The future of energy generation and storage

Wysiwyg said:

I will be going off grid for the household first, planet second. Dependence on others for anything is vexing. Staying on grid dependence to assist others to lower their bills is a nice gesture.

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Staying in the grid will probably help you lower your power bill.

Even if you have a battery, you will probably still generate excess power which you could sell rather than waste, and if you end up getting an electric car, it will be cheaper for you to charge at home(requiring the grid) than to rely on a public charge station.

Thursday this week is looking somewhat risky in Victoria at this stage.

Forecast load = 7502 MW

Generation available in Vic = 5805 MW

NSW, Tas and SA between them have a spare 2640 MW available for supply to Vic (in SA's case the limit is the amount of spare generation capacity in that state whilst also supplying the SA load. For NSW and Tas the limit is transmission capacity to Vic) but even with that there's not a lot of room for anything to go wrong without putting the lights out.

Why?

Apart from issues of plant closures as such there have been a few failures recently.

Loy Yang A (owner = AGL) had what is generally understood (they haven't said too much, at least not that I've seen) to be a major failure of one unit (there's 4 at the plant) last month and they're also having significant trouble with a second generating unit which is now running at half capacity. So as a whole Loy Yang A is about two thirds operational at present.

Yallourn (owner = Energy Australia) has one unit (there's 4 at the plant) out of service for planned maintenance but another one suddenly failed a few days ago. So as a whole Yallourn is running at 50% of capacity.

I thought this was more relevant in this thread rather than "Electric Cars" where there was a discussion of various energy supplies.

Coastal hydro power systems.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/ener...ustainable-energy-source-20171002-gyt5uq.html

Copied from the Electric Car thread. Another of Smurfs classics.

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Smurf do you have any comments on this ?

[The assertion that coal plants have to run full-time]

Smurf1976 said:

As a generation technology coal is high capital cost but low (in some cases extremely low - you'd be amazed how cheap the Latrobe Valley brown coal stations are to operate) running cost. There's also a cost, for auxiliary fuel (usually oil or gas) to start up as well as additional wear and tear on the plant.

From a purely technical perspective stopping and starting a plant using high grade coal isn't overly difficult. It does cost $ however and that aspect combined with the low running cost but high capital cost means that coal is best suited for economic reasons to continuous operation.

For a plant using low grade coal with a high water content, and Latrobe Valley coal is up to 70% water (so it's water with some coal rather than coal with some water) there are some technical issues with starting up quickly. It's not impossible to do it but in practice not done unless under emergency conditions.

So if we put the CO2 issue to one side and focus purely on the traditional economic aspects then it makes sense to build coal to the extent that we need some form of generation to run constantly. In that role it's cheaper than gas or oil easily. And once it's built it makes sense to run coal plant in preference to oil or gas since it's cheaper to operate.

So coal does have the ability to generate at low marginal cost once it's built. Total cost is higher obviously but for a plant that's already there it doesn't cost much to just put more coal in and run it a bit harder when it would otherwise be under-utilised (eg overnight).

From a total cost perspective it also makes sense to flatten out the load so as to be able to meet as much of the total demand from low cost (coal) plant as possible and to minimise the use of oil and gas.

So it's an economic issue more than a technical one where black coal is concerned.

For other technologies:

Gas or oil - capable of running constantly if needed but the marginal cost of operation is high (but capital costs are lower than with coal). Hence such plant is normally built to meet that part of the load which is intermittent in nature (eg driven by weather or the normal daily cycle of human activity).

Hydro - costs a fortune to build but it's incredibly cheap to run. Hydro plant is capable of changing output incredibly fast, seconds, but in the Australian context in most cases the water resource is quite limited such that the best use (economically) is to install a lot of generating capacity using the relatively limited water resource and use it for peak loads. The generators aren't expensive, it's the dam and civil works that costs serious $, so that's the most economic way to use it. There are some exceptions in Tas where we do have true base load hydro stations - Butlers Gorge, Tarraleah and Wayatinah in particular plus a number of others which go to low load overnight but never to zero (unless due to maintenance) due to the need to keep the water moving - Meadowbank is the most obvious example (Hobart draws 60% of its water supply from Meadowbank's discharge so it can't stop) with Cluny and Repulse also not normally going to zero (but they do go to low output routinely).

How cheap? That's generally confidential information in the context of the competitive National Electricity Market but it was publicly disclosed a few years ago that Hydro Tas has marginal costs of running versus not running of around 0.2 cents per kilowatt hour and it's no secret that the brown coal plants in Vic are similar. That was a few years ago, costs are a bit higher now due to inflation, but it's still incredibly low.

For black coal it depends on the fuel price but we're talking 1.5 - 3.0 cents / kWh for most Australian plants to run versus not run.

For gas it varies but 4 - 10 cents / kWh covers most of them.

Note that those are marginal costs of running versus not running and that total costs are far higher. Cost to build in the first place, cost to pay staff and so on don't change just because the plant is or isn't running (well, not unless you close it outright and lay off the the staff etc).

Also note that those are short term costs which don't include the cost of an eventual refurbishment although that's not directly proportional to output. A plant that's run 20% of the time won't last 4 times as long as one that's run 80% of the time indeed in some cases there would be virtually no difference. Longer running hours are balanced out by having fewer stops and starts causing wear.

There's also efficiency to throw into the mix. Gas turbines in particular suffer huge efficiency losses at low output, at very low output their efficiency is truly shocking, but all plant has an optimum operating point. For coal or gas that's generally somewhere near maximum capacity. For hydro it varies with the technology of a particular plant but for Gordon PS (Tas) it's optimum is about 77% of capacity. Running at 100% loses a few % of efficiency but go down to 10% and it's a pretty big loss (hence why Hydro Tas is currently looking at adding a 4th machine, smaller than the rest, at Gordon specifically to enable better efficiency at low output).

Gas turbines also suffer efficiency losses as the temperature increases. The colder the better.

Then there's the issue of "use it or lose it" generation such as wind, solar and any hydro scheme where the dam is full (which does happen with the smaller ones).

Put all that together and there's a definite advantage in shifting electrical load away from the peaks if possible and in the case of electric vehicles charging them overnight. Helps keep efficiency up, maximises the use of cost or "use it or lose it" generation and doesn't add much to the need to run high cost plant such as oil or gas.

Added to all that there's the original design of the plant itself. What was it built to do? A coal plant can certainly be built to optimise performance for peak load use if that's the intent just as a gas-fired plant can be built to run base load if that's how it's planned to be operated.

Most of the NSW coal-fired plants are pretty good at following load and getting down to low outputs. Getting down to one third of capacity they do easily. In contrast the Vic brown coal plants weren't built with that intention - anything below about 55% of capacity isn't so easy (not impossible but some issues arise).

Newport (Vic) and Torrens Island (SA) both use steam turbines with gas-fired boilers (not gas turbines) but were built to be flexible. Regular starts and stops and operating anywhere from 20% to 100% of capacity they do pretty easily.

Then there's things like Tamar Valley CCGT (Tas), a gas-fired plant built specifically for base load. It operates intermittently as such but wouldn't normally drop below two thirds of capacity when running and is typically stopped and started a few times a year at most. The plus side of that inflexibility is that it's the most efficient plant in the National Electricity Market.

In short - yes coal can stop and start but for economic reasons that's not an ideal situation. Doable but if we can use the power for a worthwhile purpose, instead of drawing that power when demand is high, then it makes massive sense to do so.

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You have done it again Smurf, thanks for taking the time.

Maybe some of the water resource drawbacks of hydro could be overcome by coastal plants using seawater ? The upper reservoir would still have to be built, but the lower one is already there. Pros and cons ?

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From the "Electric cars?" thread.

Hydro fits into two categories:

1. Conventional hydro which produces energy as such.

Water sourced naturally at high elevation is dropped to a lower elevation via a power station(s) and generates electricity in doing so.

Depending on the scheme the same water may be dropped either in one go or in several stages. Eg in the Derwent system in Tasmania water starting out at Lake St Clair goes through a total of 8 power stations at progressively lower elevations so as to exploit the maximum possible head (drop) of water as per natural topography.

Lake St Clair > Lake King William (storage) > Butlers Gorge PS > Tarraleah canals > Tarraleah PS > Lake Liapootah > Liapootah PS > Wayatinah Lagoon > Wayatinah PS > Lake Catagunya > Catagunya PS > Lake Repulse > Repulse PS > Cluny Lagoon > Cluny PS > Lake Meadowbank > Meadowbank PS > a minor amount is used for Hobart's water supply and the rest ends up in the sea.

Further complicating that is Tungatinah PS which is almost opposite Tarraleah PS but drawing from a separate catchment. Water from both flows into Lake Liapootah. Upstream of Tungatinah is another power station, Lake Echo, with Lake Echo itself a major storage.

This photo (not mine) of a public information sign shows how it works: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--dmxGcVOL10/UNz2Pc3XhZI/AAAAAAAABvg/4V6S1JFxx8c/s1600/IMG_4302.jpg

In other places such as Poatina the water from Great Lake is dropped literally 835 metres, measured as a straight vertical drop and ignoring the horizontal distance, in one stage before being used again at a much lower head many km away at Treavallyn. That's pretty serious pressure by the way, 835 metres head is equivalent to about 8200 kPa or 1200 PSI which is around 15 times the water pressure you have at home or 40 times the air pressure in a car tyre.

At the other extreme, Cluny (one of the stations in the Derwent scheme) has a head of just 17 metres. There are some overseas with even lower heads - there's one near Salzburg in Austria with a head of only 5m or so but it works due to the massive water volume they've got.

The key to getting a useful amount of energy from conventional hydro is simply water head x volume. Double the head but halve the volume and you've still got the same power output. Etc. To build a practical scheme simply requires that the available water x the head which can be achieved = enough power to make the whole thing worthwhile.

So the reason there's so much hydro potential in Tasmania and very little in SA isn't simply about water. SA is pretty dry but it does rain there. Trouble is SA is also mostly flat so there's very few places in that state with water at the top, a steep drop nearby and somewhere to put the water at the bottom of the hill. In contrast there's no shortage of mountains in Tasmania and those mountains are also where most of the rain falls.

Here's a diagram showing how the Mersey-Forth scheme (Tas) works. It's the second most complicated scheme in Tas after the Derwent. https://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/MRWMR/art-for-cover.jpg

2. Pumped storage hydro which takes electricity from the grid, pumps water up hill, then reverses that to put power back into the grid.

All you need for that to work is somewhere to store the water at the top and the bottom with not too much horizontal distance between them. You do need a source of water too but since it's not being consumed but is simply being pumped up hill and run back down again over and over not a lot of water is actually needed after the initial fill.

Hence it's not a problem to be building pumped hydro at Kidston (Qld) or near Whyalla (SA) despite there not being a lot of water around. The reservoirs are already built (old mines) so all that needs to be added is water and a power station plus associated infrastructure.

Hence it's practical to put a pumped hydro scheme somewhere fairly dry as long as you've got somewhere to store the water at the top and bottom, somewhere to put the power station and enough water to fill it with. There are literally thousands of such places in Australia.

Using sea water as the bottom reservoir wouldn't be a problem so long as there's somewhere suitable to build an upper reservoir and any issues relating to storing salty water on the land can be dealt with (eg line it with something to stop leakage). Plus use suitable materials for the turbines and penstocks to avoid excessive corrosion due to the salty water. Address those two and there's no reason it can't be done.

A pumped storage scheme does not actually add energy to the system however. It simply takes it from the grid at one time and returns it at another time with roughly a 20% loss in doing so. So for it to work there needs to be surplus power available, on an intermittent basis, from some other source.

Traditionally coal (and overseas nuclear) plants have provided that source of surplus power (overnight) but wind and solar could certainly do it to (pump water when there's plenty of power from the sun and wind, run the hydro station to keep the lights on when it's dark and/or calm). That would be the practical use somewhere like SA.

3. In some cases hybrids exist. Conventional hydro schemes built with an additional reservoir below the power station plus pumps and larger generators than would otherwise be used.

This does produce net energy from the natural inflow of water but adds the ability to re-use some of it in order to store energy from other sources in the same scheme.

Tumut 3 (Snowy Hydro) is an example of that. It produces energy as such from the diversion of water through the power station but also has the ability to pump back up from a smaller reservoir below the power station. That arrangement enabled Tumut 3 to be built far larger than it could sensibly have been built without the pumping aspect (originally 1500 MW and more recently upgraded to 1800 MW - that's comparable to a typical coal or nuclear plant).

Hydro Tas is presently evaluating the same approach noting that due to the multi-dammed approach used in past construction, done to exploit the maximum possible head and thus maximise energy production, both the upper and lower reservoirs already exist at numerous locations. So all that would be needed is to put bigger generators and pumps in plus the associated pipes and tunnels etc and increased electricity transmission capacity.

This project has the official name of "Battery of the Nation" and is envisaged as a 2500 MW increase in Hydro Tas' generating capacity without building new dams. To be useful as a means of supplying other states it does of course require that Tas - Vic transmission also be greatly upgraded and that forms part of the evaluation process.

Snowy Hydro also have their "Snowy 2.0" project which is a different but broadly similar concept with a capacity of 2000 MW. It needs a lot more tunnels and so on than Hydro Tas would need (and tunnels aren't cheap.....) but doesn't have the cost of across Bass Strait transmission so is likely to be comparable in terms of overall costs.

Given that Victoria alone has a peak demand of over 10,000 MW there's definitely room for both Battery of the Nation and Snowy 2.0 if we're going to replace coal with renewables indeed in due course we'll need to go even further.

Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tas are the dominant hydro operators in Australia, accounting for about 90% between them. On a smaller scale there are other conventional hydro schemes in Vic, NSW and Qld plus there's the Wivenhoe (Qld) and Shoalhaven (NSW) pumped storage schemes.

Snowy and Hydro Tas are dominant in different ways. Snowy has almost twice the peak generating capacity that Hydro Tas does. But then Hydro Tas accounts for about 60% of all hydro power actually generated in Australia with Snowy about 30%.

In short that's because Snowy's power stations were built firstly to shift the water and secondly to produce peak power in states (NSW and Vic at the time, SA and Qld being connected to Vic and NSW much later) where fossil fuels (mostly coal) are dominant. They have a lot of capacity but most of it only runs for peak loads.

In contrast the Tasmanian system was built as the primary source (only source for much of its history) of power in Tasmania. The Tasmanian hydro stations are considerably smaller than Snowy's on an individual basis but run much harder in terms of operating hours and there's also 4 times as many of them.

Largest by peak capacity is Tumut 3 (Snowy Hydro) with 1800 MW capacity. Annual output, excluding the pumped storage aspect, is 582 GWh.

Largest by annual output is Gordon (Hydro Tas) with 1472 GWh. Peak capacity is 432 MW.

So a big difference in the mode of operation there.

Can we power the whole country with hydro? In short no, there's simply not enough of it although there are undeveloped resources in several states so an increase isn't out of the question.

What it can do however is reliably (very proven technology and lasts a century or more), efficiently (80% round trip) and on a large scale store energy produced from intermittent sources such as wind or solar. That aspect is critical if we're going to use wind and solar as the primary source of supply in the future. Batteries are also likely to have an ongoing role but they're far less durable that's for sure.

Another aspect of hydro is system inertia. That's getting into power engineering as such but in short you can't easily stop a great big rotating machine. Something goes wrong in the grid and there's a lot of mechanical inertia in that machinery - it'll keep going whilst things like wind will far more easily give up. Think "trying to stop a fully loaded freight train" versus "trying to stop a bicycle" sort of difference. That's also a feature of steam turbines (coal) and to some extent gas turbines and is a necessary property in terms of maintaining a stable system. Batteries might be able to replicate that electronically although it remains to be seen how that works when a real incident occurs.

Incident? Something suddenly fails either generation or transmission. That sort of thing is more common than the general public would realise - there have been two such incidents in Victoria alone in the past few weeks. That nobody outside the industry knows about them is because that sheer mass of rotating machinery - coal, hydro and gas - absorbed the shock whilst other generating plant ramped up.

Link to Snowy 2.0 (Snowy Hydro): http://www.snowyhydro.com.au/our-scheme/snowy20/

Link to Battery of the Nation (Hydro Tas): https://www.hydro.com.au/energy/battery-nation

Both projects are still at the investigation stage so there's a limit to how much info is being made available but there's some on both websites.

The Big Battery tourist attraction in South Australia has been completed within 100 days.

Tesla has completed construction of its giant lithium ion battery, described as the world's most powerful, with testing expected in coming days ahead of a December 1 operation deadline.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-...ul-lithium-ion-battery-finished-in-sa/9183868

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Throw in some dirty diesel gen. sets for a bit of yesteryear feel.

The plan also included a fleet of diesel-powered backup generators, which have already been installed ahead of summer.

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Better than nothing.

The new battery will produce enough energy to power about 30,000 homes for a little over an hour.

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The new battery will produce enough energy to power about 30,000 homes for a little over an hour.

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I think thats the wrong way to look at it, I don't think its about powering a set number of homes for 100% of their power for a set period of time.

Its about providing that that extra 1% 2% or 5% of power during that peak surge to prevent black outs, it could be feeding power in taking power back at various times through the day as supply fluctuates will wind and solar and as demand fluctuates.

not to mention for the rest of the year it could be used to profitably arbitrage power, buying off times, selling peak times etc.

The way I look at the Hornsdale Power Reserve (aka the big battery in SA) is simply this.

Generating capacity in SA (firm capacity based on hot weather conditions)

Torrens Island B (steam turbines, natural gas / heavy fuel oil) = 780 MW
Torrens Island A (steam turbines, natural gas / heavy fuel oil) = 480 MW
Pelican Point (combined cycle gas turbines, natural gas) = 458 MW
Hallet (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 193 MW
Quarantine (gas turbines, natural gas) = 186 MW
Osborne (combined cycle gas turbine, natural gas) = 172 MW
Dry Creek (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 112 MW
Ladbroke Grove (gas turbines, natural gas) = 68 MW
Mintaro (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 68 MW
Port Stanvac (diesel engines) = 58 MW
Port Lincoln (gas turbines, diesel) = 58 MW
Snuggery (gas turbines, diesel) = 54 MW
Angaston (diesel engines) = 50 MW
Lonsdale (diesel engines) = 21 MW

Firm capacity of all wind farms combined = 128 MW (from 1359 MW of installed capacity)

Hornsdale Power Reserve = 100 MW

SA Government "temporary" generators (gas turbines, diesel) = 206 MW

Import from Victoria = 820 MW maximum (subject to Vic having sufficient power available)

Total = 3192 MW of firm capacity located within the state. Plus up to another 1231 MW from wind if it's blowing enough. Plus up to 820 MW from Victoria if that state happens to have sufficient power available (which it doesn't during a heatwave in Vic).

SA's peak demand, if it gets hot enough, tops out in the 3300 - 3400 MW range.

So the battery and "temporary" generators are a step in the right direction but they're not enough to "blackout proof" the state even under circumstances where literally nothing goes wrong. To meet maximum demand requires that either the wind is blowing at a decent rate and/or there's supply available from Victoria.

Given that Vic can't meet its own maximum demand even with maximum supply from NSW and Tas (and there's no guarantee that NSW can actually supply that anyway) there's not much chance that Vic is going to prop up SA's supply in the event of simultaneous high temperatures in both states.

I've used AEMO data here although for the record I personally disagree as to their assessment of firm wind capacity. Based on actual performance I'd put it at half the figure they're using at most noting that wind speed is often minimal at the very same demand peaks. Get a properly hot day and wind farm output falls during the afternoon as demand rises with wind generation often reaching a very low level just as demand reaches maximum. Figures below the 128 MW AEMO are using are not uncommon in practice so I disagree with them on that.

If someone handed me responsibility for ensuring a reliable power supply in SA then I'd have another 550 MW of firm capacity under construction ASAP. Anything less and it's only a matter of time until the lights go out - but with the new gas turbines and battery it will happen less often than it would without them.

So why then wasn't there outright chaos in the past if there's really such a problem now? Isn't Smurf just being a bit alarmist here?

Here's the answer in numbers.

Northern and Playford B power stations in SA have both been closed. So too have Hazelwood, Morwell and Anglesea in Victoria. Meanwhile everything else is getting older and more worn out.

Northern = 546 MW
Playford B = 240 MW

Hazelwood = 1600 MW
Morwell = 190 MW
Anglesea = 160 MW

So that creates two issues in the SA context. First is a reduction of 786 MW of local generation, partly offset by 100 MW from the battery and 206 MW from the gas turbines = a net reduction of 480 MW.

In the Victorian context the closure of 1950 MW of capacity means that state cannot now meet its own maximum demand and thus doesn't have spare power to send to SA. NSW (with support from Qld) and Tas will do what they can to keep the lights on in Vic but there are "hard" technical limits to that since the lines from NSW and Tas into Vic don't have unlimited capacity and NSW in particular doesn't have a lot of spare electricity anyway.

So the reason it's a problem now is the double impact of less generation capacity in SA combined with no longer being able to depend on supply from Victoria.

SA residents will no doubt be aware that there were a few mishaps with supply from Vic over the years but to be fair it did work well over 99% of the time to the point that it was headline news when it didn't. So that's gone from a mishap every now and then but normally available to a situation where it can't be counted on at all. That's not because there's something wrong with the transmission lines but because Vic simply doesn't have enough generating capacity.

Then there's the issue of breakdowns which WILL happen with the only question being when. Nothing mechanical or electrical is immune to failure and if you've ever been inside any power station involving steam turbines in particular then you'll have noticed that there's a lot that could (and from time to time will) go wrong.

It's no secret that Torrens Island A is worn out and AGL have acknowledged publicly that they're not confident they'll ever again get all 4 generators running at full capacity all at once. So don't take its 480 MW capacity too seriously.

There some others that I won't name publicly which are generally thought to not be in great shape either.

Expanding on the previous post by including data from Victoria (since Vic and SA are both in the same situation).

Loy Yang A (steam turbines, coal) = 2121 MW
Yallourn W (steam turbines, coal) = 1420 MW
Loy Yang B (steam turbines, coal) = 980 MW
*Murray 1 (hydro) = 950 MW
*Murray 2 (hydro) = 560 MW
Mortlake (gas turbines, natural gas) = 518 MW
Newport D (steam turbine, natural gas / fuel oil) = 475 MW
Jeeralang A & B (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 405 MW
Laverton North (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 300 MW
Mackay (hydro - total output for the scheme) = 300 MW
Valley Power (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 270 MW
Dartmouth (hydro) = 170 MW
Somerton (gas turbines, natural gas) = 134 MW
Eildon (hydro) = 113 MW
Bairnsdale (gas turbines, natural gas) = 78 MW
West Kiewa (hydro) = 68 MW
**Hume (hydro) = 29 MW

*Murray 1 & 2 are physically located in NSW but are electrically in Victoria.

**Hume power station is shared between Vic and NSW. Capacity is Victoria's share noting that there's only one physical plant shared between the two states not two separate power stations.

Plus firm wind capacity of 69 MW (from an installed base of 916 MW).

Plus 594 MW supply from Tasmania which is assured so long as the Vic - Tas cable doesn't fail.

Plus supply from NSW. This is a hard question to answer since capacity is limited by the fact that most of the Vic hydro stations share the same transmission lines which continue on to NSW. So there's no single figure here but take 250 MW as "certain" and 400 MW as "probable". Anything above that is only possible if the hydro stations aren't running at the same time - so in practice supply from NSW over 400 MW is a backup to those hydro stations in the event that something goes wrong but it is not a backup to anything else.

So all up that's 9954 MW including all generation in Vic, wind at the firm capacity level, 400 MW from NSW and 594 MW from Tas.

Putting that into perspective Victoria's demand peaks at about 10,400 MW which exceeds capacity.

Then there's plant outages etc to consider. Right at this moment there's over 1800 MW of plant unavailable to operate in Vic and about 1200 MW of that is due to breakdowns as such (as distinct from planned maintenance outages).

I'll also add that the 170 MW of capacity at Dartmouth is only able to operate if the dam is at least one third full. Irrigation is the priority use, not power, and they can and will draw the dam below that level if needed to supply water for irrigation etc. So in a drought the hydro station potentially becomes high and dry quite literally with the water dropping below the power station's intake. This is not a normal situation with hydro power stations but it is in this case.

Also worth mentioning that Valley Power is prohibited from operating more than 10% of the time over 12 months due to air pollution and associated regulations. So it's a peak load station as such and not allowed to run more extensively.

In summary:

If we get a mild summer and nothing breaks down then it's possible that neither Vic nor SA will experience blackouts.

If we get a heatwave then unless it's abnormally windy at the same time there will be insufficient power.

If we get a heatwave with typical wind and there are significant generating plant breakdowns then it will be headline news nationally and politicians will still be fighting over it a year later.

Smurf's been around long enough to know that the latter situation will happen eventually. The only question is when. At best there will be a few days warning when it arrives and at worst literally zero ability to warn anyone even within the industry.

This is serious, serious xhit. One would have to think that if Smurf can pull these figures together then they have to be on hand with those responsible for power generation in Victoria as well as the Premier.

If they don't have this analysis.. WTF ?

The (95%) certainty is that heat waves will affect SA, Vic, Tas and NSW simultaneously. Will be a challenging summer.

Smurf1976 said:

Smurf's been around long enough to know that the latter situation will happen eventually. The only question is when. At best there will be a few days warning when it arrives and at worst literally zero ability to warn anyone even within the industry.

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There seems to be total silence on this publicly. It seems a case of "it's always been like this, so why worry anyone", or people are crossing everything and hoping for the best.

At what stage I wonder will anyone communicate to the public that blackouts are likely to happen. At the last minute ? Either that or "it's going to be 40 deg tomorrow so don't turn your air con on or the system will go down". Either way people won't be very happy.

Smurf1976 said:

The way I look at the Hornsdale Power Reserve (aka the big battery in SA) is simply this.

Generating capacity in SA (firm capacity based on hot weather conditions)

Torrens Island B (steam turbines, natural gas / heavy fuel oil) = 780 MW
Torrens Island A (steam turbines, natural gas / heavy fuel oil) = 480 MW
Pelican Point (combined cycle gas turbines, natural gas) = 458 MW
Hallet (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 193 MW
Quarantine (gas turbines, natural gas) = 186 MW
Osborne (combined cycle gas turbine, natural gas) = 172 MW
Dry Creek (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 112 MW
Ladbroke Grove (gas turbines, natural gas) = 68 MW
Mintaro (gas turbines, natural gas / diesel) = 68 MW
Port Stanvac (diesel engines) = 58 MW
Port Lincoln (gas turbines, diesel) = 58 MW
Snuggery (gas turbines, diesel) = 54 MW
Angaston (diesel engines) = 50 MW
Lonsdale (diesel engines) = 21 MW

Firm capacity of all wind farms combined = 128 MW (from 1359 MW of installed capacity)

Hornsdale Power Reserve = 100 MW

SA Government "temporary" generators (gas turbines, diesel) = 206 MW

Import from Victoria = 820 MW maximum (subject to Vic having sufficient power available)

Total = 3192 MW of firm capacity located within the state. Plus up to another 1231 MW from wind if it's blowing enough. Plus up to 820 MW from Victoria if that state happens to have sufficient power available (which it doesn't during a heatwave in Vic).

SA's peak demand, if it gets hot enough, tops out in the 3300 - 3400 MW range.

So the battery and "temporary" generators are a step in the right direction but they're not enough to "blackout proof" the state even under circumstances where literally nothing goes wrong. To meet maximum demand requires that either the wind is blowing at a decent rate and/or there's supply available from Victoria.

Given that Vic can't meet its own maximum demand even with maximum supply from NSW and Tas (and there's no guarantee that NSW can actually supply that anyway) there's not much chance that Vic is going to prop up SA's supply in the event of simultaneous high temperatures in both states.

I've used AEMO data here although for the record I personally disagree as to their assessment of firm wind capacity. Based on actual performance I'd put it at half the figure they're using at most noting that wind speed is often minimal at the very same demand peaks. Get a properly hot day and wind farm output falls during the afternoon as demand rises with wind generation often reaching a very low level just as demand reaches maximum. Figures below the 128 MW AEMO are using are not uncommon in practice so I disagree with them on that.

If someone handed me responsibility for ensuring a reliable power supply in SA then I'd have another 550 MW of firm capacity under construction ASAP. Anything less and it's only a matter of time until the lights go out - but with the new gas turbines and battery it will happen less often than it would without them.

So why then wasn't there outright chaos in the past if there's really such a problem now? Isn't Smurf just being a bit alarmist here?

Here's the answer in numbers.

Northern and Playford B power stations in SA have both been closed. So too have Hazelwood, Morwell and Anglesea in Victoria. Meanwhile everything else is getting older and more worn out.

Northern = 546 MW
Playford B = 240 MW

Hazelwood = 1600 MW
Morwell = 190 MW
Anglesea = 160 MW

So that creates two issues in the SA context. First is a reduction of 786 MW of local generation, partly offset by 100 MW from the battery and 206 MW from the gas turbines = a net reduction of 480 MW.

In the Victorian context the closure of 1950 MW of capacity means that state cannot now meet its own maximum demand and thus doesn't have spare power to send to SA. NSW (with support from Qld) and Tas will do what they can to keep the lights on in Vic but there are "hard" technical limits to that since the lines from NSW and Tas into Vic don't have unlimited capacity and NSW in particular doesn't have a lot of spare electricity anyway.

So the reason it's a problem now is the double impact of less generation capacity in SA combined with no longer being able to depend on supply from Victoria.

SA residents will no doubt be aware that there were a few mishaps with supply from Vic over the years but to be fair it did work well over 99% of the time to the point that it was headline news when it didn't. So that's gone from a mishap every now and then but normally available to a situation where it can't be counted on at all. That's not because there's something wrong with the transmission lines but because Vic simply doesn't have enough generating capacity.

Then there's the issue of breakdowns which WILL happen with the only question being when. Nothing mechanical or electrical is immune to failure and if you've ever been inside any power station involving steam turbines in particular then you'll have noticed that there's a lot that could (and from time to time will) go wrong.

It's no secret that Torrens Island A is worn out and AGL have acknowledged publicly that they're not confident they'll ever again get all 4 generators running at full capacity all at once. So don't take its 480 MW capacity too seriously.

There some others that I won't name publicly which are generally thought to not be in great shape either.

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Yeah I wan't saying the batteries will fix everything, just that thinking of it as 30,000 homes will be powered for 1 hr, is not really the correct way to think of it.

Of course the longterm solution will be more generation capacity or a lot more storage.

but, yeah people acting like the battery is nothing because its only "30,000 homes for 1 hour" just irks me a little"

SirRumpole said:

There seems to be total silence on this publicly. It seems a case of "it's always been like this, so why worry anyone", or people are crossing everything and hoping for the best.

At what stage I wonder will anyone communicate to the public that blackouts are likely to happen. At the last minute ? Either that or "it's going to be 40 deg tomorrow so don't turn your air con on or the system will go down". Either way people won't be very happy.

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it's weird at the moment.

Large scale generation is slowly going off line, meanwhile the public want to vilify and protest any banks or investors that dare at capacity using fossil fuels, and anyone that would ignore the public and add capacity is still scared of future governments penalising what would have to be a 30 year investment.

Then you have guys like Elon and a few pollies willing to stick their neck out on a solution and the nay sayers try and vilify them too.

as surf would agree its not an engineering issue, it's political.

No one wants the government to spend money.
yet they don't want private investors either.

I don't know the answer to the political issue.

Value Collector said:

I don't know the answer to the political issue.

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Alan Finkel had a non political solution but Turnbull turned it into a political one over one point of the 50.

If he had the guts to accept the whole report I reckon he would have got bi-partisan support.

As for governments spending money, I haven't heard any real objections to Snowy Hydro 2.0, which has expert support. I think that if the government follows expert advice that is factually and engineeringly supported then they will get support.

basilio said:

This is serious, serious xhit. One would have to think that if Smurf can pull these figures together then they have to be on hand with those responsible for power generation in Victoria as well as the Premier.

If they don't have this analysis.. WTF ?

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The information as to plant capacity under hot weather conditions and historic levels of consumption under those same conditions is no secret indeed it's all publicly available on the AEMO website.

The only thing that's somewhat a secret is the condition of individual power stations. AGL, Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tas put long term planning information out publicly via various means but the others don't generally say much.

So it's possible that the Vic government doesn't know what condition power station x is really in and how reliable it's likely to be but they absolutely do know its capacity when it's working. That information is available to literally anyone with access to the internet and it's completely free of any cost or other restrictions.

At a guess, politicians are just hoping that either there aren't any heatwaves this Summer, they only happen sometime like Christmas Day when businesses are shut or there's a huge amount of wind at the time and nothing breaks down.

Either that or they've got some plan to twist the story which goes to the media outlets to their advantage.

SirRumpole said:

Alan Finkel had a non political solution but Turnbull turned it into a political one over one point of the 50.

If he had the guts to accept the whole report I reckon he would have got bi-partisan support.

As for governments spending money, I haven't heard any real objections to Snowy Hydro 2.0, which has expert support. I think that if the government follows expert advice that is factually and engineeringly supported then they will get support.

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When I say political, I don't just mean current government, I mean all the people protesting the banks and companies etc, and also the general mood among investors to not want to invest in anything thats not renewable for fear they will be targeted with penalty taxes 2 years into a 30year investment, everyone remembers the carbon tax.

The carbon tax was brought in to discourage investment in fossil fuels, congratulations, it worked. (even though its dead, its effect remains)

Smear campaigns like this get a following on face book, cause lots of negative feedback, and then can cause funding to dry up for essential infrastructure. How much are green peace investing to keep the lights on??? ahh zero, yet they want to stop others investing.

Value Collector said:

Large scale generation is slowly going off line, meanwhile the public want to vilify and protest any banks or investors that dare at capacity using fossil fuels, and anyone that would ignore the public and add capacity is still scared of future governments penalising what would have to be a 30 year investment.

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To put the time involved into perspective:

1947 - The SECV concludes that Morwell will be the location for a future coal mine and power stations.

1953 - Go ahead for the Morwell power station, briquette works and separate gas works.

1956 - First gas produced at Morwell

1957 - Decision to build Hazelwood power station using coal from Morwell

1958 - First power generated at Morwell power station.

1959 - First briquettes produced at Morwell.

1964 - First power generated at Hazelwood.

1969 - Gas works closed as now obsolete (replaced by natural gas). Hazelwood power station being enlarged from 6 generators to 8 since there's enough coal to do so with the gas works no longer needing it.

1971 - The entire project complete.

2014 - Morwell power station and briquette works closed.

2017 - Hazelwood power station and Morwell mine closed.

Now the demolition work gets underway and that will take a few years.

So that's fully 70 years from having identified that it was to someday be built to closing the operation plus a few more for demolition. Our current batch of politicians don't do anything on anywhere near that sort of planning horizon.

Value Collector said:

Smear campaigns like this get a following on face book, cause lots of negative feedback, and then can cause funding to dry up for essential infrastructure. How much are green peace investing to keep the lights on??? ahh zero, yet they want to stop others investing.

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As I've said before, the privatisation of essential services like power was a mistake.

There were very few complaints with either prices or supply when power was delivered by State run utilities, now it's been privatised it's just a blame game between the governments and power companies.

Value Collector said:

When I say political, I don't just mean current government, I mean all the people protesting the banks and companies etc, and also the general mood among investors to not want to invest in anything thats not renewable for fear they will be targeted with penalty taxes 2 years into a 30year investment, everyone remembers the carbon tax.

The carbon tax was brought in to discourage investment in fossil fuels, congratulations, it worked. (even though its dead, its effect remains)

Smear campaigns like this get a following on face book, cause lots of negative feedback, and then can cause funding to dry up for essential infrastructure. How much are green peace investing to keep the lights on??? ahh zero, yet they want to stop others investing.

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I don't think Green Peace's business plan is about investing in energy and minerals. So of course they invest zero to keep the lights on... well, beside paying the bills, the electrician, pay for the bulbs and all that.

A fairly large chunk of my portfolio is currently in fossil and mining. So maybe I'm a hypocrite... but then I didn't have much of a conscience or environmental awareness when I made those investments, your honour.

Electricity, fuel... we all need and want them. It doesn't mean we're hypocritical to want electric and save the planet at the same time. We can have both.

It'll be cheaper for all consumers if energy comes from clean and renewable... so we all want things cheap and any survey will tell you that.

That and it creates more jobs, greater innovation, not pollute the air or being inefficient in mining/extracting then transport, refined, burnt etc. etc. Aren't those things what this great capitalism is all about?


And it's not a smear if those mock ads are saying the truth. Truth can be uncomfortable, and ugly, but it's no smear in and of itself.

SirRumpole said:

As I've said before, the privatisation of essential services like power was a mistake.

There were very few complaints with either prices or supply when power was delivered by State run utilities, now it's been privatised it's just a blame game between the governments and power companies.

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Privatisation wasn't the mistake, discouraging investment both directly and indirectly was.