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The future of energy generation and storage

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I'm with you on this, I brought up a while ago that we are committing all this land to companies to make hydrogen etc in Northern Australia, are we going to have a domestic reserve policy, or is it going to end up like LNG where we can't get enough for domestic use.
These are the things the Federal Government should be acting on, not interfering in the market place, but ensuring that the market place is looking after Australia first.
 
SirRumpole said:
Do we need a National Energy Guarantee 2.0 to require by legislation that sufficient storage of any fuel is maintained ?
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The big problem can be summed up in a single sentence.

Nobody is obligated to maintain a sufficient supply electricity or gas.

That's the practical reality for most of the National Electricity Market with the exception of Tasmania where there is indeed a formal obligation to keep the lights on. For the rest though, well everyone's either running or regulating a business or a market but that's where it ends.

AEMO runs the market and also does various analysis and engineering but ultimately it does not own the physical assets

If someone has generating capacity that's able to operate but not operating, and the lights are going out unless it's put into operation, then AEMO can and will direct that it be operated and that's a formal direction binding on the owners.

Following is a real Market Notice which in layman's terms is a warning that a direction will be issued unless someone responds voluntarily:


That's a cut and paste of an actual real one. Those are publicly viewable by anyone on the AEMO website for those not aware, despite being directed at those internally in the industry.

Since a market response has been received, someone has made plant available without being directed, that notice has since been cancelled. In the event that hadn't occurred then AEMO would have directed one or more owners of plant that's technically able to operate but not being run to actually operate it.

What AEMO can't do however is direct that anyone builds something in the first place, stockpiles however much fuel or doesn't close it down. If the plant's closed for good well then that's it, game over, it's not operating and can't be directed to operate.

Much the same with gas.

Now the basic problem with all that is that those who own storage are either storing water, gas, coal etc to suit their own needs only, or they're a third party operator who only stores what someone else pays them to store.

For example APA Group owns and physically operates the Dandenong LNG facility but they're a middleman somewhat akin to a freight company. They run the facility but they don't own the LNG in the tank much like a freight company doesn't own the goods they're delivering. If someone pays them to store gas then they store it. If not then they don't. Noting that, for clarity, this is a storage facility not an import or export facility - gas is taken from the mains, run through a small on-site LNG plant, and the LNG is stored in the tank. Reverse that to send the gas back out into the network.

Where the problem arises is that just because nobody wants to own some gas, water or whatever doesn't in any way change the technical need to use it. If gas demand spikes high enough then supply from Dandenong is needed, that's the specific purpose it was built for. It can't supply gas if there's none in the tank - and it takes about 12 weeks of constant filling (24/7) to fill that tank from empty so it's not something that can just be done at the last minute.

It comes back to the reality that financial risk can be hedged via financial contracts and so on whereas to avoid physical risk you need physical things, you need actual coal, water, gas or whatever not just a piece of paper. Owning crude oil futures is very different to owning physical diesel fuel in a tank. Both will hedge your financial risk but only the physical can be used to run the gas turbines, boilers or whatever.

I'll keep out of the politics, and to be clear I'm not criticising those who own these facilities directly, it's just an observation that there's a very definite conflict between what makes the most sense financially ("just in time") versus what makes the most sense in terms of supply reliability ("fill it up now just in case").

As there's a shift toward greater reliance on energy storage systems, of whatever form be they hydro, batteries, hydrogen or something else, that issue is going to rapidly become one that needs resolving. Historically there's been plenty of coal-fired generation and free flowing gas fields that could effectively bail out any major stuff up but that's coming to an end and we can't make the wind blow tomorrow just because nobody fill the storage when it was blowing hard all last week. Etc.

So my point is it's not just about what storage to build, there's also the question of how it's operated. The energy industry needs to become a bit of a hoarder basically, filling up at every opportunity - there's no point having batteries if they're flat when they're needed.
 
I can foresee a lot of storage becoming a Government responsibility, especially as you say the just in case storage, which has a carrying cost but no guaranteed return on investment.
 
sptrawler said:
I can foresee a lot of storage becoming a Government responsibility, especially as you say the just in case storage, which has a carrying cost but no guaranteed return on investment.
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What if you modelled the reserve capacity of home batteries and V2G via DER into the future?
As I see it, if we prepare the grid for this most likely future (rather that purchasing more storage) and circumvent any transitional problems then the focus needs to be on infrastructure. Adding hydrogen to the mix in the 2030s - if not earlier - solves the problem for good.
It's almost funny to think that we can overpay businesses by $34B to pay people not to work so they still have a job, but don't want to invest to keep the lights on!
 
That may well end up being the case, but until that time arrives the conversion to renewables has to be facilitated, to do that in a rapid time will require some serious large scale storage to encourage and technically enable the huge amounts of renewables to be installed and also enable the grid to be able to cope with them.
As you have mentioned before, this could be done by making it a condition of installing large scale solar wind there is a requirement to install sufficient storage, to make it a stable component in the system. The down side would be, that because you need twice as much storage as generation, it would add a huge cost to the installation.
This then would probably end up with a lot of solar/wind farms not being financially viable, due to capital cost and rate of return, that is where something like Snowy 2.0 and increasing Tassies capacity saves a huge amount of cost for the private sector to invest in the generation component.
Take for example the new battery quoted for Kwinana in Perth it is a 100MW, which if it was a requirement for 50MW commercial solar farm to install is going to cost over $100m, which has to be recovered if it is part of the installation.
When you upscale that to the size of the solar/wind farms that will be required to replace 40,000MW of generation it becomes a huge cost, that is where the economies of scale of bulk storage start and make a huge amount of sense.

Hydrogen IMO is definitely the way to go, but it again requires a huge amount of renewables to make a reasonable amount of hydrogen, but the hydrogen can be held indefinitely as with water in the hydro, so it is the obvious choice in the very long term.
However the problem is to first get enough generation and storage capacity installed, to enable the closure of coal power stations that are currently running and to do it in a safe and system secure manner.

To do that each power station that is to be closed has to have twice its generating capacity installed in renewables, also it has to have three times its capacity installed in storage, if you add to that making hydrogen through electrolysis results in an energy loss of say 40% then that extra renewable generation has to added to what is required.

So IMO in reality until renewables and storage have reached an amount, that can safely provide the energy reliably for the grid, hydrogen production will only be installed as a stand alone facility to on sell the product to the market at a commercial rate.

The only other way around it IMO would be to nationalise the grid and then have the Feds/ States and taxpayer pay for it, which I think would be a good thing, but it would be a huge call because a lot of quite large companies would be put out of business.

The issue highlights the problem with privatising essential services, the private sector require a return on equity, when it is in public hands the taxpayer just wants a reliable service at an acceptable standard and taxes are adjusted accordingly.

The BEV's will eventually assist with the whole process, but until it's a known amount of storage, it really can't be used as a base case for system predictive analysis.
Appollogies for the editing, writing and getting kids ready for school, doesn't make for fluid thought processes.?
 
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Lets say Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane each had a million EVs with biderectional flow capability.
Lets say that on average they each stored 30KWh.
3 000 000 x 30 = 90 000 000kWh or 90 GWh or 3.75 days of SH2 running at full capacity.

I don't get why you think we need to build a lot more storage when its being added every day and just needs the grid infrastructure to accommodate it. Incentivise home batteries and EVs and the timeline to get that capacity moves forward.
 
I suspect it will be difficult to produce green H2 from fresh water, especially in OZ which s a dry continent at the best of times.
Hence, it is most likely to be limited to using saltwater, or perhaps areas in the tropics where water is in somewhat abundance (well during the wet it is).
Secondly, the storage and transport of H2 is going to be kinda expensive.
The boiling point of liquid hydrogen is - 250 degrees C. This temperature is achievable, but not as easily say as achieving liquid state for Co2 which -78degres C. It also requires considerable pressure to keep it in that state.
From memory, one of the issues with storage of H2 is the relative small size of H2 atoms means that so many materials used as containers end being somewhat porous. Butyl Rubber is one of the least porous container materials, so perhaps they could use the strength of carbon fibre and line with butyl rubber to reduce the porosity issues.
Mick
 
When Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane have a million E.V's and their effect on the grid is a known and reliable figure, no doubt it will be used, until that time it is back of the napkin stuff, grid energy flow calculations don't work that way. People want to know that their fridge is going to run overnight, or if they get up to go to the toilet at 2am the light will work and the toilet will flush.

The issue is, how is taxpayers money better directed, toward people buying electric cars, or building massive storage facilities that facilitate the building of huge renewable generating installations.
If it was a bottomless pit of money you would do everything at once, but that in itself would create issues, as the electrical system isn't set up yet for BEV's and their charging control.
I mean let's be honest if the Government said tomorrow, that electric cars were getting a 50% rebate, you couldn't keep the cars up to the demand. But within a week the police would be coming around and impounding them due to the system crashing.

All this change over has to be looked at holistically, not through the eyes of certain options and incentives, it is a huge undertaking.

The fact that the E.U has stated a carbon tax will be introduced by 2026, is going to accelerate all these issues, in a controlled manner commensurate with the effect it has on emissions, every country in the World will follow suit now. It is the only way the transition to renewables can be accelerated in a controlled global manner, by having everyone on the same page, facing the same penalties.

The EU has cottoned on to imperfect carbon workarounds introduced by countries such as Australia and things are about to change

A carbon tariff is a carbon tax applied to exports from countries like Australia that don't have one. And Europe is planning to impose one, whether our politicians like it or not, writes Peter Martin.
www.abc.net.au
 

The current idea is to store Hydrogen in ammonia , and release it using a membrane.

Good idea if it works commercially.

 
There is a huge amount of issues to be overcome with hydrogen, but because of its energy density, abundance and transportability etc, the problems will be overcome with technology IMO.
 
EVs can be charged during day when VRE curtailment presently occurs or when prices go negative

- and on weekends. Smart battery management can be used to tap into excess wind at other times of the day. The network should be able to give signals that allow EVs to use energy when its in potential oversupply.

Increasing EV uptake should be beneficial to the electricity market by absorbing electrons that otherwise earn nothing. Not sure why that would be hard to plan. Except there is no plan!
 
Absolutely, but that still doesn't negate the requirement for basically base load long duration storage.
With regard BEV to grid charging control, there are several pilot programmes in operation at the moment and no doubt the outcome of them will give direction to the implementation on a larger scale.

One of the major issue I have read about in the U.K, is the reluctance of BEV owners to participate, as the cycling seriously effects the life of the vehicles battery. People don't mind wearing the battery out, because they are using the car, but aren't keen when the battery is being worn out, by the power system discharging and charging it.
No doubt these issue will be overcome, but it wont happen overnight, meanwhile large renewable generators need to be brought online.

Again that is where the ongoing certainty of a know defined storage capacity, allows for the technical grid design scenario to be projected with a degree of certainty, as to the energy flows in the HV transmission system.

The other issue that will evolve no doubt further down the road is, as hydrogen becomes more prolific, the public may transition away from BEV's to fuel cell cars.
This then will necessitate the factoring in that it will probably no longer be two way transfer of energy, this will then increased generation required, to make the extra hydrogen, if you are still going to use the vehicles as a electrical source medium.
Also it won't be able to be used as a plug in storage any longer, because there won't be a battery to control and soak up the extra energy, the fuel cell probably will be able to supply power to the system, through the power point, but it will probably no longer be able to absorb it from the power point.

This is where nuclear comes into the equation, to make the amount of hydrogen required to fuel all the Worlds transport needs, all the Worlds industrial needs and all the Worlds power generation needs.
That is a lot of clean energy required, to make all this clean hydrogen for the world, I just can't see enough coming from wind and solar. But that's another story.


Vehicle To Grid Implications In Australia - GSES

What are the vehicle to grid implications in Australia? Can my electric cars power my house and the Australian grid? Read to find out more!
www.gses.com.au

According to the key findings of a report by UK Power Networks [7], as of 2018, 50 V2G projects are underway of which 25 are in Europe and 18 in North America with the USA leading development in this sector. Of these projects, 98% included technical aims highlighting the emphasis placed on developing V2G technology. The report also found that whilst 12 vehicle manufacturers have undergone V2G projects, Renault Nissan and Mitsubishi run the majority of these projects. However, in the 3 years since the report, V2G projects have increased by over 50% with 80 projects now active globally.

There are also a number of pilot programs being run globally with the Realising Electric Vehicle-to-grid Services (REVS) project running in Australia. The $2,400,000 REVS project is a part of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency’s (ARENA) ‘Advancing Renewables Program’ and is being run by ActewAGL. According to ARENA, it “aims to demonstrate V2G technology providing contingency FCAS to the National Energy Market (NEM), complemented with a holistic roadmap for the mass deployment of the full value stack of V2G services. This will lead to new V2G enabled service offerings for fleets and residential customers.” Specifically, 51 Nissan Leaf vehicles will be deployed across the ACT and 7 organisations will be a part of the process to build a small scale network of EVs to test how V2G will support the grid in critical situations.

The future of V2G is incredibly exciting as more research and development into technology is undertaken and more countries look to V2G to increase energy security during the transition to net zero emissions. However, the roadmap for Vehicle to Grid in Australia is still relatively uncertain and the REVS project, set to finish in early 2022, will be key to proving the concept to investors and policy makers. In Great Britain, the National Grid Electricity System Operator’s Future Energy Scenarios program, has predicted that up to 45% of households in Great Britain will provide V2G services with it seen as an important mechanism to help achieve net zero emissions. However, one large stumbling block in the short-term future is the lack of bidirectional charging capability in CCS battery technology (the battery technology used in most EVs today). CCS technology will have V2G capability in 2025, and until then, there will likely be little to no progress made.

There are still several challenges to overcome to successfully implementing Vehicle to Grid in Australia. Planning and development of strategies to manage the increased demand for energy from EVs will be essential. This extra demand may create market volatility if the appropriate market structures are not put into place. With the appropriate price signals and customer engagement the problems that may arise from this extra demand can be mitigated and further, the opportunity these EVs present to support the grid can be harnessed.

The cycle life of an EV’s battery is an important aspect that you will need to consider. The cycle life of batteries is the number of charge and discharge cycles that a battery can complete before losing performance. V2G will require EV batteries to charge and discharge more frequently, going through the cycle life quicker and therefore decreasing the batteries’ lifetime. Hence, battery manufactures will need to address this and develop ways to improve their batteries’ performance.

With the undoubted uptake in electric vehicles over the next decades, the amount of battery storage potentially available in these electric vehicles is huge. Financial incentives, planning and technological advances could allow for V2G to become a DER that can be deployed by grid operators to supplement peak demand. These also can provide ancillary services and capture excess energy from renewables all whilst providing the opportunity to earn money. Of course, like any technology, it does not come without its challenges and the next decade will be pivotal for the success of V2G. Nonetheless, the future for Australia looks bright for Vehicle to Grid and the technology looks poised to revolutionise the energy industry and the way you use your electric vehicle.
 
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China obviously deciding to get ahead of the carbon tax curve, and maintain its position on the manufacturing ladder, by having plenty of clean energy.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...ear-power-plan-to-rival-u-s?srnd=premium-asia

From the article:
China has over the course of the year revealed the extensive scope of its plans for nuclear, an ambition with new resonance given the global energy crisis and the calls for action coming out of the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow. The world’s biggest emitter, China’s planning at least 150 new reactors in the next 15 years, more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35. The effort could cost as much as $440 billion; as early as the middle of this decade, the country will surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest generator of nuclear power.
 
sptrawler said:
Absolutely, but that still doesn't negate the requirement for basically base load long duration storage.
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Future forecast home battery additions to the market are staggering:

While the above is global, Australia is world leading in rooftop solar, so becomes better placed than any other nation to propel home battery uptake. Add incremental V2G to this and the base load argument gets weaker by the year.
Yes, I read that too. However, if Tesla's batteries were a guide and a driver charged their batteries twice a week (due to daily feedback into the grid), then these batteries would last 10 years or more depending on the model. I guess it also depends how much - or if - you would be paid to feed in to the grid.
sptrawler said:
Again that is where the ongoing certainty of a know defined storage capacity, allows for the technical grid design scenario to be projected with a degree of certainty, as to the energy flows in the HV transmission system.
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What does that mean? VRE and DER are going to continue to increase, and system planners have to accommodate those uncertainties.
Isn't that a positive? An FCEV doesn't draw from the grid, but can feed back into it.
BEVs and FCEV will coexist with ICE vehicles for some time, but it's almost impossible to see battery manufacture scale up to forecast demand, so the electric vehicle future will see an inevitable mass take up of FCEVs.
 
@rederob I think we have covered the issue well, so we just have to agree to disagree on the value of bulk storage, which is a moot point, because we have no influence on the decision anyway.
But it has been an interesting chat.
 
rederob said:
I don't get why you think we need to build a lot more storage when its being added every day and just needs the grid infrastructure to accommodate it. Incentivise home batteries and EVs and the timeline to get that capacity moves forward.
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A big unknown is what consumers will actually do.

I'm cautious about any predictions there, either mine or anyone else's, simply because there's been so many serious errors made in the past. Look at the history of consumer technology adoption and there's countless examples of things which were expected to be hugely popular but which were rejected by consumers in practice and there's others where popularity came as a complete surprise to manufacturers who'd expected only a limited niche market.

For example consumers took a very long time to decide they wanted dishwashers and they've never really been keen on electric clothes dryers despite washing dishes and clothes being a frequent chore in most households. Then all of a sudden pretty much everyone in Melbourne decided they must have air-conditioning for the few days each year when it gets hot. But those same consumers insist on not using those air-conditioners for heating, preferring gas instead.

I'm wary of applying logic to anything regarding consumer behaviour.....
 
mullokintyre said:
When does a "tax behavioural change" become a subsidy?
Mici
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That is the real issue, the plebs will always buy the cheapest, so ATM any subsidy on a BEV to make it affordable would have to be ridiculously large, therefore the rich who could afford one anyway will get the benefit.
Meanwhile the plebs will still have to buy the cheapest thing available, but pay more tax or lose some welfare to subsidies the cool dude who buys the Tesla, any subsidy on EV's has to be to enable the common punter to access them IMO.
It will have to be thought through very carefully IMO, just throwing money at it isn't the answer, it has to help those who reality wouldn't be able to get into one.
It is a bit like the solar panel roll out in the early days, the rich could afford them, then they reduced their electricity bills and received large feed in tariffs for the excess electricity they exported, meanwhile the poor paid more for electricity.
In hindsight, in the early stages wouldn't it have been a good idea for the State Governments to roll it out to all State housing homes, as well as the incentives to private individuals?

How they apply incentives to E.V's will be interesting.
ATM the difference between the cost of an ICE and a BEV is a lot, but I have noticed ICE cars are getting dearer when models are changed, so maybe the manufacturers are factoring in the changeover disparity and adjusting accordingly.
 
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