The future of energy generation and storage

[basilio]

It is nowadays significantly cheaper to attach flow battery storage with renewables, rather than building dams. Flow batteries have lifespans in excess of 20 years.

That was an amazing story. I suggest it is worth expanding to show just how much more cost effective renewables plus storage are at teh moment.

New Solar + Battery Price Crushes Fossil Fuels, Buries Nuclear

Jeff McMahon Contributor
Green Tech
From Chicago, I write about climate change, green technology, energy.

BARREN RIDGE, CA - APRIL 4: The new project will join the current large Barren Ridge solar panel array in Kern County, California. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)

Getty Images
Los Angeles Power and Water officials have struck a deal on the largest and cheapest solar + battery-storage project in the world, at prices that leave fossil fuels in the dust and may relegate nuclear power to the dustbin.

Later this month the LA Board of Water and Power Commissioners is expected to approve a 25-year contract that will serve 7 percent of the city's electricity demand at 1.997¢/kwh for solar energy and 1.3¢ for power from batteries.

"This is the lowest solar-photovoltaic price in the United States," said James Barner, the agency's manager for strategic initiatives, "and it is the largest and lowest-cost solar and high-capacity battery-storage project in the U.S. and we believe in the world today. So this is, I believe, truly revolutionary in the industry."

It's half the estimated cost of power from a new natural gas plant.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmc...hes-fossil-fuels-buries-nuclear/#1e9fcb765971

 

[sptrawler]

A good article on the issue of renewables, from the left leaning Grattan Institute, the area that we constantly debate he calls challenges.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/program...-12/tony-wood-speaks-to-the-business/11305642

He also mentions the 'skid mount' modular nuclear generators, we have talked about.

 

[Smurf1976]

I'll try and avoid the politics and simply say this:

The political debate as such is a real killer of investment into any comprehensive solution. It leads to a situation where the only willingness to invest is into things which make a quick profit and/or have a certain role to play no matter what happens next.

This approach will not get us to 100% renewbles but it will get us to somewhere around, as a rough order of magnitude, 75%. Hence AGL, for example, spending $295 million on 12 x 17.5 MW internal combustion driven generators whilst having site permits to double that and at the same time buying the rights to develop a pumped hydro scheme as an alternative. They're hedging their bets so to speak but they're not aiming for 100% renewables in the medium term and nor is anyone else of significance.

Related to that lack of certainty and short term approach comes higher than necessary costs and realistically, we're not far away (3 years at the most, probably less) from facing the inevitable with industry demanding that government bridge the gap between internationally competitive energy prices and Australia's actual, far higher, prices which are the direct result of government stuffing things up over an extended period.

On the politics itself I will simply say that regardless of which side you are on, your side most certainly has contributed to the problem and pulled some elaborate stunts in all of this. That includes pretty much everyone really, I can't actually think of an exception. In no particular order - Labor, Liberal, the industry, environmentalists, bulk consumers - the details differ but all have engaged in some silliness one way or another.

On some of the specific technical and politics I'll add:

Batteries, running trains up hills, small pumped hydro etc all works fine if you just want to meet peak demand at 6 pm and find a use for surplus generation around midday and in the early hours of the morning. That assumes of course that most of the generation fleet has a reasonably consistent output.

In practice wind routinely gives us a week or more of high output and a week or more of low output. The lows in wind also just happen to unfortunately occur at the same time of year when total daily energy demand is high and solar generation is lowest.

Because of that we're not actually going to be charging batteries every day from the wind and solar alone. A lot of days yes but not all of them and realistically that gets us to somewhere around three quarters renewable energy pretty easily.

Where the ideological, political and financial battle exists surrounds the remainder. On one side it's the proponents of big hydro schemes as the workaround to multiple consecutive days when the wind doesn't blow, load is persistently high and there's not much sun. On the other side are those who wish to import LNG for use in both their own gas-fired power stations and those owned by others.

My personal view is that the biggest mistake anyone could make is demanding perfection in any of this and likewise it's a mistake to fail to acknowledge competing demands.

It's all well and good to get excited about hydrogen storage or whatever but the reality is that what's on the table right now comes down to pumped hydro versus natural gas / diesel so far as the means of filling in the longer gaps in wind and solar generation are concerned. There's no actual proposal to build longer term bulk storage using hydrogen or batteries as the technology so it's very unlikely to happen as the next step. It's hydro or it's gas / diesel in practice.

Related to that are the financial and political implications. If AGL, Origin, Energy Australia and others want to build (or contract others to build) smaller pumped hydros, batteries, wind and solar to work in conjunction with larger pumpd hydros (Snowy etc) as an integrated system well then that gives them a viable business role in it all. It ticks a box.

If big engineering things get built well then that's another group for whom a box is ticked. Not just actual engineers but civil contractors, members of the public who like seeing big "permanent" sort of things built, unions and so on.

If the gas industry wants to put hydrogen in the pipes, and that's about to start on a small scale in Adelaide, well then there's no reason to stand in the way. It keeps another group on side, it removes a potential opponent of it all and so ticks another box even if in an imperfect manner it's still a step forward.

If politicians can go around cutting ribbons whilst standing in front of big civil infrastructure well then that ticks another box. Make sure everyone who builds anything has the grand opening complete with ribbon and scissors.

And so on. Pragmatically there's more to it than just the engineering aspect of it all and keeping naturally conflicting interests reasonably happy is part of that.

 

[SirRumpole]

And so on. Pragmatically there's more to it than just the engineering aspect of it all and keeping naturally conflicting interests reasonably happy is part of that.

I think you probably said it before. "Anything that works" is good.

 

[sptrawler]

Greenies have been opposing dams for decades. They keep on finding endangered species to delay projects. One day they have to decide their priorities.
?

Is this the sort thing we are talking about Rumpy?

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/07/bob-brown-turns-wind-farm-nimby/

Here we go, here we go, here we go.
Lets form a circle.

 

[SirRumpole]

Is this the sort thing we are talking about Rumpy?

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/07/bob-brown-turns-wind-farm-nimby/

Here we go, here we go, here we go.
Lets form a circle.

Exactly. Some people will never be happy.

 

[qldfrog]

Energy density is a very inconvenient fact, a huge plus for fossil fuels, which is badly understood by many
A lot of km traveled with 100kg of diesel, not that much with 100kg of batteries and heavier batteries lead to increased energy use

 

[sptrawler]

Exactly. Some people will never be happy.

Wait until we get thousands of hectares of solar panels, that will have them falling out of the trees, well the trees that haven't been cut down to install the panels.
Bob Brown will have kittens.

 

[rederob]

Energy density is a very inconvenient fact, a huge plus for fossil fuels, which is badly understood by many

Given the energy density of hydrogen is 3 times that of diesel, what is your point?
Both hydrogen and battery power can be "free," which cannot be said of fossil fuels.

 

[Smurf1976]

Is this the sort thing we are talking about Rumpy?

That sort of thing is where the "anti-everything" argument comes from and it's not hard to see why.

Environmentalists said no to hydro acknowledging coal as the alternative.

Then coal was bad but gas was promoted for the next ~25 years as the better way forward.

Until someone got fracking, which was always inevitable if we ramped up gas use, and then all of a sudden gas was bad we should use wind.

Then came the objections about wind farms spoiling the view and so on meanwhile there's opposition to the gas import plans in Victoria too.

Can't win.

 

[sptrawler]

That sort of thing is where the "anti-everything" argument comes from and it's not hard to see why.

Environmentalists said no to hydro acknowledging coal as the alternative.

Then coal was bad but gas was promoted for the next ~25 years as the better way forward.

Until someone got fracking, which was always inevitable if we ramped up gas use, and then all of a sudden gas was bad we should use wind.

Then came the objections about wind farms spoiling the view and so on meanwhile there's opposition to the gas import plans in Victoria too.

Can't win.

Yes and the really funny bit is, all of these issues are going to be resolved, before they shut down Liddell in 2022.
Can't wait to see that.

 

[Smurf1976]

Yes and the really funny bit is, all of these issues are going to be resolved, before they shut down Liddell in 2022.
Can't wait to see that.

That ultimately is the elephant in the room along with the prospect of sudden failures elsewhere and the prospect of running short of fuel with which to operate plant that's still working.

With regard to the fuel supply issue, there have been a couple of days this year when gas ran short in SA and fuel oil was burned as a workaround plus there's an ongoing problem with getting enough coal in NSW particularly at Mt Piper (2 x 700 MW, Energy Australia) but other NSW coal-fired plant has had similar problems.

 

[sptrawler]

That ultimately is the elephant in the room along with the prospect of sudden failures elsewhere and the prospect of running short of fuel with which to operate plant that's still working.

With regard to the fuel supply issue, there have been a couple of days this year when gas ran short in SA and fuel oil was burned as a workaround plus there's an ongoing problem with getting enough coal in NSW particularly at Mt Piper (2 x 700 MW, Energy Australia) but other NSW coal-fired plant has had similar problems.

Like we keep saying it is a time issue, not a lack of will, from where I sit it doesn't seem possible to reconcile all the issues in the time available.
On another subject these small nuclear power reactors, sound like they tick a lot of the boxes, especially in Australia's grid.
https://www.world-nuclear.org/infor...er-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
They would be a perfect fit for W.A, sub 300MW, good turn down. They would be just about a straight swap out, for one of the existing coal sites.
Interesting times ahead.

 

[Smurf1976]

Like we keep saying it is a time issue, not a lack of will, from where I sit it doesn't seem possible to reconcile all the issues in the time available.

I'm not keen on nukes, we've had two things go "kaboom!" with power generation recently but at least it's an easy cleanup when it's not radioactive, but certainly agreed about the timing issue with it all.

 

[sptrawler]

I'm not keen on nukes, we've had two things go "kaboom!" with power generation recently but at least it's an easy cleanup when it's not radioactive, but certainly agreed about the timing issue with it all.

I agree 100% the only thing is it is the only 'clean' substitute, if renewables for some reason can't achieve 100% capacity + reserve margin.

 

[SirRumpole]

Like we keep saying it is a time issue, not a lack of will, from where I sit it doesn't seem possible to reconcile all the issues in the time available.
On another subject these small nuclear power reactors, sound like they tick a lot of the boxes, especially in Australia's grid.
https://www.world-nuclear.org/infor...er-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
They would be a perfect fit for W.A, sub 300MW, good turn down. They would be just about a straight swap out, for one of the existing coal sites.
Interesting times ahead.

People live around small nuclear reactors in submarines and aircraft carriers producing a few hundred kW, so the technology is there.

Putting a few outback where the threats can be managed would at least be worth considering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_marine_propulsion

 

[Value Collector]

Energy density is a very inconvenient fact, a huge plus for fossil fuels, which is badly understood by many
A lot of km traveled with 100kg of diesel, not that much with 100kg of batteries and heavier batteries lead to increased energy use

But look at all the transport and refining that has to go into retrieving that diesel.

When you could charge the batteries with solar panels locally where the energy needs to be consumed.

 

[Value Collector]

I'm not keen on nukes, we've had two things go "kaboom!" with power generation recently but at least it's an easy cleanup when it's not radioactive, but certainly agreed about the timing issue with it all.

How do we “clean up” after the carbon emissions?

I am pro nuclear, but I also understand it will never happen I. Australia.

 

[sptrawler]

People live around small nuclear reactors in submarines and aircraft carriers producing a few hundred kW, so the technology is there.

Putting a few outback where the threats can be managed would at least be worth considering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_marine_propulsion

They are called VSMR very small modular reactors, having said that they aren't measured in the KW they are still around 10MW, but in a renewable grid for stability it would make sense having them spread out at the extremes.
As smurf will no doubt explain VAR control is just as important as frequency control, especially in a grid covering a huge area, you can use static VAR reactors etc, but having generation at the end of the line can help stability a lot.

 

[basilio]

The conversation about introducing nuclear power in Australia has so many practical and legislative problems it seems completely impossible to see it leap frogging proven, clean, cheap renewable options (plus back up)

This article goes into the weeds on the topic. Well worth digesting.

The idea of producing nuclear energy in Australia before 2040 is absurd
John Quiggin
There is no chance of deploying it in the required timeframe. Fortunately, there are alternatives

@JohnQuiggin
Tue 16 Jul 2019 19.00 BST Last modified on Tue 16 Jul 2019 19.49 BST

The debate about nuclear power in Australia flickered to life with the suggestion by the New South Wales deputy premier, John Barilaro, that small modular reactors could be constructed in regional centres. Prominent backbencher Barnaby Joyce followed up with a call for a parliamentary inquiry.

Joyce and Barilaro revived this idea after the release of a report by Industry Super Australia, which took as the starting point the need to replace most of Australia’s coal-fired power stations by 2040. The report concluded: “It is difficult to see how the the problem can be resolved without some nuclear in the mix.”

It would perhaps be churlish to observe that the small reactors advocated by Barilaro exist only as designs and may never be built. There is a much bigger obstacle which is essentially impossible to overcome.
To make the central point as bluntly as possible: even with a crash program there is no chance of deploying nuclear power in Australia in the required timeframe. I looked at this question in a submission to the South Australian royal commission into the nuclear fuel cycle and concluded that “there is no serious prospect of Australia producing nuclear energy before 2040”.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ear-energy-in-australia-before-2040-is-absurd