The future of energy generation and storage

sptrawler said:

Interesting article on W.A's problem.

The eye-watering payments being made to big batteries to squash huge solar duck | RenewEconomy

Neoen's huge Collie battery could be paid more than $100 million a year to help squash solar duck curve in world's biggest isolated grid, but state-owned battery will get paid much less.

reneweconomy.com.au

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I keep wondering whether it would be more efficient for governments to build and own these facilities , cutting out the middleman and delivering cheaper power rather than feeding the profits of commercial interests ?

SirRumpole said:

I keep wondering whether it would be more efficient for governments to build and own these facilities , cutting out the middleman and delivering cheaper power rather than feeding the profits of commercial interests ?

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I agree, especially when you consider a lot of the installed capacity will be paid to just sit there and be available, even if they aren't needed.

As a lot of this stuff will be heavily subsidised at the installation stage and then in the operation stage, it does make you wonder if it just wouldn't be better for the Government to own it. The other issue is, down the track will the private sector renew aging batteries when it suits the grid, or when it suits them

Who pays watt for electricity .
There is a wide spread in prices.
Don't fancy living in SA on the grid.
From CANStar
Mick

In W.A on the synergy site this looks like the standard rate.
The supply charge is the tricky one, as renewables get more traction I would expect the supply charge to increase, faster than the usage charge.
Plus with the amount of grid based battery storage going in, I wouldn't be surprised if 'time of day' pricing comes in.

Its only a matter of time before someone proposes building a really long pipe to Titan.
Mick

mullokintyre said:

Its only a matter of time before someone proposes building a really long pipe to Titan.

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The Jupiter Mining Corporation perhaps ?

SirRumpole said:

The Jupiter Mining Corporation perhaps ?

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Jupiter Mines (JMS) is already mining.
The only problem is that Titan is a moon of Saturn.
Maybe Saturn Metals ( STN) might get a look in.
Mick

mullokintyre said:

Jupiter Mines (JMS) is already mining.
The only problem is that Titan is a moon of Saturn.
Maybe Saturn Metals ( STN) might get a look in.
Mick

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My mistake, it was a weak reference to Red Dwarf if that means anything to anyone.

mullokintyre said:

Who pays watt for electricity .
There is a wide spread in prices.
Don't fancy living in SA on the grid.

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A complexity missed in that, which to be fair is missed by most, is in regards to Tasmania.

Tasmania has a somewhat unique situation of Tariff 41, also known by the old marketing name of HydroHeat, which is a flat rate of 19.447c / kWh available 24/365.

So what goes on Tariff 41?

In short if it's any kind of fixed in place heating appliance, including air-conditioning, then it qualifies for T41 provided that it's hard wired and so long as the main heater is at least 3.5kW output (note that's output not input power). So any ducted or split air-conditioner, any other fixed electric heater, all goes on T41. Noting that the 3.5kW requirement only applies to the main heater - once that's met anything else can also go on it, so you can put a panel heater in the bedroom no worries.

Storage hot water also qualifies for T41 so long as input power (note that's input not output, the opposite of the heating requirement) does not exceed 16 Watts per litre of storage capacity. So a 250 litre tank with a 3.6kW element qualifies but you can't put a 4.8kW element in it. Or a 160 litre / 2.4kW qualifies but a 160 litre / 3.6kW does not. Suffice to say no plumber in Tassie will sell you a non-compliant heater anyway, at least not unless it's a special order, so no problem there.

So heating and hot water all on T41 at 19.447 cents / kWh.

Now would anyone like to take a guess as to what purposes account for most residential electricity use in Tasmania? Well that's heating first and foremost and in second place is hot water. Climate being the explanation.

So whilst the standard Light and Power (that's the actual term used) rate, Tariff 31, in Tas is considerably higher as per your post, in practice the average residential consumer will have the majority of their consumption on T41 at a much lower price.

That idea's not a new one by the way but causes much confusion to anyone not familiar, since it's unique in the Australian context and highly unusual globally. If a house in Tas also has off-peak then it'll have three physical electricity meters on the one account. And even without off-peak there'll be two standard meters, one for T31 and one for T41.

For hot water that idea goes back a very long way, to the late 1890's in fact, and for space heating goes back to 1992. The HydroHeat marketing term (no longer used but still informally referred to by many) being a reference to the Hydro-Electric Corporation, which these days trades under the brand name Hydro Tasmania, and not to hydronic heating - another detail that confuses many outside the state. That said, well you could certainly run an electric boiler for a hydronic heating system on T41.

So realistically Tas has the lowest prices unless someone isn't using electricity for heating or hot water. But given electric hot water has a 94% market share for residential use in Tas, and electric space heating has a 67% market share, not many will be using only the more expensive standard rate.

And yep, if the heating appliance connected to T41 is a reverse cycle air-conditioner then yes you still get the cheap rate if it's run in cooling mode. Not that anyone in Tas is likely to be using huge amounts of cooling, but that price is a flat rate anytime 24/365.

SA undeniably the most expensive. For those with Time of Use metering, peak rates, which apply to all consumption between 3pm and 1am and between 6am and 10am (365 days per year), most will be paying over 50c / kWh.

SirRumpole said:

My mistake, it was a weak reference to Red Dwarf if that means anything to anyone.

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Bingo Horace.
I enjoyed red dwarf when it started, the Brits do comedy far more subtly than the Americans who need it to hit them between the eyes with a sledgehammer to get the joke.
Mick

mullokintyre said:

Bingo Horace.
I enjoyed red dwarf when it started, the Brits do comedy far more subtly than the Americans who need it to hit them between the eyes with a sledgehammer to get the joke.
Mick

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Smeg.

Apparently things are slowing down rather than speeding up.

Also as we keep saying, not many are interested in spending the capitol on long duration storage.

sptrawler said:

Also as we keep saying, not many are interested in spending the capitol on long duration storage.

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It's one hell of a mess.

Latest problem is basically that we're down to politicians picking numbers out of the air for storage duration.

Now I reckon even the average early high school student would raise some objections to that and suggest it ought be calculated. They might not know how to go about doing so, but they'd realise you can't just pick random numbers.

We are getting into "Luigi the incredible" territory IMO.
The hand is quicker than the eye, " Dance Maria"
Notice the narrative has changed from electricity produced from 82% renewables, to the overall target of 43% reduction.
Interesting times.

Australian government climate policies are yet to translate into the outcomes needed, with greenhouse gas emissions rising in the 12 months to June, according to the Climate Change Authority’s annual progress report.

But Federal Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen says emissions projections are "within striking distance" of the government’s target of 43 percent by 2030.

“With policies we have announced and are in the process of implementing, Australia’s emissions are projected to be 42 per cent below 2005 levels in 2030, compared to 40 per cent in last year’s projections,” Mr Bowen told parliament.

"The fact is that our targets are ambitious in that they require a big lift in effort over the next seven years."

Great article, that nails the W.A energy crisis issue and the looming disaster.

From the article:

'Naive' state now in funds' sights​

The plant, known as Bluewaters, supplies about 15 per cent of the power to the grid that services Australia's south-western corner, including Perth, a city of about two million people and one of the world's biggest resource centres.
It is Australia's newest coal-fired generator, commissioned only 13 years ago.

Yet its Japanese owners have written their investment in the plant down to zero — a product of the intractable woes at its coal supplier, the failed Indian-owned miner Griffin.

What's more, WA's power supplies have been getting increasingly fragile as other coal-fired capacity retires and too little new capacity is built to replace it.

"The state has been naively kicking the can down the road since Griffin was sold to the Indians," said Tim Buckley, a former investment banker and a director of Climate Energy Finance.

"The government says, 'Well, that's a private company's problem'.

"But it's not a private company's problem — it's the West Australian premier's problem."
Mr Buckley said it was no coincidence Elliott and other lenders including big US funds Oaktree Capital and Ares Management had come on board, buying the debt to Bluewaters in 2020 for about 70 cents in the dollar.

They're currently believed to be owed more than $250 million.

He said they were known as distressed debt specialists, meaning they bought loans to troubled companies from banks and other lenders that could no longer stomach the risk of losing their money or the reputational damage of doing business with a particular borrower.

According to Mr Buckley, they were also hugely powerful, commanding war chests worth, collectively, hundreds of billions of dollars.

Bluewaters was a perfect target, he said, because it was not only in choppy financial waters but a strategically vital asset — a key piece of WA's electricity puzzle.

With the WA government planning to phase out its own two remaining coal plants by 2029, he said its importance to the system could well increase, at least for a while.
"What Elliott was doing was getting a seat at the table where they could control Bluewaters," Mr Buckley said.

"It was always about resolving the situation but using their power and knowing that [the Japanese] didn't have the skin in the game and knowing that they could hold the West Australian government to ransom because the West Australian government owns the vast majority of the West Australian electricity grid.

"And we know politicians fear blackouts more than anything else," he said.
"Any politician that has to get re-elected every four years is going to cave in to the threat of blackouts."
To that end, Mr Buckley said the WA government of Roger Cook was naive if it thought Elliott and the other lenders to the Bluewaters power station could be bossed around.

He said so long as WA's main power grid needed Bluewaters — and the increasingly skinny reserves in the system suggested that would be the case for years — the lenders would hold a significant amount of leverage over the state.

And while the government might notionally have emergency powers to order Bluewaters to run, in reality these were theoretical and had never been tested.

"Elliott has no public profile, no public accountability," Mr Buckley said.

"And if they think that [turning off Bluewaters] would play to their financial interests, why wouldn't they?

"It's exactly why they went in — they knew they could hold the state to ransom."
For its part, the WA government is saying little about the lenders, though its limited public statements on the subject to date have been full of bravado.

The state, through its power and water utilities, is a major customer of Bluewaters and has signalled its intention not to renew the contracts when they expire in the coming years.

On top of this, the government has also publicly called for Bluewaters to pay more for the coal it buys from Griffin, which the state is having to prop up after the mine's Indian owners lost almost $1.5 billion.

"From 2025, once the current contract between [state power provider] Synergy and Bluewaters expires, we will not renew it because it is unbelievably expensive," WA Energy Minister Bill Johnston said in state parliament this month.

Mr Maril, the director of Latam Advisors, urged the WA government to be cautious, saying anyone who took on the likes of Elliott did so at great risk.

"Once Elliott does not get its way, that's when trouble starts," Mr Maril said.
"They don't care. They go for the money. That's what Wall Street does.

Following in on from the last article, another one jumps ship, OMG it isn't a good look.

State politics recap: Bill Johnston to retire from politics in bombshell announcement​

Cook Government Minister Bill Johnston dropped a bombshell on the final sitting day of the Parliamentary year, while there was plenty to digest from across the political spectrum.

The Griffin story in W.A just highlights where this is going, one only hopes there actually is a light at the end of the tunnel, because the tunnel keeps getting longer and the light keeps getting dimmer IMO.
It wasn't long ago that the Govt said under no circumstances would taxpayers money be used to bail out the coal miner.
How times change, when the option is, sitting there in the darkness roasting marshmallows over an open fire.
Maybe shutting down Kwinana power station, that could run on gas, wasn't such a good idea after all, ideology you have to love it.
You can hear it now, "don't worry we've got this", oh FFS I've lost sight of it, can anyone see where this goes??".
Definitely time to call in the technical people IMO.
Is there any wonder Bill Johnson the minister for energy pulled the ripcord and bailed out yesterday.


The WA government has extended a taxpayer-funded lifeline, to the tune of more than $200 million, to a failed foreign-owned coal mine that is critical to the state's biggest electricity system.

With WA power supplies coming under increasing pressure, WA Premier Roger Cook on Friday visited the coal-mining town of Collie, about 180 kilometres south of Perth, where much of the state's electricity is generated.
While there, the premier announced an extension of the WA government's financial support for the stricken Griffin Coal mine until 2026.

Under a standstill agreement with Griffin's receiver and manager, big four consultancy Deloitte, the government is tipping in money to prop up operations and ensure coal supplies continue.

The commitment comes despite the fact the state has already had to shell out almost $40 million keeping Griffin afloat since standing behind the miner late last year.

At the time, then-premier Mark McGowan admitted the government had agreed to underwrite Griffin because they were "payments that we just need to make".

Mr Cook said without the $220 million, the mine could close suddenly, and hundreds of workers would lose their jobs, putting the Perth and South West electricity system at risk of blackouts.

"Put simply – I won't let that happen," Mr Cook said.


2010

sptrawler said:

The Griffin story in W.A just highlights where this is going, one only hopes there actually is a light at the end of the tunnel, because the tunnel keeps getting longer and the light keeps getting dimmer IMO.
It wasn't long ago that the Govt said under no circumstances would taxpayers money be used to bail out the coal miner.
How times change, when the option is, sitting there in the darkness roasting marshmallows over an open fire.
Maybe shutting down Kwinana power station, that could run on gas, wasn't such a good idea after all, ideology you have to love it.
You can hear it now, "don't worry we've got this", oh FFS I've lost sight of it, can anyone see where this goes??".
Definitely time to call in the technical people IMO.
Is there any wonder Bill Johnson the minister for energy pulled the ripcord and bailed out yesterday.

MSN

The WA government has extended a taxpayer-funded lifeline, to the tune of more than $200 million, to a failed foreign-owned coal mine that is critical to the state's biggest electricity system.

With WA power supplies coming under increasing pressure, WA Premier Roger Cook on Friday visited the coal-mining town of Collie, about 180 kilometres south of Perth, where much of the state's electricity is generated.
While there, the premier announced an extension of the WA government's financial support for the stricken Griffin Coal mine until 2026.

Under a standstill agreement with Griffin's receiver and manager, big four consultancy Deloitte, the government is tipping in money to prop up operations and ensure coal supplies continue.

The commitment comes despite the fact the state has already had to shell out almost $40 million keeping Griffin afloat since standing behind the miner late last year.

At the time, then-premier Mark McGowan admitted the government had agreed to underwrite Griffin because they were "payments that we just need to make".

Mr Cook said without the $220 million, the mine could close suddenly, and hundreds of workers would lose their jobs, putting the Perth and South West electricity system at risk of blackouts.

"Put simply – I won't let that happen," Mr Cook said.


2010

WA rejects public bail-out for Griffin

A new proposal to provide a financial buffer for debt-laden miner Griffin Coal may struggle to gain approval from the West Australian government, which has made it clear it is reluctant to provide support to a private company....

www.afr.com

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Why doesn't the government just buy the mine outright instead of faffing around trying to prop it up and hoping some other dodgy investor will come in and fail again ?

SirRumpole said:

Why doesn't the government just buy the mine outright instead of faffing around trying to prop it up and hoping some other dodgy investor will come in and fail again ?

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Because then they have employees, that they have to deal with when it turns to manure, they have a mine they have to close, they have a power station that is owned by a U.S equity fund that has them over a barrel.
At the moment it is at arms length and it is only taxpayers money, so why take on the responsibility, just keep shovelling money. Lol
They closed Kwinana power station that could fire three fuels, coal, gas or oil, to make a virtue statement as it was close to the City, I bet they wish they hadn't done that. Lol
With this latest catastrophe, I would guess Pinjar GT's are being looked at for a fast upgrade, to bigger and better units ASAP.