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Warning - technical post to explain the issues surrounding the above. Nothing to do with investment in energy etc.

I'm not opposed to the idea in principle, as long as it isn't seen as an alternative to conventional power generation (fossil fuel, hydro, nuclear) but rather the supplement that it is.

In any power system there is what is known as the "maximum demand", also referred to as "peak demand" or in the past "peak load". What this means is the maximum amount of electricity being consumed at any point in time, usually measured on an annual basis.

Using Tasmania as an example (since I have precise figures) the maximum system demand recorded to date is 1798 MW recorded in August 2005 on the day it snowed in the suburbs of Hobart. On average it is about 1250 MW over the year (assuming average weather since heating is a big use of power in Tas).

But right now at the time of this post it is 1239 MW and it goes as low as 900 MW in the middle of the night around Christmas - New Year. It was 1098 MW at 4am this morning and will likely exceed 1450 MW around 6pm tonight. A few weeks ago it was regularly pushing 1700 MW around 6:15 pm Monday to Friday.

Tasmania is at one extreme with average load being 70% of maximum load. If you look at the other extreme, South Australia, then you have demand anywhere between 800 MW and over 3000 MW depending on time of the day and weather conditions. In practice Tas and SA sit at the extremes with most aspects of the electricity industry - load profile, production cost, generation technology etc. In absolute terms, NSW has the highest power demand but it is not at the extremes of anything apart from absolute scale.

So the problem with solar feeding the grid is intermittency. It's fine to add some solar when the sun is shining but you still need to have conventional generating plant (fossil fuel, hydro) of sufficient capacity to meet demand when the sun isn't shining. Given that the second highest demand for electricity in most states occurs when it is dark (Winter around 6pm) this is quite an issue.

So in practice there is no problem with installing solar to the extent that it reduces the Summer peak demand on conventional generation down to a level comparable to the Winter peak. But beyond that point the economics seriously fall in a hole due to necessary duplication of generating capacity.

Also, it would be undesirable to reduce the afternoon load during Winter to below the midnight - 6am off-peak load as doing so would make the operation of conventional generating plant needed to meet the evening peak problematic (amongst other things it would increase fuel use and emissions at such plants).

In practice however, there's nothing wrong with putting some solar panels on the roof and connecting them to the grid on the scale that ordinary consumers are likely to do it. If it gets to the point of becoming mainstream and generating significant amounts of power then it will cause problems however. I don't think it's likely to go that far until at least 2030 though so it's not an immediate issue.

As for the cost, it's about the most expensive means of generation that anyone actually uses so it just doesn't stack up financially. If the aim is cheap power (ignoring the environment) then coal is a clear winner (in some cases hydro can also be done pretty cheap). Geothermal could foreseeably compete with coal in economic terms before too long.

If you want lowest greenhouse gas emissions then hydro followed by wind are the winners with geothermal, wave, tidal etc being also very low impact. Solar is a long way down the list (though still much cleaner than coal) due to the energy required to manufacture the solar panels.

Whilst there is a lack of hard data (due to lack of sufficient worldwide experience with the technology) it does seem likely that large scale solar thermal technology can beat panels on roofs in terms of environmental impact. It can certainly beat it in terms of cost.

If I was thinking about putting solar panels on the roof then I would first be looking to make the house as energy efficient as possible. It's generally a much cheaper way of achieving the same end result of reduced demand for fossil fuels. Depending on location, concentrate on the heating/cooling followed by hot water since they are usually the biggest energy users.
 
Smurf1976,
What you say, looks like a nightmare for electricity producers.

Quite funny that electricity made by individuals is almost not welcomed and is capable to mess up the grid.

I don’t have the luxury of seeing it from the inside; my look at it was from my point of view.
If I have solar panels and I can reverse my meter or at least slow it down, I am actually ‘printing money’

I heard that Australia and US develops low cost solar batteries 3 times as efficient as ones available now, so we might be able to produce at least tice as much as we were until now.

Electrical energy efficient storage could be nice to have, but ‘efficient’ is a problem.
 
Happy said:
Smurf1976,
What you say, looks like a nightmare for electricity producers.

Quite funny that electricity made by individuals is almost not welcomed and is capable to mess up the grid.
Click to expand...
It's only a problem if it gets to the point of being a major source of power. On a small scale, it will simply lower demand on conventional generation during the afternoon - no problem especially given that except in Tasmania, demand peaks during Summer afternoons when solar generation will be highest.

Overall, centralised generation of practically any type is cheaper but there's no reason (apart from cost) not to put some panels on the roof if you want to. It will save fuel (and greenhouse emissions) as long as everyone else doesn't do it too.

Just don't think that because it works for one house that it means we can put panels on every roof and close the conventional power stations - it just doesn't work technically to do that. It would, however, be an alternative to expanding conventional generation up to the point where the Summer peak is flattened to the level of the Winter peak. Beyond that is when the troubles start financially and technically. Expanding conventional generation is cheaper however.

Take a look at the state demand and price graphs if you want to get a better understanding of what large scale solar would do to the grid. If we put 3KW on every house in Victoria, for example, then that would take around 6000 MW off the afternoon demand thus shutting down conventional generation on most days. Since it takes up to 48 hours to get a plant up and running that's a big problem... Depending on the technology used, conventional fossil fuel generation needs to remain 20-65% loaded - operation below this load means basically burning the fuel and dumping the steam (total waste) so that would offset the point of using solar. For most plant actually in the grid the limit is 30-50%.

http://www.nemmco.com.au/ for the graphs. Near the middle of the page at the top under the heading "Market Data". The red line is price (left scale), green line is demand (right scale). The 30 minute graphs will give you a reasonable overall view (this is constantly updated in real time so what you see will depend on when you look). Left of the black vertical bar is actual data, to the right is forecast for the next day (on the 30 minute graphs only).
 
So vision of soccer-field size solar battery systems and all footpaths covered with electricity producing summer heat relieving awnings and bricks doubling up as solar panels and all roofs being large solar panels is nothing more than headlines catching vision of a lunatic dreamer.
 
If the cost of the panels falls 5 fold and a reliable, cheap, convienient & green energy storage and retrieval mechanism is invented or found then it will happen. even now the energy oversupply can be used to pump water back up to high reserviours for night hydro and that seems to be fairly good for keeping base load plants active. There are other ways of using oversupply like metal electrowinning that can be turned on and off without too much drama if designed properly

John
 


If you have to outlay $2000 to $6000 to set up solar system then payback will be 10 to 30 years at current stipulated savings.

Surely should power cost double or triple savings will be higher, but for the time being no big deal, yet lucky Adelaide will have first dip in uncle John’s initiative.
 
Victorian Blackouts

As many Victorians will be well aware, today was rather eventful for the electricity industry. A simplified explanation of what happened for anyone who is interested.

1. At 4pm (Vic time) Victorian electricity load was about 9100 MW. That's close to as high as it gets for power use in Victoria. About 6600 MW was being supplied from local generation, 1700 from the Snowy, 500 from Tasmania and 300 from South Australia.

2. Due to fires in the area, several lines from the Snowy tripped offline.

3. Load immediately fell to about 6600 MW as the system disconnected loads to protect itself (if this didn't happen then the whole grid would go down).

4. Within a few minutes:

Supply from the Snowy had stabilised at 400 MW.

South Australia's link to Victoria had tripped offline but the SA system ran OK within SA.

Victorian generation had fallen to 5900 MW (due to a bit more load tripping than was absolutely necessary - better safe than sorry).

Tasmanian supply to Victoria was all over the place to keep Victorian supply and connected load balanced.

5. SA was reconnected.

6. Load restoration commenced with ramping up of Vic, SA and Tasmanian generation. But there was insufficient supply to restore all loads until the normal fall in demand after 5pm.

7. At the present time, the system is operating "normally" with reduced ability to transfer power between Victoria and the Snowy.

All loads are back on. Total about 8000 MW now that offices etc are closed for the day.

Victorian generation about 7100 MW.
Snowy 590 MW.
Tasmania supplying 590 MW to Victoria.
SA is now taking a small amount from Victoria (normal operations).

8. In theory at least, all should be OK tomorrow as long as it isn't as hot as it was today (that is, as long as power demand doesn't hit 9000MW+ again tomorrow with more lines or generation going down).

Just for the info of those stuck in lifts, traffic chaos etc.
 
Massive electrical energy storage system capacitor like in underground near absolute zero temperature, would be good idea, but expensive and immediately uneconomical.

Yesterday’s drama clearly shows what happens when there is not much spare capacity.

Since Air Conditioner units are sold for as low as $300 plus installation, we can expect more households hooked up and problems can only be worse.
Cheap AC is not economical to run too and probably best if outlawed, but who is going to make that decision?

Bigger problem would be if power trips in winter and people do not have alternative heating arrangements.
Probably good idea to look at it and have some gas heaters, even old kerosene heater probably better than nothing.

As wood burning stoves are massive polluters.
Nobody maintains chimneys and impossible to know how many households burn pieces of timber that are unfit for burning.

Maybe improved insulation would the way to go, instead of heating the universe with heat escaping porous dwellings.
 
Smurf,
thanks for the excellent run-down on the progress in development of the renewable energy. There's an interesting article on the subject in The Age today which shows that it is a great way to go when applied to homes, but is far too expensive as yet.

As you have mentioned, the big problem with renewable energy is that the wind and the sun needed to produce the power cannot be controlled to occur at the time when it is needed. The answer lies in storing this energy when it is produced for use when it is needed. There is probably a host of different storage systems already developed, but the one I am interested in is the vanadium redox battery which was developed by a team of Uni of NSW scientists a few years back.

Pinnacle VRB (PCE) is the company driving the development of this battery (up to 10MWh), and also its marketing. There was a report about a year back that a system was installed on Kangaroo Island, the event being attended by the Minister for Environment. Recently there was the following report -

13th November 2006.

Delivery of First VRB ESS Confirmed

The Directors of Pinnacle VRB Ltd are delighted to report that the company's first 10kWh VRB ESS system has been received into Australia. The unit will now be installed onto the clients premises and commissioned as soon as possible.

Director of Pinnacle Colin Andrews said "The first VRB ESS being received onto our shores marks the most significant stage yet in the commercialisation of the VRB ESS energy storage systems in Australia."


Smurf, is this thing for real? Do you have any knowledge of it?

Many thanks.

anon
 

Since some air conditioners are as cheap as $300 plus installation, we will see power guzzlers everywhere.
Next step will be power generator in every household as a backup, from little 300W to few kW and noise will come with it.

Before we go green, we will go stupid.
 
They may have just delivered the first 10kW system, but a much larger system with peak output of 400kW and able to sustain 200kW for 4 hours has been operating on King Island (Bass Strait) since 2003.

This was the first use of a vanadium redox battery to smooth out fluctuations in wind energy in the world. I don't have any current data on the operation of the battery but I know that there were problems at first and it took quite some time to fix.

King Island doesn't use that much power (though demand will go up several fold if/when the mine re-opens) and historically it has been supplied totally from diesel generation, it being technically viable but prohibitively expensive to connect to either the Tasmanian or Victorian grid.

King Island wind farm was the 2nd wind farm to commence operations in Australia. It's small, only 5 turbines, but it generates about half the island's power now that the battery is up and running. This is a far higher % of power from wind than any grid anywhere in the world (though it would be misleading to say that King Island has a "grid", but it's still a very high use of wind energy).

More info here including a picture of the battery.
http://www.hydro.com.au/Documents/Renewables Development/5882Roaring40s.pdf

The option of going 100% wind was examined and would have involved use of pumped storage hydro as well as the battery. Bottom line is that with the small scale of operations and present price of diesel it just wasn't viable financially. Running a salt water pumped storage scheme was always going to be high maintenance and it's just too expensive on such a small scale.

There is also a plan for a carbon block thermal energy storage system on King Island which could lift the contribution of wind energy to around 75% (25% diesel).

They are still looking at the idea of 100% wind using hydrogen storage for Cape Barren Island however, but that is only a 100kW system versus the 3000kW peak demand on King Island. The actual hydrogen technology is internal combustion so nothing too radical there (though a 100% wind energy system is certainly a radical step).

Also you might be interested in the dual fuel hydrogen diesel engine which has potential application for remote power supplies as well as transport. http://www.abc.net.au/ra/innovations/stories/s1499183.htm
 
I can see it now...

House for sale. 3 bed, built-ins, single garage, ensuite, north facing lounge, 500kV switchyard, double circuit transmission line, 1 x 500MW generating unit, 260 metre stack...

Actually for those living at Newport (Melbourne) you've pretty much got that anyway plus an oil refinery too. : Or stand on any roof in Osborne (Adelaide) and you'll see a full 2000 MW within walking / swimming distance.

Joe average will buy the 1kW 2-stroke petrol generator from Bunnings whilst muttering something about the need to cut greenhouse emissions and saying that the local hoons / nightclub / shop / railway are too noisy.

Happy will look for a North facing roof and install some solar panels to generate 2kW and run the whole house with that and some storage batteries.

Smurf will buy the steepest block possible as long as there's a creek flowing through it, build a hydro scheme and generate 100kW - most of it to run the Christmas lights. :

And John Howard will get the big block in order to fit 4 x 800,000kW units complete with nuclear reactor, cooling towers and reprocessing facility right there in his own backyard.

Anyone know what happened to the dominatrix who was running Tarraleah (the town, not the power station) a few years ago? I think she was into a different kind of power though...

Seriously, I think we've passed the point now where there is any doubt that A/C will be as common as phones and washing machines in houses before too long. We're going to end up with more gas turbines built to generate the power. Just wait until peak gas delivery constraints become a problem and we end up running them on kerosene...
 
Here is another article from Dr Boreham about the nuclear power plants and the energy.



.
homeNuclear power safe, says expertArticle from: Font size: Decrease Increase Email article: Email Print article: Print Submit comment: Submit comment CARA JENKIN
August 30, 2007 02:15am
SOUTH Australians need to accept nuclear power as a safe alternative to producing electricity because any radiation would be at safe levels, an international expert says.

Dr Doug Boreham, an associate professor and radiation biologist at Canada's McMaster University, says the radiation at nuclear power stations and uranium mine sites is low level and does not harm the biology of humans.

Dr Boreham, who is in Adelaide to give information to workers in the radiation and uranium industry, said the level of radiation was comparative to the natural background radiation on Earth.

He said the levels of radiation did not damage cells or DNA but instead stimulated cells to adapt and defend the body from pre-cancer cells.

Dr Boreham said modern nuclear power plants were much safer and did not emit greenhouse gases, unlike coal or gas-fired electricity plants.

"If you do the economics of it, we can't make enough electricity from solar or wind to provide the city's electricity needs," he said. "The amount of radiation from working in a nuclear power plant for a year is equal to having one chest X-ray in a year."
 
Smurf1976 said:
Nothing to do with investment but a point of engineering significance and hopefully of interest to someone.

In a few days the working museum that is the Lake Margaret power station (Tas) will close. After 92 years...
Click to expand...
Back to its' former glory for the main station, with a brand new small one downstream as well.

Nice new wood pipe for both stations (steel just wouldn't have looked right...). The old machinery back up and running nicely in the main station, new machine in the smaller station.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/23/2962363.htm
 
Smurf (or anyone else): I read in the weekend papers that the electricity generators are saying that unless we have a price on carbon, electricity charges will rise.

Before the dumping of the ETS we were told that the pricing of carbon and the institution of the ETS would push up power prices.

Why should retaining the status quo, i.e. no carbon price, of itself push up prices? Is this just a bit of mumbo jumbo to cover up simple price gouging?
 
we should build lots of nuclear power plants, and feed the waste rods into more advanced nuclear power plants. then take all the waste into the desert and bury it in a big hole (well away from the artesian basin). use the electricity to process our resources here instead of shipping dirt to china for pennies and importing steel for dollars. charge europe sh1ttons of cash to store their waste as well.

then sit on the waste for a few hundred years till we develop the space elevator / anti-gravity (we aren't leaving earth till we have it) then cheaply lift it into space and push it into the sun. sweet.
 
Record haulage of central zone coal from the mines two weeks ago. Demand projected to be on continuous rise with major markets Japan, China, India and Korea.
 
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