The future of energy generation and storage

[sptrawler]

That's essentially where the real debate, at the technical and economic level as distinct from party politics, lies.

How best to deal with those runs of multiple consecutive days of poor wind and solar yield which just happen to mostly occur at the same time load's going to increase with a shift to electricity for heat.

At present hydro, gas and diesel fill the gap plus of course a large proportion of buildings, in Victoria especially, are burning gas directly.

This is the problem that non electrical people, can't seem to get their head around, to stop burning fossil fuel, means that it will mean an extra demand on electricity to supply it.
People cook with gas, heat water with gas and indeed heat their houses with gas, that all has to change over to electricity.
Then that extra demand has to be met with clean energy, as well as the demand for replacing the current coal/gas generators, people making light of the issue is just as bad as climate change deniers IMO.
The only difference is they are at different ends of the spectrum, but they are in fact just as damaging to the the actual debate, because they make it appear that the solution is easy, when in fact it is a huge and complex undertaking.

 

[sptrawler]

Unlike @basilio I don't agree with much of what you said.
Snowy 2 is an example of how poorly thought through projects impact consumers when quicker and better alternatives were not only available, they were getting cheaper.

That actually highlights your lack of understanding of the real issue IMO. However disagreeing with me, comes as no surprise.?
Throwing in band aids everywhere, eventually ends up with a huge interconnected pile of $hit, that will result in rolling blackouts and an intermittent electricity supply.
You might like the idea of a third world electrical system, that no one knows when the power will be on or off and the resulting third world living standard.
But most people I'm sure, will expect that when they turn on a switch, electricity comes through.

Take for example the idea of not building huge pumped hydro storage facilities and instead just using batteries, the amount needed would be huge.
But that isn't the real issue, the real issue is as is happening at the moment with high end microprocessor chips, lack of supply.

Imagine the absolute panic if you are relying on batteries and the supply is interrupted, the panic button is pressed as is happening with cars, but the time to build alternatives like pumped storage hydro takes years.

The problem is you wouldn't have years, lithium ion batteries have a life expectancy of about 10 years max, so all the ones you put in today will require changing in 10 years. If in 9 years there is a supply issue, what is plan B?

Snowy 2.0 would take a huge amount of batteries, to have the equivalent storage capacity, your logic is politically driven not technically driven.
As usual.

 

[sptrawler]

Actually @Smurf1976 might be able to tell you how many "big batteries" it would take to replicate the capacity of Snowy 2.0, then you have to factor in the fact that the batteries will degrade to about 60% of their original capacity after about 7 to 8 years and fail after 10, whereas Snowy 2.0 will still be able to produce maximum continuous rating for 100 years.
So I would be surprised if batteries stack up on any metrics, against Snowy 2.0.

 

[Smurf1976]

Actually @Smurf1976 might be able to tell you how many "big batteries" it would take to replicate the capacity of Snowy 2.0

A "big battery" by definition is a bit like a truck, they're not a fixed size, but using the initial Tesla "big battery" installation in SA as the benchmark then the answers are:

To match peak discharge capacity = 20.4 of them would be needed.

To match energy storage capacity = 2713 would be needed.

That's for the original installation which has since been enlarged by 50% so the figures now would be 13.6 and 1808 respectively.

Or for another example, the Victorian Big Battery the figures would be 6.8 and 777.

That's based on Snowy 2.0 as a standalone operation and does not include it's ability to pump water discharged by the existing Tumut 1 and 2 power stations back up (which the existing stations can't do) and ultimately back into Lake Eucumbene via existing infrastructure albeit with higher energy losses. Nor does it include the energy released if the water discharged by Snowy 2.0 is then discharged via the existing Tumut 3 station in a major discharge event (noting that most of that water is then out of the scheme and cannot be re-pumped but it can be done occasionally without being a problem, the scheme is intended to divert water as part of its function).

Keeping out of politics I'll just note what's actually happening.

There's rather a lot of private sector interest in building wind and solar farms.

There's a bit of a "gold rush" going on with building short duration storage, that which runs 1 - 8 hours (mostly at the lower end of that, 1 or 2 hours) in practice mostly batteries. Just about everyone wants to build one it seems.

There is however basically no interest in building long duration storage other than from Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tasmania both of which have plans based on leveraging existing assets and resources.

Beyond that, well rather a lot of companies have certainly looked at building large storage projects but ultimately they've failed to go ahead.

What is happening though is several companies have quietly obtained all necessary approvals for new fossil fuel generating plant to be built. Those projects are "shovel ready" in a somewhat extreme manner, they're fully designed and approved and would go to physical site works almost immediately if the board decided to pull the trigger on investment.

Personally I'm in the camp that says we ought to work toward 100% renewables so long as it's done in a planned, orderly manner. That means get on with it, no intentional delays, but do it without putting the lights out.

In practice though, I'll be extremely surprised if that actually happens in practice.

 

[SirRumpole]

Yes, but it could have been achieved at half the price and be spread across the eastern seaboard, rather than in one spot.
Just remember that about +30% more energy is needed to refill the emptying dam, and that much of this is going to come from intermittent renewables. All the government needed to do was say years back that all new intermittent supply had to have some form of backup. Problem solved!

Except that Snowy Hydro is already there, the others will take years of planning, feasibility studies, EIS's and legislation, and then there is the question of who finances it.

Get on with that by all means, but as Smurf says , more action less talk.

 

[IFocus]

Smurf given the east coast appears to be all or mostly market based the likely hood of long term thinking / capital investment would appear to be zero so I guess the reality will be gas turbines to fill gaps at least in the near future.

 

[sptrawler]

IMO gas turbines with the ability to burn hydrogen will end up being the go to option, when batteries become an issue.

The real trick is getting the cost of hydrogen production down to $2/kg, where it is competitive with fossil fuel.

https://www.ge.com/gas-power/future-of-energy/hydrogen-fueled-gas-turbines

 

[SirRumpole]

IMO gas turbines with the ability to burn hydrogen will end up being the go to option, when batteries become an issue.

https://www.ge.com/gas-power/future-of-energy/hydrogen-fueled-gas-turbines

Maybe sugar cane ethanol as well.

The more fuels these things can burn, the less the reliance on one particular option.

 

[sptrawler]

Maybe sugar cane ethanol as well.

The more fuels these things can burn, the less the reliance on one particular option.

Absolutely, there is no reason blending and co firing of different fuels can't be done , they may use 60% ethanol 40% hydrogen, when ethanol production is high in the growing season, then change the ratio as supply diminishes.
With distributive control systems that are available to day, the issues that wouldn't have been able to be overcome 30 years ago, can be overcome with a couple of hours of coding and control loop tuning these days.?

 

[rederob]

Just don't tell @rederob . ?

I get what @Smurf1976 has presented, but Snowy 2 is an unnecessary stopgap.
Pumped hydro at scale is not going to help WA or SA or the NT in our energy future.
Indeed, what does the energy future for the rest of the world look like?

In the near term distributed energy resources are likely to become more popular. But without backup it leaves us where we presently are. Except that with bidirectional flows from EVs there is the potential to power households for days on end. This innovation will likely have much more storage potential than Snowy 2 and will be localised. It's not happening soon, but neither is Snowy 2. I'm just pointing out that the future has options. A more novel possible solution is home-scaled modular electrolysers, as about to be produced by Enapter.

It's almost guaranteed that coal will have a limited and costly future so the transitional energy source will be gas, which we have an abundance of and literal pipelines to distribute it across most of the nation. But both coal and gas are finite, and suffer the fossil fuel disadvantage that climate change mitigation measures will impose. That places green hydrogen in the box seat. But our national plan for green hydrogen does not exist.

 

[Smurf1976]

Smurf given the east coast appears to be all or mostly market based the likely hood of long term thinking / capital investment would appear to be zero

Biggest problem of the lot, by far, is lack of a plan.

Does Snowy 2.0 make sense?

Does Kurri Kurri make sense?

Is the 300 MW / 450 MWh Victorian Big Battery the right thing to be building?

And so on.

Without a proper, actual plan it's impossible to say a firm yes or no.

Trouble is, it's not simply a case of failing to plan but rather, of planning to not plan. Not having a plan is the plan.

National Competition Policy has a lot to answer for there for the simple reason that any serious planning will by its very nature involves discussing who does what. In other words, carving up the market. Trouble is, the law says anyone doing that's in some rather serious trouble so unsurprisingly nobody's too keen outside the states where government entities run the show.

Then there's the Liddell saga.

Liddell will close one (of four) generating units in 2022 and the other three in 2023.

AGL announced publicly the impending closure back in 2015. Prior to that, Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tasmania were basically the only ones who put anything at all in the public domain, everyone else kept it all as quiet as they could.

Since that time well it really hasn't gone at all well for AGL. A protracted and highly public dispute with the federal government, which didn't want the plant closed, meanwhile on the other side the company has copped an equally public bashing from environmentalists for having lost money by going into renewables too soon, the doing of which lost serious $ once costs fell after contracts were signed. Can't win really and more to my point, it sends a very strong message to everyone else that announcing things well in advance, actually planning, is a good way to get yourself on the wrong side of government.

Alinta just did it this way and escaped relatively unscathed politically:

 

[rederob]

That actually highlights your lack of understanding of the real issue IMO. However disagreeing with me, comes as no surprise.?

As @Smurf1976 points out, and what I have banged on about since posting in this thread, there is no plan.
So maybe you can tell me what the real issue is in your opinion as your post is full of flaws, as I will show.

Throwing in band aids everywhere, eventually ends up with a huge interconnected pile of $hit, that will result in rolling blackouts and an intermittent electricity supply.

The traditional energy network was one dimensional, flowing electricity in one direction from supply to customer. But we have already moved into bidirectional flows, so the network is evolving to look like this:

You might like the idea of a third world electrical system, that no one knows when the power will be on or off and the resulting third world living standard.
But most people I'm sure, will expect that when they turn on a switch, electricity comes through.

Given we are developing a network of the future that is a baseless comment. Yes, we need a lot more technical input to do better than we have been, but that's an issue of "not doing" rather than can't.

Take for example the idea of not building huge pumped hydro storage facilities and instead just using batteries, the amount needed would be huge.
But that isn't the real issue, the real issue is as is happening at the moment with high end microprocessor chips, lack of supply.

Tell me where these huge pumped hydro opportunities are in WA or SA?
What about battery costs, which you appear not to understand. Lets say Snowy 2 comes in at $8B, meaning each generated kilowatt costs $4000. And now compare that with the Victorian Big Battery (VBB) project which is mooted to supply 300MW of power and 450MWh of energy storage at a cost of about $180M, so that:

• VBB cost per kW of power output = $600
• VBB cost per kWh of storage capacity = $400

There are lots of different ways to compare these project's metrics. but none suggest to me Snowy 2 was a proposition worth investing in. Moreover, battery costs are forecast to continue to decline significantly into the future, so what is showing for VBB today may be 30% less than when Snowy 2 eventually comes online.

Imagine the absolute panic if you are relying on batteries and the supply is interrupted, the panic button is pressed as is happening with cars, but the time to build alternatives like pumped storage hydro takes years.

Let's say that by 2026 BEVs account for 5% of our market and 50% can feed back into the grid - V2G - and let's say that during your supply interruption they have an average storage capacity of 30kWh/vehicle. That would translate into over 4.5MWh storage or 10 times the VBB. I think AEMO would be over the moon with that much capacity available in the next 5 years. But let's be pessimistic and say it's only half as much or 2.25MWh. That would be available in a matter of seconds and cover potential curtailments for a long time. If we project V2G to 2030 then we could more than triple that capacity. In fact, the further out we go, the better it gets in terms of available capacity.

The problem is you wouldn't have years, lithium ion batteries have a life expectancy of about 10 years max, so all the ones you put in today will require changing in 10 years. If in 9 years there is a supply issue, what is plan B?

What's the problem? You seem to think we won't have EVs beyond 10 years because we won't have batteries. Even a shift to hydrogen EVs increases capacity.

Snowy 2.0 would take a huge amount of batteries, to have the equivalent storage capacity, your logic is politically driven not technically driven.

You should run the numbers and see what falls out.
What we know for certain is that eastern seaboard curtailment issues must have a solution other than Snowy 2 should they arise again in the next 4-5 years, because until then it's not in the mix.
I haven't even had to mention conversion of coal fired power plants to gas as a transitional arrangement, and then blending in hydrogen to ultimately reach 100% hydrogen. That alone would have negated the need for Snowy 2 and had the benefit of using existing grid infrastructure.

Like I say, lots of options, but no plan.

 

[Smurf1976]

there is no plan.

This is the ultimate problem.

I say that since there's rather a lot of things that do work technically. Not everything does, it doesn't work to have solar and nothing else for example there has to be at least storage to go with it, but bottom line is there's a pretty big range of things which do work.

What can be said as fact is that "do nothing" is not a sensible option. Without making value judgements, there are several reasons for this (sticking strictly to facts here).

*Many existing coal-fired power stations are coming to the end of their useful life. That is not a political, environmental or economic decision but simply that machinery is wearing out and nearing the end of its useful life.

*A number of gas-fired stations, most notably in SA, are also old and approaching the end of their useful lifespan.

*A number of existing producing gas fields are nearing depletion. Having gas in the ground isn't of itself useful, only gas able to be supplied to consumers can actually be used, hence it's the ability of developed fields and their associated processing plants and pipelines to supply gas which is of importance. That ability is set to fall short of present consumption rates in the not too distant future.

*There is very substantial international pressure to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide, ultimately to levels very much lower than at present.

*The present rate of installation of distributed generation is rapidly reducing minimum daytime loads on dispatchable generation with AEMO forecasts of this reaching technically problematic levels in the near future, indeed it already is problematic in one state (SA).

*International car manufacturers are moving toward first the widespread introduction of electric vehicles and, following that, discontinuing the production of petrol / diesel powered vehicles.

Put all that together it's very clear that there is no credible "do nothing" option and that an actual plan is required.

What the plan ought to involve is debateable but we need to have one ASAP.

 

[SirRumpole]

Like I say, lots of options, but no plan.

Sorry to bring back politics, but the reason there is no plan is because we have a conservative government that relies on market forces, rather than bringing together experts on the subject and making decisions themselves.

Turnbull/Finkel tried that and got trodden on by the dinosaurs. If the LNP won't do it, then someone else has to imo.

 

[sptrawler]

@rederob your quote:
Tell me where these huge pumped hydro opportunities are in WA or SA?

@rederob I don't know why you are asking me, where the pumped hydro locations in W.A and S.A are, I asked the same question a while back. This is the problem you don't take on board what other people say.

A lot of the limitations are outside the control of the States and Countries e.g W.A ain't going to get much hydro. ?

to which @Smurf1976 posted this:

WA's not as badly off as you might think there.

Quite a few pumped hydro sites have been identified, being concentrated in 3 main parts of the state.

One lot is right up north. The broad area north of Broome basically and that also continues on the NT side of the border as well.

Second lot is in the Pilbara in an area that broadly aligns with the present NWIS. So they're broadly south of Dampier and Port Hedland and close enough to present mining and industrial operations to be potentially useful.

The third lot is roughly in a line stretching about 250km and within commuting distance of Bunbury and Perth. That has attraction obviously.

A lot of those wouldn't be viable for practical or economic reasons but I'd be surprised if something couldn't be found out of all that which stacks up.

So maybe take that nonsense up with him, or at least get your story straight and stop blaming me for you lack of recall.

On the subject of batteries, at a recovery rate of about 3% nickel per ton of ore, to make the batteries in the first place takes a huge amount of energy. That isn't taking into consideration the energy cost of all the other materials, transport costs and manufacturing cost .

So the cost to produce Snowy 2.0 can be recovered over the life of installation, which could run into centuries, whereas the battery cost has to be recovered over a life expectancy of 10 years. You obviously haven't done a lot of cost base analysis.
@Smurf1976 Quote:
To match peak discharge capacity = 20.4 of them would be needed.

To match energy storage capacity = 2713 would be needed.

Your back of the napkin nonsense:
What about battery costs, which you appear not to understand. Lets say Snowy 2 comes in at $8B, meaning each generated kilowatt costs $4000. And now compare that with the Victorian Big Battery (VBB) project which is mooted to supply 300MW of power and 450MWh of energy storage at a cost of about $180M, so that:

• VBB cost per kW of power output = $600
• VBB cost per kWh of storage capacity = $400

So using your figures, how about using the actual storage capacity? Didn't @Smurf1976 say the number of batteries required to carry the same storage capacity as Snowy 2.0 would be conservatively about 2,000 batteries? (actual 2713)
Maybe punch that through your calculator.

Then add to that the batteries have to be replaced say 10 times, for the life of the Snowy 2.0 hydro lifespan, that is conservatively 20,000 batteries.

So punch that through your calculator and add inflation to the capital cost of the batteries over time, what does that come out to a fair few billion I would guess may even crack a trillion?
Snowy is a one of capital cost of $8 billion, that continues giving for 100 years minimum, seems like good value to me.

Jeez Rob, your full of it mate. ?

 

[sptrawler]

So in summary, 2,000 batteries at a cost of $180,000,000 each multiplied by say replacement 10 times, to supply the at call storage capacity of Snowy 2.0, for the expected life of Snowy 2.0.

Batteries: $180,000,000 X 2,000 X 10 = $ 3,600,000,000,000 +inflation.

Snowy 2.0: $ 8,000,000,000.

So as you said Rob: You should run the numbers and see what falls

 

[sptrawler]

Like I say, lots of options, but no plan.

Or you could say, you have lots of opinions, lots of plans, but no FFcking clue. ?

Comparing one battery output to Snowy 2.0, is akin to comparing a 10,000 gallon water tank supply your water, as opposed to a 20,000,000 gallon storage supplying your water.
The ten thousand may last you a day no problem, but when summer comes and you might need it to supply your water for an extended period of time, it is found wanting.
But the 10,000 gallon water tank will be a lot cheaper, that's why they build dams and desal plants, rather have small tanks all over the place. It's called economies of scale.

 

[sptrawler]

Put all that together it's very clear that there is no credible "do nothing" option and that an actual plan is required.

What the plan ought to involve is debateable but we need to have one ASAP.

That may be the very reason, that the heads of state are getting together to find common ground, then each Country can formulate a plan that fits in with the unique circumstances that the individual countries face.

There is no point in each Country going in its own direction, if it doesn't result in a common goal of reducing the emissions.

IMO it wont achieve net zero emissions, unless there an agreement on how each country handles their carbon, eg we can't just stop exporting coal if some third world country requires it to produce their electricity, or to feed some process that is a major contributer to their economy.

All that will do is cause social unrest and result in people turning their backs on the whole idea, everyone has to be on the same page, or it just wont work IMO.

Each country has to have a set of objectives and guidelines that work for them and toward the common objective, that IMO is the only way this can all happen without it just collapsing into chaos.

 

[SirRumpole]

IMO it wont achieve net zero emissions, unless there an agreement on how each country handles their carbon, eg we can't just stop exporting coal if some third world country requires it to produce their electricity, or to feed some process that is a major contributer to their economy.

Don't tell that to Macron, he wants us to drop coal altogether .

Do you think he is after a market for French nuclear reactors maybe ?

"
Tellingly, given the Prime Minister is already on the defensive over his government's climate change commitments, the President says he encouraged Mr Morrison to adopt emission reduction measures "commensurate with the climate challenge" and cease production and consumption of coal.

This is a deliberate strike by the French President at the PM's carbon credentials on the eve of next week's Glasgow climate talks."

Macron delivers precise torpedo strike to Morrison

The French President's fury does not seem to have cooled with the Australian government, writes Andrew Probyn.

www.abc.net.au

 

[rederob]

So in summary, 2,000 batteries at a cost of $180,000,000 each multiplied by say replacement 10 times, to supply the at call storage capacity of Snowy 2.0, for the expected life of Snowy 2.0.

Batteries: $180,000,000 X 2,000 X 10 = $ 3,600,000,000,000 +inflation.

Snowy 2.0: $ 8,000,000,000.

So as you said Rob: You should run the numbers and see what falls

You did not check the usable capacity of Tantangara dam before you ran the numbers.
In fact you did not think about real world events at all.
You forgot that Talbingo, which Tantangara it outflows to, has a capacity of only 160GL. So unless you want to lose water to the rest of the system, 160GL is you maximum. And that's assuming Talbingo is always kept empty, which is an absurd scenario.
Worse, you never worked out that sedimentation, spoil dumping and headspace remove about 25 GL from Tantangara, and that Tantangara is seldom above 40% full:

So disregarding Talbingo's cap, we have a real world case for using Tanatagara's average maximum value of less than 30% of its calculated 220GL volume. In other words 70GL would be a reasonable basis for calculating its maximum "storage," which translates to 75 hours of operation at maximum capacity. That's 100 hours less than the hype, and blows your calculations out of the water.

You also used 10 years as the lifespan of a battery, whereas 20 years is a likely minimum, especially given that these batteries would be held in reserve and cycled for maybe a month or so a year. And you suggested "inflation" be added, despite battery costs declining by over 10% a year:

But the biggest flaw in your case is that we do not need anywhere near what Snowy 2 could generate continuously, let alone the 75 hours in my real world example. All we need is a reserve that gets us through transition.

Some people think that Snowy 2 gets us through the decommissioning of coal.
Really!
But Snowy 2's 2GW is a periodic contribution, not a permanent addition to the grid (daily operation up to 20% might be plausible). To run 24/7\365 it needs to have significantly greater than 2GW in renewables to keep the flow going, which would make no sense at all.

In terms of our energy future, and just by the by, I was reading today a rule of thumb for V2G that for every one million BEVs we could assume 50GWh battery storage.

I could post lots of links to articles from engineers and economists that have separately ran various sets of numbers, and none saw Snowy 2 as making sense years ago, let alone today where the renewables landscape is more mature and getting more cost competitive by the day. So here's just one from 2 years ago.

For those liking analogies building Snowy 2 is like newlyweds building a 30 bedroom home to meet the capacity of their reproduction abilities. It's an unnecessary expense for events that are improbable.