The future of energy generation and storage

[sptrawler]

Obviously an inconvenient truth, that is being conveniently ignored, I certainly missed it.
Good pick up Rumpy, it's a shame that the horse will well and truly have bolted, before reality hits home.
It is just a sad state of affairs that common sense can't prevail, we have to go through these ridiculous pantomimes, before we are corralled into a fait accompli.
Which usually ends up with a half ar$ed compromise, that doesn't achieve anywhere near the desired outcome..
Muppets led by muppets.

 

[Smurf1976]

There's more than a few who could broadly be placed in the category of saying that they can see the point in hydro as a non-fossil means of deep firming but at the same time, they really don't think society's ready to go there.

Expanding on this a bit, put yourself in the shoes of management of any of the major electricity companies. AGL, Origin, Energy Australia, etc.

They could build hydro for deep firming and in doing so commit themselves to a long lead time, engineering heavy major construction project that runs a very high chance of ending up with a protest.

Or they could quietly install some gas turbines and not say anything about it.

The former might be "greener" if climate change is taken to be the most serious threat environmentally but somewhat ironically it comes with far greater risk of being a target politically. Given it's not that profitable anyway, it just doesn't make sense to risk tarnishing the retail brand when there's a simple alternative - gas, diesel or just don't invest in anything since reliability isn't actually your problem.

Hence the gun shy approach to hydro.

Nuclear would face the exact same problem on steroids. Long lead time, engineering heavy, not that profitable and comes with huge risk of becoming a political target. None of the companies are likely to want anything to do with it.

The overall environment hasn't driven all investors away but it's scared more than a few hence not enough is being done.

 

[sptrawler]

Expanding on this a bit, put yourself in the shoes of management of any of the major electricity companies. AGL, Origin, Energy Australia, etc.

They could build hydro for deep firming and in doing so commit themselves to a long lead time, engineering heavy major construction project that runs a very high chance of ending up with a protest.

Or they could quietly install some gas turbines and not say anything about it.

The former might be "greener" if climate change is taken to be the most serious threat environmentally but somewhat ironically it comes with far greater risk of being a target politically. Given it's not that profitable anyway, it just doesn't make sense to risk tarnishing the retail brand when there's a simple alternative - gas, diesel or just don't invest in anything since reliability isn't actually your problem.

Hence the gun shy approach to hydro.

Nuclear would face the exact same problem on steroids. Long lead time, engineering heavy, not that profitable and comes with huge risk of becoming a political target. None of the companies are likely to want anything to do with it.

The overall environment hasn't driven all investors away but it's scared more than a few hence not enough is being done.

It is just becoming diabolical IMO.
In W.A we have huge issues with regard hydro, the topography just doesn't work.
So we will go renewables and that will work, but storage is a huge problem and batteries are like everyone knows who uses them FINITE.

It just isn't a long term answer, for us in W.A it is a stop gap, hopefully technology moves on rapidly because our population is moving on rapidly and our demand is also.

 

[Smurf1976]

It is just becoming diabolical IMO.

Overall I think there's a pretty decent list of things in society that are on a very unsustainable path.

Economy, debt, housing, education and so on. Energy's just another one really.

 

[sptrawler]

Overall I think there's a pretty decent list of things in society that are on a very unsustainable path.

Economy, debt, housing, education and so on. Energy's just another one really.

Absolutely, nursing, teaching and trades have gone down the gurgler and rather than do a reality check and fix it.

They chose to recognise overseas qualifications to fill the failings, well that results in a plunge to the lowest common denominator, we are just losing control of what was a world leading society IMO.

It might sound dramatic, but we are becoming a society driven by populism, rather than being a society of exceptional people who punched above our weight.

Albo's first political fight apparently, was to stop the State Housing Commission selling of his Mums house, how times have changed.

No one mentions State housing commission in politics, well Dan Andrews mentioned starting up the S.E.C in Victoria again last election, but from what I've read that was a load of BS also.
Why do people get so invested in tribal politics, they are all full of $hit.

Hopefully New Zealand can continue the fight, because IMO we are done.

 

[Smurf1976]

It might sound dramatic, but we are becoming a society driven by populism, rather than being a society of exceptional people who punched above our weight.

This is why recessions are necessary to clear out the dead wood and give everyone a reminder of the need to remain focused.

It's really quite extreme at this point once you realise that nobody under the age ~45 would have any comprehension of a proper recession with the usual consequences from first hand experience, and nobody under age 50 has experience of one as an adult unless they've been through it overseas. We've had "technical" recessions more recently, but not a proper one in the normal sense.

So we're now at the point where having lived through economic difficulty of itself puts someone in a minority group and there'd now be people coming into senior management or political roles with no such experience. Even fewer have any real comprehension of energy shortages or the difficulty of overcoming them once they're entrenched.

 

[sptrawler]

To tell you the the truth @Smurf1976 I honestly think this sums it up and I actually thought it may be a new beginning, but alas not.
A picture tells a thousand words.

 

[SirRumpole]

Expanding on this a bit, put yourself in the shoes of management of any of the major electricity companies. AGL, Origin, Energy Australia, etc.

They could build hydro for deep firming and in doing so commit themselves to a long lead time, engineering heavy major construction project that runs a very high chance of ending up with a protest.

Or they could quietly install some gas turbines and not say anything about it.

The former might be "greener" if climate change is taken to be the most serious threat environmentally but somewhat ironically it comes with far greater risk of being a target politically. Given it's not that profitable anyway, it just doesn't make sense to risk tarnishing the retail brand when there's a simple alternative - gas, diesel or just don't invest in anything since reliability isn't actually your problem.

Hence the gun shy approach to hydro.

Nuclear would face the exact same problem on steroids. Long lead time, engineering heavy, not that profitable and comes with huge risk of becoming a political target. None of the companies are likely to want anything to do with it.

The overall environment hasn't driven all investors away but it's scared more than a few hence not enough is being done.

Governments have to build hydro if its going to be done, but they don't have they will to do it either.

 

[Smurf1976]

Governments have to build hydro if its going to be done, but they don't have they will to do it either.

Genex have done in in Queensland at Kidston but that's a straightforward project in an engineering sense and given the site is a former mine, it's pretty hard for anyone to argue about environmental values.

But.....

The Kidston project does have some government money tipped in via the backdoor and, main issue, it's only an 8 hour storage. There's a role for that of course, I'm not suggesting otherwise, but it's not the deep storage that's needed to replace gas. Rather, it's an alternative to a big battery basically.

One of the projects in SA was borderline financially, it was very on the edge either way. Then someone pointed out the risk of politics and that was it, that was the end of it since it seemed the company board had that "ah yes..... hadn't thought about that" moment and realised the risks they faced weren't limited to physical construction or financial markets but came with another dimension as well.

Same's happening with wind and solar. As AEMO have publicly stated, there's a serious lack of new wind being committed as well. Lots of companies looking but they're not getting projects over the line and committing to building them. Same's happening with things like hydrogen.

To throw another spanner in the works, the Tasmanian state election. Both Labor and Liberal do back the idea of state-owned Hydro Tasmania developing large scale wind generation within the state, that's a common element to both major parties. Just one problem - neither Labor nor Liberal has actually won a majority so that could get interesting to say the least.

Ultimately we're getting very close to the pointy end where it all comes to a head.

 

[IFocus]

@Smurf1976 what sort of drop / height do you need for hyro to work ?

 

[Smurf1976]

@Smurf1976 what sort of drop / height do you need for hyro to work ?

There's no magic number.

Water volume x head (drop) = energy.

1000 litres of water dropped 500m yields the same energy as 500 litres dropped 1000m or 5000 litres dropped 100m.

Highest single stage drop in the world is 1883m at Bieudron power station, Switzerland.

Highest in Australia is 835m at Poatina, Tasmania.

At the other end of the scale Cluny (Tasmania) is only 16m and 4.88m of that is due to the variable water level behind the dam, so it's down around 11m head at minimum water level.

That said....

Economics and practicality of construction favours moderate heads. That requires no special materials and typically ends up a fairly low cost installation relative to its electrical output.

Higher heads mean difficult construction and costly materials. Eg Poatina was pushing the limits and was notable at the international level when built (construction 1957 - 64) and in more recent times Bieudron the same during its construction completed 1998. Noting there that Bieudron did have a significant incident, rupture of the penstock, but has since returned to service.

In the opposite direction the problem with low heads is purely economic. In practice it tends to end up with a lot of civil works relative to power output. Eg Cluny was extremely marginal at the time, being built essentially as a "now or never" project following higher head stations built nearby and before the associated construction workforce and facilities were removed from the area. Economically it's piggy backed on the rest basically, it wouldn't have worked financially as a standalone project.

Much the same internationally. Plenty of low head stations but they're mostly either in the same "now or never" category following construction of much higher head facilities nearby, or they're simply an add-on to a dam built for some other purpose eg water supply and with the civil works cost attributed to that other purpose.

The big difficulty is economic along with community acceptance (environment etc). In a purely technical sense it's just water volume x head = output and pretty much anything can be built as long as the geology's OK.

In the Australian context nobody's sensibly suggesting we try and run the whole country using hydro, that's out of the question. Rather it's a question of whether or not more hydro should be built for medium storage or deep firming rather than using gas for that purpose. To the extent there's any serious debate about what ought be done, that's what it comes down to.

Some will advocate gas on the grounds of low capital cost, quick to deploy, "off the shelf" equipment, low physical footprint, etc.

Others will advocate hydro pointing to the finite nature of gas reserves and that gas has other important uses, CO2 and climate change, financial risk of gas prices going forward, etc.

I'll argue for proper science on a case by cases basis, since the issues surrounding hydro projects vary hugely from site to site, but in practice the politics favours gas as the path of least resistance. Hence most commenting will assume gas unless they're specifically advocating otherwise.

 

[basilio]

There's no magic number.

Water volume x head (drop) = energy.

1000 litres of water dropped 500m yields the same energy as 500 litres dropped 1000m or 5000 litres dropped 100m.

Highest single stage drop in the world is 1883m at Bieudron power station, Switzerland.

Highest in Australia is 835m at Poatina, Tasmania.

At the other end of the scale Cluny (Tasmania) is only 16m and 4.88m of that is due to the variable water level behind the dam, so it's down around 11m head at minimum water level.

That said....

Economics and practicality of construction favours moderate heads. That requires no special materials and typically ends up a fairly low cost installation relative to its electrical output.

Higher heads mean difficult construction and costly materials. Eg Poatina was pushing the limits and was notable at the international level when built (construction 1957 - 64) and in more recent times Bieudron the same during its construction completed 1998. Noting there that Bieudron did have a significant incident, rupture of the penstock, but has since returned to service.

In the opposite direction the problem with low heads is purely economic. In practice it tends to end up with a lot of civil works relative to power output. Eg Cluny was extremely marginal at the time, being built essentially as a "now or never" project following higher head stations built nearby and before the associated construction workforce and facilities were removed from the area. Economically it's piggy backed on the rest basically, it wouldn't have worked financially as a standalone project.

Much the same internationally. Plenty of low head stations but they're mostly either in the same "now or never" category following construction of much higher head facilities nearby, or they're simply an add-on to a dam built for some other purpose eg water supply and with the civil works cost attributed to that other purpose.

The big difficulty is economic along with community acceptance (environment etc). In a purely technical sense it's just water volume x head = output and pretty much anything can be built as long as the geology's OK.

In the Australian context nobody's sensibly suggesting we try and run the whole country using hydro, that's out of the question. Rather it's a question of whether or not more hydro should be built for medium storage or deep firming rather than using gas for that purpose. To the extent there's any serious debate about what ought be done, that's what it comes down to.

Some will advocate gas on the grounds of low capital cost, quick to deploy, "off the shelf" equipment, low physical footprint, etc.

Others will advocate hydro pointing to the finite nature of gas reserves and that gas has other important uses, CO2 and climate change, financial risk of gas prices going forward, etc.

I'll argue for proper science on a case by cases basis, since the issues surrounding hydro projects vary hugely from site to site, but in practice the politics favours gas as the path of least resistance. Hence most commenting will assume gas unless they're specifically advocating otherwise.

Great summary. I think it's worth throwing in another factor - the weight of the fluid being pumped up and down the hill.
All the engineering assumptions use water as the medium.

What if the medium was a fluid 2.5 times heavier than water ? Suddenly you can achieve the same output with a lower head and/or lower volume. The engineering requirements become significantly smaller.

This is not a thought experiment. A UK company has developed such a process and is commercialising it.

RheEnergise High-Density Hydro - How it works

If you want to know how RheEnergise pumped energy storage works

www.rheenergise.com

RheEnergise High-Density Hydro - News

RheEnergise Pumped Energy Storage: Lowering the levelised cost of energy storage. Increasing the availability of sites. Exceptionally fast reaction times. Long Duration. Long life. Highly flexible. High-Density Hydro®

www.rheenergise.com

 

[SirRumpole]

Great summary. I think it's worth throwing in another factor - the weight of the fluid being pumped up and down the hill.
All the engineering assumptions use water as the medium.

What if the medium was a fluid 2.5 times heavier than water ? Suddenly you can achieve the same output with a lower head and/or lower volume. The engineering requirements become significantly smaller.

This is not a thought experiment. A UK company has developed such a process and is commercialising it.

RheEnergise High-Density Hydro - How it works

If you want to know how RheEnergise pumped energy storage works

www.rheenergise.com

RheEnergise High-Density Hydro - News

RheEnergise Pumped Energy Storage: Lowering the levelised cost of energy storage. Increasing the availability of sites. Exceptionally fast reaction times. Long Duration. Long life. Highly flexible. High-Density Hydro®

www.rheenergise.com

How much does the magic fluid cost ? Water is basically free , and of course it takes twice as much energy to pump it up than for water.

 

[sptrawler]

Hopefully this is more successfull than Carnegie.

New Report Says Wave Energy to Have Key Role in Realizing UK

Wave energy is one of the world's largest untapped renewable energy sources. This is about to change thanks to a recent commercial breakthrough from CorPower Ocean, combined with a new report from LUT University, demonstrating a key role for the te...

www.renewableenergymagazine.com

LUT University in Finland investigated a series of potential scenarios for the UK and Ireland to successfully transition towards a 100% renewable energy system by 2050. The best performing scenario in terms of managing energy system cost and security forecast that the UK should seek to harness 27GW wave energy capacity.

With electricity consumption potentially trebling by 2050, the study shows the UK will need 27GW of wave energy to reach the lowest cost, net zero energy system.

The report comes just days after CorPower Ocean announced a major industry breakthrough after completing the first cycle of the ocean commissioning for its first commercial scale device.

Successfully verifying storm survivability and efficient power generation in normal sea states, CorPower's C4 machine, deployed in the Atlantic off the coast of northern Portugal, has now overcome wave energy's toughest historic challenges.

 

[basilio]

How much does the magic fluid cost ? Water is basically free , and of course it takes twice as much energy to pump it up than for water.

The technology to make a turbine that will handle the super heavy fluid is also tricky. RheEnergise has the intellectual rights to the fluid and the turbines. How they go about commercializing the product will be their decision.

The value proposition is the substantial reduction in engineering costs to achieve the same energy output. Lower hills, smaller diameter pipes easier construction.

Obviously pumping the fluid up the hill will require extra energy. But that is always the surplus solar or wind energy that is going to be re used.

 

[SirRumpole]

An excellent video on the regulatory problems of power grids in the US and how they are being overcome.

Big lessons for Australia.

 

[sptrawler]

An excellent video on the regulatory problems of power grids in the US and how they are being overcome.

Big lessons for Australia.

Great video, technology moving on, now all we need is the politicians to follow suit.

 

[Smurf1976]

In the short term this could be "interesting" to say the least.

AEMO has issued the following notice:

115774 GENERAL NOTICE 25/03/2024 04:33:09 AM

Severe Space Weather Watch Notification 25/03/2024​

AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE

Severe Space Weather Watch Notification 25/03/2024

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology's Space Weather Forecasting Centre has issued the following notification.

Severe space weather watch: A recent space weather event is anticipated to impact the Earth within the next 48 hours.

The effects are expected to be significant.

Increased awareness of critical infrastructure is advised.

Please monitor the SWS website for further updates at https://www.sws.bom.gov.au

If required; actions will be taken as per AEMO's system operating procedure SO_OP3715 Power System Security Guidelines.

Manager NEM Real Time Operations

If the lights go out, that'll probably be why.

 

[sptrawler]

Serious solar flare maybe?
Where I worked we had a solar observatory to monitor solar issues, even back in the 1980's we used to get some great photo's of the sun, before digital cameras.

 

[basilio]

In the short term this could be "interesting" to say the least.

AEMO has issued the following notice:



If the lights go out, that'll probably be why.

A really spectacular solar flare would fry just about any electronic device it hit. Computers, cars, phones, IT infrastructure, substations. The last great solar flare of 1859 left a big impression. Not many computers then of course...

Apparently Science has now developed the capacity to predict such a disastrous event 30 minutes ahead of impact... I wonder how that would help the situation ?

NASA: We'd Have 30 Minutes' Warning Before a Killer Solar Storm Hits Earth

We've touched on the hazards of solar storms plenty of times in the past.

www.sciencealert.com

The Carrington Event: History's greatest solar storm

Extreme solar storms such as the 1859 Carrington Event can play havoc with technology on Earth.

www.space.com

Carrington Event - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org