The future of energy generation and storage

[orr]

No. Absolutely not Sir Rumpole.

That may have been the case 30-40 years ago. In 2024 a huge overriding factor in concerns about energy provision is the impact of CO2 emissions on global heating. There has also been a far larger concern about the other pollutants that come from coal fired power stations. Particulates, SO2 and so on.

In that context clean renewable energy generation is a top priority. At least it is for people who accept the need to reduce GG emissions as well as other pollutants that come with coal, oil and gas based energy supplies.

Bas ? I'm onboard with your effort here....
The raw stats as things stand ...
If over 30% of owner occupied homes now have solar ... Let alone what's atop factories, Churchs and business's, then what percentage of the population does that cover?
If every Australian household was able to benifit from solar ? (Now there's a policy just going begging in this cost of living crisis) ...then what percentage households would that cover?

pretty safe odds it would be above 10%.

That someone is of the belief that 90% don't give a 'rat's'? .... just be thankful they think they have the wherewithal to invest ( a'Bakers Doz) because their money will be avaliable.

but you'd be someone with an understanding math.

 

[sptrawler]

Bas ? I'm onboard with your effort here....
The raw stats as things stand ...
If over 30% of owner occupied homes now have solar ... Let alone what's atop factories, Churchs and business's, then what percentage of the population does that cover?
If every Australian household was able to benifit from solar ? (Now there's a policy just going begging in this cost of living crisis) ...then what percentage households would that cover?

pretty safe odds it would be above 10%.

That someone is of the belief that 90% don't give a 'rat's'? .... just be thankful they think they have the wherewithal to invest ( a'Bakers Doz) because their money will be avaliable.

but you'd be someone with an understanding math.

Absolutely, thankfully a renewable energy target was set and an $8,000 per house solar subsidy was introduced, where would we be if that hadn't been done.

 

[basilio]

Another idea being floated.

Another Push For "National" Home Battery Subsidy In Australia

Does a solar battery subsidy of up to a few thousand dollars sound good to you? It does to Australia's Clean Energy Council.

www.solarquotes.com.au

Home batteries ? I perhaps a more cost effective way would be having many large community batteries that take surplus power from local houses which can then tap back into the battery back as required.

Be interesting to see how the technical issues could be addressed.

From a storage and supply perspective almost any EV would have a battery bank that would be 3-5 times bigger than the 12-15 kwh packs from current suppliers. Encouraging people to buy an EV by offering incentives and capacity to hook it up to the electricity network as a buffer would make great sense.

The best home battery and backup systems of 2024: Expert tested

We tested and researched the best home battery and backup systems from EcoFlow, Tesla, Anker, and others to help you find the right fit for making your home more eco-friendly.

www.zdnet.com

 

[orr]

Absolutely, thankfully a renewable energy target was set and an $8,000 per house solar subsidy was introduced, where would we be if that hadn't been done.

Depends on who you are describing as 'we' ?

And there has been a broard siute of subsidies over the last 25+ years for roof top solar; That in total would be a fraction of subsidies given to fossil fuel industries over that period.

One years worth of any reasonable PRRT would be worth what to Australian Government revenue today??
Qatar government collects how much from it's gas exports???
Well it's a little more nuanced. The Qatar State owned Gas company had a 'profit' of $42 billion in 2023 and this from selling less gas than Australia.

feeling a little ripped off? I'll speak for a few when I say I think WE are .

 

[sptrawler]

Depends on who you are describing as 'we' ?

And there has been a broard siute of subsidies over the last 25+ years for roof top solar; That in total would be a fraction of subsidies given to fossil fuel industries over that period.

One years worth of any reasonable PRRT would be worth what to Australian Government revenue today??
Qatar government collects how much from it's gas exports???
Well it's a little more nuanced. The Qatar State owned Gas company had a 'profit' of $42 billion in 2023 and this from selling less gas than Australia.

feeling a little ripped off? I'll speak for a few when I say I think WE are .

+100% and we are still doing it.

 

[sptrawler]

Home batteries ? I perhaps a more cost effective way would be having many large community batteries that take surplus power from local houses which can then tap back into the battery back as required.

Be interesting to see how the technical issues could be addressed.

From a storage and supply perspective almost any EV would have a battery bank that would be 3-5 times bigger than the 12-15 kwh packs from current suppliers. Encouraging people to buy an EV by offering incentives and capacity to hook it up to the electricity network as a buffer would make great sense.

The best home battery and backup systems of 2024: Expert tested

We tested and researched the best home battery and backup systems from EcoFlow, Tesla, Anker, and others to help you find the right fit for making your home more eco-friendly.

www.zdnet.com

I think home batteries will be much easier to integrate, compared to EV's.
I deleted my post because I initially thought the article was from a independent source but it wasnt.

 

[Ferret]

From a storage and supply perspective almost any EV would have a battery bank that would be 3-5 times bigger than the 12-15 kwh packs from current suppliers. Encouraging people to buy an EV by offering incentives and capacity to hook it up to the electricity network as a buffer would make great sense.

It would be interesting to know what sort of take up they get for this.

I don't own an EV, but if I did, I wouldn't be too keen on the idea of waking up and finding most of my charge had gone when I needed to drive somewhere.

 

[sptrawler]

Home batteries ? I perhaps a more cost effective way would be having many large community batteries that take surplus power from local houses which can then tap back into the battery back as required.

Be interesting to see how the technical issues could be addressed.

From a storage and supply perspective almost any EV would have a battery bank that would be 3-5 times bigger than the 12-15 kwh packs from current suppliers. Encouraging people to buy an EV by offering incentives and capacity to hook it up to the electricity network as a buffer would make great sense.

The best home battery and backup systems of 2024: Expert tested

We tested and researched the best home battery and backup systems from EcoFlow, Tesla, Anker, and others to help you find the right fit for making your home more eco-friendly.

www.zdnet.com

On the phone, so appologies for short response and they are only my thoughts.
Community batteries would be good in greenfield suburb, where all the houses supply solar feed and all the metering could be bidirectional flow metered to the battery, so it was fair.

EV's wouldn't be problematic as the amount of capacity available would have to be dependent on the owner.
With a house battery, every house with solar and a house battery could easily be fitted into the existing distribution system.
The distribution feeder capacity is known, the property supply capacity is known, so an export control device so the load each property can push into the system can be limited to suit its capacity.
Then if the solar isn't being pushed into the system it is charging the battery and is available to supply the house during the evening peak and take the load off the grid and it has a known capacity value so it can be considered as fairly constant.

So minimal changes to the distribution system.

That's just back of the napkin, or should say the phone. Lol

 

[Smurf1976]

Thank you Smurf. Absolutely nailed the issues

As far as I can see you recognise that the failure will come from reliance on the current competitive market structure. I remind myself about how the SEC when it was run to serve Victoria had a very strong engineering basis that did ensure , as far possible, there was a flexibility of supplies that could keep the lights on. (I do remember however on very cold winter mornings the warnings we were given) .

Getting to root causes, the real underlying one is that the whole thing has been captured by people way out of their depth.

If we look at how the SEC etc worked then it was relatively straightforward. Investigate all the options, evaluate them, come up with the cheapest one that satisfied other requirements, make a recommendation to parliament seeking approval to build it.

Same in every state.

Critics of that approach will point to environmental controversies, especially in Tasmania, but I'll argue that really just reflected the overall attitude of society at the time. Society placed very little value on the environment so unsurprisingly electricity authorities didn't place much value on it either.

That could've been changed without throwing out the whole process however.

Instead what we've got now is an outright shambles. Planning by people (politicians) who are so far out of their depth it's just not funny. They wouldn't know a Watt from an Amp if their life depended on it.

My personal view is a crisis is now inevitable. Excluding those already at an advanced stage, what company is going to spend money on a new renewables, storage or transmission proposal now whilst being fully aware that the federal opposition wants to stop it being built and replace it with a government-owned nuclear plant? To do so would be gambling shareholders' funds on the outcome of the next election and most won't be keen on doing that. So we'll see a drying up of the pipeline of projects, probably some loss of people from the industry too, meanwhile the clock's firmly ticking on the existing generation fleet.

Politically Tas and SA are the states prone to doing things out of line with the rest of a political party. I say that not from a personal perspective but simply as an observation. In neither state is the governing party particularly loyal to its federal counterparts - and in both cases energy is a very likely trigger issue for some serious fireworks.

 

[basilio]

My personal view is a crisis is now inevitable. Excluding those already at an advanced stage, what company is going to spend money on a new renewables, storage or transmission proposal now whilst being fully aware that the federal opposition wants to stop it being built and replace it with a government-owned nuclear plant? To do so would be gambling shareholders' funds on the outcome of the next election and most won't be keen on doing that. So we'll see a drying up of the pipeline of projects, probably some loss of people from the industry too, meanwhile the clock's firmly ticking on the existing generation fleet.

That is terrifying. From an industry POV they should definitely be pointing this out.
xxxxing criminal.

 

[sptrawler]

That is terrifying. From an industry POV they should definitely be pointing this out.
xxxxing criminal.

Yes and no, you are doing exactly what the politicians are doing, cherry picking points that suit your preferences based on emotion.

@Smurf1976 has also pointed out that long duration storage is required, in the form of hydro dams and that issue is being avoided due to it being politically charged.

As smurf has been saying for a long time and even in the above post, politics needs to get out of it and a cohesive sensible plan formulated on a technical basis.

Hopefully this announcement brings it about, because prior to the announcement we have been meandering down a fools paradise, with an ever increasing risk of a system collapse.

Like I posted earlier, there needs to be some honesty brought into the debate, do you the public want nuclear power stations firming, or do you want dams and gas firming, both options will require the taxpayer to pay for it.

The public will have to fund nuclear as I've said since the first mention of it and also the Govt will have to fund long duration storage dams like Snowy 2.9. now is the time to put it out there to the public, where they need to be built.

The great thing about the announcement IMO, it will accelerate the installation of renewable projects, because at the moment all the privates are sitting on their hands picking and choosing their projects but nothing is moving quickly enough.

This announcement will put a rocket up them, like Kurri Kurri did, get on with it or else you wont have a business, sitting back taking subsidies to run their coal plats while waiting to slowly put in renewables when the market is going to give them a return, is putting the system at risk in order to protect a profit margin, well sod that IMO..

 

[SirRumpole]

The great thing about the announcement IMO, it will accelerate the installation of renewable projects, because at the moment all the privates are sitting on their hands picking and choosing their projects but nothing is moving quickly enough.

You really think so ?

In my view it will stall them as renewables investors will be hanging off until at least the next election to see if the public have appetite for nuclear.

If the Coalition get in, as @Smurf1976 pointed out, no-one will want to invest in renewables because they know they won't be supported by the Coalition.

However if Labor get back, the renewable industry will be restarted and in 10 years nuclear may not be necessary anyway, in which case it would be silly to go with it.

 

[sptrawler]

You really think so ?

In my view it will stall them as renewables investors will be hanging off until at least the next election to see if the public have appetite for nuclear.

If the Coalition get in, as @Smurf1976 pointed out, no-one will want to invest in renewables because they know they won't be supported by the Coalition.

However if Labor get back, the renewable industry will be restarted and in 10 years nuclear may not be necessary anyway, in which case it would be silly to go with it.

Lets watch, it will be interesting, ATM nothing is on the horizon other than more subsidies to keep the coal generators going.
To close them, a huge amount of renewables will be required and as @Smurf says it is being curtailed.

So the whole process is in a bit of a catch 22 holding pattern, the generators don't want to put in renewables because they are getting curtailed and the Government needs the generators to keep producing electricity so they are paying the generators to keep the coal running.

Now all of a sudden the Opposition has said this is all going to fall on its ar$e, so we will put in nuclear and flck the privates they can fight over the renewable installations, because they will still be required anyway.

So the privates now have choice, come up with a sensible way forward or have your base load business nationalised, also the Government has to come up with a plan for long duration storage other than Snowy2.0, ATM all they are doing is kicking the can down the road and paying the coal generators to keep going.

So Labor has to come up with a viable long duration storage plan, so that the privates have something to feed their renewables into, to stop them being curtailed and get some return on investment.

IMO this has thrown a hand grenade into the Govt/Generator cartel that is currently running, but going nowhere, they will make a mini series out of this down the track IMO.

Have you noticed the anti nuclear ramping in the media today? It's through the roof, the privates are pi$$ed right off with this announcement, it has thrown a cat among the pigeons and blown their game appart IMO. Magic

 

[SirRumpole]

also the Government has to come up with a plan for long duration storage other than Snowy2.0, ATM all they are doing is kicking the can down the road and paying the coal generators to keep going.

So Labor has to come up with a viable long duration storage plan, so that the privates have something to feed their renewables into, to stop them being curtailed and get some return on investment.

Totally agree with that.

The Qld government is making noises about pumped hydro, but if Chris Bowen mentions it the look on his face says he doesn't want to rattle the cages of the Greenies ( or be reminded how much Snowy 2.0 is costing), but he knows it has to part of the mix.

 

[sptrawler]

Totally agree with that.

The Qld government is making noises about pumped hydro, but if Chris Bowen mentions it the look on his face says he doesn't want to rattle the cages of the Greenies ( or be reminded how much Snowy 2.0 is costing), but he knows it has to part of the mix.

That's the crux of the matter, you can't keep putting in more renewables, if you have nothing to soak it up and to put long duration storage in costs heaps, takes time and will pi$$ off the Greens.

So it is game on, now Labor have to explain where and when they are going to put in the long duration storage, it may have actually kick started the real transition.
Until now it has been all rhetoric and optics.

 

[sptrawler]

Totally agree with that.

The Qld government is making noises about pumped hydro, but if Chris Bowen mentions it the look on his face says he doesn't want to rattle the cages of the Greenies ( or be reminded how much Snowy 2.0 is costing), but he knows it has to part of the mix.

This is the real problem, the media within a day can find a million reasons and examples of why nuclear would cost a fortune and take a long time to build.
Yet not a mention of the fact Snowy 2.0 is costing a huge amount and taking a huge amount of time, also the fact we need many more Snowy 2.0 size projects.
I'm not one way or the other on it all, but the media bias and misdirection is obvious. Either way the transition is going to cost the taxpayer heaps, they need to stop trying to kid themselves it isn't going to cost if they use hydro/gas.

This sort of reporting is what is turning young people off, treating the public like muppets only causes the media to lose credibility IMO.
Narrative manipulation is wearing thin IMO, just give an honest explanation of both sides, would be my request. Then at least some constructive debate could be carried out. My rant for the week.

Dutton didn’t put a price on nuclear power plants. The world shows they come at a cost

Peter Dutton admits the cost of his nuclear policy will be “big”. So big that it could cause enormous problems to the federal budget.

www.theage.com.au

From the article: my comments in the capitals.

Peter Dutton’s plan to deliver nuclear power across Australia faces enormous hurdles, but it could be brought down by the cost to the nation’s taxpayers and the federal budget.
BOTH PROPOSALS WILL COST THE TAXPAYER HEAPS, GET OVER IT.

Not that the Coalition leader, who has spent the past two years complaining about government budget profligacy, decided to offer any insight into the cost of his plan.
NEITHER PARTY HAS OFFERED ANY INSIGHT INTO THE COST, LONG TERM STORAGE PROJECTS LIKE SNOWY 2.0 ARE EXPENSIVE, THE TAXPAYER ENDS UP WEARING IT. GET OVER IT.

The best that voters got was a concession that the bill would be “big”.
THE BILL WILL BE BIG EITHER WAY, YOU EITHER WANT CLEAN ENERGY OR YOU DON"T, THE PUBLIC KNOW THAT.

The Coalition says the plants will be owned by the federal government, which means taxpayers will be on the foot for them.
Rich Insight budget watcher Chris Richardson says if the plants fail to make a commercial rate of return then the entire cost will have to be shown in the federal budget.
The debt to pay for the plants will be taxpayer debt, and the interest bill on that debt will be paid by voters for decades.

“This will come at a cost to the taxpayer, you won’t be able to sweep it under the carpet,” he says.

WHAT LIKE THE NBN, IT WILL NEVER MAKE A PROFIT ,THAT"S WHY THE TAXPAYER FUNDED IT? THAT CAME UNDER THE AUSPICES OF NATION BUILDING, SO THE POWER SYSTEM DOESN"T?

 

[Ferret]

In the news tonight that a shortfall in east coast gas is expected by September. I guess the current cold spell is depleting storage.

Things might get interesting quickly.

 

[Smurf1976]

In the news tonight that a shortfall in east coast gas is expected by September.

If so then I win a bet.

It would be in everyone's best interests, except mine, if I didn't win however.

Here's the actual notice:

My view - what happens next depends on the weather to some extent but this does have a very real risk of escalating badly.

Locations affected, in practice = whole of Australia except WA, NT, Qld although that said, some specific users in Qld and NT, whilst not themselves facing a shortage, do in practice divert gas away from the south-eastern states (ie NSW, ACT, Vic, SA, Tas) and that being so could be under pressure to cut consumption as a workaround.

 

[sptrawler]

If so then I win a bet.

It would be in everyone's best interests, except mine, if I didn't win however.

Here's the actual notice:



My view - what happens next depends on the weather to some extent but this does have a very real risk of escalating badly.

Locations affected, in practice = whole of Australia except WA, NT, Qld although that said, some specific users in Qld and NT, whilst not themselves facing a shortage, do in practice divert gas away from the south-eastern states (ie NSW, ACT, Vic, SA, Tas) and that being so could be under pressure to cut consumption as a workaround.

Hi smurf in the scheme of things is this a short term issue or a long term one, I am just wondering if this gas shortage is an issue regarding GT's that will be required for firming? Or is there plans afoot to circumvent the supply issue.

 

[SirRumpole]

Hi smurf in the scheme of things is this a short term issue or a long term one, I am just wondering if this gas shortage is an issue regarding GT's that will be required for firming? Or is there plans afoot to circumvent the supply issue.

If we are still exporting most of the stuff, then export restrictions would seem to be in order to conserve local supply.