The future of energy generation and storage

Smurf1976 said:

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.

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Plus you get recreation, fishing , sailing and water supply advantages too.

You don't get those with batteries.

sptrawler said:

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.

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There's really two big points the general public seems unaware of or is choosing to ignore:

1. Electricity is not all energy indeed it's not even most of it. Except in Tasmania (sticking to the Australian context here) it's actually quite minor compared to the direct use of gas and transport fuels. So if we're going to stop using those and replace them with electricity then we end up with a much bigger electricity industry and we need big transmission and storage to go with that.

That reality also puts an abrupt end to any thought that rooftop solar is going to make the grid obsolete. It could run your house sure, but then you replace gas with electricity and you replace petrol / diesel with electricity and at that point it's out of the question.

2. That wind and sun are highly variable on a daily and weekly basis and we can simply charge batteries etc literally every day.

In reality that ability to charge batteries once or twice a day only works if you've got a fuel driven or large scale hydro backup to those days and even entire weeks (see the chart I posted) where the wind and sun go low.

All this is doable but it's not as straightforward as many seem to be assuming. I liken it to when trains were invented - someone probably did think of just putting the rail tracks down the existing streets but as we all know that idea only worked for small rail vehicles moving at low speed which we call trams, it didn't work for large trains which performed the bulk people and freight moving task.

Same when cars and trucks became common. A few could be driven on existing roads sure but entire new concepts of managing traffic, parking and storing large numbers of vehicles and building roads which intentionally went past towns not through them became necessary.

I'm not sure how long building railways and highways took but it was quite a while certainly. Likewise the internet has been a general public thing for a quarter century now but we're still building the NBN and there's still the odd video store, bookshop and CD retailer around and you can still buy printed newspapers despite the proverbial writing having been on the wall for all of those for many years now.

All this stuff does take quite some time but it does happen.

SirRumpole said:

Plus you get recreation, fishing , sailing and water supply advantages too.

You don't get those with batteries.

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Having seen more dams than most people ever will, I do see both sides of the argument and there's definitely a valid "No Dams" case in some instances since they undeniably do radically change the environment of the area flooded. The extent to which that matters and is sensibly worth worrying about is, as per my earlier post, very much site specific.

I'll be clear and to the point though in case the thought has occurred to anyone. No, I am not in favour of resurrecting the Gordon-below-Franklin scheme in south-west Tasmania. The argument for that project back in 1979 as a source of bulk energy addressed a very different need, a real one but a very different one, from that being faced going forward at a national level which relates to dispatchable power and energy storage as distinct from supply as such.

There are however other places in Tas and other states where dams could sensibly be built in the absence of some better solution emerging. It's not the right time yet, there's room to go forward further before they're necessary, but it would be silly to rule it out since large scale stored hydro does represent the most workable non-fossil solution to the problem of wind and solar "droughts" lasting a week or more, plus the seasonal issue of heating loads particularly in Victoria.

All that changes of course if someone makes a major breakthrough with large scale batteries or the efficiency of the round trip storage using hydrogen. Note in that context that the need for any bulk storage projects which actually do involve big new dams is a 2030's decision for operation in the 2040's and a lot could change in that time.

Perhaps the thing which will change most is the climate issue. One way or another, 15 years from now either it's being seriously addressed at the global level or it'll be past the point where it's worth worrying about if emissions in the mid-2030's are still trending up as they are today. That in itself, along with technology, will inform what's rational in terms of what we do then.

Something I'll add is that the private firms seem very keen on building wind farms and solar and are moderately keen on short term storage - small pumped hydros and batteries.

They're completely uninterested, thus far at least, in any long term storage though. In that regard they're seeing gas or oil-based fuels as an idea but not storage.

The two big hydro operators, both of which are government owned, already have plenty of contract arrangements with the private companies and I don't doubt that, with one possible exception, the private companies will be more than happy to let them run the long term storage so long as the privates get to do most of the wind, solar and short term stuff so a bit of a demarcation line has emerged there.

I hope the long term major bulk storage dams, can be integrated with the farming/irrigation plan in the North, it in some ways it would kill two birds with one stone.
Having the large catchment in the high rainfall tropics, then feeding the the discharge through hydro with a trickle down system, to the Murray/Darling catchment basin.

Smurf1976 said:

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%).

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Hydrogen has a few advantages that give it a bright future with the right planning and investment.
First, in a CO2 riddled planet where a price on carbon looks more inevitable each year, it offers an energy source which solves that problem (assuming the process is via hydrogen electrolysis).
Second, hydrogen offers opportunities for synergy with variable power generation, especially because the cost of wind and solar power continues to drop.
Third, while battery storage is presently cheaper than hydrogen from renewables, the capacity of hydrogen is not limited in the way that a full battery (even a full dam) is in terms of stored power.
Fourth, hydrogen is easily transportable. This makes it a very desirable energy commodity, especially in terms of developing a multibillion dollar annual export market in the future.
Fifth, the energy density of hydrogen makes it ideal for aircraft (presently about 2% of global CO2 emissions), heavy transport, and all types of watercraft.
A separate point relates to using fuel cells to translate the hydrogen back to electricity, rather than burning it inefficiently in turbines. Fuel cell efficiency varies from 40 - 60%.
Australia's massive advantage over most countries for a hydrogen economy is its bountiful solar capacity in a world where we are now getting grid scale at under two cent a kilowatt. So while there is an undoubted inefficiency in producing hydrogen, it will be very cheap in terms of initial energy input costs.

rederob said:

Hydrogen has a few advantages that give it a bright future with the right planning and investment.
First, in a CO2 riddled planet where a price on carbon looks more inevitable each year, it offers an energy source which solves that problem (assuming the process is via hydrogen electrolysis).
Second, hydrogen offers opportunities for synergy with variable power generation, especially because the cost of wind and solar power continues to drop.
Third, while battery storage is presently cheaper than hydrogen from renewables, the capacity of hydrogen is not limited in the way that a full battery (even a full dam) is in terms of stored power.
Fourth, hydrogen is easily transportable. This makes it a very desirable energy commodity, especially in terms of developing a multibillion dollar annual export market in the future.
Fifth, the energy density of hydrogen makes it ideal for aircraft (presently about 2% of global CO2 emissions), heavy transport, and all types of watercraft.
A separate point relates to using fuel cells to translate the hydrogen back to electricity, rather than burning it inefficiently in turbines. Fuel cell efficiency varies from 40 - 60%.
Australia's massive advantage over most countries for a hydrogen economy is its bountiful solar capacity in a world where we are now getting grid scale at under two cent a kilowatt. So while there is an undoubted inefficiency in producing hydrogen, it will be very cheap in terms of initial energy input costs.

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Add to that our fuel reserve (dependant on overseas supply chain) is 26 to 28 days makes the above a imperative strategically sooner rather than later.

IFocus said:

Add to that our fuel reserve (dependant on overseas supply chain) is 26 to 28 days makes the above a imperative strategically sooner rather than later.

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Setting aside all ideological issues about who owns things, environmental impacts and so on this is the biggest elephant in the room by far.

If the diesel stops then to be blunt we're looking at noting short of an outright disaster.

No diesel = no farm machinery and no trucks = no food for those in cities which is most of the population.

Sure we can turn gas or coal into diesel and there's oil shale in Qld, NSW and Tas and so on but no chance we're going to get that up and running in the 3 or 4 weeks that we'd have to go from nothing to fully operational. Zero chance.

We signed up 40 years ago that we'd maintain a 90 day stockpile and every other OECD country does it so there's no excuse on this one. We did it in the past but not now.

Political responses seem to range from totally ignoring the issue through to trying to argue with the International Energy Agency that coal still in the ground ought to be counted as petrol in tanks. The IEA weren't impressed with that argument by the way.

rederob said:

Hydrogen has a few advantages that give it a bright future with the right planning and investment.
First, in a CO2 riddled planet where a price on carbon looks more inevitable each year, it offers an energy source which solves that problem (assuming the process is via hydrogen electrolysis).
Second, hydrogen offers opportunities for synergy with variable power generation, especially because the cost of wind and solar power continues to drop.
Third, while battery storage is presently cheaper than hydrogen from renewables, the capacity of hydrogen is not limited in the way that a full battery (even a full dam) is in terms of stored power.
Fourth, hydrogen is easily transportable. This makes it a very desirable energy commodity, especially in terms of developing a multibillion dollar annual export market in the future.
Fifth, the energy density of hydrogen makes it ideal for aircraft (presently about 2% of global CO2 emissions), heavy transport, and all types of watercraft.
A separate point relates to using fuel cells to translate the hydrogen back to electricity, rather than burning it inefficiently in turbines. Fuel cell efficiency varies from 40 - 60%.
Australia's massive advantage over most countries for a hydrogen economy is its bountiful solar capacity in a world where we are now getting grid scale at under two cent a kilowatt. So while there is an undoubted inefficiency in producing hydrogen, it will be very cheap in terms of initial energy input costs.

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Which encapsulates, what I have been saying for 10 years, thanks for putting it in such a well phrased way rob.

rederob said:

while there is an undoubted inefficiency in producing hydrogen, it will be very cheap in terms of initial energy input costs.

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This is a point worth repeating as it's often (intentionally) confused by critics of renewable energy.

If the resource is limited then efficiency is important for all sorts of reasons.

If the resource is not limited then efficiency matters only in the context that improving it might be a way to cut costs and so on but there's no actual problem with wasting sunlight like there is with wasting oil.

So sure, by the time we go sunlight > electricity > hydrogen > transport the hydrogen or store it at high pressure etc > back into electricity we could end up with efficiencies well under 10% in the use of that sunlight but it doesn't matter in the slightest when there's plenty of it.

One thing about all of this is that it does have something in common with how the current and past energy system evolved.

There were plans for each and every step but there was no plan for the journey.

Pick any state or look overseas and it's the same story. There was a huge effort put into identifying the available resources, eg hydro, coal etc, and suitable sites for power stations and there was a huge effort put into getting it right with each project that was built but there was no master plan for the end result as such.

In WA for example they built East Perth, then South Fremantle (4 x 25 MW), then Bunbury (4 x 30 MW) then Muja A & B (total 4 x 60 MW) based on coal but the next project, Kwinana A, was 2 x 120 MW using oil as the fuel and likewise Kwinana B (2 x 120 MW) and C (2 x 200 MW) also oil-fired plus they had a 21 MW oil-fired gas turbine out the back.

What happened in WA was that oil simply got cheaper, a situation completely outside local control, but it made sense to respond accordingly and so they did. Then oil suddenly got more expensive, dramatically so, resulting in Kwinana A & C being converted to coal. The availability of cheap natural gas then came along and resulted in the addition of gas firing to A, B and C.

Much the same everywhere. There was no thought of adding gas turbines, not then invented, when the first power station was built at Osborne (Adelaide) but there is indeed a combined cycle gas turbine right next to where the old steam plant used to be, indeed it's the only plant now in operation at Osborne. For the old station, well it started out with coal, the B station was converted to oil progressively during the 1960's and part of it was later converted to gas.

And so on. Same everywhere. There was plenty of detailed planning when Loy Yang was built in Victoria but only in the context that the main alternative at the time, a nuclear power station, hadn't been chosen instead and there was an abundance of effort put into evaluating the nuclear option certainly right down to the detail of site layout and so on.

Likewise there was plenty of effort put into the coal-fired power station that was never built in Tasmania. 4 possible sites were considered using 3 different sources of coal and so on. None of them turned out to be the best option at the time but it was impossible to know that without proper evaluation.

Today it's really much the same. Any hydrogen, pumped storage, solar, wind or whatever project needs detailed analysis which proponents will certainly do but at this point in time I don't think anyone would sensibly claim to know exactly what we'll have 30 years from now. All we can really say is that wind and solar are going to be key energy sources, whatever hydro is built will still be working, and that hydrogen is going to be in there somewhere. It would be a brave move to try and put any precise figures on the scale though.

Then there's things like synthetic fuels. Eg jet fuel or diesel manufactured from CO2 (from the air) and hydrogen (from solar, wind etc). Technically it's possible and there's an awful lot of current infrastructure to use such fuels so it could well happen at least to some extent.

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In the much shorter term, well it wouldn't be good if too much more went wrong in Victoria. Busted stator at Loy Yang A unit 2 isn't going to be an easy fix, the gas import terminal has been delayed from 2021 to 2023 and there's not much water in most of the hydro storages. There's no immediate crisis but there's not much of a buffer if anything does go wrong - the situation there is considerably more precarious than in any other state that's for sure.

This is the sort of thing which hands an abundance of ammunition to those opposed to moving away from fossil fuels:



Just stick to shifting to EV's and clean means of power generation and drop the social engineering stuff telling people what they can afford and how to live their lives if the aim is to actually gain public support.

Much the same could be said for the debate in Australia over the years. A carbon price of itself has some merit but not when it comes with all sorts of socialism and obscure rules bundled into it which defeat the very concept of being based around a free market.

Edit: No idea why it won't let me post a link to the story but it's a BBC news story which basically says that "Car use will still need to be curbed even when all vehicles are powered by clean electricity, a report has said." and then goes on about needing to make people walk more and so on.

Nope - just stick to the fuel aspect since that's the issue to be resolved.

As some may have read via the mainstream media, there has been another major incident at a power station in Victoria, this time at Mortlake.

Mortlake power station is a 2 x 275 MW gas-fired plant located in south-west Victoria and is the largest gas-fired plant in the state. Owner and operator is Origin Energy (ASX: ORG)

In layman's terms unit 2 suffered major damage in an incident yesterday morning and whilst Origin are still assessing the extent of the damage, realistically it's going to be out of service for ~6 months - that's a typical repair time for a fault of that nature assuming they throw everything at it in terms of resources. Unit 1 continues to operate normally.

This is additional to the major incident recently at Loy Yang A unit 2 (ASX: AGL) which has put that out of operation. Capacity lost there is 530 MW.

In the short term on a day to day basis the workaround to both is to simply shift generation around to other sources. That comes with higher costs and also potentially may run into limits with operating hours at Victorian hydro plants, most of which are operated to release set volumes of water for irrigation, at at the Valley Power gas-fired plant (capacity 300 MW, owned by Snowy Hydro) which is restricted by law to operating not more than 876 hours per year due to pollution. It's not out of the question that we could see some bumping up against limits there depending on how things play out although that's not an immediate problem.

At times of high demand and if the wind isn't blowing, which it sometimes is and sometimes isn't under those circumstances, the outcome in practice will be an LOR3 - that's forced load shedding more commonly known as blackouts. Realistically that would be most likely to occur when temperatures are high across Victoria, particular if it is also hot in populated parts of SA.

In the event that anything else fails then things are going to be looking rather grim, or should I say dim, indeed. Whether that happens is anyone's guess but with two major failures in a system that was already of inadequate capacity well it wouldn't be good to have anything else fail.

A complication of these failures will of course be that scheduled maintenance becomes rather more difficult on other plant due to not being able to take it out of service. Last summer there was an incident of that nature, maintenance repeatedly delayed until it became a forced situation and that then added to the load shedding which occurred. May or may not happen again but the risk is real.

Also impacts in SA due to all this - the risk of blackouts there is higher than it would otherwise be.

From a financial perspective, well it won't kill Origin but it won't be a cheap fix either and there will also be market pricing impacts and that means upward. That then affects other industry participants not just Origin.

rederob said:

Hydrogen has a few advantages that give it a bright future with the right planning and investment..

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The early indications of hydrogen being taken seriously.

https://thewest.com.au/business/ene...o-test-hydrogen-as-fuel-source-ng-b881247826z

Take note for those investing in gas either those who produce it or those who consume it:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/program...-high-pressure-gas-preservation-deal/11297514

The Centre Alliance says it has a deal with the Government to bring down the exorbitant price of gas and part of that could be a natural gas reservation policy

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Smurf1976 said:

Take note for those investing in gas either those who produce it or those who consume it:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/program...-high-pressure-gas-preservation-deal/11297514

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Good news for consumers.

Interesting that a few powerful gas producers can convince the government that their needs are more important than all the businesses that consume gas and are being driven out of business by high gas and power prices.

A new 250MW hydro station for North Queensland.

https://smallcaps.com.au/genex-power-debt-facility-naif-fund-kidston-stage-hydro-project/

sptrawler said:

A new 250MW hydro station for North Queensland.

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Quite a few involved with that one although Genex, the developer, is the only one that's a listed company.

The others being J Power (overseeing construction and operations), Entura aka Hydro Tasmania (engineering design) and Energy Australia (long term contract for energy storage). Plus there's the federal government involvement with finance and the Queensland state government has underwritten some revenue aspects of it.

Another 250 MW in Queensland will help ensure reliability up there certainly. Things aren't going so well in Victoria though with another failure this morning, this time at Yallourn. I don't know the cause so no comment on the seriousness or otherwise but it came to an abrupt halt, a trip from full load, about 8am this morning. There was no impact on supply to consumers with output ramped up elsewhere in Vic and interstate. There's rather a lot of plant off in Vic at the moment though so thankfully the wind's blowing nicely.

How serious is the news of continual long term failures of Victoria's power supply? As I am watching it it seems almost certain that a cold snap (in winter...) with some calm frosty nights is going to trip the switch soon.

That doesn't even consider the summer outlook if these units stay off line of more go down.

It also seems to me that the overall reliability of our coal plant is failing. Is that a fair observation ?

basilio said:

How serious is the news of continual long term failures of Victoria's power supply? As I am watching it it seems almost certain that a cold snap (in winter...) with some calm frosty nights is going to trip the switch soon.

That doesn't even consider the summer outlook if these units stay off line of more go down.

It also seems to me that the overall reliability of our coal plant is failing. Is that a fair observation ?

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That is the issue smurf has been talking about for the last 12 months, old base load generation failing and nothing being done to replace it, renewables can't in the time available, there isn't enough gas and no one wants coal or nuclear.
We are painting ourselves into a corner, there is no way a major business is going to invest in major manufacturing, while we have this diabolical third world power grid.

sptrawler said:

That is the issue smurf has been talking about for the last 12 months, old base load generation failing and nothing being done to replace it.

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Yes. It is just that I suspect that 12 months ago the issue was conceptual but in the last few months the long term breakdown of major elements in our power supply has sharpened the focus.
Certainly brings up the urgency of more solar and wind power as well as battery and hydro storage.