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The future of energy generation and storage

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Update on the current situation in Tasmania:

And the number is.......

18.9%

Actually it rounds to 19.0 if you count everything, but let's not worry about that technicality.

The Tassie media's daily reporting of the "power shortage" (whilst all load is still being supplied and there are no actual shortages) is getting a tad ridiculous. Sells papers I suppose but it's getting a bit over the top. You'd think we were all sitting the dark already.

It's interesting to watch the speculation though. People speculating on next week's storage figures on newspaper sites in a manner much the same as posters on ASF speculating where the ASX200 will be at some future time. All we need now is for someone to start taking bets on water levels and wind speeds.

Things aren't good, of that I am very sure, but thus far the system's holding up pretty well under the circumstances although some maintenance outages have necessarily been postponed. The lights won't be going out yet although I expect those who go fishing in the lakes are a bit unhappy. :2twocents
 
First residential Tesla Powerwall installed in Sydney suburb​


THE future of renewable energy in Australia has been given a significant boost with the first residential Tesla Powerwall being installed in a Sydney suburb.
Nick Pfitzner from Kellyville Ridge said he was excited to be the first residential recipient of the Tesla Powerwall — a home battery that powers your home after charging using electricity generated from solar panels or from the grid when utility rates are low.
“I have been following Tesla since it has been doing stuff with the electric cars because renewable energy is something I am very keen on,” he told news.com.au.
“When I saw Tesla was rolling out the Powerwall, I quickly paid my deposit and was ecstatic to find I was going to be the first person in Australia to have one installed residentially. I got to be king of the nerds for one day.”
Each Powerwall has a 7 kWh energy storage capacity and works by using a solar panel to convert sunlight into electricity that charges the device.
“The inverter converts direct current electricity from solar panels, the grid and Powerwall into the alternating current used by your home’s lights, appliances and devices,” the website states.
Click to expand...

Mr Williams said his team offered three different options in terms of Tesla Powerwall instillations.

“It generally takes six — eight weeks for the product to be installed and packages start from $13,000, which includes the government rebate,” he said.
Click to expand...



Good to see the 'Australia Tax' in full swing considering it costs $3000-$3500 for the Powerwall in the USA.
 
“I really like what they are doing here with the design of the Powerwall, it’s similar to what Apple did for smartphones,” he said.
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Like the first of modern technologies, things can only get better and cheaper.
 
SirRumpole said:
How's it going Smurf ?
Click to expand...

Short version - it's a help but it hasn't fixed the problem, just made it less bad than it was previously. Long version see below.

Some rain has fallen across the whole state but there's a huge variation in the amounts and where it fell.

The heaviest falls were on the East Coast as such, which runs off via local creeks and rivers (not via any power station) and also into the Mersey-Forth and South Esk catchments, both of which are used for power production.

So the practical effect of that rain has been to put Trevallyn power station (South-Esk catchment) and the lower sections of the Mersey-Forth scheme into base load production using the incoming water. This production, along with the present high level of generation from wind, has enabled other parts of the hydro system to be either totally shut down or at least have their output reduced.

That then helps conserve water elsewhere in the system and is also facilitating some maintenance works at those power stations which draw upon the major water storages and which have been operaing at very high levels in recent times due to the overall situation.

So in short, some rain has fallen and it has lead to high production levels in two schemes but it's nowhere enough to actually refill the major storages. Eg Great Lake (a major long term storage) was 17.55m (measured vertically) below full before the rain and is 17.40m below full now. Arthurs lake has gone from 3.26m up to 3.14m below full. Both of these have received decent rain, with Great Lake also benefiting from the reduced need for power production from that source.

Lake Gordon is 41.57m below full (that's not a typo, it's 41.57m down from the top measured as a straight vertical drop) and hasn't really increasd at all. But with production coming from elsewhere, the decline in the level of Lake Gordon has at least been halted for the moment - in other words it would be even lower now if not for the rain elsewhere.

A key part of the issue here is that the soil was so dry before the rain, much of the state needing around 150mm just to saturate the ground. Only after that does the big run-off occur. So a lot of the rain has simply soaked into the ground, the Mersey-Forth and South Esk catchments being the exception due to the very high rainfalls over a short period.

On other matters:

Gas - there's an open cycle gas turbine overseas being repaired at the moment and it has been decided to air-freight it back after repairs rather than to ship it in view of the overall situation. The bill for the air freight is about $70,000 more than sea freight would have cost but means it will be back in service early in April. This unit is fairly new, 2009, so should be reliable once the problem is fixed.

At present all available gas-fired plant, that is the combined cycle unit and the 3 small open cycle units presently in service, are running at full load 24 hours per day. Open cycle gas turbines aren't ideally suited to that role, and the 3 small ones are fairly old too, but they're working reasonbly well thus far (a few minor hiccups at first but they're going well now).

Diesel - 24 MW of portable diesel generators (1 MW each) have now been sourced from interstate and are on their way to Tas, to be ready for service (base load if necessary) in March. The intent is to source another 34 MW on top of that. These will be connected to the grid and operated collevtively as a power station. They are containerised units, so literally the same size as a shipping container.

The chance that the diesels will actually be run is low, but it is not zero hence obtaining them. The fuel cost is going to be pretty serious if they do need to be run. The 58 generators, plus another couple that we already have as standby mobile generators (bringing the total to 60 MW), will between them use about 400,000 litres of diesel each day.

Bringing in the diesels and speeding up the return of the gas turbine is basically a plan in case Basslink isn't fixed in March as planned and/or if severe drought continues. Most likely they won't be necessary, but there's a lead time to obtain them, ship them across, get everything set up on site and so on hence doing it now.

Basslink itself is being worked on by the onwers but at this stage nobody seems willing to firmly commit to a date because they still haven't lifted the cable, which is under a metre of sand, to inspect it. That being so, nobody's sure what they're going to find until it is raised to the surface for proper inspection.

Overall there's still very little chance of the lights going out but it would be fair to say that things haven't been going well lately. :2twocents
 
SirRumpole said:
So privatisation of the grid leads to cheaper prices ?

Baloney. The consumers have been had.

Household energy prices increase despite drop in usage, Australian Bureau of Statistics says

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-10/abs-energy-stats-show-61-per-cent-increase/7153660
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Household energy prices have increased 61 per cent between 2008 and 2014 despite an overall drop in home energy use, new information from the Australian Bureau of Statistics has shown.

Since 2002, energy use per household has decreased by 7 per cent.

That figure includes the energy generated by home solar panels, showing an overall picture of energy efficiency.

"What we've been doing in the last few years is seeing the fruits of a number of government efforts that stretch back over a decade to enhance the energy efficiency of our homes and of the appliances we use," Green Markets energy analyst Tristan Edis explained.
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Crazy, isn't it?

We are getting ripped off by the Government and energy companies. I sure as hell hope that Tesla (and other energy companies) succeed. I would think that in about 5 years time, it will become feasible to cut the wires and be done with 'em.
 
Telstra takes on energy utilities with home solar and storage plan​


Australian telecommunications giant Telstra plans to accelerate the rollout of solar and battery storage technologies, and is looking to offer home energy services to millions of consumers in the first sign it will take on the major energy utilities.

Telstra has established a dedicated project team to be led by Ben Burge, the feisty CEO of Powershop and Meridian Energy Australia, which has made major inroads into the Australian energy oligopoly, and which has been a keen proponent of wireless technology and smart-phone apps.

The arrival of a giant corporation such as Telstra into the home energy market signals massive change in the industry, as new technologies such as solar and battery storage, and the “internet of things” offer new avenues to the consumer market.

Telstra is flagging the possibility of offering home energy services – including solar and battery storage – as part of its bundled services that includes internet and telephone.

“We see energy as relevant to our Connected Home strategy, where more and more machines are connected in what is called the Internet of Things,” Telstra’s head of new business, Cynthia Whelan says in her corporate blog.

“We are looking at the opportunities to help customers monitor and manage many different aspects of the home, including energy.”
Click to expand...


 
SirRumpole said:
So privatisation of the grid leads to cheaper prices ?

Baloney. The consumers have been had.
Click to expand...

Electricity is a natural monopoly, the notion of "competition" being a forced concept which basically involved creating new things and costs which didn't really exist before, then allowing companies to compete in order to lower these additional costs. But it still costs more in the end, that was always a certainty.

The other issue is the disconnect between the industry and its cost drivers and consumers under the new model.

Under the old model, it was very straightforward for the SECV, ETSA etc to communicate an industry message to the public and shape their behaviour so as to minimise costs. Examples of that are things like off-peak water heating and the notion that everyone pays the same tariffs with no option to cost shift from one consumer to another. Simple and straightforward and it was effective.

If you look at the situation now, well system load factor (that is peak load as a % of average load) has declined now that nobody's really pushing an effective message that combines the interests of generation, transmission and distribution. Rather, the distribution networks in particular actually profit from a declining load factor, a truly perverse outcome, and nobody who deals with the public (eg retailers) has an interest in keeping things economical.

For every $100 people around here spend on electricity, the retailer takes 12.7% for their services in sending out bills whilst generation, that is the power stations, gets 22.7% and the networks take 59.6%. The other 5% disappears in the meeting of various regulations.

Now, I suggest that you go and have a look at a power station or two and then go and have a look at an office. Do that and you'll really struggle to understand how the generators can be surviving on 22.7% whilst someone sitting in an office is raking in 12.7%.

Historically, the generators got about 40% and the rest was network costs. Retail basically didn't cost much at all since in those days nobody spent $60 million on a piece of software and an assortment of Directors, CEO's etc just to make sure they were sending out bills in compliance with all the rules. Nope, that was just a division within the broader electricity entity and didn't cost overly much and cost even less once computers replaced most of the previously labour intensive administrative processes that basically all organisations had.

It wasn't privatisation per se that caused the trouble, although obviously changing from non-profit to a for-profit business will have some impact, but rather it was the change in industry structure that sent network and retail costs through the roof. That happened pretty much everywhere with the change in structure regardless of whether or not they actually privatised as well.

Competition is a nice theory and it works just fine in industries where there is the natural ability to do that (most things). But when you have to create an entire new set of costs, in order to have someone compete to lower them, well that's just pointless really.

In SA they jacked up the gas price for the specific purpose of introducing competition. It was a profitable activity to start with, but not profitable enough to have multiple companies selling the same gas through the same pipes with all the rules and regulations that go with it. Amazing that anyone let them get away with that really but it's what happened.

On other energy things, the current situation in Tas:

The owners of Basslink are still out with a ship trying to fix the cable. Will still be a while yet. Another public announcement is due shortly.

The combined cycle gas plant is running perfectly and supplying about 18% of load. Some hassles with the open cycle units, putting old peaking plant into base load production will tend to do that, but they're running reasonably OK and supplying about 6% of the system load.

Wind is supplying another 10%.

Hydro storages now down to 18.3%. Some operational hassles at one power station with a vortex forming in the lake (like what happens when you empty a bath and air gets sucked down the plug hole) which isn't good although it has been worked around and that plant is still generating. Overall the system is holding up OK so far. :2twocents
 
Just love your analysis of the electricity industry Smurf. Always succinct, always to the heart of the issues.

Thanks again. :)
 
basilio said:
Just love your analysis of the electricity industry Smurf. Always succinct, always to the heart of the issues.
Click to expand...

No worries. :)

I'll post a bit of doom here though and say that things really aren't going well with the Basslink repairs. Not well at all really.

Basslink can't find the fault with the cable. They're still out there with the ship, working 24 hours per day apparently, but thus far are unable to locate the fault. And, of course, they can't even begin to repair it until they've found it. As such the 19 March estimate for repair now looks almost certain to blow out, possibly quite significantly. :2twocents
 
Thanks for the positive comments. :D

Invoice will be in the mail.... :p:

Back to energy, this situation just keeps going horribly wrong down here in Tassie. Not good, bad, worse and now even worse.

Not only can they not find where the Basslink cable is broken, now they've had to abandon the effort and head back to port for a few days due to rough weather in Bass Strait. So that's another delay. First the target for repair was about now, then it was pushed to mid-March, now there's no target date at all and it's just a waiting game until the location of the fault is found.

Biggest problem with finding it is that it seems the cable is now buried under about a metre of sand and silt on the ocean floor. So there's no option to just visually inspect anything without lifting it first. This could take a while it seems.

Storages are down to 17.4% as of yesterday with everything included (the "headline" figure is 17.3% which excludes some minor storages) which is down 1.0% for the week.

The first generators for Plan D have turned up. That's "D" for Diesel although it also comes after plan A (rain, but that hasn't been happening), Plan B (Basslink, but that broke) and Plan C (gas, that's working at 70% capacity but it's not enough).

6 of the diesels have arrived, there's another 18 sitting in Melbourne about to be shipped across, and another 176 are being obtained.

So the next task is to find somewhere to put all 200 diesel generators and that's not entirely straightforward once you consider electrical aspects, logistics, not keeping people awake all night with the noise, and that they aren't likely to do much good for the surrounding air quality if too many are in the one spot. There are places to put them though, the details are still being worked out for the full 200 however.

There's no certainty that they will actually be used and with a bit of luck they won't be. But if they are used, well running full blast that's about 8000 litres of fuel per day for each and every one of them so 1.6 million litres per day in total. That's not going to be cheap (to put it mildly) and there's also the logistical aspect of shipping that volume in and then road freighting it to the generators too since it's rather a lot of fuel.

Also a couple of gas turbines will be returned to service about the end of March. About 73 MW between them, that's in addition to the 208 MW of gas CCGT and 75 MW of gas OCGT plant that we've got running already.

Don't suppose anyone knows a good rain dance that actually works?

:2twocents
 
Smurf1976 said:
Thanks for the positive comments. :D

Invoice will be in the mail.... :p:

Back to energy, this situation just keeps going horribly wrong down here in Tassie. Not good, bad, worse and now even worse.

Not only can they not find where the Basslink cable is broken, now they've had to abandon the effort and head back to port for a few days due to rough weather in Bass Strait. So that's another delay. First the target for repair was about now, then it was pushed to mid-March, now there's no target date at all and it's just a waiting game until the location of the fault is found.

Biggest problem with finding it is that it seems the cable is now buried under about a metre of sand and silt on the ocean floor. So there's no option to just visually inspect anything without lifting it first. This could take a while it seems.

Storages are down to 17.4% as of yesterday with everything included (the "headline" figure is 17.3% which excludes some minor storages) which is down 1.0% for the week.

The first generators for Plan D have turned up. That's "D" for Diesel although it also comes after plan A (rain, but that hasn't been happening), Plan B (Basslink, but that broke) and Plan C (gas, that's working at 70% capacity but it's not enough).

6 of the diesels have arrived, there's another 18 sitting in Melbourne about to be shipped across, and another 176 are being obtained.

So the next task is to find somewhere to put all 200 diesel generators and that's not entirely straightforward once you consider electrical aspects, logistics, not keeping people awake all night with the noise, and that they aren't likely to do much good for the surrounding air quality if too many are in the one spot. There are places to put them though, the details are still being worked out for the full 200 however.

There's no certainty that they will actually be used and with a bit of luck they won't be. But if they are used, well running full blast that's about 8000 litres of fuel per day for each and every one of them so 1.6 million litres per day in total. That's not going to be cheap (to put it mildly) and there's also the logistical aspect of shipping that volume in and then road freighting it to the generators too since it's rather a lot of fuel.

Also a couple of gas turbines will be returned to service about the end of March. About 73 MW between them, that's in addition to the 208 MW of gas CCGT and 75 MW of gas OCGT plant that we've got running already.

Don't suppose anyone knows a good rain dance that actually works?

:2twocents
Click to expand...

Hi Smurf , we got a big total of 10mm of rain yesterday on this side of the river. Alas that will be all gone by the time the next heat hits Hobart this weekend. As far as those generators go I can see from my deck lots of new bitumen being laid at the Creek Road power station. So lets hope they are not planning to put them there ?
I could see lots of protesters down there if they did think that was a good spot , and I certainly don't need the noise echoing up the hillside. I like to enjoy my views and drinks in peace :xyxthumbs
As far your rain dance goes let me know and I will be a willing participant , I have attached the latest ENSO wrap up from the BOM and there is some better news in it. Although I'm not getting too excited and think that this dry is here to stay for long time yet .:2twocents

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
 
I'm not 100% certain on this but I don't think Creek Road is on the list of places being considered.

The details are still being worked out for where to put all 200 of them but the intent is to put them at existing hydro generation sites, sub-stations and possibly on (privately owned) industrial sites which have:

A sufficient capacity connection to the grid.

Land to put them on (and agreeable owners in the case of private land).

Easy access for fuel tankers and within reasonable distance of a bulk fuel terminal via decent roads.

Are not near residents, schools or non-industrial businesses.

There's quite a few sites that meet those criteria around the state but the details are still being worked out as to exactly where they'll all go. A previous plan concluded that at least 60 could be put at Bastyan power station alone - and that's literally in the middle of nowhere so no issues with noise or fumes. :2twocents
 
won't be of much help but also praying for a rain dance here in brisbane hinterland, this is supposed to be rain season, storm and flooding rivers:
dry as a bone ->been waiting for the big wet since december, and nothing!!!
I checked the SEQ dams level etc, all good, no alarm yet for this year but I believe they have 3 y reserve or so;
not the same for property dams, and rainwater tanks..
Still dancing, by April/may we should entre our dry season!!!
I can not even imagine the logistic for plan D Smurf, not to think about the greenhouse effects...lucky that oil is so low now.
 
qldfrog said:
I can not even imagine the logistic for plan D Smurf, not to think about the greenhouse effects...lucky that oil is so low now.
Click to expand...

CO2 from diesels isn't much different to coal. Slightly higher than a brand new state of the art coal plant but emissions are lower than a lot of the coal plants actually in use in the other states. So it's broadly similar to coal overall once you include emissions from burning the diesel, plus fuel for the trucks to haul it around, shipping and so on.

Logistics I'll put this way.

A garden hose flows at about 1000 litres per hour. That varies depending on your local water pressure but that's a rule of thumb and about right.

Now try to visualise 67 garden hoses all flowing at full rate and left running constantly 24/7. If all the generators are run flat out then that's the amount of diesel we're going to have to ship in, road freight to the generator sites and then put in the fuel tanks. It's a lot of diesel - 1.6 million litres per day.

Then there's the aspects of shipping all 200 across from Melbourne, and of course they have to get to Melbourne in the first place before going on a ship. Then moving them all into place in Tas and setting them up in the open at sites that aren't really set up for that sort of thing. Then connecting them all to the grid and getting all this done fairly quickly.

It's not impossible but it's a significant task certainly. No idea what the cost is but it's $$$

Some of the generators are coming from mainland Australia but some are coming from overseas too to my understanding. It's not as though you go down to your local Coates Hire etc and they supply you with 200 x 1 MW generators that they've got sitting out the back.
 

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