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The future of energy generation and storage

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Yeah, I was thinking discreet tap and pay charging poles at rest stops would be a good passive income for councils to help fund the rest stop,

I am not a “fancy” cafe person either, but “Rosie’s cafe”, in johns river does an awesome salad sandwich if you are ever on the Brisbane - Sydney route, good prices and good food,
 
sptrawler said:
The only problem VC, is when will you get the car?
Get your money back and buy a Nissan Leaf, just my thoughts, the Tesla and your deposit will go the same way.
The Nissan is probably the leader of the pack, at the moment and is priced well.
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I am happy to wait for the model 3, it will eat the Nissan Leaf alive, no rush here, my current car is still going good.
 
Country Lad said:
We stayed here a few nights ago

View attachment 88070

Just in behind here
View attachment 88071
Only about two kilometres off the road down a dirt track. Nice spot for a charging station.
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The more remote the route, the more electric cars make sense, solar panels and a few batteries powering a charging station in the middle of no where sure makes a lot more sense than a systems pipelines, then a ship, the a refinery, then another ship, then a truck to the middle of no where.

Once built, solar powered charging stations make a lot more sense.
 
Value Collector said:
Once built, solar powered charging stations make a lot more sense.
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Also in many cases the grid exists in places a very long way from an oil refinery.

Broken Hill is connected to the main grid for example. Also has a large solar power station but it’s part of the national grid too.

Mt Isa isn’t on the main electricity grid but it is part of the gas grid and does have a substantial gas-fired power station.

Alice Springs is another one. Not connected to anything of a national nature but they do have gas produced in the NT and delivered by pipeline and a gas-fired power station to use it. Beats hauling petrol or diesel from Adelaide or Darwin.

Or south-west Tasmania. There’s a sign warning tourists that there is no fuel available at the end of the trip so they need enough to get there and back. No petrol that’s true but there’s a major hydro power station down there and the majority of visitors will park at Ted’s Beach, Gordon Dam or the Lake Pedder accommodation all of which have mains power (indeed generating power is ultimately the only reason any of those things or the road itself were built in the first place).

So even if the energy is coming from a large coal, gas or hydro power station it’s still a lot more convenient and sensible than trucking fuel into places that are a long way from anywhere.

That’s not to dismiss solar etc, just saying that electric vehicles have advantages no matter how the power is generated.

For things like mine machinery and vehicles, well there’s a lot of advantages if the fuel just comes down a wire from whatever source rather than having to truck huge amounts of diesel to the mine.

In terms of logistics, electric vehicles versus petrol or diesel is much like comparing email and the internet versus postal mail and printed newspapers. No contest really especially in a remote area as long as you’ve got a means of going online.
 
Value Collector said:
I would like to see an economic comparison of converting the excess electricity to hydrogen vs just feeding it back into grid for a credit vs charging a home battery system.
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As with most experimental things, we won't know the profit or loss, until the outcome is reached. If it is successful, then it could make a huge difference, if not it will be back to the drawing board.
But the push to hydrogen will continue.
 
sptrawler said:
As with most experimental things, we won't know the profit or loss, until the outcome is reached. If it is successful, then it could make a huge difference, if not it will be back to the drawing board.
But the push to hydrogen will continue.
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I mainly mean the cost of converting to hydrogen, vs battery vs grid.

for example.

If I generate 1.0 KWH of excess electricity, I can feed it into the grid and get enough credit to purchase 0.4 KWH of electricity on demand later, I lose 0.6 KWH, But I also don't have to purchase a Battery or Hydrogen machine, So its a viable low cost solution to storing my personal production.

If I put the 1.0 KWH of excess electricity into a battery, I can pull out 0.9 KWH on demand later So I retain double the electricity of feeding it to the grid, However I have to spend $7,000 on Battery.

I would like to know how much of my 1.0 KWH I will be able to draw back on demand later via the Hydrogen machine, and how much I have to outlay up front.

If I end up losing more electricity than I do just feeding it into the grid, but I have to spend $1,000's upfront, it simply won't be worth it, if the hydrogen machine is cheaper than the battery, but I lose more electricity in the processes, it still wouldn't be worth it.
 

I don't think stand alone off grid systems, will ever be viable, in a grid covered area i.e City.
Well not with current technology.
Where something like this style of H2 generator will be useful, will be in remote off grid applications, where diesel generator backup is currently used.
If it can be made cheap enough and compact enough, it may even be useful at farm level.
 
sptrawler said:
I see Daniel Andrews has come up with a way, to cut electricity demand, in Victoria.
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They've got it the wrong way around.

With the rapidly increasing use of wind and solar to generate electricity SA already has problems with what to do with all the power on mild days (or overnight from wind) and Vic is heading the same way.

I could make a pretty convincing case against gas water heating and in favour of electric due to all this. Water has to be heated somehow and since hot water is very easily stored it's a good use of renewable energy that would otherwise be wasted rather than using fossil fuels to do the job. That may not be the situation just yet but it will be within the lifespan of any water heater installed today so it's time to look to the future not the past.

If they were forcing heat pumps or solar as the replacement with support for those unable to afford the upfront cost then that would make sense in terms of resources and the environment. But gas? Seriously? Gas made a lot of sense 10 years ago but it makes far less sense now and the advantage is rapidly moving toward electricity for everything. To be clinging to gas for heating water just as there's a consumer move away from it and a serious push for electric vehicles says it all really. It's a short term focused policy not a future focused one.

To cut a long story short I'm pretty sure this has more to do with the gas industry starting to struggle as increasing numbers of consumers are disconnecting and those remaining are using less gas (both points being backed up by the statistics) than any real concern about energy or the environment. Government knows full well that in practice the policy will push consumers toward gas just as the same policy has in SA which now has wind and solar routinely going to waste whilst bringing gas in from Vic and Qld and soon to be overseas.
 

From my limited knowledge of Daniel Andrews, the last thing he wants, is convincing arguments especially if he has made his mind up.
 
sptrawler said:
From my limited knowledge of Daniel Andrews, the last thing he wants, is convincing arguments especially if he has made his mind up.
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As you say, if we are going to continue the push to "free" renewable energy, we will have to end up with a huge overcapacity, to allow for the unreliable nature.
Therefore it makes sense to install electric water heating, or solar water heating to reduce the requirement for the renewable. Installing gas, another finite/polluting resource, just shows the lack of understanding, of the underlying issue. IMO
 
Sorry if this is a naive question, but who controls the time when the water is heated and how ?

Thanks.
 
Talking about moving away from gas..

I have a hydronic heating heating that works exceptionaly well. Is there a reasonably practical way to replace the current gas fired water heater with another source ? (It could be an option for many other similar customers)
 

I actually suggested that my Dad convert from his current LPG Gas hot water heater to heat pump electric type.

the LPG heating used to be cheaper when he first installed it in the early 1990's, but today with his solar panels, we could be running the heat pump instead of exporting power to the grid during the day.

the Gas bottle refills are pretty expensive, compared to the using the electricity he would only get a 12 cent credit for.
 

Maybe talk to some heat pump specialists.

they maybe be able to use your existing in house pipes, and just install the external pipes.

 
SirRumpole said:
Sorry if this is a naive question, but who controls the time when the water is heated and how ?
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No such thing as silly questions.

In the Australian context the answer varies between states:

Qld, NSW, ACT = it's a remote control system such that the times are easily adjusted from one day to the next to suit prevailing conditions. In simple terms high frequency a pulse is sent over the power lines as a communications signal to turn the water heaters on and off.

Vic, Tas, SA = a timer at the switchboard either as part of the meter (newer installations) or a separate sealed device (older ones). So it can't be adjusted day to day but with some thought it's possible to set the correct times and make it work.

Tas has looked seriously at a remote control system on a number of occasions but thus far it hasn't stacked up although it's one of those "keep it under watch" things. It has been done on King Island where it made sense to enable higher use of wind and solar there.

WA = they had timers but have lost interest in it and are pushing everyone to gas.

NT = water heating was never an issue since the need for it is relatively limited due to climate, solar is common and demand naturally tends to occur at times when other uses of electricity are lower. As such they've never worried about any sort of control system.

At present we have about 35% of homes in both SA and Qld with solar on the roof, plus a rapidly increasing number of large scale solar farms, plus very significant wind generation particularly in some states particularly in SA but growing elsewhere too.

In short the power has to go somewhere and that brings us to storage. Since hot water is easily stored in a very cheap and low tech manner it is the most obvious way to put otherwise surplus renewable energy to good use when it's available.

Ideally a remote control system is the best way to do that but even with timers it can be made to work reasonably.

At present SA in particular has two related problems. They've happened first in SA due to the higher uptake of solar and wind plus having less heavy industry using power all day than the other big solar state (Qld).

As of right now there's about 295 MW of wind energy from already built wind farms going to waste in SA.

Get a mild sunny day in Adelaide and nobody knows for sure how much potential solar output goes to waste but it is known with certainty that it is happening and that a lot of properties are affected, usually unknown to their owners. With lack of load the voltage comes up and forces the inverters off. Or in layman's terms with present infrastructure there's just nowhere for the power to go.

Then at other times we're burning fossil fuels flat out trying to keep the lights on. Or using fossil fuels, mostly gas, directly to do things like heat water.

Heating water with electricity is hugely inefficient if the starting point is fossil fuels but if a substantial % of the power is coming from renewable energy that otherwise goes to waste then using gas isn't the right solution. Even less so when you consider the technical need to stabilise load on the power grid.

Back to those rules in Vic, well if they were trying to push people to heat pumps or solar then that's a perfectly reasonable idea. I'm not saying we must cling to old style electric systems, but looking even a few years ahead gas is not a better alternative so it's just not smart to be saying no, you can't replace a failed electric system with another one the same but you can have gas instead. That's a bit like saying you'll stop eating at McDonald's, implying you're going to be eating a healthy diet from now on, but then going to Hungry Jacks every day instead. It's legal technicalities stuff not actually fixing things when it comes to resources or the environment.

Gas for space heating arguably has some merit and same with cooking. Not necessarily economically but in terms of resources, infrastructure and so on it makes some sense. But when it comes to heating water, the ability to store heated water cheaply and easily is such that the advantage is very rapidly swinging toward systems powered by electricity and able to cope with an intermittent or time controlled supply. That's heat pumps preferably but conventional electric water heaters aren't as bad as they used to be due to the changes with upstream electricity supply.

Hence my claim that the Vic government is about 30 years late with this one.
 
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