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The future of energy generation and storage

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Yes I remember us talking about that one, up near Port Augusta, I would think the Greens would have kittens over it.
 
SirRumpole said:
If the Greens have kittens over that, there isn't much hope getting them to be sensible.
Click to expand...
I just looked it up, it sounds as though it has been quietly shelved, probably another free feasibility study at the taxpayers expense. ?
As I said the Govt will have to build this and they can only afford to build it at a pace they can afford, well that was the case, my guess is it might speed up now that it is to be legislated,
it will be interesting IMO now we have people ready to stump up taxpayers money. Great times to be living through, there will be some history making decisions made, one way or another the current period will live in people's minds forever IMO.

Cultana Pumped Hydro Energy Storage Phase 2

The Cultana Pumped Hydro Energy Storage - Phase 2 project will develop a 225 MW pumped hydro energy storage facility in South Australia.
arena.gov.au
Start Date
May 2018
EnergyAustralia and Arup are proposing the development of a 225 MW pumped hydro energy storage project using seawater near Port Augusta, South Australia.
The Cultana Pumped Hydro Energy Storage – Phase 2 project acknowledges that energy storage technology is emerging in Australia to support renewable energy integration and maintain a secure a reliable electricity grid – especially in contingency events. Pumped hydroelectric storage plants work like giant batteries; they store energy for use when demand for electricity is high.

The ‘Cultana’ pumped hydro facility will be capable of producing 225 MW of electricity to the South Australian electricity grid with eight hours of storage. That’s the equivalent of installing over 120,000 home battery storage systems, but at a third of the cost.

Feasibility and concept development for this project is supported by funding from the South Australian Government and ARENA.


The latest I can find on its status: 12 November 2021

One pumped hydro project still standing as South Australia heads to 100pct wind and solar

There appears to be only one pumped hydro project left in the race to deliver long term storage to South Australia as it charges to 100 per cent wind and solar.
reneweconomy.com.au

South Australia has sourced 62 per cent of its generation from wind and solar in the past 12 months, and has an official target of reaching net 100 per cent renewables by 2030. It will likely reach that mark well before then, but it will need significant amounts of storage to get there.

The pumped hydro projects held great promise, and were backed mostly by companies with deep pockets. South Australia is about as prospective a market as you could imagine for storage, but one by one the projects have fallen away.

Tilt Renewables decided early on that its proposal to use a reservoir in the Adelaide Hills wasn’t going to work, and AGL was then told by its prospective partner, a copper miner, that it preferred to dig for more ore rather than filling its mine pits with water.

EnergyAustralia was excited about the Cultana pumped hydro project, which was proposing to use sea-water, but also found that was going to cost too much.

Sanjeev Gupta’s pumped hydro proposal also appears to have withdrawn, possibly because of his own financial difficulties, but also because the Middleback iron ore mine that was to be used as a reservoir is more profitable being a mine than holding water.

That left only two projects competing for funds being offered by the Australian government, one through the ill-fated Underwriting New Generation Investment (UNGI) program, which so far has come to nothing despite the urgency with which Angus Taylor said he wanted to build dispatchable capacity.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency also offered a $40 million grant for a pumped hydro project in a separate scheme, and revealed 20 months ago – in February, 2020 – that it had chosen its favoured project from a shortlist of four and would reveal all within a few months.

Nothing has been heard of it since. Given the attrition rate of the other projects it was presumed that only two remained in the hunt – Rise Renewables and UPC’s Baroota project near Port Pirie, and the Goat Hill project being pushed by Sunset Power and Delta Energy.

But it now appears that the 250MW/2,000MWh Baroota project is the only one standing. A transmission planning report released by ElectraNet this week, reveals that the 242MW/1,835MW Goat Hill project near Port Augusta, has cancelled its connection agreement.

It also reveals that Baroota is currently working on its own connection agreement. It is, in fact, the only new generation project in the state that is going through the process.
 
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SirRumpole said:
New drilling technique could enhance access to geothermal energy.
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May I refer you back to the Geoscience link I posted earlier. It has some interesting discussion regarding geothermal hot-spots. Spain is better placed in that regard.

I recall one company did a trial way back in the out-back. It didn't end well (despite the depth of the wells.)
 

Yes it looks like geothermal in Australia is not viable unfortunately.
 
sptrawler said:
I just looked it up, it sounds as though it has been quietly shelved, probably another free feasibility study at the taxpayers expense.
Click to expand...

Yes, it is disappointing it wasn't viable but that's the nature of these things. More than 95% of research in all branches of science results in a dead-end but you don't know or can confirm it will be a dead-end unless the research is undertaken. A lot of the general public go "Pfft, I could have told them it was a waste of money" but it's not appreciated what is involved and why. Plus so many of them wouldn't even know how to start the research let alone be able to verify the "why" of it not working.

However, it's incremental. Some snippet of information will come out of it and be applied eslsewhere
 
sptrawler said:
Yes I remember us talking about that one, up near Port Augusta, I would think the Greens would have kittens over it.
Click to expand...
One particular pumped hydro project in SA was indeed cancelled when the developers lost their nerve due to thoughts they might become a political target.

Without wanting to be partisan and just trying to explain it, the basic problem with the politics can be summed up as noting that there's well over 20,000 technically possible pumped hydro sties in Australia but even the best are economically extremely marginal. That reality cuts the real number, those that someone might actually consider building, down to a handful in each state.

Therein lies the reality. A pumped hydro scheme dropped due to concerns about being a political target. Meanwhile in the same state we've built two gas-fired stations in recent years, there are more planned, and there's a company quietly going about a coal-based proposal.....
 
I guess that's the problem with considering everything in terms of economics.

The State health service doesn't make a profit, the State education system doesn't make a profit, but an essential service like electricity has to guarantee someone a profit.

BTW, what are the economics of Snowy Hydro ? Does it make a profit these days ?
 
Spot on smurf, the thing with Australia most of it is flat and where there is mountains which have the ability to provide great sites, they are in beautiful or sensitive areas.
It isn't going to be easy, fortunately Snowy is already built, so adding to it isn't as big an issue as starting form scratch, but having said that there is a lot of backlash about the new transmission lines.
When you put that in context, with the fact the experts are saying there is 50 times Snowy 2.0 required to transition to renewables, it does seem a long way off even if the Govt commits to build it.
Getting environmental approval, regulatory approval, transmission easements, labour and materials etc then the actual time to build them by 2050, or put another way, in 28 years.
It is obvious that miniature pumped storage isn't going to be done by the private sector and major pumped storage will only be feasible for Govt.
They had better get their skates on, I think the first step is to legislate for the 2030 target, because when that is done it actually puts them under pressure to make hard decisions.
Just my opinion and I'm only basing it on how long projects are already taking, I can't see how it will be accelerated by the amount needed to achieve anywhere near enough long duration storage.
Hydrogen fired GT's are starting to look feasible as firming capacity, the problem is we need a surplus of renewables to make the hydrogen, the penny will drop soon IMO. Best the State Governments get a hydrogen reservation policy in place, before they give away all this land in prime solar/wind generation areas.
 
Meant to add it's almost amusing in that at present there is too much water. Snowy Hydro either pumps the water back to an upper reservoir or emptied into Blowering Dam. Problem is Blowering is now full and increased hydro generation risks flooding if released into the Tumut River.

SNOWY HYDRO WATER RELEASES FROM TUMUT 3 POWER STATION - Snowy Hydro

Snowy Hydro is the largest supplier of on-demand energy generation in NSW, by capacity. The company also has an important role in capturing and storing water in the Snowy Scheme, which helps manage and regulate inflows for the benefit of downstream water users. The National Electricity Market...
www.snowyhydro.com.au
 
Yes, I was down at Jindabyne in February and the dam was so full that parts of the walking track were inundated.
I asked why they didn't release some water and was told it wasn't allowed.
 
Setting up the protection equipment, so that it does what it is meant to do when a problem happens with the generator, or the grid.

The problem is on a lightly loaded system, when you set up things like the load rejection etc, it has an effect on the transmission system.

It is worse when you are trying to set it up a generators protection on small isolated grid, like a remote country town, tripping the generator, when there is only two on line really does cause the town to notice.?
 
The problem with these negative articles, they don't put up an alternative, if Snowy 2.0 isn't built what is?
Now that the election is over these politically charged articles will probably reduce, thankfully, they really don't help the cause for renewables at all IMO.
 

Yes, well 'third party' seems to imply they don't know who it is ?

It must have been something of some size to cause an issue, one would have thought that there would be mechanisms in place to ensure large users don't access the system without approval.
 
For it to have happened over an extended period, my guess would be something tripped or a transmission fault occurred and didn't disconnect from the grid, so it became a load on the grid. A protection failure? Just a guess.
 
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