The future of energy generation and storage

[Smurf1976]

Would you Smurf be earning more money in your job in the power industry if we had the old system where the utility of power was provided only by some form of government rather than the current complex system of mainly private ownership?

At a purely personal level it's hard to answer since there's so many "what if....." sort of things. That is, it's not just a matter of comparing what a given position pays but considering the differences in how private versus government goes about doing things.

Comparing the two and for this purpose I'm taking "government" to mean either a government monopoly utility or the public service as such in other areas.

I say that since in their present form Hydro Tasmania and Snowy Hydro are better described as government owned companies. I'm not sure about the specifics of Snowy but certainly Hydro Tas is a "private" business in the way it operates - it has a board and a CEO, it pays taxes, it aims to make a profit, it competes directly against others and so on. It has done at least some work in every Australian state, has operations overseas and various subsidiary companies and so on. So it's owned by a government but it's a business not the public service - and note that it's employees are not Public Servants and aren't covered by any PS award.

That said, it's still somewhat influenced by virtue of government being the only shareholder (and "shareholder" is indeed the correct term since that's the structure) in so far as there's a political limit to things like CEO pay rates and there's a greater focus on service delivery over profit. In that sense it's a sort of "half way" between a government utility, which it isn't, and an actual privately owned company which it mostly emulates but isn't actually.

Government (in the traditional sense of the term) has a much flatter pay structure than private enterprise. The gap between those right at the top and those at the bottom is far steeper in private industry than in government. So those in higher positions tend to be paid more in private, those in lower positions more in government.

A "good" tradesman is roughly the mid point there. Below that and you're better off in government. Above that and private pays more and the further from that mid point you get, the greater the difference.

Where the biggest differences arise is with work culture and ethos.

In government it's live and breathe it sort of stuff and there's a very high degree of staff "ownership" of it all. The work has to be done, the lights must stay on no matter what, and if that means doing whatever well then it happens and the idea of doing otherwise is anathema to those involved.

Private enterprise, in general, if there's no money changing hands then it's not happening. Things certainly happen but it first requires that someone has the money, second that they're willing to spend it, and third that they understand the need for x to be done in the first place. In contrast in government workers tend to just do things.

Where you will really see the difference is with the operation and maintenance of plant. Looking at the extremes and without naming companies it's a stark difference with the private company I won't name versus Hydro Tas as an example of government ownership.

HT is very much a cautious operator. They've got the oldest generating fleet in the country by far, literally half of all hydro generating units in Tas are more than 60 years old, but it's all running pretty nicely and that comes down to a few things. Very solid engineering and construction, regular inspections by people with a lot of "ownership" of it all, cautious operation, things get repaired as the need arises and so on.

On the other side well there are some private operators who are very good with a similar approach and others who aren't so there's no one answer there. There are certainly some good operators, but on the other hand when it gets to the point of the minimum of inspections and maintenance by a workforce that lost those with the most skills and experience on plant that's constantly pushed to its absolute limits and with urgent repairs delayed until failure then that's a recipe for disaster.

In fairness however it must be said that there are certainly good private operators and there were some not particularly good government ones. International Power / GDF Suez pushed Hazelwood along a lot longer than the SECV would likely have kept it running and you won't find many who'll challenge that statement. That said, the SECV would certainly have planned for its replacement far better, which wouldn't have been difficult simply by having any plan at all.

Then there's the unions and a lot of differences there. In Tasmania the workers and unions alike have in the past made the point that not once have the lights gone out due to a strike and that's in more than a century of operations. In contrast in Victoria it was almost an annual event at one point in the SECV days. That said, that's a more general sort of thing not confined to things owned by government or to the power industry.

So overall there are good and bad points to both approaches and I don't have a strong ideological view one way or the other. There are some good private operators and there are bad ones. Some of the government utilities ran far better than others. Etc.

What I will say though is that those who don't get along well with others, and by that I mean others in the industry, unions, governments etc, also tend to treat machinery in much the same way and vice versa.

In terms of arrangements between companies, well if you were to read Origin Energy's (which is a listed company) annual reports and so on then you'll find that about a third of their generation is in fact contracted from others. Yes there are most certainly plenty of such arrangements and having a government owned entity on one side and a privately owned or listed company on the other isn't uncommon. Business is business and the ownership structure isn't a barrier.

If you want to look for inefficiencies then it's not so much with who holds the shares but with the design of the market itself. There's a lot of inefficiencies embedded there which apply regardless of ownership.

As for working conditions, well I'm pretty sure that when I'm retired if I look back then the longest days and weeks I ever put in at work will have been working for government not private. To the extent there's a stereotype about work ethic etc in government my experience is that it's a voluntary thing. Those who choose to slack off are more likely to get away with it in government but so too are those who do the opposite and push themselves so there's a greater spread.

 

[IFocus]

That's interesting Ifocus, I worked for Regional Power Stations in the mid 80's, no doubt we know each other. lol
Back then, the project guys had to work five weeks on one week off, wouldn't happen today.

I moved on in 84 so may have just missed each other. I was based at Carnarvon and at one stage had from Onslow to Kalbrrii out to Gascoyne Junction also did breakdowns in Meeka and Wiluna.

 

[sptrawler]

I moved on in 84 so may have just missed each other. I was based at Carnarvon and at one stage had from Onslow to Kalbrrii out to Gascoyne Junction also did breakdowns in Meeka and Wiluna.

I was a bit later, worked with Dave Taylor and John Sparks, the guys at regionals were paid less than those in major stations, but had much worse conditions. I could never understand it, a great bunch of blokes to work with. We converted the Allen diesels at Carnarvon to start on diesel and run on LNG, really interesting project.
It has all changed now, through the mid west, all the diesel stations have gone replaced by skid mount gas.
Sad really, there was nothing like the sound a Mirrlees K8 Major grabbing a handfull of load. The resulting plume of black smoke, was always a problem though.

 

[IFocus]

I was a bit later, worked with Dave Taylor and John Sparks, the guys at regionals were paid less than those in major stations, but had much worse conditions. I could never understand it, a great bunch of blokes to work with. We converted the Allen diesels at Carnarvon to start on diesel and run on LNG, really interesting project.
It has all changed now, through the mid west, all the diesel stations have gone replaced by skid mount gas.
Sad really, there was nothing like the sound a Mirrlees K8 Major grabbing a handfull of load. The resulting plume of black smoke, was always a problem though.

After my time SP Keith Diemal would likely to have been still been around Carnarvon? wasn't much Keith didn't know about anything, I think I personally blackout most of the towns I worked in for one reason or another .

Yeah nothing like standing amongst 500 to 1 meg diesel sets as the station it takes a hit from a big outside fault, governors fly open followed by screaming turbo's always liked the V16 Allens same motor they used in submarines I believe.

 

[Smurf1976]

Here's a chart for wind generation across the entire NEM (all states except WA and NT) over the past month:

That wind generates electricity is beyond doubt but also beyond doubt is that every winter for the past few years the same thing has occurred. A period of a week or so of low wind output combined with sustained high demand due to heating loads.

Thus far the problem is dealt with by ramping up production at gas and hydro facilities, indeed balancing wind and solar generation is to considerable extent the purpose of gas and hydro these days meanwhile coal chugs along in the background fairly consistently.

The above covers all NEM states but it was the same basic pattern in each individual state. Qld, NSW, Vic, SA, Tas - all had the same issue with wind generation dropping to low levels at or about the same time thus debunking the claim that simply spreading the turbines apart gets around that. It's an often made claim but those who live and breathe the real situation are still waiting to see evidence that it works. Thus far, the same problem has occurred each and every winter - all the wind farms go low and demand is fairly high at the same time.

Looking ahead, there's some things which are highly probable and a big unanswered question upon which a lot of the background debate now centers.

Coal will decline over time that's a given in the absence of government insisting otherwise.

Wind and solar are increasing, also a given unless government insists otherwise.

Batteries and potentially small pumped hydro work nicely to provide spinning reserve and deal with short term imbalances in supply and demand. Also fairly clear although be wary of "batteries are coming down in price" claims since that seems to have stalled.

What's unanswered is hydro versus gas for filling in the gaps as shown above. Both do it at present but which do we ramp up in a big way, along with wind and solar, to replace coal?

Both work in a technical sense and everything involved is very proven.

Ideologically they differ - gas (and diesel to the extent we use that too) is a fossil fuel so we're not doing any "100% renewable" stuff so long as that's the means of filling the gaps. But then big dams also tend to be rather controversial - and if it can't run heavily for days on end then, as shown above, it's not a solution.

Behind the scenes quite a bit does center on that aspect of it all.

On one side it's Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tasmania wanting to do bulk storage and seeing the ultimate goal as "100% renewables" or very close to it.

On the other side there's those who want to become large scale LNG importers. They'll supply the gas and "win" regardless of who then turns it into electricity although some are in that business too.

It's all doable but my point here is that the big unanswered question at present is whether we're going to be storing bulk energy via large scale hydro or whether we're going to continue with some reliance on gas on a permanent basis?

The reason I've posted it now is because we've just had an excellent example of the issue. A period of sustained low winds followed by a period of sustained high winds. Not a problem if you've got storage that can charge or discharge constantly for days but not so good for those who are planning to fill their batteries daily or even twice daily.

 

[sptrawler]

The other issue, that no one seems to be mentioning is, will the greenies allow dams to be built everywhere? There will have to be some habitat issues, one would think.

 

[Smurf1976]

The other issue, that no one seems to be mentioning is, will the greenies allow dams to be built everywhere?

The Snowy and Tasmanian projects both have the advantage of not needing any major dam that isn't already there. Also pretty hard to argue that doing works at an existing hydro scheme is harming a pristine environment - that argument shoots itself in the foot when you think about it.

The small peak load / daily sort of pumped hydro that AGL, Genex and others are proposing is making use of former mine sites etc so it would be pretty hard to argue that filling a man made hole in the ground with water is going to make anything much worse than it already is from a purely ecological perspective.

Ultimately though, well those will get us quite some distance down the road but they won't get us to 100% renewable energy in a reliable manner and that's when things get more difficult but for the moment there's plenty to do which avoids that so that's where the focus is. That is, there's a move toward a much higher use of renewables but not to actually eliminate fossil fuels completely. Hence new investments in gas etc.

 

[qldfrog]

I noticed the start of a campaign against gas
In a nutshell:
gas is fossil fuel,
True
any gas plant built now will so mean fossil fuel use for decades
True
So fight gas as it embeds fossil fuel usage for decades and so dooms the earth, us and we will all be cooked in 20y because it is a proven fact that CO2 is evil
So be ready to see superglued green peace militants on gas projects in the next years

 

[rederob]

That wind generates electricity is beyond doubt but also beyond doubt is that every winter for the past few years the same thing has occurred. A period of a week or so of low wind output combined with sustained high demand due to heating loads.

We have an immature renewables market and most of the NEM wind capacity is within a 700km radius of Bendigo. That means it is possible for slow moving weather systems (with weak winds) to significantly impact total NEM wind generation capacity, as their footprints can consume the entire region.
Most of Australia's best wind generation is untapped and lies between Perth and Adelaide:

It's also useful to appreciate this same region is blessed with solar generation potential.
The commercial imperative to invest in the best regions does not exist, and will require a Snowy Hydro type thinking to get off the ground.
The good news is that Prof. Alan Finkel is heading a National Hydrogen Strategy Taskforce and will be reporting to COAG as it progresses its findings. An excellent read is found here.

 

[sptrawler]

.
Most of Australia's best wind generation is untapped and lies between Perth and Adelaide:

Right smack bang in the middle, of where no one lives, unfortunately.

 

[rederob]

Right smack bang in the middle, of where no one lives, unfortunately.

Which makes it perfect!
Nobody to complain about unsightly wind turbines and no farmers to complain about arable land being consumed by either solar or wind farms.
Looks like a wind wind .

 

[Smurf1976]

The commercial imperative to invest in the best regions does not exist, and will require a Snowy Hydro type thinking to get off the ground.

Agreed that there's a big difference between what could be done versus what is actually being done at present.

At present, well there are some in Qld, NSW and Tas but the wind energy industry is centred on the region between Adelaide and Melbourne basically which isn't that far being less than 750km between the two city CBD's and even less in terms of where the wind farms actually are.

That causes a problem where wind as a whole, and certainly in terms of the grid in SA and Vic, tends to be either "on" or "off" and transitions quite rapidly (few hours) between those two extremes.

Sometimes there's up to 2800 MW of wind between the two states which to put that into perspective, compares with consumption right now of about 1560 MW in SA and about 6000 MW in Victoria so that's a huge amount of generation to have coming and going. At the moment wind output is about a tenth of that between the two states.

Spreading them out would help, at least theory says it should I agree there, but with the rate of construction it's fast becoming an academic concept. We're not far off, in terms of timing, having over 4500 MW of installed wind generation between SA and Vic and once it's built it can't be moved. Roll forward another year and most of that will be up and running.

The big thing missing in all of this is an overall plan. All ideologies, both for and against, any specific technology or proposal aside it would be hugely helpful if there was an actual plan of some sort being worked to. Not necessarily a precise detailed one, there's no reason why companies can't come up with the specifics, but at least identifying where things like wind need to be built.

It all reminds me of this picture from the early days of the oil industry. Spreading them out a bit is a better idea......

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/...LN_GqnqwG4-phA3vsL7COJWLnrfyq6ApLIloRe4SIavgg

 

[basilio]

Excellent analysis Smurf. What would be the problem with using hydrogen as the fuel for short term turbines ? Obviously it has to be produced and stored but that could be an offshoot of surplus wind/solar power. How much re enginering would be required to run gas turbines on hydrogen (or even a substantial mix ?)
Thoughts ?

 

[Smurf1976]

Excellent analysis Smurf. What would be the problem with using hydrogen as the fuel for short term turbines ?

Technically it's no problem since any liquid or gas fuel that doesn't contain solids can be used in a gas turbine with only minor modification.

Most gas turbines are set up for natural gas or diesel (power generation) or kerosene (aviation) but there's the odd one running on something else like LPG or off-spec fuels as a means of getting rid of them in a useful manner (got to do something with it).

15% hydrogen in natural gas is a dead easy "just do it" thing but beyond that it's not overly difficult, just adjust the fuel / air ratio etc.

The main problems however are:

1. Hydrogen is somewhat difficult to contain without it leaking out of whatever you try to keep it inside of and

2. Electricity > hydrogen > open cycle gas turbine > electricity will at best return a third of the electricity that goes into it back again so it's an inefficient means of storage when compared to pumped hydro (70 - 80%) or batteries (real world figures seem to be in the order of 85%).

That said, I do think hydrogen will have a role to play in all of this yes.

 

[sptrawler]

The other issue, that no one seems to be mentioning is, will the greenies allow dams to be built everywhere? There will have to be some habitat issues, one would think.

Funny I brought the issue of dams and public backlash, on Tuesday, then in todays paper.

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/...mittee-worry-over-values-20190703-p523wr.html

I don't know how we will go with all this pumped storage, that will be required.
It isn't as though Australia is covered in areas that are mountainous and suitable for damming.
The other problem of course is if the dams are built on low hills, the area they cover will have to be larger to get the volumetric flow rate required, therefore more land will be affected.
It is going to be very interesting, when is someone is going to bite the bullet and address the real issues.

From the article:
The World Heritage Committee also noted that it considered any construction of dams with large reservoirs within the boundaries of World Heritage properties "incompatible with their World Heritage status".

It urged all governments to "ensure that the impacts from dams that could affect properties located upstream or downstream within the same river basin are rigorously assessed in order to avoid impacts on [their] outstanding universal values".

Bob Debus, a former NSW Environment Minister who presided over the successful nomination of the Blue Mountains region for World Heritage state, told the Baku gathering that as much as 65 kilometres of wilderness rivers would be flooded if the dam wall were to be raised.


"The area proposed for inundation includes at least 300 known Gundungurra Aboriginal cultural sites, which would be damaged," he said. "Its cultural and conservation value is exceptional even within the Blue Mountains area

 

[basilio]

SP the issue with pumped hydro is not the same as constructing another Snowy Mountains hydro scheme. These will all be quite small developments intended to create power on an intermittent basis to supplement wind and solar.

The research for finding suitable pumped hydro sites around has been done. Its all doable without a huge fuss.

Pumped hydro storage 'could make Australia run on renewable energy alone within 20 years'
Australia has the capacity to store up to 1,000 times more renewable energy than it could ever conceivably need, according to an analysis by researchers at the Australian National University (ANU).
Key points:

• 
  
  
  • Investment in renewables will see an increased need for hydro storage, researchers say
  • Study found at least 22,000 suitable locations for pumped hydro sites
  • Researchers say Australia could transition to 100pc renewable energy in 20 years if just a few of those sites were built

ANU engineering professor Andrew Blakers has conducted a study looking into pumped hydro sites and has concluded that there are at least 22,000 suitable locations nationwide.
Professor Blakers said if storage was built at just a tiny fraction of those places, Australia could transition to 100 per cent renewable power within two decades.

"No matter where you are in Australia, you will find a good pumped hydro site not very far away from where you, or your wind or your solar farm is located," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09...e-energy-sites-australia-anu-research/8966530

 

[sptrawler]

SP teh issue with pumped hydro is not the same as constructing another Snowy Mountains hydro scheme. These will all be quite small developments intended to create power on an intermittent basis to supplement wind and solar.

The research for finding suitable pumped hydro sites around has been done. Its all doable without a huge fuss.

Pumped hydro storage 'could make Australia run on renewable energy alone within 20 years'
Australia has the capacity to store up to 1,000 times more renewable energy than it could ever conceivably need, according to an analysis by researchers at the Australian National University (ANU).
Key points:

• 
  
  
  • Investment in renewables will see an increased need for hydro storage, researchers say
  • Study found at least 22,000 suitable locations for pumped hydro sites
  • Researchers say Australia could transition to 100pc renewable energy in 20 years if just a few of those sites were built

ANU engineering professor Andrew Blakers has conducted a study looking into pumped hydro sites and has concluded that there are at least 22,000 suitable locations nationwide.
Professor Blakers said if storage was built at just a tiny fraction of those places, Australia could transition to 100 per cent renewable power within two decades.

"No matter where you are in Australia, you will find a good pumped hydro site not very far away from where you, or your wind or your solar farm is located," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09...e-energy-sites-australia-anu-research/8966530

Time will tell Bas.

 

[sptrawler]

"No matter where you are in Australia, you will find a good pumped hydro site not very far away from where you, or your wind or your solar farm is located," he said.

While we are on the subject of wind farms Bas.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07...calls-for-windfarm-eagle-death-study/11274334

This whole thing has only just started Bas, at this point in time the media is only pushing the renewable side, wait untill the greenie's get involved and split the media circus down the middle.
Then add to that, nuclear will probably end up in the mix, as it is the only practical solution long term.
Wow we are in for some interesting "morning show" entertainment. IMO

 

[Smurf1976]

On the question of storage, a few comments:

So far as dams are concerned they're absolutely a site specific thing in every way - cost, effectiveness, ecological impact.

For example the Miena dam (Great Lake) and the now demolished Lagoon Of Islands dam in Tasmania are less than 25km apart measured in a straight line.

Miena has been an outstanding success, having improved endangered species habitat as a benefit aside from that of storing water. In all honesty I've never heard even one person argue that it shouldn't have been built - even the more hard line greens don't seem to take issue with it and that's a proper big dam not something small. There's plenty of other big dams much the same - nobody with any credibility has any real objection to them on ecological grounds.

Lagoon Of Islands however, well from an environmental perspective it was the biggest failure so far as dams actually built in Tas are concerned and after half a century of trying to make it work ecologically, and building additional things like a canal to achieve that, well the Hydro finally gave up and demolished it. By "demolished' I mean that literally - it's outright gone, removed in total. Not just the water let out or the dam breached but the entire dam wall and everything associated with it has been removed completely. It's really gone.

A point about dams though is that to the extent they have an impact it's largely one that's reversible on a human time scale. If the dam is no longer required then drain the water out, revegetate the area, and within a century it'll be back almost perfect to how the area was before the dam was built. That's a point that even those who were firmly in the No Dams camp during the big debates have made in more recent times - the impact is largely a reversable one.

At the very least, the impacts of a dam are an order of magnitude more reversable than the impacts of coal mines, fossil fuel combustion, nuclear waste and so on. They beat all of those.

So far as the need for dams or other means of storage is concerned, I'll refer back to the chart of wind energy output I posted earlier.

Small pumped hydro schemes with "turkey nest" dams and/or batteries do the job of meeting daily (summer) or twice daily (winter) peak demand without difficulty so long as they can be and are recharged between those times. That's dead easy so long as the backbone of power generation is fossil fuels (or nuclear).

In a 100% renewable system however, and faced with a week long wind drought right in the middle of Winter when solar yield is at its worst and daily energy demand is high, that idea fails completely. No longer is is charge and discharge twice a day. Now it's discharge and then discharge again and keep discharging.

Wind and solar, no storage, gets to ~ one third renewable energy without any hassle at all.

It gets to about 50% with some minor shooting of itself in the foot, loss of efficiency at fossil fuel power stations, but it does get there.

Add small pumped hydro and batteries and lifting that to ~75% is pretty straightforward and all very doable.

For the remainder to work in an economical manner (note "economical" as opposed to "technical" since the economic constraint is the harsher of the two) realistically it's big hydro or it's fossil fuels.

A related issue there is that whilst peak power demand in most states peaks in summer, total energy use peaks in winter. If look at Victoria for example, well the amount of energy used for heating buildings during Winter, almost all of which is supplied from gas, exceeds the total electricity consumption of Victoria, SA and Tas combined.

Assuming the ultimate intent is to go to renewable energy, not just renewable electricity generation, then heating loads are a major consideration since it means that maximum consumption occurs at the time of year when wind and especially solar are least effective. A point that brings us straight back to big storage projects which are able to run solidly for extended periods without recharging.

In that context I'll note that the existing NSW, Vic and Tas hydro assets, with some reworking, and proposed large scale pumped storage schemes get us a long way down the road but not to the end.

More will need to be done, particularly in the 2040's, but so long as the approach toward dams is pragmatic rather than ideological it ought to be doable.

There's no need in 2019 to be contemplating building dams which flood areas of high conservation value. There was an argument there in a world where wind and solar weren't viable options, oil supplies were threatened and prices had just tripled whilst taxpayer funds weren't available to subsidise energy projects which had to be cheap and pay their own way. That was the world of 1979 but it is not the world of 2019.

On the other hand, deliberately putting the boundaries of National Parks and the like just a few meters past a dam site for no reason other than to stop it being built, the stuff worthy of conservation being downstream not upstream, is just playing politics and not at all sensible or helpful in a move toward greater sustainability. Pragmatism not ideology is what's required in all of this.

There's also the question of whether or not we're actually going to 100% renewables? Or are we going to some lower figure in practice?

 

[sptrawler]

Thanks smurf, I'm all for this stuff, just being the devils advocate.
I think you know as I do, it is a long road with many speed bumps and it wont be traveled as smoothly as many think.