The future of energy generation and storage

noco said:

Tisme gets carried away with his own ego which is higher than Mt Everest.

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When you achieve bragging rights for practicing electrical engineering, please feel free to school me how energy generation methods translates in loss of power from cyclonic winds. Of course you will need to consult with unqualified journalists first.

The problem is not power sources, but the gold plated "poles and wires" that failed the test. That's where the focus should be, on how infrastructure failed.

At least it's good to see Freudenberg take the lead on energy security and start the process off by holding a joint meeting of all energy ministers.

I hope something good comes out of it.

SirRumpole said:

At least it's good to see Freudenberg take the lead on energy security and start the process off by holding a joint meeting of all energy ministers.

I hope something good comes out of it.

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It's like the last days of the horse and buggy industry watching the first world pass us by, while we admire our inefficiency in power production. Of course we have a pedigree of waiting for others to invent and implement before we take the plunge, which is why for generations we were a dumping ground for superceded consumer technology and hand me down industrial machinery.

Tisme said:

It's like the last days of the horse and buggy industry watching the first world pass us by, while we admire our inefficiency in power production. Of course we have a pedigree of waiting for others to invent and implement before we take the plunge, which is why for generations we were a dumping ground for superceded consumer technology and hand me down industrial machinery.

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Probably the Snowy Mountains hydro scheme was the last time we did power generation properly in this country.

The "system" including generation and distribution needs modernising. A while ago we had tree loppers cutting tree branches away from power lines but we still lost power in a storm when whole trees fell on them, but do you cut down every tree likely to cause a problem, or just patch things up when the worst happens ? Or maybe spend some money and put power lines underground.

SirRumpole said:

Probably the Snowy Mountains hydro scheme was the last time we did power generation properly in this country.

The "system" including generation and distribution needs modernising. A while ago we had tree loppers cutting tree branches away from power lines but we still lost power in a storm when whole trees fell on them, but do you cut down every tree likely to cause a problem, or just patch things up when the worst happens ? Or maybe spend some money and put power lines underground.

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Underground poses major problems with cable sizing and cost. Low voltage underground run outs to houses are expensive but doable, HV has it's own considerations on top of the cost and resource required. Given that every dollar spent for infrastructure seems to have a high oncost tacked on for consultancy, handling and profit, it might me something be consumers can't afford.

I can only imagine the claims of phantom feet ailments due to EMI coming up through the dirt and the birds, don't forget the birds and the need for perches instead of bulldozed trees.

In response to various comments:

The big problem is that we don't have a plan. We're talking about critical infrastructure of major importance but we're basically taking random actions at best, doing the wrong thing at worst. Neither public nor private ownership is going to get it right if there's no actual plan in the first place.

A key problem there is that in recent times governments have come to see energy as a financial / economic matter and not an engineering / technical one. Have a look at who the regulators are and you'll find plenty of economists etc and few if any engineers depending on which state you look at. That might be OK if we were getting cheaper prices and the system was working, but pretty clearly there are problems on both fronts.

The first thing we need to decide is what we're actually going to do so far as emissions and renewables is concerned, everything else needs that decided first in order to make reasonable decisions.

The second thing we need to do is decide what else is "off limits". Realistically we're not about to flood the wilderness for hydro and we're unlikely to be using nuclear anytime soon. I can't see the community accepting the logging of old growth forests to fuel power stations either (and I don't advocate that by the way). But we need to decide the details there and what's OK and what's not.

Once that's worked out it's really just an engineering exercise to devise a plan and then a financial + engineering exercise to get it built in an orderly manner with the lights staying on in the meantime.

What I'd do is:

1. Work out the above points. What's the goal for emissions and what technologies or projects are off limits. Fundamentally this is a political decision not an engineering one.

2. Appoint a board of engineers (actual engineers, no CEO's etc required) with a senior engineer as head of that organisation. It needs support from both major political parties and to be free of interference, perhaps having the formal status of a Commission in order to effect that situation.

3. Board of engineers looks at the options and comes up with a comprehensive plan based on what we've got now and it's limitations (every fossil fuel plant we've got today will close eventually since they have a finite life) and where we're going in terms of how we generate power.

4. The board to look at it from a national perspective but with minimal focus on the NT and Tasmania. The reasons being that the NT doesn't use much power to start with and has a reasonably viable (for the next 30 or so years) means of producing it so is a low priority. Tasmania's load is more significant but the state's hydro schemes are incredibly long lived assets that aren't about to disappear so not much needs to be done there (and in any event Tas still has a largely engineering-focused and state owned power industry anyway). So the focus needs to be on Qld / NSW / ACT / Vic / SA interconnected system plus WA (noting that it's not impossible, albeit rather expensive, to link WA to the eastern states).

5. The board then assumes operational control of the entire system. That does not need to involve nationalisation of privately owned assets but if AGL wants to close Torrens Island (for example) then it will be the board of engineers, not AGL, making that decision with AGL's role left to that of carrying out the physical aspects of an actual closure. Same with any other power station. The financial details of all this would need to be worked out but it must surely be doable - we're talking about contracts and $ here over a long period not trying to put a man on Mars by the end of next week.

6. The board also decides what to build and where. Private firms could tender to build and own such assets on a for-profit basis or it could be publicly owned. But private ownership would be just that, ownership for profit, but they won't be deciding how big the facility is or when to run it, just taking an opportunity made available to invest in what the board has decided needs to be built with operation as directed under a centralised system.

So far as specific technologies are concerned (listed in no particular order):

Wind - we can do more with that certainly but it needs diverse location, not all in a small part of SA, and a strong transmission network to support it. That outcome won't happen if left purely to market forces.

Solar - solar thermal with storage has massive potential given the storage aspect and we've got plenty of places to put such facilities. As with wind, strong transmission networks will be needed to support it. We can still add more distributed solar PV (rooftops mostly) in a sensible manner too but there are limits and at some point we'll have enough. Putting it on literally every house doesn't stack up but we can go further than we have thus far.

Hydro - there's more potential than most seem to think and that's especially so if we consider developing hydro resources in PNG and linking that to Queensland. Again it's a lot of transmission but between PNG and non-wilderness sites in Australia we're talking about enough additional hydro to power 100% of Victoria's present consumption or most of Queensland's so it's very substantial.

Pumped storage - developed as a means of storage (as distinct from conventional hydro producing energy as such) and there are numerous sites of high capacity potential in NSW alone with others elsewhere. Development needs to follow the development of wind and solar, as a means of providing the firm generating capacity required to back an intermittent energy source.

Geothermal - we need to prove it once and for all. Either we can make it work or we can't. It's a real game change if we can so we can't afford to leave that question unanswered. This one is clearly something that the private sector isn't going to do so that leaves government as the only real option. The focus there needs to be on the high grade sites in Vic, Tas and NSW not in the middle of nowhere in outback SA (that the private sector did the latter illustrates the problem pretty well - even if it worked they were starting in the wrong place having seemingly thought that power generation was a bit like mining for metals and thus going after the biggest high grade resource they could find rather than one in the right place).

Biomass - has some potential for intermittent use to backup wind and solar over the medium term. Produce the biomass whenever, store it, and fire up the boilers during Winter and to a lesser extent Summer when energy demand is higher and the available supply from other means is insufficient over the medium term (otherwise causing excessive draw on hydro resources especially pumped storage).

Minor sources - things like landfill gas, sewer gas and recovering heat from factories. Leave that one to the private sector and let them build whatever they like. The scale is such that there's no real need to regulate other than at a very local level (impact on specific distribution lines etc).

Batteries - doesn't stack up yet but if someone wants to do it then there's no reason to stop them. Larger scale implementation would be limited to managing peak loads however rather than bulk storage which is more cheaply done with pumped hydro and piling up some biomass.

Coal, gas, oil-fired generation that we've already got - manage operation to maximise efficiency rather than to produce wild price swings in the market. In due course capacity will decline but that needs to be in a planned manner not a series of independent decisions by owners. So the board of engineers will decide when to close Hazelwood, not some CEO in France. That doesn't preclude the present owners selling the plant however, but they'll be told when to close it and that won't be in 2017.

Decomissioned fossil fuel generation - to the extent that physical demolition hasn't got underway we need to not do so until we've got a proper plan and are 100% sure we won't be needing those plants. The last thing we want is to end up building more fossil fuel plant now, only to make it obsolete a third the way through its useful life as we shift to renewables. Some of these old plants still have value as firm generating capacity so let's not knock them down just yet.

Sounds pretty good to me.

As you say it comes down to engineering in the end and so engineers have to be involved at the front end and not after the politicians decide what they want. I hope the Frydenberg group love-in today understands that principle.

Thanks again.

There's a bigger issue in all of this. That of Australia having largely turned it's back on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) and the related field of manufacturing in favour of finance and the notion that everything can be bought if we've got the money.

There's a legitimate role for finance most certainly but where is this approach really leading us? Unaffordable housing, unreliable power and plenty more looming threats of an engineering nature too.

The solution is not nuclear, coal, hydro, gas, wind, solar, geothermal or whatever. The solution is refocusing our nation's attention onto the things which need to be done and realising that we need more than simply money. Whether you've got $20 or $20 million, we're all screwed if the lights go out, the water isn't safe to drink or there's no fuel. Witness the state of Australia's internet infrastructure and the politics surrounding it, versus the higher standards which many relatively poor countries have actually achieved, if you need convincing that we've got a problem with our general "hands off" approach.

My hope is that the recent crisis in SA leads to a serious wake up. Sadly though I think we'll need a bigger incident, not necessarily electrical but something critical, to get to that point. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Smurf1976 said:

There's a bigger issue in all of this. That of Australia having largely turned it's back on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) and the related field of manufacturing in favour of finance and the notion that everything can be bought if we've got the money.

There's a legitimate role for finance most certainly but where is this approach really leading us? Unaffordable housing, unreliable power and plenty more looming threats of an engineering nature too.

The solution is not nuclear, coal, hydro, gas, wind, solar, geothermal or whatever. The solution is refocusing our nation's attention onto the things which need to be done and realising that we need more than simply money. Whether you've got $20 or $20 million, we're all screwed if the lights go out, the water isn't safe to drink or there's no fuel. Witness the state of Australia's internet infrastructure and the politics surrounding it, versus the higher standards which many relatively poor countries have actually achieved, if you need convincing that we've got a problem with our general "hands off" approach.

My hope is that the recent crisis in SA leads to a serious wake up. Sadly though I think we'll need a bigger incident, not necessarily electrical but something critical, to get to that point. Hopefully I'm wrong.

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Yes, I agree. I don't want to get political, but John Howard flushed the proceeds of the mining boom down the loo by giving it to people who didn't need it like wealthy retirees.

We could have had a world class NBN, plus enhancements to our energy infrastructure , schools , hospitals whatever . Rudd did the right thing by establishing Infrastructure Australia as an independent body, but Abbott re-politicised it so he could use it for pork barrelling.

Rudd probably went a bit far with his pink batts (although that program did contribute to a reduction in energy consumption), but even in these times of "debt and deficit disaster" we can still come up with $50 billion for submarines.

We have a Future Fund though (assets currently $118 billion), and I can't see any reason not to invest some of that fund in our own infrastructure, the NBN and energy security should be the priorities.

SirRumpole said:

Yes, I agree. I don't want to get political, but John Howard flushed the proceeds of the mining boom down the loo by giving it to people who didn't need it like wealthy retirees.

We could have had a world class NBN, plus enhancements to our energy infrastructure , schools , hospitals whatever . Rudd did the right thing by establishing Infrastructure Australia as an independent body, but Abbott re-politicised it so he could use it for pork barrelling.

Rudd probably went a bit far with his pink batts (although that program did contribute to a reduction in energy consumption), but even in these times of "debt and deficit disaster" we can still come up with $50 billion for submarines.

We have a Future Fund though (assets currently $118 billion), and I can't see any reason not to invest some of that fund in our own infrastructure, the NBN and energy security should be the priorities.

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You just can't help yourself can you Rumpy.....You have to bring politics into Smufs thoughts.

So now it is John Howard's fault......How much did John Howard flush down the drain as you claim?
He did leave $22 billion for Labor to squander....My oh my, you do have a short memory.

Well, I suggest to you what could we be doing with a $billion a month on the interest we are paying for Labor's over spend just to say we did not go into recession.......and we will, our children and grand children will be paying back for years to come.

I agree with Smurf in what he has quoted but the problem is the argy bargy political interference from the Green/Labor coalition.......Who will make a decision to appoint this Board of Direction without the interference from the hostile socialist left senate...It might get through the lower house, then get stuck in the senate like it usually does even though it is a good idea.....If there is a Board of Directors made up of engineers, how certain can we be that it won't be stacked with some Green engineers just out of university?

The Green/Labor coalition will still go against the board if it does not suit their ideology of more renewables and not less.......The Green/Labor coalition are determined to bring down our economy in favour of socialist central control.

explod said:

Real bird lovers want to see them happy in the wild.

Only right wing fascists keep things locked up.

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Little do you know about birds in the wild.......How long do you think a canary of a budgerigar would last in the wild before being swallowed up some other predator?

Have you ever seen any of these rare birds in the wild?

explod said:

Noco, you and the Prime Minister (who's become an embarrassment) don't get it. Well I think you do but continue your oil/coal lobby campaign to confuse the ordinary populace.

100% perfect neuclear generators would not have made any difference. What happened in South Australia was a failure of the infrastructure. The poles blew down and buckled under the exceptional wind gusts and foundations giving way due to extra damp ground from huge rainfall.

Extreme weather events caused by polar warmth displacement. Co2 driven climate change.

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explod for your information I have just learned the transmission poles were blown over after South Australia BLACKED OUT.

The latest engineering project by the wind power addicts...

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SirRumpole said:

Yes, I agree. I don't want to get political, but John Howard flushed the proceeds of the mining boom down the loo by giving it to people who didn't need it like wealthy retirees.

We could have had a world class NBN, plus enhancements to our energy infrastructure , schools , hospitals whatever . Rudd did the right thing by establishing Infrastructure Australia as an independent body, but Abbott re-politicised it so he could use it for pork barrelling.

Rudd probably went a bit far with his pink batts (although that program did contribute to a reduction in energy consumption), but even in these times of "debt and deficit disaster" we can still come up with $50 billion for submarines.

We have a Future Fund though (assets currently $118 billion), and I can't see any reason not to invest some of that fund in our own infrastructure, the NBN and energy security should be the priorities.

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"We have a Future Fund though (assets currently $118 billion), and I can't see any reason not to invest some of that fund in our own infrastructure, the NBN and energy security should be the priorities."

WE don't have a futures fund. The futures fund was a creation of Public servants and pollies as a fund to cover their extravagant retirement benefits. It is managed to maximise profit and is not there for the benefit of the general public. The name is a con.

nioka said:

"We have a Future Fund though (assets currently $118 billion), and I can't see any reason not to invest some of that fund in our own infrastructure, the NBN and energy security should be the priorities."

WE don't have a futures fund. The futures fund was a creation of Public servants and pollies as a fund to cover their extravagant retirement benefits. It is managed to maximise profit and is not there for the benefit of the general public. The name is a con.

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Sure, but they have to invest in something in order to make a profit. Essential services like electricity would seem to be a reasonable investment, people have to use it. If private companies find them so attractive to buy, there must be money in it. That doesn't mean the FF has to screw the public on price but there must be a point where they can make a reasonable profit and provide a good service.

SirRumpole said:

Sure, but they have to invest in something in order to make a profit. Essential services like electricity would seem to be a reasonable investment, people have to use it. If private companies find them so attractive to buy, there must be money in it. That doesn't mean the FF has to screw the public on price but there must be a point where they can make a reasonable profit and provide a good service.

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Nice to see you moving towards capitalism and away from socialism.......But there again profit is a dirty word in the socialism world hey......Yes people have to eat and be clothed as essentials and borrow money from the banks to buy a house all of which entails profit somewhere along the line.

If you don't a profit in business, you go down the gurgler and who cares if you go broke.?

The production of power can become a monopoly where there is no competition...Smurf has the right ideas.

SirRumpole said:

Sure, but they have to invest in something in order to make a profit. Essential services like electricity would seem to be a reasonable investment, people have to use it. If private companies find them so attractive to buy, there must be money in it. That doesn't mean the FF has to screw the public on price but there must be a point where they can make a reasonable profit and provide a good service.

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"That doesn't mean the FF has to screw the public"

It doesn't mean they HAVE to but it doesn't mean they wont. Remember that government departments and politicians are experts at screwing and the fund is run by them.:frown:

Great piece of analysis Smurf - as always. I just feel/fear it is far too sensible to be allowed to see the light of day..

I actually can see The Future Fund being a financier/part owner /whatever of a National Renewable Energy system. If the criteria was a return of 4% real it would be achieving everything it was supposed to so as a Super Fund. Of course the key to making such an operation work at a reasonable cost would be following something like your guidelines.
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Maybe this is the time and opportunity to put together a proposition for the public and politicians along such lines ?
By the way it doesn't have to be funded by the Future Fund. Why not put up a proposition with funding coming from a range of current Super funds or private investors ? Same deal. 4% real return, no fees, perhaps Government guarantee if there is oversight of the whole process. I think this would be a really attractive proposition as long as the pigs in the trough are taken out and shot first.

basilio said:

By the way it doesn't have to be funded by the Future Fund. Why not put up a proposition with funding coming from a range of current Super funds or private investors ? Same deal. 4% real return, no fees, perhaps Government guarantee if there is oversight of the whole process. I think this would be a really attractive proposition as long as the pigs in the trough are taken out and shot first.

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The history of private enterprise funding infrastructure in this country is not brilliant. They usually want government guarantees of no competition before they put their money in. They will wait like sharks untill the government funds it, and then they will try to buy it on a monopoly basis or close to it. Telstra being a prime example, same with the State poles and wires grid.

SirRumpole said:

The history of private enterprise funding infrastructure in this country is not brilliant. They usually want government guarantees of no competition before they put their money in. They will wait like sharks untill the government funds it, and then they will try to buy it on a monopoly basis or close to it. Telstra being a prime example, same with the State poles and wires grid.

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So would you say central control under a Green/Labor socialist government would be better or worse?