain it a lot better, it is his bread and butter, hydro.


----------



## SirRumpole

Power prices will fall thanks to renewables (if you believe the ABC).

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02...over-coal-continues/11966652?section=business


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> But pumped hydro relise on three things, a dam or water catchment at the bottom, a dam or water catchment at the top and water.



The lower dam needs to be of significant volume to make the project worthwhile and underground mines generally won't cut it especially as many of these are paste and fill.

The maths are:
E [J] = 9.81*ƿwater*Vres*h*headƞ

Where *E* is the energy stored in joules. Divide by 3.6 x 106 to convert to kWh; *ƿwater* is the density of water, usually about 1000 kg/m3; *Vres* is the volume of the reservoir in cubic meters;* hhead* is the head height in meters;  and *ƞ* is the efficiency of the energy conversion (consider losses like turbine efficiency, generator efficiency, and hydrodynamic losses).

(You can convert from flow rate in meters cubed per second to power in kW using the equation:
P [kW] = 9.81 ƿwaterhhead ƞ F / 1000)


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Power prices will fall thanks to renewables (if you believe the ABC).
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02...over-coal-continues/11966652?section=business



Well who would have thought that, despite the Government, prices are likely to fall, which they have been saying is what they are aiming for.
I don't even live over East, but over here in the West, all we hear is the Federal Government is trying to force the price of electricity down and the media saying it can't be done.
So I guess time will tell, there is a lot of white noise surrounding the issue and most comes from the ABC. IMO


----------



## rederob

I thought I fixed the formula I posted above, but obviously did not.  The correct formula is:

E [J] = 9.81*ƿwater*Vres*hhead*ƞ

Sorry


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I don't even live over East, but over here in the West, all we hear is the Federal Government is trying to force the price of electricity down and the media saying it can't be done.
> So I guess time will tell, there is a lot of white noise surrounding the issue and most comes from the ABC. IMO



You sound like Donald Trump.
The media has been saying renewables reduce electricity prices, which is the opposite of what you posted.
As for *white noise*, I think you might mean something else.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Well who would have thought that, despite the Government, prices are likely to fall, which they have been saying is what they are aiming for.
> I don't even live over East, but over here in the West, all we hear is the Federal Government is trying to force the price of electricity down and the media saying it can't be done.
> So I guess time will tell, there is a lot of white noise surrounding the issue and most comes from the ABC. IMO



Sorry forgot, most of the white noise comes from the ABC and Redrob.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Sorry forgot, most of the white noise comes from the ABC and Redrob.



I am definitely the opposite of white noise.
Is Donald Trump your father?


----------



## Smurf1976

Short answer is that from a technical perspective pretty much any head of water can be used.

The range of operating hydro plant in Tasmania for example is from nominally 835m head down to 17m although the latter will be closer to 13m at minimum storage level.

Overseas there's even lower, 5m isn't unknown.

The economics of very low head systems tend to be rather poor however since they generally involve a lot of physical infrastructure relative to power produced. Eg Cluny, the lowest head station in Tas, is really only viable because it's downstream of Repulse dam and power station the road and transmission line to which runs almost straight past the Cluny site. So without any real transmission or road cost and with an already regulated flow of water it stacked up but it wouldn't if there had to be a special road built and so on.

At the other extreme, well for Poatina which has an 835m head it was still profitable despite being an incredibly ambitious project at the time (construction started in 1957) and having to redesign construction machinery just to be able to build it due to the nature of the site.

So higher head does bring advantages economically but from a purely technical perspective low head can certainly work, it's just a matter of using the appropriate turbines.

Where it does get more painful is when there's a major variation in the range of head on the machines. There's no "hard" limit but bottom line is that the greater the variation vertically from full to empty, the greater the loss of efficiency and output as the level declines. A station with an almost constant head (eg Tungatinah) has definite advantages over one where the head drops by literally half as the storage is drawn down (eg Butlers Gorge) or where the vertical change exceeds 50m (eg Gordon in Tas or Dartmouth in Vic).

As for reusing any equipment from the old Collinsville power station, short answer is no so far as any actual power generating machinery is concerned. Incidental things like workshop or office facilities would be about it but even then only if it's convenient since they're just a building.

There's a lot of differences between steam plant and hydro:

Steam plant is normally run on a horizontal axis, the steam turbine is horizontally beside the alternator, whereas any modern (1950's onwards) hydro plant will normally be vertical axis with the turbine right at the bottom driving an alternator above it.

No similarities between the turbines. Completely different in design.

For the alternator speed and thus the required number of poles (getting a bit technical here..... ) is vastly different. Steam plant at 3000 RPM is a very different situation to hydro plant where under 200 RPM is common and anything over 600 RPM is unusually fast. So a completely different construction of the alternator there in order to still produce a 50Hz output with hydro plant often running at an "odd" speed (et 273 RPM for a real example) with the required number of electrical poles to suit. 

So no real ability to re-use things other than incidental stuff like a workshop or any steel beams which just happen to be the right size or anything like that.

The transmission line is of course another matter and certainly of possible use. There's already some use of it for solar but it has spare capacity to my understanding (I claim no expertise on Qld transmission lines though).

Collinsville PS has already had two lives by the way. It was built, operated, closed then had a major overhaul and a second life and a second closure. That's not an unknown practice in Queensland - same thing happened at Callide A and Swanbank A.

Plant at the old station is 4 x 30MW with the later addition of 1 x 60 MW. That's tiny by today's standards - Kogan Creek in Qld is 750 MW from a single machine, Eraring (NSW) is 4 x 700 MW and the two Loy Yang stations between them (Vic) have 6 units each of 530 - 585 MW (variation since they're all similar but not identical).


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting article on the state of play in Germany's transition to carbon free generation.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe...e-leader-you-take-it-for-20200212-p540ao.html


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting article on grid scale batteries, they are performing extremely well with frequency control.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/big-batteries-enjoy-record-revenues-but-pumped-hydro-struggles-61123/


----------



## sptrawler

W.A extends its community battery concept.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/w-a-adds-more-tesla-community-batteries-to-shared-storage-trial-98003/


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Interesting article on grid scale batteries, they are performing extremely well with frequency control.
> 
> https://reneweconomy.com.au/big-batteries-enjoy-record-revenues-but-pumped-hydro-struggles-61123/




That's the problem if you start measuring success by profit alone, in an area that delivers essential services success might just mean affordable and reliable services rather than overall profits.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> in an area that delivers essential services success might just mean affordable and reliable services .




I think when you have both e.g. affordable and reliable service and a decent return on capital employed


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> That's the problem if you start measuring success by profit alone, in an area that delivers essential services success might just mean affordable and reliable services rather than overall profits.




If the aim is to make a profit then wind + solar + batteries + gas is the answer. Hence that's exactly what the for-profit companies are doing.

AGL aren't going with huge batteries, LNG import terminals and gas-fired power stations for fun. They're doing it because it's profitable.

Where pumped hydro comes in is if you don't want the gas bit. Hence the rather epic battle between those who want gas and those who want pumped hydro or in other words the AGL Vs Australian Government / Snowy Hydro saga which comes down to far more than just an argument about the Liddell power station. 

Meanwhile transmission Vic - SA was restored (1 of 2 circuits only at this stage) about 24 hours ago. So far, so good although the temporary towers do have a lower wind rating than the ones which blew over so there'll be some concern if a storm comes. It's the only real option for a quick fix though. Second line is a couple of weeks away.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Where pumped hydro comes in is if you don't want the gas bit. Hence the rather epic battle between those who want gas and those who want pumped hydro or in other words the AGL Vs Australian Government / Snowy Hydro saga which comes down to far more than just an argument about the Liddell power station.




Gas won't last forever (about 60 years for Australia on *current *production). That might seem a long time but the companies will be looking for new markets all the time so the reserves will most likely decease at a higher rate. Therefore pumped hydro has to be the long term answer, as long as we have governments with some foresight and not just after a quick fix. (does anyone really believe that ?).


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Gas won't last forever (about 60 years for Australia on *current *production).




It will be obsolete for energy use by then.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Gas won't last forever (about 60 years for Australia on *current *production). That might seem a long time but the companies will be looking for new markets all the time so the reserves will most likely decease at a higher rate. Therefore pumped hydro has to be the long term answer, as long as we have governments with some foresight and not just after a quick fix. (does anyone really believe that ?).



Like I said early in the piece, I don't think there is any money in pumped hydro and very little in storage generally, the money is in generation.
That's why IMO the Government will have to get heavily involved in funding storage, which it is with Snowy 2.0 there really wont be any money in something that big at all IMO, but it will be required.
It is just one of those Nation building things that is going to be required, IMO it makes a lot more sense than the NBN, but that has been done to death.
The big issue is going to be the environmental lobby, they will go nuts when the discussion turns to pumping sea water inland, to fill pumped storage reservoirs. In reality it is the only way you will be able to get sufficient water.
Nobody is thinking the issues through, but I'm sure the Government is, you can bet on that.
I can't wait to read the two reports this year, the one on electric cars and the other on the transition to renewables roadmap.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> The big issue is going to be the environmental lobby, they will go nuts when the discussion turns to pumping sea water inland, to fill pumped storage reservoirs. In reality it is the only way you will be able to get sufficient water.
> Nobody is thinking the issues through....



You say some pretty silly things.
For example, the Ord River dam holds about 70 times Sydney harbour's volume before flooding over, while north Queensland's baby Burdekin dam holds four times Sydney harbour. 
I guess if people would be silly enough to propose a pumped hydro system where there is no water then you might be in luck.
I know if I were to do that then it would be to use the seawater for electrolysis to create hydrogen, and pump hydrogen fuel to wherever.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> *You say some pretty silly things.*
> For example, the Ord River dam holds about 70 times Sydney harbour's volume before flooding over, while north Queensland's baby Burdekin dam holds four times Sydney harbour.
> *I guess if people would be silly enough to propose a pumped hydro system where there is no water then you might be in luck*.



You just can't help yourself can you, make derogatory comments, I can see why you no longer write policy for the Labor Party you must have put your foot in it too often. 
https://www.energyaustralia.com.au/about-us/energy-generation/energy-projects/pumped-hydro

https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-a...water-pumped-hydro-storage-takes-shape-92608/

https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-a...-pumped-hydro-plant-reaches-next-phase-73658/
From the article:
“*This pioneering project aims to build Australia’s first ever pumped hydro using seawater and could open up the potential for future seawater pumped hydro around Australia*. Pumped Hydro is the most common and mature form of energy storage which has been traditionally used in rivers, but seawater has the benefit of having no impact on rivers and no need to construct lower reservoirs,” Mr Frischknecht said;.

*But as per usual I'm being silly and you know everything*.


----------



## qldfrog

Plenty of gas if we do not sell it o/s


SirRumpole said:


> Gas won't last forever (about 60 years for Australia on *current *production)



All known reserves can and do increase as years go by, more a matter of cost and ROI than availability.and in 60y, we will have at last realised that co2 is not responsible of any significant global warming and so other criterias will decide the pet solution:
Cost, sustainability, prioritisation of use etc
I would not condemn a renewable gas solution built in 2020


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> Like I said early in the piece, I don't think there is any money in pumped hydro and very little in storage generally, the money is in generation.
> That's why IMO the Government will have to get heavily involved in funding storage, which it is with Snowy 2.0 there really wont be any money in something that big at all IMO, but it will be required.
> It is just one of those Nation building things that is going to be required, IMO it makes a lot more sense than the NBN, but that has been done to death.
> The big issue is going to be the environmental lobby, they will go nuts when the discussion turns to pumping sea water inland, to fill pumped storage reservoirs. In reality it is the only way you will be able to get sufficient water.
> Nobody is thinking the issues through, but I'm sure the Government is, you can bet on that.
> I can't wait to read the two reports this year, the one on electric cars and the other on the transition to renewables roadmap.




from the point of view of owners of renewable generation there is money in storage.

there is a big difference in the price you can sell 1KWh of guaranteed supply vs 1KWh of random supply.

If a company owned 7 wind farms Their production will fluctuate, but they could be pretty sure the at any time 10% of their capacity would be working, at other times 50% and sometimes 100%

So they may only be able to contract 10% of their production at the higher rates of guaranteed supply, while selling 90% “run of plant” Eg random supply.

by adding in storage, into the mix the company can feel confident in contracting a much higher percentage of their production into the higher priced guaranteed supply market, so they might contract 50% at higher rates rather than 10%


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> from the point of view of owners of renewable generation there is money in storage.
> 
> there is a big difference in the price you can sell 1KWh of guaranteed supply vs 1KWh of random supply.
> 
> If a company owned 7 wind farms Their production will fluctuate, but they could be pretty sure the at any time 10% of their capacity would be working, at other times 50% and sometimes 100%
> 
> So they may only be able to contract 10% of their production at the higher rates of guaranteed supply, while selling 90% “run of plant” Eg random supply.
> 
> by adding in storage, into the mix the company can feel confident in contracting a much higher percentage of their production into the higher priced guaranteed supply market, so they might contract 50% at higher rates rather than 10%



I was more referring to large scale pumped storage, not so much battery storage as it is smaller, more dynamic and less capital cost especially when the land content and access is considered plus the civil works.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I was more referring to large scale pumped storage, not so much battery storage as it is smaller, more dynamic and less capital cost especially when the land content and access is considered plus the civil works.




AGL has contracted for 4 batteries in NSW. Each is 50 MW / 100 MWh so that's 200 MW with 400 MWh storage in total.

It works because they can be 100% certain of charging them at least once daily in Summer, and twice daily in Winter, as required to meet peak demand using whatever generation that happens to be running outside the peaks be that coal, gas, wind, solar or hydro (and at times all of those will in practice be the means of charging).

No chance you'll get them to sign up to provide firm supply from that arrangement though if they're not allowed to use fossil fuels or hydro as the method of charging during the days, at times weeks, when wind and solar isn't sufficient.

Hence AGL is also proposing an approximately 250 MW gas-fired power station to go with the batteries and is also adding 100 MW capacity to an existing coal-fired plant nearby.

So all up 100 MW coal, 250 MW gas, 200 MW battery - put together that's workable.

If you don't want the coal and gas though, well then it's down to pumped hydro. No real money in that at this stage - the two government entities promoting it are both making what amounts to a bet that ~50% renewables won't be where it stops and that we'll go beyond that. If that happens then they made the right choice. If we stick with coal, gas or nuclear then they should have built those instead.  

Timing is also a factor in all that. AGL can commission their batteries in 2023 and financially write the whole thing off by the mid-2030's. In contrast it's no secret that Hydro Tas and Snowy Hydro both already have plans in regard to existing assets which extend beyond 2100. There's an order of magnitude difference in the timing there.

Some of the big batteries are planned to be scrapped before some of the current coal fleet by the way. Eg Ballarat (Vic), Gannawarra (Vic), Dalrymple (SA) and Lake Bonney (SA) batteries all have nominated decommissioning dates between 2030 and 2034.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Timing is also a factor in all that. AGL can commission their batteries in 2023 and financially write the whole thing off by the mid-2030's. In contrast it's no secret that Hydro Tas and Snowy Hydro both already have plans in regard to existing assets which extend beyond 2100. There's an order of magnitude difference in the timing there.
> .



I would guess Snowy2.0 will end up costing around $4-5 billion, things that big normally end up costing twice what was first suggested, so the pay back time will probably be never. But as with the Snowy Hydro and Tasmania it will be available for a long,long time.
In reality large reliable storage will be required, to have a sustainable renewable supplied grid, so pumped storage has to happen whether it pays for itself or not. IMO


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> In reality it is the only way you will be able to get sufficient water.



I clearly made the point that there is adequate water in Australia for pumped hydro -and gave several examples - which again is the opposite of your comment. There are documented reports about where *tens of thousands* of pumped hydro schemes could be put in place, and none involve sea water.
 I also clearly said *"if people would be silly enough to propose a pumped hydro system where there is no water then you might be in luck."*
Of the thousands of regions of Australia which are amenable to pumped hydro, South Australia is the least well placed.  So it really begs the question of why anyone would bother, especially as salt intrusion into the landscape is hardly welcome.
The reason is really simple.  South Australia is trying every means possible to be energy independent from the eastern seaboard because Australia has no coherent national energy policy.

https://www.fool.com.au/2020/01/14/...est-way-for-you-to-profit-from-the-gold-boom/


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I would guess Snowy2.0 will end up costing around $4-5 billion, things that big normally end up costing twice what was first suggested, so the pay back time will probably be never.  IMO



The contractor already expects over $5billion in costs, and an 8 year time frame.  Significant additional costs are involved in grid infrastructure plus the award of "*pumping*" energy contracts to re-fill the top reservoir.
At best some generation may occur by end-2024, so the shyte will have well and truly hit the fan before then unless massive additional storage ex-Snowy2.0 is in place beforehand.
I am not against pumped hydro, but it suffers from fixed to increasing costs/kWh.   Meanwhile some other flow and battery alternatives are declining in costs by over 10% compound annually.  So by 2030 these alternatives are likely to be cheaper than pumped hydro.
My view is that it would be smarter and cheaper adding battery capacity alongside grid scale renewables projects as these could be incremental to demand. To me that makes more sense than building and  connecting one big battery.
Aside from that I prefer a rapid move to an hydrogen economy predicated on excess wind and solar generation capacity.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> The contractor already expects over $5billion in costs, and an 8 year time frame.  Significant additional costs are involved in grid infrastructure plus the award of "*pumping*" energy contracts to re-fill the top reservoir.
> At best some generation may occur by end-2024, so the shyte will have well and truly hit the fan before then unless massive additional storage ex-Snowy2.0 is in place beforehand.
> I am not against pumped hydro, but it suffers from fixed to increasing costs/kWh.   Meanwhile some other flow and battery alternatives are declining in costs by over 10% compound annually.  So by 2030 these alternatives are likely to be cheaper than pumped hydro.
> My view is that it would be smarter and cheaper adding battery capacity alongside grid scale renewables projects as these could be incremental to demand. To me that makes more sense than building and  connecting one big battery.
> Aside from that I prefer a rapid move to an hydrogen economy predicated on excess wind and solar generation capacity.




How long can a battery supply power for as opposed to pumped hydro ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> How long can a battery supply power for as opposed to pumped hydro ?



Smurph posted when the current ones will need swapping out, by that time they will also be down to between 60-80% capacity.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I clearly made the point that there is adequate water in Australia for pumped hydro -and gave several examples - which again is the opposite of your comment. There are documented reports about where *tens of thousands* of pumped hydro schemes could be put in place, and none involve sea water.
> I also clearly said *"if people would be silly enough to propose a pumped hydro system where there is no water then you might be in luck."*
> Of the thousands of regions of Australia which are amenable to pumped hydro, South Australia is the least well placed.  So it really begs the question of why anyone would bother, especially as salt intrusion into the landscape is hardly welcome.
> The reason is really simple.  South Australia is trying every means possible to be energy independent from the eastern seaboard because Australia has no coherent national energy policy.



Just admit it, you hadn't even read up on the subject of using sea water, before becoming the self-professed expert and criticising people as usual.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Smurph posted when the current ones will need swapping out, by that time they will also be down to between 60-80% capacity.




That's the lifetime, I was thinking more of continuous output. eg if there are long periods of overcast weather, how long could a battery keep up the supply ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> That's the lifetime, I was thinking more of continuous output. eg if there are long periods of overcast weather, how long could a battery keep up the supply ?



Good point.


----------



## SirRumpole

Snowy Hydro 2.0 not what it's cracked up to be ?

http://theconversation.com/snowy-2-...s-claimed-we-must-hit-the-pause-button-125017


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Just admit it, you hadn't even read up on the subject of using sea water, before becoming the self-professed expert and criticising people as usual.



You seem to be a late convert to *Reneweconomy.*
Good ideas for renewables would *not *involve unnecessary concerns and also use the best available sites.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> You seem to be a late convert to *Reneweconomy.*
> .



Again, making assumptions about people.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Again, making assumptions about people.



Why don't you stick to facts rather than offer your opinions.
How is it sensible for a State to use seawater for pumped hydro when it is one of the poorest available options?


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Why don't you stick to facts rather than offer your opinions.
> How is it sensible for a State to use seawater for pumped hydro when it is one of the poorest available options?



Why don't you ask the person who wrote the article, or maybe one of your mates in politics.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Why don't you ask the person who wrote the article, or maybe one of your mates in politics.



You are suggesting it's not "silly" but cannot say why.
The idea is a bit like wanting to buy a new car and flying to Alice Springs to purchase it, and then driving it home.  Blind Freddy can work out there are hundreds of better options.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Why don't you stick to facts rather than offer your opinions.
> How is it sensible for a State to use seawater for pumped hydro when it is one of the poorest available options?




Seawater is not subject to droughts.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Seawater is not subject to droughts.



That's great... maybe we should fill all our dams with seawater.  We can then top up our swimming pools without needing to add salt.
There is also a grass that grows on sea water, so no worries about dead lawns because of water restrictions.
Top marks Rumpy.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> *You are suggesting it's not "silly" but cannot say why.*
> The idea is a bit like wanting to buy a new car and flying to Alice Springs to purchase it, and then driving it home.  Blind Freddy can work out there are hundreds of better options.



If you would only listen to yourself, you really are a dick, obviously you have a memory issue.

If you go back to post #4015, when all your silly nonsense started, you will see what you responded to.
My quote:
_The big issue is going to be the environmental lobby, they will go nuts when the discussion turns to pumping sea water inland, to fill pumped storage reservoirs. _*In reality it is the only way you will be able to get sufficient water.
*
Then came your stupid comment at post #4016:
_I guess if people would be silly enough to propose a pumped hydro system where there is no water then you might be in luck_.

Which proved, you had no idea the use of sea water was even under consideration.

Then I posted#4017.
Pumped Hydro is the most common and mature form of energy storage which has been traditionally used in rivers, *but seawater has the benefit of having no impact on rivers and no need to construct lower reservoirs,

So I have posted exactly why I think sea water will make sense.
The problem is you don't read and don't listen, just constantly rant and make personal attacks. 
You are just a self obsessed,supercilious person, with a narcissistic personality disorder. Apart from that you seem o.k
Anyway it is back to ignoring you, yet again.

*


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> That's great... maybe we should fill all our dams with seawater.  We can then top up our swimming pools without needing to add salt.
> There is also a grass that grows on sea water, so no worries about dead lawns because of water restrictions.
> Top marks Rumpy.




Don't be silly robbie.

One project under consideration.

https://arena.gov.au/blog/can-pumped-hydro-energy-storage-work-lets-sea/

Anyway it's not a simple matter of this vs that. Anything that that works in a particular area should be considered. The more options available, the less the chance of failure.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> If you would only listen to yourself, you really are a dick, obviously you have a memory issue.
> 
> If you go back to post #4015, when all your silly nonsense started, you will see what you responded to.
> My quote:
> _The big issue is going to be the environmental lobby, they will go nuts when the discussion turns to pumping sea water inland, to fill pumped storage reservoirs. _*In reality it is the only way you will be able to get sufficient water.
> *
> Then came your stupid comment at post #4016:
> _I guess if people would be silly enough to propose a pumped hydro system where there is no water then you might be in luck_.
> 
> Which proved, you had no idea the use of sea water was even under consideration.
> 
> Then I posted#4017.
> Pumped Hydro is the most common and mature form of energy storage which has been traditionally used in rivers, *but seawater has the benefit of having no impact on rivers and no need to construct lower reservoirs,
> 
> So I have posted exactly why I think sea water will make sense.
> The problem is you don't read and don't listen, just constantly rant and make personal attacks.
> You are just a self obsessed,supercilious person, with a narcissistic personality disorder. Apart from that you seem o.k
> Anyway it is back to ignoring you, yet again.
> *



Get over yourself.
The idea of using sea water is not new.
You have not explained why the other 20000 sites in Australia that don't need sea water would be more expensive or have a worse environmental footprint.


----------



## SirRumpole

Something that just occurred to me, maybe an engineer could comment.

For a coastal(sea water) pumped hydro, would it be possible to use wave power to pump the water up ?

Maybe the flow would be small, but it would be happening all the time.

Just a thought.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Snowy Hydro 2.0 not what it's cracked up to be ?
> 
> http://theconversation.com/snowy-2-...s-claimed-we-must-hit-the-pause-button-125017



Which is exactly why the government has to build it, also why most of the really *large scale pumped hydro*, will have to be funded by Federal or State Governments.
The capital cost, the acquisition of land cost, the public backlash cost and the amount of pumped storage required, will take it way out of the cost base analysis spectrum for private funding IMO.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Which is exactly why the government has to build it, also why most of the really *large scale pumped hydro*, will have to be funded by Federal or State Governments.
> The capital cost, the acquisition of land cost, the public backlash cost and the amount of pumped storage required, will take it way out of the cost base analysis spectrum for private funding IMO.




That's what I've been saying all along.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> That's the lifetime, I was thinking more of continuous output. eg if there are long periods of overcast weather, how long could a battery keep up the supply ?




In theory it's possible to build a truly massive battery that would last for a month or more. That would bankrupt anyone who tried it however......

To put some numbers on it, the Hornsdale Power Reserve (aka the Tesla "big battery" in SA) was originally commissioned with a peak discharge of 100 MW and with energy storage of 129 MWh. So in simple terms it can sustain that 100 MW for 1.29 hours or it can sustain half that rate of output for twice as long. There's some minor variation due to efficiency not being linear but it's close enough.

In contrast Snowy 2.0 has a proposed generating capacity of 2000 MW and storage of 350 GWh. So it could sustain that 2000 MW constantly for 175 hours, or half as much for twice as long and so on.

Hornsdale (battery) = 129 MWh

Snowy 2.0 (pumped hydro) = 350,000 MWh

Hydro Tasmania existing integrated system "as is" = 14,400,000 MWh

As a means of getting a high output for a relatively short duration, batteries are a very serious contender. If you want bulk storage though well then at present hydro leaves batteries for dead.

In an ideal world and if it were up to me then I wouldn't build Snowy 2.0 or the Tasmanian projects right now since so long as there's a solid backbone of fossil fuel generation, there's no pressing need for that bulk energy storage. Batteries or smaller pumped hydro schemes such as the ones AGL, EA and Origin are looking at could provide peaking capacity more cheaply given the certainty that they can be recharged from whatever wind, solar, coal, gas, hydro or if really necessary diesel generation happens to be available outside the peaks. Discharge during the evening, charge overnight, discharge in the morning, charge during the day. Works so long as there's plenty of coal etc plant still running.

Where the need does arise is next decade noting that there's a huge amount of generating plant set to close between 2029 and 2035 indeed most of the NSW coal-fired power industry will disappear during that period as will a chunk of other generating capacity in various states. There ends the certainty that batteries can be recharged twice a day since there simply won't be enough remaining fossil fuel and storage hydro to do it unless something new is built. That's where Snowy 2.0 etc comes in.....

In practice though we don't live in an ideal world, we live in a world where there's a thing known as politics, and there's no guarantee that a proposal to build Snowy 2.0 and to put two additional cables across Bass Strait would be efficiently rubber stamped by parliament in 2025. It could end up in protracted debate and might not even happen at all if the government prefers to instead try and force the construction of a new coal (or nuclear) station in NSW or Vic.

For that reason I'm in favour of doing both of them ASAP. Now or possibly never so get on with it whilst the politics is reasonably favourable. There's no realistic chance they end up useless assets, worst case there's a quantum leap in batteries in the next few years and it turns out that we could have saved a few $ but the pumped hydro won't end up being obsolete as such.

All things considered though, well I'd rather take that risk and in any event, creating employment in regional NSW and north-west Tasmania is of itself not exactly a bad thing to be doing, those regions could do with some jobs, so if it turns out that it could be done more cheaply then it's not as though there won't have been some benefits from the whole thing. Plus it's a very permanent sort of asset, it's not something that'll wear out anytime soon.

The big concern however is timing noting that by the end of 2023 on current plans Torrens Island A (AGL, SA, 480 MW, gas), Osborne (Origin, SA, 180 MW, gas) and Liddell (AGL, NSW, 1680 MW, coal) will all be shut and there's no chance of Snowy 2.0 being built in that time so hopefully some of the smaller projects do go ahead and are done by then.

If you look at what's closing then it's by no means a case of Snowy 2.0 and the Tasmanian projects OR privately owned batteries and small pumped hydros. Rather, we need the whole lot and the question is about the order of building them and to what extent Snowy 2.0 and the Tas projects could be done with gas instead.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> That's what I've been saying all along.



And I agree with you 100%.
The Government is funding Snowy 2.0 and helping fund the Tassie battery, which aids with pumped storage. It is o.k everyone pushing the batteries and they are good, but pumped storage and to a degree hydrogen storage, is going to be the grunt that replaces coal.
The hydro turbines, H2 fired gas turbines and synchronous condensers are going to provide the inertia in a renewable fed grid.Also if they perfect the molten salt storage, the steam turbines will be another source of inertia, which will help with grid stability.
Just my opinion.


----------



## sptrawler

Just read your synopsis smurf, absolutely spot on, there would be no way a business model would suggest Snowy2.0 and Tassie battery, but as you say the general public is screaming for an indication that something of substance is being done.
When they are finished and the interconnector between NSW and S.A is completed, NSW will get a huge benefit from Snowy 2.0 and the benefits wont be realised untill well after it is completed and the coal plants start closing.
One would think it will have a marked effect on pushing down the spot price of electricity in NSW, with renewable generation coming from S.A and Snowy 2.0 pumping into the high demand evening market, GT's may have to come off instead of coal.
I could be wrong but that is my guess.


----------



## qldfrog

https://www.vox.com/2020/2/18/21128205/climate-change-japan-coal-energy-emissions-pikachu
While i  do not suggest we build new coal plants here with the sun we have, this or the fact China is still building so many coal stations should maybe make people think.
Are Chinese and Japanese people purposely ready to kill their children?
it is well known NOT that Asians are only looking at short term personal benefits more than long term own country's vs our western 3y mandates politician are future looking....
Out of this:
Forget about nuclear: Japan and Germany even France are closing uranium nuclear plants
Maybe just maybe, Asia is not swallowing the CO2 is causing global warming mantra.
Of course i expect to be slaughtered by the cult leaders for this blasphemy.
It is to be noted that Japan has no  domestic coal production


----------



## SirRumpole

qldfrog said:


> https://www.vox.com/2020/2/18/21128205/climate-change-japan-coal-energy-emissions-pikachu
> While i  do not suggest we build new coal plants here with the sun we have, this or the fact China is still building so many coal stations should maybe make people think.
> Are Chinese and Japanese people purposely ready to kill their children?
> it is well known NOT that Asians are only looking at short term personal benefits more than long term own country's vs our western 3y mandates politician are future looking....
> Out of this:
> Forget about nuclear: Japan and Germany even France are closing uranium nuclear plants
> Maybe just maybe, Asia is not swallowing the CO2 is causing global warming mantra.
> Of course i expect to be slaughtered by the cult leaders for this blasphemy.
> It is to be noted that Japan has no  domestic coal production




Interesting story.

https://www.wired.com/story/china-is-still-building-an-insane-number-of-new-coal-plants/


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting story.
> 
> https://www.wired.com/story/china-is-still-building-an-insane-number-of-new-coal-plants/



Jeez Rumpy, 1000GW of installed coal, with 121GW under construction,  that is mind boggling, when you consider the Eastern States has 23GW in total soon to be 21GW with closure Lidell.
Western Australia has 1.7 GW of coal soon to be 1.3GW , it kind of puts it all into perspective.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Jeez Rumpy, 1000GW of installed coal, with 121GW under construction,  that is mind boggling, when you consider the Eastern States has 23GW in total soon to be 21GW with closure Lidell.
> Western Australia has 1.7 GW of coal soon to be 1.3GW , it kind of puts it all into perspective.




Well they do have a billion people to supply with power. 

They are pretty technology neutral, with nuclear and hydro in the mix as well.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Well they do have a billion people to supply with power.
> 
> They are pretty technology neutral, with nuclear and hydro in the mix as well.



I just can't imagine with current technology, how they will replace that amount of generation, with renewables the power output just isn't there yet.
That is 1000,000MW,
If coal is really causing global warming, everyone had better get used to it, because that amount of coal generation wont be getting replaced by solar panels.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I just can't imagine with current technology, how they will replace that amount of generation, with renewables the power output just isn't there yet.
> That is 1000,000MW,
> If coal is really causing global warming, everyone had better get used to it, because that amount of coal generation wont be getting replaced by solar panels.




Well, the story said that many coal stations were built by "regulation" and the reality is that a lot of them are not in operation.

Don't know if that's true. I doubt if China is too pleased about being dependent on Oz for coal. I think they would prefer self sufficiency in their power supplies.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Well, the story said that many coal stations were built by "regulation" and the reality is that a lot of them are not in operation.
> 
> Don't know if that's true. I doubt if China is too pleased about being dependent on Oz for coal. I think they would prefer self sufficiency in their power supplies.



If they are going to 'urbanise' 100,000,000 people in the next few years, their demand will grow a lot, maybe the Power Stations were built in preparation for the urbanisation it would make sense.


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> doubt if China is too pleased about being dependent on Oz for coal.



@SirRumpole china is in no way dependent on Australian coal, its reserves and annual domestic production is massive and dwarfs us
https://images.app.goo.gl/DoyxGB47z63cCzZ36
I am not a coal fanatic but i know the business


----------



## qldfrog

China's EV move would make it less reliant on oil, this is an area they want to reduce dependency replacing it with domestic coal and providing work and so social cohesion in their model.
Sometimes tech decision are first based on social issues, in the same way we in the west, close  some coal plants here just to please our media shapers and so gain votes in the next poll


----------



## Smurf1976

On the CO2 question I'm somewhat of a fatalist for the simple reason that China is now burning more coal than everyone else combined and there's not much chance of that coming down in a big way anytime soon.

That's not being racist against China or Chinese people, it's just an observation that the "Western" approach only works so long as most of the world doesn't do it. Trouble is, China in particular not unreasonably decided they wanted what we've got - we did agree to give it to them after all so can't blame them.

What I do see though is an economic opportunity. 

There's no chance we're going to beat others with high grade coal, oil, natural gas or uranium. To the extent that we've got any natural advantage in energy at this point in time it's with either lower grade coal or renewables.

With the application of some brains rather than ideology, the potential seems real to generate cheap electricity from renewables and use that as the primary basis for industry. Transform Australia from a low value quarry and service economy into a higher value manufacturing or at least processing one.

This is essentially 20th century Tasmanian style hydro-industrialisation only this time at the national scale and without much hydro but it's otherwise the exact same concept. Ramp up energy production, do it cheaper than anyone else, use it to run industry and that's where the benefits arise.

Noting that it's based on wind and solar which are commonly abbreviated to RE (Renewable Energy) and given the need for a word to describe it which isn't hydro-industrialisation, I've come up with the term "REindustrialisation" which has the added bonus of an appropriate double interpretation.

REindustrialise Australia - sounds like a plan whose time has come given that globalisation has been sputtering since the GFC. There are risks but then there are risks with continuing to rely on fossil fuel and iron ore exports too.


----------



## sptrawler

I said early on in this thread, if we are going to do it (go to renewables), we really need to go for it.
I'm of the belief we are actually doing that, the impetus is growing extremely quickly, but we don' want the cart to get in front of the horse IMO.
ATM moment, we are doing extremely well IMO, the fact S.A got ahead of itself has accelerated the requirement for the system to catch up. The litmus test IMO will be, what comes out this year regarding the plan for electric cars and the grid transformation, when that is published IMO it will give an indication of how serious the intent is at a Federal level.
Until then we just have to be gratefull we are well positioned regarding, population, topography and overall costs required.
In reality we are well positioned to make the most of it, as you say smurf.
Just my opinion, but very interesting times, IMO.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> REindustrialise Australia - sounds like a plan whose time has come given that globalisation has been sputtering since the GFC. There are risks but then there are risks with continuing to rely on fossil fuel and iron ore exports too.




We have the second largest supplies of lithium in the world so surely there is a processing opportunity there ?

Trouble is if our muppet government moan "but it can be done cheaper overseas" and just let the whole raw stuff be exported with no industry here. 

This is really where you need some foresight. How did the Japanese and US car industries grow to the size they are now ? Exclusion of competition that's how. Keep the weeds out of the garden until the industries have economies of scale.

Of course that doesn't fit in ideologically with the PC globalised world we now have, but economically it will work.


----------



## IFocus

Smurft I always imagined batteries were primary for faults and sudden load changes (grid system stability) rather than act like a hydro is this correct?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> We have the second largest supplies of lithium in the world so surely there is a processing opportunity there ?
> .



Not only lithium, we have nickel, cobalt, graphite, rare earths, everything that is required for a battery electric World.
Why we can't value add, is because it is obviously cheaper to manufacture elsewhere, so if we make our energy cheap again it should with luck reverse the trend.
I certainly hope it works, for the grandkids sake.
Another item that I posted in the CWY thread, which may actually cause a slight increase in manufacturing, is now the Government has legislated all recycling must be done in Australia.
This may force companies to invest in using the recycled product, rather than import pre packaged, eg beer, bottled juices etc, it may end up the major companies have to use Australian recycled packaging, or manufacture their own packaging from recycled product wherever possible.
Otherwise there will be a lot of processed recyclable product sitting around without a home.


----------



## macca

SirRumpole said:


> Well, the story said that many coal stations were built by "regulation" and the reality is that a lot of them are not in operation.
> 
> Don't know if that's true. I doubt if China is too pleased about being dependent on Oz for coal. I think they would prefer self sufficiency in their power supplies.




They are working on it, they already own a lot of our mines and will be happy to buy the rest just as soon as they are available.


----------



## Smurf1976

IFocus said:


> Smurft I always imagined batteries were primary for faults and sudden load changes (grid system stability) rather than act like a hydro is this correct?




Under present circumstances with technology and economics, batteries are good for short, sharp peaks but not for bulk storage.

So as a response to a fault or to meet the 6 - 7 pm peak then sure, they can do that most certainly and they do it pretty well. There's a place for them definitely and a good reason why batteries are typically being built with 1 - 2 hours storage capacity.

As a means of bulk storage though, well a dam's a lot cheaper.

It's a bit like saying that a courier with a small van is good for delivering and picking things up in the suburbs and that could be compared to a battery.

If you want to move 500 shipping containers across the country though well a train or at least large trucks are a far cheaper method than driving lots and lots of small vans across the Nullabor each carrying a few boxes.

Batteries can provide the peak output more cheaply than hydro but hydro can do the energy storage more cheaply than a battery. Cheapest solution = combine them in a properly calculated ratio such that the batteries have an assured means of charging outside the peaks use hydro for the bulk storage that it's good at.

The battery I've got at home will certainly even out the minute by minute fluctuations in solar output and household consumption from sunrise to sunset and it'll power the house during the evening. Reality though is that if I want to use all the available solar then on mild sunny days I need someone else to take it and if I want constantly available power on hot summer nights or during the depths of winter then I need someone to be able to sell me some. This requires that someone else has much longer term storage than the battery I've got on the wall.

The other thing needed in all of this is to get smarter with load management and making use of what we've already got. Suffice to say I've poked and prodded a rather large "household name" company over that one today.......


----------



## SirRumpole

qldfrog said:


> @SirRumpole china is in no way dependent on Australian coal, its reserves and annual domestic production is massive and dwarfs us
> https://images.app.goo.gl/DoyxGB47z63cCzZ36
> I am not a coal fanatic but i know the business




So why do they buy from us at all ?


----------



## qldfrog

Because they consume so much and our met coal, not thermal is of higher quality, please look at the link above:
https://images.app.goo.gl/DoyxGB47z63cCzZ36


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## Smurf1976

It's not unusual for seemingly odd imports and exports to occur.

The obvious example is Saudi Arabia _importing_ oil.

In short they're selling reasonable quality crude oil, it's not the best around but it's OK, and buying some absolute crap with which to fire boilers in their power stations. All good, no problem, they're selling their good crude oil for just under $60 USD per barrel, the not so great but still reasonable stuff is about $57, and the stuff they're buying from others is about $45 per barrel at the moment. It burns, it fires the boilers, that's all it needs to do.

There was some imported black coal being sold as BBQ fuel in Australia a few years ago. Suffice to say that anyone who thinks that Victorian brown coal, the raw material for making Heat Beads, is in some way "dirty" (in a chemical sense it's actually one of the cleanest coals around by the way, only real problem is the high moisture content), would be in for a hell of a shock if they tried cooking over an open BBQ grill using this imported stuff. The fumes were rather sharp to say the least, presumably that's why it disappeared. My old neighbour bought some - used it once and gave the rest to me to use in the fire (for heating) simply to get rid of it.

Australia also imports LPG by the way despite being a net exporter of the stuff. Comes down to having some rather precise technical regulations that others don't have (and which are overkill in my view but anyway). End result is we export LPG and also import it from the same country we're selling much of it to.


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## IFocus

*Portland Installs Turbines in City Water Pipes To Create Free Electricity*

The city recently installed new municipal water pipes equipped with four 42-inch turbines that create electricity from the water passing through them.
	

		
			
		

		
	







Historyically, hydropower has been created by damming rivers and installing turbines inside the dams, which can be damaging to fish and the river itself.

Tap-water hydropower creates virtually no effect on wildlife, as it is simply harnessing the energy of water that’s already flowing through the pipes.


https://returntonow.net/2020/02/20/portland-installs-turbines-in-water-pipes-to-create-free-electricity/?fbclid=IwAR18NK2SXXKFiRo0ywXs7-sXYovX2V0kFQWOzOhbSbP2r-aCNeii8sRP4SM


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## SirRumpole

Rio Tinto gets behind renewable energy.

This should be a lesson that more companies are aware of and sensitive to their public image when it comes to energy use and are putting their money where their mouths are and making the switch.

Good on them.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-21/rio-tinto-goes-solar-for-new-mine/11983876


----------



## Smurf1976

IFocus said:


> The city recently installed new municipal water pipes equipped with four 42-inch turbines that create electricity from the water passing through them.




It's using a different technical approach but for the record Lofty Ranges Power, a 50/50 joint venture of SA Water and Hydro Tasmania, has been capturing energy from Adelaide's incoming water supply for quite some years now.

There's also some energy recovery from the brine discharge from the desal plant and via completely separate technology quite a few water authorities in Australia do recover some gas from sewage treatment plants which is used to run engines either for generating electricity or direct mechanical drive.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Rio Tinto gets behind renewable energy.
> 
> This should be a lesson that more companies are aware of and sensitive to their public image when it comes to energy use and are putting their money where their mouths are and making the switch.
> 
> Good on them.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-21/rio-tinto-goes-solar-for-new-mine/11983876



Yes, Fortescue mining and Alinta are also putting in large scale solar/battery at the Pilbara mining hub.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/alinta-...energy-costs-for-pilbara-mining-giants-36470/

https://www.pv-magazine-australia.c...tery-project-to-power-its-pilbara-operations/


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Rio Tinto gets behind renewable energy.




Rio Tinto has been on the receiving end of lobbying from the renewable energy industry for a long time now in regard to the idea of creating "green" commodity markets. That is, you'd have physically identical metal but priced differently according to the means of production. So two prices for the same commodity basically and an audit trail to ensure compliance.

To their credit, they never outright dismissed the idea and in more recent times have put it to limited application with some customers. So the customer has a negotiated deal, Rio Tinto as their sole supplier of metal, and there's an audit trail to confirm that it was produced in a "best practice" lower impact manner than would normally be the case. That doesn't mean 100% renewable energy, thus far things like ships are still going to be running on oil etc, but it does mean doing it far better than would normally be the case. eg still running trucks with diesel but the mill and refinery are run with mostly renewables. etc.

As for WA, well I'm told that at a mining industry conference in WA not too long ago people from the gas industry mocked the idea that renewables would have any impact in north-west WA. They've probably got that "stunned" look on their faces about now.....


----------



## sptrawler

A good article on the state of play, with regard renewables and the rquirement to strenghen the grid infrastructure.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...-threatening-energy-grid-20200223-p543f3.html
From the article:
_
Networks must have more visibility of the security of their operations and flexible sources of supply and demand response when it may be quickly needed to maintain both frequency and voltage stability."

The Australian Energy Market Operator had to intervene to maintain system security 75 times in 2018-19 compared to 32 times the year before. Reliability was a particular concern during the height of summer in Victoria, NSW and South Australia.


Loading
Total emissions across the national electricity market, which includes Queensland, NSW, ACT, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia, had fallen 15 per cent since 2005.

There will be a further fall by 2030 under forecasts presented by the council, to 41 per cent below 2005 levels, following the expected closure of older coal and gas plants_.
_In January the government's leading energy security adviser Kerry Schott, who is chair of the Energy Security Board, said national leadership was needed on emissions as renewables put pressure on the grid. She called for more hydroelectricity, battery storage and gas.

The council expects the Snowy 2.0 project that will complete in the mid-2020s to help reliability in the long-term, as will funds provided by the government to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.


Loading
The report also found that retail prices were declining with affordability improvements largely due to more solar use and energy efficiency.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor said there were ongoing challenges for the sector when it came to maintaining the safety and reliability of electricity supply when wind and solar was not available, noting the report advocated for the development of hydrogen as a commercial industry.

"This recognises the significant opportunities presented by hydrogen," Mr Taylor said_.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> A good article on the state of play, with regard renewables and the rquirement to strenghen the grid infrastructure.
> 
> https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...-threatening-energy-grid-20200223-p543f3.html
> From the article:
> _
> Networks must have more visibility of the security of their operations and flexible sources of supply and demand response when it may be quickly needed to maintain both frequency and voltage stability."
> 
> The Australian Energy Market Operator had to intervene to maintain system security 75 times in 2018-19 compared to 32 times the year before. Reliability was a particular concern during the height of summer in Victoria, NSW and South Australia.
> 
> 
> Loading
> Total emissions across the national electricity market, which includes Queensland, NSW, ACT, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia, had fallen 15 per cent since 2005.
> 
> There will be a further fall by 2030 under forecasts presented by the council, to 41 per cent below 2005 levels, following the expected closure of older coal and gas plants_.
> _In January the government's leading energy security adviser Kerry Schott, who is chair of the Energy Security Board, said national leadership was needed on emissions as renewables put pressure on the grid. She called for more hydroelectricity, battery storage and gas.
> 
> The council expects the Snowy 2.0 project that will complete in the mid-2020s to help reliability in the long-term, as will funds provided by the government to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
> 
> 
> Loading
> The report also found that retail prices were declining with affordability improvements largely due to more solar use and energy efficiency.
> 
> Energy Minister Angus Taylor said there were ongoing challenges for the sector when it came to maintaining the safety and reliability of electricity supply when wind and solar was not available, noting the report advocated for the development of hydrogen as a commercial industry.
> 
> "This recognises the significant opportunities presented by hydrogen," Mr Taylor said_.




I don't know about anyone else, but I think we are heading for disaster using an economic model (investment & profits) to determine the availability and price of an essential service.

So the "government picking winners" argument has been attacked in favour of a "leave it to the market" strategy which now doesn't seem to be working as the whole methodoloy is wrong; ie companies won't invest unless they get a profit, which results in higher prices for consumers.

To me the major private enterprise involvement should be rooftop solar where a lot of suppliers can compete for a big consumer market, but for major assets like say gas power stations it's difficult to see a lot of investors competing for that market as the costs are very high and will face increasing competition from rooftop solar and household batteries.

If baseload is determined to be necessary, then it should be government investment driving this, along with construction of the delivery system (poles and wires) , as in the long term this would seem to be a system that would be less used over time and therefore unattractive to private investment..


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> If baseload is determined to be necessary, then it should be government investment driving this, along with construction of the delivery system (poles and wires) , as in the long term this would seem to be a system that would be less used over time and therefore unattractive to private investment..



I, as I have said before, agree with you.
To me the big issue is, maintaining a solid reliable base load supply, until it is no longer required.
The problem with this is, the rate of return from the base load will drop and drop as the renewables get larger, this is what will make it completely uneconomical to run the base load and the private sector wont want to do it.
Add to that the fact, the base load units will get cycled more and more, as the renewables push them off the bars more regularly.
This in turn will increase the wear and tear on the units, increasing the maintenance cost, which will add to the poor return.
Then eventually it becomes a stranded asset, when it is no longer required at all, but until then it has to be 100% reliable.
There is no private generator, who is going to put there hands up for that, unless they get massive subsidies.
That is why, as I've said before, the Government should build a big Power Station, to be the generator of last resort because it will be the one that comes off first and goes on last, therefore makes the least money.
Then progressively have the private sector close their stations, until the Government one is the only one running, then close it down when it is no longer required. Or leave it on care and maintenance, just in case it is required in major system disturbances, like the bushfires where large areas of the sky can be affected by smoke therefore poor solar output.
Just my opinion.
By the way, that is the advantage the W.A system has over the Eastern States, there is only one privately operated coal fired major Power Station( Blue Waters). The other two major coal fired stations are both Government owned, so an orderly transition to gas/ renewables should be a fairly seamless transition. IMO
The only thing missing in the renewables debate at the moment, is common sense, way too much pizzing on things to mark territory.


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> I
> The only thing missing in the renewables debate at the moment, is common sense




Common sense = policy and plan


----------



## rederob

Here's what the Energy Security Board reported today.
The critical elements of  *energy security *and *reliability *are not well covered.
Finkel reported on the emergent concerns of technical constraints on renewables over 3 years ago, yet here we are.
The answer to why there is little action to address Finkel's concerns lies squarely with the federal Minister who is simply incompetent and refuses to acknowledge what is necessary.  He is not helped by the Coalition government which has as it's main platform that energy prices do not increase, yet also refuses to recognise that renewables are driving prices lower, not fossil fuels.
This is the blind being led by the blinded, while consumers suffer the prospect of the lights going out.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Common sense = policy and plan



Exactly what I'm talking about, echo chambers, with limited grey matter. I see you are in good company.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Exactly what I'm talking about, echo chambers, with limited grey matter. I see you are in good company.



The point is that the information needed to address these issues has been provided at Energy COAG over many years, so it's a matter of* NOT DOING* as distinct from any lack of grey matter or common sense.
What part of that don't you understand?


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Common sense = policy and plan



Well we will see how a policy without a plan and no analysis goes shortly, hopefully Albo isn't shooting from the hip, common sense hasn't been a strong suite of Labor in recent history.
Time will tell.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-21/labor-to-announce-net-zero-carbon-emissions-2050/11986308
from the article:
_While announcing the 2050 goal, Mr Albanese will not outline how Labor will achieve it, a move the party's climate change spokesman defended.
"There is a process of developing policy. You start with core principles, you then start talking to organisations like the [Business Council of Australia] and the so many other businesses and stakeholder groups about the details so that well before the election there is a detailed policy that we as the alternative government can put before the Australian people."
Labor was criticised at the last election for not being able to explain how much its climate policies would cost.

If it had won the election, the party planned to cut emissions by 45 per cent, based on 2005 levels, by 2030.

*Mr Butler said more work was needed before the party settled on a 2030 target.

"We are going to have to take advice about what a proper, responsible, medium-term target to release in 2022 is going to be," he said*_.

Doesn't sound like policy or plan to me, sounds more like a passing of wind.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Doesn't sound like policy or plan to me, sounds more like a passing of wind.




No point in producing a plan this far out from the election and have it sat on by the government, who have no plan themselves and apparently aren't going to provide one anytime soon.

That is the essential problem of course, it's all electioneering strategy. If parties actually formed a plan that they were confident in they would put it out asap and let the other side catch up. But no, it's all secretive "wait till the election" propaganda.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> No point in producing a plan this far out from the election and have it sat on by the government, who have no plan themselves and apparently aren't going to provide one anytime soon.
> 
> That is the essential problem of course, it's all electioneering strategy. If parties actually formed a plan that they were confident in they would put it out asap and let the other side catch up. But no, it's all secretive "wait till the election" propaganda.



From what I have read and posted up, it sounds as though the Government is releasing a, 'electric car' plan by mid year, and a 'renewable roadmap' plan by years end.
Maybe that is why Albo has jumped in, to try and nullify anything the Government comes out with.
So IMO a lot is hanging on what comes out from the Government this year, if it isn't any good, I think they are toast.
But if it is a good and well thought out plan, it will be jumped on by the public, because I think everyone is getting fed up the rhetoric from both parties and the media.
Everyone just wants it to end. IMO


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Everyone just wants it to end.



Absolutely.

There are certainly some getting on with it behind the scenes however despite the nonsense. Picking two very different companies as examples, one listed and one government owned:

AGL are quietly progressing their Victorian gas supply plan. There’s opposition to it sure but they’re plodding along with it, ticking the proverbial boxes and so on. 

If built then it’ll have a substantial impact in Victoria, it’ll have the ability to supply more than half the state’s peak day gas demand, and that also has flow on implications for SA, NSW/ACT and Tas.

On the other side of Bass Strait it’s public knowledge that Hydro Tas and Norske Skog signed a bulk supply deal last year which runs through to 2030. Norske Skog is a major paper manufacturer - they’ve signed the power supply deal in Tas, are keeping the factory open 40km from Hobart and have shut their other one in NSW.

So there’s some things happening with those doing them tending to be “winners” relative to those who aren’t and that applies both at the corporate level and the broader community (state) level.

On the downside of all this, well I won’t name them but it’s no secret that there are manufacturers installing new coal-fired boilers as the only way to keep the factory viable. Gas price is far too high so it’s either that or shut the doors and become an importer.

Those coal-fired boilers won’t be going away anytime soon, they’ll run through to 2050 at a minimum. If anyone wants them shut due to CO2 then taxpayers will need to open their wallets or we need tariff protection against imports.

There’s a few others looking at the same idea but wary of falling foul of anyone protesting about coal. 

One’s going down the import route instead due to that concern but there’s another that’s come up with a clever way to physically disguise the use of coal on site as a workaround. It’s a ludicrous situation but a clever trick nonetheless.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> By the way, that is the advantage the W.A system has over the Eastern States, there is only one privately operated coal fired major Power Station( Blue Waters).



I’d be willing to bet that Bluewaters ends up with a somewhat shorter lifespan than Muja.

For that matter I wouldn’t be surprised if its operating life is shorter than Bunbury or even South Fremantle too.

On the plus side, well pulling it down should be a cinch compared to any of the others........


----------



## sptrawler

Another interesting article on the state of play regarding renewables. I am purposely keeping the CC debate and vested interests separate of the renewable issue, for the purpose of the debate on the Power Grid.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02...ut-grid-instability/11993776?section=business
From the article:
_Energy Security Board (ESB), 
ESB chair Dr Kerry Schott told the ABC's AM program that the surge in wind and solar generation has been an added complication in the grid's ability to handle new energy sources.
While climate change is expected to worsen, the ESB report also highlights "remarkable growth" in renewable energy generation driven by falling technology costs, government programs and consumer preferences, with rooftop solar now accounting for 5 per cent of energy production.

In its annual health report on the national energy market, the ESB forecasts that renewable generation will expand from 16 per cent of the market in 2018-19 to 27 per cent by 2022, before surging to 40 per cent in 2040._
*Gridlock on renewables investment*
_However, this forecast is threatened by a recent slump in renewables investment.

Spending on large scale renewable energy projects fell by more than 50 per cent in 2019 — from 51 projects worth nearly $11 billion to 28 projects worth $4.5 billion.
"With the slowdown that is underway in new renewable energy investment then certainly our existing commitments to Paris, let alone our ability to go beyond that into the future, certainly becomes much more difficult and quite questionable," Kane Thornton, the chief executive of the Clean Energy Council, said.

A major disincentive to newcomers is Australia's national electricity grid.

It is struggling to cope with the rate of development of renewable energy, leading to many solar and wind plants having their output slashed, while other new projects have experienced long waiting times to get connected in the first place.
Dr Schott warned that the surge in renewables also posed a return threat to the grid and its ability to consistently keep the lights on.

"The system wasn't built for it [renewables], but neither was anyone else's system in the world and everyone is going through the same type of change," she said.
The renewable energy sector wants the Federal Government to increase its energy market mandate by lifting the Renewable Energy Target to prepare for the phasing out of coal plants.

"They are going to retire," said Ms Watson.

"They do need massive refurbishment costs to be found. They are struggling with financing. They are struggling with insurance so it's inevitable that our coal fleet is going to disappear."

The ESB report forecast that, by 2042, almost all of the ageing coal fired power stations will be replaced by wind and solar combined with pumped hydro and battery storage.

"If you've got flat demand and not a lot of need for energy in general there's not going to be a lot of need for renewable energy," Matt Harris, head of Renewables and Climate Change at Frontier Economics, observed.
The renewable energy sector wants the Federal Government to increase its energy market mandate by lifting the Renewable Energy Target to prepare for the phasing out of coal plants.

"They are going to retire," said Ms Watson.

"They do need massive refurbishment costs to be found. They are struggling with financing. They are struggling with insurance so it's inevitable that our coal fleet is going to disappear."

The ESB report forecast that, by 2042, almost all of the ageing coal fired power stations will be replaced by wind and solar combined with pumped hydro and battery storage.
The Energy Security Board was established by the COAG Energy Council and is charged with coordinating a reform blueprint produced by Australia's chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel_.


----------



## sptrawler

Industrial size electrolysis plant being developed in the U.K
https://www.itm-power.com/news/industrial-scale-renewable-hydrogen-project-advances-to-next-phase


----------



## basilio

I think this company and their technology could make a avery big splash in the renewable energy market

*AFC Energy lays out string of markers for hydrogen fuel cells*
*Snapshot*

Has developed a scalable alkaline fuel cell system


The fuel cells use hydrogen to make clean electricity


To supply electric car charging and replace diesel generators
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.u...f-markers-for-hydrogen-fuel-cells-211982.html


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> I think this company and their technology could make a avery big splash in the renewable energy market
> 
> *AFC Energy lays out string of markers for hydrogen fuel cells*
> *Snapshot*
> 
> Has developed a scalable alkaline fuel cell system
> 
> 
> The fuel cells use hydrogen to make clean electricity
> 
> 
> To supply electric car charging and replace diesel generators
> https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.u...f-markers-for-hydrogen-fuel-cells-211982.html



Good article Bas, it is going to be really interesting to watch the development of these new technologies with regard H2 and batteries, the amount of research going on will be unbelievable.


----------



## sptrawler

Another good article by Bas, posted in the EV thread. The opening couple of paragraphs, explains the issues the U.K see, regarding the grid and adopting BEV's.
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/12/20191231-afc.html
From the article:
_In the UK, a recent study commissioned by Scottish Power found that *to meet EV deployment targets, almost £100 billion (US$131 billion) of new investment is required to upgrade the network and deploy dedicated EV charging stations throughout the country.*

For fleet operators, commercial vehicles and even private and public car park operators, large scale rapid charging is a corporate necessity, which in instances cannot be met without localized grid upgrades. AFC Energy’s system is designed to meet these needs by delivering an EV charger that can be safely fueled using a variety of hydrogen sources while operating at optimum efficiency to enable rapid charging rates when and where it is required_.

It just highlights how complicated the adoption of renewables and BEV's are going to be, back of the napkin just do it, ain't going to cut it. IMO


----------



## sptrawler

A good article, for those wondering if the Government is formulating a plan.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...ables-to-next-challenges-20200227-p5453y.html
From the article:
_The government's plan to use technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will look beyond wind and solar energy to the "next challenges", including hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, and methane produced by livestock.

Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor says a long-term emissions reduction road map, which will not hand out "massive government subsidies", will be ready by November, in time for the next round of international climate talk_s.

_The government says it won't commit to an emissions reduction target before it can work out the economic cost of the transition, but has not ruled out setting a target to achieve net zero emissions.

The government has criticised the Opposition for its commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Mr Taylor said in Parliament on Thursday the Opposition had no plan to achieve its emissions reductions, was "making it up as they go along" and risked missing the target or damaging the economy_.

_He will tell a Committee for Economic Development of Australia forum in Sydney on Friday the government has invested more than $10 billion on 670 wind and solar-related projects, valued at $35 billion, and they are now "coming to an end of value"_.

*RELATED ARTICLE*





*PARIS AGREEMENT*
*Australia must hit net zero by 2050 to meet Paris: scientists*
_"We must move our investments to the next challenges. Hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, lithium and advanced livestock feed supplements to name a few," he will say_.

Doesn't sound to me, like they don't have a plan.


----------



## Humid

*:* Australia sourced 79% of our electricity from fossil fuels in 2018; renewable investment has tanked post-2020 Renewable Energy Target; and as _Crikey_ has noted multiple times, and despite the millions of dollars already pissed away at carbon capture and storage, the most effective form of sequestration is trees.


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> *:* Australia sourced 79% of our electricity from fossil fuels in 2018; renewable investment has tanked post-2020 Renewable Energy Target; and as _Crikey_ has noted multiple times, and despite the millions of dollars already pissed away at carbon capture and storage, the most effective form of sequestration is trees.



The other option, is to sign up to Albos, make a wish foundation.


----------



## sptrawler

Getting back to the Governments announcement, to me it shows they are making measured decissions, there really is no need for the Government to throw more money at solar and wind generation it is already cheaper than coal.
So to start and subsidies storage initiatives makes perfect sense.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> The other option, is to sign up to Albos, make a wish foundation.




2050 ain’t goin to effect us
Live in the moment old boy


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Getting back to the Governments announcement, to me it shows they are making measured decissions, there really is no need for the Government to throw more money at solar and wind generation it is already cheaper than coal.
> So to start and subsidies storage initiatives makes perfect sense.




Why spend $4 million of our money on a feasibility study for a new coal plant ?

Seems to be market interference to me.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Why spend $4 million of our money on a feasibility study for a new coal plant ?
> 
> Seems to be market interference to me.



Or it could be the feasibility study, finds it isn't feasible, then it is a committees decision not the governments.
Much easier for the voter to swallow, than just tell them it isn't happening, get stuffed.


----------



## sptrawler

IMO it tells you we are doing fine, when even Ross Gittens is starting to acknowledge it.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...s-low-carbon-electricity-20200227-p544ws.html
From the article:
To coin a phrase, Australia’s governments are making heavy weather of their efforts to give us an electricity system that’s secure, reliable and affordable – with declining carbon emissions. *Progress is slow in every respect bar one: the move to renewable energy is showing “remarkable growth”*.


----------



## IFocus

SirRumpole said:


> Why spend $4 million of our money on a feasibility study for a new coal plant ?
> 
> Seems to be market interference to me.




To block the Nats.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Why spend $4 million of our money on a feasibility study for a new coal plant?



Comes down to one word - politics.

That aside though, well hypothetically if we were going to build a new coal plant then first choice of where to put it would be a toss up between NSW and Vic with a revival of the early-1990’s idea of a black coal station in southern NSW a likely front runner along with building units 3 & 4 at Loy Yang B in Victoria.

Running a very distant third would be southern or central Queensland and trailing a long way behind that somewhere in SA which would be scale limited.

If it was a purely political exercise intended to fail then you’d propose WA, NT, Tas or northern Qld where there’s either no point, no coal or too many transmission constraints to make it workable without spending a fortune.

Any proposal in those locations is about political power not electrical power.


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> If it was a purely political exercise intended to fail then you’d propose WA, NT, Tas or northern Qld where there’s either no point, no coal or too many transmission constraints to make it workable without spending a fortune.



Expanding on this point:

WA in the south-west there's no point since there's already enough coal-fired capacity. In the north-west it could be more useful but problem is there's no coal without hauling it huge distances which makes it uneconomic.

NT - no coal and not a lot of demand for electricity. It was actually proposed back in the 1980's but once gas became available that was a no brainer given the modest level of consumption so the 300 MW coal plant that was to supply the whole of Darwin and surrounds never went ahead.

Tas - there's coal which is already mined on a small scale for other uses (industry) and suitable sites for a coal-fired power station have been identified in the past. It is however pointless in that it simply doesn't stack up financially against wind and hydro, a conclusion which has been reached every single time the idea has been examined and there's been plenty of such occasions since the 1960's including one I was involved with. All up, 5 locations have been contemplated for the power station and none of them ever stacked up economically with lack of scale being the killer in all cases. Coal resources in Tas preclude the building of a single large plant of high capacity located next to the mine and that reality kills the economics. The coal deposits are just too scattered in individually small quantities for that to work. 

SA - any coal plant would be either small scale or would involve a major transmission upgrade to NSW / Vic additional to what's already there or planned. Plus it would be a new mine built from scratch, there's a need for water supply and so on. It would make far more sense to put the plant in Vic or NSW and transmit power to SA than to do the reverse.

North Qld - transmission constraints are such that it would be an expensive place to put it given that the output would be flowing south anyway. It would be far cheaper to build it in a southern or central location where there's coal readily available and transmission infrastructure already exists.

In contrast in Vic there's a site already cleared and leveled for 2 x 500 MW. The mine's already running to supply the other 6 x 500 MW that were actually built, the transmission lines are already of adequate capacity and so on. If we were going to build coal then that would be by far the easiest but note that there's zero private sector interest in the idea.

Second easiest would be NSW. Either sort out more coal supply to Mt Piper and put the third and fourth units in the existing power station. So it's much the same concept as Victoria apart from the inadequate coal supply problem but everything else is sorted already. Or could revive the idea of building a new coal-fired plant in southern NSW as was proposed in the early 1990's for supply to both NSW and Vic from a ~2800 MW station.

Note that I'm not arguing that we ought to build coal, just that if we were going to well then the idea of putting it in northern Qld is a silly one which makes sense only if the intent is to fail. If the intent was to actually generate electricity then there's far better places for such a thing than that.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> A good article, for those wondering if the Government is formulating a plan.
> https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...ables-to-next-challenges-20200227-p5453y.html
> From the article:
> _The government's plan to use technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will look beyond wind and solar energy to the "next challenges", including hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, and methane produced by livestock.
> 
> Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor says a long-term emissions reduction road map, which will not hand out "massive government subsidies", will be ready by November, in time for the next round of international climate talk_s.
> 
> _The government says it won't commit to an emissions reduction target before it can work out the economic cost of the transition, but has not ruled out setting a target to achieve net zero emissions.
> 
> The government has criticised the Opposition for its commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Mr Taylor said in Parliament on Thursday the Opposition had no plan to achieve its emissions reductions, was "making it up as they go along" and risked missing the target or damaging the economy_.
> 
> _He will tell a Committee for Economic Development of Australia forum in Sydney on Friday the government has invested more than $10 billion on 670 wind and solar-related projects, valued at $35 billion, and they are now "coming to an end of value"_.
> 
> *RELATED ARTICLE*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *PARIS AGREEMENT*
> *Australia must hit net zero by 2050 to meet Paris: scientists*
> _"We must move our investments to the next challenges. Hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, lithium and advanced livestock feed supplements to name a few," he will say_.
> 
> Doesn't sound to me, like they don't have a plan.





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AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CLEANTECH BITES CLIMATE COAL GOVERNMENTS
*The insanity of Angus Taylor’s fossil fuel technology roadmap*











Federal energy minister Angus Taylor made one significant admission on Friday in his speech about the proposed “technology roadmap” – the Coalition’s new marketing term to disguise its lack of action on climate and emissions.

Wind and solar, Taylor told a CEDA event in Sydney, are now commercially viable, quite obviously the cheapest source of new energy, and didn’t need more federal government support. Not many people would disagree with that.

What the renewable energy industry wants from Taylor, however, is not more subsidies. It wants a plan, and a target, and some effort from the government to smooth the transition to a zero carbon grid by removing the increasing number of regulatory and government hurdles Taylor seems determined to keep in their way.

Investment in wind and solar is falling away rapidly. And as the Clean Energy Regulator has pointed out, it’s not because the renewable energy target has been met and exceeded. There are powerful commercial reasons to invest in more wind and solar, including its substantially lower costs and increasing corporate and consumer demand.

What’s holding it up is a combination of factors that all point to a lack of government leadership: the policy uncertainty, the hostility of government ministers and backbenchers, insufficient infrastructure; out-of-date rules that make investment more risky; new rules that are proving counter-productive; a lack of co-ordination with the states; and modelling mistakes that have caused huge problems in western Victoria and south-west NSW.


Wind and solar are not just the cheapest forms of new generation, they are the reason why Australia’s electricity emissions have fallen so dramatically in recent years, and the Australian Energy Market Operator reckons they could easily cut electricity sector emissions by another 85 per cent over the next 20 years.


Not a bad place to be if your aim is to take the science seriously, and if you can also combine this with the electricifaction of transport, and many industries.

Indeed, AEMO’s 20-year blueprint says Australia can safely, securely, and at lower cost, use wind, solar, storage and demand management and navigate towards a grid that is 90 per cent renewable by 2041.

Plenty of energy experts think that can be done even quicker, but to do that the government needs to remove the regulatory impediments and rule-making obstinacy that is making new investment in wind and solar almost impossible.


But Taylor appears in no hurry to address any of these issues. Taylor has never been a great fan of so-called “intermittent technologies”, having campaigned on behalf of a particularly nasty internet group against wind energy before he became an MP, seeking to remove the renewable energy target once he was elected, and then declaring there was “too much wind and solar” once he became energy minister.

And he’s not alone. As Labor pointed out on Friday, over the past few weeks senior Coalition ministers have compared wind and solar to “dole bludgers” and the “new asbestos”; and the aversion to new technologies extends to batteries and electric vehicles, which the Coalition reckons are about as useful as a big banana, and will likely “end the weekend.”

So there was not much hope that Taylor and the Coalition would do the obvious – embrace the cheapest and cleanest sources of clean energy, and embrace the plans that could accelerate their integration into Australia’s grid.

Technology roadmaps might be an OK idea, and potentially useful for finding solutions to livestock emissions, but not if they are buried in ideology and denial, and if they ignore the obvious and cheapest solutions then they are complete waste of time.

Instead, Taylor’s speech focused mostly on the sort of technologies that will support fossil fuels such as coal and gas, rather than accelerating their exit. This is exactly what the fossil fuel industry and the right wing vandals in the government and conservative media want to hear.


Absurdly, Taylor is now proposing that the country ignore the cheap emissions abatement options and throw more money at things like carbon capture and storage, that has had more than half a billion thrown at it by the Australian government for no discernible outcome.

The other big focus was on hydrogen, and particularly fossil fuel hydrogen. Taylor was particularly enthusiastic about the Latrobe Valley brown coal hydrogen project, a pilot scheme that will spend $500 million to produce just three, yes, three tonnes of hydrogen.

“Whether it’s a migration from gas and coal to hydrogen or widespread use of low-cost geological and biological sequestration – it is crucial that we take that approach,”Taylor said. There was no mention of “green” or renewable hydrogen.

Taylor even had the cheek to say this: “It is crucial the government not crowd out private sector investment,” as he touted his Underwriting New Generation Investment scheme.

Yet that is exactly what UNGI has done – crowd out private investment. The scheme lacks transparency about its scale, scope and intent, and just serves as a road block. Just ask the CEOs of AGL, of Origin Energy, of Infigen Energy, or even the chair of the Energy Security Board. It’s so blindingly obvious to everyone, some wonder whether it is deliberate.


Taylor then went on to say this:

“We all know that the climate and emissions reduction challenge is truly one characterised by the tragedy of the commons.

“Where the net benefits of global emission reductions, whilst very real, are distant from the costs.

“It’s a debate that has become incredibly polarised.

“Between the keyboard warriors and the quiet Australians.


“Between the establishment and the disruptors.

“Between the inner-city and the outer-suburbs and regions.

“Between the opposition and the Government.

“Between emotion and economics.

“It is truly like no other agenda in modern Australia.”


He’s right on a couple of those points – the political aspect, the incumbents and the new players, and emotion and economics. But you need to tip it upside down and back to front to understand what’s really happened here.

The Coalition has struck out at every reasonable climate and energy policy for the past 10 years. Thankfully, it has not been 100 per cent successful, and the renewable energy target stayed in place, albeit reduced, and Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency helped bring down the costs of key technologies, wind and solar, and now storage.

They are now, as Taylor admits, cost effective, and delivering significant emissions reductions.

Scott Morrison says no-one can tell him a pathway to cut emissions or how much it will cost. Perhaps he doesn’t get out much, or doesn’t get to hear from people other than the ex Minerals Council chiefs that dominate his inner coterie.

The experts have already mapped out pathways, whether it be to 90 per cent renewables (AEMO), a transition to zero emissions with considerable job, industry and economy-wide benefits (CSIRO), to a huge new renewable export industry (Garnaut, ARENA and many others); or the science, which says – above all – we must reduce our emissions to zero by 2050, and we must act quickly over the next decade.


Instead, the Coalition government shows no interest in anything much beyond obfuscation. It wants to dig up gas, fund new coal fired power station. Again, delay, delay, delay seems the primary goal.

Taylor fancies himself as a numbers man, and likes to say Australia only accounts for 1.3 per cent of global emissions, so why should it bother about zero emissions targets. But here’s a another number: Australia’s share of global losses from climate change events is estimated at 5.9 per cent. That is some sort of leverage to disaster, and some sort of exposure.

Any policy that ignores the urgency, and the technologies now at hand, is just insane. But it wouldn’t be the first time the Coalition has reached out for a “technology roadmap”, as Richie Merzian, the head of climate policy for The Australia Institute notes: John Howard produced a similar ruse more than two decades ago.

“The Howard Government used the promise of technology as the fig leaf to reject meaningful policy and reject the Kyoto Protocol, and all it did for Australia was keep emissions high and burn our international credibility,” Merzian says. “This Government risks repeating the same mistake.

Fig leafs. The Coalition is quite good at that. Remember Malcolm Turnbull’s description of Tony Abbott’s emissions reduction fund? Nothing much has changed.




Giles Parkinson
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of Renew Economy, and is also the founder of One Step Off The Grid and founder/editor of The Driven. Giles has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.


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## sptrawler

Well there was at least one paragraph that actually said what the problem was:
What’s holding it up is a combination of factors that all point to a lack of government leadership: the policy uncertainty, the hostility of government ministers and backbenchers, insufficient infrastructure; out-of-date rules that make investment more risky; new rules that are proving counter-productive; a lack of co-ordination with the states; and modelling mistakes that have caused huge problems in western Victoria and south-west NSW_.

*Now if you take out the anti Government crap*:
_
insufficient infrastructure; out-of-date rules that make investment more risky; new rules that are proving counter-productive; a lack of co-ordination with the states; and modelling mistakes that have caused huge problems in western Victoria and south-west NSW_.

*You actually get to exactly what we have been saying for years.*
The States own their own grids, the States were whipped in recent times, for "gold plating their grids" which forced up the price of electricity, the States are now being told they didn't spend enough on their transmission grids.
Not only that but the transmission system needs to be reconfigured, because in reality the grid is now the wrong way round, because in the last 7 years renewables have become really cheap. The problems in problems in western Victoria and south-west NSW, have been well reported and are being addressed as the author knows, or should know.
Most of the problems have been caused by renewables becoming so cheap, so quickly, it breeds articles like this IMO. 
_
Unfortunately it is a shame IMO, they can't just stick to reporting the facts, rather than try and wrap it in a anti Federal Government wrapper. All that does is disenfranchise the sector more, a bit like what Sol did with Telstra, they think it will sway someone, all does is sway the ones you don't want to, away from you as Telstra found out.
Obviously the fact Taylor said, the Federal Government was reducing subsidies to solar and wind, touched a nerve.Just my opinion.
We will see at the next election how well the media do, swaying the silent majority, IMO they aren't doing very well. Time will tell.
Humid you are never going to get ahead of the curve, unless you start and think about the issue holistically, that goes to all aspects of life.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> a lack of co-ordination with the states; and modelling mistakes that have caused huge problems in western Victoria and south-west NSW_._



Biggest issue is that ideology trumps pragmatic reality.

If we're going to have multiple generating sources connected to the same transmission line well then it helps if the engineers all work together and make sure that the overall outcome is a workable one.

Trouble is, the ACCC calls that "collusion" and gets really, really unhappy with it even though it's exactly what needs to be happening.

Therein lies the problem that technical reality doesn't fit nicely with political ideology which says everyone ought to be siloed and the result is serious stuff ups costing a fortune economically and also environmentally via lost output of renewable energy for which the full financial and environmental cost is still being incurred regardless.

It's much the same with diesels running in SA last night from 7pm to 8:15pm. Could easily have been avoided, there was plenty of gas-fired plant sitting there doing nothing, but thou shalt not collude.....

I do "get" the economic argument there by the way and I've nothing against the ACCC as such but from a technical perspective it's as frustrating as heck seeing this sort of thing happen and it comes at a real economic cost for consumers and an environmental cost as well. There needs to be a better way, one which doesn't obstruct efficient operation, and it needs to happen ASAP.

On other matters, for those in SA only, if you have any thoughts of installing a battery at home then I suggest you hurry up. This coming Friday there will be a public announcement that the state government subsidy is being reduced with the date of that being effective 15 April. So not a lot of time left if you want the full amount - system doesn't need to be installed by that date but you need all the paperwork sorted so that really only gives a few weeks left for installers to quote etc.

Value of the subsidy is presently $500 / kWh or for those eligible for a concession it's $600 / kWh and capped to a total of $6000 in either case. New amount will be lower but not zero.

Note that I'm not saying you should or shouldn't install a battery, just that if you are going to do so then hurry up if you want the full subsidy amount. Note that this subsidy applies to properties located in SA only.


----------



## sptrawler

Tasmania to get into hydrogen production.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03...smania-government-to-invest-millions/12015654
From the article:
_In a statement, Premier Peter Gutwein said the Government's goal was to have a renewable hydrogen generation facility up and running by 2022-2024.

The Government has identified Bell Bay in the state's north and Burnie in the north west as potential hydrogen industry hubs.

"Our vision is to … be commercially exporting hydrogen by 2030, creating hundreds of local jobs and injecting billions into the Tasmanian economy," Mr Gutwein said_.
_Energy Minister Guy Barnett said a 100-megawatt renewable hydrogen production facility had been found to be a viable first-stage.

"Bell Bay is well suited to host a 100MW facility and has the capacity to expand to a 1,000MW facility by 2030 and expand further if national and international demand grows as predicted," he said.

"The plan indicates that a 1,000MW renewable hydrogen facility (approximately enough power for 1 million households) would create an estimated 1,000 to 1,200 local jobs, and support a further 2,000MW of renewable energy investment in our state_."


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Tasmania to get into hydrogen production.



Bell Bay has an advantage for the location for several reasons.

It's an existing strong point in the transmission network with 4 x 220kV lines leading there. 2 lines from Palmerston switchyard (Poatina power station) which along the way also connect at Hadspen (Launceston) and from Palmerston connect to the south of the state (including the Derwent stations and Gordon power station). Plus two lines from Sheffield switchyard which connects the Mersey-Forth hydro stations and then on to Farrell switchyard which connects the Pieman stations plus John Butters PS and wind generation. George Town substation (Bell Bay) is also the connection point for Tas - Vic power transmission.

Also it's the point where all natural gas, literally 100% of it, enters the state. So if there's to be any blending of hydrogen into the natural gas supply then a single injection point would cover the entire state from Bell Bay.

Also the land is zoned "Major Impact Heavy Industrial" and presently located there is Bell Bay Aluminium (aluminium smelter), Ecka Granules (aluminium powder), TEMCO (manganese alloy smelter and sinter plant), Tamar Valley power station (gas), the shipping port and a few timber-related mills etc. Historically there used to be an automotive wheel casting plant there too - that's long gone but Mazda alloy wheels were being made there at one point many years ago along with various others.

TEMCO is very marginal economically, the writing has been on the wall for a long time now and I doubt it will survive too much longer unless a steel company buys it out for reasons of vertical integration (noting that it's the only such plant in Australia so if it does close then Whyalla and Port Kembla will be dependent on imports for alloys), but the other things there are reasonably sound businesses.

Bell Bay is almost directly opposite the infamous Beaconsfield gold mine on the other side of the river by the way.

A very old photo of the now closed Bell Bay power station which is a short distance south of the other factories etc. Tamar Valley PS and various gas infrastructure has since been built behind it. Good thing about hydrogen = no smoke.


----------



## sptrawler

Another example of the cart before the horse, solar/wind farms are quick and easy to build, to re configure the HV grid to be able to take them is time consuming.
It's a bit like going out and buying a load of cheap chinese BEV's, then opening up a sales yard in outback Queensland and asking the Government to put in more generation and charging infrastructure in the Town so you can sell the cars.
Wouldn't it be best to get the o.k from the Government, before buying the cars?
Just my opinion.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2...ransmission-failure/12021082?section=business

A renewable energy park developer will write down up to $20 million from its half-share of a major investment following months of problems connecting the facility to the power grid.

*Key points:*

The throttled Kennedy Energy Park combines 12 wind turbines, 55,000 solar panels, and 4MW hours of battery storage, all designed to power 35,000 homes
A professor of engineering at ANU says authorising new transmission lines was slow and antiquated right across Australian states
He says without that investment "we're stuck with old, unreliable power stations that frequently go offline"
Canberra-based company Windlab told the ASX it was planning to downgrade the value of its stake in north Queensland's Kennedy Energy Park.

The Australia-first facility combines 12 wind turbines, 55,000 solar panels, and four megawatt hours of battery storage, all designed to power 35,000 homes.

Located east of the town of Hughenden the project was completed in early 2019, but problems receiving Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) standards mean it has generated a fraction of its capacity.

"AEMO's core responsibility is power system security, which includes the safe integration of all new generation into the broader power transmission system."

The spokesman said AEMO had noticed a spike in remote regions hosting electricity generators and integrating such capacity to the grid could be problematic.

"There is a high interest in renewable connections ... and these are increasingly requiring detailed technical assessments to confirm ability to safely operate without adversely impacting power system stability.


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## sptrawler

Looks as though the penny has dropped with Mr Andrews and they are going to reserve any gas found. Ah the light dawns.
But not everyone is happy.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03...n-but-bans-fracking/12063196?section=business
From the article:
_Premier Daniel Andrews said the new gas supplies would be reserved for Victorian households and businesses first and companies that wanted to drill for gas on private land would have to strike agreements with landholders.

Environment Victoria chief executive Jono La Nauze said the Government's decision would expose everyone to a greater risk of climate change.

"It's extraordinary that after such a horror bushfire season any government would be considering increasing fossil fuel use in the state," Mr La Nauze said.

"Increasing gas use in Victoria will expose Victorians to a greater risk of climate change including worse droughts and worse bushfires.

The Victorian Greens said opening more drilling for gas would be "terrible for farmers, the environment and the climate".

"In the face of a climate crisis we shouldn't be looking for and burning more fossil fuels," Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam said_.


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## sptrawler

Genex gets funding for Kidston pumped storage project. 
It is good to see the transition to renewables hasn't come to a halt, due to the virus.

https://www.pv-magazine-australia.c...ent-for-kidston-pumped-storage-hydro-project/
From the article:
_Under the ESSA, EnergyAustralia, which is owned by Hong Kong-based China Light and Power Group (CLP), will have full operational dispatch rights for the hydro plant, in exchange for a fixed annual rental payment that will increase over the term of the agreement.

The 30-year agreement for operation of the asset is divided into 10-year terms, with two options to extend after the first 10-year period; and should EnergyAustralia take the agreement to its full extension, it will have the right to acquire Genex’s holding in the project which has an expected life of at least 80 years.
The original proposal was for a full 30-year contract with EnergyAustralia under which the gentailer would own 50% of the pumped-hydro component of the hub, and guarantee revenues for the first 30 years of the joint venture.

“We were very close to finalising the deal in October of last year, but for CLP it was too big an exposure for them to take in one transaction,” says Kidston.

EnergyAustralia’s request to renegotiate could have had a fatal-to-the-project domino effect, jeopardising finance arranged with the Federal Government’s NAIF; putting major investment by Japan’s J-Power, whose commitment was contingent on federal funding, in doubt; and causing Genex to call a halt to trading of its securities.

When NAIF extended its financing opportunity to June 2020, the funding stack reassembled like a film on rewind.
With finances in place, construction will begin: first the upper Wises Pit reservoir will be enlarged; then water currently in the lower Eldridge Pit will be pumped into the upper reservoir to allow tunnelling, caverning, and installation of turbines before linking the two pits.

Completion of the three-year project, at a capital cost of $700 million, will then enable expansion, by up to 270 MW, of Kidston Solar; and potential development of the 150 MW Kidston Wind Project, which is currently undergoing feasibility studies and showing a strong consistent wind resource.

“Up in North Queensland, you’ve got a lot of solar,” says Kidston. “Some would say a little bit too much solar…”
_
*Long live ARENA!*
_Kidston says that support from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has been “critical” to initiating and advancing Genex’s vision for its Clean Energy Hub: 
_

_ARENA has provided development funding for the pumped-hydro project since 2015; “they’ve helped us fund all the studies, all the technical works and now some of the legal costs associated with the project development,” says Kidston. Of $30 million needed to bring the project to this stage, ARENA has provided $9 million._
_CEFC was one of two original financiers on the Kidston 1 Solar Farm, which has since been refinanced; and the CEFC is now providing debt funding for the Jemalong Solar Project, which is scheduled to be completed at the end of this year_.


----------



## sptrawler

Victoria's plan to install big renewable solar and wind farms, hits a hurdle, with the States H.V transmission system.
An interesting article.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/victorias-big-renewable-energy-plans-face-major-network-hurdle-50930/
From the article:
Victoria’s ambitious renewable energy plans – to source 40 per cent of its demand from renewables by 2025 – face a potential significant hurdle because of network constraints in the west of the state.

The AEMO report notes that western Victoria is a rich resource for wind and solar resources, and for cheap land. The electrical infrastructure, however, is “insufficient to allow unconstrained access to all of the new renewable generation” seeking to connect to it.

This map to the right illustrates where the problem lies. The purple lines represent the 220kV lines, while the yellow one is the 500kV transmission line.

The most congested line is 220 kV transmission path that loops between Ballarat – Horsham – Red Cliffs – Kerang. But all parts of the line are expected to have “weak” system strength over time.


----------



## sptrawler

The holy grail of power generation, still as illusive as ever. Some interesting comments in the article.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04...nable-power-promise/12114948?section=business
From the article:
*Future focused or fantastic folly?*
Proponents of nuclear fusion believe it will end the world's dependence on fossil fuels once and forever.

But the catch is that no-one involved in the research believes a fully operational, commercially viable nuclear fusion reactor will be operating before at least 2050.

That fact has seen some question the level of financial investment, including Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, the director of Energy Research at Oxford University and a former director general of CERN.

He once managed the UK's fusion program, but two years ago, in an interview with the Simons Centre for Geometry and Physics, he expressed doubts about ITER and the viability of the industry in general.

"I used to think that there was a reasonably good chance that fusion could compete with other low carbon sources of power, but while I would not say that it's impossible, the situation has changed," he said.

"The cost of wind and solar power has decreased faster than anyone could have dreamed. Meanwhile ITER has gone way over budget. Fusion reactors will be intrinsically more expensive than we thought a decade ago."
He argues that ITER needs to go ahead, but that a final cost comparison with renewables should be conducted before any construction on a full-scale reactor is begun.

Dr Kingham understands the argument, but he believes the long-term economics still make sense.

"The point with renewables is that large-scale transmission of power across the world is not necessarily going to be feasible, and extremely large-scale storage looks prohibitively expensive and perhaps even technically not feasible," he says.

"So, I think fusion in the long-term sits alongside renewables as part of the low carbon solution we need to be developing and deploying.
Professor Wilson adds that all projections indicate global energy needs are likely to dramatically increase as more and more people are lifted out of poverty in the developing world.

"Even now, Delhi consumes something like seven gigawatts of power," he says.

"That is a very high power density. It's hard to imagine delivering that through wind and solar."

Planning now for the mass energy requirements of the future, he argues, makes for prudent policy.

"We need to develop technologies, otherwise all we're doing is delaying the problem… leaving a problem for the next generation to try and fix," he says.

"Fusion is really the only clean reliable way of doing that. That's the gap that fusion is aiming to fill.


----------



## Smurf1976

Probably the best illustration of the problem of network constraints and insufficient demand at times of high renewable generation I've seen:






That was Saturday 11th April 2020 in South Australia with the chart showing wind generation only. The red line marks 11:00am (SA time) for reference.

As is very clearly visible, it became highly erratic from 11am to 2pm - that's due to network constraints and lack of demand, wind farms fighting it out on price versus other generation (in other states as well as SA), leading to that large fluctuation in output. The wind didn't stop and start blowing, its potential power output was simply wasted.

Addressing that via a combination of network upgrades (eg the SA - NSW transmission line), more storage (pumped hydro and/or batteries) and shifting the time of some loads (eg off-peak storage water heating) are keys to progressing further the use of renewables.

Incidentally - my hot water service does indeed switch on at 11am and typically runs until about 2pm although power remains available to it until 3pm. So nailed it today - not every day will be perfect but yes those times are calculated with the aim of putting to use a bit of that wind and solar. It's better to be heating my shower with it than having it go to waste. Obviously at the level of a single household it's more about proof of concept etc (and yes I can assure you the water's still up to temperature the following morning, no issues there it's all working as intended).

Also around the same time in Victoria there was a serious incident although the lights remained on:

At 13:26 (Vic time) the Macarthur Wind Farm and Yallourn power station unit 3 tripped. In layman's terms that means they unintentionally stopped working very suddenly. Normal straight to zero literally in an instant, dead.

Two minutes later at 13:28 Yallourn units 1 and 4 also tripped leaving unit 2 as the only one running at Yallourn.

So a pretty decent shake to the system but it held up OK given the low demand at the time. Macarthur wind farm and Yallourn #1 are now back up and running normally, Yallourn #3 and #4 are still off.

No comment as to the cause because I don't know the details beyond saying it was certainly not an intended occurrence and is the sort of thing that if it occurred under different circumstances could have left the community in the dark. That demand in Vic was less than 40% of peak at the time (due to Easter, COVID-19, weather, etc) left plenty of room to cope basically.

At a whole of system (all states except WA and NT) level there was a period around midday where total output from renewables did top 50% of demand by the way. Note that was unrelated to the incident described above and occurred prior to it.


----------



## sptrawler

As I said a long time back, I think W.A will be the first grid to go completely coal free and may actually be the first grid completely renewables, time will tell.
W.A is in the enviable position of being a small grid, the coal generation is mainly Government owned and they do have a gas reservation policy, so it is a bit of an advantage.
Here is a pod cast by the W.A minister for energy, a bit boring but covers the issues, for anyone interested.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/energy-...ke-lead-in-renewable-energy-transition-62987/


----------



## Dona Ferentes

sptrawler said:


> W.A will be the first grid to go completely coal free
> 
> W.A is in the enviable position of being a small grid, the coal generation is mainly Government owned and they do have a gas reservation policy, so it is a bit of an advantage.



 WA coal was always crap. Collie coal has a high fines content, low thermal efficiency, they never pursued it in a big way. A few smelters in the SW Pinjarra and the like were there, but it wasn't attractive thermal coal that Hunter and Qld had/ has.


----------



## sptrawler

Dona Ferentes said:


> WA coal was always crap. Collie coal has a high fines content, low thermal efficiency, they never pursued it in a big way. A few smelters in the SW Pinjarra and the like were there, but it wasn't attractive thermal coal that Hunter and Qld had/ has.



That may be so, but it has run power stations in W.A for a long time, as for never pursuing it in a big way, it was and still is by far the biggest source of generation in W.A.
Up untill recently, Kwinana 4 coal fired units of the six installed, Muja 8 coal fired units, Collie 1x 340MW coal fired unit, Blue Waters power station 2 coal fired units.
Gas generation was far smaller untill approx 8 years ago, when Kwinana commenced closing steam generators and installing gas turbines.
I could be too prescriptive about it, but suffice to say, coal generation was far and away the biggest source of energy in W.A.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> That may be so, but it has run power stations in W.A for a long time




By all means correct me if I'm wrong, it's your end of the country not mine , but if I recall correctly then so far as Perth is concerned 100% of electricity supply was from coal from the opening of East Perth Power Station (1916, closed 1981) to sometime in the 1960's when East Perth and South Fremantle (opened 1951, closed 1985) switched to burning fuel oil shortly followed by the opening of Kwinana A & B stations as oil-fired plant plus the oil-fired gas turbine out the back in the early 1970's.

In the space of just a few years WA went from 100% coal to having 360 MW on coal (Bunbury + Muja A & B) and 656 MW on oil (Kwinana A & B plus the gas turbine, South Fremantle, East Perth).

That worked nicely until the 1973-74 oil crisis which prompted East Perth and South Fremantle to go back to coal in a hurry and Kwinana C, then under construction, to be modified as dual fuel coal and oil fired plant with the later conversion of Kwinana A to be likewise. Then the whole Kwinana complex, including B station, was converted to also use natural gas in the 1980's when the pipeline from the NW Shelf was built.

Muja C opened in 1981 using coal and Muja D in 1985. By that time oil was pretty much removed from the system other than as a backup fuel at Kwinana, coal was the main fuel and gas did most of the rest.

Since that time new coal plant has been built at Collie and Bluewaters plus various gas-fired facilities including at the Kwinana site and and elsewhere. The original Kwinana plants are now permanently shut as are Muja A & B, Bunbury is demolished, South Fremantle is a derelict shell and East Perth is a listed historic site that seems to have been problematic working out what to do with it.

Muja C's days are also numbered and it's the next to go. That leaves Muja D, Collie, Bluewaters 1 & 2 as operating coal plant in WA apart from co-generation in heavy industry.

Happy to be corrected if I've got anything wrong there - all that's from memory and I've never had any actual need to know it so might be a year or two out somewhere.


----------



## sptrawler

Spot on smurf, I was just pointing out to Donna that the claim coal was never pursued in a big way, was slightly incorrect.
Up untill recent times, there was over 2GW of installed coal generation in W.A and it was by far the biggest source of fuel.
It actually was always a lot cheaper to run coal than gas, but in order to get the gas pipeline built, the Government had to sign a take or pay contract which for many years it couldn't use. Lots of weird and wonderfull deals were done to try and meet the gas commitment.


----------



## Humid

Is there a power station equivalent to train spotting?
I remember the South Freo power station stacks were used by local boaties as a wind sock to see if fishing was on the cards


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Is there a power station equivalent to train spotting?
> I remember the South Freo power station stacks were used by local boaties as a wind sock to see if fishing was on the cards



They were the days, the Cockburn Shire president was always complaining about the stack emissions, no precips soot all over the suburb, ah puts hairs on your chest .
He used to say, his missus didn't need hairs on her chest.
One of my mates father was on the construction of it, apparently they used cement mixers and barrows, terrific old building going to wrack and ruin.


----------



## Humid

On top of that Robbs Jetty,Anchorage and the skin drying sheds....now there’s a collection of smells


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> On top of that Robbs Jetty,Anchorage and the skin drying sheds....now there’s a collection of smells



You used to hold your breath when drove past the scourers skin drying sheds, what a stink.


----------



## Smurf1976

Humid said:


> Is there a power station equivalent to train spotting?



Well there used to be something pretty close in Victoria . From what I've been assured is correct by someone who would know:

Newport 'A' station opened 1918 and was built by the Victorian Railways. The SECV built Newport 'B' station right next to it, physically joined to the same building, in 1923 and later Newport 'C' station was added in 1947 with 'A' station partially redeveloped in the 1950's.

It has a further connection to railways in that virtually all coal used at the site was railed in and it's only about 1km from the railway workshops. So it always had a strong connection to the railways even after the SECV took over running it.

The old stations were shut by 1983 and demolished shortly afterward. The land is now a public park and outdoor sporting facility.

Still operating today is Newport D, in operation since 1980 and whilst a physically separate structure it's built right next to the old A,B,C complex. Construction of D station was highly controversial at the time over environmental, resource and industrial matters and only half of it was ever built. It is now owned by Energy Australia.

A, B and C were built to fire black coal but in practice due to persistent fuel shortages used an assortment of black coal, brown coal briquettes, raw brown coal, wood, oil and during various emergencies anything else which could be obtained that burned. D station uses natural gas with oil as backup - it has no technical capability to burn anything else.


----------



## basilio

The collapse of demand for oil is playing havoc with the fossil fuel industry. I think the next 6-12 months will see an acceleration of renewable energy projects and then electric cars.
Not a good time to be holding oil stocks IMV.  Also serious implications for economies dependent on oil/gas revenue.

* Oil prices slump as market faces lowest demand in 25 years *
World energy watchdog forecast comes amid global attempt to contain Covid-19
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...rket-faces-lowest-demand-in-25-years-covid-19


----------



## sptrawler

Terrific news for solar/wind farms, the stability issues causing the AEMO to restrict the output, appears to have been solved by technical experts.
This could be a massive breakthrough for the renewable industry, it sounds as though they have succeeded, in getting the inverters to play nicely together.

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/...nergy-output-after-tests-20200420-p54lf0.html


----------



## sptrawler

Perenjori in Country W.A to get battery backup, it is a town on the grid, but fed by a 75klm small feeder line.

https://westernpower.com.au/communi...ons&utm_content=article-perenjori-bess-b10420


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Terrific news for solar/wind farms, the stability issues causing the AEMO to restrict the output, appears to have been solved by technical experts.
> This could be a massive breakthrough for the renewable industry, it sounds as though they have succeeded, in getting the inverters to play nicely together.
> 
> https://www.smh.com.au/environment/...nergy-output-after-tests-20200420-p54lf0.html




That's interesting in light of the story below.

Maybe the "breakthrough" is a big red button. 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04...s-to-manage-solar-power-output-in-sa/12202004


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> That's interesting in light of the story below.
> 
> Maybe the "breakthrough" is a big red button.



The problem has been brewing for a long time now and is coming to the crunch.

Generating lots of power in the middle of the day when demand is moderate works only if we also build mass scale storage and shift loads to that time of day. Failing that, we need to switch some off or otherwise cause it to stop working.

Bureaucracy stands in the way unfortunately. Getting the timers on electric water heaters changed in Vic and SA has proven to be somewhat more time consuming than putting a man on the moon was half a century ago. Meanwhile in Vic the state government pushes households strongly toward gas rather than putting some of this otherwise wasted solar energy to use. Gotta make sure that reduction in emissions is really slow and gradual, right? 

Technically it's all pretty straightforward but there's a lot of politics and vested interests to be overcome on the journey unfortunately so the solution to that is more brutal approaches such as AEMO is proposing.

To be clear I've noting against AEMO's approach as such, I'm just noting that better options could have been implemented first. Well, they're better if the aim is to save money or emissions at least.


----------



## sptrawler

The huge $22billion solar/wind farm, covering 14,000sq/klm ,  in the N/W of W.A moves a step closer.
https://www.boilingcold.com.au/pilbara-wind-solar-farm-gets-environmental-tick/
From the article:
_The project now proposes to make a final investment decision in 2025 to build to 15 gigawatts of generation. Construction would start in 2026 to produce the first power the next year.

More than half the Hub’s power is now planned for use in the Pilbara to power mines, mineral processing and the anticipated large-scale production of green hydrogen_.


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> The huge $22billion solar/wind farm, covering 14,000sq/klm ,  in the N/W of W.A moves a step closer.
> https://www.boilingcold.com.au/pilbara-wind-solar-farm-gets-environmental-tick/
> From the article:
> _The project now proposes to make a final investment decision in 2025 to build to 15 gigawatts of generation. Construction would start in 2026 to produce the first power the next year.
> 
> More than half the Hub’s power is now planned for use in the Pilbara to power mines, mineral processing and the anticipated large-scale production of green hydrogen_.



Storage? Or do they plan to burn produced hydrogen..until it's prized for export  too high for domestic use or contractual obligations forces us to import some back..ring a bell?


----------



## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> Storage? Or do they plan to burn produced hydrogen..until it's prized for export  too high for domestic use or contractual obligations forces us to import some back..ring a bell?



Exactly, I brought that up when the plant was first mentioned, I hope we have a domestic reservation policy.


----------



## sptrawler

The renewable debate, is starting to shift to the middle ground at last, the hydrogen industry will require all methods of production to be employed in the early stages. Then as renewable capacity is increased the fossil fueled production can be decreased.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/...5-p54q38.html?js-chunk-not-found-refresh=true
From the article:
_Australia's Chief Scientist Alan Finkel is backing the Morrison government's move to fund hydrogen projects fuelled by both fossil fuels and renewables as the best way to grow a potential powerhouse export industry.

However, Dr Finkel and renewable energy advocates argue wind and solar power offer the best commercial prospects for an Australian hydrogen industry.
Dr Finkel told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age he expected electricity generated by solar and wind to drive Australia's nascent hydrogen industry in the "short to medium term".

But he also argues it would be irresponsible not to investigate gas as an alternate fuel source, which he said would provide valuable diversification of fuel sources for hydrogen production.
There are three methods to extract hydrogen, one is electrolysis that uses electricity to 'split' water, which can be powered by renewables in an emissions-free process.

The two other methods require thermochemical reactions. One uses gas and the other uses coal or gas, and for either to be a clean energy source they require carbon capture and storage to prevent the emissions from the fossil fuels getting into the atmosphere.


Dr Finkel said gas-fired hydrogen could reduce the risk associated with total reliance on renewable energy to generate the "massive quantities [of hydrogen] the world will need by 2050" if the Paris target of net zero emissions is achieved_.


----------



## sptrawler

A glimmer of hope for politicians intelligence, there is a suggestion battery manufacturing may be on the horizon, it would be great but seeing is believing IMO.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/...l-loses-out-garnaut-says-20200506-p54qdt.html
From the article:
The Queensland government will underwrite private developer Neoen's $570 million in the Western Downs Green Power Hub with a commitment to buy 320 megawatts of power through the state-owned energy company CleanCo.

Ms Palaszczuk said "new economy minerals" such as copper, cobalt, zinc and lithium, which are needed to build wind turbines, solar panels and batteries, could boost the state's mining sector and lead to new manufacturing jobs.

"*I want to see batteries manufactured here in Queensland* because that means more secure long term jobs," she said.

So do we dear.


----------



## sptrawler

A West Australian company has designed a glass window that generates electricity (40w/sqm), it will be a great innovation for commercial buildings with a large glass areas.

https://www.watoday.com.au/national...8-p54r7u.html?js-chunk-not-found-refresh=true


----------



## sptrawler

Hydrogen projects are starting to gain momentum.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/huge-3-...drogen-project-proposed-for-queensland-93492/


----------



## sptrawler

Things on the renewable front are still moving along.
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/06/1...lots-of-energy-storage-siemens-wants-to-help/
From the article:
_The state of New South Wales, home to Sydney and its iconic opera house, has designated a large area north and west of that city as the site for 3 GW of new renewable energy systems. Called the Central West hub, it will be the first step in a planned 17.7 GW renewable energy system for NSW. Other renewable energy zones in the New England and South West area of the state will be developed to complete the plan, which government sources say will attract $14 billion in private investment and create 2,000 jobs.

According to PV Tech,  the NSW climate plan released this year sets a  target of 126 GWh solar energy by 2024, which is more than double the existing 55 GWh goal. Local regulators say 75% of the electricity in the state could come from renewables as soon as 2025, “provided action is taken against the imbalances triggered by increasing uptake of variable capacity.
_
*Energy Storage Is The Key*
_The problem is not creating electricity from renewables. The problem is distributing it efficiently. Australia is vast in size, with enormous distances between its major cities. Its transmission infrastructure is outdated and frail in many cases — sort of like Puerto Rico but multiplied by a factor of 10,000.

Energy storage will be key to the transition to renewable energy. Wood Mackenzie released a study in May which warns that 67 GW of new renewable energy is at risk because of transmission constraints. Now Siemens and AES have formed a joint venture known as Fluence that wants to install two 250 MW/125 MWh battery storage facilities in Victoria and New South Wales to act as a “virtual transmission line” between the two states, according to a report by Recharge News. In a filing with the Australian Energy Market Operator, Fluence says it could complete both projects in 14 months once approval is granted.

Fluence says the effect of the batteries on the network would be similar to “widening a highway instantaneously to accommodate surges in traffic” and eliminate the the need for costly new transmission infrastructure. Neoen, the owner/operator of the Hornsdale facility, is also proposing a 600 MW battery facility near Melbourne_.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> According to PV Tech, the NSW climate plan released this year sets a target of 126 GWh solar energy by 2024, which is more than double the existing 55 GWh goal. Local regulators say 75% of the electricity in the state could come from renewables as soon as 2025,




I'm not sure what time period they're referring to with that 126 GWh but presumably it's not annual. Perhaps it's weekly? Daily?

For reference, over the past 12 months (14 June 2019 - 13 June 2020) for NSW:

Total consumption = 72,887 GWh

Sources:
Coal = 54,065 GWh
Solar = 5035 GWh
Wind = 4516 GWh
Net import from Queensland = 4460 GWh
Gas = 2056 GWh
Hydro = 2055 GWh
Net import from Victoria (including from SA and Tas via Vic) = 594 GWh 
Kerosene / Diesel = 3.3 GWh

In case anyone's wondering why the hydro figure is so low, the simple explanation is that the Snowy scheme is physically all in NSW but electrically quite a bit of it's in Victoria and thus shows up in figures for that state not NSW.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm not sure what time period they're referring to with that 126 GWh but presumably it's not annual. Perhaps it's weekly? Daily?
> 
> For reference, over the past 12 months (14 June 2019 - 13 June 2020) for NSW:
> 
> Total consumption = 72,887 GWh
> 
> Sources:
> Coal = 54,065 GWh
> Solar = 5035 GWh
> Wind = 4516 GWh
> Net import from Queensland = 4460 GWh
> Gas = 2056 GWh
> Hydro = 2055 GWh
> Net import from Victoria (including from SA and Tas via Vic) = 594 GWh
> Kerosene / Diesel = 3.3 GWh
> 
> In case anyone's wondering why the hydro figure is so low, the simple explanation is that the Snowy scheme is physically all in NSW but electrically quite a bit of it's in Victoria and thus shows up in figures for that state not NSW.



Yes smurf 126GWh installed in 3-4 years would be unrealistic, but the intent to install renewables is obvious and the real issue of storage is finally being recognised.


----------



## SirRumpole

New hydrogen vehicle startup company to manufacture in NSW.

Fingers crossed.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-15/hydrogen-car-manufacturer-in-illawarra/12355138


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm not sure what time period they're referring to with that 126 GWh but presumably it's not annual. Perhaps it's weekly? Daily?
> 
> For reference, over the past 12 months (14 June 2019 - 13 June 2020) for NSW:
> 
> Total consumption = 72,887 GWh
> 
> Sources:
> Coal = 54,065 GWh
> Solar = 5035 GWh
> Wind = 4516 GWh
> Net import from Queensland = 4460 GWh
> Gas = 2056 GWh
> Hydro = 2055 GWh
> Net import from Victoria (including from SA and Tas via Vic) = 594 GWh
> Kerosene / Diesel = 3.3 GWh
> 
> In case anyone's wondering why the hydro figure is so low, the simple explanation is that the Snowy scheme is physically all in NSW but electrically quite a bit of it's in Victoria and thus shows up in figures for that state not NSW.




I think Australia needs to bring nuclear into our energy mix. Considering that Australia has the world's largest uranium resources, it is absolutely absurd that we haven't established a commercial nuclear industry in Australia.

I support hydrogen as a transportation fuel and hope to see such an industry establish itself as soon as possible. Hydrogen is simple to produce via electrolysis.


----------



## Smurf1976

https://www.sapowernetworks.com.au/data/307798/sa-energy-transition-initiatives-welcomed/

Some significant changes publicly announced today for the power industry in SA.

In particular, I'll draw attention to a couple of points:



> Encouraging more loads, such as water heating, to shift to the daytime to soak up extra (and cheaper) solar generation




Suffice to say that this Smurf has been on about this one for quite some time and I've had mine at home up and running for a while now. Conceptually dead easy, just a lot of bureaucracy has been in the way of doing it.



> Making it *mandatory* for retailers to offer customers innovative network tariffs to soak up daytime solar




Emphasis mine.

I doubt there'll be too much screaming from retailers beyond perhaps one or two but basically it comes down to engineers, backed by government, giving the orders that retailers shall be pricing in a manner which encourages desirable behaviour by consumers.

In short we need more load in the middle of the day as first priority and ideally less during the evening peak and more between 1am and 6am would be nice too but that's somewhat secondary as a consideration.

It's not a price control order, but it's a decree as to the structure of it - retailers must offer consumers the option of pricing which aligns with network capacity and generation requirements. Consumers are under no obligation to take up such an offer however (well, not yet.....).

Unlike in Tasmania where doing this was all pretty easy, just get everyone in the same room (literally so) and agree, that can't really be done in SA given there's multiple companies involved both on the generation and retail side but this approach is a workaround to that in practice.

The reason, ultimately, is about dealing with increasing amounts of intermittent generation in the system especially small scale solar (households) noting that total generation from wind and solar (combined) in SA over the past 12 months was equivalent to 57.4% of consumption, a figure which continues to trend upward.

The downside of course is that it's a case of closing the gate after the horse has bolted. 4 out of the past 7 days has seen wind generation curtailed, 3 out of the past 7 days has seen large scale solar curtailed during daytime, etc.

Financially well it's another thing in the mix for companies involved in the industry. Those involved with wind and solar stand to gain from resolving all this and not having so much potential output going to waste. Retailers maybe a bit less happy at being told what they must do, but ultimately they shouldn't lose money out of it on the retail side although for some it won't help the profits of their generation operations which benefit from price and demand volatility.

Also a good thing for the environment, lower CO2 emissions.

Plus of course good for everyone if it keeps the lights on. The major near miss event of 31 January would seem to have scared the proverbial out of government so they're keener on listening to technical people, and less keen on listening to non-technical people, about all this now it seems and some of the legal and other bureaucratic barriers are being brushed aside.


----------



## sptrawler

Great news smurf, IMO it shows the S.A government is taking responsibility for the generation mix it chose, rather than expecting the Eastern States grid to absorb its irregular generation output.
To me it shows a more mature holistic approach to achieve a renewable grid.
Also on the same topic, in S.A the power to switch off household solar has been granted.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06...t-risk-of-another-statewide-blackout/12372558
From the article:
_Electricity grid operators will seize the power to remotely switch off new solar panels in South Australia amid warnings the state's solar boom is putting the grid at risk of another statewide blackout.
The State Government will also underwrite an urgent $10 million investment to manage voltage in the state's power grid, after the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) warned that a voltage disturbance near Adelaide could see up to half South Australia's photovoltaic cells simultaneously switch off.

The AEMO report outlines the challenge that SA's world-leading penetration of solar energy is now posing for the grid.

About 278,000 households — 35 per cent — have solar installed.

AEMO says South Australia is "the first large-scale power system in the world to approach zero net operational energy demand — even for very short time periods — due to high proportions of demand being met by solar PV."

"We're not very far away from the electricity going into the grid being more than the electricity being drawn out. That would create a statewide blackout," Mr van Holst Pellekaan said_.

It kind of highlights the issues, you and I have been talking about for nearly 10 years and others have been poo paing them.

But no doubt the muppet show will get onboard and say it is all BS, is there any wonder Australia is going through the problems we are, so many with so little knowledge with so much say.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It kind of highlights the issues, you and I have been talking about for nearly 10 years and others have been poo paing them.



As I'm sure you're well aware, there never was anything impossible about this stuff, the whole thing's just a classic case of failing to apply a logical approach to the problem.

Too much politics basically. From all sides.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> As I'm sure you're well aware, there never was anything impossible about this stuff, the whole thing's just a classic case of failing to apply a logical approach to the problem.
> 
> Too much politics basically. From all sides.



Absolutely, the private sector wanting compensation, the private sector wanting subsidies, the private sector wanting guaranteed offtake contracts, the private sector wanting.
That is why the Government has to be carefull, as we have discussed getting renewable generators is easy it is cheaper than fossil fuel, getting storage and grid transmission infrastructure upgrades is much more difficult, the balancing act is the problem.

If the Government just opens the cheque book, it will be a disaster as you know, it is a case of supply and demand.
The installation of the renewables, has to be complimented by the storage to mitigate the intermittency, if it isn't, then fossil fueled generation can't be retired.
Simple really.
We are getting to the point, that any renewable installation, has to have a storage capacity included IMO.

We don't have a big grid, it is achievable, it doesn't need Government subsidies.
It can be self funded through profits, or else we will have another NBN debacle where the tax payer pays for the replacement of something they own. 
WTF is wrong with people? obviously the rich don't give a $hit and talk everyone into paying for something that the retailer should pay for.
Just my opinion.


----------



## basilio

Another call to make renewable energy an energy efficiency priorities in rebuilding our economy.
 
 The Green Recovery 
 Energy 
* Chief scientist joins calls for Australia to dramatically boost energy efficiency *
Alan Finkel calls saving electricity the ‘best form of generation’ as groups push for efficiency measures to lead economic recovery 
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ralia-to-dramatically-boost-energy-efficiency


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Another call to make renewable energy an energy efficiency priorities in rebuilding our economy.
> 
> The Green Recovery
> Energy
> * Chief scientist joins calls for Australia to dramatically boost energy efficiency *
> Alan Finkel calls saving electricity the ‘best form of generation’ as groups push for efficiency measures to lead economic recovery
> https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ralia-to-dramatically-boost-energy-efficiency



Which is exactly what I said to you ages ago, the easiest way to shut down coal is to reduce demand.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Which is exactly what I said to you ages ago, the easiest way to shut down coal is to reduce demand.




Thing is, any realistic plan to shift Australia to fully renewable energy requires more electricity not less.

Therein lies the problem with all of this. It's often not about some wholistic end goal but about benefiting whoever in particular.

Eg in Victoria "energy efficiency" has since the 1970's been code for "use more gas" and for that reason gas is extremely entrenched in Victoria, indeed it's among the highest market penetration globally. Victoria's going to be using gas for decades to come that's a given. SA and WA aren't far behind with that one though not quite as extreme.

If the aim is less electricity then that's a good policy.

If the aim is to cut emissions then ultimately it has placed a roadblock to going beyond a certain limit. A roadblock that SA's already running into and which the others will meet in due course.

Therein lies the big dilemma - what's the objective?

Lower bills? Less electricity? Lower emissions?

They are not the same.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> https://www.sapowernetworks.com.au/data/307798/sa-energy-transition-initiatives-welcomed/
> 
> Some significant changes publicly announced today for the power industry in SA.
> 
> In particular, I'll draw attention to a couple of points:
> 
> 
> 
> Suffice to say that this Smurf has been on about this one for quite some time and I've had mine at home up and running for a while now. Conceptually dead easy, just a lot of bureaucracy has been in the way of doing it.
> 
> 
> 
> Emphasis mine.
> 
> I doubt there'll be too much screaming from retailers beyond perhaps one or two but basically it comes down to engineers, backed by government, giving the orders that retailers shall be pricing in a manner which encourages desirable behaviour by consumers.
> 
> In short we need more load in the middle of the day as first priority and ideally less during the evening peak and more between 1am and 6am would be nice too but that's somewhat secondary as a consideration.
> 
> It's not a price control order, but it's a decree as to the structure of it - retailers must offer consumers the option of pricing which aligns with network capacity and generation requirements. Consumers are under no obligation to take up such an offer however (well, not yet.....).
> 
> Unlike in Tasmania where doing this was all pretty easy, just get everyone in the same room (literally so) and agree, that can't really be done in SA given there's multiple companies involved both on the generation and retail side but this approach is a workaround to that in practice.
> 
> The reason, ultimately, is about dealing with increasing amounts of intermittent generation in the system especially small scale solar (households) noting that total generation from wind and solar (combined) in SA over the past 12 months was equivalent to 57.4% of consumption, a figure which continues to trend upward.
> 
> The downside of course is that it's a case of closing the gate after the horse has bolted. 4 out of the past 7 days has seen wind generation curtailed, 3 out of the past 7 days has seen large scale solar curtailed during daytime, etc.
> 
> Financially well it's another thing in the mix for companies involved in the industry. Those involved with wind and solar stand to gain from resolving all this and not having so much potential output going to waste. Retailers maybe a bit less happy at being told what they must do, but ultimately they shouldn't lose money out of it on the retail side although for some it won't help the profits of their generation operations which benefit from price and demand volatility.
> 
> Also a good thing for the environment, lower CO2 emissions.
> 
> Plus of course good for everyone if it keeps the lights on. The major near miss event of 31 January would seem to have scared the proverbial out of government so they're keener on listening to technical people, and less keen on listening to non-technical people, about all this now it seems and some of the legal and other bureaucratic barriers are being brushed aside.





In my opinion, we need small modular reactors built on the proven molten salt reactor (MSR) nuclear principles. We need these MSRs in every major city in Australia.

I still support wind, solar, tidal barrage, marine, gas and coal. Australia needs to build energy security through adopting all energy streams, for power/electrical generation, which are practical, reasonable and economically sensible.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Thing is, any realistic plan to shift Australia to fully renewable energy requires more electricity not less.
> 
> Therein lies the problem with all of this. It's often not about some wholistic end goal but about benefiting whoever in particular.
> 
> Eg in Victoria "energy efficiency" has since the 1970's been code for "use more gas" and for that reason gas is extremely entrenched in Victoria, indeed it's among the highest market penetration globally. Victoria's going to be using gas for decades to come that's a given. SA and WA aren't far behind with that one though not quite as extreme.
> 
> If the aim is less electricity then that's a good policy.
> 
> If the aim is to cut emissions then ultimately it has placed a roadblock to going beyond a certain limit. A roadblock that SA's already running into and which the others will meet in due course.
> 
> Therein lies the big dilemma - what's the objective?
> 
> Lower bills? Less electricity? Lower emissions?
> 
> They are not the same.



Very true smurf, but if the those who are most vocal, just want to reduce coal burning the fastest way is to reduce consumption.
Which can be done by increasing efficiency or taxing high demand periods.
The problem is, as you say they are replacing coal with gas, because storage for renewables is a problem.
Which is another thing I have been saying for ages.
People can't have it all ways, they want more electronic gadgets, bigger t.vs, and want the Government to somehow supply the extra electricity, cleaner and cheaper.
Well best of luck with that.
I haven't seen the internet get cheaper with the NBN, I don't see any unlimited $30/month deals, since the NBN miracle.


----------



## sptrawler

Chronos-Plutus said:


> In my opinion, we need small modular reactors built on the proven molten salt reactor (MSR) nuclear principles. We need these MSRs in every major city in Australia.
> 
> I still support wind, solar, tidal barrage, marine, gas and coal. Australia needs to build energy security through adopting all energy streams, for power/electrical generation, which are practical, reasonable and economically sensible.



Wow, I think I heard basilio hit the floor, from my place.
But I do think you are right, every option has to be considered on its merits, the ultimate goal is to achieve 100% renewables. But it has to be achieved in an orderly manner, not some half ar$ed emotionally driven brain fart, that leaves us sitting in the dark rubbing two sticks together to get fire.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> rubbing two sticks together to get fire.



Tried that once. Harder than I was expecting it to be to get the fire going.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

sptrawler said:


> Wow, I think I heard basilio hit the floor, from my place.
> But I do think you are right, every option has to be considered on its merits, the ultimate goal is to achieve 100% renewables. But it has to be achieved in an orderly manner, not some half ar$ed emotionally driven brain fart, that leaves us sitting in the dark rubbing two sticks together to get fire.




Absolutely; we all want to tread as lightly as possible on the planet, but we aren't going to plunge the entire modern, advanced and industrialised world back into the Stone Age. We need to be realistic and sensible when it comes to energy security.

MSR nuclear reactors are safe and proven. Australia has plenty of space in our deserts for the spent fuel waste; where we can store it until we have the technology to adequately deal with it.

The energy density that nuclear provides can't be beaten; the energy released from a nuclear reaction is 10s of millions of times greater than a conventional fossil fuel chemical reaction.

Nuclear fusion seems to be making some progress in France, with the international collaborative ITER project; which Australia doesn't want to be a part of. https://www.iter.org/proj/inafewlines


----------



## sptrawler

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Absolutely; we all want to tread as lightly as possible on the planet, but we aren't going to plunge the entire modern, advanced and industrialised world back into the Stone Age. We need to be realistic and sensible when it comes to energy security.
> 
> MSR nuclear reactors are safe and proven. Australia has plenty of space in our deserts for the spent fuel waste; where we can store it until we have the technology to adequately deal with it.
> 
> The energy density that nuclear provides can't be beaten; the energy released from a nuclear reaction is 10s of millions of times greater than a conventional fossil fuel chemical reaction.
> 
> Nuclear fusion seems to be making some progress in France, with the international collaborative ITER project; which Australia doesn't want to be a part of. https://www.iter.org/proj/inafewlines



The U.K is installing 3 x 1.5GW reactors, in Australia the situation is very different to Europe, due to population densities, as you say smaller modular reactors may be the way forward.
They are still in the development stage from what Ive read.


----------



## basilio

Chronos-Plutus said:


> MSR nuclear reactors are safe and proven




Interesting. Can you provide evidence of  commercial operational MSR reactors and their costs ?
I had a look and as far as I can see there are no commercial operational reactors at present. Plenty of research. Companies trying to promote the concept. Research hubs around the world.

Their seem to be a few issues with  focusing on Thorium Reactors as substantial current contributor to cleaner, safer energy supplies

1) *The cost is still very high and very uncertain. *These costs in fact make it uneconomical when compared to the current proven technologies around wind, solar and back up batteries, pumped hydro or green hydrogen.

2) *On all accounts Thorium reactors will not be commercially available for at least 5 -7 years on the best estimate or 25-30 years on more realistic timeframes*. However the pressure of CC means we have to see huge changes to energy production virtually immediately if we are to have any chance of making an impact on a rapidly warming environment.

If MSR reactors were operationally ready and cost competitive with other current technologies it should definitely be part of a mix. But at the moment it is still in speculative, costly, blue sky territory.  They also suffer economically because of the rapid decrease in costs  and improvements in  efficiency of wind, solar and batteries technologies  


_*Development time*
Although a test reactor was successfully operated in the 1960’s during the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, the MSR will still require substantial investment of time until commercial deployment. This is likely to be on the order of 2 decades or more under ideal support conditions, although estimates vary.

The Chinese MSR development program estimates market entry around 2030, so about 20 years from 2011 when the programme commenced. TU Delft’s professor Kloosterman estimates that it is technically feasible to build a demonstration reactor within ten years under ideal support conditions, availability of experienced personnel and test facilities, so development is likely to take longer in absence of those.

*The most optimistic estimates come from MSR start-ups, where many predict a finished prototype or commercial deployment in the 2020’s, i.e. 5-15 years from now.* It should be noted however that these companies, even though working on molten salt reactor designs, mostly base their technology on the uranium/plutonium fuel cycle, and thus are able to build on a fuel cycle that is very well known, and does not require the more complex initiation of the thorium fuel cycle. T*hese designs are expected not to have all of the advantages of the thorium MSR however.

The longest recorded estimate is for the European Molten Salt Fast Reactor design which suggests commercial deployment around 2045-2050. *This a molten salt reactor with a fast neutron spectrum, which could well be more difficult to realize than the thermal spectrum MSR and take more time to develop. The design is nevertheless pursued because it offers the advantage of a closed plutonium uranium cycle, in line with the existing fuel cycle and fuel (waste) available in many _countries (Gen IV International Forum, 2014) (Adams, 2015) (LeBlanc, 2015) (Transatomic Power, 2016) (IThEO, 2015) (Kloosterman, 2016).
https://www.thmsr.com/en/challenges/

*In depth: Costs*
*Cost Competitiveness should be a design goal*
...
Standardized, modular designs will be crucial for developing cost competitive nuclear reactors, regardless of the technology used. This is relevant to the licencing cost, but also to deployment times. Mass produced thorium-MSR’s could even replace the power generation components in existing fossil fuel powered plants, integrating with the existing electrical distribution infrastructure which would also save large amounts of money (Deutch, et al., 2009, p. 6), (Juhasz, et al., 2009, p. 4), (Hargraves & Moir, 2010, pp. 310,311).

The challenge however will be to get past the initial cost. This will not only involve the designing and building the first thorium MSR, it will also involve setting up a proper licensing framework, which will be largely design specific, and requires the initiation of the thorium fuel cycle.
https://www.thmsr.com/en/costs/


----------



## basilio

As far as I can see the Dutch are leaders in making MSR work. But their timeline for commercial production is 30 years plus.

* ‘The Nederlands will really need a thorium reactor’ *
*According to Jan-Leen Kloosterman, the Netherlands needs nuclear power to reduce CO2 emissions. Last summer, he led a conference in Delft on a new type of nuclear reactor: the thorium reactor. The professor of reactor physics thinks the Netherlands should invest in a prototype. *

....Practical research

Both Kloosterman and Dr Danny Lathouwers (who led the research on potential accidents with the MSFR) feel that when the project ends in four years, it will be high time for practical research.
Just like the researchers in the SINAP laboratory in Shanghai, they want to build a small prototype MSFR, at an estimated cost of €200 million.

Isn't that a lot of money for a small country? Kloosterman doesn't think so, and points to Belgium that is investing € 500 million for its special Myrrha reactor that is suitable for splitting long-lived nuclear waste.

If the government decides to support the development of a thorium reactor, he thinks a small prototype could be ready by 2030. A rough timeline could then be: a demonstration reactor by 2040 and a European commercial thorium reactor operational by 2050. This would then probably be just what is needed to stabilise the electricity grid.  

*https://www.tudelft.nl/en/delft-outlook/articles/the-nederlands-will-really-need-a-thorium-reactor/*


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> Interesting. Can you provide evidence of  commercial operational MSR reactors and their costs ?
> I had a look and as far as I can see there are no commercial operational reactors at present. Plenty of research. Companies trying to promote the concept. Research hubs around the world.
> 
> Their seem to be a few issues with  focusing on Thorium Reactors as substantial current contributor to cleaner, safer energy supplies
> 
> 1) *The cost is still very high and very uncertain. *These costs in fact make it uneconomical when compared to the current proven technologies around wind, solar and back up batteries, pumped hydro or green hydrogen.
> 
> 2) *On all accounts Thorium reactors will not be commercially available for at least 5 -7 years on the best estimate or 25-30 years on more realistic timeframes*. However the pressure of CC means we have to see huge changes to energy production virtually immediately if we are to have any chance of making an impact on a rapidly warming environment.
> 
> If MSR reactors were operationally ready and cost competitive with other current technologies it should definitely be part of a mix. But at the moment it is still in speculative, costly, blue sky territory.  They also suffer economically because of the rapid decrease in costs  and improvements in  efficiency of wind, solar and batteries technologies
> 
> 
> _*Development time*
> Although a test reactor was successfully operated in the 1960’s during the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, the MSR will still require substantial investment of time until commercial deployment. This is likely to be on the order of 2 decades or more under ideal support conditions, although estimates vary.
> 
> The Chinese MSR development program estimates market entry around 2030, so about 20 years from 2011 when the programme commenced. TU Delft’s professor Kloosterman estimates that it is technically feasible to build a demonstration reactor within ten years under ideal support conditions, availability of experienced personnel and test facilities, so development is likely to take longer in absence of those.
> 
> *The most optimistic estimates come from MSR start-ups, where many predict a finished prototype or commercial deployment in the 2020’s, i.e. 5-15 years from now.* It should be noted however that these companies, even though working on molten salt reactor designs, mostly base their technology on the uranium/plutonium fuel cycle, and thus are able to build on a fuel cycle that is very well known, and does not require the more complex initiation of the thorium fuel cycle. T*hese designs are expected not to have all of the advantages of the thorium MSR however.
> 
> The longest recorded estimate is for the European Molten Salt Fast Reactor design which suggests commercial deployment around 2045-2050. *This a molten salt reactor with a fast neutron spectrum, which could well be more difficult to realize than the thermal spectrum MSR and take more time to develop. The design is nevertheless pursued because it offers the advantage of a closed plutonium uranium cycle, in line with the existing fuel cycle and fuel (waste) available in many _countries (Gen IV International Forum, 2014) (Adams, 2015) (LeBlanc, 2015) (Transatomic Power, 2016) (IThEO, 2015) (Kloosterman, 2016).
> https://www.thmsr.com/en/challenges/
> 
> *In depth: Costs*
> *Cost Competitiveness should be a design goal*
> ...
> Standardized, modular designs will be crucial for developing cost competitive nuclear reactors, regardless of the technology used. This is relevant to the licencing cost, but also to deployment times. Mass produced thorium-MSR’s could even replace the power generation components in existing fossil fuel powered plants, integrating with the existing electrical distribution infrastructure which would also save large amounts of money (Deutch, et al., 2009, p. 6), (Juhasz, et al., 2009, p. 4), (Hargraves & Moir, 2010, pp. 310,311).
> 
> The challenge however will be to get past the initial cost. This will not only involve the designing and building the first thorium MSR, it will also involve setting up a proper licensing framework, which will be largely design specific, and requires the initiation of the thorium fuel cycle.
> https://www.thmsr.com/en/costs/





MSRs have been proven; it was done in the 1960s by the Oak Ridge boys. The MSR was initially designed to power aircraft. MSRs operate at high temperature and low pressure; which make them operationally stable and safe. Australia can use uranium for a Molten Salt Small Modular Reactor (MSSMR). Maybe I just created a new nuclear design concept here 

Australia has the greatest uranium resources in the world; it is a no brainer for us to have a nuclear industry.


----------



## basilio

Chronos-Plutus said:


> MSRs have been proven; it was done in the 1960s by the Oak Ridge boys. The MSR was initially designed to power aircraft. MSRs operate at high temperature and low pressure; which make them operationally stable and safe. Australia can use uranium for a Molten Salt Small Modular Reactor (MSSMR). Maybe I just created a new nuclear design concept here
> 
> Australia has the greatest uranium resources in the world; it is a no brainer for us to have a nuclear industry.




I'm puzzled Chronos. What part of the extensive posts I researched from the information site that explains and supports MSR did you misunderstand or just not read ?

The fact that its costs are still substantially higher than current, proven , commercially operational renewable energy sources?

The fact that on the very best time frame a commercial unit might be ready in 10 years time but realistically the major researchers  in the field think 2050 is more likely ?

And the final fact that a key objective of moving ASAP to a clean renewable energy society is to somehow mitigate the effects of CO2 emissions on our climate now - not 20 years into the future ?

Sure a MSR  pilot plant worked in the 1960's. The reality is that turning that feat into a commercially replicable mass production program is still, on the advice available, decades away.

And on all indications it will not be economically competitive with many other energy sources ?

Of course there is very busy promotion for the concept. The  commercial nuclear industry, individual companies involved with particular products and nuclear research scientists would still like to make a living.

And I can see a possibility for it so I agree that we should keep our eyes open on the research labs in Holland and elsewhere. But  I believe our research and investment funds will be better directed to other more immediate technologies.


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> Tried that once. Harder than I was expecting it to be to get the fire going.



Except if the fire was needed to warm up in a cold winter night.
By the time you have smoke, you are overheating


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> I'm puzzled Chronos. What part of the extensive posts I researched from the information site that explains and supports MSR did you misunderstand or just not read ?
> 
> The fact that its costs are still substantially higher than current, proven , commercially operational renewable energy sources?
> 
> The fact that on the very best time frame a commercial unit might be ready in 10 years time but realistically the major researchers  in the field think 2050 is more likely ?
> 
> And the final fact that a key objective of moving ASAP to a clean renewable energy society is to somehow mitigate the effects of CO2 emissions on our climate now - not 20 years into the future ?
> 
> Sure a MSR  pilot plant worked in the 1960's. The reality is that turning that feat into a commercially replicable mass production program is still, on the advice available, decades away.
> 
> And on all indications it will not be economically competitive with many other energy sources ?
> 
> Of course there is very busy promotion for the concept. The  commercial nuclear industry, individual companies involved with particular products and nuclear research scientists would still like to make a living.
> 
> And I can see a possibility for it so I agree that we should keep our eyes open on the research labs in Holland and elsewhere. But  I believe our research and investment funds will be better directed to other more immediate technologies.





Not sure why you're puzzled. Good things take time. If we adopt your recommendations, we will never develop and establish a nuclear industry in Australia. A piece of uranium, the size of a golf ball, has enough energy in it to provide power for an individual's lifetime in a Western country.

As for the MSR, research has demonstrated that it is commercially feasible; it is just a matter when, not if it will be done. Australia can either join the nuclear community and become a leader, or just sit back and do nothing.

You prefer the nothing option.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> I'm puzzled Chronos. What part of the extensive posts I researched from the information site that explains and supports MSR did you misunderstand or just not read ?
> 
> The fact that its costs are still substantially higher than current, proven , commercially operational renewable energy sources?
> 
> The fact that on the very best time frame a commercial unit might be ready in 10 years time but realistically the major researchers  in the field think 2050 is more likely ?
> 
> And the final fact that a key objective of moving ASAP to a clean renewable energy society is to somehow mitigate the effects of CO2 emissions on our climate now - not 20 years into the future ?
> 
> Sure a MSR  pilot plant worked in the 1960's. The reality is that turning that feat into a commercially replicable mass production program is still, on the advice available, decades away.
> 
> And on all indications it will not be economically competitive with many other energy sources ?
> 
> Of course there is very busy promotion for the concept. The  commercial nuclear industry, individual companies involved with particular products and nuclear research scientists would still like to make a living.
> 
> And I can see a possibility for it so I agree that we should keep our eyes open on the research labs in Holland and elsewhere. But  I believe our research and investment funds will be better directed to other more immediate technologies.




You're argument about capital intensity is valid, but it hasn't been put into context. Nuclear power is cheaper and more reliable than renewables once the plant has been built; furthermore nuclear powerplants have a lifespan of up to 60 years, which double that of solar and wind infrastructure, and a capacity factor generally 3 times that of solar and wind.


----------



## Smurf1976

Chronos-Plutus said:


> As for the MSR, research has demonstrated that it is commercially feasible; it is just a matter when, not if it will be done. Australia can either join the nuclear community and become a leader, or just sit back and do nothing.



The question for nuclear is whether or not there's a long term future in it?

Commercial use for power generation commenced in the 1950's but was relatively minor at the global level until the late 1960's. After that it started to increase and gained a huge push from the 1973-74 oil embargo which prompted a major shift away from oil as a means of electricity generation, significant noting that oil accounted for 22% of global power production in 1973.

Nuclear peaked at about 18% in the mid-1990's and was in third place after coal and hydro but has been losing market share ever since. It's down to about 10% now and in fourth place behind coal, gas and hydro with the trend remaining down.

For a new nuclear design to reverse that trend it needs to come in well under the cost of current designs.

In terms of costs, well if we look at the cost of Hinkley Point C in the UK and convert that to Australian Dollars then it's $168 per MWh. In contrast, if we look at prices in Australia then the average spot price over the past 12 months is:

Queensland = $65.42
Tasmania = $70.42
NSW = $80.51
SA = $84.28
Victoria = $88.42

In relation to those prices and looking internationally, $60 would be nice and $80 is the absolute limit really. Beyond that industry walks away - even at $80 they'd be wanting a damn good deal from government in other ways to consider it.

So any Australian nuclear plant needs to come in well under half the UK's costs for Hinkley Point C.

Personally I don't take the "religious" view about this that many do. It's just maths and business - any given approach either stacks up commercially or it doesn't.


----------



## SirRumpole

I think we have to remember also that a number of countries that have nuclear power systems also have nuclear weapons and therefore have the need to produce the materials that go into bombs without importing them from elsewhere.

That fact tends to distort the economics somewhat.


----------



## Smurf1976

Chronos-Plutus said:


> capacity factor generally 3 times that of solar and wind




Capacity factor is inherently limited for solar and wind but for the rest it's a function of design and operation.

There's hydro plant in Tasmania with a design CF of up to 84% for example and there's coal plant in Victoria that's much the same. Both can achieve it in practice. There's also hydro plant in Tas with a CF down at 30% by design and there used to be peaking coal plant in Vic that was even lower.

What can be done differs from what's actually done. It comes down to need and economics as to what's done in practice.

Eg there's an inherent limit on CF across the generating fleet in SA simply because the capacity factor of the load itself is barely above 40%. That necessarily means generating plant sitting idle more of the time than it's running. In contrast Queensland and Tasmania with load factors over 70% can push things along much harder on the supply side which keeps costs down.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> The question for nuclear is whether or not there's a long term future in it?
> 
> Commercial use for power generation commenced in the 1950's but was relatively minor at the global level until the late 1960's. After that it started to increase and gained a huge push from the 1973-74 oil embargo which prompted a major shift away from oil as a means of electricity generation, significant noting that oil accounted for 22% of global power production in 1973.
> 
> Nuclear peaked at about 18% in the mid-1990's and was in third place after coal and hydro but has been losing market share ever since. It's down to about 10% now and in fourth place behind coal, gas and hydro with the trend remaining down.
> 
> For a new nuclear design to reverse that trend it needs to come in well under the cost of current designs.




It is short-term political vision that has killed the nuclear energy option in Australia. Our politicians think in 3 to 4 year political cycles, not in half century energy security cycles. Then there is the environmental activist army that have been indoctrinated to believe that nuclear energy is dangerous. Australia can't afford to continue down this path of myopic stupidity. We need leaders with vision, and we need them yesterday.

As for the concept of a Molten Salt Small Modular Reactor (MSSMR), Australia would have been able to look into such a proposition if we had of built and established a nuclear industry decades ago.

Back on the issue of capital intensity for nuclear energy; as I said, nuclear power has an infrastructure  lifespan ~2 times, and a capacity factor ~3 times, that of wind and solar. This means that for a wind or solar farm to produce the same amount of electricity; it needs to built twice and have a nameplate capacity 3 times greater than the nuclear powerplant. So for a 1GW nuclear powerplant equivalent, the wind or solar farm needs to be 3GW and be built twice.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> Capacity factor is inherently limited for solar and wind but for the rest it's a function of design and operation.
> 
> There's hydro plant in Tasmania with a design CF of up to 84% for example and there's coal plant in Victoria that's much the same. Both can achieve it in practice. There's also hydro plant in Tas with a CF down at 30% by design and there used to be peaking coal plant in Vic that was even lower.
> 
> What can be done differs from what's actually done. It comes down to need and economics as to what's done in practice.
> 
> Eg there's an inherent limit on CF across the generating fleet in SA simply because the capacity factor of the load itself is barely above 40%. That necessarily means generating plant sitting idle more of the time than it's running. In contrast Queensland and Tasmania with load factors over 70% can push things along much harder on the supply side which keeps costs down.




Hydro capacity factor in Tasmania is ~41%: "Due to the prevalence of hydro plants in Tasmania, the capacity factor of hydropower for the state is the highest, reaching 41 per cent in 2015-16." (https://www.energycouncil.com.au/analysis/capacity-factors-understanding-the-misunderstood/)

What is clearly needed is an Australian energy mix that is practical, sensible and fit for purpose according to the environment that the power is generated in.

I am not advocating for 100% nuclear power; only for nuclear to be part of the energy mix.


----------



## Smurf1976

Perhaps the piece of information missing here, and noting that this is a stock market forum not an energy forum, is about the medium term situation in Australia and the implications of that.

The following major sources of energy supply are about to be removed and that's what creates the need for replacements.

I'm posting here only that data which the Australian Energy Market Operator has released via reports available to the public etc. You could interpret that to mean the list may have omissions but I won't comment on anything not public knowledge.

2020: Closure of 2 x 120 MW units at Torrens Island A power station (SA, gas)

2021: Closure of another 1 x 120 MW at Torrens Island A

2022: Closure of the final 120 MW at Torrens Island A. Closure of 1 x 420 MW at Liddell (NSW, coal).

2023: Closure of the final 3 x 420 MW units at Liddell. Closure of the 180 MW Osborne power station (SA, gas). End of all gas production from currently producing fields in the Otway Basin which has a current capacity of 113 TJ / day.

2023 or 2024: Reduction of approximately 40% in peak gas production capacity from the Longford gas plant in Victoria due to depletion of a key gas field will reduce capacity substantially. Dates are estimated and subject to some uncertainty but it's in that window of time as follows (figures are for Gippsland Basin production processed at Longford gas plant, by far the largest supply source into south-eastern Australia):

2018 = 1168 TJ / day (full plant capacity)

2020 = 1059 TJ / day maximum flow rate
2021 = 1007 TJ / day maximum flow rate
2022 = 992 TJ / day maximum flow rate
2023 = 967 TJ / day maximum flow rate
2024 = 629 TJ / day maximum flow rate

Companies involved with the above:

Torrens Island 'A' power station = AGL
Liddell = AGL
Osborne = Origin Energy

Otway Basin gas production = multiple operators. 

Gippsland Basin gas production processed at Longford = BHP / Esso joint venture.

Note that the above is not set in stone and is subject to ongoing revision of data based on observed field pressures etc (gas fields) and plant condition (power stations).

*Now there is still gas which can be developed, it is certainly possible to build new power generation and so on so I am not saying the end of the world is coming, the sky is falling and so on. What I am attempting to do however is outline the environment into which any company you invest in which operates in this area will be selling into. An environment of diminishing gas production and closure of significant existing generating capacity. *


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> Perhaps the piece of information missing here, and noting that this is a stock market forum not an energy forum, is about the medium term situation in Australia and the implications of that.
> 
> The following major sources of energy supply are about to be removed and that's what creates the need for replacements.
> 
> I'm posting here only that data which the Australian Energy Market Operator has released via reports available to the public etc. You could interpret that to mean the list may have omissions but I won't comment on anything not public knowledge.
> 
> 2020: Closure of 2 x 120 MW units at Torrens Island A power station (SA, gas)
> 
> 2021: Closure of another 1 x 120 MW at Torrens Island A
> 
> 2022: Closure of the final 120 MW at Torrens Island A. Closure of 1 x 420 MW at Liddell (NSW, coal).
> 
> 2023: Closure of the final 3 x 420 MW units at Liddell. Closure of the 180 MW Osborne power station (SA, gas). End of all gas production from currently producing fields in the Otway Basin which has a current capacity of 113 TJ / day.
> 
> 2023 or 2024: Reduction of approximately 40% in peak gas production capacity from the Longford gas plant in Victoria due to depletion of a key gas field will reduce capacity substantially. Dates are estimated and subject to some uncertainty but it's in that window of time as follows (figures are for Gippsland Basin production processed at Longford gas plant, by far the largest supply source into south-eastern Australia):
> 
> 2018 = 1168 TJ / day (full plant capacity)
> 
> 2020 = 1059 TJ / day maximum flow rate
> 2021 = 1007 TJ / day maximum flow rate
> 2022 = 992 TJ / day maximum flow rate
> 2023 = 967 TJ / day maximum flow rate
> 2024 = 629 TJ / day maximum flow rate
> 
> Companies involved with the above:
> 
> Torrens Island 'A' power station = AGL
> Liddell = AGL
> Osborne = Origin Energy
> 
> Otway Basin gas production = multiple operators.
> 
> Gippsland Basin gas production processed at Longford = BHP / Esso joint venture.
> 
> Note that the above is not set in stone and is subject to ongoing revision of data based on observed field pressures etc (gas fields) and plant condition (power stations).
> 
> *Now there is still gas which can be developed, it is certainly possible to build new power generation and so on so I am not saying the end of the world is coming, the sky is falling and so on. What I am attempting to do however is outline the environment into which any company you invest in which operates in this area will be selling into. An environment of diminishing gas production and closure of significant existing generating capacity. *




That is ~2.34 GW of power generation capacity. Building a ~1.3GW nuclear powerplant can replace the gas powerplants for the next 50 years. Or the SA government can build ~3.9GW of wind farms, twice in 50 years.

Anyway; I think that I have made my point tonight on the theme of nuclear energy. It isn't as dangerous or as costly as so many people claim.


----------



## Smurf1976

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Hydro capacity factor in Tasmania is ~41%




Across the system over the long term it's 41.8% to 48.9% depending on what assumptions are made as to climate.

Short term it can be pushed around hugely given the storage capacity at some stations is very large relative to annual discharge - at the extreme there's up to 5 years' worth of water sitting there in one case if the dam's full.

Some individual stations are drastically different however and do go into the 80's % as that was their original design basis. Others go as low as 30% and there's one with provision in the original civil works to be dropped down to 22% capacity factor in future if warranted.

For primarily economic reasons it's publicly disclosed that Hydro Tas intends reducing plant capacity factors, in some cases substantially, since doing so better aligns with what the market requires at a national level going forward. That is, it intends raising peak output far more than energy output.

In that context they're considering going as far as installing a new 20km tunnel and replacement power station in one case since the present operation is the most consistent producer of electricity in the entire National Electricity Market. That was a desirable attribute back in the 1930's when built but not so desirable going forward. It's nothing to do with me, I'm in SA these days, but Hydro Tas has put the investigations into that so far online - it's all public, nothing's confidential.

As for nuclear - well if it can be done in an economically viable manner then I'm not opposed in principle. Likewise I doubt that AGL or Origin or anyone else would ignore it if they think they can do it cheaply enough to be profitable. They're in business to make money for shareholders after all so they're unlikely to ignore it if it's attractive financially.

My point isn't an ideological one. It's just background info for anyone investing in companies planning to supply gas into south-east Australia (that is, NSW / ACT / Vic / SA / Tas) or electricity into the National Electricity Market but especially NSW, ACT, Vic, SA. 

I'm not arguing on ideological grounds, just pointing out what the market opportunity is noting that there's a few companies, some of them ASX listed, which have an interest in being involved using various different approaches in terms of technology, resources and location.


----------



## Smurf1976

Adding to my previous posts, looking at gas production in Victoria from present sources then the forecast reduction in 2024 as compared to 2020 is, if we value it at $5 / GJ (roughly the current price) worth about $800 million a year. 361 PJ in 2020 down to 202 PJ in 2024 is the forecast.

That's a potentially company making opportunity for any small cap which successfully finds gas and brings it into production and could work out very nicely for shareholders. A lot of "if" there of course - I'm just highlighting that the market opportunity is there, how it gets filled being the question.

Or alternatively someone could make quite a bit of money moving gas through pipelines from WA or Queensland or importing it etc since they'll very rapidly become a "too big to fail" operation.


----------



## qldfrog

Chronos-Plutus said:


> It is short-term political vision that has killed the nuclear energy option in Australia. Our politicians think in 3 to 4 year political cycles, not in half century energy security cycles. Then there is the environmental activist army that have been indoctrinated to believe that nuclear energy is dangerous. Australia can't afford to continue down this path of myopic stupidity. We need leaders with vision, and we need them yesterday.
> 
> As for the concept of a Molten Salt Small Modular Reactor (MSSMR), Australia would have been able to look into such a proposition if we had of built and established a nuclear industry decades ago.
> 
> Back on the issue of capital intensity for nuclear energy; as I said, nuclear power has an infrastructure  lifespan ~2 times, and a capacity factor ~3 times, that of wind and solar. This means that for a wind or solar farm to produce the same amount of electricity; it needs to built twice and have a nameplate capacity 3 times greater than the nuclear powerplant. So for a 1GW nuclear powerplant equivalent, the wind or solar farm needs to be 3GW and be built twice.



And nuclear waste has to be cooling ina sed swimming pool for 1000 years yeap. Tell me about capital costs and running costs or short term visions.
France has/had 70pc of electricity power from nuclear....i think i know what i  am talking about if i say it is an economic no go
But definitively try fusion or thorium if you feel like development of a new branch..good luck with Australia expertise...


----------



## basilio

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Anyway; I think that I have made my point tonight on the theme of nuclear energy. It isn't as dangerous or as costly as so many people claim.




You may think that Chronos.
The facts of Nuclear power indicate otherwise.


----------



## SirRumpole

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Not sure why you're puzzled. Good things take time. If we adopt your recommendations, we will never develop and establish a nuclear industry in Australia. A piece of uranium, the size of a golf ball, has enough energy in it to provide power for an individual's lifetime in a Western country.
> 
> As for the MSR, research has demonstrated that it is commercially feasible; it is just a matter when, not if it will be done. Australia can either join the nuclear community and become a leader, or just sit back and do nothing.
> 
> You prefer the nothing option.




Proponents of nuclear power in Australia it seems to me always want to privatise the profits and socialise the costs.

There is no way a private company could pay the costs of insurance (in the unlikely event that they could even get insurance in the first place) of cleaning up after a Fukishima type accident or the costs of storing nuclear waste for thousands of years. Those costs would necessarily fall onto the government/taxpayers and I doubt if any government in Australia would want to take on that responsibility when there are less risky options available.

If we really want to go nuclear , then maybe this is an option.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerator-driven_subcritical_reactor


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> If we really want to go nuclear , then maybe this is an option.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerator-driven_subcritical_reactor




I believe the Thorium mini reactor was the proposal Chronos was suggesting.
It does have merit but the costs are still far higher than other technologies and as I suggested it won't be commercially available for another 20 years.

But the critical point you make is still valid. Nuclear power has always been developed with huge Government subsidies for development.  And governments have had to pick up the tab for clean ups and disasters. 

And no one yet has cleaned up an end of life nuclear power station.


----------



## sptrawler

A good article by the BBC, on small modular reactors and the state of development.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200309-are-small-nuclear-power-plants-safe-and-efficient

I personally think the issue will be self resolving, at this point in time there is no difinitive answer, necessity will drive the generation mix.
If renewables and storage, can keep up with increased demand and coal retirement, I'm sure it will be utilised.
If it can't the reliance on gas will increase, then the issues surrounding gas, will become the topic of the day.
Nuclear may be in hibernation, but it will be required longer term, as there are many countries that haven't the topography for renewables.
We tend to be very Australia centric with our discussion, not many countries are endowed with a huge flat land mass and a small population that lends itself to renewables.


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> believe the Thorium mini reactor was the proposal Chronos was suggesting.




I believe there is a difference between a molten salt reactor and an accelerator driven subcritical reactor, but I'll leave that to any nuclear physicists who happen to be wandering around here.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> You may think that Chronos.
> The facts of Nuclear power indicate otherwise.




Basilo, I have just provided you with the undisputed scientific facts. I have a background in finance and mechanical engineering; so I think I have a stronger grasp of how nuclear powerplants work with the associated capital costs; than the vast majority of commentators.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

qldfrog said:


> And nuclear waste has to be cooling ina sed swimming pool for 1000 years yeap. Tell me about capital costs and running costs or short term visions.
> France has/had 70pc of electricity power from nuclear....i think i know what i  am talking about if i say it is an economic no go
> But definitively try fusion or thorium if you feel like development of a new branch..good luck with Australia expertise...




Nuclear is a political no-go, not an economic no-go. The economics for nuclear stack up over a half century timeline when compared to solar and wind.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> I believe the Thorium mini reactor was the proposal Chronos was suggesting.
> It does have merit but the costs are still far higher than other technologies and as I suggested it won't be commercially available for another 20 years.
> 
> But the critical point you make is still valid. Nuclear power has always been developed with huge Government subsidies for development.  And governments have had to pick up the tab for clean ups and disasters.
> 
> And no one yet has cleaned up an end of life nuclear power station.




Stop putting words in my mouth about a thorium reactor. I have been clear that I am talking about a Molten Salt Small Modular Reactor using uranium, not thorium.

The carbon emissions for nuclear power generation is less than solar and on-par with onshore wind.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

SirRumpole said:


> Proponents of nuclear power in Australia it seems to me always want to privatise the profits and socialise the costs.
> 
> There is no way a private company could pay the costs of insurance (in the unlikely event that they could even get insurance in the first place) of cleaning up after a Fukishima type accident or the costs of storing nuclear waste for thousands of years. Those costs would necessarily fall onto the government/taxpayers and I doubt if any government in Australia would want to take on that responsibility when there are less risky options available.
> 
> If we really want to go nuclear , then maybe this is an option.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerator-driven_subcritical_reactor




Fukishima was built on a coastline prone to tsunamis.


----------



## basilio

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Basilo, I have just provided you with the undisputed scientific facts. I have a background in finance and mechanical engineering; so I think I have a stronger grasp of how nuclear powerplants work with the associated capital costs; than the vast majority of commentators.




Given your overwhelming confidence in your  various  finance and engineering skills I'm amazed you havn't been head hunted to kick start Australia's new glorious cost competitive  nuclear industry.

Get a grip Chronos. There is some serious talent on ASF. Smurf for one is respected by on and off the Forum as a fair dinkum expert in the analysis of capital costs of the various energy sources.  Regardless of your opinion my skills I can also read numbers that make it absolutely clear that  currently:

1) Nuclear energy projects still require massive external financial support to come to fruition
2) New projects including MSR will not be commercially available for decades to come
3) The risks associated with nuclear energy can only be assumed by Governments. No insurance company or the industry itself is willing to take on these responsibilities.

The overwhelming problem for nuclear however is the fact that alternative renewable energy sources have become so much cheaper in the past decade. Economics, mature and  still rapidly improving technology and the capacity to bring decentralized,clean, renewable energy to production in a very short time frame is a powerful new reality.

But don't take my word for it. Check out what the scientists at the CSIRO have to say.
,
*New CSIRO, AEMO study confirms wind, solar and storage beat coal, gas and nuclear*
An updated study on current and future generation costs by the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator confirms that wind, solar and storage technologies are by far the cheapest form of low carbon options for Australia, and are likely to dominate the global energy mix in coming decades.

The first report, GenCost 2018, identified that wind and solar were by far the cheapest forms of new generation technologies, clearly cheaper than coal, and even when  combined with storage, remained easily the cheapest form low carbon electricity options.

A draft of the updated study, GenCost 2019-20, has been quietly posted on the AEMO website and confirms that wind and solar and storage remain the cheapest technologies, now and into the future, and much cheaper than the technologies promoted by the Australian government – gas, carbon capture, and nuclear.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/new-csi...-and-storage-beat-coal-gas-and-nuclear-57530/


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> Given your overwhelming confidence in your  various  finance and engineering skills I'm amazed you havn't been head hunted to kick start Australia's new glorious cost competitive  nuclear industry.
> 
> Get a grip Chronos. There is some serious talent on ASF. Smurf for one is respected by on and off the Forum as a fair dinkum expert in the analysis of capital costs of the various energy sources.  Regardless of your opinion my skills I can also read numbers that make it absolutely clear that  currently:
> 
> 1) Nuclear energy projects still require massive external financial support to come to fruition
> 2) New projects including MSR will not be commercially available for decades to come
> 3) The risks associated with nuclear energy can only be assumed by Governments. No insurance company or the industry itself is willing to take on these responsibilities.
> 
> The overwhelming problem for nuclear however is the fact that alternative renewable energy sources have become so much cheaper in the past decade. Economics, mature and  still rapidly improving technology and the capacity to bring decentralized,clean, renewable energy to production in a very short time frame is a powerful new reality.
> 
> But don't take my word for it. Check out what the scientists at the CSIRO have to say.
> ,
> *New CSIRO, AEMO study confirms wind, solar and storage beat coal, gas and nuclear*
> An updated study on current and future generation costs by the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator confirms that wind, solar and storage technologies are by far the cheapest form of low carbon options for Australia, and are likely to dominate the global energy mix in coming decades.
> 
> The first report, GenCost 2018, identified that wind and solar were by far the cheapest forms of new generation technologies, clearly cheaper than coal, and even when  combined with storage, remained easily the cheapest form low carbon electricity options.
> 
> A draft of the updated study, GenCost 2019-20, has been quietly posted on the AEMO website and confirms that wind and solar and storage remain the cheapest technologies, now and into the future, and much cheaper than the technologies promoted by the Australian government – gas, carbon capture, and nuclear.
> https://reneweconomy.com.au/new-csi...-and-storage-beat-coal-gas-and-nuclear-57530/




Well; lets work through some numbers together then?

What is the average capital cost of a 1GW nuclear powerplant that will last 50 years?

Then we can will need to agree on the average capital cost of 3GW solar or wind farm; which will need to be built twice in 50 years.

Pretty simple math really.


----------



## sptrawler

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Fukishima was built on a coastline prone to tsunamis.



Also it was 50 years old, so that made the design a 1960's model, many things have improved since the 1960's.
Many lessons have been learnt and critical core cooling would be high on the list of priorities, that would have improved since that design era.
Compare a 1960's car to the cars we have now, compare most machinery since the 1960 to present, everyone thinks nuclear development has stood still since Fukishima and Chernobyl were designed in the 1960's.
IMO that is a pretty naive attitude, I have never spent much time researching nuclear power generation, but I have had enough to do with power generation to know it is a constantly developing field.
Gas turbine efficiency has improved from approx 20% in the 1970's, to nearly 50% now and I'm talking open cycle.
So to use 1960's nuclear technology, to criticise current nuclear generation, is like comparing 1960's solar panels with those available now.
As long as it can be shown to be safe and cost effective, it should be considered, IMO.
As I said earlier, IMO nuclear will have to be used in some places, as it will be the only option for 'clean' energy generation.
Also as Chronos said, there is no getting away from the energy density.


----------



## qldfrog

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Nuclear is a political no-go, not an economic no-go. The economics for nuclear stack up over a half century timeline when compared to solar and wind.



With all due respect this is pure BS look at UK France and US...
The only reason we use nuclear is weapon grade uranium
For Japan, it was independence
Obviously include the cost of building running and then cutting your power plant in small packets wrapped in melted glass and stored in pool or in ancient salt mine with 24/7 cooling protection etc


----------



## basilio




----------



## basilio

*From CSIRO Energy Report (See above)*_

*And despite ferocious criticism by the nuclear lobby, *its estimates for nuclear remain unchanged, largely because it says there have been no technology advances since the last report. It does recognise the potential for small nuclear reactors in certain scenarios, but these are heavily qualified: they are at least a decade away, and would still deliver a levellised cost of energy at least twice that of wind and solar and storage.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/new-csi...-and-storage-beat-coal-gas-and-nuclear-57530/
_


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

qldfrog said:


> With all due respect this is pure BS look at UK France and US...
> The only reason we use nuclear is weapon grade uranium
> For Japan, it was independence
> Obviously include the cost of building running and then cutting your power plant in small packets wrapped in melted glass and stored in pool or in ancient salt mine with 24/7 cooling protection etc




Nuclear Levelised cost of electricity is cheap relative to renewables:


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> View attachment 105153




Sorry; you need to look at the levelised cost of electricity:


----------



## basilio

Apparently there is a determined new push to make Nuclear New.
This analysis does an excellent job of deconstructing this push and pointing out the serious technical limitations of Nuclear Power for future energy generation.

*Nuclear lobby takes aim at Victoria to tackle prohibitions*
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/nuclear-lobby-takes-aim-at-victoria-to-tackle-prohibitions/


----------



## basilio

Chronos, how about reading the whole article in Renew which summarizes the main CSIRO points.
They take particular care with the issues around Nuclear Power because clearly the industry is throwing whatever it can to get back into the game.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> Apparently there is a determined new push to make Nuclear New.
> This analysis does an excellent job of deconstructing this push and pointing out the serious technical limitations of Nuclear Power for future energy generation.
> 
> *Nuclear lobby takes aim at Victoria to tackle prohibitions*
> https://www.michaelwest.com.au/nuclear-lobby-takes-aim-at-victoria-to-tackle-prohibitions/




We have nuclear reactors operating right now in Australia; Lucas Heights. The prohibition on commercial nuclear reactors was absurd and should be lifted immediately.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> View attachment 105156
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Chronos, how about reading the whole article in Renew which summarizes the main CSIRO points.
> They take particular care with the issues around Nuclear Power because clearly the industry is throwing whatever it can to get back into the game.




The CSIRO have no vision; they are irrelevant.

I have been in contact with a few CSIRO scientists before. They are lethargic and boring.


----------



## basilio

Chronos-Plutus said:


> The CSIRO have no vision; they are irrelevant.




"If you don't have the facts thump the table and scream *LOUDER"  *
............................................................
For generation costs, expressed as the levellised cost of energy (LCOE),  it notes that wind and solar are clearly the cheapest form of bulk energy, at half the cost of fossil fuel alternatives, and one fifth the cost of nuclear. Even with storage – shorter duration batteries or longer duration pumped hydro – wind and solar match fossil fuels, and are one third the cost of nuclear.

In coming years, the costs of wind and particularly solar are expected to continue to fall. And storage too, so their cost advantage of renewables and storage is expected to increase.

So, by 2030, nuclear is still well out of the money, and wind and solar have increased their cost advantage over fossil fuels, particularly those with a carbon price attached.

In virtually every scenario, the CSIRO study envisages a world dominated by wind and solar by 2050. Nuclear may play a slightly increased role in the “diverse technology” scenario, but this is only with artificial limits placed on the deployment of wind and solar.

So, by 2030, nuclear is still well out of the money, and wind and solar have increased their cost advantage over fossil fuels, particularly those with a carbon price attached.

In virtually every scenario, the CSIRO study envisages a world dominated by wind and solar by 2050. Nuclear may play a slightly increased role in the “diverse technology” scenario, but this is only with artificial limits placed on the deployment of wind and solar.
But it only sees SMRs entering the equation in more than a decade’s time if governments get serious about the 2°C target, if they impose a limit on the renewable energy share, and if there is a significant carbon price.

Given that even the Coalition government expects the share of renewables to reach 50 per cent by 2030, and AEMO expects that to be higher by 2030 and heading to at least 74 per cent to 90 per cent by 2040, then that does not appear to leave much room for either carbon capture and storage or nuclear in this country.

And, of course, there is no enthusiasm for a carbon price from the main nuclear lobbyists, primarily the Minerals Council of Australia and the LNP politicians who are also pushing coal.





	

		
			
		

		
	
The CSIRO study says that in some scenarios the cost of carbon capture and storage and nuclear could be lower than previous estimations, particularly if small modular reactors achieve a reduction in nuclear capital costs after 2030.

Even then, as this graph shows, the cost of nuclear in 2040 will still be considerably more expensive than the combination of wind and solar and storage, and likely to be more than three times more expensive across different scenarios. A similar cost disparity remains for 2050. And investors, it notes, will go for value for money.







Giles Parkinson
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of Renew Economy, and is also the founder of One Step Off The Grid and founder/editor of The Driven. Giles has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> "If you don't have the facts thump the table and scream *LOUDER"  *
> ............................................................
> For generation costs, expressed as the levellised cost of energy (LCOE),  it notes that wind and solar are clearly the cheapest form of bulk energy, at half the cost of fossil fuel alternatives, and one fifth the cost of nuclear. Even with storage – shorter duration batteries or longer duration pumped hydro – wind and solar match fossil fuels, and are one third the cost of nuclear.
> 
> In coming years, the costs of wind and particularly solar are expected to continue to fall. And storage too, so their cost advantage of renewables and storage is expected to increase.
> 
> So, by 2030, nuclear is still well out of the money, and wind and solar have increased their cost advantage over fossil fuels, particularly those with a carbon price attached.
> 
> In virtually every scenario, the CSIRO study envisages a world dominated by wind and solar by 2050. Nuclear may play a slightly increased role in the “diverse technology” scenario, but this is only with artificial limits placed on the deployment of wind and solar.
> 
> So, by 2030, nuclear is still well out of the money, and wind and solar have increased their cost advantage over fossil fuels, particularly those with a carbon price attached.
> 
> In virtually every scenario, the CSIRO study envisages a world dominated by wind and solar by 2050. Nuclear may play a slightly increased role in the “diverse technology” scenario, but this is only with artificial limits placed on the deployment of wind and solar.
> But it only sees SMRs entering the equation in more than a decade’s time if governments get serious about the 2°C target, if they impose a limit on the renewable energy share, and if there is a significant carbon price.
> 
> Given that even the Coalition government expects the share of renewables to reach 50 per cent by 2030, and AEMO expects that to be higher by 2030 and heading to at least 74 per cent to 90 per cent by 2040, then that does not appear to leave much room for either carbon capture and storage or nuclear in this country.
> 
> And, of course, there is no enthusiasm for a carbon price from the main nuclear lobbyists, primarily the Minerals Council of Australia and the LNP politicians who are also pushing coal.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The CSIRO study says that in some scenarios the cost of carbon capture and storage and nuclear could be lower than previous estimations, particularly if small modular reactors achieve a reduction in nuclear capital costs after 2030.
> 
> Even then, as this graph shows, the cost of nuclear in 2040 will still be considerably more expensive than the combination of wind and solar and storage, and likely to be more than three times more expensive across different scenarios. A similar cost disparity remains for 2050. And investors, it notes, will go for value for money.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Giles Parkinson
> Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of Renew Economy, and is also the founder of One Step Off The Grid and founder/editor of The Driven. Giles has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.




I don't need you to copy and paste text. Write what you must with reference if you wish to continue this discourse.

The engineering facts stand for themselves; nuclear has ~3 times the CF and ~2 times the infrastructure lifespan, in comparison to wind and solar.

The CSIRO should be shutdown if they think the world can just run off wind and solar.


----------



## qldfrog

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Nuclear Levelised cost of electricity is cheap relative to renewables:
> View attachment 105154



Sorry for my tone, 
Upset as i am now siding with @basilio, a rate occurrence i will not get used to..


----------



## macca

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Fukishima was built on a coastline prone to tsunamis.




I know people that know that coastline well and they said that the bays in that area are wider at the mouth than further in, they described them as being like saw teeth.

Consequently the wave is allowed into the inlet and then compressed as it narrows further inland.
The shear volume of water forces the wave to get higher as it gets narrower the further inland it goes.

It would be the exact opposite at Port Phillip Bay or Sydney Harbour which have narrow mouths and wide sheltered waters within

Moreton Bay would be a problem as it has a wide mouth which narrows down as it goes inland and becomes a river, very bad if a tsunami hits


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

macca said:


> I know people that know that coastline well and they said that the bays in that area are wider at the mouth than further in, they described them as being like saw teeth.
> 
> Consequently the wave is allowed into the inlet and then compressed as it narrows further inland.
> The shear volume of water forces the wave to get higher as it gets narrower the further inland it goes.
> 
> It would be the exact opposite at Port Phillip Bay or Sydney Harbour which have narrow mouths and wide sheltered waters within
> 
> Moreton Bay would be a problem as it has a wide mouth which narrows down as it goes inland and becomes a river, very bad if a tsunami hits




I say we build them inland, underground, and use recycled wastewater from all the regional towns for cooling.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

macca said:


> I know people that know that coastline well and they said that the bays in that area are wider at the mouth than further in, they described them as being like saw teeth.
> 
> Consequently the wave is allowed into the inlet and then compressed as it narrows further inland.
> The shear volume of water forces the wave to get higher as it gets narrower the further inland it goes.
> 
> It would be the exact opposite at Port Phillip Bay or Sydney Harbour which have narrow mouths and wide sheltered waters within
> 
> Moreton Bay would be a problem as it has a wide mouth which narrows down as it goes inland and becomes a river, very bad if a tsunami hits




If we had a large scale water infrastructure network that carried the freshwater from FNQ down to the Australian Eastern states to our food bowl regions, we could just tap into that for cooling the plant; but our government has no vision.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

qldfrog said:


> Sorry for my tone,
> Upset as i am now siding with @basilio, a rate occurrence i will not get used to..




It's all good, we don't have to agree on everything. Just a discussion .


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Chronos-Plutus said:


> If we had a large scale water infrastructure network that carried the freshwater from FNQ down to the Australian Eastern states to our food bowl regions, we could just tap into that for cooling the plant; but our government has no vision.




Emergency cooling or we can use a gas for emergency cooling.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

really liking the to and fro; and almost don't want to intervene (almost).

But it's a share forum so....







Smurf1976 said:


> Adding to my previous posts, looking at gas production in Victoria from present sources then the forecast reduction in 2024 as compared to 2020 is, if we value it at $5 / GJ (roughly the current price) worth about $800 million a year. 361 PJ in 2020 down to 202 PJ in 2024 is the forecast.
> 
> That's a potentially company making opportunity for any small cap which successfully finds gas and brings it into production and could work out very nicely for shareholders. A lot of "if" there of course - I'm just highlighting that the market opportunity is there, how it gets filled being the question...




Nothing's static (if you're not going forward, you're going backward); present sources implies more of the same. But, with Vic gas, things are changing







> Exxon confirmed it was pursuing a sale of its 50 per cent stake in the offshore fields despite uncertainty in the industry after the COVID-19 pandemic and oil price crash earlier in the year.
> 
> Beach Energy, 30 per cent owned by Seven Group, had been seen as a potential bidder but the Stokes-controlled conglomerate said it had carefully looked at the assets itself as it considers potential growth opportunities.





> “There’s still considerable potential in the Bass Strait,” Seven Group’s head of energy Margaret Hall told the Annual Credit Suisse Australian Energy Conference on Tuesday. “The resources obviously aren’t as easy as they used to be, but within the context of the demand requirements on the east coast with gas replacement and infrastructure in place and the transport network, the opportunity for incremental investment is very good.”



New money, new depreciation schedules .... there's life in the old girl yet


----------



## basilio

Chronos, for someone who came to this discussion proclaiming strong qualifications in finance and engineering you seem to have just  thrown them away and just made up whatever stuff comes out of your mouth.

Your refusal to acknowledge the simple cost benefits analysis  around comparing the cost of various energy alternatives led to my posting the work of CSIRO engineers which demonstrate beyond rational dispute that Nuclear Energy is not cost competitive and is very unlikely to be in any  foreseeable scenarios.

Your response was to trash the CSIRO as having no vision. WTF ! The process of  analyzing competing costs of  energy production is an engineering /financing analysis not a tub thumping Big Picture,  Back of the Envelope, Make it Up  speech.

I decided to finally post the extended commentary because  it was clear the CSIRO needed to address the fierce criticism from the *Big Picture, Back of the envelope *Nuclear Lobbyists who are trying to persuade Federal Government Ministers that pouring unlimited billions of dollars into the industry will be "Nation Building " . You may not want to read it. But I suggest other thread readers could be interested in seeing just how spurious and self serving these arguments are.

I was also staggered at your amazing suggestion that we build a national network of pipes to bring fresh water from FNQ to our food bowls - and then use that water to cool Nuclear Power plants!

You call yourself an engineer and a "finance"person ?  I don't need an engineering degree or a finance degree to recognise that the enormous infrastructure and pumping costs of such a venture would forever dwarf any economic utility. And then you propose that instead of using this (now) costly and precious resource for food you want to cool these massive nuclear power stations ?

Incidentally the need for massive amounts of cooling water is another serious problem with any Nuclear Power station.  That is why most such entities soak up large rivers or the nearby sea.

And you seriously suggest that in an already parched Australia we should apportion substantial water resources to such a purpose ? (It's worth noting that one of the great advantages of retiring coal fired power stations is recapturing the billions of litres of water currently cooling the power stations .)


----------



## basilio

And now for something completely different ..

I just came across a company with a very courageous proposal to produce millions of litres of  synthetic petrol from AIR, WATER and ELECTRICITY.  

There were two articles I found and if anyone is interested in reading them  it could make for an interesting discussion.
(I don't have a dog in this race...)

* QUEST  FOR FIRE *
*This former playwright aims to turn solar and wind power into gasoline*
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/former-playwright-aims-turn-solar-and-wind-power-gasoline
*

  CO2-to-Fuels  RenewableGasoline and JetFuel Can Soon BePrice Competitivewith Fossil Fuels  Rob McGinnis1,**
Rob McGinnis, PhD, is an inventor and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Prometheus, a company that is developing technology to remove carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into fuels. He previously founded Mat-tershift, where he developed large-scale carbon nanotube membranes. Rob was previously founder of OasysWater, a company focused on developing forward osmosis technologies for water purification. Rob received his PhD in Engineering from YaleUniversity.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cqr6up85rhgy665/McGinnis-2020-Joule-CO2-to-Fuels.pdf?dl=0


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> Chronos, for someone who came to this discussion proclaiming strong qualifications in finance and engineering you seem to have just  thrown them away and just made up whatever stuff comes out of your mouth.
> 
> Your refusal to acknowledge the simple cost benefits analysis  around comparing the cost of various energy alternatives led to my posting the work of CSIRO engineers which demonstrate beyond rational dispute that Nuclear Energy is not cost competitive and is very unlikely to be in any  foreseeable scenarios.
> 
> Your response was to trash the CSIRO as having no vision. WTF ! The process of  analyzing competing costs of  energy production is an engineering /financing analysis not a tub thumping Big Picture,  Back of the Envelope, Make it Up  speech.
> 
> I decided to finally post the extended commentary because  it was clear the CSIRO needed to address the fierce criticism from the *Big Picture, Back of the envelope *Nuclear Lobbyists who are trying to persuade Federal Government Ministers that pouring unlimited billions of dollars into the industry will be "Nation Building " . You may not want to read it. But I suggest other thread readers could be interested in seeing just how spurious and self serving these arguments are.
> 
> I was also staggered at your amazing suggestion that we build a national network of pipes to bring fresh water from FNQ to our food bowls - and then use that water to cool Nuclear Power plants!
> 
> You call yourself an engineer and a "finance"person ?  I don't need an engineering degree or a finance degree to recognise that the enormous infrastructure and pumping costs of such a venture would forever dwarf any economic utility. And then you propose that instead of using this (now) costly and precious resource for food you want to cool these massive nuclear power stations ?
> 
> Incidentally the need for massive amounts of cooling water is another serious problem with any Nuclear Power station.  That is why most such entities soak up large rivers or the nearby sea.
> 
> And you seriously suggest that in an already parched Australia we should apportion substantial water resources to such a purpose ? (It's worth noting that one of the great advantages of retiring coal fired power stations is recapturing the billions of litres of water currently cooling the power stations .)




Oh please; your little tricks don't work on me.

You just copy and paste stuff that you have little comprehension of understanding; all in your indoctrinated cause to plunge humanity into darkness.

You have no clue about energy, you have never worked in power generation; and using the CSIRO as your shield is just pathetic. The CSIRO are a bunch of geriatrics.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> And now for something completely different ..
> 
> I just came across a company with a very courageous proposal to produce millions of litres of  synthetic petrol from AIR, WATER and ELECTRICITY.
> 
> There were two articles I found and if anyone is interested in reading them  it could make for an interesting discussion.
> (I don't have a dog in this race...)
> 
> * QUEST  FOR FIRE *
> *This former playwright aims to turn solar and wind power into gasoline*
> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/former-playwright-aims-turn-solar-and-wind-power-gasoline
> 
> 
> *  CO2-to-Fuels  RenewableGasoline and JetFuel Can Soon BePrice Competitivewith Fossil Fuels  Rob McGinnis1,**
> Rob McGinnis, PhD, is an inventor and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Prometheus, a company that is developing technology to remove carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into fuels. He previously founded Mat-tershift, where he developed large-scale carbon nanotube membranes. Rob was previously founder of OasysWater, a company focused on developing forward osmosis technologies for water purification. Rob received his PhD in Engineering from YaleUniversity.
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/cqr6up85rhgy665/McGinnis-2020-Joule-CO2-to-Fuels.pdf?dl=0





Look: I am not trying to upset you; yet spending years on The Conversation reading publications from UNSW's Mark Diesendorf about how bad nuclear energy won't help you in understanding how energy works. He is paid to publish his narrative.

Sorry to break it to you.


----------



## Smurf1976

I'll keep out of the "religious" aspect of the debate but one thing I'll point out is that the relative cost of the various options is by no means static and is influenced by a number of factors.

Scale is one. Some technologies benefit from economies of scale far more than do others. Coal in particular is economically problematic at anything other than a very large scale. Alinta found that out in SA the hard way and it's no secret that coal is struggling financially in WA despite having already shut the higher cost operations and the private stations having been built as cheaply as could possibly be done. In contrast some of the coal stations in the eastern states are hugely profitable, such is the benefit of their massive scale.

Cost of finance / returns to investors is another since the capital employed per unit of output varies hugely depending on the technology. Even within the same resource type, well it's more costly to build for low grade coal than to build for high grade coal and it's more costly to build high efficiency gas than to build low efficiency gas. Etc.

Location also has an effect and for more than one reason. Construction costs, access to natural resources (wind, sun, water, fossil fuels), existing electricity transmission infrastructure, value of the land itself, climate will affect the efficiency and output capacity of gas turbines, etc.

Plant capacity factor is another key since if it's not running then there's a saving on fuel costs but little saving on some other costs and no saving at all on the original cost of construction. Since electricity demand itself varies, it's simply not possible to run all plant constantly and if we take SA as the more extreme example, well average demand is only about 46% of peak demand so that means plant is idle more than it's running. Victoria's not a lot better, average demand being about 51% of peak. It's higher in the other states, Queensland and Tasmania in particular at about 75% and 70% respectively, but still can't run flat out constantly.

Looking at some specific data for real power stations, annual capacity factors as follows:

Torrens Island A (480 MW) and B (800 MW) combined data. Plant location is SA, fuel is gas (steam turbines), owner is AGL (an ASX listed company).

2005-06 = 22%
2006-07 = 26%
2007-08 = 29%
2008-09 = 21%
2009-10 = 20%
2010-11 = 21%
2011-12 = 22%
2012-13 = 19%
2013-14 = 15%
2014-15 = 16%
2015-16 = 24%
2016-17 = 25%
2017-18 = 25%
2018-19 = 23%


The low figures aren't because it's broken or otherwise unable to operate, technically it could achieve 80%+ easily, but because there simply isn't a constant market for its full output.

Now for another one, Newport D. This is a gas-fired plant (steam turbine) in Victoria owned by Energy Australia (not listed).

2005-06 = 10%
2006-07 = 31%
2007-08 = 40%
2008-09 = 24%
2009-10 = 12%
2010-11 = 6%
2011-12 = 10%
2012-13 = 3%
2013-14 = 6%
2014-15 = 2%
2015-16 = 8%
2016-17 = 10%
2017-18 = 20%
2018-19 = 19%


Reason for the above is simply the market, from a technical perspective the plant could achieve around 90%.

Now another one, Tamar Valley Combined Cycle which is gas-fired CCGT plant in Tasmania. Owner is AETV, the parent company of which is Hydro Tasmania (state government owned). The plant has been in service since 2009.

2009-10 = 63%
2010-11 = 81%
2011-12 = 85%
2012-13 = 85%
2013-14 = 47%
2014-15 = Zero production
2015-16 = 30%
2016-17 = 40%
2017-18 = 41%
2018-19 = 18%
2019-20 to date = zero production, plant has not operated since April 2019

The above is again due to the market which is itself driven by hydro system inflows, wind speeds, temperature (heating / cooling load), gas prices, electricity prices in other states especially Victoria, etc. There was nothing precluding this station operating in 2014-15 or in recent months, just no technical need to run it and no financial incentive to do so in lieu of something else. If it needs to run to keep the lights on in Tasmania, or there's money to be made by running it and sending the output to Victoria, then it'll be back in action.

Finally, monthly data for Barker Inlet which is brand new, completed just before Christmas last year, and located in SA. Fuel is gas with diesel pilot (internal combustion plant) and the owner is AGL. Plant capacity is 210 MW and AGL have publicly disclosed the construction budget as $295 million.

January (first full month of normal operations) = 23%
February = 11%
March = 18%
April = 16%
May = 25%
June to date = 28%

First production from the above was on 17 October 2019 however progressive commissioning and plant testing involved some periods of uneconomic running, indeed at times it was run with negative prices, which was needed to get the work done but obviously not how it'll normally be running given that it's capable of going from shut down to full output in a matter of minutes thus has no need to stay running when doing so is unprofitable.

On a day to day basis there's also a lot of variation. Eg Barker Inlet ran with a 65% capacity factor on 17 June but there are certainly days when it's literally zero.

Now in looking at that data, they're all ultimately responding to the market. It's no coincidence that AGL (a listed company), Energy Australia (not listed) and AETV / Hydro Tas (government) all backed off production from gas around 2014 - 15. They're all ultimately feeding the same grid, they're all experiencing similar conditions and all responding similarly to them. Ownership may influence the detail but they're all ultimately reaching very similar conclusions.

I have deliberately chosen examples of the same resource (gas) being used by very different companies (listed, unlisted, government) to illustrate the point that all are acting similarly which is unsurprising given it's one big interconnected market.

*I've posted this for the information of those interested either because they're invested in companies or this sector or for other reasons. I'll steer well clear of any "religious" type debates as I said*.

On the gas side of it all, well as an example of the sort of company that might be in a good position with all this going on is Cooper Energy. The Sole gas field offshore Victoria has 241 PJ of reserves and once they get it working properly (currently in commissioning with some minor difficulties according to their recent update) the gas processing plant can process 68 TJ / day.

That makes them a minor player in volume terms, it's only about 12% Victoria's annual gas use if they run it flat out or about 6% of peak day consumption, but the resource will sustain that rate for almost a decade in a market short on supply and it seems that the company is selling much or all of it into the spot market.

That's for information only - do your own research before investing into Cooper Energy or anyone else, I'm just pointing out the opportunity and market background.

The above information could, if you really wanted to, all be sourced via AEMO and the ASX. Not in an easy form for much of it but ultimately the data's in the public domain - I've chosen specific examples with that in mind.


----------



## Smurf1976

Dona Ferentes said:


> Nothing's static (if you're not going forward, you're going backward); present sources implies more of the same. But, with Vic gas, things are changing




Indeed and I emphasise "present sources" to mean exactly that - what exists right now won't be sufficient. So someone needs to develop something new and that's where the opportunity arises.

Exploration and production in Victoria is one way so long as there's gas still in the ground.

Pipeline supply from or via NSW / SA is another noting that could potentially originate either within those states or from Qld, NT or even WA. Or some could come from Tas in the event anyone were to find some gas there.

APA would be a company almost certainly involved with any proposal requiring new or expanded pipelines.

Import LNG to Victoria is another way noting that AGL has a proposal to do just that.

Import the LNG to NSW / SA.

Etc. Lots of ways to do it so my point is really just to highlight that there's a market needing supply and that investors may find opportunity by looking at companies able to supply it.


----------



## basilio

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Oh please; your little tricks don't work on me.
> 
> You just copy and paste stuff that you have little comprehension of understanding; all in your indoctrinated cause to plunge humanity into darkness.
> 
> You have no clue about energy, you have never worked in power generation; and using the CSIRO as your shield is just pathetic. The CSIRO are a bunch of geriatrics.




So basically  your saying the CSIRO /AMEO analysis of competing energy costs of  gas, coal, solar, hydro, nuclear is just rubbish from a bunch of incompetent geriatrics who just don't understand how *"Valuable and Important and Nation Building"  *a Nuclear Industry will be for Australia ?

And I/We are supposed to take your supremely confident assertions as the basis for kicking off a nuclear industry and disregard the Energy Market Authorities and CSIRO analysis of comparative costs which indicate this would a folly of gigantic proportions ? 

Questions. 

1) If in fact these comparison figures are so wrong where is the  business case showing a more favourable comparison ?

2) One of the critical points made in the CSIRO analysis is the very rubbery figures for actual cost of building a nuclear installation VS the creative accounting of the shrills, spivs and BS artistes who make a living selling shares to suckers and sucking dollars from Governments. We who live in teh real world are acutely conscious of the long history of very expensive Nuclear white elephants

3) In what rational universe could you come up with idea of pumping water from FNQ south to cool wildly expensive Nucklear Power Stations ?

By the way Chronos you absolutely no idea of my background in terms of capacity to understand energy costs ect.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> I'll keep out of the "religious" aspect of the debate but one thing I'll point out is that the relative cost of the various options is by no means static and is influenced by a number of factors.
> 
> Scale is one. Some technologies benefit from economies of scale far more than do others. Coal in particular is economically problematic at anything other than a very large scale. Alinta found that out in SA the hard way and it's no secret that coal is struggling financially in WA despite having already shut the higher cost operations and the private stations having been built as cheaply as could possibly be done. In contrast some of the coal stations in the eastern states are hugely profitable, such is the benefit of their massive scale.
> 
> Cost of finance / returns to investors is another since the capital employed per unit of output varies hugely depending on the technology. Even within the same resource type, well it's more costly to build for low grade coal than to build for high grade coal and it's more costly to build high efficiency gas than to build low efficiency gas. Etc.
> 
> Location also has an effect and for more than one reason. Construction costs, access to natural resources (wind, sun, water, fossil fuels), existing electricity transmission infrastructure, value of the land itself, climate will affect the efficiency and output capacity of gas turbines, etc.
> 
> Plant capacity factor is another key since if it's not running then there's a saving on fuel costs but little saving on some other costs and no saving at all on the original cost of construction. Since electricity demand itself varies, it's simply not possible to run all plant constantly and if we take SA as the more extreme example, well average demand is only about 46% of peak demand so that means plant is idle more than it's running. Victoria's not a lot better, average demand being about 51% of peak. It's higher in the other states, Queensland and Tasmania in particular at about 75% and 70% respectively, but still can't run flat out constantly.
> 
> Looking at some specific data for real power stations, annual capacity factors as follows:
> 
> Torrens Island A (480 MW) and B (800 MW) combined data. Plant location is SA, fuel is gas (steam turbines), owner is AGL (an ASX listed company).
> 
> 2005-06 = 22%
> 2006-07 = 26%
> 2007-08 = 29%
> 2008-09 = 21%
> 2009-10 = 20%
> 2010-11 = 21%
> 2011-12 = 22%
> 2012-13 = 19%
> 2013-14 = 15%
> 2014-15 = 16%
> 2015-16 = 24%
> 2016-17 = 25%
> 2017-18 = 25%
> 2018-19 = 23%
> 
> 
> The low figures aren't because it's broken or otherwise unable to operate, technically it could achieve 80%+ easily, but because there simply isn't a constant market for its full output.
> 
> Now for another one, Newport D. This is a gas-fired plant (steam turbine) in Victoria owned by Energy Australia (not listed).
> 
> 2005-06 = 10%
> 2006-07 = 31%
> 2007-08 = 40%
> 2008-09 = 24%
> 2009-10 = 12%
> 2010-11 = 6%
> 2011-12 = 10%
> 2012-13 = 3%
> 2013-14 = 6%
> 2014-15 = 2%
> 2015-16 = 8%
> 2016-17 = 10%
> 2017-18 = 20%
> 2018-19 = 19%
> 
> 
> Reason for the above is simply the market, from a technical perspective the plant could achieve around 90%.
> 
> Now another one, Tamar Valley Combined Cycle which is gas-fired CCGT plant in Tasmania. Owner is AETV, the parent company of which is Hydro Tasmania (state government owned). The plant has been in service since 2009.
> 
> 2009-10 = 63%
> 2010-11 = 81%
> 2011-12 = 85%
> 2012-13 = 85%
> 2013-14 = 47%
> 2014-15 = Zero production
> 2015-16 = 30%
> 2016-17 = 40%
> 2017-18 = 41%
> 2018-19 = 18%
> 2019-20 to date = zero production, plant has not operated since April 2019
> 
> The above is again due to the market which is itself driven by hydro system inflows, wind speeds, temperature (heating / cooling load), gas prices, electricity prices in other states especially Victoria, etc. There was nothing precluding this station operating in 2014-15 or in recent months, just no technical need to run it and no financial incentive to do so in lieu of something else. If it needs to run to keep the lights on in Tasmania, or there's money to be made by running it and sending the output to Victoria, then it'll be back in action.
> 
> Finally, monthly data for Barker Inlet which is brand new, completed just before Christmas last year, and located in SA. Fuel is gas with diesel pilot (internal combustion plant) and the owner is AGL. Plant capacity is 210 MW and AGL have publicly disclosed the construction budget as $295 million.
> 
> January (first full month of normal operations) = 23%
> February = 11%
> March = 18%
> April = 16%
> May = 25%
> June to date = 28%
> 
> First production from the above was on 17 October 2019 however progressive commissioning and plant testing involved some periods of uneconomic running, indeed at times it was run with negative prices, which was needed to get the work done but obviously not how it'll normally be running given that it's capable of going from shut down to full output in a matter of minutes thus has no need to stay running when doing so is unprofitable.
> 
> On a day to day basis there's also a lot of variation. Eg Barker Inlet ran with a 65% capacity factor on 17 June but there are certainly days when it's literally zero.
> 
> Now in looking at that data, they're all ultimately responding to the market. It's no coincidence that AGL (a listed company), Energy Australia (not listed) and AETV / Hydro Tas (government) all backed off production from gas around 2014 - 15. They're all ultimately feeding the same grid, they're all experiencing similar conditions and all responding similarly to them. Ownership may influence the detail but they're all ultimately reaching very similar conclusions.
> 
> I have deliberately chosen examples of the same resource (gas) being used by very different companies (listed, unlisted, government) to illustrate the point that all are acting similarly which is unsurprising given it's one big interconnected market.
> 
> *I've posted this for the information of those interested either because they're invested in companies or this sector or for other reasons. I'll steer well clear of any "religious" type debates as I said*.
> 
> On the gas side of it all, well as an example of the sort of company that might be in a good position with all this going on is Cooper Energy. The Sole gas field offshore Victoria has 241 PJ of reserves and once they get it working properly (currently in commissioning with some minor difficulties according to their recent update) the gas processing plant can process 68 TJ / day.
> 
> That makes them a minor player in volume terms, it's only about 12% Victoria's annual gas use if they run it flat out or about 6% of peak day consumption, but the resource will sustain that rate for almost a decade in a market short on supply and it seems that the company is selling much or all of it into the spot market.
> 
> That's for information only - do your own research before investing into Cooper Energy or anyone else, I'm just pointing out the opportunity and market background.
> 
> The above information could, if you really wanted to, all be sourced via AEMO and the ASX. Not in an easy form for much of it but ultimately the data's in the public domain - I've chosen specific examples with that in mind.





I think we need to embrace our energy options in a holistic manner which is absent of hardline indoctrination, that considers the established assets which are currently in place for many decades to come. I am happy to allow coal and gas to continue on provided that our food security and freshwater security isn't compromised; I think that it is only fair to allow nuclear into our energy mix. 

If we look at Cooper Energy; they have what? A few decades of gas at most. There is no reason why they can't diversify their gas streams with looking at the feasibility of building biogas plants that use green waste and sewage waste for anaerobic digestion to produce methane. This will be an additional revenue methane stream for the business that is economically productive, waste effective and environmentally intelligent.

I am willing to discuss religion and philosophy on a different thread, on this forum if permitted.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> So basically  your saying the CSIRO /AMEO analysis of competing energy costs of  gas, coal, solar, hydro, nuclear is just rubbish from a bunch of incompetent geriatrics who just don't understand how *"Valuable and Important and Nation Building"  *a Nuclear Industry will be for Australia ?
> 
> And I/We are supposed to take your supremely confident assertions as the basis for kicking off a nuclear industry and disregard the Energy Market Authorities and CSIRO analysis of comparative costs which indicate this would a folly of gigantic proportions ?
> 
> Questions.
> 
> 1) If in fact these comparison figures are so wrong where is the  business case showing a more favourable comparison ?
> 
> 2) One of the critical points made in the CSIRO analysis is the very rubbery figures for actual cost of building a nuclear installation VS the creative accounting of the shrills, spivs and BS artistes who make a living selling shares to suckers and sucking dollars from Governments. We who live in teh real world are acutely conscious of the long history of very expensive Nuclear white elephants
> 
> 3) In what rational universe could you come up with idea of pumping water from FNQ south to cool wildly expensive Nucklear Power Stations ?
> 
> By the way Chronos you absolutely no idea of my background in terms of capacity to understand energy costs ect.




You could be the Treasurer of NSW for all I care. You still have no clue!


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> So basically  your saying the CSIRO /AMEO analysis of competing energy costs of  gas, coal, solar, hydro, nuclear is just rubbish from a bunch of incompetent geriatrics who just don't understand how *"Valuable and Important and Nation Building"  *a Nuclear Industry will be for Australia ?
> 
> And I/We are supposed to take your supremely confident assertions as the basis for kicking off a nuclear industry and disregard the Energy Market Authorities and CSIRO analysis of comparative costs which indicate this would a folly of gigantic proportions ?
> 
> Questions.
> 
> 1) If in fact these comparison figures are so wrong where is the  business case showing a more favourable comparison ?
> 
> 2) One of the critical points made in the CSIRO analysis is the very rubbery figures for actual cost of building a nuclear installation VS the creative accounting of the shrills, spivs and BS artistes who make a living selling shares to suckers and sucking dollars from Governments. We who live in teh real world are acutely conscious of the long history of very expensive Nuclear white elephants
> 
> 3) In what rational universe could you come up with idea of pumping water from FNQ south to cool wildly expensive Nucklear Power Stations ?
> 
> By the way Chronos you absolutely no idea of my background in terms of capacity to understand energy costs ect.




The CSIRO can be shutdown tomorrow with little to no impact on our nation's future prosperity. They are a bunch of lazy and overpaid dinosaurs!

Many of our universities can be defunded also, if they aren't careful!


----------



## basilio

Chronos-Plutus said:


> The CSIRO can be shutdown tomorrow with little to no impact on our nation's future prosperity. They are a bunch of lazy and overpaid dinosaurs!
> 
> Many of our university's can be defunded also, if they aren't careful!




Why don't you go and put a sock in it Chronos. Your trashing your credibility. Your wasting our time.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> Why don't you go and put a sock in it Chronos. Your trashing your credibility. Your wasting our time.




Our time?

Really?


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> Why don't you go and put a sock in it Chronos. Your trashing your credibility. Your wasting our time.




Am I wasting the time of a deluded activist that wants the world to be plunged into the Stone Age?

Hope you don't work for a university, they need to be defunded ASAP, if so.


----------



## SirRumpole

Chronos-Plutus said:


> If we look at Cooper Energy; they have what? A few decades of gas at most. There is no reason why they can't diversify their gas streams with looking at the feasibility of building biogas plants that use green waste and sewage waste for anaerobic digestion to produce methane. This will be an additional revenue methane stream for the business that is economically productive, waste effective and environmentally intelligent.




Sugar cane --> ethanol --> gas turbines --> electricity ?

e.g. Brazil.

https://www.reliableplant.com/Read/22300/Brazil-turbines-sugar-ethanol


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

SirRumpole said:


> Sugar cane --> ethanol --> gas turbines --> electricity ?
> 
> e.g. Brazil.
> 
> https://www.reliableplant.com/Read/22300/Brazil-turbines-sugar-ethanol




No; I am talking about anaerobic digestion for Cooper Energy; methane production. Mixing grass and sewage will produce methane.


----------



## sptrawler

IMO the reason nuclear isn't being supported ATM, is because it isn't needed, huge swathes of empty land and a very small load by world standards makes renewables and gas a sensible proposition.
However a lot will depend on the success of the H2 market, if we find there is a massive market, then supplementing the renewables and at the same time reducing dependence on gas may change the whole generation landscape.
One thing for sure, neither ideology nor money will come into it, if it becomes necessary. As has been proven with this virus, money is only an issue, untill it has to be spent.
It will all be self resolving IMO.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> IMO the reason nuclear isn't being supported ATM, is because it isn't needed, huge swathes of empty land and a very small load by world standards makes renewables and gas a sensible proposition.




Yes, that's it, we just don't need it.

Let's see a cost benefit analysis for nuclear including storing the waste for 50,000 years, decommissioning the plant, and provision for cleanups of accidents and the cost of nuclear soars into the stratosphere.


----------



## SirRumpole

SirRumpole said:


> Sugar cane --> ethanol --> gas turbines --> electricity ?
> 
> e.g. Brazil.
> 
> https://www.reliableplant.com/Read/22300/Brazil-turbines-sugar-ethanol






> No; I am talking about anaerobic digestion for Cooper Energy; methane production. Mixing grass and sewage will produce methane.




We grow sugar cane, Brazil already generates power from theirs, why not us as well ?


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

sptrawler said:


> IMO the reason nuclear isn't being supported ATM, is because it isn't needed, huge swathes of empty land and a very small load by world standards makes renewables and gas a sensible proposition.
> However a lot will depend on the success of the H2 market, if we find there is a massive market, then supplementing the renewables and at the same time reducing dependence on gas may change the whole generation landscape.
> One thing for sure, neither ideology nor money will come into it, if it becomes necessary. As has been proven with this virus, money is only an issue, untill it has to be spent.
> It will all be self resolving IMO.



It is just capital and politics. If I was a multi-billionaire, like Gates; I would build a commercial Molten Salt Small Modular Reactor within 15 years. No problems at all.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, that's it, we just don't need it.
> 
> Let's see a cost benefit analysis for nuclear including storing the waste for 50,000 years, decommissioning the plant, and provision for cleanups of accidents and the cost of nuclear soars into the stratosphere.



Well you won't be closing down our gas and coal plants then, without the nuclear replacement.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Sugar cane --> ethanol --> gas turbines --> electricity ?




From a technical perspective a gas turbine can use any liquid or gas fuel so long as it's free of non-combustible solids (in layman's terms "ash").

Ethanol, or indeed any distilled liquid fuel, meets that requirement so can be done.

For a residual fuel, one which does contain non-combustible solids, it has been used successfully overseas with adequate filtration on the fuel to get rid of the otherwise abrasive nasties. 

Economics are another question but technically it's doable. Canola oil etc could be done too.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> From a technical perspective a gas turbine can use any liquid or gas fuel so long as it's free of non-combustible solids (in layman's terms "ash").
> 
> Ethanol, or indeed any distilled liquid fuel, meets that requirement so can be done.
> 
> For a residual fuel, one which does contain non-combustible solids, it has been used successfully overseas with adequate filtration on the fuel to get rid of the otherwise abrasive nasties.
> 
> Economics are another question but technically it's doable. Canola oil etc could be done too.




You can use Skydrol (hydraulic fluid) and it will turn and burn in a gas turbine engine, under the right conditions. Never seen it, but that is what I was told when learning to fix, test and troubleshoot gas turbine engines.

Ethanol blends are easy for standard road vehicles with internal combustion engines. We should have been doing this back in the 70s.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> From a technical perspective a gas turbine can use any liquid or gas fuel so long as it's free of non-combustible solids (in layman's terms "ash").
> 
> Ethanol, or indeed any distilled liquid fuel, meets that requirement so can be done.
> 
> For a residual fuel, one which does contain non-combustible solids, it has been used successfully overseas with adequate filtration on the fuel to get rid of the otherwise abrasive nasties.
> 
> Economics are another question but technically it's doable. Canola oil etc could be done too.




I shouldn't, but I will take it a step further:

Did you know that the Bore Compartment Cooling of a GE CF6-80C2 Gas Turbine Engine is operational up to around ~20000ft whereby it deactivates and the Turbine Cooling Control starts!

Try to find that information on the internet


----------



## sptrawler

Chronos-Plutus said:


> .
> Ethanol blends are easy for standard road vehicles with internal combustion engines. We should have been doing this back in the 70s.



We could have run our whole vehicle fleet on lpg, but as with nuclear, it wasn't needed so it didn't happen.
Now everyone thinks electric cars are just around the corner, so selling an lpg conversion on a car now would be like selling fridges to eskimos.
Everything changes, technology changes, public perceptions change.

If small modular reactors become commonplace around the world, and are proven safe, who knows in 30 years time they may be sitting outside huge solar/wind farms with huge electrolysis plants attached.

Then the generator runs 24/7 at mcr, when the renewables are supplying the load the generator makes H2, when the renewables output drops, the generator picks up the load and reduces H2 generation.

Win/win the steam turbine lasts longer because it isn't cycling, it is operating constantly at mcr so maximum efficiency and the problem with renewables intermittency is solved.
Time and technology will sort it.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

sptrawler said:


> We could have run our whole vehicle fleet on lpg, but as with nuclear, it wasn't needed so it didn't happen.
> Now everyone thinks electric cars are just around the corner, so selling an lpg conversion on a car now would be like selling fridges to eskimos.
> Everything changes, technology changes, public perceptions change.
> 
> If small modular reactors become commonplace around the world, and are proven safe, who knows in 30 years time they may be sitting outside huge solar/wind farms with huge electrolysis plants attached.
> 
> Then the generator runs 24/7 at mcr, when the renewables are supplying the load the generator makes H2, when the renewables output drops, the generator picks up the load and reduces H2 generation.
> 
> Win/win the steam turbine lasts longer because it isn't cycling, it is operating constantly at mcr so maximum efficiency and the problem with renewables intermittency is solved.
> Time and technology will sort it.




Buddy; if we want to keep this stupid commercial nuclear prohibition in place; then so be it.

I don't have the monetary capital or political capital to change it.

We can just be a dumb nation; and I will go back to just reading my books in the library.


----------



## sptrawler

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Buddy; if we want to keep this stupid commercial nuclear prohibition in place; then so be it.
> 
> I don't have the the monetary capital or political capital to change it.
> 
> We can just be a dumb nation; and I will go back to just reading my books in the library.



I personally think we will end up with nuclear power, it is the only thing with the grunt, to rid the world of fossil fuel generation.
Also as I said, the amount of H2 required to replace fossil fuel in transport needs, will force the adoption IMO.
But I can't be bothered arguing about it, been there done that.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

sptrawler said:


> I personally think we will end up with nuclear power, it is the only thing with the grunt, to rid the world of fossil fuel generation.
> Also as I said, the amount of H2 required to replace fossil fuel in transport needs, will force the adoption IMO.
> But I can't be bothered arguing about it, been there done that.




Personally; I think it is safe, reliable and economical.

We leave this in the hands of the energy big boys now; Shell, BP and so on; also our political leaders.


----------



## qldfrog

I do not believe current nuclear is economical but it is reliable, mostly safe..and i put my hope on micro fusion reactors.

But more important now is that first step forward
https://www.news.com.au/finance/wor...h/news-story/a42b07e94ea9673a6ec15746ebc75b6f
I hope it will lead somewhere


----------



## basilio

Regarding the argy bargy Chronos initiated with his prosecution of Nuclear Power as Australias new energy hope.

I think that is an argument suited for a Nuclear Power thread. ASF has enough contentious debates which are often ideologically driven and disparage any independent evidence. This thread on future energy generation and storage was conceived to enable a more  constructive discussion about possibilities and opportunities in the field rather than staring a new battle ground.


----------



## rederob

basilio said:


> Regarding the argy bargy Chronos initiated with his prosecution of Nuclear Power as Australias new energy hope.
> 
> I think that is an argument suited for a Nuclear Power thread. ASF has enough contentious debates which are often ideologically driven and disparage any independent evidence. This thread on future energy generation and storage was conceived to enable a more  constructive discussion about possibilities and opportunities in the field rather than staring a new battle ground.



@Chronos-Plutus has posted on topic but I know there are at least 2 other relevant threads on nuclear.
If nuclear is as good as people think, why has it not prospered in the USA where the NIMBY issue is not so prevalent?
The one nuclear plant still being built in Georgia has a 2019 cost estimate of over US$27B after an original estimate of only $14B.
If people here want to promote nuclear, then they should put up the maths, which does not stack up in the USA and would be considerably less compelling in Australia for a host of reasons.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Regarding the argy bargy Chronos initiated with his prosecution of Nuclear Power as Australias new energy hope.
> 
> I think that is an argument suited for a Nuclear Power thread. ASF has enough contentious debates which are often ideologically driven and disparage any independent evidence. *This thread on future energy generation and storage was conceived to enable a more  constructive discussion about possibilities and opportunities in the field rather than staring a new battle ground.*



The problem is Bas, the whole argument against nuclear is driven by emotion, not by reasonable discussion.
There is every possibility nuclear power will be in the clean energy mix, as I said it lends itself to compliment a solar/wind farm with electrolyser, to overcome the intermittency of renewables without the requirement for storage and the added advantage of H2 production.

The size of the nuclear plant wouldn't need to be huge in that instance, there are already small modular reactors in use and have been in use for decades, in aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines.

The issue isn't about making them, it is about the economies of scale, this to a degree is removed if they are part of a solar/wind/H2 installation.

It isn't about emotion, it is about a realistic way of getting to a clean energy economy, to just refuse to entertain one component because it is emotive isn't sensible.
As you rightly stated, the thread was concieved to enable a more constructive discussion about possibilities and opportunities in the field.

It isn't just a thread on renewable energy, we already have threads covering that also, of course nuclear belongs in this thread it has the highest 'clean' energy density available to mankind.

Anyway here is the size of some small modular reactors.

_*Reactor* sizes range up to ~500 MWt (about 165 MWe) in the larger *submarines* and surface ships. The French Rubis-class *submarines* have a 48 MW *reactor* that needs no refueling for 30 years. The *nuclear* navies of the Russian Federation, the United States, and the United Kingdom rely on steam turbine propulsion.

A Nimitz-class *carrier* is powered by two *nuclear reactors* providing steam to four steam turbines and is 1,092 feet (333 m) long, Gerald R. Ford class, one 110,000-ton, 1,106 ft long fleet _*carrier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A1B_reactor*
The *A1B reactor plant* is an aircraft carrier nuclear reactor developed by the United States Navy. It is used in _Gerald R. Ford_-class aircraft carriers to provide electrical and propulsion energy. The A1B is the first naval reactor produced by Bechtel Corporation, which has "performed engineering and/or construction services on more than 80 percent of [land-based] nuclear plants in the United States".[1]

Aircraft carriers' nuclear reactors provide the electrical and motor energy of the ship by splitting enriched uranium to produce heat and convert water to steam to power steam turbines. This process is largely the same as land-based nuclear reactors, although smaller naval reactors have several design differences.
The new reactor was named A1B, following the Navy's reactor-designation scheme of type, generation, and manufacturer: A for aircraft carrier, 1 for the maker's first reactor plant design, and B for Bechtel.[3] Two A1B reactor plants will power each _Ford_ ship.

It is estimated that the total thermal power output of the A1B will be around 700 MW, some 25% more than provided by the A4W.[4] Improved efficiency in the total plant is expected to provide improved output to both propulsion and electrical systems. Using A4W data[5] with a 25% increase in thermal power, the A1B reactors likely produce enough steam to generate 125 megawatts (168,000 hp) of electricity, plus 350,000 shaft horsepower (260 MW) to power the four propeller shafts.[6]

The increased electrical generation capacity will allow for elimination of service steam on the ship, reducing staffing requirements for maintenance.[7] Electrical aircraft catapult (EMALS) power will also free the ship's air wing from reactor plant constraints.

In addition, the A1B reactor uses modernized technology that is both more advanced and adaptable than previous reactor technology, is smaller and weighs less than the A4W, and has operator interfaces that are expected to be improved as well.


----------



## basilio

I didn't have a problem with Nuclear Power being discussed as a topic for future energy.
I did have a problem with the discussion turning into a full blooded push to promote the technology and a refusal to  acknowledge the  financial an logistical arguments  that make it a doubtful proposition.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> The problem is Bas, the whole argument against nuclear is driven by emotion, not by reasonable discussion.
> There is every possibility nuclear power will be in the clean energy mix, as I said it lends itself to compliment a solar/wind farm with electrolyser, to overcome the intermittency of renewables without the requirement for storage and the added advantage of H2 production.
> 
> The size of the nuclear plant wouldn't need to be huge in that instance, there are already small modular reactors in use and have been in use for decades, in aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines.
> 
> The issue isn't about making them, it is about the economies of scale, this to a degree is removed if they are part of a solar/wind/H2 installation.
> 
> It isn't about emotion, it is about a realistic way of getting to a clean energy economy, to just refuse to entertain one component because it is emotive isn't sensible.
> As you rightly stated, the thread was concieved to enable a more constructive discussion about possibilities and opportunities in the field.
> 
> It isn't just a thread on renewable energy, we already have threads covering that also, of course nuclear belongs in this thread it has the highest 'clean' energy density available to mankind.
> 
> Anyway here is the size of some small modular reactors.
> 
> _*Reactor* sizes range up to ~500 MWt (about 165 MWe) in the larger *submarines* and surface ships. The French Rubis-class *submarines* have a 48 MW *reactor* that needs no refueling for 30 years. The *nuclear* navies of the Russian Federation, the United States, and the United Kingdom rely on steam turbine propulsion.
> 
> A Nimitz-class *carrier* is powered by two *nuclear reactors* providing steam to four steam turbines and is 1,092 feet (333 m) long, Gerald R. Ford class, one 110,000-ton, 1,106 ft long fleet _*carrier.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A1B_reactor*




I think there is merit is the proposed small modular nuclear reactors. But from what I have seen the economics don't stack up at this stage and  a commercial product will not be available for decades to come. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be researched and at some stage it becomes a clean, *safe ,  *economically viable proposition for Australia. I can also see how it would be more appropriate  in some locations.

My responses were based on the current cost benefit analysis of various energy sources and  persistent  rubberiness of Nuclear installation costs.  The  ground has changed significantly with the speed of solar and wind and battery development. There are now more cost effective and cost certain alternatives. Why would one risk investing in a huge financial hole in the ground with a nuclear power plant ?

The Hinkley Nuclear Power plant in the UK is the most striking example of how such a venture can become a gigantic white elephant. Check out the costs to consumers section.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station

It's true there are  nuclear reactors on ships and submarines. But these  are used becasue of the overwhelmingly military advantage of a no fuel operation and the fact that military budgets have very deep pockets.  However the issues of safety and consequences of a nuclear accident on these ships is still on the table. And who knows how the de commissioning of these vessels will happen  ?


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> I didn't have a problem with Nuclear Power being discussed as a topic for future energy.
> I did have a problem with the discussion turning into a full blooded push to promote the technology and a refusal to  acknowledge the  financial an logistical arguments  that make it a doubtful proposition.



Like I said, I think everyone is thinking of massive big Nuclear power stations, not modular ones that could be skid mounted.
I personally think, the idea of batteries and pumped hydro as a long term solution, is a more doubtful proposition.
Anyway time will tell and what we think, wont have any bearing on the outcome. 
I just read your last post, at least you are starting to thaw somewhat.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> The Hinkley Nuclear Power plant in the UK is the most striking example of how such a venture *can become a gigantic white elephant*. Check out the costs to consumers section.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station




That must be why they are planning on building another one?
https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/nuclear-new-build-projects/sizewell-c/about

Anyway, enough of the circular argument, time will tell.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> That must be why they are planning on building another one?




To provide the materials for nuclear weapons for one reason.

At least the UK has a reasonable excuse for nuclear, lack of sunshine and resources like coal (Thatcher shut down most of  the coal mines). The UK is heavily invested in wind power and its gas reserves won't last forever.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> To provide the materials for nuclear weapons for one reason.
> 
> At least the UK has a reasonable excuse for nuclear, lack of sunshine and resources like coal (Thatcher shut down most of  the coal mines). The UK is heavily invested in wind power and its gas reserves won't last forever.



Exactly.
Way too much emotion and virtue signalling involved in the discussion, along with very little knowledge of the the thread subject.
Placing emotion in front of what will actually work, wont be part of the engineering brief, that will be left to the media to do.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Exactly.
> Way too much emotion and virtue signalling involved in the discussion, along with very little knowledge of the the thread subject.
> Placing emotion in front of what will actually work, wont be part of the engineering brief, that will be left to the media to do.



I notice no maths.Here's how the numbers stack up (unsubsidised) in the USA:





Renewables continue to get cheaper.  
Nuclear has not.
Battery storage is also decreasing substantially year on year.
In terms of "not enough knowledge," those advocating nuclear would do well to at least read this.  Governments have been throwing hundreds of millions at small nuclear research and development for the past decade and there's still nothing commercialised, despite this technology being in operation since the mid-1950s.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> I notice no maths.Here's how the numbers stack up (unsubsidised) in the USA:
> View attachment 105174
> 
> Renewables continue to get cheaper.
> Nuclear has not.
> Battery storage is also decreasing substantially year on year.
> In terms of "not enough knowledge," those advocating nuclear would do well to at least read this.  Governments have been throwing hundreds of millions at small nuclear research and development for the past decade and there's still nothing commercialised, despite this technology being in operation since the mid-1950s.




You need to keep in mind the lifespan of the nuclear asset, which is ~50 to ~ 60 years. Wind and solar is ~25 to ~30 years. Then there is also the amount of land and sea that wind and solar take-up.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> I notice no maths.Here's how the numbers stack up (unsubsidised) in the USA:
> View attachment 105174
> 
> Renewables continue to get cheaper.
> Nuclear has not.
> Battery storage is also decreasing substantially year on year.
> In terms of "not enough knowledge," those advocating nuclear would do well to at least read this.  Governments have been throwing hundreds of millions at small nuclear research and development for the past decade and there's still nothing commercialised, despite this technology being in operation since the mid-1950s.




US Department of Energy numbers suggest otherwise





The publication is from 2015 though: 
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/08/f25/LCOE.pdf

Offshore wind and solar is quite expensive relative to nuclear


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> I notice no maths.Here's how the numbers stack up (unsubsidised) in the USA:
> View attachment 105174
> 
> Renewables continue to get cheaper.
> Nuclear has not.
> Battery storage is also decreasing substantially year on year.
> In terms of "not enough knowledge," those advocating nuclear would do well to at least read this.  Governments have been throwing hundreds of millions at small nuclear research and development for the past decade and there's still nothing commercialised, despite this technology being in operation since the mid-1950s.




Here is the 2023 forecast LCOE from the US DOE:





https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/archive/aeo19/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf


----------



## Smurf1976

Any company investing in new generating capacity in Australia is going to be looking at the economics of it very seriously. That applies regardless of whether it's the likes of AGL or Origin Energy (both ASX listed), Alinta or Energy Australia (not listed) or CleanCo or Hydro Tasmania (Queensland and Tasmanian government owned respectively).

They're all going to be crunching the numbers, none of them are keen on losing money. The listed companies will feel the wrath of shareholders if they get it wrong whilst the government owned ones may well cease to exist if they get it badly enough wrong.

In that context I'll list here some data as to the revenue received by different types of generation based on spot prices. Whilst much electricity is traded under contract, as with anything contract prices will tend to broadly reflect the spot market at the long term - nobody enters a contract for something at $20 if they expect the spot price to average $100 for example, it's going to be reasonably close on average.

Unfortunately we don't have any one state which has every generating technology in use in the main grid. SA and Victoria are highly correlated in terms of prices however and NSW comes next so I've used Victorian data where that plant type exists within the state followed by SA then NSW and between them that covers the lot in terms of what's currently in use in Australia.

Average spot prices for generation output past 12 months to date:

Wind (Victoria) = $62.10

Solar (Rooftop) (Victoria) = $66.40

Solar (Large scale) (Victoria) = $71.36

Brown coal (Victoria) = $74.51

Black coal (NSW) = $76.37

Combined cycle gas turbine (SA) = $79.69

Gas internal combustion (SA) = $89.61 (based on limited data, plant commissioned late 2019)

Battery Discharging (Victoria) = $135.84

Gas-fired steam (Victoria) = $146.10

Hydro (Victoria) = $155.89

Open cycle gas turbines (Victoria) = $168.14

Diesel and kerosene-fired gas turbines (NSW) = $919.30
Diesel-fired gas turbines and internal combustion engines (SA) = $968.14

I emphasize that these are not the cost of generation from the respective sources but rather they are the spot market price at the time x the generated output. Or in simpler terms, what it's worth in the market.

I don't have info for the energy used for battery charging in Victoria and what that cost but as an order of magnitude it would be about half the price received for discharging.

For those contemplating nuclear, the existing plant with the closest characteristics is brown coal. They both have similar attributes of very low marginal operating costs and will thus operate with very high capacity factors. In contrast the NSW black coal plants were with one exception specifically built to follow load and spend very little time at maximum output in practice (and even the one which wasn't built to do it still can and does to some extent just not as easily or to the same extent as the rest but it does ramp up and down).


----------



## rederob

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Here is the 2023 forecast LCOE from the US DOE:
> View attachment 105184
> https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/archive/aeo19/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf



The private sector deals with market realities, and Lazard has worked with that sector for over 170 years.  I
You are welcome to believe the EIA's forecasts, but they don't even accurately reflect today's renewables costs, let alone their declining cost into the future.
Aside from renewables, combined cycle gas is also significantly cheaper than nuclear, so it's a bit of a non event unless you have no other energy options and cn wait at least 5 years for construction.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> The private sector deals with market realities, and Lazard has worked with that sector for over 170 years.  I
> You are welcome to believe the EIA's forecasts, but they don't even accurately reflect today's renewables costs, let alone their declining cost into the future.
> Aside from renewables, combined cycle gas is also significantly cheaper than nuclear, so it's a bit of a non event unless you have no other energy options and cn wait at least 5 years for construction.




So you want to disregard the most credible energy data source in America which has a multi billion dollar budget.


----------



## sptrawler

Another reality is, as soon as coal is de commissioned, the next push will be to shut down gas generation.
So it seems pointless comparing combined cycle GT's to nuclear fueled steam plant, in 10 years time GT's will be on the nose as much as coal is currently.
The whole argument is based on nonsense, intermittent renewable generation will require storage or some form of backup.
Batteries are the flavour of the month, but I doubt they will be in 15 years, unless the technology improves considerably.
Using a cost base analysis on nuclear Vs anything, relies on somebody caring what it costs, as has just been shown with the splash of cash on the virus just print it.
If the system becomes unreliable and needs 24/7, 365 day, at call clean energy, then cost wont come into the equation, most who have worked for the Government know that.
If Australia doesn't require nuclear to get a stable clean distribution grid, that will be great, if it needs nuclear to achieve it then it will be built simple really. People can hold their breath untill they go blue in the face, it wont change the outcome, a secure and reliable grid is an essential part of a first world country.

That is why the U.K is building very large reactors, as we speak, the U.S doesn't need to so it wont yet.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

sptrawler said:


> Another reality is, as soon as coal is de commissioned, the next push will be to shut down gas generation.
> So it seems pointless comparing combined cycle GT's to nuclear fueled steam plant, in 10 years time GT's will be on the nose as much as coal is currently.
> The whole argument is based on nonsense, intermittent renewable generation will require storage or some form of backup.
> Batteries are the flavour of the month, but I doubt they will be in 15 years, unless the technology improves considerably.
> Using a cost base analysis on nuclear Vs anything, relies on somebody caring what it costs, as has just been shown with the splash of cash on the virus just print it.
> If the system becomes unreliable and needs 24/7, 365 day, at call clean energy, then cost wont come into the equation, most who have worked for the Government know that.
> If Australia doesn't require nuclear to get a stable clean distribution grid, that will be great, if it needs nuclear to achieve it then it will be built simple really. People can hold their breath untill they go blue in the face, it wont change the outcome, a secure and reliable grid is an essential part of a first world country.
> 
> That is why the U.K is building very large reactors, as we speak, the U.S doesn't need to so it wont yet.




I support rooftop solar; but I find it impractical to use 10s of square kilometres of land for a 1 GW solar farm. A solar farm that will need to be replaced in a couple of decades.


----------



## Smurf1976

Chronos-Plutus said:


> I find it impractical to use 10s of square kilometres of land for a 1 GW solar farm.




Once the pandemic is sorted I suggest a road trip from Sydney to Adelaide via Broken Hill.

Or alternatively Perth to anywhere in any other state so long as you drive there. 

There are arguments for and against solar and indeed many things but one thing we're not short on in Australia is flat land that's presently doing nothing or at best used for grazing.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> Once the pandemic is sorted I suggest a road trip from Sydney to Adelaide via Broken Hill.
> 
> Or alternatively Perth to anywhere in any other state so long as you drive there.
> 
> There are arguments for and against solar and indeed many things but one thing we're not short on in Australia is flat land that's presently doing nothing or at best used for grazing.




Sure; but is it not polluting the landscape?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> If the system becomes unreliable and needs 24/7, 365 day, at call clean energy, then cost wont come into the equation, most who have worked for the Government know that.




Ah yes, I remember those days.......


----------



## Smurf1976

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Sure; but is it not polluting the landscape?



If someone's worried about the visual impact of a solar farm in the middle of nowehere then zero chance they're going to not be opposed to any fossil fuel, nuclear or hydro facility of any kind so it's a moot point really.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> If someone's worried about the visual impact of a solar farm in the middle of nowehere then zero chance they're going to not be opposed to any fossil fuel, nuclear or hydro facility of any kind so it's a moot point really.




Concentrated solar thermal is more expensive than nuclear. Then you have to run transmission lines from the middle of nowhere where you lose ~5% per 1000km of electricity generated in transmission loss.

Rooftop solar I support, not so much solar farms.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Once the pandemic is sorted I suggest a road trip from Sydney to Adelaide via Broken Hill.
> 
> Or alternatively Perth to anywhere in any other state so long as you drive there.
> 
> There are arguments for and against solar and indeed many things but one thing we're not short on in Australia is flat land that's presently doing nothing or at best used for grazing.



https://blog.plantminer.com.au/massive-15gw-wind-and-solar-farm-proposed-for-the-pilbara-wa
From the article:
Currently, the project developer is negotiating the terms of an Indigenous Land User Agreement as the Asian Renewable Energy Hub is located within the Nyangumarta Native Title Claim area. Might end up dearer than nuclear in the long run.


----------



## rederob

Chronos-Plutus said:


> So you want to disregard the most credible energy data source in America which has a multi billion dollar budget.



Try dealing with realities.
The only US nuclear plant presently under construction will have a *build cost* well in excess of US$25B and double the initial project price.  No other nuclear plants are proposed for the USA.
Do the maths on that for the data you rely on.
In the UK, EDF has plans to build two EPR nuclear reactors and in September 2019 again raised their estimated cost of construction, taking the expected cost to £21.5-22.5 billion. The National Audit Office estimates the additional cost to consumers (above the estimated market price of electricity) under the "strike price" will be £50 billion, which "will continue to vary as the outlook for wholesale market prices shifts." Note that in October 2013 Liberium Capital described the strike price as "economically insane," going on to say "as far as we can see this makes Hinkley Point the most expensive power station in the world...." 
Nuclear does not make economic sense in any country unless it has no other energy options.


Chronos-Plutus said:


> I support rooftop solar; but I find it impractical to use 10s of square kilometres of land for a 1 GW solar farm. A solar farm that will need to be replaced in a couple of decades.



The companies installing grid-scale solar have done the maths on costs and there are hundreds of square kilometres of otherwise unproductive land ideally suited to solar in Australia.  What we don't have is a coherent plan to integrate solar/wind with existing energy infrastructure.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

sptrawler said:


> https://blog.plantminer.com.au/massive-15gw-wind-and-solar-farm-proposed-for-the-pilbara-wa
> From the article:
> Currently, the project developer is negotiating the terms of an Indigenous Land User Agreement as the Asian Renewable Energy Hub is located within the Nyangumarta Native Title Claim area.





rederob said:


> Try dealing with realities.
> The only US nuclear plant presently under construction will have a *build cost* well in excess of US$25B and double the initial project price.  No other nuclear plants are proposed for the USA.
> Do the maths on that for the data you rely on.
> In the UK, EDF has plans to build two EPR nuclear reactors and in September 2019 again raised their estimated cost of construction, taking the expected cost to £21.5-22.5 billion. The National Audit Office estimates the additional cost to consumers (above the estimated market price of electricity) under the "strike price" will be £50 billion, which "will continue to vary as the outlook for wholesale market prices shifts." Note that in October 2013 Liberium Capital described the strike price as "economically insane," going on to say "as far as we can see this makes Hinkley Point the most expensive power station in the world...."
> Nuclear does not make economic sense in any country unless it has no other energy options.
> The companies installing grid-scale solar have done the maths on costs and there are hundreds of square kilometres of otherwise unproductive land ideally suited to solar in Australia.  What we don't have is a coherent plan to integrate solar/wind with existing energy infrastructure.




You keep banging on about the capital cost. You need to look at the LCOE, keeping in mind the lifespan of the asset.

Hinkley will be a 3.2 GW nuclear power complex. You would have to build a 9GW solar complex to match the power generation, and you would need to build it twice to match the lifespan of the nuclear infrastructure.

China have 12 nuclear plants under construction, 44 nuclear plants planned and 168 nuclear plants proposed (https://www.world-nuclear.org/infor...ofiles/countries-a-f/china-nuclear-power.aspx)


----------



## SirRumpole

Chronos-Plutus said:


> China have 12 nuclear plants under construction, 44 nuclear plants planned and 168 nuclear plants proposed




They also have a population of 1 billion.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

SirRumpole said:


> They also have a population of 1 billion.




Sure; I am not saying for Australia to do the same. I am merely advocating that Australia lift the commercial prohibition on nuclear powerplants so that we can at least explore the option of bringing small modular reactors into our energy mix for our large cities.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> They also have a population of 1 billion.



That is the issue a lot of the renewable cheer squad fail to comprehend, the actual physical quantity of renewable plant required to supply that sort of load is impossible, due to the low energy density/ area. 
As I've said over and over, in Australia it may be possible unlikely but maybe, most highly populated countries it will be impossible.


----------



## rederob

Chronos-Plutus said:


> You keep banging on about the capital cost. You need to look at the LCOE, keeping in mind the lifespan of the asset.



Lazard uses LCOE and nuclear is the most expensive option - several times more expensive than renewables - and is increasing in annual cost.  How about you do the maths on the only nuclear plant in the USA under construction as a basis for your argument and come back to us.


Chronos-Plutus said:


> Hinkley will be a 3.2 GW nuclear power complex. You would have to build a 9GW solar complex to match the power generation, and you would need to build it twice to match the lifespan of the nuclear infrastructure.



The UK has limited solar capacity, but is very strong in wind generation.  The proposed nuclear plant is miniscule as UK *wind power* production as of this June consists of 10,790 *wind turbines* with a total installed *capacity* of over 23.3 gigawatts. Presently the UK relies on the sophisticated energy infrastructure of Europe to assist balance its energy requirements.
China's move to nuclear is essential if it wants to clean its air: it presently has over 2 billion kilowatts of installed energy capacity and needs to continue increasing this at an annual rate of 5-6% over the next decade to transform its economy to western standards.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> That is the issue a lot of the renewable cheer squad fail to comprehend, the actual physical quantity of renewable plant required to supply that sort of load is impossible, due to the low energy density/ area.
> As I've said over and over, in Australia it may be possible unlikely but maybe, most highly populated countries it will be impossible.



An opinion with evidence.


----------



## basilio

The  most important difference between US energy comparison costs and the latest AMEO/CSIRO analysis is the dates.

The US figures  quoted earlier related to 2012 costs of windfarms and solar. (See information on graphs)  The reductions in installations costs  and improvement in energy efficiency of both these  energy sources has been huge in the  past 8 years. That reality is reflected in the Australian data.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/solar-a...tage-sparks-call-for-mass-coal-closure-61037/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianm...s-and-rising-electricity-prices/#30bdd01a61d5


----------



## basilio

This is a more recent Lazard  energy cost comparison for the US. It notes the continue decline of captal costs for renewable energy and improvements in efficiency.
*Levelized Cost of Energy and Levelized Cost of Storage 2018*
https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-and-levelized-cost-of-storage-2018/


----------



## sptrawler

Maybe Bas, you could explain how Indonesia population 273 million and Japan 126 million, are going to go reneawable?


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> Lazard uses LCOE and nuclear is the most expensive option - several times more expensive than renewables - and is increasing in annual cost.  How about you do the maths on the only nuclear plant in the USA under construction as a basis for your argument and come back to us.
> The UK has limited solar capacity, but is very strong in wind generation.  The proposed nuclear plant is miniscule as UK *wind power* production as of this June consists of 10,790 *wind turbines* with a total installed *capacity* of over 23.3 gigawatts. Presently the UK relies on the sophisticated energy infrastructure of Europe to assist balance its energy requirements.
> China's move to nuclear is essential if it wants to clean its air: it presently has over 2 billion kilowatts of installed energy capacity and needs to continue increasing this at an annual rate of 5-6% over the next decade to transform its economy to western standards.




Lazard are a private enterprise that possible have significant interests to push the renewable narrative. I will take the US DOE data any day of the week over Lazard; just as I would take the USDA data for agriculture investment and trading, any day of the week over the data/publications of a private enterprise.

I will have an in-depth look at the Georgia nuclear plant today.

As for the UK; it is impractical for them to litter their small geographical landmass and seas with windmills; as they will be a major impediment for real estate, industry, commercial business and international trade.

In Australia we have the space to litter our landmass with windmills and solar panels, then we have build transmission networks and lines from the middle of nowhere that crisscross our country, then we have to build large scale battery capacity. You clearly haven't considered the associated cost for all the support infrastructure for solar and wind. As I said, rooftop solar for homes and buildings is fine, the utopia of 100% solar and wind, to power Australia, is borderline fantasy.

China has no choice but to go nuclear, that is obvious; as 100% renewable generation is impossible for such an industrial nation with a large population.


----------



## basilio

The concern about solar PV farms crowding out agriculture may be wildly displaced.  There plenty of examples of PV structures enhancing agricultural output.
https://ensia.com/features/solar-farms/
https://www.ecogeneration.com.au/solar-farms-land-use-and-the-rise-of-solar-sharing/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190729123751.htm


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> The concern about solar PV farms crowding out agriculture may be wildly displaced.  There plenty of examples of PV structures enhancing agricultural output.
> https://ensia.com/features/solar-farms/
> https://www.ecogeneration.com.au/solar-farms-land-use-and-the-rise-of-solar-sharing/
> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190729123751.htm




I don't have a problem with small rural and regional towns building their own little microgrids with solar and wind, if they wish; but powering our large cities of Melbourne and Sydney with 100% renewables is just nonsense.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> An opinion with evidence.



I guess the only evidence I can put forward, is by a world leading authority, you.
It was in this very thread, that you were stating that we should be following the U.K lead, as they were leading the world and showing the way toward renewables.
They are building nuclear power stations.


----------



## SirRumpole

Chronos-Plutus said:


> but powering our large cities of Melbourne and Sydney with 100% renewables is just nonsense.




I don't believe anyone is suggesting 100% renewables, but what would you call renewables + storage ? Maybe 50% renewables ?

Anyway I think that there will always be a need for a "baseload" backup (hydro could obviously fill some of that gap, but like batteries it eventually runs dry) . It's pretty clear that coal will become less important and gas turbines using whatever fuel you like whether it's gas , kerosene, hydrogen, ethanol or whatever will take over that role, due to their fast startup times.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

sptrawler said:


> I guess the only evidence I can put forward, is by a world leading authority, you.
> It was in this very thread, that you were stating that we should be following the U.K lead, as they were leading the world and showing the way toward renewables.
> They are building nuclear power stations.




HAHAH; there is no way that the UK are going use their small geographical landmass and seas to build windmills all over their kingdom, which occupy valuable land and which block their maritime commercial trade; all in the name of going 100% renewable. It is fantastical and incredibly stupid.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

SirRumpole said:


> I don't believe anyone is suggesting 100% renewables, but what would you call renewables + storage ? Maybe 50% renewables ?
> 
> Anyway I think that there will always be a need for a "baseload" backup (hydro could obviously fill some of that gap, but like batteries it eventually runs dry) . It's pretty clear that coal will become less important and gas turbines using whatever fuel you like whether it's gas , kerosene, hydrogen, ethanol or whatever will take over that role, due to their fast startup times.




How are you going to produce the hydrogen? More windmills


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> That is the issue a lot of the renewable cheer squad fail to comprehend, the actual physical quantity of renewable plant required to supply that sort of load is impossible, due to the low energy density/ area.
> As I've said over and over, in Australia it may be possible unlikely but maybe, most highly populated countries it will be impossible.



So, just another baseless opinion.
The maths is here, and the solar pv footprint for Australia is as shown below:





The already miniscule solar footprint above could be reduced by a third, on the basis of US assumptions.
Wind however, exclusive of solar pv, is more than capable of meeting many times Australia's electricity needs and, with hydrogen electrolysis, could also more than satisfy total energy demands.


----------



## sptrawler

Yes I thought it was a baseless opinion, using you as a reference.

By the way I don't know why you are using Australia as a reference, I've already stated it is possible here, what about Japan and Indonesia?


----------



## basilio

Renewable energy sources are quite viable for many countries. The mix will vary depending location, geography.
Indonesia for example has an excellent range of renewable energy options that would easily power the country.  And on top of that the closure of coal fired power stations would reduce the horrendous pollution around the major cities.
*Indonesia should put more energy into renewable power*
 Kate Walton 
Blackouts and chronic air pollution in a nation with
abundant sources of clean energy makes no economic sense. 

....In fact, Indonesia has the potential to generate 788,000 megawatts (MW) of power from renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal. This is more than 14 times the country’s current electricity consumption. Thanks to magma, hot rocks, and hot water beneath its surface, Indonesia has 40% of the world’s geothermal energy stores, enough for 29,000 MW of energy. Meanwhile, its huge maritime area could provide 75,760 MW of power through projects such as the Larantuka Straits Tidal Bridge, a US$550 million project that will power 250,000 homes in East Flores. When completed, it will be the world’s largest tidal power plant.
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/indonesia-s-should-put-more-energy-renewable-power


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> So, just another baseless opinion.
> The maths is here, and the solar pv footprint for Australia is as shown below:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The already miniscule solar footprint above could be reduced by a third, on the basis of US assumptions.
> Wind however, exclusive of solar pv, is more than capable of meeting many times Australia's electricity needs and, with hydrogen electrolysis, could also more than satisfy total energy demands.





So you want Australia to go 100% renewable including 100% electric vehicles; and you think it can be done with solar and wind energy. Good luck with that.

The only hope for a rapid change to a clean energy future is to embrace nuclear. With nuclear we can even produce enormous quantities of hydrogen. To transport clean fuel around the nation, if need be.

I did the math for the USA, on a scenario where all the road vehicles switched to EVs. A rough back of the envelope calculation is that the USA would need to build an additional 500GW of additional nuclear capacity. That would be 1.5TW of renewables just for the electric vehicles.

Wake up please!


----------



## rederob

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Lazard are a private enterprise that possible have significant interests to push the renewable narrative. I will take the US DOE data any day of the week over Lazard; just as I would take the USDA data for agriculture investment and trading, any day of the week over the data/publications of a private enterprise.



Lazard has no agenda.  They were doing their business well before renewables were even invented.  Again, you cannot show how the IEA data is valid whereas Lazard uses real word data for their conclusions.


Chronos-Plutus said:


> As for the UK; it is impractical for them to litter their small geographical landmass and seas with windmills; as they will be a major impediment for real estate, industry, commercial business and international trade.



More opinion without facts.  Wind capacity in the UK in less than 15 years has accounted for 20% of total electricity needs. 


Chronos-Plutus said:


> In Australia we have the space to litter our landmass with windmills and solar panels, then we have build transmission networks and lines from the middle of nowhere that crisscross our country, then we have to build large scale battery capacity. You clearly haven't considered the associated cost for all the support infrastructure for solar and wind. As I said, rooftop solar for homes and buildings is fine, the utopia of 100% solar and wind, to power Australia, is borderline fantasy.



In fact I have considered these issues and read the many papers put out by AEMO including their current draft ISP.


Chronos-Plutus said:


> Wake up please!



Back at you.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

sptrawler said:


> Yes I thought it was a baseless opinion, using you as a reference.
> 
> By the way I don't know why you are using Australia as a reference, I've already stated it is possible here, what about Japan and Indonesia?




It is possible, but the economics don't stack up when considering all the associated costs of transmission infrastructure and storage. Then looking at powering all the electric or hydrogen vehicles, forget it; we should just go nuclear.

Small rural and regional towns can build their own renewable microgrids. Our cities need nuclear for a clean energy future where all our road transportation is electric vehicle and/or hydrogen based.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> Lazard has no agenda.  They were doing their business well before renewables were even invented.  Again, you cannot show how the IEA data is valid whereas Lazard uses real word data for their conclusions.
> More opinion without facts.  Wind capacity in the UK in less than 15 years has accounted for 20% of total electricity needs.
> In fact I have considered these issues and read the many papers put out by AEMO including their current draft ISP.
> Back at you.




It is the US Department of Energy! And you just ignore it, because it runs against your renewable utopia.

How are you going to run all the electric vehicles? More windmills


----------



## basilio

Japan has decided to substantially improve its  use of renewable energy.  Another option for Japan is importing Green Hydrogen from a future energy superpower like Australia that goes full bore with solar and uses the surplus to create hydrogen for export. Which in fact is what has been proposed as part of a green COVID 19 recovery platform.

https://www.power-technology.com/features/new-laws-and-new-targets-renewable-power-in-japan/
https://theconversation.com/making-australia-a-renewable-energy-exporting-superpower-107285
https://theconversation.com/enough-...-get-australia-to-200-renewable-energy-127117
https://bze.org.au/research/renewable-energy-superpower/


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> Renewable energy sources are quite viable for many countries. The mix will vary depending location, geography.
> Indonesia for example has an excellent range of renewable energy options that would easily power the country.  And on top of that the closure of coal fired power stations would reduce the horrendous pollution around the major cities.
> *Indonesia should put more energy into renewable power*
> Kate Walton
> Blackouts and chronic air pollution in a nation with
> abundant sources of clean energy makes no economic sense.
> 
> ....In fact, Indonesia has the potential to generate 788,000 megawatts (MW) of power from renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal. This is more than 14 times the country’s current electricity consumption. Thanks to magma, hot rocks, and hot water beneath its surface, Indonesia has 40% of the world’s geothermal energy stores, enough for 29,000 MW of energy. Meanwhile, its huge maritime area could provide 75,760 MW of power through projects such as the Larantuka Straits Tidal Bridge, a US$550 million project that will power 250,000 homes in East Flores. When completed, it will be the world’s largest tidal power plant.
> https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/indonesia-s-should-put-more-energy-renewable-power




LOL; easily power the nation? Don't know about easy.

However if I worked for the Singaporean Government, I would be looking at exploring the option to extract the geothermal energy in Indonesia, running a transmission cable to Singapore from Indonesia. Much smarter than the silly Sun Cable project that Twiggy and Cannon-Brookes are supporting.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I guess the only evidence I can put forward, is by a world leading authority, you.
> It was in this very thread, that you were stating that we should be following the U.K lead, as they were leading the world and showing the way toward renewables.
> They are building nuclear power stations.



In regard to the UK, by the time their nuclear power plants are operational they will additionally have installed more than triple the generating capacity from wind.  The UK remains on the right track and there are no energy economists that will support the UK's present nuclear foray.
If we followed the UK's lead, by the time Snowy 2.0 was operational we would have added instead in wind  energy no less than 10MW capacity, negating the need for Snowy 2.0.
Try using data or some other form of evidence if you are going to bandy around your ideas.


----------



## rederob

Chronos-Plutus said:


> LOL; easily power the nation? Don't know about easy.
> 
> However if I worked for the Singaporean Government, I would be looking at exploring the option to extract the geothermal energy in Indonesia, running a transmission cable to Singapore from Indonesia. Much smarter than the silly Sun Cable project that Twiggy and Cannon-Brookes are supporting.



Another baseless opinion.
Can you add useful content next time please!


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> Another baseless opinion.
> Can you add useful content next time please!




Geothermal is the manna from heaven, when it comes to renewable energy; followed by tidal barrage. High capacity factor, more reliable and relatively cheap if the geothermal energy is shallow.

*Ache province is just across the pond to Singapore with significant Geothermal energy!

Sorry to torpedo the Sun Cable project *


----------



## spooly74

Taking a look at what works right now.



RE: Nuclear. Has anyone seen *just the bricks & mortar cost *for construction of a nuclear plane vs coal, solar equivalent? No red tape, approvals etc etc etc.
Just the construction cost, not the total cost?


----------



## rederob

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Geothermal is the manna from heaven, when it comes to renewable energy; followed by tidal barrage. High capacity factor, more reliable and relatively cheap if the geothermal energy is shallow.
> 
> *Ache province is just across the pond to Singapore with significant Geothermal energy!
> 
> Sorry to torpedo the Sun Cable project *



No basis for those comments.
Have a look at New Zealand to get an idea about the feasibility and costs of geothermal.  You will find your ideas have no economic merit.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> No basis for those comments.
> Have a look at New Zealand to get an idea about the feasibility and costs of geothermal.  You will find your ideas have no economic merit.




Haha; your Sun Cable project has no economic merit when juxtaposed with geothermal that is in such close proximity. Running cables for 1000s of kilometres from an energy source that has a capacity factor of half that of geothermal.

You truly are delusional.
"Geothermal represents the lowest levelized cost of electricity in comparison to other sources of energy." (https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/u-s-...itive-on-levelized-cost-of-electricity-basis/)


----------



## rederob

spooly74 said:


> Has anyone seen *just the bricks & mortar cost *for construction of a nuclear *plane*....



No, but do you have the pictures?


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> I don't believe anyone is suggesting 100% renewables, but what would you call renewables + storage ? Maybe 50% renewables ?
> 
> Anyway I think that there will always be a need for a "baseload" backup (hydro could obviously fill some of that gap, but like batteries it eventually runs dry) . It's pretty clear that coal will become less important and gas turbines using whatever fuel you like whether it's gas , kerosene, hydrogen, ethanol or whatever will take over that role, due to their fast startup times.




Hydro doesn't have to run dry at all.
CSIRO identified 22000 pumped hydro sites across Australia. Essentially surplus solar/wind energy pumps water up to site and is then run downhill when required.
In fact an old gold mine makes a great renewable energy project
https://theconversation.com/want-en...sites-for-pumped-hydro-across-australia-84275
https://watersource.awa.asn.au/tech...oject-repurposing-mine-pits-for-pumped-hydro/


----------



## sptrawler

Chronos-Plutus said:


> It is possible, but the economics don't stack up when considering all the associated costs of transmission infrastructure and storage. Then looking at powering all the electric or hydrogen vehicles, forget it; we should just go nuclear.
> 
> Small rural and regional towns can build their own renewable microgrids. Our cities need nuclear for a clean energy future where all our road transportation is electric vehicle and/or hydrogen based.



I was only talking theoretically, it is already obvious that the commercial side of renewables (H2) will be exploited much quicker than our domestic requirements, far more money in it and immense market opportunity.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> In regard to the UK, by the time their nuclear power plants are operational they will additionally have installed more than triple the generating capacity from wind.  The UK remains on the right track and there are no energy economists that will support the UK's present nuclear foray.
> If we followed the UK's lead, by the time Snowy 2.0 was operational we would have added instead in wind  energy no less than 10MW capacity, negating the need for Snowy 2.0.
> Try using data or some other form of evidence if you are going to bandy around your ideas.



Talking nonesense again Rob, I don't know why I bother, but here we go again.
as you say above, with regard the U.K, you are agreeing with Chrono and myself, there will be a mix of renewables and nuclear.

Point number two. Even the most basic understanding of renewables, accepts the requirement of storage.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

sptrawler said:


> I was only talking theoretically, it is already obvious that the commercial side of renewables (H2) will be exploited much quicker than our domestic requirements, far more money in it and immense market opportunity.




It is akin to  a religious cult that the public taxpayer must donate to.

I look at renewable energy where it is fit for purpose. Running a transmission cable from Indonesia to Singapore that taps into the geothermal energy from Indonesia's Western provinces makes economic sense. But that would torpedo the nonsensical Sun Cable project.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> Renewable energy sources are quite viable for many countries. The mix will vary depending location, geography.
> Indonesia for example has an excellent range of renewable energy options that would easily power the country.  And on top of that the closure of coal fired power stations would reduce the horrendous pollution around the major cities.
> *Indonesia should put more energy into renewable power*
> Kate Walton
> Blackouts and chronic air pollution in a nation with
> abundant sources of clean energy makes no economic sense.
> 
> ....In fact, Indonesia has the potential to generate 788,000 megawatts (MW) of power from renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal. This is more than 14 times the country’s current electricity consumption. Thanks to magma, hot rocks, and hot water beneath its surface, Indonesia has 40% of the world’s geothermal energy stores, enough for 29,000 MW of energy. Meanwhile, its huge maritime area could provide 75,760 MW of power through projects such as the Larantuka Straits Tidal Bridge, a US$550 million project that will power 250,000 homes in East Flores. When completed, it will be the world’s largest tidal power plant.
> https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/indonesia-s-should-put-more-energy-renewable-power




Do you support my idea to tap the geothermal from Sumatra and run a transmission cable to Singapore?


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> If we followed the UK's lead, by the time Snowy 2.0 was operational we would have added instead in wind energy no less than 10MW capacity, negating the need for Snowy 2.0.



Except that wind most certainly is not a substitute for Snowy 2.0

Wind is fine as a source of _energy_ and it's a reasonably cheap one at that.

As a source of _dispatchable power_ though, well it's not completely useless but it's extremely close to it since it since it routinely goes very close to zero.

The solution to that problem is storage and strong transmission networks between regions.

With present technology storage in practice means pumped hydro with or without also using batteries. Batteries are good for peak loads and fast response but, at present, not up to the task of being constantly discharged for a day or more without recharging during that period. Hydro can do that easily with proper design however but batteries do have a role. Hydrogen is technically doable just, at present, terribly inefficient as a method of electricity storage.

Following charts show wind generation only. Looking closely at the chart for SA you'll see two periods of very flat generation output, one on Friday 19 June and the other on Sunday 21 June. In short, available output, that is wind speed, exceeded what could be accommodated in the grid at the time such that some wind generation is intentionally shut down.

Large scale solar generation also experiences the same problem and is at times shut down, thus wasting the potential production. That's not really an issue in SA at this time of year but it has happened to partial extent in Queensland on each of the past three days (final chart in yellow).


----------



## rederob

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Haha; your Sun Cable project has no economic merit when juxtaposed with geothermal that is in such close proximity. Running cables for 1000s of kilometres from an energy source that has a capacity factor of half that of geothermal.
> 
> You truly are delusional.
> "Geothermal represents the lowest levelized cost of electricity in comparison to other sources of energy." (https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/u-s-...itive-on-levelized-cost-of-electricity-basis/)



Please show us the costs and scale of existing geothermal operations rather than a research paper.
Numerous projects in Australia, which has excellent geothermal resources...
* "It is estimated that one per cent of the geothermal energy shallower than five kilometres and hotter than 150°C could supply Australia's total energy requirements for 26 000 years (based on 2004-05 figures)."*​have failed to show any commercial potential.
As I have said, Lazard uses real world examples to determine their costings so you will need to stump up.


sptrawler said:


> Talking nonesense again Rob, I don't know why I bother, but here we go again.
> as you say above, with regard the U.K, you are agreeing with Chrono and myself, there will be a mix of renewables and nuclear.



I completely disagree with your statement.  The world is in a major energy transition phase and as that resolves nuclear will be an option only when no other supply is feasible.
I have always maintained that renewables plus storage are essential.  That storage can be via conversion to hydrogen, or *any *battery system.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> Please show us the costs and scale of existing geothermal operations rather than a research paper.
> Numerous projects in Australia, which has excellent geothermal resources...
> * "It is estimated that one per cent of the geothermal energy shallower than five kilometres and hotter than 150°C could supply Australia's total energy requirements for 26 000 years (based on 2004-05 figures)."*​have failed to show any commercial potential.
> As I have said, Lazard uses real world examples to determine their costings so you will need to stump up.
> I completely disagree with your statement.  The world is in a major energy transition phase and as that resolves nuclear will be an option only when no other supply is feasible.
> I have always maintained that renewables plus storage are essential.  That storage can be via conversion to hydrogen, or *any *battery system.



Australian geothermal isn't viable, too far underground, completely different geophysics.
I think you're just a bit jealous that I have come up with a clearly feasible and original idea that makes far more economic sense than the Sun Cable project.

Iceland are going very well with geothermal.


----------



## Smurf1976

Now for some charts showing the use of hydro and batteries to offset the variability in wind and solar. Technically it's dead easy so long as there's enough of it (which at present there isn't).

First three charts are hydro, last one is battery. As can be seen, batteries are cycled much more rapidly than hydro in practical application. Values below zero represent pumping / charging.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Except that wind most certainly is not a substitute for Snowy 2.0



I don't assume that all the wind power generated is immediately fed into the grid as dispatchable, and you know full well that both wind and solar presently suffer considerable curtailment.  Reinvesting "curtailment" into storage solutions should be cost effective.
However, as you have previously identified, there are many other issues in Australia disadvantaging new capacity generation, particularly from renewables.  As a result, aside from the remarkable Tesla battery's role in stabilising the system, there is no real incentive to invest in storage.


----------



## rederob

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Australian geothermal isn't viable, too far underground, completely different geophysics.
> I think you're just a bit jealous that I have come up with a clearly feasible and original idea that makes far more economic sense than the Sun Cable project.
> 
> Iceland are going very well with geothermal.



On the contrary.
Just show us the metrics for the ideas you put up.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> On the contrary.
> Just show us the metrics for the ideas you put up.




Go look at the LCOE of geothermal compared to other energy sources. You are deliberately refusing to look at the numbers. Look at IRENA:






Furthermore the geothermal energy is just within a few hundred kilometres from Singapore.


----------



## spooly74

rederob said:


> However, as you have previously identified, there are many other issues in Australia disadvantaging new capacity generation, particularly from renewables.  As a result, aside from the remarkable Tesla battery's role in stabilising the system, there is no real incentive to invest in storage.



Not an insignificant amount of GHG's produced, too.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> On the contrary.
> Just show us the metrics for the ideas you put up.




Here IRENA state between 4 cents and 14 cents /KWh: "Between 2007 and 2014, the LCOE of geothermal varied from USD 0.04/kWh for second-stage development of a field to USD 0.14/kWh for greenfield developments." (https://www.irena.org/costs/Power-Generation-Costs/Geothermal-Power). Considering that the Sumatra geothermal source is within a few hundred kilometres; it is a certainty that it is more economically feasible to adopt my idea than the Sun Cable. The Sun Cable is 1000s of kilometres away and will lose more than ~15% of the electricity generated just in transmission loss, furthermore geothermal has double the capacity factor and a significantly longer infrastructure lifespan.

*I WIN; END OF CONVERSATION!*


----------



## rederob

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Go look at the LCOE of geothermal compared to other energy sources. You are deliberately refusing to look at the numbers. Look at IRENA:
> 
> View attachment 105227
> 
> 
> Furthermore the geothermal energy is just within a few hundred kilometres from Singapore.



Get up to speed.
Many grid scale solar pv contracts are now being awarded at less than 2 cents/kwh, and costs are continuing to decline.
Geothermal projects are few and far between, and cost are continuing to increase:




I notice you continue not to able to show the metrics of your claims wrt to US nuclear and Singapore geothermal.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> Get up to speed.
> Many grid scale solar pv contracts are now being awarded at less than 2 cents/kwh, and costs are continuing to decline.
> Geothermal projects are few and far between, and cost are continuing to increase:
> View attachment 105228
> 
> I notice you continue not to able to show the metrics of your claims wrt to US nuclear and Singapore geothermal.




Now you're just making stuff up with the solar 2 cents per kWH. The capital cost and transmission loss of running cables for 1000s of kilometres kills the Sun Cable just alone; when compared to my geothermal source that is just a few hundred kilometres away from Singapore.

I can torpedo the Sun Cable tonight with the push of a few buttons on my keyboard. I am pretty sure BP and Shell might be interested in my idea .


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Now you're just making stuff up with the solar 2 cents per kWH. The capital cost and transmission loss of running cables for 1000s of kilometres kills the Sun Cable just alone; when compared to my geothermal source that is just a few hundred kilometres away from Singapore.
> 
> I can torpedo the Sun Cable tonight with the push of a few buttons on my keyboard. I am pretty sure BP and Shell might be interested in my idea .




*Not so smug now rederob; are you?

A quick email to a few BP and Shell executives and you can say goodbye to the Sun Cable*


----------



## rederob

Chronos-Plutus said:


> *Not so smug now rederob; are you?
> 
> A quick email to a few BP and Shell executives and you can say goodbye to the Sun Cable*



Geothermal is fine - I am keen on all sensible renewable options.  However, all present costs relate to what is called low hanging fruit.
The problem is scaling renewables to demand and, in the case of Singapore, thinking that Indonesia would prefer to advantage another country over its own energy needs.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> Geothermal is fine - I am keen on all sensible renewable options.  However, all present costs relate to what is called low hanging fruit.
> The problem is scaling renewables to demand and, in the case of Singapore, thinking that Indonesia would prefer to advantage another country over its own energy needs.




Deals can always be done between the Singaporean and Indonesian governments; I wouldn't be worried about that. They are both a part of ASEAN.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Deals can always be done between the Singaporean and Indonesian governments; I wouldn't be worried about that. They are both a part of ASEAN.




*LOL: I used to work for Singaporeans; they never knew how talented I was because of the dumb Australian managers that I was forced to work under!*


----------



## Smurf1976

Rather than going around in circles ideologically, how about we take a business approach to it?

This is, after all, a stock market forum and taking a business approach is exactly what an actual business does.

Let's do a real, actual scenario not a hypothetical one.

Eraring power station is located in NSW. It's a conventional technology coal-fired plant owned by Origin Energy with a capacity of 2880 MW (4 x 720 MW). It is planned to close due to reaching end of life in 2032 and is thus a very real situation where replacement is required with a decision required within the next few years.

Annual output from the plant is approximately 16 TWh (Origin Energy data) valued at about $1.2 billion based on spot prices.

Technically the plant is capable of higher annual production, it could do 20 TWh easily, but the market doesn't facilitate that since, as with most places, electricity demand in NSW is quite variable and in NSW average load over the year is just under 60% of peak load.

Now if Origin were to replace Eraring with a nuclear plant then, based on costs for Hinkley Point C in the UK, that comes to $32 billion.

In practice a replacement would not use 2 large generating units as at Hinkley Point C since incorporating that into the NSW grid would be technically problematic. Rather, it would involve 3 or 4 smaller units, increasing costs, however for simplicity we'll ignore that here and work with the $32 billion.

Total operating costs of the plant come to about AUD 32 per MWh based on this from the US government (converted to AUD at 70c):  https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/archive/aeo19/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf

That gives a nuclear replacement for Eraring an annual operating budget of $512 million. Let's be nice and round that down to $500 million for convenience.

So $1.2 billion in revenue - $500 million in operating costs = $700 million cash surplus.

*Now, if you were the CEO or a board member of Origin then, bearing in mind your obligation to shareholders, do you consider this to be a worthwhile investment that the company ought to make?*

$32 billion to build it over at least 7 years with zero revenue during that time.

Once built it runs for 60 years and you get $700 million a year return on your investment without allowing for depreciation and eventual decommissioning costs.

Key risks are premature major failure of equipment such that operation for 60 years is not guaranteed, that the project is likely to be highly controversial which will likely subject the company to extreme levels of scrutiny, and that the market may shift in a manner which permanently reduces viable output at some time during the project's lifespan.

Do you recommend to the rest of the board that the company proceed with this investment and if so, by what means do you propose to fund it?

For reference Origin's present market cap is $10.567 billion and AGL's is $10.744 billion.

What would you do if you were making the decision?

Personally, I don't see nuclear as stacking up financially in Australia. That's a business analysis not an ideological one.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> Rather than going around in circles ideologically, how about we take a business approach to it?
> 
> This is, after all, a stock market forum and taking a business approach is exactly what an actual business does.
> 
> Let's do a real, actual scenario not a hypothetical one.
> 
> Eraring power station is located in NSW. It's a conventional technology coal-fired plant owned by Origin Energy with a capacity of 2880 MW (4 x 720 MW). It is planned to close due to reaching end of life in 2032 and is thus a very real situation where replacement is required with a decision required within the next few years.
> 
> Annual output from the plant is approximately 16 TWh (Origin Energy data) valued at about $1.2 billion based on spot prices.
> 
> Technically the plant is capable of higher annual production, it could do 20 TWh easily, but the market doesn't facilitate that since, as with most places, electricity demand in NSW is quite variable and in NSW average load over the year is just under 60% of peak load.
> 
> Now if Origin were to replace Eraring with a nuclear plant then, based on costs for Hinkley Point C in the UK, that comes to $32 billion.
> 
> In practice a replacement would not use 2 large generating units as at Hinkley Point C since incorporating that into the NSW grid would be technically problematic. Rather, it would involve 3 or 4 smaller units, increasing costs, however for simplicity we'll ignore that here and work with the $32 billion.
> 
> Total operating costs of the plant come to about AUD 32 per MWh based on this from the US government (converted to AUD at 70c):  https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/archive/aeo19/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
> 
> That gives a nuclear replacement for Eraring an annual operating budget of $512 million. Let's be nice and round that down to $500 million for convenience.
> 
> So $1.2 billion in revenue - $500 million in operating costs = $700 million cash surplus.
> 
> *Now, if you were the CEO or a board member of Origin then, bearing in mind your obligation to shareholders, do you consider this to be a worthwhile investment that the company ought to make?*
> 
> $32 billion to build it over at least 7 years with zero revenue during that time.
> 
> Once built it runs for 60 years and you get $700 million a year return on your investment without allowing for depreciation and eventual decommissioning costs.
> 
> Do you recommend to the rest of the board that the company proceed with this investment and if so, by what means do you propose to fund it?
> 
> For reference Origin's present market cap is $10.567 billion and AGL's is $10.744 billion.
> 
> What would you do if you were making the decision?
> 
> Personally, I don't see nuclear as stacking up financially in Australia.




If I was the CEO of Origin; I wouldn't bother even discussing nuclear, unless the commercial prohibition is lifted.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Rather than going around in circles ideologically, how about we take a business approach to it?
> 
> This is, after all, a stock market forum and taking a business approach is exactly what an actual business does.
> 
> Let's do a real, actual scenario not a hypothetical one.
> 
> Eraring power station is located in NSW. It's a conventional technology coal-fired plant owned by Origin Energy with a capacity of 2880 MW (4 x 720 MW). It is planned to close due to reaching end of life in 2032 and is thus a very real situation where replacement is required with a decision required within the next few years.
> 
> Annual output from the plant is approximately 16 TWh (Origin Energy data) valued at about $1.2 billion based on spot prices.
> 
> Technically the plant is capable of higher annual production, it could do 20 TWh easily, but the market doesn't facilitate that since, as with most places, electricity demand in NSW is quite variable and in NSW average load over the year is just under 60% of peak load.
> 
> Now if Origin were to replace Eraring with a nuclear plant then, based on costs for Hinkley Point C in the UK, that comes to $32 billion.
> 
> In practice a replacement would not use 2 large generating units as at Hinkley Point C since incorporating that into the NSW grid would be technically problematic. Rather, it would involve 3 or 4 smaller units, increasing costs, however for simplicity we'll ignore that here and work with the $32 billion.
> 
> Total operating costs of the plant come to about AUD 32 per MWh based on this from the US government (converted to AUD at 70c):  https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/archive/aeo19/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
> 
> That gives a nuclear replacement for Eraring an annual operating budget of $512 million. Let's be nice and round that down to $500 million for convenience.
> 
> So $1.2 billion in revenue - $500 million in operating costs = $700 million cash surplus.
> 
> *Now, if you were the CEO or a board member of Origin then, bearing in mind your obligation to shareholders, do you consider this to be a worthwhile investment that the company ought to make?*
> 
> $32 billion to build it over at least 7 years with zero revenue during that time.
> 
> Once built it runs for 60 years and you get $700 million a year return on your investment without allowing for depreciation and eventual decommissioning costs.
> 
> Do you recommend to the rest of the board that the company proceed with this investment and if so, by what means do you propose to fund it?
> 
> For reference Origin's present market cap is $10.567 billion and AGL's is $10.744 billion.
> 
> What would you do if you were making the decision?
> 
> Personally, I don't see nuclear as stacking up financially in Australia.



The construction debt compounds until operational.  Then that debt needs to be amortised until expunged. 
Using your figures would give a debt of about $40B, so assuming your figures held throughout it would make no profit after 60 years and then need to cover decommissioning costs.
Seems like a no brainer.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> The construction debt compounds until operational.  Then that debt needs to be amortised until expunged.
> Using your figures would give a debt of about $40B, so assuming your figures held throughout it would make no profit after 60 years and then need to cover decommissioning costs.
> Seems like a no brainer.




You lift the commercial nuclear prohibition; then we have the discussion. Otherwise we are just talking about doing something illegal!

Really; the tactics are pathetic! Holding our nation back, due to a mindless and stupid ideology!


----------



## Smurf1976

Chronos-Plutus said:


> You lift the commercial nuclear prohibition; then we have the discussion. Otherwise we are just talking about doing something illegal!




That present laws preclude building it is irrelevant if there's no point to it anyway.

First step is analysis.

Then, if it's a goer on that basis, that's when the relevant company lobbies government to get it approved.

Same happens with a lot of businesses. Nobody goes to the trouble of lobbying government to change the law unless they've already concluded that it's worth doing whatever they're trying to get approval to do.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> That present laws preclude building it is irrelevant if there's no point to it anyway.
> 
> First step is analysis.
> 
> Then, if it's a goer on that basis, that's when the relevant company lobbies government to get it approved.
> 
> Same happens with a lot of businesses. Nobody goes to the trouble of lobbying government to change the law unless they've already concluded that it's worth doing whatever they're trying to get approval to do.




In my opinion; we are talking about illegal activities!

Lift the commercial nuclear prohibition, then we talk; otherwise we are just wasting our time.

You might want to engage in illegal activities; but Origin, I am sure are a corporate and socially responsible entity!


----------



## rederob

Chronos-Plutus said:


> You lift the commercial nuclear prohibition; then we have the discussion. Otherwise we are just talking about doing something illegal!
> 
> Really; the tactics are pathetic! Holding our nation back, due to a mindless and stupid ideology!



Not once have you put up the maths to your ideas.
Take a look at what @Smurf1976 presented and see where it's wrong if you believe you have a valid case.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> Not once have you put up the maths to your ideas.
> Take a look at what @Smurf1976 presented and see where it's wrong if you believe you have a valid case.




Are you on a different planet?

You want corporate entities to discuss and consider doing something that is illegal?

Wake up; you have no idea how responsible corporate entities operate!


----------



## rederob

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Are you on a different planet?
> 
> You want corporate entities to discuss and consider doing something that is illegal?
> 
> Wake up; you have no idea how responsible corporate entities operate!



You completely miss the point.
If you believe nuclear is a viable option then it needs to stack up commercially.
Governments can and do change laws to ensure national energy security.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> You completely miss the point.
> If you believe nuclear is a viable option then it needs to stack up commercially.
> Governments can and do change laws to ensure national energy security.




No: you miss the point.

You lost on the Sun Cable today; and now you have lost on the nuclear discussion.

Discussing illegal activities doesn't fit well within an entity's matrix that is socially responsible.


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> Rather than going around in circles ideologically, how about we take a business approach to it?
> 
> This is, after all, a stock market forum and taking a business approach is exactly what an actual business does.
> 
> Let's do a real, actual scenario not a hypothetical one.
> 
> Eraring power station is located in NSW. It's a conventional technology coal-fired plant owned by Origin Energy with a capacity of 2880 MW (4 x 720 MW). It is planned to close due to reaching end of life in 2032 and is thus a very real situation where replacement is required with a decision required within the next few years.
> 
> Annual output from the plant is approximately 16 TWh (Origin Energy data) valued at about $1.2 billion based on spot prices.
> 
> Technically the plant is capable of higher annual production, it could do 20 TWh easily, but the market doesn't facilitate that since, as with most places, electricity demand in NSW is quite variable and in NSW average load over the year is just under 60% of peak load.
> 
> Now if Origin were to replace Eraring with a nuclear plant then, based on costs for Hinkley Point C in the UK, that comes to $32 billion.
> 
> In practice a replacement would not use 2 large generating units as at Hinkley Point C since incorporating that into the NSW grid would be technically problematic. Rather, it would involve 3 or 4 smaller units, increasing costs, however for simplicity we'll ignore that here and work with the $32 billion.
> 
> Total operating costs of the plant come to about AUD 32 per MWh based on this from the US government (converted to AUD at 70c):  https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/archive/aeo19/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
> 
> That gives a nuclear replacement for Eraring an annual operating budget of $512 million. Let's be nice and round that down to $500 million for convenience.
> 
> So $1.2 billion in revenue - $500 million in operating costs = $700 million cash surplus.
> 
> *Now, if you were the CEO or a board member of Origin then, bearing in mind your obligation to shareholders, do you consider this to be a worthwhile investment that the company ought to make?*
> 
> $32 billion to build it over at least 7 years with zero revenue during that time.
> 
> Once built it runs for 60 years and you get $700 million a year return on your investment without allowing for depreciation and eventual decommissioning costs.
> 
> Key risks are premature major failure of equipment such that operation for 60 years is not guaranteed, that the project is likely to be highly controversial which will likely subject the company to extreme levels of scrutiny, and that the market may shift in a manner which permanently reduces viable output at some time during the project's lifespan.
> 
> Do you recommend to the rest of the board that the company proceed with this investment and if so, by what means do you propose to fund it?
> 
> For reference Origin's present market cap is $10.567 billion and AGL's is $10.744 billion.
> 
> What would you do if you were making the decision?
> 
> Personally, I don't see nuclear as stacking up financially in Australia. That's a business analysis not an ideological one.




Nice work Smurf.  Synthesises this discussion excellently and, in particular, highlights the  snake in the woodpile - the figures  on nuclear don't stack up.


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> That present laws preclude building it is irrelevant if there's no point to it anyway.
> 
> First step is analysis.
> 
> Then, if it's a goer on that basis, that's when the relevant company lobbies government to get it approved.
> 
> Same happens with a lot of businesses. Nobody goes to the trouble of lobbying government to change the law unless they've already concluded that it's worth doing whatever they're trying to get approval to do.




The other alternative of course is to beat the drum on what an "important patriotic, nation building, visionary project" this will be and expect that the public through a dazzled government will pony up whatever is required to ensure the builder and operators will make a  suitable profit on the "con" struction  and operation of this magnificent  project.  And of course the Government (ie us) have to underwrite the decommissioning and anything that  might go pearshaped..


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> The other alternative of course is to beat the drum on what an important patriotic, nation building, visionary project this will be and expect that the public through a dazzled government will pony up whatever is required to ensure the builder and operaters will make a profit on teh con struction and operation of this magnificent  project.




You have just highlighted how much of a sad cheater that you are!

We are discussing energy on its merits, leave your indoctrinated ideology at the door!


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

*WELL; IT LOOKS LIKE THAT WITHIN JUST ONE NIGHT; THAT I HAVE SECURED SINGAPORE'S ENERGY NEEDS FOR THE NEXT ~50 YEARS.

THOSE ******* DUMB AUSTRALIAN MANAGERS THAT I WORKED FOR SHOULD BE SACKED! PARTICULARLY THE HR TEAM!*


----------



## orr

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Now you're just making stuff up with the solar 2 cents per kWH. .




Ahh no Redder's is not.
The link below is to US 0.02/kwh contracts and lower...

https://reneweconomy.com.au/total-t...-qatar-world-cup-at-world-lowest-price-62819/

Note also for the last 38 years every time world production of solar panels has doubled the price per watt has declined by 24%. To ignore cost curves in this debate would be a mistake.

VPP's (Virtual Power Plant) aligned to private battery ownership has had little if any comment on this thread. The empowerment of the individual with regard this technology is not yet appreciated by the vast majority; But certainly will be by the time the first modular reactors are slated to leave the Sth Korean factory's circa 2026... wouldn't want to be hanging by the nuts for that.

And yes Plautus you are a very very clever boy... You should take your very cunning plan to BP. But over the channel at  Total?   You may expect to spend some time waiting in the lobby, they know 'merde' when they see it .... keep up the good work..


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

orr said:


> Ahh no Redder's is not.
> The link below is to US 0.02/kwh contracts and lower...
> 
> https://reneweconomy.com.au/total-t...-qatar-world-cup-at-world-lowest-price-62819/
> 
> Note also for the last 38 years every time world production of solar panels has doubled the price per watt has declined by 24%. To ignore cost curves in this debate would be a mistake.
> 
> VPP's (Virtual Power Plant) aligned to private battery ownership has had little if any comment on this thread. The empowerment of the individual with regard this technology is not yet appreciated by the vast majority; But certainly will be by the time the first modular reactors are slated to leave the Sth Korean factory's circa 2026... wouldn't want to be hanging by the nuts for that.
> 
> And yes Plautus you are a very very clever boy... You should take your very cunning plan to BP. But over the channel at  Total?   You may expect to spend some time waiting in the lobby, they know 'merde' when they see it .... keep up the good work..




I can take it to the Prime Minister of Singapore; then watch you soil your pants for a laugh!


----------



## basilio

In Australia we have had a number of detailed plans and costings to demonstrate the financial returns from moving quickly to a renewable energy economy. 

Not surprisingly other countries like the US have also undertaken this research with similar results. The Berkley Campus of the University of California have a detailed analysis outlining the benefits financially and environmentally of achieving 90% renewable energy by 2035

http://www.2035report.com/wp-conten....pdf?utm_referrer=https://www.2035report.com/


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

basilio said:


> In Australia we have had a number of detailed plans and costings to demonstrate the financial returns from moving quickly to a renewable energy economy.
> 
> Not surprisingly other countries like the US have also undertaken this research with similar results. The Berkley Campus of the University of California have a detailed analysis outlining the benefits financially and environmentally of achieving 90% renewable energy by 2035
> 
> http://www.2035report.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2035-Report.pdf?utm_referrer=https://www.2035report.com/




Are they IVY League?

Not that it means much these days, considering the talent and ideas from these universities.


----------



## Smurf1976

Chronos-Plutus said:


> You want corporate entities to discuss and consider doing something that is illegal?
> 
> Wake up; you have no idea how responsible corporate entities operate!



Pretty much every business does exactly that.

Go to your nearest city, find a vantage point and have a look at the CBD.

Everything you see was illegal when first evaluated. Only after evaluation and deciding that it was worthwhile was approval sought to construct any of those buildings. 

Using that example, plenty of developers have sought and in some cases obtained approval to build things which are contrary to planning schemes and the like by arguing the merits of their proposal and accommodating the requests of the relevant authorities as to how to make it acceptable to them.

Building a coal, gas, oil, nuclear, biomass, geothermal, hydro, wind, solar or tidal power plant would be illegal without the relevant approvals most certainly. That doesn't preclude someone doing their sums and concluding that it is or isn't worthwhile approaching landowners and government with a view to proceeding with whatever scheme they're proposing.

If anyone was seriously proposing a $30 billion investment then they'd have zero difficulties in getting a one on one meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss it that's a given. Wouldn't matter what industry it was - if you're proposing to invest that sort of money then you've got access to anyone you might need access to. In saying that, one thing they're certain to ask is about the viability of the project - they're not going to get involved in a potentially difficult public debate if they're not confident that the proposal is real and would actually be built if approved. They'll want to be sure you've done the sums and that you can and will proceed with it if government gives the nod.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> Pretty much every business does exactly that.
> 
> Go to your nearest city, find a vantage point and have a look at the CBD.
> 
> Everything you see was illegal when first evaluated. Only after evaluation and deciding that it was worthwhile was approval sought to construct any of those buildings.
> 
> Using that example, plenty of developers have sought and in some cases obtained approval to build things which are contrary to planning schemes and the like by arguing the merits of their proposal and accommodating the requests of the relevant authorities as to how to make it acceptable to them.
> 
> Building a coal, gas, oil, nuclear, biomass, geothermal, hydro, wind, solar or tidal power plant would be illegal without the relevant approvals most certainly. That doesn't preclude someone doing their sums and concluding that it is or isn't worthwhile approaching landowners and government with a view to proceeding with whatever scheme they're proposing.
> 
> If anyone was seriously proposing a $30 billion investment then they'd have zero difficulties in getting a one on one meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss it that's a given. Wouldn't matter what industry it was - if you're proposing to invest that sort of money then you've got access to anyone you might need access to. In saying that, one thing they're certain to ask is about the viability of the project - they're not going to get involved in a potentially difficult public debate if they're not confident that the proposal is real and would actually be built if approved. They'll want to be sure you've done the sums and that you can and will proceed with it if government gives the nod.





Smurf; that is just absurd!

Corporate entities that have a responsibility to their shareholders will not engage in criminal opportunity.

Please stop with the nonsense.


----------



## rederob

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Smurf; that is just absurd!
> 
> Corporate entities that have a responsibility to their shareholders will not engage in criminal opportunity.
> 
> Please stop with the nonsense.



Project planning is not a criminal activity.
As @Smurf1976 points out, most of what we see built around us was at some stage not allowed.
You seem to be quick to discount things you do not understand and have no ability to quantify.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> Project planning is not a criminal activity.
> As @Smurf1976 points out, most of what we see built around us was at some stage not allowed.
> You seem to be quick to discount things you do not understand and have no ability to quantify.




Planning a project that is illegal is just morally and ethically wrong.

Can you get charged for planning a murder?


----------



## Smurf1976

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Smurf; that is just absurd!
> 
> Corporate entities that have a responsibility to their shareholders will not engage in criminal opportunity.
> 
> Please stop with the nonsense.



There's nothing criminal about evaluating something that's illegal with a view to gaining proper permission to do it.

There are literally countless examples of that. Eg just because I don't have a liquor license in no way forbids me from learning about the business of running pubs. I only need the license if I'm actually going to run one, I don't need it just to evaluate the idea and determine whether to proceed or not.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> There's nothing criminal about evaluating something that's illegal with a view to gaining proper permission to do it.
> 
> There are literally countless examples of that. Eg just because I don't have a liquor license in no way forbids me from learning about the business of running pubs. I only need the license if I'm actually going to run one, I don't need it just to evaluate the idea and determine whether to proceed or not.




Evaluating?

It is planning; Smurf. Planning were to raise the money, planning who will build; and so.

Stop trying to duck and weave.


----------



## Smurf1976

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Planning a project that is illegal is just morally and ethically wrong.
> 
> Can you get charged for planning a murder?




There's quite a difference between planning to murder someone versus a legitimate business planning to build infrastructure for which government may or may not give approval.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> There's quite a difference between planning to murder someone versus a legitimate business planning to build infrastructure for which government may or may not give approval.




As far as I am concerned they are both illegal; as such they are treated the same!

You just don't want the prohibition lifted.

You can't have an honest discussion; you're a cheater and liar.


----------



## Smurf1976

Chronos-Plutus said:


> As far as I am concerned they are both illegal; as such they are treated the same!
> 
> You just don't want the prohibition lifted.
> 
> You can't have an honest discussion; you're a cheater and liar.




If your view is that just about every listed company is run by cheaters and liars then you have a right to that view.

In practice however, it's entirely normal and reasonable that things are evaluated prior to obtaining permission to do them. That's business 101 really - you don't go spending a fortune on environmental reports, geological reports and so on and you don't have discussions with landowners, hold community meetings and run presentations to both sides of politics etc without having first concluded that the project is worth building. All that stuff collectively costs $ millions and isn't done for a laugh.

In the real world lots of businesses in numerous industries do basic evaluations on all sorts of ideas routinely. Some of those come from senior management, some come from other management, some are from people specifically employed to come up with ideas, others are from looking at what competitors are doing and so on. Same as most investors will examine countless stocks for every one they actually buy.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> If your view is that just about every listed company is run by cheaters and liars then you have a right to that view.
> 
> In practice however, it's entirely normal and reasonable that things are evaluated prior to obtaining permission to do them. That's business 101 really - you don't go spending a fortune on environmental reports, geological reports and so on and you don't have discussions with landowners, hold community meetings and run presentations to both sides of politics etc without having first concluded that the project is worth building. All that stuff collectively costs $ millions and isn't done for a laugh.
> 
> In the real world lots of businesses in numerous industries do basic evaluations on all sorts of ideas routinely. Some of those come from senior management, some come from other management, some are from people specifically employed to come up with ideas, others are from looking at what competitors are doing and so on. Same as most investors will examine countless stocks for every one they actually buy.




And you speak for the ASX200 do you?

You incite illegal activity!

Might have to send the AFP to your place.


----------



## Smurf1976

Chronos-Plutus said:


> And you speak for the ASX200 do you?
> 
> You incite illegal activity!
> 
> Might have to to send the AFP to your place.




I'm simply referring to how any business operates. We're discussing investment here, right?

Even a convenience shop will evaluate the market first before getting the required license to sell wine or cigarettes for example. Selling without the required license would be illegal but there's no law precluding evaluating the market so long as they're not actually selling such products without the required license. Anyone's free to look around, find out how many bottle shops are in the area, look at the demographics, find out the costs of obtaining a license to sell alcohol and whether they'd be likely to meet the associated conditions and so on. Anyone can do that, 

Same with any business, it's perfectly normal to evaluate all sorts of ideas. You only need approval if you want to actually do them.

Of course pretty much every energy company will have run some numbers on nuclear just as they'll have run some numbers on coal, gas, diesel, wind, solar etc too. Even if they don't want to build it themselves, they sure will want to be aware of what a competitor could potentially build and what their costs would be.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm simply referring to how any business operates. We're discussing investment here, right?
> 
> Even a convenience shop will evaluate the market first before getting the required license to sell wine or cigarettes for example. Selling without the required license would be illegal but there's no law precluding evaluating the market so long as they're not actually selling such products without the required license.
> 
> Same with any business, it's perfectly normal to evaluate all sorts of ideas. You only need approval if you want to actually do them and they aren't permitted under normal rules.




*So you're not referring to setting up a nuclear plant; that would be illegal, if you were!*


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Chronos-Plutus said:


> *So you're not referring to setting up a nuclear plant; that would be illegal, if you were!*




Smurf!

I was waiting for you to keep going. I was going to say; don't worry about AFP; the most dangerous people on the planet are the Western military ex-SAS.

Like this guy:


----------



## Smurf1976

Chronos-Plutus said:


> *So you're not referring to setting up a nuclear plant; that would be illegal, if you were!*




It is not illegal to discuss building or operating a nuclear power station in NSW which is the location to which I have referred.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> It is not illegal to discuss building or operating a nuclear power station in NSW which is the location to which I have referred.




To be honest; it means nothing to me if we do it or not.

I just think NSW leaders are a bunch of morons if they don't.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

Smurf1976 said:


> It is not illegal to discuss building or operating a nuclear power station in NSW which is the location to which I have referred.




Andrew Hastie will make a good PM; in time, I think.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

*Come on; this is entertaining!

Mark Zuckerberg becomes a billionaire for a silly little Facebook app; and I solve energy problems for nations!*


----------



## SirRumpole

Chronos-Plutus said:


> As far as I am concerned they are both illegal; as such they are treated the same!
> 
> You just don't want the prohibition lifted.
> 
> You can't have an honest discussion; you're a cheater and liar.




You have lost it matey.

Calling a respected member of this forum a cheat and a liar is both unacceptable behaviour and an indication that you have lost the argument.

Of course people can put forward proposals for whatever they like even if the activity is currently not allowed with a view to having regulations changed by the force of the argument. There is nothing wrong with that unless there are under the table "negotiations" with individuals like the promise of a spot on the board of a nuclear power company.

Governments change and the resulting ideology changes too so people will keep on trying when they smell a whiff of political favour to their pet project.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

SirRumpole said:


> You have lost it matey.
> 
> Calling a respected member of this forum a cheat and a liar is both unacceptable behaviour and an indication that you have lost the argument.
> 
> Of course people can put forward proposals for whatever they like even if the activity is currently not allowed with a view to having regulations changed by the force of the argument. There is nothing wrong with that unless there is under the table "negotiations" with individuals like the promise of a spot on the board of a nuclear power company.
> 
> Governments change and the resulting ideology changes too so people will keep on trying when the smell a whiff of political favour to their pet project.




I haven't lost anything. In fact, today/yesterday I solved the energy problems of a foreign nation.

Good day to you sir!


----------



## over9k

You guys have a chicken & egg problem. Nobody's going to bother doing a proper proposal unless there's a realistic shot of actually being able to implement it, and the powers that be aren't going to even consider letting you implement anything until you submit a proper proposal.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

over9k said:


> You guys have a chicken & egg problem. Nobody's going to bother doing a proper proposal unless there's a realistic shot of actually being able to implement it, and the powers that be aren't going to even consider letting you implement anything until you submit a proper proposal.




Don't bother, these guys think they know it all. I think I will start putting them on ignore soon, and just focus on the trading and investing.


----------



## qldfrog

I think it was well past bed time judging some of the last posts..hope it will get better today and some apologies posted?


----------



## rederob

Chronos-Plutus said:


> Don't bother, these guys think they know it all. I think I will start putting them on ignore soon, and just focus on the trading and investing.



If you are going to promote your ideas, try indulging in rational and meaningful discussion.  
There is no real world data showing that either geothermal or nuclear are getting cheaper, but wind, solar and batteries all are.
Iceland will do fine with geothermal and not solar pv, whereas Australia would be the complete opposite.
In many cases it's horses for courses until a more viable solution can be implemented.
In some cases nations are driving transition via policy and/or incentives.
And occasionally the market does the maths and there's a paradigm shift as a result.
Vestas did it for wind, China did it for solar pv, and Tesla did it for batteries.


----------



## SirRumpole

For those interested, a report by the Australian Parliament on nuclear power in Australia.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...DAD5D23EB71D&usg=AOvVaw00jHptfcxtsM3t6NJOcjgy


----------



## sptrawler

I agree with you smurf, a large nuclear reactor is only feasable in a very large grid like the UK, where it can be operating at full load 24/7.
As I said the only way nuclear makes sense in Australia IMO, would be as small modular reactors that are there for a dual function and for that to work the demand and price for h2 would have to be astronomical.
It would be nice to be around in 2050, to seewhat changes have occurred, if ant.


----------



## spooly74

basilio said:


> The other alternative of course is to beat the drum on what an "important patriotic, nation building, visionary project" this will be and expect that the public through a dazzled government will pony up whatever is required to ensure the builder and operators will make a  suitable profit on the "con" struction  and operation of this magnificent  project.  And of course the Government (ie us) have to underwrite the decommissioning and anything that  might go pearshaped..



Not exactly true, the operator underwrites this, although realistically what board looks 60years into the future re: shareholder value? So Nuclear in Aus is going to have to be at least partially funded by us.
I've been doing some digging on Nuclear construction costs and will post more when i have a bit of time but I found this info unbelievable while looking into it.
Upon commissioning of a Nuclear plant. The operator must put money in a trust for decommissioning at the start and add to it annually. This money cannot be touched during the lifetime of the plant. The larger the plant & lifespan, the larger the fund, compounding.
So after many years of operation the plant risks being shutdown not because it isn't profitable, but because its more profitable to shut it down.


----------



## SirRumpole

spooly74 said:


> So after many years of operation the plant risks being shutdown not because it isn't profitable, but because its more profitable to shut it down.




Or at some point the company may think it's more profitable to declare bankruptcy or restructure or simply discontinue operations and start up somewhere else.

So we have a "stranded asset" and who is going to buy such a monstrosity with all the costs involved ?

In other words, the taxpayer is left with a white elephant.


----------



## spooly74

SirRumpole said:


> Or at some point the company may think it's more profitable to declare bankruptcy or restructure or simply discontinue operations and start up somewhere else.
> 
> So we have a "stranded asset" and who is going to buy such a monstrosity with all the costs involved ?
> 
> In other words, the taxpayer is left with a white elephant.



Bankruptcy (in this scenario) unlikely as the plants are profitable, although having looked into this it depends *when* *& where* they were built.
Also, the fund is only accessible for decommissioning.
What seems to be the case is that an operator of multiple plants will look at the $'s and decide to decommission/strip the plant for material assets for other operations and access the fund.
win/win.


----------



## rederob

spooly74 said:


> Bankruptcy (in this scenario) unlikely as the plants are profitable, although having looked into this it depends *when* *& where* they were built.



Nuclear plants carry *tens of billions of dollars of debt* for well over a decade, so whilst they might make an annual "operating" profit there is no guarantee their debt will be expunged.


----------



## spooly74

rederob said:


> Nuclear plant carry *tens of billions of debt* for well over a decade, so whilst they might make an annual "operating" profit there is no guarantee their debt will be expunged.



This scenario happens well into the lifespan of a reactor with compounding your best friend. Holco International have been able to reduce decommissioning times from a decade down to a few years giving more incentive to decommission.


----------



## Chronos-Plutus

rederob said:


> If you are going to promote your ideas, try indulging in rational and meaningful discussion.
> There is no real world data showing that either geothermal or nuclear are getting cheaper, but wind, solar and batteries all are.
> Iceland will do fine with geothermal and not solar pv, whereas Australia would be the complete opposite.
> In many cases it's horses for courses until a more viable solution can be implemented.
> In some cases nations are driving transition via policy and/or incentives.
> And occasionally the market does the maths and there's a paradigm shift as a result.
> Vestas did it for wind, China did it for solar pv, and Tesla did it for batteries.



I have explained it enough times for you now. Anyway you can believe what you like; have a good day.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Or at some point the company may think it's more profitable to declare bankruptcy or restructure or simply discontinue operations and start up somewhere else.
> 
> So we have a "stranded asset" and who is going to buy such a monstrosity with all the costs involved ?
> 
> In other words, the taxpayer is left with a white elephant.



That is happening as we speak with coal plant.
At the end of the day we are only crystal ball gazing and what ifs.
That is the fun in all this, using a bit of imagination, non of us know which way this is going to go and it will be the market that drives the outcome.
If renewables can replace fossil fuel 100%, that will be fantastic, it is just from my experience it is possible in Australia due to land mass and small population.
But if on top of producing for domestic consumption, we have to produce for export, it becomes a whole different ball game.
Then you require 24/7 full output, renewables struggle with that.
Appolgies for spelling errors, phone keyboard small and hands like feet.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Then you require 24/7 full output, renewables struggle with that.




Indeed so which is why I have been saying we still need baseload, the point is the best way of doing it.

With our gas reserves and being the biggest (yes biggest) gas exporter in the world, why not reserve some of those exports for ourselves instead of it all going o/s and having to import gas for our own consumption ?

I find it hard to believe how stupid our politicians are sometimes.


----------



## spooly74

SirRumpole said:


> For those interested, a report by the Australian Parliament on nuclear power in Australia.
> 
> https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjU45yT_Z3qAhXaZSsKHcvuAVQQFjARegQICBAB&url=https://www.aph.gov.au/-/media/02_Parliamentary_Business/24_Committees/243_Reps_Committees/EnvironmentEnergy/Nuclear_energy/Full_Report.pdf?la=en&hash=2826513C078551487B8265502776DAD5D23EB71D&usg=AOvVaw00jHptfcxtsM3t6NJOcjgy




From the paper: cost for a 1000MWe reactor is at $6,200 per kW






Maybe we need to take a look at what the South Koreans are doing?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Indeed so which is why I have been saying we still need baseload, the point is the best way of doing it.
> 
> With our gas reserves and being the biggest (yes biggest) gas exporter in the world, why not reserve some of those exports for ourselves instead of it all going o/s and having to import gas for our own consumption ?
> 
> I find it hard to believe how stupid our politicians are sometimes.



I love gas but there are two problems with it, the first is it is the only viable alternative for fossil fuel ice engines at the moment so ripping it through a turbine is a huge waste.
Secondly the greenies are already building up a head of steam against it, so as soon as coal is finished the chorus will start all over again against gas and then the stranded assert problem arises again, which does lead toward the only clean answer at this point in time is nuclear.
So if the small modular reactors can be made at a price point that makes them competitive, it will be just a matter of time before they become accepted.
The real issue is renewables and their intermittency, makes the issue of storage the critical point, this can be overcome with pumped storage and batteries as we have discussed on numerous occasions.
That may be fine when you are talking about just replacing an existing consumer grid, because in a 24 hour period there are low demand periods that can be used to replenish your storage.
If we have to supply h2 or electricity to overseas markets, which is quite possible, you lose those low periods, that is where the base load will be required.
Like we have said it is all just crystal ball gazing.
But if we have to install twice as much renewables to replace on call fossil fueled generators, then add to that the requirement for three times as much storage for intermittency, then add to that enough renewables to make h2 for export, it becomes a huge call.
Interesting times ahead in my opinion, especially if this has to be done in 30 years.


----------



## Smurf1976

Something I'll observe about all this is that nobody wants a power station for the sake of having a power station. What they want is a reliable and economical supply of electricity produced in an manner considered acceptable in terms of the environment etc.

The only real exceptions to that are:

Nuclear - if having a large working reactor is seen as necessary for some other purpose eg military. The power generation just puts it to use the rest of the time and provides a good story to "sell" it to the public.

Hydro - if there's some other use for storing water and releasing it in a controlled manner eg irrigation, flood control or urban supply then there may be a point to the project beyond just the power it produces.

Gas - if a location doesn't have any supply of natural gas available but there are industries wanting it then building a gas-fired power station would bring about a sufficient scale of consumption so as to make supply economically viable. Without the power station, gas consumption would be too low to be economically supplied at all and as such, using gas for power may be seen as desirable for reasons other than just the gas-fired power station itself. A number of examples exist for this one in Australia with gas projects for wider use ultimately underwritten by power generation usage in WA, SA, NT, Tas and Qld.

Employment - if you're out of work and are in a relevant trade or profession then the prospect of someone building a power station near where you live may hold appeal. Regardless of the merits of it as a source of electricity, it has a lot of merit in its ability to put food on your table if you're employed to build it. Even better if you're then also employed to operate or maintain it. Likewise a particular region with whatever natural resource might be keen to have it developed for the employment value to the town etc.

Beyond that though, well nobody wants a power station for the sake of a power station. With a couple of exceptions (Tarraleah, Tumut 3, Gordon Dam) tourists don't take photos of them and so on, they're entirely utilitarian in nature and the only point of them is to keep the lights on.

That being so, well the only reason we'd build nuclear in Australia is if it's the most economical of the acceptable and reliable means of generating electricity. At least that's the only reason unless the real reason is to have a large working reactor for purposes unrelated to power generation (that is, we want plutonium). For those unaware, we've already got a small reactor which takes care of medical needs and so on so no problem there.

Same with any other scheme really with the possible exception of some hydro projects if there's a broader use for the dam or any power station which uses some sort of waste material as a means of disposal (eg bagasse, CO gas from certain industrial processes, landfill gas etc). For those there's some other reason to want it in addition to generating electricity but not for nuclear unless the real reason isn't about power supply.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> So if the small modular reactors can be made at a price point that makes them competitive, it will be just a matter of time before they become accepted.




The Greens will kick up a stink about nuclear even more than they do about coal even though nuclear is virtually emission free.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Something I'll observe about all this is that nobody wants a power station for the sake of having a power station. What they want is a reliable and economical supply of electricity produced in an manner considered acceptable in terms of the environment etc.
> 
> The only real exceptions to that are:
> 
> Nuclear - if having a large working reactor is seen as necessary for some other purpose eg military. The power generation just puts it to use the rest of the time and provides a good story to "sell" it to the public.
> 
> Hydro - if there's some other use for storing water and releasing it in a controlled manner eg irrigation, flood control or urban supply then there may be a point to the project beyond just the power it produces.
> 
> Gas - if a location doesn't have any supply of natural gas available but there are industries wanting it then building a gas-fired power station would bring about a sufficient scale of consumption so as to make supply economically viable. Without the power station, gas consumption would be too low to be economically supplied at all and as such, using gas for power may be seen as desirable for reasons other than just the gas-fired power station itself. A number of examples exist for this one in Australia with gas projects for wider use ultimately underwritten by power generation usage in WA, SA, NT, Tas and Qld.
> 
> Employment - if you're out of work and are in a relevant trade or profession then the prospect of someone building a power station near where you live may hold appeal. Regardless of the merits of it as a source of electricity, it has a lot of merit in its ability to put food on your table if you're employed to build it. Even better if you're then also employed to operate or maintain it. Likewise a particular region with whatever natural resource might be keen to have it developed for the employment value to the town etc.
> 
> Beyond that though, well nobody wants a power station for the sake of a power station. With a couple of exceptions (Tarraleah, Tumut 3, Gordon Dam) tourists don't take photos of them and so on, they're entirely utilitarian in nature and the only point of them is to keep the lights on.
> 
> That being so, well the only reason we'd build nuclear in Australia is if it's the most economical of the acceptable and reliable means of generating electricity. At least that's the only reason unless the real reason is to have a large working reactor for purposes unrelated to power generation (that is, we want plutonium). For those unaware, we've already got a small reactor which takes care of medical needs and so on so no problem there.
> 
> Same with any other scheme really with the possible exception of some hydro projects if there's a broader use for the dam or any power station which uses some sort of waste material as a means of disposal (eg bagasse, CO gas from certain industrial processes, landfill gas etc). For those there's some other reason to want it in addition to generating electricity but not for nuclear unless the real reason isn't about power supply.



Your first paragraph summed it up perfectly.
All the other public rants are white noise, by fringe dwellers, wanting to add some meaning to their sad lives.
Any cause gives a sense of worth, whether it has purpose or not, much better than wallowing in a sea of navel gazing.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> The Greens will kick up a stink about nuclear even more than they do about coal even though nuclear is virtually emission free.



What's really needed is for government to make a decision as to what the priorities are and then leave it to engineers and business to collectively work out how to do it both technically and financially.

Meanwhile, on one hand I shake my head that we've come to this with a great panic to get things done before _Spring 2020_ which is just 9 weeks away. That's get it built and working, not just come to a decision by then.....

https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/fil...hresholds-in-south-australia-review.pdf?la=en

On the other hand, well at least I can say "told you so" - this problem is precisely the reason I set my own proof of concept trial up at home quite some time ago.

That doesn't make me a genius of course - anyone who had the data could have reached the same conclusion that we're heading toward great difficulty and getting there real soon.


----------



## sptrawler

Yes there is a lot to be said, for living on an island, at the end of the first world.
W.A what a great place, the muppet brigade hasnt got a foothold yet.


----------



## Smurf1976

Sticking strictly to the economics and looking at the short term, something of note is that the collapse of oil prices has also pushed down the gas price to the point that the more efficient gas-fired plants are now pretty close to equal with those using export grade coal on operating costs in Australia.

So we're seeing coal plant backing off output whilst the best gas-fired plants are remaining at full capacity. We're at a point where that's starting to occur now in Australia.

What's different is that to the extent gas has been cheaper in the past, that has been due to lower construction costs. The idea that it's cheaper to operate gas than to operate coal, when both are already built, is what has changed albeit only for the most efficient gas-fired plants at this stage.

That situation is evident in the market right at this moment hence the comment. No guarantee it'll continue, so don't anyone be reading political meanings into it etc, but it's where the commodity markets are at right now.


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> For those interested, a report by the Australian Parliament on nuclear power in Australia.
> 
> https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjU45yT_Z3qAhXaZSsKHcvuAVQQFjARegQICBAB&url=https://www.aph.gov.au/-/media/02_Parliamentary_Business/24_Committees/243_Reps_Committees/EnvironmentEnergy/Nuclear_energy/Full_Report.pdf?la=en&hash=2826513C078551487B8265502776DAD5D23EB71D&usg=AOvVaw00jHptfcxtsM3t6NJOcjgy




That is a very interesting report. The appendix with the extracts from the various witnesses highlights the many unsolved problems with nuclear production as well as safety, cost and waste management.

The real killer is the cost benefit analysis. Nucelar energy has missed the boat because it is simply far more expensive than comparable firmed solar/wind energy systems. And doesn't even touch the safety issues, final resolution of  long term radioactive wastes and the exceptionally unreliable costings for new systems.

 I thought this   statement summed it up.

_Professor Blakers referred to work that he and other ANU colleagues had undertaken in 2017 on precisely this point: The cost of balancing 100 per cent renewables has three components: storage, transmission and occasional spillage—when all the storage is full and you've got lots of wind and sun. The three components are roughly equal. Transmission is required so you can shift energy from a place where the wind and sun are good to where the wind and sun are bad, on a particular day. Storage is to time shift so that if it's a very sunny, windy day, like yesterday, we can store for a day in the future when it's not sunny and windy. Spillage is required because if you build enough storage to absorb all the solar and wind then you'll have built storage that you use once every five years and you're paying for things you don't need. So it's a balancing. Basically, the cost of wind and solar now is about $50 per megawatt hour. If you want to firm up 100 per cent wind and solar you'll add $25 on top, so you'll get to $75 a megawatt hour. That $75 a megawatt hour is below the spot price in every state in all periods in the last financial year; in other words, a fully backed up, firmed solarwind base with some existing hydro is cheaper to run than the entire current electricity system, and this reflects the fact that wind and solar just keep falling in price.
Page 65_


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> That is a very interesting report. The appendix with the extracts from the various witnesses highlights the many unsolved problems with nuclear production as well as safety, cost and waste management.
> 
> The real killer is the cost benefit analysis. Nucelar energy has missed the boat because it is simply far more expensive than comparable firmed solar/wind energy systems. And doesn't even touch the safety issues, final resolution of  long term radioactive wastes and the exceptionally unreliable costings for new systems.
> 
> I thought this   statement summed it up.
> 
> _Professor Blakers referred to work that he and other ANU colleagues had undertaken in 2017 on precisely this point: The cost of balancing 100 per cent renewables has three components: storage, transmission and occasional spillage—when all the storage is full and you've got lots of wind and sun. The three components are roughly equal. Transmission is required so you can shift energy from a place where the wind and sun are good to where the wind and sun are bad, on a particular day. Storage is to time shift so that if it's a very sunny, windy day, like yesterday, we can store for a day in the future when it's not sunny and windy. Spillage is required because if you build enough storage to absorb all the solar and wind then you'll have built storage that you use once every five years and you're paying for things you don't need. So it's a balancing. Basically, the cost of wind and solar now is about $50 per megawatt hour. If you want to firm up 100 per cent wind and solar you'll add $25 on top, so you'll get to $75 a megawatt hour. That $75 a megawatt hour is below the spot price in every state in all periods in the last financial year; in other words, a fully backed up, firmed solarwind base with some existing hydro is cheaper to run than the entire current electricity system, and this reflects the fact that wind and solar just keep falling in price.
> Page 65_



The only premise to all that is, you have enough energy to move around, that is the whole issue.
It isnt a problem as such in Australia small population, lots of flat land for renawable installations.
It all boils back to cherry picking, best case scenario.
As Ive said it will be self resolving.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It isnt a problem as such in Australia small population, lots of flat land for renawable installations.




Yep - I'm assuming here that the discussion is Australian centric given it's an Australian forum.

As has always been the case, what's best in one place isn't necessarily best in another and that's true even with non-renewable technology. It comes down to what resources are available locally or, if nothing exists locally, can most easily be brought in and that varies hugely with location.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Yep - I'm assuming here that the discussion is Australian centric given it's an Australian forum.
> 
> As has always been the case, what's best in one place isn't necessarily best in another and that's true even with non-renewable technology. It comes down to what resources are available locally or, if nothing exists locally, can most easily be brought in and that varies hugely with location.



That is what seems to be missing in the debate, a sense of scale, in proportion to the world issue we are a micro grid at best in reality we are small commune.


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> Yep - I'm assuming here that the discussion is Australian centric given it's an Australian forum.
> 
> As has always been the case, what's best in one place isn't necessarily best in another and that's true even with non-renewable technology. It comes down to what resources are available locally or, if nothing exists locally, can most easily be brought in and that varies hugely with location.



And in term of resources, where the hell would Australia find the nuclear technicians needed for nuclear reactors.... import them from Pakistan?


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> The only premise to all that is, you have enough energy to move around, that is the whole issue.
> It isnt a problem as such in Australia small population, lots of flat land for renawable installations.
> It all boils back to cherry picking, best case scenario.
> As Ive said it will be self resolving.



It hasn't been "self resolving" for the past decade where Europe, China and even the USA have the jump on us.
And it does not get "self resolving" without a commitment to the necessary infrastructure.
Aside from that, there still remains no national policy that is providing major energy investors with the certainty they need to commit the billions needed to replace aging generators.
Instead we still have a government making inquiries in nuclear and coal.
And that's occurring against Australia being a global leader in gas production and a backdrop of gas prices being ridiculously low.
That's how advanced Australia is!
Maybe you can explain who this "*self*" is that is resolving our energy issues?


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> It hasn't been "self resolving" for the past decade where Europe, China and even the USA have the jump on us.
> And it does not get "self resolving" without a commitment to the necessary infrastructure.
> Aside from that, there still remains no national policy that is providing major energy investors with the certainty they need to commit the billions needed to replace aging generators.
> Instead we still have a government making inquiries in nuclear and coal.
> And that's occurring against Australia being a global leader in gas production and a backdrop of gas prices being ridiculously low.
> That's how advanced Australia is!
> Maybe you can explain who this "*self*" is that is resolving our energy issues?



It is simple really, as smurf has explained coal generation is aging and it won't be replaced by coal, so as you and Bas have so often commented renewables are the cheapest form of generation at the moment, therefore  as the government's won't let you sit there in the dark it will be self resolving.
So you needn't keep pedaling your political agenda.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> It is simple really, as smurf has explained coal generation is aging and it won't be replaced by coal, so as you and Bas have so often commented renewables are the cheapest form of generation at the moment, therefore  as the government's won't let you sit there in the dark it will be self resolving.
> So you needn't keep pedaling your political agenda.



Except that it is not.
If it were then there would be no energy curtailment.
By the way, the concept of "self resolving" is meaningless without process.  
Finally, I don't have a political agenda as this is a simple matter of policy failure in our energy market.


----------



## macca

rederob said:


> Finally, I don't have a political agenda as this is a simple matter of policy failure in our energy market.




Shouldn't this line be in the ASF joke thread ?


----------



## rederob

macca said:


> Shouldn't this line be in the ASF joke thread ?



Sorry @macca, I should have realised that the idea of the federal government having *a *"policy" - any policy - was a joke.


----------



## macca

rederob said:


> Sorry @macca, I should have realised that the idea of the federal government having *a *"policy" - any policy - was a joke.




I agree that a firm policy would be an improvement, I really should have trimmed my quote a bit better.

I consider the "joke" to be your statement of  " not having a political agenda" 

I support the right to free speech and am more than happy to listen to lefties, I am surrounded by them in my family actually but to say you have no political bias when you obviously do, is funny IMO


----------



## rederob

macca said:


> I agree that a firm policy would be an improvement, I really should have trimmed my quote a bit better.
> 
> I consider the "joke" to be your statement of  " not having a political agenda"
> 
> I support the right to free speech and am more than happy to listen to lefties, I am surrounded by them in my family actually but to say you have no political bias when you obviously do, is funny IMO



I am a humanist.
I do not have a political agenda.  My comments in this thread make clear that energy policy in Australia is an oxymoron.  I really don't care about which party is to blame.  
The tendency in so many threads at ASF is to "label" people rather than deal with the substance of issues.  I don't get sucked in.


----------



## sptrawler

As I said, if the coal generation is being shut down, it will be replaced by whatever is suitable, or else the generators don't have a business.
If the generators leave a vacuum, then it will be the responsibility of the governments to again get involved in power generation, which IMO would be a good thing.
The one thing for sure you wont be sitting in the dark and if by some chance that did happen, it would bring the whole issue to a head.
So again, as I said, it will be self resolving IMO.
The energy curtailment has been explained over and over on this thread, just because you wish to use it as a vehicle for your political agenda, makes it obviously you are still front and center in the Labor party cheer squad but the veneer is wearing thin.
By the way, you have not at any stage tried to hide your political affiliation, so don't get all shy about it now.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> As I said, if the coal generation is being shut down, it will be replaced by whatever is suitable, or else the generators don't have a business.
> If the generators leave a vacuum, then it will be the responsibility of the governments to again get involved in power generation, which IMO would be a good thing.
> The one thing for sure you wont be sitting in the dark and if by some chance that did happen, it would bring the whole issue to a head.
> So again, as I said, it will be self resolving IMO.
> The energy curtailment has been explained over and over on this thread, just because you wish to use it as a vehicle for your political agenda, makes it obviously you are still front and center in the Labor party cheer squad but the veneer is wearing thin.
> By the way, you have not at any stage tried to hide your political affiliation, so don't get all shy about it now.




7 years of no energy policy (or should I say failed energy policy) by the Conservatives is not a problem ?

Anyone looking objectively at the LNP's record on energy non-policy would conclude that they are pathetic when it comes to forward thinking on this issue, it's only their rusted on supporters that deny there is a problem.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> The tendency in so many threads at ASF is to "label" people rather than deal with the substance of issues.




I'm not aiming this reply at you personally, just using your comment as the trigger really, but I think that's become a very widespread situation in society.

We've reached a point where pretty much everyone is pigeon holed. There's a label attached and they fit in whichever box.

Corporate HR departments do it, call centres do it, companies conducting market research do it, politicians do it and so on. Everything gets distilled to whichever standard boxes it fits in and that's where it ends. As a concept the approach is so common as to be normal across pretty much the whole of society.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> 7 years of no energy policy (or should I say failed energy policy) by the Conservatives is not a problem ?
> 
> Anyone looking objectively at the LNP's record on energy non-policy would conclude that they are pathetic when it comes to forward thinking on this issue, it's only their rusted on supporters that deny there is a problem.



I thought there was a policy announcement, coming up toward the end of the year?
7 years ago the whole energy generation space was completely different, so if an energy policy was made then it would be in the trash can now anyway, even as we speak there are many saying snowy2 is an absolute waste of taxpayers money.
So I guess they should just put out anything, what the real issue is a certain sector wants a blank government cheque, as usual.
The whole Eastern States grid is a mess IMO, the State Governments have sold off the bulk of the generators and now want the Federal government to sort the mess out, which usually means the taxpayer.
Five years ago an investigation into the cost of electricity, found that the State Governments had been gold plating their networks, now we find the network actually needs a whole lot more spent on it because it isn't fit for purpose with the advent of renewables.
It sounds like the same old song sheet to me.
Thankfully I'm in W.A.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> even as we speak there are many saying snowy2 is an absolute waste of taxpayers money




The basic problem with Snowy 2.0 is that it isn't the most rational thing to build right now since in the short term, so long as there's an under-utilised fossil fuel generation backbone, small pumped hydros and batteries could do the job of shifting supply from midday to 6pm more cheaply than Snowy 2.0 can do it.

I'm strongly in favour of it however for reasons of pragmatism. It is needed to be in service about 2029-30 in practice but there's no guarantee at all that whoever's in government in 2023 could be relied on to simply give it the proverbial rubber stamp to proceed. They might start debating, arguing, wasting time and so on. Do that and then in practice we build new fossil fuel generation instead and it'll probably be open cycle gas turbines.

Or in other words, it's being built a bit earlier than it needs to be built but I'm seeing it as a "now or never" thing due to the way politics works. That being so, well the interest on a few $ billion for a few years is just the price we pay for the political process being what it is.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The basic problem with Snowy 2.0 is that it isn't the most rational thing to build right now since in the short term, so long as there's an under-utilised fossil fuel generation backbone, small pumped hydros and batteries could do the job of shifting supply from midday to 6pm more cheaply than Snowy 2.0 can do it.
> 
> I'm strongly in favour of it however for reasons of pragmatism. It is needed to be in service about 2029-30 in practice but there's no guarantee at all that whoever's in government in 2023 could be relied on to simply give it the proverbial rubber stamp to proceed. They might start debating, arguing, wasting time and so on. Do that and then in practice we build new fossil fuel generation instead and it'll probably be open cycle gas turbines.
> 
> Or in other words, it's being built a bit earlier than it needs to be built but I'm seeing it as a "now or never" thing due to the way politics works. That being so, well the interest on a few $ billion for a few years is just the price we pay for the political process being what it is.



I agree completely, but as you say it makes a statement and in a lot ways lights the way and direction needed.
A lot of small pumped storage and battery installations can be put in, but they don't make much of an impression, even if the combined output is more than Snowy 2.
It is a bit like Sydney Harbour bridge, when it was built it was probably a lot bigger than what was actually needed at the time, how many times have we seen in the past that something that everyone assumed was going to be too big, actually wasn't big enough in the end.
Storage is never going to go astray, when talking renewables IMO.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I agree completely, but as you say it makes a statement and in a lot ways lights the way and direction needed.



If you look at say 2036 (the date is significant) then clearly Snowy 2.0 is needed as is Battery of the Nation and we need a lot of other storage projects built by then too.

In theory building the cheap ones first, those with limited energy storage relative to peak power, would give an economic advantage but only to the extent that interest rates are high enough to matter which it seems they probably won't be. 

The danger in trying to optimise, in getting the sequencing optimal, is ending up with nothing at all........


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> If you look at say 2036 (the date is significant) then clearly Snowy 2.0 is needed as is Battery of the Nation and we need a lot of other storage projects built by then too.
> 
> In theory building the cheap ones first, those with limited energy storage relative to peak power, would give an economic advantage but only to the extent that interest rates are high enough to matter which it seems they probably won't be.
> 
> The danger in trying to optimise, in getting the sequencing optimal, is ending up with nothing at all........



The other point IMO is, I really don't see the Federal Government getting heavily involved in small to medium sized pumped storage and battery storage installations, I would see that as private sector and State Government level.
With Snowy2 and the Tassie battery that is seriously big money commitment, which the Federal Government will have to either fund or underwrite.
The Federal Government getting heavily involved at the State infrastucture level, will cause nothing but problems, where the States need assistance one would think the process would be through grants etc.
I would have thought with transmission upgrades etc, it would still be a State managed function, not a Federal function.
The AEMO I would expect, to give the lead on what infrastructure the States need to upgrade to facilitate renewable deployment.
As has been stated on numerous occassions, wind/solar is cheaper to install than coal, so there will be plenty of willing investors ready to put money in, no private investor would stump up the money for Snowy 2 or the Tassie battery and it will take quite a while to build, so return on capital will be atrocious somewhat like the NBN.
Also as you say, with politics it may get started, stopped, started again etc, we are better off having it and not needing it yet, than needing it and not having it.
But from personal perspective, I don't give a ratz, it is purely from a professional perspective, that I find it interesting


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The whole Eastern States grid is a mess IMO, the State Governments have sold off the bulk of the generators and now want the Federal government to sort the mess out, which usually means the taxpayer.




The States were basically forced to sell their networks by the Howard/Costello "asset recycling" scheme, where the States didn't get any new money for infrastructure unless they sold the assets they already had.

So it's really the Libs fault that we are in the mess we are now.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> As I said, if the coal generation is being shut down, it will be replaced by whatever is suitable, or else the generators don't have a business.
> If the generators leave a vacuum, then it will be the responsibility of the governments to again get involved in power generation, which IMO would be a good thing.
> The one thing for sure you wont be sitting in the dark and if by some chance that did happen, it would bring the whole issue to a head.
> So again, as I said, it will be self resolving IMO.



Problems which require "intervention" *cannot be* "self resolving."  That's a principle of reasoning.
Whatever was the role of governments in energy generation, there is now a new framework in most States and it dictates economic imperatives rather than supply concerns.
The economic imperative is to produce electricity at the least cost.  Renewables do that.  However, at neither the grid scale nor home solar pv is there an appropriate infrastructure to drive that agenda.  Anyone interested in why can read the numerous reports over the years at AEMO's website or from the Clean Energy Council.
In January last year Victorians were the subjects of "sitting in the dark" and only luck and record investment in renewables in 2019 saved them in 2020. 


sptrawler said:


> The energy curtailment has been explained over and over on this thread, just because you wish to use it as a vehicle for your political agenda, makes it obviously you are still front and center in the Labor party cheer squad but the veneer is wearing thin.



First, energy curtailment is significantly due to poor policy (a rational market does not shut out the cheapest source of supply) and, secondly, I don't have any association with Labor and typically vote "independent" first or Green if there is there is not a good independent candidate.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> The States were basically forced to sell their networks by the Howard/Costello "asset recycling" scheme, where the States didn't get any new money for infrastructure unless they sold the assets they already had.
> 
> So it's really the Libs fault that we are in the mess we are now.



I don't disagree with that, it was the dumbest thing ever, to a degree W.A dodged that bullet and as I said in an earlier post I hope the private sector don't step up to the mark and it forces the States to re enter the generation market.
As we discussed early in this thread, generation really is an essential service and should be in Government hands.
The other point we made very early on is that with electricity generation there is a requirement for a lot more installed capacity, than is actually required, that doesn't lend itself to a open market style system and will actually become more of a problem as renewables become more prevalent.
It really will end up a mess, so no doubt as Rob says there will be a requirement for Federal intervention, when and how that is done will be the real problem.
As has been widely reported, the problems associated with high penetration of renewables are only recently showing up, because we are in a fairly unique situation and the AEMO is dealing with problems that no one knew would arise.
Hopefully a technically driven plan is formulated, rather than a taxpayer funded slush bucket approach that we normally have to live with.
One thing for sure is, the system wont be allowed to collapse, that wont be an option. So if it becomes essential that there is serious political intervention there will be.


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting article on consumer switching suppliers.
https://www.theage.com.au/business/...wer-to-find-better-rates-20200628-p556zx.html
From the article:
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is scheduled to issue a proposals paper in early July specifying how the consumer data regime will operate in the energy sector. The ACCC will advise the public on the timeline for implementing the consumer data right.


The ACCC delayed the introduction of the banking sector's reforms from February to July after it identified technical defects and decided to spend more time making sure the data sharing regime was resilient against cyber-security threats.

A consumer could be almost a $1000 better off by switching from the worst to the best electricity plan in South Australia and by around $750 in New South Wales, according to the government. A small business could be more than $7000 better off in South Australia and $3000 better off in Victoria or New South Wales from a similar switch.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> As has been widely reported, the problems associated with high penetration of renewables are only recently showing up, because we are in a fairly unique situation and the AEMO is dealing with problems that no one knew would arise.



AEMO was reporting on renewables penetration over a decade ago so it should never have been a surprise that we have the problems we now do in terms of grid integration. 
We had the opportunity to learn from Europe which has a more complex and sophisticated energy system with much greater renewable penetration, or from the USA or China which have similar geographic dispersals with renewables.
The idea that our situation is somehow unique flies in the face of international experience.


----------



## sptrawler

https://www.afr.com/politics/aemo-i...-solar-in-victorias-full-grid-20181012-h16l0h
From the article:
A crackdown by the Australian Energy Market Operator has snared French energy giant Total Eren, which will launch Victoria's biggest solar farm this week minus one of its anchor customers.

This follows delays caused by a standoff with AEMO over grid system security in north-west Victoria where there is a bulging pipeline of new wind and solar.
AEMO said *the problem was being exacerbated by foreign developers failing to appreciate the unique susceptibility of Australia's long, thin grid to the strains of adding new wind and solar generation to parts that did not previously support generation* to replace coal-fired power shutting down elsewhere. Australia has the developed world's longest, thinnest grid, stretching about 5000 kilometres from South Australia's west to far north Queensland.

"*With a large number of new entrants unfamiliar with uniquely Australian conditions, we are seeing some proponents make commercial commitments ahead of confirming grid connection requirements* – this has the potential to lead to suboptimal investment and power system performance outcomes," an AEMO spokesperson said.

https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Fil...ections/Power-System-Limitations-December.pdf

https://aemo.com.au/en/news/constraints-lifted-for-west-murray-solar-farms

SMA Australia Head of Service, Scott Partlin, said: “SMA is extremely pleased and proud of the role we have been able to play in providing a ground-breaking technical solution to our customers and the network, which has seen these curtailments finally lifted. *These unique Australian technical challenges were successfully solved by our German-based Research & Development engineers by working closely with AEMO*. The new capability in our SMA Sunny Central inverters should assist to benefit the Australian power grid as the share of renewables increases. We look forward to continuing to work closely with AEMO to see this new capability realised across our Australian fleet of inverters.”


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> https://www.afr.com/politics/aemo-i...-solar-in-victorias-full-grid-20181012-h16l0h
> From the article:
> A crackdown by the Australian Energy Market Operator has snared French energy giant Total Eren, which will launch Victoria's biggest solar farm this week minus one of its anchor customers.
> 
> This follows delays caused by a standoff with AEMO over grid system security in north-west Victoria where there is a bulging pipeline of new wind and solar.
> AEMO said *the problem was being exacerbated by foreign developers failing to appreciate the unique susceptibility of Australia's long, thin grid to the strains of adding new wind and solar generation to parts that did not previously support generation* to replace coal-fired power shutting down elsewhere. Australia has the developed world's longest, thinnest grid, stretching about 5000 kilometres from South Australia's west to far north Queensland.
> 
> "*With a large number of new entrants unfamiliar with uniquely Australian conditions, we are seeing some proponents make commercial commitments ahead of confirming grid connection requirements* – this has the potential to lead to suboptimal investment and power system performance outcomes," an AEMO spokesperson said.
> 
> https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Fil...ections/Power-System-Limitations-December.pdf
> 
> https://aemo.com.au/en/news/constraints-lifted-for-west-murray-solar-farms
> 
> SMA Australia Head of Service, Scott Partlin, said: “SMA is extremely pleased and proud of the role we have been able to play in providing a ground-breaking technical solution to our customers and the network, which has seen these curtailments finally lifted. *These unique Australian technical challenges were successfully solved by our German-based Research & Development engineers by working closely with AEMO*. The new capability in our SMA Sunny Central inverters should assist to benefit the Australian power grid as the share of renewables increases. We look forward to continuing to work closely with AEMO to see this new capability realised across our Australian fleet of inverters.”



So despite renewable issues being over a decade old, our government's have not supported policies which get the cheapest energy into the grid.
Finkel Reported on what needed to be done in 2017, and here we are 3 years later sitting on our hands!


----------



## sptrawler

Typical, change tack, change the debate, start the circular argument.
You wanted evidence that the Australian grid is unique, regarding renewable deployment, I provided that.

The State governments are going to have to reconfigure their transmission networks, to facilitate major remote generation, this will take time.
Meanwhile the State Governments, other than S.A and W.A, don't seem to have the stomach for change maybe the electoral backlash worries them.
Or maybe the fact, that they lost control of their generation base and now have to somehow replace it, maybe they should have held the money they made from the sale in trust?
Victoria didn't have any trouble cancelling $1billion in road infrastructure contracts, that would go a long way in supporting the adoption of renewables.
I don't know what N.S.W and Vic are doing to mitigate the loss of coal generation.
S.A and W.A seem to be transitioning o.k
W.A only has one privately owned coal fired station, as I've already mentioned, therefore the transition to gas/renewables should be fairly trouble free. Not a lot of conflicts of interest, to put a fly in the ointment.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Typical, change tack, change the debate, start the circular argument.
> You wanted evidence that the Australian grid is unique, regarding renewable deployment, I provided that.
> 
> The State governments are going to have to reconfigure their transmission networks, to facilitate major remote generation, this will take time.
> Meanwhile the State Governments, other than S.A and W.A, don't seem to have the stomach for change maybe the electoral backlash worries them.
> Or maybe the fact, that they lost control of their generation base and now have to somehow replace it, maybe they should have held the money they made from the sale in trust?
> Victoria didn't have any trouble cancelling $1billion in road infrastructure contracts, that would go a long way in supporting the adoption of renewables.
> I don't know what N.S.W and Vic are doing to mitigate the loss of coal generation.
> S.A and W.A seem to be transitioning o.k



Your points have related to a "self resolving" system.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Despite years and years of warnings about what was necessary, the work has not been done.
So what you did was confirm my point in that we are uniquely unprepared while other nations have acted on the obvious.
You can read numerous Reports over many years at AEMO's website, plus industry submissions, noting our unpreparedness.
Have a look at what China and Brazil have done with multi-thousand kilometre HVDC lines to get renewable energy from far flung places.  These are completed projects and we don't even have any planned.
In terms of adding new capacity, industry wants investment certainty before making billion dollar commitments.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Your points have related to a "self resolving" system.
> Nothing could be further from the truth.
> Despite years and years of warnings about what was necessary, the work has not been done.
> So what you did was confirm my point in that we are uniquely unprepared while other nations have acted on the obvious.
> You can read numerous Reports over many years at AEMO's website, plus industry submissions, noting our unpreparedness.
> Have a look at what China and Brazil have done with multi-thousand kilometre HVDC lines to get renewable energy from far flung places.  These are completed projects and we don't even have any planned.
> In terms of adding new capacity, industry wants investment certainty before making billion dollar commitments.



It will be self resolving, as I've said over and over, the system will not be allowed to completely collapse.
Western society and especially a first world country, is dependent on a working electrical grid, therefore whatever is required to maintain a reliable grid will be implemented.
If that doesn't include your preferred model, who gives a damn.
It is a pointless going around in circles.
If AGL doesn't want to install new capacity and Origin doesn't want to, then the States will have to install it themselves, then the generating companies lose market share.
It will be self resolving, you think it will be a case of everthing on the East coast shutting down, get a grip.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> It will be self resolving, as I've said over and over, the system will not be allowed to completely collapse.



This statement seems completely out of character  coming from  a person with a high level engineering skill.
I can't imagine any complex engineering project being "self resolving". Engineers need, no* demand*, to know the parameters of what they are expected to achieve.  They don't anticipate "self resolving" the overall designs of the project as they go.

I can understand that on a micro level, project engineers will encounter some issues around a build which need to be addressed. A tweak here , another approach there.  A cleverer way *to make an agreed project *work. But that is nowhere near expecting the whole design system  of interconnected grids, voltage protection, load protection etc to just happen by  omnipresent Intelligent Design.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> It will be self resolving, as I've said over and over, the system will not be allowed to completely collapse.
> Western society and especially a first world country, is dependent on a working electrical grid, therefore whatever is required to maintain a reliable grid will be implemented.
> If that doesn't include your preferred model, who gives a damn.
> It is a pointless going around in circles.
> If AGL doesn't want to install new capacity and Origin doesn't want to, then the States will have to install it themselves, then the generating companies lose market share.
> It will be self resolving, you think it will be a case of everthing on the East coast shutting down, get a grip.



I don't know how to explain it better to you, but what you are saying is "self resolving" is in fact nothing of the sort.
It's a bit like saying a war is self resolving.  It is a meaningless sense.
Moving on, as your points above note, the system cannot meet the additional renewable capacity now being contemplated.
*Intervention *is necessary.
Furthermore, I don't have a preferred model.  You plan to cope with future demands in accordance with probable international trends that are capable of being replicated in Australia.  Inherent in the planning process in decarbonising our generation to the maximum extent practicable.
AEMO has been doing this.  Finkel has added his two bob's worth.
But successive federal Energy Minister's are tone deaf to renewables so here we are... floundering.
I suggest you read the very many industry submissions that make it clear that the likes of AGL and Origin are willing to invest in new capacity, but will not do so until there is policy certainty.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> This statement seems completely out of character  coming from  a person with a high level engineering skill.
> I can't imagine any complex engineering project being "self resolving". Engineers need, no* demand*, to know the parameters of what they are expected to achieve.  They don't anticipate "self resolving" the overall designs of the project as they go.
> 
> I can understand that on a micro level, project engineers will encounter some issues around a build which need to be addressed. A tweak here , another approach there.  A cleverer way *to make an agreed project *work. But that is nowhere near expecting the whole design system  of interconnected grids, voltage protection, load protection etc to just happen by  omnipresent Intelligent Design.



I was referring to the fact there is no reason to scare the hell out of people, when intervention is required, intervention will be taken as it is an essential service.
I have no doubt at all that there is a myriad of things happening, that the general public isn't aware off, it is a shame everyone is so needy. 
I guess it is a result of social media, making everyone feel they are so important, they should be informed as to everything that is happening.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I was referring to the fact there is no reason to scare the hell out of people, when intervention is required, intervention will be taken as it is an essential service.
> I have no doubt at all that there is a myriad of things happening, that the general public isn't aware off, it is a shame everyone is so needy.
> I guess it is a result of social media, making everyone feel they are so important, they should be informed as to everything that is happening.



Intervention has been necessary for years.
It's either not happening at all or happening too slowly.
By international standards the blackouts experienced in recent years in SA and Victoria are exceptional.
For example over a 15 month period South Australia experienced blackouts on 1 November 2015 (110,000 households),  a system black event on 28 September 2016 (whole state), 1 December 2016 (200,000 households), 27 December 2016 (155,000 households), 20 January 2017 (55,000 households) and 8 February 2017 (90,000 households).
Little wonder South Australia has such a high percentage of rooftop solar!
The general public is well aware of the potential for blackouts as they get a lot of media coverage for good reason.
They may not be well informed about what is happening to fix the problem.  That, however, is largely due to the fact that it's not a lot.


----------



## sptrawler

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/gas-not-coal-to-shore-up-solar-wind-energy-20200520-p54umn


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/gas-not-coal-to-shore-up-solar-wind-energy-20200520-p54umn



Pretty old news.  It was better explained back in 2017.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> For example over a 15 month period South Australia experienced blackouts on 1 November 2015 (110,000 households), a system black event on 28 September 2016 (whole state), 1 December 2016 (200,000 households), 27 December 2016 (155,000 households), 20 January 2017 (55,000 households) and 8 February 2017 (90,000 households).




No argument there but I'll add that Victoria is similarly fragile.

There are differences between the two states but both are in bad shape. Victoria with lack of capacity and reliance in single items of critical infrastructure. SA with a bit more capacity but still not enough and with difficulties maintaining voltage control and system inertia. That SA's non-intermittent generating capacity is very heavily concentrated geographically is a concern too if something were to happen there.

After that, NSW is next. Not in great shape in terms of capacity but they don't have the same reliance on single points of failure or controlling the system that Vic and SA do. So long as Queensland keeps the megawatts flowing over the border then NSW will have some hiccups but nothing drastic unless some major fault occurs. 

NT has the problem of scale meaning high reliance on single pieces of equipment. Otherwise not too bad apart from that risk.

Queensland, WA, Tasmania in far better shape. They could have an incident, the risk is never zero, but that would be down to an unfortunate series of events if it did occur.

Tasmania does have the most inherently fragile gas supply however. That's not an issue of any real significance in terms of electricity supply but it's a risk in terms of supply gas for use as gas. That said, most states


----------



## sptrawler

A few interesting points made in the article.
https://www.afr.com/companies/energ...llion renewable,2027, according to its backer.
From the article:
The grant would examine early feasibility work on the Urannah project, which would initially involve 1 gigawatt of pumped hydropower generation, with seven hours of storage capacity, as well as a further 500MW with a longer storage capacity. The solar and wind projects could be developed earlier, given their shorter approvals process.
While Genex's proposed Kidston pumped hydro project in Queensland is more advanced, Mr McDonald noted that the Australian Energy Market Operator has identified the need for one or more large-scale pumped hydro projects in Queensland by 2035 to help with security of supply amid the major growth in generation from intermittent renewable energy.

The project would also help reduce transmission losses due to congested supply during peak generation periods and allow major coal fired power stations to operate more efficiently and under less stress because they would not be required to vary their output so often, the group said.

It would also help with voltage and frequency regulation, and system strength, for the power grid, especially as existing coal-fired power stations retire from the market and close, starting with the Callide generator in 2028.


----------



## sptrawler

AGL to link executives pay to climate targets.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/com...0-p557jr.html?js-chunk-not-found-refresh=true
From the article:
"We understand that, as Australia's largest carbon emitter, our management team has a role to play in the transition and we want to hold ourselves accountable to this," AGL chief Brett Redman said.
However, AGL's new climate strategy made no changes to plans to bring forward the retirement of its fleet of coal-fired power generators, the biggest source of emissions. AGL would continue running its Bayswater plant in NSW until the end of its economic life in 2035 and Loy Yang A plant in Victoria's Latrobe Valley until 2048 unless customer demands accelerated to the point that they were prepared to pay the higher prices caused by removing coal from the grid sooner.

"If, universally, our customers said tomorrow 'we want nothing but green power and we're prepared to pay the price of that' then we would meet that customer demand," Mr Redman said.
"What our customers are telling us today is that they want to get to a low- or no-carbon future but they want to get to it in a way that balances cost."
Mr Redman said carbon-neutral offerings would be made available to all AGL electricity customers from Wednesday and to all gas and telecommunications plans by next year. Under the government-certified products, customers could choose to pay $1 a week and small businesses $4 a week to help offset their share of emissions through AGL investing in certified initiatives such as restoring forests or developing clean cookstove technology.


----------



## sptrawler

Looks as though Snowy 2.0 is about to go ahead.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...dro-and-new-wave-of-jobs-20200630-p557n6.html


----------



## sptrawler

For anyone who is genuinely interested, in the East Coast integrated power system development, a FAQ style explanation of current and future considerations. Really well put together, for the layman.

https://aemo.com.au/-/media/files/major-publications/ris/2020/ris-faq.pdf?la=en


----------



## SirRumpole

One man's dream for renewable energy.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07...es-renewable-energy-best-opportunity/12432484


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> One man's dream for renewable energy.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07...es-renewable-energy-best-opportunity/12432484




It's a bit bigger than "Ones Mans Dream".

Mike Cannon-Brookes was representing the analysis  of scores of organisations that put together a strategy to address long term energy issues as a way to reemploy people after this crisis *and*  create outstanding value for the community.

*The MillionJobs Plan Australia can create millions of jobs by becoming a renewable energy superpower*
https://bze.org.au/wp-content/uploads/BZE_Million_Jobs_Plan_May_2020.pdf


----------



## basilio

There is another way to cost effectively integrate hydrogen into the urban gas system.

*Hydrogen didn't work for the Hindenburg, but can the gas be safely supplied to Australian homes?*
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07...ject-to-pump-gas-into-adelaide-homes/12439426


----------



## macca

basilio said:


> There is another way to cost effectively integrate hydrogen into the urban gas system.
> 
> *Hydrogen didn't work for the Hindenburg, but can the gas be safely supplied to Australian homes?*
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07...ject-to-pump-gas-into-adelaide-homes/12439426




One problem is that they are going to extract it from water, if they can use sea water it would work.

With the massive increase in our population we need all the drinking water we can get.

I guess we build desalinisation plants but they use a lot of power


----------



## SirRumpole

macca said:


> One problem is that they are going to extract it from water, if they can use sea water it would work.
> 
> With the massive increase in our population we need all the drinking water we can get.
> 
> I guess we build desalinisation plants but they use a lot of power




https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=can+seawater+be+electrolysed


----------



## Smurf1976

There's also an abundance of fresh water at various locations in northern Australia and more than enough in Tasmania.

It's a scarce resource in some places yes but in others there's vast amounts running straight into the sea.


----------



## macca

Smurf1976 said:


> There's also an abundance of fresh water at various locations in northern Australia and more than enough in Tasmania.
> 
> It's a scarce resource in some places yes but in others there's vast amounts running straight into the sea.



All true but then we have to get the Hydrogen where we need it.

I have always thought that Hydrogen cars should have been a winner but rather slow to happen


----------



## sptrawler

macca said:


> All true but then we have to get the Hydrogen where we need it.



There is a lot happening in the hydrogen space.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06...ered-hydrogen-project-announced-in-australia/
From the article:
The company said that the Pacific Solar Hydrogen project is ideally positioned, with close proximity to the existing power grid and the Port of Gladstone, which is becoming Queensland’s green hydrogen mecca. The traditional coal and gas hub of Gladstone has been selected to host two major projects – a gigawatt-scale green hydrogen and ammonia development and a gas injection facility to blend renewable hydrogen into its natural gas network. These projects could make it the first entire city in the nation to be on a blend of natural gas and hydrogen.

The latest project announcement comes only days after the oversubscribed funding round run by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) unmistakably showed that many companies are now ready to start building large-scale renewable hydrogen projects across a range of industries and end-users. Far outstripping the available funding of AU$70 million ($48.8 million), the funding round attracted 36 expressions of interest from prospective developers, representing more than AU$1 billion in total grant funding and covering almost 500 MW in proposed capacity.

Another newcomer to the green hydrogen scene, Perth-based Infinite Blue Energy (IBE) recently unveiled a plan to deliver Australia’s first green hydrogen baseload power plant. It will initially focus on providing 1,000 MW of green hydrogen using solar, wind and hydrogen fuel cells for 24/7 electricity supply. In April, the same company announced plans for the first of many green hydrogen projects in Western Australia, after securing an initial AU$300 million investment for the first phase of construction.
Other companies that have announced gigawatt-scale plans in Western Australia include BP Australia, which is looking to develop around 1.5 GW of greenfield solar and wind projects. Siemens also aims to produce green hydrogen for local industry and export to Asia from up to 5 GW of wind and solar capacity.

Another mega-project underway in Western Australia is the Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH), which could feature up to 15 GW of solar and wind capacity to supply local energy users in the Pilbara region. There are also plans to develop a green hydrogen manufacturing hub for domestic use and export to Asia. Recently, AREH moved forward after being recommended for environmental approval.


----------



## SirRumpole

This will be the future IMO, no need for land based power stations, put solar cells in space and beam the energy back to earth, probably as microwaves. 

The sun always shines in space.

https://space.nss.org/space-solar-power/


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> This will be the future IMO, no need for land based power stations, put solar cells in space and beam the energy back to earth, probably as microwaves.
> 
> The sun always shines in space.
> 
> https://space.nss.org/space-solar-power/



I kind of wonder how the satellites in lower orbit, will duck and weave the transfer beam, let alone the birds etc.
https://www.sciencealert.com/this-solar-plant-accidentally-incinerates-up-to-6-000-birds-a-year


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I kind of wonder how the satellites in lower orbit, will duck and weave the transfer beam, let alone the birds etc.
> https://www.sciencealert.com/this-solar-plant-accidentally-incinerates-up-to-6-000-birds-a-year




Details, details ...


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> This will be the future IMO, no need for land based power stations, put solar cells in space and beam the energy back to earth, probably as microwaves.




I'll reserve judgement on that one - the idea has been around since the 1970's and thus far, no go.

Anything could happen of course.


----------



## Smurf1976

Following discussion about this in the Electric Vehicles thread, here's some facts and figures regarding power supply.

I'm using Victoria as the example since it's in the worst position with electricity supply adequacy at present. That doesn't guarantee that some other state won't have a problem whilst Victoria avoids one, there's an element of luck involved, but the numbers are worse in Vic and thus it is the harshest test when it comes to being able to charge electric cars without overloading supply.

As a brief summary - power supply is already extremely stretched during heatwave conditions, load shedding is indeed a very real prospect, but even on those days that issue exists only for a few hours. Charging EV's overnight or even during much of the business day simply isn't a major concern. It's late afternoon - early evening that is the problem as the sun sets (solar generation falls) and the use of air-conditioning peaks as well as people arriving home and using electricity for various purposes etc.

Following is a purely technical (electrical) analysis for those interested. You could deduce some financial relevance from it possibly that that isn't the focus. Figures are all MW not $ from here on.

First, some basic data:

Total coal, gas and hydro plant installed in Victoria (there's no diesels in Vic) = 9565 MW (including Murray 1 & Murray 2 which are on the border with NSW and part of the Snowy scheme and including the full output of Hume power station which can be sent to either Vic or NSW as required).

Total discharge power of large scale batteries in Victoria = 75 MW

Transmission limit SA to Victoria = 700 MW

Transmission limit Tasmania to Victoria = 478 MW

Transmission limit NSW to Victoria = a complex answer since the lines are shared with generators in Victoria such that it's largely a "one or the other" scenario. Realistically though, with all that generation running an additional ~200 MW can be pushed through from NSW. In addition to supply from NSW is effectively a sort-of backup to that generating plant (all of which is hydro) since if that fails then without it running, more can be pushed through from NSW assuming there's capacity available.

Wind generation in Vic peaks at just under 1900 MW and large scale solar tops out at about 285 MW.

Total generation in Vic + batteries + supply from interstate = 13,200 MW.

Historic maximum demand = 10,490 MW (all time) and 9618 MW (past 12 months).

OK then, so 13,200 MW supply versus 10,490 MW maximum demand so what's all the fuss about then? This doesn't look to be a problem?

Unfortunately all is not as it may at first seem. Going through the issues:

First problem is that demand peaks during hot weather and usually does so late in the day.

*We can forget any major contribution from solar at this time. It won't be zero but it'll be well on the way down for a late afternoon or early morning peak. Only if, due to unusual weather (which has happened in the past so it's plausible albeit not normal) does demand peak during the middle of the day.

*The big one - heat directly cuts the output of generating plant. It's to the point that there are official "winter" and "summer' ratings for that reason. It doesn't affect hydro plant but it isn't at all kind to gas turbines.

Capacity of coal, gas and hydro plant during mild weather = 9565 MW
Capacity of coal, gas and hydro plant under 41 degree conditions = 8947 MW

(Note that AEMO uses 41 degrees as the reference for hot conditions in Victoria, other states it's different temperatures).

Second problem is that hot weather in Victoria tends to not be isolated to Victoria and usually affects SA at the same time.

*So that 700 MW from SA is by no means assured, it literally depends on either it not being hot in SA at the same time or there being substantial output from SA wind farms. Both have occurred in the past, and both have failed to occur in the past. It's hit and miss.

Third problem is that the chance of all generating plant actually working perfectly is really quite low. It was never designed to do that, it's expected that outages will occur and that's inevitable when you've got lots of moving parts, high pressure, high temperature and so on.

How much to deduct for plant outages is somewhat subjective, it depends how much you want to spend on extra plant versus taking the risk of running short of capacity, but in terms of the Summer rating:

*The original design basis for the Victorian generating plants in question gives an answer of 7795 MW that should actually work on the day. Anything beyond that is a bonus but don't count on it.

*A very common generic approach, which does not take into account the Victorian facilities specifically but is generic, gives an answer of 7887 MW. That is in practice the total installed capacity less heat-related reductions and less the two largest generating units.

So both give an answer of about 7800 MW as the "firm" capacity. In practical terms, that's not far from past experience - two major generating unit outages will give that result and so will a combination of smaller issues that has certainly happened in the past.

Fourth problem is that to be blunt there's some rather ancient and worn out plant in the mix. There's 700 MW of steam plant from 1973 - 75 that's well past its intended design life and not particularly reliable these days. It does work, half of it's running right now, but its presence does pose a risk. Better off with it than without it, but it would be better to have something that wasn't old and tired.

So if we do the sums again then it's 7795 MW generation in Victoria that ought to be reliable.

Plus 478 MW from Tasmania

Plus 200 MW from NSW

Plus 75 MW peaking power from batteries

That comes to 8548 MW versus historic maximum demand of 10,490 MW and maximum in the past 12 months of 9618 MW. Now you see where the concern arises - that's a substantial gap.

So how can it be done:

*High winds and/or mild temperatures in SA will add 700 MW supply from that state.

*Wind generation in Victoria could be anywhere between virtually zero and 1900 MW and is beyond anyone's control. Nature controls whether it blows on the day or not - past history says sometimes yes, sometimes no.

*If the peak's earlier in the day than normal then add up to 285 MW from large scale solar. Typically the peak is late afternoon but peaks during the middle of the day have occurred in the past so it can happen.

*Generating plant working better than expected, with fewer outages, adds up to 1152 MW above the "firm" case scenario. That one's down largely to luck - no amount of maintenance will guarantee nothing fails, especially not when it's being pushed to the limit, but with a lot of luck it all does hold up. Past precedent says it might happen but don't count on it.

End result = it might work but no guarantees. If it's windy across SA and Vic and plant works better than normal then nothing to worry about. If no wind and there's a couple of generating plant outages then all hell breaks loose. A scenario somewhere in the middle may see a bit of load shedding but nothing too drastic.

Those taking an "engineering" view will see that as an unacceptable risk. They'll consider that it shouldn't be down to chance and that the system should be able to meet load with reasonably expected plant outages (Eg two generating units out of service) and under the full range of weather conditions which have previously been experienced. That is, a simultaneous heatwave in SA + Vic with the peak late in the day and minimal wind - a scenario which has indeed occurred on previous occasions.

Those taking a "financial" view will be looking at the cost of building and maintaining more plant versus the hours per year when it would actually be needed and conclude that doing so doesn't really make sense hence why they haven't already built it.

Those taking a "political" view from the government side will note that the first 500 MW of load shedding can be effectively hidden from view by doing it at the Alcoa aluminium smelter and on that basis they can probably withstand the political pain of the reality that even if every house in the state loses power spread over a few months, it won't all be at once and any individual consumer will only be in the dark once or twice over Summer. They'll be ready with some "good news" announcement about funding fire brigades or schools or something to deflect attention from the blackout.

Those taking a "self interest" view will do just that. If they're a business which is plunged into darkness and loses custom then they'll be screaming extremely loudly. In contrast someone selling backup batteries won't be complaining even slightly, indeed they'd like a few more failures thanks.

To the electric vehicles which prompted this comment however, well there's really no reason for concern at all. Looking at data for 31 January 2020 when the temperature reached 42.9 in Melbourne, electricity demand at (times are Vic Daylight Savings time and note these figures do not include the impact of small scale solar generation on house roofs etc):

12:00 = 6062 MW
13:00 = 6821 MW
14:00 = 7302 MW
15:00 = 7798 MW
16:00 = 8441 MW

17:00 = 8921 MW
17:30 = 9195 MW
18:00 = 9352 MW
18:30 = 9330 MW

19:00 = 9420 MW
*19:05 = 9453 MW*
19:10 = 9364 MW

19:30 = 9191 MW
20:00 = 9027 MW

21:00 = 8444 MW
22:00 = 7488 MW
23:00 = 6447 MW
00:00 = 5998 MW

So *even on an extreme hot day, the period of high demand during which EV charging would be a significant issue is relatively short*.

For the record, for that peak at 19:05

Wind and large solar within Victoria = 336 MW
Coal, gas and hydro within Victoria = 8548 MW
From NSW = 487 MW
From Tasmania = 464 MW
From SA = -361 MW (that is, flow was from Victoria into SA)

Figures don't quite add up due to transmission losses not shown. They're a few MW here and there between states.

That there was power from from Vic to SA at that time was primarily for economic reasons. Technically there was about 560 MW available in SA but economics didn't favour it at the time (much of that is diesel plant).

So that's a real example for a day when Vic was very close to the limit, the weather was properly hot, but there was some wind generation running and coal+gas+hydro combined worked a bit better than should be expected and no major drama resulted.

Even on that day, just two hours after the peak demand had dropped ~1000 MW, after 3 hours it was down ~2000 MW and after 4 hours it was down ~3000 MW from the peak. So there's plenty of opportunity to charge EV's overnight even on an extreme day when supply was very tight at the peak.

Based on data extracted from AEMO archives which are accessible at the link below (but it's not in layman's terms, it's the raw data).

http://www.nemweb.com.au/REPORTS/ARCHIVE/

For the record, as of right now demand in Victoria is puttering along at about 4500 MW. There's about 3500 MW of unused generating plant within the state that could run right now and if we take the total across the National Electricity Market states (all states except WA and NT plus remote towns etc in other states):

Available capacity (what's actually available and able to run, so not including anything that's dismantled for maintenance etc):  36,496 MW

Current production: 18,130 MW

So just under 50% of available supply is being used right now with 18,366 MW spare. If the wind stopped completely in every state that would still be about 14,650 MW spare. 

That's all pretty normal given it's the middle of the night and that's the point. More use can be made of what's already there if it can be used when demand is otherwise low in order to charge EV batteries or indeed for any worthwhile purpose. Peaks are a problem, we're on a knife edge in some states and load shedding is a real possibility over summer around 6 - 7pm, but middle of the night no worries.

For those who disagree, the data's all available to anyone with an internet connection and spreadsheet software so let's see your analysis.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> So just under 50% of available supply is being used right now with 18,366 MW spare. If the wind stopped completely in every state that would still be about 14,650 MW spare.




Thanks Smurf.

Would it be a silly question to ask how many additional Teslas  could be charged off peak given the current oversupply, assuming  as an average that they were being charged from 50% to full ?


----------



## qldfrog

19 million car in Australia
Victoria population 6m plus
Roughly 25pc of Australia.
So around 5millions cars in Victoria
Sure we can get real figures.no truck included
If they average 50km a day each..
5millionx25kwhx0.5
62.5 GWH required in lets say 10h of non peak charging
6.25gwh consumption needed in Victoria per charging hour for a current fleet of 100 pc EV driving 50km a day
Obviously, not a problem now but do we agree the current grid can not serve that?
@Smurf1976 ?


----------



## qldfrog

qldfrog said:


> 19 million car in Australia
> Victoria population 6m plus
> Roughly 25pc of Australia.
> So around 5millions cars in Victoria
> Sure we can get real figures.no truck included
> If they average 50km a day each..
> 5millionx25kwhx0.5
> 62.5 GWH required in lets say 10h of non peak charging
> 6.25gwh consumption needed in Victoria per charging hour for a current fleet of 100 pc EV driving 50km a day
> Obviously, not a problem now but do we agree the current grid can not serve that?
> @Smurf1976 ?



And i just have the phone so just looking at order of magnitude yes not everyone drive 50km average 25kwh per 100km os current technology..but for new batteries, and current population..etc
So looking at rough figures


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Thanks Smurf.
> 
> Would it be a silly question to ask how many additional Teslas  could be charged off peak given the current oversupply, assuming  as an average that they were being charged from 50% to full ?



The thing is that we are trying to reduce emissions, to charge the electric cars overnight, will mean running the fossil fuel generators.
That is the point I've been trying to make regarding the renewables and storage, not only do you need enough renewables to run the grid, you need enough, to at the same time to charge your storage. So that overnight and early morning peak can be carried.
If you are using that to charge your cars, it isn't available for grid dispatch, this is not a simple just do it situation IMO.
As smurf has said, it is a technical issue, that needs careful planning.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The thing is that we are trying to reduce emissions, to charge the electric cars overnight, will mean running the fossil fuel generators.
> That is the point I've been trying to make regarding the renewables and storage, not only do you need enough renewables to run the grid, you need enough, to at the same time to charge your storage. So that overnight and early morning peak can be carried.
> If you are using that to charge your cars, it isn't available for grid dispatch, this is not a simple just do it situation IMO.
> As smurf has said, it is a technical issue, that needs careful planning.




OK it was a silly question.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> OK it was a silly question.



There is no silly questions Rumpy, by now I would say you would be one of the most informed people in the general public with regard generation and distribution, because you listen ask questions and think things through.
If everyone was as you are, this whole transition, would be a hell of a lot easier IMO.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> There is no silly questions Rumpy, by now I would say you would be one of the most informed people in the general public with regard generation and distribution, because you listen ask questions and think things through.
> If everyone was as you are, this whole transition, would be a hell of a lot easier IMO.




Thanks for that nice comment sp, I try to learn about this stuff, and as you say it's extremely complex technically.

If only people like you and Smurf were designing the network, not a lot of economists or Greenies.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Thanks for that nice comment sp, I try to learn about this stuff, and as you say it's extremely complex technically.
> 
> If only people like you and Smurf were designing the network, not a lot of economists or Greenies.



I'm of the belief they are, there is a lot of agenda's and a lot of money to be made especially with renewables, but it all has to be driven by technical design not private agenda's.
To change the grid over from a fossil fueled centralised generation model, to a remotely located intermittent power supply and still a provide reliable service during the transition, is a huge task.


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> Obviously, not a problem now but do we agree the current grid can not serve that?



According to this https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/9208.0

Victoria has about 26% of the cars in Australia and on average they travel 14,100 km per year.

19,000,000 cars nationally x 0.26 = 4.94 million in Victoria. Let's round that up to 5 million.

14,100 km each per year x 5 million = 70,500,000,000 km driven per year or 193,150,684 km per day.

value-collector reports consumption of about 12 kWh / 100 km and official specification of 15 kWh / 100 km.

Most calculations I've seen done, by anyone, have been based on 20 kWh / 100 km as a nice round number that's unlikely to be too low.

I'll be generous here and use 25 kWh / 100 km, or you could express that as 0.25 kWh / km.

193,150,684 x 0.25 = 48,287,671 kWh per day or an average over 24 hours of 2012 MW (or double that over 12 hours etc). That compares with present Victorian average electricity consumption of 5300 MW and peak demand of 10,490 MW.

The highest daily consumption over the past 12 months occurred on 31 January at 183 GWh or an average load of 7625 MW.

Realistically some EV's will charge during the peak, eg those who use a fast charger at a service station or in a car park are going to do it at a time convenient to them, so there will need to be some upgrades that's a given. We're not talking about 120% or anything like that though since, even if EV charging were distributed evenly across the day with no conscious effort to avoid adding to the peak demand, the increase in that peak is still only about 20%.

There's also a point that demand tends to rise anyway. Here's some historic data for Victoria:

2010: 10,088 MW
2000: 7717 MW
1992: 5850 MW (I don't have the data for 1990 handy......)
1980: 4031 MW
1970: 2536 MW
1960: 1313 MW
1950: 504 MW
1940: 219 MW
1930: 103 MW

All time record = 10,490 MW

So it's not as though we haven't added rather a lot of supply and network capability in the past. Indeed in the mid-1970's Victoria was, electrically, smaller than South Australia is today.

On the network side certainly there will be some particular areas where upgrades are needed but that's nothing that hasn't been seen before. It's not a rebuild, it's more about adding some transformers here, building a subtransmission line there, etc.

In all of that, it must be remembered that we're talking about 30+ years to do all this, it's not something that's going to happen overnight. So 30+ years in which to sort out a way of dealing with an increase in peak demand that's less than half what we've actually done in the past 30 years.

Go back 30 years and 1990 was a different world really. No internet most obviously. Not simply most not having it, but simply no such concept. Google, Facebook, social media and so on were not terms that anyone recognised in 1990 when the mere idea of sending studio quality music, or heaven forbid video, over a phone line would have seemed truly ridiculous. And yet here we are, dial-up has been and gone, so too ADSL is now largely redundant and for that matter so are the phone lines themselves. All that happened in less time than we'll have to implement charging infrastructure for EV's.

CO2?

Best I can say there is that hypothetically supposing we generated 100% of the electricity used to charge EV's using diesel (very unlikely but to make the point) then for 0.25 kWh / km that works out at about 5.1 litres / 100 km and for 0.15 kWh / km it works out at 3.1 litres / 100 km.

Those figures don't compare badly with existing ICE vehicles bearing in mind that at the upper end of that we're talking about utes and SUV's not a small hatchback. And of course we won't actually generate 100% of the power using diesel, indeed even 10% from that source would be unlikely at the national level over the long term.

Power generation does pollute yes. With this thread in mind I asked someone who has a reasonable view of it from a distance if they'd mind taking a photo this afternoon:







I wouldn't be too worried though. There's nothing in that plume that's drastically toxic - it's CO2 and water vapour mostly.

Even using fossil fuels as the power source for EV's isn't a deal breaker. There's still that huge efficiency gain compared to petrol engines, even if we're still polluting we're doing so on a lesser scale and not in anyone's face, and there's still the aspect that having emissions discharged up a 200+ metre high stack away from most people beats having a few million exhaust pipes discharging in the suburbs at almost ground level.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> As smurf has said, it is a technical issue, that needs careful planning.



It's one of those things which can be done but that's no guarantee it will actually be done. Therein lies the danger.

Politicians especially tend to underestimate what's required which can be summed up by saying that whilst modern computers for home or small office use are somewhat "plug and play", anything major like a power grid really does need very thorough design.

A key input to that is what does society want it to do? How reliable does it need to be? What environmental impacts are acceptable and what isn't? Etc. 

A problem is that politicians tend to want to keep themselves and government in general as far as possible away from anything technical and the media isn't keen on it either. So things tend to be either downplayed or sensationalised.


----------



## Smurf1976

If you've ever wondered what's inside a power station then see this video.

It's a look around one unit only, not the entire station, and gives some idea of the complexity of it all.

Main point - there's a lot to go wrong and sooner or later something does fail. Hence the typical ~80% availability of coal plant and the need to allow for breakdowns without putting the lights out.

If you want to know how loud it is in such a place then think "seriously loud". 

The plant in the video was located in Victoria and is now permanently closed indeed it's under demolition.

The material on the conveyor belts is coal.


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> According to this https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/9208.0
> 
> Victoria has about 26% of the cars in Australia and on average they travel 14,100 km per year.
> 
> 19,000,000 cars nationally x 0.26 = 4.94 million in Victoria. Let's round that up to 5 million.
> 
> 14,100 km each per year x 5 million = 70,500,000,000 km driven per year or 193,150,684 km per day.
> 
> value-collector reports consumption of about 12 kWh / 100 km and official specification of 15 kWh / 100 km.
> 
> Most calculations I've seen done, by anyone, have been based on 20 kWh / 100 km as a nice round number that's unlikely to be too low.
> 
> I'll be generous here and use 25 kWh / 100 km, or you could express that as 0.25 kWh / km.
> 
> 193,150,684 x 0.25 = 48,287,671 kWh per day or an average over 24 hours of 2012 MW (or double that over 12 hours etc). That compares with present Victorian average electricity consumption of 5300 MW and peak demand of 10,490 MW.
> 
> The highest daily consumption over the past 12 months occurred on 31 January at 183 GWh or an average load of 7625 MW.
> 
> Realistically some EV's will charge during the peak, eg those who use a fast charger at a service station or in a car park are going to do it at a time convenient to them, so there will need to be some upgrades that's a given. We're not talking about 120% or anything like that though since, even if EV charging were distributed evenly across the day with no conscious effort to avoid adding to the peak demand, the increase in that peak is still only about 20%.
> 
> There's also a point that demand tends to rise anyway. Here's some historic data for Victoria:
> 
> 2010: 10,088 MW
> 2000: 7717 MW
> 1992: 5850 MW (I don't have the data for 1990 handy......)
> 1980: 4031 MW
> 1970: 2536 MW
> 1960: 1313 MW
> 1950: 504 MW
> 1940: 219 MW
> 1930: 103 MW
> 
> All time record = 10,490 MW
> 
> So it's not as though we haven't added rather a lot of supply and network capability in the past. Indeed in the mid-1970's Victoria was, electrically, smaller than South Australia is today.
> 
> On the network side certainly there will be some particular areas where upgrades are needed but that's nothing that hasn't been seen before. It's not a rebuild, it's more about adding some transformers here, building a subtransmission line there, etc.
> 
> In all of that, it must be remembered that we're talking about 30+ years to do all this, it's not something that's going to happen overnight. So 30+ years in which to sort out a way of dealing with an increase in peak demand that's less than half what we've actually done in the past 30 years.
> 
> Go back 30 years and 1990 was a different world really. No internet most obviously. Not simply most not having it, but simply no such concept. Google, Facebook, social media and so on were not terms that anyone recognised in 1990 when the mere idea of sending studio quality music, or heaven forbid video, over a phone line would have seemed truly ridiculous. And yet here we are, dial-up has been and gone, so too ADSL is now largely redundant and for that matter so are the phone lines themselves. All that happened in less time than we'll have to implement charging infrastructure for EV's.
> 
> CO2?
> 
> Best I can say there is that hypothetically supposing we generated 100% of the electricity used to charge EV's using diesel (very unlikely but to make the point) then for 0.25 kWh / km that works out at about 5.1 litres / 100 km and for 0.15 kWh / km it works out at 3.1 litres / 100 km.
> 
> Those figures don't compare badly with existing ICE vehicles bearing in mind that at the upper end of that we're talking about utes and SUV's not a small hatchback. And of course we won't actually generate 100% of the power using diesel, indeed even 10% from that source would be unlikely at the national level over the long term.
> 
> Power generation does pollute yes. With this thread in mind I asked someone who has a reasonable view of it from a distance if they'd mind taking a photo this afternoon:
> 
> View attachment 106255
> 
> 
> I wouldn't be too worried though. There's nothing in that plume that's drastically toxic - it's CO2 and water vapour mostly.
> 
> Even using fossil fuels as the power source for EV's isn't a deal breaker. There's still that huge efficiency gain compared to petrol engines, even if we're still polluting we're doing so on a lesser scale and not in anyone's face, and there's still the aspect that having emissions discharged up a 200+ metre high stack away from most people beats having a few million exhaust pipes discharging in the suburbs at almost ground level.



Thanks for taking the time of getting the figures for nb cars victoria etc.
The 25kwh per 100km is the actual need on the grid inc battery losses and come straight from a research paper..with new batteries so we are good there
Figures you reach are around 2500 mwh half but same order of magnitude.
does not include trucks etc wonder about light trucks aka utes which are 50pc of traffic if not more around my area.?
We overall agree that infrastructure will need upgrade and infrastructure production improved.
Doable if done properly no doubt with gradual takeon.
I think you are too optimistic as to the spreading of the charging hours but that can be solved too.
Trouble i see is that we need to increase mostly the baseload production so that mean storage which is the week point of solar.
Would also be interesting to see the actual cost of the last mile improvement required.kms in rural, underground lines in suburbs.
Personally, i hope to get an ev in my next place, paid by my trading systems..and 100pc charged on solar during the day.i do not do 6.to 6 at the office anymore.
In qld, evs charged on the grid are still producing more co2 than diesel ice but that is due to our coal use, and it dies not matter anyway.
The good point of EV is that they allow removal of air pollution in cities and that is locally good as i experienced in China plus lower *noises* which is significant once you experience and notice it.
I am not anti EV in any way, it is not just a simpler solution.my dad in Europe is averaging 4l per 100 km on diesel ice with a 10y old car.beat that Ev...but i would prefer a Tesla


----------



## SirRumpole

Interesting article on the "smart grid".

I wonder how far Australia is going down this road now and in the future.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting article on the "smart grid".
> 
> I wonder how far Australia is going down this road now and in the future.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid



Australia IMO will be going a long way down that road, we are going to be one of the most renewable dependent electrical systems in the World, due to the intermittent nature of the generation and the finite storage capacity.
Already all air conditioners have to be able to be remotely switched off, my guess is it will be a requirement for all heavy inductive load appliances at a later date.
The ability to actively interupt demand, will be paramount in stabalising the grid and ensuring sufficient storage reserves are held.
Just look at the situation Tassie ended up in, when the Bass strait link was broken a couple of years ago and their hydro storage had been run down supplying Victoria, you can't press a button and get rain to fill the dams.
They had to fly in a lot of diesel generators and that is a small load, it isn't the Eastern States grid.
It can go very pear shaped, when you don't have control of either your supply or your demand, as toilet paper showed.


----------



## sptrawler

The issue of the 20,000 dam sites for pumped storage, will be an interesting battleground, when the requirement for them to proceed is announced IMO.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/t...nowy-2-0/bc9ced9f-12f5-46af-b6ec-ffeddd72e718

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/...aled-by-leaked-documents-20200721-p55e3e.html


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Australia IMO will be going a long way down that road, we are going to be one of the most renewable dependent electrical systems in the World, due to the intermittent nature of the generation and the finite storage capacity.
> Already all air conditioners have to be able to be remotely switched off, my guess is it will be a requirement for all heavy inductive load appliances at a later date.
> The ability to actively interupt demand, will be paramount in stabalising the grid and ensuring sufficient storage reserves are held.
> Just look at the situation Tassie ended up in, when the Bass strait link was broken a couple of years ago and their hydro storage had been run down supplying Victoria.
> It can go very pear shaped, when you don't have control of either your supply or your demand, as toilet paper showed.




What bothers me is the potential for hacking as pointed out in the article.

We can't even keep the Ch... hackers out of government sites so how can we keep them out of the grid ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> What bothers me is the potential for hacking as pointed out in the article.
> 
> We can't even keep the Ch... hackers out of government sites so how can we keep them out of the grid ?



Well that will have to be something that we live with IMO.
There is no way, if we have a situation where demand exceeds storage and the forecast is for low generation, that excess consumption can continue. It is just common sense, like water rationing when the dams are low. 
When you are relying on the weather to supply your electricity needs, it is a situation where you allow for the worst and hope for the best scenario.
Blind Freddy will be able to see that.
That is why the headlong rush based on emotive grandstanding doesn't cut it, when the crap hits the fan, they just say well you didn't have to listen to me.
Like we say over and over, we can't get ahead of the curve, even electric car charging will have to be able to be curtailed in a bad situation.
The whole renewable grid thing is a massive technical issue, as we keep saying.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Just look at the situation Tassie ended up in, when the Bass strait link was broken a couple of years ago and their hydro storage had been run down supplying Victoria, you can't press a button and get rain to fill the dams.



Being well aware of the detail of that one it came down to a couple of things really:

1. Taking what it says in a contract literally.

Just because it says thou shalt do x, doesn't mean the other party should be counting on x actually happening. See "hotel quarantine in Victoria" for a more recent example of the same basic concept.

In my view it's a consequence of having far too many ex-lawyers in politics. They seem to think that a contract means something actually happens. Those with a technical background are all too aware that a contract is something written on a piece of paper and not what necessarily occurs in practice. Different worlds there.

PS - I don't hate lawyers, just saying there's a disproportionate number of them in politics and that does skew the thinking toward that mindset. A contract and reality are different things and you can't suddenly reverse a technical failure with a financial settlement agreed in court. Different worlds.

2. Direct interference by government, that is the Liberals for those inclined toward politics, prioritised financial return above all else. 

That said, there's an upside to every crisis and ultimately that incident in 2015-16 along with the SA system black later that year were blessings in disguise in my view. They've forced the brushing aside of certain ideology and you'll note that there's a far greater focus from government, nationally, on supply security than there was previously. That doesn't mean it's fixed, not even close, but at least government now grasps that there's a problem and all those irritating engineers and technicians served a purpose after all. 

That said, there's still a very long way to go and if I were to place bets on any state having a crisis in the next few years then I wouldn't be naming Tas or SA as the place it happens. Not impossible, but certainly not the highest risk. There's a few ticking time bombs elsewhere......


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Being well aware of the detail of that one it came down to a couple of things really:
> 
> 1. Taking what it says in a contract literally.
> 
> Just because it says thou shalt do x, doesn't mean the other party should be counting on x actually happening. See "hotel quarantine in Victoria" for a more recent example of the same basic concept.
> 
> In my view it's a consequence of having far too many ex-lawyers in politics. They seem to think that a contract means something actually happens. Those with a technical background are all too aware that a contract is something written on a piece of paper and not what necessarily occurs in practice. Different worlds there.
> 
> PS - I don't hate lawyers, just saying there's a disproportionate number of them in politics and that does skew the thinking toward that mindset. A contract and reality are different things and you can't suddenly reverse a technical failure with a financial settlement agreed in court. Different worlds.
> 
> 2. Direct interference by government, that is the Liberals for those inclined toward politics, prioritised financial return above all else.
> 
> That said, there's an upside to every crisis and ultimately that incident in 2015-16 along with the SA system black later that year were blessings in disguise in my view. They've forced the brushing aside of certain ideology and you'll note that there's a far greater focus from government, nationally, on supply security than there was previously. That doesn't mean it's fixed, not even close, but at least government now grasps that there's a problem and all those irritating engineers and technicians served a purpose after all.
> 
> That said, there's still a very long way to go and if I were to place bets on any state having a crisis in the next few years then I wouldn't be naming Tas or SA as the place it happens. Not impossible, but certainly not the highest risk. There's a few ticking time bombs elsewhere......



Yes there is nothing like reality, to make politicians realise how helpless they are when it all gets out of control, and how they are held responsible for getting there.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> They had to fly in a lot of diesel generators



153 of them. 

Most of them were shipped not flown however.


----------



## Smurf1976

Big problem with any sort of storage, inventory etc is this basically.

Put a technical person (doctor, engineer, trades etc) in charge of any sort of warehouse, reservoir, stockpile etc and their first response will be that "more is better" and next they'll want to know how much is actually needed in the worst case scenario and aim to have that much plus a bit more. If in doubt, err on the side of having too much rather than not enough.

Put a financial person (especially private equity or those of similar inclination) in charge of the same warehouse, reservoir, stockpile etc and they'll immediately point to the huge waste of having all that stock just sitting there. They'll stop all supply until it's virtually empty and will store only the bare minimum needed for day to day operations. If in doubt, it's better to have an empty shelf in the shop than to have product sitting in a warehouse a day longer than necessary.

That's the crux of it basically. Technical people will tend to fill things up, wanting only enough space to ensure that rain isn't wasted or the trains can unload or whatever. Having plenty of spare parts, coal, wheat or whatever on hand provides reassurance that anything which might go wrong can be dealt with in time before the stockpile runs out, thus meaning no interruption to customers or whatever the business does.

Financial people will not see interruption to the physical business as a problem so long as they've covered that via some form of insurance. As such, they'll see no need for the stockpile or indeed for the warehouse itself and will get rid of it as an unnecessary cost.

An engineer would point out that an insurance payout will be in $ not tonnes of flour or MW of electricity and won't keep the bakery running or the lights on. They will also ponder how much a pile of coal sitting on the ground or water in a dam could possibly be costing anyway given it'll be used eventually and the facility to store it is already built.

The two sides are chalk and cheese.

I had a rather lengthy discussion with someone about a piece of workshop equipment once. He was removing it from the workshop he ran on the grounds that it was uneconomic to keep it. Upon questioning, his reasoning was that it cost $x for the floor space it was occupying plus $y for depreciation and so on. End result was he pretty much gave the machine away and then paid a contractor big $ to do the work - they'd have spent more in a month with the contractor than they got for the machine.

Now the problem is, people like that usually win the debate when it comes to politicians and so on. There aren't too many in parliament who've spent any time at all in any sort of workshop and the idea of getting rid of such a thing holds much appeal. That even the lowest level blue collar worker with nothing beyond a grade 10 education can readily spot the flaws in their economic argument won't convince them or the bosses unfortunately.

Same happens across the board. Over the past couple of years we've had coal-fired plant running out of coal, we've had gas / oil fired plant ending up without any of either fuel available and so on. All ultimately due to the same underlying thought process.

Much the same can be seen with the pandemic. It doesn't take a genius to work out that whoever decided how large the stockpiles of various things ought to be was far closer to the "financial" side than to the "technical" side. That alone has probably cost the country $ billions but rest assured we saved the cost of having things sitting on a shelf. Etc.

If society wants this stuff to work then ultimately we have to sort out issues like that. We have to decide that having $1 billion worth of coal, gas and water sitting in storage isn't the end of the world indeed with present low interest rates the cost is trivial. Bulk electricity in the NEM is after all a $14 billion a year business so that sort of stockpile is nothing really.

Tesla is an example of that "technical" sort of thinking really. Building up the company, having all the money in intellectual property, plant, staff capability, materials and so on. That's classic "technical" management of anything - put a finance guy in and they'd have everything sold and leased back, production outsourced and the dividends flowing to shareholders within weeks. A decade later they'd have no company however, that's the downside of that approach and it's a rather large one.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> 153 of them.
> 
> Most of them were shipped not flown however.



It was rhetorical, I was meaning had to be obtained quickly. 
Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I've been reading Rob's "how not to admit a clanger" book.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I had a rather lengthy discussion with someone about a piece of workshop equipment once. He was removing it from the workshop he ran on the grounds that it was uneconomic to keep it. Upon questioning, his reasoning was that it cost $x for the floor space it was occupying plus $y for depreciation and so on. End result was he pretty much gave the machine away and then paid a contractor big $ to do the work - they'd have spent more in a month with the contractor than they got for the machine.




On the same theme, a very large company I worked for, had a thrift drive led by bean counters.
The bean counters decided carrying spares, that hadn't been used for years, was a waste.
So the stores had a really good clean out, much was sold to a very large listed scrap merchant, to cut a long story short buying back a 4MW multi stage feed pump and motor wasn't cheap.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It was rhetorical, I was meaning had to be obtained quickly.



A 58MW OCGT was indeed flown in by the way. 

(Open Cycle Gas Turbine for those for whom that comment makes no sense).


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> Big problem with any sort of storage, inventory etc is this basically.
> 
> Put a technical person (doctor, engineer, trades etc) in charge of any sort of warehouse, reservoir, stockpile etc and their first response will be that "more is better" and next they'll want to know how much is actually needed in the worst case scenario and aim to have that much plus a bit more. If in doubt, err on the side of having too much rather than not enough.
> 
> Put a financial person (especially private equity or those of similar inclination) in charge of the same warehouse, reservoir, stockpile etc and they'll immediately point to the huge waste of having all that stock just sitting there. They'll stop all supply until it's virtually empty and will store only the bare minimum needed for day to day operations. If in doubt, it's better to have an empty shelf in the shop than to have product sitting in a warehouse a day longer than necessary.
> 
> That's the crux of it basically. Technical people will tend to fill things up, wanting only enough space to ensure that rain isn't wasted or the trains can unload or whatever. Having plenty of spare parts, coal, wheat or whatever on hand provides reassurance that anything which might go wrong can be dealt with in time before the stockpile runs out, thus meaning no interruption to customers or whatever the business does.
> 
> Financial people will not see interruption to the physical business as a problem so long as they've covered that via some form of insurance. As such, they'll see no need for the stockpile or indeed for the warehouse itself and will get rid of it as an unnecessary cost.
> 
> An engineer would point out that an insurance payout will be in $ not tonnes of flour or MW of electricity and won't keep the bakery running or the lights on. They will also ponder how much a pile of coal sitting on the ground or water in a dam could possibly be costing anyway given it'll be used eventually and the facility to store it is already built.
> 
> The two sides are chalk and cheese.
> 
> I had a rather lengthy discussion with someone about a piece of workshop equipment once. He was removing it from the workshop he ran on the grounds that it was uneconomic to keep it. Upon questioning, his reasoning was that it cost $x for the floor space it was occupying plus $y for depreciation and so on. End result was he pretty much gave the machine away and then paid a contractor big $ to do the work - they'd have spent more in a month with the contractor than they got for the machine.
> 
> Now the problem is, people like that usually win the debate when it comes to politicians and so on. There aren't too many in parliament who've spent any time at all in any sort of workshop and the idea of getting rid of such a thing holds much appeal. That even the lowest level blue collar worker with nothing beyond a grade 10 education can readily spot the flaws in their economic argument won't convince them or the bosses unfortunately.
> 
> Same happens across the board. Over the past couple of years we've had coal-fired plant running out of coal, we've had gas / oil fired plant ending up without any of either fuel available and so on. All ultimately due to the same underlying thought process.
> 
> Much the same can be seen with the pandemic. It doesn't take a genius to work out that whoever decided how large the stockpiles of various things ought to be was far closer to the "financial" side than to the "technical" side. That alone has probably cost the country $ billions but rest assured we saved the cost of having things sitting on a shelf. Etc.
> 
> If society wants this stuff to work then ultimately we have to sort out issues like that. We have to decide that having $1 billion worth of coal, gas and water sitting in storage isn't the end of the world indeed with present low interest rates the cost is trivial. Bulk electricity in the NEM is after all a $14 billion a year business so that sort of stockpile is nothing really.
> 
> Tesla is an example of that "technical" sort of thinking really. Building up the company, having all the money in intellectual property, plant, staff capability, materials and so on. That's classic "technical" management of anything - put a finance guy in and they'd have everything sold and leased back, production outsourced and the dividends flowing to shareholders within weeks. A decade later they'd have no company however, that's the downside of that approach and it's a rather large one.



Great analysis Smurf.  

It is always a robust discussion and there are times when the hands on people really want to "keep everything" becasue they might/will need it. 

BUT the determination of the finance wing to reduce stocks to a minimum in the name of reduced expenditure is ruthless and overaching and from my experiences in industry costly when something  serious happens.
But of course when the Black Swan flies in the bean counters jump off the ship.


----------



## sptrawler

At last the discussion is starting to focus on the issues, rather than emotion and agendas leading the way, we may start and see some real action in the renewables space IMO. The focus is starting to turn to HV grid issues, rather than agenda's, which is a massive step forward IMO.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/nine-mo...-to-zero-due-to-system-strength-issues-89108/
_Another nine large-scale solar farms in north Queensland with a total capacity of more than 712MW have been warned that their output could be cut to zero in certain circumstances due to emerging “system strength” issues in that part of the state.
The warning was made in a market notice issued by the Australian Energy Market Operator on Monday and comes on top of a previous warning that affected two solar farms and one wind farm earlier this year.
The latest to be affected are the Clare (110MW), Collinsville (42MW), Daydream (80MW), Hamilton (58MW), Hayman (58MW), Kidston (50MW), Ross River (128MW), Rugby Run (128MW), and Whitsunday (58MW) generators.
They have been told that their output could be restricted to zero if certain combinations of synchronous generators (coal, gas or hydro) are not operating at the time.
System strength issues were first identified in South Australia as far back as 2017, but because there was a formal declaration of a shortfall, the market operator and the local grid owner formed a coordinated plan to address the issue, which includes the installation of four synchronous condensers, a move that will allow the number of gas generators needed at any one time to be reduced significantly.
PowerLink issued a call for expressions of interest into potential solutions to the system strength issues in that part of the grid in April. It said it received a strong response but won’t reveal details of its plans till December_.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/grid-pr...newable-energy-investment-in-australia-73144/
In a webinar hosted by the Clean Energy Council on Tuesday afternoon, panellists ranging from CEFC CEO Ian Learmonth to Octopus Investments managing director Simon Reynolds said increasing uncertainty around connection and commissioning of large-scale solar and wind energy projects were acting as a major dampener on new investment in the sector.
“We’ve got to build 1.6 times the existing generation fleet between now and 2050,” Dooley said. “In terms of volume of investment, you can see [in the chart below] it’s $US10.3 trillion needs to happen through these next three decades.”
To attract its share in these trillions, Australia will have to convince investors it can provide what Dooley describes as “enabling grid infrastructure” – that is, a network that can be relied upon to support and export new renewable energy generation, once it is built.
For future investors and developers, the problem is firmly on the radar. “In Australia, grid risk is key,” said Reynolds, whose Octopus Investments launched in Australia in 2018 and made its first move with the 333MW Darlington Point solar farm Griffith in NSW in early 2019 – the Group’s 161st solar project, all told.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> At last the discussion is starting to focus on the issues, rather than emotion and agendas leading the way, we may start and see some real action in the renewables space IMO. The focus is starting to turn to HV grid issues, rather than agenda's, which is a massive step forward IMO.




As an amateur, it seems to me that if  these types of generators (wind, solar) were required to build storage as well as generation , would it not solve a lot of these issues ?

Chuck any oversupply into a battery a la Elons one in SA and Bob's your uncle.

This just seems another example of pretty clueless governments wanting more electricity supply without thinking of the other issues like grid stability.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> As an amateur, it seems to me that if  these types of generators (wind, solar) were required to build storage as well as generation , would it not solve a lot of these issues ?
> 
> Chuck any oversupply into a battery a la Elons one in SA and Bob's your uncle.
> 
> This just seems another example of pretty clueless governments wanting more electricity supply without thinking of the other issues like grid stability.



I think the battery isn't a long term or base load solution for our grid, it is part of it but hydro/hydrogen/nuclear are really the only 'clean' solution ATM.
But in reality at this stage, the grid needs to be reconfigured to be able to deal with the supply from the farms, before storage becomes a major issue.
At the moment, if the grid could accept the input the fossil fueled stations could be backed off, because of stability issues the renewables have to be backed off.
I think multiple farms, will end up co sharing a storage solution, rather than each project installing their own.
The grid, which are State issues, need to be completely upgraded to take massive amounts of remote generation, it is going to be a big stimulus spend IMO.
If like the Sun Cable proposal, you are going to pump 10GW flat chat down a HV cable, the battery solution probably works because it is all working at optimum and probably isn't a major component in the system overall.
But if you are on a long strung out grid, with peaks and troughs in demand and and fluctuating loads and extended time periods of variable generation, I just think something more robust, reliable and with longevity is required.
Only my personal belief.


----------



## sptrawler

Sun Cable’s $22 billion plans to build one of the world’s largest dispatchable solar and battery power stations, complete with the world’s largest subsea transmission link, have been put on the fast-track by the Australian federal government.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/sun-cab...port-plan-awarded-major-project-status-99423/


----------



## Smurf1976

Not strictly about energy but it's being done by an electricity company.

There's no benefit to power production from this, indeed there would be a small loss of that, so it's purely an environmental measure.

Trevallyn Dam and the associated power station have been in operation since 1955, replacing the previous much smaller Duck Reach station which operated nearby during the period 1895 - 1955.

If you're ever in Launceston then the area's worth a look by the way. Even if you've zero interest in the engineering history aspects, the Gorge itself is a nice scenic spot. Walking from Kings Bridge up as far as Duck Reach and crossing the pedestrian bridge is doable if you're moderately fit and the starting point is just 1km from the Launceston CBD.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Not strictly about energy but it's being done by an electricity company.
> 
> There's no benefit to power production from this, indeed there would be a small loss of that, so it's purely an environmental measure.
> 
> Trevallyn Dam and the associated power station have been in operation since 1955, replacing the previous much smaller Duck Reach station which operated nearby during the period 1895 - 1955.
> 
> If you're ever in Launceston then the area's worth a look by the way. Even if you've zero interest in the engineering history aspects, the Gorge itself is a nice scenic spot. Walking from Kings Bridge up as far as Duck Reach and crossing the pedestrian bridge is doable if you're moderately fit and the starting point is just 1km from the Launceston CBD.




That is a great walk smurf , well worth the effort, I saw on real estate.com the old managers house on the cliff above was for sale recently.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> That is a great walk smurf , well worth the effort, I saw on real estate.com the old managers house on the cliff above was for sale recently.




Incidentally I've been assured that a very long time ago they used a flying fox to get from that side with the houses to the old Duck Reach power station.

Now that's a way to commute to work!

It's a nice spot there yes, just keep out if there's a flood as it gets a bit more exciting. For those not familiar - location at the start of the video is the old (closed 1955) Duck Reach power station and at the end it's King's Bridge - literally on the edge of the Launceston CBD.

Normally there'd be only a trickle flowing down but a major flood changes that quite dramatically once the dam overflows. Many years ago I've actually walked across that river, below where the bridge is, without getting my feet wet.


----------



## basilio

So this is what the future energy system should look like in Australia
*New gas-fired power not needed as renewable energy expands, grid operator says*
The Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) has released a roadmap detailing what an optimal national electricity market would look like to 2040 if it was designed with a focus on security, reliability and the lowest cost for consumers.

Its integrated system plan, the result of 18 months consultation and analysis, describes a diverse system built on large and small-scale renewable energy supported by a range of “dispatchable” power sources that can be turned on and off when needed.

It says renewable energy may at times provide nearly 90% of electricity by 2035, the amount of gas-fired power will fall as pumped hydro and batteries come online and there is no place for new coal-fired generation.

*Aemo says the plan focuses on what is best for consumers and could deliver $11bn in net benefits*, but will require major investment in new transmission lines, with the cost of these projects having increased by 30%. It suggests solar panels backed by small batteries would provide between 13% and 22% of electricity by 2040, running alongside more than 26 gigawatts of new large solar and wind farms needed to replace 15-gigawatts of coal-fired generation that is scheduled to shut.
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...-alternatives-on-renewable-grid-operator-says


----------



## basilio

*Australia's electricity grid could run with 75% renewables, market operator says*
Getting the regulations right will allow the secure expansion of wind and solar power, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...d-run-with-75-renewables-market-operator-says


----------



## sptrawler

See Bas it is happening, despite all the angst.
It is very interesting reading the two articles about the same document, how one can be very vague about the constraint issues and the other says it as it is.
I guess the newspaper doesn't want people to know too much, then they would have trouble putting spin on it.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> See Bas it is happening, despite all the angst.




Che ?? * Che  !!*

What I posted was a road map prepared after extensive consultation through the Australian Energy Market Operator. The main players in the field talked with the most disinterested, expert parties to *construct a plan *that would meet the needs of customers *for "security, reliability and lowest cost "*

Which is wonderful for a plan.

What is required now is for the  Federal Government to endorse that plan and *enable* it's execution as prescribed. And that means
1) Establishing the mechanism to upgrade new transmission lines

2) Encouraging the further development of renewable energy and energy storage facilities

3)* Not* promoting gas fired  power stations (despite heavy industry politicking to do so)

4) *Not* allowing any new coal fired power stations to be approved (despite heavy industry politicking and  many local MP's jumping on board

5) Being very cautious about efforts to promote nuclear power stations in Australia (again despite very strenuous  business politicking.)

The second article I posted pointing out the need for Government regulations to enable  renewables to be effective underpins the situation.

It all makes sense doesn't it ? But will it happen ?


----------



## sptrawler

Bas the transmission lines belong to the States, why would the Federal Government do anything other than help by giving grants, which they are already doing if you read earlier posts.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> It all makes sense doesn't it ? But will it happen ?



It's one of those things where the biggest problem is political baggage from the past.

Those in favour of heavy industry need to give up on the idea that coal or gas are the cheapest way forward, or that they're even cheap enough to consider. That rips the rug out from pretty much everything the Coalition has said on the subject.

Those at the "green" end of the spectrum have a similar problem. Big transmission lines, hydro projects and energy-intensive heavy industry - firmly ripping the rug out from just about everything the Greens ever said on the subject.

For the Labor party well it's time to rip up the party's 30 year love affair with gas. It's a situation that's still very much alive and well in Victoria especially where burning the stuff is not quite compulsory but you'll have to be pretty keen to avoid it, government pushes gas _very_ hard via policy and has effectively guaranteed the industry's future for quite some time yet. Time to stop doing that yes and let alternatives at least be allowed to compete at the consumer level. Other states aren't so bad but they've all been down the track to some extent at some point and many of those legacies remain.

All sides of politics need to burn the legacy of even the recent past and therein lies the stumbling block politically. Of all professions, politics is about the worst when it comes to saying "we got it wrong".

I'm being blunt there yes. 

Edit: Spelling.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> the transmission lines belong to the States



State government via a corporation (eg Tas Networks runs transmission and distribution in Tas and is 100% government owned) or privately owned (eg Electranet (transmission) and SA Power Networks (distribution) in SA) depending on which state.

Some comparatively minor amounts are owned by power stations, heavy industry, mining etc for the purpose of connecting their operations to the rest of the grid.

Also the odd more complex arrangement. Eg Basslink (Vic - Tas) is privately owned as such but heavily tied via contracts to Hydro Tasmania (which is ultimately government owned). So it's private with government backing.


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> All sides of politics need to burn the legacy of even the recent past and therein lies the stumbling block politically. Of all professions, politics is about the worst when it comes ot saying "we got it wrong".




I agree.

BUT I think the out here is not saying we got it wrong but recognising there are totally new economic/industrial realities that have overtaken previous situations.

We can understand that  businesses committed to a current, profitable but superseded  technology want to stay  in the game. But for the overall benefit of our community ( security, reliability and lowest cost statement...) we have to move on.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> All sides of politics need to burn the legacy of even the recent past and therein lies the stumbling block politically. Of all professions, politics is about the worst when it comes to saying "we got it wrong".




Of course !

Does it look like happening ?

I think some in Labor want to adopt the Coalition's emissions targets but others are stubborn and don't want to give in, while the Coalition just seems intractable.

There, I tried to be even handed, did I succeed ?


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> I agree.
> 
> BUT I think the out here is not saying we got it wrong but recognising there are totally new economic/industrial realities that have overtaken previous situations.
> 
> We can understand that  businesses committed to a current, profitable but superseded  technology want to stay  in the game. But for the overall benefit of our community ( security, reliability and lowest cost statement...) we have to move on.



I think I already posted AGL's statement, that they will and do want to get out of coal generation, but the only hold up really is people don't want to pay a premium for them to do it.
Somewhat like electric cars, there is no reason why lots of greenies can't buy an electric car, but they don't want to pay the money. Simple really.
Bas have you signed up for AGL's green electricity, costs a bit more but all for a good cause?
Maybe you've traded the ICE car in for an E.V or a hybrid?


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> BUT I think the out here is not saying we got it wrong but recognising there are totally new economic/industrial realities that have overtaken previous situations.



We're on the same page. 

To give a very specific example of what I'm on about, residential water heaters

In typical household situations water heating will be either the largest or second largest use of energy. Largest in more temperate climates, second largest in climates requiring prolonged use of heating or cooling systems.

Assuming a quality system in both cases and correctly installed, a heat pump will beat gas on energy efficiency, that is fossil fuel into the ground to hot water at your tap, in the majority of circumstances. Indeed even if 100% of the electricity used to run it is produced by the least efficient power station in the entire NEM, they'll still be roughly equal.

Since storing water in a tank is an incredibly cheap and easy form of energy storage, heat pump water heaters are also a perfect load to be run at times when surplus power generation is available. In that context it's worth noting that already we have some amount of distributed solar going to waste due to high voltage issues in distribution networks around midday and in some states, most notably SA but also rapidly approaching in Victoria, we have large scale wind / solar curtailed at times due to lack of load and we already have households being refused permission to export solar generated power to the grid at all in some cases. 

Switching from gas to heat pumps for water heating is a dead easy fuel to electricity conversion compared to electric vehicles. The latter is doable sure but batteries ain't cheap and then there's the charging infrastructure and so on. By all means do that but water heating's a dead easy way to a similar end goal and one we can implement right away.

Now I'm not necessarily suggesting that heat pump water heaters ought to be compulsory, the $5K price tag is a definite issue for many, but I do take issue when government imposes rules to effectively prevent their use.

In Victoria under state rules it's not totally impossible to avoid if you're really keen on paperwork and legal type arguments but in practice the rules are pretty blunt. If there's a gas pipe running past the property then you can't install a heat pump water heater and connect it to mains power. The intent is rather clear yes.

In NSW it goes one step further with some local councils. In short they won't give building approval if gas isn't used. No gas main running past doesn't get you out of that since they'll have LPG well before they let you use electricity for the same purpose.

Every other state has at some point this century also promoted gas either via advertising at taxpayers' expense, direct handouts to the industry, laws requiring it be used and so on and in some states there's still a very definite and not so invisible hand pushing consumers toward gas with as much force as they can muster.

It's one thing if the lowest emissions option and renewables can't compete on price but it's another thing entirely when government outright blocks them or uses taxpayer funds to lead consumers in the other direction. That sort of thing needs to go without delay in my view since it's entrenching fossil fuels, and frustrating the adoption of renewables, for as long as those assets are in service (which will be many years to come, that's the biggest problem with it all).

That's one example, one that grates with quite a few in the energy / environmental space, but it's not the only one it's just an example.

Councils and their "aesthetic" objections to solar in certain places are another - 'cause yeah, everyone sits at home looking at their roof all day and admiring the satellite dishes, overhead power cables, chimneys, sewer vent pipes etc all of which the councils see no problem with.


----------



## sptrawler

Bas, have you changed to a heat pump hot water system, to go with your electric car and your solar panels and house batteries?
I mean you are so outspoken and dedicated to improving the planet, I bet you have done all of the above.
As if.
If all the outspoken people did the above, it would drive the agenda, but they don't they just rant and rave and make white noise that everyone has to work around.
The problem with the white noise, it actually causes more problems for the technical people, than the establishment.
Because the politicians are forced into poor decisions on popularity basis.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> have you changed to a heat pump hot water system, to go with your electric car and your solar panels and house batteries?



I won't question what others are doing but for the record:

Hot water: Sanden heat pump installed 2019 and it's set up to run in exactly the way I'm advocating during the middle of the day. 315 litre tank stores plenty of hot water, so only needs a heating period once a day.

Solar: 5.11kW with a 5.0kW inverter and a 5.0kW / 9.8 kWh battery. Can't fit any more panels on the roof unless I want them in the shade which would be pointless. Optimisers are on every panel and there's provision to add a second battery at a future time. Installed 2019.

Lighting: Mixed. Some's highly efficient, some's woeful. Will all be efficient in due course, just haven't done them all yet.

Insulation: R5 batts in the ceiling installed late 2018 by me. Nothing anywhere else, can't really get access to put it in easily.

Heating: Ye old skool oil burner circa 1965. I did spend a day cleaning its internals and  tuning it up though and it runs nicely with a blue flame. The cat likes it and at this time of year spends the evenings in the immediate vicinity of it. But the cat isn't paying to fill up that big tank outside..... 

Car: Petrol nothing fancy. I did include provision for future EV charging in the switchboard upgrade though. Could be added to the Off Peak Controlled Load or the main supply, there's adequate capacity in either.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I won't question what others are doing but for the record:
> 
> Hot water: Sanden heat pump installed 2019 and it's set up to run in exactly the way I'm advocating during the middle of the day. 315 litre tank stores plenty of hot water, so only needs a heating period once a day.
> 
> Solar: 5.11kW with a 5.0kW inverter and a 5.0kW / 9.8 kWh battery. Can't fit any more panels on the roof unless I want them in the shade which would be pointless. Optimisers are on every panel and there's provision to add a second battery at a future time. Installed 2019.
> 
> Lighting: Mixed. Some's highly efficient, some's woeful. Will all be efficient in due course, just haven't done them all yet.
> 
> Insulation: R5 batts in the ceiling installed late 2018 by me. Nothing anywhere else, can't really get access to put it in easily.
> 
> Heating: Ye old skool oil burner circa 1965. I did spend a day cleaning its internals and  tuning it up though and it runs nicely with a blue flame. The cat likes it and at this time of year spends the evenings in the immediate vicinity of it. But the cat isn't paying to fill up that big tank outside.....
> 
> Car: Petrol nothing fancy. I did include provision for future EV charging in the switchboard upgrade though. Could be added to the Off Peak Controlled Load or the main supply, there's adequate capacity in either.



Absolutely smurf, but you arent screaming about what the taxpayer should be paying for, you are just quietely doing it yourself, I just wish the muppets would do the same.
The ones who scream the most, obviously arent actually in struggle street.
That is the problem with society today, it is driven by those who shout loudest but arent actually representive of the silent majority.


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> Absolutely smurf, but you arent screaming about what the taxpayer should be paying for, you are just quietely doing it yourself, I just wish the muppets would do the same.
> The ones who scream the most, obviously arent actually in struggle street.
> That is the problem with society today, it is driven by those who shout loudest but arent actually representive of the silent majority.



But the chance is the silent majority vote


----------



## basilio

So what have I done to improve my carbon footprint. ?
Plenty actually but clearly not enough to save the planet ..

I never will either and nor will the best individual efforts of the millions of people who do make small and large changes to their life to reduce their environmental impact.

The issues require action both personally and on the big picture. Changing the direction of industries to reduce their environmental impact whether its pollution, destroying ecosystems, or creating green house gases that will ultimately cook all our gooses is a government responsibility. 

But it takes the silent majority to  recognise, demand and support those changes.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> So what have I done to improve my carbon footprint. ?
> Plenty actually but clearly not enough to save the planet ..
> 
> I never will either and nor will the best individual efforts of the millions of people who do make small and large changes to their life to reduce their environmental impact.
> 
> The issues require action both personally and on the big picture. Changing the direction of industries to reduce their environmental impact whether its pollution, destroying ecosystems, or creating green house gases that will ultimately cook all our gooses is a government responsibility.
> 
> But it takes the silent majority to  recognise, demand and support those changes.



Actually the silent majority, is trusting that it is happening as quickly as technically possible and there is enough evidence in the media to support that belief.
If there wasn't, they would be demanding more and faster change.
It is only the minority, who are asking for change no matter what the cost, be that financial or to electrical system security.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> As for nuclear - well if it can be done in an economically viable manner then I'm not opposed in principle. Likewise I doubt that AGL or Origin or anyone else would ignore it if they think they can do it cheaply enough to be profitable. They're in business to make money for shareholders after all so they're unlikely to ignore it if it's attractive financially.




That sums up the nuclear situation perfectly smurf. 
At some time in the future gas will be unavailable, be that due to depletion or environmental/pollution concerns, if at that time renewables/storage can't supply the required generation reliably then nuclear will have to be looked at.
Cost won't be an issue, if it is the only option.


----------



## SirRumpole

If nuclear power is to come to Australia then it should be government owned and run.

Considering the dangers it's just not safe to put it in commercial hands, especially not foreign corporations over which we have no control if things go wrong.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> If nuclear power is to come to Australia then it should be government owned and run.
> 
> Considering the dangers it's just not safe to put it in commercial hands, especially not foreign corporations over which we have no control if things go wrong.



I would strongly agree with that, the other thing if it is government owned, it can be closed independent of financial considerations.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> I would strongly agree with that, the other thing if it is government owned, it can be closed independent of financial considerations.




Good idea but frankly a very heroic assumption.

If, somehow, a nuclear reactor was built for many, many billions (after the inevitable cost blow outs.) it would have to have some sort of long term commitment to deliver power at a price that would somehow justify its construction, running and decommissioning costs.

We know from current experience in the UK that these contacts would be far more costly than a wind/solar/battery configuration.

So imagine a situation where 3 years into the operation someone (Who? How? On what basis ?) says that there is a significant potential risk with the operation of the plant. 

Where to now ? Could anyone see such a plant closed down with the ruinous costs already committed ? Frankly I think this could only happen if in fact there was a major incident in the plant which made it publicly clear it was in a diabolical state. A theoretical case would never get off the ground.

And in any case what "new situation" could arise that wasn't reasonably foreseeable in the planning and construction of such a long term project ? And who was responsible for not recognising this scenario ?

I can see one very clearly but I suspect it would be  ignored in the planning process. 

I think the risk/reward ratio for a nuclear power station is too badly skewed to consider such a direction. Particularly when it is clear solar/wind/battery/pumped hydro systems are far more cost competitive and offer little of the inherent risks and costs of the nuclear option.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Good idea but frankly a very heroic assumption.
> 
> If, somehow, a nuclear reactor was built for many, many billions (after the inevitable cost blow outs.) it would have to have some sort of long term commitment to deliver power at a price that would somehow justify its construction, running and decommissioning costs.
> 
> We know from current experience in the UK that these contacts would be far more costly than a wind/solar/battery configuration.
> 
> So imagine a situation where 3 years into the operation someone (Who? How? On what basis ?) says that there is a significant potential risk with the operation of the plant.
> 
> Where to now ? Could anyone see such a plant closed down with the ruinous costs already committed ? Frankly I think this could only happen if in fact there was a major incident in the plant which made it publicly clear it was in a diabolical state. A theoretical case would never get off the ground.
> 
> And in any case what "new situation" could arise that wasn't reasonably foreseeable in the planning and construction of such a long term project ? And who was responsible for not recognising this scenario ?
> 
> I can see one very clearly but I suspect it would be  ignored in the planning process.
> 
> I think the risk/reward ratio for a nuclear power station is too badly skewed to consider such a direction. Particularly when it is clear solar/wind/battery/pumped hydro systems are far more cost competitive and offer little of the inherent risks and costs of the nuclear option.



If that proves correct, then it wont be built, they wont build a nuclear power station for the fun of it, it will only be built if there is no other viable option.
It really isn't that difficult to follow.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> If that proves correct, then it wont be built, they wont build a nuclear power station for the fun of it, it will only be built if there is no other viable option.
> It really isn't that difficult to follow.




SP I was responding to your comment that *after* a power station was built a government could decide to shut it down if there was some problem. As I said I couldn't see that happening unless the plant  actually had a major incident.

In terms of a plant not being built because of risk factors ? Who would one trust to make this call ? The Nuclear Industry wanting a long term government guaranteed investment ?

I think the biggest risk will be ensuring long term cooling of the plant. Historically this was done by placing the plant close to the ocean and using seawater.  The probability of rising sea levels with climate change makes this process very risky.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> SP I was responding to your comment that *after* a power station was built a government could decide to shut it down if there was some problem. As I said I couldn't see that happening unless the plant  actually had a major incident.
> 
> In terms of a plant not being built because of risk factors ? Who would one trust to make this call ? The Nuclear Industry wanting a long term government guaranteed investment ?
> 
> I think the biggest risk will be ensuring long term cooling of the plant. Historically this was done by placing the plant close to the ocean and using seawater.  The probability of rising sea levels with climate change makes this process very risky.



If power stations were only shut down due to major incidents, the coal fired stations wouldnt be getting shut down would they.
There is one thing for sure if the system requires a large clean power station to be built and nuclear is the only option, it will be built, despite you holding your breath and stamping your feet.lol


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> If power stations were only shut down due to major incidents, the coal fired stations wouldnt be getting shut down would they.
> There is one thing for sure if the system requires a large clean power station to be built and nuclear is the only option, it will be built, despite you holding your breath and stamping your feet.lol




Droll SP.  

"If the system requires " And if my Aunt had a xick and balls she would be my Uncle.

I'm not sure why you are insisting on hypothesizing that a Nuclear Reactor will be built if it has to be. Apart from the economic reasons for not doing so you already made it clear that if it represented too much of a risk then it wouldn't be built.
Or is that line of thought no longer valid.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Droll SP.
> 
> "If the system requires " And if my Aunt had a xick and balls she would be my Uncle.
> 
> I'm not sure why you are insisting on hypothesizing that a Nuclear Reactor will be built if it has to be. Apart from the economic reasons for not doing so you already made it clear that if it represented too much of a risk then it wouldn't be built.
> Or is that line of thought no longer valid.



If the choice is between an unreliable power network, or adding a nuclear power plant, the plant will be built.
At this point in time, it is the only clean at call generating medium, with sufficient energy density to provide GW output for a small footprint.
Hopefully it isn't required and it may well not be, but having said that, i'm not emotionally tied to any baggage and can face reality.
I guess you could say I'm pragmatic, rather than fanatic.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> I guess you could say I'm pragmatic, rather than fanatic.




Totally agree No point being "fanatical" is there ?
From a purely pragmatic POV I am struggling to see how our current nuclear power systems will be economically viable vs any range of alternatives.

At the same time if the much touted modular thorium reactors prove themselves to be economical, safe and practical I would love to see the analysis.


----------



## Muckman

I say get rid of power plants all together 

Why not have a power plant in your home ? Ever wonder that one? 

What if I told you there’s a device that you can get soon where it’s a box and it makes power, it’s heats your house p and it heats your hot water. Oh and it might even make fuel for your car lol.

All it take is you to hook it up to your town gas line 
View attachment 106923


----------



## orr

competitive said:


> I say get rid of power plants all together
> 
> Why not have a power plant in your home ? Ever wonder that one?
> 
> What if I told you there’s a device that you can get soon where it’s a box and it makes power, it’s heats your house p and it heats your hot water. Oh and it might even make fuel for your car lol.
> 
> All it take is you to hook it up to your town gas line
> View attachment 106923
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 106921




With a bit of luck it'll do  better CFU(Ceramic Fuel Cells) ... There's about 700 posts up to 2018 on that now defunct company.
Good concept but not competative on price. 

Be interesting to know if and/or  how many of their units were still in operation; as to feel out  durability of the system CFU developed.... info on that Anyone?
And all the time as world production of Solar PV doubles the price per watt of output falls by 24%...That is a cost curve that needs  to be recognised when you're thinking about *where you are puting your money.
*
Tell us all about your upcoming  'Box' Muckkers??


----------



## Muckman

https://www.sunfire.de/en/products-and-technology/sunfire-home

Sunfire are not a new company 
In fact they have been around for about 10 years I think.
I originally thought they where founded by Audi with there blue crud but I think that was another company called climeworks but I think they are the same company 
I remember climeworks and sunfire where working together years back but now they look like two companies. But there are so many new companies now such as carbon Engineering, terrestrial and there was even a company that was using solar co2 capture producing synthetic fuels. But I think sunfire is the leading tech in all these companies.

There high-temperature co-electrolysis technology is cutting edge and has unbelievable potential in renewable energy sector for hydrogen production.
Total energy I think has bought up one of there technology’s for thermal electrolysis but unsure what they did with it.
But yeh sounds like a company I’d put my money on but I got no idear how lol

They are definitely a company who have big plans 

View attachment 106956


----------



## sptrawler

More community batteries deployed in Western Australia.
https://onestepoffthegrid.com.au/si...stalled-in-western-australia-powerbank-trial/
From the article:
_The installation of the latest community PowerBank, in this case a 464kWh Tesla battery energy storage system, was unveiled at Salamanca Reserve in the bayside southern-Perth suburb of Port Kennedy, on Friday.

It is the second such installation in a Perth metropolitan region, and the sixth all up under the Labor McGowan government’s Distributed Energy Resources Roadmap, including in Meadow Springs, Falcon, Ellenbrook, Kalgoorlie and, most recently, Busselton.

The addition of the community battery aims to help manage the flow of all that rooftop solar power on the local City of Rockingham grid, make way for more solar to be installed and, further down the track, offer solar households virtual storage to store their excess rooftop power and use it when needed.
Western Australia premier Mark McGowan, himself a resident of the City of Rockingham, said his government’s recent Electricity Industry Amendment Bill 2019, and its Distributed Energy Resources Roadmap, had boosted the speed of the battery rollout.

“Community batteries like this one in Port Kennedy is a great example of how our legislative changes have been applied in practical and meaningful ways to help local Western Australians and businesses all over WA,” he said_.


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> More community batteries deployed in Western Australia.
> https://onestepoffthegrid.com.au/si...stalled-in-western-australia-powerbank-trial/
> From the article:
> _The installation of the latest community PowerBank, in this case a 464kWh Tesla battery energy storage system, was unveiled at Salamanca Reserve in the bayside southern-Perth suburb of Port Kennedy, on Friday.
> 
> It is the second such installation in a Perth metropolitan region, and the sixth all up under the Labor McGowan government’s Distributed Energy Resources Roadmap, including in Meadow Springs, Falcon, Ellenbrook, Kalgoorlie and, most recently, Busselton.
> 
> The addition of the community battery aims to help manage the flow of all that rooftop solar power on the local City of Rockingham grid, make way for more solar to be installed and, further down the track, offer solar households virtual storage to store their excess rooftop power and use it when needed.
> Western Australia premier Mark McGowan, himself a resident of the City of Rockingham, said his government’s recent Electricity Industry Amendment Bill 2019, and its Distributed Energy Resources Roadmap, had boosted the speed of the battery rollout.
> 
> “Community batteries like this one in Port Kennedy is a great example of how our legislative changes have been applied in practical and meaningful ways to help local Western Australians and businesses all over WA,” he said_.




Nice to see Falcon in there eh SP .

Good to see some thing being done for fault current.


----------



## Smurf1976

A couple of recent announcements with broader implications:

TransGrid (transmission operator in NSW) has announced a preference for developing a 150 - 200 MW / 1,550 MWh compressed air energy storage facility at Broken Hill. If built this will be by far the world's largest such facility.

BH is presently connected to the rest of the grid via a single 260km long transmission line from southern NSW. Loss of that line due to either a fault or maintenance isolates Broken Hill from the rest of the grid, resulting in reliance on 2 x 25 MW gas turbines (diesel fired) located near the town which are seriously stretched in meeting peak demand.

Building the new storage facility would, combined with the existing Silverton wind farm (200 MW) and Broken Hill solar farm (53 MW) fixes any issues there for backup whilst also delivering benefits from being able to run generation from the storage when needed to meet peak demand more broadly (that is, outside Broken Hill) assuming the transmission line is in service. It's also should reduce curtailment of output from the present wind and solar facilities - everyone wins.

Separate but related to that AGL is aiming for 850 MW of large scale battery capacity by 30 June 2024. The soon to be closed Liddell power station (NSW) is one identified possible site, other sites being considered include Torrens Island power station (SA) and at various wind and solar sites.

From a purely electrical perspective a battery doesn't have to be located at the source of generation, indeed even if it is it may still be charged with power generated somewhere else (and will be in the case of Liddell once it closes), but there are some practical advantages. Any existing power station by its very nature must have land, it must have a decent road leading to it suitable for trucks to use, there will be staff amenities, car parking and so on already there, security if required, and the big one - it's already connected to the grid. So it has some practical advantages and cost savings though isn't essential as such.

AGL already has the 30 MW / 8 MWh Dalrymple battery in SA and already has contracts with Maoneng for four 50 MW / 100 MWh batteries to be installed at sites in NSW. They also have a contract with Vena Energy for a 100 MW / 150 MWh battery at Wandoan in Queensland for which AGL will have dispatch rights (Vena Energy will own it).

So that leaves them looking for where to put ~520 MW. Could all go at Liddell, the existing power station which is closing is of 1680 MW capacity (was 2000 MW when built), or could be spread across however many sites.

Point though is that's all private investment, it's not something needing a government subsidy or law requiring it and it's being done in full awareness that Snowy Hydro is actively pursuing a 2000 MW pumped storage facility in NSW. As I've noted previously, batteries and pumped hydro fit well together and if we're going to be using mostly, or entirely, renewable energy in the future then we're going to need both so there's no inherent conflict between one versus the other.

So in summary:

*150 - 200 MW / 1550 MWh compressed air energy storage facility at Broken Hill.

*820 MW or new large scale batteries being developed by AGL (though not necessarily with AGL as the actual owner). Of that 100 MW / 150 MWh is going at Wandoan in Qld, 200 MW / 400 MWh at various sites in NSW, rest to be built at Liddell power station or elsewhere.

As with anything, expect those numbers to change a bit either way. If someone gives AGL a good tender price for something 10% larger or smaller then odds are they'll go with it etc, the 850 MW is a target not a precise thing that has to be achieved with no margin for variation.


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> 820 MW or new large scale batteries being developed by AGL (though not necessarily with AGL as the actual owner). Of that 100 MW / 150 MWh is going at Wandoan in Qld, 200 MW / 400 MWh at various sites in NSW, rest to be built at Liddell power station or elsewhere.




I should clarify that by adding:

30 MW / 8 MWh is already at Dalrymple in SA.

150 MW at Liddell seems pretty definite, the question's about how much more to put there versus elsewhere. They've sought the relevant approvals for 500 MW but that doesn't necessarily mean going all the way, energy companies commonly use that approach to keep their options open for further development.

Also some other companies doing things with batteries:

The Neoen / Tesla "big battery" in SA being upgraded by 50% from its original 100 MW / 129 MWh.

There's a proposal by the same company to build a 600 MW battery in Victoria.

NT is also looking at adding a large battery to the system in Darwin in order to reduce the need for spinning reserve (in layman's terms that's generators running at minimal output ready to immediately ramp up if something suddenly fails - normal practice in every grid in the developed world). In the case of the NT that's quite inefficient, gas turbines don't cope well with running at low loads and that's the only sort of plant they have up there, so there's a decent gas saving to be had by replacing that function with a battery to carry the load until a turbine is started up from cold.

So there's a bit of an "arms race" going on with batteries basically. WA's putting some into the distribution network to address localised issues and even Tasmania, which has no need from a bulk supply perspective due the dominance of hydro, is still looking at possibilities in terms of addressing localised network issues etc.


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## sptrawler

Sounds like it is all progressing well smurf.


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Sounds like it is all progressing well smurf.




I'd compare it to an extremely unfit, overweight etc person who's come to the realisation that something really must be done. That's the first step and they've done that and they've stopped eating sugar, bought a book on healthy eating and some walking shoes.

The problem is understood, steps are being taken to fix it, but it isn't actually fixed yet - there's still a risk of things falling in a heap in the short term until things are actually built.


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## Smurf1976

One thing to note is that, contrary to the assertions of some via the mainstream media, the interest in batteries and renewables doesn't mean gas has suddenly become obsolete.

Here's some official Australian government gas consumption data for 2017-18 (latest that seems to be online) for the south-eastern states where supply is of concern in the coming years:

Victoria:
Electricity generation = 51.0 PJ (3830 GWh or 8.1% of electricity generated in Victoria)
All other gas use = 240.3 PJ

NSW (includes ACT):
Electricity generation = 26.2 PJ (3046 GWh or 4.2% of electricity generated in NSW)
All other gas use = 106.6 PJ

SA:
Electricity generation = 71.4 PJ (7753 GWh or 52% of electricity generated in SA)
All other gas use = 55.4 PJ

Tasmania
Electricity generation = 8.6 PJ (980 GWh or 8.3% of electricity generated in Tasmania)
All other gas use = 4.8 PJ

Total south-eastern Australia:
Electricity generation = 157.2 PJ
All other gas use = 407.1 PJ

So overall 72% of gas consumption in south-eastern Australia is used for purposes not relating to electricity supply. Unless consumers undertake a mass shift away from the use of gas, that demand for gas remains no matter what happens so far as power generation is concerned.

For the other 28%, realistically some decline is likely but it's not going to zero anytime soon.

First because those figures include electricity generated from gas by industry, mining and so on for their own use on site. If they're not connected to the grid anyway then it's irrelevant to them what happens with grid supply.

Second because it includes co-generation facilities which are connected to the grid but where some facility, eg a factory or hospital, needs the by-product heat from the power station. That means it will run, because they need that heat, no matter what the overall electricity supply situation is. Failing that, they'd switch to their backup boilers and be burning gas in those instead so either way they're using gas unless they go as far as switching to some other fuel.

Putting that into perspective, off-grid and co-generation gas-fired electricity is roughly 30% of total gas-fired electricity in Victoria and NSW and closer to 10% in SA and Tas.

Third because in general the energy companies are building batteries and pumped storage due to plant which is closing due to reaching end of life and, with some exceptions, that plant is mostly coal not gas. At this stage nobody's proposing a complete abolition of gas-fired generation.

So it's fair to say that ~80% of the market for natural gas in south-eastern Australia is not impacted by what goes on with renewables, storage etc at least in the short term since it's either not for power generation at all or it's off grid or co-generation.

Of the remaining ~20%, some reduction is possible but not to zero anytime soon. We won't see zero use of gas-fired power in the medium term.

So there's still an ongoing need for natural gas at least in the medium term and that means there's still a market for gas producers, pipeline companies and so on to operate in noting that a substantial volume of existing production is exiting the market in the next few years due to field depletion. Ignoring the politics and focusing on the financial, if listed companies such as Santos (ASX: STO) and others go ahead with their proposals then they'll find a buyer for the gas.


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## qldfrog

Actual voltage at the house level and consequences for solar power feed back
Found article interesting
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08...over-voltage-limits-unsw-study-finds/12534332


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## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> Actual voltage at the house level and consequences for solar power feed back
> Found article interesting
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08...over-voltage-limits-unsw-study-finds/12534332



That is what I was talking about, when suggesting eventually they may have to upgrade distribution transformers, to automatic tap changing ones.
Currently most are changed manually at the transformer, so they are generally set in an average position to give 240v over most scenarios, but as more and more solar goes in the voltage difference between after dark  and mid day makes the range too great.


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## basilio

sptrawler said:


> That is what I was talking about, when suggesting eventually they may have to upgrade distribution transformers, to automatic tap changing ones.
> Currently most are changed manually at the transformer, so they are generally set in an average position to give 240v over most scenarios, but as more and more solar goes in the voltage difference between after dark  and mid day makes the range too great.




Did you have an opportunity to check out the story SP ?

The main points I believe were
1) It is a real  technical challenge to balance voltages across the  network systems
2) Historically the networks were always running too high. This was before solar panels came on teh scene
3) The industry  never really tried to address the problem because it would cost big bucks .
4) The addition of solar panels has taken network voltage  beyond the trip points and  in many cases have resulted in  solar panels being disconnected from the network.

So yes it does need to be fixed
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08...over-voltage-limits-unsw-study-finds/12534332


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## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Did you have an opportunity to check out the story SP ?
> 
> The main points I believe were
> 1) It is a real  technical challenge to balance voltages across the  network systems
> 2) Historically the networks were always running too high. This was before solar panels came on teh scene
> 3) The industry  never really tried to address the problem because it would cost big bucks .
> 4) The addition of solar panels has taken network voltage  beyond the trip points and  in many cases have resulted in  solar panels being disconnected from the network.
> 
> So yes it does need to be fixed
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08...over-voltage-limits-unsw-study-finds/12534332



Which is exactly what I said in my comments, the difference is what I suggested was a probable fix, why are you asking me if I read the story?
Maybe if you understood the topic, it would make more sense to you.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> Which is exactly what I said in my comments, the difference is what I suggested was a probable fix, why are you asking me if I read the story?




No offence meant SP.
One of the key points in the story was noting that currently there is much more overvoltage in  the system than undervoltage. You suggested that the current system is set at 240 average but from the article that doesn't seem to be the case.

_Even though the nominal voltage on the grid is 230 volts, the researchers found 95 per cent of readings were higher than that level.

When voltage levels are near or even above 253 volts, there's already no room for households wanting to feed even the smallest amount of solar energy back into the grid._

The fact that just upgrading the transformers  to ensure  less over voltage is straightforward is great.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> No offence meant SP.
> One of the key points in the story was noting that currently there is much more overvoltage in  the system than undervoltage. You suggested that the current system is set at 240 average but from the article that doesn't seem to be the case.
> 
> _Even though the nominal voltage on the grid is 230 volts, the researchers found 95 per cent of readings were higher than that level.
> 
> When voltage levels are near or even above 253 volts, there's already no room for households wanting to feed even the smallest amount of solar energy back into the grid._
> 
> The fact that just upgrading the transformers  to ensure  less over voltage is straightforward is great.



The voltage from the generator is usually around 16,000v, that then is stepped up to 132,000v, 220,000v, 330,000v or some other very high voltage, that is to reduce the current required on the transmission lines.
It is then stepped down to a usable voltage at its destination point, that voltage could be 22,000v, 16,000v, 6,600v,3,300v, then when it gets to the domestic reticulation level it is further dropped to, 440v, 240v.
So obviously control at the generator is mathematically impossible, so the transformers in the network have the function of controlling the voltage in their sector of the circuit.
So the final distribution transformers, through out the suburbs, are all designed from a era when the current went one way and the load was reasonably stable therefore the transformer output could be set and would only need changing if a lot more houses were put on the line.
Now we have the situation where everyone in the streets connected to the transformer, are putting load on the transformer overnight and the voltage drops, but during the day they are all pushing voltage back into the transformer with their solar panels which raises its voltage.
It is a bit like trying to keep the level in a tank constant with a tap filling it, and people drawing from it overnight but all putting hoses in during the day and the tank just keeps overflowing during the day, and running empty overnight.
How do you set the filling tap so it keeps the tank level constant? By having a tap that adjusts automatically, that is what I was talking about with auto tap changing distribution transformers.
It is obviously a lot more complex than just that, things like VARS, operating limitations etc have to be considered
Hope that helps with your understanding.
If you want to read up a bit on VARS, here is a bit of an overview, the more you understand the more you grasp the issue.
https://www.kele.com/content/blog/what-are-power-system-vars


----------



## basilio

Thanks for the  detailed explanation of electricity distribution SP.
Understood and appreciated.

Obviously a more automated system of voltage regulation makes sense in an era when households are  both taking power and putting power back into the grid.

Some years ago I trained and worked as an Energy Auditor for small/medium business. Part of that process was setting up units on the meters to record energy use over a 1-2 week period. Those downlaods also incorporated  read outs of voltage and even in those times there was some quite big  overvoltage  figures coming up at night in some cases. We had to have a talk to energy suppliers about that.

The concern voiced in the article was that, overall, power companies are  currently running systems at higher voltages than is good for the customers or their appliances. The extra load from solar panels means this issue now requires real attention rather than fobbing it off.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> The concern voiced in the article was that, overall, power companies are  currently running systems at higher voltages than is good for the customers or their appliances. The extra load from solar panels means this issue now requires real attention rather than fobbing it off.



A lot of what gets printed needs to be taken with a grain of salt, whether it is the power companies deliberately running voltages high, or the system causing the issue is the first thing that requires working out.
In W.A the Collie to Kalgoorlie line gains 16kv due to the capacitance on the line, when it is lightly loaded, but having said that the power companies may be running the voltage high as a method of controlling the solar output someone who knows more than me has alluded to that.
But one thing is for sure, the media will print whichever suits their circulation.


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## basilio

sptrawler said:


> But one thing is for sure, the media will print whichever suits their circulation.




Perhaps.  
But in this case they were simply reporting on the research done by UNSW. That was the news.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Perhaps.
> But in this case they were simply reporting on the research done by UNSW. That was the news.



To me the article read like a reporters interpretation of research done by UNSW, but hey what would I know.
Maybe you could show me where they 'quoted' the UNSW, rather than the reporter just giving their and others interpretation?
The only interesting part of the story from a personal technical view was:
_"We need more information. This is the challenge — knowing what is going on in the grid," Andrew Dillon, chief executive of ENA, said.

But Mr Dillon promised the networks were looking for cost-effective solutions to high voltages that would not drive up power bills.

"There are simple measures we can take to start to remedy this and they are all underway pretty much everywhere," he said._
To me the rest was just 'fluff'_.
_
But that to the layman probably is the least interesting component, and probably why the story is all about some guys personal problem, that is the why the whole debate becomes emotional rather than technical.
As I've said over and over, there are huge issues and they are being overcome, but no one has a magic wand, it takes time, labour, technical input and money.
The other problem is because we are in transition, the problems are dynamic not static and have to be solved in an ongoing manner.


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> To me the article read like a reporters interpretation of research done by UNSW, but hey what would I know.
> Maybe you could show me where they 'quoted' the UNSW, rather than the reporter just giving their and others interpretation?
> The only interesting part of the story from a personal technical view was:
> _"We need more information. This is the challenge — knowing what is going on in the grid," Andrew Dillon, chief executive of ENA, said.
> 
> But Mr Dillon promised the networks were looking for cost-effective solutions to high voltages that would not drive up power bills.
> 
> "There are simple measures we can take to start to remedy this and they are all underway pretty much everywhere," he said._
> To me the rest was just 'fluff'_.
> _
> But that to the layman probably is the least interesting component, and probably why the story is all about some guys personal problem, that is the why the whole debate becomes emotional rather than technical.
> As I've said over and over, there are huge issues and they are being overcome, but no one has a magic wand, it takes time, labour, technical input and money.
> The other problem is because we are in transition, the problems are dynamic not static and have to be solved in an ongoing manner.



also, the supposedly engineer suspects that the voltage is above 250V?
I have a multi-meter: it takes 2 sec to check the actual figure and i would not trust an engineer with no multi-meter ;-)


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## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> also, the supposedly engineer suspects that the voltage is above 250V?
> I have a multi-meter: it takes 2 sec to check the actual figure and i would not trust an engineer with no multi-meter ;-)



When I installed the first solar system on my place 10 years ago, it was always tripping on over voltage and I did see over 250v, but I haven't seen those voltages for a long time.
As the person in the article said, there are things they can do to remedy the problem and steps are being taken everywhere.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> No offence meant SP.
> One of the key points in the story was noting that currently there is much more overvoltage in the system than undervoltage. You suggested that the current system is set at 240 average but from the article that doesn't seem to be the case.




There's a simple explanation for it all. 

Historically, pre-solar days, under normal circumstances in the context of supply to homes and small business voltage would only ever go down, not up, between the transformer and the consumer. Voltage rise can happen in the context of industry and long distances but not normally for small loads in the suburbs.

As such, if you've got a nominal voltage range of 216V - 253V then, since it was only going to go down never up, it made perfectly rational sense to intentionally aim at the upper end of that range. Aim for 250 and not much chance anyone's going be below 216.

Same with anything. If you're buying clothes for children and they're half way between sizes, well the kids are going to get larger not smaller so it's an easy choice to go a bit too large rather than a bit too small with the shoes, trousers or whatever. Give it a few weeks and it'll be just right.

The trouble is that with so much solar, it is indeed now the case that voltage can go up within the distribution network to exceed that at the transformer. All of a sudden the old approach not only doesn't work but it fails rather spectacularly to be aiming at the upper end and then it rises further. That's akin t saying that the kids do indeed get smaller at times, all past thinking has been turned on its head completely.

Just turning it down permanently isn't a solution however. At 6pm in Winter with everyone cooking dinner, running heaters etc and with no sun then the problem of voltage drop is as real as it always was. Send out, say, 230 at the transformer and someone's going to be complaining that it's 202 in their house. Can't get around physics there, that was always the reason for jacking the voltage up toward the upper end of the range, it gets around the problem that it will drop under load in the network.

There's really 3 solutions to this:

1. Put the electricity to use within the network at the time it's being produced. The old logic of heating water in the middle of the night, or using gas to do it, is very rapidly becoming obsolete. 

SA now routinely sees minimum demand in the early afternoon, not overnight, with WA, Vic and parts of the NT rapidly heading to the same situation indeed at a local level some parts of those states already are. Other states will get there in due course and already are in some localised areas within them.

So shifting non-time critical electrical loads to the middle of the day makes massive sense, and increasingly so does shifting from the direct use of fuel to electricity where the end product (eg hot water) can be stored. 

2. Do clever things in the network. That is, change transformer taps in relation to actual measured voltages or at least based on a reasonable proxy (eg weather and time of day will get it pretty close). That requires some investment but not dramatically.

3. Accept that ultimately there are limits to how much rooftop solar makes sense. The rationale behind it is that the land cost is zero and the electrical network is already there. That idea works to a point but fails if we have to spend $$$ upgrading the network, in which case the alternative option of building large solar farms is an alternative means to the same end result without adding stress to the distribution network.

Here's a 53,000 kW solar farm which if fully operational will in practice produce comparable output to around 10,000 household systems given that the latter will have issues with sub-optimal orientation, shading and so on which a large solar farm doesn't. Further, it does so more consistently through the day thus reducing the need for storage capacity:

https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-31.9877709,141.3908337,2659m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

Now zoom that map out. Please don't anyone try and tell me that land's a problem - not in Australia it isn't. Even Victoria and Tasmania have far more land than they're going to need for solar farms.

Here's another one, 108 MW, again it's the proverbial drop in the ocean in terms of land use. https://www.google.com/maps/@-35.27469,139.4859376,2560m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

So we won't sensibly put solar on literally every house, it's just not sensible to go beyond the point where the cost of doing it becomes uneconomic compared to the large scale alternative. That in itself means that distribution network upgrades only need go to a certain point beyond which further expenditure makes no sense.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> TransGrid (transmission operator in NSW) has announced a preference for developing a 150 - 200 MW / 1,550 MWh compressed air energy storage facility at Broken Hill. If built this will be by far the world's largest such facility.




Do you have any more detail on this ?

I was wondering what the storage "container" would be, eg do they pump the air into an underground cave , metal cylinders or what ?

It's a very interesting proposal anyway.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Do you have any more detail on this ?
> 
> I was wondering what the storage "container" would be, eg do they pump the air into an underground cave , metal cylinders or what ?
> 
> It's a very interesting proposal anyway.




I'm no expert on the detail but in short the idea is an underground cavern, eg an old mine or an intentionally dug out area in hard rock, and with associated water sitting on top (tanks etc above ground) to keep the pressure up.

Beyond that, it's just using very conventional equipment from the oil and gas industry to be dealing with high pressure gas underground. Only real difference being this is just air not flammable gas, but it's using the same equipment so that aspect of it is considered well proven.

The above ground plant, if you didn't know what it was you'd think it was oil/gas related based on the drawings etc I've seen. Lots of pipes, tanks etc and all looks like something normally associated with the oil or gas industry.

I'm no expert on the detail it though but that's the basic concept.

Claimed efficiency is 60%+ round trip. So not as good as a decent pumped hydro or battery system but it's still reasonable. In theory at least it should all be pretty durable too, versus batteries which have a very finite life.

I should point out that there is a bit if skepticism about it but time will tell. TransGrid, the NSW transmission operator, have presumably done some decent research in deciding to go with it.

See here: https://www.ecogeneration.com.au/pressure-builds-as-compressed-air-storage-projects-attract-funds/


----------



## sptrawler

Must admit I'm a bit on the skeptical side, but it would be great if it proves successful for large scale storage/generation, plenty of disused mine shaft around.
This statement from the article supports what we have been saying for a while.

_“Long duration storage is effectively a hedge product where you are taking low-cost energy, storing it and moving it to when the market needs it,” says Allen, mindful of negative pricing and curtailment events that have plagued large-scale solar plants this year.

“To be able to store that cost-effectively for longer durations than batteries you need technologies like pumped hydro … and we’re effectively an alternative to pumped hydro that can be effectively sited,” he says. “We can go to where the grid or generation needs it as opposed to where the topology dictates it should go.”

The Australian Energy Market Operator’s Integrated System Plan foretells dramatic augmentation to transmission, but it still calls out for about 17GW of energy storage with an average duration of 4-5 hours, Allen reminds EcoGeneration. “It will be challenging to do that at a competitive level of cost from a battery_.”


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm no expert on the detail but in short the idea is an underground cavern, eg an old mine or an intentionally dug out area in hard rock, and with associated water sitting on top (tanks etc above ground) to keep the pressure up.
> 
> Beyond that, it's just using very conventional equipment from the oil and gas industry to be dealing with high pressure gas underground. Only real difference being this is just air not flammable gas, but it's using the same equipment so that aspect of it is considered well proven.
> 
> The above ground plant, if you didn't know what it was you'd think it was oil/gas related based on the drawings etc I've seen. Lots of pipes, tanks etc and all looks like something normally associated with the oil or gas industry.
> 
> I'm no expert on the detail it though but that's the basic concept.
> 
> Claimed efficiency is 60%+ round trip. So not as good as a decent pumped hydro or battery system but it's still reasonable. In theory at least it should all be pretty durable too, versus batteries which have a very finite life.
> 
> I should point out that there is a bit if skepticism about it but time will tell. TransGrid, the NSW transmission operator, have presumably done some decent research in deciding to go with it.
> 
> See here: https://www.ecogeneration.com.au/pressure-builds-as-compressed-air-storage-projects-attract-funds/



Impressive story.
Hope it works well.
Good find.


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> So there's still an ongoing need for natural gas at least in the medium term and that means there's still a market for gas producers, pipeline companies and so on to operate in




I've posted the details in this thread since it's proposed by that company:

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/threads/ctp-central-petroleum.2905/page-26

In short, the idea is a gas pipeline from the southern end of the existing NT pipeline connecting from there to Moomba in SA with a capacity of 124 TJ / day.

Since Moomba already connects through to NSW and SA, that effectively does provide an increased daily supply into the south-eastern market. Not a massive one, 45 PJ a year, but significant.


----------



## sptrawler

Meanwhile a large (relative to grid) solar farm starts up in W.A's mid West, very near a large wind farm. 
Interesting comments by the installation builder.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/west-au...farm-sails-to-full-generation-capacity-40707/
From the article:
_The 100MW Merredin solar farm – by far the biggest in the state of Western Australia to date – has reached its full generation capacity in a timeline that would be the envy of solar developers and owners in the eastern states.

The project’s developers, Risen Energy, said on Wednesday that it had worked closely with network service provider Western Power and the Australian Energy Market Operator through the staged live commissioning process, and Merredin was now exporting 100% capacity output, compatible with the grid’s requirements.

“It has been a pleasure to work with Western Power and their smooth coordination with AEMO has enabled us to reach this milestone of achieving a fully operational solar facility which will supply green power,” said Risen Australia general manager Eric Lee_.


----------



## Muckman

For anyone who’s not be following BP’s net zero plan


----------



## sptrawler

Wow this could be a bit of a concern for Eastern States and its gas situation.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08...r-changes-to-was-domestic-gas-policy/12570312


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> Wow this could be a bit of a concern for Eastern States and its gas situation.
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08...r-changes-to-was-domestic-gas-policy/12570312




Interesting obviously wants 7 media onside, but maybe makes sense to maintain local supply unlike the eastern states that pay more for domestic gas that the exporters do


----------



## Muckman

I can see gas as a future feed stock for future fuels such as syngas technology’s but as a raw energy needs for power stations and homes, gas exports will be made redundant some time in the future in my view. Why export a compressed gas that takes enormous amounts of energy to store when you can use syngas techniques to transport it in a liquid state and at a fare grater volume and and being carbon neutral at the same time.


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## Value Collector

Muckman said:


> Why export a compressed gas that takes enormous amounts of energy to store when you can use syngas techniques to transport it in a liquid state and at a fare grater volume and and being carbon neutral at the same time.




Natural gas is exported in a liquid state, it is not compressed.

We export LNG, (Liquified Natural gas) not CNG (compressed Natural Gas)

Natural gas is reduced in temperature until it is turned into a liquid, reducing its volume by 600 times, it is then stored as a liquid during shipping, and allowed to warm up and return to a gas at its destination.

Here is a short video explaining it.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> When I installed the first solar system on my place 10 years ago, it was always tripping on over voltage and I did see over 250v, but I haven't seen those voltages for a long time.
> As the person in the article said, there are things they can do to remedy the problem and steps are being taken everywhere.




My car tells me the voltage of the power point I am plugged into, it seems to fluctuate above and below 240V, I have seen it go to 247V a fair few times, at first I was worried, but I called the energy company and they said fluctuations were normal, but that they had an accepted range, I can't remember what that accepted range was, but it does seem to be higher than 240V more often than not, but I am no expert, thats just what I see.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Interesting obviously wants 7 media onside, but maybe makes sense to maintain local supply unlike the eastern states that pay more for domestic gas that the exporters do



Yes it would also have been even better, if we were piping gas to the Kimberley's, rather than Darwin from the Browse basin.

_The *Ichthys gas field* is a natural gas field located in the Timor Sea, off the northwestern coast of Australia. The field is located 220 km offshore Western Australia and 820 km southwest of Darwin, with an average water depth of approximately 250 metres.[1] It was discovered in 2000 and developed by Inpex in partnership with Total, Tokyo Gas, Osaka Gas, Chubu Electric Power, Toho Gas, Kansai Electric Power and CPC_.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> There's a simple explanation for it all.
> 
> Historically, pre-solar days, under normal circumstances in the context of supply to homes and small business voltage would only ever go down, not up, between the transformer and the consumer. Voltage rise can happen in the context of industry and long distances but not normally for small loads in the suburbs.
> 
> As such, if you've got a nominal voltage range of 216V - 253V then, since it was only going to go down never up, it made perfectly rational sense to intentionally aim at the upper end of that range. Aim for 250 and not much chance anyone's going be below 216.
> 
> Same with anything. If you're buying clothes for children and they're half way between sizes, well the kids are going to get larger not smaller so it's an easy choice to go a bit too large rather than a bit too small with the shoes, trousers or whatever. Give it a few weeks and it'll be just right.
> 
> The trouble is that with so much solar, it is indeed now the case that voltage can go up within the distribution network to exceed that at the transformer. All of a sudden the old approach not only doesn't work but it fails rather spectacularly to be aiming at the upper end and then it rises further. That's akin t saying that the kids do indeed get smaller at times, all past thinking has been turned on its head completely.
> 
> Just turning it down permanently isn't a solution however. At 6pm in Winter with everyone cooking dinner, running heaters etc and with no sun then the problem of voltage drop is as real as it always was. Send out, say, 230 at the transformer and someone's going to be complaining that it's 202 in their house. Can't get around physics there, that was always the reason for jacking the voltage up toward the upper end of the range, it gets around the problem that it will drop under load in the network.
> 
> There's really 3 solutions to this:
> 
> 1. Put the electricity to use within the network at the time it's being produced. The old logic of heating water in the middle of the night, or using gas to do it, is very rapidly becoming obsolete.
> 
> SA now routinely sees minimum demand in the early afternoon, not overnight, with WA, Vic and parts of the NT rapidly heading to the same situation indeed at a local level some parts of those states already are. Other states will get there in due course and already are in some localised areas within them.
> 
> So shifting non-time critical electrical loads to the middle of the day makes massive sense, and increasingly so does shifting from the direct use of fuel to electricity where the end product (eg hot water) can be stored.
> 
> 2. Do clever things in the network. That is, change transformer taps in relation to actual measured voltages or at least based on a reasonable proxy (eg weather and time of day will get it pretty close). That requires some investment but not dramatically.
> 
> 3. Accept that ultimately there are limits to how much rooftop solar makes sense. The rationale behind it is that the land cost is zero and the electrical network is already there. That idea works to a point but fails if we have to spend $$$ upgrading the network, in which case the alternative option of building large solar farms is an alternative means to the same end result without adding stress to the distribution network.
> 
> Here's a 53,000 kW solar farm which if fully operational will in practice produce comparable output to around 10,000 household systems given that the latter will have issues with sub-optimal orientation, shading and so on which a large solar farm doesn't. Further, it does so more consistently through the day thus reducing the need for storage capacity:
> 
> https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-31.9877709,141.3908337,2659m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
> 
> Now zoom that map out. Please don't anyone try and tell me that land's a problem - not in Australia it isn't. Even Victoria and Tasmania have far more land than they're going to need for solar farms.
> 
> Here's another one, 108 MW, again it's the proverbial drop in the ocean in terms of land use. https://www.google.com/maps/@-35.27469,139.4859376,2560m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
> 
> So we won't sensibly put solar on literally every house, it's just not sensible to go beyond the point where the cost of doing it becomes uneconomic compared to the large scale alternative. That in itself means that distribution network upgrades only need go to a certain point beyond which further expenditure makes no sense.




So am I right in assuming that if my neighbour hood, is producing more solar than we can consume, there is no way to pass the excess back through the transformer and into another neighbourhood, or is my understanding of the issue wrong?

Also, are the transformers you are talking about those boxes you see up the power poles with 100 or so houses connected to them, or are you talking about the larger substation type things?


----------



## Value Collector

Value Collector said:


> So am I right in assuming that if my neighbour hood, is producing more solar than we can consume, there is no way to pass the excess back through the transformer and into another neighbourhood, or is my understanding of the issue wrong?
> 
> Also, are the transformers you are talking about those boxes you see up the power poles with 100 or so houses connected to them, or are you talking about the larger substation type things?




I found these video trying while trying to answer my own question.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Wow this could be a bit of a concern for Eastern States and its gas situation.




I'll keep out of the lunacy (politics) and simply note the reality of the situation as it applies to south-eastern Australia (the whole of NSW, ACT, Vic, SA, Tas collectively):

In terms of consumption, for example (only) on 4 August 2020 it was 1983 TJ across the south-eastern states versus 794 TJ on the 24th of January (and that wasn't the lowest, it's just a random day I picked).

So there's a very clear seasonal pattern there hence, in the absence of some major incident, if supply copes through winter then it'll cope through the following summer without much drama.

Now to summarise what the industry, AEMO and everyone else is well aware of:

Supply will get through winter 2020, 2021 and 2022 so long as there are no major incidents etc.

Supply might be adequate through 2023 or it might not. Depends on exactly when certain fields stop producing which depends on the exact rate of consumption. That comes down to temperature (heating) as well as other things like the overall economy (business use), operation of gas-fired power generation (which would go up in the event of any major failure of coal / hydro / wind / solar) and so on.

Supply isn't adequate for winter 2024 with present infrastructure, gas fields and so on. Not much chance it'll make it that far unless we get consumption right at the low end of what's possible between now and then.

That's the crux of it. The rest is politics and so on.

Hence the various proposals to boost supply including, among others, the Santos gas field development in NSW (200 TJ / day), the new pipeline from the NT (124 TJ / day) and various ideas of importing LNG to NSW / Vic / SA and/or building a pipeline from WA or additional pipelines from Queensland or NT.

A key problem in all this which leaves many confused is that it's all somewhat instantaneous. Energy's basically the only thing where it's entirely possible to have an abundance of supply today and be in a crisis literally 24 hours later if the weather changes and demand goes up or something fails. That doesn't happen in terms of coal sitting in piles or fuel in tanks etc but it sure can in terms of gas actually in the distribution network or electricity that's actually available. 

Eg mid-summer it's not unknown to see Victoria's total gas consumption over 24 hours at just ~20% of the peak winter daily consumption. Once you realise that point, it's then fairly easy to grasp that it just needs a change in the weather to go from surplus to shortage or vice versa in terms of gas that's been produced and is in the pipelines. Hence the focus on daily production capacity - that impacts the ability to supply consumers far more directly than does gas in the ground or annual production rates despite those all being related.

End of the world? No - but there's a looming supply gap and the options are either that something fills it (new supply) or consumption must be reduced. There's no way around that. I'll leave the politics to the politicians though.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> So am I right in assuming that if my neighbour hood, is producing more solar than we can consume, there is no way to pass the excess back through the transformer and into another neighbourhood, or is my understanding of the issue wrong?




Transformer can go both ways.

Where the issue arises is that due to the resistance of the wiring, there will always be some loss as current flows through it and that loss in practice means a drop in voltage.

Put a supply source at "A" and a load at "B" with however much wire between them. The voltage measured at "B" will be lower than that seen at "A" due to that loss.

If you've ever noticed that the cable of a high powered appliance gets warm then that's the reason why. It's the voltage drop within the cable due to the current flow and the resistance of the copper wire. That voltage drop will by its very nature produce heat.

Traditionally the only issue in the network was a loss of voltage between the transformer and consumers since power flow was in one direction only. Eg send out 250V at the transformer and it was a given that consumers would get no more than 250 and that most of them, due to that voltage drop, would get a bit less. It worked and nobody complained.

The problem now is that power flow is in two directions and under circumstances where a large portion of homes have solar, the transformer becomes the load on the low voltage (230 / 400V) network and the small solar systems are collectively the source of supply. That is, power flows from that street through the transformer and into the rest of the grid.

That can work but for it to do so requires that the solar systems can and do push the voltage to a level that's higher than the transformer. Same as anything involving pressure - to inflate a tyre requires that the pump can produce a pressure that's higher than what the tyre is already at. The higher the tyre's current pressure, the higher pressure the pump needs to apply to get more air into it. That's where the trouble starts.

If the transformer's at 250 then the solar needs to push it above that in order to get that power to flow into the network. End result is it goes too high and the inverters automatically trip due to excess voltage as they're required and designed to do. That's becoming an increasingly common problem.

Turning the voltage down at the transformer to, say, 230 fixes that problem since now the voltage can rise above that in the network and still be within specifications as such. So the solar inverters cause the voltage to rise to (say) 245 but no problem since the inverters are happy at that level and it all works.

Where that does cause a problem though is at ~6pm on a cold winter evening. Everyone's got their ovens, heaters etc going and we see considerable drop between the transformer and the customer furthest away. Send out 230 at the transformer and it's a given that the house furthest away will get considerably less than 230 V and if it's too low then they'll be complaining that the oven's taking ages to heat up, the lights are dim and so on. Overcoming that voltage drop in the network was the reason for running the transformers at ~250V in the first place.

So the change is from a situation where voltage always dropped as distance from the transformer increases to one where, if there's enough solar, it may either rise or fall at different times of the day.

The solution to that is to change the voltage at the transformer according to what's going in in the network. That is, drop it down for the middle of the day but be able to wind it back up for the evening peak. That allows the voltage to rise above the transformer voltage during daytime without tripping off the inverters but jacks the transformer voltage back up to avoid the problem of voltage dropping too low during times of high demand and no sun.

Trouble is - in many cases we don't have an easy method of actually doing that. Different transformers, different ages, not all of them have any taps which can be used to adjust voltage anyway and even if they did, doing so requires a site visit with a truck and so on.

Workaround to that problem is change it on the high voltage side instead. That then takes all the transformers on that HV line up and down with it. It's easier to set up since it becomes one change instead of a hundred and so on and whilst less tailored, in practice it's good enough given that a few volts either way won't really matter.

Note that there are differences in the manner in which different distribution networks are approaching the problem and that comes down to their having different equipment, different load profiles (eg heatwaves not really an issue in Tas for example) and different % of homes with solar.

The other issue is the prospect that small solar systems generate so much power that there's simply nowhere for it to go. That is, we can feed surplus from one street into the rest of the network no worries, we can even feed the surplus from a whole town(s) back into the transmission grid, but that relies on _someone_ consuming that in real time.

SA is within sight of actually reaching that exact situation, a point where total small solar generation is so high that exceeds total consumption within the state from all consumers, and in due course Victoria, WA and parts of the NT are sure to get there too.

Conventional power system operation relies upon being able to vary the output of generation so as to match load but that obviously can't be done if all the generation is sitting on roofs and there's no control over it.

In that context SA is the world leader so far as any reasonably large power system is concerned and there's a lot of discussion as to how, exactly, to deal with the situation.

So long as SA is connected to Victoria and Vic hasn't yet reached the same situation then that's one workaround. Trouble is, relying on a single asset that has had major failures in the past (a section of that line was destroyed by extreme weather just a few months ago, since repaired) is too risky when failure could black out the whole state. Politically that would be a nightmare if it happened.....

Building a new SA - NSW line provides one workaround. Sure that could fail too but the chance that both fail at once is pretty slim.

Simply encouraging more use of electricity at midday is another workaround. Eg heating water is an obvious potential use, charging EV's and even just things like pricing incentives to encourage people to run the dishwasher at midday instead of 9pm. Etc.

Batteries, pumped hydro and any other form of storage is another solution. In practice it adds load to the system if it's charged during the middle of the day, thus keeping load up to a point where it always exceeds the output from small solar systems.

Finally, the "last resort" idea is one that won't be popular with consumers although it'll no doubt be more popular than a system collapse. It isn't being done now, and nobody's proposing it as an economic or ideological thing, but from an engineering perspective well if all else fails then intentionally jacking up voltage across the distribution network is one way that inverters could be forced offline. They won't all go off at once but slowly ramp it up and that'll cut solar output thus keeping load up to a point where the system is controllable. Not ideal but as a last resort measure if all else fails well then it would work yes.

As a broad comment there, the networks don't really care about all the ideological and political argument, it's just an engineering question of making it work. SA's the leader globally so there's nobody else to copy. Meanwhile some of the options available in SA, eg exporting the problem to Vic and NSW, aren't an option for WA which is heading down the same track. But it's an engineering issue not an ideological one.

Separate but related to that, it's a reality that quite a few present power stations simply weren't designed with the idea that they'd be operated intermittently. They were designed to run solidly for months at a time since, at the time they were designed and built, that was what they needed to do. Trying to adapt those to intermittent operation to accommodate wind and solar ranges from easy (some hydro and gas) through to impossible in practice (some of the coal plants) with rather a lot being able to go part way there.

That becomes a problem in a scenario when it's sunny and with moderate demand at midday but then the weather changes and demand is high during the evening. There's quite a bit of plant that simply can't get back on in that time frame or at least not without incurring $$$ in costs to do it.

To be clear though, some coal plant certainly can ramp up and down pretty easily and we're not yet at the point where we actually need to turn all of it off anyway. It's definite issue though.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> I called the energy company and they said fluctuations were normal, but that they had an accepted range, I can't remember what that accepted range was




216V to 253V is the accepted range however the "preferred" range is 225V to 244V. 

The first one's the requirement as such, the latter is the goal but not always achievable.

Some distributors will act on anything outside that range, others will only act on a marginal breach of the standard only if it's for a specified duration. That said, any of them will jump real quick if it's something way outside the range to the point of being dangerous.

Frequency is nominally 50Hz with the normal operating range being 49.85Hz to 50.15Hz. 

In the event of an incident, the goal is to contain frequency within the 49.50 to 50.50 Hz range. Not always achieved in practice depending on what's gone wrong but that's the aim.


----------



## sptrawler

Things are hotting up in the renewable space, coal generators will start and find it hard to push into the grid soon, their financial viability will get more and more questionable.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/neoen-f...battery-10-times-bigger-than-hornsdale-67395/
When Snowy2.0 and the Tassie battery are online, it will really make life interesting IMO.


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## sptrawler

On the same theme, Australia's biggest solar farm online, the good part is they are all starting to get their $hit together rather than just throwing them in. It is all coming together IMO, magic.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/austral...istered-with-two-big-spinning-machines-40203/
From the article:
Darlington Point – which was originally due to begin production earlier this year – is also located in an area of the grid known as the West Murray zone, which is considered weak, and where “system strength” have been identified, and where five big solar farms had their output cut in half for more than seven months because of potential voltage issues.

Darlington Point – despite being located in what it says is an “ideal” part of the grid, near Griffith in south-west NSW – has installed two synchronous condensers –  large rotating machines that mimic the operations of coal or gas generators, to try and ensure that it is not penalised for any grid stability issues that may emerge.

Project developers in the region have been warned of extended delays to the congestions and commissioning, and AEMO has recently decided that projects will be connected one by one (sequenced), so that grid issues can be monitored.


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## basilio

This decision reflects the view of the role of fossil fuels in  the longer term energy mix

*Insurance giant Suncorp to end coverage and finance for oil and gas industry*
Suncorp’s decision to pull out of industry by 2025 puts it at odds with government push for gas-led recovery
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...coverage-and-finance-for-oil-and-gas-industry


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## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> This decision reflects the view of the role of fossil fuels in  the longer term energy mix
> 
> *Insurance giant Suncorp to end coverage and finance for oil and gas industry*
> Suncorp’s decision to pull out of industry by 2025 puts it at odds with government push for gas-led recovery
> https://www.theguardian.com/environ...coverage-and-finance-for-oil-and-gas-industry




Looks like the PC brigade has got into the insurance industry now.

Gas may be a fossil fuel but it's a lot cleaner than coal, and I'd rather trust Alan Finkel when he says gas should be an important part of our energy grid.

I suppose insurance companies can do what they like with their money , but I'd rather have scientists and engineers designing our essential services.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> AEMO has recently decided that projects will be connected one by one (sequenced), so that grid issues can be monitored



It's a scenario that's all too familiar to anyone who's had involvement with power generation and for that matter transmission too.

Something happens (a genuine problem) and that results in something else tripping which wasn't supposed to trip. Eg one generating unit fails or a single transmission line trips and then some other generator or line that has nothing wrong with it also trips due to the disturbance.

It's one of those things which shouldn't happen but does in practice, most easily understood by explaining that we're talking about a situation where a 1% change in frequency is problematic and once it's 4 - 5% then fair chance the whole lot goes down.

Hence the logic behind commissioning then seeing what happens in practice before going further. Engineering calculations are all well and good but experience says let's see what really happens - the danger being that the new thing doesn't play as intended with what's already there due to some unforeseen problem.

There's been a few dramatic incidents over the years which come to mind. Most obviously the SA system black in 2016. Triggered by physical failure of transmission lines but ultimately the system could've survived that with only localised blackouts. What brought the whole show down was things tripping which shouldn't have tripped which then overloaded everything remaining and caused that to trip as well.

That's not the only such incident, just the most dramatic one in recent times. Only yesterday there was a line trip in Victoria which resulted in the unintended trip of a solar farm. That it didn't make the news is because everything else worked as intended so the lights stayed on - AEMO are however following through to make sure the reasons are identified and resolved to prevent a recurrence.

For the avoidance of politics I'll point out that it certainly wouldn't be the first time that fossil fuel or hydro plant tripped when it shouldn't have. The situation isn't confined to wind or solar by any means.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Gas may be a fossil fuel but it's a lot cleaner than coal, and I'd rather trust Alan Finkel when he says gas should be an important part of our energy grid.




On one hand I'm pretty keen on the idea of renewables. It can be done yes.

On the other well realistically there's zero chance we won't be needing oil or gas 5 years from now. That the majority of it isn't used for power generation but for millions of consumer devices which have already been built ensures that. We're not going to see a complete replacement of cars, heaters etc in that time so we're going to need fuel that's a given.


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> On one hand I'm pretty keen on the idea of renewables. It can be done yes.
> 
> On the other well realistically there's zero chance we won't be needing oil or gas 5 years from now. That the majority of it isn't used for power generation but for millions of consumer devices which have already been built ensures that. We're not going to see a complete replacement of cars, heaters etc in that time so we're going to need fuel that's a given.




We are not going to stop using fossil fuels in the next 5- 10 even 20 years. That's a given.
On the other hand the push to renewables is driven by economics and environment. They don't compete economically and represent a CC risk. *In that context the financial risk of backing new fossil fuel projects is very significant.*

It comes down to the risk of billions of dollars of stranded assets. Who wants to take that financial risk ? An insurance company? Private industries?

Hardly.


----------



## basilio

Not completely off topic. I think this is a thread for engineers so  check out  how a guy moves huge concrete blocks by hand. 

No jacks. No modern  technology. 
Clever and interesting.


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> It comes down to the risk of billions of dollars of stranded assets. Who wants to take that financial risk ? An insurance company? Private industries?




Yes, I agree. Fossil fuel projects will have to be mainly government financed, but a sensible government will take the advice of the people who actually have to build the network rather than the finance industry.

There are times when you have to do things for the national interest rather than commercial return.


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> Not completely off topic. I think this is a thread for engineers so  check out  how a guy moves huge concrete blocks by hand.
> 
> No jacks. No modern  technology.
> Clever and interesting.





Clever guy, but how did he get the block on his device in the first place ? 

Here's another one of the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Leedskalnin


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Looks like the PC brigade has got into the insurance industry now.
> 
> Gas may be a fossil fuel but it's a lot cleaner than coal, and I'd rather trust Alan Finkel when he says gas should be an important part of our energy grid.
> 
> I suppose insurance companies can do what they like with their money , but I'd rather have scientists and engineers designing our essential services.



When the ranters and chanters start logics go out the window, "we want it and we want it now", then the media get on board then the loonies join in, then we have situation normal Australia.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> We are not going to stop using fossil fuels in the next 5- 10 even 20 years. That's a given.
> On the other hand the push to renewables is driven by economics and environment. They don't compete economically and represent a CC risk. *In that context the financial risk of backing new fossil fuel projects is very significant.*
> 
> It comes down to the risk of billions of dollars of stranded assets. Who wants to take that financial risk ? An insurance company? Private industries?
> 
> Hardly.



Someone is going to have to fund it, be that private or public.
One thing for sure no one will accept, having to sit in a cold dark house for an extended period, because the government flucked up.
Thats a given.


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Looks like the PC brigade has got into the insurance industry now.
> 
> Gas may be a fossil fuel but it's a lot cleaner than coal, and I'd rather trust Alan Finkel when he says gas should be an important part of our energy grid.
> 
> I suppose insurance companies can do what they like with their money , but I'd rather have scientists and engineers designing our essential services.




I don’t think anyone will have trouble finding someone to sell them insurance contracts, there are plenty of big insurance companies that will love to take any business Suncorp doesn’t want.


----------



## Value Collector

basilio said:


> We are not going to stop using fossil fuels in the next 5- 10 even 20 years. That's a given.
> On the other hand the push to renewables is driven by economics and environment. They don't compete economically and represent a CC risk. *In that context the financial risk of backing new fossil fuel projects is very significant.*
> 
> It comes down to the risk of billions of dollars of stranded assets. Who wants to take that financial risk ? An insurance company? Private industries?
> 
> Hardly.




or even worse, the assets aren’t “stranded”, instead they still get used but the owners are subjected to punitive tax rates.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> On the other hand the push to renewables is driven by economics and environment. *In that context the financial risk of backing new fossil fuel projects is very significant.*
> 
> It comes down to the risk of billions of dollars of stranded assets. Who wants to take that financial risk ? An insurance company? Private industries?
> 
> Hardly.



In the context of an insurer deciding where to invest money then sure, no problem with them investing in whatever they've concluded makes for a good investment so long as it's legal etc.

In the context of providing an insurance service however, well the risk that the customer's assets become worthless isn't really the insurer's problem. They're insuring them not guaranteeing there's any profit to be made by owning them.

I'll simply say that as a concept I dislike the idea that a private company imposes "moral" conditions on its provision of services. So long as the customer isn't purchasing something for an illegal purpose then I'm not at all keen on the idea that someone's trying to force their view on society. That sort of thing's a very slippery slope most certainly and best left for democratically elected governments to decide what's OK and what's not. If the purpose is legal then a business shouldn't refuse service.

I'm saying that as a matter of principle not because I think Suncorp are going to put the gas industry out of business. Business forcing morality is a slippery slope as a concept. 

Back to the practical side, well government still all but forces connection of gas to any new home built in Victoria and it's the same in some parts of other states so we're going to be using gas well beyond the life of current gas fields. New supply from some source is required and it won't be obsolete anytime soon.

I don't agree with that policy pushing gas by the way, but it is what it is. It's not totally impossible to avoid it but you'll need to be pretty keen and willing to spend time and money in order to do so. End result = consumption is locked in for many years to come in practice.


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> Clever guy, but how did he get the block on his device in the first place ?
> 
> Here's another one of the same.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Leedskalnin




From memory he developed an ingenious way of lifting the whole block up using leverage chocks and see saw effect. In  the end the concrete block is a metre off the ground resting on supports.
I was amazed at his efforts at moving whole buildings hundreds of metres with just simple muscle !!


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> From memory he developed an ingenious way of lifting the whole block up using leverage chocks and see saw effect. In the end the concrete block is a metre off the ground resting on supports.




If you can find a way to effectively gear the task right down well then ultimately it's just a matter of applying energy to raise it up. Gear it down enough and the relatively limited physical abilities of a human are good enough.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> If you can find a way to effectively gear the task right down well then ultimately it's just a matter of applying energy to raise it up. Gear it down enough and the relatively limited physical abilities of a human are good enough.



Applied mechanics 101.


----------



## sptrawler

Well as they say "it ain't over untill the fat lady sings", the offshore gas processing isn't going as well as planned. We may well end up with the gas processed onshore yet.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08...remains-in-shutdown/12565490?section=business


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Looks like the PC brigade has got into the insurance industry now.
> 
> Gas may be a fossil fuel but it's a lot cleaner than coal, and I'd rather trust Alan Finkel when he says gas should be an important part of our energy grid.
> 
> I suppose insurance companies can do what they like with their money , but I'd rather have scientists and engineers designing our essential services.



It looks as though the loonies and the media have moved on from coal at last.
https://www.theage.com.au/environme...ed-new-research-suggests-20200824-p55ovg.html
From the article:
_The good news about natural gas is that when it is burnt it creates between 40 and 50 per cent less carbon dioxide than coal would to create the same amount of energy.
But the good news ends there, and there is a lot more to the story.

Before it is burnt natural gas is mostly made up of methane, and methane is estimated to be about 28 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period_.

https://www.theage.com.au/environme...-gas-say-leading-experts-20200824-p55oty.html
From the article:
_A group of leading Australian scientists has taken the unusual step of writing to the Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel, saying his support for gas as an energy source "is not consistent with a safe climate"_.
_In the speech Dr Finkel outlined how Australia needed to electrify its energy system to meet Paris climate goals.

He said that as renewable energy generation, storage and transmission technologies are scaled up to decarbonise the economy, gas would play a "critical role", and that the transition could take decades.

"He seems to be speaking in ignorance of or [to be] ignoring the overwhelming amount of evidence gathered by his own scientific community about the impact of the gas industry on the climate," said Professor Steffen.

Professor Steffen said that Australia's Paris climate targets were weak, set politically and had no scientific basis; that even if they were to be met Australia would still not be doing its fair share to mitigate global warming under the agreement, and that the use of gas as a transition energy source was quickly making the situation worse_.
.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> _Professor Steffen said that Australia's Paris climate targets were weak, set politically and had no scientific basis; that even if they were to be met Australia would still not be doing its fair share to mitigate global warming under the agreement, and that the use of gas as a transition energy source was quickly making the situation worse_.
> .




I see these gas stations as an emergency reserve to be used when conditions don't allow the production of renewable energy, ie long periods of overcast weather in Qld say. So they will probably be idle for most of the time if things go well with the renewable output and therefore won't produce much GG. But of course the ultra left latch on to anything "fossil" and demonise it, thinking we can do it all with  renewables.

Renewables are great, but we need a backup.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Renewables are great, but we need a backup



Gas is one way to do it although I'm sure that Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tas would both be very quick to point out that large scale hydro is another way of doing it. 

Large scale as in capable of running not continuously, that isn't required, but for an extended period not just a few hours. 

Meanwhile in SA:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08...olar-panels/12602684?WT.ac=localnews_adelaide

It's a crude solution but one that's unavoidable given that better solutions haven't been implemented and there's simply no time left to do anything.

In layman's terms the idea is jack the network voltage up and that trips off the inverters. Do it gradually and they don't all trip at once. So just trip enough to keep supply and demand in balance.

It's a problem best explained by saying that forecast load in SA tomorrow afternoon, a Saturday with a forecast maximum temperature of 25 in Adelaide, is 400 MW (purely coincidental that it's a round number, the forecast is produced down to the 1 MW accuracy level and wouldn't normally be a nice round number like that).

To put that into perspective, that's well under half the minimum load Tasmania experiences in any 24 hour period despite SA having 3.4 times the population. It compares with maximum load in SA of about 3400 MW, average load of about 1500 MW and minimum load overnight tonight forecast at 959 MW.

Better solutions in my view are encouraging load shifting at the end user level. Water heating's the obvious one but has turned out to be somewhat difficult from a bureaucratic perspective. It'll happen, just not as quickly as would be ideal from a technical or environmental perspective (a statement that of itself seems rather odd, that the engineering and environmental aspects both are optimised with the same approach). 

So whilst there's some progress on all this stuff, I do caution that there's a lot still to be done.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Gas is one way to do it although I'm sure that Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tas would both be very quick to point out that large scale hydro is another way of doing it.
> 
> Large scale as in capable of running not continuously, that isn't required, but for an extended period not just a few hours.
> 
> Meanwhile in SA:
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08...olar-panels/12602684?WT.ac=localnews_adelaide
> 
> It's a crude solution but one that's unavoidable given that better solutions haven't been implemented and there's simply no time left to do anything.
> 
> In layman's terms the idea is jack the network voltage up and that trips off the inverters. Do it gradually and they don't all trip at once. So just trip enough to keep supply and demand in balance.
> 
> It's a problem best explained by saying that forecast load in SA tomorrow afternoon, a Saturday with a forecast maximum temperature of 25 in Adelaide, is 400 MW (purely coincidental that it's a round number, the forecast is produced down to the 1 MW accuracy level and wouldn't normally be a nice round number like that).
> 
> To put that into perspective, that's well under half the minimum load Tasmania experiences in any 24 hour period despite SA having 3.4 times the population. It compares with maximum load in SA of about 3400 MW, average load of about 1500 MW and minimum load overnight tonight forecast at 959 MW.
> 
> Better solutions in my view are encouraging load shifting at the end user level. Water heating's the obvious one but has turned out to be somewhat difficult from a bureaucratic perspective. It'll happen, just not as quickly as would be ideal from a technical or environmental perspective (a statement that of itself seems rather odd, that the engineering and environmental aspects both are optimised with the same approach).
> 
> So whilst there's some progress on all this stuff, I do caution that there's a lot still to be done.



From the outside looking in, IMO S.A got way ahead of the curve and are desperately treading water, while their problems are absorbed.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> From the outside looking in, IMO S.A got way ahead of the curve and are desperately treading water, while their problems are absorbed.




Classic case of a bunch of _mostly_ well intentioned ideas but no actual plan on how it was going to work.

When that was the odd random household installing a 1kW solar system it simply didn't matter, it was unnoticeable "noise" in the overall context, but it sure does now when it's considered that at midday Friday:

Small solar = 857 MW
Large solar farms = 282 MW
Load = 1575 MW

So that's 72% supplied by solar and that's a very long way from the insignificant "noise" it was a decade ago.

To be politically neutral and straight to the point, I think rather a lot simply didn't foresee it getting to anything like this level for a very long time if ever. They were thinking that we might get to 10 MW of solar in a decade or by the time they were dead it might be 100 MW, the idea that it would exceed 1000 MW, in SA alone, just didn't occur as being even remotely possible.

That's how I see it really. Despite the political noise neither side of politics thought we were really, actually going to make a serious move to renewables beyond tokenism indeed some states still don't officially accept it as being plausible.

End result is a lot of wind and solar have been built but the necessary policies and infrastructure to go with it are running well behind and that's the issue. It gives rise to a "feast or famine" situation - solar going to waste then literally just a few hours later gas turbines or diesels are roaring away.

1:55pm Friday = spot price in SA was at $5.90 per MWh. Solar and wind combined were supplying 79.8% of load.

6:00pm Same day = spot price hit $288.04 per MWh. Solar and wind combined were supplying 4.9% of load.

For the companies who build storage facilities to take advantage of that price volatility, charge when it's cheap and discharge where it's expensive, well that's where the business opportunity in all this lies.

Likewise for anyone who can work out a way of charging EV's when it's cheap and so on, there's a coming opportunity there assuming EV's do become common.


----------



## orr

Cheers Smurf; is there a public available link to the SA spot price history?
You are being a little cheeky as to who's got the capacity and who's already creaming it on these differentials.
the quote was something like..'_Have the worlds biggest battery have the worlds biggest Banana_'
what a goose...


----------



## Smurf1976

orr said:


> Cheers Smurf; is there a public available link to the SA spot price history?




Ultimately all the data's available (to anyone, no $ or password needed) in raw .csv form from AEMO.

That's rather user unfriendly however unless someone really does want the fine detail so the easier ones are:

https://aemo.com.au/en/energy-syste...ricity-market-nem/data-nem/data-dashboard-nem

"Price and Demand" shows the current past day and day ahead forecast. Blue line is load and the purple line is price. Solid line is the past day, dotted is forecast ahead. Just pick the state at the top left of the page.

"Dispatch Overview" shows the overall situation for each state. Price in $ and demand (purple bar) and generation (blueish green bar) in MW.

There's also an assortment of third party services around. Some paid ones for professional use, some in-house ones developed and only available within particular companies (generally with a focus on their own generating plants), and various free ones available to anyone. Of the latter, this one's about the most useful:

https://opennem.org.au/energy/nem

It's intuitive and self-explanatory really. As with the rest it's simply accessing AEMO's freely available data and putting a far more user friendly interface on it.

Actual prices today in SA were negative, that is below zero, constantly between 7:30am and 5:00pm local time. Significant volumes of large scale solar were curtailed during the day, indeed it was literally shut down completely for a period, and likewise wind was curtailed most of the day.

Following chart shows wind and large solar generation only as well as the price:







That hollowing out during the middle of the day is wind and large solar being curtailed due to nowhere for it to go. Easily explained by posting the same chart again this time showing all solar generation, small as well as large, and also gas, battery, import from / export to Victoria:






That's the same chart, just with all the data on the second one versus wind and large solar only on the first one.

Yellow = Solar. Green = Wind. Orange = Gas. Purple = Import from Victoria. Below the zero line = export to Victoria. Blue = battery charge / discharge.

In case you're wondering why some gas-fired plant was still on, the simple answer is what's generically referred to as "system strength". In short, it's technically problematic to control a power system without running some level of synchronous plant (in layman's terms - big rotating machines running synchronised to the grid so that's steam turbines, gas turbines, diesel engines, hydro).

That's a technical limit with present technology not an ideological, political or economic one. Wind and solar can displace a large portion of the output from conventional plant at any given time but not the whole lot, some level of synchronous plant is still required to maintain system stability and control.

In short, great big lumps of rotating metal (steam turbines, hydro etc) have mechanical inertia which thus far at least electronics (wind, solar) don't adequately mimic. Someday perhaps, not yet however and that in practice sets a minimum level of gas-fired generation in SA (gas given there's no hydro or coal of any significance in SA so those aren't a consideration and whilst some plant exists diesel's far more expensive to operate than gas).

There's some proper calculations behind all that by the way. Traditionally it wasn't a problem, since all generation came from rotating synchronous machines of some sort, but with the growth of wind and solar it has become an issue. As such AEMO has done some pretty serious number crunching in the areas where it's of concern so as to determine exactly what the limits are.

As for the price, well charging the big battery at $-50 / MWh as occurred today is a "can't lose" strategy really. Get paid to fill it up, then get paid again to discharge it. The ultimate "buy low, sell high" strategy when the buy price is negative.

Whilst it's still only of fairly small scale relative to total consumption, this chart over the past 3 days shows it pretty clearly. Dark blue above the line is discharging, light blue below the line is charging (slightly complicated by the existence of more than one large battery in SA, each owned by different companies using different trading strategies etc).


----------



## Smurf1976

Chart referred to in above post:


----------



## sptrawler

A very interesting article on small modular nuclear reactors. Of interest was the last paragraph.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/arti...ny-adds-molten-salt-storage-to-its-smr-system

_ In a bombshell 2018 report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, nuclear played a role in all scenarios that kept global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius_.

May not apply to Australia, but the rest of the world?


----------



## basilio

This move by West Australia will address the problems of shifting domestic solar power to supplying peak usage.
It would be a clever move to use electric cars as "vehicles" to store excess daytime consumption and the release it back to the grid a few hours later.

*Daytime solar subsidies to be slashed as WA moves to head off grid overload*
Subsidies to West Australian households that pump solar power to the grid during the middle of the day are set to be slashed in a bid to avoid the risk of renewable energy overloading the state's electricity system.

*Key points:*

More than 300,000 households in WA's south-west have solar panels
A new subsidy scheme will slash daytime payments for excess solar but boost those at peak times
The changes come into effect from August 31
The WA Government, however, will boost payments to customers exporting solar power into the network during peak times under a long-awaited shakeup of a key green energy incentive scheme.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2...sidy-overhaul-to-avoid-grid-overload/12608036


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> This move by West Australia will address the problems of shifting domestic solar power to supplying peak usage.
> It would be a clever move to use electric cars as "vehicles" to store excess daytime consumption and the release it back to the grid a few hours later.
> 
> *Daytime solar subsidies to be slashed as WA moves to head off grid overload*
> Subsidies to West Australian households that pump solar power to the grid during the middle of the day are set to be slashed in a bid to avoid the risk of renewable energy overloading the state's electricity system.
> 
> *Key points:*
> 
> More than 300,000 households in WA's south-west have solar panels
> A new subsidy scheme will slash daytime payments for excess solar but boost those at peak times
> The changes come into effect from August 31
> The WA Government, however, will boost payments to customers exporting solar power into the network during peak times under a long-awaited shakeup of a key green energy incentive scheme.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2...sidy-overhaul-to-avoid-grid-overload/12608036




Talk about being a victim of your own success !


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Talk about being a victim of your own success !



Yes, when Barnett suggested it there was a public outcry.
It will be interesting to see if it slows the uptake of solar, my guess is it will, but that isn't a bad thing as it will allow the system to catch up with the deployment.
What will be worth watching, is if the State Government start to subsidies house batteries, I doubt the 10c being offered will encourage the investment required.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> Yes, when Barnett suggested it there was a public outcry.
> It will be interesting to see if it slows the uptake of solar, my guess is it will, but that isn't a bad thing as it will allow the system to catch up with the deployment.
> What will be worth watching, is if the State Government start to subsidies house batteries, I doubt the 10c being offered will encourage the investment required.




The value of the time shift for solar energy production may be useful for large commercial organizations.

Think about a school/supermarket with an extensive solar array set up.  If it can store excess power from the peak solar production times and then use it from 4-7 pm the economics may be well worth the investment.

There may be an opportunity to co-develop such projects with big battery investments which power companies can use to balance their power production.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> The value of the time shift for solar energy production may be useful for large commercial organizations.
> 
> Think about a school/supermarket with an extensive solar array set up.  If it can store excess power from the peak solar production times and then use it from 4-7 pm the economics may be well worth the investment.
> 
> There may be an opportunity to co-develop such projects with big battery investments which power companies can use to balance their power production.



I think schools don't need an incentive, as they are Government owned, so the rebate means little and the Government can put batteries and solar on.
As for supermarkets, the saving for the owner eg Westfield will depend on how their contracts with the shops are structured.
I think the W.A Government is trying to give itself some breathing space, they own the major coal fired generation and it is being thrashed to death.
So storage is required and W.A is very flat, so hydro is out, therefore batteries/H2 will be the goto storage.
It just depends on how much they want to pay for it.
The people who have solar, are getting 7c to export it to the Government, who are then on selling it for 26c.
To take that 7c off them and tell them they can now get 10c if they spend $7,000 on a battery ain't going to cut IMO.
IMO what is more likely with labor is, as they did when they first attained office, they nearly doubled the service fee. My guess is they will introduce time of day billing and 3pm-9pm will be very expensive and will hurt those who can least afford it, but Labor will get away with it.
Time will tell.


----------



## sptrawler

Apparently those with the existing 7c deal keep it, article updated 6 hrs ago.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-31/wa-solar-subsidy-overhaul-to-avoid-grid-overload/12608036
main points form article:
Subsidies to West Australian households that pump solar power to the grid during the middle of the day are set to be slashed in a bid to avoid the risk of renewable energy overloading the state's electricity system.
The WA revamp follows escalating warnings from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) that the state's biggest grid risked becoming "inoperable" unless the flood of solar was better managed.

There are now more than 300,000 – or one in three – households with solar on the South West Interconnected System, which spans the continent's southwestern corner, up from practically zero 10 years ago.

Combined, rooftop solar accounts for more than 1,200 megawatts of generation capacity, compared with an overall system capacity of about 6,000MW.
"WA is incredibly important," Mr Warren said.

"It's probably, if not the most important, then one of the most important grids in the world.

"That's because it has a very high level of rooftop solar penetration and it's completely isolated.

"So, in a sense [WA is] getting there first.
Under the changes, a new program will replace the Renewable Energy Buyback Scheme (REBS), which pays eligible customers a flat rate of 7.13 cents for every unit of electricity their solar panels export.

Instead of the flat rate, customers will be paid just 3c per kilowatt hour for their excess solar throughout most of the day as part of the new "distributed energy buyback scheme".

But in an effort to encourage people to invest in batteries or use more of the power their panels generate, the Government will boost to 10c/kWh exports into the grid between 3:00pm and 9:00pm.

The changes come into effect from Monday August 31.
State Energy Minister Bill Johnston stressed the changes would only apply to new solar customers or those upgrading their systems and that everyone else could remain on the old scheme if they chose.

Despite this, Mr Johnston said the revamp was desperately needed to put the electricity system on a more secure footing and make sure the benefits of abundant renewable energy were more equitably distributed.

"In January of 2019, [the AEMO] said that if there was nothing done about the uncontrolled growth of solar power then there would be blackouts in Western Australia starting in 2023," he said.

"So no change is not an option


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Talk about being a victim of your own success !



It's a problem that has been coming for a long time. Go back quite a few pages on this thread and the warning was sounded that some fingers would be burned financially with the large solar farms as is now occurring. 

Looking at solutions though, there's a bit of a tendency to focus on big and exciting solutions but the simple ones are often overlooked.

*Some appliances can be run at any time of the day and it makes no real difference to consumers. Dishwashers are the most obvious example but typically clothes dryers and pool filters are in the same category where used.

*To the extent someone's already charging batteries for whatever reason, that's another use where what time it's done is pretty flexible usually.

*There's an ongoing need for hot water and that occurs 365 days a year. Heating it with electricity during the middle of the day is an incredibly cheap, easy and low tech way to put that otherwise wasted energy to use and in doing so it's directly replacing fossil fuels either gas used to heat water directly or some fuel used to generate electricity at peak times.

*Route service buses are an electric vehicle possibility. I'm no expert on bus fleets but it has come to my attention that a substantial portion of city public transport buses are returned to the depot after the morning run and sit there until being used again in the afternoon. That makes them outright perfect candidates for soaking up electricity during the middle of the day noting that electric buses as a concept are inherently far easier than electric cars. Greater physical size means batteries can be easily placed under the floor etc and public transport buses have a known, fixed travel distance each day such that "range anxiety" isn't an issue. Additionally these vehicles are used almost entirely in urban areas, including typically within the CBD, such that there's a definite air quality benefit to be had by switching from diesel to electric. 

Note that this does not require generating power at bus depots - the idea is to use the surplus that's in the grid noting that this seems to correlate extremely well to lots of buses being parked. Not all obviously, some are on the road all day, but it seems that there's plenty parked during the period when excess solar is an issue so it's an obvious use.  

All that won't happen overnight of course but if we change pricing to encourage consumers to shift load where that's a sensible thing to do, if we change building codes and strongly encourage heat pump water heaters, if we commence what will realistically be a ~25 year transition of the city bus fleet well then all that's a way of putting this increasing abundance of solar power to good use in a way that replaces fossil fuels either directly or for power generation at peak times and in some cases brings other benefits such as better urban air quality.

All this is doable technically, it just needs the will to get on with it.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> All this is doable technically, it just needs the will to get on with it.




I'm surprised that there isn't a least the option to divert the power to water heating before it goes back into the grid. Or maybe there is but people preferred the feed in tariff ?


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> I'm surprised that there isn't a least the option to divert the power to water heating before it goes back into the grid. Or maybe there is but people preferred the feed in tariff ?



I think a substantial amount of people who initially installed PV panels were already using solar HWS.so their water is already hot for free. New setups would be different now


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I'm surprised that there isn't a least the option to divert the power to water heating before it goes back into the grid. Or maybe there is but people preferred the feed in tariff ?



A simple way would be to put a timer on the hot water, so that it only switches on during the daylight hours, a bypass switch could be fitted for the odd occasion it needed to be switched on after daylight hours.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> A simple way would be to put a timer on the hot water, so that it only switches on during the daylight hours, a bypass switch could be fitted for the odd occasion it needed to be switched on after daylight hours.




I'm sure it's easy to do technically. If such a thing can be programmable which I'm sure it can be then the user could select their preferences; ie home appliances first, then battery charging, then hot water , then EV charging, or whatever they prefer.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I'm sure it's easy to do technically. If such a thing can be programmable which I'm sure it can be then the user could select their preferences; ie home appliances first, then battery charging, then hot water , then EV charging, or whatever they prefer.



Very easy, Bunnings have programmable inline switches ($20), that can be operated from an app on your mobile phone, all pretty simple these days. I use them to control the HWS and security at our unit.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

and there we have, at the top of the thread, an ad for programmable inline switches (from Bunnings), while below is a Tesla battery solution


----------



## SirRumpole

Dona Ferentes said:


> and there we have, at the top of the thread, an ad for programmable inline switches (from Bunnings), while below is a Tesla battery solution




Fast work Google !

I have the programmable switch top and bottom.


----------



## basilio

This story is BIG. A 6 seater plane that is cheaper to run that a competing commercial airliner.

The big deal is the fuel use.
_What we're looking at is a six-person private craft that promises to fly at jet speeds, but with eight times lower fuel consumption, and a range that's twice that of a comparably sized craft. 
_
With that sort of economy I think it would be ideal to use batteries as the power source.

*Long-awaited Celera 500L 'bullet' plane is finally revealed *
Maureen O'Hare, CNN • Updated 29th August 2020
FacebookTwitterEmail





(CNN) — The whispers started three years ago.
A mysterious bullet-shaped plane was spotted at the Southern California Logistics Airport near Victorville in April 2017. Its unusual design prompted immediate speculation, with military website The War Zone being the first to report that the aircraft was the work of California-based Otto Aviation -- and that development was very much under wraps.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/celera-500l-plane/index.html


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Fast work Google !
> 
> I have the programmable switch top and bottom.



I have bedding at the top, the wife is in the market for a new bed.


----------



## Value Collector

Fortescue Metals has already expressed interest in hydrogen technology via an initial investment in the CSIRO's Hydrogen storage research, but today they announced they are looking to invest in developing PNG's Hydro resources.



> *Fortescue Metals Group Ltd (Fortescue) confirms that its wholly owned subsidiary, Fortescue Future Industries Pty Ltd (Fortescue Future Industries), has entered into a Deed of Agreement with the Papua New Guinea (PNG) Government and its wholly owned corporation, Kumul Consolidated Holdings Limited (KCH).
> 
> Under the Deed, the parties will promptly investigate the feasibility of potential projects for development of PNG’s hydropower resources to support green industrial operations largely for export to global markets, and also for domestic consumption. This is consistent with Fortescue’s record of delivering both capital growth and yield to our shareholders while sharing the benefits of sustainable development and employment with our local communities.
> 
> Fortescue Future Industries shares Fortescue’s commitment to a green industry future and will work closely with local people and communities to establish training and long term careers. This is fully aligned with Fortescue’s approach from its inception that the communities in which we operate will benefit from our growth and development.
> 
> Subject to the completion of feasibility studies and approvals, individual projects will be developed by Fortescue Future Industries with ownership and project finance sources to be separately secured without recourse to Fortescue. Execution of studies and approach to capital investment will be consistent with Fortescue’s track record of developing multi billion dollar projects in the Pilbara, at an industry leading capital intensity.
> 
> Fortescue is a values-based business, committed to our strategic goals of ensuring balance sheet strength and flexibility, investing in the long term sustainability of our core business while pursuing growth and development opportunities. Our dividend policy remains a payout ratio of 50 to 80 per cent of Net Profit After Tax as we continue to deliver capital growth and superior returns to our shareholders. We do so by targeting the upper end of our dividend payout range.*





https://www.fmgl.com.au/docs/defaul...stries-deed-of-agreement.pdf?sfvrsn=8274399_4


----------



## Value Collector

I just found an interesting article from the International hydro association that mentions PNG has untapped Hydro sources of potentially 15,000 MWH, and currently only has 250 MWH of installed capacity.

With a local population of only 7 Million, if hydrogen based or electricity exports are a viable thing from PNG, Fortescue may be on to something (albeit a way down the road.

https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/papua-new-guinea


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> I just found an interesting article from the International hydro association that mentions PNG has untapped Hydro sources of potentially 15,000 MWH, and currently only has 250 MWH of installed capacity.
> 
> With a local population of only 7 Million, if hydrogen based or electricity exports are a viable thing from PNG, Fortescue may be on to something (albeit a way down the road.
> 
> https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/papua-new-guinea



There is a lot of potential, but as Oktedi and Bougainville proved, PNG isn't without its challenges.


----------



## basilio

*The Big Battery in SA is  getting  50% bigger.*
Good story and rediscusses the issues around grid stability and the role of batteries in acting shock absorbers for supply fluctuations .

*Tesla battery in South Australia expanded by 50 per cent, energy minister lauds benefits  *
Key points:

The Tesla facility at Jamestown is the world's largest lithium-ion battery
An independent review found the battery has saved SA consumers more than $150 million since 2017
The South Australian Government is advocating for more grid-scale and household batteries
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09...as-sa-energy-minister-lauds-benefits/12622382


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> I just found an interesting article from the International hydro association that mentions PNG has untapped Hydro sources of potentially 15,000 MWH, and currently only has 250 MWH of installed capacity.




Origin Energy were seriously interested in the idea some time ago and did some decent work on it. They were looking at 1200 MW for base load operation as the initial stage with transmission to Qld.

Hydro is often dismissed on the basis that Australia is dry and flat but, as someone who has a list of possible sites in every state, I'd argue that there's certainly potential to develop more of it and use it to fill the problem of wind and solar "droughts" which presently have no easy fix.

I don't advocate a "dam the lot" approach, there are some sites which definitely shouldn't be developed in my view for conservation or other reasons, but there's certainly potential to do more than has been done thus far as long as a sensible approach is taken rather than an ideological one.


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> Origin Energy were seriously interested in the idea some time ago and did some decent work on it. They were looking at 1200 MW for base load operation as the initial stage with transmission to Qld.
> 
> Hydro is often dismissed on the basis that Australia is dry and flat but, as someone who has a list of possible sites in every state, I'd argue that there's certainly potential to develop more of it and use it to fill the problem of wind and solar "droughts" which presently have no easy fix.
> 
> I don't advocate a "dam the lot" approach, there are some sites which definitely shouldn't be developed in my view for conservation or other reasons, but there's certainly potential to do more than has been done thus far as long as a sensible approach is taken rather than an ideological one.




it’s going to be interesting to see what FMG can do, they have a history of being able to “Will things into existence” and now that they have a few billions in free cash flow generation and lenders falling over them to make loans, they should be able to pull something off as long as the laws of physics and economics allow it.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I'm surprised that there isn't a least the option to divert the power to water heating before it goes back into the grid. Or maybe there is but people preferred the feed in tariff ?



A distinction needs to be made there between financial and technical.

Technically it's dead easy simply to run the controlled load (off-peak) supply at the required times.

Financially that gets consumers in a lather however since they're exporting their solar power through one meter and simultaneously buying it back through another meter, usually at a higher price. 

For those who take an objective view and crunch the numbers, that's not necessarily a bad deal since it does away with any need to be "clever" about it on your part trying to outsmart the sun. 

In my own case that's precisely what I'm doing. Hot water is on Off Peak Controlled Load (OPCL) and, since it needs a maximum of 4.5 hours to fully heat the tank, the 10am - 3pm window is just fine. I've disabled it via settings on the water heater but if more hot water was then I could also use the 1am - 6am supply period but in practice I've no need to do so.

Depending on retailer, you'll be paying 50 - 60% below the standard flat rate for power through that meter so whilst it's higher than most retailers will pay for exported solar, any loss on your part won't be much and it completely removes the need to mess about watching the sun or switching things on and off etc.

That I'm clocking up two meters simultaneously, the solar export and also the OPCL import, is not a problem technically. Just means I'm paying to use my own power - but for the sake of the ~$55 a year I'm losing (and that's assuming I managed to somehow get the timing perfectly right in using my own solar and never heated from the grid) it's just not worth stuffing about trying to be clever with that one.

For those who do want a clever workaround though, well Tasmania has Tariff 93 which just happens to conveniently apply the lowest price between 10am and 4pm (as well as 9pm - 7am). Everything goes on one meter and with a timer to run the hot water during the middle of the day you can't possibly lose - it'll take your own solar power first, and import from the grid at the cheapest price second. Can't lose.

For those in SA a similar option was introduced on 1 July 2020 via the network tariffs (what retailers pay to use the network) and your retailer should be offering this to you in the near future. 

You'll need a Type 4 meter, aka Smart Meter, to go with that option in SA however and the cheapest time is 10am - 3pm with the second cheap period being 1am - 6am. That'll work just fine with solar however, same as in Tas, so you put the whole lot on the one meter, timer starts the hot water up at 10am, and by default you're using your own solar first, importing from the grid at a low price second.


----------



## orr

Smurf1976 said:


> Origin Energy were seriously interested in the idea some time ago and did some decent work on it. They were looking at 1200 MW for base load operation as the initial stage with transmission to Qld.
> 
> Hydro is often dismissed on the basis that Australia is dry and flat but, as someone who has a list of possible sites in every state, I'd argue that there's certainly potential to develop more of it and use it to fill the problem of wind and solar "droughts" which presently have no easy fix.
> 
> I don't advocate a "dam the lot" approach, there are some sites which definitely shouldn't be developed in my view for conservation or other reasons, but there's certainly potential to do more than has been done thus far as long as a sensible approach is taken rather than an ideological one.




When you have Ross Garnaut, The QLD LNP, and The QLD Labor Premier all about to sing in tune to an Updated Bradfield Plan,  that now can incorporate Pumped Hydro...

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/po...iver-or-idea-has-run-dry-20200901-p55rdd.html

Can anyone see Funding being a problem?

Any word from the Covid Economic Recovery Committee? Accurately described as the 'Gas Chamber'; or Cannavan on This? .. I'd Luv to hear. 
Success has a thousand fathers... Failure/s, the rearview crew(T.Abbot, Craig Kelly, M. Roberts, Angus Taylor & Martin Fergusson) is an/are orphan/s...


----------



## basilio

Interesting perspective on where we should be going with regard to using gas a fuel.
The analysis of how much money the Morrison Government is being asked to pony up to support the current Gas industry is scary. Well worth read.

*Phasing out gas would benefit Australian manufacturers and households*
Richard Denniss
The Australian government should allow the electricity industry to wean itself off gas

Rather than drill new fracking wells into prime farmland, the quickest, cleanest and most economically efficient way to boost the supply of gas in Australia is to stop wasting it.

According to the Australian Industry (AI) Group’s budget submission, “Ramping up support for manufacturers to transition from gas to electricity – from gas boilers to heat pumps – would both cut costs and allow them to lower emissions with onsite or offsite renewables.” I couldn’t agree more. And there is literally no better time for the federal government to support private investment than in the middle of a recession in which many factories, and many suppliers, have spare capacity.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...nefit-australian-manufacturers-and-households


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Interesting perspective on where we should be going with regard to using gas a fuel.
> The analysis of how much money the Morrison Government is being asked to pony up to support the current Gas industry is scary. Well worth read.
> 
> *Phasing out gas would benefit Australian manufacturers and households*
> Richard Denniss
> The Australian government should allow the electricity industry to wean itself off gas
> 
> Rather than drill new fracking wells into prime farmland, the quickest, cleanest and most economically efficient way to boost the supply of gas in Australia is to stop wasting it.
> 
> According to the Australian Industry (AI) Group’s budget submission, “Ramping up support for manufacturers to transition from gas to electricity – from gas boilers to heat pumps – would both cut costs and allow them to lower emissions with onsite or offsite renewables.” I couldn’t agree more. And there is literally no better time for the federal government to support private investment than in the middle of a recession in which many factories, and many suppliers, have spare capacity.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/comment...nefit-australian-manufacturers-and-households



It hasnt taken long to move on from coal.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Interesting perspective on where we should be going with regard to using gas a fuel.




From a technical or environmental perspective I don't disagree.

In practice though there's an awful lot of political baggage that would need to be cast aside for it to happen. An awful lot of baggage there......


----------



## moXJO

I prefer gas hot water. And cooking with gas.


----------



## Value Collector

moXJO said:


> I prefer gas hot water. And cooking with gas.




Does gas have a daily connection charge?

If so, once you get solar you are probably better off ditching the gas and getting electric set to a timer to heat during the day to soak up your excess production.

so not only are you saving money by utilising your own solar production, but you will be saving on connection/service  fees.


----------



## Value Collector

sptrawler said:


> It hasnt taken long to move on from coal.




We aren’t there yet.


----------



## Smurf1976

moXJO said:


> I prefer gas hot water.




I understand what you're saying but I'd argue that a quality heat pump properly installed will match or beat gas hot water on any realistic measure.

Trouble is, well the plumber just about fell over when I said that's what I want and will happily pay for. He had to have a look before giving me a price since, it seems, basically nobody actually wants anything done by the book and the "standard" quote suits the rest who want cheap and then complain that it unsurprisingly doesn't work perfectly.

I get what you're saying, just pointing out that solar and heat pumps can be done properly, the problem being that all too often cheap and nasty is done in practice then it either performs badly or fails outright.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> Does gas have a daily connection charge?
> 
> If so, once you get solar you are probably better off ditching the gas and getting electric set to a timer to heat during the day to soak up your excess production.
> 
> so not only are you saving money by utilising your own solar production, but you will be saving on connection/service  fees.



We have done that, the wife hates cooking with inductive and is always lamenting the loss of the gas cooktop.
I tell her that is the cost of being green.


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> I understand what you're saying but I'd argue that a quality heat pump properly installed will match or beat gas hot water on any realistic measure.
> 
> Trouble is, well the plumber just about fell over when I said that's what I want and will happily pay for. He had to have a look before giving me a price since, it seems, basically nobody actually wants anything done by the book and the "standard" quote suits the rest who want cheap and then complain that it unsurprisingly doesn't work perfectly.
> 
> I get what you're saying, just pointing out that solar and heat pumps can be done properly, the problem being that all too often cheap and nasty is done in practice then it either performs badly or fails outright.




All too true.
I have a lovely warm hydronic heating system. It runs from a gas fired boiler.
For lots of reasons, financially and environmentally, I'd like to switch to a using a heat pump instead of the boiler.
Unfortunately it isn't as easy as that. Frank discussions with disinterested hydronic experts  says that heat pumps arn't efficient at producing  the very hot water the system needs, that  my current radiators won't work efficiently on lower temperature water and that  these factors aren't going to change.
Rather sad.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Origin Energy were seriously interested in the idea some time ago and did some decent work on it. They were looking at 1200 MW for base load operation as the initial stage with transmission to Qld.
> 
> Hydro is often dismissed on the basis that Australia is dry and flat but, as someone who has a list of possible sites in every state, I'd argue that there's certainly potential to develop more of it and use it to fill the problem of wind and solar "droughts" which presently have no easy fix.
> 
> I don't advocate a "dam the lot" approach, there are some sites which definitely shouldn't be developed in my view for conservation or other reasons, but there's certainly potential to do more than has been done thus far as long as a sensible approach is taken rather than an ideological one.




No need for dams, coastal stations using seawater can be done too.


----------



## Value Collector

basilio said:


> All too true.
> I have a lovely warm hydronic heating system. It runs from a gas fired boiler.
> For lots of reasons, financially and environmentally, I'd like to switch to a using a heat pump instead of the boiler.
> Unfortunately it isn't as easy as that. Frank discussions with disinterested hydronic experts  says that heat pumps arn't efficient at producing  the very hot water the system needs, that  my current radiators won't work efficiently on lower temperature water and that  these factors aren't going to change.
> Rather sad.




I have heard (read) Smurf mention that I believe, the higher temp you need to raise something too the less Effective heat pumps are.

If you live in a really cold location, direct burning of gas is one of the best methods of heating, unless as I said you have your own solar and can store the heat produced in the middle of the day (hot water system).


----------



## basilio

Value Collector said:


> I have heard (read) Smurf mention that I believe, the higher temp you need to raise something too the less Effective heat pumps are.
> 
> If you live in a really cold location, direct burning of gas is one of the best methods of heating, unless as I said you have your own solar and can store the heat produced in the middle of the day (hot water system).




I was thinking about this and wondered if it would be practical to use a heatpump for raising the temperature to 50-55C and then boost it the extra 15-20C with gas either in a tank or through an instantaneous gas heater ?


----------



## moXJO

Value Collector said:


> Does gas have a daily connection charge?
> 
> If so, once you get solar you are probably better off ditching the gas and getting electric set to a timer to heat during the day to soak up your excess production.
> 
> so not only are you saving money by utilising your own solar production, but you will be saving on connection/service  fees.



I have to many kids and now their gfs living here. I had electric before but was sick of cold showers.
I don't care about money. But will switch if made aware of a decent product.


----------



## moXJO

Smurf1976 said:


> I understand what you're saying but I'd argue that a quality heat pump properly installed will match or beat gas hot water on any realistic measure.
> 
> Trouble is, well the plumber just about fell over when I said that's what I want and will happily pay for. He had to have a look before giving me a price since, it seems, basically nobody actually wants anything done by the book and the "standard" quote suits the rest who want cheap and then complain that it unsurprisingly doesn't work perfectly.
> 
> I get what you're saying, just pointing out that solar and heat pumps can be done properly, the problem being that all too often cheap and nasty is done in practice then it either performs badly or fails outright.



I see a lot of cheap and nasties on the roofs of various dwellings. 
Always a good idea to change out old sheets for ones with a higher protection, ultra or better. I think ace products have a higher rating on their paint.

Any copper that drips on metal will rust a hole through the sheet so inspect it every few years.

If its on a tile roof keep leaves and dirt out of the back of it. If you don't have newish sarking under the tiles you can  be asking for trouble.

Generally I don't like stuff like that on the roof.


----------



## Value Collector

moXJO said:


> I have to many kids and now their gfs living here. I had electric before but was sick of cold showers.
> I don't care about money. But will switch if made aware of a decent product.




that is another benefit of gas, eg shorter cycle times.

It’s only me and my wife at home, so one full tank a day is enough for us.


----------



## moXJO

Value Collector said:


> It’s only me and my wife at home, so one full tank a day is enough for us.



It will be a shock when its just me and the wife. Another 15 years to go anyway.


----------



## sptrawler

Value Collector said:


> that is another benefit of gas, eg shorter cycle times.
> 
> It’s only me and my wife at home, so one full tank a day is enough for us.



Three generations in my place, ranging from 5 to 65.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> I was thinking about this and wondered if it would be practical to use a heatpump for raising the temperature to 50-55C and then boost it the extra 15-20C with gas either in a tank or through an instantaneous gas heater ?




The basic problem is that a standard hydronic setup has water coming out of the boiler at ~80 degrees and returning to it at ~70 degrees.

Heat pumps achieve their high efficiency by discharging heat into a relatively cold water source. Eg mine outputs hot water at 65 degrees yes, but it does so with refrigerant flow in the opposite direction to water flow, such that the ~17 degree cold water from the mains is the determining factor in efficiency. The means of doing it varies but most use the same basic concept.

Long story short - not totally impossible to run a heat pump with high temperature water going into it but you'll kill the efficiency by doing that so not really workable.

Workaround is to oversize all the hydronic radiators and run the whole system at a lower temperature but that's really only an option for new installations.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> I was thinking about this and wondered if it would be practical to use a heatpump for raising the temperature to 50-55C and then boost it the extra 15-20C with gas either in a tank or through an instantaneous gas heater ?



It shouldnt be a problem, just use renewables, it is easy.
You should be the first to know that.
Its all just lack of wanting to on your part.


----------



## sptrawler

Hydrogen is really starting to get a head of steam, this could really explode if the momentum holds up. No pun intended.
https://www.theage.com.au/environme...australian-manufacturing-20200904-p55sdu.html
From the article:
NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean has declared hydrogen the "breakthrough that changes the world", comparing its impact on climate change to what a vaccine will do to COVID-19.

His speech to a sustainability summit, hosted by _The Sydney Morning Herald_, follows reports that NSW would pursue large scale hydrogen production as part of its response to the economic crisiscaused by the pandemic, and that the federal government would call for expressions of interest in the creation of a "regional hydrogen export hub".

The world's first test green steel plant was opened in Sweden last week by Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, who said in a speech on Monday that "steel is jobs".

"Steel has built Sweden, and steel has built our welfare system. But steel – or rather the manufacture of steel – also threatens our way of life," he said,

In the green steel process being tested and refined in Sweden, by a government-private enterprise consortium called Hybrit, hydrogen is not only used to heat the blast furnaces, but replaces metallurgical steel inside them, providing the carbon that reduces and binds with the iron ore to create steel with no carbon emissions.


----------



## sptrawler

The States are starting to get on board with renewables, Queensland to inject $500m into renewable projects, to reach 50% by 2030.
https://www.energymatters.com.au/re...d-welcomes-500-million-renewable-energy-fund/
From the article:
The Queensland Government has announced a $500 million Renewable Energy Fund to allow the state’s energy corporations to put forward investment for new developments and publicly-owned renewables that will go towards boosting the economy after COVID-19.

The Clean Energy Council released the news, stating that the industry will embrace the investment with open arms.
“We welcome the very clear recognition by the Queensland Government that the renewable energy sector can play a big role in jumpstarting economic activity and jobs across the state following the impacts of COVID-19 while accelerating Queensland’s transition to becoming a clean energy powerhouse,” said Clean Energy Council Chief Executive Kane Thornton.

As it stands, renewables make up approximately 20 per cent of Queensland’s energy balance, with targets now focused on reaching 50 per cent by 2030.
Thornton also added that there is a fair way to go to reach the 2030 target, but investment will help spark much-needed economic activity. ”
Thornton noted that funding would go alongside the government’s recent announcement of $145 million to help support the development of renewable energy zones across the state. This will deliver extra electricity connections and infrastructure in locations that provide strategic benefits.
Energy Minister Anthony Lynham also noted that the Fund would come alongside 41 major renewable energy projects, of which have commenced development and operations, or at the very least, financial commitment. This pipeline is set to a total of 6500 jobs.

Meanwhile, Queensland Conservation Council campaigns manager Dave Copeman said the investment will further progress the state in meeting several clean energy benchmarks.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Hydrogen is really starting to get a head of steam, this could really explode if the momentum holds up. No pun intended.




"Hydrogen" and "explode" are terms I prefer to not associate with each other...... 

Momentum won't be too worried about it though. For those not aware Momentum Energy is the retail brand name used by Hydro Tasmania in Qld, NSW, Vic and SA. A retailer shouldn't be able to explode.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> As it stands, renewables make up approximately 20 per cent of Queensland’s energy balance, with targets now focused on reaching 50 per cent by 2030.



I ponder how they've calculated that?

Past 12 months for Queensland (figures as a % of Qld consumption):

Coal = 80.9%
Gas = 11.6%
Oil = Trivial (about 0.005%)

Solar = 12.3% (7.3% small scale, 5% large scale)
Wind = 1.8%
Hydro = 0.9%
Biomass = 0.3%

Net export to NSW = 7.7% of Qld generation (hence the supply sources add up to more than 100% of Qld consumption).

That's just for electricity. For other energy it's almost all fossil fuel based. Not totally, eg ethanol, solar hot water and firewood, but that's relatively minor.

It can certainly go higher at times, midday today solar was 31.3%, wind 0.9%, biomass 0.8%, hydro 0.1% so all up 33.1% renewable, 66.4% coal, 4.3% gas and 0.01% oil with 3.9% of generation going to NSW.

So I'm not sure how they came up with 20% from renewables?


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> The basic problem is that a standard hydronic setup has water coming out of the boiler at ~80 degrees and returning to it at ~70 degrees.
> 
> Heat pumps achieve their high efficiency by discharging heat into a relatively cold water source. Eg mine outputs hot water at 65 degrees yes, but it does so with refrigerant flow in the opposite direction to water flow, such that the ~17 degree cold water from the mains is the determining factor in efficiency. The means of doing it varies but most use the same basic concept.
> 
> Long story short - not totally impossible to run a heat pump with high temperature water going into it but you'll kill the efficiency by doing that so not really workable.
> 
> Workaround is to oversize all the hydronic radiators and run the whole system at a lower temperature but that's really only an option for new installations.




That wasn't quite the way I was thinking Smurf.
I accept that a heat pump works efficiently to around 55C heating. However the hydronic system needs 80C output.

I wondering at the practicalities of routing the hot water coming out of the hydronics through an instantaneous gas heater to provide the extra heat input. Because the gas system is not heating cold water it should be a relatively modest ask.

Replacing all the current radiators with new units seems more expensive and impractical.

_   Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good_


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> hydrogen is not only used to heat the blast furnaces, *but replaces metallurgical steel inside them, providing the carbon that reduces and binds with the iron ore to create steel *with no carbon emissions.



WTF, hydrogen can not do that??carbon need to be present so that you can combine it with iron to make steel?
do they use coal or graphite to add C? I am puzzled ok for using H2 to heat up but after...


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> That wasn't quite the way I was thinking Smurf.
> I accept that a heat pump works efficiently to around 55C heating. However the hydronic system needs 80C output.
> 
> I wondering at the practicalities of routing the hot water coming out of the hydronics through an instantaneous gas heater to provide the extra heat input. Because the gas system is not heating cold water it should be a relatively modest ask.




The point being missed is that's what you've presumably got now.

Apart from at startup, the gas system won't be heating cold water. It outputs at ~80C and the water comes back to it still fairly hot to be reheated to 80C. I've never measured one, I won't claim to be an expert there since I'm not, but it's definitely pretty hot and according to various UK sites we're talking about 65C or so.

That leaves nothing for a standard heat pump in series with gas to actually do other than at startup.

That's assuming you've got hydronic radiators mounted on the wall which have a fairly high return water temperature. If you've got in-slab heating or a forced air heat exchanger well then yes the return temperature will be lower. That's not most hydronic systems though.

That said, high temperature heat pumps do exist which operate at about 75C. Not as efficient but it can be done yes. Not cheap to buy though (so may get a greater financial and environmental gain by doing something else unrelated unless you've already done everything).


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> The point being missed is that's what you've presumably got now.
> 
> Apart from at startup, the gas system won't be heating cold water. It outputs at ~80C and the water comes back to it still fairly hot to be reheated to 80C. I've never measured one, I won't claim to be an expert there since I'm not, but it's definitely pretty hot and according to various UK sites we're talking about 65C or so.
> 
> That leaves nothing for a standard heat pump in series with gas to actually do other than at startup.
> 
> That's assuming you've got hydronic radiators mounted on the wall which have a fairly high return water temperature. If you've got in-slab heating or a forced air heat exchanger well then yes the return temperature will be lower. That's not most hydronic systems though.
> 
> That said, high temperature heat pumps do exist which operate at about 75C. Not as efficient but it can be done yes. Not cheap to buy though (so may get a greater financial and environmental gain by doing something else unrelated unless you've already done everything).





Oops! Yes of course. I believe that is right with the system I have.

It does chew up a lot of juice which is tacitly accepted when one buys a gas heated hydronic heating system. Still wondering if heating up a tank of water with a heat pump and then using a gas booster would be viable. By definition using another energy source to raise the water temperature from cold ambient to 55C would result in less extra gas usage.
But point taken.


----------



## moXJO

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/09/...y-running-them-on-zero-emissions-lego-blocks/

Mga blocks. 30ish year lifespan. Can be recycled. 



> We are aiming for a cost of storage of A$50 per kilowatt hour, including all surrounding infrastructure. Currently, lithium-ion batteries cost around A$200 per kilowatt hour, with added costs if energy is to be exported to the electricity grid.
> 
> So what are the downfalls? Well, MGA does have a much slower response time than batteries. Batteries respond in milliseconds and are excellent at filling short spikes or dips in supply (such as from wind turbines). Meanwhile MGA storage has a response time above 15 minutes, but does have much longer storage capacity.


----------



## Value Collector

qldfrog said:


> WTF, hydrogen can not do that??carbon need to be present so that you can combine it with iron to make steel?
> do they use coal or graphite to add C? I am puzzled ok for using H2 to heat up but after...




I don’t understand it, but here is the diagram showing their system compared to the traditional system, It produces “sponge Iron” by forcing out the oxygen, I am guessing that has something to do with not requiring carbon, it then adds that to scrap metal.


----------



## Value Collector

Value Collector said:


> I don’t understand it, but here is the diagram showing their system compared to the traditional system, It produces “sponge Iron” by forcing out the oxygen, I am guessing that has something to do with not requiring carbon, it then adds that to scrap metal.




Ok, I figured it out.

Traditionally a carbon source is used when producing Pig Iron from Iron Ore, however the Swedish system is using direct reduced ore, skipping the need for a carbon source by instead using a reducing gas.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_reduced_iron


----------



## Dona Ferentes

_can I throw this one out to the resident experts?

Key concepts are: 
1. October election
2. 100% renewables
3. Balance of power in Unicameral legislature held by the sole Greens member_

The ACT will have its own big battery power back-up in two to three years as part of the latest renewable energy deals struck with suppliers.

The winners of the ACT’s fifth Renewables Reverse Auction will build the large-scale battery storage systems in the Territory to support the grid and provide power to help avoid blackouts during periods of high demand and when large fossil fuel generators fail in heatwave conditions.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr has flagged further announcements before the end of the election campaign on more battery opportunities.

The ACT Government says the latest round of the renewable electricity ‘reverse auction’ will help Canberra stay 100 per cent renewable into the next decade and deliver the best pricing outcome for residents in the program’s history.

Neoen, for Stage 1 of the Goyder South Wind Farm in South Australia and GPG, for Stage 2 of the Berrybank Wind Farm in Victoria, will provide the ACT with 200 megawatts (MW) of additional renewable electricity capacity into the grid.

The companies are also required to invest in Canberra to allow the ACT to further develop its renewable energy industry. Neoen will build a 50-megawatt hour battery, enough to power 15,000 homes for an hour, at a site to be determined, while GPG will connect its smaller 10 MWh battery to a substation in Beard. The batteries will also help stabilise the grid as more rooftop solar comes online.

The government says this auction delivered significantly lower prices than previous ACT auctions, with an average price below $50 per MWh, about a third lower than previous auctions.

Neoen has been granted a 10-year feed-in tariff at $44.97 per MWh, and GPG a 14-year feed-in tariff at $54.48 per MWh. The government says the total cost of the feed-in tariff from all auctions is expected to remain below $4.90 per household per week....

https://the-riotact.com/canberra-to-power-up-with-big-batteries-in-new-renewables-deal/403097


----------



## basilio

Dona Ferentes said:


> _can I throw this one out to the resident experts?
> 
> Key concepts are:
> 1. October election
> 2. 100% renewables
> 3. Balance of power in Unicameral legislature held by the sole Greens member_
> 
> The ACT will have its own big battery power back-up in two to three years as part of the latest renewable energy deals struck with suppliers.
> 
> The winners of the ACT’s fifth Renewables Reverse Auction will build the large-scale battery storage systems in the Territory to support the grid and provide power to help avoid blackouts during periods of high demand and when large fossil fuel generators fail in heatwave conditions.
> 
> Chief Minister Andrew Barr has flagged further announcements before the end of the election campaign on more battery opportunities.
> 
> The ACT Government says the latest round of the renewable electricity ‘reverse auction’ will help Canberra stay 100 per cent renewable into the next decade and deliver the best pricing outcome for residents in the program’s history.
> 
> Neoen, for Stage 1 of the Goyder South Wind Farm in South Australia and GPG, for Stage 2 of the Berrybank Wind Farm in Victoria, will provide the ACT with 200 megawatts (MW) of additional renewable electricity capacity into the grid.
> 
> The companies are also required to invest in Canberra to allow the ACT to further develop its renewable energy industry. Neoen will build a 50-megawatt hour battery, enough to power 15,000 homes for an hour, at a site to be determined, while GPG will connect its smaller 10 MWh battery to a substation in Beard. The batteries will also help stabilise the grid as more rooftop solar comes online.
> 
> The government says this auction delivered significantly lower prices than previous ACT auctions, with an average price below $50 per MWh, about a third lower than previous auctions.
> 
> Neoen has been granted a 10-year feed-in tariff at $44.97 per MWh, and GPG a 14-year feed-in tariff at $54.48 per MWh. The government says the total cost of the feed-in tariff from all auctions is expected to remain below $4.90 per household per week....
> 
> https://the-riotact.com/canberra-to-power-up-with-big-batteries-in-new-renewables-deal/403097




Great story.
Just reinforces how economical, straightforward and practical a renewable energy power system is. 

Let's go..!


----------



## sptrawler

Dona Ferentes said:


> _can I throw this one out to the resident experts?
> 
> Key concepts are:
> 1. October election
> 2. 100% renewables
> 3. Balance of power in Unicameral legislature held by the sole Greens member_
> 
> The ACT will have its own big battery power back-up in two to three years as part of the latest renewable energy deals struck with suppliers.



The ACT is still part of the grid, so funding the expansion of wind farms in S.A and Vic, wont in itself reduce the chance of a blackout.
To reduce system disturbance caused blackouts, the battery the ACT installs will have to smooth the frequency disturbance and or supply the load for the duration of a longer supply disruption, both can be done but it will depend on the size of the ACT load and the size of the battery.
I don't think the ACT has any generation of its own
Smurf will have the answers, so it will be interesting to hear his comments.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I don't think the ACT has any generation of its own
> Smurf will have the answers, so it will be interesting to hear his comments.




In a physical sense the ACT is part of NSW electrically. Hence it often doesn't get a mention and there's no "ACT" region in the National Electricity Market whereas Qld, NSW, Vic, SA and Tas are all defined regions which almost (but not quite) follow the state borders.

Administratively though it's separate in terms of who owns what, local regulations and so on. Much like the ACT in every other sense - physically part of and surrounded by NSW but administratively separate.

Overall well two more batteries are two more batteries and I won't be complaining there, it does add to dispatchable capacity and will help meet the NSW and for that matter wider NEM peak demand.

In terms of the overall situation though, well it's a bit like saying that if I bring my own pump then, if the ship runs into trouble, I can stop my part of it sinking by pumping water out of my cabin right? Err, no, doesn't work like that...... If NSW ends up in the dark then the ACT's going down with the rest in practice. The ACT government will be able to show that they really did try to bail the ship out though and will be somewhat correct in saying the sinking wasn't their fault.

There's no major generation physically in the ACT although, purely administratively, 13% of the Snowy Hydro scheme has always been in the ACT although that's really just an administrative technicality which used to be relevant in terms of who was entitled to its output back when state authorities ran the entire industry (the Snowy split was always 13% ACT, 29% Vic, 58% NSW "on paper"). Beyond that it's rooftop solar, a few buildings with backup diesels etc, there aren't any major power stations physically in the ACT.

Ultimately the ACT government is going for renewables but that doesn't mean the ACT becomes a separate grid. It just means they're ensuring that someone somewhere generates enough renewable energy to equal the ACT's consumption much of which, physically, will still be from fossil fuels.


----------



## Smurf1976

For everyone not aware, Mt Gambier's gas supply failed on Wednesday night and restoration could take as long as until Monday.  

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09...esidents-suffer-days-long-gas-outage/12649722

https://7news.com.au/news/sa/mount-gambier-residents-without-gas-due-to-line-interruption-c-1305680

A timely reminder that when energy supply fails, everything else becomes problematic real quick.


----------



## SirRumpole

Federal government steps in to build gas generator if private sector fails to invest.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Another reason why it was silly to sell the power grid in the first place.









						We will build it if you don't: Federal Government preparing to build a gas plant in Hunter Valley
					

With the coal-fired Liddell Power Station in the Hunter Valley due to shut down in 2023, the Federal Government is worried there will not be enough dispatchable power, given the sector's focus on building wind and solar farms.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

Absolutely, the nonsense going on with the power generators is ridiculous, hopefully the government does step in, then at least it will put a regulated generator in the mix to keep prices down IMO.


----------



## Smurf1976

I'll simply say that the situation has been coming for a very long time. The warning have been loudly sounded by many over the past 27 or so year now.

The good thing is the problem is recognised and the task has commenced.

The bad thing is that as with most problems, there's no quick way out of this.

I liken it to the overweight and terribly unfit person. The good news is they've realised they've got a problem. The bad news is that it's going to take years to get their risk of an early death down to where it should be and in the meantime bad things may well happen.

2023 is a significant date for reasons best explained by saying that:

Torrens Island A (SA, gas, 480 MW) closes 2 units in 2020, one in 2021, final one in 2022. Each is 120 MW.

Mackay (Qld, oil-fired gas turbine, 34 MW) closes in 2021.

Liddell (NSW, coal, 1680 MW) closes 1 unit in 2022 and the other 2 in 2023. Each is 420 MW (derated from original capacity of 500 MW each).

Also an assortment of minor sources, landfill gas etc, closing in the near future in various states.

The problem with building gas turbines as a solution though is best explained by pointing out that there's a number of gas fields which are currently projected to run dry sometime during, you guessed it, 2023.

It's not that the privately owned companies are incapable with this stuff (well, one possible exception there......) but that the policy environment surrounding it is a major hindrance at best and those at the top politically simply haven't grasped that there's even a problem despite the repeated warnings of everyone from big business to unions.

To that end I'll give the present government some credit for grasping that there's actually an issue. There's a quarter century of neglect to address though and that won't be sorted quickly.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> To that end I'll give the present government some credit for grasping that there's actually an issue. There's a quarter century of neglect to address though and that won't be sorted quickly.



Well they have certainly but a rocket up the generators, it makes a lot of sense for the government to own a major station, it gives the flexibility to underpin the grid while the private generators get their crap together. There will be a period where the renewables/storage can't supply the system and the fossil fuel generators are inadequate or unreliable, someone has to build something for this period IMO.
It is all great to keep saying shut everything down, but it isn't the same people who wear the fallout when the system collapses, the media needs to get on board rather than winding up the ranters and chanters.
This appears to be a good article, explaining the current problem, which smurf has been highlighting for years, generating plant is getting old and unreliable.








						'Time to get on with it': Taylor stares down gas industry complaints
					

A new gas-fired power station will go ahead under federal government plans to stare down industry complaints, with Snowy Hydro declaring it is ready to build it.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
A new gas-fired power station will go ahead under federal government plans to stare down industry complaints about a sweeping intervention, with Snowy Hydro declaring it will take on the energy "oligopoly" to build the project.

"The companies have had years to commit and they can still commit until April next year," Mr Taylor said. "They've had a lot of time – now it's time to get on with it."

The commonwealth's wholly-owned energy provider, Snowy Hydro, also declared it was ready to scale up a gas-fired power project in NSW to break the "oligopoly" formed by AGL, EnergyAustralia and Origin Energy.

"Having us in the marketplace as a stalking horse to keep competitive pressure on the market is a good thing," said Snowy Hydro chief executive Paul Broad.

At issue is the government demand for a new gas-fired power station to replace AGL's Liddell coal-fired power plant when it closes in 2023 and withdraws 1000MW from the east-coast electricity grid.


Australian Energy Council chief executive Sarah McNamara delivered a swift rebuff to the government's scheme on Tuesday on behalf of energy generators and retailers, saying there was no reliability threat to justify the new intervention.
"For more than a decade we have been warning of the dampening effect state and federal government interventions have on investor confidence," Ms McNamara said.

"There are no material reliability concerns that would warrant this kind of interventionist approach, and there are already mechanisms in place to address any shortfall identified."

Ms McNamara cited the Australian Energy Market Operator's estimate that NSW faced a potential shortfall of only 154MW, but Mr Taylor said the industry argument failed to consider the impact on prices.
"AEMO only assesses reliability on very strict technical grounds – they make no assessment of price impacts," Mr Taylor told _The Sydney Morning Herald_ and _The Age_.
"Our assessment is that there is a problem with reliability but the bigger problem is with price – because prices will go up if you take 1000MW out of the market and you don't replace it.
"More supply means lower prices – that's Economics 101. Less supply means higher prices."

Behind the government argument is the suspicion that energy companies want Liddell to shut without a significant replacement so prices and profits will rise, as they did in Victoria after the closure of the Hazelwood power station in 2017.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese accused the government of failing to secure gas supplies in the past but he and his colleagues did not reject the idea of a new gas-fired power station despite the concerns of the environmental movement.

AEMO welcomed the government plan and said the country would need 6 to 19GW of new "*dispatchable*" power over the next two decades.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> To that end I'll give the present government some credit for grasping that there's actually an issue. There's a quarter century of neglect to address though and that won't be sorted quickly.




Yes, but they don't acknowledge that it was the failed Howard/Costello asset recycling scheme that forced the sale of the public generators and created the problem in the first place.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, but they don't acknowledge that it was the failed Howard/Costello asset recycling scheme that forced the sale of the public generators and created the problem in the first place.



Yes another brain fart by another government, unfortunately brain farts aren't party specific either, but that was definitely a bad one.
By the way W.A didn't go down that track and incurred penalties for it, but it has proven to have been a very wise move and both sides of W.A politics agreed with it. 
I guess the other States, could have adopted the same policies, but then the pork barreling would have been problematic.
Australia's recent history, is littered with them and it will take generations and a lot of money to overcome them.
Some that come to mind are the Lima agreement, then the introduction of tarrif reductions to expose our manufacturing to cheap overseas competition, which supported the Lima agreement.


----------



## SirRumpole

Billionaires may have another solution for Liddell replacement.

It's a bit airy fairy at the moment, but a damn big battery or lots of smaller ones would be needed to replace Liddell.









						Australian billionaire called Elon Musk after hearing the Prime Minister's energy challenge
					

When tech entrepreneur Mike Cannon-Brookes heard Scott Morrison challenge the private sector to come up with an alternative to a new gas-fired power station yesterday, he called up Elon Musk.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> Billionaires may have another solution for Liddell replacement.
> 
> It's a bit airy fairy at the moment, but a damn big battery or lots of smaller ones would be needed to replace Liddell.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Australian billionaire called Elon Musk after hearing the Prime Minister's energy challenge
> 
> 
> When tech entrepreneur Mike Cannon-Brookes heard Scott Morrison challenge the private sector to come up with an alternative to a new gas-fired power station yesterday, he called up Elon Musk.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au




Basically he is saying *"What are the  financial/supply parameters required for this dispatchable power  supply" * Put them on the table and he (and/or others) can go about addressing the issue with an appropriate renewable option. And of course if the Government is including some underwriting or grant to the project then that needs to be part of the equation.

Wouldn't be fair otherwise, would it ?


----------



## basilio

This project looks exceptionally clever and practical. Combines  pumped hydro and solar power in a very neat, simple package.

*Something’s Up With Solar Panels, Hydropower, & Energy Storage, Too*

September 14th, 2020 by *Tina Casey* 


Energy developers have begun to pepper hydropower dams with solar panels, and some interesting twists are already beginning to bubble up in that area. In Germany, the company Vattenfall is adding pumped hydro energy storage to the mix. And, if a team of US researchers has their way, rafts of floating solar panels will enable Brazil to avoid building new hydropower dams.









						Something's Up With Floating Solar Panels And Hydropower
					

Floating solar panels can piggyback on other infrastructure to provide for clean kilowatts with low impact, and perhaps some benefits, too.




					cleantechnica.com


----------



## moXJO

basilio said:


> This project looks exceptionally clever and practical. Combines  pumped hydro and solar power in a very neat, simple package.
> 
> *Something’s Up With Solar Panels, Hydropower, & Energy Storage, Too*
> 
> September 14th, 2020 by *Tina Casey*
> 
> 
> Energy developers have begun to pepper hydropower dams with solar panels, and some interesting twists are already beginning to bubble up in that area. In Germany, the company Vattenfall is adding pumped hydro energy storage to the mix. And, if a team of US researchers has their way, rafts of floating solar panels will enable Brazil to avoid building new hydropower dams.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Something's Up With Floating Solar Panels And Hydropower
> 
> 
> Floating solar panels can piggyback on other infrastructure to provide for clean kilowatts with low impact, and perhaps some benefits, too.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> cleantechnica.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 109270



Seems like a good idea.

I'm not sold entirely on renewables being reliable enough at this stage (California was having issues). Battery longevity and price still has a way to go. 
But The framework definitely should start to be laid out with future advances in mind.

I'm not sure if its just an Australian thing, but tech advances in this area seem to be lacking the last 5 years. I suppose its all in development and we will see an explosion in tech in the near future.

Its the same in the home renewables market. I'm not seeing a lot come through. There were some big promises 15 years ago that all came to nothing.


----------



## sptrawler

It looks as though low emission technology is going to get a shot in the arm, as you say @moXJO, the next few years should see some amazing advancements.








						'Unlocking new tech': $1.9 billion for low-emission energy projects
					

An extra $1.9 billion will be pumped into driving new technology to lower emissions in Australia's manufacturing, transport and agriculture sectors.




					www.smh.com.au
				




A $1.9 billion investment in next-generation energy technologies will target Australia's emissions-intensive manufacturing, transport and agriculture sectors to meet the federal government's aim to reach net-zero emissions in the second half of the century.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will on Thursday commit an extra $1.62 billion for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, as well as promise to expand the focus of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in new and emerging energy sources, including carbon-neutral and negative emissions technologies.

The reforms will enable both agencies to support the creation of a hydrogen industry, as well as invest in technologies like soil carbon sequestration, production of low carbon steel and aluminium, as well as reducing emissions from industry. 
The new package will include more than $300 million towards pilot carbon capture projects, grants for businesses for hydrogen, electric and bio-fuelled vehicles, new microgrids in regional and remote communities and a sector-specific grant program for hotels to increase energy productivity.


----------



## basilio

Angus taylors proposal to build  the governments  "own" gas fired power station to protect energy supply has so many whiskers on it, it should be the circus.
Simon Holmes a Court dissects the many shades of stupidity of this idea.

The federal government’s increasingly desperate and ideological energy market interventions are costing us all








						Angus Taylor's gas plan is an astoundingly bad idea, on so many levels | Simon Holmes à Court
					

The federal government’s increasingly desperate and ideological energy market interventions are costing us all




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, but they don't acknowledge that it was the failed Howard/Costello asset recycling scheme that forced the sale of the public generators and created the problem in the first place.



I'll go a step further and say that we went 35 years without a PM who really grasped it and in most states at least a quarter century without a Premier that grasped it really. 

They all saw energy as akin to iron ore or someone running a shop, a resource to be exported and a business to be run, and simply failed to grasp that it's the ultimate enabler. If you don't have energy well then pretty much everything else grinds to a halt and that reality puts the power grid, gas supply and liquid fuel supplies right up there with banking and defence in terms of things of national importance. 

In contrast, well if the Sydney Harbour Bridge falls down or the PM has a heart attack well that's unfortunate definitely but it's a comparatively minor problem compared to having no energy supply. Can't build bridges or run hospitals without energy and for that matter fire fighting and food supply doesn't go too well without it either so it's critical yes.


----------



## Smurf1976

moXJO said:


> I'm not sold entirely on renewables being reliable enough at this stage (California was having issues).



I'll quote myself here from another (offline) place:

_The big problem with renewable energy is that as soon as you mention it, the first thing most think of is how cheaply they can get away with it. Building it down to a price, not up to a standard, is the very first thing that enters the minds of most.

In contrast, those very same people don't drink the cheapest wine they can find, they don't live in the cheapest suburb in town, they don't seek out the cheapest medical treatment regardless of quality and so on._

There's the problem. Do it properly and it can and does work but most of the time someone's looking to do the minimum they can get away with and then wonders why it fails. Everyone from shack owners to governments try and get away with that one. Even the environmental movement isn't unknown for shooting itself in the foot by encouraging that approach then lamenting the fossil fuel plant that gets built in due course.

Do it properly though, actually design it to work and build it accordingly, and it can be done.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Basically he is saying *"What are the financial/supply parameters required for this dispatchable power supply" * Put them on the table and he (and/or others) can go about addressing the issue with an appropriate renewable option. And of course if the Government is including some underwriting or grant to the project then that needs to be part of the equation.
> 
> Wouldn't be fair otherwise, would it ?



There's two problems which government doesn't want to admit.

1. Timing.

Snowy 2.0 is happening, there's zero question about that. Equipment's been ordered, construction machinery is physically turning up, it's happening and don't anyone doubt that for a moment.

It was however left too late and there's no chance it'll be running by the time it's needed in late 2023, indeed it'll need to all go really well to get it done before 2025.

That creates a gap between the closure of existing generation and it coming online.

Needless to say the fossil fuel lobbyists, both those who are acknowledged as such and those who disguise themselves with various "green" sounding names, will be more than happy to see a few gas buggies built and locked in for the next 50 years as a solution.

2. Markets.

Lack of supply puts the lights out that's a given and unavoidable as such. Inadequate generation to meet demand = no alternative other than to cut load, there's no way around that. All that's negotiable is what load is cut and how (forced or voluntary etc).

Unfortunately however we also have a market situation where a lack of supply puts the price up and by that I mean it goes up rather drastically. All of a sudden $60 per MWh turns into $15,000 per MWh and I mean that literally - we're talking a drastic increase not just a minor one and at that level in NSW alone electricity becomes a roughly $200 million per hour industry. That's a pretty good way to smash the economy to pieces and do so rather quickly. Anyone exposed to the spot market cops it there and then but even households are ultimately paying.

Looking at solutions though, well there's basically four options. Listed in order of simplicity:

1. Extend the life of Liddell power station until Snowy 2.0 is up and running.

2. Build the new gas-fired station the government is talking about or an alternative.

3. Accept blackouts and price spikes.

4. A more complicated approach involving:

4.1 - Accelerate construction of the SA - NSW line to get it done by the end of 2023. It's going to be built anyway so just drop the charade about consulting people and so on and build it. We're in a serious challenge economically with the pandemic, we have a problem with energy supply and we have a problem with emissions and this helps with all three. Cut the polite niceties and put the towers up.

4.2 - Retain in service the Torrens Island A and Osborne stations in SA until completion of Snowy 2.0. Politically easy since they're non-controversial, most don't realise the latter even exists, and they're not in the way of building something else as is the case with Liddell.

4.3 - Recommission the Redbank power station in NSW. It's a small coal plant sitting idle but ultimately it would make the numbers add up and is the only option for doing so which doesn't involve building something new or retaining Liddell.

Personally I'd go with the latter more complicated approach for some fairly simple reasons. The core expenditure is going to happen anyway and it has lasting value. Getting it done early means we can stop wasting wind and solar in SA sooner so it brings an emissions reduction as soon as it's up and running and it's also a project that puts people to work straight away which is relevant given the broader economic situation.

Extending the two gas-fired plants, total 660 MW, in SA should be a non-issue. They'll only need to run on rare occasions when demand is simultaneously high in NSW and SA and there's not much wind and then only until Snowy 2.0 is built. A non-issue there really, in all seriousness pretty much nobody's going to find a problem with that in terms of environment etc.

Redbank would probably be more controversial since it's coal but rationally it shouldn't be. It's 150 MW, versus 1680 MW at Liddell, so it's not exactly a major operation by any means. As part of a plan which avoids building 1000 MW of new gas-fired plant and which boosts the output of existing renewables then it's a winner overall on "green" terms as part of a broader plan. It's also a cheap option given it's already sitting there doing nothing. If anyone objects well that's being ideological, they oppose coal in principle and I get that, but from a purely practical perspective and looking at the actual emissions levels involved well then it shouldn't rationally be a reason for concern given the small scale of it and the overall context and alternatives.

That plan delivers exactly 1000 MW by the way. 850 MW from SA and 150 MW from Redbank. Along with the other already proposed actions (see below) it would make the numbers add up until Snowy 2.0 is completed.

Other actions already proposed:

QNI upgrade = additional 190 MW transmission from Qld to NSW.

Bayswater upgrade = additional 100 MW from the existing Bayswater power station (coal).

Liddell batteries = 200 MW battery storage at the Liddell power station site.

Newcastle power station = 252 MW gas-fired peaking plant to be built.

Put Redbank back into use and get the line to SA built quickly and along with the above it's a direct alternative to the new 1000 MW gas-fired plant and with the major investment items all having ongoing long term value.

Note that I'm not really trying to persuade anyone here, just putting forward a technically viable alternative which would do the job in full. It's another way of achieving the end result.


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> Getting it done early means we can stop wasting wind and solar in SA sooner so it brings an emissions reduction as soon as it's up and running and it's also a project that puts people to work straight away which is relevant given the broader economic situation.



To give an example of what I'm on about, there's 195 MW of wind generation shut off in SA right now. Nowhere for it to go and that situation's not unusual, quite a bit does go to waste (meanwhile plenty of coal is burned elsewhere).

Hence my enthusiasm for the SA - NSW transmission line and seeing that, as the key part of an alternative to building new gas-fired generation in NSW, getting it done with all haste is something I could live with even if that means by-passing normal due process to make it happen in time.


----------



## Smurf1976

Taking a hundred steps back and thinking about all this, the big problem is that it has been drastically over complicated in terms of the average person's understanding and the associated politics.

As a few dot points:

*AC power, which is what's in the grid and what your appliances run on, cannot itself be stored. We can store other forms of energy with which to operate a machine that produces AC power but AC power itself is not storable. Just like sound or light isn't storable - we can store a means of producing it but you can't store actual sound or light itself.

*Because it can't be stored, it must be produced in real time to exactly match consumption. Fail to get that balance right and bad things happen - potentially really bad and worst case is a system collapse from which a complete restart is required (which as an order of magnitude would take more than a day). That prospect, a system collapse, scares the proverbial out of engineers, operators and everyone else involved. So keeping supply and demand in balance is really, really important.

*If supply and demand can't be balanced then turning some load off, that is blackouts, is the last resort workaround. Cut part of the system off to save the rest is what it amounts to. 

*Consumption varies constantly but is predictable with the daily peak usually just after 6pm and with temperature being a strong influence. Peaks at other times of the day are usually directly caused by abnormal weather - eg a heatwave with a cool change at 2pm and things like that will produce a peak at a time other than 6pm. Exception is Tasmania where the absolute peak is about 8 - 8:30am, the difference being due to climate compared to the other states and heating loads.

*Every generator, transmission line, transformer and so on will have a limited capacity that it's designed to operate up to. There's a lot of serious engineering in calculating what that limit is, but once calculated it's expressed in numbers anyone can understand. Eg 600 MW - don't worry about the MW and detail, just focus on it being able to produce 600 of them.

*Lots of moving parts in a power station means there's a lot to go wrong. Periodic shutdowns for maintenance are needed and it's a reality that breakdowns will occur. Therefore it's necessary to have more generators than are actually needed, since we can't count on them all working at once. There are proper ways to calculate it but as a rough ballpark figure, add 20% on top of peak demand and that'll be pretty close to right in terms of what's required.

Armed with that knowledge and a list of power stations and their capacity, it's just basic maths beyond that. Add up the capacity of all the power stations in the region, plus anything that's available via transmission from another region, and compare that to peak demand. If you've got a 20% safety margin then as a generic rule of thumb you should be right. An engineer will do it more precisely but as a rule of thumb for public discussion that's pretty close, it gives an answer that's in the ballpark of what's required.

Beyond that it's all about other things really:

Economics noting that facilities which are cheap to operate tend to be expensive to build and vice versa, meaning that for reasons of minimising cost most grids include multiple generation technologies. High capital cost / low running cost plant for constant running, low capital cost / high running cost plant for peaks and as backup is the usual arrangement.

Environmental impact of different methods of generation noting that CO2 emissions are a major issue but certainly not the only one.

Other considerations. For example a preference to use local resources for reasons of supply security or creating local employment or having an agricultural use for the water diverted by a hydro scheme may lead to a particular option being preferred even if it otherwise isn't the cheapest etc. That's not a problem so long as it does meet the electrical requirements.

Plus additional to the above, a realisation that electricity isn't the only form of energy. Most oil is used as petrol and diesel etc not for power, in most states that's also the case with gas most isn't used for power, and even with coal there's a bit used for other purposes.

That's it really. There's no rocket science, just that the whole thing has been massively over-complicated in terms of how it has been approached politically and explained to the public. Explained simply, pretty much anyone can grasp the numbers involved. Demand peaks at x, the sum total of the capacity of the power stations (which includes batteries discharging etc) is y. At that basic level there's no rocket science involved.


----------



## basilio

Tesla battery day is fast approaching and there is intense speculation on the advances that  are anticipated in battery power, capacity and cost. This preview adds some background to the size of the electrification market.

*Will Tesla Signal The Death Of The Internal Combustion Engine At Battery Day?*








						Will Tesla Signal The Death Of The Internal Combustion Engine At Battery Day? – ShareCafe
					

Corporate Connect research analyst Di Brookman takes us on the EV Journey, explains why all eyes and ears are poised for Tesla Battery Day, and how truly exciting times might be ahead for the sector.




					www.sharecafe.com.au


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> To give an example of what I'm on about, there's 195 MW of wind generation shut off in SA right now. Nowhere for it to go and that situation's not unusual, quite a bit does go to waste (meanwhile plenty of coal is burned elsewhere).
> 
> Hence my enthusiasm for the SA - NSW transmission line and seeing that, as the key part of an alternative to building new gas-fired generation in NSW, getting it done with all haste is something I could live with even if that means by-passing normal due process to make it happen in time.




So if I can ask a direction question, from a purely technical perspective disregarding politics, should the proposed gas generator be built , or are there better options ?


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> There's two problems which government doesn't want to admit.
> 
> 1. Timing.
> 
> Snowy 2.0 is happening, there's zero question about that. Equipment's been ordered, construction machinery is physically turning up, it's happening and don't anyone doubt that for a moment.
> 
> It was however left too late and there's no chance it'll be running by the time it's needed in late 2023, indeed it'll need to all go really well to get it done before 2025.
> 
> That creates a gap between the closure of existing generation and it coming online.



That's an interesting observation smurf, there is a strong green lobby group against the building of Snowy 2.0 and from memory even you said it wont be required until the early to mid 2030's.
But you said it is better to get on with it, than risk having a change of political enthusiasm and it not get started at all.
What has caused the change, that now it has been left too late?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> there is a strong green lobby group against the building of Snowy 2.0 and from memory even you said it wont be required until the early to mid 2030's.
> But you said it is better to get on with it, than risk having a change of political enthusiasm and it not get started at all.
> What has caused the change, that now it has been left too late?



There’s a distinction between Snowy 2.0 as a specific project versus simply building anything at all.

Prior to at least 2029 batteries and small pumped storage schemes, those with a few hours worth of storage, are a viable alternative.

With a lot of fossil fuel plant still operating, the only issues are meeting the actual peak and raising the minimum load around midday. But if the sun doesn’t shine that day then we could certainly charge the batteries with power from coal at off peak times, hence no real need for the large storage capability of Snowy 2.0, a much shorter duration storage system would do the job.

That however requires that such a system is actually built since whilst the long duration storage isn’t needed soon, the peak capacity it provides certainly is.

Or in other words we need the 2000 MW from Snowy 2.0 but we don’t yet need the ability to be able to constantly discharge it for days on end. Batteries with a few hours worth of storage would do the job.

2029 to 2036 however sees a huge amount of fossil fuel plant closing and at that point either we need some very serious storage, since the certainty of recharging at off-peak times will no longer be there and we’re literally dependent on the weather, or alternatively new fossil fuel (or nuclear) plant is required. At that point Snowy 2.0 is highly valuable and batteries aren’t an alternative to it.

So we could have developed short duration pumped hydro or batteries now and completed Snowy 2.0 circa 2020 as the next step. Both are needed but the argument is a purely economic one about the order of building them.

It’s all a bit like saying that a couple who ultimately has 5 kids could hold off buying the people mover and 6 bedroom house until they’ve actually had enough children such that it’s needed. Buying it now isn’t a problem though, it does the job, but an accountant would argue that it would be better financially to have kept the Mazda 3 in the meantime given it’s adequate and cheap.

There’s a need to replace Liddell in 2023, Vales Point 2029, Yallourn progressively 2029 - 32 and so on. Ultimately we need large storage hydro as part of that as well as batteries and small hydro but we could have started with the relatively cheap and easy batteries first then done Snowy 2.0 second.

Politics however made that a very high risk approach so doing Snowy 2.0 upfront is rational in that sense. Downside is it’s not going to be ready in time.

In short - ultimately Snowy 2.0 or a direct equivalent is crucial but it didn’t have to be the first thing built, we could have started with the short duration storage first. Both are needed, it’s about the order of building them and politics has made the most rational approach far too risky.


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> So we could have developed short duration pumped hydro or batteries now and completed Snowy 2.0 circa *2020*



Typo there on my part - should read 2030 not 2020.


----------



## sptrawler

So it really sounds as though something needs to be built quickly, before the old plant really does fall over.
The other thing that is obviously required, is a requirement for companies that wish to deploy large scale renewables, factor in a storage component commensurate with their nameplate generated output. What ratio that would be, could be determined by someone like the AEMO.
Just a thought, but it would actually make the roll out of renewables more sustainable and speed up the retirement of fossil fueled generation IMO.
It would also give some certainty to the actual available storage, on the system.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> So if I can ask a direction question, from a purely technical perspective disregarding politics, should the proposed gas generator be built , or are there better options ?



Some raw data:

Actual historic peak demand in NSW (AEMO data). All peaks occurred during summer except where indicated.

2019-20 = 13,827 MW
2018-19 = 13,861 MW
2017-18 = 13,081 MW
2016-17 = 14,107 MW
2015-16 = 13,599 MW
2014-15 = 11,874 MW
2013-14 = 12,016 MW
2012-13 = 13,906 MW
2011-12 = 12,942 MW (peak was in winter not summer)
2010-11 = 14,764 MW

So typically it's approaching 14,000 MW but there's a couple of outliers where it's significantly lower due to weather and the all time record high is 14,764 MW.

Now looking at the supply side (these figures are the summer rating where temperature is relevant):

Coal:
Bayswater = 2520 MW (closure planned for 2036)
Eraring = 2720 MW (closure 2032)
Liddell = 1680 MW (closure 1 unit 2022, other 3 in 2023)
Mt Piper = 1350 MW (remaining technical life is ~25 years)
Vales Point B = 1320 MW (closure 2029)

Combined cycle gas:
Tallawarra = 395 MW

Open cycle gas:
Colongra = 640 MW (also diesel-fired, see notes at end)
Smithfield = 107 MW
Uranquinty = 640 MW

Diesel / kerosene fuelled gas turbines:
Broken Hill = 50 MW
Hunter Valley = 30 MW (closing mid-2030's)
Eraring gas turbine = 30 MW (closing 2032) (see notes at end)

Hydro:
Blowering = 70 MW
Guthega = 68 MW
Hume = 29 MW (can be connected to either NSW or Victoria)
Shoalhaven (pumped hydro) = 240 MW
Tumut 1 = 330 MW
Tumut 2 = 286 MW
Tumut 3 (conventional hydro with 600 MW pumping capacity) = 1800 MW

Total generation NSW = 14,305 MW

Transmission Qld > NSW = 1288 MW

Transmission Vic > NSW uses the same lines as the Snowy scheme, that's what the lines were built for, such that operation of Snowy generation in NSW crowds out the ability to transfer from Victoria. Realistically though can push another 450 MW through with all Snowy plant running, considerably higher if Snowy output is lower. That assumes of course that Vic actually has the power to spare - that's far from certain and really depends on what the weather's doing and whether or not anything fails.

Total all sources = 16,043 MW not including intermittent generation (wind and solar) which may or may not generate at the time of peak demand.

Take Liddell out and that becomes 14,363 MW

Add in the planned 190 MW upgrade of transmission Qld > NSW and that brings it up to 14,553 MW

Add the 100 MW upgrade of Bayswater power station and that brings it up to 14,653 MW

Add AGL's planned 200 MW batteries (4 x 50 MW) and that brings it up to 14,853 MW

Add AGL's proposed 252 MW gas-fired peaking plant near Newcastle and that brings it up to 15,105 MW.

Comparing that to historic peak demand it could be described as right on the edge.

If everything works perfectly then the lights stay on.

If the weather's such that populated regions of NSW don't experience simultaneous heatwaves or extreme cold then demand stays down so no drama.

If the heatwave is accompanied by strong winds at wind farms then that fixes the problem too. Anyone's guess if that actually happens but it's not unprecedented to go either way - windy or still.

On the other hand, get the temperature up to 45 degrees and take a couple of units off due due to breakdown or if there's nothing to spare from Victoria well then there's no alternative other than to shed load.

Overall, you won't find any competent engineer, operator, manager or anyone else who'll put their name on anything saying that it'll work but likewise, they'd all agree that it possibly would if the weather's mild and plant all works perfectly. It's on the edge, it's in the "maybe but no guarantees it will" zone.

Not included above is Redbank, a 150 MW coal-fired plant that's presently not being run. No technical reason why it couldn't be run, that it isn't is a business thing with perhaps a bit of politics and so on thrown in. It's small, but every bit helps and it's already built and so on so it could make sense (politics aside).

Snowy 2.0 when completed will add 2040 MW and, until the point where more coal plant closes, fixes the issue.

Beyond the technical it then becomes an economic and political question:

Cost of building more capacity to avoid load shedding versus the economic value of a reliable electricity supply?

Political consequences of blackouts versus political consequences of building gas turbines or other measures to avoid them?

Alternative options eg bring forward batteries or smaller pumped hydro that will be needed in 2030 anyway with the Vales Point closure or accelerate the SA - NSW transmission line project.

Notes:

Colongra gas turbines have a very limited gas supply due to pipeline constraints which enables operation at full load for ~5 hours in any 24 hour period using gas. Operation beyond that requires that diesel be used.

Eraring gas turbine is capped by law to operate not more than 200 hours per annum due to emissions. That doesn't influence its ability to generate at the peaks, since the absolute peak is less than 200 hours a year, but does mean that it's generally not run and is thus not a competitor to other generation most of the time.

Murray 1 and Murray 2 power stations, total 1500 MW and part of the Snowy scheme, are physically in NSW in terms of infrastructure etc but electrically are in Victoria.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> So if I can ask a direction question, from a purely technical perspective disregarding politics, should the proposed gas generator be built , or are there better options ?



I guess that will be answered by Labors response, if Labor says it shouldn't be built, then if they win the next election they will have to live with the call.
If Labor knows it really does need building, they wont say much and will let the Libs wear the green backlash.
Not being political, but both parties will be aware of the system requirements.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Some raw data:
> 
> Actual historic peak demand in NSW (AEMO data). All peaks occurred during summer except where indicated.
> 
> 2019-20 = 13,827 MW
> 2018-19 = 13,861 MW
> 2017-18 = 13,081 MW
> 2016-17 = 14,107 MW
> 2015-16 = 13,599 MW
> 2014-15 = 11,874 MW
> 2013-14 = 12,016 MW
> 2012-13 = 13,906 MW
> 2011-12 = 12,942 MW (peak was in winter not summer)
> 2010-11 = 14,764 MW
> 
> So typically it's approaching 14,000 MW but there's a couple of outliers where it's significantly lower due to weather and the all time record high is 14,764 MW.
> 
> Now looking at the supply side (these figures are the summer rating where temperature is relevant):
> 
> Coal:
> Bayswater = 2520 MW (closure planned for 2036)
> Eraring = 2720 MW (closure 2032)
> Liddell = 1680 MW (closure 1 unit 2022, other 3 in 2023)
> Mt Piper = 1350 MW (remaining technical life is ~25 years)
> Vales Point B = 1320 MW (closure 2029)
> 
> Combined cycle gas:
> Tallawarra = 395 MW
> 
> Open cycle gas:
> Colongra = 640 MW (also diesel-fired, see notes at end)
> Smithfield = 107 MW
> Uranquinty = 640 MW
> 
> Diesel / kerosene fuelled gas turbines:
> Broken Hill = 50 MW
> Hunter Valley = 30 MW (closing mid-2030's)
> Eraring gas turbine = 30 MW (closing 2032) (see notes at end)
> 
> Hydro:
> Blowering = 70 MW
> Guthega = 68 MW
> Hume = 29 MW (can be connected to either NSW or Victoria)
> Shoalhaven (pumped hydro) = 240 MW
> Tumut 1 = 330 MW
> Tumut 2 = 286 MW
> Tumut 3 (conventional hydro with 600 MW pumping capacity) = 1800 MW
> 
> Total generation NSW = 14,305 MW
> 
> Transmission Qld > NSW = 1288 MW
> 
> Transmission Vic > NSW uses the same lines as the Snowy scheme, that's what the lines were built for, such that operation of Snowy generation in NSW crowds out the ability to transfer from Victoria. Realistically though can push another 450 MW through with all Snowy plant running, considerably higher if Snowy output is lower. That assumes of course that Vic actually has the power to spare - that's far from certain and really depends on what the weather's doing and whether or not anything fails.
> 
> Total all sources = 16,043 MW not including intermittent generation (wind and solar) which may or may not generate at the time of peak demand.
> 
> Take Liddell out and that becomes 14,363 MW
> 
> Add in the planned 190 MW upgrade of transmission Qld > NSW and that brings it up to 14,553 MW
> 
> Add the 100 MW upgrade of Bayswater power station and that brings it up to 14,653 MW
> 
> Add AGL's planned 200 MW batteries (4 x 50 MW) and that brings it up to 14,853 MW
> 
> Add AGL's proposed 252 MW gas-fired peaking plant near Newcastle and that brings it up to 15,105 MW.
> 
> Comparing that to historic peak demand it could be described as right on the edge.
> 
> If everything works perfectly then the lights stay on.



That doesn't leave much room for spinning reserve and outage work i.e unplanned


----------



## SirRumpole

Working from home this summer could put power supplies at risk as more people turn their air conditioners on.









						Why working from home could be a disaster for Australia's electricity grid this summer
					

Air conditioners could send Australia's power grid into meltdown this summer, as roughly one third of the workforce do their jobs from home, experts warn.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> That doesn't leave much room for spinning reserve and outage work i.e unplanned



Agreed - the whole situation could be described as "on the edge".

If coal / gas / hydro generating plant performance on days of high demand is close to perfect and/or if the wind's blowing strongly then it works.

If the hottest or coldest days just happen to be on weekends or public holidays then it works.

Get a properly hot or cold working weekday without much wind and with other generation performance being merely average and someone gets cut off.

A big part of the issue is average load versus peak. Peak is over 14,000 MW but average load is 8340 MW of which intermittent sources account for 1125 MW.

So in terms of dispatchable generation, that which doesn't rely on short term weather, then if we want a reliable supply there's a need for 16,000 - 18,000 MW of capacity (depending on just how reliable and bulletproof society wants it to be) which will on average run at 7215 MW and there's the problem.

Having enough capacity to reliably meet the peak is good engineering but it's poor economics to invest more $ in order to produce minimal extra revenue. That's the dilemma and so long as it's competing companies making the decisions, they're basically forced to look at the $ side first and foremost. End result is we end up with capacity that's barely adequate - that's the most financially appropriate outcome despite being far from optimum from an engineering perspective.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Having enough capacity to reliably meet the peak is good engineering but it's poor economics to invest more $ in order to produce minimal extra revenue. That's the dilemma and so long as it's competing companies making the decisions, they're basically forced to look at the $ side first and foremost. End result is we end up with capacity that's barely adequate - that's the most financially appropriate outcome despite being far from optimum from an engineering perspective.




Well, I'll have to say it again, supply of essential services and the private sector are not a good mix. We don't let private companies run the education system entirely or the health system entirely, there is a government presence to provide competition.  Sure there is Snowy Hydro but I can't see private enterprise building despatchable power when renewables are easier and require less investment.

The corporations will take the road to faster and bigger profits , but that is not what is needed in the national interest.


----------



## basilio

Saw an  article today  (I think on ABC) which  suggested that energy consumption will rise sharply this summer with far more people working from home and using air con.

Just something to keep in mind ..


----------



## sptrawler

On a slightly different tangent, but the technology can be used in gas turbines, airbus is pursuing H2 fueled aircraft design.








						Airbus reveals new zero-emission concept aircraft
					

Airbus has revealed three concepts for the world’s first zero-emission commercial aircraft which could enter service by 2035. These concepts each represent a different approach to achieving zero-emission flight, exploring various technology pathways and aerodynamic configurations in order to...




					www.airbus.com


----------



## basilio

This analysis by the former Chair of ARENA is very constructive.

*Government's technology investment roadmap finds unlikely backing from former ARENA boss*








						Government's technology investment roadmap finds unlikely backing from former renewable energy boss
					

While the Government's renewable energy plan is under fire, including from some on its own side of politics, it is also attracting some perhaps unlikely supporters in the energy policy community.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Saw an article today (I think on ABC) which suggested that energy consumption will rise sharply this summer with far more people working from home and using air con.



There's a lot of different thoughts there at the moment.

Higher total consumption - probably yes, seems likely given homes occupied more.

Peak load - much harder and may even go down since there won't be the same degree of a spike with workers returning home at ~6pm and turning the cooling on to run flat out. If it's already on during daytime then that shouldn't occur to the same extent.

Higher average load with a lower peak would of course suit the industry very nicely so perhaps some wishful thinking (ie bias) there but as a concept it does seem plausible to occur. There will certainly be plenty of close attention paid on the first properly hot weather we do get on a working weekday this season. There's a lot of theories but most will at this stage acknowledge there's uncertainty as to how it plays out in practice.

One thing that has definitely been noticed across the electricity, gas reticulation and water (including sewage) industries is that consumption has been delayed. In simple terms it seems that people are getting up later and going to bed later or at least that they're showering etc later. Weekend peak, especially the morning one, is always later and to partial extent the weekday peak has moved toward that weekend pattern during the height of the lockdowns. 

Data thus far shows that residential load has increased, commercial load has decreased, and temperature sensitivity has increased. That is, a 1'C change in temperature is resulting in a greater change in electricity consumption than it did pre-pandemic. As would be expected, this is more pronounced in locations where electricity has a higher market share for space heating and where heating requirements are more substantial (so Tas and NSW especially, less so in other states where either heating use is lower or non-electric heating is widely used). Compounding that has a been a colder than average winter in terms of heating degree days across much of the country.


----------



## sptrawler

Here is the next NBN IMO, taxpayers being asked to pay for the installation of batteries, so that power generators can make more money by reducing numbers .
If it is in the generators interest, to replace fossil fueled generation with renewables, which in turn improves their bottom line.
Why shouldn't they supply subsidised batteries as part of their offering, as mobile phone carriers do with handsets. I believe AGL is doing just that, with their car and home battery plans and it is the way forward IMO.
I can understand the taxpayer putting in bulk storage e.g Snowy 2.0 and the Tassie battery, but at household level I feel the generators should also contribute, it is advantageous to them as they require the storage to compliment their renewables.








						Power giant EnergyAustralia urges battery focus in federal plan
					

One of the nation's largest power suppliers says supporting battery installations will be key to Australia's energy plan.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:

_One of the nation's largest power suppliers, EnergyAustralia, says subsidising battery installations would be the best way for the federal government to invest in the future of the power market while lifting the economy out of COVID-19_.

_As the Morrison government looks to gas to drive the post-lockdown recovery, EnergyAustralia's head of customer markets Mark Collette has called for a greater national focus on accelerating the transition to renewables by matching the recent boom in rooftop solar panels with household and commercial batteries, capable of storing surplus energy created during the day.

EnergyAustralia, which runs coal, gas and renewable energy assets supplying 2.4 million customer accounts, said incentive schemes in the past have helped drive a boom in solar panels' uptake as increasingly climate-conscious customers seek to reduce their carbon footprint. Mr Collette said 250,000 EnergyAustralia customers had signed up to the company's free carbon-neutral energy plans, offsetting 1.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and demonstrating that customers were eager to make a difference where possible. However, cost barriers have so far contributed a slower uptake of household batteries compared to solar, he said_.

Why doesn't Energy Australia offer its customers, with home solar panels a discounted battery, maybe it could be incorporated with the transfer of the feed in tarrif to Energy Australia, rather than to the distribution network? i.e in W.A Synergy.


----------



## basilio

This announcement by China will spin the energy  generation and storage story on its head. 

*China's carbon pledge will require complete inversion of existing system*
Country will need to kick addiction to coal and build eye-watering amount of wind and solar capacity

China’s President Xi Jinping stunned climate action observers in a speech at the United Nations general assembly last week with a pledge to reach “peak carbon” before 2030, and drive down emissions to virtually zero by 2060. 

...Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, said China’s commitment to go carbon neutral before 2060 “sends a strong signal that the reality of the climate crisis”.

“However, actions speak louder than words,” she said. “There are two key questions next: how will China ensure that its actions match its commitments? And second, will Washington join in?”

China’s pledge emerged days after the EU toughened its own 2030 climate targets, raising the chances of a powerful economic coalition between the two that would cover a third of the world’s carbon emissions.

... China offered no details of how it would achieve the ambitious carbon-neutral target, but the action required would set in motion powerful geopolitical and economic shifts which hold important implications for the future of fossil fuels, low-carbon technologies and climate diplomacy.

The single largest reduction in emissions on record would require nothing less than a complete inversion of China’s existing energy system, one that promises to reverberate across global energy markets.








						China's carbon pledge will require complete inversion of existing system
					

Country will need to kick addiction to coal and build eye-watering amount of wind and solar capacity




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## basilio

China's position on moving rapidly to zero emissions will have a huge impact on Australia's energy industry

*Q+A: Australia’s fossil fuel industry will collapse within 20 years, Mike Cannon-Brookes says*
Atlassian billionaire tells Q+A panel China’s move to become carbon neutral by 2060 spells doom for Australia’s coal and gas production









						Q+A: Australia’s fossil fuel industry will collapse within 20 years, Mike Cannon-Brookes says
					

Atlassian billionaire tells Q+A panel China’s move to become carbon neutral by 2060 spells doom for Australia’s coal and gas production




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Smurf1976

I suspect China's motivation is more economic and political than genuine concern for the environment, it is after all a plan to stop burning coal about the time they run out of coal to burn and would be massively reliant on imports, but nonetheless the writing is on the wall for the fossil fuel industries most certainly.

From an Australian perspective the problem isn't about how to keep the lights on (though that's an issue) so much as it's about how to replace a circa $100 billion a year industry in the form of coal and gas exports. Services and cottage industry stuff won't cut it there and realistically whatever the ultimate solution, I'd be willing to bet that we're going be using a lot more electricity as part of it both to replace the end use of fossil fuels (cars, water heating etc) and to power whatever new export industry is developed.

At the risk of reopening old wounds (which I'd rather not do.....), there's nothing particularly new about any of that. It is after all the same basic view that those on the pro-electricity side of the various debates have held since the 1970's - we're going to need more not less, and the alternative "low energy" option of exporting unprocessed raw materials isn't a good one in the long term.


----------



## macca

Given the hit that China's reputation has taken over Covid I would suggest China will say anything that will earn some friendly headlines


----------



## Smurf1976

Torrens Island 'A' power station (located in SA, owned by AGL) units 2 & 4 are now permanently out of operation and no longer available to run.

Last operation of unit 2 was on 20 March 2020.

Last operation of unit 4 was on 17 September 2020.

Both now officially shut as of 30 September and no longer registered with AEMO for operation.

Units 1 and 3 at the same facility are identical to the above and still operating though not for much longer. Unit 1 shuts next year, unit 3 shuts in 2022.

Technically, both are 120 MW steam units with gas (originally oil) fired boiler. So technically pretty much identical to the former Bell Bay (Tas) or Kwinana A & B (WA) stations for those familiar apart from some relatively inconsequential differences in site layout etc. Construction started 1963 and the units entered service progressively 1967 - 1970.

Torrens Island B station right next door and also owned by AGL comprises 4 x 200 MW and is expected to remain fully operational into the 2030's.

Practical effect of losing 240 MW isn't much, since the overwhelming majority of the time generation isn't fully utilised, but at times of very high demand and low wind speed it may well be the straw which breaks the proverbial camel's back.

Photo of 'A' station below. 'B' station is immediately to the right and looks much the same. For scale, the chimney height is 160m. Cooling of the plant uses sea water - the water visible at the bottom left is indeed the sea.


----------



## fiftyeight

With an excess of renewables and the expertise to build gas plants, surprised Liquid Air Batteries are not discussed more in Australia.

Gas plants are pretty expensive to build, but surely the cost comes down (even in Australia) if there are no hydrocarbons?


----------



## SirRumpole

Fusion is just around the corner(again).









						Nuclear fusion reactor could be here as soon as 2025
					

The discovery of new superconducting materials has sped up the timeline considerably.




					www.livescience.com


----------



## basilio

Green Hydrogen is far closer than we realise. When the Chines announce they intend to turn their whole energy supply system on its head perhaps it's becasue they have the technology to do so.

*Green hydrogen’ from renewables could become cheapest ‘transformative fuel’ within a decade*
Government has nominated ‘clean hydrogen’ using gas and CCS but for many countries ‘clean’ already means without fossil fuels

Chinese manufacturers have reported making systems to create hydrogen with renewable energy for up to 80% less than official Australian estimates from just two years ago.

Energy analysts said it suggested green hydrogen was likely to leapfrog hydrogen made with gas and coal as the most cost-effective form of the energy before the end of the decade, and by the time an industry could be developed at scale.








						‘Green hydrogen’ from renewables could become cheapest ‘transformative fuel’ within a decade
					

Government has nominated ‘clean hydrogen’ using gas and CCS but for many countries ‘clean’ already means without fossil fuels




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Fusion is just around the corner(again).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Nuclear fusion reactor could be here as soon as 2025
> 
> 
> The discovery of new superconducting materials has sped up the timeline considerably.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.livescience.com



Yes I wouldnt mind a dollar for every time Ive heard it.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Green Hydrogen is far closer than we realise. When the Chines announce they intend to turn their whole energy supply system on its head perhaps it's becasue they have the technology to do so.
> 
> *Green hydrogen’ from renewables could become cheapest ‘transformative fuel’ within a decade*
> Government has nominated ‘clean hydrogen’ using gas and CCS but for many countries ‘clean’ already means without fossil fuels
> 
> Chinese manufacturers have reported making systems to create hydrogen with renewable energy for up to 80% less than official Australian estimates from just two years ago.
> 
> Energy analysts said it suggested green hydrogen was likely to leapfrog hydrogen made with gas and coal as the most cost-effective form of the energy before the end of the decade, and by the time an industry could be developed at scale.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ‘Green hydrogen’ from renewables could become cheapest ‘transformative fuel’ within a decade
> 
> 
> Government has nominated ‘clean hydrogen’ using gas and CCS but for many countries ‘clean’ already means without fossil fuels
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theguardian.com



Yes from memory, the Chinese are building 100 coal fired power stations, but it only takes one media post, to put that to bed. Lol


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Yes I wouldnt mind a dollar for every time Ive heard it.



Nuclear fusion - the power source of the future and always will be.


----------



## basilio

The  All Energy conference  Virtual forums are online from tomorrow.  They are holding a range of  free seminars across new energy technologies and their role in boot starting the post COVID economy.





 

*All-Energy Australia's free-to-attend Virtual Conference* will kick off tomorrow with a highly-anticipated joint opening plenary with  Energy Efficiency Expo, featuring some of the most prominent thought leaders and leading industry representatives.



Kane Thornton (Chief Executive, Clean Energy Council) and The Hon Lily D'Ambrosio MP (Victorian Minister for Energy Environment and Climate Change) will deliver opening remarks, followed by a panel discussion chaired by Luke Menzel (CEO, Energy Efficiency Council), which will look at the stimulus measures that could create jobs and fuel the revival of our green economy post-COVID-19.*Sponsored by:*



 








 













__





						Energy Efficiency Expo
					

Join Energy Efficiency Expo and discover practical solutions to the country’s rising energy costs. Don't miss this free-to-attend expo and conference.




					www.energyefficiencyexpo.com.au


----------



## Smurf1976

Fear of new technology is nothing new.

I've long been aware that various rumours were spread, mostly by gas companies, as to the safety of electricity circa 1900 but this cartoon from 1889 takes it to the extreme:


----------



## SirRumpole

One battle that most of us thought was won long ago is now starting up again. DC vs AC.





__





						9 Reasons Why DC May Replace AC
					

electricalindustry.ca is the “go-to” online resource for electrical contractors, plant electrical personnel, electrical consulting engineers and electrical distributors, for industry news, product sourcing and technical know-how… all from a Canadian perspective.




					www.electricalindustry.ca


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> One battle that most of us thought was won long ago is now starting up again. DC vs AC.



Yes these days, there isn't much in your house that requires ac, also the power consumption of domestic appliances has dropped considerably over recent years.


----------



## noirua




----------



## Smurf1976

South Australia at 12:00 National Electricity Market time (12:30 SA Daylight Savings time) demand on the grid dropped to 280.73 MW.

To put that into perspective, that's less than the largest individual factory in each of Qld, NSW, Vic and Tas would have been using at the time (that SA doesn't have any really large industrial loads is one of the issues) and compares with SA's peak demand of 3400 MW.

Reason? Well there was an estimated 992 MW of small scale solar generation (rooftops) supplying most actual consumption at that time and consumption itself is down due to mild weather and being a Sunday. Hence the low load on the grid.

Environmentally that's a good thing. CO2 etc.

Technically it's approaching the limits of controllability without resorting to "unconventional" measures or risking a statewide blackout in the event that transmission between SA and Vic were to fail. Hence the moves to be able to shut down small solar generation when required.

As has been said previously, there's plenty of electricity available to replace fossil fuels as a means of powering cars, heating water and so on, the key is to charge these things when it's available not just randomly.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> South Australia at 12:00 National Electricity Market time (12:30 SA Daylight Savings time) demand on the grid dropped to 280.73 MW.
> 
> To put that into perspective, that's less than the largest individual factory in each of Qld, NSW, Vic and Tas would have been using at the time (that SA doesn't have any really large industrial loads is one of the issues) and compares with SA's peak demand of 3400 MW.
> 
> Reason? Well there was an estimated 992 MW of small scale solar generation (rooftops) supplying most actual consumption at that time and consumption itself is down due to mild weather and being a Sunday. Hence the low load on the grid.
> 
> Environmentally that's a good thing. CO2 etc.
> 
> Technically it's approaching the limits of controllability without resorting to "unconventional" measures or risking a statewide blackout in the event that transmission between SA and Vic were to fail. Hence the moves to be able to shut down small solar generation when required.
> 
> As has been said previously, there's plenty of electricity available to replace fossil fuels as a means of powering cars, heating water and so on, the key is to charge these things when it's available not just randomly.




I wonder if something like a National Energy Guarantee might help with this problem ?


----------



## sptrawler

Another big pumped storage facility to be built in the New England area of NSW, sounds really promising and shows that governments are serious about reliable renewables.








						$1 billion pumped hydro scheme would open up NSW grid, backers say
					

A proposed pumped-hydro scheme supported by the state government would support the integration of $2 billion in new solar and wind farms in the north of the state.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:

The Berejiklian government has given accelerated approval status to a billion-dollar pumped hydro project that will unlock twice as much renewable energy investment and reduce grid congestion.

The venture, backed by Alinta Energy, would generate as much as 600 megawatts of electricity by releasing water between two reservoirs near the Macleay River between Armidale and Kempsey.

Developed by the same consultancy EMM that is working on the larger Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme, the Oven Mountain energy storage project is expected to support a further $2 billion in new solar and wind farms in the New England Renewable Energy Zone. 
“The Australian Energy Market Operator says that NSW needs more than twice the energy storage of Snowy 2.0 again by the mid-2030s and projects like Oven Mountain can help us reach that goal,” Mr Kean said in a statement.


----------



## sptrawler

Another article on the same project, the Oven Mountain pumped storage.




__





						NSW pumped hydro project fast-tracked to help replace ageing coal-fired power stations
					





					www.msn.com


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I wonder if something like a National Energy Guarantee might help with this problem ?



A policy of itself won't but getting things physically done will.

Transmission SA - NSW

Large scale pumped hydro. 

Etc.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> “The Australian Energy Market Operator says that NSW needs more than twice the energy storage of Snowy 2.0 again by the mid-2030s and projects like Oven Mountain can help us reach that goal,” Mr Kean said in a statement.



As I've said for a very long time now, if renewables are going to be more than a relatively minor supplement to fossil fuels then big dams are part of what's required.

The unfortunate thing is it has taken quite a while for politicians to reach that point but it seems we're there now finally. 

The downside of course is that a lot of money has been wasted and pollution emitted needlessly with all the delays.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> As I've said for a very long time now, if renewables are going to be more than a relatively minor supplement to fossil fuels then big dams are part of what's required.
> 
> The unfortunate thing is it has taken quite a while for politicians to reach that point but it seems we're there now finally.
> 
> The downside of course is that a lot of money has been wasted and pollution emitted needlessly with all the delays.



It certainly sounds as though NSW and Queensland are getting onboard, haven't heard much from Victoria with regard pumped storage, the Latrobe Valley stations wont run forever.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

no idea what who why or how it is funded, but

... coming to Near Newcastle?










						Energy Renaissance lithium-ion gigafactory breaks ground in Tomago, NSW
					

In less than a year from today, Australia will be producing its own renewable-energy-storing lithium-ion batteries in the Hunter Region. A new $28 million Energy Renaissance facility will embed itself in the learning, hard-working, adaptable culture around the port of Newcastle, manufacturing...




					www.pv-magazine-australia.com
				








__





						We invent and manufacture Lithium Battery Technology in Australia
					

Energy Renaissance invent and manufacture lithium battery technology in Australia for stationary and transport applications in Australia and South-Asia




					renaissanceone.com.au


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It certainly sounds as though NSW and Queensland are getting onboard, haven't heard much from Victoria with regard pumped storage, the Latrobe Valley stations wont run forever.



It would be fair to say that to the extent any state isn't paying attention but should be, Victoria's the one.

Second largest population.
Third highest use of gas after WA and Qld.
Third highest use of electricity after NSW and Qld.
For both gas and electricity a very high dependence on a small number of aged assets.

Realistically they're assuming Tas and NSW will come to the rescue.


----------



## sptrawler

Dona Ferentes said:


> no idea what who why or how it is funded, but
> 
> ... coming to Near Newcastle?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Energy Renaissance lithium-ion gigafactory breaks ground in Tomago, NSW
> 
> 
> In less than a year from today, Australia will be producing its own renewable-energy-storing lithium-ion batteries in the Hunter Region. A new $28 million Energy Renaissance facility will embed itself in the learning, hard-working, adaptable culture around the port of Newcastle, manufacturing...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.pv-magazine-australia.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> We invent and manufacture Lithium Battery Technology in Australia
> 
> 
> Energy Renaissance invent and manufacture lithium battery technology in Australia for stationary and transport applications in Australia and South-Asia
> 
> 
> 
> 
> renaissanceone.com.au



It is about time, I can't understand why Redflow built their manufacturing plant in Thailand, good to see a company seizing the opportunity.
Well done Energy renaissance.


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting Aussie invention, home hydrogen electrolyser and fuel cell, hopefully leads to something big.








						Australian invented hydrogen storage for homes and businesses hits the market
					

UNSW spin-off announces that it will start taking orders for one of the world’s first hydrogen based energy storage systems for homes and businesses.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				




From the article:

_Australian-based venture LAVO, a university spin-off that has developed an innovative hydrogen-based energy storage system for homes and businesses, is one step closer to commercialisation, announcing that the technology is now ‘commercially-ready’ and will soon start taking orders for the first systems.

The LAVO system has been developed by researchers at the University of New South Wales, and uses compressed hydrogen as the main medium for energy storage. The company says that by using hydrogen, the LAVO device can offer three times the amount of energy storage compared to other devices of similar size, and offers double the operational life_.

_In announcing that the company will soon begin taking orders for the hydrogen energy storage system, LAVO says that it will target four core markets, including residential and commercial energy storage, off-grid and backup power supplies and telecommunication towers. LAVO estimates that these markets represent a $2 billion opportunity in for the company in Australia_.


----------



## sptrawler

It looks as though the Newcastle Waters solar farm in the Northern Territory, is going to cover a similar area as the one proposed for the NW of W.A, 12,000 hectares.








						Famous cattle station once owned by Kerry Packer earmarked for massive solar farm
					

An iconic cattle station in the Northern Territory, once owned by Kerry Packer, is revealed as the proposed location for the world's biggest solar farm.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article, the elephant in the room, I have mentioned a few times in the past:

_Because of its scale, and despite it being a renewable energy project, the Sun Cable proposal will need to address a number of environmental concerns according to Paul Purden, the NT Government's executive director of environmental assessment and policy.

"The NT EPA hasn't assessed many large land clearing proposals [like this one]," he said.

"The reason why the proponent Sun Cable has decided to initiate this referral themselves is because they can see this is a large proposal that includes a large amount of clearing and other components.

"So they're getting onto the front foot to say 'We think these need to be assessed', and allow the environmental impact assessment process to demonstrate they can manage any impacts to an acceptable level."

Sun Cable's referral to the EPA stated the project had "potential for significant impacts on the environment".

Mr Purden said the project would need to address a number of environmental concerns such as the impact of large-scale land clearing, impacts on the marine environment when connecting power to Singapore, and to also address "some potentially big changes to the hydrology of that land [at Newcastle Waters]".

However, Mr Purden said there were also "possibly some very positive environmental benefits from a greenhouse gas emissions point of view more broadly".

Mr Griffin said, when it came to greenhouse gas emissions and the implications of land clearing, the net greenhouse benefit would be "overwhelming for this project_".


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> It looks as though the Newcastle Waters solar farm in the Northern Territory, is going to cover a similar area as the one proposed for the NW of W.A, 12,000 hectares.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Famous cattle station once owned by Kerry Packer earmarked for massive solar farm
> 
> 
> An iconic cattle station in the Northern Territory, once owned by Kerry Packer, is revealed as the proposed location for the world's biggest solar farm.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article, the elephant in the room, I have mentioned a few times in the past:
> 
> _Because of its scale, and despite it being a renewable energy project, the Sun Cable proposal will need to address a number of environmental concerns according to Paul Purden, the NT Government's executive director of environmental assessment and policy.
> 
> "The NT EPA hasn't assessed many large land clearing proposals [like this one]," he said.
> 
> "The reason why the proponent Sun Cable has decided to initiate this referral themselves is because they can see this is a large proposal that includes a large amount of clearing and other components.
> 
> "So they're getting onto the front foot to say 'We think these need to be assessed', and allow the environmental impact assessment process to demonstrate they can manage any impacts to an acceptable level."
> 
> Sun Cable's referral to the EPA stated the project had "potential for significant impacts on the environment".
> 
> Mr Purden said the project would need to address a number of environmental concerns such as the impact of large-scale land clearing, impacts on the marine environment when connecting power to Singapore, and to also address "some potentially big changes to the hydrology of that land [at Newcastle Waters]".
> 
> However, Mr Purden said there were also "possibly some very positive environmental benefits from a greenhouse gas emissions point of view more broadly".
> 
> Mr Griffin said, when it came to greenhouse gas emissions and the implications of land clearing, the net greenhouse benefit would be "overwhelming for this project_".




Certainly a promising story. They clearly have to do a thorough  Environmental Impact analyis for such a project.


Sun Cable said it considered four areas in the Barkly for its solar farm and chose Newcastle Waters due to a range of factors including:

High solar irradiance and low annual cloud cover metrics
*A long history of ecological disturbance from pastoral activities*
Low potential for disturbance to surrounding land uses and receptors
Proximity to the Adelaide to Darwin railway, which is proposed to be used for component delivery
Proximity to the Stuart Highway for vehicle access and fibre optic cable connection


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Certainly a promising story. They clearly have to do a thorough  Environmental Impact analyis for such a project.
> 
> 
> Sun Cable said it considered four areas in the Barkly for its solar farm and chose Newcastle Waters due to a range of factors including:
> 
> High solar irradiance and low annual cloud cover metrics
> *A long history of ecological disturbance from pastoral activities*
> Low potential for disturbance to surrounding land uses and receptors
> Proximity to the Adelaide to Darwin railway, which is proposed to be used for component delivery
> Proximity to the Stuart Highway for vehicle access and fibre optic cable connection



The down side IMO, is that is another 12,000 hectares that Australia can't use, I certainly hope we get something from it. 
History says we will get very little from it and it can only be used once, when the area is covered they have ownership.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> The down side IMO, is that is another 12,000 hectares that Australia can't use, I certainly hope we get something from it.
> History says we will get very little from it and it can only be used once, when the area is covered they have ownership.




I think that is an  unduly bleak and mistaken take on the situation SP. Few points

1) The property is always held by the current owners. They are just offering a long term lease for its use as a solar generating platform
2) There are now plenty of examples of using solar sites with agricultural additions. Check out the URL
3) This project will earn Australia and the company an absolute fortune in terms of foreign exchange. And unlike mining operations it can continue  indefinitely as a sustainable business
4) The land itself is not high quality agricultural land. We are talking large cattle stations which earned value from the size of their operations.  Newcastle Waters is 1.03 million hectares in size , 12,000 HA is a little over 1% of the property and it was made clear the proposed area would not be on the best land.





__





						Newcastle Waters | Consolidated Pastoral Company
					

Newcastle Waters is a 1,033,101ha breeding property in the west Barkly region of the Northern Territory. Its open plains, flood country and timbered sand hills can carry 65,700 head of cattle including 20,000 commercial Brahman breeders. The property is home to Newcastle Waters Brahman stud...




					www.pastoral.com
				







__





						Solar farms, land use and the rise of solar sharing | EcoGeneration
					






					www.ecogeneration.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

O.K Bas lets watch this space in 5 years time, the 12,000 hectares in N.T is pre sold to Singapore, the 12,000 hectares in NW of W.A is pre committed to H2 production for export, how long before it becomes an ecological issue and we haven't even started to talk about domestic demand that needs to be covered. Then the additional land for the H2 driven future we are supposed to be expecting, to drive our manufacturing future.
Maybe I'm pessimistic, or maybe I'm just expecting you to be screaming about it, in 5 years time.
Time will tell, but my guess is we will sell the farm, for a handfull of trinkets like has happened with the gas. 👍
But as with everything these days, get everyone to focus on the small picture, while the real action is happening behind the scenes. 

Your link summed it up really well:

_However,* solar farms can be compared favourably to alternative uses such as mining*. Not only can solar farm sites be easily rehabilitated at the end of their project life, but it is also possible for solar farms to offer dual purpose land activities, providing land owners with an opportunity to diversify their land use and increase the overall value and productivity. 

While solar farms have large land footprints, not all of the land is actively taken up by solar panels or related infrastructure. Typically, modules in solar farms are installed on framing systems mounted on piles or concrete ballasts. Disturbance to the ground is usually less than 5 per cent of the area used, and only around *40 per cent of the surface is over-sailed by solar modules *(BRE, 2014). As solar modules are tilted and raised on posts to avoid shading, the land beneath the module, as well as unshaded land between rows, is still available for plant growth, allowing for agricultural activities such as grazing and cropping_.

If you can't see the whitewashing in those statements, don't complain when I tell you "I told you so in 5 years time" and I'm not a greenie at all. lol
For one, a mine doesn't cover 12,000 hectares more like 20 hectares and 40% coverage is a lot of U.V that isn't getting to the ground. lol
It sounds like it came from the Trump camp to me. 😂
It is a bit like the East Coast gas situation IMO, "this is great, yes tap it, yes sell it, we are making a killing, just do it",
" hang on we haven't got anything for us",
"fluck where have my feet gone".
OMG it is so predictable.


----------



## basilio

Another Renewable energy project for Oz.  
(Would be interesting to see if teh Sun cable project had a look at it as well..)

*Iberdrola Developing Its 1st Solar–Wind Hybrid Plant In Australia*

October 10th, 2020 by *Press Release* 



*After the acquisition of Infigen, ground has been broken on its first renewable project in Australia, with 317 MW capacity and A$ 500 million investment*
*Around 200 jobs will be supported during construction until the project is commissioned in 2021*
*Pull effect on Spanish suppliers: Elecnor to build the plant’s transmission line and substation, as well as the storage areas and access roads*
*








						Iberdrola Developing Its 1st Solar–Wind Hybrid Plant In Australia
					

After the acquisition of Infigen, ground has been broken on its first renewable project in Australia, with 317 MW capacity and A$ 500 million investment




					cleantechnica.com
				



*


----------



## sptrawler

AEMC to introduce transmission access reforms.








						Major reforms for electricity transmission and energy pricing - Energy Magazine
					

AEMC is holding a public forum on $6-$8 billion worth of major electricity transmission reforms, which will make changes to energy accessibility and pricing in Australia.




					www.energymagazine.com.au


----------



## basilio

BP is rethinking its future as a fossil fuel company.
This article highlights the  pressure COVID has put on oil and gas prices.
Also worth noting that final paragraphs in this story. Essentially watch out for stranded assets in  the current fuel sector

_Looney __said in May that the collapse in oil market prices triggered by the coronavirus meant he was “more convinced than ever” that BP’s low-carbon transition was necessary. The company took its first steps into the offshore wind market months later by taking a $1.1bn stake in two US offshore wind projects being developed by the Norwegian state oil company Equinor.

BP’s energy economists have said demand for oil may never recover after the pandemic, which has taken a heavy toll on transport industries, and may be on the brink of an unprecedented decades-long decline.

The company slashed the value of its oil assets this year to reflect its view that oil price forecasts would be below expectations as a result of the pandemic. The write-offs led to a net loss of $16.8bn in the second quarter, but in the absence of further writedowns BP reported a fifth consecutive net loss of $500m for the last quarter._









						BP warns of volatile future for oil market as it returns to profit
					

Firm prepares to cut thousands of jobs worldwide as pandemic creates uncertainty




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> BP is rethinking its future as a fossil fuel company.
> This article highlights the  pressure COVID has put on oil and gas prices.
> Also worth noting that final paragraphs in this story. Essentially watch out for stranded assets in  the current fuel sector
> 
> _Looney __said in May that the collapse in oil market prices triggered by the coronavirus meant he was “more convinced than ever” that BP’s low-carbon transition was necessary. The company took its first steps into the offshore wind market months later by taking a $1.1bn stake in two US offshore wind projects being developed by the Norwegian state oil company Equinor.
> 
> BP’s energy economists have said demand for oil may never recover after the pandemic, which has taken a heavy toll on transport industries, and may be on the brink of an unprecedented decades-long decline.
> 
> The company slashed the value of its oil assets this year to reflect its view that oil price forecasts would be below expectations as a result of the pandemic. The write-offs led to a net loss of $16.8bn in the second quarter, but in the absence of further writedowns BP reported a fifth consecutive net loss of $500m for the last quarter._
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> BP warns of volatile future for oil market as it returns to profit
> 
> 
> Firm prepares to cut thousands of jobs worldwide as pandemic creates uncertainty
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theguardian.com



Its a shame, they decided to shut down their solar manufacturing in Australia in 2008, they were actually the World leaders in solar panel design and development back then.
But they sent the manufacturing offshore, now we import the technology we owned, Trump was against this practice.
But as history will show, we are more influnced by media projection of character, than policies the person projects.
So as usual, we will end up with what we deserve.lol
Also before everyone gets out of shape paying out on the Libs, it was on Rudds watch, yes I know hard to believe when he is sprouting as usual.lol
Well that was before the latest stuff up, regarding his think tank, maybe that was the missing link 'thinking'. Lol
It seems to be a very common trait these days, dont think, let the media spoon feed you. Lol


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> *It would be fair to say that to the extent any state isn't paying attention but should be, Victoria's the one.*
> 
> Second largest population.
> Third highest use of gas after WA and Qld.
> Third highest use of electricity after NSW and Qld.
> For both gas and electricity a very high dependence on a small number of aged assets.
> 
> Realistically they're assuming Tas and NSW will come to the rescue.



Looks like they are staying with plan A, keep Latrobe valley operational, lucky it is a Labor State or they would be getting trashed by the media. 👍
The other thing I find interesting is, the Victorian Government has stated they will reduce their emissions 50% by 2030 and be emission zero by 2050, I guess they had better get a move on.
😂 








						Nail in the coffin for coal, or welcome support for emissions limits? Power station review winds up
					

Environmentalists are hoping the review of Victoria's coal plants' operating conditions leads to pollution limits, but the industry says it could force them to close too soon.




					www.abc.net.au
				




From the article:
Victoria's Environment Protection Authority (EPA) is set to conclude its review into the operating conditions for the state's coal-fired power stations, which could set pollution controls after three years of deliberations.
The EPA started the review into the operating licences for the three brown coal-fired power stations in the Latrobe Valley, east of Melbourne, in November 2017.

But after consulting the community and industry for much of 2018, there has been minimal update about the review since the EPA began drafting new licence conditions for the plants in June last year.

Environmental groups hope new licensing conditions include limits on how much the plants can pollute, while unions and the power stations fear the cost of additional pollution controls could make the plants unviable.

Supporters of the non-government group Environment Victoria recently sent the EPA overdue notices to mark 1,000 days since the licence review began .
"The three coal generators in the Latrobe Valley are responsible for 40 per cent of Victoria's greenhouse gas emissions between them, yet they're subject to no licence limits by the EPA," he said.

The Victorian mining and energy secretary for the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), Geoff Dyke, said the EPA needed to be careful any new restrictions did not make the plants economically unviable.


----------



## sptrawler

A good article on ABC fact check about how dirty gas is, when used for power generation. It also explains the different types of generators well.
The only criticism I would have is, the ABC's sympathetic summation "oversimplified', I would have said 'Cherry picked".  








						We fact checked Adam Bandt on whether gas is just as dirty as coal
					

Greens leader Adam Bandt has attacked the Government's plan for a gas-led recovery, claiming that gas is just as dirty as coal. Is he correct? RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:

Dr Finkel referred Fact Check to the findings of the Scientific Inquiry into Hydraulic Fracturing that was commissioned by the Northern Territory Government.

It's final report found "the best gas-fired generation [combined-cycle gas turbines, CCGT] is approximately 60 per cent as emission intensive as the most efficient coal-fired plant (ultra-supercritical coal HELE generation) based on life cycle [greenhouse gas emissions]".

"Even including upstream emissions, gas is in all cases cleaner than coal," Dr Finkel told Fact Check in his email.



> "Comparing the existing coal fleet to the existing CCGT natural gas fleet, gas-fired electricity generation [produces] less than half the emissions of coal-fired electricity generation."


----------



## sptrawler

The most recent news on the Pilbara giant solar/ wind project, it looks as though it will be purely H2 production, as opposed to running an undersea cable.
I wonder if the reasoning will put a different light on the Newcastle Waters project, both will have huge implications for Australia's energy future.
https://www.watoday.com.au/business...ower-project-takes-shape-20201028-p569gh.html
From the article:

_It sounds like a great idea: convert the Pilbara's beating sunshine and plentiful wind into electricity and send it directly into energy-hungry South East Asia via power cables along the seafloor.

But despite its promise, the minds behind one of the most ambitious power projects in the world have crunched the numbers and found the most economical way of transporting Northern Australia's green energy to the rest of the world is by boat.


Just days after the consortium behind the wind and solar Asian Renewable Energy Hub received environmental approval for the project it submitted a revised plan to the state regulator to replace the power cables with facilities to produce green hydrogen and export green ammonia on a scale never seen before.

With a footprint roughly 10 per cent of the size of Tasmania and a price tag of $US36 billion, the project could become the biggest green power project in the world if it gets the go-ahead_.


----------



## orr

Lucky us we, ( or Victorian's they're sort of like us), they  just got a _Bigger 'pineapple_'; well a pineapple in the minds of some, notable for  their verbiage that resembles fruit salad... 
French outfit Neoen have inked  a piddling $84million contract for a Tesla 3mega/W battery in Geelong, expect a ROI of circa 30% on past experince. Twice the capacity of SA's Hornsdale at a lower cost. Oh  The beauty of cost curves.
It won't come in 100 days though as the SA example, more like 400+... appears there's demand out there for some forms of output..
This is all about '_keeping power prices low_'. Though Isn't  that someone at federal levels  job???...But what a far better than a fracking good idea. 









						Victoria will be home to one of world's largest batteries
					

Victoria will be home to the largest battery in the southern hemisphere as part of a State Government push to transition to renewable energy.



					thenewdaily.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

Victoria certainly has to start and do something, they are a major emitter and dont appear to be facilitating the deployment of renewables.
SA, NSW and Queensland appear to be much more proactive in their commitment. That SW corner of Aust really needs to beef up it HV transmission infrastructure.


----------



## Smurf1976

orr said:


> But what a far better than a fracking good idea.



I’m not following the connection there.

In the Victorian context the majority of electricity is not produced from oil or gas and the vast majority of oil and gas consumed is not used at power stations.

No amount of batteries are of themselves an alternative to the vast majority of oil and gas used in Victoria. At best they help facilitate a future shift to electricity for heating and cooking which cuts gas and oil consumption (as would electric hot water and of course road vehicles but neither of those require stationary batteries since they are themselves storage devices).

I’m in favour of the new battery, just pointing out that there’s a very limited link between it in the Victorian context and oil and gas and the technologies used to extract them.


----------



## sptrawler

NSW appears to be becoming very proactive with coal replacement generation over the next 15 years, hopefully others follow the lead.









						NSW launches emerging energy program to replace coal generation
					

NSW launches one of the most significant energy transition projects in Australia, with an Emerging Energy Program designed to help replace most of state’s ageing coal plants with wind, solar …




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the article:

_The New South Wales Coalition government on Wednesday launched one of the most significant energy transition projects in Australia, with an Emerging Energy Program that is designed to help replace most of the state’s ageing coal plants with wind, solar and storage over the next 15 years.

NSW is the only state in the National Electricity Market without a specific or aspirational renewable energy target. But in its recent Integrated System Plan, the Australian Energy Market Operator highlighted the fact that the state was facing the biggest transition, because most of its 10GW of coal-fired generators were getting to the end of their life.

Within 15 years, AEMO predicts, 70 per cent of that coal capacity will be gone – and it expects this to be replaced by large-scale solar, large-scale wind, storage, and rooftop solar, with the share of gas and hydro little changed from today’s level_.







_The NSW Emerging Energy Plan is designed to support the commercialisation of new large-scale projects in NSW that use emerging, dispatchable technology.

It is offering up to $10 million per project, for a total of $55 million. But it is not the scale of the initiative that is significant, it is the acceptance that the energy transition is profound, rapid and unstoppable.

“We are not seeking to accelerate the closure of coal-fired generators or delay their closure,” energy minister Don Harwin told RenewEconomy. “The transition is happening, this helps prepare us_.”


----------



## orr

*I*n that earlier post ‘fracking’ should have been in Italics…that said;
Now *I *could be wrong…

    But when I look out ten years to how new many vehicles being sold world are going to be electric? I  see it as most. The dictates coming from Governments world wide aren’t pointing any other way.

Crush that as a principal and my argument falls mostly to dust.
    and so; Vehicle to Grid VTG
    If I’m correct; How much storage capacity is sitting in those vehicles that will have been manufactured and delivered 2030. And that ‘Latent’? capacity will just keep growing. Plus what continues at grid scale.
    Currently we have situation where wholesale Electricity prices on more and more occasions goes negative due to excess renewable generation. No market for it. And thus the value proposition for grid scale Hornsdale and proposed Geelong, noting Geelong is a 50% price reduction on Hornsdale r.e. capacity… And that is a continuing cost curve.
    Solar feed-in incentives, twice (2x a 100% better) existing current market deals to domestic participants are rolling out in the UK now curtesy of a tie up between Octopus Energy and Tesla. To the owners of Tesla products. 

    It’s my contention that Federal politics aided by Murdoch’s News Corp is a protection racket for fossil fuel interests,  James Murdoch agrees on that subject. That's worked in Australia up until now...We can have a ‘Gas led Recovery’ Today, but the upgrade to Bass Link to accommodate pumped Hydro in Tas is some where off in post 2027? ffs!… There has been no national energy policy giving investment parameters since the day of Abbot’s election. No domestic Gas security on the east coast.
    But the international political wind has just turned significantly, And I doubt that it will turn back.
    For those with investments in carbon emitting extractive industry, the likes of say Mark Vaile(what position did he hold  in Federal politics? )  now chairman of Whitehaven Coal, who’s share stake in the company has diminished from $7mill to $1.5( or was it $14m into $100k ) and last weeks write down by Exxon of $25 Billion on their Shale gas assets … In  there may be a cautionary tale .

       Paris commitments ??? Schmo is practicing a crab walk now…Today Saudi Arabia is our only like minded friend.

What does the scramble to sell into a shrinking mid term market Internationally look like? All your Petro States holding hands singing _Khum-Biha_…I’m lighting the joss sticks now….
 Malcolm Turnbull's criticism of fracking expansion on the east coast was commercial; the cost of the product!…. the math is hard to argue with.

    This next bit is a leap because it’s a thing people have never done before; 
*Make money from their electricity connection
*Make money from their car sitting _Idle _in the garage
*Selling stuff that falls free on their roof
*Fuelling their car on sunlight

Will the _people_ do it? I don’t know…. But I know what I’ll be doing.

Fortuitously this following YouTube went up a day or so back explaining some math and Technology(US centric). I don’t agree with some predictions included but broadly it’s pointing to where things are going;  It’s a cheesy intro, start at around 3:30…try and last at least the next ten mins..
    appreciate your effort Smurf…


----------



## sptrawler

orr said:


> *I*n that earlier post ‘fracking’ should have been in Italics…that said;
> Now *I *could be wrong…
> 
> But when I look out ten years to how new many vehicles being sold world are going to be electric? I  see it as most. The dictates coming from Governments world wide aren’t pointing any other way.
> 
> Crush that as a principal and my argument falls mostly to dust.
> and so; Vehicle to Grid VTG
> If I’m correct; How much storage capacity is sitting in those vehicles that will have been manufactured and delivered 2030. And that ‘Latent’? capacity will just keep growing. Plus what continues at grid scale.
> Currently we have situation where wholesale Electricity prices on more and more occasions goes negative due to excess renewable generation. No market for it. And thus the value proposition for grid scale Hornsdale and proposed Geelong, noting Geelong is a 50% price reduction on Hornsdale r.e. capacity… And that is a continuing cost curve.
> Solar feed-in incentives, twice (2x a 100% better) existing current market deals to domestic participants are rolling out in the UK now curtesy of a tie up between Octopus Energy and Tesla. To the owners of Tesla products.
> 
> It’s my contention that Federal politics aided by Murdoch’s News Corp is a protection racket for fossil fuel interests,  James Murdoch agrees on that subject. That's worked in Australia up until now...We can have a ‘Gas led Recovery’ Today, but the upgrade to Bass Link to accommodate pumped Hydro in Tas is some where off in post 2027? ffs!… There has been no national energy policy giving investment parameters since the day of Abbot’s election. No domestic Gas security on the east coast.
> But the international political wind has just turned significantly, And I doubt that it will turn back.
> For those with investments in carbon emitting extractive industry, the likes of say Mark Vaile(what position did he hold  in Federal politics? )  now chairman of Whitehaven Coal, who’s share stake in the company has diminished from $7mill to $1.5( or was it $14m into $100k ) and last weeks write down by Exxon of $25 Billion on their Shale gas assets … In  there may be a cautionary tale .
> 
> Paris commitments ??? Schmo is practicing a crab walk now…Today Saudi Arabia is our only like minded friend.
> 
> What does the scramble to sell into a shrinking mid term market Internationally look like? All your Petro States holding hands singing _Khum-Biha_…I’m lighting the joss sticks now….
> Malcolm Turnbull's criticism of fracking expansion on the east coast was commercial; the cost of the product!…. the math is hard to argue with.
> 
> This next bit is a leap because it’s a thing people have never done before;
> *Make money from their electricity connection
> *Make money from their car sitting _Idle _in the garage
> *Selling stuff that falls free on their roof
> *Fuelling their car on sunlight
> 
> Will the _people_ do it? I don’t know…. But I know what I’ll be doing.
> 
> Fortuitously this following YouTube went up a day or so back explaining some math and Technology(US centric). I don’t agree with some predictions included but broadly it’s pointing to where things are going;  It’s a cheesy intro, start at around 3:30…try and last at least the next ten mins..
> appreciate your effort Smurf…




I may be wrong but it appears from what I've read that the States have the major say in what happens to their electricity grid, as shown above with the NSW forward looking plan, the Federal Government own the Snowy and are currently expanding it and giving grants for the Tassie link and State based projects.

Victoria has committed to 0 carbon by 2050, but aren't doing much about it, S.A charged ahead and are well on their way, as stated NSW has committed to phasing out coal, Queensland is making major changes to the Northern HV grid to facilitate further expansion of renewables, W.A has no target but does that matter really I don't think so as long as the intent is there and is closing down coal as practicable..

It is all a bit like the bushfires issue, the Federal Government get the blame when it is a State function, yet when the Federal Government sticks its nose into a State issue like the virus and borders, the States tell the Federal Government to butt out.
Great to have a scape goat on the back burner, for when you need one, it's about time some grew up.lol


----------



## basilio

FMG Annual Report highlights an exceptionally  wide range of BIG renewable energy projects. Good investment opportunity and represents a corporate commitment to this field.

The Newcastle Waters project is one of their deals.

The renewable energy projects will firstly  reduce to zero all the current costs associated with their Iron Ore projects venture. After that they are looking at exceptionally large export markets of Green hydrogen,  H2 produced   ammonia, green fertilisers.

 https://cdn-api.markitdigital.com/apiman-gateway/ASX/asx-research/1.0/file/2924-02307419-6A1006704?access_token=83ff96335c2d45a094df02a206a39ff4


----------



## sptrawler

Woolworths to power all its operations with renewables by 2025.
This sort of investment by big consumers, similar to the Fortesque mining post by Bas, will accelerate the closing of coal generation IMO.









						Green power: Woolies, Fortescue signal renewables shift
					

Australia’s largest retailer will power all its operations – including almost 3300 stores – with renewable energy by 2025, putting pressure on rival retailer Coles to follow suit.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:

_Australia’s largest retailer, the Woolworths Group, will power all its operations – including almost 3300 stores – with renewable energy by 2025.

The company, which says it uses 1 per cent of Australia’s electricity, will get energy from sources such as wind and solar through power purchase agreements and will expand its use of rooftop solar panels, which are currently installed on 150 stores and provide about 13 per cent of those sites' energy needs.

Woolworths is Australia’s sixth-largest energy user. The top five are Rio Tinto, aluminium smelters Pechiney and Alcoa and gas producers QGC and Origin. 
"We use around 1 per cent of Australia’s national electricity, so we have a unique opportunity to use our scale for good and make a real impact," he said_.


----------



## basilio

It's a big deal by Woolies. Fact is, it is simply  a good business investment. 

FMG initial investments in renewable energy will offer an excellent ROI simply in terms of savings on running costs.  The reduction in energy costs from investments in solar panels and a lower power bill from buying renewable energy will improve Woolies bottom line.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> It's a big deal by Woolies. Fact is, it is simply  a good business investment.
> 
> FMG initial investments in renewable energy will offer an excellent ROI simply in terms of savings on running costs.  The reduction in energy costs from investments in solar panels and a lower power bill from buying renewable energy will improve Woolies bottom line.



All new shopping centres should have covered parking with solar panels and battery storage to enable them to supply A/C and refrigeration load overnight. It isn't rocket science and if it is done at the design stage, the cost would be much less than retrofitting at a later date. Westfield, Stockland etc should be stepping and the way things are going, I'm sure they will.


----------



## Value Collector

basilio said:


> It's a big deal by Woolies. Fact is, it is simply  a good business investment.
> 
> FMG initial investments in renewable energy will offer an excellent ROI simply in terms of savings on running costs.  The reduction in energy costs from investments in solar panels and a lower power bill from buying renewable energy will improve Woolies bottom line.



Woolies is also starting to install Ev chargers, my local Woolies now has 4 car charging bays.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> Woolies is also starting to install Ev chargers, my local Woolies now has 4 car charging bays.




What do you think of SA's plans to introduce a road use tax that will apply to EV's ?









						"First in world:" South Australia to impose road user tax on electric vehicles
					

South Australia earns dubious honour of being first government in world to impose a road user tax on electric vehicles.




					thedriven.io


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> What do you think of SA's plans to introduce a road use tax that will apply to EV's ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "First in world:" South Australia to impose road user tax on electric vehicles
> 
> 
> South Australia earns dubious honour of being first government in world to impose a road user tax on electric vehicles.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> thedriven.io




I think its a bit premature, given all the benefits to EV's they should be encouraging take up of EV's and worrying about the road user tax later once there is more EV's on the road.

I mean the Tax is going to collect almost nothing at the moment because there is not many EV's to tax, but knowing that there is a tax on Ev's will probably cause people that are already confused about their costs to avoid them.

And as I have pointed out already they is so many ways that Ev's can save society money like reducing health care costs related to air pollution that I think its a bit short sighted to jump on one area of costs such as road maintenance.

Also as I pointed out earlier, EV owners already do pay more road maintenance through their council rates, car rego and luxury vehicle tax so its only the petrol levy they avoiding which as I said is offset by other factors.


----------



## SirRumpole

Value Collector said:


> I think its a bit premature, given all the benefits to EV's they should be encouraging take up of EV's and worrying about the road user tax later once there is more EV's on the road.
> 
> I mean the Tax is going to collect almost nothing at the moment because there is not many EV's to tax, but knowing that there is a tax on Ev's will probably cause people that are already confused about their costs to avoid them.
> 
> And as I have pointed out already they is so many ways that Ev's can save society money like reducing health care costs related to air pollution that I think its a bit short sighted to jump on one area of costs such as road maintenance.
> 
> Also as I pointed out earlier, EV owners already do pay more road maintenance through their council rates, car rego and luxury vehicle tax so its only the petrol levy they avoiding which as I said is offset by other factors.




I don't disagree with what you said, but at least I'll give credit to the SA government for not fooling people into buying EV's for whatever reason then slugging them with a huge tax.

Point is that with large EV ownership governments will lose billions in revenue in fuel tax and it has to be made up somehow


----------



## Value Collector

SirRumpole said:


> Point is that with large EV ownership governments will lose billions in revenue in fuel tax and it has to be made up somehow



The government also spends Billions on healthcare related to air pollution, which ICE Vehicles are a major contributor too, maybe an air pollution tax is in order of the government needs more revenue.

I don’t think any EV owner is against contributing to roads provided it’s not a punitive tax, EVs would still be much cheaper to run, it’s just way to premature at a time when we should be encouraging.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I don't disagree with what you said, but at least I'll give credit to the SA government for not fooling people into buying EV's for whatever reason then slugging them with a huge tax.
> 
> Point is that with large EV ownership governments will lose billions in revenue in fuel tax and it has to be made up somehow



Do you think this should be in the electric car thread?
We did get that moved into the mainstream threads due to it being a new and relevant financial subject.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> All new shopping centres should have covered parking with solar panels and battery storage to enable them to supply A/C and refrigeration load overnight.



I’d argue that, in most circumstances, large scale solar / wind generation and pumped hydro storage leaves small scale and batteries for dead on both economic and environmental grounds.

Panels sitting just above ground level in an optimum location with a single axis tracker deliver a far more consistent output versus panels in urban areas without tracking thus reducing the need for storage.

The argument for small scale insted of large is essentially the same as the argument for trucks rather than freight trains. The latter wins if there’s a substantial scale involved which there is if we’re talking about the main grids.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Do you think this should be in the electric car thread?




Yes.


----------



## basilio

Excellent overview of  a suite of  *huge* renewable energy projects that could transform Australias energy systems and international trade within the decade.
Some interesting investment opportunities here and a  clear indication that renewable energy now trumps fossil fuel in the market place.









						Green giants: the massive projects that could make Australia a clean energy superpower
					

The Asian Renewable Energy Hub would have an energy content equivalent to 40% of Australia’s overall electricity generation




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Excellent overview of  a suite of  *huge* renewable energy projects that could transform Australias energy systems and international trade within the decade.
> Some interesting investment opportunities here and a  clear indication that renewable energy now trumps fossil fuel in the market place.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Green giants: the massive projects that could make Australia a clean energy superpower
> 
> 
> The Asian Renewable Energy Hub would have an energy content equivalent to 40% of Australia’s overall electricity generation
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theguardian.com



Yes we have been talking about them on this thread for quite some time, Australia is accelerating the transition from fossil fuel to renewables, not only for itself but also for other countries by exporting green hydrogen.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I’d argue that, in most circumstances, large scale solar / wind generation and pumped hydro storage leaves small scale and batteries for dead on both economic and environmental grounds.
> 
> Panels sitting just above ground level in an optimum location with a single axis tracker deliver a far more consistent output versus panels in urban areas without tracking thus reducing the need for storage.
> 
> The argument for small scale insted of large is essentially the same as the argument for trucks rather than freight trains. The latter wins if there’s a substantial scale involved which there is if we’re talking about the main grids.



Fully agree smurf, I was thinking more in the context of shopping centers, they have huge car parks and roof area that if covered with panels could serve the dual purpose of car charging and powering the shopping center out of hours.
The shopping center footprints are huge and it would be easier to orientate the available space for solar radiation collection, at the design stage,  rather than just a big concrete heat sink.
I wasn't thinking it could in any way compete with large scale renewables, but the installation would be a lot more efficient and cost effective than the equivalent output, from individual residential installations.


----------



## sptrawler

The two way vehicle to grid chargers are starting to gain momentum, this will be the game changer for electric cars IMO, as we have mentioned previously in this thread.








						Smart grid technology to spark savings for electric vehicle owners
					

New technology to help bring down the cost of electric vehicle ownership is being rolled out to 300 households.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
Selected electric car owners in NSW, Queensland and Victoria are taking part in a three-year, $8 million trial run by energy company AGL and ARENA 
The batteries in electric vehicles can be hooked up to the grid through charging points. With smart technology, their stored power can be tapped to smooth peaks and troughs in electricity supply across the day and night. 
The trial will investigate how electric vehicles can play a part in a smart network. For example, the network operator could pay a vehicle owner to use their battery as a power supply when it was hooked up to the grid in peak times, while ensuring the battery was charged with cheap power overnight. 

AGL manager of decentralised energy Dominique Van Den Berg said the trial would provide insights on customer demand, such as when they connected cars to the grid or when batteries could be tapped to help supply peak demand.
"Although the trial is limited to 300 customers, it will help us to shape future energy offers to EV owners," Ms Van Den Berg said 


The federal government is working on an electric cars policy that will focus on supporting electric cars through research and development into new technology.

"By trialling new charging technologies within the home, we will better understand the impact EVs could have on our networks and how to save consumers money as they charge," Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor said.


----------



## sptrawler

AGL to install 850MW of battery storage over the next four years.








						AGL Liddell plant to be transformed into big battery
					

AGL Energy will turn its obsolete Liddell coal plant into a giant 500 MW battery as it transitions to renewable energy market.




					www.leadingedgeenergy.com.au
				



From the article:

AGL Energy will turn its obsolete Hunter Valley Liddell coal generation plant into a giant 500 MW battery as it manages the transition to a renewable energy dominated electricity market.

AGL will install a total of 850 megawatts of big battery storage within the next four years.

AGL Energy will turn its obsolete Hunter Valley Liddell coal generation plant into a giant 500 MW battery as it manages the transition to a renewable energy dominated electricity market.

AGL will install a total of 850 megawatts of big battery storage within the next four years.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> AGL to install 850MW of battery storage over the next four years.



250 MW / ~1000 MWh going in SA at Torrens Island power station too.

The only gripe I have, is that for some rather strange reason the article you linked which is about batteries being installed at Liddell power station includes a great big photo of _Bayswater_ power station which is neither closing nor having batteries installed. AGL does own it however.

To clarify the closure dates of existing related plant:

Liddell unit 4 closing in 1 April 2022.
Liddel units 1, 2 and 3 (and thus the entire power station) closing on 1 April 2023.
Liddel units were originally 500 MW each but are now de-rated to 420 MW. Fuel is coal.

Torrens Island A units 2 & 4 are now permanently closed and deregistered.
Torrens Island A unit 1 closure planned for 30 September 2021
Torrens Island A unit 3 (and thus the entire power station) closing on 30 September 2022.
Torrens Island A units are 120 MW each. Fuel was originally fuel oil later changed to natural gas.

Torrens Island B station, which is physically right next to A station, is not closing and has a nominal remaining life of ~15 years.

The above is all owned by AGL.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The only gripe I have, is that for some rather strange reason the article you linked which is about batteries being installed at Liddell power station includes a great big photo of _Bayswater_ power station which is neither closing nor having batteries installed. AGL does own it however.



Well that is par for course with the media, when they want to bag coal fired power stations, they usually supply a photo of the cooling towers which as you know emit steam not smoke.
But as the chimney stacks have very little visible emission due to precipitators, there is more visual impact showing the steam, another example of fake news. 
But all is fair in love and media, plus the loonies lap it up.


----------



## sptrawler

Another major solar/wind farm to built in W.A for hydrogen production, this time near Kalbarri in the mid west.
That makes about 30GW of new renewables proposed for W.A alone. As I said in the early stages of this boom, I hope we don't make the same mistake we did with natural gas and save some for ourselves. 








						Massive W.A. renewable hydrogen project signs up Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners
					

Plans for hydrogen production facility near Kalbarri, supplied by 5,000MW of solar and wind projects, wins backing of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the article:
_Plans to develop a massive new renewable hydrogen production facility near Kalbarri in Western Australia, with up to 5,000MW of combined solar and wind projects to supply it, have won the backing of Denmark’s Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, or CIP. 

Hydrogen Renewables Australia said on Monday that it had agreed to partner with CIP on the massive project, which is proposed for the Murchison House Station on the state’s mid-west coast – an area identified by engineering firm AECOM as a prime position for the co-location of wind and solar projects in Australia.

The goal of the project is to use these premium solar and wind energy resources, along with desalinated sea water, to produce renewable hydrogen for export to Asian markets, with an eye to Japan and Korea_.


----------



## sptrawler

While on the subject of large scale renewables, Victoria looks like it may get a 2GW offshore wind farm.








						Australia’s first offshore wind project moves forward with labour market study
					

Proponents of 2,200MW Star of the South project begin labour market study for first offshore wind farm in southern hemisphere.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the article:

_Plans for Australia’s first offshore wind farm have taken a step forward, with the project developers launching a labour market study to identify the capability of the Australian market to deliver what would be one of Australia’s largest renewable energy projects.

The Star of the South wind farm, which is being pursued by the Danish fund management company Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners would be the first offshore wind farm in the southern hemisphere, requiring the first of its kind deployment of wind turbines off the Victorian coast.

The project proposed off the Gippsland coast in the south of Victoria has a planned capacity of up to 2,200MW and would be expected to produce roughly the same amount of energy each year as the now de-commissioned Hazelwood brown-coal power station_.


----------



## Smurf1976

Looks like the Narrabri gas project is a goer:









						Narrabri gas project clears final hurdle, work to begin in the new year
					

A controversial multi-billion-dollar coal seam gas project in north-west NSW, which has been touted to meet half the state's gas needs, has cleared its final hurdle and work will commence in 2021.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Smurf1976

Another key project recently announced (this week) is commencement of work on the Victoria to NSW interconnect West project.

The two states are already interconnected with limited capacity via the Snowy scheme but this will add an additional 1800 MW southbound / 1930 MW northbound which is critical given the shift to renewable generation and closure of existing facilities. Commissioning is planned for 2027.

Transmission isn't a solution in itself but it's a key part of the solution along with wind, solar, pumped hydro and batteries so it's heading in the right direction bearing in mind there's also the NSW - SA line plus a small upgrade of transmission Qld - NSW and the major 2 x 750 MW cables planned for Vic - Tas.

Meanwhile in the short term, well it all looks pretty stretched in Queensland for Tuesday next week. Not drastically so, the lights most likely will stay on, but there's not a lot of room to move based on present load forecasts and generation availability. If anything goes wrong then it could get more exciting......


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> The two way vehicle to grid chargers are starting to gain momentum, this will be the game changer for electric cars IMO, as we have mentioned previously in this thread.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Smart grid technology to spark savings for electric vehicle owners
> 
> 
> New technology to help bring down the cost of electric vehicle ownership is being rolled out to 300 households.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> Selected electric car owners in NSW, Queensland and Victoria are taking part in a three-year, $8 million trial run by energy company AGL and ARENA
> The batteries in electric vehicles can be hooked up to the grid through charging points. With smart technology, their stored power can be tapped to smooth peaks and troughs in electricity supply across the day and night.
> The trial will investigate how electric vehicles can play a part in a smart network. For example, the network operator could pay a vehicle owner to use their battery as a power supply when it was hooked up to the grid in peak times, while ensuring the battery was charged with cheap power overnight.
> "By trialling new charging technologies within the home, we will better understand the impact EVs could have on our networks and how to save consumers money as they charge," Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor said.



Yet another trail starting, where individuals can buy and sell renewable generation into the grid, IMO this will bring about the change we have talked about where the household will be able to sell a percentage of their car's battery reserve or house battery storage into the market.
This will be groundbreaking IMO and will accelerate the uptake of renewables and storage, it all takes time, but it is better to get it right.








						Victorian households to become national energy grid guinea pigs
					

Households and businesses in north-east Victoria will be able to buy and sell renewable electricity generated locally in a $28 million project that could be used as a blueprint for energy grids of the future.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:
_Households and businesses in north-east Victoria will be able to buy and sell renewable electricity generated locally in a $28 million project that could be used as a blueprint for energy grids of the future. 

It will initially involve 50 houses in the Hume region but will scale up to around 1000 residential, commercial and industrial electricity customers, helping to reduce electricity costs and managing challenges associated with a decentralised grid.
Australian Renewable Energy Agency chief executive Darren Miller said the trial would provide the road map for integrating into the grid.

"While these devices and technologies can make our grid more reliable, affordable and lower emission, rapid uptake is already impacting how the grid is managed and highlighting the limitations of our existing market frameworks," Mr Miller said.

He said the trial would help develop trading mechanisms to maximise the economic benefits to customers and the system and minimise the costs of supply to all energy customers.


ARENA will provide $12.9 million in funding to the Australian Energy Market Operator, which will partner with network AusNet Services and retailer Mondo Power to co-ordinate the development of a replicable model for trading of electricity and grid services that can be expanded across the national electricity market (NEM).

The funding will support the development of market software and systems to underpin the integration of distributed energy resources (DER) in the grid.
DER, commonly known as "behind the meter" generation, continue to change the way Australia is generating and managing its energy supplies. Rather than electricity being generated by big, centralised power stations, it is starting to come from many places including millions of homes and businesses.

AEMO emerging markets and services general manager Violette Mouchaileh said the organisation was working with industry to design and test a world-first, two-way energy system and sophisticated market for consumers to participate in the NEM.

"This trial forms part of a program to enable a smooth transition from a one-way energy supply chain to a world-leading system that maximises the value of distributed energy resources for all consumers through effectively integrating them into Australia's power systems and electricity markets_."


----------



## orr

sptrawler said:


> Yet another trail starting, where individuals can buy and sell renewable generation into the grid, IMO this will bring about the change *we ???*have *(have we ???)* talked about where the household will be able to sell a percentage of their car's battery reserve or house battery storage into the market.
> This will be groundbreaking IMO and will accelerate the uptake of renewables and storage, it all takes time, but it is better to get it right.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Victorian households to become national energy grid guinea pigs
> 
> 
> Households and businesses in north-east Victoria will be able to buy and sell renewable electricity generated locally in a $28 million project that could be used as a blueprint for energy grids of the future.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theage.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> _Households and businesses in north-east Victoria will be able to buy and sell renewable electricity generated locally in a $28 million project that could be used as a blueprint for energy grids of the future.
> 
> It will initially involve 50 houses in the Hume region but will scale up to around 1000 residential, commercial and industrial electricity customers, helping to reduce electricity costs and managing challenges associated with a decentralised grid.
> Australian Renewable Energy Agency chief executive Darren Miller said the trial would provide the road map for integrating into the grid.
> 
> "While these devices and technologies can make our grid more reliable, affordable and lower emission, rapid uptake is already impacting how the grid is managed and highlighting the limitations of our existing market frameworks," Mr Miller said.
> 
> He said the trial would help develop trading mechanisms to maximise the economic benefits to customers and the system and minimise the costs of supply to all energy customers.
> 
> 
> ARENA will provide $12.9 million in funding to the Australian Energy Market Operator, which will partner with network AusNet Services and retailer Mondo Power to co-ordinate the development of a replicable model for trading of electricity and grid services that can be expanded across the national electricity market (NEM).
> 
> The funding will support the development of market software and systems to underpin the integration of distributed energy resources (DER) in the grid.
> DER, commonly known as "behind the meter" generation, continue to change the way Australia is generating and managing its energy supplies. Rather than electricity being generated by big, centralised power stations, it is starting to come from many places including millions of homes and businesses.
> 
> AEMO emerging markets and services general manager Violette Mouchaileh said the organisation was working with industry to design and test a world-first, two-way energy system and sophisticated market for consumers to participate in the NEM.
> 
> "This trial forms part of a program to enable a smooth transition from a one-way energy supply chain to a world-leading system that maximises the value of distributed energy resources for all consumers through effectively integrating them into Australia's power systems and electricity markets_."





Fantastic insight Trawler!!! Any chance of a heads up on any companies that have might have a bit of leverage on this type of Tech??
 Love to know....  how long has this been coming??? 
I wouldn't want to be someone to get into this a year or few late or decade or more... They would have lost many mutiples.
Any pointers from, Maybe the IPA( institute of payed advicosy... Gabba the Hut Rhinhart's pet project) &  Liberal party Policy Directors.
Luckly Austraila's  got the rough end of the Big Hornsdale '_pineapple'_.... so  much roughage  for the dung beetle Morrison to ball-up after it's been through the elephant; the man is a magnitude above Bull. 

No mention in this thread of the IEA's October announcement of the cheapest Energy ever in Human history... I find that curious, considering the implications...

excuse my edits to your post...


----------



## sptrawler

orr said:


> Fantastic insight Trawler!!! Any chance of a heads up on any companies that have might have a bit of leverage on this type of Tech??
> Love to know....  how long has this been coming???
> I wouldn't want to be someone to get into this a year or few late or decade or more... They would have lost many mutiples.
> Any pointers from, Maybe the IPA( institute of payed advicosy... Gabba the Hut Rhinhart's pet project) &  Liberal party Policy Directors.
> Luckly Austraila's  got the rough end of the Big Hornsdale '_pineapple'_.... so  much roughage  for the dung beetle Morrison to ball-up after it's been through the elephant; the man is a magnitude above Bull.
> 
> No mention in this thread of the IEA's October announcement of the cheapest Energy ever in Human history... I find that curious, considering the implications...
> 
> excuse my edits to your post...



Sounds like you have all the info you need @orr, still full of bile I see, hope it doesn't turn into something nasty for you. 
By the way, I didn't notice anything edited, or that made much sense, so no offence taken. 👍


----------



## Belli

Stumbled across this research while I was looking at other renewable energy projects.  Early days of course but it's very interesting.









						Pumped Storage Hydropower a “game-changer”: ANU research
					

A series of Pumped Storage Hydropower (PSH) projects planned across 5 states could triple Australia’s electricity storage capacity, according to a new study by a researcher at The Australian National University (ANU). Professor Jamie Pittock says if the projects go ahead, they will accelerate...




					www.anu.edu.au


----------



## sptrawler

Belli said:


> Stumbled across this research while I was looking at other renewable energy projects.  Early days of course but it's very interesting.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Pumped Storage Hydropower a “game-changer”: ANU research
> 
> 
> A series of Pumped Storage Hydropower (PSH) projects planned across 5 states could triple Australia’s electricity storage capacity, according to a new study by a researcher at The Australian National University (ANU). Professor Jamie Pittock says if the projects go ahead, they will accelerate...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.anu.edu.au



There is a lot of proposed pumped storage sites earmarked, from memory more than 2,000 and we have discussed it in this thread a lot.
Pumped storage is the best storage medium for renewables, the issue is going to be environmental impact IMO.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> There is a lot of proposed pumped storage sites earmarked, from memory more than 2,000 and we have discussed it in this thread a lot.



Entura (aka Hydro Tasmania) identified over 200,000 potential pumped hydro sites nationally in a major research project done a while ago.

Incidentally some of the identified projects are on land owned by other electricity companies. Most see that as fine, business is business and the land exists regardless of who owns it, but one wasn't too happy about it.

Where the problem lies though is with the timeframe. Anything hydro by its very nature is a long term asset and that seems to be problematic for the private sector. AGL and Origin (both ASX listed) and the likes of EA (not listed) certainly have some interest but getting the financial numbers to work from their perspective is problematic whereas it's considerably easier for Snowy Hydro or Hydro Tas (owned by the Australian and Tasmanian governments respectively). Likewise CleanCo is owned by the Queensland government.

The issue isn't so much about private ownership versus government ownership per se, it's more about accounting and timeframes.

Easiest way to explain that is to say that the private sector announces quarterly profit results, pays dividends every six months and sees the annual result as the be all and end all. In contrast government-owned corporations tend to see quarterly or half yearly as too short to even pay attention to and that the annual result is really just a form of guidance for the decade's performance which is the one that counts.

There's a broad thinking for that reason that the private companies will end up as owners of the wind and solar farms and will also own the short term storage (batteries) but that government will own a large chunk of the hydro. Not totally, AGL and Origin are currently the fourth and fifth largest hydro operators in Australia respectively and Origin is indeed looking at capacity expansion, but broadly that pattern does seem likely.

At present the largest hydro operators in terms of installed capacity (pumped or non-pumped) are, in order: Snowy Hydro, Hydro Tasmania, CleanCo, AGL, Origin, various others with individually minor amounts.

Largest in terms of annual energy production from hydro sources in  order: Hydro Tas, Snowy Hydro, AGL, CleanCo, all others are minor.

Largest in terms of pumped storage capacity at present: Snowy Hydro, CleanCo, Origin. There are no others with existing pumped storage.


----------



## sptrawler

A current article, on the state of play with small modular reactors (SMR's).




__





						Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
					





					www.bloomberg.com
				



From the article:
Today, the nuclear industry once again is thinking small, spurred on by politicians including U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson. They’re looking to solve the next climate change challenge: how to feed pollution-free heat to industries that make steel, cement, glass and chemicals. Half of the world’s energy goes into making heat, and that produces two-fifths of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. Those industries sometimes need temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 Fahrenheit) and more often than not burn fossil fuels to get there.

Small modular reactors are drawing the attention of policy makers across the U.S. and Europe because of their versatility. They can deliver a steady flow of energy both in the form of heat and electricity. The power helps balance intermittent supplies coming from wind and solar farms. The heat can help decarbonize some of the world’s dirtiest industries. Johnson set aside 500 million pounds for SMR design in a green economy program last month, and Biden says they’re one of the keys to long-term energy policy in the U.S.


Some of the biggest investors and industrial companies have gotten behind the technology, with reactor designs emerging from Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc, Fluor Corp.-backed NuScale Power LLC, Terrestrial Energy USA Inc. and TerraPower, which has drawn investment from Bill Gates. In all, there are currently 67 unique SMR technologies in various stages of development worldwide, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. That’s about a third more than just two years ago.

“This is the decade of SMR demonstrations, which could potentially determine front runners for the expected economy of series production,” said Henri Paillere, the head planning and economic studies at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. “There is high level of innovation.”

For now, only a single SMR unit is in commercial operation, installed on a barge off Russia’s Arctic coast. NuScale expects approval for one of its designs as early as next month. While the technology is advancing quickly, the economics of SMRs remain unproven. The challenge is earning enough money from a small plant to pay for the regulatory burden that comes with any nuclear venture.


Engineers also say SMRs also can efficiently produce hydrogen, another fuel emerging as a preferred way to supply heat for industry. Around-the-clock availability of nuclear plants pairs well with processes that split the gas from water molecules, Urenco Chief Executive Officer Boris Schucht said in September.

“There are definitely niches that SMRs can fill, but there is uncertainty over whether the market will ever be large enough,” said M.V. Ramana, a nuclear physicist who wrote about the history of SMRs at Princeton University. “There are going to be a few reactors that are built. The question is whether there will be the next customer after they see the cost and time it has taken to get the first unit online.”


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> “There are definitely niches that SMRs can fill, but there is uncertainty over whether the market will ever be large enough,” said M.V. Ramana, a nuclear physicist who wrote about the history of SMRs at Princeton University. “*There are going to be a few reactors that are built. The question is whether there will be the next customer after they see the cost and time it has taken to get the first unit online.”*




I think that is the bottom line. From everything I have seen the economics of SMR's don't stack up against the current suite of renewable technologies.
But we'll see won't we ?


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> I think that is the bottom line. From everything I have seen the economics of SMR's don't stack up against the current suite of renewable technologies.
> But we'll see won't we ?



Yes it is certainly at an interesting stage, the renewables/storage and at call generation, is all getting to the point where big decisions will have to be made.
I think this is the key:
_For now, only a single SMR unit is in commercial operation, installed on a barge off Russia’s Arctic coast. NuScale expects approval for one of its designs as early as next month. While the technology is advancing quickly, the economics of SMRs remain unproven. _*The challenge is earning enough money from a small plant to pay for the regulatory burden that comes with any nuclear venture.*

It wont be until they are operational and have a proven track record, that the regulatory cost will be reduced, it's a bit of a hen and egg situation.
Just my opinion.


----------



## sptrawler

On the renewables front AGL offering up another package, they are certainly getting on the front foot, when compared to other energy retailers.









						AGL offers "all-in-one" solar and battery bundle as it seeks to boost virtual power plant - One Step Off The Grid
					

AGL Energy offers zero up-front solar and battery bundle, backed by low-interest finance and offering a $1,000 discount for customers who sign up to the VPP.




					onestepoffthegrid.com.au


----------



## basilio

Green hydrogen powering ships. Highlights the market for developing massive solar/wind technology for creating green hydrogen.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/...ise-shipping?utm_source=pocket-newtab-intl-en


----------



## Smurf1976

Here goes:



> Hydro Tasmania welcomed the Prime Minister, Tasmanian Premier and Federal and State Energy Ministers to Trevallyn Power Station to announce a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two governments. The MOU outlines a shared path forward and further certainty for progressing Marinus Link, the new 1500MW interconnector between Tasmania and mainland Australia, and the Cethana pumped hydro and hydropower upgrade opportunities in the existing portfolio that form the _Battery of the Nation_.




https://www.hydro.com.au/news/media...ethana-selected-as-first-pumped-hydro-project

Ultimately the proposed new Vic - Tas transmission and generation development in Tasmania will meet 14.5% of Victoria's peak demand, additional to the 4.5% presently supplied from Tas via Basslink so bringing the total to 19% via three cables.

Note that Trevallyn power station has nothing to do with the Cethana or any pumped storage scheme - it's just a convenient place for an announcement given that it's in suburban Launceston indeed it's only 3km from the CBD so an easy place to get the PM etc to turn up.


----------



## orr

Smurf1976 said:


> an easy place to get the PM etc to turn up.




Nailed him there Smurf; For Schmuk It's all about the announcement...
Giles Parkinson over at Reneweconomy mentioned something about $90 odd million toward this project coming from somewhere. My guess is reallocated,  reannounced, recycled pish that we've come to expect from those with confected rather than real ambition for what's needed.
What I've looked more seriously for is the(accelerated)  time of completion, or for anything resembling forward thinking. And not seeing much. 
And for a Federal government who's matra is the advancement of private enterprize!!!  give them policy certanty, Or what you'll get is investment derth.
FFS ... 75yrs ago we could be part of winning a world war against facism in not much more than 4yrs ... And today we can't run a few yards of TPS from one side of a creek to other in something under a decade.

And just for giggles watching, in particular, the New England Nationals squirm in the new renewable energy cost realities, helps me sleep at night  ... Squirms that more resemble the death convulsions of shot cats... 

How much did we pay for a commission into Wind Turbines??? and the result?


----------



## sptrawler

orr said:


> Nailed him there Smurf; For Schmuk It's all about the announcement...



Yes lets forget about the new 1.5GW interconnector cable, that will supply an extra 14.5% capacity to Victoria, let's focus on the name calling and derogatory name calling.
Nothing much changes, rusted on, is rusted on.


----------



## sptrawler

Well the writing is on the wall for the last privately owned coal fired station in W.A, it must be getting hard to turn a buck with the cycling they must be doing, times are changing bloody fast.









						Australian coal-fired power plant bought for $1.2b now 'effectively has no value'
					

The owners of the Bluewaters coal-fired plant in Western Australia have written down the value of the asset to zero, despite it being barely ten years old.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
_The owners of Australia's newest coal-fired power station have written down the value of the asset to zero, wiping out a $1.2 billion investment in the face of an onslaught of renewable energy.

In what a financial market analyst said was a "classic example" of changes predicted in the energy industry, Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo has written off its $250 million equity stake in the Bluewaters power plant in Western Australia's south-west.

The decision was booked in Sumitomo's September accounts, in which the company acknowledged the facility was worthless despite being barely 10 years old.


It comes just nine years after Sumitomo, in a joint venture with fellow Japanese firm Kansai, bought Bluewaters for a reported $1.2 billion from the wreckage of fallen coal tycoon Ric Stowe's failed business empire.

Kansai is believed to have made similar accounting changes, meaning both companies have reduced their equity stakes to zero.


Earlier this year, a syndicate of Australian and overseas banks including Westpac and ANZ apparently refused to refinance $370 million in debt owed by Bluewaters amid concerns about the facility's coal supply security and investing in the fossil fuel.

Instead, the banks sold their debt stakes at a discount to distressed debt specialists — so-called vulture funds — including Oaktree Capital and Elliot Management.

At the same time, Bluewaters and other coal-fired power stations in WA have been dealing with tougher trading conditions as renewable energy led by solar increasingly hollows out the marke_t.
_"In Western Australia, the penetration of rooftop solar is huge, amongst the highest in the world," Mr Nicholas said._


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> A current article, on the state of play with small modular reactors (SMR's).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.bloomberg.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> Today, the nuclear industry once again is thinking small, spurred on by politicians including U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson. They’re looking to solve the next climate change challenge: how to feed pollution-free heat to industries that make steel, cement, glass and chemicals. Half of the world’s energy goes into making heat, and that produces two-fifths of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. Those industries sometimes need temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 Fahrenheit) and more often than not burn fossil fuels to get there.
> 
> Small modular reactors are drawing the attention of policy makers across the U.S. and Europe because of their versatility. They can deliver a steady flow of energy both in the form of heat and electricity. The power helps balance intermittent supplies coming from wind and solar farms. The heat can help decarbonize some of the world’s dirtiest industries. Johnson set aside 500 million pounds for SMR design in a green economy program last month, and Biden says they’re one of the keys to long-term energy policy in the U.S.
> 
> 
> Some of the biggest investors and industrial companies have gotten behind the technology, with reactor designs emerging from Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc, Fluor Corp.-backed NuScale Power LLC, Terrestrial Energy USA Inc. and TerraPower, which has drawn investment from Bill Gates. In all, there are currently 67 unique SMR technologies in various stages of development worldwide, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. That’s about a third more than just two years ago.
> 
> “This is the decade of SMR demonstrations, which could potentially determine front runners for the expected economy of series production,” said Henri Paillere, the head planning and economic studies at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. “There is high level of innovation.”
> 
> For now, only a single SMR unit is in commercial operation, installed on a barge off Russia’s Arctic coast. NuScale expects approval for one of its designs as early as next month. While the technology is advancing quickly, the economics of SMRs remain unproven. The challenge is earning enough money from a small plant to pay for the regulatory burden that comes with any nuclear venture.
> 
> 
> Engineers also say SMRs also can efficiently produce hydrogen, another fuel emerging as a preferred way to supply heat for industry. Around-the-clock availability of nuclear plants pairs well with processes that split the gas from water molecules, Urenco Chief Executive Officer Boris Schucht said in September.
> 
> “There are definitely niches that SMRs can fill, but there is uncertainty over whether the market will ever be large enough,” said M.V. Ramana, a nuclear physicist who wrote about the history of SMRs at Princeton University. “There are going to be a few reactors that are built. The question is whether there will be the next customer after they see the cost and time it has taken to get the first unit online.”




Seems to me that these things have been around for ages, in nuclear powered submarines and aircraft carriers.

What's the difference in design between military and commercial SMR's ?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Well the writing is on the wall for the last privately owned coal fired station in W.A, it must be getting hard to turn a buck with the cycling they must be doing, times are changing bloody fast.



At least they didn't spend a cent more building it than they absolutely had to.

Who needs cladding on the walls?  

Meanwhile in WA they're conducting a "trial" : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-16/wa-government-power-market-trial-to-protect-grid/12986348

I assume that local politics probably requires the "trial" bit but in practice it's likely to stay in my view - it's essentially the same thing known as Tariff 93 in Tasmania and by the informal name of "solar sponge" and various other marketing terms in SA.

The basic idea is to give consumers a strong push via economic means to shift consumption to the middle of the day when the sun's shining. Can't move all loads obviously but for pool pumps, dishwashers, washing and drying clothes, any sort of battery charging etc it's generally doable.

Nobody's going to say it'll be compulsory but that's certainly the underlying thought in other states, ultimately consumers will be moved off flat rate tariffs. Some states may do that directly by force whilst others, especially Tas, will likely do it via the well worn path of progressively ramped up saturation advertising.


----------



## sptrawler

Really interesting article on the power generation front, obviously a huge amount of work going on behind the scenes, quietly getting on with business I would say.








						Export superpower: AEMO to model even faster paths to net zero emissions
					

AEMO to model faster paths to net zero emissions, with new “Export Superpower” scenario to assume Australia to get there by 2040, and more rapid emission cuts in electricity grid.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the article:

The Australian Energy Market Operator is to model even faster paths to net zero emissions, with a new “Export Superpower” scenario to assume Australia will reach net zero emissions in the early 2040s, and the electricity grid will lead the way and achieve even more rapid emissions cuts.

AEMO – whose job is primarily to keep the lights on in Australia’s main grids – broke new ground earlier this year with the release of the second version of its Integrated System Plan, a 20-year blueprint that included a “step change” scenario that assumed 94 per cent renewables share by 2040 as technology costs fell and the world woke from its climate slumber to take decisive action.

A new 180 page document – its 2021 Draft Inputs Assumptions and Scenarios report – goes even further, and suggests new scenarios that include Australia reaching net zero emissions as early as 2040, with the electricity sector – where emission cuts are seen as more readily achievable – delivering even more rapid reductions. The plunging cost of green hydrogen will play an important role.

Already, it has accepted the inevitability of a 50 per cent renewables share by 2050, despite claiming that such targets would cause the sky to fall in when it was proposed by Labor in last year’s election. And, as Ketan Joshi wrote this week, Angus Taylor’s official emissions forecasts appear to assume a faster cut in emissions than AEMO’s step change plan and an early exit for coal.




“The GenCost report …  estimates for the current capital cost of a PEM electrolyser, at $3,510/kW, with equipment and construction costs accounting for 70% and 30% of total capex respectively,” it says. By 2030 the cost of PEM electrolysers is projected to be less than $1000/kW in all scenarios.”

The Export Superpower scenario assumes that much of the wind and solar capacity needed for clean hydrogen will be connected to the grid. This also means added flexibility for the market operator, and less reason to have some fossil fuel generators still in the tool kit by 2050.
“The actual electrolyser itself can be ramped up and down rapidly, potentially even providing fast frequency response similar to electrochemical batteries,” it notes.
AEMO proposes to model PEM electrolysers as fully flexible, although there is also an associated baseload component. And like solar PV and batteries, AEMO notes that hydrogen electrolysers are highly modular and can be scaled up linearly.

It also expects other technologies will emerge that will provide the “synchronous” qualities of fossil fuel generators and displace them as “last gasp” back ups in a renewable grid. But for the moment, it can’t be sure, so it is assuming at least some thermal generation on the grid.

“Some operation of thermal plant may be cost-effective to maintain synchronous and peaking support capabilities, and it would then become more cost-effective to reduce emissions in other sectors of the economy than to decarbonise the final incremental emissions-intensive activities in the electricity grid,” it says.
“There are zero-emissions synchronous technologies available that would potentially be able to deliver these services while maintaining a carbon-neutral NEM; however, given the lack of surety and detail on these options in the NEM setting, AEMO currently considers that it is appropriate to allow some fossil-fuelled generation to remain in the electricity system provided the cumulative carbon budget is not exceeded.”


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Really interesting article on the power generation front, obviously a huge amount of work going on behind the scenes, quietly getting on with business I would say.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Export superpower: AEMO to model even faster paths to net zero emissions
> 
> 
> AEMO to model faster paths to net zero emissions, with new “Export Superpower” scenario to assume Australia to get there by 2040, and more rapid emission cuts in electricity grid.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> reneweconomy.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> 
> The Australian Energy Market Operator is to model even faster paths to net zero emissions, with a new “Export Superpower” scenario to assume Australia will reach net zero emissions in the early 2040s, and the electricity grid will lead the way and achieve even more rapid emissions cuts.
> 
> AEMO – whose job is primarily to keep the lights on in Australia’s main grids – broke new ground earlier this year with the release of the second version of its Integrated System Plan, a 20-year blueprint that included a “step change” scenario that assumed 94 per cent renewables share by 2040 as technology costs fell and the world woke from its climate slumber to take decisive action.
> 
> A new 180 page document – its 2021 Draft Inputs Assumptions and Scenarios report – goes even further, and suggests new scenarios that include Australia reaching net zero emissions as early as 2040, with the electricity sector – where emission cuts are seen as more readily achievable – delivering even more rapid reductions. The plunging cost of green hydrogen will play an important role.
> 
> Already, it has accepted the inevitability of a 50 per cent renewables share by 2050, despite claiming that such targets would cause the sky to fall in when it was proposed by Labor in last year’s election. And, as Ketan Joshi wrote this week, Angus Taylor’s official emissions forecasts appear to assume a faster cut in emissions than AEMO’s step change plan and an early exit for coal.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> “The GenCost report …  estimates for the current capital cost of a PEM electrolyser, at $3,510/kW, with equipment and construction costs accounting for 70% and 30% of total capex respectively,” it says. By 2030 the cost of PEM electrolysers is projected to be less than $1000/kW in all scenarios.”
> 
> The Export Superpower scenario assumes that much of the wind and solar capacity needed for clean hydrogen will be connected to the grid. This also means added flexibility for the market operator, and less reason to have some fossil fuel generators still in the tool kit by 2050.
> “The actual electrolyser itself can be ramped up and down rapidly, potentially even providing fast frequency response similar to electrochemical batteries,” it notes.
> AEMO proposes to model PEM electrolysers as fully flexible, although there is also an associated baseload component. And like solar PV and batteries, AEMO notes that hydrogen electrolysers are highly modular and can be scaled up linearly.
> 
> It also expects other technologies will emerge that will provide the “synchronous” qualities of fossil fuel generators and displace them as “last gasp” back ups in a renewable grid. But for the moment, it can’t be sure, so it is assuming at least some thermal generation on the grid.
> 
> “Some operation of thermal plant may be cost-effective to maintain synchronous and peaking support capabilities, and it would then become more cost-effective to reduce emissions in other sectors of the economy than to decarbonise the final incremental emissions-intensive activities in the electricity grid,” it says.
> “There are zero-emissions synchronous technologies available that would potentially be able to deliver these services while maintaining a carbon-neutral NEM; however, given the lack of surety and detail on these options in the NEM setting, AEMO currently considers that it is appropriate to allow some fossil-fuelled generation to remain in the electricity system provided the cumulative carbon budget is not exceeded.”



PEM and hydrogen pathways.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> PEM and hydrogen pathways.



Great link Rob, I'm with you on hydrogen, the advantages of hydrogen will soon absorb a lot of development money.
The major things hydrogen has over battery is, energy density and the simplicity of scaling up production, which actually ends up meaning more energy to sell. The other freeby is very little waste residue.
So everything else, just becomes a technical issue, to overcome IMO. 
On a personal note, I'm just pleased that my taxes aren't being thrown at it, so that I pay for the same end result.
I already pay enough for electricity and am happy with my car. 
So if AGL, Origin etc want to sell electricity they had better start and replace their plant, I shouldn't have to subsidies it, I buy your product it is your responsibility to update or replace it. If not get out of the game.
If VW, FORD etc want me to replace my car, start and make affordable BEV's and standardise charging protocol, then we the taxpayer may put in charging infrastructure, until then either pick up your act or go out of business. 
Just my opinion.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Really interesting article on the power generation front, obviously a huge amount of work going on behind the scenes, quietly getting on with business I would say.



That's basically it. 

Those at the top (government) seem to have grasped that there's a problem to fix but the downside is that there's years of work to be caught up and stuff all time in which to do it. The clock's ticking in a big way.

Until something new is actually built, there's an ongoing reliance on plant that can only be described as old and tired and in some cases extremely so.

Ultimately it's going to happen but you won't find anyone willing to say there won't be some incidents between now and then. That's not about fossils versus renewables, it's just about old and tired equipment that's past its expected lifespan and isn't in good shape. Chance of breakdowns etc is extremely high indeed rather a lot of such incidents are actually occurring, it's just that most don't make the mainstream news.

For one that has been publicly announced, only last week there was a major incident involving unit 3 at Liddell power station. A worker ended up seriously injured and the initial estimate is repairs by the end of February 2021. 



			https://www.agl.com.au/about-agl/media-centre/asx-and-media-releases/2020/december/liddell-incident
		


So yes, getting on with it but there's an awful lot of catching up to do in order to replace what's at end of life etc.


----------



## sptrawler

Its all falling in a hole as you have been saying for some time smurf, IMO the generators are quietly letting the plant run down, then when the $hit hits the fan say we cant afford to replace it.
The government drawing a line in the sand makes sense, if the private sector dont want to put in the capital outlay, the government should say fine, if the taxpayer has to fund it they may as well own it.
Great move Imo.


----------



## sptrawler

As we have been saying on ASF for some time, the transition to renewables in Australia is happening at an incredibly fast rate, the problem is going to be getting the system reconfigured fast enough to cope with it and at the same time keeping the lights on.
Interesting article and shows that the situation is indeed being monitored, also as we said earlier, they seem to be quietly getting on with business.
That is a lot better than over promising and under delivering, which has been the norm for a long, long time. The electrical system IMO should not be in the news, it is something that should be constantly ahead of the game and as many of us say should never have been privatised.
Now it has, it becomes very difficult to control loss making generators, as they are no doubt finding out.









						'Absolute urgency' needed to stop grid failure
					

Urgent reforms are needed to avoid power failures as the market switches from coal to renewables.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:

_The unexpectedly rapid rise of renewables is driving more and more clean and cheap energy into the electricity grid, but urgent reforms are needed to avoid price rises and power failures, according to the Commonwealth's Energy Security Board.

A deluge of new wind and solar projects, in addition to household rooftop solar, is outstrippingpredictions.

Energy Security Board chair Kerry Schott said the current growth in renewables was on track with the fastest rate of change foreseen by the Australian Energy Market Operator, released in its official modelling in July.

The market operator's "step change" scenario anticipates renewables will grow from 37 per cent of the energy mix in 2020 to 63 per cent by 2030 and 94 per cent by 2040.

This rate of change exceeds the federal government's projections, released in November, which said renewables would comprise 55 per cent of the power mix by 2030.

"It's very good for emissions, but it means coal plants will retire faster than anybody thinks," Ms Schott said. "Already, we're seeing big coal plants are being operated below full capacity and they're doing what they can to keep costs down."

One example of the challenges from energy change is the world-leading growth in rooftop solar which generates so much power that demand from the grid in major cities is wiped out during the day, creating a headache for network operators in managing the constant baseload output from the old fleet of coal and gas plants.
Another challenge was co-ordinating plans between governments to ensure there was sufficient dispatchable power supply from gas, hydro and batteries to balance demand in the grid when there were fluctuations in wind and solar power, Ms Schott said.

Currently, energy generators and network operators have only been paid for supplying power to customers, but market design reforms already being rolled out through the ESB will create payments for storage services, system strength and frequency control.
Loading
"Major changes are needed to unlock value to customers and ensure capital investments are made in an efficient and timely manner to deliver the affordable, reliable and secure electricity consumers need," Ms Schott said.

The ESB was established by the Commonwealth of Australian Governments Energy Council in 2017 to advise on market transition, which requires co-operation among state and Commonwealth governments as they share responsibilities for networks and regulation.
Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor agreed it was "critical" to act swiftly and manage the transition from coal to renewables_.


----------



## sptrawler

Another article covering the same issue, rapid ramp up of renewables and non competitive fossil fueled generation being relied upon for dispatchable generation. Which leads to the next obvious stage, who is going to wear the cost of  the stranded assets, being fossil fueled power stations?
Luckily in W.A the major coal generators are still Government owned, selling off the electrical generation over East is coming home to roost, the States that made the money from privatising them are now wearing the cost of sorting the problem. Hopefully it doesn't become a cost to taxpayers in States that didn't privatise their electrical system.








						Energy industry warns disjointed climate and energy policies risk network failure
					

Lack of national energy policy risks disruption to the power grid and higher electricity prices, industry experts and customer representatives say.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:

_Energy Users' Association of Australia chief executive Andrew Richards said state and federal governments all shouldered some of the blame for the current disjointed policy.

Driven by a need to replace ageing coal fired power plants, NSW and Victoria announced separate targets to drive more renewable energy into the grid.
Mr Richards said the imposition of different standards and requirements across jurisdictions created unnecessary complexity for power generators and retailers, which would "lead to higher costs" for electricity customers. 

"It's been quite disappointing that Victoria and NSW have been fully aware of and endorsed the ESB's work program, but they've gone their own way anyway," Mr Richards said.

"You could argue they've turned their back on the national reform that they have endorsed by implementing their own state-based plans."_


----------



## sptrawler

More large scale storage to go in at Origin and Neon plants:
*$1bn batteries for power plants*
_Two of the world’s biggest batteries, worth a combined $1bn, will be built at the sites of NSW coal plants in a move to ease strains in the power grid._

Add that to the already announced AGL installations and some serious battery storage is starting to be installed:

_The news of the Victoria battery means that AGL will have big batteries in all four mainland states of the National Electricity Market. Last week it announced a 250MW battery with up to four hours storage at the site of the Torrens Island gas generator in South Australia, it has already contracted for 200MW and 400MWh of battery storage in NSW, and a 100MW and 150MWh big battery at Wandoan in Queensland.

It is also looking at a 50MW battery at Broken Hill and may also build a big battery of up to 500MW at the site of the Liddell coal generator in the Hunter Valley which is due to close in 2023, although it is now re-considering this investment in the light of the NSW renewable energy plan_.

If then the 2GW Snowy 2.0, the Tassie battery and second undersea cable to Tasmania is included, we are starting to install some really solid storage.


----------



## sptrawler

More info on the Origin energy BIG battery:








						Largest battery in Australia to be built on site of ageing coal-fired power plant
					

Origin Energy unveils plans to build a 700-megawatt battery, which will be the largest in Australia and four times bigger than Tesla's battery in South Australia, in a bid to move the company away from fossil fuel power over the next 10 years.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:

_Origin Energy has unveiled plans to build a giant 700-megawatt capacity battery at its coal-fired power plant in Eraring, south of Newcastle, in the New South Wales Hunter region.

If the plan goes ahead, the battery would be more than four times larger than the 150-megawatt Tesla battery in South Australia.

Origin's executive general manager Greg Jarvis said the battery would support Origin's transition away from coal-fired power generation by 2032. 

The battery will also support the New South Wales energy grid's transition away from fossil fuels and the entry of new solar and wind projects in coming decades.

"We recognise we have an important role to play in positioning Origin's electricity generation portfolio to support Australia's rapid transition to renewables," Mr Jarvis said.

"A large-scale battery at Eraring will help us better support renewable energy and maintain reliable supply for customers, by having long duration storage ready to dispatch into the grid at times when renewable sources are not available.

"The deployment of this battery at Eraring will support Origin's orderly transition away from coal-fired generation by 2032, while complementing the policy objectives of the NSW energy road map._"


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> More info on the Origin energy BIG battery:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Largest battery in Australia to be built on site of ageing coal-fired power plant
> 
> 
> Origin Energy unveils plans to build a 700-megawatt battery, which will be the largest in Australia and four times bigger than Tesla's battery in South Australia, in a bid to move the company away from fossil fuel power over the next 10 years.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> 
> _Origin Energy has unveiled plans to build a giant 700-megawatt capacity battery at its coal-fired power plant in Eraring, south of Newcastle, in the New South Wales Hunter region.
> 
> If the plan goes ahead, the battery would be more than four times larger than the 150-megawatt Tesla battery in South Australia.
> 
> Origin's executive general manager Greg Jarvis said the battery would support Origin's transition away from coal-fired power generation by 2032.
> 
> The battery will also support the New South Wales energy grid's transition away from fossil fuels and the entry of new solar and wind projects in coming decades.
> 
> "We recognise we have an important role to play in positioning Origin's electricity generation portfolio to support Australia's rapid transition to renewables," Mr Jarvis said.
> 
> "A large-scale battery at Eraring will help us better support renewable energy and maintain reliable supply for customers, by having long duration storage ready to dispatch into the grid at times when renewable sources are not available.
> 
> "The deployment of this battery at Eraring will support Origin's orderly transition away from coal-fired generation by 2032, while complementing the policy objectives of the NSW energy road map._"




*" That is enough to store power for 3.5 million homes. "*

For how long ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> *" That is enough to store power for 3.5 million homes. "*
> 
> For how long ?



It is just great the big generators are stepping up to the plate, I think the Government telling them they will build a brand new high efficiency 1GW gas plant, would have put the wind up them.
If they think they are having trouble competing with intermittent renewable generation, imagine how much trouble they would have with old plant competing with brand new large capacity combined cycle, for a piece of the dispatchable generation space. It would be goodnight irene. 😂
In reality it is all starting to look really good, @Smurf1976  will have overall numbers, but from what I've been reading Australia seems to be doing a really decent job of the balancing act. There is a long way to go, but it does seem to be coming together and people are starting to get on the same page.
The companies hanging around with the begging bowl look, waiting for a handout or incentive, seems to be evaporating. They all appear to be working out how to keep their market share, which is exactly what they should be doing.


----------



## sptrawler

@Smurf1976 , how much battery storage capacity is being proposed,? if you can say.
Just wondering because there seems to be a lot of announcements happening.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> *" That is enough to store power for 3.5 million homes. "*
> 
> For how long ?



Well Rumpy, that is where it all becomes fluid  😂 
If you check your electric meter at 8am and then go back the next day and check it again, and it shows a reading of an extra 10Kw/hrs.
That then means you have used 10Kw/Hrs of electricity, or 10 units.
Right, so if the person next door has a McMansion, they may find with their ducted A/C and heated swimming pool their meter shows they used 50units.
Therefore the 3.5 million homes, is very subjective, as it feeds into a grid it would depend who is on the grid and how they work out the demand.
Is that average household demand, or median household demand, or minimum household demand, ah statistics they can paint any picture you want.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> @Smurf1976 , how much battery storage capacity is being proposed,? if you can say.
> Just wondering because there seems to be a lot of announcements happening.



I don't know the exact answer, it's a rapidly moving target with an "arms race" of sorts seemingly underway and announcements are almost literally a daily event at the moment. I'll see if I can come up with an accurate list.

All up, I'm aware that there are various companies looking at collectively building many thousands of MW. Some of those are certain goers, some are genuine intents but not yet certain, some are pie in the sky dreaming.

Some of those are companies with existing generation and at least reasonable engineering capability and industry experience. Then there's the "financial" companies who think they've found an easy way to make money.....


----------



## Smurf1976

Following is a list of the battery projects across the mainland NEM states (Qld, NSW, Vic, SA) that I'm aware of.

Note this includes only actual large grid-connected batteries.

Not included is any form of hydro, compressed air storage, hydrogen storage or small household scale batteries including those subject to remote control ("Virtual Power Plant"). Only actual large batteries are on the list.

I've used the AEMO definitions of "Committed" and have put anything not in that category or already operating in the "Proposed" category.

For some of the "proposed" ones it's a technicality, the Victorian Big Battery (that's it's actual official name by the way) is a goer in practice whilst some of the more speculative ones have virtually zero chance.

Existing (Victoria):
Ballarat Energy Storage System - 30 MW / 30 MWh
Gannawarra Energy Storage System - 25 MW / 50 MWh

Existing (SA):
Dalrymple BESS - 30 MW / 8 MWh
Hornsdale Power Reserve - 150 MW / 186.5 MWh
Lake Bonney BESS - 25 MW / 52 MWh

Committed:
Bulgana Green Power Hub - 20 MW / 34 MWh (Victoria)
Kennedy Energy Park Phase 1 - 2 MW / 4 MWh (Queensland)

Proposed (SA):
Adelaide Desalination Plant - 6.27 MW / 13 MWh (SA Water)
Bolivar Waste Water Treatment Plant - 2.46 MW / 5 MWh (SA Water)
Christies Beach Waste Water Treatment Plant - 2.09 MW / 4 MWh (SA Water)
Crystal Brook Energy Park - 130 MW / 400 MWh
Goyder Sough Hub - 900 MW / ? MWh
Happy Valley Reservoir - 3.78 MW / 9 MWh (SA Water)
Heathgate Resources Beverly Mine - 1 MW / ? MWh
Kingfisher Solar Storage - 100 MW / ? MWh
Lincoln Gap Wind Farm - 10 MW / 10 MWh
Riverland Solar Storage - 100 MW / ? MWh
Snowtown North Solar Farm - 20 MW / ? MWh
Tailem Bend Battery Project - 42 MW / 84 MWh
Torrens Island Power Station - 250 MW / 1000 MWh (AGL)

Proposed (Queensland):
Cape York - 20 MW / ? MWh
Collinsville North Battery Project - 150 MW / 300 MWh
Gympie Regional Energy Hub - 1000 MW / 4000 MWh
Ipswich Regional Energy Hub - 1000 MW / 1000 MWh
Kaban Green Power Hub - 100 MW / ? MWh
Wandoan South - 100 MW / 150 MWh (AGL)
Wivenhoe Regional Energy Hub - 1000 MW / 1000 MWh

Proposed (Victoria):
Inverleigh Wind Farm Storage - 12 MW / ? MWh
Kentbruck Green Power Hub - 900 MW / ? MWh
Loy Yang A Power Station - 200 MW / ? MWh (AGL)
Nowingi Solar Storage - 80 MW / ? MWh
Victorian Big Battery - 300 MW / 450 MWh (Neoen / Tesla)

Proposed (NSW):
Eraring Power Station - 700 MW / 2800 MWh (Origin Energy)
Liddell Power Station - 150 MW up to 500 MW / MWh to be confirmed (AGL)
Maoneng Battery - 200 MW / 400 MWh across 4 sites (under contract to AGL)
Sapphire Wind Farm - ? MW / ? MWh
Walcha Energy Project Storage - ? MW / 150 MWh
Former Wallerawang Power Station Site - 500 MW / 1000 MWh (Energy Australia)
Wollar Solar Farm - ? MW / 30 MWh

For reference regarding the peak capacity, historic maximum demand by state:
NSW = 14,764 MW
Vic = 10,490 MW
Qld = 10,179 MW
SA = 3,397 MW

For reference regarding energy storage:
Snowy 2.0 expansion = 350,000 MWh
Hydro Tasmania existing system storage capacity = 14,400,000 MWh

My personal view:

AGL and Origin will go ahead with their publicly announced projects. If some technical issue comes up which precludes it, they'll come up with a replacement project but they won't abandon the idea as such, just modify it if necessary (though AGL is very determined to plonk a battery at the Liddell site - politics would make that very hard to not go through with).

Energy Australia will probably build a battery at Wallerawang and if not there then they'll build one somewhere else eg just up the road at Mt Piper power station or they'll find somewhere else but good chance they'll end up building something (wouldn't say it's 100% certain though).

Victorian Big Battery will get done - Victorian Government, Neoen and Tesla are all involved.

SA Water are motivated by factors other than simply operating in the NEM so they'll go ahead with their relatively small scale batteries at key treatment plants and pumping stations near Adelaide.

Many of the others are far more speculative, especially those with big round number capacities or no real details and backed by companies that don't presently operate in the NEM or have any relevant experience. Some will probably happen, some won't.

For other forms of storage:

Snowy 2.0 will be built. Politically impossible not to proceed.

Hydro Tas will leave no stone unturned in pursuing the Tasmanian pumped storage projects. Worth noting they've managed to get the Coalition and Labor singing the same song on this one so failure's fairly unlikely at this point.

The private sector will struggle to build major energy (MWh) storage in my view despite the enthusiasm for high power (MW) but low energy (MWh) options that is batteries. Storing bulk energy, that is pumped hydro, is simply too hard a sell to investors given the timeframes involved. Such capacity is crucial to any transition to a fully renewable energy system but it seems likely that governments will be the owners there.

The other big issue of course is how to manage the storage. That is, it's necessary to avoid a situation where one battery is say 80% charged and another is 5%, they need to be kept reasonably balanced otherwise the peak supply capacity from them ceases to be available and the lights go out. In a technical sense that's not impossible but it's more a question of who calls the shots? Given there's revenue implications for the owners, that could get "interesting" to say the least. Stand by to see a few "financial" companies with no energy industry experience burning investors money and also enjoy the show politically.

Managing storage is pretty straightforward from an engineering perspective but it'll end up being caught up in the ideological war I expect. By it's very nature, storage management is anti-competitive and is an exercise in real time dividing up of the market. That'll get the economic ideologues into a spin for sure, it's akin to asking an atheist to go around preaching religion, it doesn't fit their view of the world even slightly but it's a technical necessity.

With noting in that context that both of the existing Victorian battery owners have already put the lights out once through failing to co-operate with each other and with conventional forms of power generation. So it's a very real issue, there's already been an actual load shedding incident caused directly by it. My concern there is by no means theoretical in nature.


----------



## Smurf1976

Chart showing battery operations in SA over the past 7 days:







As you can see, it's all extremely short term so far as charge and discharge cycles are concerned. Red line at the bottom is market price and note that yes it does go below zero, in the electricity market negative prices are a real thing and not too uncommon in SA especially.

Now a 7 day chart of hydro output across Tas, Vic, NSW and Qld combined (there's none of significance in SA). Note the very much longer duration of high or low production. Pumping loads, below the line, are relatively minor since most existing hydro in Australia (and all of it in Tas and Vic) is based on natural water sources not pumping but some pumped storage does exist in NSW and Qld.






And a 30 day chart of the same data with a daily resolution. As you can see, it's not at all unusual to get multiple consecutive days of high or low output according to requirements.

Point being there's a need for the larger storage capacity that hydro provides and which batteries cannot, at least at the present time, economically provide.

There's a definite role for both, I'm just stressing the point since there's a lot of enthusiasm about batteries and a danger that the reality that longer duration storage is also needed may end up being overlooked by many.


----------



## sptrawler

@Smurf1976  Firstly thanks for a couple of great informative posts
On the subject of batteries I think there is definitely an opportunity for a battery manufacturing plant in W.A IMO. We have the lithium hydroxide plant, the nickel processing plant within a couple of klm of each other, all we need is a company with money and a bit of vision IMO. There will be an ongoing demand for new batteries and replacement of old in Australia and a huge export market.
We talked about the fact large shopping centers and factory roof spaces should be used as solar panel sites wherever possible, it looks as though some are definitely looking into it, it makes absolute sense.
I'm surprised the state governments, haven't made it a requirement on any new industrial building, in the planning stage.








						Move to build grid-scale solar on industrial rooftops across Australia
					

A joint venture aims to build giant solar farms on the roofs of factories and industrial estates across the nation, creating energy where it is most needed.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:

_The former Ford and General Motors Holden sites will soon become part of a network of rooftop solar farms and grid-scale batteries as part of a joint venture between Australia’s largest commercial and industrial real estate owner and a renewable energy company.

Ross Pelligra, chairman of the property giant Pelligra Group, said his organisation will give CEP Energy access to 10 million square metres of rooftop space it owns around the country, allowing the group to sell discounted energy directly to tenants engaged in power-hungry manufacturing processes, and to sell excess power to the grid_.


_Mr Pelligra said the scheme would help the group keep industrial tenants, some of whom have gone offshore over recent years due to concerns about the cost and reliability of energy in Australia.

Morris Iemma, the former NSW premier who is now CEP Energy chairman, said the larger sites owned by Pelligra were particularly well-suited to solar energy projects because they provide large amounts of space close to cities and industrial centres. They do not need expensive grid connections to be built, as is often the case with renewable developments in regional areas_.


----------



## SirRumpole

Pigeon poop a problem for panels.









						'Pooping machine' pigeons wreak foul havoc for solar panel owners
					

Pigeons are known for their ability to find their way home, but the numbers taking up residence underneath solar panels are causing a headache for property owners.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

This is competition in the power industry today.









						47,000 Queenslanders join class action against firms accused of pushing up power prices
					

The law firm leading a major class action involving more than 47,000 people is looking for more people to register for reimbursement as it alleges two of the state's biggest power players artificially created a lack of supply to drive up prices.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

More info on Snowy 2.0.








						Snowy project to cut 'massive swath' through national park, NPA says
					

In an open letter to the Berejiklian government, the association says TransGrid should have detailed other options in its EIS to the building of two giant overhead transmission lines.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## IFocus

Anyone aware of this looks like a game changer.

*World's first domestic hydrogen battery developed by Australian firm*

LAVO’s chief executive, Alan Yu, says the unit can store three times as much power as the largest popular commercially available wall-mounted batteries, allowing it to power the average household for two to three days on a single charge. 










						Australian firm pioneers first domestic hydrogen battery
					

Governments are declaring hydrogen to be central to the future – and an Australian firm has developed a world first.




					www.theage.com.au


----------



## IFocus

IFocus said:


> Anyone aware of this looks like a game changer.
> 
> *World's first domestic hydrogen battery developed by Australian firm*
> 
> LAVO’s chief executive, Alan Yu, says the unit can store three times as much power as the largest popular commercially available wall-mounted batteries, allowing it to power the average household for two to three days on a single charge.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Australian firm pioneers first domestic hydrogen battery
> 
> 
> Governments are declaring hydrogen to be central to the future – and an Australian firm has developed a world first.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theage.com.au





Perhaps a better critique 









						LAVO's Hydrogen Battery: Incredible Engineering. Tough Sell.
					

Review of the Australian-made LAVO hydrogen battery. It's an incredible feat of engineering - but at $35,000 who will buy it?




					www.solarquotes.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Interesting Aussie invention, home hydrogen electrolyser and fuel cell, hopefully leads to something big.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Australian invented hydrogen storage for homes and businesses hits the market
> 
> 
> UNSW spin-off announces that it will start taking orders for one of the world’s first hydrogen based energy storage systems for homes and businesses.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> reneweconomy.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> 
> _Australian-based venture LAVO, a university spin-off that has developed an innovative hydrogen-based energy storage system for homes and businesses, is one step closer to commercialisation, announcing that the technology is now ‘commercially-ready’ and will soon start taking orders for the first systems.
> 
> The LAVO system has been developed by researchers at the University of New South Wales, and uses compressed hydrogen as the main medium for energy storage. The company says that by using hydrogen, the LAVO device can offer three times the amount of energy storage compared to other devices of similar size, and offers double the operational life_.
> 
> _In announcing that the company will soon begin taking orders for the hydrogen energy storage system, LAVO says that it will target four core markets, including residential and commercial energy storage, off-grid and backup power supplies and telecommunication towers. LAVO estimates that these markets represent a $2 billion opportunity in for the company in Australia_.





Yes it was posted on this thread *October 20th 2020,  post No 4,660*


----------



## IFocus

SP I live in the deep south      takes awhile for the news to reach here


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> SP I live in the deep south      takes awhile for the news to reach here



I'll bring it down with me this arvo, when we head down. 😂  😂  😂


----------



## basilio

Twiggy Forest,  Chairman of Fortescue Metals, has been redirecting his energy to producing green hydrogen on a vast scale with the final intention of of producing green steel and revolutionizing Australias energy and steel industry. Just spent 5 months touring the investment centres around the world to create the framework for this nation changing venture.

Twiggy also sees this as an essential part of dealing with CC in the very near future. He is producing the Boyer Lectures on the ABC this year with the theme being  _*Rebooting Australia: How ethical entrepreneurs can help shape a better future**,. *_

Powerful stuff. I will repost this in other relevant threads. 









						'The solution is hydrogen': Andrew Forrest lays out his plan to address climate change
					

Green hydrogen gives Australia an opportunity to slash our emissions — and if we get this right, the impact could be nothing short of nation-building, argues business leader Andrew Forrest.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

The first 100% solar and battery neighborhood in Australia, 









						Tesla Powerwalls selected for first 100% solar and battery neighborhood in Australia
					

Economic Development Queensland (EDQ) recently announced a landmark deal with Tesla for the use of its Powerwall 2 batteries in a massive sustainability community project. The initiative aims to establish the first government-backed community in Australia that is 100% powered by solar energy and...




					www.teslarati.com
				



From the article:
_Economic Development Queensland (EDQ) recently announced a landmark deal with Tesla for the use of its Powerwall 2 batteries in a massive sustainability community project. The initiative aims to establish the first government-backed community in Australia that is 100% powered by solar energy and batteries. 

The project would involve 80 homes in the Brisbane suburb of Oxley, with each home receiving a AU$5,000 rebate if they purchase a heavily discounted package for the Tesla batteries and solar panels from Natural Solar. All homes in the community would come with solar panels, batteries, heat pump hot water systems, WiFi air conditioning, and electric vehicle charging equipment. 

Each home in the community would be fitted with seventeen 365w solar panels from Natural Solar and one 13.5 kWh Tesla Powerwall 2 battery. Such a setup is expected to generate an average of 9000 kWh annually, which equates to an estimated savings of AU$2,100 per year for every household_.


----------



## sptrawler

We did say in this thread a few years ago, it will only be a matter of time before solar panels, batteries, heat pump HWS become mandatory in the building codes. Well I just saw this article, it may be starting to eventuate.IMO








						ACT government launches tool to help renters slash energy costs - One Step Off The Grid
					

The ACT government wants to help renters cut energy costs, launching a new tool to provide tailored advice on cutting energy use and improving comfort.




					onestepoffthegrid.com.au
				



From the article:
The ACT government is examining the introduction of higher energy efficiency standards for new homes built in the ACT, to cut operating costs for residents and to improve comfort levels.

The ACT government has also flagged its intention to end the roll out of new mains gas infrastructure and to increase the number of electric vehicle charging stations included with new homes.

"Setting energy efficiency standards for rental properties and setting higher standards for new homes are essential to achieving a net-zero emissions ACT,” Rattenbury added. “While those are being developed and implemented, this webtool is something renters can use today to cut emissions, save money and make their homes more comfortable.


----------



## sptrawler

It sounds as though the U.K might be going down the Australian track, of an independent electrical market operator(AEMO), to oversee the transition to renewables.
National Grid could be stripped of role to run UK electricity system (msn.com)


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It sounds as though the U.K might be going down the Australian track, of an independent electrical market operator(AEMO), to oversee the transition to renewables.
> National Grid could be stripped of role to run UK electricity system (msn.com)



I'm always cautious of "reform" proposals though, especially when they come from regulators. 

There have been some good ideas and some terrible ones over the years.


----------



## sptrawler

A good article today, giving an overview of the state of play, with the Eastern States grid. 
Rather than reporters giving their opinions, the article seems to be some of the players explaining the balancing act going on, also shows why it all must be technically driven not politically driven.
Well worth a read for those interested in the electrical system.
* I moved the bracketed bold comment, to give readers perspective.








						Companies are powering ahead with big battery projects, but a 'lack of certainty' by governments could deter good investment
					

New projects are being announced all the time in the grid-scale battery arms race but concerns are being raised over a patchwork approach which has seen some states go at it alone in their pursuit of more aggressive emissions targets.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
Grid-scale battery projects from firms like AGL, Origin Energy and Neoen are racing ahead despite the divergent energy and emission goals of governments, which create a "lack of certainty", according to the New South Wales Energy Minister.
"What we've done with our [NSW] energy roadmap is put very clear markers in the ground, so that everyone understands the framework.

"NSW was one of the first states in the country to adopt a net zero emissions target. We also are responding to the challenges that we face in our system.

"NSW, over the next 15 years, will see four of its existing coal-fired power stations come to the end of their technical lives … [we] need to ensure that we don't see price spikes and blackouts as a result of not having a policy in place."

Built by Tesla in response to the nation's first statewide blackout, the Hornsdale battery in South Australia is the biggest in the country, having recently been upgraded to 150 megawatts.
("*And to put that in perspective, the Hornsdale battery, the biggest battery in Australia, can only keep the Tomago smelter going for less than 15 minutes.*")

Now the race is heating up in NSW, with a new 500MW battery project announced by French firm Neoen at Wallerawang near Lithgow.

Origin Energy has ambitious plans for a 700MW battery at Australia's largest coal-fired power station at Eraring, NSW.

AGL is pushing ahead with 1,000MW distributed across several sites, including the coal-fired Liddell power station, due to be shuttered by 2022.

Tony Wood, energy director at the Grattan Institute, says these firms are trying to get "ahead of the game".

"What they're doing is effectively staking out the territory, then announcing these investments. And the good news is these are commercial investments being made by private companies, and they're not being driven by government subsidies," Mr Wood said.

Kerry Schott, the independent chair for the Energy Security Board, recently raised concerns about grid stability in reference to incoming renewables.

"We're also increasingly seeing the impacts on frequency and system strength. And that's the thing that the market design needs to change," Ms Schott said.

"There is a role for a NEM-wide [National Electricity Market] solution around batteries — you need batteries in particular locations and some locations are definitely more favourable."

The Energy Security Board is expected to make recommendations on a market framework to better accommodate renewables in the coming months.

"Some people want us to go much faster. Some people want us to go much slower, and [are] still in the dinosaur age. We've really got to adapt quickly," Ms Schott said.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Built by Tesla in response to the nation's first statewide blackout, the Hornsdale battery in South Australia is the biggest in the country, having recently been upgraded to 150 megawatts.
> ("*And to put that in perspective, the Hornsdale battery, the biggest battery in Australia, can only keep the Tomago smelter going for less than 15 minutes.*")




That certainly spells out the need for more pumped hydro projects. I wonder how much industries and governments are investing in those.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> That certainly spells out the need for more pumped hydro projects. I wonder how much industries and governments are investing in those.



Industries and State Governments like N.T, W.A, S.A should invest in batteries, mainly because they are fairly flat States and don't lend themselves to hydro, but the federal Government should be putting in a lot of the major pumped hydro IMO.

That is mainly because it will be the heavy lifter of renewables and it will back up all the Eastern States electricity systems, therefore it really benefits all the taxpayers, so in reality they should fund it.

Also it will need to be progressively increased, as demand changes over time and that is much easier funded by the public purse.
Private have to get a return on equity, the Government can install more than is required, as it is a public and essential service.
Just my opinion


----------



## basilio

The scale of Big Battery projects is now accelerating.  This 1200MW battery is just part of  2000MW series of batteries PLUS 1500 MW of  roof top solar panels placed on industrial sites.( I always wondered why the reams of  factories and warehouses didn't have solar panels. )

Construction will begin next year. Operation will be in 2023.









						World's biggest battery with 1,200MW capacity set to be built in NSW Hunter Valley
					

The announcement by CEP Energy is the latest in a flurry of major energy storage projects for Australia’s national electricity grid




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> The scale of Big Battery projects is now accelerating.  This 1200MW battery is just part of  2000MW series of batteries PLUS 1500 MW of  roof top solar panels placed on industrial sites.( I always wondered why the reams of  factories and warehouses didn't have solar panels. )
> 
> Construction will begin next year. Operation will be in 2023.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> World's biggest battery with 1,200MW capacity set to be built in NSW Hunter Valley
> 
> 
> The announcement by CEP Energy is the latest in a flurry of major energy storage projects for Australia’s national electricity grid
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theguardian.com




"Morris Iemma, *a former NSW premier and CEP Energy’s chairman,* said the clean energy roadmap that passed the state’s parliament last year had given the market confidence to invest in renewable generation supported by large-battery storage without subsidies."

Is it a coincidence that the man responsible for selling off the NSW power industry to private enterprise winds up as the chairman of a power company ?


----------



## sptrawler

A very good article on the state of play regarding H2








						Hype or holy grail: What’s driving the hydrogen rush?
					

What is green hydrogen? How could it help the environment? And what’s its future in Australia?




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> "Morris Iemma, *a former NSW premier and CEP Energy’s chairman,* said the clean energy roadmap that passed the state’s parliament last year had given the market confidence to invest in renewable generation supported by large-battery storage without subsidies."
> 
> Is it a coincidence that the man responsible for selling off the NSW power industry to private enterprise winds up as the chairman of a power company ?



Not a lot of difference to this one rumpy, politicians never disappear quietly.  








						Greg Combet and the future of capitalism
					

The future of Australian capitalism is in his hands




					www.latrobe.edu.au
				




Earlier this month the former trade unionist and federal politician declared his intention to transform Australian business. His radical idea: to promote the concept of “long-term value”.

Combet is chairman of Industry Super Australia, which represents 16 of Australia’s biggest industry funds and thus the vast bulk of the A$630 billion saved by more than 11 million Australians.

These super funds would use their massive clout as investors to transform corporate culture, Combet told the Australian Financial Review. He wants business to focus on long-term sustainability, not be “hostage to the short-term share price or six-monthly profit announcements”.

“The energy sector is an example of where long-term thinking is needed,” he said. “We have to start making a significant transition from old coal-fired power plants to renewable energy generation and distribution.”


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Not a lot of difference to this one rumpy, politicians never disappear quietly.




True, but the difference with some of them is that they make their own jobs at the expense of the taxpayer.

Power bills in NSW have skyrocket since privatisation and Iemma is on a gravy train.

Who was he representing really ?


----------



## basilio

I think this is a stunningly clever idea that will revolutionise stored energy systems.

Basically pumped hydro up modest hills but using a mineral rich fluid which 250% heavier than water as the "water".  Basically same outcome with  far less head and volume.

I think it would be a winner investment wise as well.















						Powering up: UK hills could be used as energy 'batteries'
					

Engineers explore using gentle slopes rather than steep dams or mountains to store electricity




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## basilio

This is one for the  ASF engineers to  evaluate . 
HD Hydro ™​ 
 
The scalable and cost-effective energy storage solution for society's energy transition offers the following:

1. Low Cost: Building on over a hundred years' experience with the most widely used form of energy storage means low risk and an established industry to leverage deployment. Being 2.5x smaller, by volume, means dramatically lower construction costs, faster build times, easier reinstatement and easier landscaping.

2. Agile: By innovating in the high-density fluid (R-19 TM) we use, we unlock many hundreds of times more suitable sites. Projects can be installed on hills 2.5x lower than a project using water and still achieve the same power – for example there are so many more hills at 150m than at 375m.

3. Clean: Our innovative fluid R-19 TM is environmentally benign and has been engineered to be non-reactive and non-corrosive. Our plants require smaller footprint and have minimal recyclability and supply chain considerations. 









						RheEnergise High-Density Hydro
					

RheEnergise Pumped Energy Storage: Lowering the levelised cost of energy storage. Increasing the availability of sites. Exceptionally fast reaction times. Long Duration. Long life. Highly flexible. High-Density Hydro®




					www.rheenergise.com


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> This is one for the  ASF engineers to  evaluate .
> HD Hydro ™​
> 
> The scalable and cost-effective energy storage solution for society's energy transition offers the following:
> 
> 1. Low Cost: Building on over a hundred years' experience with the most widely used form of energy storage means low risk and an established industry to leverage deployment. Being 2.5x smaller, by volume, means dramatically lower construction costs, faster build times, easier reinstatement and easier landscaping.
> 
> 2. Agile: By innovating in the high-density fluid (R-19 TM) we use, we unlock many hundreds of times more suitable sites. Projects can be installed on hills 2.5x lower than a project using water and still achieve the same power – for example there are so many more hills at 150m than at 375m.
> 
> 3. Clean: Our innovative fluid R-19 TM is environmentally benign and has been engineered to be non-reactive and non-corrosive. Our plants require smaller footprint and have minimal recyclability and supply chain considerations.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> RheEnergise High-Density Hydro
> 
> 
> RheEnergise Pumped Energy Storage: Lowering the levelised cost of energy storage. Increasing the availability of sites. Exceptionally fast reaction times. Long Duration. Long life. Highly flexible. High-Density Hydro®
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.rheenergise.com



Sounds clever, the only thing that springs to mind, how much extra energy does it take to pump it back up the hill? If it is much more dense.
It is very seldom, you get something for nothing, where energy is concerned.


----------



## Smurf1976

Only concerns that come to mind are if the fluid is in any way abrasive, leaves residue deposits or poses a hazard to anything (corrosion, environment, humans, animals, anything).

With conventional approaches even just a bit of silt being dragged into the intake is pretty harsh on a turbine runner when it's at 1200 PSI. Doesn't break anything immediately but ultimately it does cause wear.

The same occurrence at much lower pressures, below 200 PSI, doesn't really do anything though. At least not in practice there's no real issue with doing it.

With conventional hydro approaches that sort of situation really only occurs at low water levels. It won't happen if the dam's full but if it's drawn right down, 10% or so, and still running at high output well then it's very possible that the now rather shallow water body with the effects of wind does end up sending sand etc through the power station.

That issue is one reason why NMOL (Normal Minimum Operating Level) for hydro stations is sometimes set significantly higher than the actual minimum level of the intake. Operation "below zero" is possible, it just comes with issues of water quality degradation, abrasion and so on. That approach isn't relevant to most schemes but it does exist, the concept is used. 

Any issue would be in the detail but as a concept it seems reasonable enough. Obviously everything needs to be designed for the heavier material - I can't see any reason why the same basic designs as for water wouldn't work, just need to alter the approach to work with the denser material.

Only thing I can see that might be problematic would be the concept of oil-free machines based on using water to avoid metal on metal contact. That's a radical enough idea using water without trying to do it with something else. Workaround = conventional bearings, grease etc.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Sounds clever, the only thing that springs to mind, how much extra energy does it take to pump it back up the hill? If it is much more dense.



Frictional losses would be a possible issue noting that it's already an issue, albeit not a massive one, with water.

Anything potentially growing in it would be another possible concern. For a present example, biofouling, which in layman's terms is algae clinging to the concrete, is quite a problem with the Tarraleah canals (Tas).

Cleaning is done but it's quite a task scrubbing a canal.


----------



## sptrawler

Sounds like the new head of the AEMO has a lot of experience in renewable transitioning, from the U.K.








						Renewables engineer picked to steer Australia’s energy markets
					

Daniel Westerman, an Australian engineer with extensive commercial experience including in renewable energy, has been chosen to head the country’s main energy market operator.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
_Daniel Westerman, an Australian engineer with extensive commercial experience including in renewable energy, has been chosen to head the country’s main energy market operator as the industry rapidly shifts away from fossil fuels.
Mr Westerman, whose resume includes stints as an engineer with Ford in Melbourne and more recently as president of the clean energy unit of British- and US-listed National Grid, will become chief executive and managing director of the Australian Energy Market Operator from May 1_7.


----------



## sptrawler

I did say a while back that W.A is in a good position to head toward zero emissions and would probably be the first in Australia to achieve it.
But even I think 2030 is a bit pie in the sky, time will tell.








						WA Liberals target 100 pct renewables by 2030 in surprising climate plan
					

The West Australian Liberal climate plan has huge gap, but a surprising ambition to clean up the grid and reach 100 pct renewables by 2030. Is it just to save the furniture?




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



Someone should give Barnett a call and ask for his take on it.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I did say a while back that W.A is in a good position to head toward zero emissions and would probably be the first in Australia to achieve it.
> But even I think 2030 is a bit pie in the sky, time will tell.



Happy to state on the record my view that it will not happen.

That is a definite statement not a maybe - it won't happen.

At best they might achieve 100% renewable _electricity_ in that time, although even that's highly unlikely, but zero chance they'll achieve 100% renewable _energy_ as is the claim.

I'm cynical enough to think that's intentional - claim 100% renewable energy then try and argue that oops, sorry, we meant to say electricity.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I did say a while back that W.A is in a good position to head toward zero emissions and would probably be the first in Australia to achieve it.
> But even I think 2030 is a bit pie in the sky, time will tell.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> WA Liberals target 100 pct renewables by 2030 in surprising climate plan
> 
> 
> The West Australian Liberal climate plan has huge gap, but a surprising ambition to clean up the grid and reach 100 pct renewables by 2030. Is it just to save the furniture?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> reneweconomy.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Someone should give Barnett a call and ask for his take on it.




A desperate attempt by an opposition that has no chance of winning and in my view is cynical enough to promise something that they have little intention of achieving.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> A desperate attempt by an opposition that has no chance of winning and in my view is cynical enough to promise something that they have little intention of achieving.



No better way of winning votes than saying what the muppets want to hear, I think Albo went to the same lecture.lol
He is starting to talk legislating Australia zero by 2050, interesting how he will force the miners to go zero, when we are completly dependent on them? Maybe the taxpayer will replace all their equipment, interesting times.
Or maybe it is as you say a desperate attempt.lol


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Happy to state on the record my view that it will not happen.
> 
> That is a definite statement not a maybe - it won't happen.
> 
> At best they might achieve 100% renewable _electricity_ in that time, although even that's highly unlikely, but zero chance they'll achieve 100% renewable _energy_ as is the claim.
> 
> I'm cynical enough to think that's intentional - claim 100% renewable energy then try and argue that oops, sorry, we meant to say electricity.



That is exactly what I thought, but didnt want to say it because I would have been told Im a coal lover, because I operated them, Ive been hit with that chestnut before.lol


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> That is exactly what I thought, but didnt want to say it because I would have been told Im a coal lover



Telling you what you already know but for others, generation in the SWIS (that's the South-West Interconnected System for those not familiar - the grid that covers the south-west of WA including Perth) generation over the past 12 months:

Gas = 36.6%
Coal = 35.8%
Wind = 14.0%
Solar = 13.1%
Biofuels = 0.5%
Diesel = 0.03%

For the rest of the state it really depends on location. For the NWIS (North-West Interconnected System) which is the other substantial grid in WA gas dominates.

Anywhere else, and there's a lot of towns and most of the state's geographic area which aren't on the main grid, it'll be gas or diesel with or without some contribution from wind and/or solar. Since there's no single grid covering the state it does come down to what town you're in.

Exception of the towns of Kununurra and Wyndham where the answer is hydro.

That's just electricity though and in WA electricity only accounts for about 15% of energy supplied to end users with gas and liquid fuels being overwhelmingly dominant at the point of use including in the mining industry (but even at the household level gas is ubiquitous in WA). Hence any policy that's talking about having a high percentage or even 100% renewable _energy_ and not simply _electricity _by its very nature will be largely focused on things other than existing power stations.

While wind and solar only account for 27% of generation in the SWIS, there is a looming problem of too much supply at times. That already occurs in SA and WA's rapidly heading in the same direction so there's a real need to level out the load and to get that done "yesterday" since the clock's well and truly ticking there.

Eg Friday last week early in the afternoon wind and solar combined reached 80.0% of supply into the SW with coal and gas both very close to 10% each and it's pretty common to see wind + solar peak at ~ two thirds of supply on occasion as it did today. So there's a definite need to get load shifted where possible - both electrical load shifted from the peaks but also gas load shifted to electricity if the aim is to increase the share of renewables overall. 

There is of course also a need for storage to be built - that's only part of the solution though, in a state where 85% of energy is supplied by non-electrical sources, mostly gas and oil, there's a need to change the usage as well if the aim is to go renewable.

There are viable pumped hydro sites within reasonable proximity of the SWIS yes.


----------



## Smurf1976

Based on Australian Government data, total energy supply (not just electricity) in the whole of WA:

Gas = 53.0%
Oil = 34.8%
Coal = 10.1%
All renewable sources = 2.1%

WA electricity production for the whole state:

Gas = 61.5%
Coal = 23.8%
Oil = 5.8%
Wind = 4.4%
Solar = 3.7%
Hydro = 0.5%
Biofuels = 0.3%

Differs from the south-west alone since in the rest of the state gas and oil-based fuels are substantially more dominant.


----------



## sptrawler

The problem in W.A, storage, storage, storage.

Renewable generation isnt an issue, unless all the renewable generation is sold to overseas interests, as the gas over East has been.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The problem in W.A, storage, storage, storage.



It can be built. Just need to actually build it.....

Batteries obviously for short duration storage and workable sites do exist for hydro. Not as easily as Tas or NSW but can be done.


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> It can be built. Just need to actually build it.....
> 
> Batteries obviously for short duration storage and *workable sites do exist for hydro.* Not as easily as Tas or NSW but can be done.




Suggests that the prototypes being developed in the UK with mineral rich water as the fluid are well worth investigating.








						Underground Hydropower Could Be Britain’s Ultimate Renewable Power Source | OilPrice.com
					

Instead of using mountains and dams to store hydropower energy, hundreds or even thousands of hills across Britain could offer an alternative storage solution




					oilprice.com


----------



## Smurf1976

They say a picture tells the story so I'll just post this one:






Yes that's a real working oil well with the pump running on solar. 

Location = outback South Australia. 

Company = Santos.

Photo isn't mine and the original can be found here: https://arena.gov.au/assets/2018/12/santos-image.jpg


----------



## basilio

Didn't get in quick enough for RheEnergise fund raiser. 
Massively over subscribed. Have attached the story from Crowd Cube









						RheEnergise
					

High-Density Hydro™ is, in our opinion, the holy grail of energy storage. RheEnergise has plans to take one of the oldest, most mature forms of energy storage: pumped hydro, and give it a new lease of life, aiming to make it 2.5x better. Developed by a highly experienced multi-disciplined team...




					www.crowdcube.com


----------



## basilio

Outline of RheEnergise technology.


----------



## sptrawler

One to keep our eyes on IMO, if it works there will be a huge market for it.


----------



## sptrawler

Bill Gates take on zero emissions.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02...issions-hardest-thing-humanitys-done/13156306
From the article:
Mr Gates told 7.30 the cost of "going green" globally would be over $5 trillion, unless there is new technology to help.

Like swapping petrol with electricity to power cars, Mr Gates wants to see other emissions-intensive energy sources replaced.

He said that as solar and wind were intermittent and not reliable year-round, nuclear power was a practical option.

"We either need a miracle invention to make batteries that are 20 times cheaper, so you can do that seasonal storage, so when you get a few weeks where [solar and wind] sources aren't there, you still can keep people warm," he said.

"Or, you need 25 per cent of your generation to be available, independent of the weather, and nuclear fission and fusion are really the only things that can work at that scale."


----------



## scarlettsmith694

Global consulting firm EY in a survey came across startling facts regarding the changing consumption pattern in the UK’s energy sector.


----------



## sptrawler

scarlettsmith694 said:


> Global consulting firm EY in a survey came across startling facts regarding the changing consumption pattern in the UK’s energy sector.



Hi Scarlet, do you have a link to the information?


----------



## Smurf1976

Now it's the US' turn:



			U.S. Power Crisis Leaves Millions Cold, Dark as Blackouts Expand
		


China, France, Japan, US.....

There's a pattern here with all experiencing the same basic phenomenon in recent weeks. That of physical electricity shortages combine with natural gas trading at huge prices an order of magnitude higher than normal.

As has been noted previously, there are many places where infrastructure is stretched and which are thus vulnerable to such incidents, including some areas in which ASX-listed companies operate in this sector.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Now it's the US' turn:
> 
> 
> 
> U.S. Power Crisis Leaves Millions Cold, Dark as Blackouts Expand
> 
> 
> 
> China, France, Japan, US.....
> 
> There's a pattern here with all experiencing the same basic phenomenon in recent weeks. That of physical electricity shortages combine with natural gas trading at huge prices an order of magnitude higher than normal.
> 
> As has been noted previously, there are many places where infrastructure is stretched and which are thus vulnerable to such incidents, including some areas in which ASX-listed companies operate in this sector.



It is times like this that people realise how important electricity and gas is, catering for periods like this with renewables, will be extremely challenging for storage capacity.
It is difficult for solar panels when under a foot of snow and there is very little wind to drive iced over wind turbines.








						'Truly unprecedented': Acropolis, Parthenon and Temple of Zeus blanketed by snow as cold snap hits Athens
					

Thick snow covers Greece's capital Athens as a cold spell sweeps through the country, causing blackouts, disrupting travel and halting COVID-19 vaccinations.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It is times like this that people realise how important electricity and gas is, catering for periods like this with renewables, will be extremely challenging for storage capacity.



With present technology it's really down to three options - fossil fuels, large scale hydro or at a stretch economically, nuclear.

I generally avoid the politics but this time I'll say it - the fossil fuel lobbyists will do all they can to stand in the way of big hydro projects for that reason. Expect to see a few fake "environmental" groups spring up and raise objections....


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> With present technology it's really down to three options - fossil fuels, large scale hydro or at a stretch economically, nuclear.
> 
> I generally avoid the politics but this time I'll say it - the fossil fuel lobbyists will do all they can to stand in the way of big hydro projects for that reason. Expect to see a few fake "environmental" groups spring up and raise objections....




I'm surprised that the nuclear lobby hasn't been more active.

You would really expect the Greenies to be in favour. No carbon emissions to speak of, plenty of land to bury the waste, and plenty of the fuel on our land.

The weapons issue can be dismissed by proper inspections from world authorities. 


Sure it's expensive but there is no reason it can't be part of the mix. It should at least be considered instead of being dismissed out of hand.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Sure it's expensive but there is no reason it can't be part of the mix. It should at least be considered instead of being dismissed out of hand.



Ideologically I'm not opposed.

I am however very confident that a combination of wind, solar, batteries and hydro can beat it on cost so long as it's approached efficiently.

If it's deliberately stuffed up however well then that does leave fossils or nuclear as the only option.....

Sites for future nuclear power stations were identified in most states many years ago by the way. They fall into two categories - they're either commuting distance from the capital CBD or they're as far as possible away from it whilst still being practical. In some cases some preliminary work was done with geological assessment and so on but one did get as far as pouring some concrete.

In Victoria's case it's illegal to even propose the idea by the way. That's not just a ban on building it, it's a ban on proposing to do so. That's been around for years, it's nothing new. Doubt anyone would enforce it but technically the law exists unless it has been repealed.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> With present technology it's really down to three options - fossil fuels, large scale hydro or at a stretch economically, nuclear.
> 
> I generally avoid the politics but this time I'll say it - the fossil fuel lobbyists will do all they can to stand in the way of big hydro projects for that reason. Expect to see a few fake "environmental" groups spring up and raise objections....



Imagine the cost, for the amount of hydro you would need to overcome the weather conditions currently being experienced in the U.S and Europe and I didn't mention pumped in hydro because there would be no electricity to pump it up the hill. 😂
Rolling blackouts is the order of the day.

So when you say nuclear is expensive, as you know cost isn't an issue if you need it and if the lights go out so does the cost constraints. 
Pumped hydro and batteries might work in Australia, with favourable weather conditions, a large land mass and a small population, but that isn't the case everywhere.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I'm surprised that the nuclear lobby hasn't been more active.
> 
> You would really expect the Greenies to be in favour. No carbon emissions to speak of, plenty of land to bury the waste, and plenty of the fuel on our land.
> 
> The weapons issue can be dismissed by proper inspections from world authorities.
> 
> 
> Sure it's expensive but there is no reason it can't be part of the mix. It should at least be considered instead of being dismissed out of hand.



Maybe only allow thorium reactors, limit the sale of uranium?


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Maybe only allow thorium reactors, limit the sale of uranium?




As far as I know there are only a few research reactors so far, but it might be worth an investment in an experimental one , preferably in cooperation with other countries to share the cost to see if it can be useful.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Pumped hydro and batteries might work in Australia, with favourable weather conditions, a large land mass and a small population, but that isn't the case everywhere.



Agreed - my comments are Australian-centric given it’s an Australian forum.

Locally in Australia we can shine, blow and dam our way to power most certainly but there are some places overseas where that isn’t an option.

Biggest problem in most places, and that includes parts of Australia especially Victoria, is winter. Worst time for solar and highest overall energy use. It’s not impossible to do it but it needs some serious storage capacity yes.


----------



## Smurf1976

Messing with Texas: The Lone Star state’s power grid is working exactly as designed
					

On President’s Day, many in Texas received an unexpected “gift” that was even less welcome than a day filled with discount mattress ads, as the state was plagued by a series of rolling blackouts. The outages came on a day when the southern U.S. is...




					www.dailykos.com
				




Replace the word "Texas" with "Victoria", "NSW" or "SA" and apart from some minor details about interconnection and that we don't have nuclear in Australia, the rest and the basic thrust of the article is exactly the same. Built to be barely adequate and not even slightly more - hence the companies getting fired up at the idea of government building capacity since doing so then undermines their own economics.


----------



## Smurf1976

For those in WA, the Tasmanians have taken over Rottnest Island. 

Well, taken charge of the power supply on it at least, WA still owns the actual island.

There's a nice graphical display here which shows how it's all working in real time - wind, solar, diesel and the desalination plant. 

https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/rottnest-island


----------



## sptrawler

I would guess the Queensland Government, will be installing some serious batteries soon.








						Coal generators fined after failing to match big batteries and putting grid at risk
					

Owner of two Queensland coal generators fined for failing to deliver grid services as promised, including in one incident when the power supply was put at risk.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the article:
_The Queensland state government owned generation company CS Energy has been heavily fined after units at two of its ageing coal generators failed to deliver crucial grid services at various events the last two and a half years, and very nearly caused widespread blackouts in the sunshine state in one of them.
The Australian Energy Regulator says CS Energy has paid $200,000 in penalties for allegedly failing to ensure it could provide frequency control ancillary services (FCAS) that it had offered to the market. It has also repaid $1.3 million it received as payment to provide the services it failed to deliver.

FCAS helps manage the stability of the power system – responding to sudden variations in supply and demand – and play a crucial role in keeping the lights on for customers.

The FCAS market was once dominated by coal and gas generators, but big battery installations – as well as small batteries aggregated in what are called virtual power plants – have grabbed a major share of the market since they first appeared on the grid in late 2017.

Queensland, however, does not have any big battery installations – although one is being built at Wandoan (100MW/150MWh) and many more are planned. That means that the state is still dependent mostly on coal generators to provide FCAS, but there was been increasing concern about their ability to do so_.


----------



## sptrawler

It sounds as though there are plenty of renewable projects in the pipeline, the transition is certainly gaining a head of steam.








						Australia’s battery and hydrogen storage pipeline jumped by massive 20GW in 2020
					

Number of battery storage and hydrogen electrolyser projects in Australia soared in 2020, rivalling that of solar PV and wind energy as developers bet on a rapid transition to renewables.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the article:
_The number of battery storage and hydrogen electrolyser projects in Australia soared in 2020, with the capacity pipeline now rivalling that of solar PV and wind energy as developers bet on a rapid transition to a renewables-dominated grid.

New data released by the energy consultants Rystad Energy shows that 19.2GW of battery storage and hydrogen electrolysers (which can also offer storage capabilities) were added to the project pipeline in Australia last year.
This number beats utility scale solar, which added 17.5GW of new projects, and came in just behind wind energy (21GW). In total, there is a pipeline of 225GW or renewable and storage projects jockeying for a position on the grid, although it is clear that not all will get over the line.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/FIG-1-project-proposal.jpg
The big increase in both battery storage and electrolyser proposals is significant, particularly as low wholesale prices cast doubt about the future of many coal fired generators, and as most utilities and institutions expect an even more rapid shift to renewables than had previously been predicted.
The battery storage projects will get a fillip with the introduction of 5-minute trading later this year, and the re-write of market rules that will open up yet more revenue opportunities for the range of services they can provide.
However, electrolysers at scale will take longer to roll out, mainly because the technology is new and the costs have not yet fallen to where the economics are easy.

Still, state governments are aiming high, seeing hydrogen as an opportunity to produce two or up to six times wind and solar needed for local grid demand, while Andrew Forrest has extraordinary plans to deliver up to 1,000GW around the world and 50GW in the Pilbara region of W.A., which is off the main grid_.


----------



## sptrawler

Victoria finally starting to move ahead with renewables.








						Under pressure: coal-fired power plants feel the heat from renewables
					

Experts say a surge in new renewable energy projects has shortened the odds of Victoria’s giant coal-fired power plants closing sooner rather than later.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:
Victoria University energy expert Bruce Mountain told _The Age_ that recent events showed brown coal generation was in trouble and the challenge for the state government was to ensure enough alternative power sources were available to replace the enormous capacity of the three Latrobe Valley stations.
“On brown coal closure, the odds are shortening on it happening sooner rather than later,” Professor Mountain said.
“State governments need to get their skates on.
​“It’s not panic stations, but the thrust of government policy must be to bring in alternative sources quickly.”

Victoria’s Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio last week launched the latest phase in the state’s $540 million effort to reboot its electricity grid. The system was originally designed around large-scale coal stations and has struggled to accommodate all the renewables projects waiting to connect.
“When we’re done, Victoria’s renewable energy zones will be home to 16 gigawatts of capacity – the equivalent of putting solar on every roof in Victoria,” Ms D’Ambrosio said.

“As our ageing coal-fired generators reach the end of their service lives, our long-term climate and energy targets provide the market with much-needed certainty to enable a well-planned transition to clean energy.”


----------



## basilio

In WA Liberal and Labour are fighting over who can offer the most advanced  renewable energy policy. The current Labour Government has put some further chips on the table. The   joining of Solar, Hydrogen electrolysers  and battery storage in 1000 locations across the state to boost local manufacturing as well as energy reliability                                                                                                                                                              
Labor promises 1,000 stand-alone solar, battery and hydrogen microgrids​ 
                                            By Sophie Vorrath                                             February 18, 2021                                             Battery/Storage, Other Renewables, Policy, Solar 0 Comments 








	

		
			
		

		
	
Image: Western Power
Western Australia’s Labor Party has announced plans to both build and install 1,000 standalone power systems – or SAPS – including solar, battery storage and hydrogen electrolysers across its grid over the coming five years, as part of a $259 million policy package to boost green manufacturing in the state.

The new policy package, which will also put $10 million towards local wind turbine manufacturing, was announced by the McGowan government on Wednesday, after it scrambled to deal with the Liberal Opposition’s refreshingly ambitious New Energy Jobs plan that includes a zero emissions grid by 2030.









						Labor promises 1,000 stand-alone solar, battery and hydrogen microgrids - One Step Off The Grid
					

Western Australia to build and install 1,000 standalone power systems including solar, battery and hydrogen electrolysers, to replace poles and wires and diesel gen-sets, and boost the state's green manufacturing sector.




					onestepoffthegrid.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

A new HV transmission line from Mt Isa to Townsville 1,100klm and costing $1.4b, that is a serious project.









						Contractors sign on to start work on Copperstring 2.0 transmission lines
					

The proposed $1.5 billion, 1000 km high-voltage transmission project linking Mount Isa to Townsville is the biggest extension of the NEM in decades.




					reneweconomy.com.au


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> A new HV transmission line from Mt Isa to Townsville 1,100klm and costing $1.4b, that is a serious project.



In short there's been a lot of unhappiness among the mining industry there about the price of natural gas and thus electricity produced from it, that being the source of 100% of the area's power at present.


----------



## basilio

One of the key issues with the rapid expansion of rooftop solar has been the effective oversupply of solar power during the day.
So where does this excess energy go ?

In theory home owners could buy their own battery storage (or perhaps store it in their electric car battery ??) However the Victorian government is establishing a model of local community owned battery banks to smooth out excess solar power and help stabilise the system. Looks good !









						Victoria to fund "neighbourhood-scale" battery projects up to 5MW - One Step Off The Grid
					

Victorian government to fund series of “neighbourhood-scale” battery demonstration and pilot programs, to unlock the role shared storage can play on modern grid.




					onestepoffthegrid.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

It looks as though the situation we have been preempting since early in this thread is coming to fruition.
The choices will have to be made, whether people want clean power, expensive power or reliable power IMO.








						Coal-fired power plants in peril as prices plunge
					

Most of Australia’s coal-fired plants are running at a loss as energy prices crash, sparking warnings about early closures.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:

Most of Australia’s coal-fired power plants are running at a loss as electricity prices continue to slide, battering the profits of energy giants AGL and Origin and sparking warnings from within the industry of earlier-than-expected plant closures.

An influx of renewable energy has been driving down daytime electricity prices and piling enormous pressure on the nation’s fleet of coal-fired power stations, which are far more expensive to operate and, increasingly, struggling to compete.

New figures reveal baseload electricity prices in Victoria have crashed 70 per cent from about $80 a megawatt-hour in March 2020 to $24 this month. In New South Wales, prices have more than halved to $38.
“The price falls would place most baseload thermal generation into negative profitability,” JPMorgan analyst Mark Busuttil said. “An announcement of capacity closures could come any day.”

Industry sources, not authorised to speak publicly about internal discussions, confirmed meetings were held last week about the severity of the situation and there was now a “consensus” that at least one coal plant was likely to close its doors in response to unsustainable prices and spiralling losses.
“I think the first one is the inflexible baseload plant would be at risk, but that’s probably as far as I’d go to speculate which plant comes out,” Origin Energy chief Frank Calabria said in February. “I just think it’s actually going to be a pretty messy period of time.”

“This lower-price environment will put pressure on existing generation in the market, while new generation build will increasingly rely on government contracts.”
Mr Busuttil said an earlier-than-scheduled coal plant exit would curtail supply and help elevate prices for those that remain. But he said all plant owners were at risk of bringing forward closure dates.

“They are all jockeying for position, saying we are in a better position than the plant next door and we are going to wait for the worst plant to close first,” Mr Busuttil said. “It’s like a game of chicken at the moment.”

While large energy providers are obliged to provide three years’ notice before closing a power plant, Mr Busuttil said governments could not force asset owners to operate at a loss. “We are a little bit in uncharted waters,” he said.

Origin’s black coal-fired power station in Eraring, NSW, is considered one of the most flexible in the market and can operate at a minimum output of 30 per cent. Mr Calabria said Origin expected to reduce Eraring’s future output. “We have to do enough to keep capacity available when it’s needed and manage within the flexible window of that asset,” he said.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It looks as though the situation we have been preempting since early in this thread is coming to fruition.
> The choices will have to be made, whether people want clean power, expensive power or reliable power IMO.



Suppose that you open a restaurant. The rules will be as follows:

1. All customers who turn up must be allowed in and provided with a seat at a table without delay.

2. You may take bookings but cannot insist upon them. You can never turn away a customer who simply walks in, and must promptly seat them at a table.

3. You cannot charge for use of the table or seat, only for food and drink supplied by you.

4. All food orders must be fulfilled without alteration and in a timely manner.

5. BYO drinks are permitted.

6. BYO food is also permitted.

7. If a customer turns up with more food or drink than they require, you are required to purchase the rest at a price higher than your wholesale supply cost, and regardless of whether or not you need that product.

Anyone willing to have a go at running this restaurant?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Industry sources, not authorised to speak publicly about internal discussions, confirmed meetings were held last week about the severity of the situation and there was now a “consensus” that at least one coal plant was likely to close its doors in response to unsustainable prices and spiralling losses.



For those not familiar with the technical aspects I'll add that a closure doesn't have to be absolute.

Most thermal (fuel burning) power stations are comprised of multiple complete sets of generating equipment (in industry terminology simply "units") which operate independently of each other.

It's not out of the question to close some units at a power station and not others, thus retaining it as a working site just with a lesser workforce and other costs.

Also it's not impossible to mothball plant rather than outright closing, thus retaining the option to resume operations if required.

Another variant on that is seasonal operation. In practice that means simply shutting down at the end of the highest demand period and simply not intending to run again until some later time.

Another variant is to take a 4 unit station (most large thermal power stations are 2 or 4 units in practice although other numbers do exist) and deliberately run it as a "firm" 2 units. That is, keep them all able to operate but only run two at a time - if one breaks down or needs to be taken off for maintenance then put another one on. That effectively means you've got a 2 unit station but it's 100% reliable - which then means you don't need to financially take risk or hedge against failure when you've got your own backup sitting there.

So there's quite a few options available apart from the obvious one of outright total closure.

Some past examples:

Hazelwood (Vic, closed 2017) comprised 8 separate generating units. During the 1990's one was left unrepaired following a major failure, two others were mothballed and another was used only as backup to the 4 that were being run. So a combination of deferring maintenance, mothballing and deliberately running only 4 of the available 5 units. When demand and prices picked up, all were progressively put back into full operation. Capacity was 200 MW per unit, coal-fired steam.

Newport D (Vic, still operational) is a single unit station with gas-fired boiler. It was mothballed completely for a couple of years ~ 20 years ago. Capacity is 500 MW, gas-fired steam (oil-fired backup).

Munmorah (NSW, closed) originally comprised 4 units. Two were shut circa 1990, the other two were run until mothballing in 2010 and final closure in 2012. Units were 350 MW each, coal-fired steam.

Bell Bay (Tas, closed 2009) had both units mothballed in 1991, returned both to operational status in 1998 without any real operation apart from a test run, then operated intermittently from 1999 through to closure of unit 1 in 2008 and unit 2 in 2009. Units were 120 MW each, gas-fired steam plant (oil-fired prior to conversion 2002 and 2003).

At present, Torrens Island A (SA, owned by AGL) has units 2 & 4 mothballed and units 1 & 3 still in operation, with plans to mothball unit 1 later this year and to mothball unit 3 and thus the entire station in 2022. That's mothballing not outright closure though, a return to operation at a future time would need staff and a thorough inspection of the plant but as with Bell Bay it could be done.

Also at present AETV (a subsidiary of Hydro Tasmania) has mothballed the Tamar Valley CCGT plant, last operation being May 2019, but continues to operate other gas-fired generation at the same site. Mothballed plant is a 208 MW CCGT (gas-fired only). Operating plant is 1 x 58 MW and 3 x 40 MW open cycle (gas / diesel fired) although in practice they're really only used as backup anyway.

Swanbank E (Qld, still operational) was mothballed in 2014 and resumed operation late 2017. Capacity 385 MW (gas-fired CCGT) although for the record the current owners have recently written it's value down to zero.

So quite a few precedents there for temporary or partial closures.

In all of that, I'll draw particular attention to the idea of mothballing or closing part of a facility but keeping part of it open or alternatively shifting to intermittent operation. Those ideas are certainly around at the moment.

Another one to mention is that the commissioning of 4 large synchronous condensers in SA soon will reduce the amount of gas-fired generation required on at a minimum. Economically that becomes simply supply and demand with a reduction in "forced" supply. Eg right now that is the case, there's 255 MW of gas running in SA at a market price that wouldn't cover even a third of the gas cost to run it. Technically essential at present but financially a dead loss.

Also I'll mention that there's the already announced Liddell closure (NSW, AGL, 2022 and 2023), the mothballing of the remaining two units at Torrens Island A (SA, AGL, 2021 and 22) and the closure of Osborne (SA, Origin, end of 2023). They could plausibly be brought forward as a relatively easy option.

On the other side of all that, there's the very real problem that NSW and Vic simply don't have adequate peak generating capacity without the coal plants. All good when it's windy or sunny, but when it isn't? There's simply no way that existing non-coal facilities could cope, not even close.

Something new could be built sure, hydro, gas or batteries, but right now that something hasn't actually been built and does not exist. That reality creates quite a problem for government if a coal plant owner does pull the pin since blackouts don't help a government get re-elected.

Solar owners in SA could be in for a shock too since on a rolling 12 month basis the average spot market value of their output has now dropped below $10 / MWh (one cent per kilowatt hour). That could get "interesting" to say the least.....

Ultimately though the electricity industry isn't going out of business, just through a massive shakeup in how business is done.

SA with 61% from wind and solar over the past 12 months is, so far as I'm aware, the actual world leader so far as any major power system in a developed country being run from wind and solar is concerned. I'll stand corrected if that's not the case, but it's definitely what many do understand to be true.

61% from wind and solar but just one point - more than 90% of all electricity consumed is still purchased from an electricity company. The vast majority of wind and solar production is ultimately put into the grid and sold to someone via the likes of Alinta, AGL, Energy Australia, Engie, Origin and so on.

Individual companies might fail and in due course the coal power stations will close one by one but the electricity industry as a whole isn't going away, indeed with the likely transition to electric transport the future is ultimately one of growth not shrinkage.


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> For those not familiar with the technical aspects I'll add that a closure doesn't have to be absolute.
> 
> Most thermal (fuel burning) power stations are comprised of multiple complete sets of generating equipment (in industry terminology simply "units") which operate independently of each other.
> 
> It's not out of the question to close some units at a power station and not others, thus retaining it as a working site just with a lesser workforce and other costs.
> 
> Also it's not impossible to mothball plant rather than outright closing, thus retaining the option to resume operations if required.
> 
> Another variant on that is seasonal operation. In practice that means simply shutting down at the end of the highest demand period and simply not intending to run again until some later time.
> 
> Another variant is to take a 4 unit station (most large thermal power stations are 2 or 4 units in practice although other numbers do exist) and deliberately run it as a "firm" 2 units. That is, keep them all able to operate but only run two at a time - if one breaks down or needs to be taken off for maintenance then put another one on. That effectively means you've got a 2 unit station but it's 100% reliable - which then means you don't need to financially take risk or hedge against failure when you've got your own backup sitting there.
> 
> So there's quite a few options available apart from the obvious one of outright total closure.
> 
> Some past examples:
> 
> Hazelwood (Vic, closed 2017) comprised 8 separate generating units. During the 1990's one was left unrepaired following a major failure, two others were mothballed and another was used only as backup to the 4 that were being run. So a combination of deferring maintenance, mothballing and deliberately running only 4 of the available 5 units. When demand and prices picked up, all were progressively put back into full operation. Capacity was 200 MW per unit, coal-fired steam.
> 
> Newport D (Vic, still operational) is a single unit station with gas-fired boiler. It was mothballed completely for a couple of years ~ 20 years ago. Capacity is 500 MW, gas-fired steam (oil-fired backup).
> 
> Munmorah (NSW, closed) originally comprised 4 units. Two were shut circa 1990, the other two were run until mothballing in 2010 and final closure in 2012. Units were 350 MW each, coal-fired steam.
> 
> Bell Bay (Tas, closed 2009) had both units mothballed in 1991, returned both to operational status in 1998 without any real operation apart from a test run, then operated intermittently from 1999 through to closure of unit 1 in 2008 and unit 2 in 2009. Units were 120 MW each, gas-fired steam plant (oil-fired prior to conversion 2002 and 2003).
> 
> At present, Torrens Island A (SA, owned by AGL) has units 2 & 4 mothballed and units 1 & 3 still in operation, with plans to mothball unit 1 later this year and to mothball unit 3 and thus the entire station in 2022. That's mothballing not outright closure though, a return to operation at a future time would need staff and a thorough inspection of the plant but as with Bell Bay it could be done.
> 
> Also at present AETV (a subsidiary of Hydro Tasmania) has mothballed the Tamar Valley CCGT plant, last operation being May 2019, but continues to operate other gas-fired generation at the same site. Mothballed plant is a 208 MW CCGT (gas-fired only). Operating plant is 1 x 58 MW and 3 x 40 MW open cycle (gas / diesel fired) although in practice they're really only used as backup anyway.
> 
> Swanbank E (Qld, still operational) was mothballed in 2014 and resumed operation late 2017. Capacity 385 MW (gas-fired CCGT) although for the record the current owners have recently written it's value down to zero.
> 
> So quite a few precedents there for temporary or partial closures.
> 
> In all of that, I'll draw particular attention to the idea of mothballing or closing part of a facility but keeping part of it open or alternatively shifting to intermittent operation. Those ideas are certainly around at the moment.
> 
> Another one to mention is that the commissioning of 4 large synchronous condensers in SA soon will reduce the amount of gas-fired generation required on at a minimum. Economically that becomes simply supply and demand with a reduction in "forced" supply. Eg right now that is the case, there's 255 MW of gas running in SA at a market price that wouldn't cover even a third of the gas cost to run it. Technically essential at present but financially a dead loss.
> 
> Also I'll mention that there's the already announced Liddell closure (NSW, AGL, 2022 and 2023), the mothballing of the remaining two units at Torrens Island A (SA, AGL, 2021 and 22) and the closure of Osborne (SA, Origin, end of 2023). They could plausibly be brought forward as a relatively easy option.
> 
> On the other side of all that, there's the very real problem that NSW and Vic simply don't have adequate peak generating capacity without the coal plants. All good when it's windy or sunny, but when it isn't? There's simply no way that existing non-coal facilities could cope, not even close.
> 
> Something new could be built sure, hydro, gas or batteries, but right now that something hasn't actually been built and does not exist. That reality creates quite a problem for government if a coal plant owner does pull the pin since blackouts don't help a government get re-elected.
> 
> Solar owners in SA could be in for a shock too since on a rolling 12 month basis the average spot market value of their output has now dropped below $10 / MWh (one cent per kilowatt hour). That could get "interesting" to say the least.....
> 
> Ultimately though the electricity industry isn't going out of business, just through a massive shakeup in how business is done.
> 
> SA with 61% from wind and solar over the past 12 months is, so far as I'm aware, the actual world leader so far as any major power system in a developed country being run from wind and solar is concerned. I'll stand corrected if that's not the case, but it's definitely what many do understand to be true.
> 
> 61% from wind and solar but just one point - more than 90% of all electricity consumed is still purchased from an electricity company. The vast majority of wind and solar production is ultimately put into the grid and sold to someone via the likes of Alinta, AGL, Energy Australia, Engie, Origin and so on.
> 
> Individual companies might fail and in due course the coal power stations will close one by one but the electricity industry as a whole isn't going away, indeed with the likely transition to electric transport the future is ultimately one of growth not shrinkage.




Excellent summary Smurf. Seems flexible and creative.

But back to the economic world of businesses that own these plants. Will these owners consider a partial shutdown of some plant units? Does the business model  give enough profit to have it happen ?
Could a government offer some incentive to ensure flexibility and power certainty as a back up but push renewable energy  sources  as the overriding priority ?


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> Could a government offer some incentive to ensure flexibility and power certainty as a back up but push renewable energy sources as the overriding priority ?




IIMHO governments should build and own peaking power plants like CCGT stations to run at times when they are required. 

They can start up fast, use a variety of fuels and be relatively cheap to run.

The reason governments should own them is that private enterprise would be reluctant to build them as they would only be used intermittently
and would therefore want to ramp the prices up.

I suspect that they would be a lot cheaper to construct than large scale hydro, but they could obviously pump the water uphill of a hydro plant when required.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> IIMHO governments should build and own peaking power plants like CCGT stations to run at times when they are required.
> 
> They can start up fast, use a variety of fuels and be relatively cheap to run.
> 
> The reason governments should own them is that private enterprise would be reluctant to build them as they would only be used intermittently
> and would therefore want to ramp the prices up.
> 
> I suspect that they would be a lot cheaper to construct than large scale hydro, but they could obviously pump the water uphill of a hydro plant when required.



My guess is that will be the likely outcome, the chances of having no at call fuel backup, is very close to nill IMO.
But as you say there will be very little money to be made, while it is sitting around offline, so as you say it makes sense to be government owned.
We are getting to the pointy bit, where there isn't enough renewable and storage to run the grid 24/7 and there isn't enough money in running fossil fueled plant.
So as we have said over and over again, it will be self resolving, either the private sector generators will ramp up their transition to renewables, or they will lose market share.
My guess is they have been sitting back waiting for a government handout like the NBN, to pay them to change over to renewables, accelerated depreciation, government incentives, co contributions etc.
When in reality they have been in the business for years, they have been making money for years, they should change their plant not the taxpayer IMO.
The time is fast approaching when the staring game is over, I don't think the government is going to blink first and the main generators are running out of time.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> They can start up fast, use a variety of fuels and be relatively cheap to run.



There's a compromise to be made there.

In order best to worst:

Fuel efficiency: Combined cycle / internal combustion / open cycle.

Startup time: internal combustion / open cycle / combined cycle.

Cost to maintain: open cycle / internal combustion / combined cycle.

Cost to build: open cycle / internal combustion / combined cycle

Operational range (ability to operate at reduced output): Internal combustion / open cycle / combined cycle.

Combined cycle wins on fuel cost and emissions but doesn't win on anything else. Hence the industry's lack of interest in it - of the 4 combined cycle plants in south-eastern Australia (NSW, Vic, Tas, SA) one is mothballed, one is rarely operated with closure officially announced, one has run at 20% of capacity over the past 12 months and the other has run close to 50% although that's very likely to drop sharply in the near future.

Technically they're great, financially they've turned out to be dead ducks in Australia.

That's to the point that wo smaller CCGT's, one each in Qld and NSW, have been converted back to open cycle operation. That is, simply remove the steam turbine and keep the rest. Meanwhile the owners of another one in Qld just revalued the facility to $0.

I'm not saying government should or shouldn't go down that track, just pointing out that less technically efficient approaches stack up better financially (but not environmentally....).


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> There's a compromise to be made there.
> 
> In order best to worst:
> 
> Fuel efficiency: Combined cycle / internal combustion / open cycle.
> 
> Startup time: internal combustion / open cycle / combined cycle.
> 
> Cost to maintain: open cycle / internal combustion / combined cycle.
> 
> Cost to build: open cycle / internal combustion / combined cycle
> 
> Operational range (ability to operate at reduced output): Internal combustion / open cycle / combined cycle.
> 
> Combined cycle wins on fuel cost and emissions but doesn't win on anything else. Hence the industry's lack of interest in it - of the 4 combined cycle plants in south-eastern Australia (NSW, Vic, Tas, SA) one is mothballed, one is rarely operated with closure officially announced, one has run at 20% of capacity over the past 12 months and the other has run close to 50% although that's very likely to drop sharply in the near future.
> 
> Technically they're great, financially they've turned out to be dead ducks in Australia.
> 
> That's to the point that wo smaller CCGT's, one each in Qld and NSW, have been converted back to open cycle operation. That is, simply remove the steam turbine and keep the rest. Meanwhile the owners of another one in Qld just revalued the facility to $0.
> 
> I'm not saying government should or shouldn't go down that track, just pointing out that less technically efficient approaches stack up better financially (but not environmentally....).




Thanks for pointing that out.

Were the units you were referring to designed for full time operation or peaking ?

Would it be the case that if we had gas turbines for peaking output then open cycle would be the way to go because of less complexity and maintenance cost ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Were the units you were referring to designed for full time operation or peaking ?



Their history varies but in short they were all intended to be run 60%+ of the time. So at least ~7am to 10pm daily and for most of them 24 hours a day in practice.

High gas prices eroded the economics of that on the cost side then wind and solar eroded it on the demand side. End result is drastically lower operation in practice.

For the more "interesting" backgrounds:

Anything in Queensland was at least in part underpinned by the state government having at one point mandated that 13% of all electricity must be generated from gas. Not coal, not renewables, must be gas and nothing else. 

As a concept that left rather a few thinking that government really had lost the plot but it was what it was, it existed, and drove the construction of gas-fired plant.

Then there's the saga of Tamar Valley power station in Tasmania. Long story short Alinta started building it to compete against Hydro Tas. Somewhere along the lines they must have done their sums and offloaded the partly built station to an investment bank. That bank then ran into financial trouble during the GFC and, fearful of the ACCC getting excited about monopolies, it was decided that Aurora Energy, at that point an electricity retailer and distribution network operator only, would take it on. Four years later Aurora was close to broke and long story short Hydro Tas ended up as the owner which it still is today. 

The common element to all the CCGT's though is they were built in an era of cheap gas and were either built by those who didn't look too far ahead, or were profitable based on their initial gas contract so nobody cared too much what came after that and if the plant ended up worthless then so be it, it was profitable even if it only ran for the initial contract period.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Would it be the case that if we had gas turbines for peaking output then open cycle would be the way to go because of less complexity and maintenance cost ?



In short, from a financial perspective yes but not so good environmentally.

Take a 100 MW (nice round numbers for simplicity) open cycle unit and add a steam turbine. Now you get 150 MW for the same fuel consumption, that's the benefit of combined cycle basically. 50% more power for no extra fuel is a huge winner if it's going to run steadily.

On the downside, well an open cycle plant can run completely unmanned, they can be started and run with nobody there, and as such the cost of having plant just sitting there ready to go isn't much at all.

In contrast a combined cycle plant won't be run without humans to be present to run it and it takes far longer to get online so higher costs there. A third less fuel per unit of output though.

If it's only for backup then from a financial perspective open cycle wins. Any reason to go for combined cycle would be based on lower emissions etc - something that government might see as worthwhile but a private owner driven by financial considerations won't.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Thanks for pointing that out.
> 
> Were the units you were referring to designed for full time operation or peaking ?
> 
> Would it be the case that if we had gas turbines for peaking output then open cycle would be the way to go because of less complexity and maintenance cost ?



Smurf has as usual explained everything beautifully.
I will add just as real life context, Kwinana power station in W.A installed a large combined cycle and as smurf says there are a lot of additional costs due to the steam set, which entails employing people to ensure the steam set isn't damaged(to save argument).
Later a further two large open cycle high efficiency gas turbines were installed, these are completely unmanned and operated by power system control.
The difference in efficiency of the combined cycle, with its inherent complexity and manning, is about 10%.
So in reality the combine cycle is only worthwhile as a base load unit IMO, as peaking and standby units the HEGT's are the goto units, their flexibility far outweighs any efficiency gains that combined cycle units offer.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> But back to the economic world of businesses that own these plants. Will these owners consider a partial shutdown of some plant units? Does the business model give enough profit to have it happen ?




Energy Australia have today publicly announced the closure of Yallourn power station in 2028.









						Victoria’s Yallourn coal power plant to close early as clean shift slashes prices
					

Victorian coal-fired power station Yallourn will close four years earlier than scheduled, casting doubt over the future of hundreds of workers.




					www.smh.com.au
				




Energy Australia has committed to installing a 350 MW / 1400 MWh battery, likely to be located at Jeeralang power station (not far away from Yallourn).

Timing also allows prior completion of Marinus Link 1 with a capacity of 750 MW between Tasmania and Victoria and construction of the Cethana pumped storage scheme or an alternative (of which many have been identified) in Tas.

As background, the closure will mark the end of 104 years of continuous coal mining and power generation at Yallourn, a town (now itself consumed by the mine), built for that specific purpose.

A station opened in 1924 with 4 x 12.5 MW generators, two more added in 1928, and operated through to 1968.

B station opened in 1932 with 2 x 25 MW, the third added in 1935 and the fourth in 1938. Officially closed in 1969 but the turbines and alternators remained in place through to the 1980's and had the occasional run.

C station 2 x 50 MW opened 1954 and 55 with a small 6 MW back pressure turbine added 1956. Closed 1984.

D station 2 x 50 MW and essentially a copy of C station opened 1957 - 58. Closed 1986. C & D were both built with 6 boilers, only 5 of which were required for full output, in order to achieve higher reliability (since it's the boilers that cause most outages).

E station 2 x 120 MW was the first unitised plant in Victoria, that is one boiler per turbine, opened 1961 and 62 with closure in practice in 1988 and officially in 89.

W station, the only plant presently operating, comprises 2 x 350 MW opened 1973 and 1975 and 2 x 375 MW both opened in 1981.

Now queue the politics:

My guess is the Liberals are running around in a panic right about now meanwhile a certain environment group, which is not itself a political party, will be busily pumping out press releases claiming credit for a decision they had nothing to do with.

I took a shot at both sides there yes and for good reason - both extremes of the debate are filled with nonsense but ultimately it's commercial reality combined with the technical condition of the plant and the timing of alternatives that has driven EA's announcement. Not that the announcement was a particular surprise.....


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I took a shot at both sides there yes and for good reason - both extremes of the debate are filled with nonsense but ultimately it's commercial reality combined with the technical condition of the plant and the timing of alternatives that has driven EA's announcement. Not that the announcement was a particular surprise.....




If the plant was properly maintained would it have lasted another 4 years ?

Are commercial operators just letting these things run down and then crying poor that they can't maintain them ?


----------



## sptrawler

As you say @Smurf1976, the government is monitoring progress, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't build a gas plant.









						Surprise coal plant closure fires Morrison government warning to industry
					

The Morrison government is demanding the energy industry invest in more power supply to replace the Yallourn coal fired power plant, which will be closing early.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
Yallourn supplies up to 22 per cent of Victoria’s electricity demand and employs about 500 workers. EnergyAustralia plans to build a four-hour battery by 2026, which would help to compensate for the loss of coal fired output.

Mr Taylor warned energy companies that the federal government will monitor their behaviour to prevent a shortfall in supply leading to consumer power price rises, adding that his thoughts were with the workers due to the early closure.

Mr Taylor told Sky News he found out about Yallourn’s closure today and the Morrison government “won’t stand idly by” and watch power price rises.

He said the government would review the situation before it emulated its action in NSW - where it pledged to build a gas power plant to replace the dispatchable power lost in the 2023 closure of the Liddell coal plant.

″While coal exits impact reliability and system security, the major impact for consumers will be the significant increase in prices if not adequately replaced with dispatchable capacity,” Mr Taylor said.
Alex Wonhas, the chief system designer at the Commonwealth’s Australian Energy Market Operator, said state and federal governments needed to co-operate on the major reforms called for by the Energy Security Board, an advisory body set up when the NEG fell over.

“As the energy transition continues to gain pace, it is increasingly important that the Energy Security Board market reforms are progressed to ensure the exit of thermal plants is coordinated with the timely entry into the market of new dispatchable capacity to keep consumer prices low and energy reliable,” Mr Wonhas said.

Energy Security Board chair Kerry Schott said the current rate of renewable growth exceeds government projections and would take its current share of the energy mix from 37 per cent to 63 per cent by 2030 and 94 per cent by 2040.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> If the plant was properly maintained would it have lasted another 4 years ?



Ultimately it's all down to materials and money. Replace enough worn out components and it could run a very long time.

In practice though it comes down to economics. Much like a car, a point comes where what you've got is something where just about everything's worn out and the design's obsolete and so on. Unless it's for reasons of historical preservation etc, it ends up being more sensible to just scrap it and get something new that's of a modern design and so on.

In the case of Yallourn, well they do 4 yearly major overhauls hence moving the closure forward by 4 years and not moving it by, say, 3 or 5 years. Someone's crunched the numbers and concluded that the cost of running in the 2028 - 32 period, versus the likely revenue, doesn't stack up.

An issue there is the industry structure and that in the context of Victoria (and all NEM states except Tasmania) nobody's actually obligated to ensure adequate supply. That is, just because Energy Australia operates Yallourn doesn't mean they're under any obligation to continue to do so indefinitely or to replace it. As with any business, they're able to simply exit the market altogether if they so choose.

AEMO can and will dispatch the supply that's available and match that to demand, and they'll firmly tap operators on the shoulder if plant's not being run but could be run and it's needed, but ultimately they don't own power stations themselves. 

It would be fair to say that those on the engineering side don't like that situation at all, they see it as too risky, versus those on the political and financial side who'll say "that's the market". There are pros and cons to both lines of thought - broadly speaking engineers will be overly cautious which leads to over-investment versus the market will take ever more risk until there's a crisis. Both are imperfect in different ways. 

Where I do see a real problem is with the politics and explaining all this to the public. Even without the politics it's a hard message to get across that we've got two opposing problems, that being an over-supply and a shortage. To the average person, they don't grasp how that's even possible. Following chart illustrates the situation:







Green is wind generation, yellow is solar. Red line at the bottom is price - note that it went negative on the 6th and 9th of March so that's a price below zero yes.

At the peak shown above, wind and solar are almost 3000 MW so double the maximum output of Yallourn and about 60% of Victoria's average consumption (and about 30% of peak demand). 

At the minimum however wind and solar went all the way down to 73 MW which is too small to be worth counting really. Even worse, that's not the lowest it gets - close to zero isn't unknown.

So within a matter of hours it can and does go from abundance to the opposite and that's without even considering that demand itself is variable.

Solution there is storage. Take power out of the grid when there's too much, stick it back in when the opposite situation exists. So long as everything's correctly sized that'll work. 

Problem is, nobody's obligated to build what's needed - back to that debate about engineers versus those on the business or political side.

Needless to say, all this wasn't a problem when Yallourn was designed. No such thing as wind and solar power back then, so it just running steadily was exactly what it needed to do and it does that extremely well. Perfect for the 1970's, not what's really needed going forward however.

Separate to all that, and somewhat lost in the politics, is the simple reality that Victoria's gas fields are rapidly running out.

That's a resource depletion problem, not an electrical problem per se, noting that the majority of gas in Victoria and NSW is used for purposes not related to electricity. That is, it's used "as gas" in homes and industry with only a limited amount going into power stations. 

That being so, there's a need to sort out the gas supply situation that's somewhat separate to the electrical situation. That is, regardless of what's done about electricity, there's still a need to supply gas for other uses at least in the medium term and the current sources aren't up to the task .

So putting all that together:

*Over-supply of electricity at times of low demand + high wind and solar production leads to negative prices, undermining the economics of wind, solar and old thermal plant unable to easily throttle back production.

*Yallourn is old and tired so there's a reluctance to invest further into it.

*We still need all current capacity to operate at times of high demand + low wind and solar production. That creates a need to replace the capacity being closed with something new that's able to operate flexibly in an economic manner.

*Large batteries and pumped hydro combined tick the boxes. They take in energy when it's abundant, return it to the grid when supply runs short.

*Gas supply across the combined NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas, SA region with current infrastructure can't meet demand beyond autumn 2024 on AEMO and the industry's current best estimates (some revision +/- a few months is possible there due to geological uncertainties and weather influence on the consumption rate).

*Some gas is used for electricity generation but the majority is used "as gas". That being so, no amount of new wind and solar power, or coal or nuclear, is an alternative to address the majority of the gas supply problem. Only options are either new sources of gas or a rapid reduction in consumption by homes and industry.

*The gas situation does of course preclude an expansion of gas-fired electricity in the absence of also expanding gas supply. 

*Long term, electricity demand is stable with the recent trend being slightly upward, a trend that's likely to accelerate with moves toward electric vehicles etc. The means of generation is drastically changing, the trend being away from coal and gas in favour of wind and solar, but it's not going away as such. 






Total for all states excluding WA and NT. Black = coal, orange = gas, blue = hydro, green = wind, yellow = solar. Biomass and oil are also used but too small to see on the chart.

Note that 2005 data does not show the complete year. 2021 is calendar year to date.


----------



## orr

Smurf; luv your work above...
I can only hope that there's a broarder audiance to point to your nudging toward a 'mothball' led Recovery, (is it to late to get in on the ground floor)  ... 
The fundamental   in'_greed_'ients  of mothballs   being serious hydroCarbons; This will be music to the clothears of Pearson and Kunkle both straight out of the Minerals Council and like  suppositories, slipping  their way into Morrison's oriface, oops Office.

Yallourn goes dark in 2028... *2028!!!*
The Forward modeling on east coast electcity comsumption is bread and butter to every Major in the Eletricity market. As are projected prices of renewable electrcity.
The whole game is HV DC Interconnectors/Transmission  and storage, Based aound that forward modeling. Liberal party schizoid embolisims like NSW's energy Minister  Matt Kean are only at the begining of their run, the market is climbing over itself to invest in wind and solar, because the money ain't stupid. 
A gas led recovery is. And we know who's 'Idea' that is....
Let alone the '_Jobs'n'Growth' _being flushed down the dunny along with the future economy....Through lack of, or captured more likely, Federal _Leader$hi_t....


----------



## Smurf1976

orr said:


> the market is climbing over itself to invest in wind and solar, because the money ain't stupid.
> A gas led recovery is. And we know who's 'Idea' that is....



For electricity wind + solar + storage = solution.

I'll caution that we do need to sort out gas supply for use "as gas" though.

Longer term there might be a move away from it but there's basically no chance of that occurring in the time available given there's literally a few million appliances using gas. The sheer logistics of it mean that any change will take quite some time there.

For those interested, here's the AEMO report on the issue:



			https://aemo.com.au/-/media/files/gas/national_planning_and_forecasting/vgpr/2020/2020-vgpr-update.pdf?la=en
		


A good summary is this quote from it:



> committed supply is forecast to reduce by 37% from 2022 to 2024 due to field decline. Without additional gas supply, removal of pipeline constraints, or a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal, gas supply restrictions and curtailment may be necessary from 2024.




AEMO aren't being political there, just stating how it is. SA's gas production peaked years ago and Victoria's now going over the edge of the cliff. Noting that there's presently no production of any significance in NSW or Tas and that the pipeline between Qld and SA can only supply about 20% of winter demand for NSW, ACT, SA, Vic, Tas hence the issue.

Where government has completely failed is to take any leadership with all this.

Or even to properly explain to the general public what it's about.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Where government has completely failed is to take any leadership with all this.
> 
> Or even to properly explain to the general public what it's about.




I really can't get my head around this.

Australia is the biggest exporter of LNG in the world. https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/australia-worlds-largest-gas-exporter/

If we can ship gas to Japan, Korea etc, why can't we ship gas from WA to NSW or Victoria ?

The Federal govt is selling us out by not having a gas reservation policy.

They don't want to annoy big multinationals who provide their finance.

Some call it business, I call it corruption.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I really can't get my head around this.
> 
> Australia is the biggest exporter of LNG in the world. https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/australia-worlds-largest-gas-exporter/
> 
> If we can ship gas to Japan, Korea etc, why can't we ship gas from WA to NSW or Victoria ?
> 
> The Federal govt is selling us out by not having a gas reservation policy.
> 
> They don't want to annoy big multinationals who provide their finance.
> 
> Some call it business, I call it corruption.



Are you sure the Federal Government can have a gas reservation policy over a State resource?
This is where it all becomes a bit of a wank, everyone blames the Feds when it suits their political bent, but as was proven with the virus the Feds have very little control over what is State sovereignty.
When the States want to flex their independence and sovereignty, it is easy to to do as Mark McGowan and Daniel Andrews showed, they just tell the Feds to sod off.
It is just easy to blame the Feds, when in fact a lot of the responsibility sits with the States.
It is about time the States owned up to their responsibilities, rather than allowing them to be randomly allocated to the Feds by the media, ala the bushfires.
We in W.A had some bad bushfires this summer and we didn't give a rats ar$e where the P.M was, but we still managed and no doubt we will next year.
We also have a gas reservation policy, which was started in the 1970's, we didn't need the Feds to wipe our Ar$e funny how we do now?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-17/the-cost-of-securing-wa27s-energy-future/4697136
From the article:
_Legacy contracts_​_What's largely cushioned households and industry from huge increases in their gas bills are the low prices locked in under 'take or pay' contracts signed with the North West Shelf 30 years ago.

Former WA premier Sir Charles Court was the architect of the original North West Shelf Agreement, underwriting the development and cementing the state with a long term supply of gas.

For many years there was an oversupply of gas in WA but the ramping up of the mining sector in the Pilbara soon took care of that.

The contracts, which include a mix of fixed and indexed prices, will begin expiring from 2015 onwards_.

Since that report new gas reservation policies have been put in place by the State governments, especially Labor led by Allan Carpenter.
the Federal Government had nothing to do with the implementation of the reservation policy as far as I understand.
So how is it their responsibility to implement it over East, or is there some different set of royalty and sovereignty rules over there?
Or are we just beating the political drum and tamborine?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Are you sure the Federal Government can have a gas reservation policy over a State resource?



They definitely have the power over export permits.

A state could develop the gas fields but to export any commodity requires a permit from the feds which could be refused.

That doesn't force reserving gas but if it can't be exported beyond a certain volume then it's a backdoor way of doing the same thing. 

Some specific materials the feds do regulate quite actively. Eg uranium - they'll only approve export to specific customers, they won't approve it just to anyone. Depends what country it's going to basically.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> They definitely have the power over export permits.
> 
> A state could develop the gas fields but to export any commodity requires a permit from the feds which could be refused.
> 
> That doesn't force reserving gas but if it can't be exported beyond a certain volume then it's a backdoor way of doing the same thing.
> 
> Some specific materials the feds do regulate quite actively. Eg uranium - they'll only approve export to specific customers, they won't approve it just to anyone. Depends what country it's going to basically.



Yes which is what happened in the W.A browse basin from memory and what a cluster F$%k that has turned out to be, like that helped Australia and a gas reservation policy, the Feds used that power to not back W.A. 🤪








						It’s here! $12b floating gas Goliath arrives in WA
					

It dwarfs Sydney Opera House and has five times the steel of Sydney Harbour Bridge.




					thewest.com.au
				











						Shell’s $12 Billion LNG Experiment Becomes A Big Headache
					

The world’s biggest ship is on the way to becoming one of the oil industry’s biggest bloopers.




					www.forbes.com
				











						'It just hasn't worked': Just 3 years old, the world's largest floating factory remains offline
					

Shell's massive floating LNG factory off the Kimberley coast has been in shutdown since February and analysts are divided on whether the multi-billion-dollar facility has a future.




					www.abc.net.au
				




Yep we need the Feds to get involved, I don't think so.
And how does the Feds floating fluck up help a gas reservation policy, when the W.A government wanted to process it onshore, but were shouted down?
If they had processed it onshore, as the State wanted, we would have move development potential in the North.

O.k lets say the Feds said right we are going to demand all State gas reserves, have to contain a 15% reserve component, or we wont allow it to be developed.
Magic, how are they going to allocate whatever returns they gain from that e.g the gas is in Queensland, but NSW and Vic need it, another mess on the horizon I think?


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Some specific materials the feds do regulate quite actively. Eg uranium - they'll only approve export to specific customers, they won't approve it just to anyone. Depends what country it's going to basically.



Nice one to pluck out uranium, I'm not bas.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Yep we need the Feds to get involved, I don't think so.



I don't advocate that the Feds get involved, I'm only pointing out that they do have the power in practice.  

Point being they can't say it's all the states' fault. They had the power to stop it in practice if they wanted to. In practice they did nothing to stop it, indeed they actively cheered it on. I still remember the announcement.

The Feds will have that 15% of WA's gas loaded onto a ship if they can get away with it. A ship bound for somewhere overseas that is.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I don't advocate that the Feds get involved, I'm only pointing out that they do have the power in practice.




Well I'm saying they should get involved.

Look after the whole country not just one State.

That's their job that we elected them to do.


----------



## orr

Smurf1976 said:


> I'll caution that we do need to sort out gas supply for use "as gas" though.




I'm pretty sure I can go back and find figures from circa 2018 on the projected capacity of the Port Kembla Gas Terminal to supply 70% of NSW gas requirements.
$300 odd million investment in an already highly industrilized precinct. Push come to shove how long would it take to get gas to flow.
Serious planning for that project was obviously well  advanced before messers Kunkle & Pearson (emphsis on the 'mess') were banging their tambourine for the Minerals Council in the Gas/Covid $SS$lush fest. *Of which it's important to add no public scrutany is allowed.* For those looking for a crock of crimanallity look no futher. Of course some saddly never will.
Currently MOU's for PKGT off take's are also well advanced.

It's hard not to imagine a near term future where Angus Taylor has gas being pumped out on one side of the wharf in Gladston and pumped in on the other. A perfectly in sync with his circular logic.
Australia is now the Largest Gas exporter on the planet. And the Federal Government recieves in royalties how much???


My only wish is that the Gas imported to PKGT was coming from East Timor, so I could pay a premium to make a small dent in the bad faith Australian governments  have shown to that new neighbouring Nation.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Well I'm saying they should get involved.
> 
> Look after the whole country not just one State.
> 
> That's their job that we elected them to do.



The States are going to have to get involved in their predicament, every state has committed to zero emissions by 2050, they have to stand up to the plate and decide how they are going to do it, it isn't a flucking game which it seems they all think it is.
The Feds are funding Snowy 2.0, they are working with Tassie to install the second interconnect, it is about time the state Governments stopped trying to be film stars and started taking the issue seriously especially Uncle Dan IMO.
NSW, Qld, W.A and especially S.A are well on the way, Vic well they are different as usual, lot of posturing lot of waffle not much action.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The States are going to have to get involved in their predicament, every state has committed to zero emissions by 2050, they have to stand up to the plate and decide how they are going to do it, it isn't a flucking game which it seems they all think it is.
> The Feds are funding Snowy 2.0, they are working with Tassie to install the second interconnect, it is about time the state Governments stopped trying to be film stars and started taking the issue seriously especially Uncle Dan IMO.
> NSW, Qld, W.A and especially S.A are well on the way, Vic well they are different as usual, lot of posturing lot of waffle not much action.




Uncle Dan is too busy holding a 3 year investigation on "Colonisation".


----------



## Smurf1976

Major near-miss incident in SA on Friday.

A brief summary of the incident to enable anyone reading to counter the inevitable fake news on the subject which will no doubt emerge. Intentionally sticking to layman's terms here:

What happened?

Underlying cause is a fire broke out in the switchyard outside Torrens Island B power station late yesterday afternoon. Torrens Island, both the physical island and the power stations of that name, are located about 15km from the Adelaide CBD.

At the time of the incident Torrens Island B station units 2, 3 and 4 (capacity 200 MW each) were online but not operating at full capacity. Unit 1 was not in operation at the time.

Physically next to Torrens Island B station is Barker Inlet power station. This comprises 12 x 17.5 MW internal combustion engine driven generators. This was in operation at the time with 11 of the 12 generators available, the other being out of service for maintenance, and with the available units not being run to full capacity.

Also of relevance, one of the two AC transmission lines between SA and Victoria presently out of service for planned works with the other AC line plus the DC link remaining operational. That means power can still flow between the two states, but the capacity is reduced.

Immediately before the incident:

SA load (consumption) = 1879 MW. That's a bit above the long term average of 1500 MW but nowhere near the peak of 3400 MW. It's an unremarkable, routine level to reach and would ordinarily cause no concern.

Supply sources were:

Renewables:
Estimated output of all small solar systems (households etc) in SA = 349 MW
Large scale solar = 189 MW
All wind farms combined = 351 MW

Plant affected by the fire:
Torrens Island B power station = 355 MW
Barker Inlet power station = 89 MW

Others:
Pelican Point power station = 204 MW
Quarantine power station = 37 MW
Hallett power station = 32 MW
From Victoria = 275 MW

All plant not mentioned above, including large batteries, was not generating or charging at the time.

At 17:38 SA local time fire occurred at the Torrens Island B switchyard and caused an electrical trip of all generation at the (physically right next door) Barker Inlet power station.

Torrens Island B station remained in operation at this time, and ultimately remained in operation throughout the entire incident, but for obvious reasons there was major concern that it may be put out of action at any time.

A further issue, one that was entirely as expected by nonetheless not helpful in regard to timing, is that solar output rapidly declines at that time of day and on this particular day wind farm output was also falling. Wind output reaching a low of just under 15 MW at 9pm. Solar output was, of course, zero by this time.

Response was to put into operation everything that was available. That is, maximise the output of other power stations already in operation and bring online an assortment of gas turbines, some of which are modern plus a few "old clunkers", plus diesel engines and also the "big battery" was heavily utilised.

That response did not result in Torrens Island B station being completely shut down, indeed that was not the aim unless that became unavoidable, but by 9:40pm supply available from other sources had increased to the point that the system was officially back in a secure state. Any forced shutdown (or outright failure) of Torrens Island B after that would not have put the lights out. Achieving that situation was the goal and reason for bringing other available plant into use.

Shortly after midnight the fire was out and it had been determined that there was no reason, in terms of danger or damage, to not return the three units online at Torrens Island B to normal unrestricted operation.  Barker Inlet has not operated since the incident however.

Now before anyone throws any renewables versus coal sort of stones, the basics there are that the fault occurred in the electrical switchyard immediately outside the power station not in the power station itself. The fault and fire does not relate to the method of generating power but is an electrical failure which could occur at any site involving a 275kV (275,000 Volts) switchyard. The method of generating the power is completely irrelevant to that point.

Now bring on the politicians with their fake news.....


----------



## SirRumpole

Interesting article.

I'll leave comment on it to the experts in this area.









						Why coal can't keep up with Australia's electricity jigsaw puzzle
					

When the early closure of Victoria's second-biggest coal-fired power station was announced last week, something the energy minister said was less than complete, writes Peter Martin.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting article.
> 
> I'll leave comment on it to the experts in this area.



Yes i read that article earlier in the day and it seemed to say exactly what we have been saying, coal plant doesn't like being cycled, gas at this stage is the obvious go to at call generation and renewables are the cheapest to run, but can't supply the load 24/7 for 365 days a year.
I did think he pulled a bit of a long bow saying S.A having the lowest power prices and inferring it was because of the high percentage of renewables they have, I think they would have different power prices if they weren't connected to the East coast grid and can import when required.  
But hey, that isn't the message they are pushing is it?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting article.
> 
> I'll leave comment on it to the experts in this area.



Like much comment on this subject, it's mostly true but is guilty of omitting some key points, the omission of which puts a definite slant on the conclusions a reader is likely to draw.

Northern Power Station in SA was a 546 MW (2 x 273 MW) coal-fired plant using coal from the Leigh Creek mine about 250km from the power station. Last operation of Northern PS was in May 2016 and the plant has since been completely demolished (it's the one which was literally blown up with explosives).

Hazelwood power station in Victoria was a nominally 1600 MW (8 x 200 MW) coal-fired plant using coal from the Morwell mine next to the power station. Last operation of Hazelwood was at the end of March 2017 and the plant is now partially demolished.

Also relevant is that Anglesea power staiton in Victoria, a 160 MW coal-fired plant with its own mine, shut down at the end of August 2015 whilst the Morwell power station (190 MW, coal) in Victoria closed in September 2014 and Playford B in SA (240 MW, right next to Northern) in practice ceased operating in 2012.

So the removal of supply commenced prior to Hazelwood closing although obviously that was the big one.

In all cases the coal used is not of export quality and had no other use. So the cost of coal was the cost of mining and transporting it to the power station, it had no commodity value as such and accordingly the mines are now shut as with the power stations.

Looking at average prices on a financial year basis:

Victoria:
2014-15 = $40.85
2015-16 = $60.70
2016-17 = $86.71
2017-18 = $103.83
2018-19 = $129.05
2019-20 = $87.19
2020-21 to date = $45.27

SA:
2014-15 = $41.04
2015-16 = $64.63
2016-17 = $114.74
2017-18 = $120.54
2018-19 = $142.33
2019-20 = $78.43
2020-21 to date = $36.17

So yes it's correct that prices spiked, approximately tripled, following the closures and have since come back down to levels roughly the same as prior to the closures.

What's missing from that statement of course is that prices would need to fall to extremely low levels, and remain there for quite some time, in order to effectively repay that high price period back to consumers. That is, whilst prices have come back down, consumers remain out of pocket for that period.

The other piece of information missing is the impact of gas and oil prices. Whilst not a major power source, oil is relevant since the existence of oil-fired plant that can rapidly start does put a cap on what the owners of anything else can charge without immediately losing market share.

Gas however is a far more serious competitor there - even without actually running, even just sitting there it's still an effective cap on what anyone else can charge without prompting gas-fired plant to run and cause whoever bid the higher price to lose market share or, worse still, be shut down altogether.

Now gas prices are roughly half what they were at the peak and that's a pretty major influence, at the height of the pandemic they were a third of the peak price. Likewise as is well known the oil price collapsed for a period and there were certain products the oil companies had an excess supply of, jet fuel most notably and that's most definitely a suitable fuel for gas turbines (which are in layman's terms jet engines sitting on the ground turning a generator).

So in short there, lower fuel costs for fast starting gas and liquid fueled plant have amounted to a gun pointed at the head of everyone else. If wind, solar, coal, hydro want to physically be dispatched then they need to come under that gas cost and every operator would be fully aware of what's happened with gas prices.

Then there's the demand side. The pandemic is one factor there, it has altered the demand profile, but more significant is the heat or rather the lack of it.

Adelaide recorded just two days this summer season with a temperature above 39 degrees and they were two months apart. In other words, there was no multi-day heatwave involving temperatures in the 40's and it's those which produce the major price spikes (not unusual to see prices topping $10,000 / MWh) and which are also associated with huge volume (demand in SA roughly doubles during a major heatwave). The lack of such weather is highly significant.

Victoria's been much the same. The odd random hot day but there just hasn't been an occurrence of the sustained multi-day heatwaves which drive demand and price. It simply hasn't happened, at all, this season. Not once. End result in both states is that at no point have we seen properly high demand and the associated prices and that goes a long way to explaining the low average price this financial year to date and the panic in the industry.

Note there that it's not mean temperatures which matter, it's the extremes. There's stuff all relevance to it being 32 degrees for example, even if it was that every day it wouldn't be hugely relevant. It's the seriously hot days where it's 38, 40, 42, 44 on consecutive days with comparably high overnight temperatures which does it and that simply hasn't occurred.

So the answer with all this is "it's complex". More wind and solar certainly does exert downward pressure on price, that's simple supply and demand economics at work, but cheaper fuel costs for fast starting generation (especially gas) likewise have that same effect and then there's the very major impact of the mild summer weather in Victoria and SA this season.

The article's correct but missing a big part of the story. Bias by omission - failing to point out that the thing claiming credit is really only one of several factors. It's akin to someone saying they lost weight by stopping drinking alcohol and failing to mention that they also stopped eating a bag of chips for breakfast and started going for a two hour walk every evening. What's said isn't untrue but it's not the full story.

Meanwhile on a related issue, the SA solar generation curtailment scheme was used for the first time over the weekend with a significant amount of small solar (households, businesses) forced offline in order to keep system load up.

I'll avoid the politics there and simply say that quite a few have been warning of this for years now. We've got large scale renewables going to waste during the middle of the day 3 out of the last 7 days and on one of them, Sunday, it came to the point of having to force small solar systems to reduce output. Prices at the time were in the order of $-500 per MWh for reference - that's negative prices and hugely so.

Solutions = load shifting especially of hot water and other non-time critical loads to the middle of the day along with building large scale storage and increasing interstate transmission. 

For those into politics I'll simply point out that both majors, most other actual politicians and an assortment of lobby groups over the years have all done their bit to create the situation. Some might claim otherwise but their track record is the one I'm looking at.


----------



## Smurf1976

An interesting concept:



I've nothing much to add, and know nothing about it beyond what's in the video, but if it works then it would have the benefit that it seems unlikely to harm anything (eg large birds).

Note in the comments that apparently Equinor have approved it. They're a credible company certainly so presumably they'd have gone through various checks and so on before giving it the nod. 

Whether it stacks up economically in real world use is of course the big question.


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> An interesting concept:
> 
> 
> 
> I've nothing much to add, and know nothing about it beyond what's in the video, but if it works then it would have the benefit that it seems unlikely to harm anything (eg large birds).
> 
> Note in the comments that apparently Equinor have approved it. They're a credible company certainly so presumably they'd have gone through various checks and so on before giving it the nod.
> 
> Whether it stacks up economically in real world use is of course the big question.




Been around 6 years now... Certainly looks intriguing. Despite many years of developments the company is still to reach commercialisation .
Frankly I have my suspicions.  There have been many "you beaut" companies that in the the end prove non commercial or down right frauds.















						Frequent Questions | Vortex Bladeless
					

FREQUENT QUESTIONS Where do I find more info about this tech? You will find an explanation on how it works in our technology page. There you will also find our “green paper” for an academical explanation, as well as third parties documentation about our tech...




					vortexbladeless.com
				











						Can bladeless wind turbines mute opposition?
					

A more efficient and less intrusive wind turbine design has been welcomed by two of the UK industry’s biggest critics and government regulators




					www.theguardian.com
				



From June 2015 Guardian


----------



## Smurf1976

Alcoa’s struggling Portland smelter secures lifeline with power deal, $160m in subsidies
					

The future of Victoria’s Portland aluminium smelter and the jobs of hundreds of its staff appear safer after Alcoa secured a power deal and further subsidies.




					www.theage.com.au
				




The real story here isn't the smelter, although as one of the relatively few things in Victoria that actually exports something of value it's rather important, but that AGL, Origin Energy and Alinta are all parties to the deal.

Go back even two years and that would never have happened, the feds would have sent the ACCC in at the mere suggestion of it, but now here we are.

As for the smelter itself, well ideally there'd be no need to subsidise it in the first place. Get the cost of supply down and that problem goes away but from a technical and economic perspective, well there's a huge value in having a great big load at a single point which can be (and is) tripped when required. It's subsidised as such but also lowers costs so there's a lot of double edged sword stuff there. Value adding is, of course, critical if we're ever going to move away from raw mineral exports including coal so there's another dimension to it.

But yes - AGL, Origin and Alinta all involved is the real news.

Expect considerably more of that sort of thing going forward.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Alcoa’s struggling Portland smelter secures lifeline with power deal, $160m in subsidies
> 
> 
> The future of Victoria’s Portland aluminium smelter and the jobs of hundreds of its staff appear safer after Alcoa secured a power deal and further subsidies.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theage.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The real story here isn't the smelter, although as one of the relatively few things in Victoria that actually exports something of value it's rather important, but that AGL, Origin Energy and Alinta are all parties to the deal.
> 
> Go back even two years and that would never have happened, the feds would have sent the ACCC in at the mere suggestion of it, but now here we are.
> 
> As for the smelter itself, well ideally there'd be no need to subsidise it in the first place. Get the cost of supply down and that problem goes away but from a technical and economic perspective, well there's a huge value in having a great big load at a single point which can be (and is) tripped when required. It's subsidised as such but also lowers costs so there's a lot of double edged sword stuff there. Value adding is, of course, critical if we're ever going to move away from raw mineral exports including coal so there's another dimension to it.
> 
> But yes - AGL, Origin and Alinta all involved is the real news.
> 
> Expect considerably more of that sort of thing going forward.



Very similar scenario to the car industry, adapt, share common infrastructure and reduce the bottom line.
It really is an interesting time and the advent of renewables has forced a lot of stuck in the mud, blinkered industries, to rethink the end game. 
Great times to be living in IMO, so much change over such a short period of time, amazing.
By 2030 I think everyone will be shocked by how different the power grid is.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Very similar scenario to the car industry, adapt, share common infrastructure and reduce the bottom line.
> It really is an interesting time and the advent of renewables has forced a lot of stuck in the mud, blinkered industries, to rethink the end game.
> Great times to be living in IMO, so much change over such a short period of time, amazing.
> By 2030 I think everyone will be shocked by how different the power grid is.



An example of what smelters can do, if they want to become 'green'.








						World's largest solar park to produce aluminium for BMW
					

It currently processes around 90,000 tonnes of aluminium




					www.drive.com.au
				



From the article:
Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) – who holds a long-standing supplier relationship with BMW – has entered in agreement with Dubai electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) to receive power for its aluminium smelter from the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum solar park.
The current solar capacity of the park is 1013 megawatts – or more than 1 million kilowatts – of photovoltaic solar panel.


----------



## sptrawler

Saudi Arabia is getting serious about hydrogen production.








						Saudi Arabia Eyes Big Piece Of The Hydrogen Market | OilPrice.com
					

Saudi Arabia is an excellent candidate for green hydrogen: it has vast land resources that can accommodate the equally vast solar and wind power generation capacity that a large-scale hydrogen installation would need




					oilprice.com
				



From the article:
_Saudi Arabia, the world’s top crude oil exporter, has been active in embracing new energy revenue opportunities in recent years after it became painfully clear the world was changing and it would not be able to rely on oil for its sustained wealth forever. Now, the desert kingdom has set its sights on green hydrogen.
Saudi Arabia is an excellent candidate for green hydrogen: it has vast land resources that can accommodate the equally vast solar and wind power generation capacity that a large-scale hydrogen installation would need. It also has the water resources necessary for the process. It must have been a no-brainer then to plan a $5-billion green hydrogen facility at the site of its NEOM smart city project.

The project will use electricity produced by solar and wind farms with a total capacity of 4 GW, according to a Bloomberg report. Initially, it will produce some 650 tons of hydrogen daily. This will be turned into ammonia at the rate of 1.2 million tons annually. This ammonia will be bought by one of the three partners in the project—dubbed Helios. This company, Air Products and Chemicals, will then ship the ammonia overseas, convert it back into hydrogen, and sell it to end-users.
Cost is a significant issue with green hydrogen. Currently, electrolysis is a much less efficient process than producing hydrogen from fossil fuels—and less efficient means higher costs. Rystad Energy recently estimated that green hydrogen produced from an offshore wind farm in the North Sea would cost about $6.18 per kilogram (5.1 euro).

Even more scathing, a study by the International Council on Clean Transportation calculated the price of green hydrogen at $8.81 per kilo for a grid-connected electrolyzer.
For perspective, blue hydrogen—the kind produced from natural gas that includes carbon capture and storage—costs $2.36 per kilo. Given the fact that carbon capture is a complex, costly technology, it is impressive how much cheaper CCS-included blue hydrogen is.

Yet analysts expect the costs associated with the production of green hydrogen to drop substantially in the coming years and decades. According to BloombergNEF, the cost of green hydrogen produced in the Saudi desert could, in fact, fall to as little as $1.50 per kilo by 2030. If this happens, it would definitely place the Kingdom ahead of most—if not all—potential competitors in the hydrogen space. But first, it needs to build all that generation capacity that it has planned.
Europe will never be able to produce all the green hydrogen it will need locally, says the person in charge of the Helios project, former RWE chief executive Peter Terium.

“By no means will they be able to produce all the hydrogen themselves,” he told Bloomberg’s Ratcliffe. “There’s just not enough North Sea or usable water for offshore wind.”

There is no question Saudi Arabia has the resources to become a major hydrogen exporter. Yet price does remain an issue and could eventually become the trigger that exposes the discrepancy between facts and fiction when it comes to the energy transition_.

And this 'blue' hydrogen agreement with South Korea.
https://www.maritime-executive.com/...bia-plan-hydrogen-production-and-co2-shipping


----------



## sptrawler

Well we are getting close to the point, where home solar batteries will have to be subsidised, to maintain solar growth and system stability .








						Home battery incentives proposed as way to bypass solar power traffic jams
					

The energy market rule-maker says new regulations are needed to stop customers copping bigger bills as the network is weighed down by more rooftop solar power.




					www.theage.com.au
				




The below article explains what smurf and others have been saying for years. Interesting read IMO.








						Fixing Australia’s solar traffic jam will make selling sunshine two-way street
					

Households will lose unless we fix the way energy flows from their solar panels to the electricity grid. Here’s a plan, writes the head of the Australian Energy Market Commission.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
There are now more than 2.6 million households and small businesses with solar PV on their roofs, and the forecasts are that by 2030, some 6 million households – 50 per cent of us – will be using a distributed energy resource such as solar PV, batteries or electric cars to power our lives.

This is a fast, exciting and challenging pace of change when you consider that it took 20 years for Netflix to replace Blockbuster, and about 10 years for Spotify to dethrone iTunes as the music player of choice.

The trouble is that – unlike Netflix or Spotify – energy travels along real-life poles and wires, and not the virtual superhighway. And right now, it’s starting to look like peak hour.

The heart of the problem is that the power system was built in a different era. It was set up to get power to your home, not for your home to send power back the other way. Now that power is increasingly flowing both ways, we’re seeing new challenges emerge.
The heart of the problem is that the power system was built in a different era. It was set up to get power to your home, not for your home to send power back the other way. Now that power is increasingly flowing both ways, we’re seeing new challenges emerge.

If we don’t act to address them, households that want to export power to the network via their solar panels potentially face the “closed” sign in the future because the existing networks will simply be full.
The obvious solution is to build more poles and wires to accommodate everyone. But as anyone who lives in or visits an Australian city with toll roads knows, we will all pay for those new infrastructure networks either directly through tolls, or indirectly through our taxes. Big infrastructure costs money.

If our collective goal is to give everyone who wants solar the ability to earn a return and access the poles and wires, it’s clear the existing situation doesn’t work. First, all of our energy bills will rise if we limit the amount of cheaper renewable energy coming into the system – which would slow the decarbonisation of the sector too.
Second, spending up big on expanding the network will let more solar in, but there are issues of affordability, who pays, and what happens to those who can’t access or afford panels? Allowing some to use the solar highway while stopping others, even though everyone is paying for its construction, isn’t equitable.
The Australian Energy Market Commission believes the answer lies in thinking differently about the problem and using the power system in smarter ways. Today, we’ve released a draft package of reforms to address these “traffic jams” on the network.

We are seeking feedback on new measures that give power networks more incentive to offer export services that meet the needs of customers. Success would look like this: more people sending more power to the grid more often.
We’re also proposing that networks be allowed to develop two-way pricing schemes. What this might do is reward you for sending power to the grid when it’s most needed and charge you for sending power when it’s not. This helps ease congestion by spreading power usage out across the day. It makes better use of the highway and minimises the need to build more.

Each network would come up with its own pricing plan specific to its own circumstances and customers. It would probably look like a menu of options that customers can choose from. So, you would be able to decide what you value as a customer. You could choose to use the energy you generate to power your air-conditioning on a hot day, or you could trade it for additional income.

Some people fear this will mean they have to pay every time they export power. That’s not what this reform package is about. Depending on how solar owners respond to those incentives, many could actually earn more money. Networks could also choose not to charge for exporting power.
That’s why we haven’t mandated anything on prices. We want to allow flexibility. Any new plans the networks develop will have to be approved by the Australian Energy Regulator to ensure they are delivering for consumers.
More solar, batteries and electric vehicles are a good thing if we get the settings right. They can help us all decarbonise faster.
It will all take time – that’s why we have to start now. We can’t hold back the tide of change confronting the energy market, and we certainty can’t pretend it’s not happening.
*Benn Barr is chief executive of the Australian Energy Market Commissio*


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Well we are getting close to the point, where home solar batteries will have to be subsidised, to maintain solar growth and system stability .
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Home battery incentives proposed as way to bypass solar power traffic jams
> 
> 
> The energy market rule-maker says new regulations are needed to stop customers copping bigger bills as the network is weighed down by more rooftop solar power.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theage.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Fixing Australia’s solar traffic jam will make selling sunshine two-way street
> 
> 
> Households will lose unless we fix the way energy flows from their solar panels to the electricity grid. Here’s a plan, writes the head of the Australian Energy Market Commission.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au




The absurdity of the situation continues.

Solar panels are great we were told, buy them and make money selling your power back to the grid.

It's all indicative that the system is being run by rent seekers not engineers as it should be.

I'm sure smurf would be able to say whether the companies were warned that an over supply situation might occur, and we may ask why the companies chose to not pass this onto the public.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> The absurdity of the situation continues.
> 
> Solar panels are great we were told, buy them and make money selling your power back to the grid.
> 
> It's all indicative that the system is being run by rent seekers not engineers as it should be.
> 
> I'm sure smurf would be able to say whether the companies were warned that an over supply situation might occur, and we may ask why the companies chose to not pass this on t the public.



Absolutely, the companies should be made to offer batteries, to customers, much the same as happens with mobile phone plans.
It is a rort where they run down the system, buy rooftop generation from owners then sell it at a profit, then when there is too much throw their hands up and say not our problem. 😂
The added benefit would be it would underpin companies to build batteries here, as there would be a constant demand and as the sector is growing so could the manufacturing size increase to facilitate it. 
It really is a no brainer, but what is happening will be, the companies are be sitting back waiting for public opinion and the media to hammer the Government for taxpayers to subsidies the batteries. Well stuff them IMO, they get the benefit they should already be rolling out home batteries, as AGL and Origin have started to.
Same as car companies bitching they want subsidies, what so the taxpayer can subsidies their change over while maintaining their profit?


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Absolutely, the companies should be made to offer batteries, to customers, much the same as happens with mobile phone plans.
> It is a rort where they run down the system, buy rooftop generation from owners then sell it at a profit, then when there is too much throw their hands up and say not our problem. 😂
> The added benefit would be it would underpin companies to build batteries here, as there would be a constant demand and as the sector is growing so could the manufacturing size increase to facilitate it.
> It really is a no brainer, but what is happening will be, the companies are be sitting back waiting for public opinion and the media to hammer the Government for taxpayers to subsidies the batteries. Well stuff them IMO, they get the benefit they should already be rolling out home batteries, as AGL and Origin have started to.
> Same as car companies bitching they want subsidies, what so the taxpayer can subsidies their change over while maintaining their profit?



Electricity supply is a regulated market, with demand facilitated by AEMO.
We are where we are today because we do not have  "planned" market.
Instead we have a roadmap where the new roads to be built or being built are guided by a carrot and stick approach.  
The technicals are in the "too hard" basket, along with who would pay.
The only certainty we seem to have regarding large scale future supply is Snowy2.  And that's mooted mainly as "backup."

It's true that rooftop solar brings new system tweaking requirements, but why should that be  problem when the investment being made to generate supply lies with householders?  We, as taxpayers/consumers, recently paid for the gold plating of our wires and poles through decisions out of our hands and supposedly in our best interests.   If the government can do that, and commit billions to the likes of Snowy2, then why can't it facilitate the infrastructure for distributed energy resources, seeing it's very much the way of the future?

Oh, and while on the subject of rooftop solar, most householder's wings were clipped to 5Kw output while commercial buildings can supply significantly more.   The Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme for electricity supply should have been mothballed years ago, and feed-in rates - if any - determined as States saw fit.


----------



## sptrawler

The States and the Feds are tweaking the distribution system, the ones who are having a problem are the dispatchable generators especially coal units, those companies should accelerate their replacement with renewable and or gas generation and suitable storage, if not they will find themselves with not only stranded assets but lost customer base IMO.
As the AEMO has previously stated a large source of dispatchable generation is required in the near future, if it isn't installed by the private operators the Federal government will install it, this will mean more pressure on the private operators as new HEGT's are extremely efficient.
I think that the initiative by AGL and Origin to supply solar and battery packages to households, is a great move in the right direction and should be taken up by all the companies.
By the way in W.A I think 5Kw domestic inverters has been the case since the inception of the RECs system, also the feed in tarrif has changed considerably over the years, it is now around 7cents.


----------



## rederob

Here's the picture that suppliers see:




Clearly renewables are the way to go.
That's further backed up by future cost declines:




While new build renewable costs are low, without any carbon costs to factor in, and without an HVDC spine to tap into in order to even out the vagaries of wind and sunshine energy inputs, major private sector investments are going to remain thin.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Here's the picture that suppliers see:
> View attachment 121860
> 
> Clearly renewables are the way to go.
> That's further backed up by future cost declines:
> View attachment 121861
> 
> While new build renewable costs are low, without any carbon costs to factor in, and without an HVDC spine to tap into in order to even out the vagaries of wind and sunshine energy inputs, major private sector investments are going to remain thin.



As the top graph states, without storage renewable resources lack dispatchable characteristics and associated benefits of conventional technologies.
Which is the major stumbling block at the moment IMO, as you have already said Snowy 2 is being built, also the second interconnect between Tassie and the mainland is being installed to facilitate storage for renewables. The H.V transmission system is being re configured and new H.V interstate interconnects are being built between NSW, Vic and S.A, there is a new H.V interconnector being installed in North Queensland to facilitate solar farm integration into the grid.
I think the quickest and easiest way to get adequate domestic storage that matches solar installations, is to have the generators supply packages as has been started, whereby the generator installs the battery and solar array and it is paid through the normal billing system, much like purchasing a phone plan.
It would be a much better idea than piece meal installations, by all and sundry, of incompatible equipment. The companies could get some form of tax assistance, the home owner doesn't have to worry about huge upfront costs and there is are overseers to a vertically integrated and controlled roll out.
Just my thoughts.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I'm sure smurf would be able to say whether the companies were warned that an over supply situation might occur



I'm somewhat typecast as 'that guy' who's been on about it for a very long time.  

I claim no special brilliance there, it just comes down to math.

Solar output from fixed position arrays (eg rooftop) will as a whole peak at midday and that peak will, depending on what assumptions you make about the orientation of panels in the real world, be circa 5 times their average output.

Meanwhile electricity demand at midday is moderate. It's not the minimum but it's nowhere near the peak either. During hot weather the peak of consumption is mid-afternoon. During cold weather it's a bit after 6pm with a secondary peak in the morning circa 8am (exception of Tasmania where the morning peak is the larger of the two). Demand at midday is thus either on the ramp up (hot weather) or is the lull between two peaks (cold weather).

From there it's just straightforward math. Put one solar power system on one roof and it's irrelevant but put more of them up every day and a point comes where it fails to work. Just because getting 10% of annual generation from solar is easy, doesn't mean you can just install ten times as many panels and get 100%. A point comes where that approach stops working.

Now for the painful and brutally honest bit, rooftop solar has a lot in common with using trucks to move freight.

If you want to move small amounts of whatever well then just buying some trucks and driving them on existing public roads is a perfectly reasonable way to do it.

If however you want to move millions of tonnes of freight each year well then no, buying a lot of trucks, widening all the roads and turning the town's main street into a highway starts to become a dud idea. Better off building a railway line that goes around the town not through it in that case or using some other method to move the freight (for one of the more unusual, iron ore from a mine in Tasmania is transported by pipeline, not a single truck or train involved from the mine to the pelletizing plant 85km away).

Now for a couple of charts:

Rooftop solar generation in Queensland over the past 3 days:







Yellow is solar output, red line at the bottom is market spot price.

Now for large scale solar farms in Queensland over the same period:






Large solar farms intentionally located in places highly suited to them, and with single axis trackers on the panels, achieve a far more consistent output day to day, and throughout the day, than do fixed position panels on house roofs with sub-optimal orientation and no tracking.

A small large scale facilities is also much more easily adjusted to match consumption versus trying to fine tune the output of a few million tiny systems each subject to their own issues with shading, weather and so on.

Note last Friday and Saturday, and for shorter periods Tuesday and Wednesday this week, for large scale solar in SA:






It can be and routinely is cut back when the full output simply isn't required. In that regard it's just as controllable as any other power station.

Where all that goes is that putting solar panels on house roofs makes perfectly good sense so long as it can make use of existing infrastructure, akin to using trucks to move modest amounts of freight on existing roads.

Once it comes to having to upgrade electricity networks though, well it's much like freight. A separate large scale option is a cheaper way of doing it. In this case, that's a few large solar farms and transmission lines.

In that context it needs to be remembered that in Australia it's the "electricity" bit which is valuable not the "rooftop". If there's one thing we're really not short on, it's land that's not useful for much. The only reason to put panels on a roof, instead of putting them somewhere else, is to make use of the electrical infrastructure that's already present, that the house is connected to the network. All good but once it comes to the point of having to spend a fortune upgrading the network, well it's cheaper to put them somewhere else where that problem doesn't exist, near a transmission line, rather than having to spend all that $ on upgrading a network to cope with power flowing in the opposite direction.

For that reason I've long maintained that we'll get to roughly 50% of homes with solar then that's it, the economics preclude sensibly going any further. On a state by state basis at present (data is from late 2020, exact date varies between states):

Queensland = 39.8%
SA = 39.3%
WA = 32.2%
NSW = 24.6%
NT = 22.8%
Victoria = 20.9%
Tasmania = 16.3%

That said there are state-specific issues which will influence the limits:

Queensland and Tasmania both have a relatively consistent electrical load overall which facilitates a higher use of solar in those states.

SA, Vic, WA all have the basic problem of a network that wasn't built with high capacity and a highly variable load which tends to be low when solar output is high. That's not a good situation and limits the deployment of solar in those states. Tasmania's the opposite - high network capacity per customer and relatively more stable demand.

NSW and Queensland both have an advantage of a high portion of homes having electric hot water on a remoted controlled off-peak tariff, enabling a substantial load to be intentionally switched on during the middle of the day as a workaround. They also have a pretty decent network.

Tas has extreme dominance of electricity for water heating, market share is about 94% if heat pumps are included, but it's not under any form of remote control. Much the same in the NT although hot water energy use up there isn't the big load that it is down south, it's not a factor to worry about really.

SA, WA and especially Victoria gas water heating dominates and what electric water heating does exist mostly isn't under remote control (or any time control at all for most of them in WA's case).

So broadly Qld, NSW and Tas are in a good position to accommodate a lot of solar whilst Vic, SA and WA have more limitations. NT it really depends on what town you're in.

Me personally?

Yes I have solar. Just over 5kW, that being limited by unshaded and otherwise suitable roof space. Suffice to say every panel that could be fitted up there is up there and without cutting down three large trees, there's no real benefit in adding any more.

Yes I have a battery.

Me being me, the hot water's heated by a heat pump and that's very intentionally powered between 10am and 3:00pm ACST only. This is on the Off Peak Controlled Load meter and is separate to the solar. That detail isn't about when I use hot water, it's just about intentionally shifting load to when supply is abundant - quite often I'm heating water using wind or solar energy that would otherwise go to waste.

Now if it were up to me then I'd be doing two things right across SA (and Victoria).

1. Change the operating times of electric storage hot water from night to middle of the day. Only reason it hasn't already been done is in SA bureaucracy and regulators (of the legal and economic variety) are in the way and in Victoria's case they installed smart meters without enabling any smart functionality.

My view is get it done, do it now, worry about bureaucracy later.

For the Type 4 meters just tell the retailers to do it ASAP. It can be done remotely since the meters communicate. Could have the whole lot done within two days.

For the Type 5 meters it needs someone to go around each house physically and change the programming. No problem - just get a list, some workers and some cars and go do it.

Every house with solar installed prior to December 2017 will have a Type 5 meter, everything more recent (including new homes or meter upgrades without solar) will be Type 4 meter.

For Type 6 meters, the old rotating disc and analogue timer, well changing that is clockwork, literally so. Cut the seals, pull the cover off, undo two screws one on each timing pin, move the pins to the required times by sight, tighten the screws, lap the dial to make sure it works and set it to the present time, put the cover back on, apply new seals. Only takes a few minutes each and it's all mechanical, zero electronics in those.

Could do all the Type 4 straight away, Type 5 over 12 months, Type 6 over 3 years would be about right and fast enough to be a solution.

2. Given we've all this renewable energy available during the middle of the day, and storing hot water is about as easy and low tech as it gets whilst still being reasonably efficient (circa 85% in practice), it really doesn't make sense to continue pushing the public to use gas for that purpose.

WA and SA both do it to some extent at the state level but Victoria's extremely forceful and so are some individual councils in NSW. Might have made sense sometime but those days are over - heating water, especially with a heat pump, using solar that's otherwise being wasted beats gas for sure.

Note that I'm not advocating that gas be banned or anything like that, only that the practice of pushing consumers toward it as a means of water heating be ended and that heat pumps running on controlled load supply be encouraged instead. But if someone still wants gas well OK, no problem.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Instead we have a roadmap where the new roads to be built or being built are guided by a carrot and stick approach.
> The technicals are in the "too hard" basket, along with who would pay.



Yep.

A couple of examples.

There's a factory in NSW currently looking at building their own on-site power station, run by fossil fuels, for 24/7 operation. That's a workaround to "hassles" with upgrading the power supply to the site.

Another one is the Off Peak Controlled Load (OPCL) timing issue in SA that I refer to in the previous post. Just get it done..... 

Trouble is, there's a lot of focus on the economic and legal stuff with the technical and environmental aspects taking a back seat. End result is silly things happen.


----------



## Dona Ferentes




----------



## sptrawler

Hydrogen is certainly getting a lot of airplay in Europe, Siemens are targeting $1.50/kg by 2025, for green hydrogen, that is certainly cheap enough to make it viable for a lot of applications. Volume could be the issue?




__





						Siemens Energy targets $1.50/kg renewable hydrogen cost by 2025
					

Siemens Energy is targeting renewable hydrogen costs of $1.50/kg by 2025 based on a power cost of $16/MWh and a 100 MW electrolysis system running for 6,000 hours a year, managers said at Siemens firs




					www.spglobal.com
				












						The Hydrogen Stream: Siemens targets $1.50/kg by 2025, BP and Saudi Aramco bet on blue hydrogen
					

The German company expects to roll out its in-house proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis technology to implement a gigawatt production of electrolyzers. BP partners with UK gas distributor Northern Gas Networks (NGN) to develop blue hydrogen and Saudi Aramco teams up with Hyundai Heavy...




					www.pv-magazine.com


----------



## sptrawler

Well it looks as though the penny has dropped at AGL, not before time IMO, now it looks to be getting on the front foot.
Well we have been talking about this on the forum, for some time.








						AGL seals tech deal with Britain’s OVO as energy shake-up looms
					

The new partnership, which will adapt OVO’s tech platform for the Australian market, comes as AGL prepares to brief shareholders about how it will reshape its business as the rise of renewable energy weighs on power prices.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
_AGL has launched a new venture with Britain’s OVO Energy as the power giant accelerates its response to the rapid changes rocking the energy market and hammering its profits.

The new partnership, under which OVO’s technology platform will be adapted for the Australian market, comes as AGL prepares to brief shareholders on Tuesday about how it will reshape its business strategy amid the deepening challenge of rising renewable energy pushing down daytime electricity prices.
AGL head of future business and technology John Chambers said OVO’s Kaluza platform would provide customers with real-time information on their energy use and would optimise charging times as the uptake of rooftop solar panels and electric vehicles continued to grow.
The joint venture comes amid predictions by some analysts that AGL will announce a restructure or demerger of some of its coal-fired power plants, which are struggling to compete with vastly cheaper wind and solar energy.

“The energy transition itself is happening faster than expected,” Mr Chambers said as the partnership was announced. “In that regard, we are getting ahead of the curve.”
*AGL and OVO, which is Britain’s third-largest energy provider, said Australia had one of the world’s highest levels of rooftop solar generation. Kaluza’s software would help address grid challenges by “intelligently shifting” device charging to times of lower demand. It could also present customers with financial incentives to dispatch energy from their batteries and electric cars when needed*.

"*People with rooftop solar, household batteries, electric vehicles ... can literally be presented offers in real time saying the grid needs some energy right now, if you plug your car in we'll be able to pay you a certain amount of money per minute," Mr Chambers said.

"You're effectively an active part of the grid. That's the future this allows.*_"


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Well it looks as though the penny has dropped at AGL, not before time IMO, now it looks to be getting on the front foot.



As I've said many times - there's radical change in this industry but the grid as such is going to become far more intertwined with society not the reverse.

Much like roads became far more important to society after the horses and carts which were once the main users of them became obsolete. The cart and horse went away but the road industry itself was only just getting going at that point.


----------



## SirRumpole

Flywheels as an alternative to batteries ?

Any comments on the economics of one v the other ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Flywheels as an alternative to batteries ?
> 
> Any comments on the economics of one v the other ?




They give the system inertia, but they do draw power, having said that they are relatively cheap. Synchronous condensers are more flexible as they can be used for VAR control, but smurf will be able to comment, I'm going off fading memories. 😂
Re flywheel VS battery, they really do provide a different function, comparing apples and oranges really you can eat them both but they have different characteristics.
The flywheel can take a short system disturbance well (inertia), but a longer outage the flywheel becomes another drag on the system, the battery can supply the load proportional to its capacity(storage).
That's my take on it.


----------



## basilio

Labour has come up with a community battery policy they will take to the next election.
Essentially supporting 400 community batteries that would store  and return the excess solar energy from 100,000 households.
Elegant solution to helping ensure grid stability and kicking on the move to renewable energy.
Should be in time for the commercialization of  liquid metals battery systems. 









						Community batteries: what are they, and how could they help Australian energy consumers?
					

Labor proposes funding batteries to allow households with solar power to pool excess electricity. Here’s what you need to know




					www.theguardian.com
				








__





						Technology: Ambri
					






					ambri.com


----------



## basilio

Ausgrid Power company  is already proposing a community battery program around Sydney.





__





						Community Batteries - Ausgrid
					

Read more about Ausgrid's Community Battery initiative and get the latest updates on the current trials in Bankstown and Beacon Hill.




					www.ausgrid.com.au


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Labour has come up with a community battery policy they will take to the next election.



I'm cautiously optimisitc.

It's one of those things which could be of significant benefit if done well or a complete waste if done poorly.

Location is key and I'll be straight to the point there - there's not much correlation between the right places to put batteries and how "safe" an electorate is politically.

I think everyone knows where that thought is going. Done well it could be a great idea but I'll reserve judgement at this stage until the detail is apparent and it's clear that the batteries to be installed aren't the type which involves the use of pork or barrels. 

I'll reserve judgement pending confirmation that the batteries are 100% free of pork and barrels.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> They give the system inertia, but they do draw power, having said that they are relatively cheap. Synchronous condensers are more flexible as they can be used for VAR control, but smurf will be able to comment, I'm going off fading memories. 😂



Really depends on the scale and intended purpose.

Synchronous condensers are, in layman's terms, to manipulate electrical properties on the grid.

A flywheel system could be used for that, indeed the syn cons being installed in SA at the moment do have flywheels which bring the mass of each syn con up to 172 tonnes, but a flywheel system could also be used simply to store energy if it's big enough.

So it depends on scale and purpose really. Storing energy as such as distinct from wanting to manipulate fault currents, reactive power and so on. As a bulk energy storage method off the grid they've seen use in the past, most notably to power buses.


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm cautiously optimisitc.
> 
> It's one of those things which could be of significant benefit if done well or a complete waste if done poorly.
> 
> Location is key and I'll be straight to the point there - there's not much correlation between the right places to put batteries and how "safe" an electorate is politically.
> 
> I think everyone knows where that thought is going. Done well it could be a great idea but I'll reserve judgement at this stage until the detail is apparent and it's clear that the batteries to be installed aren't the type which involves the use of pork or barrels.
> 
> I'll reserve judgement pending confirmation that the batteries are 100% free of pork and barrels.




I'm sure there will some judicious use of "pork and barrels".  I think  however the key elements will be executing a quality cost effective installation that works well for the community, the power companies and the grid itself. I suspect there is now so much solar power around that one could argue for a community battery in many locations. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if there was additional support for solar installations in some areas to improve the technical need for a battery.

If I was Labour I would be proposing  a range of batteries and installation models to enable good comparisons between potential systems and encourage a fast learning curve.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> basilio said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm sure there will some judicious use of "pork and barrels".  I think  however the key elements will be executing a quality cost effective installation that works well for the community, the power companies and the grid itself. I suspect there is now so much solar power around that one could argue for a community battery in many locations. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if there was additional support for solar installations in some areas to improve the technical need for a battery.
> 
> If I was Labour I would be proposing  a range of batteries and installation models to enable good comparisons between potential systems and encourage a fast learning curve.
Click to expand...


In W.A community batteries have been rolled out for quite some time, maybe Albo and McGowan have be been talking.  
https://www.westernpower.com.au/our...d-trials/powerbank-community-battery-storage/


----------



## sptrawler

Well at last the issue of renewables and gas in the immediate future, is coming to a head, it needs to because someone needs to be held accountable for the outcome.
The States are basically responsible for their electricity assets, yet the Federal takes responsibility for any shortfall, so the debate needs to be robust.
From a personal perspective, I would rather have a big at call gas station siting there and not needing it, than needing it and not having one. 😂 
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-12/four-corners-gas-plan-pressured-experts/100055730


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Well at last the issue of renewables and gas in the immediate future, is coming to a head, it needs to because someone needs to be held accountable for the outcome.
> The States are basically responsible for their electricity assets, yet the Federal takes responsibility for any shortfall, so the debate needs to be robust.
> From a personal perspective, *I would rather have a big at call gas station siting there and not needing it, than needing it and not having one.* 😂
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-12/four-corners-gas-plan-pressured-experts/100055730




Exactly, that's the issue. 

Building other stuff like pumped hydro takes decades and we need something else in the meantime so gas seems the best medium term alternative.

But also in the long run gas turbines can also run off other fuels like ethanol, which if it's made from sugar cane is a renewable fuel and could support the sugar cane to ethanol industry which would also help alleviate our reliance on oil for land transport.

Brazil does it, so can we.









						Ethanol fuel in Brazil - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Exactly, that's the issue.
> 
> Building other stuff like pumped hydro takes decades and we need something else in the meantime so gas seems the best medium term alternative.
> 
> But also in the long run gas turbines can also run off other fuels like ethanol, which if it's made from sugar cane is a renewable fuel and could support the sugar cane to ethanol industry which would also help alleviate our reliance on oil for land transport.
> 
> Brazil does it, so can we.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ethanol fuel in Brazil - Wikipedia
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> en.wikipedia.org



It can also run off hydrogen, so can the gas cooktops in people's homes, it certainly appears the ABC has an axe to grind, they aren't doing themselves any favours IMO.

These muppets that have the black/white, renewables or nothing are being stupidly blinkered.
If we get to a point where green hydrogen production is sufficient, gas turbines running on hydrogen saves making a lot of dams, a lot of batteries etc and is available 24/7. The turbine might not be required to run 24/7 but it is there if needed and is perfectly 'green'.

The reporters are being dumb ar$e IMO, next they will be ramping up the rhetoric against dam storage and the environment.
They wont be happy until Australia is flucked.
Tribal politics and pizz poor reporting will equal a pizz poor outcome.
Someone should hold these reporters to account IMO.
Just my thoughts.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> It can also run off hydrogen, so can the gas cooktops in people's homes, it certainly appears the ABC has an axe to grind, they aren't doing themselves any favours IMO.
> 
> These muppets that have the black/white, renewables or nothing are being stupidly blinkered.
> If we get to a point where green hydrogen production is sufficient, gas turbines running on hydrogen saves making a lot of dams, a lot of batteries etc and is available 24/7. The turbine might not be required to run 24/7 but it is there if needed and is perfectly 'green'.
> 
> The reporters are being dumb ar$e IMO, next they will be ramping up the rhetoric against dam storage and the environment.
> They wont be happy until Australia is flucked.
> Tribal politics and pizz poor reporting will equal a pizz poor outcome.
> Just my thoughts.




Yeah I agree.

Trouble is that there are too many people/businesses pushing their own lines to the detriment of others.

@Smurf1976 said it a long time ago, "anything that works".

This should not be a competition, but a cooperation between different alternatives that are all viable in certain circumstances.

Get the rent seekers out of decision making and turn it back to (unbiased)  scientists and engineers.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yeah I agree.
> 
> Trouble is that there are too many people/businesses pushing their own lines to the detriment of others.
> 
> Smurf said it a long time ago, "anything that works".
> 
> This should not be a competition, but a cooperation between different alternatives that are all viable in certain circumstances.
> 
> Get the rent seekers out of decision making and turn it back to (unbiased)  scientists and engineers.



Like i said 90% of the problem IMO, is the media coverage is based on political/ environmental bias and presenting flawed information.
The gas pipelines and gas turbines can be made to carry hydrogen at a later date, it is a great solution and ensures the reliability of supply, to paint turbines as being 'dirty' is crap, if they are run on H2 they are as clean as dispatchable generation gets.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Like i said 90% of the problem IMO, is the media coverage is based on political/ environmental bias and presenting flawed information.
> The gas pipelines and gas turbines can be made to carry hydrogen at a later date, it is a great solution and ensures the reliability of supply, to paint turbines as being 'dirty' is crap, if they are run on H2 they are as clean as dispatchable generation gets.




As long as the hydrogen production process is 'green', yes.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> As long as the hydrogen production process is 'green', yes.



Exactly and Australia is fortunate enough to have the land mass, topography and climate to achieve it, but do the press write that?🤪
Absolute FW's IMO.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yeah I agree.
> 
> Trouble is that there are too many people/businesses pushing their own lines to the detriment of others.
> 
> @Smurf1976 said it a long time ago, "anything that works".
> 
> This should not be a competition, but a cooperation between different alternatives that are all viable in certain circumstances.
> 
> Get the rent seekers out of decision making and turn it back to (unbiased)  scientists and engineers.



The issue is, you have asked questions, got the underlying facts straight and can make valued judgements regarding generation and dispatch, why can't reporters?


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The issue is, you have asked questions, got the underlying facts straight and can make valued judgements regarding generation and dispatch, why can't reporters?




Because reporters are basically political these days. 

The ABC and The Guardian works for Labor, (almost) everyone else works for Murdoch and the Coalition.


----------



## Smurf1976

Something I'll note regarding the issues in NSW, government proposals to build 1000 MW of gas turbines, the 4 Corners report and so on is this:

Government's on about 1000 MW.

AEMO puts the requirement at 154 MW.

That's a considerable difference and in short I'll take AEMO's rather precise figure over the government's big round number any day.

Now back to that 154 MW there are indeed options to plug that gap rather quickly and without building anything that might not be needed long term.

Redbank power station is currently sitting around doing nothing. It's a 151 MW coal-fired plant using fluidised bed boilers which in layman's terms means it has a lot of flexibility in terms of the fuel used. Good quality coal, poor quality coal, sawmill waste etc anything like that will do the job.

It's pretty small for a coal plant, 151 MW isn't much compared to Eraring at 2880 MW, but point is it's already built, it's sitting there right now.

Here it is: https://www.google.com.au/maps/plac...cf03fdc!8m2!3d-32.5800885!4d151.0718822?hl=en

It's a rather humble looking power station yes but zoom out on the map, have a look what's around it and it makes sense.

Now I'm not advocating that we go and build new coal plant. This one however is already there, it's in decent shape and could easily be put back in action. To me that's very much worthy of serious investigation as an option, noting that it fills 98% of the gap as identified by AEMO.

The other part of that is at Broken Hill where 2 x 25 MW oil-fired gas turbines are sitting there (Broken Hill is on the main grid). They're used only for local network support and outages, they're not centrally dispatched by AEMO and thus are not used to supply NSW as such. That means they're almost always not running even during peak demand.

Solution = put them on when supply is tight. Do it manually if need be - start them up and run them.

They're not cheap to operate given they're using liquid fuel but considering how many hours a year they'll actually need to run that's not a big deal really. This is about peak load not running 24/7.

Add Redbank and Broken Hill to things like the large battery installations that AGL and Origin are both planning plus Snowy 2.0 and getting the SA - NSW transmission line built and collectively that's an alternative plan.

The trouble with all of this is far too much political interference on one hand, and far too much political bias in media reporting and this the general public's understanding of it on the other.

That's not to say I'm outright against gas but there's a lot of politics being played in all this and I definitely am opposed to that aspect, the politics.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Something I'll note regarding the issues in NSW, government proposals to build 1000 MW of gas turbines, the 4 Corners report and so on is this:
> 
> Government's on about 1000 MW.
> 
> AEMO puts the requirement at 154 MW.
> 
> That's a considerable difference and in short I'll take AEMO's rather precise figure over the government's big round number any day.
> 
> Now back to that 154 MW there are indeed options to plug that gap rather quickly and without building anything that might not be needed long term.
> 
> Redbank power station is currently sitting around doing nothing. It's a 151 MW coal-fired plant using fluidised bed boilers which in layman's terms means it has a lot of flexibility in terms of the fuel used. Good quality coal, poor quality coal, sawmill waste etc anything like that will do the job.
> 
> It's pretty small for a coal plant, 151 MW isn't much compared to Eraring at 2880 MW, but point is it's already built, it's sitting there right now.
> 
> Here it is: https://www.google.com.au/maps/plac...cf03fdc!8m2!3d-32.5800885!4d151.0718822?hl=en
> 
> It's a rather humble looking power station yes but zoom out on the map, have a look what's around it and it makes sense.
> 
> Now I'm not advocating that we go and build new coal plant. This one however is already there, it's in decent shape and could easily be put back in action. To me that's very much worthy of serious investigation as an option, noting that it fills 98% of the gap as identified by AEMO.
> 
> The other part of that is at Broken Hill where 2 x 25 MW oil-fired gas turbines are sitting there (Broken Hill is on the main grid). They're used only for local network support and outages, they're not centrally dispatched by AEMO and thus are not used to supply NSW as such. That means they're almost always not running even during peak demand.
> 
> Solution = put them on when supply is tight. Do it manually if need be - start them up and run them.
> 
> They're not cheap to operate given they're using liquid fuel but considering how many hours a year they'll actually need to run that's not a big deal really. This is about peak load not running 24/7.
> 
> Add Redbank and Broken Hill to things like the large battery installations that AGL and Origin are both planning plus Snowy 2.0 and getting the SA - NSW transmission line built and collectively that's an alternative plan.
> 
> The trouble with all of this is far too much political interference on one hand, and far too much political bias in media reporting and this the general public's understanding of it on the other.
> 
> That's not to say I'm outright against gas but there's a lot of politics being played in all this and I definitely am opposed to that aspect, the politics.



I agree with what you are saying, but as we have discussed in the past, whether you put in 1 x 150 MW gas turbine ar 4 X 200 units, the stumbling block is getting in anything, as the backlash against building Snowy 2.0 is showing.
So the difference in reality is mainly the financial cost, the political cost is the same for both and the financial if they were in the same location wouldn't be 4 x the amount.
So if the plan is to shut down all the coal plant, in the next 10 - 15 years, the four units will probably be all that is required to cover the whole transition, seems sensible to me especially when the actual cost is miniscule when talking about the money being thrown around due to the virus last year.
Also it gives a huge amount of breathing space to install more storage around the country, being in W.A it doesn't concern me greatly, but having worked in the sector you are definitely better over building, than falling short or breaking even then running on luck.
But as you say, IF the AEMO says all that is needed is 154MW that's good, but it sounds a bit too precise a number for engineers to come up with from my experience.
In my experience, engineers give a range for worst case scenario, to best case scenario, 154MW sounds like a surgical number that someone has cherry picked.
Or it could be the shortfall with the closure of Liddel Power Station, but doesn't take into account the remaining coal stations being closed, where the 1,000MW may take the extra coal power station closures into account, this is the sort of things accurate reporting covers. These days you don't know if they are comparing apples with apples, or making it up as they go along IMO.
It will be interesting to see what Labor decide on, if they get in next year, that will give a more clear picture, because they wont want to wear any blackouts either.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Or it could be the shortfall with the closure of Liddell Power Station, but doesn't take into account the remaining coal stations being closed



That's what it is yes - the near term requirement due to Liddell closure.

The number's precise simply because AEMO's quoted the output of a modeling exercise and hasn't rounded it.  That modeling exercise is, of course, itself imprecise although on the other hand it's the same basis they'd be using if they said the shortfall were zero. Whether the modeling approach is right or not's another matter....


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> That's what it is yes - the near term requirement due to Liddell closure.
> 
> The number's precise simply because AEMO's quoted the output of a modeling exercise and hasn't rounded it.  That modeling exercise is, of course, itself imprecise although on the other hand it's the same basis they'd be using if they said the shortfall were zero. Whether the modeling approach is right or not's another matter....



But there is talk of other coal station closures being brought forward, wouldn't that have to come into the reckoning, as I would expect that only one gas station would be built and utilise an existing site.
If a large one is built, it may well accelerate the closure of all the remaining coal stations, which would make the most sense, as then not only are you reducing emissions but you are also increasing flexibility and reliability. 
Also you would be nationalising the fossil fueled generation component, which would allow the likes of AGL, Origin etc to concentrate on storage and renewable generation, rather than trying to keep old uncompetitive coal operating to meet their generating obligation and not having to build new dispatchable plant which will end up stranded.
I really can't see a better way of transitioning from fossil to renewables, but hey it's only my thoughts.


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting article about the rapid changes happening in the grid, as Australia careers toward a renewable grid and the difficulties in keeping up. I did say a while back that Australia is doing really well, when some were criticising the speed of uptake, well it is really picking up. Snowy 2.0 can't come soon enough IMO. 
The part in bold, is the really complex bit, that can't be legislated, it is a massive technical undertaking.
Just being able to restore the load in a major blackout, using renewables, is a massive technical issue.
The 'Engineering Framework Report' is a great read for those interested.








						AEMO calls for all hands to navigate “incredibly fast” transition to renewables
					

AEMO’s new engineering framework lays out “just how incredibly fast change is coming” via the wholesale shift to renewables and calls for collaboration from industry to keep up th…




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the article:
_The “incredibly fast” pace of Australia’s transition from a coal and gas plant based centralised energy system to one powered predominantly by distributed renewables has been laid bare in a new report from the Australian Energy Market Operator.

The AEMO has this week called for collaboration from all quarters of the nation’s energy industry as it navigates the massive and complex engineering challenge presented by the grid’s once-in-a-lifetime transition to distributed solar and wind.

The call comes with the release of the NEM Engineering Framework report, a 50-odd page document that the AEMO’s manager of future energy systems, Chris Davies, says aims to “chunk out” what future grid operations will look like and how they will best be managed.

*The Framework does this, in part, by identifying 10 focus areas, each of these enormously technically complex on their own, including voltage control, system strength, distributed energy resources, system restoration and frequency balance.
“Together with industry, we’ll be working to identify possible future operational conditions for the NEM power system, understand current work underway to then collectively act to address the most urgent issues,” Davies said.*

“Our March 2021 report is about setting a baseline for the Framework, so we can understand all the moving parts across industry and work out how they fit together, including future priorities for AEMO.”

And while the overall picture can appear daunting, Davies stresses that it’s also quite thrilling, as Australia navigates one of the world’s fastest and most bleeding-edge shifts to zero emissions grid.

“What the document lays out is just how incredibly fast change is coming, which is on one hand daunting, but also it is very exciting and we’re very quickly entering into a space that no country has gone into,” Davies told RenewEconomy on Thursday.

“So I think for Australia that is a really exciting thing, it’s a chance here to be really world leading. …And the really exciting thing here is, I think we have found a way to deconstruct that and make that accessible and less overwhelming, so you can you can chunk it out and you can really think through, okay, how do we actually plan for this?”
By “this,” Davies is talking about the neck-breaking speed at which a once coal and centralised power station-based electricity network has incorporated a 38% contribution of wind and solar (including rooftop PV) at any one point in 2018, and then a 52% contribution in 2020.

Meanwhile, minimum synchronous generation at a single point in time has decreased from 13.7 gigawatts (GW) in 2018 to 10.8 GW in 2020 across the NEM.

“The NEM is rapidly moving towards operating for hours at a time with a completely different mix of generation sources, which will be unique for any large power system in the world,” Davies said.

“Working together as an industry we can plan our way through these changes to provide a sustainable energy system that delivers affordable, safe and reliable energy for all Australians,” he said.

The key message from here, says Davies, is that teamwork will be key, as all of the different components of the new distributed renewable system are pieced together into one functioning National Electricity Market.

The other key message, Davies says, is that time is of the essence. Because change is happening, whether we’re ready or not.

“The speed of change and the size of our power system means we’re seeing these trends emerging really fast,” he told RE.

“There are a number of areas where Australia is at the forefront, as well, including trials of big batteries, grid forming inverters, trials of VPPs, those are very much world leading,” he said.

“This should be looked upon as a growth opportunity. This is the place where you want to be, right now, if you have any interest in the future of low-carbon energy systems.”

In the meantime, AEMO wants to hear from stakeholders about how they would like to be involved and is holding an open industry discussion in April, with targeted stakeholder discussions through May and June to help identify operational conditions and early priorities._


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> But there is talk of other coal station closures being brought forward, wouldn't that have to come into the reckoning, as I would expect that only one gas station would be built and utilise an existing site.



What it really comes down to is a simple question.

What's the destination?

I'll use the analogy of a taxi and say that the driver can take you anywhere within reasonable distance so long as there's a road there.

Just one thing - you need to know where you want to go, either the actual address or at least some sort of description. Telling the driver that you want to go to the airport will be easy, saying you want to go to a street with a lot of restaurants will be not quite so easy, since in most cities there's more than one option, but still the driver should manage to take you to a place with a lot of restaurants.

Back to the power industry and the basic problem is that our taxi driver finds themselves with a car full of passengers all of whom are shouting but, and here's the problem, they don't know where they want to go. I don't mean they lack an address that could be worked out but rather, they really don't know if they're looking for the airport, nightclubs or a 24 hour supermarket.

In the context of electricity, what's missing is leadership from government to answer the basic question - what are we aiming for?

Is the aim to go 100% renewable?

Are we actually doing the Paris Agreement thing or not?

Is the aim to have some ongoing use of fossil fuels? If so, how much?

Or do we just do what's cheapest and nobody's really worried about this stuff?

And so on.

What's happening at the moment is that, broadly speaking, the investor-owned companies are scared of blowing their shareholders' funds on plant that turns out to be a political flop meanwhile the government-owned ones are either treading very cautiously due to fear of finding themselves a political target or, in the case of Snowy, are being actively directed by the feds anyway.

So there's quite a bit of paralysis basically. Not totally, but to considerable extent there is.

If that was resolved well then the answer as to whether to build gas, batteries or whatever would be far clearer.

As for the federal government and gas - my expectation is 750 MW. That's not a definite thing but it's the figure they've put on all the documentation regarding it.

Personally well I'm not saying gas is good or bad but I'd like there to be a proper plan behind all this. It's too important to have politicians running around decreeing that a gas turbine goes here and a battery goes there. That's really not the way to do it.


----------



## sptrawler

From what I have read the question of how much will be self resolving, as much as possible, the grid will become 100% renewables.
But then more and more renewables will be installed to produce hydrogen.
Going back to your taxi example @Smurf1976 it isnt a case of where to take the taxi, but how big the fleet of taxis will be in the end.
At the moment, no one knows, as the government says as soon as possible, if the major industries start and become generators, to mitigate their own footprint, the requirement of electrical generators to supply that load reduces, so it will happen faster.
It is all great to say 20, or 30 or 40 years, then it becomes like the vaccine rollout an albotross around your neck and a great target for the media. IMO
My quess is it will happen a lot faster than 2050.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> From what I have read the question of how much will be self resolving, as much as possible, the grid will become 100% renewables.



In principle I'm in the camp which sees that as the preferred outcome.

Practical problem however is the politics of it all. In short, so long as there's a lack of direction on that front and open conflict even within the same party, the companies are being cautious in how much they spend on new assets.

Worth noting in that context that the divide is more a federal versus state thing than being along party lines.

The Labor states and the Liberal states are on the same page apart from minor detail. They're all advocating renewables. Federal government is where the difficulty arises since they're at odds with the states, Liberal states included.

Beyond fairly limited amounts, the companies have thus far been reluctant to get caught up in the battle and are holding back investment. Problem is, the clock's ticking on the remaining life of existing plant and that's coming to the pointy end rather quickly hence the threats, panic and so on.

It's not so much a case of arguing for one policy or another but of needing the political battle to come to a halt and to achieve some certainty regarding policy.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> In principle I'm in the camp which sees that as the preferred outcome.
> 
> Practical problem however is the politics of it all. In short, so long as there's a lack of direction on that front and open conflict even within the same party, the companies are being cautious in how much they spend on new assets.
> 
> Worth noting in that context that the divide is more a federal versus state thing than being along party lines.
> 
> The Labor states and the Liberal states are on the same page apart from minor detail. They're all advocating renewables. Federal government is where the difficulty arises since they're at odds with the states, Liberal states included.
> 
> Beyond fairly limited amounts, the companies have thus far been reluctant to get caught up in the battle and are holding back investment. Problem is, the clock's ticking on the remaining life of existing plant and that's coming to the pointy end rather quickly hence the threats, panic and so on.
> 
> It's not so much a case of arguing for one policy or another but of needing the political battle to come to a halt and to achieve some certainty regarding policy.



I can see the problem, but from the outside looking in, It appears to me that the States are on the same page, but aren't actually doing much, aside from S.A.
There seems to be a lot of noise coming from the states, but not much action and from what I read the States also seem to have minimal accountability or responsibility for the outcome, if it goes pear shaped.
Plants are being closed and or closures being brought forward and there is very little happening to cover the projected shortfall.

If the States want to be in charge of their section of the network, they should be demanding the operators show how they are going to cover that perceived shortfall, not just give lip service and hope it works out.

Again from just reading on the internet, it appears the Federal Government is the only one actively concerned about the problem and has told the private operators, who own the States generating equipment, one of you guys needs to install some dispatchable power or we will.
From a logical position, if the States want to go full renewable, they should be saying we are going to cover the problem by installing x,y &z renewable generation and storage facilities.

It is ok for the States to say we want to go renewables, and do nothing, then when the manure hits the fan blame the Federal Government who in reality are the only ones doing anything (again except for S.A). By installing Snowy 2.0 and funding HVinteconnects.

It is like everything else these days, everyone wants to tell you what to do, but do sod all themselves and take no responsibility, or accountability for the outcome.
The States need to man up, or hand it over to the Feds, rather than sniping from the side lines.
As was shown through the pandemic, they can stand on their own two feet when they have to and tell the Feds this is our turf, yet when a bushfire, or a media furore gets out of control, it is run to daddy.
Time the States grew up, they sold off the generation assets and spent the money, grow a pair and if you want renewables to replace them put them in, then a gas plant wont be required. The States can go back to owning generating infrastructure, but the problem is then the State pollies would be responsible and accountable for it again, and they wouldn't want that.
Like I've said just my opinion and being from W.A I don't actually give a rats either way, S.A and W.A seem to be the only States with balls.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I can see the problem, but from the outside looking in, as W.A hasn't the same issues, It appears to me that the States are on the same page, but aren't actually doing much, aside from S.A.
> There seems to be a lot of noise coming from the states, but not much action and from what I read the States also seem to have minimal accountability or responsibility for the outcome, if it goes pear shaped.
> Plants are being closed and or closure being brought forward and there is very little happening to cover the projected shortfall.
> If the States want to be in charge of their section of the network, they should be demanding the operators show how they are going to cover that perceived shortfall, not just give lip service and hope it works out.
> Again from just reading, it appears the Federal Government is the only one actively concerned about the problem and has told the private operators, who own the States generating equipment, either one of you guys installs some dispatchable power or we will.
> From a logical position, if the States want to go full renewable, they should be saying we are going to cover the problem by installing x,y &z renewable generation and storage facilities.
> It is ok for the States to say we want to go renewables, and do nothing, then when the manure hits the fan blame the Federal Government who in reality are the only ones doing anything (again except for S.A).
> Like I said it is like everything else these days, everyone wants to tell you what to do, but do sod all themselves and take no responsibility, or accountability for the outcome. The States need to man up, or hand it over to the Feds, rather than sniping from the side lines. As was shown through the pandemic, they can stand on their own two feet when they have to and tell the Feds this is our turf, yet when a bushfire, or a media furore gets out of control, it is run to daddy.
> Time the States grew up, they sold off the assets and spent the money, grow a pair and if you want renewables to replace them put them in, then a gas plant wont be required.
> Like I've said just my opinion and being from W.A I don't actually give a rats either way.




I may have said it before, but I"ll say it again.

The problem started when the Howard/Costello government basically forced the States to sell their power assets to private enterprise due to the asset recycling scheme.

Prior to that the States were competing with each other to offer the lowest power prices they could so they could attract business and industry to their State, and we had some of the lowest power prices in the world. Now we have some of the highest.

States owned the generators, the distribution network and the billing so they could cross subsidise and offer the best deals.

Now we have a complete stuff up, no one knows who is responsible for building generators, distribution or billing , States, Federal, private all just arguing with each other instead of getting on with it.

Power is an essential service, it's ultimately the government's job to deliver, never mind the ideological bull$hit about "market forces", either the Feds take it over or it's given back to the States like it was before.

A great example of ideology stuffing things up for the consumers, but of course those responsible won't admit it.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I may have said it before, but I"ll say it again.
> 
> The problem started when the Howard/Costello government basically forced the States to sell their power assets to private enterprise due to the asset recycling scheme.
> 
> Prior to that the States were competing with each other to offer the lowest power prices they could so they could attract business and industry to their State, and we had some of the lowest power prices in the world. Now we have some of the highest.
> 
> States owned the generators, the distribution network and the billing so they could cross subsidise and offer the best deals.
> 
> Now we have a complete stuff up, no one knows who is responsible for building generators, distribution or billing , States, Federal, private all just arguing with each other instead of getting on with it.
> 
> *Power is an essential service, it's ultimately the government's job to deliver, never mind the ideological bull$hit about "market forces", either the Feds take it over or it's given back to the States like it was before*.
> 
> A great example of ideology stuffing things up for the consumers, but of course those responsible won't admit it.



Absolutely, but now we are moving into a period where the whole electrical system dynamics are changing, there may not be room for big single generation utilities in the future.
With domestic solar and community batteries, BEVs and private industry investing in self sufficient renewable power, there actually may not be much but crumbs left over, then it will become a public service again the private operates will just pull up stumps.
The States and Federal Governments may well have to take over the electrical system again, as there may not be enough money in it, for private enterprise to make anything without cranking the price to the consumer to stupid heights.
So saying well 30 years ago they said sell it and we did and we spent the money, now we are just going to sit back and say I told you so, might work for you it sure as $hit wouldn't make me too happy.
Luckily in W.A the major supplier is the State Government and my guess is we will be gas/renewable by 2030 and full renewables by 2050.

Your comment about either the Feds take it over, or give it back to the States, seems to be exactly what is happening, the Feds have said to the operators which operate State generators, either you put some new $hit in to cover your aging rooted infrastructure, or we will.

The States could say, that infrastructure is ours we will make them upgrade, replace with renewables, or put renewables in ourselves.

From what I'm reading all the States(except S.A), are just riding the wave of public opinion in the media and actually doing sod all.

What has Victoria put in?, What has NSW put in? What has Qld put in? yet they are the ones that have the big coal generators and are saying we want to go renewables, but haven't said anything about the big generators closing down and how they are going to mitigate the loss of dispatchable at call generation.
The only ones with any plan seems to be the Feds, Snowy 2.0, Tassie battery interconnect, 1,000MW of dispatchable gas turbines, what are the States doing?


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Beyond fairly limited amounts, the companies have thus far been reluctant to get caught up in the battle and are holding back investment. Problem is, the clock's ticking on the remaining life of existing plant and that's coming to the pointy end rather quickly hence the threats, panic and so on.
> 
> It's not so much a case of arguing for one policy or another but of needing the political battle to come to a halt and to achieve some certainty regarding policy.



The companies are holding back investment, because there is no ROI with fossil fuel and the very distinct possibility of stranded assets, so they need to invest in renewables, the Feds have said they want to get to carbon zero as fast as possible.
The States are responsible for their generation to a major degree, as has been shown by S.A, so unless the States get the generators to install something, what can the Feds do other than say we will put in firming generation if they don't?
Obviously there is a magic wand there, that if the Feds say we are going to be carbon neutral by 2050, something wonderful will happen.
Renewables are the cheapest to install and run, old plant is becoming unserviceable, unreliable, unprofitable and a liability, what certainty are we looking for? Someone to tell them to change their generation portfolio?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> what certainty are we looking for?



The big problem is actually illustrated by your comments, specifically:



sptrawler said:


> the Feds have said they want to get to carbon zero as fast as possible.




Presumably that's what they're saying in WA?

In the eastern states they want gas, a "gas-fired recovery" as they call it, not zero emissions.

What the industry wants is a clear policy.

At present there's several companies which have specific proposals for new fossil fuel, pumped hydro and battery development. Some of those have gone as far as having obtained all required planning approvals, all equipment has been specified, contractors identified and so on. So those projects are "shovel ready" to go.

That they're not being built thus far largely comes down to uncertainty as to what government wants with all this. Few are keen to risk blowing their money if it turns out that government decides they built the wrong thing.

The issue needs to stop being a political "point of difference". Come up with a policy and get on with building things which fit within it, no politics required.

Much the same with any industry, those making the decisions to sign off on big $ investments want reasonable certainty as to government policy.


----------



## Humid

Smurf1976 said:


> The big problem is actually illustrated by your comments, specifically:
> 
> 
> 
> Presumably that's what they're saying in WA?
> 
> In the eastern states they want gas, a "gas-fired recovery" as they call it, not zero emissions.
> 
> What the industry wants is a clear policy.
> 
> At present there's several companies which have specific proposals for new fossil fuel, pumped hydro and battery development. Some of those have gone as far as having obtained all required planning approvals, all equipment has been specified, contractors identified and so on. So those projects are "shovel ready" to go.
> 
> That they're not being built thus far largely comes down to uncertainty as to what government wants with all this. Few are keen to risk blowing their money if it turns out that government decides they built the wrong thing.
> 
> The issue needs to stop being a political "point of difference". Come up with a policy and get on with building things which fit within it, no politics required.



He has his LNP hat on 
2050 or bust
MAGA
make australia gas again


----------



## Smurf1976

Humid said:


> MAGA
> make australia gas again



Like that one.  

Seriously, the whole issue isn't so much a question of what the policy is but of getting some certainty.

The industry can live with a focus on gas and it could live with 100% renewables but there's real caution when it comes to the uncertainty and politics surrounding the whole thing.

What I'm really saying is that the whole thing's been too political for too long, that's doing far more harm than good at this point. It needs to be settled, get on with doing what needs to be done, and let politics focus on something else.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> The big problem is actually illustrated by your comments, specifically:
> 
> 
> 
> Presumably that's what they're saying in WA?
> 
> In the eastern states they want gas, a "gas-fired recovery" as they call it, not zero emissions.
> 
> What the industry wants is a clear policy.
> 
> At present there's several companies which have specific proposals for new fossil fuel, pumped hydro and battery development. Some of those have gone as far as having obtained all required planning approvals, all equipment has been specified, contractors identified and so on. So those projects are "shovel ready" to go.
> 
> That they're not being built thus far largely comes down to uncertainty as to what government wants with all this. Few are keen to risk blowing their money if it turns out that government decides they built the wrong thing.
> 
> The issue needs to stop being a political "point of difference". Come up with a policy and get on with building things which fit within it, no politics required.



Ah I see the point, what I was focusing on was just the electrical grid from a generation perspective, i wasn't thinking from an industrial consumer perspective.
From W.A's perspective, nothing is being said, coal is being withdrawn and GT's are being installed, life moves on. 
Then when the renewables and storage make the GT's obsolete they also will be withdrawn, Simple really.

But over East, obviously there is a bigger picture, because it is a bigger market and a bigger pot of money. 
So all the vested interests want to maximise their outcomes, that is problematic, but how do the Feds pick a winner? 
Sounds like they are just trying to cover their ar$e, which if you are working on the theory that the market will work it out, is probably from their perspective the best move.
If the market doesn't work it out, the Feds put in a big gas plant, to ensure supply. 
While the market players thrash around with even less competitive plant and still wondering where they are going to make a profit.
If as you say market players have fossil fuel, pumped hydro and battery developments ready to go, why would gas be a problem, one it is a limited supply and two pumped hydro and batteries are cost positive as proven in S.A.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Like that one.
> 
> Seriously, the whole issue isn't so much a question of what the policy is but of getting some certainty.
> 
> *The industry can live with a focus on gas and it could live with 100% renewables* but there's real caution when it comes to the uncertainty and politics surrounding the whole thing.



I think the problem is, that gas is required as a stop gap, until there is enough renewables and storage available to not require fossil fuel as a backup.
Until that position is reached, gas is the cleanest and most efficient option.


----------



## sptrawler

This debate shows actually how screwed up Australia is, Morrison said he wants everyone in Australia to be vaccinated by the end of the year, now that can't be achieved because of things outside of his control, he is lambasted.

But in the same breath, when he says he wants Australia to be carbon zero as soon as possible, he is told to make a date. How can he do that without knowing what technical limitations may eventuate.

To me it just shows a country being driven by media agenda, which in itself is biased by advertising and journalistic leanings.

Australia certainly hasn't become the clever country, more like the morning show driven, mindless Country IMO.


----------



## Humid

Front of the queue
bahahahaha


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> If as you say market players have fossil fuel, pumped hydro and battery developments ready to go, why would gas be a problem, one it is a limited supply and two pumped hydro and batteries are cost positive as proven in S.A.



Best way I can put it is with a very real example:

AGL announced in April 2015, that's six years ago, that Liddell power station would be closing.

Consequences of that announcement have been a six year, and still ongoing, argument with the federal government that has been extremely visible to the public and at its worst point came to the point of outright threats against the company.

No other participant in the industry wants to go down that track or anything even remotely close to it.

Hence Alinta literally blew Northern power station up with explosives to preclude any arguing about is fate, Engie waited for the state government to give them an ultimatum over Hazelwood on safety grounds and shut it at the last possible moment while Energy Australia have sought political cover in the form of a 7 year deal with the Victorian state government.

It's one thing for a company to make the wrong investment decision and lose money or to make the right decision and beat the competition. That's just capitalism at work. It's quite another thing to end up in a serious fight with the national government over it however.

Overall I'm not overly keen on the current structure of having so many different owners, so many regulators of things and so on given that, from a technical perspective, it's all ultimately the one system. That structure does add a lot of complexity and headaches at getting things done.

It is what it is however, it's the actual industry structure we have and it was governments that created it, so the need is to get on with it and make it work. Otherwise, if that doesn't happen, well then at some point the old clunkers one by one will come to the end of their operable lives and then we really do have a very serious problem, the lights really will go out.

What I'm really saying is the issue needs to be de-politicised. The whole thing's gone on for over a decade now and needs to stop, the politicians need to find something else to spend their days arguing over and just get on with what needs to be done with energy as there's stuff all time left.

I'm not against the concept of building a gas turbine station in NSW or even that government owns it. Just want to see an end to the political circus surrounding the whole thing.

To the point on that one - Snowy submitted the plans for 2 x 375 MW open cycle gas turbines a few months ago now and are looking to start construction early 2022. 

As for supply reliability - best that can be said there is "it's a gamble". Stuff all reserve margin and relying on generating plant that's largely from the 1970's and 80's is definite cause for concern but on the other hand, if new things can actually be built well then that does fix the problem. It's thus a gamble in regards to timing and sequence of events. Could get lucky, could be very unlucky.....


----------



## sptrawler

More great news for Australia's renewable sector, an Australian specific BMS(battery management system), to be developed here for grid connected batteries.








						Energy Renaissance, CSIRO join forces on “defence grade” battery management system
					

Company behind Australian battery giga-factory has joined forces with the CSIRO and IMCRC to develop a home gown, “defence grade” battery management system.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the article:
The energy storage hopeful behind plans to build Australia’s first gigawatt-scale lithium-ion battery factory has joined forces with the CSIRO to develop a home gown, “defence grade” battery management system, or BMS.
Energy Renaissance, which is this year building a $28 million solar powered battery plant in Tomago, New South Wales, said on Thursday that it was also jointly funding a $A1.46 million BMS project with Australia’s national science agency and the Innovative Manufacturing CRC (IMCRC).

The BMS, which acts as the “nerve centre” of the battery and is critical to its operating efficiency, will monitor and report on the battery’s usage, lifespan and faults through a mobile network to Energy Renaissance and its customers.

Communicating through an inverter, the system will also enable secure real time data, analytics and remote management to drive down risk of failure and operating costs for grid-scale energy storage users.

Energy Renaissance’s director of technology and development, Brian Criaghead, said the BMS project meant that the company could offer customers a complete and uncomplicated plug-and-play battery energy storage solution that was put together in Australia, for the Australian market.

“The collaboration between Energy Renaissance, CSIRO, and IMCRC will promote an Australian Battery Management System instead of relying on an overseas technology platform,” Craighead said.
The CSIRO, which is developing the software underpinning the BMS, is working to three key goals: to make the Energy Renaissance batteries safer, more affordable and optimised to operate in high temperature environments.

Adam Best, a principal research scientist at CSIRO, has been seconded to work with Energy Renaissance on the project.


----------



## sptrawler

On a more holistic note, it sounds as though the States are starting to get their act together, in co ordinating the shift from State  fossil fueled generation, to a renewable platform.








						Cross-sector Energy Council to guide Queensland shift to renewables
					

Queensland joins NSW and Victorian in establishing a new, cross-sector body to collaborate and advise on state’s shift to 50% renewables by 2030.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the artcle:
“By establishing a Ministerial Energy Council, our government can leverage our foundational assets as a basis from which to harness the additional capacity of renewables to deliver real outcomes for Queenslanders,” he said.

“Renewable energy and transmission, manufacturing, resources and electrifying transport have the capacity to create 570,000 Australian jobs in the next five years.”

The move by Queensland to establish a separate, cross sector collaborative body follows similar moves by other states, as they gear up to establish new Renewable Energy Zones and meet ambitious electricity generation and climate targets.

On Wednesday, the NSW Liberal government announced the establishment of its first Renewable Energy Sector Board, bringing together energy sector representatives to provide advice on the job creation and manufacturing opportunities being created by the shift to renewables.
And last week, the Victorian Labor government announced the creation of a new body called VicGrid, in this case to oversee and manage the suite of network investments required to accommodate the gigawatts of big solar and wind joining the state’s grid.

For Queensland’s new body, de Brenni said one of the first items on the agenda would be a discussion around how best to establish a fully functional and commercial hydrogen supply chain in the state, while also helping to deliver Australia’s National Hydrogen Strategy.

“With state-owned energy generators and ports, the levers are uniquely in Queenslanders hands to generate hydrogen to enable a renewable energy future for our nation,” he said.

“At the next meeting of Energy Ministers, I’ll be asking for a greater focus on the role of hydrogen in the future of Australia’s energy security.”


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> On a more holistic note, it sounds as though the States are starting to get their act together, in co ordinating the shift from State  fossil fueled generation, to a renewable platform.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Cross-sector Energy Council to guide Queensland shift to renewables
> 
> 
> Queensland joins NSW and Victorian in establishing a new, cross-sector body to collaborate and advise on state’s shift to 50% renewables by 2030.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> reneweconomy.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the artcle:
> “By establishing a Ministerial Energy Council, our government can leverage our foundational assets as a basis from which to harness the additional capacity of renewables to deliver real outcomes for Queenslanders,” he said.
> 
> “Renewable energy and transmission, manufacturing, resources and electrifying transport have the capacity to create 570,000 Australian jobs in the next five years.”
> 
> The move by Queensland to establish a separate, cross sector collaborative body follows similar moves by other states, as they gear up to establish new Renewable Energy Zones and meet ambitious electricity generation and climate targets.
> 
> On Wednesday, the NSW Liberal government announced the establishment of its first Renewable Energy Sector Board, bringing together energy sector representatives to provide advice on the job creation and manufacturing opportunities being created by the shift to renewables.
> And last week, the Victorian Labor government announced the creation of a new body called VicGrid, in this case to oversee and manage the suite of network investments required to accommodate the gigawatts of big solar and wind joining the state’s grid.
> 
> For Queensland’s new body, de Brenni said one of the first items on the agenda would be a discussion around how best to establish a fully functional and commercial hydrogen supply chain in the state, while also helping to deliver Australia’s National Hydrogen Strategy.
> 
> “With state-owned energy generators and ports, the levers are uniquely in Queenslanders hands to generate hydrogen to enable a renewable energy future for our nation,” he said.
> 
> “At the next meeting of Energy Ministers, I’ll be asking for a greater focus on the role of hydrogen in the future of Australia’s energy security.”




There seems to be a lot of new "bodies" being set up.

One hopes that there will be some actions not just more hot air.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> There seems to be a lot of new "bodies" being set up.
> 
> One hopes that there will be some actions not just more hot air.



Well it is the only way, the States can come to an agreement on what priority and what order the coal plants can be closed. 
I think it is a great move and should pave the way for an orderly transition.
The State bodies, dealing with the AEMO as to the best technical approach, will definitely produce the best outcome IMO.
It is so much better than the States having a random approach, based on a desired political and business outcome and focused on a State view rather than a grid view.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Like i said 90% of the problem IMO, is the media coverage is based on political/ environmental bias and presenting flawed information.



That really depends on what you read.
The political bias is clear: it favours gas.
Gas is needed as a stop gap, but that's it.
Battery storage plus wind/solar will be cheaper than gas in a matter of years.
The problem is not the media, it's the troglodytes that haven't got our energy policy in order since coming to power.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> That really depends on what you read.
> The political bias is clear: it favours gas.
> Gas is needed as a stop gap, but that's it.
> Battery storage plus wind/solar will be cheaper than gas in a matter of years.



Spot on, but you can add hydro and pumped storage to that also.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> There seems to be a lot of new "bodies" being set up.
> 
> One hopes that there will be some actions not just more hot air.



Short answer is the whole thing has slowly but surely crept back toward a centrally planned approach but nobody's going to come out and directly announce that.

Every state (including the NT and ACT) has now effectively stepped in to control the market one way or another. The details of what they want to achieve varies but none are taking a "leave it to the market" view.

That said, having a policy doesn't mean the job's done unless you're the one writing the policy. For everyone else it means work can _commence_ and suffice to say there's a lot to be done.

It's not as though we didn't have an LOR1 (Lack Of Reserve level 1) in NSW this evening and it's not as though there aren't 4 open cycle gas turbines in SA running on diesel right at this moment. There's a lot needing to be done.

At midday today for the NEM as a whole (all states except WA and NT):
Coal = 48.9% (12,005 MW)
Solar = 33.4% (8204 MW)
Wind = 9.9% (2433 MW)
Hydro = 6.0% (1466 MW)
Gas = 1.7% (427 MW)

At 6:30pm today:
Coal = 58.2% (15,162 MW)
Hydro = 19.1% (4966 MW)
Gas = 15.2% (3967 MW)
Wind = 7.1% (1861 MW)
Diesel = 0.2% (50 MW)
Batteries = 0.1% (26 MW)

Highest output by source at any time over past day (all times are eastern states time)
Coal = 15,435 MW - right now
Solar = 8303 MW - 11:30am
Hydro = 4966 MW - 6:30pm
Gas = 4210 MW - 7:30pm
Wind = 2910 MW - 2:30pm
Diesel = 86 MW - 8:00pm
Battery discharge = 75 MW - 6:00am

Total energy generated over past day:
Coal = 339 GWh - 63.1%
Solar = 62 GWh - 11.4%
Hydro = 56 GWh - 10.5%
Wind = 42 GWh - 8.1%
Gas = 37 GWh = 6.9%
Diesel = 0.2 GWh = 0.03%

Figures won't add to exactly 100% due to rounding within the data.







Black = coal
Orange = gas
Red = diesel
Blue = hydro
Green = wind
Yellow = solar


----------



## Smurf1976

Some dramatic swings in the price of natural gas in Victoria over the past two days.

All figures are for the spot price and in AUD per GJ and all times are eastern AEST.

Note that prices are set in time blocks as follows:

06:00 - 10:00
10:00 - 14:00
14:00 - 18:00
18:00 - 22:00
22:00 - 06:00 the following day.

So 4 hourly intervals except overnight which is an 8 hour period.

17 April at 6:00 am = $5.95 which is pretty normal, it's been around that +/- a few % for a while now.

...

19 April 22:00 - 20 April 06:00 = $7.10

20 April 06:00 - 10:00 = $6.35

20 April 10:00 - 14:00 = $6.60

20 April 14:00 - 18:00 = $7.50

20 April 18:00 - 22:00 = *$21.99*

20 April 22:00 - 21 April 06:00 = *$19.85*

21 April 06:00 - 10:00 = $8.20

21 April 10:00 - 14:00 = *$21.00*

21 April 14:00 - 18:00 = $10.43

21 April 18:00 - 22:00 = $9.05

21 April 22:00 - present = *$19.84*

If anyone's looking for a volatile market well there's one.

Whilst that's the spot market and most actual gas sales will be under some form of contract, it's nonetheless dramatic volatility compared to what's normal.

I haven't looked into the reasons but there's nothing particularly obvious, there is some storage capacity unable to discharge at present (Iona) but there's unused production capacity available at Longford (Vic) and via pipeline from Qld into SA and NSW (noting that they're both connected to Vic) so no actual physical shortage. 

In terms of practical effects, well one is that some power generation did switch to oil-based fuels either in the same plant, or by running oil-fired plant in preference to gas-fired plant. Oil in this context meaning anything refined from petroleum - diesel, kerosene, fuel oil etc.

Data source = Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Some dramatic swings in the price of natural gas in Victoria over the past two days.
> 
> All figures are for the spot price and in AUD per GJ and all times are eastern AEST.
> 
> Note that prices are set in time blocks as follows:
> 
> 06:00 - 10:00
> 10:00 - 14:00
> 14:00 - 18:00
> 18:00 - 22:00
> 22:00 - 06:00 the following day.
> 
> So 4 hourly intervals except overnight which is an 8 hour period.
> 
> 17 April at 6:00 am = $5.95 which is pretty normal, it's been around that +/- a few % for a while now.
> 
> ...
> 
> 19 April 22:00 - 20 April 06:00 = $7.10
> 
> 20 April 06:00 - 10:00 = $6.35
> 
> 20 April 10:00 - 14:00 = $6.60
> 
> 20 April 14:00 - 18:00 = $7.50
> 
> 20 April 18:00 - 22:00 = *$21.99*
> 
> 20 April 22:00 - 21 April 06:00 = *$19.85*
> 
> 21 April 06:00 - 10:00 = $8.20
> 
> 21 April 10:00 - 14:00 = *$21.00*
> 
> 21 April 14:00 - 18:00 = $10.43
> 
> 21 April 18:00 - 22:00 = $9.05
> 
> 21 April 22:00 - present = *$19.84*
> 
> If anyone's looking for a volatile market well there's one.
> 
> Whilst that's the spot market and most actual gas sales will be under some form of contract, it's nonetheless dramatic volatility compared to what's normal.
> 
> I haven't looked into the reasons but there's nothing particularly obvious, there is some storage capacity unable to discharge at present (Iona) but there's unused production capacity available at Longford (Vic) and via pipeline from Qld into SA and NSW (noting that they're both connected to Vic) so no actual physical shortage.
> 
> In terms of practical effects, well one is that some power generation did switch to oil-based fuels either in the same plant, or by running oil-fired plant in preference to gas-fired plant. Oil in this context meaning anything refined from petroleum - diesel, kerosene, fuel oil etc.
> 
> Data source = Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).



So much for this:
Government accused of pressuring experts who questioned its gas-fired recovery plan​


----------



## SirRumpole

Federal government to build gas power station in the Hunter Valley.

About time.









						Federal government set to build taxpayer-funded gas-fired power plant
					

The Federal government is set to build a taxpayer-funded gas-fired power plant in the Hunter region of NSW, in what would be a major intervention in the electricity market.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Humid

SirRumpole said:


> Federal government to build gas power station in the Hunter Valley.
> 
> About time.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Federal government set to build taxpayer-funded gas-fired power plant
> 
> 
> The Federal government is set to build a taxpayer-funded gas-fired power plant in the Hunter region of NSW, in what would be a major intervention in the electricity market.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Can you imagine the NBN if it was built by the private sector lol


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Federal government to build gas power station in the Hunter Valley.



From an engineering and electricity supply perspective there's a definite need for more dispatchable generating capacity so I'm not going to object to government or anyone else building some.

On the other hand there' a very real issue in regard to climate change and the response to it which really needs some direction from government as to what the industry ought to be doing there. It is, after all, government that'll be committing Australia to whatever action is taken.

Government really needs to make its mind up on relevant matters, in particular:

A. The whole issue of climate, emissions, and everything relating to it. Come up with a policy and stick to it.

B. What role does the federal government intend having in the power industry long term? That is, is the industry being effectively nationalised or not?

There wouldn't be too many industries involving companies valued in the $ billions where 3 CEO's quit in the space of week after all.

Stanwell Corporation, AGL and Energy Australia bosses all have announced their resignation in recent days, in one case effective immediately.

In the case of Stanwell Corp that's an effective forced resignation after calling it how he sees it with the shift away from coal. https://www.theguardian.com/austral...tor-after-energy-minister-complained-to-board

Not exactly a well kept secret that a couple of others have abruptly moved on due to conflict with the states or federal government either.

I'm not taking sides politically there, just saying the whole issue needs to be settled and the uncertainty brought to an end.


----------



## sptrawler

Well we have being saying there isn't any money to be made cycling coal plant, so it becomes a case of renewables and storage, or HEGT's IMO.

So as we have already said, it is between a rock and a hard place, the companies have to decide they know that the ultimate goal is zero emissions.

My guess is the fossil fueled generation will end up government owned, as they will eventually become a stranded assets and the major generators will have to decide how they transition out of fossil fuel.
Probably some gas plant will be bought by the State government's, if it is suitable and serviceable.
Interesting times.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Well we have being saying there isn't any money to be made cycling coal plant, so it becomes a case of renewables and storage, or HEGT's IMO.
> 
> So as we have already said, it is between a rock and a hard place, the companies have to decide they know that the ultimate goal is zero emissions.
> 
> My guess is the fossil fueled generation will end up government owned, as they will eventually become a stranded assets and the major generators will have to decide how they transition out of fossil fuel.
> Probably some gas plant will be bought by the State government's, if it is suitable and serviceable.
> Interesting times.




Gas stations are probably medium term options until sufficient pumped hydro can be built, although it's obviously an advantage to have gas stations that can be started up quickly when necessary even though they will only run for short periods if all goes well with renewables.

As Smurf alluded to , the political aspects of power supply have to be nutted out.

Ca we really say that the "free market" has solved all the power supply/pricing issues ? 

No in my opinion.

Private enterprise getting hooks into essential services doesn't really work in a market as small as Australia. What we need are some hard headed governments ready to take back responsibility for supplying essential services and not just leaving it to rent seekers.


----------



## Humid

Use public money via Snowy Hydro
Gas from Santos Narrabri field
Santos ask Government to subsidise pipeline
Government appointed chair of Snowy Hydro is ex Santos CEO


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Gas stations are probably medium term options until sufficient pumped hydro can be built, although it's obviously an advantage to have gas stations that can be started up quickly when necessary even though they will only run for short periods if all goes well with renewables.
> 
> As Smurf alluded to , the political aspects of power supply have to be nutted out.
> 
> Ca we really say that the "free market" has solved all the power supply/pricing issues ?
> 
> No in my opinion.
> 
> Private enterprise getting hooks into essential services doesn't really work in a market as small as Australia. What we need are some hard headed governments ready to take back responsibility for supplying essential services and not just leaving it to rent seekers.



Spot on Rumpy, it should never have been sold in the first place, people can't manage without electricity so it is an essential service.
Thankfully I'm in W.A. and it is still majority government owned.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Private enterprise getting hooks into essential services doesn't really work in a market as small as Australia. What we need are some hard headed governments ready to take back responsibility for supplying essential services and not just leaving it to rent seekers.



Onyer China


----------



## sptrawler

@SirRumpole the other issue that the major generators have with renewables is, renewable generation doesnt require a specialised maintenance and operational staff, which thermal generation does.
So the edge they had over a new entrant to the market, has been to a great degree removed.
The new entrant will require technical skills for the installation and setting up while commissioning, but very little in house technical staff when it is operational.
So as I said I can well imagine the States having to buy back plant, that is still required for system security and firming purposes.
How the major generators are going to adapt will be very interesting to watch.IMO
Coal plant wont have a look in when the new gas plant is installed, then as renewables and storage increase, the older gas plant wont be financially viable, so everything will look very different by 2030 IMO.


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Use public money via Snowy Hydro
> Gas from Santos Narrabri field
> Santos ask Government to subsidise pipeline
> Government appointed chair of Snowy Hydro is ex Santos CEO



Great idea, government owned HEGT gas backup generation for renewables, so that the public can't be held to ransom.
Gas from an established field with reserves, that the government will have say in how the reserves are used, as per the NWS in W.A when Charlie Court built the pipeline to Perth, with guaranteed allotment of gas. Which will no doubt be at a contracted price, as the Government is subsidising the pipeline.
Ex Santos CEO, now on the government payroll, there is no way that Santos can BS about issues.
Sounds like a great plan, sounds like something that wasn't dreamed up on the back of a napkin, what a pleasant change. 😂


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Great idea, government owned HEGT gas backup generation for renewables, so that the public can't be held to ransom.
> Gas from an established field with reserves, that the government will have say in how the reserves are used, as per the NWS in W.A when Charlie Court built the pipeline to Perth, with guaranteed allotment of gas. Which will no doubt be at a contracted price, as the Government is subsidising the pipeline.
> Ex Santos CEO, now on the government payroll, there is no way that Santos can BS about issues.
> Sounds like a great plan, sounds like something that wasn't dreamed up on the back of a napkin, what a pleasant change. 😂



Bit of a change of tune after your 10 years of bangin on about private enterprise should of built the NBN....
hypocrite much


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Bit of a change of tune after your 10 years of bangin on about private enterprise should of built the NBN....
> hypocrite much



Not at all, the private enterprise telecommunication companies were going to have to build the NBN, as they were going to have to sell higher data  speeds as technology moved on.
All that has happened is my ADSL2 internet which cost $30/m, has gone up to $70/m and they provide the exact same service and speed.
Which I was completely happy with and still am, so no net value added but $hit loads of taxpayers money, which goes back to the Labor brain fart on the back of a napkin IMO.

With electricity, it still boils your kettle at the same speed, so there is no net added value to the consumer, so it is difficult to upsell the same product.

This is the problem that you seem to have, understanding one step ahead and I do allow for that by still liking your sensible posts for encouragement and hoping you will start to apply common sense.
But I am losing patience, sometimes I think it would be much easier to just ignore your dribble, but being older I'm hopeful your one eyed focus will dull and a balanced analysis will evolve.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Not at all, the private enterprise telecommunication companies were going to have to build the NBN, as they were going to have to sell higher data  speeds as technology moved on. All that has happened is my ADSL2 internet which cost $30/m, has gone up to $70/m.
> 
> With electricity, it still boils your kettle at the same speed, so there is no net added value to the consumer, so it is difficult to upsell the same product.
> 
> This is the problem that you seem to have, understanding one step ahead and I do allow for that by still liking your sensible posts for encouragement.
> Which unfortunately are few are far between.



You are confusing speed with supply pops


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Spot on Rumpy, it should never have been sold in the first place, people can't manage without electricity so it is an essential service.



Looking at the National Electricity Market (NEM) well it's no secret that the states in the best position by far are Tasmania and Queensland and those in the worst position are Victoria and SA with NSW in the middle.

Victoria and SA were the first to privatise, NSW did it much later. Queensland mostly and Tas almost entirely still in government hands despite the feds and one other state having pointed at gun at the head of the latter on several occasions.

Ownership is what it is however so unless someone's planning to put it back in government ownership then ways need to be found to make it work.

Biggest problem of the lot is the inability for companies to get answers from government as to what the rules of the game actually are. In the absence of an ability to answer that question, government will find itself carrying most of the risk by default.

From a technical perspective, the big unanswered question is how to fill droughts in wind and solar yield?

Batteries and small pumped hydro schemes are fine to shift energy from midday to 6pm or overnight, they do that no worries, but they're pretty much useless to cover multiple days of poor yields.

That scenario isn't hypothetical, we just had such an incident over the 6 days to and including Thursday last week.

If we're going to 100% renewables, net zero or whatever then with present technology large scale hydro is the only show in town for addressing that in an economic manner. Technically it could be done with hydrogen as an alternative if someone's willing to throw the $ at it.

If we're not going to fully renewable well then natural gas suits business a lot better than hydro does for many reasons. Much shorter construction time, far more "off the shelf" in terms of components and design, can be sited pretty much anywhere, etc. Downside = emissions.

To illustrate the point about this issue of wind droughts here's 12 months' worth of daily wind farm output for the entire NEM. Note the consecutive days of low output which do occur and in particular, those which occur during winter when solar also performs relatively poorly. That is the crux of the difficulty - filling those gaps in and whether to do it with gas, hydro or some other method which isn't presently commercially viable.

Noting in that context that the ability to use existing coal and gas-fired plant to fill those gaps only exists so long as that plant is still in service. There's a few closures 2020 - 23 but an outright avalanche coming in the 2028 - 35 period and it's that which tips the balance, whatever's going to fill those gaps needs to be coming into operation in that period progressively and that doesn't leave much time given how long it takes to investigate, design and build major civil projects.

Filling energy gaps is a separate issue to meeting peak demand but, and this is a key point, will in practice partly make use of the same equipment. Whatever's built to fill energy gaps will also cover a decent chunk of the peak demand, the rest being filled by batteries and other short term storage in a fully renewable scenario.

We just had 5 days of consistent low wind across the NEM and that's by no means the longest experienced, June last year saw 8 days. Hence the need for either some longer duration storage or continued reliance on whatever fuel as backup.







It can be even more extreme when viewed at a state by state level (which has relevance given that transmission between states does have limited capacity):











Charts show wind generation only. It's those multi-day gaps that batteries or small pumped hydro can't fill and which leads straight to gas or large scale hydro.


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> You are confusing speed with supply pops



I think I explained that in my post, what I think I'm confusing is your ability to apply normal thought processes, above conditioned responses.
Obviously keeping it short and simple, is what you can cope with, so be it. 😂
I grew up with dealing with mechanical trades, so not a problem, dealing with people who have understanding difficulties just takes patience.
So what don't you understand, about the difference between the internet data speed and electrical supply?
I will try and explain it in a 5kg hammer and a 30cm crescent terms. 🤪


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> If we're going to 100% renewables, net zero or whatever then with present technology large scale hydro is the only show in town for addressing that in an economic manner. Technically it could be done with hydrogen as an alternative if someone's willing to throw the $ at it.
> 
> If we're not going to fully renewable well then natural gas suits business a lot better than hydro does for many reasons. Much shorter construction time, far more "off the shelf" in terms of components and design, can be sited pretty much anywhere, etc. Downside = emissions.



That small excerpt IMO sums up the problem, even you smurf don't see the logics, Rumpy did.
If we have to go to renewables, which everyone agrees has to happen, the first step has to be firming up supply.

This can't be done by coal, therefore coal is gone, it is just not viable anymore.

But we do need at call generation available through the transition period, that is obvious even to @Humid, so HEGT gas turbines can fill the void when renewables aren't available.

Then at a later date when renewables are plentiful enough to produce hydrogen, the HEGT's can run on that hydrogen to produce electricity, so it is another form of storage for renewables.

My apologies smurf, it wasn't written that way as a slight on you, but more as an explanation to others i wont mention.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> I think I explained that in my post, what I think I'm confusing is your ability to apply normal thought processes, above conditioned responses.
> Obviously keeping it short and simple, is what you can cope with, so be it. 😂
> I grew up with dealing with mechanical trades, so not a problem, dealing with people who have understanding difficulties just takes patience.
> So what don't you understand, about the difference between the internet data speed and electrical supply?
> I will try and explain it in a 5kg hammer and a 30cm crescent terms. 🤪





sptrawler said:


> I think I explained that in my post, what I think I'm confusing is your ability to apply normal thought processes, above conditioned responses.
> Obviously keeping it short and simple, is what you can cope with, so be it. 😂
> I grew up with dealing with mechanical trades, so not a problem, dealing with people who have understanding difficulties just takes patience.
> So what don't you understand, about the difference between the internet data speed and electrical supply?
> I will try and explain it in a 5kg hammer and a 30cm crescent terms. 🤪



The government supplying infrastructure that the private sector wouldnt is pretty much the NBN as is the case with this power station but you keep dribbling old man


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> The government supplying infrastructure that the private sector wouldnt is pretty much the NBN as is the case with this power station but you keep dribbling old man



Why do you post everything twice? do you have a speech impediment, or you just like longer posts, that you can't write yourself?

By the way, you still didn't explain how internet data, is any way related to electricity in the house, might be a small thing to you but would explain why you have a one party mindset. 😂

AS I SAID, IF THE TELECOMMUNICATION COMPANIES WANTED TO SELL YOU HIGHER SPEEDS, THEY WOULD HAVE HAD TO UPGRADE THE INFRASTRUCTURE FROM THE EXCHANGE TO THE PREMISE.
WITH ELECTRICITY, IT STILL COMES THROUGH THE SAME AS IT DID 50 YEARS AGO AND PROBABLY WILL BE THE SAME IN 50 YEARS TIME.
IF YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE, SOMEONE IS PAYING YOU WAY TOO MUCH.
BUT PROBABLY EXPLAINS WHY YOU VOTE LABOR REGARDLESS. 😂
Young Muppet.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Why do you post everything twice? do you have a speech impediment, or you just like longer posts, that you can't write yourself?
> 
> By the way, you still didn't explain how internet data, is any way related to electricity in the house, might be a small thing to you but would explain why you have a one party mindset. 😂
> 
> AS I SAID, IF THE TELECOMMUNICATION COMPANIES WANTED TO SELL YOU HIGHER SPEEDS, THEY WOULD HAVE HAD TO UPGRADE THE INFRASTRUCTURE FROM THE EXCHANGE TO THE PREMISE.
> WITH ELECTRICITY, IT STILL COMES THROUGH THE SAME AS IT DID 50 YEARS AGO AND PROBABLY WILL BE THE SAME IN 50 YEARS TIME.
> IF YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE, SOMEONE IS PAYING YOU WAY TOO MUCH.
> BUT PROBABLY EXPLAINS WHY YOU VOTE LABOR REGARDLESS. 😂
> Young Muppet.



According to you theres no difference in internet speeds .....not on your atari 2600 anyway


----------



## Humid

Humid said:


> According to you theres no difference in internet speeds .....not on your atari 2600 anyway



Oh yeah look up bandwidth too you dinosaur you might learn something


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> I don't know what to make of this, anyone?
> 
> Is it a warning to the Australian people or to the  Federal Government?  Pezzullo would know it would end up in the media.
> 
> Did the government put him up for it?
> 
> Whats it about?
> 
> 
> Australian official warns drums of war are beating​
> One of Australia's most senior security officials has said liberal democracies must brace for war while searching for peace amid elevated global tensions.
> Home Affairs Department Secretary Mike Pezzullo said the possibility of war was increasing.
> "Today, as free nations again hear the beating drums and watch worryingly the militarisation of issues that we had, until recent years, thought unlikely to be catalysts for war, let us continue to search unceasingly for the chance for peace while bracing again ... for the curse of war," Pezzullo said in a letter to staff on Anazac Day, which honours the country's war dead.
> Pezzullo did not specify the catalyst for his warning but it follows a sharp deterioration in Australia's relationship with China and a rise in regional tensions over Taiwan."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Australian official warns drums of war are beating
> 
> 
> One of Australia's most senior security officials has said liberal democracies must brace for war while searching for peace amid elevated global tensions.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.reuters.com






Humid said:


> Oh yeah look up bandwidth too you dinosaur you might learn something



Oh yeah, right after you look up 240v 50hz, muppet.lol
You certainly are an example of why everyone is worried about the decline in our educational standards.
It doesnt bode well for our grandchildren, who are expected to glean knowledge from your generation.lol
What has bandwidth, got to do with the NBN?
Jeez FFS.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> That small excerpt IMO sums up the problem, even you smurf don't see the logics, Rumpy did.
> If we have to go to renewables, which everyone agrees has to happen, the first step has to be firming up supply.




The problem I'm seeing is perhaps best explained by noting some specific detail.

Energy Australia has a pretty well developed proposal for ~350 MW of open cycle gas turbines at Tallawarra B.

I don't like the name of it, since there were previously two other power stations at the site known as Tallawarra A & B so it's potentially confusing from an historical perspective, but putting aside that pedantic detail it's a real proposal for a new gas-fired power station in NSW.

Meanwhile AGL has a proposal for 250 MW at a site near Newcastle (NSW) which would be dual fuel gas / diesel plant. Now here's where the difficulties start.

Both companies put their plans on hold in October 2020 following the release of the NSW state governments energy road map which passed into law in December. In short, the basic problem is projects can only compete for funding if the state's target for energy security is breached and these two particular projects are specifically excluded thus putting them at a financial disadvantage.

More here: https://www.afr.com/companies/energ...mbroiled-in-political-wrangle-20210212-p5722p

Meanwhile AGL are uncommitted on whether to install open cycle gas turbines, internal combustion engines, or nothing at all given the circumstances. Basic comparison:

OCGT:
Lower fuel efficiency = higher emissions
Lower capital cost
Longer lifespan before major overhauls
Could convert to hydrogen at some future time

Internal combustion:
Higher fuel efficiency = lower emissions
Higher capital cost
Requires more maintenance
Cannot convert to 100% hydrogen though could use some

Note that AGL also has a viable pumped hydro site on land it already owns in NSW and proposed battery installations in NSW.

So two real issues here:

1. Management of these companies wants some clarity as to what the national plan actually is with emissions. This would enable better decision making as to which approach best fits technically and financially.

2. The companies aren't at all happy with the apparent political game being played with all of this and just want some certainty about it all.

My concern here in no way argues against the requirement for dispatchable generation, I've been on about the looming need for that for a very long time now and the deadline is fast approaching, but it's the process of going about it I dislike. I can certainly see why the companies aren't happy with the way it has gone and are sitting on their hands so far as investment is concerned.

Financially, well I do see some cause for optimism, the situation will be resolved eventually, but the share price of AGL and Origin hasn't exactly been going up lately that's for sure.


----------



## sptrawler

I agree completely @Smurf1976 , but they all know that a new build power station, in a limited market with more and more renewable penetration, will end up being a stranded asset.

So that leaves the private sector wanting a guaranteed offtake contract, if they build it, or the government building it and eventually wearing the loss as a cost for supplying a public service.
So it boils down to which is the cheaper outcome, subsidising and underwriting the private sector to build it and run it, or build it themselves.

I think the later will work out cheaper, as eventually the HEGT's will be only on standby most of the time.
When that happens, private  will still want a return for availability, if it is government owned it doesnt require a profit margin.
Big difference IMO.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I think the later will work out cheaper, as eventually the HEGT's will be only on standby most of the time.
> When that happens, private will still want a return for availability, if it is government owned it doesnt require a profit margin.
> Big difference IMO.



I suspect you're right but it would be a lot easier for everyone if government just came out and said yep, that's what we're doing.

That would then leave the various companies to focus on wind, solar, batteries and so on rather than putting time and significant $ into proposals which are doomed to go nowhere.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> It would be a lot easier for everyone, if government just came out and said yep, that's what we're doing.
> 
> That would then leave the various companies to focus on wind, solar, batteries and so on rather than putting time and significant $ into proposals which are doomed to go nowhere.



I think the time when that is said, is fast approaching, I wouldn't be surprised if that is sprung during the election campaign as it shows a responsible path to renewables.
My guess is Labor will come out with targets and promises, but will be short on the how to, I hope not but time will tell.
I just think this is all a lot further down the track, than we are being told and the media is focused on social issues which drive emotion but has very little effect on how the majority of voters vote, it is just BBQ chatter.

I think the government had to give the private operators sufficient time, so as not to be seen as using taxpayers $'s to compete against the private sector, the deadline was placed a long way ahead and none of the private companies were interested in building the 1,000MW gas plant.
That gives the government the right to build it on the grounds of system security and social responsibility, therefore the private companies can't ask for compensation at a later date, when the plant comes online and starts hitting their bottom line.

If the government built the plant too early, it could have left them in a compromised situation, by not having enough power and having to go cap in hand to the private generators for assistance in meeting the load.
With Snowy 2.0 and the HEGT's coming online later this decade, it sounds as though that issue, is no longer going to be a problem.
Just my opinion.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> That small excerpt IMO sums up the problem, even you smurf don't see the logics, Rumpy did.
> If we have to go to renewables, which everyone agrees has to happen, the first step has to be firming up supply.
> 
> *This can't be done by coal, therefore coal is gone, it is just not viable anymore.
> 
> But we do need at call generation available through the transition period, that is obvious even to @Humid, so HEGT gas turbines can fill the void when renewables aren't available.
> 
> Then at a later date when renewables are plentiful enough to produce hydrogen, the HEGT's can run on that hydrogen to produce electricity, so it is another form of storage for renewables.*




It looks like things are going exactly to plan @SirRumpole, GT's that can be converted to H2 burners, as we said.
The Feds have put a scare up the private's, they will become shop fronts unless they get on the front foot, with the Energy Australia GT's and the Feds backup GT's the change over to renewables should be stress free IMO.
My guess is AGL will now propose the 1,000MW GT plant, rather than have to compete against the Feds and Energy Australia, otherwise they will lose a massive amount of market share.
Like I said, I think we are a lot further down the track than is being let on, under promise and over deliver. Albo had better have the thinking cap on IMO, or he will be playing catch up footy.
All just my opinions.









						Plans announced for Australia's first net-zero hybrid power station
					

EnergyAustralia announces plans to build a new power station capable of using both hydrogen and natural gas, with the NSW and federal governments to contribute $83m.




					www.abc.net.au
				




From the article:
EnergyAustralia has announced plans to build a new power station that will be capable of using hydrogen and natural gas.
The New South Wales and federal governments have contributed $83 million to the 300-megawatt plant on the edge of Lake Illawarra, south of Wollongong.

The Tallawarra B power station will sit alongside the company's existing Tallawarra A 435-megawatt gas plant.

The project will be fast-tracked to be operational by 2023–24 in a bid to help ensure reliable electricity supplies to the grid once the Liddell coal-fired 500-megawatt plant in the Hunter Valley closes.

*"We are leading the sector by building the first net-zero emissions hydrogen and gas capable power plant in NSW*," said Energy Australia Managing Director Catherine Tanna.

"What's particularly exciting is that further engineering studies will see if the amount of green hydrogen can increase, which will further support the Port Kembla Hydrogen Hub."Our new open-cycle, hydrogen and gas-capable turbine will provide firm capacity on a continuous basis and paves the way for additional cleaner energy sources to enter the system."


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> It looks like things are going exactly to plan @SirRumpole, GT's that can be converted to H2 burners, as we said.
> The Feds have put a scare up the private's, they will become shop fronts unless they get on the front foot, with the Energy Australia GT's and the Feds backup GT's the change over to renewables should be stress free IMO.
> My guess is AGL will now propose the 1,000MW GT plant, rather than have to compete against the Feds and Energy Australia, otherwise they will lose a massive amount of market share.
> Like I said, I think we are a lot further down the track than is being let on, under promise and over deliver. Albo had better have the thinking cap on IMO, or he will be playing catch up footy.
> All just my opinions.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Plans announced for Australia's first net-zero hybrid power station
> 
> 
> EnergyAustralia announces plans to build a new power station capable of using both hydrogen and natural gas, with the NSW and federal governments to contribute $83m.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> EnergyAustralia has announced plans to build a new power station that will be capable of using hydrogen and natural gas.
> The New South Wales and federal governments have contributed $83 million to the 300-megawatt plant on the edge of Lake Illawarra, south of Wollongong.
> 
> The Tallawarra B power station will sit alongside the company's existing Tallawarra A 435-megawatt gas plant.
> 
> The project will be fast-tracked to be operational by 2023–24 in a bid to help ensure reliable electricity supplies to the grid once the Liddell coal-fired 500-megawatt plant in the Hunter Valley closes.
> 
> *"We are leading the sector by building the first net-zero emissions hydrogen and gas capable power plant in NSW*," said Energy Australia Managing Director Catherine Tanna.
> 
> "What's particularly exciting is that further engineering studies will see if the amount of green hydrogen can increase, which will further support the Port Kembla Hydrogen Hub."Our new open-cycle, hydrogen and gas-capable turbine will provide firm capacity on a continuous basis and paves the way for additional cleaner energy sources to enter the system."




I don't know too much about the technology of gas turbines except that they can burn a variety of fuels if sufficiently modified.

We produce a lot of sugar cane , so why we don't have a viable ethanol industry is beyond me.

Not as clean as hydrogen, but it is renewable and a replacement for land transport fuels as well.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I don't know too much about the technology of gas turbines except that they can burn a variety of fuels if sufficiently modified.
> 
> We produce a lot of sugar cane , so why we don't have a viable ethanol industry is beyond me.
> 
> Not as clean as hydrogen, but it is renewable and a replacement for land transport fuels as well.



With using sugar cane as fuel, it has to be weighed up against using it for food, I don't know what the Megajoules of energy yield is per ton of sugar cane but GT's will burn through it at an amazing rate.
I can work it out for you if you want, but LNG was getting pushed through a boiler at 16kg/sec, so that will be a lot of sugar cane production then it has to be convert to a liquid.
It might be feasible, but the sums would be interesting, easier to produce hydrogen through electrolisys and much less labour intensive I would guess.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> With using sugar cane as fuel, it has to weighed up against using it for food, I don't know what the fuel yield is per ton of sugar cane but GT's will burn through it at an amazing rate.
> I can work it out for you if you want, but LNG was getting pushed through a boiler at 16kg/sec, so that will be a lot of sugar cane production then it has to be convert to a liquid.
> It might be feasible, but the sums would be interesting, easier to produce hydrogen through electrolisys and much less labour intensive I would guess.




Well, as we have said, if things turn out well with wind/solar/hydro, the gt's will be standing idle for a lot of the time so the total fuel consumption shouldn't be too high.

But yes, if you have some figures on the costs of ethanol production v hydrogen, that would be good.

As for sugar as a food, how many people have diabetes these days ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Well, as we have said, if things turn out well with wind/solar/hydro, the gt's will be standing idle for a lot of the time so the total fuel consumption shouldn't be too high.
> 
> But yes, if you have some figures on the costs of ethanol production v hydrogen, that would be good.
> 
> As for sugar as a food, how many people have diabetes these days ?



I don't know about the cost as there are a lot of variables e.g, labour, location, process costs in the sugar cane to ethanol (boilers etc), type of electrical generation to make H2 e.g solar, wind, hydro, then there is the compression costs to make liquid H2.
Therefore a lot of unknowns, but ethanol is a very good fuel, just whether there is enough land to grow enough for it to be feasible as a mass generation fuel?
But the specific energy by weight is, for ethanol approx 24MJ / Kg and for liquid hydrogen 120MJ / kg.
To give that some perspective and relevance to where we are heading and being very general, an electric car uses about 15KW/h of electricity to do 100klm and 1 KW/hr is = to 3.6 MJ of energy.
So to work out the difference the trick is to bring it all back to energy or megajoules, because every fuel has a specific energy which can be expressed in MJ.
Then the weight and transporting costs and practicality comes into play.
Hope that helps.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I don't know about the cost as there are a lot of variables e.g, labour, location, process costs in the sugar cane to ethanol (boilers etc), type of electrical generation to make H2 e.g solar, wind, hydro, then there is the compression costs to make liquid H2.
> Therefore a lot of unknowns, but ethanol is a very good fuel, just whether there is enough land to grow enough for it to be feasible as a mass generation fuel?
> But the specific energy by weight is, for ethanol approx 24MJ / Kg and for liquid hydrogen 120MJ / kg.
> To give that some perspective and relevance to where we are heading and being very general, an electric car uses about 15KW/h of electricity to do 100klm and 1 KW/hr is = to 3.6 MJ of energy.
> So to work out the difference the trick is to bring it all back to energy or megajoules, because every fuel has a specific energy which can be expressed in MJ.
> Then the weight and transporting costs and practicality comes into play.
> Hope that helps.




Brazil does not sell any totally petrol vehicles, they run on a ethanol / petrol mix and they also run power gas turbines on ethanol.

It's a much bigger country with a much bigger market so the economics would be different to here , but it can be done.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Brazil does not sell any totally petrol vehicles, they run on a ethanol / petrol mix and they also run power gas turbines on ethanol.
> 
> It's a much bigger country with a much bigger market so the economics would be different to here , but it can be done.



I'm sure there will be a niche for ethanol, but I'm not sure it will be large scale generation, but hey we are all just best guessing at the moment.
On the subject of hydrogen production and generation, this is an interesting article with a few heads up, to companies that are moving forward in the generation space.








						Who Will Own the Hydrogen Future: Oil Companies or Utilities?
					

Utilities NextEra, Iberdrola and Uniper have all launched recent forays into green hydrogen, challenging a sector dominated by oil companies.




					www.greentechmedia.com
				




From the article:

In the U.S., NextEra recently announced a 20-megawatt electrolyzer, essentially designed to produce green hydrogen for self-consumption at a gas-fired plant in Florida. The $65 million pilot project will be fueled by the Sunshine State’s ample solar resources with the hydrogen mixed into the feedstock for the 1.75-gigawatt Okeechobee gas plant. It could be up and running in 2023 if regulatory approval is granted.

Meanwhile, German utility Uniper revealed a new decarbonization strategy with gas turbine manufacturer GE. Building on a green hydrogen partnership with Siemens, the two industrial giants will help Uniper gradually convert its gas power fleet to hydrogen, and Siemens will also work on electrolysis infrastructure for the firm.

Rounding out the recent announcements, Iberdrola revealed plans to build a 20-megawatt electrolyzer project for an ammonia factory in Spain. The system will include a 100-megawatt solar plant and a 20-megawatt-hour battery in addition to the electrolyzer.


----------



## sptrawler

Oh by the way @SirRumpole I forgot to mention the specific energy of lithium ion batteries, when we were talking about ethanol and hydrogen, it is about 1MJ /Kg


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Well, as we have said, if things turn out well with wind/solar/hydro, the gt's will be standing idle for a lot of the time so the total fuel consumption shouldn't be too high.



Based on EA's publicly stated data for Tallawarra B, they expect the plant to operate about 1.9% of the time over 12 months.

That doesn't mean it can't be run more, but reverse engineering EA's publicly released data adds up to about that level of operation.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Based on EA's publicly stated data for Tallawarra B, they expect the plant to operate about 1.9% of the time over 12 months.
> 
> That doesn't mean it can't be run more, but reverse engineering EA's publicly released data adds up to about that level of operation.




In which case the prices they charge when they do run will be massive I assume ?


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Based on EA's publicly stated data for Tallawarra B, they expect the plant to operate about 1.9% of the time over 12 months.
> 
> That doesn't mean it can't be run more, but reverse engineering EA's publicly released data adds up to about that level of operation.



I guess that would be on the assumption, it doesn't bring forward, the closure of further coal generation?
I would have thought they would have done the numbers, on the viability of constructing it, if not it could be an expensive blunder.
Like I said, I would have thought the private operators would have left the GT build to the government, but maybe there is something that we don't know yet?


----------



## sptrawler

We did say AGL would be getting nervous, management has been a bit average IMO, they were told a year ago a commitment was required but decided to call the Feds bluff.
Now they find themselves painted into a corner, no wonder some of  the management has walked IMO.
Pretty average decision making processes by AGL, well done Energy Australia IMO, progressive thinking.
The thing is, the two proposed power stations, will accelerate the closure of more coal stations IMO.
One thing for sure it looks as though the transition to renewables will be underpinned by some dispatchable generation.
There will need to be some hydrogen fired GT's, for the once in a lifetime event, that will make the hydro storage low or unavailable.  The rapid transition was always going to cause some winners and some losers, but coal is definitely going to be shutdown sooner, rather than later.
Just my thoughts.








						Government intervention is complicating renewable energy revolution
					

Investors and private enterprise say government intervention in the energy market is making the transition from fossil fuels to renewables more challenging.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
Government intervention in the energy market is making the breakneck transition from fossil fuels to renewables even more challenging as investors warn that taxpayer subsidies for new gas power projects are squeezing out private industry.

The NSW government on Tuesday announced $78 million to support Energy Australia building the first hydrogen-ready gas power plant at its Tallawarra site on Lake Illawarra, with the Morrison government tipping in $5 million.

The Commonwealth also said it would set aside funding for its own large-scale 750-megawatt gas plant at Kurri Kurri in the Hunter Valley, which federal-owned utility Snowy Hydro said would cost at least $600 million.
AGL chief executive Graeme Hunt said the NSW government’s renewables road map and federal funding for the new gas plant through Snowy Hydro had deterred his company from investing in a new gas plant in the Hunter Valley.

Loading
“Anything that disturbs natural markets makes it hard for to feel confident in assumptions about the future,” Mr Hunt said.
“We have been very clear that when the NSW [renewables] road map came out, that that was cause for pause on our Newcastle gas-generating investment. It was unclear how much capacity might be added based on what others might do, subsidised or otherwise, or also what the (federal) government might do directly in investment through Snowy Hydro. So we had to draw back.”

The Commonwealth also said it would set aside funding for its own large-scale 750-megawatt gas plant at Kurri Kurri in the Hunter Valley, which federal-owned utility Snowy Hydro said would cost at least $600 million.
AGL chief executive Graeme Hunt said the NSW government’s renewables road map and federal funding for the new gas plant through Snowy Hydro had deterred his company from investing in a new gas plant in the Hunter Valley.

Loading
“Anything that disturbs natural markets makes it hard for to feel confident in assumptions about the future,” Mr Hunt said.
“We have been very clear that when the NSW [renewables] road map came out, that that was cause for pause on our Newcastle gas-generating investment. It was unclear how much capacity might be added based on what others might do, subsidised or otherwise, or also what the (federal) government might do directly in investment through Snowy Hydro. So we had to draw back.”


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> In which case the prices they charge when they do run will be massive I assume ?



Not really, because if they want to charge silly prices, the government GT's will be given priority for dispatch, a bit like it is done in W.A.
The privates are given priority, but the government units are available, if the privates have a problem. To me it makes the most sense.

Letting the private operators decide when they are going to close the coal stations, would be fraught with problems IMO, they wouldn't build dispatchable plant until they knew it was going to be run, so the coal stations would just linger on and on and the system would become more and more unreliable.

So putting in the GT"s allows renewables to be installed and makes the coal stations less viable, without losing system security.
Doing it while also making it financially cost positive for the coal generators, was always going to be difficult, a bit like the car manufacturers changing from ICE production to BEV production.

Initially the BEV lose money and the ICE are making money, at some point that reverses, the same goes with coal generation Vs clean generation. But the car manufacturers are doing it, so must the power generation companies, it is a cost associated with keeping the business competitive in a technology that is changing.
Some survive, others don't.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> We did say AGL would be getting nervous, management has been a bit average IMO, they were told a year ago a commitment was required but decided to call the Feds bluff.
> Now they find themselves painted into a corner, no wonder some of the management has walked IMO.
> Pretty average decision making processes by AGL, well done Energy Australia IMO, progressive thinking.



As a general observation about the whole thing, not specifically this issue of gas turbines but I mean far more broadly, the companies fall into two categories really.

Those doing well are the ones that grasped early in the whole process that they needed to understand the other side. 

That went to some extremes. One of the government-owned companies which still exists is arguably somewhat better at _business_ than some of their private sector counterparts who'd assumed they'd be a pushover. Good at it because they grasped many years ago what they needed to do, that it was ultimately critical to survival, and jumped in head first. 

What followed was radical change and a definite attempt to understand not just what decisions a private competitor would make, but how they'd make them. End result was a government-owned entity which aimed to meet every requirement for ASX listing despite not being listed and which ran two sets of everything to understand the difference between "how we would previously have done it" and "what our future competitors would do".

One of the privately owned companies did something pretty similar except for them it was about understanding government. They very consciously took one of their operating divisions and ran it in a very public service like manner. It wouldn't have made them any money up front but that's not why they did it. They did it because they grasped that the surest way to understand how government works was to act like one. They hired former public servants, they started placing notices in newspapers in the way that a government department would, they started fixing their own pricing to rigid schedules and so on. All very government-like.

Both of those are still in the industry and doing quite nicely it would seem and, key point, they started that learning back in the 1990's. They saw what was coming. 

In contrast the government entities which decided they knew best and scoffed at the concept of the private sector competing generally don't exist, at all, today. The details of the process differs but ultimately they're gone.

Meanwhile certain private sector companies that scoffed at the idea anyone in government would actually be capable of running a profitable business are the ones finding themselves in rather a lot of difficulty right now. They keep finding themselves in fights with governments, fights with unions and so on. Plus a couple if incidents I won't mention.....

It's classic "hare and the tortoise" stuff really. Those who grasped that they had a problem and needed to learn are reaping the rewards from doing so, meanwhile those who thought they knew best are in considerable difficulty.

There's quite a few linkages in the industry between what you'd probably think would be unlikely allies by the way.

Among others, well it's publicly disclosed that rather a lot of Energy Australia's engineering and construction oversight is contracted out to Entura, a subsidiary of Hydro Tasmania.

Snowy Hydro doesn't disclose names but they do disclose that they have a very large business in the form of trading and hedging arrangements with the private sector.

Origin Energy publicly discloses that they have a lot of generation under contract from others.

Origin Energy is presently investigating large scale hydrogen and ammonia production at Townsville (Qld) and Bell Bay (Tas) with the latter being the larger of the two proposals. If it were to go ahead then that would lead to Origin being the largest _consumer _of electricity in Tasmania, noting that they have zero involvement on the supply side so would simply be a customer as such. Proposed scale = they're looking at 500 MW load for the plant in Tas and 300 MW for the one in Qld. That's if they're built - it's only at the evaluation stage although they've found a customer for at least some of the hydrogen it seems.

None of the companies I've mentioned seem to be having too much trouble. They're not in the news for all the wrong reasons. And they're not having to keep things out of the news either .


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> maybe there is something that we don't know yet?



There's a couple of things that aren't publicly disclosed but:

For all existing coal plant in NSW:

Eraring (Origin Energy) comprises 4 x 720 MW units and closing in 2032. The Origin CEO has publicly commented about declining annual production rates as renewables increase and that Origin won't generate at a loss (ie they'll shut the plant over the weekend etc if that makes sense).

Bayswater (AGL) comprises 4 x 660 MW units being uprated to 685 MW each (so they're spending $ on the plant). AGL has publicly stated closure for 2036.

Liddell (AGL) has 4 x 420 MW (originally 500 MW) units with one to be closed 11 months from now and the other three exactly a year later. It's no secret that reliability is terrible, the plant's very run down etc. The reason for the reduced capacity is to try and reduce the incidence of major failures. The 420 MW is a "hard" limit, non-negotiable.

Mt Piper (Energy Australia) has 1 x 730 MW and 1 x 700 MW. They're identical except that unit 1 has a recently added second small boiler burning processed waste which supplements the steam supply hence the higher output. EA have spent substantial $ on the plant in the very recent past, boosting coal supply and adding the additional small boiler, and the stated closure date is 2043.

Vales Point (Delta Electricity) has 2 x 660 MW units numbered 5 and 6 for historic reasons (another 4 unit power station previously operated at the site). There's currently major maintenance work being done on unit 6 right now but the company has publicly announced that the same major work for unit 5 has been indefinitely cancelled. Noting the already announced closure date of 2029, that's generally perceived as meaning unit 5 won't be in constant use though to closure although the exact detail there remains uncertain (eg does it become standby plant or does it outright close sometime earlier than 2029?).

Redbank is 1 x 151 MW from two boilers and currently not in operation (hasn't been since 2014). There's been several proposals, including a current one, to return it to operation either in its original form or burning something other than coal. There does seem a fair chance of it happening but I won't be placing any bets there, I'll believe it when I see it actually generating.

So basically Liddell's going, it'll be shut completely less than 2 years from now, and there's some doubts as to one of the two units at Vales Point noting that the whole lot's going in 2029.

It's pretty unlikely that EA would close Mt Piper, or AGL close Bayswater, in the near future given recent and ongoing serious investment into them and Origin are too smart politically to outright close Eraring - they might choose to intermittently take it offline but I very much doubt they'd actually shut it down outright. I think they're smart enough to realise that any financial benefit wouldn't be worth the political pain (noting that outright closure is only 11 years from now anyway).

The Eraring units do have pretty good turndown by the way, 720 MW at peak but they can get them down to 210 MW each without any difficulty and do so routinely. That's not bad for coal plant.


----------



## sptrawler

@Smurf1976 that is a lot of very big units on a system, they would have been a great idea when they were installed, running at mcr 24/7 they would have been the cheapest and most efficient option.
But what a headache now when you are trying to remove them from service, removing even 1 x 600-700MW unit from your system leaves a very large gap in your portfolio.
When you are talking 4 x720MW units.
4 x 660MW units.
4 x 420MW units
2 x 700MW units.
2 X 660MW units
and 1 x 150MW units
All needing to be shutdown asap, because the public pressure is building for there closure, not decreasing, it would be remiss of the government not to demand firming capacity be installed.
As can be seen by the latest announcement by Joe Biden, this whole transition is going to become a political hot potato, between the USA, EU and China.
Which because of the way our media love to sensationalise, will mean we are drawn into the thick of things, at the earliest possible time.
So in all likelihood there will be a call to close at least 50% of the above plant by 2030, well that is my guess, as 2030 and 50% seems to be the trendy numbers ATM.
If that is the case 1 x 750MW station proposed by the government, isn't a ridiculous call, if they don't do it and the 50% call comes, they will be told they were asleep at the wheel.
It basically boils back to common sense, whereas those saying it isn't required either have no understanding, have a vested interest in keeping the coal running, or are just dumb and listen to the media.
At the end of the day when the lights go out, the first people to be blamed are the feds, as has been shown with the bushfires, the virus, the lockdowns etc
The GT option makes perfect sense as shown by Energy Australia, not only can they run on lng through the transition, but they can run on hydrogen post transition, so still supply clean at call generation ad infinitum, the media as usual are just whipping up the pitchfork crew.
Once the penny drops with the general public, the coalition will be seen as a steady hand, which is exactly what Labor don't want.
I hope Albo has a good plan, otherwise he will be hammered over the supply issue, if Labor keep saying the GT's aren't required their alternative had better be good.
Just my opinion.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> All needing to be shutdown asap, because the public pressure is building for there closure, not decreasing, it would be remiss of the government not to demand firming capacity be installed.



Agreed - your comment will make even more sense if I put the full list up, all NEM states, which I'll do later as a simple list by year.

There is of course also the reality that dates will change. Nobody seriously expects that everything will run flat out right to the end, very clearly that's not going to be the case.  

What I do think has become abundantly clear from this whole saga though is that even if it's unprofitable, the owners of any given station would be very unwise to simply close and walk away without someone having first built new capacity to replace it. Doing that, just closing, is picking a fight with the federal government and the cost to the company of getting government off side is likely to be far higher than the cost of maintaining an idle power station for occasional use during periods of high demand or as backup for a few years with a known definite end date.

I doubt we'll see any more dramatic events with things literally being blown up with explosives or major standoffs between a company and government. At least if the management has any sense they won't go down that track in future.


----------



## Smurf1976

As promised, a complete list of fossil fuel generation and closure dates for the National Electricity Market.

For simplicity I've avoided mention of individual unit numbers or who owns it and the list is as follows:

Closure year, station name, state, fuel type, capacity in MW.

Where the same station is listed more than once, that means a staged closure. For example I've listed Torrens Island A three times at 240 MW, 120 MW and 120 MW. That's because it's a 4 x 120 MW station being closed in three stages - two units, the one, then the final one.

Dates I've taken from official AEMO data as at March 2021 which I've checked today.

Only centrally dispatched plant is included. So not including backup generators at hospitals and stuff like that, only what most people would think of as being a power station.

2020 (already closed)
Torrens Island A, SA, gas (steam turbines), 240 MW

2021
Mackay, Qld, Diesel (open cycle), 34 MW
Torrens Island A, SA, gas (steam turbine), 120 MW

2022
Liddell, NSW, coal, 420 MW
Torrens Island A, SA, gas (steam turbine), 120 MW

2023
Liddell, NSW, coal, 1260 MW
Osborne, SA, gas (combined cycle), 180 MW

2024 & 2025 = none

2026
Broken Hill, NSW, diesel (open cycle), 50 MW

2027 = none

2028
Yallourn W, Vic, coal, 1480 MW
Callide B, Qld, coal, 700 MW

2029
Vales Point B, NSW, coal, 1320 MW

2030
Dry Creek, SA, gas (open cycle), 143 MW
Mintaro, SA, gas (open cycle), 90 MW
Port Lincoln, SA, diesel (open cycle), 73.5 MW
Snuggery, SA, diesel (open cycle), 63 MW

2031 = none

2032
Eraring, NSW, coal, 2880 MW
Eraring, NSW, diesel (open cycle), 40 MW
Hallett, SA, gas (open cycle), 216 MW

2033
Mt Stuart, Qld, kerosene (open cycle), 288 MW
Somerton, Vic, gas (open cycle), 160 MW

2034
Barcaldine, Qld, gas (open cycle), 37 MW
Roma, Qld, gas (open cycle), 68 MW

2035
Gladstone, Qld, coal, 1680 MW
Bayswater, NSW, coal, 2740 MW
Hunter Valley, NSW, diesel (open cycle), 40 MW
Ladbroke Grove, SA, gas (open cycle), 84 MW
Torrens Island B, SA, gas (steam turbines), 800 MW

2036
Tarong, Qld, coal, 700 MW
Swanbank E, Qld, gas (combined cycle), 385 MW

2037
Tarong, Qld, coal, 700 MW
Tarong North, Qld, coal, 450 MW
Tarong, Qld, Diesel (open cycle), 15 MW
Pelican Point, SA, gas (combined cycle), 498 MW

2038 = none

2039
Condamine, Qld, gas (combined cycle), 144 MW
Jeeralang, Vic, gas (open cycle), 466 MW
Newport D, Vic, gas (steam turbine), 510 MW

2040
Bell Bay Three, Tas, gas (open cycle), 105 MW

2041 = none

2042
Kogan Creek, Qld, coal, 750 MW
Mt Piper, NSW, coal, 1430 MW
Bairnsdale, Vic, gas, 84 MW

2043
Stanwell, Qld, coal, 365 MW
Tallawarra, NSW, gas (combined cycle), 435 MW

2044
Stanwell, Qld, coal, 365 MW
Mt Stuart, Qld, kerosene (open cycle), 126 MW
Smithfield, NSW, gas (open cycle), 120 MW
Uranquinty, NSW, gas (open cycle), 664 MW
Quarantine, SA, gas (open cycle), 120 MW
Barker Inlet, SA, gas / diesel (internal combustion engines), 210 MW

2045
Stanwell, Qld, coal, 365 MW
Darling Downs, Qld, gas (combined cycle), 630 MW

2046
Stanwell, Qld, coal, 365 MW
Braemar, Qld, gas (open cycle), 543 MW
Townsville, Qld, gas (combined cycle), 246 MW

2047
Loy Yang B, Vic, coal, 1160 MW
Mortlake, Vic, gas (open cycle), 584 MW

2048
Loy Yang A, Vic, coal, 2210 MW

2049
Braemar 2, Qld, gas (open cycle), 519 MW

2050
Oakey, Qld, gas (open cycle), 346 MW
Tamar Valley, Tas, gas (open cycle), 58 MW
*Tamar Valley, Tas, gas (combined cycle), 208 MW

2051
Millmerran, Qld, coal, 852 MW

2052 = none

2053
Quarantine, SA, gas (open cycle), 29 MW

2054
Quarantine, SA, gas (open cycle), 58 MW

2055
Quarantine, SA, gas (open cycle), 29 MW

Notes:

*Tamar Valley CCGT is presently in storage and has not run since May 2019. It could be returned to service at a future time if required however some lead time would be involved.

Fossil fuel plant in the NEM with no announced closure date or a date that's 2070 (pretty good chance that changes by then):

Callide C, Qld, coal, 840 MW (no announced date)
Colongra, NSW, gas (open cycle), 640 MW (2070)
Laverton North, Vic, gas (open cycle), 320 MW (2070)
Valley Power, Vic, gas (open cycle), 300 MW (2070)
Angaston, SA, diesel (internal combustion engines), 48 MW (2070)
Port Stanvac, SA, diesel (internal combustion engines), 58 MW (2070)
Lonsdale, SA, diesel (internal combustion engines), 21 MW (2070)

Note that Port Stanvac and Lonsdale are effectively the same plant, being at the same site with the same owner, built in two stages.

Cumulative capacity closed by year:

2020 = 240 MW
2021 = 394 MW
2022 = 934 MW
2023 = 2374 MW
2026 = 2424 MW
2028 = 4604 MW
2029 = 5924 MW
2030 = 6294 MW
2032 = 9430 MW
2033 = 9878 MW
2034 = 9983 MW
2035 = 15327 MW
2036 = 16412 MW
2037 = 18075 MW
2039 = 19195 MW
2040 = 19300 MW
2042 = 21564 MW
2043 = 22369 MW
2044 = 23974 MW
2045 = 24969 MW
2046 = 26123 MW
2047 = 27867 MW
2048 = 30077 MW
2049 = 30596 MW
2050 = 31208 MW
2051 = 32060 MW
2053 = 32089 MW
2054 = 32147 MW
2055 = 32176 MW

Stated as 2070 = 1387 MW
No date stated = 840 MW

So there's a pretty major investment required to replace all that, those are huge numbers, and that's without mentioning anything about closures being brought forward due to climate change etc.

Note that no hydro plant is listed since it's assumed that it'll be maintained and continue to operate indeed more's likely to be built, including as pumped storage.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> So there's a pretty major investment required to replace all that, those are huge numbers, and that's without mentioning anything about closures being brought forward due to climate change etc.




As usual you provide a great service to our knowledge, thank you.

Is there a similar list for the construction and start of service dates for their replacements ?


----------



## orr

SirRumpole said:


> Is there a similar list for the construction and start of service dates for their replacements ?



Sure is, as projections extrapolating from annual installations over the last couple of years, and has been for some time and it's charging ahead and will surpass the total cumulitive  closures to 2050 noted by smurf in the next ten years. 
At a vastly cheaper  generation cost than the currently installed...
Little wonder at the antics of Abbott; and of late the puppets of Kunkle and Pearson....









						At its current rate, Australia is on track for 50% renewable electricity in 2025
					

The Australian renewable energy industry will install more than 10 gigawatts of new solar and wind power during 2018 and 2019.




					science.anu.edu.au


----------



## SirRumpole

Wallerawang, coal to battery. 









						Abandoned power station to become site of big battery
					

While most coal-fired generators are demolished after their use-by date, the defunct Wallerawang power station in central-western NSW is being repurposed to help with Australia's renewable energy future.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Wallerawang, coal to battery.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Abandoned power station to become site of big battery
> 
> 
> While most coal-fired generators are demolished after their use-by date, the defunct Wallerawang power station in central-western NSW is being repurposed to help with Australia's renewable energy future.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



That is exactly what has to happen, the transmission lines are already there, the switchyard is already there, it makes perfect sense to put a massive amount of storage there.
It might not be ideal as a renewable solar or wind site, but it may be a perfect site for storage, as all the HV infrastructure is already there.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Is there a similar list for the construction and start of service dates for their replacements ?



Answering that gets difficult in terms of the detail.... 

There's an abundance of interest in developing wind and solar farms, indeed there's more announcements than there are needed projects so the answer in that context is a definite "yes".

Some of those will inevitably come to nothing but overall there doesn't seem to be any major problem with getting wind and solar built so no real cause for alarm there.

To make wind and solar work as an actual alternative to fossil fuel plant however requires more than just building wind and solar farms. It requires that we also build transmission lines to connect them and to move the power to where it's required and that we build storage (batteries / hydro) or backup generation. Just building the wind and solar farms isn't all that's required.

Now for the pain.....

There's been plenty of public announcements of proposals to build storage or alternatively backup (eg gas) generation but to be blunt, not many have actually got to the point of being committed projects. 

Meanwhile pretty much every major transmission project is stuck somewhere in the regulatory approvals process, even those with political support. SA - NSW, Vic - NSW upgrade, Vic - Tas second cable. Are all in the same situation as are other projects within states. Lots of promises, lots of engineers screaming that it's getting desperately urgent, still no go in terms of getting regulatory approval and without that nothing's being built.

That reality, the two paragraphs above, is what's causing all the alarm among engineers and at least the occasional politician who "gets it".

The AGL Newcastle one is a case in point. Big company that is already in the industry so should know what's involved and they already own the land and have gas infrastructure close by. Sounded like a sure thing but, it seems, perhaps not.....

Origin Shoalhaven expansion was another one that comes to mind with lots of investigation and a seemingly easy project but ultimately it's a no go. 

That's just two examples but there's many, many more. Lots of pumped hydro proposals in SA and many thought the question was which one will be built first? In reality the question has ended up being whether any of them will be built at all.

Hence the concern. The building of transmission and storage (or backup generation) isn't proceeding anywhere near as quickly as it needs to and time's running short. 

So what's actually a goer then?

Based on AEMO's official data, the following are "committed" and I'll add that they also happen to be physically under construction so they're pretty certain:

SA - Upgrade of existing Quarantine power station (gas), adds 20 MW of which 5 MW already completed and rest by end of 2023. Note that this does not change the closure date, it's just an improvement to the existing plant.

NSW - Upgrade of existing Bayswater power station (coal), adds 100 MW of which 25 MW already completed and rest by end of 2023. Note that this does not change the closure date, it's just improving the existing plant.

NSW - "Snowy 2.0" pumped hydro project. Capacity is nominally 2040 MW with 349,980 MWh of storage with completion stated as late 2024 - early 2025.

Victoria - "Victorian Big Battery" (that's the correct official name of it not just a colloquial one). Capacity is 300 MW power with 450 MWh of storage, so that's a 90 minute discharge time for peak load use. Completion is due before the end of 2021.

Victoria - "Bulgana Green Power Hub Battery Energy Storage System". Capacity is 20 MW with 34 MWh of storage and completion before the end of 2021.

That's it for things actually under construction.

Queensland - Kidston pumped hydro 250 MW / 2000 MWh. All the paperwork seems to finally be sorted, there should be no barrier to building it and they're about to start construction which is expected to take about 4 years to complete so that would be completion in 2025.

NSW - Australian Government has made a very high profile political commitment that a 750 MW gas (open cycle) plant will be built at Kurri Kurri. Completion is targeted before the end of 2023. Note that the site already has a sub-station and transmission line and is cleared flat land so it's as easy as it gets. 

NSW - Energy Australia has made a recent high profile commitment to build a 300 MW gas (open cycle) plant alongside the existing Tallawarra power station (combined cycle) on land already owned by EA. Given the politics of it, it would be unlikely to not proceed although legally they probably could back out if they really wanted to. Completion stated as by the end of 2023.

Victoria - Upgrade to unit 2 at existing Loy Yang A power station (coal) is planned during a major outage 2025. It's not an officially "committed" project, by anyone, at this stage however. Capacity increase is 15 MW.

Tasmania - Hydro Tasmania has proposed building several pumped storage schemes and 2 x 750 MW transmission cables to Victoria with completion of the first in 2028 and the second in 2032 or thereabouts. The project stacks up economically for reasons best explained by noting the CSIRO's generation cost estimates which put pumped storage in Tasmania at just under half the cost of building the same capacity in another state. That saving covers the cost of transmission and makes it a goer financially. The problem, however, is that transmission networks are regulated and as per my comment above that process is going ever so slowly much to the frustration of many. End result is that nothing is actually being physically built at this stage despite the extensive planning and having the stated support of the Liberal and Labor parties both state and federal.

Victoria - Energy Australia has publicly "committed" to building a 350 MW / 1400 MWh battery at Jeeralang (an existing power station owned by EA) or a nearby location for operation before the end of 2026. This is however ultimately just an announcement much the same as all the others. How certain it is in the absence of development approvals, contracts etc is anyone's guess (though personally I do think this one is serious).

NSW - Greenspot is proposing to build the "Wallerawang 9 Battery" which will be a 500 MW / 1000 MW battery with completion aimed for 2023. They've gone as far as buying land from Energy Australia, which has a major substation and transmission connection on it, and engaging a demolition contractor to remove existing redundant structures at the site. They have not however signed a contract to build the battery so far as I'm aware in which case it's not "committed" in the formal sense although they would seem to be serious given they've bought land etc.

SA - SA Water proposes to build storage with a total of 15 MW and 30 MWh spread across 4 existing sites owned by SA Water. Note that these are all battery projects, not hydro, despite their location alongside water infrastructure. This project is officially classified as "emerging" and is not committed as such but has gone beyond just an announcement.

Beyond that, we're into the domain of what AEMO calls "publicly announced" and it means nothing more than that. Someone says they're going to put batteries in or build a pumped hydro scheme or whatever but that's all, it's a media release from someone. Some will end up being goers, many won't. 

Summary:

Under construction = 2475 MW
Quarantine power station upgrade (gas, SA, 20 MW, 2023)
Bayswater power station upgrade (coal, NSW, 100 MW, 2023)
Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro (NSW, 2040 MW / 349,980 MWh, 2024-25)
Victorian Big Battery (Vic, 300 MW / 450 MWh, 2021)
Bulgana Green Power Hub battery (Vic, 20 MW / 34 MWh, 2021)

About to start construction = 250 MW (Kidston pumped hydro, Qld, 250 MW / 2000 MWh, 2025)

Political commitments = 1800 MW
Kurri Kurri open cycle gas turbines (NSW, 750 MW, 2023)
Tallawarra B open cycle gas turbines (NSW, 300 MW, 2023)
Tasmanian pumped hydro and Marinus Link to Victoria (Tas - Vic, 750 MW, 2028 with second 750 MW in the 2030's)

Energy Australia company public commitment = 350 MW
Jeeralang battery (Vic, 350 MW / 1400 MW, 2026)

Non-committed upgrade at existing facility = 15 MW
Loy Yang A (coal, Vic, 15 MW, 2025)

Others = 764.6 MW
Wallerawang battery (NSW, 500 MW / 1000 MWh, 2023). Looks like it's a goer but so far as I'm aware not every box has been ticked thus far. Looks promising however.

AGL Newcastle (NSW, gas, 252 MW). Anyone's guess if it'll actually happen or not.

Batteries at various sites in SA (15 MW / 30 MWh).

Beyond that = it's just media releases and announcements. Some will end up as serious projects, many won't.

So in short, some things are happening but we need to go a lot faster. Get transmission built where it's needed and get storage projects moved from merely being announced and in most cases going nowhere though to actually being built.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> That is exactly what has to happen, the transmission lines are already there, the switchyard is already there, it makes perfect sense to put a massive amount of storage there.
> It might not be ideal as a renewable solar or wind site, but it may be a perfect site for storage, as all the HV infrastructure is already there.



I'd already written most of my previous post including this one so haven't edited it.

Looks like a goer but I haven't seen anything to say it officially has every box ticked.

As for the site, there's an abundance of capacity best explained by noting the former coal-fired plant:

A station = 120 MW (4 x 30 MW) in service 1957

B station = 120 MW (2 x 60 MW) in service 1961

C station = 1000 MW (2 x 500 MW) in service first unit 1976 and second 1980

All three were in operation during the 1980's after which only C station remained through to closure.

Here's an old photo of the site with C station in operation: https://secureservercdn.net/198.71....S-0102-Wallerawang-power-station-1-scaled.jpg

The shortest two stacks relate to A station and the medium height one to B station. Top right in the background is Mt Piper PS still in operation.

Here's a much older photo with A & B in operation and C not built yet so would be 1960's. Fumes were quite bad it seems...... https://farm66.static.flickr.com/65535/48022872091_2cdd551224.jpg

The cooling tower that's to remain is the parabolic one whilst the stack that's to remain is one of the short ones from A station (noting that the rest of A and B stations are already demolished). Also the coal dome, a covered coal storage, is to remain.


----------



## sptrawler

It looks as though the Feds actually don't have an option, other than build something, if no one else is stepping up. Strange that this is in the SMH, they normally are decrying the call for more at call generation, I guess the penny might be starting to drop in even the most unlikely places. 😂
I would also like to hear Victoria's plan, they have committed to 50% renewables by 2030 a comprehensive plan would be good IMO.
The article underlines what @Smurf1976 said, about the difference between proposed and committed projects.
My guess is that the bringing forward of coal closures, will become an avalanche, as they become less and less viable.









						Yallourn exit ratchets up risk of future blackouts in Victoria, SA
					

The early closure of the Yallourn coal-fired power plant has forced authorities to declare a heightened threat of blackouts in Victoria and South Australia in less than 10 years.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:
The federal energy market operator has declared a heightened risk of blackouts in Victoria and South Australia later this decade unless new, on-demand facilities are built to replace the Yallourn coal-fired power plant.

Following EnergyAustralia’s decision in March to bring forward the shutdown of Yallourn in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley to 2028, four years sooner than initially scheduled, updated modelling from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) points to potential electricity supply shortfalls emerging between 2028 and 2030.
The fresh supply-and-demand modelling weighed the implications of Yallourn’s exit against new power projects set to be connected to the grid, including French renewable energy developer Neon’s 300-megawatt, 450-megawatt-hour Victorian Big Battery project near Geelong. The AEMO modelling warns there will be a breach of the market’s minimum reliability standards in the absence of a “further commitment of dispatchable capacity”.
The Morrison government has repeatedly expressed concerns about the impact of coal-fired power plants closing early without enough “dispatchable” projects – assets capable of quickly cranking up and down, such as gas or batteries – to supply the grid at times when weather conditions for wind and solar farms are unfavourable.
The government insists an extra 1000 megawatts of such capacity is required to fill the gap created by the closure of AGL’s Liddell coal-fired power plant in 2023, and has called on private power generators, as essential service providers, to step in with new investments before Yallourn shuts in 2028.

“It is imperative that the private sector step up to invest in new dispatchable capacity to replace Yallourn,” Mr Taylor said on Monday. “This is what is needed to keep the lights on and prices low.”
The market operator noted the long notice period until Yallourn’s 2028 closure provided “ample opportunity” for the market to prepare for a smooth transition without loss of reliability or excessive price impacts on consumers.
Alex Wonhas, AEMO’s chief system design officer, said the supply outlook would be improved by a number of projects, including EnergyAustralia’s 350-megawatt battery in Victoria and its 300-megawatt Tallawarra B gas plant in the Illawarra, which did not yet qualify as “committed” projects under the agency’s criteria, but were considered “very likely to proceed”.

“These new generation sources will help transition our electricity market as two out of three of today’s coal-fired generators are due to retire by 2040,” Dr Wonhas said.

The government agency’s new forecasts come at a time of significant upheaval for the energy market, as the transition away from fossil fuels towards cleaner sources of energy gathers pace.

Although coal still accounts for the majority of the country’s energy supply, an influx of renewable energy into the country’s main power grid in recent years is placing enormous pressure on coal generators by driving down daytime electricity prices to levels where they are unable to compete, threatening early closures.

Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio has repeatedly said she was confident the state had sufficient power to meet demand, and believed an influx of renewable energy into the grid by 2028 would keep prices down.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The article underlines what @Smurf1976 said, about the difference between proposed and committed projects.



Indeed:



> which did not yet qualify as “committed” projects under the agency’s criteria, but were considered “very likely to proceed”




Is a huge issue in all of this. Lots of things proposed and media releases put out but most have gone nowhere. 

It's a pretty long list of projects and an issue there is that anyone who just reads the news and sees all this would be wondering what all the fuss is about. Given they recall so many announcements there's going to be a power station on every second street it would seem but in practice no, the overwhelming majority of those announcements went nowhere.

Credit where it's due however - Origin Energy did put out a proper announcement to say they weren't proceeding with Shoalhaven, at least not for the foreseeable future, so at least everyone else could cross it off the list unless they revive it at a future time.

There's also the other issue. If you're going to have gas-fired power stations well then you need gas to run them with. Well, you need gas unless someone's got deep enough pockets to fork out for rather a lot of kerosene or diesel.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> There's also the other issue. If you're going to have gas-fired power stations well then you need gas to run them with. Well, you need gas unless someone's got deep enough pockets to fork out for rather a lot of kerosene or diesel.



There seems to be some indicators that China may be thinking about embargoes on our LNG, that will free up a bit for the domestic market.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> There seems to be some indicators that China may be thinking about embargoes on our LNG, that will free up a bit for the domestic market.



Interesting - I hadn't heard that one.

What I certainly have observed though is that natural gas prices have become extremely volatile.

Looking at the spot market in Victoria:

24 hours ago = $5.01 / GJ
Now = $6.00
Forecast 12 May = $7.39

So it's all over the place whereas historically the day to day movement would be a few cents either way at most.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Interesting - I hadn't heard that one.



There is this article in the Australian, I can't get access.





						NoCookies | The Australian
					






					www.theaustralian.com.au
				




But we have had some issue with China in the past with the LNG situation, might be just speculation, who knows.








						Sour China-Australia ties hit talks over LNG deal, says Woodside
					

Australia's Woodside Petroleum shelved talks to sell stakes in a gas field and liquefied natural gas (LNG) project to Chinese firms because of the diplomatic row between Australia and China, the company's chief executive said on Thursday.




					www.reuters.com
				












						Blow for Santos as China’s ENN exits
					

Santos said today that its largest shareholder had sold about one third of its stake worth A$785 million ($603.7 million) in the Australian gas producer.




					www.energyvoice.com


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> There is this article in the Australian, I can't get access.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> NoCookies | The Australian
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theaustralian.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But we have had some issue with China in the past with the LNG situation, might be just speculation, who knows.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sour China-Australia ties hit talks over LNG deal, says Woodside
> 
> 
> Australia's Woodside Petroleum shelved talks to sell stakes in a gas field and liquefied natural gas (LNG) project to Chinese firms because of the diplomatic row between Australia and China, the company's chief executive said on Thursday.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.reuters.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Blow for Santos as China’s ENN exits
> 
> 
> Santos said today that its largest shareholder had sold about one third of its stake worth A$785 million ($603.7 million) in the Australian gas producer.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.energyvoice.com




Why is it a "blow" for Santos ?

The shares have to be owned by someone, does it matter if they are not Chinese ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Why is it a "blow" for Santos ?
> 
> The shares have to be owned by someone, does it matter if they are not Chinese ?



Knowing Australia, the reporter was probably meaning the chance of a full buyout has diminished, you know how we love to sell everything off.


----------



## Smurf1976

A single chart which illustrates the overall issues with the transition to renewable energy pretty well:







Yellow = solar
Green = wind
Blue = hydro
Light Blue = batteries (there's a tiny bit there if you look closely around the peak)
Orange = gas
Black = coal
Purple = import from other states
Below the zero line = export to other states

Red line at the bottom shows the spot price.

So the wind and sun both died out leading up to the peak just after 6pm, a situation that's unfortunately not uncommon.

My point being not against wind and solar but rather, saying that more storage is the missing piece of the puzzle here. Fill it up when there's plenty, draw on it when there's not. That's what we really need more of and we need it before more coal or other conventional plant is closed.

I've made the point previously but just thought this chart illustrates it very clearly. Wind and solar both work, just not constantly so storage is what's going to be needed but often overlooked.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> A single chart which illustrates the overall issues with the transition to renewable energy pretty well:
> 
> View attachment 124181
> 
> 
> Yellow = solar
> Green = wind
> Blue = hydro
> Light Blue = batteries (there's a tiny bit there if you look closely around the peak)
> Orange = gas
> Black = coal
> Purple = import from other states
> Below the zero line = export to other states
> 
> Red line at the bottom shows the spot price.
> 
> So the wind and sun both died out leading up to the peak just after 6pm, a situation that's unfortunately not uncommon.
> 
> My point being not against wind and solar but rather, saying that more storage is the missing piece of the puzzle here. Fill it up when there's plenty, draw on it when there's not. That's what we really need more of and we need it before more coal or other conventional plant is closed.
> 
> I've made the point previously but just thought this chart illustrates it very clearly. Wind and solar both work, just not constantly so storage is what's going to be needed but often overlooked.




Apart from Snowy Hydro 2.0 there seems little actual investment in pumped hydro schemes.

Is his correct ? 

Considering how long they take to build whoever is going to build them better get on with it pretty quickly, and someone needs to do something to plug the gap untill the hydros are operational.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> A single chart which illustrates the overall issues with the transition to renewable energy pretty well:
> 
> View attachment 124181
> 
> 
> Yellow = solar
> Green = wind
> Blue = hydro
> Light Blue = batteries (there's a tiny bit there if you look closely around the peak)
> Orange = gas
> Black = coal
> Purple = import from other states
> Below the zero line = export to other states
> 
> Red line at the bottom shows the spot price.
> 
> So the wind and sun both died out leading up to the peak just after 6pm, a situation that's unfortunately not uncommon.
> 
> My point being not against wind and solar but rather, saying that more storage is the missing piece of the puzzle here. Fill it up when there's plenty, draw on it when there's not. That's what we really need more of and we need it before more coal or other conventional plant is closed.
> 
> I've made the point previously but just thought this chart illustrates it very clearly. Wind and solar both work, just not constantly so storage is what's going to be needed but often overlooked.



So here's the thing:
It appears wind and solar are profitable with prices a bit over $50/MWh, but coal needs average prices over $150/MWh.
There is no commercial imperative for wind or solar to build more capacity by adding battery (water/chemical/mechanical) storage.
Snowy 2.0 is the complete opposite.  It's funded by we taxpayers and is contracting wind (mostly) energy suppliers to refill the dam.
Policy wise wind/solar projects could be required to build significant excess capacity and add batteries which are "recharged" during curtailment so that average cost for renewables would be around $100/MWh.  That would bring down power costs and not burden taxpayers, while also stimulating the renewable economy.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Apart from Snowy Hydro 2.0 there seems little actual investment in pumped hydro schemes.
> 
> Is his correct ?



Snowy are building 2040 MW in NSW.

Genex look to to be a goer with 250 MW in Queensland.

Hydro Tasmania don't have it signed off but almost certainly will build a number of projects in Tasmania for supply to / from Victoria. Aiming for 750 MW by 2028, another 750 MW in the early 2030's then could go further if required.

Beyond that, there's been a lot of proposals but not a lot of action and what it really comes down to is what I'll describe as the only real debate in the industry:

What is the end game? What's the goal here? Are we going to 100% renewables or not?

Wind + solar + batteries + gas will get us to 60 - 80% renewable depending on the detail of how it's done pretty easily and is the private sector's "default" option. Not necessarily the outright cheapest but it's the best fit from a business perspective.

If we want a higher % of renewables, or even 100%, however well then pumped hydro simply has to be in the mix in the context of things we can commit to building today. Hydrogen perhaps at a future time we'll see gas turbines running on it but not yet, that's not at a point where a board can sign off on it today but, and here's the trouble, time's running out to sign off on _something_ given the lead times for construction. 

It would be far easier for engineers, senior management of the companies and so on if society could make its' mind up on that one. Doing so would then enable everyone to stop wasting time on things that don't fit with whichever way it's going to go noting that politics, not economics or engineering, is calling the shots there in practice.


----------



## Smurf1976

A few interesting points in the Kurri Kurri power station (the 750 MW gas turbine plant proposed by Snowy Hydro) EIS:

Plant thermal efficiency 37.4% on average. No surprises there, it's in line with what I'd expect.

They are seeking approval to operate at an annual capacity factor of 10% on natural gas and 2% on diesel, so 12% total.

Huge surprise that one, it's pretty much unheard of that someone seeks to restrict operation of their own plant as a condition of approval without first trying to get it approved without restrictions. Very unusual that.

Noted that it may be diesel only for the first 6 months until the gas pipeline is built.

A really interesting one states that "the production of aluminium became unviable due to the increasing privatisation of the local electricity market....." which I thought was an interesting comment to say the least, all things considered. I wonder if that reflects government thinking or just Snowy's? 

As background to the above, the power station site is a former (now demolished) aluminium smelter site.


----------



## sptrawler

I wonder if those who are against the building of the Feds gas station, would be prepared to underwrite any financial loses incurred for disruption of supply, if it isn't built?
Now if they were prepared to do that, I would say don't build it, let's wing it.
So many people, with so much to say and sod all responsibility, if everyone is left in darkness.









						Hunter Valley gas plant ‘would only operate a week a year’
					

The much-touted Kurri Kurri gas-fired power station that the Morrison government is urging to get built would operate at just two per cent of the time and employ only 10 full-time workers.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

An interesting article, regarding bitcoin and energy usage.








						176,000,000,000,000,000,000 per second: The reason Elon Musk is moving away from Bitcoin
					

Elon Musk says Bitcoin is bad for the environment, and some very big numbers are behind it.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
_If Bitcoin is virtual, why are there environmental concerns?_​_The issue is that all these computer farms working overtime to mine bitcoin use up a lot of real-world energy.

The grunt work of adding to the block chain has computers run guessing games involving an astronomically large number of guesses each second.

To be more precise, the network is currently estimated as being able to handle 176,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that's 176 quintillion) computations every single second.

All those numbers are energy intensive, so the power consumption of the Bitcoin network is huge. 

According to the University of Cambridge's Centre for Alternative Finance, the estimated annualised consumption of electricity by the Bitcoin network is 149.6 terawatt hours and growing.

That's more than countries like Sweden, Pakistan and Malaysia, and about 61 per cent of Australia's total energy consumption.
A report from the centre noted that miners "have long competed on accessing the cheapest energy source".

Many of those sources are fossil fuels.

According to German research published in the academic paper Joule in 2019, Bitcoin was responsible for up to 51 megatons of CO2 emissions annually_.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> So many people, with so much to say and sod all responsibility, if everyone is left in darkness.



I've never met anyone who can't grasp the basics of all this if they want to.

Trouble is, some do prefer ignorance......


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I've never met anyone who can't grasp the basics of all this if they want to.
> 
> Trouble is, some do prefer ignorance......



The problem is smurf, you are thinking that most people look at things holistically and logically.
As you get older, you realise most people just look at things as they want to see them, then they make the rhetoric fit with their reality.
As I said early on in the climate change thread, how many of the most vocal have actually done anything to mitigate their carbon footprint, especially if it was going to cost them money?
I bet the most vocal still run an ICE vehicle, don't have a home battery, but may have solar panels if they were subsidised.
So many make judgements, without any thought to their own hypocrisy.


I will put this as a PS
But at the moment they have center stage, that is until everything turns to $hit, then they are conspicuous by their absence.
That is the way at the moment in Australia, we are riding a wave of political correctness, of climate change affirmative action and when that wave crashes it wont be good.
The media wont pay to clean up the mess.
Just my opinion.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The problem is smurf, you are thinking that most people look at things holistically and logically.
> As you get older, you realise most people just look at things as they want to see them, then they make the rhetoric fit with their reality.



I do realise that what you are saying is true. 

It will never cease to frustrate the **** out of me that this is the case however.

For the record, I do have a home battery, do have solar and so on. My comments about the practical realities of home batteries are thus from experience indeed gaining that was half the reason why I got one.

Car's petrol yes but I'm probably the only person who's ever tinkered with a 4 cylinder N/A engine with a view to making it more economical. Nothing drastic, I just tuned it to the Euro specs rather than the Australian specs. Uses less fuel and emits less CO2 now at the expense of needing RON 95 petrol in it.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I do realise that what you are saying is true.
> 
> It will never cease to frustrate the **** out of me that this is the case however.
> 
> For the record, I do have a home battery, do have solar and so on. My comments about the practical realities of home batteries are thus from experience indeed gaining that was half the reason why I got one.
> 
> Car's petrol yes but I'm probably the only person who's ever tinkered with a 4 cylinder N/A engine with a view to making it more economical. Nothing drastic, I just tuned it to the Euro specs rather than the Australian specs. Uses less fuel and emits less CO2 now at the expense of needing RON 95 petrol in it.



I know you meant N/A as naturally aspirated, but i have rebuilt a couple of NA Mazda 1600 motors in Capellas, great motors. A lot of people removed the 12a rotaries and put in NA 1600's now they wish they had left them original.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I know you meant N/A as naturally aspirated



Yep, naturally aspirated so no turbo.


----------



## sptrawler

As I said I think W.A will surprise everyone with the transition to renewables.








						Western Australia eyes massive 100GW of wind and solar for green hydrogen by 2030
					

Western Australia government is eyeing up to 100GW of new wind and solar to drive green hydrogen by 2030, and double that amount by 2040.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the article:
The Western Australian government says the state could play host to a stunning total of 100 gigawatts of new wind and solar capacity to produce green hydrogen by 2030, and could double that number by 2040.

The staggering numbers were cited in a speech last week by the state’s hydrogen industry minister Alannah MacTiernan – and to put them in context, WA currently has less than one gigawatt of wind and solar capacity and the entire country has barely more than 10GW of operating large scale wind and solar.

“With current and planned projects under consideration we could see Western Australia produce up to 100 gigawatt (sic) of renewable energy for hydrogen in the next 10 years, which could increase to 200 gigawatt by 2040,” MacTiernan says in her speech to the local CEDA branch.

“By comparison the size of the entire stationary Australian energy market today is only at around 70 gigawatts.”


----------



## Knobby22

$600 million will be spent by the Federal Government to build a government owned gas powered plant at Kurri Kurri NSW.
The most interesting point for me, made by the Energy Minister Angus Taylor on the ABC,  is that the plant will be designed to allow simple conversion to Hydrogen Power in the future.


----------



## SirRumpole

Knobby22 said:


> $600 million will be spent by the Federal Government to build a government owned gas powered plant at Kurri Kurri NSW.
> The most interesting point for me, made by the Energy Minister Angus Taylor on the ABC,  is that the plant will be designed to allow simple conversion to Hydrogen Power in the future.




Good idea. 

Some of us have been saying this should have happened long ago.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Good idea.
> 
> Some of us have been saying this should have happened long ago.



A good article in the AGE to day, when you cut through all the vested interests and journalistic fluff, a couple of points nail it.
It is as we have been saying, also Labor don't want to wedge themselves into saying it shouldn't be built, they also know the Government is going to have to build the firming capacity.
Also as we have said, in the end the dispatchable component, will probably have to be Government owned as it will only be there as backup generation, the last couple of paragraphs indicates that will be the likely result.









						Morrison’s gas fired power play sparks investment warnings
					

Australia’s power industry has hit out at the Morrison government’s plan for a taxpayer-funded gas-fired generator as unnecessary market intervention.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:
Australia’s power industry has hit out at the Morrison government’s plan for a taxpayer-funded gas-fired generator, describing it as an unnecessary market intervention that risks derailing vital future investments needed to transition the energy grid.

The decision came after Mr Taylor’s repeated threats that the government would develop its own generator if private industry failed to commit to building 1000 megawatts of additional generation capacity by April 30. Mr Taylor insists that amount of “dispatchable” power – such as gas plants or batteries – is necessary to keep a lid on power bills once AGL closes its Liddell coal-fired power plant in 2023.

But Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood said the Liddell report used old data and was already outdated, with NSW wholesale prices falling to $39 a megawatt hour for the first quarter of this year.
The Kurri Kurri plant flooding the market with government-funded dispatchable power would not reduce prices long term, but could force private generators out, Mr Wood said.
“This puts more pressure on Bayswater and Eraring (black coal plants). They could be left saying ‘we can’t survive’.”

The Morrison government looks set to try to wedge the Labor party over its position on gas - which is opposed by many from its left faction and welcomed by many on the right.

Labor climate change and energy spokesman Chris Bowen said he supported gas as a back-up for renewables, but the Kurri Kurri project “isn’t justified by the economics”.

Australia Institute’s climate and energy program director Richie Merzian said the government’s investment in Kurri Kurri marks a real turning point for the energy market as the world moves to lower emissions.
“*You’ll struggle to find a fossil fuel project that will stand on its own two legs given the projections from the conservative International Energy Agency around the competitiveness of these projects in a future that meets the Paris Agreement obligations,”* Mr Merzian said.


----------



## basilio

I have been  highlighting the achievements of Alkaline Fuel Cells (AFC ) in producing a cost effective hydrogen fuel  cell* that does not require highly refined Hydrogen.  *Big deal  that last point becasue it means the fuel cell will run off ammonia that has been split up while other cells can't be.

It is this capacity that see AFC eyeing off the $20B diesel generator market as one of its targets for commercial viability.

 UK fuel cell company AFC Energy targets $20 billion diesel genset market    ​   Highlights         
*Alkaline technology good fit for ammonia*
*Ammonia denser, cheaper to transport 
Construction, EV charge, maritime applications*

 
Author
Henry Edwardes-Evans 
Editor

AFC Energy is targeting the $20 billion diesel generator market with its alkaline fuel cell technology, capable of running on lower grades of hydrogen including from commercial ammonia, company CEO Adam Bond told S&P Global Platts on May 10.

The UK company has international partnerships with ABB, Acciona, Altaaqa, Extreme E and now international constructor Mace Group, with applications of its technology focused on power generation using hydrogen cracked from ammonia on-site.
"The use cases for all of the biggest green or blue hydrogen projects today are focused on the production of ammonia", Bond said.





__





						UK fuel cell company AFC Energy targets $20 billion diesel genset market
					

AFC Energy is targeting the $20 billion diesel generator market with its alkaline fuel cell technology, capable of running on lower grades of hydrogen including from commercial ammonia, company CEO Ad




					www.spglobal.com


----------



## Smurf1976

Major incident in Queensland happening at the moment has shed about a third of the state's load.

Callide B and C power stations both off completely. Prior to the incident B had 1 (of 2) units on and C had 2/2 on.

At Gladstone power station 3 units tripped, 2 still on at full output. Other one was already off anyway.

I don't have details but there's a fire at Callide power station.

Short term focus is put the lights back on, doing of which is going to be somewhat difficult but will happen indeed it's already underway.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Major incident in Queensland happening at the moment has shed about a third of the state's load.
> 
> Callide B and C power stations both off completely. Prior to the incident B had 1 (of 2) units on and C had 2/2 on.
> 
> At Gladstone power station 3 units tripped, 2 still on at full output. Other one was already off anyway.
> 
> I don't have details but there's a fire at Callide power station.
> 
> Short term focus is put the lights back on, doing of which is going to be somewhat difficult but will happen indeed it's already underway.



Well that is interesting, the general public are being asked to reduce power usage and to expect rolling blackouts, how many MW of generation have been lost @Smurf1976 ?

How many MW of generation will be lost when Liddel shuts down in two years? Experts are saying a 700MW brand new station of dispatchable power isn't required. 😂  😂  😂

Can't wait to see how the 'experts' explain it to the voters, who have to sit in the dark.  

This wont hurt Scomos re election campaign at all.


----------



## Humid

Government-run gas plant sat idle despite soaring electricity prices
					

Plans to build a new $600 million gas plant are being questioned after Snowy Hydro revealed it isn't making full use of its existing gas plant.



					thenewdaily.com.au


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Well that is interesting, the general public are being asked to reduce power usage and to expect rolling blackouts, how many MW of generation have been lost @Smurf1976 ?



I don't have all the info but what I do know with certainty is (all times are Queensland time):

At 13:40 everything was normal, output of relevant generating plant as follows:

Callide unit 1 = 0ff
Unit 2 = At full capacity 350 MW
Unit 3 = At full capacity 420 MW
Unit 4 = Operating but not at maximum capacity, was producing 278 MW

That's an unremarkable normal sort of situation for those not aware. One unit's out for maintenance, the other three are running, being early afternoon demand isn't that high so one is turned down. All very routine and unremarkable.

Note that units 1 & 2, also known as B station, were built earlier and separately to units 3 & 4 which are C station. Plant is conventional steam plant using coal as fuel. The B and C terminology comes about due to the previous existence of another, now closed, power station close by "Callide A".

Approximately 13:45 units 3 & 4 tripped.

Unit 2 continued to operate until a second major incident occurred at about 14:10 which took out:

Callide B unit 2

Gladstone power station units 2, 3, 4 (unit 1 was already off, units 5 & 6 remained in operation). These were all "proper" trips requiring a full restart. Gladstone units are 280 MW each, conventional coal-fired steam plant.

Some wind and solar generation at different sites.

3 (of 4)  units were on at Stanwell power station (coal) and tripped to house load. In layman's terms that means the machinery kept working as such, everything was still running that should be running, but no electricity was flowing from the power station into the grid. Analogy = car engine's running but the brakes are on and the transmission's in neutral. Turning over and revving the engine but going nowhere. Stanwell units are conventional 350 MW coal-fired steam.

Also about a third of all load in the state was disconnected, including a minor amount of load physically in the far northern parts of NSW but which has always been in Queensland so far as power supply is concerned.

Since then:

Transmission which tripped has been put back into service.

Stanwell power station which remained running as such was rapidly ramped up and along with hydro, gas turbines and supply from NSW was a key source for restoring supply to consumers. The three (of four) units in operation were at full output during the peak period.

Gladstone restart is progressing. Unit 4 is close to full output now, unit 2's about half way there. Unit 3 not going yet however. As those familiar with such things will be well aware, restarting multiple units following a trip is a significant task and one that can't be shortcut - it takes the time it takes basically.

Wind and solar plant is back in operation, albeit without any sun to run it but it's back to normal as such.

Supply during the evening peak was extremely tight with various pre-arranged agreements with industry and the owners of backup (mostly diesel) generators called upon in order to take load off the grid. So that means factories halting production, backup generators being run where they exist and and so on.

Also the general public has been asked to minimise their use of electricity until 21:00

As of now, supply is adequate and the immediate crisis has passed. Diesel generators are being shut down and so on, for the short term supply can meet demand since load drops overnight anyway.

This chart puts it into perspective:

Purple = supply from NSW
Black = coal
Red = diesel & kerosene
Orange = gas
Blue = hydro
Green = wind
Yellow = solar
Below the zero line = hydro pumping in Qld and supply sent to NSW

I don't need to point out when the incident occurred, that's extremely obvious:







Looking ahead, AEMO has forecast a LOR2 (Lack Of Reserves level 2, that's the last step before the lights go out) for tomorrow during the peak but it shouldn't be as tight as it was today unless something else goes wrong. Gladstone restart should be completed by then so that's more supply. Still extremely tight as such however and not a good situation.

Beyond that, it depends on the extent of overall damage and how quickly some production can be resumed at Callide from the undamaged units as well as the performance of other generation sources. Various plant in other states that's undergoing maintenance is being put back into service ASAP which should at least shore up supply in NSW for the short term - there's only a limited ability to transmit that to Qld however. Can't do that indefinitely though, maintenance needs to be done, can't leave it half done indefinitely.

Wind is also being helpful in the other states. It's not doing much in Queensland unfortunately but it's blowing strongly across NSW, Vic and SA and not too badly in Tas. Would be nice if it started blowing in the right places in Qld though, that's where it's really needed.

As for the extent of damage, well I don't have the full details indeed nobody's fully assessed it yet but ultimately it has gone bang, this isn't simply a minor breakdown it's a major incident.


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Government-run gas plant sat idle despite soaring electricity prices
> 
> 
> Plans to build a new $600 million gas plant are being questioned after Snowy Hydro revealed it isn't making full use of its existing gas plant.
> 
> 
> 
> thenewdaily.com.au



The privates will always get priority, because if they don't, they claim the government is using taxpayer money to send them broke. It is the same in W.A, the government owns most of the generation, but privates get first dibs.
The government is there to provide power if no one else can, a bit of a supplier of last resort and if the government dont put in the 700MW and it is required who will cop the blame? Not the muppets ranting on at the moment.
With electrical generation, it is better to have it and not not need it, rather than to need it and not have it.
It isn't as though 700MW can be just thrown in over a weekend.
Also there is a 2,000MW coal station being taken out of service permanently, the same time the 700MW of gas is coming on.
I can understand the private sector being pizzed, but not as much as the general public will be if there is rolling blackouts, because the 700MW isn't available.
The 700MW is being installed as firming capacity as more renewables come online and more coal is shut down, it will be great if it isn't required to run that will mean the renewables are doing a great job, but if there is a problem having 700MW of standby power covers a lot of eventualities.
It kind of falls under the category of common sense, which these days seems to be in short supply.

From your article @Humid , it kind of sums up the situation, the government units are there to supply the load if no one else can, it isn't there to send the private generators broke.
Quote:
_On Tuesday Labor senator Jenny McAllister asked Snowy executives why they failed to supply Colongra’s existing power during these spikes.

Snowy chief operating officer Roger Whitby said the company did respond to an Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) forecast about the price spike earlier on Monday.

“*Our plant and a variety of other plants were offered in the marketplace at $15,000,” he said.*_

*But the AEMO decided not to use the plant as other generators offered cheaper power.*

_*“If there was a critical supply shortage that would have been dispatched,* *but as it turned out in the midst of all that uncertainty it wasn’t, on the occasion, required,” Mr Whitby said.*_


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> From your article @Humid , it kind of sums up the situation, the government units are there to supply the load if no one else can, it isn't there to send the private generators broke.



On one hand that's true but on the other, $15,000 per MWh is certainly an incredibly high price.

It comes down to a more fundamental question as to what the intended purpose of government ownership is. That is, is the aim to be a supplier of last resort? Is it to run a profitable business to bring revenue in? Is it to promote a greater good in the community via the provision of cheap energy? Etc.


----------



## Knobby22

Smurf1976 said:


> On one hand that's true but on the other, $15,000 per MWh is certainly an incredibly high price.
> 
> It comes down to a more fundamental question as to what the intended purpose of government ownership is. That is, is the aim to be a supplier of last resort? Is it to run a profitable business to bring revenue in? Is it to promote a greater good in the community via the provision of cheap energy? Etc.



One of the main critiscisms of the plant is that it is only expected to operate very rarely, very poor utilisation.

The taxpayers money will be lost building it and it will continue to lose money operating it, all while Australia is going into a heavy debt.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> On one hand that's true but on the other, $15,000 per MWh is certainly an incredibly high price.
> 
> It comes down to a more fundamental question as to *what the intended purpose of government ownership is.* That is, is the aim to be a supplier of last resort? Is it to run a profitable business to bring revenue in? Is it to promote a greater good in the community via the provision of cheap energy? Etc.




I find it amusing that the "Left" is now objecting to the construction of government owned generation when they used to be falling over themselves lauding Snowy Hydro, originally all government owned and taxpayer funded.

The purpose of government ownership in my view is to ensure continuity of supply and stability of prices, even if the assets are basically stranded and running at a huge loss.

As @sptrawler said, it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

The political roles seem to have been completely reversed, the LNP building infrastructure with taxpayers money and Labor bagging them for it.

Mind you, I smell a bit of a rat and I think that if the gas fired station gets built and the LNP remain in power, sooner or later it will be sold off to LNP mates at a heavy discount so they can take consumers for a ride when the opportunity presents.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> On one hand that's true but on the other, $15,000 per MWh is certainly an incredibly high price.
> 
> It comes down to a more fundamental question as to what the intended purpose of government ownership is. That is, is the aim to be a supplier of last resort? Is it to run a profitable business to bring revenue in? Is it to promote a greater good in the community via the provision of cheap energy? Etc.



$15,000 per MWh is an incredibly high price as you say, but it was interesting that the article said, private generators offered lower prices and were used.
So in a way I guess it is putting a cap on prices, someone came up with $15,000, which obviously meant the privates had to quote below that.
How they come to the $15,000 figure is the interesting part, it may have been to allow some expensive generation to get some grid time, while at the same time saying $15,000/MWh is the max you can get.
I know over here it gets to the point where the unit has to be put on, or the boiler depressurised and drained or nitrogen sealed, they can't just sit there getting rusty.
I think the government is only there as the supplier of last resort, but they can obviously be used to stop extortionate prices.
As these old coal plants get unreliable and uneconomical, i think the role will reverse as time moves on and the government will have to take over the firming role, as the fossil fuel companies will move over to renewables and storage.


----------



## sptrawler

Knobby22 said:


> One of the main critiscisms of the plant is that it is only expected to operate very rarely, very poor utilisation.
> 
> The taxpayers money will be lost building it and it will continue to lose money operating it, all while Australia is going into a heavy debt.



The real issue is as renewables and storage come on line, the fossil fueled generators will make bigger and bigger loses, if the Government don't put some at call generation in the privates will just charge more and more for their dispatchable energy to cover the loses.

So really you can just let the privates run their old plant and charge more and more to operate it, while it gets less and less reliable due to its age, but they don't want to replace it as it will eventually be stranded.
Or you can put in some high efficiency gas turbines, that take minutes to ramp up to full load and have them ready to roll if the privates can't meet the demand.

Also at a later date when there is sufficient hydrogen being generated, the turbines could be operated on hydrogen, therefore it would be clean and also it is at call generation, which in reality is as good as having a fully charged 700MW battery on standby it is actually better because it doesn't run flat.
I can't see any down side to it, one of our super duper reporters should put it to Labor, are they going to cancel the gas turbines if they win the election.
My guess is they will build them as well, it is a no brainer really.


----------



## Humid

SirRumpole said:


> I find it amusing that the "Left" is now objecting to the construction of government owned generation when they used to be falling over themselves lauding Snowy Hydro, originally all government owned and taxpayer funded.
> 
> The purpose of government ownership in my view is to ensure continuity of supply and stability of prices, even if the assets are basically stranded and running at a huge loss.
> 
> As @sptrawler said, it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
> 
> The political roles seem to have been completely reversed, the LNP building infrastructure with taxpayers money and Labor bagging them for it.
> 
> Mind you, I smell a bit of a rat and I think that if the gas fired station gets built and the LNP remain in power, sooner or later it will be sold off to LNP mates at a heavy discount so they can take consumers for a ride when the opportunity presents.



I think its more whats fueling it and the Liberal party donors benefitting from it


----------



## Humid

And the funding?


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> I think its more whats fueling it and the Liberal party donors benefitting from it



I think I read an article, that said they were building a pipeline to a Santos plant.


----------



## sptrawler

Knobby22 said:


> One of the main critiscisms of the plant is that it is only expected to operate very rarely, very poor utilisation.
> 
> The taxpayers money will be lost building it and it will continue to lose money operating it, all while Australia is going into a heavy debt.



In today's paper, at last someone who is actually stating the facts.
Now when the media wants to ramp, there is something that can be referred to. There are way too many vested interests, that have no accountability for a poor outcome, but have way too much to say in regard to path we follow.
The article pretty well sums up what we have been saying, for quite some time in this thread.
Also the current situation at Callide power station, shows how old dispatchable plant can and does fail, which will become more regular as they age. That's just logical.








						Snowy Hydro bosses defend $600m gas plant as key to avoid blackouts
					

Commonwealth-owned energy company Snowy Hydro has sought to justify the Morrison government’s $600 million investment in building a gas-fired power plant.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:
In response, Snowy Hydro chief operating officer Gordon Wymer on Tuesday insisted criticism of Kurri Kurri overlooked the fact that Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) forecasts for reliability were based on “averages” under which demand was expected to be exceeded once every 10 years.
“The thing about loss of loads – so, blackouts – is that it doesn’t happen around averages, it happens when there is system stress and that is hard to model,” Mr Wymer told an energy conference.

“We’ve spent a huge amount of time peering into the future to see what role Snowy 2.0 and Kurri Kurri will play and one of the key roles is reliability for the 1 or 2 per cent of the time that there is nothing else to keep the lights on.”
Loading
Despite the hastening influx of renewable energy, Mr Wymer said renewable “droughts” – extended periods with inadequate wind and sunlight to fuel renewable energy generators – were “not a theory, they are here”. While big batteries had an important role to play in plugging these gaps, they lacked the scale of dispatchable capacity required, he said.

Dr Wonhas said AEMO had forecasted 150 megawatts of “dispatchable” capacity – assets that can provide on-demand power into the grid – would be required following Liddell’s closure in mid-2023, but acknowledged “that is cutting it fine”.

“If you put more into the system, it will put downward pressure on prices, and that’s what Snowy is attempting to do,” he said. “We don’t complain about dispatchable capacity, we will need more of it.”

Snowy Hydro chief executive Paul Broad said the business case for Kurri Kurri forecast the “internal rate of return is double-digit”. Snowy was in commercially sensitive negotiations for turbines at the plant, Mr Broad said, but he committed to releasing the business case within two months.

Separately, Federal Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor on Wednesday is expected to announce the Hydrogen Industry Mission, a collaboration between government, CSIRO and industry to drive commercial research and development into hydrogen fuel and attract $68 million in combined investment.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Major incident in Queensland happening at the moment has shed about a third of the state's load.
> 
> Callide B and C power stations both off completely. Prior to the incident B had 1 (of 2) units on and C had 2/2 on.
> 
> At Gladstone power station 3 units tripped, 2 still on at full output. Other one was already off anyway.
> 
> I don't have details but there's a fire at Callide power station.
> 
> Short term focus is put the lights back on, doing of which is going to be somewhat difficult but will happen indeed it's already underway.



Sounds like another alternator failure @Smurf1976  , if so it will be out for a long time. Are the units the same as the one that failed a couple of years ago?
It kind of supports what we have been saying about reliability issue with old plant, the new 700MW of GT's will be fast tracked IMO.








						Investigation launched into 'catastrophic failure' of Queensland's Callide Power Station
					

The electricity operator at the centre of Queensland's worst power outage in decades says it is keen to examine the scene of the disastrous fire to find out what went wrong.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
'Worst-case scenario,' according to union​Shane Brunker, the district vice-president of the CFMMEU, said it appeared the hydrogen-filled generator or the main turbine had a "catastrophic failure".

"The scenario of a hydrogen-filled generator exploding or failing mechanically causing hydrogen leaks and then also oil leaks, is probably the worst-case scenario in a coal-fired power station," he said.
"All the safety protocols were enacted straight away and it was a very speedy and efficient evacuation.

"My biggest concern is for the 350 direct and indirect employees of that station on their futures now."


----------



## Smurf1976

As an update on the situation in Queensland:

The official word, and I'm quoting from the official information here, is:



> Based on an initial inspection overnight, Unit C4 has experienced major damage and failure of the turbine




Can't get much worse than that really.

Relating to that, the issue that operating data shows unit C3 as having tripped first is a noted issue, noted by CS Energy, AEMO and others, that is unanswered at this stage as to what occurred there. For clarity however, the known physical damage involves unit 4 not unit 3.

CS Energy is 50% owner of Callide C power station, which had the incident, in a joint venture with InterGen. CS Energy 100% owns the Callide B station right next door. CS Energy itself is 100% owned by the Queensland state government.

The immediate plans are to return both B station units and the other, assumed to be undamaged at this stage, C station unit to service. This won't be done without proper inspections etc but at this stage plans are proceeding on the assumption that no damage will be found to the others.

Assuming no damage, the aim is to have one unit started up on 4 June and all three by 8 June 2021.

For the seriously damaged C station machine, nobody's able to say with certainty but the official information from CS Energy is "assume 12 months until we announce otherwise" so that's what everyone, so AEMO, government and other generating companies, are working on the basis of at this stage.

In terms of power supply to the public, there's been no interruption or restriction on use caused by the incident since yesterday evening. Looking at the short term ahead, and assuming nothing else unforeseen goes wrong:

Available supply from sources within Queensland can meet demand within Queensland on each of the next 7 days.

This is also the case in Victoria, Tasmania and SA, supply within the state can meet demand within the state at least over the next 7 days.

NSW forecast available supply is barely adequate to meet NSW demand on 28 May and cannot meet NSW demand on 31 May, 1 June or 2 June. It should be possible to fill the gap in NSW with available supply from SA + Tas + Vic + Qld but overall supply is fairly tight across the NEM but should get through.

The oldest (in operation since 1957) power station in Queensland, Kareeya, has run at constant full output since the incident that being 88 MW from its 4 x 22 MW machines. This is a hydro station and in short, there's no reason to think it won't keep going as long as it needs to. There's a lot of water in the dam, being old isn't necessarily a problem with hydro equipment and so on. It wasn't built to run flat out 24 hours a day but it should be able to keep doing so long enough, it shouldn't be a problem at least in the medium term. It is of course also rather small and of minor consequence - 88 MW at Kareeya versus 1540 MW at Callide. Every bit helps of course....

Mt Stuart is a peaking / backup plant in Queensland fueled with kerosene. Plant capacity is 423 MW and at full output fuel consumption runs at about 1900 litres per minute (that's not a typo, 1900 litres a minute yes). I don't know how much kero they could ultimately get hold of before running out but thus far they haven't expressed any concern. Operating intermittently and at varying output, they've burned ~1.2 million litres since the incident. This facility is owned and operated by Origin Energy (ASX: ORG) and runs on a commercial basis.

Looking ahead, I see there's some media reports that Queensland's going to be faced with blackouts for years and so on. In short, the truth is that assuming it's only unit C4 which has suffered major damage and the rest can be put back into production then that's not going to be the case. The odd bit of load shedding here and there might be necessary and there might need to be some logistics sorted out (eg getting enough kero to Mt Stuart for example) but it's not going to be blackouts all day every day assuming the other 3 units at Callide can be returned to operation.


----------



## SirRumpole

Politics vs engineering ?

Is the climate change lobby exposing us to more blackouts ?









						Has Australia's gas-fired recovery run out of steam before it even began?
					

Gas has always been considered a transition fuel between coal and renewables. Now, with three major multinationals under pressure to exit or at least scale back production, the transition may have become far more transitory, writes Ian Verrender.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Politics vs engineering ?
> 
> Is the climate change lobby exposing us to more blackouts ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Has Australia's gas-fired recovery run out of steam before it even began?
> 
> 
> Gas has always been considered a transition fuel between coal and renewables. Now, with three major multinationals under pressure to exit or at least scale back production, the transition may have become far more transitory, writes Ian Verrender.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Generally it is IMO a reasonable article, the only point I would make issue with, is the journalistic license used when describing coal generation. I'm mean really why ruin a reasonable article, by putting in a completely inaccurate paragraph?

Quote:
_It's the opposite. It instead describes one of the fundamental shortcomings of coal-fired electricity generators and the inflexibility of steam engines. You can only turn them down to a certain point – the baseload – beyond which, you have to shut them down. *They then take weeks to fire back up*_*.*


Absolute nonsense, coal units are taken off and returned to service every night, that is what is causing them to fail. The constant cycling (cooling and heating causes the metal to fatgue).
The rest of the statement is correct, units have a turn down ratio once they are below that it is hard to maintain a stable flame in the boiler, so the unit is cooled down, taken off, then re synchronised in the morning as the load picks up.

The only time a steam unit takes weeks to fire back up, is after a major overhaul, when all the supporting system have to be de-isolated and re commissioned.
It is a shame these reporters can't help themselves and have to put their bent on the issues, the problem is the inaccuracy of that statement means their whole article is tarnished.
It does them no favours, as anyone with a modicum of power generation understanding, would be able to blow away the author's credibility just on that issue alone.
It shows the author was either supplying biased info, or the author doesn't understand his subject, either way it doesn't further the cause IMO.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Generally it is IMO a reasonable article, the only point I would make issue with, is the journalistic license used when describing coal generation. I'm mean really why ruin a reasonable article, by putting in a completely inaccurate paragraph?
> 
> Quote:
> _It's the opposite. It instead describes one of the fundamental shortcomings of coal-fired electricity generators and the inflexibility of steam engines. You can only turn them down to a certain point – the baseload – beyond which, you have to shut them down. *They then take weeks to fire back up*_*.*
> 
> 
> Absolute nonsense, coal units are taken off and returned to service every night, that is what is causing them to fail. The constant cycling.
> The rest of the statement is correct, units have a turn down ratio once they are below that it is hard to maintain a stable flame in the boiler, so the unit is cooled down, taken off, then re synchronised in the morning as the load picks up.
> 
> The only time a steam unit takes weeks to fire back up, is after a major overhaul, when all the supporting system have to be de-isolated and re commissioned.




Well, I won't argue with you on the technicalities of coal stations, I"m sure you are right, the thing that interested me was the climate change evangelists infiltrating themselves onto the boards of large companies and making decisions for ideological reasons rather than seriously considering the engineering consequences of what they were proposing.

Does anyone seriously think that batteries can supply anything more than a couple of hours at most or simply fill in the gaps when the wind drops or the sun goes behind a cloud ?

If there is weeks of rain or prolonged drop off in wind velocity, it's up to coal , gas and hydro to fill in the gaps over a longer period.

Unless I've got it all wrong and there are some magic renewables out there that can provide despatchable power on call.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Well, I won't argue with you on the technicalities of coal stations, I"m sure you are right, the thing that interested me was the climate change evangelists infiltrating themselves onto the boards of large companies and making decisions for ideological reasons rather than seriously considering the engineering consequences of what they were proposing.
> 
> Does anyone seriously think that batteries can supply anything more than a couple of hours at most or simply fill in the gaps when the wind drops or the sun goes behind a cloud ?
> 
> If there is weeks of rain or prolonged drop off in wind velocity, it's up to coal , gas and hydro to fill in the gaps over a longer period.
> 
> Unless I've got it all wrong and there are some magic renewables out there that can provide despatchable power on call.



All true, but ATM the CC agenda has centre stage and as smurf says renewables can especially in Australia do it, the only thing is how much time as money you throw at it.
The whole issue is being cast in a black or white, right or wrong, light, it isn't as though Australia isn't going to go renewables, we are.
The real issue is doing it in a way that works, not just being stupid about it, as we have already said and the CC say renewables are cheaper, add to that the coal isn't being operated as intended and it is a given coal is finished.
So it can't be shut down tomorrow, because we need it, that leaves putting in cleaner generation and more renewables and storage.
When the renewable and storage exceeds the system requirement the gas units will sit on standby, I can't get my head around what the media is complaining about, other than whipping up another storm in a teacup.
With regard the make up of company boards, that is going to end badly, as they become less and less competitive due to self inflicted wounds.
In Australia the same issues are arising as union run super funds get larger and larger, they have more and more say in how a company operates, when as you say they may have very little knowledge and or have ulterior motives.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> All true, but ATM the CC agenda has centre stage and as smurf says renewables can especially in Australia do it, the only thing is how much time as money you throw at it.
> The whole issue is being cast in a black or white, right or wrong, light, it isn't as though Australia isn't going to go renewables, we are.
> The real issue is doing it in a way that works, not just being stupid about it, as we have already said and the CC say renewables are cheaper, add to that the coal isn't being operated as intended and it is a given coal is finished.
> So it can't be shut down tomorrow, because we need it, that leaves putting in cleaner generation and more renewables and storage.
> When the renewable and storage exceeds the system requirement the gas units will sit on standby, I can't get my head around what the media is complaining about, other than whipping up another storm in a teacup.
> With regard the make up of company boards, that is going to end badly, as they become less and less competitive due to self inflicted wounds.
> In Australia the same issues are arising as union run super funds get larger and larger, they have more and more say in how a company operates, when as you say they may have very little knowledge and or have ulterior motives.




*I can't get my head around what the media is complaining about, other than whipping up another storm in a teacup.*

I completely agree.

Interesting thing is that most of the media see the term "gas turbine" and think they have to run on gas when they could run on either hydrogen from electrolysis or biofuel which can be "grown" and is therefore renewable as well as a lot of other fuels.

There seems to be a media knee jerk reaction to anything associated with fossil fuels.

A lot of media people should get some education.


----------



## sptrawler

At last the green light for the S.A/ NSW HV interconnector, this should really improve access for renewables to the grid.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05...nector-gets-approval-from-regulator/100177928
From the article:
A $2 billion electricity transmission line which is expected to deliver long-term cheaper power in both South Australia and New South Wales has been given the green light.

Key points:​
The interconnector is expected to connect Robertstown in SA with Wagga Wagga in NSW
It is expected to drive up prices during construction but lead to significant long-term savings
ElectraNet is set to make a final investment decision in coming days
The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has granted final regulatory approval for the interconnector, which was proposed by transmission companies in both states.

The interconnector is expected to connect Robertstown in South Australia's Mid North with Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, via Buronga.

The line will also have an added connection to Red Cliffs in Victoria.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> why ruin a reasonable article, by putting in a completely inaccurate paragraph?
> 
> Quote:
> _It's the opposite. It instead describes one of the fundamental shortcomings of coal-fired electricity generators and the inflexibility of steam engines. You can only turn them down to a certain point – the baseload – beyond which, you have to shut them down. *They then take weeks to fire back up*_*.*
> 
> 
> Absolute nonsense



Indeed and that nonsense is so extreme that it basically flags the author as completely ignorant on the subject.

It's in the same category as saying that all alcohol is beer or putting Mount Gambier on a list of major cities. It says nah, this is all getting a bit silly.

The crux of it is that a power system based around coal, gas, oil, nuclear, biomass, hydro, geothermal, intermittent renewables + storage or any combination can work reliably so long as it is adequately designed, well maintained and correctly operated.

It can also be said that a power system based around any of those can and will fail if it is not adequately designed, maintained or operated.

It's having an adequately designed and properly run system that determines the outcome there, not what technology it is based on.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> At last the green light for the S.A/ NSW HV interconnector, this should really improve access for renewables to the grid.



I'm holding off the celebrations until ElectraNet also makes the final commitment to it.

In theory that's a done deal but given the incredibly long saga surrounding this, the project dates back to the late 1990's when it faced considerable opposition, I won't count any chickens at least until I can see the eggs. That should be within days however.

It will certainly be a major help assuming it does get built however, it's been very high up the priority list of projects for a long time now.


----------



## Smurf1976

As background:

SA - NSW interconnector capacity to be 800 MW.

Existing SA - Victoria capacity is 650 MW on two AC circuits plus 220 MW on a single DC circuit however due to other constraints these don't quite add and the limit in practice is 820 MW between them.

Further, a specific issue exists with the DC line in that it connects to a region of Victoria which is at times electrically constrained. This has the practical effect of requiring flows on this line which make perfect sense due to that constraint but which make no sense at all in terms of a whole of state perspective. 

For example, as of right now the limit on transfer SA > Vic via that line is 146 MW due to those constraints.

It's not uncommon in practice that renewable generation in SA goes to waste due to inability to get it out of the state. For large scale wind and solar it's fairly common but there's been one incident where household solar systems were intentionally forced off as well (the large scale wind and solar having already been forced off at that point). More capacity between SA and anywhere else directly addresses that.

Another issue is that the 2 x AC lines to Victoria form the only AC connection between SA and the rest of the grid. That creates a scenario where having either line out of service means that failure of the other will result in immediate AC separation of SA and the rest of the grid.

A far fetched scenario? Unfortunately not indeed it has actually occurred in the past. Just needs one line to be out of service for maintenance then there's a fault on the other and that's it, instant grid separation without warning. There's also the risk that both lines are on the same physical towers - relevant given that there was an actual structural collapse of towers in early 2020 which immediately disconnected both AC lines, separating SA from Victoria, and also shoved the Alcoa aluminium smelter onto the SA grid effective immediately. 

Also it's not uncommon that transmission NSW - Victoria is at the limit during peak demand periods in summer meanwhile SA - Vic is nowhere near the limit. That being so, an SA - NSW line becomes a backdoor Vic - NSW route for additional capacity as well.

So there's multiple benefits to building a new line SA - NSW.


----------



## sptrawler

Correct me if I'm wrong @Smurf1976 , but the route the transmission line takes, is through an area where a lot of current and future solar/wind farms are proposed but currently are limited due to poor transmission infrastructure in the area?


----------



## SirRumpole

Good news for low income SA residents, free batteries that halve power bills.









						Tesla battery scheme rolled out to homes without solar to build virtual power plant in SA
					

South Australia's love affair with Tesla technology is about to begin another phase, with a home battery scheme to be expanded to households not suited for solar installations.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Good news for low income SA residents, free batteries that halve power bills.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Tesla battery scheme rolled out to homes without solar to build virtual power plant in SA
> 
> 
> South Australia's love affair with Tesla technology is about to begin another phase, with a home battery scheme to be expanded to households not suited for solar installations.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



I think I said a while back, that batteries will be the next thing to be subsidised, it makes sense.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong @Smurf1976 , but the route the transmission line takes, is through an area where a lot of current and future solar/wind farms are proposed but currently are limited due to poor transmission infrastructure in the area?



In short, yes.

The general vicinity of Mildura is attractive for solar in particular for a number of reasons:

1. The solar resource is good.

2. Land isn't expensive.

3. Proximity to a substantial established town, Mildura's population being over 30,000 people.

4. Roads are more than good enough to get equipment etc to the area from either Adelaide, Melbourne or a regional area.

Electricity transmission, or rather the relative inadequacy of it, has been the bottleneck thus far.


----------



## basilio

It's interesting really. 

Right across Australia there are multiple renewable energy projects being developed in almost every environment. Home Solar everywhere.   Large scale wind farms. Large scale solar projects. Snowy 2.  Battery banks for stabilising supply both large. medium and small. New interconnectors to transfer power across the country. Huge renewable energy projects  being planned to make Australia  renewable energy super power and transform our industrial base to producing and exporting green hydrogen.

It is  also crystal clear that economically  firmed  renewable energy is  cheaper than than coal of gas fired power. We have  already overtaken what seemed to be ambitious objectives and every indication is that with any sort of encouragement we could move very, very quickly to a totally renewable energy system.  The sticking points of dealing with intermittencies in supply have known solutions which are being addressed.

And yet this Federal Government is doing all it can to throw sand in the gears of this  renewable energy drive and  instead support the stranded remnants of a fossil fuel generation. 

It makes me so  xucking sick...


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> It's interesting really.
> 
> Right across Australia there are multiple renewable energy projects being developed in almost every environment. Home Solar everywhere.   Large scale wind farms. Large scale solar projects. Snowy 2.  Battery banks for stabilising supply both large. medium and small. New interconnectors to transfer power across the country. Huge renewable energy projects  being planned to make Australia  renewable energy super power and transform our industrial base to producing and exporting green hydrogen.
> 
> It is  also crystal clear that economically  firmed  renewable energy is  cheaper than than coal of gas fired power. We have  already overtaken what seemed to be ambitious objectives and every indication is that with any sort of encouragement we could move very, very quickly to a totally renewable energy system.  The sticking points of dealing with intermittencies in supply have known solutions which are being addressed.
> 
> And yet this Federal Government is doing all it can to throw sand in the gears of this  renewable energy drive and  instead support the stranded remnants of a fossil fuel generation.
> 
> It makes me so  xucking sick...



Hey Bas, don't hold your breath for a change of Government changing the outcome, because the logical way is the way both sides will do it.








						Labor in new dispute over whether to back gas
					

The split over future gas developments in the Northern Territory is a new sign of disunity on climate change and whether Australia should phase out fossil fuel.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
Labor MPs have split over a federal plan to open up new gas reserves in a new sign of disunity on climate change and whether Australia should phase out fossil fuel.

The debate included significant interventions from former leader Bill Shorten and former resources spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon to back policies that opened up gas reserves to supply energy for households and business.

While they lost their bid in the caucus room, their debate became a test of caucus opinion on energy policy in a discussion about the need for gas and the party’s official target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The outcome of the debate was a formal vote, sought by Labor resources spokeswoman Madeleine King and passed on the voices, to reject a motion brought by independent MP Zali Steggall to stop the $50 million federal funding for Beetaloo Basin projects.

The objections to Ms King’s move surprised some caucus members because the Labor policy platform accepts the need for gas and does not seek to block new projects including fracking.
Labor MPs have also been at odds in recent weeks over federal government proposals to spend $600 million on a gas power plant at Kurri Kurri in the Hunter Valley.
While Mr Fitzgibbon and fellow Labor MP Meryl Swanson have welcomed that spending, energy spokesman Chris Bowen opposed the move.
Mr Shorten made a significant intervention, one caucus member said, because he chooses carefully when to speak on issues.

The former leader told the caucus that Labor promised to support the opening up of the Beetaloo Basin at the last election


----------



## Smurf1976

Update on Callide:

Unit 1 will now return to operation on 11 June.
Unit 2 on 21 June.
Unit 3 on 22 June.

As for unit 4, well it'll be quite a while to rebuild it. They're still saying 12 months but I doubt you'll find anyone willing to place bets there. A 420MW steam turbine isn't something you just pick up off the shelf at your local hardware store....


----------



## Smurf1976

For those unfamiliar with what all this stuff looks like inside, time lapse video shows major overhaul of Callide unit 3 (not the one that failed but the one next to it) a couple of years ago:


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> It's interesting really.
> 
> Right across Australia there are multiple renewable energy projects being developed in almost every environment. Home Solar everywhere.   Large scale wind farms. Large scale solar projects. Snowy 2.  Battery banks for stabilising supply both large. medium and small. New interconnectors to transfer power across the country. Huge renewable energy projects  being planned to make Australia  renewable energy super power and transform our industrial base to producing and exporting green hydrogen.
> 
> It is  also crystal clear that economically  firmed  renewable energy is  cheaper than than coal of gas fired power. We have  already overtaken what seemed to be ambitious objectives and every indication is that with any sort of encouragement we could move very, very quickly to a totally renewable energy system.  The sticking points of dealing with intermittencies in supply have known solutions which are being addressed.
> 
> And yet this Federal Government is doing all it can to throw sand in the gears of this  renewable energy drive and  instead support the stranded remnants of a fossil fuel generation.
> 
> It makes me so  xucking sick...




It seems to me as a non engineer hat the main problem here is storage.

The only viable option appears to be pumped hydro, the limited storage capacity of batteries cannot cover for long periods of wind/solar unavailability.

However, pumped hydro takes decades to build and become operational and governments have to stump up the cash as they are national infrastructure and private companies just won't do it. 

The economics of gas turbine stations are terrible, only running for 2% of the time but so are the economics of what these plants really are ie insurance policies.

We all spend thousand on insurance premiums for house and cars and mostly it's dead money unless for the rare event when they are needed. 

The convenience of having the availability of generation that can start at short notice and run for long periods on a variety of fuels is obvious to me anyway.

I don't think that this gas plant is such a daft idea as you make out.


----------



## Smurf1976

CS Energy has now officially released to the public, media and anyone else who wants it a photo from Callide C showing the damage.

Note the holes in the roof where bits went flying through and the end of the snapped shaft sitting where it landed complete with a dent in the floor.

Photo Supplied by CS Energy.







As a further comment, from AEMO's preliminary investigations:

13:34 - Callide C4 stopped generating but remained connected to the power system.

13:40 - CS Energy informed AEMO of a fire.

14:06 - C4 disconnects from the power system along with numerous other generating units at several sites, transmission lines and loads.

There's been at least two major failures here. First with the initial failure, second with the failure to disconnect promptly.


----------



## sptrawler

If that is what happens when an at call generator fails, I hope the sun is up and the batteries are charged. 😂


----------



## Smurf1976

For scale on the above photo, the width of the turbine hall, left to right as in the photo, is approximately 45m.

So that's equivalent to 4 full size buses parked nose to tail in a line.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> If that is what happens when an at call generator fails, I hope the sun is up and the batteries are charged.



"Queensland - Sunshine State"  

Seriously, as I'm sure you're aware this is a very major job to fix. Big $ and a lot of time.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> For scale on the above photo, the width of the turbine hall, left to right as in the photo, is approximately 45m.
> 
> So that's equivalent to 4 full size buses parked nose to tail in a line.



So that is the HP/IP turbine OMG, that is a big unit. I thought it might be the rear end. 🤣
Fooled by the blow off discs, they are usually on the LP, but that is a supercritical unit? yes?


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> "Queensland - Sunshine State"
> 
> Seriously, as I'm sure you're aware this is a very major job to fix. Big $ and a lot of time.



Well it definitely isn't an MRI, a rub down and a couple of weeks at the phsyio.  🤣


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting article on the state of play with Snowy 2.0.








						Snowy Hydro celebrates milestone in 2,000-MW Snowy 2.0 project
					

Snowy Hydro has celebrated a milestone in the construction of its 2,000-MW Snowy 2.0 pumped storage hydro project, commissioning the first TBM.




					www.hydroreview.com


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Interesting article on the state of play with Snowy 2.0.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Snowy Hydro celebrates milestone in 2,000-MW Snowy 2.0 project
> 
> 
> Snowy Hydro has celebrated a milestone in the construction of its 2,000-MW Snowy 2.0 pumped storage hydro project, commissioning the first TBM.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.hydroreview.com



Exciting stuff.

We have that "turncoat" Turnbull to thank for it.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Exciting stuff.
> 
> We have that "turncoat" Turnbull to thank for it.



Yes poor old Malcolm, hopefully he is credited with it, because he didn't get many accolades for the NBN. 
But now he has repented, he is the messiah for the left, or is he just a naughty little boy?😅


Well there are some that don't like the idea. 🤪








						Conservationists say Snowy 2.0 project 'worse than our worst imaginings'
					

Conservationists are alarmed about the amount of vegetation to be cleared for Snowy 2.0, but Snowy Hydro says the benefits outweigh their concerns.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

Solar panels not being recycled due to cost and ending up in landfill.









						Solar panels only have a lifespan of 10-25 years. So what happens to them once they expire?
					

Solar panels are considered to be an environmentally friendly way to make electricity. But most only last a decade and then end up in landfill, despite being recyclable.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Well there are some that don't like the idea.



As I've said many times, including in person publicly at meetings and so on, there are in fact two sides to what most would call the "environmental" side of the energy debate.

Conservation.

Sustainability.

The two are very different things and whilst not totally opposed, to significant extent they are and I'll go a step further and say that's a big part of the problem with all this.

The privately owned energy companies won't go anywhere near bulk storage hydro for that reason and even government's extremely wary. I make that comment being aware of what management and so on is says there - in short they're not at all keen to end up on the receiving end of protests and are well aware that fossil fuels are still a path of lesser resistance.

But if we don't have bulk storage well then going fully renewable becomes hugely problematic.

Now I hear someone say "but Smurf there's 20,000 pumped hydro sites we could choose from, surely they aren't all in National Parks?".

Indeed there are a vast number of sites but:

Take out all those which offer only a few hours' storage, they don't provide a week's worth, noting that it's getting long duration storage which is the hard bit in all this. Nobody would dispute that storing enough just to cover a few hours is pretty straightforward, it's covering a week with stuff all wind in the middle of winter that's hard.

Now remove all those which are hopelessly uneconomic or are a vast distance from any present transmission infrastructure or even a town.

What you're left with isn't going to be free from controversy if we're going to build enough to go 100% renewable.

That's not to say I'm suggesting we ought to dam the lot and build a transmission line behind everyone's back fence but society does need to get its mind around all this, there's some difficult decisions to be made here. 

That's partly why I think there'll need to be a crisis, either with the climate or energy supply (or both), before society finally is willing to go all the way with this.


----------



## Knobby22

Smurf1976 said:


> Update on Callide:
> 
> Unit 1 will now return to operation on 11 June.
> Unit 2 on 21 June.
> Unit 3 on 22 June.
> 
> As for unit 4, well it'll be quite a while to rebuild it. They're still saying 12 months but I doubt you'll find anyone willing to place bets there. A 420MW steam turbine isn't something you just pick up off the shelf at your local hardware store....



Is there any news on what caused the failure? I suppose component failure?


----------



## sptrawler

Knobby22 said:


> Is there any news on what caused the failure? I suppose component failure?



We should have a sweep, 3 guesses for 20c.
First thing to know, was the unit running up to speed? Was the unit on load at steady state? Was there a system disturbance prior to the failure?
The difference in those three scenarios, makes a lot of difference to the risk to various components.
Component failure was the end result.


----------



## Smurf1976

Knobby22 said:


> Is there any news on what caused the failure? I suppose component failure?



AEMO has released a preliminary report although at this stage as a preliminary report it's essentially a list of everything that's known and also the gaps in information. It doesn't draw conclusions.



			https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/files/electricity/nem/market_notices_and_events/power_system_incident_reports/2021/preliminary-report--trip-of-multiple-generators-and-lines-in-queensland-and-associated-underfrequenc.pdf?la=en
		


The most notable point is that protection failed to operate. That is, when the Callide unit C4 failed it did not disconnect from the transmission network but remained connected for 32 minutes after the initial incident. 

The exact circumstances surrounding that are something that will need some very serious investigation to determine what and why but definitely not a good situation to have a failed generating unit still connected and it seems drawing ~50 MW from the grid for an extended period whilst on fire. 

It's unconfirmed but as my own comment, if there was indeed 50 MW being drawn from the network by Callide C4 then plausibly the machine was motoring, that is mechanically rotating, during this time. Noting there that it was at this point also on fire which, if that turns out to be what occurred, is an unfortunate combination of circumstances to say the least.

Key events (all times are Queensland local time):

13:34 - Initial failure of Calide unit C4.

13:40 - Fire at Callide power station reported to AEMO. 

13:44 - Callide unit C3 tripped.

14:06 - Numerous events occurred in very quick succession tripping Callide unit B2, multiple transmission lines, generating units at unrelated power stations and approximately 2340 MW of load. At this point the failed Callide unit C4 was finally disconnected from power supply.

That's all going to take some pretty serious investigation to get to the bottom of it:

1. The initial cause of failure of Callide unit C4.

2. Why did protection not operate and trip it (disconnect power) promptly following the failure?

3. What, exactly, occurred to cause the incident at 14:06?

I haven't seen anyone put a timeframe on how long it'll take to piece it all together but it'll be a while. The incident is significant enough that it'll receive at least some international attention from an engineering perspective and a "no stone left unturned" approach is required in investigation. 

In the meantime, the lights are on and all load is being supplied. There's been quite a few low reserve situations in both Queensland and NSW since the incident but thus far it hasn't gone over the edge, supply has met demand apart from the first few hours after the failure.


----------



## sptrawler

Negative phase sequence should have tripped instantly


----------



## Smurf1976

Another example of the sustainability versus conservation dilemma:









						The homeowners going green for the sake of the planet (and their wallet)
					

From vertical gardens and solar panels to rooftop chook runs and vegetable gardens, innovative homeowners are making sustainability a priority for their homes.




					www.domain.com.au
				






> “It’s that tug-of-war between sustainability and conservation,” says Martin Amy, one of the team leaders of development assessment with the council.




Wind farms, solar panels, transmission lines, hydro developments and so on have an impact that's extremely different to the impact of fossil fuels and, depending on your priorities, that pits one against the other.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Negative phase sequence should have tripped instantly



It's in the category of things that would be hard to believe as having happened if it wasn't a credible source, in this case AEMO, using automatically collected data showing it occurred.


----------



## sptrawler

At last the penny drops with the media. 🤣 








						Gridlock on the grid stalls the transition to renewables
					

New wind farms are being prevented from delivering clean power  across Victoria.




					www.theage.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

The article exposes what we have been saying on here for years, it isn't the lack of will to install renewables it is the transmission limitations and the requirement to re configure it.
There is a priceless comment from the Gratton Institute, which appears to now be realising the issue.
Who knows maybe all this defamation activity, for misleading and false information, might be starting to cause a degree of accuracy in the reporting at last. 
A very well put together state of the grid report.









						Gridlock on the grid stalls the transition to renewables
					

New wind farms are being prevented from delivering clean power  across Victoria.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:
Political ambition to get renewable energy projects under way, cautious energy market bodies and some developers not doing due diligence have caused the current connection issues, according to the Grattan Institute.
“No one overall is very happy with where we’ve gotten to,” said Tony Wood, the institute’s energy and climate change program director.
“This is now the single most significant barrier to achieving high levels of large-scale renewable energy in this country.”

*Mr Wood said electricity market bodies were ultimately responsible for flagging the need for grid investment, and should have successfully done so sooner, but attempts were slow to cut through the climate debate.

“All that mess created so much noise to the extent that bodies such as AEMO were raising these issues and it was just drowned out,” he said. “Inevitably, this was going to emerge as a proble*m.“


----------



## sptrawler

And now the penny drops with AGL, get on with it, or go out of business IMO.








						AGL unveils plan to transform Liddell coal site with solar, hydro plant
					

AGL is proposing to build a solar-and-hydro energy facility at the site of its ageing Liddell coal-fired power plant once it shuts in 2023.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The article exposes what we have been saying on here for years, it isn't the lack of will to install renewables it is the transmission limitations and the requirement to re configure it.




The other two bits the masses have yet to work out are:

1. Electrify everything because right now in all states except Tasmania, electricity is actually a fairly minor source of energy so far as consuming devices are concerned. Liquid fuels beat it in every state and in some states gas is a bigger thing too at the point of use.

2. Bulk energy storage, not just a few hours' worth, is a requirement if we're to go fully renewable. It has to be able to cope with substantially higher electricity use than at present and do so on days like today when heating load is high across south-eastern Australia, solar yield is poor and so on.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> 2. Bulk energy storage, not just a few hours' worth, is a requirement if we're to go fully renewable. It has to be able to cope with substantially higher electricity use than at present and do so on days like today when heating load is high across south-eastern Australia, solar yield is poor and so on.



Exactly Smurf, today in Perth a cold front going through, not a lot of rain but a bloody cold wind.
12.30pm my 6.6Kw solar is putting out 1.1Kw, meanwhile the A/C upstairs is on and the daughter has hers on downstairs, so no export to charge a battery or pump water.


----------



## basilio

*Commercial development of a  Hydrogen battery for domestic and commercial use.*

Looks expensive at $34k but it is the equivalent price of 3 Tesla powerwalls and will supply the same power.  And this  unit will last (allegedly) 30 years.

Australian world-first domestic hydrogen battery signs an iconic investor​The LAVO 40 kWh battery incorporates an electrolyser, groundbreaking UNSW materials science, and Australian fuel-cell technology, in a slick unit that will be market ready in June this year. Gowing Bros last week became an equity investor and LAVO’s first major customer.









						Australian world-first domestic hydrogen battery signs an iconic investor
					

The LAVO 40 kWh battery incorporates an electrolyser, groundbreaking UNSW materials science, and Australian fuel-cell technology, in a slick unit that will be market ready in June this year. Gowing Bros last week became an equity investor and LAVO's first major customer.




					www.pv-magazine-australia.com
				












						LAVO: ‘World’s First’ hydrogen battery will be made in Queensland - Hydrogen Central
					

LAVO: ‘World’s First’ hydrogen battery will be made in Queensland. A Sydney-based company has chosen Southeast Queensland as its new home




					hydrogen-central.com


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Exactly Smurf, today in Perth a cold front going through, not a lot of rain but a bloody cold wind.
> 12.30pm my 6.6Kw solar is putting out 1.1Kw, meanwhile the A/C upstairs is on and the daughter has hers on downstairs, so no export to charge a battery or pump water.



In the Australian context the hardest problem of the lot to solve, in the context of moving to 100% renewable electricity, is what I call "wind droughts".

They occur primarily during the colder months when solar yield isn't great and overall energy demand is highest.

Worth nothing there I said "energy" for a reason best explained by noting that during winter in Victoria, gas space heating alone accounts for more energy consumption, in the form of gas, than all uses of electricity combined. All uses of electricity by anyone that is, including aluminium smelting, trains and so on not just households.

Tasmania isn't such a problem since, whilst colder, there's a natural synergy between hydro and cold and wet weather, it works rather nicely and even better when the hydro system has massive storage capacity as is the case in Tas. So the fact that electricity has a two thirds share of residential heating, and over 90% of the commercial market, is no surprise and easily done.

Also not such a problem in NT, northern WA and Queensland due to the climate.

Victoria however, and to a lesser extent NSW, SA and southern WA it's a very real issue the solution to which realistically involves bulk energy storage.


----------



## basilio

No surprises here.  The Scumo/ Tayor B/S public funded gas fired power station has no legs practically, economically or environmentally.  It may not even operate effectively. Lesson 623 on how to ziss public funds into the pockets of potential political supporters. 

_A $600m gas power plant promised by the Morrison government is not needed and has no prospect of generating enough revenue to justify its cost, according to a new analysis.

A report by Victoria University’s energy policy centre suggested the case for the Hunter Valley plant, to be built by the publicly owned Snowy Hydro with taxpayers’ funds, failed on several grounds.

They included: _

_New South Wales already had three “peaking” gas power plants and government advice had suggested there would be hardly any demand for the electricity they provided before 2030; _
_the new plant was likely to cost at least 50% more to build than the $600m committed; _
_and the proposed site at Kurri Kurri had a limited gas supply, raising questions about whether it would always be available or the plant would have to run on polluting diesel in the future._









						Morrison government’s $600m gas power plant at Kurri Kurri not needed and won’t cover costs, analysts say
					

Little demand is likely for the ‘peaking’ plant before 2030, calling into question the Coalition’s claim it will reduce electricity prices




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## basilio

Have to love the title of the report which excoriates the mendacity of the Scumo government. 

*The Kurri Kurri Power Station: charging taxpayers for hot air*

This paper examines the merits of the $600M Kurri Kurri Power Station proposal announced by the Federal Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction on 19 May 2021.

Report by Professor Bruce Mountain, Dr Steven Percy and Ted Woodley. June 2021





Download the report (6.4mbs) by clicking on the image (left).


----------



## sptrawler

I guess the headline says it all Bas.
Morrison government’s $600m gas power plant at Kurri Kurri not needed and won’t cover costs, analysts say​Since when has a public service, covered costs? Muppets feeding muppets IMO.

That is why it is called a public service, it is there because the public need it for their wellbeing, it isn't there to make a profit.
Some people are stealing oxygen IMO.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> I guess the headline says it all Bas.
> Morrison government’s $600m gas power plant at Kurri Kurri not needed and won’t cover costs, analysts say​Since when has a public service, covered costs? Muppets feeding muppets IMO.
> 
> That is why it is called a public service, it is there because the public need it for their wellbeing, it isn't there to make a profit.
> Some people are stealing oxygen IMO.



The moment they are privatised


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> The moment they are privatised



It won't be privatised, because it won't make money, if it isn't built the privates will run the coal generators until they fall over and the system with it. 
It isn't rocket science, renewables are cheaper to build and operate, but they require a massive amount of storage to back it up, until that is built the at call generators are required.
The problem is they are making sod all money, because they are on for the morning peak, then taken off as the renewables come in, then have to be put back on for the evening peak. This is causing huge thermal stress problem and a huge wasted fuel cost bring them on and taking them off, so the privates don't want to spend any money on them.
So there is every likelyhood the system will become more and more unreliable, brand new firming capacity which is cleaner and more flexible is required.
You have a mech background one would think you could get head around it, I can understand Bas not having a clue, but your industrial background should make it easy for you.
From a personal perspective i really don't care one way or the other, but from a technical perspective it makes absolute sense, I don't think it will be the last gas turbine station that the government has to build, as the coal generators will become less and less viable.
The privates will bring forward the closing of the stations IMO, they will just become loss making albatrosses on the companies.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> It won't be privatised, because it won't make money, if it isn't built the privates will run the coal generators until they fall over and the system with it.
> It isn't rocket science, renewables are cheaper to build and operate, but they require a massive amount of storage to back it up, until that is built the at call generators are required.
> The problem is they are making sod all money, because they are on for the morning peak, then taken off as the renewables come in, then have to be put back on for the evening peak. This is causing huge thermal stress problem and a huge wasted fuel cost bring them on and taking them off, so the privates don't want to spend any money on them.
> So there is every likelyhood the system will become more and more unreliable, brand new firming capacity which is cleaner and more flexible is required.
> You have a mech background one would think you could get head around it, I can understand Bas not having a clue, but your industrial background should make it easy for you.
> From a personal perspective i really don't care one way or the other, but from a technical perspective it makes absolute sense, I don't think it will be the last gas turbine station that the government has to build, as the coal generators will become less and less viable.
> The privates will bring forward the closing of the stations IMO, they will just become loss making albatrosses on the companies.



Well I answered your question....its just you didnt like the answer


----------



## basilio

Had  a read of the report. The Executive Summary is very incisive. The rest just joins the dots into a damming picture. And they have a very clear understanding of the industry.

The main conclusions in this paper are: 

1. *The Government’s claim that the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has substantiated the need for KKPS to fill a 1,000 MW supply gap when Liddell closes in 2023, is not true.* AEMO forecasts no shortfall of dispatchable generation in NSW. In addition, recent battery and generation commitments since AEMO’s latest study have further increased the supply surplus. 

2.* KKPS is inflexible and slow to respond, taking 30 minutes to reach full capacity from start-up *(even slower than Snowy Hydro’s existing Colongra gas generator). Its inflexibility will render it useless in most circumstances in the coming 5-minute settlement market (October 2021). For this reason also, the claim that KKPS will reduce prices is tenuous.

 3. *Peak Residual Demand (the Operating Demand less renewable generation) is declining sharply*. If AEMO’s coal closure and storage expansion assumptions are correct, there is no demand for long duration peaking gas generation in the period to 2030. Consistent with this, AEMO’s Integrated System Plan (ISP) envisages that NSW’s peaking gas generation will together produce electricity for just 4 hours per year in the period to 2030 (in the Central Scenario) or 13 hours per year (in the Fast Change scenario). 

4. *Using AEMO’s build cost assumptions (and the demonstrated build cost of gas generators) KKPS is likely to cost at least 50% more than the $600 million that the Government has provided in the 2021/22 budget.

*5. KKPS has been proposed as a source of long duration dispatchable capacity. Bu*t KKPS will have a limited supply of gas and its back-up diesel will be prohibitively expensive (and polluting). KKPS, like Colongra, is unlikely to be capable of running (at capacity) on gas for more than about five hours and it will then will take a day or so for its gas supply to recharge*. Even adding its diesel, it will not be able to run continuously for around 40 hours. 

We conclude that there is at best a tiny market for the sort of service that KKPS can offer and so it has no prospect of earning anywhere near the revenues needed to recover its outlay.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> I guess the headline says it all Bas.
> Morrison government’s $600m gas power plant at Kurri Kurri not needed and won’t cover costs, analysts say​Since when has a public service, covered costs? Muppets feeding muppets IMO.
> 
> That is why it is called a public service, it is there because the public need it for their wellbeing, it isn't there to make a profit.
> Some people are stealing oxygen IMO.



Did the power generator you worked for make a profit Homer?


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Did the power generator you worked for make a profit Homer?



Until I retired, 🤣  yes.

Really though they don't when you consider the amount of money they have to spend, like in W.A the NW shelf, SECWA had to contract to buy more gas than they could use, then had to convert Kwinana Power Station to run on gas. Add to that the cost of the pipeline and gas reticulation of Perth etc and the cost is enormous, then the cost of installing and maintaining transmission lines and supplying electricity via diesels in small outback towns and charging the customers the same price as Perth pay.
It really is something, that in my opinion, should never have been privatised over East.
Because you have to install a lot more electrical infrastructure than you actually need, to ensure you have a margin of safety, reliability and redundancy.
That model doesn't work when you have to make a profit.


----------



## Knobby22

sptrawler said:


> Until I retired, 🤣  yes.
> 
> Really though they don't when you consider the amount of money they have to spend, like in W.A the NW shelf, SECWA had to contract to buy more gas than they could use, then had to convert Kwinana Power Station to run on gas. Add to that the cost of the pipeline and gas reticulation of Perth etc and the cost is enormous, then the cost of installing and maintaining transmission lines and supplying electricity via diesels in small outback towns and charging the customers the same price as Perth pay.
> It really is something, that in my opinion, should never have been privatised over East.
> Because you have to install a lot more electrical infrastructure than you actually need, to ensure you have a margin of safety, reliability and redundancy.
> That model doesn't work when you have to make a profit.



As young engineers, having to deal with them, we used to joke that SEC stood for slow easy comfortable as they could be sleepy to deal with but miss them compared to today where half the workforce are on contract and they are always undermanned. I do miss those days.

I do think they are more efficient but feel all the efficiency gains go to the overseas owners.

Also as you say SP,  the authorities planned what they needed 20 years in advance but now it is all subject to political will which has at best a 5 year horizon.
(talking about the infrastructure guys, not generation or retail).


----------



## sptrawler

Yes Knobby, I think generation is the same these days.
I can understand the governments selling the infrastructure, because they can then use the money to fund other required infrastructure, without raising taxes.
The problem comes when like is happening now in the Eastern States, a disrupter enters the market( renewables) which makes the market players a lot less viable.
If the generators were public owned the stranded assetts wouldnt be such an issue, because it is just government loss, now with it being privately owned the privates end up with the stranded uneconomical assetts and dont like it, so get the media involved to sway public opinion.
Just same crap, different day. Comes under the heading of, it sounded like a great idea at the time.
But it does highlight why electricity really should be classed as an essential service and kept in public hands. Im just greatfull W.A isnt in the same boat.
All just my personal opinion.


----------



## sptrawler

Knobby22 said:


> As young engineers, having to deal with them, we used to joke that SEC stood for slow easy comfortable as they could be sleepy to deal with but miss them compared to today where half the workforce are on contract and they are always undermanned. I do miss those days.
> 
> I do think they are more efficient but feel all the efficiency gains go to the overseas owners.
> 
> Also as you say SP,  the authorities planned what they needed 20 years in advance but now it is all subject to political will which has at best a 5 year horizon.
> (talking about the infrastructure guys, not generation or retail).



The big difference between government and private I have found and I have worked for both, in heavy industry and generation, is that government tend to over engineer and replace things before they fail.
With private, most equipment is replaced or repaired when it fails and things are engineered to the specification.
This is generally due to one being driven by a social obligation and not a lot of cost obligation, whereas the other is driven by a production and cost obligation rather than a social one.
Both parties are made up of the same committed employees and managers, just different priorities, one isn't better than the other.
Some things are better done by government, other things are better done by private IMO, these are usually differentiated by whether it is an essential service or a cost driven service.
For example the SEC would build a power station years before it was needed, that doesn't work if you are a business, your production has to meet your demand any extra is essentially wastage and a holding cost on your balance sheet.
How inept would the government look if in 5 years there were rolling blackouts on the East coast for 2 years, while Kurri Kurri is built because it actually was required and the government says oh well the media and its experts said it wasn't needed or cost effective OMG.
 If the media and experts are prepared to underwrite any resultant loses and public disruption caused because Kurri Kurri isn't built, well that's fair enough, as long as they put down money in trust until 2030.
Talk is cheap, until the crap hits the fan, then the ar$e covering starts. 🤣 I've been in a situation where everything is black (on several occasions) with no electricity, people don't like it, if it happened for an extended period or on a regular basis it would get very ugly very quickly.
Just my opinion.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Had  a read of the report. The Executive Summary is very incisive. The rest just joins the dots into a damming picture. And they have a very clear understanding of the industry.
> 
> The main conclusions in this paper are:
> 
> 1. *The Government’s claim that the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has substantiated the need for KKPS to fill a 1,000 MW supply gap when Liddell closes in 2023, is not true.* AEMO forecasts no shortfall of dispatchable generation in NSW. In addition, recent battery and generation commitments since AEMO’s latest study have further increased the supply surplus.
> 
> 2.* KKPS is inflexible and slow to respond, taking 30 minutes to reach full capacity from start-up *(even slower than Snowy Hydro’s existing Colongra gas generator). Its inflexibility will render it useless in most circumstances in the coming 5-minute settlement market (October 2021). For this reason also, the claim that KKPS will reduce prices is tenuous.
> 
> 3. *Peak Residual Demand (the Operating Demand less renewable generation) is declining sharply*. If AEMO’s coal closure and storage expansion assumptions are correct, there is no demand for long duration peaking gas generation in the period to 2030. Consistent with this, AEMO’s Integrated System Plan (ISP) envisages that NSW’s peaking gas generation will together produce electricity for just 4 hours per year in the period to 2030 (in the Central Scenario) or 13 hours per year (in the Fast Change scenario).
> 
> 4. *Using AEMO’s build cost assumptions (and the demonstrated build cost of gas generators) KKPS is likely to cost at least 50% more than the $600 million that the Government has provided in the 2021/22 budget.*
> 
> 5. KKPS has been proposed as a source of long duration dispatchable capacity. Bu*t KKPS will have a limited supply of gas and its back-up diesel will be prohibitively expensive (and polluting). KKPS, like Colongra, is unlikely to be capable of running (at capacity) on gas for more than about five hours and it will then will take a day or so for its gas supply to recharge*. Even adding its diesel, it will not be able to run continuously for around 40 hours.
> 
> We conclude that there is at best a tiny market for the sort of service that KKPS can offer and so it has no prospect of earning anywhere near the revenues needed to recover its outlay.



Keep that thought princess, I will remind you of it at a later date, but no doubt you will have moved on to another windmill don quixote.




__





						NoCookies | The Australian
					






					www.theaustralian.com.au
				




What if the Callide unit doesn't come back, that was catastrophic damage, I know you don't understand that, but it is like you repairing your lawn mower for $1,000 , or just saying sod it I don't want to run it anyway. And just write it off.
You really have to dislocate yourself from the, I want it so it will happen if I shout loudly, to the what is realistically possible.
Muppet talk only works, until the muppets have to run the show, then those who are swimming naked are shown up. To coin a phrase.

Your whole assumptions are based on ridiculous media posts, that when you are sitting in the dark, your neighbours will be saying, but Bas you said it will be all good.


----------



## sptrawler

Now for another problem that will bring forward the closure of coal plants, that the muppet media don't take int account.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/alinta-calls-for-canberra-coal-lending-role/news-story/b2091c6708eb6737e695c2b5059be7dc&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&v21suffix=414-b
Why would Canberra(taxpayer) be the coal bank, much better to build a high efficiency gas plant, to hold the coal plants to account IMO.


----------



## Smurf1976

A lot comes down not just to cost but who pays it.

Those who'll spend money to avoid a supply shortfall are, broadly speaking, not the same people who'll suffer if one occurs.

Same issue exists with emissions. The cost of climate change, and the cost of avoiding it, are largely involving two different groups of people. Not totally but largely.

No secret that I'm not a huge fan of building gas turbines though but, to be fair, no doubt there's plenty who'd be none too keen on my alternative approaches.


----------



## Smurf1976

Knobby22 said:


> As young engineers, having to deal with them, we used to joke that SEC stood for slow easy comfortable as they could be sleepy to deal with but miss them compared to today where half the workforce are on contract and they are always undermanned. I do miss those days.



Risk.

Purely from my own observations, government owned wants low risk and accepts low financial returns as the consequence of that. To the extent risk remains, it's internalised so far as possible with a firm "show must go on" approach.

Private wants higher returns and accepts greater risk as part of that with that risk then passed on to, in practice, a mix of consumers and insurers.

From a purely personal perspective, well I expect that by the time I'm dead the longest hours I'll ever have put in at work will have been for government not private. Government tends to be more laid back on average but when trouble strikes the workers do go to extremes that the private sector baulks at.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> From a purely personal perspective, well I expect that by the time I'm dead the longest hours I'll ever have put in at work will have been for government not private. Government tends to be more laid back on average but when trouble strikes the workers do go to extremes that the private sector baulks at.



Absolutely, when I worked for regional power, the guys same for same were being paid less, than those in major power stations.
When regional power was privatised, the same guys were picked up by the private sector and paid double and so they should have, they were get it done without the drama people.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Some things are better done by government, other things are better done by private IMO, these are usually differentiated by whether it is an essential service or a cost driven service.



Where it can go wrong is when the two are combined.

The supply of power to Esperance in WA comes to mind in that regard. Esperance is not on the main grid and is supplied from a privately owned power station using gas produced by other private enterprise, transported in a privately owned pipeline, under contract to a state government owned utility company.

Long story short it has ended up with a rather bizarre outcome involving a new company taking over, replacing the (not worn out) power station with a new one and supplying it with gas not via the perfectly good pipeline which already exists but instead with LNG transported by road from Kwinana, a distance of 700km one way.

It would be hard to come up with a more bizarre solution if you tried given the unnecessary financial cost, gas use in liquefaction and fuel use in transport this entails. What it comes down though to is government awarding contracts which don't align with equipment lifecycles. It ends up with perfectly good equipment scrapped and so on.

But then the "competition" advocates would arc up if government awarded 30+ year contracts.

Some will see it as perfectly sensible and from an administrative or legal perspective it may be but from either an engineering or environmental perspective it's really quite bizarre, especially the bit about road hauling LNG when there's a pipeline already built. 

Esperance also has some historical significance in terms of energy, being the site of Australia's first commercial wind farm opened in 1987. The original turbines no longer operate, though are still there as a museum of sorts, but wind energy is still used from a newer wind farm nearby. That's the good bit - just some strange goings on with gas.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Why would Canberra(taxpayer) be the coal bank, much better to build a high efficiency gas plant, to hold the coal plants to account IMO.



That's not planning for our probable energy future.
That future in Australia is renewables with storage.  
Putting in place policies to achieve this is not that hard.
For example, adopt a levelling of the playing field approach for generators whereby renewables compete on terms that require them to also carry dispatchable power in any of the non-ff storage formats.  Amend the RET scheme accordingly.
Lots could be done proactively but, instead, our government has no plan for our energy future beyond a pricing model, so keeps stumping up with stopgap brain farts.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> For example, adopt a levelling of the playing field approach for generators whereby renewables compete on terms that require them to also carry dispatchable power in any of the non-ff storage formats.  Amend the RET scheme accordingly.



That is a given, it is crazy to keep building solar/wind farms, without complimentary storage, all it is doing is adding to the problem. The down side is it may well make the project cost prohibitive, but I personally doubt it, the operational savings with renewables would still be attractive IMO.


----------



## IFocus

Smurf1976 said:


> From a purely personal perspective, well I expect that by the time I'm dead the longest hours I'll ever have put in at work will have been for government not private. Government tends to be more laid back on average but when trouble strikes the workers do go to extremes that the private sector baulks at.




Different from my experience private always worked extreme hours, government (state) long hours as required how ever both groups were committed. 

Health and safety act help wind the hours back in later years in the private world.

In terms of risk for the workers most big constructions sites had usually 2 to 3 dead body allowance (mid to late 70's) along with SECWA who accepted around 3 dead linemen a year.

81 I think it was SECWA sacked the safety department heads and decided dying on the job was a bad thing and went on a massive culture change of attitude to risk and live line work thankfully dropping the death rate of its workers. 

Smurf worked for SECWA (81) when a young bloke dropped his 12 inch shifter across live terminals at the Esperance power station. Severe burns in hospital and the department management tried to get him to sign a document (in his hospital bed) saying he wasn't instructed to do the work when in fact he had been told to needless to say he didn't sign.

I heard all this second hand but maybe Esperance power station is that sort of place


----------



## Smurf1976

IFocus said:


> Different from my experience private always worked extreme hours, government (state) long hours as required how ever both groups were committed.



I suspect it's one of those things where a lot depends on the individuals involved, management as well as workers, and their workplace.

Also a difference between a state owned corporation versus the public service. 

Back to physical energy supply in the short term however, return to service dates for Callide power station in Queensland have been delayed, now as follows:

B station:
Unit 1 = 15 June
Unit 2 = 20 June

C station:
Unit 3 = 2 July
Unit 4 = No date set.

Also CS Energy have appointed an external engineer by the name of Dr Sean Brady to lead a full investigation into the incident.

Of note, from CS Energy's statement 



> The scope of the investigation will be broad in nature and will assess both technical and organisational factors that could have contributed to the C4 incident.
> 
> It will be a highly complex investigation and Dr Brady has been given the authority to expand its scope based on progressive findings. As a result, the timeframes for finalising the investigation cannot be confirmed at this stage and will instead be provided as the investigation progresses and more information becomes available




I'll avoid commenting on the various rumours surrounding the whole thing but I note that Dr Brady has effectively been given autonomy to investigate anything and everything, not limited to engineering and technical matters.

This won't be sorted out quickly.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Different from my experience private always worked extreme hours, government (state) long hours as required how ever both groups were committed.
> 
> Health and safety act help wind the hours back in later years in the private world.
> 
> In terms of risk for the workers most big constructions sites had usually 2 to 3 dead body allowance (mid to late 70's) along with SECWA who accepted around 3 dead linemen a year.
> 
> 81 I think it was SECWA sacked the safety department heads and decided dying on the job was a bad thing and went on a massive culture change of attitude to risk and live line work thankfully dropping the death rate of its workers.
> 
> Smurf worked for SECWA (81) when a young bloke dropped his 12 inch shifter across live terminals at the Esperance power station. Severe burns in hospital and the department management tried to get him to sign a document (in his hospital bed) saying he wasn't instructed to do the work when in fact he had been told to needless to say he didn't sign.
> 
> I heard all this second hand but maybe Esperance power station is that sort of place



I worked in regional power stations, from 85 to 89, did a couple of jobs at Esperance one when we started using MFO on the diesels, never heard of the shifter accident.
But I do know that exact accident happened in the mid 1970s, at Kambalda, the leading hand and a young sparkie where working in the mill switchroom, I was an Instrument apprentice there at the time.
Over time, I think the story might have changed slightly.
One of the major power stations had a couple of bad electrical incidents too, one an apprentice went into the wrong 3.3kv ACB cubicle to clean the spouts and another an operator when racking in a 6.6 ACB picked up the cubicle heater with the carriage and inserted it into the busbars, very nasty, both incidents really tragic.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> But I do know that exact accident happened



Always bad to hear of any accident in any workplace no matter who owns it or who's involved.

Meanwhile Yallourn W, second largest power station in Vic, 3 or 4 units now shut down in an orderly manner, other one still on for the moment. Floods.

Yallourn is owned by Energy Australia (not ASX listed).


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> Meanwhile Yallourn W, second largest power station in Vic, 3 or 4 units now shut down in an orderly manner, other one still on for the moment. Floods.



News report here: 

In short, 3 units are off and the other is running on previously mined coal.

Short term, there's no immediate threat to supply but it's not sustainable to have it off since keeping the lights on is basically relying on unsustainable use of hydro resources and better than average performance of other plant. No immediate panic but can't do that forever.


----------



## sptrawler

An interesting article @Joules MM1 posted, in another thread, it really looks as though Australia is going to be front and center of the renewable drive in Europe.








						Germany, Australia sign hydrogen accord to boost lower-emissions technology
					

Germany and Australia on Sunday signed a bilateral alliance on hydrogen production and trade to try to facilitate a renewable energy-based hydrogen supply chain between the two countries.




					www.reuters.com
				



From the article:
Germany and Australia on Sunday signed a bilateral alliance on hydrogen production and trade to try to facilitate a renewable energy-based hydrogen supply chain between the two countries.
Economy Minister Peter Altmaier and Education and Research Minister Anja Karliczek signed a letter of intent to set up a "Germany Australia Hydrogen Accord" with Australian Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor, the German Economy Ministry said in a statement.

It said the cooperation was about enabling "the import of sustainably produced hydrogen in relevant volumes, which is an important factor to reach our tighter climate targets."

In a statement, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said international collaboration was key to getting new energy technologies like hydrogen to commercial parity.
"Our ambition is to produce the cheapest clean hydrogen in the world, which will transform transport, mining, resources and manufacturing at home and overseas," Morrison said.

Big energy firms including German utility RWE (RWEG.DE) and Uniper (UN01.DE) have started looking into possible new trade routes for hydrogen, a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels, from Australia and other places. read more

Germany's 9 billion-euro ($10.9 billion) hydrogen strategy launched last summer, which is embedded in wider European Union strategies, is based on the assumption that some 80% of its hydrogen requirements may have to be imported in the long term.


----------



## Smurf1976

There's power coming out of Callide once again.

B station unit 1 online at 16:35 this afternoon and operating normally. 

Rest of it remains off but something's happening at least. B station unit 2 goes on next if all goes to plan then the remaining good machine in C station.

Meanwhile in Victoria, Yallourn's bumbling along running at 12% of capacity using up what's left of the coal in the bunkers then that's it until the mine's back up and running. If not then it'll be going to zero.

A point of perhaps more relevance to the forum however is the financial side. Whilst neither Callide nor Yallourn are owned by listed companies, the market impact is going to be hitting a few.

Average whole of NEM spot prices for the week beginning:

3 May = $53.89
10 May = $63.58
17 May = $136.26
24 May = $183.98
31 May = $178.30
7 June = $183.44
14 June to date = $352.83

For reference, average price for 2020 calendar year was $57.62

Any business, be that an electricity generation business, a retailer or an industrial consumer, who's exposed to the spot price without hedging is going to be making or losing some pretty serious $ with all this and it ain't over yet.

Location is highly relevant there, state by state average 1 June to date:

Qld = $369.46
NSW = $260.33
Vic = $82.42
SA = $81.23
Tas = $53.80

WA isn't affected as being a separate system but for the record, average spot price during June thus far has been $56.30 

At those prices in Qld and NSW, any retailer that's unhedged on the supply side and which doesn't own any physical generation could well blow itself up financially pretty soon. There's no coded message there, I'm not hinting at anyone in particular, but if I was considering investing in any such company then I'd be looking very carefully into their business. Versus those who own physical production who are either gaining from the situation or, if they're selling it all under contract, neutral.


----------



## sptrawler

I'm not sure if this is a repeat of the NSW 'renewable roadmap', or a further investment in it, but it sound as though the transmission gridlock in western NSW, is finally going to be sorted.








						NSW to invest $380 million to turbocharge renewable energy rollout
					

The Berejiklian government will spend an extra $380 million to help expedite investment into the state’s five renewable energy zones and smooth the way for an increase in solar, wind and storage projects.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
Energy Minister Matt Kean said the package was the biggest state investment in large-scale renewable energy in NSW’s history, supporting “the most ambitious renewable energy policy in the country”.

All the state’s five remaining coal-fired power stations will reach the end of their technical lives in the next 15 years, and NSW was “on the clock to replace them before they close to keep the lights on and prices down”, he said.
The $380 million will partly go to pay for transmission upgrades in the Central West-Orana Renewable Energy Zone so that region can be ready to go by the end of 2022. It will also help pay for the setting up of a Consumer Trustee, Financial Trustee and Regulator to ensure competition in the new zones benefits consumers.

The roadmap aims to bring online 12 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity and 2 gigawatts of storage such as big batteries and pumped hydro projects by 2030.


----------



## basilio

Not a big deal in terms of producing energy . 

Or perhaps it could be ? A cheap vertical axis wind turbine that would harvest the air currents created on freeways


----------



## rederob

What ‘vehicle-to-everything’ electric vehicle pilots mean for the grid​The above article looks at many of the issues facing the use of BEVs to smooth the transition to more widespread electrification as renewables uptake increases.


----------



## sptrawler

It sounds like Yallourn has more problems, than just the catastrophic damage to one unit, it sounds like the whole plant will be under a cloud.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/...to-cost-tens-of-millions-20210704-p586nx.html


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It sounds like Yallourn has more problems, than just the catastrophic damage to one unit



You're mixing up power stations there....   

Catastrophic damage occurred to a unit at Callide C station in Queensland.

Yallourn mine is in Victoria. There's a problem with the mine but not the power station itself.

No relation between the two incidents other than both involving power generation and being within a short period of each other but they're otherwise unrelated.

Present status:

Callide B = Has returned to full operation of both units. 2 x 350 MW.

Callide C = Not operating at all. One unit is catastrophically damaged, the other also hasn't run since the incident. 2 x 420 MW

Yallourn W = Coal mining has resumed and all 4 units are presently in full operation but the ability to continue doing so depends on the ongoing supply of coal. If it starts raining heavily well then there's a big problem if the river diversion fails and it ends up flowing into and thus flooding the mine. Note there is no other use of coal from the mine, and no other source of coal for the power station, the mine and power station being effectively the same operation. Capacity is 2 x 360 MW and 2 x 380 MW.


----------



## sptrawler

My mistake @Smurf1976, getting the two stations confused.


----------



## sptrawler

More pressure on the coal generators, as battery storage prices tumble.








						Big $300m battery to be built without government aid in market first
					

Australia will get its first grid-scale battery built without government support by the end of 2022, marking what its proponent says is a tipping point in the electricity sector as storage prices tumble.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
Victoria will get Australia’s first grid-scale battery built without government support by the end of 2022, marking what its proponent says is a tipping point in the electricity sector as storage prices tumble.
Lumea, the commercial arm of TransGrid, began taking expressions of interest on Monday for a giant 300-megawatt battery to be built at its Deer Park substation, west of Melbourne.
Lumea’s head of infrastructure, Nigel Buchanan, said the array of lithium-ion batteries would be able to supply 580 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to power about 1 million homes for half an hour before needing to be recharged.

It would come online in 12 to 18 months at a cost of $270 million to $300 million. In a first, the venture would be fully financed by the private sector.
Plans for the Deer Park battery come eight months after the Victorian government announced plans for a 300-megawatt large-scale battery for Geelong to be operating from this November. The government’s plan to draw half of the state’s power from renewable energy by 2030 will likely require a large increase of energy storage options.
While the early market for batteries has been dominated by the supply of frequency controls and other so-called ancillary services, those opportunities will diminish at least until the next coal-fired power plant closes, he said.

Rather, the main market opportunity for batteries will be to take advantage of tapping low-cost electricity and then releasing it during higher-cost periods.

The introduction of five-minute settlement periods within the National Electricity Market in October to replace the current 30-minute period also means “there will be plenty of arbitrage to go around” for suppliers such as battery owners, Professor Mountain said.


----------



## Smurf1976

I've previously mentioned the price of gas surging and the problems that's causing.

It seems to be in the media now: https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-a...s-prices-alarms-manufacturers-20210706-p587b4



> “Twenty-eight dollar gas is not OK. This is wreaking havoc with industry and jobs.”




I'm generally a tad more reserved on the political side but in this case I'll be blunt and say that this was entirely foreseeable _and actually foreseen_ but simply ignored by successive governments.


----------



## sptrawler

AGL to close one of the S.A based Torrens Island B station gas fired turbines, I presume they are steam units, so basically suffer from the same issues as the coal fired units do. They don't like being cycled.
As per usual, the media has to load the article with their bias and misinformation, comparing a proposed new generation HEGT station, with coal and gas fired boilers driving old steam turbines, the muppets will have something to tutt tutt about over their lattes. 🤣
Talk about comparing apples with avocado's.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/com...s-renewable-energy-soars-20210707-p587jb.html
From the article:
Energy giant AGL is preparing to mothball one of four units at South Australia’s biggest gas-fired power station as the influx of large-scale renewable energy and rooftop solar power continues to price fossil fuels out of the market.

AGL has notified the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) it will take the unit at its Torrens B power station offline in October, citing “challenging conditions” that do not support the viability of operating all four generation units.

AGL’s move is the latest sign of the accelerating clean-energy transition driving down wholesale electricity prices to the point where coal and gas are unable to complete, and comes as the federal government presses on with plans for Snowy Hydro to build a $600 million taxpayer-funded gas-fired power plant at Kurri Kurri, NSW.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> AGL to close one of the S.A based Torrens Island B station gas fired turbines, I presume they are steam units,



Basic details as follows:

Total plant installed consists of Torrens Island Power Station A  (TIPSA) and Torrens Island Power Station B (TIPSB).

TIPSA consists of 4 x 120 MW units commissioned 1967 - 70, originally designed to fire oil but converted to gas from 1969 so oil was really only ever a temporary then backup fuel.

TIPSB consists of 4 x 200 MW units commissioned 1977 - 82 in two stages of construction, two units each, though all as the one power station as such. Boilers are designed as gas-fired, units 3 & 4 also having oil burners but rarely used and those two were designed to accommodate conversion to coal-firing although that was never implemented in practice.

So fuel is gas in practice but a bit of oil has been used on occasion.

All units are conventional steam plant and consist of one boiler + turbine + generator each and associated equipment. All can operate independently of each other.

The two facilities are right next to each other such that someone unfamiliar would not unreasonably describe it as a single power station. Location is at Torrens Island, hence the name, about 15km north-west of the Adelaide CBD so it's outer suburban.

Present status:

TIPSA units 2 & 4 are now permanently mothballed and de-registered.

TIPSA unit 1 is still registered but not operating in practice and planned to be de-registered in the near future.

TIPSA unit 3 is being run intermittently but will in practice be mothballed from 1st October 2021 though not de-registered for another 12 months as was the case with the others.

So in practice TIPSA is 75% mothballed now and will be completely mothballed from October this year and, realistically, probably won't ever run again though it's not totally impossible.

TIPS B unit 1 had a planned major outage to commence on 12 August 2021 with a return to service planned for November. What's changed is that AGL have cancelled the return to service and, presumably, will not do the required maintenance work.

So whilst the announcement says it's closing in October, in practice it's gone 5 weeks from now.

That leaves 600 MW of the original 1280 MW of plant at Torrens Island Power Stations (A + B combined) in service.

As to the background, well my observations are basically that gas is effectively stuffed as an energy source for anything other than backup and peaking generation. In all seriousness, right at this moment it's about the same cost to burn gas as it is to burn petrol and that's really getting ridiculous. Depending on state, the price is running at 3 or even 4 times that of 12 months ago.

Politically well I'm glad it won't be me in the firing line but I can see some fallout from this on multiple fronts.

My personal opinion there is that from a political perspective, AGL has just lit the fuse on a bomb with this one and the only question is who's head gets blown off in due course. There'll be some fallout in my opinion, big time, but it's anyone's guess as to the details.

Fallout due to the ideological issues regarding gas-fired generation, gas production, AGL's cancelled LNG import terminal and so on.

Fallout when the not 100% certain but probable event happens that there's load shedding which would have been reduced or avoided had Torrens Island remained fully operational.

From a purely technical perspective the latter point there is just a numbers game. It's impossible to say when but at some point the ducks will line up. Just needs a heatwave across SA + Vic and not much wind then stand back, get the popcorn* and watch the show unfold.

Politically though, they've lit the fuse on a bomb in my view. Only question is who's holding it when it goes bang. 

*Make the popcorn early, just in case your power gets turned off.


----------



## sptrawler

It could be a case of too little too late for AGL IMO, the writing has been on the wall for quite some time, maybe they should have started swapping out Torrens A units for a couple of HEGT's a while ago.
Firstly it would have given them some flexibility, secondly it would have taken some cycling duty off the 200MW units, thirdly they would have used a lot less fuel and lastly they would be available as firming capacity for quite some time.
Just a thought, but as with the East coast, until there is sufficient renewable generation and storage to overcome several days of low output the requirement for at call generation will be present for a long time.
AGL really seems to be playing with a handful of two's at the moment, hopefully they get a cohesive plan together, there is one thing having a lot of assets, but it's like shares there is no point holding onto the dogs until they are worthless.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> What if the Callide unit doesn't come back, that was catastrophic damage



Latest suggestion seems to be end of calendar year 2022 so ~18 months away for the damaged unit.

The undamaged one at Callide C station should be on next week they're saying.


----------



## Smurf1976

This gas caper is getting somewhat out of hand.

Spot price right now:

Sydney = $29.78 / GJ
Victoria = $26.11 / GJ
Adelaide = $21.00 / GJ forecast to reach $28.00 tomorrow

At those prices it's cheaper to burn diesel than gas and in Sydney well you could run a boiler using petrol and it'd be cheaper which is really getting quite ridiculous.

Earlier this year around $6 was the norm.

Financially well I do wonder if anyone's doing the proverbial "swimming naked" and either losing or making serious $? There’s quite a price shock going on right now for those who aren’t hedged.


----------



## sptrawler

AS we have been saying for a long time, Australia will be transitioning much faster to renewables than people expect, it sounds as though the reconfiguration of the grid is accelerating. 
The more the grid and infrastructure is reconfigured to be able to handle renewables, the less competitive the steam driven plant becomes, which in turn accelerates their demise.   








						100 per cent renewables by 2025: Grid operator pushes clean energy revolution
					

Australia can be ready to lead the world and power its energy grid with 100 per cent renewables by 2025, the new head of the energy grid operator says.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:
Increased output from wind, large-scale and rooftop solar, which cannot generate power unless it’s sunny or windy, is complicating the grid operator’s job of supplying power to consumers, while the loss of the continuous power traditionally provided by coal and gas could pose risks to the reliability of the network.
Mr Westerman said stronger transmission infrastructure, big batteries, pumped hydro and gas plants providing on-demand energy would be vital to ensuring a smooth transition. However, if successful, Mr Westerman says the east-coast electricity grid, which is usually powered 70 per cent by coal, should be able to handle 100 per cent renewable energy at a single moment in time by 2025.
Mr Westerman, who took over as head of the Australian Energy Market Operator two months ago, said the accelerating pace of change in Australia had prompted him to set the bold target and seek to harness capabilities and experience across the industry through collaboration.

Mr Westerman insists the push is necessary to cater for a rapid influx of wind and solar farms and rooftop solar panels nationwide as more coal-fired power stations close down.
“This must be our goal not because of personal ambition, politics or ideology, but because we know this is where we’re headed,” he says.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> However, if successful, Mr Westerman says the east-coast electricity grid, which is usually powered 70 per cent by coal, should be able to handle 100 per cent renewable energy at a single moment in time by 2025.



The one thing I'll caution is that it's important that it's understood that being able to have 100% renewable energy on an instantaneous basis is very different to actually having 100% renewables in total.

I'm sure you know that and so does AEMO but I have visions of the general public, especially those more politically inclined, reading it to mean that we can close all coal 4 years from now. That's not the reality or the aim - the aim is to be able to use the wind and solar we have in full which, on occasion, will mean 100% but not constantly. That'll come later (but it will happen....).


----------



## sptrawler

I would hope people on the forum aren't that silly @Smurf1976 , I actually think with all the information and insight you have given into how the grid works, many on the forum are now some of the best informed of the general public.

It sounds to me that the AEMO will be fast tracking transmission upgrades, to facilitate the building and grid access of more renewable projects.
The established generators are really going to be put under pressure, they will really have to take an analytical view of their generation portfolio and make some cold commercial decisions.

Like in W.A, Kwinana power station has transitioned from 6 steam turbines that could operate on multiple fuels, to 4 modern gas turbines.
Im sure when the remaining obsolete plant is demolished, more gas turbines will be installed, the time is ripe to make the adjustment.
If the established generators don't use this window of opportunity, they will struggle to remain viable IMO.

Whether they use the sites as battery storage facilities and make use of the switchyard infrastructure, or convert the sites to HEGT generators, will be the question. The fact is steam plant is rapidly becoming an albatross and that problem is going to get worse as renewables gain access, worrying times for some.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I would hope people on the forum arent that silly.



I wasn't referring to the forum, just in general.

I can foresee Joe Average random member of the public reading the newspaper article and thinking great, 4 years from now we can be fully renewable.

Then along comes 2025 and they're somewhere between wondering why it didn't happen through to marching down the street about it.

My point being that failing to understand detail and nuance has been a big problem in all of this. The general public reads that something is good, bad or whatever and doesn't grasp that this applies only to a particular context.

That's been an ongoing problem in all of this, getting the public's mind around the idea that something works in one context but not in another. Air-conditioning is the classic example - in one context it's the problem, in a different context it's the single greatest energy _saving_ device ever invented. I realised long ago that many people in practice can't get their mind around that, missing the point that it depends entirely on what the question is.


----------



## sptrawler

Yes good point, the general public believe what they want to believe and the media feeds it.


----------



## Smurf1976

It's only a small power grid but Flinders Island (Tas) is running on 100% wind power at the moment:


----------



## Belli

So is King Island.  Windy places.


----------



## Knobby22

Smurf1976 said:


> It's only a small power grid but Flinders Island (Tas) is running on 100% wind power at the moment:
> 
> View attachment 127531



Love flywheels.
So mechanical, use of inertia, a visible proof of Newtonian physics.


----------



## basilio

New breakthroughs in battery design - in Australia !

‘Lightbulb moment’: the battery technology invented in a Brisbane garage that is going global​Dominic Spooner’s startup Vaulta is working on a reusable battery casing to create less waste and a lighter product




‘Batteries will change our lives in ways that we’re maybe not even totally aware of’: Dominic Spooner in the Brisbane garage that’s home to his startup Vaulta. Photograph: David Kelly/The Guardian





Ben Smee

@BenSmee
Sun 18 Jul 2021 06.00 AEST
Last modified on Sun 18 Jul 2021 06.01 AEST

As some of the world’s largest companies invest billions to advance battery technology, Dominic Spooner has been working at solving the next problem: the impact of unwieldy – and environmentally unfriendly – battery casings.
Spooner runs his lightweight battery casing technology firm Vaulta from a shared garage in Brisbane’s north. “Batteries will change our lives in ways that we’re maybe not even totally aware of, but … we can create our own new group of problems if we’re not careful,” he says.

From a workspace surrounded by packing boxes and other junk, like an old door, Spooner and his team have caught global attention.




Read more
This year Vaulta has signed agreements with aerospace and car battery companies, including one with Braille Battery – an American manufacturer of ultra-lightweight batteries for Nascar, IndyCar and the Australian Supercars.

Last month the company received a $297,500 federal grant to commercialise its technology.








						‘Lightbulb moment’: the battery technology invented in a Brisbane garage that is going global
					

Dominic Spooner’s startup Vaulta is working on a reusable battery casing to create less waste and a lighter product




					www.theguardian.com
				












						Vaulta - Simply Superior Battery Cases
					

Vaulta's battery cases make batteries recyclable, re-usable and serviceable anywhere in the world. Available for stationary storage, EVs, mining and niche products.




					www.vaulta.com.au


----------



## mullokintyre

A US company has made claims about a breakthrough in battery storage that not only is cheaper, but can discharge for a number of days.
And it uses Iron, one of the most abundant, cheap materials around.
From Todays OZ


> A four-year-old US start-up says it has built an inexpensive battery that can discharge power for days using one of the most common elements on Earth: iron.
> Form Energy’s batteries are far too heavy for electric cars. But it says they will be capable of solving one of the most elusive problems facing renewable energy: cheaply storing large amounts of electricity to power grids when the sun isn’t shining and wind isn’t blowing.
> 
> The work of the Massachusetts company has long been shrouded in secrecy and nondisclosure agreements. It recently shared its progress with The Wall Street Journal, saying it wants to make regulators and utilities aware that if all continues to go according to plan, its iron-air batteries will be capable of affordable, long-duration power storage by 2025.
> On a recent tour of Form’s windowless laboratory, Mr Jaramillo gestured to barrels filled with low-cost iron pellets as its key advantage in the rapidly evolving battery space. Its prototype battery, nicknamed Big Jim, is filled with 18,000 pebble-size grey pieces of iron, an abundant, non-toxic and nonflammable mineral.
> 
> For a lithium-ion battery cell, the workhorse of electric vehicles and today’s grid-scale batteries, the nickel, cobalt, lithium and manganese minerals used currently cost between $US50 and $US80 per kilowatt-hour of storage, according to analysts.
> 
> Using iron, Form believes it will spend less than $US6 per kilowatt-hour of storage on materials for each cell. Packaging the cells together into a full battery system will raise the price to less than $US20 per kilowatt-hour, a level at which academics have said renewables plus storage could fully replace traditional fossil-fuel-burning power plants.
> 
> A battery capable of cheaply discharging power for days has been a holy grail in the energy industry, due to the problem that it solves and the potential market it creates.



Given the size and weight of the battery, its unlikely that it will be suitable for mobile devices such as cars etc, but in a static environment like home storage,  EV filling stations,  mains supply backup, industrial supply, it would be ideal. 
Lets hope that it scales up to something big, even bigger than  Big Jim.
Mick


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> This gas caper is getting somewhat out of hand.
> 
> Spot price right now:
> 
> Sydney = $29.78 / GJ
> Victoria = $26.11 / GJ
> Adelaide = $21.00 / GJ forecast to reach $28.00 tomorrow
> 
> At those prices it's cheaper to burn diesel than gas and in Sydney well you could run a boiler using petrol and it'd be cheaper which is really getting quite ridiculous.
> 
> Earlier this year around $6 was the norm.
> 
> Financially well I do wonder if anyone's doing the proverbial "swimming naked" and either losing or making serious $? There’s quite a price shock going on right now for those who aren’t hedged.



Hi Smurf.

just a general question.

I have noticed over the last week or so Tasmania’s spot price is often negative.

Is there a reason for this? Is something happening that is out of the ordinary, eg are the releasing water for other non economic reasons and that is causing over production?


----------



## Value Collector

mullokintyre said:


> A US company has made claims about a breakthrough in battery storage that not only is cheaper, but can discharge for a number of days.
> And it uses Iron, one of the most abundant, cheap materials around.
> From Todays OZ
> 
> Given the size and weight of the battery, its unlikely that it will be suitable for mobile devices such as cars etc, but in a static environment like home storage,  EV filling stations,  mains supply backup, industrial supply, it would be ideal.
> Lets hope that it scales up to something big, even bigger than  Big Jim.
> Mick



Tesla’s Chinese made Model 3 uses an Iron based battery, it makes the battery cheaper and is fine for the medium range vehicles, the long range version uses nickel.

I linked a video in the BHP thread today where the explain Iron vs nickel at the 1hr 9min mark in the video


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> I have noticed over the last week or so Tasmania’s spot price is often negative.
> 
> Is there a reason for this? Is something happening that is out of the ordinary, eg are the releasing water for other non economic reasons and that is causing over production?



No technical reason that I'm aware of, it was a purely economic thing at the time.

Early hours of Tuesday 20th July there was extremely high wind generation in Victoria plus wind running at its technical limit in SA, the combined effect of which pushed the price in Victoria significantly negative.

Hydro Tas has basically set up its own offer prices such that this scenario extends the price crash to Tasmania in terms of the spot price but still maximises flow on Basslink from Vic to Tas, thus conserving water in storage and, bonus, being paid to take supply from Victoria.

That's driven by technical circumstances but it's a financial / business strategy as such to allow that to happen. Nothing stops HT from simply not offering any prices below $x which would avoid that local price crash if they wanted to.

Why price low? In short Hydro Tas doesn't really lose much by doing so indeed long term there's likely a gain.

First because the vast majority of sales within Tas are under contract either directly to heavy industry or to retailers for on sale to business and the public and those are at fixed prices.

Second because it's no secret that HT is playing the long game in terms of its own viability and that of industry and consumers in general. Pricing too high is an own goal in that regard.

For the other negative prices in Tas this week, they occurred when prices in Victoria were high and of significance, commenced immediately after the failure of Newport power station (Vic) just after 5pm on the 21st.

HT would likely have been delivering (physically) into a pre-arranged financial contract with another party there (in Victoria) and the surest way to ensure AEMO dispatches generation right up to the technical limits is to price it cheaply.

The basic purpose of such contracts is insurance. Eg Company A and B both have contracts with each other which enable one to call on the others' spare capacity at an agreed (fairly low) price in the event of plant failure. Physically that makes no difference, since AEMO will dispatch available generation without considering who owns it, but it provides a mechanism to protect the companies financially from the spot price.

Newport has since returned to normal operation, running from about 7am - 10:30 pm yesterday and about 6:30am - 9:30pm today (normal operation, it operates intermittently which is its intended function).


----------



## basilio

mullokintyre said:


> A US company has made claims about a breakthrough in battery storage that not only is cheaper, but can discharge for a number of days.
> And it uses Iron, one of the most abundant, cheap materials around.




This story is certainly the  current Big One in terms of energy impact. Appears as if they have persuaded some serious money to invest in their project.
*I would love to see independent evidence of their success in reversing rust on some sort of practical scale. *

Having said that, there are a swathe of technologies that also claim to have discovered the Holy Grail energy storage. And perhaps they are all on the money.









						World's cheapest energy storage will be an iron-air battery, says Jeff Bezos-backed start-up | Recharge
					

Secretive US start-up Form Energy finally reveals the chemistry of its revolutionary long-duration battery — which it says will store energy at one tenth the co




					www.rechargenews.com
				





Related news
       New zinc-air battery is 'cheaper, safer and far longer-lasting than lithium-ion'     
         Transition        
 21 May 2020 9:03 GMT​
       Highview Power unveils $1bn of liquid-air energy storage projects in Spain     
         Energy Transition        
 19 May 2021 10:52 GMT​
       Gigawatt-scale compressed air: World’s largest non-hydro energy-storage projects announced     
         Energy Transition        
 29 April 2021 17:48 GMT​
       Siemens Gamesa: Utilities are lining up for our €40-50/MWh long-duration thermal energy storage     
         Technology        
 26 February 2021 9:52 GMT​
       World’s first large-scale zero-carbon steel plant will require €500m of public money     
         Energy Transition        

 20 July 2021 14:40 GMT​


----------



## basilio

Value Collector said:


> Tesla’s Chinese made Model 3 uses an Iron based battery, it makes the battery cheaper and is fine for the medium range vehicles, the long range version uses nickel.




Interesting. Does this battery use the same technology as proposed by Form Energy ? Or is it a different process?


----------



## Value Collector

basilio said:


> Interesting. Does this battery use the same technology as proposed by Form Energy ? Or is it a different process?



I don’t know much about form energy Tech, But the Tesla one just basically uses Iron in the cathode rather than nickel of cobolt.

The reason for this is Cost, But each metal has a trade off.

Eg, Nickel is higher energy density, but it’s less stable than cobolt and more expensive than Iron.

Cobolt is more stable than nickel, but it is more expensive than both nickel and Iron.

Iron is the cheapest and most stable, but it is less energy dense, meaning batteries need to be bigger and heavy to hold the same energy.

All three batteries are still lithium ion batteries.

apparently the Iron based cathodes also degrade slower, and can be held at 100% charge without increasing degradation, where as Tesla doesn’t recommend keeping your car more than 90% charged on the daily, unless you need that extra charge and will be driving the car within a few hours.


----------



## Value Collector

This is what I mean by Tesla don’t recommend letting your car sit at 100% charge, there is a sliding bar where you adjust the maximum level your car will charge to (you can do it in the car or on the phone app).

that last 10% they recommend only to charge to if you need it, you can however set your car to finish charging at a certain time eg 6am in the morning, so it hits 100% just before you need to drive to work, or leave on a road trip, so the battery isn’t sitting at the high state of charge for to long.

that’s actually one of the big killers of phone batteries, people let them get to 100% every night and let them sit at that charge all night.


----------



## basilio

Thanks VC.  Clearly a quite different application.   There does seem to be evidence that rust will produce electricity. I'm just wondering why there doesn't seem to be even a small scale example of this battery for proof of concept.









						Ultra-thin layers of rust generate electricity from flowing water
					

Researchers have shown that iron oxide layers can convert kinetic energy of saltwater into electrical power.



					www.sciencedaily.com
				







__





						Could rust provide an answer to the big energy storage question?
					

Old bikes and barbecues lying dormant in garages could be covered in stuff that can make large-scale solar energy storage a reality, after researchers found that rust can be transformed into water-splitting solar cell batteries.



					www.edie.net


----------



## basilio

Apparently Zinc air batteries are now already available and fit the space of longer term huge storage of power.









						Zinc-Air Regenerative Fuel Cell System
					

Zinc8 Energy Solutions has developed a unique flow battery technology using zinc and air as fuel. Our innovative technology resolves the intermittent and unpredictable nature of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.




					www.zinc8energy.com


----------



## Value Collector

Telsa is getting into the Virtual power plant business using their home batteries (power walls), this leads me to think they could eventually get into Vehicle to grid business in a big way eventually too.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Apparently Zinc air batteries are now already available



Primary (non-rechargeable) zinc air cells are what powers most hearing aides as one example of current use. They're also the most practical "drop in" replacement for mercury batteries which are now banned in most (all?) countries due to their toxicity but there's still some equipment around that was built to use them.

On a larger and rechargeable scale, the idea isn't new, has been around since at least the 1960's that I'm aware of and perhaps longer, but in practice other chemistries have had the advantage for the sorts of applications batteries have historically been used for.

An advantage of zinc is that it's relatively cheap and abundant as a material. Australia accounts for about 10% of world production with around a quarter of world reserves. Zinc is known to exist in every Australian state with active mines Qld, NT, NSW, Tas and WA. Small scale mining of it has occurred in the past in SA too.

About a third of Australia's mined zinc is refined to high purity metal at plants in Tasmania and Queensland.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Primary (non-rechargeable) zinc air cells are what powers most hearing aides as one example of current use. They're also the most practical "drop in" replacement for mercury batteries which are now banned in most (all?) countries due to their toxicity but there's still some equipment around that was built to use them.
> 
> On a larger and rechargeable scale, the idea isn't new, has been around since at least the 1960's that I'm aware of and perhaps longer, but in practice other chemistries have had the advantage for the sorts of applications batteries have historically been used for.
> 
> An advantage of zinc is that it's relatively cheap and abundant as a material. Australia accounts for about 10% of world production with around a quarter of world reserves. Zinc is known to exist in every Australian state with active mines Qld, NT, NSW, Tas and WA. Small scale mining of it has occurred in the past in SA too.
> 
> About a third of Australia's mined zinc is refined to high purity metal at plants in Tasmania and Queensland.



As we keep saying, batteries in reality haven't progressed at the same rate as other technologies i.e semiconductors, metal technology, computer processing power, they really haven't had that huge breakthrough yet.


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> As an update on the situation in Queensland:



Callide unit C3 back in operation as of Monday and has been ramped up gradually to full output so two months after the incident it's back in action.

Unit C3 is physically closest to C4, the one that suffered the major incident, and is technically identical hence the time to check everything and put C3 back into operation. 

Units B1 and B2 are further away, indeed strictly speaking they're a separate power station albeit at the same site and with buildings interconnected but they're separate as such and technically different in design. Hence there was no real concern about those and they were returned to service sooner.

As for the damaged (effectively destroyed) unit C4, the official date at this stage is the end of 2022 so still 17 months away. Obviously that's a target date with considerable uncertainty in practice given the scale of work required.

There's been a few near misses with supply in Qld and NSW recently, most recently on 21 July and again on 22 July, where the lights weren't far from going out due to insufficient supply available so having Callide C3 back running will certainly help there and should help subdue some of the upwards pressure on prices seen over the past two months also.

Qld average spot market price for June 2021 was $236.79 versus $42.10 for June 2020.

NSW average spot price for June 2021 was $183.51 versus $51.25 for June 2020.

There'll be some companies who've made or lost significant $ out of all that. Those who are generating or consuming large volumes and who aren't price hedged via suitable contracts.


----------



## mullokintyre

Smurf1976 said:


> Callide unit C3 back in operation as of Monday and has been ramped up gradually to full output so two months after the incident it's back in action.
> 
> Unit C3 is physically closest to C4, the one that suffered the major incident, and is technically identical hence the time to check everything and put C3 back into operation.
> 
> Units B1 and B2 are further away, indeed strictly speaking they're a separate power station albeit at the same site and with buildings interconnected but they're separate as such and technically different in design. Hence there was no real concern about those and they were returned to service sooner.
> 
> As for the damaged (effectively destroyed) unit C4, the official date at this stage is the end of 2022 so still 17 months away. Obviously that's a target date with considerable uncertainty in practice given the scale of work required.
> 
> There's been a few near misses with supply in Qld and NSW recently, most recently on 21 July and again on 22 July, where the lights weren't far from going out due to insufficient supply available so having Callide C3 back running will certainly help there and should help subdue some of the upwards pressure on prices seen over the past two months also.
> 
> Qld average spot market price for June 2021 was $236.79 versus $42.10 for June 2020.
> 
> NSW average spot price for June 2021 was $183.51 versus $51.25 for June 2020.
> 
> There'll be some companies who've made or lost significant $ out of all that. Those who are generating or consuming large volumes and who aren't price hedged via suitable contracts.



Gidday Smurf, you are obviously involved in the industry given your previous comments, so I have a question.  
Has there been any indication as to what may have caused the major catastrophe? 
Just prior to the event I was reading about two massive solar flares that were predicted to have potentially damaging effects on  satellites, communications and power distribution  as the  electric and magnetic  fields around earth are disturbed. I remember being in North America  some time in 1989 when a huge solar flare shutdown the power grids in Canada.
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Units B1 and B2 are further away,




Nah, they are just bananas.  

You were waiting for someone to say that I bet.


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> Has there been any indication as to what may have caused the major catastrophe?



Much speculation and guesswork by many but no firm answers at this stage.

CS Energy, which operates and 50% owns the Callide C station (and 100% owns the Callide B station next to it) has appointed an external engineer, Dr Sean Brady, to lead an independent investigation into the situation.

Of note, Dr Brady has been given an effectively unlimited scope to investigate anything and everything he deems relevant. So that extends not only to the physical plant and equipment but also to any other matter eg company management, policies and procedures, the actions of any individual and so on. The scope of his appointment extends to bringing in any other expert, engineer or otherwise, deemed necessary to assist.

It'll all take a lot of time to work through but my expectation is that there'll be multiple issues ultimately found. It's hard to envisage a single incident causing that level of destruction without there also being some other failure involved either technical or human.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

Crews battle Tesla battery fire at Moorabool, near Geelong


.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-30/tesl...elong/100337488






A toxic smoke warning has been issued near Geelong as  fire crews tackle a blaze at the site of Australia's largest Tesla  battery project.

Fire  Rescue Victoria (FRV) said a 13-tonne lithium battery on the  Geelong Ballan Road and Atkinsons Road in Moorabool had been fully  engulfed by flames.

_"Crews are working to contain the fire and stop it spreading to nearby batteries",_ FRV said in a statement.

No-one was injured and the site has been evacuated.

Fire crews are wearing breathing equipment and the CFA has sent 12 tankers to help tackle the blaze.

The fire broke out during testing of what is expected to become the largest battery in the southern hemisphere as part of a Victorian Government push to transition to renewable energy.

Australian  Energy Market Operator (AEMO) said the battery had been isolated and   disconnected from the main electricity grid and "there are no   implications" for supply. ...........


----------



## Sean K

Dona Ferentes said:


> Crews battle Tesla battery fire at Moorabool, near Geelong




Are these battery blow-ups common?


----------



## IFocus

kennas said:


> Are these battery blow-ups common?





Shouldn't happen, protection systems / engineering stuff up by the looks of it, would have thought there would be over  temperature , current / voltage protection etc maybe they got the settings wrong Smurf?

Its not that hard.


----------



## mullokintyre

In the early days of Lithium batteries, there were a spate of spontaneous combustion events. 
So much so that the FAA banned  aircraft from transporting lithium batteries. 
They have improved a lot since those early days.
So much so that I now have an FAA approved litium battery in my own aircraft.
If there are enough of them out there, there will be fires.
Just like if there are enough of any vehicle in the world ( Lithium based or not) there will spontaneous fires. 
The video from youtube below has gathered all the fires together to  suggest there is a major problem with tesla.

But there are a lot of teslas out there to go wrong.
mick


----------



## mullokintyre

Kenya has become another of the countries to successfully generate geothermal generated electricity on a large scale.
from World energy . 


> Kenya has now more than tripled its production from 198MW to almost 672MW in just six years.
> It now generates almost 50% of its electricity from this source.



Australia consumes about 200 terrawats for its 25 million people.
Given that there are 59 million Kenyans,  who in total consume about 1700MWh in a year.it highlights how much power we consume in OZ.
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

kennas said:


> Are these battery blow-ups common?



The big problem is these massive battery boxes, are actually just jam packed full of individual cells (about the size of a jumbo AA about 65mmX18mm) connected in series/parallel configuration, once a fire starts it will just run rampant through the pack until it runs out of shorts to reignite it.
They have cooling tubes running through and safety cut outs but with a fire, it doesn't follow a certain path, it can jump sectors, so very difficult to stop once it starts, that is why the battery management systems (BMS), have to withstand massive surges as a grid linked battery will have to withstand huge inrush and discharge currents, when system disruptions happen.
This is why we keep saying all this has to be technically driven, not politically or emotionally driven, disasters are a fleeting moment away, when you are talking the energy flows in the grid.
The tests they were doing on the battery, would have been probably been to see how they performed with load rejection or overload, where load is instantly applied and or rejected.
This is just a 85KW/Hr battery:
How many 18650 batteries are there in a Tesla? The most popular Tesla battery pack contains *7,104 18650 cells in 16 444* cell modules. The entailed capacity by the 18650 batteries stands at 85 kWh of energy.


----------



## mullokintyre

sptrawler said:


> The big problem is these massive battery boxes, are actually just jam packed full of individual cells (about the size of a jumbo AA about 60mmX15mm) connected in series/parallel configuration, once a fire starts it will just run rampant through the pack until it runs out of shorts to reignite it.
> They have cooling tubes running through and safety cut outs but with a fire, it doesn't follow a certain path, it can jump sectors, so very difficult to stop once it starts, that is why the battery management systems (BMS), have to withstand massive surges as a grid linked battery will have to withstand huge inrush and discharge currents, when system disruptions happen.
> This is why we keep saying all this has to be technically driven, not politically or emotionally driven, disasters are a fleeting moment away, when you are talking the energy flows in the grid.
> The tests they were doing on the battery, would have been probably been to see how they performed with load rejection or overload, where load is instantly applied and or rejected.



Yo Sptrawler, one thing that people used to  comment on  was the synchronisation of the  network.
From what i remember, the inertia of the big turbines provided a  a very stable 50 HZ generation that all other systems were able to sync to. 
If all the big continuously running turbines (whether they be gas, diesel, coal etc). are taken out of commission, or only run infrequently,  what is the current mechanism for providing a base 50HZ for  the non continuous supplies to tie to?
I guess if there are some large  Hydro generators to provide the inertia it would be ok, but they sometimes need to be turned off due to lack of water. 
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> Yo Sptrawler, one thing that people used to  comment on  was the synchronisation of the  network.
> From what i remember, the inertia of the big turbines provided a  a very stable 50 HZ generation that all other systems were able to sync to.
> If all the big continuously running turbines (whether they be gas, diesel, coal etc). are taken out of commission, or only run infrequently,  what is the current mechanism for providing a base 50HZ for  the non continuous supplies to tie to?
> I guess if there are some large  Hydro generators to provide the inertia it would be ok, but they sometimes need to be turned off due to lack of water.
> Mick



That is one of the major issues the AEMO is currently trying to deal with, system stability relies on inertia when there is a hit, also all the generating components in the grid have to be able to 'droop' so that they pick up load equivalent to their size and ability. There is no point having the smallest generator trying to pick up all the load in a disturbance and the largest generator picking up nothing.
So all these solar farms and wind generator have to work in a harmonious manner, or everything falls over, that is one problem.
The other problem is as you have mentioned inertia, which at the moment is provided by multiple 100 ton rotors spinning together at 3,000 rpm,  as this is retired from service more and more synchronous condensers and pumped hydro etc,  will have to be installed throughout the grid, to provide that inertia, add to that the transmission layout has to be configured to the new current flow dynamics and it is a huge job.
@Smurf1976 is the man to talk to about it I'm too old and out of date, these days, the station I worked in is being demolished as we speak.  
I'm talking in a very general overview sort of way, @Smurf1976, will give you the nuts and bolts.


----------



## SirRumpole

mullokintyre said:


> Yo Sptrawler, one thing that people used to  comment on  was the synchronisation of the  network.
> From what i remember, the inertia of the big turbines provided a  a very stable 50 HZ generation that all other systems were able to sync to.
> If all the big continuously running turbines (whether they be gas, diesel, coal etc). are taken out of commission, or only run infrequently,  what is the current mechanism for providing a base 50HZ for  the non continuous supplies to tie to?
> I guess if there are some large  Hydro generators to provide the inertia it would be ok, but they sometimes need to be turned off due to lack of water.
> Mick




I'm sure Smurf will be along soon.  

As far as wind turbines go I believe they have adjustable blades that keeps them turning at the correct rpm.

Solar cells have inverters that convert dc to ac.

There ended my humble lesson.


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> what is the current mechanism for providing a base 50HZ for the non continuous supplies to tie to?
> I guess if there are some large Hydro generators to provide the inertia it would be ok, but they sometimes need to be turned off due to lack of water.



An inverter operating as an islanded power system, that is without the grid, can of itself send out 50Hz with no external reference so long as it's designed to do so.

On a tiny scale the one I've got at home can do that. If the grid goes dead well then the house can be (is) isolated from it via relays and my little inverter will then put itself into operation as a stand alone power system in order to keep the load supplied. So long as the solar panels + battery can supply the required DC current to the inverter, and house load doesn't exceed 5kW, it'll keep running and I'll have 230V 50Hz.

On a larger scale the Dalrymple battery (SA) is at the end of a single transmission line supplying the region and is capable of operation as a stand alone system, that is without the transmission line being in service, if required. So long as the battery has charge in it, which may last quite some time if it's sunny or windy due to the large number of houses with rooftop solar and a wind farm in the area, then the local distribution network will remain live despite being disconnected from the rest of the grid.

On a larger scale though well it's somewhat more complex than that and it's most easily explained by noting what would happen if I drew more than 5kW, even momentarily, from my inverter at home whilst operating in islanded (without the grid) mode. The short answer is a complete loss of supply, it'll shut down. Not so bad if it's just my house but a rather big problem if it's the whole state.

The idea of running a grid without synchronous generation, so that is one based entirely on inverters, is an area where Australia is pushing the limits (globally) at present.

SA does at times generate more wind + solar than local consumption indeed so far as is known to AEMO and others in Australia it has the highest use of wind + solar (combined) of any large power system on the planet. Anywhere using more is a small island etc which doesn't have the same reliability requirements.

Due that situation, the "natural" outcome with respect to the operation of synchronous generating plant (which in SA's case is mostly gas-fired and the rest is using oil-based fuels) is problematic in that often there'd be effectively no such plant in operation, indeed it would literally go to zero. That causes a huge problem in terms of system strength and the ability of the system to withstand faults.

The workaround to the situation has thus far been to simply force the operation of a minimum number of synchronous units, regardless of the economics, so as to maintain system strength. That's expensive and means at times gas is burned whilst wind + solar are throttled back (ie wasted) but it does resolve the technical problem. The numbers have been crunched, there's an official list of acceptable combinations of synchronous plant online, but for the record the most common minimum arrangement in practice is one gas turbine + the steam turbine at Pelican Point power station plus any two (of four) 200 MW steam units at Torrens Island B. Many other combinations exist but that's the most commonly used, largely driven by economics.

A better workaround is the four synchronous condensers being installed, two each at Davenport (near Port Augusta) and Robertstown (about 100km north of Adelaide) substations. They'll significantly reduce, but not eliminate, the need to have synchronous plant online.

The other place of significance is Tasmania.

Between wind farms, rooftop solar and Basslink (since it's a DC link) Tasmania has exceeded 80% non-synchronous generation in the grid. Bearing in mind that unlike SA, Tasmania has no AC interconnection to anywhere else, it's a possible world record. Not confirmed but it plausibly is and even if not then it's certainly right up there pushing the limits in terms of what's been done, anywhere, for a power system of substantial size and complexity.

Making it work in Tasmania comes down to two key things:

1. The Basslink SPS (Special Protection Scheme) which is a bespoke system which gets around the problem that in import (Vic to Tas) mode Basslink represents what would otherwise be an unacceptably large single source of supply relative to the overall system size. 

That poses a huge risk if it trips (which has actually occurred on multiple occasions since large inverters aren't particularly stable in operation, they're somewhat prone to random trips). Without the SPS it could very easily collapse the entire system but, thus far at least, the SPS has worked as intended and the lights have stayed on every time.

2. Many of the hydro stations have the ability to run without water as synchronous condensers, meaning there's been no need to build anything specifically for that purpose. Since the need to operate as a syn con occurs when not much synchronous plant is being run for generation, there's no conflict there, the same machine can be used for both purposes. 

Water on for generation, water off and in the case of Francis turbines blow the tail water out (with compressed air) for use as a syn con. No need for that step with a Pelton turbine since they're not submerged in normal operation. 

Three small open cycle gas turbines in Tas, which are rarely used for generation, are also set up to be run as syn cons. They don't offer the same degree of mechanical inertia as a hydro unit of the same capacity would but they're still sufficient to be useful. Again it's a case of putting the same equipment to multiple uses which saves $.

For the other states there aren't the same issues at a state wide level (though there are in some specific locations - eg at the connection point for wind and solar farms) thus far but Victoria's getting close enough that AEMO has identified and listed suitable combinations of synchronous (coal / gas / hydro) plant that must remain on as a minimum. Same at a regional level for North Queensland where it's a very definite constraint.

Looking ahead, nobody's running any major power system without synchronous plant at all so far as I'm aware. It's being done on a small scale at times, islands and so on, but they generally don't have the same reliability requirements plus their relatively simple power systems could be very quickly restarted if the need arises - just turn the diesel engines on. 

It's much harder for a major system where there's cities, heavy industry, electric transport and so on all using it and where a full restart is a very major exercise that could end up taking a full 24 hours or even longer. Can't take so many risks there.

At some point running without any synchronous generation will happen but there's a lot more number crunching and modelling to be done before it happens on a large scale system.

Related to that is not simply how inverters perform but also how they could be made to perform differently. That is, essentially, how they could be made to replicate great big lumps of spinning metal which, whilst far lower tech, does have that inherent robustness and ability to deliver fault currents that anything based around electronics traditionally struggles to match.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I'm sure Smurf will be along soon.
> 
> As far as wind turbines go I believe they have adjustable blades that keeps them turning at the correct rpm.
> 
> Solar cells have inverters that convert dc to ac.
> 
> There ended my humble lesson.



There you go Rumpy, how is that, give us ten. 🤣


----------



## sptrawler

That is just so good @Smurf1976  , it will take many a deep thought process and much googling to even get past the best bits, for most.
Mate you are magic. 
@basilio and @rederob really need to read that post, they are very interested in the transition to renewables and to get an up to date snapshot of issues is great. Thanks smurf
Wish I could give you five stars .


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> The big problem is these massive battery boxes, are actually just jam packed full of individual cells (about the size of a jumbo AA about 65mmX18mm) connected in series/parallel configuration, once a fire starts it will just run rampant through the pack until it runs out of shorts to reignite it.
> They have cooling tubes running through and safety cut outs but with a fire, it doesn't follow a certain path, it can jump sectors, so very difficult to stop once it starts, that is why the battery management systems (BMS), have to withstand massive surges as a grid linked battery will have to withstand huge inrush and discharge currents, when system disruptions happen.
> This is why we keep saying all this has to be technically driven, not politically or emotionally driven, disasters are a fleeting moment away, when you are talking the energy flows in the grid.
> The tests they were doing on the battery, would have been probably been to see how they performed with load rejection or overload, where load is instantly applied and or rejected.
> This is just a 85KW/Hr battery:
> How many 18650 batteries are there in a Tesla? The most popular Tesla battery pack contains *7,104 18650 cells in 16 444* cell modules. The entailed capacity by the 18650 batteries stands at 85 kWh of energy.



After three days the fire is out, I wonder how much water was thrown on that, which actually probably would have made matters worse in an electrical fire.  The batteries are now probably knackered? I wonder who pays for the flucked batteries?
looks like this summers demand peak operation, may be re scheduled, unless there are some spares.
This is exactly why timelines are difficult to meet, I wonder if the press will make a big issue of it? I don't think so.  
 Lucky Scomo didn't promise it for the summer peak.









						Blaze at Tesla Big Battery extinguished after three days
					

About 150 firefighters and more than 30 fire trucks and support vehicles were at the blaze over the weekend as crews tried to bring the blaze under control.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:
The Victorian Big Battery, with a capacity of 300 megawatts and 450 megawatt-hours, is three times bigger than the initial size of billionaire Elon Musk’s Tesla big battery built in South Australia in 2017.
Owned and operated by French renewable energy giant Neoen, the battery was scheduled to begin operating before this summer’s peak demand period.

Neoen Australia’s managing director Louis de Sambucy said the fire at the site has “subsided” by Friday evening. He said emergency services remained at the site with Tesla staff and contractors to monitor the temperature decline of two affected battery packs.
But it wasn’t until about 3pm on Monday that firefighters were able to declare the blaze under control. The Country Fire Authority later confirmed it had been extinguished.
About 150 firefighters from the authority and Fire Rescue Victoria were on the scene over the weekend, as well as more than 30 fire trucks and support vehicles.
The CFA said some firefighters and fire trucks would remain at the Moorabool site for 24 hours in case the fire reignited.
Crews would monitor the damaged units by taking thermal temperature readings every two hours, the authority said.
Authorities had warned of toxic smoke billowing from the site on Friday. Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority has been monitoring air quality at the site over the weekend, and determined it was “good” by Monday afternoon.

A Victorian government spokeswoman said the Country Fire Authority, Energy Safe Victoria and WorkSafe Victoria would work with Neoen and Tesla to do a “full and comprehensive” investigation of the fire.
“This will span investigations into the basis of the fire, how it started and to ensure the site is safe as a workplace,” the government spokeswoman said.

“The battery has been disconnected from Victoria’s energy grid, and the Australian Energy Market Operator has advised there is no impact on our energy security.”
The Victorian Big Battery is one of several battery projects that have been announced in recent months.






https://www.theage.com.au/


----------



## Sean K

Smurf1976 said:


> On a larger scale the Dalrymple battery (SA) is at the end of a single transmission line supplying the region and is capable of operation as a stand alone system, that is without the transmission line being in service, if required. So long as the battery has charge in it, which may last quite some time if it's sunny or windy due to the large number of houses with rooftop solar and a wind farm in the area, then the local distribution network will remain live despite being disconnected from the rest of the grid.
> 
> ...
> 
> The other place of significance is Tasmania.




Smurf, is there any redundancy to the transmission lines and connectors? For eg, if I dive down into Bass Straight and cut the cord, will Victoria go blank if we're running off their hydro?


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> That is just so good @Smurf1976  , it will take many a deep thought process and much googling to even get past the best bits, for most.
> Mate you are magic.
> @basilio and @rederob really need to read that post, they are very interested in the transition to renewables and to get an up to date snapshot of issues is great. Thanks smurf
> Wish I could give you five stars .



As I understand it the role of synchronous condensers (SCs) is well understood, and there is a requirement in Australia on new connecting generators to 'do no harm' to the security of the power system in relation to any adverse impact on the ability to maintain system stability or on a nearby generating system to maintain stable operation.
A problem with this requirement that I am not sure has been resolved is that it leads to an overbuild of SCs as each new RE project is assessed on a standalone basis, and this necessarily increases the total cost of energy.  My view is that a smarter approach would be for transmission network service providers to be *fully *responsible for system strength (inertia) and be able to charge a fee (on a pro rata basis) to new RE projects based on generating capacity.  Such a framework would actually simplify the establishment and approval of RE projects while simultaneously placing this element of grid system security with its natural owners.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> As I understand it the role of synchronous condensers (SCs) is well understood, and there is a requirement in Australia on new connecting generators to 'do no harm' to the security of the power system in relation to any adverse impact on the ability to maintain system stability or on a nearby generating system to maintain stable operation.
> A problem with this requirement that I am not sure has been resolved is that it leads to an overbuild of SCs as each new RE project is assessed on a standalone basis, and this necessarily increases the total cost of energy.  My view is that a smarter approach would be for transmission network service providers to be *fully *responsible for system strength (inertia) and be able to charge a fee (on a pro rata basis) to new RE projects based on generating capacity.  Such a framework would actually simplify the establishment and approval of RE projects while simultaneously placing this element of grid system security with its natural owners.



A good point Rob, it may be a problem to orchestrate  the requirement, as the stability of the system will change with the introduction of new plant, yet the SC would probably be required remote of that plant.
Therefore I would guess it will be as you say, the responsibility of the overseeing body, to monitor and  constantly change the requirement of the locations and size of the SC's and static reactors required.
Charging the generators an access charge, may well already happen.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> A good point Rob, it may be a problem to orchestrate  the requirement, as the stability of the system will change with the introduction of new plant, yet the SC may be required remote of that plant.



That's partly what I am getting at.  It makes no sense to me that a local generator needs to build inertia for a distant system.  As I said, transmission network service providers (TNSPs) seem to be natural owners of this element of system security.


sptrawler said:


> Therefore I would guess it will be the responsibility of the overseeing body, to monitor and  constantly change the requirement of the locations and size of the SC's and static reactors required.



It seems to me that only occurs because TNSPs are absolved from ensuring security of electricity supply to end use customers.


----------



## Smurf1976

kennas said:


> Smurf, is there any redundancy to the transmission lines and connectors? For eg, if I dive down into Bass Straight and cut the cord, will Victoria go blank if we're running off their hydro?



It depends.....

There are certainly areas where supply relies on a single transmission line for which there is no backup, there's one line and that's it. Port Lincoln and surrounds plus the York Peninsula are among examples in SA plus others such as Broken Hill in NSW and various in other states.

That said, there's a couple of diesel-fired gas turbines at Broken Hill, plus wind and solar connected there as well, which amount to a backup _to_ the transmission line rather than a backup _of_ the line. Much the same at Port Lincoln with three small diesel-fired gas turbines and wind. So a backup of sorts, just not in the form of an actual transmission line. Plenty of situations however where there's no backup, it's a single line and that's it.






What matters at the overall state or multiple states level however isn't the existence of direct like for like backup to any individual part of the system but rather, the ability of the system overall to withstand individual failures without the lights going out.

For example three lines run between Victoria and SA but they're not really a backup since they're all used. That is, capacity is 820 MW between them under ideal conditions. Take any one of them out of service and now there's less capacity.

What matters in that scenario of taking those lines out is whether supply can be maintained in both SA and Victoria without them. That then gets into some serious assessment of the probabilities:

Probability that one line fails is x.

Probability that two lines fail is not zero but it's a fair bit lower than x.

Probability that one line fails plus y amount of generation also isn't available at the same time is y.

Plus we now need to factor in wind and solar generation plus of course consumption at the time.

Back to Victoria well connection to Tasmania is really just another source of supply. If it fails then from a Victorian perspective the question, apart from purely economic issues, is about whether other sources of supply can meet demand?

Chance that Basslink fails is x.

Chance that Basslink fails + there's high demand at the time is y.

Chance that some other supply source also fails is z.

Chance that there's no wind is some other figure.

And so on.

So there's no direct backup to transmission between Tasmania and Victoria, it's a single link without redundancy, but whether any failure actually matters comes down to the whole of system capability at the time.

In practice Victoria (and NSW and SA) are in a situation where there's not really enough capacity from a strictly technical perspective. It just needs the stars to line up and down we go. Take any random significant source of generation out (breakdowns etc) + it's a heatwave + not much wind = problem.

That's ultimately a political and economic decision rather than one that's determined by anything technical given that more generation of whatever sort could be built if the decision was made to do so. Noting that in the context of peak demand an interconnection with somewhere else (eg second cable to Tasmania and development of pumped storage in Tas) or a storage system such as a battery (eg the Victorian Big Battery presently being commissioned albeit with an unplanned fire incident), can be considered as generation.

Strictly speaking a battery isn't generation but in practice it achieves the same end result of adding peak supply capacity provided that there's real, actual, generation surplus to requirements at off-peak times with which to charge the battery. Or in other words batteries are a solution only up to a point, they can make better use of other generation, but so long as that's the case they do indeed add to peak capacity.

So if Vic - Tas transmission fails then whilst it's all or nothing, there's only one cable between the two states, the impact on supply to consumers depends on the ability of other sources to meet demand. A blackout or two during peak demand times in Victoria would certainly be a possible result. The same would however occur if any other supply source to Victoria fails, noting that Tas - Vic transmission isn't the largest single thing that could fail indeed it's quite some way down the list. There are 7 generating units in Victoria that are individually slightly larger, and there's more than one major substation that's more critical.

Which brings me to another point - scale.

Building large single pieces of infrastructure has a key advantage in that there's a very substantial scale of economy with all this. Indeed Basslink was built at 478 MW largely for that reason - anything much smaller wasn't economic to build at all.

Much the same reason why it's no surprise that the state which had the smallest coal industry, SA, has been the first to see it end. Small scale meant higher costs.

The downside of course is that large single pieces of infrastructure mean a lot is lost if it fails. One incident and you've lost rather a lot of supply, thus necessitating a higher level of total system capacity in order to cope with such occurrences.

So there's a balance point there on the economic side plus some hard technical limits as well beyond which scale can't be increased without posing a threat to the entire system if (when.....) failures occur.

Taking Victoria as an example, the largest individual generating unit is 580 MW and that's 5.57% of all time peak demand and about 9.1% of average demand. Those figures aren't a problem hence why it was built.

If that 580 MW individual unit were in SA however then from a purely technical perspective that would be hugely problematic. Average load is about 1500 MW, peak is 3400 MW and losing that 580 MW suddenly (if it fails) would place the entire system at risk there and then. It's just too big a loss to easily keep the rest stable so such a facility, if it were built in SA, would need to use multiple smaller machines to get around that problem. Downside is higher cost to build and also higher cost to operate.

So there's a technical upper limit on scale but apart from that it's an economic decision. Larger means cheaper per unit of production but at the expense of needing more total capacity in order to cope with outages. Individually large supply sources aren't a problem as such, subject to the hard technical limits, so long as the overall system is equipped to cope with failure.

Looking ahead, well there's a proposal to build two new cables across Bass Strait at 750 MW each, thus bringing the total transmission capacity up to 1978 MW. Associated with that is the development of new pumped storage capacity in Tasmania.

Now in case anyone's wondering as to the logic behind that, why not just build pumped storage in Victoria instead and save the cost of transmission, the reasons are really quite straightforward. Tasmania can beat the other states on cost even with the cost of transmission included. That's the Hydro Tasmania claim and the CSIRO's estimates have come to the same conclusion. Add in the relatively limited interest from anyone else in actually doing it plus the fact that multiple such schemes will be needed anyway (so there's room for more) and that makes it very likely the Tasmanian projects and associated transmission will proceed.

The new cable route is planned to be quite some distance away from the present one by the way. A worst case scenario of a sinking ship landing on it won't be able to get them all at once. As such, risk of a cable failing isn't really much different to the risk of any other generator failing apart from the detail of how to fix etc but the broad scale is comparable. Marinus Link 1 & 2 at 750 MW each versus 580 MW for the largest present generator in Victoria, 720 MW is the largest in NSW and 750 MW is the largest in Queensland so the cables are comparable with existing plant scale.

A bigger risk across Bass Strait would be gas. Whilst it's a fairly minor fuel in Tasmania, it all comes through a single pipeline and there's zero backup of any kind in terms of supplying actual natural gas into the state. Some end users have backup arrangements using other fuels (eg diesel) but there's no backup for gas itself physically.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> That is just so good @Smurf1976  , it will take many a deep thought process and much googling to even get past the best bits, for most.
> Mate you are magic.
> @basilio and @rederob really need to read that post, they are very interested in the transition to renewables and to get an up to date snapshot of issues is great. Thanks smurf
> Wish I could give you five stars .



It was an excellent piece of  observation and analysis.  Bottom line is that going renewable is not rocket science and that practical solutions are well within technical and financial capacity.

On any analysis a decisive planned  move to a decentralised  renewable energy plus storage energy system will radically improve our environment, health, manufacturing industry  and finances.


----------



## Sean K

Smurf1976 said:


> It depends.....
> 
> There are certainly areas where supply relies on a single transmission line for which there is no backup, there's one line and that's it. Port Lincoln and surrounds plus the York Peninsula are among examples in SA plus others such as Broken Hill in NSW and various in other states.




Hopefully the CCP aren't reading ASF as they now have a blueprint on how to knock out SE Australia's electricity grid. 5 x ICBMs and a remote sub with clippers and we're toast.


----------



## basilio

The bigger picture that Smurf has outlined in his recent posts has been the issues of risk management with regard to the critical infrastructure of our energy grid.

As Smurf and other engineers on ASF are well aware "once-upon-a-time"  engineers had overall responsibility for building and maintenance of this infrastructure. It was over engineered. There was built in redundancy. There was the  elemental understanding that  *by definition *extreme events would  inevitably result in critical outages across the board. For example a heat wave will stress power plants, transmission lines, increase loads with  foreseeable consequences.

This reality has been ignored in the purely economic approach to infrastructure stability. The opportunity and necessity of the current rebuild of our energy infrastructure is to recognise the increase stresses global heating is putting on systems and develop technologies  and systems that can survive.


----------



## Smurf1976

kennas said:


> Hopefully the CCP aren't reading ASF as they now have a blueprint on how to knock out SE Australia's electricity grid. 5 x ICBMs and a remote sub with clippers and we're toast.



The information's publicly available to anyone for the record.  

Whether or not it ought to be is another question.....


----------



## basilio

Funny about wondering how vulnerable Australia would be to a few well placed  ICBMs

A few weeks ago I was reading a story on the shortage of  computer chips for cars computers whatever. I then fully realised that computer chip manufacturing is  an extremely  delicate and expensive high tech  operation. I believe there are 3 major plants in the world in Sth Korea, Taiwan and China  that supply the majority of chips that basically run every single thing we use. 

Be a pretty sad day if something dramatic happened to these plants .. IMV our glittering technological world has more than a few swords of Damocles hanging overhead.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Funny about wondering how vulnerable Australia would be to a few well placed  ICBMs
> 
> A few weeks ago I was reading a story on the shortage of  computer chips for cars computers whatever. I then fully realised that computer chip manufacturing is  an extremely  delicate and expensive high tech  operation. I believe there are* 3 major plants in the world in Sth Korea, Taiwan and China*  that supply the majority of chips that basically run every single thing we use.
> 
> Be a pretty sad day if something dramatic happened to these plants .. IMV our glittering technological world has more than a few swords of Damocles hanging overhead.



There will only be two, if China occupies Taiwan, also as far as I know the really top end chips aren't built in China.


----------



## Smurf1976

In terms of security etc, all this stuff used to be far more open to the public.

There was a time years ago when Hydro Tas ran regular public tours of Gordon Power Station in particular indeed they ran multiple times every day such was the level of public interest. 

There was even a special bus built for that purpose. Full size bus with a steering wheel at both ends to avoid the need to turn it around underground (Gordon power station is underground).

There's a video of the tunnel journey (not in the yellow bus however) here. It's not very exciting but it's rather narrow yes.  

Various others too. Eg the front door at the manned stations was simply simply left unlocked and anyone who wanted to could simply park out the front, wander in, follow the signs to the office and find someone to show them around.

Other states much the same. Not sure of the exact figure but a truly massive number of people visited the old (now closed) Yallourn stations A, B, C, D and E over the years. Not sure exactly how many but it was a huge number of people went through back in an era when the general public was far more interested in how things are made etc than seems to be the case these days.

So there's a lot of people who'd have a pretty good idea as to what's where and so on.


----------



## sptrawler

Yes @Smurf1976, when I did my apprenticeship at Muja A/B the gatekeeper was the security and the first aid dept, also there was only one station clerk, how things change.


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting article, on the state of play with batteries.




__





						Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
					





					www.bloomberg.com


----------



## sptrawler

New Zealand introduces rolling blackouts, as demand exceeds supply.








						Rolling power outages across North Island as electricity demand reaches 'all-time high'
					

Transpower said it did not have enough generation to maintain the demand.




					www.newshub.co.nz
				



From the article:
Areas across the North Island have been plunged into darkness on Monday night after demand for electricity reached an all-time high.

Transpower, which owns and operates New Zealand's national grid, said in a statement posted to social media earlier Monday evening it did not have enough generation to maintain the demand.

"Insufficient generation has been made available to meet demand and manage a secure system.

"As a result, Transpower in our capacity as managers of the power system (the system operator) has asked the distribution companies to reduce load across the country.

"Different companies will do this in different ways, some manage via load control on hot water, some manage via customer disconnections."
The situation was expected to be resolved by 9pm when peak demand passes.

WEL Networks, which operates in the Waikato area, said the outages will not impact individual customers for more than four hours.

"As a precautionary measure, all medically dependent customers are advised to action their back-up plans or go to Waikato Hospital if required.


"We thank you in advance for your patience and understanding, and we will keep you updated."
Unison, which operates the electricity network that serves the Hawke's Bay, Taupo and Rotorua regions, shared the following message:

"Unison is currently responding to a Transpower request for electricity lines companies nationwide to reduce load on the national grid
"This means that we are having to conduct a series of rolling power outages across our networks in Hawkes Bay, Taupo and Rotorua.

"We fully understand that these outages are frustrating and inconvenient, especially given the current cold snap hitting our regions. We will do all we can to minimise the duration of these outages and apologise for any inconvenience."


----------



## Smurf1976

Meanwhile they're having some trouble in South Africa:






This was a fully operational power station prior to the incident, it's not a demolition site, indeed it's only been in service since 2015 to my understanding.

Unit capacity is (or was.....) 794MW using steam from a coal-fired boiler with six identical units in the station commissioned progressively 2015 - 19.

Hydrogen explosion caused by human error apparently.  

It's not my photo obviously, just one that's being circulated of the incident.


----------



## mullokintyre

Some bog, a lick of paint, the rest will buff out ok.


----------



## sptrawler

We have talked about it before, but the V2G trails are starting to show results.








						Gary earns money by plugging his car into the wall. What's the catch?
					

Owners of electric vehicles may soon be able to get paid for simply plugging their car into the wall. But there are a few things to consider first.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Meanwhile they're having some trouble in South Africa:
> 
> View attachment 128835
> 
> 
> This was a fully operational power station prior to the incident, it's not a demolition site, indeed it's only been in service since 2015 to my understanding.
> 
> Unit capacity is (or was.....) 794MW using steam from a coal-fired boiler with six identical units in the station commissioned progressively 2015 - 19.
> 
> Hydrogen explosion caused by human error apparently.
> 
> It's not my photo obviously, just one that's being circulated of the incident.



The sparkies wouldn't have been happy if they were checking for homopolar circulating currents on the shaft. 😉 

I bet the guys in the control room said, "did you hear something".😂 
Seriously though, was anyone hurt? That is a terrible incident, hopefully no one was on the turbine floor or basement. What a mess.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Seriously though, was anyone hurt?



No idea.

I was sent the photo headed "Incident in SA" - now that had my attention real quick.   

Then I realised it was South Africa not South Australia.....

Seriously, haven't heard if anyone hurt or not but if work was being done well there'd have been people around so it's definitely a possibility. Even just the falling roofing sheets could kill someone if they were unlucky.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> No idea.
> 
> I was sent the photo headed "Incident in SA" - now that had my attention real quick.
> 
> Then I realised it was South Africa not South Australia.....
> 
> Seriously, haven't heard if anyone hurt or not but if work was being done well there'd have been people around so it's definitely a possibility. Even just the falling roofing sheets could kill someone if they were unlucky.



Looks like someone wasn't watching the H2 to seal oil DP.


----------



## sptrawler

More indicators that times are getting tough for the coal generators.








						Origin cuts back coal power output as green shift slashes prices
					

The COVID-19 pandemic and rapid rise of renewable energy hammered prices across the business of one of Australia’s top power and gas suppliers.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:
“Operating conditions were challenging this year due to low prices and the impacts of COVID-19 across our key commodities of electricity, natural gas and oil,” Origin chief executive Frank Calabria said on Thursday.

“Energy Markets headwinds are expected to persist into financial year 2022, though this should be largely offset by the strong performance of our integrated gas business.”
The company declared an unfranked final dividend of 7.5¢ a share, payable to shareholders of record on 8 September.
Loading
Origin and other top power utilities have been facing enormous pressure as the continued flood of cheap power from large-scale wind and solar farms and rooftop solar panels sends daytime wholesale power prices plunging to levels where coal and gas-fired generators are increasingly unable to compete. This year, EnergyAustralia brought forward the closure of Victoria’s Yallourn facility to 2028, four years ahead of schedule.
“Our immediate focus is on capital discipline and cost management to continue to build balance sheet resilience, with a rebound in energy markets earnings expected in financial year 2023,” Mr Calabria said.


----------



## sptrawler

To further drive home the point, of where thermal coal generation is at in Australia, BHP is having trouble giving a coal mine away. 
My guess is Kurri Kurri had better get built sooner, rather than later, how long companies are going to keep the lights on with loss making generation is anyone's guess.








						‘Negative value’: BHP struggles to offload NSW’s biggest coal pit
					

Mining giant BHP would pay a bidder about $275 million to take the biggest coal mine in NSW off its hands even as prices of the fossil fuel soar to levels not seen since 2008.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
Mining giant BHP would pay a bidder about $275 million to take the biggest coal mine in NSW off its hands even as prices of the fossil fuel soar to levels not seen since 2008.

BHP has been shopping its Mt Arthur coal mine near Muswellbrook for more than a year, and on Wednesday slashed its value from about $550 million to a liability of $275 million.
The reduction, coming seven months after it dropped $1.6 billion off the book value of the mine, is also an indication of the huge costs of rehabilitation the new owner will have to bear, analysts said. These include $40 million owed to Muswellbrook Shire Council for a road that BHP dug up, a council official said.
Thermal coal prices are running about $220 a tonne for Hunter Valley coal. Wood Mackenzie has a long-run price target of about $110 per tonne, while others have it closer to $82, Mr Simington said.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> To further drive home the point, of where thermal coal generation is at in Australia, BHP is having trouble giving a coal mine away.
> My guess is Kurri Kurri had better get built sooner, rather than later, how long companies are going to keep the lights on with loss making generation is anyone's guess.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ‘Negative value’: BHP struggles to offload NSW’s biggest coal pit
> 
> 
> Mining giant BHP would pay a bidder about $275 million to take the biggest coal mine in NSW off its hands even as prices of the fossil fuel soar to levels not seen since 2008.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> Mining giant BHP would pay a bidder about $275 million to take the biggest coal mine in NSW off its hands even as prices of the fossil fuel soar to levels not seen since 2008.
> 
> BHP has been shopping its Mt Arthur coal mine near Muswellbrook for more than a year, and on Wednesday slashed its value from about $550 million to a liability of $275 million.
> The reduction, coming seven months after it dropped $1.6 billion off the book value of the mine, is also an indication of the huge costs of rehabilitation the new owner will have to bear, analysts said. These include $40 million owed to Muswellbrook Shire Council for a road that BHP dug up, a council official said.
> Thermal coal prices are running about $220 a tonne for Hunter Valley coal. Wood Mackenzie has a long-run price target of about $110 per tonne, while others have it closer to $82, Mr Simington said.



BHP have priced in the incredibly likely prospect of a price on carbon, so any long-run price would need to capture that additional cost.  
Moreover, as climate change effects intensify each year, companies not going *green *will have increasing difficulty attracting investors.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> BHP have priced in the incredibly likely prospect of a price on carbon, so any long-run price would need to capture that additional cost.
> Moreover, as climate change effects intensify each year, companies not going *green *will have increasing difficulty attracting investors.



Very true Rob, also it just isn't viable to cycle steam plant and it will get worse and worse as more renewables come on line, the writing is on the wall, eventually it just wont be possible to justify operating steam plant.
The economics of the steam generation process and the physical damage incurred due to excessive cycling of the boiler and turbine, will just lead them to being taken out of service.


----------



## orr

Steam ...
I like steam .
Steam baths .
Steam generation; already installed nuclear, geo-thermal, Moltan salt.
The fact that the whole morrison debarcle  is seen as a metaphoric 'steaming heap'.
My old great uncle Harry who'd put some whiskey in his tea and call it steam.

But trawler?  I think the term you are grasping for is not Steam, it's..... Thermal Coal...
Thermal coal, as seen by BHP( and anyone with a couple of nuerons to rubb together) as a both metaphoric and actual Steaming Heap.

The question to be asked is ..."if BHP wants to give a Quarter billion $$$ to get this stinker off it's books  Why oh' why? arn't Matt Canavan, Joyce, Gina and the crew signing up the Nationals, so as  to finance their next election push " .... 70million from Coal by nature Clive worked a treat last time round. Who as it  happens is another '_steaming heap_'


----------



## Smurf1976

orr said:


> But trawler? I think the term you are grasping for is not Steam, it's..... Thermal Coal...



Doesn't matter how you produce the steam. Any method has the same technical issues unless we're talking about naturally occurring steam (geothermal).

Hence the demise of nuclear. Even now with the writing on the wall for coal, there's still far more new coal capacity being built globally than there is nuclear capacity being built.

For a local example, South Australia.

Excluding a few minor ones at industrial sites, in 1999 there were 14 steam driven generating units in service and, along with imports from steam plant in Victoria, these supplied more than 99.7% of all electricity in SA.

As of now there are 6 steam units in service in SA, 2 of which will be shut (one mothballed, one shut as such) within the next few weeks and another goes next year, and over the past 12 months they generated 10.8% of the state's electricity. Import from Victoria, some but not all of which would be from steam plant, supplied a further 9.0%

That's counting only conventional steam plant, that with steam produced in a boiler, and not including the steam component of combined cycle gas turbine plant.

Go back to 1989 and there were 25 steam units running in SA power stations plus a few little ones in industry. The trend's pretty clear here....

Much the same elsewhere. Compare now versus 20, 30 or 40 years ago and the number of steam units in operation is drastically lower with only the largest and most economical units still being run, all the rest has been scrapped.

SA past 12 months to date:

Wind = 43.0%
Solar = 19.4%

Combined Cycle Gas Turbines = 19.4% (fuel = natural gas)
Steam = 10.8% (fuel = natural gas)
Internal Combustion = 2.5% (fuel = natural gas, diesel)
Open Cycle Gas Turbines = 2.0% (fuel = natural gas, diesel)

Import from Victoria = 9.0%
Export to Victoria = 6.9%

Doesn't quite add to 100% due to individual rounding but it's near enough.

SA steam plant generation since 1999 (calendar years so 2021 is incomplete data). Brown = coal-fired, orange = gas or oil fired. SA is further down this track than most places but ultimately it's all going the same way eventually.

Note the chart shows steam plant only, other gas-fired plant excluded.


----------



## sptrawler

orr said:


> But trawler?  I think the term you are grasping for is not Steam, it's..... Thermal Coal...
> Thermal coal, as seen by BHP( and anyone with a couple of nuerons to rubb together) as a both metaphoric and actual Steaming Heap.



Thanks for the heads up Orr I wasn't grasping for anything, by the way steam turbines driven, by steam boilers can run  a multitude of fuels. 
In W.A they were operated on coal, LNG and fuel oil. The ones where I worked, could fire any combination simultaneously.


----------



## sptrawler

The Chinese to test a molten salt thorium reactor, hopefully the have success, then clean energy takes a massive step forward IMO.








						China set to flip the switch on experimental new thorium molten salt nuclear reactor
					

Scientists in China are preparing to turn on an experimental reactor believed by some to be the Holy Grail of nuclear energy — safer, cheaper and with less potential for weaponisation.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting article, it sounds as though the AEMO is starting to get on top of the grid issues, as the transition to renewables increases.
It sounds as though they are considering a model like W.A uses, where generators are paid an availability allowance, to ensure there is enough stand by plant, if it is required to be brought on line.








						Closure of coal plants won't lead to blackouts, says market operator, as batteries and gas shore up supply
					

The company that manages Australia's electricity markets is no longer warning the closure of coal-fired power stations could lead to blackouts, as battery storage and gas power have shored-up supply.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
New battery storage and gas-powered generators have helped bring more reliability to the electricity grid on Australia's east coast, with no issues for electricity supply forecast over the next five years.

Key points:​
The manager of the country's electricity markets has dropped its warning that Australia faces a power supply shortage
AEMO says the closure of coal plants in coming years will be shored up by new battery and gas plants
Possible flooding at Yallourn station in Victoria remains the biggest short-term risk to supply
Previously, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) had identified a shortfall in electricity generation and possible blackouts in New South Wales following the closure of coal-fired power stations over the next five years.

But the company, which oversees Australia's power markets, found in its latest report on electricity supply "the previously identified reliability gap in NSW is no longer forecast."

The AEMO report shows adequate electricity supply for the coming summer and following years, though it does warn extreme weather events could disrupt the operations of ageing coal-fired power stations.

"An additional 2,245 megawatts (MW) of new capacity is forecast to be operational this summer, compared to what was available last summer. This includes 470 MW of dispatchable battery storage capacity, " the report found.
The CEO of AEMO, Daniel Westerman, attributed the more positive outlook for the electricity grid to a range of factors.

Mr Westerman said new wind and solar farms, combined with plans for 'dispatchable' power (which incudes pumped hydro, gas plants, and battery storage), "will all help replace retiring coal and gas plant"
"No reliability gaps are forecast for the next five years, primarily due to more than 4.4 gigawatts (GW) of new generation and storage capacity, as well as transmission investment and reduced peak demand forecasts," he said.

Beyond the next five years, the outlook was a little more cautious, noting some coal-fired power stations in Victoria and New South Wales will close earlier than previously expected
The biggest risk to the electricity grid over the next 10 years isn't the lack of supply, but rather, the lack of demand.

With households and businesses continuing to install roof-top solar power, demand for electricity is falling, particularly through the day.

That reduces the minimum amount of electricity needed in the network, causing issues for coal and gas-fired power stations that have minimum operating restrictions.

In five years' time, roof-top solar could supply up to 77 per cent of electricity demands at some points in the day, which would cause the minimum operating demand for the National Electricity Market (NEM) to drop by two-thirds.

"Without additional operational tools, we may no longer be able to operate the mainland NEM securely in all periods from 2025 due to a lack of security services when demand from the grid is so low," Mr Westerman said.
Federal, state and territory ministers are currently considering a range of options to ensure the stability of the electricity grid in the long-term, such as a Retailer Reliability Obligation.

Their decisions wil be critical, given AEMO expects that by 2025, there will be times renewables could supply 100 per cent of electricity demand


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> Interesting article, it sounds as though the AEMO is starting to get on top of the grid issues, as the transition to renewables increases.
> It sounds as though they are considering a model like W.A uses, where generators are paid an availability allowance, to ensure there is enough stand by plant, if it is required to be brought on line.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Closure of coal plants won't lead to blackouts, says market operator, as batteries and gas shore up supply
> 
> 
> The company that manages Australia's electricity markets is no longer warning the closure of coal-fired power stations could lead to blackouts, as battery storage and gas power have shored-up supply.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> New battery storage and gas-powered generators have helped bring more reliability to the electricity grid on Australia's east coast, with no issues for electricity supply forecast over the next five years.
> 
> Key points:​
> The manager of the country's electricity markets has dropped its warning that Australia faces a power supply shortage
> AEMO says the closure of coal plants in coming years will be shored up by new battery and gas plants
> Possible flooding at Yallourn station in Victoria remains the biggest short-term risk to supply
> Previously, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) had identified a shortfall in electricity generation and possible blackouts in New South Wales following the closure of coal-fired power stations over the next five years.
> 
> But the company, which oversees Australia's power markets, found in its latest report on electricity supply "the previously identified reliability gap in NSW is no longer forecast."
> 
> *The AEMO report shows adequate electricity supply for the coming summer and following years, though it does warn extreme weather events could disrupt the operations of ageing coal-fired power stations.*
> 
> "An additional 2,245 megawatts (MW) of new capacity is forecast to be operational this summer, compared to what was available last summer. This includes 470 MW of dispatchable battery storage capacity, " the report found.
> The CEO of AEMO, Daniel Westerman, attributed the more positive outlook for the electricity grid to a range of factors.
> 
> Mr Westerman said new wind and solar farms, combined with plans for 'dispatchable' power (which incudes pumped hydro, gas plants, and battery storage), "will all help replace retiring coal and gas plant"
> "No reliability gaps are forecast for the next five years, primarily due to more than 4.4 gigawatts (GW) of new generation and storage capacity, as well as transmission investment and reduced peak demand forecasts," he said.
> *
> Beyond the next five years, the outlook was a little more cautious, noting some coal-fired power stations in Victoria and New South Wales will close earlier than previously expected*
> The biggest risk to the electricity grid over the next 10 years isn't the lack of supply, but rather, the lack of demand.
> 
> With households and businesses continuing to install roof-top solar power, demand for electricity is falling, particularly through the day.
> 
> That reduces the minimum amount of electricity needed in the network, causing issues for coal and gas-fired power stations that have minimum operating restrictions.
> 
> In five years' time, roof-top solar could supply up to 77 per cent of electricity demands at some points in the day, which would cause the minimum operating demand for the National Electricity Market (NEM) to drop by two-thirds.
> 
> "Without additional operational tools, we may no longer be able to operate the mainland NEM securely in all periods from 2025 due to a lack of security services when demand from the grid is so low," Mr Westerman said.
> Federal, state and territory ministers are currently considering a range of options to ensure the stability of the electricity grid in the long-term, such as a Retailer Reliability Obligation.
> 
> Their decisions wil be critical, given AEMO expects that by 2025, there will be times renewables could supply 100 per cent of electricity demand



Well Surprise, Surprise, Surprise !!

The last great  Angus Taylor lie of trying to undermine the capacity of renewable energy plus storage to keep the lights on  is biting the dust. I also note the warning that extreme weather events could risk undermining the capacity of coal fired power plants to keep the system operational.

There is another story on the same topic of storing and balancing excess solar power.









						Powercor turns to community batteries to boost solar exports in PV hotspots - One Step Off The Grid
					

One of Australia's top rooftop solar postcodes will be the site of a new community battery, as Victorian networks plan rollout of up to 12 more.




					onestepoffthegrid.com.au


----------



## basilio

Renew Enery took a more robust approach to the AEMO report.  Also provided more detail on the rapid advance of renewable energy and battery storage. Frankly I waiting to see the Angus Taylor defamation case.

I think the important unknown element will be how quickly EV vehicles take off in Australia and how servicing them( and perhaps using them as battery banks )  is considered.









						AEMO’s new reliability forecasts give lie to Taylor’s Coalkeeper campaign
					

AEMO says there is enough new renewables and other generation entering the grid to cover any supply shortfalls, although coal is becoming less reliable.




					reneweconomy.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

Like I've always said all along, there is no reason for everyone to get their knickers in a knot, it will be self resolving, steam driven plant isn't suitable for on/off, on/off operation or the correct term cycling.
As the renewables come on line and the storage capacity increases, it will force the coal and gas fired steam plant oos, simple economics and physics.
Also as it is cheaper to install renewables, maintain renewables and operate renewables, the money side of the equation falls heavily in favour of renewables. Therefore new plant will be most likely renewables, eventually it will be all renewables + storage, with some backup at call generation for essential services in the event of a failure.
It is actually happening in an extremely organised manner, when you consider the AEMO is expecting the grid to be operating on 100% renewables for some periods in the day, by 2025. That's only 4 years away.
As for the coal lobby group, as I said it will be self resolving, so why have a fight when a fight isn't needed, I think not treading on the coal lobbies toes is a good play.
Also why the Govt has committed to HEGT's not new coal, I will be shocked if the Govt agree to fund a coal station, they may dance around the issue but I'll believe it when I see it.
I don't think it will happen, how they handle the coal regions will be very interesting, they do carry a few seats and some political clout with the Nationals.
Unfortunately the writing is on the wall, the difficulty as with everything, is getting those it affects to accept it. The longer they believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, the more time it has to sink in that it is an illusion.
The workers themselves will be talking about it, I know we were when I was at work and that was 10 years ago, now when I catch up with the guys still working, they are now talking about when not if.
Up to now the Governments, both federal and State have done an excellent job of transitioning to renewables, without having any major industrial disputes and outages IMO.  
The last thing that needs to happen is a Govt going in with Jackboots and having rolling blackouts, because of shoving it up the coal generators that are actually keeping the lights on, wouldn't be a very smart move by a Government but would make the loony left happy.


----------



## sptrawler

Here is a story that explains exactly what will happen, in countries like Australia, which are fortunate enough to have alternatives to coal.
It also explains how the sensitive issue, of the coal power station workers, was facilitated.








						'This is exponential': Has Spain found the answer to quitting coal?
					

Spain has been closing down its coal industry since the 1990s. Come December, its last coal mine will be switched off.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
Coal engineer José Manuel Pérez Rodriguez can only laugh when he recalls what his university taught him about renewables. 

"My teacher said, well, we are going to teach you that but it's going to be of minor use," he says. "It's not profitable, it's very expensive. Just centre on coal."

Twenty years on, he works in Spain's last full-time coal-fired power plant in the coal mining province of Asturias. His job is to plan its conversion into a green hydrogen plant. 

As head of hydrogen conversion for the power company EDP, Mr Pérez Rodriguez still marvels at how quickly coal is vanishing from the energy landscape.

"Everything is changing dramatically every year," he says. "We expect that the next year is going to be greener, but it's always greener than we expect. This is exponential."
Three years ago, Spain's Socialist Workers' Party government signed an agreement with trade unions and energy companies to shut down the entire coal industry in return for early retirement and investment in replacement industries.
Successive governments have learned the hard way to fear the wrath of coal communities.

At a former mine, Pozo Soton, a choir of retired miners meets to sing the union anthem, Santa Barbara. This was a rallying call for decades of industrial action to fight the closure of state-run mines.

In 2012, Asturian miners fought pitched battles with police, even firing rockets at police lines, after the government cut subsidies. Ten thousand miners and supporters marched on Madrid to try to force a backdown. 

Unions only agreed to Just Transition after the government guaranteed both early retirement and massive investment to create alternative jobs.
Successive governments have learned the hard way to fear the wrath of coal communities.

At a former mine, Pozo Soton, a choir of retired miners meets to sing the union anthem, Santa Barbara. This was a rallying call for decades of industrial action to fight the closure of state-run mines.

In 2012, Asturian miners fought pitched battles with police, even firing rockets at police lines, after the government cut subsidies. Ten thousand miners and supporters marched on Madrid to try to force a backdown. 

Unions only agreed to Just Transition after the government guaranteed both early retirement and massive investment to create alternative jobs.


----------



## sptrawler

I did say it will be self resolving, the States oversee the power stations and ultimately have the say in what they will do. The pandemic has highlighted that, so the feds can huff and puff, but it is ultimately up to the states which direction they take, as was shown by S.A many years ago.
Now the fun will really start, IMO the coal generators will just close down as being financially non viable, thankfully i live in W.A.  
https://reneweconomy.com.au/victori...to-coalkeeper-wants-focus-on-battery-storage/
From the article:
The proposals for the “physical retail reliability option” have been described as “technology neutral” by Taylor and the ESB, but the market is convinced that they would effectively pay coal and gas generators paid to remain open, and Victorian energy minister Lily D’Ambrosio said she would have none of that.

“Victoria wants to reassure investors in wind and solar farms and storage such as giant batteries that it will not adopt any mechanism within the NEM that undermines the state’s ambition to cut carbon emissions,” D’Ambrosio said in a statement.

D’Ambrosio said some form of a capacity mechanism is a possible solution to the lack of investment certainty – but it must be designed properly.

*“I couldn’t be clearer about two principles Victoria has for any new capacity mechanism. The first is that there be no payments to incumbent fossil fuels generators. The second is there must be payments to new zero emissions technology,” she said.*

D’Ambrosio’s comments follow similar remarks by NSW energy Matt Kean earlier this month when he said he would favour direct negotiations with coal generator owners, as Victoria has done with Yallourn owner EnergyAustralia, bringing forward its closure to 2028, but ensuring it stays open until then.

As RenewEconomy predicted several week ago, the opposition of Victoria and NSW effectively kills the scheme, because no other states are strong supporters. They all want mechanisms that favour fast and flexible dispatchable capacity, and that could be battery storage, demand response, and pumped hydro installations.


----------



## sptrawler

And looking at Utopia, I mean Europe. I can't wait for NSW and Victoria, to deal with their problems. 🤣 








						Analysis: Expensive winter ahead as Europe's power prices surge
					

A record run in energy prices that pushed European electricity costs to multi-year highs is unlikely to ease off before year-end, pointing to an expensive winter heating season for consumers.




					www.reuters.com
				



From the article:
FRANKFURT/LONDON/PARIS Sept 10 (Reuters) - A record run in energy prices that pushed European electricity costs to multi-year highs is unlikely to ease off before year-end, pointing to an expensive winter heating season for consumers.

The key benchmark EU and French power contracts have both doubled so far this year due to a confluence of factors ranging from Asia's economic recovery - which sent related coal and gas prices soaring - to political will to drive up European carbon emission permits, higher oil prices and low local renewable output.
The benchmark EU power contract, German Cal 2022 baseload power , on Friday set a new contract record of 97.25 euros ($115.09) a megawatt hour (MWh), while its French equivalent was just off a record 100.4 euros/MWh.





German front-year wholesale electricity price
The biggest unknown is the Nord Stream 2 (NS 2) gas link from Russia to Germany, which could be operational in 2021 and boost tight European gas inventories.


At around 70% full, gas stocks are lower than usual after a weak import year in which Asian buyers snapped up liquefied natural gas (LNG) and Europe's industry recovered more quickly than expected from reduced demand due to the COVID-19 crisis.

This time last year, stock levels were at 93%, data from industry group GIE showed.

Construction of the 55 billion cubic metre per year NS 2 pipeline is complete, ready to double Russia's gas exporting capacity via the Baltic Sea, but Germany's regulator has yet to give the green light, which could take months.
Gas demand from power stations has been high due to lower than average wind speeds in Europe, curbing power generation from wind farms.

Analysts ICIS Energy said wind generation in Germany over the next two weeks is expected to average only 5 gigawatts (GW) a day compared to an average of over 10 GW for the three previous Septembers.

That is merely a tenth of the possible total.

"If there are periods again where wind generation drops, which is always the nature of wind, there will be high prices again," ICIS Energy analyst Roy Manuell said.
The European EU carbon benchmark contract , currently at 62.4 euros a tonne, remains not far off an all-time high set this week, buoyed by more ambitious climate targets that raise the cost of pollution, but also because high power generation activity means buyers need more permits.

In complex interactions between fuels and carbon, coal demand has risen as power generators seek to avoid sky-high gas prices.

With coal plants emitting double the amount of carbon dioxide as gas plants, this has in turn led to more demand and higher prices of carbon permits.


European steam coal prices for power generation are at 12-year highs, and at 13-year peaks in Asia.

At least one factor, nuclear availability in major power exporter France, should bring peace of mind as engineers have worked hard to improve the fleet - though Europe-wide, the picture for nuclear is mixed, as power stations in big markets like Britain and Germany close.

Current French daily nuclear availability is seen at between 45 GW and 47 GW for September, which is about 73-75% of the installed total and between 6 and 7 GW above the five-year average, according to ICIS and data from grid company RTE.

November and December availability should be near 90%.


----------



## sptrawler

Here is an article on Australian solar panel production and how it was lost to China, which I bring up when people say it is only one side of politics that screws up. The biggest solar panel manufacturing plant in the Southern hemisphere, was in Sydney and was shut down in 2009 on a vocal supporter of climate change's watch.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science...australia-stopped-making-them-china/100466342

By the way another issue I have mentioned, is highlighted in the article a computer picture rendition of the proposed solar farm in the N.T, now that's what I call greening. 🤣
Also let's not forget there is a similar size one getting built in the Pilbara and neither are for our own consumption, so many, many more will have to be built to replace the fossil fuel generators we use for domestic consumption.

That is what a small section of a *300sq/klm solar farm* looks like.   I bet the greenies will gulp when they see that.
The kangaroos and lizards will be lining up at the gate to the zoo, for food.
Nuclear is bad, covering huge swathes of Australia with panels like this, is good. 
Let's not forget they lose up to 60% of their efficiency if covered in dust and also will require replacing in 20 or so years, we'll need a bigger landfill, if recycling doesn't step up.
Oh and best of luck to all the posters, that keep telling me, we are going to grow crops under there.
Also not forgetting, you have to find a space where a sacred serpent or ceremonial site, isn't located.
Oh the fun, all to support human consumption.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Here is an article on Australian solar panel production and how it was lost to China, which I bring up when people say it is only one side of politics that screws up. The biggest solar panel manufacturing plant in the Southern hemisphere, was in Sydney and was shut down in 2009 on a vocal supporter of climate change's watch.



Politically it's a reality that both major parties and various others championed the demise of manufacturing and in doing so entrenched Australia's economic reliance on fossil fuel exports.

Can't undo what's done but how to reverse it is the problem - it's going to take a generation and a lot of sacrifice in every way but there's really not much alternative.



sptrawler said:


> By the way another issue I have mentioned, is highlighted in the article a computer picture rendition of the proposed solar farm in the N.T,




I wouldn't be too worried about land, we're not short on the stuff.

So long as the solar panels are placed sensibly, that is they are put on land that's of no real use for anything else, well there's plenty of that and not much being lost by putting it to that use.

If it was up to me though I'd leverage it.

If other countries want to obtain electricity from Australian land then sure, we can do that no problems. It'll be using 100% Australian manufactured solar panels and associated equipment however, that bit's absolutely non-negotiable. The frames they're on will be made in Australia, from Australian refined metals, and so will be the cables.

Trouble with our politicians is they sell out too easily. "Level playing field" - that's something that exists only in the imagination of a certain former PM. In reality there is not and was never any such thing - every country cheats one way or another when it comes to trade and we need to play the game. 

Well, we do unless we're really, really confident that we can forever keep selling coal and iron....


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I wouldn't be too worried about land, we're not short on the stuff.
> 
> So long as the solar panels are placed sensibly, that is they are put on land that's of no real use for anything else, well there's plenty of that and not much being lost by putting it to that use.



Mate it isn't an issue for me, I'm definitely a roundup, red meat, beer drinking individual. I just showed the photo to the other half and she freaked, to put that in context she is much, more green than me but in no way an activist.
So when these mega solar farms and bulk storage dams start unfolding, I'm sure we will have another Franklin river debacle on our hands, you thinking it is o.k to place them on land that is of no real use for anything else, is a novel thought.
How many serpents, sacred sites, three legged horn toads and four legged butterflies live there, is the real issue?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> So when these mega solar farms and bulk storage dams start unfolding, I'm sure we will have another Franklin river debacle on our hands, you thinking it is o.k to place them on land that is of no real use for anything else, is a novel thought.



Rationally the land is of no real value for anything, it's desert in the middle of nowhere. Shading a portion of it seems unlikely to do any real harm unless someone can prove otherwise.

In practice though you're closer to hitting the nail on the head than you probably realise.

The exact words which get thrown around among those in suits are ".....risk of a Franklin Dam style protest....." and for the record that goes for anything, not necessarily things involving any actual dam.

Once someone senior enough concludes the risk of that scenario is credible, it tips the risk / reward balance and kills the project stone dead usually. It's an issue that has come up with some storage projects - the risk not that there's an actual problem but that someone starts a campaign against it. Since the economics are borderline anyway, there's no great fortune to be made, that risk tips the balance against proceeding any further.

Meanwhile in SA we do have an LNG _import_ terminal being progressed....

Legitimate conservation I'm strongly in favour of, and FWIW if given the chance I wouldn't choose to flood the Franklin (and yes I've been there and seen it with my own eyes) but overall the "no dams anywhere near anyone" approach, or the equivalent for other forms of development, simply ensures that fossil fuels are what gets used.

A sensible science-based approach to land use is required if all this is to be resolved and we're to go fully renewable.

Science-based meaning actual science, not silly game playing but actual proper science. Some areas ought be protected, others really are worthless.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> In practice though you're closer to hitting the nail on the head than you probably realise.



I'll take that as an insult, but wont take offence.
I have always said this will be the biggest bugbear of renewables, once the salt water gets pumped into the Flinders ranges, once a dam is placed anywhere near a place that people can see, it will cause a backlash.
I was the one that said James Price point gas hub was a no brainer.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I'll take that as an insult



Not intended as one.....  

I've just always assumed that most would have no idea how that dam haunts many things even today. Not the actual dam that wasn't built but the notion of a similar sort of campaign against some unrelated project.

Business seems to find the idea of floating LNG barges far more attractive in practice.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> I'll take that as an insult, but wont take offence.
> I have always said this will be the biggest bugbear of renewables, once the salt water gets pumped into the Flinders ranges, once a dam is placed anywhere near a place that people can see, it will cause a backlash.
> I was the one that said James Price point gas hub was a no brainer.



On the issue of James price point, that was going to process LNG onshore, but was stopped because it apparently contravened native land.

Yet would have covered probably 5sq/klm and it would have enabled a massive employment hub and enabled pumping water from the Ord down for irrigation down through the NW of W.A.
Now we are talking about covering 300Sq/ Klm with a solar farm to export hydrogen, go figure.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Not intended as one.....



Never take offence from you smurf, been around the traps too long, to know who is vindictive and who isn't. 🤣
I'm really pragmatic on this whole issue, I would love to see Australia running 100% renewables and it looks like we will.
The only speed bump IMO, is people wanting to push it faster than the system can cope with it.


----------



## Smurf1976

On the subject of LNG barges.

This one's not in any way secret so I'll post the Google map showing location:









						Google Maps
					

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.




					www.google.com.au
				




Existing Pelican Point power station in the middle. The plant consists of 2 x 160 MW gas turbines and associated 160 MW steam turbine (nominal values) and is gas-fired only. It operates intermittently according to requirements.

There's a plan to permanently dock a floating LNG barge to the immediate left of the existing power station, and to put some open cycle gas turbines (to be known as Snapper Point Power Station) to the immediate right.

That's all privately funded, not government.

Since the LNG barge is floating and likely to be built overseas, it can be relocated pretty easily if it becomes redundant at some future time. OCGT's are of course also very relocatable, indeed they're presently installed elsewhere in Adelaide at the former Holden factory and fired with diesel (being 5 of the 9 units the previous SA government obtained).


----------



## mullokintyre

An Australian team have set the record for most efficient solar cell yet produced.
FromABC News


> Solar start-up engineer Vince Allen knew he and his team had made something special in their laboratories.
> Key points:​
> An Australian solar company has created the world's most efficient commercial-sized solar cell
> The company uses copper instead of silver to manufacture their solar cells because it is cheaper and more abundant
> Sundrive chief executive Vince Allen says the certified record puts Australia back at the forefront of solar cell manufacturing
> Now they have the certification to say they have created the most efficient commercial-sized solar cell in the world.
> 
> In the solar world, efficiency is a big deal.
> 
> "The fundamental driving factors behind solar adoption come down to efficiency and cost," Mr Allen said.
> 
> "Being able to fabricate the most efficient commercial-sized solar cell is an achievement we're very proud of, and to push Australian solar PV [photovoltaic] on a global stage."
> Put simply, efficiency is measured by the amount of power you generate based on the amount of sunlight coming in.
> 
> Ten years ago, commercial-sized solar cells had an efficiency rating of about 14 to 16 per cent.
> 
> Mr Allen's company Sundrive has created a cell with 25.54 per cent efficiency, as tested by the Institute For Solar Energy Research Hamlin in Germany – a company that specialises in efficiency testing.
> 
> "Prior to that, the record was 25.26 per cent, so we've done a reasonably big jump," he said.




While not exactly world shattering to beat the previous record by  0.28%,  I guess its something to hang your hat on.
The unfortunate part for me was the use of copper rather than silver to in the manufacturing process.
Yes its cheaper, but I was relying on the use of industrial silver to eventually push the price up,
Mick


----------



## Smurf1976

The situation in the UK seems to be deteriorating alarmingly rapidly:



> ......has raised the spectre of Britain rationing energy and being forced to impose a three-day working week.












						Energy crisis raises spectre of UK three-day working week
					

Industry leaders hold urgent talks with UK government




					www.thenationalnews.com
				




As background, basic causes (in order of occurrence):

The unplanned permanent closure of Dungeness B power station (nuclear). In short, the facility had previously been shut down for a considerable period for inspection and associated maintenance works but on 7 June 2021 owners EDF announced that the plant would immediately move to permanent decommissioning.

Noting there that physical production of electricity at the site was zero at the time of the announcement. That is, it had already ceased operating in practice.

In short, serious problems were found.....

Generating capacity at Dungeness B was 1320 MW (2 x 660 MW).

Sustained lower wind speed has reduced production from wind farms across the UK as a whole.

The IFA interconnector (France – UK) was knocked out by a fire onshore (UK side) last week and remains out of service until further notice (I don't have much info on it but there are suggestions it'll be a 6 month repair job). Capacity is 2000 MW.

All of the above have a common element in that the solution to keep the lights on is to increase the use of, in practice, mostly gas-fired generation. That's the practical reality when wind / solar, biomass and nuclear is fully utilised anyway (so can't increase production from existing facilities) and there's not much hydro storage to draw down on. That leaves gas and the limited remaining coal and oil plant to fill the gap left by outages of anything else.

Now add in some outages of gas production.....


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> The situation in the UK seems to be deteriorating alarmingly rapidly:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Energy crisis raises spectre of UK three-day working week
> 
> 
> Industry leaders hold urgent talks with UK government
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.thenationalnews.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As background, basic causes (in order of occurrence):
> 
> The unplanned permanent closure of Dungeness B power station (nuclear). In short, the facility had previously been shut down for a considerable period for inspection and associated maintenance works but on 7 June 2021 owners EDF announced that the plant would immediately move to permanent decommissioning.
> 
> Noting there that physical production of electricity at the site was zero at the time of the announcement. That is, it had already ceased operating in practice.
> 
> In short, serious problems were found.....
> 
> Generating capacity at Dungeness B was 1320 MW (2 x 660 MW).
> 
> Sustained lower wind speed has reduced production from wind farms across the UK as a whole.
> 
> The IFA interconnector (France – UK) was knocked out by a fire onshore (UK side) last week and remains out of service until further notice (I don't have much info on it but there are suggestions it'll be a 6 month repair job). Capacity is 2000 MW.
> 
> All of the above have a common element in that the solution to keep the lights on is to increase the use of, in practice, mostly gas-fired generation. That's the practical reality when wind / solar, biomass and nuclear is fully utilised anyway (so can't increase production from existing facilities) and there's not much hydro storage to draw down on. That leaves gas and the limited remaining coal and oil plant to fill the gap left by outages of anything else.
> 
> Now add in some outages of gas production.....



Re solar panels in the desert, better watch out for Aboriginal sacred sites.


----------



## mullokintyre

They are gunna have to get a helluva lot of AA batteries to fix this problem.
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

China to stop funding coal generation in foreign countries, I guess that will leave them in the position of being the cheapest place to manufacture for time eternal.  









						Xi says China will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad
					

Xi provided no details in his announcement, but China has been under heavy diplomatic pressure to put an end to its coal financing overseas.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## mullokintyre

Probably mreans they are gunna shift the money earmarked for subsidising poor country's coal power stations to subsidising the rescue of Evergrande.
Mick


----------



## macca

Looking at all those panels and all that dust, whoever gets the cleaning contract will make a motza !

So many windy days in the desert, there will be days that they are virtually covered in dust, doesn't rain very often out there to wash them.

I have been in dust storms and the dust is unbelievable


----------



## basilio

This story on designing and building wooden wind turbines is eye opening. It use the Ikea model..
IMV well worth 10 minutes.

_Wooden windmills are surely a relic from our pre industrial history aren't they? Well, that was certainly true until recently. Now though, a Swedish company has harnessed the inherent qualities of timber to produce a turbine tower that is not only lighter than its steel equivalent, but also stronger and more environmentally friendly too. Could this be the least likely technological revolution so far?_


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Mate it isn't an issue for me, I'm definitely a roundup, red meat, beer drinking individual. I just showed the photo to the other half and she freaked, to put that in context she is much, more green than me but in no way an activist.
> So when these mega solar farms and bulk storage dams start unfolding, I'm sure we will have another Franklin river debacle on our hands, you thinking it is o.k to place them on land that is of no real use for anything else, is a novel thought.
> How many serpents, sacred sites, three legged horn toads and four legged butterflies live there, is the real issue?



This kind of highlights the conflict that the politicians are going to face, with regard bulk storage dams for pumped hydro.
They can't raise the wall of an existing dam, because it will impact a World heritage site. Well the problem is there are only two options with dams, lots of small ones, or fewer large ones. One thing for sure they will affect something one way or another, as I said this will turn into one big mess IMO.









						‘Important UNESCO obligations’: Minister refuses to declare Warragamba wall-raising critical
					

Rob Stokes has refused to declare the Warragamba Dam wall-raising a critical state project because it impacts a World Heritage area.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> This kind of highlights the conflict that the politicians are going to face, with regard bulk storage dams for pumped hydro.
> They can't raise the wall of an existing dam, because it will impact a World heritage site. Well the problem is there are only two options with dams, lots of small ones, or fewer large ones. One thing for sure they will affect something one way or another, as I said this will turn into one big mess IMO.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ‘Important UNESCO obligations’: Minister refuses to declare Warragamba wall-raising critical
> 
> 
> Rob Stokes has refused to declare the Warragamba Dam wall-raising a critical state project because it impacts a World Heritage area.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au




The idea of pumped hydro as n energy storage for excess solar/wind is important. One option that won't be environmentally ugly  or prohibitively costly is the system developed by Rheenergise. There are plenty of small hills that would suit this option.

   Engineering news
High-density pumped hydro ‘could be installed on thousands of small hills’​ 
                   08 Feb 2021              
Professional Engineering





Unlike conventional hydro power systems, the RheEnergise systems could operate across smaller elevation changes (Credit: RheEnergise)           
       Thousands of hillsides around the UK could host a new type of pumped-hydro energy storage system, its developers have claimed.


Unlike conventional hydro power, the system from RheEnergise uses dense liquid instead of water. The fluid is two-and-a-half-times denser than water, and could therefore potentially provide two-and-a-half-times the power of equivalent conventional systems.
The High-Density Hydro systems would be built underground. Its developers said it could offer long-term energy storage at relatively low costs, with high energy efficiency

Like conventional pumped hydro, it would use excess energy – such as that generated by wind turbines on a windy day with low demand – to pump the liquid uphill from underground storage tanks. After travelling uphill through underground pipes, the liquid would then be released to power downhill turbines when electricity demand is higher.





__





						High-density pumped hydro ‘could be installed on thousands of small hills’
					






					www.imeche.org
				











						RheEnergise High-Density Hydro
					

RheEnergise Pumped Energy Storage: Lowering the levelised cost of energy storage. Increasing the availability of sites. Exceptionally fast reaction times. Long Duration. Long life. Highly flexible. High-Density Hydro®




					www.rheenergise.com


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> The idea of pumped hydro as n energy storage for excess solar/wind is important. One option that won't be environmentally ugly  or prohibitively costly is the system developed by Rheenergise. There are plenty of small hills that would suit this option.
> 
> Engineering news
> High-density pumped hydro ‘could be installed on thousands of small hills’​
> 08 Feb 2021
> Professional Engineering
> View attachment 130815
> 
> Unlike conventional hydro power systems, the RheEnergise systems could operate across smaller elevation changes (Credit: RheEnergise)
> Thousands of hillsides around the UK could host a new type of pumped-hydro energy storage system, its developers have claimed.
> 
> 
> Unlike conventional hydro power, the system from RheEnergise uses dense liquid instead of water. The fluid is two-and-a-half-times denser than water, and could therefore potentially provide two-and-a-half-times the power of equivalent conventional systems.
> The High-Density Hydro systems would be built underground. Its developers said it could offer long-term energy storage at relatively low costs, with high energy efficiency
> 
> Like conventional pumped hydro, it would use excess energy – such as that generated by wind turbines on a windy day with low demand – to pump the liquid uphill from underground storage tanks. After travelling uphill through underground pipes, the liquid would then be released to power downhill turbines when electricity demand is higher.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> High-density pumped hydro ‘could be installed on thousands of small hills’
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.imeche.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> RheEnergise High-Density Hydro
> 
> 
> RheEnergise Pumped Energy Storage: Lowering the levelised cost of energy storage. Increasing the availability of sites. Exceptionally fast reaction times. Long Duration. Long life. Highly flexible. High-Density Hydro®
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.rheenergise.com



That sort of lateral thinking will have to be used, if we are ever going to get enough storage.


----------



## Knobby22

macca said:


> Looking at all those panels and all that dust, whoever gets the cleaning contract will make a motza !
> 
> So many windy days in the desert, there will be days that they are virtually covered in dust, doesn't rain very often out there to wash them.
> 
> I have been in dust storms and the dust is unbelievable



Surely there is an opportunity for someone, windscreen wiper system?
I should get off my bum and design something.


----------



## mullokintyre

basilio said:


> The idea of pumped hydro as n energy storage for excess solar/wind is important. One option that won't be environmentally ugly  or prohibitively costly is the system developed by Rheenergise. There are plenty of small hills that would suit this option.
> 
> Engineering news
> High-density pumped hydro ‘could be installed on thousands of small hills’​
> 08 Feb 2021
> Professional Engineering
> 
> 
> 
> Unlike conventional hydro power, the system from RheEnergise uses dense liquid instead of water. The fluid is two-and-a-half-times denser than water, and could therefore potentially provide two-and-a-half-times the power of equivalent conventional systems.
> The High-Density Hydro systems would be built underground. Its developers said it could offer long-term energy storage at relatively low costs, with high energy efficiency
> 
> Like conventional pumped hydro, it would use excess energy – such as that generated by wind turbines on a windy day with low demand – to pump the liquid uphill from underground storage tanks. After travelling uphill through underground pipes, the liquid would then be released to power downhill turbines when electricity demand is higher.



Its a neat idea, but the devil is always in the detail.
The part that is not mentioned is that the 2.5 times as dense fluid will require somewhat more than 2.5 times the energy to raise it up to the required height. Not being a fluid dynamics guy, I don't know what sort of efficiency losses there are with higher density fluids, but I am going to take an educated guess that the boundary layer losses are going to be significant.
Mick


----------



## basilio

mullokintyre said:


> Its a neat idea, but the devil is always in the detail.
> The part that is not mentioned is that the 2.5 times as dense fluid will require somewhat more than 2.5 times the energy to raise it up to the required height. Not being a fluid dynamics guy, I don't know what sort of efficiency losses there are with higher density fluids, but I am going to take an educated guess that the boundary layer losses are going to be significant.
> Mick




Yes it will take .  But then the important element in this  concept is the much cheaper capital cost of building a pumped hydro project that can use smaller vertical  drops and smaller storage tanks to achieve the desired energy recovery.  I would guess that the pipes would be a larger diameter than normal if there was a problem with frictional losses. 

The energy required to pump the fluid up the hill is always the excess energy from wind or solar generation.


----------



## Knobby22

mullokintyre said:


> Its a neat idea, but the devil is always in the detail.
> The part that is not mentioned is that the 2.5 times as dense fluid will require somewhat more than 2.5 times the energy to raise it up to the required height. Not being a fluid dynamics guy, I don't know what sort of efficiency losses there are with higher density fluids, but I am going to take an educated guess that the boundary layer losses are going to be significant.
> Mick



Good point.
Maybe a modified crop picker type system, robotized with some sort of car wash swirly system. Might even be able to do it without water.


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> Its a neat idea, but the devil is always in the detail.
> The part that is not mentioned is that the 2.5 times as dense fluid will require somewhat more than 2.5 times the energy to raise it up to the required height. Not being a fluid dynamics guy, I don't know what sort of efficiency losses there are with higher density fluids, but I am going to take an educated guess that the boundary layer losses are going to be significant.
> Mick



You are right Mick, there will be a lot of new ideas floated and at the end of the day it all becomes an energy flow equation.
All this is in its infancy and there isn't any clear way forward yet IMO, there are a lot of alternatives, but which of these alternatives become workable is a long way from being obvious.
Water is good because it is abundant, it is viscous and it isn't very corrosive.


----------



## mullokintyre

If you can convert the no cost solar or wind energy to some other form of immediate use energy (chemical storage, batteries storage etc), then in some ways the efficiency is not so critical.  Our current difficulties are in reliable quick startup backups for when the intermittent suppliers of electricity such as wind, solar and to some extent hydro are not providing the required  outputs. 
And because we have such a large electricity use,   the size of these backups need to be of a large  scale, which can put a bit of a dampener on things. 
Coal for a myriad of reasons, is not expected to take up that role.
Gas, diesel. biofuels etc are slightly more acceptable, but they all still produce that dreaded Co2.
Nuclear does not produce CO2, is reliable, has a very small footprint, but is expensive and politically unacceptable. 

Mick


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> *If you can convert the no cost solar or wind energy to some other form of immediate use energy (chemical storage, batteries storage etc), then in some ways the efficiency is not so critical*.  Our current difficulties are in reliable quick startup backups for when the intermittent suppliers of electricity such as wind, solar and to some extent hydro are not providing the required  outputs.
> And because we have such a large electricity use,   the size of these backups need to be of a large  scale, which can put a bit of a dampener on things.
> Coal for a myriad of reasons, is not expected to take up that role.
> Gas, diesel. biofuels etc are slightly more acceptable, but they all still produce that dreaded Co2.
> Nuclear does not produce CO2, is reliable, has a very small footprint, but is expensive and politically unacceptable.
> 
> Mick



That Mick is the very reason for the big push into hydrogen, it all boils back to energy density, hydrogen has a similar energy density to fossil fuel and can be used to operate engines/turbines in the same way that fossil fuel does.
So it is the answer, the only problem is, to make it with clean energy eg electrolysis, it uses a lot more energy than it makes due to losses.
This isn't a problem when you have an excess of electricity, but we are a long way short of that situation, because we are trying to close down coal asap.
When the coal is gone and the grid has enough capacity to supply the load with minimal requirement to use fossil fuel,  then there will be a push to produce hydrogen and run the gas turbines on hydrogen rather than LNG.


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> Our current difficulties are in reliable quick startup backups for when the intermittent suppliers of electricity such as wind, solar and to some extent hydro are not providing the required outputs.




From a technical perspective there's no reason why batteries for peak load and hydro for bulk energy storage can't do it. 

Hydro in particular is, if designed well and operated within its limits, pretty close to bulletproof. Find a place where it failed and invariably it's because someone chose to go beyond those limits and paid the price.

Other options also exist. Substantially less efficient but hydrogen can certainly do it and then there's things like compressed air or heat as the means of storage.

Plus of course storage at the point of use. At the risk of stating the obvious, there's no cheaper and lower tech storage in existence than a tank of hot water and at ~80% efficient it's not a bad way either.

At midday today (eastern states time) there was 919 MW of renewable generation being curtailed and thus lost. Most of that was in Queensland with a bit in Vic and NSW too.


----------



## SirRumpole

Adventures in wind power.


----------



## sptrawler

As the transition away from fossil fuels accelerates, what will happen to coal-mining communities?
					

The end of coal-fired electricity is clearly on the horizon, but for Australian townships dependent on the fossil fuel industry, the future is looking more hazy.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
The end of coal-fired electricity is clearly on the horizon, but for Australian communities dependent on the fossil fuel industry, the future looks more hazy.
The New South Wales city of Lithgow, nestled on the western edge of the Blue Mountains, was established to extract the surrounding coal-rich earth in the early 1900s. 

At its peak, more than a dozen mines were operating in the area, but today there are only three. 

All of the region's mines fuel the nearby Mount Piper Power Station, which supplies electricity to almost 1.2 million homes in the state.

The 30-year-old plant is expected to be the last coal-fired power plant operating in NSW. 

Its owner, EnergyAustralia, has flagged it will no longer need to burn coal beyond 2040, when it will close the electricity station, two years earlier than originally planned. 

Australia's reliance on wind, solar and hydro power reached an all-time high of more than 60 per cent last week, according to OpenNEM, a platform for national electricity market data.


----------



## sptrawler

France to ramp up small modular reactor development, as we said a few years ago, they seem to be the obvious goto solution.








						France aims to lead in green energy, small nuclear reactors with $47b plan
					

France wants to be a leader in green hydrogen by 2030 and build new, smaller nuclear reactors as part of a road map aimed at decarbonising the country’s industry, President Emmanuel Macron said.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:
Setting out some of the plan’s targets, Macron said France would by 2030 build a low-carbon plane, a small modular reactor as well as two megafactories for the production of green hydrogen. It would also produce large numbers of electric vehicles.
“We must wage the battle of innovation and industrialisation at the same time,” Macron told a group of entrepreneurs, adding: “We need a country that produces more.”

Macron said the plan will give a key role to small, agile start-ups in building France’s industrial future alongside well-established giants.
Macron said the plan will give a key role to small, agile start-ups in building France’s industrial future alongside well-established giants.

Pointing to a shortage of face masks when the COVID-19 pandemic first erupted, Macron said the crisis had shown, on one side, a real vulnerability for all, and, on the other side, how crucial innovation and industrial production close to home are.

“We must rebuild the framework for productive independence for France and Europe,” he said, adding that innovation would be key amid global competition for leadership and access to raw materials. “The winner takes it all,” he added.

Other 2030 objectives include investing in semi-conductors and beefing up innovation in the French health sector, including biomedicine.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> France to ramp up small modular reactor development, as we said a few years ago, they seem to be the obvious goto solution.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> France aims to lead in green energy, small nuclear reactors with $47b plan
> 
> 
> France wants to be a leader in green hydrogen by 2030 and build new, smaller nuclear reactors as part of a road map aimed at decarbonising the country’s industry, President Emmanuel Macron said.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theage.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> Setting out some of the plan’s targets, Macron said France would by 2030 build a low-carbon plane, a small modular reactor as well as two megafactories for the production of green hydrogen. It would also produce large numbers of electric vehicles.
> “We must wage the battle of innovation and industrialisation at the same time,” Macron told a group of entrepreneurs, adding: “We need a country that produces more.”
> 
> Macron said the plan will give a key role to small, agile start-ups in building France’s industrial future alongside well-established giants.
> Macron said the plan will give a key role to small, agile start-ups in building France’s industrial future alongside well-established giants.
> 
> Pointing to a shortage of face masks when the COVID-19 pandemic first erupted, Macron said the crisis had shown, on one side, a real vulnerability for all, and, on the other side, how crucial innovation and industrial production close to home are.
> 
> “We must rebuild the framework for productive independence for France and Europe,” he said, adding that innovation would be key amid global competition for leadership and access to raw materials. “The winner takes it all,” he added.
> 
> Other 2030 objectives include investing in semi-conductors and beefing up innovation in the French health sector, including biomedicine.



Maybe this is a chance to patch it up with the French by buying some reactors.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> France to ramp up small modular reactor development, as we said a few years ago, they seem to be the obvious goto solution.



I doubt it.  The 40 needed to power Perth or the 100 needed to power Sydney are not likely to be welcome additions - the nimby syndrome - and there are no levels of politics supporting a nuclear pathway atm.
On the other hand, advances in hydrogen technology over the next decade are likely to see it steamroll battery technologies.
There are cost advances such as this.
And there are production innovations, such as modular electrolysers.
That's aside from Twiggy's mega hydrogen projects, which are being matched elsewhere.
On the vehicle front the move to electric at present rates will require that BEVs be supplemented by HEVs unless battery gigafactories grow like mushrooms around the world, and can be fed enough raw materials.  Green hydrogen has no raw material constraints and its cost curve is dropping rapidly (much faster than Alan Finkel's report suggested).
COP 26 is likely to spur governments to make significantly greater investments in the hydrogen option.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I doubt it.  The 40 needed to power Perth or the 100 needed to power Sydney are not likely to be welcome additions - the nimby syndrome - and there are no levels of politics supporting a nuclear pathway atm.
> On the other hand, advances in hydrogen technology over the next decade are likely to see it steamroll battery technologies.
> There are cost advances such as this.
> And there are production innovations, such as modular electrolysers.
> That's aside from Twiggy's mega hydrogen projects, which are being matched elsewhere.
> On the vehicle front the move to electric at present rates will require that BEVs be supplemented by HEVs unless battery gigafactories grow like mushrooms around the world, and can be fed enough raw materials.  Green hydrogen has no raw material constraints and its cost curve is dropping rapidly (much faster than Alan Finkel's report suggested).
> COP 26 is likely to spur governments to make significantly greater investments in the hydrogen option.



I agree with regard the hydrogen, it is definitely the way forward, however I also think small modular reactors will be the eventual backup to hydrogen production in a lot of places.
Also as I mentioned a few years back, it makes sense to have a nuclear plant running flat out 24/7, during times of high renewable output have the nuclear plant making hydrogen, as the renewable output drops off the nuclear plant throttles back on hydrogen production and supplies the load. That would save having to install a huge amount of hydro or battery storage capacity.
By the way SMR are up to about 300MW size.




__





						Small nuclear power reactors - World Nuclear Association
					

There is revival of interest in small and simpler units for generating electricity from nuclear power, and for process heat. This interest in small nuclear power reactors is driven both by a desire to reduce capital costs and to provide power away from large grid systems.




					www.world-nuclear.org
				





			https://aris.iaea.org/Publications/SMR_Book_2020.pdf
		


This is the French idea on making hydrogen:

https://www.reuters.com/business/su...tor-green-hydrogen-plants-by-2030-2021-10-12/
From the article:

_PARIS, Oct 12 (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that by 2030 France must be a leader in carbon-free power production, *and will build one small modular reactor as well as two megafactories for the production of green hydrogen by then*.

"We must be a leader in green hydrogen by 2030," Macron said in a speech.

*Macron said that Europe will never have enough renewable energy capacity to produce sufficient green hydrogen for mobility, and that France's nuclear plants are a major asset for producing green hydrogen via electrolysis*._


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I agree with regard the hydrogen, it is definitely the way forward, however I also think small modular reactors will be the eventual backup to hydrogen production in a lot of places.
> Also as I mentioned a few years back, it makes sense to have a nuclear plant running flat out 24/7, during times of high renewable output have the nuclear plant making hydrogen, as the renewable output drops off the nuclear plant throttles back on hydrogen production and supplies the load. That would save having to install a huge amount of hydro or battery storage capacity.
> By the way SMR are up to about 300MW size.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Small nuclear power reactors - World Nuclear Association
> 
> 
> There is revival of interest in small and simpler units for generating electricity from nuclear power, and for process heat. This interest in small nuclear power reactors is driven both by a desire to reduce capital costs and to provide power away from large grid systems.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.world-nuclear.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is the French idea on making hydrogen:
> 
> https://www.reuters.com/business/su...tor-green-hydrogen-plants-by-2030-2021-10-12/
> From the article:
> 
> _PARIS, Oct 12 (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that by 2030 France must be a leader in carbon-free power production, *and will build one small modular reactor as well as two megafactories for the production of green hydrogen by then*.
> 
> "We must be a leader in green hydrogen by 2030," Macron said in a speech.
> 
> *Macron said that Europe will never have enough renewable energy capacity to produce sufficient green hydrogen for mobility, and that France's nuclear plants are a major asset for producing green hydrogen via electrolysis*._



Given that grid scale solar is already running at US$0.034/KWh and SMR *might *get as low as US$0.055/KWh there is no economic case for going nuclear.  Moreover, the nuclear cost I have quoted is completely untested.
Green hydrogen also has the option of production from curtailment.
I don't discount the nuclear option for nations with limited renewable capacity, but France will be able to buy green hydrogen cheaper than they could produce it.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Given that grid scale solar is already running at US$0.034/KWh and SMR *might *get as low as US$0.055/KWh there is no economic case for going nuclear.  Moreover, the nuclear cost I have quoted is completely untested.
> Green hydrogen also has the option of production from curtailment.
> I don't discount the nuclear option for nations with limited renewable capacity, but France will be able to buy green hydrogen cheaper than they could produce it.



I'll re post what Macron said. I've highlighted the points that indicate nuclear, in Macron's opinion, is going to be required.
The other issue of course is grid scale solar at U.S .034/KWh, only has intermittent output, but that is another issue.
I personally think the decision on whether to install nuclear or not, will be self resolving, in the very near future.








						Macron says France to have mini nuclear reactor, green hydrogen plants by 2030
					

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that by 2030 France must be a leader in carbon-free power production, and will build one small modular reactor as well as two megafactories for the production of green hydrogen by then.




					www.reuters.com
				



From the article:
 French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that by 2030 France must be a leader in carbon-free power production, and will *build one small modular reactor as well as two megafactories for the production of green hydrogen by then.*

"We must be a leader in green hydrogen by 2030," Macron said in a speech.

*Macron said that Europe will never have enough renewable energy capacity to produce sufficient green hydrogen for mobility, and that France's nuclear plants are a major asset for producing green hydrogen via electrolysis.*


----------



## Smurf1976

An issue here is that as with anything, if you ask a salesman then they'll almost certainly recommend you buy what they're selling. No surprises there.

In the Australian context well the big energy companies with a heritage and ongoing operations in gas supply have a very good reason to push the continued use of gas and for gas-fired generation to be the backup to renewables.

Unsurprisingly the established hydro operators will argue that large scale pumped storage is the way forward and that they ought to build it.

And of course if we ask a battery manufacturer well yep, no prizes for guessing what they suggest.

Same with anything. Ask an airline how to move some freight and I'll guarantee that whatever they come up with will involve it being put on an aircraft. They're not going to suggest trains or ships. Etc same with anyone.

That also extends to states and countries. Pick any place that has either a natural advantage or an established major industry focused on one technology and no surprise they'll advocate it as the solution.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> An issue here is that as with anything, if you ask a salesman then they'll almost certainly recommend you buy what they're selling. No surprises there.
> 
> In the Australian context well the big energy companies with a heritage and ongoing operations in gas supply have a very good reason to push the continued use of gas and for gas-fired generation to be the backup to renewables.
> 
> Unsurprisingly the established hydro operators will argue that large scale pumped storage is the way forward and that they ought to build it.
> 
> And of course if we ask a battery manufacturer well yep, no prizes for guessing what they suggest.
> 
> Same with anything. Ask an airline how to move some freight and I'll guarantee that whatever they come up with will involve it being put on an aircraft. They're not going to suggest trains or ships. Etc same with anyone.
> 
> That also extends to states and countries. Pick any place that has either a natural advantage or an established major industry focused on one technology and no surprise they'll advocate it as the solution.



Indeed, which is why we need an independent person such as the Chief Scientist to provide the best solution.

Unfortunately of course the CS is appointed by the government of the day to  conform to the government's opinions. Chief Scientists with the guts will speak truth to power, we o n ly hope they get listened to


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> An issue here is that as with anything, if you ask a salesman then they'll almost certainly recommend you buy what they're selling. No surprises there.
> 
> In the Australian context well the big energy companies with a heritage and ongoing operations in gas supply have a very good reason to push the continued use of gas and for gas-fired generation to be the backup to renewables.
> 
> Unsurprisingly the established hydro operators will argue that large scale pumped storage is the way forward and that they ought to build it.
> 
> And of course if we ask a battery manufacturer well yep, no prizes for guessing what they suggest.
> 
> Same with anything. Ask an airline how to move some freight and I'll guarantee that whatever they come up with will involve it being put on an aircraft. They're not going to suggest trains or ships. Etc same with anyone.
> 
> That also extends to states and countries. Pick any place that has either a natural advantage or an established major industry focused on one technology and no surprise they'll advocate it as the solution.



A lot of the limitations are outside the control of the States and Countries e.g W.A ain't going to get much hydro. 🤣


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> A lot of the limitations are outside the control of the States and Countries e.g W.A ain't going to get much hydro. 🤣



WA's not as badly off as you might think there.

Quite a few pumped hydro sites have been identified, being concentrated in 3 main parts of the state.

One lot is right up north. The broad area north of Broome basically and that also continues on the NT side of the border as well.

Second lot is in the Pilbara in an area that broadly aligns with the present NWIS. So they're broadly south of Dampier and Port Hedland and close enough to present mining and industrial operations to be potentially useful.

The third lot is roughly in a line stretching about 250km and within commuting distance of Bunbury and Perth. That has attraction obviously.

A lot of those wouldn't be viable for practical or economic reasons but I'd be surprised if something couldn't be found out of all that which stacks up.


----------



## basilio

Small scale but creative and exceptionally practical for hundreds of millions of people.
And Australian designed and built.










						Travelling 250km to charge a phone prompts revolutionary e-waste solution for poverty-stricken families
					

A Logan social enterprise is turning electronic trash into a global treasure, repurposing old laptop batteries to create a solar-powered solution for poverty-stricken families across the world.




					www.abc.net.au
				




Key points:​
Recycling lithium-ion batteries will help reduce the amount that go into landfill in Australia
100 PowerWells were shipped to Indonesia this week, and another 157 will go next month
One PowerWell provides access to one household of about eight to 10 people on average


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> WA's not as badly off as you might think there.
> 
> Quite a few pumped hydro sites have been identified, being concentrated in 3 main parts of the state.
> 
> One lot is right up north. The broad area north of Broome basically and that also continues on the NT side of the border as well.
> 
> Second lot is in the Pilbara in an area that broadly aligns with the present NWIS. So they're broadly south of Dampier and Port Hedland and close enough to present mining and industrial operations to be potentially useful.
> 
> The third lot is roughly in a line stretching about 250km and within commuting distance of Bunbury and Perth. That has attraction obviously.
> 
> A lot of those wouldn't be viable for practical or economic reasons but I'd be surprised if something couldn't be found out of all that which stacks up.



This is the major issue with dams and super sized solar farms in W.A @Smurf1976 









						Sacred dam plan linked to Andrew Forrest latest to fall under scrutiny
					

Amid a growing backlash over the destruction of Aboriginal heritage sites, a proposal for the Ashburton River in Western Australia's Pilbara region linked to billionaire Andrew Forrest is the latest to come under scrutiny.




					www.abc.net.au
				












						Will WA Labor's plan for the Fitzroy River hold water and win votes?
					

In the lead up to the WA state election, how do candidates in the Kimberley feel about dams and irrigation projects?




					www.abc.net.au
				












						Red tape or native title? Forrest, WA minister at odds over hydrogen project decision
					

A war of words has broken out between Andrew Forrest and the WA Government over why the state's missing out on his hydrogen cash splash.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## basilio

How to move investment and the workforce from fossil fuels to green hydrogen in Port Kembla.









						Hydrogen investment to create 'level playing field' with fossil fuels says gas producer
					

Australia's largest producer of hydrogen claims the NSW investment in the sector will make producing hydrogen using renewable sources just as cost-effective as using fossil fuels.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> How to move investment and the workforce from fossil fuels to green hydrogen in Port Kembla.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hydrogen investment to create 'level playing field' with fossil fuels says gas producer
> 
> 
> Australia's largest producer of hydrogen claims the NSW investment in the sector will make producing hydrogen using renewable sources just as cost-effective as using fossil fuels.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



I'm certainly looking forward to seeing some of these companies, like coregas, do something to mitigate their carbon footprint other than talk up a storm.
They have been in business for a long time, making hydrogen from natural gas and their parent company isn't short of a quid, so why haven't they invested in some renewables in their process already?


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> I'm certainly looking forward to seeing some of these companies, like coregas, do something to mitigate their carbon footprint other than talk up a storm.
> They have been in business for a long time, making hydrogen from natural gas and their parent company isn't short of a quid, so why haven't they invested in some renewables in their process already?




Really good question isn't it ? I think Twiggy has a far bigger vision for the hydrogen economy than any single company. I think he  also recognises how dangerous/challenging CC is and can see a huge opportunity to make a  world of difference and make another fortune. 

On top of that he has a very wealthy vehicle with the technical experience to make this happen. And on top of that, this company (FMG)  will also add significantly  to it's bottom line through the projects he develops. It is an exceptionally good win/win/win/win equation.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> This is the major issue with dams and super sized solar farms in W.A @Smurf1976
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sacred dam plan linked to Andrew Forrest latest to fall under scrutiny
> 
> 
> Amid a growing backlash over the destruction of Aboriginal heritage sites, a proposal for the Ashburton River in Western Australia's Pilbara region linked to billionaire Andrew Forrest is the latest to come under scrutiny.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Will WA Labor's plan for the Fitzroy River hold water and win votes?
> 
> 
> In the lead up to the WA state election, how do candidates in the Kimberley feel about dams and irrigation projects?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Red tape or native title? Forrest, WA minister at odds over hydrogen project decision
> 
> 
> A war of words has broken out between Andrew Forrest and the WA Government over why the state's missing out on his hydrogen cash splash.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au




There is much to work through isn't there ? I think one way or another  this will happen. But we'll see how it all works..


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Really good question isn't it ? I think Twiggy has a far bigger vision for the hydrogen economy than any single company. I think he  also recognises how dangerous/challenging CC is and can see a huge opportunity to make a  world of difference and make another fortune.
> 
> On top of that he has a very wealthy vehicle with the technical experience to make this happen. And on top of that, this company (FMG)  will also add significantly  to it's bottom line through the projects he develops. It is an exceptionally good win/win/win/win equation.



You do realise Coregas is a subsidiary of Wesfarmers, don't you.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> You do realise Coregas is a subsidiary of Wesfarmers, don't you.




Yeah. So essentially it is huge conglomerate of many business activities. Each one is making  a buck inside it's own business model. There are corporate efforts to reduce carbon footprints but frankly none of these is seen as actually adding to the business itself.  

The point about Twiggys approach is that "The business is about massively reducing carbon emissions" . The major objective is creating clean energy at a competitive price.  Without that goal in mind Wesfarmers, The Banks whoever else will naturally focus on their profit centres.  So what does that mean in practice ?

Many years ago (early 90's)  I was an Energy Auditor for small and medium businesses.  I analysed energy bills, reviewed operational procedures and examined equipment.  I was looking for cost effective ways to reduce costs,  improve operating procedures and save/make money.

I found many  cost effective opportunities to reduce energy costs and make money. The payback period for  most of my recommendations were 8 months to 3 years. Some recommendations involved equipment upgrades would make a big difference to operational practices but sometimes  had a longer payback.  

But in the end it was all a bit sad. When I identified a significant savings by changing Power Tariffs (there only the SEC then) they were on it like a flash. But when it came to any other recommendations - more efficient motors, upgrading lighting, reviewing refrigeration items - Nuh. Essentially despite an excellent Rate of Return they saw more bucks in other areas particularly marketing or just cutting a wage.

The current moves to solar panels on supermarkets etc offers a very good ROI. Added to the social impact of the move  and cheap financing- in many cases off the balance sheet - it's easy to see why companies are going down that path


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> An issue here is that as with anything, if you ask a salesman then they'll almost certainly recommend you buy what they're selling. No surprises there.
> 
> In the Australian context well the big energy companies with a heritage and ongoing operations in gas supply have a very good reason to push the continued use of gas and for gas-fired generation to be the backup to renewables.
> 
> Unsurprisingly the established hydro operators will argue that large scale pumped storage is the way forward and that they ought to build it.
> 
> And of course if we ask a battery manufacturer well yep, no prizes for guessing what they suggest.
> 
> Same with anything. Ask an airline how to move some freight and I'll guarantee that whatever they come up with will involve it being put on an aircraft. They're not going to suggest trains or ships. Etc same with anyone.
> 
> That also extends to states and countries. Pick any place that has either a natural advantage or an established major industry focused on one technology and no surprise they'll advocate it as the solution.



The landscape has changed.
"*Disrupters*" rule, ok!

Blackberry and Nokia had mobile phone market dominance in their sectors and assumed their size/product was too good to fail.   They were wrong!

Musk began Tesla as a niche product, saw the cards falling his way, and gambled on an electric vehicle market in defiance of conventional wisdom.  He correctly saw the writing on the wall, and works hard staying ahead of the game.

It's not about what someone is selling nowadays.  In the energy market businesses have worked out that entry costs are no longer an inhibiter, and that without there being an ongoing raw material cost (coal, gas, etc.) capital costs are quickly amortised and profits flow with relatively little effort and comparatively few employees.

In this environment hydrogen is a bit analogous to the Tesla.   It was never cheap to begin with, but delivers in spades.  Although most Teslas are not easily affordable, it has many competitors with significantly less expensive offerings.  And EV models are getting cheaper as time passes. 

Twiggy has decided to go with a solution that he's sold to himself - as Musk has done time and again.
The days of self-serving vested interests garnering public or political favour are gone.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> The days of self-serving vested interests garnering public or political favour are gone



Agree with the rest but on that bit I'm not seeing it.

Right now in Australia we're still doing things, or someone is actively lobbying to do / not do them, that really only make sense in the context of keeping some vested interest happy either business or political.

That's not to say it's all like that but it's definitely going on. Some is extremely blatant, some is far better disguised.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Agree with the rest but on that bit I'm not seeing it.
> 
> Right now in Australia we're still doing things, or someone is actively lobbying to do / not do them, that really only make sense in the context of keeping some vested interest happy either business or political.
> 
> That's not to say it's all like that but it's definitely going on. Some is extremely blatant, some is far better disguised.



Yes, the coal lobby has been powerful, and the gas lobby too, especially with their predominant advisory roles to government.  
However, what has been happening under their (ie the powerful lobbyists') radar is renewables creep.  Many of the entrants have seldom been heard of, such as Verve energy which built Australia's first grid scale solar plant at Walkaway in WA.  Meanwhile Australia's biggest solar project,  Limondale at Balranald,  has been developed by Belectric.  And who has heard of Fotowatio Renewable Ventures?

My point is about who will become our new energy heroes, and why.  Renewables are a business no brainer. The Twiggys of the world know that, and in a world needing to turn greener still coal and gas (to a lesser extent) are becoming dinosaurs.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> The days of self-serving vested interests garnering public or political favour are gone.




Dear oh dear. You haven't observed coalition climate or energy policy for the last 10 years or so ?


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Dear oh dear. You haven't observed coalition climate or energy policy for the last 10 years or so ?



I think the Coalition is being driven by fossil fuel ideology and renewables latency at the federal level.  NSW has been trying to run a fair game on energy policy for years.  Queensland, which is only doing well due to its coal legacy, barely pays lip service to massive proposed developments that have been stagnant for years.  
Federally the Coalition is still trying to delay the closure of major coal-fired power plants, but not because of a pandering to coal per se.  Instead, it's their realisation that they have inadequate policies to ensure grid stability and prevent blackouts in coming years.
It is also the case that the fossil fuels jobs mantra is being shown as a fallacy.
Scomo is trying hard to avoid the perception of a backflip at COP26 and might win in the shorter term.  However his lump of coal stunt will never been forgotten, just as we oldies remember Fraser losing his trousers.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Dear oh dear. You haven't observed coalition climate or energy policy for the last 10 years or so ?



Yes you guys are right on the button, they were told 10 years ago how to do it by the guru's, they are just not listening. 40GW of concentrated solar salt storage, it's simple why don't we just shut down everything and put it in. 🤣




__





						Renewable Energy Focus | Journal | ScienceDirect.com by Elsevier
					

Read the latest articles of Renewable Energy Focus at ScienceDirect.com, Elsevier’s leading platform of peer-reviewed scholarly literature




					www.renewableenergyfocus.com
				




But what happened to the biggest base load concentrated solar storage saviour to be built in S.A? While we sit in the dark waiting for it to take over, you blokes need a reality check.








						The future of solar thermal power once promised so much, but has the shine worn off?
					

A decision to scrap a $650 million solar thermal energy project in South Australia has left lingering questions about the future of the technology.




					www.abc.net.au
				




Hang on wave generation will save us in 2015:








						World’s first grid-connected wave energy array switched on in Perth
					

Carnegie Wave Energy switches on Perth Wave Energy Project – the world’s first commercial wave energy array to feed energy to the grid.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				




But no it won't in 2019








						No wave farm, no power and no jobs — but not everyone has walked away a loser
					

The WA Government joins taxpayers and the town of Albany in a long line of losers from its failed wave energy deal with Carnegie Clean Energy — but senior company executives have not fared so poorly.




					www.abc.net.au
				




Christ knows what sort of mess we would be in if we ran from pillar to post, following brain farts, rather than a structured change, but it doesn't give all the excitement and rah rah like little Kev did when telling everyone China will R#t F%^k them, at least he was right about something. 🤣
With a bit of luck, Labor will be in next year and we can be 100% renewables by 2030, all it needs is a $hit load of taxpayers money thrown at it, until it does work and Labor are great at that.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Yes you guys are right on the button, they were told 10 years ago how to do it by the guru's, they are just not listening. 40GW of concentrated solar salt storage, it's simple why don't we just shut down everything and put it in. 🤣
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Renewable Energy Focus | Journal | ScienceDirect.com by Elsevier
> 
> 
> Read the latest articles of Renewable Energy Focus at ScienceDirect.com, Elsevier’s leading platform of peer-reviewed scholarly literature
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.renewableenergyfocus.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But what happened to the biggest base load concentrated solar storage saviour to be built in S.A? While we sit in the dark waiting for it to take over, you blokes need a reality check.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The future of solar thermal power once promised so much, but has the shine worn off?
> 
> 
> A decision to scrap a $650 million solar thermal energy project in South Australia has left lingering questions about the future of the technology.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Christ knows what sort of mess we would be in if we ran from pillar to post, following brain farts, rather than a structured change, but it doesn't give all the excitement and rah rah like little Kev did when telling everyone China will R#t F%^k them, at least he was right about something. 🤣
> With a bit of luck, Labor will be in next year and we can be 100% renewables by 2030, all it needs is a $hit load of taxpayers money thrown at it, until it does work and Labor are great at that.




Well the reality is the the Feds have basically sat on their hands on everything, except Snowy Hydro which was that devil Turnbull's brainchild and may yet turn out to be the smartest thing he ever did.

*With a bit of luck, Labor will be in next year and we can be 100% renewables by 2030, all it needs is a $hit load of taxpayers money thrown at it, until it does work and Labor are great at that*

A $shitload of taxpayers money was thrown at the Snowy Mountains scheme by another Labor devil called Chifley, was that wasted ?


----------



## SirRumpole

SirRumpole said:


> Well the reality is the the Feds have basically sat on their hands on everything, except Snowy Hydro which was that devil Turnbull's brainchild and may yet turn out to be the smartest thing he ever did.
> 
> *With a bit of luck, Labor will be in next year and we can be 100% renewables by 2030, all it needs is a $hit load of taxpayers money thrown at it, until it does work and Labor are great at that*
> 
> A $shitload of taxpayers money was thrown at the Snowy Mountains scheme by another Labor devil called Chifley, was that wasted ?




BTW I agree with their gas plans, but even that is a stop gap until bigger hydro plants can be built.

I wouldn't even disagree with nuclear as long as someone pulls their finger out and sets a reasonable target.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Well the reality is the the Feds have basically sat on their hands on everything, except Snowy Hydro which was that devil Turnbull's brainchild and may yet turn out to be the smartest thing he ever did.
> 
> *With a bit of luck, Labor will be in next year and we can be 100% renewables by 2030, all it needs is a $hit load of taxpayers money thrown at it, until it does work and Labor are great at that*
> 
> A $shitload of taxpayers money was thrown at the Snowy Mountains scheme by another Labor devil called Chifley, was that wasted ?



The reality is, the Feds are not throwing taxpayers money, when the private sector are already throwing as much at the issue as the grid can handle, just because we aren't wasting it doesn't mean we aren't doing anything. That is just illogical thinking.
The Feds are funding the HV transmission re configuration, to accept more renewables in the NW of Vic and the SW of NSW, ARENA is funding renewable ideas on all fronts, not just power generation, but I guess I'm one of the people that would rather see things done in a sensible structured manner, than doing it on the front page of the Guardian and SMH.
When Labor get in the transition will be run like a Hollywood production in the media, until the stuff ups start, then it will slide to the back pages IMO.

By the way I doubt Turnbull came into work one day, called everyone around and said "hold up, I've got an idea", nice to think that of him but personally I doubt it. 🤣





__





						Projects - Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA)
					

ARENA supports projects that advance renewable energy technologies from early stage research in the lab, to later stage demonstration projects in the field.




					arena.gov.au


----------



## SirRumpole

Australian Renewable Energy Agency Act 2011​
That would have been when Labor was in wouldn't it ? (don't say that too loudly).


----------



## sptrawler

A good article on the state of play with the Nationals, re the zero emissions.









						Hon. Barnaby Joyce MP. Interview with Michael Rowland, ABC News Breakfast Monday, 18 October 2021
					

Interview with Michael Rowland, ABC News Breakfast Monday, 18 October 2021 TOPICS: Net zero EO&E… MICHAEL ROWLAND: The Prime Minister may now be




					www.miragenews.com


----------



## basilio

This is exceptional story of how to  pull together rooftop PVs. Incorporates important technical aspects of smoothing power generation and financial structuring that resolves owner vs renter problems.









						The weekend read: Powerful equation to expand C&I solar
					

Big rooftop PV systems on factories, warehouses and public buildings need not be limited by ownership issues nor local grid capacity, claims Australian innovator EleXsys Energy. The company is maxing out an Ikea in Adelaide, Australia, with solar and storage. And it claims its smart technology...




					www.pv-magazine.com


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Australian Renewable Energy Agency Act 2011​
> That would have been when Labor was in wouldn't it ? (don't say that too loudly).



I've never said, they don't have good ideas, it is the implementation they stuff up, we would already be stuffed as the only country in the world shutting itself down with a carbon tax which was introduced back then.
Instead of just waiting and fitting in with the world, as a universal carbon tax, is just around the corner.
But the narrative always sounds better, when you don't include the reality.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I've never said, they don't have good ideas, it is the implementation they stuff up, we would already be stuffed as the only country in the world shutting itself down with a carbon tax which was introduced back then.
> Instead of just waiting and fitting in with the world, as a universal carbon tax, is just around the corner.
> But the narrative always sounds better, when you don't include the reality.




If we became more carbon neutral sooner we wouldn't have to pay the carbon taxes that the rest of the world are about to lump on us.

Anyone could see it coming, and being slow off the mark will cost us big bucks.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> This is exceptional story of how to  pull together rooftop PVs. Incorporates important technical aspects of smoothing power generation and financial structuring that resolves owner vs renter problems.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The weekend read: Powerful equation to expand C&I solar
> 
> 
> Big rooftop PV systems on factories, warehouses and public buildings need not be limited by ownership issues nor local grid capacity, claims Australian innovator EleXsys Energy. The company is maxing out an Ikea in Adelaide, Australia, with solar and storage. And it claims its smart technology...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.pv-magazine.com



I think in this thread quite a while ago, we suggested all large commercial buildings and car parks etc, should have solar and battery requirement as part of their planning acceptance stage.
From memory, I think it was posted here that the old Holden plant in Elizabeth near Adelaide, was retrofitted with solar.
Yes here it is: An article from March 2021








						CEP to build 150MW big battery at former Holden plant in South Australia
					

CEP reveals the second of four grid-scale energy storage projects, a 150MW big battery to be built on the outer Adelaide site of the former GMH manufacturing plant.




					reneweconomy.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> If we became more carbon neutral sooner we wouldn't have to pay the carbon taxes that the rest of the world are about to lump on us.
> 
> Anyone could see it coming, and being slow off the mark will cost us big bucks.



Introducing it here 10 years ago to put our companies at a bigger disadvantage than they already were, was dumb, if we had been fast off the mark there wouldn't have been anything left to save.
But maybe that would have been better, at least we would be done and dusted, then maybe everyone could get more sensible.
Everyone could see it coming, but no one wanted to be first, because it would put an extra fiscal burden on that countries exports, now everyone is getting on the same page the burden will be equal on everyone. Especially China and its exports IMO, they are the biggest emitter.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Introducing it here 10 years ago to put our companies at a bigger disadvantage than they already were, was dumb, if we had been fast off the mark there wouldn't have been anything left to save.
> But maybe that would have been better, at least we would be done and dusted, then maybe everyone could get more sensible.




OK say no more.

Truce ?


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Introducing it here 10 years ago to put our companies at a bigger disadvantage than they already were, was dumb, if we had been fast off the mark there wouldn't have been anything left to save.
> But maybe that would have been better, at least we would be done and dusted, then maybe everyone could get more sensible.
> Everyone could see it coming, but no one wanted to be first, because it would put an extra fiscal burden on that countries exports, now everyone is getting on the same page the burden will be equal on everyone. Especially China and its exports IMO, they are the biggest emitter.



Bunkum!
The carbon price was placed on *large *emitters for the financial years 2012/13 and 2013/14.
As evidenced from our employment data over the period (below) manufacturing employment was significantly higher during these 2 years compared to the 2 years after it was abolished:
	

		
			
		

		
	






Total employment continued to rise as well.
So we were not put at a disadvantage back then, as you suggest.  But, as @SirRumpole suggests, our manufacturers in coming years will likely be competing against countries that have already been pricing-in carbon.
The other failing from Abbott's carbon price abolition was a reversal of the new momentum towards renewables.  Aside from residential solar we are well behind where we would otherwise have been, and that's including neglecting to plan for the necessary infrastructure to transition to renewables.
Luckily for us there elements of the private sector that continue to force the hand of government so that we aren't so far behind that we cannot catch up.


----------



## sptrawler

Total employment continued to rise for several years, as the mining boom continued and we were even bringing in cleaners from the Philippines.
The two biggest emitters have only recently moved toward a carbon tax, the U.S and China, Australia will no doubt fall in line when a standard tax becomes obvious as we are with net zero, this of course doesn't carry the fanfare that some political parties like, but it does make sense to many IMO.








						What Countries Have A Carbon Tax? | Earth.Org
					

Earth.Org takes a look at what countries have a carbon tax and other financial mechanisms as a tool to incentivise parties to reduce carbon emissions.




					earth.org
				



From the article: Printed 10/ Sept 2021
*Carbon Tax in China*

China recently launched its national emissions trading scheme, making it the world’s largest carbon market. On the first day of its opening on July 16, the market saw 4.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide quotas worth USD$32 millions traded. The country will likely push for more market-based mechanisms to help lower carbon emissions and to help reach its zero emission target by 2060. 

*Lack of Emissions Trading System in the US*

One of the most glaring absences from the list is the US, especially considering they are one of the world’s largest carbon emitters. While President Joe Biden has made a significant push for his clean energy agenda since stepping into office – he pledged to slash US emissions by 50% by 2030, reach zero emissions by 2050, and signed an executive order to make 50% of all new US cars electric by 2030 – he has notably failed to include any carbon pricing initiatives or schemes in his clean energy plan. Democrats’ proposal of adopting a carbon border tax was largely ignored by the White House.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Total employment continued to rise for several years, as the mining boom continued and we were even bringing in cleaners from the Philippines.



The mining boom was over 2 years before carbon pricing, and housemaids account for diddly squat employment!
As the 2021 map below shows, we are not even at the start line for an ETS or similar program.





Presently we cannot compete with Asia on labour costs, we cannot compete with the USA on market size, and we cannot compete with Europe on carbon pricing.
I am at a loss to understand your logic on how our companies might play catch up once we do implement any sort of carbon pricing, let alone a unified one, given our pricing would have to increase as a result.  Moreover, Europe for example, might decrease their pricing due to already having a high price on carbon in place. 

The above is a bit off topic.  But when we had a carbon price in place there was economic imperative for major emitters to shift focus to renewables and gas over coal.  Abbott changed that, manufacturing jobs continued their decline despite Coalition rhetoric that claimed jobs would return, and our electricity market since then has been nothing other than a bugger's muddle.


----------



## sptrawler

From my recollection the mining boom was over in 2015, it peaked in 2012, well in W.A that's how I remember it.

I didn't say our companies will play catch up, when we implement a carbon price, I said we will probably implement a carbon pricing method that aligns with other Countries as opposed to preceding other countries.

Where we have an advantage, we will no doubt grow, as is the case currently with mineral extraction, forward looking that advantage will probably be in renewable energy. Shame we shut down solar panel manufacturing in Sydney's Homebush in 2009, because of cheap imports from China, no doubt putting a carbon tax on the power the factory used would have helped. I mean seriously.
What might have helped would have been if Kev gave them a break, as it was a "clean energy business", instead of sending them offshore.
You know who I mean, clean, green back of the napkin Kev. 
Lets bring in a carbon tax and shut down solar panel manufacturing FFS, how ironic.

Where countries that manufacture goods using carbon intensive energy e.g China, one would assume they will incur an extra cost on their product.
If we have a surcharge put on our coal, that surcharge will no doubt be passed on to whoever buys it and that in turn makes their unit costs higher, which will drive more push to cleaner energy.
As can be seen in the rest of the world at the moment, their electricity market is the biggest bugger's muddle of all, so what point you are driving at escapes me.


----------



## mullokintyre

sptrawler said:


> I'm certainly looking forward to seeing some of these companies, like coregas, do something to mitigate their carbon footprint other than talk up a storm.
> They have been in business for a long time, making hydrogen from natural gas and their parent company isn't short of a quid, so why haven't they invested in some renewables in their process already?



Correct me if I am wrong, but I always thought that making hydrogen from natural gas creates a byproduct called Co2.
They may as well just burn the natural gas and be done with it.
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> Correct me if I am wrong, but I always thought that making hydrogen from natural gas creates a byproduct called Co2.
> They may as well just burn the natural gas and be done with it.
> Mick



Exactly what I was getting at, coregas (WES) applauding the move toward clean hydrogen, when they could have been moving toward it for years, instead of making dirty hydrogen. It is just some failed to pick up on the irony.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Introducing it here 10 years ago to put our companies at a bigger disadvantage than they already were, was dumb,




Not if we put a carbon tax on imports like what is being done to us now.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Not if we put a carbon tax on imports like what is being done to us now.



Us put a carbon tax on China, yeh that would have been a hoot, jeez Rumpy get a grip.
We $hit ourselves when they put an embargo on our crayfish, imagine if we started our own tax back then on Chinese crap coming here we had already shut everything down.
All China would have done is put an sanctions on sending junk here, the shops would be empty in a week, look what happened with toilet roll and we make it here. 
If we adopt a carbon tax and or a carbon goal, it makes sense to just conform with what is accepted by the major players, to try and drive the World agenda from Australia just confirms how we are perceived overseas, suffering from 'short man syndrome'.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Us put a carbon tax on China, yeh that would have been a hoot, jeez Rumpy get a grip.
> We $hit ourselves when they put an embargo on our crayfish, imagine if we started our own tax back then on Chinese crap coming here we had already shut everything down.
> All China would have done is put an sanctions on sending junk here, the shops would be empty in a week, look what happened with toilet roll and we make it here.
> If we adopt a carbon tax and or a carbon goal, it makes sense to just conform with what is accepted by the major players, to try and drive the World agenda from Australia just confirms how we are perceived overseas, suffering from 'short man syndrome'.




OK, the world is now going down the carbon tax route and we will be dragged along like it or not, so Barnaby and the Nats will  have no choice but to suck it up imo.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> What might have helped would have been if Kev gave them a break, as it was a "clean energy business", instead of sending them offshore.
> You know who I mean, clean, green back of the napkin Kev.
> Lets bring in a carbon tax and shut down solar panel manufacturing FFS, how ironic.



*Manufacturing employment was barely affected by Big Kev, but screwed after Abbott got in so you are clutching at straws on that one!*


sptrawler said:


> Where countries that manufacture goods using carbon intensive energy e.g China, one would assume they will incur an extra cost on their product.



*Except that China is a much more efficient manufacturer than Australia using the CO2 metric  in its energy consumption:*



*Twenty years ago China fossil fuel per capita electricity footprint was at 82%.  Today it's 18 percentage points lower, due to renewables,  despite massive increases in total electricity consumption over that period.  In fact over the past 5 years China's renewables capacity additions have increased three times more than coal's:   *







sptrawler said:


> As can be seen in the rest of the world at the moment, their electricity market is the biggest bugger's muddle of all, so what point you are driving at escapes me.



*It's true that shedding has been severe this year in China, but for as long as I can remember China has had difficulty keeping the lights on, or industry ticking over, across the nation throughout the year.  However, unlike Australia, **China has a plan**.*


----------



## sptrawler

With Kev I was actually just referring to the loss of our solar panel manufacturing, which considering Labor were concerned about emissions was something one would think they would have embraced.
With regard Abbott, in hindsight it was a master stroke to stop subsidising the car industry, it would be a completely stranded industry now, whereas the solar panel manufacturing would have been booming with the rooftop uptake that has happened.
Most of Australia's manufacturing was lost during the rapid tariff cuts from the 1980's to early 1990's, under the Button plan. Manufacturing dropped from 30% of GDP to 6% of GDP.

Interesting podcast from the ABC, our current situation from the 1970's starts at about the 20minute mark.




__





						Self-reliance or dependence - a history of Australian manufacturing - ABC Radio National
					

There was a time in the 1960s when Australia manufactured almost everything – washing machines and fridges, footwear and clothes, cars and steel. It was a major part of our GDP and employed almost a third of the workforce. Today it’s a very different story. What happened?




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> OK, the world is now going down the carbon tax route and we will be dragged along like it or not, so Barnaby and the Nats will  have no choice but to suck it up imo.



Spot on IMO, and I would guess Barnaby knows it he certainly sounds like he does, but he has to be seen to be voicing the concerns of his electorate and trying to get the best deal he can for the loss of their industries. 
Politics really, the tide is certainly flowing, there is no way it will be stopped and Barnaby will know he has a better chance of gaining concessions while in Government than if he ends up in opposition.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> With Kev I was actually just referring to the loss of our solar panel manufacturing, which considering Labor were concerned about emissions was something one would think they would have embraced.



Nothing stopped cheaper PV manufacture from occurring and in any case what happened here was nothing compared to what occurred in Europe and the USA through industry restructure as large scale became dominant over over smaller operations.


sptrawler said:


> With regard Abbott, in hindsight it was a master stroke to stop subsidising the car industry, it would be a completely stranded industry now, whereas the solar panel manufacturing would have been booming with the rooftop uptake that has happened.



Nope - we were not competitive in solar and even your ABC link showed that despite prohibitively high manufacturing tariffs it was difficult to be profitable in the '80s.   Moreover, your point about manufacturing declining as a share of GDP was being replicated across most western economies, so we merely reflected global trends of the times.

That aside, your claim that a carbon price "10 years ago to put our companies at a bigger disadvantage than they already were" is not supported by data.  On the other hand nations that embraced green technology experienced massive new-job creation.  Furthermore, Coalition policies after Abbott abolished the carbon price actually increased the price of electricity more than the carbon price:




While the above charts "Annual volume weighted average spot prices - regions" rather than metred prices it gives the lie to everything the Coalition promised on electricity prices.


----------



## sptrawler

As per usual Rob we have different opinions on things, a bit the same as my take on the media always being negative and you then go on to say it is only my perception of the media. 
So I know you will disagree with me, but I did find this article which explains why the media are always so depressing and negative and it is written by a journalist.








						Is media coverage of  COVID-19 too negative?
					

Is it possible the news coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic has been too negative? Some curious research should at least make us consider the question.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:
*Negativity bias*

Why is news so often negative? Journalists and editors are trained to focus on negativity. Often this is good. Journalism should focus on the problems in society.
“I don’t think this is unique to COVID coverage by any means. It is absolutely consistent with how the media cover anything,” says Denis Muller, senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism.

Part of it is readers. During negative events, like pandemics, news demand dramatically increases. News organisations respond to the desires of their audience.
“Empirically, we know media outlets that concentrate on positive news don’t last very long,” Dr Muller says.

What’s going on? Negativity bias. People are much more drawn to, and more affected by, negative events than positive ones. Losing money hurts more than winning money feels good. Being abandoned by a friend is much more painful than the joy that comes from making a new one.
Our brains are wired to pay more attention to risks than benefits. It may be a gift from our evolution. A person who ignores a positive outcome lives with some regret. A person who ignores a negative one – say, a lion – does not get to have those same regrets!

*What’s all this negativity doing to us?*
It is clear COVID-19 has not been good for our mental health. High-level evidence suggests cases of major depressive disorder and anxiety disorder have risen by about 25 per cent globally due to the pandemic.
I don’t think we can pin this on negative media coverage. Scientifically, it’s almost impossible to disentangle the effects of negative news coverage from the effects of people dying and things being bad.

But there is some evidence the more news we consume during a crisis, the more likely we are to later develop PTSD symptoms afterwards. When people perceive news as negative, they feel worse.
Perhaps the biggest effect of negativity, argues Dr Muller, was the focus on AstraZeneca’s rare clotting issues.
“The extent of the exposure made the incidence of clotting look far greater than it was. This almost certainly contributed to vaccine hesitancy and to the creation of a stereotype about AZ as the vaccine of last resort,” he says.
*What can we do?*
In the spirit of not being negative about negativity, let’s ask: if there is a negative bias, what can we do about it?

One solution: “constructive journalism”. Journalism that is “calm in tone, being less focused on scandals, conflicts and outrage”. It remains critical and balanced and focussed on the problems faced by society, but offers both problem and solution in the same breath.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Nothing stopped cheaper PV manufacture from occurring and in any case what happened here was nothing compared to what occurred in Europe and the USA through industry restructure as large scale became dominant over over smaller operations.
> 
> Nope - we were not competitive in solar and even your ABC link showed that despite prohibitively high manufacturing tariffs it was difficult to be profitable in the '80s.   Moreover, your point about manufacturing declining as a share of GDP was being replicated across most western economies, so we merely reflected global trends of the times.



Well it's good to see you agree with most of what I pointed out, as you say we are not cost competitive, so putting another cost on top would have made it worse.
I still think some industries are sensible to support and subsidies, in much the same way as is happening now through agencies such as ARENA, fortunately the pandemic has brought to a head the problem with the rush to the bottom which all sides of politics have followed.


----------



## sptrawler

Dubbo sounds like it may be getting an interesting generating plant, if it goes ahead.


			https://asm-au.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/ASM_Dubbo-newsletter_25_OCT2020.pdf
		

From the article:
ASM is exploring options for the Dubbo Project to be a true carbon-neutral operation. As part of this, we are investigating the potential for largescale renewable energy generation – solar, wind, hydrogen and biogen. This would complement the power cogeneration plant that is already part of the plant’s design. Generated energy would be used onsite, stored and/or exported to the grid.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> Dubbo sounds like it may be getting an interesting generating plant, if it goes ahead.
> 
> 
> https://asm-au.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/ASM_Dubbo-newsletter_25_OCT2020.pdf
> 
> 
> From the article:
> ASM is exploring options for the Dubbo Project to be a true carbon-neutral operation. As part of this, we are investigating the potential for largescale renewable energy generation – solar, wind, hydrogen and biogen. This would complement the power cogeneration plant that is already part of the plant’s design. Generated energy would be used onsite, stored and/or exported to the grid.




As far as I can see almost every new mining operation is going to involve some clean renewable energy source. I'd be confident that it comes down to the economics of the situation. For a start the cost of upgrading power supplies to support  a new intensive industry on the end of a power line would be prohibitive. So it's  al round..


----------



## SirRumpole

The ups and downs of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Well it's good to see you agree with most of what I pointed out, as you say we are not cost competitive, so putting another cost on top would have made it worse.



Silex made its decision to cease production before the carbon price took effect because it was no longer competitive, so stop flogging a dead horse.


sptrawler said:


> I still think some industries are sensible to support and subsidies, in much the same way as is happening now through agencies such as ARENA,



ARENA funds *pre-commercial* innovations. 
Abbott vowed to get rid of ARENA and everything else that Labor put in place to support renewables.  That's why our renewables footprint today is so much lower than China, the UK, USA, Germany Japan and host of other western nations.  
I might need to call you Homer Van Winkle and see if I can wake you up, but maybe you still need to sleep for another 10 years!


----------



## SirRumpole

Why no thorium reactors yet ?


----------



## SirRumpole

Great video on hydrogen production , storage and transport including two Australian innovations.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Silex made its decision to cease production before the carbon price took effect because it was no longer competitive, so stop flogging a dead horse.



I'm not flogging a dead horse, the manufacturing and actual invention of solar panels happened in Sydney, they were being produced at the same time that Labor's political platform included emission reduction, the Homebush manufacturing plant in Sydney closed because as you said it wasn't competitive.
I said if they added the cost of a carbon tax on top of the cost to manufacture i.e electricity, aluminium, the increase in wages as a result of the inflationary pressures, it would have made the manufacturing of the panels even less competitive.
Stop ducking and weaving. 




rederob said:


> ARENA funds *pre-commercial* innovations.
> Abbott vowed to get rid of ARENA and everything else that Labor put in place to support renewables.  *That's why our renewables footprint today is so much lower than China, the UK, USA, Germany Japan and host of other western nations.*
> I might need to call you Homer Van Winkle and see if I can wake you up, but maybe you still need to sleep for another 10 years!



Arena is still there and is still funding pre-commercial innovations, also the coalition is still in Government and still funding it, thankfully Rudd and Abbott have moved on, well in body not in mouth.
So whether Abbott vowed to get rid off ARENA or not, has little to do with solar panels, this was about Rudd allowing the solar panel factory to shut down, try to stay on track. 

By the way I keep saying we are doing well with reducing our carbon footprint, I'm pleased you also finally agree on that issue. 
Also what's amazing it is on Scomos watch, who would have thought.  









						Australia is the runaway global leader in building new renewable energy
					

Australia is installing renewable energy at more than ten times the global average. This is excellent news, but raises serious questions about integrating this electricity into our grids.




					theconversation.com
				



From the article:
In Australia, renewable energy is growing at a per capita rate ten times faster than the world average. Between 2018 and 2020, Australia will install more than 16 gigawatts of wind and solar, an average rate of 220 watts per person per year.

This is nearly three times faster than the next fastest country, Germany. Australia is demonstrating to the world how rapidly an industrialised country with a fossil-fuel-dominated electricity system can transition towards low-carbon, renewable power generation.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I'm not flogging a dead horse, the manufacturing and actual invention of solar panels happened in Sydney, ....



Nope.


sptrawler said:


> I said if they added the cost of a carbon tax on top of the cost to manufacture ....



You are avoiding the fact that the carbon price did not affect manufacturing employment, but it declined significantly for several years after it was removed.


sptrawler said:


> So whether Abbott vowed to get rid off ARENA or not, has little to do with solar panels, this was about Rudd allowing the solar panel factory to shut down, try to stay on track.



Get a grip, they were going to close regardless.  


sptrawler said:


> By the way I keep saying we are doing well with reducing our carbon footprint, I'm pleased you also finally agree on that issue.
> Also what's amazing it is on Scomos watch, who would have thought.



Scomo has had nothing to do with it.  Indeed, his Energy Minister's reluctance to provide policy certainty needed for the private sector to invest at necessary levels has caused the feds to buy and fund Snowy!  Luckily wind and solar prices are *now *so cheap they are growing around the place like mushrooms.

It has been your view that a price on carbon is an economic negative, but that has not been the case for Australia.  Harking on about one small factory closure that was not competitive is a weak defence.  As was shown in Europe, carbon trading schemes spurred employment growth and new industries.  Luckily we have forward thinkers with lots of cash to splash now, and the likes of Twiggy and hydrogen will hopefully spur the government to accelerate our development of the rapidly emerging sector.


----------



## sptrawler

Your avoiding the fact that you said that the manufacturing shut down because it wasn't financially competitive and I said an added carbon tax would have made it even less competitive.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Your avoiding the fact that you said that the manufacturing shut down because it wasn't financially competitive and I said an added carbon tax would have made it even less competitive.



You know the horse is dead, don't you?
I said Silex decided to stop production before the carbon price took effect (initially a year beforehand) *and that manufacturing employment while the carbon price was in place was relatively unaffected. * Part of the reason was probably because the government allocated around 40 per cent of carbon price revenue to help businesses and support jobs. 
It's a desperate and irrelevant argument you are running.
Regarding Silex's closure:
CEO Michael Goldsworthy blamed the “triple whammy” of cheap Chinese modules flooding the market, the high Australian dollar, and inadequate government support.​
You seem keen to run the Coalition lie about the negative effects of carbon pricing, and your introductory post on this matter made it clear that if it remained in place we might not have industries to save.  @SirRumpole rightly called you out on this, and noted because we are so far behind many nations it will cost us.  Ironically, you have been making this point about Silex's closure (despite it never actually being a relevant factor).

Luckily most of our larger mining, oil and gas producers have preempted the inevitable and now regularly report on their efforts to be carbon neutral by 2050.  Despite this Scomo still hasn't been able to get the Coalition on the same page on reaching this target.  We remain a joke on the international stage because Scomo continues to be a policy vacuum.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> You know the horse is dead, don't you?
> I said Silex decided to stop production before the carbon price took effect (initially a year beforehand) *and that manufacturing employment while the carbon price was in place was relatively unaffected. * Part of the reason was probably because the government allocated around 40 per cent of carbon price revenue to help businesses and support jobs.



Silex may have closed two years earlier, many other manufacturing jobs that struggled through would have had the impost of higher electricity prices and higher input costs, Abbott removed it before it gained traction.
You of course had selective hearing when you listened to the podcast, what you quoted above is the same blurb Labor did when they removed tariffs in the 1980's and 1990's, they allocated business support programmes to help support businesses face the cheap overseas competition and retrain those who were affected.
We all now how that worked, the Midland workshops closed 800 apprenticeships lost per year, SEC reduced their intake of apprentices, manufacturing collapsed and all those apprenticeships were lost. Then what happened 457 visas to bring in tradespeople.

You also try to infer it wouldn't affect business, then in the same breath say the Government allocated 40% of the tax to support affected businesses and jobs, is that a two way bet or just plain BS?

The argument I'm running is, a carbon tax will be a universal one that is applied to all countries, not an half ar$ed Australian tax for Australian companies, so that Australian's can pick up the added costs to their day to day living that the companies passed on to them.

What argument you're running I don't understand, Australia had had a stellar 10 years since the carbon price was dumped and there is no carbon tax on yet, but we as you say are moving toward it, so suggesting we would have done better with a tax that we didn't apply is an absolutely fascinating take on it.
Currently Australia is leading the world in the uptake and adoption of renewables, so I'm sure we will adapt to a carbon tax as quickly and effectively as other countries.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> You of course had selective hearing when you listened to the podcast, that you quoted, you're quoting the same blurb Labor did when they removed tariffs in the 1980's and 1990's, they allocated business support programmes to help support businesses face the cheap overseas competition.
> We all now how that worked.



Post on topic please.
Whitlam's 25% reduction in tariffs in 1973 kicked off where Australia headed and you seem to forget the many other factors that led to manufacturing losses.  They included labour costs, strong dollar, inability to match manufacturing at scale that that was occurring globally,  very small consumer market, introduction of containerisation and generally lowering distribution costs. 


sptrawler said:


> The difference that Australia will have this time around is, a carbon tax will be a universal one that is applied to all countries, not an Australian tax for Australian companies, so that Australian's can pick up the added costs to their day to day living that the companies passed on to them.



Old ground!
Nearly all our major competitors have already put in place or are soon to put in place this "tax" so some might not be affected at all, and others minimally.  *We are completely exposed.  *Moreover, the FTA with the UK will turn into a white elephant as they too will be playing catchup and it makes no sense to continue a trading arrangement that will be uncompetitive.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Post on topic please.
> Whitlam's 25% reduction in tariffs in 1973 kicked off where Australia headed and you seem to forget the many other factors that led to manufacturing losses.  They included labour costs, strong dollar, inability to match manufacturing at scale that that was occurring globally,  very small consumer market, introduction of containerisation and generally lowering distribution costs.



After Whitlam in the 1970's, tariffs were again increased by Fraser to assist business, probably the only decent thing he did IMO.
The main tariff reductions were in the Hawke and Keating years, also at the same time the dollar was floated and fell 50%, the result was still the same, we were uncompetitive with 3rd world wages and 3rd world costs, everyone new that would be the case without tariff protection.
The same applied to the carbon tax, it would have put an impost on business, that impost would have to have been passed on to the consumer or with export products added to the price of the product.
How that would have helped a Country, that even by your reckoning already suffers from huge disadvantages on manufacturing scale, strong currency, very small consumer market, is very hard to fathom.
It may have forced us to be cleaner, but if done 10 years ago whether that would have resulted in benefits is dubious, it has been only recently that big advances in renewable technology and devices has occured, 10 years ago solar panels, batteries etc were crap.
Even gas turbines have improved recently, to get 50% efficiency 10 years ago combined cycle was required, now high efficiency open cycle turbines are getting near 50%, so the wastage over the period caused by technological advancement would have to factored into the overall cost.
10 years ago molten salt storage generation was the goto medium, now it has all but been abandoned, yet we were going hell for leather toward it, as I've previously posted.
So IMO the big white elephant, would have been the early adoption of a carbon tax, the same usually applies to the early adoption of anything.




rederob said:


> Old ground!
> Nearly all our major competitors have already put in place or are soon to put in place this "tax" so some might not be affected at all, and others minimally.  *We are completely exposed.  *Moreover, the FTA with the UK will turn into a white elephant as they too will be playing catchup and it makes no sense to continue a trading arrangement that will be uncompetitive.



Agreed with caveats,  China has introduced a tax this year the U.S hasn't yet, as I posted and they emit 40% of global emissions.
I would assume a universal carbon tax will be adopted and as I have already said I believe Australia will adopt it or design a tax that fits in with it.
That is the logical course of action, an intelligent Government of a rather small country on the world stage would follow IMO.
Not do as Labor did and try to impress on the world stage, by kicking an own goal, that showed political immaturity IMO.


----------



## Smurf1976

So far as manufacturing's concerned, the big problem is that we basically swapped manufacturing for being the world's quarry.

The factories shut and in their place came massive production of coal, iron ore and natural gas.

Economically that model works only so long as the world keeps buying lots of coal, iron ore and natural gas ,we've got some to sell, and we can live with the impacts of extracting it which will inevitably rise over time as the most easily accessed deposits are used first.

There's no point living in the past, what's done is done, but if we're going to make another change, if we're going to not be the king of coal anymore, well then we need something else not to employ people, that's dead easy, but to bring in the big $ exports.

Hydrogen might do it if we can sell enough of it at a high enough price. Maybe. It does have the problem that there's rather a lot of countries that can potentially compete since having sun or wind and a shipping port isn't particularly uncommon.

If hydrogen doesn't do it well then realistically there aren't too many options that don't involve manufacturing of some sort. Either way, be it hydrogen or manufacturing, it requires electricity as a key input and lots of it.

As for anything that comes out of Glasgow well it's politics and let's be blunt, politics is about as reliable as a candle in a cyclone. Can anyone point me to even one political commitment, from any democratically elected government anywhere in the world, made 29+ years ago that can in practice be enforced today? Those attending will be well aware that by the time 2050 rolls around it's unlikely that even one of them will still be a political leader of any sort indeed many won't even be alive.

After all, Australia's going to cut its emissions 15% by 2005 as a former PM promised....   

As for energy supply in the Australian context, well things could get rather "interesting" given that the ACCC now has the forward LNG netback price at $41.42 for January 2022 and nothing below $18 through to March 2023. Bearing in mind that anything over $10 is generally referred to using the word "crisis", that's outright off the charts indeed it's quite literally cheaper to burn high octane petrol in a boiler than to use gas at that price, a bizarre situation indeed.

Depending on the extent to which that flows into the domestic market pricing, things could get "interesting" to say the least. Really interesting albeit not in a good way. Bearing in mind there the various proposals to import LNG to some combination of NSW (most likely), SA and Victoria to supply local consumption. Someone's going to need seriously deep pockets there.


----------



## sptrawler

This is the whole issue, we have become a one trick pony, with no sustainability, digging up finite resources is all that we do.
The whole ranting, chanting mob, somehow think this is a magic pudding that just keeps on giving, yet still criticise it.

The reality is, as you say @Smurf1976 , if this hydrogen gig doesn't work, life as we know it is going into decline.
We have a dig it up and sell it economy, the same as most third world countries, however we are living a first world lifestyle based on the fruits of the post war Australian infrastructure boom.

That will peter out eventually, and the lifestyle we enjoy, and indeed the welfare system we enjoy, will become unaffordable.
Why we are constantly trying to accelerate that demise, defeats me.

If we all left Australia tomorrow morning, shut everything down, it would have next to zero effect on climate change, but it would change 25 million peoples lives completely.

It doesn't have to be that way, if we conform and fit in with the changes the world makes in an orderly manner, Australia and the 25 million people may be able to continue with their pretty special lifestyle, why are we so focused on stuffing everything up?
It is as though an outside force, is trying to make Australia self implode IMO.


----------



## orr

Smurf1976 said:


> As for anything that comes out of Glasgow well it's politics and let's be blunt, politics is about as reliable as a candle in a cyclone. Can anyone point me to* even one political commitment*, from any democratically elected government anywhere *in the world, made 29+ years ago *that can in practice be enforced today? Those attending will be well aware that by the time 2050 rolls around it's unlikely that even one of them will still be a political leader of any sort indeed many won't even be alive.



I'll put forward the work done on regulating CFC's, steming from scientific work on the detriments to the atmosphere, is one. 
And that would be a chourus of Governments world wide.
Not least because of cheaper and better alternatives.

Starting to spot a few similarities??


----------



## sptrawler

orr said:


> I'll put forward the work done on regulating CFC's, steming from scientific work on the detriments to the atmosphere, is one.
> And that would be a chourus of Governments world wide.
> Not least because of cheaper and better alternatives.
> 
> Starting to spot a few similarities??



Absolutely, it highlights that any change can only be brought about by multilateral change, not by individual change.
This took me 2 seconds to find:

_The Montreal Protocol not only binds its signatories to prohibit the use of CFCs in their jurisdictions, it also introduced sanctions that prohibited trade in certain chemicals with non-signatories, creating a significant incentive for countries to sign up. What is striking as well is the effectiveness of the implementation of Montreal Protocol. It is the only global treaty to achieve universal ratification of 197 countries, and has achieved a compliance rate of 98%. As such, Montreal is evidence of the effectiveness of outright bans._

Which is exactly how Australia should be addressing CO2 emissions, as we are such a low contributer on a global scale, as opposed to a per capita scale.
If we look at the world in 2030, my guess is Australia will be at the head of any chart, because we have a small population with a high net wealth and a topography and weather element, that supports renewables.
But to do it in an orderly manner, without costing the taxpayer heaps, relies on a sensible approach, which when weighed against the actual global effect , makes common sense.

I'll take it a step further from @Smurf1976 prognosis, if we don't get the hydrogen gig up, and if we don't make our super funds invest in our future, we are wasting our time.
The super funds have trillions of our dollars,  yet overseas super funds buy up our assetts, I find that weird.
Why do our super funds not invest in our future in a big way?
Maybe then I would put my money into them, rather than having politicians trying to force me to invest in them?


----------



## Smurf1976

orr said:


> I'll put forward the work done on regulating CFC's, steming from scientific work on the detriments to the atmosphere, is one.



I agree that one has actually remained in place but then there's a proper treaty covering it and nobody has really tried to back out of it since there's no real incentive to do so.

My question is more about when there's no such treaty and if someone didn't want to do it? Can they be forced to stick to what was promised by a government that's no longer in office?

For example what happened to the commitment to cut 15% by 2005? That was actual government policy after all. Can that be enforced today? Can government be forced to do it?

Or what about, say, the famous commitment that no Australian child would grow up in poverty? Can that be enforced today?

Or at the state level whatever happened to the multi-function polis in Adelaide? What happened to the Tasmanian steelworks? And so on. At least one of SA's other promised cities that was never built ended up being used as a zoo.

Etc.

I agree that a government might choose to stick to something when it suits them but I'm not seeing that a political commitment is actually enforceable if they choose to do something else. If it is, well there's a pretty long list of past political promises that are outstanding.....


----------



## sptrawler

It is like saying if a the Party commits to net zero emissions by 2050, WTF does that mean? It shuts the lunatics up and sends them on another crusade, or whatever takes their fancy?
Unless there is a logical proven way that it can be achieved, all it is doing is proving public opinion can make politicians tell lies and kick the can down the road. 🤣
It is weird logic, " We want a commitment to zero carbon by 2050".
"OK we will give that commitment".
"Thank you, now we want a commitment to save the whales".
"OK, we will save the whales"
You have my vote.
Maybe the question, how are you going to do it MW by MW, would be appropriate?
Or  how many vessels are you going to commission, to police it, would be appropriate?
Rather than the media I just wanting the headline snatch grab.
As Big Bang Theory would say,"Dumb ar$e". 🤣


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> It is like saying if a the Party commits to net zero emissions by 2050, WTF does that mean? It shuts the lunatics up and sends them on another crusade, or whatever takes their fancy?
> Unless there is a logical proven way that it can be achieved, all it is doing is proving public opinion can make politicians tell lies and kick the can down the road. 🤣
> It is weird logic, " We want a commitment to zero carbon by 2050".
> "OK we will give that commitment".
> "Thank you, now we want a commitment to save the whales".
> "OK, we will save the whales"
> You have my vote.
> Maybe the question, how are you going to do it MW by MW, would be appropriate?
> Or  how many vessels are you going to commission, to police it, would be appropriate?
> Rather than the media I just wanting the headline snatch grab.
> As Big Bang Theory would say,"Dumb ar$e". 🤣




All true, but 9 years later the LNP still have bugger all.

They couldn't organise a beer in a pub.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> So IMO the big white elephant, would have been the early adoption of a carbon tax, the same usually applies to the early adoption of anything.



Use data.
I have shown that almost 10 years ago it had no material effect on manufacturing employment or employment generally.  The "price" argument you ran gets no traction because of the myriad of other factors that contribute to what people pay for goods and services. 
On the other hand, early adopters of the tax, like European nations, developed new industries and created employment. 


sptrawler said:


> I would assume a universal carbon tax will be adopted and as I have already said I believe Australia will adopt it or design a tax that fits in with it.



Well if you think it's going to be universal then what you say next is redundant:


sptrawler said:


> That is the logical course of action, an intelligent Government of a rather small country on the world stage would follow IMO.




Your next sentence is another unsupported opinion:


sptrawler said:


> Not do as Labor did and try to impress on the world stage, by kicking an own goal, that showed political immaturity IMO.



And one which you actually contradict with the argument you ran.  That is, any exposed businesses at the margin of profitability could go out of business by needing to play catchup.
However, had Labor's carbon price remained in play we would have the bonus of being at a competitive advantage with nations who are presently like us!

Back on topic proper, you should note that in the electricity market the States have been crying out for a decision on carbon for many years, and that the lack of such a decision has been a major impediment to large scale investment.  Taylor got so frustrated by the system (which was critical of his incompetence) that he replaced the COAG Energy Council with an Energy Ministers’ Meeting (EMM), and this now gets overridden by the Energy National Cabinet Reform Committee (ENCRC).


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I agree that a government might choose to stick to something when it suits them but I'm not seeing that a political commitment is actually enforceable if they choose to do something else. If it is, well there's a pretty long list of past political promises that are outstanding.....




The only way to 'enforce' something is to actually build it and put the onus on succeeding governments to maintain it or pull it down.

The Sydney Opera House is still there and no government is going to pull it down even though there was considerable political opposition to it in the first place.

 I doubt future Labor governments will blow up Snowy Hydro 2.0 even though they didn't particularly like it at the time.

So the foundations have to be laid at some time but all we seem to get these days is hot air.


----------



## IFocus

Smurf1976 said:


> So far as manufacturing's concerned, the big problem is that we basically swapped manufacturing for being the world's quarry.





Australia failed to modernize / build technology  then we had Coalition governments that were into ideology  that the market is the best mechanism to determine our future rather than plan seriously and support the sector same as transition to renewables IMHO.

Unlike the Germans.


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> By the way I keep saying we are doing well with reducing our carbon footprint, I'm pleased you also finally agree on that issue.
> Also what's amazing it is on Scomos watch, who would have thought.





The states and business are doing all the work Morrison SFA, seriously look at the Nationals, no hope.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> The states and business are doing all the work Morrison SFA, seriously look at the Nationals, no hope.



That is the first accurate thing I've read, it is the States and business doing all the heavy lifting, IMO I hope it stays that way at least it will be fit for purpose.
The Feds should only get involved with taxpayers money, where there is an obvious requirement e.g Snowy 2.0, funding interstate HV transmission etc, the States really have the overiding ownership of their power stations and system, also the States are in the best position to roll out EV charging that suits State usage.
All the Feds should be involved in IMO, is ensuring a national standard is used, that ensures the equipment for EV charging is universal and supplying funds for infrastructure that is of a Commonwealth nature. 

I mean lets get real, WTF does Morrison or Taylor know about W.A's electricity system, they never even come here except if we have an AFL grand final. In all the years I worked in the power game, the only politician I saw was Hawke, when he was P.M, so how they could add anything to the power debate is absolute nonsense. 🤣


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I mean lets get real, WTF does Morrison or Taylor know about W.A's electricity system, they never even come here except if we have an AFL grand final. In all the years I worked in the power game, the only politician I saw was Hawke, when he was P.M, so how they could add anything to the power debate is absolute nonsense.




Absolutely bleeding right.

The States had a functional , low cost electricity supply system before that idiot Costello made them split it up and privatise the components.

That was the start of the end of cheap electricity for consumers.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> The only way to 'enforce' something is to actually build it and put the onus on succeeding governments to maintain it or pull it down.
> 
> The Sydney Opera House is still there and no government is going to pull it down even though there was considerable political opposition to it in the first place.
> 
> I doubt future Labor governments will blow up Snowy Hydro 2.0 even though they didn't particularly like it at the time.
> 
> So the foundations have to be laid at some time but all we seem to get these days is hot air.



I bang on about policies all the time because they drive what can be done.
As @Smurf1976 pointed out, some politicians develop impractical policies or try convert so called motherhood statements - like Hawke's on poverty - into policy.
The big difference in the electricity sector is that it's very easy to convert policy into law because of *existing legislation*, viz. the NEL.  We are not inventing the wheel, just reducing its friction.

As @sptrawler noted, Australia does well on a per capita basis on renewables.  It hasn't been a hard decision for energy investors to make as the capital outlays are relatively small and they know they won't have any CO2 legacy issues affecting future pricing.  The result has seen our energy operator constantly on the back foot due to an inadequate infrastructure for renewables.  The inevitability of there being some form of global carbon pricing mechanism in place shows the incompetence of the Coalition over the past 8 years when it comes to the dual matters of energy policy and climate change.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I bang on about policies all the time because they drive what can be done.
> As @Smurf1976 pointed out, some politicians develop impractical policies or try convert so called motherhood statements - like Hawke's on poverty - into policy.
> The big difference in the electricity sector is that it's very easy to convert policy into law because of *existing legislation*, viz. the NEL.  We are not inventing the wheel, just reducing its friction.
> 
> As @sptrawler noted, Australia does well on a per capita basis on renewables.  It hasn't been a hard decision for energy investors to make as the capital outlays are relatively small and they know they won't have any CO2 legacy issues affecting future pricing.  The result has seen our energy operator constantly on the back foot due to an inadequate infrastructure for renewables.  The inevitability of there being some form of global carbon pricing mechanism in place shows the incompetence of the Coalition over the past 8 years when it comes to the dual matters of energy policy and climate change.



Now IMO you are getting closer to the real issue, the carbon price would have driven the cost of coal generation up a lot and would have forced the generators to change fuel, I doubt it would have driven them to renewables, because as I said they were really in their infancy until about 4 years ago.
The molten salt storage looked promising but hasn't proven as succesfull as first hoped, wave generation was abandoned in 2019 as it also didn't live up to expectations, so it would have been wind and solar, solar which has also only hitting it straps since about 2017, batteries have only come into their own in the past 3 or so years.
But the carbon tax would have constantly driven up the cost to burn coal, this would have required generators to change from coal to LNG or fuel oil, what that would have done to the cost of electricity to the consumer is anyones guess.


----------



## Smurf1976

IFocus said:


> The states and business are doing all the work



Agreed but that's an excellent outcome in my view.

The further the feds are kept away from it, the better since with very few exceptions they do more harm than good. They're almost always focused on politics and game playing. Keep them well away.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Now IMO you are getting closer to the real issue, the carbon price would have driven the cost of coal generation up a lot and would have forced the generators to change fuel, I doubt it would have driven them to renewables, because as I said they were really in their infancy until about 4 years ago.



Only in Australia were renewables in their infancy.  Europe had turned significantly to wind well over 10 years ago, and Germany back then was the world's largest manufacturer of solar panels. The following 2 tables (per capita electricity consumption) show how the transition to renewables was occurring from 2010 to 2015:








	

		
			
		

		
	
 What is most evident from the above is the take up of solar during that period which, apart from Germany, was negligible in 2010.  It almost beggars belief that in 2015 German per capita solar consumption was twice that of Australia.  Next is the growth of wind energy, especially noticeable for the UK.
Putting it bluntly, other parts of the world had the necessary policy levers in place to transition to renewables 10 years ago and they actually started in earnest.
What has occurred more recently and is reflected by Australia is greater renewables investment driven by the trend of consistently lower costs.
With regard to electricity generators during the carbon price era, I believe any liability via coal or gas for example was able to be offset by a carbon credit achieved through renewables.   Maybe @Smurf1976 has can advise if this was happening back then as I recall that was the carrot being dangled to get renewables into the energy mix of the big electricity generators.


----------



## sptrawler

Very interesting Rob, it is also interesting Australia has more solar per capita than Germany.

_ With an installed photovoltaic capacity of *16.3 GW* at the end of 2019, Australia has the highest per capita solar capacity at 600 watts per capita, overtaking Germany with 580 watts per capita._

The other thing of note, that helps Germany's figures, is the fact it can import its green energy from other countries, funny that. Putting it bluntly, they share their generation around, nuclear in France, U.K and Germany, Hydro in the Scandinavian countries etc.









						Norway and Germany open power link boosting EU's green energy supply
					

Germany and Norway officially opened NordLink on Thursday, a direct power cable between the two countries that will provide Europe's largest economy with green energy at a time it is phasing out polluting coal power.




					www.reuters.com
				








__





						Nuclear Power in Germany - World Nuclear Association
					

Germany, German nuclear energy, including German nuclear policy, information on the Biblis, Brunsbüttel, Biblis, Unterweser, Isar, Phillipsburg, Grafenrheinfeld, Krummel Gundremmingen, Gröhnde, Emsland, Neckarwestheim power plants.




					world-nuclear.org
				



From the article:
Nuclear Power in Germany​_(Updated March 2021)_


*Germany until March 2011 obtained one-quarter of its electricity from nuclear energy, using 17 reactors. The figure is now about 10% from six reactors, while 35-40% of electricity comes from coal, the majority of that from lignite.*
*A coalition government formed after the 1998 federal elections had the phasing out of nuclear energy as a feature of its policy. With a new government in 2009, the phase-out was cancelled, but then reintroduced in 2011, with eight reactors shut down immediately.*
*Public opinion in Germany remains broadly opposed to nuclear power with virtually no support for building new nuclear plants.*
*Germany has some of the lowest wholesale electricity prices in Europe and some of the highest retail prices, due to its energy policies. Taxes and surcharges account for more than half the domestic electricity price.*
*Exports were mainly to Austria, Netherlands, Poland and Czech Republic, with net imports from France. Germany is one of the biggest importers of gas, coal and oil worldwide, and has few domestic resources apart from lignite and renewables (see later section). The preponderance of coal makes the country Europe’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. *

Germany 24% coal generation + importing green energy from other countries, versus Australia 54% coal down from 75% a few years ago and doing it on its own.

Wish you would compare apples with apples, the negativity is palpable.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Very interesting Rob, it is also interesting Australia has more solar per capita than Germany.




Hardly surpprising considering our large expanse of unused land in a dry climate with a small population compared to Germany's large population in a geographically smaller and higher rainfall country.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Hardly surpprising considering our large expanse of unused land in a dry climate with a small population compared to Germany's large population in a geographically smaller and higher rainfall country.



Yes wait and see the figures in about 3 years when the new solar farms are added, they will be really interesting.
The other thing of course is, Germany is one of the worlds largest solar panel and inverter manufacturers, so having a ready supply, an affluent society and a large population over quite a small area installing large amounts on rooves is relatively easy, for one subsidising your own manufacturers to supply them helped, as stimulus after the GFC.
Like I say, it really isn't comparing apples with apples IMO.
Europe is like a big interconnected grid, so they can push and shove generation around to keep it all as green as possible, we don't have that luxury we have to convert our whole system over ourselves and we have to pay for it ourselves. Also there isn't an extension cord to another country, if we stuff it up.
Unlike Europe, where Germany if it has a bad day, can import hydro power from Norway and nuclear power from France and vice versa, gas from Russia etc, the U.K is the same.
Australia doesn't have that luxury.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> I believe any liability via coal or gas for example was able to be offset by a carbon credit achieved through renewables. Maybe @Smurf1976 has can advise if this was happening back then



I don't recall all the details on the financial side but certainly some were doing things with renewables, efficiency schemes (eg handing out energy saving lights) and so on at that time.

Two things I do recall very well from that time are more on the technical and operational side however.

One is that it was widely taken to be temporary. That is, right from day one there was an expectation that it wasn't to be permanent and that being so, decisions were based accordingly.

The other is that it was by no means the sole cause but it did mark the tipping point of a shift in focus to a much shorter term one. That ultimately ended up causing rather a lot of drama in several states when the lights nearly went out. That's not to say the carbon tax directly caused that focus, but the change occurred at that time. Due to all the uncertainty, the focus shifted from long term to short and has remained there ever since amidst constant uncertainty.

Regardless of the detail there's a need for consistent policy that doesn't vary according to who's in government at the time. That approach of constant back and forth policy really doesn't work when we're talking about assets with a lifespan measured in decades or even longer.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Agreed but that's an excellent outcome in my view.
> 
> The further the feds are kept away from it, the better since with very few exceptions they do more harm than good. They're almost always focused on politics and game playing. Keep them well away.



What I like is NSW and Victoria seem to have taken it on board, that a shift to renewables and the retirement of coal has to happen sooner rather than later, even if they replace their existing coal stations it will go a long way to reducing Australia's carbon footprint.
It will be interesting to see what they present, as alternatives, to the Latrobe and the NSW generators.
West Australia and Queensland don't seem to be as vocal, regard shutting down coal, but I assume it is happening.
In W.A a 100MW battery is to be installed at the Kwinana power station site.








						Synergy gives go-ahead to $155 million big battery in Kwinana
					

WA’s power grid will soon have a “big battery” to help manage soaring solar generation after Synergy signed a contract with Italian firm New Horizons Ahead




					www.watoday.com.au
				



From the article:
In September, the Australian Energy Market Operator released a report which predicted the power grid in south-western WA could handle increasing amounts of solar energy until 2024, after which changes to the system would be required.

The Kwinana installation is bigger than Australia’s first large-scale grid battery in Hornsdale, South Australia, that in 2017 Tesla’s Elon Musk offered to build within 100 days or give it away for free.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> West Australia and Queensland don't seem to be as vocal, regard shutting down coal, but I assume it is happening.



Queensland the big problem is politics.

It's a career ending move, and has quite literally been so, for anyone senior to even suggest that it's possible.

All the rest are more pragmatic.


----------



## Smurf1976

Regardless of the long term, the short to medium term may offer some definite excitement with all of this.

Natural gas at circa $40 per GJ is just crazy. Even just six months ago anyone suggesting half that price would've been met with stunned silence but now here we are. It's off the charts sort of crazy but it's real.

Then there's coal, apparently now selling at $300 per tonne in China. That's in bulk by the train load, I don't mean $300 for a tonne of the stuff in bags and delivered to your home. Again that's a crazy price.

Then there's oil. I walk past a nearby servo most days and I see that the price of diesel is 160.9 per litre whilst 91 RON petrol is 185.9 Not yet a crisis but it's heading there, it's getting to a point where consumers will be starting to make some fuss if the price rises continue.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Regardless of the detail there's a need for consistent policy that doesn't vary according to who's in government at the time. That approach of constant back and forth policy really doesn't work when we're talking about assets with a lifespan measured in decades or even longer.



Coalition has now been in government for over 8 years.
Isn't the real problem that *they don't actually have a policy,* given we are not talking about it varying depending on who is in power?

The Coalition instead believe energy policy is about what consumers afford; a policy on pricing instead of a policy on production.  As you note above, coal, gas and liquid fuels don't buy into that market ideology.  The irony here is that the writing was on the wall many years ago that renewables were already cheaper than coal so by continuing to prop up a fossil fuel dominant electricity sector it was going to be impossible to realise the consumer price savings they would reap into the future.

AEMO, through their ongoing consultative processes with industry and regular reports, has struggled to get the Coalition to accept where the world is heading.  Their latest offering sets out 5 scenarios:




I doubt too many people know this Report exists let alone have read it.  It gives a really good overview of what informs where we are, and what challenges are ahead, aside from the scenarios themselves.
The quick takeaway is that *Net Zero 2050* sticks out like a sore thumb.  So why is that not our objective?  Furthermore, when you look at the *Hydrogen Superpower* scenario you wonder why we don't just dive into it.  It could turn our iron ore shipments into steel exports!


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> The quick takeaway is that *Net Zero 2050* sticks out like a sore thumb.  So why is that not our objective?  Furthermore, when you look at the *Hydrogen Superpower* scenario you wonder why we don't just dive into it.  It could turn our iron ore shipments into steel exports!



That IMO, has to happen and happen quickly.
It will be interesting to see what transpires in the next 6 months, it will make or break this Government IMO. 

As you say, it is a $hit or bust situation and it won't be achieved by a softly softly approach, they are going to have to dive into it.
One thing the pandemic and the issue with China has shown, Australia continuing down the dig it and ship it path, is a road to nowhere.
I'm sure every thinking Australian has recognised that, while pondering the meaning of life, during lockdown. 

Now is the obvious time to chose the H2 path, before we get too far along the journey of alternative fuels.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Isn't the real problem that *they don't actually have a policy*



Agreed but I'll take a step back even further to a broader picture.

Australia has in broad terms lost focus on technical things. 

By technical I mean basically anything that fits into that category. Electricity is technical yes but so is anything concerning medicine, structural or mechanical engineering, biology, communications, and a myriad of other things. If the people doing it are some sort of scientist, or they're people applying science such as engineers, field officers, technical tradespeople and so on well then it's in my broad "technical" category.

Over the past ~30 years right across the country we've seen it unfold. Technical people of any sort slowly but surely disappeared from leadership roles and were replaced by non-technical people. Any kind of workshop, laboratory and so on was either completely outsourced and done away with or it has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. Technical things became taken for granted and something that wasn't seen as important.

Tied into that is the demise of manufacturing which by its very nature is associated with technical people. As with the workshops and laboratories, factories just weren't seen as important anymore. 

The effects of that broad shift are costing a fortune with environmental damage, economic damage, disruption to the public and business and in some cases lives lost. That's referring to it generally, not specifically limited to energy. 

If we want to stop having these problems well then as a country we need to elevate technical and scientific things as a whole. That doesn't mean we need a surgeon doing the accounts at the hospital and that we ought have an electronics technician as the PM but it does mean we need to shift the focus.

Focus at present, to be blunt, is very much on *** covering. Someone non-technical gets something done by outsourcing it to a contractor or by simply buying in the product with their brand name applied to it and so far as they're concerned that ticks the box. If it goes wrong well then blame the contractor or supplier. 

Actually doing it in house with their own workshops, laboratories or, heaven forbid, factory is all too hard and carries the "risk" that if it goes wrong well there's nobody else to blame. Never mind the point that it's far less likely to go wrong in the first place when you've got control of it all and skilled people making sure it all works.

Australia could easily get back to being an energy superpower but it won't happen if we don't dispense with the *** covering and instead return to focusing on real engineering, economics, environmental sciences and so on rather than this wishy washy approach.

Same with many other industries. If we want to manufacture or we want well constructed buildings and so on well then we need to change the mindset from "buy it in" and "self-certify" to one which says "we can do that" and "that needs to be inspected by someone competent and independent".


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Agreed but I'll take a step back even further to a broader picture.
> 
> Australia has in broad terms lost focus on technical things.



Not that I didn't enjoy your post, but *so what*?

We are not getting back manufacturing any time soon, at least nothing at scale.
We can import the technical skilled people from elsewhere at any time, and that's if and when we really need them.  And if quality is a concern then I agree we need independent certification, but that actually is a reinforcement of the asscovering you rail against.
The environmental damage, economic damage, disruption to the public and business you mention have very little to do with technical skills. Instead, they are failures in policy, often driven by political ideology overriding common sense and knowledge.

Voters opted for a policy vacuum in the Coalition rather than hard policies from Labor at the last election, so the care factor you want us to return to is history.  (Labor pledged, for example, significant additional funding to the CSIRO.)

As for the energy superpower we could be, it's based largely on existing technology with ongoing tweaking.  So just like our big moves into wind and solar, we can buy in what we need from overseas when we aren't able to make it ourselves.  Frankly at the moment this is our only option anyway!   Unfortunately our federal government's National Hydrogen Strategy  mostly pays lip service to the idea and does little else, while the heavy lifting will be done by the Twiggy Forrests of the world, plus our States.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> We can import the technical skilled people from elsewhere at any time, and that's if and when we really need them.




Great, so do away with universities and tech colleges and just let local kids have jobs like making beds in hotels or serving coffee in cafes.

A lot cheaper , right ?

And what if covid is here to stay ? We rely on imported labour and risk the virus getting away again.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Unfortunately our federal government's National Hydrogen Strategy  mostly pays lip service to the idea and does little else, while the heavy lifting will be done by the Twiggy Forrests of the world, plus our States.



Interesting comments Rob, how much money have Victoria and NSW put in for this heavy lifting you talk about? To get rid of their coal fired power stations.
They have certainly talked the talk, which seems to be the way today, talk up a storm and do sod all.

The Feds on the other hand are spending $10billion on Snowy 2.0.
The NSW to S.A interconnect, the Federal Government is stumping up a half a billion dollars in loans and direct funding, S.A is putting in $50m Transgrid is stumping up the rest
.The Marinus HV link to Tasmania, is being funded by Tasnetworks and the Federal Government.

Victoria in 2020 said they are going to spend $1.6billion on renewable energy hubs, but I can't find any actual projects, that are currently underway.
NSW recently announced they will spend $380million over the next four years, to unlock private renewable spending.

So I really can't see where you are building your narrative from, the only sector of Government spending big amounts of money to support renewables, is the Federal Government.
Sounds a bit like one of your anti Government fairy tales, they actually seem to be the only ones doing much, your suggested heavy lifters appear to be the lip service mob IMO.


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> Interesting comments Rob, how much money have Victoria and NSW put in for this heavy lifting you talk about? To get rid of their coal fired power stations.
> They have certainly talked the talk, which seems to be the way today, talk up a storm and do sod all.
> 
> The Feds on the other hand are spending $10billion on Snowy 2.0.
> The NSW to S.A interconnect, the Federal Government is stumping up a half a billion dollars in loans and direct funding, S.A is putting in $50m Transgrid is stumping up the rest
> .The Marinus HV link to Tasmania, is being funded by Tasnetworks and the Federal Government.
> 
> Victoria in 2020 said they are going to spend $1.6billion on renewable energy hubs, but I can't find any actual projects, that are currently underway.
> NSW recently announced they will spend $380million over the next four years, to unlock private renewable spending.
> 
> So I really can't see where you are building your narrative from, the only sector of Government spending big amounts of money to support renewables, is the Federal Government.
> Sounds a bit like one of your anti Government fairy tales, they actually seem to be the only ones doing much, your suggested heavy lifters appear to be the lip service mob IMO.





NSW treasurer was on insiders today and basically trashed the federal governments lack of movement I think he said they (NSW) were going to pony up $3bil  as starters and had serious targets for reductions sounded very aggressive about the whole deal and the NSW Nats were on board.

He actually spoke very well unlike the bumbling incoherent BS that gets served up daily by the Federal government.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> NSW treasurer was on insiders today and basically trashed the federal governments lack of movement I think he said they (NSW) were going to pony up $3bil  as starters and had serious targets for reductions sounded very aggressive about the whole deal and the NSW Nats were on board.
> 
> He actually spoke very well unlike the bumbling incoherent BS that gets served up daily by the Federal government.



That is exactly what needs to happen, NSW is in control of their power stations, same as W.A is in charge of ours, as Rumpy said State Governments were pushed into privatisation but the States still have the say with them and they took the money from the privatisation.
I don't know where he gets $3billion from, he only allocated $350 million over 4 years in his budget, but hey as long as he talks the talk.

The Feds own the Snowy and are doing things, if I was the Feds I'd congratulate NSW and tell them to get on with it, rather than waiting for the Australian taxpayers in W.A, Tassie, N.T, etc to fix their mess.

In W.A we had a $5billion surplus, hopefully we are doing things with our electricity system, I'm sure we are, because eventually blaming the Feds and previous Governments for everything is going to wear thin.
As a Premier and a State, you can't take the accolades for telling the Feds to FFk off, when your on a winner like covid, but then blame the Feds when you have a difficult problem like trying to change your complete electrical system and keep it reliable.

It goes back to, you can fool all the people some of the time, but not all of the people, all of the time.

As has been shown with covid the States have a lot of autonomy and trying to hide behind the FEDs on the hard calls, is going to be a hard sell IMO.
When McGowan said W.A is committed to net zero by 2050 and a reporter said how are you going to that when you are letting Woodside expand, he got very narky.
But none of the media have followed it up, why? well we all know the answer to that, you can only blame one person. 

Having said that, it will be interesting to hear what the Feds narrative is now that the Nationals have fallen into line, interesting six months ahead IMO.  
I hope Albo is on his game, he didn't react well today when questioned about their plans regarding net zero, he said we will wait until the Glasgow conference before deciding.
That doesn't sound decisive to me, actually it sounds as though they have about as much clue, as the coalition has.. 









						Nationals accept net zero target by 2050
					

After a week of negotiations, Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce told Prime Minister Scott Morrison of the outcome shortly after a meeting of the Nationals party room ended on Sunday.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the articel:
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese said all the states agreed with Mr Kean’s position.

“It’s as if the federal government’s isolated from the shift that’s happened, the shift from the business community, the shift from farmers, the shift from state and territory governments,” he said.

However, he wouldn’t commit Labor to any specific increase to the 2030 target, saying the party would settle its policy depending on what happened in Glasgow.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> NSW treasurer was on insiders today and basically trashed the federal governments lack of movement I think he said they (NSW) were going to pony up $3bil  as starters and had serious targets for reductions sounded very aggressive about the whole deal and the NSW Nats were on board.
> 
> He actually spoke very well unlike the bumbling incoherent BS that gets served up daily by the Federal government.



I guess we can look to McGowan and W.A, to actually put a bit of perspective and reality into this whole debate, as we both agree he is no muppet.
But I didn't hear any of the climate change ranters and chanters backing Kirrup's vision, because people actually do know what is realistic, as opposed to political vitriol. 
Also how the Feds fit in to this, or drive this, is actually beyond me, maybe @IFocus you can enlighten me?
I would have thought as I've shown below, the State has a plan and they will apply to the Feds for funding assistance, you and rederob seem to be suggesting the Feds should be directing the State how to do it, that IMO is ludicrous and makes no sense whatsoever IMO. 








						Coal plants to close by 2025 under ambitious renewable energy plan from WA Liberals
					

The Opposition unveils a plan ahead of the WA election for a net zero carbon emissions electricity system by 2030, with coal-fired power stations to be closed within four years.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
_Liberal Kirkup government plans to close all publicly owned coal-fired power stations by 2025 as part of the "biggest jobs, renewable energy and export project in the nation", meaning Muja and Collie would shut within four years.
WA Liberal leader Zak Kirkup said the plan was the largest renewable energy project in Australia's history, with estimates of $400 million being injected by a Liberal government alongside private investments.

"The New Energy Jobs plan will help create tens of thousands of jobs right here in WA," he said.
"We'll bring back manufacturing and help create a renewable energy future, not only for our state but for the rest of the country.

"It will make sure we reduce power bills, it'll make sure the state government has a net zero emissions target that is ambitious and it is bold, but it underpins where WA needs to be for the decades to come."
Under the energy plan, WA would have a net zero carbon emissions electricity system by 2030, with all state-owned coal-fired power stations to be closed by 2025.

Central to the policy is a $9 billion, 4,500 megawatt energy project to convert water into hydrogen for export using solar and wind, and a 1,500 megawatt solar and wind energy project in the state's Mid West that would provide electricity to Perth, the Wheatbelt, the Goldfields and the South West.
He said WA could afford to be more ambitious with its energy targets than other states and territories.

"New South Wales obviously doesn't have the vast resources, the vast opportunity like WA does to really capitalise on those energy projects," Mr Kirkup said.

"That's why we can be more ambitious, because WA has that natural advantage."_
_Labor slams plan_​_WA Premier Mark McGowan said the Liberal policy could not be believed or trusted, and the public should "be very fearful" about the reality of the proposal.
Mr McGowan said the timeframe for the plan was not achievable.

"But in any event, should the policies that they announced ... be implemented, all it would mean is many, many billions of extra debt, huge increase in family power bills, rolling blackouts across the state and huge job losses," he said.

Australian Energy Council chief executive Sarah McNamara agreed the plan was unrealistic.

"The WA Liberals' plan appears very ambitious in terms of its pace in the 2020s," Ms McNamara said.

"The Whole of System Plan prepared by the WA government already recognises many technical challenges with integrating renewables at the rate expected from present settings, and the rate proposed here would open many new issues.

"Critical to a successful transition will be our ability to balance the competing principles of affordability, sustainability, and reliability to ensure that the pace of change is in the best interests of customers."_



*W.A Labor, 'Whole of system plan'.*




__





						Media statements - McGowan Government launches Whole of System Plan
					






					www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au
				




*Also W.A's plan for a brighter energy future.*








						Brighter Energy Future
					

Working together for a brighter energy future in Western Australia.




					www.brighterenergyfuture.wa.gov.au


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> We can import the technical skilled people from elsewhere at any time, and that's if and when we really need them.



Thing is though, that goes for anything.

Accountants, managers, CEO's, politicians, lawyers, dentists, doctors, plumbers, electricians, engineers, concreters, truck drivers.....

All can be employed on a "pay for service" basis if you really need them.

Trouble is, doing that means you always get someone who whilst probably competent as such, has zero knowledge of situation specific detail. For mowing the lawn that probably won't matter and it also won't matter if they're designing something new from scratch and you retain the same team through to completion.

Where it really does matter is with any existing technical thing. Having a rotating door of staff is at best inefficient, at worst it's when wrong assumptions are made and bad things happen.

When it comes to technical things, there's a huge value in having people who just know all about the equipment they're employed to operate and maintain. If it doesn't sound quite right, if a reading is 1% away from where they expect it to be, if the vibration they can feel through their feet feels different to normal and so on well someone who works on that plant all day every day will spot it, know the likely causes and proceed to investigate whereas to someone without that knowledge won't pick up those changes and thinks it's all OK until suddenly it goes very wrong.

Much the same as a patient can know for sure that something's wrong, that their body isn't quite right, despite their doctor seeing no obvious problem. Experience tells you what's normal and if reality doesn't match well then _something_ is going on and it's very wise to find out what that is ASAP.

The alternative is wait until it breaks. No problem if it's minor, big problem if doing so causes a disaster. Even more embarrassing if it happens more than once, at the same site, costing ~$100 million each time after management intentionally purged out experienced staff.   No I wasn't involved in any way for the record but I have contacts there.



> The environmental damage, economic damage, disruption to the public and business you mention have very little to do with technical skills.




I'll simply say that I'm aware of several examples where that isn't the case. Things which cost serious $ or which resulted in loss of human life.

Various incidents in power stations, the oil and gas industry, theme parks, chemical manufacturing plants, hospitals, roads, hotel quarantine and so on all come to mind.

Common element in all of them is that technical skill wasn't present (either at all or in the required volume) or was overridden in authority by someone lacking relevant experience or qualifications. These things just should not have occurred, they come down to cost cutting, politics, game playing, placing short term goals ahead of the long term (CEO bonuses, politicians being re-elected as the drivers there) and so on.

Cost to the community? Massive.

In the context of energy supply well the debate largely wouldn't exist if we had a technical focus to it all.

Climate science is well enough understood to warrant taking action.

Economics is well enough understood that we know roughly the cost of doing things.

Engineering doesn't have all the answers but it has a lot of them.

So get on and do it, there's nothing to debate. Implement the things we know how to do whilst continuing to pursue solutions for the problems we don't have solutions for yet.

If the politicians want to look useful well then we can get a few apprentices to build a mock set of controls for the PM or Premier to operate which look exactly like the real ones but do absolutely nothing in practice. They can make a speech, cut a ribbon and press a few buttons for the media to observe and all good.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> how much money have Victoria and NSW put in for this



For the record as background:

WA, NT, Qld, Tas all have a very large portion of state government ownership of power generation. The details vary in terms of how that's structured but ultimately it's government behind it.

Queensland - CS Energy, Stanwell Corporation and CleanCo are major generation owners and all are ultimately owned by the Queensland state government. Some other generation also exists in private ownership.

Tasmania - Hydro Tasmania, TasNetworks and Aurora Energy (a retailer) are 100% state owned. Some privately owned wind generation does exist however.

NSW, Victoria and SA are private in practice. That is privately owned power stations, networks and retailers.

SA state government does technically own some generation but since it's leased to a private operator, who makes the decision about when it runs and so on, the state is effectively a "passive" owner really.

Some other governments also own generation in those states but that's in a "private" capacity as a for-profit business, it's not being run as a public service. For example Snowy Hydro owns the Angaston (50 MW) and Lonsdale - Port Stanvac (79 MW between them) diesel power stations in SA and runs them as a purely "private" business. It's a technicality that the federal government is the ultimate owner, they're operated in the same manner as they'd be operated if AGL, Origin etc owned them.

Same at the retail level. Eg Momentum Energy (aka Hydro Tasmania) retails in the privately owned states but it's doing so as a business, it being a technicality that the ultimate owner is an outside government. Same with anything owned by Singapore, China, France etc, it's a technicality that the ultimate owner is government since they're operating in the electricity industry in Australia as a for-profit business in practice.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> That doesn't sound decisive to me, actually it sounds as though they have about as much clue, as the coalition has..




Keeping the powder dry until the election, nothing new there.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Various incidents in power stations, the oil and gas industry, theme parks, chemical manufacturing plants, hospitals, roads, hotel quarantine and so on all come to mind.




Apartment buildings cracking and becoming uninhabitable.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Interesting comments Rob, how much money have Victoria and NSW put in for this heavy lifting you talk about? To get rid of their coal fired power stations.
> They have certainly talked the talk, which seems to be the way today, talk up a storm and do sod all.
> 
> The Feds on the other hand are spending $10billion on Snowy 2.0.
> The NSW to S.A interconnect, the Federal Government is stumping up a half a billion dollars in loans and direct funding, S.A is putting in $50m Transgrid is stumping up the rest
> .The Marinus HV link to Tasmania, is being funded by Tasnetworks and the Federal Government.
> 
> Victoria in 2020 said they are going to spend $1.6billion on renewable energy hubs, but I can't find any actual projects, that are currently underway.
> NSW recently announced they will spend $380million over the next four years, to unlock private renewable spending.
> 
> So I really can't see where you are building your narrative from, the only sector of Government spending big amounts of money to support renewables, is the Federal Government.
> Sounds a bit like one of your anti Government fairy tales, they actually seem to be the only ones doing much, your suggested heavy lifters appear to be the lip service mob IMO.



I commented specifically on* hydrogen*.  Would you like me to send you some Specsavers vouchers.

I thought you lived in WA: This link in RenewEconomy shows the state is already host to around 30 renewable hydrogen projects and proposals, including the newly announced 50GW project unveiled by CWP,  its 26GW Asia Renewable Energy Hub in the Pilbara, along with Andrew Forrest’s aspirational 40GW plan in the same region and multiple smaller projects proposed by Siemens, BP and others. Last month your Hydrogen Minister added to these.

Queensland has lots of small projects on the go, and a lot more - including some attached to Twiggy's efforts - to receive funding:






South Australia has some projects underway and more planned as well.
The ACT opened Australia's first public hydrogen refuelling station.

You can search for what other States are doing if you care, but the likes of Snowy 2 came about for an entirely different reason to why there is an increasing global focus on hydrogen.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Thing is though, that goes for anything.
> 
> Accountants, managers, CEO's, politicians, lawyers, dentists, doctors, plumbers, electricians, engineers, concreters, truck drivers.....
> 
> All can be employed on a "pay for service" basis if you really need them.
> 
> Trouble is, doing that means you always get someone who whilst probably competent as such, has zero knowledge of situation specific detail. For mowing the lawn that probably won't matter and it also won't matter if they're designing something new from scratch and you retain the same team through to completion.
> 
> Where it really does matter is with any existing technical thing. Having a rotating door of staff is at best inefficient, at worst it's when wrong assumptions are made and bad things happen.
> 
> When it comes to technical things, there's a huge value in having people who just know all about the equipment they're employed to operate and maintain. If it doesn't sound quite right, if a reading is 1% away from where they expect it to be, if the vibration they can feel through their feet feels different to normal and so on well someone who works on that plant all day every day will spot it, know the likely causes and proceed to investigate whereas to someone without that knowledge won't pick up those changes and thinks it's all OK until suddenly it goes very wrong.
> 
> Much the same as a patient can know for sure that something's wrong, that their body isn't quite right, despite their doctor seeing no obvious problem. Experience tells you what's normal and if reality doesn't match well then _something_ is going on and it's very wise to find out what that is ASAP.
> 
> The alternative is wait until it breaks. No problem if it's minor, big problem if doing so causes a disaster. Even more embarrassing if it happens more than once, at the same site, costing ~$100 million each time after management intentionally purged out experienced staff.   No I wasn't involved in any way for the record but I have contacts there.
> 
> 
> 
> I'll simply say that I'm aware of several examples where that isn't the case. Things which cost serious $ or which resulted in loss of human life.
> 
> Various incidents in power stations, the oil and gas industry, theme parks, chemical manufacturing plants, hospitals, roads, hotel quarantine and so on all come to mind.
> 
> Common element in all of them is that technical skill wasn't present (either at all or in the required volume) or was overridden in authority by someone lacking relevant experience or qualifications. These things just should not have occurred, they come down to cost cutting, politics, game playing, placing short term goals ahead of the long term (CEO bonuses, politicians being re-elected as the drivers there) and so on.
> 
> Cost to the community? Massive.
> 
> In the context of energy supply well the debate largely wouldn't exist if we had a technical focus to it all.
> 
> Climate science is well enough understood to warrant taking action.
> 
> Economics is well enough understood that we know roughly the cost of doing things.
> 
> Engineering doesn't have all the answers but it has a lot of them.
> 
> So get on and do it, there's nothing to debate. Implement the things we know how to do whilst continuing to pursue solutions for the problems we don't have solutions for yet.
> 
> If the politicians want to look useful well then we can get a few apprentices to build a mock set of controls for the PM or Premier to operate which look exactly like the real ones but do absolutely nothing in practice. They can make a speech, cut a ribbon and press a few buttons for the media to observe and all good.



You are talking about something completely different.
We don't have the technical expertise to build nuclear power plants, electrolysers or wind turbines.  
Discounting nuclear - given it's an unlikely contender atm - the other elements of our renewable future are reliant on overseas expertise.  If we truly want to be part of this unfolding future we need to do something about the skills gap *now *or other counties as well placed as Australia to move into hydrogen will gazump us.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> When McGowan said W.A is committed to net zero by 2050 and a reporter said how are you going to that when you are letting Woodside expand, he got very narky.
> But none of the media have followed it up, why?



Because they would have egg on their faces:


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Interesting comments Rob, how much money have Victoria and NSW put in for this heavy lifting you talk about? To get rid of their coal fired power stations.
> They have certainly talked the talk, which seems to be the way today, talk up a storm and do sod all.
> 
> The Feds on the other hand are spending $10billion on Snowy 2.0.
> The NSW to S.A interconnect, the Federal Government is stumping up a half a billion dollars in loans and direct funding, S.A is putting in $50m Transgrid is stumping up the rest
> .The Marinus HV link to Tasmania, is being funded by Tasnetworks and the Federal Government.
> 
> Victoria in 2020 said they are going to spend $1.6billion on renewable energy hubs, but I can't find any actual projects, that are currently underway.
> NSW recently announced they will spend $380million over the next four years, to unlock private renewable spending.
> 
> So I really can't see where you are building your narrative from, the only sector of Government spending big amounts of money to support renewables, is the Federal Government.
> Sounds a bit like one of your anti Government fairy tales, they actually seem to be the only ones doing much, your suggested heavy lifters appear to be the lip service mob IMO.




I commented specifically on* hydrogen*. Would you like me to send you some Specsavers vouchers.

Below is a few details on Hydrogen projects currently being funded, can't find many being funded by Victoria, or NSW.

So I thought I would help you out, I looked up what Victoria you know one of the committed to zero States is doing and funding.




__





						Renewable hydrogen
					

Renewable hydrogen offers potential as a clean, safe and reliable fuel source. Hydrogen production is becoming not only cleaner, but cheaper.




					www.energy.vic.gov.au
				



But alas couldn't find anything they are actually helping fund, just endless glossy pictures and rhetoric, sounds familiar.


However on a Federal note:




__





						Over $100 million to build Australia’s first large-scale hydrogen plants
					

ARENA announced that it has conditionally approved $103.3 million towards three commercial-scale renewable hydrogen projects.




					arena.gov.au
				



On behalf of the Australian Government, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has today announced that it has conditionally approved $103.3 million towards three commercial-scale renewable hydrogen projects, as part of its Renewable Hydrogen Deployment Funding Round.

Some of the hydrogen projects that the Federal Government are helping fund are below :


Engie Renewables Australia Pty Ltd (Engie): ARENA will provide up to $42.5 million towards a 10 MW electrolyser project to produce renewable hydrogen in a consortium with Yara Pilbara Fertilisers at the existing ammonia facility in Karratha, Western Australia;
ATCO Australia Pty Ltd (ATCO): ARENA will provide up to $28.7 million towards a 10 MW electrolyser for gas blending at ATCO’s Clean Energy Innovation Park in Warradarge, Western Australia;
Australian Gas Networks Limited (AGIG): ARENA will provide up to $32.1 million in funding for a 10 MW electrolyser for gas blending at AGIG’s Murray Valley Hydrogen Park in Wodonga, Victoria.
ARENA has committed to a $9.4 million investment to support Hazer, a Western Australia-based company with plans to build a demonstration plant that will produce 100 tonnes of hydrogen per year using a biogas byproduct from a sewage treatment plant.
ARENA late last month to part-fund a hydrogen production pilot plant to be built by gas and equipment supplier BOC.
The $3.1 million facility near Brisbane will produce 30,000 kilograms of hydrogen gas per year, which will be used to supply hydrogen vehicles to be trialled by the Queensland government.


*Maybe you can direct us toward NSW and Victoria's hydrogen projects that are State funded? You know the States that are crowing from the roof tops, as their coal stations chug along.*


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Because they would have egg on their faces:
> View attachment 131878




Don't talk nonsense Rob, McGowan has not legislated net zero, there is a lot of difference between lip service and actually doing something, I thought you knew that. I mean I've got an aspiration of owning a Porsche Taycan, so what, it ain't going to happen. 

Here you go, just to get you up to speed, you know you don't like people who don't post facts.
There is a huge difference between committing to net zero and legislating net zero, that point seems to escape the muppets.
I'm keeping to known facts, not waffle, as some are peddling.









						Solution to climate change more complex than 'close down the gas industry', WA Premier says
					

The WA government says it is considering legislating its commitment to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,  but is shying away from stopping all new oil, coal or gas projects in the wake of a new damning climate report.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
_The WA government says it is considering legislating its commitment to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
But Premier Mark McGowan has not committed to stopping new oil, coal or gas exploration or infrastructure in the wake of a new report which has found the Earth is heating quicker than expected and may be just 10 years away from heating up by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Mr McGowan said his government had already committed to the 2050 target.

"We can look at [legislating] that. That's one of the considerations that we're examining it," he said.

"That would obviously bind future governments, but this is the way the world is going."
But when Mr McGowan was asked if he was prepared for the Woodside Scarborough gas project off the state's north-west to be shelved, he said it was complex.

"I realise that a lot of people just say, 'Just stop everything,'" he told ABC Radio Perth.

"If we stop gas in Western Australia, well, basically we shut down a lot of our electricity system, we shut down Alcoa, we shut down a lot of the businesses here.

"It's more complex. You've got to have complex solutions."
He said Woodside was "moving a long way in the direction of removing emissions".

But given Chevron failed to meet the emissions targets for its Gorgon LNG project off the Pilbara coast, it was suggested to the Premier these emissions targets were important.

"So, you want me to close down the gas industry?" he asked_.


By the way, personally I think McGowan will do and achieve far more than NSW and Victoria, he just wont make a big song and dance about $hit. He will just get it done.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Interesting Rob, in all your responses not a mention of my original post #5262, so I thought I would help you out, I looked up what Victoria you know one of the committed to zero States is doing and funding.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Renewable hydrogen
> 
> 
> Renewable hydrogen offers potential as a clean, safe and reliable fuel source. Hydrogen production is becoming not only cleaner, but cheaper.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.energy.vic.gov.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But alas couldn't find anything they are actually helping fund, just endless glossy pictures and rhetoric, sounds familiar.
> 
> 
> However on a Federal note:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Over $100 million to build Australia’s first large-scale hydrogen plants
> 
> 
> ARENA announced that it has conditionally approved $103.3 million towards three commercial-scale renewable hydrogen projects.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> arena.gov.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On behalf of the Australian Government, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has today announced that it has conditionally approved $103.3 million towards three commercial-scale renewable hydrogen projects, as part of its Renewable Hydrogen Deployment Funding Round.
> 
> Successful projects are:
> 
> 
> Engie Renewables Australia Pty Ltd (Engie): ARENA will provide up to $42.5 million towards a 10 MW electrolyser project to produce renewable hydrogen in a consortium with Yara Pilbara Fertilisers at the existing ammonia facility in Karratha, Western Australia;
> ATCO Australia Pty Ltd (ATCO): ARENA will provide up to $28.7 million towards a 10 MW electrolyser for gas blending at ATCO’s Clean Energy Innovation Park in Warradarge, Western Australia;
> Australian Gas Networks Limited (AGIG): ARENA will provide up to $32.1 million in funding for a 10 MW electrolyser for gas blending at AGIG’s Murray Valley Hydrogen Park in Wodonga, Victoria.
> ARENA has committed to a $9.4 million investment to support Hazer, a Western Australia-based company with plans to build a demonstration plant that will produce 100 tonnes of hydrogen per year using a biogas byproduct from a sewage treatment plant.
> ARENA late last month to part-fund a hydrogen production pilot plant to be built by gas and equipment supplier BOC.
> The $3.1 million facility near Brisbane will produce 30,000 kilograms of hydrogen gas per year, which will be used to supply hydrogen vehicles to be trialled by the Queensland government.
> 
> 
> *Maybe you can direct us toward NSW and Victoria's hydrogen projects that are State funded?*



ARENA is *not *the federal government.  The Coalition actually tried to get rid of ARENA!
Were it not for ARENA and the CEFC, which built on Howard's 2001 RET scheme, we would be a renewables backwater.
So late is Scomo's government to the hydrogen party that it is only this year they realised they needed to incorporate hydrogen into the legislative mix for Australia's energy framework.
The power of the feds to make a difference is vested in what they budget for.  In that regard the renewables sector considers they continue to miss the mark.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> ARENA is *not *the federal government.  The Coalition actually tried to get rid of ARENA!
> Were it not for ARENA and the CEFC, which built on Howard's 2001 RET scheme, we would be a renewables backwater.
> So late is Scomo's government to the hydrogen party that it is only this year they realised they needed to incorporate hydrogen into the legislative mix for Australia's energy framework.
> The power of the feds to make a difference is vested in what they budget for.  In that regard the renewables sector considers they continue to miss the mark.



Looks like Federal Government to me





__





						Home
					

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) improves the competitiveness and increases the supply of renewable energy in Australia.




					arena.gov.au
				




Talking about missing the mark, you haven't posted anything that Victoria or NSW are currently funding yet. 
OOH the heavy lifters Victoria and NSW, what a bunch of dicks.
The only ones funding hydrogen projects currently are the Feds, W.A and S.A


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Don't talk nonsense Rob, McGowan has not legislated net zero, ...



I will send you the Specsavers vouchers now.  My link was to Woodside who made the commitment.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I will send you the Specsavers vouchers now.  My link was to Woodside who made the commitment.



I didn't know Woodside, was a Victorian or NSW Government entity.      

But as usual, you teflon up and move along.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Looks like Federal Government to me
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Home
> 
> 
> The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) improves the competitiveness and increases the supply of renewable energy in Australia.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> arena.gov.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Talking about missing the mark, you haven't posted anything that Victoria or NSW are currently funding yet.
> OOH the heavy lifters Victoria and NSW, what a bunch of dicks.



OMG, looks like The High Court is really the federal government
https://www.hcourt.gov.au/
Where have I been hiding?
Lots of agencies operate at arms length from government but rely on their funding.  The ABC is another.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> OMG, looks like The High Court is really the federal government
> https://www.hcourt.gov.au/
> Where have I been hiding?
> Lots of agencies operate at arms length from government but rely on their funding.  The ABC is another.



As it should be.
If ARENA is distributing taxpayers money to assist companies develop hydrogen projects, it is Federal Government funding of those projects.
The high court carries out a service on behalf of the Australian public and is funded by the Australian Government, if the Federal Government didn't fund it there wouldn't be a high court.
The ABC is meant to be doing the same and it is why they are always under the spotlight for bias, they are there to supply news for the Australian public and are funded by the Federal Government on behalf of the public.
ARENA is a department of the Federal Government, set up to investigate and where suitable provide public funding for emerging renewable projects, that meet certain criteria.
Being an ex Federal public servant, I would have expected you to have known that.

As I said I can find nothing hydrogen related that Victoria and NSW are funding, yet they can't shut up about themselves, but I guess nothing much changes over East.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> As it should be.
> If ARENA is distributing taxpayers money to assist companies develop hydrogen projects, it is Federal Government funding of those projects.



The High Court delivers justice, but the federal government has no say in its decisions, just as it has no say in ARENA's funding grants.
ARENA screams for greater funding but is continually thwarted and confused.  
My point continues to be that the federal government lacks policy to move us beyond an aspiration - as in the 2019 Hydrogen strategy - to commitment.
Until the weekend Scomo couldn't tell us the government was going to commit to net zero by 2050.  Maybe that will now influence AEMO's direction as its scenario settings can be narrowed considerably and it's advice to Taylor be less scattergun.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> The High Court delivers justice, but the federal government has no say in its decisions, just as it has no say in ARENA's funding grants.
> ARENA screams for greater funding but is continually thwarted and confused.
> My point continues to be that the federal government lacks policy to move us beyond an aspiration - as in the 2019 Hydrogen strategy - to commitment.
> Until the weekend Scomo couldn't tell us the government was going to commit to net zero by 2050.  Maybe that will now influence AEMO's direction as its scenario settings can be narrowed considerably and it's advice to Taylor be less scattergun.



The Feds still fund it.
Maybe you can tell me what Victoria or NSW are funding on the hydrogen front? 

As usual a lot of rhetoric, but the only ones held accountable are the FEDS, all NSW and Vic have put up, is waffle and glossy BS.


"aspirational objectives of achieving net zero emissions by 2050" FFS




__





						NSW Government action on climate change | AdaptNSW
					

The NSW Government is committed to decisive and responsible action on climate change through helping NSW businesses, households, communities and councils to adapt to climate change and reduce emissions.




					climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au
				





Victoria’s emissions reduction pledges​




__





						Victorian Government action on climate change
					

The Victorian Government is taking strong and lasting action on climate change




					www.climatechange.vic.gov.au
				




Lots of pledges, can't find many Government hydrogen projects, plenty of talk about them though. 




__





						Renewable hydrogen
					

Renewable hydrogen offers potential as a clean, safe and reliable fuel source. Hydrogen production is becoming not only cleaner, but cheaper.




					www.energy.vic.gov.au
				






			https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0021/513345/Victorian-Renewable-Hydrogen-Industry-Development-Plan.pdf
		


Interesting that Victoria isn't further down the track, considering they were the first to adopt net zero by 2050, one would have thought they would already be well advanced on the hydrogen front.
Media release 9 June 2016:








						Victoria’s Net Zero by 2050 Emissions Reduction Target
					






					www.climatechange.vic.gov.au
				



I mean 2016 is five years ago, they had better get their skates on, maybe get past the glossy brochures . 
Meanwhile Latrobe valley, still chugging along, Loy Yang A and B are not due to close *until 2047*. 
*If Loy Yang A and Loy Yang B are counted together they are the largest power station in Australia, generating* *3280 MW of power*


----------



## IFocus

rederob said:


> The High Court delivers justice, but the federal government has no say in its decisions, just as it has no say in ARENA's funding grants.
> ARENA screams for greater funding but is continually thwarted and confused.
> My point continues to be that the federal government lacks policy to move us beyond an aspiration - as in the 2019 Hydrogen strategy - to commitment.
> Until the weekend Scomo couldn't tell us the government was going to commit to net zero by 2050.  Maybe that will now influence AEMO's direction as its scenario settings can be narrowed considerably and it's advice to Taylor be less scattergun.





Yep the politics run by the Coalition has been so poisoned that their hands are continually tied, 8 years in power and no policy or only movement when Barnaby says so its bazaar.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Yep the politics run by the Coalition has been so poisoned that their hands are continually tied, 8 years in power and no policy or only movement when Barnaby says so its bazaar.



Jeez you guys I thought you were all about inclusiveness, but when you see the way Dictator Dan works, I guess inclusiveness is only lip service as well. 
Funny how a coalition only works when there is respect shown by both sides, I guess that is why Labor don't want a coalition with the Greens, they may actually have to do something about emissions, rather than give lip service like Victoria does.


----------



## rederob

IFocus said:


> Yep the politics run by the Coalition has been so poisoned that their hands are continually tied, 8 years in power and no policy or only movement when Barnaby says so its bazaar.



Most of the States have actual commitments to develop hydrogen, but the Coalition still has *no specific policy*.
Try as @sptrawler might, he has been pained by this raw nerve so has tried to change subject with successive posts.
I thought he might have at least found what NSW is planning as I think its incentivisations are very clever, aside from prioritising the Hunter and Illawarra regions as its hydrogen hubs, thereby mitigating coal industry job losses.
It is perplexing that a coalition-held State has worked out the necessary levers to drive a hydrogen future while its federal counterpart continues to look in the rear vision mirror.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Most of the States have actual commitments to develop hydrogen, but the Coalition still has *no specific policy*.
> Try as @sptrawler might, he has been pained by this raw nerve so has tried to change subject with successive posts.



That's a bit rich, your post #5270 said:
Quote:
_I commented specifically on* hydrogen*. Would you like me to send you some Specsavers vouchers._

I've been responding to that statement ever since, now you say I'm trying to change the subject? Talk about goal posts on wheels, you have more moves than a Swiss watch. 




rederob said:


> I thought he might have at least found what NSW is planning as I think its incentivisations are very clever, aside from prioritising the Hunter and Illawarra regions as its hydrogen hubs, thereby mitigating coal industry job losses.
> It is perplexing that a coalition-held State has worked out the necessary levers to drive a hydrogen future while its federal counterpart continues to look in the rear vision mirror.



Oh yes NSW and all their glossy pamphlets, just the same as Victoria has been printing, what's perplexing is that you don't hold yourself to the same standard of fact find, that you apply to others.
Wow what NSW is planning, you applaud rhetoric and criticise actual projects that are operating, shows the vitriol and bias. As I posted Victoria has been in the planning process for 5 years. 

As I have asked on several occasions, please indicate the H2 projects these fabulously "green" States of Victoria and NSW are funding.
At least the Feds are funding H2 projects, so your baseless aspersions are not a true reflection of the reality, which isn't unusual.

Here are the links again to recent NSW and Victorian hydrogen initiatives, great reading plenty of pictures, no projects.




__





						NSW Government action on climate change | AdaptNSW
					

The NSW Government is committed to decisive and responsible action on climate change through helping NSW businesses, households, communities and councils to adapt to climate change and reduce emissions.




					climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au
				




2021




__





						Renewable hydrogen
					

Renewable hydrogen offers potential as a clean, safe and reliable fuel source. Hydrogen production is becoming not only cleaner, but cheaper.




					www.energy.vic.gov.au


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> That's a bit rich, your post #5270 said:
> Quote:
> _I commented specifically on* hydrogen*. Would you like me to send you some Specsavers vouchers._
> 
> I've been responding to that statement ever since, now you say I'm trying to change the subject?



You contorted yourself to claim that funding equalled policies.
Please point to the federal government's specific *policy *on hydrogen, and not independent agency funding of proposals.

Both NSW and Victoria have detailed their hydrogen plans, clearly mapping out what they intend to achieve, and how.
The tragedy of the States going it alone is that it can lead to costly duplication of effort and integration failures.  We should harmonise incentivisations so that States are not competing with each other to attract the necessary industries and attendant infrastructure to commercialise hydrogen.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> You contorted yourself to claim that funding equalled policies.
> Please point to the federal government's specific *policy *on hydrogen, and not independent agency funding of proposals.
> 
> Both NSW and Victoria have detailed their hydrogen plans, clearly mapping out what they intend to achieve, and how.
> The tragedy of the States going it alone is that it can lead to costly duplication of effort and integration failures.  We should harmonise incentivisations so that States are not competing with each other to attract the necessary industries and attendant infrastructure to commercialise hydrogen.



Of course funding equates to a form of policy, without the policy they wouldn't allocate the funding, it wouldn't be there.

You contort yourself to claim that a plan equates to action, when as I said Victoria committed to net zero by 2050 in 2016, yet are only now presenting a plan five years later.

As for NSW and Victoria presenting a plan, one would hope so, as between them they are probably by far the biggest emitters.
How they hope to mitigate that, should indeed be driven by them. As was shown in the pandemic, the Feds can say what they like, if the States don't like it they tell the Feds to butt out.

S.A has a very high renewables penetration, the Federal Government is helping fund a HV transmission interconnector between S.A and NSW, which will enable power sharing to enhance the effectiveness of the renewables.

The Federal Government is funding the building of Snowy 2.0 and co funding the Marinus HV link to Tasmania, which will enable the installation of much more solar and wind installations, as the storage will be there to absorb the extra generation. To infer they are not doing anything is erroneous.

I agree they have had trouble committing to  a definitive net zero plan by 2050 and that could have been heavily influenced, by having to deal with the Nationals and their constituents.
It would have been far easier if as with Labor, most of their supporters lived in the inner City where the effects of the changes, will have minimal impact on their lives.

But I would rather see the coalition work their way through the issues and have a genuine commitment, than just give lip service as obviously others have a propensity to do.

Now it will be interesting to see what they propose and also what the opposition present, then both suggestions can be compared and judged.


----------



## sptrawler

W.A to get a $1billion hydrogen plant at Kwinana.








						Split opinions over green credentials of Woodside's new Kwinana hydrogen hub
					

Gas giant Woodside says a $1 billion hydrogen and ammonia plant will set WA up as a global clean energy powerhouse, as the Conservation Council of WA questions the project's green credentials.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
Oil and gas giant Woodside has announced plans to build a hydrogen and ammonia production hub on government land south of Perth, sparking debate over the project's green credentials.
While the company and WA Premier Mark McGowan said the $1 billion project, dubbed H2Perth, would position WA as a global clean energy powerhouse, the facility was not going to be entirely 'green'.

Mr McGowan said the facility would be built on about 130 hectares of vacant industrial land, commercially leased from the state government.
Woodside CEO Meg O'Neill said the phased development would, at full potential, produce up to 1500 tonnes of hydrogen per day for export in the form of ammonia and liquid hydrogen.
"The land being leased from the state government in the Kwinana and Rockingham areas is ideally located close to existing gas, power, water and port infrastructure, as well as a skilled local residential workforce," Ms O'Neill said.

"H2Perth is designed to be net-zero emissions for both Woodside and its customers, supporting Woodside's corporate emissions reduction targets and the Paris Agreement goals of customers in the region."

The first phase of the project would produce mostly "blue" hydrogen and around a third "green".

Blue hydrogen is still produced using fossil fuels but the carbon dioxide is captured and stored or offset, while green hydrogen is produced from electrolysis powered by renewable energy.
In this case the hydrogen will be produced from natural gas and Woodside says 100 per cent of the project's carbon emissions would be abated or offset.

The project is partly considered green because it would use electricity generated by renewable energy through the South West Interconnected System, which includes rooftop solar power.
"H2Perth will also facilitate substantial growth of renewables in Western Australia by providing to the grid a flexible and stabilising load that benefits uptake of intermittent renewable electricity by households and local industry," Ms O'Neill said.

Conservation Council of WA (CCWA) Policy and Legal Director Piers Verstegen said the project fell short as it would use gas, which is a fossil fuel.

Grattan Institute energy and climate director Tony Wood said there was nothing wrong with Woodside's staged approach to producing green hydrogen.

He said while the company was starting out using fossil fuel, its plans were to transition to greener hydrogen over time which made sense given the cost of producing green hydrogen was currently much higher.

"One answer is to start with hydrogen being manufactured from a fossil fuel, in this case natural gas, then put in place all of the other parts of the supply chain," he said.

"And then, if and when the cost of making hydrogen from renewable energy comes down, you simply replace that part of the supply chain.

WA Hydrogen Industry Minister Alannah MacTiernan said the state had more than 30 hydrogen project proposals on the table.

"It is fantastic to see a major Western Australian company like Woodside investing in hydrogen here in WA," she said.


----------



## mullokintyre

sptrawler said:


> W.A to get a $1billion hydrogen plant at Kwinana.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Split opinions over green credentials of Woodside's new Kwinana hydrogen hub
> 
> 
> Gas giant Woodside says a $1 billion hydrogen and ammonia plant will set WA up as a global clean energy powerhouse, as the Conservation Council of WA questions the project's green credentials.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> Oil and gas giant Woodside has announced plans to build a hydrogen and ammonia production hub on government land south of Perth, sparking debate over the project's green credentials.
> While the company and WA Premier Mark McGowan said the $1 billion project, dubbed H2Perth, would position WA as a global clean energy powerhouse, the facility was not going to be entirely 'green'.
> 
> Mr McGowan said the facility would be built on about 130 hectares of vacant industrial land, commercially leased from the state government.
> Woodside CEO Meg O'Neill said the phased development would, at full potential, produce up to 1500 tonnes of hydrogen per day for export in the form of ammonia and liquid hydrogen.
> "The land being leased from the state government in the Kwinana and Rockingham areas is ideally located close to existing gas, power, water and port infrastructure, as well as a skilled local residential workforce," Ms O'Neill said.
> 
> "H2Perth is designed to be net-zero emissions for both Woodside and its customers, supporting Woodside's corporate emissions reduction targets and the Paris Agreement goals of customers in the region."
> 
> The first phase of the project would produce mostly "blue" hydrogen and around a third "green".
> 
> Blue hydrogen is still produced using fossil fuels but the carbon dioxide is captured and stored or offset, while green hydrogen is produced from electrolysis powered by renewable energy.
> In this case the hydrogen will be produced from natural gas and Woodside says 100 per cent of the project's carbon emissions would be abated or offset.
> 
> The project is partly considered green because it would use electricity generated by renewable energy through the South West Interconnected System, which includes rooftop solar power.
> "H2Perth will also facilitate substantial growth of renewables in Western Australia by providing to the grid a flexible and stabilising load that benefits uptake of intermittent renewable electricity by households and local industry," Ms O'Neill said.
> 
> Conservation Council of WA (CCWA) Policy and Legal Director Piers Verstegen said the project fell short as it would use gas, which is a fossil fuel.
> 
> Grattan Institute energy and climate director Tony Wood said there was nothing wrong with Woodside's staged approach to producing green hydrogen.
> 
> He said while the company was starting out using fossil fuel, its plans were to transition to greener hydrogen over time which made sense given the cost of producing green hydrogen was currently much higher.
> 
> "One answer is to start with hydrogen being manufactured from a fossil fuel, in this case natural gas, then put in place all of the other parts of the supply chain," he said.
> 
> "And then, if and when the cost of making hydrogen from renewable energy comes down, you simply replace that part of the supply chain.
> 
> WA Hydrogen Industry Minister Alannah MacTiernan said the state had more than 30 hydrogen project proposals on the table.
> 
> "It is fantastic to see a major Western Australian company like Woodside investing in hydrogen here in WA," she said.



Once again, I must be missing something here. "Blue Hydrogen is produced  from natural gas" ,  which as we know produces Co2 as a byproduct. Woodside says  100% of the  carbon emissions would rebated or offset. 
Just how do they plan to do that,  buy credits from tree planting?  Buy carbon certificates from dodgy European or Asian countries? 
It becomes another   pea and thimble trick that still ends up producing Co2.
Why not go straight to producing green hydrogen or ammonia? 
There are lots of place to fill with solar panels or wind farms.
or what about reviving some those government funded wave  generators that previous WA govt folks put money into.
The answer of course is that woodside has put a lot of development money into gas fields, and wants to recoup some of that before switching to green hydrogen.
Sounds like another con job to me.
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> Once again, I must be missing something here. "Blue Hydrogen is produced  from natural gas" ,  which as we know produces Co2 as a byproduct. Woodside says  100% of the  carbon emissions would rebated or offset.
> Just how do they plan to do that,  buy credits from tree planting?  Buy carbon certificates from dodgy European or Asian countries?
> It becomes another   pea and thimble trick that still ends up producing Co2.
> Why not go straight to producing green hydrogen or ammonia?
> There are lots of place to fill with solar panels or wind farms.
> or what about reviving some those government funded wave  generators that previous WA govt folks put money into.
> The answer of course is that woodside has put a lot of development money into gas fields, and wants to recoup some of that before switching to green hydrogen.
> Sounds like another con job to me.
> Mick



The part I like about it is, it may well lead to W.A having a hydrogen fuel supply chain, which may enable W.A people to have a choice between BEV's and fuel cell vehicle's.


----------



## rederob

Today in order to achieve net zero by 2050 the PM announced his policies on 

hydrogen 
renewables 
energy.
Today in order to achieve net zero by 2050 the PM announced his legislation package.

Today in order to achieve net zero by 2050 the PM presented his detailed plan.

Today in order to achieve net zero by 2050 *the PM announced what he would **not **be doing*.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Today in order to achieve net zero by 2050 *the PM announced what he would **not **be doing*.



He will be doing exactly as Albo is doing, waiting until nearer the election, before laying out his plan.
Which as Rumpy says makes sense.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> He will be doing exactly as Albo is doing, waiting until nearer the election, before laying out his plan.
> Which as Rumpy says makes sense.



Albo is *not *the PM and doesn't get to make decisions on what should be done.
8 years on and the Coalition remains clueless.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Albo is *not *the PM and doesn't get to make decisions on what should be done.
> 8 years on and the Coalition remains clueless.




Yep, the government is there to govern. With power comes responsibility not sitting on your hands waiting for an election.

I have a feeling he may go before the end of the year, before this non policy sinks in to the electorate.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Albo is *not *the PM and doesn't get to make decisions on what should be done.
> 8 years on and the Coalition remains clueless.






SirRumpole said:


> Yep, the government is there to govern. With power comes responsibility not sitting on your hands waiting for an election.
> 
> I have a feeling he may go before the end of the year, before this non policy sinks in to the electorate.



It certainly seems as though it is gearing up to an election, I don't think it will be a close election, my feeling is Albo will romp it in.
Way too many skeletons in the cupboard for Morrison and Albo has up until now kept right out of the picture, that IMO is the only unknown he doesn't have a lot of time to get a message across.
So he will be hoping the Coalitions negative sentiment, overrides the nervousness of voting for the unknown, it should be interesting.

The other thing of course, will be Labor will come out swinging regarding climate change and may well disenfranchise their blue collar base more, but that will strengthen their inner city following. So it may end up following a similar pattern to the last election if Albo over reaches, time will tell.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> It certainly seems as though it is gearing up to an election, I don't think it will be a close election, my feeling is Albo will romp it in.
> Way too many skeletons in the cupboard for Morrison and Albo has up until now kept right out of the picture, that IMO is the only unknown he doesn't have a lot of time to get a message across.
> So he will be hoping the Coalitions negative sentiment, overrides the nervousness of voting for the unknown, it should be interesting.




Very interesting indeed.

I expect Clive Palmer to come in from outside with a big scare campaign about net zero putting up fuel and power prices.

That could be pretty telling.

One thing that that the Nats were right about, we need to know not just what net zero means, but how we are going to get there and how much it will cost. Now that Morrison has nailed his pants to the wall, the Party that explains it's policy the best should win.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> One thing that that the Nats were right about, we need to know not just what net zero means, but how we are going to get there and how much it will cost. Now that Morrison has nailed his pants to the wall, the Party that explains it's policy the best should win.



Nailed it right there. 
The posturing is over, they are all on the same page, those who have the best plan win the game.
The whole election is now on what you pointed out Rumpy, it will be interesting to see what both major parties have been working on over the past three years, as I think their tactician's would have known it would come to this.
So I guess the campaign starts, when Scott from marketing, gets to Glasgow. 
I still think Albo will win , because of the Porter issue, the bad press in the early stages of the vaccine roll out etc, but that issue will have waned a bit by now, so a lot will also ride on the current issue "2050".
What the last election showed is that Scomo can sell himself, I mean Shorten had already ordered the new carpet for the lodge and look how that worked out.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I expect Clive Palmer to come in from outside with a big scare campaign



It's already rolling.

Coming to a billboard, TV, newspaper, radio or computer near you real soon.

Slogan being used is "Zero Emissions, Zero Jobs, Zero Future" and it's worded so as to directly attack the Nationals.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Coming to a billboard, TV, newspaper, radio or computer near you real soon.




Not to mention my mobile that he managed to get the number of. Unless it was just a lucky hit.


----------



## Smurf1976

Meanwhile, getting on with making things happen we now have 4 synchronous condensers operating in the SA transmission network.

Two are located at Robertstown (about 100km north of Adelaide) and the other two are at Davenport (Port Augusta).

In layman's terms a synchronous condenser is a great big motor with a flywheel attached, which weighs about 170 tonnes. It generates no electricity, actually it consumes a small amount, but its purpose is to provide what AEMO generically refers to as system strength (a catch all for a few things technically). Noting that the great problem with wind and solar is they don't do much in that regard but they do generate - put it all together and it works.

The practical effect in a big picture sense is to:

1. Raise the upper limit on wind and large scale solar generation under typical operating conditions, thus reducing the volume that's curtailed (wasted).

2. Lower the number of synchronous generators, that is large conventional plant driven by steam turbines, gas turbines, diesel engines etc. There's some "it depends" detail around the extent of that reduction but for a generic answer, it cuts the minimum from 4 down to 2 under a typical scenario.

So overall it means more wind and solar can be used and, by reducing the minimum level of gas-fired generation, that also frees up space for renewables. Two very similar looking birds killed with one stone.

That doesn't mean SA can go to 100% renewables however but it's a step forward, it'll lead to greater use of renewables and less use of fossil fuels than would otherwise be the case.


----------



## mullokintyre

Thanks Smurf, could you explain how a large motor with a huge flywheel  provides the frequency stability?
With an AC generator (steam driven or hydro), the inertia of the turbines allows a fairly stable 50 Hz to be maintained in the network to which everything synchronises to.
How does the large  motor with flywheel do the same task if it has no generator attached??
Thanks,
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Not to mention my mobile that he managed to get the number of. Unless it was just a lucky hit.



You weren't handing out how to vote cards for him, last election? Were you.


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> With an AC generator (steam driven or hydro), the inertia of the turbines allows a fairly stable 50 Hz to be maintained in the network to which everything synchronises to. How does the large motor with flywheel do the same task if it has no generator attached??




In straightforward terms, in the event of a system disturbance (something fails) the syn con becomes a generator in practice. Not a generator driven by steam or hydro but there's that great big flywheel attached. As system frequency falls following whatever incident, the syn con's frequency will be dragged down with it and in doing so that releases some of the energy stored in its own rotating mass.

So in simple terms the syn con is contributing inertia just as a conventional steam, hydro etc driven generating set contributes inertia. It doesn't have the prime mover, the steam or hydro, but it's a synchronous rotating machine with a flywheel attached so it does contribute inertia. It'll be a generator in practice for a short period if external circumstances cause it to. 

A synchronous condenser is ultimately just a generator without the steam turbine, diesel engine etc driving it. It's just sitting there spinning but it can be manipulated (changing the excitation) as required and, since in this case there are flywheels attached, it has that same inherent inertia that a steam or hydro unit does.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Today in order to achieve net zero by 2050 the PM announced his policies on
> 
> hydrogen
> renewables
> energy.
> Today in order to achieve net zero by 2050 the PM announced his legislation package.
> 
> Today in order to achieve net zero by 2050 the PM presented his detailed plan.
> 
> Today in order to achieve net zero by 2050 *the PM announced what he would **not **be doing*.



What was really funny Rob, was in this article published by the ABC, they initially qouted Albo as saying quote:
_ "The word plan doesn't constitute a plan, no matter how often [Mr Morrison] said it_.

Then that was followed by a statement, that Albo wouldn't be presenting a plan until after the Glasgow meeting, which completely made Albo's statement ludicrous.
Fortunately someone must have twigged and removed the last statement hours later, what a bunch of dicks.  
They are obviously worried and rushing to get crap printed.









						'Clean' hydrogen and cheap solar power at centre of government's net zero commitment
					

Australia joins the world in promising to reach net zero on carbon emissions by 2050 — a policy it opposed two years ago — ahead of the upcoming global climate change summit in Scotland.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> It'll be a generator in practice for a short period if external circumstances cause it to.



Adding to that a bit, it may seem counterintuitive but what needs to happen in a fault situation is to keep voltage up and deliver a sufficiently high current (fault current) to operate circuit protection devices.

That basic principle applies everywhere from a large power station right down to a small household switchboard. Fault occurs > high current flow > very rapidly trips the circuit breaker = fault has been isolated. That's the desired outcome.

The basic danger of having an electrically weak system, one that can't deliver those high fault currents, is in the event a significant fault does occur (and sooner or later it will.....) then instead of delivering that high fault current, operating protection and clearing the fault what happens instead is a voltage collapse (and in the context of a major fault in the grid, potentially a frequency collapse as well). Once that occurs, low voltage will limit the fault current, causing protection to not operate as it should and the fault to be not isolated. From there it ends badly.

As an analogy, if we consider that a fault is represented by a cow on the tracks and that an electrically strong grid is a freight train well then the cow gets obliterated and the train just carries on. Unfortunate for the cow but for the overall system that's the desired outcome, it carries on.

Now if you run into a cow whilst riding a bicycle..... That would be the equivalent of an electrically weak grid that can't deliver sufficient fault current. It comes to a spectacular halt meanwhile the cow remains.

That's trying to be very layman's terms on a stock market forum not an engineering one but in short that's what it's about. Big heavy rotating machines to add inertia which was traditionally supplied "free" as part of the inherent characteristics of steam, hydro etc. Even though they're not actual generators, they'll do the job of holding voltage and frequency up long enough in a fault situation for the fault to be isolated and balance restored. Plus they can be intentionally manipulated under normal circumstances when required.

 Which brings me to "System Strength". Not a real technical term and one that nobody used until AEMO came up with it in an effort to capture the range of issues regarding reactive power, frequency rate of change, voltage stability, fault currents and so on in a way that could be communicated to the media, public, politicians and so on. The term has been pretty widely adopted in Australia following that - two words and it does capture it sufficiently.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> They are obviously worried and rushing to get crap printed.



On Carbon Neutral paper I assume?


----------



## mullokintyre

Smurf1976 said:


> Adding to that a bit, it may seem counterintuitive but what needs to happen in a fault situation is to keep voltage up and deliver a sufficiently high current (fault current) to operate circuit protection devices.
> 
> That basic principle applies everywhere from a large power station right down to a small household switchboard. Fault occurs > high current flow > very rapidly trips the circuit breaker = fault has been isolated. That's the desired outcome.
> 
> The basic danger of having an electrically weak system, one that can't deliver those high fault currents, is in the event a significant fault does occur (and sooner or later it will.....) then instead of delivering that high fault current, operating protection and clearing the fault what happens instead is a voltage collapse (and in the context of a major fault in the grid, potentially a frequency collapse as well). Once that occurs, low voltage will limit the fault current, causing protection to not operate as it should and the fault to be not isolated. From there it ends badly.
> 
> As an analogy, if we consider that a fault is represented by a cow on the tracks and that an electrically strong grid is a freight train well then the cow gets obliterated and the train just carries on. Unfortunate for the cow but for the overall system that's the desired outcome, it carries on.
> 
> Now if you run into a cow whilst riding a bicycle..... That would be the equivalent of an electrically weak grid that can't deliver sufficient fault current. It comes to a spectacular halt meanwhile the cow remains.
> 
> That's trying to be very layman's terms on a stock market forum not an engineering one but in short that's what it's about. Big heavy rotating machines to add inertia which was traditionally supplied "free" as part of the inherent characteristics of steam, hydro etc. Even though they're not actual generators, they'll do the job of holding voltage and frequency up long enough in a fault situation for the fault to be isolated and balance restored. Plus they can be intentionally manipulated under normal circumstances when required.
> 
> Which brings me to "System Strength". Not a real technical term and one that nobody used until AEMO came up with it in an effort to capture the range of issues regarding reactive power, frequency rate of change, voltage stability, fault currents and so on in a way that could be communicated to the media, public, politicians and so on. The term has been pretty widely adopted in Australia following that - two words and it does capture it sufficiently.



thanks for that great explanation. 
Wish I had not thrown away my old Uni power tech bibles, or I might have been able to relearn about reactive power, and the inductive currents  caused by power surges etc. Maybe its time to go back to uni.
One of the things that attracted me to engineering in the first place was that it was such a practical useful occupation. 
Making things, designing things, fixing things seemed so much more useful than writing fiction novels, painting pictures, or goung to the bar (the legal one, not the one in the pub.).
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Meanwhile, getting on with making things happen




It all got a bit politicky there didn't it ? 

Sorry about that, will continue the politics in an appropriate thread.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Adding to that a bit, it may seem counterintuitive but what needs to happen in a fault situation is to keep voltage up and deliver a sufficiently high current (fault current) to operate circuit protection devices.
> 
> That basic principle applies everywhere from a large power station right down to a small household switchboard. Fault occurs > high current flow > very rapidly trips the circuit breaker = fault has been isolated. That's the desired outcome.
> 
> The basic danger of having an electrically weak system, one that can't deliver those high fault currents, is in the event a significant fault does occur (and sooner or later it will.....) then instead of delivering that high fault current, operating protection and clearing the fault what happens instead is a voltage collapse (and in the context of a major fault in the grid, potentially a frequency collapse as well). Once that occurs, low voltage will limit the fault current, causing protection to not operate as it should and the fault to be not isolated. From there it ends badly.
> 
> As an analogy, if we consider that a fault is represented by a cow on the tracks and that an electrically strong grid is a freight train well then the cow gets obliterated and the train just carries on. Unfortunate for the cow but for the overall system that's the desired outcome, it carries on.
> 
> Now if you run into a cow whilst riding a bicycle..... That would be the equivalent of an electrically weak grid that can't deliver sufficient fault current. It comes to a spectacular halt meanwhile the cow remains.
> 
> That's trying to be very layman's terms on a stock market forum not an engineering one but in short that's what it's about. Big heavy rotating machines to add inertia which was traditionally supplied "free" as part of the inherent characteristics of steam, hydro etc. Even though they're not actual generators, they'll do the job of holding voltage and frequency up long enough in a fault situation for the fault to be isolated and balance restored. Plus they can be intentionally manipulated under normal circumstances when required.
> 
> Which brings me to "System Strength". Not a real technical term and one that nobody used until AEMO came up with it in an effort to capture the range of issues regarding reactive power, frequency rate of change, voltage stability, fault currents and so on in a way that could be communicated to the media, public, politicians and so on. The term has been pretty widely adopted in Australia following that - two words and it does capture it sufficiently.



Adding more to what @Smurf posted, this has some good diagrams and pictures showing the full context of SCs role in the grid.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Sorry about that, will continue the politics in an appropriate thread.



I was having a go at government more than anyone here....  

No matter how much they talk, a project like that is ultimately delivered by all sorts of people - investors (since virtually all electrical infrastructure in SA is privately owned), managers, engineers, electricians, fitters and various other trades, truck drivers and so on.

We need action not words. Doubly so when the words aren't helpful anyway.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> We need action not words. Doubly so when the words aren't helpful anyway.



That is the crux of the matter, the media aren't going to stump up any money, just a load of garbage that hopefully gets the muppets buying more media.
What is more important, is what the Governments want to do and how much that is going to cost the taxpayer and or business.
Both the taxpayer and business will benefit from a reduction in emissions, how the cost of that is apportioned is the key part IMO.
We can have tax payer subsidies on the EV car makers, but that in reality just makes it cheaper for rich people to buy them, as ICE cars are still a lot cheaper.
We can give a lot of taxpayers money to any business that says it will make cheap energy, that just encourages profiteering and usually a huge mess that the taxpayer has to fix up, in reality IMO that is the situation S.A got itself into a few years ago.
It really is about time, that everyone took a deep breath and assessed everything on its merits, rather than its advertising expenditure IMO.
Or indeed its media ramping, if some of this media nonsense was listed, it would have already been under investigation. 🤣

Weigh what all the political parties have to say about zero emissions, on their technical merit and social cost IMO.
The taxpayer shouldn't have to wear the brunt and industry shouldn't be made unprofitable, that is the balance that's required.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> That is the crux of the matter, the media aren't going to stump up any money, just a load of garbage that hopefully gets the muppets buying more media.
> What is more important, is what the Governments want to do and how much that is going to cost the taxpayer and or business.
> Both the taxpayer and business will benefit from a reduction in emissions, how the cost of that is apportioned is the key part IMO.
> We can have tax payer subsidies on the EV car makers, but that in reality just makes it cheaper for rich people to buy them, as ICE cars are still a lot cheaper.
> We can give a lot of taxpayers money to any business that says it will make cheap energy, that just encourages profiteering and usually a huge mess that the taxpayer has to fix up, in reality IMO that is the situation S.A got itself into a few years ago.
> It really is about time, that everyone took a deep breath and assessed everything on its merits, rather than its advertising expenditure IMO.
> Or indeed its media ramping, if some of this media nonsense was listed, it would have already been under investigation. 🤣
> 
> Weigh what all the political parties have to say about zero emissions, on their technical merit and social cost IMO.
> *The taxpayer shouldn't have to wear the brunt and industry shouldn't be made unprofitable, *that is the balance that's required.




I agree with much of what your saying but there is a fair bit of blue sky thinking in that quick movement to a carbon neutral economy and coping with CC is somehow not going to financially impact tax payers and industry.

Because we have left this far too late there will be a series of stranded assets.  If this process had begin 30 years there could have been a more orderly move to new  industries/processes and, in theory, much of this could have been avoided. Simply speaking, the world won't survive CC if we  don't massively reduce fossil fuel use *quickly*.  That isn't part of this Government future intentions.

The rush to look at new investment opportunities always looks exciting and profitable. On paper there will be excellent returns for new investments and ASF and the Government and industry want to focus on that part of picture. But CC is not just about new investment opportunities. The impact of rising temperatures, rising sea levels , more violent weather patterns on homes, shorelines, property and infrastructure  is quite clear.  Just speak to the thousands of  people who have lost homes to bushfres and still living in caravans. Or beachside properties  being washed away rising seas. Or thousands of people waking up to cars and homes damaged by freak hailstorms that are now commonplace.

The Shovel makes this point with a smile .

*Man announces he will quit drinking by 2050  * 









A Sydney man has set an ambitious target to phase out his alcohol consumption within the next 29 years, as part of an impressive plan to improve his health.  

The program will see Greg Taylor, 73, continue to drink as normal for the foreseeable future, before reducing consumption in 2049 when he turns 101. He has assured friends it will not affect his drinking plans in the short or medium term.                                                                     

Taylor said it was important not to rush the switch to non-alcoholic beverages. “It’s not realistic to transition to zero alcohol overnight. This requires a steady, phased approach where nothing changes for at least two decades,” he said, adding that he may need to make additional investments in beer consumption in the short term, to make sure no night out is worse off.

Taylor will also be able to bring forward drinking credits earned from the days he hasn’t drunk over the past forty years, meaning the actual end date for consumption may actually be 2060.

To assist with the transition, Taylor has bought a second beer fridge which he describes as the ‘capture and storage’ method.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> That is the crux of the matter, the media aren't going to stump up any money, just a load of garbage that hopefully gets the muppets buying more media.
> What is more important, is what the Governments want to do and how much that is going to cost the taxpayer and or business.
> Both the taxpayer and business will benefit from a reduction in emissions, how the cost of that is apportioned is the key part IMO.
> We can have tax payer subsidies on the EV car makers, but that in reality just makes it cheaper for rich people to buy them, as ICE cars are still a lot cheaper.
> We can give a lot of taxpayers money to any business that says it will make cheap energy, that just encourages profiteering and usually a huge mess that the taxpayer has to fix up, in reality IMO that is the situation S.A got itself into a few years ago.
> It really is about time, that everyone took a deep breath and assessed everything on its merits, rather than its advertising expenditure IMO.
> Or indeed its media ramping, if some of this media nonsense was listed, it would have already been under investigation. 🤣
> 
> Weigh what all the political parties have to say about zero emissions, on their technical merit and social cost IMO.
> The taxpayer shouldn't have to wear the brunt and industry shouldn't be made unprofitable, that is the balance that's required.



Unlike @basilio I don't agree with much of what you said.
Snowy 2 is an example of how poorly thought through projects impact consumers when quicker and better alternatives were not only available, they were getting cheaper.
And Snowy 2 was only ever on the table because the Coalition has was unable to develop an energy policy that gave the private sector confidence to invest at the necessary scale.  That's not my opinion, but is expressed in the many submissions to AEMO from operators over  the past 6-7 years.
In terms of *action*, the federal government has a number of financing options available to get projects of national importance off the ground.  It could do a Snowy job and own the project. It could incentivise States to enter into Public Private Partnerships (PPP).   It could create novel arrangements whereby interest free loans were available along with tax concessions and deferred payback (think of HECs).  Or it could enter into arrangements with industry super funds who would finance major projects and receive annual dividends rom the federal government equal to the rate of earnings that ordinarily received from their investments.  Any of the foregoing could be financed by diverting the billions of dollars each year that are wasted on the diesel fuel rebate.

I know none of this is likely to happen, but my point is that @sptrawler thinks there is a balancing act that needs to occur, when in fact there is a rebalancing that is future looking that should instead be acted on.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Snowy 2 is an example of how poorly thought through projects impact consumers when quicker and better alternatives were not only available, they were getting cheaper.




What is wrong with Snowy 2 ? Don't we need more storage ?



rederob said:


> Unlike @basilio I don't agree with much of what you said.
> Snowy 2 is an example of how poorly thought through projects impact consumers when quicker and better alternatives were not only available, they were getting cheaper.
> And Snowy 2 was only ever on the table because the Coalition has was unable to develop an energy policy that gave the private sector confidence to invest at the necessary scale.  That's not my opinion, but is expressed in the many submissions to AEMO from operators over  the past 6-7 years.
> In terms of *action*, the federal government has a number of financing options available to get projects of national importance off the ground.  It could do a Snowy job and own the project. It could incentivise States to enter into Public Private Partnerships (PPP).   It could create novel arrangements whereby interest free loans were available along with tax concessions and deferred payback (think of HECs).  Or it could enter into arrangements with industry super funds who would finance major projects and receive annual dividends rom the federal government equal to the rate of earnings that ordinarily received from their investments. * Any of the foregoing could be financed by diverting the billions of dollars each year that are wasted on the diesel fuel rebate.*
> 
> I know none of this is likely to happen, but my point is that @sptrawler thinks there is a balancing act that needs to occur, when in fact there is a rebalancing that is future looking that should instead be acted on.




Definitely.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> What is wrong with Snowy 2 ? Don't we need more storage ?



Yes, but it could have been achieved at half the price and be spread across the eastern seaboard, rather than in one spot.
Just remember that about +30% more energy is needed to refill the emptying dam, and that much of this is going to come from intermittent renewables.  All the government needed to do was say years back that all *new *intermittent supply had to have some form of backup.  Problem solved!


----------



## Smurf1976

There's over 20,000 identified pumped hydro sites nationally. Sounds good but the big problem isn't peak power by total energy stored. I say that since it's readily apparent that private enterprise is willing to invest in short duration (1 - 4 hours) to meet the peaks (that is, batteries) such that it's bulk energy which becomes the issue.

Take out all the sites which are in the middle of nowhere and that culls a decent percentage but still leaves more than enough.

Now to the hard bit, duration. Take out all the ones that store only a few hours worth and we're left with a much shorter list.

Now here's a chart showing wind and solar (only) generation in Victoria on a daily basis for the past 12 months:






Look carefully at the end of April, the middle of June and early July.

They all have the same problem - multiple consecutive days of consistently low yields from wind and solar.

Now consider that electricity consumption in Victoria will, if we're going fully renewable, increase very substantially and this is where the real pain arises.

Highest consumption week for the past year in Victoria was 5 - 11 July with an average load, over the full 7 days, of 6143 MW.

If that week sounds familiar well it's the same week which had the lowest wind and solar output.

Ahh.....

Now consider that most space heating in Victoria is presently not electric since gas is extremely dominant. Now how much heat does that supply? Well on a typical non-extreme day in June or July the gas consumption over 24 hours averages just on 10,000 MW.

That's the gas consumption for space heating only to be clear. That doesn't include gas used for hot water, cooking, in industry or for power generation. It's just what's being burned to heat buildings and is simply the difference in consumption between a mild day and a typical winter one (since space heating would account for almost all the difference in practice)

Now if we replace that gas with electricity via heat pumps well there's another ~2000 MW of electrical load during winter (allowing for efficiency differences), with the nasty characteristic that it's inverse to wind and solar yield.

Now add in electrification of other gas uses (hot water, cooking, industry) and things like electric cars and all up we're looking at total electricity use in Victoria during winter, averaged over 24 hours / 7 days, being roughly double the present value or to be more specific 12,000 MW.

12,000 MW.

12,000,000 kilowatts.

On average. 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Peak demand somewhat higher than that.

Now back to those gaps. Here's the same chart again, this time displayed on a weekly basis:






Ignore the last week since that's the incomplete present one and the problem's rather obvious. The worst wind and solar yields occur at the very same time we're going to see the highest consumption and there's a direct inverse correlation there - less sunlight directly pushes up heating use.

How to fix that is the big question. Victoria's the most problematic state but the same underlying issue does exist in other states to a lesser degree.

One solution is to massively overbuild wind and solar such that the worst week's production does in fact yield sufficient energy and only short duration storage is needed.

Another solution is seriously large hydro storage on a scale that can discharge constantly for a week not just a few hours.

Another solution is we keep burning something which can itself be easily stockpiled for use when required either to generate electricity or used directly as the means of heating buildings.

Or we stick with fossil fuel / nuclear power generation and build enough of it to support the future load.

That's the elephant in the room however that you won't find too many people willing to discuss, usually because they either don't have an answer or they do have an answer but don't wish to be flamed for saying it due to the politics of the whole situation.

Just in case anyone thinks I cherry picked Victoria, well it's the most problematic state so I did pick it for that reason but the basic problem exists across the entire National Electricity Market:






How to deal with that low production in winter, when we're going to see consumption during winter greatly increase with a shift to electricity for heat, is the big problem really. 

Noting there that wind and solar "droughts" lasting a week or more aren't something that's only happened once or twice, it's happened literally every single year since they've been in the grid at significant scale. So the data says it's real, multiple consecutive days of poor wind and solar yield will occur, and those are the very same days when consumption goes up.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> There's over 20,000 identified pumped hydro sites nationally. Sounds good but the big problem isn't peak power by total energy stored. I say that since it's readily apparent that private enterprise is willing to invest in short duration (1 - 4 hours) to meet the peaks (that is, batteries) such that it's bulk energy which becomes the issue.
> 
> Take out all the sites which are in the middle of nowhere and that culls a decent percentage but still leaves more than enough.
> 
> Now to the hard bit, duration. Take out all the ones that store only a few hours worth and we're left with a much shorter list.
> 
> Now here's a chart showing wind and solar (only) generation in Victoria on a daily basis for the past 12 months:
> 
> View attachment 132057
> 
> 
> Look carefully at the end of April, the middle of June and early July.
> 
> They all have the same problem - multiple consecutive days of consistently low yields from wind and solar.
> 
> Now consider that electricity consumption in Victoria will, if we're going fully renewable, increase very substantially and this is where the real pain arises.
> 
> Highest consumption week for the past year in Victoria was 5 - 11 July with an average load, over the full 7 days, of 6143 MW.
> 
> If that week sounds familiar well it's the same week which had the lowest wind and solar output.
> 
> Ahh.....
> 
> Now consider that most space heating in Victoria is presently not electric since gas is extremely dominant. Now how much heat does that supply? Well on a typical non-extreme day in June or July the gas consumption over 24 hours averages just on 10,000 MW.
> 
> That's the gas consumption for space heating only to be clear. That doesn't include gas used for hot water, cooking, in industry or for power generation. It's just what's being burned to heat buildings and is simply the difference in consumption between a mild day and a typical winter one (since space heating would account for almost all the difference in practice)
> 
> Now if we replace that gas with electricity via heat pumps well there's another ~2000 MW of electrical load during winter (allowing for efficiency differences), with the nasty characteristic that it's inverse to wind and solar yield.
> 
> Now add in electrification of other gas uses (hot water, cooking, industry) and things like electric cars and all up we're looking at total electricity use in Victoria during winter, averaged over 24 hours / 7 days, being roughly double the present value or to be more specific 12,000 MW.
> 
> 12,000 MW.
> 
> 12,000,000 kilowatts.
> 
> On average. 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Peak demand somewhat higher than that.
> 
> Now back to those gaps. Here's the same chart again, this time displayed on a weekly basis:
> 
> View attachment 132058
> 
> 
> Ignore the last week since that's the incomplete present one and the problem's rather obvious. The worst wind and solar yields occur at the very same time we're going to see the highest consumption and there's a direct inverse correlation there - less sunlight directly pushes up heating use.
> 
> How to fix that is the big question. Victoria's the most problematic state but the same underlying issue does exist in other states to a lesser degree.
> 
> One solution is to massively overbuild wind and solar such that the worst week's production does in fact yield sufficient energy and only short duration storage is needed.
> 
> Another solution is seriously large hydro storage on a scale that can discharge constantly for a week not just a few hours.
> 
> Another solution is we keep burning something which can itself be easily stockpiled for use when required either to generate electricity or used directly as the means of heating buildings.
> 
> Or we stick with fossil fuel / nuclear power generation and build enough of it to support the future load.
> 
> That's the elephant in the room however that you won't find too many people willing to discuss, usually because they either don't have an answer or they do have an answer but don't wish to be flamed for saying it due to the politics of the whole situation.
> 
> Just in case anyone thinks I cherry picked Victoria, well it's the most problematic state so I did pick it for that reason but the basic problem exists across the entire National Electricity Market:
> 
> View attachment 132059
> 
> 
> How to deal with that low production in winter, when we're going to see consumption during winter greatly increase with a shift to electricity for heat, is the big problem really.
> 
> Noting there that wind and solar "droughts" lasting a week or more aren't something that's only happened once or twice, it's happened literally every single year since they've been in the grid at significant scale. So the data says it's real, multiple consecutive days of poor wind and solar yield will occur, and those are the very same days when consumption goes up.




A knotty problem indeed.

I can see more enlargement of existing dams (like that proposed for Wyangala NSW) and expansion of existing hydropower works or construction of new ones at those sites.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I can see more enlargement of existing dams (like that proposed for Wyangala NSW) and expansion of existing hydropower works or construction of new ones.



That's essentially where the real debate, at the technical and economic level as distinct from party politics, lies.

How best to deal with those runs of multiple consecutive days of poor wind and solar yield which just happen to mostly occur at the same time load's going to increase with a shift to electricity for heat.

At present hydro, gas and diesel fill the gap plus of course a large proportion of buildings, in Victoria especially, are burning gas directly.

Hydro:





Gas-fired electricity:





Diesel / kerosene:





Even coal has its maximum output in the middle of Winter:





Whilst peak demand as such occurs during hot weather in summer (except Tasmania), total energy volume is greatest during winter and that's also where the greatest increase will occur with a shift to electricity replacing other fuels at the point of use.

A key point in all this is that distinction - peak power demand versus total energy volume.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> A knotty problem indeed.
> 
> I can see more enlargement of existing dams (like that proposed for Wyangala NSW) and expansion of existing hydropower works or construction of new ones at those sites.



Just don't tell @rederob . 🤣


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> That's essentially where the real debate, at the technical and economic level as distinct from party politics, lies.
> 
> How best to deal with those runs of multiple consecutive days of poor wind and solar yield which just happen to mostly occur at the same time load's going to increase with a shift to electricity for heat.
> 
> At present hydro, gas and diesel fill the gap plus of course a large proportion of buildings, in Victoria especially, are burning gas directly.



This is the problem that non electrical people, can't seem to get their head around, to stop burning fossil fuel, means that it will mean an extra demand on electricity to supply it.
People cook with gas, heat water with gas and indeed heat their houses with gas, that all has to change over to electricity.
Then that extra demand has to be met with clean energy, as well as the demand for replacing the current coal/gas generators, people making light of the issue is just as bad as climate change deniers IMO.
The only difference is they are at different ends of the spectrum, but they are in fact just as damaging to the the actual debate, because they make it appear that the solution is easy, when in fact it is a huge and complex undertaking.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Unlike @basilio I don't agree with much of what you said.
> Snowy 2 is an example of how poorly thought through projects impact consumers when quicker and better alternatives were not only available, they were getting cheaper.



That actually highlights your lack of understanding of the real issue IMO. However disagreeing with me, comes as no surprise.🤣
Throwing in band aids everywhere, eventually ends up with a huge interconnected pile of $hit, that will result in rolling blackouts and an intermittent electricity supply.
You might like the idea of a third world electrical system, that no one knows when the power will be on or off and the resulting third world living standard.
But most people I'm sure, will expect that when they turn on a switch, electricity comes through.

Take for example the idea of not building huge pumped hydro storage facilities and instead just using batteries, the amount needed would be huge.
But that isn't the real issue, the real issue is as is happening at the moment with high end microprocessor chips, lack of supply.

Imagine the absolute panic if you are relying on batteries and the supply is interrupted, the panic button is pressed as is happening with cars, but the time to build alternatives like pumped storage hydro takes years.

The problem is you wouldn't have years, lithium ion batteries have a life expectancy of about 10 years max, so all the ones you put in today will require changing in 10 years. If in 9 years there is a supply issue, what is plan B?

Snowy 2.0 would take a huge amount of batteries, to have the equivalent storage capacity, your logic is politically driven not technically driven.
As usual.


----------



## sptrawler

Actually @Smurf1976 might be able to tell you how many "big batteries" it would take to replicate the capacity of Snowy 2.0, then you have to factor in the fact that the batteries will degrade to about 60% of their original capacity after about 7 to 8 years and fail after 10, whereas Snowy 2.0 will still be able to produce maximum continuous rating for 100 years.
So I would be surprised if batteries stack up on any metrics, against Snowy 2.0.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Actually @Smurf1976 might be able to tell you how many "big batteries" it would take to replicate the capacity of Snowy 2.0



A "big battery" by definition is a bit like a truck, they're not a fixed size, but using the initial Tesla "big battery" installation in SA as the benchmark then the answers are:

To match peak discharge capacity = 20.4 of them would be needed.

To match energy storage capacity = 2713 would be needed.

That's for the original installation which has since been enlarged by 50% so the figures now would be 13.6 and 1808 respectively.

Or for another example, the Victorian Big Battery the figures would be 6.8 and 777.

That's based on Snowy 2.0 as a standalone operation and does not include it's ability to pump water discharged by the existing Tumut 1 and 2 power stations back up (which the existing stations can't do) and ultimately back into Lake Eucumbene via existing infrastructure albeit with higher energy losses. Nor does it include the energy released if the water discharged by Snowy 2.0 is then discharged via the existing Tumut 3 station in a major discharge event (noting that most of that water is then out of the scheme and cannot be re-pumped but it can be done occasionally without being a problem, the scheme is intended to divert water as part of its function).

Keeping out of politics I'll just note what's actually happening.

There's rather a lot of private sector interest in building wind and solar farms.

There's a bit of a "gold rush" going on with building short duration storage, that which runs 1 - 8 hours (mostly at the lower end of that, 1 or 2 hours) in practice mostly batteries. Just about everyone wants to build one it seems.

There is however basically no interest in building long duration storage other than from Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tasmania both of which have plans based on leveraging existing assets and resources. 

Beyond that, well rather a lot of companies have certainly looked at building large storage projects but ultimately they've failed to go ahead.

What is happening though is several companies have quietly obtained all necessary approvals for new fossil fuel generating plant to be built. Those projects are "shovel ready" in a somewhat extreme manner, they're fully designed and approved and would go to physical site works almost immediately if the board decided to pull the trigger on investment.

Personally I'm in the camp that says we ought to work toward 100% renewables so long as it's done in a planned, orderly manner. That means get on with it, no intentional delays, but do it without putting the lights out.

In practice though, I'll be extremely surprised if that actually happens in practice.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Yes, but it could have been achieved at half the price and be spread across the eastern seaboard, rather than in one spot.
> Just remember that about +30% more energy is needed to refill the emptying dam, and that much of this is going to come from intermittent renewables.  All the government needed to do was say years back that all *new *intermittent supply had to have some form of backup.  Problem solved!




Except that Snowy Hydro is already there, the others will take years of planning, feasibility studies, EIS's and legislation, and then there is the question of who finances it.

Get on with that by all means, but as Smurf says , more action less talk.


----------



## IFocus

Smurf given the east coast appears to be all or mostly market based the likely hood of long term thinking / capital investment  would appear to be zero so I guess the reality will be gas turbines to fill gaps at least in the near future.


----------



## sptrawler

IMO gas turbines with the ability to burn hydrogen will end up being the go to option, when batteries become an issue. 

The real trick is getting the cost of hydrogen production down to $2/kg, where it is competitive with fossil fuel.

https://www.ge.com/gas-power/future-of-energy/hydrogen-fueled-gas-turbines


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> IMO gas turbines with the ability to burn hydrogen will end up being the go to option, when batteries become an issue.
> 
> https://www.ge.com/gas-power/future-of-energy/hydrogen-fueled-gas-turbines




Maybe sugar cane ethanol as well.

The more fuels these things can burn, the less the reliance on one particular option.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Maybe sugar cane ethanol as well.
> 
> The more fuels these things can burn, the less the reliance on one particular option.



Absolutely, there is no reason blending and co firing of different fuels can't be done , they may use 60% ethanol 40% hydrogen, when ethanol production is high in the growing season, then change the ratio as supply diminishes.
With distributive control systems that are available to day, the issues that wouldn't have been able to be overcome 30 years ago, can be overcome with a couple of hours of coding and control loop tuning these days.👍


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Just don't tell @rederob . 🤣



I get what @Smurf1976 has presented, but Snowy 2 is an unnecessary stopgap.
Pumped hydro at scale is not going to help WA or SA or the NT in our energy future. 
Indeed, what does the energy future for the rest of the world look like?

In the near term distributed energy resources are likely to become more popular.  But without backup it leaves us where we presently are. Except that with bidirectional flows from EVs there is the potential to power households for days on end.  This innovation will likely have much more storage potential than Snowy 2 and will be localised.  It's not happening soon, but neither is Snowy 2.  I'm just pointing out that the future has options.  A more novel possible solution is home-scaled modular electrolysers, as about to be produced by Enapter.

It's almost guaranteed that coal will have a limited and costly future so the transitional energy source will be gas, which we have an abundance of and literal pipelines to distribute it across most of the nation.  But both coal and gas are finite, and suffer the fossil fuel disadvantage that climate change mitigation measures will impose.  That places green hydrogen in the box seat.  But our *national *plan for green hydrogen does *not *exist.


----------



## Smurf1976

IFocus said:


> Smurf given the east coast appears to be all or mostly market based the likely hood of long term thinking / capital investment would appear to be zero



Biggest problem of the lot, by far, is lack of a plan.

Does Snowy 2.0 make sense?

Does Kurri Kurri make sense?

Is the 300 MW / 450 MWh Victorian Big Battery the right thing to be building?

And so on.

Without a proper, actual plan it's impossible to say a firm yes or no.

Trouble is, it's not simply a case of failing to plan but rather, of planning to not plan. Not having a plan _is_ the plan.

National Competition Policy has a lot to answer for there for the simple reason that any serious planning will by its very nature involves discussing who does what. In other words, carving up the market. Trouble is, the law says anyone doing that's in some rather serious trouble so unsurprisingly nobody's too keen outside the states where government entities run the show.

Then there's the Liddell saga.

Liddell will close one (of four) generating units in 2022 and the other three in 2023.

AGL announced publicly the impending closure back in 2015. Prior to that, Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tasmania were basically the only ones who put anything at all in the public domain, everyone else kept it all as quiet as they could.

Since that time well it really hasn't gone at all well for AGL. A protracted and highly public dispute with the federal government, which didn't want the plant closed, meanwhile on the other side the company has copped an equally public bashing from environmentalists for having lost money by going into renewables too soon, the doing of which lost serious $ once costs fell after contracts were signed. Can't win really and more to my point, it sends a very strong message to everyone else that announcing things well in advance, actually planning, is a good way to get yourself on the wrong side of government.

Alinta just did it this way and escaped relatively unscathed politically:


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> That actually highlights your lack of understanding of the real issue IMO. However disagreeing with me, comes as no surprise.🤣



As @Smurf1976 points out, and what I have banged on about since posting in this thread, *there is no plan*.
So maybe you can tell me what the real issue is in your opinion as your post is full of flaws, as I will show.


sptrawler said:


> Throwing in band aids everywhere, eventually ends up with a huge interconnected pile of $hit, that will result in rolling blackouts and an intermittent electricity supply.



The traditional energy network was one dimensional, flowing electricity in one direction from supply to customer.  But we have already moved into bidirectional flows, so the network is evolving to look like this:








sptrawler said:


> You might like the idea of a third world electrical system, that no one knows when the power will be on or off and the resulting third world living standard.
> But most people I'm sure, will expect that when they turn on a switch, electricity comes through.



Given we are developing a network of the future that is a baseless comment.  Yes, we need a lot more technical input to do better than we have been, but that's an issue of "not doing" rather than can't.


sptrawler said:


> Take for example the idea of not building huge pumped hydro storage facilities and instead just using batteries, the amount needed would be huge.
> But that isn't the real issue, the real issue is as is happening at the moment with high end microprocessor chips, lack of supply.



Tell me where these huge pumped hydro opportunities are in WA or SA?
What about battery costs, which you appear not to understand.  Lets say Snowy 2 comes in at $8B, meaning each generated kilowatt  costs $4000.  And now compare that with the  Victorian Big Battery (VBB) project which is mooted to supply 300MW of power and  450MWh of energy storage at a cost of about $180M, so that:

VBB cost per kW of power output =  $600
VBB cost per kWh of storage capacity =  $400
There are lots of different ways to compare these project's metrics. but none suggest to me Snowy 2 was a proposition worth investing in.   Moreover, battery costs are forecast to continue to decline significantly into the future, so what is showing for VBB today may be 30% less than when Snowy 2 eventually comes online.


sptrawler said:


> Imagine the absolute panic if you are relying on batteries and the supply is interrupted, the panic button is pressed as is happening with cars, but the time to build alternatives like pumped storage hydro takes years.



Let's say that by 2026 BEVs account for 5% of our market and 50% can feed back into the grid - *V2G *- and let's say that during your supply interruption they have an average storage capacity of 30kWh/vehicle.  That would translate into over 4.5MWh storage or 10 times the VBB.  I think AEMO would be over the moon with that much capacity available in the next 5 years.  But let's be pessimistic and say it's only half as much or 2.25MWh.  That would be available in a matter of seconds and cover potential curtailments for a long time. If we project V2G to 2030 then we could more than triple that capacity.  In fact, the further out we go, the better it gets in terms of available capacity.


sptrawler said:


> The problem is you wouldn't have years, lithium ion batteries have a life expectancy of about 10 years max, so all the ones you put in today will require changing in 10 years. If in 9 years there is a supply issue, what is plan B?



What's the problem?  You seem to think we won't have EVs beyond 10 years because we won't have batteries.  Even a shift to hydrogen EVs increases capacity.


sptrawler said:


> Snowy 2.0 would take a huge amount of batteries, to have the equivalent storage capacity, your logic is politically driven not technically driven.



You should run the numbers and see what falls out.
What we know for certain is that eastern seaboard curtailment issues must have a solution other than Snowy 2 should they arise again in the next 4-5 years, because until then it's not in the mix.
I haven't even had to mention conversion of coal fired power plants to gas as a transitional arrangement, and then blending in hydrogen to ultimately reach 100% hydrogen.  That alone would have negated the need for Snowy 2 and had the benefit of using existing grid infrastructure.

Like I say, lots of options, but no plan.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> *there is no plan*.



This is the ultimate problem.

I say that since there's rather a lot of things that do work technically. Not everything does, it doesn't work to have solar and nothing else for example there has to be at least storage to go with it, but bottom line is there's a pretty big range of things which do work.

What can be said as fact is that "do nothing" is not a sensible option. Without making value judgements, there are several reasons for this (sticking strictly to facts here).

*Many existing coal-fired power stations are coming to the end of their useful life. That is not a political, environmental or economic decision but simply that machinery is wearing out and nearing the end of its useful life.

*A number of gas-fired stations, most notably in SA, are also old and approaching the end of their useful lifespan.

*A number of existing producing gas fields are nearing depletion. Having gas in the ground isn't of itself useful, only gas able to be supplied to consumers can actually be used, hence it's the ability of developed fields and their associated processing plants and pipelines to supply gas which is of importance. That ability is set to fall short of present consumption rates in the not too distant future.

*There is very substantial international pressure to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide, ultimately to levels very much lower than at present.

*The present rate of installation of distributed generation is rapidly reducing minimum daytime loads on dispatchable generation with AEMO forecasts of this reaching technically problematic levels in the near future, indeed it already is problematic in one state (SA).

*International car manufacturers are moving toward first the widespread introduction of electric vehicles and, following that, discontinuing the production of petrol / diesel powered vehicles.

Put all that together it's very clear that there is no credible "do nothing" option and that an actual plan is required. 

What the plan ought to involve is debateable but we need to have one ASAP.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Like I say, lots of options, but no plan.




Sorry to bring back politics, but the reason there is no plan is because we have a conservative government that relies on market forces, rather than bringing together experts on the subject and making decisions themselves.

Turnbull/Finkel tried that and got trodden on by the dinosaurs. If the LNP won't do it, then someone else has to imo.


----------



## sptrawler

@rederob your quote:
_Tell me where these huge pumped hydro opportunities are in WA or SA?_

@rederob I don't know why you are asking me, where the pumped hydro locations in W.A and S.A are, I asked the same question a while back. This is the problem you don't take on board what other people say.



sptrawler said:


> A lot of the limitations are outside the control of the States and Countries e.g W.A ain't going to get much hydro. 🤣




to which @Smurf1976  posted this:



Smurf1976 said:


> WA's not as badly off as you might think there.
> 
> Quite a few pumped hydro sites have been identified, being concentrated in 3 main parts of the state.
> 
> One lot is right up north. The broad area north of Broome basically and that also continues on the NT side of the border as well.
> 
> Second lot is in the Pilbara in an area that broadly aligns with the present NWIS. So they're broadly south of Dampier and Port Hedland and close enough to present mining and industrial operations to be potentially useful.
> 
> The third lot is roughly in a line stretching about 250km and within commuting distance of Bunbury and Perth. That has attraction obviously.
> 
> A lot of those wouldn't be viable for practical or economic reasons but I'd be surprised if something couldn't be found out of all that which stacks up.




So maybe take that nonsense up with him, or at least get your story straight and stop blaming me for you lack of recall.

On the subject of batteries, at a recovery rate of about 3% nickel per ton of ore, to make the batteries in the first place takes a huge amount of energy. That isn't taking into consideration the energy cost of all the other materials, transport costs and manufacturing cost .

So the cost to produce Snowy 2.0 can be recovered over the life of installation, which could run into centuries, whereas the battery cost has to be recovered over a life expectancy of 10 years. You obviously haven't done a lot of cost base analysis.
@Smurf1976 Quote:
To match peak discharge capacity = 20.4 of them would be needed.

*To match energy storage capacity = 2713 would be needed.*

Your back of the napkin nonsense:
What about battery costs, which you appear not to understand. Lets say Snowy 2 comes in at $8B, meaning each generated kilowatt costs $4000. And now compare that with the Victorian Big Battery (VBB) project which is mooted to supply 300MW of power and 450MWh of energy storage at a cost of about $180M, so that:

VBB cost per kW of power output = $600
VBB cost per kWh of storage capacity = $400
So using your figures, how about using the actual storage capacity? Didn't @Smurf1976 say the number of batteries required to carry the same storage capacity as Snowy 2.0 would be conservatively about 2,000 batteries? (actual 2713)
Maybe punch that through your calculator.

Then add to that the batteries have to be replaced say 10 times, for the life of the Snowy 2.0 hydro lifespan, that is conservatively 20,000 batteries.

So punch that through your calculator and add inflation to the capital cost of the batteries over time, what does that come out to a fair few billion I would guess may even crack a trillion?
Snowy is a one of capital cost of $8 billion, that continues giving for 100 years minimum, seems like good value to me.

Jeez Rob, your full of it mate. 🤣


----------



## sptrawler

So in summary, 2,000 batteries at a cost of $180,000,000 each multiplied by say replacement 10 times, to supply the at call storage capacity of Snowy 2.0, for the expected life of Snowy 2.0.

Batteries:   $180,000,000 X 2,000 X 10 =  $ 3,600,000,000,000 +inflation.

Snowy 2.0:                                                     $ 8,000,000,000.

So as you said Rob:_ You should run the numbers and see what falls_


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Like I say, lots of options, but no plan.



Or you could say, you have lots of opinions, lots of plans, but no FFcking clue. 🤣

Comparing one battery output to Snowy 2.0, is akin to comparing a 10,000 gallon water tank supply your water, as opposed to a 20,000,000 gallon storage supplying your water.
The ten thousand may last you a day no problem, but when summer comes and you might need it to supply your water for an extended period of time, it is found wanting.
But the 10,000 gallon water tank will be a lot cheaper, that's why they build dams and desal plants, rather have small tanks all over the place. It's called economies of scale.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Put all that together it's very clear that there is no credible "do nothing" option and that an actual plan is required.
> 
> What the plan ought to involve is debateable but we need to have one ASAP.



That may be the very reason, that the heads of state are getting together to find common ground, then each Country can formulate a plan that fits in with the unique circumstances that the individual countries face.

There is no point in each Country going in its own direction, if it doesn't result in a common goal of reducing the emissions.

IMO it wont achieve net zero emissions, unless there an agreement on how each country handles their carbon, eg we can't just stop exporting coal if some third world country requires it to produce their electricity, or to feed some process that is a major contributer to their economy.

All that will do is cause social unrest and result in people turning their backs on the whole idea, everyone has to be on the same page, or it just wont work IMO.

Each country has to have a set of objectives and guidelines that work for them and toward the common objective, that IMO is the only way this can all happen without it just collapsing into chaos.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> IMO it wont achieve net zero emissions, unless there an agreement on how each country handles their carbon, eg we can't just stop exporting coal if some third world country requires it to produce their electricity, or to feed some process that is a major contributer to their economy.




Don't tell that to Macron, he wants us to drop coal altogether .

Do you think he is after a market for French nuclear reactors maybe ?

_*"
Tellingly, given the Prime Minister is already on the defensive over his government's climate change commitments, the President says he encouraged Mr Morrison to adopt emission reduction measures "commensurate with the climate challenge" and cease production and consumption of coal.
*_
*This is a deliberate strike by the French President at the PM's carbon credentials on the eve of next week's Glasgow climate talks."*









						Macron delivers precise torpedo strike to Morrison
					

The French President's fury does not seem to have cooled with the Australian government, writes Andrew Probyn.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> So in summary, 2,000 batteries at a cost of $180,000,000 each multiplied by say replacement 10 times, to supply the at call storage capacity of Snowy 2.0, for the expected life of Snowy 2.0.
> 
> Batteries:   $180,000,000 X 2,000 X 10 =  $ 3,600,000,000,000 +inflation.
> 
> Snowy 2.0:                                                     $ 8,000,000,000.
> 
> So as you said Rob:_ You should run the numbers and see what falls_



You did *not *check the usable capacity of Tantangara dam before you ran the numbers.
In fact you did not think about real world events at all.
You forgot that Talbingo, which Tantangara it outflows to, has a capacity of only 160GL.  So unless you want to lose water to the rest of the system, 160GL is you maximum.  And that's assuming Talbingo is always kept empty, which is an absurd scenario.
Worse, you never worked out that sedimentation, spoil dumping and headspace remove about 25 GL from Tantangara, *and *that Tantangara is seldom above 40% full:




So disregarding Talbingo's cap, we have a real world case for using Tanatagara's average maximum value of less than 30% of its calculated 220GL volume.  In other words 70GL would be a reasonable basis for calculating its maximum "storage," which translates to 75 hours of operation at maximum capacity.  That's 100 hours less than the hype, and blows your calculations out of the water.

You also used 10 years as the lifespan of a battery, whereas 20 years is a likely minimum, especially given that these batteries would be held in reserve and cycled for maybe a month or so a year.  And you suggested "inflation" be added, despite battery costs declining by over 10% a year:




But the biggest flaw in your case is that we *do not need* anywhere near what Snowy 2 could generate continuously, let alone the 75 hours in my real world example.  All we need is a reserve that gets us through transition.

Some people think that Snowy 2 gets us through the decommissioning of coal.
Really!
But Snowy 2's 2GW is a periodic contribution, not a permanent addition to the grid (daily operation *up to* 20% might be plausible).  To run 24/7\365 it needs to have significantly greater than 2GW in renewables to keep the flow going, which would make no sense at all.

In terms of our energy future, and just by the by, I was reading today a rule of thumb for *V2G *that for every one million BEVs we could assume 50GWh battery storage.

I could post lots of links to articles from engineers and economists that have separately ran various sets of numbers, and none saw Snowy 2 as making sense years ago, let alone today where the renewables landscape is more mature and getting more cost competitive by the day.  So here's just one from 2 years ago.

For those liking analogies building Snowy 2 is like newlyweds building a 30 bedroom home to meet the capacity of their reproduction abilities.  It's an unnecessary expense for events that are improbable.


----------



## orr

Smurf1976 said:


> This is the ultimate problem.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What the plan ought to involve is debateable but we need to have one ASAP.



There will be nothing that resembles plan other than not to hve plan till post the next Fuderal election.  At that point Australia will have gone with a cross bench at either the Forest,Cannon-Brookes, Zarli Steggle end of the spectrum or the Kelly, Palmer, Malcolm Roberts OneNation dead end of the scale.
Then , as not since our short lived Carbon price, Australia has a chance at a successful Plan for a future: Or it will have a plan/shambles that will fail the many, best described as a continuance....


----------



## sptrawler

You've always got a story Rob, just keep to the issue, rather than trying to be a lobbyist. 
You should write a book, "How to backfill a hole, I have dug".  

_You did *not *check the usable capacity of Tantangara dam before you ran the numbers._

I ran your numbers Rob and the numbers smurf posted, smurfs would have been accurate, yours would have been cherry picked. 
Also if you notice I actually understated the amount of batteries required by 30%, so very conservative, but you just wax on fella.

As for telling me about the 2GW is not being enough, do you want me to go back about 3 years where I was telling you that? Talk about making crap up as you go along, you're a real hoot. 
Snowy will be used when the batteries can't cut it, as smurf has already posted, when we have several days of poor renewable weather.

You're tripping yourself up at every turn, one minute Snowy 2.0 isn't required, next minute, it is no where big enough.

Then you start making up stories about lithium  batteries lasting 20 years, when in reality they last 10, even the car manufacturers only guarantee them for 8 years to 60% capacity. But I forgot when in doubt just say, it will happen, because it helps my story. 

Maybe you can post up an article, that supports your claim of* 20 year life expectancy of lithium batteries*, you know how you are a stickler for FACTS.


----------



## sptrawler

Even if the lithium batteries did last 20 years, they still would not stack up against Snowy 2.0 on a cost base Vs capacity basis.

As the old saying goes, you are better off having it and not needing it, than needing it and not having it. But I guess that is foreign to some political thinking.
If Snowy 2.0 doesn't stack up against batteries, why would they go to the massive expense of increasing the capacity of Tasmania's hydro, when by your reasoning it would be much easier just to stick in more batteries, I mean give it a break.
Batteries will be the most widely spread storage, due to their flexibility and ease of placement, however large scale pumped hydro will be required and used where possible due to its long life expectancy and sustainability.

On every metric, your reasoning to not build Snowy 2.0, in favour of equivalent batteries is flawed, about time you moved to the next chestnut. 
It will be interesting to see if Labor abandon it, when they get in office.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Don't tell that to Macron, he wants us to drop coal altogether .
> 
> Do you think he is after a market for French nuclear reactors maybe ?
> 
> _*"
> Tellingly, given the Prime Minister is already on the defensive over his government's climate change commitments, the President says he encouraged Mr Morrison to adopt emission reduction measures "commensurate with the climate challenge" and cease production and consumption of coal.*_
> 
> *This is a deliberate strike by the French President at the PM's carbon credentials on the eve of next week's Glasgow climate talks."*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Macron delivers precise torpedo strike to Morrison
> 
> 
> The French President's fury does not seem to have cooled with the Australian government, writes Andrew Probyn.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Yes Macron probably hasn't realised the steel they use to manufacture their reactors, is probably made using Australian iron ore and metallurgical coal.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> You forgot that Talbingo, which Tantangara it outflows to, has a capacity of only 160GL. So unless you want to lose water to the rest of the system, 160GL is you maximum.



I've previously noted the ability to run water discharged through Snowy 2.0 through the existing Tumut 3 station, resulting in the practical loss of most of it from the scheme given the limited capacity of Jounama pondage, as an attribute of it.

Note that all figures quoted are nominal values and will vary slightly in practical operation.

239 GL active capacity in Tantangara versus 160 GL in Talbingo.

Starting from full, that enables (in round figures for simplicity) 7 days' constant operation of the new station (2040 MW) and 13 days' constant full load operation of the existing Tumut 3 (1800 MW) assuming that Tumut 1 & 2 (630 MW between them) are also operating.

Versus the present with just over 5 days' constant full load operation of Tumut 3.

So the new power station leverages existing assets and a complete discharge of SH2 and Tumut 3 to empty could be done 3 times a year if needed using the existing water.

A possible future addition would be to add a pump from Blowering to Jounama and to convert all Tumut 3 units to pumping operation (at present 3 of the 6 machines can pump or generate, the other 3 generate only). If that possible future modification were to be done then it becomes possible to pump water from the lowest storage at the Tumut end of the scheme, that is Blowering back up all the way to the top if required.

Blowering > (new pump not presently planned but could be built later) > Jounama > (Tumut 3) > Talbingo > (SH2) > Tantangara.

From Tantangara it can be stored there and run back through SH2 then Tumut 3 and to at least partial extent the Jounama power station in due course or, with a relatively minor energy loss (elevation difference of 64.92m) could be sent via existing infrastructure to Lake Eucumbene, the largest of the Snowy storages (4366.5 GL when full), and held long term for ultimate re-release via Tumut 1 > Tumut 2 > Talbingo storage and from there either run through Tumut 3 or pumped again via SH2.

Blowering storage is 1631 GL when full so it's more than large enough for the purpose.

Present operation for the northern (Tumut) end of the scheme:

Tantangara storage > Lake Eucumbene (no power generated in that step due to limited head and considerable distance horizontally). Then it's Lake Eucumbene > Tumut 1 power station > Tumut 2 power station > Talbingo storage (water) > Tumut 3 power station > Jounama storage (water, limited capacity) > Jounama small hydro station > Blowering storage > Blowering power station > water has left the scheme completely and is in the river.

Worth noting there that the discharge capacity of Tumut 1 & 2 is low (nominally 119 Cumecs) versus that of Tumut 3 (1360 Cumecs) hence the issue of Tumut 3 being limited to a bit over 5 days of constant full load operation before it runs out of water. That hasn't been a major problem historically since it operates as peaking plant in the context of a predominantly thermal (coal) based system but it does become a potential constraint in using it to fill the occasional "droughts" in wind and solar lasting a week or so at a time going forward.

1 Cumec = 1000 litres per second. So discharge from Tumut 1 & 2 is 119,000 litres per second at full load.

All that said, well I'm not going to say SH2 is the best possible project but nor am I going to say it's the worst. To be able to answer that we'd need to have an actual plan that either it fits into or it doesn't.

What I will say though is it's a real project that's actually happening and is the only project offering reasonably long term storage to have actually got off the ground thus far  so there's no real alternative in practice. Private investors seem keen on batteries with 1 or 2 hours' storage and at a push they'll look at 4 hours (eg the Energy Australia battery at Jeeralang) but that's about it.

The preference is firmly for fossil fuels as long term "storage" so that's what it really comes down to unless someone actually does propose some other option. It's either Snowy 2.0 and the Tasmanian projects or it's a gas-fired alternative.

From a purely technical perspective, SH2 does beat Kurri Kurri.

First because it can be used to increase minimum system load which is very rapidly becoming a serious problem due to the mass installation of distributed generation decreasing the load on centralised generation to a point where system control becomes problematic. Gas does nothing at all to address that whereas storage, of whatever form, does.

Second because Kurri Kurri is, technically, something that I can only describe as "crippled" operationally. A maximum of ~6 hours at full load on gas per day, capped at a maximum of 876 hours per year, due to the reliance on a limited gas supply and storage of it with any further operation requiring the use of diesel which has been capped at 175 hours per _year_. As a source of peak power that works but as a means of properly firming VRE it's not at all great.

Bearing in mind that the existing Colongra gas-fired station is similarly constrained, being limited to about 5 hours per day at full load on gas, meanwhile the much smaller Eraring gas turbine (diesel-fired) is limited to operating no more than 200 hours per year by regulations. All up rather a lot of generating capacity that has serious limitations on its operational hours - not really a problem to meet the peaks at present but it's not a lot of use to firm up a week long lull in wind speeds.

The existing Tumut 3 discharging directly into Jounama pondage. Look carefully at the concrete and you can see the "high tide" mark. Photo: Smurf.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> I've previously noted the ability to run water discharged through Snowy 2.0 through the existing Tumut 3 station, resulting in the practical loss of most of it from the scheme given the limited capacity of Jounama pondage, as an attribute of it.
> Note that all figures quoted are nominal values and will vary slightly in practical operation.
> 239 GL active capacity in Tantangara versus 160 GL in Talbingo.



I am not doubting that Snowy 2 has massive storage potential, but its quoted numbers are pie in the sky.  As I pointed out, the real world seldom sees Tantangara above 30% full during the year, so selling Snowy 2 as 75 hours rather than 175 hours capable is at least defensible.   On that basis a more realistic cost per generated kilowatt for Snowy 2 is therefore closer to $12000 (or 20 times the VBB equivalent).
In a fashion it really doesn't matter though as the question is about what Snowy 2 is supposed to achieve.  

I used the VBB as an example of an alternative (not sure why you used Kurri Kurri - as you noted, it's fundamentally flawed).
Batteries are scalable, so can be added to in order to meet anticipated peak loads that otherwise cause load shedding.  
Using Victoria as an example, during peak demand from the grid the average household consumes roughly 3kW/h, and the State has about 3M households.  On this basis Snowy 2 could definitely accommodate around 650k households for a long duration, but that's not how *demand* works.   Demand peaks are incremental and time limited.
The VBB adds another 150k household for 45 minutes to meet peak demand (load).
Adding 10 VBB equivalents gives 3GW to 1.5M households for 45 minutes at peak demand and would cost less than $2B.  Unfortunately Snowy 2 is capped at 2GW, so could not meet that peak, although clearly could run for days.
I don't know how long the VBB was expected to last before replacement but Tesla warranted Hornsdale for 15 years so @sptrawler's 10 year cap is at least 50% out.  Flow batteries have lifecycles from 20 - 30 years with minimal output loss.

I have no problem with pumped hydro to where it's a cost effective solution to intermittency, but Snowy 2  is akin to putting a cricket team on the field comprised of a bowler and 10 wicket keepers.  It's a level of backup that has no business case supporting it.

@sptrawler reckons that Snowy 2 will be handy to have when there are days of low generation from renewables.  That's true.  But when exactly will Snowy 2 be needed to meet any shortfall?

As @Smurf1976 notes, at least Snowy 2 is happening.  Given the pace of other market developments I see it becoming a white elephant.  But in the absence of a credible energy policy and without a plan, something is better than nothing for the time being.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> I am not doubting that Snowy 2 has massive storage potential, but its quoted numbers are pie in the sky.  As I pointed out, the real world seldom sees Tantangara above 30% full during the year, so selling Snowy 2 as 75 hours rather than 175 hours capable is at least defensible.   On that basis a more realistic cost per generated kilowatt for Snowy 2 is therefore closer to $12000 (or 20 times the VBB equivalent).
> In a fashion it really doesn't matter though as the question is about what Snowy 2 is supposed to achieve.
> 
> I used the VBB as an example of an alternative (not sure why you used Kurri Kurri - as you noted, it's fundamentally* flawed).*
> Batteries are scalable, so can be added to in order to meet anticipated peak loads that otherwise cause load shedding.
> Using Victoria as an example, during peak demand from the grid the average household consumes roughly 3kW/h, and the State has about 3M households.  On this basis Snowy 2 could definitely accommodate around 650k households for a long duration, but that's not how *demand* works.   Demand peaks are incremental and time limited.
> The VBB adds another 150k household for 45 minutes to meet peak demand (load).
> Adding 10 VBB equivalents gives 3GW to 1.5M households for 45 minutes at peak demand and would cost less than $2B.  Unfortunately Snowy 2 is capped at 2GW, so could not meet that peak, although clearly could run for days.
> I don't know how long the VBB was expected to last before replacement but Tesla warranted Hornsdale for 15 years so @sptrawler's 10 year cap is at least 50% out.  Flow batteries have lifecycles from 20 - 30 years with minimal output loss.
> 
> I have no problem with pumped hydro to where it's a cost effective solution to intermittency, but Snowy 2  is akin to putting a cricket team on the field comprised of a bowler and 10 wicket keepers.  It's a level of backup that has no business case supporting it.
> 
> @sptrawler reckons that Snowy 2 will be handy to have when there are days of low generation from renewables.  That's true.  But when exactly will Snowy 2 be needed to meet any shortfall?
> 
> As @Smurf1976 notes, at least Snowy 2 is happening.  Given the pace of other market developments I see it becoming a white elephant.  But in the absence of a credible energy policy and without a plan, something is better than nothing for the time being.




Interesting to see the Guardian and Labor commenting on "commercial viability", that's usually the LNP's area..

Without going into the merits of any proposal , the storage options are all "insurance policies" against the risk that intermittent energy sources cannot satisfy demand for short or medium periods of time.

No insurance policies are commercially viable unless you have to use them.

There will be stranded assets and governments will have to own them because private operators won't . If batteries owned by private operators can't supply demand the private operators will just walk away and say 'tough luck' . Governments have to ensure continuity of supply and sometimes spending money for doubtful returns is a risk they have to take.


----------



## sptrawler

@Smurf1976 it looks as though you were spot on about W.A having hydro potential, it sounds as though Walpole is looking into a small hydro supply.
Walpole is a small town in the SW forrest area of W.A.
What is being proposed sounds like micro pumped hydro, it will be interesting to see if it is feasible, or just pie in the sky, I wouldn't have thought it was viable when compared with batteries due to size.








						Snowy Hydro 2.0  — but 'much, much' smaller
					

An energy storage project dubbed the world's smallest version of the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric power plant is taking shape in Western Australia.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
An energy storage project that has been dubbed the world's smallest version of the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric power plant is taking shape in Western Australia.
Power Research and Development, a WA-based company, wants to build a 1.5-megawatt pumped hydro project capable of powering the town of Walpole on the state's south coast for up to 70 hours.
The proposal, which is backed by state-owned electricity distributor Western Power, would help overcome crippling power cuts that can hit the popular tourist spot for hours at a time.
In PRD's case, it will install solar panels and batteries to provide its own power for pumping.

Colin Stonehouse from PRD said the need for storage was one of the biggest challenges facing the electricity system as ever-increasing amounts of intermittent renewable energy such as wind and solar power came on stream.

Mr Stonehouse said this was because supply from renewable sources was uncontrolled and often did not match demand.

He said being able to store excess output and use that power when it was needed was crucial to the aims of decarbonising the electricity system.
Under PRD's plans, it will build two reservoirs — effectively farm dams — with a difference in elevation of about 100 metres.

The company aims to provide energy storage services to commercial and rural businesses in the area.

But it has also secured a contract with Western Power to supply back-up power to Walpole during periods of disruption to the main transmission line from Albany, 120 kilometres to the east.

Mr Stonehouse said the motivation for the project was Walpole's notoriously unreliable electricity supply, which is the result of its position at the edge of the grid


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I am not doubting that Snowy 2 has massive storage potential, but its quoted numbers are pie in the sky.  As I pointed out, the real world seldom sees Tantangara above 30% full during the year, so selling Snowy 2 as 75 hours rather than 175 hours capable is at least defensible.   On that basis a more realistic cost per generated kilowatt for Snowy 2 is therefore closer to $12000 (or 20 times the VBB equivalent).
> In a fashion it really doesn't matter though as the question is about what Snowy 2 is supposed to achieve.
> 
> I used the VBB as an example of an alternative (not sure why you used Kurri Kurri - as you noted, it's fundamentally flawed).
> Batteries are scalable, so can be added to in order to meet anticipated peak loads that otherwise cause load shedding.
> Using Victoria as an example, during peak demand from the grid the average household consumes roughly 3kW/h, and the State has about 3M households.  On this basis Snowy 2 could definitely accommodate around 650k households for a long duration, but that's not how *demand* works.   Demand peaks are incremental and time limited.
> The VBB adds another 150k household for 45 minutes to meet peak demand (load).
> Adding 10 VBB equivalents gives 3GW to 1.5M households for 45 minutes at peak demand and would cost less than $2B.  Unfortunately Snowy 2 is capped at 2GW, so could not meet that peak, although clearly could run for days.
> I don't know how long the VBB was expected to last before replacement but Tesla warranted Hornsdale for 15 years so @sptrawler's 10 year cap is at least 50% out.  Flow batteries have lifecycles from 20 - 30 years with minimal output loss.
> 
> I have no problem with pumped hydro to where it's a cost effective solution to intermittency, but Snowy 2  is akin to putting a cricket team on the field comprised of a bowler and 10 wicket keepers.  It's a level of backup that has no business case supporting it.
> 
> @sptrawler reckons that Snowy 2 will be handy to have when there are days of low generation from renewables.  That's true.  But when exactly will Snowy 2 be needed to meet any shortfall?
> 
> As @Smurf1976 notes, at least Snowy 2 is happening.  Given the pace of other market developments I see it becoming a white elephant.  But in the absence of a credible energy policy and without a plan, something is better than nothing for the time being.



As I've said, if Snowy 2.0 isn't viable and or required, Labor will have no issue with stopping the project, it is still in the early stages. So lets just wait and see rather than having circular debates.. 
As for flow batteries, I'm a big fan and do have RFX shares, with lithium batteries, I have three electric bikes, 4 electric scooters and a shed full of battery powered electric handtools.
Lithium is great, but IMO it has a long way to go before I will call it the saviour, I can post up a picture of a Segway ninebot ES4 battery pack I've stripped to replace dead cells, if you want..


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting to see the Guardian and Labor commenting on "commercial viability", that's usually the LNP's area..
> 
> Without going into the merits of any proposal , the storage options are all "insurance policies" against the risk that intermittent energy sources cannot satisfy demand for short or medium periods of time.
> 
> No insurance policies are commercially viable unless you have to use them.
> 
> There will be stranded assets and governments will have to own them because private operators won't . If batteries owned by private operators can't supply demand the private operators will just walk away and say 'tough luck' . Governments have to ensure continuity of supply and sometimes spending money for doubtful returns is a risk they have to take.



Snowy 2 is only insurance against multiday-duration intermittency.  The issue is pretty much isolated to Victoria which has a high winter load and presently can simultaneously experience dual wind and solar capacity shortfalls as @Smurf has separately charted.

Seasonal peaks have mostly declined over the past 10 years and are nowadays relatively stable:




Snowy 2's only saving grace is its storage potential.
What it cannot show is when it will be called on and for how long.
The real rush to hydrogen only became apparent to the great unwashed when the BEV revolution's data on battery materials showed that there was not enough to meet forecast vehicle production.
In the present energy mix the rate of BEV uptake has the potential to supplant the need for Snowy 2, but only if V2G is mandated.  On the other hand, the likelihood that green hydrogen production prices could match or better other energy sources by 2030 is very real.  Thousands of kilometres of hydrogen gas in our pipeline network more than meets any intermittency issues that would occur in future. 

Snowy 2 falls down as an idea because its additional output is capped at 2GW, and this can be purchased for a fraction of the price via chemical battery options. 


sptrawler said:


> As I've said, if Snowy 2.0 isn't viable and or required, Labor will have no issue with stopping the project, it is still in the early stages. So lets just wait and see rather than having circular debates.



Maybe.  But maybe not if contracts have already been awarded.

Aside from  its "insurance" merit or problems with costs, Snowy 2 stands to suppress private sector investment appetite.  What preferential treatment will Snowy2 receive in the market, if any, to recover costs?  What daily generation will it operate at such that private sector capacity additions are displaced?  Without a roadmap for what and when, Snowy 2 is actually a negative factor in energy planning.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> *Snowy 2 is only insurance against multiday-duration intermittency*.  The issue is pretty much isolated to Victoria which has a high winter load and presently can simultaneously experience dual wind and solar capacity shortfalls as @Smurf has separately charted.



At last, can we finally move on now?


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> At last, can we finally move on now?



I agree.
You could not show it was necessary or viable.
Nevertheless, I am now contacting my insurer to add death from intergalactic invaders... just in case.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I agree.
> You could not show it was necessary or viable.
> Nevertheless, I am now contacting my insurer to add death from intergalactic invaders... just in case.



You're tenacity, is only surpassed by your verbosity, I found a photo of you driving by.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> You're tenacity, is only surpassed by your verbosity,



You have opinions, but I have answers.
Snowy 2 should be dead in the water:





This is literally what Australia could be shipping to the world in the 2030s.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> You have opinions, but I have answers.
> Snowy 2 should be dead in the water:
> View attachment 132194
> 
> 
> This is literally what Australia could be shipping to the world in the 2030s.



Finally we agree on something. 
I'm sure the hydrogen era will arrive, but being 66 years old I don't think I will see it, but I am hopeful.
Until then it will be batteries, backed up by some seriously big pumped hydro.


----------



## sptrawler

@rederob what is really exciting is W.A with a small population and a lot of land, resources and money may well be the first Hydrogen State in the World, I think it is possible. 
So I'm picking up a PHEV early next year and hoping to live long enough to trade it in on a fuel cell vehicle.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> the real world seldom sees Tantangara above 30% full during the year



Whilst that is factually correct, it's somewhat akin to saying that my savings account generally doesn't have a lot of money in it.

There is, at present, no reason to keep water in Tantangara at all since it's a diversion storage. That is, its purpose is to capture natural inflows which may at times be quite abrupt (that is, heavy rainfall) and to provide buffer storage with that water then being transferred at a slower, steady rate to Lake Eucumbene which is the major actual storage facility.

There's no power station at present drawing directly on Tantangara such that, so long as Eucumbene isn't full, there's no reason to store water in Tantangara.

Since SH2 would change that, it creates a reason to store water in Tantangara, operational procedures would change to reflect that. Shut the outlet and water will build up naturally and that can be run through the SH2 station instead of sending it to Lake Eucumbene and then discharging through Tumut 1 and 2. Or water can be pumped from Talbingo, the storage for Tumut 3, into Tantangara.

As for any alternative, it simply comes down to three things:

1. It needs to be technology that exists and is proven sufficiently to enable a decision to proceed.

2. Costs need to be known sufficiently that someone's willing to base contracts around it.

3. Someone needs to be willing to actually build it.

Personally I have no firm view on what technology ought be used so long as it works and is cost competitive.

What I do have a firm view on however is that "do nothing" is not an option and that would be the case even if, hypothetically, the entire issue of climate change were removed (ignoring any argument for or against that so in a purely hypothetical sense). I say that since, even without that issue being considered at all, there's still the problem of multiple existing coal-fired plants and a few gas ones approaching the end of their technical lifespan and there's still the problem of gas production decline. The energy issue exists with or without the climate issue.

On that note, one area where I will be somewhat critical not so much of Snowy but of the entire industry is in regards to storage management. Here's the current data as a % of full capacity (showing usable capacity only, dead storage has been excluded):

Snowy Hydro = 29.6%
Hydro Tasmania = 52.5%

Moomba underground gas storage (SA) = 20%
Newcastle LNG storage (NSW) = 21%
Iona underground gas storage (Vic) = 52%
Dandenong LNG storage (Vic, in suburban Melbourne) = 37%

Bearing in mind that we do not presently have a drought, gas production is working and coal-fired generation is with one exception operating normally those levels really ought to be higher and from a technical perspective it would be easy to do so.

Therein lies a big dilemma.....

Anyone looking at the technical side will point out that there's a lot that can go wrong and plenty of precedents for exactly that. Given that the workaround to just about any problem with generation or transmission involves running something else harder, it's wise to ensure that there's a good stock of fuel (of whatever sort) on hand so as to be able to do so if required. If a coal plant goes kaboom well then there'll be a need to run considerably more hydro and gas as a result. Etc.

Those looking at the financial side will quickly point out that water in a dam or gas stored underground pays no interest and would much prefer to see money in the bank and on the balance sheet.

Therein lies a problem. It's not just a question of building storage but also of actually using it. There's no point having an abundance of batteries, pumped hydro, gas (of whatever chemical composition) or whatever if it's not going to be filled up when the opportunity to do so exists. It's far too late by the time you know you need it, as with any insurance you have to do it beforehand. Once a drought occurs or there's a need to run gas-fired plant around the clock well that's too late to think about trying to fill up storages then.

The overall approach of intentionally low storage levels, driven by financial incentives, is one that will in my opinion bite society hard at some point but it's impossible to predict exactly when it'll happen until it does. It's an unnecessary risk in my view .

Worth noting there that during the load shedding incidents on 24 January 2019 and a second separate incident on 25 January 2019 in Victoria, batteries were in fact discharged at the time so there's a precedent albeit on a small scale but still, it happened.


----------



## sptrawler

By the way @Smurf1976 the oldest son is putting in a 30Kw off grid system in January, so I should be able to give some details as to the pros and cons as time goes by. He is using a heat pump HWS, I suggested a solar with wetback heating from slow combustion oven and wood fire in lounge, but he went with the heat pump.
It will be an interesting project.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> What I do have a firm view on however is that "do nothing" is not an option and that would be the case even if, hypothetically, the entire issue of climate change were removed (ignoring any argument for or against that so in a purely hypothetical sense). I say that since, even without that issue being considered at all, there's still the problem of multiple existing coal-fired plants and a few gas ones approaching the end of their technical lifespan and there's still the problem of gas production decline. The energy issue exists with or without the climate issue.



That is IMO and only my opinion the major issue, we have moved on since the Industrial Revolution and we are much more technically advanced and indeed much more affluent.
We wouldn't accept a HR Holden anymore, we wouldn't accept not having a mobile phone, we wouldn't accept having to go back to am radio's and no television.
Times move on what is acceptable changes, the planet is surrounded by  a cocoon of atmosphere 10km high, we have to accept it has to be looked after, or we don't survive.
We have old power stations burning coal in a similar fashion as they were burning it 100 years ago, there are technologies around that can replace that with a lot less emissions, that's life and it will happen, just the same as ICE engines will be replaced by BEV's, then they in turn will be further improved.
What has to realised IMO, is it has to happen on a global scale, not on an individual country scale IMO. If it doesn't happen by consensus, then some countries will benefit due to their abundance of favourable circumstances and other countries will be put at a massive disadvantage. That issue has to be thrashed out and addressed, how do you make it fair to all?
How do those with no ability to replace their crappy power generation, replace it, if it is coal fired and you stop selling them coal how do they industrialise and find the money to replace their crappy coal generators, when they are having trouble buying it?
I'm all for us shutting down our coal generation and I'm sure it will happen because it just isn't viable anymore anyway, but I'm yet to be convinced on the merits of stopping exporting coal, unless someone comes up with options for countries to reduce their reliance on it.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> On that note, one area where I will be somewhat critical not so much of Snowy but of the entire industry is in regards to storage management.




Do we need a National Energy Guarantee 2.0 to require by legislation that sufficient storage of any fuel is maintained ?

We had a similar problem with reserves of transport fuel a while ago, and it still exists. We have about 70 days of crude oil in reserves when the minimum should be 90 according to the International Enedrgy Agency.









						Government scrambles to maintain Australia's fuel security in Federal Budget
					

Oil companies to receive large incentives to keep oil refineries open, in an effort to maintain fledgling fuel security.




					www.drive.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Do we need a National Energy Guarantee 2.0 to require by legislation that sufficient storage of any fuel is maintained ?
> 
> We had a similar problem with reserves of transport fuel a while ago, and it still exists. We have about 70 days of crude oil in reserves when the minimum should be 90 according to the International Enedrgy Agency.



I'm with you on this, I brought up a while ago that we are committing all this land to companies to make hydrogen etc in Northern Australia, are we going to have a domestic reserve policy, or is it going to end up like LNG where we can't get enough for domestic use.
These are the things the Federal Government should be acting on, not interfering in the market place, but ensuring that the market place is looking after Australia first.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Do we need a National Energy Guarantee 2.0 to require by legislation that sufficient storage of any fuel is maintained ?



The big problem can be summed up in a single sentence.

*Nobody is obligated to maintain a sufficient supply electricity or gas.*

That's the practical reality for most of the National Electricity Market with the exception of Tasmania where there is indeed a formal obligation to keep the lights on. For the rest though, well everyone's either running or regulating a business or a market but that's where it ends.

AEMO runs the market and also does various analysis and engineering but ultimately it does not own the physical assets

If someone has generating capacity that's able to operate but not operating, and the lights are going out unless it's put into operation, then AEMO can and will direct that it be operated and that's a formal direction binding on the owners.

Following is a real Market Notice which in layman's terms is a warning that a direction will be issued unless someone responds voluntarily:



> 92115RESERVE NOTICE02/11/2021 01:07:07 PM
> PDPASA - Forecast Lack Of Reserve Level 2 (LOR2) in the SA Region on 03/11/2021​PDPASA - Forecast Lack Of Reserve Level 2 (LOR2) in the SA Region on 03/11/2021
> 
> AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE
> 
> AEMO declares a Forecast LOR2 condition under clause 4.8.4(b) of the National Electricity Rules for the SA region for the following period:
> 
> [1.] From 0830 hrs 03/11/2021 to 0900 hrs 03/11/2021.
> The forecast capacity reserve requirement is 265 MW.
> The minimum capacity reserve available is 197 MW.
> 
> AEMO estimates the latest time it would need to intervene through an AEMO intervention event is 1700 hrs on 02/11/2021.
> 
> 
> Manager NEM Real Time Operations




That's a cut and paste of an actual real one. Those are publicly viewable by anyone on the AEMO website for those not aware, despite being directed at those internally in the industry.

Since a market response has been received, someone has made plant available without being directed, that notice has since been cancelled. In the event that hadn't occurred then AEMO would have directed one or more owners of plant that's technically able to operate but not being run to actually operate it.

What AEMO can't do however is direct that anyone builds something in the first place, stockpiles however much fuel or doesn't close it down. If the plant's closed for good well then that's it, game over, it's not operating and can't be directed to operate.

Much the same with gas.

Now the basic problem with all that is that those who own storage are either storing water, gas, coal etc to suit their own needs only, or they're a third party operator who only stores what someone else pays them to store.

For example APA Group owns and physically operates the Dandenong LNG facility but they're a middleman somewhat akin to a freight company. They run the facility but they don't own the LNG in the tank much like a freight company doesn't own the goods they're delivering. If someone pays them to store gas then they store it. If not then they don't. Noting that, for clarity, this is a storage facility not an import or export facility - gas is taken from the mains, run through a small on-site LNG plant, and the LNG is stored in the tank. Reverse that to send the gas back out into the network.

Where the problem arises is that just because nobody wants to own some gas, water or whatever doesn't in any way change the technical need to use it. If gas demand spikes high enough then supply from Dandenong is needed, that's the specific purpose it was built for. It can't supply gas if there's none in the tank - and it takes about 12 weeks of constant filling (24/7) to fill that tank from empty so it's not something that can just be done at the last minute.

It comes back to the reality that financial risk can be hedged via financial contracts and so on whereas to avoid physical risk you need physical things, you need actual coal, water, gas or whatever not just a piece of paper. Owning crude oil futures is very different to owning physical diesel fuel in a tank. Both will hedge your financial risk but only the physical can be used to run the gas turbines, boilers or whatever.

I'll keep out of the politics, and to be clear I'm not criticising those who own these facilities directly, it's just an observation that there's a very definite conflict between what makes the most sense financially ("just in time") versus what makes the most sense in terms of supply reliability ("fill it up now just in case").

As there's a shift toward greater reliance on energy storage systems, of whatever form be they hydro, batteries, hydrogen or something else, that issue is going to rapidly become one that needs resolving. Historically there's been plenty of coal-fired generation and free flowing gas fields that could effectively bail out any major stuff up but that's coming to an end and we can't make the wind blow tomorrow just because nobody fill the storage when it was blowing hard all last week. Etc.

So my point is it's not just about what storage to build, there's also the question of how it's operated. The energy industry needs to become a bit of a hoarder basically, filling up at every opportunity - there's no point having batteries if they're flat when they're needed.


----------



## sptrawler

I can foresee a lot of storage becoming a Government responsibility, especially as you say the just in case storage, which has a carrying cost but no guaranteed return on investment.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I can foresee a lot of storage becoming a Government responsibility, especially as you say the just in case storage, which has a carrying cost but no guaranteed return on investment.



What if you modelled the reserve capacity of home batteries and V2G via DER into the future?
 As I see it, if we prepare the grid for this most likely future (rather that purchasing more storage) and circumvent any transitional problems then the focus needs to be on infrastructure.  Adding hydrogen to the mix in the 2030s - if not earlier - solves the problem for good.
It's almost funny to think that we can overpay businesses by $34B to pay people not to work so they still have a job, but don't want to invest to keep the lights on!


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> What if you modelled the reserve capacity of home batteries and V2G via DER into the future?
> As I see it, if we prepare the grid for this most likely future (rather that purchasing more storage) and circumvent any transitional problems then the focus needs to be on infrastructure.  Adding hydrogen to the mix in the 2030s - if not earlier - solves the problem for good.
> It's almost funny to think that we can overpay businesses by $34B to pay people not to work so they still have a job, but don't want to invest to keep the lights on!



That may well end up being the case, but until that time arrives the conversion to renewables has to be facilitated, to do that in a rapid time will require some serious large scale storage to encourage and technically enable the huge amounts of renewables to be installed and also enable the grid to be able to cope with them.
As you have mentioned before, this could be done by making it a condition of installing large scale solar wind there is a requirement to install sufficient storage, to make it a stable component in the system. The down side would be, that because you need twice as much storage as generation, it would add a huge cost to the installation.
This then would probably end up with a lot of solar/wind farms not being financially viable, due to capital cost and rate of return, that is where something like Snowy 2.0 and increasing Tassies capacity saves a huge amount of cost for the private sector to invest in the generation component.
Take for example the new battery quoted for Kwinana in Perth it is a 100MW, which if it was a requirement for  50MW commercial solar farm to install is going to cost over $100m, which has to be recovered if it is part of the installation.
When you upscale that to the size of the solar/wind farms that will be required to replace 40,000MW of generation it becomes a huge cost, that is where the economies of scale of bulk storage start and make a huge amount of sense.

Hydrogen IMO is definitely the way to go, but it again requires a huge amount of renewables to make a reasonable amount of hydrogen, but the hydrogen can be held indefinitely as with water in the hydro, so it is the obvious choice in the very long term.
However the problem is to first get enough generation and storage capacity installed, to enable the closure of coal power stations that are currently running and to do it in a safe and system secure manner.

To do that each power station that is to be closed has to have twice its generating capacity installed in renewables, also it has to have three times its capacity installed in storage, if you add to that making hydrogen through electrolysis results in an energy loss of say 40% then that extra renewable generation has to added to what is required.

So IMO in reality until renewables and storage have reached an amount, that can safely provide the energy reliably for the grid, hydrogen production will only be installed as a stand alone facility to on sell the product to the market at a commercial rate.

The only other way around it IMO would be to nationalise the grid and then have the Feds/ States and taxpayer pay for it, which I think would be a good thing, but it would be a huge call because a lot of quite large companies would be put out of business.

The issue highlights the problem with privatising essential services, the private sector require a return on equity, when it is in public hands the taxpayer just wants a reliable service at an acceptable standard and taxes are adjusted accordingly.

The BEV's will eventually assist with the whole process, but until it's a known amount of storage, it really can't be used as a base case for system predictive analysis. 
Appollogies for the editing, writing and getting kids ready for school, doesn't make for fluid thought processes.😂


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> That may well end up being the case, but until that time arrives the conversion to renewables has to be facilitated, to do that in a rapid time will require some serious large scale storage to encourage and technically enable the huge amounts of renewables to be installed and also enable the grid to be able to cope with them.
> As you have mentioned before, this could be done by making it a condition of installing large scale solar wind there is a requirement to install sufficient storage, to make it a stable component in the system. The down side would be, that because you need twice as much storage as generation, it would add a huge cost to the installation.
> This then would probably end up with a lot of solar/wind farms not being financially viable, due to capital cost and rate of return, that is where something like Snowy 2.0 and increasing Tassies capacity saves a huge amount of cost for the private sector to invest in the generation component.
> Take for example the new battery quoted for Kwinana in Perth it is a 100MW, which if it was a requirement for  50MW commercial solar farm to install is going to cost over $100m, which has to be recovered if it is part of the installation.
> When you upscale that to the size of the solar/wind farms that will be required to replace 40,000MW of generation it becomes a huge cost, that is where the economies of scale of bulk storage start and make a huge amount of sense.
> 
> Hydrogen IMO is definitely the way to go, but it again requires a huge amount of renewables to make a reasonable amount of hydrogen, but the hydrogen can be held indefinitely as with water in the hydro, so it is the obvious choice in the very long term.
> However the problem is to first get enough generation and storage capacity installed, to enable the closure of coal power stations that are currently running and to do it in a safe and system secure manner.
> 
> To do that each power station that is to be closed has to have twice its generating capacity installed in renewables, also it has to have three times its capacity installed in storage, if you add to that making hydrogen through electrolysis results in an energy loss of say 40% then that extra renewable generation has to added to what is required.
> 
> So IMO in reality until renewables and storage have reached an amount, that can safely provide the energy reliably for the grid, hydrogen production will only be installed as a stand alone facility to on sell the product to the market at a commercial rate.
> 
> The only other way around it IMO would be to nationalise the grid and then have the Feds/ States and taxpayer pay for it, which I think would be a good thing, but it would be a huge call because a lot of quite large companies would be put out of business.
> 
> The issue highlights the problem with privatising essential services, the private sector require a return on equity, when it is in public hands the taxpayer just wants a reliable service at an acceptable standard and taxes are adjusted accordingly.
> 
> The BEV's will eventually assist with the whole process, but until it's a known amount of storage, it really can't be used as a base case for system predictive analysis.
> Appollogies for the editing, writing and getting kids ready for school, doesn't make for fluid thought processes.😂



Lets say Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane each had a million EVs with biderectional flow capability. 
Lets say that on average they each stored 30KWh. 
3 000 000 x 30 = 90 000 000kWh or 90 GWh or 3.75 days of SH2 running at full capacity.

I don't get why you think we need to build a lot more storage when its being added every day and just needs the grid infrastructure to accommodate it.  Incentivise home batteries and EVs and the timeline to get that capacity moves forward.


----------



## mullokintyre

sptrawler said:


> That may well end up being the case, but until that time arrives the conversion to renewables has to be facilitated, to do that in a rapid time will require some serious large scale storage to encourage and technically enable the huge amounts of renewables to be installed and also enable the grid to be able to cope with them.
> As you have mentioned before, this could be done by making it a condition of installing large scale solar wind there is a requirement to install sufficient storage, to make it a stable component in the system. The down side would be, that because you need twice as much storage as generation, it would add a huge cost to the installation.
> This then would probably end up with a lot of solar/wind farms not being financially viable, due to capital cost and rate of return, that is where something like Snowy 2.0 and increasing Tassies capacity saves a huge amount of cost for the private sector to invest in the generation component.
> Take for example the new battery quoted for Kwinana in Perth it is a 100MW, which if it was a requirement for  50MW commercial solar farm to install is going to cost over $100m, which has to be recovered if it is part of the installation.
> When you upscale that to the size of the solar/wind farms that will be required to replace 40,000MW of generation it becomes a huge cost, that is where the economies of scale of bulk storage start and make a huge amount of sense.
> 
> Hydrogen IMO is definitely the way to go, but it again requires a huge amount of renewables to make a reasonable amount of hydrogen, but the hydrogen can be held indefinitely as with water in the hydro, so it is the obvious choice in the very long term.
> However the problem is to first get enough generation and storage capacity installed, to enable the closure of coal power stations that are currently running and to do it in a safe and system secure manner.
> 
> To do that each power station that is to be closed has to have twice its generating capacity installed in renewables, also it has to have three times its capacity installed in storage, if you add to that making hydrogen through electrolysis results in an energy loss of say 40% then that extra renewable generation has to added to what is required.
> 
> So IMO in reality until renewables and storage have reached an amount, that can safely provide the energy reliably for the grid, hydrogen production will only be installed as a stand alone facility to on sell the product to the market at a commercial rate.
> 
> The only other way around it IMO would be to nationalise the grid and then have the Feds/ States and taxpayer pay for it, which I think would be a good thing, but it would be a huge call because a lot of quite large companies would be put out of business.
> 
> The issue highlights the problem with privatising essential services, the private sector require a return on equity, when it is in public hands the taxpayer just wants a reliable service at an acceptable standard and taxes are adjusted accordingly.
> 
> The BEV's will eventually assist with the whole process, but until it's a known amount of storage, it really can't be used as a base case for system predictive analysis.
> Appollogies for the editing, writing and getting kids ready for school, doesn't make for fluid thought processes.😂



I suspect it will be difficult to produce green H2 from fresh water, especially in OZ which s a dry continent at the best of times. 
Hence, it is most likely to be limited to using saltwater, or perhaps areas in the tropics where water is in somewhat abundance (well during the wet it is). 
Secondly, the storage and transport of H2 is going to be kinda expensive. 
The boiling point of liquid hydrogen  is  - 250 degrees C. This temperature is achievable, but not as easily say as achieving liquid state for Co2 which  -78degres C. It also requires considerable pressure to keep it in that state.
From memory, one of the issues with storage of  H2 is the relative small size of H2 atoms means that so many materials used as containers end being somewhat porous. Butyl Rubber is one of the least porous container materials, so perhaps they could use the strength of carbon fibre and line with butyl rubber to reduce the porosity issues.
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Lets say Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane each had a million EVs with biderectional flow capability.
> Lets say that on average they each stored 30KWh.
> 3 000 000 x 30 = 90 000 000kWh or 90 GWh or 3.75 days of SH2 running at full capacity.
> 
> I don't get why you think we need to build a lot more storage when its being added every day and just needs the grid infrastructure to accommodate it.  Incentivise home batteries and EVs and the timeline to get that capacity moves forward.



When Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane have a million E.V's and their effect on the grid is a known and reliable figure, no doubt it will be used, until that time it is back of the napkin stuff, grid energy flow calculations don't work that way. People want to know that their fridge is going to run overnight, or if they get up to go to the toilet at 2am the light will work and the toilet will flush.

The issue is, how is taxpayers money better directed, toward people buying electric cars, or building massive storage facilities that facilitate the building of huge renewable generating installations.
If it was a bottomless pit of money you would do everything at once, but that in itself would create issues, as the electrical system isn't set up yet for BEV's and their charging control.
I mean let's be honest if the Government said tomorrow, that electric cars were getting a 50% rebate, you couldn't keep the cars up to the demand. But within a week the police would be coming around and impounding them due to the system crashing.

All this change over has to be looked at holistically, not through the eyes of certain options and incentives, it is a huge undertaking.

The fact that the E.U has stated a carbon tax will be introduced by 2026, is going to accelerate all these issues, in a controlled manner commensurate with the effect it has on emissions, every country in the World will follow suit now. It is the only way the transition to renewables can be accelerated in a controlled global manner, by having everyone on the same page, facing the same penalties.









						The EU has cottoned on to imperfect carbon workarounds introduced by countries such as Australia and things are about to change
					

A carbon tariff is a carbon tax applied to exports from countries like Australia that don't have one. And Europe is planning to impose one, whether our politicians like it or not, writes Peter Martin.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

mullokintyre said:


> I suspect it will be difficult to produce green H2 from fresh water, especially in OZ which s a dry continent at the best of times.
> Hence, it is most likely to be limited to using saltwater, or perhaps areas in the tropics where water is in somewhat abundance (well during the wet it is).
> Secondly, the storage and transport of H2 is going to be kinda expensive.
> The boiling point of liquid hydrogen  is  - 250 degrees C. This temperature is achievable, but not as easily say as achieving liquid state for Co2 which  -78degres C. It also requires considerable pressure to keep it in that state.
> From memory, one of the issues with storage of  H2 is the relative small size of H2 atoms means that so many materials used as containers end being somewhat porous. Butyl Rubber is one of the least porous container materials, so perhaps they could use the strength of carbon fibre and line with butyl rubber to reduce the porosity issues.
> Mick




The current idea is to store Hydrogen in ammonia , and release it using a membrane.

Good idea if it works commercially.


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> I suspect it will be difficult to produce green H2 from fresh water, especially in OZ which s a dry continent at the best of times.
> Hence, it is most likely to be limited to using saltwater, or perhaps areas in the tropics where water is in somewhat abundance (well during the wet it is).
> Secondly, the storage and transport of H2 is going to be kinda expensive.
> The boiling point of liquid hydrogen  is  - 250 degrees C. This temperature is achievable, but not as easily say as achieving liquid state for Co2 which  -78degres C. It also requires considerable pressure to keep it in that state.
> From memory, one of the issues with storage of  H2 is the relative small size of H2 atoms means that so many materials used as containers end being somewhat porous. Butyl Rubber is one of the least porous container materials, so perhaps they could use the strength of carbon fibre and line with butyl rubber to reduce the porosity issues.
> Mick



There is a huge amount of issues to be overcome with hydrogen, but because of its energy density, abundance and transportability etc, the problems will be overcome with technology IMO.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> When Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane have a million E.V's and their effect on the grid is a known and reliable figure, no doubt it will be used, until that time it is back of the napkin stuff, grid energy flow calculations don't work that way. People want to know that their fridge is going to run overnight, or if they get up to go to the toilet at 2am the light will work and the toilet will flush.
> 
> The issue is, how is taxpayers money better directed, toward people buying electric cars, or building massive storage facilities that facilitate the building of huge renewable generating installations.
> If it was a bottomless pit of money you would do everything at once, but that in itself would create issues, as the electrical system isn't set up yet for BEV's and their charging control.
> I mean let's be honest if the Government said tomorrow, that electric cars were getting a 50% rebate, you couldn't keep the cars up to the demand. But within a week the police would be coming around and impounding them due to the system crashing.
> 
> All this change over has to be looked at holistically, not through the eyes of certain options and incentives, it is a huge undertaking.
> 
> The fact that the E.U has stated a carbon tax will be introduced by 2026, is going to accelerate all these issues, in a controlled manner commensurate with the effect it has on emissions, every country in the World will follow suit now. It is the only way the transition to renewables can be accelerated in a controlled global manner, by having everyone on the same page, facing the same penalties.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The EU has cottoned on to imperfect carbon workarounds introduced by countries such as Australia and things are about to change
> 
> 
> A carbon tariff is a carbon tax applied to exports from countries like Australia that don't have one. And Europe is planning to impose one, whether our politicians like it or not, writes Peter Martin.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



EVs can be charged during day when VRE curtailment presently occurs  or when prices go negative





 - and on weekends.  Smart battery  management can be used to tap into excess wind at other times of the day.  The network should be able to give signals that allow EVs to use energy when its in potential oversupply.

Increasing EV uptake should be beneficial to the electricity market by absorbing electrons that otherwise earn nothing.  Not sure why that would be hard to plan.  Except there is no plan!


----------



## sptrawler

Absolutely, but that still doesn't negate the requirement for basically base load long duration storage.
With regard BEV to grid charging control, there are several pilot programmes in operation at the moment and no doubt the outcome of them will give direction to the implementation on a larger scale.

One of the major issue I have read about in the U.K, is the reluctance of BEV owners to participate, as the cycling seriously effects the life of the vehicles battery. People don't mind wearing the battery out, because they are using the car, but aren't keen when the battery is being worn out, by the power system discharging and charging it.
No doubt these issue will be overcome, but it wont happen overnight, meanwhile large renewable generators need to be brought online.

Again that is where the ongoing certainty of a know defined storage capacity, allows for the technical grid design scenario to be projected with a degree of certainty, as to the energy flows in the HV transmission system.

The other issue that will evolve no doubt further down the road is, as hydrogen becomes more prolific, the public may transition away from BEV's to fuel cell cars.
This then will necessitate the factoring in that it will probably no longer be two way transfer of energy, this will then increased generation required, to make the extra hydrogen, if you are still going to use the vehicles as a electrical source medium.
Also it won't be able to be used as a plug in storage any longer, because there won't be a battery to control and soak up the extra energy, the fuel cell probably will be able to supply power to the system, through the power point, but it will probably no longer be able to absorb it from the power point.

This is where nuclear comes into the equation, to make the amount of hydrogen required to fuel all the Worlds transport needs, all the Worlds industrial needs and all the Worlds power generation needs. 
That is a lot of clean energy required, to make all this clean hydrogen for the world, I just can't see enough coming from wind and solar. But that's another story. 










						Vehicle To Grid Implications In Australia - GSES
					

What are the vehicle to grid implications in Australia? Can my electric cars power my house and the Australian grid? Read to find out more!




					www.gses.com.au
				




_According to the key findings of a report by UK Power Networks [7], as of 2018, 50 V2G projects are underway of which 25 are in Europe and 18 in North America with the USA leading development in this sector. Of these projects, 98% included technical aims highlighting the emphasis placed on developing V2G technology. The report also found that whilst 12 vehicle manufacturers have undergone V2G projects, Renault Nissan and Mitsubishi run the majority of these projects. However, in the 3 years since the report, V2G projects have increased by over 50% with 80 projects now active globally.

There are also a number of pilot programs being run globally with the Realising Electric Vehicle-to-grid Services (REVS) project running in Australia. The $2,400,000 REVS project is a part of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency’s (ARENA) ‘Advancing Renewables Program’ and is being run by ActewAGL. According to ARENA, it “aims to demonstrate V2G technology providing contingency FCAS to the National Energy Market (NEM), complemented with a holistic roadmap for the mass deployment of the full value stack of V2G services. This will lead to new V2G enabled service offerings for fleets and residential customers.” Specifically, 51 Nissan Leaf vehicles will be deployed across the ACT and 7 organisations will be a part of the process to build a small scale network of EVs to test how V2G will support the grid in critical situations.

The future of V2G is incredibly exciting as more research and development into technology is undertaken and more countries look to V2G to increase energy security during the transition to net zero emissions. However, the roadmap for Vehicle to Grid in Australia is still relatively uncertain and the REVS project, set to finish in early 2022, will be key to proving the concept to investors and policy makers. In Great Britain, the National Grid Electricity System Operator’s Future Energy Scenarios program, has predicted that up to 45% of households in Great Britain will provide V2G services with it seen as an important mechanism to help achieve net zero emissions. However, one large stumbling block in the short-term future is the lack of bidirectional charging capability in CCS battery technology (the battery technology used in most EVs today). CCS technology will have V2G capability in 2025, and until then, there will likely be little to no progress made.

There are still several challenges to overcome to successfully implementing Vehicle to Grid in Australia. Planning and development of strategies to manage the increased demand for energy from EVs will be essential. This extra demand may create market volatility if the appropriate market structures are not put into place.  With the appropriate price signals and customer engagement the problems that may arise from this extra demand can be mitigated and further, the opportunity these EVs present to support the grid can be harnessed. 

The cycle life of an EV’s battery is an important aspect that you will need to consider. The cycle life of batteries is the number of charge and discharge cycles that a battery can complete before losing performance. V2G will require EV batteries to charge and discharge more frequently, going through the cycle life quicker and therefore decreasing the batteries’ lifetime. Hence, battery manufactures will need to address this and develop ways to improve their batteries’ performance_.

_With the undoubted uptake in electric vehicles over the next decades, the amount of battery storage potentially available in these electric vehicles is huge. Financial incentives, planning and technological advances could allow for V2G to become a DER that can be deployed by grid operators to supplement peak demand. These also can provide ancillary services and capture excess energy from renewables all whilst providing the opportunity to earn money. Of course, like any technology, it does not come without its challenges and the next decade will be pivotal for the success of V2G. Nonetheless, the future for Australia looks bright for Vehicle to Grid and the technology looks poised to revolutionise the energy industry and the way you use your electric vehicle_.


----------



## sptrawler

China obviously deciding to get ahead of the carbon tax curve, and maintain its position on the manufacturing ladder, by having plenty of clean energy.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...ear-power-plan-to-rival-u-s?srnd=premium-asia

From the article:
China has over the course of the year revealed the extensive scope of its plans for nuclear, an ambition with new resonance given the global energy crisis and the calls for action coming out of the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow. The world’s biggest emitter, China’s planning at least 150 new reactors in the next 15 years, more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35. The effort could cost as much as $440 billion; as early as the middle of this decade, the country will surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest generator of nuclear power.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Absolutely, but that still doesn't negate the requirement for basically base load long duration storage.



Future forecast home battery additions to the market are staggering:




While the above is global, Australia is world leading in rooftop solar, so becomes better placed than any other nation to propel home battery uptake.  Add incremental V2G to this and the base load argument gets weaker by the year.


sptrawler said:


> One of the major issue I have read about in the U.K, is the reluctance of BEV owners to participate, as the cycling seriously effects the life of the vehicles battery. People don't mind wearing the battery out, because they are using the car, but aren't keen when the battery is being worn out, by the power system discharging and charging it.



Yes, I read that too.  However, if Tesla's batteries were a guide and a driver charged their batteries twice a week (due to daily feedback into the grid), then these batteries would last 10 years or more depending on the model.  I guess it also depends how much - or if - you would be paid to feed in to the grid.


sptrawler said:


> Again that is where the ongoing certainty of a know defined storage capacity, allows for the technical grid design scenario to be projected with a degree of certainty, as to the energy flows in the HV transmission system.



What does that mean?  VRE and DER are going to continue to increase, and system planners have to accommodate those uncertainties.


sptrawler said:


> The other issue that will evolve no doubt further down the road is, as hydrogen becomes more prolific, the public may transition away from BEV's to fuel cell cars. Which then will necessitate the factoring in the increased generation required, to make the extra hydrogen, if you are still going to use the vehicles as a electrical source medium. Also it won't be able to be used as a plug in storage any longer, because there won't be a battery to control and soak up the extra energy, the fuel cell probably will be able to supply power to the system, through the power point, but it will probably no longer be able to absorb it from the power point.



Isn't that a positive?  An FCEV doesn't draw from the grid, but can feed back into it.
BEVs and FCEV will coexist with ICE vehicles for some time, but it's almost impossible to see battery manufacture scale up to forecast demand, so the electric vehicle future will see an inevitable mass take up of FCEVs.


----------



## rederob

This was interesting:


----------



## sptrawler

@rederob I think we have covered the issue well, so we just have to agree to disagree on the value of bulk storage, which is a moot point, because we have no influence on the decision anyway.
But it has been an interesting chat.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> I don't get why you think we need to build a lot more storage when its being added every day and just needs the grid infrastructure to accommodate it. Incentivise home batteries and EVs and the timeline to get that capacity moves forward.



A big unknown is what consumers will actually do.

I'm cautious about any predictions there, either mine or anyone else's, simply because there's been so many serious errors made in the past. Look at the history of consumer technology adoption and there's countless examples of things which were expected to be hugely popular but which were rejected by consumers in practice and there's others where popularity came as a complete surprise to manufacturers who'd expected only a limited niche market.

For example consumers took a very long time to decide they wanted dishwashers and they've never really been keen on electric clothes dryers despite washing dishes and clothes being a frequent chore in most households. Then all of a sudden pretty much everyone in Melbourne decided they must have air-conditioning for the few days each year when it gets hot. But those same consumers insist on not using those air-conditioners for heating, preferring gas instead.

I'm wary of applying logic to anything regarding consumer behaviour.....


----------



## IFocus

Smurf1976 said:


> A big unknown is what consumers will actually do.





True to a point, now if there was a policy, plan and heaven forbid a tax behavioural change could happen and the unknown would become a lot more known


----------



## mullokintyre

IFocus said:


> True to a point, now if there was a policy, plan and heaven forbid a tax behavioural change could happen and the unknown would become a lot more known



When does a "tax behavioural change" become a subsidy?
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> When does a "tax behavioural change" become a subsidy?
> Mici



That is the real issue, the plebs will always buy the cheapest, so ATM any subsidy on a BEV to make it affordable would have to be ridiculously large, therefore  the rich who could afford one anyway will get the benefit.
Meanwhile the plebs will still have to buy the cheapest thing available, but pay more tax or lose some welfare to subsidies the cool dude who buys the Tesla, any subsidy on EV's has to be to enable the common punter to access them IMO.
It will have to be thought through very carefully IMO, just throwing money at it isn't the answer, it has to help those who reality wouldn't be able to get into one.
It is a bit like the solar panel roll out in the early days, the rich could afford them, then they reduced their electricity bills and received large feed in tariffs for the excess electricity they exported, meanwhile the poor paid more for electricity.
In hindsight, in the early stages wouldn't it have been a good idea for the State Governments to roll it out to all State housing homes, as well as the incentives to private individuals?

How they apply incentives to E.V's will be interesting. 
ATM the difference between the cost of an ICE and a BEV is a lot, but I have noticed ICE cars are getting dearer when models are changed, so maybe the manufacturers are factoring in the changeover disparity and adjusting accordingly.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> @rederob I think we have covered the issue well, so we just have to agree to disagree on the value of bulk storage, which is a moot point, because we have no influence on the decision anyway.
> But it has been an interesting chat.



We will need storage, but we disagree on how it is achieved.
This thread is about the *future* not the past.
Energy is transitioning along the lines of computing.  If you need more data storage you tap into the cloud and save yourself a hell of a lot of money.   When you think about the energy problem rationally it makes no sense to spend billions on deep storage that never needs to be called on when all you have to do is be able to tap into storage that other people pay for, viz. EVs and home batteries.

The issue of us not being decision makers is only true to the extent we cannot influence decision making.  In part that's what elections are for.  The other part is actually understanding the problem needing to be solved and how it can be properly resourced to do what has to be done so that it becomes our future, rather than a bandage that weeps.


----------



## sptrawler

People probably said similar things when Snowy 1 was built. Its expensive, it is dearer than putting in more coal fired stations, it just doesnt make sense.
Like I said we have done it to death, we are becoming monotonous.


----------



## mullokintyre

sptrawler said:


> People probably said similar things when Snowy 1 was built. Its expensive, it is dearer than putting in more coal fired stations, it just doesnt make sense.
> Like I said we have done it to death, we are becoming monotonous.



Sometimes you just have to let someone have the last word.
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> When you think about the energy problem rationally it makes no sense to spend billions on deep storage that never needs to be called on when all you have to do is be able to tap into storage that other people pay for, viz. EVs and home batteries.




As @Smurf1976 pointed out, consumers are fickle and can't necessarily be relied on to do the right thing, unless you engineer systems that can't be interfered with, people will generally act in their own interests rather than the communities interest.


----------



## mullokintyre

SirRumpole said:


> people will generally act in their own interests rather than the communities interest.



A bit like politicians really.
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

mullokintyre said:


> A bit like politicians really.
> Mick




Sure, but politicians are paid to act in our interests. They should do that or quit their jobs.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> As @Smurf1976 pointed out, consumers are fickle and can't necessarily be relied on to do the right thing, unless you engineer systems that can't be interfered with, people will generally act in their own interests rather than the communities interest.



That's the beauty of a grid that accommodates DER. 
EV's are inevitable and home battery uptake is statistically going through the roof as it gets cheaper.  
Being able to redistribute your stored energy and being paid for it seems like a good idea - a bit like FIT.  However, the need to redistribute stored energy by operator intervention would only occur when electricity prices are high, so all redistributed energy could be paid a premium, which becomes a win-win.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> As @Smurf1976 pointed out, consumers are fickle and can't necessarily be relied on to do the right thing, unless you engineer systems that can't be interfered with, people will generally act in their own interests rather than the communities interest.



The really funny part is arguing for BEV's over hydro is a laugh, BEV's are cleaner than ICE cars, but non the less they are a finite resource and require replacement, whereas hydro can last for hundreds of years supplying the equivalent "clean" storage as 2,000 relatively dirty batteries.

Not only that, but the pumped hydro will be ready by a few years time, imagine sitting around waiting for the vehicle registrations information, before you can allow a solar farm to be built, "hang about we only need another 10,000 Tesla's sold and you can commission your solar farm". What a hoot, welcome to Wally World. 🤣

Go figure the reasoning, I certainly can't. I guess there is a "dirty" side to even the "greenest" crusader. 
Or maybe someone is just hoping for a subsidy, before they buy a Tesla.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The really funny part is arguing for BEV's over hydro is a laugh, BEV's are cleaner than ICE cars, but non the less they are a finite resource and require replacement, whereas hydro can last for hundreds of years supplying the equivalent "clean" storage as 2,000 relatively dirty batteries.
> 
> Not only that, but the pumped hydro will be ready by a few years time, imagine sitting around waiting for the vehicle registrations information, before you can allow a solar farm to be built, "hang about we only need another 10,000 Tesla's sold and you can commission your solar farm". What a hoot, welcome to Wally World. 🤣
> 
> Go figure the reasoning, I certainly can't. I guess there is a "dirty" side to even the "greenest" crusader.
> Or maybe someone is just hoping for a subsidy, before they buy a Tesla.




And just wait for the screams when BEV users get charged 'road use ' tax to replace fuel excise.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> And just wait for the screams when BEV users get charged 'road use ' tax to replace fuel excise.



Not only that but if they are using the onboard GPS and datalogger, to charge the road use tax, they can just as easily check the historical speed data and issue fines, just the same as using someone's data on their gopro camera, the new World is coming.  









						Learner faces $75,000 in fines after police seize video footage
					

A learner motorcyclist’s helmet camera has provided photographic evidence of countless acts of dangerous driving. He now faces an eye-watering total in fines – and a lengthy ban.




					www.drive.com.au


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> The really funny part is arguing for BEV's over hydro is a laugh, BEV's are cleaner than ICE cars, but non the less they are a finite resource and require replacement, whereas hydro can last for hundreds of years supplying the equivalent "clean" storage as 2,000 relatively dirty batteries.
> 
> Not only that, but the pumped hydro will be ready by a few years time, imagine sitting around waiting for the vehicle registrations information, before you can allow a solar farm to be built, "hang about we only need another 10,000 Tesla's sold and you can commission your solar farm". What a hoot, welcome to Wally World. 🤣
> 
> Go figure the reasoning, I certainly can't. I guess there is a "dirty" side to even the "greenest" crusader.
> Or maybe someone is just hoping for a subsidy, before they buy a Tesla.



@sptrawler: you really should know better!
First, all BEV materials are potentially recyclable.  
Second FCEVs will use limitless fuel and are equally as capable as BEVs to prop up the grid via V2G.
Third, your "storage" idea has no supporting business case.  SH2 was an investment decision based on no other policy supporting transition.
Fourth, FCEV don't use dirty batteries to store energy.
Fifth, SH2 wont be making any meaningful contributions to the grid for another 5 years, not the "few" you claim.
Sixth, grid supported DER can be scaled to many times greater output than SH2.
Seventh, the scalable nature of DER is more than capable of satisfying days of minimum VRE output.
Eighth, EVs are being sold from $10k upwards *today, *just not yet in Australia, so using Tesla to support your ideas is very weak.  Next year, if BYD and some other Chinese manufacturers enter the Australian market, BEVs will be price comparable with ICE vehicles of similar size, but technologically superior.

Planning for the future is about envisioning what the future is likely to look like.  Small scale pumped hydro that can be cheapy accommodated, such as that planned for Walpole make sense.  And maybe gravity batteries in the future too, depending on circumstances.
As I read it SH2 is the clayton's response to our energy future.


----------



## sptrawler

That is a funny word to use in your first sentence, potentially recyclable. They will be, but there will always be some waste residue and you still have to dig up and process the 2,000 batteries worth, whereas once the gydro is built it is clean energy for generations.
Of course it has a business case, it is being built, just in case you hadnt noticed, get a grip.
Im on the phone, so ill keep it short, just taken some friends to gnomesville amd the Wellington dam murals, well worth the visit, if you are in the area.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> gnomesville



Well I missed that one whilst in the area 4 years ago....

Never heard of it until now.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> SH2 wont be making any meaningful contributions to the grid for another 5 years



AEMO data current as of October 2021 shows two generating units in Snowy 2.0 operating for the 2025-26 summer season, 4 operating for the 2026 winter season and 6 operating for the 2026-27 summer. There are 6 generating units being installed in the power station in total.

Others:

Victorian Big Battery for summer 2021-22 (300 MW / 450 MWh)

Wallgrove Grid Battery for summer 2021-22 (50 MW / 75 MWh, NSW)

Wandoan South (battery) for summer 2021-22 (100 MW / 150 MWh, Qld)

Kurri Kurri gas turbines summer 2023-24 (gas / diesel fired open cycle gas turbines, 750 MW,  NSW).

Kidston pumped hydro in service for summer 2024-25 (250 MW / 2000 MWh, Qld)

That's it for things which are new and not yet in operation (or have only just commenced), are  sufficiently committed projects for AEMO to have put firm dates on when they'll operate and which are storage, fossil fuel or conventional hydro facilities (so everything that isn't wind or solar farms without storage).

That's not to say nothing else will go ahead but they're not firm enough to see AEMO putting specific dates on available capacity as yet. As a general comment, one that applies to all technologies, there have been so many "publicly announced" proposals now to build some sort of power station, battery, wind farm etc that never amounted to anything that nobody in the industry pays any real attention to such things now. 

Instead what's looked for is hard evidence that it's actually happening - workers on site with substantial $ actually being spent. Not just a fence and a site office but real, serious work being done and equipment turning up. That makes it a goer albeit with an uncertain completion time. Hence some of the more credible companies now tend to put photos of activity underway on their websites and so on - it's proof that they really are building it or are at least doing the core samples or whatever else they claim to be doing.

Then wait for AEMO to be confident enough to put a specific timeframe on it, which they're hesitant to do these days until it's very certain. At that point it's taken as a given that it really is happening. 

I've left Snapper Point Power Station in SA off the list intentionally given that whilst it's new as such, it isn't new generating capacity given that it involves the relocation and conversion to dual fuel (gas / diesel) of open cycle gas turbines presently installed and operating at a different location on diesel only. So a new location and changing to dual fuel but no increase in available supply.


----------



## sptrawler

What no projected BEV storage capacity factored in?


----------



## SirRumpole

I think it's irrelevant to argue for this or that, the more options we have available the less reliant we are on one.

There are places for basically every type of storage that I can see, horses for courses in different areas.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> There are places for basically every type of storage



From a technical perspective what matters is the capabilities of the overall fleet _and_ how it's actually managed and operated in practice.

Whether the best way to get those capabilities is hydro, large batteries, small batteries, cars, compressed air or whatever is about economics and politics mostly, so long as the capability actually is delivered.

In my personal situation well it's just after midnight and my battery is sitting on 44% charged and running the house just fine, having been at 100% at 17:45. Ultimately though, if tomorrow were heavily overcast well then that's it, it has storage sufficient to shift generation from daytime to evening but it won't ride through days of no sun.

It's much the same with a lot of the large scale battery projects. They'll charge at ~midday and discharge at ~7pm just fine but ultimately they do need to charge each day in order to do that, they're no help at coping with an extended period of calm, cloudy weather.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> From a technical perspective what matters is the capabilities of the overall fleet _and_ how it's actually managed and operated in practice.
> 
> Whether the best way to get those capabilities is hydro, large batteries, small batteries, cars, compressed air or whatever is about economics and politics mostly, so long as the capability actually is delivered.
> 
> In my personal situation well it's just after midnight and my battery is sitting on 44% charged and running the house just fine, having been at 100% at 17:45. Ultimately though, if tomorrow were heavily overcast well then that's it, it has storage sufficient to shift generation from daytime to evening but it won't ride through days of no sun.
> 
> It's much the same with a lot of the large scale battery projects. They'll charge at ~midday and discharge at ~7pm just fine but ultimately they do need to charge each day in order to do that, they're no help at coping with an extended period of calm, cloudy weather.



That goes for whether the solar/wind is charging your house battery, the car battery or the grid battery, if it is bad weather none of them get charged..
That is what some can't get their head around IMO.
As Rumpy says, the more diverse the storage, the better the system is served.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> That goes for whether the solar/wind is charging your house battery, the car battery or the grid battery, if it is bad weather none of them get charged..




It's already the case for example that, broadly speaking, high winds in SA + Victoria result in energy transfer SA > Victoria > both Tasmania and NSW.

Low winds in SA and Victoria tend to result in energy transfer Tasmania > Victoria > SA with a varying (both directions throughout the day) flow NSW - Vic.

That's a generic situation. Obviously depends on plant outages, system load etc.

So there's already a partial linkage there, it's already the case that SA's wind and solar energy production is partly being balanced by varying generation, especially hydro, interstate in addition to local gas-fired generation and batteries.


----------



## Smurf1976

SA Power Networks (SAPN) distribution network load:







Below zero yes so we've now had several occurrences, dates as above, where load on the distribution network in SA drops below zero. That is, customers connected to the distribution network are generating more than they're using at that time.

Note for those not aware, the distribution network is what supplies electricity to homes, shops, offices and so on and does not include anything connected directly to the transmission network (eg mining and heavy industry).

This is thought to be a world first for a large scale power system, the only precedents being small islands and things like that.

Press release is here: https://www.sapowernetworks.com.au/data/311762/press-release-sa-network-sets-new-mark-for-solar/


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> SA Power Networks (SAPN) distribution network load:
> 
> View attachment 132532
> 
> 
> Below zero yes so we've now had several occurrences, dates as above, where load on the distribution network in SA drops below zero. That is, customers connected to the distribution network are generating more than they're using at that time.
> 
> Note for those not aware, the distribution network is what supplies electricity to homes, shops, offices and so on and does not include anything connected directly to the transmission network (eg mining and heavy industry).
> 
> This is thought to be a world first for a large scale power system, the only precedents being small islands and things like that.
> 
> Press release is here: https://www.sapowernetworks.com.au/data/311762/press-release-sa-network-sets-new-mark-for-solar/




Nice, so what happened to the excess ?

Distributed to other states, put into storage or lost ?


----------



## mullokintyre

One of the forgotten Energy sources has been Nuclear Fusion 9as distinct from Nuclear Fission).
From Reuters


> Nov 5 (Reuters) - Helion Energy, a fusion energy tech startup, on Friday said it raised $500 million to build a net positive electrical generator, one that creates more power than it uses.
> 
> The latest round values the company at $3 billion. Helion said $1.7 billion in follow on investments were committed if it can prove its technology works, which would be a major step toward making fusion technology a practical solution for generating power while emitting no carbon.
> 
> 
> Fusion is the process that fires the sun as the nuclei of two atoms fuse under extreme heat. It creates enormous amounts of energy.
> 
> Helion’s newest prototype named Polaris will add a so-called regenerative energy technology to its fusion technology already developed to generate electricity, said Helion founder and CEO David Kirtley. The target date for demonstration is 2024.
> 
> 
> The company broke ground in Everett, Washington in July to build the generator which will be the size of two shipping containers and create enough electricity to power 40,000 homes, said Kirtley. If it works, the $1.7 billion follow-on investments will be used to develop a commercial system, he said.
> 
> “There's a real future for fusion to be part of this climate change and clean energy discussion,” said Kirtley, adding that other fusion energy companies were also pushing the timeline forward. He said there were over 40 private fusion companies today.
> 
> 
> Fusion has advantages over fission as the fuel is derived from water, not radioactive uranium or plutonium and doesn’t generate long-term radioactive waste.
> 
> Sam Altman, a well-known investor and artificial intelligence researcher in Silicon Valley who led the round, said the long-term goal of Helion is not just to create clean energy but electricity that costs just one cent a kilowatt hour.



The path to the fusion Nirvana has been littered with failures and downright frauds (who remembers Pons and Fleischman?).
It would be an outstanding breakthrough if someone were able to construct a net positive Fusion reactor.
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

mullokintyre said:


> One of the forgotten Energy sources has been Nuclear Fusion 9as distinct from Nuclear Fission).
> From Reuters
> 
> The path to the fusion Nirvana has been littered with failures and downright frauds (who remembers Pons and Fleischman?).
> It would be an outstanding breakthrough if someone were able to construct a net positive Fusion reactor.
> Mick




Don't worry, fusion reactors are only 20 years away.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Nice, so what happened to the excess ?
> 
> Distributed to other states, put into storage or lost ?



The answer is "all of the above" but it depends on circumstances.

Energy flowing from the distribution network into the transmission network is the reverse of what's normally intended, and was historically impossible simply because there was no generation connected to the distribution (except minor scale things like landfill gas generators, generation using waste by-products in industry and the smallest hydro stations in other states), but technically it can certainly happen. Transformers work in both directions.

So distribution feeds transmission which, historically, is only fed by large generation sources. That is power stations, wind farms etc.

It works so long as _something_ is taking an equal volume out of the transmission system in real time. In SA's case that's heavy industry to the extent we have some, it's charging large scale batteries and it's sending it interstate (Victoria).

Where it becomes problematic however is with scale. We don't actually have that much heavy industrial energy use in SA, batteries can absorb energy but only for a relatively short period until fully charged, and the ability to export interstate is also limited and dependent on 3 lines two of which are on the same towers and thus subject to the risk of simultaneous failure (which has actually occurred quite dramatically in the past, several towers physically collapsed and came crashing down, so it's by no means purely hypothetical).

The workaround to that, used as a last resort only, is to switch off a portion of the rooftop solar. Needless to say the politics around that are painful to say the least but the reasoning is purely technical, it's not about solar versus coal or even about economics. It can't be allowed to happen where supply exceeds demand, it has to go somewhere, so the last resort is shutting systems off.

For new installations that's done via online communications. That's really only for those installed in the past 13 months however.

For all older installations there's a much cruder system in place which, to my knowledge, hasn't been tried anywhere else globally. Just intentionally push the voltage up and the more modern ones will reduce output whilst older models will simply cease functioning altogether once a threshold is reached. Do it gradually and it has the desired effect, the collective output from all the inverters declines smoothly, but for individual older inverters it'll be far more abrupt since they're "all or nothing" by their nature.

That's a crude approach and not an ideal one technically but it was implemented simply as something that was practical, could be done quickly, and has the desired result of working with every inverter regardless of age or brand if required in an emergency situation. It has only been used once thus far. 

As an analogy, that approach is akin to fixing traffic congestion on a highway by simply blocking some of the roads which lead onto it. If vehicles can't get on the highway well then they can't overload it - brutal to those affected but it does achieve the objective.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> For all older installations there's a much cruder system in place which, to my knowledge, hasn't been tried anywhere else globally. Just intentionally push the voltage up and the more modern ones will reduce output whilst older models will simply cease functioning altogether once a threshold is reached.




So this is why people are reporting household appliances burning out, due to higher voltage ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> So this is why people are reporting household appliances burning out, due to higher voltage ?



Given it has only been used once, and only in a fairly limited part of the state on that occasion, I can safely say there's no link.

In terms of magnitude, all its' really doing is pushing the voltage to the upper limits of the range that would be experienced anyway so it _shouldn't_ cause anything to be damaged. That said, if something was about to fail anyway well then it plausibly could be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> As an analogy, that approach is akin to fixing traffic congestion on a highway by simply blocking some of the roads which lead onto it. If vehicles can't get on the highway well then they can't overload it - brutal to those affected but it does achieve the objective.



As has happened on Perth's "freeway", which most of the time during working hours, is a parking lot.









						Freeway on-ramps to get traffic lights
					

The lights are designed to control the entry of cars during busy times of the day.




					thewest.com.au


----------



## mullokintyre

It would seem that someone in the coaliton must be reading ASM.
They have finally issued a plan. 
Not sure if its a good or bad plan, will need to wait for the technical details to come out, but at least now they have a "plan".
from Todays OZ


> Scott Morrison’s electric vehicle strategy – a key plank of the government’s target for net-zero emissions by 2050 – will accelerate the rollout of charging and hydrogen refuelling stations across the country to support 1.7 million electric cars on the road by 2030.
> As car manufacturers release timelines to end production of conventional vehicles, the Prime Minister said the government’s strategy would not force Australians out of their family sedans, utes and trucks.
> 
> Mr Morrison, who accused Bill Shorten of “ending the weekend” as the Coalition weaponised Labor’s electric vehicle strategy at the 2019 election, will spend $250m building charging stations in cities and towns and supporting businesses and governments transition to electric fleets.
> The Future Fuels strategy – to be released on Tuesday and expected to drive more than $500m in combined private and public co-investment – is forecast to help slash carbon emissions by more than 8 million tonnes by 2035 and avoid $224m in electricity network upgrade costs.
> 
> Driving down transport emissions is considered crucial to achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century, with the government planning to create more than 2600 jobs through the construction of charging infrastructure across 400 businesses, 50,000 households and 1000 public-access fast-charging stations. New public charging stations would be accessed by up to 84 per cent of the population, covering about 21 million people, and reduce health costs by $200m to 2035.
> 
> Mr Morrison said the Future Fuels plan was designed to avoid taxes and offer “choices not mandates” as electric vehicle prices fall in line with demand.



Mick


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> It would seem that someone in the coaliton must be reading ASM.
> They have finally issued a plan.
> Not sure if its a good or bad plan, will need to wait for the technical details to come out, but at least now they have a "plan".
> from Todays OZ
> 
> Mick



AS we have been saying as demand increases and the technology improves, so will the infrastructure, it was pointless throwing in infrastructure when there was no demand and no supply and the E.V charging protocols were different from vehicle to vehicle.
By 2025 all E.V's will be V2G enabled, most manufacturers will have at least a few models, Mitsubishi/Nissan/Renault  are sharing a platform, to start any earlier rolling out a national charging network would have been madness IMO.
Below is an article I posted in August 2021, it is probably worth posting it again.

The biggest problem Australia has had, is the ranting and chanting has been by those with a political, or financial agenda, it had nothing to do with the technical and financial realities of E.V uptake. A measured sensible approach was always going to be better, than knee jerk reactions to media hype.
If we had installed a massive charging network two years ago, it would now all require replacing and or updating, as it wouldn't have had V2G charging equipment.

On a side note we may find especially in W.A, if the Woodside hydrogen plant at Kwinana goes ahead, W.A may indeed leap frog the BEV stage and embrace fuel cell technology, time will tell. There will obviously be both, but country W.A people who may have to travel 1,000klm in a day, may well opt for hydrogen power, same with those who live in outback Queensland, NT and S.A.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science...grid-pays-ev-owners-for-electricity/100353072
From the article:
_In July last year, one of the first Australian V2G trials began in the ACT, led by the Australian National University (ANU).

The two-year Realising Electric Vehicles-to-grid Services (REVS) trial would test V2G on a fleet of 51 mostly ACT Government EVs.

But it quickly hit a roadblock: bi-directional chargers (that can charge EV batteries and also export power from these batteries to the grid) had not been certified for use in Australia.
That's now been resolved and the newly certified chargers are on their way.

He said Australia was well placed to take advantage of V2G, due to it being a world leader in rooftop solar.

"Because of that, we have quite a lot of industry engagement from the electricity sector," he said.

But there's a long way to go.

The battery technology used in most EVs today, called CCS, is not compatible with V2G.

Of the cars sold in Australia, only the Nissan Leaf ZE1 and Mistubishi Outlander plug-in have V2G charging capability.

But that's due to change. By 2025, all new EVs will be V2G capable_.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> AS we have been saying as demand increases and the technology improves, so will the infrastructure, it was pointless throwing in infrastructure when there was no demand and no supply and the E.V charging protocols were different from vehicle to vehicle.




There is STILL no demand and no supply.

Both sides want to intervene in the market. For Labor that is their ideology, for the LNP its a response to people like Biden and BoJo saying we are not doing enough.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> There is STILL no demand and no supply.
> 
> Both sides want to intervene in the market. For Labor that is their ideology, for the LNP its a response to people like Biden and BoJo saying we are not doing enough.



That is true, also there is still only two manufacturers making V2G compatible cars, by 2025 all vehicles have to be V2G compatible, which is great but as usual early uptakers may be wedged, if they want to use import/ export pricing.
It will certainly be an interesting couple of years, coming up.








						Grid upgrades, infrastructure rollout planned to handle electric car surge
					

The Prime Minister will on Tuesday reveal his government’s main priority will be ensuring the nation’s electricity system can handle the large-scale take-up of battery-electric vehicles over the coming decade while remaining reliable and affordable for all Australians.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
The national energy grid will undergo several upgrades to ensure it can handle an anticipated 1.7 million electric cars on the road by 2030 as part of the federal government’s push towards net-zero emissions by mid-century.

The government will also significantly boost its investment in charging infrastructure, particularly in regional Australia, to help manage the transition towards an electrified national fleet and significantly cut pollution levels in the transport sector over the next decade.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will on Tuesday reveal his government’s main priority will be ensuring the nation’s electricity system can handle the large-scale take-up of battery-electric vehicles over the coming decade while remaining reliable and affordable for all Australians.

The policy will include further taxpayer investment in emerging charging technologies that promote grid security and unlock additional value for consumers and electricity market participants.

Experts have warned Australia’s ageing energy grid could struggle if future EV charging is unco-ordinated, with additional generation and network investment likely to be required, increasing total electricity system costs.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The biggest problem Australia has had, is the ranting and chanting has been by those with a political, or financial agenda, it had nothing to do with the technical and financial realities of E.V uptake.



That's the biggest problem with the entire energy debate not just EV's.

Most of the noise is coming from those whose agenda isn't about anything technical or environmental but is instead driven by some combination of political ideology, practical politics (getting re-elected) or making money.

Now there's a place for those things but they need to be kept some distance back from actual technical, scientific etc things if there's to be success. Any good manager knows when to keep out of the discussion and leave those under them to get on with it.


----------



## Smurf1976

On the subject of gas prices and noting the huge spike internationally, just an observation but it's starting to come through into the Australian domestic market now.

Prices have been circa $8 / GJ but now up to $10 - $11. Still well short of LNG spot prices internationally but it's starting to move, the train seems to have left the station.

I'm no commodity price forecaster so it's just an observation of actual pricing.


----------



## mullokintyre

Fresh from his rebuff from Australia's "non" to the diesel electric subs, the French President has outlined his nuclear credentials by announcing plans to build new Nuclear reactors
From Reuters


> PARIS, Nov 9 (Reuters) - France will build new nuclear reactors to help the country lessen its dependence on foreign countries for its energy supplies, meet global warming targets and keep prices under control, President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday.
> 
> With concerns over purchasing power topping opinion polls five months before the presidential election, at a time of soaring energy prices, Macron said the decision to go for new reactors was essential to keep prices "reasonable."
> 
> 
> "We are going, for the first time in decades, to relaunch the construction of nuclear reactors in our country and continue to develop renewable energies," Macron said in a televised address to the nation.
> 
> This was meant "to guarantee France's energy independence, to guarantee our country's electricity supply and achieve our objectives, in particular carbon neutrality in 2050," he said.
> 
> 
> As Europe grapples with steep increases in energy prices, France is taking a different path from neighbours like Germany.
> 
> Germany responded to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan by accelerating its national exit scheme for reactors.
> 
> 
> Macron gave no details, but his government is expected to announce the construction of up to six new pressurised-water reactors within the coming weeks.



These are fairly long term ambitions, and the danger with long term ambitions or plans or execution thereof , is that events can overtake them over time.
Perhaps one of the reactors may make its way into an OZ sub??
Mick


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> Perhaps one of the reactors may make its way into an OZ sub??



There's an order of magnitude scale difference there. A sub or even an aircraft carrier are far smaller than anything normally built for a nuclear power station (well, apart from early prototypes etc).


----------



## SirRumpole

mullokintyre said:


> Fresh from his rebuff from Australia's "non" to the diesel electric subs, the French President has outlined his nuclear credentials by announcing plans to build new Nuclear reactors
> From Reuters
> 
> These are fairly long term ambitions, and the danger with long term ambitions or plans or execution thereof , is that events can overtake them over time.
> Perhaps one of the reactors may make its way into an OZ sub??
> Mick



I wonder where he will get the uranium from


----------



## mullokintyre

SirRumpole said:


> I wonder where he will get the uranium from



Bunnings.


----------



## Smurf1976

There's been quite a bit of concern about the possibility of the Yallourn coal mine (Vic) flooding which, if it happened, would put the Yallourn power station out of operation.

Well there's heavy rain forecast and Yallourn has indeed run into trouble.

Not with a flood though - the coal conveyor caught fire earlier today.  

The power station is still operating using coal in the bunkers and there's no immediate threat of the lights going out. Still, can't win it seems, if it's not a flood then it's a fire.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> There's been quite a bit of concern about the possibility of the Yallourn coal mine (Vic) flooding which, if it happened, would put the Yallourn power station out of operation.
> 
> Well there's heavy rain forecast and Yallourn has indeed run into trouble.
> 
> Not with a flood though - the coal conveyor caught fire earlier today.
> 
> The power station is still operating using coal in the bunkers and there's no immediate threat of the lights going out. Still, can't win it seems, if it's not a flood then it's a fire.



On the subject of power stations with a coal supply crisis, Bluewaters in W.A , has problems of its own.








						Embattled coal mine suffers blow as corporate cop presses charges
					

Australia's corporate cop lays criminal charges against an Indian-owned Australian coal mine already facing a revolt from workers and a legal fight with its biggest customer.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## mullokintyre

From The OZ


> The Singaporean owner of the Basslink cable connecting Victoria and Tasmania has put the business under rather than pay the $105.3m the state and Hydro Tasmania claim to be owed over the 2015 failure of the power and internet connection with the mainland.
> Basslink is the only physical connector for power and internet services to Tasmania and, in addition to smoothing Tasmania’s own power grid, plays a role in stabilising the National Energy Market when power demand fluctuates in the summer months.
> 
> The cable’s owner, Singaporean-listed Keppel Infrastructure Trust (KIT), called in voluntary administrators on Friday after APA Group walked away from a potential acquisition of the undersea cable, with Basslink’s lenders appointing KPMG as receivers in the wake of the decision.
> While the decision throws open the future of the ownership of the interconnector, Basslink chief executive Malcolm Eccles said there would be no disruption to power supplies to Tasmania.
> 
> “The Basslink Interconnector continues to operate efficiently and reliably, connecting Tasmania to the national electricity market. We continue to serve the communities of Tasmania and Victoria, providing a reliable and sustainable source of energy.”
> 
> KPMG’s Peter Goddard said in a statement that Basslink’s business “will continue to operate as usual and there will be no disruption to the operations of the interconnector or communications as a result of this appointment.”
> 
> According to an October disclosure to the Singapore exchange, KIT’s Australian subsidiaries owe its banking syndicate $625.8m, and a standstill agreement of its repayment expired in late October.
> 
> In a statement to the Singaporean exchange KIT – which booked earnings of $S295.3m ($299m) in the first nine months of the year – said its decision had also been triggered by letters of demand from state-owned Hydro Tasmania over about $58.6m the power provider says it is owed over the 2015 failure of the cable – a figure which Basslink disputes on the “basis and quantum”.
> 
> Basslink was also ordered to pay $46.7m to the Tasmanian government in December 2020 after arbitration over the line’s five-month outage, which caused major power supply issues in Tasmania as the state government was forced to ship in diesel generators to make up the power supply slack, and widespread outrage as internet services degraded to businesses and households.



Not surprisingly, the Tas govt won't end up with much as they rank behind the lending banks  in the  list of creditors.
Also highlights the risks of having a large supply dependant on one  link.
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> From The OZ
> 
> Not surprisingly, the Tas govt won't end up with much as they rank behind the lending banks  in the  list of creditors.
> Also highlights the risks of having a large supply dependant on one  link.
> Mick



Sounds like a great opportunity for the Government State or Federal to step in and nationalise it, unless it is in such a state of disrepair, it isn't worth owning?
There is a second cable being installed, it may be a competition based decision, or a viability based decision.


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> From The OZ
> 
> Not surprisingly, the Tas govt won't end up with much as they rank behind the lending banks  in the  list of creditors.
> Also highlights the risks of having a large supply dependant on one  link.
> Mick




I'll avoid comment on the legal aspects, but hypothetically if the cable was to cease operating on 1 December this year and remain out of service for the next 6 months (noting that's a hypothetical not a prediction) then realistically the technical risk is primarily on the northern end.

That is, failure to operate it (or failure of the cable as such) poses a far greater supply risk to Victoria in the short term than it does to Tasmania.

Tasmania's inflows from hydro + wind generation are now, with recently completed new wind farms, balanced. Hydro storage is at 52.6%, the hydro system of itself can meet peak demand and there's a gas-fired station sitting there if needed.

Versus Victoria which lacks sufficient firm generation to meet peak demand even with Basslink in service and which has a coal mine, the only source of coal to Yallourn power station, in danger of flooding should a major rain event occur prior to permanent repairs being completed.

Any supply shortfall in Victoria has a reasonable chance of spreading to SA under peak demand conditions (eg simultaneous heatwave in both states) although "it depends on the detail" so it's not a given. Temperature, wind speed, etc.

The technical risk, that of the lights going out, is far greater in Victoria over the short term than it is in Tasmania.

Financially though that's harder to work out. Victoria isn't exposed really at a government level but in terms of business, well loss of Basslink would lead to some increased curtailment of wind and solar at times and some more use of gas both of which do represent a loss but then Tasmania loses more directly. The answer is an "it depends" one really. Depends on the weather among other things.


----------



## basilio

The move to renewable energy in the mining industry  in Australia is gathering pace. Excellent analysis of what is happening.









						A renewable energy revolution is powering Australia's $720bn mining and resources industry
					

Australia's biggest mine site micro-grid heralds the winds of change blowing through the country's resources industry.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

Solid hydrogen storage, so good it's been banned by the US government !


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Solid hydrogen storage, so good it's been banned by the US government !



Great in theory, it all depends on how much volume of H2 the cartridge carries, but these new technologies also encourage more investigation and development of ideas.


----------



## SirRumpole

What we should be doing more of imo, biofuels.









						In the heart of coal country, this city is already 30 per cent powered by renewables
					

For all the political posturing over the local resources sector, almost a third of Mackay's electricity comes from renewables — such as sugar cane.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> What we should be doing more of imo, biofuels.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In the heart of coal country, this city is already 30 per cent powered by renewables
> 
> 
> For all the political posturing over the local resources sector, almost a third of Mackay's electricity comes from renewables — such as sugar cane.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Yes whether as a solid fuel, or changed into a liquid, there probably will be opportunities especially in GT's, I'm not sure it will get much of a run with steam plant.
It was given a trial at Muja A/B a few years ago, I didn't hear the outcome, but I will ask around.

All technologies really will need to be investigated thoroughly, I mean who would have thought 30 years ago when all the computer data was stored on reel to reel tape, that now the same amount of info can be stored on a piece of plastic smaller than a matchbox.


----------



## Smurf1976

12:55pm on 21 November 2021 - an historic day so far as energy is concerned.

That's the point where the demand on centralised generation in SA went negative. So far as is known, it's the first such occurrence globally for any large scale power system.

12:55 = -8.95 MW
13:00 = -28.58 MW
13:05 = -38.15 MW
13:10 = -20.35 MW

Measurements are AEMO's and have been converted by me to SA Daylight Savings time (since AEMO records all data using Queensland time for all states).

Those are negative values yes, below zero, meaning that in practice the whole of SA, including the Adelaide CBD and industrial loads, were powered from small scale generation primarily solar panels on house roofs. 

As background well it's a fine sunny day in Adelaide, the maximum temperature having reached 22.3 degrees. So lots of solar generation and basically no heating or cooling loads apart from niche uses in industry or medical facilities etc. Perfect conditions for low demand.

What happens to the excess?

Bearing in mind that there's still a need to keep a small amount of gas-fired plant on for technical reasons, and there are also large scale solar farms and wind farms generating, the answer is:

*Some of it went to Victoria

*Some was used to charge batteries in SA

*A significant volume of large scale wind and solar generation was shut off due to nowhere for it to go.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> *A significant volume of large scale wind and solar generation was shut off due to nowhere for it to go.




Such a shame. I take it that there is no facility to turn on hot water systems at this time ?


----------



## sptrawler

This IMO, is the key to getting mega scale renewables up and running, land access. The State Government opening up access to rural leasehold land and allowing diversity, is a huge step forward.









						‘Open, competitive process’ key to unlocking of millions of hectares of land in WA
					

The WA government has announced a plan to amend the Land Administration Act to more easily enable solar, carbon, and wind farms to be built.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
The WA government wants to amend the Land Administration Act to allow for a new type of access lease on pastoral and unallocated Crown land, which would more easily enable solar, carbon, and wind farms to be built.
Consultation on the proposed changes starts next month and comes after lobbying by WA billionaire Andrew Forrest and large companies, like Woodside, to open up land access for large-scale renewable projects and bio-sequestration – the capture of carbon through biological processes.
Under the changes, proponents would be able to apply to the state for a ‘diversification’ lease over unallocated Crown land but would still need an Indigenous Land Use Agreement if there was native title over the area.

Similarly, pastoralists could apply to undertake a more diverse range of activities outside of livestock on their leaseholds. Pastoralists would have to agree to surrender the area they were not running cattle, however, and negotiate an ILUA for any new diversification leases.
There would also be non-exclusive tenure options for conservation organisations and native titleholders wanting to undertake economic development activities like cultural tourism.
The move to open up land tenure came two days after the state government launched an environment, social and governance information pack to market the ‘green’ credentials of its debt securities program.
The government sells debt as bonds around the world but WA saw its reputation take a blow in recent years, alongside mining state Queensland, when Sweden’s central bank dumped its holdings in both jurisdictions over climate policy concerns.
Earlier this year, Hydrogen Industry Minister Alannah MacTiernan said many hydrogen projects would require significant amounts of land, but pastoral leases occupied most suitable sites.

She said on Thursday the new amendment would smooth the pathway for large-scale renewable energy projects around the state.
“While the state government is already facilitating access to land for renewable hydrogen projects, these changes will provide new long-term tenure options for proponents,” Ms MacTiernan said.
Companies ultimately owned by Dr Forrest earlier this year applied for several mining exploration and miscellaneous tenements in the Pilbara, Gascoyne, and Kimberley.
Fortescue’s Gascoyne tenements stretch hundreds of kilometres, from south of Carnarvon and up to Onslow and join up with miscellaneous mining licence applications on Uaroo Station, owned by the Forrest family, where the mining company flagged in December it could build a wind and solar hub.
The iron miner’s Uaroo tenements are connected to two long corridors of miscellaneous applications as potential electricity transmission lines linking the cattle station to Fortescue’s closest iron ore operation in the Pilbara, Eliwana.

Under the proposed amendments, mining and exploration activities would still be allowed to occur. However, Dr Forrest could lock out other resources interests by holding the tenements over potential wind and solar corridors.

ASX-listed Province Resources Limited, backed by French renewable energy giant Total Eren, is trying to start a green hydrogen project on the coast of Carnarvon and welcomed the government’s new proposal.

The company’s managing director David Frances said Province would continue to pursue access to land under its existing tenure regime – a drawn out process under existing legislation, but the new form of lease provided an additional option.

Energy and gas giant Woodside, which had sent letters to the Premier Mark McGowan calling for land access for carbon off-set projects, was another major company to praise the amendment.
“Woodside welcomes initiatives that have the potential to make land available for the responsible development of carbon farming opportunities,” a spokesperson said.
“Carbon farming has the ability to rehabilitate land and provide regional economic opportunities.”
Woodside has plans to build 210,000 solar panels over 200 hectares of land near the Pluto LNG Plant in the Pilbara to deliver 50 megawatts of power. A similar amount of electricity could also be supplied to Perdaman’s urea plant in a proposal between the two companies.

Conservation Council WA policy and legal director, Piers Verstegen, said the amendment was a positive step to allowing more flexibility for conservation management and renewable energy projects on pastoral leases.
“Currently, pastoral leases have to maintain a certain stocking rate and are not easily able to pursue other opportunities like renewable energy, carbon farming or conservation, even though they may be more sustainable and more profitable,” he said.
“As a result, large areas of land have been managed under a regime that has led to very poor environmental and economic outcomes.
“Removing these restrictions could see an increase in investment in conservation across the rangelands, which would create employment and support local communities.
“WA also has great potential for large-scale renewable energy projects, however potential conflicts between these projects and environment and conservation will have to be closely managed.”

Pastoralist Dave McQuie from Bulga Downs in the Mid West, who has taken part in carbon farming in recent years, welcomed the new diversification leases as opportunities for leaseholders.
“It has a lot of potential to do a lot of good for rehabilitation, diversification and profitability on pastoral leases,” he said.
“Land reform changes will legitimise carbon farming and other land uses on properties and will give small unviable leases the ability to earn different income sources.
“There is still some caution needed around regulation, but I’m keen to be a part of the conversation and learn more about what these changes will mean.”
Kimberley Pilbara Cattle Association chairman David Stoate said further details on the diversification leases and potential new powers for the Pastoral Lands Board under the changes needed to be examined further.
But he was pleased with other proposals as part of the broader amendment which included changes to the pastoral lease rent model and a more uniform approach to providing 50-year extensions to leases.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I take it that there is no facility to turn on hot water systems at this time ?



Funny you should say that.....   

Suffice to say I'm somewhat known as "that guy on about water heaters" on that subject. It seems like a dead obvious solution yes, and for the record SA Power Networks did start changing time settings, but then there's regulators, bureaucrats and all the rest so that's where it ends.

Qld and NSW both have remote control of electric water heating loads via ripple control (which is 1950's tech by the way and incredibly simple). Two channels are used with different signals, one for those who want it on once a day to heat, and the other is on almost all the time at a higher price for use with pool pumps, smaller water heaters and so on for which a shorter duration isn't suitable. For the record NZ also has the same system.

SA however no such luck. What we've got is nothing more than timers mounted at the switchboard and, apart from recently installed smart meters, any adjustment to them requires someone manually going to each and every house to do it. 

Having crunched the numbers, well I and plenty of others are keen on that idea, it would indeed put to use some wind/solar that's being wasted and would mean less fossil fuel is burned (since otherwise they're heating water overnight when the sun definitely isn't shining). But bureaucracy and regulations.....

Bearing in mind that it wouldn't be a perfect solution given that about 57% of SA homes use gas to heat water and 8% are solar hot water which, despite usually being electric boosted, generally won't need to boost on a day when there's so much sun. That leaves 35% as purely electric, about 30% on off peak controlled load supply once those in small apartments etc on continuous supply are excluded. Still enough to be worthwhile.

Mine at home is indeed programmed to operate during the middle of the day however but only after jumping through some hoops to get it to happen. So my heat pump water heater was happily putting about 900 Watts to use - a drop in the ocean but still, it's one of those things where if everyone did it.....

Ultimately I'll probably get done but it's caught up in the general rules, regulations, red tape and so on.


----------



## sptrawler

@Smurf1976 it would be really easy to install a wifi inline switch, I installed one to switch on an alarm system it has programmable timers, can be switched on and off from an app on the phone, timer schedules can be changed, different schedules for each day etc, it really is a great bit of gear.
$25.15  









						Deta Grid Connect Smart Inline Switch
					

Find Deta Grid Connect Smart Inline Switch at Bunnings. Visit your local store for the widest range of products.




					www.bunnings.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

The penny is dropping.








						World needs up to 140TWh of long duration energy storage to meet net-zero goals
					

New report says energy storage of eight hours and more will be crucial to shift to renewables, and we’ll need a lot of it between now and 2040.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the article:
Between 85 and 140 terrawatt-hours of long-duration energy storage technologies such as pumped hydro, flow batteries and concentrating solar thermal will need to be deployed globally to achieve net-zero emissions power grids by 2040, a new report has found.

While lithium-ion battery storage technologies ranging from behind the meter applications to grid-sale big batteries are becoming a regular feature on electricity grids around the globe, the need to store renewable energy for eight hours or more (LDES) is largely still unmet.

The Long Duration Energy Storage Council, an organisation launched at the COP26 by member companies ranging from Siemens, Rio Tinto and BP down to Australia’s own Redflow, seeks to bridge this gap with its inaugural report, published on Tuesday in collaboration with McKinsey &Co.

The modelling finds that achieving net-zero power grids by 2040 would require a global deployment of 1.5-2.5 TW and 85-140 TWh of LDES, would account for 10% of electricity consumed worldwide, and need an estimated investment of $US1.5 trillion to $SU3 trillion.

In Australia, as you can see in the chart below, the report puts the total addressable market for LDES from 2030 to 2040 at between 20-40GW and 0.5-1 TWh.


----------



## Investoradam

SirRumpole said:


> What we should be doing more of imo, biofuels.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In the heart of coal country, this city is already 30 per cent powered by renewables
> 
> 
> For all the political posturing over the local resources sector, almost a third of Mackay's electricity comes from renewables — such as sugar cane.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



like all things renewables, just endless bogus claims noting to actuarially back it up.

wouldn't the burning of the bio fuel be bad for the environment seeing its pumping gasses in to the air? isn't this the argument for the case of no nuclear power


----------



## mullokintyre

Investoradam said:


> like all things renewables, just endless bogus claims noting to actuarially back it up.
> 
> wouldn't the burning of the bio fuel be bad for the environment seeing its pumping gasses in to the air? isn't this the argument for the case of no nuclear power



Ah Adam, you have to remember that not all Co2 molecules are equal.
CO2 produced from burning coal is ten times more deadly than the Co2 molecules produced by burning biomass (its renewable you see).
And like the CO2 thats produced when coal  is burnt in Australia is ten times more deadly than the equivalent Co2 when coal is burnt in China. Especially if that coal is imported by China  from Australia, its Australias Co2 problem , not Chinas.
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

Investoradam said:


> like all things renewables, just endless bogus claims noting to actuarially back it up.
> 
> *wouldn't the burning of the bio fuel be bad for the environment seeing its pumping gasses in to the air? isn't this the argument for the case of no nuclear power*




Yes and no.









						The Effect of Biofuel Production on Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions
					

Fossil fuel consumption is a major cause of climate change. Biofuels can reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and thus reduce carbon dioxide emissions, because biofuels are carbon neutral. More specifically, the carbon dioxide that is emitted when a biofuel is...




					link.springer.com


----------



## Investoradam

SirRumpole said:


> Yes and no.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Effect of Biofuel Production on Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions
> 
> 
> Fossil fuel consumption is a major cause of climate change. Biofuels can reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and thus reduce carbon dioxide emissions, because biofuels are carbon neutral. More specifically, the carbon dioxide that is emitted when a biofuel is...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> link.springer.com



basically another load of crap bring spruiked


----------



## Investoradam

mullokintyre said:


> Ah Adam, you have to remember that not all Co2 molecules are equal.
> CO2 produced from burning coal is ten times more deadly than the Co2 molecules produced by burning biomass (its renewable you see).
> And like the CO2 thats produced when coal  is burnt in Australia is ten times more deadly than the equivalent Co2 when coal is burnt in China. Especially if that coal is imported by China  from Australia, its Australias Co2 problem , not Chinas.
> Mick



lol according to what!
the only truth to any of that claim is thecnology of the coal power station, most of Australians ones are 40 to 60 years old compared to chinas  a few decades to a few months old
the ones china are building are similar to the ones Japan are building of the new CCT burn

again there is nothing in the ABC article like with most anything climate related propaganda, just claims with fancy pictures


----------



## Smurf1976

The carbon cycle.

Grow any sort of vegetation and it takes CO2 out of the air, stores the C and releases the O2.

Burn that vegetation completely (that is, complete combustion) and it takes O2 out of the air, combines it with the C, and puts CO2 into the air.

So long as the volume grown and burned matches, and excluding things like fuel used to transport it, then it's a balanced cycle. 

Versus coal, oil or gas which involve taking carbon stored deep underground, combining it with O2 and releasing that to atmosphere as CO2. It's a one-way trip, there's nothing to balance it.

The problems with biomass however are many:

1. Scale. We could take all the food eaten by humans in Australia, turn that into liquid fuel, and we'd have enough to run all the cars in South Australia which has 7% of the national population. Noting that's all the cars, it's not trucks, it's not aircraft, ships, boilers, furnaces, power generation or anything else. Just cars and just in SA and we'd have nothing left to eat.

2. Agriculture itself is a huge environmental problem with land degradation and so on.

3. Agriculture is also a major energy user and there's a "gotcha!". Between fertilizers, chemicals and fuel to run machinery it's going to use up much of what's produced. Estimates vary so I won't quote figures but it's akin to spending $3 to make $4, the self-consumption is pretty substantial if we're talking about conventional farming methods.

That said, for niche uses growing fuel crops may well make sense and of course if the material used is waste well then the inputs to growing it are being used regardless of what's done with it so it's effectively "free" in that sense.

There's also other practical aspects to biofuels. For example ethanol is an oxygenate and high octane blending component. Done properly, which does _not_ mean simply adding ethanol to petrol that was already suitable for use without it, it's possible to achieve substantial reductions in conventional (non-CO2) pollutants such as CO and unburned hydrocarbons.

Smurf being Smurf, well I've got a hedge trimmer that runs on fuel containing some alcohol. Can be done with proper precautions.


----------



## mullokintyre

As much as I respect your knowledge on Electricity generation and storage,  i think you have glossed over a few bits.
Firstly,  burning the vegetation completely is carbon nuetral, though difficult to actually do as there will be some plant products where the chemical makeup will produce carbon based ash, but at least its not Co2 in the atmosphere.
These will require some processing in planting, harvesting and maybe drying, all of which require energy.
Then there are the oil production plants like canola, palm oil, coconut oil, peanut , olive oil etc.
Besides the planting, harvesting, maybe fumigating and pruning, these products need to be treated by crushing, soaking, splitting etc to release the oil.
This product can then often be used  in diesels without any further refining apart from being strained through a fine mesh filter.

The production of ethanol is generally done via fermenting the  organic products in the presence of yeast.
Any organic material that contains sugars can be used.
The sucrose from sugar cane, the fructose from fruit, the lactose from dairy products are thee such sugars.
The fermenting process uses the sugar content of the organic material, but there is always a waste residue that does not ferment.
Sometimes, intermediate processes need to be completed to make the sugars available.
Brewers for example, "malt" barley by soaking it in water to cause it to germinate.
This causes the starches in the barley to convert into sugars, which can then be fermented.
The fermented brew makes esters and other  types of alcohol,  called cogeners, all with different boiling temperatures.
It is these boiling point differentials that allow the distiller to separate the ethanol from the other cogeners in the distilling process.
The higher the sugar content , the higher yield of alcohol.
So at the end of the fermentation process, there is  usually a  varying amount of  organic matter that is either burnt, turned into fertilise- either by working it back into the soil or reprocessing into a spreadable mix.
Manildra, the Australin based ethanol producer uses Australian grown wheat to brew ethanol.
Wilmar Sugar in FNQ uses sugar cane as its fuel stock, producing mostly for the E10 fuel market.
Dalby Bio Refinery uses mostly sorghum, and it works with feedlots to produce high protein feed from the non fermented by products.
Dalby claim that Ethanol production produces 67% more energy than it consumes in production.
I could be wrong, but from the wording of their statement, I do not believe this figure includes the cost of preparing soil, planting, harvesting and transport of the grain to the site, so thast figure may be a bit of an exageration.
Mick


----------



## basilio

Quality farming activities are compatible with using large areas of land for solar energy production .  In fact they can be mutually supportive and add another value to the enterprise.





__





						Solar farms, land use and the rise of solar sharing | EcoGeneration
					






					www.ecogeneration.com.au
				




_*Livestock grazing*

Grazing of livestock within solar farms is the most popular dual use option, especially since this practice has the additional benefit of controlling vegetation growth. The presence of solar modules does not affect stock density, and provides shelter to grazing livestock.  

However, consideration needs to be given to the choice of livestock. Sheep are common (see image above) as they are small enough to easily pass between rows of modules and do not damage equipment. For similar reasons, poultry such as chicken and geese are also common choices.  

Grazing of larger livestock such as cattle and horses in solar farms has been attempted; however, the mounting system must be designed to accommodate their greater size.   

*Crop production*

Solar farms can also be combined with crop production. Planting of vegetables or non-food crops can occur underneath the solar arrays. This practice is also referred to as solar sharing or “˜agrivoltaics’.

In Japan, the practice known as “˜solar sharing’ is allowed on farmlands, where small, typically 100 W, solar modules are mounted three to five metres above ground and installed at spaced intervals with shading rate of up to 32 per cent to allow sufficient irradiation for the ground crop (see image below). The mounting structures are designed to allow space for tractors and other farming equipment, allowing farmers to receive a feed-in tariff from electricity generated while being able to continue farming without modification to their normal practices_
*Enhancing biodiversity*

Solar farms also present the opportunity to enhance the biodiversity of a site, especially if the site previously supported monocrops. Native wildflower and bird seed mixes can be sown between and around rows of modules, providing food and habitat for local birds, small mammals and invertebrates. Planting of species that have high pollen and nectar yields also presents beekeeping as an additional revenue option.


----------



## sptrawler

Solar farm in Japan, looking down from the famous Eshima bridge near Sakaiminato, just indulging in a bit of name dropping. Oh the good old days when we could travel.😭


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> i think you have glossed over a few bits.



No argument there - I’ve simply looked at it in a very big picture sense.

If humans ran on diesel then a moderately active adult would use less than a quarter of a litre per day.

That’s not saying various crops and wastes can’t be put to use, just noting the scale issue.


----------



## Smurf1976

We've now gone the first 24 hours with just two synchronous generating units online in SA now that all four synchronous condensers are fully commissioned.

Only thermal plant on is 2 x 200 MW steam units, both idling along at 40 MW each. That's it apart from a gas turbine and a couple of internal combustion engines that were given a short run purely for testing purposes.

Past 24 hours as a % of SA consumption:

Wind = 74.7%
Solar = 31.4%
Gas = 5.6% (of which 5.5% was needed, 0.1% was an unrelated equipment test run)
Diesel = 0.005% (all of which was due to a machine test run)
From Victoria = 0.8%
Export to Victoria = 13.1%

Figures don't quite add due to rounding etc.

There are longer term thoughts of how to run without any synchronous plant on at all, which nobody anywhere is known to be doing at major grid scale, but for now 2 will be the lower limit down from 4 historically.

Practical implication = less gas, more renewables using existing infrastructure. 






Green = wind. Yellow = solar. Orange = gas. Blue = battery discharge. Purple = from Victoria.


----------



## sptrawler

@Smurf1976 that is absolutely brilliant, S.A is a small grid taken in isolation, but it is a great test bed to prove and develop the concept. 
My guess is, they will crank up some longer term storage and see how sustainable it is over a prolonged period.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> that is absolutely brilliant, S.A is a small grid taken in isolation, but it is a great test bed to prove and develop the concept.



SA has ended up the actual world leader so far as is known.

It's a pretty drastic change given that just 15 years ago, 2006, the generation mix was:

Gas = 47.7%
Coal = 35.7%
Net import from Victoria = 16.6%
Diesel = 0.02%

With all of that being in absolutely conventional "off the shelf" plant that's in no way special.

So completely unexciting 100% fossil fuels to two thirds renewable and a world leader in 15 years basically.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> SA has ended up the actual world leader so far as is known.
> 
> It's a pretty drastic change given that just 15 years ago, 2006, the generation mix was:
> 
> Gas = 47.7%
> Coal = 35.7%
> Net import from Victoria = 16.6%
> Diesel = 0.02%
> 
> With all of that being in absolutely conventional "off the shelf" plant that's in no way special.
> 
> So completely unexciting 100% fossil fuels to two thirds renewable and a world leader in 15 years basically.



The great thing is IMO, it is like having a scaled up version of a renewable community i.e Denham in W.A.

The advantage with S.A is it scales it up to another level, where they have the luxury of a massive grid alongside to pick up the slack if it falls on its ar$e, but can push the boundaries.

BY pushing the boundaries the rest of Australia benefits from the knowledge gained, I wouldn't be surprised if Australia is leading the world in renewable grid adoption, within 10-15 years.

There will always be countries with a natural advantage of small area, small population and a topography that suits renewables e.g mountainous for hydro, or on a fault line and good geothermal potential, but where a country that will rely on wind and solar mainly I think we are really stepping it up.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The great thing is IMO, it is like having a scaled up version of a renewable community i.e Denham in W.A.
> The advantage with S.A is it scales it up to another level, where they have the luxury of a massive grid alongside to pick up the slack if it falls on its ar$e, but can push the boundaries.



Yep and whilst the current project is now fully implemented, in due course it'll almost certainly go further.

Current (well, at this point it's now past tense) project:

*Install 4 synchronous condensers at two sites.

*Wind + Large scale solar generation limit under typical operating conditions raised from just under 1300 MW to 2500 MW subject to there being a use for it.

*Technical minimum gas-fired generation lowered from 250 MW to 80 MW under the most common scenario.

So quite a step forward and at that point the project is complete as such but there are certainly investigations as to what could be done next. At some point it probably will get to the point of running with zero conventional plant on at times but for now, a two thirds reduction when there's enough wind / sun to enable it is a huge leap forward.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Yep and whilst the current project is now fully implemented, in due course it'll almost certainly go further.
> 
> Current (well, at this point it's now past tense) project:
> 
> *Install 4 synchronous condensers at two sites.
> 
> *Wind + Large scale solar generation limit under typical operating conditions raised from just under 1300 MW to 2500 MW subject to there being a use for it.
> 
> *Technical minimum gas-fired generation lowered from 250 MW to 80 MW under the most common scenario.
> 
> So quite a step forward and at that point the project is complete as such but there are certainly investigations as to what could be done next. At some point it probably will get to the point of running with zero conventional plant on at times but for now, a two thirds reduction when there's enough wind / sun to enable it is a huge leap forward.



This is engineering driving the science, absolutely magic, can't wait to see the dynamics when the NSW/SA interconnector, Snowy and the second Bass link is in, it will be amazing IMO.
Add to that North Queensland renewables coming online and the light at the end of the tunnel is glimmering IMO.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> So quite a step forward and at that point the project is complete as such but there are certainly investigations as to what could be done next. At some point it probably will get to the point of running with zero conventional plant on at times but for now, a two thirds reduction when there's enough wind / sun to enable it is a huge leap forward.



Yes the problem is the point of inflection, where you are running with no synchronous generation, at that point the ties to either Tassie, Victoria, NSW have to be such, that a failure has to be able to be picked up ( what in half a cycle lol).
That will be the next engineering speedhump.


----------



## sptrawler

Victoria to get the largest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere, now we are talking. 



LOCATION:GOLDEN PLAINS SHIRE, ROKEWOOD, VICTORIAINSTALLED CAPACITY:800-1000 MWENERGY *PRODUCTION:**3500 GWh ANNUALLY*









						State to host biggest wind farm in southern hemisphere as turbines win final approval
					

Work to build the $2 billion Golden Plains facility at Rokewood will start next year after Victoria’s Planning Minister gave it the nod.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:
It comes after years of legal challenges by local farmers and wrangling over the size of the wind farm, where 230-metre turbines – almost as tall as Melbourne’s Rialto Towers – will produce enough power for more than 765,000 homes per year, according to the project’s operators.
The site at Rokewood, 130 kilometres west of Melbourne, will cover 167 square kilometres.

Planning Minister Richard Wynne last week quietly approved WestWind Energy’s final proposal for the Golden Plains Wind Farm. The operator says it will start building in the middle of next year.


----------



## Smurf1976

This sort of nonsense is just frustrating to say the least.









						New network fees could “kill the viability” of battery and pumped hydro storage
					

A proposed rewrite of market rules for battery and pumped hydro projects includes controversial network charges that could kill investment in storage.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				




It has however managed to get even normally opposing parties united in seeing it as a silly idea:



> The proposal has been met by howls of protest by nearly everyone, including leading battery makers including Tesla and Fluence, big battery project developers such as Neoen and Iberdrola, pumped hydro storage owner CleanCo, and even the government owned generator Snowy Hydro, leading utilities AGL and EnergyAustralia, and the Australian Energy Market Operator.




There's more than a few getting frustrated with the politics and bureaucracy involved with all this and they're not simply whingeing, there's a good reason for it. 

AGL, Tesla or AEMO aren't simply armchair commentators.....


----------



## basilio

Promising pilot program in WA to manage rooftop solar. Could sort out many issues and provide the technical blueprint for virtual power plants across the country
Perth suburbs chosen for $35 million virtual power plant combining solar and batteries ​Key points:​
Project Symphony will look at how to harness excess solar energy
500 households in Perth's south will be part of the power hub
Virtual power plants are the future, WA's Energy Minister says









						Households in corner of Perth join quest to solve one of the biggest challenges of solar energy
					

As summer arrives, two Perth suburbs sharing one of Australia's highest rates of rooftop solar are chosen for a new $35 million virtual power plant, with the project to test how to harness excess solar energy.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## basilio

And for something completely different.
Long life concrete batteries.  Effectively turning a skyscraper into a concrete energy storage unit.


----------



## SirRumpole

Quite a detailed article on the future of power prices.

Reinforces a lot of what @Smurf1976 says.









						Thanks to renewables, 'insanely cheap electricity' is coming. But when?
					

After years of increases, power prices are set to fall, thanks largely to cheap solar. So how cheap can solar get? And what does this mean for your electricity bill?




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> Quite a detailed article on the future of power prices.
> 
> Reinforces a lot of what @Smurf1976 says.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks to renewables, 'insanely cheap electricity' is coming. But when?
> 
> 
> After years of increases, power prices are set to fall, thanks largely to cheap solar. So how cheap can solar get? And what does this mean for your electricity bill?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



*This is a great analysis.  *Pulls together all the threads of the debate. As Rumpy notes it highlights most of Smurf's observations.

What is particularly interesting, IMV, is how non renewable energy is just so uncompetitive.  There is no rational economic model for delaying transition to solar/wind/ back up power ASAP.


----------



## Investoradam

Smurf1976 said:


> We've now gone the first 24 hours with just two synchronous generating units online in SA now that all four synchronous condensers are fully commissioned.
> 
> Only thermal plant on is 2 x 200 MW steam units, both idling along at 40 MW each. That's it apart from a gas turbine and a couple of internal combustion engines that were given a short run purely for testing purposes.
> 
> Past 24 hours as a % of SA consumption:
> 
> Wind = 74.7%
> Solar = 31.4%
> Gas = 5.6% (of which 5.5% was needed, 0.1% was an unrelated equipment test run)
> Diesel = 0.005% (all of which was due to a machine test run)
> From Victoria = 0.8%
> Export to Victoria = 13.1%
> 
> Figures don't quite add due to rounding etc.
> 
> There are longer term thoughts of how to run without any synchronous plant on at all, which nobody anywhere is known to be doing at major grid scale, but for now 2 will be the lower limit down from 4 historically.
> 
> Practical implication = less gas, more renewables using existing infrastructure.
> 
> View attachment 133446
> 
> 
> Green = wind. Yellow = solar. Orange = gas. Blue = battery discharge. Purple = from Victoria.



rubbish rubbish and rubbish
billions spent digging toxic materials out of the ground, poisons waste dumped back in to the ground or river ways, unless turbines and solar panels end up in lan d fill








						If Solar Panels Are So Clean, Why Do They Produce So Much Toxic Waste?
					

Environmental scientists and solar industry leaders are raising the red flag about used solar panels, which contain toxic heavy metals and are considered hazardous waste. With recycling expensive, most solar panels end up in landfills. Will they be exported to poor nations?




					www.forbes.com
				







__





						Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
					





					www.bloomberg.com
				












						Nem Watch
					

Visit the post for more.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				












						SA's electricity supply and market
					

In South Australia, both renewable and non-renewable sources are used to generate electricity. The electricity is transported from power stations by transmission and distribution networks, where it is then sold to end users by retailers.



					www.sa.gov.au
				












						Live Australian Electricity Generation Source Statistics
					

Live Australian Electricity Generation Statistics: See the amount of electricity being generated in Australia & its source: e.g. wind energy & solar power




					www.energymatters.com.au
				












						OpenNEM: South Australia
					

An Open Platform for National Electricity Market Data




					opennem.org.au
				








__





						Live Supply & Demand Widget, sponsored by RenewEconomy |
					






					www.nem-watch.info
				









						Electricity generation | energy.gov.au
					

In 2019-20 total electricity generation in Australia was nearly steady at around 265 TWh (955 PJ), the highest total generation on record for Australia. COVID-19 affected sectoral usage and time of demand, but had limited impact on overall demand for electricity for the year as a whole. Fossil...




					www.energy.gov.au
				




yet people are triggered by cows farting!


----------



## Investoradam

SirRumpole said:


> Quite a detailed article on the future of power prices.
> 
> Reinforces a lot of what @Smurf1976 says.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks to renewables, 'insanely cheap electricity' is coming. But when?
> 
> 
> After years of increases, power prices are set to fall, thanks largely to cheap solar. So how cheap can solar get? And what does this mean for your electricity bill?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



they have been saying this for years yet prices keep going up


----------



## Smurf1976

Investoradam said:


> rubbish rubbish and rubbish



The content of my post is easily verifiable using publicly available data from AEMO should anyone have any doubts.

www.aemo.com.au

All large scale generation data for the NEM is publicly available with only a few minutes delay from what's actually happening.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> What is particularly interesting, IMV, is how non renewable energy is just so uncompetitive.




The elephant in the room is natural gas pricing and the vast gap between historic Australian domestic market pricing upon which most decisions to build things were made, present prices and the LNG netback price.

Historic price = circa $4 / GJ in 2021 $ inflation adjusted.

Present actual price = right now the spot price is between $9.90 and $12.70 depending on which state. This data can be seen on the AEMO website.

LNG netback price = $35.53 at present according to the ACCC which calculates it using a methodology which looks at the international price and aims to answer the question as to what gas is worth as an input to LNG plants in Queensland.









						LNG netback price series
					






					www.accc.gov.au
				




So long as the netback price remains so high, there's going to be upwards pressure on the domestic price as well since keeping the LNG plants running flat out is profitable even if they need to buy up gas from the domestic market in order to do so. Buy for $12 on the spot market, sell at triple that price = winner.

Now the problem is that at $35 many gas-fired power stations would have a fuel cost that's higher than _retail_ prices for electricity and which far exceeds typical wholesale pricing. Indeed for those able to do so, burning diesel or even jet fuel would actually be cheaper although definitely not cheap as such.

Depending on how long this persists, we may see some "interesting" occurrences if it turns out that anyone in the industry has messed up their price hedging or took a risk by choice. In the UK 23 gas and electricity retailers, out of 70, have financially collapsed in the past 4 months with government starting to hand out the £ to keep the lights on with retailer Bulb (under administration) being handed £1.7 billion. 

Gas is expensive stuff these days and buying it at one price, then selling it to customers at a lower price, does end up with those in the middle going broke at some point if they keep doing it. 

Back to Australia well it's not a direct conversion since it does depend on plant efficiency and that varies hugely, the least efficient gas-fired plant in Australia barely gets over 20% whilst the best isn't far short of 60%, as a generic answer $12 gas will be a fuel cost of about $120 per MWh for power generation in a medium efficiency facility. As a generic rule of thumb, that 1:10 relationship is near enough for anyone who just wants to grasp the significance of gas at any particular price.


----------



## Investoradam

Smurf1976 said:


> The content of my post is easily verifiable using publicly available data from AEMO should anyone have any doubts.
> 
> www.aemo.com.au
> 
> All large scale generation data for the NEM is publicly available with only a few minutes delay from what's actually happening.



and has the prices been passed down? your power bills cheaper?


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> This sort of nonsense is just frustrating to say the least.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> New network fees could “kill the viability” of battery and pumped hydro storage
> 
> 
> A proposed rewrite of market rules for battery and pumped hydro projects includes controversial network charges that could kill investment in storage.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> reneweconomy.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It has however managed to get even normally opposing parties united in seeing it as a silly idea:
> 
> 
> 
> There's more than a few getting frustrated with the politics and bureaucracy involved with all this and they're not simply whingeing, there's a good reason for it.
> 
> AGL, Tesla or AEMO aren't simply armchair commentators.....



Which is exactly what I've being saying for some time, if large storage is going to be charged to charge up and only get paid when required there will be no money in it, so will probably have to be public owned.
The return on equity will be crap, but you need as much storage as generation installed in the system, but no business will want to pay for it unless there is a guaranteed rate of return it would be dumb.
The government's will have to pay some form of capacity factor, or put the storage in themselves.
The generators aren't going to pump up the dams or charge up the batteries for free, the transmission networks aren't going to let them sell their output over the grid for free, so it's either a large surcharge to pay the storage company enough to make it worthwhile, the government's install the storage and just accept a poor rate of return. Or make it a pre condition that solar/wind project's have to include a storage component.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Which is exactly what I've being saying for some time, if large storage is going to be charged to charge up and only get paid when required there will be no money in it, so will probably have to be public owned.
> The return on equity will be crap, but you need as much storage as generation installed in the system, but no business will want to pay for it unless there is a guaranteed rate of return it would be dumb.
> The government's will have to pay some form of capacity factor, or put the storage in themselves.
> The generators aren't going to pump up the dams or charge up the batteries for free, the transmission networks aren't going to let them sell their output over the grid for free, so it's either a large surcharge to pay the storage company enough to make it worthwhile, the government's install the storage and just accept a poor rate of return. Or make it a pre condition that solar/wind project's have to include a storage component.



Same with things like gas stations that might be used 3% of the time to fill in the gaps, they won't make money but if you don't have them, you could get caught short. No private operator would be interested so it has to be government.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Same with things like gas stations that might be used 3% of the time to fill in the gaps, they won't make money but if you don't have them, you could get caught short. No private operator would be interested so it has to be government.



There will be a lot of issues that no one has even dreamt of, will crop up during this period and really is what the future technologies statement is about.
As the problems present, the way to overcome it has to be developed, it is these periods of massive change where most of our technical knowledge advances.
It's like during war times one side comes up with a clever weapon, the other side comes up with technology to nullify or minimise its impact e.g sonar and radar.
From reading what smurf and others have said, we are already making world leading advances in the field of high renewable grid penetration, the inverter instability issues and circulating current and stability problems in remotely located solar/wind farms in close proximity to each other. There will be many, many more issues e.g the synchronous condensers installed in S.A, for an electrical background person, this is like a kid watching the Christmas tree go up. Lol


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> No private operator would be interested so it has to be government.




Indeed and same goes for anything that's in the category of backup.

Google street view image of Lonsdale / Port Stanvac power stations here (it's technically two plants but right next to each other so the same place in practice):









						Google Maps
					

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.




					www.google.com.au
				




Zoom in and take a close look at the sign on the fence to see who owns it.....

This is a diesel (internal combustion engines not turbines) power station comprising multiple small units, total about 80 MW. Location = outer suburban Adelaide. It's a peaking and backup facility in practice in terms of usage. It's sitting idle 99% of the time but if it didn't exist then on occasion there'd be blackouts yes.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Indeed and same goes for anything that's in the category of backup.
> 
> Google street view image of Lonsdale / Port Stanvac power stations here (it's technically two plants but right next to each other so the same place in practice):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Google Maps
> 
> 
> Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.google.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Zoom in and take a close look at the sign on the fence to see who owns it.....
> 
> This is a diesel (internal combustion engines not turbines) power station comprising multiple small units, total about 80 MW. Location = outer suburban Adelaide. It's a peaking and backup facility in practice in terms of usage. It's sitting idle 99% of the time but if it didn't exist then on occasion there'd be blackouts yes.



Snowy Hydro gets around dont they?


----------



## SirRumpole

It's a while away yet, but for those interested, a Fully Charged live event in Sydney 2023.









						Fully Charged LIVE Australia 2023 - Fully Charged Show
					

Fully Charged LIVE the World's No.1 Home Energy & Electric Vehicle Show, is coming to the Australia at Sydney on 11th & 12th March 2023.




					fullycharged.show


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> It's a while away yet, but for those interested, a Fully Charged live event in Sydney 2023.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Fully Charged LIVE Australia 2023 - Fully Charged Show
> 
> 
> Fully Charged LIVE the World's No.1 Home Energy & Electric Vehicle Show, is coming to the Australia at Sydney on 11th & 12th March 2023.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> fullycharged.show



That will be packed.


----------



## sptrawler

It looks as though the retirement of coal is locked in for the current period, I guess it can change with changing events and technologies, but have a consensus  is a great starting point and map of what need to be done when.
And as I said years ago, the more the politicians and Government keep their nose out the better, they would know about as much about power generation and transmission, as I know about how they can sleep at night. 🤣








						Industry, investors bank on no coal power by 2043, market operator says
					

Coal is becoming commercially uncompetitive due to the influx of cheap wind and solar power flooding the energy market.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
The equivalent of NSW and Victoria’s combined fleet of coal-fired power plants will shut in the next 10 years according to the latest plans from the Australian Energy Market Operator, which show 60 per cent of fossil fuel power generation closing by 2030.

AEMO manages the electricity system across the country and has spent the past 18 months consulting 1500 stakeholders on what the energy grid will look like out to 2050.

It presented four plausible scenarios to the energy industry and investors and said the outcome selected by a “strong consensus” assumed 14 gigawatts of coal power would exit the National Electricity Market by 2030 – a scenario dubbed the “step change” model – with a complete exit of coal by 2043.

Fourteen gigawatts represents the combined capacity of NSW’s five plants and Victoria’s three plants and that exit is much faster than the plans coal plant operators have lodged with AEMO, which has been officially notified these companies will shut just five gigawatts of capacity by 2030.

AEMO’s step change scenario shows coal closures rolling out even faster than under the upgraded climate policies of both major political parties.

AEMO chief executive Daniel Westerman said the step change scenario outstripped previous expectations but its model showed the transition could run smoothly with a “substantial increase” of dispatchable power to prepare for when the grid is completely coal-free.

AEMO said its step change model shows a need for 9 gigawatts of gas-fired power and *an extra 620 gigawatt hours worth of battery or pumped-hydro power. *I did keep saying storage is the issue what is Snowy 2.0? 350 gigawatt hours.

It said a $12.5 billion investment to build the coal-free grid of the future, which needs much more high voltage power lines to link the vast array of new wind and solar farms, battery, gas and pumped-hydro power assets, would deliver $29 billion in net market investments.
Significant investment is also needed so the transmissions network can efficiently accommodate the rise in what’s known as distributed energy resources, including households with rooftop solar panels that can feed power back into the grid, and store power in batteries.

“This transformation will efficiently deliver secure, reliable and affordable electricity while substantially contributing to national emissions objectives,” Mr Westerman said.

AEMO’s step change model showed the amount of electricity across the energy grid would nearly double by 2050 from 180 to 330 terawatt hours, as coal exits, petrol and diesel cars are replaced by electric vehicles and gas-fired industrial processes are electrified.


----------



## SirRumpole

Investoradam said:


> and has the prices been passed down? your power bills cheaper?




Yes, my power bills are cheaper. I can remember getting a bill for $1500 one quarter some 10 years ago, it usually averages about $600 now, which I reckon is still too high, but an improvement.


----------



## SirRumpole

Future Shock, environmentalists vs renewable energy ?









						'This is utter madness': The massive wind farms angering fans of renewable energy
					

In the ranges behind Cairns, bushland is being cleared in the name of climate action. It's pitting eco warriors against green energy projects.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

Not everyone is enamoured with the wind farms.









						'This is utter madness': The massive wind farms angering fans of renewable energy
					

In the ranges behind Cairns, bushland is being cleared in the name of climate action. It's pitting eco warriors against green energy projects.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Not everyone is enamoured with the wind farms.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 'This is utter madness': The massive wind farms angering fans of renewable energy
> 
> 
> In the ranges behind Cairns, bushland is being cleared in the name of climate action. It's pitting eco warriors against green energy projects.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au




Great minds think alike obviously !


----------



## sptrawler

What we have been talking about for a long time, now the AEMO has put a line in the sand, hopefully the States and grid operators make a concerted effort to upgrade the various HV transmission grids. 









						Renewable energy hotspot grinds to a halt through lack of transmission infrastructure
					

With Queensland lagging on its 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030 target, businesses and residents of the state's solar and wind-rich north wait for reliable transmission lines.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> AEMO said its step change model shows a need for 9 gigawatts of gas-fired power and *an extra 620 gigawatt hours worth of battery or pumped-hydro power.*



To the extent there's an ideological divide, that's the main one. 

That 9GW of gas could be replaced with even more large scale hydro for example, it's entirely possible to do so and end up with a 100% renewable system.

Or alternatively we could scrap any thought of building more hydro and have more gas instead.

Personally I'd choose hydro but others will strongly disagree. My reasoning is that when compared to gas, hydro:

*Is far more durable in terms of the physical assets. Once built it'll outlast anyone alive at the time.

*Doesn't require the ongoing exploration for gas, drilling, fracking, building pipelines and so on.

*Need not emit ongoing CO2 past the initial construction stage assuming vegetation is first removed from the reservoir area.

Those on the other side will be quick to point out that the downside of hydro is that, to do it with the depth of storage required, is that it means putting land under water. That's a concept traditionally despised by conservationists, indeed it was literally the trigger for the formation of what is today known as The Greens.

But then I'd point out that there are people opposed to gas too, quite a few in fact.

In practice there'll be some of both that's a given. Snowy 2.0 is physically under construction and there's ongoing investment into gas so both are part of the future in practice.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> To the extent there's an ideological divide, that's the main one.
> 
> That 9GW of gas could be replaced with even more large scale hydro for example, it's entirely possible to do so and end up with a 100% renewable system.
> 
> Or alternatively we could scrap any thought of building more hydro and have more gas instead.
> 
> Personally I'd choose hydro but others will strongly disagree. My reasoning is that when compared to gas, hydro:
> 
> *Is far more durable in terms of the physical assets. Once built it'll outlast anyone alive at the time.
> 
> *Doesn't require the ongoing exploration for gas, drilling, fracking, building pipelines and so on.
> 
> *Need not emit ongoing CO2 past the initial construction stage assuming vegetation is first removed from the reservoir area.
> 
> Those on the other side will be quick to point out that the downside of hydro is that, to do it with the depth of storage required, is that it means putting land under water. That's a concept traditionally despised by conservationists, indeed it was literally the trigger for the formation of what is today known as The Greens.
> 
> But then I'd point out that there are people opposed to gas too, quite a few in fact.
> 
> In practice there'll be some of both that's a given. Snowy 2.0 is physically under construction and there's ongoing investment into gas so both are part of the future in practice.



Does it have to be either/or or is their room for both? 

Just thinking of the construction time for pumped hydro and the fact that you can put  in some gas turbines a pretty quickly (my assumption I stand to be corrected), so maybe GT's could fill a short term gap?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Does it have to be either/or or is their room for both?
> 
> Just thinking of the construction time for pumped hydro and the fact that you can put  in some gas turbines a pretty quickly (my assumption I stand to be corrected), so maybe GT's could fill a short term gap?



As you say ATM gas is quick to install, very flexible in operation and can be retired easily if not required at a later date, unlike steam plant which has a lot of infrastructure. My guess is pumped hydro will be continually installed ad infinitum, and eventually be the major bulk storage medium, because as smurf says it lasts a long time, is super reliable and perfectly clean.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Does it have to be either/or or is their room for both?



What matters is the total capacity of generating plant that, whilst it won't be running most of the time, is technically capable of running constantly when required.

Hydro with decent storage capacity can do that. So can anything based on burning fuel so long as there's an adequate supply of fuel available either in real time (eg coal mine right next to the power station that can mine the coal as fast as it's burned) or produced more slowly in advance and stockpiled.

So they're interchangeable.

What isn't interchangeable and performs a different role is short duration storage. So large scale batteries, home batteries, short duration pumped hydro that stores a few hours worth and so on. Those have a very real role to play with meeting peak demand and raising minimum load on a daily basis but they simply can't shift energy from a windy week to a calm week or from one season to another.

Hydrogen? The round trip storage efficiency is poor compared to hydro or batteries but it could well be another option, especially if it does become a tradeable commodity. It's not something anyone's likely to commit to right now, given the uncertainties of cost and so on, but it may sell end up as part of the mix too.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> As you say ATM gas is quick to install, very flexible in operation and can be retired easily if not required at a later date



I'm sure you're aware but for others, one thing about open cycle gas turbines is they're readily relocatable.

The 6 x 50 MW units at Valley Power (Vic) are second hand from two power stations originally built in NZ in the 1970's for example. 

Another is Hallett (SA) which comprises a rather odd bunch of random second hand gas turbines of various sizes and efficiencies.

Another example is the 3 x 25 MW installed in Tasmania in 2016. They were rented, never intended to be a permanent installation, and have long since been returned to their owner in the US.

So they're quite sellable second hand. Versus say a coal plant where site works, boilers etc you can't really recover any money there, once it's built that's where it's staying.


----------



## Smurf1976

Sunday's chart for SA explains it all pretty well:







Last night the wind (green) was going nicely and during the day solar (yellow) carried most of the load. Once late afternoon came though it's down to batteries (blue), gas (orange), diesel (red) and supply from Victoria (purple) to carry the load.

With the wind still well down at midnight, therein lies the need for either longer duration storage than batteries can at present economically provide or alternatively backup from gas, diesel etc. Long term that might change, if batteries become a lot cheaper, but for the moment that's the situation - they're economic to build for peaks (short duration) but not to run for an extended period.


----------



## sptrawler

The push for V2G storage is increasing, especially in countries that are land poor.









						Nobel winner suggests letting EVs power the grid to go green
					

Rising adoption of battery-powered transport and the further development of vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, systems -- which allow the two-way flow of electricity -- could offer a potentially better option to store renewable energy.




					www.mining.com
				



From the article:
Japan is among countries testing out the capabilities of the technology, and more than half of current global pilots involve Nissan Motor Corp.’s Leaf cars, among the few major models that currently offer two-way charging.
Rising adoption of battery-powered transport and the further development of vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, systems — which allow the two-way flow of electricity — could offer a potentially better option to store renewable energy than expensive, dedicated battery facilities, Akira Yoshino said in an interview.





Japan, which has been criticized over the slow pace of its transition away from fossil fuels, is constrained by limited space for solar power, onshore wind farms and battery storage hubs. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government is seeking to cut greenhouse emissions by 46% from 2013 levels by 2030. 

“If EVs becomes widely used, Japan will definitely go in that direction,” Yoshino said. The 73 year-old Japanese scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019 together with two others for work on development of the modern lithium-ion battery.

Japan should be able to tap a meaningful amount of power storage capacity when the country’s EV fleet reaches 5 million, he said. The country’s EV adoption is lagging behind other nations and annual sales won’t exceed 200,000 before 2025, BNEF said in a sector outlook in June.

Elsewhere, startups such as Form Energy Inc. are working on improvements that aim to dramatically lower the costs of dedicated, long duration battery storage systems. 

Grid-scale hubs are being deployed in increasing numbers, led by projects in California, Australia and China. France-based Neoen SA last week brought a new 300 megawatt capacity facility into operation near Geelong in southeastern Australia.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> The push for V2G storage is increasing, especially in countries that are land poor.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Nobel winner suggests letting EVs power the grid to go green
> 
> 
> Rising adoption of battery-powered transport and the further development of vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, systems -- which allow the two-way flow of electricity -- could offer a potentially better option to store renewable energy.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.mining.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> Japan is among countries testing out the capabilities of the technology, and more than half of current global pilots involve Nissan Motor Corp.’s Leaf cars, among the few major models that currently offer two-way charging.
> Rising adoption of battery-powered transport and the further development of vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, systems — which allow the two-way flow of electricity — could offer a potentially better option to store renewable energy than expensive, dedicated battery facilities, Akira Yoshino said in an interview.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Japan, which has been criticized over the slow pace of its transition away from fossil fuels, is constrained by limited space for solar power, onshore wind farms and battery storage hubs. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government is seeking to cut greenhouse emissions by 46% from 2013 levels by 2030.
> 
> “If EVs becomes widely used, Japan will definitely go in that direction,” Yoshino said. The 73 year-old Japanese scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019 together with two others for work on development of the modern lithium-ion battery.
> 
> Japan should be able to tap a meaningful amount of power storage capacity when the country’s EV fleet reaches 5 million, he said. The country’s EV adoption is lagging behind other nations and annual sales won’t exceed 200,000 before 2025, BNEF said in a sector outlook in June.
> 
> Elsewhere, startups such as Form Energy Inc. are working on improvements that aim to dramatically lower the costs of dedicated, long duration battery storage systems.
> 
> Grid-scale hubs are being deployed in increasing numbers, led by projects in California, Australia and China. France-based Neoen SA last week brought a new 300 megawatt capacity facility into operation near Geelong in southeastern Australia.



As I said many posts back, V2G could have negated the need for Snowy2, but it's too late now and we are a laggard anyway:


So many missed opportunities last year when hundreds of billions was paid out unproductively to employ people not to work.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> As I said many posts back, V2G could have negated the need for Snowy2, but it's too late now and we are a laggard anyway:
> 
> 
> So many missed opportunities last year when hundreds of billions was paid out unproductively to employ people not to work.



Never, ever give up.  🤣


----------



## sptrawler

The facts are starting to sink in, that the transition to renewables is well underway and is definitely happening faster than anyone expected. Well worth a read for those who are interested in the progress being made.









						Brown coal likely to close by 2032, AEMO says, but all coal may be gone by then
					

Step change has become AEMO’s core scenario to manage the grid, and it assumes a threefold increase in coal retirements by 2030.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the article:
Australia’s electricity transition is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, and the new planning blueprint from the Australian Energy Market Operator now assumes that coal closures will occur at three times the expected rate, and all the country’s brown coal generators could be gone by 2032.

The new assumptions are made in AEMO’s updated “Step Change” scenario, which was the “out-there” scenario in the first edition of its Integrated System Plan in 2020, but is now considered to be the most likely outcome in the 2022 edition and will be the new “core” or central scenario for planning purposes.

The Step Change scenario assumes that 14GW of coal capacity will retire by 2030, because the generators are finding it increasingly difficult to compete against rooftop solar and large scale renewables, and because they are getting older and more costly to maintain.

That is nearly three times the 5GW of retirements that are currently scheduled. In its place, the amount of wind and solar needs to treble by 2030, rooftop solar will double, and the draft ISP lays out a plan of how to get there, with a particular emphasis on new transmission and storage.
The draft 2022 ISP is a breath-taking document because it highlights the breadth and speed of the transition that is taking place, and the scale and urgency of what needs to be done to ensure it continues. But the document will also be highly influential on government, regulator and investor thinking.

The remarkable and – for those concerned about climate change – uplifting aspect of the draft ISP is that the coal exit could be even more dramatic. For the first time, AEMO has also introduced a scenario compatible with the 1.5°C Paris climate goal, and the results are – to use its own description – monumental.
The modelling for “Hydrogen Superpower” suggests all the coal generators in Australia’s main grid could be closed by 2032, from which time it will be largely powered by wind, solar and vast amounts of storage.
“Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) is supporting a once-in-a-century transformation in the way society considers and consumes energy,” the document says.

“(It is) drawing on electricity in place of much of the oil and gas for industry and homes, replacing legacy assets with low-cost renewables, adding batteries and other new forms of firming capacity, and reconfiguring the grid to support two-way energy flow to new power sources in new locations.

“It is doing so at world-leading pace, while continuing to provide reliable, secure and affordable electricity to consumers.”


AEMO’s Step Change scenario, developed after 18 months of detailed consultation with more than 200 energy experts, assumes a 79 per cent share for renewables by 2030.

More than half of the experts consider this to be the “most likely” scenario, which means that AEMO – and other institutions such as the Australian Energy Regulator, when ruling on funding applications for new poles and wires – will base their decisions around it.

But the hydrogen superpower cannot be ruled out. Transmission companies such as Transgrid have already produced scenarios showing that more than 90 per cent renewables is possible by 2030, which is somewhere between Step Change and Hydrogen Superpower.

As AEMO writes, the scale of development in this Hydrogen Superpower scenario “can only be described as monumental.”

It would require Australia to become a renewable energy superpower with an additional 256GW of wind and approximately 300GW of solar – 37 times its current capacity of VRE (variable renewable energy).

For now, however, AEMO is settling on Step Change as its core planning scenario, and has outlined its “Optimal Development Plan” (ODP), to deal with the likely early coal closures. Most notably, this suggests quick and early work on important new links such as Hume and VNI west in Victoria.

“The Step Change scenario forecasts a rapid transformation in Australia’s National Electricity Market, consisting of a significant investment in renewable generation, storage and firming generation as coal plants exit, and improvements to transmission,” AEMO CEO Daniel Westerman says.
“In this scenario, the NEM will operate without coal generation by 2043. This requires a substantial increase in battery and pumped-hydro storage, hydrogen or gas-fired generation for peak demand, all complemented by a market that incentivises energy users to adjust demand based on system conditions.
“This transformation will efficiently deliver secure, reliable and affordable electricity while substantially contributing to national emissions objectives,” he said.
And it will deliver $29 billion in net market benefits, returning 2.5 times the investment value. AEMO doesn’t specify the potential savings for individual households, but they are likely to be substantial.
The draft ISP doesn’t hold out much hope for those touting a “gas-led” recovery. Yes, gas will play a role, and around 9GW of gas generation may well be needed. But these will be limited to fast-start generators that will be rarely used. There won’t be much of a role for “mid-merit” or intermediate gas generators.
Most of the “dispatchable” generation will come in various forms of storage, with about 45GW/620 GWh of dispatchable storage capacity, 7GW of existing dispatchable hydro and the 9GW of gas-fired generation. That is in the “step change” plan.
The scale of what is required in each state is phenomenal, particularly as in the Step Change scenario the amount of electricity produced in the main grid is doubled to meet the demands of electric vehicles, the electrification of industry and households, and renewable hydrogen.
NSW will require 38GW of new wind and solar by 2050, and it already has a plan to build 12GW by 2030. Queensland will require even more, 47GW of new wind and solar by 2050, South Australia would built an extra 15GW (six times its current capacity), and Victoria 23GW.
Tasmania is expected to add 2.5W, although AEMO doesn’t assume any offshore wind farms, such as the 1GW Alinta project proposed for the Portland smelter, because these are at such early stages.
Households will play a critical role, not just in the uptake of electric appliances and kicking gas out of the home, but also through the purchase of EVs and a five-fold increase in rooftop solar PV capacity to more than 75GW by 2050, and their participation in “virtual power plants” and demand response.
To make sure the grid is ready to support this extraordinary transition, AEMO has proposed a 30-year ‘optimal development path’ which focuses on the 10,000 kilometres of new transmission that will be needed.
Some are already underway, but AEMO is also anxious that serious work commences on other projects such as VNI West in Victoria, the Hume link from Snowy, and the Marinus links from Tasmania. It also talks of the importance of social licence.
“The land needed for major VRE, storage and transmission projects to realise these goals is unprecedented,” the document notes.
“Early community engagement will be needed to ensure investments have an appropriate social licence. The new REZ Design Report framework is a start, but proactive engagement and integrated land-use planning is also needed at a jurisdictional level.”
https://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/AEMOisp2022fig27.jpg
And if those new transmission lines face insurmountable hurdles?

“In some cases, this may lead to alternative developments that reduce the need for new transmission, including batteries, gas-fired generation and offshore wind developments that connect to the existing network easements.”


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> As I said many posts back, V2G could have negated the need for Snowy2




There's still time for it to negate what's needed next if it's really up to the job.

There's plenty of gas-fired capacity, additional to existing hydro and Snowy 2.0, required to be built as per the 2022 Draft Integrated System Plan recently released by AEMO.

Gas at 9GW versus Snowy 2.0 at 2.04 GW.

That's new gas-fired generation to be built as well as some which already exists so plenty of opportunity still there if something else can actually do it better.

How much energy can actually be drawn out of an EV fleet over a period of days is a question in itself of course. For example a fairly typical 6 day wind + solar (collectively) drought.

If we assume that EV's are on average 90% charged at the start of it, and bearing in mind that they'll still be used as cars during that period, how much energy can actually be taken from them?

The answer to that of course depends very heavily on how large the EV batteries actually end up being for mass market cars that people actually do end up buying.

That said, for a theoretical example:

EV battery capacity 85 kWh

EV uses 0.166 kWh per km.

90% charged at the start and assuming consumers won't allow it to discharge to the grid below 25%. 

6 days VRE drought, eg as actually occurred 5 - 10 July this year, average car travels about 220km so that's 37 kWh.

90% at the start = 76.5 kWh

25% minimum = 21 kWh

Usable storage between those extremes = 55.5 kWh - 37 kWh used to move the car = 18.5 kWh per car available for net discharge over 6 days.

On that basis it would need 19 million EV's to match Snowy 2.0's bulk energy storage capability.

Bearing in mind that Snowy 2.0 isn't the end of it by any means - there's that 9GW of gas-fired generation, some of which already exists but much of which needs building either as new or replacement capacity. Plenty of opportunity there for any alternative....


----------



## rederob

I support hydro schemes in general and pumped hydro fit for purpose.
Your numbers make a compelling case.  However I saw V2G as a stop gap in the greater scheme of our energy transition and not as a replacement for capacity build.  
Our VRE network is fragmented and in its early days, so aside from inadequate capacity we don't have HVDC connectivity as we would need it and are still years away from getting any scale into DERs should pilot programs prove themselves.  Everyone in the VRE sector also knows that without storage the problem of intermittency is not solved.  In that regard the world's biggest oil producer does deals like this, so the future of energy generation and storage gets clearer.


----------



## SirRumpole

Harvesting trees to produce electricity.









						Can trees be farmed to create electricity? This man thinks it's only natural
					

As Australia looks to cut emissions and move away from fossil fuels,  trials are assessing the potential for farming trees to produce power through bioenergy.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Smurf1976

In response to another thread which mentioned nuclear power but going into the detail of it was getting a bit off topic in my view:

If we were to hypothetically replace coal (but not gas or anything else, just coal) in NSW with nuclear then applying UK costs for new nuclear currently under construction (Hinkley Point C) that comes to:

Capital employed = Approximately $130 billion AUD (based on UK costs at the present exchange rate)

Income from the sale of electricity $4.2 billion per annum (based on past 12 months actual market prices in NSW)

Total revenue = $9.7 billion per annum (based on UK contracts between the developer / owner and government)

Required government contribution = $5.5 billion per annum to bridge the gap between total revenue and the selling price of electricity produced. Plus insurance provided at no charge.

So perhaps my use of the term socialism to describe it isn't correct but nonetheless, it's an industry where the cost is substantially socialised. Taxpayers, not the sale of a product, are providing over half the total revenue and also covering the cost of insurance.

So any decision which leads to nuclear being the source of energy used in a country is a decision made by governments not business. Business might come up with specific detailed proposals but it's government that decides to do it in the first place.

Exception of anywhere that actually can do it profitably but even there, it'll still be subject to rigorous government approvals and monitoring even if it does stack up financially. 

Unless the economics improve, or someone thinks they can do it drastically cheaper in Australia than is actually being done in the UK, then there won't be any enthusiasm for nuclear unless government decides to do it.


----------



## sptrawler

I think the issue is not whether the UK  or any other country wants a nuclear power station  or what the cost is, but more about what options are available to meet the dual purpose of a safe and secure electrical system and zero emissions.
Everyone wants zero emissions and electricity  to be reliable and affordable. To do that a pragmatic and realistic approach has to be taken, emotion and wishing upon a star isn't really a sensible approach for a government to take.
Hinkley Point is only the first of the power stations the U.K needs to replace or compliment the 10 or so nuclear stations they already have.

The cost factor involved with nuclear stations, is trying to be addressed with the development of SMR's, there is a huge amount of money being poured into their development and there is no reason to believe that they won't be successful as with other technologies like batteries etc.

People go on about batteries will get cheaper, they will improve energy densities due to technological advances, the problem is the same people think the only fields that will advance are those which align with their beliefs.









						US company in talks to build nuclear power plant near Holyhead
					

New plants are needed to hit Britain’s zero-carbon targets




					www.thetimes.co.uk
				












						China advances in nuclear power with world's first small modular nuclear reactor
					

The application of SMRs has the ability to drastically cut down the consumption of fossil fuel energy in China




					www.wionews.com


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I think the issue is not whether the UK  or any other country wants a nuclear power station  or what the cost is, but more about what options are available to meet the dual purpose of a safe and secure electrical system and zero emissions.
> Everyone wants zero emissions and electricity  to be reliable and affordable. To do that a pragmatic and realistic approach has to be taken, emotion and wishing upon a star isn't really a sensible approach for a government to take.
> Hinkley Point is only the first of the power stations the U.K needs to replace or compliment the 10 or so nuclear stations they already have.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> US company in talks to build nuclear power plant near Holyhead
> 
> 
> New plants are needed to hit Britain’s zero-carbon targets
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.thetimes.co.uk



Of course we have to remember that for some countries nuclear reactors also produce nuclear weapons fuel, so emissions and ROI does not enter in to the equation a s much as for those countries that don't have nuclear weapons.


----------



## sptrawler

The cost of H2 electrolyzer's to continue to fall into the foreseeable future, Australia is in the box seat, to take advantage of a hydrogen driven future.









						CSIRO’s stunning predictions for low cost battery storage and hydrogen electrolysers
					

CSIRO GenCost report predicts astonishing cost reductions for batteries and electrolysers, which could be accelerated by stronger climate policies.




					reneweconomy.com.au


----------



## basilio

Some excellent news for creating a renewable energy electricity network.


Big win for virtual power plants as AEMO backs off on metering changes​
Giles Parkinson 23 December 2021 0
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Proponents of virtual power plants – the systems that link potentially thousands of distributed devices such as rooftop solar, battery storage and electric vehicles – have won a major victory after proposed changes to metering rules were dumped in the face of a volley of protests.

Earlier this year, Australian energy companies and new technology providers warned that new proposals from the Australian Energy Market Operator could effectively kill the market for “virtual power plants”, considered critical for smoothing the transition towards a 100 per cent renewables grid.









						Big win for virtual power plants as AEMO backs off on metering changes
					

Big win for virtual power plants – including rooftop solar, batteries and EVs – as AEMO adjusts proposed changes to metering speeds.




					reneweconomy.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

India starting to grapple with the issues Australia has been working with over the past few years.








						No Compensation for Over Injection of Wind and Solar Power Under Draft DSM Rules - Mercom India
					

Renewable project developers are wading through multiple challenges in integrating power to the grid efficiently on time. With India setting ...




					mercomindia.com


----------



## basilio

Excellent overview of the rapid electrification of all forms of transport.  Also examines the next  battery  and drive train technologies which offer outstanding improvements on current processes. 









						EV industry moving in right direction to close gap with internal combustion engines – report
					

According to IDTechEx, electrification is inevitable as is the EV industry’s focus on environmentally friendlier materials and supply chains, and safer products.




					www.mining.com


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> Excellent overview of the rapid electrification of all forms of transport.  Also examines the next  battery  and drive train technologies which offer outstanding improvements on current processes.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> EV industry moving in right direction to close gap with internal combustion engines – report
> 
> 
> According to IDTechEx, electrification is inevitable as is the EV industry’s focus on environmentally friendlier materials and supply chains, and safer products.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.mining.com




Of course, the breakthrough in electric motors will be super-conductors, if they ever happen.


----------



## sptrawler

An article, that reiterates what we on here have been saying, no one knows for sure how the electrical system will look in 2050.








						Is nuclear power the key to carbon neutrality – or a financial graveyard for all comers?
					

There are calls to put nuclear energy on the table as an emissions-free solution to global warming but critics say the industry is a 'graveyard' for those who build it.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> An article, that reiterates what we on here have been saying, no one knows for sure how the electrical system will look in 2050.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Is nuclear power the key to carbon neutrality – or a financial graveyard for all comers?
> 
> 
> There are calls to put nuclear energy on the table as an emissions-free solution to global warming but critics say the industry is a 'graveyard' for those who build it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au




The nuclear lobby keeps sticking its head up but imo they have to improve their technology to compete with other renewables without massive subsidies. The downside risk of handling nuclear materials is too great compared with the benefits imo.

Unless nuclear fusion happens of course   , oh it already does, on the sun.


----------



## sptrawler

You are spot on, IMO unless SMR's are perfected, nuclear will never become widespread and will only be used in areas where alternatives aren't feasibleable.
But as with E.V's, vaccines and every other technology, if there is a requirement that something is developed, the money required to develop it will be found.


----------



## Investoradam

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, my power bills are cheaper. I can remember getting a bill for $1500 one quarter some 10 years ago, it usually averages about $600 now, which I reckon is still too high, but an improvement.



Rubbish! Only the loons besting the drum for the renewables keen dribbling that crap!

Everyone’s power bills are sky rocketing! Not only here across the US and Europe!
Including several black outs! Thx to the useless renewables and still not being able to keep up

irony is they aren’t even green and are toxic for the environment


----------



## Smurf1976

Investoradam said:


> Rubbish! Only the loons besting the drum for the renewables keen dribbling that crap!
> 
> Everyone’s power bills are sky rocketing! Not only here across the US and Europe!
> Including several black outs! Thx to the useless renewables and still not being able to keep up




Have a look at the price of gas and coal.

Gas is at several times the "normal" price, to the point that it's now completely uneconomic as a power generation fuel, and coal's also at all time highs. 

Between them that's a huge part of what's putting upward pressure on costs. 

Plus there's the problem of the inherently inefficient structure of the industry brought about by the various politically inspired "reforms" which saw a loss of scale of economy and the emergence of countless middlemen and bureaucracies whom now account for a substantial portion of total costs to the average consumer. That's a political decision independent of the generation technology.


----------



## sptrawler

Sounds like a World first @Smurf1976 might be able to expand on the article.









						South Australia breaks record by running for a week on renewable energy
					

Analysts believe South Australia’s more than six-day run on green energy may be a global first for a power grid supporting an advanced economy.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## mullokintyre

sptrawler said:


> Sounds like a World first @Smurf1976 might be able to expand on the article.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> South Australia breaks record by running for a week on renewable energy
> 
> 
> Analysts believe South Australia’s more than six-day run on green energy may be a global first for a power grid supporting an advanced economy.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au



When I looked at the headline, thats pretty impressive.
However, when you actually read the article, its not quite what it seems.


> His analysis shows that for the six days identified, the state produced on average 101 per cent of the energy it needed from wind, rooftop solar and solar farms, with just a fraction of the energy the state used being drawn from gas, in order to keep the grid stable.
> 
> At times during the period, slightly less renewable energy was available and at other times renewable capacity was higher than needed, he says.



So, its actually an average, and when one looks at the breakdown, one can see the problem.


> During the unprecedented 156-hour renewable run, the share of wind in total energy supplied averaged 64.4 per cent, while rooftop solar averaged 29.5 per cent and utility-scale solar averaged 6.2 per cent, clean energy website RenewEconomy.com.au reported, using Mr Eldridge’s data.



One can probably assume that wind supplied 64.4% during day or night, but you are not going to get much out of  either type of solar during the night, so what supplied that extra 30% every night.
I suspect that there was massive oversupply during the day, and under supply during the night, which of course averages out at 100%.
Neat, but as the fact checkers often say, doesn't supply the full picture.
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> When I looked at the headline, thats pretty impressive.
> However, when you actually read the article, its not quite what it seems.
> 
> So, its actually an average, and when one looks at the breakdown, one can see the problem.
> 
> One can probably assume that wind supplied 64.4% during day or night, but you are not going to get much out of  either type of solar during the night, so what supplied that extra 30% every night.
> I suspect that there was massive oversupply during the day, and under supply during the night, which of course averages out at 100%.
> Neat, but as the fact checkers often say, doesn't supply the full picture.
> Mick



That's why I said @Smurf  will be able to give a more accurate explanation of the event. 👍
It still goes back to the basic equation for renewables to work they need enough generation to supply the load and charge the storage. Plus enough storage to supply the load until you have enough generation to repeat the cycle.
A rule of thumb I read was, to replace at call generation with a renewable system, you need twice the generation capacity and three times the generation capacity in storage.


----------



## Investoradam

Smurf1976 said:


> Have a look at the price of gas and coal.
> 
> Gas is at several times the "normal" price, to the point that it's now completely uneconomic as a power generation fuel, and coal's also at all time highs.
> 
> Between them that's a huge part of what's putting upward pressure on costs.
> 
> Plus there's the problem of the inherently inefficient structure of the industry brought about by the various politically inspired "reforms" which saw a loss of scale of economy and the emergence of countless middlemen and bureaucracies whom now account for a substantial portion of total costs to the average consumer. That's a political decision independent of the generation technology.



Most of it comes from Russia so they have the monopoly so Putin jacks the price up.
Several previous suppliers have been cut off or discontinued and the leftist idiots running Europe have invested endless billions in wind and solar!

how’s all that going?


----------



## Smurf1976

Investoradam said:


> Most of it comes from Russia so they have the monopoly so Putin jacks the price up.
> Several previous suppliers have been cut off or discontinued and the leftist idiots running Europe have invested endless billions in wind and solar!
> 
> how’s all that going?



Russia and the OPEC countries between them control more than 70% of world gas reserves, something that's been widely understood since at least the 1970's.

The mistake is to be so reliant on the stuff in the first place since it was always heading for a problem, the only question being when and with what trigger.

Sadly this was all understood extremely well 40 years ago with most countries having plans to shift away from oil and gas due to that risk. Sadly forgotten and now the price is being paid.

Renewable energy can certainly work though and it can beat gas on price at present levels easily in countries exposed to international LNG prices. The key as with anything is building it so that it actually works and that means storage and plenty of it.

Trouble is that bit about storage. Europe hasn't built it with renewables, they thought they'd use gas for that, and they didn't fill the gas storage full this past year either. 

"Just in time" is a financial concept intended to maximise profit, it's not an engineering concept to make something reliable and when it comes to economic or political theories versus physics, physics wins every time.

Trouble is, Europe's not the only place where that thinking's around.....


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> That's why I said @Smurf will be able to give a more accurate explanation of the event. 👍



Some data for the days leading up to 29 December 2021 as referenced in the article:

All figures refer to SA only except the "import" and "export" figures which mean flow between SA and Victoria (in industry terminology that's importing and exporting despite being within the same country). That both import and export often occur on the same day is simply because the figures are counting each in real time - for example export at midday and import at 6pm don't cancel each other out, they're added up separately.

Battery discharging = energy from the battery into the grid.

Battery charging = energy from the grid into the battery.

All figures are in GWh (Gigawatt hours. 1 GWh = 1000 MWh = 1,000,000 kWh).

Figures won't quite add due to rounding.

Wednesday 22 December:
Consumption = 38 GWh
Solar = 14.7 GWh
Wind = 12.1 GWh
Battery discharging = 0.2 GWh
Gas = 7.4 GWh
Diesel = 0.0006 GWh
Import (from Victoria to SA) = 4.3 GWh
Export (from SA to Victoria) = 0.5 GWh
Battery charging = 0.3 GWh

Thursday 23 December:
Consumption = 37
Solar = 14.2
Wind = 14.2
Battery discharging = 0.2
Gas = 5.6
Diesel = zero
Import from Victoria = 3.7
Export to Victoria = 0.4
Battery charging 0.3

Friday 24 December
Consumption = 37
Solar = 14.2
Wind = 18.1
Battery discharging = 0.2
Gas = 4.1
Diesel = zero
Import from Victoria = 2.7
Export to Victoria = 1.9
Battery charging = 0.3

Saturday 25 December
Consumption = 32
Solar = 11.7
Wind = 19.4
Battery discharging = 0.1
Gas = 2.2
Diesel = zero
Import from Victoria = 2.5
Export to Victoria = 4.1
Battery charging = 0.2

Sunday 26 December
Consumption = 31
Solar = 10.4
Wind = 25.6
Battery discharging = 0.2
Gas = 2.0
Diesel = zero
Import from Victoria = 0.2
Export to Victoria = 7.6
Battery charging = 0.2

Monday 27 December
Consumption = 32
Solar = 11.7
Wind = 26.8
Battery discharging = 0.1
Gas = 2.0
Diesel = zero
Import from Victoria = 0.01
Export to Victoria = 8.2
Battery charging = 0.2

Tuesday 28 December
Consumption = 33
Solar = 13.3
Wind = 22.4
Battery discharging = 0.2
Gas = 2.0
Diesel = zero
Import from Victoria = 1.5
Export to Victoria = 6.0
Battery charging = 0.2

Wednesday 29 December
Consumption = 40
Solar = 12.5
Wind = 19.7
Battery discharging = 0.2
Gas = 5.3
Diesel = 0.01
Import from Victoria = 3.6
Export to Victoria = 1.4
Battery charging = 0.3

Thursday 30 December
Consumption = 46
Solar = 13.4
Wind = 10.0
Battery discharging = 0.2
Gas = 15.3
Diesel = 0.7
Import from Victoria = 7.2
Export to Victoria = 0.5
Battery charging = 0.3

Friday 31 December
Consumption = 50
Solar = 13.5
Wind = 12.3
Battery discharging = 0.3
Gas = 16.1
Diesel = 0.5
Import from Victoria = 7.6
Export to Victoria = 0.04
Battery charging = 0.3

So looing at the days prior to 29 December, there were certainly periods when wind + solar output exceeded consumption in SA and there were entire days where, in total, that was the case. It would not be true to say that the state was 100% powered by renewables however first since gas-fired generation never goes to zero for technical reasons and second second because there were indeed periods when wind + solar fell significantly short of consumption hence the imports from Victoria or higher use of gas.

As a pattern that's not particularly unusual. This chart from the past 7 days to now, that is the 7 days to 5:30pm 17 January (SA time), shows something very similar:







Yellow = solar.
Green = wind
Blue = battery discharge
Orange = gas
Red = diesel
Purple = import from Victoria
below the zero line = export to Victoria and battery charging

Red line on separate chart at bottom = market price

Different period but essentially the same basic pattern. There are times when wind + solar does exceed consumption but others when there's a very high reliance on gas. 

Here's a full 12 months worth on a daily total basis, same colour scheme:





Here's the same chart showing only wind and solar. Look closely and the issue needing to be overcome is readily apparent - multiple consecutive days of low output and some days of extremely low output can and do occur. To overcome that needs a lot more than a couple of hours storage and that's the difficult bit.


----------



## SirRumpole

Investoradam said:


> Rubbish! Only the loons besting the drum for the renewables keen dribbling that crap!
> 
> Everyone’s power bills are sky rocketing! Not only here across the US and Europe!
> Including several black outs! Thx to the useless renewables and still not being able to keep up
> 
> irony is they aren’t even green and are toxic for the environment




Electricity prices are the cheapest they have been for a decade (according to the ABC).

And if yo want to argue with that, provide some evidence.









						How 15 minutes of your time could lead to 'significant' electricity bill savings
					

The price of electricity is the cheapest it has been in almost a decade, and average annual household bills are going down. But a new analysis shows many consumers could be paying even less. Here's how.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## JohnDe

Energy storage solutions is what will make renewables the no.1 source of electricity generation.

_"While Australia often receives poor international press regarding its climate policies, the nation’s rapid uptake of renewables is also receiving international attention.

A recent episode of the podcast The Energy Gang, produced in the US by global energy consultants Wood Mackenzie, focused on Australia’s success in incorporating renewables into its grid to total 24 per cent, highlighting the uptake of grid-scale batteries that both store renewable energy when it is not needed and help stabilise a system originally built to transmit power from huge providers such as coal power stations.

Fereidoon Sioshansi, a US-based energy analyst, says Australia has driven down the costs of renewables and in particular solar power, not only with so-called feed-in tariffs, which leave owners of solar systems paid well for the power they feed back to the grid, but also efficient regulation."_













						South Australia breaks record by running for a week on renewable energy
					

Analysts believe South Australia’s more than six-day run on green energy may be a global first for a power grid supporting an advanced economy.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## SirRumpole

Improving the efficiency of solar cells.


----------



## sptrawler

I don't know how many years ago we said in this thread, that renewables will push coal off the grid as a matter of course, it's a shame it takes the Journo's so long to cotton on.  








						Coal, gas power shrinking in Australia as renewable energy shines
					

Renewable energy is squeezing fossil fuels further out of the nation’s power mix and threatening the viability of coal-fired power plants.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:
Renewable energy is squeezing fossil fuels further out of Australia’s power mix, accounting for a record-high share of average electricity generation in the final three months of 2021 and threatening the viability of coal-fired power plants.
The influx of large-scale wind and solar farms coupled with an ongoing boom in the uptake of rooftop solar panels have been radically reshaping the national electricity market and slashing daytime wholesale prices to levels at which the dominant sources of power – coal and gas – struggle to compete.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I don't know how many years ago we said in this thread, that renewables will push coal off the grid as a matter of course, it's a shame it takes the Journo's so long to cotton on.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Coal, gas power shrinking in Australia as renewable energy shines
> 
> 
> Renewable energy is squeezing fossil fuels further out of the nation’s power mix and threatening the viability of coal-fired power plants.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theage.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> Renewable energy is squeezing fossil fuels further out of Australia’s power mix, accounting for a record-high share of average electricity generation in the final three months of 2021 and threatening the viability of coal-fired power plants.
> The influx of large-scale wind and solar farms coupled with an ongoing boom in the uptake of rooftop solar panels have been radically reshaping the national electricity market and slashing daytime wholesale prices to levels at which the dominant sources of power – coal and gas – struggle to compete.



I wonder when then LNP will cotton on?

Maybe one day ScoMo's replacement might wave a solar panel around in Parliament instead of a lump of coal.


----------



## macca

sptrawler said:


> I don't know how many years ago we said in this thread, that renewables will push coal off the grid as a matter of course, it's a shame it takes the Journo's so long to cotton on.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Coal, gas power shrinking in Australia as renewable energy shines
> 
> 
> Renewable energy is squeezing fossil fuels further out of the nation’s power mix and threatening the viability of coal-fired power plants.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theage.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> Renewable energy is squeezing fossil fuels further out of Australia’s power mix, accounting for a record-high share of average electricity generation in the final three months of 2021 and threatening the viability of coal-fired power plants.
> The influx of large-scale wind and solar farms coupled with an ongoing boom in the uptake of rooftop solar panels have been radically reshaping the national electricity market and slashing daytime wholesale prices to levels at which the dominant sources of power – coal and gas – struggle to compete.




perhaps we should provide links to ASF for budding pollies so that they can appear to be intelligent when they make profound statements that, in good time, turn out to be right.

If we look back at the predictions/statements made over time, we have a really astute bunch of people who argue both sides of the fence on here.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I wonder when then LNP will cotton on?
> 
> Maybe one day ScoMo's replacement might wave a solar panel around in Parliament instead of a lump of coal.



I personally think the States are slower to act, than tbe Feds, Snowy 2, Tassie link, GT in NSW, tbe States talk up a storm but until recently appart from S.A have done very little.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I personally think the States are slower to act, than tbe Feds, Snowy 2, Tassie link, GT in NSW, tbe States talk up a storm but until recently appart from S.A have done very little.



It varies between states.

SA has done some stuff as you mention.

There's more going on in Tasmania than most would likely realise and it's the usual "shoot for the stars" approach. The mouse is certainly herding the cats up enthusiastically, whether they can pull it off is yet to be proven but if it fails then it won't be through lack of trying.

For the rest well Victoria arguably has the worst long term planning in my view, mostly because there isn't really a plan other than relying on other states, meanwhile Queensland's in the most difficulty in the short term.

A current AEMO Market Notice for Qld sums it up:



> 94141RESERVE NOTICE28/01/2022 02:45:25 PM
> STPASA - Update of the Forecast Lack Of Reserve Level 1 (LOR1) in the QLD Region beginning on 01/02/2022​AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE
> 
> The Forecast LOR1 conditions in the QLD region advised in AEMO Electricity Market Notice No. 94130 have been updated at 1400 hrs 28/01/2022 to the following:
> 
> 1. From 1730 hrs to 1930 hrs 01/02/2022.
> The forecast capacity reserve requirement is 878 MW.
> The minimum capacity reserve available is 595 MW.
> 
> 2. From 1600 hrs to 1730 hrs 02/02/2022.
> The forecast capacity reserve requirement is 877 MW.
> The minimum capacity reserve available is 449 MW.
> 
> 3. From 1900 hrs to 1930 hrs 02/02/2022.
> The forecast capacity reserve requirement is 872 MW.
> The minimum capacity reserve available is 503 MW.
> 
> AEMO Operations




Bearing in mind that's with load forecasts of:

February 1 = 9346 MW
February 2 = 9941 MW

So not a lot to spare and basically no room for anything to go wrong either with supply or if the load forecast is exceeded in practice. That's not an isolated incident by the way, such notices have been extremely frequent for Qld this summer thus far. 

Situation would be better if Callide C hadn't had the catastrophic failure in May 2021. Return to service is currently planned for April 2023 bearing in mind it's a substantial reconstruction, it's more than just a repair job.


----------



## Investoradam

SirRumpole said:


> I wonder when then LNP will cotton on?
> 
> Maybe one day ScoMo's replacement might wave a solar panel around in Parliament instead of a lump of coal.



Thx to the loons and corrupt left leftist politicians the coal industry is booming record high cos prices!


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> It varies between states.
> 
> SA has done some stuff as you mention.
> 
> There's more going on in Tasmania than most would likely realise and it's the usual "shoot for the stars" approach. The mouse is certainly herding the cats up enthusiastically, whether they can pull it off is yet to be proven but if it fails then it won't be through lack of trying.
> 
> For the rest well Victoria arguably has the worst long term planning in my view, mostly because there isn't really a plan other than relying on other states, meanwhile Queensland's in the most difficulty in the short term.
> 
> A current AEMO Market Notice for Qld sums it up:
> 
> 
> 
> Bearing in mind that's with load forecasts of:
> 
> February 1 = 9346 MW
> February 2 = 9941 MW
> 
> So not a lot to spare and basically no room for anything to go wrong either with supply or if the load forecast is exceeded in practice. That's not an isolated incident by the way, such notices have been extremely frequent for Qld this summer thus far.
> 
> Situation would be better if Callide C hadn't had the catastrophic failure in May 2021. Return to service is currently planned for April 2023 bearing in mind it's a substantial reconstruction, it's more than just a repair job.



They are all commited to zero by 2050, same old story, tell them what they want to hear kick the can down the road.

By the way I dont mention Tassie, because they are that far ahead of the pack, they are out of sight.


----------



## sptrawler

So what did we say @SirRumpole , when Kurri Kurri was announced and Labor bagged it as not required? Wait and see if they cancel it when they get in. Lol
The Libs said it will be able to run on h2, politics dont you love it, they cant lie straight in bed. Lol









						Labor makes green hydrogen pitch for government’s Kurri Kurri gas plant
					

Labor is pushing back on the government’s Hunter Valley gas plans with a green hydrogen pitch to convert the planned Kurri Kurri plant.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

Power charge: Surging renewable energy levels send grid management costs soaring
					

Costs incurred by the body that keeps the lights on across Australia are skyrocketing as surging levels of renewable energy increasingly challenge the security of the grid.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
Key points:​
AEMO has asked for a 66 per cent increase in funding to manage WA's main electricity grid
The proposal mirrors the situation on the east coast, where costs are rising as green energy levels surge
Renewable energy accounted for more than a third of output in the NEM in the December quarter
The agency wants $156.2 million over three years to 2025 — a 66 per cent jump on the previous period – to operate the main electricity market in Western Australia.

In a submission to WA's economic watchdog, the AEMO said it needed the extra funds to help cope with the increasing complexity and volatility in the market as more and more renewable energy flooded onto the system.

"While the growing level of variable renewable generation is helping the [WA system] transition towards clean, low-cost generation, it can pose operational challenges," it said in its submission.

The proposal mirrors the AEMO's actions in Australia's biggest power system — the National Electricity Market (NEM) – where the organisation has faced steeply rising costs to stabilise a grid that services almost 10 million customers.

As part of its most recent snapshot of the market, the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) noted the AEMO was spending tens of millions of dollars on contingency measures to ensure the NEM did not run short of power at vulnerable times.
The AER noted that the so-called reliability and emergency reserve trader scheme had been in place for a number of years but had rarely been used until recently.

It said the scheme had now been invoked in all the biggest states, including South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, while its total cost between 2017 and 2020 had reached $110m.

On top of this, the regulator said the AEMO was having to intervene in the normal functioning of the market by calling on more expensive power plants that could help with the stability of the grid.
The AEMO said the growing challenges of keeping the lights on were highlighted in its latest snapshot of the market, which showed record volatility in the three months to December 31.

Minimum demand for electricity from the grid fell to new lows in SA, NSW and Victoria as cooler weather subdued demand and growing amounts of rooftop solar pushed out fossil fuel-fired generators.


----------



## Smurf1976

Meanwhile in Queensland, extremely tight supply situation today and consumers are being urged to reduce consumption:


> Energy Minister Mick de Brenni said power companies are working to reduce demand, with big industrial users being asked to reduce their use during the peak expected this evening and tomorrow evening.
> 
> “While we are working with major electricity users to manage demand, households can also take simple steps to help like turning off devices.....








__





						Heatwave conditions to lead to record demand for power
					





					statements.qld.gov.au
				




If not for agreement having been reached with certain large industrial users to pause production, blackouts would indeed be on the agenda as the only available alternative.

Peak demand is forecast to reach 10,032 MW versus the all time record of 10,044 MW. That figure is for Queensland excluding the Mt Isa region which has it's own separate power system and is not affected.


----------



## Humid

Got a dido job offer at Dongara at this place ....




__





						404
					






					www.cloughgroup.com


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Got a dido job offer at Dongara at this place ....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 404
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.cloughgroup.com



The Dongara field has been there a long time, it used to be on the right not far  before the NW hwy T junction on the Brand Hwy.
Plus Dongara is a top spot, what is the swing? Sounds like a good gig.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> The Dongara field has been there a long time, it used to be on the right not far  before the NW hwy T junction on the Brand Hwy.
> Plus Dongara is a top spot, what is the swing? Sounds like a good gig.



3x1 but I know a few sparkies are keen to take the fishing gear and boats.... lifestyle gig


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> 3x1 but I know a few sparkies are keen to take the fishing gear and boats.... lifestyle gig



If your single, it sounds great, heaps better than the Pilbara or Goldfields.
3hrs from Perth, great fishing town, 60k's to Geraldton, what's not to like.
If your married tell the wife its terrible, but its close to home, if she needs you in a hurry. Dont tell her its magic, you'll get nagged every time your home. Lol


----------



## Smurf1976

Supply in Queensland yesterday:







Yellow = solar
Green = wind
Blue = hydro
Orange = gas
Red = kerosene
Brown = biomass (there's a tiny bit if you look carefully)
Black = coal
Purple = from NSW

Below the zero line during the morning, those two bits are pumping load at the Wivenhoe pumped storage facility. One pump ran during the early morning, both on for a period after sunrise. This was discharged during the later afternoon and evening. The smaller amount of hydro running constantly being at Barron Gorge and Kareeya both of which are conventional non-pumped facilities.


----------



## SirRumpole

Government loan given to mine graphite in SA, looks a good deal.









						Graphite miner says $185 million loan will fast-track 'electric vehicle revolution'
					

A mining company with plans to create a graphite project on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula says a conditional loan from the federal government will cover most of its initial costs at a time when materials for batteries are in growing demand.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Investoradam

Smurf1976 said:


> Supply in Queensland yesterday:
> 
> View attachment 136894
> 
> 
> Yellow = solar
> Green = wind
> Blue = hydro
> Orange = gas
> Red = kerosene
> Brown = biomass (there's a tiny bit if you look carefully)
> Black = coal
> Purple = from NSW
> 
> Below the zero line during the morning, those two bits are pumping load at the Wivenhoe pumped storage facility. One pump ran during the early morning, both on for a period after sunrise. This was discharged during the later afternoon and evening. The smaller amount of hydro running constantly being at Barron Gorge and Kareeya both of which are conventional non-pumped facilities



solar panels and wind mills are kicking arse like they never do
 pruducts also brought yo you by coal


----------



## Humid

Investoradam said:


> solar panels and wind mills are kicking arse like they never do
> pruducts also brought yo you by coal



Im producing 40 kw/day
Payed for itself in 2 years....Investoradam


----------



## sptrawler

The oldest son is now completely off grid, so in 12 months I will let everyone know how it is going. Solar/battery,diesel genset, family of 5, heat p/p HWS, lpg cooking.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The oldest son is now completely off grid, so in 12 months I will let everyone know how it is going. Solar/battery,diesel genset, family of 5, heat p/p HWS, lpg cooking.




A great adventure for them, I'll be very interested in how they go.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> A great adventure for them, I'll be very interested in how they go.



At the moment all good, but summer in the SW of W.A you would expect that, winter will be interesting, he is a clever bloke so he will adapt and modify stuff as required.


----------



## Investoradam

Humid said:


> Im producing 40 kw/day
> Payed for itself in 2 years....Investoradam



based on whos figures?
does that also include all the land destroyed digging up the toxic materials required to make such a useless toxic product and the omissions & waste doing that, then refining the material and mixing to produce the product?
how about the toxic waste produced in the making of the product?
how about the land destroyed whist erecting the solar panels or windmills, the toxic run off in to the ground, then when the usless products life span is over if it survives all the elements of the weather the solar panels and wind mills end up in land fill.

there is nothing clean about solar penels or wind turbines


----------



## SirRumpole

Investoradam said:


> based on whos figures?
> does that also include all the land destroyed digging up the toxic materials required to make such a useless toxic product and the omissions & waste doing that, then refining the material and mixing to produce the product?
> how about the toxic waste produced in the making of the product?
> how about the land destroyed whist erecting the solar panels or windmills, the toxic run off in to the ground, then when the usless products life span is over if it survives all the elements of the weather the solar panels and wind mills end up in land fill.
> 
> *there is nothing clean about solar penels or wind turbines*




*there is nothing clean about solar penels or wind turbines*

Compared with what ?


----------



## Humid

Investoradam said:


> based on whos figures?
> does that also include all the land destroyed digging up the toxic materials required to make such a useless toxic product and the omissions & waste doing that, then refining the material and mixing to produce the product?
> how about the toxic waste produced in the making of the product?
> how about the land destroyed whist erecting the solar panels or windmills, the toxic run off in to the ground, then when the usless products life span is over if it survives all the elements of the weather the solar panels and wind mills end up in land fill.
> 
> there is nothing clean about solar penels or wind turbines



Based on the bill I get from Synergy bi monthly......when you move out you will get one too


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> *there is nothing clean about solar penels or wind turbines*
> 
> Compared with what ?



As someone who's seen rather a lot of power stations, I'll simply say that *all power pollutes*.

Nuclear, coal, oil in any form, gas, unconventional fossil fuels eg burning raw oil shale, biomass, geothermal, hydro, wind, solar, tidal.....

It all impacts something somehow that I can say with certainty.

Personally I'll argue that the least bad impacts are ones that can be most readily reversed. On that score:

Fossil fuels - cannot be be reversed in any realistic timeframe and for any practical facility also cannot be contained.

Nuclear - cannot be reversed but in theory can be contained.

Biomass - effectively minimal impact in the context of waste, huge impact via land clearing and fertilizer use in the context of land cleared for crops. 

Hydro - there are exceptions, the hydro industry has managed to wipe out a few species and flood a few places it ideally shouldn't have, but for a typical generic hydro scheme, the vast majority of them, the impact ultimately is reversible. If it's no longer required then drain the storage, remove the dam and other infrastructure, the land can be revegetated, animals move back in and so on. If someone comes back in a thousand years then they'll struggle to find evidence it ever existed, indeed even in a century it'll be largely gone. Same as any old ruins, nature claims it back eventually. There are individual exceptions where the impacts are permanent but for the vast majority it's ultimately reversible in a substantial but still "human" timescale.

Wind, solar, tidal, geothermal - so long as the facility's sensibly built and operated and nobody's being intentionally reckless then most impact is quite readily reversible simply by removing the equipment from site and either burying it or where possible recycling the materials. Noting that landfill per se isn't a problem so long as it's in a sensible location - bury old wind turbine blades in the desert yes, don't dump them in a National Park. In some aspects the impact is low enough for there to be no real point in removal - a wind turbine foundation buried in the ground or on the bottom of the ocean realistically can be simply abandoned in place, there's no particular reason why it needs to be removed since whilst not zero the impact of leaving it, in the vast majority of cases, isn't really a problem.

They all impact something though. The very nature of extracting energy, in whatever form, from the natural environment ensures that.

Personal opinion - suffice to say I'm not aware of any wind or solar installation in Australia that could fairly be termed an environmental disaster and there's only two hydro projects that have impacts which do seem irreversible, although one of them possibly is fixable only time will tell. That's a far better track record than fossil fuels.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> As someone who's seen rather a lot of power stations, I'll simply say that *all power pollutes*.
> 
> Nuclear, coal, oil in any form, gas, unconventional fossil fuels eg burning raw oil shale, biomass, geothermal, hydro, wind, solar, tidal.....
> 
> It all impacts something somehow that I can say with certainty.
> 
> Personally I'll argue that the least bad impacts are ones that can be most readily reversed. On that score:
> 
> Fossil fuels - cannot be be reversed in any realistic timeframe and for any practical facility also cannot be contained.
> 
> Nuclear - cannot be reversed but in theory can be contained.
> 
> Biomass - effectively minimal impact in the context of waste, huge impact via land clearing and fertilizer use in the context of land cleared for crops.
> 
> Hydro - there are exceptions, the hydro industry has managed to wipe out a few species and flood a few places it ideally shouldn't have, but for a typical generic hydro scheme, the vast majority of them, the impact ultimately is reversible. If it's no longer required then drain the storage, remove the dam and other infrastructure, the land can be revegetated, animals move back in and so on. If someone comes back in a thousand years then they'll struggle to find evidence it ever existed, indeed even in a century it'll be largely gone. Same as any old ruins, nature claims it back eventually. There are individual exceptions where the impacts are permanent but for the vast majority it's ultimately reversible in a substantial but still "human" timescale.
> 
> Wind, solar, tidal, geothermal - so long as the facility's sensibly built and operated and nobody's being intentionally reckless then most impact is quite readily reversible simply by removing the equipment from site and either burying it or where possible recycling the materials. Noting that landfill per se isn't a problem so long as it's in a sensible location - bury old wind turbine blades in the desert yes, don't dump them in a National Park. In some aspects the impact is low enough for there to be no real point in removal - a wind turbine foundation buried in the ground or on the bottom of the ocean realistically can be simply abandoned in place, there's no particular reason why it needs to be removed since whilst not zero the impact of leaving it, in the vast majority of cases, isn't really a problem.
> 
> They all impact something though. The very nature of extracting energy, in whatever form, from the natural environment ensures that.
> 
> Personal opinion - suffice to say I'm not aware of any wind or solar installation in Australia that could fairly be termed an environmental disaster and there's only two hydro projects that have impacts which do seem irreversible, although one of them possibly is fixable only time will tell. That's a far better track record than fossil fuels.




Do you reckon it's worth recycling solar cells or just dump them ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Do you reckon it's worth recycling solar cells or just dump them ?



As a general concept if materials, especially metals, can be recovered then it's sensible to do so. So recycling beats landfill but that's for the reason of recovering materials not because putting them in landfill is evil as such so long as it's done sensibly.

What I really would like to see though is a prompt end to the pointless throwing out of perfectly good panels and equipment for no reason other than bureaucracy or fashion. That's not an issue with large scale installations but it's become a definite one with small (eg household) systems and is triggered by two basic scenarios:

1. For some rather odd reason the homeowner insists on having the latest and greatest and "upgrading" by means of throwing away perfectly good equipment. No serious commercial scale operator is going to do that but in the hands of the general public, strange things do happen.

2. Somewhat bureaucratic regulations which, whilst possibly well intentioned in the name of safety, in practice prevent re-installation of anything not on the list of _currently_ sold and approved equipment. So the panels are taken down for roof repairs, renovations or whatever reason then can't legally be reinstalled. Some end up shipped off to Third World countries but there's plenty going to landfill.

That needs to be rectified in my view. I'm not advocating the use of dodgy products and so on but the idea that something's deemed rubbish just because it's not currently for sale is nonsense.

Imagine if we had laws that cars not currently for sale and meeting all relevant standards couldn't be repaired or sold second hand? Or that you couldn't paint a room using paint bought six months ago because the manufacturer has since changed the label on the can? Etc. Some reform is needed there in my view to strike a more sensible balance. Taking a panel off to fix the roof, shouldn't preclude putting it back up.


----------



## sptrawler

When we installed a second storey on the house, I took the opportunity to upgrade from a 1.5Kw system to a 6.6Kw system.
The 1.5 system is in my shed. waiting to be picked up by the son, to be re purposed on his 100acre block.
It can be used to run a solar p/p, or any other idea he can think of for it.
Maybe run something seperate to the house batteries, HWS, pressure p/p etc, to enable longer run time on the main batteries.


----------



## Investoradam

Humid said:


> Based on the bill I get from Synergy bi monthly......when you move out you will get one too



moved out of home years ago and have several IPs know all to well about understanding bills
maybe try not reading the bill back the front?


----------



## Investoradam

SirRumpole said:


> *there is nothing clean about solar penels or wind turbines*
> 
> Compared with what ?



new CCT coal powered stations
nuclear
try reading up on Nikola Teslas kinetic energy  original plans

i mean renewables lol
you a baseload power source any ways, sun doesnt shine at night or when its cloudy
the wind mills are near usless. if they spin to quick they cook the bearing and if they dont spin the weight of the blade collapses the bearing so power has to be pumped back so they spin.
lol


----------



## Humid

Investoradam said:


> new CCT coal powered stations
> nuclear
> try reading up on Nikola Teslas kinetic energy  original plans
> 
> i mean renewables lol
> you a baseload power source any ways, sun doesnt shine at night or when its cloudy
> the wind mills are near usless. if they spin to quick they cook the bearing and if they dont spin the weight of the blade collapses the bearing so power has to be pumped back so they spin.
> lol



Now I know why I don't see EVs at night on the road.....cheers


----------



## Humid

Investoradam said:


> moved out of home years ago and have several IPs know all to well about understanding bills
> maybe try not reading the bill back the front?



Awesome landlord pays electric bills for tenants


----------



## sptrawler

France allows coal fired power stations to burn more coal, as power shortages loom. 
It would be interesting if it happened in Australia, we tend to blow them up asap.








						France coal-fired power plants get short-term right to burn more
					

France is temporarily allowing electricity producers to burn more coal after the nation’s grid operator warned of possible power shortages.




					www.mining.com


----------



## mullokintyre

It seems they were saving the diesel to test out the state of the yart subs they were building for OZ, until OZ cancelled them.
Mick


----------



## Investoradam

Humid said:


> Now I know why I don't see EVs at night on the road.....cheers



they run on batteries and need power from some where ?
are windmills and solar going to provide that?

batteries for the record as well are toxic and require numerous toxic materials from the ground  
the EV marker are just new shiney things sold to an idiot based consumer markert









						Unpacking The "Electric Cars Aren't As Green As You Think" Claims
					

Critics of electric cars say building a battery pack creates more emissions than building a conventional car.




					cleantechnica.com
				




Einstien


----------



## Investoradam

sptrawler said:


> France allows coal fired power stations to burn more coal, as power shortages loom.
> It would be interesting if it happened in Australia, we tend to blow them up asap.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> France coal-fired power plants get short-term right to burn more
> 
> 
> France is temporarily allowing electricity producers to burn more coal after the nation’s grid operator warned of possible power shortages.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.mining.com



renewables! like everything leftist pure fantasy and fixtion!


----------



## Investoradam

Humid said:


> Awesome landlord pays electric bills for tenants



 thats great your oldies are still paying the family electricity bill!
try moving out one day and experience the real world! youll soon find that leftist ideologies dont work and never have as history points out


----------



## Macquack

Investoradam said:


> they run on batteries and need power from some where ?
> are windmills and solar going to provide that?



Yes, just ask "Value Collector" who charges his Tesla car batteries using his house solar panels and gets free "fuel".

I am looking forward to joining the program.


----------



## Investoradam

Macquack said:


> Yes, just ask "Value Collector" who charges his Tesla car batteries using his house solar panels and gets free "fuel".
> 
> I am looking forward to joining the program.



and they are another usefull idiot?
Lenin's terminology! 
as all leftists are!
living in some fantasy fictitious land!
thats based on history and current theory


----------



## Humid

A hot Kurri Kurri: why Labor's fossil proposal is even worse than the Coalition's - Michael West
					

The Kurri Kurri gas plant proposal makes no financial sense, involves a billion-dollar subsidy, is unfit for purpose and there's a gas plant nearby




					www.michaelwest.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> A hot Kurri Kurri: why Labor's fossil proposal is even worse than the Coalition's - Michael West
> 
> 
> The Kurri Kurri gas plant proposal makes no financial sense, involves a billion-dollar subsidy, is unfit for purpose and there's a gas plant nearby
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.michaelwest.com.au



That's the problem, when you get journalists, telling the technical people how to do it, Labor hasn't done a backflip for no reason, they have been told the reality. 🤣









						AGL brings forward closure date of two largest coal-fired power plants as market shifts to renewables
					

Climate groups dismiss energy giant’s amended schedule for Loy Yang A and Bayswater as a ‘token effort’ that is ‘next to meaningless’




					www.theguardian.com
				




The private sector will close the coal power stations when it suits them, not when the media say they will close them and the journalists will be quick to blame the Govt if there isn't any installed plant and rolling blackouts are the result.
But the media don't let a good story, get in the way of the reality.
It's all good chook food for the muppets.
The other plus with Snowy Hydro owning it, if there is a power shortage for any reason, Snowy has the ability to recharge Snowy2.0 with their own generation, rather than being at the whim of the market generators. 
Oh by the way, they wouldn't be the ones Michael West is quoting, would they?


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> That's the problem, when you get journalists, telling the technical people how to do it, Labor hasn't done a backflip for no reason, they have been told the reality. 🤣
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> AGL brings forward closure date of two largest coal-fired power plants as market shifts to renewables
> 
> 
> Climate groups dismiss energy giant’s amended schedule for Loy Yang A and Bayswater as a ‘token effort’ that is ‘next to meaningless’
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theguardian.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The private sector will close the coal power station when it suits them, not when the media say they will close them and the journalists will be quick to blame the Govt if there isn't any installed plant and rolling blackout are the result.
> But the media don't let a good story, get in the way of the reality.
> It's all good chook food for the muppets.




Yep, having government owned stations act as a moderator to price gouging by the private sector.

I'm surprised the Federal Coalition has gone down this path, I suspect they intend to sell it off at an opportune time.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I'm surprised the Federal Coalition has gone down this path, I suspect they intend to sell it off at an opportune time.



I would be surprised, it is too usefull for Snowy Hydro IMO.
Also it will only run when required, so not really suitable for a private generator, a big battery would be better value for money for the privates IMO. 
No moving parts, no workers, no fuel.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> That's the problem, when you get journalists, telling the technical people how to do it, Labor hasn't done a backflip for no reason, they have been told the reality. 🤣
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> AGL brings forward closure date of two largest coal-fired power plants as market shifts to renewables
> 
> 
> Climate groups dismiss energy giant’s amended schedule for Loy Yang A and Bayswater as a ‘token effort’ that is ‘next to meaningless’
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theguardian.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The private sector will close the coal power stations when it suits them, not when the media say they will close them and the journalists will be quick to blame the Govt if there isn't any installed plant and rolling blackouts are the result.
> But the media don't let a good story, get in the way of the reality.
> It's all good chook food for the muppets.
> The other plus with Snowy Hydro owning it, if there is a power shortage for any reason, Snowy has the ability to recharge Snowy2.0 with their own generation, rather than being at the whim of the market generators.
> Oh by the way, they wouldn't be the ones Michael West is quoting, would they?



Not sure but you're quoting the Guardian lol


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Not sure but you're quoting the Guardian lol



Yes because it stated what AGL said and backed up what I have been saying, renewables will shut down coal quicker than what people think.
What is your take on the issue, other than cheap shots?


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> I would be surprised, it is too usefull for Snowy Hydro IMO.
> Also it will only run when required, so not really suitable for a private generator, a big battery would be better value for money for the privates IMO.
> No moving parts, no workers, no fuel.



Wasn't that the gist of the story...that the technology could be obsolete before it's necessary?


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Wasn't that the gist of the story...that the technology could be obsolete before it's necessary?



What gas turbines, I dont think so, why would that be the case?


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> What gas turbines, I dont think so, why would that be the case?



Woodley points out that the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) shows that a supply gap in NSW won’t occur till 2030. ‘’By then there will be all sorts of new storage and generation options, regardless it only takes three years or so to build a gas plant like this so we don’t need to even consider proceeding with construction till 2027 or so”.


----------



## sptrawler

You will probably find the AEMO projection, is based on everything going to plan, youve been around long enough to know with old worn out plant, that never happens.
@Smurf1976 has highlighted even recently how close to the wind things can be and that is before the 2,000MW station is closed, Woodley doesnt have to face the music if he is wrong, thats why Labor are sticking with the gas turbines.
The 2,000MW that is closing down, is at call generation, the proposed generation going in is renewable intermitent and batteries.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> You will probably find the AEMO projection, is based on everything going to plan, youve been around long enough to know with old worn out plant, that never happens.
> @Smurf1976 has highlighted even recently how close to the wind things can be and that is before the 2,000MW station is closed, Woodley doesnt have to face the music if he is wrong, thats why Labor are sticking with the gas turbines.



8 years is a long time in politics


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> 8 years is a long time in politics



What has that got to do with whether the gas turbines are required?


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> What has that got to do with whether the gas turbines are required?



In a paper from June 2021, the experts conclude that “there is at best a tiny market for the sort of service that [Kurri Kurri power station] can offer and so it has no prospect of earning anywhere near the revenues needed to recover its outlay”. 

This is due to the relatively small demand for gas peaking power as well as the presence of the Colongra gas peaking plant 50 kilometres from Kurri Kurri. Colongra was bought by Snowy Hydro for $234 million in 2015 and is almost identical to Kurri Kurri and already provides much the same service that Kurri Kurri is supposed to.

Maybe just read it


----------



## sptrawler

It is difficult on the phone, to chase up the info, Im going off the fact that @Smurf1976 has shown that at times this summer generation has been tight, there is a lot of coal generation that is getting cycled hard and there is 2,000MW being retired and no new at call generation going in.
To me it doesnt add up, but hey Labor last year was saying Kurri Kurri wasnt needed, now they are saying it is and going by the media it is more a vote loser than winner.
Maybe @Smurf1976 can explain the situation better. But it sounded as though this summer was tight.
From the article you posted, they really didnt say anything, other than batteries do the same job, which is nonsense, if the renewables output is low the batteries arent charged and pumped hydro isnt chaged, then you need at call generation to not only suplly the load, but also charge your storage.






__





						Schedule for the closure of AGL plants in NSW and SA
					

AGL has today informed the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) of the schedule for closing its Liddell power station in the Upper Hunter region of NSW and its Torrens A power station near Adelaide in South Australia to provide advance notice of the station closures in accordance with...




					www.agl.com.au


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> It is difficult on the phone, to chase up the info, Im going off the fact that @Smurf1976 has shown that at times this summer generation has been tight, there is a lot of coal generation that is getting cycled hard and there is 2,000MW being retired and no new at call generation going in.
> To me it doesnt add up, but hey Labor last year was saying Kurri Kurri wasnt needed, now they are saying it is and going by the media it is more a vote loser than winner.
> Maybe @Smurf1976 can explain the situation better. But it sounded as though this summer was tight.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Schedule for the closure of AGL plants in NSW and SA
> 
> 
> AGL has today informed the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) of the schedule for closing its Liddell power station in the Upper Hunter region of NSW and its Torrens A power station near Adelaide in South Australia to provide advance notice of the station closures in accordance with...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.agl.com.au



But you ridicule my 8 year argument ......plenty of politics in this but us dumb taxpayers pay the price


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> But you ridicule my 8 year argument ......plenty of politics in this but us dumb taxpayers pay the price



Us dumb taxpayers always do.
Also I didnt ridicule your 8 year argument, I didnt understand what it had to do with the gas turbine plant, I still dont. It wasnt meant to offend.
I actually think that some new at call generation, other than coal is probably needed. In W.A we are replacing a lot of old coal generation with GT's. We dont need them, but if we want to shut down coal we do.
Its exactly the same over East, there is a lot of old coal stations running, that dont like being started and stopped twice a day and as more renewables get put in that will happen more and more. That will kill the coal units, much better to have GT's for the times that mode of operation is required.


----------



## Smurf1976

Sticking to the facts and ignoring trivial sources (so not listing backup generators in hospitals, landfill gas and other embedded generators) and excluding intermittent sources the present dispatchable generation fleet in NSW is:

*Coal:*

Liddell. Original capacity 2000 MW is presently de-rated to 1680 MW with reduction to 1260 MW with closure of unit 3 on 1 April 2022 and complete plant closure in 2023.

Vales Point B - 1320 MW closing in 2029.

Eraring - 2880 MW. Planned to be reduced to 2160 MW in 2030, 1440 MW in 2031 and complete closure in 2032.

Bayswater - 2740 MW closing in the window 2030 - 33.

Mt Piper - 1430 MW closing approximately 2040 but probably vary a bit in practice.

Redbank - 150 MW. This facility is not presently in operation but from a technical perspective could be returned to service with various proposals to do so either burning coal or some other fuel. Whether it ever happens is anyone's guess really.

*Gas:*

Tallawarra - 440 MW combined cycle closing in 2043.

Smithfield - Has been de-rated from 171 MW to 120 MW with closure of the steam turbine, only the three 40 MW gas turbines remaining for open cycle operation. Closing 2044.

Uranquinty - 664 MW open cycle closing in 2044.

Colongra - 724 MW open cycle. This one's more complex, being fuel limited to a maximum 5 hours operation at full output in any 24 hour period on gas, beyond which fuel supply must switch to diesel. In normal circumstances fuel switching is straightforward but there has been one incident where failure occurred, tripping generation offline and resulting in actual load shedding (blackouts) in parts of NSW at the time. Closure date is nominally 2070 noting this is a rarely used facility.

*Liquid fuel plant:*

Hunter Valley - 50 MW open cycle gas turbine. Unexpectedly ceased operation in early 2020 and officially permanently closed at midnight 31 December 2021 as uneconomic to return to service. 

Broken Hill - 50 MW (2 x 25 MW) open cycle gas turbine. Closing 2026.

Eraring - 40 MW open cycle gas turbine fuelled by diesel. Closing 2032. Note that the plant is technically capable of constant full load operation however regulations restrict operation to a maximum of 200 hours per annum due to air pollution.

*Hydro*:

Guthega - 66 MW and part of the Snowy scheme but effectively separate to the rest apart from being one of the water sources for Murray 1 & 2 (which are electrically in Victoria not NSW). The power station has minimal water storage capacity, and cannot access the main Snowy storages, thus operating according to flows at the time.

Tumut 1 - 330 MW and the first use of water released from Lake Eucumbene in a northerly direction. Part of the Snowy scheme.

Tumut 2 - 286 MW and re-uses water discharged by Tumut 1 upstream.

Tumut 3 - 1800 MW and reuses discharge from Tumut 2. Unlike the other two, Tumut 3 is not capable of sustained operation at full output, since it uses far more water than is released from Lake Eucumbene via Tumut 1 & 2 and thus draws down Talbingo Reservoir when in operation. It's strictly a peaking plant only and incorporates 600 MW of pumping capacity, for use as pumped storage from Jounama Pondage (immediately below the power station), to aid that use.

Snowy 2.0 - 2040 MW under construction and discharges in to Talbingo Reservoir thus increasing the ability for Tumut 3 to operate at high output in addition to generating 2040 MW (6 x 340 MW machines) itself.

Jounama - 14 MW. Generates from water released from Jounama Pondage, that which isn't to be pumped for re-use, into Blowering Reservoir. Notable feature - when Blowering Reservoir is at high level the power station is completely surrounded by water and effectively its own island with only the top of the structure visible and the rest under water. See photo here:  https://www.geotech.net.au/images/speasyimagegallery/albums/14/images/03.jpg

Blowering - 80 MW with operation determined primarily by water release for irrigation not by the need for electricity. Water discharged from the Snowy scheme into NSW all ends up in Blowering Reservoir. Hume Dam (58 MW), Copeton (21 MW) and Wyangala (22.5 MW) plus various smaller hydro facilities in NSW operate on the same basis, they're for irrigation and electricity's just a by-product.

Shoalhaven - 240 MW pumped storage scheme able to discharge constantly at full load for up to 28 hours at a time.

*Biomass*:

Broadwater - 38 MW biomass fuelled plant. Has no announced closure date.

Condong - 30 MW biomass fuelled plant. Has no announced closure date.

*Battery*:

Wallgrove Grid Battery - Nominal life sees it close in 2036. Capacity is 50 MW / 75 MWh.

*Totals:*

Total existing plant = 15123 MW (excluding plant already closed or mothballed)

Plant closing between 2022 and 2033 = 8710 MW

Snowy 2.0 under construction = 2040 MW

That leaves a gap of 6670 MW of firm, dispatchable generation required. Plus whatever additional is required on account of growth in demand noting the push to "electrify everything" and move away from the use of petrol, diesel, gas etc for transport and heating purposes.

With a related issue on the energy, as distinct from power, side in that most remaining capacity, that which isn't closing, is energy constrained or is storage only. Eg Colongra using gas (without diesel), Tumut 3, Shoalhaven and any current or medium term future battery has a very limited running time without needing a rest or recharge thus requiring that a major expansion of energy input (eg wind, solar or another means) also take place.

Overall as a project it's not a total rebuild but it's a major task overall.

My personal view is I'd favour a fully renewable option but realistically it will not happen, there's no chance of that, the political will just isn't there. Technically it could be done but in practice won't happen, gas will be part of the mix going forward that's a given and diesel will play some role too.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Maybe @Smurf1976 can explain the situation better. But it sounded as though this summer was tight.



This summer has thus far seen actual load shed in Queensland due to lack of available supply with 331 MW voluntarily cut on the 1st of February. Had that not been done, it would simply have been cut by force instead so the "voluntary" aspect is a bit like saying you voluntarily pay tax or you voluntarily followed directions given by police. T

here's no real choice, it's just everyone being polite by asking nicely and avoiding the use of actual force but ultimately if supply's inadequate then load is being cut be that "voluntarily" or otherwise.

Note that implementing that cut doesn't mean there's then an abundance of supply for everyone else, it only restored it to just scraping through:



> 94395RESERVE NOTICE01/02/2022 05:38:32 PM
> Actual Lack Of Reserve Level 2 (LOR2) in the QLD Region on 01/02/2022​AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE
> 
> Actual Lack Of Reserve Level 2 (LOR2) in the QLD region - 01/02/2022
> 
> An Actual LOR2 condition has been declared under clause 4.8.4(b) of the National Electricity Rules for the QLD region from 1700 hrs.
> 
> The forecast capacity reserve requirement is 443 MW.
> The minimum capacity reserve available is 77 MW.
> 
> AEMO is seeking an immediate market response.
> 
> An insufficient market response may require AEMO to implement an AEMO intervention event.
> 
> Manager NEM Real Time Operations




That's a cut & paste of the real market notice issued at the time.

Meanwhile a few months ago same in NSW:



> 88736RESERVE NOTICE22/07/2021 05:15:56 PM
> Actual Lack Of Reserve Level 2 (LOR2) in the NSW region - 22/07/2021​AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE
> 
> Actual Lack Of Reserve Level 2 (LOR2) in the NSW region - 22/07/2021
> 
> An Actual LOR2 condition has been declared under clause 4.8.4(b) of the National Electricity Rules for the NSW region from 1700 hrs.
> 
> The Actual LOR2 condition is forecast to exist until 1730 hrs.
> 
> The capacity reserve requirement is 720 MW
> 
> The minimum capacity reserve available is 513 MW
> 
> Manager NEM Real Time Operations




Looking at the supply side of that incident in NSW, at 17:15 so right in the middle of it all 4 units at Liddell were on so with actual output as measured of 1406.6 MW

Without those there would have indeed been load shedding on that occasion, the only question being the forced versus voluntary nature of it.


----------



## sptrawler

IMO full renewables is too expensive for the private sector to justify on ROE and for the Govt it would mean being heavily involved competing against the private sector, if they put in the renewables.
From the Govt point of view the gas option is a win/win, it still allows the private sector to put in the renewables, but gives the Govt certainly of supply for a relatively cheap price.
Also working in conjunction with Snowy 2.0, it gives the renewables some breathing space, until enough renewables are in place to effectively feed the load and charge the ever increasing storage.


----------



## mullokintyre

And on the other end of the spectrum
FromThe (other) ABC news


> BELFORT, France -- France plans to build six new nuclear reactors and to extend the life of its existing nuclear plants as part of the country's strategy to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday.
> 
> Macron said the construction work would start around 2028 so the first new reactor can be launched by 2035. He also asked for studies on potentially expanding the program to eight reactors.



Talk is cheap, building them is not.
Macron is up for re-election, and note that construction will not start for another6 years.
Mick


----------



## basilio

The Clean Energy Council has released an overarching plan of how Australia can move swiftly and efficiently to  clean, renewable energy economy. Nothing new here but it does note  all the issues raised in this thread..

Nine policies to transform Australia​As Australia’s federal election looms, the Clean Energy Council has released a set of nine policy suggestions to realise not only Australia’s decarbonisation, but its potential as a clean energy superpower. The suggestions range from electrifying everything, allocating $1 billion to transition coal communities, and setting hydrogen blending targets for gas networks.
 February 8, 2022 Bella Peacock

Policy
Australia






Clean Energy Council
Share​
















Ahead of the federal election, industry peak body the Clean Energy Council has released its _Roadmap for a Renewable Energy Future: Federal Election Policy Recommendations _which outlines policy paths for the next federal government to deliver on Australia’s emission reduction commitments and realise the advantages of our natural renewable resources.

The Clean Energy Council’s vision was delivered in the form of a nine-point plan. I will go into more detail on the proposed policies, but as a taster each of the nine pathways could be summarised as:

Electrify Australia
Incentivise Australians to switch to clean energy
Upgrade electricity networks
Organise workforces and supply chains
Fund coal communities’ transitions
Accelerate Australia’s energy market reforms
Fund clean energy innovation
Decarbonise industry
Fund hydrogen to achieve maximum export potential
In short, the plan seems to move in chronological priorities, promoting the internal delivery of an 100% renewable electricity grid within the decade, while then setting up the foundations to build hydrogen capacity primarily as an export industry in the longer term future.

The Clean Energy Council (CEC) estimates Australia will need to add at least 30 GW of solar and wind to replace coal generation by 2040. To power an ‘all-electric Australia’ – meaning switching household appliances, cars, industry etc to electric models – would require renewable energy production in Australia to increase 20 fold.









						Nine policies to transform Australia
					

As Australia’s federal election looms, the Clean Energy Council has released a set of nine policy suggestions to realise not only Australia’s decarbonisation, but its potential as a clean energy superpower. The suggestions range from electrifying everything, allocating $1 billion to transition...




					www.pv-magazine-australia.com


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> In short, the plan seems to move in chronological priorities



A point often forgotten is that there's no reason to not do everything at once.

There are some situations where A has to happen before B but to very considerable extent that's not the case. A and C and E can all happen at once and, since it's different people physically doing them, it's not a problem to do so.

Case in point - we can build new houses as all-electric starting right now, that's a completely separate task to changing the means of generating that electricity. It's different organisations involved and, apart perhaps from doing work on their own home, there's basically no tradie who works in power stations and on housing construction, it's different people involved so it's not a case of competing for resources.

Likewise it doesn't have to be perfect to be worthwhile. Installing a heat pump water heater or example has benefits despite the same house still burning fossils to heat the lounge room or cook dinner. Etc. There's no law precluding owning an EV and calling into a servo to buy 5 litres of petrol for the lawnmower. And so on. Every step forward is of benefit, it's not an all or nothing situation.


----------



## sptrawler

Also @basilio if they need 30 GW of solar wind, they need 60 GW of storage to compliment it.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> Also @basilio if they need 30 GW of solar wind, they need 60 GW of storage to compliment it.




Not necessarily.. When grids are interconnected as they are across Australia the flow of power across wind and solar and pumped hydro over the Eastern States offers substantial insurance against reduced power output. 

The opportunity of using electric cars as a virtual battery bank is also on the table. The rise of community power banks is there as well. So certainly there will be some big battery banks in the equation but there will many ways to

I noticed that FGM are proposing massive battery banks to supplement their wind/solar project. This will be  essentially a closed system so they need to do all the balancing. At this stage they are developing the plans which will be implemented over the next 7-10 years.  I wouldn't be surprised if there are running changes to the technology they use  as various  hydrogen, solar, battery and pumped hydro technologies mature and become  more economic.


----------



## sptrawler

All this time all these discussions, still no change. 🤣


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> All this time all these discussions, still no change. 🤣



Indeed SP. In the last few years we have seen the reality of what is happening with renewable energy generation and the range of actual and possible  back up power options. I thought it was becoming far clearer that simply stating one needed 200% more battery storage than power supply was no longer axiomatic if indeed it ever was.

Anyway these  analysis offer practical and pragmatic engineering approach to the issue.  The headline is cheeky. The explanation quite sound. The power systems already embed much redundancy and back up capacity.









						How much "backup power" is needed for solar and wind? - SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
					

Answer: None. Not if the utility is planning correctly! Ok, that was a smart-aleck answer. But I’ve got a point: When people talk about a “backup,” they tend to think of a…




					cleanenergy.org
				












						How much storage and back-up do high renewable grids need?
					

According to a new CSIRO and ENA report, not nearly as much as the naysayers would have you think.




					reneweconomy.com.au


----------



## basilio

What is happening *now* with our National Power grid.  The analysis totally  undermines the ScoMo government push for  a gas fired recovery. Pure BS.

_The continued rise of renewables came as gas generation declined across the country to its lowest level in more than 15 years.

In New South Wales (NSW), gas provided just 1.5% of the state’s power while in South Australia (SA), gas generation fell to its lowest level in more than two decades.

Renewables provided SA with more than double the power generated from gas with renewables generating 66% of the state’s electricity while gas only accounted for 34%.

Climate Council senior researcher Tim Baxter said Victoria had experienced the biggest jump in renewable energy generation of anywhere in Australia in 2021, increasing 30% last year.

“On the flipside, gas provided less than 2% of the state’s power,” he said. “That’s a whopping 39% fall from the year before, and the biggest drop in gas use of any mainland state over the same 12-month period.”









						Renewables reach new highs in NEM as fossil fuels slump to historic lows
					

Renewable energy production reached record highs in Australia in 2021 with new data from the Climate Council revealing clean technologies including rooftop solar and utility scale PV supplied five times more power into the nation’s largest electricity grid than gas.




					www.pv-magazine-australia.com
				



_


----------



## basilio

Australia’s battery capacity to double in 2022
					

After the deluge of announcements last year, 2022 will see the trickle of big batteries actually operating in Australia turn to a flood. According to Rystad Energy, the country’s battery capacity is set to double before the year is out.




					www.pv-magazine-australia.com


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> Australia’s battery capacity to double in 2022
> 
> 
> After the deluge of announcements last year, 2022 will see the trickle of big batteries actually operating in Australia turn to a flood. According to Rystad Energy, the country’s battery capacity is set to double before the year is out.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.pv-magazine-australia.com




Batteries can supply only a few hours of power at most.

If you get weeks of overcast weather which can happen any time you need something that can start up and shutdown quickly and run as long as you need them.

Gas turbines , whether powered by gas, hydrogen, diesel, ethanol or other suitable fuels are such devices.

We may rarely need them, but we still buy insurance policies for our houses and cars, they are there in case...


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Batteries can supply only a few hours of power at most.
> 
> If you get weeks of overcast weather which can happen any time you need something that can start up and shutdown quickly and run as long as you need them.
> 
> Gas turbines , whether powered by gas, hydrogen, diesel, ethanol or other suitable fuels are such devices.
> 
> We may rarely need them, but we still buy insurance policies for our houses and cars, they are there in case...



How many batteries does it save having 660MW of gas turbines sitting there, that can run as long as you require them? 

Answer, it saves heaps of batteries, Victoria's new "big Battery" can provide 450MW for 1 hour. 

The proposed gas turbines can provide  660MW for as long as required and if run on green hydrogen can do it cleanly.

Also the batteries have a finite life which will be much shorter than the Gas Turbines, especially if they are operated infrequently.


----------



## Smurf1976

So far as renewables and storage is concerned, a chart:

This is a daily chart for Victoria over the past 12 months to and including Sunday 13 February 2020 showing wind (green) and solar (yellow) generation only. The solar figures include the estimated total production from small (rooftop) systems as well as large solar farms.






Looking at that chart, I draw attention to the periods of multiple consecutive days of low yield:

23 - 30 April inclusive (8 days)

11 - 14 June inclusive (4 days)

5 July - 10 July inclusive (6 days)

Those are what I and a few others are calling VRE droughts (Variable Renewable Energy - wind and solar) and looking back over the entire history of wind and solar in the National Electricity Market, we get a similar situation each and every year without exception, there's always at least one so they're not unexpected.

The particularly difficult problems being that they occur at times of high demand, the week 5 - 11 July was Victoria's second highest consumption week for the year exceeded only slightly by the week of 24 - 30 January 2020.

If we include the use of gas, on the assumption that there's a desire to shift that to electricity, then that relationship is even stronger with winter by far the highest consumption season and also the one where VRE droughts occur. Noting that gas dominates the space heating market in Victoria.

THAT is the elephant in the room with all this. How to cope with a week or so of terribly low yields which just happens to coincide with, if we assume a shift to electric heating from gas, the absolute peak of consumption.

Now before anyone says "but that's only Victoria Smurf, it won't happen in the other states at the same time" unfortunately it does. In the context of the NEM, the only state that didn't see low yields at the exact same time was Queensland although even it was below average just not drastically so.






















That the lights stay on is because:






It's not a coincidence that the period of highest hydro output is the same period as lowest wind + solar output in multiple states. That's completely intentional.

And gas:






And whilst on a smaller scale, diesel ramped up at the same time too:






That there is the greatest challenge with all of this.

Storing energy on a short term basis, using the midday sun to run lights at night, is straightforward and very doable. It's the energy equivalent of investing during a bull market - it's not that hard to make it work.

It's coping with the week of poor yields which also sees a jump in consumption that's the hard bit.

It wouldn't be impossible to do it with hydro, from a purely physical perspective it's doable, but the big problem can be summed up quite briefly by saying that there are over 20,000 sites for pumped storage and the fall into two categories:

1. A very large number of individually small sites that store typically 3 GWh each although it does vary.

2. A very small number of individually large sites storing tens, hundreds or even thousands of GWh.

Now to get 8 hours of storage the sites in the first category are very doable. Take a 2 GWh site, install 250 MW of generating capacity and it runs for 8 hours.

Trouble is, if you want 200 hours out of it well now you can only install 10 MW of capacity and that kills the economics stone dead beyond belief. Go down that track and the problem is that, based on AEMO's calculations of 19GW of firm non-constrained capacity required, it's simply cost prohibitive to do it with lots of tiny schemes. They work if you're going to develop them for 8 or 10 hours storage, but not if you want a week's worth since the cost is just too high given the number required.

That leaves the large sites which, due to scale of economy, are far cheaper per GWh stored. One big dam versus a hundred or more "turkey nest" dams - the big one wins hands down. There are sites where 1000 MW or more can be installed at a single location quite easily.

Just one elephant ready to squash the table and all those sitting around it there and I think we all know what that one is - those big sites are mostly in National Parks or other similarly designated areas yes.

That's the primary reason nobody's going anywhere near that one. If we're going to build big dams in National Parks etc then that'll have to come from the Prime Minister, there's zero interest in the industry in starting a war on that scale. Even state Premiers generally won't go anywhere near the concept.

Hence the universal assumption that gas will remain part of the mix going forward with the only question being about the detail of what that gas actually is. Some of it will be natural gas, some will be diesel simply because it's so easy to store as a backup. But longer term there are certainly thoughts that hydrogen could be the gas used and that coal gasification might also play a role.

Personally I'd argue more toward renewables and that a scientific, not political, process ought to be the determinant of whether or not a dam can be built at any given location. There are certainly places that should be left untouched, wilderness has a very real value, but likewise the need to move away from fossil fuels is real and urgent and not everywhere that a big dam could be built is genuinely worthy of protecting.

Politically however nobody's going near that one at least not right now. Gas is the path of least resistance and the one that will be chosen. Hence AEMO and even the existing hydro operators are all working on that basis, gas is part of the mix going forward since politically it's hard to see any other option gaining traction in reality. 

All charts posted sourced from OpenNEM


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Gas is the path of least resistance and the one that will be chosen. Hence AEMO and even the existing hydro operators are all working on that basis, gas is part of the mix going forward since politically it's hard to see any other option gaining traction in reality.




I think a lot of people don't get the distinction between gas (natural gas as a fuel) and gas turbines which produce a gas from burning a fuel which may be but doesn't have to be natural gas.

Once people get the idea that they can also run on hydrogen or bio-fuels then maybe the Greenies won't scream as much whenever they hear the word gas.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I think a lot of people don't get the distinction between gas (natural gas as a fuel) and gas turbines which produce a gas from burning a fuel which may be but doesn't have to be natural gas.
> 
> Once people get the idea that they can also run on hydrogen or bio-fuels then maybe the Greenies won't scream as much whenever they hear the word gas.



I think a lot of people don't realise that a gas turbine is just like a big battery, if you have bulk storage of clean fuel to run it, it is just another big storage medium.
The loonies think because it physically runs and is called a gas turbine, it is a fossil fueled monster.

Here is another article that tells us that the State Governments need to be installing serious storage, when they are spending money to curtail excess renewable generation, rather than spending money installing storage to capture it, be that pumped hydro, electrolysis H2  or even batteries.








						As household solar stresses the grid, WA and South Australia will have the power to turn it off
					

Authorities are moving to gain more control over rooftop solar panels amid a ballooning number of installations that are threatening to overload the grid at certain times.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> I think a lot of people don't realise that a gas turbine is just like a big battery, if you have bulk storage of clean fuel to run it, it is just another big storage medium.
> The loonies think because it physically runs and is called a gas turbine, it is a fossil fueled monster.
> 
> Here is another article that tells us that the State Governments need to be installing serious storage, when they are spending money to curtail excess renewable generation, rather than spending money installing storage to capture it, be that pumped hydro, electrolysis H2  or even batteries.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As household solar stresses the grid, WA and South Australia will have the power to turn it off
> 
> 
> Authorities are moving to gain more control over rooftop solar panels amid a ballooning number of installations that are threatening to overload the grid at certain times.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



So where is the bulk storage of clean fuel?


----------



## Macquack

SirRumpole said:


> Batteries can supply only a few hours of power at most.
> 
> If you get *weeks of overcast weather *which can happen any time you need something that can start up and shutdown quickly and run as long as you need them.



My over-simplistic solution to overcast weather is to get more solar panels. Obviously, solar panels produce less power in overcast conditions, but they still produce power. I have been off-grid for 4 years and have never needed to charge the batteries apart from the sun. My thinking is to have more panels and less batteries, as the panels are cheaper than the batteries. If you have enough solar panels then your battery capacity only needs to be enough to carry you overnight.


----------



## SirRumpole

Macquack said:


> My over-simplistic solution to overcast weather is to get more solar panels. Obviously, solar panels produce less power in overcast conditions, but they still produce power. I have been off-grid for 4 years and have never needed to charge the batteries apart from the sun. My thinking is to have more panels and less batteries, as the panels are cheaper than the batteries. If you have enough solar panels then your battery capacity only needs to be enough to carry you overnight.




Congratulations on being off grid. Do you ever need to use say a petrol generator, or is it all solar and batteries ?


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> So where is the bulk storage of clean fuel?



Better ask Albo, he is the one pushing it.🤣


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Better ask Albo, he is the one pushing it.🤣



Dumber than your original post


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Dumber than your original post



Well it cant be dumber than you, Albo wants Kurri Kurri running H2 by 2030🤣.
Maybe try explaining yourself, but I do understand that could strain you.👍


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Well it cant be dumber than you, Albo wants Kurri Kurri running H2 by 2030🤣.
> Maybe try explaining yourself, but I do understand that could strain you.👍



The loonies think because it physically runs and is called a gas turbine, it is a fossil fueled monster


----------



## Humid

The few hundred I've worked on are fossil fuelled monsters


----------



## Macquack

SirRumpole said:


> Congratulations on being off grid. Do you ever need to use say a petrol generator, or is it all solar and batteries ?



I do have a cheap chinese petrol generator (remote start and fuel injected) of about 7 Kw that I use for MIG welding. I don't want to risk using the  inverter.


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> The few hundred I've worked on are fossil fuelled monsters



Yes, that is exactly what I was saying and highlights the accuracy of my post.
You obviously fall under the bell shaped curve of the loonies.🤣
But I'm confident most on the forum, are already well aware of that.
Your posts just continue to confirm it.😁
If a GT is fired on green hydrogen, is it not clean generation?
If that hydrogen is stored on site, is it not then a clean form of renewable storage?
Come on try hard, you can get the neurons to fire.
Just tell yourself, your not a piece of meat, with a spanner in your hand, it will take time but eventually you will believe it.🤣


----------



## Humid

I'll run it past the GE engineer that it's like a battery.....then I'll be drug tested


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> I'll run it past the GE engineer that it's like a battery.....then I'll be drug tested



Here you go, it will save you getting a headache.🤣

I dont think drugs are your problem, lack of grey matter seems to be the issue.😁

Your wasting your talents, you should audition for the muppet show, your a natural.🤣
Your the only guy i've seen who can put his foot in his mouth, with a steel cap safety boot on.👍









						Hydrogen-Fueled Gas Turbines | GE Gas Power
					

Learn more about GE's leadership in the use of hydrogen in gas turbines, and what it will take to reach a 100% hydrogen future.




					www.ge.com


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I think a lot of people don't get the distinction between gas (natural gas as a fuel) and gas turbines which produce a gas from burning a fuel which may be but doesn't have to be natural gas.
> 
> Once people get the idea that they can also run on hydrogen or bio-fuels then maybe the Greenies won't scream as much whenever they hear the word gas.



Without intending to sound elitist, a big part of the problem is that the debate has become dominated by the technically ignorant.

That's not aimed at anyone on this forum and it's not to say the general public etc aren't welcome. Just that if anyone's going to argue the case for one way or another way, on any subject, then it's pointless if they don't even comprehend what they're actually arguing for or against.

There's some very sharp people on what I'll refer to as the non-political "green" side of the debate just as there are on what I'll generically refer to as the "engineering" side of the debate. Noting that I'm using those as terms of convenience and not as a reference to the Greens political party or those who necessarily are engineers although it does include them.

More than a few discussions have taken place out of public view with issues explored from different perspectives, options looked at and so on and that's all pretty easy when there's no media attention, there's no politics, there's no war being fought and so on.

So long as everyone understands it and is acting in good faith then it comes down to competing value judgements. One person holds the view that the priorities are A, B, C and D in that order whilst someone else says no actually they consider the priorities to be D, B, C and A in that order. And so on. It's a case of differing opinions as to what's important but nobody who's aware of the facts is going to argue with what building a dam or operating gas turbines actually involves. It's a question of which they'd prefer and why.

Looking at the actual, specific issues there:

Financial cost: Some see it as top priority, others see it as important but "close enough is good enough". I've never come across anyone who said it was totally unimportant, everyone does seem to grasp that society doesn't have unlimited resources and so on and that regardless of all other considerations, energy does need to be affordable.

Supply reliability: There's a few at the green end of the spectrum who hold a view that it's unimportant but they're a definite minority. Even among the "green" side most see supply reliability as a key criteria, typically on the basis that failure would bring major repercussions politically and thwarts the "electrify everything" objective to reduce emissions. Unsurprisingly engineers tend to put supply reliability at the top of the list and see it as non-negotiable.

Conservation: Unsurprisingly some diverse views but broadly speaking, I think it's fair to say that most on the engineering side do "get" the point about nature, wilderness, National Parks and so on although obviously those on the green side tend to be more tied in with it. Where the differences tend to arise is where it sits - some see it as the most important issue of the lot whilst others, unsurprisingly the engineers but also including quite a few on the "green" side of the debate, see it as something that can be compromised within reason if legitimately necessary in order to meet other objectives they see as more important, specifically:

Climate change: There's the odd total denial from the engineering side, but broadly most seem to accept the idea that changing the composition of the earth's atmosphere won't be without consequence and that it seems a rather dangerous experiment to be doing given there's no backup plan if it turns out badly. FWIW more than a few on the engineering side see it as an extremely high priority, concern is by no means something unique to those at the green end.

National security: Incidentally and perhaps surprising, if there's one thing where greens and engineers tend to agree it's that depending on imported fuel comes with rather large risks and is best avoided. There's the odd "won't happen" argument, which interestingly tends to come from the engineering end of the table, but broadly most do seem to see that as a very definite issue. It could be summed up by saying there's a recognition that geopolitics is a real thing that can change quickly such that peace today is no guarantee of what happens tomorrow but given the consequences of supply disruption, reliance on imports is best avoided.

Take the politics away and there's a lot of common ground and understanding with the differences coming down to value judgements as to what's the most important.

As a case in point, well there's one particular project which would involve building an approximately 1000 MW hydro station to be used for the primary purpose of filling VRE droughts, noting that being storage based it would have the ability to operate at constant full output during those periods then sit there filling up the rest of the time. It's in an area with reasonably reliable rainfall and has enough storage to cope with variations. It would also incorporate a much smaller dam and reservoir immediately downstream of the power station to permit pumped storage operation as short duration storage as well thus avoiding the need for duplication of its capacity for that routine function.

Just one problem - it's in a conservation area so can't be built.

A value judgement but given the land area affected, it's less than 1% of the conservation area to my understanding, versus the scale of benefit my view is it's worth a very serious look from an unbiased scientific perspective.

Others will disagree, arguing that the conservation aspect is more important and that a National Park or similar area is non-negotiable as to its uses which don't include submerging it under a man-made reservoir.

For those opposed on principle, I'll then point out that fossil fuels are the alternative at least right now, it's one or the other, and that's my underlying reason for arguing it's worth a serious, unbiased look to see if it's a less bad alternative.

Note that I'm not arguing for or against. Just pointing it out as one example of something that could be done and which involves a conflict of one value versus another and arguing that it should be considered in view of all the issues and alternatives noting that there's no perfect option, building or not building both come with an impact just a different one. 

Trouble is, whilst I'm drawing attention to both sides of an argument there, in the real world tribal politics makes that impossible. End result = constant argument and slow progress.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Here you go, it will save you getting a headache.🤣
> 
> I dont think drugs are your problem, lack of grey matter seems to be the issue.😁
> 
> Your wasting your talents, you should audition for the muppet show, your a natural.🤣
> Your the only guy i've seen who can put his foot in his mouth, with a steel cap safety boot on.👍
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hydrogen-Fueled Gas Turbines | GE Gas Power
> 
> 
> Learn more about GE's leadership in the use of hydrogen in gas turbines, and what it will take to reach a 100% hydrogen future.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.ge.com



But your laughing at Albo .....pick a side


----------



## sptrawler

But @Smurf1976 where is the fun, without a bit of inter discipline ribbing.😉


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> But your laughing at Albo .....pick a side



At last, the penny has dropped, well done.
Buy youself an icecream.🤣
Im agreeing with Albo, you were saying it couldnt be done.👍
You obviously didnt even know gas turbines could run on hydrogen and you work on them, how sad is that?🙄


----------



## sptrawler

Macquack said:


> My over-simplistic solution to overcast weather is to get more solar panels. Obviously, solar panels produce less power in overcast conditions, but they still produce power. I have been off-grid for 4 years and have never needed to charge the batteries apart from the sun. My thinking is to have more panels and less batteries, as the panels are cheaper than the batteries. If you have enough solar panels then your battery capacity only needs to be enough to carry you overnight.



The thing is Mac, you have probably trimmed you electrical consumption down to the bone, the general public wont do that so their usage patern will be much different to yours.
My son has gone off grid, they are having interesting adjustments.😉
They are saving for a second battery, the battery is charged by morning, the battery is down by the next morning.
But 3 teenage kids.😉


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> At last, the penny has dropped, well done.
> Buy youself an icecream.🤣
> Im agreeing with Albo, you were saying it couldnt be done.👍
> You obviously didnt even know gas turbines could run on hydrogen and you work on them, how sad is that?🙄



No you said they are like batteries and you throw emojis round like a peanut 🥜
Your making a fool of yourself
How old are you 14


----------



## Smurf1976

Macquack said:


> My over-simplistic solution to overcast weather is to get more solar panels.



At the household scale or for remote sites and so on that's the practical workaround.

Indeed it's exactly what one of the big hydro operators does for its own off-grid solar powered devices used for monitoring and in a few cases control of headworks and so on. It's all just oversized so that it works during the worst case weather.

Big energy companies aren't adverse to solar no - they'll use what makes sense, it's a pragmatic decision not an ideological one. Just had to get brightly coloured ones made to stop campers and others stealing them out in the bush back when panels were fairly expensive.   

Doing that for the whole of Victoria (or elsewhere) becomes a monumental exercise however if you consider that, with a shift away from gas for space heating etc, we'll have demand going up at the exact same time solar yield goes down.

If yield is 20% of average, and demand is 150% of average at the same time, well that's a 7.5x overbuild and comes with two basic issues:

1. The impact of that scale of constructing wind farms, solar farms and so on isn't zero although that's unlikely to be a show stopper with proper planning. Will raise some debates and so on though.

2. Who pays? Bearing in mind that someone still has to pay, in full, for the full system not just that which is used.

Second point is the big one. Small scale then sure, just write that off and consider it part of the cost, but if we're talking about installing plant with an average yield of 40 GW, in order to get 8 GW reliably (averaged over 24 hours at minimum VRE yield) during the worst period in winter, well who pays for it?

That's the problem which leads to looking at ideas of storing the energy via some means be it hydro, hydrogen or whatever. How to keep the cost down to an affordable level.


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> No you said they are like batteries and you throw emojis round like a peanut 🥜
> Your making a fool of yourself
> How old are you 14



Ok I thought you had a brain obviously not.
What is a battery? A medium for storing electrical energy, so that it can be used at a later time.
What is hydrogen, a method of storing energy so that it can be used at a later time.
Now the hard bit, what converts that stored hydrogen energy, into electricity at a later time.
Hmmm I think you know the answer, the gas turbine.
So it is like a battery, the energy is stored as hydrogen and discharged when you need it through the gas turbine.
Now you will be able to sound smart in the crib room, for a change.🤣
You could also tell the guys in the crib room that a hydro dam is like a really big battery, but you will have to explain the difference between chemical energy and kinetic energy, so best you don't go there.👍

By the way, I loved the peanut emoji, i bet that was the first thing that came into your mind, when I said buy yourself an ice cream.
I should have said, buy yourself a bag of peanuts.🤣


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Ok I thought you had a brain obviously not.
> What is a battery? A medium for storing electrical energy, so that it can be used at a later time.
> What is hydrogen, a method of storing energy so that it can be used at a later time.
> Now the hard bit, what converts that stored hydrogen energy, into electricity at a later time.
> Hmmm I think you know the answer, the gas turbine.
> So it is like a battery, the energy is stored as hydrogen and discharged when you need it through the gas turbine.
> Now you will be able to sound smart in the crib room, for a change.🤣
> You could also tell the guys in the crib room that a hydro dam is like a really big battery, but you will have to explain the difference between chemical energy and kinetic energy, so best you don't go there.👍
> 
> By the way, I loved the peanut emoji, i bet that was the first thing that came into your mind, when I said buy yourself an ice cream.
> I should have said, buy yourself a bag of peanuts.🤣



So any generator is like a batttery.....ok thanks


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> I would be surprised, it is too usefull for Snowy Hydro IMO.
> Also it will only run when required, so not really suitable for a private generator, a big battery would be better value for money for the privates IMO.
> No moving parts, no workers, no fuel.



Thought they were the same


----------



## sptrawler

They both change energy into electricity, the difference is how the energy is stored.
For a storage function they can both provide that service, strange you can't understand that.
If excess renewable generation is used to produce hydrogen, then that hydrogen is used at a later date to produce electricity it can be classed as a form of storage, it's a shame you can't grasp the concept.
An electric car and a car fitted with an internal combustion engine are both cars, they both provide the same functionality in certain applications. They are both modes of transport, but they aren't identical In how they operate.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> They both change energy into electricity, the difference is how the energy is stored.
> For a storage function they can both provide that service, strange you can't understand that.
> If excess renewable generation is used to produce hydrogen, then that hydrogen is used at a later date to produce electricity it can be classed as a form of storage, it's a shame you can't grasp the concept.
> An electric car and a car fitted with an internal combustion engine are both cars, they both provide the same functionality in certain applications. They are both modes of transport, but they aren't identical In how they operate.



Ones a battery ones a power station
The fuel is irrelevant


----------



## moXJO

You didn't hear it from me and it's all "*speculation, allegedly and possibly false*".

But the guys on snowy hydro are massively behind. Contracts went to someone who was something like a billion $ under the next guy. They will most likely kill that budget with amendments. I'm hearing that things are not being done "to standard" and then redone at a higher cost in amendment. Not sure about much of the details.

Apparently the crews down there are a lot of leaners. I'm hearing it's a bit of a sht show though. It does happen a lot on these big jobs though.

 I always wondered why they don’t have a govt worker on-site observing/overseeing the job that has experience. Not just a bunch of walks that occasionally turn up in a group for half an hour then go off to brunch.


----------



## Humid

moXJO said:


> You didn't hear it from me and it's all "*speculation, allegedly and possibly false*".
> 
> But the guys on snowy hydro are massively behind. Contracts went to someone who was something like a billion $ under the next guy. They will most likely kill that budget with amendments. I'm hearing that things are not being done "to standard" and then redone at a higher cost in amendment. Not sure about much of the details.
> 
> Apparently the crews down there are a lot of leaners. I'm hearing it's a bit of a sht show though. It does happen a lot on these big jobs though.
> 
> I always wondered why they don’t have a govt worker on-site observing/overseeing the job that has experience. Not just a bunch of walks that occasionally turn up in a group for half an hour then go off to brunch.



A mate reckons money was ordinary and a lot of labour hire with very little experience


----------



## moXJO

Humid said:


> A mate reckons money was ordinary and a lot of labour hire with very little experience



I heard the same thing. I think a lot of young guys jumped at it as they ain't earning that much anywhere else. I think it's 2 weeks on 1 off. 

I'd say the hammer is about to drop and they will shake out the duds.


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Ones a battery ones a power station
> The fuel is irrelevant



Actually one is passive storage, the other is a generator, if you want to be accurate.
One requires fuel the other doesn't, they both store energy, the battery in chemical form, the generator in the fuel source.
The fuel is very relevant in the clean emissions debate, how the battery is charged and the fuel the generator uses is extremely relevant, you could say it is of paramount importance.
The battery and the generator are providing peaking power, so really they are carrying out the same function, the difference is the generator can carry out the function for a longer period as long as there is fuel available. 
In some situations the battery will be more suitable, in other situations the generator will be more suitable.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Actually one is passive storage, the other is a generator, if you want to be accurate.
> One requires fuel the other doesn't, they both store energy, the battery in chemical form, the generator in the fuel source.
> The fuel is very relevant in the clean emissions debate, how the battery is charged and the fuel the generator uses is extremely relevant, you could say it is of paramount importance.
> The battery and the generator are providing peaking power, so really they are carrying out the same function, the difference is the generator can carry out the function for a longer period as long as there is fuel available.
> In some situations the battery will be more suitable, in other situations the generator will be more suitable.



The Libs want to run Kurri Kurri on NG and labor on H
Are they both batteries?
Or both power stations


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> At last, the penny has dropped, well done.
> Buy youself an icecream.🤣
> Im agreeing with Albo, you were saying it couldnt be done.👍
> You obviously didnt even know gas turbines could run on hydrogen and you work on them, how sad is that?🙄



I posted the story about Kurri Kurri and hydrogen you moron


----------



## Humid

Humid said:


> A hot Kurri Kurri: why Labor's fossil proposal is even worse than the Coalition's - Michael West
> 
> 
> The Kurri Kurri gas plant proposal makes no financial sense, involves a billion-dollar subsidy, is unfit for purpose and there's a gas plant nearby
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.michaelwest.com.au



This one


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> So far as renewables and storage is concerned, a chart:
> 
> This is a daily chart for Victoria over the past 12 months to and including Sunday 13 February 2020 showing wind (green) and solar (yellow) generation only. The solar figures include the estimated total production from small (rooftop) systems as well as large solar farms.
> 
> View attachment 137531
> 
> 
> Looking at that chart, I draw attention to the periods of multiple consecutive days of low yield:
> 
> 23 - 30 April inclusive (8 days)
> 
> 11 - 14 June inclusive (4 days)
> 
> 5 July - 10 July inclusive (6 days)
> 
> Those are what I and a few others are calling VRE droughts (Variable Renewable Energy - wind and solar) and looking back over the entire history of wind and solar in the National Electricity Market, we get a similar situation each and every year without exception, there's always at least one so they're not unexpected.
> 
> The particularly difficult problems being that they occur at times of high demand, the week 5 - 11 July was Victoria's second highest consumption week for the year exceeded only slightly by the week of 24 - 30 January 2020.
> 
> If we include the use of gas, on the assumption that there's a desire to shift that to electricity, then that relationship is even stronger with winter by far the highest consumption season and also the one where VRE droughts occur. Noting that gas dominates the space heating market in Victoria.
> 
> THAT is the elephant in the room with all this. How to cope with a week or so of terribly low yields which just happens to coincide with, if we assume a shift to electric heating from gas, the absolute peak of consumption.
> 
> Now before anyone says "but that's only Victoria Smurf, it won't happen in the other states at the same time" unfortunately it does. In the context of the NEM, the only state that didn't see low yields at the exact same time was Queensland although even it was below average just not drastically so.
> 
> View attachment 137534
> 
> 
> View attachment 137535
> 
> 
> View attachment 137536
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 137538
> 
> 
> That the lights stay on is because:
> 
> View attachment 137541
> 
> 
> It's not a coincidence that the period of highest hydro output is the same period as lowest wind + solar output in multiple states. That's completely intentional.
> 
> And gas:
> 
> View attachment 137543
> 
> 
> And whilst on a smaller scale, diesel ramped up at the same time too:
> 
> View attachment 137544
> 
> 
> That there is the greatest challenge with all of this.
> 
> Storing energy on a short term basis, using the midday sun to run lights at night, is straightforward and very doable. It's the energy equivalent of investing during a bull market - it's not that hard to make it work.
> 
> It's coping with the week of poor yields which also sees a jump in consumption that's the hard bit.
> 
> It wouldn't be impossible to do it with hydro, from a purely physical perspective it's doable, but the big problem can be summed up quite briefly by saying that there are over 20,000 sites for pumped storage and the fall into two categories:
> 
> 1. A very large number of individually small sites that store typically 3 GWh each although it does vary.
> 
> 2. A very small number of individually large sites storing tens, hundreds or even thousands of GWh.
> 
> Now to get 8 hours of storage the sites in the first category are very doable. Take a 2 GWh site, install 250 MW of generating capacity and it runs for 8 hours.
> 
> Trouble is, if you want 200 hours out of it well now you can only install 10 MW of capacity and that kills the economics stone dead beyond belief. Go down that track and the problem is that, based on AEMO's calculations of 19GW of firm non-constrained capacity required, it's simply cost prohibitive to do it with lots of tiny schemes. They work if you're going to develop them for 8 or 10 hours storage, but not if you want a week's worth since the cost is just too high given the number required.
> 
> That leaves the large sites which, due to scale of economy, are far cheaper per GWh stored. One big dam versus a hundred or more "turkey nest" dams - the big one wins hands down. There are sites where 1000 MW or more can be installed at a single location quite easily.
> 
> Just one elephant ready to squash the table and all those sitting around it there and I think we all know what that one is - those big sites are mostly in National Parks or other similarly designated areas yes.
> 
> That's the primary reason nobody's going anywhere near that one. If we're going to build big dams in National Parks etc then that'll have to come from the Prime Minister, there's zero interest in the industry in starting a war on that scale. Even state Premiers generally won't go anywhere near the concept.
> 
> Hence the universal assumption that gas will remain part of the mix going forward with the only question being about the detail of what that gas actually is. Some of it will be natural gas, some will be diesel simply because it's so easy to store as a backup. But longer term there are certainly thoughts that hydrogen could be the gas used and that coal gasification might also play a role.
> 
> Personally I'd argue more toward renewables and that a scientific, not political, process ought to be the determinant of whether or not a dam can be built at any given location. There are certainly places that should be left untouched, wilderness has a very real value, but likewise the need to move away from fossil fuels is real and urgent and not everywhere that a big dam could be built is genuinely worthy of protecting.
> 
> Politically however nobody's going near that one at least not right now. Gas is the path of least resistance and the one that will be chosen. Hence AEMO and even the existing hydro operators are all working on that basis, gas is part of the mix going forward since politically it's hard to see any other option gaining traction in reality.
> 
> All charts posted sourced from OpenNEM




Great piece of  analysis and research Smurf.  It does nail the elephant in the room of  realistic simultaneous  drops on renewable energy across the country.  I can understand why standby gas powered generators seem to be the most realistic solution. As you point out the short term battery options won't cover a week of low power.


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> This one



We have been discussing Kurri Kurri and its ability to burn H2 since it was first announced, maybe if you read more of the threads, rather than just trolling people you would be more knowledgeable.🤣


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> We have been discussing Kurri Kurri and its ability to burn H2 since it was first announced, maybe if you read more of the threads, rather than just trolling people you would be more knowledgeable.🤣



pot kettle


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> pot kettle



Give it away, get back to trolling.😉


----------



## Humid

Anyone your age using emojis constantly deserves to be trolled


----------



## Humid

Imagine the complaints if your vibrator ran on a gas turbine and not batteries


----------



## sptrawler

Still carrying on with your senseless dribble @Humid , why don't you try and add some value, to the forum. 
It certainly would be a pleasant change.


----------



## Humid

Just block me like waynal and log out to read my specialist comments


----------



## moXJO

Humid said:


> Imagine the complaints if your vibrator ran on a gas turbine



*©®*


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Great piece of analysis and research Smurf. It does nail the elephant in the room of realistic simultaneous drops on renewable energy across the country. I can understand why standby gas powered generators seem to be the most realistic solution. As you point out the short term battery options won't cover a week of low power.



As a bit more comment, what pretty much everyone in the industry agrees on is (in the Australian context):

Wind and solar will be the dominant method of harvesting energy for the purposes of electricity supply going forward. Noting that there's an abundance of interest in owning and building facilities.

Batteries are suitable for short duration storage and there's a reasonable level of interest in them. The Victorian Big Battery has now overtaken the Hornsdale Power Reserve (SA) as Australia's largest battery installation meanwhile AGL has a 250 MW / 250 MWh one under construction in SA right now, Energy Australia has very specific plans for a 350 MW / 1400 MWh one in Victoria at an identified location and Origin also has plans for a battery at a specific site in NSW. Then there's others such as the 500 MW / 1000 MWh Wallerawang 9 battery in NSW and so on. There's plenty of interest both from the established players and new entrants to the industry.

Hydro using relatively straightforward sites unlikely to cause objection, for example disused quarry pits and "turkey nest" dams on hills, are viable for medium term storage (8 - 48 hours). The very nature of them means they're a long lead time, long lasting and bespoke design such that there's far fewer companies interested but nonetheless some progress is being made. Genex has the Kidston one in Queensland under construction for example and AGL have stated they're keen on the idea. Origin gave it a look too.

So on that stuff there's broad agreement.

Where the major differences lie is with long term storage and how to cope with what I refer to as VRE droughts.

In one camp are those who see gas turbines as the solution. They're relatively cheap to build, have a low impact in terms of aesthetics etc so it's not hard to find a location to put them and they work. Bonus that the whole thing is "off the shelf" requiring minimal engineering work apart from the site-specific stuff and being moveable, they could always be relocated somewhere else in future should the local need become obsolete for whatever reason.

In the other camp are the advocates for large storage hydro. The argument basically being that it's a permanent solution that doesn't wear out in any meaningful timeframe and it requires no ongoing fossil fuel inputs once built. Downsides = it's time consuming and expensive to build and there's the environmental aspects both the "real" ones and the ideological opposition that some do have toward any dam anywhere regardless of detail.

In the third camp are those who see some other option that isn't presently viable as the long term solution. Mostly that's either hydrogen as such, it's a hydrogen derivative such as ammonia or it's some sort of synthetic liquid fuel, with properties likely to be similar to diesel or jet fuel, made by extracting CO2 from air, running that through an industrial process and turning it into some sort of flammable liquid. All of those are fundamentally just different fuels that would be burned in a gas turbine or alternatively a boiler (to drive a steam turbine) or large internal combustion engines. They're all combustion-based approaches using standard equipment just running it with a different fuel.

Plus the bit that everyone does agree on - existing hydro and things like biomass will make a contribution but not enough. That's important to note though, what we already have can do part of the job.

Personally my own view is firmly that a scientific approach, not an ideological one, ought be taken to all of this.

Opposing the burning of gas on principle isn't rational if it's the least bad option available.

Opposing any dam anywhere on principle isn't rational if there's no sensible reason to not build one in a particular location.

Take a scientific approach on a case by case basis bearing in mind that there's no option to do nothing and have zero impact, it's a case of what's least bad both environmentally and economically. Noting that if it's still bad as such then supporting it is a case of doing so with the major footnote that better ways need to be sought but, in the meantime, this is the least bad one available.

As a case in point, if we look at Victoria then in rough terms:

Present average electrical load over 12 months = 5339 MW (that's a precise figure)

Size wind + solar to meet that plus a 20% margin and, under the worst case weather, it still generates about 1300 MW on average, leaving a gap to fill of about 4000 MW.

Now I'll point to the existence of a site where a 50m high dam could be built which would flood an area of approximately 11 km2. Integrating with existing run of river hydro stations and a new one to be built, that creates a scheme able to generate over 400 MW on demand, constantly when required, for the specific purpose of filling VRE droughts.

That one scheme would do 10% of the job in the Victorian context.

Now where the problem arises is politics.

Put that forward and someone will scream that evil Smurf wants to put eleven square kilometers of land under water! Think of all those trees, koalas and all the rest that will be effected! You evil person Smurf!

The bit missing from that argument would of course be that:

The land area of Victoria is 227,444 km2

Metropolitan Melbourne occupies 9,992 km2 at present, so over 900 times the area required for the hydro dam. That land was, of course, natural bushland before someone built a city on it.

The land area dug up by the Yallourn coal mine alone, just Yallourn and just the mine not including the power station and associated infrastructure, is about 19km2.

And so on.

11km2 is trivial and there's a rational issue with the idea only if something about it is such that it's abnormally important land. If there's an endangered species living there or something like that then that would be a good reason to not build it and I'd be siding with those opposed. Wiping out species to generate electricity is a terribly bad idea.

If not however, if there's nothing being lost apart from aesthetics etc well then I'd argue that getting 10% of the VRE drought filling task done, without using fossil fuels, isn't a bad return for putting less than 0.005% of the state under a lake.

My point there not really being about that specific project, and for the record I'm not being paid to work on it or anything like that, but simply that a calm, rational, scientific approach is needed to all this.

In some cases gas will be the least bad option available but in others, well if there's an option for hydro to be built at a site that isn't an objective problem or to put otherwise wasted biomass (eg crop wastes) to use, thus saving some gas and emissions, well that may well be the better way to go. Pursue those other options where they're available and it won't likely eliminate gas but it would mean needing less of it.

Plus I'll mention the one that most won't - coal.

For most existing facilities it's not an option since they're too old, reaching end of life, and aren't technically well suited to intermittent operation but I'll single out Redbank in NSW as one where it could be done. It's small, only 151 MW, so would only make a minor contribution but it does have some points in its favour.

On the technical side this plant uses fluidised bed combustion, not pulverized fuel as do other coal plants, and in a practical sense that means it can burn pretty much anything and do so "cleanly" in terms of non-CO2 emissions. Stick even the worst coal into it and there won't be clouds of smoke coming out, it can cope with that very nicely. Heck you could put tree bark and lawn clippings in the fuel mix and it'll keep going.

Most of it's also in great shape technically and presently sitting there doing absolutely nothing. It's already built, the money's been spent, the resources and environmental impacts of construction have been incurred and so on. It's a potentially usable facility, that could operate for that specific VRE drought filling purpose, presently doing nothing. 

That's another case where I'll argue for a scientific approach. Getting it ready to run and paying someone to keep it sitting there waiting for the call to fire it up may well be a perfectly rational strategy during the coming years simply because it's already built so is "free" in that sense. It's coal yes, but only as a backup to operate for a week here and there - my logic being that the money saved by not building something else could be put to better use (though that notion must of course be tested and verified as true or not true).


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> effected!



Typo there - should be "affected"


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> As a bit more comment, what pretty much everyone in the industry agrees on is (in the Australian context):
> 
> Wind and solar will be the dominant method of harvesting energy for the purposes of electricity supply going forward. Noting that there's an abundance of interest in owning and building facilities.
> 
> Batteries are suitable for short duration storage and there's a reasonable level of interest in them. The Victorian Big Battery has now overtaken the Hornsdale Power Reserve (SA) as Australia's largest battery installation meanwhile AGL has a 250 MW / 250 MWh one under construction in SA right now, Energy Australia has very specific plans for a 350 MW / 1400 MWh one in Victoria at an identified location and Origin also has plans for a battery at a specific site in NSW. Then there's others such as the 500 MW / 1000 MWh Wallerawang 9 battery in NSW and so on. There's plenty of interest both from the established players and new entrants to the industry.
> 
> Hydro using relatively straightforward sites unlikely to cause objection, for example disused quarry pits and "turkey nest" dams on hills, are viable for medium term storage (8 - 48 hours). The very nature of them means they're a long lead time, long lasting and bespoke design such that there's far fewer companies interested but nonetheless some progress is being made. Genex has the Kidston one in Queensland under construction for example and AGL have stated they're keen on the idea. Origin gave it a look too.
> 
> So on that stuff there's broad agreement.
> 
> Where the major differences lie is with long term storage and how to cope with what I refer to as VRE droughts.
> 
> In one camp are those who see gas turbines as the solution. They're relatively cheap to build, have a low impact in terms of aesthetics etc so it's not hard to find a location to put them and they work. Bonus that the whole thing is "off the shelf" requiring minimal engineering work apart from the site-specific stuff and being moveable, they could always be relocated somewhere else in future should the local need become obsolete for whatever reason.
> 
> In the other camp are the advocates for large storage hydro. The argument basically being that it's a permanent solution that doesn't wear out in any meaningful timeframe and it requires no ongoing fossil fuel inputs once built. Downsides = it's time consuming and expensive to build and there's the environmental aspects both the "real" ones and the ideological opposition that some do have toward any dam anywhere regardless of detail.
> 
> In the third camp are those who see some other option that isn't presently viable as the long term solution. Mostly that's either hydrogen as such, it's a hydrogen derivative such as ammonia or it's some sort of synthetic liquid fuel, with properties likely to be similar to diesel or jet fuel, made by extracting CO2 from air, running that through an industrial process and turning it into some sort of flammable liquid. All of those are fundamentally just different fuels that would be burned in a gas turbine or alternatively a boiler (to drive a steam turbine) or large internal combustion engines. They're all combustion-based approaches using standard equipment just running it with a different fuel.
> 
> Plus the bit that everyone does agree on - existing hydro and things like biomass will make a contribution but not enough. That's important to note though, what we already have can do part of the job.
> 
> Personally my own view is firmly that a scientific approach, not an ideological one, ought be taken to all of this.
> 
> Opposing the burning of gas on principle isn't rational if it's the least bad option available.
> 
> Opposing any dam anywhere on principle isn't rational if there's no sensible reason to not build one in a particular location.
> 
> Take a scientific approach on a case by case basis bearing in mind that there's no option to do nothing and have zero impact, it's a case of what's least bad both environmentally and economically. Noting that if it's still bad as such then supporting it is a case of doing so with the major footnote that better ways need to be sought but, in the meantime, this is the least bad one available.
> 
> As a case in point, if we look at Victoria then in rough terms:
> 
> Present average electrical load over 12 months = 5339 MW (that's a precise figure)
> 
> Size wind + solar to meet that plus a 20% margin and, under the worst case weather, it still generates about 1300 MW on average, leaving a gap to fill of about 4000 MW.
> 
> Now I'll point to the existence of a site where a 50m high dam could be built which would flood an area of approximately 11 km2. Integrating with existing run of river hydro stations and a new one to be built, that creates a scheme able to generate over 400 MW on demand, constantly when required, for the specific purpose of filling VRE droughts.
> 
> That one scheme would do 10% of the job in the Victorian context.
> 
> Now where the problem arises is politics.
> 
> Put that forward and someone will scream that evil Smurf wants to put eleven square kilometers of land under water! Think of all those trees, koalas and all the rest that will be effected! You evil person Smurf!
> 
> The bit missing from that argument would of course be that:
> 
> The land area of Victoria is 227,444 km2
> 
> Metropolitan Melbourne occupies 9,992 km2 at present, so over 900 times the area required for the hydro dam. That land was, of course, natural bushland before someone built a city on it.
> 
> The land area dug up by the Yallourn coal mine alone, just Yallourn and just the mine not including the power station and associated infrastructure, is about 19km2.
> 
> And so on.
> 
> 11km2 is trivial and there's a rational issue with the idea only if something about it is such that it's abnormally important land. If there's an endangered species living there or something like that then that would be a good reason to not build it and I'd be siding with those opposed. Wiping out species to generate electricity is a terribly bad idea.
> 
> If not however, if there's nothing being lost apart from aesthetics etc well then I'd argue that getting 10% of the VRE drought filling task done, without using fossil fuels, isn't a bad return for putting less than 0.005% of the state under a lake.
> 
> My point there not really being about that specific project, and for the record I'm not being paid to work on it or anything like that, but simply that a calm, rational, scientific approach is needed to all this.
> 
> In some cases gas will be the least bad option available but in others, well if there's an option for hydro to be built at a site that isn't an objective problem or to put otherwise wasted biomass (eg crop wastes) to use, thus saving some gas and emissions, well that may well be the better way to go. Pursue those other options where they're available and it won't likely eliminate gas but it would mean needing less of it.
> 
> Plus I'll mention the one that most won't - coal.
> 
> For most existing facilities it's not an option since they're too old, reaching end of life, and aren't technically well suited to intermittent operation but I'll single out Redbank in NSW as one where it could be done. It's small, only 151 MW, so would only make a minor contribution but it does have some points in its favour.
> 
> On the technical side this plant uses fluidised bed combustion, not pulverized fuel as do other coal plants, and in a practical sense that means it can burn pretty much anything and do so "cleanly" in terms of non-CO2 emissions. Stick even the worst coal into it and there won't be clouds of smoke coming out, it can cope with that very nicely. Heck you could put tree bark and lawn clippings in the fuel mix and it'll keep going.
> 
> Most of it's also in great shape technically and presently sitting there doing absolutely nothing. It's already built, the money's been spent, the resources and environmental impacts of construction have been incurred and so on. It's a potentially usable facility, that could operate for that specific VRE drought filling purpose, presently doing nothing.
> 
> That's another case where I'll argue for a scientific approach. Getting it ready to run and paying someone to keep it sitting there waiting for the call to fire it up may well be a perfectly rational strategy during the coming years simply because it's already built so is "free" in that sense. It's coal yes, but only as a backup to operate for a week here and there - my logic being that the money saved by not building something else could be put to better use (though that notion must of course be tested and verified as true or not true).



Another great post Smurf thanks.

I'm a non technical person  in this area but I'll put my non technical views and will be grateful for your technical response. My view is that hydro is great  if done in the right way in the right areas. There are dams around that could be raised and existing hydro facilities that could be extended which would save a lot of time in EIS procedures, and I'm sure there are sites that could be developed with minimal environmental impact. Hydro is the best long term solution for a number of reasons in appropriate areas

Trouble is that this all takes decades to do with Greenie's fighting it all the way. Until then, something needs to be established and you have pointed out the advantages of gas turbines precisely.  Its not a case of either hydro or GT's imo , while people keep arguing about dams, GT stations can be built and they will there in case  hydro options are rejected for whatever reasons.

Of course the Greens will still complain about GTs but their arguments can be countered by pointing out that they could be r un on GREEN hydrogen.

BTW, how difficult is it to run GTs on different fuels ? Is it just a case of running the fuel through filters or do the internals of the turbine have to be modified  for different fuels ?


----------



## SirRumpole

For those interested, Simon Holmes a'Court , clean energy advisor will be in the National Press Club today

ABC24 12:30.


----------



## Humid

Tesla says new gas generators “no longer rational”, batteries are smarter and cheaper
					

Tesla says building new gas plants is not rational, because batteries are faster, smarter and cheaper, and can deliver long duration storage.




					reneweconomy.com.au


----------



## SirRumpole

Humid said:


> Tesla says new gas generators “no longer rational”, batteries are smarter and cheaper
> 
> 
> Tesla says building new gas plants is not rational, because batteries are faster, smarter and cheaper, and can deliver long duration storage.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> reneweconomy.com.au




Er yeah, Elon makes batteries doesn't he ?


----------



## Humid

SirRumpole said:


> Er yeah, Elon makes batteries doesn't he ?



But there the same as gas turbines


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Er yeah, Elon makes batteries doesn't he ?



Don't worry Rumpole, @Humid hasn't grasped, that two different devices can carry out the same function.
He doesn't understand that a generator on standby to supply the load, is performing the same function as a charged battery sitting on standby to supply the load.
lateral thinking isn't his strong point, as is obvious by his posts, a generator can't do the same as a battery.🤪

Imagine if engineers thought like him, buildings would not have lifts, because they have stairs and as humid says no two things can do the same job. 🤣
"what do you mean put in a lift to get people up and down, that's what stairs do and a lift isn't a stair, so it can't work ".

What a muppet imagine being the boss, dealing with this all the time.😩


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Trouble is that this all takes decades to do with Greenie's fighting it all the way.



The problem there, as with most politics from all sides, is of being rusted on to a position rather than being pragmatic about the way forward.

Hence my view that the only real solution there is to leave the politicians out of it. Put the electrical stuff in the hands of engineers and put the conservation type issues in the hands of a proper, independent body of suitably qualified people. Have someone suitable who isn't wedded to either discipline to oversee the whole thing and ensure everything's being given proper consideration.



SirRumpole said:


> how difficult is it to run GTs on different fuels ?




It depends.....

Diesel, kerosene, LPG, natural gas are all pretty straightforward as "conventional" hydrocarbon fuels.

Adding 10% or so hydrogen to the gas mix is generally accepted as being OK. Even household gas appliances are tested with varying gas composition and should be able to cope with that.

To burn something like pure hydrogen, in practice nobody's likely to do it without the turbine manufacturer having designed and tested a modification. That really comes down to risk - if it went wrong somehow and the end result is someone's dead well nobody wants to be fronting up in court and saying they just did it without any proper processes being followed.

It'll be a case of manufacturers doing tests, coming up with approved modifications if required and so on. 

In the context of old equipment that's near end of life, in practice it won't be done. It'll be current and recent production models where the focus is likely to be, nobody's going to put R&D effort into something from 1980 at this point. Etc.


----------



## sptrawler

Sounds like another coal power station biting the dust, as we have been saying these closures will be forced on the owners, they just aren't designed for the work they are being made to do. Gas turbines are, let's hear the naysayers now go on about Kurri Kurri, you won't hear apologies either, they will just move on to the next windmill tambourine's and drums banging. 🤣









						Origin Energy to bring forward closure of Australia’s largest coal-fired power plant
					

Origin Energy will close the 2880-megawatt Eraring generator at Lake Macquarie in NSW in 2025, seven years earlier than scheduled.




					www.smh.com.au
				




Origin Energy has brought forward plans to close Australia’s largest coal-burning power station to 2025, seven years earlier than scheduled, as the rollout of clean energy across the country accelerates.
of clean energy across the country accelerates.
The power and gas giant has handed in notice to authorities that it intends to shut down the 2880-megawatt Eraring generator at Lake Macquarie in NSW after the required notice period of three and a half years, saying “rapidly changing” energy market conditions have hammered the plant’s viability.








						AGL signs contractor for Liddell demolition, as it juggles closure units
					

AGL signs up contractor to advise on closure and demolition of Liddell coal generator, and fast-tracks closure of one unit because it is not reliable.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				




So @Smurf1976 how much is that to be retired by 2025, wow that's only 3 years away, looks like we were on the money. How long have we been saying that these coal plants will retire early, because they are being flogged to death. 👍


Maybe you could chip in @Humid how long did you say it takes to build a gas power station, the size of Kurri Kurri, oh hang on that's right they wont need it.🤣


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Don't worry Rumpole, @Humid hasn't grasped, that two different devices can carry out the same function.
> He doesn't understand that a generator on standby to supply the load, is performing the same function as a charged battery sitting on standby to supply the load.
> lateral thinking isn't his strong point, as is obvious by his posts, a generator can't do the same as a battery.🤪
> 
> Imagine if engineers thought like him, buildings would not have lifts, because they have stairs and as humid says no two things can do the same job. 🤣
> "what do you mean put in a lift to get people up and down, that's what stairs do and a lift isn't a stair, so it can't work ".
> 
> What a muppet imagine being the boss, dealing with this all the time.😩





sptrawler said:


> Sounds like another coal power station biting the dust, as we have been saying these closures will be forced on the owners, they just aren't designed for the work they are being made to do. Gas turbines are, let's hear the naysayers now go on about Kurri Kurri, you won't hear apologies either, they will just move on to the next windmill tambourine's and drums banging. 🤣
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Origin Energy to bring forward closure of Australia’s largest coal-fired power plant
> 
> 
> Origin Energy will close the 2880-megawatt Eraring generator at Lake Macquarie in NSW in 2025, seven years earlier than scheduled.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Origin Energy has brought forward plans to close Australia’s largest coal-burning power station to 2025, seven years earlier than scheduled, as the rollout of clean energy across the country accelerates.
> of clean energy across the country accelerates.
> The power and gas giant has handed in notice to authorities that it intends to shut down the 2880-megawatt Eraring generator at Lake Macquarie in NSW after the required notice period of three and a half years, saying “rapidly changing” energy market conditions have hammered the plant’s viability.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> AGL signs contractor for Liddell demolition, as it juggles closure units
> 
> 
> AGL signs up contractor to advise on closure and demolition of Liddell coal generator, and fast-tracks closure of one unit because it is not reliable.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> reneweconomy.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So @Smurf1976 how much is that to be retired by 2025, wow that's only 3 years away, looks like we were on the money. How long have we been saying that these coal plants will retire early, because they are being flogged to death. 👍
> 
> 
> Maybe you could chip in @Humid how long did you say it takes to build a gas power station, the size of Kurri Kurri, oh hang on that's right they wont need it.🤣



I'm just doing the math now .....it's complex


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> I'm just doing the math now .....it's complex



It would be if your trying to work it out in batteries. 🤣
I bet you have your socks off, so you can use your toes in the calculation. 🤪


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> The problem there, as with most politics from all sides, is of being rusted on to a position rather than being pragmatic about the way forward.
> 
> Hence my view that the only real solution there is to leave the politicians out of it. Put the electrical stuff in the hands of engineers and put the conservation type issues in the hands of a proper, independent body of suitably qualified people. Have someone suitable who isn't wedded to either discipline to oversee the whole thing and ensure everything's being given proper consideration.




I totally agree that would be the solution in an ideal world.

Realistically , will polilticians cede power to someone else, even those who know more than they do about technical issues ?

Turnbull tried that and look what happened to him.

I hope it can be done by an enlightened government at some time.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I totally agree that would be the solution in an ideal world.
> 
> Realistically , will polilticians cede power to someone else, even those who know more than they do about technical issues ?
> 
> Turnbull tried that and look what happened to him.
> 
> I hope it can be done by an enlightened government at some time.



I think this announcement to close Eraring early will put a cat among the pigeons, this is some serious dispatchable generation being removed, nearly 4GW in 3 years, that is serious.
From @Smurf1976 earlier post:

Liddell. Original capacity 2000 MW is presently de-rated to 1680 MW with reduction to 1260 MW with closure of unit 3 on 1 April 2022 and complete plant closure in 2023.

Eraring - 2880 MW. Planned to be reduced to 2160 MW in 2030, 1440 MW in 2031 and complete closure in 2032.

New dispatchable generation going in Kurri Kurri 660MW, there will be some hand wringing going on, maybe Origin is looking for some availability money to leave Eraring in service?

You never know, this might be the test the renewables need.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I think this announcement to close Eraring early will put a cat among the pigeons, this is some serious dispatchable generation being removed, nearly 4GW in 3 years, that is serious.
> From @Smurf1976 earlier post:
> 
> Liddell. Original capacity 2000 MW is presently de-rated to 1680 MW with reduction to 1260 MW with closure of unit 3 on 1 April 2022 and complete plant closure in 2023.
> 
> Eraring - 2880 MW. Planned to be reduced to 2160 MW in 2030, 1440 MW in 2031 and complete closure in 2032.
> 
> New dispatchable generation going in Kurri Kurri 660MW, there will be some hand wringing going on, maybe Origin is looking for some availability money to leave Eraring in service?
> 
> You never know, this might be the test the renewables need.




I don't know what the regulations are. 

Is there any requirement for a supplier to replace the generation that they take out with an equivalent amount of new generation ?

If not, that's a serious deficiency in the rules imo.


----------



## mullokintyre

there is talk that origin may be looking for a sale of the plant to get it off its books.
So why announce the early closure of the plant and thus reduce its book value?
Having not held origin for  about ten years, I am unfamiliar with their  financials, but the last time I did hold it it was north  of 12 bucks.
Just reached half that figure now.
Seems they are experts at destroying shareholder value.
Mick


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> It would be if your trying to work it out in batteries. 🤣
> I bet you have your socks off, so you can use your toes in the calculation. 🤪



More calculations to perform but you are right on the batteries.....









						'Super' battery to boost NSW supply when coal-fired power station closes
					

Origin Energy has announced it will close its 2880-megawatt Eraring generator at Lake Macquarie in NSW in 2025, seven years earlier than scheduled.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## Humid

SirRumpole said:


> I don't know what the regulations are.
> 
> Is there any requirement for a supplier to replace the generation that they take out with an equivalent amount of new generation ?
> 
> If not, that's a serious deficiency in the rules imo.



Yeah dont flog your power generator to private enterprise


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Yeah dont flog your power generator to private enterprise



The first intelligent thing you have posted IMO.


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> there is talk that origin may be looking for a sale of the plant to get it off its books.
> So why announce the early closure of the plant and thus reduce its book value?
> Having not held origin for  about ten years, I am unfamiliar with their  financials, but the last time I did hold it it was north  of 12 bucks.
> Just reached half that figure now.
> Seems they are experts at destroying shareholder value.
> Mick



Yes not a nice space to be in, when your whole mode of operation is changing to a new norm.
Coal is done, just a matter of time, gas will fill the hole until it is no longer viable.
By then the Govt will have to either compensate the operators to have the GT's on standby, or possibly buy out the at call GT's, or install more of their own new plant. IMO
The outcome will depend a lot on how successful and how cheap large scale H2 production becomes IMO. If it becomes a cheap alternative to LNG, then the private operators will probably continue with GT's.   

Origin are talking about putting a 700MW battery at the site, but having a battery that requires charging and has a discharge duration of 4hours, still leaves a huge hole when you remove 2,800Mw of at call generation.
Interesting times.
@Smurf1976 will no doubt give us a great prognosis of the state of play.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> The first intelligent thing you have posted IMO.



You too no emojis


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> You too no emojis



I'm giving you more credit, by not having to give you visual prompts.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Is there any requirement for a supplier to replace the generation that they take out with an equivalent amount of new generation ?



No, there's no obligation on any company to be or remain in the electricity generation business.

There is however an obligation to provide notice of their intention to exit - that's what Origin are doing with this announcement, it's a legal requirement that they make it public so they're doing so.


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> So why announce the early closure of the plant and thus reduce its book value?



The killer is the coal price having gone through the roof.

Even if the plant is written off to zero, and the workers work for free, the cost of coal is such that it's still unprofitable.

That's ultimately the trigger, bearing in mind that closure was planned for 2030 - 32 anyway so there's no real point incurring losses in the hope of a turnaround, and now they're just going through the legally required steps to exit the operation.

Also in NSW, Liddell (AGL) will close one unit about 6 weeks from now. That's a permanent closure.

Things are about to get interesting on the political front.....


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Realistically , will polilticians cede power to someone else, even those who know more than they do about technical issues ?
> 
> Turnbull tried that and look what happened to him.
> 
> I hope it can be done by an enlightened government at some time.



If it gets to the point of a crisis, either the lights going out or a major problem with price, then that's the point I expect the politicians will quietly disappear and let someone get on with it.

Trouble is, building this stuff from scratch takes quite some time......


----------



## sptrawler

Even the left wing press are starting to have the penny drop, it was only a couple of years ago, they were going on about Australia being laggards with renewables.
 In a couple more years, they could well be bemoaning the lack of at call generation IMO, there is a hell of a balancing act going on at the moment. 
Hopefully it all turns out well, time will tell, but as @Smurf1976 says, there is no place for politics or pressure groups.









						Coal plant closure shows Australia at forefront of global clean energy experiment
					

The shift to clean energy is gaining pace as cheap renewables pump more and more cheap power into the grid, undermining the business case of old coal plants.




					www.theage.com.au
				




Australia is at the forefront of a global experiment on how to shift an electricity grid built on coal to one dominated by renewables.
The transition to clean energy is gaining pace as Australia’s abundant wind and solar resources pump more and more cheap power into the grid, undermining the business case of old coal plants.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Even the left wing press are starting to have the penny drop, it was only a couple of years ago, they were going on about Australia being laggards with renewables.
> In a couple more years, they could well be bemoaning the lack of at call generation IMO, there is a hell of a balancing act going on at the moment.
> Hopefully it all turns out well, time will tell, but as @Smurf1976 says, there is no place for politics or pressure groups.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Coal plant closure shows Australia at forefront of global clean energy experiment
> 
> 
> The shift to clean energy is gaining pace as cheap renewables pump more and more cheap power into the grid, undermining the business case of old coal plants.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theage.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Australia is at the forefront of a global experiment on how to shift an electricity grid built on coal to one dominated by renewables.
> The transition to clean energy is gaining pace as Australia’s abundant wind and solar resources pump more and more cheap power into the grid, undermining the business case of old coal plants.



Well you can't come here we're closed indefinitely


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Well you can't come here we're closed indefinitely



We are lucky in a lot of ways, not the least being the Government owns the electrical system. 👍


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Australia is at the forefront of a global experiment on how to shift an electricity grid built on coal to one dominated by renewables.
> The transition to clean energy is gaining pace as Australia’s abundant wind and solar resources pump more and more cheap power into the grid, undermining the business case of old coal plants.



The interesting part is that Coalition policy is about affordable energy, and with renewables that was always a given.
What there is *NOT*, is an actual *PLAN*. 
All the issues have been identified, and there are lots of options on the table.  But in the absence of a coherent strategy for the grid that AEMO controls we have the various States stepping in to further fragment supply.
It's been a recipe for disaster from the time I returned to post at ASF over 2 years ago, and got worse rather than better.  Our saving grace has been La Nina in these years as summer maximums have been relatively subdued. That will change drastically when El Nino kick in and load shedding puts the frighteners on Sydney/Melbourne folk.  Snowy 2 will still be years off so If you are in the market for a BEV, maybe consider one that has V2H ability, or buy a bidirectional home charger.


----------



## sptrawler

__





						2022 Integrated System Plan (ISP)
					

AEMO’s first Integrated System Plan (ISP), which provides a whole-of-system roadmap for the development on the National Electricity Market (NEM).




					aemo.com.au
				








__





						2020 Integrated System Plan (ISP)
					

The 2020 ISP is currently under development, with a detailed timeline shown below. The consultation on scenarios, inputs and assumptions was completed in August 2019. The Draft 2020 ISP has now been released, and consultation on this document opened on 12th December 2019, along with a separate...




					aemo.com.au


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> What there is *NOT*, is an actual *PLAN*.



This above all else is the problem.

I have absolute confidence that renewable energy can be made to work and done in a manner that's reliable and reasonably economical. There are some technical hurdles still to be worked around although that's more a case of working out the best way to do it, since there's more than one way at the detail level, rather than whether it's possible as such.

What I don't have confidence in is our institutions' ability to manage it and by that I mean government itself and things created by it.

I'll admit to being somewhat of a "just do it" person but I think it's fair to say the level of politics, bureaucracy and so on does lean too far in the other direction. It leads to really obvious, straightforward things not being done because it's all too hard administratively.

Whilst AEMO does produce the Integrated System Plan, and that's a very solid piece of work as such, there's a degree of "hands tied" about doing so. AEMO's modelling what may happen and so on but doesn't have the power to "just do it" when there's some other body in the way with conflicting rules and regulations in a field where they have jurisdiction. It's those others who then become the obstacle.


----------



## sptrawler

It obviously is getting to the pointy end, when you are getting 2,800MW closure brought forward to 3 years time, IMO something appears out of whack when that isnt well co ordinated.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It obviously is getting to the pointy end, when you are getting 2,800MW closure brought forward to 3 years time, IMO something appears out of whack when that isnt well co ordinated.



A big part of the problem in the industry can be summed up by noting that two CEO's have ultimately put themselves out of a job for daring to speak the truth that the future isn't with coal.

One fell victim to the federal Coalition government, the other fell victim to a Labor state government in Queensland.

Then we've got a government that on one hand has a "gas-fired recovery" as a key economic policy and which signed an agreement with the NSW state government to boost gas production in that state while on the other hand the Prime Minister personally intervenes to stop gas drilling off the coast of NSW right where gas is most needed.

And so on.

I don't intend that as being a political comment as such, and I've mentioned both major parties, but simply an observation. Government doesn't know what it wants but is insistent that it gets what it wants. Read that sentence a few times.....   

End result is the industry has largely decided that the best approach is to keep the politicians out of the loop until the last possible moment. That's hard to do when it comes to building anything new but it's dead easy so far as closing existing facilities is concerned.

Hence Origin's simply followed the law to the letter. Law says 3.5 years notice of closure so they've given 3.5 years notice of closure. Done.

From a company perspective that's entirely rational, it stifles any debate and politics around it, but from a planning perspective it's a terrible way to do it from the perspective of building replacement capacity and of course things like the impact on the workforce and so on.


----------



## SirRumpole

Well, to me the question comes down to "did we (the States & Federal gov'ts) make a mistake privatising the electricity industry ?

And again, to me the answer is undoubtedly yes.

Fine, let them build renewable plants to supplement supply, but when it comes to baseload (I presume that term is still relevant, but maybe it's not) , then these assets should be in the hands of State governments who will/should make adequate plans for their replacement when the time comes, instead of just disposal without regard to continuity of supply.

This is an essential service, not a MacDonalds chain, we can do without burgers but not power.

A great example of governments hiving off responsibilities, but it will backfire in the end because voters always blame the government anyway.


----------



## sptrawler

Spot on @SirRumpole and a great example of where essential services shouldn't be given to "for profit" owners, some things should be State owned and overseen by a Federal body electrical is a great example.
The States know how they want the State to develop and have a State planning authority, so know when and where demand is going to increase.
But when they are interconnected to other states, system security and the overseeing of the grid becomes an issue.
South Australia is a good example of the requirement for the overseeing function, as from memory they got way ahead of themselves with the renewables and if they didn't have the luxury of an interstate tie could have ended up in all sorts of trouble.

It all does highlight the requirement for a body like the AEMO being given the teeth to demand that each sector toe the line, the problem with that is you can't tell private operators how and when to run their plant or close down their plant without compensating them, they are there to make money not to provide a social service.

As you say some things should always stay in public ownership, electricity, water and IMO telecommunications eg Telstra.
As time and technology moves on, the role of telecommunications is becoming more and more an essential service, as we the public become more and more dependent on it. 
If you and I can see it, why the hell can't governments, is it because they think privates do it better, or they want to be able to hand on the responsibility? or want to be able to enjoy the short term sugar hit of the free cash flow to stay in office? We will probably never know.


----------



## Sean K

SirRumpole said:


> Well, to me the question comes down to "did we (the States & Federal gov'ts) make a mistake privatising the electricity industry ?
> 
> And again, to me the answer is undoubtedly yes.
> 
> Fine, let them build renewable plants to supplement supply, but when it comes to baseload (I presume that term is still relevant, but maybe it's not) , then these assets should be in the hands of State governments who will/should make adequate plans for their replacement when the time comes, instead of just disposal without regard to continuity of supply.
> 
> This is an essential service, not a MacDonalds chain, we can do without burgers but not power.
> 
> A great example of governments hiving off responsibilities, but it will backfire in the end because voters always blame the government anyway.




I'd even raise it to a Federal responsibility as the States should all be linked and able to cover each other in emergency, which they currently do, but some States have dropped the ball. So, Federally owned and operated and with the NEM and AEMO coordinating it. It's too vital a national asset, much like water.


----------



## sptrawler

Sean K said:


> I'd even raise it to a Federal responsibility as the States should all be linked and able to cover each other in emergency, which they currently do, but some States have dropped the ball. So, Federally owned and operated and with the NEM and AEMO coordinating it. It's too vital a national asset, much like water.



I personally think that eventually when at call generation is only a support role, for the out of the norm weather events, it will become Federally owned, there wont be enough money to be made for private enterprise to be interested.

That has already become obvious, when the Federal Government a couple of years ago, asked for expressions of interest to build and own 1,000MW of new at call generation, no company presented a proposal and is the reason Kurri Kurri is being built by Snowy.
There no doubt will be more at call generation, strategically positioned through the network, as things move on.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> did we (the States & Federal gov'ts) make a mistake privatising the electricity industry ?



A look at the past is perhaps somewhat revealing as to that question. A rather long post here   but to answer the question of how we got to where we are:

Going right back to the start, notable points (referring to the Australian context only) both technical and organisational all ultimately lead to where we are now. This is by no means a comprehensive list, it's just whatever was the first or largest at the time and is thus of note:

1888 - First distributed electricity supply in Australia at Tamworth NSW. This was by no means the first use of electricity as such, but it was the first attempt to build a public supply from a centralised source. It was an extremely limited DC system but still, it was distributed electricity.

1895 - Launceston City Council commences public electricity supply from the Duck Reach hydro station. Notable as being the first "no questions asked" supply to anyone who wanted it, for any purpose, with charging based on metered consumption. Prior to that, in most places charges were typically based on the number of lights installed or the capacity of motors.

~

By the 1910's electricity was in somewhat common use in city CBD's and selected industries but mostly took the form of small generating facilities, owned either privately or by local government, supplying their immediate surrounds and without connection to anywhere else. Melbourne alone had by some estimates over 100 separate companies at one point, each with their own tiny systems supplying a few streets with power generated from a steam engine.

That approach of small fragmented systems is inefficient both technically and economically, indeed it goes against the very principles underlying the existence of an electricity grid in the first place.

1910 - The privately owned Hydro-Electric Power and Metallurgical Company proposes the building of a then significant hydro station and transmission line in Tasmania and commenced construction.

1911 - The privately owned Victorian Hydro-Electric Company formed with a view to developing hydro generation, transmission and bulk supply in Victoria. The company commenced site surveys etc but no actual construction took place.

1913 - The WA state government proposed a centralised power supply for Perth and commenced construction of the East Perth power station.

1914 - The Mt Lyell Mining & Railway Company, Tasmania, opens the then significant Lake Margaret power station to supply its mine, smelter and the general public of Queenstown. Noting this was the tenth largest company in Australia by capitalisation at the time - for perspective the equivalent company today in purely financial terms is Telstra.

1914 - The privately owned HEPMCo runs out of money with the Tasmanian state government deciding to take over power supply via formation of the Hydro-Electric Department, acquisition of the partly built hydro scheme, and compulsory acquisition of most privately owned electrical undertakings in the state with the notable exceptions of Launceston and Mt Lyell. Of note is the Australian Government issued dire warnings at the time regarding financial risks, the uncertain future use of electricity and so on and opposed the state's actions quite strongly.

May 1916 - The HED opens Waddamana A power station with 2 x 3.5 MW generators and 88kV transmission to Hobart. This marks the beginning of the grid as such in Australia with the first transmission line in operation.

December 1916 - East Perth power station opens with 1 x 4 MW generator, two more being added in 1917.

1918 - Victoria establishes the State Electricity Commission, being the third state government to enter the electricity industry. In doing so the still in existence Victorian Hydro-Electric Company is, for practical purposes, left with nowhere to go having not built anything in its thus far 7 years of existence and with government now taking over the industry.

1919 - Interconnection of the HED and LCC power systems in Tasmania via a new transmission line, creating the first Australian system comprising more than one physically separate generating station. Installation of new 6 MW machine at Waddamana power station.

1922 - New 7.5 MW machine installed at East Perth power station WA.

Tasmania now has 3 power stations in its grid with connection of the pre-existing steam plant at Devonport to the system. Waddamana's capacity is now 49 MW.

1923 - Victorian SEC opens 2 x 15 MW Newport B power station (Newport A being owned by the Victorian Railways for traction supply).

1924 - Yallourn A station opens with 4 x 12.5 MW and transmission to Melbourne. Victoria now has a transmission system and multiple generating sources in operation.

1926 - Municipal Council of Sydney opens Bunnerong A power station using 25 MW units, of which 7 were ultimately installed.

1931 - WA government proposes privatisation of the industry. The plan was abandoned due to lack of a buyer.

1938 - State Electricity Commission of Queensland created but others, notably Brisbane City Council and the privately owned City Electric Light, retain physical assets. SECQ does however force BCC and CEL to work as, effectively, a single entity with physical interconnection of systems implemented by 1940.

1939 - Municipal Council of Sydney opens Bunnerong B using 50 MW units of which 4 were ultimately installed. This was the largest generating unit in the world at the time.

There remained the limit for quite some time, 50 MW machines. That was a global situation with the constraint being down to physical factors not economics or the need for electricity. That resulted in a situation immediately after WW2 of rather a lot of 50 MW units being installed.

1946 - NSW and SA state governments both enter the electricity industry. SA acquires privately owned assets by force (compulsory acquisition).

1955 - First output from the Snowy scheme fed into NSW system.

1959 - NSW and Victoria systems physically interconnected.

Up to that point I think it's fair to say that government ownership had very clearly worked and had beaten private ownership so far as getting it done is concerned. The above list being only the "firsts" or other key points, there's an awful lot left out for simplicity (eg by 1960 Tasmania had 12 stations on the grid, 3 more under construction and another 10 at various stages of investigation and design to be built when required, other states same approach).

Then things started to change and the reasons have a lot to do with technology. Specifically, that generating plant suddenly became a lot bigger as the physical constraints were overcome. In the 1950's 50MW machines were still par for the course globally. Then....

1961 - 2 x 60 MW at Wallerawang B (NSW)

1961 - 2 x 100 MW at Tallawarra B (NSW)

1962 - 2 x 120 MW at Yallourn E (Victoria)

1963 - 2 x 200 MW at Vales Point A (NSW) with another added in 1964.

1966 - 1 x 275 MW at Vales Point A (NSW)

1967 - 350 MW at Munmorah (NSW) with 4 machines ultimately installed

1971 - 500 MW at Liddell (NSW) with 4 machines ultimately installed

1979 - 2 x 660 MW at Vales Point B (NSW)

In the space of less than 20 years the size of individual generating units had gone from 50 MW to 660 MW.

Just one of the two 660 MW units at Vales Point B could of itself generate more power than the 7 machines at Bunnerong A, plus the 4 machines at Bunnerong B, plus the 4 machines at each of Tallawarra A and Wallerawang A combined. One machine, half a power station, generates more than 19 machines at 4 complete power stations combined.

The problem there is that whilst they were officially electricity supply authorities, to considerable extent, especially in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania, they were better described as power station construction authorities in practice. They built power stations first and foremost, supplying electricity was just a way to make use of them.

That is a key distinction and lead directly to where we are today. NSW is the starkest example so it's the one I'll use but to be clear, the problem was not limited to that state.

The increase in size of generating units had lead by the late 1960's to a situation where installed generating plant was growing more quickly than demand, overcoming the historic problem of authorities struggling to build new plant quickly enough to cope with steadily rising consumption.

At first this wasn't a huge problem due to the existence of rather a lot of now work out and technologically outdated plant from the early days of the industry which nobody would argue against closing, indeed the problem had been with trying to keep it operational. Likewise with the Snowy scheme nearing completion, intentionally under-utilising it and allowing the reservoirs to fill was likewise a sensible, logical use of any surplus power that happened to be available. Put those two together and whilst an apparent surplus of supply was emerging, it was easily put to good use.

That approach continued through to the mid-1970's by which time obsolete plant had been shut and water storages were at good levels. That was the point where new construction needed to slow in order to be matched with future demand growth and initially it did just that, new construction did indeed slow down.

But then came the slowdown in demand growth circa 1980, thus rationally requiring that new construction slow to a crawl, in doing so bringing to an end the notion of being a power station construction authority since there simply wasn't a need to keep building overly much.

Instead well Eraring was commissioned in 1984, Bayswater in 1985-86 and finally Mt Piper was half built (2 units instead of 4) in 1993. Between them they added 6600 MW or 61% to NSW's peak generating capacity which far exceeded growth in demand at the time.

What happened next is what brings us to where are today:

3060 MW of plant was prematurely closed, equivalent to the entire Bayswater power station plus half of Mt Piper. That consisted of 2865 MW of coal plant less than 30 years old at the time, indeed most was closer to 20 years old and still effectively "new" at the time. It also included 195 MW of gas turbines that really were new, having barely been run since installation.

This occurred against a backdrop of frequent industrial action leading to restrictions and blackouts in Victoria and Queensland over the preceding years, major controversy over proposed new hydro development in Tasmania and the first ever "real terms" increase in the price of electricity to consumers in several states.

That situation taken as a whole lead to a fairly widespread perception that the industry was inefficient, poorly managed and otherwise needed "reforming". This perception coming about at a time when Australia had an extremely reformist government under Hawke as PM and Keating as Treasurer and later PM. Noting that Keating was ultimately instrumental in the emergence of the National Electricity Market.

The final nail in the coffin came circa 1990 when several states, most notably Victoria and SA, found themselves in great financial difficulty. This came at a time when the Australian Government was pursuing privatisation of assets and overseas governments were doing likewise.

And so Victoria privatised first during the mid-1990's and applied very serious pressure on other states to follow, South Australia doing so some years later. NSW privatised more recently.

Qld, Tas, NT and WA didn't privatise but they do have some degree of privately owned assets in the industry, they're not state-owned monopolies.

The other manner in which that history leads to where we are today is with so much capacity having been built at the same time, it's now all reaching end of life at the same time. Rather than NSW having had to gradually replace plant built in the 1950's and 60's in the 2000's and 2010's, it instead has a massive lump of capacity built 1979 - 86 all reaching end of life at about the same time.

Looking at all that, my basic observation is that government owned authorities are extremely good at coming up with a comprehensive plan on what needs to be done. That is their strong point. They're also extremely good at working out what to run and when to run it, it generally does beat the private sector on that one from my observations.

What they're not good at is making themselves redundant. Without the financial discipline of the private sector, there's a definite tendency to keep going with things that really don't need keeping going. That is, keeping building when there's nothing more that needs to be built. The private sector wins with that one easily.

Putting all that together, well I'll argue that neither is perfect, both can run off the rails, but that a combined approach might just be the best way forward.

Government as planner of what's built and day to day dispatch.

Private ownership that'll put the brakes on if there's no need to spend the capital.

With the right design of market that could probably be done.


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> What they're not good at is making themselves redundant. Without the financial discipline of the private sector, there's a definite tendency to keep going with things that really don't need keeping going. That is, keeping building when there's nothing more that needs to be built. The private sector wins with that one easily.



Adding to that is that this isn't an immediate problem however.

Let the technical people loose and it'll be 20+ years before there's any risk they go too far, until then they'll just be sorting it all out and catching up.

So if the choice is the old way or the present way then, whilst the old way did become a bit of a runaway situation toward the end with overly enthusiastic construction, for the medium term at least that's not a risk, there's a lot needing to be built and the risk is very firmly on the side of not building enough rather than of building too much.

Medium term the risk is far higher that the lights go out than that there's any major excess of supply actually built. And of course there's no certainty that a central authority would repeat the same mistakes given it wouldn't likely have to deal with an unforeseen slowdown in consumption a second time around.


----------



## sptrawler

Sounds as though Origin has had some talks, with a government, which one who knows.
The good thing is the problem will have been brought to a head and some clarity as to how dire the situation is, would have been exposed.








						Energy Minister tells Origin to ‘keep to its word’ on 2025 coal exit review
					

The energy company that shocked Angus Taylor with its coal closure announcement has been put on notice over a key price promise.




					www.theage.com.au
				



From the article:
Origin Energy has committed to delaying the closure of Australia’s largest coal-burning power station if the grid is not equipped for its early exit in 2025, prompting Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor to warn the company must honour its promise and put customers first.
The electricity and gas giant this week gave notice of its intention to retire the 2880-megawatt Eraring generator at Lake Macquarie in NSW up to seven years earlier than its scheduled exit in 2032 as the roll-out of cheaper wind and solar power hammered the plant’s economic viability.


----------



## sptrawler

Renewables production on the World stage and the difficulties due to China's dominance in manufacturing.








						China’s renewables boom year poses major challenges to western markets
					

Balancing reliance on China’s technology providers with local interests is now a key political as well as environmental challenge, says Wood Mackenzie.




					www.mining.com
				




Whitworth said: “For China, the energy transition is a golden opportunity to develop key industries and technologies while improving its green credentials. Accelerating efforts to tackle its own emissions while supporting global decarbonisation sounds like an irresistible proposition. 

“For the western economies, responses are more wide-ranging – tariffs, local content policies, tax breaks, collaboration, technical innovation, etc.  Competition from all sides is intense, which should bring benefits to the trajectory of global decarbonisation.


----------



## mullokintyre

I wrote about the potential takeover of AGL by Mike Cannon-Brooks on the AGL thread, so won't repeat it here.
But his stated desire to decarbonise  AGL more quickly does not bode well for  the coal driven generators at Loy Yang in Victoria, or the Macquarrie plant in NSW.
Not sure how he sees the Gas side of AGL, both as a producer and a retailer , but I can't imagine it will be good for those wanting gas, seeing as it is a fossil fuel and does produce CO2 etc, and he wants to decarbonise.
Its interesting that no one seems to think it a bit sus that those who have renewables (including AGL) are keen for their fossil fuel competitors to be taken out of the market, but will they be able to set the price higher?
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

Good pick up Mick, I only picked up on this on ASF.
Yes a very timely exercise by the greens, Scomo should wedge them with an O.K as long as you guarantee continuity of supply to 2050, and put up $x as assurance, with the ability for consumers to recover compensation for loses attributed.
It's o.k making glib offers, but when everyone is sitting in houses with the food going off, the toilet not flushing and the aircon not working.
They wont blame  Mike Cannon-Brooks, they will blame the Government for allowing it to happen, this is the problem with giving virtue signalers air.IMO
Also a timely reminder of what @Smurf1976 and I have been saying for years, get the politics out of the electrical system. If it is stuffed up, it will cause more deaths than any covid, just imagine going for extended periods without a reliable electrical supply, it really doesn't bear thing about. It would be catastrophic IMO 
Just imagine all the skid mount diesel generators outside the KFC and Maccas outlets, the pollution would be worse than Kuta on its worst day. 🤪


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> But his stated desire to decarbonise AGL more quickly does not bode well for the coal driven generators at Loy Yang in Victoria, or the Macquarrie plant in NSW.



I posted some comment in the AGL thread but in short, if anyone tries to shut Loy Yang then I'll speculate that the likely outcome is compulsory acquisition by government.

As a concept, compulsory acquisition isn't without precedent in the energy industry - Victoria, SA, Tas, NSW and Qld have all done it in the past and it came down either to voluntary sale by the then owners, no sale but an agreement to work co-operatively with the state, or actual forced sale where the owners didn't want to sell with examples of all three.

The reason is simply that from a purely engineering perspective, so ignoring all issues of finances, politics, business and the environment, there's no identified means to run the Victorian section of the grid in a secure state without at least two units on at Loy Yang at all times and even that requires quite a few other very specific generating units to be on. Running with more LY units on is far easier.

That's the outcome of proper engineering work, it's not a political or financial decision.

Of the six units at Loy Yang, in two physical power stations, AGL owns 4 and Alinta owns the other 2 whilst AGL owns the mine which supplies coal to the whole lot and the conveyor system which transports it (the coal never goes onto a train or truck, it's simply dredger > conveyor > power stations).

The full detail is on pages 18 - 20 of this document:



			https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/files/electricity/nem/security_and_reliability/congestion-information/transfer-limit-advice-system-strength.pdf
		


With reference to the table on those pages:

Loy Yang A or B = coal plant owned by AGL and Alinta total 6 units

Yallourn W = 4 unit coal plant owned by Energy Australia

Newport (aka Newport D) = single unit gas-fired steam plant owned by Energy Australia

Dartmouth = single unit hydro owned by AGL

Bogong = two unit hydro owned by AGL

Murray 2 = four unit hydro owned by Snowy Hydro

Mortlake = two unit gas turbine owned by Origin Energy

Jeeralang A = four unit gas turbine owned by Energy Australia. Jeeralang B, right next to it, has three units.

Valley Power = six unit gas turbines owned by Snowy Hydro and physically located at the Loy Yang site despite the separate ownership.


----------



## basilio

Having a reliable electricity supply to Australian industry and the community is  non negotiable. As Smurf points out currently Victoria has to have a significant number of Loy Yang power stations in operation to ensure the power supply.

If Michael Cannon-Brooks and his partner takes over AGL they still have the same responsibility and liability for providing sufficient power. The question will be what steps do they take to accelerate renewable energy power sources and associated back up options if they intend to speed up the closure of coal fired  power.

The economics of coal fired power stations are now falling behind renewables. This will be one of the overriding business reasons for closing them down. The renewable power industry has shown how quickly wind solar and back up  power can be developed. Perhaps it will be AMEO that sets out the requirements for a safe power supply ?


----------



## Humid

He should be putting cars in space and playing with rockets like the rest of the billionaires


----------



## Investoradam

SirRumpole said:


> Congratulations on being off grid. Do you ever need to use say a petrol generator, or is it all solar and batteries ?



The pixy fairies appear from the trees when the power runs out and sprinkle some of there magic fairy dust over the solar panels to provide enough power until the sunshines again


----------



## Investoradam

sptrawler said:


> Renewables production on the World stage and the difficulties due to China's dominance in manufacturing.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> China’s renewables boom year poses major challenges to western markets
> 
> 
> Balancing reliance on China’s technology providers with local interests is now a key political as well as environmental challenge, says Wood Mackenzie.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.mining.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Whitworth said: “For China, the energy transition is a golden opportunity to develop key industries and technologies while improving its green credentials. Accelerating efforts to tackle its own emissions while supporting global decarbonisation sounds like an irresistible proposition.
> 
> “For the western economies, responses are more wide-ranging – tariffs, local content policies, tax breaks, collaboration, technical innovation, etc.  Competition from all sides is intense, which should bring benefits to the trajectory of global decarbonisation.
> 
> View attachment 137842



Is that why the demand and price for coal is at near record highs?


----------



## sptrawler

Investoradam said:


> Is that why the demand and price for coal is at near record highs?



If you read the article, it is more about China's dominance in manufacturing, than fuel.


----------



## Humid

Investoradam said:


> The pixy fairies appear from the trees when the power runs out and sprinkle some of there magic fairy dust over the solar panels to provide enough power until the sunshines again



You only need a fridge to keep the VBs cold hey Adsy


----------



## Smurf1976

For the record, with all the talk about Eraring power station over the past few days, it was the cause of some drama in NSW yesterday with unit 2 tripping from 649 MW (almost full output) at 3pm NSW time. 

The lights stayed on but it caused a bit of excitement.


----------



## Investoradam

sptrawler said:


> If you read the article, it is more about China's dominance in manufacturing, than fuel.



What powers all that


----------



## Investoradam

The largest lithium-ion battery in the world experienced a meltdown over the weekend, its second in five months. 
An energy storage facility owned by Vistra Energy in Moss Landing, California, triggered fire alarms on the evening of Feb. 13. Four fire trucks responded to the event and found around ten battery packs in the facility melted entirely, according to local broadcaster KSBW. 









						The Largest Lithium-Ion Battery in the World Keeps Melting
					

Ten battery packs melted in an energy storage facility in California, the second meltdown in five months.




					www.vice.com


----------



## sptrawler

Investoradam said:


> What powers all that



_Most of the electricity in China comes from *coal*, which accounted for 65% of the electricity generation mix in 2019. However, electricity generation by renewables has been increasing steadily, from 615,005 GWh (17.66% of total) in 2008 to 2,082,800 GWh (27.32% of total) in 2020_.


Why do you ask?


----------



## Investoradam

sptrawler said:


> _Most of the electricity in China comes from *coal*, which accounted for 65% of the electricity generation mix in 2019. However, electricity generation by renewables has been increasing steadily, from 615,005 GWh (17.66% of total) in 2008 to 2,082,800 GWh (27.32% of total) in 2020_.
> 
> 
> Why do you ask?



And how did it fair during last year when China slowed the coal down?
People froze and factories shut down


----------



## Investoradam

Humid said:


> You only need a fridge to keep the VBs cold hey Adsy



Nah the hipsters drink that bath water now days I’m sure if you brought some of that organic alcohol free beer they won’t laugh at you


----------



## sptrawler

Investoradam said:


> And how did it fair during last year when China slowed the coal down?
> People froze and factories shut down



That's right.


----------



## SirRumpole

The penny seems to have dropped...​​Coal-fired power in Australia could be over within 10 years concedes lobbyist Ian Macfarlane​








						Coal-fired power could be over 'within the decade' concedes lobbyist Ian Macfarlane
					

Just a few years ago he argued for more coal-fired power stations to be built on the east coast, but former Coalition cabinet minister Ian Macfarlane now says there could be none left within 10 years.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> The penny seems to have dropped...​​Coal-fired power in Australia could be over within 10 years concedes lobbyist Ian Macfarlane​
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Coal-fired power could be over 'within the decade' concedes lobbyist Ian Macfarlane
> 
> 
> Just a few years ago he argued for more coal-fired power stations to be built on the east coast, but former Coalition cabinet minister Ian Macfarlane now says there could be none left within 10 years.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Well we have been saying it will happen a lot faster than people think, as we keep saying over and over, coal fired steam plant can't survive being operated in this renewable climate, it just kills the plant.
The thing is obviously the  owner operators are starting to tell the politicians, this needs sorting, even Victoria who talk a lot and do little seem to have had the penny drop.
The real issue is commitment to long duration storage, but this process is like pulling teeth, the States don't want to spend the money but want to just keep pulling in the revenue.
This will come to a head in the next couple of years IMO, each State is going to have to commit to some pumped hydro, or at call gas installations. The EU is showing just how useless the narrative they have been pumping is, they are in more $hit than Ned Kelly if Putin turns off the gas and they know it.
Leading the World with clean energy, while shutting down nuclear and ramping up gas consumption. Like how can the gas be better than the nuclear?
Victoria places bet on offshore wind​Premier Dan Andrews is planning to develop a huge offshore wind industry as it seeks new sources to replace ageing coal.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> This will come to a head in the next couple of years IMO, each State is going to have to commit to some pumped hydro, or at call gas installations. The EU is showing just how useless the narrative they have been pumping is, they are in more $hit than Ned Kelly if Putin turns off the gas and they know it.



I suspect something that'll shake most planning to the core is afoot and there's no going back now, just that most haven't realised it yet.

Gas.

I expect you know the history with oil pretty well but for those who don't, the short version:

1958 - Cheap and abundant Middle East oil flooded the world market, finally ending post-war fuel shortages globally. Even if some place was still short on coal, no problem since now oil was cheap and plentiful.

Early 1960's onwards - New oil-fired power stations started to be built first for peak load but in due course even for base load. In some places, WA was one, even existing coal-fired plants were converted to oil since it was now cheaper to use that than to use coal. Meanwhile industries ditched coal boilers in favour of oil, homes and offices switched heating to oil and so on. Coal was pretty close to dead by the late 1960's, being viable only for the largest scale uses in places where it could be mined more cheaply than most.

October 1973 - The Oil Embargo cut oil supplies from the Middle East and the price tripled almost literally overnight. Physical shortages emerged with products, including petrol, simply not available to consumers at _any_ price.

From that came the entire concept that energy was something to pay attention to. Prior to that most governments had no such thing as a Ministerial position that specifically referenced energy, business and consumers saw it as no more an issue than the supply of any other random item and so on. Until all of a sudden it had the attention of Presidents and Prime Ministers around the world and was seen as a crisis.

Now about those oil-fired power stations most of which were still virtually brand new or even under construction. Some were ultimately converted to coal or gas at huge expense and, in the case of coal, usually with significant technical and logistical shortcomings though it beat paying for oil. Others went with more exotic niche ideas such as CWF (coal water fuel, a black oil-like liquid made by mixing extremely finely ground coal particles with water) or Orimulsion (a proprietary emulsion of about 70% natural bitumen and water) but plenty ended up being economic millstones for the next 35 or so years until finally being closed.

Plus of course the infamous one in NZ that was built and never generated a single kilowatt prior to demolition. Pretty much the ultimate write off there.

Now back to 2022 and my point about oil is that we're now in an extremely similar situation with gas.

The LNG price was soaring well before Russia started moving troops around but has now gone through the roof, it's simply cost prohibitive at this point using gas at international market prices to generate electricity. Just like what happened with oil 48 years ago.

Now for the EU to ditch Russian gas imports via pipeline requires a one third increase in total worldwide LNG consumption. A one third increase of something that's already in short supply!

Now I could add that Russia itself accounts for 8% of world LNG production. LNG as distinct from gas supplied by pipelines.

Russia has 23% of the world's proven gas reserves. And the second biggest reserve holder? Well that would be Iran. Add in all the other former USSR countries and the Middle East and that's the bulk of the world's known gas reserves.

Ahh....

Australia's got a bit under 1.6% for the record and most of that's already sold for export.  

So I don't think it has really sunk in for most yet but in my view we're now in a new era. An era where history doesn't repeat but it rhymes - in the same way nobody wanted anything to do with oil-fired generation after 1973, they're not going to want anything to do with LNG going forward either. At least not unless they've got seriously deep pockets financially.

LNG being relevant because importing LNG is the proposed means of supplying gas to south-eastern Australia with works having commenced for the Port Kembla (NSW) terminal and others planned for Newcastle, Geelong, Avalon (near Geelong) and Adelaide.

Now I've no doubt not everyone will agree but to the extent I end up being right, well that would leave more than a few corporate and government plans in tatters if gas costs an outright fortune.


----------



## SirRumpole

So we have or will have an abundance of coal that we can't sell, and a shortage of oil that we can't buy.

Thinks...

Ah ha !!





__





						Coal liquefaction - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## The Triangle




----------



## sptrawler

The Triangle said:


>




It just gives Europe the perfect reason to change over to renewables, they are cheaper per MW, they are cleaner, they just need to do it. 🤣
I mean really they are shutting down nuclear, they want to get rid of dirty gas, what better excuse?
It must be the Governments don't want to, same as in Australia, they know it is cheaper to put in wind and solar why not just do it? 🤣


----------



## Smurf1976

The Triangle said:


>




The big problem with all this is the tendency of many to focus on single issues, usually climate change.

Yep, CO2 emissions are an issue no argument there.

CH4 isn't too good for the environment either but that often conflicts with CO2.

War's pretty damn nasty too.

So is having the lights go our or the poorer half shivering in the dark.

And so on.

Point being there are many issues and what's needed is an overall workable plan. Without that, public and political support just won't be there, leading to nothing much being achieved and suffice to say that 90% of something beats having 100% of nothing.

So my argument is that yes we need to shift away from consumption of non-renewable resources and yes we need to stop altering the composition of the earth's atmosphere. Both of those ought to be obvious problems to anyone. 

At the same time however, arguing that we shouldn't drill an oil well because it might make one of Russia's existing wells obsolete really doesn't cut it. It's going to be quite some years yet before oil ceases to be relevant and in the meantime it needs to come from somewhere, preferably somewhere that isn't intent on starting wars.

Whilst most of Australia's oil doesn't come from Russia, we do have a huge exposure to countries that could fairly be described as one or more of internally unstable, politically hostile to the west, military targets themselves or they're a dictatorship. Overall that's a huge risk.


----------



## sptrawler

Finland starts its first new nuclear reactor in 40 years.









						A long-delayed nuclear reactor goes online in Finland
					

A long-delayed and costly new nuclear reactor has gone online in Finland after a wait of over 12 years




					abcnews.go.com


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Finland starts its first new nuclear reactor in 40 years.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A long-delayed nuclear reactor goes online in Finland
> 
> 
> A long-delayed and costly new nuclear reactor has gone online in Finland after a wait of over 12 years
> 
> 
> 
> 
> abcnews.go.com



If we start building one now then by 2038 if we are lucky we can run a long extension cord to our submarines which are apparently going to need nuclear power to operate.


----------



## basilio

Yet another big move in battery technology.  This time the development of sodium ion batteries that are cheaper, safer and as/more powerful than lithium ion. They can be produced  on the same production lines as Lithium Ion batteries

CATL says production will be from 2023. Another opportunity to reduce battery costs for vehicle and stationary applications.  Well worth a look IMV.


----------



## sptrawler

AGL gets green light for big battery at Liddell coal site
					

AGL has won planning approval to build a big battery that it hopes will transform the site of its Liddell coal-fired power station into a low-carbon ‘energy hub’.




					www.smh.com.au
				




Electricity giant AGL has secured planning approval to build a grid-scale battery on the site of the soon-to-be-closed Liddell coal-fired power plant in the Hunter Valley, beginning its proposed transition to a low-carbon “energy hub”.

The New South Wales government is preparing to announce on Saturday it has granted planning approval for AGL’s plans to build the grid-scale battery with a capacity of 500 megawatts and 2 gigawatt hours, making it more than three times the initial size of the “Tesla Big Battery” famously built by Elon Musk in South Australia in 2017.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> AGL’s plans to build the grid-scale battery with a capacity of 500 megawatts and 2 gigawatt hours



Putting that into perspective, NSW peak demand is a bit over 15,000 MW and average load is 8200 MW.

The 4 generating units at Liddell were originally 500 MW each, presently de-rated to 420 MW, whilst the largest individual units in the state are 720 MW each at Eraring.

So the battery is definitely significant in capacity yes.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Putting that into perspective, NSW peak demand is a bit over 15,000 MW and average load is 8200 MW.
> 
> The 4 generating units at Liddell were originally 500 MW each, presently de-rated to 420 MW, whilst the largest individual units in the state are 720 MW each at Eraring.
> 
> So the battery is definitely significant in capacity yes.



The thing I like, is they are utilising the existing asset, so many of these obsolete power stations, just become a remote switchyards.
It indicates to me that they are accepting the reality and using the cash flow, to adapt into what will be the new grid structure.
So we now have a commitment to a serious size battery at the Liddell site, add to that the in principal agreement with Twiggy for green hydrogen generation at the site, it is starting to look like a plan to me. 
I'm comfortable with my first buy into the power industry at $6.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The thing I like, is they are utilising the existing asset, so many of these obsolete power stations, just become a remote switchyards.



FWIW AGL also installing a battery at Torrens Island power station in SA with the battery already under construction physically and they've got plans to put one at the Loy Yang power station in Victoria as well. 

Origin looking to put one in at Eraring power station in NSW and Energy Australia planning to put one at Jeeralang power station in Victoria and in that case the power station will remain operational.

Another is the Wallerawang 9 battery in NSW proposed by a separate company but it's so named since it's at the same site as the former Wallerawang power stations which between them had 8 units, hence this is number 9 albeit different owners etc.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Putting that into perspective, NSW peak demand is a bit over 15,000 MW and average load is 8200 MW.
> 
> The 4 generating units at Liddell were originally 500 MW each, presently de-rated to 420 MW, whilst the largest individual units in the state are 720 MW each at Eraring.
> 
> So the battery is definitely significant in capacity yes.




Replacement of generating capacity with storage capacity.

Any problems there ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Replacement of generating capacity with storage capacity.
> 
> Any problems there ?



Short answer is it depends.

As a source of power to meet peak load batteries are just fine.

They do however rely on being able to charge each and every day and the ability to do that requires that the sum total of fossil fuel + hydro + wind and solar can generate sufficient electrical energy (as distinct from peak power) over the course of the day to supply consumption.

That's what it comes down to and it's about worst performance there not average. That is, what's the worst short term output scenario for wind + solar (driven by weather) and fossil fuels + hydro (driven by plant outages) and can that supply enough energy to at least match consumption? If not then the outcome is the batteries end up flat.

Short term no problem but as more fossil fuel plant is progressively removed, it needs to be replaced with something that can do the job and that's where the debate starts. There's a limit to how far batteries can go and it's rather expensive to be massively overbuilding wind and solar so as to still have enough on the calmest, cloudiest day. That's where the argument about long duration hydro storage (eg Snowy 2.0) and gas turbines or other fuel burning plant comes in.

In that regard NSW has a moderate issue, since solar + wind does have "droughts" but they're relatively moderate and same goes for SA.

Qld has it relatively easy due to climate and being closer to the equator. 

Victoria and Tasmania are both prone to extremely poor wind + solar yield and high consumption occurring at the exact same time. Tasmania has the "get of out jail card" with hydro but Victoria's a much more difficult problem to solve.

12 month daily chart of solar (yellow) and wind (green) in Victoria shows the issue. It's those multiple days of very low output, such as occurred at the beginning of July last year, that is the hard one to solve in an economical manner. Whilst not impossible, the degree of wind + solar overbuild required to do it that way would cost serious $.







Versus NSW which does have its ups and downs but isn't so brutal, it's easier to solve:






Both charts are daily for the past 12 months.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Replacement of generating capacity with storage capacity.
> 
> Any problems there ?



Like I said in the post, I'm pretty sure FFI and AGL have signed a MOU, to install hydrogen production facilities at the Liddell site, also if they can generate hydrogen to run GT's and have a 500MW battery to absorb excess generation, it sounds like it may be a pretty holistic approach to a fully renewable at call facility. Time will tell.


----------



## sptrawler

If this summer on the East coast, is a sign of how the weather patterns are going to be, more hydro needs to be installed IMO. 
It could always be designed for flood mitigation, to control what we are seeing now, or for pumped storage when the weather pattern has less rain.









						Sydney to be hit by 100mm of rain in four days as bureau warns of flood fatigue
					

Rivers and water catchments across the state’s east coast have not had enough time to dry out since the recent flood emergency, says the weather bureau’s senior meteorologist.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

Oh well @Smurf1976 how long have you been saying this is a looming issue?

ACCC watching LNG exports as gas shortfall looms​The competition regulator says ‘very concerning’ estimates show a gas shortfall over the whole east coast by 2026 or 2027.


----------



## Stockbailx

*The War in Ukraine Has ‘Turbocharged’ This Sector*
*Wednesday, 23 March 2022 — Albert Park*


By *Selva Freigedo*Editor, _Money Morning_

*[3 min read]*
_In today’s Money Morning…it’s been pandemic déjà vu over there…high gas prices are making green hydrogen more attractive…there’s another factor that could bring green hydro_
*High gas prices are making green hydrogen more attractive*​Hydrogen is the most abundant and simplest element in the universe.
While hydrogen is a transparent gas, it’s denominated in different colours depending on the energy source used to process it.
So just to name a few examples, there’s black or brown hydrogen (made with coal), grey (made with natural gas), blue (made with natural gas and carbon capture), and green hydrogen (made with renewable energy such as solar and wind).
Green hydrogen is still a small percentage of the total hydrogen produced. This is because it’s been too expensive when compared to other types of hydrogen, even though renewable energy costs have come down in the last few years.
But the Ukraine war could really be a catalyst for green hydrogen after gas price rises have increased the cost of producing blue and grey hydrogen in Europe.
Here is Rystad Energy (emphasis added):
‘_*As the cost of blue and gray hydrogen surge in line with rising fossil fuel prices, the feasibility of green hydrogen as an affordable and secure source of renewable energy in Europe is growing, Rystad Energy research predicts*._
‘_Green hydrogen production was already set to take off this year globally and pass the 1-GW-milestone in 2022. However, _*the war in Ukraine has turbocharged the sector*_._* Green hydrogen’s potential win comes at the expense of its fossil fuel-linked blue and gray alternatives, whose costs have increased by over 70% since the start of the war in Ukraine, rising from about $8/kg to$12/kg in a matter of days.*_ The EU has announced plans for a €300 million funding package for hydrogen as well as the Hydrogen Accelerator initiative from REPowerEU aiming at reducing the region’s dependence on Russian gas with a further wave of support packages for green hydrogen specifically likely to emerge. Individual member states have also accelerated their domestic plans. _*Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the economics of green hydrogen have become increasingly attractive with lower production costs of US$4/kg (particularly in the Iberian Peninsula) compared to US$14/kg for blue and US$12/kg for gray in other part of Europe.*’
*There’s another factor that could bring green hydrogen costs down…*​You see, two things influence the price of green hydrogen. One is the cost of electricity. The other is the electrolyser, the system that uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
There’s been a global effort to bring costs of electrolysers down and increase efficiency.
And last week, an Australian start-up named Hysata claimed they’ve made a huge breakthrough in this sector.
Hysata said they’ve developed a new ultra-high efficiency electrolyser that will allow them to produce hydrogen at a production cost of well below $2 a kilogram.
Hysata’s CEO, Paul Barrett, said the company is on a ‘_clear pathway to commercialise the world’s most efficient electrolyser and reach gigawatt scale hydrogen production capacity by 2025._’
He also said:
‘_Our technology will enable hydrogen production of below US$1.50/kg per kilogram by the mid-2020s, meeting Australian and global cost targets much earlier than generally expected. This is critical to making green hydrogen commercially viable and decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors._’
We’ll see how they go.
But with the economics improving for green hydrogen, we could see more investment pour into this sector.
Looking at exciting opportunities in the energy transition such as green hydrogen is what my colleague James Allen and I do at _New Energy Investor_. To find out more about our service, you can click here.


----------



## Humid

I'll put this here ....











						Five years on, Snowy 2.0 emerges as a $10 billion white elephant
					

There is no cause for celebration with this birthday. Snowy 2.0, having blown out to $10 billion-plus from the original $2 billion estimate, will be a burden on taxpayers, cost households more in electricity charges and damage the Kosciuszko National Park.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## Humid

$8000 000 000.00 over estimates and counting


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> I'll put this here ....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Five years on, Snowy 2.0 emerges as a $10 billion white elephant
> 
> 
> There is no cause for celebration with this birthday. Snowy 2.0, having blown out to $10 billion-plus from the original $2 billion estimate, will be a burden on taxpayers, cost households more in electricity charges and damage the Kosciuszko National Park.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au






Humid said:


> $8000 000 000.00 over estimates and counting



Oh well, Albo will be able to cancel it, they are still on the earthworks, same as Kurri Kurri is a white elephant and Albo was canning that when it was first announced. So Albo just cancels both projects and we save probably $7b, we can look forward to the announcement, on the run up to the election.
People painting themselves into corners, isn't a good look.
The Kalgoorlie water pipe was a white elephant, the dude who designed it necked himself.
The Karratha to Perth LNG pipe, was a white elephant, Court had to sign contracts for gas they couldn't even use and had to convert a  power station to run on gas .
The only great projects are those that Labor do , yes we know already Humid.
Obviously costs are going to blow out, they are paying people the money your on mate, what major contract wouldn't blow out. 

Actually it is funny, I bet the original Snowy scheme was criticised, now both parties are trying to claim ownership of the original idea.  🤣









						Is the Snowy Mountains Scheme the achievement of the Coalition or Labor?
					

Energy Minister Angus Taylor and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese have engaged in a back an forth over which party can claim credit for the original Snowy Mountains Scheme. RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.




					www.abc.net.au
				



The 70th anniversary of the Snowy Mountains Scheme prompted a debate recently in Parliament over which side of politics was responsible for the project — the biggest engineering feat in Australia's history.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor gave credit for the scheme to the Liberal Party.

"_t is important to note that the Snowy Scheme is just another incredible achievement of Liberal government," he said during Question Time in the House of Representatives.

But Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese interjected, dismissing the claim.

"Ben Chifley was no Tory," he said, referring to former prime minister Joseph Benedict Chifley. "Your lot opposed it."_
The verdict​Claims that one or other political party alone deserves credit for the Snowy Mountains Scheme are exaggerated.

The complex, nation-building project materialised after numerous reports, years of discussion and decades of construction.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I bet the original Snowy scheme was criticised



At the time it was actually the Victorian SECV, and indirectly Tasmania, that gave the big push to get it built in its as built form.

Various agricultural interests and their political representatives were for obvious reasons interested in water diversion and irrigation. Likewise the SA state government was of course keen on anything that put more water into the Murray. Trouble is, as a purely agricultural scheme it didn't stack up financially.

The NSW electricity authority had relatively little interest in it, seeing it useful only in terms of base load generation as a direct alternative to coal.

Victoria however had a bigger vision and a bigger problem. The vision was manufacturing industry and overall electrification. The problems were that brown coal is particularly problematic for peak load generation with the other problem being that Tasmania was consistently undercutting Victoria on price, having become the "natural" location for energy-intensive industry by that point.

The Snowy as built promised to fix both problems for Victoria and thus they became a champion of it, ultimately convincing the federal government and NSW on the virtues of hydro power.

The actual design changed after construction by the way. Originally it was to be essentially two separate schemes in no way hydraulically interconnected. The final as-built design wasn't adopted until construction was underway, being driven largely by agricultural interests given the as-built design enables the same water to be sent out either end.

It has never been finished by the way. Some further proposed works were deleted from the plans about 1966 and never built. 

As another bit of trivia, Guthega power station, the first to enter service in 1955, was intended to be 3 x 30MW and all three machines were ordered and the power station built to accommodate them. In practice however one was sold to Tasmania and installed at Lake Echo power station where it remains in service today. A replacement was never ordered or installed at Guthega, and the thought of doing so was also abandoned in 1966.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Oh well, Albo will be able to cancel it, they are still on the earthworks, same as Kurri Kurri is a white elephant and Albo was canning that when it was first announced. So Albo just cancels both projects and we save probably $7b, we can look forward to the announcement, on the run up to the election.
> People painting themselves into corners, isn't a good look.
> The Kalgoorlie water pipe was a white elephant, the dude who designed it necked himself.
> The Karratha to Perth LNG pipe, was a white elephant, Court had to sign contracts for gas they couldn't even use and had to convert a  power station to run on gas .
> The only great projects are those that Labor do , yes we know already Humid.
> Obviously costs are going to blow out, they are paying people the money your on mate, what major contract wouldn't blow out.
> 
> Actually it is funny, I bet the original Snowy scheme was criticised, now both parties are trying to claim ownership of the original idea.  🤣
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Is the Snowy Mountains Scheme the achievement of the Coalition or Labor?
> 
> 
> Energy Minister Angus Taylor and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese have engaged in a back an forth over which party can claim credit for the original Snowy Mountains Scheme. RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The 70th anniversary of the Snowy Mountains Scheme prompted a debate recently in Parliament over which side of politics was responsible for the project — the biggest engineering feat in Australia's history.
> 
> Energy Minister Angus Taylor gave credit for the scheme to the Liberal Party.
> 
> "_t is important to note that the Snowy Scheme is just another incredible achievement of Liberal government," he said during Question Time in the House of Representatives.
> 
> But Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese interjected, dismissing the claim.
> 
> "Ben Chifley was no Tory," he said, referring to former prime minister Joseph Benedict Chifley. "Your lot opposed it."_
> The verdict​Claims that one or other political party alone deserves credit for the Snowy Mountains Scheme are exaggerated.
> 
> The complex, nation-building project materialised after numerous reports, years of discussion and decades of construction.



Was meant to be Finished last year ....but keep digging you experts


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Was meant to be Finished last year ....but keep digging you experts



Doesnt affect us Humid,  I'm only interested from a technical perspective and your only interested  from a political perspective a lot on the forum are interested as consumers.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Doesnt affect us Humid,  I'm only interested from a technical perspective and your only interested  from a political perspective a lot on the forum are interested as consumers.



Well if political is cost and how quickly it was costed and approved then your arguing over some pretty old technology but keep digging you experts


----------



## Humid

Smurf1976 said:


> At the time it was actually the Victorian SECV, and indirectly Tasmania, that gave the big push to get it built in its as built form.
> 
> Various agricultural interests and their political representatives were for obvious reasons interested in water diversion and irrigation. Likewise the SA state government was of course keen on anything that put more water into the Murray. Trouble is, as a purely agricultural scheme it didn't stack up financially.
> 
> The NSW electricity authority had relatively little interest in it, seeing it useful only in terms of base load generation as a direct alternative to coal.
> 
> Victoria however had a bigger vision and a bigger problem. The vision was manufacturing industry and overall electrification. The problems were that brown coal is particularly problematic for peak load generation with the other problem being that Tasmania was consistently undercutting Victoria on price, having become the "natural" location for energy-intensive industry by that point.
> 
> The Snowy as built promised to fix both problems for Victoria and thus they became a champion of it, ultimately convincing the federal government and NSW on the virtues of hydro power.
> 
> The actual design changed after construction by the way. Originally it was to be essentially two separate schemes in no way hydraulically interconnected. The final as-built design wasn't adopted until construction was underway, being driven largely by agricultural interests given the as-built design enables the same water to be sent out either end.
> 
> It has never been finished by the way. Some further proposed works were deleted from the plans about 1966 and never built.
> 
> As another bit of trivia, Guthega power station, the first to enter service in 1955, was intended to be 3 x 30MW and all three machines were ordered and the power station built to accommodate them. In practice however one was sold to Tasmania and installed at Lake Echo power station where it remains in service today. A replacement was never ordered or installed at Guthega, and the thought of doing so was also abandoned in 1966.



Yeah mate it's 2022


----------



## Smurf1976

Humid said:


> Well if political is cost and how quickly it was costed and approved then your arguing over some pretty old technology but keep digging you experts



Political and politics is something to be worked around, I think everyone's worked that out by now.

Reality is those opposed would be the first to scream if an alternative were built and they'll also scream really loudly if the lights go out. They could be accused of playing politics and nothing more.



Humid said:


> Yeah mate it's 2022



What does that have to do with something of an historical nature?


----------



## Humid

Smurf1976 said:


> Political and politics is something to be worked around, I think everyone's worked that out by now.
> 
> Reality is those opposed would be the first to scream if an alternative were built and they'll also scream really loudly if the lights go out. They could be accused of playing politics and nothing more.
> 
> 
> What does that have to do with something of an historical nature?



Yeah mate solar,wind,batteries


----------



## Smurf1976

Humid said:


> Yeah mate solar,wind,batteries



And ????

Those are not of themselves an alternative to the role to be filled by SH2, indeed filling in the limitations of those is the primary function of SH2 in the first place.

Actual alternatives, with present technology, are basically:

Some other hydro scheme(s) involving individually or collectively large scale storage.

Gas turbines. In the medium term they'd be fired with either natural gas or a petroleum fuel (diesel, kero, LPG).

Internal combustion engines. Medium term they'd be fired with natural gas or diesel (or both).

Scrap the whole push for renewables and build steam plant with the source of steam being, in practice, coal or nuclear.

Load shedding during incidents of sustained low VRE yield (primarily an issue in the second half of Autumn and during Winter).

Take your pick.

Personally I'd pick hydro either SH2 or an alternative hydro scheme. Reason being it's durable, efficient and incurs minimal ongoing cost once built. 

For the record AEMO (and plenty of others) have concluded that renewables are here to stay and that rules out the steam turbine option. Hence they've expressed it as the sum total of gas turbines (or ICE) + hydro.


----------



## Humid

Did either of you bother to read the article and if so pull it apart for me and show where it's wrong
I'm not the one who called it a white elephant ....


----------



## Humid

Since you don't want to read and just flap your gums

As far as the claim that Snowy 2.0 will add 2000 megawatts of renewable energy to the National Electricity Market, Snowy 2.0 is not a conventional hydro station generating renewable energy. It is no different to any other battery, and as such it will be a net load on the NEM. For every 100 units of electricity purchased from the NEM to pump water uphill, only 75 units are returned when the water flows back down through the turbine generators. Not only is the electricity generated not renewable, Snowy 2.0 will be the most inefficient battery on the NEM, losing 25 per cent of energy cycled.


----------



## Humid

There are many cheaper, more efficient and far less environmentally destructive energy storage alternatives.

Snowy 2.0 is bringing a flurry of activity and much-trumpeted construction jobs to the Monaro. But in another five or so years we will be left with a rarely used, $10 billion-plus Snowy White Elephant, higher electricity prices, a needlessly scarred Kosciuszko National Park, and just a dozen extra Snowy Hydro jobs, according to the Snowy 2.0 environmental impact statement.

But I know a bloke who polished chairs in the Kwinana Power station so .....


----------



## Humid

Despite the assurance that taxpayer subsidies were not required, the federal government was forced to shore up Snowy 2.0’s business case with a $1.4bn “equity injection”. Further taxpayer funding is inevitable, warned Standard & Poors when it downgraded Snowy Hydro’s credit rating in 2020.

Far from bringing electricity prices down, Snowy Hydro’s own modelling predicts that prices will rise because of Snowy 2.0.

Keep digging you experts


----------



## Humid

The underground power station and tunnels alone will cost more than $6 billion, and Snowy Hydro avoids mentioning the transmission connections to Sydney – $4 billion-plus for HumeLink and the Sydney ring – and to Victoria. To make matters worse, Snowy Hydro refuses to contribute to these transmission works, leaving it to electricity consumers to pick up the tab. Transmission tariffs in NSW will increase by more than 50 per cent if the NSW government allows Snowy Hydro to get its way, based on analysis in a Victoria Energy Policy Centre report.


----------



## Humid

Ted don't like Kurri.









						Kurri Kurri’s a gas-powered folly
					

Taxpayers should not be paying for a billion dollar generator that can only run for six hours for at stretch and won’t be able to compete with faster, cheaper batteries.




					www.afr.com


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Ted don't like Kurri.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Kurri Kurri’s a gas-powered folly
> 
> 
> Taxpayers should not be paying for a billion dollar generator that can only run for six hours for at stretch and won’t be able to compete with faster, cheaper batteries.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.afr.com



Who did Ted work for? The last thing private enterprise want is the Government putting in competing plant, that keeps them honest

The problem is Humid all your above questions and the article has been discussed at length earlier in this thread, just because you have read an article that resonates with your political leanings doesn't make it valid.

The AEMO has very recently stated there is a shortfall in medium to long duration storage, everyone wants to chuck in a battery, but that isn't useful for extended periods of low renewable generation, like I said we have discussed it several times, you were probably on your favourite website up in the donga at the time. Lol


----------



## SirRumpole

Humid said:


> Since you don't want to read and just flap your gums
> 
> As far as the claim that Snowy 2.0 will add 2000 megawatts of renewable energy to the National Electricity Market, Snowy 2.0 is not a conventional hydro station generating renewable energy. It is no different to any other battery, and as such it will be a net load on the NEM. For every 100 units of electricity purchased from the NEM to pump water uphill, only 75 units are returned when the water flows back down through the turbine generators. Not only is the electricity generated not renewable, Snowy 2.0 will be the most inefficient battery on the NEM, losing 25 per cent of energy cycled.




We should recognise that natural inflow , ie rain that fill storages is essentially free energy and should be factored in to the equation.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> We should recognise that natural inflow , ie rain that fill storages is essentially free energy and should be factored in to the equation.



The last thing @Humid wants to listen to is common sense, smurf has explained endlessly the long duration storage advantages of major hydo facilities, like Snowy 2.0, all Humid wants to do is try to make everything a political issue, as many do.
Once the election is over and Labor are in, they will continue with Kurri Kurri, as they have already said and they will also continue with Snowy 2.0 because it is essential, then Rob, Humid and the boys will be cheering it on, boringly predictable.

@Humid  posts up this from his mate TED from Oct 2021








						Kurri Kurri’s a gas-powered folly
					

Taxpayers should not be paying for a billion dollar generator that can only run for six hours for at stretch and won’t be able to compete with faster, cheaper batteries.




					www.afr.com
				




Then the ones he sucks up to do this to him in February 2022, he is just a sad little man, can't even keep up with his own thought processes. Probably in the wet canteen.








						Labor backflips on Kurri Kurri gas plant, but experts say it still doesn’t stack up
					

Labor makes about-turn on Kurri Kurri gas plant, if it can be fuelled with hydrogen, but experts say the plant is not needed and makes no sense.




					reneweconomy.com.au


----------



## Smurf1976

Humid said:


> Did either of you bother to read the article and if so pull it apart for me and show where it's wrong



Has been discussed previously.



Humid said:


> It is no different to any other battery,




It is extremely different which is the point being missed.

Taking some actual projects:

Victorian Big Battery (in operation) = 300 MW / 450 MWh

Torrens Island Battery (under construction) = 250 MW / 250 MWh

Liddell Battery (approved for construction) = 500 MW / 2000 MWh

Jeeralang Battery (proposed) = 350 MW / 1400 MWh

Snowy 2.0 = ~2000 MW / *350,000 MWh*.

That there is the difference.

Batteries or hydro can both easily store a bit of energy sufficient to run for an hour or four.

Storing sufficient energy to run for a week, or even just overnight, without charging is beyond the economic limits of batteries at the present time however. At present that's the domain of either hydro or a combustion based facility.

That's what the debate comes down two.

Wind and solar will be built that's a given.

Batteries for short duration peak power will also be built that's a given.

The debate is about how to deal with extended periods of low wind + solar output. In one camp are the advocates for long duration hydro storage. In the other camp are the advocates for gas turbines (or alternatively internal combustion engines). That's what it comes down to in practice, hydro or gas turbines.

Chart shows wind and solar output for the past 7 days in NSW:







Note what happened on the night of 21 - 22 March 2022. A full 12 hours of essentially no wind or solar generation.

Here's the same period for Victoria:






Note the same problem at the same time.

Filling those gaps, and worse if it's heavily overcast during the previous or following day, is what the issue is about. Batteries can't do that at present, hydro or gas turbines can. Bearing in mind that's just the past 7 days which was by no means a worst case scenario.

At present the gap is filled simply by using existing fossil fuel plant:






However with a large portion of the fossil fleet about to close that option is being removed permanently, requiring that either new fossil fuel plant be built or that large storage hydro be built as an alternative.

Noting there that the next to go, Liddell unit 3, has just 7 days left until closure and there goes 420 MW of coal plant permanently shut.

Another 1260 MW of coal plant in NSW shuts next year.

Then there's 2880 MW at Eraring that Origin could, if they really wanted to, keep running into the 2030's (the technical limit) but for economic reasons they'd prefer to pull the pin in 2025.

Yallourn in Victoria, 1480 MW closing in 2028.

Then there's 1320 MW at Vales Point closing in 2029.

Then there's 2740 MW at Bayswater closing 2033. Could get another 4 or so years out of it if pushed but that would be it. Ballarat (30 MW / 30 MWh) and Gannawarra (25 MW / 50 MWh) batteries in Victoria both currently estimated to cease operation that year too.

So it's a case of either building long duration storage (in practice with present tech that's hydro), building new fossil fuel plant, or getting used to sitting in the dark.

Is Snowy 2.0 the best project?

I haven't and won't claim that since to determine it, every other possible hydro site would need to be assessed _and_ government would need to make a decision on whether "net zero" is really a goer or not given that anything built today will be in operation for decades to come.

What can be said though is that Snowy 2.0 is a real, actual proposal of which there's a scarcity. If it wasn't built then, in practice, gas turbines would almost certainly be the real world alternative given the lack of interest in building hydro from most.

For the record if it were up to me then assuming SH2 stacked up versus a full costing of the others possible schemes then I'd have built it later by a few years. That however is a hypothetical scenario assuming I had the authority to ram it through at the time without debate. Since that's not reality, and even government doesn't really exercise that sort of authority in practice, it's better to err on the side of caution and be a bit early since the public will be out with the pitchforks if the lights go out in Sydney in particular.

For new plant in NSW, current official timing:

Kurri Kurri = Summer 2023 - 24 for the whole facility (660 MW)

Tallawarra B = Summer 2023 - 24 for the whole facility (314 MW)

Snowy 2.0:

Summer 2025 - 26 for 666 MW
Winter 2026 for 1332 MW
Summer 2026-27 for 1998 MW

Snowy 2.0 machines are 6 x 340 MW but for practical operation Snowy Hydro's rating them at nominally 333 MW each.

Closures:

Liddell #3 (420 MW) = 1 April 2022
Liddell #1, #2, #4 (1260 MW) = 1 April 2023
Eraring all units (2880 MW) = 19 August 2025
Vales Point all units (1320 MW) = 2029
Bayswater all units (2740 MW) = 2033
Mt Piper all units (last coal plant in NSW) (1430 MW) = 2040

Timing data from AEMO

Add the above all together and there's plenty of room to build batteries and so on as well, Snowy isn't grabbing the whole market by any means.


----------



## sptrawler

Nice effort @Smurf1976 , but wasting your time, the last thing @Humid will be able to understand is anything resembling technical information, he has already shown that.
There is no chance he would be able to get his head around the difference between 2,000MWh and 350,000MWh, he would be saying WTF is MWH some sort of flightless bird?
You have explained the issue endlessly, it isn't about him wanting information, you have already done that, it is about him thinking he is furthering Labors cause.
When in reality all he is doing is showing intelligent people, why not to vote for them, misguided help labor would call it.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Once the election is over and Labor are in, they will continue with Kurri Kurri, as they have already said and they will also continue with Snowy 2.0



A core problem in all of this is that the market structure itself doesn't really facilitate this sort of thing, having been designed around the assumption of a predominantly fossil fuel based system.

If as a society we don't want that, if we don't want a predominantly fossil fuel based system, then either we need a market design that works with that OR we have to accept financial losses and fund it by some other means. Making it work with the present market isn't impossible but it does involve a lot of driving whilst looking in the mirror, it's a back to front approach to some of it.

I expect we'll see reform of the market design itself for that reason, it'll be too costly not to.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> That's what it comes down to in practice, hydro or gas turbines.




Why not both ?

Or at least gas turbines until hydro gets built at which time the turbines can either be scrapped or sold to some deserving country.

Or conversion of GTs to run on H2.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> We should recognise that natural inflow , ie rain that fill storages is essentially free energy and should be factored in to the equation.



Snowy 2.0 is complex in that regard.

Tantangara Reservoir (existing) is the upper storage and that does receive natural inflows, presently sent to Lake Eucumbene for storage and from there released either in a northerly direction via Tumut 1 (then Tumut 2, Tumut 3 and Blowering) power stations or alternatively at the southern end Murray 1 then Murray 2.

Sending that water via SH2 dumps it straight into Talbingo Reservoir (existing) which is the storage for Tumut 3, located below Tumut 2. That is, the water runs via SH2 instead of to Eucumbene and then via Tumut 1 and 2.

As a storage scheme there's no major issue there.

In terms of the natural inflow however the gain is relatively minor. It will yield a bit more energy sending it via SH2 due to higher head but the difference isn't huge and as such, the additional natural energy (as distinct from stored energy or peak power) contribution is small.

Back during the original design and planning of the scheme the idea of a power station between Tantangara and Talbingo was considered but, in the context of the needs of the time and then foreseeable future, was rejected and the water simply sent to Eucumbene instead.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Why not both ?



In a technical sense it could be done but for economic reasons well it's hard enough to get someone to pay for one or the other.....


----------



## sptrawler

The reality is that the coal generators, want to close a lot earlier than stated, to do that a lot more medium to long term storage will be required.
Not many are stepping up to put it in, plenty want to put in batteries, but very few want to install bulk storage.
I think AGL is going to do something left field, time will tell, but something other than Snowy 2 and Kurri Kurri needs to happen, there will be money to be made if you can work out what it is IMO.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> In a technical sense it could be done but for economic reasons well it's hard enough to get someone to pay for one or the other.....




The taxpayers are paying for SH2 and Kurri Kurri...


----------



## Humid

SirRumpole said:


> The taxpayers are paying for SH2 and Kurri Kurri...



5 times the estimate and counting


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> The last thing @Humid wants to listen to is common sense, smurf has explained endlessly the long duration storage advantages of major hydo facilities, like Snowy 2.0, all Humid wants to do is try to make everything a political issue, as many do.
> Once the election is over and Labor are in, they will continue with Kurri Kurri, as they have already said and they will also continue with Snowy 2.0 because it is essential, then Rob, Humid and the boys will be cheering it on, boringly predictable.
> 
> @Humid  posts up this from his mate TED from Oct 2021
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Kurri Kurri’s a gas-powered folly
> 
> 
> Taxpayers should not be paying for a billion dollar generator that can only run for six hours for at stretch and won’t be able to compete with faster, cheaper batteries.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.afr.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Then the ones he sucks up to do this to him in February 2022, he is just a sad little man, can't even keep up with his own thought processes. Probably in the wet canteen.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Labor backflips on Kurri Kurri gas plant, but experts say it still doesn’t stack up
> 
> 
> Labor makes about-turn on Kurri Kurri gas plant, if it can be fuelled with hydrogen, but experts say the plant is not needed and makes no sense.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> reneweconomy.com.au



No drinkin offshore pops and very limited internet access
Get as technical as you like but it's easier to follow the money with governments

The federal government’s massive Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro project appears to have cleared all regulatory hurdles after being granted federal environmental approvals on Tuesday – just days before a key by-election in the local electorate of Eden-Monaro.


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> The federal government’s massive Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro project appears to have cleared all regulatory hurdles after being granted federal environmental approvals on Tuesday – just days before a key by-election in the local electorate of Eden-Monaro.



That's interesting, I thought it would be well past the environmental approval stage.
With regard the technical side, the Eastern States grid will need a lot more long duration storage than Snowy 2.0, they are also increasing the Tassie storage and upgrading  Tasmania to mainland link with a second cable, but for any chance of having anywhere like 100% renewables they will need several more Snowy 2.0 size hydro facilities IMO.
So really all the ranting and chanting is pointless, if they want renewables, they will require a lot of pumped hydro. With the amount of flooding happening over East, a lot of pumped hydro could be incorporated with flood mitigation infrastructure.
But IMO people have two options if they want clean energy, a lot more pumped hydro, or some nuclear.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> That's interesting, I thought it would be well past the environmental approval stage.
> With regard the technical side, the Eastern States grid will need a lot more long duration storage than Snowy 2.0, they are also increasing the Tassie storage and upgrading  Tasmania to mainland link with a second cable, but for any chance of having anywhere like 100% renewables they will need several more Snowy 2.0 size hydro facilities IMO.
> So really all the ranting and chanting is pointless, if they want renewables, they will require a lot of pumped hydro. With the amount of flooding happening over East, a lot of pumped hydro could be incorporated with flood mitigation infrastructure.
> But IMO people have two options if they want clean energy, a lot more pumped hydro, or



It is was meant to be finished 
I was showing the announcement coincidentally just before the by- election


----------



## SirRumpole

And now, a slight diversion.

Atmospheric electricity. Pretty impractical now, but who knows in the future.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The reality is that the coal generators, want to close a lot earlier than stated



Indeed. The dates I've stated are the present official ones but it's no secret that the risk is of closure being moved forward not back.

Another risk is that of an incident. Whilst I'm not predicting anything specific, bottom line is things can and do happen and if you're closing permanently in 3 years well spending $100 million or $200 million on a repair job, for a facility that's struggling to break even at 0% return on investment and with plant already fully written off, is a shockingly bad investment. That scenario could well bring a very sudden closure or two.

Then there's gas. There'll be a report out shortly which may, um, err, you know.... That cartoon with the guy's hair standing on end as he spits coffee out and all that.....

Then there's this:









						Chill wind: Major renewable energy investor says wind farm ruling to have 'disastrous' effect
					

One of Australia's biggest renewable energy investors says a court's decision to uphold complaints against a Victorian wind farm will have "serious ramifications" for the transition from fossil fuels.




					www.abc.net.au
				




Specific detail aside, I'll draw attention to this quote:



> The narrative around what can be done and how it can be done, in my opinion, is being oversimplified to the community.




That quote's from Jeff Dimery. 

Now for those not aware, Jeff's not some random engineer who's unhappy they're not allowed to dam Sydney Harbour for a hydro scheme and he's not some grassroots environmentalist who's unhappy that coal wasn't completely eliminated 30 years ago. Rather, Jeff is in the CEO of Alinta, the fourth largest non-government operator of power generation in Australia after AGL, Origin and Energy Australia.

Obviously he's got his own biases in line with what's best for the company he runs but it's an extremely valid point in my view. Government and the media between them have done a shockingly bad job of informing the general public about all this.

OK, so it's not a subject that's of major interest to most of the population but it is one that has nonetheless been in the news almost constantly for more than a decade and which has played at least some role in every federal election or change of PM during that time. It's one of those things that's become somewhat inescapable so the least government and the media ought to be able to do is give the public the facts. 

That doesn't mean picking winners, eg saying that Snowy 2.0 is good or bad, but it does mean explaining what the options are and why a project of that nature is one of them, what it involves and so on. It wouldn't be hard to go through the basic options, sticking to the facts and just listing the pros and cons of each so as to inform the public what the choices actually are.


----------



## Humid

The federal government announced the Snowy 2.0 project without a market assessment, cost-benefit analysis or indeed even a feasibility study.

Basics


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> The federal government announced the Snowy 2.0 project without a market assessment, cost-benefit analysis or indeed even a feasibility study.
> 
> Basics



Isn't that what happened with the NBN, just saying. 

If something needs doing, it just becomes a case of who does it, on a cost base analysis, pumped hydro is expensive and is why the public sector isn't interested and why it will be up to the Governments to build it.

Basics.🤪


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Isn't that what happened with the NBN, just saying.
> 
> If something needs doing, it just becomes a case of who does it, on a cost base analysis, pumped hydro is expensive and is why the public sector isn't interested and why it will be up to the Governments to build it.
> 
> Basics.🤪



I'm on the NBN now when will I get access to snowy power in WA Homer?


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> I'm on the NBN now when will I get access to snowy power in WA Homer?



No point in answering that, you wouldn't understand the technical aspect. 🤣


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> No point in answering that, you wouldn't understand the technical aspect. 🤣



As I said before you don't need to understand just follow the money.
Exhibit A:









						Coalition donor Whitehaven Coal the biggest winner in government's 'donation' to Ukraine
					

Well done to Whitehaven Coal: it has given $98,000 to the federal Liberal Party in recent years and just got handed $31 million under the pretext of helping Ukraine.




					www.crikey.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> As I said before you don't need to understand just follow the money.



As I said before, you need to stick to topics, you have at least a modicum of knowledge in, rather than blurting out rubbish you have no understanding of.
Just to troll people. 

In this thread even as recently as yesterday, we are saying that coal is on a massive downer and isn't worth operating. The next government will have to subsidies coal as well, to keep the lights on, what will you say then you dill?


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> As I said before, you need to stick to topics, you have at least a modicum of knowledge in, rather than blurting out rubbish you have no understanding of.
> Just to troll people.



Smurf post about the lack of public knowledge so in the attached article I posted contains this if you bothered to read it.

The feasibility study was published shortly before Christmas and the final investment decision is expected by the end of 2018. All economic analysis has been excluded from the public version of the feasibility


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Smurf post about the lack of public knowledge* so in the attached article I posted* contains this if you bothered to read it.
> 
> The feasibility study was published shortly before Christmas and the final investment decision is expected by the end of 2018. All economic analysis has been excluded from the public version of the feasibility



What are you talking about now, Whitehaven coal, or Snowy 2.0 ?
Your attached article in #5,735 is about Whitehaven coal, but what your referring to doesn't make sense in that context.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> What are you talking about now, Whitehaven coal, or Snowy 2.0 ?
> Your attached article in #5,735 is about Whitehaven coal, but what your referring to doesn't make sense in that context.



Corruption you moron


----------



## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Corruption you moron



Jeezuz your hard work, go troll somewhere else muppet.
Obviously the remedial English isn't working, you still can't string together a sensible sentence, let alone a sensible cohesive discussion.
So sending coal to Ukraine is corruption? What are you on about?


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Jeezuz your hard work, go troll somewhere else muppet.
> Obviously the remedial English isn't working, you still can't string together a sensible sentence, let alone a sensible cohesive discussion.
> So sending coal to Ukraine is corruption? What are you on about?



Some English for you
$1k a day in the hand offshore....


----------



## sptrawler

I used to get that back in 2010, in Perth, but it is good money. 
You invest it wisely and you could retire at 55, like I did.


----------



## basilio

*Energy Efficiency No 1*

If you havn't heard of Amory Lovins this article is an excellent introduction. Amory was one of the earliest practical advocates of energy conservation.  A number of very striking stories in this article. Check it out.

Energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins: ‘It’s the largest, cheapest, safest, cleanest way to address the crisis’​John Vidal





Amory Lovins, known as the ‘Einstein of energy efficiency’. Photograph: Hermann Bredehorst/Polaris/eyevine
One of the leading advocates of energy conservation explains why this could be a turning point for climate economics

Sat 26 Mar 2022 08.00 GMT



Temperatures dropped far below freezing this week in Snowmass, Colorado. But Amory Lovins, who lives high up in the mountains at 7,200ft above sea level, did not even turn on the heating.

That’s because he has no heating to turn on. His home, a great adobe and glass mountainside eyrie that he designed in the 1980s, collects solar energy and is so well insulated that he grows and harvests bananas and many other tropical fruits there without burning gas, oil or wood.

Nicknamed the “Einstein of energy efficiency”, Lovins, an adjunct professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, has been one of the world’s leading advocates and innovators of energy conservation for 50 years. He wrote his first paper on climate change while at Oxford in 1968, and in 1976 he offered Jimmy Carter’s government a blueprint for how to triple energy efficiency and get off oil and coal within 40 years. In the years since there is barely a major industry or government that he and his Rocky Mountain Institute have not advised.

....The prize for governments wanting to be truly energy efficient is huge. Lovins and RMI have calculated that at least two-thirds – and probably as much as three-quarters – of all fossil fuel-generated energy could be profitably saved in most industrialised countries, and even more in developing countries because they tend to be less efficient to begin with and can more easily build things right than fix them later.

..The future must be in the mass retrofitting of buildings with insulation and heat pumps and what he calls “outsolation”. “You can design out the pipes by putting a sort of tea cosy around houses, like the Dutch Energiesprong exterior retrofit. They can superinsulate your house to net zero standard in a single day whilst you’re at work, and meanwhile they’ve dropped in a very efficient heat pump core for mechanicals, and put on a super-insulated solar roof. And when you get back, you pay them rather than your energy companies.”









						Energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins: ‘It’s the largest, cheapest, safest, cleanest way to address the crisis’
					

One of the leading advocates of energy conservation explains why this could be a turning point for climate economics




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## basilio

Intriguing example of how to retrofit insulation on (some)  existing buildings - without taking them apart.  

This Dutch construction innovation shows it’s possible to quickly retrofit every building​ 
03 February 2022

*Energiesprong (‘energy jump’) is finding ways to make buildings more efficient without requiring major construction projects.






						This Dutch construction innovation shows it’s possible to quickly retrofit every building – Energiesprong
					






					energiesprong.org
				



*


----------



## basilio

Addressing energy storage solutions in a renewable energy system.
Some new and old solutions. Check out  the cryogenic battery systems solution.









						Here’s how to solve the UK energy crisis for the long term – store more power
					

Four storage solutions to help Britain keep the lights on deep into the future




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## basilio

The Cryogenic battery.  Simple, elegant , off the shelf components.


----------



## basilio

Meanwhile you might have missed this... but Victoria has announced the biggest new energy project since the establishment of the Loy Yang Power stations. 9 GW of Offshore wind power by 2040.

Massive new engineering project and long term clean energy security.









						Victoria’s offshore wind plan is biggest thing since Loy Yang. Shame the media missed it
					

We are living through a revolution in energy policy in Australia. I cannot recall when last I sat down to write a column with as much relish as this one.




					reneweconomy.com.au


----------



## basilio

And interview with Amory and Hunter Lovins in 1984. Well worth checking out.
I will post the refrigerator story.

Amory and Hunter Lovins: Spokespersons for a Sustainable-energy Future   
By The Mother Earth News Editors​ 





STAFF PHOTO

_While many of us dream about an America that runs entirely on efficient, clean, renewable sources of energy, Amory and Hunter Lovins are doing a great deal to help bring such a future about. Indeed, as authors of some of the most important works in the field and consultants to governments and utilities, they are without doubt our nation’s most effective spokespersons for a sustainable-energy future._

*A PARABLE*
_
Do you remember the pre-World War II refrigerators that had the motor on top? Those motors were close to 90% efficient. These days, refrigerator motors are more like 60% efficient. They’re also underneath, so the heat rises to where the food is. Thus, with the blessings of modern technology, refrigerators now can easily spend half their effort taking away the heat of their own motors!

Over the years, the manufacturers have also been trying to make the inside of the refrigerator bigger without making the outside bigger. (Given time, I suppose they would have had the inside bigger than the outside.) What they did, of course, was to skimp on the insulation, so outside heat comes straight in through the walls. They also designed the refrigerator so that when you open the door, the cold air falls out and the refrigerator frosts up inside. Most refrigerators therefore have electric heaters inside them which go on now and then to melt the frost. Many also have electric strip heaters around the door to keep the gaskets from sticking. Some even have electric heaters in their outer skin to keep humidity from condensing on it!

You can try if you like, but it’s hard to come up with a dumber way of using electricity. Yet if you don’t use electric water heaters or space heaters, refrigerators are probably the biggest single part of your household electric bill. Nationally, they use the equivalent of about half the output of all nuclear power plants.

Fortunately, there are smarter ways to build refrigerators. Consider how many kilowatt-hours it takes, for example, to run a typical refrigerator for one year. From 1950 to 1975 that electric demand nearly trebled to 1,800 kilowatt-hours per year. Then in 1976 California passed a law saying that you couldn’t sell a refrigerator there that used more than about 1,400. Within four years, virtually every refrigerator on the market met that standard, and the best — by Amana — did a third better. Meanwhile, the government was told by consultants that better motors, insulation, gaskets, and so on, could reduce the demand to 650 kilowatt-hours per year. Sure enough, by 1981 a typical machine on the Japanese market used only 700, and Toshiba’s best used only 550. The consultants now went back to the drawing board and concluded that by pulling out all the stops they could get it down to about 420; but a Danish engineer showed that 260 would be highly cost-effective. Upsetting all these theoretical estimates, a California engineering designer — Larry Schlussler — built a refrigerator in 1979 that used 288 kilowatt-hours per year; he is currently selling a handmade model that uses 175; he built a prototype in 1982 that used only 64; and his 1984 prototype uses 15. Furthermore, the passive refrigerator we’re building into our zero-energy house in the Colorado Rockies will use only about half a kilowatt — hour per year-to run the light that goes on when you open the door!






						Amory and Hunter Lovins: Spokespersons for a Sustainable-energy Future
					

A Plowboy Interview with Amory and Hunter Lovins who believe that investment in energy efficiency and renewable sources of power is less expensive than increased dependence on fossil or nuclear fuel.



					www.motherearthnews.com
				



_


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## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Intriguing example of how to retrofit insulation on (some)  existing buildings - without taking them apart.
> 
> This Dutch construction innovation shows it’s possible to quickly retrofit every building​
> 03 February 2022
> 
> *Energiesprong (‘energy jump’) is finding ways to make buildings more efficient without requiring major construction projects.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This Dutch construction innovation shows it’s possible to quickly retrofit every building – Energiesprong
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> energiesprong.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *



The son just built a shed home 12" of insulation, they just went through a W.A heat wave with no A/C and  no problems, open the windows at night, close them in the morning and orientate the house correctly.
The problem in Australia houses are built for aesthetic appearance and not for energy efficiency, even the way a suburb is subdivided is done to maximise the land value, with no regard as to the block orientation to allow for the building to be constructed to face in the optimum direction.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> The son just built a shed home 12" of insulation, they just went through a W.A heat wave with no A/C and  no problems, open the windows at night, close them in the morning and orientate the house correctly.
> The problem in Australia houses are built for aesthetic appearance and not for energy efficiency, even the way a suburb is subdivided is done to maximise the land value, with no regard as to the block orientation to allow for the building to be constructed to face in the optimum direction.



Black roof sheets,no eaves,no trees and fake lawn = oven


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## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Black roof sheets,no eaves,no trees and fake lawn = oven



And all the full length windows facing East and West.  😂


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## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Meanwhile you might have missed this... but Victoria has announced the biggest new energy project since the establishment of the Loy Yang Power stations. 9 GW of Offshore wind power by 2040.
> 
> Massive new engineering project and long term clean energy security.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Victoria’s offshore wind plan is biggest thing since Loy Yang. Shame the media missed it
> 
> 
> We are living through a revolution in energy policy in Australia. I cannot recall when last I sat down to write a column with as much relish as this one.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> reneweconomy.com.au



On one hand it's brilliant.

On the other hand it's a 4 wheeled car with only two wheels and that's a fatal flaw.

9GW of wind farms will indeed generate rather a lot of energy over any given time period. No dispute there. What they won't do however is do it constantly. Offshore wind might be more reliable than onshore but it's still nowhere near constant.

Now for the problem.....

The author of the article admits that building onshore transmission lines is facing problems gaining a "social license" and he seems opposed to building additional transmission between Victoria and Tasmania at all.

So what's the plan for when the wind isn't blowing?

That's what frustrates many about all this. Glowing articles saying how great it all is but with a fatal technical flaw in the argument that's completely ignored.

In the absence of building deep storage in Victoria, or building transmission to such facilities to be built in NSW or Tasmania, that gives rise to a situation where Victoria's left with two basic choices - fossil fuels or darkness.

What saddens me most is that the Victorian Energy Policy Centre is based at Victoria University. So we have a rather lamentable situation of a university failing to pick up on something that the average high school student would identify, that wind does not blow constantly.


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## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> On one hand it's brilliant.
> 
> On the other hand it's a 4 wheeled car with only two wheels and that's a fatal flaw.
> 
> 9GW of wind farms will indeed generate rather a lot of energy over any given time period. No dispute there. What they won't do however is do it constantly. Offshore wind might be more reliable than onshore but it's still nowhere near constant.
> 
> Now for the problem.....
> 
> The author of the article admits that building onshore transmission lines is facing problems gaining a "social license" and he seems opposed to building additional transmission between Victoria and Tasmania at all.
> 
> So what's the plan for when the wind isn't blowing?
> 
> That's what frustrates many about all this. Glowing articles saying how great it all is but with a fatal technical flaw in the argument that's completely ignored.
> 
> In the absence of building deep storage in Victoria, or building transmission to such facilities to be built in NSW or Tasmania, that gives rise to a situation where Victoria's left with two basic choices - fossil fuels or darkness.
> 
> What saddens me most is that the Victorian Energy Policy Centre is based at Victoria University. So we have a rather lamentable situation of a university failing to pick up on something that the average high school student would identify, that wind does not blow constantly.




Frankly I  just can't believe that the issue of sufficient energy storage in some form is not going to be a part of this development. As you point out ensuring effective use of all power and ironing out down time is non negotiable. 

Let's see if there are additional plans along these lines. The article I posted at 5747/8 explores some options.


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## basilio

Another article in Renew Energy highlights the rapid rate of development of technologies to ensure effective renewable energy systems.

“Pace is extraordinary:” Advanced inverters take centre stage in roadmap to 100pct renewables​
Giles Parkinson 25 March 2022 0
Share
Tweet
0Share







Victoria Big Battery. Image supplied
Advanced inverter technologies have taken centre stage in a detailed roadmap put together by the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator that plots a path to a zero emissions grid and a 100 per cent renewable electricity supply.

“The pace and scale of this transition is extraordinary,” said AEMO’s head of operations Michael Gatt. “It demands new approaches to power system operations including tools, technologies, process and platforms, which complement network planning, and market and regulatory reforms.”

Chief among these are advanced inverters, also known as “grid forming inverters”, which have the potential to provide many, if not all, the grid services currently the province of spinning fossil fuel generators.









						“Pace is extraordinary:” Advanced inverters take centre stage in roadmap to 100pct renewables
					

Roadmap put together by CSIRO and AEMO focuses on advanced inverters and new control rooms amongst the many technical needs of a zero emissions grid.




					reneweconomy.com.au


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## basilio

There is another excellent analysis on Renew around the cost effectiveness of rapid movement to a renewable energy economy. 

How a cash Cannon aimed at coal proves the economics of renewables​
Josh Martin 25 March 2022 0
Share
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0Share






	

		
			
		

		
	
AGL's Loy Yang power station. Credit: John Englart

Mike Cannon-Brookes certainly created headlines recently, teaming up with Brookfield to propose an unsolicited $8 billion joint takeover bid of AGL Energy, mooted as an effort to speed up the closure of the gen-tailer’s coal-fired power plants well ahead of schedule, from 2045 to 2030.

The prime minister came out and claimed that the early closure of the plant would increase power prices significantly, while reportedly reserving the right to block the move under a national interest test to protect Australia’s energy supply.

Talk of a potential blockage of the takeover, however, runs counter to the very notion of market mechanisms driving change. Furthermore, it ignores the economics which would drive someone like Cannon-Brookes, with the backing of investment behemoth Brookfield, to make a move of this size.

*He’d crunched the numbers, as would have Brookfield, and seen that not only was this the right move, but one which would make money. The consortium believed it could accelerate the transition and make money at the same time, and in turn provide lower electricity prices for all.*

The truth is that the economics make sense to everyone involved in the push, and the country’s energy supply would not be at risk. Furthermore, the closure of a coal plant is hardly anything new; in fact, it’s inevitable and, for many, just around the corner








						How a cash Cannon aimed at coal proves the economics of renewables
					

Mike Cannon-Brookes and Brookfield crunched the numbers on shuttering AGL’s coal plants – the move was designed to make money as much as to make a difference.




					reneweconomy.com.au


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## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Frankly I just can't believe that the issue of sufficient energy storage in some form is not going to be a part of this development. As you point out ensuring effective use of all power and ironing out down time is non negotiable.



It's pretty much _the_ issue that's causing frustration among those looking at it professionally or otherwise in a serious manner.

It's a fact that the data's very clear, as per charts I've previously posted, that we do get periods involving multiple consecutive days of low wind + solar yield. It's not a hypothetical, there's an abundance of data from real wind farms and solar facilities, plus Bureau of Meteorology data, plus data captured by others and it all tells the same story.

In terms of data, there's more sources than many would assume.

Bureau of Meteorology is one obviously.

Existing wind and solar farms are another. Bearing in mind that includes operations on the Bass Strait islands which, whilst small scale, do provide data on performance at any given time.

Monitoring set up specifically with a view to wind farm development is another, noting that in the context of Victoria and Tasmania this goes back to the 1980's. 

The oil companies have also collected weather data at some of their offshore operations, noting that some of these are reasonably close to the likely location of offshore wind farms.

Also shipping. Whilst not their primary function and not in a fixed position, apparently they have indeed kept records of weather conditions. That's still some useful information especially when it's the same ship sailing the same route at the same time each day.

Put it all together and there's no doubt as to the need to either store energy or have a backup, the only real question being how best to do it.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> It's a fact that the data's very clear, as per charts I've previously posted, that we do get periods involving multiple consecutive days of low wind + solar yield. It's not a hypothetical, there's an abundance of data from real wind farms and solar facilities, plus Bureau of Meteorology data, plus data captured by others and it all tells the same story.




Not much solar would have been generated in Qld over the last few weeks.

This is the sort of climate change stuff that will have to be dealt with in a 'renewable environment'. That's the thing that most Greenies don't understand. There will have to be on call power to fill in large gaps that batteries can't.


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## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Another article in Renew Energy highlights the rapid rate of development of technologies to ensure effective renewable energy systems.
> 
> “Pace is extraordinary:” Advanced inverters take centre stage in roadmap to 100pct renewables​
> Giles Parkinson 25 March 2022 0
> Share
> Tweet
> 0Share
> 
> 
> View attachment 139600
> 
> 
> Victoria Big Battery. Image supplied
> Advanced inverter technologies have taken centre stage in a detailed roadmap put together by the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator that plots a path to a zero emissions grid and a 100 per cent renewable electricity supply.
> 
> “The pace and scale of this transition is extraordinary,” said AEMO’s head of operations Michael Gatt. “It demands new approaches to power system operations including tools, technologies, process and platforms, which complement network planning, and market and regulatory reforms.”
> 
> Chief among these are advanced inverters, also known as “grid forming inverters”, which have the potential to provide many, if not all, the grid services currently the province of spinning fossil fuel generators.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> “Pace is extraordinary:” Advanced inverters take centre stage in roadmap to 100pct renewables
> 
> 
> Roadmap put together by CSIRO and AEMO focuses on advanced inverters and new control rooms amongst the many technical needs of a zero emissions grid.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> reneweconomy.com.au



And how long have smurf and I been saying, the transition is happen faster than what people believe? The big problem, which we have also said, is the system keeping up with it, while still maintaining a stable reliable power supply.


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> This is the sort of climate change stuff that will have to be dealt with in a 'renewable environment'.



The big problem in all this is tribalism.

One one side are those in the Coal Tribe who argue that renewables can't possibly work. On the other side are those in the Sunny Wind Tribe who refuse to acknowledge the technical realities.

Both promptly latch onto any failure which occurs among the other tribe, this being dutifully reported by their allied media.

Associated is that the general public simply doesn't realise the extent to which the media's aligned with one tribe or the other and feeding them nonsense. They see something reported as terrible and simply don't realise that it's actually not in any way abnormal. But since it came from their tribe, and the bad thing is about the other tribe, they lap it up.

As a case in point, of the 48 coal-fired steam units in the NEM, 40 are operational at present.

The Coal Tribe will report that as "40 units all running well" meanwhile the Sunny Wind Tribe will report that as "8 coal failures".

What's the truth?

40 is spot on the number you'd expect to be working at any given time given the number in service. It's neither good nor bad and simply a reality that outages, both planned maintenance and breakdowns, do occur especially when the fleet's mostly rather old. It's not a heroic performance but it's not a bad one either, it's par for the course. 

That 8 out of service includes unit C4 at Callide in Queensland which is still out of service following the major incident on 25 May 2021. Current estimated return to service is 7 April 2023 if all goes to plan.


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## Smurf1976

For those in the West, 6 of 7 remaining coal units are on.

Bluewaters 1 & 2, Muja C & D all on. Collie is off.

So again that's just as would be expected given the fleet size and it's not "bad" that Collie isn't running, just reflection of reality that this stuff has outages, maintenance needs doing and so on.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> The big problem in all this is tribalism.
> 
> One one side are those in the Coal Tribe who argue that renewables can't possibly work. On the other side are those in the Sunny Wind Tribe who refuse to acknowledge the technical realities.
> 
> Both promptly latch onto any failure which occurs among the other tribe, this being dutifully reported by their allied media.
> 
> Associated is that the general public simply doesn't realise the extent to which the media's aligned with one tribe or the other and feeding them nonsense. They see something reported as terrible and simply don't realise that it's actually not in any way abnormal. But since it came from their tribe, and the bad thing is about the other tribe, they lap it up.
> 
> As a case in point, of the 48 coal-fired steam units in the NEM, 40 are operational at present.
> 
> The Coal Tribe will report that as "40 units all running well" meanwhile the Sunny Wind Tribe will report that as "8 coal failures".
> 
> What's the truth?
> 
> 40 is spot on the number you'd expect to be working at any given time given the number in service. It's neither good nor bad and simply a reality that outages, both planned maintenance and breakdowns, do occur especially when the fleet's mostly rather old. It's not a heroic performance but it's not a bad one either, it's par for the course.
> 
> That 8 out of service includes unit C4 at Callide in Queensland which is still out of service following the major incident on 25 May 2021. Current estimated return to service is 7 April 2023 if all goes to plan.




As you said before, education of the public is essential to solving the problem.

Journalists can't do it, they don't understand the technicalities, we need engineers like yourself to speak out, although I completely  understand that as you are still in the industry it's not possible to talk outside the narrow confines of this forum.

You have mentioned Jeff Dimery but he's involved in the industry also, so it seems that the general public will continue to rely on the chaff spouted by the politicians.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> For those in the West, 6 of 7 remaining coal units are on.
> 
> Bluewaters 1 & 2, Muja C & D all on. Collie is off.
> 
> So again that's just as would be expected given the fleet size and it's not "bad" that Collie isn't running, just reflection of reality that this stuff has outages, maintenance needs doing and so on.



That's interesting Muja unit 5 is scheduled to be retired Oct this year, so as you say they must be doing a major O/H on Collie, as we head into winter and pre the decommissioning of unit 5.


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## sptrawler

Someone was quoting cost blowouts on large infrastructure projects, well even a ring road around a country town in W.A has blown out by $1billion dollars and it is probably only going to be a bypass for tourists to Margaret River/ Busselton region.
A bit off topic, but does highlight the problem with cost and time blowouts on major projects.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03...st-blows-out-to-one-billion-dollars/100947352

Work is already under way to build the 27-kilometre Bunbury Outer Ring Road, which will take trucks off local roads and reduce travel time for people driving to Busselton and Margaret River by up to 15 minutes.

The project was slated to cost $852 million but figures released ahead of today's federal budget have revealed the road will now cost just over a billion dollars – or $37 million per kilometre
The Commonwealth has promised $320 million more than initially allocated for the road, which has been planned for decades. 
It is the latest Western Australian infrastructure project to get more expensive, with labour shortages and supply delays taking its toll on projects around Australia.


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> tourists to Margaret River/ Busselton region.



Bit off topic but I've been to Busselton once.

If the weather when I was there was in any way typical then it would be a really, really good spot for a wind farm....   

Walked all the way out on the jetty despite the wind. Then it started raining.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Bit off topic but I've been to Busselton once.
> 
> If the weather when I was there was in any way typical then it would be a really, really good spot for a wind farm....
> 
> Walked all the way out on the jetty despite the wind. Then it started raining.



The bay there is very shallow, so they could fit a massive windfarm there. But I don't think the elite's, who have beach front properties, would allow it, being green is o.k over a chardonnay, but not in their front yard. 🤣


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## Smurf1976

Just an update regarding Liddell power station which has been the subject of much controversy and a major dispute between AGL and the federal government in recent years.

Unit 3 final shutdown at approximately 9:20am NSW local time Friday 1 April 2020 .

A normal, orderly shutdown nothing dramatic apart from being "The End" after half a century of operation.

Units 1, 2 and 4 are still operating and will continue for another 12 months when they too will be shut.

Separate to that, there's quite a bit of cost pressure building at the moment. The soaring price of black coal and petroleum fuels has been widely reported elsewhere but now we're seeing Australian domestic market gas prices rise as well.

Gas was around the $10 mark in recent months but now up to $15 over the past few days as the weather cools and demand ticks up slightly. Still a long way short of the LNG netback price circa $40 but still, it's getting more costly. 

At the wholesale level electricity prices in NSW and especially Qld are rising as a result. Less impact in other states thus far.


----------



## Humid

sptrawler said:


> Someone was quoting cost blowouts on large infrastructure projects, well even a ring road around a country town in W.A has blown out by $1billion dollars and it is probably only going to be a bypass for tourists to Margaret River/ Busselton region.
> A bit off topic, but does highlight the problem with cost and time blowouts on major projects.
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03...st-blows-out-to-one-billion-dollars/100947352
> 
> Work is already under way to build the 27-kilometre Bunbury Outer Ring Road, which will take trucks off local roads and reduce travel time for people driving to Busselton and Margaret River by up to 15 minutes.
> 
> The project was slated to cost $852 million but figures released ahead of today's federal budget have revealed the road will now cost just over a billion dollars – or $37 million per kilometre
> The Commonwealth has promised $320 million more than initially allocated for the road, which has been planned for decades.
> It is the latest Western Australian infrastructure project to get more expensive, with labour shortages and supply delays taking its toll on projects around Australia.



Blown out by a Billion....math not your strong point 
Stick to grammar


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## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Blown out by a Billion....math not your strong point
> Stick to grammar



You spotted it, at least it shows your reading is improving. 🤣


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## Humid

sptrawler said:


> You spotted it, at least it shows your reading is improving. 🤣



Even got a like....
It is but your math comparing 20% to 400%+ is a cracker


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## sptrawler

Humid said:


> Even got a like....
> It is but your math comparing 20% to 400%+ is a cracker



Yes, didn't read the article just the headline, my bad. 🤣


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## Humid

You could get a job at the Murdoch press or Sky News


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## sptrawler

Humid said:


> You could get a job at the Murdoch press or Sky News



I could never work as a reporter, always looking for the negative in every issue, it would be too depressing for me. 
A bit like the police, always interacting with the seedy sector of society, would eventually make me cynical and think the worst of everyone. 
I think there re some jobs, you just have to be cut out for, journo's, police, politicians, business owners, they all take certain character traits IMO.


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## SirRumpole

Is prickly acacia the new 'green coal' ?









						Noxious weed to become 'green coal' at new plant in outback Queensland
					

For years, prickly acacia has been the bane of many a farmer's existence. Now it is set to become a valuable renewable energy source.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## macca

SirRumpole said:


> Is prickly acacia the new 'green coal' ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Noxious weed to become 'green coal' at new plant in outback Queensland
> 
> 
> For years, prickly acacia has been the bane of many a farmer's existence. Now it is set to become a valuable renewable energy source.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au




Hopefully it is financially viable, clearing or reducing it would certainly add value to the farms


----------



## sptrawler

The human side of coal plant closures and the disbelief of the workers, when they are told the closure is being brought forward 7 years, this same issue is happening throughout Australia.
It really does hammer small country towns that built up around the power stations and the mines that supply them, the house prices collapse, people without trades have very few transferable skill sets, those who are between 40-55 are really affected.
Hopefully the State Governments can transform the towns into vibrant communities with a future. 
In W.A Collie which is having the same issues is in a fairly fortunate position, it has very attractive forest surrounding i a major coastal town is only 60klm away and Perth is only 200klm. 
There are bauxite, lithium and gold mines close by and the government has poured a lot of money into facelifting the town, building a motorplex complex etc.
Hopefully over East things can be done.








						Jonno knows he's about to lose his job of 19 years — and he has no idea what to do next
					

Shock, denial, stress, anger. Workers are struggling to comprehend the early closure of Australia’s largest coal-fired power station and the plan for what comes next.




					www.abc.net.au


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## sptrawler

Interesting the Federal Government is trying to get the rules changed on notification of closure of coal power stations, currently the notice must be 3.5 years the Government wants it out to 5 years, as we have said like the ICE car manufacturers the coal generators are becoming an albatross around the companies necks.
If I was a coal power station owner, I would be closing ASAP and buying into the renewables, because as with rooftop solar there will only be a certain window of opportunity where just about anything can be shoved into the system. 
As times go by more regulation around what can and can't be installed and where it has to be located will limit opportunity and increase costs, meanwhile the cost to keep the coal plant running will increase and the opportunities to close them early will decrease, while new entrants are taking up the available new renewable space.  

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04...lay-coal-fired-power-plant-closures/100972478
From the article:
The Federal Government is seeking to introduce new rules to ensure energy companies provide five years' notice before closing power stations, amid concerns about reliability and affordability.
Under the current rules — set by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) rather than the government — electricity companies need to provide at least 3.5 years' notice of an upcoming closure.
Mr Taylor will today argue that length of time does not give the sector long enough to invest or develop new projects that could replace the electricity provided by closing plants.
The federal government does not set these rules and, instead, makes a submission to the AEMC and lobbies for the change.
If accepted, the rule change would not impact closures that have already been announced, such as Eraring or the closure of the Liddell power station that is operated by AGL.
When Origin announced the early closure of the Eraring plant in February, Mr Taylor noted the company had given the minimum notice period of 3.5 years.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Interesting the Federal Government is trying to get the rules changed on notification of closure of coal power stations, currently the notice must be 3.5 years the Government wants it out to 5 years, as we have said like the ICE car manufacturers the coal generators are becoming an albatross around the companies necks.
> If I was a coal power station owner, I would be closing ASAP and buying into the renewables, because as with rooftop solar there will only be a certain window of opportunity where just about anything can be shoved into the system.
> As times go by more regulation around what can and can't be installed and where it has to be located will limit opportunity and increase costs, meanwhile the cost to keep the coal plant running will increase and the opportunities to close them early will decrease, while new entrants are taking up the available new renewable space.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04...lay-coal-fired-power-plant-closures/100972478
> From the article:
> The Federal Government is seeking to introduce new rules to ensure energy companies provide five years' notice before closing power stations, amid concerns about reliability and affordability.
> Under the current rules — set by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) rather than the government — electricity companies need to provide at least 3.5 years' notice of an upcoming closure.
> Mr Taylor will today argue that length of time does not give the sector long enough to invest or develop new projects that could replace the electricity provided by closing plants.
> The federal government does not set these rules and, instead, makes a submission to the AEMC and lobbies for the change.
> If accepted, the rule change would not impact closures that have already been announced, such as Eraring or the closure of the Liddell power station that is operated by AGL.
> When Origin announced the early closure of the Eraring plant in February, Mr Taylor noted the company had given the minimum notice period of 3.5 years.




What about a requirement to replace the output of of a coal station with equivalent in renewable generation, and if they can't do that then hand the coal plant back to the government ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> What about a requirement to replace the output of of a coal station with equivalent in renewable generation, and if they can't do that then hand the coal plant back to the government ?



I tend to think that is what will happen, eventually the private operators will have to decide whether to just write it off or replace it with an alternative, when that time comes the Government will probably have to buy out the remaining stations to wear the loses  but have the at call generation.
At the moment there is obviously enough available capacity for system security, but once these two big stations close, it will start and put more pressure on the remaining ones.
It certainly will be interesting, by the mid to late 2030's IMO.


----------



## Smurf1976

For reference, list of coal plant in the NEM (in order of age within states):

Qld:

Gladstone - 1680 MW owned primarily by a joint venture of Rio Tinto and NRG Energy and 10% by an assortment of other minor owners. Commissioned 1976.

Tarong - 1400 MW owned by Stanwell Corporation. Commissioned 1984.

Callide B - 700 MW owned by CS Energy. Commissioned 1988.

Stanwell - 1400 MW owned by Stanwell Corporation. Commissioned 1993. Trivia: For a period until 2021 Unit 4 held a world record, 1073 days' continuous uninterrupted operation.

Callide C - 840 MW owned 50 / 50 by CS Energy and Intergen with CS Energy as operator. Commissioned 2001.

Millmerran - 850 MW owned by Intergen. Commissioned 2002.

Tarong North - 443 MW owned 50 / 50 by by Stanwell Corporation and TM Energy with Stanwell as the operator. Commissioned 2003.

Kogan Creek - 750 MW owned by CS Energy. Commissioned 2007. Notable feature is it's air cooled.

Note: Stanwell Corporation and CS Energy are both 100% owned by the Queensland state government.

NSW:

Liddell - 1260 MW owned by AGL. Commissioned in 1971 with one of the original 4 units closed in April 2022.

Vales Point B - 1320 MW owned by Delta Electricity. Commissioned in 1979. Trivia: Vales Point A (now closed) and B power stations feature prominently in a Midnight Oil music video: 

Eraring - 2880 MW + 40 MW from a separate diesel-fired gas turbine at the site owned by Origin Energy. Commissioned 1982.

Bayswater - 2740 MW owned by AGL. Commissioned 1985/86.

Mt Piper - 1430 MW owned by Energy Australia. Commissioned 1993 with the recent addition of a separate boiler fuelled by processed refuse, raising capacity of unit 1 by 30 MW.

Redbank - 151 MW owned by Verdant Technologies Australia. Commissioned in 2001 the plant is not presently in operation however there are various plans to resume operations, most likely using biomass rather than coal as the fuel. This facility uses fluidised bed combustion rather than conventional pulverised fuel boilers.

Victoria:

Yallourn (formerly known as Yallourn W) - 1480 MW owned by Energy Australia. Built as two separate projects with commissioning 1973/75 and second stage 1981.

Loy Yang A - 2210 MW owned by AGL. Commissioned 1984.

Loy Yang B - 1160 MW owned by Alinta. Commissioned 1993.

Note that despite separate owners, Loy Yang A & B are at the same site and both exclusively use coal from the Loy Yang mine operated by AGL. 

Loy Yang B station was only ever half built and on the unused land sits another power station, Valley Power, a gas turbine plant owned by Snowy Hydro. Its location being due to having been originally built by the former owners of Loy Yang B in 2001/02. As a bit more trivia, Valley Power is actually comprised of 6 generating units, 50 MW each, relocated from the former Stratford and Whirinaki power stations in New Zealand originally built 1976 and 1978 respectively.


----------



## Smurf1976

To clarify the issues around power generation, without wanting to take the thread too far off the EV topic, the basic issues are in brief:

Coal plant is flexible in operation only up to a point. It varies between facilities but the lower limit is 30 - 55% of maximum output for in service plant in Australia.  That is, operation is limited to the 30 - 100% or 55 - 100% range. Etc, the precise figures vary and depend heavily on the coal quality.

Below that four basic options:

1. Dump steam. That comes with issues of using up demineralised water and is also a total waste of fuel burned, it's just a means to keep coal going in and the boiler on without electricity coming out and is not something intended for routine use.

2. Use high grade auxiliary fuel to enable a lower output (but still won't get below 20% of maximum rating). At one facility the oil torches are lit to achieve that and burn about 140 litres per minute. That gets expensive rather quickly.

3. Shutdown and restart. That comes with costs in terms of wasted fuel but more so in that each time plant is pressure and temperature cycled that adds wear. Surest way to know someone's decided to close a coal plant and is just getting the last worthwhile use out of it is if they've started daily or even twice daily cycling of it. That's thrashing the proverbial out of it in terms of wearing it out such that closure becomes inevitable.

4. Remain online at minimum output by offering extremely low prices, negative in practice, to the market. That's paying someone to take the output yes, it's less than giving it away but avoids the need to physically do anything at the plant. The idea being that someone else blinks first and shuts down.

The other side of all this is the economics.

Coal plant is costly to build and has high fixed costs to retain in operational condition but it's relatively cheaper to operate, per unit of output, than other fuel burning plant. That's especially so in the context of coal plant using coal that's below export grade or which has no physical means of being traded (mine next to the power station etc) in which case the cost of operation is extremely low.

In contrast gas turbines are relatively cheap to build, don't cost much to just have sitting there but they're rather more costly to operate, extremely so if we're talking about running on liquid fuels or export parity gas. As the joke goes, may as well blow $100 notes up the stack since that's pretty much what it amounts to.

Where the issue arises with wind and solar is simply that the growth of them is _*intermittently*_ eating into what would otherwise be a stable, constant load on coal-fired generation. Instead of being able to run constantly, it's now a case of needing to ramp up and down. That brings two problems:

1. Having to do one of the 4 things I mentioned in order to deal with low required output.

2. Fewer MWh sold at a profit from which fixed costs can be recovered.

So costs go up and revenue goes down. Put the two together and that kills the economics in a big way.

As an example of that, in Victoria today prices were generally negative, and coal plant was sitting on its technical minimum output, from around 8am to around 2pm (times rounded for simplicity).

SA also experienced negative pricing during this time with the only fossil fuel generation running being two gas-fired steam units generating at their technical minimum of 40MW each. Those being on as the minimum synchronous generation required under present conditions to maintain system strength (a technical issue I've mentioned previously in this thread but suffice the say the reason is down to engineering considerations not economics, politics or who owns what, it's a strictly technical limit).

The underlying reason reasoning in both states basically being low consumption (Sunday and fairly mild weather in both states) combined with good available output from wind and solar generation.

So what happens?

Transmission flow Vic > NSW and Vic > Tas was at maximum in both cases and that puts some of it to use. At 11am 37% of all consumption in Tasmania was being supplied from Victoria as was 7.7% of consumption in NSW (incl ACT).

But then there's the rest....

At 11am, which I'm referring to simply as being around the middle of the day not literally noon so a representative time not the extreme, available output from wind and solar versus actual production was:

Victoria available = 1833MW
Victoria actual = 1211MW

SA available = 743MW
SA actual = 599MW

Total = 2567MW available of which 1810MW was used and 757MW was curtailed (simply wasted).

Note those figures are for large scale generation only. That is they do not include rooftop solar on houses etc. For reference however output from those at 11am was 1483MW in Victoria and 903MW in SA so 2386MW in total. Those figures are estimates based on scaling up from sample data (since not all systems are directly measured).

So why not just take some of the coal units off completely then? Noting that 9 (of 10) in Victoria were running at the the time. I'll answer that by stating what happened next. All facilities mentioned are in Victoria unless the state is indicated (in brackets).

OCGT = Open Cycle Gas Turbine.

CCGT = Combined Cycle Gas Turbine. More efficient but considerably less flexible.

ICE = Internal Combustion Engine driven plant. They're large ship engines basically just turning an alternator feeding the grid.

13:45 - Coal plant starting to ramp up.

14:25 - Dry Creek unit 3 OCGT (SA) on.

14:35 - Osborne CCGT (SA) on and commenced ramp up.

15:00- Newport, a gas-fired steam plant in Victoria, placed online and starting to ramp up. Gordon hydro (Tas) starting to ramp up.

15:05 - Eildon hydro one unit online.

15:10 - Transmission flow Vic > Tas begins to fall.

15:40 - Poatina hydro (Tas) commences ramping up from very low output to maximum.

15:55 - Gordon hydro (Tas) at maximum.

16:00 - Battery discharge commences in Victoria and SA.

16:10 - Repulse hydro (Tas) ramped up. Barker inlet ICE (SA) on with 10 (of 12) engines on and at full load over next 40 minutes. Torrens Island B units 2 & 4 gas-fired steam plant (SA) commences ramp up (has been on minimum load all day).

16:15 - All 9 operating Victorian coal units now at maximum capacity.

16:20 - Tamar Valley Peaking OCGT (Tas) on.

16:30 - Clover and West Kiewa unit 2 hydro both online. Tasmania - Victoria transmission flow now at zero, reversing from Vic > Tas to Tas > Vic.

16:35 - Tungatinah hydro (Tas) on.

16:40 - Fisher hydro (Tas) ramped up. Hallett OCGT (SA) on.

16:50 - Reece hydro unit 2 (Tas) on.

16:55 - Bairnsdale OCGT one unit on. John Butters hydro (Tas) on.

17:10 - Murray (snowy hydro) on. Cethana hydro (Tas) on. Wilmot hydro (Tas) on. Trevallyn hydro (Tas) ramped up.

17:15 - Osborne CCGT (SA) reaches full output.

17:30 - Quarantine unit 3 OCGT (SA) on.

17:35 - Mackintosh hydro (Tas) on. Transmission flow Tas > Vic at maximum capacity.

17:40 - Basytan hydro (Tas) on.

17:45 - Newport at maximum capacity.

18:15 - Dartmouth hydro on.

18:25 - Bairnsdale OCGT second unit on.

So it's a feast to famine thing and today was in no way unremarkable, indeed with mild weather it's a relatively boring one. A lot more plant than that would be brought on, and more quickly, under harsher conditions - today was a casual stroll through the park basically, it wasn't a race by any means.

But if the coal units weren't kept on, well the lights wouldn't have stayed on and there's the problem. They weren't built to do what's now required with intermittent operation and a relatively fast ramp up being required as the sun gets lower meanwhile consumption goes higher.

What all that looks like (transmission flow between states and removed for simplicity)

Yellow = solar
Green = wind
Dark blue = hydro
Light blue = battery
Orange = gas
Red = diesel
Black = coal
Purple = net import from other states

Below the zero line = battery charging, hydro pumping and export to other states

Red line separate at the bottom = spot price















NSW had no surplus supply issues but I'm posting it since the storing of energy, pumped hydro, is clearly visible as load below the zero line during the middle of the day.


----------



## sptrawler

As usual a terrific post @Smurf1976 , the problem today is, everyone is an expert, due to the last article they read on the media, it certainly seems pointless discussing it on the forum.
There are only a couple of people on the forum, who have taken anything from the years of discussion and information.

All the media does is undermine the reality of what needs to be done, by replacing it with white noise, to confuse the general population, it puts more pressure on a system that IMO is stretched to the limit. Yet obviously intelligent people believe the only issue is the market price, if only that was the problem, it would be easy. 

Time will tell, let's see how Labor manage it, will they be slammed for subsidising coal, or will they allow them to just shut down?
Like you have said many times, politics really needs to butt out of the electrical system especially at this time, the media should take a much more neutral stance on it IMO, they aren't experts yet put their bias on the content of their articles.
Leave it to the technical experts, not the wordsmiths.


----------



## SirRumpole

More efficient solar PVT cells.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> All the media does is undermine the reality of what needs to be done, by replacing it with white noise, to confuse the general population, it puts more pressure on a system that IMO is stretched to the limit.




I think the point the politicians and media miss is that it will do nobody any favours to have the lights go out.

Labor, Liberal, Greens, National or anyone else, having people sitting in the dark etc or ordered to not use heating when it's cold or to not watch TV is not a vote winner.

My personal view is there'll be a crisis but it probably won't be a purely technical one. Rather, it'll be a financial one and by that I mean either the operators of coal plant simply walk away and government ends up an owner of last resort, being faced with either that or the lights going out, with the other risk being the rising price of trade exposed fuels leads to an electricity price shock to consumers.

The other risk is of old plant suffering a major failure and being uneconomic to repair. Plenty of examples of that worldwide with one that comes to mind being Ironbridge B in the UK, a site somewhat well known due to its very close proximity to a World Heritage site and the power station itself with its distinctive pink cooling towers. Long story short unit 1 suffered a major fire in 2014, it was decided to not repair the 45 year old plant and the rest of the station was closed in 2015.

The risk of that can't be ruled out in the Australian context in my view. Eg Origin have announced the intention to close Eraring and logically there'd be a limit to how much they'd be willing to spend on repairs if anything happened in the meantime given that its fate is already sealed. Not that I'm predicting a major failure there but it can't be ruled out, it's 40 year old plant after all.


----------



## Ferret

Smurf,

Are you aware of any serious proposals to join WA to the east coast grid?  This would have to improve the flexibility and resilience of the grid.  

I appreciate that the great distances involved would mean very high capital costs, but perhaps this is the sort of nation building project that a federal government should be backing.


----------



## Smurf1976

Ferret said:


> Are you aware of any serious proposals to join WA to the east coast grid?



The idea's around and proposals have been put forward but at this point in time the big problem is economic.

The shortest possible route between the systems is about 1450km but that results in connection to Kalgoorlie at the WA end and that's an already extremely constrained, far edge of the WA grid situation. Capacity to transmit power from WA to SA would be essentially zero, indeed the ability to simply supply existing load at Kalgoorlie and surrounds does rely on some local generation being in operation, it can't run solely on the single 220kV transmission line connecting it to the rest of the system.





Image source = AEMO and the map is publicly available to anyone. Note the map shows main transmission lines only and does not show the local distribution network fed from it.

To get to a strong point from which to connect with serious capacity requires going most of the way to Perth or alternatively to Muja power station, south of Perth and the point where the blue 220kV line originates from.

That ends up at about 2000km and the problem is simply one of economics versus benefits.

Traditionally south-west WA and SA have both had pretty similar economics for power generation with the use of low grade coal and high reliance on natural gas (and previously oil). There hasn't been a major difference there, it's not as though either state has a great big hydro scheme or something like that.

My personal view is it'll probably happen someday but not for quite a while, it's not the lowest hanging fruit on the tree in terms of cost / benefit ratio. To happen in the short term it would need someone (a politician) to grab hold of it from the "nation building" perspective.

Easier things in the short to medium term in terms of cost / benefit:

SA - NSW interconnection which is actually being built.

Upgrades NSW - Vic and Vic - Tas associated with wind, solar and hydro developments as well as transmission within the states.

Queensland grid to Mt Isa is proposed and that would remove Mt Isa (and surrounds) present reliance on its isolated standalone power system.

Another possibility is the Lake Argyle hydro in WA is now very much underutilised due to closure of the Argyle diamond mine which used the majority of its output. There have been various thoughts and proposals regarding it and it's not something I've really followed given its location but I do note that it's "only" 400km from the existing Darwin-Katherine system, the main power grid in the NT.

Given it's an effectively free power source, since it's already built and costs very little to maintain, it might be worth the cost of the line to use it to replace a portion of the (increasingly expensive) gas used for generation in the NT. Combined with other potential hydro sites in the NT (several have previously been identified) + solar that could effectively replace gas completely.


----------



## Smurf1976

A substantial presentation likely to interest those following this subject:



It's 80 minutes long and covers a range of topics specifically focused on the NEM although the same concepts do apply to other states especially south-west WA.

The first 10 minutes is a just "this is who we are and here's some advertising from our sponsors" but it gets more serious after that.

Note that the GenInsights21 report referred to is _not_ freely available. Well, it's available as such but it'll cost you $3000 + GST if you want to read it.....

The presentation in the video is free however


----------



## sptrawler

There is a good two page article on Snowy 2.0 in todays Financial Review, if anyone is interested. If people took the time to read the article, it would save a lot of baseless arguments in this thread IMO.









						The battle to build Snowy 2.0 heats up
					

Australia faces a rocky transition to zero emissions as costs and delays continue to plague one of the world’s most ambitious engineering feats.




					www.afr.com
				



From the article:
The article takes the politics out of it and explains the rational behind it, the concept was originally concept started in 1980 and built on since then.
Another interesting quote, "The AEMO estimates that by 2050 without coal fired plant, the national grid will need 45GW and 620GWhs of storage", to keep the grid stable.
Also since the original costing the assumption of a pumping cost of $40/MWHr has dropped to $10-$15 due to the amount of renewables that has since been installed on the system.
When commissioned Snowy 2.0 will be able to inject power into the grid in 90 seconds, currently Tumut takes about 3-3.5 minutes, gas plant takes about 15 minutes.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> A substantial presentation likely to interest those following this subject:
> 
> 
> 
> It's 80 minutes long and covers a range of topics specifically focused on the NEM although the same concepts do apply to other states especially south-west WA.
> 
> The first 10 minutes is a just "this is who we are and here's some advertising from our sponsors" but it gets more serious after that.
> 
> Note that the GenInsights21 report referred to is _not_ freely available. Well, it's available as such but it'll cost you $3000 + GST if you want to read it.....
> 
> The presentation in the video is free however




I certainly hope @SirRumpole @Value Collector , @basilio and @rederob watch that clip from the 10 minute mark, it is a brilliant explanation and thanks @Smurf1976 for posting it.
I see they call plant "scheduled" and "semi scheduled", scheduled being what we on here have been calling "at call" generation and semi scheduled being what we refer to as "renewables". Also remembering coal generators aren't designed to have their load constantly swung around, GT's and batteries are much more suited to that function.
Magic clip smurf.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> I see they call plant "scheduled" and "semi scheduled"



For clarification those are AEMO terms.

Scheduled = conventional plant which, unless something fails unexpectedly, has a known definite output it can be dispatched to achieve. So coal, gas, hydro etc.

Semi-scheduled = plant where there's uncertainty and the limit of capacity is a forecast only subject to change beyond the control of any human. Wind and solar in practice.

Non-scheduled = small generating units not centrally dispatched. Mostly rooftop solar and minor sources such as landfill gas but a few others also exist - eg smaller hydro or internal combustion units up to 30 MW each.

Some non-scheduled generators are intentionally aggregated and scheduled. For example the 6 x 15MW hydro machines at Tarraleah power station in Tasmania are dispatched by AEMO as a single 90MW unit as are the 12 x 17.5MW internal combustion engines at Barker Inlet in SA. AEMO dispatches the station as a single generator, Hydro Tas and AGL respectively resolve that in terms of what happens physically with the machines on site.

Someone (not me) has filmed a walk through of Tarraleah PS during a public open day by the looks of it. It's rather noisy yes......



84 years of operation this year, the first 3 machines were commissioned in 1938 (the others being 1943, 1945 and 1951). A check online finds it's running at 74MW right now.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I certainly hope @SirRumpole @Value Collector , @basilio and @rederob watch that clip from the 10 minute mark, it is a brilliant explanation and thanks @Smurf1976 for posting it.
> I see they call plant "scheduled" and "semi scheduled", scheduled being what we on here have been calling "at call" generation and semi scheduled being what we refer to as "renewables". Also remembering coal generators aren't designed to have their load constantly swung around, GT's and batteries are much more suited to that function.
> Magic clip smurf.



Are you suggesting I've been spreading misinformation ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Are you suggesting I've been spreading misinformation ?



No, in your case, I actually did think you would find it interesting. You've always shown an interest in the subject and had an open mind about it.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Are you suggesting I've been spreading misinformation ?



Not you no.   

There's a lot of it around in the general community however and it really frustrates those involved.

The main ones being the two extremes. 

One is the claim that solar and wind can do the lot and it's all dead easy but which fails to mention any of the real world complexity and requirements to making it work. There's some very real challenges to it all - it seems doable but it's not as simple as just installing wind and solar farms and that's it.

Then there's the other extreme, those who say it can't be done. Had they been alive at the time those same people would probably have ridiculed the idea of aircraft, sound recording and even the bicycle too.

The mainstream media and politics has done much to unnecessarily confuse the population about all this in my view.


----------



## Knobby22

Would you say that in Europe where, unlike Australia, the ability of renewables to provide power is quite constrained (less solar radiation, higher density of people so wind power incapable of providing load) that Nuclear power will likely be necessary if a low carbon power system is to be reality by their timelines of 2030?


----------



## sptrawler

Knobby22 said:


> Would you say that in Europe where, unlike Australia, the ability of renewables to provide power is quite constrained (less solar radiation, higher density of people so wind power incapable of providing load) that Nuclear power will likely be necessary if a low carbon power system is to be reality by their timelines of 2030?



My guess, absolutely, we have a tiny grid compared to Europe. 
Also they are already heavily dependent on Frances nuclear and Russia's gas, yet have a huge amount of renewables already installed. 
The amount of pumped hydro required would be huge and would take a considerable amount of time to build. But in the next few years we will know, because Germany has to lower its dependence on Russia's gas, how they do that will paint the picture.
From google:  
With a population of around 740 million inhabitants, or roughly ten percent of the global population, Europe is one of the world's largest electricity consumers. In 2018, Europeans consumed approximately *four petawatt hours*, roughly the same consumption of Africa, Eurasia, the Middle East, and Latin America combined.
Total installed European *wind* capacity stood at *219.5 GW* at the end of 2020, of which 179 GW was in EU27 states.






						Electricity production, consumption and market overview - Statistics Explained
					

EU statistics on electricity generation by source, electricity consumption of households, and the level of liberalisation are presented.




					ec.europa.eu


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting article on ENGIES transition to renewables, there seems to be a lot of 'fluff' about batterie, but this statement I found really interesting. As we have said in this thread earlier these coal power station sites have a huge amount of critical infrastructure already existing, also they are usually situated in strategic positions.









						Sector abuzz over sustainable storage
					

The site of the former Hazelwood coal-fired power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley is transforming into a giant battery.




					www.afr.com
				



From the article:
Hazelwood, shut down in 2017 in a portent of what was to come for other ageing coal plants, is taking on new life as home to a battery that will make use of existing transmission connections.

ENGIE, which is aiming to pioneer vertically integrated utilities of the future in Australia, owns 70 per cent of the initial stage of the Hazelwood battery. The remaining 30 per cent rests in the hands of Macquarie’s Green Investment Group.

ENGIE’s Andrew Hyland says *the 150MW battery is just the start of Hazelwood’s evolution and is excited to think about the legacy 1600MW of transition capacity associated with plant.*


----------



## Smurf1976

Knobby22 said:


> Would you say that in Europe where, unlike Australia, the ability of renewables to provide power is quite constrained (less solar radiation, higher density of people so wind power incapable of providing load) that Nuclear power will likely be necessary if a low carbon power system is to be reality by their timelines of 2030?



Theoretically nuclear isn't essential and it would be possible to do it with renewables instead.

In practice though I really can't see that happening. Europe will certainly deploy renewables but they're not done with nuclear and for that matter fossil fuels will be around for a while yet too.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Theoretically nuclear isn't essential and it would be possible to do it with renewables instead.
> 
> In practice though I really can't see that happening. Europe will certainly deploy renewables but they're not done with nuclear and for that matter fossil fuels will be around for a while yet too.



The issue as you know surf, isn't whether it can be done with renewables and storage,but the time it would take to do it with renewables and storage and at the same time maintain living standards and industrial production.

The other thing that is interesting is, if it is so easy to do it with renewables and storage, why haven't can't we do it with most of our central Australian Towns? They are endowed with terrific amounts of sun radiance and wind, why not make Alice Springs fully renewables?
They are a relatively small population in a perfect location, why not try and make it a renewable centre piece?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The issue as you know surf, isn't whether it can be done with renewables and storage,but the time it would take to do it with renewables and storage and at the same time maintain living standards and industrial production.



If a "wartime" approach, of the kind we've actually seen with the pandemic, were adopted then I've no doubt it would be possible to do it.

In practice however there's very little chance of that happening so it's going to take far longer and in that means there's a place for nuclear and fossils for a while yet too. 

In Australia though the only reason we'll build a nuclear power station is if someone just wants one for some reasons other than simply generating electricity.


----------



## sptrawler

It sounds as though there will be a major outage to strip the alternator @Smurf1976 



			https://cdn-api.markitdigital.com/apiman-gateway/ASX/asx-research/1.0/file/2924-02511624-2A1369338?access_token=83ff96335c2d45a094df02a206a39ff4
		










						Loy Yang A coal generator unit offline for second time in three years
					

AGL says a unit at Loy Yang A has been sent offline, perhaps until August, its second major fault in just three years.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the article:
AGL Energy says a troubled generator unit at the Loy Yang A coal fired power station has been taken offline, possibly until August, due to an electrical fault within the generator.

It is the second time the ‘Unit 2’ generator at the Loy Yang A power station has been shut down due to an electrical fault, with a similar incident occurring in 2019 that shut down the same generator unit for more than seven months.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It sounds as though there will be a major outage to strip the alternator @Smurf1976




The alternator was rewound in 2019, given a test run starting on 24 December that year at partial capacity followed by further work and intermittent operation during January and February 2020. Full return to service for sustained running was on 6 March 2020.

Whatever's gone wrong here I'm not sure but I can see this getting seriously painful in terms of the "who's to blame?" aspect. 

For the record the other three units in Loy Yang A station and both B station units are not the same, indeed they're a different manufacturer. Unit 2 in A station, the one that has failed, was originally ordered for installation at Newport D station (Melbourne) however the scale of that was reduced from the originally planned two machines down to one so the other turbine and alternator ended up being the first installed at Loy Yang instead.

Newport has been in operation since 1980 whilst Loy Yang commenced operation in 1984.

Newport, now owned by Energy Australia, hasn't had any comparable incidents to my knowledge although it does have a different operating regime. Newport uses a gas-fired boiler and runs intermittently whereas Loy Yang runs constantly. Since 1999 Newport has an average capacity factor if 13.7%, that is an average output of 13.7% of peak output, which is a product of that intermittent operation and generally varying output when it's running.


----------



## Eager

Considering the correlation between inreasingly high coal prices/continuing breakdown of coal fired electricity generation and the increasing wholesale price of electricity generation across NEM over the past year, causation is implied.

Those wedded to coal have nowhere to move. Electricity generation from wind/solar might be intermittent, but predicatble in the short term, which is good enough for the market. Breakdown of coal fired electricity generation is unpredicatble and common. The fuel source for renewables, when available, is free. Coal and gas, as fuel sources, are becoming more expensive.

Retail electricity will become cheaper the more that coal is dumped.


----------



## Smurf1976

Eager said:


> Electricity generation from wind/solar might be intermittent, but predicatble in the short term, which is good enough for the market



It's good enough provided that there's an adequate storage system, or alternatively backup, to go with it.

Without that the ability to predict what's going to happen doesn't change the outcome. Knowing that the wind's going to blow for the next x hours then stop is helpful only if you're able to deal with it when it happens.

That's not a political, ideological or economic argument but simply an engineering one. Load on the NEM right now is 20,555 MW and either that's supplied in real time or it isn't. If it isn't well then the lights go out, literally so.

Where the debate lies is with how to do it. Few disagree with the idea of wind, solar and shallow storage using batteries. That's the easy bit. 

It's the bulk storage aspect where the serious debate exists.


----------



## sptrawler

The weird part is @Smurf1976 that people think that generators would rather run coal than renewables, it shows the level of ignorance in the general public IMO.
As you know if it was as easy as just building a 1000MW solar/wind farm and shut down the 1,00MW power station, AGL, Origin etc would jump at it, then when everyone is sitting in the dark with the toilet overflowing people would wonder why.

New AGL unit outage adds to energy pain​Wholesale power prices have jumped by 150 per cent amid soaring coal and gas costs while heavy rain dampened solar output, Origin Energy warns.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The weird part is @Smurf1976 that people think that generators would rather run coal than renewables, it shows the level of ignorance in the general public IMO.
> As you know if it was as easy as just building a 1000MW solar/wind farm and shut down the 1,00MW power station, AGL, Origin etc would jump at it, then when everyone is sitting in the dark with the toilet overflowing people would wonder why.
> 
> New AGL unit outage adds to energy pain​Wholesale power prices have jumped by 150 per cent amid soaring coal and gas costs while heavy rain dampened solar output, Origin Energy warns.




A government with guts would require that OUR coal and gas is delivered for local use at reasonable prices and then let the rest of the world haggle over the price they want to pay for the remainder.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> A government with guts would require that OUR coal and gas is delivered for local use at reasonable prices and then let the rest of the world haggle over the price they want to pay for the remainder.



Yes the export parity pricing should be reviewed, but then the media would be screaming that the Government are making coal and gas cheaper because they don't like renewables.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
The only answer IMO, is the State Governments and Feds need to buy back some of this coal generation and have an orderly closure.
I just can't see how the privates can keep running these plants and spend the amounts needed to keep them going, while still making a ROE. It just isn't going to work IMO, sooner or later they are just going to walk away from the coal stations and say it isn't in our best interest to keep running like this.
Lets be honest, if we can spend $50b putting in the NBN so that the telcos can charge taxpayers more for the internet, we could spend the same buying back all the stations that are required to support the transition to renewables. At least then the running cost and maintenance cost can be amortised into consolidated revenue and the closures can be carried out in an orderly manner.
The way it is at the moment, eventually the taxpayer is going to be paying the generators a standby allowance, just to keep them available anyway. 
It will come to a head in the next 10 years IMO.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> It will come to a head in the next 10 years IMO.



No doubt telling you what you already know here but for the benefit of others.....  

An integrated utility, either government or privately owned, would take a very different view of all this. In short:

1. Have a plan. What to build, in what order to build it and so on.

2. Build the new things then go through a thorough testing and commissioning process.

3. Old stuff ceases to be used and is retained on standby for a time "just in case" until there's absolute confidence that it's not needed.

Trouble is, we don't now have integrated utilities that can simply carry the cost of doing that. Now we have numerous entities all competing on price alone and without the ability to carry the cost of having plant sitting there just in case. Hence the rush to demolish, in some cases literally blow up with explosives, anything that isn't being run.

Northern, Playford B, Anglesea, Morwell, Hazelwood, Munmorah and so on. All you'll find there today is some flat land and in some cases a concrete pad where it's rather obvious _something_ used to be there but there's nothing left of them in terms of being a power station. Gone.

Only stuff that's mothballed as such is the Tamar Valley CCGT in Tasmania which is properly mothballed for future use if needed. Plus the not in service units at Torrens Island in SA - the 4 x 120 MW are being properly mothballed although I'll be seriously surprised if they're ever returned to service in practice. There's also a 200 MW unit that's out of service but that one I expect probably will be returned someday - needs some work done however but it's not stuffed.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> No doubt telling you what you already know here but for the benefit of others.....
> 
> An integrated utility, either government or privately owned, would take a very different view of all this. In short:
> 
> 1. Have a plan. What to build, in what order to build it and so on.
> 
> 2. Build the new things then go through a thorough testing and commissioning process.
> 
> 3. Old stuff ceases to be used and is retained on standby for a time "just in case" until there's absolute confidence that it's not needed.
> 
> Trouble is, we don't now have integrated utilities that can simply carry the cost of doing that. Now we have numerous entities all competing on price alone and without the ability to carry the cost of having plant sitting there just in case. Hence the rush to demolish, in some cases literally blow up with explosives, anything that isn't being run.
> 
> Northern, Playford B, Anglesea, Morwell, Hazelwood, Munmorah and so on. All you'll find there today is some flat land and in some cases a concrete pad where it's rather obvious _something_ used to be there but there's nothing left of them in terms of being a power station. Gone.
> 
> Only stuff that's mothballed as such is the Tamar Valley CCGT in Tasmania which is properly mothballed for future use if needed. Plus the not in service units at Torrens Island in SA - the 4 x 120 MW are being properly mothballed although I'll be seriously surprised if they're ever returned to service in practice. There's also a 200 MW unit that's out of service but that one I expect probably will be returned someday - needs some work done however but it's not stuffed.




Exactly. A plan for the future is needed , not just continual brain farts about what looks good or is politically correct at the time.

OK , the first approach may be less flexible , but at least it provides some certainty, not a continual fear among consumers that the lights will go out...


----------



## SirRumpole

SirRumpole said:


> Exactly. A plan for the future is needed , not just continual brain farts about what looks good or is politically correct at the time.
> 
> OK , the first approach may be less flexible , but at least it provides some certainty, not a continual fear among consumers that the lights will go out...




Or that prices will go through the roof.


----------



## sptrawler

@SirRumpole I posted this article in the uranium thread, but the last point highlights what you and I have been saying for a long time.

Nuclear Power in the United Kingdom​_(Updated April 2022)_


*The UK generates about 15% of its electricity from about 7 GW of nuclear capacity.*
*Most existing capacity is to be retired by the end of the decade, but the first of a new generation of nuclear plants is under construction.*
*Government plans call for up to 24 GW of new nuclear capacity by 2050 to provide about 25% of electricity.*
*The UK has implemented a thorough assessment process for new reactor designs and their siting.*
*The UK has privatized power generation and liberalized its electricity market, which together make major capital investments problematic.*


----------



## Smurf1976

The single biggest thing about the UK's decision to build more nuclear isn't about the reactors themselves or anything relating to them.

Rather, it's about who made the decision - government.

The actual champion of the cause for "liberalised" electricity markets is back into central planning in a big way and they won't be the last because, quite frankly, the idea just doesn't work particularly well due to its inherent lack of long term planning. Competing businesses can do the short term stuff, that with a lifespan of 25 or so years, quite easily but they do tend to baulk at the idea of first revenue being 15 years away and a 200 year project lifecycle and doing that in a competitive market with zero guarantees. 

Government getting back into it, in the country which championed the cause of doing the opposite, is big news.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> The single biggest thing about the UK's decision to build more nuclear isn't about the reactors themselves or anything relating to them.
> 
> Rather, it's about who made the decision - government.
> 
> The actual champion of the cause for "liberalised" electricity markets is back into central planning in a big way and they won't be the last because, quite frankly, the idea just doesn't work particularly well due to its inherent lack of long term planning. Competing businesses can do the short term stuff, that with a lifespan of 25 or so years, quite easily but they do tend to baulk at the idea of first revenue being 15 years away and a 200 year project lifecycle and doing that in a competitive market with zero guarantees.
> 
> Government getting back into it, in the country which championed the cause of doing the opposite, is big news.




Yes, even our 'champions of liberalisation' , the LNP realised the place of governments in the power industry with the expansion of Snowy Hydro and the Kurri Kurri gas turbines. 

That's not to say it has to be all government owned, as you pointed out there is room for both public and private, but they have to come to an agreement as to who does what based on pragmatism not ideology.


----------



## sptrawler

Power price surge slugs big users​The Australian Energy Regulator is investigating after wholesale electricity tariffs rose above $5000 per megawatt hour.


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## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Power price surge slugs big users​The Australian Energy Regulator is investigating after wholesale electricity tariffs rose above $5000 per megawatt hour.




Another market failure ?


----------



## JohnDe

"_The quest for grid inertia, then, is an example of the nitty-gritty adjustments needed to accommodate the shift in energy production and use that is now going on. Other technologies, from electric cars to hydrogen-gas supplies, may have higher profiles. But what is happening down in the engine room of the green economy is just as important—if not more so._"



> Green power needs more than just solar panels and wind turbines​Electricity grids themselves must be tweaked to cope​
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No good deed, an old saying has it, goes unpunished. That is certainly true of the introduction of green energy. The unreliability of solar and wind power compared with that generated by fossil fuels is well known—and with it the concomitant need for storage facilities such as large battery packs to smooth things over.
> 
> But green energy brings another, more subtle, problem. Modern electrical grids operate on alternating currents (ac), and these need to be of a fixed and reliable frequency (usually either 50hz or 60hz). This frequency’s stability is maintained by a phenomenon called grid inertia, which results from the real, physical inertia (as described by Isaac Newton’s first law of motion) embodied in the power-generating turbines of fossil-fuel (and also nuclear and hydroelectric) power stations.
> 
> Going for a spin​These turbines act as massive, inertia-storing flywheels. As long as their outputs are in synchrony (and one important part of grid management is to keep them that way), the resistance to change which their inertia provides stabilises the whole grid. The fewer the number of these turbines (as opposed to wind turbines, which rotate out of sync with the grid, and solar panels, which do not rotate at all), the less inertia a grid has. And in some particularly green countries this is getting to be a problem, to the extent that non-power-generating flywheels are being added to the system to provide the missing inertia.
> 
> One such place is Britain, which generates about 30% of its electrical power from wind and sunlight. On March 17th, for example, National Grid eso—the firm that, as its name suggests, operates the country’s electricity grid—cut the opening ribbon on a plant built near Keith, in northern Scotland, by Statkraft, a Norwegian renewable-energy firm. The inertia in this plant is stored by a pair of steel flywheels (see picture of the road train required to deliver them). Each of these flywheels weighs 194 tonnes and rotates at up to 500 revolutions per minute (rpm).
> 
> A second Statkraft plant should open in the autumn, near Liverpool. Instead of large masses rotating relatively slowly, this will rely on smaller ones spinning fast (1,500rpm). Both approaches embody about the same amount of inertia, and in combination the pair will store around 2% of the inertia currently required to support Britain’s grid. That is equivalent to the inertial contribution of a conventional coal-fired station. Moreover, later in the year National Grid esoplans to add two more systems, built by Siemens, to increase its inertia-storing potential still further.
> 
> There is, though, an alternative to building new flywheels, and that is to repurpose old ones—in other words, to redesign existing fossil-fuel stations simply to store inertia, rather than generating electricity. National Grid eso is testing that idea, too, in a former gas-fired station in north Wales. This has been open for business as an inertia store since 2021.
> 
> The firm hopes, as well as all this, to develop ways of stabilising the network without spinning lumps of metal for their own sake. That will involve the use of what are known as grid-forming inverters.
> 
> Both solar power, which is a direct current (dc) when it comes out of the generating panel, and wind power, which is ac but still needs to be tweaked before being fed into a grid, are first processed by semiconductor-based devices called inverters. This is also true of the dc drawn from storage devices such as batteries, which are employed to smooth out irregularities in solar and wind power.
> 
> Existing inverters are described as “grid following”. This means they monitor and fit in with the established frequency of the grid they are feeding into. That suits grid managers well enough when solar and wind contribute only a small fraction of a grid’s total power, but is progressively less suitable as that contribution rises. However, inverters can be designed to be “grid forming” instead—meaning the current they put out mimics the external stabilising effect of mechanical inertia. Using grid-forming inverters rather than grid-following ones should allow much more wind and solar power to be integrated easily into a grid.
> 
> Until recently, grid-forming inverters had been tested only at small scale. In January, however, Britain’s energy regulator, Ofgem, signed off on a technical standard acceptable to both manufacturers and service providers. That will permit their large-scale deployment, and Julian Leslie, National Grid eso’s chief engineer, says he expects big grid-forming inverters to be providing inertia within two years.
> 
> Grid lock​Being an island, Britain has a more or less self-contained electricity grid. This makes it a good place to try such an experiment. Success would encourage other island grids, both real (Australia’s and Ireland’s, for example) and metaphorical (such as Texas’s, which has few links with the rest of North America) to try. Larger grids in North America and Europe will no doubt be watching from the wings.
> 
> The quest for grid inertia, then, is an example of the nitty-gritty adjustments needed to accommodate the shift in energy production and use that is now going on. Other technologies, from electric cars to hydrogen-gas supplies, may have higher profiles. But what is happening down in the engine room of the green economy is just as important—if not more so. ■
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Green power needs more than just solar panels and wind turbines
> 
> 
> Electricity grids themselves must be tweaked to cope
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.economist.com


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Power price surge slugs big users​The Australian Energy Regulator is investigating after wholesale electricity tariffs rose above $5000 per megawatt hour.



There's a huge amount of pain coming on the price front that's for sure.

Even at off-peak times we're seeing ridiculous prices, it's over $200 in Qld, NSW and SA right now in the middle of the night.

Financially I can only think that something's going to break. It wouldn't surprise me if someone ended up going broke at this rate in much the same manner as has occurred overseas, most notably the UK where 31 energy retailers, out of about 70 in the market, have failed over the past year or so.

Suffice to say none of this comes as a surprise to those involved, it's been coming for a long time and won't be fixed quickly.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> There's a huge amount of pain coming on the price front that's for sure.
> 
> Even at off-peak times we're seeing ridiculous prices, it's over $200 in Qld, NSW and SA right now in the middle of the night.
> 
> Financially I can only think that something's going to break. It wouldn't surprise me if someone ended up going broke at this rate in much the same manner as has occurred overseas, most notably the UK where 31 energy retailers, out of about 70 in the market, have failed over the past year or so.
> 
> Suffice to say none of this comes as a surprise to those involved, it's been coming for a long time and won't be fixed quickly.




@Smurf1976, I know you don't like talking politics, but can you see anything in any Party policy that would help fix the problems you have been detailing for some time ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> @Smurf1976, I know you don't like talking politics, but can you see anything in any Party policy that would help fix the problems you have been detailing for some time ?



Primary reason I've lost interest in politics is broader than this one issue.

Politics itself, at least at the federal level, has ceased to be something that engages in constructive, intellectual debate and has descended into nothing more than a forum in which religious-like dogma is repeated over and over with no intent of actually resolving anything.

In contrast if we put a group of engineers, economists and ecologists together well they'll find plenty of things to disagree on as one would expect given their different perspectives. They should however be able to have a rational, constructive discussion about it, identify all the issues, assess the importance of each and so on. That's way beyond the ability of federal politics at this point.

Same goes for the general public. Even the newspapers have started blocking comments on articles relating to the subject since it simply descends into an entirely predictable tit for tat exchange of BS dogma with no actual thinking going on.

There is however some real dishonesty at one level and that's the delaying of the Default Market Offer until May 25, so that's the Wednesday straight after the election. That delay was a federal government decision and I don't think one needs to be Einstein to work out why it's been delayed. The draft version had price rises for not all customers but many and there's been an upwards price revision since then. 

If there's one thing I'd like to see the next federal government do then it's to de-politicise the issue. Face the reality that there are issues, put competent people in charge with a suitable brief and take the issue out of the public spotlight and media. Get on with it and get things done.

Otherwise, well I expect there's going to be more than a few unhappy when they see prices rising.


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## SirRumpole

Large scale photo voltaic storage.


----------



## SirRumpole

SirRumpole said:


> Large scale photo voltaic storage.





That should be thermo voltaic storage.


----------



## rederob

*Renewable power is set to break another global record in 2022 despite headwinds*
New capacity for generating electricity from solar, wind and other renewables rose by a record amount in 2021 and will do the same this year as governments increasingly take advantage of renewables’ energy security and climate benefits, according to our latest *Renewable Energy Market Update*.

Global capacity additions are expected to rise this year to 320 gigawatts – equivalent to an amount that would come close to meeting the entire electricity demand of Germany or matching the European Union’s total electricity generation from natural gas. Solar PV is on course to account for 60% of global renewable power growth in 2022, followed by wind and hydropower.


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> Financially I can only think that something's going to break.



Looks we have our first car off the starting line.

Discover Energy is a company which retails only. That is, it does not own physical generation assets and is simply a buyer on the wholesale market and a retailer to consumers. It is one of the many retailers competing for customers' business.

Following is from an email sent to a customer and which has been drawn to my attention:

Daily supply charge increased from 74 cents to 110 cents = *49% increase*

Peak consumption was 36.22 cents / kWh now 65.19 cents = *80% increase*

Shoulder consumption was 14.98 cents / kWh now 34.44 cents = *130% increase*

Off peak consumption was 12.23 cents / kWh now 28.13 cents = *130% increase*

No the email wasn't dated 1st of April. Location for the above is NSW.

*The company has also ceased accepting new customers* with this information also being clear on their website. This could all get rather interesting....


----------



## sptrawler

There is talk of a very big battery East of Collie near Muja power station, which is in the process of downsizing.








						Garnaut’s Sunshot eyes 800MWh battery and new green hydrogen hub in WA coal centre
					

Ross Garnaut’s Sunshot Energy proposes 800MWh battery as part of new green hydrogen and industrial hub in heart of Collie coal region.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



Ross Garnaut’s Sunshot Energy is proposing to build a massive 800MWh battery as part of a green hydrogen and industrial hub in the Western Australian town of Collie, in the heart of the state’s coal country.

Sunshot, which is chaired by Garnaut, says it is assessing the economic case for establishing a hydrogen electrolyser, powered by renewable energy, which could also produce green ammonia and urea for agricultural and industrial uses.

It says a big battery of 600MWh to 800MWh would be a key feature of the hub, which would provide renewable energy to new and existing industrial projects in Collie.
The battery will be four times that the Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia and four times bigger than any other big battery proposed in Western Australia to date, including the Kwinana battery put forward by Synergy and the Wagerup battery put forward by Alinta.
The W.A. government, which wants to establish new industries to support the town as the Muja coal fired power stations are progressively closed, has provided up to $1 million from the Collie Futures Industry Development Fund to fund the investigation into the Collie Battery and Hydrogen Industrial Hub Project.


----------



## Smurf1976

From discussion on another thread regarding the recent federal election, some comments about gas supply to south-eastern Australia.

Only point I need clarify is that the states of relevance NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas and SA collectively. The basic reason being a fairly high level of interconnection between them (noting that Tas is effectively part of Vic in this context) but with a far lesser connection to anywhere else, that being Queensland.

Queensland - SA pipeline can supply about 20% of peak day consumption or about a third of annual consumption so it's fairly constrained.

Now here's a chart from the ACCC which gets straight to the point:







In short, production's coming down real quick in the absence of new development and even with development of the known but undeveloped resources it's still likely to fall short of demand.

At present gas storage levels are also mixed. Some good, others not good. Charts from the AEMO Gas Bulletin Board and current through to today:

Newcastle NSW:
	

		
			
		

		
	






Iona Vic:





Dandenong Vic:





Moomba SA:





So we have southern states production reliant on immediate major investment in order to slow the decline and we also have storage levels that apart from Iona are nowhere near full.

Now the only way to bridge that gap in the short term is to divert gas production in Qld away from the LNG plants and into SA. Physically that's constrained by pipeline capacity but can be done. Financially however it comes at a rather high price, that of the lost LNG production, and ultimately that's what's triggered the huge jump in gas prices over the past month. Gas production, gas coming out of the ground, hasn't been sufficient to run both the domestic market and LNG in full and so up goes the price.

Longer term, and in this context that means 2024, the presently likely "solution" is physical gas imports directly into NSW at Port Kembla and connecting directly to the existing Eastern Gas Pipeline which links Victoria to NSW with gas then able to flow in both directions from Port Kembla. The downside of that approach, of course, is that whilst it addresses physical supply (assuming there's LNG to import), it doesn't fix the price problem.

Put that all together and it's the trigger for a tight market, high prices, manufacturers and retailers ceasing operations and a spike in electricity prices too which won't be resolved quickly in the absence of either an LNG price crash or heavy government intervention.

Noting that the scale of any intervention would be one a very high levels politically given it involves defaulting on contracts with foreign buyers. It's not something that someone within the industry's just going to go and do, it would be a matter for the federal government to decide upon.

I've intentionally avoided comment on politics but you could draw a few conclusions from it all if you choose.


----------



## Smurf1976

Adding to the previous post, where the gas is used.

The following figures are all as a % of total gas consumption across NSW, Vic, SA and Tas combined with ACT figures included in NSW:

By end use and state:
Victoria residential = 22.4%
NSW manufacturing = 12.1%
Victoria commercial & services = 11.8%
SA electricity generation = 11.8%
Victoria manufacturing = 11.2%
Victoria electricity generation = 7.9%
NSW residential = 5.3%
NSW electricity generation = 4.5%
SA manufacturing = 3.9%
NSW commercial & services = 3.0%
SA residential = 2.4%
SA commercial & services = 2.3%
Tasmania manufacturing = 0.8%
Tasmania electricity = 0.45%
Tasmania residential = 0.02%
Tasmania commercial & services = 0.02%

By end use regardless of location:
Total residential = 30.1%
Total manufacturing = 28.0%
Total electricity generation = 24.7%
Total commercial & services = 17.2%

By state regardless of end use:
Victoria = 53.3%
NSW = 25.0%
SA = 20.5%
Tasmania = 1.3%

The above is just all raw data on an annualised basis and is Australian Government statistics as the source. It's simply different ways of looking at the same thing - where it goes, what it's used for etc.

As with most things however, dig a bit deeper and detail differs from the big picture and that detail is where any shortfall in supply will bite.

Manufacturing consumption is pretty much constant year round. Meanwhile total gas consumption for all uses during winter routinely runs at well over double the level of summer with the difference being driven by space heating and electricity generation.

Victorian space heating alone is over 40% of total gas consumption across the 4 states on a cold winter day. Add in space heating in SA and NSW (gas space heating is relatively limited in Tas where electricity and wood fires are dominant) and it's about 55% of peak day demand across all states is for space heating. Versus summer when space heating is of course zero or very close to it.

Gas use for electricity generation is also hugely variable since it is effectively a generation source of low priority. That is, it fills the gap between total consumption and the combined output of all other available sources (except diesel which is the actual last resort after gas).

Putting that into perspective, over the past 12 months gas-fired generation in Victoria ran at just under 7% of capacity. That is, average output was only 7% of peak output. Note that doesn't mean it isn't needed or that too much was built but rather, it just means that under most conditions other (cheaper) sources are sufficient. When they're not, gas is used. Illustrating that, the highest week accounted for 9% of all gas-fired generation for the year and the highest month accounted for 20.8%.

Just one problem.... Guess what week that was? And what month it was?

It was June yes, right in the middle of winter and the exact same time that gas use for space heating also peaks. The highest week for the record being 14 - 20 June 2021 inclusive.

Those comments about electricity are specifically for Victoria but it's broadly the same for the other states apart from NSW which is somewhat more balanced (though still higher than normal in winter). A bit of work to calculate so I haven't done them all but in short it peaks during the colder months in terms of total gas consumption for that purpose.

This chart shows gas (only) electricity generation across all NEM states (Qld, NSW, Vic, Tas, SA) for the past 12 months. There's the odd individually high day in summer yes, driven by hot weather and air-conditioning use, but overall it's higher in winter:






So gas use for electricity generation goes up in winter and gas use for space heating also goes up in winter and that's where any shortfall of supply will become apparent. It won't be a case of factories being shut all year but rather, it'll be an overall gas supply crunch when demand peaks during the colder months. That may take manufacturing down with it, but it's heating and electricity that primarily drive that seasonal spike.

Now I generally aren't keen on politics but given the circumstances I'll pose a question:

Would you like to be the Prime Minister, Premier or other person who orders the people to not use heating in the middle of winter? Or who rations electricity at that time?

Nor would I.

That reality, that peak day demand for gas is dominated by uses that directly impact the general public, will inevitably shape the politics of it all no matter what position anyone takes over climate change, fracking and so on.

None of that is to say that I'm advocating gas for the long term, to be clear I'm not keen there at all, but there's a practical need to take the necessary steps to maintain supply in the medium term and that means doing things that many aren't keen on. It won't just appear by magic so it's either produce more in the southern states (drilling, fracking), it's bring more gas from Queensland or the NT (drilling, fracking, pipelines, cancelling overseas contracts) or it's import LNG (terminal has to be built). Or we have a shortfall of supply and face the consequences of that.

Noting that any early exit of coal-fired generation will send gas demand up strongly, indeed even a simple breakdown poses a risk since less coal = more gas in the absence of having alternatives actually built and running.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Adding to the previous post, where the gas is used.
> 
> The following figures are all as a % of total gas consumption across NSW, Vic, SA and Tas combined with ACT figures included in NSW:
> 
> By end use and state:
> Victoria residential = 22.4%
> NSW manufacturing = 12.1%
> Victoria commercial & services = 11.8%
> SA electricity generation = 11.8%
> Victoria manufacturing = 11.2%
> Victoria electricity generation = 7.9%
> NSW residential = 5.3%
> NSW electricity generation = 4.5%
> SA manufacturing = 3.9%
> NSW commercial & services = 3.0%
> SA residential = 2.4%
> SA commercial & services = 2.3%
> Tasmania manufacturing = 0.8%
> Tasmania electricity = 0.45%
> Tasmania residential = 0.02%
> Tasmania commercial & services = 0.02%
> 
> By end use regardless of location:
> Total residential = 30.1%
> Total manufacturing = 28.0%
> Total electricity generation = 24.7%
> Total commercial & services = 17.2%
> 
> By state regardless of end use:
> Victoria = 53.3%
> NSW = 25.0%
> SA = 20.5%
> Tasmania = 1.3%
> 
> The above is just all raw data on an annualised basis and is Australian Government statistics as the source. It's simply different ways of looking at the same thing - where it goes, what it's used for etc.
> 
> As with most things however, dig a bit deeper and detail differs from the big picture and that detail is where any shortfall in supply will bite.
> 
> Manufacturing consumption is pretty much constant year round. Meanwhile total gas consumption for all uses during winter routinely runs at well over double the level of summer with the difference being driven by space heating and electricity generation.
> 
> Victorian space heating alone is over 40% of total gas consumption across the 4 states on a cold winter day. Add in space heating in SA and NSW (gas space heating is relatively limited in Tas where electricity and wood fires are dominant) and it's about 55% of peak day demand across all states is for space heating. Versus summer when space heating is of course zero or very close to it.
> 
> Gas use for electricity generation is also hugely variable since it is effectively a generation source of low priority. That is, it fills the gap between total consumption and the combined output of all other available sources (except diesel which is the actual last resort after gas).
> 
> Putting that into perspective, over the past 12 months gas-fired generation in Victoria ran at just under 7% of capacity. That is, average output was only 7% of peak output. Note that doesn't mean it isn't needed or that too much was built but rather, it just means that under most conditions other (cheaper) sources are sufficient. When they're not, gas is used. Illustrating that, the highest week accounted for 9% of all gas-fired generation for the year and the highest month accounted for 20.8%.
> 
> Just one problem.... Guess what week that was? And what month it was?
> 
> It was June yes, right in the middle of winter and the exact same time that gas use for space heating also peaks. The highest week for the record being 14 - 20 June 2021 inclusive.
> 
> Those comments about electricity are specifically for Victoria but it's broadly the same for the other states apart from NSW which is somewhat more balanced (though still higher than normal in winter). A bit of work to calculate so I haven't done them all but in short it peaks during the colder months in terms of total gas consumption for that purpose.
> 
> This chart shows gas (only) electricity generation across all NEM states (Qld, NSW, Vic, Tas, SA) for the past 12 months. There's the odd individually high day in summer yes, driven by hot weather and air-conditioning use, but overall it's higher in winter:
> 
> View attachment 142105
> 
> 
> So gas use for electricity generation goes up in winter and gas use for space heating also goes up in winter and that's where any shortfall of supply will become apparent. It won't be a case of factories being shut all year but rather, it'll be an overall gas supply crunch when demand peaks during the colder months. That may take manufacturing down with it, but it's heating and electricity that primarily drive that seasonal spike.
> 
> Now I generally aren't keen on politics but given the circumstances I'll pose a question:
> 
> Would you like to be the Prime Minister, Premier or other person who orders the people to not use heating in the middle of winter? Or who rations electricity at that time?
> 
> Nor would I.
> 
> That reality, that peak day demand for gas is dominated by uses that directly impact the general public, will inevitably shape the politics of it all no matter what position anyone takes over climate change, fracking and so on.
> 
> None of that is to say that I'm advocating gas for the long term, to be clear I'm not keen there at all, but there's a practical need to take the necessary steps to maintain supply in the medium term and that means doing things that many aren't keen on. It won't just appear by magic so it's either produce more in the southern states (drilling, fracking), it's bring more gas from Queensland or the NT (drilling, fracking, pipelines, cancelling overseas contracts) or it's import LNG (terminal has to be built). Or we have a shortfall of supply and face the consequences of that.
> 
> Noting that any early exit of coal-fired generation will send gas demand up strongly, indeed even a simple breakdown poses a risk since less coal = more gas in the absence of having alternatives actually built and running.




Yes, some big political problems there , especially with the Greens holding the balance of power.

A big test for the incoming government. The Greens don't want new coal or gas mines but they may go for a reservation policy if they are really interested in keeping living costs down.

Will be interesting to watch how it plays out.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> A big test for the incoming government.



It won't be hard to beat the previous government. 

The now former Minister was comedy gold, saying this to a room full of people who all knew, or should have known, what was coming:






						Australian Domestic Gas Outlook (ADGO) 2022 conference | Ministers for the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources
					

Minister's Taylor keynote address at the Australian Domestic Gas Outlook (ADGO) 2022 conference




					www.minister.industry.gov.au
				






> *22 March 2022*






> Europe’s experience has not been repeated in Australia.
> 
> As a result of industry and government working together, we have avoided the price increases seen abroad.
> 
> Our local gas supplies have helped to keep prices internationally competitive, protecting Australian gas users.




Less than six weeks later we had a full blown price shock in progress.

It would be funny if it wasn't so serious.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> It won't be hard to beat the previous government.
> 
> The now former Minister was comedy gold, saying this to a room full of people who all knew, or should have known, what was coming:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Australian Domestic Gas Outlook (ADGO) 2022 conference | Ministers for the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources
> 
> 
> Minister's Taylor keynote address at the Australian Domestic Gas Outlook (ADGO) 2022 conference
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.minister.industry.gov.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Less than six weeks later we had a full blown price shock in progress.
> 
> It would be funny if it wasn't so serious.



As I said in the political thread it will be a real test of the Labor/Green/Teal relationship, as soon as they leave the starting blocks, winter is only weeks away.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> As I said in the political thread it will be a real test of the Labor/Green/Teal relationship, as soon as they leave the starting blocks, winter is only weeks away.



I see it more as an to highlight the previous government's failure to act on continuous notification/advice about what was foreseeable and what needed to be done.   A legacy of 9 years price policy rather than supply policy has us where we are.
While we don't know who the new minister for Energy will be, surely he/she could not be as inept as their predecessors!  
In relation to the grid, *Labor *has a stated commitment:
*Labor’s Rewiring the Nation will invest $20 billion to rebuild and modernise the grid, in line with a blueprint already completed by the Australian Energy Market Operator and signed off by all governments.*​However, Labor's *energy security* (electricity) policies are weak at best, and it may be timely for a relapse to occur early in their term so they begin to understand what fixes are essential for an orderly transition to their more-grand plan.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> I see it more as an to highlight the previous government's failure to act on continuous notification/advice about what was foreseeable and what needed to be done.   A legacy of 9 years price policy rather than supply policy has us where we are.
> While we don't know who the new minister for Energy will be, surely he/she could not be as inept as their predecessors!
> In relation to the grid, *Labor *has a stated commitment:
> *Labor’s Rewiring the Nation will invest $20 billion to rebuild and modernise the grid, in line with a blueprint already completed by the Australian Energy Market Operator and signed off by all governments.*​*However, Labor's energy security (electricity) policies are weak at best, and it may be timely for a relapse to occur early in their term so they begin to understand what fixes are essential for an orderly transition to their more-grand plan.*




What they need to do is establish an expert panel of scientists and engineers to design our future energy needs.

We can't continue to have energy systems designed by politicians, and although wind farms and solar panels will continue to spring up like mushrooms they will need to be integrated into the overall network so all the components work together efficiently.


----------



## mullokintyre

Another Victim of the price rises has arisen.
Weston energy has gone under.
From  Yahoo Finance


> MELBOURNE (Reuters) - A gas seller that supplied 7% of the eastern Australian market has collapsed due to soaring global gas prices, the first significant casualty in the country from the global gas supply crisis due to sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
> 
> The Essential Services Commission on Tuesday suspended private gas retailer Weston Energy from the wholesale gas market for failing to meet financial security requirements and said the company's 184 large and medium-sized customers would be shifted to other suppliers.
> 
> 
> The collapse of Weston Energy underscores energy price concerns set to face Australia's new Labor government, as it pushes to rapidly expand renewable energy to replace gas and coal over the next eight years.
> 
> Weston Energy Managing Director Garbis Simonian said gas prices had nearly tripled since the start of the year due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a "special military operation".
> 
> At the same time recent outages at Australian coal-fired plants have driven up demand for gas-fired generation.
> 
> "Rapidly rising energy prices have put hundreds of Australian businesses and thousands of jobs at risk," Simonian said in a statement.
> 
> With the unprecedented surge in prices, Weston was unable to manage cash flow for its trading business, he said.



This will also affect Santos, who had  lined up Weston energy  as a potential buyer for its Narrabri gas project.
Mick


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> Another Victim of the price rises has arisen.
> Weston energy has gone under.



Another one has also gone today.

Pooled Energy.

From the Australian Energy Regulator information released:


> On 25 May 2022, Pooled Energy Pty Limited (Pooled Energy) was suspended from the wholesale electricity market for failing to settle its accounts with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and can no longer supply its customers with electricity.







__





						Loading...
					





					www.aer.gov.au
				




As an interim measure, customers of Pooled Energy will be automatically transferred to other retailers, namely Origin Energy and Energy Australia, effective immediately. This transfer has been arranged by the Australian Energy Regulator (government) and avoids consumers being left without an electricity supply.

Noting that there's no obligation on anyone to remain with Origin or EA for any set period, affected customers can choose any retailer they wish (including remaining with Origin / EA if that's their choice).


----------



## Smurf1976

The Australian Energy Regulator has today released the 2022-23 Default Market Offer (DMO) prices for SA, NSW and south-east Queensland.

Normally they would have been released at the beginning of may however this was delayed by order of the previous federal government.









						AER sets energy price cap to protect consumers
					

[no-lexicon]The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has released its final determination for the 2022–23 Default Market Offer (DMO). The DMO is the safety-net price cap that ensures consumers are protected from unjustifiably high prices. From 1 July 2022, the DMO prices in New South Wales...




					www.aer.gov.au
				




For residential consumers:

NSW prices up 8.5% to 14.1% depending on region

South-east Queensland prices up 11.3%

South Australia up 7.2%

For small business:

NSW up 10.0% to 19.7% depending on region

South-east Queensland up 12.8%

South Australia up 5.7%

Note these are the DMO prices and that in practice the majority of consumers are on market offers set at a discount to the DMO which, in practice, is a maximum price not the typical price. So the above increases refer to maximum prices charged.

However due to the extreme cost issues in the industry at present, almost certainly the extent of price discounting will diminish such that the true increase in prices to consumers is far greater than the above.

There's also at least two retailers, LPE and Discover Energy, now actively encouraging customers to seek an alternative supplier. So it's all getting a bit interesting yes.


----------



## sptrawler

Hopefully it doesn't get too bad on the East Coast, with regard energy costs, that will have an across the board affect on inflation.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Another one has also gone today.
> 
> Pooled Energy.
> 
> From the Australian Energy Regulator information released:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Loading...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.aer.gov.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As an interim measure, customers of Pooled Energy will be automatically transferred to other retailers, namely Origin Energy and Energy Australia, effective immediately. This transfer has been arranged by the Australian Energy Regulator (government) and avoids consumers being left without an electricity supply.
> 
> Noting that there's no obligation on anyone to remain with Origin or EA for any set period, affected customers can choose any retailer they wish (including remaining with Origin / EA if that's their choice).



It's going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better IMO.
The next issue will be defaults on power bills and how those who can least afford it now, will be able to afford it in the future.
I can see the Govt having to buy back power stations, sooner rather than later, they can't force companies to run something at a loss. 
This is going to be a huge issue IMO.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...ojects-bandt-tells-labor-20220527-p5ap2g.html

Greens leader Adam Bandt says the party has a mandate to stop new coal and gas mines and warned the Labor government that it will use its balance of power in the Senate to introduce legislation to block new mines.
The Greens look set to quadruple their lower house representation by robbing the LNP of their Queensland seats of Brisbane and Ryan and booting Labor frontbencher Terri Butler from the seat of Griffith.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> This is going to be a huge issue IMO.



There's no "official" list but it seems that at least 16 retailers have now withdrawn from supplying new customers so yeah, it's rapidly escalating.

It's the scenario myself and others saw coming years ago. Not trying to big note anyone there, just saying it has been coming a very long time and has long been apparent to many where it would end up.

In the absence of something drastic being done, well it's going to bring the nation to a crisis is my expectation. WA and Tas will just shrug their shoulders and carry on but for the rest it's a huge issue.


----------



## mullokintyre

Why is that the AEMO set the prices for 12 months?
In this volatile world, 12 months fixed price seems like  something a business would need a huge level of margin to justify.
Mick


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> Why is that the AEMO set the prices for 12 months?
> In this volatile world, 12 months fixed price seems like  something a business would need a huge level of margin to justify.
> Mick



As a technicality AEMO doesn't set prices, it just operates.   

AER, the Australian Energy Regulator and a completely separate organisation, sets the Default Market Offer for SA, NSW and south-east Qld. 

Victorian state government sets the Victorian Default Offer for in Victoria.

Reason, ultimately = government decision to regulate the retail side of the market.

Noting that doesn't preclude anyone offering different prices but they're obliged to make the DMO / VDO available to anyone who requests it. That in practice makes it a price cap since nobody's likely to pay more than the regulated price, they're only going to take a market offer if it's cheaper.

Elsewhere it's somewhat simpler given that government is more directly involved.

A major issue of course is that if your selling price is fixed, and your buying price isn't, well you could blow yourself up financially yes. I foresee a lot of issues cropping up there with retailers finding it unprofitable to continue operations if present circumstances persist. If current market circumstances persist or worsen then I expect we'll see quite a fuss from the retailers (collectively) in the near future about the regulatory process.


----------



## basilio

I saw stories about the synergies of solar power and farming in other material. This local example is very encouraging.

Solar farm trial shows improved fleece on merino sheep grazed under panels​ABC Rural
 /
By Hannah Jose and Olivia Calver
Posted 1h ago1 hours ago, updated 31m ago31 minutes ago




 Tom Warren lets his sheep run between the solar panels.(ABC Rural: Hannah Jose)
Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article



Sheep grazing under solar panels at farms in NSW's Central West have produced better wool and more of it in the four years since the projects began, according to growers.
Key points:​
Sheep grazing on solar farm trials shows an increase in wool quantity and quality
There are calls for more research on the co-location of agriculture and renewable energy
A NSW government review of agriculture and renewable energy has received 100 submissions

Local graziers have labelled the set-up a "complete win-win", with the sheep helping to keep grass and weeds down so as not to obscure the panels.
In turn, the panels provided shade for the sheep and grass, and helped prevent the soil from drying out.
Wool broker Graeme Ostini, who has been grazing merino wethers at a solar farm near Parkes in a trial with the Parkes Show Society, said he had seen the benefits of running the animals under panels.
He said his sheep were slightly lighter stocked than the average in the district but were cutting an "amazing" amount of wool.


> "It is actually quite astonishing. Some of the sheep look fantastic. They're growing exponentially and the wool cuts are in the top 5 per cent in the district."







 Mr Warren's sheep were able to graze almost all through the drought years thanks to condensation from the panels.(Supplied: Tom Warren)
He said he credited the good season and the solar panels for the improvement.









						Merino sheep grazing under solar panels produce better wool, trial shows
					

Two farmers running merinos on solar farms in NSW's Central West say their sheep thrive under solar panels, while wool quality has increased.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

Terribly Socialist, but why do we need retailers ? If governments bought them out they could sell power a lot cheaper without factoring in a profit


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Terribly Socialist, but why do we need retailers ? If governments bought them out they could sell power a lot cheaper without factoring in a profit



Then a politician would be responsible for the outcome, we can't have that, they never went into politics for that.
They go into politics to form committees and look at the big picture, not do anything about it. 
In W.A the Govt still runs the electricity supply, I expect there will be a slow change over to renewables, with no speed bumps.


----------



## basilio

SirRumpole said:


> Terribly Socialist, but why do we need retailers ? If governments bought them out they could sell power a lot cheaper without factoring in a profit




Check out the history of power generation to answer that question.
Initial electricity generation was by private enterprise.  So sure enough wealthy areas how power - but not poorer areas.
Power sources ran at multiple voltages . It was a dogs breakfast.
Government finally had to step in to establish ground rules for energy supply and often establish direct of indirect electricity generation to ensure the effective electrification of society and industry.









						State Electricity Commission of Victoria - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Then a politician would be responsible for the outcome, we can't have that, they never went into politics for that.
> They go into politics to form committees and look at the big picture, not do anything about it.
> In W.A the Govt still runs the electricity supply, I expect there will be a slow change over to renewables, with no speed bumps.



If Albo is as Left as some say he is he may consider a takeover of some sort or maybe greater regulation.

It was the LNP that forced the sale of electricity assets, completely stuffing up a working system of State owned generation, distribution and retailing with consequent price increases.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> It was the LNP that forced the sale of electricity assets, completely stuffing up a working system of State owned generation, distribution and retailing with consequent price increases.



That's true and I've never agreed with it, but the States did get good prices for them.
I bet the private operators, wish they had never bought them.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Terribly Socialist, but why do we need retailers ? If governments bought them out they could sell power a lot cheaper without factoring in a profit



Biggest problem is the market structure and operation itself not who owns what.

Two practical examples:

1. The Australian Gas Light Company, better known as AGL, founded 1837 and for most of its existence a monopoly gas supplier to much of Sydney. The company has always been shareholder owned, not government. 

In 2022 AGL still exists but no longer has monopoly status anywhere and no longer owns the physical gas network in Sydney, although it does now own other physical assets such as power stations.

2. The Hydro-Electric Corporation, universally referred to in Tasmania as simply "the Hydro", founded 1914 and through to 1998 a vertically integrated monopoly electricity generator, network operator and retailer in Tasmania. It has always been technically 100% government owned, though at arms length in practice.

In 2022 the Hydro still exists but no longer has monopoly status anywhere, indeed it's actually banned from retailing in Tasmania (except on the Bass Strait islands) hence the existence of Aurora Energy as a government owned retailer, and operates in a competitive market so far as generation is concerned. It does retail in other states under the brand name Momentum Energy.

Now the thing is, if we look at the modern incarnations of both well then it says rather a lot. 

In 2022 AGL charges more for gas in Sydney, operating in a competitive market, than it previously charged as a monopoly.

In 2022 Aurora Energy, a state government owned retailer operating in Tasmania in what's now a competitive market alongside others, charges about 20% more in real terms than the monopoly Hydro charged in 1991.

So my contention is that the problem isn't private / shareholder versus government ownership, both have successfully operated in the past, but rather the nature of the market itself which adds very real inefficiencies and costs no matter who owns any given generator, network or retailer. Government or private, both have the same issue there.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Biggest problem is the market structure and operation itself not who owns what.
> 
> Two practical examples:
> 
> 1. The Australian Gas Light Company, better known as AGL, founded 1837 and for most of its existence a monopoly gas supplier to much of Sydney. The company has always been shareholder owned, not government.
> 
> In 2022 AGL still exists but no longer has monopoly status anywhere and no longer owns the physical gas network in Sydney, although it does now own other physical assets such as power stations.
> 
> 2. The Hydro-Electric Corporation, universally referred to in Tasmania as simply "the Hydro", founded 1914 and through to 1998 a vertically integrated monopoly electricity generator, network operator and retailer in Tasmania. It has always been technically 100% government owned, though at arms length in practice.
> 
> In 2022 the Hydro still exists but no longer has monopoly status anywhere, indeed it's actually banned from retailing in Tasmania (except on the Bass Strait islands) hence the existence of Aurora Energy as a government owned retailer, and operates in a competitive market so far as generation is concerned. It does retail in other states under the brand name Momentum Energy.
> 
> Now the thing is, if we look at the modern incarnations of both well then it says rather a lot.
> 
> In 2022 AGL charges more for gas in Sydney, operating in a competitive market, than it previously charged as a monopoly.
> 
> In 2022 Aurora Energy, a state government owned retailer operating in Tasmania in what's now a competitive market alongside others, charges about 20% more in real terms than the monopoly Hydro charged in 1991.
> 
> So my contention is that the problem isn't private / shareholder versus government ownership, both have successfully operated in the past, but rather the nature of the market itself which adds very real inefficiencies and costs no matter who owns any given generator, network or retailer. Government or private, both have the same issue there.




Well then, I guess the question is how can the market be restructured to iron out the inefficiencies to result in a more orderly system capable of delivering power at a reasonable cost to the consumer ?

The example I think of is the separation of functions from the State owned utilities, ie generation , distribution and retailing were sold off to different people who all wanted to make a profit, rather them all being done by one entity which could cross subsidise among the functions to keep prices down. Prices had to rise under this model.

This restructure only seems to have made the market more complex and inefficient and was a ideological blunder imo.


----------



## SirRumpole

A dilemma for Labor on the energy front.









						What happens when a gas-led recovery collides with a climate election?
					

We answer your questions by looking at where Scott Morrison's gas-fired recovery was supposed to start, in the Northern Territory's Beetaloo Basin.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Check out the history of power generation to answer that question.
> Initial electricity generation was by private enterprise.  So sure enough wealthy areas how power - but not poorer areas.
> Power sources ran at multiple voltages . It was a dogs breakfast.
> Government finally had to step in to establish ground rules for energy supply and often establish direct of indirect electricity generation to ensure the effective electrification of society and industry.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> State Electricity Commission of Victoria - Wikipedia
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> en.wikipedia.org



A bit of trivia.
In Western Australia it was only relatively recently (approx early 1970's), that the State Government SEC, took over the operation of the country towns electricity systems 'Country Undertakings', later called 'Regional Power Stations' ,then 'Horizon' took over responsibility from the Town councils.

Here is a bit of a brief summary of W.A's power system development, it isn't very comprehensive, but a light over view of the history.








						The History of Electricity in Perth
					

Well before your trusted Perth electrician knocked on your door for the latest job, Perth grew from a gold rush boom into the City of Light.




					www.metropolitanelectrical.com.au


----------



## Smurf1976

> Energy retailer tells more than 70,000 customers to go elsewhere or face doubling of prices​












						Energy retailer tells more than 70,000 customers to go elsewhere or face doubling of prices
					

ReAmped Energy chief executive says he would rather people were ‘getting better deals’ amid soaring wholesale prices




					www.theguardian.com
				




The article sums it up really. I've posted it more to substantiate what I've been on about than anything else - there's a significant incident going on with all this, financially it's going to blow a few companies up I expect.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Energy retailer tells more than 70,000 customers to go elsewhere or face doubling of prices
> 
> 
> ReAmped Energy chief executive says he would rather people were ‘getting better deals’ amid soaring wholesale prices
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theguardian.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The article sums it up really. I've posted it more to substantiate what I've been on about than anything else - there's a significant incident going on with all this, financially it's going to blow a few companies up I expect.


----------



## Smurf1976

I'll let the official notice say it:


----------



## sptrawler

Well this will certainly get people's attention.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I'll let the official notice say it:
> 
> View attachment 142445











						The government has a 'gas trigger' to keep supplies onshore and prices down. What would it take to pull it?
					

As gas prices rocket upwards, the federal government is fielding questions on whether it would use its "gas trigger" powers to force gas exporters to keep supplies onshore. But high prices alone may not be enough to pull the trigger.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Well this will certainly get people's attention.



The pending shortfall was known about years ago.
The train wreck of a previous federal government's policy that placed energy *prices *before supply and distribution is beginning to unfold.
And even if the *trigger, *which allows gas for export to be redirected for local consumption, is pulled the question of how to get the gas to where it's needed has to be resolved.
As Richard Marles said yesterday:
"We have got a cost of living crisis in this country. That’s what has been left to us by the former government. And we have got a real issue with power prices. Again, that’s the legacy of having had a decade under the Liberals where they haven’t had a consistent energy policy. Where there has been no investment in getting renewable energy going and that’s now the challenge that we face.   ...​There are issues here which are going to take longer but which we need to start addressing now around having a settled policy in relation to energy policy and getting our grid up to a modern standard where it can take on renewables which are cheaper."​​As noted in @SirRumpole's above link regarding the trigger, once pulled:
"Even then, the earliest date export controls could be imposed is* January next year*, which would do nothing to help with the immediate issue of price peaks for businesses and households."​​


----------



## Knobby22

We will just have to pass a law that some of the gas has to be kept is Australia for domestic use. Bad luck to existing overseas contracts.
WA have it, most other countries with gas have it. Even the USA does it. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3bb5950e-2259-43cd-9b3e-585e7b44ace4

Companies like Brickworks and many other manufacturing companies in Australia are going to go to the wall if we don't do something.
I heard one of our last clothing manufacture companies may have to shut down. 

This was all discussed some time ago but nothing happened. We all saw this coming.
Once again the previous government was asleep at the wheel. They were meant to be pro business.


----------



## rederob

Knobby22 said:


> This was all discussed some time ago but nothing happened. We all saw this coming.
> Once again the previous government was asleep at the wheel. They were meant to be pro business.



They were not asleep at the wheel, and nobody has been blindsided.
We were being steered onto the rocks by the most inept federal government since McMahon.
The good news in a fashion is that Labor must act quickly and decisively.  And as harm has already been done, further damage can be sheeted back to their predecessors, thus avoiding being tarnished while at the same time earning plaudits for resolving the problem.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> The pending shortfall was known about years ago.
> The train wreck of a previous federal government's policy that placed energy *prices *before supply and distribution is beginning to unfold.
> And even if the *trigger, *which allows gas for export to be redirected for local consumption is pulled, the question of how to get the gas to where its needed has to be resolved.
> As Richard Marles said yesterday:
> "We have got a cost of living crisis in this country. That’s what has been left to us by the former government. And we have got a real issue with power prices. Again, that’s the legacy of having had a decade under the Liberals where they haven’t had a consistent energy policy. Where there has been no investment in getting renewable energy going and that’s now the challenge that we face. ...​
> There are issues here which are going to take longer but which we need to start addressing now around having a settled policy in relation to energy policy and getting our grid up to a modern standard where it can take on renewables which are cheaper."​​As noted in @SirRumpole's above link regarding the trigger, once pulled:
> "Even then, the earliest date export controls could be imposed is* January next year*, which would do nothing to help with the immediate issue of price peaks for businesses and households."​​




Looking at the weather map of the Eastern states, I wonder how much solar is being generated under all that cloud and how reliant we are on coal, gas and hydro.

30% of the coal fired power capacity is down, a clear case of lack of maintenance which @Smurf1976 has pointed out many times.

It might be time for the Federal government to take over these assets, and ensure that the maintenance is done and that they can still contribute when necessary even though they may be stranded assets later on.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> They were not asleep at the wheel, and nobody has been blindsided.
> We were being steered onto the rocks by the most inept federal government since McMahon.
> The good news in a fashion is that Labor must act quickly and decisively.  And as harm has already been done, further damage can be sheeted back to their predecessors, thus avoiding being tarnished while at the same time earning plaudits for resolving the problem.



They will have a Ouija Board out, now we will see how the problem will be fixed by some 'green' miracle, hope the batteries in the magic wand are charged. 🤣

It was only 5 years ago, we were going to have molten salt storage towers replacing coal power stations, S.A even ordered the biggest one in the world. How's that going? 




__





						Molten salt energy storage for South Australia – GridEdge Storage News
					





					gridedgenews.com
				




Oh I forgot that was another brain fart, but the narrative moves on, nothing to see there, literally. 🤣


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> They will have a Ouija Board out, now we will see how the problem will be fixed by some 'green' miracle, hope the batteries in the magic wand are charged. 🤣
> 
> It was only 5 years ago, we were going to have molten salt storage towers replacing coal power stations, S.A even ordered the biggest one in the world. How's that going?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Molten salt energy storage for South Australia – GridEdge Storage News
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> gridedgenews.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Oh I forgot that was another brain fart, but the narrative moves on, nothing to see there, literally. 🤣



A great example of how the private sector talks big but when the going gets tough the y get going somewhere else.

If governments are going to put money into these sort of projects then they should own them and make sure beforehand that they are going to work.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> They will have a Ouija Board out, now we will see how the problem will be fixed by some 'green' miracle, hope the batteries in the magic wand are charged. 🤣



Labor will not be like the idiots who actively put us years behind and left us with the mess we are in.  Labor just needs to work out which of the ISP scenarios they want to latch onto, and ensure it is funded.


sptrawler said:


> It was only 5 years ago, we were going to have molten salt storage towers replacing coal power stations, S.A even ordered the biggest one in the world. How's that going?



That was a SA government plan, and because they have been proactive with renewables they are scoring goals. 
South Australia breaks record by running for a week on renewable energy​


sptrawler said:


> Oh I forgot that was another brain fart, but the narrative moves on, nothing to see there, literally. 🤣



What narrative?


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Labor will not be like the idiots who actively put us years behind and left us with the mess we are in.  Labor just needs to work out which of the ISP scenarios they want to latch onto, and ensure it is funded.



There is nothing like the power of positive thinking, yeh. 

🤣
What narrative, read your own posts, they are a great example of shifting narrative, I'm looking forward to the cancellation of Snowy 2.0, Kurri Kurri power station, the Tassie 2nd H.V undersea cable.
 You know the ones that aren't being built because the last Govt did nothing and gas is a no no from now on.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> There is nothing like the power of positive thinking, yeh. 🤣



Nothing to think about as it's all *laid out*.  Labor just needs to pick one:


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Nothing to think about as it's all *laid out*.  Labor just needs to pick one:
> View attachment 142460



You should have posted the last one from around 2013, when they were saying molten salt storage plants could supply all the base load and shut down coal by 2020, it was another fantastic believable document. They are a bit like a broken clock, eventually they are right.

Renewables are taking over and it will happen, how much people have to pay for to change and how much the technology changes, are the only parts that are in question.
There is no point in having a fabulously squeaky clean electricity grid, when no one can afford to buy the electricity, it's a bit like the E.V's everyone would have one if they were dirt cheap, but they are reluctant to buy at current prices.

Lets not kid ourselves, we could go fully renewable in 10 years, if we throw all our money at it, but the cost would be eye watering and electricity prices would be astronomical,, but usage and demand would fall hugely. 
Only the elites would be able to afford it, the unwashed masses would be in jail for not paying their bills, ah back to the future. 🤣


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> You should have posted the last one from around 2013, when they were saying molten salt storage plants could supply all the base load and shut down coal by 2020, it was another fantastic believable document.



There was no ISP in 2013.  The first one was announced in December 2017.
The LCOE for molten salt storage back then was not too bad - here's 2016's estimates from Lazard:







sptrawler said:


> There is no point in having a fabulously squeaky clean electricity grid, when no one can afford to buy the electricity, it's a bit like the E.V's everyone would have one if they were dirt cheap, but they are reluctant to buy at current prices.



That's plain nonsense.  
The move to renewables is based on the reality of those sources being significantly cheaper.  That was apparent many years ago and the problems of electricity costs today stem from sheer inaction.  The only interim consideration is how total demand is met during the transition, which we are barely in, unlike Europe.


sptrawler said:


> Lets not kid ourselves, we could go fully renewable in 10 years, if we throw all our money at it, but the cost would be eye watering and electricity prices would be astronomical,, but usage and demand would fall hugely.



Try doing the maths on that and the only problem needing to be solved is how fast it can happen as it will be impossible for it to end up more expensive in Australia.  


sptrawler said:


> Only the elites would be able to afford it, the unwashed masses would be in jail for not paying their bills, ah back to the future. 🤣



Given I get paid around a $1k each year (ie make a net profit) in FIT from AGL and am limited to a 5 kilowatt inverter, there would be millions of household that could afford to put solar on their rooves and back it up with battery storage so that over a 10 year period or less their systems will have paid for themselves.  And as solar+storage gets cheaper every year most Aussie battlers who own their homes could afford this as it works out at around half the average price of a new car.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> There was no ISP in 2013.  The first one was announced in December 2017.
> The LCOE for molten salt storage back then was not too bad - here's 2016's estimates from Lazard:
> View attachment 142462
> 
> 
> 
> That's plain nonsense.
> The move to renewables is based on the reality of those sources being significantly cheaper.  That was apparent many years ago and the problems of electricity costs today stem from sheer inaction.  The only interim consideration is how total demand is met during the transition, which we are barely in, unlike Europe.
> 
> Try doing the maths on that and the only problem needing to be solved is how fast it can happen as it will be impossible for it to end up more expensive in Australia.
> 
> Given I get paid around a $1k each year (ie make a net profit) in FIT from AGL and am limited to a 5 kilowatt inverter, there would be millions of household that could afford to put solar on their rooves and back it up with battery storage so that over a 10 year period or less their systems will have paid for themselves.  And as solar+storage gets cheaper every year most Aussie battlers who own their homes could afford this as it works out at around half the average price of a new car.



Well we shall look forward to it happening very soon, there is obviously no excuse. 👍


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> The LCOE for molten salt storage back then was not too bad - here's 2016's estimates from Lazard:
> View attachment 142462



And here is some more recent information.









						America’s Concentrated Solar Power Companies Have All but Disappeared
					

SolarReserve, one of America’s last remaining CSP developers, appears to have ceased operations — just as some global markets may be warming up.




					www.greentechmedia.com
				



From the article:
_Commissioned in 2015, the plant never managed to achieve its average expected monthly output, according to a late-2019 market outlook from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.  And last August, S&P Global Platts said the plant had only achieved a 0.3 percent capacity factor in the second quarter of 2019, delivering a paltry 765 megawatt-hours of power to the grid.

One of the highest-profile failures at Crescent Dunes was an eight-month shutdown caused by a leak in the plant’s molten salt thermal storage tank._


Fortunately our Governments don't seem to run around like headless chooks, as some with agenda's do. 🤣

Well they haven't done so up until now, time will tell how the next ones fare.
Hopefully people take their political glasses off and appreciate the reality facing the politicians and the consumers.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> And here is some more recent information.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> America’s Concentrated Solar Power Companies Have All but Disappeared
> 
> 
> SolarReserve, one of America’s last remaining CSP developers, appears to have ceased operations — just as some global markets may be warming up.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.greentechmedia.com



So what?
It's very much a horses for courses proposition:


----------



## SirRumpole

Just wait for the nuclear debate to start up again...


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> So what?
> It's very much a horses for courses proposition:




It certainly is, but 7 years ago on this thread, studies and proposals were being pushed on here that showed that this technology was going to replace fossil fueled base load generation by 2020.
They were just as adamant about it then, as the posters today  are, the common denominator is they all had sod all working knowledge of any of it.
Some would even deride and ridicule smurf, as not knowing what he is talking about, that is the self confidence and arrogance some had.

It isn't rocket science that renewables are better, cheaper, less maintenance, less people, less input costs, so even blind Freddy can see it will happen, the how to do it and keep the lights on is the only issue.
That will become obvious to people in the very near future IMO.
As I have said before it will be self resolving, we have had the Coalition method of installing storage, H.V transmission infrastructure and allowing the market to sort out the generation, letting the renewables eat away at the coal generation profits.
Now we will have the alternative approach, maybe? 
let's wait and see if this big light switch moment happens, will there be a massive push, or will there actually be a sobering moment for the new Government? 
Time will tell.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> It certainly is, but 7 years ago on this thread, studies and proposals were being pushed on here that showed that this technology was going to replace fossil fueled base load generation by 2020.



No accounting for the people who post here, is there!


sptrawler said:


> As I have said before it will be self resolving,



Sorry - it does not fix itself.
That's why we are in this mess now.


sptrawler said:


> Let's wait and see if this big light switch moment happens, will there be a massive push, or will there actually be a sobering moment for the new Government?
> Time will tell.



Again, it's all mapped out and Labor just needs to choose which scenario to run with, and ensure it is funded.
Not sure why you think Labor is not aware of what needs to happen, and quick smart.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> No accounting for the people who post here, is there!



No there isn't.


rederob said:


> Sorry - it does not fix itself.



I was inferring that the issue has to be resolved, but there are several avenues to resolve it, it will be "self" resolving because it can't be left unresolved.
Therefore if it wont be left unresolved, it will be "self" resolving because someone has to do it, it will fix itself because the problem can't be left unresolved, humans rely on electricity.
Therefore it will be resolved regardless, who the "self" is, depends on how critical the issue gets and which party is office at that time..



rederob said:


> That's why we are in this mess now.



We in W.A are not in a mess, so really it isn't an Australia wide mess is it, it is a Victoria, NSW, S.A and Queensland mess, at least be accurate.


rederob said:


> Again, it's all mapped out and Labor just needs to choose which scenario to run with, and ensure it is funded.
> Not sure why you think Labor is not aware of what needs to happen, and quick smart.



At last something we agree on.


----------



## Smurf1976

Knobby22 said:


> Companies like Brickworks and many other manufacturing companies in Australia are going to go to the wall if we don't do something.



Indeed.

Households consume 22.8% of electricity, the other 77.2% is used by business and for gas that's even more tilted toward business use.

Aiming to be unbiased politically here but just commenting on the politics of energy in Australia going back a very long way, decades, under governments of both persuasions I'll note the energy debates and the position of political parties can be pigeon holed into the following broad categories (listed in random order):

*Climate change both the existence of a problem and the response to it.

*Non-climate environmental issues. For example nuclear, dams, aesthetics of transmission lines, drilling for oil and gas (as distinct from the CO2 emissions from burning it), etc.

*Making money by exporting energy resources.

*Economic ideology. Matters such as government ownership versus private ownership, competitive markets versus monopolies, regulated prices versus unreglated, etc.

*At a local level, economic opportunities presented by energy development projects. That's tended to be an issue primarily in the smaller population states, especially Tasmania, and regional areas.

That sums up most of it.

Now does anyone think that there might just be something missing from that list?

Ah yes, that bit about actually supplying energy to consumers. You know, the whole point of the industry's very existence in the first place. For all that's been said, and there's an awful lot, that rather crucial point has been almost completely overlooked and to be clear, that goes back a lot further than just the previous federal government.

Government has essentially treated the whole thing as though coal-fired power stations were built for no reason other than to burn coal or as though the only reason to build a wind farm was to create employment. Nope, both of those are sideline reasons at best, they sure aren't the main reason.

As an analogy, between all the talk about economics, environment and so on what we've ended up with is the equivalent of a great big stage set up at the MCG. We've got catering sorted, we've got extra public transport services scheduled and we've completely sold out of tickets. All good to go then? Well just one problem.....

We ain't got no band.

Band yes. Those people on the stage playing instruments and singing. Band. Without that the rest is completely and absolutely pointless.

With energy that's not far from where we've managed to get ourselves really and so far as politics is concerned, well I'm not going to blame anyone because there'd be an awfully long list of people to blame. An awfully long list of people who spent their time arguing about everything other than how to maintain energy supply to society, failing to grasp that this was the original problem, it was the original question. Like the band, it's the reason for the rest.

If I were to give credit to any politician then I'd give it to Malcolm Turnbull. Argue all you like as to whether something better could have been done but ultimately he did get a 2000MW storage scheme under construction. Some will argue it's not the economically optimum project but at least it's an actual, real piece of infrastructure that, assuming it's built as per the design, is fit for purpose within its capabilities. More is needed but that does beat just coming up with policies, theories, regulations and denials.

Plus some credit to various WA and Tasmanian state governments for giving the firm middle finger to assorted federal politicians and other states on the subject.

Now for how to fix it.....


----------



## Smurf1976

If the government wants a quick fix then in short ideology needs to be tossed out the window and focus on what actually gets the job done quickly.

Key points noting that this intentionally focused on required physical actions not words:

1. Physical dispatch of non-energy constrained sources needs to take precedence over energy constrained sources at all times at least until storage levels are restored.

2. Overcome the coal constraint at Eraring and elsewhere by any means possible. Buy it on the spot market and put it on trains, trucks or whatever just get it there.

3. Run flow on the South-West Queensland pipeline, which connects to Moomba (SA) at a constant 404 TJ / day into SA which is its maximum capacity. This will supply about 20% of peak day demand and about 22% of average winter daily demand.

4. Make all possible efforts to store gas at Newcastle, presently just 1.4% full, and at Dandenong presently at 44%.

5. Building up hydro storage also an urgent priority, noting the relatively depleted state of major reservoirs at present (long term storage is mostly in the 23% to 31% range at present and falling) and downstream loss of future irrigation and urban water supply due to present releases during flood or near-flood conditions.

6. Prior to winter 2023, reinstatement or new installation of fuel oil, distillate or LPG firing capability at a number of existing gas only generation sites in NSW, Vic and SA.

7. Owing to the weather forecast, above should be agreed not later than Monday 6th June and preferably sooner. Since this likely precludes legislation being put through parliament in that time, the practical workaround is to do it behind the scenes quietly and off the record.   

Noting that the above is short term focused as the immediate short term fix. Obviously there needs to be a longer term fix involving renewables, storage, transmission etc.

Note that my proposed approach does not involve an arbitrary restriction of gas exports. In return well I note that the company needing to do the most work, physically, just happens to also own one of the LNG facilities. That's coincidental but convenient when it comes to doing things quickly and quietly.

Overall it could be done. If it isn't done and we end up with manufacturers closing down, the lights going out etc then it'll be not because it wasn't possible but because not enough urgency was attached to the task by governments. Should that occur, if it's not resolved, well I wouldn't want to be a state Premier or the PM trying to explain that one.


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> 3. Run flow on the South-West Queensland pipeline, which connects to Moomba (SA) at a constant 404 TJ / day into SA which is its maximum capacity. This will supply about 20% of peak day demand and about 22% of average winter daily demand.



I should add that this would not be required constantly, only intermittently, and depends on day to day weather, since production through Moomba, Longford, Lang Lang, Orbost and Otway gas plants would also be maximised. Hence the short term impact on LNG exports, whilst not zero, wouldn't be huge.

Longer term there's no avoiding a reduction no matter what, since Qld doesn't have sufficient gas either, so no real argument there.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I should add that this would not be required constantly, only intermittently, and depends on day to day weather, since production through Moomba, Longford, Lang Lang, Orbost and Otway gas plants would also be maximised. Hence the short term impact on LNG exports, whilst not zero, wouldn't be huge.
> 
> Longer term there's no avoiding a reduction no matter what, since Qld doesn't have sufficient gas either, so no real argument there.



Smurf do you see any value in the Fed government taking over coal stations that have been run down due to lack of maintenance to ensure that the maintenance is done properly and therefore have the stations operational asap instead of continual cost cutting by the current owners ?


----------



## sptrawler

It looks like Japan has taken an interest in Sea power, for generation, very different technology to the Carnegie wave generators.









						Giant deep ocean turbine  trial offers hope of endless green power - Taipei Times
					

Power-hungry, fossil fuel dependent Japan has successfully tested a system that could provide a constant, steady form of renewable energy, regardless of the wind or the sun.  For more than a decade, Japanese heavy machinery maker IHI has been developing a subsea turbine that harnesses the energy...




					www.taipeitimes.com
				



From the article:

Power-hungry, fossil fuel dependent Japan has successfully tested a system that could provide a constant, steady form of renewable energy, regardless of the wind or the sun.

For more than a decade, Japanese heavy machinery maker IHI has been developing a subsea turbine that harnesses the energy in deep ocean currents, and converts it into a steady and reliable source of electricity. The giant machine resembles an airplane, with two counterrotating turbine fans in place of jets and a central “fuselage” housing a buoyancy adjustment system.

Called “Kairyu,” the 330 tonne prototype is designed to be anchored to the sea floor at a depth of 30m to 50m.
In commercial production, the plan is to site the turbines in the Kuroshio Current, one of the world’s strongest, which runs along Japan’s eastern coast, and transmit the power via seabed cables.

“Ocean currents have an advantage in terms of their accessibility in Japan,” said Ken Takagi, a professor of ocean technology policy at the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Frontier Sciences. “Wind power is more geographically suited to Europe, which is exposed to predominant westerly winds and is located at higher latitudes.”

The Japanese New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) estimates that the Kuroshio Current could potentially generate as much as 200 gigawatts — about 60 percent of Japan’s present generating capacity.

Like other nations, the lion’s share of investment in renewables has gone into wind and solar, especially after the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster curbed Japan’s appetite for atomic energy.

The world’s third-largest generator of solar power, Japan is investing heavily in offshore wind, but harnessing ocean currents could provide the reliable baseline power needed to reduce the need for energy storage or fossil fuels.
The advantage of ocean currents is their stability. They flow with little fluctuation in speed and direction, giving them a capacity factor — a measure of how often the system is generating energy — of 50 to 70 percent, compared with about 27 percent for onshore wind and 15 percent for solar.

In February, IHI completed a three-year demonstration study of the technology with NEDO. Its team tested the system in the waters near the Tokara Islands in southwestern Japan by hanging Kairyu from a vessel and sending power back to the ship. It first drove the ship to artificially generate a current and then suspended the turbines in the Kuroshio.

The tests proved that the prototype could generate the expected 100 kilowatts of stable power, and the company now plans to scale up to a full 2 megawatt system that could be in commercial operation in the next decade or later.


----------



## wayneL

Just a little tidbit re the nuclear issue, FWIW.


----------



## SirRumpole

ACCC to investigate power prices.

(WOW)

It will be interesting to see if they have any teeth.









						'They'll be taking a close look': ACCC tipped to step up energy policing as price crisis takes hold
					

A leading Australian energy lawyer says big power providers are facing increased scrutiny from the competition watchdog amid concerns a shake-out of the industry could lead to price gouging.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

wayneL said:


> Just a little tidbit re the nuclear issue, FWIW.





I wonder how many of these will be churning out nuclear weapons.


----------



## sptrawler

Oh well it sounds as though things will be sorted soon, some home truths are going to have to come out.


			https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/gas-and-power-outages-to-sweep-australia-as-cold-snap-deepens-energy-crisis/news-story/3322404fe6f1f2de3133a0a206ecfdeb?amp


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Smurf do you see any value in the Fed government taking over coal stations that have been run down due to lack of maintenance to ensure that the maintenance is done properly and therefore have the stations operational asap instead of continual cost cutting by the current owners ?



Personally I'm in the middle there. There are certainly good operators and I see no reason why they ought find themselves nationalised. But on the other hand, well if someone's just going to mess about and plunge society into chaos when they fail well then there's a case for government to step in. There are companies which fit into both categories....

If it were up to me then:

1. What's really needed is a proper plan for all of this. I've said plenty about it here, others have said plenty about it elsewhere, now it seems the chickens have finally come home to roost. This situation has been coming for a very long time.

2. If any individual company can't or won't well they're the ones that there'd be a case to nationalise. Leave the rest to get on with it.


----------



## basilio

*Totally Solar Powered Office buildings in Melbourne









						Tower of power: new office building to be fully clad in solar panels in Australian first
					

The $40m ‘solar skin’ building is expected to supply almost all its own electricity, becoming carbon neutral within years




					www.theguardian.com
				



*


----------



## SirRumpole

Speaking of solar and wind power of buildings..

Walkie Talkie Tower, London​






Richard Newstead | Moment | Getty Images
The skyscraper at 20 Fenchurch Street, dubbed the “Walkie-Talkie tower”, last month won the “Carbuncle Cup” -- an award given by _Building Design_ magazine to the worst building in the U.K.
The tongue-in-cheek award seems mean, but the tower has caused a number of problems.

In July, the U.K.’s _Daily Telegraph_ reported that the building was creating a wind tunnel that blew down shop signs and swept pedestrians off their feet. In 2013, the building’s south-facing wall reflected sunlight onto the streets below, melting a car’s bodywork. Non-reflective film had to be attached to the tower’s windows as a prevention.


----------



## Smurf1976

The exodus of retailers is starting to get serious in Qld and NSW:

The list of electricity retailers that have removed market offers from their websites (and/or Energy Made Easy) for one or more states includes;

1st Energy
Amber 
Bright Spark Power
CovaU
Diamond Energy 
Dodo 
Discover Energy
Electricity in a Box
Elysian Energy
Future X Power
GEE Energy
Locality Planning Energy
Mojo Power
Momentum Energy
Nectr
OVO Energy
People Energy
Pooled Energy – in administration
Powerclub
Powerdirect
Powershop 
QEnergy
Radian Energy
ReAmped Energy
Simply Energy
Smart Energy
Tango Energy 
Of particular note is some of the above being backed by major players who, whilst I'm not in any way suggesting the parent company is in difficulty, are choosing to give up on non-core aspects of the business.

With reference to that list:

14, Momentum Energy, is the interstate retail brand name used by Hydro Tasmania

20, Powedirect, is a secondary brand name used by AGL

21, Powershop, is owned by Shell

21, Simply Energy, is the retail brand owned by Engie

To be clear the parent companies are still active, Hydro Tas is still operating in Tasmania, AGL is still running under the main brand, Shell is still alive and well in the oil industry and so on but they've stopped taking new electricity customers in some or all states.

The underlying reason would come down to market volatility and managing risk to themselves since, as others exit or go bust, remaining retailers are being flooded with new customers to the point it's leaving them exposed to the market. That is, they only hedged or can themselves generate x volume and have shut the door once customer numbers reached or exceeded that point.


----------



## SirRumpole

Another battery technology, zinc-bromide gel batteries, Australian discovery.


----------



## Ferret

Last month I changed my electricity from Origin to Red.  The main reason was Red was offering rates fixed until 31 May 2023.

Previously, when I've changed supplier, the supplier I was leaving has called me and tried to get me back with a better offer.  Not this time.  No peep out of Origin.


----------



## Belli

SirRumpole said:


> Another battery technology, zinc-bromide gel batteries, Australian discovery.




Yes, the University of Sydney has been working on this for a number of years.

Last year it spun the technology out to form the company Gelion for commercial applications.

From what I understand it was able to combine both the elements of the battery into a gel format and eliminated or reduced the need for cooling.  Not flammable either.









						University spin-out Gelion to make next-gen batteries in Sydney
					

With Gelion batteries, Professor Thomas Maschmeyer is turning foundational science into commercial solutions to meet the challenges of the renewable energy transition.




					www.sydney.edu.au


----------



## sptrawler

Hello, what have @Smurf1976 and I being saying for about 5years, the last thing coal generators want to be doing, is running coal generators. 🤣
Now we have a political scenario where the light at the end of the tunnel 'GAS', has likely been snuffed out, so what is plan B ? Exit stage right. 
Fortunately you Eastern Stater's are lucky, you have the Green/Teal think tank to sort it out.
What was the line in the play Richard the third? " a wood fire, a wood fire, my kingdom for a wood fire". 

Thankfully Albo got a clear majority.

Power giant calls for coal exit plan​_EnergyAustralia, owner of two big coal-fired power plants, wants a plan in place for the orderly exit of the fossil fuel._


Well didn't they already give firm commitments to scheduled shutdown dates? Smurf posted them several times.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Another battery technology, zinc-bromide gel batteries, Australian discovery.







Belli said:


> Yes, the University of Sydney has been working on this for a number of years.
> 
> Last year it spun the technology out to form the company Gelion for commercial applications.
> 
> From what I understand it was able to combine both the elements of the battery into a gel format and eliminated or reduced the need for cooling.  Not flammable either.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> University spin-out Gelion to make next-gen batteries in Sydney
> 
> 
> With Gelion batteries, Professor Thomas Maschmeyer is turning foundational science into commercial solutions to meet the challenges of the renewable energy transition.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.sydney.edu.au



I haven't read up on either, but Redflow RFX uses zinc bromide flow batteries, the issue with the gel battery may be the filtering out of impurities which when it is a liquid shouldn't be a problem, just a thought off the top of my head as I said I haven't had time to research.
Retaining walls need repairing, soakwell frames need replacing, wife wanted a monorim front suspension on the ninebot max, so many jobs, so little time.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Fortunately you Eastern Stater's are lucky, you have the Green/Teal think tank to sort it out.



Specific political parties aside, I think a few are about to realise that no amount of spin, persuasiveness, buzz words and "optics" gets you anywhere at all when you're up against hard physics and engineering.

In any battle between a Prime Minister, Premier, President, King etc versus physics I guarantee you physics wins every single time.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Specific political parties aside, I think a few are about to realise that no amount of spin, persuasiveness, buzz words and "optics" gets you anywhere at all when you're up against hard physics and engineering.



Being realistic, it did have to come to this, all the spin about lack of wanting to, lack of will, lack of commitment. It all boils down to jack $hit when jack hits the fan. 🥳

It's a bit a comedy adventure, where everyone tells those trying to move the beast over to the new paradigm, how to do it.

Then all of a sudden those telling how to do it, get caught with the job. 🤣

They will make a movie about this for sure, it's a classic.

The Greens remind me of a song from when I was a kid, they have a great idea and they just have to make it work, come hell or high water.


----------



## SirRumpole

Why WA is the power State.









						Australia's east coast is in the grip of an energy crisis but in WA prices are low and stable. Why?
					

Far removed from the turmoil unfolding in the eastern states, Western Australia is enjoying some of the cheapest and most stable energy prices in the developed world.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

I did say the way things are going the coal generators will have to be paid an availability allowance, or they just wont be viable and owners will walk away from them.


$20bn economic hit if coal is left to ‘fend for itself’​Alinta, owner of Victoria’s Loy Yang B coal power station, says a capacity payment is needed to ensure the fossil fuel stays in the power grid and consumers avoid a rocky transition.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I did say the way things are going the coal generators will have to be paid an availability allowance, or they just wont be viable and owners will walk away from them.
> 
> 
> $20bn economic hit if coal is left to ‘fend for itself’​Alinta, owner of Victoria’s Loy Yang B coal power station, says a capacity payment is needed to ensure the fossil fuel stays in the power grid and consumers avoid a rocky transition.




Either that or a government takeover of the coal stations, even though they are dinosaurs we need them at the moment and if the current owners won't maintain them then they don't deserve to have them.


----------



## SirRumpole

Heat pumps , worth the extra cost ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Heat pumps , worth the extra cost ?



Roughly half of all homes in Tasmania are heated that way as a case in point, the idea having been heavily promoted since the 1980's and mainstream popular since the late-1990's when split systems became far cheaper.

For me well I can assure everyone that heat pumps also work fine for hot water. I've got one in this house (in SA) and it's working just fine and the one in my previous house (in Tas) was also going just fine when I sold the place.  

A properly designed and installed system works under all weather conditions, no booster required. Emphasis there on "properly designed and installed" - avoid the cheap products, just don't go there unless you want pain and misery.


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting today I thought I heard mention of nuclear on the radio, I can't find mention of it in the media, does anyone have an update?


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Interesting today I thought I heard mention of nuclear on the radio, I can't find mention of it in the media, does anyone have an update?



Some people in the LNP have bought the subject up again after doing nothing for nine years


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Interesting today I thought I heard mention of nuclear on the radio, I can't find mention of it in the media, does anyone have an update?




More information.









						If the opposition wants a mature discussion about nuclear energy, start with a carbon price. Without that, nuclear is wildly uncompetitive
					

Renewed interest in nuclear energy will go nowhere unless we talk about carbon pricing. As energy minister Chris Bowen points out, nuclear is extremely expensive.




					theconversation.com
				












						Dutton flags switch to nuclear power
					

The opposition is gearing up for a fight over nuclear energy with the appointment of advocate Ted O’Brien to the Climate Change and Energy portfolio.




					www.afr.com


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Interesting today I thought I heard mention of nuclear on the radio, I can't find mention of it in the media, does anyone have an update?



Did *this *article get close: "_*A*_*ustralia planned to buy US nuclear submarines, Peter Dutton says.*"

I think we can hook them into the grid - @Smurf1976 can help work out to do it.  Or, maybe park a few in Talbingo Reservoir where all the wiring will be in place by 2026.


----------



## sptrawler

@SirRumpole I see the leading article on the AFR today, is Snowy 2.0 is delayed and going to cause fossil fuel to be used longer and possible jepordise the Governments commitment to reduce emissions by 43% before 2030.

Funny that considering many say Snowy 2.0 isn't required, including one on here. 
Funny how things work out isn't, a lot of these problems become self resolving, now the critics are in the project is required by them as well. 
Problem resolved, it is required after all, as you and I said it would be.  









						Shock Snowy 2.0 delay stirs energy mess
					

Chris Bowen said the former government’s flagship solution to faltering coal power is “not in great shape” as fresh delays push back its start date for years.




					www.afr.com
				



From the article:
_The Australian Financial Review_ has learnt that a series of issues involving contractors and construction at the former Coalition government’s flagship solution to the accelerating collapse of coal power mean project owner Snowy Hydro is being forced to delay the start date for power generation by as long as 19 months, or to around 2028.
The setback has stunned the new Labor government as the $5.1 billion pumped hydro scheme – one of the world’s most ambitious engineering projects, and currently under construction high in the Snowy Mountains wilderness in southern NSW – was originally commissioned to offset the closure of crumbling power stations such as AGL Energy’s Liddell in the Hunter Valley, which shuts down next year.
As energy prices soar, the need for pumped hydro has become more urgent, not least because of Origin Energy’s shock announcement in February that it will bring forward the closure of Australia’s biggest coal-fired plant, Eraring in NSW, by seven years to 2025.

The Snowy 2.0 setback further complicates this week’s energy ministers’ decision to ramp up a national capacity mechanism, potentially forcing states led by Victoria to temper their political opposition to an ongoing interim role for gas and coal.
The delay means Australia’s energy industry is likely to release more carbon in the short term, making the government’s election promise to cut emissions by 43 per cent this decade more challenging, and raising fresh fears from businesses and households counting on an orderly transition to renewable energy.

“It’s disappointing to find that this is the case, given this was an alleged signature initiative of the previous government,” Mr Bowen told the _Financial Review_ on Thursday.

“I’ll be working as closely as possible to try and get it back on track, but the harsh reality is that it is way behind par.

“The bottom line is Australians will be waiting longer than they were led to believe for the start of the new energy to flow.”
Speaking about the delay to Snowy 2.0, Mr Bowen indicated it would have consequences for Australia’s energy transition as well as power security “in an unstable environment” and carbon emissions.

“We supported Snowy because it does have a role to play in energy security. It does have a role to play in providing that stability to the system because, ultimately, it’s a form of storage,” he said.


It might also have alleviated gas price hikes that have triggered nationwide alarm and forced the new Labor government into crisis mode.

“If it was on board and fully operating and connected last week, it would have made a material difference,” Mr Bowen said. “But we’re going to be waiting a substantial period longer than we were told by the previous government for it to play that role.”

Snowy 2.0 involves construction of a huge power station 800 metres below ground in a 15-storey-high cavern and 27 kilometres of tunnel in a delicate national park ecosystem to link existing remote reservoirs. When operational, the system will be able to power the equivalent of 500,000 homes for a week without releasing carbon.

Announced by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2017, the project was originally slated to begin producing power in 2021. Snowy Hydro’s website on Thursday afternoon said first power was expected in 2025 as the first of six generating units came online, ahead of completion in 2026.

It is understood the current estimated delay is 19 months, but work is being done with contractors to see whether that can be reduced to 13 months.

The company declined to comment on Thursday.


Asked whether the delay means coal will be needed for longer, Mr Bowen said: “The more renewable energy we have and storage we have on board through things like the Snowy, the smoother the transition will be.

“And the longer it takes, and the lumpier something like the Snowy is, the lumpier and more difficult it will be.

“It’s a renewable energy source and if it’s not there, then the alternative has got to come from somewhere.”


----------



## sptrawler

From the same article but on a different subject, it is amazing how the narrative is shifting, as the manure accelerates toward the fan.
The Grattan Institute, on the subject of a capacity mechanism, or standby allowance to simplify it.








						Shock Snowy 2.0 delay stirs energy mess
					

Chris Bowen said the former government’s flagship solution to faltering coal power is “not in great shape” as fresh delays push back its start date for years.




					www.afr.com
				



From the article:
Alinta Energy CEO Jeff Dimery said on Thursday that the energy market was “tightly balanced at the moment” and insisted every fuel and technology would play a role in keeping the lights on.

“We do need coal and gas to be included in a capacity market because, for example, if you were to exclude the roughly 60 per cent of supply provided by the Latrobe Valley in Victoria, there wouldn’t be much capacity left to call on.”

Australian Energy Regulator chairwoman Clair Savage told the _Financial Review_ on Thursday in Melbourne that coal and gas were important sources of dispatchable capacity and that the transition would be more difficult in their absence.


“It’s easier with them in,” she said. “We need dispatchable capacity. There are options on how you could build a capacity market with coal and gas in or without them. Essentially, we will be asking stakeholders for their views. We will give a final design to ministers at the end of this year.”

*Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood said he had never heard of a capacity mechanism that did not include coal and gas, and that referring to the policy tool as a “Coalkeeper” was “bull****”.

“The one in the UK even includes diesel,” he told the Financial Review. “You can’t firm up renewables with renewables. It’s got to be something available on demand. Solar is not: you can’t get solar at night. You can’t get wind when the wind is not blowing.”*


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Did *this *article get close: "_*A*_*ustralia planned to buy US nuclear submarines, Peter Dutton says.*"
> 
> I think we can hook them into the grid - @Smurf1976 can help work out to do it.  Or, maybe park a few in Talbingo Reservoir where all the wiring will be in place by 2026.



Ah the "Subs", another of those self resolving issues, let's see if the new Government cancels them, if not problem resolved.
Then you will have to move on to find yet another lost cause, as is being proven with Snowy 2.0, which you staunchly argued isn't required. Obviously those that matter don't agree with you, yet again. 🤣


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Funny that considering many say Snowy 2.0 isn't required, including one on here.



I am all for firming capacity as it's essential to energy transition.
I was never keen on the economics of Snowy2.  It's too late, too expensive and overkill.
Dozens of smaller projects could have been funded and would now be available for dispatch.

The previous "pricing" policy was always going to be a disaster waiting for opportunity.  And here we are!

What's even funnier is we now have AEMO as a *player *in the game - buying gas - rather than just the umpire making sure the game was fair.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Then you will have to move on to find yet another lost cause, as is being proven with Snowy 2.0, which you staunchly argued isn't required. Obviously those that matter don't agree with you, yet again. 🤣



Go back and read this thread.
I have said from the outset that storage capacity - *CAPACITY *- just to repeat myself, was needed with renewables in the mix.  I have also said that we should have borrowed from other nations that required a storage component to be built alongside any approved renewables project.

I have been very critical of the former government's lack of policies that were essential to our energy transition, and which used "price" to determine what the market had to put in place.

Eastern Australia has dodged a few bullets in recent years, having La Niña weather patterns prevailing which did not overstretch summer electricity needs.  Once we are back into El Nino weather patterns there is every chance heat records will be broken and we won't have Snowy2 saving us.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> The previous "pricing" policy was always going to be a disaster waiting for opportunity. And here we are!
> 
> What's even funnier is we now have AEMO as a *player *in the game - buying gas - rather than just the umpire making sure the game was fair.



Totally agree but I'll point out that the policy in question isn't confined to either side of politics.

As someone who's seen quite a bit and who's asked enough questions and read enough reports to fill in the blanks, the genesis of the current situation goes back a lot further than most seem to realise. 

If I were to take it to the extreme then the earliest relevant decision I'm aware of was made in 1963 with a series of decisions over the next 45 years making today's situation inevitable. Politically, the list of shame is a long one indeed.

This has all been a very long time coming and could be compared to someone who's in poor health, obese and so on. It didn't happen overnight, the loss of fitness took years to occur with successive poor choices.

From there I'll simply point out that any effective fix at this point requires some pretty drastic measures. On that I think it's too early to judge the new government but I'll note that _anyone_ would need to be pretty strong minded to withstand the political pain it'll come with.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Totally agree but I'll point out that the policy in question isn't confined to either side of politics.
> 
> As someone who's seen quite a bit and who's asked enough questions and read enough reports to fill in the blanks, the genesis of the current situation goes back a lot further than most seem to realise.
> 
> If I were to take it to the extreme then the earliest relevant decision I'm aware of was made in 1963 with a series of decisions over the next 45 years making today's situation inevitable. Politically, the list of shame is a long one indeed.
> 
> This has all been a very long time coming and could be compared to someone who's in poor health, obese and so on. It didn't happen overnight, the loss of fitness took years to occur with successive poor choices.
> 
> From there I'll simply point out that any effective fix at this point requires some pretty drastic measures. On that I think it's too early to judge the new government but I'll note that _anyone_ would need to be pretty strong minded to withstand the political pain it'll come with.




Would you like to detail the drastic measures required ?


----------



## ghotib

sptrawler said:


> Interesting today I thought I heard mention of nuclear on the radio, I can't find mention of it in the media, does anyone have an update?



I heard Ted O'Brien, the new Shadow Minister for Energy and Climate Change, on the radio some tme last weekend arguing for small nuclear generators.

The Opposition position is discussed in this article from the website of the Australian Energy Council: https://www.energycouncil.com.au/analysis/opposition-changes-tack-on-energy


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Would you like to detail the drastic measures required ?



The basic problem is that *in the short term*, we have:

No prospect of new deep storage plant being commissioned (the Snowy 2.0 delay).

Very little gas available, to the point that even maintaining historic levels of gas-fired generation is problematic.

The imminent exit of coal fired generation at Liddell (2023) and Eraring (2025).

Put all that together and it creates an _energy_, not just a peak _power_, problem during the winter months especially and before we're realistically going to have proper replacements actually built.

Batteries will address the peak power problem but they won't address the energy problem that arises during periods of low wind + solar yield.

Physically possible short term options:

Get more gas either by means of LNG imports, local production or redirection from exports in Qld.

Noting that reducing export beyond a fairly minor amount involves a breach of contract and resultant diplomatic fallout with China, Japan and/or South Korea so government won't likely be keen.

Delay the closure of coal plant. Stretching out Liddell would be technically problematic, it would be possible to keep it going through winter 2023 but that's basically it, but Eraring could certainly be extended several years if needed. Economically problematic but technically it's doable.

A much smaller option is Redbank. The plant's sitting idle but could be run. Only 151MW but it's not nothing.

The other option is to use oil-based fuels as an alternative to gas in existing and new plant. That's not about price, it's just a workaround to physical limits on gas availability noting that liquid fuels are logistically far easier to import and transport to the site. Only problem being that not all gas-fired stations are set up to use them but some are.

Any of the above will upset someone somewhere. Politically none are easy, they all get caught up in a combination of economics, environmental issues and politics. They are however all likely to be less unpopular than shivering in the dark....

Getting my crystal ball out, my expectation is very much of some "quiet" deals being done regarding the above with a minimum of public announcements. Plus some leaning on railways and the like to ensure that coal going to power stations is their top priority and gets delivered no matter what.


----------



## Smurf1976

Adding to the above, the issue with Snowy 2.0 delay being that the original commissioning schedule for the generating units was:

Two in operation for summer 2025-26

Four in operation for winter 2026

All six in operation for summer 2026-27 and beyond

Eraring closure nominally August 2025

Hence the link between the delay and a possible extended operation of Eraring.


----------



## DB008

Smurf1976 said:


> Get more gas either by means of LNG imports, local production or redirection from exports in Qld.




Local production

WA has it right. 15% of extracted gas has to be distributed to the domestic market. This is in their legislation. QLD stuffed up by not doing the same with the 3 gas plants at Gladstone (APLNG, QCLNG, QGC)

https://www.wa.gov.au/government/publications/implementation-of-the-wa-domestic-gas-policy​
I worked at Wheatstone during construction Train 1, Train 2 and Dom Gas. Massive plants. I remember an engineer tell me that there is enough natural gas in Australia to run everything (cars, homes, businesses) for the next 100 years+++ Yet we have shafted ourselves. Australia should be energy independent.


----------



## basilio

The issue of why Australia allowed international energy companies to effectively appropriate *our *gas resources to sell overseas to make *them* a bucket load of money has been discussed at length.  The shining light in this discussion was the decision by WA to ensure 15% of their gas resources were  held for local consumption.

There is an excellent article on the ABC quoting the previous Liberal leaders of WA who brought in this policy.  Well worth a read and raises the point of national interest in the mining of our resources vs the commercial interest of the mining companies.

'The gas belongs to us' say former Western Australian premiers despairing at energy crisis over east​By energy reporter Daniel Mercer
Posted 56m ago56 minutes ago, updated 56m ago56 minutes ago





 WA is one of the world's largest LNG producers yet still affords to quarantine 15 per cent for locals.(ABC News: Michael Franchi)
Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article


For former Western Australian premier Colin Barnett the reaction at international meetings first came as something of a surprise.
But pretty soon he began to expect it.
After a while, he could even see the dark humour involved.


> "During my travels as premier I had governments internationally — and I'm talking about national governments — just basically laughing … that Australia is crazy not preserving some of its gas," Mr Barnett said.



"They weren't laughing at me," he said of WA's quite singular Australian state policy of quarantining 15 per cent of gas for its own market.




 Colin Barnett, who was WA premier from 2008 to 2017, says Australia is alone in its gas insecurity.(AAP: Richard Wainwright)
It is a stance that saw WA labelled hillbilly by the east coast press, and saw another WA premier labelled "a wrecker" by former Liberal minster Ian Macfarlane — now chief executive of the Queensland Resources Council — at energy forums.









						'Stupid' gas policies led to energy crisis in eastern states, say former premiers
					

With WA's policy of quarantining 15 per cent of gas for its local market bearing fruit, former rivals and premiers Alan Carpenter and Colin Barnett say the east coast gas crisis was avoidable.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## DB008

'Stupid' gas policies led to energy crisis in eastern states, say former premiers​
For former Western Australian premier Colin Barnett the reaction at international meetings first came as something of a surprise.​​But pretty soon he began to expect it.​​After a while, he could even see the dark humour involved.​​


> "During my travels as premier I had governments internationally — and I'm talking about national governments — just basically laughing … that Australia is crazy not preserving some of its gas," Mr Barnett said.​



​"They weren't laughing at me," he said of WA's quite singular Australian state policy of quarantining 15 per cent of gas for its own market.​​It is a stance that saw WA labelled hillbilly by the east coast press, and saw another WA premier labelled "a wrecker" by former Liberal minster Ian Macfarlane — now chief executive of the Queensland Resources Council — at energy forums.​​Mr Barnett, who served as a Liberal premier between 2008 and 2017, cast his mind back to the discussions with global leaders as debate raged this week about Australia's lack of gas security.​​He was joined by the architect of WA's domestic gas reservation policy, former Labor premier Alan Carpenter, in a display of political unity between the two former rivals.​​Amid warnings that spiralling gas prices on Australia's east coast could send some manufacturers broke and spur an outbreak of food price inflation, Mr Carpenter and Mr Barnett decried what they labelled the "stupid" decisions of successive governments.​​
Companies 'don't own the gas'​Under WA's policy, 15 per cent of gas reserves within the state's jurisdiction are quarantined for the local market where the fuel makes up more than half its energy needs, including about 40 per cent of its power generation.​​Mr Barnett said Mr Carpenter "quite correctly" formalised the policy to look after the interests of the people who ultimately owned the gas.​​"The gas doesn't belong to the companies," Mr Barnett said.​​


> "The gas belongs to Australian citizens through their governments.​



​"The gas is not owned by the companies – that's the bottom line.​​"Some of them behave as though it is.​​"Australia has got every right to expect some of that gas to be preserved for the Australian economy."​​According to Mr Barnett, gas projects were often majority foreign-owned, including by sovereign governments and major gas users such as Japan and China.​​He said this often placed an inherent tension between the gas producers and Australia's interests because the companies wanted every molecule available for export.​​While supporting foreign investment in Australia's natural resources, he said the eastern states' experience showed what can happen when safeguards for domestic consumers were not built in.​


More on the link below...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06...-former-western-australian-premiers/101143558


.​


----------



## sptrawler

DB008 said:


> "The gas doesn't belong to the companies," Mr Barnett said.
> ​"The gas is not owned by the companies – that's the bottom line.
> ​"Some of them behave as though it is.​​.​



Well some Australians agree with the companies, but that is usually the reason we end up in a mess anyway, way too much butt kissing and palm greasing goes on in Australia.


----------



## Belli

I know other areas of Australia are feeling, or will feel, the effect of price rises for electricity but I think it was lucky the Government in Canberra legislated in 2016 the objective of being 100% renewable.  That was achieved back in 2020.  It involved contracts with three solar farms, sourcing electricity from renewable generators, such as solar and wind, encouraging household solar instillations and batteries, preventing gas instillation in new suburbs and for infill developments.  The proposal was not popular in some quarters due to the costs involved.

However, it seems it has paid dividends as it appears there will be a reduction in electricity prices in this jurisdiction.

As for me, it is darn cold here at the moment but I do have a ducted recycle system and I'm not afraid to use it!  I actually leave it on overnight at it's lowest setting of 16C and in the morning it's 18C in the house even when it's effectively -4C or more outside.  Cost is minimal as the data I have downloaded indicated the overnight consumption is in the order of 0.02 kWh @ $0.22c per kWh.  Whether or not the provider has recorded that correctly I don't know but I assume with a smart meter it is.  Double glazing and heavy block out blinds and curtains would assist as well.


----------



## mullokintyre

DB008 said:


> 'Stupid' gas policies led to energy crisis in eastern states, say former premiers​
> For former Western Australian premier Colin Barnett the reaction at international meetings first came as something of a surprise.​​But pretty soon he began to expect it.​​After a while, he could even see the dark humour involved.​​
> ​"They weren't laughing at me," he said of WA's quite singular Australian state policy of quarantining 15 per cent of gas for its own market.​​It is a stance that saw WA labelled hillbilly by the east coast press, and saw another WA premier labelled "a wrecker" by former Liberal minster Ian Macfarlane — now chief executive of the Queensland Resources Council — at energy forums.​​Mr Barnett, who served as a Liberal premier between 2008 and 2017, cast his mind back to the discussions with global leaders as debate raged this week about Australia's lack of gas security.​​He was joined by the architect of WA's domestic gas reservation policy, former Labor premier Alan Carpenter, in a display of political unity between the two former rivals.​​Amid warnings that spiralling gas prices on Australia's east coast could send some manufacturers broke and spur an outbreak of food price inflation, Mr Carpenter and Mr Barnett decried what they labelled the "stupid" decisions of successive governments.​​
> Companies 'don't own the gas'​Under WA's policy, 15 per cent of gas reserves within the state's jurisdiction are quarantined for the local market where the fuel makes up more than half its energy needs, including about 40 per cent of its power generation.​​Mr Barnett said Mr Carpenter "quite correctly" formalised the policy to look after the interests of the people who ultimately owned the gas.​​"The gas doesn't belong to the companies," Mr Barnett said.​​
> ​"The gas is not owned by the companies – that's the bottom line.​​"Some of them behave as though it is.​​"Australia has got every right to expect some of that gas to be preserved for the Australian economy."​​According to Mr Barnett, gas projects were often majority foreign-owned, including by sovereign governments and major gas users such as Japan and China.​​He said this often placed an inherent tension between the gas producers and Australia's interests because the companies wanted every molecule available for export.​​While supporting foreign investment in Australia's natural resources, he said the eastern states' experience showed what can happen when safeguards for domestic consumers were not built in.​
> 
> 
> More on the link below...
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06...-former-western-australian-premiers/101143558
> 
> 
> .​



The ownership of resources and minerals is not arguable, its part of the  constitution.
The question is , how much does the government contribute to the exploration and setting up of all the  infrastructure required to extract the minerals and petroleum products.
 There have been far more non productive  wells spudded than have been gushers.
It seems governments are happy for private enterprise  to do all the dirty work, and then wait for the royalties, and now insistence that some of the output be kept local.
The time frame for these projects can be years if not decades, so the  entities may need some sort of assurance that the rules wont change half way thru.
Can see both sides of the argument have merit.
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> The ownership of resources and minerals is not arguable, its part of the  constitution.
> The question is , how much does the government contribute to the exploration and setting up of all the  infrastructure required to extract the minerals and petroleum products.
> There have been far more non productive  wells spudded than have been gushers.
> It seems governments are happy for private enterprise  to do all the dirty work, and then wait for the royalties, and now insistence that some of the output be kept local.
> The time frame for these projects can be years if not decades, so the  entities may need some sort of assurance that the rules wont change half way thru.
> Can see both sides of the argument have merit.
> Mick



Absolutely that is why it has to be negotiated at stage where exploration, becomes agreement to extract the resource, as happened in W.A.
From memory Ireland had the same issue,  a large oil field was discovered but agreement on royalties couldn't be reached Ireland told them to spud it and sod off.
One hopes the ICAC bodies in Australia, start and check what happened in Queensland, when all the export permits were issued.
Nothing like have more people on the train and no one checking tickets. Lol


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> The time frame for these projects can be years if not decades, so the entities may need some sort of assurance that the rules wont change half way thru.
> Can see both sides of the argument have merit.



An issue is the mentality of getting the gas out of the ground ASAP.

From a long term national interest perspective, the "correct" approach is often to simply say no, we're not going to develop that now at all in fact we're doing to leave it 30 years very intentionally because that's when we'll need it. That is, you have an exploration and production industry focused around supplying what the nation needs with the understanding that only if sufficient discoveries are made so as to bring about a genuine long term surplus will export be permitted.

Going back to the late 1970's - early 1980's quite a bit of work was done on all this with separate studies by multiple parties all reaching the same basic conclusion that long term supply was inadequate in the south-eastern states (NSW, Vic, SA, Tas collectively) and that future gas discoveries either within those states, or anywhere else in Australia, needed to be seen in that context.

The SA, Victorian and Tasmanian state governments all separately reached that conclusion. So did AGL. So did Esso who know rather a lot about the subject. 

There was also another major study, CSIRO from memory but not certain on that point, which reached the same conclusion and proposed a pipeline from the WA gas fields to Moomba (far north-east of SA), thus connecting to the existing Moomba - Adelaide and Moomba - Sydney pipelines. That wasn't about poaching WA's 15% reserved gas but rather, it was about using the other 85% or at least a good portion of it to supply the future needs of Australia rather than exporting it. That study dates from the 1970's.

Esso circa late-1990's came up with an alternative variation on that plan, their idea being to source the gas from PNG with a pipeline from there to ultimately serve the same purpose. Notable given that Esso operates the Bass Strait fields so knew exactly where it was all heading in due course.

Then along came the technology to extract coal seam gas and the associated discovery of substantial reserves in Queensland. Against that backdrop, and bearing in mind that the Queensland fields are by far the closest source to Moomba indeed there's already a pipeline link from there to Queensland anyway, it's pure madness that this gas hasn't been kept and made available to supply Australian industry and homes indeed it isn't even available to industry in Brisbane.

The problem ultimately comes down to the "get rich quick" mentality of wanting to get the gas out of the ground ASAP rather than seeing it as a necessary feedstock for industry, homes etc and that having a good reserve inventory that'll take the next however long to use is exactly the situation that's desirable.  

The real economic benefit comes from using the gas, not from simply extracting it and loading it onto ships.


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> The real economic benefit comes from using the gas, not from simply extracting it and loading it onto ships.



To highlight that difference in how different groups will see it (not actual quotes from anyone but to illustrate):

Big industrial company wanting to build a factory etc: "We're making a huge investment in machinery etc that has a working life of at least 30 years and we need an assured supply of energy to underpin that".

Engineers assessing options for a new power station: "No point building a power station if there isn't going to be fuel available to run it with. Whatever option we go with, it has a long working lifespan and we need to ensure there's fuel available, economically, for that duration".

Gas company: "We don't make money having 50 years worth of gas sitting in the ground, we make money by selling it ASAP".

Therein lies a huge conflict.

To a big energy user or someone focused on maintaining supply well having an abundance of gas in reserve is exactly what you want. You don't commit to using what's not there since that represents an unnecessary risk. 

Hence if we look at the historic power developments in Australia, they were all based on proper measurements of coal reserves, water resources (hydro) and so on. They didn't build Loy Yang without drilling a lot of holes in the ground to determine that there was in fact coal where they thought there was coal. Meanwhile the hydro developments were based on decades worth of river flow data in many cases and where that wasn't available proper estimates, itself a major piece of work, were done to ensure that the overall scheme was in fact based on a resource that really does exist. End result is the coal and hydro schemes worked as intended, they had available the expected resource over the life of the facility which is decades.

That a new mine was developed, at huge expense, for Loy Yang rather than using coal from the already in production Yallourn or Morwell mines was for precisely that reason. Whilst it would've worked initially, the coal available from those existing sources wasn't going to be sufficient for the life of the station and was needed for the remaining life of those already built.

A big problem with all this energy stuff is the different timescales involved when compared to most business.

When you're talking about projects taking 10+ years to build and then being in operation for half a century or more and which are based on decades worth of collected data, this really isn't something where short term thinking works. 

As a case in point, it was 1918 when Victoria committed to power generation at Yallourn and it'll be 2028, so 110 years later, when it ends. That sort of thing just doesn't fit at all well within the model of anyone seeking to just dig the coal up for a quick $.

This is intended as comedy but sadly it's also factually correct and remains so today, 5 years after it was made:


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> This is intended as comedy but sadly it's also factually correct and remains so today, 5 years after it was made:




*"We have an energy market."*
'Nuff said.


----------



## basilio

rederob said:


> *"We have an energy market."*
> 'Nuff said.



Droll. Often political satire makes a point far better than a dry story. Clarke and Dawe were the masters. Few others came close.


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> Droll. Often political satire makes a point far better than a dry story. Clarke and Dawe were the masters. Few others came close.




I think Smurf must have written that .


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> To highlight that difference in how different groups will see it (not actual quotes from anyone but to illustrate):
> 
> Big industrial company wanting to build a factory etc: "We're making a huge investment in machinery etc that has a working life of at least 30 years and we need an assured supply of energy to underpin that".
> 
> Engineers assessing options for a new power station: "No point building a power station if there isn't going to be fuel available to run it with. Whatever option we go with, it has a long working lifespan and we need to ensure there's fuel available, economically, for that duration".
> 
> Gas company: "We don't make money having 50 years worth of gas sitting in the ground, we make money by selling it ASAP".
> 
> Therein lies a huge conflict.
> 
> To a big energy user or someone focused on maintaining supply well having an abundance of gas in reserve is exactly what you want. You don't commit to using what's not there since that represents an unnecessary risk.
> 
> Hence if we look at the historic power developments in Australia, they were all based on proper measurements of coal reserves, water resources (hydro) and so on. They didn't build Loy Yang without drilling a lot of holes in the ground to determine that there was in fact coal where they thought there was coal. Meanwhile the hydro developments were based on decades worth of river flow data in many cases and where that wasn't available proper estimates, itself a major piece of work, were done to ensure that the overall scheme was in fact based on a resource that really does exist. End result is the coal and hydro schemes worked as intended, they had available the expected resource over the life of the facility which is decades.
> 
> That a new mine was developed, at huge expense, for Loy Yang rather than using coal from the already in production Yallourn or Morwell mines was for precisely that reason. Whilst it would've worked initially, the coal available from those existing sources wasn't going to be sufficient for the life of the station and was needed for the remaining life of those already built.
> 
> A big problem with all this energy stuff is the different timescales involved when compared to most business.
> 
> When you're talking about projects taking 10+ years to build and then being in operation for half a century or more and which are based on decades worth of collected data, this really isn't something where short term thinking works.
> 
> As a case in point, it was 1918 when Victoria committed to power generation at Yallourn and it'll be 2028, so 110 years later, when it ends. That sort of thing just doesn't fit at all well within the model of anyone seeking to just dig the coal up for a quick $.
> 
> This is intended as comedy but sadly it's also factually correct and remains so today, 5 years after it was made:




While the history of generation gives a sense of why we are where we are, it's a bit like thinking fixed phone lines would be forever and there would be no need to change.
Against this history is simple physics.  That is, climate change, *and *finite natural energy resources due to burning.
Not much thought was needed to work out that *transition *was inevitable, and an early step Australia took was to put a price on carbon.
That step accelerated a commercial push into renewables, which in turn addressed in part climate concerns.
However, Tony Abbott and his dimwitted followers put an end to that and instead ran an agenda that promoted fossil fuels over renewables.  It saw billions committed to  carbon capture and storage,  including $412M in their last budget.  CCS has proven as effective as a solid gold ashtray on a motorbike.

As @Smurf1976 notes, industry knew what was going to happen.  There have been hundreds of submissions to AEMO that pointed out problems already in the system, and problems that needed addressing in order to maintain the NEM.  ISP road maps identify these, and present scenarios that government can follow in order to achieve their desired outcome.  However, there was a missing piece of policy that was necessary to get industry to commit to large scale dispatchable investment, and that was the price on carbon that Abbott removed:  AEMO dropped a carbon price scenario from its modelling in 2019.  But it got worse ....

*Here's *what the Coalition hid from us, and through deliberate inaction has cost us countless billions.  Let's hope Labor have worked out this rort has to be plugged, and reinvests the gains into transitioning us away from FF as quickly as practical.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Against this history is simple physics. That is, climate change, *and *finite natural energy resources due to burning.



I'm not sure when the climate change issue was first raised at the scientific level but it was a very long time ago now. I've come across references to it dated from the 1890's.

For fossil fuel depletion, that one was raised at least as early as 1865, there's published work from that time on the subject.

So both were known about for an extremely long time indeed I'm pretty sure that Thomas Edison noted the foolishness of relying on fossil fuels and that renewable energy made far more sense. Odds are he wasn't aware of climate change but had presumably realised the physical limits to what's in the ground.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I think Smurf must have written that .



If I'd written it then it would have three times as many words but be only half as funny at best.


----------



## sptrawler

It isn't all doom and gloom, Australia is still at the forefront of transitioning to renewables, the fact that a new Govt with a stated intention of pushing harder toward renewables is now in office, IMO will be a spur for the coal sector to pursue active incentives to continue in operation. The previous Govt was leaning toward the market sorting out the demise of coal, whereas now I'm guessing there will have to be some proactive market involvement by the Govt, as they actually want a reduction of 43% by 2030.
How that will be achieved, without the Govt either installing new generating capacity and or paying existing generators, will be interesting.  









						Solar and wind are leading fastest energy transition the world has seen
					

The latest IRENA data shows that Australia is in the number two spot of new renewables per person and number one spot for installed solar PV.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				




The global per capita leaders in deployment of new renewable generation capacity in 2020 were the Netherlands, Australia and Norway (figure 2). They deployed new renewables per capita at 10 times the global rate and 3 times faster than China and the USA.

Australia has the most installed solar PV capacity per capita, ahead of Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Belgium.

Since the Australian solar resource in the populated southeast is 30-50% better than in those countries, Australia is by far the leading country in terms of per capita solar generation and also solar deployment speed.

In respect of deployment of wind capacity, Australia is in 4th and 13th places for deployment speed (Watts per person per year) and total deployment (Watts per person) respectively. Eleven European countries and Uruguay rank ahead of Australia for the latter.







	

		
			
		

		
	
Figure 2: New renewables in 2020


A recent paper shows that electricity production in Australia needs to double to decarbonise these sectors. This would eliminate 69% of emissions without significant impact on electricity prices.

To accomplish this task by 2040, the deployment rate of PV and wind would need to double from 7 GW in 2020 to 14 GW per year, which is not so hard considering that the deployment rate in 2015 was only 1 GW per year.

The balance of emissions comprises fugitive emissions (10%) (which vanishes as fossil fuel use vanishes); waste (3%); chemical production, aviation & shipping (8%); and the land sector (10%).

Grid balancing​Balancing high levels of variable PV and wind is usually straightforward through storage and strong interconnection between regions (to smooth out local weather).

Rapid deployment of PV and wind in Australia and Vietnam is notable because neither country has significant grid connection to neighbours to help balance the grid.

According to estimates from the Clean Energy Regulator, 7 Gigawatts of new solar and wind energy capacity was added in 2020.

As a consequence, renewable electricity reached 30% in the National Electricity Market and 70% in South Australia over last summer and is tracking towards 45% and 100% respectively in 2024.

Pumped hydro energy storage comprises 95% of global storage power and 99% of global storage energy. It provides lowest cost storage for periods of more than a few hours.

The global pumped hydro storage atlas lists 616,000 sites(4,000 in Australia) with 23 million Gigawatt-hours (GWh) of combined storage, which is two orders of magnitude more than required to support a global 100% renewable electricity system.

In Australia, two pumped hydro systems are under construction (Snowy 2.0 and Kidston) with combined storage power and energy of 2.3 GW and 350 GWh respectively.

Batteries (utility, home and in electric vehicles) complement pumped hydro by providing short term storage. About 2 GW (2 GWh) of utility batteries are under development in Australia.

The renewable energy industry in Australia is now worth $11 Billion per year (including both rooftop and utility solar and wind systems) and is employing 27,000 people.

Continuing reductions in the price of solar and wind may cause a wave of early coal generator retirements during the 2020s, further accelerating the change towards a renewable grid.

_Professor Andrew Blakers is head of the Research School of Electrical, Energy and Materials Engineering
at Australian National University_


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> It isn't all doom and gloom, Australia is still at the forefront of transitioning to renewables, the fact that a new Govt with a stated intention of pushing harder toward renewables is now in office, IMO will be a spur for the coal sector to pursue active incentives to continue in operation. The previous Govt was leaning toward the market sorting out the demise of coal, whereas now I'm guessing there will have to be some proactive market involvement by the Govt, as they actually want a reduction of 43% by 2030.
> How that will be achieved, without the Govt either installing new generating capacity and or paying existing generators, will be interesting.



Not meaning to diminish anything in your post but there are several important points to add.
First, we did well per capita in 2020 because Australian's have the biggest houses in the world (on average) 





and we can afford to invest more in *private rooftop solar*:




	

		
			
		

		
	
 Next, 2020 was an outlier and *2021 *did not look so good for us:




The above link notes, "Oceania is no longer the fastest growing region (+5.2%), although its share of global capacity is small and almost all of this expansion occurred in Australia."

The problems we have are well covered in this thread.  We are behind in storage, interconnectors for grid scale distribution of renewables (HVDC) - Marinus Link being an example, and DER.  And this does not cover where we should have been if Finkel's National Hydrogen Strategy was properly *funded *rather than getting backburner status.

There's a lot for Labor to do, and if they can avoid the influence of lobbyists and the big donations they hold out it's possible they might get some things right for a change.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Not meaning to diminish anything in your post but there are several important points to add.
> First, we did well per capita in 2020 because Australian's have the biggest houses in the world (on average)
> View attachment 142822
> 
> 
> and we can afford to invest more in *private rooftop solar*:
> View attachment 142821
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Next, 2020 was an outlier and *2021 *did not look so good for us:
> View attachment 142820
> 
> The above link notes, "Oceania is no longer the fastest growing region (+5.2%), although its share of global capacity is small and almost all of this expansion occurred in Australia."
> 
> The problems we have are well covered in this thread.  We are behind in storage, interconnectors for grid scale distribution of renewables (HVDC) - Marinus Link being an example, and DER.  And this does not cover where we should have been if Finkel's National Hydrogen Strategy was properly *funded *rather than getting backburner status.
> 
> There's a lot for Labor to do, and if they can avoid the influence of lobbyists and the big donations they hold out it's possible they might get some things right for a change.



Very true I've mentioned on several occasions, Australia is one of the largest per capita consumers, early in the thread I mentioned to Bas if we could halve our usage a lot of the coal generators wouldn't be required.
But being a country of entitled people, the last thing we will do is reduce our personal consumption, we just want our indulgence to be cleaned up.


----------



## wayneL

sptrawler said:


> Very true I've mentioned on several occasions, Australia is one of the largest per capita consumers, early in the thread I mentioned to Bas if we could halve our usage a lot of the coal generators wouldn't be required.
> But being a country of entitled people, the last thing we will do is reduce our personal consumption, we just want our indulgence to be cleaned up.



This is what really gives me the irrits... Climate action NOW! So long as it's someone else living in a cave, huddled around a single candle


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> Very true I've mentioned on several occasions, Australia is one of the largest per capita consumers, early in the thread I mentioned to Bas if we could halve our usage a lot of the coal generators wouldn't be required.
> But being a country of entitled people, the last thing we will do is reduce our personal consumption, we just want our indulgence to be cleaned up.




Really ? One of the largest per capita consumers ?  Be interesting to see how much energy use in industry and commerce is included in that figure.  Otherwise perhaps we are asking industry to go to renewable energy ? As many are now doing as much for commercial reasons.

*But putting that aside there is a strong case for energy efficiency across all areas of society and industry.* If we needed less energy then the cost of building new solar/wind plants would be proportionally reduced. Of course we won't actually reduce new energy sources because one of the giant new sunrise industries being proposed is  mass renewable energy generation which is then exported by cable or turned into hydrogen or ammonia for subsequent export/local use.

We are also seeing a determined push towards  "electrifying everything" to move people and industry off  natural gas and oil.  I'm afraid Wayne will have to shiver in his *single candle lit cave .*..alone..  ( _*Well of course he won't because canny Wayne is busily becoming frugally self sufficient*_ _* on solar power )*_
Can we please stop running this tired stupid trope ? It's just climate denial BS that poisons the discussion. There are plenty of  more constructive and concerning issues to debate than this sort of rubbish.


----------



## Smurf1976

wayneL said:


> huddled around a single candle



That one's a tad closer than many might realise.

In short:

Extremely high prices in Queensland, which have averaged over $800 / MWh over the past week, have now triggered the $300 administered price cap for electricity.

At $300 / MWh the open cycle gas and diesel fired generators can't even cover fuel costs so have withdrawn capacity. This occurred today.

That very nearly put the lights out tonight, a situation that has been temporarily averted through directions but ultimately the problem persists as such.

The $300 price cap has now also been triggered in NSW, extending the problem to that state.

Ultimately this isn't an engineering failure but a financial one. It's a problem needing to be fixed not by those with spanners or in control rooms but by those who came up with what were termed "reforms" back in the 1990's which ultimately created this mess. 

More information here:





__





						Energy price and supply update - 13 June 2022
					






					aemo.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

@SirRumpole you will like this article, it explains why a tax on volume is critical, it explains how it is easy to wash profits.









						Australia is paying more for gas and the 'tragedy' is the profits are nearly all going overseas
					

Australia's oil and gas resources are overwhelmingly exploited by global multinationals and most of these corporations pay no tax.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
In his 2010 review of the tax system, former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry said the PRRT "fails to collect an appropriate and constant share of resource rents" because it overcompensated investors on deductions.
When it comes to paying taxes, the big resource houses almost always cite the amount they shell out in royalties.

But royalties aren't tax.

They're a cost of doing business. Just as musicians earn a royalty from allowing others to sell their recordings at a profit, Australians — or rather the states that make up the Commonwealth — own the resources. The miners have to buy them from us.
During the past decade, Australia has, on occasion, overtaken Qatar as the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas.

However, where Qatar has managed to reap a financial windfall from royalty payments on its exports, we've barely managed to eke out spare change.

Five years ago, Treasury estimated we'd receive around $800 million in royalties for 100 billion cubic metres of LNG.

Qatar, in contrast, was forecast to pull in $26.6 billion for exactly the same amount. That's primarily because it levies a 35 per cent royalty on its gas.


----------



## 3 hound

W


Smurf1976 said:


> That one's a tad closer than many might realise.
> 
> In short:
> 
> Extremely high prices in Queensland, which have averaged over $800 / MWh over the past week, have now triggered the $300 administered price cap for electricity.
> 
> At $300 / MWh the open cycle gas and diesel fired generators can't even cover fuel costs so have withdrawn capacity. This occurred today.
> 
> That very nearly put the lights out tonight, a situation that has been temporarily averted through directions but ultimately the problem persists as such.
> 
> The $300 price cap has now also been triggered in NSW, extending the problem to that state.
> 
> Ultimately this isn't an engineering failure but a financial one. It's a problem needing to be fixed not by those with spanners or in control rooms but by those who came up with what were termed "reforms" back in the 1990's which ultimately created this mess.
> 
> More information here:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Energy price and supply update - 13 June 2022
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> aemo.com.au



What has caused the surge in prices that triggered the cap?


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> @SirRumpole you will like this article, it explains why a tax on volume is critical, it explains how it is easy to wash profits.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Australia is paying more for gas and the 'tragedy' is the profits are nearly all going overseas
> 
> 
> Australia's oil and gas resources are overwhelmingly exploited by global multinationals and most of these corporations pay no tax.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



It makes it h and to understand why Jim Chalmers said they were not proposing a super profits tax like the UK , unless they have something else in mind.


----------



## SirRumpole

3 hound said:


> W
> 
> What has caused the surge in prices that triggered the cap?



The Ukraine war.


----------



## 3 hound

SirRumpole said:


> The Ukraine war.



How so??

the standard answer to every problem is the Ukraine war lately, doesn't even matter what question is.


----------



## SirRumpole

3 hound said:


> How so??
> 
> the standard answer to every problem is the Ukraine war lately, doesn't even matter what question is.



Haven't you kept up with the events ?

Russia produces most of Europes gas, Europe has boycotted Russian gas so they are looking elsewhere, therefore there is a gas shortage and the price goes up.

Meanwhile, our generator companies haven't maintained some of their stations and unit have gone out of service, plus flooding in coal mines had led to a coal shortage.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> It makes it h and to understand why Jim Chalmers said they were not proposing a super profits tax like the UK , unless they have something else in mind.



The article explains the problem with a super profits tax, the companies don't make a super profit, also as the article says the Arabs put a 35% royalty on the gas ours is from memory 2.5 or 5%.
Brendon Grylls a National Party minister a few years ago, tried to get groundswell support for an increase in royalties, well the media put paid to that when the mining companies poured millions into scare advertising.
*He was a good politician, he actually pushed for a better deal for the regions, where all the money is made, but they always miss out on the cream from Governments*.
https://thewest.com.au/politics/sta...-fall-of-a-political-king-maker-ng-b88414737z
From the article:
_Five days of balance-of-power negotiations in *2008* changed the fortunes of WA’s regions.

They also etched the name of Brendon Grylls — king maker — on to the political landscape.

Those talks allowed Mr Grylls to implement the $8 billion Royalties for Regions program, which redirects millions of dollars in royalties into a special fund quarantined for projects in country WA_.


*Unfortunately he wanted to get more money for our resources. 2017*









						WA Nationals leader digs in on mining tax as BHP Billiton steps up attack
					

Brendon Grylls is going to the state election with a mining tax proposal he says will recoup the government an extra $2.3bn a year – and the industry is escalating its campaign to oust him




					www.theguardian.com
				



From the article:
_Brendon Grylls is going to the state election with a mining tax proposal he says will recoup the government an extra $2.3bn a year – and the industry is escalating its campaign to oust him._

Five months ago, pictures of macaws started popping up on the screensavers of employees at BHP Billiton’s iron ore operations in Port Hedland, 1,500km north of Perth.
The colourful image came with a warning.

“Increasing WA iron ore royalties by $5 would make them seven times higher than our biggest competitor Brazil,” it read. “What’s at risk if WA mining is made uncompetitive?”
The target of the message was the local MP, Brendon Grylls. As leader of the Western Australian National party, Grylls had suggested increasing a minor charge attached to some of the state’s oldest and most established iron ore mines from $0.25 a tonne to $5 a tonne, in line with inflation.

*Then he was done*:* 2017*








						WA Nationals leader Brendon Grylls loses seat to Labor after attack from mining lobby
					

Grylls thanks supporters on Facebook after Colin Barnett’s government loses Western Australian election




					www.theguardian.com
				



From the article:
_Brendon Grylls, the leader of the Western Australian National party, who spearheaded a campaign to increase charges paid by Australia’s two biggest mining companies, has lost his seat to Labor.
Grylls faced a sustained attack from the mining lobby, which conducted a $5m advertising campaign against his proposal to increase the special lease rental fee paid by BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto on their two biggest iron ore deposits from $0.25 a tonne to $5 a tonne.

The rate had been set when the state agreements were struck in the 1960s and Grylls, as leader of the National party, argued it should be increased to bring in an extra $3bn in revenue a year to shore up the ailing state finances_.


----------



## 3 hound

SirRumpole said:


> Haven't you kept up with the events ?
> 
> Russia produces most of Europes gas, Europe has boycotted Russian gas so they are looking elsewhere, therefore there is a gas shortage and the price goes up.
> 
> Meanwhile, our generator companies haven't maintained some of their stations and unit have gone out of service, plus flooding in coal mines had led to a coal shortage.



So you are saying Australia imports gas from Russia??


----------



## Smurf1976

3 hound said:


> W
> 
> What has caused the surge in prices that triggered the cap?



Three things really:

The dramatic increase in the price of coal, gas and diesel. The latter is a minor input to generation but coal and gas are extremely important. Gas price has roughly quadrupled over the past two months on the Australian domestic market.

Technical failure at some individual generating facilities has reduced supply from those sources. Not to the point of putting the lights out, but a reduction nonetheless.

The National Electricity Market by its very design is an economic market first and foremost and suffice to say it's a long way short of optimal from a technical efficiency perspective. That mattered modestly when gas was cheap, still a waste of fuel but not a huge waste of money, but it matters a great deal when fuel costs a fortune.

That all gets lost in a huge amount of politics and ideology but suffice say my own view is that if we're to have a market with traders competing and so on well then OK, no problem, but that shouldn't be interfering with physical generation operation as it presently does.

That situation, where financial trading determines physical production, leads to some far less than desirable operation at times. It ends up with low cost plant owned by one company being underutilised whilst high cost, less efficient plant owned by someone else is running and that does include wind / solar going to waste whilst fuel is burned at times for purely financial trading reasons. 

Lots of things like that but ultimately everyone just grits their teeth and makes the best of it. That it works that way is a political / ideological / economic / legal construct dating back to the 1990's, it's certainly not something a technical person came up with.

My own view, very firmly, is that physical operation needs to be separate from financial trading so as to remove such silly outcomes and doing so would be a major step forward in resolving all this. Legally and politically however that would be opening up a huge can of worms.


----------



## SirRumpole

3 hound said:


> So you are saying Australia imports gas from Russia??



Considering the stupidity of the previous Federal government that wouldn't surprise me at all.

Bu t we pay world parity prices for our own gas, so when prices go up we have to pay what the rest of the world pays


----------



## 3 hound

Smurf1976 said:


> Three things really:
> 
> The dramatic increase in the price of coal, gas and diesel. The latter is a minor input to generation but coal and gas are extremely important. Gas price has roughly quadrupled over the past two months on the Australian domestic market.
> 
> Technical failure at some individual generating facilities has reduced supply from those sources. Not to the point of putting the lights out, but a reduction nonetheless.
> 
> The National Electricity Market by its very design is an economic market first and foremost and suffice to say it's a long way short of optimal from a technical efficiency perspective. That mattered modestly when gas was cheap, still a waste of fuel but not a huge waste of money, but it matters a great deal when fuel costs a fortune.
> 
> That all gets lost in a huge amount of politics and ideology but suffice say my own view is that if we're to have a market with traders competing and so on well then OK, no problem, but that shouldn't be interfering with physical generation operation as it presently does.
> 
> That situation, where financial trading determines physical production, leads to some far less than desirable operation at times. It ends up with low cost plant owned by one company being underutilised whilst high cost, less efficient plant owned by someone else is running and that does include wind / solar going to waste whilst fuel is burned at times for purely financial trading reasons.
> 
> Lots of things like that but ultimately everyone just grits their teeth and makes the best of it. That it works that way is a political / ideological / economic / legal construct dating back to the 1990's, it's certainly not something a technical person came up with.
> 
> My own view, very firmly, is that physical operation needs to be separate from financial trading so as to remove such silly outcomes and doing so would be a major step forward in resolving all this. Legally and politically however that would be opening up a huge can of worms.



Thanks, makes sense. I know lots of workers at a power station. It seems incredibly complicated to even know who owns the plants. 

Is coal going up because supply shortages from Russian sanctions mean we sell more to euro?


----------



## sptrawler

3 hound said:


> So you are saying Australia imports gas from Russia??



No what I think he is saying is, Queensland didn't make a gas reservation policy like W.A did, so the gas companies over East can sell it at market price and the market price has gone through the roof due to the Russia EU issue.


----------



## 3 hound

T


sptrawler said:


> No what I think he is saying is, Queensland didn't make a gas reservation policy like W.A did, so the gas companies over East can sell it at market price and the market price has gone through the roof due to the Russia EU issue.



That only makes sense of we are selling gas to euro as an export. I didn't think we were, are we?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Considering the stupidity of the previous Federal government that wouldn't surprise me at all.



The gas is a State issue, as most of Eastern State gas is onshore, you have to not fall into the chestnut barrel. It wont be long before that one gets a roasting IMO. 



SirRumpole said:


> Bu t we pay world parity prices for our own gas, so when prices go up we have to pay what the rest of the world pays



So why doesn't W.A pay world parity pricing for gas?
Take a breath and maintain perspective, they have gone, no need to maintain the rage. 😂


----------



## sptrawler

3 hound said:


> T
> 
> That only makes sense of we are selling gas to euro as an export. I didn't think we were, are we?



They have pre contracted more gas than they have, so what little if any they have left over, they can sell on the spot market.
Why would they sell it to the East Coast for $6 like W.A, when they can sell it on the spot market for $40, it isn't St Vincent de Paul.
The big stuff up was made years ago, when no gas reservation was put in place.
I worked with a guy who was an engineer on oil tankers, when the fuel crisis of the 1970's happened, apparently they just sat in the Gulf of Aden watching the spot price of oil, when it fell they on loaded then waited for a buyer.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The gas is a State issue, as most of Eastern State gas is onshore, you have to not fall into the chestnut barrel. It wont be long before that one gets a roasting IMO.
> 
> 
> So why doesn't W.A pay world parity pricing for gas?
> Take a breath and maintain perspective, they have gone, no need to maintain the rage. 😂



Weren't you saying that Gillard  negotiated gas  contracts without ensuring local supply  ?

So who is responsible , State or Federal ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Weren't you saying that Gillard  negotiated gas  contracts without ensuring local supply  ?
> 
> So who is responsible , State or Federal ?



As I said when I posted that, the gas was offshore and only 35% of the field was in W.A jurisdiction, 65% was in Fed waters.
So the Feds over ruled Barnett with regards onshore processing, but they did sign over the royalties to W.A.
On the East Coast, most of the gas is onshore.
From what I've read the gas is in Queensland and exported through Gladstone, so that is a State jurisdiction and under State control, they would have to negotiate any reserve, when they were organising the extraction contracts as W.A did.
That is the problem the last Fed Government had, and now this Fed Government has, the contracts were signed.
To now try and change the terms of the contract, would mean the company could ask for compensation, for building the infrastructure and lost revenue as their business case for building the infrastructure was based on the original assumptions.
The only difference now is Scomo isn't there to blame, it was so much easier when they just had to say it's his fault, it was a get out of jail card for every ailment.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> As I said when I posted that, the gas was offshore and only 35% of the field was in W.A jurisdiction, 65% was in Fed waters.
> So the Feds over ruled Barnett with regards onshore processing, but they did sign over the royalties to W.A.
> On the East Coast, most of the gas is onshore.
> From what I've read the gas is in Queensland and exported through Gladstone, so that is a State jurisdiction and under State control, they would have to negotiate any reserve, when they were organising the extraction contracts as W.A did.



Ok, well some government is to blame. I've no problem blaming Annastasia or Campbell Newman, whoever it was made a blunder.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Ok, well some government is to blame. I've no problem blaming Annastasia or Campbell Newman, whoever it was made a blunder.



Yes I don't know who was in and I'm not really interested, but IMO someone really dropped the ball and it would be a great issue for an ICAC to look into. But I think Queensland already has an ICAC, oh well maybe an ICAC 2.0. 

If i was cynical, all an ICAC would mean, is there more palms to grease. 😂


----------



## sptrawler

On a brighter note, this sounds ominous.
Queensland blackout warning as AEMO steps in​AEMO has introduced price caps and ordered generators to keep running, as it warns that parts of Queensland face possible blackouts this evening.


----------



## Smurf1976

3 hound said:


> Thanks, makes sense. I know lots of workers at a power station. It seems incredibly complicated to even know who owns the plants.
> 
> Is coal going up because supply shortages from Russian sanctions mean we sell more to euro?



Coal really falls into two categories:

1. Inferior quality coal that doesn't meet international specifications or coal that can't physically be exported. The cost is basically just the cost of mining it and getting it to the power station.

2. Coal that's of export quality and able to be physically exported. International factors determine what it's worth - the war is one but it was rising even before that.

Same basic situation with gas.

Explaining the issue with the NEM and trading versus physical dispatch, a simplified example as follows.

Suppose that we have 3 fossil fuel power stations, one hydro station and some random wind and solar. Obviously there are more in practice but this is just to illustrate.

Power station "A" uses coal from its own mine that's cheap and plentiful.

Power station "B" uses coal of export grade and the power station itself is near a port. It's more costly to operate.

Power station "C" uses diesel and costs a fortune to run.

Power station "D" is hydro.

The wind and solar work when it blows and shines.

So how should we use this? Well if the aim is to keep the cost as low as possible then it's pretty straightforward:

Run the wind and solar first.

Run "A" next because it's cheap.

Run "B" after that because it's medium price.

Run "C" as a last resort only when everything else is running and isn't sufficient.

Schedule "D", the hydro, based on water availability. It should always be run in preference to "C" for economic reasons but if there's enough water available then we can run it in preference to "B" as well. If we get a flood well then run it in preference to "A" too.

So the basic logic is really quite simple. Run the cheapest that's sufficient at any given time bearing in mind that maintenance outages, breakdowns etc will of course put constraints around this.

Now the basic problem with the NEM is that if A, B, C and D all have different owners, and with their individual traders all working on their own basis, then it does in practice lead to inefficient physical outcomes. It ends up with "A" running at half capacity and "C" running full blast and things like that simply because the traders are trying to make maximise revenue. The best financial outcome for the owners of "A" isn't necessarily with maximum output but rather, it's with the best combination of output times price. If that means "B" and "C" end up running unnecessarily then so be it.

That physical dispatch inefficiency leads to two basic problems:

1. It raises market prices by an amount greater than it raises profit, since very real costs are being incurred.

2. It's a truly terrible way to manage physical resources when it ends up with a solar farm being turned down and diesel being burned purely in an effort to make a profit.

That exists against a backdrop of political and economic ideology and the associated legislation and enforcement thereof. 

Now if an engineer or similar person were just left to do what they saw fit, well they'd just run the wind / solar then A, B, C in that order with the hydro placed according to the water level in the dam and expected inflows looking ahead. When it comes to the money, well they'd just point out that this is the cheapest way overall so perhaps the owners of the various stations should just do a deal to split the benefits among themselves and consumers such that everyone wins. Simple.....

Those with a more ideological view, and those who enforce the law, would want nothing of that since it's against the ideology about free market competition, not colluding and so on.

Obviously there's more than 4 power stations in reality but the overall concept still applies. Traders working for the owners of low cost generation price a portion of the output highly, leading to their production being cut, higher cost generation running and price being pushed up. To be fair, they've little choice when they're faced with having to recover all business costs, including fixed costs, from that revenue - they can't simply price at marginal cost otherwise they'll go broke.

So a lot comes down to an ideological view of how the world ought to be there. Technical efficiency versus free markets and so on.

Personally I think they'd be better separated. We need a market design that doesn't lead to inefficient technical outcomes, and the waste of real physical resources, as a result of financial trading and so on.


----------



## sptrawler

@Smurf1976 it all comes back to some things are best left in Government ownership, as an essential public service, the amount of profit is decided by the Government.
Just another brain fart, that seemed like a good idea at the time, selling public services comes back to bite them on the ar$e every time.
On the flip side a lot of these power stations were sold for a good price and many since privatisation have been written off as a disaster for the investors, but the public wears the brunt of it in the end.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> @Smurf1976 it all comes back to some things are best left in Government ownership, as an essential public service, the amount of profit is decided by the Government.
> Just another brain fart, that seemed like a good idea at the time, selling public services comes back to bite them on the ar$e every time.
> On the flip side a lot of these power stations were sold for a good price and many since privatisation have been written off as a disaster for the investors, but the public wears the brunt of it in the end.



Agreed although I'll argue that a private owner, structured on the same basis as a government one so an integrated utility, should also be able to do a pretty good job of it.

The problem is fundamentally with the market itself. Government ownership gets around that in that it removes the need for a market but it shouldn't be impossible to come up with an alternative market design that makes private ownership work better than it does at present.

The latest is that SA entered price administration at 21:50 this evening and Victoria at 21:55, those times being eastern states time not SA local time.

That leaves the National Electricity Market, in terms of actually being a market functioning as an actual free market, confined to Tasmania which is about as ironic as it gets given the history of it all.


----------



## 3 hound

sptrawler said:


> On a brighter note, this sounds ominous.
> Queensland blackout warning as AEMO steps in​AEMO has introduced price caps and ordered generators to keep running, as it warns that parts of Queensland face possible blackouts this evening.



That not clever if as rumpoloe said a lack of maintenance is a factor.


----------



## 3 hound

Smurf1976 said:


> Coal really falls into two categories:
> 
> 1. Inferior quality coal that doesn't meet international specifications or coal that can't physically be exported. The cost is basically just the cost of mining it and getting it to the power station.
> 
> 2. Coal that's of export quality and able to be physically exported. International factors determine what it's worth - the war is one but it was rising even before that.
> 
> Same basic situation with gas.
> 
> Explaining the issue with the NEM and trading versus physical dispatch, a simplified example as follows.
> 
> Suppose that we have 3 fossil fuel power stations, one hydro station and some random wind and solar. Obviously there are more in practice but this is just to illustrate.
> 
> Power station "A" uses coal from its own mine that's cheap and plentiful.
> 
> Power station "B" uses coal of export grade and the power station itself is near a port. It's more costly to operate.
> 
> Power station "C" uses diesel and costs a fortune to run.
> 
> Power station "D" is hydro.
> 
> The wind and solar work when it blows and shines.
> 
> So how should we use this? Well if the aim is to keep the cost as low as possible then it's pretty straightforward:
> 
> Run the wind and solar first.
> 
> Run "A" next because it's cheap.
> 
> Run "B" after that because it's medium price.
> 
> Run "C" as a last resort only when everything else is running and isn't sufficient.
> 
> Schedule "D", the hydro, based on water availability. It should always be run in preference to "C" for economic reasons but if there's enough water available then we can run it in preference to "B" as well. If we get a flood well then run it in preference to "A" too.
> 
> So the basic logic is really quite simple. Run the cheapest that's sufficient at any given time bearing in mind that maintenance outages, breakdowns etc will of course put constraints around this.
> 
> Now the basic problem with the NEM is that if A, B, C and D all have different owners, and with their individual traders all working on their own basis, then it does in practice lead to inefficient physical outcomes. It ends up with "A" running at half capacity and "C" running full blast and things like that simply because the traders are trying to make maximise revenue. The best financial outcome for the owners of "A" isn't necessarily with maximum output but rather, it's with the best combination of output times price. If that means "B" and "C" end up running unnecessarily then so be it.
> 
> That physical dispatch inefficiency leads to two basic problems:
> 
> 1. It raises market prices by an amount greater than it raises profit, since very real costs are being incurred.
> 
> 2. It's a truly terrible way to manage physical resources when it ends up with a solar farm being turned down and diesel being burned purely in an effort to make a profit.
> 
> That exists against a backdrop of political and economic ideology and the associated legislation and enforcement thereof.
> 
> Now if an engineer or similar person were just left to do what they saw fit, well they'd just run the wind / solar then A, B, C in that order with the hydro placed according to the water level in the dam and expected inflows looking ahead. When it comes to the money, well they'd just point out that this is the cheapest way overall so perhaps the owners of the various stations should just do a deal to split the benefits among themselves and consumers such that everyone wins. Simple.....
> 
> Those with a more ideological view, and those who enforce the law, would want nothing of that since it's against the ideology about free market competition, not colluding and so on.
> 
> Obviously there's more than 4 power stations in reality but the overall concept still applies. Traders working for the owners of low cost generation price a portion of the output highly, leading to their production being cut, higher cost generation running and price being pushed up. To be fair, they've little choice when they're faced with having to recover all business costs, including fixed costs, from that revenue - they can't simply price at marginal cost otherwise they'll go broke.
> 
> So a lot comes down to an ideological view of how the world ought to be there. Technical efficiency versus free markets and so on.
> 
> Personally I think they'd be better separated. We need a market design that doesn't lead to inefficient technical outcomes, and the waste of real physical resources, as a result of financial trading and so on.



That helps a lot.

Without being to cynical it sounds like in a pinch we end up with the worst of all worlds also also has a lot of blame distribution built in so perfect government system.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Agreed although I'll argue that a private owner, structured on the same basis as a government one so an integrated utility, should also be able to do a pretty good job of it.




Quite possibly. The splitting off of generation, distribution and retailing and sale to different entities who all wanted to make a profit is a disaster.

Thanks Peter Costello and 'asset recycling'.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Quite possibly. The splitting off of generation, distribution and retailing and sale to different entities who all wanted to make a profit is a disaster.
> 
> Thanks Peter Costello and 'asset recycling'.



Yes, as each element split off now has to make their individual profit, rather than a single entity serving the public good.

Interestingly, not long before I left WA over 4 decades ago the State Electricity Commission of Western Australia plus the Fuel and Power Commission were amalgamated into a single "*Energy*" Commission to better plan for the State's needs.  I know it was a long time ago but I believe the change was put in motion by "Honest John" Tonkin.  No doubt @sptrawler will know for sure.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Quite possibly. The splitting off of generation, distribution and retailing and sale to different entities who all wanted to make a profit is a disaster.
> 
> Thanks Peter Costello and 'asset recycling'.



Probably the biggest fopar of his career IMO. 
Thankfully W.A dragged the chain with that one, they allowed competitors into the market, even gave them preferential treatment, but didn't sell the Government power stations.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Yes, as each element split off now has to make their individual profit, rather than a single entity serving the public good.
> 
> Interestingly, not long before I left WA over 4 decades ago the State Electricity Commission of Western Australia plus the Fuel and Power Commission were amalgamated into a single "*Energy*" Commission to better plan for the State's needs.  I know it was a long time ago but I believe the change was put in motion by "Honest John" Tonkin.  No doubt @sptrawler will know for sure.



It was either Honest John or Charlie Court, it actually might have been Court because it was formed when the gas was brought down from Karratha and incorporated under the SEC.


----------



## sptrawler

I did say people may get a shock with how quickly W.A will stop using coal for generation. McGowan says coal will be done by 2030.








						Western Australia to shut state-owned coal plants by 2030
					

Mark McGowan says state’s two remaining coal-fired power stations are becoming less viable due to rise of renewable energy




					www.theguardian.com
				



From the article:
Later this year, the first of the 854-megawatt Muja power station’s units near Collie, south of Perth, will close, with the entire plant to be shut by 2029. The nearby 340MW Collie plant will exit the market by the end of 2027, the premier, Mark McGowan, said in a statement on Tuesday.


The state will join South Australia, the Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania to be coal-free in its power generation. A report by the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) last year said

As part of the changes, the government also committed to not commission any new natural gas-fired power stations on the south-west grid *after 2030*. The gas supplies are reserved as part of a 15% carve-out of gas production in the state, a system that some would like to see applied in eastern Australia to ensure supplies and cap price increases.


----------



## sptrawler

A caveat to the last post, there is still a private coal power station "Blue Waters" on the Collie coal fields, it comprises two 217MW turbines, I don't know if they have any immediate plans of closing.
The statement by the Government may well lead them to extend the life of the station, it was already written down to zero dollars a few years back, so you never know maybe McGowan has held out an olive branch.


----------



## sptrawler

@SirRumpole I read in the AFR this morning that Eraring Power Station was offered to the State Government, like I said the last thing a politician wants, is to responsible for something that could cause a backlash, even if it was in the publics best interest.
I bet the price was a lot less than the State government got for it when they sold it.
It also highlights we were spot on about our synopsis of the issue facing coal fired generation, the problem is no one wants it, but everyone needs it.
Things will get a lot worse before they get better IMO, the remaining coal generators will soon be giving the State Governments ultimatums either buy it, pay us to run it, or we close it.









						NSW government knocked back Origin offer to sell Eraring power plant
					

Advisors believed the company was “socially responsible” and would not shut the plant down in 2025 if the market needed the supply. They were wrong.




					www.afr.com
				



From the article:
The NSW government considered a pitch to buy the loss-making Eraring Power Station in secret talks with Origin Energy last year. But the deal fell apart amid government concerns that underwriting a plan to keep the coal-fired power station open longer could “crowd out” other investments in energy.

After negotiations failed Origin announced the closure of Eraring in 2025.
Origin first approached the NSW government in mid-2021 with a pitch to hand over control of the NSW Central Coast power station under a deal that would transfer ownership to the government in 2023 financial responsibility from 2025 onwards.

A presentation to government in July 2021 opening talks on a deal was blunt about the challenges Origin faced at the ageing power plant, which the company expects could cost $10 million a month to operate from mid-2025.

“The market shift to renewable energy coupled with commitments to build more dispatchable capacity means Eraring is already loss making and this position will deteriorate over the decade,” an Origin briefing pack to the government stated.
A timeline drafted by the government’s investment banking adviser ICA Partners revealed negotiations opened on November 1, with several options canvassed for Origin to hand over control of the plant from 2025.

Part of the deal included Origin committing to a building an 800MW, two-hour battery next to the plant and potentially expanding a Shoalhaven pumped hydro facility.
By November, the government said it could decide ahead of Origin’s half-year results in February. But by December the deal had fallen over, and Origin walked away citing uncertainty about the retirement date and other issues.

“Origin wants the state to operate the plant post-2025 and sell back to Origin a block of power. State wants an insurance model that allows the plan to operate post-2025 only as required for reliability purposes,” ICA Partners investment banking adviser Michael Siede is recorded to have said in a final briefing note. The government did not want to be seen to be influencing market outcomes, he added.


The documents reveal government fears over taking on risks it could not control and that committing the power station to operate for longer could discourage or “crowd out” investment in other energy sources. The notes also reveal a government preference to keep the plant open using extensions to address shortfalls in supply rather than committing to a specified time frame.

A note prepared by the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment on December 8 reasoned that the power station was “not expected to be needed for price or reliability beyond June 2025” and that extending its operation beyond 2025 could expose consumers to unnecessary costs while “outcrowding” other investments.

Government advisers also reasoned that Origin was a “socially responsible” organisation and would not shut the plant down in 2025 if the market needed the supply. Two months after the talks failed, Origin announced it would close Eraring in August 2025.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> @SirRumpole I read in the AFR this morning that Eraring Power Station, like I said the last thing a politician wants, is to responsible for something that could cause a backlash, even if it was in the publics best interest.
> I bet the price was a lot less than the State government got for it when they sold it.
> It also highlights we were spot on about our synopsis of the issue facing coal fired generation, the problem is no one wants it, but everyone needs it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> NSW government knocked back Origin offer to sell Eraring power plant
> 
> 
> Advisors believed the company was “socially responsible” and would not shut the plant down in 2025 if the market needed the supply. They were wrong.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.afr.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> The NSW government considered a pitch to buy the loss-making Eraring Power Station in secret talks with Origin Energy last year. But the deal fell apart amid government concerns that underwriting a plan to keep the coal-fired power station open longer could “crowd out” other investments in energy.
> 
> After negotiations failed Origin announced the closure of Eraring in 2025.
> Origin first approached the NSW government in mid-2021 with a pitch to hand over control of the NSW Central Coast power station under a deal that would transfer ownership to the government in 2023 financial responsibility from 2025 onwards.
> 
> A presentation to government in July 2021 opening talks on a deal was blunt about the challenges Origin faced at the ageing power plant, which the company expects could cost $10 million a month to operate from mid-2025.
> 
> “The market shift to renewable energy coupled with commitments to build more dispatchable capacity means Eraring is already loss making and this position will deteriorate over the decade,” an Origin briefing pack to the government stated.




Interesting.

In the current circumstances government owned generators would be important in stopping price gouging. 

Eraring could be a good deal in the short term, long term it will be a dead asset of course but at least there would be some price competition in the market before that.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting.
> 
> In the current circumstances government owned generators would be important in stopping price gouging.
> 
> Eraring could be a good deal in the short term, long term it will be a dead asset of course but at least there would be some price competition in the market before that.



Like I said, the Pollies don't want to be responsible for the pain that the transition will cause and is the reason the last Government was allowing the operators to sort it out, now we have a Govt that has actively attacked the coal operators and made a lot of promises about shutting them down.
Well now IMO we are going to find out if the narrative fits the reality, at least in W.A the gas isn't being demonised, so we should be getting a row of GT's at Kwinana Power Station soon. 
I certainly hope Kurri Kurri gets underway soon, otherwise it will turn very ugly IMO.

I loved the last line in the passage above.
_"Government advisers also reasoned that Origin was a “socially responsible” organisation and would not shut the plant down in 2025 if the market needed the supply. Two months after the talks failed, Origin announced it would close Eraring in August 2025_."

The company is a socially responsible organisation, what a hoot, isn't that the Govt function. lol
So the company is meant to run at a loss, to supply an essential service, that the Government sold to them. I can't see how that will work, my guess as I've already stated, the coal companies will just flick the bird and walk.


----------



## SirRumpole

Not sure how cluey this reporter is, she's just stating the obvious really but it seems that the media is finally catching up with reality.

Nothing like a crisis to focus attention...









						'Not a perfect system?' A complete and utter mess is a more accurate description of the power grid
					

After a mere two weeks to assess the state of the National Electricity Market, Chris Bowen has found it crumbling in his hands, writes Melissa Clarke.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

AEMO suspends national energy market.

Implications ?









						Energy regulator's drastic step amid ongoing crisis
					

The national energy operator has suspended Australia's east coast wholesale market, saying it is impossible to keep operating in the current emergency.




					thenewdaily.com.au


----------



## rederob

There is a view under capitalism that market forces lead to greater efficiency.

The *NEM* is proof that this is not the case.

Fortunately for Labor the public won't care how much it costs to fix now as it just has to be fixed.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> There is a view under capitalism that market forces lead to greater efficiency.
> 
> The *NEM* is proof that this is not the case.
> 
> Fortunately for Labor the public won't care how much it costs to fix now as it just has to be fixed.




Oh yes, people who make a profit from something will always be cheaper than those who do it at cost.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> AEMO suspends national energy market.
> 
> Implications ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Energy regulator's drastic step amid ongoing crisis
> 
> 
> The national energy operator has suspended Australia's east coast wholesale market, saying it is impossible to keep operating in the current emergency.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> thenewdaily.com.au



You never know, the States may have to buy back the stations, they are the only ones in a position to run them, my guess they will have to pay the coal generators a standby allowance to be available. The turbine/boilers can't be just left going cold, the colder they are the longer they take to bring on line.
So they have to be kept at a temperature, suitable for the expected return to service time, that means firing the boiler to keep pressure even when it is off, oh dear at last the reality of the situation is hitting home.
Of note, Origin didn't offer to sell Eraring power station to the Feds, they were offering it to the State, same as happened with North power station in S.A, now Bowen realises the problem Taylor had.
It is going to be interesting to see who pays what, to whom.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Oh yes, people who make a profit from something will always be cheaper than those who do it at cost.



Don't forget the narrative of yesteryear, the Govt workers are slack, inefficient and lazy, it always amazed me because I've worked in both private and Govt and found Govt to be much harder workers.
But try telling that to the media.🤣


----------



## rederob

*This *is where Australia should have been heading years ago.
Copyright prevents me from snipping from the article, but when you see BP put $12B into renewables you know it's serious.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Don't forget the narrative of yesteryear, the Govt workers are slack, inefficient and lazy, it always amazed me because I've worked in both private and Govt and found Govt to be much harder workers.
> But try telling that to the media.🤣



No, try telling it to the LNP.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> *This *is where Australia should have been heading years ago.
> Copyright prevents me from snipping from the article, but when you see BP put $12B into renewables you know it's serious.



I dont think the project was stiched together last week, but I could be wrong.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> No, try telling it to the LNP.



That's true I did always find the LNP were more into privatisation.
But were easier to get a payrise out of.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Not sure how cluey this reporter is, she's just stating the obvious really but it seems that the media is finally catching up with reality.



The only bit I disagree with is the references to "the last decade" which implies it's all the doing of the previous government.

Suffice to say the fundamental flaws in the market date back to the 1990's.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Don't forget the narrative of yesteryear, the Govt workers are slack, inefficient and lazy, it always amazed me because I've worked in both private and Govt and found Govt to be much harder workers.



The thing politicians and other critics failed to grasp is that there tends to be a huge team spirit aspect to public utilities and so on.

There are some inefficiencies but overall they do work far better than most seem to realise. Things get done that the private sector draws the line at and walks away from. To the extent there's a bit less efficiency at times, it's offset when the crunch comes and you find the entire team still there in the middle of the night and so on.


----------



## greggles

Australian Energy Market Operator suspends spot market for wholesale electricity to ensure reliability and avoid blackouts

Looks like the wholesale market is going haywire with huge demand as winter kicks coupled with not enough supply. This kerfuffle is a huge wake up call. Government has been asleep at the wheel hoping private enterprise will fix the problem but surprise, surprise, it hasn't. Energy security is something the government needs to sort out as it's a national security issue.

This is what thinking one election cycle at a time gets you.


----------



## sptrawler

greggles said:


> Australian Energy Market Operator suspends spot market for wholesale electricity to ensure reliability and avoid blackouts
> 
> Looks like the wholesale market is going haywire with huge demand as winter kicks coupled with not enough supply. This kerfuffle is a huge wake up call. Government has been asleep at the wheel hoping private enterprise will fix the problem but surprise, surprise, it hasn't. Energy security is something the government needs to sort out as it's a national security issue.
> 
> This is what thinking one election cycle at a time gets you.



This is what selling off your power stations and then expecting the private sector to run it at a loss, because they have a social obligation that overides their business obligation gets you. Lol
Oh and also letting the gas companies sell all your gas, while not asking they keep some for you. Lol


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> The only bit I disagree with is the references to "the last decade" which implies it's all the doing of the previous government.
> 
> Suffice to say the fundamental flaws in the market date back to the 1990's.



Isn't the point here that we knew what had to be done, that there were plans available to make it happen, but the imperative was *price *over practicality, so it was not done.
Your point is a bit like knowing your engine oil needed replacing over 10 years ago, but despite this knowledge nothing was done to replace it.  That is, it could have been fixed but wasn't, so it blew up in our faces.
The tail needs to be pinned on the donkey once and for all.


----------



## sptrawler

Rather than use the current situation as a political stage, I read this article and thought it gave a great summary of the situation facing the East Coast, it is terrific that at last quality reporting is starting to be allowed on the issue IMO. A great article but quite long.









						Where did all the power go? What caused the east coast energy crisis
					

A combination of forces has sent energy prices soaring. And now there’s talk of blackouts too. How did it come to this?




					www.theage.com.au
				




The spike in gas prices has been variously described as “apocalyptic” and “a perfect storm”.

And now the market operator has been forced into a rare intervention to prevent winter blackouts by forcing energy producers to fire up. On June 15, it took the extraordinary step of taking control of the wholesale electricity market.

But Australia’s energy troubles didn’t come from nowhere.

A confluence of short-term and longer-term economic, geopolitical, political and even weather-related forces have sent prices soaring.

The consequences for households and businesses are now unavoidable.

Why have prices skyrocketed? And is there anything that can be done?


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> And is there anything that can be done?




Sure there is and we have been saying it for a while.

Put a volumetric export tax on gas and coal and use the proceeds to either rebate consumers on their power bills (really that's just pi$$ing money up a wall) or incentivising consumers to go solar PV and hot water which will give a long term benefit.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Rather than use the current situation as a political stage,...



The article makes it clear that political decisions underpin this mess.
What version of history are you going with?


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> The article makes it clear that political decisions underpin this mess.
> What version of history are you going with?



I'm going with the version that all sides of politics are as much to blame as each other, on a Federal and State level.
But on balance I think the issue with both electricity and gas is more of a State Governments stuff up, if  it could be laid at the Feds feet 100%, then W.A would be in the same boat and they aren't.
The answer is becoming apparent and what I have been saying for a very long time, change the generation over to gas fired turbines and retire the coal generators, then continue to install renewables, batteries and pumped hydro until the gas turbines are no longer needed.
The renewables especially grid size storage has only been readily available over the past 5-7 years, even solar panels are constantly improving in design and efficiency, it was only 2009 that Australia's solar panel manufacturing in Sydney was closed down. So to say that grid compatible inverters panels and associated equipment was a viable alternative to replace fossil fuel 10 years ago, is just fanciful nonsense.
S.A led the charge hell for leather into the renewable sunset and if it wasn't for the fact it had backup from the other States it would have ended up in tears, they had the opportunity to take owner of North power station and have it as reserve generation until they settled their system configuration. They didn't and it very nearly caused them massive problems.
NSW has been offered Eraring power station, they have said no, so who is to blame for any resultant shortage problems when it closes.
The States should take the opportunity to take back the coal power stations and then work out a way to close it, as W.A  is doing.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I'm going with the version that all sides of politics are as much to blame as each other, on a Federal and State level.



You think that a politician that has no role in making a decision is equally responsible!
Now I get where you are coming from.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> You think that a politician that has no role in making a decision is equally responsible!
> Now I get where you are coming from.



This has been in the making for a very, very long time and to name one politician or even one side of politics is immature and shows a complete lack of understanding, one politician hasn't caused the issue, one side of politics hasn't caused the issue.
The only thing that can be changed is where they go from here and I think it will be exactly where the last Federal Govt was heading, gas fired recovery.
Where and how they get the gas is a completely seperate issue, that can be solved, as is the case with most things.
The issue at the moment is the coal generators are being made to perform a function they aren't designed to perform, therefore there are two options, one let them operate as per design or two close them in an orderly manner.
With renewables it will take a fairly long time to reconfigure the system, install enough storage and build enough generation  to completely remove at call fossil fueled generation.
So the problem is the private sector no longer want to be responsible for the maintenance, fuel costs and running of the coal fired stations, as they are no longer worth it.
So the options are bribe the coal generators to keep running them, take them over, or install enough gas turbines so that the worst performing coal stations can be closed.
It is either that, or have expensive and unreliable electricity, until renewables can sustain the system. This Fed Govt has got the same problems the last Fed Govt had, the issues haven't changed.
We are putting in renewables as fast as possible, while reconfiguring transmission networks and designing systems and technology to accept the penetration, in most ways we are a World first in a lot of this stuff and are having to work things out as it evolves, it isn't an off the shelf install.
People's lack of understanding and unrealistic expectations of time frames, are the problem. 









						Australia leads world as solar sets global generation record
					

A new report published by UK-based energy think tank Ember shows that solar was the world’s fastest-growing source of electricity generation in 2021. Australia leads the world in its uptake, with PV generating 12% of the nation’s electricity last year.




					www.pv-magazine.com
				












						Allocating and managing grid connection risk
					

Connecting clean energy projects to the grid is the greatest challenge facing renewable projects. Coupled with rising supply chain costs and project delays, projects are facing significant hurdles to closing and delivering deals. In this article, we look at whether parties can rely on contracts...




					www.holdingredlich.com
				












						“Pace is extraordinary:” Advanced inverters take centre stage in roadmap to 100pct renewables
					

Roadmap put together by CSIRO and AEMO focuses on advanced inverters and new control rooms amongst the many technical needs of a zero emissions grid.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the article:

“Pace is extraordinary:” Advanced inverters take centre stage in roadmap to 100pct renewables​
Giles Parkinson 25 March 2022 49









	

		
			
		

		
	
Victoria Big Battery. Image supplied
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Advanced inverter technologies have taken centre stage in a detailed roadmap put together by the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator that plots a path to a zero emissions grid and a 100 per cent renewable electricity supply.
“The pace and scale of this transition is extraordinary,” said AEMO’s head of operations Michael Gatt. “It demands new approaches to power system operations including tools, technologies, process and platforms, which complement network planning, and market and regulatory reforms.”
Chief among these are advanced inverters, also known as “grid forming inverters”, which have the potential to provide many, if not all, the grid services currently the province of spinning fossil fuel generators.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> This has been in the making for a very, very long time and to name one politician or even one side of politics is immature and shows a complete lack of understanding, one politician hasn't caused the issue, one side of politics hasn't caused the issue.



Nobody doubts that decisions in the distant past affect our present energy system.
You simply refuse to acknowledge that from 2013 when Abbott got rid of the price on carbon there have been few decisions from the federal government - that's the one* where the Coalition was in charge of energy policy *- that were consistent within the NEM framework wrt securing the inevitable energy future, which was then and is now going to be dominated by renewables. 
*Labor has had no say in NEM and associated national energy policies for the past 10 years*, and if you believe that it was impossible for the Coalition to have put something in place during that period then we are poles apart.
You only need to read the submissions to AEMO that screamed for decisions from government that would enable them to invest in building the necessary capacity.  It went on year after year, and we got nothing.  That history is publicly available to anyone who wants to go there.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Nobody doubts that decisions in the distant past affect our present energy system.
> You simply refuse to acknowledge that from 2013 when Abbott got rid of the price on carbon there have been few decisions from the federal government - that's the one* where the Coalition was in charge of energy policy *- that were consistent within the NEM framework wrt securing the inevitable energy future, which was then and is now going to be dominated by renewables.



No the reality is with minimal Government interference, we have actually achieved a huge penetration of renewables, the grid from my understanding is being reconfigured to accept even more renewables and Snowy 2.0 and the second Tassie link is being put in to increase long duration storage. So to say they have done nothing borders on idiotic.

Just because the transition isn't happening as fast as you deem acceptable, doesn't mean that it isn't happening, as with all your posts on most subjects, you want to make them into a political center piece, rather than just an informed debate.
I have already said I don't think Labor will do any better than the coalition, it will be a transition that has to be handled in a methodical way, that isn't driven by ideology, but by practical application, current technology, system development and financial caution.
The carbon tax Australia's own little home goal, as was said at the time, global warming is a global issue individual countries running their own little tax system would never work. A carbon tax needs to be an agreed global tax, that everyone recognises and adopts, but that wouldn't suit our little ego driven attention seekers would it.

I also said earlier that the leading technology as recently as 2017, was molten salt storage, that now has been found to need a lot more development, enthusiastically chasing brain farts, does nothing but cloud good judgements.
Yet you are dwelling on Tony Abbott back in what 2013, what about Labor allowing the solar panel industry to close in 2009, like that was a winner.
They would have been making a killing in 2013, when Gov subsidies for home solar panels were introduced

With the current issue Bowen didn't jump in lip first and handballed the decision making to the AEMO, so at least they appear to be take a more measured approach.
It will be interesting to watch how it unfolds over the next couple of years, I notice Labor haven't mentioned cancelling Snowy 2.0 you know the one that you say isn't required because E.V's are going to carry the transition, also no mention about Kurri Kurri yet.

So other than rambling on that we haven't got enough renewables, because of the last Government, maybe you could adopt a more positive outlook, you will only make yourself unwell dwelling on history and the last Government.🤣

In summary:
If there was not a lot of renewables installed already in the system, the coal generators wouldn't be having the trouble they are at the moment.
So to say the last Gov did nothing to encourage renewables is just nonsense.
Could they have done more, possibly, could the situation be more dire if they had? Also quite possible.
Will the new Govt do any better?  Time will tell.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> No the reality is with minimal Government interference, we have actually achieved a huge penetration of renewables, the grid from my understanding is being reconfigured to accept even more renewables and Snowy 2.0 and the second Tassie link is being put in to increase long duration storage. So to say they have done nothing borders on idiotic.
> 
> Just because the transition isn't happening as fast as you deem acceptable, doesn't mean that it isn't happening, as with all your posts on most subjects, you want to make them into a political center piece, rather than just an informed debate.
> I have already said I don't think Labor will do any better than the coalition, it will be a transition that has to be handled in a methodical way, that isn't driven by ideology, but by practical application, current technology, system development and financial caution.
> The carbon tax Australia's own little home goal, as was said at the time, global warming is a global issue individual countries running their own little tax system would never work. A carbon tax needs to be an agreed global tax, that everyone recognises and adopts, but that wouldn't suit our little ego driven attention seekers would it.
> 
> I also said earlier that the leading technology as recently as 2017, was molten salt storage, that now has been found to need a lot more development, enthusiastically chasing brain farts, does nothing but cloud good judgements.
> Yet you are dwelling on Tony Abbott back in what 2013, what about Labor allowing the solar panel industry to close in 2009, like that was a winner.
> They would have been making a killing in 2013, when Gov subsidies for home solar panels were introduced
> 
> With the current issue Bowen didn't jump in lip first and handballed the decision making to the AEMO, so at least they appear to be take a more measured approach.
> It will be interesting to watch how it unfolds over the next couple of years, I notice Labor haven't mentioned cancelling Snowy 2.0 you know the one that you say isn't required because E.V's are going to carry the transition, also no mention about Kurri Kurri yet.
> 
> So other than rambling on that we haven't got enough renewables, because of the last Government, maybe you could adopt a more positive outlook, you will only make yourself unwell dwelling on history and the last Government.🤣
> 
> In summary:
> If there was not a lot of renewables installed already in the system, the coal generators wouldn't be having the trouble they are at the moment.
> So to say the last Gov did nothing to encourage renewables is just nonsense.
> Could they have done more, possibly, could the situation be more dire if they had? Also quite possible.
> Will the new Govt do any better?  Time will tell.



You have conveniently sidestepped the fact that for the past 10 years nothing was done to move us into a renewable future except for Turnbull's white elephant.

It's irrelevant what was done with minimal interference, as you put it, because what had to be done by the Coalition never was!

Your references to State actions is not relevant to the NEM or national energy policy.  That's why we are here today.

You don't get it do you?  When industry wanted to do what was needed, they want some certainty they would not be left with stranded assets, or at least assets that could not be amortised within transitional timeframes.  They wanted to build, but wanted to know their commercial risk was going to be covered.  As I said, read what went on.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> You have conveniently sidestepped the fact that for the past 10 years nothing was done to move us into a renewable future except for Turnbull's white elephant.
> 
> It's irrelevant what was done with minimal interference, as you put it, because what had to be done by the Coalition never was!
> 
> Your references to State actions is not relevant to the NEM or national energy policy.  That's why we are here today.
> 
> You don't get it do you?  When industry wanted to do what was needed, they want some certainty they would not be left with stranded assets, or at least assets that could not be amortised within transitional timeframes.  They wanted to build, but wanted to know their commercial risk was going to be covered.  As I said, read what went on.



You see the issue from an administration, policy and political perspective, I look at it from a practical, technical and hands on background, this is due to our different careers.
You aren't impressed because a policy and money wasn't thrown at it.
I am impressed by how much has been done, considering the technical, practical and logistical constraints.

We just see it differently, you think more could have been done, I think it is amazing in such a short period of time, how much has been done.

You obviously worked in Government administration.
I always worked in power generation, from 15 to 55, from apprentice, technician,, construction, project management in power station and HV transmission construction and thermal generation operations .

So we are just looking at it from a different perspective, same with E.V's, you think incentives should be focused on making them cheaper, I think the money should be spent on charging infrastructure.
There isn't a right and wrong, just a different perspective on the issue.

What I'm looking forward to is the acceleration that happens with Govt intervention, which obviously Labor are going to do.
It will be interesting to see if more haste makes less speed.
No matter how much money you throw at projects, there are constraints outside of your control, that affect the timeframe and cost.
It will be an interesting journey, I hope the white elephant is there to save the day.

My guess is gas will save the day, in the transition to renewables, as I said a long time ago.
I'm just grateful that the media doesn't live in W.A, or we would have the same mess as is happening over East.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> It's irrelevant what was done with minimal interference, as you put it, because what had to be done by the Coalition never was!



That is a succinct point, who pays for the dead space between renewables being able to deliver and fossil fuel stopped?
We are fast approaching that point and if Labor run true to form, the taxpayer will pay and pay heaps, as with the NBN.

The telecommunications companies got a taxpayer funded optical upgrade, so they could charge twice as much for an internet connection, the media were happy because now it is live and FREE, with the new taxpayer funded NBN it will be live and cost you very soon.
Yep another brain fart.
IMO the best option for a bumpless transition, is the States buy back the coal power stations and let the private operators sort out the transition, but regulate the gas as being a transition fuel.
Otherwise IMO it will all turn to manure, especially if you let the loony tunes decide, the coal generators will screw the last drop of profit with no reliability and the grid will be in chaos.
Then it will be the NBN answer, who gives a $hit I don't care the cost, just do it.

And to clarify the cost issue, what did the NBN cost in the end $80b, to run a gas pipe from Karratha to Moomba gas field would cost about $7b apparently, what did we spend on jobseeker and jobkeeper? Just to put a perspective on things.🤣
Just googled it jobkeeper easy it cost $10b, when I changed it to jobseeker it is difficult to get a cost, surprise, surprise.


----------



## sptrawler

It sounds to me that Labor are going to get what they wished for. It's great when a plan falls into place.









						BHP retains Mt Arthur coal mine, plans earlier closure as buyers walk
					

The move ups the pressure on the NSW and federal governments reeling from the east coast energy crisis because environment groups don’t want coal and gas projects extended.




					www.afr.com
				




​


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> Your point is a bit like knowing your engine oil needed replacing over 10 years ago, but despite this knowledge nothing was done to replace it. That is, it could have been fixed but wasn't, so it blew up in our faces.
> The tail needs to be pinned on the donkey once and for all.



Whilst true, it would be pure politics to blame only the recent Coalition government given the problem with the NEM design goes right back to the start and was noted at least as early as 1993 that I'm aware of.

Both sides have failed miserably with this just as they've failed with housing or manufacturing as other examples.

In more recent times we've had Morrison handing around glazed lumps of coal and we had Gillard's government thinking the aim was to close coal-fired stations in Victoria and replace them with gas-fired CCGT. 

Both sides are problematic but that said, credit where it's due. Albanese thus far looks to be the best PM we've had, at least on this issue, in a very long time.


----------



## Smurf1976

rederob said:


> 2013 when Abbott got rid of the price on carbon there have been few decisions from the federal government - that's the one* where the Coalition was in charge of energy policy *- that were consistent within the NEM framework wrt securing the inevitable energy future, which was then and is now going to be dominated by renewables.
> *Labor has had no say in NEM and associated national energy policies for the past 10 years*



Politics versus action.

9 years is more than enough to put policies in place yes.

It's not enough time to do the real work of implementation however unless a "crash through" approach is adopted.

A lot depends on perspective.

A politician will see that legislation passing through both houses of parliament means the work is now done.

An engineer or project manager will see the same action as meaning the work can now commence.

A tradie or other construction worker will see the same action as meaning there's some work going to be starting a couple of years from now.

All are correct from their own perspective.

Key point being it's many years from something going through parliament to it becoming physical reality on the ground. Whatever Albanese gets done, he almost certainly won't be PM by the time it's physical reality.

As I've said to many, time's running short in terms of the closure of existing generating capacity.

It's too late now to consider nuclear as a replacement for all but the last coal plants to close.

For some it's too late now to consider coal as a replacement even if we wanted to do it.

It's too late to consider 100%  renewable as a replacement unless a "crash through" approach is adopted to pumped hydro and transmission projects.

Hence why we've got Andrew Forrest, Origin Energy, Santos, Alinta, Viva Energy, Vopak, Energy Australia, APA Group, Venice Energy and others all lining up to collectively spend $ billions on gas. They know full well that the politicians, of any political persuasion, are highly unlikely to move quickly enough to remove the need for it.

Personally well if it were up to me then I wouldn't be building gas no. But then I'm not a politician, I don't have to play the game to win an election and I'd probably upset a few people by doing things without spending years doing community consultations and so on.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> What I'm looking forward to is the acceleration that happens with Govt intervention, which obviously Labor are going to do.
> It will be interesting to see if more haste makes less speed.
> No matter how much money you throw at projects, there are constraints outside of your control, that affect the timeframe and cost.



As I'm sure you're aware:

The slowest way to get a project built is to follow every rule and build a high quality project done cheaply.

At the other extreme there's a hard limit below which you cannot go.

In the middle are varying degrees of budgets blown to pieces and procedures shortcut.


----------



## rederob

Smurf1976 said:


> Politics versus action.
> 9 years is more than enough to put policies in place yes.
> It's not enough time to do the real work of implementation however unless a "crash through" approach is adopted.
> A lot depends on perspective.



So here is some of the perspective:
When industry and States were dissatisfied with the federal response to their growing concerns, and the South Australian "blackout", *an extraordinary meeting was convened* in October 2016 by Coalition of Australian Governments (COAG) Energy Ministers.  They agreed to an independent review of the national electricity market, and it was Chaired by Professor Alan Finkel.
Finkel *presented *his* Blueprint for the Future Security of the National Electricity Market*in June 2017.
Finkel set out the energy future and made *this *assessment:
*"Australia needs to increase system security and ensure future reliability in the NEM. Security and reliability have been compromised by poorly integrated variable renewable electricity generators, including wind and solar. This has coincided with the unplanned withdrawal of older coal and gas-fired generators. Security should be strengthened through Security Obligations for new generators, including regionally determined minimum system inertia levels. Similarly, reliability should be reinforced through a Generator Reliability Obligation implemented by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) following improved regional reliability assessments. These obligations will require new generators to ensure that they can supply electricity when needed for the duration and capacity determined for each NEM region.*​​*The reliability of Australia’s future electricity system will be underpinned by an orderly transition that integrates energy and emissions reduction policy. All governments need to agree to an emissions reduction trajectory to give the electricity sector clarity about how we will meet our international commitments. This requires a credible and durable mechanism for driving clean energy investments to support a reliable electricity supply. Governments need to agree on and implement a mechanism as soon as possible. Ongoing uncertainty is undermining investor confidence, which in turn undermines the reliable supply of electricity and increases costs to consumers."*​
You don't have to be Einstein to work out that little of his blueprint came to fruition, just as Finkel's plans for a hydrogen future were put on a go slow process.



sptrawler said:


> You see the issue from an administration, policy and political perspective, I look at it from a practical, technical and hands on background, this is due to our different careers.
> You aren't impressed because a policy and money wasn't thrown at it.



Without a policy that supports what should happen, it won't!
*"Nothing" in this case is the practical outcome.*
You can talk about anything extraneous you like, but there is a very simple bottom line.  The levers that needed to be pulled when we were given a *Blueprint *for action, were not.
*Industry *had the money necessary to move us into our energy future, so the government did not have to "throw" any, as you suggest.  I can only repeat that all this is a matter of public record.

Either you don't understand some of my points or you don't read what I write.  On EVs for example I have consistently said that incentives are not well targeted, and made many suggestions about how less well off people could to buy them.  In fact I even suggested that incentives could be applied to vehicles at such low price points that none presently sit there.  I understand the need for better EV infrastructure is a concern but both federal and State governments have already committed monies.  That's apart from the rollout being actively pursued by the private sector.  This is another case of to little too late for early adopters, and no practical policy nor adequate  funding for "blackspots".

I am clearly critical of the Coalition, but my posts often explain why and have an alternative to inaction or poor policy.  As @Smurf1976 notes, Labor so far seems to be making the right moves.  However, we might need to buy a very expensive band aid and hope it lasts long enough to see us into the inevitable transition to a renewables future with appropriate dispatchable storage backup (which I hope by 2030 will be hydrogen).


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> So here is some of the perspective:
> When industry and States were dissatisfied with the federal response to their growing concerns, and the South Australian "blackout", *an extraordinary meeting was convened* in October 2016 by Coalition of Australian Governments (COAG) Energy Ministers.  They agreed to an independent review of the national electricity market, and it was Chaired by Professor Alan Finkel.
> Finkel *presented *his* Blueprint for the Future Security of the National Electricity Market*in June 2017.
> Finkel set out the energy future and made *this *assessment:
> *"Australia needs to increase system security and ensure future reliability in the NEM. Security and reliability have been compromised by poorly integrated variable renewable electricity generators, including wind and solar. This has coincided with the unplanned withdrawal of older coal and gas-fired generators. Security should be strengthened through Security Obligations for new generators, including regionally determined minimum system inertia levels. Similarly, reliability should be reinforced through a Generator Reliability Obligation implemented by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) following improved regional reliability assessments. These obligations will require new generators to ensure that they can supply electricity when needed for the duration and capacity determined for each NEM region.*​​*The reliability of Australia’s future electricity system will be underpinned by an orderly transition that integrates energy and emissions reduction policy. All governments need to agree to an emissions reduction trajectory to give the electricity sector clarity about how we will meet our international commitments. This requires a credible and durable mechanism for driving clean energy investments to support a reliable electricity supply. Governments need to agree on and implement a mechanism as soon as possible. Ongoing uncertainty is undermining investor confidence, which in turn undermines the reliable supply of electricity and increases costs to consumers."*​
> You don't have to be Einstein to work out that little of his blueprint came to fruition, just as Finkel's plans for a hydrogen future were put on a go slow process.
> 
> 
> Without a policy that supports what should happen, it won't!
> *"Nothing" in this case is the practical outcome.*
> You can talk about anything extraneous you like, but there is a very simple bottom line.  The levers that needed to be pulled when we were given a *Blueprint *for action, were not.
> *Industry *had the money necessary to move us into our energy future, so the government did not have to "throw" any, as you suggest.  I can only repeat that all this is a matter of public record.
> 
> Either you don't understand some of my points or you don't read what I write.  On EVs for example I have consistently said that incentives are not well targeted, and made many suggestions about how less well off people could to buy them.  In fact I even suggested that incentives could be applied to vehicles at such low price points that none presently sit there.  I understand the need for better EV infrastructure is a concern but both federal and State governments have already committed monies.  That's apart from the rollout being actively pursued by the private sector.  This is another case of to little too late for early adopters, and no practical policy nor adequate  funding for "blackspots".
> 
> I am clearly critical of the Coalition, but my posts often explain why and have an alternative to inaction or poor policy.  As @Smurf1976 notes, Labor so far seems to be making the right moves.  However, we might need to buy a very expensive band aid and hope it lasts long enough to see us into the inevitable transition to a renewables future with appropriate dispatchable storage backup (which I hope by 2030 will be hydrogen).



Well the new Government were fully aware of the issues and they have committed to a larger reduction in 2030, so by your reasoning they should have a policy and the answers ready to roll.
This last week didn't inspire me with any confidence that they had the answers, or they would have rolled them out, it was the perfect opportunity, wouldn't you say.
Let's be honest, you appear to have the answers, so they should also have them ready to go.
I guess the carbon tax we are so badly lacking will be first cab off the rank, I mean that is already written up and by what you said earlier should never have been thrown out.
By the way nice last line caveat on your post, just in case they blow up.
_However, we might need to buy a very expensive band aid and hope it lasts long enough to see us into the inevitable transition to a renewables future_


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Well the new Government were fully aware of the issues and they have committed to a larger reduction in 2030, so by your reasoning they should have a policy and the answers ready to roll.



Labor laid out their policy and have made clear statements about the mess we are in which they had no say in for the past 9 years.


sptrawler said:


> This last week didn't inspire me with any confidence that they had the answers, or they would have rolled them out, it was the perfect opportunity, wouldn't you say.



Read the ISP - it's all mapped out there and it's the best industry has come with given Morrison's mob did sfa.


sptrawler said:


> Let's be honest, you appear to have the answers, so they should also have them ready to go.



I think you need to read what I wrote earlier about the ISP being available as a roadmap, and stop you personal point scoring attempts that I don't buy into.


sptrawler said:


> I guess the carbon tax we are so badly lacking will be first cab off the rank, I mean that is already written up and by what you said earlier should never have been thrown out.



A price on carbon has been internationally agreed as the most effective means of moving away from fossil fuels and re-applying those monies towards transition.  


sptrawler said:


> By the way nice last line caveat on your post, just in case they blow up.
> _However, we might need to buy a very expensive band aid and hope it lasts long enough to see us into the inevitable transition to a renewables future_



It's the price *we *- *collectively *- have to pay when governments put ideology before a plan to prevent a problem from rearing its ugly head.
Anyone following this issue saw it coming before the extraordinary COAG meeting in 2016, and knew it could not be avoided when Finkel's *Blueprint *was paid lip service.


----------



## sptrawler

Joint press conference at Parliament House with the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen | Ministers for the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources
					

Press conference discusses energy, climate change, Nationally Determined Contribution, National Cabinet meeting, healthcare funding, National Energy Market and renewables.




					www.minister.industry.gov.au
				



It is funny that you go on and on about the last 10 years, then post up as proof a roadmap written in June 2017, which is 5 years ago.

I'll watch from afar and make no further comment on the issue, there you go.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> It is funny that you go on and on about the last 10 years, then post up as proof a roadmap written in June 2017, which is 5 years ago.
> 
> I'll watch from afar and make no further comment on the issue, there you go.



It's pretty clear what had to happen, and the Blueprint arose out of frustration from industry that nothing was going to!  So the point is that from the time the rules changed, with Abbott in power, *energy *policy fell in a heap while *market *forces took over.  
It's clear that there is no quick fix because we are dealing with almost a decade of inaction, not simply from 2017 onwards, although that was bad enough.  And as I posted a good while back, so as to ensure that COAG no longer interfered with the energy framework, Taylor got rid of this powerful group and replaced it with yet another non-event he commanded.

By the way, where is your *self resolving* answer to these problems?  Or do you really mean it will take policy decisions from government, just like the one where Labor got AEMO to intervene in possible load shedding events?  Which, as a precedent, may set the tone for more government directives to give AEMO necessary powers over generators in particular.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> By the way, where is your *self resolving* answer to these problems?  Or do you really mean it will take policy decisions from government, just like the one where Labor got AEMO to intervene in possible load shedding events?  Which, as a precedent, may set the tone for more government directives to give AEMO necessary powers over generators in particular.



It is self resolving, they are resolving it as we speak, the AEMO intervened by halting the market. They will resolve the issue one way or another, so it is self resolving, it wont be left to fall in a heap.
You obviously have trouble with colloquialisms, when I say fall in a heap, I don't actually mean a pile of rubble in one location, you do understand that don't you.🤣
Anyway as I said I'm only interested in watching it from a technical perspective, you will no doubt continue on you political crusade, no matter what the outcome.
At least now it wont be the Federal Governments fault.


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> It is self resolving, they are resolving it as we speak, the AEMO intervened by halting the market. They will resolve the issue one way or another, so it is self resolving, it wont be left to fall in a heap.
> You obviously have trouble with colloquialisms, when I say fall in a heap, I don't actually mean a pile of rubble in one location, you do understand that don't you.🤣
> Anyway as I said I'm only interested in watching it from a technical perspective, you will no doubt continue on you political crusade, no matter what the outcome.
> At least now it wont be the Federal Governments fault.




Come on SP government policy is clearly the problem whether that policy is to let the market, private businesses decide out comes and or allow them to gain monopoly power (note markets blow up all the time eh) or fiddle at the edges or direct markets paying a premium for those directions (isn't that's what happing now?) or run the show themselves.

Power is a critical service its no secret that the Coalition couldn't get an energy policy up due to the ideological infighting not just about renewables / climate change but also how to run the system private verses public, throw in the states who also messed it up perfect storm for a cluster and here we are.

It required leadership, some one to hold the hose...


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> It is self resolving, they are resolving it as we speak, the AEMO intervened by halting the market. They will resolve the issue one way or another, so it is self resolving, it wont be left to fall in a heap.



Anything requiring external intervention* cannot be self resolving*.  If it was as you say, then the answer would be obvious, and it's not!


sptrawler said:


> Anyway as I said I'm only interested in watching it from a technical perspective, you will no doubt continue on you political crusade, no matter what the outcome.



I don't have a crusade.  I said way back that storage was necessary with renewables, and that's clearly a "technical perspective" - aka common sense.  As to "falling in a heap", isn't that where we are now?
We all watched this ship slowly crash onto rocks as the captain joyously mounted his lump of coal in his trophy room, all the time warning him about a need to "do something".
There are lots of possible solutions and it's just a matter of working out which one they want to go with.  However, none will be quick and none will be cheap.  For starters, our grid is not properly configured to our inevitable energy future.  Nor is it capable of transferring enough energy to where it's needed, when its needed. 
Also as I said earlier, the cost is now somewhat irrelevant to the public who are desperate for a fix - whatever it takes.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> Anything requiring external intervention* cannot be self resolving*.  If it was as you say, then the answer would be obvious, and it's not!



Of course it is, it was all the last Governments fault because they didn't have a plan, the new Government has a plan, so as you say it will be resolved . I don't know what you're on.🤣
It is self resolving because the Labor party have a plan and they wont lift a finger, yet it will be resolved, it wont be left to fall on its ar$e, so we the general public don't need to get our knickers in a knot ( not literally, just for your info).
By the way have you informed Chris that we could save heaps by canning the Snowy2.0 project, by the way canning doesn't mean to put it inside a can (again just so you understand).


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Come on SP government policy is clearly the problem whether that policy is to let the market, private businesses decide out comes and or allow them to gain monopoly power (note markets blow up all the time eh) or fiddle at the edges or direct markets paying a premium for those directions (isn't that's what happing now?) or run the show themselves.
> 
> Power is a critical service its no secret that the Coalition couldn't get an energy policy up due to the ideological infighting not just about renewables / climate change but also how to run the system private verses public, throw in the states who also messed it up perfect storm for a cluster and here we are.
> 
> It required leadership, some one to hold the hose...



Firstly you and I aren't in anyway affected by anything that is happening over East in the power system, until there is a time that the Government has to increase taxes to pay for something they have instigated, so extrapolating that out into what you have said above.

I agree with most of what you have written, there obviously was a huge internal issue with the Nationals, but I actually don't think that earlier Government intervention would have changed where we currently are.
Renewable technology has really only hit its straps in the last 5 years, prior to that it was all a cottage industry, wave generators, molten salt storage, roof top solar with high efficiency panels, are a relatively recent thing, so everything has muddled along quite well.
The HV transmission links between S.A and NSW were being upgraded a couple of years ago, Snowy 2.0 was kicked off and the second Tassie undersea cable is being laid.
So IMO having a loose guideline enabled private companies to install solar/wind farms at their own risk, there was a schedule of retirement dates for coal fired stations @Smurf1976 has posted it on numerous occasions, so there was a rush to put in these renewables which really no one new how it would work.
So they found that in areas of the network it was causing huge oscillations between solar farms and their inverters, that actually caused a lot of these projects to not be allowed to generate, if they had been instructed to build that to conform with a Government directive who is to say they couldn't have recourse.
It also highlighted a weakness in the Mildura area in the grid, which was identified and is being or has been strengthened, they had restrictions put on their output, that caused a lot of anger from the owners but they had no recourse, if it was built there with the Government approval and as per a Government requirement I'm sure they would.

Now we move on to where we currently are, the new Government has changed the goalposts, they are legislating an increase in carbon reduction up from 30% to 43% ( I think), that means the penetration of renewables and the stress applied to the coal fired stations changes a lot, they will be required to cycle more or be on less and be even less viable.
That is fine and it would come to this at some time, but the changing of the targets changes the dynamics for the fossil fueled generators and their business model, so instead of a situation where the last Govt was going to install firming capacity at Kurri Kurri and the gradual change over continues, we now have the push the big red button moment where the fossil fueled generators gradual slide into oblivion has been blown to bits.
More fossil fueled coal generators will be pushed off the bars, but unless the storage is installed to compliment the increase in renewables, all of them will be required back on overnight, so the cycling problem gets compounded. 

There isn't a right or wrong in this, technology is changing 100 year old technology is being replaced, but it isn't a switch as in old/new. How it is handled will be directly correlated to what it costs the taxpayer IMO.
As Rob has said there are hundreds of ways of doing this, but we will end up at the same end point, what it costs the taxpayer in the transition is the only variable and the rich well they don't care what it costs just do it , the poor well who gives a $hit as usual.

One thing for sure as soon as the Government says, "I've got a plan, this is what we are going to do", you now this happens.



I may be completely wrong, these are only my thoughts and I've never thought I know the answers just my opinions.


----------



## Eager

sptrawler said:


> Of course it is, it was all the last Governments fault because they didn't have a plan, the new Government has a plan, so as you say it will be resolved . I don't know what you're on.🤣
> It is self resolving because the Labor party have a plan and they wont lift a finger, yet it will be resolved, it wont be left to fall on its ar$e, so we the general public don't need to get our knickers in a knot ( not literally, just for your info).
> By the way have you informed Chris that we could save heaps by canning the Snowy2.0 project, by the way canning doesn't mean to put it inside a can (again just so you understand).



Of course, your thinly veiled sarcasm is purely technical perspective, and you're not on a political crusade at all, oh no.


----------



## sptrawler

Eager said:


> Of course, your thinly veiled sarcasm is purely technical perspective, and you're not on a political crusade at all, oh no.



Actually I'm not, I voted McGowan State and Albo Federal, so I'm not on a political crusade. Just helping get people what they want.
But it is great to see you take an interest in a topic, that affects the masses, rather than the investors, kudos to you.
If there is one thing I can take credit for, is to drag you down from your ivory tower.🤣


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I agree with most of what you have written, there obviously was a huge internal issue with the Nationals, but I actually don't think that earlier Government intervention would have changed where we currently are.



You conveniently overlook the point on every occasion that industry was keen to invest in dispatchable supply in conjunction with renewables, but never got the answers they needed from government


sptrawler said:


> Renewable technology has really only hit its straps in the last 5 years, prior to that it was all a cottage industry, wave generators, molten salt storage, roof top solar with high efficiency panels, are a relatively recent thing, so everything has muddled along quite well.



Solar and wind have been around for decades and continue to advance in terms of technology, efficiency, and cost effectiveness, so irrespective of when you start, later offerings will perform better on these metrics.  So let's look at your claim and see if it stacks up.
 In 2020, renewable energy sources made up *37.5 % of gross electricity **consumption in the EU*.  In 2020, *24% of **Australia’s *total electricity generation was from renewable energy sources.
Given our natural resource advantage, "cottage industry" or not, we should not be so far behind Europe.
How about comparing us with United Kingdom?
We see this: "*UK power generation in 2020: Renewables up to 43%*." 
We are a pathetic laggard, and we know that what happened in Europe remains strongly driven by policies that support renewable investment across the board, unlike here.


sptrawler said:


> Now we move on to where we currently are, the new Government has changed the goalposts, they are legislating an increase in carbon reduction up from 30% to 43% ( I think), that means the penetration of renewables and the stress applied to the coal fired stations changes a lot, they will be required to cycle more or be on less and be even less viable.



First, the new government is not changing the *energy *goalposts as that change has been in place since the 1990's.  What they will need to do is *accelerate *the ability of renewables to participate in the market by ensuring the grid is properly structured for intermittent energy generators and distributed energy resources.  They also need to get the necessary transmission infrastructure in place, such as what allows  energy transfers to occur across about 30 separate European nations, to occur in a handful of States in one country here.
At the same time they have to manage the transition process.  That will involve immediately actioning the Energy Security Board's recommendations which the Coalition sat on and tried to push back to 2025!  Key to transition are their principles of investment certainty and risk minimisation, which the Coalition refused to support when industry was seeking it.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> We see this: "*UK power generation in 2020: Renewables up to 43%*."




Does that include nuclear ?


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Does that include nuclear ?



Not according to the attached chart in the link:


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Not according to the attached chart in the link:
> View attachment 143009



Still quite an increase by nuclear.


----------



## sptrawler

Anyway, moving along, an article by the RBA, as to renewable energy. 









						Renewable Energy Investment in Australia | Bulletin – March 2020
					

Renewable energy investment has increased significantly in Australia over recent years, contributing to a continuing shift in the energy generation mix away from traditional fossil fuel sources.




					www.rba.gov.au
				



From the article:
Drivers of Investment​A number of factors have driven investment in large-scale renewable projects since 2016, including elevated wholesale electricity prices, government policy incentives, declining technology costs and improved access to finance.

Government policies​Government climate change-related policies have also encouraged investment in large-scale renewable electricity generation. One key Australian Government policy is the Renewable Energy Target (RET), which targets 33,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) of additional large-scale renewable electricity generation by 2020.[4] The RET incentivises the development of new renewable energy power stations. It does this by requiring liable entities, predominantly electricity retailers, to source an annually increasing proportion of their electricity requirements from renewable generators. Under the RET, renewable power plants can create large-scale generation certificates (LGCs) for each megawatt hour (MWh) of renewable electricity generated. These certificates can then be sold or transferred to liable entities or other companies looking to surrender certificates voluntarily.[5]

State government policies have also encouraged renewable generation investment. These policies are more varied and include reverse auctions (where renewable energy projects bid for power supply contracts with the state government), state-based renewable energy targets and other commitments. While not all state-based commitments are legislated, they tend to target a larger proportion of renewable generation than the national RET (Table 1).

Table 1: Renewable Energy Generation by State

Actual in 2018
%Renewable energy generation commitment(a)NSW17No commitmentVic1725 per cent by 2020, 40 per cent by 2025, 50 per cent by 2030Qld950 per cent by 2030WA8No commitmentSA51No commitmentTas95100 per cent by 2022ACT54100 per cent by 2020NT450 per cent by 2030Aus1923.5 per cent by 2020



W.A no commitment, just quietly getting it done.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Anyway, moving along.



Another day, another argument.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Another day, another argument.



I deal with OCD people every day, the wife is and four of the grandkids are.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I deal with OCD people every day, the wife is and four of the grandkids are.




Well, the Red has some relevant things to say and contributes well, but is a bit obsessed with winning arguments. It makes life interesting I suppose .


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Well, the Red has some relevant things to say and contributes well, but is a bit obsessed with winning arguments. It makes life interesting I suppose .



Well the weather here is terrible and I'm trying to replace some balustrade, so this gives me something to do between showers.

If it wasn't for Red, I would probably have to entertain the missus, when i'm doing this she thinks I'm busy.

He is just a typical bureaucrat, unless you're throwing taxpayers money at something, you're not doing it right.
The bigger their budget the more important their position and dept is, just the way they roll, career bureaucrats.🥳


----------



## sptrawler

Well at last it looks like the States are starting to man up.








						Blackout warnings lifted for weekend as national cabinet weighs up energy solutions
					

The reprieve came as the NSW Premier declared Australia would need gas from the state’s controversial Narrabri project as soon as possible.




					www.smh.com.au
				



Blackout warnings for the eastern seaboard have been lifted after the energy grid chief assured the public that enough power supply had come back online over the past 48 hours to meet expected demand over the weekend.

The reprieve for households came as *NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet declared Australia would need gas from the state’s controversial Narrabri project as soon as possible. His Victorian counterpart, Daniel Andrews, said he was also willing to consider new gas projects while reaffirming his government’s ban on coal seam gas extraction.*


I bet any new gas projects, include a reserve allocation for the State.


----------



## rederob

SirRumpole said:


> Another day, another argument.



Not really.
It's more a history lesson.
We can look at what was occurring overseas and compare that to here.
Europe took the high road on climate change and introduced policies to reduce GHGs, *and *funded these arrangements.
Australia stuck its head in the sand.
Industry players in Australia put to government what was necessary for an orderly transition of our energy generation capacity, and Finkel clearly outlined it in his *Blueprint*.
The ESB further clarified transitional issues and for years has presented a pathway to government to make it work.  CAOG, ESB, Finkel and the energy industry has watched and waited... and waited, and waited.
None of this is a mystery, but it might be to the media who look for a headline without understanding the background.
We are now playing catchup.

None of the above is controversial.
@sptrawler has an irrational belief that a electricity fixes itself and flows everywhere it's needed without the need for intervention.  
Good luck with that.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> None of the above is controversial.
> @sptrawler has an irrational belief that a electricity fixes itself and flows everywhere it's needed without the need for intervention.
> Good luck with that.



Incorrect yet again, I have a belief that Australia has put in considerable renewable generation already, with minimal Government intervention and taxpayers money.
That is about to change, so be it.
But if you are going to make an aspersion, at least be accurate, that should be a another light bulb moment for you.

As for comparing Europe to Australia, well that just highlights your lack of understanding, of the underlying problems associated with HV transmission grids.


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> Incorrect yet again,



What is?


sptrawler said:


> I have a belief that Australia has put in considerable renewable generation already, with minimal Government intervention and taxpayers money.



Much less than Europe, but the fact we have put in a lot of renewables is not the point, is it.
Renewables not backed up with dispatchable supply is the problem.


sptrawler said:


> That is about to change, so be it.



How so?
This is a transition 25 years in the making and counting....


sptrawler said:


> But if you are going to make an aspersion, at least be accurate, that should be a another light bulb moment for you.



What's the aspersion I am making?


sptrawler said:


> As for comparing Europe to Australia, well that just highlights your lack of understanding, of the underlying problems associated with HV transmission grids.



There is no such problem.  Stop making up nonsense.
Either that or explain yourself.


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Industry players in Australia put to government what was necessary for an orderly transition of our energy generation capacity, and Finkel clearly outlined it in his *Blueprint*.




Yes, the worst failure of governance in recent history imo.

Finkel as a scientist and engineer was uniquely qualified to say what was needed, but then the politicians and vested interests decided that they knew better.

We may have put in a lot of rooftop solar, but the grid has not been upgraded to deal with its intermittency as sufficient storage has not been installed as it should have been had we listened to Finkel.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> What is?
> 
> 
> Renewables not backed up with dispatchable supply is the problem.



That is why the last Govt committed to building Kurri Kurri and Snowy 2.0, which you say isn't required, it will be dispatchable supply, make up your mind, it is either required or not required, I wish you would keep your story straight.



rederob said:


> How so?
> This is a transition 25 years in the making and counting....



It certainly is and the Finkel report you quoted was 5 years ago, so we are still at the beginning and punching well above our weight.


rederob said:


> What's the aspersion I am making?



That I have irrational beliefs, all my beliefs are rational, just because you can't understand something that isn't explained to your satisfaction doesn't make it irrational. Maybe your personality traits limit the way information can be processed, who knows?


rederob said:


> There is no such problem.  Stop making up nonsense.
> Either that or explain yourself.



Comparing our grid which is one of the Worlds longest interconnected power systems, with a compact highly integrated and heavily loaded mature grid like Europe is just ridiculous.
The challenges that face Australia's transmission system is very unique and the size of the population funding the integration of renewables is by comparison very small, there are very few metrics regarding power and distribution that you can compare Europe with Australia. Size, Loading, Security, Interconnection options, reactive current control, per capita funding etc, Europe is completely different
But as always that doesn't come into the equation, when your running with your spin.
It is like comparing your ability to go off grid versus Twiggy Forrests, I know who would have the better set up and have it up and running faster. But that wouldn't be a fair comparison, would it?


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> That is why the last Govt committed to building Kurri Kurri and Snowy 2.0, which you say isn't required, it will be dispatchable supply, make up your mind, it is either required or not required, I wish you would keep your story straight.



I never said it was never required, so read my earlier comments.
What is at issue are the wind and solar capacity additions that have no backup.


sptrawler said:


> It certainly is and the Finkel report you quoted was 5 years ago, so we are still at the beginning and punching well above our weight.



We are behind.  
That's the problem!


sptrawler said:


> That I have irrational beliefs, all my beliefs are rational, just because you can't understand something that isn't explained to your satisfaction doesn't make it irrational. Maybe your personality traits limit the way information can be processed, who knows?



If your car breaks down and you leave it, will it fix itself?
If the NEM breaks down, will it fix itself?
*Self resolving* means nothing else is needed.  What you mean is that intervention is necessary.
I have made that point to you many times and you keep failing to grasp the logic. 


sptrawler said:


> Comparing our grid which is one of the Worlds longest interconnected power systems, with a compact highly integrated and heavily loaded mature grid like Europe is just ridiculous.



Completely missing the point again.
Europe has had to achieve inter-national cooperation to transfer its renewable energy across the continent.  It has done this with 50% greater renewable penetration than we have in Australia, and it has lesser natural energy resources apart from water.
Your point about Europe being a mature grid is not accurate in respect of the distribution structure it needs for renewables.  It's in a massive transitory phase and the embargo on Russian oil will accelerate their plans:
*"As it stands, **most EU countries are struggling to keep up** the pace of necessary grid build-out for achieving Europe’s decarbonisation targets."*​


sptrawler said:


> But as always that doesn't come into the equation, when your running with your spin.



I keep linking to sources that explain my points, and you shoot blanks.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> I never said it was never required, so read my earlier comments.



I think calling it a 'white elephant' would qualify.


rederob said:


> We are behind.
> That's the problem!



As happens with projects, you know supply issues, reconfiguring HV transmission lines, installing new transmission lines, pandemics etc. It isn't as easy as putting in pink batts you know and even that can give problems.
Now we have the right plan, the right team, I'm sure we will speed up the process to renewables.



rederob said:


> If your car breaks down and you leave it, will it fix itself?
> If the NEM breaks down, will it fix itself?
> *Self resolving* means nothing else is needed.  What you mean is that intervention is necessary.
> I have made that point to you many times and you keep failing to grasp the logic.



I made an off the cuff remark to Rumpy that there is no need to worry, the issues regarding available power will be resolved, as they can't be left unresolved, therefore I said it will be self resolving.
The mere fact you can't get over the use of a colloquialism, goes a long way to explain your fixation on issues and is a very unattractive character trait.😉
If I said you were talking $hit, would that mean excrement was coming out of your mouth? No, it would mean you are talking nonsense, I guess you would have heard the phrase occasionally. See that is another colloquialism, that is based on an inaccuracy.


rederob said:


> Completely missing the point again.
> Europe has had to achieve inter-national cooperation to transfer its renewable energy across the continent.  It has done this with 50% greater renewable penetration than we have in Australia, and it has lesser natural energy resources apart from water.
> Your point about Europe being a mature grid is not accurate in respect of the distribution structure it needs for renewables.  It's in a massive transitory phase and the embargo on Russian oil will accelerate their plans:
> *"As it stands, **most EU countries are struggling to keep up** the pace of necessary grid build-out for achieving Europe’s decarbonisation targets."*​
> I keep linking to sources that explain my points, and you shoot blanks.



As I said comparing Europe to Australia is ridiculous, the fact that Europe has a higher percentage of renewables than us makes sense, they emit a lot more greenhouse gas than us, so one would hope they are mitigating it at a faster rate than us.
I would hope China and the U.S are also, as between them they are causing the vast majority of global warming.
Do you know we have a higher penetration of renewables than Botswana.
At the end of the day to stop the temperature rise those that pour the most CO2 into the atmospher are going to have to do the most work to reduce it.
How many new coal stations are China currently building?

The EU should be applauded, especially France with its nuclear and the Scandinavian countries with their abundance of hydro and a big mention should go to Russia for supplying the gas to allow Germany to close their coal stations.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Finkel as a scientist and engineer was uniquely qualified to say what was needed, but then the politicians and vested interests decided that they knew better.
> 
> We may have put in a lot of rooftop solar, but the grid has not been upgraded to deal with its intermittency as sufficient storage has not been installed as it should have been had we listened to Finkel.



This all gets down to something much deeper.

Government itself has largely lost interest in anything and anyone who could be classified as a scientist, engineer or otherwise technical. That goes for both major parties and it's across state, federal and in some cases even local government.

Since ~1990 pretty much everything that could be described as a workshop, depot, laboratory or engineering office within government has one by one been outsourced, privatised or is at best a shadow of what it once was.

The most obvious institution, the electricity industry, has been the greatest target in many states but the same rings true for all sorts of things. TAFE, another institution of sorts, has been similarly gutted. 

State roads departments aren't a bad example. First they got rid of the manual labourers and construction machinery, then they got rid of the painters and electricians, then out went the engineering assistants, then the engineers. They kept going and all that's left now are contract administrators. Strangely, every road project now costs a fortune....

Then there's building inspections, railways, TAFE and everything else that was done by government a generation ago and which most people would associate with workshops, trades, manual work and so on.

That isn't simply about those workers per se but, having seen quite a bit, it's a far more deep seated disdain for all things technical or scientific from government itself. In short, if you want to end up in a senior position in government, become a lawyer first. Anything technical, from structural engineering to medicine, generally won't get you taken anywhere near as seriously.

The real, ultimate cause of the system black in SA wasn't wind, it wasn't coal and it wasn't really transmission towers collapsing either. Rather, it's that we didn't take a proper engineering approach to the whole thing and instead took a legal approach.

Engineering approach = these wind turbines are a new thing, we need to thoroughly investigate them, make sure we've understood everything, conduct tests if necessary, before we install enough that failure would be a problem. That doesn't mean we won't use them, it does mean we'll make sure we know all about them and don't have nasty surprises.

Legal approach = contract says they're fine and will cause no trouble.

Now I've noting against laws and lawyers to be clear, but if we're to stop messing things up well then we really need to be taking a proper, scientific approach to all this rather than just taking the word of someone selling a product with a vested interest in saying it's all OK. 

Same goes for climate change, building inspections and all manner of other things. If we want to stop having these problems well we need to get back to taking science and its practical application seriously and stop seeing the world solely through a prism of contracts and laws. 

That goes beyond the professional level. There's more than a few tradies, the older ones, shaking their heads saying that what's being done in reality doesn't match what needs to be done. They're not fools, they know full well that we're making some monumental blunders as a country that'll cost a fortune to fix. They're referring to residential by the way.....


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> I think calling it a 'white elephant' would qualify.



Not exactly what you claimed I said, and vey different to lot's of smaller pumped hydro that could now be operational with a mindset focussed on urgency rather than grandiosity.


sptrawler said:


> I made an off the cuff remark to Rumpy that there is no need to worry, the issues regarding available power will be resolved, as they can't be left unresolved, therefore I said it will be self resolving.



I know what you keep saying, but it's illogical.  A decision maker steps in and "solves" the problem.  This time it was AEMO, and on top of them are the ESB advising the next decision maker, which is the new federal government.  Three different entities are needed to drive this long term fix and apply it to the NEM (aka "self" in your colloquial sense)   


sptrawler said:


> See that is another colloquialism, that is based on an inaccuracy.



FYI, *self solving* has always been a medical term, and if you try to use it in a colloquial sense it still has to have the same sense.  That is, the entity heals itself or, at least, nobody else is involved or gets involved.  It's antithesis is "physician, heal thyself".


sptrawler said:


> As I said comparing Europe to Australia is ridiculous, the fact that Europe has a higher percentage of renewables than us makes sense, they emit a lot more greenhouse gas than us, so one would hope they are mitigating it at a faster rate than us.



Go back and read my question of you and your response about HVDC.  
The issue of our NEM being large and complex is different to Europe being small but significantly more complex.
In both cases we are talking about grids stressing over incorporating renewables.  China is having the same problems, and curtailment issues there are not going away:
China’s Renewable Energy Fleet Is Growing Too Fast for Its Grid​


----------



## SirRumpole

rederob said:


> Go back and read my question of you and your response about HVDC.
> The issue of our NEM being large and complex is different to Europe being small but significantly more complex.
> In both cases we are talking about grids stressing over incorporating renewables. China is having the same problems, and curtailment issues there are not going away:
> China’s Renewable Energy Fleet Is Growing Too Fast for Its Grid​



Wasting energy is pretty abhorrent.

Why couldn't this 'waste' be channeled into home hot water heaters at a reduced price ?

These are the sort of design issues a properly managed grid will have to deal with, another reason why it needs to be driven by a panel of experts, not politicians or wide eyed greenies.


----------



## sptrawler

China’s Renewable Energy Fleet Is Growing Too Fast for Its Grid​Just in case you hadn't noticed so is ours.


Anyway time to move on from your circular argument, I'm sure readers are getting as bored with it as I am.

We can discuss how the East Coast gets itself out of the situation it is in, where it is up $hit creek, in a barb wire canoe without a paddle, I bet that made someone's head do a 360 degree turn.
Now we can debate how a barb wire canoe doesn't float, with our OCD members.🤣


----------



## rederob

sptrawler said:


> China’s Renewable Energy Fleet Is Growing Too Fast for Its Grid​Just in case you hadn't noticed so is ours.



That was the point I made, so maybe you should read what I write.


----------



## sptrawler

rederob said:


> That was the point I made, so maybe you should read what I write.



I'm past that, you have sucked all the enjoyment out of the thread.


----------



## Belli

Smurf1976 said:


> Same goes for climate change




Spoke last week to a number who are involved in this issue.  They simply took out the papers kept in the bottom draw for a few years, updated the data and are to, or already have, present the data and conclusions to the relevant bodies in Government including presentations to the IPCC.  Now waiting as they are not the ones who can actually implement action.


----------



## Eager

sptrawler said:


> If there is one thing I can take credit for, is to drag you down from your ivory tower.🤣



How silly. You saying I'm in an ivory tower must mean that you have an inferiority complex.


----------



## sptrawler

Eager said:


> How silly. You saying I'm in an ivory tower must mean that you have an inferiority complex.



Like I said, it is great to see you posting in this thread, I've never noticed you post in this thread before.
But it is always great to have new input, even if it isnt thread related.


----------



## sptrawler

It sounds as though some home truths are starting to come out. At least everyone will end up on the same page. The article puts things in perspective and does kind of repeat what smurf and I have been saying for quite some time.








						Coal, gas to smooth transition to clean power: Top energy officials
					

Australia’s switch to zero emissions needs a market reform that pays coal, gas and renewables to power the electricity grid, the Energy Security Board says.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> It sounds as though some home truths are starting to come out. At least everyone will end up on the same page. The article puts things in perspective and does kind of repeat what smurf and I have been saying for quite some time.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Coal, gas to smooth transition to clean power: Top energy officials
> 
> 
> Australia’s switch to zero emissions needs a market reform that pays coal, gas and renewables to power the electricity grid, the Energy Security Board says.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au




Apart from the fact that Smurf said he wouldn't be building gas stations ?


----------



## sptrawler

There isn't really any other options IMO, if you want to remove coal in a timely manner, to use renewables will be time consuming as issues will crop up that they haven't even dreamt of and will need resolving.
Gas is a direct substitute, that suits working with renewables much better and the installation time isn't overly long.
Smurf is a big renewables fan, as most of us are, but timelines are the enemy.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> There isn't really any other options IMO, if you want to remove coal in a timely manner, to use renewables will be time consuming as issues will crop up that they haven't even dreamt of and will need resolving.
> Gas is a direct substitute, that suits working with renewables much better and the installation time isn't overly long.




Not being technical, I'll let others more qualified argue about the technicalities, but are we talking about gas peaking plants which are very expensive to run but can be started or stopped quickly or combined cycle plants which are cheaper to run but are generally run for longer periods ?


----------



## SirRumpole

Lifetime GGE for various forms of energy.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Not being technical, I'll let others more qualified argue about the technicalities, but are we talking about gas peaking plants which are very expensive to run but can be started or stopped quickly or combined cycle plants which are cheaper to run but are generally run for longer periods ?



My guess, would be high efficiency open cycle gas turbines, these days there isn't a huge difference in the efficiency, not like 30 years ago where open cycle were in the low 20% efficiency. Combines cycle has the problem of requiring operators and to get the steam set on presents the same issues that are plaguing the coal generators, cycling.
HEGT's these days are in the mid 40% efficiency, whereas combined cycle are in the low 50's, so IMO the increased flexibility and much shorter start up times makes the HEGT's the best option.
At least the report resolved the issue, 'here is what is required, now decide who, when and with what you are going to implement it'. The choices are yours, interestingly as I also said the States are basically the ones who are responsible for their generation, the article seems to reinforce that. The States just have to work out which route they are going to take.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> My guess, would be high efficiency open cycle gay turbines, these days there isn't a huge difference in the efficiency, not like 30 years ago where open cycle were in the low 20% efficiency. Combines cycle has the problem of requiring operators and to get the steam set on presents the same issues that are plaguing the coal generators, cycling.
> HEGT's these days are in the mid 40% efficiency, whereas combined cycle are in the low 50's, so IMO the increased flexibility and much shorter start up times makes the HEGT's the best option.
> At least the report resolved the issue, 'here is what is required, now decide who, when and with what you are going to implement it'.




Good to see you are being inclusive with the 'gay' turbines.


----------



## sptrawler

Thanks for that, big fingers and small screens, makes for embarassing mistakes. Lol


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> interestingly as I also said the States are basically the ones who are responsible for their generation, the article seems to reinforce that. The States just have to work out which route they are going to take.




Yes, it could be that we are heading 'back to the future' where States competed against each other for lower prices to attract business and industry.

Better than having private operators compete to see who can charge the highest prices before consumers start screaming.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, it could be that we are heading 'back to the future' where States competed against each other for lower prices to attract business and industry.
> 
> Better than having private operators compete to see who can charge the highest prices before consumers start screaming.



Yes I would say there will be a lot of argy bargy goes on, because ultimately it is a State function, the issue has been that no one has identified what was required to fix it in a holistic way. They now know how much is required, the options available to fill that requirement, now they just have to work out who wants to put in what, which goes back to ideology, cost and time constraints.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, it could be that we are heading 'back to the future' where States competed against each other for lower prices to attract business and industry.
> 
> Better than having private operators compete to see who can charge the highest prices before consumers start screaming.



And today from Allan Finkle, he must read ASF. 🤣 
Though some would argue with him, as is their want.😉








						This energy revolution is hard - really hard - but it’s doable
					

The nation’s former chief scientist explains the lessons of the past weeks and why, with the right plan, Australia can make big strides towards zero-emissions electricity.




					www.smh.com.au
				




Australia’s east coast electricity grid was under unprecedented pressure last week, laying bare the challenges of achieving a zero-emissions electrical system. It’s hard, really hard. And it’s only the beginning. The next step is to expand our zero-emissions electricity generation, and hydrogen produced from it, to replace oil and gas in transport, building heating and industry.

It has been easier for countries such as Norway and France because they have drawn on hydroelectricity and nuclear electricity to massively reduce their emissions. Tasmania, too, has achieved virtually 100 per cent emissions-free electricity through its combination of hydro and wind electricity.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> And today from Allan Finkle, he must read ASF. 🤣
> Though some would argue with him, as is their want.😉
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This energy revolution is hard - really hard - but it’s doable
> 
> 
> The nation’s former chief scientist explains the lessons of the past weeks and why, with the right plan, Australia can make big strides towards zero-emissions electricity.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Australia’s east coast electricity grid was under unprecedented pressure last week, laying bare the challenges of achieving a zero-emissions electrical system. It’s hard, really hard. And it’s only the beginning. The next step is to expand our zero-emissions electricity generation, and hydrogen produced from it, to replace oil and gas in transport, building heating and industry.
> 
> It has been easier for countries such as Norway and France because they have drawn on hydroelectricity and nuclear electricity to massively reduce their emissions. Tasmania, too, has achieved virtually 100 per cent emissions-free electricity through its combination of hydro and wind electricity.




A great article by Alan Finkel that really sums up the situation and solution.

Pity the former government didn't implement more of his recommendations.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> A great article by Alan Finkel that really sums up the situation and solution.
> 
> Pity the former government didn't implement more of his recommendations.



Yes, but now the new Govt has got the same problems, Chris Bowen in today's AFR, refused to be drawn on whether they will force the States to use coal and gas in their mix.
This is the real issue IMO, if the Feds tell the States what they have to do, then the Feds will have to pay for it.
The Feds have very little financial power over the States, they aren't allowed to tax the States, so who funds this?

This is going to cost a lot, who foots the bill will be the hot potato, Victoria doesn't want to use gas, NSW does, W.A is paying to change over already, Tassie already is renewable.

As Finkle said this is the beginning and he was appointed special advisor to the Govt a couple of years ago, so he will be well versed with the issues.
Snowy 2.0 is being built, many say it shouldn't be, now we find out many more are required, Kurri Kurri has been bagged endlessly, now it looks like many more are required, where do you get the gas to run them from?
The current Fed resources minister is wondering the same thing, there is a call for gas, but when Kurri Kurri was announced everyone said no. As they keep saying , as yet, you can't firm up renewables with renewables they need at call generation to allow the transition to renewables to proceed, but in the next breath saying they don't want gas, not an easy situation to deal with especially when dealing with irrational people that don't understand the issues and are driven by a media driven narrative that loves to cause chaos.








						NSW will need Narrabri gas, federal resources minister says
					

Madeleine King has warned of a bigger energy crisis in the future without new gas fields, blaming years of inaction on the need to switch to renewables.




					www.smh.com.au
				







Getting consensus between the states is going to be hard enough, without even discussing who pays for what, this is only just starting.
As I've said over and over, I'm amazed how far we have got in such a short period of time, when you think about dealing with all the participants, tribal politics and competing media's .
It's a wonder anything has been achieved IMO. 
it certainly is an exciting and interesting time in history IMO.
P.S I can't read Finkle's whole article, the phone wont let me.😂


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Yes, but now the new Govt has got the same problems, Chris Bowen in today's AFR, refused to be drawn on whether they will force the States to use coal and gas in their mix.
> This is the real issue IMO, if the Feds tell the States what they have to do, then the Feds will have to pay for it.
> The Feds have very little financial power over the States, they aren't allowed to tax the States, so who funds this?
> 
> This is going to cost a lot, who foots the bill will be the hot potato, Victoria doesn't want to use gas, NSW does, W.A is paying to change over already, Tassie already is renewable.
> 
> As Finkle said this is the beginning and he was appointed special advisor to the Govt a couple of years ago, so he will be well versed with the issues.
> Snowy 2.0 is being built, many say it shouldn't be, now we find out many more are required, Kurri Kurri has been bagged endlessly, now it looks like many more are required, where do you get the gas to run them from?
> The current Fed resources minister is wondering the same thing, there is a call for gas, but when Kurri Kurri was announced everyone said no. As they keep saying , as yet, you can't firm up renewables with renewables they need at call generation to allow the transition to renewables to proceed, but in the next breath saying they don't want gas, not an easy situation to deal with especially when dealing with irrational people that don't understand the issues and are driven by a media driven narrative that loves to cause chaos.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> NSW will need Narrabri gas, federal resources minister says
> 
> 
> Madeleine King has warned of a bigger energy crisis in the future without new gas fields, blaming years of inaction on the need to switch to renewables.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Getting consensus between the states is going to be hard enough, without even discussing who pays for what, this is only just starting.
> As I've said over and over, I'm amazed how far we have got in such a short period of time, when you think about dealing with all the participants, tribal politics and competing media's .
> It's a wonder anything has been achieved IMO.
> it certainly is an exciting and interesting time in history IMO.
> P.S I can't read Finkle's whole article, the phone wont let me.😂




National
Alan Finkel
OPINION​This energy revolution is hard - really hard - but it’s doable​By Alan Finkel​June 20, 2022 — 5.00am
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Australia’s east coast electricity grid was under unprecedented pressure last week, laying bare the challenges of achieving a zero-emissions electrical system. It’s hard, really hard. And it’s only the beginning. The next step is to expand our zero-emissions electricity generation, and hydrogen produced from it, to replace oil and gas in transport, building heating and industry.
It has been easier for countries such as Norway and France because they have drawn on hydroelectricity and nuclear electricity to massively reduce their emissions. Tasmania, too, has achieved virtually 100 per cent emissions-free electricity through its combination of hydro and wind electricity.





Nyrstar’s Port Pirie smelter in South Australia, where owner Trafigura plans to build a $750 million ‘green’ hydrogen plant. CREDIT: SUPPLIED
From an engineering perspective, hydroelectricity and nuclear are dream players, producing electricity on demand and contributing to the secure and reliable operation of the grid. Solar and wind generation are less co-operative, but realistically that’s all that mainland Australia has at hand. To deploy them, they must be supported by transmission lines, storage and arguably a modest amount of natural gas generation.
Australia has made good progress. There has been record investment in the past three years that has seen our solar and wind generation in the east coast grid almost double from 12 per cent in 2018 to 23.5 per cent in 2021. On a per capita basis, our solar and wind generation is comparable with California. Looking just at solar electricity, on a per capita basis Australia is No. 1 in the world.

Where we are behind schedule is on the construction of transmission lines, especially the local lines required to connect solar and wind energy zones to metropolitan and industrial loads. These transmission lines, combined with batteries, will substantially improve the reliability of our electricity system.
RELATED ARTICLE​




Electricity​Coal, gas to smooth transition to clean power: Top energy officials​The requirements for transmission lines are well described in the Australian Energy Market Operator’s integrated system plan, a recommendation of the 2017 review of the national electricity market that I chaired. The new federal government’s $20 billion fund for transmission lines and grid strengthening will accelerate implementation.
As we design the electricity system of the future it is essential to plan for the extremes, not the averages. In the past few weeks alone, we have suffered from a combination of floods, international price pressures, generator breakdowns, lower than usual wind and the normal low winter sunshine. A rare combination of events indeed, but rare events come in many shapes and sizes and, overall, one or the other happens frequently. More foreseeable is that every few years we will see low sunshine and low wind weather patterns lasting for many days or a week or two.
The solution is to invest in long-duration storage. Today, the only way to achieve long-duration storage is with pumped hydro, but such projects have been few and far between because of local objections to the facilities themselves and to installing the transmission lines to connect them. In future, hydrogen made from excess solar and wind electricity during good weather will be stored in large volumes and used to fuel converted natural gas generators to provide long-duration storage.

The economics for investing in storage work well for short-duration storage of an hour or two. For that reason, investment in big batteries in Australia is already happening and growing rapidly, as it must. However, because the existing electricity market only pays for energy (megawatt-hours) dispatched, long-duration storage that will only be called upon infrequently is not an attractive investment. The solution is to introduce payments for the capacity to provide electricity on demand. This is an additional market mechanism known as a capacity market.
RELATED ARTICLE​




Analysis​Anthony Albanese​‘Slow and careful’: Four weeks in and no major hitches for Albanese​Details for such a market have been planned by the Energy Security Board and, encouragingly, federal, state and territory energy ministers have agreed to fast-track its adoption.
There are questions about whether it should include coal and natural gas. Coal generation needs separate attention to manage a planned exit. If the federal government in 2017 had not rejected the clean energy target recommended by the Finkel review, the coal generation owners would already be participating in an orderly exit consistent with the targeted emissions reduction trajectory.
On the other hand, natural gas generation could be included because it provides on-demand electricity that can ramp up and down within minutes to match the variable solar and wind. Natural gas generators will increasingly only be used as the last resort for a small number of hours per year, providing high value by keeping the lights on for short, medium and long durations. But the natural gas has to be available in volume and at reasonable price*, *which could be achieved by encouraging more supply and implementing a domestic reserve.

The fear that building new natural gas generators will lock them in for decades can be avoided by ensuring that in future they can be powered by hydrogen, as in the Tallawarra B power station under construction in NSW.
RELATED ARTICLE​




Opinion​Energy​Gradually then suddenly: how energy markets failed and what happens next​




Alison Reeve​Climate Change and Energy Deputy Program Director at Grattan Institute
Small market tweaks would also help. For example, the $300 per megawatt-hour cap on the wholesale price was set more than 20 years ago. This cap is too small, not just because of inflation but because of our exposure to international coal and natural gas prices. If it had been set at a higher value, the operator might not have had to suspend the trading market.
The imminent threat of blackouts has been averted through excellent system management by AEMO, supported by constructive action by the energy ministers. We must learn from the current price and availability crunch that the transition will not be easy, but with the kind of determination currently being manifest it should be eminently doable.
*Alan Finkel was Australia’s chief scientist from 2016 to 2020 and chaired the 2017 national electricity market review, the 2019 national hydrogen strategy and the 2021 low-emissions technology roadmap.*


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----------



## sptrawler

Yes it is a great article and actually repeats what we have been saying in this thread for a long time.
The H.V transmission reconfiguration and building it will be the achilles heel IMO, as building big projects over recent times has been a huge problem, first covid in 2019 now the Russia, supply issue and add to that a lot of the work is in remote areas and it will be diifficult.
Snowy is falling behind as are most major construction jobs, it will be a while before supply lines are freed up and even getting enough workers is an issue.
So it is terrific the new Govt is going to throw a lot of money at it and I think it should be Fed funded, but whether that big bucket of money, translates into a faster build out, I'm not so sure.  ATM there is a lot of headwind with issues that can't be resolved by money.
But at least the responsibilities are being identified, which is a big step forward IMO.
The other good outcome is, coal and gas can now be mentioned, without the media going into a meltdown and the ranting and chanting starting. That in itself is possibly the greatest step forward, the lack of rational discussion has been holding back any sort of resolution.


----------



## sptrawler

Another good article, it is amazing how good journalism comes to the fore, when they get off their pet agendas.









						Snowy Hydro's water problem shows how weather is a driver of our energy crisis
					

Weather extremes have deepened the man-made power crisis in ways that were hard to predict and at times even harder to imagine. Both Snowy Hydro and coal-fired power stations have been impacted by summer rains. And two weeks of extreme cold has only brought the power system closer to the edge.




					www.abc.net.au
				




As Australia's power crisis began to ramp up early this month, Snowy Hydro was called on to increase production.

But the hydro-electric generator remains significantly constrained by a surprising problem — too much water.

It's only one example of how weather extremes have deepened the nation's man-made power crisis.

Snowy Hydro's biggest power station is Tumut 3. At maximum output, it can generate 1,800 megawatts of electricity.

That's as much as a large coal-fired power station, but with zero emissions.

The huge volumes of water used by Tumut 3 are either pumped back up the hill to an upper reservoir or emptied into Blowering Dam.
The problem according to Snowy Hydro is that Blowering Dam is full, following back-to-back years of La Niña rain, and increased hydro-electric generation risks flooding, according to an alert released by Snowy Hydro on June 3.
"Generation from Tumut 3 Power Station is significantly constrained by the current storage levels in Blowering Reservoir and the release capacity of the Tumut River.

"In order to meet the predicted energy demands in the coming days, it is possible Blowering Reservoir will fill and spill, potentially exceeding the Tumut River channel capacity.

"In this scenario, there is potential for the inundation of low-level causeways and water breaking out of the river channel onto agricultural land adjacent to the river."
Snowy Hydro doesn't own or operate Blowering Dam. It's managed by WaterNSW, which has been releasing water to lower dam levels there for months, while trying to avoid flooding people downstream.
​


----------



## sptrawler

Well @SirRumpole  the issues regarding available power looks to have been resolved, as I suggested quite a while ago, they will have to pay the coal generators an availability allowance.
They can't make the generators run at a loss, they can't allow the system to fall on its ar$e and they can't have the generators just shut them down and walk away.
So like I said it would be resolved, looks like it is, they are designing an availability allowance, nothing changes the generators now just get paid to be available if required.
Surprise, surprise.


----------



## sptrawler

Also @SirRumpole  of interest in the report, was that we will need 50 Snowy 2.0 schemes to back up renewables, that would probably be seen as obscenely grandiose to some.
But fortunately the experts have spoken, rather than the self appointed experts, who spent a career as spin doctors.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Well @SirRumpole  the issues regarding available power looks to have been resolved, as I suggested quite a while ago, they will have to pay the coal generators an availability allowance.
> They can't make the generators run at a loss, they can't allow the system to fall on its ar$e and they can't have the generators just shut them down and walk away.
> So like I said it would be resolved, looks like it is, they are designing an availability allowance, nothing changes the generators now just get paid to be available if required.
> Surprise, surprise.



Well, we knew it wasn't going to be cheap.

In the long run is it better than just nationalising the whole thing ?

Seems we will have effective nationalisation anyway but with the taxpayers paying for the private company's profits, it seems to be rewarding slackness.

Anyway, if it keeps the lights on and the power prices down then I suppose most people won't complain.


----------



## sptrawler

But you do wonder, if there will be a picture of Bowen holding up a handfull of cash, instead of Morrison holding a lump of coal, it just depends who is in favour at the time.
Like I said there wasnt many options, either throw the kitchen sink and everyones living standards at it, or work with what you have to get the fastest, smoothest transition practicable, now we have got rid of the media we continue down the obvious path, without the ranting and chanting.
Everyones a winner, but not much changes.


----------



## sptrawler

The wife was away tonight, so I watched a bit of current affairs and there was a perfect example of ridiculous blame shifting.
The programme had Allan Carpenter the ex WA premier who got the gas reservation up and running and  also stopped the ridiculous pollies super, which he doesn't get much credit for.
But back on thread, he tried to infer that the reservation policy was a federal failing, then said that Ian McFarland who must have been a Lib Fed pollie in his day, tried to stop him from putting the reservation in place. Obviously he as State Premier over ruled him and reserved the gas anyway.
It would be so much easier to sort stuff out, if they all put Australia first rather than political tribalism, it just makes them all look like a bunch of shyster's IMO.
Why the hell can't they just be honest, they only sell themselves short IMO.
Treating everyone as a mushroom these days doesn't cut it, with social media there are way too many ways to find the truth, so spinning BS eventually gets caught out.


----------



## SirRumpole

Ken Henry supports windfall gas export tax.









						A gas export tax would help to fix Australia's energy crisis, says Dr Ken Henry
					

Australia has blown its chance to use its vast gas fields to help the economy transition to renewable energy, says former Treasury secretary Ken Henry.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## mullokintyre

SirRumpole said:


> Ken Henry supports windfall gas export tax.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A gas export tax would help to fix Australia's energy crisis, says Dr Ken Henry
> 
> 
> Australia has blown its chance to use its vast gas fields to help the economy transition to renewable energy, says former Treasury secretary Ken Henry.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



yeah, I have no doubt Ken would.
He's never go over the fact that the government of the day did not enact all the  beaut things in the Henry Tax report.
He's an economist, not an engineer.
Sees no problem in changing the rules when you have spent a lot of years operating under the old rules.
Would he also support the returning of those super profits to those who have to pay them if the arse fell out of the market and gas went back to the prices of 5 years ago?
Nah, of course not.
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

mullokintyre said:


> Would he also support the returning of those super profits to those who have to pay them if the arse fell out of the market and gas went back to the prices of 5 years ago?




Would the gas companies support returning of profits to the taxpayers now that they are making motzas from high prices ?

Nah, of course not.


----------



## mullokintyre

SirRumpole said:


> Would the gas companies support returning of profits to the taxpayers now that they are making motzas from high prices ?
> 
> Nah, of course not.



The GAS companies are not the ones making the rules.
They explored for the gas, build the infrastructure to extract and deliver it with  SFA from the government.
They do what every good non government entity should do, make the most money under the rules they get dumped with.
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

mullokintyre said:


> The GAS companies are not the ones making the rules.
> They explored for the gas, build the infrastructure to extract and deliver it with  SFA from the government.
> They do what every good non government entity should do, make the most money under the rules they get dumped with.
> Mick




I agree, but rules can be changed as are governments.


----------



## sptrawler

I tend to think it is difficult to make rules retrospective, but royalties on all resources should be reviewed and adjusted annually, the iron ore royalties were set in the 1960's and now are obviously no longer suitable. All resources should have be adjusted to the market, same as the price the companies get for their resource is, it should be a percentage of the current market value of the product not a specific dollar amount. From memory I read iron ore royalty is 25cents a ton, which was set in the 1960's, it should be something like 5%.


----------



## mullokintyre

So, after the Feds admitting that we will in the short term need to pay the gas/coil/oil fired generators to keep them available for the times when renewables/batteries  are providing insufficient power, the Victorian government has refused to do so.
From AFR


> Energy users and thermal power producers have blasted Victoria’s point-blank refusal to allow payments to coal and gas generators to help avoid blackouts, pointing to its secret deal with EnergyAustralia to support the Yallourn brown coal power station.
> 
> With the Energy Security Board warning about the implications of a “renewables droughts” in winter months – when there is not much solar production and the wind may not blow much for days – industry said it would be crazy to rule out established generation in any future capacity mechanism.
> Both heavy energy users and conventional generators said they would prefer a nationally consistent approach to the capacity mechanism, rather than let states opt in or out of certain fuel sources, such as coal and gas, for political purposes.
> 
> Several industry sources are describing Victoria’s stance as “hypocritical” and “totally inconsistent” given the confidential, back-room arrangements struck last year that in some way provide support to ensure EnergyAustralia’s Yallourn generator in the Latrobe Valley runs until mid-2028.
> 
> “It’s ironic in the extreme that the only government that has done a deal with a coal-fired power station to date to stay on is the one that doesn’t want to pay them to stay on,” said Andrew Richards, chief executive of the Energy Users Association of Australia, which represents large energy users such as BlueScope Steel and Orica.



Politicians, the scourge of the earth.
Mick


----------



## mullokintyre

Victorian greens have introduced a bill to the Victorian Parliament  that would ban the connection of gas to new housing developments from 2025.
from  the Guardian


> The Victorian Greens will introduce a bill to parliament to impose a ban on all new gas connections to homes within three years, with the requirement for residences to be connected to the network to be scrapped in the meantime.
> 
> The party’s leader, Samantha Ratnam, will introduce the Planning and Environment Amendment (Transition From Gas) Bill 2022 in the upper house on Tuesday as part of the Greens platform ahead of the November state election.
> 
> 
> If passed, the bill will scrap the existing requirements for residential developments to connect to the gas network “where available” and plumbing regulations requiring solar water heaters to be gas-boosted. It will also ban all new gas connections from 2025.
> 
> Gas is usually described as having about half the emissions of coal when burned, though studies have found its impact on the climate is greater than this once methane leaks during extraction and transport are factored in.
> 
> 
> Victoria is the country’s largest consumer of gas, with more than 2m homes using it for heating, hot water and cooking. Burning gas produces about 16% of the state’s total emissions, with residential users responsible for almost two-thirds of those emissions.



So, if they got rid of all the domestic usage, it would decrease the states emissions by 10%.


> Brunswick MP Tim Read, the Greens climate spokesperson, said electrifying homes is cheaper, more energy efficient and better for Victorians’ health than gas.
> 
> “We’re not suggesting that it’s necessary or feasible to shift off gas all at once,” he said. “But the absolute first thing we should be doing is drawing a clear line and saying ‘let’s not extend the gas network’.”



The problem is, if all of those homes switched to electricity for heating, the demand would  shoot up at a time when solar generators  are   producing less power.
there has been nothing mentioned as to how that problem is going to be overcome.
This week an 80 year old Brick making company, Advanced Bricks in stawell closed because of the crippling cost of gas.
From ABC News


> Mr Collins said the company, one of the town's biggest employers, went from paying $6-to-$8 a gigajoule of gas to more than $37 a gigajoule overnight, and that no other gas retailers were able to supply the brickworks because Energy Australia was the only other retailer that had access to the gas pipeline.
> 
> "The assertion by (Victorian) Premier Andrews and (federal) Minister Bowen that heavy industries can transition to renewable energy is complete and utter fantasy," he said.



I am sure the 23 people who worked in the business will be able to retrain to get some of the thousands of jobs on offer in Stawell.
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> So, after the Feds admitting that we will in the short term need to pay the gas/coil/oil fired generators to keep them available for the times when renewables/batteries  are providing insufficient power, the Victorian government has refused to do so.
> From AFR
> 
> Politicians, the scourge of the earth.
> Mick



That is going to be the biggest problem, Premiers not agreeing and some being lifters while otbers will be leaners. It sounds like Dan wants others to put in the firming capacity, while be puts in the renewables, saves him having to contribute to the transition bit.
I dont know how the other States will like that, but who knows at least they are doing something, if they had put their hands up a while ago, it would have saved the taxpayers having to pay for Kurri Kurri.
I just hope they all pull their weight and it works out well for the East Coast.


----------



## Eager

^ Victoria is in the unfortunate position of having the highest % of households connected to gas, therefore its people have the most to lose when the market goes bad. If renewables and storage was already at a higher %, the impact being felt now would be less. So, Dan is actually on the right path.

As an aside, when the dearly-beloved-by-some Hazelwood coal-fired clunker closed over 5 years ago leaving its pit idle, it exposed the unreliability of nearby Yallourn mainly due to its age but also because of the inability of the company to stop the river diversion levee running between sections of its mine from collapsing. As we speak, the disused Hazelwood mine is accepting flow from the Morwell River to prevent any chance of downstream flooding in the Yallourn mine, while they figure out how to fix the levee, or indeed, if it's worth fixing. In other words, if Hazelwood mine was still supplying its 50+yo power station and not mitigating flooding at Yallourn, then Yallourn would probably be mothballed anyway due to flooding.


----------



## Smurf1976

Eager said:


> Victoria is in the unfortunate position of having the highest % of households connected to gas, therefore its people have the most to lose when the market goes bad. If renewables and storage was already at a higher %, the impact being felt now would be less. So, Dan is actually on the right path.



Trouble is, it's a completely self-inflicted situation.

To this very day the Victorian state government all but forces new homes to connect to gas and has over the years has directly handed taxpayer funds to the industry as well.

It's a love affair with gas that goes back decades and which has lead Victorians into an outright trap of successive state governments' direct making by not simply encouraging but actively forcing the use of gas despite having no long term plan in place to ensure supply. 

Try building without gas in Victoria and it's not totally impossible but it requires jumping through some hoops most certainly. End result is it's only the determined few who do it, the overwhelming majority of all new homes end up being connected to it (except those which are specifically exempt obviously). 

Then the electrical infrastructure installed in new sub-divisions and all sized on the basis of zero allowance for electric cooking, water heating or EV charging. 

To be fair, we've got some of the later in SA as well but thankfully not on the same scale as Victoria.


----------



## IFocus

Smurf1976 said:


> Trouble is, it's a completely self-inflicted situation.
> 
> To this very day the Victorian state government all but forces new homes to connect to gas and has over the years has directly handed taxpayer funds to the industry as well.
> 
> It's a love affair with gas that goes back decades and which has lead Victorians into an outright trap of successive state governments' direct making by not simply encouraging but actively forcing the use of gas despite having no long term plan in place to ensure supply.
> 
> Try building without gas in Victoria and it's not totally impossible but it requires jumping through some hoops most certainly. End result is it's only the determined few who do it, the overwhelming majority of all new homes end up being connected to it (except those which are specifically exempt obviously).
> 
> Then the electrical infrastructure installed in new sub-divisions and all sized on the basis of zero allowance for electric cooking, water heating or EV charging.
> 
> To be fair, we've got some of the later in SA as well but thankfully not on the same scale as Victoria.




Really? Hasn't Victoria stopped all gas exploration?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Smurf is a big renewables fan, as most of us are, but timelines are the enemy.



My reasons are really quite simple.

Oil and gas are both hugely problematic in terms of the quantities available, where they're found and so on. Use enough of them and it leads to war and I mean that literally. Be dependent on countries that at best have radically different cultures, at worse outright hate us, and it's going to end seriously badly at some point. There's been enough strife over the past century due to oil and gas as it is without adding more to it.

There's also the economic problem. Far from needing a carbon tax, gas needs the opposite. It needs ongoing subsidies to be even remotely affordable to consumers. That point is yet to sink into to the feds I think.

Coal well at least there's plenty of it and it doesn't cause too many wars. It does however ultimately wreck the planet if we burn enough of it.

Renewables, whilst not totally benign with their environmental impact but they don't cause wars, they don't threaten to end life on earth, they're also cheaper. Unless you're being sponsored by a fossil fuel company then they've a lot going for them.

I say that knowing that a 100% renewable system could be built, it's very doable, but for political reasons won't actually be built at least not anytime soon.


----------



## Smurf1976

IFocus said:


> Really? Hasn't Victoria stopped all gas exploration?



Not sure about exploration but they're still pushing consumers to use the stuff.

There's a plan to import LNG to Port Kembla (NSW) for supply to both NSW and Victoria. 

There's also a separate plan to import LNG to Adelaide and connect that both locally and to the pipeline which runs to south-west Victoria.

Says it all.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> My reasons are really quite simple.
> 
> Oil and gas are both hugely problematic in terms of the quantities available, where they're found and so on. Use enough of them and it leads to war and I mean that literally. Be dependent on countries that at best have radically different cultures, at worse outright hate us, and it's going to end seriously badly at some point. There's been enough strife over the past century due to oil and gas as it is without adding more to it.
> 
> There's also the economic problem. Far from needing a carbon tax, gas needs the opposite. It needs ongoing subsidies to be even remotely affordable to consumers. That point is yet to sink into to the feds I think.
> 
> Coal well at least there's plenty of it and it doesn't cause too many wars. It does however ultimately wreck the planet if we burn enough of it.
> 
> Renewables, whilst not totally benign with their environmental impact but they don't cause wars, they don't threaten to end life on earth, they're also cheaper. Unless you're being sponsored by a fossil fuel company then they've a lot going for them.
> 
> I say that knowing that a 100% renewable system could be built, it's very doable, but for political reasons won't actually be built at least not anytime soon.



I totally agree that we should not build a network around gas, its not  a renewable source after all, but I wonder if the political will is there to build big storage like pumped hydro, I hope it is but the delay on Snowy Hydro 2.0 shows its not going to be an easy path. Added to that the Greens have never been fans of hydro so are likely to cause delays on any new projects.

Can we do 100% renewables without both gas and hydro in the medium term ? It would be great if we could and I'd like to hear your ideas on how we could do that.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Can we do 100% renewables without both gas and hydro in the medium term ? It would be great if we could and I'd like to hear your ideas on how we could do that.



Some real world storage cost figures.

Most projects are confidential but some which are in the public domain as follows are sufficient to illustrate the basic options for storage.

Note that these are all cost estimates for projects not "as built" actual costs and since my point is to compare overall technologies and scale, no allowance has been made for things like interstate transmission where required. Obviously that applies to an individual project and needs to be factored in when evaluating that option but it doesn't apply to the overall generic concept of batteries versus hydro, large scale versus small scale, etc which is the point here. 

Broken Hill battery (AGL) capacity 50 MW / 50 MWh at an estimated cost of $41 million. So $820 million per GWh or $0.82 million per MW.

Loy Yang battery (AGL) capacity 200 MW / 200 MWh at an estimated cost of $150 million. So $750 million per GWh or $0.75 million per MW.

Bells Mountain pumped hydro (AGL) capacity 250 MW / 2 GWh at an estimated cost of $800 million. So $400 million per GWh or $3.2 million per MW.

Cethana pumped hydro (Hydro Tasmania) smaller development 600 MW / 7 GWh at an estimated cost of $900 million. So $128.6 million per GWh or $1.5 million per MW.

Cethana pumped hydro (Hydro Tasmania) maximum development capacity 750 MW / 15 GWh at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion. So $100 million per GWh or $2 million per MW.

Note for Cethana that it's possible to build the smaller development initially, then expand it to the large one with further work and nothing being wasted. So a two stage, or even three stage if the power and energy expansions were carried out separately, development approach is possible.

Snowy 2.0 (Snowy Hydro) capacity 2000 MW / 350 GWh at an estimated cost of $5.1 billion which is $14.57 million per GWh or $2.55 million per MW. Note this project is contentious with regard to cost estimates.

All of the storage options require that energy from some external source, likely to in practice be wind and solar, is available to store.

Some others which are not storage projects but are of relevance for comparison:

Barker Inlet power station (AGL) has actually been built, location being the outskirts of Adelaide. The plant uses internal combustion engines and was built with a budget of $295 million. Would be a bit higher now due to inflation given that figure is 4 years old. Capacity is 210 MW and is set up to run natural gas and diesel noting that it's technically possible to use fuel oil as an alternative in the same engines with relatively minor modification (that option hasn't been installed in practice). At $40 / GJ for natural gas, fuel cost is approximately $300 / MWh generated. Cost per unit of capacity, adding a bit for inflation, $1.5 million / MW.

Tallawarra B (Energy Australia) is an open cycle gas turbine which is being built in NSW at present with an estimated cost of $381 million. Capacity is 316 MW and will be set up to run natural gas or diesel. At $40 / GJ for natural gas, the fuel cost is approximately $380 per MWh generated. Cost per unit of capacity $1.2 million / MW.

Barker Inlet and Tallawarra B both use an existing site already owned by the company so there's no land cost component and nor is there any significant transmission cost involved with either.

Another project, which has not actually been built, is a large on-river dam and associated power station. I'll decline to name the company or location other than to say it's for connection to the NEM. Costs are current estimates based on detailed site investigation. Being a large dam on a river and storing a very large volume of water, the project would likely be controversial if proposed.

A number of development options are possible but the most likely is to produce 1200 MW intermittently for the specific purpose of filling VRE (wind + solar) "droughts", that is when multiple consecutive days of low yield occur, with operation of the station limited to nominally 5 weeks at constant full load each year so a 10% capacity factor. Total energy stored when full = 2450 GWh. Cost estimated at $1390 million so $0.57 million / GWh or $1.16 million / MW. Operating cost is negligible.

In summary and looking at all that:

Batteries are attractive for short duration peak power but they are cost prohibitive for bulk energy storage.

When it comes to bulk energy storage using hydro, there's a pretty clear relationship that increasing scale lowers the cost per GWh stored but tends to increase the cost per MW of peak power for an otherwise identical project. That being so, a mix of different scales has value.

On river dams storing large volumes of water are highly attractive economically as a means of filling sustained lulls in wind + solar but likely to be extremely controversial on environmental grounds.

Gas is an expensive means to generate electricity. Even using efficient plant, $300 / MWh for fuel alone, without including the cost of the power station, is extremely high.

In terms of construction lead times:

Batteries and gas are both pretty quick especially if built at an existing power generation site. Tallawarra was only announced last year for example and already has major items of equipment on site being installed.

Hydro projects it varies but broadly speaking, anything involving a large dam on a river or involving major tunnelling allow a full decade to build it. Even the small projects in practice will typically end up at 4 years or so.

Other technologies such as compressed air, hydrogen and so on shouldn't be ruled out but at this point in time they aren't in the category of being commercial, proven approaches. We know it's possible, the technology's there, but there's too little practical experience to put firm costs on it.

One thing to note however is that natural gas is, in terms of its chemical composition, 80% hydrogen whilst diesel is about 65% hydrogen. Beware of "greenwashing" based around this. There's a reason for saying that.....


----------



## SirRumpole

I wonder how these projects are going.









						EnergyAustralia ponders world’s largest seawater pumped hydro energy storage plant
					

Major power firm EnergyAustralia is studying the feasibility of building a huge pumped hydroelectric energy storage project in the Spencer Gulf of South Australia.




					www.energy-storage.news


----------



## IFocus

Smurf1976 said:


> Not sure about exploration but they're still pushing consumers to use the stuff.
> 
> There's a plan to import LNG to Port Kembla (NSW) for supply to both NSW and Victoria.
> 
> There's also a separate plan to import LNG to Adelaide and connect that both locally and to the pipeline which runs to south-west Victoria.
> 
> Says it all.





"In 2012, an administrative moratorium was placed on all onshore gas exploration and development in Victoria. This was in response to community concerns and meant a temporary hold on onshore gas exploration permits and retention leases, and a suspension on approving any new applications while the moratorium was in place."


Now doing an about face.









						Restart of onshore conventional gas industry in Victoria
					

Victorian legislation allowed for the restart of onshore conventional gas exploration and production from 1 July 2021.




					earthresources.vic.gov.au


----------



## Belli

A link to Geoscience which may be of interest to you @SirRumpole.





__





						Ocean Energy | Geoscience Australia
					

Geoscience Australia is the national public sector geoscience organisation. Its mission is to be the trusted source of information on Australia's geology and geography to inform government, industry and community decision-making. The work of Geoscience Australia covers the Australian landmass...




					www.ga.gov.au


----------



## sptrawler

Belli said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ocean Energy | Geoscience Australia
> 
> 
> Geoscience Australia is the national public sector geoscience organisation. Its mission is to be the trusted source of information on Australia's geology and geography to inform government, industry and community decision-making. The work of Geoscience Australia covers the Australian landmass...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.ga.gov.au



With regard ocean energy, I think this new underwater generator being developed in Japan has a lot of potential off the South coast of Australia.
The Southern ocean Antarctic circumpolar current is one of the strongest in the world as it doesn't have any land mass to affect its naturall path.








						Japan’s Big Boy Deep-Sea Turbine Will Harness the Power of Ocean Currents
					

The 330-ton subsea generator will be up-and-running sometime in the 2030s.




					www.popularmechanics.com
				












						Southern Ocean Circulation | ANU Research School of Earth Sciences
					

The Southern Ocean encircles Antarctica, dividing the polar regions from the warm tropical ocean. It is home to the world's strongest ocean current, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and is the primary location where ancient, deep ocean water is upwelled to the surface. The Southern Ocean...




					earthsciences.anu.edu.au
				




As we say on this thread, it wont be a one size fits all, but a mix of all available technologies.
As @Smurf1976 says the renewables can be done, it is just a matter of time.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> "In 2012, an administrative moratorium was placed on all onshore gas exploration and development in Victoria. *This was in response to community concerns* and meant a temporary hold on onshore gas exploration permits and retention leases, and a suspension on approving any new applications while the moratorium was in place."
> 
> 
> Now doing an about face.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Restart of onshore conventional gas industry in Victoria
> 
> 
> Victorian legislation allowed for the restart of onshore conventional gas exploration and production from 1 July 2021.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> earthresources.vic.gov.au



The thing is, the community may have bigger concerns now?
It certainly is going to be interesting over the next 8 years, especially if it is legislated to reach a 43% reduction, from what I've read we were already going to get to about 35%, but the further this moves on the harder the reductions will be come by.
It is just a great time in our history, the next 20-30 years will be like a whole new industrial revolution IMO.


----------



## mullokintyre

sptrawler said:


> With regard ocean energy, I think this new underwater generator being developed in Japan has a lot of potential off the South coast of Australia.
> The Southern ocean Antarctic circumpolar current is one of the strongest in the world as it doesn't have any land mass to affect its naturall path.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Japan’s Big Boy Deep-Sea Turbine Will Harness the Power of Ocean Currents
> 
> 
> The 330-ton subsea generator will be up-and-running sometime in the 2030s.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.popularmechanics.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Southern Ocean Circulation | ANU Research School of Earth Sciences
> 
> 
> The Southern Ocean encircles Antarctica, dividing the polar regions from the warm tropical ocean. It is home to the world's strongest ocean current, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and is the primary location where ancient, deep ocean water is upwelled to the surface. The Southern Ocean...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> earthsciences.anu.edu.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As we say on this thread, it wont be a one size fits all, but a mix of all available technologies.
> As @Smurf1976 says the renewables can be done, it is just a matter of time.



Every time I see wave energy mentioned, I think of the disaster that was Carnegie.
Mick


----------



## Belli

A lot of technical and engineering issues to be addressed though.  Maybe it is nice and serene (?) 50 meters below the surface but then there will be the challenge of getting the energy from there to shore with stuff that is sufficiently robust to withstand confused seas and the associated destructive energy.

And there is location.  Somehow I don't think the residents of Bondi would eb overly happy if there was a need to build stuff within their eyesight despite it being the most suitable place.  Ya know what I mean.  Also if a suitable site is 3,000 ks in the middle of nowhere, transmission lines, etc.

I've no doubt the boffins are working on these and other aspects.


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> Every time I see wave energy mentioned, I think of the disaster that was Carnegie.
> Mick



Yes I never bought into that idea, something bobbing up and down on the surface, with a pull chain attached just didn't row my boat (so to speak).
I think the Japanese idea of a submerged turbine, relying on a fairly constant flow medium, has a lot more merit, but salt water and long lasting metallic equipment does seem to be an oxymoron as the two IMO are mutually exclusive.


----------



## SirRumpole

I wasn't really thinking of wave or tidal power, the first project mentioned in the article I quoted was seawater pumped hydro, where seawater was pumped up a cliff on the coast and allowed to fall back to the sea producing power. 

That seems a logical fit with wind power catching offshore winds to pump the water up, and doesn't have to worry about such things like evaporation or constructing the lower reservoir.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I wasn't really thinking of wave or tidal power, the first project mentioned in the article I quoted was seawater pumped hydro, where seawater was pumped up a cliff on the coast and allowed to fall back to the sea producing power.
> 
> That seems a logical fit with wind power catching offshore winds to pump the water up, and doesn't have to worry about such things like evaporation or constructing the lower reservoir.



Yes I remember us talking about that one, up near Port Augusta, I would think the Greens would have kittens over it.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Yes I remember us talking about that one, up near Port Augusta, I would think the Greens would have kittens over it.



If the Greens have kittens over that, there isn't much hope getting them to be sensible.


----------



## SirRumpole

New drilling technique could enhance access to geothermal energy.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> If the Greens have kittens over that, there isn't much hope getting them to be sensible.



I just looked it up, it sounds as though it has been quietly shelved, probably another free feasibility study at the taxpayers expense. 🤣
As I said the Govt will have to build this and they can only afford to build it at a pace they can afford, well that was the case, my guess is it might speed up now that it is to be legislated,
it will be interesting IMO now we have people ready to stump up taxpayers money. Great times to be living through, there will be some history making decisions made, one way or another the current period will live in people's minds forever IMO. 









						Cultana Pumped Hydro Energy Storage Phase 2
					

The Cultana Pumped Hydro Energy Storage - Phase 2 project will develop a 225 MW pumped hydro energy storage facility in South Australia.




					arena.gov.au
				



*Start Date
May 2018*
_EnergyAustralia and Arup are proposing the development of a 225 MW pumped hydro energy storage project using seawater near Port Augusta, South Australia.
The Cultana Pumped Hydro Energy Storage – Phase 2 project acknowledges that energy storage technology is emerging in Australia to support renewable energy integration and maintain a secure a reliable electricity grid – especially in contingency events. Pumped hydroelectric storage plants work like giant batteries; they store energy for use when demand for electricity is high.

T*he ‘Cultana’ pumped hydro facility will be capable of producing 225 MW of electricity to the South Australian electricity grid with eight hours of storage. That’s the equivalent of installing over 120,000 home battery storage systems, but at a third of the cost.*_

*Feasibility and concept development for this project is supported by *_*funding from the South Australian Government and ARENA.*_


The latest I can find on its status_: *12 November 2021*








						One pumped hydro project still standing as South Australia heads to 100pct wind and solar
					

There appears to be only one pumped hydro project left in the race to deliver long term storage to South Australia as it charges to 100 per cent wind and solar.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				




South Australia has sourced 62 per cent of its generation from wind and solar in the past 12 months, and has an official target of reaching net 100 per cent renewables by 2030. It will likely reach that mark well before then, but it will need significant amounts of storage to get there.

The pumped hydro projects held great promise, and were backed mostly by companies with deep pockets. South Australia is about as prospective a market as you could imagine for storage, but one by one the projects have fallen away.

Tilt Renewables decided early on that its proposal to use a reservoir in the Adelaide Hills wasn’t going to work, and AGL was then told by its prospective partner, a copper miner, that it preferred to dig for more ore rather than filling its mine pits with water.

*EnergyAustralia was excited about the Cultana pumped hydro project, which was proposing to use sea-water, but also found that was going to cost too muc*_*h.*

_Sanjeev Gupta’s pumped hydro proposal also appears to have withdrawn, possibly because of his own financial difficulties, but also because the Middleback iron ore mine that was to be used as a reservoir is more profitable being a mine than holding water.

That left only two projects competing for funds being offered by the Australian government, one through the ill-fated Underwriting New Generation Investment (UNGI) program, which so far has come to nothing despite the urgency with which Angus Taylor said he wanted to build dispatchable capacity.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency also offered a $40 million grant for a pumped hydro project in a separate scheme, and revealed 20 months ago – in February, 2020 – that it had chosen its favoured project from a shortlist of four and would reveal all within a few months.

Nothing has been heard of it since. Given the attrition rate of the other projects it was presumed that only two remained in the hunt – Rise Renewables and UPC’s Baroota project near Port Pirie, and the Goat Hill project being pushed by Sunset Power and Delta Energy.

But it now appears that the 250MW/2,000MWh Baroota project is the only one standing. A transmission planning report released by ElectraNet this week, reveals that the 242MW/1,835MW Goat Hill project near Port Augusta, has cancelled its connection agreement.

It also reveals that Baroota is currently working on its own connection agreement. It is, in fact, the only new generation project in the state that is going through the proces_s.


----------



## Belli

SirRumpole said:


> New drilling technique could enhance access to geothermal energy.




May I refer you back to the Geoscience link I posted earlier.  It has some interesting discussion regarding geothermal hot-spots.  Spain is better placed in that regard.

I recall one company did a trial way back in the out-back.  It didn't end well (despite the depth of the wells.)


----------



## SirRumpole

Belli said:


> May I refer you back to the Geoscience link I posted earlier.  It has some interesting discussion regarding geothermal hot-spots.  Spain is better placed in that regard.
> 
> I recall one company did a trial way back in the out-back.  It didn't end well (despite the depth of the wells.)




Yes it looks like geothermal in Australia is not viable unfortunately.


----------



## Belli

sptrawler said:


> I just looked it up, it sounds as though it has been quietly shelved, probably another free feasibility study at the taxpayers expense.




Yes, it is disappointing it wasn't viable but that's the nature of these things.  More than 95% of research in all branches of science results in a dead-end but you don't know or can confirm it will be a dead-end unless the research is undertaken.  A lot of the general public go "Pfft, I could have told them it was a waste of money" but it's not appreciated what is involved and why.  Plus so many of them wouldn't even know how to start the research let alone be able to verify the "why" of it not working.

However, it's incremental.  Some snippet of information will come out of it and be applied eslsewhere


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Yes I remember us talking about that one, up near Port Augusta, I would think the Greens would have kittens over it.



One particular pumped hydro project in SA was indeed cancelled when the developers lost their nerve due to thoughts they might become a political target.

Without wanting to be partisan and just trying to explain it, the basic problem with the politics can be summed up as noting that there's well over 20,000 technically possible pumped hydro sties in Australia but even the best are economically extremely marginal. That reality cuts the real number, those that someone might actually consider building, down to a handful in each state.

Therein lies the reality. A pumped hydro scheme dropped due to concerns about being a political target. Meanwhile in the same state we've built two gas-fired stations in recent years, there are more planned, and there's a company quietly going about a coal-based proposal.....


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> One particular pumped hydro project in SA was indeed cancelled when the developers lost their nerve due to thoughts they might become a political target.
> 
> Without wanting to be partisan and just trying to explain it, the basic problem with the politics can be summed up as noting that there's well over 20,000 technically possible pumped hydro sties in Australia but even the best are economically extremely marginal. That reality cuts the real number, those that someone might actually consider building, down to a handful in each state.
> 
> Therein lies the reality. A pumped hydro scheme dropped due to concerns about being a political target. Meanwhile in the same state we've built two gas-fired stations in recent years, there are more planned, and there's a company quietly going about a coal-based proposal.....



I guess that's the problem with considering everything in terms of economics.

The State health service doesn't make a profit, the State education system doesn't make a profit, but an essential service like electricity has to guarantee someone a profit.

BTW, what are the economics of Snowy Hydro ? Does it make a profit these days ?


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> One particular pumped hydro project in SA was indeed cancelled when the developers lost their nerve due to thoughts they might become a political target.
> 
> Without wanting to be partisan and just trying to explain it, the basic problem with the politics can be summed up as noting that there's well over 20,000 technically possible pumped hydro sties in Australia but even the best are economically extremely marginal. That reality cuts the real number, those that someone might actually consider building, down to a handful in each state.
> 
> Therein lies the reality. A pumped hydro scheme dropped due to concerns about being a political target. Meanwhile in the same state we've built two gas-fired stations in recent years, there are more planned, and there's a company quietly going about a coal-based proposal.....



Spot on smurf, the thing with Australia most of it is flat and where there is mountains which have the ability to provide great sites, they are in beautiful or sensitive areas.
It isn't going to be easy, fortunately Snowy is already built, so adding to it isn't as big an issue as starting form scratch, but having said that there is a lot of backlash about the new transmission lines.
When you put that in context, with the fact the experts are saying there is 50 times Snowy 2.0 required to transition to renewables, it does seem a long way off even if the Govt commits to build it.
Getting environmental approval, regulatory approval, transmission easements, labour and materials etc then the actual time to build them by 2050, or put another way, in 28 years.
It is obvious that miniature pumped storage isn't going to be done by the private sector and major pumped storage will only be feasible for Govt.
They had better get their skates on, I think the first step is to legislate for the 2030 target, because when that is done it actually puts them under pressure to make hard decisions.
Just my opinion and I'm only basing it on how long projects are already taking, I can't see how it will be accelerated by the amount needed to achieve anywhere near enough long duration storage.
Hydrogen fired GT's are starting to look feasible as firming capacity, the problem is we need a surplus of renewables to make the hydrogen, the penny will drop soon IMO. Best the State Governments get a hydrogen reservation policy in place, before they give away all this land in prime solar/wind generation areas.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> what are the economics of Snowy Hydro ? Does it make a profit these days ?



I don't have the figures handy but in short yes, it's profitable.

I'm not sure of its exact corporate structure and how it's structured etc but ultimately it's profitable at least most of the time.


----------



## Belli

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm not sure of its exact corporate structure and how it's structured




Unlisted public company.



			https://www.finance.gov.au/government/government-business-enterprises/snowy-hydro-limited


----------



## Belli

Meant to add it's almost amusing in that at present there is too much water.  Snowy Hydro either pumps the water back to an upper reservoir or emptied into Blowering Dam.  Problem is Blowering is now full and increased hydro generation risks flooding if released into the Tumut River.









						SNOWY HYDRO WATER RELEASES FROM TUMUT 3 POWER STATION - Snowy Hydro
					

Snowy Hydro is the largest supplier of on-demand energy generation in NSW, by capacity. The company also has an important role in capturing and storing water in the Snowy Scheme, which helps manage and regulate inflows for the benefit of downstream water users. The National Electricity Market...




					www.snowyhydro.com.au


----------



## Belli

Posting this link for information.  Some good reads too possible bias by the authors notwithstanding.









						Snowy 2.0 will not produce nearly as much electricity as claimed. We must hit the pause button
					

Snowy 2.0 is a bad deal for taxpayers, and analysis suggests it will deliver a fraction of the energy benefits promised.




					reneweconomy.com.au


----------



## Ferret

Belli said:


> Meant to add it's almost amusing in that at present there is too much water.  Snowy Hydro either pumps the water back to an upper reservoir or emptied into Blowering Dam.  Problem is Blowering is now full and increased hydro generation risks flooding if released into the Tumut



Yes, I was down at Jindabyne in February and the dam was so full that parts of the walking track were inundated.
 I asked why they didn't release some water and was told it wasn't allowed.


----------



## SirRumpole

Interesting..

What sort of 'third party' are they talking about ?

Russia ? 









						Wind farm connection causes lights to flicker across South Australia
					

A connection between Port Augusta Renewable Energy Park and the national power grid is under investigation for causing lights to flicker and dim across South Australia for hours this morning.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting..
> 
> What sort of 'third party' are they talking about ?
> 
> Russia ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Wind farm connection causes lights to flicker across South Australia
> 
> 
> A connection between Port Augusta Renewable Energy Park and the national power grid is under investigation for causing lights to flicker and dim across South Australia for hours this morning.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Setting up the protection equipment, so that it does what it is meant to do when a problem happens with the generator, or the grid.

The problem is on a lightly loaded system, when you set up things like the load rejection etc, it has an effect on the transmission system. 

It is worse when you are trying to set it up a generators protection on small isolated grid, like a remote country town, tripping the generator, when there is only two on line really does cause the town to notice.🤣


----------



## sptrawler

Belli said:


> Posting this link for information.  Some good reads too possible bias by the authors notwithstanding.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Snowy 2.0 will not produce nearly as much electricity as claimed. We must hit the pause button
> 
> 
> Snowy 2.0 is a bad deal for taxpayers, and analysis suggests it will deliver a fraction of the energy benefits promised.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> reneweconomy.com.au



The problem with these negative articles, they don't put up an alternative, if Snowy 2.0 isn't built what is?
Now that the election is over these politically charged articles will probably reduce, thankfully, they really don't help the cause for renewables at all IMO.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Setting up the protection equipment, so that it does what it is meant to do when a problem happens with the generator, or the grid.
> 
> The problem is on a lightly loaded system, when you set up things like the load rejection etc, it has an effect on the transmission system.
> 
> It is worse when you are trying to set it up a generators protection on small isolated grid, like a remote country town, tripping the generator, when there is only two on line really does cause the town to notice.🤣




Yes, well 'third party' seems to imply they don't know who it is ?

It must have been something of some size to cause an issue, one would have thought that there would be mechanisms in place to ensure large users don't access the system without approval.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, well 'third party' seems to imply they don't know who it is ?
> 
> It must have been something of some size to cause an issue, one would have thought that there would be mechanisms in place to ensure large users don't access the system without approval.



For it to have happened over an extended period, my guess would be something tripped or a transmission fault occurred and didn't disconnect from the grid, so it became a  load on the grid. A protection failure?  Just a guess.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting..
> 
> What sort of 'third party' are they talking about ?
> 
> Russia ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Wind farm connection causes lights to flicker across South Australia
> 
> 
> A connection between Port Augusta Renewable Energy Park and the national power grid is under investigation for causing lights to flicker and dim across South Australia for hours this morning.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Suffice to say this one shook the entire SA grid around, constantly, for 4 hours or so.

Any light not supplied by an electronic ballast, so basically that's all filament lamps, all streetlights other than LED's, magnetic ballasted fluorescents in shops that were open (service stations etc) and so on were visibly pulsing. Open the fridge or microwave at home and you'd get a light show....

Best way to describe it is a major dip in the lights, a big one the kind you'd normally associate with an imminent failure, occurring several times each second constantly and across the entire system throughout SA.

Flick, flick, flick, flick, flick.... constantly for 4 hours and I mean big dips not minor.

Some vision here: 

The downlight at the start of that report is exactly what it looked like yes, right across the state. 

There's an investigation to be done as to what happened but at present it seems to have originated from the wind farm.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> For it to have happened over an extended period, my guess would be something tripped or a transmission fault occurred and didn't disconnect from the grid, so it became a  load on the grid. A protection failure?  Just a guess.



Cause was at a wind farm.

A factor in the timing was identifying where it was coming from. Public reports of lights flickering in Adelaide, heavy industry at Whyalla and Olympic Dam confirmed they could measure it and so on but with no immediately known cause.

There's a bit of reluctance from ElectraNet (owner and operator of transmission in SA) and government to name them but the "third party" has been identified in terms of who it is.

Now just need to determine the technical aspects but the wind farm's disconnected in the meantime.


----------



## wayneL

Some interesting thoughts from Cadogan regarding energy generation in this:


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Cause was at a wind farm.
> 
> A factor in the timing was identifying where it was coming from. Public reports of lights flickering in Adelaide, heavy industry at Whyalla and Olympic Dam confirmed they could measure it and so on but with no immediately known cause.
> 
> There's a bit of reluctance from ElectraNet (owner and operator of transmission in SA) and government to name them but the "third party" has been identified in terms of who it is.
> 
> Now just need to determine the technical aspects but the wind farm's disconnected in the meantime.



These are the very issues we keep mentioning, when we say Australia's East Coast is going into unknown territory and incidents like this one will need to be engineered out before we can move on.
Obviously the protection system couldn't recognise the fault and react appropriately, it wont be the first or the last incident that is an unforeseen outcome, as renewable penetration increases IMO.
The good thing IMO is that S.A is actually leading the way and identifying these problems, it probably would be a lot more dramatic if the issues happened near Sydney on a heavily loaded section of the grid, @Smurf  it sounds a lot like a pole slipping incident I had at Meeka.🤪


----------



## mullokintyre

sptrawler said:


> it sounds a lot like a pole slipping incident I had at Meeka.🤪



Yeah, thats why I gave up Pole Dancing, too many slip ups.
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

Electricity grid chaos to charge up power bills
					

The cost of ending last week’s chaos in the energy grid will be borne by consumers.




					www.smh.com.au
				




Extra price pain is coming to households and businesses after weeks of chaos in the electricity grid, with special payments made by the market operator to prop up power companies set to flow through to electricity bills.
Rolling blackout warnings were issued from Monday last week when power generators said the rising cost of gas and coal had made it unprofitable for them to run their plants.


----------



## sptrawler

What worries me a lot, is we seem to be heading down the same path with this solar farm development, as we did with the gas development.
Giving the private sector the rights to the land use, the product it generates and all we expect in return is a pittance in a bit of income tax off the workers and whatever they consume on site.
It is all fine at the moment because we have a huge amount of land, but when a fair amount of it is in foreign ownership and supplying foreign countries with electricity, we at some time in the future may need , it just seems to me that safeguards need to be put in place early.
To me it just has a feeling of a gas like scenario in the making, whether it be because at some stage more renewable farms are stopped because of environmental or for habitat issues or whatever, to be just letting the generation to offshored with minimal return seems like another recipe for disaster.
There should be a clause, that a certain percentage of its generation be reserved for Australian consumption* if required* *now or in the future,* it is obvious this could eventually become an issue. History will repeat as usual.
It is like the gas issue, this sort of stuff is hard to fix retrospectively, just dumb short term politics IMO.
But in 30 years time, the media will be blaming whoever is in Government then, because the media people are as dumb as the politicians IMO.
As with the gas situation, they are all experts in hindsight, it is just a shame they have no sodding foresight.






Sun Cable reveals full extent of its giant solar-plus-storage project in Australia​Singapore-based Sun Cable has submitted its Environmental Impact Statement to the Northern Territory Environment Protection Authority. The document reveals the full extent of the project’s enormity, specifically a 17-20 GW solar farm tied to 36-42 GWh of battery energy storage, which is set to...



www.pv-magazine.com

Singapore-based Sun Cable, the company planning on building the world’s biggest solar and battery energy storage project in the Northern Territory (NT) and exporting it to Singapore, has lodged an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) Summary revealing the full extent of its enormity.

According to the EIS, the $30 billion-plus Australia-Asia PowerLink (AAPL), which already has financial support from Australian billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest, is set to generate its renewable energy via a 17-20 GW solar farm with 36-42 GWh of battery energy storage called the Powell Creek Solar Precinct, occupying 12,000 hectares in the NT’s Barkly region





Legislation increases certainty for $30 billion Sun Cable megaproject​The Northern Territory government has doubled down on its support for the world’s biggest solar PV and storage project with parliament passing legislation that will facilitate the $30 billion-plus Sun Cable Australia-Asia PowerLink project which is expected to transform the region into a green...



www.pv-magazine-australia.com

“This is another significant milestone, facilitating Sun Cable’s AAPowerLink pathway as we work with the Northern Territory to realise the potential of this world-class solar asset, creating jobs, investment, large-scale green industry development and lower emissions,” the company said in a social media post.

Once operational, the AAPowerLink will supply power to Darwin and to Singapore via a 4,200-kilometre transmission network, including a 750km overhead transmission line from the solar farm to Darwin and a 3,800km submarine cable from Darwin to Singapore. The project is expected to generate enough renewable electricity to power more than 3 million homes a year.

The project, which is anticipated will provide 800MW of renewable energy capacity to the Darwin region from 2026 and up to 15% of Singapore’s electricity needs from 2027, has already secured key approvals with the Australian federal government awarding it Major Project Status while the Indonesian government has approved the submarine transmission cable route.

*Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said the $30-plus billion project will deliver an economic and employment bonanza for the Top End.*

“Sun Cable’s AAPowerLink will invest $8 billion in Australia, with the majority invested here in the Territory,” she said. “That means more local jobs, more opportunities for local businesses, and a strong and diversified economy.”

Sun Cable has said construction for the project will begin immediately after financial close in October 2023 with commercial operations to commence in 2027.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> What worries me a lot, is we seem to be heading down the same path with this solar farm development, as we did with the gas development.
> Giving the private sector the rights to the land use, the product it generates and all we expect in return is a pittance in a bit of income tax off the workers and whatever they consume on site.
> It is all fine at the moment because we have a huge amount of land, but when a fair amount of it is in foreign ownership and supplying foreign countries with electricity, we at some time in the future may need , it just seems to me that safeguards need to be put in place early.
> To me it just has a feeling of a gas like scenario in the making, whether it be because at some stage more renewable farms are stopped because of environmental or for habitat issues or whatever, to be just letting the generation to offshored with minimal return seems like another recipe for disaster.
> There should be a clause, that a certain percentage of its generation be reserved for Australian consumption* if required* *now or in the future,* it is obvious this could eventually become an issue. History will repeat as usual.
> It is like the gas issue, this sort of stuff is hard to fix retrospectively, just dumb short term politics IMO.
> But in 30 years time, the media will be blaming whoever is in Government then, because the media people are as dumb as the politicians IMO.
> As with the gas situation, they are all experts in hindsight, it is just a shame they have no sodding foresight.
> 
> View attachment 143303
> 
> Sun Cable reveals full extent of its giant solar-plus-storage project in Australia​Singapore-based Sun Cable has submitted its Environmental Impact Statement to the Northern Territory Environment Protection Authority. The document reveals the full extent of the project’s enormity, specifically a 17-20 GW solar farm tied to 36-42 GWh of battery energy storage, which is set to...
> 
> 
> 
> www.pv-magazine.com
> 
> Singapore-based Sun Cable, the company planning on building the world’s biggest solar and battery energy storage project in the Northern Territory (NT) and exporting it to Singapore, has lodged an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) Summary revealing the full extent of its enormity.
> 
> According to the EIS, the $30 billion-plus Australia-Asia PowerLink (AAPL), which already has financial support from Australian billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest, is set to generate its renewable energy via a 17-20 GW solar farm with 36-42 GWh of battery energy storage called the Powell Creek Solar Precinct, occupying 12,000 hectares in the NT’s Barkly region
> 
> View attachment 143304
> 
> Legislation increases certainty for $30 billion Sun Cable megaproject​The Northern Territory government has doubled down on its support for the world’s biggest solar PV and storage project with parliament passing legislation that will facilitate the $30 billion-plus Sun Cable Australia-Asia PowerLink project which is expected to transform the region into a green...
> 
> 
> 
> www.pv-magazine-australia.com
> 
> “This is another significant milestone, facilitating Sun Cable’s AAPowerLink pathway as we work with the Northern Territory to realise the potential of this world-class solar asset, creating jobs, investment, large-scale green industry development and lower emissions,” the company said in a social media post.
> 
> Once operational, the AAPowerLink will supply power to Darwin and to Singapore via a 4,200-kilometre transmission network, including a 750km overhead transmission line from the solar farm to Darwin and a 3,800km submarine cable from Darwin to Singapore. The project is expected to generate enough renewable electricity to power more than 3 million homes a year.
> 
> The project, which is anticipated will provide 800MW of renewable energy capacity to the Darwin region from 2026 and up to 15% of Singapore’s electricity needs from 2027, has already secured key approvals with the Australian federal government awarding it Major Project Status while the Indonesian government has approved the submarine transmission cable route.
> 
> *Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said the $30-plus billion project will deliver an economic and employment bonanza for the Top End.*
> 
> “Sun Cable’s AAPowerLink will invest $8 billion in Australia, with the majority invested here in the Territory,” she said. “That means more local jobs, more opportunities for local businesses, and a strong and diversified economy.”
> 
> Sun Cable has said construction for the project will begin immediately after financial close in October 2023 with commercial operations to commence in 2027.




Well they are supplying Darwin, whether 800MW out of 17GW is a good enough return for Australia is up for debate, but it seems some has been reserved anyway.

Should we have an export tax on electricity ? There's a thought.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Well they are supplying Darwin, whether 800MW out of 17GW is a good enough return for Australia is up for debate, but it seems some has been reserved anyway.
> 
> Should we have an export tax on electricity ? There's a thought.



Yes I read 800MW, that isn't much and if the green energy does cause a surge of manufacturing demand, it could be insufficient.
I would just like to see a percentage amount, as that is future proofing, if technology improves and they get increased output, we get an increased share.
It is just dumb if they haven't done it, at the end of the day it is our land and with the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund helping to finance it, it just would be mind bogglingly stupid not to reserve a percentage of the output.
We may not ever call on it, but if we need it and don't have it, who will be to blame?
The FEDS? It's the NT that are making these rules and conditions by what I've read.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Yes I read 800MW, that isn't much and if the green energy does cause a surge of manufacturing demand, it could be insufficient.
> I would just like to see a percentage amount, as that is future proofing, if technology improves and they get increased output, we get an increased share.
> It is just dumb if they haven't done it, at the end of the day it is our land and with the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund helping to finance it, it just would be mind bogglingly stupid not to reserve a percentage of the output.
> We may not ever call on it, but if we need it and don't have it, who will be to blame?
> The FEDS? It's the NT that are making these rules and conditions by what I've read.



I agree that there should be some percentage like WA's 15% gas reservation.

Main problem i suppose is storage,  if our reserved supply exceeds demand,  where does the excess go ?

Would be good if a hydrogen/ammonia storage system was set up at the same time, but that would require State and Federal pollies to be on the same wavelength .


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I agree that there should be some percentage like WA's 15% gas reservation.
> 
> Main problem i suppose is storage,  if our reserved supply exceeds demand,  where does the excess go ?
> 
> Would be good if a hydrogen/ammonia storage system was set up at the same time, but that would require State and Federal pollies to be on the same wavelength .



Any excess goes to Singapore, like I said have a reserve amount, that is available *IF *required, that then means if industry does increase up there power is available for it. If it doesn't happen it is available for export.
For example if the MCR (maximum continuous rating) of the plant is 30GW, say 10% has to be available for domestic consumption, that would be 3GW max, at the moment it sounds like 800MW is required, so that would leave 2.2GW of available domestic demand growth from that plant as it currently stands.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Any excess goes to Singapore, like I said have a reserve amount, that is available *IF *required, that then means if industry does increase up there power is available for it. If it doesn't happen it is available for export.
> For example if the MCR (maximum continuous rating) of the plant is 30GW, say 10% has to be available for domestic consumption, that would be 3GW max, at the moment it sounds like 800MW is required, so that would leave 2.2GW of available domestic demand growth from that plant as it currently stands.



That doesn't rule out some degree of storage, if that makes up part of our percentage allocation over current demand, so be it.

It would be silly to use less than our 10% if we could store it for future use or sell ammonia to Japan.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> That doesn't rule out some degree of storage, if that makes up part of our percentage allocation over current demand, so be it.
> 
> It would be silly to use less than our 10% if we could store it for future use or sell ammonia to Japan.



Yes anything is better than our normal begging and groveling to get business to rip us off, just so we can pick up the crumbs off the floor.


----------



## sptrawler

Another gas pipeline going in to strengthen supply to the mid west.









						Work starts on $460 million gas pipeline in outback Western Australia
					

Construction has started on a 580-kilometre, $460 million pipeline in Western Australia that will take natural gas from the Perth basin out to resources projects in the state's Goldfields.




					www.abc.net.au
				



Construction has started on a 580-kilometre, $460 million pipeline in Western Australia that will take natural gas from the Perth basin out to resources projects in the state's Goldfields. 
The Northern Goldfields Interconnect pipeline will form a 2,690km gas pipeline network in WA and significantly increase the volume of gas available inland.  
He said the gas would help to further stimulate economic development in the eastern Goldfields region and support a range of new projects.

"That will support more employment in the region and the WA government has been very supportive of that project," Mr Coggan said.


----------



## SirRumpole

Interesting video on micro hydro generators.


----------



## macca

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting video on micro hydro generators.





Excellent idea, many places would not have reliable water flow but even if generators were still used occasionally, a turbo generator would be a good investment long term.

If they can build them to withstand floods, dirt and flotsam perhaps they could build them to withstand salt water, there are plenty of coastal tidal races that could generate power if they can


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting video on micro hydro generators.



No problem with the small stuff but I think he's being a bit over the top negative in discussing large hydro projects.

There's an element of it that's comparable to discussing the concept of aviation focusing on nothing other than plane crashes. Yes there are bad examples of hydro development but there are bad examples of anything - the majority haven't caused a disaster.

A dam silting up isn't a failure of the dam per se, it's a failure of land management upstream to be losing that irreplaceable topsoil in the first place. For the record there's one hydro scheme in Australia where siltation is a massive problem, major efforts are made to flush it out of the dams, but there are others where it has been properly measured at well under 1mm per decade.

As for the one that suffers from big problems, well suffice to say I'm no fan of forestry.....


----------



## SirRumpole

Are bladeless wind turbines viable ?


----------



## sptrawler

Tassie hydro and the new undersea cable in the news and it hasn't even started yet.
Maybe someone could mention that batteries don't supply the same sort of storage as hydro and also that they don't have a long life expectancy.
I see the anti hydro rhetoric is already cranking up, it isn't as though it wasn't expected. 😂
Coal wont be going anywhere, if Victoria gets its way IMO.








						Does Australia need Tasmania to become a multi-billion-dollar 'Battery of the Nation'?
					

As coal-fired power stations close down, there is a push for the renewables-rich state of Tasmania to become the "Battery of the Nation". The problem is, no one knows who will foot the multi-billion-dollar bill.




					www.abc.net.au
				



The renewables-rich island state of Tasmania has big plans to become a green battery for the mainland, however, the project is set to cost billions and not everyone's convinced that the economics stack up.

Tasmania wants to double its current 100 per cent renewable energy production by 2040
A second undersea cable would first be needed to supply the mainland at a cost of $3.8 billion
Critics argue there are cheaper alternatives, such as batteries
Tasmania's project, however, is still at the feasibility study stage.

The island state's ambition to become the so-called "Battery of the Nation" hinges on someone funding two undersea Bass Strait cables, the Marinus Link, connecting it to Victoria.



> "What Marinus Link is doing is, it's unlocking Tasmania's fantastic renewable energy results," Battery of the Nation chief executive Bess Clark told ABC News.



She said this included the state's variable wind resource, "and the hydro resource we've got here and the pumped hydro potential we've got here".

While there is already an undersea cable connecting the island state to Victoria, called Basslink, it is running close to capacity and cannot carry any additional power.
When the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) releases its latest plan to improve the grid on Thursday it's expected to again list Marinus Link as one of five key "actionable" projects.

The cables would have a combined, 1,500-MW capacity, which is enough to power up to 1.5 million homes and is roughly the equivalent output of the former Hazelwood coal-fired power station in Victoria.

Marinus Link is now expected to cost around $3.8 billion, after its price tag was recently revised upwards.
According to AEMO, the first cable could be built as soon as 2028, and the second from 2030, and would allow Tasmania to double the amount of electricity it exports.



> "Australia is going to need a lot more energy if our coal plants continue to retire, so we're going to need to replace that energy," Ms Clark said.



"But we're also going to need what's called dispatchable energy, because a lot of the new energy will come from wind, it will come from solar."

"And that's great a lot of the time, but some of the time, it's not windy, and it's not sunny, so we'll need to store that energy. And that's where we can turn on hydro, and pumped hydro."
"The second cable relies on us constructing a pumped hydro power scheme and, again, we've done all the work to position ourselves to be ready to go with that," Mr Molnar said.

But the projects do not come cheap.

The estimated cost has already gone up. It could end up costing a combined $10 billion, including $2.25 billion for Battery of the Nation and $3.5 billion for Marinus Link. That price does not include wind development either.

Bruce Mountain from the Victoria Energy Policy Centre is critical of Snowy 2.0 and Tasmania's plans to become the Battery of the Nation.
 Mr Mountain's research, which was commissioned by the Bob Brown Foundation, found there were cheaper alternatives.
The Victorian government — which would likely have to share the cost of Marinus Link — has instead identified the $4 billion KerangLink, which would connect the state to New South Wales, as its priority project.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Tassie hydro and the new undersea cable in the news and it hasn't even started yet.
> Maybe someone could mention that batteries don't supply the same sort of storage as hydro and also that they don't have a long life expectancy.
> I see the anti hydro rhetoric is already cranking up, it isn't as though it wasn't expected. 😂
> Coal wont be going anywhere, if Victoria gets its way IMO.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Does Australia need Tasmania to become a multi-billion-dollar 'Battery of the Nation'?
> 
> 
> As coal-fired power stations close down, there is a push for the renewables-rich state of Tasmania to become the "Battery of the Nation". The problem is, no one knows who will foot the multi-billion-dollar bill.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The renewables-rich island state of Tasmania has big plans to become a green battery for the mainland, however, the project is set to cost billions and not everyone's convinced that the economics stack up.
> 
> Tasmania wants to double its current 100 per cent renewable energy production by 2040
> A second undersea cable would first be needed to supply the mainland at a cost of $3.8 billion
> Critics argue there are cheaper alternatives, such as batteries
> Tasmania's project, however, is still at the feasibility study stage.
> 
> The island state's ambition to become the so-called "Battery of the Nation" hinges on someone funding two undersea Bass Strait cables, the Marinus Link, connecting it to Victoria.
> 
> 
> She said this included the state's variable wind resource, "and the hydro resource we've got here and the pumped hydro potential we've got here".
> 
> While there is already an undersea cable connecting the island state to Victoria, called Basslink, it is running close to capacity and cannot carry any additional power.
> When the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) releases its latest plan to improve the grid on Thursday it's expected to again list Marinus Link as one of five key "actionable" projects.
> 
> The cables would have a combined, 1,500-MW capacity, which is enough to power up to 1.5 million homes and is roughly the equivalent output of the former Hazelwood coal-fired power station in Victoria.
> 
> Marinus Link is now expected to cost around $3.8 billion, after its price tag was recently revised upwards.
> According to AEMO, the first cable could be built as soon as 2028, and the second from 2030, and would allow Tasmania to double the amount of electricity it exports.
> 
> 
> "But we're also going to need what's called dispatchable energy, because a lot of the new energy will come from wind, it will come from solar."
> 
> "And that's great a lot of the time, but some of the time, it's not windy, and it's not sunny, so we'll need to store that energy. And that's where we can turn on hydro, and pumped hydro."
> "The second cable relies on us constructing a pumped hydro power scheme and, again, we've done all the work to position ourselves to be ready to go with that," Mr Molnar said.
> 
> But the projects do not come cheap.
> 
> The estimated cost has already gone up. It could end up costing a combined $10 billion, including $2.25 billion for Battery of the Nation and $3.5 billion for Marinus Link. That price does not include wind development either.
> 
> Bruce Mountain from the Victoria Energy Policy Centre is critical of Snowy 2.0 and Tasmania's plans to become the Battery of the Nation.
> Mr Mountain's research, which was commissioned by the Bob Brown Foundation, found there were cheaper alternatives.
> The Victorian government — which would likely have to share the cost of Marinus Link — has instead identified the $4 billion KerangLink, which would connect the state to New South Wales, as its priority project.



I wonder if anyone has done a cost comparison of big hydro vs solar/wind/batteries at a household or community level ?

Would be interesting to see how they stack up.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I wonder if anyone has done a cost comparison of big hydro vs solar/wind/batteries at a household or community level ?
> 
> Would be interesting to see how they stack up.



They have been using a lot of battery installations in country W.A.
I think the real issues is a smurf says when you have several days of poor generation.


----------



## Belli

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting video on micro hydro generators.




Check out Marty T & Kris Harbour Natural Building (YouTubers).  Certainly different approaches for the off-grid aficionados.


----------



## macca

sptrawler said:


> They have been using a lot of battery installations in country W.A.
> I think the real issues is a smurf says when you have several days of poor generation.



Our world runs on electricity, we Must have it to live, we recently had very little sunshine for 12 of 14 days with very little wind, so we need major generation nearby.

If supply is so bad that a band of cloud can decide whether or not we can buy groceries, fuel etc or whether or not our hospitals have power, then something is dreadfully wrong.

The current answer to any shortfall here is to restrict supply to Tomago Aluminium smelter but if/when the problem worsens why would anyone put an industry requiring reliable power anywhere in Australia

When there are 75000 tourists in town with no power all hell breaks lose, it gets really ugly when tourists can't get a coffee


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I wonder if anyone has done a cost comparison of big hydro vs solar/wind/batteries at a household or community level ?
> 
> Would be interesting to see how they stack up.



I posted real cost estimates for some real projects on page 304 of this thread.

In short, batteries work nicely for short duration peak power but they're simply not an option for long duration storage. So if every day is sunny then sure, batteries can do the job, but even one calm night or cloudy day and down we go. That's fact not emotion.

Where the debate lies is how best to deal with days, and in particular multiple consecutive days, of poor wind + solar yield. That's a real scenario, one that has occurred in Victoria (and other states) every single year for as long as there's been wind and solar on the grid without exception.

On one side of the debate are the advocates for big hydro projects.

On the other side are the advocates for gas / diesel. This side usually also supports hydrogen, although nothing presently being built is using more than a tiny % of hydrogen in the mix in practice (and the equipment manufacturers themselves haven't worked out how to go fully hydrogen yet).

In that context the alternative to the Tasmanian projects is, in practice, an alternative large hydro project interstate or it's fossil fuels. Which brings me to:



sptrawler said:


> Mr Mountain's research, which was commissioned by the Bob Brown Foundation




Credit where it's due, Bob's done a lot for conservation and for the record I do agree with some of the issues and points he's raised over the years, including some of those opposed to hydro development.

On the other hand his staunch "no dams anywhere, no exceptions" approach isn't at all helpful in any serious attempt to shift the world away from fossil fuels.

In that regard well Bob Brown Foundation commissioning research that finds hydro isn't a good idea is a bit like a business lobby group commissioning research that finds wage rises aren't needed or a union commissioning a report which finds the opposite. It's an entirely predictable finding. 

I don't have issues with Bob personally but when it comes to all things hydro, and doubly so if it involves Hydro Tasmania, he's not exactly unbiased.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I posted real cost estimates for some real projects on page 304 of this thread.
> 
> In short, batteries work nicely for short duration peak power but they're simply not an option for long duration storage. So if every day is sunny then sure, batteries can do the job, but even one calm night or cloudy day and down we go. That's fact not emotion.
> 
> Where the debate lies is how best to deal with days, and in particular multiple consecutive days, of poor wind + solar yield. That's a real scenario, one that has occurred in Victoria (and other states) every single year for as long as there's been wind and solar on the grid without exception.
> 
> On one side of the debate are the advocates for big hydro projects.
> 
> On the other side are the advocates for gas / diesel. This side usually also supports hydrogen, although nothing presently being built is using more than a tiny % of hydrogen in the mix in practice (and the equipment manufacturers themselves haven't worked out how to go fully hydrogen yet).
> 
> In that context the alternative to the Tasmanian projects is, in practice, an alternative large hydro project interstate or it's fossil fuels. Which brings me to:
> 
> 
> 
> Credit where it's due, Bob's done a lot for conservation and for the record I do agree with some of the issues and points he's raised over the years, including some of those opposed to hydro development.
> 
> On the other hand his staunch "no dams anywhere, no exceptions" approach isn't at all helpful in any serious attempt to shift the world away from fossil fuels.
> 
> In that regard well Bob Brown Foundation commissioning research that finds hydro isn't a good idea is a bit like a business lobby group commissioning research that finds wage rises aren't needed or a union commissioning a report which finds the opposite. It's an entirely predictable finding.
> 
> I don't have issues with Bob personally but when it comes to all things hydro, and doubly so if it involves Hydro Tasmania, he's not exactly unbiased.



Hydro looks the best option in the long run, but how do you deal with the Snowy Hydro 2.0 situation ? It should have been producing power in 2024 but now it's 2028 and the cost has doubled to $4.5 billion. 









						Bowen slams Morrison and Taylor for hiding extent of Snowy 2.0 delays
					

Delays in the government-funded Snowy 2.0 could have big impact on timing of coal plant closures and shape of energy policy.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				




I realise nothing is easy, but shouldn't there be a stop gap solution to cover delays ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Hydro looks the best option in the long run, but how do you deal with the Snowy Hydro 2.0 situation ? It should have been producing power in 2024 but now it's 2028 and the cost has doubled to $4.5 billion.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Bowen slams Morrison and Taylor for hiding extent of Snowy 2.0 delays
> 
> 
> Delays in the government-funded Snowy 2.0 could have big impact on timing of coal plant closures and shape of energy policy.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> reneweconomy.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I realise nothing is easy, but shouldn't there be a stop gap solution to cover delays ?



Paying the generators an availability allowance is the stop gap solution, W.A does it, Taylor suggested it.
Snowy 2.0 and any other major project has just had a two year covid shutdown hit, a materials supply hit, a shipping disruption hit, a labour shortage hit.
I ordered a new car on March 1 and I recieved an sms today, they are hoping it will be on a ship late August.
My mate ordered a Hyundai i20 on Dec 9 last year, he recieved it two weeks ago.
I would love to hear Bowens plans on speeding things up, I mean let's get realistic, when is he going to actually say what his plan is.
I dont envy his position, but he will soon have to score some runs, rather than criticising.
He needs Snowy 2, he needs Kurri Kurri, he needs to get on with it IMO.
The same problems Taylor had, he has now, so best he grows a pair and gets on with sorting it, they have actually said they are going to achieve more by 2030. So the time for whining is over IMO, times short.
Lets be honest 6 months ago a lot of experts were saying Snowy2.0 wasnt required, I think I heard Labor mention the same at one stage.
Oh and I see Bruce Mountain is again been quoted.Lol


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Paying the generators an availability allowance is the stol gap solution, W.A does it.




OK , I'll admit some ignorance here, please be nice.

How do you pay a solar or wind farm to always be available ? They would have to build storage themselves. If that is batteries, Smurf has pointed out that batteries won't cut it when it comes to long generation 'droughts'. Doubtful if private enterprise is going to build pumped hydro.

So you have to keep coal plants running it seems, but are the Greens going to block the availability allowance for coal and gas ?

The more this this thing develops, the more it looks like government needs to step in and actually build things like hydro and gas rather than handing out cash  to the commercials.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> OK , I'll admit some ignorance here, please be nice.
> 
> How do you pay a solar or wind farm to always be available ? They would have to build storage themselves. If that is batteries, Smurf has pointed out that batteries won't cut it when it comes to long generation 'droughts'. Doubtful if private enterprise is going to build pumped hydro.
> 
> So you have to keep coal plants running it seems, but are the Greens going to block the availability allowance for coal and gas ?
> 
> The more this this thing develops, the more it looks like government needs to step in and actually build things like hydro and gas rather than handing out cash  to the commercials.



Absolutely, but the new Govt has now got the problem the last Govt had, vested interests and ideology.
The privates want to make a profit, the people want reliable power and the elites, greens, woke media personalities want renewables now no matter what the social or economic cost, because they can afford it.
Welcome to the real world Chris. Lol


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> how do you deal with the Snowy Hydro 2.0 situation ?



In regards to Marinus Link and the Tasmanian projects, suffice to say I have a lot of confidence that Hydro Tas can deliver.

It's very much a "check everything just in case" sort of organisation. Hence whilst not actually perfect, it comes pretty close - the list of major errors over the years isn't zero but it's remarkably short given the sheer scale of infrastructure built in the past and still operated today.

Related to that it's worth mentioning that HT is in the somewhat unusual position of being a government entity that contracts to others, both at the engineering level and in some cases running physical site works for some of the other electricity companies as well as water authorities, the mining industry and various governments. In the relatively recent past it has or is doing work in every Australian state, NZ, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Samoa, Fiji, South Africa, India and so on.

One particular project worth mentioning there being a large grid-connected battery, owned by another electricity generating company, in Victoria.

So barring some catastrophic unforeseen I wouldn't be too worried about HT's ability to build things in Tasmania and get it done on time.

Where any risk will exist is with Tas - Vic transmission since the very nature of that means it's highly reliant on the equipment manufacturer getting their part done on time.

Bearing in mind that a go ahead for both ultimately rests with someone being willing to fund it. From Tasmania's perspective well the purpose is to provide supply to Victoria, it's needed to keep the lights on in Melbourne not in Hobart, so there's simply no point proceeding if it can't be done on a profitable basis and that is at present the sticking point. It needs someone willing to pay.

As for Snowy 2.0 delays, my solution to that one probably won't win me too many friends but it's just being pragmatic - coal.

Extending the operation of the existing Eraring power station until completion of Snowy 2.0 would, from a technical perspective, be straightforward. It'll need some maintenance work done on the station to extend it's lifespan but nothing drastic, it's doable.

Coal supply to Eraring is also not impossible to fix for reasons most easily explained by saying there's an abundance of coal readily available 50km from the plant by road. Coal being a solid, and one that requires no special handling, well there's plenty of dump trucks around and surely some could be obtained to haul coal to the power station. Bearing in mind we're not talking about having to road haul the whole lot, just enough to fill the gap between what the local mine is supplying and what the station needs. It's doable, just needs actually doing.

Eraring is owned by Origin and whilst I can't speak for them, I'd be surprised if they weren't willing to come to an arrangement with government to keep it running. The economics are problematic but technically up to a decade could be stretched out of it from the present, so through to ~2032, and that easily covers completion of Snowy.

Why Eraring? Simply because it's already built and it does the job as a temporary solution. There's zero lead time.  

Technical specs of the existing Eraring station being:

4 x nominally 660MW steam units using coal as fuel. They can be pushed to 720MW each if needed, though not in practice run beyond 700MW unless the situation is desperate.

1 x 40MW gas turbine. This is fired with diesel only, and is normally not run but can be if required.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Eraring is owned by Origin and whilst I can't speak for them, I'd be surprised if they weren't willing to come to an arrangement with government to keep it running. The economics are problematic but technically up to a decade could be stretched out of it from the present, so through to ~2032, and that easily covers completion of Snowy.
> 
> Why Eraring? Simply because it's already built and it does the job as a temporary solution. There's zero lead time.
> 
> Technical specs of the existing Eraring station being:
> 
> 4 x nominally 660MW steam units using coal as fuel. They can be pushed to 720MW each if needed, though not in practice run beyond 700MW unless the situation is desperate.
> 
> 1 x 40MW gas turbine. This is fired with diesel only, and is normally not run but can be if required.



And then you get ideology and virtue signaling, overriding common sense, I wonder if this will come back to bite them on the butt?
Between Vic not looking for gas, NSW trying to look greener than Kermit and the Feds trying to look like they have a plan, rather than just a target, I think the grid will fall into a heap over East.
Why the NSW and Victorian Govt's didn't do a joint buy out, to shore up their renewable transition, may be an interesting question eventually.








						NSW government knocked back Origin offer to sell Eraring power plant
					

Advisors believed the company was “socially responsible” and would not shut the plant down in 2025 if the market needed the supply. They were wrong.




					www.afr.com
				




_The NSW government considered a pitch to buy the loss-making Eraring Power Station in secret talks with Origin Energy last year. But the deal fell apart amid government concerns that underwriting a plan to keep the coal-fired power station open longer could “crowd out” other investments in energy.
After negotiations failed Origin announced the closure of Eraring in 2025_.


Meanwhile in W.A, the push toward clean energy continues, in the recent article W.A eventually to install 4.4GWof batteries and some pumped hydro.








						Inside Synergy’s bittersweet race from coal to clean
					

For Synergy boss David Fyfe, closing two coal-fired power stations is bittersweet: the end of an era for Collie but the start of a seven-year race to build cleaner more flexible power.




					www.watoday.com.au
				



The boss of Western Australia’s state-owned power company had only been in the job four weeks when the premier revealed the backbone of his business – two coal-fired plants in Collie – would close this decade to be replaced by wind, storage and gas.
Synergy chief executive David Fyfe said the long-expected mid-June announcement was a bittersweet moment for a business that has people who “bleed coal”.

​


----------



## sptrawler

Well Origin energy busted for not being nice to customers who dont pay their bills,this will be interesting.


----------



## sptrawler

A lot of interesting info starting to come out.








						Urgent investment in key projects needed to shore up electricity supply, energy market operator says
					

More than $12 billion of investment in new transmission lines should begin "as urgently as possible" to ensure electricity supply is secure in the coming decade, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article;
More than $12 billion of investment in new transmission lines should begin "as urgently as possible" to ensure electricity supply is secure in the coming decade, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).
The five projects — HumeLink, VNI West, Marinus Link, Sydney Ring and New England REZ Transmission Link — are all currently being assessed for regulatory approval or should begin that process soon.
HumeLink would connect electricity generated by Snowy 2.0 to the grid, while Marinus Link is vital for Tasmanian pumped hydro and wind-power projects to connect to the mainland.

The five priority projects are in addition to another seven transmission links already under development.

"Australia is experiencing a complex, rapid and irreversible energy transformation," AEMO CEO Daniel Westerman said in a statement.
Transmission upgrades are needed to allow renewable energy and storage facilities scattered around the country to connect to the grid, and to accommodate "two-way" flow from storage facilities and rooftop solar.

Coal-fired power stations planning to close ahead of schedule are adding to the pressure to modernise the electricity grid quickly.

"The future of Australia's energy is a matter of great national urgency," the report states, noting that 100 per cent of electricity on the east coast could — at times — be provided by renewable energy as soon as 2025.
Figures in the ISP suggest it will take $320 billion of investment from both the public and private sector to fully transform the electricity grid, including by providing new power generation and storage, between now and 2050.
Mr Westerman also said he was hopeful state and territory governments would speed up their transition to renewable energy sooner rather than later.

"That is why we are calling for urgent action and investment on renewables, on firmings — so dispatchable capacity and transmission — so that the energy is there at the lowest cost and most reliable form for Australians when coal fired power stations do close," he said.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Figures in the ISP suggest it will take $320 billion of investment



Yep. 

People really need to get their minds around the idea of what's required.

In truth, $1 billion is a rounding error, it's loose change when it comes to this stuff.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Yep.
> 
> People really need to get their minds around the idea of what's required.
> 
> In truth, $1 billion is a rounding error, it's loose change when it comes to this stuff.



What I can't get my head around, is the amount of money that needs to be spent, to install the amount of renewable generation and storage required.
Then I think of the amount of consumers, who have to give the renewable generators a return on their capital, to make the investment worthwhile financially. I just can't see where the profit is going to come from to encourage the investment, when there is so much excess capacity going to be needed.
My guess is the low hanging fruit gets snapped up by the private sector, but when that has gone, it will end up being the taxpayer to install the generation of last resort and I don't think it will be renewables.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> What I can't get my head around, is the amount of money that needs to be spent, to install the amount of renewable generation and storage required.
> Then I think of the amount of consumers, who have to give the renewable generators a return on their capital, to make the investment worthwhile financially. I just can't see where the profit is going to come from to encourage the investment, when there is so much excess capacity going to be needed.
> *My guess is the low hanging fruit gets snapped up by the private sector, but when that has gone, it will end up being the taxpayer to install the generation of last resort and I don't think it will be renewables.*





Probably the low hanging fruit is domestic solar and wind but integrating it into the grid is beyond the wit of private companies imo, it has to be on an nationwide basis with State and Federal governments coordinating the strategy.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Probably the low hanging fruit is domestic solar and wind but integrating it into the grid is beyond the wit of private companies imo, it has to be on an nationwide basis with State and Federal governments coordinating the strategy.



It certainly will be interesting IMO, the solar farms and wind farms, that get built first will mop up the readily available market, that the coal generators leave behind.
But because we need twice as much renewables generation as we need, to supply the load and secondly to charge the storage, there will be a lot of generation and storage built that is only required for minimal times. So I can't see the private sector wanting to be building plant, that doesn't earn money for a lot of the time, then if the Governments have to pay them for availability they will have to build a lot of storage.
I just can't see how electricity bills are going to get cheaper.
It will be fascinating to watch how they navigate through all this.


----------



## SirRumpole

I wonder if this https://www.sugarcane.org/sugarcane-products/bioelectricity/ has been considered seeing we are a large sugarcane producer.


----------



## macca

SirRumpole said:


> I wonder if this https://www.sugarcane.org/sugarcane-products/bioelectricity/ has been considered seeing we are a large sugarcane producer.




Another bit of info on sugar cane, which has been studiously ignored by Governments, is that it is the only fuel that is actually positive when used to create ethanol.

Wheat is really quite negative in as much as more than one barrel of oil is used to create one barrel of ethanol


----------



## SirRumpole

macca said:


> Another bit of info on sugar cane, which has been studiously ignored by Governments, is that it is the only fuel that is actually positive when used to create ethanol.
> 
> Wheat is really quite negative in as much as more than one barrel of oil is used to create one barrel of ethanol



The US uses corn which is a waste of a good food crop imo.


----------



## macca

SirRumpole said:


> The US uses corn which is a waste of a good food crop imo.




For sure, it uses more than a barrel of oil to make one barrel from corn but it is much better than wheat. 

It also drives up the value of corn, making it dearer for people to buy for food.


----------



## basilio

No xhit Sherlock... The AMEO plan to massively upgrade power transmission lines is (far) easier said than done. But one way or another it has to be done..









						The blueprint for our energy future has a term that needs explaining — urgent
					

Why struggling to build a simple high-voltage power line is symptomatic of the difficulties in fixing a broken energy system.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> No xhit Sherlock... The AMEO plan to massively upgrade power transmission lines is (far) easier said than done. But one way or another it has to be done..
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The blueprint for our energy future has a term that needs explaining — urgent
> 
> 
> Why struggling to build a simple high-voltage power line is symptomatic of the difficulties in fixing a broken energy system.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au




That just shows the basic problem, who is going to pay ?

Imo it would be cheaper in the long run for governments to build the transmissions lines and cut out the middlemen.


----------



## SirRumpole

Is geo thermal power dangerous ?

Some of it may be.


----------



## SirRumpole

The ins and outs of pumped hydro and compressed air storage.


----------



## basilio

Elegant  , clean, cost effective.  A CO2 Battery bank.


The world’s first CO2 battery for long-duration energy storage is being commercialized [update]​ 

                                Michelle Lewis                             

                            - Jun. 28th 2022 8:31 am PT                               










Italian startup Energy Dome has now begun to commercialize the world’s first CO2 Battery, which was launched earlier this month in Sardinia, Italy. The battery uses carbon dioxide to store renewable energy on the grid, and Energy Dome says the technology can be quickly deployed anywhere in the world.

*June 28 update:* Energy Dome today announced that it has secured $11 million in bridge funding, which will enable it to buy equipment for a 20-megawatt/200-megawatt-hour/10-hour duration facility for Italian utility A2A, with which it has a memorandum of understanding.

The Evolution Fund of asset management company CDP Venture Capital Sgr, together with existing investor Barclays, led the convertible funding. Swiss family office Novum Capital Partners, an existing shareholder in Energy Dome, also joined the round. 

With the closing of this latest convertible round, Energy Dome has now raised a total of nearly $25 million since the company emerged from stealth mode in February 2020. Its series B round is planned for later in 2022.









						The world's first CO2 battery for long-duration energy storage is being commercialized [update]
					

Italian startup Energy Dome launched the world's first CO2 battery, and now it's commercializing it for a major Italian utility.




					electrek.co


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## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Elegant  , clean, cost effective.  A CO2 Battery bank.
> 
> 
> The world’s first CO2 battery for long-duration energy storage is being commercialized [update]​
> 
> Michelle Lewis
> 
> - Jun. 28th 2022 8:31 am PT
> 
> 
> View attachment 143701
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Italian startup Energy Dome has now begun to commercialize the world’s first CO2 Battery, which was launched earlier this month in Sardinia, Italy. The battery uses carbon dioxide to store renewable energy on the grid, and Energy Dome says the technology can be quickly deployed anywhere in the world.
> 
> *June 28 update:* Energy Dome today announced that it has secured $11 million in bridge funding, which will enable it to buy equipment for a 20-megawatt/200-megawatt-hour/10-hour duration facility for Italian utility A2A, with which it has a memorandum of understanding.
> 
> The Evolution Fund of asset management company CDP Venture Capital Sgr, together with existing investor Barclays, led the convertible funding. Swiss family office Novum Capital Partners, an existing shareholder in Energy Dome, also joined the round.
> 
> With the closing of this latest convertible round, Energy Dome has now raised a total of nearly $25 million since the company emerged from stealth mode in February 2020. Its series B round is planned for later in 2022.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The world's first CO2 battery for long-duration energy storage is being commercialized [update]
> 
> 
> Italian startup Energy Dome launched the world's first CO2 battery, and now it's commercializing it for a major Italian utility.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> electrek.co



It sounds like there are a lot of loses in the system, compressing, condensing reheating, condensing and then supplying the fuel to drive the compressor. it will be interesting to watch


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## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> It sounds like there are a lot of loses in the system, compressing, condensing reheating, condensing and then supplying the fuel to drive the compressor. it will be interesting to watch



Lots of storage systems proposing they are 'the future'.

Here's another one.


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## SirRumpole

Wind turbines by IKEA ?

Not quite, but wood is making a comeback.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Lots of storage systems proposing they are 'the future'.
> 
> Here's another one.







SirRumpole said:


> Wind turbines by IKEA ?
> 
> Not quite, but wood is making a comeback.




With the crap Europe has got itself into, every weird and wonderful idea will be dreamt up and they will all be followed by a request for public funding, or a blue sky IPO.🤣🤣🤣


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Wind turbines by IKEA ?
> 
> Not quite, but wood is making a comeback.




Replacement pipeline under construction at Lake Margaret Lower power station, Tasmania, 2010:






And yes it's watertight:






Upper station pipeline also rebuilt with woodstave the previous year.

Replaced due to old one having reached end of life:






Incidentally they tend to erode from the outside in - wind blown hail in particular wears the pipe away from the top side.


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## Smurf1976

If you're wondering what all this hydro stuff looks like inside:


----------



## Smurf1976

Much the same approach used anywhere:

Replacement turbine runner at Poatina power station (Tas). These machines are 57MW each and there's six in the station, all vertical axis much like those shown in the video:






Francis turbine casing. Note shaft extending upwards. At Tungatinah power station, Tas. These are small machines, originally 25MW each when first installed (1953) upgraded to 28MW each a few years ago:





Next level up, at Tungatinah:





I don't have a photo handy of the generator floor at the same station but not a lot to see, everything being enclosed behind concrete but for the record here's Poatina:





Top level at Tungatinah:





Shaft exactly like the one Richard put the dynamo against in the video. Location = Gordon PS, Tas. These are 144MW machines with three in the station:






Inlet valve at Gordon PS from above. For scale not walkway top. Flow rate = 92,000 litres / second.





So it all looks much the same anywhere. All modern hydro machines are vertical axis, turbine at the bottom, apart from tiny units on the hobby sort of scale.

The last major horizontal axis machines, with the turbine beside the alternator, in Tas were installed in 1951 and much the same in most places. Even that was only to complete a station the first units of which were commissioned in 1938 - if it hadn't been for WW2 then the last would've been in the 1940's.

Vertical axis does have various advantages but key is that it enables the turbine to be lower, right at the bottom, gaining some additional head and thus increased output from the same water volume. 

A fairly small, 15MW, horizontal axis machine with the turbine cover removed. Location = Tarraleah PS, Tas. Age = installed 1938 and apart from maintenance outages has been in baseload service ever since and still is today:


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## sptrawler

That is what we in the industry call GRUNT.
You don't need a shaft that big unless you've got grunt, just saying. 🤣
It takes a lot of solar panels to get that amount of inertia.
Sometimes size matters.


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## SirRumpole

Interesting to see the guts of it all up close. Certainly gives a sense of perspective as to how it all fits together.


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## Value Collector

mullokintyre said:


> Where would all this spare capacity be coming from?
> Obviously there will be no solar , so either lots of wind , battery, hydro, or geothermal(just kiddin).
> Otherwise its still burning fossil fuels which defeat the purpose of  the whole exercise.
> Mick



We are talking about spare capacity on the grid, eg how much electricity can be moved into a neighbourhood at one time, limited by the capacity of the transformers and power lines etc.

What you are talking about is generation, that will come from a mixture of Wind, Hydro, Natural gas and Coal, and some other things and obviously Solar during the day.

If you are interested in how the grid is going to operate using a mix of wind and natural gas and offcourse a decreasing amount of coal, check out this investor presentation from APA.

You can see it’s predicted that all energy sources are predicted to grow, except for coal.



			https://www.apa.com.au/globalassets/documents/presentations/apa-investor-morning-presentation-2022.pdf
		


Here is an interesting slide from the presentation, you can see wind is going to play an increasingly important role, and yes it will be backed up by batteries, pumped hydro and Natural Gas.


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## JohnDe

Worth a listen - 









						How did it come to this — the energy crisis we had to have? - ABC Radio National
					

Australia has everything it needs to produce electricity - coal, gas, sun, and wind. Yet we've wound up with energy shortages and huge price hikes. How did we get here - why is our energy system in such a mess? And what can we do to fix it?




					www.abc.net.au


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting to see the guts of it all up close. Certainly gives a sense of perspective as to how it all fits together.




Another explanation from Hammond:



And another example of the same concept at a facility in Australia:



Location = Liapootah power station, Tas. That's a "real" test being done, not just filming for the sake of it.


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## mullokintyre

Value Collector said:


> We are talking about spare capacity on the grid, eg how much electricity can be moved into a neighbourhood at one time, limited by the capacity of the transformers and power lines etc.
> 
> What you are talking about is generation, that will come from a mixture of Wind, Hydro, Natural gas and Coal, and some other things and obviously Solar during the day.



You are dealing in semantics.
There will not be spare capacity unless there is generation.
As for the spiel from APA, it is a player in the market, looking to make money from the market.
Its a prediction,  a prediction skewed to maximising APA's profits.
We have no idea as to how accurate their prediction is, what is the validity of their assumptions,  or where they got their inputs from.
Given the poor records of so many institutions , I take such predictions with a grain of salt.



Value Collector said:


> If you are interested in how the grid is going to operate using a mix of wind and natural gas and offcourse a decreasing amount of coal, check out this investor presentation from APA.
> 
> You can see it’s predicted that all energy sources are predicted to grow, except for coal.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.apa.com.au/globalassets/documents/presentations/apa-investor-morning-presentation-2022.pdf
> 
> 
> 
> Here is an interesting slide from the presentation, you can see wind is going to play an increasingly important role, and yes it will be backed up by batteries, pumped hydro and Natural Gas.
> 
> View attachment 143808



As for the the statement wind is going to play an increasingly important role,  if the wind does not blow  for some time, no matter how many wind turbines are erected, they will not produce.
Just as no matter how many solar panels they install, they will not produce much at night.
What they need is to be able to store the excess energy when the wind does blow, or the sun does shine.
Whether that is by pumped hydro, batteries, chemical storage, or some as yet unthought of mechanism,  we still need to face up to the extreme variability of two of the main  renewable generation mechanisms, wind and solar.

According to the Department of Energy


> The figure shows Australian electricity generation fuel mix in shares from 1994-95 to 2019-20 and calendar year 2020. Fossil fuels contributed 76% of total electricity generation in 2020, including coal (54%), gas (20%) and oil (2%).



So even after spending billions on renewables, we see that fossil fuels still provide 76% of total energy.
There will be days when they can provide  nearly 100%, but we have to provide for those periods when it falls a long way short.


Mick


----------



## Eager

The future of energy generation and storage? First, a disclaimer. I hold RFX. It's the reason I saw their announcement today:


			https://cdn-api.markitdigital.com/apiman-gateway/ASX/asx-research/1.0/file/2924-02539740-2A1384167?access_token=83ff96335c2d45a094df02a206a39ff4
		


Definitely an alternative to lithium.

RFX rose 20% today. I'm not looking garner interest here to boost their price, nor am I looking to sell. Posted for info only.


----------



## Value Collector

mullokintyre said:


> You are dealing in semantics.
> There will not be spare capacity unless there is generation.
> As for the spiel from APA, it is a player in the market, looking to make money from the market.
> Its a prediction,  a prediction skewed to maximising APA's profits.
> We have no idea as to how accurate their prediction is, what is the validity of their assumptions,  or where they got their inputs from.
> Given the poor records of so many institutions , I take such predictions with a grain of salt.
> 
> 
> As for the the statement wind is going to play an increasingly important role,  if the wind does not blow  for some time, no matter how many wind turbines are erected, they will not produce.
> Just as no matter how many solar panels they install, they will not produce much at night.
> What they need is to be able to store the excess energy when the wind does blow, or the sun does shine.
> Whether that is by pumped hydro, batteries, chemical storage, or some as yet unthought of mechanism,  we still need to face up to the extreme variability of two of the main  renewable generation mechanisms, wind and solar.
> 
> According to the Department of Energy
> 
> So even after spending billions on renewables, we see that fossil fuels still provide 76% of total energy.
> There will be days when they can provide  nearly 100%, but we have to provide for those periods when it falls a long way short.
> 
> 
> Mick



It’s not semantics, my comments were directly in relation to what sptrawler was saying about the grids capacity to transport electricity, we were not discussing generation capacity which is a different topic.

—————
In regards to the APA model, it was not created by APA it’s from an independent group.

But it’s pretty logical, and is just an extension of what is already planned and playing out, I am not sure how you can disagree with it.

It seems like common sense that both wind and solar will continue growing, Coal will continue declining and Natural gas, batteries and pumped hydro will fill the gaps between demand and renewable production.

———————

I think every one in the energy industry understands that wind and solar are intermittent, hence the whole idea in the chart is that Natural Gas usage will grow, and will pumped hydro and battery storage, and what ever residual coal capacity that exists will continue being used.


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## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> I think every one in the energy industry understands that wind and solar are intermittent, hence the whole idea in the chart is that Natural Gas usage will grow, and will pumped hydro and battery storage, and what ever residual coal capacity that exists will continue being used.



Everyone in the industry understands it.

Everyone in the industry just wishes the politicians and media either understood it or listened to those who do.

On the inside, the only real debate about the long term comes down to the means of providing deep firming. That is, in practice, gas versus hydro.

Unsurprisingly gas companies argue for the use of gas as the means of doing it whilst hydro companies argue for the use of hydro. No surprises there but that's where any real debate exists, the rest's relatively certain.

In the context of EV's, so long as they're charged outside the peaks then bottom line is an EV uses far less oil or gas than does a comparable internal combustion driven vehicle. That they're imperfect doesn't stop them being an improvement.

If people do charge them during the peaks well that would be a problem definitely. That's an area where a degree of force will need to be applied. The days of flat rate electricity tariffs are numbered, very much so. 

 As for chargers, well unless someone travels long distances on consecutive days then they simply have no need for rapid charging. Even if they do travel 400km on one day, that's just not an issue if they're only driving 20km the following day. Charging at a modest rate will do the job - very few people fill their car with petrol on a daily basis after all.

Suffice to say I won't be installing a 22kW or similar charger at home simply because I've no need to do so. In the unlikely event that I'm travelling huge distances on two consecutive days, that would be in the context of staying somewhere other than home overnight so there's simply no benefit in high rate charging at home.


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## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> Everyone in the industry understands it.
> 
> Everyone in the industry just wishes the politicians and media either understood it or listened to those who do.
> 
> On the inside, the only real debate about the long term comes down to the means of providing deep firming. That is, in practice, gas versus hydro.
> 
> Unsurprisingly gas companies argue for the use of gas as the means of doing it whilst hydro companies argue for the use of hydro. No surprises there but that's where any real debate exists, the rest's relatively certain.
> 
> In the context of EV's, so long as they're charged outside the peaks then bottom line is an EV uses far less oil or gas than does a comparable internal combustion driven vehicle. That they're imperfect doesn't stop them being an improvement.
> 
> If people do charge them during the peaks well that would be a problem definitely. That's an area where a degree of force will need to be applied. The days of flat rate electricity tariffs are numbered, very much so.
> 
> As for chargers, well unless someone travels long distances on consecutive days then they simply have no need for rapid charging. Even if they do travel 400km on one day, that's just not an issue if they're only driving 20km the following day. Charging at a modest rate will do the job - very few people fill their car with petrol on a daily basis after all.
> 
> Suffice to say I won't be installing a 22kW or similar charger at home simply because I've no need to do so. In the unlikely event that I'm travelling huge distances on two consecutive days, that would be in the context of staying somewhere other than home overnight so there's simply no benefit in high rate charging at home.



Just one point i want to moderate is your notion of high charging caoacity.
The current standards for rechargong as i research these in 2022 are
#Just plug standard power point.. trickle charging..13 h or so hours to recharge fully on a 350 km range....forget it based on users general feedback..but yes can be done..not impossible i agree
#Most common chargers:
7kwh can recharge a fully depleted battery in 7h or so for std EV.,45 to 50kwh capacity.battery plenty enough for normal use..that is needed and remains a must have..if EVs develop,that will become the norm imho.
It is still called a high capacity charger,on its own will consume more than what your std solar PV setup produce and will cost the EV owner an extra 2k to install.
#More powerful chargers? Probably indeed nor possible nor needed   for domestic setups


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## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> Everyone in the industry understands it.
> 
> Everyone in the industry just wishes the politicians and media either understood it or listened to those who do.
> 
> On the inside, the only real debate about the long term comes down to the means of providing deep firming. That is, in practice, gas versus hydro.
> 
> Unsurprisingly gas companies argue for the use of gas as the means of doing it whilst hydro companies argue for the use of hydro. No surprises there but that's where any real debate exists, the rest's relatively certain.
> 
> In the context of EV's, so long as they're charged outside the peaks then bottom line is an EV uses far less oil or gas than does a comparable internal combustion driven vehicle. That they're imperfect doesn't stop them being an improvement.
> 
> If people do charge them during the peaks well that would be a problem definitely. That's an area where a degree of force will need to be applied. The days of flat rate electricity tariffs are numbered, very much so.
> 
> As for chargers, well unless someone travels long distances on consecutive days then they simply have no need for rapid charging. Even if they do travel 400km on one day, that's just not an issue if they're only driving 20km the following day. Charging at a modest rate will do the job - very few people fill their car with petrol on a daily basis after all.
> 
> Suffice to say I won't be installing a 22kW or similar charger at home simply because I've no need to do so. In the unlikely event that I'm travelling huge distances on two consecutive days, that would be in the context of staying somewhere other than home overnight so there's simply no benefit in high rate charging at home.



I think that at the rate that Coal is predicted to decline we are going to need both Hydro and gas firming.

I don’t know about you, but I think that if EV adoption takes off (probably inevitable), and smart charging and electricity storage becomes wise spread, I believe the returns on capital invested in the electricity sector are going to be very attractive.

The biggest blocker of more wind and solar projects being green lit has been the low wholesale prices during the day for solar and during the night for wind, being able to sell all the wind power you generate at a decent price for an extra 8 hours a day really boost the return on capital of projects, so the more EV’s the better for companies like APA that own the firming and are investing in new renewables and transmission.


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## JohnDe

The Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro was pointless during the heavy rains and flooding, because it would have worsened current flooding.

https://www.abc.net.au/radionationa...TFVNhAvBXqJlr0gZETHZNxf08KQC50Eajfg&fs=e&s=cl


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## Value Collector

JohnDe said:


> The Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro was pointless during the heavy rains and flooding, because it would have worsened current flooding.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/radionationa...TFVNhAvBXqJlr0gZETHZNxf08KQC50Eajfg&fs=e&s=cl



I haven’t listened to the 29min link yet, but what was their main point? Snowy 2.0 is just designed to pump water uphill when there is excess electricity available and allow it to run down hill later when extra power is needed, it wasn’t intended to provide flood mitigation.

Is their argument just that when the lower dam is spilling that releasing from the higher dam would add to water flow, if that’s all they are worried about I don’t see that as a major problem, just temporary Inconvenience, it’s still going to be a huge plus to grid security for the other 99.9% of the time when there isn’t flooding.


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## JohnDe

Value Collector said:


> I haven’t listened to the 29min link yet, but what was their main point? Snowy 2.0 is just designed to pump water uphill when there is excess electricity available and allow it to run down hill later when extra power is needed, it wasn’t intended to provide flood mitigation.
> 
> Is their argument just that when the lower dam is spilling that releasing from the higher dam would add to water flow, if that’s all they are worried about I don’t see that as a major problem, just temporary Inconvenience, it’s still going to be a huge plus to grid security for the other 99.9% of the time when there isn’t flooding.




Well it is always a good idea to do some research before giving advice, especially when the resource has been given 

*The lower dam is full.*

News report, 10 days ago -



> In recent weeks electricity provider Snowy Hydro has been called on to increase production from its Tumut 3 Power Station....
> 
> *Snowy Hydro has said on its website it is "significantly constrained" due to current water levels in Blowering Dam* — the Water NSW-managed dam from which the Tumut River flows, and the final storage in the company's Tumut section of the Snowy scheme.
> 
> *Blowering has almost reached full capacity due to recent heavy rain*, but in order for Snowy Hydro to make power out of Tumut 3 Power Station it has to pump water that ends up in the reservoir.
> 
> "*It is possible Blowering Reservoir will fill and spill, potentially exceeding the Tumut River channel capacity*," Snowy Hydro said.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As Snowy Hydro ramps up production amid power crisis, nearby farmers fear discharge flooding
> 
> 
> Further water releases from the Snowy Hydro and the Tumut River channel already at capacity have farmers downstream concerned, one saying there should have been better planning before now.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au


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## SirRumpole

The ins and outs of tidal power.


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## Value Collector

JohnDe said:


> Well it is always a good idea to do some research before giving advice, especially when the resource has been given
> 
> *The lower dam is full.*
> 
> News report, 10 days ago -



I just listened to your 29 min “resource” it doesn’t talk about the Snowy hydro 2.0 project in regards to flooding, it is talking about the existing snowy hydro scheme, so yes maybe you do need to do some research to understand your own link before posting it.

The 29 mins is not really very informative at all, it’s basically 29 mins of alarmist, cynical and political sound bites that don’t really give the listener any information of actual merit, I would say it’s more for entertainment value to those who enjoy being cynical and pessimistic rather than those actually interested in educating themselves about the system.

But in regards to blowering dam being full and flooding the snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme, when it’s actually up and running in the future, could actually take water out of the blowering system/catchment and store it in another dam so may actually have minor flood mitigation potential, in the future.


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## JohnDe

Value Collector said:


> I just listened to your 29 min “resource” it doesn’t talk about the Snowy hydro 2.0 project in regards to flooding, it is talking about the existing snowy hydro scheme, so yes maybe you do need to do some research to understand your own link before posting it.
> 
> The 29 mins is not really very informative at all, it’s basically 29 mins of alarmist, cynical and political sound bites that don’t really give the listener any information of actual merit, I would say it’s more for entertainment value to those who enjoy being cynical and pessimistic rather than those actually interested in educating themselves about the system.
> 
> But in regards to blowering dam being full and flooding the snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme, when it’s actually up and running in the future, could actually take water out of the blowering system/catchment and store it in another dam so may actually have minor flood mitigation potential, in the future.




Wording, sorry. At the 17:25 minute mark _"__t*he thing that really crippled, us which not many people art talking about*__, was the fact that Snowy Hydro couldn't drop enough water to generate emergency effectively hydro electric power because the Blowering Dam is full. And because of that unit 3 couldn't generate, because they couldn't drop the water to generate electricity because they would have caused wide spread flooding."_

Your statement - "_snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme, when it’s actually up and running in the future, could actually take water out of the blowering system/catchment and store it in another dam so may actually have minor flood mitigation potentia_l", does not make sense.

How will the team at Snowy 2.0, know when to keep the upper dam empty to allow them to take water from the lower dam to reduce it's capacity during flooding periods?
And if they can predict the exact time this is required, won't this cause the same problem that they just had? Not able to drop the water down to generate emergency electricity because of wide spread flooding.
Finally, if they keep the upper dam empty during flood periods and we continue to have electricity shortages, how will they pump the water to the top without using power from the grid during power shortages?


----------



## Value Collector

JohnDe said:


> How will the team at Snowy 2.0, know when to keep the upper dam empty to allow them to take water from the lower dam to reduce it's capacity during flooding periods?




Firstly, flood management is not the primary goal of Snowy 2.0.

But, its Top dam will very rarely be full, it is absolutely Huge, it would take over a week of pumping 24 hours a day to fill it.




> And if they can predict the exact time this is required, won't this cause the same problem that they just had? Not able to drop the water down to generate emergency electricity because of wide spread flooding.



You are assuming that the need for emergency power happens at the same time as the heavy rain event, that is definitely not always going to be the case, just because its raining heavily in the snowy mountains doesn't mean that its not windy or sunny across other parts of the country, this recent "Crisis" was caused by coal plants shutting down, as renewables catch up this is going to a much smaller issue.



> Finally, if they keep the upper dam empty during flood periods and we continue to have electricity shortages, how will they pump the water to the top without using power from the grid during power shortages?



They won't be keeping the upper dam empty, they will be pumping into it it when ever there is spare electricity on the grid, some times this will align with times of flooding and the pumping will have a positive impact and reduce the severity, sometimes they won't be pumping during floods in which case the flood will just be what it is and snowy 2.0 will be neither a negative or positive in regards to flooding.

Just because you have an "energy crisis" between 4pm and 8pm, doesn't mean that you won't have extra electricity 6 hours later between 12am and 6am that you can use to pump.

But over all the system of many dams in the snowy does prevent a lot of flooding events and drought by smoothing out flow, But yeah sometimes its electrical generation is limited during these heavy rain periods, but they other 99.9% of the time its providing a huge boost to our green energy production, and Snowy 2.0 is going to be an even bigger boost to wind and solar.


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## JohnDe

Value Collector said:


> Firstly, flood management is not the primary goal of Snowy 2.0.




I never said that or implied it. My very first comment (editied for you) was -
_"The Snowy hydro generator was pointless during the heavy rains and flooding, because it would have worsened current flooding."_
And I backed it up with a reference from experts in the field, including *Tina Soloman Hunter is professor of constitutional law and energy and resources law at Macquarie university. She's also the director of the Centre for Energy, Natural Resources, Innovation and Transformation at Macquarie University.*
_https://www.abc.net.au/radionationa...TFVNhAvBXqJlr0gZETHZNxf08KQC50Eajfg&fs=e&s=cl_



Value Collector said:


> But, its Top dam will very rarely be full, it is absolutely Huge, it would take over a week of pumping 24 hours a day to fill it.




"absolutely huge" is it? tell that the NSW's going through their third flood in the same year. "This is the third flood here in 12 months,"




Value Collector said:


> You are assuming that the need for emergency power happens at the same time as the heavy rain event,




No I am not, I just gave an example of one of our major electricity generators going off line during a major weather incident, that's all.


----------



## Value Collector

JohnDe said:


> I never said that or implied it. My very first comment (editied for you) was -
> _"The Snowy hydro generator was pointless during the heavy rains and flooding, because it would have worsened current flooding."_
> And I backed it up with a reference from experts in the field, including *Tina Soloman Hunter is professor of constitutional law and energy and resources law at Macquarie university. She's also the director of the Centre for Energy, Natural Resources, Innovation and Transformation at Macquarie University.*
> _https://www.abc.net.au/radionationa...TFVNhAvBXqJlr0gZETHZNxf08KQC50Eajfg&fs=e&s=cl_
> 
> 
> 
> "absolutely huge" is it? tell that the NSW's going through their third flood in the same year. "This is the third flood here in 12 months,"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No I am not, I just gave an example of one of our major electricity generators going off line during a major weather incident, that's all.



You are a bit all over the place with your comments, you seem to be saying one thing, then when I address it you switch to a different thing then when I address that you switch back.

Let me try and clear up some of the points below.

————-

Yes, Snowy Hydro 2.0’s top dam is huge, it takes about 175 hours (7 full days) of pumping to fill it, which would be about a month of pumping, with no draw downs if it pumped for 6 hours a days compared to other pumped hydro which have much smaller capacity.

No, this project is not designed for flood mitigation although this could be a side benefit sometimes if pumping aligns with periods of heavy rain fall that’s causing the lower dam to spill.

Neither of the facts in the above two paragraphs have anything to do with previous floods this year because Snowy 2.0 is still under construction.

Yes floods still occur, of course they do, the area has always been subject to flooding both before and after the dams were constructed.

No, the dams can not prevent 100% of flooding.

Yes, the dams can and do provide some flood mitigation.

No, the dams can not produce electricity at 100% capacity during high rainfall events.

Yes, at the 99.9% of other times when it’s not flooding the snowy scheme is a great source of electricity generation and storage.


----------



## JohnDe

Value Collector said:


> You are a bit all over the place with your comments, you seem to be saying one thing, then when I address it you switch to a different thing then when I address that you switch back.




That's funny, I was thinking the same about how you hound everyone with your comments.




Value Collector said:


> Let me try and clear up some of the points below.
> 
> ————-
> 
> Yes, Snowy Hydro 2.0’s top dam is huge, it takes about 175 hours (7 full days) of pumping to fill it, which would be about a month of pumping, with no draw downs if it pumped for 6 hours a days compared to other pumped hydro which have much smaller capacity.




Huge it could almost be a metaphor in this situation. Huge, extremely large; enormous.
Is the sky that the rain fell from that caused widespread flooding, three times in one year, "huge" or is it gigantic, humungous?

I don't care how "huge" the top dam is, my original point was, and still is, in relation to electricity. When the electricity was required to support a failing system, Snowy could not be used. And as the audio points out, Snowy alone is not enough to support our electricity supply/grid.

It is true that the flooding has been extreme. Just like it is true that we are going through an environment change that has seen more and more regular flooding.

Why you keep bringing flood mitigation into this is unknown to me, only you keep mentioning it. I can only guess that you are falling on old habits.

And now that you have got me looking further into Snowy 2.0, I now believe it to be a waste of our tax dollars. *Five years on, Snowy 2.0 emerges as a $10 billion white elephant*

Imagine what could have been done to prepare the national electricity grid with $10 billion.

How did it come to this — the energy crisis we had to have?​


----------



## Value Collector

JohnDe said:


> That's funny, I was thinking the same about how you hound everyone with your comments.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Huge it could almost be a metaphor in this situation. Huge, extremely large; enormous.
> Is the sky that the rain fell from that caused widespread flooding, three times in one year, "huge" or is it gigantic, humungous?
> 
> I don't care how "huge" the top dam is, my original point was, and still is, in relation to electricity. When the electricity was required to support a failing system, Snowy could not be used. And as the audio points out, Snowy alone is not enough to support our electricity supply/grid.
> 
> It is true that the flooding has been extreme. Just like it is true that we are going through an environment change that has seen more and more regular flooding.
> 
> Why you keep bringing flood mitigation into this is unknown to me, only you keep mentioning it. I can only guess that you are falling on old habits.
> 
> And now that you have got me looking further into Snowy 2.0, I now believe it to be a waste of our tax dollars. *Five years on, Snowy 2.0 emerges as a $10 billion white elephant*
> 
> Imagine what could have been done to prepare the national electricity grid with $10 billion.
> 
> How did it come to this — the energy crisis we had to have?​



As I said you are all over the place, and this post is even more so.

Go back and re-read our discussion from your first mention of Snowy 2.0, you will see you first comment doesn’t make sense because as you later realised you were actually talking about the existing snowy scheme not 2.0.

Then you started confusing and arguing about my comments about 2.0 with the existing snowy scheme, rather than look at the facts I was saying in context to what I was actually commenting on and the question I was answering.

Anyway, as I said you should re-read the discussion slowly and you will see where you went wrong.

———————
In regards to 2.0 being huge or not, Snowy 2.0 will store energy equivalent to 3,500 Of south Australia’s big Tesla battery, and the Tesla Battery cost $116 Million, so it would cost over $400 Billion to match Snowy 2.0 with Tesla batteries, so even if cost blow out to $10 Billion it’s not that bad.

it will be able to output over half of Victoria coal generation or more electricity than Tasmania’s current hydro generation for 7 days straight, now I consider that a huge battery.

Can it run Australia all by itself, no offcourse not no single project can.


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> 7kwh can recharge a fully depleted battery in 7h or so for std EV.,45 to 50kwh capacity.battery plenty enough for normal use..that is needed and remains a must have..if EVs develop,that will become the norm imho.



An issue there is managing them intelligently.

An individual vehicle might be low on charge and need to run at a solid 7kW for hours but on any given night most don't, the average car is only driven ~35km or so each day after all.

So what's really needed there is a smart approach. Instead of them all turning on at once then some are off in under an hour, it's far more practical on the energy supply side if those only needing to put (for example) 5kWh into the car either do so at a slow trickle rate all night, or they don't start until 3am. Etc.

The idea there being to avoid a huge spike when they all turn on given that for most vehicles there'll be no actual need to do that, on any given night most are only going to need a top up.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> think that at the rate that Coal is predicted to decline we are going to need both Hydro and gas firming.



In theory it could be done all with one or the other.

In practice I totally agree - both will be used.

There's a lot of ideological debate there, some oppose any use of fossil fuels in principle no matter how trivial whilst others get the pitchforks out the moment anyone even mentions the word "hydro", but ultimately it's one or the other with present technology and economics.

It's also a reality that we already have some existing hydro, and Snowy 2.0 under construction, and once built hydro is effectively permanent so long as it's maintained. Gas-fired generation has a finite life but again we do have a significant existing asset base, much of it with a lifespan extending 15+ years from now and some of it beyond that. So both will be used, only real question's about the new things built.


----------



## JohnDe

Value Collector said:


> As I said you are all over the place, and this post is even more so.
> 
> Go back and re-read our discussion from your first mention of Snowy 2.0, you will see you first comment doesn’t make sense because as you later realised you were actually talking about the existing snowy scheme not 2.0.
> 
> Then you started confusing and arguing about my comments about 2.0 with the existing snowy scheme, rather than look at the facts I was saying in context to what I was actually commenting on and the question I was answering.
> 
> Anyway, as I said you should re-read the discussion slowly and you will see where you went wrong.
> 
> ———————
> In regards to 2.0 being huge or not, Snowy 2.0 will store energy equivalent to 3,500 Of south Australia’s big Tesla battery, and the Tesla Battery cost $116 Million, so it would cost over $400 Billion to match Snowy 2.0 with Tesla batteries, so even if cost blow out to $10 Billion it’s not that bad.
> 
> it will be able to output over half of Victoria coal generation or more electricity than Tasmania’s current hydro generation for 7 days straight, now I consider that a huge battery.
> 
> Can it run Australia all




Simple mistake, I thought you might have been able to understand a simple sentence. I’ll edit it for you -

The Snowy hydro was pointless during the heavy rains and flooding, because it would have exacerbated the flooding. Listen to an industry expert, starting at the 17:25 minute mark -

https://www.abc.net.au/radionationa...TFVNhAvBXqJlr0gZETHZNxf08KQC50Eajfg&fs=e&s=cl


And for your beloved Snowy 2.0 -

Snowy Hydro now expects completion in 10 years, not four, by 2026. Some experts consider even this extended timeframe to be optimistic. Construction of the tunnels is running at least six months behind the latest schedule and the transmission connection is unlikely to be built by 2026 anyway. The all-up cost has increased at least five-fold, to $10 billion-plus, as energy experts warned the Prime Minister and the then NSW premier in 2020.

The underground power station and tunnels alone will cost more than $6 billion, and Snowy Hydro avoids mentioning the transmission connections to Sydney – $4 billion-plus for HumeLink and the Sydney ring – and to Victoria. To make matters worse, Snowy Hydro refuses to contribute to these transmission works, leaving it to electricity consumers to pick up the tab. Transmission tariffs in NSW will increase by more than 50 per cent if the NSW government allows Snowy Hydro to get its way, based on analysis in a Victoria Energy Policy Centre report. 

Despite the assurance that taxpayer subsidies were not required, the federal government was forced to shore up Snowy 2.0’s business case with a $1.4bn “equity injection”. Further taxpayer funding is inevitable, warned Standard & Poors when it downgraded Snowy Hydro’s credit rating in 2020.

Far from bringing electricity prices down, Snowy Hydro’s own modelling predicts that prices will rise because of Snowy 2.0.

As far as the claim that Snowy 2.0 will add 2000 megawatts of renewable energy to the National Electricity Market, Snowy 2.0 is not a conventional hydro station generating renewable energy. It is no different to any other battery, and as such it will be a net load on the NEM. For every 100 units of electricity purchased from the NEM to pump water uphill, only 75 units are returned when the water flows back down through the turbine generators. Not only is the electricity generated not renewable, Snowy 2.0 will be the most inefficient battery on the NEM, losing 25 per cent of energy cycled.

And on the final claim of minimal environmental impact to Kosciuszko National Park, vast areas have already been cleared, blasted, reshaped and compacted. Hundreds of kilometres of roads and tracks are being constructed, twenty million tonnes of excavated spoil will be dumped (astoundingly, mainly in Snowy Hydro’s reservoirs), and noxious fish will be transferred throughout the Snowy Mountains and the headwaters of the Murrumbidgee, Murray and Snowy Rivers, devastating native fish and trout. The NSW government has even agreed to issue exemptions to its own legislation to override the prohibition of such pest fish transfers – an astonishing precedent.

The massive cost and environmental impacts of Snowy 2.0 cannot be justified for providing occasional longer-term storage.

The latest revelation in this dismal saga is the proposal for four high-voltage transmission lines through eight kilometres of Kosciuszko National Park with a cleared easement swath up to 200 metres wide. The statutory plan of management that controls activities in Kosciuszko expressly prohibits the construction of new overhead transmission lines, as is the norm with national parks in Australia and throughout the developed world. Reprehensibly, the NSW government has released a draft amendment to exempt Snowy 2.0 from having to install underground cables.

Despite Snowy 2.0’s abysmal track record over the past five years, the Commonwealth and NSW governments continue to bend over backwards with billion-dollar subsidies (and more to come), electricity price increases and environmental exemptions, despite conclusive evidence that the project is fundamentally flawed and can never pay for itself.

There are many cheaper, more efficient and far less environmentally destructive energy storage alternatives.
Snowy 2.0 is bringing a flurry of activity and much-trumpeted construction jobs to the Monaro. But in another five or so years we will be left with a rarely used, $10 billion-plus Snowy White Elephant, higher electricity prices, a needlessly scarred Kosciuszko National Park, and just a dozen extra Snowy Hydro jobs, according to the Snowy 2.0 environmental impact statement.
There is no cause for celebrating today’s fifth anniversary. With another five or so years to go, it is sobering to take stock and review how we got into this mess and what can be done, even at this advanced stage, to limit the ramifications.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> But in regards to blowering dam being full and flooding the snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme



So far as the discussion about Snowy 2.0 is concerned, I'll note that a lot comes down to the water license under which Snowy Hydro operates.

In short, that license compels Snowy to release rather a lot of water whether it's needed downstream or not. Read it, and it's a pretty lengthy document, and the overall tone and language is very much in a context of making sure that Snowy Hydro doesn't hoard water and must let it out. The idea that it would be better to not let it out isn't there to anywhere near the same extent.

That's a political construct that came from politicians, it's not something which came from Snowy or the electricity industry.

If it were up to me, I'd have it changed real quick. There's simply no benefit, to agriculture, town water supply or electricity generation from having the bottom dams (Blowering and Hume) full or spilling whilst the headwater storages (Tantangara, Eucumbene, Jindabyne) are low. From a water management perspective that's nuts.

Far more sensible to would be to focus on water release at the outlet points, that is discharge from Hume and Blowering, and store the water as far upstream as possible. Had that been done the water being spilled would have been 100% retained in storage upstream, primarily in Lake Eucumbene, and no flooding issue associated with release from Blowering would have arisen recently.

At present the focus is on putting water into Hume and Blowering, via release through the Murray 2 and Tumut 3 (and then partially through Jounama) power stations respectively, which somewhat misses the point if it's then simply spilled downstream.

How did that happen one might wonder? Well suffice to say that Snowy Hydro owns everything upstream of those points, Murray 2 and Jounama, whilst the NSW government owns Blowering dam and the associated reservoir (though Snowy operates the power station) and the Murray Darling Basin Authority owns Hume (though Meridien operates the power station). Also upstream, ultimately discharging water towards Hume, are operations managed separately by the MDBA, Victorian state government and by AGL.

Or in much simpler terms, the complexities of who owns things and who has jurisdiction over what has trumped common sense due to politics. Noting that it's an extremely contentious issue there - politicians have been arguing about this one for a century now.

Fundamentally the spill at Blowering this winter is a limitation of politics not of engineering or the as-built assets of the Snowy scheme. 

Happy to go into more detail if anyone wants data but perhaps in another thread - managing water's getting a long way off the topic of electric cars.


----------



## Smurf1976

JohnDe said:


> There are many cheaper, more efficient and far less environmentally destructive energy storage alternatives.



Fossil fuels are the only alternative actually on the table with present technology and economics.

Now where the trouble starts is that some will argue that the hydro project is bad and that we should use an alternative.

Others will then argue the moment someone starts drilling for gas off the coast of NSW or in the Great Australian Bight or starts hydraulic fracturing onshore in NSW or the NT. They'll say that gas is bad and we should use an alternative.

Ultimately though it's one or the other. At least it is unless someone's willing to throw a few $ hundred billion at it to subsidise other methods that work technically but not economically. Trouble is, do that and then some other group will argue that government should instead be spending on hospitals, education, roads or whatever.

There's no easy answer with energy. Never has been and probably never will be. Hence we've had 50 years now of public debate first against both hydro and gas, then against nuclear, then later against coal and in favour of gas, now it's back against gas and somewhat more favourable to hydro.

Kosciusko, Lake Pedder, Newport Power Station, Jervis Bay, the Lower Gordon dam in any of its possible locations, uranium mining anywhere, petrol octane boosters, vehicle emissions controls, drilling the Barrier Reef, drilling the Great Australian Bight, ethanol, coal anywhere, drilling off the coast of NSW near Sydney and so on. Some ultimately went ahead, some didn't, all highly controversial at the time and some still are today.

Even wind farms and transmission lines stir up controversy. Heck even rooftop solar panels are contentious in some areas.

And of course now we can add electric vehicles to that list of controversies. Some see benefits with urban air quality and shifting away from the use of oil. Others argue that burning oil beats some other source of energy such that there's no benefit to be had.

Choose your poison but ultimately there's no "do nothing" option unless we're going to go back to the stone age. Even that would, of course, be highly controversial in itself.

I've commented here since it's already in the thread but I do think that, from an investment and practical perspective, how to generate the power to supply EV's is a different subject to EV's themselves given the former ultimately relates to all electricity uses.


----------



## JohnDe

Smurf1976 said:


> So far as the discussion about Snowy 2.0 is concerned, I'll note that a lot comes down to the water license under which Snowy Hydro operates.
> 
> In short, that license compels Snowy to release rather a lot of water whether it's needed downstream or not. Read it, and it's a pretty lengthy document, and the overall tone and language is very much in a context of making sure that Snowy Hydro doesn't hoard water and must let it out. The idea that it would be better to not let it out isn't there to anywhere near the same extent.
> 
> That's a political construct that came from politicians, it's not something which came from Snowy or the electricity industry.
> 
> If it were up to me, I'd have it changed real quick. There's simply no benefit, to agriculture, town water supply or electricity generation from having the bottom dams (Blowering and Hume) full or spilling whilst the headwater storages (Tantangara, Eucumbene, Jindabyne) are low. From a water management perspective that's nuts.
> 
> Far more sensible to would be to focus on water release at the outlet points, that is discharge from Hume and Blowering, and store the water as far upstream as possible. Had that been done the water being spilled would have been 100% retained in storage upstream, primarily in Lake Eucumbene, and no flooding issue associated with release from Blowering would have arisen recently.
> 
> At present the focus is on putting water into Hume and Blowering, via release through the Murray 2 and Tumut 3 (and then partially through Jounama) power stations respectively, which somewhat misses the point if it's then simply spilled downstream.
> 
> How did that happen one might wonder? Well suffice to say that Snowy Hydro owns everything upstream of those points, Murray 2 and Jounama, whilst the NSW government owns Blowering dam and the associated reservoir (though Snowy operates the power station) and the Murray Darling Basin Authority owns Hume (though Meridien operates the power station). Also upstream, ultimately discharging water towards Hume, are operations managed separately by the MDBA, Victorian state government and by AGL.
> 
> Or in much simpler terms, the complexities of who owns things and who has jurisdiction over what has trumped common sense due to politics. Noting that it's an extremely contentious issue there - politicians have been arguing about this one for a century now.
> 
> Fundamentally the spill at Blowering this winter is a limitation of








Smurf1976 said:


> Fossil fuels are the only alternative actually on the table with present technology and economics.
> 
> .




There are other options, solar & wind is free. The devices to turn them into electricity are cheaper than combustion engines. Storage devices are dropping in price all the time, and there are many options.

Have a listen to the audio that I posted this morning, which people seem to want to comment about but not take the time to listen to.









						How did it come to this — the energy crisis we had to have? - ABC Radio National
					

Australia has everything it needs to produce electricity - coal, gas, sun, and wind. Yet we've wound up with energy shortages and huge price hikes. How did we get here - why is our energy system in such a mess? And what can we do to fix it?




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Value Collector

JohnDe said:


> Simple mistake, I thought you might have been able to understand a simple sentence. I’ll edit it for you -
> 
> The Snowy hydro was pointless during the heavy rains and flooding, because it would have exacerbated the flooding. Listen to an industry expert, starting at the 17:25 minute mark -
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/radionationa...TFVNhAvBXqJlr0gZETHZNxf08KQC50Eajfg&fs=e&s=cl
> 
> 
> And for your beloved Snowy 2.0 -
> 
> Snowy Hydro now expects completion in 10 years, not four, by 2026. Some experts consider even this extended timeframe to be optimistic. Construction of the tunnels is running at least six months behind the latest schedule and the transmission connection is unlikely to be built by 2026 anyway. The all-up cost has increased at least five-fold, to $10 billion-plus, as energy experts warned the Prime Minister and the then NSW premier in 2020.
> 
> The underground power station and tunnels alone will cost more than $6 billion, and Snowy Hydro avoids mentioning the transmission connections to Sydney – $4 billion-plus for HumeLink and the Sydney ring – and to Victoria. To make matters worse, Snowy Hydro refuses to contribute to these transmission works, leaving it to electricity consumers to pick up the tab. Transmission tariffs in NSW will increase by more than 50 per cent if the NSW government allows Snowy Hydro to get its way, based on analysis in a Victoria Energy Policy Centre report.
> 
> Despite the assurance that taxpayer subsidies were not required, the federal government was forced to shore up Snowy 2.0’s business case with a $1.4bn “equity injection”. Further taxpayer funding is inevitable, warned Standard & Poors when it downgraded Snowy Hydro’s credit rating in 2020.
> 
> Far from bringing electricity prices down, Snowy Hydro’s own modelling predicts that prices will rise because of Snowy 2.0.
> 
> As far as the claim that Snowy 2.0 will add 2000 megawatts of renewable energy to the National Electricity Market, Snowy 2.0 is not a conventional hydro station generating renewable energy. It is no different to any other battery, and as such it will be a net load on the NEM. For every 100 units of electricity purchased from the NEM to pump water uphill, only 75 units are returned when the water flows back down through the turbine generators. Not only is the electricity generated not renewable, Snowy 2.0 will be the most inefficient battery on the NEM, losing 25 per cent of energy cycled.
> 
> And on the final claim of minimal environmental impact to Kosciuszko National Park, vast areas have already been cleared, blasted, reshaped and compacted. Hundreds of kilometres of roads and tracks are being constructed, twenty million tonnes of excavated spoil will be dumped (astoundingly, mainly in Snowy Hydro’s reservoirs), and noxious fish will be transferred throughout the Snowy Mountains and the headwaters of the Murrumbidgee, Murray and Snowy Rivers, devastating native fish and trout. The NSW government has even agreed to issue exemptions to its own legislation to override the prohibition of such pest fish transfers – an astonishing precedent.
> 
> The massive cost and environmental impacts of Snowy 2.0 cannot be justified for providing occasional longer-term storage.
> 
> The latest revelation in this dismal saga is the proposal for four high-voltage transmission lines through eight kilometres of Kosciuszko National Park with a cleared easement swath up to 200 metres wide. The statutory plan of management that controls activities in Kosciuszko expressly prohibits the construction of new overhead transmission lines, as is the norm with national parks in Australia and throughout the developed world. Reprehensibly, the NSW government has released a draft amendment to exempt Snowy 2.0 from having to install underground cables.
> 
> Despite Snowy 2.0’s abysmal track record over the past five years, the Commonwealth and NSW governments continue to bend over backwards with billion-dollar subsidies (and more to come), electricity price increases and environmental exemptions, despite conclusive evidence that the project is fundamentally flawed and can never pay for itself.
> 
> There are many cheaper, more efficient and far less environmentally destructive energy storage alternatives.
> Snowy 2.0 is bringing a flurry of activity and much-trumpeted construction jobs to the Monaro. But in another five or so years we will be left with a rarely used, $10 billion-plus Snowy White Elephant, higher electricity prices, a needlessly scarred Kosciuszko National Park, and just a dozen extra Snowy Hydro jobs, according to the Snowy 2.0 environmental impact statement.
> There is no cause for celebrating today’s fifth anniversary. With another five or so years to go, it is sobering to take stock and review how we got into this mess and what can be done, even at this advanced stage, to limit the ramifications.



TLDR

Not actually interested in discussing this with you any further, because you are just cram reading headlines and skimming some articles and thinking you know everything when I have been following this topic for a couple of years.

It’s not “My beloved snowy hydro”, I am an APA shareholder, snowy is a competitor to our gas pipelines and gas power plants, still though I think it’s going to be a solid piece of infrastructure but I have no dog in the fight.

You will always be able to find negative articles, people were saying the big Tesla battery was going to be a white elephant, and even Tesla itself, uninformed cramming of those articles written by blockheads is not an education.


----------



## Value Collector

JohnDe said:


> There are other options, solar & wind is free. The devices to turn them into electricity are cheaper than combustion engines. Storage devices are dropping in price all the time, and there are many options.
> 
> Have a listen to the audio that I posted this morning, which people seem to want to comment about but not take the time to listen to.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How did it come to this — the energy crisis we had to have? - ABC Radio National
> 
> 
> Australia has everything it needs to produce electricity - coal, gas, sun, and wind. Yet we've wound up with energy shortages and huge price hikes. How did we get here - why is our energy system in such a mess? And what can we do to fix it?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



I am 100% certain that Smurf will not learn anything from that 29min video that he doesn’t already know and understand on a deeper level than the people talking.

We understand wind and solar are fantastic and are going to play an ever increasing role, when Smurf says it’s a choice between gas and hydro he is talking about firming, eg filling in the gaps.

Yes batteries will play a part too, but for large scale storage you will need pumped hydro and gas to back the system up, even the podcast you linked says that.

But as I said I am not interested in any further debate with you on it, because the facts are against you, and this is off topic for this thread anyway.


----------



## JohnDe

Value Collector said:


> I am 100% certain that Smurf will not learn anything from that 29min video that he doesn’t already know and understand on a deeper level than the people talking.
> 
> We understand wind and solar are fantastic and are going to play an ever increasing role, when Smurf says it’s a choice between gas and hydro he is talking about firming, eg filling in the gaps.
> 
> Yes batteries will play a part too, but for large scale storage you will need pumped hydro and gas to back the system up, even the podcast you linked says that.
> 
> But as I said I am not interested in any further debate with you on it, because the facts are against you, and this is off topic for this thread anyway.




Smurf is on the right track, I’m just a bit  more optimistic and believe that more and cleaner options will become available in the next few years.

I thought that you listened to the audio. They mention gas as being an interim backup for the supply and storage issues that Australia will be going through as the old coal generators go off line. Also talked about incentivising private industry to build them.

Hydro could have been Australia’s ‘huge’ battery, but a previous government stuffed it by backing the wrong horse & locking our tax dollars into a bottomless pit called Snowy 2.0 (the name should have set off alarm bells).

Tasmania is a hydro scheme designed by nature.

Does Australia need Tasmania to become a multi-billion-dollar 'Battery of the Nation'?​




__





						Does Australia need Tasmania to become a multi-billion-dollar 'Battery of the Nation'?   - ABC News
					






					amp.abc.net.au


----------



## Smurf1976

In response to comments in another thread, here's a chart showing total wind (green) and solar (yellow) production in the NEM over the past 30 days.

For reference, the daily average over the past 12 months was 142 GWh / day which is almost equal to the 141 GWh yield on Friday 24 June as highlighted for context:







As can be seen, sustained periods of below average yield, with some days seeing very low yields, are a very real occurrence. This isn't simulated data from a modelling exercise - it's the actual real data for all wind and solar presently in the NEM. Wind farms and large scale solar is measured, small solar (household) is scaled up from a sample which is measured.

Daily average from present wind and solar facilities = 142 GWh

Thursday 23 June = 172 GWh
24 June = 141 GWh (almost the daily average over 12 months)
25 June = 147 GWh
26 June = 120 GWh
27 June = 97 GWh
28 June = 127 GWh
29 June = 122 GWh
*30 June = 83 GWh
1 July = 76 GWh
2 July = 87 GWh*
3 July = 133 GWh
4 July = 140 GWh
5 July = 125 GWh

Whilst some degree of overbuild can be used as a workaround, there are limits to what's practical and economic since ultimately doubling the installed base of wind or solar doubles the cost and that has to be paid 365 days a year in full. 

Filling the gap in energy yield is where conventional (on river) hydro, pumped storage (eg Snowy 2.0) and other options such as gas or diesel comes in along with coal so long a that's still around.

That's about energy, a separate issue to peak power. Peak power can also make use of other means such as batteries and short duration hydro storage as a solution but such facilities with running times in the 1 - 8 hour range aren't an option to cover multiple consecutive days of inadequate yield from the wind and sun, indeed they don't really even cover a full 24 hour period. 

This chart showing the past 7 days also helps put it into context. It would've been a cold and miserable night on both Tuesday - Wednesday and Wednesday - Thursday if not for other means of keeping the lights on:






Now just in case someone thinks transmission is an alternative, well we do need that but it's not an alternative without storage as a look at what happened in the neighbouring states at the same time will reveal:

















It does however work just fine when it's all combined, other forms of generation offsetting the intermittency of wind and solar:

Blue = hydro
Light blue = battery
Orange = gas
Red = diesel
Black = coal
Below the zero line = battery charging and hydro pumping loads






Diesel is a bit hard to see on that chart, since there's not much of it, so here it is by itself. Note the different chart scale:






And here for the batteries. These operate on much shorter timescales, being largely used to "fine tune" supply and demand in real time. Chart resolution is 5 minutes with light blue being charging and dark blue being discharge. I've posted them separately on a state basis to avoid confusion - it's not uncommon to see charging in SA and discharging in NSW simultaneously for example, due purely to local factors, and putting them all on a single chart ends up as just a mess.


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> this is off topic for this thread anyway.



Agreed.

To avoid continuing the debate on this thread, which is specifically about electric vehicles, I've posted a lot of data and charts in another thread here:






						The future of energy generation and storage
					

No xhit Sherlock... The AMEO plan to massively upgrade power transmission lines is (far) easier said than done. But one way or another it has to be done..  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-01/how-aemo-plans-to-fix-broken-energy-system-australia/101196758




					www.aussiestockforums.com
				




In that post you'll find real, actual data for the real wind and solar farms in the grid we have right now which shows what the issues are and aren't.

I've limited it to the NEM for simplicity. That's in no way denying the existence of similar issues elsewhere, it's just to keep the data straightforward.

I'm not a moderator but I think it's sensible to keep this thread focused on EV's themselves and whilst the technical and business aspects of charging them is relevant, how to generate electricity as such is getting off topic in my view beyond a broad acceptance that EV's need to work within the limits of what's possible.


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> Smurf is on the right track, I’m just a bit  more optimistic and believe that more and cleaner options will become available in the next few years.
> 
> I thought that you listened to the audio. They mention gas as being an interim backup for the supply and storage issues that Australia will be going through as the old coal generators go off line. Also talked about incentivising private industry to build them.
> 
> Hydro could have been Australia’s ‘huge’ battery, but a previous government stuffed it by backing the wrong horse & locking our tax dollars into a bottomless pit called Snowy 2.0 (the name should have set off alarm bells).
> 
> Tasmania is a hydro scheme designed by nature.
> 
> Does Australia need Tasmania to become a multi-billion-dollar 'Battery of the Nation'?​
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Does Australia need Tasmania to become a multi-billion-dollar 'Battery of the Nation'?   - ABC News
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> amp.abc.net.au



I don't want to get involved in this, but to say Snowy 2.0 isn't required is just wrong, as the AEMO said Australia needs 50 Snowy 2.0's to run a renewables system. So I guess you have to get over it, lots more are going in.


----------



## Smurf1976

As a brief comment on alternatives that aren't hydro or gas / diesel, the short answer is "sure, if it can do the job no problem".

There's no fundamental reason why anyone's sensibly going to argue against compressed air, hydrogen etc if it can offer a viable alternative.

What it comes down to however is two basic issues:

1. The timeframe is short which makes any major breakthrough unlikely. We're talking about building things that will be in operation in the relatively near future since there's basically an avalanche of coal plant closures coming, indeed it has already started, and there's international pressure to go even faster.

So we're talking about workers on site building things before the next federal election. That's all environmental studies done, all finances sorted out, it's bulldozers on site it's not just someone in an office talking about it. That doesn't leave much time for any major change in technology to emerge - it's possible for some of the later projects we'll need that something else comes along but not likely for the initial ones.

2. As it is we're looking at $320 billion and that's doing it relatively cheaply.

Anyone arguing for something that costs more is going to be seriously scrutinised, indeed even obtaining the money might preclude it regardless of any benefits.

For context the market cap of APA Group is $13.6 billion, AGL is $5.6 billion, Origin is $9.6 billion and so on. So we're already looking at new investment an order of magnitude greater than the market cap of present major players in the industry, the funding of which could well be problematic, so to increase that any further will be a very tough sell. Bearing in mind the pressure is to reduce prices not increase them.

So those two points don't rule out alternatives but they do mean there's a greater requirement than just being workable technically. Time and cost are also very real criteria.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> As a brief comment on alternatives that aren't hydro or gas / diesel, the short answer is "sure, if it can do the job no problem".
> 
> There's no fundamental reason why anyone's sensibly going to argue against compressed air, hydrogen etc if it can offer a viable alternative.
> 
> What it comes down to however is two basic issues:
> 
> 1. The timeframe is short which makes any major breakthrough unlikely. We're talking about building things that will be in operation in the relatively near future since there's basically an avalanche of coal plant closures coming, indeed it has already started, and there's international pressure to go even faster.
> 
> So we're talking about workers on site building things before the next federal election. That's all environmental studies done, all finances sorted out, it's bulldozers on site it's not just someone in an office talking about it. That doesn't leave much time for any major change in technology to emerge - it's possible for some of the later projects we'll need that something else comes along but not likely for the initial ones.
> 
> 2. As it is we're looking at $320 billion and that's doing it relatively cheaply.
> 
> Anyone arguing for something that costs more is going to be seriously scrutinised, indeed even obtaining the money might preclude it regardless of any benefits.
> 
> For context the market cap of APA Group is $13.6 billion, AGL is $5.6 billion, Origin is $9.6 billion and so on. So we're already looking at new investment an order of magnitude greater than the market cap of present major players in the industry, the funding of which could well be problematic, so to increase that any further will be a very tough sell. Bearing in mind the pressure is to reduce prices not increase them.
> 
> So those two points don't rule out alternatives but they do mean there's a greater requirement than just being workable technically. Time and cost are also very real criteria.




Unfortunately, the market capitalisation of Australian governments is negative $346 billion, so one has to ask where is the money coming from ?

With most of the world being financially stuffed at the moment, the only place to look imo are those areas that are making a killing in the current crisis which is coal and gas exports and yet so far our governments (with the exception of Qld increasing coal royalties) haven't made any noises about increasing taxes in this area, probably fearing the political fallout.

They will have to do something about increasing revenue pretty soon or else put other projects like road and rail on hold or the situation in the energy market will only get worse.


----------



## SirRumpole

From the 'Electric cars' thread.

@sptrawler

*"I don't want to get involved in this, but to say Snowy 2.0 isn't required is just wrong, as the AEMO said Australia needs 50 Snowy 2.0's to run a renewables system. So I guess you have to get over it, lots more are going in."*

Is it worth noting that all hydro electric schemes require "surplus" power to pump the the water uphill, so is this surplus going to be available and where will it come from , given that we are running pretty tight in generation right now ?


----------



## Belli

SirRumpole said:


> From the 'Electric cars' thread.
> 
> @sptrawler
> 
> *"I don't want to get involved in this, but to say Snowy 2.0 isn't required is just wrong, as the AEMO said Australia needs 50 Snowy 2.0's to run a renewables system. So I guess you have to get over it, lots more are going in."*
> 
> Is it worth noting that all hydro electric schemes require "surplus" power to pump the the water uphill, so is this surplus going to be available and where will it come from , given that we are running pretty tight in generation right now ?




From my understanding, the concept is Snowy 2.0 will pump water using the excess electricity in the system at times of low demand.

Mind you, as it's bloody cold here in Canberra overnight and I run the ducted recycle so I don't freeze in the morning, I alone am probably using that excess electricity.  So tough Snowy 2.0.


----------



## SirRumpole

Belli said:


> From my understanding, the concept is Snowy 2.0 will pump water using the excess electricity in the system at times of low demand.
> 
> Mind you, as it's bloody cold here in Canberra overnight and I run the ducted recycle so I don't freeze in the morning, I alone am probably using that excess electricity.  So tough Snowy 2.0.



I've had a couple of days of sun in the last month and the wind hasn't been high either in Orange, so there is no surplus power here either. 

The 'excess' will probably come from coal or gas.

It would seem that hydro would be suited to areas of high rainfall where the upper dam would be filled by natural runoff which is why Tassie does quite well, other good sites would seem to be more coastal.


----------



## JohnDe

sptrawler said:


> I don't want to get involved in this, but to say Snowy 2.0 isn't required is just wrong, as the AEMO said Australia needs 50 Snowy 2.0's to run a renewables system. So I guess you have to get over it, lots more are going in.




I don't recall saying 'Snowy 2.0 isn't required'. If you look back at my first post I was just highlighting that Snowy Hydro could not generate during the floods, I wasn't attacking it just making a point that we need more options. And that was why I included an informative audio from the ABC (_Australia has everything it needs to produce electricity - coal, gas, sun, and wind. Yet we've wound up with energy shortages and huge price hikes. How did we get here - why is our energy system in such a mess? And what can we do to fix it?_)

Value Collector jumped on a mistake I made in naming the current Snowy, 2.0 and commenting without listening to the audio.

From there I have pointed out some of the issues with Snowy. Such as the generation problem during major flooding events, and issues when the then Turnbill government announced the Snowy project, a timeline & budget blow out, and a missed opportunity in Tasmania.

Senate Estimates papers confirm the announcement was cobbled together in less than two weeks after the concept was floated by Snowy Hydro.​​How did it come to this — the energy crisis we had to have?​​Does Australia need Tasmania to become a multi-billion-dollar 'Battery of the Nation'?​
Sorry for going so far off topic, but it takes two to tango


----------



## Belli

@SirRumpole, I haven't filtered this so the gems will take some digging.

It's the Australian Parliamentary Library.  Many of the submission from researchers are years old.  What I am getting at is our Parliamentarians were informed but as is the case on numerous occasions, the results were noted but dismissed and no action taken.  So many lost opportunities.



			https://www.aph.gov.au/Help/Federated_Search_Results?q=+renewable+energy&ps=10&pg=2


----------



## SirRumpole

Belli said:


> @SirRumpole, I haven't filtered this so the gems will take some digging.
> 
> It's the Australian Parliamentary Library.  Many of the submission from researchers are years old.  What I am getting at is our Parliamentarians were informed but as is the case on numerous occasions, the results were noted but dismissed and no action taken.  So many lost opportunities.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.aph.gov.au/Help/Federated_Search_Results?q=+renewable+energy&ps=10&pg=2



Scuppered b y the fossil fuel lobby. Don't stand between politicians and buckets of money


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> From the 'Electric cars' thread.
> 
> @sptrawler
> 
> *"I don't want to get involved in this, but to say Snowy 2.0 isn't required is just wrong, as the AEMO said Australia needs 50 Snowy 2.0's to run a renewables system. So I guess you have to get over it, lots more are going in."*
> 
> Is it worth noting that all hydro electric schemes require "surplus" power to pump the the water uphill, so is this surplus going to be available and where will it come from , given that we are running pretty tight in generation right now ?



That's what I was talking about at the beginning of this thread, we need twice as much renewable generation as installed at call generation and three times as much storage.
This is what the general public isn't getting its head around, that is an amazing amount of plant that needs to be put in, add to that the footprint of a 2GW power station is insignificant, 2GW of renewables is a huge amount of solar panels and wind turbines.
When you consider it is going to take 4GW of renewables and 6GW of storage, to replace that 2 GW power station, to me that explains how big the issue is especially when you think that Snowy 2.0 is only 2 GW from memory


----------



## Belli

SirRumpole said:


> It would seem that hydro would be suited to areas of high rainfall where the upper dam would be filled by natural runoff which is why Tassie does quite well, other good sites would seem to be more coastal.




This may be of interest to you @SirRumpole.  Trend in rainfall, temperature and a few other bits and pieces.



			http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/index.shtml#tabs=Tracker&tracker=trend-maps&tQ=map%3Drain%26area%3Daus%26season%3D0112%26period%3D1900


----------



## SirRumpole

Belli said:


> This may be of interest to you @SirRumpole.  Trend in rainfall, temperature and a few other bits and pieces.
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/index.shtml#tabs=Tracker&tracker=trend-maps&tQ=map%3Drain%26area%3Daus%26season%3D0112%26period%3D1900



Very interesting. I wonder how many hydro sites there are in Darwin ?


But I'm sure that there are many other factors to consider.


----------



## Belli

SirRumpole said:


> But I'm sure that there are many other factors to consider.




Sure are.  From the same site.



			http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/index.shtml#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries&tQ=graph%3Dtmeandecile10%26area%3Daus%26season%3D0112%26ave_yr%3D15


----------



## SirRumpole

Belli said:


> Sure are.  From the same site.
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/index.shtml#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries&tQ=graph%3Dtmeandecile10%26area%3Daus%26season%3D0112%26ave_yr%3D15



Perhaps you can explain that data and how it relates to hydro power for those interested.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Very interesting. I wonder how many hydro sites there are in Darwin ?
> 
> 
> But I'm sure that there are many other factors to consider.



There is a 30MW hydro on lake Argyle, that they are thinking of building a hydrogen plant next to, so there are plenty of options up North.









						Hydro-power plant planned for Kimberley
					

The proposal includes a hydrogen production facility near Kununurra using “existing hydro generation.”




					www.kimberleyecho.com.au


----------



## Belli

SirRumpole said:


> Perhaps you can explain that data and how it relates to hydro power for those interested.




NASA explains it better than I.





__





						How does climate change affect precipitation? | NASA Global Precipitation Measurement Mission
					

Current climate models indicate that rising temperatures will intensify the Earth’s water cycle, increasing evaporation. Increased evaporation will result in more frequent and intense storms, but will also contribute to drying over some land areas. As a result, storm-affected areas are likely to...




					gpm.nasa.gov
				




"Current climate models indicate that rising temperatures will intensify the Earth’s water cycle, increasing evaporation. Increased evaporation will result in more frequent and intense storms, but will also contribute to drying over some land areas. As a result, storm-affected areas are likely to experience increases in precipitation and increased risk of flooding, while areas located far away from storm tracks are likely to experience less precipitation and increased risk of drought."

So it is feasible a site currently suitable for hydro may not be in the future.


----------



## SirRumpole

Belli said:


> NASA explains it better than I.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How does climate change affect precipitation? | NASA Global Precipitation Measurement Mission
> 
> 
> Current climate models indicate that rising temperatures will intensify the Earth’s water cycle, increasing evaporation. Increased evaporation will result in more frequent and intense storms, but will also contribute to drying over some land areas. As a result, storm-affected areas are likely to...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> gpm.nasa.gov
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Current climate models indicate that rising temperatures will intensify the Earth’s water cycle, increasing evaporation. Increased evaporation will result in more frequent and intense storms, but will also contribute to drying over some land areas. As a result, storm-affected areas are likely to experience increases in precipitation and increased risk of flooding, while areas located far away from storm tracks are likely to experience less precipitation and increased risk of drought."
> 
> So it is feasible a site currently suitable for hydro may not be in the future.




In that case the only thing that won't change enough to make a difference is the ocean, it will always be there as the lower reservoir and having pumped hydro site near the coast with associated off shore wind farms to provide the pumping power would seem to be the way to go ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> In that case the only thing that won't change enough to make a difference is the ocean, it will always be there as the lower reservoir and having pumped hydro site near the coast with associated off shore wind farms to provide the pumping power would seem to be the way to go ?



Makes a lot of sense, unfortunately it is not that common and the activists will pour out of the woodwork.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Makes a lot of sense, unfortunately it is not that common and the activists will pour out of the woodwork.



Rolling blackouts in the TEAL seats may change their minds. 👿


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Rolling blackouts in the TEAL seats may change their minds. 👿



They just have no idea, have you seen the look on Bowens face, now he has been brought up to speed on magnitude of the issue.
It will be interesting to see if they legislate the 43% and if we have to pay some other country for their credits to achieve it.








						Chris Bowen to announce review of carbon credits system after expert labelled it a ‘fraud’
					

Climate change minister says inquiry needed as carbon offset scheme is integral to target of 43% emissions reduction by 2030




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> They just have no idea, have you seen the look on Bowens face, now he has been brought up to speed on magnitude of the issue.
> It will be interesting to see if they legislate the 43% and if we have to pay some other country for their credits to achieve it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Chris Bowen to announce review of carbon credits system after expert labelled it a ‘fraud’
> 
> 
> Climate change minister says inquiry needed as carbon offset scheme is integral to target of 43% emissions reduction by 2030
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theguardian.com




If they don't need to legislate they would be silly to do so in view of the world situation.

My guess is that climate change is going to take a back seat to power prices for a while, and the teals will be gone at the next election if they and the Greens hit consumers with power bills they can't afford.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> If they don't need to legislate they would be silly to do so in view of the world situation.
> 
> My guess is that climate change is going to take a back seat to power prices for a while, and the teals will be gone at the next election if they and the Greens hit consumers with power bills they can't afford.



Yes going stupid at the moment wouldn't end well IMO.
Pushing up fuel costs further and power costs up, could be the straw that breaks the camels back.
The next two years are going to be interesting.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I wonder how many hydro sites there are in Darwin ?



The only developed one is Lake Argyle just over the border in WA. At present that's underutilised following closure of the mine but a new transmission line could be run between the existing substation at Zimin Drive, Katherine, NT to the existing substation located 34km south of Kununurra, WA.

This would connect the presently isolated system in that part of WA to the existing Darwin – Katherine system in the NT with the benefit of enabling now surplus capacity at the existing Ord River hydro station to be used to supply the NT, replacing some use of natural gas / diesel for that purpose and adding capacity.

The Ord River hydro now being substantially unused following closure of a mining operation previously supplied from it.

This would initially operate base load, that being the design basis of the hydro station, but a second stage of development would be to increase installed capacity of the hydro station and operate it intermittently to provide deep firming to intermittent renewables.

Length of line approximately 420km in a straight line, bit more for practical construction.

Line voltage 132kV strung on dual circuit towers. One circuit would be required for initial operation, second circuit to be installed later for the second stage with hydro station expansion.

The economics wouldn't be all that wonderful but it serves a real practical purpose, putting a now unused source of firm renewable energy to use with a resultant saving on gas presently used for generation in the NT.

It might also have some value as an employment creation thing during construction. There's no fundamental reason why local people couldn't be employed to build it under direction. That's temporary obviously but could be seen as a positive.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Is it worth noting that all hydro electric schemes require "surplus" power to pump the the water uphill, so is this surplus going to be available and where will it come from , given that we are running pretty tight in generation right now ?



A pumped storage scheme requires energy to pump water yes, ultimately it's a storage scheme, but I'll add that an on-river dam doesn't, it's energy positive as such.

Snowy 2.0 is in that regard a hybrid. It's a pumped scheme yes but the upper reservoir does also have natural inflow.

The existing Tumut 3 station is also a hybrid. It's primarily an on-river scheme but 3 of the 6 turbines do incorporate pumps to enable partial re-use of water, pumping it back from Jounama pondage (downstream) back up into Talbingo (upstream).

An attribute of SH2 is that it does have the ability to pump water discharged by Tumut 1 & 2. That is, it can take their discharge which ends up in Talbingo Reservoir, pump that up into Tantangara then, via the existing infrastructure, that can be sent back to Lake Eucumbene from where it came in the first place.

If, as a future project, a pump were to be installed from Blowering Reservoir to Jounama pondage, and if the 3 non-pumping turbines at Tumut 3 were equipped with pumps, then it would be possible to pump from Blowering > Jounama > Talbingo > Tantangara then natural flow to Eucumbene and thus recycle all water in the northern end of the scheme if desired. That's not proposed at present but it's a relatively straightforward add-on. Bearing in mind that the capacity of Blowering Reservoir is equal to just under 92% of its annual inflow or 101% of the annual discharge from Tumut 3. That being so, short term inflows become irrelevant in any scenario other than a truly massive flood.

Shoalhaven (NSW, Origin Energy) and Wivenhoe (Qld, CleanCo) are both "pure" pumped storage schemes without natural inflows.

The other Snowy stations (Tumut 1, Tumut 2, Blowering, Jounama, Guthega, Murray 1, Murray 2) are all on-river dams not pumped storage (though Murray 1 and 2 do involve some pumping, in one direction only, from Lake Jindabyne).

Barron Gorge and Kareeya (Qld), Lake Argyle (WA), the AGL hydro stations in Vic and all the Hydro Tasmania stations are on river. They're net energy positive with any pumping being a one-way diversion not pumped storage as such. Same with the various minor stations associated with irrigation or water supply dams.

A fact not well known to most Australians is that the Snowy scheme has never been completed to its full potential. SH2 as now proposed is simply a modernised version of a project first identified in the late 1950's. It's not the only one that could be added.


----------



## Value Collector

JohnDe said:


> Value Collector jumped on a mistake I made in naming the current Snowy, 2.0 and commenting without listening to the audio.



Commented without listening because I was confused by your statement, because I already had a good understanding of 2.0, your comments didn’t make sense so was just asking for some clarification on what the problem was before I committed to a 29min podcast.

However, I did later listen to your podcast and still think your original comment was pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, I mean who cares that for a few days the output of a piece of infrastructure was limited due to heavier rain fall, when it has served us well for over 50 years.

That exact set of circumstances eg 

1. coal power station failure 
2. at the time of heavy rail fall
3. At a particular point of historical transition

Is pretty rare, and in no way reflects badly of the snowy scheme or 2.0, so I am still confused by the passion in your original comment.


----------



## JohnDe

Value Collector said:


> TLDR
> 
> Not actually interested in discussing this with you any further,


----------



## JohnDe

Value Collector said:


> But as I said I am not interested in any further debate with you,


----------



## Value Collector

Obviously if you mention my name in a comment and seem confused about why I said something, I will explain myself.


----------



## JohnDe

*Value Collector* continues to *confuse* building long term energy infrastructure with politicians spending tax payers $’s to buy votes, such as the Turnbull governments Snowy 2.0 NSW exercise.

$10 billion could have built a lot more energy infrastructure than Snowy 2.0 will ever give to Australia.

Senate Estimates papers confirm the announcement was cobbled together in less than two weeks after the concept was floated by Snowy Hydro.
How did it come to this — the energy crisis we had to have?
Does Australia need Tasmania to become a multi-billion-dollar 'Battery of the Nation'?


🤣 Sorry couldn’t help myself, someone left a door wide open for me


----------



## Value Collector

JohnDe said:


> *Value Collector* continues to *confuse* building long term energy infrastructure with politicians spending tax payers $’s to buy votes, such as the Turnbull governments Snowy 2.0 NSW exercise.
> 
> $10 billion could have built a lot more energy infrastructure than Snowy 2.0 will ever give to Australia.
> 
> Senate Estimates papers confirm the announcement was cobbled together in less than two weeks after the concept was floated by Snowy Hydro.
> How did it come to this — the energy crisis we had to have?
> Does Australia need Tasmania to become a multi-billion-dollar 'Battery of the Nation'?
> 
> 
> 🤣 Sorry couldn’t help myself, someone left a door wide open for me



Sorry, since you continue to bring up my name in a discussion I have already said I am not interested in continuing with you, especially because you just repeatedly quote the same nonsense about things I have already explained I am going to have to block you for a while.


----------



## JohnDe

> Value Collector
> 
> Sorry, since you continue to bring up my name in a discussion I have already said I am not interested in continuing with you, especially because you just repeatedly quote the same nonsense about things I have already explained I am going to have to block you for a while.




Millennials 🙄


----------



## SirRumpole

From the sidelines It appears to me that enhancing an existing asset is preferable to starting from scratch with all the design works, site finding, EIS'S and paperwork that needs to be done for a new installion.

But this is really an engineering issue.  I haven't heard of Snowy being unable to generate in flood times before, and flooding of coal mines would be unusual also. Wind farms can't generate when the winds are too high. Every grid module has their faults that have to be allowed for.

I don't believe Snowy 2.0 was a vote buying exercise. The public doesn't generally get excited by things they won't see for 10 years. Using $10 billion to reduce power bills now would have bought a lot more votes but would have been a waste of money in the long term.


----------



## mullokintyre

A lot of the proposed engineering work from the 50's got put on hold.
One of my neighbours, since passed away,  was a senior engineer with the old SRWC in Victoria.
One day back in the early 90's we were talking about the (then) flooding that was occurring along the Goulburn river.
He said that he had worked with others to produce the original plans for the Eildon dam which  had the wall about  40 KMS further west at a place called Trawool. The river at that point is around 140 M above sea level, which  is about 160 metres below the level of the existing eildon water level when full. When full, Eildons deepest part is now about 80 metres, so one can see there is an enormous potential  for storage.
It would have made the size of Eildon dam, already fairly big in its own right, about five times bigger  than it eventually was.
It would have meant that the small towns like Yea and Alexendria Molesworth and Cathkin would have to be shifted as they would be inundated.
Given that the entire town of Tallangatta was shifted to make way for the Hume, this was not an insurmountable problem.
What was an insurmountable problem was that a lot of national Party supporters and some  National Party members owned some extremely profitable and fertile land growing cattle along the flood plains of the river valley which also would have been inundated if the dam wall had been built at Trawool.
They had sufficient clout to can the expanded dam and retreat to where it was eventually sited.
The original dam wall was raised twice in 1929 and 1955 to where it is now.
The four AGL owned turbines produce up to 150 MW, but they are used intermittently, as Eildon is used mainly as irrigation supply and flood management.
However, had those original plans been operational, it would be a very different story today.
The cost of relocating those towns plus all the infrastructure would probably just make the \whole exercise prohibitively costly now.
But imagine what might have been.
Mick


----------



## JohnDe

SirRumpole said:


> From the sidelines It appears to me that enhancing an existing asset is preferable to starting from scratch with all the design works, site finding, EIS'S and paperwork that needs to be done for a new installion.
> 
> But this is really an engineering issue.  I haven't heard of Snowy being unable to generate in flood times before, and flooding of coal mines would be unusual also. Wind farms can't generate when the winds are too high. Every grid module has their faults that have to be allowed for.
> 
> I don't believe Snowy 2.0 was a vote buying exercise. The public doesn't generally get excited by things they won't see for 10 years. Using $10 billion to reduce power bills now would have bought a lot more votes but would have been a waste of money in the long term.




I also believed in Snowy 2.0 but the deeper I look the more short comings and conjuring I find. We were duped.

Turnbull gave 2.0 to the public and his party in the midst of the coal debate, his own environmental policy was causing fractures in his party and threatening his leadership.

Soon after, he lost his position and Morrison took over and an election was on the cards. A coal advocate leading a country looking for a green sustainable energy policy.

Snowy was unable to generate during flooding, this is fact.



> Snowy 2.0 – Is the reward worth the risk?​
> …there are several competing projects that do not appear to have been considered. And the costs of competing technologies appear unusually high, which when displaced by Snowy 2.0 in the analysis, produce more benefits than would otherwise be expected.
> 
> An even bigger threat to Snowy 2.0 returns comes from alternative modular technologies, especially battery energy storage systems (BESS). Snowy 2.0 is a large capital and irreversible investment – once committed it cannot be unbuilt. Alternative technologies, especially BESS are modular and have little economies of scale.
> 
> They can be committed in small quantities at many locations and can be expanded to adapt to the market over time. Snowy Hydro investing in Snowy 2.0 has none of this luxury…






> Coalition throws another $1.4 billion to try and make Snowy 2.0 stack up​
> Prime minister Scott Morrison has given the go-ahead to the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme, but it has needed an extra $1.4 billion of taxpayer’s money to get the pet project of predecessor Malcolm Turnbull – the man the Coalition dumped because they didn’t trust him on climate and energy policy – over the line.
> 
> Morrison and energy minister Angus Taylor rushed to the Snowy Mountains on Tuesday to make the announcement, the latest in a series to try and diffuse climate and energy policy as an election issue.
> 
> It follows the modest extension of the discredited Direct Action scheme, now rebranded as “Climate Solutions” fund,and a stream of other measures that will focus on energy efficiency, the vague promise of an electric vehicle strategy, and $56 million to “fast-track” Tasmania’s rival to Snowy 2.0 – the “Battery of the Nation” pumped hydro scheme and links to the mainland.






> Snowy 2.0 doesn't measure up economically or environmentally​
> Snowy Hydro works by using power, during periods of low demand, to pump water uphill. In periods of high demand, this water is allowed to flow downhill, through a turbine, to generate power. It takes much more power to move the water uphill than is generated when the water flows downhill.






> Shocked. Shocked! Snowy 2.0 turns $10bn black hole​
> The nation-building vision was for a big battery to be added to the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. It was to be completed in four years (that is, by last year) at a cost of $2 billion without any taxpayer subsidy, bring down electricity prices, generate renewable energy and incur minimal environmental impact on Kosciuszko National Park.
> 
> Inspiring stuff. But not one of these grand claims has turned out to be true. Worse, Australian taxpayers and NSW electricity consumers will be up for billions of dollars in subsidies and increased electricity costs, all while Kosciuszko is trashed. Let’s have a quick recap.


----------



## Belli

mullokintyre said:


> But imagine what might have been.




It would have meant I would have been unable to ride the BMW R60 on those gorgeous curves between Coldstream and Yea.  Such a lovely bike.


----------



## mullokintyre

Belli said:


> It would have meant I would have been unable to ride the BMW R60 on those gorgeous curves between Coldstream and Yea.  Such a lovely bike.



Correct, but you may have been able to ride the beemer around some other roads that would have been built.
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

JohnDe said:


> I also believed in Snowy 2.0 but the deeper I look the more short comings and conjuring I find. We were duped.
> 
> Turnbull gave 2.0 to the public and his party in the midst of the coal debate, his own environmental policy was causing fractures in his party and threatening his leadership.
> 
> Soon after, he lost his position and Morrison took over and an election was on the cards. A coal advocate leading a country looking for a green sustainable energy policy.
> 
> Snowy was unable to generate during flooding, this is fact.




I'll just quote 2 figures 

LCOE solar   $50    per MWh
LCOE hydro $0.04 per MWh

So even if the Snowy 2.0 budget blew out a bit its going to be $billions cheaper than building 2 GW of solar panels.

Of course, there is a risk in putting a lot of eggs into one basket but hydro schemes around the world including Snowy hydro work, work well, and do so for long periods of time.


----------



## JohnDe

SirRumpole said:


> I'll just quote 2 figures
> 
> LCOE solar   $50    per MWh
> LCOE hydro $0.04 per MWh
> 
> So even if the Snowy 2.0 budget blew out a bit its going to be $billions cheaper than building 2 GW of solar panels.
> 
> Of course, there is a risk in putting a lot of eggs into one basket but hydro schemes around the world including Snowy hydro work, work well, and do so for long periods of time.




I once would have agreed, but remember this; the government has borrowed to build, if it is overcapitalised it will take longer to pay off the loan, interest rates are rising, most of the worlds hydro systems don’t need to pump water back up, a lot more energy is required to pump water up and this eats into profits, new technology will bring new competition which will bring prices down and increase the repayment of government loans for Snowy 2.0


----------



## sptrawler

@JohnDe here is an article from Allan Finkle one of the most respected people in this field, I will paste it in entirety in case you can't open it. It was written on June 20th so is very current.
This very subject has been discussed endlessly inhttps://www.aussiestockforums.com/threads/the-future-of-energy-generation-and-storage.29842/page-303 over the last few years since Snowy 2.0 was announced, to regurgitate it here seems pointless and is taking the subject away from its obvious thread.
There are many sectors with vested interests that would prefer other cheaper forms of storage than hydro, mainly due to the fact they can't afford to put it in, so they obviously will try to undermine Snowy2.0

Quote:
Australia’s east coast electricity grid was under unprecedented pressure last week, laying bare the challenges of achieving a zero-emissions electrical system. It’s hard, really hard. And it’s only the beginning. The next step is to expand our zero-emissions electricity generation, and hydrogen produced from it, to replace oil and gas in transport, building heating and industry.

It has been easier for countries such as Norway and France because they have drawn on hydroelectricity and nuclear electricity to massively reduce their emissions. Tasmania, too, has achieved virtually 100 per cent emissions-free electricity through its combination of hydro and wind electricity.
From an engineering perspective, hydroelectricity and nuclear are dream players, producing electricity on demand and contributing to the secure and reliable operation of the grid. Solar and wind generation are less co-operative, but realistically that’s all that mainland Australia has at hand. To deploy them, they must be supported by transmission lines, storage and arguably a modest amount of natural gas generation.

Australia has made good progress. There has been record investment in the past three years that has seen our solar and wind generation in the east coast grid almost double from 12 per cent in 2018 to 23.5 per cent in 2021. On a per capita basis, our solar and wind generation is comparable with California. Looking just at solar electricity, on a per capita basis Australia is No. 1 in the world.
Where we are behind schedule is on the construction of transmission lines, especially the local lines required to connect solar and wind energy zones to metropolitan and industrial loads. These transmission lines, combined with batteries, will substantially improve the reliability of our electricity system.

The requirements for transmission lines are well described in the Australian Energy Market Operator’s integrated system plan, a recommendation of the 2017 review of the national electricity market that I chaired. The new federal government’s $20 billion fund for transmission lines and grid strengthening will accelerate implementation.

*As we design the electricity system of the future it is essential to plan for the extremes, not the averages. In the past few weeks alone, we have suffered from a combination of floods, international price pressures, generator breakdowns, lower than usual wind and the normal low winter sunshine. A rare combination of events indeed, but rare events come in many shapes and sizes and, overall, one or the other happens frequently. More foreseeable is that every few years we will see low sunshine and low wind weather patterns lasting for many days or a week or two.
The solution is to invest in long-duration storage. Today, the only way to achieve long-duration storage is with pumped hydro, but such projects have been few and far between because of local objections to the facilities themselves and to installing the transmission lines to connect them. In future, hydrogen made from excess solar and wind electricity during good weather will be stored in large volumes and used to fuel converted natural gas generators to provide long-duration storage.*

The economics for investing in storage work well for short-duration storage of an hour or two. For that reason, investment in big batteries in Australia is already happening and growing rapidly, as it must. However, because the existing electricity market only pays for energy (megawatt-hours) dispatched, long-duration storage that will only be called upon infrequently is not an attractive investment. The solution is to introduce payments for the capacity to provide electricity on demand. This is an additional market mechanism known as a capacity market.

Details for such a market have been planned by the Energy Security Board and, encouragingly, federal, state and territory energy ministers have agreed to fast-track its adoption.
There are questions about whether it should include coal and natural gas. Coal generation needs separate attention to manage a planned exit. If the federal government in 2017 had not rejected the clean energy target recommended by the Finkel review, the coal generation owners would already be participating in an orderly exit consistent with the targeted emissions reduction trajectory.
On the other hand, natural gas generation could be included because it provides on-demand electricity that can ramp up and down within minutes to match the variable solar and wind. Natural gas generators will increasingly only be used as the last resort for a small number of hours per year, providing high value by keeping the lights on for short, medium and long durations. But the natural gas has to be available in volume and at reasonable price*, *which could be achieved by encouraging more supply and implementing a domestic reserve.

The fear that building new natural gas generators will lock them in for decades can be avoided by ensuring that in future they can be powered by hydrogen, as in the Tallawarra B power station under construction in NSW.
Small market tweaks would also help. For example, the $300 per megawatt-hour cap on the wholesale price was set more than 20 years ago. This cap is too small, not just because of inflation but because of our exposure to international coal and natural gas prices. If it had been set at a higher value, the operator might not have had to suspend the trading market.
The imminent threat of blackouts has been averted through excellent system management by AEMO, supported by constructive action by the energy ministers. We must learn from the current price and availability crunch that the transition will not be easy, but with the kind of determination currently being manifest it should be eminently doable.
*Alan Finkel was Australia’s chief scientist from 2016 to 2020 and chaired the 2017 national electricity market review, the 2019 national hydrogen strategy and the 2021 low-emissions technology roadmap.*

Also another article along the same lines and just as current








						‘Stakes never higher’: energy board releases capacity market blueprint
					

Energy Security Board says fossil fuel generators might need to be paid to stay in business to retain capacity




					www.theguardian.com
				



From the article:
In a statement to the media, the ESB said: “This transition needs to be carefully managed. The stakes have never been higher.”

According to the “step change” scenario that the* Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo)* considers the most likely, the country will need about 122GW of new wind and solar, backed up by 45GW of new storage capacity, by 2050. It will also need 7GW of existing hydro and 9GW of gas-fired generation as all coal plants exit by 2043.

“The new capacity required over the next 28 years is more than seven times that built over a similar time frame since the [national energy market] commenced 24 years ago and around 50 times the amount built by the Snowy Hydroelectric Scheme,” the paper said.

It adds: “While 5GW of coal capacity has already announced it will close by 2030, as much as 14GW may become uneconomic by that time” – or one-third of the Nem’s existing readily dispatchable capacity. “Replacement would require the equivalent of another Snowy 2.0 [pumped hydro plant] to be connected every year from now until 2030.”


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> A pumped storage scheme requires energy to pump water yes, ultimately it's a storage scheme, but I'll add that an on-river dam doesn't, it's energy positive as such.
> 
> Snowy 2.0 is in that regard a hybrid. It's a pumped scheme yes but the upper reservoir does also have natural inflow.
> 
> The existing Tumut 3 station is also a hybrid. It's primarily an on-river scheme but 3 of the 6 turbines do incorporate pumps to enable partial re-use of water, pumping it back from Jounama pondage (downstream) back up into Talbingo (upstream).
> 
> An attribute of SH2 is that it does have the ability to pump water discharged by Tumut 1 & 2. That is, it can take their discharge which ends up in Talbingo Reservoir, pump that up into Tantangara then, via the existing infrastructure, that can be sent back to Lake Eucumbene from where it came in the first place.
> 
> *If, as a future project, a pump were to be installed from Blowering Reservoir to Jounama pondage, and if the 3 non-pumping turbines at Tumut 3 were equipped with pumps, then it would be possible to pump from Blowering > Jounama > Talbingo > Tantangara then natural flow to Eucumbene and thus recycle all water in the northern end of the scheme if desired. That's not proposed at present but it's a relatively straightforward add-on. Bearing in mind that the capacity of Blowering Reservoir is equal to just under 92% of its annual inflow or 101% of the annual discharge from Tumut 3. That being so, short term inflows become irrelevant in any scenario other than a truly massive flood.*
> 
> Shoalhaven (NSW, Origin Energy) and Wivenhoe (Qld, CleanCo) are both "pure" pumped storage schemes without natural inflows.
> 
> The other Snowy stations (Tumut 1, Tumut 2, Blowering, Jounama, Guthega, Murray 1, Murray 2) are all on-river dams not pumped storage (though Murray 1 and 2 do involve some pumping, in one direction only, from Lake Jindabyne).
> 
> Barron Gorge and Kareeya (Qld), Lake Argyle (WA), the AGL hydro stations in Vic and all the Hydro Tasmania stations are on river. They're net energy positive with any pumping being a one-way diversion not pumped storage as such. Same with the various minor stations associated with irrigation or water supply dams.
> 
> A fact not well known to most Australians is that the Snowy scheme has never been completed to its full potential. SH2 as now proposed is simply a modernised version of a project first identified in the late 1950's. It's not the only one that could be added.






JohnDe said:


> I also believed in Snowy 2.0 but the deeper I look the more short comings and conjuring I find. We were duped.
> 
> Turnbull gave 2.0 to the public and his party in the midst of the coal debate, his own environmental policy was causing fractures in his party and threatening his leadership.
> 
> Soon after, he lost his position and Morrison took over and an election was on the cards. A coal advocate leading a country looking for a green sustainable energy policy.
> 
> *Snowy was unable to generate during flooding, this is fact.*




I think @Smurf1976 answered your flooding issue in the thread "The future of energy generation and storage thread"


----------



## JohnDe

sptrawler said:


> I think @Smurf1976 answered your flooding issue in the thread "The future of energy generation and storage thread"




He may have given his answer, but I was also given an answer by an industry expert and evidence during last week’s flooding that showed that Snowy hydro electricity was drastically reduced because the lower dam could not take any more water, without causing more extreme flooding. This during a power shortage.

Imagine what could have been built with that $10 billion spent on Snow 2.0 so far.

Power transfer cables from Tasmania, battery storage in strategic locations in all states.


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> He may have given his answer, but I was also given an answer by an industry expert and evidence during last week’s flooding that showed that Snowy hydro electricity was drastically reduced because the lower dam could not take any more water, without causing more extreme flooding. This during a power shortage.
> 
> Imagine what could have been built with that $10 billion spent on Snow 2.0 so far.
> 
> Power transfer cables from Tasmania, battery storage in strategic locations in all states.



Lets take it over to 'the future of  power generation and storage thread', please. You obviously didn't read smurf's post I inserted, he explained how the lower dam issue could be alleviated, click the expand button on the post.
With regard the Tassie link it has to be built as well as Snowy2, it is just Snowy 2 was already designed so made it easier to get up, batteries are not suitable for long duration storage and the private sector are willing to install them as they are a good return on equity, long duration storage is the major issue.
This is the electric car thread, after all, lets get back on thread.


----------



## JohnDe

sptrawler said:


> Lets take it over to 'the future of  power generation and storage thread', please. You obviously didn't read smurf's post I inserted, he explained how the lower dam issue could be alleviated, click the expand button on the post.
> This is the electric car thread, after all.




Yes I did read it. I also read that during the flooding there was a power supply shortage across the country, there was flooding in the lower parts of NSW, the lower dam was at capacity, and so on.

I understand that a hydro scheme can help with flood mitigation, but this was not the case this time.

Tasmania does not have the same flooding issues that NSW has. A better solution to power storage and generation would have been Tasmania, but instead politics and vote buying in NSW got in the way of common sense.


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> Yes I did read it. I also read that during the flooding there was a power supply shortage across the country, there was flooding in the lower parts of NSW, the lower dam was at capacity, and so on.
> 
> I understand that a hydro scheme can help with flood mitigation, but this was not the case this time.
> 
> Tasmania does not have the same flooding issues that NSW has. A better solution to power storage and generation would have been Tasmania, but instead politics and vote buying in NSW got in the way of common sense.



O.K one last try, firstly the Federal Govt doesn't have any say over Tassies Hydro, it belongs to the State, so the Feds can help fund stuff there but can't demand it is built.
Whereas the Federal Govt does own Snowy hydro, so as Snowy 2.0 was already designed years ago, to moving ahead with it was easy.

Secondly every project known to man is seeing massive cost blow outs, so why you think there wouldn't be similar cost blow outs in alternative projects, just appears nieve.

Thirdly as I said previously I am sure the Blowering dam issue could be engineered out, to which @Smurf1976 supplied a workable solution.
*If, as a future project, a pump were to be installed from Blowering Reservoir to Jounama pondage, and if the 3 non-pumping turbines at Tumut 3 were equipped with pumps, then it would be possible to pump from Blowering > Jounama > Talbingo > Tantangara then natural flow to Eucumbene and thus recycle all water in the northern end of the scheme if desired. That's not proposed at present but it's a relatively straightforward add-on. Bearing in mind that the capacity of Blowering Reservoir is equal to just under 92% of its annual inflow or 101% of the annual discharge from Tumut 3. That being so, short term inflows become irrelevant in any scenario other than a truly massive flood.
*
One final thing, you said you were talking to an expert in the field, I worked my whole career in the field and I can tell you smurf is an expert in the field. Take that to the bank.

Lets get back on thread.


----------



## JohnDe

sptrawler said:


> O.K one last try, firstly the Federal Govt doesn't have any say over Tassies Hydro, it belongs to the State, so the Feds can help fund stuff there but can't demand it is built.
> Whereas the Federal Govt does own Snowy hydro, so as Snowy 2.0 was already designed years ago, to moving ahead with it was easy.
> 
> Secondly every project known to man is seeing massive cost blow outs, so why you think there wouldn't be similar cost blow outs in alternative projects, just appears nieve.
> 
> Thirdly as I said previously I am sure the Blowering dam issue could be engineered out, to which @Smurf1976 supplied a workable solution.
> *If, as a future project, a pump were to be installed from Blowering Reservoir to Jounama pondage, and if the 3 non-pumping turbines at Tumut 3 were equipped with pumps, then it would be possible to pump from Blowering > Jounama > Talbingo > Tantangara then natural flow to Eucumbene and thus recycle all water in the northern end of the scheme if desired. That's not proposed at present but it's a relatively straightforward add-on. Bearing in mind that the capacity of Blowering Reservoir is equal to just under 92% of its annual inflow or 101% of the annual discharge from Tumut 3. That being so, short term inflows become irrelevant in any scenario other than a truly massive flood.*
> 
> One final thing, you said you were talking to an expert in the field, I worked my whole career in the field and I can tell you smurf is an expert in the field. Take that to the bank.
> 
> Lets get back on thread.





The Federal government & "Tassies Hydro - *Tasmania touts its “Battery of the Nation” – half the cost of Snowy 2.0* 6 June 2018 _Tasmania’s bid to be the “battery of the nation” has gained new momentum this week, with fresh estimates that Australia’s island state could provide just under 5GW of storage capacity from just over a dozen of its best pumped hydro sites._
Cost blow out started before current world problems - _The nation-building vision was for a big battery to be added to the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. It was to be completed in four years (that is, by last year) at a cost of $2 billion without any taxpayer subsidy...Snowy Hydro now expects completion in 10 years, not four, by 2026. Some experts consider even this extended timeframe to be optimistic....The all-up cost has increased at least five-fold, to $10 billion-plus, as energy experts warned the Prime Minister and the then NSW premier in 2020._
Increasing dam size to limit flooding has been an ongoing attempt in Queensland and NSW over the past decades, yet Mother Nature always finds away to flood again. *No dam can control the biggest floods*
I did not say I was talking to an expert, I said that I heard an expert - *Tina Soloman Hunter* professor of constitutional law, energy and resources law at Macquarie university. Also director of the Centre for Energy, Natural Resources, Innovation and Transformation at Macquarie University. - _"__t*he thing that really crippled, us which not many people art talking about*__, was the fact that Snowy Hydro couldn't drop enough water to generate emergency effectively hydro electric power because the Blowering Dam is full. And because of that unit 3 couldn't generate, because they couldn't drop the water to generate electricity because they would have caused wide spread flooding." _At the 17:25 minute mark of the *ABC* program *Rear Vision*
Yes, let's get back on 'track.'


----------



## SirRumpole

JohnDe said:


> _And because of that unit 3 couldn't generate, because they couldn't drop the water to generate electricity because they would have caused wide spread flooding." _At the 17:25 minute mark of the *ABC* program *Rear Vision*



No one is disputing that this is true.

Solar cells also don't generate at night, nor wind farms when there is no wind.

Those conditions are far more prevalent than a 1:100 (or more) flood event.


----------



## JohnDe

SirRumpole said:


> No one is disputing that this is true.
> 
> Solar cells also don't generate at night, nor wind farms when there is no wind.
> 
> Those conditions are far more prevalent than a 1:100 (or more) flood event.




That may have been the case 10 years ago, however, we have seen three 1:100 year events in 12 months. Climate change is here, the scientists have been telling us for years. Major flooding  is going to be a regular event.


----------



## sptrawler

They are going to need the Tassie battery and  the new undersea cables as well as Snowy 2.0, I really cant see your problem, Snowy2.0 needs to be built either way.
Or do you have something to be gained financially from the Tassie option, if so you will just have to wait, it will be done as we have already posted it is being planned for.


----------



## JohnDe

sptrawler said:


> They are going to need the Tassie battery and  the new undersea cables as well as Snowy 2.0, I really cant see your problem, Snowy2.0 needs to be built either way.
> Or do you have something to be gained financially from the Tassie option, if so you will just have to wait, it will be done as we have already posted it is being planned for.




No financial gain for me from Tassie Hydro. I’m just tired of my tax dollars being wasted on political decisions rather than Australian requirements, also I’ve seen the damage the Snowy scheme originally did. I accept that, for Australia’s development, but not happy about 2.0 when other alternatives were available.

I suppose there’s no point crying over spilt milk, what’s done is done, let’s get on with it.


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> No financial gain for me from Tassie Hydro. I’m just tired of my tax dollars being wasted on political decisions rather than Australian requirements, also I’ve seen the damage the Snowy scheme originally did. I accept that, for Australia’s development, but not happy about 2.0 when other alternatives were available.
> 
> I suppose there’s no point crying over spilt milk, what’s done is done, let’s get on with it.



I can understand that, the amount of ecological damage that is going to be done over the next 30 years is going to be mind boggling, all so that humans can have 'clean' energy to run their indulgencies. We are weird creatures.
As for Governments wasting money, I'm pleased it at least is being spent on something that will help Australians for 100 years or so, rather than throwing it away on half ar$ed brain farts like they normally do. But I don't want to get into politics, that would just take the thread further of track.
How about the fact KIA has jacked the price of the EV6 by nearly $5k, even for existing orders, now that is a bit rude. They have told those with orders in, if they don't like it cancel your order and get your refund back, makes you wonder why people are required to put a deposit on at all if it isn't worth the paper it is written on.


----------



## Value Collector

JohnDe said:


> No financial gain for me from Tassie Hydro. I’m just tired of my tax dollars being wasted on political decisions rather than Australian requirements, also I’ve seen the damage the Snowy scheme originally did. I accept that, for Australia’s development, but not happy about 2.0 when other alternatives were available.
> 
> I suppose there’s no point crying over spilt milk, what’s done is done, let’s get on with it.



Can I just point out that you were upset that the snowy had limited production for a few days during flooding, but did you know that the bass link cable that connects us to Tasmania has been down for periods up to 6 months before? So I am not sure how your favoured hydro projects in Tassie would help the mainland during a crisis if the cables go down again during a crisis time, to me it makes sense to not put all out eggs in Tasmania.

By all means invest in Tasmania too, but to suggest such investments in NSW are silly is crazy.


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> That may have been the case 10 years ago, however, we have seen three 1:100 year events in 12 months. Climate change is here, the scientists have been telling us for years. Major flooding  is going to be a regular event.



That is very true the world has changed hugely in the last 20 years, year 2,000 I was actually testing our electrical systems ability to cope with the computer calendar changeY2K and a brand new 340MW state of the art coal power station was just commissioned with the ability to fast track a sister unit in the future.

Now 20 years later, the second unit isn't coming and the original unit is scheduled to be de commissioned before 2030, who would have guessed how fast technology would overtake normal standard operation, it was only in 2009 that the solar panel manufacturing plant in Sydney was shut down, now it would be flat out.

With regard rainfall, as you say scientists have been telling us for years that climate change was happening and because of their warnings  Sydney built a desalination plant in 2010, because rainfall was predicted to fall and dams were expected to empty. As it turns out the exact opposite looks to be happening.
That is the problem with sciences that are not precise, where you are not dealing with constants and outcomes are difficult to predict.

With the electrical system, it can't be left to chance, if it fails society fails we can't function without electricity. Imagine 5million people in Sydney with no running water, no sewage pumps, no traffic lights, no petrol stations operating, no essential services, no lights, no fridges, shops not opening food going off, no trains, how long do you think before anarchy would break out?
That's why there is no back of the napkin transition, we will be better served having Snowy2.0 and not needing it, than needing it and not having it, because we did the Tassie link first and it broke like happened a few years ago.


----------



## JohnDe

Value Collector said:


> Can I just point out that you were upset that the snowy had limited production for a few days during flooding, but did you know that the bass link cable that connects us to Tasmania has been down for periods up to 6 months before? So I am not sure how your favoured hydro projects in Tassie would help the mainland during a crisis if the cables go down again during a crisis time, to me it makes sense to not put all out eggs in Tasmania.
> 
> By all means invest in Tasmania too, but to suggest such investments in NSW are silly is crazy.




Part of the Tasmanian proposal was to add two more links to the existing set up. This would allow a lot more power transfer, as well as providing back up to accidental damage to one or more links.

Any damage to those power lines will not cause flooding.

There will be an update of the Tasmanian link -

_Marinus Link__ welcomed AEMO’s 2022 ISP, which confirms that Marinus Link should be delivered urgently to provide much-needed clean energy for the national grid._


----------



## Value Collector

JohnDe said:


> Part of the Tasmanian proposal was to add two more links to the existing set up. This would allow a lot more power transfer, as well as providing back up to accidental damage to one or more links.
> 
> Any damage to those power lines will not cause flooding.
> 
> There will be an update of the Tasmanian link -
> 
> _Marinus Link__ welcomed AEMO’s 2022 ISP, which confirms that Marinus Link should be delivered urgently to provide much-needed clean energy for the national grid._



But you hate projects that run over budget, the original Basslink had a budget of $400 Million, but ended up costing $780 Million by the time it was complete in 2004.

How can we trust that building 3 more in todays dollars won’t also run well over budget? I mean you have set a pretty high bar of not wanting Infrastructure unless it’s 100% reliable and doesn’t run over budget, so given the previous history under sea cable cost over runs and outages, is this something you want to take the risk on.

(Just playing devils advocate here, I love Bass link APA is currently in a chess game trying to take ownership of it)


----------



## JohnDe

Value Collector said:


> But you hate projects that run over budget, the original Basslink had a budget of $400 Million, but ended up costing $780 Million by the time it was complete in 2004.
> 
> How can we trust that building 3 more in todays dollars won’t also run well over budget? I mean you have set a pretty high bar of not wanting Infrastructure unless it’s 100% reliable and doesn’t run over budget, so given the previous history under sea cable cost over runs and outages, is this something you want to take the risk on.
> 
> (Just playing devils advocate here, I love Bass link APA is currently in a chess game trying to take ownership of it)




I also hate project that are chosen to buy votes, rather than on feasibility.

Maybe if you hadn't banned me you would have seen that the information is all in my previous posts.

The current proposal -

*Does Australia need Tasmania to become a multi-billion-dollar 'Battery of the Nation'?*
28 Jun 2022

The renewables-rich island state of Tasmania has big plans to become a green battery for the mainland, however, the project is set to cost billions and not everyone's convinced that the economics stack up.

In 2017 with much fanfare, then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced two major pumped hydro projects – Snowy 2.0 in New South Wales and the "Battery of the Nation" in Tasmania.

Both states have used hydro-electricity for decades and, in Tasmania, it is the main source of electricity.

Normal hydropower is created by storing water on high ground and running it downhill to spin a turbine at the bottom.

Pumped hydro operates on the same principle, except that two dams, one higher than the other, work in a cycle that pumps water into the upper reservoir during off-peak hours.

Potential energy is then stored and generated when it's needed — virtually a big, green battery.

Snowy 2.0 is well underway but the project has faced delays and cost blowouts.

Tasmania's project, however, is still at the feasibility study stage.

The island state's ambition to become the so-called "Battery of the Nation" hinges on someone funding two undersea Bass Strait cables, the Marinus Link, connecting it to Victoria.

"What Marinus Link is doing is, it's unlocking Tasmania's fantastic renewable energy results," Battery of the Nation chief executive Bess Clark told ABC News.
She said this included the state's variable wind resource, "and the hydro resource we've got here and the pumped hydro potential we've got here".

While there is already an undersea cable connecting the island state to Victoria, called Basslink, it is running close to capacity and cannot carry any additional power.






A stylised 3D graphic of the proposed Marinus Link project.(Supplied: TasNetworks)
When the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) releases its latest plan to improve the grid on Thursday it's expected to again list Marinus Link as one of five key "actionable" projects.

The cables would have a combined, 1,500-MW capacity, which is enough to power up to 1.5 million homes and is roughly the equivalent output of the former Hazelwood coal-fired power station in Victoria.

Marinus Link is now expected to cost around $3.8 billion, after its price tag was recently revised upwards.

The federal and Tasmanian governments have already committed more than $200 million to pay for feasibility studies and a business case, with a final investment decision is set for 2024.

According to AEMO, the first cable could be built as soon as 2028, and the second from 2030, and would allow Tasmania to double the amount of electricity it exports.

"Australia is going to need a lot more energy if our coal plants continue to retire, so we're going to need to replace that energy," Ms Clark said.
"But we're also going to need what's called dispatchable energy, because a lot of the new energy will come from wind, it will come from solar."

"And that's great a lot of the time, but some of the time, it's not windy, and it's not sunny, so we'll need to store that energy. And that's where we can turn on hydro, and pumped hydro."





Trevallyn hydro power station was commissioned in 1955. (ABC News: John Gunn )
Tasmania does not need the extra energy, but the state's public-owned energy industry would make money from exporting the excess power to the mainland.

"We're sitting on a pot of gold of renewable energy," Battery of the Nation's project director, Paul Molnar, said.
Mr Molnar said the current hydro system has enough capacity to immediately export energy into the first Marinus Link cable.

"The second cable relies on us constructing a pumped hydro power scheme and, again, we've done all the work to position ourselves to be ready to go with that," Mr Molnar said.

But the projects do not come cheap.

The estimated cost has already gone up. It could end up costing a combined $10 billion, including $2.25 billion for Battery of the Nation and $3.5 billion for Marinus Link. That price does not include wind development either.


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> I also hate project that are chosen to buy votes, rather than on feasibility.
> 
> Maybe if you hadn't banned me you would have seen that the information is all in my previous posts.
> 
> The current proposal -
> 
> *Does Australia need Tasmania to become a multi-billion-dollar 'Battery of the Nation'?*
> 28 Jun 2022
> 
> The renewables-rich island state of Tasmania has big plans to become a green battery for the mainland, however, the project is set to cost billions and not everyone's convinced that the economics stack up.
> 
> In 2017 with much fanfare, then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced two major pumped hydro projects – Snowy 2.0 in New South Wales and the "Battery of the Nation" in Tasmania.
> 
> Both states have used hydro-electricity for decades and, in Tasmania, it is the main source of electricity.
> 
> Normal hydropower is created by storing water on high ground and running it downhill to spin a turbine at the bottom.
> 
> Pumped hydro operates on the same principle, except that two dams, one higher than the other, work in a cycle that pumps water into the upper reservoir during off-peak hours.
> 
> Potential energy is then stored and generated when it's needed — virtually a big, green battery.
> 
> Snowy 2.0 is well underway but the project has faced delays and cost blowouts.
> 
> Tasmania's project, however, is still at the feasibility study stage.
> 
> The island state's ambition to become the so-called "Battery of the Nation" hinges on someone funding two undersea Bass Strait cables, the Marinus Link, connecting it to Victoria.
> 
> "What Marinus Link is doing is, it's unlocking Tasmania's fantastic renewable energy results," Battery of the Nation chief executive Bess Clark told ABC News.
> She said this included the state's variable wind resource, "and the hydro resource we've got here and the pumped hydro potential we've got here".
> 
> While there is already an undersea cable connecting the island state to Victoria, called Basslink, it is running close to capacity and cannot carry any additional power.
> 
> View attachment 143930
> 
> A stylised 3D graphic of the proposed Marinus Link project.(Supplied: TasNetworks)
> When the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) releases its latest plan to improve the grid on Thursday it's expected to again list Marinus Link as one of five key "actionable" projects.
> 
> The cables would have a combined, 1,500-MW capacity, which is enough to power up to 1.5 million homes and is roughly the equivalent output of the former Hazelwood coal-fired power station in Victoria.
> 
> Marinus Link is now expected to cost around $3.8 billion, after its price tag was recently revised upwards.
> 
> The federal and Tasmanian governments have already committed more than $200 million to pay for feasibility studies and a business case, with a final investment decision is set for 2024.
> 
> According to AEMO, the first cable could be built as soon as 2028, and the second from 2030, and would allow Tasmania to double the amount of electricity it exports.
> 
> "Australia is going to need a lot more energy if our coal plants continue to retire, so we're going to need to replace that energy," Ms Clark said.
> "But we're also going to need what's called dispatchable energy, because a lot of the new energy will come from wind, it will come from solar."
> 
> "And that's great a lot of the time, but some of the time, it's not windy, and it's not sunny, so we'll need to store that energy. And that's where we can turn on hydro, and pumped hydro."
> 
> View attachment 143931
> 
> Trevallyn hydro power station was commissioned in 1955. (ABC News: John Gunn )
> Tasmania does not need the extra energy, but the state's public-owned energy industry would make money from exporting the excess power to the mainland.
> 
> "We're sitting on a pot of gold of renewable energy," Battery of the Nation's project director, Paul Molnar, said.
> Mr Molnar said the current hydro system has enough capacity to immediately export energy into the first Marinus Link cable.
> 
> "The second cable relies on us constructing a pumped hydro power scheme and, again, we've done all the work to position ourselves to be ready to go with that," Mr Molnar said.
> 
> But the projects do not come cheap.
> 
> The estimated cost has already gone up. It could end up costing a combined $10 billion, including $2.25 billion for Battery of the Nation and $3.5 billion for Marinus Link. That price does not include wind development either.



Have a chat with @Smurf he worked there for a long time, he will be able to answer any questions you have.🤣
The biggest problem I've heard, is that Victoria wont stump up any money, so what your on no one knows.
Let's get back to cars rather than your pet project that Uncle Dan isn't interested in and it isn't a Federal Issue other than if requested some funding could be provided, this is a Federation the States still have control over their infrastructure.
Lets move on FFS.

State open to Marinus Link, for now at least​The Victorian government says it does not oppose Marinus Link, but sees other energy projects as higher priorities.


----------



## JohnDe

Snowy 2.0 feasabiliity study carried out by - SnowyHydro



> *Snowy Hydro 2.0 will cost more and deliver less than promised, 30 experts say*
> This article is more than 2 years old
> Group calls for independent review of project it says would permanently damage Kosciuszko national park
> 
> Engineers, economists, energy specialists and environmentalists are calling for a final decision on the Snowy Hydro 2.0 project to be delayed to allow an independent review, claiming it will cost far more and deliver far less than has been promised.
> 
> The group of 30 said the 2,000-megawatt pumped hydro storage project in the Snowy Mountains would permanently damage the Kosciuszko national park.
> 
> “Snowy 2.0 is not as it has been publicly portrayed,” they said in a joint statement. “There are many alternatives that are more efficient, cheaper, quicker to construct and incur less [greenhouse gas] emissions and environmental impacts.”
> 
> The group was assembled by the National Parks Association of New South Wales and Ted Woodley, a former managing director of Energy Australia. In a letter to the prime minister, Scott Morrison, and NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, the members said they hesitated to raise the issue during the unparalleled challenge of the coronavirus pandemic, but they were concerned about the project going ahead without “independently validated justification”.
> 
> They said they were sceptical about the merits of Snowy 2.0 when it was announced by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in March 2017 and that scepticism had consolidated as more information emerged.
> 
> Their listed concerns included that they believed:
> 
> 
> About 40% of the energy generated is lost before it reaches consumers, more than other pumped storage schemes due to the distance between reservoirs being far longer, and more than other storage options.
> It was likely to cost at least $10bn, compared with Turnbull and Snowy Hydro’s initial estimate of $2bn. A $5.1bn contract has been signed as part of the project, with further costs to be added. They say this will be more than the Snowy Hydro’s estimate of the market benefit of between $4.4bn and $6.8bn.
> It would require substantial transmission works to connect to the grid, costing billions more.
> It will lead to more than 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions during construction and the first 10 years of operation.
> It will convert extensive areas of national park into a construction site, with permanent damage over thousands of hectares and the destruction of habitat used by 14 threatened species.
> “Snowy 2.0 should not proceed on the basis of overstated claims that have never been tested,” the letter concluded. “At stake are billions of dollars of Australian taxpayers’ money, tens of millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and thousands of hectares of Kosciuszko national park.”
> 
> The project was proposed by Turnbull as a 50% expansion of the celebrated scheme, which was built over 25 years, starting in 1949. The official estimated cost of Snowy 2.0 has more than doubled and the timeline for completion has been pushed out from 2021 to 2027 since it was announced.
> 
> Asked for its response, the federal government said it would be responding to the letter in writing.
> 
> A Snowy Hydro spokesman said an environmental impact statement was being considered by the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, and the issues in the letter had been raised and responded to before. He said only 0.01% of the national park would be permanently affected by this project.
> 
> Some issues raised in the letter, including what the project would cost, how long it would take to develop and its impact on the environment, have been raised by energy analysts since the project was announced. Letter signatories to have detailed criticisms before include Woodley and Bruce Mountain, the director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre at Victoria University.
> 
> Tony Wood, energy program director with thinktank the Grattan Institute, was not a signatory to the letter, but said he agreed with much of what was in it, including that there should be an independent review, not least because it was public money being invested.
> 
> He said the process by which Snowy Hydro had been announced before there had been a feasibility study was “ordinary to say the least”, and some of the claims about its financial case remained unclear.
> 
> “Surely they could clear the air by tabling an independent review of the project, given it’s not a typical or listed company,” he said. “The government is the shareholder on behalf of the people of Australia.”
> 
> A further concern some have raised but that is not mentioned in the letter is that the development risked giving the Snowy Hydro company, which is owned by the federal government, too great a hold over the energy market. In his book Superpower, economist Ross Garnaut suggested Snowy Hydro be broken in two so the existing generator and retailer was separate to a new body responsible for ensuring constant capacity to balance electricity supply and demand across the national grid.
> 
> The group behind the letter suggested a review could be taken by the Productivity Commission, Infrastructure Australia, the federal chief scientist, Alan Finkel, or the NSW chief scientist and engineer, Prof Hugh Durrant-Whyte.


----------



## Value Collector

JohnDe said:


> I also hate project that are chosen to buy votes, rather than on feasibility.
> 
> Maybe if you hadn't banned me you would have seen that the information is all in my previous posts.
> 
> The current proposal -
> 
> *Does Australia need Tasmania to become a multi-billion-dollar 'Battery of the Nation'?*
> 28 Jun 2022
> 
> The renewables-rich island state of Tasmania has big plans to become a green battery for the mainland, however, the project is set to cost billions and not everyone's convinced that the economics stack up.
> 
> In 2017 with much fanfare, then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced two major pumped hydro projects – Snowy 2.0 in New South Wales and the "Battery of the Nation" in Tasmania.
> 
> Both states have used hydro-electricity for decades and, in Tasmania, it is the main source of electricity.
> 
> Normal hydropower is created by storing water on high ground and running it downhill to spin a turbine at the bottom.
> 
> Pumped hydro operates on the same principle, except that two dams, one higher than the other, work in a cycle that pumps water into the upper reservoir during off-peak hours.
> 
> Potential energy is then stored and generated when it's needed — virtually a big, green battery.
> 
> Snowy 2.0 is well underway but the project has faced delays and cost blowouts.
> 
> Tasmania's project, however, is still at the feasibility study stage.
> 
> The island state's ambition to become the so-called "Battery of the Nation" hinges on someone funding two undersea Bass Strait cables, the Marinus Link, connecting it to Victoria.
> 
> "What Marinus Link is doing is, it's unlocking Tasmania's fantastic renewable energy results," Battery of the Nation chief executive Bess Clark told ABC News.
> She said this included the state's variable wind resource, "and the hydro resource we've got here and the pumped hydro potential we've got here".
> 
> While there is already an undersea cable connecting the island state to Victoria, called Basslink, it is running close to capacity and cannot carry any additional power.
> 
> View attachment 143930
> 
> A stylised 3D graphic of the proposed Marinus Link project.(Supplied: TasNetworks)
> When the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) releases its latest plan to improve the grid on Thursday it's expected to again list Marinus Link as one of five key "actionable" projects.
> 
> The cables would have a combined, 1,500-MW capacity, which is enough to power up to 1.5 million homes and is roughly the equivalent output of the former Hazelwood coal-fired power station in Victoria.
> 
> Marinus Link is now expected to cost around $3.8 billion, after its price tag was recently revised upwards.
> 
> The federal and Tasmanian governments have already committed more than $200 million to pay for feasibility studies and a business case, with a final investment decision is set for 2024.
> 
> According to AEMO, the first cable could be built as soon as 2028, and the second from 2030, and would allow Tasmania to double the amount of electricity it exports.
> 
> "Australia is going to need a lot more energy if our coal plants continue to retire, so we're going to need to replace that energy," Ms Clark said.
> "But we're also going to need what's called dispatchable energy, because a lot of the new energy will come from wind, it will come from solar."
> 
> "And that's great a lot of the time, but some of the time, it's not windy, and it's not sunny, so we'll need to store that energy. And that's where we can turn on hydro, and pumped hydro."
> 
> View attachment 143931
> 
> Trevallyn hydro power station was commissioned in 1955. (ABC News: John Gunn )
> Tasmania does not need the extra energy, but the state's public-owned energy industry would make money from exporting the excess power to the mainland.
> 
> "We're sitting on a pot of gold of renewable energy," Battery of the Nation's project director, Paul Molnar, said.
> Mr Molnar said the current hydro system has enough capacity to immediately export energy into the first Marinus Link cable.
> 
> "The second cable relies on us constructing a pumped hydro power scheme and, again, we've done all the work to position ourselves to be ready to go with that," Mr Molnar said.
> 
> But the projects do not come cheap.
> 
> The estimated cost has already gone up. It could end up costing a combined $10 billion, including $2.25 billion for Battery of the Nation and $3.5 billion for Marinus Link. That price does not include wind development either.



I can’t see anywhere there that suggests that there are safe guards to prevent cost over runs happening as they did with the original one.

The truth is I have actually already been studying these various options for years, it’s something I have  taken an interest in for a long time, this isn’t my first week in looking into it.


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> Snowy 2.0 feasabiliity study carried out by - SnowyHydro



Another two year old pre covid story, from probably vested interests, move it to 'the future of power generation and storage'.
We are now into the third page of this nonsense that is derailing the thread.


----------



## JohnDe

​


sptrawler said:


> Another two year old pre covid story, from probably vested interests, move it to 'the future of power generation and storage'.
> We are now into the third page of this nonsense that is derailing the thread.




The age of the report is the point, there were questions and concerns about Snowy 2.0 before we got to the budget blow out of $10 billion.

Imagine if an independant feasibility study was carried out, maybe it would have chosen Snowy 2.0. or maybe Tasmania, we will never know.


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> ​
> 
> The age of the report is the point, there were questions and concerns about Snowy 2.0 before we got to the budget blow out of $10 billion.
> 
> Imagine if an independant feasibility study was carried out, maybe it would have chosen Snowy 2.0. or maybe Tasmania, we will never know.



OMG
Why doesn't the current Govt can it then?









						'A battery with no plug': Labor backs Snowy 2.0, but calls for more renewable firepower
					

Bill Shorten says more renewable generation is needed to make full use of the hydro-electric project.




					www.smh.com.au
				












						With a gas crisis already on its hands, the government has just learned Snowy Hydro faces significant delays
					

The signature energy reform piece of the previous government will not start producing electricity until late this decade, presenting another energy market headache for the country.




					www.abc.net.au
				




Being from W.A I certainly hope they do, that will save us from having to contribute to a grid we don't use.


----------



## JohnDe

sptrawler said:


> OMG
> Why doesn't the current Govt can it then?




What? The project has started, why waste more money canning it?

Go back to my original post of several days ago. All I did was point out that Snowy can not be relied on all of the time, I was just trying to point out that we need more supply and storage options. That was all I was saying.

From there we had a flood of apologists for Snowy 2.0 and the people that chose it. We have comments about government wasting tax dollars over Covid, but they don't mind it wasted on Snowy 2.0. Is that because it is a NSW project?

We once had the Democrats to keep the bastards honest. Who do we have now?


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> What? The project has started, why waste more money canning it?
> 
> Go back to my original post of several days ago. All I did was point out that Snowy can not be relied on all the time, we need more supply and storage. That was all I was saying, from there we have had a flood of apologists for Snowy 2.0 and the people that chose it. We have comments about government wasting tax dollars over Covid, but they don't mind it wasted on Snowy 2.0. Is that because it is a NSW project?



They do that all the time, remember East West link in Melbourne, subs in France.
I wish they would allow all you people over east to enjoy the electrical system you deserve, for sell it all off years ago.
If Snowy wasn't being done F all would be being done, that's what you don't seem to understand, even Kurri Kurri which taxpayers are funding is because your states aren't standing up to the plate, all they are doing is talking up a storm.


----------



## JohnDe

sptrawler said:


> They do that all the time, remember East West link in Melbourne, subs in France




Just because it has been done, it does not make it right or reason to do it.


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> Just because it has been done, it does not make it right or reason to do it.



You obviously fixated, so be it, enough is enough.
You are becoming very troll like.


----------



## JohnDe

sptrawler said:


> You obviously fixated, so be it,* enough is enough.*




So you keep saying. I just keep replying to comments, it's a forum of discussion.


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> So you keep saying. I just keep replying to comments, it's a forum of discussion.



The issue is you dont seem to accept the reality that Snowy2 is being built, if it wasnt required or a better option was available the new Govt would halt it, they own it, but they aren't therefore it must have merit.
You obviously are the one out of step, the AEMO, the EMA say it is required, yet you prefer to accept the opinion of private individuals who could well have vested interests, thats fine and your perogative.
As with investing it all depends on what information you believe.
It is a forum of discussion and I think it is a valid discussion, I just wish it was being held in the appropriate thread , but hopefully @Joe Blow can move the content.


----------



## JohnDe

sptrawler said:


> The issue is you dont seem to accept the reality that Snowy2 is being built,




Maybe, or maybe you don’t accept that someone might have a different view.

And even though I think Snowy 2.0 is a wasteful project, only you have mentioned stopping it.


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> Maybe, or maybe you don’t accept that someone might have a different view.
> 
> And even though I think Snowy 2.0 is a wasteful project, only you have mentioned stopping it.



As I said, both projects will have to be done, it is only that Snowy 2.0 was already designed, marinus link will happen, but it is still at the drawing board stage.
There is nothing wrong with having a different view, it is the refusal to accept the reality, you seem to be having issues with.
As for stopping it, if it was wasteful, the new Govt would stop it, as the last Govt did with the diesel subs.
Maybe you dont accept that others may not agree with you, no matter how strong their reasoning.


----------



## Smurf1976

I'll encourage all who are interested to read the AEMO 2022 Integrated System Plan or any of the other publicly available reports on the subject.

Bottom line is that even with all present hydro + Snowy 2.0 + an assumed future fleet of shorter duration pumped hydro and battery systems in operation AEMO has still concluded that 10 GW, that is 10,000 MW, of gas (or other fuel) based generation is required to be retained indefinitely.

That leaves more than enough room to develop other deep storage projects in Tasmania or elsewhere, bearing in mind that as time passes there's a need to replace that gas-fired capacity with something, that is either built more gas or build an alternative.

A point many miss is the huge increase in electricity consumption likely over the coming years driven by electrification of not only vehicles but of basically everything. 

The future involves a lot more electricity for reasons best explained by the following figures which are electricity as a % of secondary energy supply. Secondary energy being that supplied to end users - so it's electricity not the fuel used to generate it, it's petrol not the oil it came from, etc.

Tasmania = 39%
NSW = 23%
SA = 20%
Queensland = 19%
Victoria = 17%
NT = 17%
WA = 15%

Those figures being Australian Government statistics. Data's a couple of years old but hasn't changed significantly.

To simply achieve the same level of electrification nationally as presently exists in Tasmania would approximately double Australia's total electricity consumption.

Now add EV's to that.

Now add at least some growth of industrial energy consumption. There's quite a few proposals starting to emerge there. 

The risk is firmly toward having insufficient supply rather than having too much.


----------



## Smurf1976

JohnDe said:


> we have seen three 1:100 year events in 12 months.



What we haven't seen however is a situation unable to be managed simply by operating the infrastructure differently.

Blowering has been constantly close to full for the past 12 months, and has not been substantially lower for almost two years now.

Hume has likewise been full or very close to it since August last year.

Meanwhile Lake Eucumbene, the largest storage in the Snowy scheme with water discharged in both directions (Eucumbene > Tumut 1 > Tumut 2 > Tumut 3 > Jounama > Blowering and separately Eucumbene > Murray 1 > Murray 2 > Hume) is presently at 25.5% of capacity.

Jindabyne, the second largest Snowy storage, is presently 79.6% full.

Tantangara, the third largest Snowy storage, is at present 20.4% full.

Total of the above three is 29.47%

Those figures are for active storage, that is water able to be taken out of the reservoir, and ignore dead storage which is water below the intake. The latter being particularly significant at Jindabyne, less so at the others, but does result in any data looking at total volume showing a higher %. In the context of operations however it's active storage that matters - though total is of more relevance if your interest is in going fishing on the lake etc.

So why do we have downstream storage full to the point of flooding meanwhile upstream storage is low?

It's not because of recent weather.

Rather, it's simply because operation of the scheme has intentionally aimed to release water rather than storing it at high elevation. That comes about primarily due to the water license under which Snowy Hydro operates, that license being a construct of politics which sees the idea of Snowy retaining water in storage as "bad" or at least a threat, and compels that it be released regardless of need.

Wait for the next drought and there'll be plenty of screaming from farmers and others that we ain't got no water. That will indeed be the case, that's what happens when you don't aim to store it when there's plenty.

The present situation could have been avoided simply by operating the existing infrastructure differently. That is, focusing water licenses on release from Blowering and Hume not release into them and aiming to maximise storage upstream rather than minimising it.

Further improvement could be achieved if the pumping scheme I mention were to be built.

Still further improvement could be achieved by modification to the Kiewa scheme (AGL) and operating Dartmouth (Victorian Government / MDBA / AGL) in an integrated manner with Snowy's Murray assets.

Kiewa - construction of a single additional dam would increase storage in the existing scheme with its 4 power station from 30% of annual inflow to 250% of annual inflow. That dam, combined with an additional reversible pump turbine, would enable a firm 410 MW to be delivered, operating base load when required, for 4 weeks each year for the specific purpose of filling VRE droughts. That one project would replace about 4% of gas-fired generation required across the NEM for that purpose in a future predominantly VRE scenario (the one envisaged by AEMO in the ISP).

Could go even further and build the unbuilt upstream storage on the Murray side of the Snowy scheme too. That would primarily serve an electrical purpose, displacing gas use, but also has some benefit to water management. That one would likely be somewhat contentious but could be built in a modified form, without the lengthy aqueducts originally proposed, thus addressing not all but most of the environmental concerns previously raised.

Overall there's an awful lot that could be done to improve water management and remove reliance on fossil fuels if we really wanted to. That we don't comes down primarily to politics - there are specific projects where real environmental downsides exist and where there's a reasoned argument against it but there's plenty more where it's simply down to sheer ignorance technically combined with ideological "no dams anywhere" type thinking which fails to acknowledge that not building it also comes with a very real impact to the extent that fossil fuels are the in practice alternative.


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> He said that he had worked with others to produce the original plans for the Eildon dam which had the wall about 40 KMS further west at a place called Trawool.



Interesting, I wasn't aware of that one.

Looking at topographic maps it would seem possible to go half way. That is, retain the existing dam and power station, and build the new one downstream to a height that would flood Yea but not Alexandra.

Electrically well if it were built it would free up operation of the existing Eildon station, shifting it from summer to anytime, thus enabling it to be deployed for the purpose of filling VRE droughts. That's another 120 MW of gas capacity replaced.

A very rough calculation comes to about 160 MW of generation installed at the new dam, operating on a regime similar to the present Eildon power station and essentially replacing its function during the summer months.

A possible additional development would of course be a pumped storage scheme between the two. 

Whether it's a good idea is of course another matter. Those living at Yea probably won't be keen on having their town submerged. Those at Alexandra would plausibly be more than happy that they now have waterfront properties, the lake would be right to the edge of the town near the convergence of Hall Street, Vickery Street and Morris Street. Ideological opponents of dams obviously wouldn't be in favour. Farmers it would likely depend - it's good news for those outside the new lake area obviously, not so good for those within it.

Yarck would also be unaffected albeit with a new lake beside it.

All comments are approximate based on my looking at maps, it's not an idea I have any formal knowledge of.


----------



## SirRumpole

Do gravity batteries have a future ?

Yes I know hydro is a gravity battery, but there are other types.


----------



## JohnDe

Smurf1976 said:


> What we haven't seen however is a situation unable to be managed simply by operating the infrastructure differently.
> 
> Blowering has been constantly close to full for the past 12 months, and has not been substantially lower for almost two years now.
> 
> Hume has likewise been full or very close to it since August last year.
> 
> Meanwhile Lake Eucumbene, the largest storage in the Snowy scheme with water discharged in both directions (Eucumbene > Tumut 1 > Tumut 2 > Tumut 3 > Jounama > Blowering and separately Eucumbene > Murray 1 > Murray 2 > Hume) is presently at 25.5% of capacity.
> 
> Jindabyne, the second largest Snowy storage, is presently 79.6% full.
> 
> Tantangara, the third largest Snowy storage, is at present 20.4% full.
> 
> Total of the above three is 29.47%
> 
> Those figures are for active storage, that is water able to be taken out of the reservoir, and ignore dead storage which is water below the intake. The latter being particularly significant at Jindabyne, less so at the others, but does result in any data looking at total volume showing a higher %. In the context of operations however it's active storage that matters - though total is of more relevance if your interest is in going fishing on the lake etc.
> 
> So why do we have downstream storage full to the point of flooding meanwhile upstream storage is low?
> 
> It's not because of recent weather.
> 
> Rather, it's simply because operation of the scheme has intentionally aimed to release water rather than storing it at high elevation. That comes about primarily due to the water license under which Snowy Hydro operates, that license being a construct of politics which sees the idea of Snowy retaining water in storage as "bad" or at least a threat, and compels that it be released regardless of need.
> 
> Wait for the next drought and there'll be plenty of screaming from farmers and others that we ain't got no water. That will indeed be the case, that's what happens when you don't aim to store it when there's plenty.
> 
> The present situation could have been avoided simply by operating the existing infrastructure differently. That is, focusing water licenses on release from Blowering and Hume not release into them and aiming to maximise storage upstream rather than minimising it.
> 
> Further improvement could be achieved if the pumping scheme I mention were to be built.
> 
> Still further improvement could be achieved by modification to the Kiewa scheme (AGL) and operating Dartmouth (Victorian Government / MDBA / AGL) in an integrated manner with Snowy's Murray assets.
> 
> Kiewa - construction of a single additional dam would increase storage in the existing scheme with its 4 power station from 30% of annual inflow to 250% of annual inflow. That dam, combined with an additional reversible pump turbine, would enable a firm 410 MW to be delivered, operating base load when required, for 4 weeks each year for the specific purpose of filling VRE droughts. That one project would replace about 4% of gas-fired generation required across the NEM for that purpose in a future predominantly VRE scenario (the one envisaged by AEMO in the ISP).
> 
> Could go even further and build the unbuilt upstream storage on the Murray side of the Snowy scheme too. That would primarily serve an electrical purpose, displacing gas use, but also has some benefit to water management. That one would likely be somewhat contentious but could be built in a modified form, without the lengthy aqueducts originally proposed, thus addressing not all but most of the environmental concerns previously raised.
> 
> Overall there's an awful lot that could be done to improve water management and remove reliance on fossil fuels if we really wanted to. That we don't comes down primarily to politics - there are specific projects where real environmental downsides exist and where there's a reasoned argument against it but there's plenty more where it's simply down to sheer ignorance technically combined with ideological "no dams anywhere" type thinking which fails to acknowledge that not building it also comes with a very real impact to the extent that fossil fuels are the in practice alternative.




Water management authorities may have made mistakes, poor decisions and compromises. However, even if everything was done perfectly there still would have been flooding.

As for the upper dam Tantangara Dam being partially empty, well that is part of the problem mentioned in previous discussions - if there is a power issue, how will the water be pumped? Australia, including NSW, has had a generation problem for the past few months.

Snowy 2.0 is going ahead, was it the right decision? Some will say yes and others no. At the end of the day we will never have a definitive answer because there was no independent feasibility study.

I personally think that it has diminished future nation building projects by lumbering Australians with a huge debt and expensive electricity generation.



> *No dam can control the biggest floods*
> 
> Planning in Australia often uses the 1-in-100-year flood return interval as a safety standard. This is not appropriate. Flood risk in the valley is increasing with climate change, and development in the catchment increases the speed of runoff from paved surfaces.
> 
> The historical 1-in-100 year safety standard is particularly inappropriate in the valley, because of the extreme risk of rising water cutting off low-lying roads and completely submerging residents cut-off in extreme floods.
> 
> What’s more, a “medium” climate change scenario will see a 14.6% increase in rainfall by 2090 west of Sydney. This is projected to increase the 1-in-100 year flood height at Windsor from 17.3m to 18.4m.






> *Cost Per Kilowatt Of Power*
> 
> If Snowy Hydro 2 comes in at $10 billion, its cost per kilowatt of power output comes to…
> 
> $5,000 per kilowatt


----------



## mullokintyre

JohnDe said:


> Water management authorities may have made mistakes, poor decisions and compromises. However, even if everything was done perfectly there still would have been flooding.
> 
> As for the upper dam Tantangara Dam being partially empty, well that is part of the problem mentioned in previous discussions - if there is a power issue, how will the water be pumped? Australia, including NSW, has had a generation problem for the past few months.
> 
> Snowy 2.0 is going ahead, was it the right decision? Some will say yes and others no. At the end of the day we will never have a definitive answer because there was no independent feasibility study.
> 
> I personally think that it has diminished future nation building projects by lumbering Australians with a huge debt and expensive electricity generation.



To paraphrase that saying about oil, Debt is not all the same.
I am happy to be lumbered with debt to produce infrastructure.
At some point, the debt can indeed be repaid., the cost is fixed, the debt known.
What I do not want is debt  that is created to employ a myriad of public servants, or to pay the future commitments to social services etc, or to give free childcare to parents (I was going to say working parents, but that is not a distinction that is made by the givers of free stuff).
All of these sorts or programs are on going  i.e. once created , are perpetualised, such that the debt will never be repaid, merely added to.
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

JohnDe said:


> I personally think that it has diminished future nation building projects by lumbering Australians with a huge debt and expensive electricity generation.




No doubt that was said of the original Snowy scheme, but where would we be without it ?

Answer, much more reliant on fossil fuels.


----------



## JohnDe

mullokintyre said:


> To paraphrase that saying about oil, Debt is not all the same.
> I am happy to be lumbered with debt to produce infrastructure.
> At some point, the debt can indeed be repaid., the cost is fixed, the debt known.
> What I do not want is debt  that is created to employ a myriad of public servants, or to pay the future commitments to social services etc, or to give free childcare to parents (I was going to say working parents, but that is not a distinction that is made by the givers of free stuff).
> All of these sorts or programs are on going  i.e. once created , are perpetualised, such that the debt will never be repaid, merely added to.
> Mick




There is good debt, and there is bad debt. 



> *Beware the infrastructure debt trap*
> 
> Geopolitical and economic rivalries can see projects of questionable value get
> pushed through without proper assessment of financial and economic viability.




It is claimed that Snowy 2.0 will last 100 years before requiring a major rebuild, and the debt will take 50 years to pay off. All is well, unless......


----------



## JohnDe

SirRumpole said:


> No doubt that was said of the original Snowy scheme....




In my 30+ years of history study, I do not recall reading anything like that.

The original Snowy scheme was a nation building project, designed with more than one aim in mind. Nation building. Including developing hydro-electric power, increase agricultural production in the Murray and Murrumbidgee valley, and increasing Australia's population talent pool. One hundred thousand people worked on the Scheme, many where migrant workers that stayed and brought their families

Snowy 2.0 is just a very expensive (gold plated) upgrade.


----------



## sptrawler

There will be a lot of gold plated financially irrational projects built in the next 30 years IMO, while we try to wean ourselves off fossil fuel, no matter what the cost.
The first projects are the easy ones that will give more bang for bucks, then will come the ones that make no financial sense, but still have to be built.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> There will be a lot of gold plated financially irrational projects built in the next 30 years IMO, while we try to wean ourselves off fossil fuel, no matter what the cost.
> The first projects are the easy ones that will give more bang for bucks, then will come the ones that make no financial sense, but still have to be built.




Yes indeed, like the gold plated poles and wires.









						We have a gold-plated electricity grid consumers can't afford
					

Australia has a power system "ten times more reliable that it needs to be" and which is the envy of the world. So why are consumers so unhappy?




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yes indeed, like the gold plated poles and wires.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> We have a gold-plated electricity grid consumers can't afford
> 
> 
> Australia has a power system "ten times more reliable that it needs to be" and which is the envy of the world. So why are consumers so unhappy?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Yes the general public have very little understanding of the issue, I think that will change over the next 30 years, one way or another the general public pay for it.


----------



## Smurf1976

JohnDe said:


> Water management authorities may have made mistakes, poor decisions and compromises. However, even if everything was done perfectly there still would have been flooding.



Flooding as such yes.

Flooding at Blowering Reservoir or a need to spill from it no.

In the context of power generation, if the discharge from Blowering is at zero and flooding still occurs downstream well then clearly that's an occurrence unrelated to the hydro scheme.

Blowering holds almost a full year's worth of inflows and it holds over a decade's worth of inflows entering naturally below Tumut 3. That it's full now is because it has been full almost constantly for two years, a consequence of policy.

If I were a farmer downstream suffice to say I'd be outright furious with the feds for having created this situation. First with an unnecessarily large flood and next will be an unnecessarily severe lack of water during the next drought. That's due to the nonsense which spews from Parliament House, not Snowy Hydro.

The big problem politically is that, broadly speaking, they tend to think in terms of annual or average, politicians really aren't good at the idea of establishing a broad principle with the detail filled in on the fly in real time going forward.


----------



## Smurf1976

Quoting a few bits from AEMO's Integrated System Plan:



> Australia is currently installing VRE faster than at any time in history. This record rate needs to be maintained every year for a decade to triple VRE capacity by 2030 – then almost double it again by 2040, and again by 2050






> Today the NEM delivers just under 180 TWh of electricity to industry and homes per year. The NEM would need to nearly double that by 2050 to serve the electrification of our transport, industry, office and homes, replacing gas, petrol and other fuels. That growth is needed in addition to significant ongoing investment by consumers in distributed energy and energy efficiency




Note for clarity the above does NOT include electricity used for hydrogen production which is additional.

In regard to firming VRE, AEMO sees a need for:



> 46 GW / 640 GWh (gigawatt hours) of dispatchable storage, in all its forms



+


> 7 GW of existing hydro generation



+


> 10 GW of gas-fired generation




Back to my own comments:

In the context of hydro projects, they basically fit into three categories in terms of what they're an alternative to:

Those with no storage, that is they are true run of river schemes, are ultimately an alternative to wind and solar. They generate energy on an intermittent basis driven by weather.

A pumped storage scheme with a few hours' storage is ultimately an alternative to other pumped storage schemes or batteries. An on river dam with limited storage is much the same.

A pumped storage scheme or large on river dam, one that's able to discharge constantly for an extended period when required, is ultimately an alternative to gas, diesel or other fuel-based options.

Now for the pain.....

For those in the first category we have an abundance of options. There's plenty of sites for wind and solar and likewise simply diverting a river into a penstock then back out the tailrace doesn't usually upset too many people.

For those in the second category it's not so easy. Private enterprise is happy to pick the low hanging fruit and install batteries with 1 or even 4 hours' storage but that's about it. Talk about 8 hours and most have by that point left the room. Talk about 16 hours and none are interested. The economics just aren't all that great.

For those in the third category well that's where the real pain comes in and not just economically. There's a strong argument against fossil fuels on the grounds of the environment, resource limits, national security and so on. But it's also true that big dams have plenty of detractors, indeed there are quite a few who very strongly oppose that idea.

Personally well all things considered I'd generically choose hydro over gas. It doesn't run out, doesn't start wars at least in the Australian context, if well done doesn't need add significantly to emissions and so on. Plus it's effectively permanent once built.

I say "generically" because there are certainly some hydro options that personally I wouldn't support. That being those which send species extinct and so on. That's too high a price to pay simply to generate electricity. There are of course plenty of hydro options that aren't in that category and which haven't already been developed.

That said, well I've no expectation whatsoever that we'll actually, really move away from fossil fuels completely. There'll be a lot of huffing and puffing politically but ultimately society really isn't keen enough on the idea yet to actually do it. We'll use less fossils yes but, broadly, gas is still a path of lesser political resistance than hydro and so it will continue to be used.

To the extent any hydro gets built though, well it means less gas but there's very little chance we'll build enough of it to get to zero by that means. That leaves ongoing use of gas unless / until some other technology comes along.

To those who oppose hydro projects I've always asked the same question - "what specific alternative do you propose?" Actual, specific alternatives.


----------



## JohnDe

Smurf1976 said:


> Flooding as such yes.
> 
> Flooding at Blowering Reservoir or a need to spill from it no.
> 
> In the context of power generation, if the discharge from Blowering is at zero and flooding still occurs downstream well then clearly that's an occurrence unrelated to the hydro scheme.
> 
> Blowering holds almost a full year's worth of inflows and it holds over a decade's worth of inflows entering naturally below Tumut 3. That it's full now is because it has been full almost constantly for two years, a consequence of policy.
> 
> If I were a farmer downstream suffice to say I'd be outright furious with the feds for having created this situation. First with an unnecessarily large flood and next will be an unnecessarily severe lack of water during the next drought. That's due to the nonsense which spews from Parliament House, not Snowy Hydro.
> 
> The big problem politically is that, broadly speaking, they tend to think in terms of annual or average, politicians really aren't good at the idea of establishing a broad principle with the detail filled in on the fly in real time going forward.





Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Australia the country of drought, flood and democracy.

March 2021 - 



> Premier Gladys Berejiklian said more than three quarters of the dam would have had to have been emptied to make way for the extra water.
> 
> "Given the rainfall that we're experiencing in the next few days, you would have had to reduce the capacity of the dam to around 20 or 25 percent which just wouldn't have been feasible," she said.
> 
> "That puts into context just how much rain we're expecting to get over the next few days."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> NSW government ministers in dam stoush as water levels rise
> 
> 
> Major disagreements have emerged between NSW government ministers over the management of Warragamba Dam, as water spilling over the wall causes flooding issues for some Sydney suburbs.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Australia the country of drought, flood and democracy.
> 
> March 2021 -



The problem now is, the ones in charge haven't got anyone to blame, so it is going to get messy politically IMO.
Floods, covid, fatigue and the main cause has been removed, so the next scapegoat has to be found, the media will be looking.Lol


----------



## mullokintyre

One of the issues often glossed over is what may have happened without all of the various infrastructure  built on the rivers over the pas 200 hundred years.
Anyone bothered to look at historical photographs of the Murray river in summer prior to the building of Dartmouth, Hume, Mulwala, Tocumwall or the myriad of locks etc  would see a mere trickle of water during some drought years, and significant floods during wet years. Today it is regulated all year round.
And lets not forget how many levee banks have been built up over the same period to  try to direct water away from towns.
Similarly those on the Murrumbidgee flats  before Burrinjuck or  Tantangara were built, would have had big surges  of water and regular flooding multiple times during a wet year.
The landscape has been altered in so many ways that water flows are now unrecognizable, but instead of blaming  changes in flood patterns any of these structural changes, its a little more fashionable to blame climate change.
Mick


----------



## Eager

Smurf1976 said:


> For those in the second category it's not so easy. Private enterprise is happy to pick the low hanging fruit and install batteries with 1 or even 4 hours' storage but that's about it. Talk about 8 hours and most have by that point left the room. Talk about 16 hours and none are interested. The economics just aren't all that great.



So what? If you had enough 4-hour battery storage facilities, they don't all have to feed into the grid at once, do they?


----------



## Eager

mullokintyre said:


> One of the issues often glossed over is what may have happened without all of the various infrastructure  built on the rivers over the pas 200 hundred years.
> Anyone bothered to look at historical photographs of the Murray river in summer prior to the building of Dartmouth, Hume, Mulwala, Tocumwall or the myriad of locks etc  would see a mere trickle of water during some drought years, and significant floods during wet years. Today it is regulated all year round.
> And lets not forget how many levee banks have been built up over the same period to  try to direct water away from towns.
> Similarly those on the Murrumbidgee flats  before Burrinjuck or  Tantangara were built, would have had big surges  of water and regular flooding multiple times during a wet year.
> The landscape has been altered in so many ways that water flows are now unrecognizable, but instead of blaming  changes in flood patterns any of these structural changes, its a little more fashionable to blame climate change.
> Mick



Flood patterns due to structural changes such as the building of dams and levees is a factor, true, but so is the building of residential areas on flood plains. I'm glad you mentioned the Murrumbidgee. What happened at Gundagai in 1852 is common knowledge, with colonists ignoring the previous warnings of the local indigenous population regarding the site for the town. Is it any different to what happened in Brisbane in 2011? Trying to funnel floodwaters, whether naturally occurring or not, down a hard narrow path and not expecting consequences for adjacent properties is just plain dumb.

Having a go at people mentioning climate change is not doing you any favours. You're more worried about mitigating a flood after it rains; some are more worried about calming the climate to reduce the amount of extreme rainfall events. It's a bigger picture than the one you're focusing on.


----------



## mullokintyre

Eager said:


> Flood patterns due to structural changes such as the building of dams and levees is a factor, true, but so is the building of residential areas on flood plains. I'm glad you mentioned the Murrumbidgee. What happened at Gundagai in 1852 is common knowledge, with colonists ignoring the previous warnings of the local indigenous population regarding the site for the town. Is it any different to what happened in Brisbane in 2011? Trying to funnel floodwaters, whether naturally occurring or not, down a hard narrow path and not expecting consequences for adjacent properties is just plain dumb.



There is a reason why some of these areas are calle flood plains, they flood.


Eager said:


> Having a go at people mentioning climate change is not doing you any favours. You're more worried about mitigating a flood after it rains; some are more worried about calming the climate to reduce the amount of extreme rainfall events. It's a bigger picture than the one you're focusing on.



I am not looking for favours, I am looking for facts.
It seems that everything and anything is blamed on climate change, without ever mentioning the mechanisms by which the blame is attributed. 
A book called* **The Early Days of Windsor, **by James Steele* was published long ago in 1916. It tells us that early flooding for the first European settlers in Australia was frequent, and was so bad on the Hawksbury in 1798 the Governor even limited the sale of rum (it must have been serious). The first Government House in Windsor was said to be “swept away” in 1799.  This was followed by another flood in 1801 and a much worse one in 1806 when seven people died. The plucky residents only had to wait three years to be besieged again in 1809. By then people were getting so fed up of being flooded they moved Windsor and other settlements to higher ground in 1810, which was a jolly good thing because it flooded again in 1811.

In 1817 things were so bad, it was reported that the Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers had inundated the buildings on the banks “three times within nine months”.

After that, everything dried out for a few decades. Droughts became the norm instead. That was until the late 1850s when flooding came back into fashion, climatically speaking.  Symbolising this shift, a neat little church at Clydesdale was built in 1842 and lasted til the great flood of 1867 when things got so bad there was “driftwood on the roof”. The book drily notes: “This church is now closed.” By 1872, flooding was again so common the people of Windsor even formed “a water brigade” so they were ready to rescue people and knew how the manage the flood boats. It sounds a bit like an early inland version of the Royal Life Saving Society that wouldn’t even start work on Australian beaches for another twenty years.

All of this took place before Dams, roads, hosing and levees we see today were engineered.
History is a great teacher , if one can bother to listen to it.
Mick


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> The landscape has been altered in so many ways that water flows are now unrecognizable



If you look at the Murray River catchment well most of it has been substantially altered in terms of land use and what hasn't been altered is either dammed not far downstream or is a tributary flowing into an altered section of the River.

There are proper ways to model flooding and forecast the extremes but the harsh reality is the results are really quite blunt - more than a few towns just shouldn't be where they are as it's a given they'll be flooded at some point.

Same goes for many Australian towns and cities. It seems we had an obsession with building them on flood plains despite having vast areas with no such risk.

For the record, my own house shouldn't flood in an extreme worst case event but about 150m away there's several places that'll go under for sure, possibly to the point of total destruction in practice. Now the thing is, those places at risk are in most cases somewhat newer than mine. I don't intend that comment as a boast, just as evidence that we're still doing silly things that will end in tears and that's not because of climate change or even climate itself, it's because humans do silly things - there's a reason that land wasn't developed in the 1960's when the rest was. Then someone came up with "infill housing" and off we go, the seeds of disaster have been sown.


----------



## basilio

A few very pertinent stories in the ABC around moving decisively to a renewable energy future. Many of the issues  have already been raised and examined on ASF.  Major points -

1) *National and economic  security. *No one can control  the sun or the wind and stand on your throat

2) *Need to ensure stability of supply.* Ton of work required for distribution and storage as well as generation. How do we "guarantee" the lights won't go out ? What price do we pay for this guarantee ?

3) *Current risks of global energy crunch.  *Russia is intent on squeezing the West as hard as possible  energy wise.









						'Greatest peace plan of all': US, Australia say renewable energy cannot be 'weaponised'
					

Australia and the US call for the acceleration of the renewable energy transition as a form of insurance, arguing that no country has ever been "held hostage" over access to the wind or sun.




					www.abc.net.au
				











						Australia's energy revolution gathers pace with renewables to generate 'half' its electricity within three years
					

A report calls for changes to guide Australia's energy transition after finding the country is on track to generate half its electricity from renewable sources within three years and almost 70 per cent by 2030.




					www.abc.net.au
				











						Vital cover or junk policy? Why plans to 'insure' Australia's energy system are so divisive
					

Amid an ever-deepening crisis in Australia's electricity grid, something has got to give. But not everyone likes a proposed fix to safeguard the system, writes Daniel Mercer.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Smurf1976

Eager said:


> Having a go at people mentioning climate change is not doing you any favours. You're more worried about mitigating a flood after it rains; some are more worried about calming the climate to reduce the amount of extreme rainfall events. It's a bigger picture than the one you're focusing on.



I'll argue for both.

There are dams that have actually been built which on any sensible assessment should not have been built. They came at a huge ecological cost for limited benefits.

There are other dams that have not been built where the case to build them is extremely strong. The pose no known threat to any species, are not subject to siltation or organic matter entering, and from an electrical perspective offer a direct, large scale alternative to the use of fossil fuels to firm VRE.

Regarding flooding well it's similar.

There's land which should never have been built on but, once built on, a dam and other hard engineering approaches can mitigate the flood risk in that area. Problem is humans being what they are, they tend to then go and keep building things and a point comes where no practical dam or other infrastructure is a solution.

That said, it works to a point and can certainly be modelled:


----------



## SirRumpole

Advances in solar PV's.


----------



## Eager

mullokintyre said:


> I am not looking for favours, I am looking for facts.
> It seems that everything and anything is blamed on climate change,



(1) Screaming out for facts
(2) Basing your post on a perception.

Nice try.


----------



## basilio

Makes a lot of sense

*BCA’s Jennifer Westacott: move to clean energy ‘biggest skills transfer in history’*

In the final panel of Sydney’s international Energy Forum, *Jennifer Westacott AO *of the Business Council of Australia says building a workforce for development and deployment of clean technology is going to be the “biggest skill transfer in the history of the world”.



> This transition is about new jobs, more jobs, adaptation of existing jobs. We have to be unambiguously optimistic. The emphasis is ... not job destruction.



Westacott urges a “mindset change”.


> We get bogged down by qualifications ... [but] what is a job? What is a skill? People have attributes, skills, capabilities that can be re-equipped ... We need to think about energy workers, not fossil fuel workers.



An estimated 30 million jobs are expected to be created in the energy transition, Westacott explains. “These jobs will be right across the supply chain,” and the focus is on “reprioritisation” and “overlapping skills”.

On Australia’s tertiary education system addressing skills shortages and reprioritisation, Westacott says:
We need to blow this system up. We’ve got to think about life long skills ... We’ve got to blend in vocation skills ... We need to change accreditation ... We have to start now. It takes five years to get an engineer trained. We don’t have five years. We need to remove friction. Because this is the biggest skill transfer in the history of the world.


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> Makes a lot of sense
> 
> *BCA’s Jennifer Westacott: move to clean energy ‘biggest skills transfer in history’*
> 
> In the final panel of Sydney’s international Energy Forum, *Jennifer Westacott AO *of the Business Council of Australia says building a workforce for development and deployment of clean technology is going to be the “biggest skill transfer in the history of the world”.
> 
> 
> Westacott urges a “mindset change”.
> 
> An estimated 30 million jobs are expected to be created in the energy transition, Westacott explains. “These jobs will be right across the supply chain,” and the focus is on “reprioritisation” and “overlapping skills”.
> 
> On Australia’s tertiary education system addressing skills shortages and reprioritisation, Westacott says:
> We need to blow this system up. We’ve got to think about life long skills ... We’ve got to blend in vocation skills ... We need to change accreditation ... We have to start now. It takes five years to get an engineer trained. We don’t have five years. We need to remove friction. Because this is the biggest skill transfer in the history of the world.



The problem is we have spent 30 years dumbing down our education systems, so that we can keep kids in school at least until year 12, then we wanted to keep them off the dole so we made it easy to enter uni.
Then we imported our skilled requirements from overseas on visas, now we have a useless education system, a useless apprenticeship system and the uni's are full of people doing useless degrees.
Yep we really are the clever country, don't worry though it has been announced, we need 200,000 skilled immigrants, at last we can start the 457 off again while our kids go to uni to do arts degrees.
The logistics a supply issues will be what limits the deployment of renewables, storage and transmission installations, not a skills shortage IMO.









						Treasure Charmers responds to Australian industry’s ‘200,000 skilled migrants a year’ proposal - NRI Affairs
					

Australian industry leaders and the unions have called on the government for a temporary two-year increase in skilled migration to allow up to 200,000




					www.nriaffairs.com


----------



## JohnDe

sptrawler said:


> The problem is we have spent 30 years dumbing down our education systems, so that we can keep kids in school at least until year 12, then we wanted to keep them off the dole so we made it easy to enter uni.
> Then we imported our skilled requirements from overseas on visas, now we have a useless education system, a useless apprenticeship system and the uni's are full of people doing useless degrees.
> Yep we really are the clever country, don't worry though it has been announced, we need 200,000 skilled immigrants, at last we can start the 457 off again while our kids go to uni to do arts degrees.
> The logistics a supply issues will be what limits the deployment of renewables, storage and transmission installations, not a skills shortage IMO.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Treasure Charmers responds to Australian industry’s ‘200,000 skilled migrants a year’ proposal - NRI Affairs
> 
> 
> Australian industry leaders and the unions have called on the government for a temporary two-year increase in skilled migration to allow up to 200,000
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.nriaffairs.com




Sorry, but most of the "kids" I know are pretty good. As for "easy to enter uni", I'm sure that many wish it was as easy as the the period from 1974 to the mid 80's.

Don't blame the kids, blame the parents.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The problem is we have spent 30 years dumbing down our education systems, so that we can keep kids in school at least until year 12, then we wanted to keep them off the dole so we made it easy to enter uni.
> Then we imported our skilled requirements from overseas on visas, now we have a useless education system, a useless apprenticeship system and the uni's are full of people doing useless degrees.
> Yep we really are the clever country, don't worry though it has been announced, we need 200,000 skilled immigrants, at last we can start the 457 off again while our kids go to uni to do arts degrees.
> The logistics a supply issues will be what limits the deployment of renewables, storage and transmission installations, not a skills shortage IMO.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Treasure Charmers responds to Australian industry’s ‘200,000 skilled migrants a year’ proposal - NRI Affairs
> 
> 
> Australian industry leaders and the unions have called on the government for a temporary two-year increase in skilled migration to allow up to 200,000
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.nriaffairs.com




A bit off topic again, but have a look at this









						National Press Club Address: John Dewar - Chairperson of Universities Australia
					

John Dewar, Chairperson of Universities Australia, Vice-Chancellor and President of La Trobe University, addresses the National Press Club.




					iview.abc.net.au
				




A very relevant question is at the 42 minute mark.


----------



## mullokintyre

Eager said:


> (1) Screaming out for facts
> (2) Basing your post on a perception.
> 
> Nice try.



Well, I pointed out some facts from historical records.
The flooding events in Sydney were not "unprecendented"  which was one of the words bandied about.
Climate change was used i just about every report on the flooding.
And yet as I pointed out, these flood events have happened before, at a higher level, and long before climate change became the  scapegoat.
Th climate scientists can tell us the mechanism by which these events  are developing, 
From  The guardian


> Kimberley Reid, an atmospheric scientist at Monash University, said the weather models showed about five days ahead “that something big was going to happen” over eastern Australia, and it was not unusual for forecasts to be a few hours out.
> 
> Domensino said this east coast low was likely to have carried more rain than most because it had more water to draw on. He said the ocean temperatures off the coast of the Illawarra were between 2C and 3C hotter than the long-term average.
> Like almost everywhere else, the waters around much of Australia have been getting warmer due to global heating driven by the burning of fossil fuels. Scientists have established the atmosphere can hold roughly 7% more moisture for every additional degree of warming.
> 
> Domensino said it meant the east coast low on the weekend “had a lot more water to tap into, which is partly why we saw so much rain”. In short, heat may have amplified the impact.




The flooding events I outlined from the 1800's   would nt have been driven by climate change (at least not by man made climate change).
So were the waters off the NSW  coast 2 to 3 degrees warmer then, or was there some other mechanism?
Perhaps not all of the change is induced by Co2 increases,  we really don't "know".

We have how had three years of El Nino type weather in OZ, which is said to be the mechanism for the increased rainfall in OZ.
But none of the climate models were able to predict the  changes in Enso or  the Dipole,  they can only record its  happening as rel time data comes in.
Like most people, I agree there is  climate change happening all the time.
It happens on small and gigantic scales ad everything in between.
As to the insistence that by cutting the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere we can somehow influence the climate to make it more "normal",  that  needs a bit more work.
Mick


The


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> The problem is we have spent 30 years dumbing down our education systems, so that we can keep kids in school at least until year 12, then we wanted to keep them off the dole so we made it easy to enter uni.
> Then we imported our skilled requirements from overseas on visas, now we have a useless education system, a useless apprenticeship system and the uni's are full of people doing useless degrees.
> Yep we really are the clever country, don't worry though it has been announced, we need 200,000 skilled immigrants, at last we can start the 457 off again while our kids go to uni to do arts degrees.
> The logistics a supply issues will be what limits the deployment of renewables, storage and transmission installations, not a skills shortage IMO.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Treasure Charmers responds to Australian industry’s ‘200,000 skilled migrants a year’ proposal - NRI Affairs
> 
> 
> Australian industry leaders and the unions have called on the government for a temporary two-year increase in skilled migration to allow up to 200,000
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.nriaffairs.com




I don't believe that is what Jennifer Wescott was alluding to.  As I read it she was taking about a mass transfer and retraining  of  people from one area of energy technology/industry to another.  Why for example can't people in the oil/gas industry get a 1-2 year retraining program to enable them to work in  wind and solar ? Could this be on the job training in some situations ?

Having said that I can see that Australia faces  a very big wave of retirements and a much smaller group coming into the workplace.  This is happening across many industries. Education, which is my area, is certainly one where  numbers out is going to swamp numbers in.  

On the overall picture which  Ms Wescott is discussing Australia does face a massive  rebuilding program in terms of overhauling our energy systems on a macro as well as micro level.  I agree that the logistics will be a critical issue.  However I can see skill and staff shortages also being a killer. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A heads up on education in Victoria at the moment.

There are widespread teacher shortages which are intensified with COVID sickness and a very nasty flu.  In that context many schools need every relief teacher they can find - but that is far easier said than done. As a result Private schools in melbourne are offering relief teachers $700 a day to take classes of sick teachers. The Education Department rate for relief teachers is around $400 a day so, no surprise Sherlock ,  these Private schools are collaring the market - or trying to.  Private school parents are very demanding about their children getting every second of teaching. But in the end if there aren't enough teachers available all the money in the world can't produce them.

Another issue with Relief teachers is that Education authorities have demanded that teachers keep up long term registration requirements. This means extensive documented ongoing teacher training and proven performance as a teacher (20 days) every year. Consequently many teachers let their registration lapse after retirement so they can't be brought back into field.


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> Sorry, but most of the "kids" I know are pretty good. As for "easy to enter uni", I'm sure that many wish it was as easy as the the period from 1974 to the mid 80's.
> 
> Don't blame the kids, blame the parents.



The parents definitely brought about the slide, unfortunately the kids have to wear the results.
From the education system, through to the competency standards, which ruined our worlds best apprenticeship system IMO.








						More than 20 per cent of NSW students fall below acceptable standards
					

Only 79.1 per cent of public school students reached minimum standards for reading and numeracy in NAPLAN, well below the target.




					www.smh.com.au
				






			https://ministers.dese.gov.au/tudge/reverse-decline-school-standards-focus-teacher-training
		










						The numbers don't lie: Australia is failing at maths and we need to find a new formula to arrest the decline
					

Australia has suffered a significant drop in teenage maths proficiency in the past 20 years -- sliding from 11th in the OECD rankings to 29th place out of 38 countries, prompting widespread debate over potential curriculum changes. One researcher says hand gestures could stop the slide.



					www.sciencedaily.com


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> I don't believe that is what Jennifer Wescott was alluding to.  As I read it she was taking about a mass transfer and retraining  of  people from one area of energy technology/industry to another.  Why for example can't people in the oil/gas industry get a 1-2 year retraining program to enable them to work in  wind and solar ? Could this be on the job training in some situations ?



The competency standards makes it very easy for people with skills, to have them transferred to another field, with recognition of prior knowledge. So the provision is already there to facilitate it.




basilio said:


> Having said that I can see that Australia faces  a very big wave of retirements and a much smaller group coming into the workplace.  This is happening across many industries. Education, which is my area, is certainly one where  numbers out is going to swamp numbers in.



Yes teaching since it became a university course, seems to have attracted many people who are attracted to the pluses and aren't very happy with the negatives. The days are long gone where teachers took up the profession as a calling, the same has happened to many professions IMO.
Where we are really lacking people, is in the science and engineering fields.
Hopefully with the renewable revolution, the unwinding of globalisation and rise of self sufficiency, we may have a renaissance of our innovative and inventive past.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> On Australia’s tertiary education system addressing skills shortages and reprioritisation, Westacott says:
> We need to blow this system up. We’ve got to think about life long skills ... We’ve got to blend in vocation skills ... We need to change accreditation ... We have to start now. It takes five years to get an engineer trained. We don’t have five years. We need to remove friction. Because this is the biggest skill transfer in the history of the world.



I don't agree there's an excuse to shortcut training - that would be an extremely "convenient" outcome for business so no surprise it's someone from the BCA pushing the idea.

What we really need to do is get away from the idea of having countless independent contractors doing things, none of them having continuous workflow, which results in an outright shocking environment in which to train people. You can't put someone on as an apprentice, or take a tradesman and put them through uni, when all you've got is a 2 year construction contract and no certainty of what happens afterward. That leads to short term thinking at every level and is part of the problem.

Versus the "old" utilities had not absolute certainty, since consumption trends would change, but they had reasonable certainty about the future. The SECWA, ETSA, HEC and so on could take on apprentices or upskill existing staff, eg manual labour to trades or trades to professions, confident that they had a need for them and that if they didn't then it would only be a case of being six months too early, it wouldn't be a wasted effort. Certainly wouldn't be the first time someone was hired for a basic manual job, showed firm technical interest and aptitude, and was put on as an apprentice. 

Considering the overall task required to build VRE, batteries, hydro, transmission and so on it really ought to be a cinch to put people through training on the basis of assured work.


----------



## Smurf1976

JohnDe said:


> Sorry, but most of the "kids" I know are pretty good.



The kids themselves are fine.

Some of what they're taught, and the standards of assessment, I have some concerns about however. 

Let's just say some schools have implausibly low failure rates.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Why for example can't people in the oil/gas industry get a 1-2 year retraining program to enable them to work in wind and solar ? Could this be on the job training in some situations



A lot really depends on what the actual tasks are.

If we're talking about structural or pressure vessel fabrication then what purpose it ultimately serves makes little difference to the skills required to build it. The "what" is more relevant than the "why".

Civil construction has a lot of overlap regardless of what's being built. Moving earth is moving earth regardless of why it's being moved.

High voltage electrical is high voltage electrical regardless of what purpose it's serving.

On the other hand, no real overlap between something like oil exploration and assessing the output of a potential new wind farm. Apart from the common aspect that the ultimate purpose is to obtain energy, there's really nothing in common with the skillset involved.

A lot of it isn't so much that there's a need for "energy" skills but that there's a need for skills in civil construction, structural engineering, welding or whatever.

Ultimately this is a road bridge. That it was built by an electricity company as part of a power development doesn't change that it's a road bridge carrying vehicles: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-42...dsJtxvenXTroYERaAmxiQ!2e0!7i3328!8i1664?hl=en

Only difference between that and any other bridge is it was rather more easily built - the lake is completely man-made, being the storage for John Butters power station, so there was no water when the bridge was built. Apart from that detail though well it's a bridge, why it was built makes no difference to that and same with a lot of things.


----------



## mullokintyre

Why is it that this thread constantly gets sidetracked?
Why are we discussing  education standards in a thread about energy generation and storage?
Hey @joeblow can we send them to a new thread?
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

mullokintyre said:


> Why is it that this thread constantly gets sidetracked?
> Why are we discussing  education standards in a thread about energy generation and storage?
> Hey @joeblow can we send them to a new thread?
> Mick




We actually need educated people to build infrastructure.

Gaps have been defined in essential STEM areas for some time.

Sure, education is not right on the topic of this thread, but threads drift occasionally.

But if the boss decides to put them in another thread that's his perogative.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Let's just say some schools have implausibly low failure rates.




Especially for fee paying students.


----------



## JohnDe

SirRumpole said:


> Especially for fee paying students.




I have personally found it to be the other way, having family and friends working in public and private schools. An in-law has two children at a public school, one completed year 12 with flying colours but is now struggling at Uni. The other child is in year 12, hardly hands in any work, gets extensions on projects, and her last term results was straight B's. Great children, one is a math's wizz but that hasn't helped Uni, the other works part time while still at school and is highly valued by management.

These generalisation's that I am reading in the last few posts are very poor form.

Not all schools are poor, just like not all are excellent.

Why do people find the worse in everything that is in front of them, but the best in everything behind them.

Many of our youth have gone on to be very talented people.

A close friends daughter received a Rhodes Scholarship, took it and is in England using it to be the best in her field.

My daughter's school was named one of the top high schools in the country. She studied law and psychology and was in the top 2%, and received offers from employers.

The young man that works for me passed year 12 but not with the greatest marks, he wasn't worried because he did not want to go to Uni, he wanted a trade and got one. Now fully qualified and highly respected in the field.

I could go on all day, and I could also list stories from the other side of the coin, but they are the exception to the rule. Most of our kids and youth strive to be something and to add to society.


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> Why is it that this thread constantly gets sidetracked?
> Why are we discussing  education standards in a thread about energy generation and storage?
> Hey @joeblow can we send them to a new thread?
> Mick



It’s much like mentioning RBA policy in the context of inflation.

The loss of focus on technical and scientific education among the general population is partly how the present mess was created. It’s what enables politics and the media to get away with nonsense without being called out.

If the political and media standards in regard to language or social sciences were even half as bad they’d be shot down on practically everything they said or published whereas with science and to some extent maths they get away with murder.

End result is a dysfunctional energy system but we’ve got a perfect legal framework to produce grammatically correct and socially inclusive reporting on a market that conforms almost perfectly to economic ideology.

That it doesn’t deliver economical energy to consumers is the missing bit.

But yes, let’s keep it on topic.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> It’s much like mentioning RBA policy in the context of inflation.
> 
> The loss of focus on technical and scientific education among the general population is partly how the present mess was created. It’s what enables politics and the media to get away with nonsense without being called out.
> 
> If the political and media standards in regard to language or social sciences were even half as bad they’d be shot down on practically everything they said or published whereas with science and to some extent maths they get away with murder.
> 
> End result is a dysfunctional energy system but we’ve got a perfect legal framework to produce grammatically correct and socially inclusive reporting on a market that conforms almost perfectly to economic ideology.
> 
> That it doesn’t deliver economical energy to consumers is the missing bit.
> 
> But yes, let’s keep it on topic.



Languages and social science is where most journalists come from, the level of expertise in STEM is very low . Most journalists have a sneering joke about nerds and quickly change the subject to something they think people are interested in like dog shows or similar.


----------



## Smurf1976

To illustrate the issue, a simple question in the style of a school exam:

_Smurf takes a 10 minute shower. Calculate the cost of energy consumed and separately calculate the quantity of any primary energy source of your choice required to heat the water. Answers required relate to heating the water only, you may ignore the cost of water itself and the energy used to pump it. Your answer may be based on any technology in commercial use other than a solar water heater. State all assumptions and show all working. _

Now that's not a university level question very obviously.

It's also not a TAFE question.

It is in fact simply an easier version of two actual questions from grade 8 maths and grade 11 physics when I went to school in the public education system in Tasmania. The original grade 8 maths question stated the water was heated with electricity and the grade 11 physics question required the use of hydro-electricity specifically and the calculation of water discharged from the power station. My question above is somewhat easier given that it's considerably simpler to calculate the physics part if you choose gas as the energy source.

Now I'd be willing to bet that most of our politicians, media and indeed much of the general public would struggle to answer the above even with access to a computer and the internet. And yet it's only high school maths and physics.

But if those same people were to display the same level of ignorance on any social issue they'd be roasted. Even something like language they'd be seen as uneducated. When it comes to maths and science though, ignorance is apparently acceptable in Australian society.

My point there isn't about any sort of educational elitism, not at all. It's simply that if our politicians, media and the public had a better grasp of all this then the level of public debate would be drastically improved with the silly stuff shot down rather quickly.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> To illustrate the issue, a simple question in the style of a school exam:
> 
> _Smurf takes a 10 minute shower. Calculate the cost of energy consumed and separately calculate the quantity of any primary energy source of your choice required to heat the water. Answers required relate to heating the water only, you may ignore the cost of water itself and the energy used to pump it. Your answer may be based on any technology in commercial use other than a solar water heater. State all assumptions and show all working. _
> 
> Now that's not a university level question very obviously.
> 
> It's also not a TAFE question.
> 
> It is in fact simply an easier version of two actual questions from grade 8 maths and grade 11 physics when I went to school in the public education system in Tasmania. The original physics question required the use of hydro-electricity specifically and the calculation of water discharged from the power station whereas my question above is somewhat easier given that it's considerably simpler to calculate if you choose gas as the energy source.
> 
> Now I'd be willing to bet that most of our politicians, media and indeed much of the general public would struggle to answer the above even with access to a computer and the internet. And yet it's only high school maths and physics.
> 
> But if those same people were to display the same level of ignorance on any social issue they'd be roasted. Even something like language they'd be seen as uneducated. When it comes to maths and science though, ignorance is apparently acceptable in Australian society.
> 
> My point there isn't about any sort of educational elitism, not at all. It's simply that if our politicians, media and the public had a better grasp of all this then the level of public debate would be drastically improved with the silly stuff shot down rather quickly.



It is a long time since I went to school, I'm sure I could have answered the question  then


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> But none of the climate models were able to predict the changes in Enso or the Dipole, they can only record its happening as rel time data comes in.



There's also the reality that the one thing we're sure of is that we don't fully understand it.

South-west WA in particular has seen several abrupt and permanent "steps" in its inflow to long established water storages. It's not a gradual change, it's not something that's up and down, it's very abrupt steps where the new becomes immediately permanent.

To far lesser degree the same occurrence has been observed in Tasmania. Far less severe but the same sudden step changes have been observed and at the exact same time as in WA.

Quite a bit of research has been done into it in Tasmania, looking at the local experience as well as WA, and trying to come up with answers as to what's going on. In short there's a correlation with turning points in the trend of global temperatures but not with the actual temperature itself - whatever's going on is clearly not something humans properly understand at this point in time.

It's publicly disclosed that Hydro Tas bases planning on 85% of theoretical long term inflows for that reason. There's uncertainty about future climate. Noting that the 85% figure isn't arbitrary but rather it's a calculated value itself (and it's not precisely 85%, that's just what it rounds to).


----------



## Smurf1976

Back on the subject of energy not education or climate, some statistics for the 2021-22 financial year compared with the previous FY.

For the NEM + SWIS combined unless stated otherwise. So that's effectively the whole of Australia except the NT, Mt Isa region, WA outside the south-west and remote outback towns etc.

Total electricity consumption from all sources = 224,065 GWh which is +0.84% on the previous year.

By source:
Biomass = 256 GWh down 7.58%
Coal = 131,004 GWh down 5.44%
Gas + Oil* = 19,194 GWh down 4.09%
Hydro = 16,175 GWh up 10.54%
Wind = 28,032 GWh up 15.12%
Solar** = 30,574 GWh up 22.45%

*Oil = Any liquid fuel derived from oil. So fuel oil, diesel, kerosene etc. Oil and gas figures are combined due to the existence of dual fuel capable plant with the actual fuel used not being available.

**Solar data includes all scales of grid connected solar from large solar farms to small rooftop systems.

State by state consumption on the main grid:
NSW = 71,691 GWh down 0.6%
Qld = 59,766 GWh up 1.03%
Vic = 46,858 GWh up 1.38%
WA = 20,632 GWh up 3.17%
SA = 13,784 GWh down 0.17%
Tas = 11,332 GWh up 4.04%

Source = compiled from AEMO data by third parties.


----------



## SirRumpole

Discussion on the capacity allowance.









						Australia is grappling with its worst ever energy crisis. Experts say Victoria holds the key to a fix
					

As state and federal energy ministers strive to solve the nation's power crisis, Victoria is looming as a gatekeeper to a possible solution.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Discussion on the capacity allowance.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Australia is grappling with its worst ever energy crisis. Experts say Victoria holds the key to a fix
> 
> 
> As state and federal energy ministers strive to solve the nation's power crisis, Victoria is looming as a gatekeeper to a possible solution.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



The underlying problem is starting to become obvious, now the States can't blame the Feds.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The underlying problem is starting to become obvious, now the States can't blame the Feds.



Without wanting to be political as such, noting it applies to both major parties, Victoria's a problem far more so than any other state. They're in the worst shape at present from a technical perspective, the only state where AEMO is directly intervening to schedule plant outages, and the least willing to accept their situation.

Qld and NSW are actively pursuing pumped hydro, Tasmania already has extensive storage hydro, meanwhile in SA there's the planned 200MW hydrogen storage and generation project. In contrast there's not a single deep or even medium storage project planned in Victoria - some batteries for short duration use are it at present.

When it comes to one technology versus another, Victoria's really not in a position to argue. They're hugely reliant on Loy Yang's continued operation and haven't yet commenced building anything which would remove that reliance. That's not to say that can continue indefinitely but right now there's really no plan B, Victoria is and remains heavily reliant on coal when wind and solar output drops and there's nothing being built that would end that reliance.


----------



## Smurf1976

Expanding on the issue of deep firming of renewables, some charts of daily wind and solar production will explain. A picture paints a thousand words as they say.

Green = wind, yellow = solar.







Past year. Chart resolution is daily:






So there's two issues when it comes to firming VRE:

1. Daily peak loads versus off peak. So that is moving surplus energy from ~midday to ~6pm which can easily be done with batteries or relatively small pumped hydro systems based on old quarry pits and so on as the water storage.

2. How to deal with sustained energy deficits driven by periods of poor wind and solar yield. For example that which occurred between the 8th and 13th of May (6 days), again from 19 May to 24 May (6 days) and again from 26 May to 30 May (5 days). 

The latter is far beyond the capabilities of any present or proposed battery system, they generally have running times of 1 - 4 hours, and it's beyond the capabilities of "easy" pumped hydro schemes based on old quarries and so on.

What that deep firming requires is either some sort of fuel burning backup (fossil fuels, biomass, hydrogen) or it's long duration storage hydro which, in practical terms to economic, means dams as such not just filling an old gravel quarry with water.

At present AEMO's assuming the ongoing use of fossil fuels for that purpose combined with existing hydro + Snowy 2.0 + interstate transmission upgrades which don't eliminate variation but due dampen it somewhat.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Smurf takes a 10 minute shower. Calculate the cost of energy consumed and separately calculate the quantity of any primary energy source of your choice required to heat the water. Answers required relate to heating the water only, you may ignore the cost of water itself and the energy used to pump it. Your answer may be based on any technology in commercial use other than a solar water heater. State all assumptions and show all working.




OK, here goes.

The 'average' shower uses say 20 litres per minute so that's 200 litres for a 10 minute shower. 









						How much water does a shower use in Australia? - Average Aussie
					

How much water does a shower use depends on your showerhead and how long you shower for. Older style showerheads use between 15-20 litres per minute.




					www.averageaussie.com.au
				




The temperature of hot water in Australia is at least 70C.









						Setting the temperature of your home water heater.
					

What temperature should your hot water be? Important: Always employ a professional to adjust the temperature of your hot water heater.




					cheapahotwater.com.au
				




Assume an initial water temp of 20C. (50C raising of temperature)

According to a formula I found on line  https://sciencing.com/calculate-time-heat-water-8028611.html

Calculate the kilowatt-hours (kWh) required to heat the water using the following formula: *Pt = (4.2 × L × T ) ÷ 3600*. Pt is the power used to heat the water, in kWh. L is the number of liters of water that is being heated and T is the difference in temperature from what you started with, listed in degrees Celsius.

So, Power required (P) = (4.2 * 200 * 50) /3600.

P =  11.67 kwH

According to this site https://www.canstarblue.com.au/electricity/electricity-costs-kwh/

the cost of power in NSW (where I am) is 0.2274 $ /kwH, so the cost of my shower is 11.67 * 0.2274 = $2.65.

Smurf in SA pays .3152 $/kwH, so his shower costs $3.68.

Did I get close ?


----------



## sptrawler

I did say a long time ago, that just because it sounds like a great idea and it should be easy, doesn't mean everything will go smoothly. Lol






						Tractors take to the streets of Ballarat as farmers protest Western Renewables Link - ABC News
					






					amp.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

SirRumpole said:


> OK, here goes.
> 
> The 'average' shower uses say 20 litres per minute so that's 200 litres for a 10 minute shower.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How much water does a shower use in Australia? - Average Aussie
> 
> 
> How much water does a shower use depends on your showerhead and how long you shower for. Older style showerheads use between 15-20 litres per minute.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.averageaussie.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The temperature of hot water in Australia is at least 70C.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Setting the temperature of your home water heater.
> 
> 
> What temperature should your hot water be? Important: Always employ a professional to adjust the temperature of your hot water heater.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> cheapahotwater.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Assume an initial water temp of 20C. (50C raising of temperature)
> 
> According to a formula I found on line  https://sciencing.com/calculate-time-heat-water-8028611.html
> 
> Calculate the kilowatt-hours (kWh) required to heat the water using the following formula: *Pt = (4.2 × L × T ) ÷ 3600*. Pt is the power used to heat the water, in kWh. L is the number of liters of water that is being heated and T is the difference in temperature from what you started with, listed in degrees Celsius.
> 
> So, Power required (P) = (4.2 * 200 * 50) /3600.
> 
> P =  11.67 kwH
> 
> According to this site https://www.canstarblue.com.au/electricity/electricity-costs-kwh/
> 
> the cost of power in NSW (where I am) is 0.2274 $ /kwH, so the cost of my shower is 11.67 * 0.2274 = $2.65.
> 
> Smurf in SA pays .3152 $/kwH, so his shower costs $3.68.
> 
> Did I get close ?



So I got it wrong or what ?


----------



## mullokintyre

Tractors take to the streets of Ballarat as farmers protest Western Renewables Link - ABC News​

And that is exactly what usually happens to regional folks.
We pay huge amounts in fuel levies  to drive around on sub standard roads.
Public transport is non existent outside the metro areas, but we all have to pay to subsidise it.
We have poor health outcomes because we usually hav to travel to the big regional cities or the capital cities for  specialist treatments from opthamology to oncology.
And of course, as the article mentioned, if the nimby city folk want rennewables, they don't want it in their backyard, but want it away from them having their nice views besmirched by towers , turbines and acres of panels.
And to add insult to injury, they want their renewables  and  to close down  fired coal stations,   it will be the regional people who lose out on all the jobs. There aint no coal mines in Melbourne.
There, is that enuff bile for the morning?
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> So I got it wrong or what ?




No you were pretty good, here is an easier calculator for you.


			Water Heating Calculator for Time, Energy, and Power


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> OK, here goes.
> 
> The 'average' shower uses say 20 litres per minute so that's 200 litres for a 10 minute shower.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How much water does a shower use in Australia? - Average Aussie
> 
> 
> How much water does a shower use depends on your showerhead and how long you shower for. Older style showerheads use between 15-20 litres per minute.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.averageaussie.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The temperature of hot water in Australia is at least 70C.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Setting the temperature of your home water heater.
> 
> 
> What temperature should your hot water be? Important: Always employ a professional to adjust the temperature of your hot water heater.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> cheapahotwater.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Assume an initial water temp of 20C. (50C raising of temperature)
> 
> According to a formula I found on line  https://sciencing.com/calculate-time-heat-water-8028611.html
> 
> Calculate the kilowatt-hours (kWh) required to heat the water using the following formula: *Pt = (4.2 × L × T ) ÷ 3600*. Pt is the power used to heat the water, in kWh. L is the number of liters of water that is being heated and T is the difference in temperature from what you started with, listed in degrees Celsius.
> 
> So, Power required (P) = (4.2 * 200 * 50) /3600.
> 
> P =  11.67 kwH
> 
> According to this site https://www.canstarblue.com.au/electricity/electricity-costs-kwh/
> 
> the cost of power in NSW (where I am) is 0.2274 $ /kwH, so the cost of my shower is 11.67 * 0.2274 = $2.65.
> 
> Smurf in SA pays .3152 $/kwH, so his shower costs $3.68.
> 
> Did I get close ?



Personally I'd find 70 degrees rather hot for a shower!   

Other than that point though, well based on those assumed flow rates, temperature etc you've got the maths right yes.   

I've never measured it but the "standard" temperature of a shower is supposedly 42 degrees.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Personally I'd find 70 degrees rather hot for a shower!
> 
> Other than that point though, well based on those assumed flow rates, temperature etc you've got the maths right yes.
> 
> I've never measured it but the "standard" temperature of a shower is supposedly 42 degrees.




OK, but I believe that hot water has to be stored at around 70C (as mentioned in the second link in my answer) to  ward off any bugs etc, so it has to be heated to that temperature anyway regardless of what the final mix of hot and cold water in the shower is ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> OK, but I believe that hot water has to be stored at around 70C (as mentioned in the second link in my answer) to ward off any bugs etc, so it has to be heated to that temperature anyway regardless of what the final mix of hot and cold water in the shower is ?



Tank temperature must be 60'C or above as per Australian Standards and the reason is to prevent legionella as you say.

Typical domestic type system will have an upper limit of 70 or 75 which is simply about the materials used - the tank lining and foam insulation will both degrade more rapidly at higher temperature. 

From a physics perspective though well if the incoming water is (say) 17 degrees and the shower temperature is 42 degrees then that's a rise of 25 degrees. That you obtained this by mixing 17 degree cold water with 65 degree hot water doesn't change that the total temperature rise is 25 degrees x however many litres come out the shower.

Or to put that another way, the shower head might be flowing say 10 litres per minute but only half that, 5 litres, is coming from the hot water supply and the other half is just cold water.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Tank temperature must be 60'C or above as per Australian Standards and the reason is to prevent legionella as you say.
> 
> Typical domestic type system will have an upper limit of 70 or 75 which is simply about the materials used - the tank lining and foam insulation will both degrade more rapidly at higher temperature.
> 
> From a physics perspective though well if the incoming water is (say) 17 degrees and the shower temperature is 42 degrees then that's a rise of 25 degrees. That you obtained this by mixing 17 degree cold water with 65 degree hot water doesn't change that the total temperature rise is 25 degrees x however many litres come out the shower.
> 
> Or to put that another way, the shower head might be flowing say 10 litres per minute but only half that, 5 litres, is coming from the hot water supply and the other half is just cold water.



Fair enough, so instead of using 200 litres in the equation, that reduces to 100 litres, so the power used and the cost will be halved.


----------



## mullokintyre

Mate of mine sent me this pic he took near a River camp in Western Queensland.
The new green electricity generators seem to be working well out there.
Mick


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## basilio

New simple cheap energy storage units.

A large  well insulated  steel silo filled with sand and heated with excess renewable energy.  Heats sand to 500C.  Around 8 MH of energy storage. Can stay hot for many months. Is an excellent opportunity for many industrial process that currently use gas.

Only problem ?  Too simple and cheap.  Would be difficult to construct a business case that would make the owners the $million salaries they believe they are entitled to. 

Science
World's first 'sand battery' can store heat at 500C for months at a time. Could it work in Australia?​ABC Science
 / 
By technology reporter James Purtill
Posted 7h ago7 hours ago




  Heat-storing sand batteries like this one in Finland could become a familiar sight at Australian factories looking to cut their gas bills.(Supplied: Polar Night Energy)
Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article



The idea of storing heat in sand to warm homes through winter may, on the face of it, seem too simple to work.
Key points:​
The world's first commercial "sand battery" stores heat at 500 degrees Celsius for months at a time
It can be used to heat homes and offices and provide high-temperature heat for industrial processes
Thermal storage could displace gas in industry and remove up to 16 per cent of Australia's emissions, experts say

Drop a load of cheap builder's sand in an insulated silo, heat the sand with renewable electricity, and then tap the stored thermal energy for months on end.

In an age of green hydrogen, lithium-ion batteries and other high-tech energy solutions, it can't work, right?

Finland begs to differ. This month saw the Nordic nation launch the world's first commercial "sand battery".
About 230 kilometres north-west of Helsinki, in the town of Kankaanpää, homes, offices and the public swimming pool are being heated by thermal energy stored in a 7-metre steel container filled with 100 tonnes of sand.









						World's first giant 'sand battery' shows how energy solutions can be simple
					

The world's first commercial "sand battery" stores heat at 500C for months at a time. So how does it work, and should we build them in Australia?




					www.abc.net.au
				



So how does it work, what else can it be used for, and should we build them in Australia?


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> New simple cheap energy storage units.
> 
> A large  well insulated  steel silo filled with sand and heated with excess renewable energy.  Heats sand to 500C.  Around 8 MH of energy storage. Can stay hot for many months. Is an excellent opportunity for many industrial process that currently use gas.
> 
> Only problem ?  Too simple and cheap.  Would be difficult to construct a business case that would make the owners the $million salaries they believe they are entitled to.
> 
> Science
> World's first 'sand battery' can store heat at 500C for months at a time. Could it work in Australia?​ABC Science
> /
> By technology reporter James Purtill
> Posted 7h ago7 hours ago
> View attachment 144276
> 
> Heat-storing sand batteries like this one in Finland could become a familiar sight at Australian factories looking to cut their gas bills.(Supplied: Polar Night Energy)
> Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article
> 
> 
> 
> The idea of storing heat in sand to warm homes through winter may, on the face of it, seem too simple to work.
> Key points:​
> The world's first commercial "sand battery" stores heat at 500 degrees Celsius for months at a time
> It can be used to heat homes and offices and provide high-temperature heat for industrial processes
> Thermal storage could displace gas in industry and remove up to 16 per cent of Australia's emissions, experts say
> 
> Drop a load of cheap builder's sand in an insulated silo, heat the sand with renewable electricity, and then tap the stored thermal energy for months on end.
> 
> In an age of green hydrogen, lithium-ion batteries and other high-tech energy solutions, it can't work, right?
> 
> Finland begs to differ. This month saw the Nordic nation launch the world's first commercial "sand battery".
> About 230 kilometres north-west of Helsinki, in the town of Kankaanpää, homes, offices and the public swimming pool are being heated by thermal energy stored in a 7-metre steel container filled with 100 tonnes of sand.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> World's first giant 'sand battery' shows how energy solutions can be simple
> 
> 
> The world's first commercial "sand battery" stores heat at 500C for months at a time. So how does it work, and should we build them in Australia?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So how does it work, what else can it be used for, and should we build them in Australia?




That's a very interesting option.

Power could be derived using an old invention called a Stirling engine that works on a temperature differential between two points that heats and cools gases to move pistons.


----------



## Value Collector

Saw this book today, downloaded it on my Kindle, looks like an interesting read for people interested in the future of energy.

I noticed along with being an engineer, the author also lists his profession as being an investor, so hopefully he had some good insights from both the engineering and investment perspective.


----------



## Smurf1976

I'll let AEMO's Market Notice do the talking here:






In short the Newcastle gas storage is completely empty, Dandenong (Vic) is at 51% whilst Iona, the largest, is at 42% and being drawn down rapidly in recent weeks at about 1% of total capacity per day on average.

Details aside, I doubt there'd be too many disagreeing with my thinking that at this point major reform is a given. We've had a major price shock both gas and electricity, suspension of both markets for a period and now physical scarcity of gas.

How that reform manifests is a good question but it's hard to see a scenario that doesn't involve drastic change. Invest accordingly.....


----------



## SirRumpole

More on the Sand Battery. 

(I'm not a tree hugger, although I do like trees )









						The Viral 'Sand Battery' Isn't What It Seems But We're Warming Up to the Idea
					

Discover what the designers of the sand battery reveal about it.




					www.treehugger.com


----------



## Dona Ferentes




----------



## Smurf1976

Another one down:



			https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/other-industries/mojo-power-collapses-500-customers-in-nsw-qld-sa-impacted/news-story/10e00c42c4b1ae66466ed2faa733ad86
		




> Customers in NSW, QLD, SA impacted as power company collapses​Hundreds of customers across three states were warned they had 72 hours before their energy company would disconnect from the power grid.




I doubt this will be the last.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Another one down:
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/other-industries/mojo-power-collapses-500-customers-in-nsw-qld-sa-impacted/news-story/10e00c42c4b1ae66466ed2faa733ad86
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I doubt this will be the last.




500 customers doesn't sound like enough critical mass to be sustainable.

Maybe (as awful as it sounds, eg banks), bigger but fewer suppliers would be better for economies of scale and possibly easier to regulate.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Maybe (as awful as it sounds, eg banks), bigger but fewer suppliers would be better for economies of scale and possibly easier to regulate.



No disagreement from me on that one.   

The plethora of small retailers might create an illusion of competition but ultimately it's adding costs and complexity.


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## SirRumpole

More discussion on the capacity allowance.









						'Shouldn't be paying to keep coal and gas': Green energy backers attack capacity market proposal
					

Renewable energy advocates are warning against locking in extra payments for coal and gas, saying it could derail the switch to clean power.




					www.abc.net.au
				




Surely an appropriate formula could be found that incentivises renewables while still paying for availability ?

Something like 

Capacity_payment = Base_Rate + Capacity_Available /(Price + Emissions) .

Base_Rate is what everyone gets, the other variables reward higher capacity but punish high prices and high emissions.

Hydro would come out pretty well, having a low price (relatively) and zero emissions, while the other sources would sort themselves out accordingly.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Surely an appropriate formula could be found that incentivises renewables while still paying for availability ?



I thought about writing a lot but in short, the big problem is politics.

It's as simple as that. Doesn't matter what option anyone comes up with, someone will want to tear it down for purely political reasons.

Anything less than 100% renewable and that puts one group offside.

Go to 100% and that puts another group offside.

Then there's those who've ideological desires to build nuclear, dam every last creek or build new coal.

Then there's the deniers. Those who deny that oil and gas reserves are relatively limited. Those who deny that nuclear is expensive. Those who deny this that and everything else if it suits whatever thing they want to build.

My view personally is that winter 2023 will kill the politics off.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I thought about writing a lot but in short, the big problem is politics.
> 
> It's as simple as that. Doesn't matter what option anyone comes up with, someone will want to tear it down for purely political reasons.
> 
> Anything less than 100% renewable and that puts one group offside.
> 
> Go to 100% and that puts another group offside.
> 
> Then there's those who've ideological desires to build nuclear, dam every last creek or build new coal.
> 
> Then there's the deniers. Those who deny that oil and gas reserves are relatively limited. Those who deny that nuclear is expensive. Those who deny this that and everything else if it suits whatever thing they want to build.
> 
> My view personally is that winter 2023 will kill the politics off.



I'd like to hear the long version some time if you have the time and motivation, as to what you would do from an engineering perspective if politics wasn't an issue.

Is a capacity allowance a good idea ? What form should it take ?


----------



## Knobby22

Smurf1976 said:


> I thought about writing a lot but in short, the big problem is politics.
> 
> It's as simple as that. Doesn't matter what option anyone comes up with, someone will want to tear it down for purely political reasons.
> 
> Anything less than 100% renewable and that puts one group offside.
> 
> Go to 100% and that puts another group offside.
> 
> Then there's those who've ideological desires to build nuclear, dam every last creek or build new coal.
> 
> Then there's the deniers. Those who deny that oil and gas reserves are relatively limited. Those who deny that nuclear is expensive. Those who deny this that and everything else if it suits whatever thing they want to build.
> 
> My view personally is that winter 2023 will kill the politics off.



Nuclear is expensive and not that safe but Bill Gates backed Terra power is developing the future modern reactor that will be cheaper and safer and produces less waste. My attitude is countries like Germany would benefit greatly from removing their reliance on coal and gas. Australia has less of of a need.








						How Bill Gates' company TerraPower is building next-generation nuclear power
					

How TerraPower, co-founded by Bill Gates, is designing next gen nuclear power plants that it says are safer, cheaper and more efficient.




					www.cnbc.com


----------



## SirRumpole

Certainly a lot of politics in this discussion.









						Former carbon pricing mastermind Greg Combet backs proposed fix for Australia's energy crisis
					

Former federal climate change minister backs proposed fix for crisis-riddled national electricity market, calling for ideology to be taken out of debate.




					www.abc.net.au
				




"He (Combet) said the most important consideration should be the *protection of consumer*s, claiming the current market was a "shemozzle" that was letting down everyone."


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## wayneL

A thread on the nuclear waste question that came across my timeline fwiw.


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## Knobby22

This is pretty cool.


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## wayneL

I'm shocked I tell ya, shocked! </sarc>





__





						The Times & The Sunday Times
					

News and opinion from The Times & The Sunday Times




					www.thetimes.co.uk


----------



## moXJO

Time to talk about Germany yet?
Saw a chart showing that electricity are up 6x. Is it true?
What happened to the renewable utopia from a few years ago?


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## SirRumpole

wayneL said:


> I'm shocked I tell ya, shocked! </sarc>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Times & The Sunday Times
> 
> 
> News and opinion from The Times & The Sunday Times
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.thetimes.co.uk











						Solar panels only have a lifespan of 10-25 years. So what happens to them once they expire?
					

Solar panels are considered to be an environmentally friendly way to make electricity. But most only last a decade and then end up in landfill, despite being recyclable.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

wayneL said:


> I'm shocked I tell ya, shocked! </sarc>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Times & The Sunday Times
> 
> 
> News and opinion from The Times & The Sunday Times
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.thetimes.co.uk



Another issue will be, when the panels are removed will people bother replacing them, if they aren't subsidised? The labour cost alone these days will be high, the only person I know who has had any problems was the guy over the road his inverter broke and he wasn't going to bother fixing it until I suggested he check if it is still covered by warranty, which it was.
Next time it goes, or the panels fail, I'm sure it won't be repaired.
In W.A there is no more feed in tariff for new domestic solar installations , so I doubt there will be the same uptake as earlier, when feed in tariffs were reasonable.


----------



## Smurf1976

moXJO said:


> Time to talk about Germany yet?
> Saw a chart showing that electricity are up 6x. Is it true?
> What happened to the renewable utopia from a few years ago?



The problem in Germany is much like the problem elsewhere including Australia.

Too much attention has been given to fuzzy words and not enough attention has been given to hard numbers.

Or in practical terms too much politics and ideologies of various sorts without sufficient attention paid to the hard facts no matter how inconvenient they might happen to be.

Getting straight to the point on the facts:

Oil and gas are problematic in terms of resources and geography. That does not mean we're about to run out of either, to be clear there's quite a bit of them on earth, but bottom line is the majority of reserves are in non-Western countries and that's the issue. Non-Western governments directly control most of it and that brings supply and price risk due to politics, bearing in mind it's not just producers versus the West but it wouldn't be the first time one producer fired missiles at another.  

Yes wind and solar most certainly do work. They generate electricity and they're also rather cheap, indeed they're considerably cheaper than coal, oil or gas at present international prices. Problem is they don't work constantly, they're intermittent, which means they're useful either as a supplement to some other power source, to save fuel, or in conjunction with storage in which case they do become a real alternative as such.

On the subject of storage well again more brutal reality. Batteries have plenty of supporters and yes they sure do work indeed for the record I've got one at home so I'm sure not saying they're a bad idea. As a source of short duration peak power, frequency control and so on they're now the best available technology to the point that even hydro operators are seriously looking at them.  

For bulk energy storage though the reality is batteries are orders of magnitude too costly and that's unlikely to change in the medium term at least. There's also the physical side with the reality that _global_ battery capacity is still rather small compared to _individual_ hydro projects. There's an order of magnitude difference there which even the optimists aren't expecting to change this decade.

Electricity must be produced in real time as it is consumed. Regardless of the source that aspect remains true. Yes we can store coal in a heap on the ground, we can store oil in a tank, water behind a dam or we can have a reversible chemical reaction in a battery but none of those are storing AC power directly. What they're doing is storing something that can be used to make AC power but AC power as such is not stored, it's still made in real time as it's used and that being so, the ability to produce it must at all times at least match the actual rate of consumption, preferably with at least a bit to spare to cope with the inevitable mishaps. 

The other hard fact of relevance is that no individual generation source has 100% reliability. Not wind, not solar, not coal, not nuclear, not hydro, gas or anything else. They all have significant periods of unavailability - around 20% of the time as a ballpark figure for coal in the real world, closer to 10% if it's in top shape and all possible efforts are made to address any issues quickly. For an "old clunker" it'll be significantly higher. Nuclear not much different to coal. Hydro, oil and gas generally lower outage rates but they still have outages as such, they don't work constantly.

Put all that together and what's required is a system that:

1. Can withstand individual components being taken out of service for maintenance or failing without impacting supply. 

2. Does not rely on oil or gas to major extent. Exception of places which have an abundance of supply not exposed to international trade.

3. If intermittent generation is used, it's backed by adequate storage, non-intermittent generation backup or a combination of the two.

4. If storage is used, it has been sized to the task based on thorough analysis. If backup generation is used then it must have available sufficient fuel.

5. It needs to actually be operated in accordance with technical requirements. 

EU countries and the UK have run into trouble primarily on account of points 2, 4 and 5. That is, yes they have wind, solar, coal, nuclear, hydro but they're nonetheless reliant on gas to significant extent. 

Plus they seemingly didn't allow for an extended period of low wind yield and resultant high reliance on that gas-fired backup generation with associated fuel consumption. 

Plus due to the issues with Russia haven't operated gas facilities in accordance with technical requirements. Gas storage was being drained out well before the war started.

Put the above together and there's a crisis.

It's not that wind and solar couldn't have worked indeed they have worked and continue to do so. It's just that humans didn't make allowance for technical reality and in due course the inevitable happened. It's a bit like the tailgating driver or the share trader who's only ever seen a bull market, failing to have plans in place to deal with natural variability works just fine until suddenly it ends really badly.

Most failures globally are much the same. Humans being humans, they tend to push it to the absolute limit until it breaks. Run it at 85% and it's extremely reliable, run it at 100% and you've got an unacceptably high probability of failure now. Run it beyond 100% and failure's a given. Look at real failures and I've yet to see one that wasn't preceded by running beyond firm capabilities, usually for quite some time before the inevitable happened.

On the engineering side it's all really just a number crunching exercise. So long as it's designed such that it works reliably and is built and operated to that design then it works. Everything else is then about which of the available options are most acceptable from other perspectives - economics, environment and anything else. Other things of relevance being, for example, regional development that might bias toward a particular approach or, in the specific case of hydro, if there's some other reason to want a dam built (eg water supply) then that may make it the best option even if it otherwise wouldn't be.

The problem isn't wind and solar and nor is it any other particular source. The problem is humans taking shortcuts combined with a trigger, in this case politics, blowing it up.


----------



## SirRumpole

wayneL said:


> I'm shocked I tell ya, shocked! </sarc>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Times & The Sunday Times
> 
> 
> News and opinion from The Times & The Sunday Times
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.thetimes.co.uk


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## basilio

I'm "puzzled"  (nah..) at the horrors expressed over millions of solar panels finally needing to be *recycled.  *Obviously nothing lasts forever . Solar panels are no different.  Interestingly enough new generations of PV have every opportunity of being less resource intensive  but in the meantime there are a number of industries being developed to recycle solar panels and extract the valuable resources.

There’s big money in recycling materials from solar panels​Recycling solar panels keeps them out of landfills, but also provides much-needed raw materials with Rystad Energy projecting a value approaching $80 billion by 2050.
 July 18, 2022 Anne Fischer

Markets
Modules & Upstream Manufacturing
United States






_Image: LaBella Associates_
Share​
















*From pv magazine USA*
The question about what to do with solar panels at the end of their useful life is about to become moot as Rystad Energy analysis shows the incredible value of materials that can be extracted in the recycling process. Rystad estimates that recyclable materials from PV panels at the end of their lifespan will be worth more than $2.7 billion in 2030, up from only $170 million this year, and the value will approach $80 billion by 2050.

PV recycling is still in early stages, but it has been successfully implemented in Europe where the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive requires 85% collection and 80% recycling of the materials used in solar panels. In the US, California-based Solarcycle recently raised $6.6 million in growth funding to advance its solar recycling platform. Investors include some solar veterans such as SolarCity founders Peter and Lyndon Rive, and former CEO/CTO of Sunpower, Tom Dinwoodie.









						There’s big money in recycling materials from solar panels
					

Recycling solar panels keeps them out of landfills, but also provides much-needed raw materials with Rystad Energy projecting a value approaching $80 billion by 2050.




					www.pv-magazine.com
				












						Solar Panel Recycling: How to Recycle Your Solar Panels
					

Nuway Solar educates people on solar panel recycling. How replacing old solar panels helps us protect the environment and save more on the power bill. Call us to know more




					nuwaysolar.com.au
				












						Solar Panel Recycling NSW | PV Industries
					

PV Industries offer solar panel recycling services. We provide sustainable disposal solutions for residential, commercial and utility-scale installations.




					www.pvindustries.com.au


----------



## mullokintyre

basilio said:


> I'm "puzzled"  (nah..) at the horrors expressed over millions of solar panels finally needing to be *recycled.  *Obviously nothing lasts forever . Solar panels are no different.  Interestingly enough new generations of PV have every opportunity of being less resource intensive  but in the meantime there are a number of industries being developed to recycle solar panels and extract the valuable resources.
> 
> There’s big money in recycling materials from solar panels​Recycling solar panels keeps them out of landfills, but also provides much-needed raw materials with Rystad Energy projecting a value approaching $80 billion by 2050.
> July 18, 2022 Anne Fischer
> 
> Markets
> Modules & Upstream Manufacturing
> United States
> 
> View attachment 144498
> 
> _Image: LaBella Associates_
> Share​
> View attachment 144499
> View attachment 144500
> View attachment 144501
> View attachment 144502
> View attachment 144503
> 
> *From pv magazine USA*
> The question about what to do with solar panels at the end of their useful life is about to become moot as Rystad Energy analysis shows the incredible value of materials that can be extracted in the recycling process. Rystad estimates that recyclable materials from PV panels at the end of their lifespan will be worth more than $2.7 billion in 2030, up from only $170 million this year, and the value will approach $80 billion by 2050.
> 
> PV recycling is still in early stages, but it has been successfully implemented in Europe where the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive requires 85% collection and 80% recycling of the materials used in solar panels. In the US, California-based Solarcycle recently raised $6.6 million in growth funding to advance its solar recycling platform. Investors include some solar veterans such as SolarCity founders Peter and Lyndon Rive, and former CEO/CTO of Sunpower, Tom Dinwoodie.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There’s big money in recycling materials from solar panels
> 
> 
> Recycling solar panels keeps them out of landfills, but also provides much-needed raw materials with Rystad Energy projecting a value approaching $80 billion by 2050.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.pv-magazine.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Solar Panel Recycling: How to Recycle Your Solar Panels
> 
> 
> Nuway Solar educates people on solar panel recycling. How replacing old solar panels helps us protect the environment and save more on the power bill. Call us to know more
> 
> 
> 
> 
> nuwaysolar.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Solar Panel Recycling NSW | PV Industries
> 
> 
> PV Industries offer solar panel recycling services. We provide sustainable disposal solutions for residential, commercial and utility-scale installations.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.pvindustries.com.au



The above links are good for Aus, but problem is, in the USA, its generally a disposable throwaway society, so landfill is much easier for them.
And they have big numbers as well.
Mick


----------



## basilio

mullokintyre said:


> The above links are good for Aus, but problem is, in the USA, its generally a disposable throwaway society, so landfill is much easier for them.
> And they have big numbers as well.
> Mick



If you noticed one of the early players in recycling  PV cells is a US company. 
The recycling will happen because there are valuable resources in the PV panels.  And as also noted Governments will develop policy to encourage/ensure effective recycling.



basilio said:


> In the US, California-based Solarcycle recently raised $6.6 million in growth funding to advance its solar recycling platform. Investors include some solar veterans such as SolarCity founders Peter and Lyndon Rive, and former CEO/CTO of Sunpower, Tom Dinwoodie.


----------



## mullokintyre

I am aware that not everyone sees any good at all in the Evil Murdoch press, but Robert Gotliebson creates a most interesting narrative which, if it has any skerrick of truth, would be a game changer for Victoria and Australia..
From the article


> I have obtained access to one of the most secret, but nation-changing documents in Australia – the Exxon estimates of Victoria’s massive low-cost, onshore, likely carbon neutral gas reserves that do not require fracking.
> They are near the Longford, Gippsland, treatment plant and the east coast pipeline network. The best-case Exxon estimate is that the reserves total 4.996 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas or some 60 per cent of the last 50 years of Bass Strait production.
> 
> But there is a “high” estimate of reserves at 12.6234 TCF that makes the Victorian reserves second only to the North West Shelf.
> 
> The “secret” report titled ‘Onshore natural gas from lignite’ was prepared in 2014 by Gippsland Gas (then chaired by John White who was the chief executive of the company that won the contract to build the ANZUS frigates) and Exxon.
> 
> It was based on Exxon’s Houston researchers’ extensive technical review of the Gippsland Basin.
> 
> Houston studied oil exploration wells that been drilled in the 1950s and 1960s (some by Woodside) plus drilling conducted in earlier decades to map brown coal reserves.
> 
> Exxon found that many of these wells had encountered gas dissolved in water deep below the normal aquifers.
> At the time, the drillers did not value the gas.
> Exxon then took their Houston research to world-renowned gas and oil reserve estimator MHA Petroleum Consultants, now part of the giant Sproule group.
> 
> The MHA estimated a potential gas reserve bonanza, which now could replace the requirement to develop more expensive gas in Bass Strait.
> The Gippsland Gas/Exxon revelations were first disclosed to the Denis Napthine Coalition government before the 2014 Victorian election.
> 
> Scared of Green votes, Napthine kept the lid on the discovery.
> 
> The ALP’s Daniel Andrews became premier after the election and banned further exploration and development of the gas, again for green reasons.
> 
> To conceal its existence, he spent large sums on an “expert” committee commissioned to check whether there was any likelihood of discovering onshore gas in Victoria.
> 
> The committee was forbidden to look at the area covering the massive Exxon discovery and other promising gas areas and dutifully reported that there was unlikely to be onshore gas in Victoria.
> 
> The local press, often with deep green views, did not disclose the obvious community deceit.
> 
> The Gippsland Gas and Exxon report told the government that water produced from the lignite could be used in agricultural activities to help grow carbon-absorbing plants “to a promote zero net emissions framework”.
> Woodside, which is now a joint venture partner with Exxon, last week called for more exploration in Victoria, presumably knowing that the required gas has already been found by its Bass Strait partner and the reserves estimated by MHA.
> 
> Woodside say that if Victoria cannot explore for gas, then the only alternative is, what I regard as one of the most ludicrous proposals ever conceived in Australia – that gas-rich Victoria import high-cost liquefied natural gas.
> 
> The Victorian government itself wants gas being exported from Queensland to be sent to Victoria and NSW in the full knowledge that, subject to the tests, the state’s abundant low-cost gas can supply domestic demand on the East Coast of Australia.
> 
> And the Victorian gas, unlike Queensland, does not require fracking.






> However I emphasise that the Gippsland Gas/Exxon report reveals that further work needs to be done, not to determine the reserves, but to make sure that production and permeability will duplicate the first test wells.
> 
> But they were so confident that they planned to spend $200m (in 2014) on the project, arranged for BlueScope and other major gas users to pencil intent contracts and signed six agreements with local landholders who would benefit from the development.





> Those Gippsland farms would have become droughtproof had the gas development proceeded.
> 
> The report sets out that Exxon planned to drill six holes to test for gas saturation and coal permeability.
> 
> Each well would have taken between two and four weeks and a detailed drilling plan been established.
> 
> But faced with the antics of the Victorian government, Gippsland Gas and Exxon concluded that developing the gas was just too hard and they had better things to do.
> 
> As result, the leases are now owned by the Victorian Government.
> 
> Australia-wide the Greens do not want any more gas development and there will be similar sentiments in the inner suburbs of Melbourne.
> 
> But subject to the saturation and permeability tests, Australia has gas reserves with production costs at a small fraction of the current price.
> 
> Release of this gas would save large numbers of Australian industrial companies and slash the cost of gas to consumers on the east coast, reducing Australia’s inflation.
> 
> Snowy Hydro has now been forced to restrict using its gas-fired power stations.
> 
> These could be resumed and provide valuable back-up to make renewable energy more reliable.
> 
> And although it’s heretical to mention it, a new gas-fired power station that can be turned on when renewables are interrupted would enable massive reductions in carbon because Yallourn brown coal would be shut down much faster that is currently likely.



So, if even a modicum of what he writes, the Napthine Liberal government can take as much, if not morte than the existing Labour government for the problems Victorians now face.
The problem is, even if Andrews is defeated in the November election, there is no guarantee that the replacement power brokers will ever let this report see the light of day, as they are just as complicit.
Politics guaranteed to screw anything up.
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> I am aware that not everyone sees any good at all in the Evil Murdoch press, but Robert Gotliebson creates a most interesting narrative which, if it has any skerrick of truth, would be a game changer for Victoria and Australia..
> From the article
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So, if even a modicum of what he writes, the Napthine Liberal government can take as much, if not morte than the existing Labour government for the problems Victorians now face.
> The problem is, even if Andrews is defeated in the November election, there is no guarantee that the replacement power brokers will ever let this report see the light of day, as they are just as complicit.
> Politics guaranteed to screw anything up.
> Mick



It's all about being re elected, not about what is best for the people IMO, Victoria is the most dependant on coal and doing the least to reduce its reliance on it IMO.
And that is from someone who lives in W.A, so if I can see it, most on the East Coast must be able to see it, but having said that separating Victorians from their centre of the universe belief is very difficult, I have worked with many and they all had similar traits. 😂 
I can see why Dan keeps getting voted in, he epitomises them.


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> So, if even a modicum of what he writes, the Napthine Liberal government can take as much, if not morte than the existing Labour government for the problems Victorians now face.



I'm not a geologist but my understanding is that the best description would be to say that _potential_ has been identified.

Akin to saying you've spotted a stock that seems to have bottomed on the chart or you've come across this 10 year old kid who's unbelievably good at playing cricket. There's reason to believe you might have found greatness but it's not actually proven thus far, it could still go wrong.

The rational approach would be to complete the work required to determine what's really there then act based on that information.

Where the problem is, as per my previous post, is too many words not enough facts. Too much politics and ideology, not enough pragmatic reality.

In one camp are those who'll oppose finding out what's there even if we're going to import the stuff instead.

In another camp are those who, if a large reserve was found, wouldn't say oh great that means we've got enough for as long as we'll need it. No, they'd want to rip it out of the ground as fast as possible, arguing something about net present value, then put us back in the same "out of gas" situation we're in right now.

What's missing is the sensible voice that says OK, so we've found x, that'll last the next 40 years then and by that time we won't need it anyway so all good, we won't need to use it all but we won't need to import any either. That's the sensible middle ground but it doesn't appeal to those looking to get rich quick and it doesn't suit those needing a divisive political wedge either.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> In another camp are those who, if a large reserve was found, wouldn't say oh great that means we've got enough for as long as we'll need it. No, they'd want to rip it out of the ground as fast as possible, arguing something about net present value, then put us back in the same "out of gas" situation we're in right now.




Consumption always rises to match supply, there is no concept of "saving for a rainy day" when it comes to resources.

Probably the Arabs have the right idea when it comes to oil, limit production to increase prices and at let the market decide whether they want to pay the price or move to other alternatives.


----------



## wayneL

This is a bit of a side issue to the topic at hand and perhaps hearsay, but a political contact tells me that here in WA, power line repairs will no longer be done on total fire ban days.

This could conceivably mean local blackouts for several days or even weeks, if so.


----------



## SirRumpole

Making bio-gas from food waste.









						Feeling the pinch from gas prices? Why not make your own
					

Food waste is a global problem costing billions and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Turning that waste into cooking gas is increasingly being seen as a solution for homes and businesses.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

Higher prices here to stay stays AEMO.









						Consumers facing 'nightmare' power bills as wholesale electricity costs spike to record highs
					

Millions of households are warned to brace for savage hikes to their power bills as a newly released report reveals prices in Australia's biggest electricity market rocketed to their highest levels on record in the last quarter.




					www.abc.net.au
				





Although not mentioned in this article, there were reports on ABC TV that government owned entitities like Snowy Hydro and Qld coal generators reduced supply to increase prices.

Good video interview with Bruce Mountain who explains the situation well.









						Consumers brace for drastic power bills hike
					

Professor Bruce Mountain says governments need to step in and insulate consumers, as millions of Australians brace for a record power bills hike.




					www.abc.net.au
				




Surely this is not the behaviour we expect from OUR government, and it's about time they started acting for us , not themselves.


----------



## sptrawler

A I said, it doesn't take much to take the shine and enthusiasm off domestic solar installations.



sptrawler said:


> Another issue will be, when the panels are removed will people bother replacing them, if they aren't subsidised? The labour cost alone these days will be high, the only person I know who has had any problems was the guy over the road his inverter broke and he wasn't going to bother fixing it until I suggested he check if it is still covered by warranty, which it was.
> Next time it goes, or the panels fail, I'm sure it won't be repaired.
> In W.A there is no more feed in tariff for new domestic solar installations , so I doubt there will be the same uptake as earlier, when feed in tariffs were reasonable.












						Solar Installation Numbers Drop to Lowest in Three Years
					

New data shows rooftop solar uptake has reached its lowest figure in almost three years. Canstar Blue has the full story.




					www.canstarblue.com.au
				




From the article:
Household hesitancy appears to be driving the drop in solar uptake, with increases to both installation and general living costs potentially impacting consumer decisions.

According to the AEC, households are typically paying almost $1,000 more to install a system of the same size and capabilities in 2022 than that seen the year prior.


----------



## mullokintyre

sptrawler said:


> A I said, it doesn't take much to take the shine and enthusiasm off domestic solar installations.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Solar Installation Numbers Drop to Lowest in Three Years
> 
> 
> New data shows rooftop solar uptake has reached its lowest figure in almost three years. Canstar Blue has the full story.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.canstarblue.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> Household hesitancy appears to be driving the drop in solar uptake, with increases to both installation and general living costs potentially impacting consumer decisions.
> 
> According to the AEC, households are typically paying almost $1,000 more to install a system of the same size and capabilities in 2022 than that seen the year prior.



The obvious solution is for the government to subsidise the installation.
(With Lingua in maxilllan ).
Mick


----------



## Knobby22

mullokintyre said:


> The obvious solution is for the government to subsidise the installation.
> (With Lingua in maxilllan ).
> Mick



Already too many solar installations on houses. Government should be stopping all subsidies and there should be minimal payment only for supplying the grid.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> there were reports on ABC TV that government owned entitities like Snowy Hydro and Qld coal generators reduced supply to increase prices.



Snowy has no choice.

It's either hike prices so as to keep production down to sustainable levels or suck the scheme dry with not a drop left, that being the outcome if they do nothing.

That's a fundamental problem with the market. It's designed to dispatch _power_ but it's not designed to manage _energy _at all. That works in a 100% fossil fuel based system with unlimited fuel available but it fails when fuel is constrained and it fails even more as reliance on intermittent generation and storage increases.

It's a fundamental market design problem that an individual generating company can't legally get around by any means other than hiking price.


----------



## SirRumpole

Interesting video on pumped hydro, going through the principles and some of the proposed and underway projects.


----------



## SirRumpole

Energy storage in salt with nano-particles.


----------



## Knobby22

SirRumpole said:


> Energy storage in salt with nano-particles.




Cool tech. Wish I could get shares.
Trust the Japanese to get in early.
The energy world is going to look very different over the next 20 years.


----------



## sptrawler

Knobby22 said:


> Already too many solar installations on houses. Government should be stopping all subsidies and there should be minimal payment only for supplying the grid.



I'm pretty sure there is no payment at all, for supplying the grid in W.A, for new domestic solar installations.
I also agree with you, unless the domestic installation can stand on its own merit it is pointless to just endlessly subsidies it, because the grid will be dependant on it.
So it won't be sustainable, unless it makes sense for people to install it without subsidies, if it requires subsidies it just becomes another indirect tax.
The problem is as we have pointed out endlessly, the amount of solar/wind required to supply the load and charge the storage, is far more than it is economically viable for the private sector to put in on a cost base analysis.
So who puts it in?
The problem is in the past the generators were paid for what they generated and that was fine, because they start up plant and put it on line and get paid and then when it isn't required to be run they shut it down. Easy.

The problem in the future is, no one knows when they will be able to produce, some days are overcast and there is no wind, but people need power so that isn't acceptable.
So they need storage and lots of it, to get through every night and to supply the load the next day and to recharge the storage to get through the next night.
So everyone says that's easy just put in more storage and more solar and more wind generators.
But when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing you only need 1/3 of the supply that you needed during the bad days, who pays for all the power that is now being produced but isn't required and who decides who isn't going to get paid?
Because it cost them a lot of money, to put in that extra solar/wind and storage infrastructure, they want a return on capital.
Messy, messy, messy.


----------



## Knobby22

sptrawler said:


> I'm pretty sure there is no payment at all, for supplying the grid in W.A, for new domestic solar installations.
> I also agree with you, unless the domestic installation can stand on its own merit it is pointless to just endlessly subsidies it, because the grid will be dependant on it.
> So it won't be sustainable, unless it makes sense for people to install it without subsidies, if it requires subsidies it just becomes another indirect tax.
> The problem is as we have pointed out endlessly, the amount of solar/wind required to supply the load and charge the storage, is far more than it is economically viable for the private sector to put in on a cost base analysis.
> So who puts it in?
> The problem is in the past the generators were paid for what they generated and that was fine, because they start up plant and put it on line and get paid and then when it isn't required to be run they shut it down. Easy.
> 
> The problem in the future is, no one knows when they will be able to produce, some days are overcast and there is no wind, but people need power so that isn't acceptable.
> So they need storage and lots of it, to get through every night and to supply the load the next day and to recharge the storage to get through the next night.
> So everyone says that's easy just put in more storage and more solar and more wind generators.
> But when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing you only need 1/3 of the supply that you needed during the bad days, who pays for all the power that is now being produced but isn't required and who decides who isn't going to get paid?
> Because it cost them a lot of money, to put in that extra solar/wind and storage infrastructure, they want a return on capital.
> Messy, messy, messy.



Yes, messy. Needs planning.

The major solar plant pays for itself without subsidies which is why a state like Texas has so much privately owned solar grid power installed.


----------



## sptrawler

Knobby22 said:


> Yes, messy. Needs planning.
> 
> The major solar plant pays for itself without subsidies which is why a state like Texas has so much privately owned solar grid power installed.



It only pays when it can sell all it supplies, the problem isn't that, the problem is all the extra capacity you need that isn't required, sorry Knobby but you don't seem to be understanding the underlying problem. The U.S is a massive interconnected grid, your East Coast is a massive sized, lightly loaded, extremely stretched, centralised generational supplied taxpayer subsidised spider web. 😂 





__





						Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
					





					www.bloomberg.com


----------



## Knobby22

sptrawler said:


> It only pays when it can sell all it supplies, the problem isn't that, the problem is all the extra capacity you need that isn't required, sorry Knobby but you don't seem to be understanding the underlying problem. The U.S is a massive interconnected grid, your East Coast is a massive sized, lightly loaded, extremely stretched, centralised generational supplied taxpayer subsidised spider web. 😂
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.bloomberg.com



Yea, needs planning.


----------



## SirRumpole

Knobby22 said:


> Yea, needs planning.



The only ones who can plan this sort of thing are governments with specialist technical advice.

Commercial operators will come in when the going is easy and disappear when things get tough. 

I'm amazed we haven't  learned that lesson by now.


----------



## sptrawler

Knobby22 said:


> Yea, needs planning.



As Rumpy said it needs more than planning, planning is about putting in place things that make things fit, this is way beyond that and is what is causing all the problems.
There needs to be a whole humungous amount of $hit installed that isn't going to make money, but it will be green, who pays for that humungous amount of $hit is where the last Government and this Government came to an impasse.
The last Government was chucked out because they wanted the private sector to sort it out and pay for it, this Government has to work out how they can fulfil the promise of putting it in without costing the consumer a massive cost increase.
It will be interesting IMO, to me it is looking like another NBN, the taxpayer pays for all the backbone and the privates jump in and charge you guys more for supplying what you already have. At least you will be able to sit huddled around a scented candle, back patting.
Thankfully I live in W.A. 
Hopefully everyone comes to their senses and calls a halt to the stampede, take a breath and get everyone to settle down and workout a sensible path based on technical and logistical constraints, with engineering, logistical and planning taking the precedent.
But that wont happen.


----------



## Knobby22

sptrawler said:


> As Rumpy said it needs more than planning, planning is about putting in place things that make things fit, this is way beyond that and is what is causing all the problems.
> There needs to be a whole humungous amount of $hit installed that isn't going to make money, but it will be green, who pays for that humungous amount of $hit is where the last Government and this Government came to an impasse.
> The last Government was chucked out because they wanted the private sector to sort it out and pay for it, this Government has to work out how they can fulfil the promise of putting it in without costing the consumer a massive cost increase.
> It will be interesting IMO, to me it is looking like another NBN, the taxpayer pays for all the backbone and the privates jump in and charge you guys more for supplying what you already have. At least you will be able to sit huddled around a scented candle, back patting.
> Thankfully I live in W.A.



It should work out cheaper as long as the rent seekers don't get there way.


----------



## sptrawler

Knobby22 said:


> It should work out cheaper as long as the rent seekers don't get there way.



It wont work out, unless the rent seekers get their way, that is the way today.
Someone has to pay the rent, it just depends whether you make the privates take it out of their profits, or you take it out of the taxpayer.
It seems at the moment the taxpayer is going to be the bunny, which is fine there is way too much money available for uber eats and streaming IMO.


----------



## Knobby22

sptrawler said:


> It wont work out, unless the rent seekers get their way, that is the way today.
> Someone has to pay the rent, it just depends whether you make the privates take it out of their profits, or you take it out of the taxpayer.
> It seems at the moment the taxpayer is going to be the bunny, which is fine there is way too much money available for uber eats and streaming IMO.



Well I doubt this government will be as corrupt as the previous.








						Michael Pascoe: Political coroner finds Coalition deeply corrupt
					

The latest chapter of the coroner’s report unsurprisingly finds the Coalition government was a particularly diseased body when it was put down on May 21.




					thenewdaily.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

Knobby22 said:


> Well I doubt this government will be as corrupt as the previous.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Michael Pascoe: Political coroner finds Coalition deeply corrupt
> 
> 
> The latest chapter of the coroner’s report unsurprisingly finds the Coalition government was a particularly diseased body when it was put down on May 21.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> thenewdaily.com.au



From my life experience nothing much changes, only the faces, but it is nice that some have an unwavering faith.


----------



## SirRumpole

Wave power powering homes on King Island.









						Wave power that actually works? Trial of 'blowhole' generator off Tasmania labelled a success
					

This wave power generator has completed a 12-month trial off King Island in Bass Strait, successfully generating electricity for hundreds of homes — now the company behind it wants to look at what's next.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Knobby22

sptrawler said:


> From my life experience nothing much changes, only the faces, but it is nice that some have an unwavering faith.



What? You think John Howard was deeply corrupt? Robert Menzies? Bob Hawke?, Julia Gillard? No, the legacy of Morrison in particular is why so many want the anti corruption commission set up for the Feds, but I suppose you are against it.


----------



## sptrawler

Knobby22 said:


> What? You think John Howard was deeply corrupt? Robert Menzies? Bob Hawke?, Julia Gillard? No, *the legacy of Morrison in particular is why so many want the anti corruption commission set up for the Feds, but I suppose you are against it.*



I wasn't saying any particular person is corrupt, or any particular party is corrupt, only that due to the number of people in Government the law of averages implies that some will be corrupt. As can be shown throughout history.
Are you implying Scott Morrison personally is corrupt? That is an interesting statement and unless I could prove that I personally wouldn't say it, but I suppose you do have proof.
I would say politicians who have been charged and prosecuted or have impending charges are corrupt, or possibly corrupt, but I value my objectivity to guide my statements.
As for crime and corruption commissions, as can be seen in Queensland and Victoria, they are another section of Government that can be effective, or not, depending on who is in them. Who checks them and then who checks them? You have to have these anti corruption bodies, but as to their worth, at the end of the day I find questionable.
IMO the police should be given the power, authority and resources to carry out investigations into corruption IMO. Make them a department of Federal and State police, so that all investigations can be subject to criminal prosecution as a matter of course.








						Inquiry to investigate Queensland's Crime and Corruption Commission
					






					www.9news.com.au
				












						Victoria corruption watchdog loses half its legal team in six months
					

Departures come as Ibac probes classified information leaks and has three outstanding reports with potential political fallout in state election year




					www.theguardian.com
				



The CCC has recently been under increasing scrutiny, with chair Alan MacSporran resigning last week after fraud charges imposed by the corruption watchdog were dropped against several former Queensland councillors.

The Victorian corruption watchdog has shed almost half its legal team in the past six months, amid internal investigations into leaks of classified information and ongoing morale issues.

Guardian Australia has confirmed seven lawyers left the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (Ibac) between November and May, in another significant exodus that occurred despite renewed efforts to retain staff in the wake of a damning survey into workplace culture.


----------



## Knobby22

sptrawler said:


> Are you implying Scott Morrison personally is corrupt? That is an interesting statement and unless I could prove that I personally wouldn't say it, but I suppose you do have proof.



I didn’t say it, the Auditor General did and only just recently as per article posted. 
And no one will even get arrested.

I knew you would be against an anti corruption watchdog for the Federal Parliament.

At least in NSW and to a lesser extent Victoria, due to a weaker watchdog, the corrupt politicians get caught.


----------



## sptrawler

Knobby22 said:


> I knew you would be against an anti corruption watchdog. At least in NSW and to a lesser extent, due to a weaker watchdog, the corrupt politicians get caught.



Obviously you didn't read what I said, I would rather an anti corruption watchdog wasn't appointed by the Government, I would rather it a function of the police department, where every investigation is treated as a possible criminal one.
As it is currently, IMO it lacks credibility as has been shown in my posts, so I really can't see what you are inferring.
"You knew I would be against a corruption watchdog" absolutely if it is a corruption lapdog for the Government.
Politicians are elected to take up a position of trust, that entails their actions be above reproach and any corruption by them should be treated as criminal , therefore having them choose who is on the corruption commission negates any impartiality IMO.
From the article I posted, which you obviously didn't read, or chose to ignore.








						Inquiry to investigate Queensland's Crime and Corruption Commission
					






					www.9news.com.au
				



The CCC has recently been under increasing scrutiny, with chair Alan MacSporran resigning last week after fraud charges imposed by the corruption watchdog were dropped against several former Queensland councillors.
*Ms Palaszczuk said a vital part of the review will focus on the CCC's independence from government*.
Queensland* Attorney General Shannon Fentiman said the inquiry would be crucial in restoring public faith in the CCC.*
"Ensuring Queenslanders have confidence in the CCC is paramount," Ms Fentiman said.
"We want Queenslanders to know we are an effective independent and impartial integrity body that is responsible for investigating major crime and corruption in Queensland."


----------



## SirRumpole

Am I in the right thread ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Am I in the right thread ?



Yes, good point, I hadn't noticed that.


----------



## Smurf1976

Wave power that actually works? Trial of 'blowhole' generator off Tasmania labelled a success
					

This wave power generator has completed a 12-month trial off King Island in Bass Strait, successfully generating electricity for hundreds of homes — now the company behind it wants to look at what's next.




					www.abc.net.au
				






> This is really the first project that has successfully generated electricity for a customer, and that goes to prove that ocean energy can work," Stephanie Thornton from Australian Ocean Energy Group said.






> "That electricity is of a very high quality and has been accepted by Hydro Tasmania as suitable for the grid on King Island, so that's a very important achievement."




Which just goes to prove that engineering and associated work with construction, operation etc will ultimately solve the energy problem. The role of politics is to sign on the dotted line then get out of the way.

And yes, we most certainly can lead this in Australia. Again just keep the politics and bureaucracy out of the way.


----------



## SirRumpole

ACCC urges governments to act to avoid east coast gas supply shortage.'









						Not enough gas, higher prices, manufacturers shutting shop: Dire warning issued about gas supply
					

The latest report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says the gas supply outlook for 2023 is very concerning and likely to place further upward pressure on prices.




					www.abc.net.au
				




"
*"The outlook for 2023 is very concerning and is likely to place further upward pressure on prices, which could result in some commercial and industrial users no longer being able to operate," the report said.
"This is a significant deterioration in conditions relative to what we projected for 2022 at the same time last year and presents a real risk to Australia's energy security."*

It has recommended that the government consider intervening in the market, by pulling what's known as the "gas trigger" to ensure there is enough supply."


----------



## SirRumpole

Research continues on nuclear fusion.


----------



## Knobby22

SirRumpole said:


> Research continues on nuclear fusion.




Big watch but worth it Rumpy. Thanks.
I like English video, they don't treat you like a simpleton and the reporter was impressive. 

Electromagnets made of superconductor material operating at 20Kelvin to control 40cm of plasma at incredibly high temperatures fusing two different isotopes of Hydrogen within a special device.

Pilot plant within 10 years. Fusion is looking possible. We really need it.


----------



## sptrawler

An interesting article on New Zealand and its issues as it chases the illusive 100% renewable grid.

https://theconversation.com/new-zea...-infrastructure-is-not-the-best-option-143592


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> An interesting article on New Zealand and its issues as it chases the illusive 100% renewable grid.



I'm inherently wary of the "not needed" argument.

Seen this one before and the track record of such claims isn't good. It ends up with a fossil fuel plant built in a hurry when the inevitable happens.

It's like the argument against pumped hydro in Australia. What opponents don't mention is that their claim of it not being needed assumes ongoing use of fossil fuels which, strangely, they also seem opposed to.


----------



## moXJO

Solar and wind, bye bye. Seems the data is in and it sucks.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm inherently wary of the "not needed" argument.
> 
> Seen this one before and the track record of such claims isn't good. It ends up with a fossil fuel plant built in a hurry when the inevitable happens.
> 
> It's like the argument against pumped hydro in Australia. What opponents don't mention is that their claim of it not being needed assumes ongoing use of fossil fuels which, strangely, they also seem opposed to.



That is the underlying problem with all this, it is renewables or nothing and also it is renewables with no adverse environmental or ecological outcomes, the parameters just about makes what they want impossible IMO.
They have to learn to be pragmatic, to achieve "clean energy', which is the desired outcome.


----------



## SirRumpole

Bill Gates invests in Travelling Wave Reactors.


----------



## SirRumpole

Interesting video on the economics of nuclear power.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting video on the economics of nuclear power.



Great post Rumpy and sums it up perfectly and in my opinion why in about 10 years time, the answer will become obvious.
Eventually the requirement to reduce emissions and still have a reliable electrical system, will lead to the obvious answer, it is only that the greenies will take 10 years to realise it.
By then technology will have moved on and clean, safe base load power generation will be available IMO.


----------



## SirRumpole

Bio buildings. An interesting concept using algae.


----------



## Knobby22

SirRumpole said:


> Interesting video on the economics of nuclear power.




Yes, all true. but Gates and Buffett are working on a game changer. it doesn't need nuclear processing, making it not wanted by terrorists and it gets rid of the steam problem making it inherently safer among other things. i believe nuclear has a big future.








						TerraPower - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				











						Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Technology - TerraPower
					

TerraPower’s MCFR project expands the ability of nuclear reactor technology to decarbonize the economy in sectors including and beyond electricity.




					www.terrapower.com


----------



## sptrawler

Western Australia moves quietly along the renewables path. @SirRumpole the last paragraph, what you and I have been talking about, for some time.  

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08...ject-rolls-out-farms-in-wa-mid-west/101297598
From the article:
Energy provider Horizon Power has announced it would build a centralised solar farm and battery in Norseman, about 720km east of Perth.

The 758 kilowatt solar farm would consist of 1,400 panels and would house a 336 kilowatt-hour battery energy storage system.

On completion, the project would see just over 24 per cent of the town's energy sourced from renewable energy.

Currently, the township relies entirely on a diesel-generated power station for its electricity.

The Norseman solar project was part of a broader roll out in which Horizon Power planned to install centralised solar and battery storages systems in the mid-west towns of Cue, Sandstone, Meekatharra, Mount Magnet, Wiluna and Yalgoo.
Curtin University professor of sustainability Peter Newman said the majority of new standalone power systems that were going into farms, remote stations and small towns still used diesel as a backup, even if a battery was available.

"Diesel is very expensive and it's quite poisonous, so the sooner we get rid of it the better and we are going through that change process now," he said.

"*There is a new invention in Western Australia which is making hydrogen out of the excess solar that is around most days.
"That hydrogen can then be used instead of diesel, and I think is the way we will go in the future to get rid of the final bits of diesel."*


----------



## orr

Blackrock puts up a Billion for Battery Storage for Australian based assets...
A question those speculating on Battery technology might ask themselves, I know I did, is;
What Battery chemistry will make up the bulk if not all of that investment?

Oh and Keith Pttt if your reading; That's Battery's  and many in QLD... 
And for the Schmuck Schmo **** Show that's Big Batterys! not Bananas like the republic you dreamt of... So many early Freudian hints early on.


----------



## Ferret

I see that Germany will have two Floating Storage and Regasification Units (FSRUs) fully supplied and operational by the start of the European winter.  It's not the full solution to Germany's gas shortage, but not a bad effort to get this organised so quickly.

Meanwhile, our efforts to deal with our east coast gas shortage continue at a snail's pace.


----------



## orr

The Money...
It's all about the Money..
VPP goes live today in California, for participants at a buy back of US $2/kw/h.

Self Sourcing Pudding...
Opening  up of this Market  and you're a long way to  self solving  a lot of problems. And making a lot of money for early adopters. 









						Tesla’s first Virtual Power Plant beta event in CA was a rousing success
					

Tesla’s first Virtual Power Plant beta event in California was a resounding success, with ~2.6k homeowners pushing 18 MW to the grid.




					www.teslarati.com
				




To bad Dingus Taylor wasn't in for another term the profits on this type of possiblity would have been off the Richter.


----------



## Smurf1976

orr said:


> The Money...
> It's all about the Money..
> VPP goes live today in California, for participants at a buy back of US $2/kw/h.
> 
> Self Sourcing Pudding...
> Opening up of this Market and you're a long way to self solving a lot of problems. And making a lot of money for early adopters.



Where the difficulty lies is with the financials.

You can't buy too much electricity at USD $2 per kWh when you're selling it for USD 6 cents per kWh which at the bulk level is roughly what it's worth (varies with location etc).

It needs a lot of ruthless efficiency elsewhere to offset even a small amount bought at those rates.


----------



## SirRumpole

'Horrific for consumers'. 

Report on power prices.









						Australia's biggest power providers are seemingly failing to cash in on the energy crisis. Why?
					

Record high energy prices are proving to be no picnic for the country's biggest power providers. So who is 'making out like a bandit'?




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> 'Horrific for consumers'.
> 
> Report on power prices.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Australia's biggest power providers are seemingly failing to cash in on the energy crisis. Why?
> 
> 
> Record high energy prices are proving to be no picnic for the country's biggest power providers. So who is 'making out like a bandit'?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Basic problem is the NEM and gas industry in its present form is simply high cost.

Hence neither the investor owned companies which existed prior to it (eg AGL) nor the few remaining government owned entities can today match their historic pricing in real terms and nor is anyone making a particularly large profit out of it all.

Fuel prices are part of the problem but by no means the whole story, there are more fundamental issues than that which won't be resolved simply by changing the means of generation or a lowering of fuel prices.


----------



## sptrawler

All is good in the kingdom, only 12 weeks in office and we are starting to see the benefits of a new Government.
If they can do this in twelve weeks, it will be truly breathtaking what they can achieve in three years.
Because nothing has been done for the last 10 years.





__





						Loading...
					





					www.theaustralian.com.au
				




Solar briefly eclipses coal power for first time​Solar supplied more generation than coal into the national grid for the first time ever on Friday, underscoring the sweeping advance of renewables.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Basic problem is the NEM and gas industry in its present form is simply high cost.
> 
> Hence neither the investor owned companies which existed prior to it (eg AGL) nor the few remaining government owned entities can today match their historic pricing in real terms and nor is anyone making a particularly large profit out of it all.
> 
> Fuel prices are part of the problem but by no means the whole story, there are more fundamental issues than that which won't be resolved simply by changing the means of generation or a lowering of fuel prices.



All will be sorted next week, the molten salt solar storage base load replacement units will be commissioned and whallah problem solved.
I know I shouldn't be so cynical.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> All is good in the kingdom, only 12 weeks in office and we are starting to see the benefits of a new Government.
> If they can do this in twelve weeks, it will be truly breathtaking what they can achieve in three years.
> Because nothing has been done for the last 10 years.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Loading...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theaustralian.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Solar briefly eclipses coal power for first time​Solar supplied more generation than coal into the national grid for the first time ever on Friday, underscoring the sweeping advance of renewables.




The proof of the pudding is in the prices.


----------



## DB008

NEW - German benchmark power price surged over €700 per MWh for the first time today. 








*14x the seasonal average over the past 5 years.
*
Yesterday, German Economy Minister Habeck of the Green Party ruled out extending the lifetime of the country's last 3 remaining modern nuclear power plants.

@disclosetv


----------



## Knobby22

DB008 said:


> NEW - German benchmark power price surged over €700 per MWh for the first time today.
> 
> View attachment 145802
> 
> 
> 
> *14x the seasonal average over the past 5 years.*
> 
> Yesterday, German Economy Minister Habeck of the Green Party ruled out extending the lifetime of the country's last 3 remaining modern nuclear power plants.
> 
> @disclosetv



Here follows the argument for closing down 2 of remaining 3 reactors. It's doesn't seem to me that compelling with the present problems.









						German economy minister rules out keeping nuclear plants running to save gas
					

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck ruled out on Sunday extending the lifespan of the country's three remaining nuclear power plants in order to save gas, saying it would save at most 2 percent of gas use.




					www.reuters.com


----------



## sptrawler

Knobby22 said:


> Here follows the argument for closing down 2 of remaining 3 reactors. It's doesn't seem to me that compelling with the present problems.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> German economy minister rules out keeping nuclear plants running to save gas
> 
> 
> German Economy Minister Robert Habeck ruled out on Sunday extending the lifespan of the country's three remaining nuclear power plants in order to save gas, saying it would save at most 2 percent of gas use.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.reuters.com



A simple case of ideology overriding logics and common sense, this is the sort of thing that puts the Greens in a bad light, making people suffer without compromise.
Europe is only just moving into winter, it will be interesting to see how they come through, the rich will be fine as the cost of heating isn't a problem for them.
I wonder if people will start burning wood and coal again, the thing with people they quickly learn to manage, one way or another they wont let their kids freeze.
Closing down clean energy, when you haven't got the renewables installed to replace it, just smacks of madness IMO.


----------



## sptrawler

Hooray, at last an article about the reality of the 'green transition' and relying purely on renewables, it has taken a long, long time but the reality is starting to be told to the unwashed masses.
What have I being saying for years? People just don't get it, they don't understand the enormity of the issue, yet rabbit on endlessly as though it is just a matter of wanting to.
Now the real issues can be discussed, rather than the emotionally driven media clap trap, about it is the Federal Governments fault.
Now the greenies, the indigenous and the general public can appreciate what really is required, not some smoke and mirrors nonsense driven by vested interests and media sensationalism.








						Report reveals the staggering scale of Australia’s net-zero path
					

Australia’s north would be transformed by five or six “Tasmania-sized” solar arrays and huge hydrogen hubs, according to a landmark modelling project.




					www.afr.com
				



From the article:
Australia’s north would be transformed by five or six “Tasmania-sized” solar arrays and huge hydrogen hubs, and draw several million additional people as an army of workers arrives to build and service a vast net-zero economy.

Those are among *the key findings of a landmark forward-looking, multi-year modelling project led by experts at the universities of Melbourne, Queensland and Princeton in the US,* which for the first time details the staggering scale of the nation’s decarbonisation pathway.

Delivering on that vision of a near-zero carbon economy that exports energy to the world will also require wind and solar energy capacity equivalent to 40 times that of today’s national electricity market.
*And in a serious wake-up call for the Labor government, the work suggests meeting the 43 per cent cut in emissions due to be legislated next month by the Senate implies the country will require solar, wind and transmission equal to almost five national electricity markets.*

Alongside the staggering numbers involved, the research raises serious questions about how the country will manage what are almost certain to be critical skills shortages, the need for more foreign workers and a push to secure sovereign supply chains.
The report’s authors warn of the need to engage and win the support of households, landowners and communities, as well as the farmers who will host many of the wind and solar farms, pipelines and carbon-absorbing plantations.

They note that Indigenous-controlled lands are among the most suitable for making green power from hydrogen.

The Net Zero Australia report adopts methodology used in Princeton University’s 2021 Net Zero America project, and explores how renewables will produce almost all domestic energy by 2050, alongside carbon capture and storage (CCS) and an energy export industry.

To close the gap between targets for emissions cuts and other ambitions, and the real-world impacts and costs, as well as land use, the study analyses several versions of what the future could look like.

Export industry​This includes alternative worlds in which only renewables are allowed by 2050, and one scenario in which CCS is limited.

Across most of the modelled versions of the future, capital investment to fund decarbonisation of Australia’s domestic needs will be at least 50 per cent greater than what would happen if the country remained on fossil fuels.

The total annual domestic energy system cost will balloon from just under $90 billion a year today to more than $150 billion a year by the late 2030s and stay at that level through the 2060s.


Expanding that to develop an energy export industry capable of offsetting current earnings from coal and gas – for instance, via green hydrogen – involves investment from $100 billion a year to $600 billion.

Supporting that growth will require between 1 million and 1.2 million workers, the great majority of whom will be across northern Australia, helping support several million more residents.

Alongside the headline numbers involved, the project uniquely maps where all this activity will take place, suggesting many of Australia’s traditional resources regions will be among the big winners, including politically sensitive central Queensland.

The project received financial support from APA, Dow, Worley and the Minderoo Foundation, as well as input from the ACTU, National Farmers Federation and Australian Conservation Foundation.


----------



## orr

Trawler ??? 
40 X ???    In 30 odd years. 

If we take the example of one export customer for our thermal coal and LNG, Japan. By 2030 their offshore wind is expected to supply approx 25% of eletricity demand about 10 giga/w. The Japanese are aiming at upto 65 giga/w of wind  by  2050. About 125% of current demand.

Of course none other of our export customers are likely to pump for a nationaly sourced secure and cheaper alternative to imported hydrogen from australia...


----------



## orr

Smurf1976 said:


> Where the difficulty lies is with the financials.
> 
> You can't buy too much electricity at USD $2 per kWh when you're selling it for USD 6 cents per kWh which at the bulk level is roughly what it's worth (varies with location etc).
> 
> It needs a lot of ruthless efficiency elsewhere to offset even a small amount bought at those rates.



It's obviously a hedge against spot market price spikes. So selling for anything north of $2 doesn't seem to 'financially difficult'.


----------



## sptrawler

orr said:


> Trawler ???
> 40 X ???    In 30 odd years.
> 
> If we take the example of one export customer for our thermal coal and LNG, Japan. By 2030 their offshore wind is expected to supply approx 25% of eletricity demand about 10 giga/w. The Japanese are aiming at upto 65 giga/w of wind  by  2050. About 125% of current demand.
> 
> Of course none other of our export customers are likely to pump for a nationaly sourced secure and cheaper alternative to imported hydrogen from australia...



The article is only pointing out what is required, to supply the generation for proposed projects, whether they come to fruition time will tell.
The workforce required would be extremely hard to amass and then as most of the proposed sites are in inhospitable locations, the logistics are huge.
IMO, there is a lot of green can dreaming going on.
But as I said, time will tell, I wouldnt put money on it. 
Even the 2030 target seems a very voter friendly vote catcher, that will be hard to achieve.
Just my opinion.


----------



## Smurf1976

orr said:


> It's obviously a hedge against spot market price spikes. So selling for anything north of $2 doesn't seem to 'financially difficult'.



Ultimately the need is for _average_ prices around the $85 / MWh (8.5 cents / kWh) mark or less if we're to be internationally competitive. That's for bulk electricity not including distribution costs.

So if we're to average 8.5 cents then there simply can't be too much at 200 cents without blowing the budget.

I mention it simply because economics is the big problem with all this. Finding things that work technically is relatively straightforward.

Finding things that can be built, with a highly paid workforce in a country with all sorts of environmental and safety standards, and which still achieve a lower absolute $ cost than that being done in the likes of China, the Middle East, South Africa or Brazil is much more difficult. Not impossible but it requires a rather firm approach to efficiency.

The US at least has massive scale on its side which helps there.

Europe of course can't do it but they're paying a price for that which isn't pleasant economically.


----------



## SirRumpole

Sounds ominous.

CEO of Snowy Hydro resigns.









						Snowy Hydro CEO in shock exit amid hit from crisis
					

Paul Broad has suddenly quit as chief executive of Snowy Hydro amid an escalation of tensions with Energy Minister Chris Bowen, most recently over Labor’s insistence that the new Kurri Kurri gas plant in NSW uses green hydrogen from day one.




					www.afr.com


----------



## SirRumpole

SirRumpole said:


> Sounds ominous.
> 
> CEO of Snowy Hydro resigns.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Snowy Hydro CEO in shock exit amid hit from crisis
> 
> 
> Paul Broad has suddenly quit as chief executive of Snowy Hydro amid an escalation of tensions with Energy Minister Chris Bowen, most recently over Labor’s insistence that the new Kurri Kurri gas plant in NSW uses green hydrogen from day one.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.afr.com




Further to this, I just heard an interview on ABC with Bruce Mountain, director of the Victorian Energy policy centre. He said that the conversion of the Kurri Kurri generators to run on hydrogen was "technically impossible" and that the turbines would have to be scrapped and new ones built.

If this is true, it would have been a good idea if our current government had consulted some technical experts before making unrealistic demands.


----------



## SirRumpole

SirRumpole said:


> Further to this, I just heard an interview on ABC with Bruce Mountain, director of the Victorian Energy policy centre. He said that the conversion of the Kurri Kurri generators to run on hydrogen was "technically impossible" and that the turbines would have to be scrapped and new ones built.
> 
> If this is true, it would have been a good idea if our current government had consulted some technical experts before making unrealistic demands.




From the 7 minute mark.



			https://iview.abc.net.au/video/NU2222V150S00


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> From the 7 minute mark.
> 
> 
> 
> https://iview.abc.net.au/video/NU2222V150S00






SirRumpole said:


> Yes I'm finding it slow too. It also refused to load a few times and threw a "unknown database error".



I haven't had time to listen, because have to head off for duty.
But the first thing that comes to mind is, the gas turbine is the cheap bit, getting the hydrogen supply to it is the real issue, most gas turbines upto about 150MW are skid mounts, so not an issue.
But will listen in about 2 hours time.
Being from W.A and from the outside looking in, it sounds like another reason to duck and weave and not spend money and hope that some other State picks up the tab.🤣
Maybe some pet project needs extra money?


----------



## sptrawler

Interesting article.








						Snowy Hydro boss Paul Broad resigns amid tensions with Chris Bowen
					

Paul Broad, the chief executive of Snowy Hydro, has resigned amid delays and cost blow outs to its controversial Snowy Hydro 2.0 scheme.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Interesting article.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Snowy Hydro boss Paul Broad resigns amid tensions with Chris Bowen
> 
> 
> Paul Broad, the chief executive of Snowy Hydro, has resigned amid delays and cost blow outs to its controversial Snowy Hydro 2.0 scheme.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au




Re Kurri Kurri, it would seem to make sense to have a test site running on hydrogen to prove it can be done before going all out with the Kurri Kurri plant.

It's a pity that Bowen like most politicians don't appear listen to experts in the field. If Bowen thinks that Kurri Kurri can burn hydrogen successfully, he should release his technical advice.


----------



## sptrawler

Hydrogen-Fueled Gas Turbines | GE Gas Power
					

Learn more about GE's leadership in the use of hydrogen in gas turbines, and what it will take to reach a 100% hydrogen future.




					www.ge.com


----------



## sptrawler

@SirRumpole another article on the resignation of the Snowy boss, sounds like ideology Vs engineering.








						Snowy Hydro boss says 'clash of ideas' with Energy Minister sparked resignation
					

Paul Broad says he is disappointed to be leaving Snowy Hydro after falling out with Chris Bowen over a gas plant in the NSW Hunter Region.




					www.abc.net.au
				



However, Mr Broad said clashes with Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen were another reason to step aside.

"Issues have arisen obviously between what I think of the world and what Chris Bowen Minister for Energy thinks of the world and, rather than create a drama, I resigned," Mr Broad said.

"I didn't want to put the company in a position where we were seen to be fighting at every level with whatever the government may or may not want to do.

A gas-fired power plant being built at Kurri Kurri in the NSW Hunter Valley was at the heart of the tension.

It is due to start operating next year.
The plant is designed to provide back-up power when the state's electricity grid becomes overloaded and the larger coal fired stations phase out.

It will initially run on a combination of green hydrogen and gas.

During the election campaign, Labor announced the plant could be converted to use green hydrogen.

"While hydrogen is a wonderful opportunity, it is many, many years away from being commercial," Mr Broad said.
"To think you can have hydrogen running into Kurri Kurri when there is no hydrogen being produced in Newcastle just doesn't make any sense."
Another point of contention was Mr Broad's assertion that more gas-fired power stations needed to be built in the Hunter to bridge the gap to renewables.

"The reality is Liddell Power Station is closing, you need more gas-fired power stations, you need lots more of them," Mr Broad said.

The gas-fired plant sits in the Hunter Valley electorate of Paterson.
Paterson MP Meryl Swanson said she had spoken to Mr Bowen, seeking assurances the plant would still be built.

"The minister told me from his own mouth yesterday that it will go ahead, the plant will be happening and there will be an element of hydrogen," she said.

"Paul was really energised that hydrogen could be achieved.

"For him I think it was a matter of cost and time and that's something that whoever comes into this role is still going to have to tackle."


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> @SirRumpole another article on the resignation of the Snowy boss, sounds like ideology Vs engineering.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Snowy Hydro boss says 'clash of ideas' with Energy Minister sparked resignation
> 
> 
> Paul Broad says he is disappointed to be leaving Snowy Hydro after falling out with Chris Bowen over a gas plant in the NSW Hunter Region.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> However, Mr Broad said clashes with Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen were another reason to step aside.
> 
> "Issues have arisen obviously between what I think of the world and what Chris Bowen Minister for Energy thinks of the world and, rather than create a drama, I resigned," Mr Broad said.
> 
> "I didn't want to put the company in a position where we were seen to be fighting at every level with whatever the government may or may not want to do.
> 
> A gas-fired power plant being built at Kurri Kurri in the NSW Hunter Valley was at the heart of the tension.
> 
> It is due to start operating next year.
> The plant is designed to provide back-up power when the state's electricity grid becomes overloaded and the larger coal fired stations phase out.
> 
> It will initially run on a combination of green hydrogen and gas.
> 
> During the election campaign, Labor announced the plant could be converted to use green hydrogen.
> 
> "While hydrogen is a wonderful opportunity, it is many, many years away from being commercial," Mr Broad said.
> "To think you can have hydrogen running into Kurri Kurri when there is no hydrogen being produced in Newcastle just doesn't make any sense."
> Another point of contention was Mr Broad's assertion that more gas-fired power stations needed to be built in the Hunter to bridge the gap to renewables.
> 
> "The reality is Liddell Power Station is closing, you need more gas-fired power stations, you need lots more of them," Mr Broad said.
> 
> The gas-fired plant sits in the Hunter Valley electorate of Paterson.
> Paterson MP Meryl Swanson said she had spoken to Mr Bowen, seeking assurances the plant would still be built.
> 
> "The minister told me from his own mouth yesterday that it will go ahead, the plant will be happening and there will be an element of hydrogen," she said.
> 
> "Paul was really energised that hydrogen could be achieved.
> 
> "For him I think it was a matter of cost and time and that's something that whoever comes into this role is still going to have to tackle."



Interesting.

Bad news when technical people clash with politicians.

Bad news for the technical people that is.

I'm not an engineer, I don't know, but  I tend to take the side of people who actually have to make the things work.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Re Kurri Kurri, it would seem to make sense to have a test site running on hydrogen to prove it can be done before going all out with the Kurri Kurri plant.
> 
> It's a pity that Bowen like most politicians don't appear listen to experts in the field. If Bowen thinks that Kurri Kurri can burn hydrogen successfully, he should release his technical advice.






SirRumpole said:


> Interesting.
> 
> Bad news when technical people clash with politicians.
> 
> Bad news for the technical people that is.
> 
> I'm not an engineer, I don't know, but  I tend to take the side of people who actually have to make the things work.



Politicians make a promise, come hell or high water they have to try and make it happen, just the way it is. Unfortunately it either backfires, or cost a lot more than it should have, sounds as though trucking in H2 might be the go.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Further to this, I just heard an interview on ABC with Bruce Mountain, director of the Victorian Energy policy centre. He said that the conversion of the Kurri Kurri generators to run on hydrogen was "technically impossible" and that the turbines would have to be scrapped and new ones built.
> 
> If this is true, it would have been a good idea if our current government had consulted some technical experts before making unrealistic demands.



I'm not an expert on the specifics of this one but to the best of my understanding the basics are:

Up to 15% hydrogen is dead easy in terms of burning it. Just needs a source of hydrogen but no problem feeding it into the turbine.

Up to 30% hydrogen is doable but requires additional work to be done.

The manufacturer, Mitsubishi, isn't able to offer anything beyond that 30% level. Some competitors will say they can do 50% or even 100% or whatever but read the fine print and there's a lot of "subject to" or "with further development" attached to that.

A lot of it could be compared to advertising flights to whatever city along with pictures of all sorts of tourist attractions in and near that city. Thing is, none of those attractions are included in the price of the flight and for that matter a hotel isn't included either. All that is extra and may or may not actually be available - a tourist who turns up in Melbourne in February can't watch the AFL Grand Final no, it doesn't work that way.

Whether it will ever be practical to retrofit a >30% hydrogen option to equipment supplied today is an unknown that nobody can answer at this time. A lot will depend on what manufacturers are willing to offer. It's one thing to offer it with new equipment but in the context of retrofits, how far back do they go? Do they offer it for something built in 2020? 2010? 2000? Can we go and retrofit the three turbines at Dry Creek power station (Adelaide metro area) from 1973? Probably not, the line has to be drawn somewhere, but it's anyone's guess at this stage how that all pans out.

Noting that, as a clarification, running on (say) 15% hydrogen is an instantaneous value. That is, it means a maximum 15% hydrogen in the gas mix when it's running. It doesn't mean it can just be run on hydrogen alone for 15% of the time and turned off the other 85%. It's a maximum value when it's actually running that can't be exceeded - to be safe any practical operation will aim to be slightly lower, around 13% has been suggested by others, to avoid any risk of exceeding 15% during rapid load changes etc.

Adding there that with the exception of some specific industrial processes, 10% hydrogen (90% natural gas) is theoretically safe for practically any use. Any normal cooktop, heater, hot water etc in household or commercial use should run on it just fine without modification. So adding 10% hydrogen to the natural gas network is a workable approach, only exception being certain industrial uses.

So far as the politics and so on is concerned, well I know quite a few who'll agree that _in theory _running on 100% hydrogen seems possible and they'd be more than happy to be part of any project regarding research, building prototype or demonstration plants and so on.

To commit to a full scale power station though, I can't imagine too many engineers being willing to sign on the dotted line right now if they're going to be held to budgets and timeframes. Possible exception if one of the big manufacturers is willing to back it as a showpiece for their own capabilities and take on the risk indeed that seems a reasonably likely scenario for the SA hydrogen project. Fair chance someone seriously big will take on some risk in return for using it as a showpiece of their capabilities.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> it would seem to make sense to have a test site running on hydrogen to prove it can be done before going all out with the Kurri Kurri plant.



Personally I've long been keen on the idea of building a 30MW plant, a single gas turbine, running on 100% hydrogen and locating it in one of the 5 largest state capital cities.

Reason being 30MW is big enough to be real and considered as a small but definitely proper power station but it's small enough to not matter too much technically or financially if it has problems. 30MW tripping off the grid is a blip, it won't put the lights out, but it's just big enough to legitimately call it a power station so far as the public and media are concerned. 

City or nearby location in one of the big 5 simply to access the existing base of workers, industrial workshops and so on that can be engaged as required to support the project plus being accessible in order to hold open days for the media, politicians and ultimately general public to see it once all the technical aspects are fully sorted.

Do that, get a 30MW plant fully sorted, then there's a firm basis to cost and plan larger scale projects.

Note - it could be built smaller than that. Reason for the 30MW is simply to avoid claims it's pointless, insignificant and so on - 30MW is small but it's undeniably a power station.


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> Personally I've long been keen on the idea of building a 30MW plant, a single gas turbine, running on 100% hydrogen and locating it in one of the 5 largest state capital cities.
> 
> Reason being 30MW is big enough to be real and considered as a small but definitely proper power station but it's small enough to not matter too much technically or financially if it has problems. 30MW tripping off the grid is a blip, it won't put the lights out, but it's just big enough to legitimately call it a power station so far as the public and media are concerned.
> 
> City or nearby location in one of the big 5 simply to access the existing base of workers, industrial workshops and so on that can be engaged as required to support the project plus being accessible in order to hold open days for the media, politicians and ultimately general public to see it once all the technical aspects are fully sorted.
> 
> Do that, get a 30MW plant fully sorted, then there's a firm basis to cost and plan larger scale projects.
> 
> Note - it could be built smaller than that. Reason for the 30MW is simply to avoid claims it's pointless, insignificant and so on - 30MW is small but it's undeniably a power station.



Make sense to have at least one test before running roward building something that might not work on a grand scale..
I am always extremely scared of the leaky aspect of H2.
And sometimes wonder how much H2 will actually be burnt vs leakedseeped thru in the atmosphere in all these schemes.
For both efficiency and obviously safety:
my understanding is that adding smelling agent like in natural gas might not work in the leaks i am worry about for H2.Anyone knowing this domain?


----------



## qldfrog

qldfrog said:


> Make sense to have at least one test before running roward building something that might not work on a grand scale..
> I am always extremely scared of the leaky aspect of H2.
> And sometimes wonder how much H2 will actually be burnt vs leakedseeped thru in the atmosphere in all these schemes.
> For both efficiency and obviously safety:
> my understanding is that adding smelling agent like in natural gas might not work in the leaks i am worry about for H2.Anyone knowing this domain?



From a quick Google search: not reassuring...





						Columbia | SIPA Center on Global Energy Policy | Hydrogen Leakage: A Potential Risk for the Hydrogen Economy
					

Read the Commentary




					www.energypolicy.columbia.edu


----------



## wayneL

Just FYI.

I wonder how much Digitalis is in the UK these days? 😲


----------



## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> Make sense to have at least one test before running roward building something that might not work on a grand scale..
> I am always extremely scared of the leaky aspect of H2.
> And sometimes wonder how much H2 will actually be burnt vs leakedseeped thru in the atmosphere in all these schemes.
> For both efficiency and obviously safety:
> my understanding is that adding smelling agent like in natural gas might not work in the leaks i am worry about for H2.Anyone knowing this domain?



In a lot of ways, the H2 story isn't about whether it can work or whether it leaks or not, if it doesn't work the whole renewables clean energy argument falls on its butt especially in the short to medium term.
Without H2 as a fossil fuel substitute, well there isn't really anything else other than nuclear that can do the heavy lifting, even if everything goes battery(which is ridiculous IMO) the amount of extra renewable energy required to keep everything charged and running would be astronomical IMO.


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> In a lot of ways, the H2 story isn't about whether it can work or whether it leaks or not, if it doesn't work the whole renewables clean energy argument falls on its butt especially in the short to medium term.
> Without H2 as a fossil fuel substitute, well there isn't really anything else other than nuclear that can do the heavy lifting, even if everything goes battery(which is ridiculous IMO) the amount of extra renewable energy required to keep everything charged and running would be astronomical IMO.



I know, and i am not against h2 per se, the engineer in me is just **** scared to see dumb and dumber Greens and political actors looking at leveraging the woke narrative for votes, none with any idea of the doability or technicality let alone costs and dangers
I really think that coupling solar/wind farms to H2 producing cells acting as local batteries(cells, turbines, whatever the way), and turning these into baseline producing  units is the way to go;
but when i hear people thinking about transporting H2, burning it in existing gas units to feel good or using them for trucks traveling thru towns with refueling stations etc I am scared:
 we will have to pay with blood and dollars for these stupid schemes; we are going backward at high speed in this country, only referencing reversed developing countries like Europe and US as model, and keeping population untraveled and unaware of anything but their MSN/ABC BS feed.
We are heading toward a USSR style country with matching technical backwardness.Energy will be our showtime
If Germany can not make us think twice, nothing will


----------



## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> We are heading toward a USSR style country with matching technical backwardness.Energy will be our showtime
> If Germany can not make us think twice, nothing will



25 million people, sitting on one of the Worlds biggest quarries, we are living the dream.
What else are we going to do, other than come up with brain farts, boredom leads to complacency and dreaming.
We are World leaders at both.
What was Margaret Thatchers quote about socialism?


----------



## SirRumpole

qldfrog said:


> I know, and i am not against h2 per se, the engineer in me is just **** scared to see dumb and dumber Greens and political actors looking at leveraging the woke narrative for votes, none with any idea of the doability or technicality let alone costs and dangers
> I really think that coupling solar/wind farms to H2 producing cells acting as local batteries(cells, turbines, whatever the way), and turning these into baseline producing  units is the way to go;
> but when i hear people thinking about transporting H2, burning it in existing gas units to feel good or using them for trucks traveling thru towns with refueling stations etc I am scared:
> we will have to pay with blood and dollars for these stupid schemes; we are going backward at high speed in this country, only referencing reversed developing countries like Europe and US as model, and keeping population untraveled and unaware of anything but their MSN/ABC BS feed.
> We are heading toward a USSR style country with matching technical backwardness.Energy will be our showtime
> If Germany can not make us think twice, nothing will




How about the proposal to turn hydrogen into ammonia for transportation ? 

Viable or not ?


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> How about the proposal to turn hydrogen into ammonia for transportation ?
> 
> Viable or not ?



I think so, for example on ships for export to asia but imagine ammonia tanks crashed in  a city, Syria chlorine bombing will look like kid's play.
I even invested in IPL and Wes for that purpose.now out pending the big one 🙄but will be back.
You can even have ammonia as direct fuel for shipping container boats, trains etc.
But that is not what the narrative is...
And yes could solve some of the issues


----------



## sptrawler

An interesting and informative article, based on the U.K, but applies equally here.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...es-to-cut-dependence-on-gas?srnd=premium-asia
excerpts from the article:
Britain, like most of Europe, is facing an energy crisis of epic proportions. Wholesale gas prices have surged again, putting the rocket under the UK’s price cap on household bills. Businesses are at risk of going bust as costs soar.
The UK’s dependence on gas, which constituted 40% of its power last year, makes it particularly vulnerable and exposes the need for alternative sources of energy to the fossil fuel. As more energy comes from wind and solar, the country will also need power sources that can be turned on when demand spikes and the wind isn’t blowing.
One option is batteries. Here, we take a look at the energy storage technologies, new and old, that are already taking hold.

Lithium Ion​The UK already has Europe’s largest amount of grid-connected batteries, according to researcher BloombergNEF. Its lithium ion battery fleet currently has about 1.9 gigawatts of capacity and will more than quadruple by the end of the decade.
But lithium ion batteries have disadvantages. They can only provide power for relatively short periods of time. If there’s a period of more than a few hours this winter when the wind doesn’t blow, lithium-ion batteries won’t do much good. They’re more helpful to meet short bursts of demand or lulls in wind speeds.
Reservoirs up Mountains​One old-school alternative that’s already established in Britain is hydro power. Giant reservoirs hold vast amounts of water that can be released in seconds to spin turbines and generate electricity, such as at the Dinorwig Power Station in the mountains of north Wales and Cruachan Power Station inside Ben Cruachan mountain in Scotland. But these plants only work in certain locations, limiting their potential.

Liquid Air​One British startup is compressing air into liquid form, using electricity. It can then generate power when the liquid is heated, expanding back into a gas and driving a turbine.
“Think of it as pumped hydro in a box,” said Rupert Pearce, Highview Power Ltd.’s chief executive officer. “There’s no energy transition without long-term storage and green stability services.”

The company has hired boutique investment bank Ardea Partners to lead a fundraising round targeting £380 million ($448 million) to build a 50-megawatt site. If all goes to plan, the company will start construction later this year and then move on to its next project, an even larger development in Yorkshire that would cost £750 million.
Other large-scale projects are planned in Australia and Spain.

Car Parks​Connecting to the grid is expensive, so it makes sense to build energy hubs with more than one use. Hence, a huge and long-lasting battery has been installed in Oxford close to an electric car charging station.

London-listed company Invinity Energy Systems Plc has paired one of its vanadium flow batteries with a lithium-ion battery at the site. The flow battery, which can last for decades, will be used more heavily by Electricite de France SA’s Pivot Power unit, which offers the charging service to passing vehicles. This system preserves the lifetime of the lithium battery that is more prone to wearing down.


----------



## DB008

JUST IN - German benchmark year-ahead power price hits €1,000 per MWh, intensifying the region’s energy crisis.


----------



## sptrawler

DB008 said:


> JUST IN - German benchmark year-ahead power price hits €1,000 per MWh, intensifying the region’s energy crisis.
> 
> ​



That will cause some political pain.


----------



## Smurf1976

DB008 said:


> JUST IN - German benchmark year-ahead power price hits €1,000 per MWh, intensifying the region’s energy crisis.



At this price realistically Germany is no longer viable as an industrial economy or even sustainable as an advanced society.

It's simply cost prohibitive to produce pretty much anything requiring a substantial energy input at that price.

I tend to steer away from the politics but I'll say it - those who advocated the creation of this mess, and that is both ends of the political spectrum, really ought to be locked up and the key thrown away.


----------



## SirRumpole

*HOT NEWS *

Consumer confidence in the energy market slumps.









						Confidence in energy system plummets as the bill shock we've been bracing for becomes 'extremely real'
					

With wholesale electricity prices skyrocketing to the highest levels on record amid the crisis engulfing the east coast market, a survey finds that consumers have lost almost all faith in the system.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

Hydrogen heating for homes ?

Not really.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> *HOT NEWS *
> 
> Consumer confidence in the energy market slumps.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Confidence in energy system plummets as the bill shock we've been bracing for becomes 'extremely real'
> 
> 
> With wholesale electricity prices skyrocketing to the highest levels on record amid the crisis engulfing the east coast market, a survey finds that consumers have lost almost all faith in the system.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Well it isn't as though it hasn't been predicted, unless some common sense is applied to the debate, this will get a whole lot worse before it gets better.
As @Smurf1976 has said over and over, politicians need to get the hell out of the kitchen.
The other thing that we have gone on about that hasn't hit home yet is, there needs to be a hell of a lot more renewables installed than is actually required, the owners will want a return on investment so if people think electricity is going to get cheaper, tell em they're dreaming.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Hydrogen heating for homes ?
> 
> Not really.



Hydrogen realistically will only be practical as a fuel for fixed generation and some transport applications.
With home heating air conditioners make the most sense, I have disconnected the gas to the house and put in a new high energy rating a/c, plus changed over the gas cooktop to inductive.
The money saved on the gas service charge and the daily supply charge, goes a long way to covering the extra electricity usage and the smell of the fumes has gone. Which has reduced the background noise from the other half.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Hydrogen heating for homes ?
> 
> Not really.




Yep, electricity wins hands down for heating buildings.

Point worth noting in the Australian context is that about 50% of all homes in Tasmania are heated by heat pumps and it's a decent % in SA now too.

Hydrogen does have some very real uses in industry though. There are processes requiring high grade heat where electricity is highly problematic and hydrogen does provide a workaround to that.

There's one in Tasmania that presently uses about 80MW of heat energy constantly, the present source of which is natural gas and with oil having been used historically. Heat pumps are out of the question due to the temperature required whilst any other electric technology is problematic due to the nature of the process. Hence that has given rise to the idea, which the company is actually investigating, of building a hydrogen production plant on site thus providing a means to electrify the process.

Plenty more like that, it's just one example I'm aware of.


----------



## SirRumpole

More good news (in the sense that the penny is dropping in the media that the transition to renewables isn't as easy as some would want us to think).









						Energy 'gaps' to hit within three years as coal plants shut down
					

The energy market operator warns supply will fall short of demand from 2025 unless new renewable energy capacity is urgently brought online.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> More good news (in the sense that the penny is dropping in the media that the transition to renewables isn't as easy as some would want us to think).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Energy 'gaps' to hit within three years as coal plants shut down
> 
> 
> The energy market operator warns supply will fall short of demand from 2025 unless new renewable energy capacity is urgently brought online.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Again exactly what we have being saying, it is o.k demanding clean energy, but it is completely another when you are responsible for delivering it and keeping the lights on.
Unfortunately Chris is in the hot seat and it is an even hotter seat than the franking credits debacle, because this one hits all levels of society, not just pensioners.
Welcome to the real world.

The pertinent part of you post @SirRumpole IMO was:
_AEMO said those supply pressures were likely to get worse in the coming years as five coal plants closed, taking with them 14 per cent of the National Energy Market's total capacity.

Further complicating matters is an expected surge in demand amid efforts to electrify big chunks of the economy, such as the transport industry.
AEMO chief executive Daniel Westerman said that unless replacement capacity could be built in time, demand was forecast to periodically outstrip supply by 202_5.


Maybe the Greens can come up with a way of enabling smugness to power the grid, because IMO they will need it, coal plants can't keep holding up the system forever and gas isn't allowed.

I can see why the Snowy Corp CEO pulled the pin, no win in this game, obviously it was Chris's way or the highway, well I would have done the same.
No point in setting yourself up as the scapegoat for a catastrophe, too hard to get employment in an engineering field after that.
I actually feel a bit sorry for Chris, when he was opposition minister for immigration I thought he was a really sharp guy, the problem is he has IMO become the fall guy for the Labor too hard basket, it really does leave him being the bunny all the time..

This sums up Chris IMO and it is a shame because he seems to have a lot of nouse, but maybe that's why he ends in this position all the time.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Again exactly what we have being saying, it is o.k demanding clean energy, but it is completely another when you are responsible for delivering it and keeping the lights on.
> Unfortunately Chris is in the hot seat and it is an even hotter seat than the franking credits debacle, because this one hits all levels of society, not just pensioners.
> Welcome to the real world.
> 
> The pertinent part of you post @SirRumpole IMO was:
> _AEMO said those supply pressures were likely to get worse in the coming years as five coal plants closed, taking with them 14 per cent of the National Energy Market's total capacity.
> 
> Further complicating matters is an expected surge in demand amid efforts to electrify big chunks of the economy, such as the transport industry.
> AEMO chief executive Daniel Westerman said that unless replacement capacity could be built in time, demand was forecast to periodically outstrip supply by 202_5.
> 
> 
> Maybe the Greens can come up with a way of enabling smugness to power the grid, because IMO they will need it, coal plants can't keep holding up the system forever and gas isn't allowed.
> 
> I can see why the Snowy Corp CEO pulled the pin, no win in this game, obviously it was Chris's way or the highway, well I would have done the same.
> No point in setting yourself up as the scapegoat for a catastrophe, too hard to get employment in an engineering field after that.



Well, if hard decisions have to be made, then one might be to keep some coal plants running beyond their planned closure dates.

Getting that past the coloured parties is going to be the tricky bit.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Well, if hard decisions have to be made, then one might be to keep some coal plants running beyond their planned closure dates.
> 
> Getting that past the coloured parties is going to be the tricky bit.



Like I said, I wouldn't want to be in Chris's shoes, making the 43% reduction a line in the sand, has made a huge rod for their own backs.
Getting there is going to take some doing, either throw tax payers money at private enterprise to put renewables in with a guaranteed feed in price, whether it is required or not or the Government will have to put it in themselves.
Also paying coal generators to stay available when they don't want to, because they have to burn fuel just to keep the boilers and turbines warm enough to be available also wont cut it, saying we need to keep coal plants running when they have legislated the opposite is tricky.
Obviously from what the Snowy CEO said gas is a no go, so it sounds like a real wedgie coming on IMO.
Not many options that support reliable supply, but there is a promise of things getting better in the future, I bet they don't give a date.

It all smells of a rope the dope situation, where there is a huge requirement for renewables, but as we know we require a lot more installed than we actually need, so how do the renewables make money when the sun isn't shining? Demand the Government give them a guaranteed feed in tariff, whether they are producing or not, the tax payer in it again.

Poor old Australia is looking like there are going to be a lot more people pulling from the pot, than throwing into the pot, no wonder they want some immigrants with new money coming into the system.
At least it takes them a few years, to work out how the system works and then start milking it.

Thank god for the Nullarbor plain.🤣


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Also paying coal generators to stay available when they don't want to, because they have to burn fuel just to keep the boilers and turbines warm enough to be available also wont cut it, saying we need to keep coal plants running when they have legislated the opposite is tricky.



There's also the technical reality.

Liddell (coal) - 1971 (NSW)

Yallourn #1 (coal) = 1973 (Vic)

Dry Creek (gas) = 1973 (SA)

Yallourn #2 (coal) = 1975 (Vic)

Gladstone (coal) = 1976-82 progressively commissioned (Qld)

Snuggery (diesel) = 1978 (SA)

Torrens Island B (gas) = 1978 - 82 progressively (SA)

Vales Point B (coal) = 1979 (NSW)

Jeeralang A (gas) = 1979 (Vic)

Jeeralang B (gas) = 1980 (Vic)

Newport D (gas) = 1980 (Vic)

Yallourn 3 & 4 (coal) = 1981 (Vic)

Eraring (coal) = 1982 (NSW)

Of that lot:

Liddell now runs at reduced pressure to avoid it falling apart. The three (of originally four) units still in service can't go beyond about 84% of original capacity but generally not pushed beyond 70% to try and reduce the incidence of failures. The whole lot shuts April 2023, the end is near.

Yallourn 1 & 2 are unreliable but they do run to full capacity

Dry Creek looks rather old and tired from the outside and has been de-rated to about 91% of original capacity but it does run reliably. Just don't ask about the brown haze blasting out the stacks or the fuel consumption but it goes, it works.

Gladstone generally doesn't run to full capacity although it can still get there if absolutely needed. Generally avoided though.

Snuggery has been permanently de-rated to 84% of original capacity.

Torrens Island B has 1 (of 4) units out of service needing major work to return it (noting that there's no firm date for doing so).

Rest not too bad although Eraring has announced closure in 2025.

So the options to extend life are getting harder. A lot of this stuff is just old and worn out - to keep it going requires serious $ being spent. That plus time's running out to physically carry out the work even if someone does agree to fund it. Eg to extend Yallourn beyond 2028 requires extending the physical footprint of the open cut mine which feeds it and that doesn't just happen overnight....


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> So the options to extend life are getting harder. A lot of this stuff is just old and worn out - to keep it going requires serious $ being spent. That plus time's running out to physically carry out the work even if someone does agree to fund it. Eg to extend Yallourn beyond 2028 requires extending the physical footprint of the open cut mine which feeds it and that doesn't just happen overnight....



Time is running out to get in alternative generation also, this isn't helped by procrastination about what fuel, what type of plant etc.
Apparently Chris is demanding Kurri Kurri is able to run on H2 from day one, that will put it back as there are no burners that can run Gas/H2 and diesel, so they will have to be designed.
Also there is talk about building a H2 plant to feed Kurri Kurri, sounds like another time and cost blow out in the making.
Ha politics getting in the mix yet again.









						Why Paul Broad resigned from Snowy Hydro
					

Disagreement with Labor’s insistence to use green hydrogen at the Hunter Power Project has emerged as a key reason for the departure of former CEO Paul Broad from Snowy Hydro.




					www.afr.com
				



Snowy Hydro CEO Paul Broad’s rejection of Labor’s vision for the controversial Kurri Kurri power station in NSW to be the world’s first to run on three fuels – gas, diesel and hydrogen – from day one was a key point of tension leading to his resignation last week.

On top of solving this huge technical puzzle, the lack of availability of green hydrogen and its cost should it be available are further challenges for Snowy as it struggles to meet the Albanese government’s stipulation that the power generator in the Hunter Valley run from the outset on the emerging clean fuel.
Federal Labor, which initially opposed the $600 million Kurri Kurri project when in opposition, reversed that stance early this year on the basis that it would require the plant to use 30 per cent green hydrogen as soon as it starts up – scheduled for December next year – and 100 per cent by 2030 or as soon as possible.

But Mr Broad ridiculed this in an interview with the ABC on Saturday, the day after his resignation was announced.

“While hydrogen is a wonderful opportunity, it is many, many years away from being commercial,” Mr Broad told ABC News.
“To think you can have hydrogen running into Kurri Kurri when there is no hydrogen being produced in Newcastle just doesn’t make any sense.”

Sources close to the company suggest that the green hydrogen instruction for the power station was a major factor in Mr Broad’s decision to step down, amid concerns that the economics of such a plan would not add up even if green hydrogen were available in the Hunter region.

Snowy is thought to have even examined options to produce green hydrogen itself on site. The federal government has reportedly earmarked another $700 million to cover the extra capital cost.
Mr Knox said Snowy has signed a memorandum of understanding with Mitsubishi, the company that is supplying the turbines for the Hunter Power Project, to develop “complex” burner technology to allow the generator to run on 30 per cent hydrogen, which then requires extensive testing.


“The challenges are getting a burner that runs on methane, hydrogen, and also diesel backup if we need it,” he said. “That’s really challenging, really challenging. Nobody’s done that before. So we’re working on that.

“We’re all learning how on earth we’re going to do this and how we’re going to produce the hydrogen.”


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Time is running out to get in alternative generation also, this isn't helped by procrastination about what fuel, what type of plant etc.
> Apparently Chris is demanding Kurri Kurri is able to run on H2 from day one, that will put it back as there are no burners that can run Gas/H2 and diesel, so they will have to be designed.
> Also there is talk about building a H2 plant to feed Kurri Kurri, sounds like another time and cost blow out in the making.
> Ha politics getting in the mix yet again.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why Paul Broad resigned from Snowy Hydro
> 
> 
> Disagreement with Labor’s insistence to use green hydrogen at the Hunter Power Project has emerged as a key reason for the departure of former CEO Paul Broad from Snowy Hydro.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.afr.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Snowy Hydro CEO Paul Broad’s rejection of Labor’s vision for the controversial Kurri Kurri power station in NSW to be the world’s first to run on three fuels – gas, diesel and hydrogen – from day one was a key point of tension leading to his resignation last week.
> 
> On top of solving this huge technical puzzle, the lack of availability of green hydrogen and its cost should it be available are further challenges for Snowy as it struggles to meet the Albanese government’s stipulation that the power generator in the Hunter Valley run from the outset on the emerging clean fuel.
> Federal Labor, which initially opposed the $600 million Kurri Kurri project when in opposition, reversed that stance early this year on the basis that it would require the plant to use 30 per cent green hydrogen as soon as it starts up – scheduled for December next year – and 100 per cent by 2030 or as soon as possible.
> 
> But Mr Broad ridiculed this in an interview with the ABC on Saturday, the day after his resignation was announced.
> 
> “While hydrogen is a wonderful opportunity, it is many, many years away from being commercial,” Mr Broad told ABC News.
> “To think you can have hydrogen running into Kurri Kurri when there is no hydrogen being produced in Newcastle just doesn’t make any sense.”
> 
> Sources close to the company suggest that the green hydrogen instruction for the power station was a major factor in Mr Broad’s decision to step down, amid concerns that the economics of such a plan would not add up even if green hydrogen were available in the Hunter region.
> 
> Snowy is thought to have even examined options to produce green hydrogen itself on site. The federal government has reportedly earmarked another $700 million to cover the extra capital cost.
> Mr Knox said Snowy has signed a memorandum of understanding with Mitsubishi, the company that is supplying the turbines for the Hunter Power Project, to develop “complex” burner technology to allow the generator to run on 30 per cent hydrogen, which then requires extensive testing.
> 
> 
> “The challenges are getting a burner that runs on methane, hydrogen, and also diesel backup if we need it,” he said. “That’s really challenging, really challenging. Nobody’s done that before. So we’re working on that.
> 
> “We’re all learning how on earth we’re going to do this and how we’re going to produce the hydrogen.”




They always say "politics is the art of the possible", Bowen seems to be turning it into the art of the impossible, or at least the technically very difficult.

I reckon the best thing to do is build Kurri Kurri on gas, then have a test and development site next door to examine the practicalities of H2.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> They always say "politics is the art of the possible", Bowen seems to be turning it into the art of the impossible, or at least the technically very difficult.
> 
> I reckon the best thing to do is build Kurri Kurri on gas, then have a test and development site next door to examine the practicalities of H2.



That's way too sensible


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I reckon the best thing to do is build Kurri Kurri on gas, then have a test and development site next door to examine the practicalities of H2.



That’s my reasoning for wanting a much smaller one in a capital city.

Get all the technical stuff sorted out at a scale where failure won’t bankrupt anyone or bring the grid down but which is nonetheless a fully working facility.

Then once it’s sorted it can be scaled up.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> That’s my reasoning for wanting a much smaller one in a capital city.
> 
> Get all the technical stuff sorted out at a scale where failure won’t bankrupt anyone or bring the grid down but which is nonetheless a fully working facility.
> 
> Then once it’s sorted it can be scaled up.



Newcastle ?


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Newcastle ?



Key requirements:

Connected to a power system large enough that failure or intermittent operation of this facility is inconsequential.

Location has available support from engineering, construction, fabrication etc industries.

Cheaper to locate at an existing substation (or an existing power station) to save costs.

Should be accessible for visits by engineers and other professionals, politicians, media and public for both education and promotion purposes once it’s all sorted out.

Given the cost is mostly upfront not ongoing, once it’s done it logically remains as a permanent facility, albeit one that was an experiment when first commenced. So the location should be one where it has ongoing value.

Putting all that together I’m thinking anywhere within reasonable distance of Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide.

Only reason to not pick Perth is distance from anywhere else.

Reason to not pick Tasmania is lack of ongoing value in a state with an existing major hydro system. Plus a much more limited support base of industries etc.

NT not an option as the power system is too small to comfortably withstand having an experimental power station as part of it. If it goes wrong then it could end up blacking out Darwin so not a good idea. NT would however be a good place for it once the tech is fully sorted out and reliable given that gas turbines are presently the majority of installed generating capacity.

So Newcastle is pretty close, it doesn’t have any major flaws given proximity to Sydney plus it’s own existing industries and support base.


----------



## macca

Smurf1976 said:


> Key requirements:
> 
> Connected to a power system large enough that failure or intermittent operation of this facility is inconsequential.
> 
> Location has available support from engineering, construction, fabrication etc industries.
> 
> Cheaper to locate at an existing substation (or an existing power station) to save costs.
> 
> Should be accessible for visits by engineers and other professionals, politicians, media and public for both education and promotion purposes once it’s all sorted out.
> 
> Given the cost is mostly upfront not ongoing, once it’s done it logically remains as a permanent facility, albeit one that was an experiment when first commenced. So the location should be one where it has ongoing value.
> 
> Putting all that together I’m thinking anywhere within reasonable distance of Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide.
> 
> Only reason to not pick Perth is distance from anywhere else.
> 
> Reason to not pick Tasmania is lack of ongoing value in a state with an existing major hydro system. Plus a much more limited support base of industries etc.
> 
> NT not an option as the power system is too small to comfortably withstand having an experimental power station as part of it. If it goes wrong then it could end up blacking out Darwin so not a good idea. NT would however be a good place for it once the tech is fully sorted out and reliable given that gas turbines are presently the majority of installed generating capacity.
> 
> So Newcastle is pretty close, it doesn’t have any major flaws given proximity to Sydney plus it’s own existing industries and support base.



Kurri is 20mins from Newcastle by dual lane highway but Kurri would actually be closer to Sydney than Ncle is to Sydney.

Because of the previous industrial base in the Hunter area, there are high voltage power lines all over the place, it would be very simple to plug into the grid.

Maybe they could put a small one at the Tomago smelter, just put the power straight into there and test it out fully. 

Should the smelter decide to close then they simply feed it into the grid in reverse and it flows along the existing lines.


----------



## Smurf1976

macca said:


> Kurri is 20mins from Newcastle by dual lane highway but Kurri would actually be closer to Sydney than Ncle is to Sydney.



For my suggested developmental plant, at 30MW scale, two locations come immediately to mind.

One is here: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-32.8121524,151.7300895,1317m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

The facility shown there is the Newcastle gas storage owned by AGL. On site is an existing natural gas connection of decent capacity, plus of course the stored gas (as LNG) in that tank, plus it's less than 1km from the existing Tomago Aluminium smelter which has a very high capacity connection to the electricity grid.

The other is this general area: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-34.7860483,138.507121,5150m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

This is the outskirts of metropolitan Adelaide and present in the area covered by that image are the existing Pelican Point, Snapper Point, Osborne, Quarantine, Barker Inlet and Torrens Island B power stations along with the now closed Torrens Island A station. Also present are both major SA gas pipelines, that being the Moomba - Adelaide and Port Campbell - Adelaide pipelines, and it's a strong point for the existing SA transmission system. There are various parcels of unused land, including right next to the existing generation facilities.

Either of those tick the boxes. They're near a city, existing electricity and gas is there, there's unused land available, there's a supporting industrial base and so on. They're not the only such places but they're two that tick the boxes as a possible site for a hydrogen project to develop and test the technology at a modest but "real" scale, sort out the issues and so on before applying at scale elsewhere.


----------



## orr

​A Solar Firm Plans to Build Off-Grid Neighborhoods in California.​








						A Solar Firm Plans to Build Off-Grid Neighborhoods in California
					

Sunnova Energy is seeking permission from state regulators to develop microgrids for new housing developments that would not be reliant on established electric utilities.




					www.nytimes.com
				






The future is already here; it just not evenly distributed.

(my current subscription to NYT costs $2/month)


----------



## noirua

Just for a bit of fun you can fill in this information about your monthly gas and electricity bill and find out what you would be paying in the UK from October 1.
It doesn't work quite the same in the UK, but anyway, a clever person can adapt:


			https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/what-are-the-price-cap-unit-rates-/?utm_source=MSE_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=30-Aug-22-d139e26fb06417bab7a-630e686e7be982cbc9a788c00e79b024&source=CRM-MSETIP-d139e26fb06417bab7a&utm_campaign=nt-hiya&utm_content=6&fbclid=IwAR0cN60OydFAU17rkw0Pdf9y4igYLLU-HyVI3Ytu-juKcNgm_lhm9eG6ov8#tool
		


The UK and Europe are in terrible trouble with some care and nursing homes seeing estimates rising up to 11 times.  I am in the UK but have a 3 year fixed plan so will not pay one penny more until August 2024. Also I have solar panels. It all seems an unfair system as some lost their fixed plans as so many companies went bust.  The government is giving money to the gas and electricity suppliers to knock off bills from October.  So my early workings are that they will be paying me to use gas and electricity.  It is chaos and madness with no real Prime Minister for 7 weeks.








						Social care faces collapse as soaring energy prices push up costs almost tenfold, experts warn
					

Care England chief said energy crisis poses "a very severe risk" to the sector unless Government steps in with "immediate and targeted" support.




					inews.co.uk


----------



## SirRumpole

noirua said:


> Just for a bit of fun you can fill in this information about your monthly gas and electricity bill and find out what you would be paying in the UK from October 1.
> It doesn't work quite the same in the UK, but anyway, a clever person can adapt:
> 
> 
> https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/what-are-the-price-cap-unit-rates-/?utm_source=MSE_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=30-Aug-22-d139e26fb06417bab7a-630e686e7be982cbc9a788c00e79b024&source=CRM-MSETIP-d139e26fb06417bab7a&utm_campaign=nt-hiya&utm_content=6&fbclid=IwAR0cN60OydFAU17rkw0Pdf9y4igYLLU-HyVI3Ytu-juKcNgm_lhm9eG6ov8#tool
> 
> 
> 
> The UK and Europe are in terrible trouble with some care and nursing homes seeing estimates rising up to 11 times.  I am in the UK but have a 3 year fixed plan so will not pay one penny more until August 2024. Also I have solar panels. It all seems an unfair system as some lost their fixed plans as so many companies went bust.  The government is giving money to the gas and electricity suppliers to knock off bills from October.  So my early workings are that they will be paying me to use gas and electricity.  It is chaos and madness with no real Prime Minister for 7 weeks.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Social care faces collapse as soaring energy prices push up costs almost tenfold, experts warn
> 
> 
> Care England chief said energy crisis poses "a very severe risk" to the sector unless Government steps in with "immediate and targeted" support.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> inews.co.uk




I was under the impression that the UK was fairly well placed with North Sea oil and gas supplies, but this article explains the situation.





__





						Why new North Sea oil and gas production won’t help UK energy security
					

Despite the insistence of industry and government, there are numerous practical reasons why expanding UK oil and gas exploration and production will NOT provide the UK with a secure supply of affordable energy. More than this, continued North Sea expansion is acting as a brake on the UK’s future...




					www.stopcambo.org.uk


----------



## Belli

SirRumpole said:


> I was under the impression that the UK was fairly well placed with North Sea oil and gas supplies, but this article explains the situation.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why new North Sea oil and gas production won’t help UK energy security
> 
> 
> Despite the insistence of industry and government, there are numerous practical reasons why expanding UK oil and gas exploration and production will NOT provide the UK with a secure supply of affordable energy. More than this, continued North Sea expansion is acting as a brake on the UK’s future...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.stopcambo.org.uk




I understand North Sea Gas production has effectively been in decline since at least 2003 although there was a slight increase between 2015 to 2017 and then resumed the downward trend.  Dumbos also closed a gas storage facility in 2017.  They are now "trying" to boost production.

Slam goes the stable door.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I was under the impression that the UK was fairly well placed with North Sea oil and gas supplies, but this article explains the situation.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why new North Sea oil and gas production won’t help UK energy security
> 
> 
> Despite the insistence of industry and government, there are numerous practical reasons why expanding UK oil and gas exploration and production will NOT provide the UK with a secure supply of affordable energy. More than this, continued North Sea expansion is acting as a brake on the UK’s future...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.stopcambo.org.uk



From your article, it sounds as though the U.K has the issue the east Coast of Aus has.

There are over 200 oil and gas fields operating in theNorth Sea, which currently supply approximately half of the UK’s gas needs. No one is proposing these supplies are turned off. But, just because the gas is inUK waters, it doesn’t guarantee it will reach UK homes. Exports will continue with any new production that is brought online.

*It isn’t our gas:* Once licensed, North Sea oil and gas belongs to the license-holder. These are multinational, private equity- and state-backed oil and gas firms, including companies fully or partly-owned by the Russian, Iranian, Chinese, Norwegian and other governments.

*Sold to the highest bidder:* Because it’s not the UK’s gas, it can be sold abroad even in a crisis. Currently 80% of North Sea oil is exported because there is little demand from the country’s refineries for UK crude oil. But even gas – where there is domestic demand – is sold overseas. Towards the end of last year, just as we entered the gas crisis, theUK exported unusually large amounts of gas for the time of year because the companies that own it could get a better price elsewhere. Exports in October 2021 were the highest for that month for a decade.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> From your article, it sounds as though the U.K has the issue the east Coast of Aus has.
> 
> There are over 200 oil and gas fields operating in theNorth Sea, which currently supply approximately half of the UK’s gas needs. No one is proposing these supplies are turned off. But, just because the gas is inUK waters, it doesn’t guarantee it will reach UK homes. Exports will continue with any new production that is brought online.
> 
> *It isn’t our gas:* Once licensed, North Sea oil and gas belongs to the license-holder. These are multinational, private equity- and state-backed oil and gas firms, including companies fully or partly-owned by the Russian, Iranian, Chinese, Norwegian and other governments.
> 
> *Sold to the highest bidder:* Because it’s not the UK’s gas, it can be sold abroad even in a crisis. Currently 80% of North Sea oil is exported because there is little demand from the country’s refineries for UK crude oil. But even gas – where there is domestic demand – is sold overseas. Towards the end of last year, just as we entered the gas crisis, theUK exported unusually large amounts of gas for the time of year because the companies that own it could get a better price elsewhere. Exports in October 2021 were the highest for that month for a decade.



Yes, they need Mark Mcgowan over there to sort things out


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> From your article, it sounds as though the U.K has the issue the east Coast of Aus has.
> 
> There are over 200 oil and gas fields operating in theNorth Sea, which currently supply approximately half of the UK’s gas needs. No one is proposing these supplies are turned off. But, just because the gas is inUK waters, it doesn’t guarantee it will reach UK homes. Exports will continue with any new production that is brought online.
> 
> *It isn’t our gas:* Once licensed, North Sea oil and gas belongs to the license-holder. These are multinational, private equity- and state-backed oil and gas firms, including companies fully or partly-owned by the Russian, Iranian, Chinese, Norwegian and other governments.
> 
> *Sold to the highest bidder:* Because it’s not the UK’s gas, it can be sold abroad even in a crisis. Currently 80% of North Sea oil is exported because there is little demand from the country’s refineries for UK crude oil. But even gas – where there is domestic demand – is sold overseas. Towards the end of last year, just as we entered the gas crisis, theUK exported unusually large amounts of gas for the time of year because the companies that own it could get a better price elsewhere. Exports in October 2021 were the highest for that month for a decade.



Hence their resources super profits tax , which we should consider as well.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Hence their resources super profits tax , which we should consider as well.



I still think the resource companies should be taxed as per the royalties, by volume, not by how much the make profit. As has been seen recently with BHP, profits can be hard to pin down, whereas if it is a benchmark arrived at volumetric tax they can decide if it is worth mining it or not. That is how the W.A gas reserve allocation was won, telling the gas field developers (Chevron from memory), if the don't like it leave it in the ground.

https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/bhp-to-pay-529m-in-ato-settlement-20181119-h182zf
BHP's decision to strike a $529 million settlement with the Australian Tax Office over its Singapore marketing hub sets a precedent for other mining and energy companies fighting the ATO over transfer pricing of Australian commodities, the tax office says.

BHP confirmed the settlement on Monday and vowed to change the ownership structure of the controversial Singapore hub, which buys Australian commodities from BHP's other subsidiaries and onsells them to customers at higher prices.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> I still think the resource companies should be taxed as per the royalties, by volume, not by how much the make profit. As has been seen recently with BHP, profits can be hard to pin down, whereas if it is a benchmark arrived at volumetric tax they can decide if it is worth mining it or not. That is how the W.A gas reserve allocation was won, telling the gas field developers (Chevron from memory), if the don't like it leave it in the ground.
> 
> https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/bhp-to-pay-529m-in-ato-settlement-20181119-h182zf
> BHP's decision to strike a $529 million settlement with the Australian Tax Office over its Singapore marketing hub sets a precedent for other mining and energy companies fighting the ATO over transfer pricing of Australian commodities, the tax office says.
> 
> BHP confirmed the settlement on Monday and vowed to change the ownership structure of the controversial Singapore hub, which buys Australian commodities from BHP's other subsidiaries and onsells them to customers at higher prices.



I agree. I would tax according to the volume exported valued at the world spot price at the time of export. That would stop them transfer pricing by selling at a low rate toa subsidiary in a low tax zone that then ramps up the price to the final buyer.


----------



## macca

Smurf1976 said:


> For my suggested developmental plant, at 30MW scale, two locations come immediately to mind.
> 
> One is here: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-32.8121524,151.7300895,1317m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
> 
> The facility shown there is the Newcastle gas storage owned by AGL. On site is an existing natural gas connection of decent capacity, plus of course the stored gas (as LNG) in that tank, plus it's less than 1km from the existing Tomago Aluminium smelter which has a very high capacity connection to the electricity grid.
> 
> The other is this general area: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-34.7860483,138.507121,5150m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
> 
> This is the outskirts of metropolitan Adelaide and present in the area covered by that image are the existing Pelican Point, Snapper Point, Osborne, Quarantine, Barker Inlet and Torrens Island B power stations along with the now closed Torrens Island A station. Also present are both major SA gas pipelines, that being the Moomba - Adelaide and Port Campbell - Adelaide pipelines, and it's a strong point for the existing SA transmission system. There are various parcels of unused land, including right next to the existing generation facilities.
> 
> Either of those tick the boxes. They're near a city, existing electricity and gas is there, there's unused land available, there's a supporting industrial base and so on. They're not the only such places but they're two that tick the boxes as a possible site for a hydrogen project to develop and test the technology at a modest but "real" scale, sort out the issues and so on before applying at scale elsewhere.



The area you show near Tomago smelter would be one place where there would be minimum opposition to it.

A lot of heavy industry in that area which is why they built the gas storage there


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> I was under the impression that the UK was fairly well placed with North Sea oil and gas supplies, but this article explains the situation.



I'd be a bit cautious about the article given it's from a lobby group. 

It's the equivalent of big business writing an article which, no surprises, says unions aren't that great. It's a foregone conclusion they're going to say that.

Ultimately though the bottom line is North Sea gas and oil production peaked years ago due to resource depletion. It's not over, and it won't be over for a long time yet, but the peak is in the past.

Just as there's still a bit of oil coming out of Bass Strait today despite production having peaked in 1985 and being downhill ever since. It's not yet zero although that day is approaching.

The basic problem anywhere, once production peaks, is that import reliance and exposure to world market pricing becomes inevitable. The UK, and Europe in general, has no realistic prospect of getting gas production back up to a level sufficient to avoid that.

Where it gets more complex is with the economics of domestic production post-peak. Using simple round figures to illustrate, suppose that imports cost $10 per x quantity.

Regardless of the actual cost of production, a domestic producer is going to argue that they also ought be paid $10 for the same volume or at least reasonably close to it. That's especially so when it comes to the more marginal fields, those which are only viable at higher prices. That gas stays in the ground if the price is held down and then imports rise even further.

Ultimately though all that's really just detail. Once the resource starts to give out the rest is really just about detail.

It's much like coal in the UK. It wasn't Margaret Thatcher who killed the industry indeed production peaked before she was even born and was well and truly in decline by the time she became PM. All she really did was akin to turning the pumps off - the ship was going to sink anyway, she just made it sink a bit faster by ceasing all efforts to bail it out but it was sinking regardless.

UK coal production peaked in 1913 at 292.03 million tonnes according to official statistics.

1929 was the last year in which production exceeded 250 million tonnes.

1963 was the last year in which production exceeded 200 million tonnes.

1970 the UK commenced importing coal, domestic production having fallen to a level that could no longer meet demand.

1971 was the last year in which production exceeded 150 million tonnes. 

1979 Margaret Thatcher became PM. At that time coal production was running at 122 million tonnes per annum so 58% below the peak.

1988 was the last year in which production exceeded 100 million tonnes.

1996 was the last year in which production exceeded 50 million tonnes.

2014 was the last year in which production exceeded 10 million tonnes.

2019 production was 2.17 million tonnes, less than 1% of the peak value just over a century earlier.

So political factors may have hastened the end slightly but the industry was well and truly stuffed anyway. Thatcher didn't stop the party, she just kicked the remaining drunks out of the pub at 5am.

Whilst that's about coal, the same applies to any mineral resource. Once the high grade, easily accessible deposits are used up that's it, it's all downhill from there with increasing costs and diminishing production. 

As a case in point, back to the UK well coal production in 1972 was 127 million tonnes and it remained around that level through to 1983 at 119 million tonnes. So despite throwing massive resources at it in terms of subsidies and so on during that period, all they managed to do was keep production flat. That's what happens when you're faced with having to turn to progressively harder to extract deposits as the easy ones are used up.


----------



## sptrawler

It's a shame people are so emotionally driven, rather than being logical @Smurf1976
Meanwhile we are living the dream, for how long, is the only question.


----------



## Smurf1976

I've nothing to do with them, I'm not personally the customer referred to, but this email says it all:



> Dear Customer,
> 
> Please be advised that on 30 August 2022, Adrian Hunter and Robyn Erskine of Brooke Bird were appointed Joint and Several Administrators of Elysian Energy Pty Ltd and its wholly owned subsidiary Elysian Wholesale Pty Ltd.




There goes another one.

Customers will in practice be allocated to a Retailer Of Last Resort (ROLR) if they haven't switched to some other supplier of their choice. Who that ROLR is will vary with location but in short one of the big ones so AGL, Origin etc.

It's another symptom of a very troubled industry and market but if anyone reading is personally affected then my suggestion is definitely sign up with a new retailer. Even if you choose the same company you're allocated to under the ROLR process, almost certainly they'll give you a better deal if you sign up with them directly.

That is, the price AGL, Origin etc will charge under the ROLR arrangement is the default regulated price as per the process. Sign up as such and they most likely will offer a better deal, as would others.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> There goes another one.



It is getting to the point where fairy tales need to be put on the shelf and the politicians need to start and orate from the non fiction collection.
This avoiding the reality is causing people and producers a lot of pain and uncertainty, an actual commitment to something needs to be forthcoming and a plan of how to get there is required also.
Plucking figures and dreams out of the butt needs to stop and stop soon IMO, or you people on the East Coast are going to have a third world electrical grid.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> It is getting to the point where fairy tales need to be put on the shelf and the politicians need to start and orate from the non fiction collection.
> This avoiding the reality is causing people and producers a lot of pain and uncertainty, an actual commitment to something needs to be forthcoming and a plan of how to get there is required also.
> Plucking figures and dreams out of the butt needs to stop and stop soon IMO, or you people on the East Coast are going to have a third world electrical grid.



I think the politicians need to appoint an expert panel consisting of people who don't have vested interests in any particular technology (if that is possible) and then stand back and trust the committee to do its job. Something like Infrastructure  Australia in its original form before Abbott politicised it.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I think the politicians need to appoint an expert panel consisting of people who don't have vested interests in any particular technology (if that is possible) and then stand back and trust the committee to do its job. Something like Infrastructure  Australia in its original form before Abbott politicised it.



I think you are spot on, an energy summit would have been better than the economic summit IMO, having a panel of experts who can clear up the misconceptions that some politicians seem to have, would be very beneficial.
One it would cut through the BS and secondly everyone would be on the same page, so that when one of the vested parties starts talking crap, they could be questioned rather than the ill informed blank looks that are forthcoming at the moment.
It really is time to hold some of these people to account, to back up the statements they flippantly make.


----------



## wayneL

This kinda comes up from time to time... Is this accurate?  👇


----------



## SirRumpole

wayneL said:


> This kinda comes up from



Dyor, but  a nytimes article said the figur e for Japan was 22 new coal plants.


----------



## Smurf1976

wayneL said:


> This kinda comes up from time to time... Is this accurate?



In short, no.

Assuming it's referring only to power stations and not to any other use of coal, we still have more than six coal-fired power stations operating in Australia at present:

Queensland:
Callide B
Callide C
Gladstone
Stanwell
Tarong
Tarong North
Kogan Creek
Millmerran

NSW:
Mt Piper
Bayswater
Eraring
Liddell
Vales Point B

Victoria:
Loy Yang A
Loy Yang B
Yallourn W

WA:
Muja C
Muja D
Collie
*Bluewaters 1
*Bluewaters 2

*By the convention used in most places, Bluewaters 1 & 2 could be argued as two units of the same single power station despite being regarded as separate in the WA context.

The others are all separate power stations as per normal convention. Some are at the same site, eg Muja C & D or Callide B & C are right next to each other, but they're separate facilities built as separate projects during the original construction (and more than a decade apart in the case of Callide). They're separate in the normal sense - different equipment in them too.

The above does not include co-generation at various industrial sites for which coal is the primary energy resource.

Plants closed since 2005:

Queensland:
Collinsville
Callide A
Swanbank A
Swanbank B

NSW:
**Redbank
Munmorah
Wallerawang C

Victoria:
Hazelwood
Morwell
Anglesea

SA:
Playford B
Northern

WA:
***Muja A
***Muja B
****Kwinana A
****Kwinana C

Notes:

**Redbank could in theory be returned to service and there have been various proposals to do so.

***Muja A & B named as separate plants in WA historically but effectively the same place in any practical sense and commonly referred to as "Muja A/B" or "Muja AB" for that reason.

****Kwinana A & C originally designed as oil-fired plant but converted to also fire coal and gas. So not purpose built coal plant but could and did burn coal in practice after conversion. Everything else on the list is purpose built coal plant, only using other fuels for starting etc.


----------



## SirRumpole

A bit political (what isn't) , but moves are afoot for hydropower projects in WA using old coal mines as reservoirs.









						An ex-premier, a union warhorse, a media mogul and the race to claim the key to Australia's green power future
					

Deep storage is considered the Holy Grail of efforts to turn the electricity grid green — and a roll call of interesting characters is on the trail.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> A bit political (what isn't) , but moves are afoot for hydropower projects in WA using old coal mines as reservoirs.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> An ex-premier, a union warhorse, a media mogul and the race to claim the key to Australia's green power future
> 
> 
> Deep storage is considered the Holy Grail of efforts to turn the electricity grid green — and a roll call of interesting characters is on the trail.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



I don't think I'll be in that IPO.


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> A bit political (what isn't) , but moves are afoot for hydropower projects in WA using old coal mines as reservoirs.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> An ex-premier, a union warhorse, a media mogul and the race to claim the key to Australia's green power future
> 
> 
> Deep storage is considered the Holy Grail of efforts to turn the electricity grid green — and a roll call of interesting characters is on the trail.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



There is definitively the feeling we could do something useful with that after mining when you drive past these massive holes.
Either as an "hydro battery" as planned with old gold mines up in North qld, or even as water reserve for agriculture.
Trouble with coal mines is that these bigs holes are all more or less at the same level....


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> A bit political (what isn't) , but moves are afoot for hydropower projects in WA using old coal mines as reservoirs.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> An ex-premier, a union warhorse, a media mogul and the race to claim the key to Australia's green power future
> 
> 
> Deep storage is considered the Holy Grail of efforts to turn the electricity grid green — and a roll call of interesting characters is on the trail.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



The perfect recipe of tax payer funded capitalism, involving unions, business and politicos to ensure every taxpayer and worker will be screwed.
If not done yet, i would suggest they find a trans gender first nation director too.if only i was kidding..


----------



## Knobby22

True 
	

		
			
		

		
	






	

		
			
		

		
	
Misses capacitance and induction though.


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> A bit political (what isn't) , but moves are afoot for hydropower projects in WA using old coal mines as reservoirs.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> An ex-premier, a union warhorse, a media mogul and the race to claim the key to Australia's green power future
> 
> 
> Deep storage is considered the Holy Grail of efforts to turn the electricity grid green — and a roll call of interesting characters is on the trail.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



For the record there's a few designs I've seen for schemes based around the existing mine pits being repurposed for pumped hydro.

One of the more ambitious ones involves completely submerging the existing Muja power station site. For those familiar with it, if (hypothetically) the station wasn't demolished first then the only thing visible above the water, when the storage is full, would be the top of the C & D station stacks. So the water would be above the boilers and very much above everything else.

There are also some smaller, less ambitious schemes, which don't involve water anywhere near that high.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> For the record there's a few designs I've seen for schemes based around the existing mine pits being repurposed for pumped hydro.
> 
> One of the more ambitious ones involves completely submerging the existing Muja power station site. For those familiar with it, if (hypothetically) the station wasn't demolished first then the only thing visible above the water, when the storage is full, would be the top of the C & D station stacks. So the water would be above the boilers and very much above everything else.
> 
> There are also some smaller, less ambitious schemes, which don't involve water anywhere near that high.



While on the subject of Collie coal fired power stations @Smurf1976 
Crunch time for Griffin Coal as insolvency firms hover​Western Australia’s Griffin Coal could be about to fall into the hands of its lenders.


----------



## qldfrog

Just as we were talking ex mining holes used for hydro


			Pumped hydro project a jobs gold mine
		

And from 2016..yes 6y ago








						Genex Power uses old gold mine for hydro storage plant
					

Genex Power says plans to convert a gold mine near Townsville into a hydro storage plant or "giant battery" was commercially viable.




					www.afr.com
				



So not a quick fix..


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> For the record there's a few designs I've seen for schemes based around the existing mine pits being repurposed for pumped hydro.
> 
> One of the more ambitious ones involves completely submerging the existing Muja power station site. For those familiar with it, if (hypothetically) the station wasn't demolished first then the only thing visible above the water, when the storage is full, would be the top of the C & D station stacks. So the water would be above the boilers and very much above everything else.
> 
> There are also some smaller, less ambitious schemes, which don't involve water anywhere near that high.



The other issue I have with a dam that would covering the top of Muja Stage C/D stacks is, I find that hard to believe.
I worked there for quite a while and have been on the top of the boilers, there isn't much higher as far as the eye can see in all directions and the stacks are at least a hundred feet higher.
So I would certainly like to see that plan @Smurf1976 .
This photo is from an aeroplane.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The other issue I have with a dam that would covering the top of Muja Stage C/D stacks is, I find that hard to believe.



There's definitely a rudimentary design around. Not one that I'm in any way involved with but I've seen it some time ago. Plans had everything existing shown as a reference so roads, Muja PS and so on all there. 

Not that I'm wishing to submerge Muja by the way, just noting the idea of turning that whole area into a pumped hydro scheme has been thought of and some basic designs done. I don't have the documents but I'll post it if I come across it. 

As for how likely it is, from my brief look at it my basic thought was that it seemed a bit self-defeating. That is, if it requires relocating the existing switchyard and multiple lines connecting to it then that somewhat negates the value of building it there in the first place - a smaller scheme that doesn't bring the water anywhere near that high would avoid that problem and gut feel tells me there's likely to be a better site within the SWIS footprint for another scheme to offset the reduced scale. There's hills and valleys so things can be done possibly using an existing water reservoir - just need to add a second one higher or lower.

FWIW - here's a now very old photo of Muja. Date unconfirmed but to my understanding about 1981 since C station is in operation and D isn't built or even being built yet. Happy to be corrected on that detail though....


----------



## sptrawler

I haven't been out there for a lot of years, but I will look on the Ozi explorer topigraphical maps, my gut feeling is that Muja is on close to the highest ground in the area.
That photo you posted is when stage C was completed, two Parsons 200MW units, same as stage C Kwinana.
I was on construction of the Muja stage C units, pulled the pin in 1980 and went to the North West, way too many strikes at Muja, setting up the conditions for Worsely construction.
Twelve months of savings, gone in four months of strikes. Lol


----------



## Smurf1976

Found not the one I was thinking of but it's close, it shows the Muja site under water:






That's from _An atlas of pumped hydro energy storage_, Australian National University, dated 21 September 2017.

I'm not saying it's necessarily a good idea, indeed my thinking is it's probably a long way down the list of sensible options given there's a need to retain the multiple transmission lines connecting at that point, but the idea is out there yes.

Close up of the above image with Muja PS site in the centre of the image:


----------



## sptrawler

It looks like a multitude of different sized tanks, rather than a dam. Interesting, but I would have thought cost prohibitive.
They do have a problem there though, all that infrastructure being a transmission hub and it really doesn't lend itself to renewable generation. Not overly windy, not very sunny etc.
So what they end up doing, will be interesting.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> would have thought cost prohibitive.
> They do have a problem there though, all that infrastructure being a transmission hub



The bit I've quoted of your comment sums up my thoughts really.

It seems like a rather costly way to build a pumped hydro scheme to start with and doubly so given there'd be a need to replace the existing switchyard and reroute multiple transmission lines to some other location presumably nearby.

Much like there's still a lot of transmission to Port Augusta in SA despite no longer having generation there (3 separate coal-fired stations existed in the past) and likewise Waddamana in Tas remains a key transmission substation despite the associated generation having been largely abandoned in 1964 and completely shut in 1994.


----------



## Smurf1976

Smurf1976 said:


> Much like there's still a lot of transmission to Port Augusta in SA despite no longer having generation there



I should clarify that I mean there isn't the original generation the lines were built for. 

There's a solar farm nearby but it doesn't need all that transmission, it's not on the same scale as the former Playford A + Playford B + Northern power stations all of which are now fully demolished apart from remnant concrete etc.


----------



## mullokintyre

In a little bit of left field thinking about using Gas for generation, I wonder if anyone has done the sums on using the Sabatier process for making methane, which is the largest component of Natural gas (70 to 90 percent).
The process combines Hydrogen and CO2  under heat and pressure to produce CH4 and  water vapour.
The Hydrogen part is easy, just use some excess renewable electricity to run a Hydrolysis plant.
The difficult part might be in creating or extracting sufficient CO2 either in acidic carbonate reactions or extracting from the atmosphere.
That way, none of the power station burners need to be altered, the gas can be stored and even liquified for transport elsewhere, and  it is not restricted by limited supply of raw materials.
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

Smart air conditioning claimed to save $1,600 in power costs.









						Pre-cooling will slash emissions and cut power bills. Here's how some homes are using new technology
					

Like many first home buyers, Georgia's priority was price and location — it's only incidental her new home is souped-up with technology that's yet to hit the market and innovations that will save her thousands.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## qldfrog

mullokintyre said:


> In a little bit of left field thinking about using Gas for generation, I wonder if anyone has done the sums on using the Sabatier process for making methane, which is the largest component of Natural gas (70 to 90 percent).
> The process combines Hydrogen and CO2  under heat and pressure to produce CH4 and  water vapour.
> The Hydrogen part is easy, just use some excess renewable electricity to run a Hydrolysis plant.
> The difficult part might be in creating or extracting sufficient CO2 either in acidic carbonate reactions or extracting from the atmosphere.
> That way, none of the power station burners need to be altered, the gas can be stored and even liquified for transport elsewhere, and  it is not restricted by limited supply of raw materials.
> Mick



Like for synthetic fuel, the problem is ideological;
it is currently possible to turn society into 0 emission with existing tech  by producing H2 and recombining it to create either syn fuel or LNG and so change absolutely nothing to your car, your house the infrastructure or .....the society.
The Reset and current power to in charge want deconstruction..








						Deconstruction - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				



-> In short our society is bad and has to be erased to be replaced with a new age..used to be called communism 50 y ago..
So yes we can add solar panels and wind and create zero co2 net balance unleaded fuel or gas .
In my opinion, this is the way to go and let it happen behind the scene:
hardly anyone knows how google search engine works, or AI or how we drill for oil or make a car, or even how TV works..
yet we are all supposed to change our life to fit to a green integrism and propel immense wealth transfer toward a minute elite while being convinced we are acting like saints by eating or drinking ****, and living back like Dicken's characters to help the planet while wiping out 200y of social progress...


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> Smart air conditioning claimed to save $1,600 in power costs.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Pre-cooling will slash emissions and cut power bills. Here's how some homes are using new technology
> 
> 
> Like many first home buyers, Georgia's priority was price and location — it's only incidental her new home is souped-up with technology that's yet to hit the market and innovations that will save her thousands.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



To put things in perspective again:
I quote
"It's not just solar and battery, but by having the freehold titled homes and no body corporate, we estimated that over the next 10 years, people should save about $30,000," she said."
So you put ..expensive..top tech in place..which is not cheap as initial investment and you save $1.6k a year
If you get rid of bc, you save $3k a year...twice as much...no solar install or battery required or to replace...
Just saying..😊
But yes intelligent AC can help.
Even better, you could also make sure you do not live in a rabbit hutch stuck between asphalt and cement blocks and can do without AC..i have lived less than 30km from Carseldine for 20y and never needed AC.....
But i has breeze trees grass and no neighbours


----------



## SirRumpole

qldfrog said:


> To put things in perspective again:
> I quote
> "It's not just solar and battery, but by having the freehold titled homes and no body corporate, we estimated that over the next 10 years, people should save about $30,000," she said."
> So you put ..expensive..top tech in place..which is not cheap as initial investment and you save $1.6k a year
> If you get rid of bc, you save $3k a year...twice as much...no solar install or battery required or to replace...
> Just saying..😊
> But yes intelligent AC can help.
> Even better, you could also make sure you do not live in a rabbit hutch stuck between asphalt and cement blocks and can do without AC..i have lived less than 30km from Carseldine for 20y and never needed AC.....
> But i has breeze trees grass and no neighbours




I'm in the same position, surrounded by green grass at high altitude.

Rarely use aircon in summer, a few times in winter.

Relatives live in suburban Melbourne, aircon is on most of the time.

But we are lucky. Most people live in suburbia and solutions must be found.

Better insulation for instance.


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> it is currently possible to turn society into 0 emission with existing tech by producing H2 and recombining it to create either syn fuel or LNG and so change absolutely nothing to your car, your house the infrastructure or .....the society.



I don't dispute the existence of your broader concerns but there are very real reasons why such a process, whilst possible, is problematic.

1. Generate electricity
2. Extract CO2 from the air
2a. Split water into hydrogen and oxygen
3. Combine hydrogen and CO2 to produce syngas
4. Turn syngas into methanol
5. Turn methanol into petrol
6. Burn the petrol to run the engine

Every energy transformation incurs losses such that the end result from the above is very little of the original energy actually gets to the wheels. Most of it's lost in one of the transformation steps.

Simply using electricity directly is far simpler where that can be done. We might need synfuels for some things but they ain't efficient or cheap.


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> I don't dispute the existence of your broader concerns but there are very real reasons why such a process, whilst possible, is problematic.
> 
> 1. Generate electricity
> 2. Extract CO2 from the air
> 2a. Split water into hydrogen and oxygen
> 3. Combine hydrogen and CO2 to produce syngas
> 4. Turn syngas into methanol
> 5. Turn methanol into petrol
> 6. Burn the petrol to run the engine
> 
> Every energy transformation incurs losses such that the end result from the above is very little of the original energy actually gets to the wheels. Most of it's lost in one of the transformation steps.
> 
> Simply using electricity directly is far simpler where that can be done. We might need synfuels for some things but they ain't efficient or cheap.



It is not simpler when you have to change the whole delivery chain, the actual consuming unit and basically the whole economy.not even mentioning the fact we can not expect digging enough litbium for that change in time..so we build a plan thinking we will find a miracle battery based on free thin air before these ice ban mandates..








						Porsche invests $100 million in synthetic fuels to save the internal combustion engine
					

Along with a carbon-neutral pledge by 2030, Porsche is predicting keep 20 per cent of their business with cars powered by internal combustion engines. And synthetic fuel production is coming to Australia.




					www.drive.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

Looks like the price of East Coast gas is getting up there.








Oh the irony:
China, which receives over 70% of East Coast gas exports, typically pays less than Australian users of that same gas on the East Coast (see chart above). And the market is so broken that China is sending East Coast gas to Europe, while Australian users are starved of supply:









						China sends Aussie gas to Europe as we are starved
					

As shown in the next chart, East Coast gas users are paying some of the highest prices in the world, while Western Australians – which has a domestic reservation policy – are paying the lowest: Moreover, because gas is the key marginal price setter for electricity, Western Australians also enjoy...




					www.macrobusiness.com.au


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Looks like the price of East Coast gas is getting up there.
> 
> View attachment 146693
> 
> 
> 
> Oh the irony:
> China, which receives over 70% of East Coast gas exports, typically pays less than Australian users of that same gas on the East Coast (see chart above). And the market is so broken that China is sending East Coast gas to Europe, while Australian users are starved of supply:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> China sends Aussie gas to Europe as we are starved
> 
> 
> As shown in the next chart, East Coast gas users are paying some of the highest prices in the world, while Western Australians – which has a domestic reservation policy – are paying the lowest: Moreover, because gas is the key marginal price setter for electricity, Western Australians also enjoy...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.macrobusiness.com.au



What a stupid lot we are.


----------



## orr

SirRumpole said:


> What a stupid lot we are.












						$25 billion deal a coup for Australia
					






					www.theage.com.au
				





The Howard Costello  legacy, luckly the price of the contracts is not included in the above  article; if they were? they'd make you run a warm bath and happily  open a vein.


----------



## sptrawler

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://qz.com/2173486/top-lng-exporter-australia-faces-natural-gas-shortage/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwjapvPumIz6AhX-TWwGHSTiBQ4QFnoECCUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw26XqL9t4oXuxzlTjwZH1jf
		


I think the major issue over East, is the Eastern State Governments allowing the multinationals to sell all their gas and in W.A the State Government demanding an allocation be reserved for domestic use, as it is a State Government assett not a Federal Government assett.
There isnt anything wrong with the Feds finding markets for the gas, it is up to the States to negotiate an allocation for domestic demand.
Finding new markets for NW gas 20 years ago would have been very helpful for Woodside to grow.
The big issue is the Eastern States selling the lot. Lol


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> Looks like the price of East Coast gas is getting up there.
> 
> View attachment 146693
> 
> 
> 
> Oh the irony:
> China, which receives over 70% of East Coast gas exports, typically pays less than Australian users of that same gas on the East Coast (see chart above). And the market is so broken that China is sending East Coast gas to Europe, while Australian users are starved of supply:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> China sends Aussie gas to Europe as we are starved
> 
> 
> As shown in the next chart, East Coast gas users are paying some of the highest prices in the world, while Western Australians – which has a domestic reservation policy – are paying the lowest: Moreover, because gas is the key marginal price setter for electricity, Western Australians also enjoy...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.macrobusiness.com.au



I laughed or should i cry?....


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://qz.com/2173486/top-lng-exporter-australia-faces-natural-gas-shortage/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwjapvPumIz6AhX-TWwGHSTiBQ4QFnoECCUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw26XqL9t4oXuxzlTjwZH1jf
> 
> 
> 
> I think the major issue over East, is the Eastern State Governments allowing the multinationals to sell all their gas and in W.A the State Government demanding an allocation be reserved for domestic use, as it is a State Government assett not a Federal Government assett.
> There isnt anything wrong with the Feds finding markets for the gas, it is up to the States to negotiate an allocation for domestic demand.
> Finding new markets for NW gas 20 years ago would have been very helpful for Woodside to grow.
> The big issue is the Eastern States selling the lot. Lol



The Feds could still impose an export tax and  get back some of the revenue.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> The Feds could still impose an export tax and  get back some of the revenue.



Yes that's exactly what you and I have been pushing for several years and the only politician to have run with it, was thrown out for standing up for a tax based on export volumes.

Every Government has stuffed up, iron ore royalties are a pittance everything we export we receive a pittance for, but no one cares as long as more holes are dug.

The gas issue wouldn't be an issue, if the State Governments had demanded some be kept for domestic use, my guess is China is on selling East Coast gas as well at the current elevated prices, while burning coal themselves to produce their own domestic electrical generation.

The next cab off the rank, which I have mentioned quite a while ago, no mention of how we are going to tax it, reserve some for domestic use. Is this going to be another East Coast gas disaster?








						Clean energy exports at 'lightning speed'
					

Australia will shoot well beyond an electricity grid powered by 82 per cent renewable energy in its quest to be a clean energy superpower.




					www.perthnow.com.au
				




_Australia will change at "lightning speed" to become a superpower exporting renewable energy to the world.

Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen told a forum in Canberra the plan to have an energy grid powered by 82 per cent renewables is a big step up, but is just the beginning.

"But then we've got to be moving on to 200, 300, 400 per cent in exports," he said on Wednesday.


The federal government has committed to more than 10,000 kilometres of new high-voltage lines to connect solar, wind and energy storage across a future clean electricity grid - for new industries and exports.

The Sun Cable project to export energy to Singapore from a massive solar farm in central Australia and the development of green hydrogen have a long way to go but the potential is there, Mr Bowen said.

"It won't be long before we're walking through hydrogen plants and showing the jobs of the future, physically touching them."_


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Yes that's exactly what you and I have been pushing for several years and the only politician to have run with it, was thrown out for standing up for a tax based on export volumes.
> 
> Every Government has stuffed up, iron ore royalties are a pittance everything we export we receive a pittance for, but no one cares as long as more holes are dug.
> 
> The gas issue wouldn't be an issue, if the State Governments had demanded some be kept for domestic use, my guess is China is on selling East Coast gas as well at the current elevated prices, while burning coal themselves to produce their own domestic electrical generation.
> 
> The next cab off the rank, which I have mentioned quite a while ago, no mention of how we are going to tax it, reserve some for domestic use. Is this going to be another East Coast gas disaster?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Clean energy exports at 'lightning speed'
> 
> 
> Australia will shoot well beyond an electricity grid powered by 82 per cent renewable energy in its quest to be a clean energy superpower.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.perthnow.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Australia will change at "lightning speed" to become a superpower exporting renewable energy to the world.
> 
> Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen told a forum in Canberra the plan to have an energy grid powered by 82 per cent renewables is a big step up, but is just the beginning.
> 
> "But then we've got to be moving on to 200, 300, 400 per cent in exports," he said on Wednesday.
> 
> 
> The federal government has committed to more than 10,000 kilometres of new high-voltage lines to connect solar, wind and energy storage across a future clean electricity grid - for new industries and exports.
> 
> The Sun Cable project to export energy to Singapore from a massive solar farm in central Australia and the development of green hydrogen have a long way to go but the potential is there, Mr Bowen said.
> 
> "It won't be long before we're walking through hydrogen plants and showing the jobs of the future, physically touching them."_



I wonder where the Minister is getting his advice from, vested interests again maybe ?

It would be great if it all works as presented, I just hope he's not getting carried away with blue sky talk by snake oil sellers.


----------



## Smurf1976

orr said:


> The Howard Costello legacy



I'd extend the net a bit wider.

Holt, Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott and Morrison at the PM level all directly contributed to the energy mess in some identifiable manner.

So did quite a few state premiers from both sides of politics in several states.

So did the Greens and various others who weren't actually in government but who applied pressure in a manner akin to the passengers egging on the driver to do something stupid whilst pointing a gun to their head.

Hence I don't bother much with the politics of it. They're all guilty. Even some local councils belong on the list.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> The gas issue wouldn't be an issue, if the State Governments had demanded some be kept for domestic use



A big part of the problem is what became known as "the reforms" to the energy industry.

Go back 30 years and we had:

SAGASCO running the gas in SA.

The Gas & Fuel Corporation (state government owned) running the gas system throughout Victoria.

The Gas Corporation of Tasmania (owned by Boral) supplying Town Gas in Launceston and LPG elsewhere in the state.

AGL running the gas supply in Sydney both the physical assets and retailing.

Qld had a couple of different companies in Brisbane and a number of operators elsewhere in the state but, key point, they all covered only a specific defined area. So they weren't competitors, just different owners but there was no reason they couldn't work with each other and source long term gas supply and so on.

And so on. Some were private, some were government owned but bottom line is they all had tenure and scale. They could and did make long term plans, enter long term contracts and so on. 

Then along comes government and in its wisdom decides that monopolies are evil and we must have competition.

That put an complete end to any concept of long term planning. Now it was all about the short term and trying to stay in business. That leads directly to the lack of contracting gas decades in advance and so on. Whereas previously AGL had considered 15 years ahead to be the absolute bare minimum, all of a sudden nobody was interested in contracting anywhere even remotely that far into the future.

It hasn't saved consumers money either. Compare prices back then with today's and they've increased significantly in real terms after accounting for inflation.


----------



## sptrawler

Similar happened in W.A, the Government built the Dampier to Perth pipeline, reticulated the metropolitan area, then soon after privatised it. Fortunately it wasn't as fragmented as the Eastern States and the Government demanded that development of new gas fields had to allocate a domestic reserve.
Isn't a lot of the issues over East a result of old fields like the Cooper basin drying up and new fields in SE Queensland not having a domestic reserve policy?


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Similar happened in W.A, the Government built the Dampier to Perth pipeline, reticulated the metropolitan area, then soon after privatised it.



A difference in WA though is that government still has involvement as such via the power industry and via the 15% reservation.

Versus the eastern states where it's up to AGL, Origin, Energy Australia, Alinta and everyone else to contract whatever gas they want to contract. The trouble being with them all competing against each other, none of them have any real certainty as to volume and none have any real bargaining power with upstream producers.


----------



## qldfrog

Maybe i am completely wrong but i thought as well that WA land owners had some interest in their UG resources?
So farmer Joe in WA get some money if gas or any resource is found under his paddock: aka great news whereas in the east, he loses it all with tracks derricks and bulldozers ensuring he is ruined , the work of decades or generations destroyed and can do nothing against it unless he is not pure white..but even then ..
So the lock the gate movement which might explain a lot now with gas " shortage" on the east coast 
I always found the land ownership laws in this country amounting to communism now tainted of corporatism..
Anyway not seen this mentioned..
And yes in qld i would lock the gate to my smallish farm


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> So farmer Joe in WA get some money if gas or any resource is found under his paddock: aka great news whereas in the east, he loses it all with tracks derricks and bulldozers ensuring he is ruined , the work of decades or generations destroyed and can do nothing against it unless he is not pure white..but even then ..



A further problem is landowners being stirred up for purely political objectives.

Those who think they won't be able to continue dairy farming with a transmission line run through the property because the cows will become radioactive for example.

It's just pure politics playing on the concerns of farmers who, no disrespect t them, know a lot more about farming than they do about transmission lines and who assume there's some truth in the scaremongering, failing to grasp that it's purely a political game.

If anything, the cows seem quite attracted to the towers in their midst: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-41...ekFJyad1bx1rzrI-w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en-GB

Plenty of other places they could stand if they didn't like them.


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> A further problem is landowners being stirred up for purely political objectives.
> 
> Those who think they won't be able to continue dairy farming with a transmission line run through the property because the cows will become radioactive for example.
> 
> It's just pure politics playing on the concerns of farmers who, no disrespect t them, know a lot more about farming than they do about transmission lines and who assume there's some truth in the scaremongering, failing to grasp that it's purely a political game.
> 
> If anything, the cows seem quite attracted to the towers in their midst: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-41...ekFJyad1bx1rzrI-w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en-GB
> 
> Plenty of other places they could stand if they didn't like them.



We are talking gas/fracking here or even drilling
Not much left of farming in these conditions.
And if coal, a big hole, at least for coal they usually buy back the farm..not that you have much choice or negotiating power
With power lines, you get at least a bit of money for the land lost, with fracking it is a disaster due to a pond per well of polluted often salty water
I flew over hundreds of sqr km of these flying out of Houston earlier this year.Impressive but no farming whatsoever on these fracking field now or for a long time..But then the US farmer owning these is now filthy rich...


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> We are talking gas/fracking here or even drilling



I'm looking at all of it - building more transmission lines is in some cases a direct alternative to burning more gas. Not for every line but for some that's certainly true, the new line bringing electricity generated from a non-gas source directly displaces the use of gas. It's another means to the same end.

Suffice to say certain organisations are fighting tooth and nail to stop any such lines being built.  

For gas specifically though, I certainly agree that dumping salt water on the ground is going to kill the farming and that's really not a good idea. I'll argue though that the problem could be fixed finding a better way to dispose of salt water to avoid that problem. Or at least find one central bit of land of not much use for anything else and dump it all in one place.


----------



## mullokintyre

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm looking at all of it - building more transmission lines is in some cases a direct alternative to burning more gas. Not for every line but for some that's certainly true, the new line bringing electricity generated from a non-gas source directly displaces the use of gas. It's another means to the same end.
> 
> Suffice to say certain organisations are fighting tooth and nail to stop any such lines being built.
> 
> For gas specifically though, I certainly agree that dumping salt water on the ground is going to kill the farming and that's really not a good idea. I'll argue though that the problem could be fixed finding a better way to dispose of salt water to avoid that problem. Or at least find one central bit of land of not much use for anything else and dump it all in one place.



The other alternative is to demand that those doing the mining/extraction/production  treat the water to  reach or exceed a spefic salinity/impurity level.
Mick


----------



## qldfrog

mullokintyre said:


> The other alternative is to demand that those doing the mining/extraction/production  treat the water to  reach or exceed a spefic salinity/impurity level.
> Mick



Goes back to that:
Are you ready to get poisoned.. let's say by lithium mining down the road so that a cbd wanxxer can drive an ev to supposedly save the world in 100y?
Harsh but factual


----------



## mullokintyre

@sptrawler , looks like the west has joined the east coast in shootng themselves in both feet at once.
From ABC News



> There are fears that a growing crisis in Western Australia's coal heartlands could imperil the state's biggest electricity grid less than a year after the lights flickered out during an intense heatwave.
> 
> Key points:​
> Concerns grow over the security of power supplies to WA's main grid after receivers appointed to major coal mine
> Griffin Coal mine supplies Bluewaters power station, which provides about 15 per cent of electricity in the system
> Troubles come amid a wider shortage of coal used for power generation in the state's coal heartlands
> 
> A long-running saga involving Griffin Coal, one of WA's two coal mines, this week took a critical turn after the operation was tipped into receivership by its Indian bankers.
> 
> The move cut off an attempt by Griffin's biggest customer, the 440-megawatt Bluewaters power station, to seize control of the mine following months of disrupted coal deliveries.
> 
> But it also comes as coal stockpiles in the Collie basin, where more than a third of the grid's power is generated, plumb historically low levels.
> 
> In a sign of the desperation, mining giant South32 this week revealed it was looking to import coal in a bid to ensure supplies for its Worsley alumina refinery.
> 
> The announcement comes despite the skyrocketing cost of the commodity on global markets, where coal is fetching prices higher than South32 pays Griffin.
> 
> Steve Thomas, an Upper House South West Liberal MP, said the events suggested the crisis affecting Griffin had now spread to its customers.
> 
> What's more, Dr Thomas said the problems were threatening to undermine power supplies in WA's biggest grid, which supplies almost two million people in the state's south.



Mcgowan may need to jump in there and buy it from the receivers to fix the short term issue, but with the actual decline of the coal reserves, they may need to rethink longer term.
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

mullokintyre said:


> @sptrawler , looks like the west has joined the east coast in shootng themselves in both feet at once.
> From ABC News
> 
> 
> Mcgowan may need to jump in there and buy it from the receivers to fix the short term issue, but with the actual decline of the coal reserves, they may need to rethink longer term.
> Mick



It's a long story that one, it started a long time ago when the two main coal miners were supplying the SEC, the SEC then asked both to put in their best tender price so that they could reduce duplication.
Well long story short Griffin lost and from memory it was owned by Rick Stowe, so being the entrepreneur he was he made plan B.
If I can't sell my coal to the SEC, i'll build my own power station, which he did Blue Waters, then he sold the power station to the Japanese and the coal mine to the Indians, again from memory.
Well it has been a bun fight ever since, my B.I.L worked for Griffin most of his working life and took redundancy when they were going to hammer working conditions, my oldest son works there.
With the coal issue from memory I don't think it affects the Gov generators, unless things have changed since I retired.
The other problem is the mines are reluctant to develop any more seams, due to all the uncertainty around coal and the Gov saying they are shutting down their generators by 2030.
So it is all becoming a mess, companies like Blue Waters and South 32's Worsley still want coal, but the miners don't want to pour money into developing new reserves, when they probably wont be wanted.
Oh what a mess, but how you avoid it, is difficult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ric_Stowe


----------



## SirRumpole

Concentrating solar cells can improve efficiency, at a cost of course.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Concentrating solar cells can improve efficiency, at a cost of course.




It might be expensive, but I can see eventually it will be required, to get more bang for acreage.
The farms can't just keep getting bigger and bigger, so they will have to improve the output for the given size and concentrating the light through lenses makes good sense IMO.


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> It might be expensive, but I can see eventually it will be required, to get more bang for acreage.
> The farms can't just keep getting bigger and bigger, so they will have to improve the output for the given size and concentrating the light through lenses makes good sense IMO.



Issue is efficiency decrease with heat.. concentrate rays and you increase heat.... nothing is perfect


----------



## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> Issue is efficiency decrease with heat.. concentrate rays and you increase heat.... nothing is perfect



Life's a compromise, do you lose efficiency, or lose habitat?
Decisions, decisions.
Questions that the sensitive sector have to reconcile and are yet to be addressed.


----------



## qldfrog

Altech to Commercialise 100MWh Sodium Alumina Solid State Batteries for Grid Storage - Stockhead
					

Altech Chemicals (ASX:ATC) executed JV agreement to commercialise Fraunhofer IKTS’ CERENERGY® sodium alumina solid state battery technology.




					stockhead.com.au


----------



## SirRumpole

qldfrog said:


> Altech to Commercialise 100MWh Sodium Alumina Solid State Batteries for Grid Storage - Stockhead
> 
> 
> Altech Chemicals (ASX:ATC) executed JV agreement to commercialise Fraunhofer IKTS’ CERENERGY® sodium alumina solid state battery technology.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> stockhead.com.au




Bad news for lithium producers.


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> Bad news for lithium producers.



And Fraunhofer R&D is no woke marketing, i know them from the IT side.
Between new batteries configurations and progress like this it is urgent to wait..be it buying EV or investing now in grid battery banks


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Bad news for lithium producers.



Yes static batteries will come in all shapes sizes and materials, when it comes to E.V's it boils down to two things weight and energy density, with static batteries weight/size isn't a major concern.


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> Yes static batteries will come in all shapes sizes and materials, when it comes to E.V's it boils down to two things weight and energy density, with static batteries weight/size isn't a major concern.



I deed so let's stpp wasting good money on lithium batteries for the grid and ensure qilin battery or our western copycats are available before pushing and definitely buying an EV.


----------



## Belli

No surprises there really.

"Consumers across Australia can expect hikes worth billions in the costs of transporting power after a watchdog said there needed to be a "quantum leap" in spending on poles and wires to deal with the switch to renewable energy. 

Key points:​
Experts say tens of billions of dollars in extra spending will be needed on poles and wires
An economic watchdog has ruled in support of $1 billion in extra spending by WA's network utility
Across Australia, network providers are tipped to seek big increases in funding to handle the renewable energy surge 

In a decision heralded as a landmark, Western Australia's economic regulator this month said the state's major electricity network provider should be allowed to spend $9 billion over the next five years – $1 billion more than it requested."









						Billion-dollar shock as energy grid renewal costs become clear
					

Australian consumers have been told to brace for big hikes in their power bills after a watchdog revealed the true cost of overhauling the grid to deal with the renewable energy transition.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

Belli said:


> No surprises there really.
> 
> "Consumers across Australia can expect hikes worth billions in the costs of transporting power after a watchdog said there needed to be a "quantum leap" in spending on poles and wires to deal with the switch to renewable energy.
> 
> Key points:​
> Experts say tens of billions of dollars in extra spending will be needed on poles and wires
> An economic watchdog has ruled in support of $1 billion in extra spending by WA's network utility
> Across Australia, network providers are tipped to seek big increases in funding to handle the renewable energy surge
> 
> In a decision heralded as a landmark, Western Australia's economic regulator this month said the state's major electricity network provider should be allowed to spend $9 billion over the next five years – $1 billion more than it requested."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Billion-dollar shock as energy grid renewal costs become clear
> 
> 
> Australian consumers have been told to brace for big hikes in their power bills after a watchdog revealed the true cost of overhauling the grid to deal with the renewable energy transition.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Yes and one of the many reasons, that when Governments say electricity is going to get cheaper with renewables, people need to take it with a grain of salt IMO.


----------



## basilio

sptrawler said:


> Yes and one of the many reasons, that when Governments say electricity is going to get cheaper with renewables, people need to take it with a grain of salt IMO.



There will always be a capital cost associated with a renewable energy transition. No one has ever suggested otherwise.
The question will dong it as cost effectively as possible and ensuring the  financial benefits of cheap solar/wind energy end up in the hands of consumers.

The Poles and Wires brigade have a sorry history of price gouging and, I suggest, profiteering.


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> There will always be a capital cost associated with a renewable energy transition. No one has ever suggested otherwise.
> The question will dong it as cost effectively as possible and ensuring the  financial benefits of cheap solar/wind energy end up in the hands of consumers.
> 
> The Poles and Wires brigade have a sorry history of price gouging and, I suggest, profiteering.




It's a sticky situation. People don't want to go off grid, but with the steady increase of home solar power the profitability of distributed systems will decrease over time, therefore the chances of large scale investment by private concerns will decrease imo.

More poles and wires might be something that governments have to finance themselves to ensure that prices remain stable.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> The Poles and Wires brigade have a sorry history of price gouging and, I suggest, profiteering.



I'll simply say that the engineers and blue collar workforce between them could and would do it far cheaper if they were allowed to.

Some of the rules and regulations, and to be clear I'm not referring to worker safety, technical standards or legitimate environmental issues, are costing an outright fortune in order to keep the ideologues and hangers on happy.

Sure the owners are making a profit and obviously the unions want higher pay and so on but I could point to bigger problems than that in the rules, regulations and so on aspect of it all. Some of it basically is religion of a sort or close enough to it.


----------



## Smurf1976

> World’s biggest pumped hydro for Queensland​




Linked document is political in nature but has the basics:





__





						Loading...
					





					media.epw.qld.gov.au
				




There's a lot more to it than just one hydro project but in short, the one referred to is 5 GW / 120 GWh and involves a dam being built in the Pioneer Valley about 70km west of Mackay.

In layman's terms that's a greater peak power output than the original Snowy scheme and it's about half of Queensland's total peak demand from all consumers including heavy industry and mining.

There's also a smaller project ~2GW and between those two, plus existing pumped and on river hydro, in total hydro will be able to meet over 75% of Queensland's peak demand.

A new state-owned entity, Hydro Queensland, being established to make it happen.

Plus new 500kV transmission backbone.

Plus large scale wind and solar as the energy source.

Plus assorted bits and pieces to go with it all.

So all looks good so far. Now we just need to:

1. See if it actually proceeds.

2. Watch the inevitable crap show from those who don't grasp that if you actually want the problems of climate change, fossil fuel supply and energy prices fixed then this is what it takes. It's hydro megaprojects and it's 500kV transmission towering over the landscape, it's not cottage industry stuff.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Linked document is political in nature but has the basics:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Loading...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> media.epw.qld.gov.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There's a lot more to it than just one hydro project but in short, the one referred to is 5 GW / 120 GWh and involves a dam being built in the Pioneer Valley about 70km west of Mackay.
> 
> In layman's terms that's a greater peak power output than the original Snowy scheme and it's about half of Queensland's total peak demand from all consumers including heavy industry and mining.
> 
> There's also a smaller project ~2GW and between those two, plus existing pumped and on river hydro, in total hydro will be able to meet over 75% of Queensland's peak demand.
> 
> A new state-owned entity, Hydro Queensland, being established to make it happen.
> 
> Plus new 500kV transmission backbone.
> 
> Plus large scale wind and solar as the energy source.
> 
> Plus assorted bits and pieces to go with it all.
> 
> So all looks good so far. Now we just need to:
> 
> 1. See if it actually proceeds.
> 
> 2. Watch the inevitable crap show from those who don't grasp that if you actually want the problems of climate change, fossil fuel supply and energy prices fixed then this is what it takes. It's hydro megaprojects and it's 500kV transmission towering over the landscape, it's not cottage industry stuff.



No doubt there will be a frog species threatened so it will probably be shelved. 

A qldFrog ? Or should it be on the ignore list ?


----------



## macca

SirRumpole said:


> No doubt there will be a frog species threatened so it will probably be shelved.
> 
> A qldFrog ? Or should it be on the ignore list ?




This one is already celebrating its new home


----------



## Belli

AGL has said it will require $20B in order to move away from coal fired-power stations which they intend to close in 2035.  Now, if AGL doesn't have that amount of dosh in the kitty, I wonder who they will ask to cough up?  Here is a radical thought.  Cease paying dividends to shareholders to offset that cost even if partially.

And does the management now reckon its $4.8B expenditure on renewables over the last 20 years was a little on the low side given in that time the CSIRO was hinting renewables could fully replace coal-fired base load and more if sufficient investment was made.  I leave it to the imagination of readers which organisations poured scorn on the CSIRO's suggestions.


----------



## SirRumpole

Belli said:


> AGL has said it will require $20B in order to move away from coal fired-power stations which they intend to close in 2035.  Now, if AGL doesn't have that amount of dosh in the kitty, I wonder who they will ask to cough up?  Here is a radical thought.  Cease paying dividends to shareholders to offset that cost even if partially.
> 
> And does the management now reckon its $4.8B expenditure on renewables over the last 20 years was a little on the low side given in that time the CSIRO was hinting renewables could fully replace coal-fired base load and more if sufficient investment was made.  I leave it to the imagination of readers which organisations poured scorn on the CSIRO's suggestions.




Energy security is a big concern. If companies want to close coal stations, fine , but they should be required to actually invest in replacing the output of those stations, and if they can't then return the coal stations to government control in operating condition.

I like Queensland's policy of government ownership of new generation and distribution assets. A lot of the problems in the power industry have been due to privatisation in my view.


----------



## Belli

SirRumpole said:


> Energy security is a big concern. If companies want to close coal stations, fine , but they should be required to actually invest in replacing the output of those stations, and if they can't then return the coal stations to government control in operating condition.
> 
> I like Queensland's policy of government ownership of new generation and distribution assets. A lot of the problems in the power industry have been due to privatisation in my view.




I get annoyed when companies imply others should pick up the tab for what they fail to do.  Usually the excuse is "Oh but our shareholders....".  That is part of the risk shareholders need to accept if they want the company to survive but the back pocket speaks loudly.


----------



## sptrawler

Belli said:


> I get annoyed when companies imply others should pick up the tab for what they fail to do.  Usually the excuse is "Oh but our shareholders....".  That is part of the risk shareholders need to accept if they want the company to survive but the back pocket speaks loudly.



The big problem is, the Government is the one legislating carbon reductions, especially in the coal generation sector.
They sold the coal generation to the companies, now they are demanding that the same companies close them, but they also have to keep the lights on.
Lot of double talk going on IMO.
Somewhere along the line the Government will have to stump up some money, they appear at the moment to have one each way, as @SirRumpole said the Governments really needs to take back the electricity system.
It really isn't a lot different to the NBN, the Government wanted fibre optics rolled out from the exchanges to the residential areas, the telco's would have done it anyway, but at a lot slower pace.
So the Government took over the backbone, which is now the NBN, paid out Telstra and got on with it.
The only way that renewables can replace at call generation, is by a whole lot of money spent on transmission upgrades, which actually don't generate any electricity, just carry it.
Also a massive amount of renewables have to be installed, much more than what is required to run the grid, as it has to charge storage for the times they aren't generating. So a lot of excess capacity has to be installed, that wont generate a lot of consistent income, so the private sector wont be keen on that ROE.
Big issues, that the Government has made bigger by saying we want x reduction by this date, you can't legislate someone to run at a loss that is basically demanding they go broke.


----------



## Smurf1976

Belli said:


> And does the management now reckon its $4.8B expenditure on renewables over the last 20 years was a little on the low side



Trouble for the AGL board is that they've been heavily criticised for having to write off much of that investment.

Written off not because it's flawed as such but simply because it was done too soon. They've spent $100 where they could've waited and done it for $50 today.

Therein lies the problem.

Multiple companies competing against each other in the generation sector with each needing to make a profit tend to not think too far ahead. They can't - telling investors in 2022 that they might see a breakeven in the 2050's will have the CEO marched out the door rather quickly.

In contrast if we look at the Borumba hydro plan in Queensland for example, well most of the work on it was done back in the 1980's. All that's really had to be done now is to take the old plans and update them - and by that I mean draw them on a computer and make the presentation look modern, the engineering hasn't changed.

Same in Tasmania. There are plans dating back as far as 1930 that have never been needed but they're still there, it wouldn't be at all hard to dust them off and go and build. They were updated to metric measurements in the 1980's so all that would really be needed if they were be built would be to check that nobody's changed the meaning of any words, whack the plans onto a modern computerised system just for the sake of it, then go and do it.

AGL itself did used to plan much further ahead back in their days as Sydney's monopoly gas supplier. 15 years was the lowest they'd go, they got in a bit of an argument with the feds over that one once, and generally they preferred 30 years ahead as the planning horizon. All went out the window once the competitive market came in - these days even six months is too far ahead for most in the industry, hence the constant lurching from crisis to crisis.

Regardless of government ownership versus private, it's a lot easier to plan ahead when you don't have to worry about that. Hence what's going on in Qld - all rather easy when it's backed by government and a state that's big enough to stand up to the feds at that (because on more than one occasion, standing up to the feds is indeed what the states need to do).

As for Loy Yang, it's really a non-announcement. No chance technically they were ever going to run it through to 2048 - the only reason that date was ever set in my view was to be able to reduce it later for political reasons.

2035 puts the age of the generating units at 47, 49, 50 and 51 years. To put that into perspective, the history of all other units in Latrobe Valley coal stations. Age at final closure:

Yallourn A units 1 - 4 = 44 years
Yallourn A units 5 & 6 = 40 years

Yallourn B unit 1 = 52 years
Yallourn B unit 2 = 49 years
Yallourn B units 3 & 4 = 46 years

Yallourn C = 30 years*

Yallourn D = 28 years*

Yallourn E = 27 years*

Morwell unit 1 = 56 years
Morwell units 2, 3, 4 = 55 years
Morwell unit 5 = 52 years

Hazelwood units 1 = 8 = 46 - 53 years

Yallourn W unit 1 = 55 years assuming closure in 2028 as planned
Yallourn W unit 2 = 53 years "
Yallourn W units 3 & 4 = 47 years "

So Loy Yang A units at 47 - 51 years is exactly what one would expect. It never was going through to 2048.

*Closed for reasons that generally aren't spoken of but which didn't relate to being worn out. "The price of power" was a lot more than just $ and the environment.....  a lot of people would've lived a lot longer if they'd never set foot in that place.


----------



## noirua

The energy market has been turned on its head so maybe Norway now leads the way on power generation?








						How Norway has become Europe's energy lifeline
					

Norway has proven to be a lifeline to the EU. We asked Norway’s State Secretary for Energy and Petroleum if the country could cut gas prices.




					www.euronews.com
				



Before the war in Ukraine, Norway covered about 20 per cent of the EU’s gas demand and will this year supply about 25 per cent of it, according to the research company Rystad Energy.


----------



## SirRumpole

Nothing new in this article, but more evidence that the media is cottoning on to the challenges of upgrading the electricity grid.









						After a week of power industry surprises, Australia arrives at a 'tipping point'
					

Everywhere you looked over the past few days it seemed the super-charged transition from coal-fired power to renewable energy was on display. So what's next?




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Nothing new in this article, but more evidence that the media is cottoning on to the challenges of upgrading the electricity grid.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> After a week of power industry surprises, Australia arrives at a 'tipping point'
> 
> 
> Everywhere you looked over the past few days it seemed the super-charged transition from coal-fired power to renewable energy was on display. So what's next?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Great news.


----------



## sptrawler

How long have I been saying, that the biggest problem will be keeping the coal generators producing, rather than making them shut down? Like I said, they would prefer to shut down. 
The Government has thrown out the baby with the bath water IMO, now it will get really interesting, we will see how committed the general public is to the media, teal and green dream.
Why would the coal generators spend money keeping them going and why would coal miners spend money looking for more coal, to supply coal power stations that are closing. 
Time and pain, will tell, it's a great test for Chris.

https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/r...s-big-coal-exodus-experts-and-locals-respond/
AUSTRALIA’S BIGGEST POLLUTER, AGL, has today announced the early closure of the nation’s most emissions intensive power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, with the company planning to exit out of coal completely by 2035.










						Coal shortages and abundant solar lead to shut down of Collie power station
					

UPDATED: A WA government-owned coal plant slated to be retired in 2027 has shut down temporarily in a bid to address coal shortages in the state.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



A Western Australia government-owned coal fired power station that is slated to be retired in 2027 has shut down for a three-month period, due to a coal shortage.
WA Today reports that the Collie power station – which is managed by government-owned utility Synergy and supplies roughly 7% of the electricity on the state’s main grid – will be shut until January due to an inability to source fuel.


----------



## orr

Anybody on the ground in Maryborough seeing things move with the ESS factory build ??


----------



## sptrawler

Well it looks like the proverbial is hitting the fan for the Collie coal miners.








						WA flags years of coal imports as power station shuts down
					

WA’s Labor government says state-owned power supplier Synergy might need to import coal over the next seven years.




					www.afr.com
				



From the article:
The West Australian government is facing a coal supply crisis and could follow South32’s lead and turn to Indonesia for imports of the fossil fuel.

A coal shortage in WA has forced the shutdown of a major power station supplying Perth and major towns from Geraldton to Albany, and increased the risk of outages at times of peak demand.

The WA government has flagged importing coal to meet what could become a prolonged shortfall in local supply, the issue behind state-owned Synergy shutting down the Collie Power Station.

WA energy minister Bill Johnston said Synergy could need to import coal over the next seven years.

Mr Johnston said the state’s coal industry is in a period of transition with Synergy planning to shut the Collie plant in 2027 and the state’s only other coal-fired power station, Muja, in 2029.

“Commercial disputes are a matter for the parties. However, the government wants to see solutions that ensure coal production continues over the coming years,” he said.

“Synergy continually assesses generation and fuel requirements and will take all necessary steps to ensure reliable power supply for WA’s main electricity network.”


AEMO advised the WA government at the end of August that it faced a shortage in reserve generating capacity needed to cope with peaks in demand and raised concerns about coal supply shortages.

Mr Johnston said this advice came just weeks after AEMO advice that WA didn’t face challenges over the summer.

_The Australian Financial Review_ revealed on September 14 that South32 would start importing coal to prop up local supply to its Worsley alumina refinery.

The decision to import coal came after a syndicate of lenders owed about $1 billion pushed Griffin Coal, the only surviving coal mine in WA beside Premier, into receivership.


----------



## Smurf1976

A major incident occurred in Tasmania on Friday morning.

Cause is one that to the best of my knowledge has no precedent in Australia. A landslide has simultaneously taken out the towers for two major transmission lines.

A key transmission route in the state involves 2 x 220kV and 1 x 110kV lines between Palmerston (Poatina power station, the second largest hydro station in Tas) in the north and the Waddamana site further south. Waddamana being an historic generation site and ongoing transmission hub from which many transmission lines head south and ultimately to Hobart.

The landslide has taken out both 220kV lines which link those points, leaving only the single 110kV line of much lower capacity.

The immediate impact was disconnection of industrial load representing about about 40% all electrical load in the state at the time. This was restored over the following 90 minutes by reconfiguring generation operations to workaround the transmission failure (that is, the failure hasn't been fixed as such, just worked around as a temporary measure).

Whilst the lights are back on, the lines do need to be fixed. There's a lack of resilience in their absence should anything else go amiss. Plus it'll be rather difficult to manage the hydro storages over time without the ability to shift energy from one end of the state to the other - OK for a while but the longer it persists, the greater the risk of a serious imbalance developing. So no panic but a fix is definitely required. At a guess though it will probably take a while given the nature of the problem.

Now of all risks to energy supply ever discussed, in Tasmania or nationally, I'm pretty sure "landslide demolishes transmission lines" wasn't among the things anyone thought likely to happen.


----------



## Smurf1976

Landslide damage to transmission tower near Poatina, Tas:






Also Poatina Road is blocked by landslide immediately south of Poatina Power Station. The PS is underground so not much visible apart from the switchyard at the top of the photo but the road's blocked definitely. Link to media photo here: https://www.themercury.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/POAT.jpg?w=600

Poatina Rd being open to and used by the public, it's not a private road although it was built as part of the power scheme.


----------



## Ferret

Smurf1976 said:


> Landslide damage to transmission tower near Poatina, Tas:



Interesting that the lines themselves don't appear to be broken.  

Did the transmission system somehow sense a problem and shut down?


----------



## Smurf1976

Ferret said:


> Interesting that the lines themselves don't appear to be broken.
> 
> Did the transmission system somehow sense a problem and shut down?



A full analysis will have to be done to see if everything responded as it should but most likely there's been a short circuit.

That is, contact between the lines simply due to physical movement. Bearing in mind that the tower isn't simply bent but has been violently shoved sideways and twisted. Amidst that happening, most likely 2 or more lines either made physical contact or at least came close enough to arc.

Full analysis will have to be done but at this stage that would be my assumption. Bearing mind that at 220kV, that is 220,000 Volts, you don't need direct contact to bring about a short, just getting too close will do it.

This other photo doesn't show the transmission line but does put the scale of the landslip problem into some perspective. Human standing there for scale:



			https://www.examiner.com.au/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/173313375/871b8343-f7d0-41d6-a140-f51bec0c05de.jpg/r0_0_5000_3333_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg


----------



## basilio

Hairy stuff indeed.  And we are now heading into another week of heavy rains and thunderstorms on an already saturated environment.

I wonder if anyone has  checked around other pylons and their surrounds to see if this  could happen again ?


----------



## basilio

Given how (ineffectively)  the free market has tackled renewable energy transition it is no surprise that governments have decided to step in and make things happen.

The SEC will be revived in Victoria under an Andrews government and other states seem likely to follow suit.

Australia's biggest electricity system 'on life support' as states take control of the energy transition​By energy reporter Daniel Mercer
Posted 7h ago7 hours ago, updated 40m ago40 minutes ago




 Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is touting "clean, government-owned renewable energy".(AAP: Diego Fedele)
Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article

A leading Australian energy expert says the country’s biggest electricity market is on life support as state and federal governments increasingly take control of the transition to renewable power.
Key points:​
The Victorian Government says it will renationalise part of the state's electricity system
The decision follows similar moves by other governments at state and federal levels
The Grattan Institute's Tony Wood says governments have all but given up on the national electricity market










						Australia's biggest electricity market on life support as states take control
					

Top energy expert says the country's biggest electricity market is dying as state and federal governments take control of renewable energy switch.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> Given how (ineffectively)  the free market has tackled renewable energy transition it is no surprise that governments have decided to step in and make things happen.
> 
> The SEC will be revived in Victoria under an Andrews government and other states seem likely to follow suit.
> 
> Australia's biggest electricity system 'on life support' as states take control of the energy transition​By energy reporter Daniel Mercer
> Posted 7h ago7 hours ago, updated 40m ago40 minutes ago
> View attachment 148278
> 
> Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is touting "clean, government-owned renewable energy".(AAP: Diego Fedele)
> Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article
> 
> A leading Australian energy expert says the country’s biggest electricity market is on life support as state and federal governments increasingly take control of the transition to renewable power.
> Key points:​
> The Victorian Government says it will renationalise part of the state's electricity system
> The decision follows similar moves by other governments at state and federal levels
> The Grattan Institute's Tony Wood says governments have all but given up on the national electricity market
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Australia's biggest electricity market on life support as states take control
> 
> 
> Top energy expert says the country's biggest electricity market is dying as state and federal governments take control of renewable energy switch.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



About time. I doubt if the Parrot I n NSW will follow suit though unfortunately


----------



## qldfrog

Interesting imho








						Gas field supplying NT's power plants runs into serious production problems
					

Production from the offshore field which supplies gas for the Top End's electricity generation has decreased by nearly 50 per cent this year.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> Interesting imho
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Gas field supplying NT's power plants runs into serious production problems
> 
> 
> Production from the offshore field which supplies gas for the Top End's electricity generation has decreased by nearly 50 per cent this year.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



This one has potentially broader consequences outside the NT.

For the Darwin-Katherine power system there's a partial ability to switch to diesel if need be since about half the installed generating capacity is dual fuel (gas / diesel) whilst the other half is gas only. 

Much the same for the separate at Alice Springs system, not all but a fair bit can be switched to diesel if need be.

Where the complexity arises is outside the NT.

Mt Isa gas consumption is roughly 80 TJ / day. Varies a bit but that's a typical figure.

Mt Isa can be supplied from either the NT, from southern Qld, or a combination of both. Since those two pipelines interconnect it's also possible to move gas between Qld and NT via that route albeit in very limited volume.

In short, if supply to Mt Isa from southern Qld exceeds 20 TJ / day then that cuts into the maximum flow rate from Qld to SA of 384 TJ / day. Below 20 TJ / day there's no impact but above it there most certainly is. 

So not being able to supply gas from NT to Mt Isa potentially removes about 60 TJ / day of supply to the south-eastern states (NSW, ACT, Vic, SA, Tas collectively) next winter. That's only 3% of their peak day demand but that's 3% in the context of a supply that's already stretched to breaking point, hence the difficulties maintaining gas supply this past winter and the forced switch of some users to diesel.

So it's another straw on the proverbial camel's back that's already close to breaking point.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> About time. I doubt if the Parrot I n NSW will follow suit though unfortunately



I dont think they have any other option. As Ive said, it will take a lot of capital, for very little ROE, the Governments will have to do it. Companies like AGL that already own a lot of infrastructure will take the low hanging fruit, the Governments will have to install the non financially viable stuff.


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> I dont think they have any other option. As Ive said, it will take a lot of capital, for very little ROE, the Governments will have to do it. Companies like AGL that already own a lot of infrastructure will take the low hanging fruit, the Governments will have to install the non financially viable stuff.



Our taxes as gift to the world, as the Germans did, privileged to increase the benefits of China companies to a new golden Idol


----------



## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> Our taxes as gift to the world, as the Germans did, privileged to increase the benefits of China companies to a new golden Idol



Yep all to reduce our 1.8% contribution. Lol


----------



## SirRumpole

Mark McGowan has a smirk all over his face when discussing power prices.

They are expected to rise 2-3% compared with 56% in Eastern States.

We all know the reasons, have they escaped other States and the Feds ?









						Labor's budget forecasts energy prices will rise 56 per cent in 18 months. It's a different story in WA
					

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan says the federal government should look to his state and overseas to find a solution to surging electricity prices, which are forecast to rise 56 per cent in the next 18 months.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Dona Ferentes

_all things  are relative_....
so a couple of snippets .... and leave it to others to take it away







(courtesy _Thoughts from the Frontline _)


and this note of realism from someone who is meant to provide solutions


> “If you want to go to renewables, you need a 50-year or 75-year plan – you can’t do it in the next 10 years”



- _Lindsay Partridge, MD, Brickworks Ltd_


----------



## sptrawler

Great post @Dona Ferentes , as Ive said over and over people just dont understand the enormity of the issue and the media are too dumb to report it.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Great post @Dona Ferentes , as Ive said over and over people just dont understand the enormity of the issue and the media are too dumb to report it.



I disagree with the notion that it needs to take 50 or 75 years but absolutely it needs a proper plan yes.

Bearing in mind the big problem in Australia isn't that we've failed to plan but rather that not having a plan was a conscious objective, indeed the regulations make any real planning all but impossible beyond a theoretical level. Not having a plan _is_ our plan.

It shouldn't take 75 years though at least not in the Australian context. Not if we have an actual plan and get on with it.


----------



## SirRumpole

Advances in compressed air storage.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> Bearing in mind the big problem in Australia isn't that we've failed to plan but rather that not having a plan was a conscious objective, indeed the regulations make any real planning all but impossible beyond a theoretical level. Not having a plan _is_ our plan.




That's what happens when we keep electing Conservative governments who believe that "the market will fix it".

That's not to say Labor politicians know any more about the subject, but they were smart enough to set up Infrastructure Australia as an independent body, so maybe they should set up a similar body for the energy industry in particular and *follow their advice.*


----------



## SirRumpole

SirRumpole said:


> That's what happens when we keep electing Conservative governments who believe that "the market will fix it".
> 
> That's not to say Labor politicians know any more about the subject, but they were smart enough to set up Infrastructure Australia as an independent body, so maybe they should set up a similar body for the energy industry in particular and *follow their advice.*




And whatever happened to the Finkel report ?


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> And whatever happened to the Finkel report ?



Market does fix it: prevent exploration, investment in fosdil fuel and energy proce goes balastic but wasn't it tge aim:
Maje sure anything fossil becomes unaffordable and bring back the plebes to Dickensian conditions.
So then so called green energy becomes cheaper, the advocates will say i tell you so.
Narket does fix itself but that is in a free market place. Which is not the case in the west, slightly truer in china at the small case level.
There is no market freedom when a gov decides to stop ice cars by a given date or set a goal of stopping coal.
This is state policy economy with the great outcome we saw in the USSR, but left remains left and nowadays socialists/watermelon would make Stalin blush🥴


----------



## Smurf1976

So far as markets are concerned, a distinction needs to be made between markets as a generic concept and the actual "market" we have, the National Electricity Market, as distinct from the non-market approach of monopoly utilities which preceded it.

Suffice to say the NEM has a rather long list of omissions and flaws which run counter to technical, environmental and even economic objectives. Hence we've ended up with seriously expensive energy that really need not be.

I'll put these two charts up. One for NSW and one for Victoria. Both are for today:












Now you don't need to be an engineer to spot that something happened today. At about midday there's a plunge in Victorian generation and a corresponding rise in generation in NSW.

Now you could be excused for assuming that something terrible had occurred in Victoria, some sort of major breakdown or incident but that, thankfully, supply from NSW as able to keep the lights on.

If only that were true......

What actually happened was this:



> 102756SETTLEMENTS RESIDUE31/10/2022 12:00:44 PM
> [EventId:202210311200_NRM_NSW1_VIC1_started] NEGRES CONSTRAINT NRM_NSW1_VIC1 started operating from 31 October 2022 12:00​AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE
> 
> Issued by Australian Energy Market Operator Ltd at 1200 hrs on 31 October 2022
> 
> ACTUAL NEGATIVE SETTLEMENT RESIDUES - NSW to VIC - 31 October 2022.
> 
> Electricity Market outcomes have resulted in the accumulation of negative settlement residues that have exceeded the allowable negative residue threshold for the NSW to VIC directional interconnector.
> 
> The negative residue constraint set NRM_NSW1_VIC1 commenced operating from 1200 hrs on 31 October 2022.
> 
> This constraint set contains an equation with the following interconnectors on the LHS:
> VIC1-NSW1
> 
> The RHS of the constraint equation may be adjusted to manage residues.
> 
> 
> This is an AEMO autogenerated Market Notice.




To explain that, it's nothing to do with electrical engineering and nor is it anything to do with problems with boilers, wind gusts or even something like maintaining flow in a river. In truth it's accounting, yes accounting of the financial kind.

So we fixed an accounting problem by turning off about 1500 MW of wind generation, mostly in Victoria with a bit in SA, and replacing the output by burning gas and running hydro generation in NSW then gradually ramping up coal. Running hydro generation that, I might add, is drawing on a water storage that's presently 45% full and with water being discharged into a catchment that's actually flooding downstream to the point of being a problem in itself.

You won't find an engineer who sees logic in this. Even those who are in the camp that isn't at all concerned about the use of fossil fuels will say that if we've already built wind farms then it's outright crazy to not use them.

Therein lies the reason mere mention of the word "market" tends to be met with rolling eyes and derision by those who see this stuff routinely. The actual market we have is shockingly inefficient, having been captured by an assortment of ideologues who've taken it a very long way from the fundamentals of both engineering and economics.

That wasn't an isolated incident and to be clear neither AEMO nor any of the affected companies have done anything wrong. Just enforcing the rules as drawn up by others....

Now please don't anyone tell me I should be shivering in the dark to save on emissions. Not whilst this nonsense goes on.


----------



## basilio

Excellent analysis in The Guardian on the future of energy generation and storage.  Echoes much of what Smurf has explained and  skewers yet again the poisonous,lying, self serving dribble that has been the cornerstone of  Liberal/National/Fossil Fool industry talking points for  donkeys years.

Well, well worth a full read. I have clipped a relevant section below.

_David Osmond, a Canberra-based engineer with the global energy developer Windlab, is among those with a markedly different, evidence-based take. For more than a year, he has been posting weekly results from a live simulation tracking what would happen in Australia’s main electricity grid if it relied primarily on renewable energy.

Using a live stream of electricity data from Opennem, he adjusted inputs to see what would happen if there was enough wind and solar energy to supply 60% and 45% of demand respectively. He added enough short-term storage, likely to be in the form of batteries, to supply average demand for five hours.

The results are encouraging. They suggest close to 100% of demand – 98.9% over a 61-week period – could be delivered by solar and wind backed by existing hydro power and the five hours of storage. Nearly 90% of demand was met directly by renewable energy and 10% had to pass through storage. Achieving it would require a major expansion of transmission, as proposed by Labor under its Rewiring the Nation policy.

The 1.1% shortfall mostly came when it was less sunny in late autumn and winter. Other technology would be needed to fill that hole. Osmond believes for now that would probably be fast-starting gas-fired power plants that are already connected to the grid, don’t run most of the time and can be called on quickly. There was nothing to suggest new ones were needed.

It means a small amount of fossil fuel generation remaining in the grid, but less gas would be burned than now and, crucially, no coal power would be required. In the longer term, the backup could possibly come from cleaner sources – probably pumped hydro, maybe hydrogen or biofuels. None of these necessarily make economic sense the way solar and wind do – it is hard to justify a plant that would hardly ever be used – but could be needed in the context of the grid. An alternative would be to over-build solar and wind so there was always enough capacity online.

By Osmond’s admission, this is a simplified model that assumes, for example, that electricity transmission links between regions can be delivered efficiently. *No one should assume that the transition will be straightforward. The point is the technology already exists, and is comparatively cheap. From there it is a matter of design, engineering and, importantly, cost management.*_










						Rather than an endlessly reheated nuclear debate, politicians should be powered by the evidence | Adam Morton
					

A renewable-dominated system is comfortably the cheapest form of power generation, according to research




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> So far as markets are concerned, a distinction needs to be made between markets as a generic concept and the actual "market" we have, the National Electricity Market, as distinct from the non-market approach of monopoly utilities which preceded it.
> 
> Suffice to say the NEM has a rather long list of omissions and flaws which run counter to technical, environmental and even economic objectives. Hence we've ended up with seriously expensive energy that really need not be.
> 
> I'll put these two charts up. One for NSW and one for Victoria. Both are for today:
> 
> View attachment 148681
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 148682
> 
> 
> Now you don't need to be an engineer to spot that something happened today. At about midday there's a plunge in Victorian generation and a corresponding rise in generation in NSW.
> 
> Now you could be excused for assuming that something terrible had occurred in Victoria, some sort of major breakdown or incident but that, thankfully, supply from NSW as able to keep the lights on.
> 
> If only that were true......
> 
> What actually happened was this:
> 
> 
> 
> To explain that, it's nothing to do with electrical engineering and nor is it anything to do with problems with boilers, wind gusts or even something like maintaining flow in a river. In truth it's accounting, yes accounting of the financial kind.
> 
> So we fixed an accounting problem by turning off about 1500 MW of wind generation, mostly in Victoria with a bit in SA, and replacing the output by burning gas and running hydro generation in NSW then gradually ramping up coal. Running hydro generation that, I might add, is drawing on a water storage that's presently 45% full and with water being discharged into a catchment that's actually flooding downstream to the point of being a problem in itself.
> 
> You won't find an engineer who sees logic in this. Even those who are in the camp that isn't at all concerned about the use of fossil fuels will say that if we've already built wind farms then it's outright crazy to not use them.
> 
> Therein lies the reason mere mention of the word "market" tends to be met with rolling eyes and derision by those who see this stuff routinely. The actual market we have is shockingly inefficient, having been captured by an assortment of ideologues who've taken it a very long way from the fundamentals of both engineering and economics.
> 
> That wasn't an isolated incident and to be clear neither AEMO nor any of the affected companies have done anything wrong. Just enforcing the rules as drawn up by others....
> 
> Now please don't anyone tell me I should be shivering in the dark to save on emissions. Not whilst this nonsense goes on.



And we can also agree this is in no way a free market issue🙄
What a shamble..


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> And we can also agree this is in no way a free market issue🙄
> What a shamble..



Yep.

It wouldn't happen in a truly free market but at the other end of the scale a monopoly utility wouldn't do things to punish itself either.

Regardless of the arguments for or against building any particular form of generation, if it has actually been built and it's of a type that costs practically nothing to run then it's crazy to not fully utilise it. 

We could achieve a significant improvement, both in terms of economics and in terms of natural resource use and the environment, simply by making optimum use of what we've already got in terms of physical generation and transmission. That it doesn't happen is simply down to politics and bureaucracy getting in the way of both engineering and sensible economics, a situation that frustrates many.


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> Yep.
> 
> It wouldn't happen in a truly free market but at the other end of the scale a monopoly utility wouldn't do things to punish itself either.
> 
> Regardless of the arguments for or against building any particular form of generation, if it has actually been built and it's of a type that costs practically nothing to run then it's crazy to not fully utilise it.
> 
> We could achieve a significant improvement, both in terms of economics and in terms of natural resource use and the environment, simply by making optimum use of what we've already got in terms of physical generation and transmission. That it doesn't happen is simply down to politics and bureaucracy getting in the way of both engineering and sensible economics, a situation that frustrates many.



Fully agree, while i consider this mad rush to "green energy" crazy, once installed and producing for free, use it.The least we can do.
I am afraid that madness might even come to the consumer/ retail side with the idea of variable feed back pricing.
I produce more than i use with solar and as is, the economics of sending power back to the grid are borderline due to feed to grid daily fee.
I moved in a new place with solar installed.there is no way the ROI is here so if moving to a new place,an existing solar system is no worthwhile $ bonus. Unless you double up to go fully offgrid/battery...
Not exactly what it should be imho as we should see people not repairing systems or turning the option off


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> That wasn't an isolated incident and to be clear neither AEMO nor any of the affected companies have done anything wrong. Just enforcing the rules as drawn up by others....




Do you think the rule book should be thrown away and have a free for all ?

Or , we should have rules but the current rules are not appropriate ?


----------



## mullokintyre

SirRumpole said:


> Do you think the rule book should be thrown away and have a free for all ?
> 
> Or , we should have rules but the current rules are not appropriate ?



All will be solved if they let me make the rules.
Mick


----------



## mullokintyre

Another of those  instances where sometimes the realities in life can overturn your  best intentions. 
From ABC News


> The WA Premier has admitted it is likely the state will be forced to import coal from New South Wales to keep its lights on over the coming years.
> 
> Key points:​
> Mark McGowan says sourcing enough coal will be a challenge
> Mr McGowan says coal will be needed for another eight years
> There are growing concerns over the state's electricity grid
> 
> Concerns about the state's coal supply have been steadily growing, with receivers appointed to one of the state's main coal mines in September.
> 
> The following month, the government admitted it would be shutting down one of the state's coal-fired power stations for three months "to further build its coal stockpiles".
> 
> Coal needed until 2030: Premier​Premier Mark McGowan said finding enough coal would continue to be a challenge as the state's power grid transitions away from coal and closes its remaining coal-fired plants by 2030.



Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

mullokintyre said:


> All will be solved if they let me make the rules.
> Mick




Rule 303 ?


----------



## mullokintyre

SirRumpole said:


> Rule 303 ?



Yes, it requires something of calibre.
Mick


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Do you think the rule book should be thrown away and have a free for all ?
> 
> Or , we should have rules but the current rules are not appropriate ?



Rules are needed most definitely.

As an example of what happens when there aren't rules, the SA blackout in 2016 is a good one. Plenty was said politically at the time but ignoring politics, the basic facts are that a number of transmission lines failed due to physical damage (the trigger incident) and that rather a lot of generation tripped off (a consequence of the initial transmission incidents). Where the problems arise is with _why_ that generation tripped and, more to the point, that rather a lot of it shouldn't have tripped at all.

It's not that wind power is inherently a dud technology. Nor is it that some technician messed up implementation of the protection settings. Not is it even that some engineer messed up specifying what those settings were to be. No, it's far more embarrassing than that.....

The owners of said wind farms, and there's list of many, didn't realised they needed to be worrying about this at all. That there is the biggest failing - there's no chance of getting something right if you're not even trying to do it.

The restoration was equally chaotic.

Couldn't do it by starting the Mintaro gas turbine because the diesel engine intended to do so had been damaged by lightning. 

Multiple attempts were then made with the next planned approach of using Quarantine power station units 1 - 4 to start the much larger unit 5 at the same site, then using all five to restart steam plant at Torrens Island and from there the system in general. Long story short there were oversights in that idea and it couldn't be carried out in practice, the equipment just couldn't do it. Nobody had tested it.

In due course a restart was ultimately done from Victoria, something that hadn't been planned or envisaged but which was the most realistic option that hadn't already been tried and failed.

So there are very good reasons why all this needs to be kept under tight control technically. Who owns it has no bearing on physics and the reality that failing to maintain proper technical standards ends badly at some point.

So I'll argue that we definitely need proper technical standards, and the situation in SA has certainly improved although gaps do still exist, but what we don't need is silly "bureaucratic" type rules that aren't serving any purpose beyond technical compliance with some pedantic financial regulation that isn't really serving anyone's best interests.


----------



## Smurf1976

Meanwhile in Queensland:



> 'Structural failure' at Callide Power Station near Biloela leaves unit offline​












						'Structural failure' at Queensland power station unit leaves unit offline
					

It is the second major incident at this power station in less than two years.




					www.abc.net.au
				




I don't have any details beyond what's in the article so won't comment beyond saying I'm unconvinced about the comments made by the union official. The unit in question was only running at about 70% of capacity at the time so "too much water being pumped through" seems unlikely.


----------



## mullokintyre

Smurf1976 said:


> Meanwhile in Queensland:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 'Structural failure' at Queensland power station unit leaves unit offline
> 
> 
> It is the second major incident at this power station in less than two years.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't have any details beyond what's in the article so won't comment beyond saying I'm unconvinced about the comments made by the union official. The unit in question was only running at about 70% of capacity at the time so "too much water being pumped through" seems unlikely.



ABC News is saying now that all four units at callide are non operational.
Seems they just can't take a trick.
Mick


----------



## PZ99

Ahh yep, good ole baseload power


----------



## mullokintyre

PZ99 said:


> Ahh yep, good ole baseload power



yea, funny about that.
For years its was the only sort of power we had.
We seemed to get by ok.
Then for some reason, they also started getting less reliable.
Can't imagine why.
Mick


----------



## PZ99

It lost its primary sponsor


----------



## mullokintyre

PZ99 said:


> It lost its primary sponsor



Like Gina Reinhart you mean?
Mick


----------



## PZ99

Yeh pretty much.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Meanwhile in Queensland:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 'Structural failure' at Queensland power station unit leaves unit offline
> 
> 
> It is the second major incident at this power station in less than two years.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't have any details beyond what's in the article so won't comment beyond saying I'm unconvinced about the comments made by the union official. The unit in question was only running at about 70% of capacity at the time so "too much water being pumped through" seems unlikely.



As you say @Smurf1976 , too much water being pumped through is highly unlikely, they are designed to take maximum throughput.
Looks like a cooling tower structural failure IMO, which goes back to the root problem of no one wanting them running, so why spend money on maintaining them.
Massive problems coming IMO, now that the Govt has made the fossil fueled stations obsolete, when there are no alternatives available.
Oh what a mess.
I hear that the NSW treasurer wants to confiscate W.A's gas, it is all looking like an imminent policy implosion on the East Coast IMO.
The Teals, Greens and Labor are going to have some spin, to explain why the system is collapsing, also they are going to have to announce where the major pumped hydro is going to be installed.
How they can stop a major system collapse is going to be interesting, especially if they aren't prepared to fast track gas turbines.


----------



## SirRumpole

Meanwhile, in WA,

Why WA's power supplies are under threat.









						Entire state's power system on the brink as foreign loan turns toxic
					

A giant Indian bank sits behind a slow-moving Australian energy disaster. It's a tale about billion-dollar bets gone terribly wrong, failed international ambitions and a clash of finance cultures.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Meanwhile, in WA,
> 
> Why WA's power supplies are under threat.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Entire state's power system on the brink as foreign loan turns toxic
> 
> 
> A giant Indian bank sits behind a slow-moving Australian energy disaster. It's a tale about billion-dollar bets gone terribly wrong, failed international ambitions and a clash of finance cultures.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Ironic hey. Lol
Lucky we have gas, more GT's will ne fast tracked IMO.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Ironic hey. Lol




Yep, we all thought McGowan had it all sewn up. But if he takes over the coal mine he'll be laughing.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yep, we all thought McGowan had it all sewn up. But if he takes over the coal mine he'll be laughing.



They are going to import coal from Indonesia apparently.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Well it looks like the proverbial is hitting the fan for the Collie coal miners.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> WA flags years of coal imports as power station shuts down
> 
> 
> WA’s Labor government says state-owned power supplier Synergy might need to import coal over the next seven years.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.afr.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> The West Australian government is facing a coal supply crisis and could follow South32’s lead and turn to Indonesia for imports of the fossil fuel.
> 
> A coal shortage in WA has forced the shutdown of a major power station supplying Perth and major towns from Geraldton to Albany, and increased the risk of outages at times of peak demand.
> 
> The WA government has flagged importing coal to meet what could become a prolonged shortfall in local supply, the issue behind state-owned Synergy shutting down the Collie Power Station.
> 
> WA energy minister Bill Johnston said Synergy could need to import coal over the next seven years.
> 
> Mr Johnston said the state’s coal industry is in a period of transition with Synergy planning to shut the Collie plant in 2027 and the state’s only other coal-fired power station, Muja, in 2029.
> 
> “Commercial disputes are a matter for the parties. However, the government wants to see solutions that ensure coal production continues over the coming years,” he said.
> 
> “Synergy continually assesses generation and fuel requirements and will take all necessary steps to ensure reliable power supply for WA’s main electricity network.”
> 
> 
> AEMO advised the WA government at the end of August that it faced a shortage in reserve generating capacity needed to cope with peaks in demand and raised concerns about coal supply shortages.
> 
> Mr Johnston said this advice came just weeks after AEMO advice that WA didn’t face challenges over the summer.
> 
> _The Australian Financial Review_ revealed on September 14 that South32 would start importing coal to prop up local supply to its Worsley alumina refinery.
> 
> The decision to import coal came after a syndicate of lenders owed about $1 billion pushed Griffin Coal, the only surviving coal mine in WA beside Premier, into receivership.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> They are going to import coal from Indonesia apparently.



And from other States.

Maybe NSW should put an export tax on *our* coal ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> And from other States.
> 
> Maybe NSW should put an export tax on *our* coal ?



It sounds like your coal will be as unreliable as ours.
it wont be long before we wont be allowed to sell or use both coal and gas anyway, I cant wait to watch all this implode. Lol
25million people trying live off the earnings of iron ore, what a hoot, especially if the price of that collapses again.
5 million barristas on the East Coast out of a job.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> They are going to import coal from Indonesia apparently.



I was thinking it would be more amusing if it was shipped from Tasmania.

Tassie coal is pretty similar specs to that found at Collie. It's closer than NSW coal is.

Plus I'd be slightly amused given history. A long time ago Tas did consider building a coal-fired plant and the whole thing was simply a direct clone of Muja C just adapted to a specific site with any differences being about the relative placement of cooling towers, coal piles, roads etc on site.

It was never built but the idea was there at one time. Not certain but I'm pretty sure there was some deal under which the HEC got the full set of plans at no cost but was required to pay SECWA for them if it was actually built based on that design. 

There's no coal used for power in Tas but coal is mined in the state - it's used in various heavy industries, most notably cement, paper and ferro-alloys, plus to fuel the odd random tourist steam train and so on.

A long time ago I tipped a couple of buckets full into a pot belly stove and lit it up. It burned well, oh yes it burned well. Turned the place into a sauna.


----------



## qldfrog

PZ99 said:


> It lost its primary sponsor



And any maintenance or investment as being coal, it will should be closed soon and maybe sooner


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> They are going to import coal from Indonesia apparently.



The article quoted that South32 in WA is already inporting coal from abroad.
I wonder how long it will be before we as a whole, become net coal importer, Just need a few more green and teal MP seats in the CBD and we will save the planet, as a gift to mankind as per the famous German saying...
What a shamble, Nature/God  gave everything to a country and we manage to F it up.
Australia is the biblical garden of Eden, but we could not find Adam and Eve, just Stevie and Shaza..
And not sure if they found the apple tree as the lights are off


----------



## Smurf1976

A somewhat exciting day in SA today with storms causing an assortment of transmission line trips, including loss of AC interconnection with Victoria.

The good news is that, unlike 2016 in similar circumstances, the system held up. That there's widespread power outages, with over 85,000 properties without power at present, being due to localised damage to the distribution network rather than a failure or shortage of bulk supply.

That's an important distinction since it means the system as such held up apart from the bits that are actually damaged. In layman's terms generation and transmission has kept going as a whole and is intact enough to cope with the load. It's copped a few punches straight in the face courtesy of the storms but didn't fall over. That's a much better outcome than some previous incidents where the whole lot shut down. 

What's damaged is the lines in suburban streets etc with 214 known separate fault at present. So localised outages but no overall system failure beyond what's actually damaged.







Each red bubble represents a separate fault.

The power's off at home although, Smurf being Smurf, I do have my own generation source as backup.


----------



## SirRumpole

Current action in the fusion power area.


----------



## basilio

I have previously  highlighted a UK company called RheEnergise which has developed a pumped hydro solution that is far more cost effective and efficient than traditional systems. Long story short they have developed a fluid that is 2.5 times heavier than water as the energy medium.  This changes all the cost and engineering  figures dramatically.

It offers an opportunity to develop hundreds of local  pumped hydro battery systems at a  substantial discount to traditional systems. The company is steadily progressing its operations.

Check out it.









						RheEnergise High-Density Hydro
					

RheEnergise Pumped Energy Storage: Lowering the levelised cost of energy storage. Increasing the availability of sites. Exceptionally fast reaction times. Long Duration. Long life. Highly flexible. High-Density Hydro®




					www.rheenergise.com
				












						RheEnergise
					

RheEnergise’s patented tech aims to help solve the energy storage problem with their low-cost, scalable solution: High-Density Hydro. The market is vast, the long-duration storage industry is estimated to require 3 trillion dollar investments by 2040. Backed by £8.25m of govt grant, with...




					www.crowdcube.com


----------



## SirRumpole

basilio said:


> I have previously  highlighted a UK company called RheEnergise which has developed a pumped hydro solution that is far more cost effective and efficient than traditional systems. Long story short they have developed a fluid that is 2.5 times heavier than water as the energy medium.  This changes all the cost and engineering  figures dramatically.
> 
> It offers an opportunity to develop hundreds of local  pumped hydro battery systems at a  substantial discount to traditional systems. The company is steadily progressing its operations.
> 
> Check out it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> RheEnergise High-Density Hydro
> 
> 
> RheEnergise Pumped Energy Storage: Lowering the levelised cost of energy storage. Increasing the availability of sites. Exceptionally fast reaction times. Long Duration. Long life. Highly flexible. High-Density Hydro®
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.rheenergise.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> RheEnergise
> 
> 
> RheEnergise’s patented tech aims to help solve the energy storage problem with their low-cost, scalable solution: High-Density Hydro. The market is vast, the long-duration storage industry is estimated to require 3 trillion dollar investments by 2040. Backed by £8.25m of govt grant, with...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.crowdcube.com




Will be interesting to see what our resident expert says.


----------



## qldfrog

SirRumpole said:


> Will be interesting to see what our resident expert says.



salt solution can do that (up to slightly above 1.3 freshwater density), imagine the outcry with a lake full of brine 
or worse mercury: 13.5kg /litre 
But you could probably designed system using sand or at the extreme: lifting weights as has been discussed in the past:








						Gravity Could Solve Clean Energy’s One Major Drawback
					

Finding green energy when the winds are calm and the skies are cloudy has been a challenge. Storing it in giant concrete blocks could be the answer.




					www.wired.com
				



or a loaded train on a slope


----------



## Smurf1976

So far as alternatives to water in pumped hydro schemes are concerned, the basic issues that come to mind in a technical sense are:

Abrasion - at high head (pressure) any silt present in the water is undesirable. 

Constantly being sandblasted at high pressure doesn't exactly extend the lifespan of a turbine runner but at lower heads it's far less of an issue. There are low head stations in Europe that basically have mud running through them for example, well it's filthy looking water at least, but when there's only a few metres of head that doesn't really matter. Very different if it's hundreds of metres. So if the head is high enough then abrasion of any non-water material is a potential issue.

Another is corrosion and compatibility with construction materials. Bearing in mind the presence of multiple materials - epoxy coated steel, stainless steel, concrete, reinforced plastic and so on. Heck can even use wood if someone's keen to build that way. 

Another is environmental. Conventional approaches to hydro construction don't obsess over avoiding all leakage simply because, well, it's only water after all. Hence the use of open canals, unlined tunnels and so on - they're good enough and if a minor amount is lost then no big deal. Very different it the fluid is highly valuable and/or toxic.

Viscosity and frictional losses another issue since that'll impact efficiency. Bearing in mind that all the conventional friction modified coatings were developed specifically with water in mind, they weren't considering anything else.

Subject to all that though, I see no reason why it couldn't be done. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just pointing out the things which need to be considered and that these will be substance specific.

Then there's the more tricky stuff. Conventional modern hydro machines are vertical axis, turbine on the bottom and alternator above, using rather large but conventional bearings lubricated with petroleum-based lubricants. There are alternative approaches however, like centering the shaft using water pressure and doing away with the oil and grease for the avoidance of metal on metal contact, an approach that tends to raise eyebrows but it's certainly doable.

I wouldn't expect anyone to try that with an alternative non-water fluid, at least not in a hurry without some serious testing, but it's another issue. 

Can't see anyone using mercury though!


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> Can't see anyone using mercury though!



was more tongue in cheek but we are cooling nuclear reactors with melted sodium so the sky is the limit!!!
anything but CO2 LOL


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> So far as alternatives to water in pumped hydro schemes are concerned, the basic issues that come to mind in a technical sense are:
> 
> Abrasion - at high head (pressure) any silt present in the water is undesirable.
> 
> Constantly being sandblasted at high pressure doesn't exactly extend the lifespan of a turbine runner but at lower heads it's far less of an issue. There are low head stations in Europe that basically have mud running through them for example, well it's filthy looking water at least, but when there's only a few metres of head that doesn't really matter. Very different if it's hundreds of metres. So if the head is high enough then abrasion of any non-water material is a potential issue.
> 
> Another is corrosion and compatibility with construction materials. Bearing in mind the presence of multiple materials - epoxy coated steel, stainless steel, concrete, reinforced plastic and so on. Heck can even use wood if someone's keen to build that way.
> 
> Another is environmental. Conventional approaches to hydro construction don't obsess over avoiding all leakage simply because, well, it's only water after all. Hence the use of open canals, unlined tunnels and so on - they're good enough and if a minor amount is lost then no big deal. Very different it the fluid is highly valuable and/or toxic.
> 
> Viscosity and frictional losses another issue since that'll impact efficiency. Bearing in mind that all the conventional friction modified coatings were developed specifically with water in mind, they weren't considering anything else.
> 
> Subject to all that though, I see no reason why it couldn't be done. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just pointing out the things which need to be considered and that these will be substance specific.
> 
> Then there's the more tricky stuff. Conventional modern hydro machines are vertical axis, turbine on the bottom and alternator above, using rather large but conventional bearings lubricated with petroleum-based lubricants. There are alternative approaches however, like centering the shaft using water pressure and doing away with the oil and grease for the avoidance of metal on metal contact, an approach that tends to raise eyebrows but it's certainly doable.
> 
> I wouldn't expect anyone to try that with an alternative non-water fluid, at least not in a hurry without some serious testing, but it's another issue.
> 
> Can't see anyone using mercury though!



RheEnergise have  clearly developed a product that works to their satisfaction as a medium for small pumped hydro projects. The pipes are all enclosed and in fact they propose laying them underground.  Their motors are designed to work with the patented material.

The fluid has been  independently tested and is non toxic.


----------



## basilio

According RheEnergise they have sorted out any engineering issues with the new fluid.













						RheEnergise Investment Opportunity
					

If you want to know more about investing in RheEnergise




					www.rheenergise.com


----------



## sptrawler

basilio said:


> RheEnergise have  clearly developed a product that works to their satisfaction as a medium for small pumped hydro projects. The pipes are all enclosed and in fact they propose laying them underground.  Their motors are designed to work with the patented material.
> 
> The fluid has been  independently tested and is non toxic.




If it works, it will sell.
If it doesn't, it wont.


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> If it works, it will sell.
> If it doesn't, it wont.



So old school Mr sptrawler, if it is woke enough it will sell and be subsidized and favored enough to be successful
If it just works, ....this is not enough...


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> RheEnergise have clearly developed a product that works to their satisfaction as a medium for small pumped hydro projects. The pipes are all enclosed and in fact they propose laying them underground. Their motors are designed to work with the patented material.
> 
> The fluid has been independently tested and is non toxic.



Not aiming to shoot anyone down but as with all of this, time will tell.

It's all great that it's non-toxic but that of itself isn't a guarantee. There's a pretty long list of things that were just fine "on paper" until someone found that in practice there's a problem.

Hence my cautious approach. It might be fine but I'm reserving judgement until it's up and running and studies are done.


----------



## Knobby22

Smurf1976 said:


> Not aiming to shoot anyone down but as with all of this, time will tell.
> 
> It's all great that it's non-toxic but so were a lot of things until someone worked out that they actually do have issues when they enter the environment. There's a pretty long list of things that were just fine "on paper" until someone found that in practice there's a serious problem.
> 
> Hence my cautious approach. It might be fine but 'm reserving judgement until it's up and running and studies are done. Given the nature of it, the potential for problems is at least plausibly real.



Yes, SF6 was hugely popular for HV switching and now it's banned as it is 25000 times more potent than CO2.


----------



## sptrawler

qldfrog said:


> So old school Mr sptrawler, if it is woke enough it will sell and be subsidized and favored enough to be successful
> If it just works, ....this is not enough...



No frog, it is all getting to the pointy end, BS is getting harder to sell as the fossil fueled stations are closing.


----------



## SirRumpole

No electricity  required desalination. 

Using wave power to provide fresh water.


----------



## sptrawler

Canada to join the SMR race.








						Canada commits C$970 million to new nuclear power technology
					

Canada will provide C$970 million ($708 million) in financing to develop a grid-scale small modular reactor (SMR), a new nuclear technology touted as a key part of the country's plans to reduce emissions, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said on Tuesday.




					www.reuters.com
				









						Nuclear Power in Canada - World Nuclear Association
					

Nuclear Power in Canada  About 16% of Canada's electricity comes from nuclear power, using indigenous technology. 18 reactors provide over 12,600 MWe of clear power.  Information from the WNA the World Nuclear Association




					world-nuclear.org


----------



## sptrawler

Well I did say Chris Bowen and the boys will be in a world of pain shortly, it sounds as though it has arrived, reducing people's electricity bills by $265/year seems a world away. It sounds like the big red panic button is about to be pressed.  
The good thing is the rising power costs should reduce usage, therefore emissions.








						Energy prices to ‘hollow out’ manufacturing within two years: Chalmers
					

The federal treasurer says manufacturing will be crippled within years by soaring energy prices as he lays out justifications for market intervention.




					www.smh.com.au
				



From the article:
Australia’s manufacturing sector will be crippled by soaring energy prices within two years unless the government acts to bring down costs, Treasurer Jim Chalmers says as he prepares to announce what would be an unprecedented market intervention.

Chalmers told manufacturing and business leaders on Monday he was preparing to announce “temporary, meaningful, sensible” regulations to ease the crisis.
An international energy crunch is driving international demand, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the federal Treasury forecast that gas prices would rise a further 20 per cent next year, and electricity prices 30 per cent.

The Albanese government is under pressure to relieve the pressure of energy costs on households and industry, following its election promise to revitalise manufacturing and cut power bills by $275 by 2025.

Chalmers all but ruled out imposing new taxes on industry, which could be used to generate revenue to pay for household and business energy subsidies. Chalmers has warned such subsidies could drive inflation and on Monday said he hoped to bring in new regulations as “urgently as we can”.

He said he would consult widely before it announces “something as meaningful and potentially consequential as what we’re contemplating”.

The Albanese government has formed a working group to nut out a solution, comprising Chalmers, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Industry Minister Ed Husic.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> No frog, it is all getting to the pointy end, BS is getting harder to sell as the fossil fueled stations are closing.



Even the RBA is now starting to pop the bubble, that the price of power will reduce as we transition to renewables, people just have to accept power is going to get very expensive:

Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe has issued a blunt warning that *the renewable energy transition would probably spark higher and more volatile energy prices in the years ahead*


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> Even the RBA is now starting to pop the bubble, that the price of power will reduce as we transition to renewables, people just have to accept power is going to get very expensive:
> 
> Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe has issued a blunt warning that *the renewable energy transition would probably spark higher and more volatile energy prices in the years ahead*




For transition and price stability they really needed gas, the east coast gas market shambles has blown that all out of the water as the price of gas spirals out of control and major market players reap the befits of low taxation and lack of domestic regulation as Australia throws away the immediate benefits for future generations.

Instead we (that's all of us) pass on the benefits of government debt which has SFA to show for it.

One idea I did see recently (its not new) is all the US military nuclear reactors that are around on war ships, using them as stop gap measures or similar size reactors that are mobile devoted to power generation moveable to where they are needed. 

Doesn't solve Australia's problems as we have no chance of access to the tech unfortunately.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> For transition and price stability they really needed gas, the east coast gas market shambles has blown that all out of the water as the price of gas spirals out of control and major market players reap the befits of low taxation and lack of domestic regulation as Australia throws away the immediate benefits for future generations.
> 
> Instead we (that's all of us) pass on the benefits of government debt which has SFA to show for it.
> 
> One idea I did see recently (its not new) is all the US military nuclear reactors that are around on war ships, using them as stop gap measures or similar size reactors that are mobile devoted to power generation moveable to where they are needed.
> 
> Doesn't solve Australia's problems as we have no chance of access to the tech unfortunately.



You are spot on, it isn't going to be an easy road and I can't see how it will be achieved without the Govt getting involved.
The private sector aren't going to put in plant on the hope that it will be required, they want guaranteed dispatch and with renewables that isn't easy.


----------



## qldfrog

sptrawler said:


> Even the RBA is now starting to pop the bubble, that the price of power will reduce as we transition to renewables, people just have to accept power is going to get very expensive:
> 
> Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe has issued a blunt warning that *the renewable energy transition would probably spark higher and more volatile energy prices in the years ahead*



an interesting TED talk dealing with solar wind and coming from a deep woke green person...


----------



## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> You are spot on, it isn't going to be an easy road and I can't see how it will be achieved without the Govt getting involved.
> The private sector aren't going to put in plant on the hope that it will be required, they want guaranteed dispatch and with renewables that isn't easy.




Feeling the love SP 😂🤣🤣😂


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Feeling the love SP 😂🤣🤣😂



Anyone open minded enough to mention nuclear, IMO needs to be given credit, way too many are stuck in blind ideology.
As with any clean energy source, they all have to be considered on their merit.


----------



## Smurf1976

IFocus said:


> For transition and price stability they really needed gas, the east coast gas market shambles has blown that all out of the water as the price of gas spirals out of control and major market players reap the befits of low taxation and lack of domestic regulation as Australia throws away the immediate benefits for future generations.




As I see it, there's a vast gap between what's possible within the real technical and economic limits versus the corner the nation has backed itself into.

An epic gap.

My guess is we'll see a shift in attitudes about 8 months from now.   

Only way out of the mess in my opinion is the one that terrifies politicians. A semi-autonomous commission set up in much the same manner as Victoria and Tasmania historically set up their state-owned energy industries.

Both were intentionally set up to strangle any interference from politicians. That was a double edged sword most definitely but it's one that Sir John Monash insisted on in Victoria, he simply refused to take the job without that autonomy, and which Tasmania didn't simply copy but outdid a few years later. 

That model is absolutely a double edged sword, it's a decidedly dangerous tool, but history shows it gets things done. It brings about military precision at the technical level and sets a runaway train in motion with getting it done. That's dangerous yes but right now a runaway train of progress on this issue is something we actually need, it beats the mess we've got even though we know someone will have to reign it in at some future time when the job's done.

That's not to say there shouldn't be constraints and proper, scientific approaches to the environment and so on, there most certainly should be, but we can't afford to spend years arguing over each and every bit of triviality. To the extent there's a role for parliament, that's to give the final approval, it's not to spend a decade arguing about the design.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Anyone open minded enough to mention nuclear, IMO needs to be given credit, way too many are stuck in blind ideology.
> As with any clean energy source, they all have to be considered on their merit.



I'm yet to see anything convincing that nuclear's the best option in the Australian context, cost being the key problem, but an open mind should always be kept certainly.


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> an interesting TED talk dealing with solar wind and coming from a deep woke green person...



At the global level I agree there are difficulties.

In the Australian context I suggest driving from Sydney to Adelaide via Broken Hill. Take note of all that you see.

Now take a look at a map of Australia and note where you drove.

We're not even slightly short on land in Australia for the development of wind and solar. Not even slightly. 

As a physically large country with stuff all population and among the best wind and solar resources on the planet, this is something we ought be able to do pretty easily if we put our brains to use, stop coming up with silly excuses, and get on with it.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm yet to see anything convincing that nuclear's the best option in the Australian context, cost being the key problem, but an open mind should always be kept certainly.




Yes, the cost benefit ratio of nuclear for this country is very poor, but all technology advances so one day nuclear may be a viable alternative.

(In 30 years when we have fusion    ).


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> At the global level I agree there are difficulties.
> 
> In the Australian context I suggest driving from Sydney to Adelaide via Broken Hill. Take note of all that you see.
> 
> Now take a look at a map of Australia and note where you drove.
> 
> We're not even slightly short on land in Australia for the development of wind and solar. Not even slightly.
> 
> As a physically large country with stuff all population and among the best wind and solar resources on the planet, this is something we ought be able to do pretty easily if we put our brains to use, stop coming up with silly excuses, and get on with it.



Sure and i have solar on my roof and plan to go battery..at the house level, no issue when living on a standalone house let alone farm.
Now there is a clear push for purting people back in hutches sirry high density housing . As part of the Reset..
So solar will need to be in solar plant 
You are in the industry, how often do you build plant with a 20y at most life expectancy?that is your made on china panels at best, no real scalibility:
Aka the panels in your farm are not ge 100m x100m ones, just multiply the household style ones .so more connections..and so more maintenance and coming troubles.etc..you know what i mean as an electricity guy
I travelled that coubtry back and forth and yes we have a lot of disposable land..i am not including the greens expected protests there but not that many near the centres ..so more power lines infrastructure and losses..
And shile i have seen a lot of land , i did not see much relief and even less permanent water for "batteries"
So we end up with h2 production ...with what water? And physical transport..pipelines? Trains?  What trains?
Peole are disillusioned if they believe our empty lands and great sunshine is an easy get out of jail  card for this country.
And it is pretty clear when i look at my bill, or when AGL wrote off their green plants and my shares declined..or are people short of memory .but i know, niw it is different







SirRumpole said:


> Yes, the cost benefit ratio of nuclear for this country is very poor, but all technology advances so one day nuclear may be a viable alternative.
> 
> (In 30 years when we have fusion    ).



Actually mr Rumpole, in the last 5y, fusion has made giant steps both at gov research level US China but even private companies.
I actually wonder if we are not kind of already there technically


----------



## sptrawler

The walls keep closing in around Bowen, it is all getting to the pointy end, whether they like it or not. The legacy generators aren't going to keep plant sitting there, maintained and manned, just as a back up for a Government renewable initiative.
There will have to be some firm plans and actions very soon IMO, time to walk the walk.
It is good to see AGL accelerating the closures, let someone else be holding the parcel when the music stops, I do hold AGL.









						Australia's AGL Energy announces closure of Torrens Island 'B' power station
					

Australia's AGL Energy Ltd on Thursday disclosed plans to shut down its gas-fired Torrens Island 'B' power station in South Australia in June 2026, having closed the final unit at the 'A' power station just a few months ago.




					www.reuters.com
				



Nov 24 (Reuters) - Australia's AGL Energy Ltd (AGL.AX) on Thursday disclosed plans to shut down its gas-fired Torrens Island 'B' power station in South Australia in June 2026, having closed the final unit at the 'A' power station just a few months ago.

The country's top power producer said the decision to shut down power station 'B', which commenced operations in 1976, was made after consulting stakeholders such as the South Australian government and was done in part due to the company's transformation of Torrens site into a low-carbon energy hub.
AGL in September flagged the closure of the final 'A' station unit at the Torrens Island site and said it will begin the decommissioning process, which involves the removal of all liquids and gases from the plant.
Separately, AGL unveiled plans in September to spend up to A$20 billion ($13.46 billion) on renewable energy by 2036 and bring forward its exit from coal-fired generation by a decade.

The first of the four power-generating units at the station had been deactivated in October 2021, and AGL expects all units to be retired by June 30, 2026.

These closure plans are not expected to have a material impact on underlying profit in fiscal 2023 or over the longer term owing to the economic viability of the station, the company added.









						AGL to close South Australia power plant
					

AGL has announced plans to close a gas-fired power station in Adelaide in 2026, following extensive consultation with stakeholders.




					www.perthnow.com.au


----------



## SirRumpole

qldfrog said:


> Actually mr Rumpole, in the last 5y, fusion has made giant steps both at gov research level US China but even private companies.
> I actually wonder if we are not kind of already there technically




Yes, I posted a video on this previously.

Fingers crossed it's in my lifetime.


----------



## sptrawler

Well,well, AGL to get $20m to keep the gas plant available until 2026.
As I said a while back, the problem isn't going to be shutting down power stations, it will probably end up being trying to keep them operating. 









						SA consumers to pay $20m to delay AGL power unit closure
					

SA’s Energy Minister doesn’t blame AGL for a decision to fully mothball a power plant in 2026, saying it was “killed” by an interconnector.




					www.afr.com
				



South Australian households and businesses will foot a $20 million bill to prevent AGL Energy from closing part of a gas power station in Adelaide next year, and instead run it for another three years to stave off electricity shortages.

The side deal emerged after AGL advised it would close the remaining three units of its ageing Torrens Island B gas power station in 2026, citing the construction of a new interconnector cable between SA and New South Wales that is set to plunge the generator into deeper losses.

After mothballing the first of four units at the 800-megawatt Torrens Island B plant in October last year, AGL intended to mothball another known as “B2” in 2023 but has instead agreed to carry out a $20 million maintenance program to keep it going to bolster grid reliability during peak demand periods and ward off electricity shortfalls in the state on extremely hot days.

The bill for the work will be paid by all household and business consumers which SA’s sole electricity distributor, SA Power Networks, supplies. It follows lengthy discussions with the Australian Energy Market Operator and the South Australian government. It will be passed through to those customers via an annual $2.70 fee for each of the next three years under a compulsory regulatory mechanism.

The closure decision announced by AGL on Thursday highlights the vulnerability of traditional generation in the rapidly changing energy market, where ageing coal and gas plants are coming under increasing financial pressure due to the rise of cheap renewable energy. The Torrens Island B plant was built in 1976.

Before the advised closure of the first unit, the Australian Energy Market Operator had assumed the four units would continue to operate until 2035. But the plant uses outdated technology that does not allow it to be ramped up and down to match swings in demand due to the rise of wind and solar power, meaning it can get caught out when wholesale prices dive into negative territory during the day.

The timing of the closure of the remaining three units has been driven by the schedule for starting up the $2.3 billion interconnector, Project EnergyConnect, which is being built between NSW and South Australia and is due to come online in mid-2026.

The interconnector is expected to unlock more than $20 billion in new renewable projects in both states and provide system security to the South Australia grid to ensure it is not “islanded” from the National Electricity Market when its interconnection with Victoria is broken.

That “will further impact gas-fired generation in South Australia and as a result the economic viability of the power station,” AGL said.

“We are losing money with this power station in the current environment,” AGL chief operating officer Markus Brokhof told reporters at the site on Thursday.


Asked to quantify the losses of Torrens Island B he could not be specific, but said it was “millions”.

About 120 people work at the generator and Mr Brokhof said it was a difficult day.


----------



## Smurf1976

qldfrog said:


> Peole are disillusioned if they believe our empty lands and great sunshine is an easy get out of jail card for this country.
> And it is pretty clear when i look at my bill, or when AGL wrote off their green plants and my shares declined..or are people short of memory .but i know, niw it is different



AGL is also losing money with gas.

Therein lies the real problem and it's not about technology but rather, it's about the industry structure.

Nobody's getting too excited about nuclear because quite simply nobody with the money to do so actually wants to build one, at least not that they've made public, and the reasons for that are much the same reasons why nobody apart from government has much interest in pumped hydro and it's the same reasons why AGL is closing Torrens Island.

In any power system, if it's to be technically robust, there will be components which are individually unprofitable on a standalone basis. Bearing in mind that which parts those are, which bits are unprofitable, will itself change over time.

Go back 40 years and Torrens Island was generating 70% of all electricity in SA with an operating capacity of 1280 MW from 8 generating units. 4 x 120MW and 4 x 200MW. The overall success of SA was extremely heavily dependent on this power station which is itself somewhat of a landmark, the two stacks being visible across much of Adelaide.

Past 12 months it contributed 7.1% to SA's electricity supply with an operating capacity of 600MW, that being 3 x 200MW which on average was just under 20% utilised.

This gets to the heart of the problem.

From a technical perspective, to maintain a reliable power system, there's an extremely strong argument to retain Torrens Island in service at least partially and that's not due to averages but due to the extremes. 5.2% of total output occurred over just 6 days during the past year and 28% occurred over two months. On those days it was indeed critical. Another way to put it is that average utilisation and revenue has dropped dramatically but the peak requirement still substantially remains. A classic example of an asset that's moved into the unprofitable stage of its life - now nobody wants to foot the bills.

SA already has a somewhat inadequate generating fleet, hence the various incidents which have occurred, and the new 800 MW interconnection with NSW goes a long way to fixing that. Trouble is, AGL is "fixing" the outcome of that new 800MW interconnection by closing 800MW of generation in SA. Or in other words, completely offsetting it.

Now from AGL's commercial perspective that's a completely rational decision. Their responsibility is to shareholders, not the public of SA, and they're acting on that basis.

It does get to the crux of the problem though and there's plenty of examples now. 

A monopoly utility, regardless of who owns it be that listed, private or government, can and generally will do what's necessary to maintain technical integrity. They'll have adequate plant and just spread the cost across the customer base. Plenty of examples of that in the past, old plant retained "on standby" and it ended up running 2 or 3% of the time.

In a competitive market however that doesn't work. No company wants to own the unprofitable bits and once they become unprofitable, that tends to be game over. Hence we see closures immediately followed by demolition - and AGL has already announced that demolition will indeed quickly follow closure at Torrens Island.

End result is the present market structure will always produce a barely adequate system that's prone to failure. It doesn't matter what technology is used, it leads to the same outcome due to the industry's present structure. When it's all owned by different entities, and nobody's obligated to ensure adequate supply, the result is nobody wants to own the technically needed but financially unprofitable bits. That applies regardless of whether it's coal, gas, nuclear, oil, wind, solar, hydro or whatever.

If we want a reliable system based on renewables then it can be done. There are plenty of people capable of designing and building it. We've got plenty of land and, in the eastern states, plenty of good sites for hydro storage.

Same with fossil fuels. It can be designed and built sure.

Same with nuclear. 

As a case specific to AGL, well they could replace this weir with a large (~50m high) dam:









						Pretty Valley Pondage · Falls Creek VIC 3699, Australia
					

Lake




					www.google.com.au
				




By doing that they'd have 2.5 years' worth of water stored, rather than the 0.3 years' the store at present, and that then enables the existing McKay, Bogong, Clover and West Kiewa power stations to be repurposed for the specific role of firming wind and solar during periods of low yield. It also permits the addition of a fifth power station to the scheme.

That they haven't done it is because:

1. Financially not attractive. Their job is to make money, it's not their job to ensure the lights stay on.

2. Building dams is outside AGL's core expertise and business.

3. Fair chance they'd end up with protestors marching down the street against it and trashing the company's reputation among an uninformed public.

And so we end up with a minimally adequate system, prone to failure. We've ended up in that situation not because of renewables, it's been done with coal and gas, and we'd end up in the same with nuclear as well for the same reasons. All technologies fail when only a bare bones approach is taken to their implementation.

So long as the "fix" for someone adding more capacity, enough to make supply robust, is to then close an equal amount of capacity then we're stuck with the problem. And to be fair to the companies, so long as they're all competing for short term dispatch, literally every 5 minutes, then they're going to take that cost minimisation approach. 

It's not a coincidence that the UK, upon which our market design is heavily based, is also in a mess. Not a coincidence at all - do the same thing, get the same results.


----------



## Smurf1976

Generation from Torrens Island power station, past 12 months on a daily basis:







Past 7 days in detail:


----------



## Smurf1976

Putting some figures around this to illustrate the point and using SA as the example:

Peak demand in round figures = 3400 MW

Average demand = 1500 MW

Now if the aim is reliable supply then you won't find an engineer who comes up with anything less than about 4100 MW as being the required capacity. That allows 3400 MW to be run plus the other 700 MW to cover breakdowns etc. Even that's pushing it - most would feel more comfortable with somewhere around 4300 MW installed.

How a single utility would do that is straightforward. Build modern, efficient plant up to the point that meets routine requirements. Keep serviceable but technologically obsolete "old clunkers" on standby for use when demand spikes or breakdowns occur.

Hence if we look at it historically well that is indeed what was done. Modern plant built to suit routine requirements, old clunkers in reserve to fill the gaps when needed. And they did get used, plenty of examples where that occurred.

With a competitive market however all that changes. Nobody's going to keep plant sitting around unprofitably just to ensure society continues to function. They're not going to pay staff, keep it maintained and so on when they could instead knock it down and sell the land. That's not the role of any company operating in the market so they don't do it.

So these days we're basically running without a backup. There's no emergency brakes, there's no insurance, if it goes wrong then out go the lights. That's nothing to do with wind and solar versus coal and gas or nuclear. It's simply a consequence of nobody being obligated to foot the bill for a technically robust system. 

Nobody's forced AGL to shut Torrens Island B, indeed the SA government has paid them to delay it. Just as nobody forced Energy Australia to shut Wallerawang C. Nobody forced Alinta to shut Northern. And so on. The companies made the decision of their own accord simply because they can still generate most of the energy whilst having less capacity at remaining facilities. Trouble is, from a technical perspective that's guaranteed to put the lights out at some point.


----------



## qldfrog

Smurf1976 said:


> Putting some figures around this to illustrate the point and using SA as the example:
> 
> Peak demand in round figures = 3400 MW
> 
> Average demand = 1500 MW
> 
> Now if the aim is reliable supply then you won't find an engineer who comes up with anything less than about 4100 MW as being the required capacity. That allows 3400 MW to be run plus the other 700 MW to cover breakdowns etc. Even that's pushing it - most would feel more comfortable with somewhere around 4300 MW installed.
> 
> How a single utility would do that is straightforward. Build modern, efficient plant up to the point that meets routine requirements. Keep serviceable but technologically obsolete "old clunkers" on standby for use when demand spikes or breakdowns occur.
> 
> Hence if we look at it historically well that is indeed what was done. Modern plant built to suit routine requirements, old clunkers in reserve to fill the gaps when needed. And they did get used, plenty of examples where that occurred.
> 
> With a competitive market however all that changes. Nobody's going to keep plant sitting around unprofitably just to ensure society continues to function. They're not going to pay staff, keep it maintained and so on when they could instead knock it down and sell the land. That's not the role of any company operating in the market so they don't do it.
> 
> So these days we're basically running without a backup. There's no emergency brakes, there's no insurance, if it goes wrong then out go the lights. That's nothing to do with wind and solar versus coal and gas or nuclear. It's simply a consequence of nobody being obligated to foot the bill for a technically robust system.
> 
> Nobody's forced AGL to shut Torrens Island B, indeed the SA government has paid them to delay it. Just as nobody forced Energy Australia to shut Wallerawang C. Nobody forced Alinta to shut Northern. And so on. The companies made the decision of their own accord simply because they can still generate most of the energy whilst having less capacity at remaining facilities. Trouble is, from a technical perspective that's guaranteed to put the lights out at some point.



Not forced to but AGL more than any other has been recently pushed a bit that way theu the new directors or at least.they may even be given an excuse that way.
Absolutely no one can blame them now if the lights go out.
Big corporates can also sacrifice a bit of profit to be seen doing the right thing..and avoid being slapped with more regulation or taxes, fees.
Here, we ensure the right thing is closing our backups and rising the bills.they are smilling to the banks.
Ps.not a fan of nuclear either in a country of our technical level.
Most of nuclear work is done by engineers from the older gen,who are not here anyway so it would be calling for a disaster to have that industry here manned by new graduates.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> AGL is also losing money with gas.
> 
> Therein lies the real problem and it's not about technology but rather, it's about the industry structure.
> 
> Nobody's getting too excited about nuclear because quite simply nobody with the money to do so actually wants to build one, at least not that they've made public, and the reasons for that are much the same reasons why nobody apart from government has much interest in pumped hydro and it's the same reasons why AGL is closing Torrens Island.
> 
> In any power system, if it's to be technically robust, there will be components which are individually unprofitable on a standalone basis. Bearing in mind that which parts those are, which bits are unprofitable, will itself change over time.
> 
> Go back 40 years and Torrens Island was generating 70% of all electricity in SA with an operating capacity of 1280 MW from 8 generating units. 4 x 120MW and 4 x 200MW. The overall success of SA was extremely heavily dependent on this power station which is itself somewhat of a landmark, the two stacks being visible across much of Adelaide.
> 
> Past 12 months it contributed 7.1% to SA's electricity supply with an operating capacity of 600MW, that being 3 x 200MW which on average was just under 20% utilised.
> 
> This gets to the heart of the problem.
> 
> From a technical perspective, to maintain a reliable power system, there's an extremely strong argument to retain Torrens Island in service at least partially and that's not due to averages but due to the extremes. 5.2% of total output occurred over just 6 days during the past year and 28% occurred over two months. On those days it was indeed critical. Another way to put it is that average utilisation and revenue has dropped dramatically but the peak requirement still substantially remains. A classic example of an asset that's moved into the unprofitable stage of its life - now nobody wants to foot the bills.
> 
> SA already has a somewhat inadequate generating fleet, hence the various incidents which have occurred, and the new 800 MW interconnection with NSW goes a long way to fixing that. Trouble is, AGL is "fixing" the outcome of that new 800MW interconnection by closing 800MW of generation in SA. Or in other words, completely offsetting it.
> 
> Now from AGL's commercial perspective that's a completely rational decision. Their responsibility is to shareholders, not the public of SA, and they're acting on that basis.
> 
> It does get to the crux of the problem though and there's plenty of examples now.
> 
> A monopoly utility, regardless of who owns it be that listed, private or government, can and generally will do what's necessary to maintain technical integrity. They'll have adequate plant and just spread the cost across the customer base. Plenty of examples of that in the past, old plant retained "on standby" and it ended up running 2 or 3% of the time.
> 
> In a competitive market however that doesn't work. No company wants to own the unprofitable bits and once they become unprofitable, that tends to be game over. Hence we see closures immediately followed by demolition - and AGL has already announced that demolition will indeed quickly follow closure at Torrens Island.
> 
> End result is the present market structure will always produce a barely adequate system that's prone to failure. It doesn't matter what technology is used, it leads to the same outcome due to the industry's present structure. When it's all owned by different entities, and nobody's obligated to ensure adequate supply, the result is nobody wants to own the technically needed but financially unprofitable bits. That applies regardless of whether it's coal, gas, nuclear, oil, wind, solar, hydro or whatever.
> 
> If we want a reliable system based on renewables then it can be done. There are plenty of people capable of designing and building it. We've got plenty of land and, in the eastern states, plenty of good sites for hydro storage.
> 
> Same with fossil fuels. It can be designed and built sure.
> 
> Same with nuclear.
> 
> As a case specific to AGL, well they could replace this weir with a large (~50m high) dam:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Pretty Valley Pondage · Falls Creek VIC 3699, Australia
> 
> 
> Lake
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.google.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> By doing that they'd have 2.5 years' worth of water stored, rather than the 0.3 years' the store at present, and that then enables the existing McKay, Bogong, Clover and West Kiewa power stations to be repurposed for the specific role of firming wind and solar during periods of low yield. It also permits the addition of a fifth power station to the scheme.
> 
> That they haven't done it is because:
> 
> 1. Financially not attractive. Their job is to make money, it's not their job to ensure the lights stay on.
> 
> 2. Building dams is outside AGL's core expertise and business.
> 
> 3. Fair chance they'd end up with protestors marching down the street against it and trashing the company's reputation among an uninformed public.
> 
> And so we end up with a minimally adequate system, prone to failure. We've ended up in that situation not because of renewables, it's been done with coal and gas, and we'd end up in the same with nuclear as well for the same reasons. All technologies fail when only a bare bones approach is taken to their implementation.
> 
> So long as the "fix" for someone adding more capacity, enough to make supply robust, is to then close an equal amount of capacity then we're stuck with the problem. And to be fair to the companies, so long as they're all competing for short term dispatch, literally every 5 minutes, then they're going to take that cost minimisation approach.
> 
> It's not a coincidence that the UK, upon which our market design is heavily based, is also in a mess. Not a coincidence at all - do the same thing, get the same results.




What some of us have been saying for a while, governments have to get back into the electricity system, the market has failed.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Putting some figures around this to illustrate the point and using SA as the example:
> 
> Peak demand in round figures = 3400 MW
> 
> Average demand = 1500 MW
> 
> Now if the aim is reliable supply then you won't find an engineer who comes up with anything less than about 4100 MW as being the required capacity. That allows 3400 MW to be run plus the other 700 MW to cover breakdowns etc. Even that's pushing it - most would feel more comfortable with somewhere around 4300 MW installed.
> 
> How a single utility would do that is straightforward. Build modern, efficient plant up to the point that meets routine requirements. Keep serviceable but technologically obsolete "old clunkers" on standby for use when demand spikes or breakdowns occur.
> 
> Hence if we look at it historically well that is indeed what was done. Modern plant built to suit routine requirements, old clunkers in reserve to fill the gaps when needed. And they did get used, plenty of examples where that occurred.
> 
> With a competitive market however all that changes. Nobody's going to keep plant sitting around unprofitably just to ensure society continues to function. They're not going to pay staff, keep it maintained and so on when they could instead knock it down and sell the land. That's not the role of any company operating in the market so they don't do it.
> 
> So these days we're basically running without a backup. There's no emergency brakes, there's no insurance, if it goes wrong then out go the lights. That's nothing to do with wind and solar versus coal and gas or nuclear. It's simply a consequence of nobody being obligated to foot the bill for a technically robust system.
> 
> Nobody's forced AGL to shut Torrens Island B, indeed the SA government has paid them to delay it. Just as nobody forced Energy Australia to shut Wallerawang C. Nobody forced Alinta to shut Northern. And so on. The companies made the decision of their own accord simply because they can still generate most of the energy whilst having less capacity at remaining facilities. Trouble is, from a technical perspective that's guaranteed to put the lights out at some point.



You nailed it smurf, that is exactly how a well managed system works, in a nutshell.
The problem we have now though is, your example works on the premise that the 700MW of reserve capacity is available on the press of a button and is available for as long as you need it.
The new paradigm wont that luxury, the reserve generating capacity is dependent on an unreliable generation source and there will be a limited amount of time the backup storage can last.
A snap shot of how scary that can be was shown when the Bass Link failed and Tasmania was caught with depleted water storage for their hydro, flying in diesel gensets wont be an option on the mainland the load is too big for that option.
Talk about walking into the unknown, lucky we have politicians to allay our fears and guide us through this period. 🤣


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> A snap shot of how scary that can be was shown when the Bass Link failed and Tasmania was caught with depleted water storage for their hydro



That one was itself absolutely a consequence of the market.

It wasn't the engineering which failed in terms of hydro storages. it was economics and free markets which stuffed the whole thing up.

Suffice to say I know the details extremely well. Had a strict engineering approach been taken, the cable failure probably wouldn't have occurred and even if it did, water levels would've been adequate.

We now see the same far more broadly. That's how we get the Snowy headwater storages 55% full after years of heavy rain and flooding downstream. Bearing mind that Snowy and HT are arguably the two most conservative operators of the lot but still not fully immune.

That's how we get to late November with the Newcastle gas storage literally empty at zero.

And so on.

Fundamentally though all of that's a failing of and an argument against short term market approaches to the whole thing. It's not a failing of technology that someone decided to not put gas in the tank, to not buy enough coal or to let more water out. That's a failing of humans chasing short term $ whilst ignoring the physical consequences of doing so. 

The one bit that does relate to technology is that it's easier to fix a stuff up with fossil fuels than to fix a stuff up with hydro and renewables in general. You can buy more coal if you've messed up badly and six months later the crisis is over. You can't buy wind or rain however.


----------



## JohnDe

I'm still waiting for this -


----------



## sptrawler

JohnDe said:


> I'm still waiting for this -
> 
> View attachment 149744



Who knows what the future holds, 150 years ago, they wouldn't have even dreamt of what we have available to us today.
Generally speaking humans technical development is only limited by our imagination. 
At present nuclear acceptance and development is being limited by preconceived and outdated ideology, but fear not technology moves on, despite the pessimists and flat earth crew. 

April 22, 2021








						Micro-nuclear reactors: up to 20MW, portable, safer - Energy Post
					

Scientists are working on micro-nuclear reactors that are so small they can fit on the back of a truck or a standard 40-foot shipping container, explains Christina Nunez writing for the Argonne National Laboratory. Deliberately small, generating up to 20MW, they could provide zero-carbon power...




					energypost.eu
				




From the article:
_Deliberately small, _*generating up to 20MW*_, they could _*provide zero-carbon power in remote settings or supplement electrical power grid recovery*_. Another idea would be to locate them on _*remote highways for re-charging long distance electric trucks*_. Passive cooling with heat pipes makes them safer as well as more compact. Improved neutron “moderation” enables the use of _*low-enriched uranium fuel, which is difficult to weaponise should they fall into the wrong hands*_._


----------



## sptrawler

@SirRumpole as I said years ago, the Feds dont own the system and cant tell the States what to do. It is going to be really interesting over the next 5 years.








						‘Hands off our generators’: States clash over federal power plan
					

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has taken a swipe at the federal government’s plan to ease power prices, indicating states may need compensation.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## mullokintyre

@wayneL  , it seems that your state owned energy authority may have been a little naughty.


> State-owned West Australian power provider Synergy has been handed a stinging rebuke by the independent energy umpire, which found the utility unlawfully gouged customers tens of millions of dollars.
> 
> Key points:​
> Synergy was found to have artificially inflated its prices more than 11,000 times
> This resulted in overall extra costs to consumers of up to $192 million
> The retailer's market dominance allowed it to get away with the overcharging
> 
> In a decision described as "extraordinary" by a leading energy observer, the Electricity Review Board upheld allegations by WA's economic watchdog that Synergy used market power to artificially inflate its prices more than 11,000 times between 2016 and 2017.
> 
> The Economic Regulation Authority (ERA) claimed Synergy's actions wrongfully swelled the utility's revenues between $40 million and $102 million during the period.
> 
> It also claimed they allowed all other generators that provided electricity during those times to benefit as well, leading to overall extra costs to consumers of up to $192 million.
> 
> At the heart of the ERA's investigation was Synergy's use of gas contracts to set prices in the spot, or wholesale, electricity market in WA.
> 
> Under market rules, generators are required to offer their production at what's known as the short run marginal cost, which is supposed to encourage the lowest-cost bids.
> 
> The ERA alleged Synergy made thousands of artificially high bids using gas prices set in a long-term contract with the giant Gorgon project rather than the cheaper gas available at the time on the spot market.
> Furthermore, the ERA claimed Synergy's dominance of the wholesale market, in which it provides about half of the generating capacity, allowed the company to get away with the overcharging.
> ​
> Publishing its decision, the review board broadly supported the ERA's arguments, finding Synergy had acted unreasonably and without regard for the effects of its behaviour on consumers.
> 
> "The board is satisfied the conduct in question was 'profitable' because it likely had the effect of increasing the price at which sales were made, without increasing costs or significantly decreasing the amount of electricity sold," the ERB wrote in its decision.
> 
> "The respondent persisted in the conduct for a substantial period.
> "The board is also satisfied that the respondent's conduct 'related to' market power because it inflated the input costs...without consideration of the impact of those changes on its profitability or the market and for a substantial period of time."



Perhaps those who want to push for a return to state owned  energy generation and supply might remember the old saying, follow the money.
Mick


----------



## IFocus

mullokintyre said:


> @wayneL  , it seems that your state owned energy authority may have been a little naughty.
> 
> Perhaps those who want to push for a return to state owned  energy generation and supply might remember the old saying, follow the money.
> Mick




Ahh that was a Liberal Government.... 😂 

All jokes aside selling critical infrastructure was a total cluster.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> @SirRumpole as I said years ago, the Feds dont own the system and cant tell the States what to do. It is going to be really interesting over the next 5 years.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ‘Hands off our generators’: States clash over federal power plan
> 
> 
> Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has taken a swipe at the federal government’s plan to ease power prices, indicating states may need compensation.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au




Yes, the States own the coal and gas but the Feds control export out of the country.

As I said before, an export tax on coal and gas linked to the prices that local consumers pay. Higher local prices , higher export taxes.

Benefits :-  

* more revenue to the Feds to pay for the budget deficit, 
* no need to negotiate with the States, 
* provides an incentive to gas and coal companies to reduce local prices, 
* is damned hard to avoid an export tax compared to profits tax.

Why they are stuffing around on this I don't know. 

Andrew Probyn pointed out that Origin Energy told its shareholders that break even point for gas exports is $3.50 a gigajoule, and what are the charging consumers ? $35 per gJ . They are just profiteering.









						Wholesale gas prices to be capped under government plan to intervene in market
					

Anthony Albanese and his cabinet are set to endorse a multi-pronged strategy to curb sky-high power prices, as pressure mounts on the government to urgently intervene in the market.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## wayneL

mullokintyre said:


> @wayneL  , it seems that your state owned energy authority may have been a little naughty.
> 
> Perhaps those who want to push for a return to state owned  energy generation and supply might remember the old saying, follow the money.
> Mick



It's basically the same group of people whether public or private infrastructure. We are going to get screwed either way.

Yes indeed, follow the money.

Working towards being *completely* off grid.... As much as possible anyway.


----------



## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Ahh that was a Liberal Government.... 😂
> 
> All jokes aside selling critical infrastructure was a total cluster.



W.A didnt.
Yes the selling off of the eastern seaboard electrical infrastructure was a huge mistake.
Much like getting rid of tariffs and sending our manufacturing to China, ahh thats down to Labor.
Neither side of politics can hold the moral high ground IMO.
Its certainly time to focus on Australias long term future, rather than the next election cycle.
This Labor Govt might be the new dawn, it certainly has been a long time coming.


----------



## Smurf1976

wayneL said:


> It's basically the same group of people whether public or private infrastructure. We are going to get screwed either way.



I could make a very long and detailed argument for radically reforming the industry's structure and market operation.

Structure and operation as distinct from ownership as that's less important beyond saying it's far too fragmented at present.

Fragmented?

We'll I'll put it this way.

AGL is the largest player in generation.

AGL's market cap is less than the cost of building one major pumped hydro scheme eg Snowy 2.0 and it's just 15% of the budget for the United Arab Emirates nuclear plant, of which there's only one, they've just about finished building. So no, AGL isn't large and nor are any of the others. What we've got is a lot of companies none of which can achieve efficient scale of economy. Solution = mergers and consolidation in a big way.

Now I'm sure the competition advocates will have the knives out with that suggestion but my response there is really quite simple.

AGL charges more for gas in Sydney in a competitive market than the same AGL charged the same customers in the same location as a monopoly. That's not the only such example. The notion that competition lowers prices is true only if the means of achieving that competition doesn't add more costs than the competition itself can remove. 

Regardless of the generation technology, be it fossil fuel, nuclear or renewable, there are very real hindrances with the present market design. Hindrances both in terms of building and owning it, we lack companies that can take on $10 billion+ projects easily, and hindrances in terms of operation.

That latter point's getting into technical detail but if we want to build nuclear, renewables or even run coal efficiently then we need certainty of dispatch outcomes and the present market just doesn't do that. There's a lot of the problem.


----------



## Smurf1976

Following is something I wrote for a different purpose but I'll post it here as it has some relevance. Context is nuclear power and comparing the United Arab Emirates, which is nearing completion of its first nuclear power station, with Australia.

Comparing the UAE to Australia there's a few lessons as to how they're making it work. Much of this will sound familiar, since it's basically the same way we made coal work in Australia in the past and likewise applies to most forms of electricity generation. That we're not doing it now is the ultimate cause of much of our difficulties.

UAE per capita electricity consumption is higher than most Australian states. Annual MWh per capita comparing the UAE with the NEM:

UAE = 14.9

Tasmania = 21.0
Queensland = 11.6
NT (Darwin-Katherine System) = 11.2
NSW = 9.0
WA (SWIS) = 8.2
SA = 8.0
Victoria = 7.2

Iceland = 50.4
Norway = 20.4
Kuwait = 19.3
Bahrain = 17.3
Qatar = 15.2
Finland = 14.9
Canada = 13.9
Sweden = 13.1
USA = 11.7

UAE has an imperfect but reasonable system load factor of about 60%. In the Australian context Queensland and Tasmania exceed this, WA is comparable to UAE, the other NEM states are lower (and very substantially so in the case of SA especially).

The UAE is building a single great big nuclear power station. 5.4GW at one site and with 100% certainty of day to day dispatch. That's exactly why it's possible economically. The NEM fundamentally lacks both of these attributes and that there is much of the trouble.
Next is the financing. UAE has an industry structure able to take on an AUD 36 billion project and get it done.

In contrast in Australia we pretend that AGL, Origin etc are "large" when in truth it's the opposite. The entire market capitalisation of both those companies combined is just over half the cost of UAE's one nuclear power station. There's no way either would contemplate taking something like that on, and the other companies are even less able to.

Let that point sink in as it's a crucial one. The NEM just isn't big enough for so many companies to be involved, that aspect alone is killing the economics. We've got too many bit players and not a single company that could take on a large project of that scale. Indeed other than Snowy Hydro itself, which is of course backed by the federal government, there's no company that could take on a project the size of Snowy 2.0 either.

That's why we're not building, or even considering, this stuff. When you're limited to small things well then gas turbines and batteries it is so that's what we're doing. No surprises there. We couldn't build Loy Yang or Eraring today either for the same reason.

Then there's the bit that UAE isn't taking an "all or nothing approach".

Yes they're building a major nuclear power station.

UAE is also developing solar and, even though it's still only a few % of their electricity supply, already have their first pumped hydro scheme (250MW) under construction. That's a planned and orderly approach – they're getting on with the hard bits rather than leaving them in the "too hard basket" and they're doing it all at once with nuclear, solar, hydro all happening. They're not taking the approach of doing one thing, waiting for it to become a problem, then thinking they'd better do the next bit. Rather, it's all at once.

Then there's gas.

UAE does have quite a bit of gas indeed based on OPEC data they've got about 92% more than Australia so almost double.

UAE is however running a gas production rate 57% lower than Australia's (2020 data) and prior to the nuclear plant was in fact a net importer of gas from Qatar.

Now that's not because UAE is technically incompetent and can't get gas out of the ground. Rather, it's because they're not foolish enough to try and deplete the entire reserve base over the next 22 years as Australia's doing. Rather, they're seeing it as valuable petrochemical feedstock for the long term that's best not to be burning in power stations.

And finally, economic diversification.

UAE, like Australia, has an economy built upon resource wealth but that's where the similarities end.

UAE has pursued downstream refining of resources and it's pursued alternative industries in tourism, finance and so on. Ending up with two major airlines, Emirates and Etihad, flying internationally and bringing tourists for a stopover in your own country is the ultimate in leveraging your own cheap fuel now isn't it?

We could learn quite a lot from their approach and if we did, well then nuclear would be a much more serious option for Australia as would 100% renewables. Both are actively thwarted by our market design, industry structure, ideological blinkers and chronic short-termism.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> In contrast in Australia we pretend that AGL, Origin etc are "large" when in truth it's the opposite. The entire market capitalisation of both those companies combined is just over half the cost of UAE's one nuclear power station. There's no way either would contemplate taking something like that on, and the other companies are even less able to.




From that, is seems like we should throw out the illusion of competition in our market and go back to either a government controlled monopoly or a heavily regulated commercial monopoly that has the required resources and the capacity to think in the long term ?

Is it worth pointing out that the UAE State owns its oil and gas reserves and has complete control over their production ?

Any lessons there ?


----------



## sptrawler

The plot thickens with regard the Origin takeover.








						Origin Energy to be split in half and invest in renewables under new $18.4bn takeover bid
					

The energy giant would be divided into electricity generation and gas firms in order to hit Australia’s climate targets




					www.theguardian.com
				




Origin’s US suitor warns Canberra over gas intervention​Long-term contracts cannot be broken by the federal government if it intervenes in the domestic gas market, says MidOcean.


----------



## mullokintyre

sptrawler said:


> The plot thickens with regard the Origin takeover.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Origin Energy to be split in half and invest in renewables under new $18.4bn takeover bid
> 
> 
> The energy giant would be divided into electricity generation and gas firms in order to hit Australia’s climate targets
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theguardian.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Origin’s US suitor warns Canberra over gas intervention​Long-term contracts cannot be broken by the federal government if it intervenes in the domestic gas market, says MidOcean.



There is absolutely no reason why the Feds  cannot achieve the same aims  by increasing gas royalties to the point that it becomes unviable.
Mick


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> From that, is seems like we should throw out the illusion of competition in our market and go back to either a government controlled monopoly or a heavily regulated commercial monopoly that has the required resources and the capacity to think in the long term ?



Putting some detail around the "why" aspect of that, there's three basic issues with the present market relating to the competition aspect which explain why it's not leading to the lower prices economists would argue it ought to.

1. Generation dispatch outcomes.

In layman's terms that's which power stations are running at any given time bearing in mind that, unless demand is at maximum, they won't all be needed. Eg demand in Victoria peaks at about 10.4GW but right now it's just 4.4GW so there's simply no need to run all the generation.

Some forms of generation are virtually free to operate once built and are "use it or lose it". Eg solar.

Some are almost free to operate but are volume limited over time. Eg hydro. There's only so much water entering the system, total production over time is constrained.

Some are not free but they're medium price to operate. Eg coal or the more efficient gas plants.

Some are massively expensive to operate, eg diesel and the less efficient gas plants.

Now from that it ought be obvious that the different forms of generation aren't really competing. It's never rational to run the diesel in preference to anything else that's sitting there unused but able to run. It's never rational to run anything in preference to using the solar.

When to run the hydro depends how much water's available but as a concept the idea is to run it instead of diesel first, then gas, then coal. You don't sensibly run it instead of the solar, drain the lake, then end up burning diesel since that would be silly.

So the different forms of generation aren't competing in any rational world but the NEM design insists that they do in fact compete and provides no option to do otherwise. End result is we do in fact end up with diesel being run and coal turned down. We do in fact end up turning solar off and burning gas. And so on. Serious $ wasted there, that's the first major flaw in the market.

2. Second major flaw is that retail costs far more than it really ought to.

Fundamentally it's reading meters, sending out bills and making sure they're paid. That's what a consumer needs a retailer to do.

However.....

Since we have a highly volatile market with pricing set every 5 minutes, whereas consumers prefer prices that are more stable, retailers hedge their market exposure via assorted hedging contracts.

So we have big $ spent on hedging contracts to hedge against the risk of price moving. Bearing in mind that the price movement is, of course, simply a product of what the traders do, it's not some fundamental thing driven by crop harvests or something as is the case with agriculture.

So we have manufactured volatility and a hefty price charged to hedge against that volatility. It's the equivalent of insurers going around smashing windows just to make sure you buy their rather expensive insurance.

Now add in that every retailer has a management, overheads and so on plus the big one, they need billing systems which comply with all the rules, they need procedures to facilitate efficient transfer of customers between retailers and so on. End result is a substantial portion of the customer's bill has nothing at all to do with any physical aspect of generating, transmitting or distributing electricity, being simply the cost to administer the whole thing and send the bills out.

Now that cost is, in % terms, higher than the total administrative budget of one of the state electricity authorities in 1962. Yes I've checked the figures. So back in the days of having to manually type out each invoice, having physical shopfronts taking cash payments and so on it was actually cheaper.

Competition can lower prices yes, but not when the means of having that competition is itself costing a fortune.

3. Scale of economy in generation.

Electricity generation is a somewhat extreme example of scale of economy, driven by the reality that operating a machine 10 times the size doesn't need 10 times as many people or even remotely close to it.

Go back 70 years and the largest steam turbines were 50MW. By about 1967 there were 500MW machines going into service. Today GE has a standard "off the shelf" 1900MW design available to be manufactured for anyone who wants to buy one.

So if we look at the nuclear plants being built overseas, practically all use units 1000MW or above for that reason, scale of economy. In the UK they're up around 1600MW. That's per machine not for the entire power station.

Same in the UAE. 4 x 1400MW at a single site. Done because that gets the cost down per unit of production.

It's fundamentally cheaper to have a few large power stations than to have lots of little ones. Hence (for examples) why WA ended up with most generation focused at Muja and Kwinana, why SA did it with Port Augusta and Torrens Island and why Victoria got the vast majority of supply from the Yallourn, Hazelwood (now gone) and Loy Yang complexes.

Large scale is the means of getting the cost down. Hence Victoria went from 50MW machines at Yallourn D, to 120MW in the next station Yallourn E, to 200MW at Hazelwood, to 350MW at Yallourn W to 500MW at Loy Yang. All about lowering costs.

For hydro natural topography does limit the scale of any individual station but the same basic concept applies, scale wins. Hence if we look at Tasmania as an example, the approach was unavoidably to build a large number of individually small power stations but they were very intentionally built in groups all at once. Eg the 7 Mersey-Forth stations were all built as a single project, they weren't built one at a time. Same with the others, they were grouped and done together so far as practical in order to economise on construction costs. There's still that benefit of scale to an extent.

Same with Snowy 2.0, it's far cheaper to store 350GWh at one site than to build 175 little 2GWh sites. The latter is technically viable sure, it's just a lot more expensive to have 175 tunnels, 175 power stations, 175 access roads and so on versus one big tunnel, one big power station, etc.

One consequence of that, of course, is it limits the number of owners. If you're only going to have a small number of individually large facilities then you simply can't have more than a few owners, and the owners you do have need to be financially and physically capable of taking on such huge projects.

The idea that we ought have a vast number of individually small companies competing against each other is totally at odds with that fundamental aspect of scale of economy. Add that to the issues with dispatch and retail and the result is prices going up not down despite competition, in theory, driving innovation and so on.

Where competition would work is with competition to decide what gets built in the first place, who builds and who owns. Have competing projects tendering, competing companies offering to own them at whatever cost of finance, and so on. In that case the economic fundamentals of competition aren't being undone by introduced technical inefficiencies.


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> 2. Second major flaw is that retail costs far more than it really ought to.




Is it possible to have automatic metering where the meters themselves telemeter their readings back to the accounts department and therefore save reading fees ?


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## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> Is it possible to have automatic metering where the meters themselves telemeter their readings back to the accounts department and therefore save reading fees ?



Sure is indeed I've got one at home as are all recent installations.

But it's still the case that ~13% of the total bill for a residential consumer (will vary with location and consumption level) is for retail. Because it's not simply the metering and so on but all the other things I mention - management, overheads, hedging, compliant billing systems (and those can run to $100 million plus) and so on. There's a lot of costs being incurred that I'd argue really shouldn't be necessary, a better way ought be found.


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Is it possible to have automatic metering where the meters themselves telemeter their readings back to the accounts department and therefore save reading fees ?



In W.A they are currently upgrading the meters to be able to do exactly that. 
Also with the advent of E.V's and V2G technologies being developed, advanced metering will be required also IMO.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> @SirRumpole as I said years ago, the Feds dont own the system and cant tell the States what to do. It is going to be really interesting over the next 5 years.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ‘Hands off our generators’: States clash over federal power plan
> 
> 
> Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has taken a swipe at the federal government’s plan to ease power prices, indicating states may need compensation.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au











						States abandon federal government to face the energy crisis alone
					

Declaring the energy crisis to be a national problem, states appear to be abandoning the Albanese government to face the financial and political cost.




					www.theage.com.au
				




Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is facing a revolt from the states over energy policy with NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet declaring the federal government would have to repay the state’s taxpayers if it sought to cut skyrocketing energy costs by imposing a cap on coal prices.
Albanese is expected to announce a suite of measures to reduce soaring energy costs next week in what has become a key test of his government. Among the measures being sought by industry and unions are caps on the price of gas and coal.



Albo is yet to have a run in with Dan down in Victoria yet, now that will be the interesting one IMO.


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## sptrawler

More problems as we march on toward 2030, it is going to be a very interesting journey for Chris Bowen IMO.
It will be interesting to know if "the voice to parliament", gives the indigenous any vetoing rights, time will tell, but it certainly is interesting and exciting times in the power industry space.









						Shock court gas ruling poses risk to wind farms
					

The Albanese government could be forced to overhaul the laws governing offshore energy projects after a court ruling slowed the approval of new gas developments.




					www.afr.com
				



The Albanese government could be forced to overhaul the laws governing offshore energy projects after a court ruling slowed the approval of new gas developments, and raised doubts about how quickly wind farms, considered vital to the energy transition, can be built off the Australian coast.

The decision to uphold a landmark win in September by Tiwi Island senior lawman Dennis Tipakalippa against the regulatory approval given to Santos’ $5.3 billion Barossa gas project in the Timor Sea has crystallised fears inside the government that the benchmark for new projects is becoming too high.

Santos was forced to halt drilling at the Timor Sea site following the original decision, which also sent shockwaves across other oil and gas projects and is expected to cause huge consternation among Australia’s already unsettled LNG customers in Japan and Korea, where gas from the field is earmarked to be sent.
It could also set precedents for far wider consultation required for other offshore projects such as wind – which the Victorian and federal governments are counting on to meet climate targets – in addition to onshore mining, solar and wind projects.
“The government acknowledges the Federal Court’s decision and will consider its implications in relation to Australia’s offshore environment and safety regulatory regime,” a spokeswoman for Resources Minister Madeleine King said.
​


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## sptrawler

W.A's coal crisis deepens, coals ain't coals Sol.
Changing from one type of coal to another can take some setting up, not only do the burners have to be tuned, but the type of boiler can have a huge difference to boiler erosion and ash formation.
I wonder if the State Govt will take over one of the coal mines, the plot thickens.









						Fears grow over WA energy crisis this summer amid botched importation of NSW coal
					

State-owned West Australian power provider Synergy is facing questions about whether it paid millions of dollars to import the wrong type of coal as it scrambles to keep the lights on this summer.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
Later this month, Synergy will take delivery of the first of two 50,000-tonne shipments of New South Wales coal, believed to be costing the utility tens of millions of dollars.

Synergy was left scrambling for the imports in October when it emerged that a deepening crisis in the coal mining and power generation hub of Collie, south of Perth, would leave it short of supplies.

At the time, Premier Mark McGowan blamed a wettish winter and operating difficulties at one of the town's two coal mines for the unprecedented decision, which Energy Minister Bill Johnston also said was "not ideal".

There are growing fears about the security of the state's biggest electricity grid heading into what is forecast to be a scorching summer.
Major coal supply shortages have combined with a gas crunch caused by last week's leak at a critical offshore well and outages at several big plants to put pressure on the system.
In a further blow, it is believed the coal due to arrive at Bunbury port next week is unsuited for use in Synergy's coal plants at Collie because of its high ash content.
A Synergy spokesman insisted the utility had known about and accounted for the content of ash in the coal and planned to "blend" imported product with local supplies, which typically have far lower levels.

But Synergy's former chief engineer has cast doubt over those claims, saying the ash content of the NSW coal was likely to be a major problem at the company's Muja and Collie power stations.

Andrew Wearmouth, also a former manager at Muja, said Synergy's plants were designed to run on coal with an ash content of between six and eight per cent but could "reasonably" handle up to 10 per cent.
However, he said the imported NSW coal was likely to have an ash content of about 20 per cent, which he argued would pose big headaches for power station operators.
For starters, Mr Wearmouth said Synergy may not have the "milling capacity" to blend the imported coal at sufficient rates, there was a risk of "emissions breaches" if it was used in large quantities, and it could also cause "erosion" and "fouling" problems.


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## wayneL

An energy cliff, the view from Steve St Angelo and it's implications for precious metals and real estate.

I am stocking up on Digitalis 😲


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## IFocus

sptrawler said:


> W.A's coal crisis deepens, coals ain't coals Sol.
> Changing from one type of coal to another can take some setting up, not only do the burners have to be tuned, but the type of boiler can have a huge difference to boiler erosion and ash formation.
> I wonder if the State Govt will take over one of the coal mines, the plot thickens.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Fears grow over WA energy crisis this summer amid botched importation of NSW coal
> 
> 
> State-owned West Australian power provider Synergy is facing questions about whether it paid millions of dollars to import the wrong type of coal as it scrambles to keep the lights on this summer.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> Later this month, Synergy will take delivery of the first of two 50,000-tonne shipments of New South Wales coal, believed to be costing the utility tens of millions of dollars.
> 
> Synergy was left scrambling for the imports in October when it emerged that a deepening crisis in the coal mining and power generation hub of Collie, south of Perth, would leave it short of supplies.
> 
> At the time, Premier Mark McGowan blamed a wettish winter and operating difficulties at one of the town's two coal mines for the unprecedented decision, which Energy Minister Bill Johnston also said was "not ideal".
> 
> There are growing fears about the security of the state's biggest electricity grid heading into what is forecast to be a scorching summer.
> Major coal supply shortages have combined with a gas crunch caused by last week's leak at a critical offshore well and outages at several big plants to put pressure on the system.
> In a further blow, it is believed the coal due to arrive at Bunbury port next week is unsuited for use in Synergy's coal plants at Collie because of its high ash content.
> A Synergy spokesman insisted the utility had known about and accounted for the content of ash in the coal and planned to "blend" imported product with local supplies, which typically have far lower levels.
> 
> But Synergy's former chief engineer has cast doubt over those claims, saying the ash content of the NSW coal was likely to be a major problem at the company's Muja and Collie power stations.
> 
> Andrew Wearmouth, also a former manager at Muja, said Synergy's plants were designed to run on coal with an ash content of between six and eight per cent but could "reasonably" handle up to 10 per cent.
> However, he said the imported NSW coal was likely to have an ash content of about 20 per cent, which he argued would pose big headaches for power station operators.
> For starters, Mr Wearmouth said Synergy may not have the "milling capacity" to blend the imported coal at sufficient rates, there was a risk of "emissions breaches" if it was used in large quantities, and it could also cause "erosion" and "fouling" problems.





Haven't followed this but just seems to be a total mess


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## sptrawler

IFocus said:


> Haven't followed this but just seems to be a total mess



It certainly is, my guess is the Govt is probably going to have to either buy out, or bail out one of the Collie coal mines.
Griffin isn't getting enough money from Blue Waters power station to keep the operations going and Premier probably can't keep going on the basis Muja and Collie are going to be closed by 2029, so sourcing funding for the mine would be difficult.


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## sptrawler

And the Eastern States issue.








						States asked to cap coal prices as federal government seeks to curb skyrocketing energy costs
					

The federal government is facing resistance from the states over its request for caps on coal prices, with NSW seeking legal advice.




					www.abc.net.au
				




New South Wales Treasurer Matt Kean has confirmed the federal government asked the states to impose their own caps on coal, and even recall their parliaments to make any legislative changes required.

Mr Kean said NSW had sought legal advice confirming the Commonwealth has the power, in the constitution, to cap prices.

"They've said that they'd prefer the states to do this … but this is a national problem, that requires a national solution," he told Sky.

The ABC understands the NSW legal advice suggests that if the Commonwealth capped prices, it may be required to provide compensation "on just terms" to coal producers.

Both NSW and Queensland have gone further, raising the prospect of the federal government compensating them for lost royalties.

As he tries to secure a national consensus, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday "there are limits to what the Commonwealth can do on its own".


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## Smurf1976

Daily output of WA coal plant past 12 months. I think the trend's fairly clear here:







Past 12 months the generation mix for WA (SWIS) was:

33.7% Gas
31.7% Coal
17.2% Solar
17.0% Wind
O.4% Bio (eg landfill gas)
0.01% Diesel

On a shorter term basis, past 30 days, coal supplied 19.9% of the total.


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## Smurf1976

Biggest problem with a lot of this is scale and related to that, the general public seems blissfully ignorant.   

Most energy discussion focuses on electricity but in doing so it misses a very fundamental point. 

Most electricity consumption is *not* electricity.

Looking at energy as it's used by consumers as distinct from the resources used to produce it, the figures for 2019-20 are as follows. Source = Australian Government data.

Fuels produced from oil used directly as petrol, diesel etc = 49.8%

Gas used directly as gas = 23.7%

Electricity from all sources = 20.1%

Renewable fuels used directly (eg solar hot water, firewood, ethanol etc) = 4.0%

Coal used directly as coal = 2.4%

Note that there's no double counting there. Eg gas used for electricity generation is not included in the 23.7% from gas figure which is only for gas used "as gas" at the point of consumption. Same with coal and oil.

There's far more to all this than the political focus on electricity generation. Far more. This may put it into perspective:






That's the *energy* mix, it's not just the electricity supply mix. 

Eg in SA may well have 67% renewable electricity but it's nowhere even remotely close to that once we add in the use of reticulated gas, petroleum fuels and industrial use of coal. 

There's a lot more to all this than just changing how we generate electricity. A lot more.


----------



## Smurf1976

Video showing removal of damaged transmission towers in Tasmania due to the recent landslip:



The dual circuit tower, that's the one with 6 physical lines attached, is the 2 x 220kV lines whilst the other towers, carrying 3 physical lines, is the 110kV line which wasn't damaged and has remained in operation except when required out of service to facilitate works.

Yes there's someone sitting on top of the 110kV tower 1:35


----------



## Smurf1976

Meanwhile in Switzerland:









						Netflix and 20 degree chill: Switzerland looks to curb energy use
					

EVs would be banned from non-essential journeys, shop hours reduced and streaming services only permitted at low resolutions under proposed energy-saving measures.




					www.smh.com.au
				






> Electric cars could be banned from making non-essential journeys in Switzerland this winter under a COVID-19 lockdown-style plan to deal with potential energy shortages.





> The strictest measures - designed to avoid a blackout in the worst-case scenario - include a ban on sports matches, concerts and theatre performances.




And along with that goes electric leaf blowers, escalators, Christmas lights, shops to close early and so on. Heck they're even going to reduce the resolution of video streaming.

There's a part of me that wants to burst out laughing at all this and that goes for every country.

But then I've been on about this for rather a long time since it's been readily apparent that this is exactly where we've been heading. That being so, my basic conclusion is that politicians and "think tanks", globally, are collectively worth, well, not much really. 

This mess really shouldn't have happened.


----------



## SirRumpole

Bladeless wind generator ? Well not quite but still interesting.


----------



## IFocus

Smurf1976 said:


> Biggest problem with a lot of this is scale and related to that, the general public seems blissfully ignorant.
> 
> Most energy discussion focuses on electricity but in doing so it misses a very fundamental point.
> 
> Most electricity consumption is *not* electricity.
> 
> Looking at energy as it's used by consumers as distinct from the resources used to produce it, the figures for 2019-20 are as follows. Source = Australian Government data.
> 
> Fuels produced from oil used directly as petrol, diesel etc = 49.8%
> 
> Gas used directly as gas = 23.7%
> 
> Electricity from all sources = 20.1%
> 
> Renewable fuels used directly (eg solar hot water, firewood, ethanol etc) = 4.0%
> 
> Coal used directly as coal = 2.4%
> 
> Note that there's no double counting there. Eg gas used for electricity generation is not included in the 23.7% from gas figure which is only for gas used "as gas" at the point of consumption. Same with coal and oil.
> 
> There's far more to all this than the political focus on electricity generation. Far more. This may put it into perspective:
> 
> View attachment 150107
> 
> 
> That's the *energy* mix, it's not just the electricity supply mix.
> 
> Eg in SA may well have 67% renewable electricity but it's nowhere even remotely close to that once we add in the use of reticulated gas, petroleum fuels and industrial use of coal.
> 
> There's a lot more to all this than just changing how we generate electricity. A lot more.





No guesses where the cheapest gas is.


----------



## mullokintyre

Smurf1976 said:


> Biggest problem with a lot of this is scale and related to that, the general public seems blissfully ignorant.



Don't mention scaleability problems on this forum.
I foolishly did, and got roundly  browbeaten for my insolence.
Mick


----------



## wayneL

Smurf1976 said:


> Meanwhile in Switzerland:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Netflix and 20 degree chill: Switzerland looks to curb energy use
> 
> 
> EVs would be banned from non-essential journeys, shop hours reduced and streaming services only permitted at low resolutions under proposed energy-saving measures.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And along with that goes electric leaf blowers, escalators, Christmas lights, shops to close early and so on. Heck they're even going to reduce the resolution of video streaming.
> 
> There's a part of me that wants to burst out laughing at all this and that goes for every country.
> 
> But then I've been on about this for rather a long time since it's been readily apparent that this is exactly where we've been heading. That being so, my basic conclusion is that politicians and "think tanks", globally, are collectively worth, well, not much really.
> 
> This mess really shouldn't have happened.



I know almost nothing about electricity and even the simplest household circuit is complete mystery to me.

But it has been obvious to me that this sort of outcome was inevitable and I am in the process right now of ensuring personal energy security.

It's not about economics for me personally anymore, it's about having power when I need it, despite what the idiots in control are doing.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> Biggest problem with a lot of this is scale and related to that, the general public seems blissfully ignorant.
> 
> Most energy discussion focuses on electricity but in doing so it misses a very fundamental point.
> 
> Most electricity consumption is *not* electricity.
> 
> Looking at energy as it's used by consumers as distinct from the resources used to produce it, the figures for 2019-20 are as follows. Source = Australian Government data.
> 
> Fuels produced from oil used directly as petrol, diesel etc = 49.8%
> 
> Gas used directly as gas = 23.7%
> 
> Electricity from all sources = 20.1%
> 
> Renewable fuels used directly (eg solar hot water, firewood, ethanol etc) = 4.0%
> 
> Coal used directly as coal = 2.4%
> 
> Note that there's no double counting there. Eg gas used for electricity generation is not included in the 23.7% from gas figure which is only for gas used "as gas" at the point of consumption. Same with coal and oil.
> 
> There's far more to all this than the political focus on electricity generation. Far more. This may put it into perspective:
> 
> View attachment 150107
> 
> 
> That's the *energy* mix, it's not just the electricity supply mix.
> 
> Eg in SA may well have 67% renewable electricity but it's nowhere even remotely close to that once we add in the use of reticulated gas, petroleum fuels and industrial use of coal.
> 
> There's a lot more to all this than just changing how we generate electricity. A lot more.



That really does put the 43% reduction in carbon emissions in perspective, thanks @Smurf1976
Can't wait to watch the next 7 years, there is a lot of carbon abatement to be done in a very short time, sounds like NBN mk2 to me.


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> scaleability problems



That's _the_ biggest problem with a lot of this.

Replacing 30% of the electricity with variable renewables is a cinch. Most places can do that quite easily and they'd be silly if they don't do so.

Beyond that it gets harder. You can't just have three times as many wind and solar facilities and go from 30% to 90% then add another few and get to 100%. It doesn't work that way due to variability of both wind / solar production and demand.

Then there's the consumption side.

As a case in point well here in SA, about two thirds of homes directly use fossil fuels for some purpose. Have as many wind farms and solar panels as you like but when 62% of residential water heaters burn some form of gas (natural gas or LPG) that doesn't help. Same with cooking and heating, a lot of it's directly burning fossils.

Tasmania is by far the most electrified of the Australian states. Electricity (including electric boosted solar) having a 94% market share for residential hot water, a 67% market share for residential space heating (with most of the rest being wood so that's still non-fossil), over 90% market share for commercial space heating, 90% market share for cooktops and almost 100% share for ovens. Direct use of fossil fuels in the state being primarily for transport and industrial heat.

NSW runs second on electrification by the way. It's far enough ahead of the other mainland states but nowhere near Tas so it's second place status won't likely change in a hurry.

Victoria especially but also SA and WA the use of gas is heavily entrenched at the consumer level. It's not going away anytime soon and that does limit the ability to shift to renewables overall. Renewables produce electricity - that's an issue when most of the energy being used isn't electricity.

NT's high % use of gas overall isn't directly, it's not at the household level, but simply because gas generates almost all electricity in the NT and the NT has Australia's second highest per capita electricity consumption after Tasmania. That's not the problem it might seem - shift the electricity supply to something else and that wipes out gas use almost entirely. 

Even that's not a monumental challenge once you realise that the main electricity grid, the Darwin - Katherine system, only has 4 significant power stations supplying it and 3 of those are rather old which means replacement is required in the medium term. Hence the plan to go from almost 100% gas to 50% renewables by 2030 - that's not being done to save the planet, it's simply because it's the cheapest when they've got to invest in new plant. They're not needing to write anything off, a lot of it's only got a few years left in it anyway.


----------



## sptrawler

@Smurf1976 has someone mentioned it to Albo and Chris? 🤣


----------



## sptrawler

The head banging session, I mean the energy summit, had to be cancelled Albo has covid.
That's a shame, I was really looking forward to that one.









						PM’s COVID diagnosis delays national cabinet’s energy price crisis talks
					

Time is running out for the prime minister to strike a deal as NSW and Queensland warn against any hit to their combined $9 billion in annual coal royalties.




					www.smh.com.au
				



A meeting between federal and state leaders to strike a deal on power prices has been delayed after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese came down with COVID late on Monday, dragging out talks when NSW and Queensland are warning against any hit to at least $9 billion in combined annual coal royalties.
Albanese returned a positive test for COVID-19 on Monday evening, shelving plans for him to discuss the energy strategy with state and territory leaders at a dinner at Kirribilli House on Tuesday and forcing a delay to the national cabinet meeting scheduled for Wednesday.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The head banging session, I mean the energy summit, had to be cancelled Albo has covid.
> That's a shame, I was really looking forward to that one.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PM’s COVID diagnosis delays national cabinet’s energy price crisis talks
> 
> 
> Time is running out for the prime minister to strike a deal as NSW and Queensland warn against any hit to their combined $9 billion in annual coal royalties.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smh.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A meeting between federal and state leaders to strike a deal on power prices has been delayed after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese came down with COVID late on Monday, dragging out talks when NSW and Queensland are warning against any hit to at least $9 billion in combined annual coal royalties.
> Albanese returned a positive test for COVID-19 on Monday evening, shelving plans for him to discuss the energy strategy with state and territory leaders at a dinner at Kirribilli House on Tuesday and forcing a delay to the national cabinet meeting scheduled for Wednesday.




Haven't they heard of a Zoom meeting ?

Or maybe they are afraid it could be hacked.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Haven't they heard of a Zoom meeting ?
> 
> Or maybe they are afraid it could be hacked.



Albo probably wanted to get them full of booze, before he read them the riot act. 🤣


----------



## Smurf1976

To put some figures on the NT system, specifically the Darwin - Katherine system:

Total installed generation = 472.5 MW

Of which 209.5 MW dates from 1988 or earlier.

So with a significant portion needing replacement in the not too distant future, that creates the opportunity to install batteries and solar without needing anything to be written off prematurely.

Not currently being considered but another "easy" option up there is the existing Ord River hydro scheme in WA which is under-utilised following closure of a mine previously supplied from it. If a transmission line were built to Katherine (NT) then just sending the unused capacity of that into the NT would reduce gas use there by more than 10%. That needs a transmission line only, no changes to anything else.

As a second stage, if solar were added to replace daytime use of the hydro for its existing uses, and capacity of the hydro station (but not the dam) were doubled to facilitate full use of the water running half the time, then a 63.5% renewable system (50% solar, 13.5% hydro with non-simultaneous operation) becomes very workable. All it needs, apart from building the solar which is straightforward, is a transmission line and expansion of the existing hydro station with two additional turbines.

The line distance would be about 430km which isn't huge, it could be built if someone wanted to. Transmission running Darwin - Pine Creek - Katherine is existing so just connecting to Katherine gets the lot.

Lots of things like this could be done if government's keen enough.

There's also other hydro potential up there, Snowy and Tas had a look at it circa late-1970's on behalf of the feds and NT, and several possible schemes were identified. They all require building dams on rivers so there's potential for controversy etc but the one I'm referring to already exists, it's just 30km over the border in WA and not fully utilised and not connected to anything that can make full use of it. So there's no real environmental impact there apart from the transmission line to connect it to the NT system. The dam's already built and filled with water.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

Good bless queen BESS, and duck _soup du jour:_

An article, one of 6659 in this thread, from a fund manager that invests in CATL (I presume). Grist to the mill.









						Where on Green Earth Do We Store All This Wind and Solar Power? – ShareCafe
					

In a global energy transition characterised thus far by imperfect solutions and uneven progress, the market for one critical piece of the puzzle is about to blow up.




					www.sharecafe.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Haven't they heard of a Zoom meeting ?
> 
> Or maybe they are afraid it could be hacked.



They must be reading your posts.

Delayed national cabinet meets Friday over power plan​A critical Wednesday meeting of the national cabinet to finalise a plan on soaring energy prices has been delayed after Anthony Albanese tested positive for COVID-19.


----------



## sptrawler

Snowy 2.0 in the news, it sounds as though the engineering firm were walking a financial tightrope, as a late mate of mine once told me "engineering companies are only one bad quote away from oblivion". It's sad really United construction group a W.A based company went under a few years ago, over a solar farm cost overrun, it must be terrible for the workers and their families.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/com...after-white-knight-walks-20221206-p5c40t.html
From the article:
Snowy Hydro 2.0 builder Clough’s rescue has fallen over after its white knight buyer, Italy’s Webuild, pulled the pin on buying the company.

The South African parent of the Australian-based group appointed on Monday evening administrators from Deloitte to Clough, with the collapse of the builder expected to have ramifications for a range of major infrastructure and mining projects already facing delays and cost overruns.

Clough is one of the country’s biggest builders, employing about 1250 people in Australia and a further 1250 overseas. Those employees now face a nervous wait to see if the group can be salvaged from the administration.

Like many builders, Clough has struggled over the past 12 months as ongoing supply chain constraints and the increasing cost of labour eroded its profits and in some cases led to cost overruns on its projects.

Perth-headquartered Clough is the builder or preferred builder for a range of projects in Western Australia and overseas including the Waitsia gas project in Western Australia, Transgrid’s Energy Connect project and Energy Australia’s Tallawarra project, both in NSW, and the Stephenson Avenue extension in Perth.

Its offshore projects include the Lihir gold mine shutdown work for Newcrest Mining and building the Lombrum Naval Base in Papua New Guinea for the Australian Department of Defence.

Joint venture partners in the Waitsia gas project – Kerry Stokes-controlled Beach Energy and Mitsui’s local energy investments arm – said in separate statements on Tuesday that they had been planning for various outcomes including the scenario where Clough entered administration.

Clough called in administrators after Webuild decided it was unable to continue with the deal.


----------



## sptrawler

Like I said a while back, none of the coal generators will want to be left holding the parcel , when the music stops.
Best to get out early and jump into the low hanging renewable space. 

Power giant’s $10bn bet may hasten coal exit​EnergyAustralia plans to spend $10bn on renewables and storage over the next decade, a move which could accelerate the closure of its Mt Piper coal plant.


The early stuff is easy, it is when the surplus capacity is required, the going gets tough.🥳

It wont be long before the coal generators are forced to stay available, how they do that will be interesting.  
Time will tell and they will be very interesting times.


----------



## sptrawler

And on the subject of low hanging fruit in the renewable sector, Twiggy swoops in and takes a bite. Hang on wont FFI and AGL require renewable energy to get the joint hydrogen plant off the ground? Maybe the output from these windfarms will be earmarked, still that leaves room for someone else to build one, to pick up the possible loss of generation if Twiggy uses his for his own ends. 
Interesting times.  









						Forrest snaps up CWP to become dominant player in Australian renewables
					

Andrew Forrest’s Squadron Energy swoops in to buy CWP Renewables and become dominant player in Australian renewables industry.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



From the article:

Forrest snaps up CWP to become dominant player in Australian renewables​
Iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest has swept in to snap up leading renewable energy developer CWP Renewables, beating out a series of big competitors and entrenching him as the dominant player in the Australian renewable energy market.
Forrest’s Squadron Energy, owned via his private investment vehicle Tattarang, has paid a reported $4 billion plus for CWP Renewables, beating offers from early favourites such as Spanish energy giant Iberdrola, Tilt Renewables, and Origin Energy.
The purchase of CWP follows Squadron’s previous purchase of renewable energy developer Windlab, the start of construction of the $3 billion Clarke Creek wind, solar and battery farm in Queensland, and the unveiling of a new 10GW renewable “super” hub in north Queensland.
Squadron says the deal takes its renewable energy operating portfolio to 2.4 gigawatts (GW) with an Australian development pipeline to 20GW.
The move by Forrest further entrenches the influence of Australia’s three richest men – Forrest and software billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar over the future of Australia’s grid.
All three are committed to a rapid switch to wind, solar and storage, with Cannon-Brookes taking an influential stake in coal giant AGL, and co-funding with Forrest the world’s biggest solar and battery project, Sun Cable, in the Northern Territory.

Farquhar has also joined the rush to green energy, leading a bid for one of the last listed renewable and storage plays on the ASX, Genex Power, although there are questions over whether that bid will proceed after problems at the company’s flagship Kidston pumped hydro project.
CWP is one of the biggest players in the Australian renewables market, with more than 1.1GW of operating assets, including the Sapphire, Murra Warra, Crudine Ridge and Bango wind farms, with a host of other wind, solar and battery storage projects in the pipeline.

Forrest has already talked – on multiple occasions – of becoming one of the world’s leading producers of green hydrogen, with an improbable target of producing 15 million tonnes a year by 2030.
But it seems that he now has growing interest in becoming the biggest player in Australia’s main grids, with a focus still on reaching 100 per cent renewables, and producing green hydrogen at scale, but likely for the domestic rather than the export market that is challenged by transport costs.


----------



## sptrawler

sptrawler said:


> Like I said a while back, none of the coal generators will want to be left holding the parcel , when the music stops.
> Best to get out early and jump into the low hanging renewable space.
> 
> Power giant’s $10bn bet may hasten coal exit​EnergyAustralia plans to spend $10bn on renewables and storage over the next decade, a move which could accelerate the closure of its Mt Piper coal plant.
> 
> 
> The early stuff is easy, it is when the surplus capacity is required, the going gets tough.🥳
> 
> It wont be long before the coal generators are forced to stay available, how they do that will be interesting.
> Time will tell and they will be very interesting times.



A new nail in the coffin, this is getting weird.









						Albanese asks states to cut coal price in half to tackle energy crisis
					

The federal government is scrambling to close a deal after asking the states to cap the price of coal at $125 per tonne – less than half the market rate.




					www.smh.com.au
				




The federal government is scrambling to close a deal on the energy crisis after asking the states to cap the price of coal at $125 per tonne – less than half the market rate – in a move that has escalated claims for billions of dollars in compensation across the energy sector.

The proposal seeks to ease pressure on household bills next year but has galvanised concerns in NSW and Queensland about the financial impact on power companies, coal producers and state budgets that are due to collect more than $10 billion in coal royalties this year.









						States push back on imposing coal price cap
					

States are pushing back against a federal government request for them to impose a coal price cap in a bid to drive down power bills.




					thenewdaily.com.au


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> A new nail in the coffin, this is getting weird.



Basic problem is that, since generation is a market, government can't intervene in the gas market without also intervening in the coal market.

That is, if they were to cut the gas price but not the coal price then that'll simply result in gas-fired generation offering lower prices to the market than coal-fired generation can. That then results in gas, including open cycle plant, running flat out with a consequence _physical_ shortfall of gas supply across multiple states.

So short of intervening in the electricity market to prevent that, which would be complex indeed, a relatively simpler workaround is to drop the coal price thus maintaining a price advantage for coal over gas and avoiding mass fuel switching.

Where it gets more difficult is with diesel. There's not much government can do to lower the price of that short of outright subsidies. Now if the gas price is capped to a level below the diesel price then that disables the price signal for fuel switching at dual fuel plant and to run diesel-only plant in preference to gas. That's another route to a physical gas shortage - one that has no relevance over summer but will do beginning 5 - 6 months from now depending on the weather.


----------



## IFocus

I am confused how the states are demanding subsidies for lost of royalties for driving down the costs for their own states energy supplies for which they had a hand in causing the issue.


----------



## SirRumpole

Shortage of copper may hinder transition to renewable energy.









						Some of the hurdles to a renewable energy future are obvious. This one isn't, but it could have a big impact
					

Analysts are concerned about the supply of copper, along with the actions being taken around the world to increase stocks.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## wayneL

SirRumpole said:


> Shortage of copper may hinder transition to renewable energy.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Some of the hurdles to a renewable energy future are obvious. This one isn't, but it could have a big impact
> 
> 
> Analysts are concerned about the supply of copper, along with the actions being taken around the world to increase stocks.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



D'oh!

And it won't be just copper.


----------



## SirRumpole

The Grand Plan emerges...









						Renewables providers to be paid to ensure stable electricity supply
					

Renewable energy providers will be paid to ensure stable, reliable power supply in a scheme signed on to by the states ahead of worsening forecasts of price spikes and blackouts in the year ahead.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> The Grand Plan emerges...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Renewables providers to be paid to ensure stable electricity supply
> 
> 
> Renewable energy providers will be paid to ensure stable, reliable power supply in a scheme signed on to by the states ahead of worsening forecasts of price spikes and blackouts in the year ahead.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Should that read you will get paid to for your nameplate output, whether it is needed or not? If so this is going to get expensive IMO. 
It will be interesting, I wish we could make our own batteries. 😭


----------



## wayneL

sptrawler said:


> I wish we could make our own batteries. 😭




Talking to an ex client of mine in Queensland who is in the solar industry. The markup on the hardware is absolutely astonishing. She is making 8-10 a week as a rep for residential installations 😲 

Considering the skills and knowledge I need for my job I now feel drastically underpaid, but the overarching point is that we are getting touched up for solar systems and batteries.


----------



## IFocus

wayneL said:


> Talking to an ex client of mine in Queensland who is in the solar industry. The markup on the hardware is absolutely astonishing. She is making 8-10 a week as a rep for residential installations 😲
> 
> Considering the skills and knowledge I need for my job I now feel drastically underpaid, but the overarching point is that we are getting touched up for solar systems and batteries.




Yep long been the case depending on quality of panel and inverters having said that over 200 company's have gone broke or folded in WA so be careful of those cheap quotes against long term installers.


----------



## wayneL

IFocus said:


> Yep long been the case depending on quality of panel and inverters having said that over 200 company's have gone broke or folded in WA so be careful of those cheap quotes against long term installers.



She did say that "WA is where solar companies goes to die".


----------



## Sean K




----------



## sptrawler

An article on the state of play and confirms @Smurf1976 analysis on price interactions.









						Options for fixing Australia's energy mess
					

The Grattan Institute’s Tony Wood has continued his mea culpa on energy market intervention. In 2015, Wood said “governments should resist self-interested calls from some industries to cap prices or reserve gas for the domestic market”. He also said “Western Australia should go further, and end...




					www.macrobusiness.com.au


----------



## sptrawler

W.A is in as much manure as the East Coast.  The down side of getting ahead of the curve, make coal unviable, before you have a viable option installed, magic, just pure magic.🤣
I think Mark is going to have to tap Kerry on the shoulder, for a bit of hand, digging up some coal.  









						'The situation is not pretty': Fears WA power users are in for white knuckle ride this summer
					

On a warmish evening across Perth and southern WA recently, something happened to make Andy Wearmouth feel very uncomfortable, while just about everybody else in the state remained blissfully ignorant.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

OMG, reality kicks in, FFS I'm popular, we have a VISION, "Chris WTF are you? Jim, Jim, where's the cheque book. 🤣








						East coast gas supply pact at risk as price controls loom
					

An emergency plan to cap gas prices is threatening to shatter a deal between gas exporters and the Albanese government to avert domestic shortfalls.




					www.smh.com.au
				




Global energy supermajor Shell has suspended its role in a landmark gas supply deal designed to prevent shortfalls on the east coast next year as it assesses the impact of the Albanese government’s plan to cap fossil fuel prices.
Queensland’s three LNG exporters – Shell’s QCLNG joint venture, Origin Energy-backed APLNG and Santos’ GLNG – are set to hold talks this week to determine whether their September agreement to supply 157 petajoules of gas – about 25 per cent of annual east coast demand – can go ahead after the government announced a series of interventions in the energy market.
The government last week announced a series of initiatives designed to reduce soaring power bills. They include temporary price limits of $12 a gigajoule on uncontracted wholesale gas and $125 a tonne on coal, and powers to influence the price of gas contracts beyond next year. The proposals have sparked a furious response from gas producers, and analysts have described the initiatives as a “declaration of war” on the industry.
In September, a “heads of agreement” between the three LNG exporters and the federal government was struck in response to the national consumer watchdog’s forecast of 56-petajoule east-coast shortfall next year. But that deal had been agreed on the premise the gas would be made available at market prices, not regulated prices.

“The circumstances have changed, and we are all trying to work out what happens now,” said an industry source, not authorised to speak publicly about the matter.


----------



## SirRumpole

Another small step for nuclear fusion.









						US scientists make major scientific breakthrough in nuclear fusion
					

For the first time, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California produce more energy in a fusion reaction than was used to ignite it, a development officials say will "go down in the history books".




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## sptrawler

Well the situation just went from bad to worse, apparently no one told the gas companies, the domestic gas that they were going to forward sell now will have a political price cap on it. 🤣 
Chris and the crew got the napkin out and worked out what it is worth, I bet the shovel is out, to back fill the hole.









						Gas market grinds to halt as Woodside, Shell suspend sales talks
					

Woodside and Shell abort gas sales processes for east coast supply after proposed intervention labelled by some as ‘vandalism’.




					www.afr.com
				



From the article:
Woodside Energy has joined Shell and other east coast gas suppliers in calling off talks with customers for new supply contracts in the wake of the government’s plan to permanently control prices, increasing uncertainty over the level of gas available for manufacturing and power generation in the years ahead.

The stalling of the gas market came as Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill urged the federal government to rethink its proposed gas market intervention, warning the shock plan risks energy rationing and power shortages, and would cost investment and jobs.

It came as Woodside, which supplies 20 per cent of the east coast domestic market from its Bass Strait fields, confirmed *it has suspended a process to sell 50 petajoules of gas over 2024 and 2025*, which had attracted more than 20 buyers.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> The stalling of the gas market came as Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill urged the federal government to rethink its proposed gas market intervention, warning the shock plan risks energy rationing and power shortages, and would cost investment and jobs.




Yes, they always say that.

Next.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Yes, they always say that.
> 
> Next.



Yep, the next ones on the conga line for taxpayer compensation.  🤣


----------



## Smurf1976

On the shortage issue I'll simply note that supply is _extremely_ tight physically, a point I've made on this forum well before the current fuss over price caps indeed before the election of this government.

Each producer this individually holds power over the market. Stop the flow and a shortage we have.

At home, well suffice to say I've got an abundance of #1 fuel oil sitting in a tank. It doesn't go off, ye olde oil burner still runs, so if there's any fuss then at least I'll be toasty warm. Actually it came in handy during a recent 29 hour power failure. Everyone around in the dark meanwhile I've got lights on, I've got working computer and TV and so on and the cat's stretched out on the floor toasting itself. 

Downside = it costs just over $1000 to fill that tank.


----------



## sptrawler

@SirRumpole now we have got right back to where we started, the AEMO wants a contract monitoring function, IMO kind of says the free market model doesn't work for power generation, I might be wrong.
Regulator seeks power to scrutinise energy generators​The Australian Energy Regulator wants measures to help move the system smoothly to net-zero emissions, including a ‘contract monitoring function’.

Can you imagine the public backlash if the media said "well we have forced the coal power stations who supply 70% of our power to be unviable, we have stopped the next most reliable supplier of energy, gas, to be uneconomical to process, but we have got reliable renewable generation between the hours of 10am to 2pm so we have achieved a fantastic goal".
This transmission will cease operating at 16.00 hrs until the sun comes up, which is expected at 7.00 am, goodnight and god bless. Warm blankets and candles will be available at your local distribution centre, these can be located by a flare which is sent up on the hour every hour between sunset and midnight.


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> @SirRumpole now we have got right back to where we started, the AEMO wants a contract monitoring function, IMO kind of says the free market model doesn't work for power generation, I might be wrong.
> Regulator seeks power to scrutinise energy generators​The Australian Energy Regulator wants measures to help move the system smoothly to net-zero emissions, including a ‘contract monitoring function’.




If they are up for a big stoush with the gas/coal companies who don't like intrusion into their business, then more power to AEMO . 

Lets have the dirty secrets out in the open.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> If they are up for a big stoush with the gas/coal companies who don't like intrusion into their business, then more power to AEMO .
> 
> Lets have the dirty secrets out in the open.



Absolutely, time the truth was laid bare IMO.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> the AEMO wants a contract monitoring function



As a clarification, AEMO and the AER are separate bodies.

Bit like saying the ASX and ASIC. One runs a market, the other regulates as such. Interrelated in that it's the same industry but they're separate entities as such. 

Detail aside though, this seems to be finally coming to a head. At this point I think it's fair to say the technical people are all standing well clear and seeing what the politicians end up doing. When there's an out of control bull charging through the streets, it's wise to keep back a bit.

For those interested in what a pumped hydro scheme looks like, this video's not bad:



Scale of this facility is slightly smaller than Snowy 2.0 will be, it's about 13% smaller, but otherwise much the same as a concept.

Incidentally yes I've been there but not for the reasons you might assume. The power station car park is accessible to anyone and was a convenient place to leave the car while we went on the steam train ride up the mountain. I haven't been in the power station - didn't go to the other side of the world to see one of those.....  

Gordon in Tas is technically and visually much the same by the way albeit being an on-river scheme not pumped but it's underground, same basic design approach and so on.


----------



## sptrawler

It will be interesting to see how this all pans out, electricity prices rapidly rising and incentives for households to change over from gas to electric appliances.









						Gas prices capped in rare intervention, but power bills still set to rise about $700 by end of next financial year
					

An extraordinary move to temporarily cap gas prices will slow runaway electricity costs, but Australians should still expect to see their bills increase next year.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
Gas prices will be capped for a year in an effort to restrain runaway electricity price increases, after a last-minute meeting of parliament before the year's end.
Treasury forecasts the caps will wipe $230 from expected price increases to the average household electricity bill next year.

But the ABC estimates the average household bill will rise by $700 by mid-2024 compared to June this year, based on Treasury figures.
Price caps on coal will also be imposed by the states, with the coal-rich NSW and Queensland governments agreeing at a meeting of national cabinet last week to impose a $125 per tonne price limit.

Coal companies whose operating costs exceed that price limit will be compensated to ensure supply stability.
In return for their necessary support, the Greens won a third measure to ease power prices longer term: a financial assistance package to help households and businesses to electrify their heating and cooking equipment, and move away from gas sooner.

That last-minute deal will be negotiated in the months to come and included in the government's May budget next year.


----------



## SirRumpole

Space based solar power, viable for the future ?









						How space-based solar power works — and why it's being considered now
					

Space agencies are examining the idea of constructing enormous orbital arrays of solar panels, then beaming the power to Earth via microwaves. So how does it work, and can space solar compete with the terrestrial kind?




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## mullokintyre

SirRumpole said:


> Space based solar power, viable for the future ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How space-based solar power works — and why it's being considered now
> 
> 
> Space agencies are examining the idea of constructing enormous orbital arrays of solar panels, then beaming the power to Earth via microwaves. So how does it work, and can space solar compete with the terrestrial kind?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Back in my Wild youth I was working on  microwave  comms equipment that  was scattered around Victoria.
One of the very first things we leaned  was not to be directly in the microwave beam, lest it made on sterile.
Be unfortunate  if you happened to get in the microwave beam from one of these.
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

mullokintyre said:


> Back in my Wild youth I was working on  microwave  comms equipment that  was scattered around Victoria.
> One of the very first things we leaned  was not to be directly in the microwave beam, lest it made on sterile.
> Be unfortunate  if you happened to get in the microwave beam from one of these.
> Mick




Yes it could cause brain damage and turn one into a Ring Wing Extremist or a Left Wing Extremist depending what side of the brain it took out.


----------



## sptrawler

Well that didn't take long. 









						Concerns offshore wind farm project will impact endangered whale breeding
					

An offshore wind farm proposal that would generate enough energy to power more than 400,000 South Australian homes is slated to be built in a migration and breeding corridor for the endangered southern right whale, raising concerns from a marine conservation group.




					www.abc.net.au
				




Key points:​
A whale conservation group says a proposed offshore wind farm will negatively affect an endangered whale species
The proposed project is 10kms off the coast of Kingston, South Australia in a federally declared wildlife area 
The proposed windfarm is located in a southern right whale migration and breeding corridor


----------



## SirRumpole

Lake Burrendong in NSW to be turned into renewable energy hub.









						Plans in place for drought-prone lake to become hydro-electric powerhouse
					

A proposal is in the pipeline for a massive hydro-electric plant in regional NSW capable of powering 400,000 homes with renewable energy.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## SirRumpole

SA powered mainly by renewables for a week.

Well done @Smurf1976.  









						Renewable energy covers SA's electricity needs for a week
					

South Australia became famous for a statewide blackout, but years on it's had enough renewable energy to power the entire state for a week — and one expert predicts the technology could power it for a month by next year.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## mullokintyre

sptrawler said:


> Well that didn't take long.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Concerns offshore wind farm project will impact endangered whale breeding
> 
> 
> An offshore wind farm proposal that would generate enough energy to power more than 400,000 South Australian homes is slated to be built in a migration and breeding corridor for the endangered southern right whale, raising concerns from a marine conservation group.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Key points:​
> A whale conservation group says a proposed offshore wind farm will negatively affect an endangered whale species
> The proposed project is 10kms off the coast of Kingston, South Australia in a federally declared wildlife area
> The proposed windfarm is located in a southern right whale migration and breeding corridor



And of course the Microwave beam could also affect the breeding of the whales!
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Lake Burrendong in NSW to be turned into renewable energy hub.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Plans in place for drought-prone lake to become hydro-electric powerhouse
> 
> 
> A proposal is in the pipeline for a massive hydro-electric plant in regional NSW capable of powering 400,000 homes with renewable energy.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Sounds a bit pie in the sky to me, but they are going to need all the pumped hydro they can get, so who knows it might be a goer.


----------



## sptrawler

Well we did say it would have to happen, there is absolutely no point in letting ideology get in the way of reality.
2022








						Griffin Coal given last ditch cash injection by government
					

The embattled Griffin Coal has been provided a cash injection by the McGowan Government in a bid to keep the miner operational until at least the end January.




					thewest.com.au
				




It isn't as though it hasn't happened before.
2010








						Verve in $4m bailout for Griffin Coal
					

THE State Government has offered to pre-pay up to $4 million worth of Griffin coal for Verve Energy to keep the mine afloat and secure WA's future energy needs.




					www.perthnow.com.au


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> SA powered mainly by renewables for a week.
> 
> Well done @Smurf1976.



I won't claim any credit personally but it does prove, in case anyone's still doubting, that yes wind and and solar most certainly can generate electricity.

What we really need though is more storage so as to avoid the "feast or famine" problem that we have at present when the wind stops.


----------



## sptrawler

Further info on the Griffin bailout.





						Media Statements - Funding boost to support Collie workforce and community
					






					www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au


----------



## sptrawler

A good article explaining what I've being saying for years, trouble is coming, shutting down coal isn't the issue, keeping it going is the problem.
Way too much BS, has got us into a very scary situation, way too many emotional irrational arguments by people who really just don't have a clue. Years ago when I tried to explain this, I was told I'm a coal lover, a climate denier etc, well let's see how not supporting coal through the transition goes. 🤣
This article is from a month ago, it just shows how quickly things can change, from definitely no intervention, to intervention.
From we can't just throw away taxpayers money, to how much do you need.
The other issue is, this only covers coal producers in Collie, the Eastern States have a similar issue, but their issue isn't only with the mines, it is with the power stations as well, how do you get the owners to keep thrashing them to death for little or no return?









						Warning for WA government to intervene before embattled coal miners drag power system down
					

An Australian state government is facing calls to launch a major intervention in the energy market to keep the lights on, amid a crisis affecting local coal miners.




					www.abc.net.au
				



From the article:
One of Australia's most prominent energy investors has called on the West Australian government to intervene in the state's beleaguered coal industry before it collapses and the lights go out.
Oliver Yates, the inaugural head of the federal government's green bank and a senior advisor to investment fund Sentient Impact Group, said WA was headed towards an energy calamity amid a growing crisis affecting its coal industry.

Coal-fired power still accounts for about a third of the electricity used in the state's biggest grid, but the domestic miners responsible for producing the fuel are in financial distress.
In September, Indian-owned Griffin Coal was tipped into receivership with debts of almost $1.5 billion, while Chinese-owned Premier Coal has been hit by a series of setbacks and declining output.
Mr Yates said the problems bedevilling the two miners were only likely to get worse as demand for coal-fired power fell further away in the face of a rising renewable energy industry.
However, the former investment banker said WA still needed the coal assets "until such time as it doesn't", and the state could not afford to let them fail.

And he said it was a similar situation across Australia as other regions that had long been the heart of electricity systems, such as the La Trobe Valley in Victoria and the Hunter in New South Wales, wrestled with the same problems.

"It became pretty obvious to me that the participants in the Collie region … are in financial distress," Mr Yates said.
"They're sweating their assets, which is a common event that occurs when the private sector knows their assets are likely to close.
Mr Yates said it was a "logically sensible" action for the companies to take.

"The problem is when you don't invest in the assets — whether it be equipment or whether it be in the case of a mine just clearing the overburden so you can get to more coal — effectively, you can run into very significant, abrupt problems," he said.
Earlier this year, Premier Mark McGowan announced the government would close its two remaining coal plants — supplied by Premier Coal — by 2029.

That would leave a single coal-fired power station, the 440MW Bluewaters plant controlled by US hedge funds, operating in the state.

According to Mr Yates, who ran the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the WA government needs to intervene before the woes affecting the local coal industry get much worse.

There were many ways to do this, he said, ranging from direct government control through a so-called transition authority to a regulated company that could be comprised of the state and private investors.

He said it seemed inevitable that the current operators of WA's two coal mines were headed to the wall.
While Mr Yates acknowledged that some private investors would be willing to pick up the pieces, he said the extreme financial, political and social risks involved meant it was only "sharks" who would be interested.

"You can always get the private sector to participate," he said.
"If the state says, 'We really, desperately need this coal to come out, how about we provide guarantees for coal or everyone has got to pay a lot more for coal', it's effectively burleying the waters to the private sector.

WA Energy Minister Bill Johnston conceded the predicament of WA's two coal miners was a serious concern for the government.

However, Mr Johnston argued their problems were inherently private commercial matters, and it would be inappropriate — even unlawful — for the state to intervene.

"While the companies, Griffin and Premier Coal, are operating, there's no legal pathway for the government to take over the mines," Mr Johnston said.
"It's just not possible for the government to ignore the private ownership of the mines."
To deal with shortfalls in production at Premier and Griffin, customers, including state-owned power producer Synergy and mining giant South32 have moved to import coal from abroad despite record prices for the fuel.

Mr Johnston acknowledged the state's energy system would still need coal for some years but did not agree with Mr Yates' assessment.
 big worry for Mr Johnston is the financial risk involved for taxpayers in the event the state steps into a failing market.

He noted both coal mines were foreign-owned and stressed the government was unwilling to bail them out of the losses.

*"We're not going to transfer wealth from the taxpayers of Western Australia to the foreign owners of these two companies," he said.
"That would not make sense."
Despite the minister's reticence, Mr Yates said a big financial reckoning was coming for the state regardless of whether it wanted one or not.

He said the private sector's overarching motive of profit was irreconcilable with the government's objective of keeping the lights on.

"If you're trying to get a private sector solution out of a Chinese state-owned entity, a company which is broke … and then a power station which is owned by a hedge fund … good luck," Mr Yates said.

"You actually still need coal in WA for a period of time.

"You can't have a disorderly closure of coal.
"It's unfair to workers. It's unfair to industry who will have difficulty coping with sudden supply changes, and it'll actually lead to vastly more expensive costs and risks for all of WA."*


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> A good article explaining what I've being saying for years, trouble is coming, shutting down coal isn't the issue, keeping it going is the problem.
> Way too much BS, has got us into a very scary situation, way too many emotional irrational arguments by people who really just don't have a clue. Years ago when I tried to explain this, I was told I'm a coal lover, a climate denier etc, well let's see how not supporting coal through the transition goes. 🤣
> This article is from a month ago, it just shows how quickly things can change, from definitely no intervention, to intervention.
> From we can't just throw away taxpayers money, to how much do you need.
> The other issue is, this only covers coal producers in Collie, the Eastern States have a similar issue, but their issue isn't only with the mines, it is with the power stations as well, how do you get the owners to keep thrashing them to death for little or no return?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Warning for WA government to intervene before embattled coal miners drag power system down
> 
> 
> An Australian state government is facing calls to launch a major intervention in the energy market to keep the lights on, amid a crisis affecting local coal miners.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article:
> One of Australia's most prominent energy investors has called on the West Australian government to intervene in the state's beleaguered coal industry before it collapses and the lights go out.
> Oliver Yates, the inaugural head of the federal government's green bank and a senior advisor to investment fund Sentient Impact Group, said WA was headed towards an energy calamity amid a growing crisis affecting its coal industry.
> 
> Coal-fired power still accounts for about a third of the electricity used in the state's biggest grid, but the domestic miners responsible for producing the fuel are in financial distress.
> In September, Indian-owned Griffin Coal was tipped into receivership with debts of almost $1.5 billion, while Chinese-owned Premier Coal has been hit by a series of setbacks and declining output.
> Mr Yates said the problems bedevilling the two miners were only likely to get worse as demand for coal-fired power fell further away in the face of a rising renewable energy industry.
> However, the former investment banker said WA still needed the coal assets "until such time as it doesn't", and the state could not afford to let them fail.
> 
> And he said it was a similar situation across Australia as other regions that had long been the heart of electricity systems, such as the La Trobe Valley in Victoria and the Hunter in New South Wales, wrestled with the same problems.
> 
> "It became pretty obvious to me that the participants in the Collie region … are in financial distress," Mr Yates said.
> "They're sweating their assets, which is a common event that occurs when the private sector knows their assets are likely to close.
> Mr Yates said it was a "logically sensible" action for the companies to take.
> 
> "The problem is when you don't invest in the assets — whether it be equipment or whether it be in the case of a mine just clearing the overburden so you can get to more coal — effectively, you can run into very significant, abrupt problems," he said.
> Earlier this year, Premier Mark McGowan announced the government would close its two remaining coal plants — supplied by Premier Coal — by 2029.
> 
> That would leave a single coal-fired power station, the 440MW Bluewaters plant controlled by US hedge funds, operating in the state.
> 
> According to Mr Yates, who ran the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the WA government needs to intervene before the woes affecting the local coal industry get much worse.
> 
> There were many ways to do this, he said, ranging from direct government control through a so-called transition authority to a regulated company that could be comprised of the state and private investors.
> 
> He said it seemed inevitable that the current operators of WA's two coal mines were headed to the wall.
> While Mr Yates acknowledged that some private investors would be willing to pick up the pieces, he said the extreme financial, political and social risks involved meant it was only "sharks" who would be interested.
> 
> "You can always get the private sector to participate," he said.
> "If the state says, 'We really, desperately need this coal to come out, how about we provide guarantees for coal or everyone has got to pay a lot more for coal', it's effectively burleying the waters to the private sector.
> 
> WA Energy Minister Bill Johnston conceded the predicament of WA's two coal miners was a serious concern for the government.
> 
> However, Mr Johnston argued their problems were inherently private commercial matters, and it would be inappropriate — even unlawful — for the state to intervene.
> 
> "While the companies, Griffin and Premier Coal, are operating, there's no legal pathway for the government to take over the mines," Mr Johnston said.
> "It's just not possible for the government to ignore the private ownership of the mines."
> To deal with shortfalls in production at Premier and Griffin, customers, including state-owned power producer Synergy and mining giant South32 have moved to import coal from abroad despite record prices for the fuel.
> 
> Mr Johnston acknowledged the state's energy system would still need coal for some years but did not agree with Mr Yates' assessment.
> big worry for Mr Johnston is the financial risk involved for taxpayers in the event the state steps into a failing market.
> 
> He noted both coal mines were foreign-owned and stressed the government was unwilling to bail them out of the losses.
> 
> *"We're not going to transfer wealth from the taxpayers of Western Australia to the foreign owners of these two companies," he said.
> "That would not make sense."
> Despite the minister's reticence, Mr Yates said a big financial reckoning was coming for the state regardless of whether it wanted one or not.
> 
> He said the private sector's overarching motive of profit was irreconcilable with the government's objective of keeping the lights on.
> 
> "If you're trying to get a private sector solution out of a Chinese state-owned entity, a company which is broke … and then a power station which is owned by a hedge fund … good luck," Mr Yates said.
> 
> "You actually still need coal in WA for a period of time.
> 
> "You can't have a disorderly closure of coal.
> "It's unfair to workers. It's unfair to industry who will have difficulty coping with sudden supply changes, and it'll actually lead to vastly more expensive costs and risks for all of WA."*




If the government is going to put taxpayers money into coal mines or generators then why doesn't it just buy said assets which would be going dirt cheap, and avoid the same problem with the next owner and the next....


----------



## Smurf1976

SirRumpole said:


> If the government is going to put taxpayers money into coal mines or generators then why doesn't it just buy said assets which would be going dirt cheap, and avoid the same problem with the next owner and the next....



At one point the largest mining company in Australia, of anything, in terms of the quantity mined was the Victorian government via the SECV coal mines.

The Vic government also had another, completely separate, operation too many years ago which was simply known as the State Coal Mine. 

So it’s been done before......


----------



## SirRumpole

Smurf1976 said:


> At one point the largest mining company in Australia, of anything, in terms of the quantity mined was the Victorian government via the SECV coal mines.
> 
> The Vic government also had another, completely separate, operation too many years ago which was simply known as the State Coal Mine.
> 
> So it’s been done before......




It seems, other people have the same ideas...









						Albanese government commits $4.7 billion for NSW renewable energy investment
					

The federal government is adding billions to the New South Wales renewable energy plan as MPs return to parliament to vote on the national energy deal.




					www.abc.net.au
				




*"Yesterday, the NSW's opposition leader Chris Minns said he was considering establishing a state-owned energy corporation to have government-owned assets, as he develops Labor's energy policy to take to the election in March.

"Ownership of electricity assets and a reservation policy are things that we need to look at when you are turning over every single rock," Mr Minns said.
*
_*Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews took a similar proposal, which involved reviving the State Electricity Commission, to the polls last month."*_


----------



## mullokintyre

sptrawler said:


> However, Mr Johnston argued their problems were inherently private commercial matters, and it would be inappropriate — even unlawful — for the state to intervene.



Really? Isn't this the same government that effectively legislated Clive Palmer out of a settlement over a $30billion dispute over the Balmoral South Iron ore project between Palmers Minerology and Citic. 
Governments are more than willing to intervene in commercial matters when it suits.
Mick


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> If the government is going to put taxpayers money into coal mines or generators then why doesn't it just buy said assets which would be going dirt cheap, and avoid the same problem with the next owner and the next....



Because the Govt doesnt want to employ people, it is easier for the private sector to offload workers than the Govt, the private sector dont get the media backlash


----------



## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Because the Govt doesnt want to employ people, it is easier for the private sector to offload workers than the Govt, the private sector dont get the media backlash




Well that just shows lack of guts. As Smurf says it's been done before, the hated Daniel Andrews is heading towards State ownership of assets again, so is the NSW Opposition, Qld didn't sell them off in the first place.

The Libs may not want the odium of employing people, but the 'free market' has clearly failed, so what's left ?


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Well that just shows lack of guts. As Smurf says it's been done before, the hated Daniel Andrews is heading towards State ownership of assets again, so is the NSW Opposition, Qld didn't sell them off in the first place.
> 
> The Libs may not want the odium of employing people, but the 'free market' has clearly failed, so what's left ?



Yep privatisation is like globalisation, it works great until it doesn't, it works while the private sector is making money and the public are getting what they want, once one of those fails the system collapses.
Privatisation fails when the privates sector are required to supply the product at a loss, that's why things like power are called an essential public service, because failure isn't an option.
Globalisation fails, when the country you have sent all your manufacturing to, either doesn't want to sell to you any more, or logistically you just can't transport it like with covid. Then even the most basic essential item can't be bought for love or money no matter how badly you need it.
It is about time the Governments grew a pair and re nationalised essential services and also demanded essential products are manufactured at home, or adequate supplies are held available e.g oil etc.
At least vaccines are going to be produced here again.


----------



## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Because the Govt doesnt want to employ people, it is easier for the private sector to offload workers than the Govt, the private sector dont get the media backlash



When it comes to energy, I think Tasmania might have the right model there.

In short, the Hydro is a corporation owned by shareholders and in no context is it the Public Service. Government is the only actual shareholder yes, but it's very clearly set up as a corporation separate from the Public Service in every way.

HT staff are not Public Servants in any context. They are not covered by PS Awards or pay scales, they have no access to PS dispute resolution processes and so on. They are not counted as Public Servants for statistical purposes and nor are they protected by any political promise or agreement relating to the PS.

Ultimately government does have control given it's the ultimate owner but there's a very clear distinction between HT and government itself. One consequence being that HT's staff simply don't exist, at all, so far as any question concerning the size of the PS. That avoids the issue of political pressure to not employ people in the Public Service.

So using that model, suppose WA were to hypothetically take over the coal mines via an entity which I'll simply call the Collie Coal Corporation or CCC for short.

The relevant Minister could then answer any relevant question in state parliament simply by stating that no Public Servants are employed at Collie and that any question regarding employee numbers is a matter for CCC management to determine.

If the unions make a fuss then again it's nothing to do with government, go argue with CCC.

Government's requirements placed upon CCC would basically be that they get coal out of the ground in the required quantities, that they do so as economically as practical and that they comply with all relevant laws. How to achieve that being a matter for management.


----------



## mullokintyre

Interesting note from the AFR
If Dominic Perrottet decides there’s a coal emergency, an emergency there is.

And in such an emergency, the NSW Premier will have powers over the state’s black coal that might cause a Chinese central planner to blush.



> Changes to the Energy and Utilities Administration law passed on Wednesday give his Energy Minister the power to set maximum prices, decide who coal will be sold to, and control the use of the coal, for any period. In other words, the government can seize control of the whole market.
> This isn’t a small industry, either. NSW’s 22 open-cut and 18 underground coal mines produce 236 million tonnes a year and employ 23,000 people, according to research company Coal Services. One of the bigger miners, Sydney-based Whitehaven Coal, is worth almost $10 billion.
> 
> The law’s self-declared objective “is to put downward pressure on electricity prices during coal market price emergencies by allowing for the giving of directions in relation to the price and domestic supply of coal used to generate energy”.
> All the premier has to do to trigger the powers is to declare an emergency if he believes coal price increases – even if merely projected – or shortages “will adversely affect members of the community”.
> Any increase in coal prices will hurt someone, which means the test can probably be met at almost any time. Neither the premier, nor energy minister, is required to consult with any organisation before acting, such as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which regulates competition policy.
> 
> Nor do they have to “comply with any requirement of procedural fairness”, according to the law, which would make court challenges to their decisions more difficult.
> 
> The penalty for not complying is at least $10 million, although applies to companies not people. If the government doesn’t believe the coal companies are co-operating, it can send in a specially appointed regulator – a coal cop – who has the power to enter offices and demand documents.
> 
> NSW Minerals Council CEO Stephen Galilee said: “The bill is unnecessarily heavy-handed and ignores due process.”
> 
> The changes were introduced by Perrottet into a specially recalled session of parliament on Wednesday as part of a deal with the federal government to also cap gas prices in an attempt to moderate power price increases.
> 
> They were passed by the upper house, with the support of the Labor Party, just before 5pm.



So much for the liberal party being the champion of the free market.
The biggest worry from my perspective is that little wormy creep Matt Kean will have a significant say in this. 
Beware the autocratic controlling governments of any political persuasion.
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

mullokintyre said:


> So much for the liberal party being the champion of the free market.
> The biggest worry from my perspective is that little wormy creep Matt Kean will have a significant say in this.
> Beware the autocratic controlling governments of any political persuasion.




I hear what you are saying about government control, but electricity is an essential service so businesses in that sector can't expect to have free and unfettered control over what they provide. There was a time when State governments owned coal mines and power generators and this worked ok and prices were low and some think that's what it should go back to.


----------



## mullokintyre

SirRumpole said:


> I hear what you are saying about government control, but electricity is an essential service so businesses in that sector can't expect to have free and unfettered control over what they provide. There was a time when State governments owned coal mines and power generators and this worked ok and prices were low and some think that's what it should go back to.



Why do governments sell these things off in the first place?
partly its due to ideology- namely the private sector are more efficient yada yada yada.
Its also partly due to the amounts of money required to build, maintain and operate them.
if the Government wants to control coal prices, buy all the coal mines from the owners.
If the government wants to control power prices, buy all the generation from the owners.
Trying to control it by fiat is not the way to do it, once you bring in these laws, governments feel the need to use them.
The existing government, despite all the platitudes about it being only used in extreme cases, have absolutely no control over what future governments  might do.  
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Mick


----------



## SirRumpole

mullokintyre said:


> Why do governments sell these things off in the first place?




Well, basically because Peter Costello told the States that they don't get any money for new infrastructure unless you sell the old stuff.

Some dId, some did not.


----------



## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Well, basically because Peter Costello told the States that they don't get any money for new infrastructure unless you sell the old stuff.
> 
> Some dId, some did not.



Just about every western country did it, including the U.K, it was a bit like globalisation, it seemed like a great idea at the time. 
In reality the States made a lot of money selling their generating infrastructure and it is now near worthless, no one thought in the 1980's that renewables etc would be viable.
It was only in 2009 that the solar panel manufacturing plant in Homebush, Sydney, was shut down, it is amazing how far technology has come in such a short period.
But back to the issue, IMO essential services should always stay in public hands, because they are required whether they make a profit or not and that is the reason that the private sector are in a mess they own the superseded plant. 
They don't want it, but we the public need it, so the Government is now going to have to pay simple really. 
Just another failed brain fart, to add to the long list of them.


----------



## sptrawler

Well the penny is dropping, there isn't many options, whether people like it or not.









						Japan turns back to nuclear power to tackle energy crisis
					

Japan confirmed a major nuclear power policy shift on Friday to tackle an energy crisis more than a decade after the 2011 Fukushima disaster prompted it to idle most of its reactors.




					www.reuters.com
				




TOKYO, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Japan confirmed a major nuclear power policy shift on Friday to tackle an energy crisis more than a decade after the 2011 Fukushima disaster prompted it to idle most of its reactors.

Public opinion has been hostile towards nuclear energy since a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, but the mood has shifted due to soaring energy costs amid the prolonged war in Ukraine and repeated power crunches in both summer and winter.
Quake-prone Japan, which previously said it had no plans to build new reactors, will now seek to replace decomissioned ones and extend the lifespan of others, the industry ministry said.
The stark policy turnaround comes after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in August that Japan would look at developing next-generation reactors, instructing the industry ministry to set up a policy plan to widen use of nuclear energy by the end of this year.


----------



## Smurf1976

mullokintyre said:


> Why do governments sell these things off in the first place?



Having witnessed the debate since the 1990's, my observation is there's a cultural problem in Australia generally when it comes to leadership.

Tell someone you're doing x and the response of most will be to request a source. That is, where did the idea come from? What book's it in or what website it's on or who else just did it?

The idea that you've actually worked it out from scratch is a concept that goes straight over the heads of many, they just can't grasp the idea of doing that (since they've absolutely no idea how to go about doing so).

That culture leads to a tendency to copy things and when it comes to our energy policy, well practically every aspect of it was taken from the UK. Ideology, market design and so on that's where the primary influence came from for all of it.

Now suffice to say the same approach to leadership also extends to business in general, including listed companies. Some actual innovation and leadership yes but a lot of "cut & paste" in practice especially in big business.


----------



## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> That culture leads to a tendency to copy things and when it comes to our energy policy, well practically every aspect of it was taken from the UK. Ideology, market design and so on that's where the primary influence came from for all of it.
> 
> Now suffice to say the same approach to leadership also extends to business in general, including listed companies. Some actual innovation and leadership yes but a lot of "cut & paste" in practice especially in big business.



A lot boils back to the fact Australia has an inherent inferiority complex, we have punched well above our weight, because we have been a very adaptable, ingenious, clever and unique relying on our wits and ingenuity.
Now we follow overseas models for everything and wonder why we are going around the S bend, it is really sad IMO, we have no none else but ourselves to blame for the demise. 
I'm trying to teach the 7 year old grandson his 3 x tables, it's hard work, he would rather be playing games on his electronic console. 🤣


----------



## Belli

Report from ANU research on prospective places for solar and wind farms.






						Australian Solar PV and Wind Heat Maps
					

Contact




					re100.eng.anu.edu.au


----------



## sptrawler

Obviously Genex renewables, isn't a screaming buy, or maybe the reality isn't as attractive as the dream, who knows.









						Atlassian billionaire Scott Farquhar pulls $346m bid for renewables group
					

The consortium of Scott Farquhar’s Skip Essential Infrastructure Fund and US equity firm Stonepeak called off the takeover on Wednesday morning.




					www.smh.com.au
				




The proposed $346 million takeover of Genex Power by Atlassian chief Scott Farquhar and US private equity firm Stonepeak has been called off, the renewable energy company announced on Wednesday.
In an announcement to the ASX, Genex said that after extended discussions, the consortium had decided to walk away from the 25¢ a share bid which would have taken the company private.


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Obviously Genex renewables, isn't a screaming buy, or maybe the reality isn't as attractive as the dream, who knows.



There's really two big problems with anything hydro from a private sector investment perspective.

First is the extremely long timeframes involved. This is an industry where you spend a decade building then a century operating. There's no "get rich quick" aspect here, not even slightly. It's a long term, low return, low risk situation.

Second is the variability of financial returns. Over a century it's almost bulletproof. Whether you make any profit this year or next is anyone's guess. 

From an engineering perspective hydro ticks all the boxes and does so an order of magnitude better than any other presently available storage technology.

From a financial perspective though, well in the Australian context about 90% of the hydro industry is in government hands and it's a reality that both major (government owned) hydro operators have faced plenty of criticism when it comes to finances. They do make money but, as critics would quickly point out, the % returns aren't at all impressive.

Therein lies a fundamental difficulty. What's good in an engineering sense, and the only realistic way to get to a fully renewable electricity supply, isn't going to see too many lining up to invest since on a strictly financial basis it's just not that great.

Genex had great difficulty getting the project over the line to be built at all and even that happened only once government money was tipped in.

It's a bit like the business model of suburban streets. Society needs them, they bring massive benefits, but those benefits mostly accrue to society overall. The road itself doesn't make the money.


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## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> There's really two big problems with anything hydro from a private sector investment perspective.
> 
> First is the extremely long timeframes involved. This is an industry where you spend a decade building then a century operating. There's no "get rich quick" aspect here, not even slightly. It's a long term, low return, low risk situation.
> 
> Second is the variability of financial returns. Over a century it's almost bulletproof. Whether you make any profit this year or next is anyone's guess.
> 
> From an engineering perspective hydro ticks all the boxes and does so an order of magnitude better than any other presently available storage technology.
> 
> From a financial perspective though, well in the Australian context about 90% of the hydro industry is in government hands and it's a reality that both major (government owned) hydro operators have faced plenty of criticism when it comes to finances. They do make money but, as critics would quickly point out, the % returns aren't at all impressive.
> 
> Therein lies a fundamental difficulty. What's good in an engineering sense, and the only realistic way to get to a fully renewable electricity supply, isn't going to see too many lining up to invest since on a strictly financial basis it's just not that great.
> 
> Genex had great difficulty getting the project over the line to be built at all and even that happened only once government money was tipped in.
> 
> It's a bit like the business model of suburban streets. Society needs them, they bring massive benefits, but those benefits mostly accrue to society overall. The road itself doesn't make the money.



Which brings us to the Origin Energy buyout, is someone trying to wedge the Australian public? OMG. 🤣


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## sptrawler

Smurf1976 said:


> At one point the largest mining company in Australia, of anything, in terms of the quantity mined was the Victorian government via the SECV coal mines.
> 
> The Vic government also had another, completely separate, operation too many years ago which was simply known as the State Coal Mine.
> 
> So it’s been done before......



Also Victoria being a large user of coal generation, that they sold off for a huge sum, wouldn't do too bad buying it back for a song. 
What's the old saying? There's only one Alan Bond moment in your life.  🤣


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> Well, basically because Peter Costello told the States that they don't get any money for new infrastructure unless you sell the old stuff.
> 
> Some dId, some did not.



Well Rumpy that is exactly why I'm pragmatic, I can see both sides of the issue, but also I agree with you that essential services should remain in Govt control.

But there is the other side of the coin, the State Governments who sold off their their generation assets sold at a premium, with that money they probably put in social infrastructure (well they should have).
Now we have a new paradigm, where the infrastructure they sold at a premium, is becoming stranded, obsolete infrastructure, if they hadn't sold it, they would now be wearing it.
So to say it was a disaster is a misnomer, they sold the assets at a peak and should have re invested the money.
The States that didn't sell their generation assets are now wearing the losses, that the private sector would now be wearing.
I'm with you on the social aspect and have always said that, but on a financial basis, selling the assets was a winner, because the end result is the same but those who sold have made money.
Having said that, if the electrical system was still under Government control, I'm sure the transition to renewables would be a bumpless transition, as it would be centrally planned in a holistically way.
It may not have been the cheapest way, but it would be the most secure and seamless transition.
Now we have just jumped in with targets, that the Government has very little control over, so it will be interesting.


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## Belli

sptrawler said:


> Well Rumpy that is exactly why I'm pragmatic, I can see both sides of the issue, but also I agree with you that essential services should remain in Govt control.
> 
> But there is the other side of the coin, the State Governments who sold off their their generation assets sold at a premium, with that money they probably put in social infrastructure (well they should have).
> Now we have a new paradigm, where the infrastructure they sold at a premium, is becoming stranded, obsolete infrastructure, if they hadn't sold it, they would now be wearing it.
> So to say it was a disaster is a misnomer, they sold the assets at a peak and should have re invested the money.
> The States that didn't sell their generation assets are now wearing the losses, that the private sector would now be wearing.
> I'm with you on the social aspect and have always said that, but on a financial basis, selling the assets was a winner, because the end result is the same but those who sold have made money.
> Having said that, if the electrical system was still under Government control, I'm sure the transition to renewables would be a bumpless transition, as it would be centrally planned in a holistically way.
> It may not have been the cheapest way, but it would be the most secure and seamless transition.
> Now we have just jumped in with targets, that the Government has very little control over, so it will be interesting.




Who owns what gets complicated.  And that means who is responsible and willing to pay for what also gets complicated.









						Ownership of Australias Electricity and Grid - What is Labor Plan?
					

Ownership of Australias Electricity and Grid has transferred to private hands in some Australian states. Will there be a Federal corporation?



					changediscussion.com


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## Belli

By the way, read the article in the link if you wish out of interest but don't take it as the be all and end all.  There are some aspects of the site which can be, um, suspect and I don't think the articles are necessarily moderated on a peer reviewed basis.

Apologies for not including that disclaimer in the original post.


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## sptrawler

OOOPs, in the media we are starting to see a bit less high fiving and we've nailed it, to a bit more circumspect navel gazing. 

My guess is, by the end of 2023, there will be a bit more of  WTF is happening.🤣🥳









						Labor’s energy market intervention carries a number of risks
					

The price might constrain the supply of new energy, become self-perpetuating and annoy Australia’s neighbours and customers.




					www.smh.com.au


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## basilio

*Game changing LiOn battery development*

A company called 24M has commercialised a process of producing LiOn batteries at  40% less  cost than the current processes. It is far simpler, cheaper and has greater energy density. They have licensed the process to a number of commercial partners and production of these batteries in large volumes will occur in 2023






						Technology - 24M
					

24M’s lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing process is a simple, space-efficient, low-cost, modular approach to lithium-ion battery manufacturing.



					24-m.com
				





			Partners & Investors - 24M


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## basilio

This story expands on the 24M technology.

MIT Has Beaten Tesla At Their Own Game.​24M’s SemiSolid battery is a game changer.​Musk’s plan to dominate the EV world was centred on Tesla’s 4680 battery. In theory, it could be one of the cheapest and highest-performance batteries out there, giving Tesla a massive technological advantage. But the reality of manufacturing them has kneecapped Musk’s plans, as they are currently underperforming and comparatively expensive due to massive manufacturing issues. Interestingly, 24M, an MIT spinoff company, used a completely different approach to create a high-performance battery that is cheaper than the 4680 and far easier to manufacture. So, how has 24M outdone Tesla? And will this threaten Tesla’s success?


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## SirRumpole

A rocky road ahead for Snowy Hydro.









						Snowy Hydro could change our grid. But we have to build it first
					

Snowy Hydro 2.0 is a water-fuelled dream of cheap, clean electricity. But to make it happen, there are hurdles needing to be overcome.




					www.abc.net.au


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## sptrawler

Things should certainly get interesting from here on.  









						Carbon emission ceiling on Australia's biggest polluters to be lowered 4.9 per cent each year to 2030
					

The government will revamp a climate mechanism introduced by the Coalition government, proposing a 4.9 per cent cut on allowable emissions for the nation's biggest emitters each year to 2030.




					www.abc.net.au
				




Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said the changes being made would require big polluters to contribute their fair share towards cutting carbon emissions.

*"*Facilities covered by the safeguard mechanism are responsible for almost a third of Australia's emissions," Mr Bowen said.

"Twenty-eight per cent of emissions come from them — we will require 28 per cent of emissions reduction to come from safeguard facilities."

Limits on facilities such as coal and gas plants, aluminium smelters, manufacturing plants and airlines will be based on their emissions intensity, not overall emissions, meaning that companies will not be able to meet requirements by reducing production.

The emissions ceilings or "baselines" of each facility will now initially be determined individually, and then will be lowered by 4.9 per cent each year to 2030.

Facilities covered by the scheme will eventually be moved onto industry benchmarks that will be applied equally, making low emitters more competitive.

An overall carbon ceiling will also be set on the scheme, and applied equally to all facilities covered by it, to ensure the 2030 target is met.


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> A rocky road ahead for Snowy Hydro.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Snowy Hydro could change our grid. But we have to build it first
> 
> 
> Snowy Hydro 2.0 is a water-fuelled dream of cheap, clean electricity. But to make it happen, there are hurdles needing to be overcome.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au



Yes, unfortunately it is one of those too big to fail projects, it has to be built.
A lot of the problems arise, when the input costs for these long running projects start climbing rapidly, then who foots the extra costs becomes a headache.
As I've said before engineering companies can be only one bad quote from bankruptcy, the buyer wants certainty of cost, the provider has no control over their costs.
Not a fun game to be in and recently there have been a large round of pay rises etc. It will be interesting to see who takes on the contract to finish Snowy 2.0 now Clough have gone belly up, whoever takes it on will want an open ended contract with the Government, because with inflation the costs will keep ramping.


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## SirRumpole

sptrawler said:


> Things should certainly get interesting from here on.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Carbon emission ceiling on Australia's biggest polluters to be lowered 4.9 per cent each year to 2030
> 
> 
> The government will revamp a climate mechanism introduced by the Coalition government, proposing a 4.9 per cent cut on allowable emissions for the nation's biggest emitters each year to 2030.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said the changes being made would require big polluters to contribute their fair share towards cutting carbon emissions.
> 
> *"*Facilities covered by the safeguard mechanism are responsible for almost a third of Australia's emissions," Mr Bowen said.
> 
> "Twenty-eight per cent of emissions come from them — we will require 28 per cent of emissions reduction to come from safeguard facilities."
> 
> Limits on facilities such as coal and gas plants, aluminium smelters, manufacturing plants and airlines will be based on their emissions intensity, not overall emissions, meaning that companies will not be able to meet requirements by reducing production.
> 
> The emissions ceilings or "baselines" of each facility will now initially be determined individually, and then will be lowered by 4.9 per cent each year to 2030.
> 
> Facilities covered by the scheme will eventually be moved onto industry benchmarks that will be applied equally, making low emitters more competitive.
> 
> An overall carbon ceiling will also be set on the scheme, and applied equally to all facilities covered by it, to ensure the 2030 target is met.



I doubt if Joe Average cares about emissions these day when he can't pay his power bill.


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## sptrawler

SirRumpole said:


> I doubt if Joe Average cares about emissions these day when he can't pay his power bill.



Yes it will be interesting to see if more industries close down, because it isn't financially viable to reduce emissions and much easier just to relocate the processing to China.
Meanwhile China keeps putting in coal fired power stations, ideology driving the bus at the moment, hopefully a degree of common sense prevails.
I wonder if it wouldn't be better to work with the industries to achieve a mutually agreed pathway forward, just telling them that they have to reduce emissions by a certain amount per year, to achieve a target that the Government has dreamt up just doesn't seem like a sensible way to do it.
Because the scale of processing and smelting in Australia is so small, it would seem to me that the businesses would just say, to hell with it we will just ship the raw materials.
Time will tell, at least we will know the answer soon, 2030 isn't far away and the industries have been warned.


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## Smurf1976

sptrawler said:


> Yes it will be interesting to see if more industries close down, because it isn't financially viable to reduce emissions and much easier just to relocate the processing to China.
> Meanwhile China keeps putting in coal fired power stations, ideology driving the bus at the moment, hopefully a degree of common sense prevails.



The big problem with all this, from all sides of politics, is it fails to fix the problem.

All it does when we lose industry from Australia is further entrench the nation's position as someone else's quarry. That being the last thing we ought be doing.


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## sptrawler

Maybe the reality is starting to hit some of those who were ramping up the hyperbole, time will tell, as usual. 🤣









						World’s biggest solar and battery project hangs in balance as Sun Cable enters administration
					

Sun Cable enters voluntary administration amid hints of a falling out between the company’s two biggest backers, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.




					reneweconomy.com.au
				



Sun Cable, the developer of what promises to be the world’s biggest solar and battery storage project here in Australia, has gone into voluntary administration.

In a statement on Wednesday, Sun Cable said the “difficult decision” to appoint FTI Consulting as voluntary administrators of the company had “followed the absence of alignment with the objectives of all shareholders.”

This could suggest a falling out between the two major backers of the company’s huge Australia-Asia PowerLink project, tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes – who is also the chair of Sun Cable – and iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest. RenewEconomy could not immediately confirm whether or not this was the case.

Sun Cable’s “marque” project, the Australia-Asia PowerLink, proposes to build up to 20GW of solar near Elliott in the heart of the Northern Territory, and 42GWh of battery storage, providing clean energy for green industry in Darwin and to Singapore through a 4,200km sub-sea cable.

Sun Cable had aimed to begin construction on the AAPLink next year, complete financial close by the start of 2024, start supplying 800MW of electricity capacity to Darwin in 2027, and to be in full operation – helping to power Singapore – by 2029.


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## mullokintyre

sptrawler said:


> Maybe the reality is starting to hit some of those who were ramping up the hyperbole, time will tell, as usual. 🤣
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> World’s biggest solar and battery project hangs in balance as Sun Cable enters administration
> 
> 
> Sun Cable enters voluntary administration amid hints of a falling out between the company’s two biggest backers, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> reneweconomy.com.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sun Cable, the developer of what promises to be the world’s biggest solar and battery storage project here in Australia, has gone into voluntary administration.
> 
> In a statement on Wednesday, Sun Cable said the “difficult decision” to appoint FTI Consulting as voluntary administrators of the company had “followed the absence of alignment with the objectives of all shareholders.”
> 
> This could suggest a falling out between the two major backers of the company’s huge Australia-Asia PowerLink project, tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes – who is also the chair of Sun Cable – and iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest. RenewEconomy could not immediately confirm whether or not this was the case.
> 
> Sun Cable’s “marque” project, the Australia-Asia PowerLink, proposes to build up to 20GW of solar near Elliott in the heart of the Northern Territory, and 42GWh of battery storage, providing clean energy for green industry in Darwin and to Singapore through a 4,200km sub-sea cable.
> 
> Sun Cable had aimed to begin construction on the AAPLink next year, complete financial close by the start of 2024, start supplying 800MW of electricity capacity to Darwin in 2027, and to be in full operation – helping to power Singapore – by 2029.



That might explain the departure of the FMG  CFO just recently.
And from  The Australian


> However, Dr Forrest’s Squadron Energy is understood to have raised concern that Sun Cable failed to meet its Series B funding milestones and was “burning cash” at unsustainable rates.
> 
> Mr Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures, meanwhile, was planning to invest an extra $60m into Sun Cable, but that proposal was not agreed to by Squadron, sources said.



Edited to add the OZ quote.
Mick


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