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The future of energy generation and storage

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With using sugar cane as fuel, it has to be weighed up against using it for food, I don't know what the Megajoules of energy yield is per ton of sugar cane but GT's will burn through it at an amazing rate.
I can work it out for you if you want, but LNG was getting pushed through a boiler at 16kg/sec, so that will be a lot of sugar cane production then it has to be convert to a liquid.
It might be feasible, but the sums would be interesting, easier to produce hydrogen through electrolisys and much less labour intensive I would guess.
 

Well, as we have said, if things turn out well with wind/solar/hydro, the gt's will be standing idle for a lot of the time so the total fuel consumption shouldn't be too high.

But yes, if you have some figures on the costs of ethanol production v hydrogen, that would be good.

As for sugar as a food, how many people have diabetes these days ?
 
I don't know about the cost as there are a lot of variables e.g, labour, location, process costs in the sugar cane to ethanol (boilers etc), type of electrical generation to make H2 e.g solar, wind, hydro, then there is the compression costs to make liquid H2.
Therefore a lot of unknowns, but ethanol is a very good fuel, just whether there is enough land to grow enough for it to be feasible as a mass generation fuel?
But the specific energy by weight is, for ethanol approx 24MJ / Kg and for liquid hydrogen 120MJ / kg.
To give that some perspective and relevance to where we are heading and being very general, an electric car uses about 15KW/h of electricity to do 100klm and 1 KW/hr is = to 3.6 MJ of energy.
So to work out the difference the trick is to bring it all back to energy or megajoules, because every fuel has a specific energy which can be expressed in MJ.
Then the weight and transporting costs and practicality comes into play.
Hope that helps.
 

Brazil does not sell any totally petrol vehicles, they run on a ethanol / petrol mix and they also run power gas turbines on ethanol.

It's a much bigger country with a much bigger market so the economics would be different to here , but it can be done.
 
I'm sure there will be a niche for ethanol, but I'm not sure it will be large scale generation, but hey we are all just best guessing at the moment.
On the subject of hydrogen production and generation, this is an interesting article with a few heads up, to companies that are moving forward in the generation space.

Who Will Own the Hydrogen Future: Oil Companies or Utilities?

Utilities NextEra, Iberdrola and Uniper have all launched recent forays into green hydrogen, challenging a sector dominated by oil companies.
www.greentechmedia.com

From the article:

In the U.S., NextEra recently announced a 20-megawatt electrolyzer, essentially designed to produce green hydrogen for self-consumption at a gas-fired plant in Florida. The $65 million pilot project will be fueled by the Sunshine State’s ample solar resources with the hydrogen mixed into the feedstock for the 1.75-gigawatt Okeechobee gas plant. It could be up and running in 2023 if regulatory approval is granted.

Meanwhile, German utility Uniper revealed a new decarbonization strategy with gas turbine manufacturer GE. Building on a green hydrogen partnership with Siemens, the two industrial giants will help Uniper gradually convert its gas power fleet to hydrogen, and Siemens will also work on electrolysis infrastructure for the firm.

Rounding out the recent announcements, Iberdrola revealed plans to build a 20-megawatt electrolyzer project for an ammonia factory in Spain. The system will include a 100-megawatt solar plant and a 20-megawatt-hour battery in addition to the electrolyzer.
 
Oh by the way @SirRumpole I forgot to mention the specific energy of lithium ion batteries, when we were talking about ethanol and hydrogen, it is about 1MJ /Kg
 
SirRumpole said:
Well, as we have said, if things turn out well with wind/solar/hydro, the gt's will be standing idle for a lot of the time so the total fuel consumption shouldn't be too high.
Click to expand...
Based on EA's publicly stated data for Tallawarra B, they expect the plant to operate about 1.9% of the time over 12 months.

That doesn't mean it can't be run more, but reverse engineering EA's publicly released data adds up to about that level of operation.
 

In which case the prices they charge when they do run will be massive I assume ?
 
I guess that would be on the assumption, it doesn't bring forward, the closure of further coal generation?
I would have thought they would have done the numbers, on the viability of constructing it, if not it could be an expensive blunder.
Like I said, I would have thought the private operators would have left the GT build to the government, but maybe there is something that we don't know yet?
 
We did say AGL would be getting nervous, management has been a bit average IMO, they were told a year ago a commitment was required but decided to call the Feds bluff.
Now they find themselves painted into a corner, no wonder some of the management has walked IMO.
Pretty average decision making processes by AGL, well done Energy Australia IMO, progressive thinking.
The thing is, the two proposed power stations, will accelerate the closure of more coal stations IMO.
One thing for sure it looks as though the transition to renewables will be underpinned by some dispatchable generation.
There will need to be some hydrogen fired GT's, for the once in a lifetime event, that will make the hydro storage low or unavailable. The rapid transition was always going to cause some winners and some losers, but coal is definitely going to be shutdown sooner, rather than later.
Just my thoughts.

Government intervention is complicating renewable energy revolution

Investors and private enterprise say government intervention in the energy market is making the transition from fossil fuels to renewables more challenging.
www.smh.com.au
From the article:
Government intervention in the energy market is making the breakneck transition from fossil fuels to renewables even more challenging as investors warn that taxpayer subsidies for new gas power projects are squeezing out private industry.

The NSW government on Tuesday announced $78 million to support Energy Australia building the first hydrogen-ready gas power plant at its Tallawarra site on Lake Illawarra, with the Morrison government tipping in $5 million.

The Commonwealth also said it would set aside funding for its own large-scale 750-megawatt gas plant at Kurri Kurri in the Hunter Valley, which federal-owned utility Snowy Hydro said would cost at least $600 million.
AGL chief executive Graeme Hunt said the NSW government’s renewables road map and federal funding for the new gas plant through Snowy Hydro had deterred his company from investing in a new gas plant in the Hunter Valley.

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“Anything that disturbs natural markets makes it hard for to feel confident in assumptions about the future,” Mr Hunt said.
“We have been very clear that when the NSW [renewables] road map came out, that that was cause for pause on our Newcastle gas-generating investment. It was unclear how much capacity might be added based on what others might do, subsidised or otherwise, or also what the (federal) government might do directly in investment through Snowy Hydro. So we had to draw back.”

The Commonwealth also said it would set aside funding for its own large-scale 750-megawatt gas plant at Kurri Kurri in the Hunter Valley, which federal-owned utility Snowy Hydro said would cost at least $600 million.
AGL chief executive Graeme Hunt said the NSW government’s renewables road map and federal funding for the new gas plant through Snowy Hydro had deterred his company from investing in a new gas plant in the Hunter Valley.

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“Anything that disturbs natural markets makes it hard for to feel confident in assumptions about the future,” Mr Hunt said.
“We have been very clear that when the NSW [renewables] road map came out, that that was cause for pause on our Newcastle gas-generating investment. It was unclear how much capacity might be added based on what others might do, subsidised or otherwise, or also what the (federal) government might do directly in investment through Snowy Hydro. So we had to draw back.”
 
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SirRumpole said:
In which case the prices they charge when they do run will be massive I assume ?
Click to expand...
Not really, because if they want to charge silly prices, the government GT's will be given priority for dispatch, a bit like it is done in W.A.
The privates are given priority, but the government units are available, if the privates have a problem. To me it makes the most sense.

Letting the private operators decide when they are going to close the coal stations, would be fraught with problems IMO, they wouldn't build dispatchable plant until they knew it was going to be run, so the coal stations would just linger on and on and the system would become more and more unreliable.

So putting in the GT"s allows renewables to be installed and makes the coal stations less viable, without losing system security.
Doing it while also making it financially cost positive for the coal generators, was always going to be difficult, a bit like the car manufacturers changing from ICE production to BEV production.

Initially the BEV lose money and the ICE are making money, at some point that reverses, the same goes with coal generation Vs clean generation. But the car manufacturers are doing it, so must the power generation companies, it is a cost associated with keeping the business competitive in a technology that is changing.
Some survive, others don't.
 
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As a general observation about the whole thing, not specifically this issue of gas turbines but I mean far more broadly, the companies fall into two categories really.

Those doing well are the ones that grasped early in the whole process that they needed to understand the other side.

That went to some extremes. One of the government-owned companies which still exists is arguably somewhat better at business than some of their private sector counterparts who'd assumed they'd be a pushover. Good at it because they grasped many years ago what they needed to do, that it was ultimately critical to survival, and jumped in head first.

What followed was radical change and a definite attempt to understand not just what decisions a private competitor would make, but how they'd make them. End result was a government-owned entity which aimed to meet every requirement for ASX listing despite not being listed and which ran two sets of everything to understand the difference between "how we would previously have done it" and "what our future competitors would do".

One of the privately owned companies did something pretty similar except for them it was about understanding government. They very consciously took one of their operating divisions and ran it in a very public service like manner. It wouldn't have made them any money up front but that's not why they did it. They did it because they grasped that the surest way to understand how government works was to act like one. They hired former public servants, they started placing notices in newspapers in the way that a government department would, they started fixing their own pricing to rigid schedules and so on. All very government-like.

Both of those are still in the industry and doing quite nicely it would seem and, key point, they started that learning back in the 1990's. They saw what was coming.

In contrast the government entities which decided they knew best and scoffed at the concept of the private sector competing generally don't exist, at all, today. The details of the process differs but ultimately they're gone.

Meanwhile certain private sector companies that scoffed at the idea anyone in government would actually be capable of running a profitable business are the ones finding themselves in rather a lot of difficulty right now. They keep finding themselves in fights with governments, fights with unions and so on. Plus a couple if incidents I won't mention.....

It's classic "hare and the tortoise" stuff really. Those who grasped that they had a problem and needed to learn are reaping the rewards from doing so, meanwhile those who thought they knew best are in considerable difficulty.

There's quite a few linkages in the industry between what you'd probably think would be unlikely allies by the way.

Among others, well it's publicly disclosed that rather a lot of Energy Australia's engineering and construction oversight is contracted out to Entura, a subsidiary of Hydro Tasmania.

Snowy Hydro doesn't disclose names but they do disclose that they have a very large business in the form of trading and hedging arrangements with the private sector.

Origin Energy publicly discloses that they have a lot of generation under contract from others.

Origin Energy is presently investigating large scale hydrogen and ammonia production at Townsville (Qld) and Bell Bay (Tas) with the latter being the larger of the two proposals. If it were to go ahead then that would lead to Origin being the largest consumer of electricity in Tasmania, noting that they have zero involvement on the supply side so would simply be a customer as such. Proposed scale = they're looking at 500 MW load for the plant in Tas and 300 MW for the one in Qld. That's if they're built - it's only at the evaluation stage although they've found a customer for at least some of the hydrogen it seems.

None of the companies I've mentioned seem to be having too much trouble. They're not in the news for all the wrong reasons. And they're not having to keep things out of the news either .
 
sptrawler said:
maybe there is something that we don't know yet?
Click to expand...
There's a couple of things that aren't publicly disclosed but:

For all existing coal plant in NSW:

Eraring (Origin Energy) comprises 4 x 720 MW units and closing in 2032. The Origin CEO has publicly commented about declining annual production rates as renewables increase and that Origin won't generate at a loss (ie they'll shut the plant over the weekend etc if that makes sense).

Bayswater (AGL) comprises 4 x 660 MW units being uprated to 685 MW each (so they're spending $ on the plant). AGL has publicly stated closure for 2036.

Liddell (AGL) has 4 x 420 MW (originally 500 MW) units with one to be closed 11 months from now and the other three exactly a year later. It's no secret that reliability is terrible, the plant's very run down etc. The reason for the reduced capacity is to try and reduce the incidence of major failures. The 420 MW is a "hard" limit, non-negotiable.

Mt Piper (Energy Australia) has 1 x 730 MW and 1 x 700 MW. They're identical except that unit 1 has a recently added second small boiler burning processed waste which supplements the steam supply hence the higher output. EA have spent substantial $ on the plant in the very recent past, boosting coal supply and adding the additional small boiler, and the stated closure date is 2043.

Vales Point (Delta Electricity) has 2 x 660 MW units numbered 5 and 6 for historic reasons (another 4 unit power station previously operated at the site). There's currently major maintenance work being done on unit 6 right now but the company has publicly announced that the same major work for unit 5 has been indefinitely cancelled. Noting the already announced closure date of 2029, that's generally perceived as meaning unit 5 won't be in constant use though to closure although the exact detail there remains uncertain (eg does it become standby plant or does it outright close sometime earlier than 2029?).

Redbank is 1 x 151 MW from two boilers and currently not in operation (hasn't been since 2014). There's been several proposals, including a current one, to return it to operation either in its original form or burning something other than coal. There does seem a fair chance of it happening but I won't be placing any bets there, I'll believe it when I see it actually generating.

So basically Liddell's going, it'll be shut completely less than 2 years from now, and there's some doubts as to one of the two units at Vales Point noting that the whole lot's going in 2029.

It's pretty unlikely that EA would close Mt Piper, or AGL close Bayswater, in the near future given recent and ongoing serious investment into them and Origin are too smart politically to outright close Eraring - they might choose to intermittently take it offline but I very much doubt they'd actually shut it down outright. I think they're smart enough to realise that any financial benefit wouldn't be worth the political pain (noting that outright closure is only 11 years from now anyway).

The Eraring units do have pretty good turndown by the way, 720 MW at peak but they can get them down to 210 MW each without any difficulty and do so routinely. That's not bad for coal plant.
 
@Smurf1976 that is a lot of very big units on a system, they would have been a great idea when they were installed, running at mcr 24/7 they would have been the cheapest and most efficient option.
But what a headache now when you are trying to remove them from service, removing even 1 x 600-700MW unit from your system leaves a very large gap in your portfolio.
When you are talking 4 x720MW units.
4 x 660MW units.
4 x 420MW units
2 x 700MW units.
2 X 660MW units
and 1 x 150MW units
All needing to be shutdown asap, because the public pressure is building for there closure, not decreasing, it would be remiss of the government not to demand firming capacity be installed.
As can be seen by the latest announcement by Joe Biden, this whole transition is going to become a political hot potato, between the USA, EU and China.
Which because of the way our media love to sensationalise, will mean we are drawn into the thick of things, at the earliest possible time.
So in all likelihood there will be a call to close at least 50% of the above plant by 2030, well that is my guess, as 2030 and 50% seems to be the trendy numbers ATM.
If that is the case 1 x 750MW station proposed by the government, isn't a ridiculous call, if they don't do it and the 50% call comes, they will be told they were asleep at the wheel.
It basically boils back to common sense, whereas those saying it isn't required either have no understanding, have a vested interest in keeping the coal running, or are just dumb and listen to the media.
At the end of the day when the lights go out, the first people to be blamed are the feds, as has been shown with the bushfires, the virus, the lockdowns etc
The GT option makes perfect sense as shown by Energy Australia, not only can they run on lng through the transition, but they can run on hydrogen post transition, so still supply clean at call generation ad infinitum, the media as usual are just whipping up the pitchfork crew.
Once the penny drops with the general public, the coalition will be seen as a steady hand, which is exactly what Labor don't want.
I hope Albo has a good plan, otherwise he will be hammered over the supply issue, if Labor keep saying the GT's aren't required their alternative had better be good.
Just my opinion.
 
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sptrawler said:
All needing to be shutdown asap, because the public pressure is building for there closure, not decreasing, it would be remiss of the government not to demand firming capacity be installed.
Click to expand...
Agreed - your comment will make even more sense if I put the full list up, all NEM states, which I'll do later as a simple list by year.

There is of course also the reality that dates will change. Nobody seriously expects that everything will run flat out right to the end, very clearly that's not going to be the case.

What I do think has become abundantly clear from this whole saga though is that even if it's unprofitable, the owners of any given station would be very unwise to simply close and walk away without someone having first built new capacity to replace it. Doing that, just closing, is picking a fight with the federal government and the cost to the company of getting government off side is likely to be far higher than the cost of maintaining an idle power station for occasional use during periods of high demand or as backup for a few years with a known definite end date.

I doubt we'll see any more dramatic events with things literally being blown up with explosives or major standoffs between a company and government. At least if the management has any sense they won't go down that track in future.
 
As promised, a complete list of fossil fuel generation and closure dates for the National Electricity Market.

For simplicity I've avoided mention of individual unit numbers or who owns it and the list is as follows:

Closure year, station name, state, fuel type, capacity in MW.

Where the same station is listed more than once, that means a staged closure. For example I've listed Torrens Island A three times at 240 MW, 120 MW and 120 MW. That's because it's a 4 x 120 MW station being closed in three stages - two units, the one, then the final one.

Dates I've taken from official AEMO data as at March 2021 which I've checked today.

Only centrally dispatched plant is included. So not including backup generators at hospitals and stuff like that, only what most people would think of as being a power station.

2020 (already closed)
Torrens Island A, SA, gas (steam turbines), 240 MW

2021
Mackay, Qld, Diesel (open cycle), 34 MW
Torrens Island A, SA, gas (steam turbine), 120 MW

2022
Liddell, NSW, coal, 420 MW
Torrens Island A, SA, gas (steam turbine), 120 MW

2023
Liddell, NSW, coal, 1260 MW
Osborne, SA, gas (combined cycle), 180 MW

2024 & 2025 = none

2026
Broken Hill, NSW, diesel (open cycle), 50 MW

2027 = none

2028
Yallourn W, Vic, coal, 1480 MW
Callide B, Qld, coal, 700 MW

2029
Vales Point B, NSW, coal, 1320 MW

2030
Dry Creek, SA, gas (open cycle), 143 MW
Mintaro, SA, gas (open cycle), 90 MW
Port Lincoln, SA, diesel (open cycle), 73.5 MW
Snuggery, SA, diesel (open cycle), 63 MW

2031 = none

2032
Eraring, NSW, coal, 2880 MW
Eraring, NSW, diesel (open cycle), 40 MW
Hallett, SA, gas (open cycle), 216 MW

2033
Mt Stuart, Qld, kerosene (open cycle), 288 MW
Somerton, Vic, gas (open cycle), 160 MW

2034
Barcaldine, Qld, gas (open cycle), 37 MW
Roma, Qld, gas (open cycle), 68 MW

2035
Gladstone, Qld, coal, 1680 MW
Bayswater, NSW, coal, 2740 MW
Hunter Valley, NSW, diesel (open cycle), 40 MW
Ladbroke Grove, SA, gas (open cycle), 84 MW
Torrens Island B, SA, gas (steam turbines), 800 MW

2036
Tarong, Qld, coal, 700 MW
Swanbank E, Qld, gas (combined cycle), 385 MW

2037
Tarong, Qld, coal, 700 MW
Tarong North, Qld, coal, 450 MW
Tarong, Qld, Diesel (open cycle), 15 MW
Pelican Point, SA, gas (combined cycle), 498 MW

2038 = none

2039
Condamine, Qld, gas (combined cycle), 144 MW
Jeeralang, Vic, gas (open cycle), 466 MW
Newport D, Vic, gas (steam turbine), 510 MW

2040
Bell Bay Three, Tas, gas (open cycle), 105 MW

2041 = none

2042
Kogan Creek, Qld, coal, 750 MW
Mt Piper, NSW, coal, 1430 MW
Bairnsdale, Vic, gas, 84 MW

2043
Stanwell, Qld, coal, 365 MW
Tallawarra, NSW, gas (combined cycle), 435 MW

2044
Stanwell, Qld, coal, 365 MW
Mt Stuart, Qld, kerosene (open cycle), 126 MW
Smithfield, NSW, gas (open cycle), 120 MW
Uranquinty, NSW, gas (open cycle), 664 MW
Quarantine, SA, gas (open cycle), 120 MW
Barker Inlet, SA, gas / diesel (internal combustion engines), 210 MW

2045
Stanwell, Qld, coal, 365 MW
Darling Downs, Qld, gas (combined cycle), 630 MW

2046
Stanwell, Qld, coal, 365 MW
Braemar, Qld, gas (open cycle), 543 MW
Townsville, Qld, gas (combined cycle), 246 MW

2047
Loy Yang B, Vic, coal, 1160 MW
Mortlake, Vic, gas (open cycle), 584 MW

2048
Loy Yang A, Vic, coal, 2210 MW

2049
Braemar 2, Qld, gas (open cycle), 519 MW

2050
Oakey, Qld, gas (open cycle), 346 MW
Tamar Valley, Tas, gas (open cycle), 58 MW
*Tamar Valley, Tas, gas (combined cycle), 208 MW

2051
Millmerran, Qld, coal, 852 MW

2052 = none

2053
Quarantine, SA, gas (open cycle), 29 MW

2054
Quarantine, SA, gas (open cycle), 58 MW

2055
Quarantine, SA, gas (open cycle), 29 MW

Notes:

*Tamar Valley CCGT is presently in storage and has not run since May 2019. It could be returned to service at a future time if required however some lead time would be involved.

Fossil fuel plant in the NEM with no announced closure date or a date that's 2070 (pretty good chance that changes by then):

Callide C, Qld, coal, 840 MW (no announced date)
Colongra, NSW, gas (open cycle), 640 MW (2070)
Laverton North, Vic, gas (open cycle), 320 MW (2070)
Valley Power, Vic, gas (open cycle), 300 MW (2070)
Angaston, SA, diesel (internal combustion engines), 48 MW (2070)
Port Stanvac, SA, diesel (internal combustion engines), 58 MW (2070)
Lonsdale, SA, diesel (internal combustion engines), 21 MW (2070)

Note that Port Stanvac and Lonsdale are effectively the same plant, being at the same site with the same owner, built in two stages.

Cumulative capacity closed by year:

2020 = 240 MW
2021 = 394 MW
2022 = 934 MW
2023 = 2374 MW
2026 = 2424 MW
2028 = 4604 MW
2029 = 5924 MW
2030 = 6294 MW
2032 = 9430 MW
2033 = 9878 MW
2034 = 9983 MW
2035 = 15327 MW
2036 = 16412 MW
2037 = 18075 MW
2039 = 19195 MW
2040 = 19300 MW
2042 = 21564 MW
2043 = 22369 MW
2044 = 23974 MW
2045 = 24969 MW
2046 = 26123 MW
2047 = 27867 MW
2048 = 30077 MW
2049 = 30596 MW
2050 = 31208 MW
2051 = 32060 MW
2053 = 32089 MW
2054 = 32147 MW
2055 = 32176 MW

Stated as 2070 = 1387 MW
No date stated = 840 MW

So there's a pretty major investment required to replace all that, those are huge numbers, and that's without mentioning anything about closures being brought forward due to climate change etc.

Note that no hydro plant is listed since it's assumed that it'll be maintained and continue to operate indeed more's likely to be built, including as pumped storage.
 
Smurf1976 said:
So there's a pretty major investment required to replace all that, those are huge numbers, and that's without mentioning anything about closures being brought forward due to climate change etc.
Click to expand...

As usual you provide a great service to our knowledge, thank you.

Is there a similar list for the construction and start of service dates for their replacements ?
 
SirRumpole said:
Is there a similar list for the construction and start of service dates for their replacements ?
Click to expand...
Sure is, as projections extrapolating from annual installations over the last couple of years, and has been for some time and it's charging ahead and will surpass the total cumulitive closures to 2050 noted by smurf in the next ten years.
At a vastly cheaper generation cost than the currently installed...
Little wonder at the antics of Abbott; and of late the puppets of Kunkle and Pearson....

At its current rate, Australia is on track for 50% renewable electricity in 2025

The Australian renewable energy industry will install more than 10 gigawatts of new solar and wind power during 2018 and 2019.
science.anu.edu.au
 
That is exactly what has to happen, the transmission lines are already there, the switchyard is already there, it makes perfect sense to put a massive amount of storage there.
It might not be ideal as a renewable solar or wind site, but it may be a perfect site for storage, as all the HV infrastructure is already there.
 
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