The future of energy generation and storage

CS Energy has now officially released to the public, media and anyone else who wants it a photo from Callide C showing the damage.

Note the holes in the roof where bits went flying through and the end of the snapped shaft sitting where it landed complete with a dent in the floor.

Photo Supplied by CS Energy.



As a further comment, from AEMO's preliminary investigations:

13:34 - Callide C4 stopped generating but remained connected to the power system.

13:40 - CS Energy informed AEMO of a fire.

14:06 - C4 disconnects from the power system along with numerous other generating units at several sites, transmission lines and loads.

There's been at least two major failures here. First with the initial failure, second with the failure to disconnect promptly.

If that is what happens when an at call generator fails, I hope the sun is up and the batteries are charged. ?

For scale on the above photo, the width of the turbine hall, left to right as in the photo, is approximately 45m.

So that's equivalent to 4 full size buses parked nose to tail in a line.

sptrawler said:

If that is what happens when an at call generator fails, I hope the sun is up and the batteries are charged.

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"Queensland - Sunshine State"

Seriously, as I'm sure you're aware this is a very major job to fix. Big $ and a lot of time.

Smurf1976 said:

For scale on the above photo, the width of the turbine hall, left to right as in the photo, is approximately 45m.

So that's equivalent to 4 full size buses parked nose to tail in a line.

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So that is the HP/IP turbine OMG, that is a big unit. I thought it might be the rear end. ?
Fooled by the blow off discs, they are usually on the LP, but that is a supercritical unit? yes?

Smurf1976 said:

"Queensland - Sunshine State"

Seriously, as I'm sure you're aware this is a very major job to fix. Big $ and a lot of time.

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Well it definitely isn't an MRI, a rub down and a couple of weeks at the phsyio. ?

Interesting article on the state of play with Snowy 2.0.

sptrawler said:

Interesting article on the state of play with Snowy 2.0.

Snowy Hydro celebrates milestone in 2,000-MW Snowy 2.0 project

Snowy Hydro says it has celebrated a major milestone in the construction of its 2,000-MW Snowy 2.0 pumped storage hydro project, with commissioning under way for the first tunnel boring…

www.hydroreview.com

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Exciting stuff.

We have that "turncoat" Turnbull to thank for it.

SirRumpole said:

Exciting stuff.

We have that "turncoat" Turnbull to thank for it.

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Yes poor old Malcolm, hopefully he is credited with it, because he didn't get many accolades for the NBN.
But now he has repented, he is the messiah for the left, or is he just a naughty little boy??


Well there are some that don't like the idea. ?

Solar panels not being recycled due to cost and ending up in landfill.

sptrawler said:

Well there are some that don't like the idea.

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As I've said many times, including in person publicly at meetings and so on, there are in fact two sides to what most would call the "environmental" side of the energy debate.

Conservation.

Sustainability.

The two are very different things and whilst not totally opposed, to significant extent they are and I'll go a step further and say that's a big part of the problem with all this.

The privately owned energy companies won't go anywhere near bulk storage hydro for that reason and even government's extremely wary. I make that comment being aware of what management and so on is says there - in short they're not at all keen to end up on the receiving end of protests and are well aware that fossil fuels are still a path of lesser resistance.

But if we don't have bulk storage well then going fully renewable becomes hugely problematic.

Now I hear someone say "but Smurf there's 20,000 pumped hydro sites we could choose from, surely they aren't all in National Parks?".

Indeed there are a vast number of sites but:

Take out all those which offer only a few hours' storage, they don't provide a week's worth, noting that it's getting long duration storage which is the hard bit in all this. Nobody would dispute that storing enough just to cover a few hours is pretty straightforward, it's covering a week with stuff all wind in the middle of winter that's hard.

Now remove all those which are hopelessly uneconomic or are a vast distance from any present transmission infrastructure or even a town.

What you're left with isn't going to be free from controversy if we're going to build enough to go 100% renewable.

That's not to say I'm suggesting we ought to dam the lot and build a transmission line behind everyone's back fence but society does need to get its mind around all this, there's some difficult decisions to be made here.

That's partly why I think there'll need to be a crisis, either with the climate or energy supply (or both), before society finally is willing to go all the way with this.

Smurf1976 said:

Update on Callide:

Unit 1 will now return to operation on 11 June.
Unit 2 on 21 June.
Unit 3 on 22 June.

As for unit 4, well it'll be quite a while to rebuild it. They're still saying 12 months but I doubt you'll find anyone willing to place bets there. A 420MW steam turbine isn't something you just pick up off the shelf at your local hardware store....

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Is there any news on what caused the failure? I suppose component failure?

Knobby22 said:

Is there any news on what caused the failure? I suppose component failure?

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We should have a sweep, 3 guesses for 20c.
First thing to know, was the unit running up to speed? Was the unit on load at steady state? Was there a system disturbance prior to the failure?
The difference in those three scenarios, makes a lot of difference to the risk to various components.
Component failure was the end result.

Knobby22 said:

Is there any news on what caused the failure? I suppose component failure?

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AEMO has released a preliminary report although at this stage as a preliminary report it's essentially a list of everything that's known and also the gaps in information. It doesn't draw conclusions.


The most notable point is that protection failed to operate. That is, when the Callide unit C4 failed it did not disconnect from the transmission network but remained connected for 32 minutes after the initial incident.

The exact circumstances surrounding that are something that will need some very serious investigation to determine what and why but definitely not a good situation to have a failed generating unit still connected and it seems drawing ~50 MW from the grid for an extended period whilst on fire.

It's unconfirmed but as my own comment, if there was indeed 50 MW being drawn from the network by Callide C4 then plausibly the machine was motoring, that is mechanically rotating, during this time. Noting there that it was at this point also on fire which, if that turns out to be what occurred, is an unfortunate combination of circumstances to say the least.

Key events (all times are Queensland local time):

13:34 - Initial failure of Calide unit C4.

13:40 - Fire at Callide power station reported to AEMO.

13:44 - Callide unit C3 tripped.

14:06 - Numerous events occurred in very quick succession tripping Callide unit B2, multiple transmission lines, generating units at unrelated power stations and approximately 2340 MW of load. At this point the failed Callide unit C4 was finally disconnected from power supply.

That's all going to take some pretty serious investigation to get to the bottom of it:

1. The initial cause of failure of Callide unit C4.

2. Why did protection not operate and trip it (disconnect power) promptly following the failure?

3. What, exactly, occurred to cause the incident at 14:06?

I haven't seen anyone put a timeframe on how long it'll take to piece it all together but it'll be a while. The incident is significant enough that it'll receive at least some international attention from an engineering perspective and a "no stone left unturned" approach is required in investigation.

In the meantime, the lights are on and all load is being supplied. There's been quite a few low reserve situations in both Queensland and NSW since the incident but thus far it hasn't gone over the edge, supply has met demand apart from the first few hours after the failure.

Negative phase sequence should have tripped instantly

Another example of the sustainability versus conservation dilemma:

“It’s that tug-of-war between sustainability and conservation,” says Martin Amy, one of the team leaders of development assessment with the council.

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Wind farms, solar panels, transmission lines, hydro developments and so on have an impact that's extremely different to the impact of fossil fuels and, depending on your priorities, that pits one against the other.

sptrawler said:

Negative phase sequence should have tripped instantly

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It's in the category of things that would be hard to believe as having happened if it wasn't a credible source, in this case AEMO, using automatically collected data showing it occurred.

At last the penny drops with the media. ?

The article exposes what we have been saying on here for years, it isn't the lack of will to install renewables it is the transmission limitations and the requirement to re configure it.
There is a priceless comment from the Gratton Institute, which appears to now be realising the issue.
Who knows maybe all this defamation activity, for misleading and false information, might be starting to cause a degree of accuracy in the reporting at last.
A very well put together state of the grid report.

From the article:
Political ambition to get renewable energy projects under way, cautious energy market bodies and some developers not doing due diligence have caused the current connection issues, according to the Grattan Institute.
“No one overall is very happy with where we’ve gotten to,” said Tony Wood, the institute’s energy and climate change program director.
“This is now the single most significant barrier to achieving high levels of large-scale renewable energy in this country.”

Mr Wood said electricity market bodies were ultimately responsible for flagging the need for grid investment, and should have successfully done so sooner, but attempts were slow to cut through the climate debate.

“All that mess created so much noise to the extent that bodies such as AEMO were raising these issues and it was just drowned out,” he said. “Inevitably, this was going to emerge as a problem.“

And now the penny drops with AGL, get on with it, or go out of business IMO.