So it is not tomorrow that co2 will be removed from even the most fanatical green western country of any importance
Crux of it is that yes the engineers and in most cases managers absolutely "get it" but you won't find too many who haven't lost their enthusiasm amidst a political and regulatory regime that's standing firmly in the way of progress.
However bad you think that might be, rest assured it's far, far worse.
As a case in point, in SA we have some significant issues relating to the high uptake of solar:
1. Network voltage issues noting that over a third of all homes in SA have solar, daytime load is commonly low in residential areas whenever the weather is mild, and much of the distribution network is of relatively low capacity compared to other parts of Australia.
2. System strength issues in the grid. In simple terms non-synchronous plant such as solar (especially small scale) and wind doesn't have that "freight train" like response of just carrying on regardless when it hits a bump. There are workarounds but at present gas-fired generation is being run, and wind or solar going to waste, pretty often (not every day but several times in a typical week).
3. Overall system load at midday is becoming low to the point of being a problem from an operational perspective. Even on a day like today, which reached 39 degrees in Adelaide, load at midday was lower than it was in the early hours of the morning. Cause = because small scale solar is supplying most consumption at that time, it goes as high as ~two thirds of the total load.
Now one obvious solution to this is to take advantage of the ~40% of SA homes with electric hot water and operate those during the 10am - 3pm period instead of switching them all on at night when demand is now considerably higher (even without the water heaters on) than it is during daytime.
To cut a long story short - it's 7 years and counting from when the issue was seriously recognised trying to get these clocks changed. Even brand new installations today are going in set to operate overnight only despite SA Power Networks encouraging operation during the 10am - 3pm period.
SAPN was putting them in set to operate during daytime, then the regulators brought "Power Of Choice" in and transferred metering to the retailers 2 years ago, and they've gone back to nighttime despite it costing them more (since electricity spot prices are now consistently lower at midday than at midnight) and reducing their margins by doing so.
Then there's governments getting in the way with regulations which send consumers in the opposite direction to what makes sense. At a time when there's excitement about electric cars it seems rather odd that Victoria in particular is hell bent on making sure we go the opposite direction for heating water and use gas. A number of other states are less strict but nonetheless push consumers in the same direction.
From a technical perspective there are solutions to all this, it's pretty straightforward and all very explainable. That it's not happening comes down to the regulating and governing types standing firmly in the way.
Realistically, the view of many is that we'll get a solution to this only by means of a proper crisis. Sad but it seems to be where it's heading. I don't like to sound negative but I'm just being realistic - whatever's achieved is in spite of government (at the federal level) not because of them.
At a personal level, well I do have a battery at home yes. Over the past month:
41% of electricity consumed drawn from the battery which is charged from solar
34% from the grid
25% directly used solar
Two things that come to mind from a W.A perspective, firstly the feed in tarrif is 7cents, as opposed to 16cents and if you install batteries, the tarrif is stopped.
Do you have two meters? If not it will be charged at the prevailing T.O.D price i.e peak or off peak rate, I would assume.
Details of how it's set up vary between states but in general the controlled load is "import only" so the full volume of consumption is charged at that rate.
Details of how it's set up vary between states but in general the controlled load is "import only" so the full volume of consumption is charged at that rate.
The main exceptions are:
1. Where the off-peak comes via a Time Of Use (TOU) meter which covers all consumption. In that case the controlled load is the same as any other load.
Some states have arrangements which work better than others in that regard. Eg Tariff 93 in Tasmania is intentionally set with the lowest price applying between 10am - 4pm as well as 9pm - 7am and all day weekends. Given that a standard water heater heats from cold to full temperature within 6 hours that works very nicely.
Same arrangement as T93 in Tas should be in SA very soon albeit with some minor tweaks. The lowest price will be 10am - 3pm. That's if the retailers go along with it - unlike Tas can't get everyone in the same room and just agree what to do but should happen.
For the SA variant the network charges, with respect to the standard flat rate (Residential Single Rate - RSR) are to be 25% during the period 10am - 3pm, 50% during the period 1am to 6am and 125% at all other times.
The Tas arrangement very roughly prices off-peak at a 55% discount to peak and has only two rates - it's always either Peak or Off Peak (hence the marketing strategy calls it just that "Peak and Off Peak").
Other states it really depends on what price you're paying and when - check locally but in most cases it's not particularly solar friendly.
2. A situation unique to Tasmania is that of two peak rate meters per household. One for heating and air-conditioning, which can also be used for storage hot water so long as it heats slowly (so no instant or quick recovery systems), and the other for everything else with the former being charged at a 40% discount.
Long story short - whilst most are installed on the Light & Power (Tariff 31) meter, there's no problem with installing a solar system on the Tariff 41 (space heating and hot water better known by the old marketing term of "HydroHeat"). Regardless of which meter it's on though, the other meter can't "see" the solar so becomes an import-only arrangement unless of course you have two systems and put one on each.
That arrangement is unique to Tas though and doesn't exist elsewhere in the context of ordinary private homes. For all other states it's either a Time Of Use arrangement as in point 1 or it's a single flat rate for everything except water heating which will be on a separate single flat rate with restricted hours at a lower price.
Certainly a lot more advanced than W.A.
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